Milliken's Bend: A Civil War Battle in History and Memory

Preface

Preface “The only certainty is overwhelming ambiguity,” writes Tim O’Brien in his Vietnam War classic, The Things They Carried. He could have been writing about Milliken’s Bend. My journey began with misinformation. “Taken prisoner and murdered by the rebels, July, 1862.” So read the entry next to “Corodon” [Corydon] Heath’s name on the “Shober broadside,” a copy of which was sent to me in late 1991 by my friend Paul Rambow. We both shared a deep interest in the history of Corydon Heath’s original unit, Battery G, 2nd Illinois Light Artillery, and Paul had already been doing a considerable amount of research and correspondence (back in the days before the ubiquity of the Internet and e-mail revolutionized research). By the time I came along, he and many others affiliated with a reenactment group of the same name as Heath’s unit had the basic history of the battery well sketched out. Paul even wrote an extensive and detailed history of the battery, which is now available online. I left my copy of the broadside filed away for a year or so, referring to it occasionally as I researched other individuals and the battery as a whole. One day, as I looked at it more closely, I was drawn to the entry by Corydon Heath’s name. “Murdered.” What an odd word to encounter—it was wartime, after all. “Taken prisoner and murdered by the rebels.” Murdered after being taken prisoner? Whatever happened to bring about something like that? Was this just a bit of postwar bitterness and exaggeration? What had happened? I wanted to learn more. Thus began my quest. I soon learned that Heath had died in 1863, not in 1862 as the broadside claimed. The Illinois adjutant general’s report said Heath was promoted to captain in the 9th Louisiana Colored Infantry in April of 1863 and mentioned nothing about the circumstances of his death. Why then, did the broadside place his death a year earlier and call it “murder”? The beginnings of my search were representative of what I would find throughout my research. Time and again, one tiny particle of information would lead to another—and create more questions. I spent hours in archives in Washing- xii preface ton, DC, and throughout seven states. Research was often painfully slow. An entire day of work might result in only one or two useful bits of information —or none at all. Too often, the records were silent, confusing, or missing altogether. How fitting it was that my fascination with this case began with misinformation. After obtaining Heath’s military service records and the pension file for his children, the basic facts became clearer. Heath had indeed been taken prisoner and reportedly executed for serving as an officer in a regiment composed of recently liberated slaves. This knowledge led me directly to the fight at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, a nearly unknown action that took place on June 7, 1863 (not July 1862, when Shober placed Heath’s death). I was surprised to discover that relatively little had been written about this small but very sharp fight on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Even books that concentrated on African American soldiers during the war gave it scant mention. No doubt overshadowed by the enormous clashes at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Milliken ’s Bend seems to have vanished from history almost as soon as it occurred. Furthermore, the site of Milliken’s Bend was washed away by the mighty river decades ago. I found the fate of the physical battlefield and the nearby surroundings of the bayous of northeastern Louisiana to be a fitting metaphor for the events themselves, obscured long ago and today all but lost to history. Like trying to navigate through the tangled growth of a bayou, the forward movement and research involved in this project was laborious, painstaking, confusing, and difficult. Milliken’s Bend was part of a trinity of battles in the summer of 1863 in which black troops under the Union banner played a prominent part. The engagements at Port Hudson, Louisiana, in late May, Milliken’s Bend in early June, and Fort Wagner, South Carolina, in July—all coming in quick succession —did much to publicize the valor of black troops in battle. Each battle had its own characteristics, and a brief comparison may be in order. At Port Hudson, the two black regiments of the First and Third Louisiana Native Guards were only a small part...