Excerpts from “Lee's Tigers”

In their haste to enter the military, some prominent Louisianians bypassed state officials and appealed directly to confederate authority’s for permission to raise units for the Confederate army. Governor Thomas O. Moore bitterly complained of this practice to the Secretary of War, Leroy P. Walker because he wanted the regiments to be mustered into Louisiana service first so that the state could pick the field grade officers and have the prestige of naming the commands. Governor Moore was particularly incensed at George Auguste Gaston Coppens, a graduate of the French Marine School. Coppens was highly regarded in New Orleans social circles and was described by one woman as "a fine example of grace and beauty." But Coppens earned the wrath of the governor because he received personal authorization from Jefferson Davis in early March to raise and equip a battalion of Zouaves for the Confederate army.³

Coppens, like many Louisianians, was impressed with the French Zouaves. In early 1861, a group of actors claiming to be veterans of the Crimean War toured the country as a drill team patterned after the Algerian Zouaves. The Zouaves' uniforms varied but usually consisted of a red fez, a dark blue, loose fitting jacket trimmed and embroidered with gold cord, a dark blue vest with yellow trim, blue cummerbund, baggy red pantaloons, black leather leggings, and white gaiters. This Zouave drill team toured several cities in Louisiana and thrilled everyone with its close-order drill, colorful uniforms, and French drill commands. By March, 1861, the Zouaves were so popular in Louisiana that Coppens hoped to pattern his command after them.

Coppens quickly organized several companies, most of whose members were foreigners of Louisianians of French extraction. It was claimed that Coppens received permission from the mayor of New Orleans to set up recruiting stations within city jails to give criminals a choice between prison or military service. This is probably an exaggeration, but the battalion's subsequent record of lawlessness lends credence to claim. In late March the battalion left New Orleans for Pensacola, Florida, where it was mustered into service as the 1st Battalion, Louisiana Zouaves.⁴

Compensation for Louisiana's recruits became fierce as the war crisis deepened. By the end of April the state was offering ten dollars to anyone who joined a state regiment and an additional two dollars for each friend induced to sign up. Since some parishes also offered bounties, many potential recruits traveled form parish to parish looking for the best offer. Local planters and businessmen even competed against one other by offering to supply weapons and uniforms to volunteers, with the understanding that they would be elected captain of the company or the company would be named in their honor, this practice led to individualized uniforms and weapons and caused regimental commanders much grief when trying to standardize their units' equipment.⁵

A. Keene Richards, a wealthy New Orleans citizen, outfitted the famed Tiger Rifles. But unlike some businessmen, Richards apparently made no demands in return for his support. This company adopted the popular Zouave dress and wore scarlet skullcaps with long tassels, red shirts, blue jackets, baggy blue trousers with white stripes, and white leggings. On each man's hatband were painted such slogans as "Lincoln’s Life or a Tiger's Death," "Tiger in Search of a Black Republican," and "Tiger in Search of Abe." Recruited from the back alleys, levees, and jails of New Orleans, the Tiger Rifles became notorious for their thievery and brawling. The company was organized and led by Captain Alex White, a former mate on a Mississippi River packet. Rumored to be the son of a prominent governor, the mysterious White supposedly had changed his name and fled his native state after being convicted of killing a man during a poker game.⁶

White's Tiger Rifles became part of Major Roberdeau Wheat's 1st Special Battalion, Louisiana Volunteers. Born in Virginia to an Episcopal minister, Wheat served as an officer in the Mexican War and fought in Cuba, Mexico, and Nicaragua with various private expeditions. The thirty-five-year-old lawyer and soldier of fortune was serving with Garibaldi in Italy when South Carolina seceded. He immediately returned to the United States and while in New York was approached by his old commander, General Winfield Scott, who urged him to join the Union forces. Wheat declined and headed for Montgomery to try to obtain a commission in the Confederate army, no commissions were available, however, so he continued on to his home in New Orleans to raise his own company-the Old Dominion Guards. Wheat was later elected major of the 1st Special Battalion and won a lasting place in history as commander of the famed Louisiana Tiger Battalion. A strapping six feet, four inches, in height and weighing 275 pounds, he proved to be the only man capable of handling the rowdy Tigers. "His men loved him-and they feared him," one soldier wrote, "The power or spell he had over his men was truly wonderful."⁷

Wheat's Battalion was a potpourri of men who ranged in status from lawyers and merchants to pickpockets and pimps. Richard Taylor wrote years later that "so villainous was the reputation of this battalion that every commander desired to be rid of' it." One company, the Walker Guards, consisted of soldiers of fortune who had served under William Walker in Nicaragua. The Perret Guards, by contrast, were gamblers, and membership in the company was reserved for those able to "cut, shuffle, and deal on the point of a bayonet." Historians usually cite the Catahoula Guerrillas, a company of planter's sons, as being the tamest unit in Wheat's Tigers. Although they were not usually associated with the villainous acts committed by the rest of the battalion, they were referred to as "Free Booters and Robbers" by one officer when they left their hometown, which suggests that they may not have been as innocent as previously believed.⁸

Like many of Louisiana's commands, Wheat's Battalion contained a large number of foreigners that is men born in foreign countries, although some of them were naturalized citizens. In 1860, 11.4 percent of Louisiana's population was foreign-born--the most of any southern state. State officials recognized the importance of this segment of the population and made a special effort to incorporate it into the war effort. To promote foreign enlistments, newspaper advertisements frequently called for recruits for such companies as the Scotch Rifle Guards, British Guards, and Irish Brigade.⁹

The largest group of foreign-born in Louisiana was the Irish. State officials attempted to raise a brigade from among the thousands of Irishmen who were working as laborers on Louisiana's plantations, levees, and wharves. The attempt was a dismal failure, however, for only two companies were organized and later attached to Colonel Isaac G. Seymour's predominantly Irish 6th Louisiana Volunteers. Seymour was a fifty-seven-year-old Yale University graduate, a successful newspaper editor, and had been the first mayor of Macon, Georgia. Under Winfield Scott he led a company of volunteers against the Seminole Indians in 1863 and a regiment of volunteers in the Mexican War. In 1848, Seymour moved to New Orleans, where he became editor of the city's leading financial newspaper, the Commercial Bulletin, As commander of the 6th Louisiana, Seymour was described as being "a brave gentleman but [an] inefficient, slow officer." He often had difficulty controlling his Irishmen, for the 6th Louisiana was found to be "turbulent in camp and requiring a strong hand."¹⁰

In the spring of 1861, Major Gaspard Tochman, a native of Poland, arrived in New Orleans to promote foreign enlistments through the organization of a Polish brigade. Tochman first came to the United States after being exiled by Russia for his participation in the Polish Revolution of' 1830. Once here, he became a popular lecturer on Poland and cultivated the friendship of prominent government officials. In May, 1861, Tochman received permission from his friend Jefferson Davis to raise two regiments of Poles. Since there were only 196 Polish men, women, and children residing in Louisiana in 1860, the real intent of the brigade was to induce other foreign groups to enlist. Tochman's plan was a success, for two "Polish regiments" were raised, although they mainly consisted of other nationalities. These two regiments were separated instead of being consolidated into one brigade, with the Ist Polish Regiment designated as the 14th Louisiana Volunteers and the 2d Polish Regiment the 3d Battalion, Louisiana Infantry.¹¹

Colonel Valery Sulakowski was made commander of' the 14th Louisiana. Like Wheat, Sulakowski was a strict disciplinarian and perhaps the only officer capable of controlling the wild soldiers of his command. Born in Poland to a noble family, he received his military training during the 1848 Hungarian uprising against Austria. When the revolution failed, Sulakowski fled to the United States and settled in New Orleans as a civil engineer. Sulakowski eagerly supported Tochman's efforts to raise a Polish brigade and was rewarded with the command of the 1st Polish Regiment. His men's diverse nationalities and languages made them difficult to manage and forced Sulakowski to rule with an iron fist. He was described by one soldier as "a most exacting military commander, disciplinarian, and organizer" and as the "incarnation of military law-despotic, cruel and absolutely merciless." Sulakowski's men never became fond of him, although they did admire his talents. He was, one Louisianan claimed, "without doubt the best colonel in the service."¹²

Although thousands of foreigners joined Louisiana units, patriotism was not always the prime motivator. Shortages in state levee funds threw many Irishmen out of work before the war and forced them to enlist to survive. Other foreigners were literally shanghaied into the army. One English correspondent in New Orleans wrote, "British subjects have been seized, knocked down, carried off from their labor at the wharf and forced ... to serve." Other foreign nationals were forced into barracks and hogtied until they agreed to enlist. The British consulate in New Orleans was so swamped by pathetic pleas from its subjects that it finally pressured Governor Moore to discharge all English citizens so impressed. One company of the 1st Louisiana Volunteers had eight members discharged for this reason.¹³

Some Louisiana troops were sent to Pensacola, instead of Camp Moore, to Strengthen General Bragg forces there. Among these was the 1st Battalion, Louisiana Volunteers, under the dashing twenty-nine-year-old New Orleans socialite, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles D. Dreux. Dreux was educated in France, at Amherst College, and at two military institutes in Kentucky. After college he Studied law and became one of Kentucky's Whig delegates at the 1851 national convention, where he delivered an inspiring speech promoting Winfield Scott for president. Returning to New Orleans, he was later elected district attorney and state legislator and organized the Orleans Cadets when war loomed closer. This company consisted of New Orleans' most prominent young bachelors and claimed to have thirty-four men under eighteen years of age, with Dreux being the only married member. With four other companies, Dreux's men were dispatched to Pensacola and mustered into Confederate service as the 1st Battalion, Louisiana Volunteers-the first Louisiana unit to be accepted into the Confederate army. Dreux was elected lieutenant-colonel of the battalion and won the admiration of' his men by mixing strict military discipline while on duty with friendly familiarity while off.¹⁴

Coppens' Zouaves joined Dreux's Battalion to help protect Pensacola from the Union forces still occupying Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island. With their colorful uniforms and French aura, the Zouaves were the center of attention at Pensacola. One foreign correspondent who dined With them noted that many of Coppens' officers were veterans of European wars and that they were the only unit at Pensacola "with a military exactness." Mornings on the sandy beach were uniquely French, this Englishman wrote, as "the well known reveille of the Zouaves, and then French clangors, rolls, ruffles and calls ran along the line."¹⁵

As at Camp Moore, the Louisianians quickly became bored with their duty station at Pensacola; the monotony of camp life was relieved only by persistent rumors of an impending attack by the Union fleet. But after weeks in the broiling sun, even this threat of combat failed to arouse the men. As one put it, "I dread the mosquitoes and sand flies more than the black republicans." This same soldier reported that the insects and heat combined to make conditions miserable and make tempers flare. In a fit of anger, a Shreveport Grey once used a musket to crack the head of a New Orleans soldier who called him a liar, and a nearby saloon was placed off limits when the Louisiana soldier engaged in a barroom brawl there with civilians. Some of the men found this punishment unbearable--"kill me," they cried, "but don't take my whiskey."¹⁶

By late spring most of the commands destined for Virginia were organized and ready to ship out. In addition to the twelve thousand men who made up these units, a sizable number of camp followers went along as well. One New Orleans correspondent wrote that Coppens' Zouaves "had the good taste" to bring women with them to Pensacola to wash, cook, and clean their quarters, and four female companions of Wheat's Battalion had to be hauled from the front lines in a wagon just before the First Battle of Manassas. They were described by one observer as being "disgusting looking creatures," who were "all dressed up as men." Rose Rooney, however, was one woman who earned the respect of all the Louisiana soldiers. After enlisting as a regular member of the Crescent Blues to serve as the men's cook and nurse, she tore down a rail fence while under heavy fire during the First Battle of Manassas to allow a battery of artillery to enter the fight. She served with her company for four years and was still on the rolls as a regular company member when Lee surrendered at Appomattox.¹⁷

At least twenty-four nationalities were represented among the 12,000 Tigers who left Louisiana in 1861. Original muster rolls give the birthplaces of approximately 7,000 of these men. Of these, only 2,303 were native Louisianians, with the largest group of recruits (2,485) being from other states-mostly poor white farmers who migrated to the piney woods of North Louisiana from other southern states. There were almost as many foreign-born soldiers as native Louisianians. The muster rolls show 2,268 men born outside the United States, most of them serving in New Orleans companies. The breakdown of these men according to place of birth is, as follows:¹⁸

                Ireland              1,463          Belgium                    5

                Germany              412          Denmark                  4

                England                160          Norway                   4

                France                   74          Italy                         4

                Canada                  50          Cuba                        3

                Scotland                 31          Brazil                       3

                Switzerland            13          Russia                      2

                West Indies            12          Hungary                   1

                Sweden                    7          Holland                    1

                Mexico                    6          Spain                       1

                Poland                     6          Martinique                1

                Nassau                     5

On June 1, 1861, Coppens' Battalion departed from Pensacola for Richmond on what became one of the stormiest train rides in military history. The Zouaves' officer’s precipitated trouble when they chose to leave their men unattended and rode in a special car at the end of the train, At the first stop the officers left their car to enjoy a quiet breakfast at the station, but they were quickly interrupted by a shrill whistle and the low rumble of moving cars. Rushing to the windows, the startled officers saw their special car sitting beside the station while their men and train slowly disappeared down the tracks. The Zouaves had quietly uncoupled the officers' car and hijacked the train. Cursing in their respective languages, the officers quickly wired for another locomotive and were soon in hot pursuit of their runaway men.

The Zouaves arrived in Montgomery, Alabama, long before their enraged leaders. The tension and frustration built up at Pensacola were unleashed as the Zouaves embarked upon a drunken spree of looting, robbery, and harassment. After an hour of rampant destruction, city officials called out the 1st Georgia Volunteers to restore order. With loaded muskets and fixed bayonets, the Georgians were forcing the Zouaves out of the stores when the abandoned officers finally pulled into town.

With drawn revolvers, the fuming officers sprang from the moving train and ran toward the drunken mob. "The charge of the Light Brigade," one witness recalled, "was surpassed by these irate Creoles." Into the midst of the mob they ran, cursing some, pistol whipping others. One young lieutenant noticed a huge sergeant emerging from a store with an armload of shoes. The startled soldier only hesitated when the young officer yelled for him to drop his loot, so the lieutenant, ran up, grabbed him by the throat, and cracked his head with the pistol barrel. The sergeant collapsed as if pole-axed, but the officer simply roared, "Roll that carrion into the streets!" as he stalked off to seek more of his men.¹⁹

After a half hour of cursing and beatings, the Zouaves finally dropped their plunder, fell into line, and reluctantly reboarded the train to continue their trip toward Richmond. Bloodied and sullen from the experience, Coppens' men were hardly in a cooperative spirit. Along the way one Zouave was shot and killed by a company officer and another was accidentally killed under unknown circumstances. The train crew was horrified when others began riding on top of the train and on the couplings between the cars. When warned of the danger, the Zouaves only cursed the crew, laughed hysterically, and clung tighter. One was killed when the train passed under a low bridge, and three others on the couplings were crushed to death when the train lurched suddenly.

At Columbia, South Carolina, the Zouaves again ran amuck. "Sich it shooting of cattle and poultry, sich a yelling and singing of their darned french stuff'-sich a rolling of drums and damming of officers, I arn't hear yit," declared one railroad agent. Reflecting on the trip so fair, he added, "and I'm.jest a-thinkin' ef this yere reegement don't stop a-fightin' together, being shot by the Georgians and beat by their officers-not to mention a jammin' up on railroads-they're gwine to do darned leetle sarvice a-fightin' of Yanks!"

Despite their riotous reputation, Coppens' Zouaves impressed civilians with their Gallic uniforms and military bearing. After watching them pass through Petersburg, Virginia, one onlooker wrote a friend:

When the Zouaves stormed Richmond a few days later, a local newspaper reported that the city was "thrown into a paroxysm of excitement" by their arrival. One man who witnessed their entry wrote home that the battalion was "composed of 'Wharf Rats' of New Orleans. & look wilder, & are usually drunker than any Indians. They are the lions of the town now & cut out all the other uniforms."²¹

The citizens of Richmond had heard of the Louisianians ' wild train ride and were curious about the much publicized Zouaves. Their curiosity was soon satisfied: "From the time of their appearance in Richmond," remembered one resident, "robberies became frequent. Whenever a Zouave was seen something was sure to be missed." Housed at first on the second floor of a warehouse, the Zouaves eluded guards posted at doorways by using their sashes as ropes and exiting out the windows. They then "roamed about the city like a pack of untamed wildcats." Stalking into saloons, they ordered "what they wished to eat and drink, and then direct[ed] the dismayed proprietor to charge their bill to the government." "Thieving, burglary, and garroting in the streets at night" were common as long as the Zouaves were in town. Understandably, "the, whole community, both military and civil, drew a long breath of relief"' when they were, dispatched to Yorktown on June 10.²²

The 14th Louisiana Volunteers rivaled Coppens' Battalion for being the most feared Louisiana command. While making the trek to Virginia the regiment turned a routine stop at Grand Junction, Tennessee, into a bloody fratricidal battle. During the layover, Colonel Sulakowski ordered the closure of all liquor stores and posted guards to prevent the men from entering them. Many of the soldiers were inebriated before Sulakowski issued his orders, however, for they had smuggled aboard the train two barrels of whiskey and were even issued rations of liquor during the ride to Tennessee. Infuriated by the colonel’s orders, these intoxicated men proceeded to defy Sulakowski openly by slipping into the Stores through back windows. An underlying tension of personal jealousies and petty grievances over the election of certain officers combined with this drunkenness to set of a vicious riot.

Sulakowski’s guards tried to prevent the men from entering the stores, but they were quickly overpowered by the drunkards. When some officers and guards tried to subdue the men at one saloon, a bloody brawl erupted after a guard bayoneted one soldier. The drunken mob quickly disarmed the guards and began pouring into the town's streets. Luckily, the regiment had not been fully equipped and the weapons seized by the rioters were empty; only the officers' revolvers were loaded.

As the mob became uncontrollable, a pistol shot rang out from a young lieutenant's revolver, followed in quick succession by others. Several rioters fell, but the surviving horde of screaming, cursing men chased the officers into a nearby hotel and set fire to the building even though several hundred civilians were also inside; loyal soldiers and civilians were able to extinguish the fire, but the rioters succeeded in breaking into the hotel. They "rushed in like a mob of infuriated devils," wrote one newspaper. "Drawers were torn open, the contents were destroyed, the furniture was broken and pitched out, the dining room table was thrown over and all the table furniture broken, the chairs smashed to pieces, and such a general wreck you have never witnessed in a civilized community."²³ Into the midst of this wreckage swaggered Colonel Sulakowski. Eyes flashing and lips blue with rage, he screamed to the mutineers, "Go to your quarters!" One man hesitated and was dropped by a pistol ball from the colonel's drawn revolvers. Another was shot in the face by Sulakowski but jumped back to his feet, spit out a tooth, and continued on his way. A sergeant trying to help officers control the men failed to move quickly enough for Sulakowski and was mistaken for a rioter. The sergeant was killed by the quick-shooting colonel in front of his wife, who had traveled to Grand junction to visit him.

The pistol-wielding Sulakowski soon cleared the hotel of rioters with the help of other officers who followed his example. The battle then continued in the streets for another hour, but finally, after seven men lay dead and nineteen wounded, the mutineers were subdued. Surveying the carnage, one newspaper reported, "The hotel looks like a hospital after a hard fought battle. The dead and wounded are strewn all over the second floor." Sulakowski was enraged over the incident and bitterly denounced several of his officers for allowing the situation to get out of hand. He later had the Franco Rifle Guards disbanded for being the major instigators of the riot. The company's officers were forced to resign by the secretary of war, and the enlisted men were distributed among the regiment's other companies.²⁴"

The violent nature of the foreign-dominated 14th Louisiana Volunteers and Coppens' Battalion convinced many people that all Louisiana soldiers were cut from the same mold. As word of their exploits spread, and as they continued their depredations in Virginia, fear and dread of Louisiana soldiers began to permeate civilian and military life in the Old Dominion. Of course, the belief that all Louisianians were thieves, drunkards, and brawlers was wrong, for other Louisiana commands made the trip to Virginia without incident. Drinking was just as prevalent among these men, but it did not cause the trouble it did with Coppens' and Sulakowski's troops. Lieutenant-Colonel Charles de Choiseul of the 7th Louisiana wrote that his regiment "rattled quietly along, for a couple of days, nothing more exciting happening than the contest between the officers, & a portion of the men. The latter seemingly bent on trying the experiment of how much whiskey they could consumer while the former were endeavoring to make them members of the total abstinence society."²⁵

For most Louisianians the journey to Virginia was a gay outing, with civilians jubilantly welcoming them to their towns and hailing the Tigers as liberating-heroes. B. C. Cushman of the 1st Louisiana wrote, "At every little town and village [in Tennessee], the inhabitants (especially the ladies) greeted us with cheers and welcomed us to their soil, opened their doors to us all and treated us to the best fare they had without charging any one a single cent." After crossing into Virginia, the 1st Louisiana was treated "more in the manner of the Prince of Wales than as common soldiers." Sometimes the officers wired ahead to the next station to alert the citizens of their impending arrival. By the time the regiment arrived, "we would find [the town] thronged with ladies moving their handkerchiefs, tossing us flowers, and bidding us to be of good cheer, and fight like brave fellows."²⁶

Similar receptions greeted other Louisiana commands. The spring of 1861 was an exciting time; war was still glorious-and bloodless. Within a few months, it was believed, the Yankees would be vanquished and the gray-clad warriors of the Pelican State would be returning to Louisiana in victory. The only concern for most Tigers was to reach the contested field before peace broke out.

All of the Louisiana commands suffered heavily from disease that summer of' 1861. During August, 239 of 421 men in Wheat's Battalion and approximately, one-half of Dreux's Battalion were taken ill. Of the 600 men in Coppens' Battalion, fewer than 100 were fit for duty that September. No other unit, however, matched the farm boys of Taylor's 9th Louisiana in falling victim to epidemics. Their Centreville campground was the first place most had ever been exposed to such diseases as measles, mumps, and typhoid. By August nearly 100 men had died or been medically discharged, and so many others were sick that the regiment could barely muster 300 men for duty. Everyone hoped cooler weather would slow the raging epidemics, but winter brought severe cases of pneumonia that winter 6 of the Bienville Blues contracted the dreaded illness and died within a three week period. Death became so common place, wrote Richard Colbert, that "the death of one of our poor soldiers is hardly noticed. One of the Bossier boys died day before yesterday and one of ours yesterday and it seemed to me that it was not noticed no more than if a dog had died."²⁷

During their first year in Virginia, the Tigers could attribute little homesickness to shortages in food and clothing. Unlike later times, when the Confederate soldier was usually ill-clothed and poorly fed, the Louisianians enjoyed a fairly comfortable rookie year. In July, 1861, the four companies from Caddo Parish received $1,500 each to buy supplies, and that autumn the 9th Louisiana received several large shipments of goods. One such delivery contained 12 cases of blankets, 872 pairs of drawers, 400 flannel shirts, 400 jackets, 400 pairs of pants, and 22 dozen pairs of socks. Along with these regimental supplies were numerous bundles addressed to individual soldiers, Typical of these was the one received by R. L. Tanner containing three towels, two blankets, one pillow, a pair of pants, a pocketknife, a necktie, a cake of soap, a comb, and a bottle of medicine.²⁸

Food was usually plentiful that first year, and few complaints were registered about its quality or quantity. The 2d Louisiana's B. C. Cushman wrote from Norfolk, "We fare finely here, get more vegetables and strawberries and cream than we know what to do with. I think this is the greatest vegetable market in the world. And besides we get any quantity of fish of every description. I am living and growing fat on oysters and soft shell crabs." Despite the plentifulness of food and clothing, the Louisianians did have to suffer through a few lean times. During a June retreat on the Peninsula; all the extra clothing in Coppens' Battalion was destroyed. When the remaining clothes wore out, the familiar Zouave uniforms were lost forever. Two months later, other Louisianians on the Peninsula endured a temporary food shortage and for a short time subsisted on "five ears of green corn & a piece of fat pork." Even during these rare times of want, however, the Tigers were usually able to Purchase needed goods from camp sutlers and local merchants.²⁹

Because of this abundance of food, large, elaborate dinners were often held by enlisted men and officers alike. Major Roberdeau Wheat became famous for his gourmet meals at Manassas, where he and Colonel Frederick A. Skinner of the 1st Virginia Volunteers engaged in a friendly contest to see who was better at creating excellent cuisine. Skinner found it difficult to top Wheat's "cabeza de buey al ranchero"-an ox head, with skin and horns intact, covered in a pit of coals and baked like a potato. To prepare the meal, Wheat decapitated an ox, sewed loose skin over the neck cut, and buried the head in the coals at tattoo. At next morning's reveille, Skinner returned to watch the unearthing: "The head, when dug up and brought into the tent covered with ashes and dirt, was, I think, about as repulsive an object as my eyes ever beheld, but giving out a most appetizing odor. The dirt and ashes were brushed off and the skin and horns speedily and skillfully removed, and lo! a metamorphosis occurred. . . . We had before us a dish as grateful to the eye as it was to the nostrils." After stuffing themselves, Wheat's guests declared that the unusual breakfast was a "gastronomic triumph" and proclaimed the major a culinary genius. Wheat's hospitality did not end here. In the autumn of 1861 he entertained Generals Joseph E. Johnston, Jubal Early, Gustavus Smith, and Earl Van Dorn with a "Tiger Dinner." While the generals wined and dined inside the party tent, Wheat's Tigers became roaring drunk outside and spent the night racing around the tent on the generals' horses,³⁰

Because of their unique use of the French language, several Louisiana commands became the objects of bemused curiosity upon their arrival in Virginia. After witnessing one Louisiana officer put his men through battalion drill, a Georgian declared, "That-thurr furriner he calls out er lot er gibberish, an them-thur Dagoes jes maneuver-up like Hell-beatin'tanbark! Jes' like he was talkin' sense!" The 15th Alabama once camped beside Sulakowski's regiment and took delight in sitting around the parade ground each day after completing its own drill sessions to watch "Colonel Sooli Koski" take out his men. One Alabama officer recalled, "The foreign accent of Sooli Koski and the alacrity and precision with which his men obeyed his commands, not a word of which we could understand, presented a good entertainment for the edification of our officers and men." To integrate the Louisianians more fully into the command structure, Confederate authorities eventually ordered the Tigers to abandon the use of French and to adopt English commands.³¹

General McLaws, under whom the 10th Louisiana was eventually placed, found it difficult even to communicate with that regiment's officers. The 10th was led by Colonel Mandeville Marigny, son-in-law of Louisiana's first governor, William C. C. Claiborne, and a former French cavalry officer who had been invited by the French to study at the Saumur Military College. Marigny organized his regiments along the lines of a French army unit. Consisting of soldiers from a dozen different nations, the 10th Louisiana seemed to be an army from Babel with the strange, bewildering jabbering of its members. When Marigny and his adjutant first reported to McLaws, the resultant interview was difficult because of this language barrier. The general wrote his wife, "Indeed, the Colonel & Adjutant who have just left my tent speak English but indifferently well. The Adjutant did not say much. I think but two words & I do not believe he can talk English."³²

The off-duty activities of the Tigers were not as amusing as their speech, for all the Louisiana commands on the Peninsula openly killed livestock and created havoc in any town unlucky enough to be located near one of their camps. Dreux's Battalion and the 5th Louisiana publicly bayoneted hogs, and McLaws once claimed that in the twelve hours the 10th Louisiana was camped on Jamestown Island its members "eat up every living thing on the Island but two horses and their own species." The Richmond provost marshal's record of arrests for this time also shows numerous Tigers being arrested for robbery, desertion, forgery, and drawing double pay through fraudulent means.³³

While en route to North Carolina for a brief tour of duty, Sulakowski's 14th Louisiana reenacted its famous Grand Junction riot. As on their earlier train ride, some men prepared for the journey by freely indulging in whiskey and began brawling among themselves aboard the train. Upon reaching Petersburg, Virginia, the feuding soldiers had to disembark and march into town because tracks were not yet laid through the city. It was not long before the soldiers took their squabble into the streets, using "paving stones, clubs, bowie knives, and every available weapon that was at hand." As at Grand junction, the regiment's officers tried to quell the rioters but were attacked immediately. One lieutenant was seriously injured with three stab wounds, and a store owner's wife was chased by knife-wielding Tigers when she protested the looting of her business. Order was finally restored by the officers and loyal soldiers, but non before the Tigers' reputation for violent behavior was further enhanced.³⁴

Coppens' Battalion had the most lawless reputation of all the Louisiana commands on the Peninsula. One Virginian camped near the Zouaves conceded that they were excellent soldiers but wrote, "The pirates are from the dregs of all nations and the ten days they were here, they killed some eighteen or twenty head of cattle." Another soldier, hearing that his company was to be transferred to Coppens' Battalion, exclaimed, "The men swear they will be shot first." So blatantly did Coppens' men raid neighboring farms and pastures that General Magruder was forced to denounce them publicly one hot, sultry day in June during an inspection of his six thousand troops. After a short speech thanking certain regiments for their bravery during a skirmish at Big Bethel, Magruder cautiously approached Coppens' Battalion. Standing rigidly at attention in their fezzes and blue flannel jackets, the Zouaves" sweated profusely while their commanding officer berated them for the rash of cattle killings. One witness wrote that Magruder "Informed the Zouaves that he had heard of their depredations and that they must be stopped, or every man who was guilty of [such] conduct . . . should be shot immediately." One Tar Heel claimed that the reputation of the Zouaves was so fierce that officers felt they might mutiny if pressed too hard on the issue, and many soldiers believed Magruder chose this particular time to deliver his harangue because he had six thousand men behind him.³⁵

The tension that developed between the Tigers and their generals gradually diminished as McLaws and Magruder learned to enjoy the lighter side of their feisty soldiers. In October, McLaws wrote his wife that the 10th Louisiana had "warmly invited" him several times to Williamsburg, where the soldiers were “giving parties and picnics, singing and serenading." He also told her some Tiger anecdotes that were circulating around camp. One Frenchman, who was lying prostrate in high grass hiding from officers and waiting for a nearby pig to wander within reach, was beaten to his prey by a North Carolina soldier, who suddenly appeared and boldly shot the hog. Rising up on his hands, the 'Tiger surprised the Tar Heel by shouting, "A, Ha! De Zouave is not the only one who stole de pig, some body else is the damned rascal besides." When two other- Louisianians were caught red-handed pulling boards off a house, the owner demanded to know their units. With a straight face, one Tiger replied in a heavy French accent, "Ve belongs to the first Georgiy." Nonsense, the civilian shot back: Georgians did not have that accent. "Vera well," shrugged the soldier, "Bonjour," and off the two went, clutching the boards.³⁶

In his attempt to win the Tigers' confidence, General Magruder sometimes overplayed his hand. He once issued a general order for the Louisianians immediately to engage any enemy encountered- even if faced with fifty-to-one odds. The Tigers were pleased that Magruder held such confidence in them, but one of Dreux's men later recalled, "Crazy as we were at that period regarding our ability to eat up such a number of live Yankees before breakfast, it began to dawn upon the intellects of most of us that fifty to one was slightly in excess of what we had calculated upon."³⁷

In early 1862 Dreux's men found an opportunity to impress Magruder in a way other than fighting Yankees. A "burlesque circus" was organized. to entertain residents of the surrounding area, and during the festival season a Mardi Gras parade was held. This event involved about two hundred battalion members, who wanted to show the people of Williamsburg a real Mardi Gras celebration. Materials for costumes were gathered from all over town, and on Mardi Gras day a long, wild procession wound through the streets, halting at Magruder's headquarters. As a practical joke, Billy Campbell, one of Dreux's men, dressed as a girl strode gracefully into Magruder's office on the arm of Ned Phelps, another member of the battalion. Phelps very properly introduced his escort to the unsuspecting general and claimed the baby-faced Campbell was a sister of one of the battalion's soldiers. The gallant Magruder quickly took the "lady's" hand and began entertaining Campbell with drink, and lively conversation. During this interlude, other battalion members entered the room above Magruder, ripped apart a feather mattress and shoveled the feathers through cracks in the floor. Magruder was covered with feathers, but the Tigers simply laughed and yelled that it was a "Louisiana snowstorm!" While the confused Magruder tried to make sense of all this, Campbell and Phelps quietly slipped away, leaving the puzzled general standing alone amid his Louisiana "snow."³⁸

Ned Phelps, the ringleader of the Mardi Gras caper, had another encounter with Magruder on the Peninsula. During a night march, Phelps slipped away from the battalion to forage and at daybreak came upon a farmhouse where he discovered Magruder and his staff about to sit down to breakfast. Seeing a vacant chair, the private plopped down as well and hungrily eyed the meal. Amazed at the man's gall, Magruder leaned back in his chair and asked, "Young man, are you aware whom you are breakfasting with?" "Well," mused Phelps, "before I came soldiering I used to be particular whom I ate with, but now I don't care a damn-so [long as] the victuals are clean." Magruder snickered helplessly at this honest retort and declared, "Young man, stay where you are and have what you want." Despite his begrudging admiration of Phelps's style, Magruder must have had his fill of the impetuous soldier for in June, 1862, the general personally granted a transfer for Phelps to the Washington Artillery.³⁹

The tumultuous activity of Coppens', Sulakowski's, and Marigny's Louisianians created a tarnished image of the Pelican soldiers that never faded. From the Peninsula, the 10th Louisiana's Father Louis-Hippolyte Gache wrote, "The Louisiana soldiers have gained a reputation for pilfering and general loutishness that as soon as anyone sees them coming they bolt the doors and windows. Usually any affiliation at all with the Louisiana boys is enough to assure one a cold welcome no matter where he shows his face."⁴⁰

Although the Peninsula was where the Tigers' reputation was largely born, it was near Manassas and Centreville that the term "Louisiana Tiger" came into being. Wheat's Battalion earned its nom de gueere because of' its fierce fighting at First Manassas and subsequent career of unbridled lawlessness. The title was most probably taken from the Zouave Company, Tiger Rifles, because its members were the most conspicuous and proved to be the wildest of Wheat's men. The term was widely used by the autumn of 1861, and because the deeds of the Peninsula Louisianians received so much publicity, it was soon applied to all of the state's soldiers in Virginia.

Wheat's Battalion quickly became a command that was feared by civilians and soldiers alike. In recalling his first view of these original Louisiana Tigers, one Alabaman wrote that they were dressed in "half-savage uniforms" and were "adventurers, wharf-rats, cutthroats, and bad characters generally." Another soldier remembered years later, "I was actually afraid of them, afraid I would meet them somewhere and that they would do me like they did Tom Lane of my company; knock me down and stamp me half to death." Even other Louisianians were leery of Wheat's men. Henry Handerson and the Stafford Guards found "considerably to our horror" that their company had to stand in line next to the Tiger Battalion during brigade drill.⁴¹

These soldiers had good reason to be fearful, for Wheat's men proved to be a reckless lot. Shortly after their baptism of fire at First Manassas, Captain Alex White challenged one of General Richard S. Ewell's aides to a duel after the officer spoke disparagingly of White's men. Choosing rifles, the two officers proceeded with the duel, which ended tragically when White's opponent was "bored through just above the hips, and died in great agony." Soon after this incident, the men whose honor White defended engaged in a bloody, drunken brawl in the streets of Lynchburg. These Tiger Rifles so threatened the town's safety that its citizens were finally compelled to organize an armed guard and forcibly jail the drunken mob before the town was wrecked.⁴²

Wheat's men were involved in two other melees within a few months. Somehow, Wheat's Battalion and the 1st Kentucky Volunteers developed bad blood and had to be separated in camp to keep the peace. At one new camp near Centreville, however, this routine procedure was overlooked and the two commands were bivouacked adjacent to each other. That night while Out on the town, two gangs of drunken Tigers and Kentuckians met in the streets and engaged in a violent street battle, each band attacking the other with paving stones. The noisy rocks bouncing off the frame houses awakened the town and created such a ruckus that a company of infantry had to be sent from camp to separate the men.⁴³

Later that winter a dozen Tigers took on an entire company of the 21st Georgia Volunteers when the Georgians absconded with the Louisianians ' whiskey after the Tigers offered them a drink from their bottle. The Georgians' captain emerged from his tent to investigate the row and found several Tigers crumpled in the snow. The battered soldiers were gathered up and taken into the captain's tent, where they were treated to a drink and an apology by the Georgian when he learned of the circumstances. As they were leaving, however, the captain warned them that they could have been killed if he had not intervened. The Tigers were reluctant to leave an unfinished fight and called defiantly over their shoulders, "We are much obliged, sor, but Wheat's Battalion kin clean up the whole damn Twenty-first Georgia any time."⁴⁴

Whiskey proved to be the common denominator in the incidents of misbehavior among the Louisianians at Centreville and on the Peninsula. Although enlisted men were officially forbidden to have whiskey in the camps, the "Louisiana Brigade," wrote one soldier, "being mostly city or river men, knew the ropes; and could get it from Richmond.," One member of the 8th Louisiana paid a heavy price for his drinking when he froze to death in November, 1861, after getting drunk and passing out in the snow."⁴⁵

Officers seemed to be the greatest abusers of liquor because they were free to purchase it from camp sutlers. The 7th Louisiana sutler's ledger shows that one captain bought eight and a half gallons and one canteen of whiskey in less than two weeks, and Colonel Harry T. Hays purchased five bottles of brandy, one canteen of whiskey, and one bottle of wine in nine days. The account of Captain J. Moore Wilson, however, put all others to shame. It reads as follows:

          August         20-one pint of brandy

                             21-two quarts of brandy

        September     12-one canteen of brandy

                 19-one bottle of brandy

                 20-three bottles of brandy

                 22-one bottle of brandy

                 23-one- bottle of brandy and one canteen of whiskey

                 24-three gallons of whiskey

                 25-one- canteen of whiskey

                 26-one- Flask of brandy

                 28-two gallons of whiskey and four bottles of brandy

                 29-two gallons of whiskey⁴⁶

Although it can be assumed that a good proportion of such purchases were made for other men, the Louisiana officers like Captain Wilson were famous for their heavy consumption of spirits. Colonel Isaac G. Seymour complained bitterly about his officers' drinking habits and reported to his son that "some dozen or so of-them are low vulgar fellows . . . [who] inhabit whiskey tubs." Drinking so affected the performance of the 6th Louisiana that Seymour once pointed out the offenders by name and publicly rebuked them in front of their men during dress parade. The officers of the 2d Louisiana were nearly as bad. During a patrol in December, 1861, they allowed their men to stand outside in freezing weather while they adjourned to a nearby house to get drunk.⁴⁷

Because of the Tigers' recklessness and abuse of alcohol, court martials became a familiar occurrence in the Louisiana camps. Fighting, often alcohol-induced, was one of the most common reasons for such trials. From August 3 to September 3, 1861, there were four reported fights within the 2d Louisiana, two of which resulted in stabbings. Sentences were the same at Centreville as on the Peninsula and appear to have been cruel and unusual punishment by today's Standards. When convicted of killing a hog, some members of the 9th Louisiana were sentenced to carry a rail on their shoulders for alternating periods of two hours for eight days. Drunkenness was often punished by days of hard labor in the trenches, and insubordination usually carried sentences of wearing a ball and chain. One Louisianan found guilty of this latter offense drew twenty days at hard labor with a ball and chain, and one of Coppens' Zouaves had to wear the dreaded device for the duration of his three-year enlistment. Other common penalties for minor offenses were public reprimands, forfeiture of pay, confinement in the guardhouse, standing on the head of a barrel, and wearing a "barrel shirt" with a placard attached declaring the offense. On rare occasions men were cashiered from the service for certain offenses. When this occurred they were normally marched out of camp to the tune of the "Rogue's March." At the suggestion of Colonel Harry Hays, however, the Army of Northern Virginia eventually substituted "Yankee Doodle," because, as Hays put it, more rogues marched to its tune on any given day than to the "Rogue's March."⁴⁸

Not all discipline was handed out by official courts. The sergeant-major of the unruly Tiger Rifles was a former New Orleans prize fighter, who at six feet, six inches, in height, had no need for such formalities. About once a month he simply lined up his men, stripped off his coat, and menacingly growled, "Now men, yez have seen me lay down me stripes. If any of yez has anything agin me let him step out like a man and settle it with me." There were few takers.⁴⁹

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles de Choiseul found the Sulakowski method of discipline more appealing. After Major Wheat was badly wounded at First Manassas, de Choiseul was ordered temporarily to take command of Wheat's Battalion. "I am," he wrote a friend, the victim of circumstances, not of my own will.... Whether the Tigers will devour me, or whether I will succeed in taming them, remains to be seen." His moment of' truth came when "the whole set got royally drunk." During the day one drunken soldier twice snapped his loaded musket at de Choiseul's orderly when the orderly tried to arrest him outside the colonel's tent. Luckily the musket failed to discharge and the orderly was able to subdue him. Later in the day, de Choiseul reported, other unknown Tigers succeeded in "knocking down & badly beating & robbing ... a washer-woman, of the battalion in a thicket not a hundred yards from the guard house." The camp gradually settled down after that and de Choiseul retired for the night, only to be awakened at 10:30 p.m., by a free-for-all at the guard tent. Grabbing his revolver, he rushed out and found his guards battling seven or eight Tigers who were apparently trying to free some of their comrades. De Choiseul slugged one man who approached him threateningly and finally restored order "with seven or eight beauties bucked & gagged in the guard tent."⁵⁰

The next day de Choiseul noticed two Tigers casually walking out of camp toward Centreville. No privates were to leave camp without a signed pass, so the colonel rode over to investigate and was told that the orderly sergeant had given them permission to leave. Suspicious, de Choiseul then went to question the sergeant but wound up arresting him when the sergeant gave "an impudent

answer" to his inquiry. Ordered to his quarters by de Choiseul, the soldier swaggered off uttering oaths under his breath, while another Tiger came up to the colonel and began taking the side of the departing sergeant. When de Choiseul ordered this man to the guardhouse, the soldier refused. Furious at such insubordination, the mounted colonel picked the man up by the collar and threw him heavily to the ground. After picking himself up, the soldier still refused to leave, so de Choiseul knocked him to the ground a second time. By then several other Tigers had encircled de Choiseul and were pressing closer menacingly. Realizing the danger, the colonel fingered his revolver and sternly warned that he would shoot the first man who "raised a finger." The words were no sooner uttered than a "big double fisted ugly looking fellow came at me & said 'God damn you, shoot me.'" Not one to bluff, de Choiseul immediately drew his pistol and fired. "He turned as I fired & I hit him in the cheek, knocking out one upper jaw tooth & two lower ones on the other side & cutting his tongue." The other Tigers quickly, broke their encirclement and recoiled from the obviously dangerous colonel. "That quelled the riot," de Choiseul nonchalantly recalled.⁵¹

It was possibly this two-day episode that led to two of Wheat's Tigers becoming the first soldiers executed in the Virginia army. Michael O'Brien and Dennis Corcoran (or Corkeran) were convicted of being the ringleaders of a gang that beat up an officer and tried to free some of their friends from the guardhouse. Whether this was the same incident de Choiseul described is uncertain, but it likely was because de Choiseul's brawl occurred approximately one month before the executions took place. When O'Brien and Corcoran were sentenced to death, Wheat made an impassioned plea for leniency since one of them had risked his life by carrying the wounded Wheat from the Manassas battlefield. Brigade commander Richard Taylor, however, rejected Wheat's request because he felt strict discipline had to be established.

At 11:30 A.M., on December 9, the entire division formed a three sided square around a slight depression used as a natural amphitheater for the executions. Twelve men chosen by Taylor from the condemned men's own Tiger Rifles were drawn up to serve as executioners. While a band played the "Death March" the silent division watched as a covered wagon escorted by two companies with fixed bayonets slowly drove to the open side of the square. One witness described what happened:

Despite their crime, sympathy for the two Tigers was expressed among the on looking soldiers. In a last pathetic gesture, the two men had published their final thoughts in local newspapers. They pleaded for others not to fall victim to the vice of liquor and forgave those who were involved in their execution. Many soldiers recalled this statement as they watched the twelve executioners advance to within twenty yards of the condemned men. The firing squad was not aware of it, but one company of Colonel Henry B. Kelly's 8th Louisiana was standing behind them with loaded muskets. Fearing the Tigers might refuse to fire when ordered, Colonel Kelly was prepared to execute the executioners if the need arose. His concern was unwarranted, however, White ordered, "Ready! Aim! Fire!" and a dozen muskets split the crisp December air with a thunderous volley. The two men were dead by the time the echoes faded into the hills. In the hushed silence that followed, a lone Tiger broke ranks, ran up to one body, and gently held and caressed it. "it was heart-rendering," a correspondent wrote, "to see the poor brother's agony." Wheat, the only man in the division excused from attending the execution, broke down and cried in his tent at hearing the discharge of muskets. After the burial, many soldiers ghoulishly combed the death site for pieces of posts and other relics until the distraught Tiger Rifles angrily dispersed them with fixed bayonets.⁵³

These two Tigers paid with their lives for attacking one of their officers at the guardhouse. Although this case was extreme, enlisted men often did not hesitate to assault their officers verbally and physically, just as line officers sometimes took drastic measures to oust unpopular field grade officers. Nearly every Louisiana command on the Peninsula was racked by such personal rivalries and internal turmoil. In June, 1861, the company officers of Coppens' Battalion met en masse with General Magruder and threatened to resign and serve as privates if Coppens continued in command. They conceded that he was "a brave and good man" but said he was entirely without energy or the faculty to command." Magruder tried to defuse the situation by adding two Virginia companies to the battalion, raising it to regimental strength, and bringing in a new colonel, but this plan was rejected by Richmond and Coppens remained in command.⁵⁴

After getting into position, Wheat aligned his men perpendicular to the stream in a rolling field interspersed with patches of trees. The Catahoula Guerrillas had just been deployed as skirmishers at 9:45 A.M., when General Ambrose Burnside's Rhode Island brigade slipped through the forest with bayonets brightly reflecting the early morning sunlight. A sporadic fire broke out along the line as Burnside's 2d Rhode Island unexpectedly flushed out the Catahoula boys, who were hiding in the brush and weeds at the edge of the woods. These individual shots soon merged into long, roaring volleys as the rest of Burnside's line and six of his artillery joined in the fight. "The balls came as thick as hail," wrote one Guerrilla, "[and] grape, bomb and canister would sweep our ranks every minute." Outnumbered six to one, Wheat's men desperately hugged the ground or took cover behind scattered trees and answered the fire as best they could.⁵⁵

For crucial minutes the Louisianians and Rhode Island brigade fought alone, their battle lines surging back and forth across the rolling hills. But Wheat soon received help when the 4th South Carolina and two pieces of artillery finally arrived from the Stone Bridge. Evans placed the Carolinians in a patch of woods on Wheat's left, but in the smoke and confusion they mistook Wheat's men for federals and fired a volley into their flanks. The mistake was quickly corrected, but not before the Tigers turned and peppered the South Carolina line in return.⁵⁶

The din of battle became deafening as Evans' men were slowly forced back by the increasing federal numbers. Wheat and some of his Tigers drifted to the left in the confusing retreat and tried to make a stand around a field of haystacks. Dismounting, Wheat held his reins in one hand and with the other drew his sword and waved it overhead, calling on his men to rally around. Handfuls of Tigers were beginning to respond to his call when there was the sickening thud of lead hitting flesh. The major collapsed, drilled through the body by a ball that entered under his up stretched left arm and tore through one lung before passing out on the other side. Captain Buhoup rushed to Wheat's side and called on his Catahoula Guerillas to roll the major onto a blanket and use it as a litter to carry him to the rear. Grabbing the blanket's corners, the Tigers began their journey, when a couple of the bearers were shot down. Wheat tumbled hard to the ground and gasped, "Lay me down, boys, you must save yourselves." The Tigers adamantly refused to abandon him and called on others to lend a hand with the makeshift litter. Several more men rushed up, placed the Old Dominion Guards' flag over the stricken Wheat, and hustled him safely to the rear."

Although Wheat's and Evans' eleven companies had been steadily pushed back, they had maintained order and were effectively slowing the advance of thirteen thousand Yankees. The wounding of Wheat seriously threatened this resistance; however, for the sight of their apparently mortally wounded leader being carried from the field destroyed the Tigers' morale. Without effective leadership, the battalion quickly disintegrated, and the men drifted away in small groups to continue the fight alone or attached to other commands.

The federals saw the growing confusion in the Confederates' ranks and pressed their attack with increased vigor. One Tiger, his thigh shattered by a musket ball, struggled up on one elbow as his comrades began falling back past him. "Tigers go in once more," he cried. "Go in my sons, I'll be great gloriously God damn if the sons of bitches can ever whip the Tigers!" A number of Tigers then rallied, turned, and met this new Union charge with the aid of two newly arrived Confederate brigades under General Barnard Bee and Colonel F. S. Bartow. One survivor of the carnage that followed wrote, "I have been In battles several times before, but such fighting never was done, I do not believe as was done for the next half-hour, it did not seem as though men were fighting, it was devils mingling in the conflict, cursing, yelling, cutting, shrieking." It was during this phase of the battle that the Tigers earned their reputation as fierce fighters. Newspapers later claimed that the Tiger Rifles and Catahoula Guerrillas threw down their slow-firing Mississippi Rifles in disgust and charged the federals armed only with drawn knives. Some Louisianians, no doubt, did resort to their trusted blades in the bloody fight, but it is unlikely that two entire companies did so on mass-especially since the battalion's companies were so disorganized. Nevertheless, the story of the knife-wielding Tigers received national attention, and a legend was born.⁵⁷

Page 62, Lees Tigers

The good conduct displayed by Jones's and Henry St. Paul de Lechard's men during the Battle of Williamsburg should have improved the reputation of Louisiana's soldiers on the Peninsula. But the actions of one man during the campaign negated their contribution and almost irreparably blackened the name of the Tigers. Sometime during the retreat a number of captured wounded federals were carefully laid out on the ground near Fort Magruder. Soon a large group of curious Confederates crowded around the prisoners to catch a glimpse of a real live Yankee. One pitiful Union soldier was shot through the abdomen and rolled in agony on the ground, pleading with the Confederate guards to kill him and end his misery. At that moment, Coppens' Battalion marched by. Seeing the crowd of onlookers, several Zouaves dropped out of rank, walked over, and peeped through the encircling crowd. They were, remembered one Virginia soldier, "the most rakish and devilish looking beings I ever saw." After hearing the poor Yankee's agonizing pleas, one Zouave elbowed his way through the crowd, stood over the wounded man, and asked, "Put you out of your misery? Certainly, sir!" He then swiftly brought down his musket butt and crushed the man's skull. The crowd gasped and moved back from "this demon" in horror, but the Zouave simply looked around at the other wounded men and asked matter-of-factly, "Any Other gentlemen here like to be accommodated?" When no one answered, he disappeared through the crowd before anyone could react. Apparently the perpetrator of this gruesome deed was never brought to justice. Coppens' Battalion disappeared down the road toward Richmond, and a new atrocity was registered under the name of the Louisiana Tigers.⁵⁸

Page, 93 Lees Tigers

While Taylor's brigade was marching to glory in the Valley, the Tigers on the Peninsula were engaged in several less spectacular but bloody clashes near Richmond. Following the Battle of Williamsburg, Colonel Theodore Hunt's 5th Louisiana served as rear guard when Johnston withdrew his army closer to the embattled capital. After days of constant skirmishing with the pesky Union cavalry and infantry, Hunt's weary men finally crossed the Chickahominy River at New Bridge and encamped for a well deserved rest. On May 24, however, the 4th Michigan Volunteers discovered Hunt's camp while on a reconnaissance foray. While part of the Union regiment traded shots with three companies of Tigers posted at New Bridge, the rest of the 4th Michigan silently waded across the river upstream and moved down upon the unsuspecting Confederates. When the Union troops assailed the Tigers, the Louisianians hurriedly set fire to the bridge and fell back through their camp in confusion, leaving numerous dead and wounded behind. the fleeing Tigers soon met the 10th Georgia coming to their aid, rallied, and finally forced the Yankees to withdraw across the river. McClellan proudly shot off a wire to President Abraham Lincoln claiming that the 4th Michigan had "about finished [the] Louisiana Tigers." He was not far wrong, for at a loss of only ten men the Michigan boys had killed or wounded fifty Tigers and captured forty-three.⁵⁹

Only a week after this humiliating defeat, other Louisiana commands were thrown into savage fight along the Chickahominy River. While pursuing Johnston up the Peninsula, McClellan split his army across the sluggish Chickahominy, posting three of his army corps north of the stream and two south of it around Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. Seeing a chance to smash these two isolated corps, Johnston ord