No longer unknown: Black Union soldiers finally honored by name on Civil War battlefield in Vicksburg

As a little black girl, she walked to school through Vicksburg National Military Park – the hilly battlefield where Union and Confederate soldiers fought and died over whether the United States would continue to allow slavery in the South.

Union forces won a decisive campaign in 1863, capturing the city of Vicksburg and gaining control of the Mississippi River, hastening the end of the war. But during Duke’s childhood, Vicksburg worshiped the Confederacy and ignored the history of black soldiers who fought for the Union, including her great-great-grandfather, William “Bill” Sims.

“The guards and museum curators said we didn’t fight in the Civil War,” Dukes said recently.

The bravery and dedication of black soldiers to the country will no longer be ignored, thanks to the efforts of historians, park employees and citizens like Dukes. On a crisp morning in mid-February, Dukes and her niece, Sara Sims, and four park employees — two of them black men wearing reproductions of U.S. Army uniforms from the Civil War — laid American flags on 13 graves where recently identified black soldiers are buried at Vicksburg National Cemetery, part of the military park.

A historian working for the military park, Beth Kruse, identified the soldiers through research in military records, newspapers and other sources. Their remains lie beneath white marble headstones engraved with numbers instead of names, like most veterans buried in the cemetery.

In recent years, the National Park Service has expanded its representation of history in parks across the country. Dotted with more than 1,400 monuments, markers and plaques, Vicksburg Military Park is one of Mississippi’s biggest tourist attractions, drawing visitors from around the world. Its visitor center now includes information on black history, and a memorial to black soldiers was dedicated 20 years ago.

Sunlight fell on the graves beneath a towering magnolia tree during the flag-raising ceremony on Feb. 14. Dukes said the men and other black Union soldiers were “freedom fighters,” not just for themselves but for all Americans.

“They are no longer unknowns,” she said. “This is a start. This is good. Let’s set the record straight.”

The newly identified soldiers had joined the 1st Mississippi Infantry Regiment (of African descent) stationed in Vicksburg, as the city was under federal occupation. In early 1864, 18 soldiers and two white officers traveled by boat about 95 miles north along the Mississippi River to Chicot County, Arkansas, to gather crops to feed men and horses.

On February 14, 1864, irregular Confederate troops from Missouri shot Union soldiers and officers at Ross Landing near the town of Lake Village. Most of them were killed, some were left dead. According to Kruse’s research, they impaled the dead and wounded with the Union soldiers’ bayonets, pinning them to the ground.

Brendan Wilson, director of interpretation, education and partnerships at Vicksburg National Military Park, said on the 160th anniversary of the gruesome day at Ross Landing that it is still not known which of the 13 black soldiers from that massacre lies in which grave, but records show where the group is buried.

“And now we have their names and can bring them back to life,” Wilson said.

Kruse, who works in Vicksburg as part of the National Park Service’s Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellows program, said at least 11 soldiers from the 1st Mississippi Infantry Regiment (of African descent) were previously enslaved on plantations in the South.

“For these soldiers, this was not an abstract ideology,” she said. “They knew what it meant to be unfree.”

Vicksburg National Cemetery was established in 1866 and now contains over 18,000 graves – veterans of six wars and some former park employees. More than 17,000 of them fought for the Union in the Civil War, including more than 5,500 black soldiers, designated as United States Colored Troops by the U.S. War Department in 1863.

Vicksburg is the largest cemetery for Union soldiers and sailors. The dead come from Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and other states. Almost 13,000 people are buried as unknown.

About 5,000 Confederate soldiers are buried in a city cemetery in Vicksburg outside the military park.

About 80 years after the Civil War ended, Dukes’ father worked in maintenance at the National Military Park. She said she always found the landscape of the former battlefield beautiful, but when she was young, she never saw the history there as relevant to the black community.

“All I know is that the South lost. OK, I knew that,” Dukes said. “But none of the battles we’re hearing about now. I didn’t feel there was any connection to the blacks.”

In 2004, a monument was dedicated at Vicksburg National Military Park to honor the black soldiers who fought in the Vicksburg Campaign. The troops were instrumental in the Union victory at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, on the Mississippi River north of Vicksburg, in June 1863.

Robert Major Walker, a historian who was elected Vicksburg’s first black mayor in 1988, proposed the monument in 1999 after years of researching and raising funds for it.

“Something had to be done to show black involvement in the Civil War,” Walker said recently. “So much of the positive was left out of the history books. Everyone needed to know the truth.”

Dukes, whose great-great-grandfather fought at Milliken’s Bend and survived the war, is critical of efforts by some Republican governors – including Ron DeSantis of Florida and Tate Reeves of Mississippi – to limit teaching about slavery and other difficult aspects of U.S. history.

“And I don’t understand why the majority of people in America don’t say, ‘No, you can’t do that. Let’s tell you everything,'” Dukes said.

Three days after American flags were hung at the cemetery, Dukes and others at the military park’s visitor center participated in a libation ceremony, a traditional African religious ritual, to commemorate the 20 men killed or wounded at Ross Landing.

Albert Dorsey Jr., a history professor at Jackson State University, read the names of each man – black and white – as he poured water into a pot of dirt and grass, a small piece of earth he had brought into the house for the cold day:

Private Henry Berry, Private Calvin Cathron, 1st Lt. Thaddeus Cock, Private Howard Dixon, Corp. Fleming Epps, Private Ruffian Epps, Corp. Peter Everman, Private Charles Farrar, Private Henry Ford, Private John Genefa, Private Anthony Givens, Private Richard James, Sergeant Tony McGee, Sergeant Noah Powell, Private Thomas Ransom, 1st Sgt. James Spencer, Private Isaac Stanton, Private Isom Taylor, Corp. Nelson Walker, Private James H. Boldin.

After each name, the audience of about 50 people responded: “Asé,” pronounced ah-SHAY, a word from the Yoruba language spoken in parts of West Africa. It is similar to “Amen,” an affirmation of a life force.

The 13 black men killed in the massacre were initially buried at Ross Landing and later interred as unknowns in the cemetery. Three others were wounded and died during or shortly after the Civil War and were also buried as unknowns. Two others survived until 1918. The bodies of the two white officers were identified and sent to Ohio and Indiana for burial during the war.

Kruse told the audience that the black men who joined the Union Army “were not begging to be inducted,” but were actively choosing to fight.

“As President Lincoln said of the dead at Gettysburg,” Kruse said, “we too can honor the men who lie on the hallowed ground of Vicksburg National Cemetery and never forget what they did for freedom.”