Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

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Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
field, without an obstacle to break their step.” He thought that “they had the appearance
of a brigade on drill.” 63
The Confederate line crumbled when it came to the hedge of trees at the end
of the pasture, where the Union garrison had cut several openings to clear a firing
range for target practice. The Confederates had to make their way through these
holes “the best they could,” General McCulloch reported, “but never fronting more
than half a company,” perhaps twenty or thirty men in line, before they could resume
the advance. Beyond the hedge, they found themselves about twenty-five
yards from the levee’s base. 64
The defenders opened fire, but most of their shots “went into the air,” Lieutenant
Cornwell wrote; before many of the novice soldiers could reload, the Confederates
were among them. It was during this five-minute struggle that both sides incurred
most of their casualties. Cornwell led about sixty men of the 9th Louisiana (AD)
in a counterattack meant to stiffen the Union left, but after a hand-to-hand contest
with bayonets and the butts of unloaded rifles, the center of the line gave way and
the survivors scrambled for safety on the riverbank. 65
Until this moment, the crews of the Choctaw and Lexington in the river below
had not been able to see the Union troops on the flood plain, fifteen feet above
the water, much less to assist them by firing on their attackers. With the survivors
of the fight in plain view on the bank, the boats fired enough shells to keep
the Confederates from a further, final advance but only after a few rounds landed
among the retreating defenders. “The gun-boat men mistook a body of our men
for rebels and made a target of them for several shots before we could signal them
off,” Lt. Col. Cyrus Sears of the 11th Louisiana (AD) recalled years later. While
“our navy did some real execution at Milliken’s Bend,” he wrote, “I never heard
they killed or wounded any of the enemy.” The Confederates reckoned their casualties
as 184, the vast majority of which must have come during the hand-to-hand
struggle on the levee. The Union gunboats did not figure in the Confederate brigade
commander’s report at all, while the division commander mentioned them
only as his reason for breaking off the engagement and withdrawing his troops
after several hours’ sniping back and forth between the Yankees on the riverbank
and his own men, who were firing from the levee they had just captured. 66
A few days after the fight, 2d Lt. Matthew C. Brown of the 23d Iowa told his
parents that his regiment held “until the negroes on our left gave way.” Colonel
Shepard claimed the opposite, that the 23d Iowa received the Confederate charge
63 Wearmouth, Cornwell Chronicles, pp. 211 (“they had”), 217; Col I. F. Shepard to Brig Gen L.
Thomas, 23 Jun 1863 (“to my surprize”), filed with S–13–CT–1863, Entry 360, Colored Troops Div,
Letters Received, RG 94, NA.
64 OR, ser. 1, vol. 24, pt. 2, p. 467.
65 Wearmouth, Cornwell Chronicles, pp. 211–13 (quotation, p. 212); Brown to Dear Parents, 12
Jun 1863.
66 Sears, Paper, p. 16 (“The gun-boat”); OR, ser. 1, vol. 24, pt. 2, pp. 462–70. The course of
that day’s events at Milliken’s Bend is hard to reconstruct. The volumes of the Official Records do
not include Colonel Leib’s report, only that of the district commander, General Dennis, who was
not present. Cornwell, who had a copy of Leib’s report, wrote in later years that Dennis framed his
report “very nearly in identical language.” The near plagiarism led Cornwell to call Dennis’ report
“a contemptible fraud.” Wearmouth, Cornwell Chronicles, pp. 215–16. Colonel Sears also had a
copy of Leib’s report. Both he and Cornwell quoted it at length in their published and unpublished
works and used it to attack each other’s veracity—Sears in a speech to the Loyal Legion, a veterans’