This Memorial Day, I had hoped to profile a single USCT soldier who had died at Milliken’s Bend. Or, perhaps a few. What I did not realize was how difficult that would be. So many of the men who fought and died at Milliken’s Bend do not even literally have a scrap of paper upon which their names are recorded. Many Union records were destroyed in the chaos of the battle, and because these regiments were still in the earliest days of their organization, the men who died never made it on to the muster rolls – the official roll call made when the regiment was up to full strength and officially recognized. A quick search of both Fold3.com and the National Park Service’s Soldier and Sailors System likewise shows no record of these men who died.

Some years ago, I abstracted some of the names from a hospital roll for the Van Buren Contraband General Hospital at Milliken’s Bend. This hospital had been set up to treat freedpeople from the area, particularly those who labored for wages on U.S. government-operated plantations. Black soldiers who were wounded at Milliken’s Bend were treated at this hospital. Presumably, those who died, were buried nearby – and likely later reinterred at Vicksburg National Cemetery, though by that time, their markers had probably decayed or become illegible, and many of them undoubtedly lie in graves marked today as simply, “Unknown.”

A quick search of both Fold3.com and the National Park Service’s Soldier and Sailors System shows no record of these men who died as a result of wounds received in the fierce fighting at Milliken’s Bend. A short sampling of those from the 9th Louisiana Infantry, African Descent, as they appear on the hospital register, are among the more than 200 men who were wounded that day.

Those who appear to have no further record of their service include:

• Charles McGee of Company F, wounded in the arm; died on July 8, 1863
• Giles Higgins, wounded in the face, chest, and back; died on June 16, 1863
• Nove(?) Carroll, Company C, gunshot in left knee joint, amputated to lower thigh on June 21st; died July 14, 1863
• name unclear – Patrick Connor, Patrick Tanner, or perhaps reversed, Connor Patrick, or Tanner Patrick, Company D, wounded in hand and leg; died June 11, 1863
• Stephen Clark, Company B, wounded in leg; died July 9, 1863
• Adolphus Boyd, Company E, wounded in left leg and arms; died of tetanus June 20, 1863
• illegible first name, Moore, Company H, wounded in chest; died June 10, 1863

As we pause today to remember those who died in defense of Freedom, let us remember those countless thousands that today rest under headstones that simply say, “Unknown.” They perhaps gave a double sacrifice – not only their lives, but their very identities, “known but to God.”

Related post: Three Memorial Days at Vicksburg.

Source: National Archives, RG 94 Records of the Adjutant Generals Office, Entry 544, Field Records of Hospitals – Louisiana – v. 159 – Van Buren Contraband General Hospital.