The Louisiana in the Civil War Message Board

Campgrounds Cemetery @ Pleasant Hill

On the evening of 4-8-1864 during the Red River Campaign, the 32nd Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment marched 20 miles along the road to Shreveport and made camp around 8 p.m. near an old log church and adjacent cemetery just below (southeast of) the little village of (old) Pleasant Hill, Louisiana. The bloody Battle of Pleasant Hill occurred the next day, not more than a mile ahead along the line of march, in fact just over the crest line of Pleasant Hill. It was near 9 o'clock the next morning before the 32nd moved out of the graveyard camp and advanced toward the honored front and center defense line of Banks battered retreating army, following Banks' Army of the Gulf's disastrous Battle of Mansfield on the 8th. The 32nd Iowa was one of three Iowa regiments in Shaw's Brigade, 16th Army Corps. of BG A.J. Smith's AOT command. See the following website for more details on the graveyard camp site.

https://archive.org/stream/storyofthirtysec01scot#page/136/mode/2up

It appears that this cemetery is now known as "Camp Grounds Cemetery" and can be seen in Google Earth at GPS 31 d, 50 m, 50 s North; 93 d, 29 m, 57 s West, being two miles north-northeast of new Pleasant Hill, LA. (2.0m @ N24E.)

Websites which identify the Campground Cemetery include:

http://www.la-cemeteries.com/Cemeteries%20DeSoto%20Table.shtml

and

http://files.usgwarchives.net//la/desoto/cemeteries/oldcamp.txt

Shaw's entire brigade was camped nearby, as noted in other Union reports. No Union men are apparently buried in Campground Cemetery.

{I came across this bit of historical trivia as I was trying to locate the trace of the old stagecoach road from Grand Ecore to Pleasant Hill that Shaw's Brigade (under BG Mower) march up during the 8th.}

Can anyone provide more guidance on the location of the Stagecoach Road from Pleasant Hill southeast to Grand Ecore, especially down to Marthaville?

Can anyone confirm or rebuff the notion that Campground Cemetery is where Shaw's Brigade camped, especially the 32nd Iowa.