The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign
The Louisiana Tigers had a reputation for fierceness in battle and worse in camp and on the march. Their name invoked terror among both foes and friends. Originally designated the 1st Louisiana Special Battalion, under the command of Maj. Chatham Roberdeau Wheat, the five companies fought at First Manassas, in the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign and in the Seven Days’ Campaign, in which Wheat was killed at Gaines’ Mill. In July 1862 the battalion was disbanded. The term Louisiana Tigers became primarily applied to Brig. Gen. Harry T. Hays’ 1st Louisiana Brigade, comprised of the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th Louisiana. When the Army of Northern Virginia marched north in June 1863, Hays’ brigade served in Jubal Early’s division. The Louisianans launched the key attack at the Battle of Second Winchester. Once Richard S. Ewell’s Second Corps entered Pennsylvania, the Tigers, like most of the Confederate veterans, enjoyed the wealth of foodstuffs and goods of the south-central region of the Keystone State. At Gettysburg, in evening shadows of July 2, the Tigers and Col. Isaac E. Avery’s North Carolinians assailed East Cemetery Hill in one of the battle’s most renowned and costly assaults. More than one-fourth of the Louisianans were killed, wounded or captured in the charge. Scott L. Mingus Sr. has written four other works on aspects of the Gettysburg Campaign. He is familiar with the sources, published and unpublished, on the operations before, during and after the three-day engagement. Consequently, this is a well-researched and finely written account of one of the best combat brigades in Robert E. Lee’s army. The author gives a detailed account of the Tigers’ days in the fertile Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania. The narrative is replete with the Louisianans’ words, which provide immediacy to the story. The book contains eight maps — two on Second Winchester and six on the Louisianans’ routes in Pennsylvania. Surprisingly, there is no map of their July 2 assault on East Cemetery Hill. Frankly, this omission is inexplicable. Nevertheless, Mingus’ book is a solid work on a renowned Confederate command in the Gettysburg Campaign. Reviewer: Jeffry D. Wert
Jeffry D. Wert is a retired Pennsylvania high school teacher. He is the author of eight books on the Civil War, including his recent Cavalryman of the Lost Cause: A Biography of J.E.B. Stuart.
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Maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, index, 315 pp., 2009. Louisiana State University Press,