Battle of Calcasieu Pass

Calcasieu Pass was a small fight with a cattle grievance behind it. By Confederate accounts, Union gunboat crews had been taking cattle and horses from farms near the river mouth. On May 6, 1864, Colonel W. H. Griffin gathered a scratch force, hauled his guns to about 1,000 yards and struck at night while the boats slept. Captain Joseph Brickhouse later remembered fewer than 300 poorly armed infantrymen and four small pieces. Both gunboats, Wave and Granite City, were taken and later served as blockade runners.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cameron Parish Courthouse — steps away
  The 1937 concrete courthouse that sheltered hundreds of people in Hurricane Audrey in 1957 and stood after Rita in 2005.
• Sabine National Wildlife Refuge — 9.1 mi
  Louisiana's largest coastal marsh refuge, with a 1.5-mile Wetland Walkway of concrete and boardwalk where alligators sun beside the trail.
• Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge — 19 mi
  A refuge of freshwater marsh, coastal prairie and old rice fields, with a visitor center, a boardwalk and the one-way Pintail Wildlife Drive.
• Stark Museum of Art — 32 mi
  A white-marble museum in Orange built by the Stark Foundation and opened in 1978, holding Western art, American Indian art, Audubon's Birds of America and Steuben glass, free to enter.

More markers nearby

• Hurricane Rita — steps away
• Gerstner Field — 27 mi
• Lutcher & Moore Lumber Company — 31 mi
• Samuel H. Levingston — 31 mi