The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863

Previous works on Confederate brigadier general Harry T. Hays’s First Louisiana Brigade better known as the “Louisiana Tigers” have tended to focus on just one day of the Tigers’ service their role in attacking East Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863 and have touched only lightly on the brigade’s role at the Second Battle of Winchester, an important prelude to Gettysburg. In this commanding study, Scott L. Mingus, Sr., offers the first significant detailed exploration of the Louisiana Tigers during the entirety of the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign. Mingus begins by providing a sweeping history of the Louisiana Tigers; their predecessors, Wheat’s Tigers; the organizational structure and leadership of the brigade in 1863; and the personnel that made up its ranks. Covering the Tigers’ movements and battle actions in depth, he then turns to the brigade’s march into the Shenandoah Valley and the Tigers’ key role in defeating the Federal army at the Second Battle of Winchester. Combining soldiers’ reminiscences with contemporary civilian accounts, Mingus breaks new ground by detailing the Tigers’ march into Pennsylvania, their first trip to Gettysburg in the week before the battle, their two-day occupation of York, Pennsylvania the largest northern town to fall to the Confederate army and their march back to Gettysburg. Read more