_Contraband Regiments; their Bravery; the Surprise.--Hand to hand
Fight.--“No Quarters.”--Negroes rather die than surrender.--The Gunboat
and her dreadful Havoc with the Enemy._
On the 7th of June, 1863, the first regular battle was fought between
the blacks and whites in the valley of the Mississippi. The planters had
boasted, that, should they meet their former slaves, a single look from
them would cause the negroes to throw down their weapons, and run. Many
Northern men, especially copperheads, professed to believe that such
would be the case. Therefore, all eyes were turned to the far off South,
the cotton, sugar, and rice-growing States, to see how the blacks
would behave on the field of battle; for it is well known that the most
ignorant of the slave population belonged in that section.
The following account of the fight is from an eye witness:--
“My informant states that a force of about five hundred negroes, and two
hundred men of the Twenty-third Iowa, belonging to the second brigade,
Carr’s division (the Twenty-third Iowa had been up the river with
prisoners, and was on its way back to this place), was surprised in camp
by a rebel force of about two thousand men. The first intimation that
the commanding officer received was from one of the black men, who went
into the colonel’s tent, and said, ‘Massa, the secesh are in camp.”
The colonel ordered him to have the men load their guns at once. He
instantly replied, “We have done did dat now, massa.” Before the colonel
was ready, the men were in line, ready for action. As before stated,
the rebels drove our force towards the gunboats, taking colored men
prisoners and murdering them. This so enraged them that they rallied,
and charged the enemy more heroically and desperately than has been
recorded during the war. It was a genuine bayonet-charge, a hand-to-hand
fight, that has never occurred to any extent during this prolonged
conflict. Upon both sides men were killed with the butts of muskets.
White and black men were lying side by side, pierced by bayonets, and
in some instances transfixed to the earth. In one instance, two men--one
white and the other black--were found dead, side by side, each having
the other’s bayonet through his body. If facts prove to be what they are
now represented, this engagement of Sunday morning will be recorded as
the most desperate of this war. Broken limbs, broken heads, the mangling
of bodies, all prove that it was a contest between enraged men: on
the one side, from hatred to a race; and, on the other, desire for
self-preservation, revenge for past grievances, and the inhuman murder
of their comrades. One brave man took his former master prisoner,
and brought him into camp with great gusto. A rebel prisoner made a
particular request, that _his own_ negroes should not be placed over him
as a guard.
Capt. M. M. Miller, of Galena, III., who commanded a company in the
Ninth Louisiana (colored) Regiment, in a letter, gives the following
account of the battle:--
“We were attacked here on June 7, about three o’clock in the morning, by
a brigade of Texas troops, about two thousand five hundred in number.
We had about six hundred men to withstand them, five hundred of them
negroes. I commanded Company I, Ninth Louisiana. We went into the fight
with thirty-three men. I had sixteen killed, eleven badly wounded, and
four slightly. I was wounded slightly on the head, near the right eye,
with a bayonet, and had a bayonet run through my right hand, near the
forefinger; that will account for this miserable style of penmanship.
“Our regiment had about three hundred men in the fight. We had one
colonel wounded, four captains wounded, two first and two second
lieutenants killed, five lieutenants wounded, and three white orderlies
killed, and one wounded in the hand, and two fingers taken off. The list
of killed and wounded officers comprised nearly all the officers present
with the regiment, a majority of the rest being absent recruiting.
“We had about fifty men killed in the regiment and eighty wounded; so
you can judge of what part of the fight my company sustained. I never
felt more grieved and sick at heart, than when I saw how my brave
soldiers had been slaughtered,--one with six wounds, all the rest with
two or three, none less than two wounds. Two of my colored sergeants
were killed: both brave, noble men, always prompt, vigilant, and ready
for the fray. I never more wish to hear the expression, ‘The niggers
won’t fight.’ Come with me, a hundred yards from where I sit, and I can
show you the wounds that cover the bodies of sixteen as brave, loyal,
and patriotic soldiers as ever drew bead on a rebel.
“The enemy charged us so close that we fought with our bayonets, hand to
hand. I have six broken bayonets to show how bravely my men fought.
The Twenty-third Iowa joined my company on the right; and I declare
truthfully that they had all fled before our regiment fell back, as we
were all compelled to do.
“Under command of Col. Page, I led the Ninth and Eleventh Louisiana when
the rifle-pits were retaken and held by our troops, our two regiments
doing the work.
“I narrowly escaped death once. A rebel took deliberate aim at me with
both barrels of his gun; and the bullets passed so close to me that the
powder that remained on them burnt my cheek. Three of my men, who saw
him aim and fire, thought that he wounded me each fire. One of them
was killed by my side, and he fell on me, covering my clothes with his
blood; and, before the rebel could fire again, I blew his brains out
with my gun.
“It was a horrible fight, the worst I was ever engaged in,--not even
excepting Shiloh. The enemy cried, ‘No quarter!’ but some of them were
very glad to take it when made prisoners.
“Col. Allen, of the Sixteenth Texas, was killed in front of our
regiment, and Brig.-Gen. Walker was wounded. We killed about one hundred
and eighty of the enemy. The gunboat “Choctaw” did good service shelling
them. I stood on the breastworks after we took them, and gave the
elevations and direction for the gunboat by pointing my sword; and they
sent a shell right into their midst, which sent them in all directions.
Three shells fell there, and sixty-two rebels lay there when the fight
was over.
“My wound is not serious but troublesome. What few men I have left seem
to think much of me, because I stood up with them in the fight. I can
say for them that I never saw a braver company of men in my life.
“Not one of them offered to leave his place until ordered to fall back.
I went down to the hospital, three miles, to-day to see the wounded.
Nine of them were there, two having died of their wounds. A boy I had
cooking for me came and bogged a gun when the rebels were advancing, and
took his place with the company; and, when we retook the breastworks, I
found him badly wounded, with one gun-shot and two bayonet wounds. A new
recruit I had issued a gun to the day before the fight was found dead,
with a firm grasp on his gun, the bayonet of which was broken in three
pieces. So they fought and died, defending the cause that we revere.
They met death coolly, bravely: not rashly did they expose themselves,
but all were steady and obedient to orders.”
This battle satisfied the slave-masters of the South that their charm
was gone, and that the negro, as a slave, was lost forever. Yet there
was one fact connected with the battle of Milliken’s Bend which
will descend to posterity, as testimony against the humanity of
slave-holders; and that is, that no negro was ever found alive that was
taken a prisoner by the rebels in this fight.