Fort No. 4 stood at this approximate site and served as the main defensive work during the Battle of Springfield, fought during Confederate acting Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke's raid into Missouri from December 31, 1862, to January 25, 1863. The raid was intended to threaten the Federal supply depot at Springfield, disrupt the line connecting Springfield with Rolla and St. Louis, and force the Army of the Frontier to withdraw from northern Arkansas after its victory at Prairie Grove. Marmaduke advanced in two columns, with Colonel Joseph Shelby and Colonel Emmett MacDonald leading the main force and Colonel Joseph C. Porter commanding another column, but Porter failed to join in time for the attack. Learning that Springfield was weakly garrisoned, Marmaduke moved against a city defended by only about 1,000 men and protected by incomplete fortifications, of which only Fort No. 4 had been finished. Brig. Gen. Egbert Benson Brown used warning from captured soldiers and delays in Marmaduke's march to gather militia, convalescents known as the Quinine Brigade, local citizens, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, assembling 2,099 men and placing improvised cannon in Fort No. 4 and Fort No. 1. After an all-night march, Marmaduke's reunited column without Porter attacked at 10 a.m. on January 8. Brown placed infantry before Fort No. 4 and sent cavalry forward, but the Federal horsemen were gradually driven back under Confederate small-arms and artillery fire until the guns in Fort No. 4 opened on the attackers. By 1 p.m. the battle had become a determined struggle. A Confederate charge on the Federal left failed, but Confederate forces captured an exposed brass six-pounder from troops that had moved out from Fort No. 1 and later seized a fortified college building serving as a prison, which became a staging area for repeated assaults. Brown kept many of his men outside the forts to prevent a Confederate flanking move or entry into the city center. The Confederates then pressed the Union right, where the 72nd Enrolled militia and the Quinine Brigade held them off. Brown was wounded while riding the lines and turned command over to Colonel Benjamin Crabb. Near nightfall Shelby's and MacDonald's brigades made a final charge that began to push back Federal militia, members of the Quinine Brigade, and other defenders, but Crabb rallied the line and the arrival at the double quick of a battalion of militia and five companies of Iowa infantry turned back the assault. Darkness ended the fighting. Union losses were 14 killed, 146 wounded, and 4 missing; Marmaduke's force lost 20 killed and 124 wounded. The next morning Marmaduke withdrew toward Hartville, where another battle was fought on January 11, 1863. Although he won no signal victory in this first Missouri raid, Confederate leaders regarded it as a success because the Army of the Frontier withdrew from Arkansas to Missouri to protect Springfield's stores. Brown lost the use of his arm from his wound but remained in Federal service, and ten months later Shelby again met him in battle at Marshall on October 13, 1863.
