Mrs. Lizzie Prescott Dunbar, East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Frances Ball Turner


**********************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
**********************************************




History of Louisiana, By Chambers.
Vol. III, pg. 334

Mrs. Lizzie Prescott Dunbar, of Baton Rouge, is a daughter of the late
Capt. Lewis D. and Lucy Glenn Offutt Prescott, and one branch of her
ancestry includes one of the oldest of the Spanish families of Louisiana
territory.  This relationship connects her with Don Martin Navarro, a
native of Spain, who came to Louisiana in 1766 as treasurer of the
territory. After the expulsion of Governor Ulloa he remained and made
himself popular with the people and continued to serve during the
administrations of Governors O'Reilly, Galvez and Miro, and for a time
during the administration of Governor Galvez was acting governor in charge
at New Orleans.  The wife of Don Martin Navarro was a lady of Spain by the
name of Adelaide Gayoso de Lemos, probably a sister of Governor Gayoso, who
was the seventh Spanish Governor of Louisiana.  A daughter of Don Martin
Navarro, Adelaide Navarro, married Louis de Marlet, and she was the mother
of a large family of children and one of the ancestors of Capt. Lewis
Prescott.

Captain Prescott was a prominent planter of St. Landry Parish, and his
death occurred at Washington, that parish.  His widow is a loved member of
the family circle of Mr. and Mrs. W. C. Dunbar.  Captain Prescott served as
captain of his company in a Louisiana regiment in the Civil war, and this
company under his command was one of the last to surrender at Washington,
Louisiana, when the war came to a close.  The records of the War Department
show that on May 26, 1865, Gen. E.K. Smith, Confederate States army,
surrender to Major-General Canby, U.S.A., the Trans-Mississippi Department,
in which department Company A., Louisiana Cavalry, Capt. L.D. Prescott, was
serving.  On or about June 1, 1865, Lieut.-Col. John L. Rice, Seventy-fifth
United States Colored Infantry, then at Washington, Louisiana, was met by
Capt. L. D. Prescott, who carried a flag of truce and who desired to make
inquiry as to whether the Trans-Mississippi Department had been
surrendered.  He was informed by Lieutenant-Colonel Rice that the surrender
had actually taken place and the surrender of the troops then under his
(Prescott's) command was demanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Rice.  To this
demand Captain Prescott refused to accede, giving as a reason for his
refusal the fact that he had no official knowledge of the surrender of the
Trans-Mississippi Department.  Desiring to prevent useless bloodshed,
Lieutenant-Colonel Rice then proposed an armistice to enable Captain
Prescott to obtain official confirmation of the surrender, the armistice to
expire at 12 noon on June 6, 1865.  The course thereafter pursued by
Captain Prescott is not shown in detail, but there is on file in the War
Department a roll of prisoners of war of Company A, Louisiana Cavalry,
Confederate States army, commanded by Capt. L. D. Prescott, which shows
that the men whose names appear thereon were surrendered by Gen. E. K.
Smith, Confederate States army, to Maj.-Gen. E.R.S. Canby, U.S.A., as of
the date of the surrender of the Trans-Mississippi Department, May 26,
1865, and that they were paroled at Washington, Louisiana, June 16, 1865.
There is also on file in the department of the individual parole of Lou D.
Prescott, captain, Company A. Louisiana Cavalry, Confederate States army,
dated June 19 1865.