The Battle of Lake Providence was fought on June 9, 1863, during the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. Confederate troops from the Trans-Mississippi Department were trying to relieve Union pressure during the Siege of Vicksburg. Major General Richard Taylor, primarily using Walker's Greyhounds, prepared a three-pronged attack against Union positions at Milliken's Bend, Young's Point, and Lake Providence, which was scheduled to take place on June 7. The strike against Lake Providence was conducted by 900 men led by Colonel Frank Bartlett.
Bartlett's force crossed Bayou Macon two days late. The Confederates encountered a Union picket force six miles (10 km) from their destination. The Union pickets withdrew, alerted Union commander Brigadier General Hugh T. Reid, and while withdrawing burned the bridge over Bayou Tensas. The Confederates were halted at Bayou Tensas by the wrecked bridge, and before the structure could be rebuilt, Reid arrived with his main force. A Confederate cannon was driven off by Union fire, and Bartlett withdrew his men at dusk. The attack against Lake Providence accomplished little, the strike against Milliken's Bend was defeated in the Battle of Milliken's Bend, and little came of the movement against Young's Point. Vicksburg surrendered on July 4.
In early 1863, during the American Civil War, Major General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union Army began a campaign against Vicksburg, Mississippi, which was held by Confederate troops. In late April, the Union troops crossed the Mississippi River from Louisiana to Mississippi, south of Vicksburg. By May 18, Grant's troops had surrounded Vicksburg and placed the city under siege. During the early part of the campaign, Grant had operated a supply depot at Milliken's Bend in Louisiana, but this decreased in importance, as by the time of the siege, he had established a different supply line. Grant still kept minor supply points there and also at Young's Point and Lake Providence in Louisiana; the sites were also used to train newly-recruited United States Colored Troops (USCT). The USCT troops were not intended to be used as front-line combat soldiers, and were poorly armed and trained. The positions were also garrisoned by white troops.
Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, pressured E. Kirby Smith, the commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, to undertake an offensive in Louisiana to take some of the pressure off Vicksburg. The Confederates did not know at this time that events had rendered Milliken's Bend of lower importance to Grant. The Confederate Trans-Mississippi effort to help Vicksburg would be conducted by Major General Richard Taylor, using an infantry division from Texas known as Walker's Greyhounds. Taylor preferred a strike against New Orleans, Louisiana, and conducted the campaign with subdued enthusiasm. Taylor's men had previously withdrawn up the Red River, but the Union forces operating on the Red River had transferred to the Port Hudson, Louisiana, area. The withdrawal of these troops allowed the Confederates greater freedom to operate against Grant's posts in Louisiana. Taylor's command, after it had been reinforced by Walker, was to advance up Bayou Tensas. Confederate cavalry occupied Richmond, Louisiana, on June 3; Major General John George Walker's troops reached Richmond on June 6; and Taylor planned a three-pronged strike for the next day: Confederate troops were to attack Milliken's Bend, Young's Point, and Lake Providence. The selection of Lake Providence included some political motivations: Confederates viewed the training of USCT to be the fomenting of a slave rebellion, and some of the locals were trading with the Union from the produce of their plantations. Confederate troops had been active in the area since May under the leadership of Brigadier General Paul O. Hébert. While Hébert's troops were able to harass the Union forces at Lake Providence, they lacked the strength to make an all-out attack.
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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