ADT-Monitored Home Security Service in Simmesport, LA

Simmesport is a town in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 2,161 at the 2010 census. It is the northernmost town upon the Atchafalaya River, located close the Old River which connects the Red and Atchafalaya rivers in the same way as the Mississippi River.

The town was founded by Bennet Barton Simmes (1811–1888), one-time owner of White Hall Plantation, which was located on the opposite bank of the Atchafalaya River.

Simmes’ home was used as the military headquarters for the Union’s Red River Campaign (1864) during the American Civil War. General Nathaniel P. Banks was superseded in command by E.R.S. Canby. General Ulysses S. Grant had sought Banks’ removal for months, but President Lincoln would not dismiss Banks, who had strong political withhold in Congress. On May 18, 1864, Canby assumed command in Simmesport, but Banks retained the nominal title of commander of the Department of the Gulf. Historian John D. Winters in The Civil War in Louisiana writes that the failure of the Union’s Red River Campaign “could largely be laid at Banks’ door, but there were many who shared in this failure.”