The Battle of Bermuda Bridge

The Army's own account dates the fight to 26 September 1941, during the Louisiana Maneuvers. Patton's Blue convoy of about 500 vehicles was held up near Oakland by three Prud'homme boys, Alphonse, Kenneth and Mayo, aged fourteen, twelve and nine, armed with a foot-long carbide cannon and firecrackers. Blue troops answered with rifles, machine guns, a howitzer and smoke screens. After about half an hour an umpire asked their father to call the boys off, saying they were holding up the war. Kenneth learned of the story's fame in the 1980s.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cane River Creole National Historical Park — steps away
  Oakland and Magnolia, two Cane River cotton plantations kept as they stood, told through the enslaved families who worked them, the 1864 and 1804 freedom seekers and the tenant farmers who stayed into the 1960s.
• Melrose Plantation — 4.8 mi
  The Cane River estate built on land granted to Louis Metoyer, son of Marie Thérèse Coincoin, with the Yucca House and African House, later an artists' retreat; guided tours Thursday to Sunday.
• St. Augustine Church, Isle Brevelle — 5.1 mi
  The parish church at the heart of the Cane River Creoles of color, begun by Augustin Metoyer on his family's land and still holding Mass for the community that grew from Marie Thérèse Coincoin's children.
• Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Historic Site — 8.0 mi
  A reconstruction of the 1716 French fort beside the Natchitoches village, with a palisade of nearly 2,000 pine logs, a chapel and storeroom, and living-history programs, open Wednesday to Sunday.

More markers nearby

• Working Iron — 0.2 mi
• Ghana House — 4.8 mi
• Yucca House — 4.8 mi
• Clementine Hunter Home and Studio — 4.8 mi