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is a city in and the parish seat of De Soto Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 5,582 at the 2000 census. Mansfield is part of the Shreveport–Bossier City Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The Battle of Mansfield, a Confederate victory under General Richard Taylor (son of Zachary Taylor), was fought here on April 8, 1864. This battle turned 42,000 Union troops away from their conquest of the Louisiana Confederate capital, Shreveport, and sent them in retreat to New Orleans.
The first women's college west of the Mississippi River, Mansfield Female College, was founded by the Methodist Church there in 1855. A two-year college, its first class graduated in 1856. Financial difficulties and the threat of war closed the college from 1860 to the end of the American Civil War, during which its buildings served as a hospital for soldiers wounded in the battle of Mansfield; it reopened in 1865. In 1930, Mansfield Female College merged with Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport and closed its doors permanently. In 2003, the Louisiana State Legislature moved to convert the main building of Mansfield Female College, the Lyceum, into a future museum.
was partially shot in Mansfield and released on December 25, 2007. The story line involves a 1930s debate team from Marshall, Texas. The downtown scenes of Marshall, however, were actually shot on location in downtown Mansfield. The film stars Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker and was nominated for a Golden Globe award in 2008.