Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

The Mississippi River and its Tributaries, 1861–1863 185
there, his second-in-command alleged, dressed in civilian clothing. When General
Dennis heard of Chamberlain’s conduct, he called it “very unsoldierlike.” 72
“About that time much chaos prevailed at Milliken’s Bend,” Colonel Sears reflected
years after the war. “Under such circumstances it were strange if the [casualty] counts
were not mixed; especially considering the very short acquaintance of the officers with
their men.” Not all of the missing men made their way back to their regiments after
the battle. In the fall of 1865, eight released prisoners of war reported at the Vicksburg
headquarters of the 49th United States Colored Infantry (USCI), successor to the 11th
Louisiana (AD). Their Confederate captors had taken them to Tyler and other places
in east Texas and put them to work on farms, “under guard,” the regimental officers
who questioned the men stated carefully. Pvt. George Washington of Company A tried
to escape but “was caught by dogs and returned to work.” Pvt. Nelson Washington of
the same company succeeded in escaping only “about the time peace was declared.”
Pvt. William Hunter of Company B escaped in July 1865, just before the vanguard of
Union occupiers reached Texas, and made his way to Shreveport, where federal officers
arranged his transportation to Vicksburg. George Washington and the other five
men gained their freedom in July, when columns of Union cavalry marched west into
Texas on their way to Austin and San Antonio. In March 1866, a board of officers convened
to examine the returned prisoners. All had been held “under guard,” the board
was careful to state, clearing the men of any suspicion of having intended to desert.
The board recommended that the former captives “be restored to duty with full pay
and allowances”; the eight privates, along with the rest of the 49th USCI, received final
payment and discharge a few days later. 73
The question of how the enemy would dispose of prisoners, enlisted and officer
alike, had troubled many soldiers in the new black regiments. What happened
at Milliken’s Bend was not what anyone had expected. The Confederate General
McCulloch reported that a young German-born hospital attendant fetching some water
for the wounded “found himself surrounded by a company of armed negroes in full
United States uniform, commanded by a Yankee captain, who took him prisoner.” The
captain asked where the main body of the enemy was, and how his company could
rejoin the Union force. The hospital attendant dissembled and led the captain “and
his entire company of 49 negroes through small gaps in thick hedges” until they were
within reach of a superior Confederate force, which demanded their surrender. “Thus,”
McCulloch concluded, “by his shrewdness the young Dutchman released himself and
threw into our hands 1 Yankee captain and 49 negroes, fully armed and equipped as
soldiers, and, if such things are admissible, I think he should have a choice boy from
among these fellows to cook and wash for him and his mess during the war, and to work
for him as long as the negro lives.” McCulloch thought the same when Capt. George
T. Marold and his company captured nineteen black soldiers at the farm buildings on
the Union right. “These negroes had doubtless been in the possession of the enemy,” he
wrote, “and would have been a clear loss to their owners but for Captain Marold; and
72 OR, ser. 1, vol. 24, pt. 2, p. 158 (“very unsoldierlike”); Wearmouth, Cornwell Chronicles, pp.
218–19 (quotation, p. 219); Sears, Paper, p. 16. “Quite a number . . . have never been heard from,”
Leib wrote at the end of the year. Annual Return of Alterations and Casualties for 1863, 51st USCI,
Entry 57, RG 94, NA.
73 Sears, Paper, p. 12. Proceedings of a Board of Officers, 14 Mar 1866 (other quotations), and
Dept of Mississippi, SO 62, 17 Mar 1866, both in 49th USCI, Entry 57C, RG 94, NA.