Soldiers' Rest

The name Soldiers' Rest outlasted the army that gave it. In 1862 and 1863 enslaved people from the surrounding plantations walked into the Union camp near Lake Providence seeking freedom, and the refugee population grew from a few hundred to several thousand. After the war, Black Union veterans settled in the area, and some owned land, particularly here. Black voters helped elect local officials until white conservative groups known as Bulldozers turned to violence against Black voters, teachers and their supporters.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Grant's Canal, Lake Providence — 0.5 mi
  About 1,000 feet of the ditch Union troops dug in early 1863 to get Grant's army around Vicksburg, with a boardwalk, a pier and a visitor center in the Byerley House.
• Louisiana State Cotton Museum — 1.7 mi
  A state museum on US 65 north of Lake Providence with a sharecropper's cabin, a commissary and a gin house, in the parish where John H. Scott worked for Black voting rights.
• Poverty Point World Heritage Site — 18 mi
  Louisiana's only World Heritage Site: six C-shaped ridges, a 43-acre plaza and Mound A, raised on Macon Ridge between about 1700 and 1100 BCE.

More markers nearby

• Lake Providence Confederate Monument — steps away
• Battle for the Mississippi: The Vicksburg Campaign — 0.5 mi
• Grant's March Through Louisiana — 0.5 mi
• Grant's Canal — 0.5 mi