Columnist - Jim Bradshaw

Jim Bradshaw

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A narrow road leads to the Abshire Cemetery about eight miles northeast of Kaplan in Vermilion Parish. There are about 100 graves in the little cemetery. There is also a stone cross with an inscription. It reads:

In Memory of the 11 Men
Killed During the Civil War
Killed April 30, 1863
Easton Abshire, Elear Abshire,
Jack Abshire, Joseph Abshire,
Martin Abshire, Allan Hanks,
Pierre Istre. Theodule Simon,
William Abshire, Theodule
Monceaux, Euclide Richard
Donated by the Families
Made by Raney Richards
June 22, 1945
I’ve heard two stories about these 11 men memorialized on the Abshire Cemetery cross.
According to the first story, it is true that these men were killed during the Civil War; it may or may not be true that they were soldiers. Some people say they were part of a band of robbers called Jayhawkers who deserted the Confederate Army and returned to south Louisiana to pillage the countryside.
Others say they were just honest, humble farmers who had no reason to fight in the war and every reason to stay home and take care of their families.
It is an established fact that bands of outlaws roamed the countryside in those days.
According to the first version of the legend, these men were part of one of those bands and a 12th man rode with them. He supposedly squealed on his compadres and told a citizen’s vigilante committee that the outlaws were planning a big raid on a certain ranch.
The vigilantes dug a grave big enough to hold the outlaw band, according to this version of the tale, then went to the ranch and waited. The Jayhawkers attacked the farmhouse and were promptly surprised and overwhelmed. They were executed one by one by the vigilantes, placed in a wagon, brought to the cemetery, and buried.
The 12th man, whose name was never revealed, was given his freedom, but was never seen in south Louisiana again, according to the tale.
But another version, handed down to family historian Allison Joseph Abshire by his grandparents, claims the men were brutally slain for no reason and were not outlaws at all, or at least not all of them.
“The large group of vigilantes arrived on horses on the morning of April 29, 1863,” Abshire writes in a history of the family. “They combed through the woods and by late afternoon had captured 11 Jayhawkers. They brought them to the small cemetery ... on the farm of John Abshire Jr. Word was sent to the families of the captured Jayhawkers to be at the cemetery at daylight if they wanted to see the captured Jayhawkers alive.
“When the relatives arrived, they found that the Jayhawkers had been forced to dig a large trench or grave during the night. The Jayhawkers were permitted to say good-byes to relatives. Then they were lined up along the edge of the trench and shot. ... The vigilantes then filled the grave, mounted their horses, and departed, leaving the families screaming and crying from shock, anger, and sorrow.”
Abshire says that at least some of the men who were executed were simply men who did not want to go to war. It was common practice for deserters and draft dodgers to be executed by the Confederate Army as an example to others, and that may have been what happened in this instance, he says.
Abshire notes, for example, that “Martin [Abshire] ... who was one of the 11 men executed, left a wife and three small children. ... Martin had struggled to provide a living for his family on the few acres of land available to him. He feared that if he went off to war, his family would starve. By hiding in the nearby woods, he was able to see his family and work his farm occasionally when no strangers were in the area.
“It was a gamble, and he lost.”

You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jhbradshaw@bellsouth.net or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.