Bayou Macon starts out in Desha County, Arkansas, then meanders roughly 218 miles south, slipping between the Boeuf River on one side and the Mississippi on the other, before it finally meets Joe’s Bayou just below Delhi, Louisiana. Its muddy banks were anything but quiet during May 1863, when the 1st Kansas Volunteers skirmished near Caledonia and Pin Hook. Today, a 6,919-acre tract in East Carroll Parish—protected since 1991—keeps a stretch of this winding waterway wild for birds, deer, and duck hunters.