Also in the spring of 1862, Stonewall Jackson leads his Valley Campaign in the Shenandoah Valley.

Employing audacity and rapid, unpredictable movements on interior lines, Jackson's seventeen thousand men march six hundred and forty-six miles (one thousand and forty kilometers) in forty-eight days and win several minor battles as they successfully engage three Union armies (fifty-two thousand men), including those of Nathaniel P. Banks and John C. Fremont, preventing them from reinforcing the Union offensive against Richmond.

The swiftness of Jackson's men earn them the nickname of "foot-cavalry".

“Stonewall” Jackson opens the Shenandoah Valley campaign with a force of eighteen thousand men.

He strikes Union Major General Nathaniel P. Banks at Front Royal on May 23, and ...

...two days later, at Winchester, routing Union troops there.

Jackson's force now poses a clear threat to Washington.

Nathaniel Banks's corps attacks Jackson at Cedar Mountain on August 9, gaining an early advantage.

Confederate Brigadier General Charles S. Winder is killed and his division mauled.

A Confederate counterattack led by Major General A.P. Hill drives Banks back across Cedar Creek.

Jackson's advance is stopped, however, by the Union division of brigadier General James B. Ricketts.

Jackson has learned by now that Pope's corps are all together, foiling his plan of defeating each in separate actions.

He remains in position until August 12, then withdraws to Gordonsville.

Lincoln believes that the river fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, is a key to winning the war.

Vicksburg and Port Hudson are the last remaining strongholds that prevent full Union control of the Mississippi River.

Situated on high bluffs overlooking a sharp bend in the river and called the "Gibraltar of the Mississippi", Vicksburg is nearly invulnerable to naval assault.

Admiral David Farragut had found this directly in his failed operations of May 1862.

The overall plan to capture Vicksburg is for Ulysses S. Grant to move south from Memphis and Major General Nathaniel P. Banks to move north from Baton Rouge.

Banks's advance is slow to develop and bogs down at Port Hudson, offering little assistance to Grant.

The Red River Campaign begins as Union troops reach Alexandria, Louisiana, on March 10, 1864.

The Union has four goals at the start of the campaign: To destroy the Confederate Army commanded by Taylor.

To capture Shreveport, Louisiana, Confederate headquarters for the Trans-Mississippi Department, control the Red River to the north, and occupy east Texas.

To confiscate as much as a hundred thousand bales of cotton from the plantations along the Red River.

To organize pro-Union state governments in the region.

Union strategists in Washington think that the occupation of east Texas and control of the Red River will separate Texas from the rest of the Confederacy.

Texas is the source of much needed guns, food, and supplies for Confederate troops.

Other historians have claimed that the campaign was also motivated by concern regarding the twenty-five thousand French troops in Mexico sent by Napoleon III and under the command of Emperor Maximilian.

At the time, the Confederates had offered to recognize the government of Maximilian in return for French recognition of the Confederacy; the Confederates had also hoped to gain access to valuable war goods through this recognition.

However, Banks's campaign on the Texas coast during November and December 1863 had satisfied President Abraham Lincoln, who had written to Banks: "My thanks for your successful and valuable operations in Texas." (The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress: Abraham Lincoln to Nathaniel P. Banks, Thursday, December 24, 1863 (Reply to Banks's letter of December 6; with copy of Lincoln to Banks, December 29, 1863 on verso))