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Essays:"Appomattox to Red River" by - Arthur R. Carmody, Jr.

from 1861 to 1865. There was a war to be fought; troops to be raised and the supplies of war produced and transported.

During that first summer, and indeed for the remainder of the war, life in Shreveport was relatively secure. The city would not be surrendered until after the war was over. No blue uniforms would grace its streets until July of 1865. Companies from northwest Louisiana continued to leave for the war, going both to the Army of Northern Virginia and to the Army of the Tennessee. Military units from Texas streamed through the city. Most boarded boats for New Orleans; later, after the fall of that city in April of 1862, they took the overland route to the railhead at Vicksburg.

Contributing to the excitement was the increase in trade with Texas and Mexico. Arriving almost daily were horses, wagons, cattle, corn, wheat, rice, wool, leather, and saltpeter - supplies the armies to the east needed to survive. Thanks to this commerce, which remained open all during the war, the people of Shreveport never wanted for the basic necessities.

During the fall of 1861 the safety of New Orleans, the largest city in the south, was of growing concern. Its strategic position was obvious. As the commercial, financial and transportation center of the Deep South, New Orleans was critical to the Confederacy, in general, and Shreveport, in particular. What threatened one threatened the other. A threat to New Orleans would

Essays: "Appomattox to Red River" by - Arthur R. Carmody, Jr.