The Battle of Goodrich's Landing was fought on June 29 and June 30, 1863, between Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War as part of the Vicksburg campaign. Confederate forces operating in northeastern Louisiana were attempting to aid the defenders of besieged Vicksburg, Mississippi, by raiding plantations and disrupting military encampments along the west bank of the Mississippi River. Major General John G. Walker's Confederate forces were reinforced by a brigade sent down from Arkansas under the command of Colonel William Henry Parsons.
On June 29, Parsons led a force against the Union position at Goodrich's Landing, Louisiana. Parsons encountered two companies of the 1st Arkansas Infantry (African Descent) defending a fortified position on an Indian mound. The Confederates deemed the position too strong to take easily by assault, and after consultation with Brigadier General James C. Tappan (whose brigade of Arkansas troops was also involved in the operations in northeast Louisiana), the Confederates accepted the surrender of the Union troops on the mound. Eyewitness accounts indicate that some of the Black enlisted men were killed after the surrender.
Parsons advanced towards Lake Providence, Louisiana, with the 12th Texas Cavalry Regiment and the 19th Texas Cavalry Regiment and skirmished with the 1st Kansas Mounted Regiment before returning to the Confederate camp. Union Brigadier General Alfred W. Ellet arrived with his Mississippi Marine Brigade, and along with the troops of the Goodrich's Landing garrison (the rest of the 1st Arkansas and the 10th Louisiana Infantry (African Descent)) pursued the retreating Confederates. The two sides skirmished at the crossing of Tensas Bayou before the Confederates broke contact and left. The Confederate operations caused significant damage but did not assist the defenders of Vicksburg in a meaningful way; disruption to Union operations was only temporary.
During the initial stages of the 1863 portion of the Vicksburg campaign, the Union troops of Major General Ulysses S. Grant had a supply base at Milliken's Bend, Louisiana. By the Siege of Vicksburg, Grant's besieging forces had established a different supply route, and Milliken's Bend decreased in importance. Milliken's Bend and other locations remained as lesser supply points. Black soldiers were recruited and trained in those regions as well, and their units became known as the United States Colored Troops. Training sites for Black soldiers were established at Goodrich's Landing, Louisiana; Milliken's Bend; and Lake Providence, Louisiana. These units were poorly armed and trained, and were not intended for front-line combat use. The regiments had White officers, many of whom were recently elevated multiple ranks at once when they transferred into the new regiments. Many former slaves who did not join the military worked on government-leased cotton plantations. The United States government confiscated abandoned plantations along the Mississippi River and leased them to private businessmen, who used the former slaves as agricultural laborers. This setup was lightly regulated and the laborers were often treated poorly.
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.
This page covers Battle of Harrison's Landing. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.