Most of the Milliken’s Bend story takes place in Louisiana and Mississippi, around the general vicinity of Vicksburg. In honor of the upcoming Association for the Study of African American Life and History‘s annual meeting (Sept. 24-28) at the Peabody Hotel, I thought I’d take a look at the connections Memphis has to Milliken’s Bend.

Memphis is certainly on the periphery of the Milliken’s Bend story, but nevertheless holds some connections worth examining.

First, in late 1862, John Eaton became Superintendent of Contrabands for Gen. U.S. Grant’s Department of the Tennessee. “Contrabands” – or refugee runaway slaves – flooded into Union lines anywhere the army went. The situation became critical, and overwhelmed the army’s ability to feed, clothe, and care for these men and women and their children. The army’s solution was to establish “contraband camps” throughout the region as a means to try to gain some control over the situation, and to make providing for these fugitives a bit easier by gathering them in central locales. John Eaton’s task was to organize this effort. By early 1863, he was supervising local superintendents at Cairo, Illinois and in Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Eaton had his headquarters at Memphis.

Later, Eaton would become colonel of a “New” 9th Louisiana Infantry, African Descent (renamed 63rd U.S. Colored Infantry) – not to be confused with the “Old” 9th Louisiana Infantry, African Descent (later 5th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery), led by Colonel Hermann Lieb at Milliken’s Bend.

Memphis was an enormous hub for the Union army, serving as a major supply depot, administrative center, convalescent area, and overall way-station on the route of veterans going home on furlough or rejoining their units to the South. Some officers in the newly-forming black regiments in the Mississippi Valley in the spring of 1863 found it necessary to travel all the way to Memphis, just to obtain supplies for their men, such as food, uniforms, weaponry, and accoutrements. Uncooperative quartermaster clerks posted closer to the regiments’ camps often refused to honor requests from officers in the Colored Troops. One quartermaster even sarcastically recommended that a colonel of a Louisiana black regiment seek orders from the (Confederate) governor of Louisiana, since he claimed to command Louisiana troops!

And finally, Memphis was the destination of captured Confederate Major M.W. Sims, an officer attached to Brig. Gen. Paul Octave Hebert’s staff. Originally captured near Natchez, Sims was shipped north with other prisoners of war, but then was recalled to Vicksburg, preparatory to being exchanged for a civilian planter named Lewis Dent, who was being held by Confederates near Monroe, Louisiana. Sims was therefore shocked to find that he was being accused of murdering two officers captured at Milliken’s Bend. He was loaded on a boat bound for Memphis, where, it was said, he was to be executed! Sims chose to take his chances, and jumped overboard. He swam safely to shore somewhere in Louisiana, and eventually made it back to Hebert’s headquarters.

LEARN MORE — MEET THE AUTHOR!

Stop by and meet Linda Barnickel, author of Milliken’s Bend: A Civil War Battle in History and Memory at the Author’s Book Fair from 7:30 to 9:30 on Thurs. Sept. 25 at the ASALH annual conference. The Fair is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.