The Arkansas Democrat Gazette had a large article in Monday's paper on the Cherokee Indians visit to Pea Ridge Battlefield Park last Friday. I would have thought that their private guided tour would have been for the part Colonel Stan Watie and his 2nd Cherokee Mounted Rifles played in the battle, but is was for a walk on the original 2 1/2 mile roadbed of the Trail Of Tears, that passes through the National Battlefield Park. The Trail Of Tears road that passes through Pea Ridge is one of the longest intact sections of the trail. It passes in front of the Elk Horn Tavern.
In 1995 the cavalry unit I formed in 1978 rode this road/trail from the visitors center to the Missouri state line, There was about twenty of us and our supply wagon and then the rains came. It was a chore keeping our powder dry.