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Client: Shreveport-Bossier City, Louisiana
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Cities to declare Confederate History Month next week
By John Andrew Prime
Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover and Bossier City Mayor Lorenz Walker will declare Confederate History Month in the two cities next week, repeating a similar declaration from last year.
Shreveport was the prize sought by Union President Abraham Lincoln in the 1864 Red River Campaign that culminated in the back-to-back battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill. In June 1865, Shreveport was the last capital city of the Confederate States to surrender to Union forces, carving a unique spot in the city's history.
It also was the city to which Confederate President Jefferson Davis was headed when he was captured by Union forces, and the last place on land where the Confederate flag waved, he penned in his memoirs.
Scott Solice, a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans, said he wonders why Shreveport and the rest of northwest Louisiana have not begun to plan ways to capture tourist dollars with this heritage for the approaching sesquicentennial of the Civil War, which will be observed nationally from 2011-15. Civil War centennial events from 1961-65 drew tourists globally to most Southern states and a few Union states, such as Pennsylvania and Vermont.
"A lot of committees and commissions have been set up in a number of states and communities to plan. And it's only two or three more years before the whole thing kicks off. And as far as I know, we haven't set one up."
Every five years, his group re-enacts the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill in a three-day observance. That will take place next in April 2009 and in April 2014, the 150th anniversary of the battles, Solice said.
"With the Red River Campaign being the biggest military operation west of the Mississippi River, we could really get some people here six years from now. And that's not considering the other major military events in the state, such as the fights for Baton Rouge, New Orleans and through the southern part of the state. If we don't do something soon, we'll miss out on it."
Glover, a student of history who took an active interest in the discovery of the site of Confederate Fort Albert Sidney Johnston in Allendale and worked to place a tombstone over the grave of Union Army Capt. C.C. Antoine in west Shreveport, said he isn't ignoring that potential.
"We're still researching that right now. What I find interesting is that at the federal level, as I have come to understand, there's still a wide range of thought in terms of exactly how, where, when, what exactly (will be done.)"
For instance, what events preceding the attack on Fort Sumter, S.C., would be included and for how long after the surrender of Southern forces at Appomattox Court House, which would include some of Shreveport's history in the war. Or Reconstruction, which dragged on for a dozen years after the surrenders and marked a civil rights milestone in this country.
"In terms of the Civil War, it's a different type of dynamic," Glover said.
It's an area with promise for Shreveport, said Don McEachern, CEO of North Star Destination Strategies, which just developed the "Louisiana's Other Side" branding campaign for the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau and includes the city's Civil War history in its tally of pluses for the area.
"Heritage tourism continues to grow. People are looking for more authentic experiences and are going to smaller communities to find that. So it's a good, healthy thriving tourism segment."
There are sensitivity issues of slavery and race, but history affords an opportunity to learn from the past, McEachern said. "You combine it a bit with education tourism. You tell the story and the lessons that were learned. Take the opportunity to educate."
