Civil War Musings: The Battles in my Backyard

“On January 26, 1861, the fateful, irrevocable decision was made. On that day, Saturday, in the drafty halls of the ornate state house at Baton Rouge, the secession convention severed Louisiana’s connections with the United States. Voices had been raised in protest; delaying tactics had been introduced; compromises and plans had been offered to keep Louisiana a part of the Union; but in the face of overwhelming prosecessionist power, one by one the opposition had been won over, discouraged, overridden, or ignored. By a vote of 113 to 17 the delegates of the convention declared Louisiana to be a ‘free’ and ‘independent power.'”[1]

So began John D. Winters in his masterful study, The Civil War in Louisiana.

To be honest, until I moved back to Louisiana, I tried to distance myself from the Bayou State’s involvement in the war mostly out of a lack of interest. Only now, older, and with a fresh interest, am I finding out just how fascinating and all-consuming Louisiana’s Civil War was.

I literally cannot escape it.

A few days ago, I stumbled across a sign in Madisonville which denoted the location of surviving Federal earthworks from 1863-1864. Given the town’s location on Lake Pontchartrain and the Tchefuncte River, it is easy to conclude why the area would be of importance to any Civil War army. While no major armies engaged in a pitched battle near the area, it is entirely realistic to see Madisonville as a rear-echelon, light-duty garrison post through which supplies and men must have passed through.

While in Ponchatoula to make a visit to my local grocer, I happened by a road sign for the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad Depot. Never one to miss a historic marker, I stopped and, to my amazement, read how the depot was “burned when Union forces captured the town in March 1863.” Consider my interest piqued.

One thing led to another, and I am now fifty pages into Edward Bacon’s Among the Cotton Thieves to glean some understanding of the war in the Department of the Gulf. There is no signage or marker to the two-day long battle that took place along the Ponchatoula Creek and near the town- yet. The fight at Ponchatoula really amounted to little more than a skirmish on the periphery of the Vicksburg and Port Hudson Campaigns but s,ome of the most interesting individuals work their way into the narrative, including the Confederate cavalryman, M. Jeff Thompson and the U.S. Army’s Brig. Gen. George Strong of later fame for his role at the Assault on Battery Wagner. The title of Bacon’s memoir has always mystified me until now.

The war in Louisiana certainly seems to veer out of the conventional understanding of the conflict, and the action at Ponchatoula illustrates this quite well. While Federal officers remained aboard gunboats near Springfield, their men marched on the town, drove of Confederate skirmishers, and proceeded to confiscate cotton and whiskey stores. Bacon recalled an instant when the men of another regiment entered into the local Masonic Hall and removed ceremonial articles. The Federal success, though, was short lived. Two days after securing the town, Confederate forces drove off the Federals, and the town returned to rebel hands.

Recently, I started a job in downtown Baton Rouge, and not only am I mere footsteps from the “ornate state house” Winters described, but I drive over the battlefield where Confederate Gen. John C. Breckinridge attempted to gain control of the city. Venturing down Florida Boulevard and surrounding environs, it is impossible to miss the signs commemorating the battle. Finally, on my Civil War journey to the office, there is the U.S. National Cemetery where the remains of those Federal soldiers who fell in the battle of Baton Rouge and the larger campaign for the area lay in peace. They are surrounded by urban sprawl and the hustle and bustle of the state capital, but those white, uniformed headstones stand so strikingly amidst it all.

There is much to think about along my drive to and from work, and, unsurprisingly, much of it has to do with the American Civil War and how to better remember and preserve the memory of the struggle right here in my new hometown.

I’ll close with this thought:

The war did not unfold simply in the places that have been meticulously preserved. In fact, the conflict sprawled out and traced its way through backwaters and small towns across the country. Today, there is no official marker or mention of the battle of Ponchatoula, though not far off there sits a snowball and ice cream stand and cars race by on Highway 22. It certainly was no turning point in the war, nor did it have the flash of famous names, and casualties amounted to less than one hundred. There was no romance to it. No gallantry. There was, though, a battle in my backyard and it should be a reminder of the enormity of the struggle to save the republic.

[1] John D. Winters, The Civil War in Louisiana, (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1963) 5.