ON MAY 27, 1863, Captain André Cailloux led his company of African-American soldiers in a hopeless charge against the Confederate forts at Port Hudson, Louisiana. As a free man in New Orleans, he had gained wealth and respect among both whites and blacks. He had been educated in Paris, and in the black community of Louisiana he was a natural leader; Cailloux was proud to be the “blackest man in America.” When Federal forces took New Orleans in April 1862, he volunteered for the Union Army and personally recruited a company of men for the 1st Louisiana Native Guards, one of three regiments that had black officers.

The 1st Louisiana got its baptism of fire at Port Hudson, which controlled the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Vicksburg. Port Hudson stopped Union shipping and was strongly defended by rebel soldiers. The Federal army surrounded the town in May 1863. Black troops had not yet been tried in battle, but they were put on the right wing of the Union force and ordered to attack across a half mile of swamps and fallen trees to get at a rebel fort. Captain Cailloux lined up his men for the charge and, as they worked their way through the swamp, went up and down the line urging his men forward against heavy fire from Confederate sharpshooters and artillery. He shouted his orders in both English and French so he could be understood by his black Creole troops. The enemy fire was brutal for three hours, and the black troops stopped, regrouped, and charged again and again.