Bicentennial Vicksburg Voices: Honoring Peter Crosby at Catfish Row Museum

A Legacy of Leadership and Resilience in Reconstruction-Era Vicksburg

By Jim Beaugez

The surrender of Vicksburg by Confederate Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton to Union forces led by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on July 4, 1863, brought swift change to the city. 

Although the Civil War would continue for nearly two years, the power dynamics in Vicksburg flipped virtually overnight as 5,000 members of the United States Colored Troops were tasked with securing and patrolling the city. Reconstruction, in all but name, had arrived.

Peter Crosby, who came to Vicksburg as a USCT soldier, exemplified the hope and uncertainty of the time for African Americans. Born in 1844 in Clarke County, Miss., Crosby endured slavery before joining the 5th USCT Heavy Artillery regiment. He became a successful businessman and community leader in postwar Vicksburg and was elected the first Black sheriff of Warren County in 1873.

In an effort to present an inclusive history of Vicksburg for the city’s 2025 bicentennial, Vicksburg Voices — an initiative by Shape Up Mississippi in partnership with the City of Vicksburg and part of a storytelling cohort designed for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Prize alumni — is sharing lesser-told stories, such as Crosby’s, from the city’s history.

“I think what he did before he became sheriff speaks to why he was elected,” said historian Dr. Beth Kruse, who is helping put together the story of USCT soldiers in Vicksburg. “He was taking care of the community members and former veterans. He’s signing pension affidavits for widows. He’s taking the financial responsibility and dealing with the orphans. I think people put faith in him because he was trying to make things better.”

Obtaining pensions proved especially difficult for widows of USCT soldiers, she said. Because many of these women married during slavery, there was no legal documentation. Being able to verify one another’s marital status helped keep Black settlements in places like Warren County close.

“Many of the enslaved people that joined the USCT and then moved to Vicksburg formed their own community, and they stayed together,” Kruse said. “After the war, they could say, ‘Yes, we were enslaved by so-and-so, and I was there when they were married.’ The other women would testify.”

By 1874, the social order imposed by the Reconstruction era was quickly unraveling. And with Crosby at center stage, Vicksburg would soon become a bellwether for the violent next chapter in Mississippi history.

The role of sheriff at the time Crosby took office included unpopular tasks like collecting taxes in addition to enforcing laws. Once the new sheriff was installed, intimidation tactics against Black residents by former Confederates organized as so-called Taxpayers Leagues, also known as White Leagues, became more frequent.

“Collecting taxes was really the bigger part of his job, and that’s what got him in trouble,” Kruse said. “He wasn’t doing it fraudulently, he was just doing his job, and that ticked off the White people because that money was being spent on improvements that were going to African Americans, too.”

Tensions reached a fever pitch by year’s end. On Dec. 2, a mob of Taxpayer Leaguers arrived at the Warren County Courthouse to force Crosby to resign along with all other Black men in elected office. 

Fearing for his life, Crosby signed his resignation letter and traveled to Jackson to enlist the help of Gov. Adelbert Ames. The state’s highest official ordered the mob to submit to the legally elected officials, called upon a Warren County militia to assist, and implored Crosby to form a posse and reclaim his post.

Ames’s efforts did little to alleviate Vicksburg’s troubles. When an organized Black resistance arrived at Vicksburg on Dec. 7 to reinstate the elected leaders, Crosby, who was being detained at his own courthouse, instructed them to disperse under threats from his unlawful captors.

As the group retreated, White residents fired upon them, scattering the group and forcing them into hiding, and provoking a campaign of wanton violence against African Americans throughout the region known as the Vicksburg Massacre. An estimated 150 to 300 African Americans died before Grant, now President of the U.S., sent federal troops to quell the violence on Jan. 5, 1875.

Crosby was soon reinstated as sheriff, but his trials were far from done. On June 7, J.P. Gilmer, a White deputy Crosby hired after reclaiming his office, made a brazen attempt on Crosby’s life. Gilmer approached the sheriff in Fred Bowman’s saloon in Vicksburg and fired a round into the lower part of his face, Crosby said. A surgeon who was in the saloon at the time tried to remove the bullet from his skull to no avail. 

Gilmer was arrested on the affidavit of Crosby, charging him with shooting with intent to kill, but he was freed when no one came forward as a witness. Crosby survived the assassination attempt and lived ten more years with the bullet lodged in his head.

While noting that a Justice of the Peace had cleared Gilmer, the June 30, 1875 edition of The Weekly Clarion, a predecessor to The Clarion Ledger newspaper, floated the theory that “Crosby was shot by a ‘spirit hand,’ which is a reasonable conclusion, as the affair occurred where spirits do most abound.” 

Crosby paid a high cost for his bravery and commitment to the rule of law. Unable to work due to his injury, his vast property holdings were dispersed in tax sales during his remaining years. Records show he filed for a pension a few months before his death, and when he died on March 15, 1884, a benevolent group buried him — although no one is sure exactly where.

“It does represent the unfairness of the time,” said Kruse, “because if anybody should have died economically secure and with respect, it should have been Peter Crosby.” 

Unfortunately, the Vicksburg Massacre had another legacy: It provided a blueprint for White agitators who staged similar events around the state, stoking fear and paving the way for the infamous new state constitution adopted in 1890, which codified discriminatory practices such as poll taxes and literacy tests into law. True freedom for African Americans and equality under the law remained a dream for decades to come, but the courage shown by Crosby inspired the generations that followed.

“Brave people like Peter only have the shortness of now in which to react,” said Jackson-based historian and filmmaker Dr. Wilma E. Mosley Clopton. “The shortness of now makes people rise up and say, ‘I’m not going to do this or tolerate this anymore, regardless of the outcome,’ and that’s what they did. That’s what Peter did.”

This article was made possible by Shape Up Mississippi. Vicksburg is proud to be part of a storytelling cohort designed for RWJF Culture of Health Prize alumni.