The Red River campaign, also known as the Red River expedition, was a major Union offensive campaign in the Trans-Mississippi theater of the American Civil War, the campaign taking place from March 10 to May 22, 1864. It was launched through the densely forested Gulf Coastal Plain region between the Red River Valley and central Arkansas towards the end of the war. The offensive was intended to stop Confederate use of the Louisiana port of Shreveport, open an outlet for the sugar and cotton of northern Louisiana, and to split the Confederate lines, allowing the Union to encircle and destroy the Confederate military forces in Louisiana and southern Arkansas. It marked the last major offensive attempted by the Union in the Trans-Mississippi theater.
The expedition was a Union military operation, fought between roughly 30,000 federal troops under the command of Major General Nathaniel P. Banks and Confederate forces under General E. Kirby Smith, whose strength varied from 6,000 to 15,000. The Battle of Mansfield was a major part of the Union offensive campaign, which ended in defeat for General Banks.
The expedition was primarily the plan of Major General Henry W. Halleck, former General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States. A diversion from Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's plan to surround the main Confederate armies by using Banks' Army of the Gulf to capture Mobile, it was characterized by poor planning and mismanagement, and led to bitter enmity between Major General Richard Taylor and his immediate superior, Kirby Smith, after Smith ordered Taylor to send half of his army to north to Arkansas, rather than south in pursuit of Banks, following the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill.
Capture of Shreveport, the state capital and headquarters of the Trans-Mississippi Department
Destroy Confederate forces in the District of West Louisiana commanded by General Richard Taylor
Confiscate as much as 100,000 bales of cotton from the plantations along Red River
Organize pro-Union state governments throughout the region under Lincoln's "ten percent" plan
Union strategists in Washington thought that the occupation of East Texas and control of the Red River would separate Texas from the rest of the Confederacy. Texas was the source of much needed guns, food, and supplies for Confederate troops.
Other historians have claimed that the campaign was also motivated by concern regarding the 25,000 French troops in Mexico sent by Napoleon III and under the command of Emperor Maximilian. At the time, the Confederates offered to recognize the government of Maximillian in return for French recognition of the Confederacy; the Confederates also hoped to gain access to valuable war goods through this recognition. However, Banks' campaign on the Texas coast during November and December 1863 had satisfied U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who wrote to Banks, "My thanks for your successful and valuable operations in Texas."
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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