To help concentrate the Union Army at Hard Times, Gen. J.A. McClernand ordered a reconnaissance of a road from Somerset along the western shore of Lake St. Joseph, placing Col. J. Keigwin in charge. Keigwin's force left Somerset on April 25, 1863, and after a four mile march reached Holt's Bayou, one-half mile north of this site. To slow the Union advance, Maj. I.F. Harrison's Louisianans had burned the bridge over Holt's Bayou and the one across Bayou Du Rosset a short distance beyond. Keigwin soon put his men to work rebuilding both bridges with lumber ripped from buildings at the nearby Douglas and Wyoming Plantations, and by nightfall the two bridges were completed.