Milliken's Bend

A Civil War Battle in History and Memory

Linda Barnickel

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9780807149942
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

At Milliken's Bend, Louisiana, a Union force composed predominantly of former slaves met their Confederate adversaries in one of the bloodiest engagements of the war. This small yet important fight received some initial widespread attention but soon drifted into obscurity. In Milliken's Bend, Linda Barnickel uncovers the story of this long-forgotten and highly controversial battle.
The fighting at Milliken's Bend occurred in June 1863, about fifteen miles north of Vicksburg on the west bank of the Mississippi River, where a brigade of Texas Confederates attacked a Federal outpost. Most of the Union defenders had been slaves less than two months before. The new African American recruits fought well, despite their minimal training, and Milliken's Bend helped prove to a skeptical northern public that black men were indeed fit for combat duty. After the battle, accusations swirled that Confederates had executed some prisoners taken from the "Colored Troops." The charges eventually led to a congressional investigation and contributed to the suspension of prisoner exchanges between North and South.
Barnickel's compelling and comprehensive account of the battle illuminates not only the immense complexity of the events that transpired in northeastern Louisiana during the Vicksburg Campaign but also the implications of Milliken's Bend upon the war as a whole. The battle contributed to southerners' increasing fears of slave insurrection and heightened their anxieties about emancipation. In the North, it helped foster a commitment to allow free blacks and former slaves to take part in the war to end slavery. And for African Americans, both free and enslaved, Milliken's Bend symbolized their never-ending struggle for freedom.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND TABLES
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• 1. “The Dark Pall of Barbarism” Emancipation as War Crime
• 2. “Eternal Vigilance” The Insurrectionary Menace and Vigilante Response
• 3. “All Is Uncertain” Civilians in Louisiana and Mississippi
• 4. “The Triumph of a Noble Purpose” Emancipation Comes to Northeast Louisiana
• 5. “I Cannot Tell How It Was I Escaped” The Bloody Battle at Milliken’s Bend
• 6. “A Disagreeable Dilemma” The Fate of Union Prisoners, Black and White
• 7. “This Battle Has Significance” Milliken’s Bend and the Wider War
• 8. “We Intended to Fight for the Country” The Limits of Freedom, 1863–1865
• 9. “A Terrible Aftermath of Injustice” Violence in the Postwar Era
• 10. Forgetting and Remembering Milliken’s Bend
• APPENDIX A. Unit and Biographical Sketches
• APPENDIX B. Federal Casualties at Milliken’s Bend
• APPENDIX C. Report of Col. Isaac F. Shepard to Adjt. Gen. Lorenzo Thomas
• APPENDIX D. Reports Investigating the Death of Capt. Corydon Heath
• ABBREVIATIONS
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX