The Louisiana Raiders were a neo-Confederate and white supremacist paramilitary group which was active in Louisiana during the late 19th century, led by Confederate veteran Lindsey Wofford. The gang was founded by a group of men who fought side-by-side in the Confederate States Army's 3rd Louisiana Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War. Over the years, the gang attracted new members who shared their reactionary political views. Keeping an army was expensive, so arms deals and robberies were a common occurrence.
The Raiders, like the White League and the Southern Red Shirts, originated as Southern Democratic paramilitary groups during Reconstruction. Initially looked upon as patriotic heroes fighting against tyranny, they failed to let the war between the states pass to history, instead using it as a rally point to wage war on law abiding citizens. Structured as a militia unit, they recruited young disaffected men and engaged in robberies and arms deals, even declaring that they were immune from tax and other regulation. The gang partook in robberies from government institutions and citizens themselves, declaring that they only recognized the laws of the "Free State of Louisiana" and not federal laws. By 1899, they had taken up refuge in locations in the swamps and bayous in the lowland country, and many lawmen and bounty hunters were apprehensive to approach the area. The gang was badly bruised due to its participation in the Gray-Braithwaite feud, leading to rivalry with the Van der Linde Gang, the loss of their base at Shady Belle, the deaths of scores of Raiders, and the capture and execution of their leader Wofford. After repeated clashes with law enforcement and the government, most of the Raiders fled to Texas, where they were well-received due to the locals' disdain for paying taxes and the US government. The Raiders still maintained a limited presence in Louisiana as late as 1907, reoccupying Shady Belle and continuing to ambush passers-by, although in smaller numbers and lesser frequency.
During their reign of terror from the 1860s to 1900s, the Raiders were involved in train robberies, roadside ambushes, kidnappings for ransom, and even the smuggling and sale of guns to Cuba and South America during the Cuban War of Independence and South America's many civil wars of the era. The group enjoyed a certain level of respect in Rhodes, Allen Parish, although their rowdy members were known to cause trouble at the Rhodes Parlour House. Additionally, there were occasionally salient differences between the Raiders' older and younger members, with the older Civil War veterans being more ideologically driven and zealous about the "free stater" cause than the younger outlaws who mostly joined the Raiders for the same reasons that an outla wwould join any other gang. While the American South was dominated by conservative, formerly Confederate "Redeemers" at the time, the Raiders saw any form of cooperation with the United States government as "collaboration", and they thus extended their campaign of violence to state legislators, tax collectors, and other local politicians who refused to share their vision of Louisiana remaining a "free state" not loyal to the federal government.
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