The Louisiana in the Civil War Message Board

Port Hudson: Which Account Is True?

"Killed as he led his men in a charge at Port Hudson on May 27,1863, Cailloux was the first of only a few black officers to die in the war. For all his courage and respectability, Andre Cailloux was in the eyes of the Confederates simply a man who deserved not just death but dishonor for his presumption in taking up arms against a superior race. Despite a truce called to permit the removal of the dead and wounded, rebel sharpshooters prevented Union troops from retrieving the bodies of black soldiers. Cailloux lay on the field until July 8, when Port Hudson surrendered."

Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, p.50

"Quiet reigned over the battlefield throughout much of May 28. Banks had requested the truce to carry off the wounded and bury the dead. Yet, inexplicably, the Federals left untouched the area where the Native Guards had charged the previous day--in stark contrast to their actions elsewhere on the battlefield. The hot sun putrefied the bodies until the stench forced Confederate Colonel Shelby to ask Bank's permission to bury the dead in front of his lines. Banks refused, claiming that he had no dead in that area."

Lawrence Lee Hewett and Art Bergeron, Louisianians in the Civil War, p.146.

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Port Hudson: Which Account Is True?
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