For months, Maj. Gen. Edmund Kirby
Smith, commander of the Confederate
Trans-Mississippi Department, had
observed the growing Union activity in and
around Louisiana. As the immediate threat
began to materialize, Smith ordered troops
into position and fortifications prepared to
resist the coming offensive. He also pre-
pared to demolish a dam that would divert
water from the main course of the Red
River to another streambed and had an old
steamboat scuttled below the dam to block
the river.
A central figure in the Confederate
defensive effort was Maj. Gen. Richard
Taylor, commander of the Western Dis-trict of Louisiana and the son of former
President Zachary Taylor. Under Taylor’s
command in Louisiana were a division of
Texas infantry led by Maj. Gen. John
Walker and an independent Texas brigade
under Camille Polignac, a young French
officer fighting for the Confederacy. Smith
ordered Taylor to harass the Federal
advance, slowing it as much as possible,
and instructed Texas cavalry under Brig.
Gen. Thomas Green to hurry to Taylor’s
aid. Smith also ordered Maj. Gen. Sterling
Price to move with several divisions
against Steele in Arkansas.
On March 12, Union General Smith’sinfantry formations landed at Simsport on
the Red River. After establishing a joint
Army-Navy supply base there, a coordi-
nated attack was planned on Fort DeRussy,
the principal Confederate defensive posi-
tion in the area. Walker, outnumbered,
pulled most of his troops temporarily out
of harm’s way, leaving only a token garri-
son of 300 men to defend the earthworks.
On March 14, Porter’s gunboats pounded
the position, and a Union infantry division
under Brig. Gen. Joseph A. Mower cap-
tured Fort DeRussy in a swift assault that
suffered only 38 casualties and netted
scores of Rebel prisoners.
Capitalizing on his momentum, Portersent Osageahead to Alexandria, and as
the bulk of the Union land and naval
forces drew up, the city surrendered. Tay-
lor was already gone. Some spoils were
taken, and a correspondent for Harper’s
Weekly watched as “our gunboats seized
over 4,000 bales of cotton, and vast quan-
tities were still coming in. Two steamers,
with 3,000 bales of cotton, were burned
by the Rebels to prevent their falling into
our hands.”
Despite these early successes, the Union
timetable was beginning to unravel.
Although Porter and Smith had reached
Alexandria at the appointed time, theywaited for another four days before Banks’s
cavalry arrived. Three days later and a
week overdue, his footsore infantrymen,
fatigued by their difficult march through
the swamps of the Bayou Teche, reached
the city. Banks arrived in Alexandria
aboard a steamboat named Blackhawk,the
same as Admiral Porter’s tinclad flagship.
Porter was obviously irritated by Banks’s
tardiness and was further annoyed by the
apparent appropriation of his flagship’s
moniker. Banks, in turn, was irate that
Navy personnel had helped themselves to
much of the cotton he had promised to
northern businessmen accompanying him
on the steamboat.
Whatever cooperative spirit had previ-
ously existed between Banks and Porter
quickly eroded. Further complicating mat-
ters, the seasonal rise of the Red River,
which usually occurred in the winter, had
not materialized. Always hazardous, the
tortuous course of the river would proba-
bly be impassable at numerous points.
Banks correctly concluded that without
Porter’s naval support the campaign would
have to be abandoned—and with it his
hopes for the presidential election of 1864.
At first Porter declined to participate fur-
ther, even though he had once boasted that
he would go “wherever the sand is damp.”
Banks, however, demanded that the admi-
ral continue his mission. Porter reluctantly
agreed, muttering that he would do his best
even if “I should lose all my boats.”
Oddly enough, the first vessel the admi-
ral ordered up the river was Eastport,the
heaviest of his ironclads, which promptly
became wedged between jagged rocks. It
took three days of backbreaking labor to
free Eastportwhile other vessels squeezed
past, their keels dragging sluggishly
through the mud of the river bottom. The
hospital ship Woodfordstruck a partially
submerged rock with such force that her
hull was compromised and the ship sank,
taking costly medical supplies with her.
While Porter foundered, the audacious
Mower, a Vermont carpenter before joining
the Army to serve in the Mexican War and
embarking on a military career, struck
again. A mixed bag of rain and sleet peltedThe elaborate earthen works at Fort DeRussy proved surprisingly easy to capture, thanks mainly to hasty
removal of all but 300 Confederate defenders.CWQ-Sum16 Red River_Layout 1 4/22/16 11:40 AM Page 36