Civil War Engagements, the continuing war for the control of the Mississippi River in the summer of 1863 is remembered primarily by the major siege operations, which took place at Vicksburg, Mississippi and Port Hudson, Louisiana. As a result of these campaigns, many smaller actions took place in communities of less strategic value, which otherwise may never have directly experienced the sights and sound of battle.
Two such engagements occurred at Jackson, Louisiana in the summer of 1863 as a result of a large Federal foraging expedition. Approximately two hundred wagons, with cavalry and infantry escorts, and commanded by Colonel Halbert Greenleaf set forth from the Federal siege lines at Port Hudson on the morning of June 20th, on it's way to Jackson. Plantations and farms were visited along the twelve mile route, primarily in search of cotton to be used in the siege lines.
The wagon train which stretched over two miles in length, reached the intersection where the Jackson-Port Hudson Road crossed the Jackson-Clinton Road. As the Federal expedition singled out the Keller Plantation just north of the crossroads, Colonel Thomas R. Stockdale's Mississippi Cavalry Battalion, swept toward them with little warning. The brief fight stampeded the huge train giving the Confederates ample opportunity to take fifty wagons, two hundred mules and fifty prisoners.
The second engagement at Jackson took place on August 3rd. A recruiting expedition from Port Hudson numbering between 350 and 500 men under the command of Lieutenant Moore Hanham reached Jackson on August 2nd, their objective being to gather Negros for the Twelfth Corp D' Afrique. The following evening a force of approximately five hundred Confederate cavalrymen under the command of Colonel John Logan struck at the Union soldiers, who drew up in a line of battle on the campus of Centenary College. After a brief stand, the Federals were routed from the campus and town with the loss of between eighty and one hundred men, two field pieces, and numerous supply wagons.
