The Civil War

Although no major battles were fought in Terrebonne Parish, hundreds of men from Terrebonne Parish served in the Confederate Army. The Union Army did make their way to the area. The event was notable because Union soldiers were ambushed and killed. The story, as related by James Parton, is as follows:

The dash of Colonel John C. Keith, of the Twenty-first Indiana, into the same Lafourche, was a most brilliant little affair. He gave a lesson to guerillas which Lafourche will never forget. He gave a lesson to guerilla hunters which, when it is universally taken, will soon extinguish the last of those savages.

In the course of the famous hunt after the steamer Fox, by Colonel M'Millan, a party of four sick soldiers had been sent back through the Lafourche country. A gang of guerillas, inhabitants of the district, lay in ambush near the road, fired into the wagon in which the sick men lay, killed two of them and wounded two. The bodies of the murdered men were stripped, then kicked and clubbed until they had lost almost all resemblance to human bodies, and finally, thrown by some negroes into a hole two feet deep, dug in the very public square of the town of Houma. The mound of earth heaped over them was conspicuous to all residents and travelers. One of the wounded men, after almost incredible adventures, escaped. The other was thrown into a filthy calaboose at Houma, with a negro convict.
General Butler sent Colonel Keith, with four companies of his regiment, and two pieces of Massachusetts artillery, to convey to the people of Houma a sense of the moral quality of their acts. He ordered Colonel Keith to use his best endeavors to arrest the perpetrators; to hang them if found ; to arrest the abettors of the butchery; and to confiscate or destroy the properly of every man who, in any way, before or after the deed, had been a participator in the crime.

Colonel Keith was the very man for this duty. Seldom, in the annals of warfare, do we find an account of a piece of work better done. On arriving in the vicinity of the town, he arrested every man that could be found. Having reached Houma, he discovered that most of the inhabitants had fled; but all the men that remained he seized and securely held. He compelled the leading residents of the place to provide suitable coffins for the murdered soldiers, to disinter them with their own hands, to place them in the coffins, and to dig graves for them in the principal churchyard. the bodies were then borne to the Catholic church, where Lieutenant Rose read over them the burial service, in the presence of the whole command. They were buried with the usual salute, and suitable inscriptions were placed over their graves.

This pious duty being performed, Colonel Keith demanded of his prisoners a complete list of the names of the men who had participated in the ambush and abused the bodies of the two soldiers.

They refused. He then gave them formal, written notice, that, unless within the next forty-eight hours the names were disclosed, he would burn and utterly destroy the town of Houma, lay waste all the plantations in the vicinity, and confiscate all the movable property to the United States.

The prisoners being left to thoir reflections, soon came to terms. They sent for Colonel Keith, gave up the names of the murderers, and furnished information as to tin, direction of their flight. Then ensued, for several days and nights, such a scouring of the country for the fugitives, as Lafourche had never known before. They were traced from plantation to plantation, from the open country to the forest, through the forest to the bayou. The pursuers found the planters haughty and defiant. Several of them boasted that they had harbored the fugitives and helped them to escape, and refused to reveal the direction they had taken. There were five of these gentlemen. Colonel Keith swiftly doomed them to the penalty of participators after the fact. Their houses, barns, shops and stables were burned; their horses, mules and cattle driven away; their persons seized and conveyed to New Orleans.

The ringleaders of the ambush contrived to elude the pursuit ; but several of the less guilty participants were arrested. Before leaving Houma, Colonel Keith caused the jail into which the wounded soldier had been thrown, to be leveled to the ground by battering-rams. He hoisted the flag of the United States upon the court-house, and announced to the assembled people that its removal would be the signal of his return to burn the town. He made a requisition upon the authorities for a sum of money to defray part of the expenses of the expedition. Finally, he heaped burning coals upon the sore heads of the residents of Houma by distributing among the suffering poor of the town a considerable quantity of provisions, and leaving behind him for their benefit a drove of confiscated cattle.

That is General Butler's idea of guerilla hunting. (General Butler in New Orleans, James Parton, 1864)

This account is based on a letter from Col. Keith written on May 22, 1862 to Gen. Butler (War of the Rebellion, Ser. 1, Vol. 15, C. 27, 450-56).