As the war's fourth April dawned across the land, the Union's new general-in-chief, tenacious and tough-minded Ulysses S. Grant, readied his forces for an all-out assault on the Confederacy. The South meanwhile, still recovering from a disastrous 1863, pinned its hopes for victory more and more on Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. April 1864 would also witness one of the war's most controversial episodes at a fort along the Mississippi, a dismal river campaign, the passage of an historic amendment, and the death of a president's son.
Red River Campaign - Beginning in March and lasting all through April on into May, the Union's Red River Campaign in Louisiana is often called the worst campaign of the entire war. Opposed by officers such as Grant, Sherman, and even the man assigned to lead the campaign - Nathaniel Banks - the campaign is nevertheless given the green light by President Lincoln. The goals of the campaign include wresting control of western Louisiana away from the South, and preventing any association between the Confederacy and sympathetic French forces in Mexico under dictator Ferdinand Maximilian.
Under the command of Major General Nathaniel Banks, one of the war's most inept commanders, the combined army-navy campaign ends in abysmal failure. The affair's only saving grace is a remarkable engineering feat near the end of April that spares Banks from losing his accompanying gunboats.
Union convention abolishes slavery - On April 6th, a Union convention meets in New Orleans, under Union control since April 1862. The convention members adopt a new state convention and declare that slavery is abolished in the state of Louisiana.
Thirteenth Amendment passes Senate - On April 8th, the United States Senate passes the 13th Amendment to the Constitution by a vote of 38 to 6. The amendment is intended to officially abolish slavery in the United States once and for all.
Ironically, the original 13th Amendment was intended to protect slavery from federal intervention, and had actually passed both houses of Congress in early 1861. It had not been ratified by the required number of states however, and never became official.
If anything symbolized the tremendous changes wrought by four years of war, it was these diametrically opposite amendments with identical numbers. One created prior to the war and intended to protect slavery, the other created before the war ended and intended to abolish slavery.
The U.S. House would pass the 'new' 13th Amendment in January 1865. The amendment became official in December of that same year.
