Not long after the initial Confederate attack on the Union outpost at Milliken’s Bend, Lt. Cmdr. Frank M. Ramsay of the gunboat Choctaw was flagged down by an officer on shore, who shouted out that his pickets were under attack, and he was in need of support. The Choctaw came around and unleashed its guns – a 100-pounder rifled and a 9-inch. Not long after he opened fire, Ramsay watched as the Union line dissolved – except, he said, the 23rd Iowa. Interestingly enough, nearly all the officers of the African Brigade declared the 23rd fled the field. But Ramsay contradicted their accounts. Most likely, the varying reports of the 23rd Iowa depended literally on one’s perspective. The Iowans began their efforts not far from the riverbank. Ramsay, closer to their location, saw them struggling to stand firm. The African Brigade, whose line was already collapsing, saw the 23rd behind them, and probably in the middle of reorganizing a defense, and declared that they had fled. The truth is, they had probably just begun to get in line of battle by the time the African Brigade started to crumble.

As the rest of the Union line collapsed, the two companies of the 11th Louisiana clung to their position on the far Union right. The Choctaw began throwing shells among the Confederate attackers – but a number of the 100-pounder shells often tumbled into the Federal lines, causing serious injuries. Ramsay would later report that Confederate shells, captured at Haynes’ Bluff, proved far superior to the Federal issue. They pummeled the Confederate line, though it may have been more bluster than bite. Some Confederate soldiers reported many of the shells overshot their positions.

Though the Choctaw undoubtedly forced the Confederate attack to a halt, the guns of the latecomer Lexington joined in around 9 a.m., firing for about an hour. Sometime late in the morning, between 10 a.m. and noon, the Confederate forces withdrew. McCulloch sent word back to Gen. Walker to send reinforcements, but by the time Randal’s brigade arrived, the temperature was 95 degrees in the shade, McCulloch’s men were exhausted, and it was believed that more Union reinforcements and gunboats would soon arrive. The Confederates withdrew, removed and treated their wounded, and headed back to Richmond, La. early in the evening.