Benjamin Persons

From This Valley They Say You Are Leaving Benjamin Persons

The bastions of Port Hudson and Vicksburg on theMississippi River having fallen to Union forces, and the Confederacy being cutin half. Congress began to fulminate for a westward campaign to return Texas to the Union. The Union Admiral Farrigut dreamed up a combined campaign, up the Red River. with the Army on land and the Navy (in river gunboats) keeping abrest of the land force. Having set into motion this scheme it was followed. Though defeated once the Union land force advanced up river from Alexandria, Louisiana while the Navy steamed abrest buton the river. Once past the falls at Alexandria the Federal gun boats upstream of the falls would have to wait until the river level before there was sufficient depth of water to allow the gun boats to move downstream. The Union Navy was trapped in the river. It was then that President Lincoln ordered the Union forces to quit the river so that the forces freed from the Red River Campaign could be Used to fight the Confederates elsewhere. But the order could not be obeyed for there was not enough water in the river to float the gun boats. An ingenious civil engineer. Joseph Bailey designed a dam (wing walls protruding from each bank, but not meeting) which dam had as its purpose to raise the level of the river. With plenty of strong hands at his disposal the structures were built and were awaiting anauspicious moment to move the fleet when one of the wing walls broke. As the water began to rush through the break the trapped Union gun boats rushed along with the water and safely passed the falls. Once downstream of the previous impedance the Union Navy and Army hastily beat a retreat to the Mississippi. The famed Red River Campaign had ended with neither side the better nor the worse. But the campaign had made one hero: the engineer Joseph Bailey, who became a General officer as reward for his exploits.