Venice Louisiana/Fort Jackson, Louisiana/Fort St. Phillip

Venice Louisiana/Fort Jackson, Louisiana/Fort St. Phillip. Panel #2 Mississippi Riverwalk. , A) Venice Louisiana , Mile 10.8 AHP, Venice lies at the end of the longest continuous levee line in the world, stretching 650 miles north to the Arkansas River. It is the last town accessible by a highway on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Hurricane Camille’s 200-mile-per-hour wind destroyed much of Venice in 1969., B) Fort Jackson, Louisiana , Mile 18.6 AHP, A French outpost was built here in the 1750’s, and the Spanish erected Fort Bourbon on the site in 1792 as a companion to Fort St Philip across the river. The British attack of 1815 demonstrated the need for a major U. S. Fort on the Plaquemines Bend, and Fort Jackson, named for Andrew Jackson, was completed in 1832. During the U. S. Civil War Confederate troops seized the fort in 1861. As the Union Fleet sailed upriver toward New Orleans in 1862, they met major resistance at Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, which were bolstered by a Confederate flotilla drawn up between them. The Union vessel virtually annihilated the Confederate boats and then ran past the forts and on to New Orleans, LA. A number of mortar boats stayed behind to bombard the fortifications and after eight days of continuous pounding, the Confederate troops at Fort Jackson mutinied and forced their officers to surrender to the Union. The U. S. Army kept a garrison at Fort Jackson until 1920. It is now open to the public as a national historical monument., C. Fort St. Phillip , Mile 20.0 AHP, Spain built a fort here in 1792, on the curve known as Plaquemines Bend, to protect New Orleans, LA from attack during the war with France. After the United States bought Louisiana, Andrew Jackson strengthened the fort and it withstood a nine-day bombardment by the British in 1815. Today Fort St. Philip is a national historic monument but can be reached only by boat., Photo Credit: Venice, Louisiana courtesy of NOAA Restoration Center