page 1078 Map of events, late April 1864

page 1079 Taylor still had only 8,000 total men.   He divided them into four forces, and they approached Banks on four sides as the Federal column moved, as follows:  Confederate cavalry was on the eastern bank of the Red River and thus unable to threaten the column.  Close on the Federal rear in the north was a brigade of Texas cavalry.   Another segment of 2,000 Texas cavalrymen under Brigadier General Hamilton P. Bee had just made it to Monett's on the south.   Off to the west were 2,000 Louisiana infantrymen.   Not only were Taylor's forces divided, but also Taylor had not made it to the front for an engagement for the third time during this campaign.    He apparently was in Shreveport due to orders from his superior. As on the march upward, Monett's Bluff was the key defensive site.    Properly entrenched, its geography could be worth a division of men.    At the ferry crossing were bluffs overlooking the Cane River, an old route of the Red River.    Soldiers would need a bridge to cross the 100-foot width of the stream at this point.   Banks described it as the strongest position in Louisiana.   This is debatable, but it was the strongest along his route of march.   The area to the north of Monett's is unusually flat. [ADDENDUM...not in printed version of book... this is a link to a site with modern pictures of the area.  http://www.acadiansingray.com/photo%20gallery-monett%27s_ferry.htm   However, the area does not appear the same as in 1864.] Bee would later insist the bulk of his force only arrived at Monett's Bluff several hours before Banks's men.   That Confederate officer's supply train was eighteen miles away, and his men were nearly starving.84   Taylor confirmed their grim situation at this time, telling Shreveport "we will have to eat our boots" if some subsistence did not arrive soon.85    The Confederates also relied on the Red River to move supplies, and the steamboat sunk upriver was still blocking river travel, as were the water diversions nearer to Shreveport.    Added to all these woes, there was no forage at Monett's Bluff. General Franklin was apparently in charge of the part of the march column involving Banks's men.    He was still suffering from the complications of the leg wound sustained earlier near Sabine Crossroads.   As the march approached Monett's Bluff, Franklin was still communicating with his officers, but at that point he turned over temporary command to Major General William H. Emory.86     Franklin had recently praised Emory in his reports on the earlier battles. It is unclear if Banks was the ultimate decision maker in the conflict at Monett's Bluff, but it is possible.    Emory in his report said it was Banks who 84. Clipping from Houston Telegraph, about Jan. 2, 1865, scrapbook, N. P. Banks papers, LOC, item 111. 85. OR, I, 34, pt. I: 582. 86. Emory testimony, 38 Cong., 2 sess., JCCW, Special Report No. 142, p. 219.  Emory's wife claimed descent from Benjamin Franklin but she did not seem to be a close relative to General William Franklin.

page 1080 gave him orders to attack the enemy at the river crossing.87    Emory's own order issued a few hours later mentioned that the "headquarters Department of the Gulf" had issued an order to him for a flank attack on the enemy.88     During the day of the engagement there, Banks also tried to get General Whitey Smith to send Mower's men to the front.    "I answered him in substance that it would be impracticable for me to comply with the order...," Smith explained in his report.89    Smith definitely had his hands full in the rear, but the response was typical of Smith's contemptuous language. The march to Monett's Bluff was over a new route, and they constructed a bridge overnight near Grand Ecore to allow passage of the upper branch of Cane River.90    The men had completed forty miles over lousy roads without significant rest when they finally reached the bluff.    A. J. Smith's men were constantly skirmishing with Confederate cavalry in the rear of the column.    Serious straggling was occurring—it was inevitable on such a long, continuous march.    As the vanguard approached the key crossing, they found the bridge gone and the bluffs well guarded by Confederate artillery.   Some of the men became alarmed that they were now surrounded by the Confederates.91    Banks and staff moved to the front across from the Confederate artillery.   One shell fragment hit the general's boot, but he was not harmed.92    It was the first time during the war anything metal had penetrated through his clothing.93   The overly complimentary reporter John Russell Young chose this incident to describe Banks as "the boldest and coolest of his staff."94 While Federal artillerymen engaged their counterparts across the water, Emory selected two divisions to flank Bee's position from the west.95    Many of 87. OR, I, 34, pt. I: 394.  Susan Dollar credited a local man, Charles Morin, with selecting this alternative route, one of the purposes of which was to keep the destructive Yankees well away from his plantation. (Dollar, "The Red River Campaign, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana: A Case of Equal Opportunity Destruction," Louisiana History, 53 (Fall 2002): 426.) 88. OR, I, 34, pt. I: 397; also Emory to Fessenden, May 3, 1864, cited in Fessenden, Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden, p. 289.  This was possibly just a perfunctory mention in the report to show he was acting within his instructions 89. OR, I, 34, pt. I: 309-10. 90. OR, I, 34, p 250. 91. The One Hundred and Sixteenth Regiment of New York State Volunteers..., p. 170; Pellet, History of the 114th Regiment, New York State Volunteers...., p. 226. 92. Homans, “The Red River Expedition," Papers of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, vol. VIII, p. 8; also mentioned in Forney's War Press [Philadelphia], June 4, 1864. 93. N. P. Banks to Mary Banks, undated, N. P. Banks papers, LOC, box 6, folder 1. 94. Dispatch, "Red River Expedition," May 18, 1864, scrapbook, N. P. Banks papers, LOC, box 107; same account, writing as "Union" in Forney's War Press [Philadelphia], June 4, 1864. 95. OR, I, 34, pt. I: 189-92.

page 1081 these men were under Brigadier General Henry Birge, the aggressive commander who volunteered to lead the final storming party at Port Hudson.    Birge's men had been part of the garrison at Alexandria during the recent battles and were thus organizationally in good shape.    Homer Sprague remembered that a black woman showed the Federals a shallow spot where they could cross Cane River without difficulty.96    Other, different descriptions of the supposed guide exist.   A soldier from the Zouave regiment, however, definitely remembered having to wade in waist-high water.97 Just to the west of the Confederate position at Monett's, the geographical features were not as imposing as in their front along the river.    Yet the elevation and obstacles were potentially adequate for the Rebels to defend the place against the 5,000 Yankee flankers.    But General Bee failed to switch enough men from the front to the west, and Birge's men penetrated his line.    In addition, the western side would have withstood attack better if they had made strenuous efforts to construct some breastworks.    During the assault, the Confederates pulled back to secondary lines twice, ravines affording them new protection.   By the time they had retreated the third time, their position was compromised.    Bee then had to retreat farther to his supply area, which was not in the direction of Alexandria.    Union cavalry pursued but seemingly accomplished little in halting the Confederate retreat.   The Confederate Louisiana infantrymen to the west of the area never made it to the scene of the fighting. Richard Taylor would be furious with Bee for not stopping Banks's advance.    Again following the example set by his mentor, Stonewall Jackson, Taylor fired Bee for retreating.   Taylor himself had never defeated a numerically superior enemy force, but he was requiring Bee to do just that.   Taylor also recorded that Banks's rear, manned by Whitey Smith's men, suffered heavy losses and was "utterly demoralized."98     This was certainly not the case. Three brigades of Federal cavalry were active in guarding and pushing along the flanks at Monett's Bluff.    Now under a new leader, Brigadier General Richard Arnold,99 previously the artillery commander, they had recovered from the debacle upriver early in the month.    On the 18th, Banks had fired the old 96. Sprague, History of the 13th Infantry Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers, during the Great Rebellion, p. 195. 97. History of the Second Battalion, Duryee Zouaves: One Hundred and Sixty-Fifth Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry, p. 28. 98. OR, I, 34, pt. I: 581. 99. General Dwight described him as a "thick headed whiskey drinker" (William Dwight to mother, June 29, 1863, Dwight family papers, 1815-1942, Mass. Historical Society.)

page 1082 cavalry chief, General Lee, and sent him to New Orleans.   Like Stone, Lee did not openly complain about the decision.100    Banks did not announce the reason for the change, but it is a fact that Lee had failed to put the cavalry force back together again after the retreat from Mansfield.    Multiple generals at that time spoke of the unreliability of the cavalry.    They had suffered only one death in the heavy fighting at Pleasant Hill.101    Another soldier described the cavalry as the butt of jokes.102 General Lee or someone close to him soon contacted home-state U. S. Senator James H. Lane of Kansas, complaining of being disgraced.    On May 11, Lane would rise in the U. S. Senate to ask for an investigation of "the most mismanaged and most disastrous expedition of the war."     The senator attributed the defeat of the expedition to the decision to keep a wagon train in Lee's rear.    There was artillery with the cavalry, and infantry should cover artillery.   "We watch our artillery as a mother watched her child," Lane explained.    The senator was unable to articulate who made these decisions, and this account suggests that by May General Lee wanted to blame General Franklin for his fate.103 The sudden decision to go to Alexandria may have been a major factor in the decision to remove Lee.   Banks's subsequent statements suggested some remorse at sacking the Kansas general.    One volunteer cavalry officer close to Lee was Colonel James Sanks Brisbin, who had delivered orders near Sabine Crossroads.   "The prejudice of old army officers against volunteers has been particularly bitter in your case," he wrote Banks from his new command in Kentucky.104   Brisbin had risen from the rank of private during the war and would become a general during the subsequent year.105   He argued with subtlety in his letter that Banks had not stood by a fellow volunteer when he fired Lee.   Lee had stood by Banks after Banks himself was fired, according to Brisbin.106 Confederate casualties at Monett's Ferry were about fifty men; the Federals suffered about 200.107    Because of the low casualty rate, it was not one of the important Civil War engagements, but it was important to the Federals.    If they 100. OR, I, 34, pt. III: 211. 101. OR, I, 34, pt. I: 452. 102. Pellet, History of the 114th Regiment, p. 216. 103. Congressional Globe, 38 Cong., 1 sess., May 11, 1864, pp. 2218-21. 104. Brisbin to Banks, June 22, 1864, N. P. Banks papers, LOC, box 33; Ibid., Apr. 26, 1868. box 42. 105, Warner, Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders, p. 45. 106. Brisbin to Banks, N. P. Banks papers, LOC, box 33. 107. OR, I, 34, pt. I: 611, 396.

page 1083 had not been able to cross at Cane River, they might have been in a major fix.    In such a case, the garrison at Alexandria did have orders to hit the Confederate rear at Monett's, and there were other divisions available in Banks's column which had not fought in the front.    A. J. Smith's description of the Monett's Bluff fight as nothing more than a minor skirmish which was easily forced by detachments was either uninformed or intentionally petty.108     Smith never listed the number of casualties he suffered during this march, but other sources seem to indicate they were considerably less than at Monett's. One of those wounded was Colonel Francis Fessenden.    He was the only soldier whose welfare was of special interest in Washington.   Secretary of War Edwin Stanton had written to find out if Fessenden was harmed at the battles near Mansfield.109   After the battle at Cane River, Banks sent an unusual dispatch back to Fessenden's father, explaining that his son received a minor wound while leading the key assault of Birge's division at Monett's Bluff.110     The colonel's father was the Honorable William Pitt Fessenden, Republican U.S. senator from Maine and the powerful finance chairman in that body.    His committee oversaw funding of the war, and Banks's special note was probably one of Banks's wisest decisions of the campaign.    Fessenden would soon replace Chase as secretary of the treasury, and Banks would soon need all the friends he could find. The Federals paused to construct a pontoon bridge across Cane River and then resumed their rapid move to Alexandria, resting once en route.    Smith's men were again in the rear and vandalizing and burning everything for miles around.    Homer Sprague claimed General Banks was said to have sent back a courier to A. J. Smith to see if he needed assistance "to which Smith is said to have responded, 'Go to ____!'   I've just whipped three thousand and I can whip thirty thousand!"111    Sprague might be simply a teller of tall tales here, but Sprague's criticisms of the vandalism were typical of men in Banks's command toward Smith's depredations.    General Franklin described the marauders as stragglers who would receive severe punishment when detected.112    When he got to Alexandria, Franklin offered a $500 reward for evidence leading to a 108. OR, I, 34, pt. I: 309-10. 109. OR, I, 34, pt. III: 274. 110. OR, I, 34, pt. III: 294.  This letter arrived in Washington on May 8, two weeks after it was sent.  Other letters arrived sooner, including one notifying Fessenden that they amputated his son's leg. (Fessenden, Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden, p. 287.) 111. Sprague, History of the 13th Infantry Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers, during the Great Rebellion, p. 202. 112. OR, I, 34, pt. I: 263.

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