The return was triumphant.

Hundreds of people ceremonially welcomed home the 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry as it re-enactors received praise and government proclamations in their honor for sharing the frequently neglected story of local freedmen who took up arms against the Confederacy.

The group of re-enactors from Florida and Georgia spent the day at Vicksburg National Military Park where they were greeted by hundreds of tourists and students followed by an encore encampment at the Jacqueline House Museum in front of a crowd of about 60 people, many of whom had attended the earlier re-enactment in the park.

“To walk where the 3rd CC walked and camped is amazing,” said re-enactor Richard Wilder. “To be here today, words just don’t describe the feeling.”

Wilder portrayed Trooper Alfred Woods, a former slave on a plantation near Vicksburg who joined the 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry when it formed in late fall 1863.

“They were as fine as any cavalry regiment in the war,” said Dr. David Slay, a Vicksburg National Military Park ranger.

About 25,000 formerly enslaved men in Mississippi enlisted in the Union Army, Slay said.

“When President Lincoln signed that proclamation and said let the colored folks fight, we came in droves,” re-enactor John Russell who started the group more than 20 years ago told the crowd.

That number surprised Warren Central high school student Michaela Mobley who said her only exposure to U.S. Colored Troops was though the movie “Glory,” which chronicles the struggles of the blacks enlisted in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry.

“I didn’t know there were that many,” she said.

That students aren’t knowledgeable about local U.S. Colored Troops is not surprising, retired Brig. Gen. Robert Crear said during the program.

“I went to school here as a kid and I never learned anything about that,” said Crear, who is also president of Friends of Vicksburg National Military Park and Campaign.

The visit to Vicksburg was also an educational experience for re-enactors who toured the military park and national cemetery where more than 7,000 U.S. Colored Troops are buried.

“I grew up in the South and truthfully didn’t have a very favorable impression of Mississippi before coming here, but our welcome has been great. It’s been eye-opening,” said Russell, who portrays a first sergeant in the cavalry.

The welcome included the presentations of proclamations by both Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs. Jr. and state Rep. Oscar Denton.

“I think it’s a great day for the City of Vicksburg to be here and welcome back the 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry,” Flaggs said.

Denton said he was thankful for the group sharing an often-forgotten story with the city’s youth.

“If we don’t tell them who will?” Denton asked the crowd gathered at Jacqueline House. “Whose job is it to tell them anyway? It’s ours.”

Receiving the proclamations was humbling, Russell said.

“We don’t do this to gain anything. We do this because we are trying to get them the recognition and the honor they deserve,” he said.

The events Thursday were part of a four-day tour of Mississippi and Louisiana by the re-enactors, said Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-CM Boxley, the organizer of the event, which is part of the seventh annual Black and Blue Civil War living history celebration.

The group was in Jackson this morning and will be in Port Gibson at 9 a.m. Saturday followed by a ride though Fayette and Natchez followed by a living history and teaching session at 11:30 a.m. at Jefferson College in the Washington community.

Boxley said he is dedicated to sharing stories of “African-American, black, Negro, whatever you want to call it,” history because those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

“I say it will help them (young people) do better in life as a person,” he said.