"During the fierce assault on May 27 on our whole left wing, Commissary Hill was an essential object of attack. Here we had a four gun battery, and behind it were our commissary stores, arsenal and old ginhouse containing the little grist mills which did all the grinding for the army. Our battery did great execution by destroying a number of field guns, but sharpshooters hidden in the fallen timbers soon made our battery untenable by shooting our gunners, compelling them to lie behind the parapet and await assault."
Private Edward Y. McMorries Company G, 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment
Site of a five gun battery, Commissary Hill protected the Port Hudson garrison's commissary complex, which was located in the creek bottom at the rear of the hill. Manned by artillerists from the Madison Tennessee Battery, Battery F of the 1st Mississippi Artillery Regiment, and 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment, the Commissary Hill guns commanded a towering position overlooking'Fort Desperate and the Alabama-Arkansas-Redoubt. Though Union artillery fire disabled all five guns at one time or another and destroyed the commissary complex, the Commissary Hill guns laid down a deadly barrage on Union forces throughout the siege.
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