Mansfield State Historic Site preserves the Louisiana battlefield where the Battle of Mansfield was fought on April 8, 1864, a decisive action in the Red River Campaign. As Union forces under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks advanced up the Red River, Confederate troops under Major General Richard Taylor made a stand near Mansfield, where the road narrowed the Union approach. Taylor’s attack drove back two Union lines, captured a wagon train, and forced Banks to withdraw after fighting reached a third position by nightfall. The battle, followed by Pleasant Hill, helped doom the Union campaign. Since 1924, the battlefield has been steadily preserved, expanded, and developed with monuments, a museum, and trails.