LaFourche Crossing

On June 20 and 21, 1863, fighting broke out at Lafourche Crossing, Louisiana, an engagement of the Civil War also rendered as LaFourche Crossing. Confederate commanders in the Trans-Mississippi Department launched offensive movements that summer with the goal of relieving the besieged Confederate garrisons at Port Hudson, Louisiana, and Vicksburg, Mississippi. Richard Taylor, a major general, oversaw both efforts. To the northeast, in Louisiana, Major General John George Walker directed his Texas Division toward Vicksburg but failed to achieve any relief there. Meanwhile, Brigadier General Alfred Mouton pushed his forces into the Lafourche region of the state's southern portion, hoping to aid the defenders at Port Hudson.

Colonel James P. Major commanded a brigade of Texas cavalry that formed one arm of this Lafourche campaign. His troops swept through Plaquemine and Bayou Goula, steering clear of Fort Butler near Donaldsonville as they advanced. Union commanders answered by sending reinforcements under Lieutenant Colonel Albert Stickney to bolster the garrison holding Lafourche Crossing. On June 20, soldiers from Major's advancing units seized Thibodaux and severed telegraph communications at Terrebonne Station, then tested the Union defenses at Lafourche Crossing that same afternoon. Rather than press the attack immediately, the Confederates held back to await the remainder of Major's brigade, and Stickney used the night to bring in further reinforcements of his own.

The next day, June 21, downpours slowed Confederate progress considerably. That evening, Colonel Charles L. Pyron nonetheless committed his 2nd Texas Cavalry Regiment to an assault on the Union position without backup from the rest of the brigade. His men suffered severe casualties and were repelled. Major's force then pressed onward from Lafourche Crossing, positioning itself to cut off Union soldiers fleeing after Brashear City fell, a maneuver that forced their surrender on June 24. Following this, the Union troops stationed at Lafourche Crossing pulled back toward New Orleans. When Port Hudson finally surrendered on July 9, it released more Union soldiers to campaign against Confederate forces still in the Lafourche area, prompting the Confederates to retreat to Franklin.

Background

The Bayou Teche campaign of April 1863 saw Major General Nathaniel P. Banks push Major General Richard Taylor's Confederate troops out of the Lafourche region in western Louisiana. Rather than holding this ground, Banks pulled most of his men out the following month, leaving only scattered garrisons behind at points along Bayou Lafourche, the Mississippi River, and the New Orleans, Opelousas and Great Western Railroad. He then took his main body of troops across the Mississippi to lay siege to Port Hudson, an effort that unfolded at the same time as Major General Ulysses S. Grant's siege at Vicksburg. Meanwhile, General Joseph E. Johnston, overseeing Confederate operations across the Western theater, had personally taken charge of a modest force meant to break Grant's hold on Vicksburg.

Taylor saw an opportunity in this situation. He proposed striking at New Orleans directly, reasoning that such a threat would compel Banks to abandon the Port Hudson siege and rush to defend the city. With Banks gone, the Confederate defenders at Port Hudson could then move to reinforce Johnston against Grant. Lieutenant General E. Kirby Smith, who commanded the Trans-Mississippi Department, turned down this idea. He preferred instead to target Grant's supply lines running along the Mississippi's west bank. What Smith did not realize was that Grant had already shortened and secured that supply route by rerouting it to Haynes Bluff, situated east of the river along the Yazoo.

The plan that emerged split Taylor's efforts in two directions. Major General John G. Walker's Texas division would move against what were believed to be Grant's supply lines in northeast Louisiana, while Brigadier General Alfred Mouton would lead a separate push into the Lafourche country. Walker's effort collapsed at the Battle of Milliken's Bend on June 7. Though Smith briefly considered freeing Walker's men to join the southern Louisiana campaign, he ultimately chose to keep the Texans positioned in the northeast, anticipating they might still be needed against Vicksburg.

Battle

At Lafourche Crossing, Stickney commanded 502 soldiers and four cannons, pulled together from a mix of units. Reinforcing this core were detachments from nearby points that had converged on the crossing. Three companies of the 23rd Connecticut contributed roughly 200 men, while three companies of the 176th New York added over 150 more. Forty-six soldiers came from the 42nd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, and a comparable number formed a mixed command drawn mainly from the 26th Maine Infantry Regiment, supplemented by men from four other regiments who happened to be in the area on various assignments. Gunners of the 1st Indiana Heavy Artillery Regiment operated the cannons. None of these troops had seen combat before.

Stickney's men held ground on the eastern bank of Bayou Lafourche. A levee shielded the western edge of the position, while the railroad embankment protected the southern side. Together these features formed a rectangular defensive layout, its front line sitting 200 yards (180 m) north of the tracks and its eastern boundary 150 yards (140 m) from the bayou. Low earthworks, never rising above 2 feet (0.61 m), extended some 50 to 60 feet (15 to 18 m) from the corner where the front and eastern lines met. Blober's cavalry waited off to the right and rear. Artillery placement included a 12-pounder Napoleon guarding the eastern end of the bayou bridge, a 6-pounder supporting the left-center of the front, and a pair of 12-pounder howitzers stationed near the angle in the front line. Troops from the 26th Maine backed up the gun at the bridge. Major David H. Miller led one company of the 23rd Connecticut forward as pickets, positioned somewhere between 400 and 450 yards (370 to 410 m) ahead of the main defenses, while Stickney's remaining infantry occupied the primary Union line.

On the afternoon of June 20, Colonel Walter P. Lane's 1st Texas Partisan Rangers and Colonel Joseph Phillips's 3rd Texas Cavalry of the Arizona Brigade moved toward the crossing without knowing how large a Union force awaited them. They pushed back Blober's cavalry, who had been scouting ahead to locate them, then came under artillery fire from the gun near the bridge and paused to deploy skirmishers. Those skirmishers clashed with the forward company of the 23rd Connecticut, and when Miller broke and ran, his men followed. The pursuing Confederates, however, retreated once every Union gun opened up on them. Concluding that capturing the crossing would require the full strength of Major's brigade, Lane and Phillips pulled their men back to Thibodaux, where the rest of the brigade soon joined them. That night saw heavy drinking among the Confederate troops stationed there. Major understood the strategic value of the crossing but did not consider its capture essential; he could instead pin down the Union defenders with a diversionary feint and press on toward Brashear City should the position prove too costly to assault directly.

During the night, Stickney ordered structures in front of his line, previously used as a field hospital, cleared out and set ablaze so Confederate troops could not use them for cover. A building on the bayou's western side was also burned. The combined glow from these fires on both banks would expose any nighttime Confederate movement toward the crossing. Lieutenant Colonel Josiah A. Sawtell brought 306 men of the 26th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment by rail from New Orleans overnight. Although Sawtell outranked Stickney, he let Stickney retain command since the fighting had already begun under him. The morning of June 21 brought two more guns from the 25th New York Battery, raising Union numbers to 838. That same morning, Major assembled his forces, and upon hearing of Union probes near Thibodaux, dispatched Colonel Charles L. Pyron with his 2nd Texas Cavalry, a portion of Semmes's battery, and the 2nd Texas Partisan Rangers to reconnoiter the Union defenses. The remainder of Major's command moved to Terrebonne Station on the far side of the bayou to cut the crossing off from Brashear City.

Aftermath

Wet weather on June 22 kept Major from pressing another strike right away. Two days later, before dawn, Mouton and Green sent their combined force against Brashear City, with Confederate troops slipping across Berwick Bay to catch the Union garrison off guard in a surprise flanking assault. Meanwhile Major's column had shifted from Lafourche Crossing to seal off the Bayou Boeuf crossing, cutting off any Union withdrawal. Caught between the two Confederate forces, the Union garrison had no choice but to surrender on June 24.

By this point the Union garrison at Lafourche Crossing numbered 1,700 troops and answered to Colonel Thomas W. Cahill. Once Major's and Green's units linked back up, they pushed toward that position, retaking Thibodaux along the way and seizing Chacahoula Station as well. Cahill's soldiers pulled back all the way to New Orleans. Taylor himself departed for Alexandria, hoping to secure Walker's troops for the ongoing push through the Lafourche region, and left Mouton in charge of the campaign going forward.

Confederate horsemen chased Union forces as far as Boutte Station, a mere 20 miles (32 km) outside New Orleans, while Green and Major received orders to head toward Donaldsonville instead. Their attempt to storm Fort Butler in the dead of night between June 27 and 28 ended in defeat during what became known as the Second Battle of Donaldsonville, costing the Confederates dearly in casualties.

The surrender of Port Hudson on July 9 freed up fresh Union troops to move against Mouton's command. Although the Confederates managed to push back some of these reinforcements at the Battle of Kock's Plantation on July 13, Mouton nonetheless pulled his forces back to Brashear City. Word that Union naval vessels were closing in on Berwick Bay prompted a further retreat to Franklin. Union troops followed as far as Brashear City and then Thibodaux, stopping there to recover. By July 21, Taylor's command had withdrawn entirely from the Lafourche area.