Army of the Gulf

• 1. Introduction

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  The Army of the Gulf was born from a single dramatic event: Admiral David G. Farragut's capture of New Orleans in 1862. That seizure of the South's largest city forced the Union to confront a new problem. Someone had to govern and hold a sprawling stretch of Gulf Coast territory, and that task fell to a force that would bear the region's name. What would it take to hold Louisiana and Alabama under constant threat? What generals would lead the Army of the Gulf through its worst defeats and its final victories? And how does an army fight a war when its own name keeps changing?

• 2. Benjamin Butler Takes Command

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  Benjamin F. Butler was the man handed the keys to occupied New Orleans. As commander of the Union occupation forces, he was placed at the head of the newly created Department of the Gulf. In March of 1862, Butler formally assumed command of the department, and the Army of the Gulf was organized from the troops now assigned to that department. Butler's tenure over this stretch of Louisiana was not marked by pitched battles. The army saw little action through the rest of 1862. On the 15th of December that year, Butler was replaced, handing off an army that had yet to fight its defining engagement.

• 3. Banks and the Road to Port Hudson

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  Major General Nathaniel P. Banks took command of both the department and the army on the 15th of December 1862. At that moment, the Army of the Gulf consisted of a single corps: the XIX Corps, which Banks also commanded personally. He led the army through a series of engagements in lower Louisiana, including fights at Fort Bisland and Irish Bend. Those clashes built toward something larger: the Siege of Port Hudson, which stands as the army's first major engagement. Confederate forces at Port Hudson did not yield quickly. The siege ground on until the 9th of July 1863, when the post was finally surrendered. That date also marked the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River falling into Union hands.

• 4. Expansion and the Red River Disaster

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  Following the fall of Port Hudson, the Army of the Gulf grew considerably. The XIII Corps and two divisions of the XVI Corps were added to the department, pushing the force past three corps in strength. Banks kept overall command while General William H. Emory took over the XIX Corps. Then came March 1864, and Banks launched his Red River Campaign. It failed. Banks resigned from the army after that defeat and was replaced by Major General Stephen A. Hurlbut, who held command on a temporary basis beginning on the 23rd of September 1864. The XIX Corps was pulled out of the department entirely and sent to the Shenandoah Valley, leaving what remained to fight on a different front.

• 5. Mobile Bay and a New Name

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  The forces that stayed behind after the Red River collapse participated in the land attack at the Battle of Mobile Bay. Late in the war, Major General Edward Canby's Military Division of West Mississippi absorbed the army's two remaining corps, the XIII and the XVI, for an offensive aimed at taking the city of Mobile. Canby renamed the combined force the Army of West Mississippi, aligning its title with the military division he commanded. Under that new name, the troops fought at the Battle of Spanish Fort and the Battle of Fort Blakeley. Those were the army's final major engagements under any title. When the war closed, Canby was appointed to command the Department of the Gulf, and the force reverted once more to its original name: the Army of the Gulf.