After more than 150 years, the 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry is coming home.

Recruited from Vicksburg in the late fall of 1863, the 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry became the first African-American cavalry regiment to serve the U.S. military, and this week as part of a four-day event, cavalry re-enactors will be in Vicksburg, Tallulah, La., and Port Gibson.

“The importance of the 3rd Colored Cavalry history being brought alive in a variety of communities and through role playing living history is because the history of this heroic, brave cavalry for the United States organized at Vicksburg and has not been given its proper credit and recognition in Civil War archives and re-enactment in the Mississippi Valley,” said Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-CM Boxley, organizer of the Seventh Annual Black and Blue Civil War living history event.

Boxley’s name reflects the African roots of his ancestors and the plantation on which they were enslaved.

Events with the professional U.S. Colored Cavalry re-enactors, who are on their first trip to Mississippi, begin at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Tallulah with a parade and performance at Madison Parish Middle School. The group comes to Vicksburg from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Thursday at Vicksburg National Military Park where they will give programs along with VNMP ranger Dr. David Slay.

Admission to the park is $8 per noncommercial vehicle.

“The 3rd U.S. Color Cavalry is on the road from Florida, Michigan and Georgia and on their way back to their home base in Vicksburg after 151 years,” Boxley said.

From 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday, the re-enactors will hold an encampment on the lawn next to the Jacqueline House, 1325 Main St., said retired Brig. Gen. Robert Crear, president of the Friends of Vicksburg National Military Park.

“We’re changing the locations to try to get more African-Americans informed about what’s going on in the park. We’re going to bring the park to them,” Crear said.

Friday, the re-enactors will present a program in Jackson at the Smith Robertson Museum, and on Saturday, they will ride through Port Gibson at 9 a.m. in route to Fayette and Natchez.

“We’ll ride from one end of town to the other, and then we’ll jump in the trailers and move on to the next site,” Boxley said.

At 11:30 a.m. Saturday, historian Bennie McRae will teach a session at Jefferson College outside Natchez about the history of the cavalry.

Each of the sites along the four-day tour of Louisiana and Mississippi are places where the men who called themselves “The Black Horse Soldiers,” played pivotal roles, Boxley said.

The 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry fought throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley in 1864 and 1865, helping to distract Confederate cavalry under Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and fending off Confederate guerillas.

“These ex slaves … wherever they fought in the Mississippi Valley faced the choice of victory or death, and they chose victory time and time and time again, even though many did get killed. They would rather die fighting than be captured by the Confederate soldiers,” Boxley said.