Red River Campaign

• Major General Richard TaylorMansfield, Pleasant Hill, Mansura, Yellow Bayou
• Lieutenant Colonel William ByrdFort DeRussy
• Brigadier General Tom GreenBlair's Landing
• Brigadier General Hamilton P. BeeMonett's Ferry

• Brigadier General A.J. SmithFort DeRussy
• Brigadier General Joseph A. MowerFort DeRussy, Yellow Bayou
• Major General Nathaniel P. BanksMansfield, Pleasant Hill, Monett's Ferry, Mansura
• Brigadier General Thomas Kilby SmithBlair's Landing
• Rear Admiral David D. PorterBlair's Landing

Between March 10 and May 22, 1864, Union forces pursued a large-scale operation across the Trans-Mississippi theater known as the Red River campaign, or alternatively the Red River expedition. Federal troops pushed through the thickly wooded Gulf Coastal Plain lying between the Red River Valley and central Arkansas, in what came near the war's close. Behind this push lay several goals: choking off Confederate access to the Louisiana port of Shreveport, securing a route for shipping northern Louisiana's sugar and cotton, and driving a wedge through Confederate positions so that Union forces might surround and crush the rebel armies stationed in Louisiana and southern Arkansas. This would prove to be the final large Union push attempted anywhere in the Trans-Mississippi region during the conflict.

Roughly 30,000 federal soldiers, led by Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, faced off against Confederate troops under General E. Kirby Smith, whose numbers fluctuated between 6,000 and 15,000 men. Among the significant engagements of this Union push was the Battle of Mansfield, which resulted in a setback for Banks.

Credit for devising the expedition belongs chiefly to Major General Henry W. Halleck, who had previously served as General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States. The operation functioned as a departure from Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's broader strategy, which called for Banks's Army of the Gulf to seize Mobile as part of a scheme to trap the Confederacy's main forces. Weak planning and poor execution plagued the effort throughout, and it produced lasting bitterness between Major General Richard Taylor and his commanding officer, Kirby Smith. This rift grew after Smith directed Taylor to divert half his troops northward into Arkansas instead of continuing south after Banks, a decision made in the aftermath of the fighting at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill.

Opposing forces

At the outset of the campaign, the Union forces were organized under the Department of the Gulf, commanded by Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks. Under his authority stood the 19th Army Corps, led by Major General William B. Franklin, along with a detachment from the 13th Army Corps under Brigadier General Thomas E. G. Ransom. A further detachment, drawn from the 16th and 17th Army Corps, answered to Brigadier General Andrew J. Smith. Major General Frederick Steele held command of the Department of Arkansas. Supporting these forces were an Artillery Reserve directed by Captain Henry W. Closson and a Cavalry Division under Brigadier-General Albert L. Lee. The Corps D'Afrique contributed its 1st Brigade, commanded by Colonel William H. Dickey. On the water, naval support came from the Mississippi Squadron, under Rear Admiral David D. Porter.

Planning

By January 1864, Halleck had settled on a strategy that required Banks to march 20,000 soldiers north from New Orleans toward Alexandria. Among these was the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, the sole unit from the Keystone State involved in this campaign. Their path followed the Bayou Teche, a Louisiana term for a slow-moving river or stream. At Alexandria, they were to link up with 15,000 men dispatched from Sherman's command at Vicksburg, Mississippi, under Brigadier General Andrew J. Smith. However, Smith's troops could only remain with Banks until late April, since they were needed elsewhere for other Union operations and would then return east.

Once joined, Banks would lead this combined force of 35,000 soldiers northward along the Red River toward Shreveport, with naval support coming from Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter's gunboat fleet. Simultaneously, Major General Frederick Steele was to bring 7,000 troops from the Department of Arkansas down to meet Banks near Shreveport, both to assist in the assault and to occupy the city once it fell.

Everything stood ready for execution by early March 1864, though Banks had been somewhat slow in informing Sherman and Porter of their assigned duties within Halleck's overall design. Before the campaign began, Banks forwarded to Sherman, Halleck, and Porter an assessment drafted by Major David Houston, which laid out clearly how difficult, if not impossible, holding Shreveport and East Texas would be without substantial reinforcement. The bulk of Banks's army, joined by a large but poorly disciplined body of cavalry, pressed northward along the river's middle stretch. Banks permitted cotton traders to travel with the expedition, and Porter brought along barges intended to seize cotton as profitable naval prizes.

Meanwhile, high-ranking Confederate officers remained uncertain whether the true target of the Union's spring 1864 offensive was the Red River valley, Mobile Bay, or the Texas coastline. Despite this uncertainty, General E. Kirby Smith, who commanded the Trans-Mississippi Department, began redirecting a large portion of his forces toward Shreveport all the same.

Confederate

At the outset of the campaign, Confederate forces were organized under the Trans-Mississippi Department, commanded by General E. Kirby Smith. Beneath him, Major General Richard Taylor led the District of West Louisiana, which included two infantry divisions: one under Brigadier General John G. Walker and another under Brigadier-General Alfred Mouton, who was killed in the fighting. Also under Taylor's command was the Sub-District of North Louisiana, headed by Brigadier General St. John R. Liddell, along with a cavalry division led by Brigadier General Thomas Green, who likewise died during the campaign. A separate detachment from the District of Arkansas fell under Brigadier General Thomas J. Churchill, encompassing two more divisions: one made up of Missouri troops under Brigadier General M. M. Parsons, and the other composed of Arkansas troops under Brigadier General James C. Tappan.

Aftermath

For the Union, this campaign ended in defeat, though its consequences did not substantially alter the war's trajectory. In fact, the venture may have prolonged the conflict by several months, since it pulled Union resources away from the much more critical goal of seizing Mobile, Alabama. Mobile would not fall until 1865, yet many believed it could have been taken by June 1864 had the Red River campaign not intervened.

Banks saw his military career effectively finished as a result of this defeat. Questions about his withdrawal, the involvement of cotton speculators, and the practice of using military vessels to haul away cotton would trail him through his early attempts at a congressional seat after the war. Meanwhile, Admiral Porter came away from the campaign considerably richer, having profited from selling captured cotton as spoils of war.

On the Confederate side, two vital commanders, Mouton and Green, were killed, and the army absorbed losses it could scarcely sustain. Even more damaging in the long run was the rift this created between the bold Taylor and the more careful Smith. Their falling out stemmed from Smith's choice to pull half of Taylor's men away after the fighting at Pleasant Hill, a decision that permanently soured their working relationship. Taylor never got over what he saw as a squandered chance to seize the whole Union fleet while it sat trapped above the falls near Alexandria, and he remained convinced for the rest of his life that Smith had denied him the opportunity to deal a crippling blow to Union forces. This bitter dispute ultimately led to Taylor being reassigned, shortly after the campaign concluded, to command the Department of East Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.