Battle of Irish Bend

The fight is also called Nerson's Woods, after the timber where Confederate troops waited about a mile and a half north of Franklin. It was the second half of a flanking move. On April 13, 1863, General Cuvier Grover's Union division landed near Franklin and scattered the Confederates sent to stop it, then crossed Bayou Teche that night to be ready at dawn. The next day the captured gunboat Diana anchored the Confederate right on the bayou. Grover, with the larger force, deployed fully, and Richard Taylor pulled back instead of risking a bigger battle.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Grevemberg House Museum — 0.8 mi
  Franklin's 1851 Greek Revival townhouse, the official St. Mary Parish museum, saved from demolition by one vote and set in the Franklin Historic District on Bayou Teche.
• Chitimacha Museum — 6.9 mi
  The Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana's own museum at Charenton: the tribe's account of its territory, the French wars and enslavement, the land held in trust, and river cane baskets.
• Wedell-Williams Aviation and Cypress Sawmill Museum — 15 mi
  A Louisiana State Museum in Patterson on the world's largest cypress sawmill town and the Wedell-Williams racing planes, with a theater and changing exhibits.
• Cypremort Point State Park — 22 mi
  A 185-acre Vermilion Bay park reached by road, with a half-mile man-made beach, a marsh boardwalk, shore fishing and a boat launch, and a Chitimacha tradition of a great cypress here.

More markers nearby

• The Gunboat Diana — steps away
• Jared Young Sanders — steps away
• Franklin — steps away
• Charles Austin O'Niell — steps away