It was truly an honor to be asked to participate in the African Ancestral Celebration held in Tallulah, Louisiana, marking the 156th anniversary of the battle of Milliken’s Bend, held June 7-9, 2019.

Apetebi Adrian and Baba Obahnjoko and all of the others gathered there made me feel so welcome, and honored to be there. They gave me the place of honor by asking me to be the keynote speaker on Saturday, asking me to share with the audience the events that took place at Milliken’s Bend, and why it is so important to remember them today.

On hindsight, however, I do not feel I did my hosts or the men of Milliken’s Bend the full justice they deserved. Sometimes, when giving my talks, I rely too much on a formal scripted narrative, in which I seldom stray from the main points of “what happened.” What troops fought where, why it was an important battle in the story of black troops in the war, and the incredible losses sustained by the African Brigade and the 9th Louisiana Infantry, A.D. in particular. All of these are important points. Given my limited time, I always know that I must omit many other interesting and even important stories about Milliken’s Bend. During my talks, I also try to be very conscientious about drawing distinctions between what I feel are firm, well documented, solid (and sometimes controversial) facts – and areas in which solid evidence is lacking, and therefore must be based on conjecture or an educated best guess. In so doing, there are times when I inadvertently overemphasize certain parts of the Milliken’s Bend story, and spend less time on areas that are less well documented. I believe I am guilty of this at the Tallulah celebration this year.

In hindsight, I definitely should have spent less time discussing the fate of white officers captured at Milliken’s Bend, and much more time on the fate of black enlisted men captured at Milliken’s Bend. But the trouble is – there is firm information on the three white officers who were captured there. With over 100 black enlisted men captured, and with early records of the regiments destroyed during the battle – it is much more difficult to say with any degree of certainty what happened to these men. However, I plan to explore this further in the coming months, by looking closely at what we can firmly say about at least some – a small number, to be sure – of the black soldiers captured at Milliken’s Bend. And why so much of what happened to them remains a mystery to this day.