The Red River battle was one of the most brilliant displays of generalship by a Confederate officer.The campaign was primarily the plan of Union General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck, and a diversion from Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's plan to surround the main Confederate armies by using the 30,000 soldiers in Banks's Army of the Gulf to capture Mobile, Alabama. It was a dismal Union failure, characterized by poor planning and mismanagement, in which not a single objective was fully accomplished. Taylor's successful defense of the Red River Valley with a smaller force is considered one of the most brilliant Confederate military accomplishments of the war. However, the decision of Taylor's immediate superior, General Edmund Kirby Smith to send half of Taylor's force north to Arkansas rather than south in pursuit of the retreating Banks after the Confederate victory at the Battle of Mansfield, led to bitter enmity between Taylor and Smith.
The soldier is a Nardi plastic figure from Italy
- nardi
