Cleco Drilling Encroaches On Historic Civil War Battlefield In Mansfield

According to a report by KALB, an important Civil War battlefield in Mansfield, Louisiana is now threatened by the nearby expansion of lignite drilling. In an earlier piece by Louisiana Public Broadcasting, Gary Joiner, an LSU professor and Shreveport historian, claims that the drilling has already completely destroyed the site of the final phase of the battle and the campground of the Union forces.

The Louisiana Office of State Parks describes the battle:

Like many important battles, the Mansfield-Pleasant Hill engagement was actually a series of encounters taking place over several days. After a two-hour cavalry fight with Union forces near Wilson’s Farm on April 7, 1864, Confederate commander General Richard Taylor (son of President Zachary Taylor) elected to defend a site about four miles south of Mansfield, now the location of the state historic site. General N.P. Banks did not expect the Confederates to fight until he reached Shreveport, so the Union army became stretched out along the narrow road leading to Mansfield. This allowed Taylor to deal with his opponents on more equal terms since the Confederate troops were heavily outnumbered.

At noon on April 8, the head of the disorganized Union army (6,400 troops) was confronted by the Confederate army (10,500 troops) in battle formation. The Union troops quickly formed a line of battle along a rail fence and a ridge known as Honeycutt Hill. On orders from Taylor, General Alfred Mouton’s Division charged the rail fence. Mouton was killed leading the attack, but French born General C. J. Polignac, along with other Confederate forces, continued the attack and overwhelmed the Union line.

Two miles to the south, another 6,500 Union troops formed a defensive position at Chapman’s Bayou and held this location until dark. During the night the defeated Union forces fell back to Pleasant Hill. On April 9, the fierce Battle of Pleasant Hill was fought, with both sides taking heavy losses and withdrawing from the field after dark. By turning back Union forces at this time, the Confederates were able to prevent complete Union control of Louisiana and stop progression of the war into Texas. In fact, the Confederate victory at Mansfield may have prolonged the war by several months.

Hundreds of men, both from the Union and the Confederacy, lost their lives during this battle, and it is likely that many of them were buried at and nearby the site. The Louisiana Office of State Parks as well as numerous preservationists and Civil War historians support the continued preservation of the site, which was placed on the National Registry in 1973.

Louisiana Public Broadcasting named the battlefield as the most endangered historic site in the State of Louisiana, and the Civil War Preservation Trust places the Mansfield Battlefield on their Top Ten Most Endangered List. They explain their mission as follows:

Our Civil War battlefields are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Hallowed ground, where more than 600,000 Americans gave their lives, is being paved over for shopping malls and housing tracts. The same land upon which our nation was formed–where our ancestors fought and died–is being consumed by fast food restaurants, amusement parks, and other forms of urban sprawl.

Nearly 20 percent of America’s Civil War battlefields have already been destroyed–denied forever to future generations. Of those that remain, only 15 percent are protected by the Federal government. There is only one national organization working to save all of these battlefields: The Civil War Preservation Trust.

Many believe the site has already been damaged by the drilling activity. The Friends of the Mansfield Battlefield explains:

The years of neglect are benign compared to the current assault on the battlefield—a power company’s lignite mining that gobbles up this battlefield with two dragline buckets scooping up soil equal to the volume of a three-bedroom home. The lignite mine threatens important sites on the battlefield, having had free rein of the area for more than a decade. The Dolet Hills Mining Venture is being operated by AEP-SWEPCO, an affiliate of the national energy giant headquartered in Ohio. We seek to encourage them to preserve areas that have been identified as important as the story of history is being told today and to future generations.

The drilling is a joint project of Cleco, a Louisiana-based utilities provider. KALB interviewed Susan Broussard, a public relations officer at Cleco, about the project. Broussard told KALB: “We at Cleco recognize the historical significance of this area. It’s got a really rich history, much like most of Louisiana. And we balance that with the need to provide our customers with low cost power.”

Although some may think this activity could economically benefit the community, the property, as reported on KALB, is owned by a single landowner.

Cleco claims lignite helps them save money, but the science doesn’t back them up. From Wikipedia (and yes, there are footnotes):

Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is the lowest rank of coal and used almost exclusively as fuel for steam-electric power generation. It is brownish-black and has a high inherent moisture content, sometimes as high as 66 percent, and very high ash content compared with bituminous coal. It is also a heterogeneous mixture of compounds for which no single structural formula will suffice.

Because of its low energy density, brown coal is inefficient to transport and is not traded extensively on the world market compared with higher coal grades. It is often burned in power stations constructed very close to any mines, such as in Australia’s Latrobe Valley and Luminant’s Monticello plant in Texas. Carbon dioxide emissions from brown coal fired plants are generally much higher than for comparable black coal plants. The continued operation of brown coal plants, particularly in combination with strip mining and in the absence of emissions-avoiding technology like carbon sequestration, is politically contentious.^[1][2]

How, exactly, does this type of drilling save us money?

Regardless, this is not a viable solution to our country’s deadly addiction to non-renewable sources of energy. It is unfortunate and disturbing that we even have to discuss the “merits” of allowing a company to mine the final resting place of hundreds of soldiers, but it is not exactly surprising: America’s addiction has become all-consuming.

Watch this video from LPB about the forces that threaten the Mansfield Battlefield.