Banks orders a second assault at Port Hudson; men drop into a seven-foot ditch and a twelve-foot wall stops them cold

Three weeks into the siege, Nathaniel Banks had already spent thousands of men on a failed May assault against Port Hudson's bluffs and earthworks. On June 14, 1863, he ordered a second direct attack — Union troops rushed an abrupt ascent, crossed broken ground, and dropped into a seven-foot ditch packed with the living and dead before a twelve-foot earthwork stopped them cold. The assault failed with even higher casualties than the first, leaving Banks no choice but to wait out Franklin Gardner's 7,500 defenders from the trenches…