The Battle of Henderson's Hill or Bayou Rapides (March 21, 1864) saw a reinforced Union Army division led by Brigadier General Joseph A. Mower opposed by a regiment of Confederate Army cavalry and attached artillery under Colonel William G. Vincent. That evening, during a rainstorm, Mower sent one infantry brigade on a circuitous march to gain the rear of Vincent's command. The brigade's subsequent attack surprised and captured most of the Confederates. Mower could not exploit his minor victory because the arrival of additional Federal army and naval units was delayed. This clash occurred during the Red River campaign of the American Civil War which saw Major General Nathaniel P. Banks' Union army try to seize Shreveport, Louisiana, from its Confederate defenders led by Lieutenant General Richard Taylor.
Background
Plan
Worried about Maximilian's Second French intervention in Mexico, President Abraham Lincoln desired military operations to establish United States control over some part of Texas. Over the opposition of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, and Major Generals William T. Sherman and Nathaniel P. Banks, Lincoln and Major General Henry Halleck drew up a plan to use the Red River as an invasion corridor. As commander of the Department of the Gulf, Banks was instructed to coordinate operations with Major General Frederick Steele in Arkansas and Sherman. The plan that emerged was for Banks with 17,000 troops to move up Bayou Teche and link up at Alexandria, Louisiana, on March 17, with 10,000 troops borrowed from Sherman's Military Division of the Mississippi. From there, the combined force would ascend the Red River toward Shreveport. Meanwhile, Steele with 15,000 was supposed to move south from Little Rock, Arkansas, and rendezvous with Banks at either Shreveport, Alexandria, or Natchitoches, Louisiana. Steele's column got underway so late that it fought a separate series of actions.
Forces
General Edmund Kirby Smith's Trans-Mississippi Department had 30,000 Confederate soldiers evenly distributed in three bodies. These were led by Richard Taylor in Louisiana, Major General John B. Magruder on the Texas coast, and Lieutenant General Theophilus H. Holmes near Camden, Arkansas. Taylor had Major General John George Walker's infantry division (3 brigades) at Marksville, Louisiana and Brigadier General Alfred Mouton's infantry division (2 brigades) on the Red River below Alexandria. Vincent's 2nd Louisiana Cavalry Regiment was posted at Vermilionville on Bayou Teche, except for three companies with Walker. Brigadier General Thomas Green's cavalry was coming from Texas and would not reinforce Taylor until the first week of April.
On March 10, 1864, the 10,000-man force contributed by Sherman departed from Vicksburg, Mississippi in river transports. It was led by Brigadier General A. J. Smith and accompanied by 13 ironclads and 7 light-draft gunboats commanded by Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter. There were Mower's two divisions from the XVI Corps and one 1,700-man division from the XVII Corps under Brigadier General T. Kilby Smith. Banks' force included Brigadier General Thomas E. G. Ransom's two divisions from the XIII Corps (4,800 men), Major General William B. Franklin's two divisions from the XIX Corps (10,500 men), and a cavalry division led by Brigadier General Albert Lindley Lee (4,600 men). Banks also had a 1,500-strong brigade of African-American soldiers led by Colonel W. H. Dickey that was made up of the 73rd US, 75th US, 84th US, and 92nd US Colored Infantry Regiments.