Twenty-seventh Louisiana Volunteer Infantry

By Terry G. Scriber
Illustrated, maps, index, bibliography, 569 pp., 2006. Pelican Publishing Co., 1000 Burmaster St., Gretna, LA $35 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Richard M. McMurry
Richard M. McMurry is working on a study of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. He is the author of John Bell Hood And The War For Southern Independence, Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay In Confederate Military History and The Fourth Battle of Winchester: Toward a New Civil War Paradigm.

Review:
The 27th Louisiana Infantry Regiment 10 companies) came into official existence in April 1862 at Tangipahoa, 78 miles by rail north of New Orleans. On May 1 the unit left to join Confederate forces defending Vicksburg, Miss.

The regiment remained a part of the city's garrison until Rebel forces there surrendered to the federals on July 4, 1863.

For almost all of the unit's time at Vicksburg it served as a police force in the city. During the last seven weeks of the campaign (May 18-July 4) it defended the famous "Stockade Redan" on the Graveyard Road near the northeast corner of the Confederate fortifications.

For all practical purposes the 27th Louisiana ceased to exist after the city's surrender. Many of its men returned to Louisiana and either sat out the rest of the war or joined other units. Those who remained east of the river united with the remnants of other units to form the 22nd "Consolidated Louisiana Infantry."

Terry Scriber, upon discovering that one of his ancestors had served in the regiment, decided to write a history of the unit. This book is the result.

Unfortunately, the work is a great disappointment. It comprises two parts: a narrative history and a by-name bibliographical roster. The former tells us almost nothing about the regiment and is little more than a general narrative of the Vicksburg Campaign. I would be surprised if even three percent of this part deals with the regiment itself.

The roster is fine as far as it goes, but it, too, tells us nothing about the regiment. How many men served in the unit? How many were killed in action or died of disease? What were the backgrounds of the officers? The ages and occupations of the men?

Only by reading the entire roster can readers get answers to such key questions of the unit's history.

In summary, Scriber simply did not write a history of the regiment. He writes instead of the campaign in which it participated and gives us an almost useless collection of facts.