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aissell Guerin
http://www.russguerin.com/history/hancock-county/fort-lovell/
He tells also of the dealings and arguments of his men, of their drinking and lack of discipline. Very little of his writing is of the geography of the area.
Still, there are clues. Some of these can be measured against what we already know about the city as it was constituted in 1862. We know, for example, of the whereabouts of the residences of some of the leading citizens. These have been traced through deed searches and other official documents. In addition, we have the Times-Picayune article of 1922 in which James A. Cuevas remembers back to the 1840?s and identifies from memory where all the important houses and businesses were located. Not always accurate, of course, his recollections represent an important gauge for the location of landmarks.
To a high degree of accuracy, we know the locations of such as Weinberg?s tailor shop, the grocery, the post office, the two piers owned by John Martin, Manuel?s place, Cedar Point, the hotel belonging to the Levis family (the Clifton), and the packet boat called the Oregon.
Why are the above listed? It is because they are all mentioned in the Foxworth diary. They are not described in a way sufficient to pinpoint the comings and goings of Foxworth and his troops, but all are clearly close by. A few mentions favor the location behind the marina, on Leopold St. One is the fact of pickets - sentries - being stationed at Cedar Point. It seems reasonable to believe that they would have been placed near enough to the fort to make a difference in case of an unusual activity, such as an invasion.
All through the diary, a reader may be caused to wonder about locations, but there is nothing that offers any certitude.
It is not until the end of the Shieldsboro segment, where Foxworth narrated the vacating of the 7th, that we might conclude that the location was indeed Leopold St. Foxworth and his group sailed on the Arrow, the others on the Grey Cloud. The latter sailed first, but, Foxworth reports, the Arrow could not catch the Grey Cloud until near the wharf ?on the lake.? In those days, ?the lake? referred to Lake Borgne and was considered to include the coastal area all the way to the Bay of St. Louis.
This means that the boats had left from a place above the wharf at Washington St. We know that wharf as the one that Cuevas called ?the Louisiana wharf in front of the Spotomo place.? Cuevas also details the location of the second wharf, ?the Hancock Wharf,? as being in front of John Martin?s house, clearly on the bay side, that is, northeast from the Louisiana wharf and toward Cedar Point.
While the Foxworth diary may not tell as much as we would like about our area during Civil War days, it is certainly a readable document that is highly personal and informative. Indeed, we would have been fortunate to have had a member of the returning 3rd Regiment, someone native to this area, to leave his observations for posterity.
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2/27/2015 10:42 AM