Placide Bossier
Placide Bossier was an American from Louisiana who died in the American Civil War.
Bossier came from Louisiana, the Natchitoches area, and was a Catholic Creole; historian Clement Eaton described him as a "young Creole of fashion". He attended Georgetown University in 1850-1851.[1] Around 1860, he briefly kept a diary (written in English, and corrected by the family's governess); apparently the study of law bored him, and he spent his time in a rocking chair, thinking about billiards, dinner parties, and the woman he was in love with. The American Civil War was approaching and he exercised with a cavalry company. In January 1861 he voted to secede.[2]
Bossier joined the 3rd Louisiana Infantry Regiment (Confederate). He was killed on the morning of August 10, 1861, during the Battle of Wilson's Creek,[3] news of which reached his friend in Maryland, James Ryder Randall, that same month.[4] Randall, who attended Georgetown University with Bossier, wrote a poem named for Bossier in his honor, comparing him to a Crusading knight and citing the motto of Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard, "sans peur et sans reproche".[5]
References[edit]
- ^ Officers and Students of Georgetown College, District of Columbia, for the Academic Year 1850-51. Baltimore: John Murphy. 1851. pp. 26, 27, 30, etc.
- ^ Eaton, Clement (2021). Kirwan, Albert D. (ed.). The Civilization of the Old South: Writings of Clement Eaton. UP of Kentucky. ISBN 9780813194493.
- ^ The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Part 1. Vol. 3. United States War Department. 1881. p. 115.
- ^ Ruby, James Star, ed. (1961). Blue and Gray: Georgetown University and the Civil War (2 ed.). Georgetown University Alumni Association. p. 5.
- ^ Randall, James Ryder (1910). Andrews, Matthew (ed.). The poems of James Ryder Randall. New York: Tandy-Thomas. pp. 118, 217.