Ivy’s Hill

Continue north on Route 41.

Site 5—At 11.5 miles, you will see two wooden gateposts on the right, on a rise very near the road. The rise is a slope of Ivy's Hill. You may pull over there and drive up. This is the site of the GILBERT IVY LOG HOUSE (or Ivy's FARM). Ivy's Hill is immediately adjacent to the present highway. The stop here is on the slopes of Ivy's Hill. The log house was
at the summit of the hill. The dirt road skirting the log house site is likely the old Pontotoc Road. Research—both very early and very recent —strongly suggests that the battle may not have ended here, although there may have been some fighting here. Jack Elliott, of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, has studied the U.S. Army's exhumation records, compiled immediately after the war. They seem to corroborate the account of Richey Henderson (1909-10) that very heavy fighting took place at the Rutledge place, two and a half miles farther up Route 41. The records show that one large group of Union dead was first buried very near Okolona, where the fighting began in the morning, and that another large group was buried northwest of here on the Rutledge place. In 1909, Richey Henderson compiled a "next-to-eye-witness" account of what he called the Battle of Troy. He did not mention Ivy's Hill. In addition, the topography farther north seems much more suited to the kind of cavalry charge that Forrest described as the grandest he saw in the war. [Note: The property owner here insists that you not travel down this road and that you respect his rights as property owner. He is a descendant of Gilbert Ivy; and he lives within a stone's throw of the old log house site.]

If you want to visit the site farther north, drive two and a half miles farther to the intersection of Route 41 and Eddington Road.