The Camden Expedition (March 23 – May 3, 1864) was the final campaign conducted by the Union Army in Arkansas during the Civil War. The offensive was designed to cooperate with Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks' movement against Shreveport. Overview The U.S. War Department, under the direction of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, had developed a very strategic goal to reassert Union control over Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. This was part of a much larger effort to move simultaneously against Confederate forces in a number of theaters. Separate Union columns were to destroy the remaining Southern troops in southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana, then join for an all-out push into Texas, essentially ending the war in that region. The Arkansas phase of this Red River Campaign was entitled the Camden Expedition, an effort endorsed by Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The plan called for Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele's force to march to Shreveport, Louisiana, where it would link up with an amphibious expedition led by Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks and Rear Admiral David D. Porter, whose force was to advance up the Red River Valley; once joined, the Union force was to strike into Texas. Steele would garrison Shreveport while Banks forged ahead into northeastern Texas. But the two pincers never converged, and Steele's columns suffered terrible losses in a series of battles with Confederate forces led by Maj. Gen. Sterling Price and Gen. E. Kirby Smith. The campaign Steele led a combined 8,500-man Union force of infantry, artillery and cavalry from the Little Rock Arsenal on March 23, 1864, with the objective of joining forces with Maj. Gen. Banks at Shreveport. Confederate forces in Arkansas were directed from Washington, where the Confederate government of the state relocated after the fall of Little Rock. Confederate Maj. Gen. Sterling Price ordered Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke to harry the Union column and to prevent it from crossing the Little Missouri as it moved toward Washington. Action at Mount Elba As a supporting effort, to help fix Confederate forces at Monticello, Arkansas, prevent them from opposing Steel's march to Camden, Arkansas, Col. Powell Clayton conducted a raid on Longview, Arkansas, a port on the Saline, southwest of Monticello. Clayton's cavalry force crossed the Saline at Mount Elba, Arkansas, after sweeping aside a small guard force. Clayton divided his forces and sent part to establish a blocking position to the west near