Siege of Port Hudson

Confederate batteries fire down onto Union gunboats on the Mississippi.

Date	May 22, 1863 (1863-05-22) – July 9, 1863 (1863-07-09)
Location	East Baton Rouge Parish and East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
Result	Union victory

Belligerents

United States (Union)

Confederate States (Confederacy)

Commanders and leaders

Nathaniel P. Banks

Franklin Gardner (POW)

Units involved

XIX Corps

Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana, Port Hudson

Strength

~30,000 – 40,000

~7,500

Casualties and losses

~5,000 killed and wounded
~5,000 died of disease

~750 killed and wounded
250 died of disease
6,500 surrendered

The Siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana (May 22 – July 9, 1863), was the final engagement in the Union campaign to recapture the Mississippi in the American Civil War.

While Union General Ulysses Grant was besieging Vicksburg upriver, General Nathaniel Banks was ordered to capture the Confederate stronghold of Port Hudson, in order to go to Grant's aid. When his assault failed, Banks settled into a 48-day siege, the longest in US military history. A second attack also failed, and it was only after the fall of Vicksburg that the Confederate commander, General Franklin Gardner surrendered the port. This left the Mississippi open to Union navigation from its source to the Gulf of Mexico.

From the time the American Civil War started in April 1861, both the North and South 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 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.

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