Brigadier General General Alexander T. Hawthorn, a Camden native, had been given the task of organizing the city's defenses. From January to March Confederate troops and slave labor worked to develop a series of five redoubts, mainly to protect the southern and western land-based approaches to the city. Union Major General Frederick Steele, in command of the forces occupying Little Rock, was ordered to move southwest to effect a junction with Major General Nathaniel Prentice Banks' Red River Campaign, a push to take Shreveport, Louisiana and eventually gain a Union foothold in Texas. Steele's force left Little Rock on March 23, 1864, passing through thinly-populated southwestern Arkansas. His advance was blunted at the Battle of Prairie D'Ane (April 9–13). Needing provisions, Steele ordered his forces to march on Camden, which they occupied on April 15 after it was abandoned by its small number of defenders. During the Union's brief (ten-day) occupation, the defenses were expanded with additional trenches and earthworks. Steele was prompted to reconsider the continued occupation of Camden after supply-related initiatives were set back at Poison Spring (April 18) and Marks' Mills (April 25), and withdrew from Camden toward Little Rock on April 26.