Union Besieges Port Hudson: Black Troops Fight for First Time

Black soldiers charged into Confederate rifle fire at Port Hudson, Louisiana, on May 27, 1863, and the argument over whether African Americans could fight died in the killing ground before the fortifications. The siege of Port Hudson, which began on May 23, 1863, became one of the first major engagements where Black troops fought for the Union Army, and their performance under fire silenced many of the war's loudest skeptics. Port Hudson was the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River south of Vicksburg. Major General Nathaniel Banks led roughly 30,000 Union troops against a garrison of 7,500 Confederates entrenched in earthworks above the river. The position was naturally formidable: bluffs, ravines, and dense timber made frontal assault nearly suicidal. On May 27, the 1st and 3rd Louisiana Native Guards, composed of free Black men and formerly enslaved soldiers led by both Black and white officers, were ordered to charge the fortifications. They advanced across open ground under devastating fire, were repulsed, regrouped, and charged again. Captain Andre Cailloux, a free Black officer from New Orleans, led his company forward shouting orders in French and English until a shell took his arm off. He kept advancing until he was killed. The assault failed militarily. The siege would grind on for 48 days before the garrison surrendered on July 9, 1863, after learning of Vicksburg's fall. But the political impact of the Native Guards' bravery was immediate. Northern newspapers featured their courage prominently. General Banks, no particular champion of Black soldiers, wrote that "no troops could be more determined or more daring." Port Hudson accelerated Black military recruitment across the Union. By war's end, roughly 180,000 African Americans had served in the U.S. Army, comprising nearly 10 percent of the total force.