Military Strategy, Politics, and Economics
The Red River Campaign
Ludwell H. Johnson
The primary military objective of the Union invasion of northwestern Louisiana (March-May 1864) was the capture of Shreveport, headquarters of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, and the consequent breakup of organized resistance in that theater of operations. US Major General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, a Massachusetts politician devoid of military talent, led a force up the Red River accompanied by vessels from the Mississippi Squadron commanded by USN Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter, who was flamboyant, able, and sticky-fingered. A supporting column of 10,000 men under US Major General Frederick Steele was to march on Shreveport from Little Rock, Arkansas. CS General E. Kirby Smith, commander of the semiautonomous Trans-Mississippi Department, was responsible for meeting this formidable invasion by Banks, Porter, and Steele. Smith ordered CS Major General Richard Taylor, District of West Louisiana, to defend the Red River. Taylor was the son of former president Zachary Taylor, a skillful amateur soldier, and a veteran of CS Major General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's Shenandoah Valley campaign.
These military particulars give no hint of the real origins of the campaign. Years before the war began, some Americans, especially New Englanders and New Yorkers, had called for a migration of northerners to Texas. There Yankee civilization would replace southern barbarism, the new settlers would find rich farms, and the textile mills of the Northeast would have an alternative source of cotton. The coming of war seemed to make this dream realizable. The French invasion of Mexico and the fall of Mexico City in the summer of 1863 gave the Lincoln administration an additional reason to heed those who were lobbying for the occupation of Texas; a possible collaboration between Jefferson Davis and Napoleon III along the Rio Grande was not a comforting thought.
Furthermore, invading Texas by way of the Red River would open up more of Louisiana to the plan of political reconstruction Lincoln had set forth in his proclamation of December 8, 1863, and which he had ordered Banks to expedite. Finally, the valley of the Red River reportedly contained large quantities of baled cotton, the price of which had risen manyfold since 1861. This cotton could feed the mills of both England and New England and enrich the swarms of traders who planned to follow the armies, carrying Treasury Department or presidential permits to trade with the enemy. As for Porter and his jolly tars, they looked forward to a new opportunity for lining their pockets with the proceeds from cotton seized as "prize of war." This was the web of causality that drew the Federals up the Red River in the spring of 1864.
The campaign began on March 12 when 10,000 men under US Brigadier General Andrew J. Smith, sent from Vicksburg by US Major General William T. Sherman, landed at Simmesport, on the Red River near its confluence with the Mississippi, and proceeded to capture Fort DeRussy. After brushing aside the outnumbered Confederates, Smith's soldiers and Porter's sailors went on to Alexandria. While waiting for Banks to come up from southern Louisiana, Porter's men fanned out through the countryside, commandeering wagons and teams, collecting "prize" cotton, and stuffing it into their gunboats. Ten days later Banks arrived with 20,000 infantry, artillery, and cavalry. After elections were held in the name of the "restored" government of Louisiana, the army and navy pressed on up the river. Taylor, with no more than 7,000 troops of all arms, fell back.
On April 3 Banks reached Grand Ecore. Thus far he had been keeping close to the river and to the comforting guns of the Mississippi Squadron. After holding more elections, Banks left the river, turned west, and began to follow the crest of the watershed between the Red and Sabine Rivers, where a few narrow roads ran over low hills and through dense pine woods. The road chosen led through Pleasant Hill and Mansfield, and then, turning back toward the river, to Shreveport.
Taylor, still looking for a chance to turn on the enemy, fell back until he reached Mansfield, where he made a stand east of the town. The result was a resounding Confederate victory. Neither side emerged as the decisive winner in the battle of Pleasant Hill the next day. After the battle, CS General Smith made the grave mistake of taking most of Taylor's infantry to Arkansas to meet Steele, who, harassed by Confederate cavalry and very short of food, had already begun to retreat. Taylor was outraged, for this decision eliminated any chance that he might cut Banks off and capture Porter's gunboats, which were experiencing great difficulties because of unusually low water in the Red.
Acting on the advice of several of his generals, Banks fell back from Pleasant Hill to Grand Ecore, and by the nineteenth had resumed his retreat to Alexandria: 25,000 Federals stalked by 5,000 Confederates. Banks's men burned everything that could not be stolen, leaving behind them a smoking wasteland. Taylor tried to trap Banks between the Red and Cane Rivers on April 23 and 24, but failed because the odds against him were too heavy. By the twenty-sixth, Banks was back in Alexandria, where reinforcements brought Federal strength up to 31,000. It was essential to make a stand here because the water on the falls was so shallow that Porter's flotilla was trapped. Time was needed to build a 750-foot-wide dam, which was to become famous in the history of military engineering: constructed in two weeks, it raised the water level sufficiently to allow the Mississippi Squadron to escape downstream, though not until the gunboats jettisoned their "prize of war" cotton.
Banks was then free to conclude one of the most wretched Union failures of the war. The army moved out of Alexandria on May 13, but not before the town was fired by soldiers belonging to the command of A. J. Smith, who rode amid the flames shouting, "Hurrah, boys, this looks like war!" At Mansura and at Yellow Bayou, Taylor tried again to disrupt the enemy's retreat. There was some brisk fighting at Yellow Bayou, but as usual the disparity in numbers was too great for the Confederates to prevail. By May 20 Banks had put the Atchafalaya Bayou between him and his pursuers, and the campaign was over.
The Red River expedition had important effects on the major campaigns east of the Mississippi. Sherman lost the services of A. J. Smith's 10,000 hard-fighting veterans, whom he had planned to use in his advance on Atlanta. Banks's fiasco also tied up troops intended for an attack on Mobile. That in turn released 15,000 Confederates from the Gulf states to join CS General Joseph E. Johnston in north Georgia. These changes in combat strength probably substantially postponed southern defeat in Georgia and may have lengthened the war by weeks or months. The Red River campaign is, however, most significant to history as an illustration of the way political and economic considerations shape military strategy.
