Say Their Name: Ross Landing Massacre Remembrance (Highlights) - Audio Described version

On February 17, 2024, Vicksburg National Military Park hosted a special remembrance ceremony “Say Their Name” for the African American soldiers killed at Ross Landing in Chicot County Arkansas on February 14, 1864.
This is a shorter, highlights version of the video with audio description.
Recent scholarship has revealed their names and burial locations so that 160 years later we can honor their sacrifice in their fight for freedom. In February 1864, the soldiers of the U.S. 1st MS Infantry (African Descent) traveled upriver from Vicksburg to Chicot County, Arkansas on foraging detail. The 1st MS (AD) was attacked by Confederate guerillas and was overwhelmed. The Confederates assumed all the U.S. Army soldiers were dead and then “pinned each one to the ground” with their own bayonets. Six of the 1st MS, though, were still alive and were later treated at the Vicksburg Regimental Hospital. Three would die of their wounds, however, three survived. African American soldiers killed in the Ross Landing Massacre were buried as unknowns (Section M #14900-14912) in Vicksburg National Cemetery.
Research by Beth Kruse, PH.D., has brought identity back to these men. Dr. Kruse is working with the National Park Service as the Mellon Fellow for African American Experience in Vicksburg from Civil War through Reconstruction.
Members of the William “Bill” Sims Foundation conducted a remembrance and libation ceremony to honor the memory of the men massacred at Ross Landing.