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This article presents an overview of major military and naval operations in the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War.
[edit] Theater of operations
| Occupation of Indian Territory North of the Arkansas River
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| Baxter Springs
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Though geographically isolated from the battles to the east, a number of small-scale military actions took place in the Trans-Mississippi theater, a region encompassing states and territories to the west of the Mississippi River, but exclusive of the states and territories bordering the Pacific Ocean, which formed the Pacific Coast Theater of the American Civil War.
The campaign classification established by the United States National Park Service[1] is more fine-grained than the one used in this article. Some minor NPS campaigns have been omitted and some have been combined into larger categories. Only a few of the 75 battles the NPS classifies for this theater are described. Boxed text in the right margin show the NPS campaigns associated with each section.
[edit] Trans-Mississippi Department
The Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department was formed May 26 1862 to include Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River. It absorbed the Trans-Mississippi District (Department Number Two), which had been organized January 10 1862, to include that part of Louisiana north of the Red River, the Indian Territory, and the states of Missouri and Arkansas, except for the country east of St. Francis County, Arkansas, to Scott County, Missouri. The combined department had its headquarters at Shreveport, Louisiana, and Marshall, Texas.
[edit] Trans-Mississippi commanders
[edit] Arizona and New Mexico
In 1861 Confederates launched a successful campaign into the territory of present day Arizona and New Mexico. Residents in the southern portions of this territory adopted a secession ordinance of their own and requested that Confederate forces stationed in nearby Texas assist them in removing Union forces still stationed there. The Confederate territory of Arizona was proclaimed by Col. John Baylor after victories in the Battle of Mesilla at Mesilla, New Mexico, and the capture of several Union forces. Confederate troops were unsuccessful in attempts to press northward in the territory and withdrew from Arizona completely in 1862 as Union reinforcements arrived from California.
The Battle of Glorieta Pass was a small skirmish in terms of both numbers involved and losses (140 Federal, 190 Confederate). Yet the issues were large, and the battle decisive in resolving them. The Confederates might well have taken Fort Union and Denver had they not been stopped at Glorieta. As one Texan put it, "If it had not been for those devils from Pike's Peak, this country would have been ours."
This small battle smashed any possibility of the Confederacy taking New Mexico and the far west territories. In April, Union volunteers from California pushed the remaining Confederates out of present-day Arizona at the Battle of Picacho Pass. In the eastern part of the United States, the fighting dragged on for three more years, but in the Southwest the war was over.
[edit] Missouri
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One of the most strikingly unusual conflicts took place in Missouri. Though a slave state with a highly organized and militant secessionist movement, thanks to the pro-slavery "border ruffians" who battled antislavery militias in Kansas in the 1850s, Missourians sided with the Union by a ratio of two or three to one. The state's pro-Confederate governor, Claiborne F. Jackson, and his small state guard under General Sterling Price linked up with Confederate forces under General Ben McCulloch. After a brief run of victory over Union forces at the Battle of Wilson's Creek and Lexington, Missouri, Confederate forces were driven out of the state by the arrival of large Union forces in February 1862, and were effectively locked out by defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, on March 7 and 8.
By then a savage guerrilla conflict had begun to wrack Missouri. Gangs of Confederate insurgents, commonly known as "bushwhackers", ambushed and battled Union troops and Unionist state militia forces. Much of the fighting was between Missourians of different persuasions; both sides carried out large-scale atrocities against civilians, ranging from forced resettlement to murder. Historians estimate that the population of the state fell by one-third during the war; most survived, but fled or were driven out by one side or the other. Many of the most brutal bushwhacker leaders, such as William C. Quantrill and William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson, won national notoriety. A group of their followers remained under arms and carried out robberies and murders for sixteen years after the war, under the leadership of Jesse James, his brother Frank James, and Cole Younger and his brothers.
[edit] Texas and Louisiana
In the meantime, the Union mounted several attempts to capture the trans-Mississippi regions of Texas and Louisiana from 1862 until the war's end. With ports to the east under blockade or captured, Texas in particular became a blockade-running haven. Referred to as the "back door" of the Confederacy, Texas and western Louisiana continued to provide cotton crops that were transferred overland to the Mexican border town of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and shipped to Europe in exchange for supplies. Determined to close this trade, the Union mounted several invasion attempts of Texas, each of them unsuccessful. Confederate victories at Galveston, Texas, and the Battle of Sabine Pass repulsed invasion forces. The Union's disastrous Red River Campaign in western Louisiana, including a defeat at the Battle of Mansfield, effectively ended the Union's final invasion attempt of the region until the fall of the Confederacy. Isolated from events in the east, the Civil War continued in the Trans-Mississippi theater for several months after Robert E. Lee's surrender in April 1865. The last battle of the war occurred at Palmito Ranch in southern Texas—ironically a Confederate victory.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ↑ U.S. National Park Service, Civil War Battle Studies by Campaign
[edit] External links
