Arkansas The Action of April 26–27, 1864 saw a Confederate States Army force led by Lieutenant Colonel John H. Caudle and Captain Florian Cornay ambush several Union Navy warships and auxiliary vessels commanded by Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter as they made their way downstream on the Red River of the South.

The clash occurred as a Union Army under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks and naval forces under Porter were retreating from Grand Ecore near Natchitoches to Alexandria, Louisiana.

President Abraham Lincoln wanted the United States flag raised over part of Texas to discourage the French-backed regime of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico.

The final plan called for Banks was to move up Bayou Teche with 17,000 troops to join with Major General Andrew Jackson Smith with 10,000 men and Porter's gunboats advancing up the Red River.

Despite unseasonably low water in the Red River, Banks ordered an advance on Shreveport, Louisiana, and on April 2 his army captured Natchitoches.

On April 9 Taylor's assault was repulsed at the Battle of Pleasant Hill, but Banks chose to withdraw to Grand Ecore near Natchitoches.

At this time, Taylor's superior officer, General Edmund Kirby Smith ordered away most of the Confederate infantry to fight against Steele.

[4] At the end of March 1864, river pilot Wellington W. Withenbury advised Porter not to take the largest ironclad warship, the USS Eastport above the falls at Alexandria.

[6] Porter's gunboats and a Union infantry division under Brigadier General Thomas Kilby Smith reached upstream as far as Loggy Bayou on April 10.

At the Battle of Blair's Landing on April 12, the expedition fought its way through a Confederate ambush with losses of 2 killed and 19 wounded, plus many gunboats damaged.

[7] On April 14 Porter, worried about the falling water level in the Red River, ordered the Eastport to head downstream from Grand Ecore.

The Eastport was refloated and on April 21, it headed downstream again accompanied by Porter in the tinclad gunboat USS Cricket, which towed the ironclad's guns in a flatboat.

[9] The ironclad was blown up, and debris from the premature explosion narrowly missed Porter and the vessel's master, Lieutenant Commander Seth Ledyard Phelps.

[15] However, on April 26 at the confluence of the Red and Cane Rivers, Porter's gunboats ran into a Confederate ambush consisting of 200 men from Lieutenant Colonel John H. Caudle's[9] 34th Texas Cavalry Regiment, dismounted as infantry,[12] and Captain Florian Cornay's[9] Louisiana Battery[16] (two 12-pounder Napoleons and two 12-pounder howitzers).