Struggle for Louisiana

Finding their supplies nearly exhausted, the Confederates in that region made a raid into Mssouri as far as Booneville, at the close of September ; but they were driven back into Arkansas by Generals E; B. Brown and McNeil. No other military movements of much importance occurred in Missouri and Arkansas for some time after this, excepting an attack made by Marmaduke upon Pine Bluff, on the Arkansas River, on the 25th of October, 1863. The little garrison there was commanded by Colonel Powell Clayton, and these, with the assistance of two hundrednegroes in making barricades, fought the assailants (who were two thousand strong, with twelve pieces of artillery) for several hours, and drove them away. Quiet prevailed for some time afterward.

When General Banks left Alexandria, on the Red River, and marched to the siege of Port Hudson, General Taylor, whom he had driven into the wilds of western Louisiana, returned, occupied that abandoned city and Opelousas, and garrisoned Fort de Russy. The he swept vigorously over the country in the direction of the Mississippi River and New Orleans. With a part of his command he captured Brashear City on the 24th of June (1863), with an immense amount of public property, and made a thousand national troops prisoners. At about the same time another portion of the Confederates, under General Green, operating in the vicinity of Donaldsonville, on the Mississippi, were driven out of the district. Finally, at the middle of July, when Banks's troops were released, on the fall of Port Hudson, they expelled Taylor and his forces from the country eastward of the Atchafalaya. This was the last struggle of Taylor's forces to gain a foothold on the Mississippi.

General Banks now turned his thoughts to aggressive movements. General Grant visited him at New Orleans early in September, and was in that city when he was summoned to Chattanooga. There it was determined that banks should make an attempt to recover Texas ; and he speedily sent four thousand troops under General Franklin, accompanied by four gun-boats commanded by Lieutenant Crocker, to seize the Confederate post at Sabine Pass, on the boundary line between Louisiana ad Texas. Owing to a premature attack by the gun-boats, the expedition was a disastrous failure. Then Banks concentrated his land forces on the Atchafalaya, for the purpose of penetrating Texas from the east by way of Shreveport, on the Red River ; but this design was abandoned for a time, and it was concluded to attempt to seize and hold than coast harbor of that Common-wealth. To mask this movements, General C.C. Washburnne, with a considerable body of troops, moved across Louisiana toward Alexandria, when about six thousand other Nationals under general Dana, with some war-vellels, sailed for the Rio Grande. The troops landed, and drove Confederate cavalry up that river. The Nationals pressed on; and on the 6th of November encamped at Brownsville, opposite Matamoras. At the close of the year, the National troops occupied all the strong positions on the Texan coast excepting Galveston Island and a formidable work near the mouth of the Brazos; and the Confederates had abandoned all Texas west of the Colorado River. Meanwhile N. B. Forrest, who had become a noted guerrilla chief, had broken into western Tennessee, from Mississippi, with four thousand Confederate soldiers, and making Jackson, in the first-mentioned State, his headquarters (December, 1863), had sent out foraging parties in various directions. General Hurlburt, at Memphis, tried to catch him, but failed.

There were many hopeful signs of success for the defenders of the life of the Republic at the opening of the third year of the Civil War, 1864. The debt of the National Government was then more than $1,000,000,000; but the public credit never stood higher. The loyal people stood by the Government, and trusted it with a fidelity and faith that was truly sublime. At the same time the Confederate debt was at least $1,000,000,000, with a prospective increase during the year to double that amount. The Confederate government had contracted loans abroad to the amount almost of $15,000,000 of which sum the members of the Southern Independence Association in England (composed chiefly of the British aristocracy) loaned a large share and lost it, the security offered for the Confederate bonds being cotton to be forwarded, and which was never delivered. The producers of the Confederacy, better informed than their English sympathizers, were unwilling to trust the promise of their government and withheld supplies, for they preconceived the worthlessness of the bonds and paper currency of the Confederate. The people there were no longer willing to volunteer for the military service; and Davis and his associates at Richmond, in their desperation, proceeded to the exercise of a despotic act that has no parallel in the history of civilized nations. By the passage of a law they declared that every white man in the Confederacy, liable to bear arms, to be in the military service; and that, upon his failure to report for duty at a military station within a certain time, he was liable to the penalty of death as a deserter! They devised schemes of retaliation; also cruel measures toward the colored troops in the National service and their white commanders were proposed. They refused to regard captive negro troops as prisoners of war; and by threats of dire vengeance, they tried to deter the colored men from enlisting in the National service.