Photo by Amy Delaune
In common with most history lovers, I like to play “When Did the South Lose the Civil War?” You can make an argument for nearly any day of that gory conflict being the final nail in the stars-and-bars-draped coffin of the short-lived CSA; but a perennial favorite, and my choice, is the fall of New Orleans to Union forces in April of 1862:
The Confederate plan to defend its most valuable territorial asset that April was as simple as it was ineffective. The city was lightly manned and fortified, hardly prepared to resist an enemy coming from the river; most of the defenses near the city were in Chalmette, under the assumption that a Union attack would be similar to the British assault during the War of 1812 via Lake Borgne and then across land. To prevent an assault from the river, Confederate New Orleans relied on two forts, Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson, to keep Union naval forces from moving up the river toward the city. These two forts, straddling the river in southern Plaquemines Parish, fought doughtily against the Union forces coming up the river; but unfortunately for the defenders, the Northern boats were commanded by flag officer David Farragut—the man who, during the later Battle of Mobile Bay, would holler “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” When he couldn’t reduce the forts through bombardment as quickly as he wished, Farragut ordered his fleet to simply sail past them and menace New Orleans, while a detached force remained behind to take the forts. New Orleans, vulnerable to artillery fire and worried that the Union boats might pummel the levees and let nature take its course, surrendered quickly.
The forts still stand, more or less, in Plaquemines Parish. Fort St. Philip, on the east bank, is in private hands, and can now only be reached by boat or helicopter. Time and hurricanes have left it largely in ruins, although local lore—apparently true—records that for several years in the 1980s, a commune made it home. Polite but eccentric, as members of communes tend to be, they bragged about their intended self-sufficiency but were occasionally seen walking into town to visit the grocery store.
Fort Jackson saw use as a prison during the rest of the Civil War and was later used as a minor training base. It was retired after WWI, passed into private hands, and in the 1960s, was gifted to Plaquemines Parish.
[Read this: "Point and Shoot," how photography put the Civil War in perspective.]
I couldn’t be sure Fort Jackson was open to the public; one Internet source said it was closed; another gave museum hours. A friend had gone and said it was closed up and surrounded by horseflies, but she’s a federal employee and has less leeway to tug hard on locks than certain freelance writers might have. Armed with insect repellent and my best, “Gosh, the gate was open when I got here!” expression, I drove down to investigate.
To my delight, the fort had a moat; to my relief, it also had a port-a-potty near the front gate. That was where my luck ran out. Both the front and back gates were locked tight, with bright new padlocks pinning old, rusty chains in place. The corner of one wall had lost a couple of bricks, and there was at least one drainage tunnel with daylight at the other end—at seventeen, I could and would have gotten in through one of those avenues, but now that I’m stouter and more risk-averse, it was a no-go. I settled for a slow walk around the perimeter of the squat structure, star-shaped to make it more likely that passing cannonballs could strike only glancing, imprecise blows. Dragonflies, which I have always considered lucky and which I now know, from last month’s article about eating insects, to be delicious, flitted thickly through the air. The grounds were dotted with picnic tables, and I found the brick entry to a tunnel behind the fort. I liked the idea of exploring the tunnel but not the likely outcome of encountering some variety of critter, so I continued my circuit of the fort. Before leaving, I looked across the river for some evidence of Fort St. Philip, but couldn’t make anything out through the trees.
Driving back, I was so lost in thought that I almost missed the Fort Jackson museum by the side of the road. The new, tidy little museum is full of treasures from and about Fort Jackson, chief among them long-time curator Sarah McKee. McKee confirmed the rumors about the commune—“I told them to come by and I’d buy the vegetables they were growing, but I never saw even one”—and told me why Fort Jackson was now closed.
Reconstruction after Katrina had been long and painstaking, but had been worth it. The fort was now in excellent shape, with new guardrails along the top; and all the artifacts that could be salvaged had been excellently taken care of, though McKee mourned the gilt buttons the salt water had eaten into fragments. The museum, formerly inside the fort, was to be a new external structure about a mile away. Then came Hurricane Isaac, forgotten across much of the state but not in battered Plaquemines. The fort re-flooded, and the water softened the masonry. The fort had recently had to close again for safety, but now there was an added problem: Plaquemines is broke. Katrina, the BP error-fest, Isaac, and the collapse in oil prices have ravaged the parish’s budget, and there’s simply no money to pour into an important, but complicated, restoration and maintenance project. The morning of the day I visited, the parish president had unexpectedly passed away; McKee blamed the stress of looking for money to keep workers paid and the parish functioning. She mourned the loss of an ally in the struggle to keep the fort running and in local hands.
When I explained that I was down there looking for a story, she said, with a directness I wish everyone I spoke to used, “Oh, here’s a story for you.” She handed me a National Parks Service brochure and explained that talks were ongoing about the parish ceding the property to the NPS. At first glance, this sounds like a godsend, since the NPS could easily provide the expertise and, more importantly, cold hard cash to restore and preserve the fort. The problem with that is it becomes a federal property, and if there’s one thing the federal government likes, it’s rules.
[You'll like: "Treasure Hunting," geocaching at the edge of Louisiana.]
The people of south Plaquemines Parish had used the fort as a public space for decades. Family reunions, crawfish boils, and the annual Orange Festival took place within its walls; children came to play in the grassy area in the middle of the citadel; teenagers got up to no good in the supply tunnels surrounding it. None of this would be possible with the federal government’s standard “no alcohol, no free passage” set of rules. This little community jewel would be taken out of the hands of the locals to whom it had been gifted and made, in effect, something apart from the community. The fort would be saved, but it would cease to be a meaningful part of people’s lives. McKee, who said that during the Katrina restoration she would often tell people that she intended to live until that great work was completed, now faces the loss, one way or another, of the piece of American history she’s spent her career working in and for.
I thanked McKee and made my way out of town, stopping at a restaurant called Dad’s for some good old-fashioned road food. The chatty waitress, after bringing me some excellent corn nuggets, asked me why I was in town.
“To look at the fort,” I said.
“Did you like it?”
“What I could see of it. It’s locked up. Storm damage.”
“Oh, what a shame. Everyone used to have picnics there, and then, you know, that’s where we always used to hang out as teenagers. It was so much fun. I wish you’d gotten to see it.” She smiled, remembering some past escapade, as she walked back to the kitchen.
Fort Jackson Museum and Welcome Center 38039 Highway 23 Buras, La. (504) 393-0124
