Camp Moore: Ghosts of the Civil War

by Ann Gilbert

In April 1861, when President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to counter the secession, Southern states did likewise in order to repel the Northern invasion. For the soldiers-to-be from 15 Louisiana parishes west of the Mississippi River, the gathering place was the New Orleans racetrack, located where Metairie Cemetery is today off I-10 approaching the city. The land was swampy, and there was no source of clean drinking water. Combine that with the temptations of the city, and “too many visitors,” and the military leaders began to look for a new site.

The piney woods near the village of Tangipahoa seemed ideal, with the railroad on the western border and the spring-fed Beaver Creek and Tangipahoa River providing fresh water. The new training base, named for then-Louisiana governor Thomas Overton Moore, became Louisiana’s largest training camp. Today, it is the only remaining Confederate training base open to the public, says Wayne Cosby, president of the Camp Moore Historical Association, which manages the museum and cemetery on the six-acre site.

According to Cosby, the number of men who were whipped into soldier-shape at Camp Moore might have been as high as 30,000. Initially, the troops were asked to sign on for 12 months, and only those between 18 and 35 years of age years were accepted. Those in positions considered crucial at home were allowed to remain there. But at the end of that first year, the Confederate boys were automatically re-enlisted and no parameters were put on age. The Civil War would last four long years and cost more than 600,000 lives.

The soldiers were first sworn into duty to the state, and then mustered into Confederate service. The first few thousand volunteer recruits boarded the train in New Orleans in May 1861 and traveled four hours to Camp Moore. The beginning of their war experience was barely one month after Fort Sumter; most had never been away from home.

Life was tough and monotonous in camp. One soldier described rain-drenched men and equipment. Another wrote his mother, “I miss your beans and greens.” Coffee might be made with acorns; breakfast could consist of a piece of salt pork; supper was beef—hopefully, not rancid—and some hard tack, a cracker made of flour and water. It was said that hard tack could stop a bullet. No mention was made of vegetables from a camp garden. The soldiers could avail themselves of the supplies for sale in the commissary, or the provisions offered by sutlers, who were vendors allowed at the camp. Louisiana had female vendors called vivandieres.

Companies and regiments elected their own officers, so political activity was likely at camp. Writing letters home helped to sustain them, and the ink was actually made at camp. Many had their picture taken. A headstone in Tangipahoa Cemetery marks the grave of Mrs. E. Beachbard, who died at Camp Moore in 1861. According to legend, she was the camp photographer. Tintypes and daguerreotypes of soldiers are part of the Camp Moore museum collection.

The trainees were about the business of preparing for war. When one wasn’t marching, duties included manning the pickets on the perimeter of the camp or guarding the railroad. Weapons and ammunition were scarce. The South didn’t have factories for production, so there were no firing ranges. Drilling was the order of the day. The soldiers were taught how to obey orders and how to work as a team. Many were farm boys who grew up shooting squirrels and deer, so they knew how to handle a gun.

One commander decided exposure to disease would strengthen resistance. Measles and other deadly illnesses swept through the hundreds of small tents in which the men slept on the ground wrapped in blankets. There was a hospital, but in addition, the sick were often cared for in neighboring homes. One solder wrote his folks that he counted about 100 graves. For most of its existence, Union soldiers were not the enemy at Camp Moore—it was disease. Hundreds never made it to the war they were so anxious to fight and so confident of winning.

The recruits were allowed alcohol the night before shipping out. One man was so hung over the next morning, he fell off the train and was “killed by a car.” Embarking on the train at the depot in the village of Tangipahoa, the typical soldier reached the front carrying a musket, a cartridge box and possibly a bayonet or Bowie knife. On his back were a blanket roll and a knapsack containing a change of clothes. Hung over his shoulder was a haversack with his rations. Camp Moore museum exhibits give a glimpse of the outfitted soldier.

Tragedy struck for the Confederacy in April 1862 when a Union naval force swept past the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi River and trained its guns on New Orleans. The mayor surrendered, as the city was essentially defenseless. Not a shot was fired. Troops had been evacuated to Camp Moore. Baton Rouge was also taken. Gov. Moore sought refuge at Camp Moore during this time, and his saddle is on display in the museum.  

General “Beast” Butler commanded the occupying force in New Orleans for a time, until Lincoln was forced to remove him for his obnoxious behavior. With their men fighting in Virginia and elsewhere, the women of New Orleans waged their own war against the Union soldiers, including, so the legend goes, emptying their chamber pots from balconies onto them. Butler issued an order threatening that any woman showing disrespect would be treated as a woman of the street. An international scandal ensued, and Butler was removed, but not before recommending that Camp Moore be wiped out. The Federal forces that had taken Baton Rouge decided to concentrate on Vicksburg instead.

Confederate Gen. John Breckenridge, a former U.S. vice president, came down from Vicksburg, and, with the help of Camp Moore soldiers, launched an attack to liberate Baton Rouge in August 1862. Because he never got the promised support of the ironclad boat “Arkansas” to take care of the Federal gunboats in the Mississippi River, the effort was doomed. A model of the “Arkansas” is in the museum.

Camp Moore became less important in the summer of 1863, when conscription (the draft) became law. Most able Louisiana men were already at the front. The camp served mainly as a base for cavalry units active in the area. Union forces made two raids on Camp Moore in the fall of 1864 and destroyed everything they didn’t confiscate. They took the garrison flag, which the Camp Moore curator located at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond in 1983.

After the war, the old training camp returned to nature. Weather and the animals took their toll on the wooden headboards marking the graves. In 1891, the former soldiers in the area formed a chapter of the United Confederate Veterans, with 112 members and a committee to care for the graves.

With the rush to remove the timber in the early 1900s, descendants of the veterans formed a chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy to work to preserve the cemetery.

“The women kept the pressure on,” says Cosby. “We owe a great deal to them.” A timber company donated three acres, including the cemetery, and the legislature appropriated $2,000 for restoration. The ladies purchased a 6-foot-tall decorative iron fence and a cast-iron archway. Both still grace the cemetery. At the dedication ceremony in 1905, a former president of LSU, James Nicholson, pointed to a large beech tree covered with carvings, saying he had etched his name there when he was at Camp Moore. A photo of the tree can be seen at the museum.

With another legislation appropriation, the UDC commissioned a marble monument in honor of those buried at Camp Moore. The 22-foot statue, created in Magnolia, Miss., was hauled to the park in log wagons by teams of oxen. The 6-foot soldier holding his rifle at parade rest stands upon a shaft of four blocks of marble. The dedication ceremonies in 1907 were timed so those heading home could catch the train!

The indefatigable UDC members took up the cause again and began pushing for a state park and museum at the cemetery. It was dedicated in 1965, a full century after the end of the war. The museum is housed in a Louisiana-style raised cottage. Over the decades, the museum curators gathered the names of some 100 known dead who are buried at Camp Moore, and engraved headstones were installed in the ’90s. The markers placed 100 years earlier were blank.

The Camp Moore Historical Association got a 97-year lease with the state and reopened the park and museum in 1992 after it was closed by Gov. Edwards in the budget crunch of the mid-’80s. Staffed by volunteers, the park and museum operate with grants, memberships and donations through the Friends of Camp Moore, which also sells memorial bricks. Chapters of the UDC and Sons of Confederate Veterans provide active support.

The museum displays of weapons and shells, relics and replicas, flags and uniforms take one back into history and right into the life of a Civil War soldier. Of particular interest is a wooden chest holding some 20 bottles of tinctures and ointments. This was one of Cosby’s great finds. “Everything was designed to purge,” he says, “and to make the patient vomit, sweat or ….” There is also a surgeon’s journal and his kit for amputations, with the obligatory saw.

Archaeological digs at the site have recovered spoons, knives, buttons and buckles, a hand-carved pipe and a Roman Catholic medal. Artistic soldiers used lead bullets to made small carvings, which are also on display. Musical instruments, such as the harmonica, banjo and fiddle, recall the robust singing or quiet love songs heard around the campfire.

The uniform worn by the Louisiana Zouaves, called “Tigers” (the LSU team was named after them), always brings chuckles to museum visitors. Gypsy-styled baggy pants in blue-and-white-striped ticking are topped with a red shirt and bolero jacket decorated with braid.

The museum maintains a 1,000-volume library and a research center with letters and diaries of the soldiers and biographies of Confederate officers. The shop offers books, photographs and historic prints, and CDs of Civil War tunes. Also available is Powell A. Casey’s two-part book, “The Story of Camp Moore and Life at Camp Moore among the Volunteers as Told in Letters, Diaries and Newspaper Accounts,” which served as one resource for this article.

A living history and re-enactment attracting hundreds of participants on the weekend before Thanksgiving is the museum’s major event of the year.

During the annual re-enactment, some 150 men in authentic uniforms engage in skirmishes with canons and cavalry on the broad field adjacent to the museum. Their wives wear period dress and cook over wood fires. Visitors will not find any modern day conveniences in their small white tents. They are living the history and are delighted to talk about how they fought and how they lived. When all have departed, a peaceful stroll in the cemetery is broken only by the sound of the train barreling down the tracks with its whistle blowing.

If You Go

The Camp Moore museum is open from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. Entrance fees for the museum are $2 for adults and $1 for children; there is no admission fee for the grounds and cemetery. Take I-55 north to the Tangipahoa exit north of Amite and follow the signs to the museum on La. Hwy. 51, one mile from the interstate. The web site is www.campmoore.com; the phone number is 985-229-2438.