Wilson Brown, 22 years old at the time, fled the Carthage Plantation on foot in March 1863. He left Natchez for the banks of the Mississippi River, which he plunged into before swimming toward the U.S.S. Hartford, the flagship of Admiral David Farragut’s fleet, and asking to join the Union Navy.
During the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864, Brown served at the berth deck with six other officers as Farragut led his fleet into Mobile Bay to cut off supplies to the Confederacy. At Fort Morgan, Admiral Franklin Buchannan’s Confederate flagship and gunboats opened fire. A shell exploded near Brown, killing four of his compatriots on the berth deck and sending him down into the ship’s hold, where he lay unconscious, ribs broken, with a dead soldier laying on top of him.
When Brown came to, he returned to his station, later receiving a Medal of Honor for his service that day. He continued to fight for the Union’s armed forces until the end of the war.
Though he was the only Mississippi-born soldier to earn a Medal of Honor credited to the state in service to the Union during the U.S. Civil War, Brown was one of many U.S. Colored Troops that fought against the Confederacy. After the War Department formed the Bureau of Colored Troops in 1863, hundreds of thousands of former slaves, then-emancipated, joined the fray. More than 3,000 of those soldiers were from Natchez and are known as the Natchez U.S. Colored Troops.
Adams County is now recognizing the NUSCT’s contributions and history through the recently commissioned Natchez African American Civil War Memorial.
‘Building Something to Tell Our Own Story’
Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson formed the Natchez U.S. Colored Troops Monument Project initially as a committee in 2021, when Gibson selected Robert Pernell as chairman. Pernell reached out to others who called Natchez home to head various subcommittees. Deborah Fountain, Lance Harris, Devin Heath, Dan Gibson, Roscoe Barnes III, Robert Pernell and Carter Burns comprise the team. Their combined experience spans industries such as genealogical research, journalism, marketing, public service, public office, nonprofit management, tourism
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