The four hilltop batteries—A, B, C, and D—overlooked the roads leading into the town and played a significant role in the Battle of Helena that resulted in a strategic Union victory and secured the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River for the United States.

Helena, Arkansas, is strategically located at the southern end of Crowley's Ridge, a geographic formation providing significant views over the Mississippi River.

[2] Confederate military leaders at Little Rock, Arkansas, planned a land offensive in June 1863 to retake the town of Helena and cut the Union supply line, relieving the pressure on besieged city of Vicksburg.

The coordination of the separate elements of the Confederate attack were frustrated by felled trees laid across the approach roads by the defenders, and were eventually subjected to fire from all four batteries, as well as from the supporting Navy ships.

The hill exhibits few surviving remnants of the intense fighting that took place here, because a significant portion of its eastern slope was removed in the 1930s for the construction of levees, and erosion has claimed most of the evidence on the hilltop of the earthworks and rifle pits.

Battery C was manned by members of the 33rd Missouri, and provided supporting fire for the other positions in the early stages of the battle, until the Confederates began a direct assault on it.