The Camden Expedition of 1864

by Michael J Forsyth

  Finally, the southern soldiers were utterly worn out after their exertions of the previous three days. During that time they had constructed an improvised bridge; marched over 70 miles in mud and rain; and fought a major battle that produced close to 20 percent casualties. The Rebels were simply used up and in “wretched condition.” Rebel accounts and after action reports are rife with tales of the exhaustion of the army.17 Before the army could resume operations of any magnitude the men had to have food and rest.

  Smith was well aware of these conditions when he decided to let Steele make his way uncontested back to Little Rock. Probably the major factor weighing on this decision was the fact that he believed the Confederates had accomplished their mission. While Smith had entertained notions of sacking the entire army under Steele, the purpose of operations in Arkansas was to restore the status quo in the department. This was in consonance with the overarching Confederate strategy to maintain the territorial integrity of the nation while taking any opportunity to strike at Union vulnerabilities.18 Steele’s incursion south from Little Rock required his expulsion and offered a rare chance to land a heavy blow on an isolated Union column. Though Smith could not destroy Steele, the Confederates had certainly sent the Federals flying back to their starting point. Therefore, Smith concluded both that continuing to chase Steele was no longer necessary in light of the logistical problems and also that the Rebels had fulfilled their mission.

  With the campaign won, Smith began to tidy up the rear in Louisiana and plan for the future. From the time Smith announced that he would move to Arkansas Richard Taylor hounded him with letters requesting reinforcements and criticizing Smith’s conduct of affairs. Taylor was convinced that had the infantry divisions not been detached from his army, he could have destroyed Banks and he vociferously attacked Smith on that basis in his writings. In order to restore a measure of civility, Smith agreed to send Walker’s Division followed later by the Arkansas and Missouri divisions back to Louisiana as soon as they had recovered from their exertions in the recent campaign in Arkansas. Taylor still had Banks’ army and Porter’s fleet trapped at Alexandria as the first week of May opened. By sending Walker’s Division south, Smith hoped to quiet his dissatisfied subordinate and possibly inflict a crippling defeat on the Army of the Gulf. Neither would occur. It would take over a week for Walker to reach Alexandria after he started and by then Banks and Porter had escaped. This event so angered Taylor that it caused the final break between him and Kirby Smith. The tone of Taylor’s dispatches turned so venomous that Smith felt he had to relieve Taylor.19

  Smith had really only wanted Banks to leave Louisiana of his own accord anyway. Instead, Smith, under the influence of Sterling Price, had his sights set north of the Arkansas River. On May 19 Smith’s chief of staff, Brigadier General William R. Boggs, penned a dispatch to Sterling Price advising him “to accumulate large depots” in preparation for transferring “the theatre of operations” to Missouri.20 Smith hoped that by unleashing Price north into Missouri to threaten St. Louis he could draw Federal pressure away from the Confederate army operating in Georgia. Additionally, Smith hoped to obtain recruits to fill the ranks of the ever-shrinking Rebel armies of the Trans-Mississippi.21 Price, in contrast to Taylor, was elated by the orders to prepare for an expedition north into his home state. He had clamored for some two and a half years for the opportunity to reenter Missouri. At first, Price’s approach to achieving his goal had irritated his superiors until they refused to listen to him. Since becoming commander of the District of Arkansas Price had moderated his tone. Instead of arrogantly pressing for adoption of his program, he congenially acceded to all of Smith’s requests while gently suggesting that a Missouri expedition might have some utility.22 In the end, Taylor had driven Smith away while Price inveigled his commander into seeing things his way. From the Rebel perspective the counteroffensive of the Camden Expedition was over.

  At the operational level of war Camden and Red River were extraordinarily successful for the Confederates. These twin campaigns arguably had the most favorable outcome of any during the entire war for the Confederacy. The Camden Expedition, in particular, produced spectacular results against minimal losses. The Union army suffered almost 3,000 casualties, lost eight pieces of artillery, 700 supply wagons, and about 2,500 animals. While the casualties suffered do not represent a large loss, those in equipment are nothing short of catastrophic. Steele lost an astounding 70 percent of his transportation assets, virtually crippling the army’s mobility for the foreseeable future. By contrast, the Confederates suffered some 2,000 casualties and only lost three guns at Jenkins’ Ferry and 35 wagons burned in the Mount Elba battles. Finally, the Confederates with meager resources had handily dealt a serious blow to Federal power in the Trans-Mississippi region by sending Steele flying back to Little Rock. Kirby Smith clearly had adequate reason to claim a substantial victory.23

  In addition to the immediate results, Confederate efforts upset the Federal timetable for spring operations in 1864. General Grant had planned to set the major Union armies in motion during the last week of April. The objective was the primary Confederate armies in the field in Virginia and Georgia. To destroy these Rebel armies, Grant wanted to use all resources –including manpower—available to the much stronger Union. But, before Grant assumed supreme command of all United States forces, Henry Halleck had already set in motion the ill-fated Red River Campaign. This represented a diversion from Grant’s design, but he allowed it to continue out of respect to his predecessor.24

  For the Red River Campaign to be a success, Grant realized that Federal forces must attack with force from more than one direction. Halleck had tapped Steele’s VII Corps to provide this support for Nathaniel Banks on the Red. Steele, however, had a litany of legitimate reasons why a thrust from Little Rock was impractical. As of March 17—five days after Banks jumped off—Steele continued to stonewall the commanding general in Washington. Grant had heard enough of excuses and summarily ordered Steele to move in support of Banks.25 Grant also telegraphed Banks informing him that he should wrap up operations in Louisiana by April 15 in order to send A. J. Smith’s two corps back to Mississippi and so the Army of the Gulf could prepare for a Mobile expedition.26 When Banks sputtered at Mansfield, he upset the entire Union program.

  Instead of capturing Shreveport by mid-April, Banks became mired in the “pine desert” of west Louisiana with the tenacious Richard Taylor. This deprived the Union armies east of the Mississippi of manpower needed to bring the enormous pressure to bear on the primary Confederate armies. The Confederates capitalized on this opportunity by shifting their forces to counter Grant’s spring offensive. First, Nathan Bedford Forrest launched a major raid against Sherman’s tenuous supply line out of Nashville threatening to ground his offensive against Atlanta. Simultaneously, the Rebels reinforced Johnston’s Army of Tennessee with Polk’s Corps from Mississippi providing that army with a major accession in strength. Next, Robert E. Lee detached a division to North Carolina under Major General Robert F. Hoke that captured the important transportation node at Plymouth. Finally, Lee sent the aggressive Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early on a raid down the Shenandoah Valley with open-ended orders to enter Maryland if the opportunity offered.27 The Confederates, seemingly on the ropes at the start of 1864, were now surging on all fronts, especially in the Trans-Mississippi where Taylor had a large fleet and army cornered and Price had frustrated Steele’s hungry corps. If they could destroy Banks and Porter, the potential existed for the ragtag Rebels in the far west to influence the war far beyond anyone’s expectations.

  The Confederates, however, did not exploit this opportunity to change the outcome of the war because Kirby Smith failed to recognize the potential of the situation. To understand how the Trans-Mississippi Department could have changed the war one must examine the events that took place after Banks and Porter escaped the Red River Valley. Upon leaving Louisiana Grant had the Army of the Gulf broken up to reinforce the major theaters in
the east. First, A. J. Smith took the XVI and part of the XVII corps back to Mississippi to tangle with Forrest. The sudden appearance of over 10,000 Union soldiers in Mississippi in June forced the Rebel cavalryman to focus his efforts on defeating Smith rather than on destroying Sherman’s supply line.28 Had A. J. Smith been captured along the Red River, Forrest could have concentrated on breaking the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. Disruption of this line—Sherman’s sole avenue of logistic support—would have forced Sherman to halt operations in Georgia for an indefinite period of time. With northern morale already sagging and a presidential election in the offing, such a turn of events would probably have had a detrimental effect on the Union cause.

  Second, Grant had the 19th Corps transferred to Virginia. George Meade’s Army of the Potomac had suffered horrific losses in the six weeks since the spring campaigns kicked off in May. The manpower of the XIX Corps would at least partially make up for the 50,000 casualties absorbed by Meade’s army to this point. Instead of disembarking around Richmond in July, Grant diverted the XIX to Washington where the cantankerous Jubal Early was threatening to snatch the Federal capital. Since launching his raid down the Shenandoah, Early had met and defeated two Federal armies and followed up his success by investing Washington. The arrival of the XIX and VI corps—from Meade’s army—in the capital blunted Early’s foray. Grant then appointed General Phillip Sheridan to command the combined force in order to drive Early back up the Shenandoah and destroy his Rebel corps if possible. Sheridan relentlessly pursued Early over the next three months defeating him at Winchester and Fisher’s Hill. Then in October, only a month before the national election, Sheridan virtually destroyed Early’s small army at Cedar Creek forever closing the Shenandoah Valley to Confederate control.29 The victory at Cedar Creek gave the Union war effort a huge boost, practically ensuring Lincoln’s reelection. The XIX Corps played a central role in defeating Early, but if they had not escaped Louisiana in May Grant would have had to tap his already depleted Army of the Potomac for soldiers to drive Early away from Richmond.

  Next, the XIII Corps formed the nucleus of the force that would close Mobile Bay to Confederate blockade runners. Grant had intended for Banks to launch an expedition to Mobile as part of his overall program for winning the war in 1864. Banks’ miscues in Louisiana upset his plans, however, and allowed forces under Leonidas Polk to move away from a position covering Mobile to Georgia to reinforce Johnston. This helped even Johnston’s odds in confronting Sherman in his campaign to take Atlanta. Almost as soon as the XIII Corps returned to New Orleans they began making preparations for the expedition to close Mobile. By July the XIII was in position to take the outlying forts protecting the harbor in conjunction with the navy. On August 5 Admiral David Farragut ran Forts Morgan and Gaines at the mouth of the bay as the XIII took them from the land face. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, exclaimed that “news of Farragut’s having passed Forts Morgan and Gaines was received last night and sent a thrill of joy through all true hearts.”30 Indeed, the victory at Mobile was the first piece of good news from the war front that the Lincoln Administration had received for sometime. Word of the triumph had a positive effect on public morale in the North and did much to help Lincoln’s reelection prospects.

  Finally, elements of Thomas Kilby Smith’s XVII Corps division returned to Sherman’s army in Georgia while Porter’s Mississippi Squadron resumed its patrols on the river from which it derived its name. While the addition of a few regiments of infantry would not make a significant accession to Sherman’s troop strength, it certainly could not hurt. The return of the Mississippi Squadron, however, was critical to Union plans for success in 1864. These gunboats enforced the split between the eastern and western Confederacy preventing her from transferring troops and resources between the two halves of the struggling nation. Until July 1863 the Rebels had used their interior lines to shift forces across the great river to reinforce threatened points. The capture of Vicksburg cut off the Trans-Mississippi from the rest of the Confederacy and the Union navy ensured that they could no longer make any major transfers across the Mississippi. The capture or destruction of 19 warships in the Red would have jeopardized Federal superiority of the western rivers. This is because the innovative Rebels would certainly have salvaged the Union ships in order to challenge the remaining Union boats in the Mississippi Squadron.31 The Confederates might have been able to wrest temporary control of a section of the river to shift forces to the east. The addition of more Rebels in the east against a loss of over 30,000 Federals would have thrown Grant’s plans off track and had a detrimental effect on the Northern homefront.

  Therefore, it is reasonable to make the assumption that if the Confederates under Richard Taylor had captured or destroyed the Army of the Gulf and the Mississippi Squadron it would have seriously upset Union strategy for winning the war. This is because the Rebels would have made it appear in the eyes of the northern public that the Federal armies could not subdue them. With this in mind, voters going to the polls in November might have cast ballots for George B. McClellan repudiating the Lincoln Administration’s war policy. Thus, the Confederacy could win the war by not losing on the battlefield.32 Countering the Red River Campaign offered the Confederacy such opportunities to influence the outcome of the war in their favor, but Kirby Smith failed to recognize it. What events occurred that blinded Smith to these possibilities? The Camden Expedition; the power struggle within the Confederate high command in the Trans-Mississippi; and the first rate conduct of affairs by the leaders of the VII Corps acted together to cause the Confederacy to let an excellent chance to influence the war slip from their grasp. When Frederick Steele launched the expedition it confused Smith as to where to place the preponderance of his resources to counter the twin offensives. In choosing to go after Steele, Smith tacitly allowed Banks and Porter to escape believing that Arkansas represented the greater threat to the department.

  As stated in the beginning, the Camden Expedition almost did not happen at all. Steele had never fully embraced the idea of an expedition from Little Rock to Shreveport for several reasons. First and most important, the department under his command was utterly denuded of food for man and animal. This would require Steele to subsist his army by water or rail instead, but these transportation networks did not exist in southwest Arkansas. Therefore, from a logistic standpoint, a march to Shreveport was not practical. Second, Steele realized that cooperation between the two converging forces would be problematic at best. A large Confederate force interposed between the Union armies making communication difficult and allowing the Rebels to make full use of interior lines to mass against the widely separated columns. In light of these reasons, Steele attempted to squirm out of launching a full expedition, instead favoring a large cavalry raid.33

  Ulysses Grant understood Steele’s position very well, but he also saw the bigger picture. Should Banks move through the Red River Valley unsupported, the Confederates would simply mass against him stopping his offensive short of the objective, Shreveport. If Banks then became bogged down in Louisiana he could not wrap up the campaign quickly enough to return east to support Grant’s grand scheme for 1864. A supporting effort from the direction of Arkansas would give the Rebels pause and afford Banks better odds to accomplish his mission in the time Grant allotted. As a result, Grant issued a blunt directive ordering Steele to begin a full-scale offensive immediately in support of Banks.34 Grant’s decision proved prescient as the Camden Expedition had the intended effect of confusing the Rebel commander, E. Kirby Smith. The confusion was supposed to result in ensuring Banks’ success, but instead it saved him and his army and the Union fleet from destruction. Had Steele not advanced Banks would probably have met with a disaster.

  When Banks appeared at Simmesport, Louisiana, in early March, Smith began busying himself with massing available forces in the Trans-Mississippi against the Army of the Gulf. Then, two weeks later, Sterling Price reported the thrust from his quarter of the department.
As Grant expected, the move confounded Kirby Smith who began to consolidate forces at Shreveport rather then sending them forward to Taylor to contend with Banks. After several days of indecision, Smith determined, erroneously, that Frederick Steele’s column was the main effort aimed at the Trans-Mississippi capital. In conjunction with this determination, Smith decided to push Banks back, frustrating his offensive, and then turn with full force on Steele.35 This sent Taylor into a rage as he believed Smith was laying his home state open for depredations by the Federal army.

  Taylor took matters into his own hands by launching a counteroffensive against Banks at Mansfield. The attack realized spectacular results as the small Confederate army under Taylor sent Banks running for cover. Taylor seemed to realize that he had an unprecedented opportunity to deal a death blow to Banks that could have effects reaching well beyond the confines of the Trans-Mississippi. Therefore, he wanted to relentlessly pursue the Army of the Gulf, which he believed was cornered in northwest Louisiana.36 However, Smith saw the situation differently. Taylor had decisively defeated Banks who would now withdraw from Louisiana of his own accord. The discomfiture of Banks fit neatly into Smith’s plans since he could now turn on Steele in Arkansas. Kirby Smith then stripped Taylor of most of his infantry and headed north to drive away Steele. As events turned out, Steele had already halted his advance by veering off course to Camden in an effort to supply his army. This raises the question: did Smith really need to go after the struggling VII Corps? Due to the precarious logistic situation in Steele’s army, the answer is no. Smith, however, persisted in his determination to attack the VII Corps, which he believed represented the greatest threat to the department.