Lafourche gets lesson in fighting Civil War

Denis Gaubert, a Civil War re-enactor and memorabilia collector, has heard numerous stories about the ancestors of Lafourche natives serving the Confederates in the battle at Lafourche Crossing. He also knows it’s not true.

“Some people I’ve heard have said, ‘Oh yeah, my ancestors fought in the Confederacy at Lafourche Crossing.’ If they fought in the Confederacy at Lafourche Crossing, they were from Texas. There were no Louisiana troops that fought at Lafourche Crossing…That’s why they lost.”

Gaubert broke the news with a touch of humor to a group of about 10 people at the Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center’s “The Civil War Remembered,” a presentation, held on Friday in an effort to pique interest as the sesquicentennial anniversaries of the war and its battles began their cycle yesterday.

The wetlands center in Thibodaux set aside a three-hour block for the presentation, an opportunity for locals to glean information on the area’s battles. The battle at Lafourche Crossing is marked with a sign, but Gaubert told of more encounters along the bayou, particularly of a haphazard free-for-all that culminated in the Union army taking control of the waterway.

For many, it was their first time in battle, Gaubert said. When Union generals gave the order to fire by rank, a regimented attack that would have two soldiers shooting simultaneously, alternatively down the front line, pandemonium ensued.

The inexperienced troops fired at once, and then charged as they overwhelmed the Confederate soldiers, forcing them to retreat.

“The [Union] officers couldn’t hold them back, and really, it was successful,” Gaubert said. “It took the Confederates by surprise … Everything just broke down.”

Gaubert has re-enacted and collected memorabilia since 1992. “Some of the guys I was re-enacting with were big collectors and all that, so I started getting interested and started collecting some buttons. It became an obsession.”

He estimates that he has $25,000 worth of Civil War artifacts, including buttons, original guns, one of which with tally marks etched into the handle, handwritten letters and an enlarged photocopy of a newspaper article that chronicled the Lafourche battle.

Mike Jimenez, a staff attorney for the Lafourche sheriff’s office, said the presentation allowed him to better grasp the local history of the war, “not just what you see on PBS or what you read in the general textbooks for the week you spend on it in school.”

Jimenez was a paratrooper with the 10th Special Forces unit in the Gulf War during Operation Provide Comfort, where he helped enforce a no fly zone. After his tour of duty concluded, he joined the National Guard and stayed for four years while pursuing a degree from Nicholls State.

“I know generally about the Civil War from high school and college, but I didn’t know anything that happened locally,” Jimenez, 36, said. “Listening to Denis, there were four or five battles within 30 minutes of Thibodaux. Not to mention how Thibodaux was occupied and then unoccupied when the Texas Confederates came.”

Sally Crochet, the owner of a Houma bed and breakfast, said she was intrigued by the handwritten notes penned by both Union and Confederate soldiers and displayed by Gaubert. “It is beautiful, and these were men,” Crochet said.

The authenticity of the memorabilia notwithstanding, Crochet said the exhibition was a chance for her to learn more about its history and share it with her bed and breakfast patrons, who are fascinated with the area’s past.

“I love history,” she said. “You just don’t realize what happened in your own backyard.”

The memorial event coincided with Bayou Lafourche paddlers completing the second leg of a four-day journey down Lafourche Parish’s aqua-highway in an exhibition geared at increasing awareness and reminding people of the bayou’s historic importance.

For Ryan Schultz, participating in the Paddle Bayou Lafourche program was a chance to quench his own nostalgia as he returned to his grandfather’s bayou-side property to join the journey. Schultz, paddling along with his stepfather and 5-year-old son, completed the second half of Friday’s 12-mile stretch.

“My family came down from Birmingham, Ala. to do this,” Schultz, 35, said. “My grandfather lived on the bayou for 60 years. We’re on the same land I think we’ve been on since the 1700s.”

The first time that he legitimately traveled “down the bayou,” Schultz was taken aback by the water’s depth and pleasantly surprised by the lack of potential predators. “I was surprised how shallow it was in spots,” he said. “That, and I remember more alligators.”

The Pot Luck String Band, from Mandeville, performed music from the era as the canoes coasted to the bayou’s banks.

The event was intentionally crafted around the paddling tour. Angela Rathle, supervisory park ranger at the wetlands center, said the bayou’s importance was evidenced by the late-in-the-game battles along its banks.

“Bayou Lafourche was important strategically,” Rathle said. “The Civil War, the things that happened here was because it was important to block Bayou Lafourche. It was how goods and services came into the area, and they needed to stop it, which is why the campaign in Louisiana happened.”

Although yesterday marked the war’s commencement at Fort Sumter, the wetlands center plans to remember the sesquicentennial anniversaries for Lafourche battles as they arise.

“As the years progress, we’re going to commemorate things like the Battle of Lafourche Crossing, Georgia Landing, and we do tours on the bayou, and we’re hoping to tie all that end,” Rathle said. “For us, it’s just getting folks to thinking about what that was about and for the park service to tell the stories of the Civil War from many points of view and make everyone understand how important it was.”

Civil War re-enactor and collector Denis Gaubert shows some of his memorabilia to Mike Jimenez, a 36-year-old staff attorney for the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office. ERIC BESSON