You're listening to an airwave media podcast.

What does Sputnik have to do with student loans?

How did a set of trembling hands end the Soviet Union?

How did inflation kill moon bases? And how did a former president decide to run

for a second non-consecutive term? These are among the topics we deal with on the My History

Can Beat Up Your Politics Podcast.

We tell stories of history that relate to today's news events.

Give a listen.

My History can beat up your politics wherever you get podcasts. You're not going to be here. Oh, Hey everyone. Welcome to the 470th episode of our Civil War

podcast. I'm Rich and I'm Tracy. Hello y'all. Thanks for tuning into the podcast. As

y'all will recall by the end of the last episode it was the first week of April

1864 and the Federals, both Army and Navy, were at Grand

E-Corps, a spot on the Red River upstream from Alexandria, Louisiana.

Major General Nathaniel Banks, the commander of the Federal's Red River Expedition, had described his plan of campaign in terms of making a series of bounds, as in leaps and bounds.

A bound to Alexandria, then a bound to Shreveport, then a bound into East Texas.

Now from Grand Decore, it was time for Banks to determine the best

route to take for his bound to Trieveport.

Banks progress to Grand Ecore had been relatively easy, though time-consuming.

Now it was April 3rd, and in 12 days, A.J. Smith's 10,000 soldiers were supposed to be transferred back to William Tecumse, Sherman.

With that rapidly approaching deadline, Banks had to make a decision quickly regarding

the best route to approach Shreveport.

He had been dismayed to discover that the maps acquired by his staff were different than those carried by the steamboat pilots who navigated up and down the Red River. Some showed roads not marked

...