Action of 26–27 April 1864

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. Eleven days earlier, a Confederate naval mine sank a Union ironclad warship. The vessel was refloated and escorted downstream by Porter with five Union vessels, but on April 26 the ironclad had to be scuttled.

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. In the ambush on April 26, Confederate artillery and foot soldiers seriously damaged three Union gunboats and two pump boats. The gunboats eventually escaped downstream, but both pump boats were captured, with serious loss of life. This action occurred at the place where the Cane River flowed into the Red River and was part of the Red River campaign in the American Civil War.