Most of the Civil War was found in the eastern part of the South: Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia. Some battles still did reach westward, and the residents of Louisiana also can claim their state was a key battleground during the war, as the site of the Union’s Red River Campaign. Louisiana held a strategic port with many supplies, and was a vital route between Texas and the Confederacy.

On this day, March 12, in 1864 a Union army under command of Major Nathaniel P. Banks began their campaign on the Red River of Louisiana. Their complex plan was to destroy the Confederate army stationed there, and move on to secure East Texas and north to surround the Confederacy.

Banks was a distinguished military scholar, but had little in the way of major military experience. That showed in the way he led the Red River Campaign. While the Union had a 2-1, if not 3-1 advantage in men, and better equipment, Banks miscalculated the ability of the shallow river to accomodate his support ships and many ran aground on sandbanks. In a later maneuver near East Texas, he stretched out his line too thin and lost a major battle with the Confederate army, forcing him to retreat. The Red River campaign by all accounts ended in a failure for the North.