In 1846, Thomas Jenkins paid the Saline County clerk $1 to register to keep a ferry and charge travelers to cross the Saline near the mouth of Cox’s Creek when the river was at flood stage. While retreating to Little Rock from Camden, Gen. Frederick Steele’s Union army came to Jenkins Ferry and began crossing on April 29, 1864. In the early hours of April 30, Steele conferred with the commanders of his rear guard, Gens. Rice and Salomon, in the Jenkins family cabin to plan the day’s battle, and his men crossed after fending off a Confederate attack. The Union army also used an India rubber pontoon bridge to cross the swollen Saline River on April 29-30, 1864. Transported in 34 wagons and inflated with bellows, the bridge’s 19-foot pontoons were attached in groups of three. Steele’s army began crossing on the 29th, and the last of his troops were over by 2 p.m. on the 30th. With the animals used to haul the bridge nearing exhaustion, Steele ordered it destroyed, and Union engineers pierced the pontoons with bayonets and axes, then burned them along with their wagons.