Milliken's Bend by Linda Barnickel

Author:Linda Barnickel [Barnickel, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877), Social Science, Ethnic Studies, American, African American & Black Studies, Slavery
ISBN: 9780807149942
Google: V29Y1nthQJIC
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2013-04-15T01:41:29+00:00

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“This Battle Has Significance”

Milliken’s Bend and the Wider War

MILLIK EN’S BEND, although one of the smaller actions of the war, nevertheless is important for three main reasons. First, along with Port Hudson and Fort Wagner, Milliken’s Bend helped change attitudes and answered in the affirmative the question of whether black troops would fight. Secondly, it was sometimes invoked to aid recruiting, particularly among literate, free blacks in the North, showing them that if former slaves were willing to fight, then they, too, should be ready to enlist to help their Southern brothers. Finally, and most importantly, the capture of a number of officers and enlisted men at Milliken’s Bend and elsewhere in Louisiana that summer brought the Confederate treatment of soldiers from the Colored Troops into the forefront, ultimately resulting in the cessation of prisoner exchanges.

Immediately after Milliken’s Bend, abolitionists reaffirmed and even skeptics were persuaded that African Americans—even those who had been former slaves—could make good soldiers. Even Confederate brigadier general Henry McCulloch praised the black soldiers’ tenacity at Milliken’s Bend. In the North, as word spread about the repulse of the Southerners by the raw brigade of former slaves, Milliken’s Bend was trumpeted as proof that black men would fight, and fight well. Union colonel Isaac F. Shepard’s report, for example, glowed with pride. “I think there will be a future that will make this first regular battle against the blacks alone honorably historic. The best of all is our troops are not demoralized by the sad result to them. Not at all disheartened. Indeed they have risen with the event, and proudly walk with a loftier tread then [sic] before.”1

White soldiers who had been skeptical were now converted. With an attitude typical of many whites at the time, a convalescing Union soldier wrote just prior to the battle, with apparent sarcasm, “Did I ever tell you there is a Negro brigade a couple of miles up the bend, valiant soldiers? It would amuse you to see them drill.” Two days after the battle, he was more enthusiastic: “All are astonished at their fighting qualities… They have proved themselves worthy of the name of soldiers.”2

About a month after Milliken’s Bend, and immediately after the surrender of Vicksburg, Benjamin Stevens left the 15th Iowa Infantry to become an officer in the 10th Louisiana Infantry, African Descent. He wrote his mother in late July that “the thing is demonstrated, the nigger will fight.” Among paroled Confederates at Vicksburg, he found the Rebels more willing to fight two regiments of white soldiers over one regiment of blacks. “Rebel Citizens fear them more than they would fear Indians,” he wrote. Although Stevens had become an officer in the Colored Troops, he nevertheless expressed his preference for the war to remain one for the restoration of the Union, rather than for the abolition of slavery. But he supported the use of former slaves as soldiers against the Confederacy, seeing it as a practical matter: “We are using their own strength against them.”3

Chaplain George G.

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