The Battle of Stirling's Plantation (also spelled Battle of Sterling's Plantation), also known as the Battle of Fordoche Bridge, was an American Civil War battle took place on September 29, 1863 in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana.
Following the Siege of Vicksburg, Union Major General Francis J. Herron's Division of the Army of the Frontier was transferred down the Mississippi River to become a part of the 13th Corps. Arriving at Port Hudson on July 25, they remained there until August 13, 1863, when they were moved to Carrollton, above New Orleans.
Union Major General Nathaniel P. Banks had been ordered to invade and “plant the Flag in Texas”, which plans resulted in the Second Battle of Sabine Pass on September 8, 1863. As a part of his overall plan, Herron's division was to be transported to Morganza, Louisiana below the mouth of the Red River. Both Confederate Brigadier General Tom Green's cavalry and Brigadier General Alfred Mouton’s small infantry division were operating on the upper Atchafalaya River. Herron's movement would distract the Confederates from the invasion of Texas, and they hoped it would prevent the Confederate forces from moving to Texas had the Sabine Pass effort been successful.
On September 5, Herron's division was dispatched up the Mississippi on transports and made a landing below Morganza on the 7th. On the 8th the entire force marched through Morganza, and down the Opelousas road, reaching the Atchafalaya in the late afternoon. They retired to the Fordoche and camped there for the night. The next day the Division marched to Morganza where they went into camp.
On September 11, Herron proposed to send a detachment back to the bridge over the Fordoche to monitor Confederate activity on the west bank of the Atchafalaya, and from Morganza in an attempt to draw out Green's cavalry from the west bank of the Atchafalaya. Lt. Col. Joseph Bloomfield Leake of the 20th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment was to be in command. A small provisional brigade was formed consisting of the 19th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment under Maj. John Bruce, the 26th Indiana Infantry Regiment under Col. A.D. Rose, a section of Battery B, 1st Missouri Light Artillery, and a battalion of the 6th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry under Major Samuel Montgomery. To supplement the cavalry, a company of mounted infantry was created by drawing men from every regiment in the division and was led by Lt. Henry Walton of the 34th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The road from Morganza to the Fordoche crossing followed the east bank of Bayou Fordoche, running west to a point about three miles from Morganza, then following a turn in the bayou, ran south three and a half miles to a loop in the bayou by Norwood's plantation. Just west of Norwoods, the Opelousas Road forked to the northwest, crossed the Fordoche, and ran on to the Atchafalaya across from present day Melville, Louisiana.
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.
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