At daybreak on June 7, 1863, Gen. H. E. McCulloch led his Texas Brigade against the Union force guarding the Union supply depot at Milliken’s Bend. In the savage fighting that followed, the Confederates drove the Federals from their camp, but while many of the Texans stopped to plunder the encampment, the Federals took cover behind a levee fronting the river. There, supported by fire from the ironclad “Choctaw,” they were able to check the Confederates, and McCulloch withdrew. This was the second battle in which Negro troops were employed by the North.
