Battle of Mansfield

During the second half of March 1864, a combined force from the Union Army of the Gulf and navy led by Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, supported by Admiral David Porter's fleet of gunboats, ascended the Red River with the goal of defeating the Confederate forces in Louisiana and capturing Shreveport. By April 1 Union forces had occupied Grand Ecore and Natchitoches. While the accompanying gunboat fleet with a portion of the infantry continued up the river, the main force followed the road inland toward Mansfield, where Banks knew his opponent was concentrating.[7]

Major General Richard Taylor, in command of the Confederate forces in Louisiana, had retreated up the Red River in order to connect with reinforcements from Texas and Arkansas. Taylor selected a clearing a few miles south of Mansfield as the spot where he would take a stand against the Union forces. Sending his cavalry to harass the Union vanguard as it approached, Taylor called his infantry divisions forward.[8]

The morning of April 8 found Banks's army stretched out along a single road through the woods between Natchitoches and Mansfield. When the cavalry at the front of the column found the Confederates taking a strong position along the edge of a clearing, they stopped and called for infantry support. Riding to the front, Banks decided that he would fight Taylor at that spot, and he ordered all his infantry to hurry up the road. It became a race to see which side could bring its forces to the front first.[9]

Map of Mansfield Battlefield core and study areas by the American Battlefield Protection Program

The battle between Gen. Banks force and that of General Dick Taylor,

During the morning, Taylor positioned Mouton's division on the east side of the clearing. Walker's division arrived in the afternoon and formed on Mouton's right. As Green's cavalry fell back from the advancing Union forces, two brigades moved to Mouton's flank and the third to Walker's flank. The Arkansas division arrived around 3:30 pm but was sent to watch a road to the east.[18] The Missouri division did not arrive until around 6:00 pm, after the battle was fought.[19]

At around noon, the Union cavalry division, supported by one infantry brigade of Landram's division, was deployed across a small hill at the south end of the clearing. Shortly thereafter the other brigade of Landram's division arrived. Cameron's division was on its way, but would not get there until the battle had already begun.[20]

For about two hours the two sides faced each other across the clearing as Banks waited for more of his troops to arrive and Taylor arranged his men. At that point, Taylor enjoyed a numerical advantage over Banks. At about 4:00 pm, the Confederates surged forward. On the east side of the road, Mouton was killed, while several of his regimental commanders were hit as well and the charge of his division was repulsed. However, west of the road, Walker's Texas division wrapped around the Union position, folding it in on itself. Ransom was wounded trying to rally his men and was carried from the field; hundreds of Union troops were captured and the rest retreated in a panic. As the first Union line collapsed, Cameron's division was arriving to form a second line but it too was pushed back by the charging Confederates, with Franklin wounded as well but remaining on the field in command. For several miles the Confederates pursued the retreating Union troops until they encountered a third line formed by Emory's division. The Confederates launched several charges on the Union line but were repulsed, while nightfall ended the battle.[21]

The Union forces had suffered 113 killed, 581 wounded, and 1,541 captured as well as the loss of 20 cannons, 156 wagons, and a thousand horses and mules, killed or captured. More than half of the Union casualties were from four regiments – 77th Illinois, 130th Illinois, 19th Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Infantry and 48th Ohio. Most of the Union casualties occurred in the XIII Corps, while the XIX Corps lost few men.[22]

Kirby Smith reported that Confederate loss was "about 1,000 killed and wounded" at Mansfield, but precise details of Confederate losses were not recorded.[23] The local town of Keachi converted its women's college into a hospital and morgue on its second floor. One hundred soldiers' remains are marked nearby in Keachi's Confederate Cemetery, maintained by the local Sons of Confederate Veterans and Daughters of the Confederacy.[24]

After the Union troops retreated, they fought Confederates again on April 9 at the Battle of Pleasant Hill.[25]

On April 7, 2017, the American Battlefield Trust (then known as The Civil War Trust) announced that it had joined with Cleco, a regional energy company, to preserve 14.5 acres (5.9 ha) of the Mansfield Battlefield. The property was a donation from Cleco and was the first parcel associated with the battle's final phase that was preserved.[26] Including the 14.5 acres, the Trust and its partners have acquired and preserved 455 acres (184 ha) of the battlefield.[27]

• National Park Service Battle Summary
• CWSAC Report Update – Louisiana
• The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate armies; Series 1 – Volume 34 (Part I)
• Blessington, Joseph Palmer. The campaigns of Walker's Texas division. Lange, Little & Co., 1875.
• Brooksher, William Riley. War Along the Bayous: The 1864 Red River Campaign in Louisiana. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 1998. ISBN 1-57488-139-6.
• Foote, Shelby (1986). The Civil War: A Narrative – Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-394-74622-8.
• Irwin, Richard B. (Lieutenant-Colonel, U.S.V., Assistant Adjutant-General, Department of the Gulf) "The Red River Campaign", from Battles & Leaders of the Civil War, Volume 4
• Johnson, Ludwell H. (1993). Red River Campaign: Politics and Cotton in the Civil War. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 0-87338-486-5.
• Josephy, Jr., Alvin M. The Civil War in the American West. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. ISBN 0-394-56482-0.
• Kennedy, Frances H., ed. (1998). The Civil War Battlefield Guide (2nd ed.). Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-74012-5.
• Pollard, Edward A. (1866). The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates: Comprising a Full and Authentic Account of the Rise and Progress of the Late Southern Confederacy—the Campaigns, Battles, Incidents, and Adventures of the Most Gigantic Struggle of the World's History. New York, NY: E.B. Treat & Co., Publishers.
• Smith, Edmund Kirby. "The Defense of the Red River", Battles & Leaders of the Civil War, Volume 4
• Taylor, Richard. Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War. W. Blackwood and Sons, 1879.

• Ayres, Thomas. Dark and Bloody Ground: The Battle of Mansfield and the Forgotten Civil War in Louisiana. Dallas, TX: Taylor Trade Pub., 2001. ISBN 978-0-87833-180-2.
• Wardlaw, Trevor P. “Sires and Sons: The Story of Hubbard's Regiment.” CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015. ISBN 978-1511963732

• Map of Confederate Positions Captain R. M. Venable, April 1864, Gilmer Civil War Maps Collection
• Civil War Album

32.0121°N 93.6652°W / 32.0121; -93.6652