MARKSVILLE, La. — A group dedicated to restoring Fort DeRussy, on the banks of the Red River, is petitioning the Washington Navy Yard for a cannon they say rightfully belongs on the earthworks they are restoring.
The Navy, however, has no plans to release the trophy cannon on the grounds that it belongs to the U.S. government. Navy officials also argue that giving the cannon back to the people from whom it was captured could set a dangerous precedent that could lead to the return of weapons captured from around the world.
“We feel it's our cannon and we would like to have it back,” said Steve Mayeux, the chairman of the Friends of Fort DeRussy. “We feel it would be more appropriate to have the cannon back here where it belongs rather than in a line of cannons in Washington, D.C.”
The Navy has a very different view on where the cannon should be located.
“We very much believe that the cannon is where it belongs,” said Commander Jim Carlton, public affairs officer for the navy yard.
Navy Yard curator Dr. Ed Furgol takes it one step further.
“It’s a trophy piece,” he said. “It was captured and brought back here. If we send that one back, we’ll be sending a lot of cannons back to France, Spain, Germany, Canada.”
He said the documents that closed the Civil War indicate that all Confederate military property belongs to the United States government. Further, the Hague Treaty says that captured weapons become the property of the captor in perpetuity.
Mayeux's view is that the Navy can give the cannon to the friends group because the war is over and the United States is one union. Additionally, West Point has given cannons to sites like Vicksburg with no repercussions
“We are working with our Congressman and Senator to try to talk the Navy out of the cannon,” Mayeux said. “We think it’s so appropriate to have the cannon here.”
Mayeux is not convinced the Navy captured the cannon in the first place. He believes the stamp placed on the Model 1829 32-pdr. Seacoast Gun indicating that the 8,000-pound gun was captured by the Navy on May 4, 1863, is incorrect.
Through extensive research, Mayeux believes that it was captured by the Army on March 14, 1864, while the Navy tried to offer backup support from the Red River.
According to reports in the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies In The War of The Rebellion, a 32-pdr., with the same serial number, 286, was captured during a battle led by the Army.
Because of incomplete Army records, the history of the cannon from the time it was made to the time it was captured at Fort DeRussy is unknown. It was manufactured in Georgetown, District of Columbia, in 1833 at the Columbia Foundry and rifled and banded by the Confederates.
Artillery historian and author Wayne Stark believes the gun was probably stationed somewhere in Louisiana by the U.S. Army and was abandoned when the war started. Because the Confederates needed big guns, they took the seacoast gun, and had it rifled and banded, probably in New Orleans. By making the modifications to the gun, the Confederates could double the size of the projectile, Stark explained.
Stark is also convinced that the gun was captured on March 14, 1864, but believes it may have been a Navy capture. The fact that the Navy has it now is strong evidence that they captured it. Also, the fact that the correspondence regarding the capture of the gun was between two naval officers, as quoted in the Official Records, lends support to the idea that it’s a Navy trophy.
Rear-Admiral David D. Porter sent communications to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles about the raid on Fort DeRussy, speaking of the capture of the guns, including the 32-pdr., according to the Official Records.
A few weeks after the war, U.S. Navy Commander Robert Townsend reported to Porter “a descriptive list” of the guns taken during the raid on DeRussy. Porter issued orders regarding the dispatch of the captured weapons which it appears that Townsend executed.
Stark confirms that the gun has Navy trophy number 10 stamped on the barrel just above the U.S.
“I’m sure they have it because of the engravings on it,” Stark said.
Mayeux has done his own research and believes that while the Navy was present during the raid on Fort DeRussy, it was the Army that won the battle and captured the cannon.
Citing Porter’s 1885 memoirs, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War, Mayeux said that Porter acknowledged that a delay of the gunboats under his command, caused by an obstruction in the river, cost the Navy its claim to the victory over the fort.
“The victory, of course, belongs to the soldiers,” Porter wrote.
The Navy was present in the Red River when the battle was fought, but was unable to fire upon Fort DeRussy because of the number of Union troops that were swarming the earthworks. The Navy feared killing or injuring Union troops so they fired one round and stopped, according to the Official Records.
Mayeux said he has researched the issue in several sources, including the Official Records and regimental accounts.
“The fort surrendered to the Army,” Mayeux said.
He believes that as a practical matter, the guns, eight in all, were turned over to the Navy for transportation. The Army could not drag the guns away, especially the 32-pdr. with an 8,000-pound barrel.
Of the eight guns originally at FortDeRussy, and two field artillery pieces, only one remains, the one at the Navy Yard.
Stark was intimately involved in the research to find that gun. He believes that the others, including two 32-pdr. naval guns, both proved in 1847, were destroyed, perhaps during scrap metal drives at the time of World War II.
That’s why Mayeux is diligently working to secure the release of the cannon.
“It would be nice to have an original one here,” he said, adding that the possibility of having a reproduction cannon at the fort has not been ruled out.
In 1996, the Avoyelles Parish Historical Society, La Commission des Avoyelles, bought the main earthworks, the first step toward making the area a recognized historical site. Mayeux began looking for artifacts relating to the fort, which led to the discovery of the cannon at the Washington Navy Yard, and he and members of the friends group began restoring the site.
Rear-Admiral Porter praised the work by Colonel DeRussy for his excellent engineering of the fort and the obstructions erected in the river to prevent Union vessels from passing in the Red River.
“Colonel DeRussy, from appearances, is a most excellent engineer to build forts, but does not seem to know what to do with them after they are constructed,” Porter wrote in a letter to Welles. “The same remark may apply to his obstructions, which look well on paper but don’t stop our advance. The efforts of these people to keep up this war remind one very much of the antics of Chinamen, who build canvas forts, paint hideous dragons on their shields, turn somersets, and yell in the faces of their enemies to frighten them, and then run away at the first sign of an engagement.”
Since the purchase of the property, the Friends of Fort DeRussy have worked to clear vegetation that obscured the earthworks and used prison labor to restore some of the area around the fort. The site is currently fenced in with "no trespassing" signs.
The Friends are hoping to turn the site over to the state for a park, but, first, they must acquire more land, Mayeux explained. The site currently is not of sufficient acreage for the state to consider it as a park. The Friends are in negotiations to buy adjacent land. If they are successful there’s talk the state might put a visitors’ center on the property and erect interpretive signs.
“Everything is starting to snowball,” Mayeux said. “That’s why we are trying to get as much done as we can while people are still interested.”