Alexander Gardner, 1862. Library of Congress
"Antietam, Md. Confederate dead by a fence on the Hagerstown road after the Battle of Antietam."
During the Civil War, approximately 13,000 Louisiana soldiers fought in Virginia with Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Because of their wild, sometimes violent, behavior in camp and ferocity in battle, they became known as the Louisiana Tigers. In the late 19th century, the LSU football coach chose the Tiger mascot as a tribute to them.
About one-fourth of the Tigers died during the war, combat and disease accounting for most fatalities. However, when researching the history of the soldiers for my book Lee’s Tigers Revisited: The Louisiana Infantry in the Army of Northern Virginia (LSU Press, 2017), I discovered that there were myriad other ways a Civil War soldier could die.
Railroad accidents claimed quite a few Tigers’ lives, while others drowned, and many were murdered or executed for various crimes. A surprising number were killed by their own officers for disobeying orders, two killed each other in a duel, and one was reportedly eaten by a shark while stationed in Pensacola.
Death stalked the Tigers as soon as they reported for training at the beginning of the war. While camped in New Orleans, some men in the 14th Louisiana Volunteers got into a drunken brawl and turned their weapons on each other. Many were wounded, and two soldiers killed each other, with one being stabbed with a bayonet and the other shot in the neck.
About the same time, a train claimed a victim at Camp Moore in Tangipahoa Parish. The day after one soldier arrived in camp, he was placed on guard duty and somehow got run over by a locomotive.
Trains continued to take their toll on the Tigers throughout the war. When Coppens’ Zouave battalion was traveling to Richmond, some of the men ignored the conductor’s warnings about riding on top of the cars or on the couplings between them. One zouave was killed when the train passed under a low bridge, and three others were crushed to death on the couplings when the train suddenly lurched.
While riding to Virginia on another train, three men in the 10th Louisiana were killed in separate incidents when they fell off the cars. Two more lost limbs when they were run over after falling off the train.
Officers killed a number of men while trying to restore order during various disturbances. In addition to the four zouaves being killed in train accidents on the way to Virginia, an officer shot and killed another one on the same trip. The man’s offense? He left ranks without permission to buy tobacco.
The most famous case of officers shooting their men occurred when drunken soldiers in the 14th Louisiana attacked their superiors during a layover at Grand Junction, Tennessee. When the men refused to obey orders, Col. Valery Sulakowski and other officers resorted to shooting the mutineers. By the time order was restored, seven were dead and nineteen wounded.
Major Roberdeau Wheat had similar troubles when his battalion of rowdy Tigers embarked for Virginia by train. When some of the soldiers seized control of a hotel in Opelika, Alabama, and refused to leave, Wheat was aroused from sleep to deal with them. The furious 6’ 4”, 250-pound major stormed into the building with pistols drawn. All of the men except two agreed to return to the train. Wheat shot them both dead. One officer recalled, “He told me the only way to control his men was to shoot down those who disobeyed or defied him, yet they loved him with the fidelity of dogs.”
Accidents claimed numerous lives after the Louisiana Tigers arrived in Virginia. Sentries killed several men who approached them at night and did not respond to their challenge. It’s not clear if the victims did not hear the challenges or thought the sentries would recognize them as a comrade. In separate incidents, two officers and a sergeant in the 10th Louisiana were killed in that manner during the spring of 1862.
Mishandling weapons caused more deaths. One man in the 2nd Louisiana carelessly had a loaded musket in his quarters and accidentally shot a buddy. And an officer in the 6th Louisiana accidentally killed himself while being threatened by some soldiers. When the officer grabbed his revolver by the barrel to use as a club, it discharged and hit him in the stomach.
Two of the most senseless non-combat deaths among the Louisiana Tigers were victims of a duel. When an officer in the 5th Louisiana and the regiment’s sutler got into an argument over a candle, they decided to settle the matter on Christmas Eve with rifles at forty yards. The men fired simultaneously and killed each other.
Although the military records of many Louisiana Tigers are missing or incomplete, I was able to document about sixty soldiers who were killed in unusual circumstances. Historians tend to focus on the soldiers who were killed in battle, but for Civil War soldiers, death came in many forms.
Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. An autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, costs $25. Contact him at tljones505@gmail.com
