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The Red River Campaign or Red River Expedition comprised a series of battles fought along the Red River in Louisiana during the American Civil War from March 10 to May 22, 1864. The campaign was a Union initiative, fought between approximately 30,000 Union troops under the command of Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, and Confederate troops under the command of Lieutenant General Richard Taylor, whose strength varied from 6,000 to 15,000. The campaign was primarily the plan of Union General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck, and a diversion from Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's plan to surround the main Confederate armies by using Banks's Army of the Gulf to capture Mobile, Alabama. It was a Union failure, characterized by poor planning and mismanagement, in which not a single objective was fully accomplished. Taylor successfully defended the Red River Valley with a smaller force. However, the decision of Taylor's immediate superior, General Edmund Kirby Smith to send half of Taylor's force north to Arkansas rather than south in pursuit of the retreating Banks after the Battle of Mansfield and the Battle of Pleasant Hill, led to bitter enmity between Taylor and Kirby Smith. ==Union objectives== The Union had four goals at the start of the campaign: # To destroy the Confederate Army commanded by Taylor. # To capture Shreveport, Louisiana, Confederate headquarters for the Trans-Mississippi Department, control the Red River to the north, and occupy east Texas. # To confiscate as much as a hundred thousand bales of cotton from the plantations along the Red River. # To organize pro-Union state governments in the region. Union strategists in Washington thought that the occupation of east Texas and control of the Red River would separate Texas from the rest of the Confederacy. Texas was the source of much needed guns, food, and supplies for Confederate troops.〔Brooksher, pp. 3–5, 7.〕 Other historians have claimed that the campaign was also motivated by concern regarding the 25,000 French troops in Mexico sent by Napoleon III and under the command of Emperor Maximillian. At the time, the Confederates offered to recognize the government of Maximillian in return for French recognition of the Confederacy; the Confederates also hoped to gain access to valuable war goods through this recognition.〔Brooksher, pp. 5–7.〕 However, Banks's campaign on the Texas coast during November and December 1863 had satisfied President Abraham Lincoln, who wrote to Banks, "My thanks for your successful and valuable operations in Texas."〔(Abraham Lincoln to Nathaniel P. Banks, Thursday, December 24, 1863 (Reply to Banks's letter of December 6; with copy of Lincoln to Banks, December 29, 1863 on verso) )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Red River Campaign」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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