Vasconcellos, The Civil War, Part 4



The Civil War Years

In an interview with Sally (Colma Cellos) Malrose, we spoke briefly of the families involvement in the Civil War.  She said that President Lincoln took the Confederate money leaving the soldiers with nothing.  She remembered the story of Ferdinand making coffee from potato peelings.  She said the real reason for the Civil War was not only the slave issue, but the money involved with the cotton and the ginning which the North was charging too much for.  I actually found this same hypothesis in a book I was reading as well.  I guess there always is more than one side of a war and what caused it. 

Nevertheless, the war began and Ferdinand and Sarah were greatly affected by it.  The preceding poem was found with Ferdinand's things.  This poem has touched me deeply and it will touch you as well, as you realize that there are not really winners in war.  There is just a lot of dead and many broken hearts on both sides.

The Blue and the Gray   

 by Francis Miles Finch   

By the flow of the inland river,

Whence the fleets of iron have fled,

Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,

Asleep are the ranks of the dead;

Under the sod and the dew

Waiting the judgment day,

Under the one, the blue, Under the other, the gray.

Those in the gloom of defeat,

All with the battle-blood gory,

In the dusk of eternity meet;

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgement day,

Under the laurel, the blue,

Under the willow, the gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours

The desolate mourners go,

Lovingly laden with flowers,

Alike for the friend and the foe;

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment day,

Under the roses, the blue,

Under the lilies, the gray.

So with an equal splendor,

The morning sun-rays fall,

With a touch impartially tender,

On the blossoms blooming for all;

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment day,

'Broidered with gold, the blue,

Mellowed with gold, the gray.

So, when the summer calleth

On forest and field of grain,

With an equal murmur falleth

The cooking drip of the rain;

Under the sod and the dew;

Waiting the judgment day,

Wet with the rain, the blue,

Wet with the rain, the gray.

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,

The generous deed was done,

In the storm of the years that are fading,

No braver battle was won;

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment day,

Under the blossoms, the blue,

Under the garlands, the gray,

No more shall the war cry sever,

Or the winding rivers be red;

They banish our anger forever,

When they laurel the graves of our dead!

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment day,

Love and tears for the blue,

Tears and love for the gray.

 

Ferdinand entered the service in May 1863, as a private in Company B of the Red River Scouts Battalion, sometimes called the Red River Sharp Shooters or the Steamboat Battalion.  His company was formed at Shreveport in 1863, by the mounting of men who had served as crewmen on steamboats at Alexandria.   



 

General Edmund Kirby Smith formed the companies to act as rangers or pickets along the Red River.  On November 3, Company B, received orders to report to General Richard Taylor at Alexandria.  Taylor stationed Company B on the north side of the river to help scout out the vicinity of the lower Black and Quachita rivers.  By early March, 1864, most of Company B moved across the Red River, but a small detachment made up part of the garrison of Fort DeRussy when Union forces captured them on March 14.

 

Ferdinand V. Cellos, a private of Captain James Cassidy's company, who was a resident of New Orleans, appears on a roll of prisoners of war in the detachment of troops of the Confederate States Army, commanded by Major J.K. Gourdain, surrendered at New Orleans, LA., by General E.K. Smith, C.S.A. to Major General Canby, on May 26, 1865, and paroled at Alexandria, LA., in June 1865.

Ferdinand's brother, Felix Cellos, enlisted in the service June 7, 1861, as a private of Captain Rickety's Company G, of the 7 Regiment of Louisiana Volunteers.  Felix was discharged by reason of Surgeon Certificate of disability due to being wounded in battle.

Felix was indebted to the Confederate Army for one jacket, one pair of pants, one pair of drawers, and one pair of socks.  He was paid for service from July1, 1861-October 24, 1861.  Felix was paid $42.81 minus $6.55 which had been deducted for his clothing he wore home!

There were others in the family which also participated in the Civil War.  Lark McNeill was Ferdinand's brother-in-law.  He served at Port Hudson under General Frank Garrison.  Also, William Bartelle, a Nephew served with Company B of the Crescent Rigles in Charley Dreux's Battalion.

But a deep loss came to the family when Sarah's (Lyons) brother, Stephen Lyons, was killed on Confederate Ram Tennessee, in Mobile Bay, Alabama.  Stephen would have been 27 years old when he died.

It should also be mentioned that while the brothers, sons, and fathers were fighting the women of New Orleans, were busy with holding the family together, running the household and farms, and for displaying great acts of patriotism.

 

At noon on April 24, 1862, the Union Admiral entered New Orleans.  In the dismay and excitement, it was decided to burn the cotton so that it would not become "booty for the Yankee's."  Over $1.5 million dollars worth of cotton was burned that day. 

At that time, General Ben Butler was placed in authority over New Orleans.  He was a very course and brutal man that had no compassion for the broken hearted people of New Orleans.  His display of harshness was manifested to its worst degree in the order he set against the women of New Orleans.  He said, "As the officers and soldiers of the United States Union Army had been subjected to repeated insults from the women, calling themselves ladies, it was ordered that thereafter when any woman should by word, or gesture insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier she was to be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town."  Order #28 was not well received!