page_title: Nathaniel P. Banks
section_title: Siege of Port Hudson
hierarchical_section_title: Nathaniel P. Banks / Civil War / Siege of Port Hudson
caption_attribution_description: Map showing the Siege of Port Hudson between May 27th and July 9th, 1863
context_page_description: Nathaniel Prentice Banks was an American politician from Massachusetts and a Union general during the Civil War.
  A millworker by background, Banks was prominent in local debating societies, and his oratorical skills were noted by the Democratic Party. However, his abolitionist views fitted him better for the nascent Republican Party, through which he became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and Governor of Massachusetts in the 1850s. Always a political chameleon, Banks was the first professional politician to serve as Massachusetts Governor.
  At the outbreak of the Civil War, President Lincoln appointed Banks as one of the first 'political' major generals, over the heads of West Point regulars, who initially resented him, but came to acknowledge his influence on the administration of the war. After suffering a series of inglorious setbacks in the Shenandoah River Valley at the hands of Stonewall Jackson, Banks replaced Benjamin Butler at New Orleans as commander of the Department of the Gulf, charged with administration of Louisiana and gaining control of the Mississippi River.
context_section_description: Part of Banks's orders included instructions to advance up the Mississippi River to join forces with Ulysses S. Grant, in order to gain control of the waterway, which was under Confederate control between Vicksburg, Mississippi and Port Hudson, Louisiana.  Grant was moving against Vicksburg, and Banks was under orders to secure Port Hudson before joining Grant at Vicksburg.  He did not move immediately, because the garrison at Port Hudson was reported to be large, his new recruits were ill-equipped and insufficiently trained for action, and he was overwhelmed by the bureaucratic demands of administering the occupied portions of Louisiana.   He did send forces to reoccupy Baton Rouge, and sent a small expedition that briefly occupied Galveston, Texas but was evicted in the Battle of Galveston on January 1, 1863.
  In 1862, several Union gunboats had successfully passed onto the river between Vicksburg and Port Hudson, interfering with Confederate supply and troop movements.  In March 1863, after they had been captured or destroyed, naval commander David Farragut sought to run the river past Port Hudson in a bid to regain control over that area, and convinced Banks to make a diversionary land attack on the Confederate stronghold. Banks marched with 12,000 men from Baton Rouge on March 13, but was unable to reach the enemy position due to inaccurate maps. He then compounded the failure to engage the enemy with miscommunications with Farragut.  The naval commander successfully navigated two gunboats past Port Hudson, taking fire en route, without support. Banks ended up retreating back to Baton Rouge, his troops plundering all along the way. The episode was a further blow to Banks's reputation as a military commander, leaving many with the false impression he had not wanted to support Farragut.
  Under political pressure to show progress, Banks embarked on operations to secure a route that bypassed Port Hudson via the Red River in late March.  He was eventually able to reach Alexandria, Louisiana, but stiff resistance from the smaller forces of Confederate General Richard Taylor meant he did not get there until early May. His army seized thousands of bales of cotton, and Banks claimed to have interrupted supplies to Confederate forces further east. During these operations Admiral Farragut turned command of the naval forces assisting Banks over to David Porter, with whom Banks had a difficult and prickly relationship.
  Following a request from Grant for assistance against Vicksburg, Banks finally laid siege to Port Hudson in May 1863. Two attempts to storm the works, as with Grant at Vicksburg, were dismal failures. The first, made against the entrenched enemy on May 27, failed because of inadequate reconnaissance and because Banks failed to ensure the attacks along the line were coordinated.  After a bloody repulse, Banks continued the siege, and launched a second assault on June 14. It was also badly coordinated, and the repulse was equally bloody: each of the two attacks resulted in more than 1,800 Union casualties.  The Confederate garrison under General Franklin Gardner surrendered on July 9, 1863, after receiving word that Vicksburg had fallen.  This brought the entire Mississippi River under Union control. The siege of Port Hudson was the first time that African-American soldiers were used in a major Civil War battle. The United States Colored Troops were authorized in 1863 and recruiting and training had to be conducted.
  In the autumn of 1863, Lincoln and Chief of Staff Henry Halleck informed Banks that plans should be made for operations against the coast of Texas, chiefly for the purpose of preventing the French in Mexico from aiding the Confederates or occupying Texas, and to interdict Confederate supplies from Texas heading east.  The second objective he attempted to achieve at first by sending a force against Galveston; his troops were badly beaten in the Second Battle of Sabine Pass on September 8.  An expedition sent to Brownsville secured possession of the region near the mouth of the Rio Grande and the Texas outer
caption: 1860s map showing the Siege of Port Hudson
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