Yellow Bayou

On May 18, 1864, in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, Union troops under Brigadier General Joseph A. Mower fought Confederate forces led by Brigadier General John A. Wharton in what became known as Yellow Bayou, sometimes called Norwood's Plantation. This clash marked the closing engagement of the Red River campaign, a Union effort commanded by Major General Nathaniel P. Banks that Confederate Major General Richard Taylor managed to turn back. Disaster nearly struck this failed venture when falling water levels on the Red River left Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter's accompanying fleet stranded at Alexandria, Louisiana. Only a remarkable piece of engineering rescued the vessels, which in turn let Banks complete the retreat of his army.

As Banks' troops paused to await construction of a bridge over the Atchafalaya River, Wharton's men started harassing the Union rear guard. Mower received orders to stop this Confederate push. His men then answered by forcing the Confederates back toward their primary defensive position. A counterattack from the Confederate side followed, touching off a seesaw struggle before the Confederates were ultimately driven off. The battle came to a close within a few hours when brush caught fire between the two sides. Thanks to Mower's defensive stand, Banks' army managed a safe crossing of the Atchafalaya on May 19 and 20.

Background

Lincoln and Halleck hoped to send a military expedition into Texas that would plant the United States flag there, a move meant to counter the danger posed by the French-installed Maximilian regime in Mexico. Banks, Grant, and Sherman all objected to the plan, yet the push up the Red River went forward regardless, with Banks given command. In mid-March a column of 17,000 men under Banks marched north along Bayou Teche, aiming to join forces at Alexandria with Major General Andrew Jackson Smith's 10,000 troops. Smith's force traveled alongside Porter's gunboats and river transports on the Red River. Low water slowed their progress, and the combined Banks-Porter expedition did not arrive at Natchitoches until April 2 and 3.

On April 8, Taylor's forces shattered Banks' army at the Battle of Mansfield, also called Sabine Cross Roads, forcing a Union withdrawal. After both sides brought in reinforcements, Banks turned back Taylor's assaults the next day at the Battle of Pleasant Hill. Taylor's commanding officer, General Edmund Kirby Smith, arrived on the scene and chose to march the divisions of Major General John George Walker and Brigadier General Thomas James Churchill northward instead, intending to confront a 15,000-man Union force advancing from Little Rock, Arkansas under Major General Frederick Steele. This decision left Taylor with just 5,200 men to harry Banks' far larger army. With no hope of assistance from Steele and orders to send A. J. Smith's men back to Sherman, Banks chose to abandon the campaign and pull back.

The retreating Union force broke through a Confederate attempt to halt it at the Battle of Monett's Ferry on April 23 and made it safely to Alexandria. During the fighting of April 26 and 27, Porter's fleet took losses from Confederate artillery before reaching Alexandria, only to find that falling water levels on the Red River kept his ships from clearing the rapids there. Between May 4 and 13, Taylor's smaller force succeeded in cutting off the Banks-Porter expedition entirely near Alexandria. The situation changed when Union engineer Colonel Joseph Bailey devised what became known as Bailey's Dam, a structure that raised the river high enough for Porter's vessels to cross the rapids on May 13. Banks' army left Alexandria that same day and pressed on with its retreat. Skirmishing broke out at Wilson's Landing and Marksville on May 14 and 15, and on May 16 Taylor made another failed attempt to stop the Federal withdrawal, this time at the Battle of Mansura.

Banks' troops crossed Bayou De Glaise on May 17 and destroyed the bridge behind them. Near Moreauville, Wharton drove back the Union cavalry serving as rearguard. As A. J. Smith's men moved up to counter this pressure, Colonel Xavier Debray sprang an ambush with two cavalry regiments and an artillery battery, opening fire from a hidden position in the woods that struck Smith's column from the side, killing some soldiers and capturing others. At roughly the same moment, Colonel William O. Yager struck the Union wagon train near Yellow Bayou, leading his own 1st Texas Cavalry along with the 2nd Louisiana Cavalry. Company E of the 92nd U.S. Colored Infantry, guarding the wagons, resisted fiercely enough that the Confederates eventually withdrew toward Norwood's Plantation. Although Yager's men managed to burn several wagons, they could not haul away any of their captures since A. J. Smith's troops held the only available road.

Aftermath

Casualty figures for the engagement varied by source. Mower's own count showed 38 men killed, 226 wounded, and 3 missing, amounting to 267 casualties in all. Taylor tallied his side's losses at 30 killed, 350 wounded, and more than 100 of Polignac's men taken prisoner, roughly 500 casualties total. Within Polignac's division, the 28th Louisiana Infantry Regiment, part of Colonel Henry Gray's brigade, "suffered numerous casualties" during the fighting at Yellow Bayou. Historian Brooksher later put the toll at 350 Union and 608 Confederate casualties, while Mark M. Boatner III calculated 267 Union losses against 452 Confederate. The National Park Service, for its part, recorded 360 Union and 500 Confederate casualties. Amid these numbers lay a personal tragedy: Union Colonel Hill's young son, who had accompanied his father into the fight in full uniform astride a pony, was killed.

Meanwhile, the swollen Atchafalaya, engorged with backwater from the flooded Mississippi, posed a formidable barrier to Banks' army. Banks turned to his engineer officer Bailey and asked him to devise a makeshift crossing, a task Bailey carried out successfully. He arranged twenty-two river transports side by side across the Atchafalaya, lashed them into a single unit, and laid planks and gangways over their decks to form a passable road. Troops from the XIII and XIX Corps crossed this improvised span on May 19, followed by the XVI and XVII Corps on May 20. Once the structure was taken apart, the sick and wounded were placed aboard the transports for transport, while the able-bodied soldiers marched on