Lesson #1: Never ask me to expand on something unless you really mean it.

Lewis DeRussy (Major Gen in the La. Militia, Colonel in the CS Army, Colonel of La Volunteers in the Mexican War, Major in the US Regular Army - so you pick a rank) designed the fort that was named for him on Red River near Marksville, La. He died during the War and was originally buried at Grand Ecore, Natchitoches Parish. The cemetery he was buried in was heavily vandalized over the years, so his descendants OKd moving him to Fort DeRussy when it was about to become a State Historic Site. I was in charge of the re-burial, and Kramer Funeral Home of Alexandria was handling the funeral arrangements. They have an office at Greenwood Cemetery in Pineville. While I was there with my wife discussing a monument for Gen. DeRussy, we decided to look through the old cemetery for ideas on what kind of grave marker we'd like. We found the grave of Isaac Adams, that had a really neat marble obelisk marker, ten or twelve feet tall. We both thought that one just like that would be perfect for the General, so we got one as close to that one as we could afford, in granite. I'd never heard of Isaac Adams. His birthdate indicated a good possibility that he'd served in the War, but he's not listed in Booth's book.

A few months later, while doing some research, I came across Isaac Adams' name in a list (in the ORN, Vol. 1, Series 2, p. 292) of men who'd served aboard the Missouri, Webb and Cotton (the old Mary T). The list has all three boats - they were all at Shreveport later in the War, I'm guessing that the crews moved from boat to boat, and were somewhat interchangeable? All of these boats had Ft. DeRussy connections. Adams' rank was listed as coal heaver (CH). I don't have my notes handy, but believe he was born in the 1840s, so I guess he was young during the War. He must have done well later in life, because that marble gravestone wasn't paid for with a coal heaver's salary.

I wasn't looking for him when I found him, I just kind of stumbled across the information and recognized the name. Kind of strange that of all the gravestones we could have chosen, we found one with a Fort DeRussy connection. But when we saw that marker, my wife and I both said, "This is the one."

The General's second funeral was in September 1999. It was a dry winter that year, so for a whole year afterward the grave had freshly mounded dirt on top. I liked to point out to visitors that that that was probably the only chance they would ever have to see the fresh grave of a man who was born when George Washington was President.