© 2024 Texas Public Radio
Real. Reliable. Texas Public Radio.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
00000174-b11b-ddc3-a1fc-bfdbb1a20000The Schreiner University Department of History is honoring the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War with a series of short vignettes focusing on events from 1861 through 1865. The Civil War was the most destructive conflict in American history, but it was also one of our most defining moments as a people and as a nation. Let us know what you think about "This Week in the Civil War." E-mail your comments to Dr. John Huddleston at jhuddles@schreiner.edu.Airs: Weekdays at 5:19 a.m., 8:19 a.m., 4:19 p.m. on KTXI and 4:49 a.m., 9:29 p.m. on KSTX.

This Week in the Civil War - 586

Near Vicksburg on Sunday, June 7, 1863 Confederate Texans under General Richard Taylor attacked the Federal garrison at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana. The Confederates overwhelmed the Federal defenses, driving the defenders, including black troops, to the Mississippi riverbank. 

One Confederate soldier later recalled, “The enemy gave away and stampeded pell-mell over the levee, in great terror and confusion. Our troops followed after them, bayoneting them by hundreds."  A wholesale Union defeat was averted by the Union gunboats Lexington and Choctaw which stemmed the Confederate advance. 

The Texans plundered the Federal camp but had to retreat before the two Union gunboats. The attacking Texans suffered 185 total casualties while inflicting some 652 casualties on the Union defenders. Taylor’s successful attack did little, however, to relieve the encircled, sieged city of Vicksburg.