Between the Enemy and Texas: Parsons's Texas Cavalry in the Civil War

11. Whiskey and Gunpowder Aren't "Necessary to Enable a Southron to Make a Charge"

11. Whiskey and Gunpowder Aren't liNecessary to Enable a Southron to Make a Charge" A 1864 opened, Henry W. Halleck in Washington watched the genesis of one of his long-cherished ideas-an invasion of Texas by way of the Red River. He believed a combined army and navy expedition to Alexandria, then Shreveport, would open the fertile regions of North Texas. Although Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, who oversaw the Department of the Gulf, had been operating off the Texas coast, by January he agreed to the change. Two important reasons influenced this decision. First, Banks harbored grand political ambitions and wanted to please the president. Abraham Lincoln 's concern about the state's reconstructed government meant Banks needed to spend more time in Louisiana. Second, Banks recognized that along the proposed route he would find abundant cotton, which would pacify the wealthy mill owners in his home state of Massachusetts. To plan the largest-ever Federal invasion of the Trans-Mississippi, he exchanged correspondence with Frederick Steele, who would march south from Little Rock to join the expedition at Shreveport; Admiral David D. Porter, whose fleet would play an essential role; and William T. Sherman, who must commit soldiers if the movement was to succeed. The movement became known as the Red River expedition.1 Problems for the Federal high command began at once. The campaign would use troops from three different military departments, but Halleck refused to assign anyone officer as general commander. Sherman, who agreed to send ten thousand veterans to Alexandria by March 17, was anxious to move up the Red River, but Steele did not share this enthusiasm . He cited numerous problems: bad roads, a shortage of troops, and the need for men to monitor the civil elections scheduled in his department in March. Rather than pledge his army to the campaign, he 166: Between the Enemy and Texas offered to feign an offensive and turn the Confederate flank. 2 This would not do, Sherman complained to Banks; the elections were "nothing compared with the fruits of military success."3 Ulysses S. Grant, who had become a lieutenant general on March 12 and general-in-chief in Halleck's place, finally settled the matter. Three days after his promotion he instructed Steele to move his force toward Shreveport. "A mere demonstration ," he pointed out, "would not be sufficient." 4 The operation still had no overall commander. Sherman, who had been superintendent of the Seminary of Learning near Alexandria, clearly hoped for the position. "I wanted to go up Red River," he told his wife, "but as Banks was in command in person I thought it best not to go." 5 Banks, who had received his commission as major general of volunteers in May 1861, ranked Sherman, whose commission dated from May of 1862. During the initial planning of the expedition, Banks outranked every other Federal general except Benjamin Butler, another example of an inept political appointment.6 Superseding the politician-turnedgeneral was almost impossible; even Grant realized that, because Banks had influential friends, replacing him would almost certainly have serious political repercussions. Grant's elevation to general-in-chief did not occur in time for him to exert decisive influence. He had hoped to utilize Banks's army against Mobile and later wrote that he had "opposed the movement [up the Red River] strenuously, but acquiesced because it was the order of my superior at the time." 7 A force of more than forty thousand, the most impressive Federal army ever amassed in the Trans-Mississippi, began to move toward Shreveport in March. Sherman sent ten thousand infantry and artillery taken from the XVI and XVII corps. Brigadier Generals Joseph A. Mower and Thomas Kilby Smith each led divisions, and A. W. Ellet contributed around one thousand of his Marine Brigade-all under the command of hardened veteran Brigadier General Andrew J. Smith. Admiral Porter brought thirteen ironclads, four tinclads, and five other armed vessels. In addition to the army transport and quartermaster boats, around sixty Federal ships mounting over two hundred guns headed upriver. Both Smith and Porter were to join almost twenty thousand soldiers from the Whiskey and Gunpowder: 167 Department of the Gulf at Alexandria and then head for Shreveport, where they would unite with Frederick Steele's over eleven thousand troops. 8 The most serious drawback to the plan was that Sherman's men had to return...