Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, 1863–1865 127
The resulting system of dams more than doubled the depth of the river. By 13
May, all ten gunboats were below the rapids and steaming downstream in deep
water. Col. George D. Robinson of the 3d Corps d’Afrique Engineers boasted
that his regiment and the 5th were “regarded as a complete success by all who
have witnessed their operations.” 11
The expedition continued down the Red River, headed for Simmesport on
the Atchafalaya. On 17 May, a few miles from there, three hundred Confederate
cavalrymen attacked the wagon train and its Corps d’Afrique guard as it passed
through some woods. The 22d Corps d’Afrique Infantry stepped out of the road,
faced the attackers, and began firing. Company E’s 1st Sgt. Antoine Davis got
close enough to the enemy to receive a fatal pistol shot in the chest. After an
hour and a half of skirmishing, the Confederates withdrew, leaving nine dead
on the field. The 22d lost twelve men killed, wounded, and missing. “This was
the first time this regiment, as a whole, had been engaged with the enemy,” the
regiment’s commanding officer wrote, “and I must say that their conduct was as
good as that of any new troops.” He complained that his regiment’s .69-caliber
smoothbore muskets were “of very inferior and defective quality, many of them
becoming useless at the first fire.” Despite their faulty weapons, the men of
the 22d managed to repel the attack, and the brigade commander praised their
“utmost coolness. . . . No one who witnessed their conduct on this occasion can
doubt that it is perfectly safe to trust colored troops in action, and depend upon
their doing their full share of the fighting.” 12
Later that day, Banks’ army began to arrive in Simmesport. His expedition
had been a failure, expensive in casualties, time, and opportunities lost in other
theaters of operations. In Virginia, the newly promoted Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant,
commander of all Union armies, was exasperated. His special emissary to Banks’
command, Maj. Gen. David Hunter, described the Department of the Gulf as “one
great mass of corruption. Cotton and politics, instead of the war, appear to have
engrossed the army,” and added that the troops had no confidence in Banks. 13
On 18 May, Maj. Gen. Edward R. S. Canby reached Simmesport. He headed
a specially created geographical command, the Military Division of West
Mississippi, which included both the Department of the Gulf and the Department
of Arkansas. This was a way Grant and Halleck had devised to remove Banks the
hapless general from field operations without alienating Banks the politician, who
still had powerful friends in the Lincoln administration. Canby was a West Point
graduate with two Mexican War brevets who had jumped from first lieutenant to
major when the Army expanded in 1855 and from major to full colonel in one
of the new regular infantry regiments in May 1861, becoming the only officer
in the Army to receive successive two-grade promotions. He commanded Union
troops in New Mexico in 1862, turning back a Confederate attack there, and
in New York City after the draft riots the next year. His immediate concern in
Louisiana was to resupply the troops and position them advantageously. Banks,
11 OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 1, pp. 25, 253 (“regarded as”), 256, 402–03; ORN, ser. 1, 26: 130 (“The
water,” “Trees were”), 132.
12 OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 1, pp. 443 (“utmost coolness”), 444 (“of very,” “This was”).
13 OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 1, p. 390.