Bayou Vermilion

On April 17, 1863, General Richard Taylor ordered the Pinhook bridge burned to stop General Nathaniel Banks's advance, and General Alfred Mouton carried out the order. The armies traded artillery fire for about four hours, and Taylor's outnumbered men withdrew overnight; Banks went on toward Alexandria. In October the bridge burned again. At the second action, on October 9, Confederates burned a pontoon bridge, and David Edmonds counts five Union soldiers wounded and calls it a bloodless victory for the Union.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vermilionville — 1.8 mi
  A living-history village of about 23 acres on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, opened in 1990 to interpret the Native peoples, Acadians, Creoles and people of African descent of the Attakapas region.
• Cypress Island Preserve at Lake Martin — 6.9 mi
  Nearly 10,000 acres of bottomland hardwood and cypress-tupelo swamp at the south end of Lake Martin, owned by The Nature Conservancy, with a boardwalk and a rookery of egrets, spoonbills and alligators.
• St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church — 12 mi
  The Mother Church of the Acadians, founded in 1765 on St. Martin Square in St. Martinville, with a late 1870s Lourdes grotto and, a block away, the Evangeline Oak on Bayou Teche.
• Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site — 12 mi
  A bayou-side state site on former Attakapas hunting ground, with a raised Creole cottage of about 1815, a reproduction 1800 farmstead and its slave quarters, and the story behind Longfellow's Evangeline.

More markers nearby

• James Domengeaux — 0.7 mi
• Dedicated in Honor of Christiana Gordon Smith — 1.0 mi
• McNaspy Stadium Memorial — 1.1 mi
• Amédé Ardoin / Dennis McGee — 1.2 mi