Smithsonian Civil War by Smithsonian Institution

Author:Smithsonian Institution [Kagan, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-58834-390-1
Publisher: Smithsonian
Published: 2013-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

80

PORT HUDSON BURIAL POST

IN MAY 1863, AS ULYSSES GRANT’S ARMY BESIEGED Vicksburg, Union troops under General Nathaniel P. Banks encircled Port Hudson, a strategically vital Louisiana town on the Mississippi River. His force was more than twice the size of the Confederate garrison but suffered losses on the order of ten to one when he assaulted the entrenched defenders. Not until July 9, after the fall of Vicksburg made their position hopeless, did the Confederates yield.

Among the nearly five thousand Union men killed or wounded there was Lieutenant Charles R. Carville. He was only eighteen when he enlisted in the 165th New York Infantry in 1862. Like many others his age, Carville probably felt compelled to serve his country and take part in the great events that would define his generation. His quick rise from private to second lieutenant between May and September 1862 speaks to a potential that would never be fully realized.

On May 27, 1863, Banks attacked the Confederate works in a debacle that left nearly two thousand Federals dead or wounded. Carville fought that day with the “soul and heart of a man and patriot,” according to his obituary in a New York paper. The headboard below marked the spot where he was buried—one of ninety-four men in his regiment who gave “their lives in the sacred cause for which they had taken up arms.” RL

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