drake1966

@Article{ drake1966,
	author = {W. Magruder Drake},
	title = {Two Letters of H. Winbourne Drake, Civil War Refugee in Northwest Louisiana},
	journal = {Louisiana History},
	volume = 7,
	number = 1,
	month = {Winter},
	pages = {71-76},
	year = 1966,
}

An introduction to these letters argues that Drake and his wife, who were refugees for two years in Bienville Parish, fared better than many refugees: “it seems that they adjusted fairly well to their new environment, they had moderately comfortable quarters, and they were able to make a living” (72).

Henry Winbourne Drake and his wife Lizzie had settled in Tensas Parish along the Mississippi River after their marriage in 1852. They fled to Bienville in July 1863 after the fall of Vicksburg, when Drake wrote to his mother from Ingleside that:

The P[h]ilistines are upon us,—all around us, devastating & destroying as we go. Lizzie & I are both feble folk & but little able to work for our large family. If we loose our negroes I dont know what we will do. If we stay here, we are bound to loose every thing, & perhaps be outraged & insulted, beside. So we have concluded to pick up what we can, & go.

On October 13, 1863, Drake wrote again to his mother from Buckhorn P.O. near Lake Bistineau, describing the accomodations they had arranged and their hiring of slaves at nearby Salt Works:

We are living on a place in Bienville Pa[rish] near Lake Bistineau—a comfortable log house & tolerable negro houses. It is a pleasant, healthy country, pretty good upland. We bought a crop of corn with the place which we are now gathering, with the women—the men we have hired at the Salt works eight miles distant. They come to see their wives every other saturday night (75).

A footnote says that after the capture of Avery Island, “the salt works at Lake Bistineau were by far the most important in Louisiana and larger than any of several others in the northwestern part of the state. At times one thousand to fifteen hundred men were employed there,” according to lonn1965, 22-25.