First in the Fight

On July 21, 1861, the first large battle of the Civil War was fought in Virginia along a small stream called Bull Run when a Union army marched out of Washington and attacked the Confederate army commanded by Louisiana Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard. Guarding Beauregard’s extreme left flank were the 4^th South Carolina and a few hundred men in Maj. Roberdeau Wheat’s Louisiana battalion.

The approximately five hundred men in Wheat’s First Special Battalion mostly hailed from New Orleans. Numerous mercenaries, criminals, and miscreants filled its ranks and frequent drunken brawls and violent behavior had earned the men the nickname “Louisiana Tigers.” When some other Louisiana units showed similar behavior, the name came to be applied to all Louisiana infantrymen serving in Virginia.

The battle that erupted on Bull Run that Sunday morning would demonstrate that the Louisiana Tigers were just as fierce in battle as they were rowdy in camp.

The Federals moved forward at daylight, and Wheat hurried his battalion to meet them. The Yankees attacked just as Wheat deployed the Catahoula Guerrillas company as a skirmish line in the edge of some woods. One Guerrilla wrote home, “The balls came as thick as hail [and] grape, bomb and canister would sweep our ranks every minute.” Wheat’s men were outnumbered six-to-one but stubbornly held their ground.

The overwhelming Union juggernaut was slowly forcing the Confederates back when a bullet struck Wheat in the left armpit, ripping through one lung and tearing completely through his body.

Wheat collapsed but remained conscious. Captain J. W. Buhoup rushed to his side and called on nearby soldiers to carry him from the field in a blanket. Members of the Old Dominion Guards company placed their flag over Wheat to ward off shock and finally got him safely to the rear (the bloodstained flag is now on display at the Confederate Memorial Museum in New Orleans).

The few hundred Louisianians and South Carolinians held back thirteen thousand Yankees for several hours, but their line began to break and men started to retreat. Seeing his comrades fall back, one of Wheat’s men, his thigh shattered by a musket ball, raised himself on one elbow and yelled, “Tigers, go in once more. Go in my sons, I’ll be great gloriously God damn if the sons of bitches can ever whip the Tigers!”

Many men responded to his call and returned to the fight just as Beauregard rushed more units to the battle. For several hours, the fight seesawed over the fields and wood lots. One soldier recalling the fight 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.”

Newspapers later reported that some of Wheat’s men threw down their slow-firing muskets and charged the enemy with bowie knives. One Northern paper claimed the Tigers had strings tied to their knives so they could throw them from a distance and then retrieve them to throw again.

A Confederate counterattack late in the afternoon finally crushed the Union army and sent it fleeing from the field. When the First Battle of Bull Run was over, approximately three thousand Union soldiers had become casualties to about two thousand Confederates. Wheat had eight men killed, thirty-eight wounded, and two missing.

After being taken to a makeshift field hospital, Wheat asked a surgeon about his chances of recovery. “Major,” the surgeon replied, “I will answer you candidly that you can’t live ‘til day.” After a moment’s reflection, Wheat replied, “I don’t feel like dying yet.” “But,” the surgeon explained, “there is no instance on record of recovery from such a wound.” The major then confidently declared, “Well, then, I will put my case on record.” Wheat astounded the surgeons by making a full recovery—only to be shot through the head and killed a year later while leading a charge at the Battle of Gaines’ Mill.

Newspapers in both the North and South noted the Louisianians’ bravery at Bull Run and gave Wheat, in particular, a good deal of credit for the Confederate victory.  

One of the Tigers reported after the battle that Wheat’s battalion received the thanks of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston for what he called their "extraordinary and desperate stand." General Beauregard also sent word to Major Wheat that "you, and your battalion, for this day's work, shall never be forgotten, whether you live or die."

The Louisiana Tigers would fight in many more desperate battles but their reputation for bravery was begun at Bull Run.

Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. For an autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, send $25 to Terry L. Jones, P.O Box 1581, West Monroe, LA 71294.