The Battle of Yellow Bayou, also known as the Battle of Norwood's Plantation, saw Union Army forces led by Brigadier General Joseph A. Mower clash with Confederate States Army troops commanded by Brigadier General John A. Wharton in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana during the American Civil War. This was the final action of the Red River campaign in which a Union army under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks was repulsed by Confederate forces led by Major General Richard Taylor. The failed Union campaign almost ended in disaster when an accompanying Union fleet led by Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter was trapped at Alexandria, Louisiana, by low water in the Red River. An engineering feat saved the fleet, allowing Banks' army to complete its withdrawal.

The Red River campaign, also known as the Red River expedition, was a major Union offensive campaign in the Trans-Mississippi theater of the American Civil War, which took place from March 10 to May 22, 1864. It was launched through the densely forested gulf coastal plain region between the Red River Valley and central Arkansas towards the end of the war. The offensive was intended to stop Confederate use of the Louisiana port of Shreveport, open an outlet for the sugar and cotton of northern Louisiana, and to split the Confederate lines, allowing the Union to encircle and destroy the Confederate military forces in Louisiana and southern Arkansas. It marked the last major offensive attempted by the Union in the Trans-Mississippi Theater.