Bennett's House and Battery

During the night of Tuesday, May 26, 1863, Confederates removed two pieces of siege artillery from the heavy batteries on the river and mounted them on this line, placing one rifled 24-pounder under Lieutenant Sanford of Company A, First Regiment Alabama Volunteers, on Commissary Hill and another rifled 24-pounder under Lieutenant Harman of Company A, First Regiment Alabama Volunteers, at Bennett's house. The house originally on this site was the residence of the Stephen Ambrose family, who farmed a one hundred and six acre cotton plantation before and after the war. During the Confederate occupation of Port Hudson, Major William K. Bennett of the Quartermasters Corps occupied the house before and during the siege and was in charge of the commissary department for the garrison. After the surrender, he escaped and brought Southern authorities their first official information of the fall of Port Hudson. The Confederates transferred a 24-pounder rifled cannon here from River Battery No. 1 to oppose the concentration of enemy cannons on Artillery Ridge, and troops in this area helped repulse the Union attack on the Slaughter Pen on the night of June 11, 1863.

Louisiana · United States