Port Hudson near Baton Rouge
State Historic Site Preserves History of Long Civil War Siege
Yesterday, while my wife, Lisa, and I were on our way to St. Francisville, La., a highway sign pointing to Port Hudson State Historic Site caught our eyes and we doubled back to have a look, having learned long ago to trust serendipity on weekend road trips.
Before we visited this historic location just north of Baton Rouge, I had only the vaguest notion that some type of Civil War fortress had once guarded the Mississippi River from Union troops near here. Now, we know a lot more.
The Port Hudson site is located on state Hwy. 61. There is no fort here; Confederate troops who served in these rolling hills of pines, moss-draped oaks and viny thickets had no time to build one. Instead, they constructed earthworks from which to try to halt the North’s push to control the entire Mississippi River and thereby cut off Southern supply routes.
In 1863, Union forces laid siege to Port Hudson. Greatly outnumbered rebel troops endured canon shot and rifle fire for 48 days, one of the longest battles of the war, before surrendering. An impressive visitor center is maintained here and the grounds are restored to their wartime condition. For a $4 entrance fee you can study the images, artifacts and information inside the visitor’s center and explore the fields and forests of Fort Hudson to get a sense of what happened and the significance of it all to the Civil War. I recommend stopping in. The staff will answer any of your questions. They invited Lisa and I into their private archives and showed us rarely-seen, original Civil War photographs of the aftermath of the siege. For a small, out-of-the-way facility, this historic site is a surprising, educational gem.
For more information, here is a link to a National Park Service website that explains the siege of Port Hudson. https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-siege-of-port-hudson-forty-days-and-nights-in-the-wilderness-of-death-teaching-with-historic-places.htm
Guy D. Johnson is a writer and marketing communications professional. Previously an animation studio owner, daily newspaper editor, reporter and photographer, volunteer fireman, railroad bridge gang helper, FM radio station underling and cave guide. He has lived on farmland trusted to the sun and rain; atop a wooded hill; beside great rivers; upon an arid, high plateau; and at the subtropical coast of the Gulf of Mexico. For 20 years, he worked and wrote in New Orleans.