Customer Reviews

War Along the Bayou: The 1864 Red River Campaign in Louisiana

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The book really adds nothing to what was already written in Ludwell Johnson's book from the 60's. It is well written but I was looking for more. Though admittedly the author did not intend for it to a detailed battle study, the book's battle descriptions are too general for the demanding student of the campaign. The maps are very disappointing,with the exception of the Savas map.The other battle maps are just copies of Ludwell Johnson's dull, spartan drawings that include no information other than troop positions. No terrain or battlefield features are illustrated. Also, many locations mentioned in the text are not on the maps provided, not exactly an uncommon occurrence in civil war books. Don't get me wrong, the book is a good overview but students of the Red River Camp.will want more than just a rehash of what has already been written. It is worth reading as there is little out there on this important campaign but if you have already read Johnson than it is probably not worth the time.

The Red River Campaign isn't one of those parts of the Civil War that the public knows much about. In 1864, when the south was losing, and the only question was whether they could string things out long enough to get a more favorable president in the White House, the Union embarked, at Lincoln's insistence, on a wild goose chase up the Red River in Louisiana. The objectives were several fold: conquering Louisiana and Texas would discourage the French, who were in the process of establishing a new world monarchy in Mexico; this part of the region was overflowing with cotton that couldn't be sold, and many Union soldiers and especially sailors (who could legally claim prize money from its sale) were eager to seize it and get some profits if they could; conquest of this region would strengthen the Union's hold on the state, and increase the number of voters participating in the elections of officials that Lincoln was trying to get Congress to accept as the new representatives of the State of Louisiana. With such diverse objectives, it's no wonder the campaign was a failure.

But there were other reasons for the failure. The Union plan was only vaguely mapped out before they left Union territory (basically where the Red flows into the Mississippi), with the Union army and navy proceeding up the river to Shreveport, and capturing and holding that city, with even more vague intentions of proceeding to Texas after. The fleet was commanded by David Dixon Porter, a skilled but somewhat responsibility-shy admiral with no love for the army in this operation. His army counterpart, as much as there was one, was Nathaniel P. Banks, a Massachusetts politician turned soldier who had managed to goof up several campaigns previously, and was one of those political generals (Benjamin Butler was another) who seemed able to get the least out of the professional soldiers under his command. Banks was the local department commander, but apparently no one thought to appoint someone to actually command the troops in the coming campaign, so Banks had to go along and exercise authority over the various troops.

His opponent was Richard Taylor, the son of President Zachary Taylor, and the son-in-law of President (of the Confederacy) Jefferson Davis. Taylor too was an amateur leading an army of professionals. Strangely, in this campaign the Confederates had all the foreign soldiers serving in their army, with a French prince (Polignac) serving as first a brigade and then a division commander, and a Prussian cavalryman leading a regiment of Texans of German extraction thoughout the campaign. Naturally, as a result, the campaign has some colorful characters. It also has the interesting aspect of being enough of a backwater that the soldiers who were driven from prominent positions in the war on the other side of the Mississippi wound up here, where it was hoped their incompetence wouldn't hurt too much if it continued. Charles P. Stone, the man blamed (almost certainly wrongly, for political reasons) for the Union debacle at Ball's Bluff early in the war, was Banks' chief of staff. William B. Franklin, a mediocre corps commander under McClellan in the Army of the Potomac, was fired after Fredericksburg because Ambrose Burnside accused him (with some reason) of failure to obey orders, leading to the failure of his attack. Theophilus Holmes, who proved uncertain in command during the Seven Days Campaign in 1862, was in command of troops at the beginning of the Red River campaign, and was finally removed when he refused to fight once too often for the Confederate authorities.

Author Brooksher (whose previous book, Bloody Hill, about Wilson's Creek, I didn't read) does a competent job of combining the strategy, tactics, personalities, and oral histories of the participants into one volume, which isn't overlong. He didn't have maps prepared for this book, instead choosing to use maps from other books: this works somewhat, but not perfectly by any means. They aren't, as one of the other reviewers noted, the best maps anyway. But maps aside, the author does a very good job of recreating the nature of the campaign, and shows little bias (which you could expect to be pro-Confederate, the author being from Arkansas) towards either side. He makes it clear that the Union army won all but one of the battles, and if they'd been competently led he thinks they would have won the campaign. He also thinks that their victory would have had little affect on the course of the war, just as their defeat didn't prolong the life of the Confederacy much at all. And he shows considerable skill with the thumbnail sketches of the various characters in the campaign. All in all a solid book.

I am writing a paper about General Richard Taylor and the Confederate Wars in which he participated as a soldier.

This is another book with excellent information I have collected. The title of my report will be "General Richard

Taylor, An Officer and a Gentleman". If you haven't read many books concerning this man who was the son

of a President and First Lady of the United States, I suggest you start with this book and continue with many

others. I am continuing my search for all the information I can obtain about this gentleman and soldier, and

the Battle of the Red River in Louisiana,

Thanks

Anne

Bill Brooksher follows up his studies in Civil War leadership, Boldly They Rode and Bloody Hill, the Battle of Wilson's Creek, with a masterful account of the Federal attempt to take Shreveport and ultimately Texas through the Red River Valley. This tale of war, cotton and politics adds a new dimension to understanding the war in the west. Written in the easy style that is typical of the author.