Trooper Melvin McElwee presents the first lecture of the series "Tangi History: Missing Chapters." Courtesy of Tangipahoa Parish Library

The Tangipahoa Parish Library taps into local history involving the Civil War with their series “Tangi History: Missing Chapters.”

The series discussed Tangipahoa’s involvement in the Civil War including critical information about the war that was overlooked at the time. The first lecture of the series was presented by Trooper Melvin McElwee on Jan. 24 at 6 p.m. His topic for the evening was “The Beast,” the nickname of Major General of the Union army Benjamin Butler who looked to connect the railroad that ran north and south of the parish as a logistical area. McElwee discussed which areas of Tangipahoa were involved in the series.

McElwee has invested 10 years into this project of documenting the forgotten war stories of the Buffalo Soldiers, traveling across Louisiana to gather information and even researching artifacts in the archives of the Department of State. His passion for the project has given McElwee the drive to discover the whole story of Louisiana’s involvement in the Civil War. 

“My passion is being able to get information disseminated,” said McElwee. “I know from reading, and many people have quoted in the past, ‘If you don’t know your history, you tend to repeat your history,’ and we’re at a critical time in America right now where we’re about to repeat some history if we don’t begin to learn it real quick. So, it’s knowing it and being able to have conversations about it and being able to enjoy that pushed my passion to do this.”

McElwee hopes audiences will be able to look towards America’s future by learning from his presentation on the past.

 “We’re hoping to open up some new chapters that took place in this parish from New Orleans beginning, really, from Manchac to Camp Moore,” said McElwee. “We feel that the more people who are aware of history and appreciate history, then there won’t be such contention or tension in it going back and forth. There’s a lot to appreciate on both sides, so that’s our intent.”

There are many critical areas to the war effort in Tangipahoa Parish.

“These are things that people should know,” said McElwee. “We walk around every day. We walk across it and don’t even realize it.”

McElwee explained how this information was forgotten even in some history books.

“It’s an outfall of how things took place,” said McElwee. “There was a lot of tension during that time, and if you lived in the South, there were some things you didn’t want to remember, you didn’t want to talk about, and if you lived in the North, there are some things you didn’t want to remember and you didn’t want to talk about. For all of the people, they just pushed it under the rug, but after the passage of time, it’s time for the information to come back to the surface so everybody can understand really we are a union of people having the same desires. It’s just how we look at it through our own lenses, and hopefully with the educational pieces and things like the library hosting series will open up the doors for better communication.”