The primary fighting of the Battle of Bayou Fourche took place about 300 yards downstream northeast of this site. Fighting began about noon on Wednesday, September 10, 1863, after Union Brigadier General John Davidson's troops crossed the river near present day Scott. As the Union troops advanced toward Little Rock, several skirmishes broke out. Confederate cavalry and artillery were positioned on the left bank downstream where the present bridge is located. Colonel William I. Jeffers of the 8th Missouri Cavalry, C.S.A., recalled that at Bayou Fourche, four miles south of Little Rock, the enemy was drawn up in battle line with its right resting on the river and its left extending parallel to the Confederate front, and that after slight skirmishing a body of cavalry and a section of howitzers tried to flank the Confederates on the left from the river bank, where a severe engagement followed. Colonel J.M. Glover of the 3rd Missouri Cavalry, U.S.A., said the Tenth Illinois and the Third Missouri drove back the stubborn enemy inch by inch with small arms alone against a force four times their number, despite steady artillery fire, and drove them three miles through the woods into open fields, where they broke and fled in disorder toward Little Rock.