Speaking after a brief business session, Drexler, who is station archaeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey, centered his remarks on how modern fieldwork is reshaping our understanding of one of Arkansas’ most significant Civil War engagements.

“I’m going to tell you a little bit about some of the archaeology we’ve been doing on the Prairie D’Ane battlefield,” Drexler said. “My training…is in a sub-discipline of archaeology that we call conflict archaeology, basically anything involved in warfare and fighting.”

Drexler explained that Prairie D’Ane formed a key part of the 1864 Camden Expedition, a late-war campaign tied to broader Union efforts in Louisiana and East Texas. “The Camden Expedition is simply a diversion from the Red River campaign,” he said, noting that Union forces under Major General Frederick Steele advanced from Little Rock while Confederate forces under Major General Sterling Price moved to oppose them.

From the outset, he said, the campaign placed Union forces at a disadvantage. “Generally, you’re supposed to have sort of a two-to-one numerical advantage if you’re going to press a successful campaign,” Drexler noted. “Starting with a smaller force is an interesting choice to make.”

Turning to the Prairie D’Ane site itself, Drexler emphasized both its importance and the challenges involved in interpreting it. “There’s not been a lot of historical scholarship,” he said. “Just figuring out where the battle took place, how the troops were aligned … [the precise knowledge of] all that kind of thing is a little deficient.”

He pointed in particular to reliance on an earlier map that, while useful as a starting point, contains inaccuracies. “The city of Prescott did not exist during the war, nor did the railroad that they’ve got across here,” Drexler said. “And this area…where they show there being high ground…is actually low ground. But outside of that, we’re doing great,” he added, which caused a chuckle or two.

A major turning point came with the 2018 acquisition by the Prescott Depot Museum Association of more than 800 acres of battlefield property, a purchase supported by multiple organizations including the American Battlefield Trust. That acquisition opened the door for systematic archaeological study.

“When the state comes to my office and says, ‘Can you help us figure out what portion of the battlefield this is?’ I said, ‘Sure, happy to do it,’” Drexler recalled.

Unlike traditional excavation, battlefield archaeology relies heavily on metal detection across large areas. “You can’t just dig holes,” he said. “The [battlefields are] too large, and you’re going to waste a lot of time trying to get scattered bullets.”

Instead, Drexler’s team established a grid system and swept the terrain with multiple detectors. “We had teams … working 90 degrees to each other,” he said. “This gives us really good coverage.”

The results were both frustrating and illuminating.

“We had 783 total things found,” Drexler said. “Only about 80 of them we actually collected, though, because the other 703 were things like modern debris, fence wire, tin cans, even a surprising number of Ford tractor gas caps.”

Yet among those finds were approximately 30 artifacts conclusively tied to the battle.

“That’s not a huge amount,” he said, “but it’s a really good starting point.”

Among the most significant discoveries were fragments of artillery shells. “We found at least four artillery shell fragments,” Drexler said. “From their curvature and thickness, we know they were fired from six-pounder cannons [and were] probably Confederate ammunition.”

He described the lethal intent of such munitions in stark terms. “These are designed to explode in the air…throwing a huge number of pieces of very fast-moving iron forward and down,” he said. “Armies at the time largely fought in close ranks, so these would be very destructive.”

Equally revealing were fragments of so-called rotating bands, components of artillery rounds that solved a technical problem in mid-19th-century weaponry.

“I was really excited to find this,” Drexler said. “Everyone else is like, ‘Carl, why are you so excited about these pieces of lead?’ I’m like, ‘It’s cool lead.’”

The presence of those fragments, combined with artillery shell debris, allowed researchers to identify a likely location of counter-battery fire between opposing forces.

“What we think this is…is basically two artillery batteries firing at each other,” he said. “That’s a really important moment we can now place on the landscape.”

Drexler said such findings provide “a good hard point” for reconstructing troop movements and battlefield dynamics.

The work has also helped relocate key features of the battlefield, including the historic Military Road.

“We actually have the Military Road better plotted now,” he said. “It’s much more north-south than we had it before and much farther to the west. That really affects how we understand people moving around the battlefield.”

In addition to artillery placement evidence, the team recovered Civil War-era bullets, including both standard Union rounds and Confederate-manufactured ammunition.

“We also have two British-manufactured Enfield rounds,” Drexler noted, pointing to the international dimensions of Civil War supply lines. The British were supplying ammunition to both sides of the war.

During a question-and-answer session, Drexler addressed topics ranging from reenactment artifacts to battlefield preservation and modern development pressures.

Asked about the possibility of commercial development on portions of the site, Drexler said the matter involves multiple stakeholders.

“We always are in favor of promoting preservation or study of what’s out there,” he said. “But…there’s probably a lot of red tape and bureaucracy that would have to be negotiated” prior to any commercial development on battlefield land.

He also fielded questions about whether artifacts such as tent stakes or camping materials are commonly found.

“Sometimes we find them, sometimes we don’t,” Drexler said. “You always have to wonder how many people are actually taking time to set up tents…some are just sleeping under the stars.”

Drexler emphasized that archaeology offers only a partial window into the past, but one that can materially improve historical interpretation.

“We’re scratching right on the surface,” he said. “But we’ve got hopes of doing more work, to unpack even more and find more things that can be used to interpret the battlefield.”

He added that such work carries implications beyond scholarship.

“As they do their work,” he said, referring to public and volunteer organizations working toward development of battlefields into parks, “trying to build that as a heritage tourism resource, both for Prescott and for southwest Arkansas more generally, we’re really happy to help them,” Drexler said.

The presentation mad clear both the historical significance of Prairie D’Ane and the evolving effort to understand and preserve it, an effort, Drexler suggested, that is still very much underway.

The Hempstead County Historical Society regularly meets on the fourth Thursday of every month in the Tailgaters Annex at 101 South Main Street. Membership in the organization for a year is a mere $10.