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8B • SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2016
THE SEA COAST ECHO
*riest
■	Continued from Pg, 2B
and sisters of charity are deserving of the highest praise for their kindness to the wounded," the paper said. "They would have suffered, hut for their care and they are respectfully recommended to the general commanding."
The "dispatch" that was offered to the New Orleans Times tells the story of both landings of the 9th Connecticut on Oct. 5 and Oct. 20. lt was also sent to other newspapers, which ran similar stories. The author of the "dispatch" was listed as a "brave and gallant officer, himself on the expedition."
According to available records, the only two officers to participate in both
£
Ship Island as it appeared in 1863.
raids were Sawyer and Lawler.
One possible reason the encounter with Le Due w.as not reported was because it was a well-known policy of some Union generals, such as William Tecumseh Sherman, to bum and pillage towns to punish the Confederacy and to hopefully bring about a quicker
end to the war.
Sawyer was probably well aware that his decision to spare the town would have been questioned by superiors.
Interestingly, the report that ran in the "New Orleans Times." which would have been seen by Union commanders in New Orleans, is not included in the official adjutant general's log of the Louisiana. Alabama, and Mississippi theatre.
Union leaders may not have wanted a story of mercy to leak out. much like commanders in World War One did not want word of the Christmas Eve Truce to affect the fighting spirit of their men.
The only report to survive "official" military records is a supplement report to the records of Company A of the 9th Connecticut, a company
that took part in the raid, but was not under the control of Sawyer's Company
H.
Nevertheless, Sawyer and his men did not destroy Bay St. Louis and they never returned.
Legacy:
The 9th Connecticut returned home on furlough a few months after the incident in Bay St. Louis, and later returned to fight in Virginia towards the end of the war.
Many of its soldiers are buried at the Chalmette National Cemetery, some of whom died well after the Civil War.
Sawyer and Lawler both resigned from the army in early 1864.
Sawyer later moved to Maine and started a family, but according to the 1880 census he returned to Louisiana and became a
planter. According to a pension receipt, he died in 1897 in Guatemala at the age of 64.
Local historian Ron Skellie said that it was not uncommon for Union soldiers to return to locations they had occupied during the war.
Some soldiers would eventually marry women they had met in Louisiana, while others may have had a final wish to be buried with their fallen comrades.
One soldier, James H. Lawler, who is buried in Chalmette died in 1893.
The 9th Connecticut was one of the first Union units to return a captured Confederate battle flag to its original owners.
According to Skellie, the 9th Connecticut returned the flag of the 3rd Mississippi Infantry, which it took as a prize after an engagement in Pass
Christian in 1862. The flag is currently housed at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
According to historians, members of the Third Mississippi and 9th Connecticut were often frequent visitors and "special guests" at post-Civil War functions and reunions.
Although Father Henry Le Due did not found OLG parish, he is widely-accepted as the man who laid the groundwork for what the church has become today.
Many of the satellite churches that Le Due built in his 38 years have now gone on to become their own individual parishes and Catholicism is still strong in Hancock County.
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USINESS SPOTLIGHT
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Mi	MUM c EMOTTKw
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