The Bayou Teche campaign, or First Bayou Teche campaign, was a brief military campaign in April and May 1863 during the American Civil War by forces from the Confederate States Army seeking to prevent the Union Army from gaining control of northern Louisiana. Union forces were seeking to gain a foothold on the Red River as a prelude to besieging Port Hudson, a Confederate strong point on the Mississippi River.
A second campaign, featuring a series of maneuvers in the same region from October until November 1863 is often referred to as the Second Bayou Teche campaign.
In March 1863, Union commander Nathaniel P. Banks, headquartered near New Orleans, wanted to drive back the Confederate forces in western Louisiana and secure a route to connect with the Mississippi River north of Confederate-held Port Hudson. Using a combined force of infantry and Union Navy vessels, Banks advanced up the Teche against Confederate units under the overall command of Richard Taylor, son of former U.S. President Zachary Taylor. Banks was successful in the Battle of Fort Bisland and Battle of Irish Bend. Taylor retreated from the Teche region, and Banks was able to capture the Confederate fort at Butte a la Rose and Alexandria.
In the second half of 1863, Banks was under orders to gain a foothold in Texas. His first attempt had been repulsed at the Second Battle of Sabine Pass. In October, he ordered troops under Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin to move north-west from New Iberia and the Berwick Bay area to probe the land route toward Texas. The difficulty of the route, the resistance from Confederates, and the success of a coastal operation in Texas led to the termination of Franklin's advance.
Jones, Terry L., Historical Dictionary of the Civil War. Scarecrow Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8108-4112-6.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
This page covers Battle of Bayou Teche (Cornay's Ferry). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.