June 19, 1863, The New York Herald
Mr. T. H. Whipple’s Letter.
CAIRO, June 15, 1863.
THE BATTLE AT MILLIKEN’S BEND, some particulars of which the telegraph has ere this taken to you, turns out to have been a more sanguinary affair than was at first supposed. It occurred on Saturday and Sunday, the 6th and 7th last, the first attack having been made in the afternoon of Saturday, closing with the retreat of the rebels before nightfall. I gather the following in regard to the affair from an officer of the steamer Dunleith, just from the scene of action.
It would appear that the Union forces at Milliken’s Bend were under the command of a colonel of Iowa volunteers – supposed to be the Twenty-third –and his force consisted of two Iowa regiments and one or two colored regiments, new in the service, and short in point of numbers, and no heavy or even light artillery of any importance with which to repel an attack. But hearing early on Saturday that the rebels, under Gen. Henry McCulloch, brother of Ben. McCulloch, were concentrating near him, with a menacing front, toward Milliken’s Bend, the commander sent out some cavalry with orders to reconnoitre and report.
ADVANCE OF THE CAVALRY.
The cavalry dashed out from the works early in the day, and soon returned with a full confirmation of the report previously brought in in regard to the proximity of the rebels and their designs upon the little garrison at the Bend. The rebels were said to be about five thousand strong, and late from Alexandria, La., but more recently at Richmond, upon the Shreveport Railroad. This force of from five to six thousand, it was supposed, General McCulloch had divided into three parts, sending one part to Young’s Point, another to Lake Providence, and with the third was about to attack the Union forces holding Milliken’s Bend. This third force was estimated at some three thousand.
The approach of the rebels, momentarily expected – and prepared for as well as the limited supply of ammunition and arms would permit – at last became apparent. Pickets, thrown out for the purpose, came in saying an immense army was coming. The commander sent out detachments of white troops to repel their approach, detailing a regiment of negroes to act as reserves, the orders being, if the white troops could not stem the current, to fall back upon the support of the colored troops, and then unitedly oppose the advance until no longer able to withstand the men brought against them.
THE PREPARATIONS FOR DEFENCE.
The programme, in a measure, was most promptly carried out. The troops advanced, met the enemy, engaged him in force and with effect, with musketry, and as the colonel had anticipated, found that our strength was not adequate to the undertaking, being greatly outnumbered by the rebels. But both fought for an hour most stubbornly. The Iowa troops were loth to retreat at all and obtain the support of their colored reserves, and the loss on the rebel side said to have been one hundred in this early affray, attests their valor and efficiency. But the rebels pressed our men gradually back, in good order, however, until the blacks reached, when they came in with a will. The spirits of the retreating and outnumbered Iowans were raised; they railed, they stood their ground, the negroes came in with volley after volley delivered with good effect and rapidity; and after a short battle, in which the blacks lost a number – but the rebels more – the rebels fell back, finally broke and retreated in disorder. The Union forces were in too small number to pursue, and had no cannon with which to cut up their then rear guard. Hence the retrograde was made without great loss to the enemy. After the last of the rebels had disappeared, it being night, pickets were placed, scouts sent out, and every preparation made to be ready in the event of a return of the rebels. It was rightly supposed that, having felt their strength, and knowing that our men were without guns and in small force, the enemy would not long delay a second attempt to occupy Milliken’s Bend. But this was the end of the attack of that day. A steamer from below chanced to come in sight just after dark, going to Helena. She was hailed, informed of the attack, and sent back for aid of some kind. Just at the break of day the dark sides, huge wheelhouse and yawning ports of the gunboat Choctaw were discerned by the guard. Here was help indeed. With such support the garrison could never be taken without immense loss to the captors. The Choctaw took her position with reference to the point from which the rebels must necessarily attack; and remained until sunrise, awaiting in ominous silence the expected advance.
SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENEMY.
Sunday morning had hardly been ushered in, and the sun had been out of his eastern bed but half an hour, when the scouts and pickets of the garrison came in in great haste to report that the enemy had again commenced an advance movement, headed towards the Bend. On this occasion, understanding well his strength and conspicuous of the support his iron-clad helpmate would bring, the commander of the post gradually drew in all his pickets, not leaving a man outside of his hastily built earthworks. When the advance of the rebels made their appearance there was not a man to be seen – all that confronted them was silence and apparently deserted breastworks and rifle pits. But, fearful of deception, the rebel commander had recourse to a ruse for the comparative protection of his advance upon the works. All the mules belonging to his command, and all he could steal from adjoining planters along the route, were brought to the front. Extending from the centre to each wing of the approaching host, covering the soldiers from the bullets of the Yankees – from the sight of their sharpshooters – was a line of living, moving breastworks – the bodies of the devoted mules. As they drew nigh the Union defences the enemy opened heavy with musketry. Their first volley was the signal for the Iwoans and the colored regiments to make their appearance. They rose as though by magic from behind their protection, took deliberate aim wherever a rebel could be seen, and dropped their bullets surely and certainly into the bodies of such as were foolish enough to disdain a shield of mule muscle and mule bones, and yet the living line kept up its snake-like like advance. Taking the hint, perhaps from the rebel commander at the siege of Lexington, when the gallant Colonel Mulligan and his Irish brigade were defeated by the approach of men behind revetted bales of hay, which they rolled before them as they neared the Union force, McCulloch expected to gain Milliken’s Bend by substituting mules for hay. If so, he nearly set himself down an ass in the estimation of those he proposed attack to. A bale of cotton or hay might make a breastwork of considerable value but the mules, unless moved forward sidewise – and the animal is known to be stubborn – presented but slight obstacle to the sharp eye of an experienced rifleman. Hence the rebels fell in considerable numbers from the first volleys of our troops. Still they advanced. But now came the turn of the rebels to be surprised. When within a short distance of the works the gunboat, until the moment partially concealed by the smoke of the battle, opened with heavy guns, sending a continuous line of ten inch shell into the serried columns of the enemy. It was an astonisher. It was worse than the negro reserves of the previous day. It was paralyzing. To make the matter worse, the same negro regiments, taking advantage of their surprise, were again upon them, scaling the works from within, rushing down upon the mules, frightening them out of the little sense nature had endowed them with, and in turn attacking the soldiers with bayonet and clubbed musket, came the black bosom of destruction, like unto a small, dark colored, mighty, destructive hurricane. Rebel nerve could never withstand all of this. After a few vollies – after an ineffectual attempt to drive back the negro assailants – after imploring his men in vain to stand up to it and fight or […..] in the 1st ditch,” McCulloch – if it were McCulloch – was compelled to sound the retreat and withdraw, leaving a heap of dead men and mules lying stark upon the field. The colored regiment had thus far not met with any considerable loss. But with great lack of caution their colonel led them forward in pursuit of the fleeing foe, until they were in full range of the guns of the Choctaw, and, sad to relate, a goodly number of the brave blacks, who had literally saved the fortunes of the day for the federal arms, were cut down and instantly killed by our own shell. A signal stopped the firing as quickly as possible, but not until dreadful havoc had been made.
But the rebels were, it is now supposed, most effectually whipped, and so badly crippled by loss of dead and wounded that they would not return to the attack. Our loss is put down at about one hundred killed, wounded and missing during the two fights. That of the rebels was twice the number. Had it not been for the unfortunate occurrence of the Choctaw, our loss would have been very small indeed. Over one hundred dead were left by the enemy unburied, unattended to, upon the field. They took off nearly all their wounded.
FROM MEMPHIS.
I have a despatch from Memphis of date the 13th inst., from which I learn that the steamer Hiawatha, only three days out from Young’s Point, had arrived. She reported matters all along the river very quiet. Some rebel guerillas were seen at Island No. 68; but they made no offensive demonstrations. All was quiet at Vicksburg. That is, no more than the daily skirmishing of pickets and operations of sharpshooters had occurred. No decisive results, excepting the sure but gradual approach of our rifle pits to the vicinity of the heavy works of the enemy, had yet been accomplished. Grant was still engaged in mining the enemy’s position, with the best of apparent success in perspective, the march not yet having been in a single instance applied to the train. A trial will soon be made, however, of the mines already completed, and no doubts are entertained of the result.
GENERAL BLAIR had just returned from another reconnoissance in force in the direction of the Black. He had scoured the entire country for over forty miles in the rear of Vicksburg, searching every place where an enemy could conceal a corporal’s guard, without finding more than a few guerillas. There was no news to be obtained confirming the reported advance of Johnston’s army from Jackson, in the vicinity of which place he was when last heard from. These guerillas fled at Blair’s approach, and his advance guard tried in vain to catch one as a guide, or from whom to gain some news of the enemy’s movements.
HAINES’ BLUFF, a few days since, was reported to be in danger of an attack; but the latest intelligence contradicts the statement. General Sherman keeps a good lookout and has not yet been menaced by the […..]. Small parties of the enemy have been seen at Young Point and Milliken’s Bend since the fighting at the better place on Sunday week; but no demonstrations have been made.
REPORTS OF PRISONERS.
Not a day passes at Vicksburg that more or less rebels do not come out of the works and voluntarily surrender themselves prisoners of war. These men report truthful or otherwise, of course it is impossible to say, but they appear truthful – that the garrison is short of provisions of all kinds, and that unless succor in some shape comes quickly, it will be compelled to surrender. From the scarcity of food, and the extremity to which the few remaining citizens had been reduced, five hundred negroes had been turned out of the works to seek food and shelter with the besieging army, leaving the same number less mouths to feed in the beleaguered city. General Grant received the colored men kindly, selected the strongest and healthiest and most likely to aid him in certain hard labor he is now busy in performing, and promptly returned the remainder to those who had sent them to him. Of course Pemberton had to take back the men. He did so at last, but with a very bad grace indeed, just as though he had much rather Grant had conscripted the entire number and placed spades or muskets in their hands. But Grant knew what he was about. He needed men to eat up the bread and bacon of the rebels even more than he wanted soldiers to use spades and firearms in repelling Joe Johnston from the rear.