LIFE ALONG THE LEVEE

ITH TREES HEAVY WITH SPANISH MOSS and swamp water brown as whiskey, the lowlands of New Orleans looked nothing like home to Private Francis Stick. He’d joined the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry back in Harrisburg, Pa., a world apart from this bawdy Mississippi River town, best known as the site of Andrew Jackson’s commanding 1815 victory over British forces. But it was in New Orleans, not Pennsylvania, where Stick would die of disease in June 1864, and where he remains buried at Chalmette National Cemetery, just one of several places that interpret the Big Easy’s role in the Civil War. Unlike other Southern cities that changed hands frequently throughout the war, New Orleans fell under Union control decisively in May 1862, following the