A Texas Cavalry Raid: Reaction to Black Soldiers and Contrabands

A Texas Cavalry Raid: Reaction to Black Soldiers and Contrabands Anne J. Bailey In June 1863 when Major General Ulysses S. Grant's army bottled up the Confederates in Vicksburg, the Union campaign to gain control ofthe Mississippi River moved into its final stage. As summer began many Southerners feared the army defending the town could not hold out much longer. Nevertheless, Confederate troops on the west side of the river displayed guarded optimism that they still might offer some support to their besieged comrades. Early in June, therefore, Texas infantry assaulted enemy positions on the Louisiana bank opposite Vicksburg and late in the month Texas cavalry raided Federal strongholds in the same region. The former, an attack on Milliken's Bend, has often been utilized by historians to point out atrocities that accompany war. The latter, a cavalry raidjust over three weeks later, had much the same result, but has never been examined carefully . Neither of these forays, however, effected any military significance. The major result ofthe fighting "was to publicize the controversy surrounding northern employment of black troops."1 Events in the Trans-Mississippi have never received the same recognition as those in other theaters. Perhaps one reason little is known of the Texas cavalry raid in Louisiana is because any account of Southern brutality toward blacks fades in comparison with Nathan Bedford Forrest's infamous assault upon Fort Pillow in April 1864. Forrest's biographer, Robert S. Henry, correctly observed, "Fort Pillow was the 'atrocity'ofthe war."Cer1 James M. McPherson, Battle Cry ofFreedom: The Civil War Era(New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988), 634. Civil War History, Vol. XXXV, No. 2, ® 1989 by the Kent State University Press TEXAS CAVALRY RAID139 tainly, historians have evaluated and re-evaluated the incident over and over 2 The use of former slaves as soldiers in the United States Army often aroused heated emotions. With enmity widespread, it is surprising there were not more violent racial incidents. James M. McPherson, who has masterfully chronicled the uphill struggle of blacks during the Civil War, concluded: "The southern response to emancipation and the enlistment of black troops was ferocious—at least on paper and, regretably [sic], sometimes in fact as well."3 Without the sensitive issue of Confederate treatment of contrabands, the cavalry raid along the Louisiana shore—less than a week before Vicksburg's surrender—would have scant importance. To Confederates along the Mississippi, Vicksburg was only a fragment of a much larger picture—Federal forces threatened vital areas of Louisiana . To meet this emergency, soon after Lieutenant General Edmund Kirby Smith had assumed command ofthe Trans-Mississippi Department early in 1863 he had started concentrating available troops to reinforce Major General Richard Taylor's District of Louisiana. By June Major General John Bankhead Magruder, in charge of the District of Texas, reported he had forwarded almost five thousand men across the Sabine River.4 From Arkansas Lieutenant General Theophilus H. Holmes sent Major General John G. Walker's Texas Infantry Division.5 These reinforcements did not arrive in time to prevent a Federal push up the Red River toward Alexandria, but after occupying the town Major General Nathaniel P. Banks halted his advance. Urged by Grant to take part in a joint campaign along the Mississippi, Banks concentrated his men near the Confederate stronghold of Port Hudson. By late May Banks had moved to a position outside the fortification while Grant threatened Vicksburg. 2 Robert Selph Henry, "First With The Most" Forrest (1944; reprint, Wilmington, N.C.: Broadfoot Publishing Co, 1987), 248; John Cimprich and Robert C. Mainfort, Jr., "Fort Pillow Revisited: New Evidence About an Old Controversy," CiViV War History 28 (Dec. 1982):293-306; Albert Castel, "The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence ," ibid., 4 (Mar. 1958):37-50; idem, "Fort Pillow: Victory or Massacre," American History Illustrated 9 (Apr. 1974):4-1 1, 46-48; Charles W. Anderson, "The True Story of Fort Pillow," Confederate Veteran 3 (Nov. 1895):326; John L. Jordan, "Was There a Massacre at Fort Pillow?" Tennessee Historical Quarterly 6 (June 1947): 122-32. 3 McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 565. 4 Report ofJ. B. Magruder, 8 June...