New York 161st Infantry (Union)

Port Hudson

In cooperation with Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's final offensive against Vicksburg, Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's army moved against the Confederate stronghold at Port Hudson on the Mississippi River. Like Vicksburg, Port Hudson was located atop high bluffs at the river bank that commanded the river. On May 11th, Banks learned that some Confederates had been moved from Port Hudson to support the forces defending Vicksburg, so he sought to move upon the garrison before those troops could be replaced. Banks…READ MORE

Second Sabine Pass

With a de facto French government under Maximillian south of the Rio Grande, the Confederates hoped to establish trade between Texas and Mexico to obtain much needed supplies. The Lincoln administration, aware of Confederate intentions, sought to establish a military presence in Texas to discourage Mexican influence. A Union force in place near Beaumont, 30 miles inland from the mouth of the Sabine River, would cut the last railroad between Texas and the rest of the Confederacy and could possibly threaten…READ MORE

Sabine Pass

With a de facto French government under Maximillian south of the Rio Grande, the Confederates hoped to establish trade between Texas and Mexico to obtain much needed supplies. The Lincoln administration, aware of Confederate intentions, sought to establish a military presence in Texas to discourage Mexican influence. A Union force in place near Beaumont, 30 miles inland from the mouth of the Sabine River, would cut the last railroad between Texas and the rest of the Confederacy and could possibly threaten…READ MORE

Mansfield

The Red River Campaign of 1864 was one General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant's initiatives to apply simultaneous pressure on Confederate armies along five separate fronts from Louisiana to Virginia. In addition to defeating the defending Confederate army, the campaign sought to confiscate cotton stores from plantations along the river and to give support to pro-Union governments in Louisiana. By early April, Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks' Union army was about 150 miles up the Red River threatening Shreveport. C…READ MORE

ColonelWilliam B. Kinsey

Colonel Joshua James Guppey

Major General Gordon Granger

Mobile Bay

In the late summer of 1864, a Union combined Army-Navy force began operations to close Mobile Bay to blockade-running vessels from the port city of Mobile, Alabama. On August 3, infantry and cavalrymen under Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger landed on Dauphin Island and laid siege to Fort Gaines west of the main ship channel. Two days later, Rear Admiral David G. Farragut's fleet of eighteen ships, including four ironclad monitors, entered Mobile Bay and received devastating fire from both Fort Gaines and Fort Morg…READ MORE

Fort Blakeley

Although the harbor of Mobile Bay had been closed to blockade running traffic since mid-summer 1864 with Admiral David G. Farragut's victory there, the port city of Mobile still remained in Confederate control. In late March 1865, two Federal infantry columns converged on the defenses of the city at Fort Blakeley and Spanish Fort. One force of 13,000 Union soldiers commanded by Gen. Frederick Steele moved west from Pensacola with orders to take Blakely from the rear. Union Gen. Edward R.S. Canby's Sixteent…READ MORE