Civil War general honored with marker in Red River Parish

A Civil War general killed in a bizarre battle 144 years ago was honored Saturday with a state marker erected in his memory.

On April 12, 1864, Texan Thomas Green was killed when a cannon blast tore most of his head off as he led 2,500 Confederate horse soldiers in a fierce firefight with three Union Navy gunboats. The boats, a as federal forces fled after the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill.

The body of Green, a national hero from his service in the Mexican War, was taken to Austin, Texas, where he was given a state funeral.

A marker near the spot of the one erected Saturday by the Order of Confederate Rose and the state Sons of Confederate Veterans was in place until the 1960s, but disappeared over the years. The new marker is on the Lock and Dam No. 4 access road just east of state Highway 1 in Red River Parish, just yards from Red River.

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