Duncan Smith, History; Cameron Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by W. T. Block, Historian
Submitted May 2007

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GREAT GRANDPA SMITH WAS AS POPULAR AS A SKUNK
By W. T. Block

My great Grandpa Duncan Smith was about as popular among his slave-holding neighbors as a skunk in
church. Most Southerners expected an Abolitionist to be from some Northern state, but Dune Smith and
each of his parents were born in North Carolina, and Dune was raised in Brandon, Mississippi, in the
heart of cotton patch country.

So how could a Southern boy, accustomed to watching slaves from the cradle, become an ardent
Abolitionist? Probably he had to witness at times such extreme brutality to slaves that he could no
longer endure it. Having incurred all the hatred of his neighbors in Rankin County, Smith moved his
family to Indian Bayou, La., in 1858, and later to Cameron, La., in 1861.

Smith did not hate the Confederate States so much as he hated slavery much more. His biographer, who
knew Smith in 1870, wrote that:
"...Duncan Smith had opposed human slavery since long before John Brown's raid, and when the Civil War
came on, his fiery opposition to it put him in bad odor with those who favored it, an Abolitionist
bitterly opposed to slavery. He was ready at the drop of a hat to die for that principle..." (Beaumont
Enterprise, June 30,1907)

Duncan Smith and his adult sons Phincas and Jerry rode aboard the Union offshore blockade ships at
will. Smith also served as a Union spy, reporting all the Confederate activities in Calcasieu Parish to
the offshore ships.

On Aug. 2,1863, a Confederate "recruiting" ship read the Confederate Draft Declaration at Cameron. The
ship operated like a British press gang, obtaining "recruits" at gun point if necessary. Although 53
years old, Smith was rowing his skiff across Calcasieu River, when the "recruiters," assuming he was
trying to escape, shot him through the leg. However, Smith's wife got him ashore and hid him out in the
marsh.

In April, 1864, Smith acted as agent for the Mermentau Jayhawkers for the sale to the U. S. Navy of 450
stolen cattle and horses. After completing the deal at New Orleans, Smith piloted the U. S. gunboat
Wave up Calcasieu River, where it dropped anchor in front of Smith's home. A few days later, Sabine
Pass' Confederate garrison attacked the anchored gunboats, Wave and Granite City, which surrendered
after a 90-miute battle.

That afternoon the Confederates searched Smith's home, hopeful of capturing the arch-Unionist, as well
as the $10,000 bounty on his head. Smith hid out for one hour under his wife's hoopskirts, and after
the soldiers left, she hid him out in the marsh, where he remained for the next year.
My grandmother reported that her father's ragged hair and whiskers hung down to his waist when he
finally came out of the marsh after the war had ended.
Our nation remembers the 358,000 Union soldiers who died trying to end slavery. It even remembers the
260,000 Confederates who died to preserve slavery, although only one of each 20 Confederates actually
owned slaves.

However, it does not remember the Southern Abolitionists like Duncan Smith of Cameron or three others
from Jefferson County, namely, James G. Taylor, Henry Clay Smith (no relation), and L. W. Pennington.
After Taylor's capture at Matagorda for the third time (Galv. Weekly News, Jan. 6,1864), he was
executed by the Confederates, and his probate file at Beaumont verifies the year of his death.