After the battle of Pleasant Hill in early April 1864, while Nathaniel Banks’ Union forces withdrew eastward toward Grand Ecore, Louisiana on the Red River ending his offensive drive toward Texas, Confederate area commander Kirby Smith ordered half of Richard Taylor’s victorious Confederate forces to Arkansas to attack Frederick Steele’s Union flanking column which had begun its retreat to Little Rock, Arkansas. With Union ships virtually trapped by low water in the Red River north of Alexandria, Louisiana, General Richard Taylor was reduced to a month long harassment of the Union fleet. Through late May 1864 Union engineers attempted to construct dams on the Red so that the Union fleet could escape, while Confederate forces attempted to divert the river’s flow so as to isolate and doom the Union fleet.
00000174-b11b-ddc3-a1fc-bfdbb1a20000The Schreiner University Department of History is honoring the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War with a series of short vignettes focusing on events from 1861 through 1865. The Civil War was the most destructive conflict in American history, but it was also one of our most defining moments as a people and as a nation. Let us know what you think about "This Week in the Civil War." E-mail your comments to Dr. John Huddleston at jhuddles@schreiner.edu.Airs: Weekdays at 5:19 a.m., 8:19 a.m., 4:19 p.m. on KTXI and 4:49 a.m., 9:29 p.m. on KSTX.