Confederate Heritage Month! 
provided by the:
Georgia Division of The Sons of Confederate Veterans
Confederate History and Heritage Month Committee

Louisiana - Proclamation issued by Shreveport, Bossier City mayors.

Proclamation issued by Shreveport, Bossier City mayors.
April 12, 2007

Confederate soldiers fire a cannon at Union forces during a re-enactment of a major skirmish called Wilson’s Farm at the site of the Pleasant Hill battlefield about three miles north of Pleasant Hill on state Highway 175 last year. (Val Horvath/File/The Times)

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 Confederate History Month declaration
 

By John Andrew Prime
jprime@gannett.com

Following their predecessors' examples, the mayors of Shreveport and Bossier City have joined the state of Louisiana in declaring April as Confederate History Month.

The proclamation was signed by Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover and Bossier City Mayor Lorenz Walker last week, according to David Hill, commander of the Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor Camp of Sons of Confederate Veterans.

April 1861 was when the Civil War began with bombardment of Fort Sumter, S.C. The war ended for most of the nation in April 1865 with the surrender of Confederate armies to Union commanders Lt. Gen. U.S. Grant and Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman.

However, the war did not end in the region west of the Mississippi River until summer 1865, with the surrender of Confederate Lt. Gen. E. Kirby Smith's Department of the Trans-Mississippi and the lowering of the last Confederate battle flag in Shreveport.

Several events mark commemoration of Confederate History Month in northwest Louisiana, starting with re-enactment of the April 9, 1864, Battle of Pleasant Hill this weekend.

From 10 a.m. to noon Friday, there will be special activities for schoolchildren, while camps and many activities will open to the public at 9 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

"Area schools come for live demos on just about everything dealing with the time and the war," event planner Scott Solice said, noting that the big re-enactments will be Saturday and Sunday. "Battles on both days are at 2 p.m. And there is a parade on Saturday at 10 a.m. in Pleasant Hill."

The back-to-back battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill blunted a federal campaign to capture Shreveport, the Confederate capital of Louisiana and the entire district's military headquarters. The campaign, designed by Union President Abraham Lincoln to force Texas out of the conflict, proved a disaster and almost ended with the capture of the entire inland U.S. Navy on Red River at Alexandria.

The other Confederate History Month event scheduled is a rededication ceremony at 2 p.m. April 21 in Keatchie Confederate Cemetery. That's off state Highway 172, a quarter-mile west of Keatchie.

Members of the Taylor Camp, joined by the SCV's Col. James Hamilton Beard Camp and Shreveport Chapter 237 of United Daughters of the Confederacy, will stage a memorial to dedicate a new flagpole, a monument and 103 new VA markers on the graves of Confederate soldiers buried there.

The graves mark the last resting sites of soldiers mortally wounded in the April 8, 1864, Battle of Mansfield and taken to a makeshift hospital in Keatchie for treatment.

Most of the graves are for unknown soldiers whose names are lost in time.

"I have done some research over the past few months to locate names of men (who) were actually buried in the cemetery," Hill, who researches local Civil War history, told The Times. "Unfortunately, these records were lost, but I was able to find five."

Above article from:

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007704120340