Milliken's Bend is an extinct settlement that was located along the Mississippi River in Madison Parish, Louisiana, United States for about 100 years. In its heyday, the village had a boat landing, two streets of businesses, residences, churches, a four-room schoolhouse, a ferryman, and roads connecting it to Lake Providence, and Talluha.
The settlement and the bend in the river were named for Major John Milliken. [1] According to one telling, Milliken was "an early settler supposed to have been a member of the pirate band of Captain Bunch" that gave its name to Bunch's or Bunches Bend. [2] According to a family history, "He studied surveying when a young man, and going to Kentucky with others of the family found employment under the State government, and was rewarded by a grant of land in Louisiana, where he cleared a large and valuable plantation, which was called Milliken's Bend, it being on a loop of the Mississippi River. He owned many slaves, and acquired wealth." [3] Milliken is believed to have made his settlement slightly after 1813. [4] He eventually owned a vast spread of land, set on the banks of a great bend in the river between the Morancy Plantation and Cabin Teele Plantation. [5] Millikin's Settlement was present on Mississippi River guide books intended for use by boat pilots as early as 1827. [6]
Milliken's Bend had regular packet boat service by 1840. [7] It hosted an official U.S. post office as of 1846. [8] Epidemic cholera killed six people enslaved by Dr. Parker of Milliken's Bend in 1849. [9] The cotton crop in the vicinity of Milliken's Bend suffered badly from the boll weevil in 1852. [10] In 1855 the clerk of the Cavalier & Rathman store at Milliken's Bend got into a shootout with a local plantation overseer over a shipment of freight; the overseer was killed, the clerk was expected to survive his multiple gunshot wounds. [11]
The local cotton plantations shipped 19,000 bales out of Milliken's Bend in 1857. [12] The settlement supported a dry-goods store in 1857, [13] and a French-language travel guide published 1859 described it as a colony of planters, a similar to the nearby Tompkin's Settlement, but more important. [14] There was a schoolhouse "with four large and commodious rooms, play ground, &c" in Milliken's Bend in 1860. [15] The town also supported a Catholic Church, two streets of businesses, and had several roads connecting it to nearby settlements. [5] According to a history of Milliken's Bend written by a Louisiana Tech student in 1941, Milliken's Bend was also accessible from Eagle Bend by "the ferry, operated by old Ned Thompson, a Negro, that made regular trips across the River." [5]
The town formally incorporated in 1861. [5] During the American Civil War, William T. Sherman used Milliken's Bend as his base for "his ill-fated attempt to storm Chickasaw Bluffs and capture Vicksburg." [16] : 142 In 1863 Milliken's Bend was the site of the Battle of Milliken's Bend. [17] There was a U.S. Army hospital there in 1864. [18]
After the end of Reconstruction, Millikens Bend was a departure point for black families migrating to Kansas. According to P. B. S. Pinchback:
Before leaving New Orleans I heard of the Kansas fever among the colored people of this section, but did not attach much importance to it. I was, therefore, surprised on nearing the Delta ferrylanding, to find the banks of the river covered with colored people and their little stores of worldly goods. The crowd awaiting transportation at this point was estimated at 300, but I learn it was swollen to 500 yesterday, when the people took their departure on the St. Louis packet Grand Tower for Kansas. A noticeable feature about their departure was the fact that not one of that vast number was permitted to board the steamer until fare was paid to St. Louis. This fact explodes the erroneous idea that these people are having their expenses paid by some outside agency, and that the movement is not a spontaneous one on their part. Numerous reasons are alleged for this remarkable exodus, but so far as I have been able to learn, the real cause is an apprehension of undefined danger in the near future. They religiously believe that the Constitutional Convention bodes them no good; that it has been called for the express purpose of abridging their rights and liberties, and they are fleeing from the wrath to come. They are absolutely panic stricken. Every road leading to the river is filled with wagons loaded with plunder, and families who seem to think anywhere is better than here. On my way yesterday to Milliken's Bend, I saw a large crowd camped on the landing at Duckport. A still larger crowd awaited transportation at Milliken's Bend. There is no doubt in my mind that this movement has assumed formidable shape, and, unless some means are devised to arrest it, this portion of the State will soon be entirely depopulated of its laboring classes." [19] : 311
By 1880, the Mississippi was eroding the ground on which the town stood, so it was moved wholesale about a mile inland. This new location was reasonably called "New Bend". [1] An Episcopal Church was added to the village. [5] The New Bend, however, was flooded in 1882, and then bypassed by the railroads that were coming through, and 1910 New Bend supported only a small store and a boat landing, and those were gone by the end of the decade. [5]
Lake Providence is a town in, and the parish seat of, East Carroll Parish in northeastern Louisiana. The population was 5,104 at the 2000 census and declined by 21.8 percent to 3,991 in 2010. The town's poverty rate is approximately 55 percent; the average median household income is $16,500, and the average age is 31.
The Vicksburg campaign was a series of maneuvers and battles in the Western Theater of the American Civil War directed against Vicksburg, Mississippi, a fortress city that dominated the last Confederate-controlled section of the Mississippi River. The Union Army of the Tennessee under Major General Ulysses S. Grant gained control of the river by capturing this stronghold and defeating Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton's forces stationed there.
The Battle of Milliken's Bend was fought on June 7, 1863, as part of the Vicksburg Campaign during the American Civil War. Major General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union Army had placed the strategic Mississippi River city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, under siege in mid-1863. Confederate leadership erroneously believed that Grant's supply line still ran through Milliken's Bend in Louisiana, and Major General Richard Taylor was tasked with disrupting it to aid the defense of Vicksburg. Taylor sent Brigadier General Henry E. McCulloch with a brigade of Texans to attack Milliken's Bend, which was held by a brigade of newly-recruited African American soldiers. McCulloch's attack struck early on the morning of June 7, and was initially successful in close-quarters fighting. Fire from the Union gunboat USS Choctaw halted the Confederate attack, and McCulloch later withdrew after the arrival of a second gunboat. The attempt to relieve Vicksburg was unsuccessful. One of the first actions in which African American soldiers fought, Milliken's Bend demonstrated the value of African American soldiers as part of the Union Army.
The Battle of Goodrich's Landing, Louisiana, was fought on June 29 and June 30, 1863, between Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. The Confederates attacked several Union regiments, who were composed mostly of black soldiers, in an attempt to disrupt the campaign at Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Rodney is a ghost town in Jefferson County, Mississippi, United States. Most of the buildings are gone, and the remaining structures are in various states of disrepair. The town floods regularly, and buildings have extensive flood damage. The Rodney History And Preservation Society is restoring Rodney Presbyterian Church. Damage to the church's facade from the American Civil War has been maintained as part of the historical preservation, including a replica cannonball embedded above the balcony windows. The Rodney Center Historic District is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The 8th Louisiana Regiment Infantry (African Descent) was an infantry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was composed primarily of freed or escaped slaves from Louisiana's plantations and was commanded by white officers.
The Battle of Richmond was fought on June 15, 1863, near Richmond, Louisiana, during the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. Major General John George Walker's division of Confederate troops, known as Walker's Greyhounds had attacked Union forces in the Battle of Milliken's Bend and the Battle of Lake Providence earlier that month in hopes of relieving some of the pressure on the Confederate troops besieged in Vicksburg, Mississippi. While both of Walker's strikes were failures and the Confederates withdrew to Richmond, Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant still viewed the presence of Walker's men at Richmond to be a threat. On June 14, the Mississippi Marine Brigade and the infantry brigade of Brigadier General Joseph A. Mower were sent to attack the Confederates at Richmond.
The Battle of Lake Providence was fought on June 9, 1863, during the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. Confederate troops from the Trans-Mississippi Department were trying to relieve Union pressure during the Siege of Vicksburg. Major General Richard Taylor, primarily utilizing Walker's Greyhounds, prepared a three-pronged attack against Union positions at Milliken's Bend, Young's Point, and Lake Providence. The strike against Lake Providence was conducted by 900 men led by Colonel Frank Bartlett.
The 1st Louisiana Battery Light Artillery (African Descent) was organized at Hebron's Plantation, Missouri, November 6, 1863. Attached to 1st Brigade, U.S. Colored Troops, District of Vicksburg, to April, 1864. On duty at Goodrich Landing and Vicksburg till April, 1864. Designation of Battery changed to Battery "C", 2nd U.S. Colored Light Artillery, April 26, 1864.
Joseph Emory Davis was an American lawyer who became one of the wealthiest planters in Mississippi in the antebellum era; he owned thousands of acres of land and was among the nine men in Mississippi who owned more than 300 slaves. He was the elder brother of Jefferson Davis and acted as his surrogate father for several years. The younger Davis became a politician, U.S. Senator, and later President of the Confederacy.
Bruinsburg is an extinct settlement in Claiborne County, Mississippi, United States. Founded when the Natchez District was part of West Florida, the settlement was one of the end points of the Natchez Trace land route from Nashville to the lower Mississippi River valley.
The 51st United States Colored Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment composed of African-American troops recruited from Mississippi that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Initially formed in the spring of 1863 as the 1st Regiment Mississippi Volunteer Infantry (African Descent), the Regiment took part in fierce fighting at the Battle of Milliken's Bend, served on garrison duty in Louisiana, and then took part in the Battle of Fort Blakely, the last major battle of the war.
Petit Gulf cotton was a cotton hybrid patented by planter Rush Nutt at his Laurel Hill Plantation in Rodney, Mississippi, in 1833. It was named "Petit Gulf" for the bend of the Mississippi River where it was grown. It proved more resistant than the green seed cotton from Georgia as long as planters followed the breeding process used in Rodney. Petit Gulf was said to be less likely to harbor diseases and rot than other breeds of cotton. Moreover, it was easier to pick with a human hand, thus leading to greater productivity.
John Lyons was a carpenter, bridge builder, cotton-plantation owner, and steamship captain of Louisiana, United States. Lyons is best known today as the enslaver of Peter of the scourged back, who escaped to Union lines in 1863, and whose whip-scarred body ultimately became a representative of the physical violence inherent to the American slavery system.
Skipwith's Landing was a 19th-century boat landing and human settlement on the east bank of the Mississippi River, located in the county of Issaquena in the U.S. state of Mississippi. Skipwith's Landing was situated about 55 mi (89 km) to 100 mi (160 km) north of Vicksburg, Mississippi, depending on mode of travel. Circa 1866, a witness at a U.S. Congressional hearing described Skipwith's Landing as being among the most sparsely populated sections of the state with no village or town in proximity. Circa 1867, there were no roads leading to or from Skipwith's Landing; the only access was by the river. For a time there was a cut made by the river that was known as Skipwith's Chute. Another related placename was Skipwith Crevasse. There was a U.S. post office at Skipwith's in 1870.
Columbia, Arkansas was a 19th-century boat landing and human settlement along the Mississippi River located in Chicot County near Helena, Arkansas. Columbia stood on what was called Spanish Moss Bend, in a section of the River known as the Greenville Bends, between Gaines' Landing and Island 82. Columbia, which lay roughly opposite Greenville, Mississippi, was the county seat of Chicot from 1833 until 1855.
Petit Gulf was a location on the Mississippi River in North America. The gulf was an eddy or whirlpool that was smaller than the nearby Grand Gulf. The eddy lent its name to the nearby Petit Gulf Hills and Petit Gulf Creek. There was a settlement there prior to the 1828 organization of Rodney, Mississippi, and the Petit Gulf cotton cultivar, which was widely planted in the U.S. South before the American Civil War, was named for the landing and town.
Aaron H. Forrest was one of the six Forrest brothers who engaged in the interregional slave trade in the United States prior to the American Civil War. He may have also owned or managed cotton plantations in Mississippi. He led a Confederate cavalry unit composed of volunteers from the Yazoo River region of Mississippi during the American Civil War. He died in 1864, apparently from illness.
Goodrich's Landing, earlier known as Pecan Grove and later known as Illawara, was a placename connected to a steamboat landing and plantation in Carroll Parish, Louisiana, United States. Goodrich's Landing was the site of the American Civil War battle of Goodrich's Landing in 1863.
Gaines Landing is an extinct settlement in Chicot County, Arkansas, United States that once hosted a boat landing along the Mississippi River. The location played a role in the story of fugitive slave Margaret Garner, whose life was the basis of Toni Morrison's Beloved, and was used for troop movements during the American Civil War.
Municipalities and communities of Madison Parish, Louisiana, United States | ||
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