BGuthrie Photos: LA -- Port Hudson State Historic Park

LA -- Port Hudson State Historic Park:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Description of Pictures: Two visits. During my first visit to the park on this trip, it was raining pretty hard and I stuck with the paved trail which led to Fort Desperate. I came back after visiting New Orleans and did the rest of the path.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. PTHUD_070127_002.JPG: Union Batteries 7 and 8: "... a cleared space in front was found, overlooking deep ravines in which trees had been chopped down and left as they fell, and on the opposite side of which the newly thrown up works of the enemy [Fort Desperate] were plainly visible. The two leading batteries moved at once to this spot and opened fire in a space hardly large enough to afford room for one battery. The enemy had its range perfectly, and their guns opened upon the head of the column [Union troops] as it appeared, creating fearful slaughter. Here Battery A in a very short time had two men killed, Lieutenant Humphrey and eleven men wounded, fifteen horses killed, and two pieces [cannons] disabled." -- Lieutenant William L. Haskin, Battery F, 1st U.S. Artillery Regiment Two Union batteries were near this location, stretching approximately 75 yards on either side of the path and only 400 yards from Fort Desperate, these batteries poured a deadly fire into the Confederate works during the 45-day siege. ...
2. PTHUD_070127_005.JPG: Union Batteries 7 and 8 were located near here. Stretching approximately 75 yards on either side of the path and only 400 yards from Fort Desperate, these batteries poured a deadly fire into the Confederate works during the 45-day siege.
3. PTHUD_070127_014.JPG: Route of the Union Assault: "... the regiment ... formed in line of battle, and charged on the doublequick; but, on account of the ravines and fallen timber on each side of the roadway, the line of battle could not be maintained, and the order was given, 'by the right flank' (move to the right)... Another regiment was in advance, and through some misapprehension, did not go forward, causing the two commands to be mixed up, the colors (regimental flags) being nearly side by side." -- Corporal George W. Powers, Company F, 38th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment During the May 27 assault, the 31st and 38th Massachusetts, 156th New York, and 12th Maine Infantry regiments attacked Fort Desperate through the ravines surrounding the fort. Although these tree-choked ravines slowed the Union charges, their sharpshooters took advantage of the cover that they provided, allowing them to fire on Fort Desperate at a close, deadly range.
4. PTHUD_070127_018.JPG: Ravines which were used in the May 27 assault
5. PTHUD_070127_067.JPG: View of the fort from the tower alongside it
6. PTHUD_070127_074.JPG: Fort Desperate: "... so terrible had been the fighting... that the position was called Fort Desperate." -- Colonel Benjamin W. Johnson, 15th Arkansas Infantry Regiment, Commander of Fort Desperate Not a fort but a defensive earthwork called a lunette, Fort Desperate was named by its defenders: the 15th Arkansas Infantry Regiment and Battery B, 1st Mississippi Artillery Regiment. Surrounded by deep ravines choked with felled trees, Fort Desperate guarded a road leading to the important Confederate commissary complex and armory. Numbering 318 officers and enlisted men, Fort Desperate's Confederates fought off two major Union assaults during the forty-eight day siege.
7. PTHUD_070127_079.JPG: Subterranean Torpedoes: "... as an additional security against assault, now that the enemy had approached so near, I had a number of 8, 10, and 13-inch shells planted in the scrap wall of the ditches as 'torpedoes' and connected them by means of wires, with the interior of the works..." -- 1st Lieutenant Fred Y. Dabney, Chief Engineer, Port Hudson Confederate Garrison Concerned that Union soldiers would invade by tunneling through the walls of Fort Desperate, Confederate engineers halted their plan. By planting 8-, 10-, and 13-inch cannon shells in the dirt walls surrounding the fort, the engineers ensured this would not happen. Wired with friction primer detonators, the shells could be explode by Confederate sentinels inside Fort Desperate.
8. PTHUD_070127_088.JPG: Union Sap: "... on the front of another division commander, I find another serpentine approach, which has been dug very wide, and yet could not admit more than four or give men abreast. It ends near the rebel parapet..." -- Lieutenant Colonel Edward Bacon, 6th Michigan Infantry Regiment Following their failure to take Fort Desperate on June 14, Union troops began digging a deep sap or trench that zigzagged from one ravine to another across the ridge in front of Fort Desperate. Work on the sap had ceased by July 5 because the effectiveness of Confederate sharpshooters. After the Confederate surrender on July 9, occupying Union troops filled the sap. No trace of it remains today.
9. PTHUD_070127_105.JPG: Sharpshooter Tower: "At the same time the approached to Fort Desperate were checked by the deadly fire of the Arkansas marksmen there, who, perched up in their sharpshooter tower, could fire down into every part of the enemy's ditch, which had now been brought within thirty yards of our works." -- Lieutenant Howard C. Wright, Company C, 30th Louisiana Infantry Regiment The first ramp in this corner of Fort Desperate is believed to be part of the sniper tower used by the soldiers of the 15th Arkansas. From this tower, the sharpshooters harassed Union soldiers digging their approach sap and eventually halted its construction.
10. PTHUD_070127_106.JPG: Fort Desperate Artillery: "Seeing Colonel Steadman's right wing... heavily pressed and in danger of being flanked, I ordered Lieutenant Edrington to open upon him [advancing Union forces] with shrapnel and shell. He fired with great rapidity, coolness, and precision." -- Colonel Benjamin W. Johnson, 15th Arkansas Infantry Regiment, Commander of Fort Desperate Taken shortly after the siege ended, this photograph shows a disabled 12-pounder howitzer lying on it wooden gun platform. On May 27, one of the Union batteries located opposite Fort Desperate fired a shell which not only destroyed the gun and its carriage but also killed Lieutenant Jesse B. Edrington, the gun's commander. The gun platform was located to your front in Fort Desperate's right front corner, and its location is marked today by a raised area of earth. Soldiers of Battery B, 1st Mississippi Light Artillery manned it. Two of these men were injured by the same shell that killed Lieutenant Edrington. Afraid of losing another 12-pounder howitzer, the only other artillery piece at Fort Desperate, Colonel Johnson moved it to a safer position at the rear of the works.
11. PTHUD_070127_110.JPG: Confederate artillery would have been located in this corner
12. PTHUD_070127_116.JPG: Confederate Bomb Shelters "... we lived on fire and excitement. We lay in the ditches in the mud and water in the sunshine -- in the blood of fallen comrades -- till the night of the 8th July [and] on the ninth were surrendered. It was here that I was bespattered with the blood and brains of my comrades -- stepped across their bodies to give orders -- lay on the very boards at night on which they had fallen and tinged them gory red..." -- Captain Richard L. McClung, Company F, 15th Arkansas Infantry Regiment The row of boards pictured in the front inside view of Fort Desperate covered hand-dug bombproof shelters that the Confederates called "rat holes." These "rat holes" were used by the men of the 15th Arkansas for protection from the daily Union artillery shelling and infantry sniper fire.
13. PTHUD_070127_126.JPG: Map of the May 27 attack
14. PTHUD_070127_129.JPG: Map of the June 14 attack
15. PTHUD_070127_132.JPG: Map showing the sap approaching the fort June 15 to July 9, 1863
16. PTHUD_070127_147.JPG: Confederate Tunnel: "Colonel Johnson had galleries dug under his breastworks through which his men could crawl into the outer ditch and sharp shoot from that..." -- Lieutenant Howard C. Wright, Company C, 30th Louisiana Infantry Regiment In order to have safe passage from the interior of Fort Desperate to its surrounding ditch, troops of the 15th Arkansas dug a tunnel connecting the two points. The men could use this tunnel to enter the outside ditch and fire down into the ravines of approaching Union soldiers. Today, the exact location of this tunnel is unknown due to natural erosion of the earthworks.
17. PTHUD_070127_164.JPG: Exterior Rifle Pit: "I had a small flanking pit constructed on the outside or rather under my works, and on the left thereof, and from which I continued a deadly fire until he pthe enemy] left the ditch. This pit was subterranean and could not be seen from the outside, and could not be taken by the enemy unless he should first take my entire ditches or rifle pits." -- Colonel Benjamin W. Johnson, 15th Arkansas Infantry Regiment, Commander of Fort Desperate One of the tactics used to keep Union attackers from gaining entrance to Fort Desperate was the construction of an exterior rifle put. Confederate riflemen could fire from this pit on any Union soldier attempting to scale Fort Desperate's parapet wall.
18. PTHUD_070127_167.JPG: Union Trench: "... he [attacking the Union troops] moved... up to my ditch again, and by digging a small place, or bank, that intervened between the head of th ravine and the said ditch [the exterior ditch surrounding Fort Desperate], which was not more than one foot in thickness, file into the same [ditch] with however a much smaller force than before, most of whom however were either killed or wounded in attempting to storm my works and afterwards in attempting to effect his retreat." -- Colonel Benjamin W. Johnson, 15th Arkansas Infantry Regiment, Commander of Fort Desperate During the June 14 assault, Union troops dug a trench connecting the ravine with Fort Desperate's exterior ditch. The trench provided a safe entrance from the ravine to the ditch, from which the Federals tried to scale the fort's parapet [dirt wall]. The location of the Union trench is believed to be the cut into the ditch in front of you.
19. PTHUD_070127_171.JPG: Union trench seen cutting into the ravine round the Confederate parapet
20. PTHUD_070127_282.JPG: "We are now out of all kind of meat except for horse, mule and rats. Woe to the rat that shows his head for there are many eyes watching and he is certain to die. I have not tasted any horse, mule, or rat yet." -- Sergeant Robert Branch Tarpley, Battery G (Nelson Battery), 1st Tennessee Artillery Battalion.
21. PTHUD_070129_021.JPG: Union Battery No. 1 Located in the vicinity of the Port Hudson State Commemorative Area museum is the site of the Union siege Battery No. 1. It was established following the May 27 assault. 1st Lieutenant William H. Blankenship commanded the battery, which consisted of one 30-pounder Parrott rifled cannon detached from Battery B, 1st Indiana Heavy Artillery Regiment.
22. PTHUD_070129_037.JPG: After a bunch of rain, the trails in the park were a little iffy
23. PTHUD_070129_040.JPG: Yep. This is part of the trail....
24. PTHUD_070129_045.JPG: Artillery Ridge: Site of pre-siege Confederate campsites, Artillery Ridge became one of the Union staging areas for the May 27 assault. The ravines on the backside of the ridge served as a protected area for Union campsites while the ridge served as an excellent position for three Union siege batteries. The trail leading from the "D" intersection to the creek bottom is the approach that Union forces used to attack the Confederate works on the morning of May 27.
25. PTHUD_070129_050.JPG: Artillery Ridge is up here
26. PTHUD_070129_052.JPG: This is the area where the flag of truce was flown, and later apologized for.
27. PTHUD_070129_058.JPG: Flag of Truce: "At this position, what was supposed to be a flag of truce was raised, and the rebels, thinking it a signal for a cessation of hostilities, caused firing along this line, during which the regiment sought and secured a safer position not quite so near the works..." -- Lieutenant William F. Tiemann, 159th New York Infantry Regiment Trapped here between the withering crossfire from Fort Desperate and Commissary Hill on May 27, an officer of the 159th New York Infantry Regiment raised a flag of truce. The Confederates on this end of the line honored the flag and stopped firing, and the New Yorkers and other Union troops escaped to safety. The Union commander had not authorized a truce nor did the Union soldiers follow the proper military procedures of the day pertaining to a truce. The following day, Union commander Major General Nathaniel P. Banks formally apologized to Port Hudson's Confederate commander, Major General Franklin Gardner, for the error.
28. PTHUD_070129_066.JPG: Fort Babcock
29. PTHUD_070129_072.JPG: Fort Babcock: Located only 100 yards in front of the Confederate's Alabama-Arkansas Redoubt, the men of the 75th New York Infantry Regiment began building this work on the morning of May 27. At first constructed as a log breastwork, Fort Babcock became a strongly fortified rifle trench that was occupied by other Union troops throughout the siege.
30. PTHUD_070129_095.JPG: Alabama-Arkansas Redoubt: "Owing to the ruggedness of the ground and felled timbers, the enemy could not preserve their lines intact and soon became a conglomerate mass. We waited their approach in silence. When within forty yards we were commanded to fire. A blaze of musketry flashed from our ramparts. The enemy was dazed and stunned by the suddenness of the blow and the fearful effect of our first volley. Over one-fifth of his number were upon the ground dead or wounded." -- Private Edward Y. McMorries, Company G, 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment Scene of heavy fighting during the May 27 assault, the Alabama-Arkansas Redoubt originally consisted of a line of piled fence rails covered with dirt excavated from a shallow trench located along the edge of the ridge. This line was manned by men of the 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment. On May 30, 200 men from Miles' Louisiana Legion relieved the Alabamians and began construction of the large earthworks. The cannon platforms seen today were probably added during the Union occupation of Port Hudson for there is no evidence that Confederate troops placed cannons at this position. Other units occupying the Alabama-Arkansas Redoubt during the siege were the 18th and 23rd Arkansas regiments, the Claiborne (Mississippi) Light Infantry company, and English's Mississippi Battery (no cannons; the men served as infantry).
31. PTHUD_070129_099.JPG: Bennett's House and Battery: The house that was original located on this site was the residence of the Stephen Ambrose family. They farmed a one hundred and six acre cotton plantation before and after the war. During the Confederate occupation of Port Hudson, Major William K. Bennett of the Quartermasters Corps occupied the house before and during the siege. He was in charge of the commissary department for the garrison. He escaped after the surrender, bringing Southern authorities their first official information of the fall of Port Hudson. The Confederates transferred a 24-pounder rifled cannon to this site from River Battery No. 1 to oppose the concentration of enemy cannons on Artillery Ridge. The troops in this area helped to repulse the Union attack on the Slaughter Pen on the night of June 11, 1863.
32. PTHUD_070129_107.JPG: Slaughter Pen: On the night of June 11, Union troops attempted to breech the Confederate line by way of the garrison's slaughter pen. The slaughterhouse, cattle pen, and dump were located here and in the ravines nearby. Beef was a mainstay of the Port Hudson garrison's diet. It came from longhorn cattle driven from Texas. Poor in quality, the beef was described by a Port Hudson Confederate: "poor, gristly, blue, gummy, it could be boiled for hours and never an eye of grease on the water. Those old steers, I suppose, were the only animals in existence without a single particle of fat in their composition."
33. PTHUD_070129_109.JPG: The area of the Slaughter Pen
34. PTHUD_070129_114.JPG: Bennett's Redoubt: Named for quartermaster officer Major William K. Bennett, Bennett's Redoubt guarded the important Confederate slaughter pen operation which he commanded. Infantry units serving as Bennett's Redoubt consisted of the 10th and 12th Arkansas and supported a section of Watson's Louisiana Battery. Manning a 12-pounder howitzer and a 6-pounder gun, the cannoneers dueled with Union artillery located on the other side of Foster Creek atop Artillery Ridge.
35. PTHUD_070129_118.JPG: Bennett's Redoubt
36. PTHUD_070129_153.JPG: Lower Commissary Hill Battery: Constructed as part of the earthworks around Commissary Hill, this battery was armed with one gun from the Madison Tennessee Battery and another from Battery F, 1st Mississippi Artillery Regiment.
37. PTHUD_070129_162.JPG: Commissary Hill: Site of a five-gun battery, Commissary Hill protected the Port Hudson's commissary complex, which was located in the creek bottom as the rear of the hill. Manned by artillerists from the Madison Tennessee Battery, Battery F of the 1st Mississippi Artillery Regiment, and 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment, the Commissary Hill guns commanded a towering position overlooking Fort Desperate and the Alabama-Arkansas Redoubt. Though Union artillery fire disabled all five guns at one time or another and destroyed the commissary complex, the Commissary Hill guns laid down a deadly barrage on Union forces throughout the siege.
38. PTHUD_070129_166.JPG: Commissary Hill area
39. PTHUD_070129_182.JPG: Union Battery No. 6 During the May 27 assault, this ridge was the site of Union siege Battery No. 6. It was occupied by Battery F, 1st US Artillery Regiment, under the command of Captain Richard C. Duryea. Duryea's unit consists of six 12-pounder Napoleon guns that fired on the Confederate cannons located at Fort Desperate and Commissary Hill.
Wikipedia Description: Siege of Port Hudson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Siege of Port Hudson occurred from May 21 to July 9, 1863, when Union Army troops assaulted and then surrounded the Mississippi River town of Port Hudson, Louisiana, during the American Civil War.

In cooperation with Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's offensive against Vicksburg, Mississippi, Union Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's army moved against the Confederate stronghold at Port Hudson on the Mississippi River. On May 27, 1863, after their frontal assaults were repulsed, the Federals settled into a siege that lasted for 48 days. Banks renewed his assaults on June 14 but the defenders successfully repelled them. On July 9, 1863, after hearing of the fall of Vicksburg, the Confederate garrison of Port Hudson surrendered, opening the Mississippi River to Union navigation from its source to New Orleans.

Background:

From the time the American Civil War started in April 1861, both the North and South made controlling the Mississippi River a major part of their strategy. The Confederacy wanted to keep using the river to transport needed supplies; the Union wanted to stop this supply route and drive a wedge that would divide Confederate states and territories. Particularly important to the South was the stretch of the Mississippi that included the mouth of the Red River. The Red was the Confederacy's primary route for moving vital supplies between east and west: salt, cattle, and horses traveled downstream from the Trans-Mississippi West; in the opposite direction flowed men and munitions from the east.

In the spring of 1862, the Union took control of New Orleans and Memphis. To make sure it could continue to use the middle section of the river, the South fortified positions at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Port Hudson, Louisiana.

In May 1863, Union land and naval forces began a campaign they hoped would give them control of the full length of the Mississippi River. One army under Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant commenced operations against the Confederacy's fortified position at Vicksburg at the northern end of the stretch of the river still in Southern hands. At about the same time, another army under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks moved against Port Hudson, which stood at the southern end. Banks's lead division encountered Confederates on May 21 at the Battle of Plains Store. By May 23, Banks's forces, which increased in strength from 30,000 to 40,000 men as the operation progressed, had surrounded the Port Hudson defenses. Banks hoped to overrun the entrenchments quickly, then take his army northward to assist Grant at Vicksburg.

Within the Confederate fortifications at Port Hudson were approximately 7,500 men. Their commander was Maj. Gen. Franklin Gardner, a New Yorker by birth. His goals were to have his men defend their positions as long as possible in order to prevent Banks's troops from joining Grant, and to keep Confederate control of this part of the Mississippi.

The fighting and siege:

On the morning of May 27, 1863, under Maj. Gen. Banks, the Union army launched ferocious assaults against the lengthy Confederate fortifications. Among the attackers were two regiments of African-American soldiers, the 1st and 3rd Louisiana Native Guards. The attacks were uncoordinated, and the defenders easily turned them back causing heavy Northern casualties. Andre Cailloux, a free man of color from New Orleans and the Captain of the 1st Louisiana Native Guard, Company E, died heroically in this first assault. His death became a rallying cry for the recruitment of African-American soldiers. Union generals Thomas W. Sherman and Neal Dow were both seriously wounded and Col. Edward P. Chapin was killed in this attack.

Banks's troops made a second, similarly haphazard assault on June 14. Again they were repulsed, suffering even more dead and wounded soldiers, including division commander Brig. Gen. Halbert E. Paine, who fell wounded, losing a leg.

These actions constituted some of the bloodiest fighting of the Civil War. The Confederates began building their defenses in 1862, and by now had an elaborate series of earthworks. One of their officers provided the following description of the line of these barriers, which, as their name suggested, were made mainly from hard-packed dirt:
“ For about three-quarters of a mile from the river the line crossed a broken series of ridges, plateaus and ravines, taking advantage of high ground in some places and in others extending down a steep declivity; for the next mile and a quarter it traversed Gibbon's and Slaughter's fields where a wide level plain seemed formed on purpose for a battlefield; another quarter of a mile carried it through deep and irregular gullies, and for three-quarters of a mile more it led through fields and over hills to a deep gorge, in the bosom of which lay Sandy creek. ”

The elaborate defenses they built and difficult terrain in the area assisted the Confederates in keeping this part of the Mississippi under their control. The Federals had no choice but to besiege Port Hudson to obtain access to the full length of the Mississippi.

The fighting at Port Hudson illustrated how artillery affected the conduct of a siege. The Union Army combined artillery fire with sharpshooting riflemen as it attempted to keep the defenders from getting supplies of food or other necessities; the Union Navy added their big guns to the bombardment. The Confederates responded by firing their rifles and artillery at the Union forces. Recognizing how dangerous this type of fighting could be, each side also built elaborate earthworks to protect themselves.

The siege created hardships and deprivations for both the North and South, but by early July the Confederates were in much worse shape. They had exhausted practically all of their food supplies and ammunition, and fighting and disease had greatly reduced the number of men able to defend the trenches. When Maj. Gen. Gardner learned that Vicksburg had surrendered, he realized that his situation was hopeless and that nothing could be gained by continuing. The terms of surrender were negotiated, and on July 9, 1863, the Confederates lay down their weapons, ending 48 days of continuous fighting. Captain Thornton A. Jenkins accepted the Confederate surrender, as Admiral David Farragut was in New Orleans.

Aftermath:

The siege of Port Hudson affected the Civil War and the men who fought there in a number of ways. The surrender gave the Union control of the Mississippi River, cutting off important states such as Arkansas and Texas. Both sides suffered heavy casualties: about 5,000 Union men were killed or wounded, and an additional 5,000 fell prey to disease or sunstroke; Gardner's forces suffered around 750 casualties, several hundred of whom died of disease. Six thousand five hundred Confederates surrendered and were sent North into custody.

After the war, a small number of former soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions at Port Hudson, including George Mason Lovering of the 4th Massachusetts.
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