Arkadelphia was an early Civil War manufacturing center for Confederate Arkansas, where Gen. Thomas Hindman established a powder works and an arsenal in 1862 that produced guns, cannon, bullets, shells, wagons, and caissons, while tanning yards supplied harnesses, bridles, saddles, knapsacks, and shoes. Tons of salt were produced there, and a chemical laboratory helped make medicines including calomel, castor oil, spirits of nitre, and tinctures of iron, using plants, weeds, and herbs supplied by citizens as raw materials. The Military Road, following the route of the old Southwest Trail, passed through the heart of Clark County and was used by both Confederate and Union troops. Gen. Sterling Price’s Confederates retreated along it after Little Rock fell in September 1863, and Gen. Frederick Steele’s Union army used it during the Camden Expedition, remaining in Arkadelphia from March 29 to April 1, 1864, before heading southwest as Confederate troops skirmished with Steele at Terre Noire Creek and Okolona before the Union army left the county at Elkins’ Ferry on the Little Missouri.