The Camden Expedition of 1864 Read online

  Banks launched the Red River Campaign on March 12, 1864, at Simmesport, Louisiana. His Army of the Gulf made admirable progress in the initial stages of the campaign. Within five days his veterans had reduced the stout Fort DeRussy on the lower Red and moved on Alexandria halfway to the objective, Shreveport. Here circumstances began to conspire against the success of the offensive. First, the naval contingent under Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter had difficulty ascending the Red at Alexandria due to falling river levels and the infamous “rapids” opposite the city. After much cajoling the navy got above the dangerous and rocky rapids at Alexandria. However, if the river levels fell any further there was a chance the fleet would find itself trapped up the Red.

  Second, the cool relationship between Banks and Porter deteriorated amid allegations of speculating for profits in cotton. Banks, a career politician, and Porter, a crusty naval “lifer,” were required “to co-operate”8 according to the correspondence from Halleck. With no command relationship established it would be challenging at best to make these divergent personalities work together. With recriminations about cotton flying and Porter’s anxiety for the safety of his boats, it became next to impossible to achieve any semblance of “cooperation.”

  On March 27 Banks advanced northwest from Alexandria toward his objective less than ninety miles away. At the small hamlet of Grand Ecore, Banks made an ominous decision that would doom the outcome of the campaign. From Simmesport to Grand Ecore the army had used roads in close proximity to the river. This allowed the soldiers to draw logistical and fire support from the navy. However, at Grand Ecore the road northwest diverged from the river—or so Banks believed. Upon arrival at Grand Ecore Banks received a dispatch from the new Union commander-in-chief, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, ordering him to conclude the campaign by April 10. Since it was already April 3, Banks decided that conducting proper reconnaissance to confirm or deny the availability of a suitable road close to the river would take too much time.9 He instead moved his army up the Mansfield Road away from the river. At Mansfield he could turn back toward the Red where he could again use a river road to handrail the rest of the way to Shreveport. This route, he reasoned, would allow him to move more quickly to his objective in accordance with Grant’s directive.

  This decision provided the smaller Confederate forces with the opportunity to strike the Federal army at a point of disadvantage in the “pine desert” of west Louisiana.10 Lieutenant General Edmund Kirby Smith commanded the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department. His primary subordinate in Louisiana was Major General Richard Taylor. Taylor, who had closely observed Banks’ steady progress up the Red, recognized his opportunity and planned to strike Banks boldly at a country crossroad south of Mansfield. Taylor’s District of West Louisiana had about 12,000 troops available for the assault. The Federal army had about 30,000 troops, but they would be strung out on a narrow dirt road bordered by a thick pine forest on both sides. Taylor laid a well-planned ambush across the Mansfield Road to hit the head of the Union column. Once the Yankees stopped and attempted to deploy into battle formation, he would strike into the flanks with an attack column. Finally, he would charge down the road upon the Federal retreat in a tightly packed column destroying each individual piece of the enemy army in detail. As an added incentive the Union army had an enormous 700-wagon field train accompanying the march that would prove a coveted prize for the ragged Rebel force.11

  Taylor sprung the ambush in the early afternoon of April 8, 1864, destroying the lead division of Banks’ army and pursued the flying column in a running fight for miles southward back toward Grand Ecore. This was the turning point in the campaign. Flushed with the euphoria of victory, Taylor brought up fresh troops that had not participated in the fight at Mansfield in order to press his advantage. Banks had drawn his army up in defensive positions around the small village of Pleasant Hill. Taylor pushed his army all night and into the early morning hours of the 9th. After a short rest, he attempted a flank march around the Federal left about three o’clock that afternoon.12

  Taylor’s attack miscarried as one of Banks’ most competent subordinates, Brigadier General Andrew Jackson Smith, turned the tables on the Rebels and caught the flanking column by surprise in their own flank. The Confederate attack melted as Smith’s veterans cut up the assault. That night Banks momentarily regained his composure calling a council of war to consider whether or not to reorient his forces and press on for Shreveport or retreat. However, when most of the assemblage counseled for continued retreat Banks lost his nerve and consented to a retrograde movement that night.13 Thus, Taylor had cowed Banks into retreat in a dominating performance of generalship. Banks turned a tactical victory at Pleasant Hill into a strategic defeat guaranteeing the Red River Campaign would fail. But, the magnitude of failure was yet to be decided. That decision rested in the hands of the Rebel command team meeting less than two miles from where Banks held his council of war.

  Lieutenant General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi, made the fateful decision to pursue the Federal VII Corps in Arkansas allowing the Army of the Gulf to escape destruction in Louisiana. Courtesy Massachusetts Commandery Military Order of the Loyal Legion and the United States Army Military History Institute.

  Since the campaign began Rebel commanders Smith and Taylor had maintained a strained relationship. Taylor, a Louisianan, believed that the best way to defend the Trans-Mississippi Department was in his home state by an aggressive counter-campaign on the Red. In his view, the greatest threat to the department came from Banks moving through Louisiana, and therefore his District of West Louisiana should receive the bulk of departmental resources.14 However, Smith had adopted what he styled a “Fabian” policy of defense for the region. Central to the policy involved the use of interior lines to mass the region’s limited resources at threatened points. Smith would then use his concentrated assets to pounce on enemy thrusts, then quickly reorient to deal with additional threats in other quarters. The policy used the vast space of the Trans-Mississippi to draw the enemy in, buy time, reduce risk to the minimal Confederate forces, and prepare for the counter-stroke.15

  When General Steele launched the Camden Expedition on March 23, 1864, it perplexed Kirby Smith as to which invasion column represented the Federal main effort. As a result of his indecision, Smith ordered Richard Taylor to withdraw his forward-deployed forces toward Shreveport. Smith believed this would give him time to identify the main thrust and make a plan for the Federals’ discomfiture.16

  Smith had formulated his plan by the end of March and described it in a post-war account as follows:

  As soon as I received intelligence … I ordered General Price, who commanded in Arkansas, to dispatch his entire infantry, consisting of Churchill’s and Parson’s divisions, to Shreveport, and General Maxey to move toward General Price…. Price with his cavalry was instructed to delay the march of Steele’s column whilst the concentration [of all the infantry with Taylor] was being made. Occupying a central position at Shreveport, with the enemy’s columns approaching from opposite directions, I proposed drawing them within striking distance, when, by concentrating upon and striking them in detail, both columns might be crippled or destroyed.17

  Taylor became enraged at what he perceived to be Smith’s indecisiveness and began firing off a series of emotionally charged, insubordinate dispatches to his superior. When Smith retained reinforcements at Shreveport meant for the Louisiana army, Taylor exploded. “Two weeks have elapsed since the fall of Alexandria and I have cherished the hope from day to day that assistance would reach me before I was forced to give up the producing country,” he complained. This, of course, was in accordance with Smith’s Fabian defensive strategy and he replied:

  The battle must be decisive, whether with Steele or Banks. Our position is a good one. We occupy the interior line, and a concentration is being forced which otherwise could never have happened. While we retain our little army undefeated
we have hopes. We occupy a largely superior force of the enemy, which east of the Mississippi would decide the fate of the campaign. When we fight it must be for victory. Defeat not only loses the department, but releases the armies employed against us here for operations beyond the Mississippi. The advantage of our position should not be given up by any movement which may jeopardize the loss of the command.18

  Taylor fought the battle of Mansfield before Smith intended to commence the counter-offensive and the news came as a great surprise. Taylor announced his victory at Mansfield to Smith in a late night dispatch on the 8th. Upon receipt early the next morning Smith had his horse saddled and rode immediately southward to the battlefield. He arrived around ten o’clock P.M. on the 9th following the Battle of Pleasant Hill. Taylor’s reception of Smith around his campfire that night was a cool one. In light of Taylor’s string of acid-laden letters and his frustration with Smith, relations between the two commanders simmered beneath the surface. Matters would soon come to a head when Smith announced his latest plans.19

  The meeting started on a bad note, as Smith believed Taylor had lost the battle at Pleasant Hill. He awoke Taylor from his repose and announced, “[B]ad business, bad business General.” Puzzled, Taylor replied, “I don’t know General, what is the trouble?” “Banks will be upon you tomorrow with his whole army,” answered Smith. Taylor retorted, “Well, General, if you will listen, you will hear Banks’ artillery moving out now on their retreat.” The two commanders now gave full expression to their views. Taylor wanted to pursue Banks to Grand Ecore, believing he could now smash him against the Red and destroy or capture the fleet in the falling river. But, “Steele’s column from Arkansas caused him [Smith] much uneasiness,” Taylor said in his post-war memoir. Smith believed that it was unnecessary to go after Banks. He felt his Fabian strategy was working as planned and stated that he intended to turn and concentrate the infantry in Arkansas to crush Steele. Taylor countered that when Steele “must learn of Banks’s misfortune” he would have no choice but to “retire to Little Rock.”20 The meeting adjourned with the commanders agreeing to reconvene in Shreveport within a couple of days.

  Smith and Taylor met again on the 14th at departmental headquarters. Neither man had changed his opinion of how to deploy the meager forces. Therefore, Smith ordered Taylor to detach three divisions from his army for service in Arkansas. Taylor grudgingly assented and left the meeting believing that in the event “it was learned that Steele had commenced to retreat … the Confederate infantry would stop, and he would be allowed to march against Banks.”21

  On the 15th Smith learned that Steele had in fact turned back due to failing logistics. Elated, Taylor returned to headquarters thinking the infantry detached the day before would soon countermarch and rejoin him to press Banks to destruction. Smith instead dropped a bombshell on him. The three infantry divisions would not return to Taylor, but would instead continue on to Arkansas where Smith hoped to personally overtake Steele and destroy his army away from its base.22 This represented the end of even a veneer of cordial relations between the two men and correspondingly it forfeited a major opportunity for the Confederacy. One might ask two questions of Smith’s decision. First, was it necessary for Smith to pursue Steele’s already retreating column in Arkansas and second, what motivated this decision?

  General Frederick Steele reluctantly started south from Little Rock toward the Red River Valley on the 23rd of March. Literally from the start his small army encountered significant problems. The very night the bluecoats stepped off, headquarters announced that the quartermaster would issue only half rations for the duration of the march.23 Apparently the commissary of Steele’s Department of Arkansas had failed or was unable to stockpile enough supplies for the expedition. Logistics proved to be the Achilles’ heel of the Camden Expedition.24

  Nineteenth century armies were unable to sustain themselves over long distances or for an inordinate amount of time away from their bases. To sustain itself away from a base an army had to have water or rail transportation or forage off the land. In barren country lacking in transportation, such as the picked over area of southern Arkansas, an army depended upon wagon trains. This solution, however, was inadequate at best because the draft animals pulling the train required most of the available space in the wagons for forage. Depending on the situation, nineteenth century armies would exhaust their supplies about 100 miles from their base without a water or rail connection. Further, if the country they moved through had significant partisan resistance, the operating distances shortened proportionately.25

  Southern Arkansas by 1864 lacked most of the requirements for sustaining an army for an extended period of time. It had few railroads, poor roads, and one navigable river, the Ouachita. In addition, the country had been thoroughly picked over for three years to subsist the Confederate army. Finally, guerillas and thieves roamed the area stealing what they needed from anyone for survival.26 This proved a recipe for disaster for a Federal force the size of Steele’s army attempting to move through the area to the Red River.

  Less than a month out of Little Rock the conditions in southern Arkansas and the actions of Rebel cavalry forced the Federals to change their course of action. Around April 12 the supply situation became so acute that Steele diverted from his intermediate objective, Washington, Arkansas. Instead, the Union commander changed direction in favor of establishing a forward base at Camden. He believed that he could use the town as a depot by using the Ouachita as a supply route. After a short respite he would then resume the march.27 However, unbeknownst to the Union army, the advance would never continue. Turning toward Camden represented the turning point of the expedition and the initiative had passed to the Confederates. But, did they need to exercise it?

  Soon after arrival at Camden, Federal forces heard nasty rumors that the column in Louisiana had received rough handling near Mansfield and commenced a retreat back to Alexandria. With the Federal main effort defeated and moving in the opposite direction from Shreveport, Steele had little choice but to retreat as well. There were two reasons for this. First, Steele knew that the country between Camden and Shreveport would not support his army moving through the area. Second, all Confederate forces west of the Mississippi could then mass against his small army. When Steele confirmed Banks’ demise he held a council of war with his generals in Camden and decided to retreat back to Little Rock.28

  This of course is what Richard Taylor expected the Federals to do. He had strenuously pleaded with Kirby Smith to keep Rebel forces in Louisiana in order to destroy Banks in the Red River Valley. In his own words Taylor states:

  I dismissed the idea that Steele should move on Shreveport—Steele, [who] has already retreated over one hundred miles and been completely foiled in his plans by General Price with his raw cavalry … [while] The remainder of Banks’ beaten army will now number double Steele’s original strength, and he is accompanied by a fleet numbering more guns than any but a first-class naval power can put afloat. I cannot conceive what “political and military points of view” are to be obtained for the Confederacy by abandoning the certain destruction of an army of 30,000 men backed by a huge fleet, to chase after a force of 10,000 in full retreat with over one hundred miles the [head] start.29

  Smith, however, frustrated Taylor by doing the opposite and taking most of Taylor’s troops to chase Steele after the Federals had diverted. So, why did Smith insist on the foray into Arkansas when it appeared unnecessary?

  Here is where the character of the individual commanders exerts an inexorable pressure on the decision-making process. Much of the credit for the decisions made is attributable to the personal and command relationships among the three principal Confederate commanders. Smith, the Rebel commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, was a conscientious if somewhat self-righteous man. He had a great deal of patience in working with others—too much as it turns out. Richard Taylor, commander of the District of West Louisiana, was also a dedicated patriot of the Confederate caus
e. However, his temperament contrasted sharply with Smith’s. His high-spirited and emotional outbursts made him intolerable to those he worked for or with. By the time Smith decided to move north to Arkansas, relations between Smith and Taylor had deteriorated to the breaking point.

  Sterling Price, commander of the District of Arkansas, was similarly devoted to the Southern cause. Although an amiable character, he had a penchant for hard drinking and most of the senior commanders in the Confederacy lacked confidence in his abilities as a commander. Yet, Price’s relationship with Smith differed from the Taylor-Smith association. While Taylor harangued and prodded his chief, Price seemed more amenable to Smith’s suggestions and propositions. Therefore, in spite of misgivings about Price’s competence, Smith came to support an incursion into Arkansas to drive Steele back to Little Rock.30 Chasing Steele in Arkansas fit in neatly with Smith’s Fabian strategy. Also, Smith could move into Arkansas and avoid additional ugly confrontations with Taylor and more easily keep an eye on Price.

  Evidence suggests that Smith feared Steele’s column from Arkansas more so than Banks’ army. In a letter to Taylor Smith states emphatically that “[T]o win this campaign his [Steele’s] column must be destroyed.”31 Perhaps this is because Steele was a professional soldier known for hard fighting while Banks suffered from a reputation of being a political general. Therefore, it is easy to see why Smith decided to pursue Steele rather than press Banks in Louisiana. In light of this decision, what did the Confederates lose in pursuing Steele?