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2B • SATURDAY, APRIL 23,2016
THE SEA COAST ECHO
Priest
■	Continued from Pg. 1B
travel to Ship Island on humanitarian missions to retrieve medicine and goods for the poor of the community.
One one occasion, Le Due and an altar boy who was traveling with him were stopped by a Union gunboat and briefly detained, but later released.
"Those Irish boys"
The 9th Connecticut Volunteer Regiment was one of the most colorful units in the Union army.
Just like the sons of Bay St. Louis, the sons of New Haven, Norwich, and other areas in the Nutmeg State flocked to recruiting stations at the outbreak of the war.
The group from Norwich (New London County), known as the "Sarsfield Guard" were led by Captain Silas W. Sawyer and Lt. Thomas C. Lawler, both of whom would play roles in the events in Bay St. Louis on Oct. 20, 1863.
The 9th Connecticut was made up of mostly first-generation Irish Catholic immigrants, whose commitment to God and each other would prove evident throughout the conflict and long after.
After the Union victory in Vicksburg in July 1863, the 9th was stationed at "Proctorville," the name given to the area around Fort Proctor near Shell Beach in St. Bernard Parish.
War is hell
Construction crews excavating the rectory at the OLG church after Hurricane Katrina made a curious discovery. An unexploded cannon ball had been unearthed, but just how and why it was there puzzled the church administration.
According to the book "Louisiana's	Loss,
Mississippi's Gain," by Robert Scharff, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation.
After learning of the tannery and the salt-making operation in Hancock County, Union commanders set out to destroy them.
"If you could shell those places and seize the salt-boilers, we should get rid of the guerrillas and their sympathizers," Claiborne wrote.
The Union had several boats at Ship Island capable of traversing through shallow waters. Some of them were fitted with cannons which were used to deter blockade runners, and in this occasion to shell the city of Bay St. Louis in an attempt to destroy the tannery.
One account of the bombardment was given by the wife of James Ulman.
According to Ulman, as the gunboats approached, the family took refuge at OLG church, where they thought they would be safe. The first shell, however.
neath the hull of the ship to avoid detection from Union sentries who searched every ship passing through Fort Pike.
The Union soldiers were unable to find the tannery and returned to Ship Island.
First raid
The men of the 9th Connecticut had kept themselves busy after Vicksburg, first going to Baton Rouge, and then to New Orleans. They made frequent raids into Mississippi to disrupt war production, procure horses and cattle, and searching for southern cavalry which had been sent to the area to try to catch deserters fleeing to Union-occupied territory and to prevent the Union troops from wreaking havoc in Mississippi.
In one report, after a battle in Baton Rouge, Sawyer and his men were praised for capturing several enemy caissons.
In early October, Sawyer and his men got a more meaningful assignment.
Sawyer took a small detachment of men by boat to Bay St. Louis, most likely to find and destroy the tannery.
The Butternut and Gray, however, were waiting for them.
According to a "dispatch" that was printed in the "New Orleans Times" newspaper, the company had no sooner landed on shore when they encountered about "85 rebels" who opened up a withering fire from concealed positions behind houses and buildings.
Seven Union prisoners were taken, four of whom were wounded, and Sawyer and the rest of his men returned to Fort Proctor empty handed.
The four wounded men were taken to the home of Mrs. Giacomo Monti at Brown's Vinyard, which was located in Waveland near what is now the comer of Old Spanish Trail and Highway 90.
The book "The history of the 9th Regiment," published in 1903, says, without giving dates, that four men were wounded and three were taken prisoner at Bay St. Louis. The three non-wounded prisoners eventually ended up in Andersonville prison camp, where two of them perished in 1864.
Second raid
The third time was the charm for the Union in Bay St. Louis.
According to a dispatch from Commodore H.H. Bell, the U.S.S. Commodore on Oct. 15, 1863, a steamboat converted to a war ship, towed a yacht, the Corypheus, into the Bay of St. Louis and landed there with a detachment of 200 soldiers.
This	time,	the
Confederate soldiers were either	out-of-town	or
frightened by the large Union presence and the landing was unmolested.
A short time later, the Union soldiers found the tannery and burned it to the
G,	and Lt. Lee and Lawler from his own unit to form a coalition to go back to Shieldsborough and rescue his men.
The party totaled about 80 men, who were transported by schooner to Bay St. Louis and landed about 7 a.m. on Oct. 20, 1863.
This time, the Union was able to surprise the Rebels, who were about five minutes late getting to the beach and had too few soldiers.
When Captain John H. Marshal of Sibley's Alabama Cavalry and his small unit arrived, the 9th Connecticut opened fire, killing	several
Confederates. In an almost movie-like scene, the gallant Marshal brandishing a pistol in each hand and began firing, before Sgt.
Thomas Conner blasted him off his horse with a large caliber lead bullet fired from his Enfield rifle.
The 9th Connecticut had won the short skirmish and the remaining southern cavalry fled. Sawyer then sent out a hunting party to find the prisoners. With information obtained from the wounded Confederate troops, the four wounded men were located and taken back to the beach to reunite with their comrades.
The rest of the 9th Connecticut was fighting mad and hell bent on retribution for their earlier defeat and battle that morning.
They set fire to Lockett Hall and were preparing to set fire to the Pollock home when Le Due appeared.
He was granted an audience with Sawyer, and although their conversation has been forever lost to history, Sawyer agreed to spare the town.
According to an article published by Bishop Leo Fahey, the Union soldiers were "impressed by the courage of Father Le Due and they all began to take their hats off and kneel at the sight of the cross."
Local legend suggested that in return for not burning Bay St. Louis, Sawyer asked Le Due to hold a short mass or prayer service for his men on the beach just before they departed and Le Due agreed.
Whether or not that actually happened is open to debate; however, one indelible reminder of that
day still is clearly evident today.
The street that runs along the west side of Our Lady of the Gulf Church, the exact location where the events of Oct. 20, 1863 took place, has been forever since named Union Street. The earliest record of Union Street appearing on a map at the Hancock County Historical Society is in the early 1880s.
In the newspaper accounts, the encounter with Le Due was not mentioned, but the author did mention what can be interpreted as a reference to the brothers at St. Stanislaus and local nuns who reportedly cared for the Union wounded.
"The Christian brothers
• See PRIEST/Page 8B
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