9. The Battle of Milliken’s Bend was among the first to include African American troops
Part of Ulysses S. Grant’s operations against Vicksburg in 1863, the Battle of Milliken’s Bend is all but forgotten. Nonetheless, it was one of the first combat operations of the Union Army in which newly recruited “Colored” troops, as they were then called, engaged the enemy. Erroneously believing that Grant’s supply lines were run along the Mississippi River at Milliken’s Bend, in Louisiana, a brigade of Texas troops was dispatched to the site to disrupt his supplies. The Texas brigade, under the command of Brigadier General Henry McCulloch, attacked on June 7, 1863. By the time of the attack, the Confederates were aware that Grant’s primary supply line no longer ran through Milliken’s Bend. Nonetheless, they attacked in the hopes of claiming the position and using it to route food and other supplies into besieged Vicksburg.
Milliken’s Bend at the time was one of several posts in the area used for the purpose of training newly recruited African American soldiers. Many of them were formerly enslaved. None of them had combat experience and only rudimentary training in the use of firearms. Their officers were White, and plans to use them in front-line combat duties were yet to be formalized. Alongside the Black regiments at Milliken’s Bend were the 23rd Iowa Infantry and two US Navy gunboats in the Mississippi River, about 1,100 troops in total. They were attacked by approximately 1,500 Confederates, most of whom were veterans of combat. The attack began in the dark, about three in the morning of June 7, and quickly devolved into bloody hand-to-hand combat. Poorly trained in the use of the bayonet, the African troops gradually gave way before the onslaught.