“History is always repeating itself, but each time the price goes up.” — Will and Arial Durant
SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – During the American Civil War, eleven Southern cities were badly damaged or destroyed and almost 116,000 people were displaced. That’s a little more than 1% of the South’s entire population.
Yet somehow Shreveport, Louisiana, the capital of Confederate Louisiana and Headquarters for the Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi wasn’t destroyed.
Here’s why it still matters today.
NWLA: First to secede, last to surrender
Northwest Louisiana was the first place in the American South to secede from the Union after Abraham Lincoln was elected to the presidency, and Shreveport was the last city to surrender to Union Forces at the end of the Civil War.
But not all people in Louisiana wanted to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy. Louisiana’s vote for secession in late 1860 is actually evidence of a deep political divide in the state.
Before the Civil War, an anti-Confederacy, pro-abolition newspaper publisher in northwest Louisiana began working to give Unionists the bold headlines they needed to unite. And by 1860 in Claiborne Parish, where the Homer Iliad originated, 658 citizens voted for secession while 896 voted to remain with the Union.
Here’s how other parishes in NWLA voted when it came time to chose sides.
Desoto Parish had 666 votes for secession and 50 votes for the Union. Bossier Parish voted 407 for secession and 379 against it. And unsurprisingly, as it was for most river parishes, Caddo Parish had 751 votes for secession and 123 votes for the Union.
Caddo Parish’s vast-majority vote to secede from the Union may be partially to blame for the extreme amount of violence that occurred in and around Shreveport after the Confederacy lost the war.
This violence earned the parish the nickname Bloody Caddo.
‘Bloody Caddo’: Research uncovers post-Civil War racial violence
And ultimately, votes for secession cast by citizens across the entire state of Louisiana totaled 20,602, while 18,748 voters opted to stay with the Union.
Almost half of Louisiana voters did not want to secede from the United States.
Defending the Red River Valley
In a previous article, we discussed Shreveport’s role in the Civil War and why it still matters.
Now the Caddo Parish Civil Rights Trail Project team wants to show how Shreveport’s connection to the Confederacy was intricate.
Here’s a closer look at how Shreveport was deeply tied to the Confederacy by the midpoint of the war.
The Civil War was well underway when the Confederacy was virtually split in half by Union troops. The Confederacy quickly reorganized its western military districts early in 1863, when the areas under its control west of the Mississippi River were placed under a separate command or “department” called the Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi. Shreveport became the headquarters of the department.
Lithograph by Currier and Ives, Civil War, Richmond on fire during the night of April 2, 1865, 19th century, United States, Private collection. (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)
Soon afterward, the Confederacy in Shreveport was busy building and repairing Confederate boats and submarines while an entire team of highly-trained engineers designed and built fortifications to protect the entire Red River valley from the encroachment of Union troops.
It was a big ask, too, because the Trans-Mississippi included Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma (Indian Territory), and Texas. The troops with the Trans-Mississippi who were stationed in Shreveport had a large area to defend.
Senior Commanders in Confederate Louisiana
Many West Point graduates or instructors who emerged from the ranks of the prestigious military school to fight for whichever side called to them the loudest. Some became officers for the Union, while others were commissioned into the Confederacy.
Several West Point-trained engineers and instructors spent much of the war fighting for the Confederacy in Shreveport.
Brigadier General William R. Boggs. From Francis Trevelyan Miller et al., eds., (Source: The Photographic History of the Civil War in Ten Volumes (New York: Review of Reviews Co., 1912), 10:265
Lieutenant General Edmund Kirby Smith, commanding general of the grandiose-sounding “Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi,” and Major General Richard Taylor, his head of the District of Western Louisiana, were the senior commanders of the Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi.
Taylor was the son of former U.S. President Zachary Taylor and the brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis. Smith was a former West Point mathematics professor who was reared in Florida.
Taylor and Smith did not get along.
Between March 1863 and March 1864, the new command made impressive progress in preparing for a possible Union invasion of the Red River Valley.
Kirby Smith brought Brigadier General William R. Boggs, a West Point graduate, onboard as chief of staff. Boggs graduated fourth in his class in 1853, and many of his classmates (John B. McPherson, Philip H. Sheridan, and John M. Schofield) became Union generals.
While at West Point, Boggs befriended a lower classmate who later gained fame as an artist, James McNeill Whistler. One of Boggs’ mentors was Dennis Hart Mahan, a Military and Civil Engineering professor.
All cadets who attended West Point after 1833 and before the start of the Civil War studied under Mahan. Mahan’s textbook became the bible of field fortifications for both the Union and the Confederacy.
The engineers of the Trans-Mississippi Department who served under General Boggs. Standing, left to right: David French Boyd, major of engineers; D. C. Proctor, First Louisiana Engineers; unidentified, but believed to be either William R. DeVoe, Captain, 4th Confederate Engineers, or Dr. Joseph P. Hotchkiss, Major, Field and Staff.; and William Freret. Seated, left to right: Richard M. Venable, chief topographic engineer; H. T. Douglas, Colonel of engineers; and Octave Hopkins, First Louisiana Engineers.
Once in Shreveport, Boggs found himself attempting to please both Smith and Taylor, a difficult task at best.
General Boggs had command of a crew of highly trained engineers, including Henry T. Douglas, Colonel of Engineers; Major Richard M. Venable, Chief Topographic (Civil) Engineer; David French Boyd, Major of Engineers; D. C. Proctor, First Louisiana Engineers; William Freret; Octave Hopkins, First Louisiana Engineers; William R. DeVoe, Captain, 4th Confederate Engineers; and Dr. Joseph P. Hotchkiss, Major, Field and Staff.
This group of Confederate engineers built manmade defenses in Shreveport and were quite effective at using natural elements such as ridgelines, creeks, streams, bayous, the Red River, and area lakes to protect the city. They also built defensive works from the lower end of the Red River and up the Ouachita River.
The engineers also built three anchor forts and countless support structures for the anchor forts that hypothetically made it easy for 30000+ Confederate soldiers to defend Shreveport when Union forces attacked.
But that attack never came.
The end of the Confederacy
In the end, the Confederacy lost the war between the states. The very last photo of Confederate officers that was taken during the Civil War was of Confederate engineers who were stationed in Shreveport.
On May 26, 1865, General Kirby Smith became the last Confederate general to surrender his forces. Shreveport became the last major city to surrender to Union forces at the end of the Civil War.
After the war ended General Kirby Smith (and many other Confederates) fled to Mexico, but that’s another story.
Upcoming articles
In our next article on Shreveport and the Civil War, we’ll take a deeper look into Confederate Shreveport. We’ll review maps of the city that were drawn by Confederate engineer Major Richard M. Venable. Then we’ll learn how three anchor forts were used to protect Shreveport from an attack that never came.
We’ll learn about a war dam built by Confederates on the Red River.
We’ll discuss how many Confederates fled to central and South America after the war ended.
We’ll examine the exact locations in modern-day Shreveport where you can still find remnants of our city’s Civil War history today.
Then we’ll talk about why a war fought more than 150 years ago, and the aftermath of that war, caused divisions deep enough in Caddo Parish that the Civil Rights Movement in Shreveport was nothing short of inevitable.
Sources
Ludwell Johnson, The Red River Campaign: Politics and Cotton in the Civil War (Kent, Ohio, 1993), 80.
William R. Boggs, Military Reminiscences of Gen. Wm. R. Boggs, C.S.A. William K. Boyd, ed. (Durham, North Carolina, 1913), x.
Paul D. Casdorph, Prince John Magruder (New York, 1996), 24; D. H. Mahan, Treatise on Field Fortification, Containing Instructions on the Methods of Laying Out, Constructing, Defending and Attacking Intrenchments, With the General Outlines Also of The Arrangement, the Attack and Defense of Permanent Fortifications (New York, 1863.). The first edition was printed in 1836.
Boggs, Military Reminiscences, xiii.
Map of Shreveport and Environs my Major Richard Venable. Jeremy Francis Gilmer papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Hereinafter cited as Venable Map.
Gary D. Joiner and Stephen R. James, ‘Phase I Cultural Resources Investigation: Harrah’s Entertainment Project, City of Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana’ (1997), 19. Hereinafter cited as ‘Harrah’s.’
Charles Pearson, ‘Historical Survey and Assessment of Waterborne Commerce and Transportation and an Inventory of Underwater Cultural Resources on the Red River’ (1995), 6.
Gary D. Joiner received a B.A. in history and geography from Louisiana Tech University, an M.A. in history from Louisiana Tech University, and a Ph.D. in history from St. Martin’s College, Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. He is a Professor of History at Louisiana State University in Shreveport, where he holds the Mary Anne and Leonard Selber Professorship. He is the director of the Strategy Alternatives Consortium and the Red River Regional Studies Center. His research interests span military history, local and regional studies, and defense-related projects. He is the author or editor of 38 books, including: 9/11: A Remembrance, Henry Chilvers: Admired by All (2018), History Matters, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, One Damn Blunder From Beginning to End, Through the Howling Wilderness, No Pardons to Ask Nor Apologies to Make, Little to Eat and Thin Mud to Drink, Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy, Red River Steamboats, Historic Shreveport-Bossier, Lost Shreveport: Vanishing Scenes From the Red River Valley, Historic Haunts of Shreveport and Wicked Shreveport, Wicked Shreveport, Historic Oakland Cemetery, Local Legends of Shreveport, Shre3veport’s Historic Greenwood Cemetery: Stories in Granite and Marble, Red River Campaign: The Union’s Last Attempt to Invade Texas, and The Battle of New Orleans: A Bicentennial Tribute. Dr. Joiner is also the author of numerous articles and technical reports and served as a consultant for ABC, CBS, Fox News, PBS, the Associated Press, A&E Network, C-SPAN, the Discovery Network, HGTV, the History Channel, MSNBC, SyFy, and MTV among others.
Among his awards and honors are: the Aaron and Peggy Selber Writing Competition Prize; Albert Castel Award; A.M. Pate, Jr. Award, Listed in the International Biographical Centre (Cambridge, England) Outstanding Academics of the 21st Century; Jefferson Davis Award nomination; Silver Spur Award nomination, Western Writers of America; Army Historical Foundation finalist, Distinguished Writing Award; Douglas Southall Freeman Award nomination, MOS & B; Book of the Month Club featured alternate, History Book Club Main Selection, and Military Book featured alternate; Lifetime Achievement Award and Life Membership, Red River Civil War Roundtable, Alexandria, Louisiana; Charles L. “Pie” Dufour Award, for Preservation and Scholarly Contributions in the field of History, New Orleans Civil War Roundtable; A.M. Pate Distinguished Service Award for Civil War History by the Fort Worth Civil War Round Table; Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation, Preservationist of the Year Award for 2010.
Jaclyn Tripp is an investigative reporter with KTAL NBC 6 News in Shreveport, where she focuses on the history, culture, and environment of northwest Louisiana. She is a United States Air Force Veteran, a graduate of Southern Arkansas University and DINFOS, and won the Louisiana Press Association’s award for Best Investigative Reporting. While on active duty, Jaclyn served as a military artist and photographer and as the assistant to the Little Rock Air Force Base‘s historian. She was born in Shreveport and is a native of Webster Parish.
