Banks's massive Union expedition up the Red River was routed at Mansfield, and only a brilliantly improvised dam saved the entire Union gunboat fleet from being stranded and captured.
The Red River Campaign (March–May 1864) was a large Union expedition into Louisiana and Texas, aimed at capturing Shreveport, seizing cotton, and establishing Union control of the Trans-Mississippi region. It was one of the most poorly managed Union campaigns of the entire war.
Confederate General Richard Taylor — son of President Zachary Taylor — maneuvered skillfully to catch Banks's column strung out on a narrow forest road near Mansfield, Louisiana on April 8. Taylor's attack routed the lead Union divisions, sending the whole column reeling backward with 2,400 casualties.
Banks attempted to stand again at Pleasant Hill the next day and achieved a tactical Union victory — but then inexplicably ordered a retreat anyway, throwing away whatever advantage the battle had won. His decision was never fully explained and effectively ended his military career.
The retreating Union fleet on the Red River faced a new catastrophe: falling water levels threatened to strand Admiral Porter's gunboats above a shallow rapids, where they would have been destroyed or captured. The situation seemed hopeless until Colonel Joseph Bailey proposed building a dam.
Bailey's dam — constructed by thousands of soldiers using trees, brick, and scavenged materials in under two weeks — raised the water level enough for the gunboats to run the rapids to safety. It was one of the war's most impressive feats of improvised engineering, and Bailey received the Medal of Honor for it.
The campaign was a costly Union failure: it diverted massive resources from more productive operations, delayed the capture of Mobile, Alabama by nearly a year, and may have extended the war by months. Taylor and his superior Kirby Smith spent the rest of the war bitterly feuding over who had mishandled the opportunity to destroy Banks entirely.