I have some very, very shocking news for those concerned about battlefield matters. There is a memorial which was installed on the battlefield of Mansfield, in 2007, relating to the supposed death of lieutenant John Francis of the 28th Louisiana on April 10, 1864. It was claimed that this person was in fact one John Fearn (the memorial is inscribed with the name shown as John F. Francis), who had previously been in Australia as a convict, and went to live in Louisiana, and then served in the 28th Louisiana. The military service cards of John Francis of the 28th Louisiana do not show his death at all, and there is no indication anywhere that he had died at Mansfield. I have recently spoken with a descendant of John Fearn, who had been shocked to hear of the memorial, because, as he stated to me, the service of John Fearn, as John Francis, in the 28th Louisiana was all conjecture, and there was absolutely no proof that they were the same person. Additionally, the descendant had stated to me that the last child of John Fearn, named John Thomas Fearn (who was the descendant's grandfather), had been born on January 15, 1865, and died in Australia in 1944, at the age of 79. No doubt that, at the invasion of general Banks, the troops in the Confederate Army would not have been permitted to go home, and so, there is no doubt that John Thomas Fearn would not have been conceived in April of 1864 at the time of the invasion of the Northern troops in the Red River campaign. I do believe that the memorial on the Mansfield battlefield is a travesty, and the person who had it installed, a gentleman who is no relation to the Fearn family at all, did not bother to do any proper research, or verify data. There is absolutely no evidence at all that John Francis of the 28th Louisiana had died at Mansfield, nor is there any evidence that John Francis and John Fearn were one and the same person. Even the descendant of John Fearn admits this much. Will the memorial remain on the battlefield, or will the administrators take some action to remove it, or at least ask for proper evidence, if it is to remain there? The person responsible for obtaining it and having it installed has been involved in at least two other such controversial grave markers, one of which he obtained for a person who was later found not to have served in the Civil War, but when asked to remove it, he claimed that it was not his fault, but the fault of the cemetery officials for allowing him to have it installed in the first place.
I have been in contact with a Mansfield Preservation group, but I seriously doubt if any action will be taken. Once again, more lies and incorrect data on memorials and monuments across America.