André Cailloux (1825 – May 27, 1863)... Fallen Black Officer

[5fish]

André Cailloux (1825 – May 27, 1863) was a black officer in the Union organized Native Guard and died heroically at Port Hudson...

LINK: https://www.neworleansbar.org/uploads/files/TwoFallenSoldiers.6-6.pdf

Prior to the Civil War, Cailloux became a “free man of color” in 1846 when his owner supported his former possession’s petition for manumission. By 1860, the “gens de couleur Libres” community in New Orleans was between five and ten percent of the population. André married, apprenticed to learn his trade as a cigar maker and he and his wife had four children (three of whom survived to adulthood). He eventually organized his own cigar-making business. Though his earnings were modest, André Cailloux was looked upon as a leader within the free African Creole community of New Orleans.

Soon Louisiana seceded from the Union and war broke out in 1861. Cailloux became a lieutenant in Louisiana’s Native Guard, the Confederate regiment organized to defend New Orleans from attack. None of the Native Guard units, however, were ever called to active NEW ORLEANS NOSTALGIA Remembering New Orleans History, Culture and Traditions By Ned Hémard duty. They were disbanded before Union Admiral David Farragut captured the city.

In September 1862, Union General Benjamin F. Butler, military commander of the Department of the Gulf, formed an all-black Union Army 1st Louisiana Native Guard, this time in blue uniforms. André Cailloux joined this regiment and was made a captain of Company E (one of the best-drilled units of the entire Native Guard).

On May 27, 1863, Banks launched his forces against the well-fortified Confederate positions at Port Hudson. Cailloux was ordered to lead his company of 100 men forward in an almost suicidal assault, and his troops suffered severe casualties. Cailloux courageously cheered his men on in both French and English, leading several increasingly futile charges. Born a slave in Louisiana, he was one of the first black officers in the Union Army to be killed in combat during the War Between the States.

Snip ... Funeral Link: https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/1379

Since its founding 150 years earlier, New Orleans had never seen anything like it: immense crowds of black residents, including members of thirty-some mutual aid societies, thronging Esplanade Avenue for more than a mile to witness the funeral procession of André Cailloux, an African American Union captain who had fallen during the initial assault against Confederate ramparts at Port Hudson,

For six weeks Cailloux’s body rotted in Louisiana’s liquid heat, as rebel sharpshooters repulsed Union burial details. Not until Port Hudson surrendered on July 8th were Cailloux’s remains retrieved. By then the only identifying mark was a ring on a skeletal knuckle signifying his membership in the “Friends of Order,” a black self-help society he had helped found.

Callioux’s body lay in state on a raised platform in his New Orleans fraternal hall, his sword and uniform resting on the American flag that draped his casket. Two black Union privates assisted the abolitionist priest Father Claude Paschal Maistre, to deliver the last rites of the Catholic Church because the city’s pro-Confederate archbishop threatened with excommunication anyone caught ministering to former slaves. Two companies of the Sixth Louisiana (colored) regiment the hearse. Six black captains of the Second Louisiana Native Guards served as pallbearers. And playing the dirge accompanying the procession to the Bienville Street cemetery where Cailloux was laid to rest was a white regimental band from Massachusetts. The immense outpouring of black respect sprang from the deepest wells of gratitude André Cailloux’s martydom in defense of African American liberties and universal human dignity was instrumental in transfiguring a war for union into a war for freedom. It also radicalized this distinctive community, girding them for the no less challenging fight for equal citizenship that lay ahead.

 

[5fish]

Here is a description of the Native Guard assault at Port Hudson... it was only them...

LINK: https://www.historynet.com/americas-civil-war-louisiana-native-guards.htm

Just before the operations against Port Hudson began, the Louisiana Native Guards were presented with their regimental banner. When Colonel Justin Hodge handed the flag to Color Sgt. Anselmas Plancianois, he cautioned him that he was to protect, even die for, the flag but never surrender it. Plancianois responded, ‘Colonel, I will bring these colors to you in honor or report to God the reason why.’ His words were met with wild cheering from the ranks. The men finally had a flag of their own, and they were about to follow it into battle.

Port Hudson was a formidable stronghold. It crowned an 80-foot-high bluff along a bend in the Mississippi and was virtually unassailable from the river. The only possible way to attack it was by land, storming the defenses from the rear, but the Confederates had taken every precaution to guard against that eventuality. A line of abatis, felled trees with the branches sharpened, ran the entire length of the perimeter. Behind this were rifle pits and outworks. Finally, there was the main earthwork fortification, with 20-foot-thick parapets, protected by a water-filled ditch 8 feet wide and 15 feet deep. All the fortifications had been constructed using slave labor. Behind the works, the Confederates had mounted 20 siege guns and 31 pieces of field artillery. Though confirmed totals are not available, it is known that the Confederate garrison numbered more than 6,000 men. Dislodging them from such a strong position would have been a difficult undertaking for seasoned troops. It would seem far too much to ask of untried soldiers, but the Native Guards were eager for the opportunity.

Union artillery shattered the early morning calm on May 27, 1863, as the fort came under a heavy cannonading, intended to soften its defenses before the infantry was sent in. For four hours, Union guns hammered the fort.

The Native Guards, 1,080 strong, had been placed on the extreme right of the Union line. At 10 a.m., a bugle call signaled the attack, and the Guards surged forward with a yell. Between them and the works lay one-half mile of ground broken by gullies and strewn with branches, but the Guards advanced on the run. As they neared the fort, they were met by blasts of canister, fired almost into their faces from the works to their front. Artillery also fired into both flanks, and the carnage was terrific. Yet the Guards still pushed forward, unaware that something had gone wrong in the Union attack plan, and that they alone were taking on the fort’s garrison, a force six times their number.

Captain Cailloux urged Company E to keep pushing forward. As the color company for the regiment, his men drew unusually heavy fire from the Confederates, and a bullet shattered Cailloux’s left arm. He refused to leave the field and continued urging his men onward till they reached the edge of the flooded ditch. ‘Follow me!’ he shouted just before being hit by a shell that took his life.

With their commander dead, the troops of the color company halted momentarily at the ditch, and the Confederate defenders raked them with musket fire at point-blank range. To attempt a moat crossing in the midst of such galling fire seemed suicidal, so the men fell back to re-form for another attack.

Once again they charged the works, reaching a point 50 yards from the enemy guns, but the result was the same. By now, the Guards’ right wing was the only Union force engaging the fort. Unsupported and facing the entire weight of the Confederate defenses, they continued to press forward in a futile assault.

A number of soldiers from E and G companies jumped into the flooded ditch and tried to reach the opposite bank, but they were all shot down by the fort’s defenders. A white Union officer who witnessed the charge said, ‘they made several efforts to swim and cross it (the ditch), preparatory to an assault on the enemy’s works, and this, too, in fair view of the enemy, and at short musket range.’

The courage of the Guards was inspiring. Doctors in the field hospital reported that a number of black soldiers who had been wounded in the first assault left the hospital, with or without treatment, to rejoin their comrades for the second attack. Dr. J.T. Paine recorded that he had’seen all kinds of soldiers, yet I have never seen any who, for courage and unflinching bravery, surpass our colored.’

But courage alone could not overcome the extreme odds the Native Guards were facing. Rebel muskets and artillery were too much for them, and the ever-mounting casualties they were suffering were beginning to take the fight out of the men. Once again, they were forced to fall back, but not before several efforts were made to recover Captain Cailloux’s body, all ending in failure.

Incredibly, the Union high command still seemed to believe that the Native Guards could do the impossible. The Guards re-formed, dressed their lines and started forward at the double quick for the third time. They were met with the same galling fire that had doomed the two previous assaults, but still they rushed onward. Color Sergeant Plancianois had advanced the regiment’s colors to the enemy works when he was struck in the head by a 6-pounder shell. In all, six color-bearers were killed trying to advance the flag before the Guards were ordered to withdraw. With deliberation, they re-formed their ranks and marched off the field, as if on parade.

Of the 1,080 Guards who took part in the battle, 37 were killed, 155 wounded and 116 captured. Their conduct had made converts of most of the doubters in Banks’ army and proved that black troops could play a pivotal role in suppressing the rebellion. Their courage helped to pave the way for the more than 180,000 black troops who would don the blue and fight for the Union Army.

 

[5fish]

MISSING?

I found his grave but no his grave is considered to be unknown. How can his grave be missing after a funeral as big as it was... ?

... https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13787526/andre-cailloux

 

[rittmeister]

MISSING?

I found his grave but no his grave is considered to be unknown. How can his grave be missing after a funeral as big as it was... ?

... https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13787526/andre-cailloux

where do you get the missing from?

 

[5fish]

where do you get the missing from?

If you click on the find a grave link, you well browse around you will find the following...

Gravesite Details It is not certain that this is the grave of CPT Cailloux. Cemetery records do not indicate where the captain's grave is, and it is generally considered to be unknown. This grave is just one possibility.

 

[5fish]

There is a book... pricy book...

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Patrio...+André+Cailloux&qid=1571177083&s=books&sr=1-1

.

Summary:

Stephen J. Ochs chronicles the intersecting lives of the first black military Civil War hero, Captain André Cailloux of the 1st Louisiana Native Guards, and the lone Catholic clerical voice of abolition in New Orleans, the Reverend Claude Paschal Maistre. Their paths converged in July 1863, when Maistre, in defiance of his archbishop, officiated at a large public military funeral for Cailloux, who had perished while courageously leading a doomed charge against the Confederate bastion of Port Hudson. The story of how Cailloux and Maistre arrived at that day and what happened as a consequence provides a prism through which to view the black military experience and the complex interplay of slavery, race, radicalism, and religion during American democracy’s most violent upheaval.

AUTHOR BIO: Stephen J. Ochs is the author of two previous books, including Desegregating the Altar: The Josephites and the Struggle for Black Priests, 1871–1960,. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, and is chair of the history department at Georgetown Preparatory School.

 

[Tom]

The plot is-
"Square 3 St Patrick Aisle (Alley 3-R) L 29"

It is supposed to be for Cailloux but the only inscription is "PIA."

That's Italian for pious.

 

[5fish]

The plot is-
"Square 3 St Patrick Aisle (Alley 3-R) L 29"

I wonder why there is no inscription on the tomb...

I forgot the bio from Find a grave... I may dispute that first black hero but I will give him the first black hero in blue... Robert Small was the first black hero...

The first black Civil War hero.

Served as commanding officer of Co. E, 1st Louisiana Native Guards.
Andre Cailloux was born a slave in 1825 on a plantation owned by Joseph Duvernay near Pointe a la Hache in Plaquemines Parish.

Killed at Port Hudson.
Buried: July day in 1863, age 38.
Residence was not listed;
Enlisted as a Captain (date unknown).
He also had service in:
US Colored Troops 96th Infantry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andre Cailloux, a black Creole who was born a slave, attained freedom, carved out a niche for himself and his family as an artisan in the antebellum Afro-Creole society of New Orleans, and died a U.S. Army captain and Civil Was hero whose courageous example continue to inspire civil rights activists in New Orleans down into the mid-twentieth century.

The life of Captain Andre Cailloux, a thirty-eight-year-old Afro-Creole had ended two months earlier, on May 27, 1863, as he gallantly led Company E of the 1st Regiment of Louisiana Native Guards in a doomed assault on the Confederate bastion at Port Hudson, Louisiana.

He landed as the nation's first black military hero, one of the first Afro-Creoles men to hold an officer's commission in the United States Army, and a member of the first black regiment to be officially mustered into the Union army and to engage in a major battle.

Union Officials sent Cailloux's remains, accompanied by wounded members of his regiment, to New Orleans via the steamer Old Essex. Arriving on July 25, the body lay in state in a closed casket for four days in the Urquhart Street hall of the Friends of the Order, a mutual aid society in which Cailloux had played a leading role and whose ring he had worn at the time of his death.

Flowers and lit candles, characteristic of Catholic funeral rites, framed the flag-draped coffin; Cailloux's sword, belt, uniform coat, and cap lay on the flag. A guard solemnly paced back and forth near the casket.

Northern newspapers such as the New York Times, the New York Herald, and Harper's Weekly, which had urged the use of black combat troops in the war, gave extensive coverage to Cailloux's funeral.

In life and in death, Cailloux, an Afro-Creole who took great pride in his ebony color, helped to bridge the gap between Creole free people of color and slaves on the one hand and Anglophonic, Protestant blacks on the other. His wartime experience pointed to a growing alliance between leaders of the two groups and to their shared embrace of radical politics. Cailloux's heroics represented the zenith for black combat officers during the Civil War.

No other black officer figured so prominently in a major engagement, since most were forced out of the army within a year. With Cailloux's death, Union officials effectively buried the brightest hope for black combat officers in the U.S. Army.

NOTE: After Cailloux's death, his widow, Felicie, struggled to receive the financial benefits promised by the United States Government. After several years of effort, she received a small pension. However, she died in poverty in 1874, working at the time as a domestic servant for the Catholic priest who had preached the eulogy at her husband's funeral.

Sources: http://www2.netdoor.com/~jgh/officers.html
http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CreoleCulture/
famouscreoles/andrecailloux/andrecailloux.htm