Civil War
At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Cailloux became a lieutenant in the Native Guard, a Confederate regiment organized to defend the city of New Orleans. This made him one of the first African American officers of any North American unit. The regiment consisted entirely of free men of color who resided in and around New Orleans. Though the regiment was organized primarily as a public relations move by the Confederate Government of the state of Louisiana, and provided no financial support to its members, Cailloux took his responsibilities seriously, and his unit was observed to be well drilled and well trained.
The Confederate Native Guard were never called to active duty, and were disbanded before Union Admiral David Farragut captured the city of New Orleans in April 1862. In September 1862, Union General Benjamin F. Butler, military commander of the Department of the Gulf, who made his headquarters in New Orleans, organized an all-black Union Army 1st Louisiana Native Guard regiment. Andre Cailloux joined this regiment and was made captain of Company E.
Cailloux’s company was considered one of the best drilled in the Native Guard, and Cailloux gradually earned the respect of the white officer who commanded the regiment, Colonel Spencer Stafford. When General Nathaniel P. Banks replaced Butler as Commander of the Department of the Gulf in December 1862, he brought with him an additional 30,000 troops, bringing the total troop strength under his command to 42,000.
By this time, the all-black Native Guard had grown to three regiments. Though the line officers (lieutenants and captains) were black, the commanding officers (colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors) were white. Banks set out to remove all black officers from their positions, and generally accomplished this with the 2nd and 3rd Regiments, but was unable to do so with the 1st Regiment, to which Andre Cailloux belonged.
The 1st Regiment of the Native Guard was assigned primarily to fatigue duty (chopping wood, digging trenches) until May 1863, when Banks moved most of his army (35,000 men) in a position to surround the Confederate fortifications at Port Hudson, Louisiana. Port Hudson was a strategically located fort on a bend in the Mississippi River just 20 miles (32 km) north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. At the time, the Confederacy controlled the two-hundred-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the north and Port Hudson in the south.
While General Ulysses Grant laid siege to Vicksburg, Banks laid siege to Port Hudson.
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