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¬ 7 ¬ “This Battle Has Significance” Milliken’s Bend and the Wider War M illiken’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: milliken’s bend 140 “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. Edwards, of the 11th Louisiana Infantry, African Descent, thought the evidence incontrovertible. “This battle has significance. It demonstrates the fact that the freed slaves will fight.” Pointing to the casualties , Edwards continued, “Our figures are our arguments that colored men will fight, and they need no comment. We leave them as the battle-field gave them, mournfully brave.”4 But it was not just the soldiers nearby who praised the black troops at Milliken’s Bend. Word soon got to the newspapers. The Chicago Tribune lauded operations at Port Hudson but called Milliken’s Bend the “crowning glory” of Negro soldiers, erroneously crediting them with saving Grant’s supply lines, which, by this time, were safely east in Mississippi. The article also, like many accounts, failed to mention the gunboats, which were the true saviors of the day. Despite the factual inaccuracies, the praise was sincere.5 “Mack” of the Cincinnati Daily Commercial reported that the former slaves met the enemy “with remarkable coolness and courage,” even though some of the men had not had their muskets for more than a few days.6 Word spread far. A Fourth of July speech to the “colored citizens” of San Francisco mentioned the battle and said that Rebel prisoners taken at Richmond, Louisiana, were relieved to have been captured by white troops, “as they expected no...

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