Fort Lookout (Camden, Arkansas, Arkansas)
Camden, Arkansas · Arkansas · American Civil War
History & Significance
Following the September 10 capture of Little Rock, Confederate commander Edmund Kirby Smith ordered forces concentrated along the Ouachita River to defend approaches to Shreveport, Louisiana, and directed Brigadier General Alexander T. Hawthorn, a prewar Camden lawyer, to establish fortifications around the town. From January to March Confederate troops and slave labor worked to develop a series of five redoubts, mainly to protect the southern and western land-based approaches to the city.
Fort Lookout is a rectangular earthworks located on a bluff 50 feet overlooking a bend in the Ouachita River, with an L-shaped redoubt to the west commanding potential fording sites at the base of the bluff; each site was capable of mounting at least six guns. Union forces under Major General Frederick Steele occupied Camden on April 15, 1864, and during their ten-day occupation expanded the defenses with additional trenches and earthworks.
Steele withdrew from Camden on April 26 after suffering setbacks at Poison Spring and Marks' Mills. The main earthwork survives in the twenty-first century, though a large section was lost in the 1960s when a house was constructed in the center of the fortification complex. Fort Lookout became the property of the Ouachita County Historical Society, working to preserve and interpret the earthworks while converting the 1960s house into a museum and visitor center.
Key Facts
Map
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🧳 Visiting
What you’ll see when you visit:
- Civil War-era Confederate earthwork with artillery positions
- Bluff overlooking the Ouachita River
- Part of Camden Expedition Sites National Historic Landmark
- Preserved defensive fortifications from 1860s Arkansas
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lookout_(Arkansas)
- https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/forts-lookout-and-southerland-8306/
- https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=200797
- http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=896&ResourceType=District