On April 9, 1863, Union forces from the 2nd Regiment of Louisiana Native Guard attacked Pascagoula in Jackson County, in the first Gulf Coast engagement in which Black soldiers serving as a military unit were not only deployed in battle but initiated the attack. Since 1862, Ship Island, 11 miles south of Biloxi, had been under Federal control and served to support and supply the U.S. Navy blockading fleet off the Mississippi coast. The 2nd Native Guard, Black troops enlisted to the Union cause in Louisiana after the fall of New Orleans in April 1862, garrisoned the island. Colonel N. W. Daniels launched the raid with 180 soldiers to help prevent Confederate reinforcements from Mobile from being sent to other sectors under attack. After leaving Ship Island on April 8 aboard the U.S.S. General Banks and meeting the U.S.S. John P. Jackson near Horn Island, the detachment landed the next morning. A house-to-house firefight followed with 40 troopers of the Mobile Dragoons while the gunboat fired into the village. Three defenders were wounded, and the Union force lost two killed and five wounded. As southern reinforcements arrived, the attackers withdrew in orderly fashion, but while the Black soldiers were crossing the main wharf, the U.S.S. Jackson accidentally fired a 6-inch rifled gun from 1200 yards, killing four men and wounding five more in a friendly fire incident. Both sides claimed victory: the defenders because they had repulsed the assault, and the Union troops because they had surprised the garrison and escaped with the Confederate flag from the large hotel used as headquarters. The 2nd Native Guard later received a new unit designation and continued to serve in numerous actions until 1865.