Baton Rouge was a Civil War engagement fought in Louisiana, 1862. It was a Union victory.
In an attempt to regain control of the state, Confederates wished to recapture the capital at Baton Rouge. Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge planned a combined land/water expedition with his corps and CSS Ram Arkansas. Advancing west from Camp Moore, the Confederate land forces, coming from the east, were only ten miles away on August 4. They reached the outskirts of the capital early in the morning, formed for an attack in two divisions, and began to drive back each Union unit they encountered. Then, Union gunboats in the river began shelling the Confederates. The Arkansas could have neutralized the Union gunboats, but her engines failed and she did not participate in the battle. Federal land forces, in the meantime, fell back to a more defensible line, and the Union commander, Brig. Gen. Thomas Williams, was killed soon after. The new commander, Col. Thomas W. Cahill, ordered a retreat to a prepared defensive line nearer the river and within the gunboats' protection. Rebels assailed the new line, but finally the Federals forced them to retire. The next day the Arkansas's engines failed again as she closed on the Union gunboats; she was blown up and scuttled by her crew. The Confederates failed to recapture the state capital.
On August 5, 1862, Union and Confederate forces clashed on land and water in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, in what became known as the Battle of Baton Rouge. The fighting ended in a Union triumph, one that stopped Confederate efforts to seize back the Louisiana capital.
A day before Admiral David Farragut's US Navy fleet captured New Orleans, Confederate state officials made the choice to abandon Baton Rouge on April 25, 1862. The government relocated first to Opelousas and later to Shreveport, and residents burned all the cotton stored in the region so that it would never reach Union hands. Navy Commander James S. Palmer, commanding the federal gunboat USS Iroquois, came ashore at the town wharf on May 9 and claimed the Pentagon Barracks and the arsenal for the Union without meeting any resistance. A fortnight afterward, guerrillas struck a rowboat that carried a naval officer, and Farragut answered by having his flagship Hartford shell the town, killing and wounding civilians and damaging St. Joseph's Church along with other structures. US Brigadier General Thomas Williams reached the town on May 29 bringing six infantry regiments, two artillery batteries, and a cavalry troop, and Union forces began occupying Baton Rouge.
That summer, Major General Earl Van Dorn, who led Confederate forces on the eastern side of the Mississippi, held off a Union bombardment aimed at Vicksburg. The Confederate ironclad ram Arkansas descended the Yazoo River during this period, striking the unready Union fleet as it passed and then dropping anchor at Vicksburg. Van Dorn set his sights on recapturing Baton Rouge, since its recovery was seen as essential to pushing Union forces from Louisiana entirely. With the town back in Confederate hands, troops could strike Union-held territory along the Red River and put New Orleans itself at risk.
On July 27, roughly 5,000 troops boarded trains at Vicksburg bound for Camp Moore under Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge. At the camp they linked up with a modest infantry division commanded by Brig. Gen. Daniel Ruggles. At the same time, the Arkansas made her way down the Mississippi to confront Union vessels stationed near Baton Rouge. The soldiers carried ample equipment and had eaten well. Word reached General Williams on July 28 that Confederate forces had left Camp Moore. When fresh word came on August 4 that the enemy's arrival was near, Union soldiers assembled a mile from Baton Rouge. These Union defenders lacked seasoning, having spent only two weeks in a training camp before their deployment, and supplies ran short since the bulk of them had been sent to New Orleans, which commanders regarded as the more critical post.
By August 4, Breckinridge had positioned his force at the Comite River, ten miles from Baton Rouge, then pushed forward under cover of darkness. Union pickets spotted the advancing Confederates, costing them any hope of a surprise assault, yet the attack proceeded anyway at dawn on August 5.
At that point Union forces held the city's center, while Confederate units had formed two divisions to the north. Fighting broke out near Florida Street, with the Confederates initially driving their opponents clear across Baton Rouge. Some of the fiercest combat unfolded in the vicinity of Magnolia Cemetery. Brigadier General Thomas Williams, commanding the Union side, fell in the fighting, and Colonel Thomas W. Cahill assumed command in his place.
Cahill pulled his men back toward fortified positions near the Penitentiary, sheltered by Union naval vessels stationed nearby. Confederate soldiers soon found themselves targeted by fire from these gunboats. The ironclad Arkansas, undermanned and pressed into service for the Confederacy, showed up shortly afterward hoping to challenge the Union ironclad USS Essex, but mechanical failure struck her engines just four miles from the city. To keep the vessel from falling into enemy hands, her commander gave orders to burn her.
Lacking any chance of support from the water, Breckenridge found attacking the Union lines impossible and pulled his troops out. A week later, worry over New Orleans led Union forces to abandon Baton Rouge altogether, though they came back when autumn arrived. Meanwhile Confederate forces settled into Port Hudson, maintaining control there for nearly a full year afterward.
Each year, on the first Saturday of August, a commemorative ceremony marking this battle takes place in and around Magnolia Cemetery, organized under the sponsorship of the Foundation for Historical Louisiana.
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