News release Public Information Office  SLU 10880   Hammond, LA 70402   phone: 985-549-2341   fax: 985-549-2061 publicinfo@selu.edu Spring 2004 news releases Public Information home News archive Contact: Christina Chapple Date: 6/20/05   PART TWO OF CIVIL WAR IN THE FLORIDA PARISHES TO AIR ON THE SOUTHEASTERN CHANNEL        HAMMOND -- Florida Parish citizens making guerilla attacks and bushwhacking unsuspecting Federal troops … the Union army trampling gravesites at Camp Moore to eradicate the memory of Confederate soldiers.        These are some of the grim realities recounted in the second episode of a two-part series on Civil War in the Florida Parishes airing at 7 p.m., Wednesday on the Southeastern Channel, Southeastern Louisiana University’s cable access channel on Charter Cable Channel 18.         The episode, “The Tragedy of Defeat and the Challenge of Reconstruction,” is part of the channel’s award-winning series, “The Florida Parish Chronicles.” It will also air at 9:30 p.m., Mondays; 4:30 p.m., Wednesdays, and 11:30 a.m., Sundays.        The program focuses on the war’s second – and far more destructive -- phase in the region, characterized by the intensification of the Federal war against the Florida Parish civilian population, said the show’s host, Samuel C. Hyde Jr., director of the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies and Southeastern’s Leon Ford Endowed Chair in Regional Studies.        The episode begins with Hyde’s account of the fall of Port Hudson in 1863 and what he describes as “the unwarranted, brutal violence inflicted on area citizens by Federal troops, spawning a Florida Parishes bloodbath which included locals taking the war into their own hands.”        “Viewers will see the dramatic way in which Florida Parish locals banded together in guerrilla groups to attack the Federal army,” said Rick Settoon, the show’s producer and general manager of the Southeastern Channel.        Hyde also travels to Tangipahoa to discuss the key role of Camp Moore, the Confederacy’s largest training ground for troops, with Al Trecost of the Camp Moore Historical Association.  Also at Camp Moore, Hyde interviews military historian Harry Laver, associate professor in Southeastern’s History and Political Science Department, who recounts the famed Grierson’s Raid, which cut a swath through the Florida Parishes.         The program also features a studio interview with C. Howard Nichols, professor emeritus of history at Southeastern, about stories of political corruption and racial violence in the Florida Parishes during the Reconstruction period.        Hyde said that much of the suffering in the region was due to the intensity of the Federal effort to subjugate a people unwilling to be easily pacified.        “Few people realize the magnitude of the tragedy the Civil War represented for southeastern Louisiana,” Hyde said.  “The war left our region devastated, and the people emerged from the conflict understandably bitter and suspicious of authority.”        “It is most definitely a story of brutality and despair, but also a great statement of courage and the will of local residents to endure in the face of ferocious odds,” Hyde said.         “The Florida Parish Chronicles” has won four national awards, including a Telly and two Communicator Awards and the Bronze Remi  at the WorldFest-Houston International Film and Video Festival.        The Southeastern Channel can be seen on Charter Cable Channel 18 in Tangipahoa, Livingston and St. Tammany parishes and on Channel 17 in Washington Parish. The channel’s broadcast schedule can be viewed on the channel website at www.selu.edu/tv.