The siege of Port Hudson (May 22 – July 9, 1863) was the final engagement in the Union campaign to recapture the Mississippi River in the American Civil War. While Union General Ulysses Grant was besieging Vicksburg upriver, General Nathaniel Banks was ordered to capture the lower Mississippi Confederate stronghold of Port Hudson, Louisiana, then to go to Grant's aid. When his assault failed, Banks settled into a 48-day siege, the longest in US military history up to that point. A second attack also failed, and it was only after the fall of Vicksburg that the Confederate commander, General Franklin Gardner, surrendered the port. The Union gained control of the river and navigation from the Gulf of Mexico through the Deep South and to the river's upper reaches.
Background
Strategy and politics on the Mississippi
From the time the American Civil War started in April 1861, both the U.S. and Confederates made controlling the Mississippi River a major part of their strategy. The Confederacy wanted to keep using the river to transport needed supplies; the Union wanted to stop this supply route and drive a wedge that would divide Confederate states and territories. Particularly important to the South was the stretch of the Mississippi that included the mouth of the Red River. The Red was the Confederacy's primary route for moving vital supplies between east and west: salt, cattle, and horses traveled downstream from the Trans-Mississippi West; in the opposite direction flowed men and munitions from the east.
In the spring and early summer of 1862, the Union advanced their control of the Mississippi from both the north and the south. From the mouth of the river, a fleet commanded by Flag Officer David G. Farragut fought its way through Confederate fortifications in the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, resulting in the capture of New Orleans. A second Union fleet commanded by Charles H. Davis occupied Memphis, Tennessee, after defeating Confederate riverine forces in the First Battle of Memphis. To make sure it could continue to use the middle section of the river, the South fortified positions at both Vicksburg and Port Hudson.
The initial idea of fortifying the heights of Port Hudson came from the south's master of fixed defenses, General Pierre G.T. Beauregard, Commander, Army of the Mississippi. Writing to Major General Mansfield Lovell, Commander of the lower Mississippi in March 1862, Beauregard recommended, "...the fortification of Port Hudson as a measure of precaution against the fall of our defenses north of Memphis." In June 1862, Major General Earl Van Dorn wrote Jefferson Davis: "I want Baton Rouge and Port Hudson". A few days after the fall of Baton Rouge to the Union, Confederate General John C. Breckinridge with 4,000 men, carried out the wishes of General Van Dorn by occupying Port Hudson, situated between Baton Rouge and Bayou Sara, with troops under the command of General Daniel Ruggles. Soldiers of the 4th Louisiana Infantry arrived at the site on August 15, 1862.
According to historian John D. Winters, "Port Hudson, unlike Baton Rouge, was one of the strongest points on the river, and batteries placed upon the bluffs could command the entire river front." It was a position similar to that of Quebec City on the St. Lawrence River in the French and Indian War.
The political momentum behind the Union actions against Port Hudson came from the elections of November 1862. The Republican base, centered in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, had been shaken by embarrassing Democratic victories. A dramatic letter from Indiana Governor Oliver P. Morton to Lincoln claimed that "The fate of the North-West is trembling in the balance." His implication was that unless the independent trade of Union states along the Ohio River was restored by Union control of the entire Mississippi, further breakup of the Union was possible. Morton believed the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were in danger of breaking away from the Northeast to join the Confederacy, which was increasingly becoming the more lucrative opportunity. In addition, the southern areas of these states had been settled by people from the South, many of whom maintained their identification with that region and its culture.
The threat of political fractures galvanized the Lincoln administration into action. Major General Nathanial Banks was diverted from a possible expedition to Texas and given Benjamin Butler's command of the Department of the Gulf. The Union commander of all armies, Henry Wager Halleck, said to Banks that President Lincoln "regards the opening of the Mississippi River as the first and most important of all our military and naval operations, and it is hoped that you will not lose a moment in accomplishing it." On December 4, 1862, Banks and his expedition put to sea for New Orleans.
In May 1863, Union land and naval forces began a campaign they hoped would give them control of the full length of the Mississippi River. One army under Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant commenced operations against the Confederacy's fortified position at Vicksburg at the northern end of the stretch of the river still in Southern hands, while another army under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks simultaneously attacked Port Hudson at the southern end.
Foundation of a fortress
Port Hudson was sited on an 80-foot (24 m) bluff on the east bank above a hairpin turn in the Mississippi River 25 miles (40 km) upriver from Baton Rouge. The hills and ridges in the area of the town represented extremely rough terrain, a maze of deep, thickly forested ravines, swamps, and cane brakes creating a natural fortress. The town was a port for shipping cotton and sugar downriver from the surrounding area. Despite its importance, the city had only a few buildings and 200 people at the start of the war. The river had shifted south and the docks had been moved about 1⁄2 mi (0.80 km) south.
In 1862, a railroad was constructed to the town of Clinton, 19 mi (31 km) to the northeast. The entire length of the Port Hudson and Clinton railroad was 21 mi (34 km). It did not connect with the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern railroad that connected Louisiana with other states and with Camp Moore, the main mustering point for Confederate forces in the department. Also by 1862 the railroad was run down, the track consisting of strips of iron nailed flat to rotten ties. The entire rolling stock consisted of one locomotive, one passenger car, and six box and flat cars. This train could accommodate only a few hundred troops at the most and was inadequate for hauling heavy guns and their ammunition. This lack of transport independent of the river would limit the defensibility of Port Hudson.
Initial plans for fortifications were drawn up with the assistance of Captain James Nocquet, chief engineer for General Breckinridge. Along with loaning his engineering staff, Breckinridge also authorized Ruggles to gather needed supplies and tools using the Clinton and Port Hudson railroad, and whatever labor the area could provide for construction. Three different layouts for earthworks were considered: a central fort mounting cannon supported by angled outworks, a line of lunettes arranged along a 400-yard (370 m) line, and a continuous ring of redoubts, trenches, and parapets surrounding the entire position.
The first option was rejected for concentrating the positions armament into too small a target, and thus making it too vulnerable to bombardment. The third option was rejected because a siege was considered unlikely, and the task of building such extensive works too ambitious since the circumference of the ring would have been eight miles (13 km.) and required 35,000 men and 70 pieces of artillery for defense. The line of lunettes was determined to be the best plan for the defense of the Port Hudson heights, and construction started on a line of seven fronting the river.
General Breckinridge was soon ordered to take most of his troops to Kentucky, however, and on August 18 he left, leaving only 1,500 men to work on the fortifications under Ruggles's command. Ruggles did have a forty-two-pounder smoothbore cannon, which he mounted immediately, manned by former sailors of the CSS Arkansas, which had been destroyed in the Battle of Baton Rouge that year. Two thirty-two-pounders were shortly added from the abandoned wreck of the USS Sumter.
Union Navy assesses the defenses
General Ruggles was ordered to turn over command of Port Hudson to Brigadier General William Nelson Rector Beall on August 29, 1862, and take some of his troops to Mississippi. This was the day that the Union Navy began to contest the guns of Port Hudson for control of the Mississippi. The improvised Union gunboat USS Anglo-American, a wooden side-wheel steamboat, passed Port Hudson moving upriver to join with Commander David Dixon Porter's fleet at Vicksburg. Although struck many times by shot from Port Hudson, it was unable to return fire due to wet cartridges and an ammunition shortage. The Anglo-American joined Porter's fleet and reported the fortifications at Port Hudson.
Porter responded to the new threat by bombarding the Rebel position with the USS Essex and the Anglo-American on September 7. The Union fleet did little damage to Port Hudson, but the Essex received significant damage. Porter reported 35 to 40 heavy guns at Port Hudson, a considerable exaggeration. During the lull in action when the Union delayed bringing more ships into the area, Beall slowly expanded the fortifications. This work was slowed because of interference from Union-controlled portions of the river and the inadequate rail and road system supporting his position. By this time, Confederate President Jefferson Davis realized that connecting the Port Hudson and Clinton railway to Jackson, Mississippi, would be invaluable in allowing reserves to be switched between Vicksburg and Port Hudson, depending upon which was most threatened. A desperate shortage of iron and transport within the Confederacy made such construction impossible. Beall asked Davis to impose martial law in the region of Port Hudson in order to commandeer more workers for construction, but Davis denied this also.
Beall endeavored to set up a hospital at Centenary College at Jackson Louisiana for invalided troops from Port Hudson and Clinton, but the space proved inadequate. Confederate bureaucracy had made it difficult for Garrison Provost Marshal John C. Miller to construct a logistical system of warehouses and transports to supply the garrison with food, medical supplies, barracks, bedding, and other material necessary for their health. The use of earthworks for fortification, which required unending labor to maintain and were unhealthful to live in, also contributed to the poor health of the garrison.
Poor supply lines, starvation, and disease were to remain the constant problems of the Port Hudson position, and overwhelm efforts to improve conditions for the soldiers of the garrison. Louisiana Private Robert D. Patrick wrote: "...never since I have been in the army have I fared so badly and in truth I have been almost starved." At the same time commercial activity between Port Hudson and areas west of the Mississippi increased, because Port Hudson became the sole remaining link with the Trans-Mississippi. This tended to tie up even more of Port Hudson's limited transport facilities.
Changes of command
Lincoln's new commander of the Gulf, Nathaniel P. Banks, arrived in New Orleans on December 14, 1862, with the 31,000 men of his expedition. The former commander, Benjamin Butler left for Lowell, Massachusetts on December 24, but his 12,000 troops remained behind. This effectively more than doubled U.S. troop strength in the Gulf area. Banks ordered them to re-occupy Baton Rouge on December 17.
The Confederate command reacted to this increased Union commitment by sending a newly promoted major general to take command of Port Hudson. Major General Franklin Gardner arrived at his post on December 27, 1862. Gardner was a career Army officer who graduated from West Point 17th in his class in 1843. The native New Yorker commanded a cavalry brigade at Shiloh and was 39 years old at the time of his arrival. Upon taking command he reorganized the defenses at Port Hudson, concentrating the fields of fire of the heavy guns and rapidly setting up more earthworks by using packed earth and sod rather than the traditional gabions or sandbags.