In 1864, Camden on the Ouachita River and Pine Bluff on the Arkansas River were large towns, and Moro Bay to the south was the largest cotton shipping point below Camden on the Ouachita River, while the country between them was rugged, sparsely populated, and remote enough that neighbors, goods, and doctors were often miles away. The Marks family lived at the junction of the Moro Bay and the Camden and Pine Bluff roads, where John H. Marks, who had arrived in the 1830s, built large landholdings worked by many slaves along with a cotton gin, flour and grist mills, a sawmill, a brick kiln, and a blacksmith shop. When the Battle of Marks' Mills began near the Marks family homesite and Salty Branch Creek, John H. and Mary Barnett Marks' daughter Martha was at home and later recalled seeing the driver of the first wagon shot down in front of their house, after which their home became a temporary hospital with wounded and dying men lying on the porches and in the house. Anita Knowles later wrote that her grandfather had taken part in the battle and had been ordered to shoot the lead horses of the first wagon, and she recalled that so many horses and soldiers were killed that Salty Branch ran red with blood.