Faces of the Civil War: An Album of Union Soldiers and Their Stories

The Second Storming of Port Hudson

86 1st Lt. James Gardner Abbott, Company H, Fourth Massachusetts Infantry Carte de visite by James Wallace Black (1825–1896) of Boston, Massachusetts, about 1862 87 The Second Storming of Port Hudson James Abbott led by example. After word came down from Union army headquarters asking for officers and men to join a storming party to attack Port Hudson, Louisiana, the twentyseven -year-old first lieutenant from the Fourth Massachusetts Infantry signed up. Volunteering for this assault—the second against Port Hudson’s formidable defenses—required courage. A sixth-generation descendant of Massachusetts colonists, Abbott had grown up in Lawrence, a small town twenty-five miles north of Boston. At the start of the Civil War, he was married, had an infant son, and worked as an express messenger. In the summer of 1862, he enlisted as a private in the Forty-eighth Massachusetts Infantry, but left to accept a first lieutenant’s commission in the Fourth Infantry. He joined the staff of Company H, where his selfless conduct earned him the respect of his men. One private recalled , “he was a faithful officer neglecting himself for the good of his company.”128 In early 1863, the regiment departed for Louisiana , where it participated in the campaign to capture Port Hudson , which, along with Vicksburg, Mississippi, was the last Confederate bastion protecting the Mississippi River. Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks,129 commanding U.S. forces in front of Port Hudson, repeatedly threw his troops headlong against the Confederates’ elaborate fortifications. The first assault, on May 27, 1863, was spearheaded by two hundred men and ended in a bloody failure. Banks ordered another attack two weeks later. On June 14, a storming party consisting of two hundred and fifty men, including Abbott, led the assault. It failed, and casualties were high. Abbott survived but did not participate in the third, also failed, attack. He was, however, present when the enemy garrison was finally compelled to surrender, after Vicksburg fell on July 4. 88 He mustered out with his regiment after its nine months of service were completed. Abbott returned to Lawrence and his family, which eventually grew to three daughters in addition to his son. He became a U.S. Customs Service inspector and, in 1871, received a Medal of Honor from the Massachusetts Humane Society for saving two people from drowning. He became active in local politics in the mid-1870s, serving as councilman, alderman, and later justice of the peace. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1907 at age seventy-one. ...