On July 1, 1863, Cicero Barker, a civilian scout for the Confederate army in north Louisiana, wrote a brief dispatch to a cavalry lieutenant. Barker stated that he had been to St. Joseph, near the Mississippi River, and had found “there is no yankeys on this side of the river at this time.”
He had learned from two citizens of Tensas Parish, men who belonged to the parish vigilance committee, that the Federals had lost “a very fine Rifle Cannon 32 pounder” in Clark’s Bayou. These men proposed trying to get the cannon out of the bayou within a few days and moving it to a safe location.
Barker’s letter went through channels to Lt. Col. George Washington Logan, commander of Fort Beauregard at Harrisonburg. Originally called Fort Taylor, Fort Beauregard was an enclosed, casemated earthwork on a hill overlooking the Ouachita River. Confederate troops had begun construction on it in late 1862 and probably completed it in January 1863.
The fort was intended to prevent Union vessels from steaming up the river to Monroe, a rail center and the most important town in northeastern Louisiana. On May 10-11, four gunboats bombarded the fort for several hours each day before retiring down the river.
Logan’s men had only three 32-pdr. smoothbores and a field battery at that time and wanted better heavy guns for any future action.
Obviously excited at the prospect of adding a rifled cannon to his fort, on July 5, Logan issued orders to his adjutant, Lt. James G. Blanchard, to take a sergeant and 12 privates and to recover the piece. Blanchard also had the authority to impress any wagons and animals needed to move the cannon to the fort.
He and his detachment reached the area of Clark’s Bayou late on July 6, and he met with Barker. The latter told Blanchard that, in addition to the large piece, he might also find in the bayou two or three field pieces.
Blanchard succeeded in locating the cannon and learned that it was a 30-pounder Parrott rifle rather than a 32-pounder. He informed Logan that it was mounted on a siege carriage intended for another caliber of cannon. Accordingly, Blanchard said that he would dismount it and place it on a wagon so he could transport it.
He recommended that Logan sent a steamboat to a ferry landing on the Tensas River west of the cannon’s location. Blanchard would move the Parrott to that point by the evening of July 9. He informed Logan that he had found no other cannons and no ammunition for the piece. His message ended, “I claim the honor of the command of the gun.”
One of Logan’s subordinate officers responded quickly to Blanchard’s dispatch and sent the steamer Elmira up the Tensas to pick up the cannon. It had arrived at Fort Beauregard by July 11, and Logan began looking for a way of mounting it for use. Ultimately, he had his men place the Parrott on a casemate carriage, even though it did not fit well on the carriage, and they moved it into the center casemate of the fort.
Finding ammunition for the cannon proved more of a problem. Maj. Gen. Richard Taylor’s adjutant informed Logan that the ordnance depot in Alexandria had no projectiles for a 30-pdr. Parrott. He stated that he would request that a foundry in Shreveport cast some shot and shell but warned Logan, “I fear it will be long however before you get them.”
The measurements for the Parrott rifle sent by Logan to his superiors created some confusion. He reported it as having a bore of 4-3/4 inches. Taylor’s chief of ordnance, Maj. Joseph L. Brent, wrote to the ordnance officer for the Sub-District of North Louisiana and asked that he obtain proper measurements.
The latter officer also requested that Logan “send the number of the gun and all the marks, initials, weights,etc.” A few days later, Logan responded that the cannon had a 4.2-inch bore.” He gave the following additional information: “Weight 4235 lbs.—patented 1861—43 marked 30 Pdr. 4.2—U. S. over Trunnions—Length 9 feet 10 in to vent, 10 feet 6 3/4 in to Breech base.”
These marks show that the Parrott was cast at the West Point Foundry in 1861—registry No. 43 and foundry No. 802. It was one of 14 cannon inspected there on Jan. 8, 1862.
How the Parrott came to be lost in Clark’s Bayou and to which unit it belonged remain mysteries.
Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s army began its famous march through northeast Louisiana to reach a point on the Mississippi River below Vicksburg in late April 1863. His troops passed along the western shore of Lake St. Joseph. Confederate troops had burned most of the bridges across the bayous that ran into the lake, and Grant’s troops had to construct new ones so that their artillery and wagons could cross.
Men of the 49th Indiana Infantry Regiment built a bridge with a 150-foot span over Clark’s Bayou on April 27. They scrounged heavy timber beams and side-boarding from nearby barns for the construction. A Union artilleryman later described the bridge as consisting “of nothing but rails laid across some ill-fitting sleepers, and it was precarious crossing.”
It is easy to understand how such a heavy cannon and its carriage might have fallen off of or through the bridge. Only a handful of units had 30-pdr. Parrotts, but, to date, the author has found no document recording the loss of such a piece.
Logan and his men would never have an opportunity to use the powerful Parrott rifle against Union gunboats. On Sept. 1, 1863, two Union brigades of the 4th Division, XVII Corps, under Brig. Gen. Marcellus M. Crocker, crossed the Mississippi River at Vidalia. Crocker had received instructions to clear Confederate forces from the vicinity of Harrisonburg and Trinity while another Federal force marched toward Monroe.
Col. Logan quickly requested reinforcements to help defend Fort Beauregard. General Taylor ordered to his support a brigade of Texas infantry under Col. Horace Randal. Crocker’s men crossed the Black River at Trinity on Sept. 3.
Logan began evacuating the fort at 1 a.m. the following morning. He realized that he could not hold the place with only 40 men, and the Texans could not reach him before the Federals did. His men managed to take with them only four field pieces. Logan had to leave in the fort the Parrott rifle, three 32-pdr. smoothbores, and four field pieces.
He had prepared a wagon to use in removing the Parrott but reported he did not have enough men to lift it from its carriage and put it on the wagon. Logan and three lieutenants left the fort at 4:15 a.m. after setting fire to the casemates.
Crocker’s force advanced toward Harrisonburg later that morning and reached the town between 10 and 11 a.m. They found the fort evacuated and fires still burning in the casemates. Crocker reported that his men spiked the 32-pounders and two of the field pieces they found in the fort, leaving them in the casemates.
Crocker’s troops began marching back toward Trinity at 4 p.m., taking with them two field pieces, and the expedition reached Natchez on Sept. 7.
Shortly after the Federals left Harrisonburg, a Confederate artillery lieutenant visited Fort Beauregard. He reported finding only one 32-pdr. spiked and wrote that the Parrott was buried in its casemate. Major Brent sent Capt. Thomas O. Benton with a small detachment of men and an iron axle tree wagon pulled by eight mules to retrieve the Parrott and take it to district headquarters at Alexandria. Brent expected Benton to leave the 32-pdrs. at the fort and to secretly bury any field pieces he could not bring with him.
Benton and his men left Alexandria and reached Harrisonburg on Sept. 16. They began immediately to try to dig out the 30-pdr. and to secure surviving stores. The men worked for 12 hours before they finally got to the breech of the Parrott. Benton reported that almost 25 feet of dirt covered the piece and that the dirt kept caving in as they dug. He said that the cannon was still red hot when they reached it.
Eventually the men succeeded in attaching a rope to the Parrott and dragging it out of the casemate. Benton wrote he found it “to be ruined by being broken off some four feet in front of the trunnions” and said that the intense heat had injured “the temper of the metal.”
Because he felt the piece was worthless, he and his men left it in the fort and took with them only a small amount of ammunition they had salvaged.
Later in the year, Brent made another attempt to remove the Parrott from Fort Beauregard. In early December, he ordered Lt. George Urquhart, an ordnance officer, to go to Harrisonburg and to determine both the state of the cannon and if transportation was available at the town to move it to Trans-Mississippi Department headquarters in Shreveport. If Urquhart found a steamer on its way to Alexandria, he could put the Parrott on that vessel.
That officer succeeded in moving the Parrott by land, but it never reached Shreveport. In early January 1864, he informed Brent that it “has been in Vienna for sometime past & is quite damaged, the muzzle being melted about 18 inches & the gun bended near the trunnions.”
What happened to the 30-pdr. Parrott after that date remains a mystery. The author has found no more mention of it in any records. It is possible that the Confederates eventually got the cannon to Shreveport. If that occurred, it seems unlikely that the foundry there could have made the rifle serviceable again.
Perhaps it was melted down and the iron used to manufacture artillery projectiles. The Confederates obviously wished they had been able to remove it from Fort Beauregard prior to its evacuation so they could use it against Union forces in other campaigns.
About the Author: Arthur W. Bergeron Jr., received his doctorate in American history from Louisiana State University. He is the author/editor of a dozen books on the American Civil War, including “Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units, 1861-1865” and “Confederate Mobile.” Bergeron is an archivist at the U. S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pa.