The Gunboat Diana

The Diana worked two days running for the side that had captured her. On April 13, 1863, at Fort Bisland, she shelled Union troops from the bayou, and U.S. gunboats joined the fight late in the afternoon. The next day, at Irish Bend, she anchored the Confederate right on Bayou Teche while Richard Taylor's men faced Cuvier Grover's division. Taylor's retreat from Bisland was already under way, and the boat that covered his flank on the water was only one part of a campaign fought on the Teche itself as well as in the cane fields beside it.

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

• Battle of Irish Bend — steps away
• Jared Young Sanders — steps away
• Franklin — steps away
• Charles Austin O'Niell — steps away