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The Battle of Milliken's Bend was fought on June 7, 1863, as part of the Vicksburg Campaign during the American Civil War. Ma. Gen. 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 Maj. Gen. Richard Taylor was tasked with disrupting it to aid the defense of Vicksburg. Taylor sent Brigadier Gen. Henry E. McCulloch with a brigade of Texans to attack Milliken's Bend, which was held by a brigade of newly-recruited negro 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 negro soldiers fought, Milliken's Bend demonstrated the value of negro soldiers as part of the Union Army.