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Story Archives: Avoiding snakes, gators & war on 1863 Concordia crossing
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Avoiding snakes, gators & war on 1863 Concordia crossing
 (15th in a series)
After narrowly missing a confrontation with four Union gunboats on the Ouachita River during the Civil War, an Englishman named Arthur Lyon Fremantle and his traveling companions continued their journey through Louisiana in search of a point to cross the Mississippi River.
They were now in Trinity in Catahoula Parish where four rivers meet -- the Ouachita, Tensas, Little and Black. Because there was a high water, Fremantle's group had to cross Concordia Parish by boat.
Fremantle was 28 and an English soldier who took a leave from his duties to travel the South and observe battles between the Yankees and the Rebels. His American journey began in Brownsville, Texas, and continued through San Antonio, Houston and other towns before arriving in Shreveport in Louisiana. From there Fremantle traveled by stage east to Monroe and then south by steamboat down the Ouachita River, hoping to cross the Mississippi River from Vidalia to Natchez before the Union Navy took complete control of the Mississippi.
On Thursday, May 14, not long after four Union gunboats passed Trinity in route down the Black River, the Concordia crossing began. The gunboats had recently attacked Fort Beauregard, a heavily-fortified Rebel stronghold dug in on a high hill above the town of Harrisonburg on the Ouachita. The gunboats couldn't pass the fort's big guns, which could accurately hit targets on the river a mile to the south. The fort's primary purpose was to protect Monroe from a gunboat attack. Monroe was a railroad town and staging area for Rebel troops. A Texas brigade of about 4,000 under Gen. John G. Walker had recently arrived in Monroe from Arkansas.
After boarding for the night at a private residence in Trinity, Fremantle and about 30 Confederate officers and soldiers -- all in route east to rejoin their regiments -- moved out. The men were "determined to proceed to Natchez today, and a very hard day's work we had of it," Fremantle wrote in his diary, which was later published in a book.
"As the Louisiana bank of the Mississippi is completely overflowed at this time of year, and the river itself is infested with the enemy's gunboats, which have run past Vicksburg and Port Hudson, the passage can only be made by a tedious journey in small boats through the swamps and bayous," he wrote. "Our party left Trinity at 6 a.m. in one big yawl and three skiffs. In my skiff were eight persons, besides a negro oarsman named 'Tucker,'"
The other two skiffs each carried the same number of men, while the yawl, a bigger boat that could be rigged to sail, carried almost a dozen, including the guide.For the full story, subscribe to the The Concordia Sentinel's NEW E-Edition! |
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