1863 East Pascagoula Raid

The regiment that landed at Pascagoula in April 1863 had been raised in New Orleans that October, and General Nathaniel Banks was removing its Black line officers in early 1863. One of them, P. B. S. Pinchback, a free man of color, resigned his commission that year over discrimination and became governor of Louisiana in 1872. Major Francis Dumas, a wealthy Creole, had enlisted a company of men he himself enslaved. The unit was renamed the 2nd Corps d'Afrique in June 1863 and the 74th United States Colored Troops in April 1864, and it mustered out in October 1865.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Biloxi Beach Wade-In Marker — 11 mi
  The beachfront parking lot beside the Biloxi Lighthouse where state markers recall the 1959 and 1960 wade-ins that opened Mississippi's public beaches to Black residents.
• Biloxi Lighthouse — 11 mi
  A cast-iron tower lit in 1848 on the Biloxi beachfront, kept by women for most of its first century and still in service after Camille and Katrina.
• Ship Island and Fort Massachusetts — 13 mi
  A barrier island twelve miles off the Mississippi coast with a brick fort burned half-built in 1861, a Union prison camp, and the garrison post of the 2nd Louisiana Native Guard.
• Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art — 13 mi
  Frank Gehry's pavilions on the Biloxi waterfront, built around the pottery of George Ohr, the self-styled Mad Potter, and the rebuilt Pleasant Reed House.

More markers nearby

• Gulfport-Harrison County Library — 0.3 mi
• Old Gulfport High School — 0.4 mi
• Gulfport Civil Rights Wade-In — 0.7 mi
• Soria City — 1.0 mi