Earthen Walls, Iron Men: Fort DeRussy, Louisiana, and the Defense of Red River [Hardcover]

Steven M. Mayeux (Author)

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Steve Mayeux is a graduate of LSU and a former Marine officer. His work as an agricultural consultant in the central Louisiana area for the past thirty years has given him a great appreciation for the history and geography of the lower Red River.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 370 pages
• Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press; 1 edition (August 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572335769
• ISBN-13: 978-1572335769
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,617,427 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Earthen Walls, Iron Men, September 3, 2007

By 

W. Rome - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Earthen Walls, Iron Men: Fort DeRussy, Louisiana, and the Defense of Red River (Hardcover)

Much too often, so called historians/authors take the lazy way out of writing, particularly as it applies to the War for Southern Independence. They frequently cite the writings of other so called historians/authors for validation of their facts. The problem with this is that many of the other writings they cite are based on incorrect information or out right lies. The result is that incorrect history becomes accepted fact. Mayeux refreshingly starts from scratch in his book on Fort DeRussy. He does fresh leg work, getting to the real facts of what occurred there and the surrounding events as accounted for by both sides in the conflict. As a result, he uncovers many inaccuracies in other histories pertaining to the events surrounding the fort, and he clearly documents why these previous writings are incorrect. If one is interested in learning the no nonsense facts about Fort DeRussy and this period in our history, this book is highly recommended. It is lively and entertaining reading.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gibraltar on the Red River, March 19, 2008

By 

Mark Longstroth (Kalamazoo, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Earthen Walls, Iron Men: Fort DeRussy, Louisiana, and the Defense of Red River (Hardcover)

A unique book about a little known place that was extremely important in 1863 and 1864. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Red River Campaign, the Civil War in Louisiana or the Trans Mississippi Theater. Fort DeRussy seldom merits mention is most accounts of the Civil War. This book was not a rehash of old material. The author is able to draw on a wealth of local information as well as primary and secondary sources. Steve Mayeux gives us the story of the fort which was supposed to defend the Red River Valley from Union gunboats from its beginning to the end of the War. It captured the Queen of the West, provided troops to man the boats that captured the Indianola and defeated another gunboat attack before falling to a Union army that captured the fort without naval assistance. Fort DeRussy then served as an important Union station during the disastrous Red River campaign. I liked the author's easy folksy style, including his personal feeling and experiences in the text and footnotes. I also appreciated the footnotes on the page for easy access. It is in the footnotes that we discover more and more about how his ancestors owned the land, his great grandmother was born there just before the union army arrived and how he and others worked to restore the fort and have it protected as a Louisiana State Park.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars DeRussy - Gibralter it wasn't, August 31, 2007

By 

George E. Wright Jr. (West Covina, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Earthen Walls, Iron Men: Fort DeRussy, Louisiana, and the Defense of Red River (Hardcover)

There's a lot to like in Mayeux's book. His involvement with a preservation and restoration effort for DeRussy puts him in a unique position to get feedback from sources most historians might miss. The good things start with the cover - a blow-up drawing with artistic merit that appears to have been executed by someone who was actually present during the May, 1863 clash between the fort, two Confederate cotton-clads and a Union navy gunboat squadron. Prior to this useful depiction I'd never picked up on why the Fort's guns had been positioned relative to the first Red River raft. To attempt to run past the fort (a favorite Union tactic on the rivers), an attacking vessel was required to move upstream against the current, make a sharp turn to starboard, face a "raft" obstruction, after breaking through the raft, advance down a straight waterway toward the fort under fire for the whole process. All things being equal - DeRussy should have held them. Read the book to see why it didn't. From Board postings on the internet, it is clear that Mayeux has a wide knowledge of events along Red River during "the late unpleasantness". He shows admirable restraint by confining himself to his primary topic. The appendices are useful in terms of identifying individuals on both sides of the conflict serving in the DeRussy area. Amazingly, he includes a list of contracted slaves working on the fort and river obstructions that died. As such it is a unique tribute to a small portion of the vast number of Negro workmen who labored to execute the designs of the Confederate Army Engineer Department. I suspect that there will eventually be an update to this book. When it appears, I think it might be useful to add 2 or 3 pages on the kinds of ordnance used at the fort in its various incarnations and the tactical implications. Good job. Well worth the price.