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Essays:"Appomattox to Red River" by - Arthur R. Carmody, Jr.

nearby Natchitoches and Marshall. Cotton was the foundation upon which the economy was built, with many factories and stores for the manufacture and sale of cotton gins, carriages, wagons, gun powder,bricks, saddles, shoes, tin, copperware, beer and whiskey.

Railroad charters had been issued which by 1862 were expected to link the city to Jackson, Mississippi to the east and to Texas to the west although this would not become a reality until after war's end.

The news of the fall of Fort Sumter reached Shreveport on Sunday, April 14, 1861, a cool, bright day. Two recently formed militia companies the Shreveport Greys1 and the Caddo Rifles, paraded to a mass meeting at the Gaiety Theater on Milam Street that afternoon. The theme of the gathering was that every able bodied southerner should rally to the defense of his native land. Within the week, a third company, the Shreveport Rangers, was formed and the Caddo Parish Police Jury passed a resolution appropriating $20,000 for "The assistance of our volunteer soldiers ... and for the support of their needy families."

Traditioinally, the summer months in nineteenth-century Shreveport had been leisurely. But such was not to be the case

(1) lnterestingly, the unit first used the English spelling "grey"; but soon the American "Gray" was adopted.

Essays: "Appomattox to Red River" by - Arthur R. Carmody, Jr.