By Jessica Gorman
A couple of weeks ago, I received a phone call from someone looking for information about the 8th Louisiana Infantry, Company G, also known as the Minden Blues. In particular, he was looking for information about a man named Raymond Rodriguez.
The Minden Blues were organized in Minden in April 1861. There are many familiar names among the members of the company including Sandlin, Lewis, Pratt, Webb, Crichton, Berry, Murrell, and Wren to name a few. My own distant cousin, William O. Garrison, was a member of the company. He lost an arm after being wounded at the Battle of Malvern Hill.
The name Raymond Rodriguez was in no way familiar to me. My curiosity was piqued. The inquirer had shared that Rodriguez was reportedly born in Mexico and he had not yet been able to find what happened to him after the war. I shared with him the information we have at the museum pertaining to the Minden Blues, but disappointingly there was nothing that stood out as particularly helpful in regards to the identity of Raymond Rodriguez.
Wednesday of last week, an update came via email. Much progress had been made in the search for Raymond Rodriguez. This is what he found. It seems that Rodriguez came to Minden sometime before the Civil War where he was reported to be a laborer. He then enlisted in the Confederate Army. Records indicate that he was seriously wounded at Bristoe Station on 27 August 1862. By November, he had returned to duty. In May of 1863, he was captured at Fredricksburg and then captured again at Wilderness, Virginia in May 1864. After the war, he returned to what was then Claiborne Parish where he married Mary Ann Boepple on 28 November 1866.
The Boepple name is recognizable as one of our local German families. They emigrated from Wurttemberg, Germany in the 1840s. The marriage of Raymond Rodriguez to Mary Ann Boepple indicates that Rodriguez wasn’t someone who was just passing through. He returned to the area, married, and the couple had several children before moving on to Texas in the 1870s. It is there that Raymond Rodriguez died 13 January 1888 in Angelina County. He is buried in the Poland Cemetery at Zavalla.
Members of the Boepple family remained in Webster Parish and descendants still live here today. I share this story in hopes that maybe someone out there may have some information to help shed a little more light on Raymond Rodriguez. If you can help, please email me at dorcheatmuseum@yahoo.com or call the museum at (318)377-3002.
(Jessica Gorman is the Executive Director of the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, Webster Parish Historian, and an avid genealogist.)