Goodrich's Landing was a Civil War engagement fought in Louisiana, 1863. The outcome was inconclusive.
After Union forces began occupying the Louisiana river parishes, thousands of escaped slaves flocked to them. The Federals, therefore, leased some plantations and put the freedmen to work growing cotton or other crops; the proceeds from the sale of the crops helped defray expenses for food, clothing, etc. African-American troops were assigned to protect these plantations, releasing other troops to fight. Confederates, determined to recapture some of these freedmen and destroy the crops, undertook an expedition from Gaines's Landing, Arkansas, to Lake Providence. The Federals had constructed a fort on an Indian mound to protect some of these leased plantations. The Rebels prepared to attack the fort on the 29th but decided to demand unconditional surrender first, which the Union forces accepted. Later in the day, Confederate Col. W.H. Parsons fought companies of the 1st Kansas Mounted Infantry. The Rebels then began burning and destroying the surrounding plantations, especially those that the Yankees leased. By the next morning, U.S. Naval boats had landed the Mississippi Marine Brigade, under the command of Brig. Gen. Alfred W. Ellet, at Goodrich's Landing. At dawn, he set out with Col. William F. Wood's African-American units to find the Rebels. Ellet's cavalry found the Confederates first and began skirmishing. The fight became more intense as Ellet's other forces approached. Parsons eventually disengaged and fell back. Although the Confederates disrupted these operations, destroyed much property, and captured many supplies and weapons, the raid was a minor setback for the Union. The Confederates could cause momentary disturbances, but they were unable to effect any lasting changes.
On June 29 and 30, 1863, Union and Confederate troops clashed at Goodrich's Landing in a fight tied to the broader Vicksburg campaign. Confederate units stationed in northeastern Louisiana hoped to relieve pressure on the besieged garrison at Vicksburg, Mississippi, by striking at plantations and harassing Union camps along the Mississippi River's west bank. To carry out this effort, Major General John G. Walker received additional troops from Arkansas, a brigade led by Colonel William Henry Parsons.
Parsons moved his men against the Union-held position at Goodrich's Landing on the first day of fighting. There he found two companies from the 1st Arkansas Infantry (African Descent) holding a fortified spot atop an Indian mound. Judging the position too difficult to storm outright, Parsons conferred with Brigadier General James C. Tappan, whose Arkansas brigade was also engaged in the northeastern Louisiana campaign, and the two officers arranged for the Union defenders to surrender. According to witnesses, several of the Black soldiers were killed once they had given up the fight.
From there, Parsons pushed toward Lake Providence, Louisiana, bringing along the 12th Texas Cavalry Regiment and the 19th Texas Cavalry Regiment. His men traded fire with the 1st Kansas Mounted Regiment before pulling back to their own camp. Meanwhile, Brigadier General Alfred W. Ellet showed up with his Mississippi Marine Brigade, joining forces with the remaining garrison at Goodrich's Landing, made up of the rest of the 1st Arkansas along with the 10th Louisiana Infantry (African Descent). Together they chased after the withdrawing Confederates, catching up with them at a crossing point on Tensas Bayou, where another skirmish broke out before the Confederates disengaged and departed.
Although the raid inflicted considerable destruction, it failed to provide any real relief to Vicksburg's besieged defenders, and whatever interruption it caused to Union operations proved short lived.
When the 1863 phase of the Vicksburg campaign began, Major General Ulysses S. Grant relied on Milliken's Bend, Louisiana, as a Union supply depot. That reliance faded once the siege of Vicksburg got underway, for Grant had by then secured an alternate supply line, leaving Milliken's Bend and a handful of other sites to function only as minor supply points. It was in these same areas that Black recruits received training, forming regiments that would come to be known collectively as the United States Colored Troops. Instruction camps for these soldiers sprang up at Goodrich's Landing, Louisiana, at Milliken's Bend itself, and at Lake Providence, Louisiana. Equipment and preparation for these units remained inadequate, and commanders did not plan to place them in frontline fighting. White men led the regiments as officers, a number of whom had jumped several ranks at once upon joining these newly formed units. Meanwhile, former slaves who chose not to enlist often found themselves laboring on cotton plantations leased out by the government. Washington had seized plantations abandoned along the Mississippi and turned them over to private lessees, who then put these freedmen to work in the fields. Oversight of these arrangements was minimal, and the laborers frequently suffered mistreatment as a result.
On the Confederate side, forces aiding Vicksburg's defense turned to Major General John G. Walker's Texas division to strike at Grant's holdings along the Louisiana side of the Mississippi. Part of Walker's command met defeat at the Battle of Milliken's Bend on June 7, while a planned strike on the Union post at Young's Point never materialized, and a further push resulted in failure at the Battle of Lake Providence on June 9.
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