The Battle of Milliken’s Bend was a Confederate attempt to distract the Union’s drive to take Vicksburg, Mississippi. The battle ended as a tactical stalemate: While the Confederates inflicted substantial casualties, they could not stop Ulysses S. Grant’s siege. The battle’s main significance is that African-American troops played an important role in fending off the Confederate assault, demonstrating to leaders on both sides that black soldiers could indeed fight.
The Union siege of Vicksburg began on May 19, 1863. The garrison’s commander, John C. Pemberton, quickly pressed the Confederate government for assistance. President Jellerson Davis agreed with Pemberton’s assessment that the situation was dire and ordered trans-Mississippi commander Edmund Kirby Smith to take immediate action. Smith decided to attack Union positions near Milliken’s Bend. According to Confederate intelligence reports, Milliken’s Bend was being used by the Union army as a supply depot. Smith believed that the position would be an easy target because it was being guarded by convalescents and African-American troops. He gave Gen. Richard Taylor responsibility for leading the assault. Taylor split his 4,500 troops into three groups. One brigade was sent to Milliken’s Bend under the command of Gen. Henry McCulloch. Another was sent north to Lake Providence, and a third was sent south to Young’s Point.
The Confederates got underway on June 6. Colonel Hermann Lieb, commander of Milliken’s Bend, sensed that something was afoot and sent the 10th Illinois Cavalry and Ninth Louisiana Infantry to investigate. The men of the Ninth Louisiana were former slaves from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas and had been in the Union army for less than a month. Heavy skirmishing ensued when Lieb’s soldiers encountered the Confederates, and the Federals were compelled to retreat. Lieb immediately requested support from Adm. David Dixon Porter, and two gunboats, the Choctaw and the Lexington, were dispatched.
Skirmishing continued through the night on June 6, and into the morning of June 7. When the sun rose at 5:30 A. M. the battle began in earnest. For more than an hour, the Confederates were able to push the Federals backward in bloody hand-to-hand combat. Then, at 7:00 A. M., the Choctaw and Lexington arrived, firing upon the Confederates with grape and canister shot. By 10:00 A. M. the rebels were in full retreat. This ended the Battle of Milliken’s Bend, as the other prongs of the Confederate attack at Young’s Point and Lake Provident failed to engage the enemy.
Confederate losses at Milliken’s Bend were 44 killed, 131 wounded, and 10 missing out of 1,500 engaged. Union losses were much more substantial, 101 killed, 285 wounded, and 266 missing out of 1,061 engaged. The three Alrican-American regiments at Milliken’s Bend—the Ninth Louisiana, the First Mississippi Infantry, and the 13th Louisiana Infantry—suffered a casualty rate of 35 percent. The Ninth Louisiana was hit particularly hard, and 45 percent of the regiment’s members were lost.
The Battle of Milliken’s Bend did a great deal to convince commanders on both sides that African-American troops were battle worthy. McCulloch, the Confederate commander, remarked that his troops’ attack “was resisted by the negro portion of the enemy’s force with considerable obstinacy, while the white or true Yankee position ran like whipped curs almost as soon as the charge was ordered.” Ulysses S. Grant also noted his belief that African-American troops had passed an important test. A month and a half later, African-American troops would once again prove themselves, this time at Fort Wagner in South Carolina.
See also 54TH Massachusetts Regiment; Vicksburg campaign.
Further reading: Joseph T. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000);
Noah Andre Trudeau, Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War, 1862-1865 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998).
—Christopher Bates
World History
