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(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) Letter describing the heroic performance of the U.S. Colored Troops at Millikens Bend. Autograph Letter Signed to mother Almira. 2 pages, 9½ x 7½ inches; lacking integral blank, mailing folds, minimal wear. Camp near Vicksburg, MS, 9 June 1863
The Battle of Milliken's Bend of 7 June 1863 was the first significant combat featuring the Union Army's newly recruited "African Descent" regiments, several weeks before the more famous Battle of Fort Wagner. It proved to the Union leadership and to the world what Black troops were capable of. The battle was fought in Louisiana, across the river from the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi. A Confederate brigade launched a surprise attack from the west, which the newly trained African Brigade repelled after heavy fighting. Here, a white soldier stationed elsewhere on the siege lines shares what he has heard about the battle two days later:
"The Rebels is prety ner out of rations. They maked an tack on Milliken's Bend but our force whip them. We turned our darkies on them. They fought like desperation an kill them like evry thing. The officers of the Black reg runed off, but the darkes state rite up to it, and fought like they was for life. The Rebles hoisted the black flag, but they cold not stand up aganst the Blacks. I wish that they had armed them before. It would have save a good many of white men."
If you have trouble with the soldier's irregular spelling and grammar, here it is in more proper English: "The Rebels are pretty near out of rations. They made an attack on Milliken's Bend, but our force whipped them. We turned our darkies on them. They fought like desperation and killed them like everything. The officers of the Black regiment ran off, but the darkies stayed right up to it, and fought like it was for their lives. The Rebels hoisted the black flag, but they could not stand up against the Blacks. I wish that they had armed them before. It would have save a good many of white men."
The letter writer William Bradley was stationed "under an old hill 2 miles north of Vicksburg," the area held by General Sherman's XV Corps. Milliken's Bend, though a few miles west across the Mississippi from this camp, was the first fighting on the siege line in two weeks, so the Union soldiers at Vicksburg were all likely interested and excited by the reports.
