Poison Spring State Park is an Arkansas state park located southeast of Bluff City. It commemorates the Battle of Poison Spring in the American Civil War, which was part of the 1864 Camden Expedition.
Confederates and Choctaw Indians attacked and overcame a supply wagon of Union soldiers. The term "poison spring" arises from the apocryphal story that Confederate soldiers poisoned nearby springwater. The battle hastened the failure of the Camden expedition, but also gained notoriety for the slaughter of African-American Union soldiers from Kansas by the Confederate forces, which took no African-American prisoners.
The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969, and, with other sites, is part of the Camden Expedition Sites National Historic Landmark. It was declared part of the National Historic Landmark in 1994.,
The heavily wooded park features a small interpretive display and a shady trail. Sightings of deer and woodpeckers are common along the trail. The park provides an excellent example of the Gulf Coast forest region, consisting primarily of pine trees, but with some oak and with dogwood understory trees. Poison Spring State Park features outdoor interpretive exhibits and picnic sites. The historic site is located 10 miles west of Camden on Arkansas Highway 76.
Famous quotes containing the words poison, spring, state and/or park:
“Men become accustomed to poison by degrees.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“The spring is here, young and beautiful as ever, and absolutely shocking in its display of reckless maternity; but the Judas tree will bloom for you on the Bosphorus if you get there in time. No one ever loved the dog-wood and Judas tree as I have done, and it is my one crown of life to be sure that I am going to take them with me to heaven to enjoy real happiness with the Virgin and them.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I’m engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.”
—Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984)