1862-1865 Niblett's Bluff & The Old Confederate Military Road

 

1862-1865

Niblett's Bluff

Vinton, Louisiana

* Yes, this is a violation of my stated intention to focus on the Eastern Theater.   




"Although no bloody battles were fought here, thirty ["]heroes["] were struck down by disease and their graves bear silent testimony to those grim days of the South."




I don't know what's more disturbing: that they were founded in 2000 or that they reenact a battle that never happened. I'm not sure if the prehistoric stonecutters have any direct connection to the Lost Cause worshippers, others than sharing the same idyllic spot along the river. 



"Niblett's Bluff was a trading post and a prominent stop-over on the Old Spanish Trail long before the War. A man named Niblett operated a store near the banks of the Sabine River and his name was given to the settlement in the early 1830s. The old cemetery here numbers many graves more than 100 years old.

The Bluff was a large shipping port during the War. Many cargoes were shipped to and from the Texas Gulf Coast and Mexico for the Confederate forces here. The Confederate Commission to England took ship at Niblett's Bluff for Galveston, Texas, from whence the Commission left on its memorable[y failed] journey to London to secure aid in the form of ships and money for the Confederacy.

"During the Civil War, especially in 1863 and 1864 when the federals were probing for a point through which to invade Texas, Niblett's Bluff was a gathering place for recruits and supplies for the Confederacy's Trans-Mississippi Department. There was also a military hospital there. In 1958 the Louisiana and Texas divisions of the United Daughters of the Confederacy placed a gray granite marker at the cemetery site as a memorial to the more than thirty men buried there. "

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=136732


https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=136233
Not that anybody is counting, but that is their second memorial within walking distance. 

"The disease was an epidemic of measles. The cemetery, next to the church, contains no Confederate graves. * The soldiers were buried in a mass grave and the post was abandoned.  Louisiana and Texas Divisions of the United Daughters of the Confederacy jointly own a small portion of land there and have erected a marker. The property is nicely fenced and right across the street from Niblett's Bluff Park. The park is a lovely place for family picnics, camping and other outdoor activities."




*Several Confederates in the cemetery,
 and with American flags. These guys survived the war!











Sources:

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/nibletts-bluff

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~laudc/niblet.htm


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