Overview
The Red River Campaign was a Union offensive in Louisiana during the spring of 1864. President Abraham Lincoln approved the operation at the urging of Chief of Staff Henry Halleck. Union leaders hoped to capture Shreveport, eliminate remaining Confederate forces in Louisiana, control the Red River, cut off supplies from west of the Mississippi River, seize cotton, and discourage cooperation between the Confederacy and French forces in Mexico. Generals Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and Nathaniel Banks opposed the campaign, but Lincoln approved the plan, and it moved forward.
Halleck organized a three-part offensive. General Nathaniel P. Banks would lead 20,000 troops toward Alexandria and Shreveport. Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter would move up the Red River with more than 30 warships, supported by 10,000 soldiers under General Andrew Jackson Smith. General Frederick Steele would advance from Little Rock, Arkansas, with another 10,000 soldiers. Steele’s part of the operation was known as the Camden Expedition.
The campaign started successfully. Porter entered the Red River on March 12, 1864, and Smith’s soldiers captured Fort DeRussy on March 14. Union forces then occupied Alexandria without resistance. Banks eventually joined them and continued toward Shreveport.
The campaign changed dramatically after Banks left the protection of Porter’s fleet and followed an inland route. On April 8, Confederate troops under General Richard Taylor defeated Banks at the Battle of Mansfield. Taylor attacked again at Pleasant Hill on April 9. Although the battle ended in a stalemate, Banks withdrew and abandoned his goal of capturing Shreveport, giving the Confederates another victory.
Problems also threatened Porter’s fleet. Falling water trapped his vessels near Alexandria until Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey constructed a dam that raised the water level enough for the fleet to escape. Meanwhile, Confederate forces stopped Steele’s advance from Arkansas.
Banks continued his retreat while Taylor harassed his forces. Fighting at Mansura and Yellow Bayou marked the final engagements. The campaign ended as a Confederate victory. Union casualties exceeded 8,700, Banks lost his field command, and the operation became one of the Union’s greatest military failures of the war. Afterward, William T. Sherman called the Red River Campaign “one damn blunder from beginning to end.”
Essential Facts
- Date: March 10–May 22, 1864.
- Location: In or near the Red River Valley in northwest Louisiana.
- Participants: The United States of America (USA) and the Confederate States of America (CSA).
- USA Commanders: Nathaniel P. Banks, David Dixon Porter, and Frederick Steele.
- CSA Commanders: Kirby Smith and Richard Taylor.
- Who Won: The Confederate States won the Red River Campaign.
- Era:
Statistics
United States of America
- Casualties: Approximately 8,700 killed, wounded, captured, or missing.
- Forces Engaged: Army of the Gulf, Army of the Tennessee, Department of Arkansas, and Mississippi flotilla of the U.S. Navy.
- Troop Strength: Roughly 30,000.
Confederate States of America
- Casualties: Approximately 6,500 killed, wounded, captured, or missing.
- Forces Engaged: District of West Louisiana, District of Arkansas, District of Indian Territory, District of Texas, and Confederate Navy based in Shreveport.
- Troop Strength: Roughly 6,000–15,000.
Significance
The Red River Campaign is important to American History because it was one of the Union’s greatest military failures of the Civil War. Confederate victories at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill forced General Nathaniel Banks to abandon the attempt to capture Shreveport, while Confederate forces also stopped General Frederick Steele’s advance from Arkansas. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey prevented another disaster by constructing a dam that allowed Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter’s fleet to escape near Alexandria. The campaign cost the Union more than 8,700 casualties, diverted troops and supplies from other operations, damaged Porter’s reputation, and ended Banks’s career as a field commander.
History
By the spring of 1864, Confederate Louisiana had shriveled to the northwestern area of the state. The capital had moved to Opelousas in 1862 and then to Shreveport in the spring of 1863. At the urging of Chief of Staff Henry Halleck, President Abraham Lincoln approved an offensive against the remaining Confederate forces in Louisiana in the spring of 1864. Named the Red River Campaign, the offensive had many objectives, which included:
- Capturing Shreveport, which, besides serving as the temporary state capital, was also the headquarters of the Confederacy’s Trans-Mississippi Department, which General Kirby Smith commanded
- Clearing Louisiana of the last remaining Confederate forces in the state
- Seizing control of the Red River and, thereby, providing a passageway to invade eastern Texas
- Denying the South supplies from areas west of the Mississippi River
- Commandeering vast quantities of cotton to supply northern mills
- Discouraging an alliance between the Confederacy and French-occupation forces in Mexico.
Despite these potential benefits, Union generals Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and Nathaniel Banks, the man who would lead the ground forces during the operation, opposed the idea. Nonetheless, Halleck prevailed, and the campaign began in March 1864.
Henry Halleck’s Plan for the Red River Campaign
Halleck’s plan comprised a three-pronged assault:
- Major General Nathaniel P. Banks would march 20,000 troops from the area around New Orleans across southern Louisiana and occupy Alexandria, Louisiana, near the center of the state, before moving on to Shreveport.
- Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter would ascend the Red River and join Banks at Alexandria with over thirty warships and an accompanying supply fleet. A land force of 10,000 soldiers, commanded by Brigadier-General Andrew Jackson Smith and detached from William T. Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee, would protect Dixon’s flotilla.
- After Banks and Porter joined forces and continued upriver toward Shreveport, Major General Frederick Steele would lead another 10,000 Union soldiers out of Little Rock, Arkansas, and approach Shreveport from the north or east.
The campaign began on March 12, as Porter’s fleet entered the mouth of the Red River from the Mississippi River. Events went well for the Federals initially.
Battle of Fort DeRussy — March 14, 1864
On March 14, Smith’s soldiers overran Fort DeRussy and captured a Confederate garrison of approximately three hundred men. On the next day, Porter and Smith moved upriver and occupied Alexandria unopposed.
Behind schedule, the forward elements of his army did not reach Alexandria until March 23. Banks himself did not arrive until the next day on a steamboat with cotton speculators from his home state of Massachusetts.
Banks and Porter were immediately at odds when Banks learned that, while Porter was awaiting his arrival, his sailors were busy commandeering cotton that Banks had promised to the political supporters with whom he was traveling.
Battle of Mansfield — April 8, 1864
At last united, the combined Federal forces moved upriver to Grand Ecore. On April 6, Banks left the river and, thus, the protection that Porter’s fleet offered to travel up an inland road toward Shreveport.
By the time his whole force was in motion, the column of cavalry, artillery, infantry, and supplies stretched over twenty miles.
As Banks’s cavalry, led by Brigadier-General Albert L. Lee, approached Sabine Cross-Roads on April 8, they encountered up to 14,000 Confederates, commanded by Major General Richard Taylor, spread out in a defensive position.
Lee ordered his horsemen to dismount and requested reinforcements from Banks. Throughout the morning, Lee probed the Confederate lines, as Taylor hoped for a Union assault.
When the Federals did not attack, Taylor’s men launched their own assault in the late afternoon. The Confederates collapsed both Union flanks before Northern forces stopped the Confederates at the center of the Federal lines.
Battered by the Confederate attack, Banks withdrew to Pleasant Hill during the night. The Battle of Mansfield, also known as the Battle of Sabine Cross-Roads, was a decisive Confederate victory.
Battle of Pleasant Hill — April 9, 1864
With Banks in retreat, Taylor marched toward Pleasant Hill the next day, hoping to destroy the Union Army.
Upon reaching his destination, Taylor rested his men for a few hours, formed his line of battle, and then attacked the Federals at 4 p.m. The assault was initially successful, as Taylor rolled up Banks’s left flank, but the Union center held.
Four hours of fighting led to a stalemate, and once again, Banks withdrew during the night.
While not as decisive as the Battle of Mansfield, the Battle of Pleasant Hill was another Confederate strategic victory.
Banks abandoned his goal of capturing Shreveport and attempted to retrace his 150-mile journey up the Red River.
Sensing an opportunity to destroy the retreating Union army, Taylor requested reinforcements from his commanding officer, General Kirby Smith, along with permission to pursue the fleeing Union forces.
Smith, however, had other concerns. Rather than sending reinforcements, Smith reassigned approximately one-half of Taylor’s army to Major General John George Walker, with orders to check Major General Frederick Steele’s Federal army, which was moving south toward Shreveport from Arkansas.
Denied his opportunity to defeat a large Union army, Taylor settled for harassing Banks for the rest of the campaign.
Smith’s decision created everlasting rancor between the two Confederate generals.
Bailey’s Dam — April 30–May 13, 1864
Meanwhile, back on the Red River, events were also going poorly for the Union Navy. On April 13, Porter arrived at Grand Ecore, upriver from Alexandria.
Unbeknownst to Porter, the Confederates blew up a dam upstream, lowering the river’s water level. After learning of Banks’s retreat, Porter withdrew from Grand Ecore on April 21 and began moving back down the river, only to discover that the water had dropped too much for him to traverse the falls at Alexandria.
With the fleet in danger of being stranded, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey proposed raising the water level of the river by constructing a winged dam with a spillway in the center. Bailey based his design on dams he had worked on as a logger in Wisconsin.
Unable to find a better alternative, Union leaders authorized Bailey to try his plan. With thousands of men at his disposal, Bailey began construction on April 30.
A little over one week later, the water had risen enough to allow Porter’s lighter boats to traverse the falls. By May 13, the entire fleet had moved out of danger.
Steele’s Retreat — April 18–May 3, 1864
Steele’s expedition fared no better. Beginning on April 18, Confederate forces led by Major General Sterling Price and General Kirby Smith inflicted a series of ruinous defeats on Steele. By May 3, the Union general was back in Little Rock, soundly repulsed.
Mansura (May 16, 1864) and Yellow Bayou (May 18, 1864)
Taylor continued to harass Banks as he limped back to southern Louisiana but with little effect other than to add to the mounting humiliation of the Federals. The final skirmishes took place at Mansura, Louisiana, on May 16 and at Yellow Bayou on May 18.
Outcome
The outcome of the Red River Campaign was a Federal fiasco, perhaps the biggest of the war. Besides casualty totals that topped 8,700 soldiers, the expedition siphoned men and material away from other operations, perhaps extending the war. The campaign sullied Porter’s reputation and ruined Banks’ military career. Shortly after Banks returned to southern Louisiana, the U.S. War Department issued General Orders No. 192, on May 7, 1864. The order placed the Department of the Gulf under the dominion of the newly created Division of West Mississippi, commanded by Major General Edward Canby. Reduced to an administrative role, Banks would never again command troops in the field. In December 1864, Banks came under Congressional scrutiny from the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. William T. Sherman may have summarized the campaign best when he declared it “one damn blunder from beginning to end.”
Timeline
- 1862 — Confederate Louisiana moved its capital to Opelousas.
- 1863, Spring — Confederate Louisiana moved its capital to Shreveport.
- 1864, Spring — President Abraham Lincoln approved an offensive against the remaining Confederate forces in Louisiana.
- 1864, March 12 — Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter’s fleet entered the Red River from the Mississippi River.
- 1864, March 14 — Union forces won the Battle of Fort DeRussy.
- 1864, March 15 — Union forces moved upriver and occupied Alexandria without opposition.
- 1864, March 23 — The leading elements of General Nathaniel P. Banks’s army reached Alexandria.
- 1864, March 24 — Banks arrived at Alexandria by steamboat.
- 1864, April 6 — Banks left the Red River and advanced toward Shreveport along an inland road.
- 1864, April 8 — Confederate forces won the Battle of Mansfield.
- 1864, April 9 — Union forces won the Battle of Pleasant Hill, but continued to retreat.
- 1864, April 13 — David Dixon Porter arrived at Grand Ecore.
- 1864, April 18 — Confederate forces under Sterling Price and Kirby Smith started a series of attacks that forced Steele to retreat.
- 1864, April 21 — Porter withdrew from Grand Ecore and moved down the Red River.
- 1864, April 30 — Joseph Bailey started construction of a dam to raise the Red River.
- 1864, May 3 — Steele returned to Little Rock after Confederate forces stopped his expedition.
- 1864, May 7 — The U.S. War Department issued General Orders No. 192, placing the Department of the Gulf under the Division of West Mississippi.
- 1864, May 13 — Porter’s entire fleet passed the falls at Alexandria and escaped danger.
- 1864, May 16 — Union forces won the Battle of Mansura.
- 1864, May 18 — Union forces won the Battle of Yellow Bayou.
- 1864, December — The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War investigated Banks’s actions during the campaign.
AP US History
Definition
Red River Campaign (1864) — The Red River Campaign was a Union offensive in Louisiana that targeted Shreveport and Confederate forces west of the Mississippi River. Union forces captured Fort DeRussy and occupied Alexandria before advancing toward Shreveport. Confederate victories at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill forced General Nathaniel Banks to retreat. Meanwhile, Joseph Bailey’s dam allowed Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter’s trapped fleet to escape Alexandria. The failed campaign resulted in a Confederate victory and ended Banks’s career as a field commander.
Alignment
The Red River Campaign is part of the following AP US History sections:
