Blair's Landing

On April 12, 1864, Confederate cavalry and artillery under Brigadier General Tom Green struck at a column of Union gunboats and river transports moving through Red River Parish, Louisiana. Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter commanded the naval vessels, while Brigadier General Thomas Kilby Smith led the troops aboard the transports. This clash, known as the Battle of Blair's Landing, formed part of the broader Red River Campaign fought during the American Civil War. Green's men sought to halt the downstream withdrawal of Porter's and Smith's commands but could not accomplish this goal. The engagement produced only one casualty of real consequence: Green himself fell after being struck by an artillery round.

Background

Lincoln and Major General Henry Halleck sought a way to plant a Union foothold in Texas using the Red River as the route in. To that end, Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, who led the Department of the Gulf, received orders to put together an expedition working alongside Major Generals William T. Sherman and Frederick Steele. Steele pushed southward out of Little Rock, Arkansas, commanding 15,000 men, while Banks advanced along two separate lines. One column, numbering 17,000, climbed Bayou Teche and linked up

Battle

Following the reverse at Pleasant Hill, Taylor conferred with his commanding officer, General Edmund Kirby Smith, who resolved to march the bulk of the infantry northward to confront Steele's Union forces in Arkansas. This left Taylor with a mere 5,200 men to oppose Banks. Kirby Smith worried that Steele could push through to the Confederate supply depot at Shreveport, and he had also concluded that a larger force under Taylor could not be

Aftermath

The fighting stretched across roughly sixty minutes and closed at dusk, when the Union force began moving out and Confederate troops pulled back. Each side assumed it had punished the other severely, yet the actual toll on both sides proved modest. T. K. Smith abandoned his dead and wounded to Confederate hands. Taylor described the loss of Green as one that could never be made good, and command of Taylor's cavalry passed from Green to Bee. Figures differ depending on the source: Boatner recorded fifty casualties for the Union army and seven for the navy, while the National Park Service put the numbers at sixty Union casualties against fifty-seven Confederate ones. Under cover of darkness the Union force pushed downstream, dropping anchor at one in the morning. Major, for his part, brought the Confederate horsemen back from Blair's Landing to Pleasant Hill.

Progress stalled on April 13 when the transport John Warner ran fast aground. From high ground at Bouledeau's Point, Liddell positioned two sections of six-pounder artillery and opened fire on the Union vessels from the eastern shore, one section coming from Captain Archibald J. Cameron's Louisiana battery. The range proved too long and the guns too light to inflict serious harm, but Porter and T. K. Smith worried that a stray shot could touch off an ammunition blast, so they pushed most of the fleet downriver with the transport Sioux City in the lead. Meanwhile the Osage turned its guns on Liddell's battery and silenced it.

Word that the expedition faced trouble prompted Banks to dispatch A. J. Smith at four that afternoon with two brigades, two batteries, and a cavalry contingent toward the eastern bank. Covering twelve miles, or about nineteen kilometers, these troops arrived at Campti, located the bulk of the fleet, and pushed Liddell's men back. Farther upriver, the Fort Hindman at last managed to free the John Warner. Around the same time the transport Iberville ran aground close to Campti, and the John Warner paused to lend assistance. Both stragglers finally rejoined the main expedition at Grand Ecore on April 16. One onlooker remembered the vessels as battered and pierced, their smoke-stacks resembling nothing so much as