Historic Church & Cemetery at St. Francisville, Louisiana

These pictures are from a historic cemetery at St. Francisville, Louisiana. The cemetery is famous for the fact that during the Civil War, Union and Confederate soldiers were fighting a battle in this area. At one point in the battle a truce boat came down the Mississippi River with Union soldiers aboard. One of their officers had been killed in the fighting. The officer had requested before he died that he wanted to have full Mason funeral since he himself was a Mason. In order for this to happen, they needed a Mason of a particular rank in order to perform the funeral ceremony. The soldiers from the Union side did not have anyone of that rank of Masonry to fulfill this duty. Thus, they sought the help of the enemy. It happened that the Confederates did have such a man who could perform the Mason funeral but they would have to fetch him from another detail. Both sides held the truce long enough to have the proper burial rites for the deceased Union officer. The officer was buried in the cemetery at St. Francisville. As years passed, the locals at St. Francisville began to celebrate the truce that they remembered long ago when the war in the area ceased to honor the dead. They kept the grave site in an honorable way throughout the many years of the annual remembrance.

Not too many years ago (in the early 1990's), the descendants of the Union soldier who was buried at St. Francisville, came from one of the eastern seaboard states to investigate the possibility of exhuming the remains of their relative and reburying them in the town of his origin. However, after consulting with the locals in St. Francisville, they realized that their deceased relative had and would continue to have more honor and remembrance in the town of his burial than he would have if the remains were removed. Thus, they left things as they were. These pictures are of the cemetery and the church that still functions as an active congregation.

Follow this link to read an expanded version of this story:
http://www.stfrancisville.net/town/news/june05.html