By the beginning of May, the Federal mission to capture the vital cotton-producing city of Shreveport via the Red River and Arkansas had failed. Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks’s Army of the Gulf was back where it started at Alexandria and Major-General Frederick Steele, whose Army of Arkansas had been expected to meet Banks at Shreveport, was retreating from Camden to Little Rock. These two forces retreated intact, but Rear-Admiral David D. Porter’s Federal naval flotilla on the Red River faced potential destruction.
The river had been falling for weeks, and the vessels that had moved upstream now did not have deep enough water to get back down. In late April, Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey had put Federals to work building dams that would raise the water and, when burst, create a current large enough for the vessels to float over the jagged rocks in the riverbed and steam to safety.
The Federals working to get the squadron downstream were under constant attack from Confederates on the riverbanks. The Confederates destroyed the Federal transport Emma at David’s Ferry, 30 miles below Alexandria, taking the captain and crew prisoner. A few days later, they captured the Federal transport City Belle at the same spot and took over a third of the 700 troops aboard prisoner (the rest jumped overboard to escape). Meanwhile, guerrillas clashed with Federals around the plantation of Louisiana Governor Thomas O. Moore.
At Dunn’s Bayou below Alexandria, Confederate infantry and shore batteries attacked the Federal transport Warner and her gunboat escorts, the U.S.S. Covington and Signal, as they rounded a bend. The Warner carried Ohio troops going home on furlough as a reward for reenlisting. She was immediately disabled and grounded in a bend near Pierce’s Landing.
The Confederates then disabled the Signal, forcing her to surrender when the Covington lost most of her crew and ran out of ammunition. In the first five days of May, Confederates had inflicted nearly 600 casualties while destroying two gunboats and three transports.
During this time, Steele’s demoralized Federals straggled back to Little Rock from Camden, fending off Confederate guerrillas all along the way. A Federal private noted that “everybody is down on Steele” and the troops viewed their defeat at Camden as “worse than Bull Run.”
In his mission to advance to Shreveport, Steele never even got out of Arkansas due to lack of supplies and Banks’s failure in Louisiana. Steele’s army sustained 2,750 casualties while losing nearly 4,000 mules, nine guns, and nearly 700 supply wagons. In his report, Steele called his campaign the “Camden expedition,” downplaying the fact that this failed mission was supposed to have been the “Shreveport expedition.” The dual retreats of Steele and Banks left the Confederates still in control of western Louisiana, southern Arkansas, the eastern part of the Indian Territory, and all of Texas except the Rio Grande.
Steele’s retreat allowed General Edmund Kirby Smith, commanding the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, to shift his primary focus from Arkansas to Louisiana. Smith issued orders for his Confederates at Camden to move “by the most direct route to Louisiana” to confront both Banks’s dispirited army and Porter’s vulnerable flotilla.
Lieutenant-General Richard Taylor, commanding the Louisiana district under Smith, notified him that the Confederate victory at Dunn’s Bayou had turned the lower Red River into “a mare clausum. Forage and subsistence of every kind have been removed beyond the enemy’s reach. Rigid orders are given to destroy everything useful that can fall into his hands. We will play the game the Russians played in the retreat from Moscow.”
As Confederate troops hurried from Arkansas back to Louisiana, Bailey’s Federals continued working to dam the 758-foot-wide Red River. By May 8, the dam had been built on either side of the river, leaving a 150-foot gap in the center. This raised the water level high enough for three of the lighter-draft gunboats (the U.S.S. Fort Hindman, Neosho, and Osage) to go through the upper falls, just before the dam.
On each dam wing, Bailey directed the sinking of two stone barges to raise the water even higher. However, two of the barges broke loose under the pressure, allowing a massive flood of water to surge through the chute in the center. Porter quickly ordered the three gunboats, along with the U.S.S. Lexington, to try passing on this wave. The Lexington tried first.
According to Porter, the timberclad “steered directly for the opening in the dam, through which the water was rushing so furiously that it seemed as if nothing but destruction awaited her. Thousands of beating hearts looked on anxious for the result; the silence was so great as the Lexington approached the dam that a pin might almost be heard to fall.”
The Lexington, “with a full head of steam on, pitched down the roaring torrent, made two or three spasmodic rolls, hung for a moment on the rocks below, was then swept into deep water by the current and rounded to, safely, into the bank. Thirty thousand voices rose in one deafening roar.” The next three gunboats also passed safely, after which Bailey’s Federals began working to shore up the dam for the rest of the flotilla to pass.
Meanwhile, the Federal high command continued to express dissatisfaction with Banks’s performance in this campaign. General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant had pushed for Banks’s removal, but Chief of Staff Henry W. Halleck replied:
“General Banks is a personal friend of the President and has strong political supporters in and out of Congress… To do an act which will give offense to a large number of his political friends the President will require some evidence in a positive form to show the military necessity of that act… You will perceive that the press in New Orleans and in the Eastern States are already beginning to open in General Banks’ favor. The administration would be immediately attacked for his removal. Do not understand me as advocating his retention in command. On the contrary, I expressed to the President months ago my own opinion of General Banks’ want of military capacity.”
President Abraham Lincoln’s support for Banks quickly waned when Navy Secretary Gideon Welles brought him a report from Admiral Porter charging that the failure of the Red River campaign was “attributed entirely and exclusively to the incapacity of General Banks,” and accusing Banks of “equivocating, of electioneering, of speculating in cotton and general malfeasance and mismanagement.” According to Welles, “it seemed to convince the President, who I have thought was over-partial to Banks… (Lincoln) said he had rather cousined up to Banks, but for some time past had begun to think he was erring in so doing.”
Lincoln issued orders creating a new Federal Military Division of West Mississippi, which would unite all Federal armies west of the Mississippi River. In command would be Major-General Edward R.S. Canby, who was to coordinate operations from Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico, and from Florida to Texas; the primary objective would be to capture Mobile, Alabama. Part of Canby’s job would also be to officially end the Red River campaign and restrict Banks to administrative duties in Louisiana.
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