The Battle of Goodrich's Landing

TinCan

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In late June 1863 the Confederates around Vicksburg, Mississippi were desperate to come up with a plan than would throw the Union Army into disarray, disrupt Grant's supply line, and hopefully, relieve the pressure on their numbers besieged in that city.

Accordingly, a plan was put forward to attack the Union supply depot at Goodrich's Landing, a cotton plantation owned by Henry Goodrich in East Carroll Parish, Louisiana. Goodrich's had been taken by Union troops in early 1862 and turned into a major supply depot for Grant's forces surrounding Vicksburg. Before the war Goodrich's served as a major cotton shipping point for plantations in the surrounding area. Union Army forces not only took over Goodrich's but confiscated plantations in the surrounding area whose owners had abandoned them in the face of the Union invasion.

Colonel William Henry Parsons, commanding a force made up of the, 12th and 19th Texas Cavalry, the 15th Louisiana Calvary, and Cameron's Louisiana and Ralston's Mississippi Batteries left Gaines's Landing, Arkansas to undertake the assault.

Five miles northwest of the landing the Union men had raised a fort atop an old Indian mound. These fortifications guarded a military supply depot and Parsons determined to attack on June 29th. Before he launched his attack he offered the fort the chance to surrender and they accepted. Later on Col. Parson's troops encountered several companies of the 1st Kansas Mounted Infantry and drove them off.

The Confederates fell on the depot and helped themselves to much needed supplies and began to burn the cotton stored at the landing as well as that of the surrounding plantations. Next morning, (30 June) the Union Navy landed the Mississippi Marine Brigade under the command of Brigadier General Alfred W Ellet and gathering the 1st Arkansas Volunteers and the 10th Louisiana Volunteers, (African Descent), under the command of Col. William F Woods, set out in pursuit of the Confederates.

Ellet's cavalry came upon the confederates first and a hot skirmish followed. The fight grew in intensity as Wood's troops arrived on the scene. Parson, fearing the arrival of more Union reinforcements, disengaged and slipped away. Although the Confederate raid was a success, having disrupted Union operations and capturing much needed supplies, it failed in it's primary objective, which was to relieve Union pressure on Vicksburg. Four days later Vicksburg fell
 
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