War

After Union forces captured New Orleans in spring 1862, they determined to fight their way upriver through the Felicianas to a showdown in Vicksburg. The battle at Port Hudson, known as the Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi, is remembered as the first time Black men fought as Union soldiers. There they battled bravely but suffered dearly in a victory they hoped would make a new world. The available evidence suggests my ancestor Virgil Harrell did not enlist. But after the war he and other Feliciana freedpersons claimed themselves. In the presence of their enemies, freedpersons named themselves, married, created homes, abandoned homes, voted, and recreated themselves and their communities on land drenched in generations of their blood. They would have to draw on the lessons of slavery to create something like freedom.