Through the Howling Wilderness: The 1864 Red River Campaign and Union Failure in the West

By Gary D. Joiner
Illustrated, maps, appendices, notes, selected bibliography, index, 305 pp., 2006. The University of Tennessee Press, 110 Conference Center, 600 Henley St., Knoxville, TN 37996-4108, $39.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Robert L. Durham
Robert L. Durham is a computer specialist. A longtime Civil War buff, he is also interested in Old West history and has written articles and book reviews for Alamo Journal, True West, Journal of the Alamo Battlefield Association, and Alamo de Parras web site at www.flash.net/~alamo3

Review:
The 1864 Red River Campaign was likely one of the most ill-conceived and poorly planned military operations of the Civil War. Politically and economically motivated, there was little military necessity for its undertaking.

Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman was in favor of the expedition and hoped to lead it. In fact, some of the best troops assigned to the mission were on loan from Sherman's forces, with a definite deadline for their return.

President Abraham Lincoln was, perhaps, its biggest supporter; he anticipated that it would result in an influx of cotton to the mills of New England, helping him politically. As well, he hoped to provide an opportunity for holding elections for representatives from the loyalists in Louisiana to the U.S. House and Senate. However, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant gave it only grudging support, believing it diverted attention and troops from the main theaters of the war.

Gary D. Joiner does a masterful job of detailing this complicated campaign. Through the Howling Wilderness follows as many tortured paths as those followed by Gen. Nathaniel Prentiss Banks' Army and by Adm. David Dixon Porter's feet along and up the Red River.

Joiner reflects on pre-campaign intelligence, cooperation (or lack thereof) between the Army and Navy, considerations for personal profit and political capital to be gained from valuable Red River Valley cotton, and reconstruction politics.

Several unique engineering challenges were met by both the Union and Confederate forces during this campaign. Also, there was the contentious relationship between Confederate Generals Richard Taylor and Edmund Kirby Smith to be taken into account.

In addition to the Red River Campaign, Howling Wilderness studies Federal Gen. Frederick Steele's Camden campaign. Steele was to cooperate with Banks from Arkansas, meeting his army and Porter's fleet at Shreveport, La. However, there was no communication between the two forces, with hostile troops (and howling wilderness) separating them.

Joiner's book is an excellent telling of this convoluted tale. He brings this intricate campaign together in a clear and understandable way. The many informative maps assist considerably. I recommend the book for everyone interested in the War in the Trans-Mississippi Theater and for all those with a particular fascination for this little-covered campaign.