UNSUNG HEROES: On the trail of the U.S. Colored Troops in Vicksburg - The Vicksburg Post

UNSUNG HEROES: On the trail of the U.S. Colored Troops in Vicksburg - The Vicksburg Post

By Jim Beaugez Under cover of darkness during the early hours of June 7, 1863, an army of 1,500 Confederate troops approached Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, a key supply depot for General Ulysses S. Grant’s Union troops during his Vicksburg campaign. The Confederates took fire as they stormed the Union line, which sat atop a levee and offered soldiers only meager cover behind hay bales. But the fighting quickly turned into even closer combat as the…