The 1st Louisiana Regulars Infantry Regiment, often referred to as the 1st Louisiana Infantry Regiment (Regulars), was an infantry regiment from Louisiana that served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
Raised in early 1861 in New Orleans, the regiment was sent to Pensacola and served there as cannoneers for the Confederate batteries. Transferred to the Army of Mississippi in March 1862, the 1st Louisiana Regulars suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Shiloh. After participating in the Siege of Corinth and the Confederate Heartland Offensive later that year, the regiment became part of the Army of Tennessee when the Army of Mississippi was renamed in November. After further losses at the Battle of Stones River, the regiment was placed on provost duty, being briefly consolidated with the 8th Arkansas Infantry Regiment to fight in the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863. In early 1864 the 1st Louisiana Regulars were attached to Randall Gibson's brigade, which they served with for the rest of the war, fighting in the Atlanta campaign, the Battle of Nashville, and the Battle of Spanish Fort before they surrendered at the end of the war.
Origins Following the victory of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 U.S. election, Louisiana Governor Thomas O. Moore moved rapidly to assure the secession of his state from the country. In early December, he called a special session of the state legislature, which arranged for the election of delegates to a secession convention and acceded to his request to create a special military board responsible for arms purchasing and distribution in addition to authorizing the funding of volunteer companies, at least one for each parish. Among the members of the military board were sugar planter and former army officer Braxton Bragg, a veteran of the Mexican–American War, and lawyer and cotton broker Daniel W. Adams, who had no military experience.
After South Carolina became the first state to secede on 20 December, Moore ordered the seizure by militia of the Federal Baton Rouge Arsenal and Barracks, Forts Jackson, St. Philip, and Pike, as well as the army barracks below New Orleans on 8 January. The forts were quickly handed over by the lone ordnance sergeants in charge of them on 10 January and Bragg forced the surrender of the outnumbered arsenal garrison on the same day. Meanwhile, militia officers Charles MacPherson Bradford, a district attorney, and John A. Jacques, a police officer and former filibuster, each raised companies that were initially known as the 1st and 2nd Companies of the Louisiana Infantry. These companies were officially authorized under a plan to raise 500 regulars for four-month terms of service on the next day. Bradford and Jacques had both served as junior officers in the Mexican–American War.
Bradford took control of the New Orleans Marine Hospital at the New Orleans army barracks on 12 January and had its patients removed to another hospital in order to quarter newly mustered in regulars, an action much sensationalized in Northern newspapers. Moore authorized the enlistment of Bradford and Jacques' companies as Companies A and B, respectively, of what was designated as the 1st Regiment, Louisiana Infantry, which also contained three other newly organized companies, by 25 January. These companies relieved the militiamen in their occupation of the forts and the Baton Rouge Arsenal and Barracks. The state convention officially voted to secede on 26 January, although Moore's actions had already essentially taken the state out of the Union, and Louisiana almost immediately joined the Confederate States of America. In response to the secession vote, Moore ordered the seizure of the only remaining unoccupied Federal post, Fort Macomb, which was carried out on 28 January by a Captain Henry A. Clinch's Company C of the 1st Louisiana.
Formation The 1st Louisiana Regulars were organized on 5 February 1861 in accordance with an ordinance passed at the state secession convention to establish the Louisiana State Army, a standing army under Bragg's command consisting of an infantry and an artillery regiment modeled on the United States Regular Army, subject to the same discipline as a regular unit. The ordinance stipulated that the infantry regiment would include eight companies with ninety privates each in addition to officers and sergeants. The men of the regiment enlisted for three years of service rather than the single year of the volunteers, and unlike the latter, could not elect their own officers. Instead, Adley H. Gladden was appointed colonel, Adams lieutenant colonel, and Bradford major. Gladden had commanded a regiment in combat during the Mexican–American War. Recruited in New Orleans, the regiment included a large number of immigrants, and was described by one soldier of the 19th Louisiana as being "composed exclusively of Irish". Immigrants joining the Louisiana Regulars were often unskilled laborers in civilian life, which placed them at the bottom of the social hierarchy, resulting in economic motivations for enlistment and willingness to enlist for long service terms, in contrast to volunteers.With a strength of roughly 860 men, the regiment transferred to the Provisional Army of the Confederate States on 13 March. During this period the men who enlisted in January were discharged, including those of Jacques' company, and new companies raised to replace them. By April, prospective recruits were enticed by the reduction of the enlistment term to one year, the standard for volunteer units, and a $10 bounty. In early April, the regiment was ordered to Pensacola on the Florida Gulf Coast where the Confederates were blockading Union-held Fort Pickens, after the latter received reinforcements, breaking an understanding between the garrison and the Confederates that the garrison would not accept reinforcements if they were not attacked. Due to these movements, the strengths of the Union garrison and the Confederate forces under the command of Bragg at Pensacola were nearly equivalent, resulting in demands from the Confederate government for troops to augment Bragg's force.
The dispatch of the regiment was initially opposed by Moore due to his fears that the Union would attack New Orleans, but Confederate Secretary of War LeRoy Pope Walker's insistence that the threat was nonexistent prevailed. As only Companies A, B, and C had finished recruiting, Moore appealed to volunteer units to complete the regiment. The three complete companies departed for Pensacola on 11 April, followed a week later by the five volunteer companies that responded, the recruitment being aided by a surge in enlistments after the Confederate firing on Fort Sumter began the war in earnest. The companies spent the next several weeks drilling after their arrival in Florida. The remaining seven companies of the 1st Regulars arrived at Pensacola by late May, the regiment having been expanded to ten companies in keeping with standard Confederate practice, and the volunteers were transferred to Virginia as the 1st Louisiana Infantry Battalion.
Pensacola As 1861 turned to summer and then fall, the 1st Louisiana Regulars continued drilling while serving as cannoneers for the heavy artillery batteries at Pensacola in rotations. Bragg took care to avoid provoking military action, ensuring that Pensacola remained a quiet sector during this period. A series of command changes began when Bradford resigned on 23 July, resulting in the promotion of Company D commander Jacques to major. Gladden was promoted to brigade command on 10 September and succeeded by Adams, allowing Jacques to move up to lieutenant colonel and Company A commander Frederick H. Farrar to major.
After the privateer schooner Judah was burned in a Union raid on the night of 13 to 14 September, Bragg launched a retaliatory sortie against the Union troops on Santa Rosa Island on the night of 8 October. For the Battle of Santa Rosa Island, Companies A and B of the 1st Louisiana, together with three companies from the 7th Alabama and two from the 1st Florida, formed the 400-man 2nd Battalion of the thousand-man force commanded by Brigadier General Richard H. Anderson. The battalion, led by Colonel James Patton Anderson, landed from a steamer along with the rest of the force on a beach four miles east of Fort Pickens. Patton Anderson was directed to advance south through the waist of the island and then turn west when he reached the south beach. This movement aimed to capture the Union pickets and isolate Fort Pickens from the camp a mile east of the fort where half of the 6th New York Infantry were located.
After a Union picket discovered the Confederate approach early in the morning of 9 October, their camp was charged by Colonel John K. Jackson's 3rd Battalion of the force and its occupants fled. Patton Anderson's troops joined Jackson's in looting the abandoned tents, while Union forces from Fort Pickens responded. To avoid being cut off, the Confederates retreated back to the beach to depart, but were delayed by a jammed propeller on one of the transports, allowing the Union pursuit to catch up. Crowded onto the decks of the transports, the Confederates were subjected to a withering fire, which they returned, and were able to get out of range after the propeller was freed. Company B lost one man killed, one died of wounds, and one wounded.
The Union commander struck back with a bombardment against the Confederate positions on 22 and 23 November. Companies G and H and a detachment of the regiment, all under the command of Jacques, manned the batteries at the Navy Yard and opened up a return fire, but did not inflict much damage on Fort Pickens due to lack of gunnery practice caused by shell shortages. Adams held the troops not needed to serve the guns in readiness to repulse a possible Union landing. Fort McRee suffered severe damage, but the Navy Yard batteries were relatively untouched. Pensacola remained quiet for the next few weeks until 1 January 1862, when a steamer docking at the Navy Yard drew Union fire, causing the inebriated Richard Anderson, in command while Bragg was away on inspection, to order a return bombardment. When Bragg returned he reprimanded Anderson, who had apparently forgotten about the inferiority of the Confederate artillery exposed in the November exchange, for wasting ammunition.
Shiloh
Movement to Corinth and scouting
After the fall of Fort Donelson on 16 February, the Tennessee River was opened up for a Union advance against the critical rail junction of the Memphis and Charleston and the Mobile and Ohio Railroads at Corinth, Mississippi. To prevent the capture of Corinth, which linked the Atlantic and the Mississippi River, the Confederate forces at Pensacola were ordered to be pulled out and sent to Corinth, where the Army of Mississippi was to concentrate under Albert Sidney Johnston. Delayed by heavy rains that washed out bridges, the 1st Louisiana Regulars entrained aboard the Mobile and Ohio on 27 February, together with the 18th and 22nd Alabama. The regiment arrived at Corinth by 9 March, when they were assigned with the 18th and 22nd Alabama to a brigade under the command of Adams as Gladden was given command of the division composed of the troops from Pensacola. At Corinth many of its men got drunk after boring holes in the floors of saloons to get at whiskey barrels and made mayhem, being punished by bucking and gagging.
When Lew Wallace's division debarked at Crump's Landing on 13 March, Adams led a detachment that reconnoitered the Union positions, burning cotton bales owned by Unionists. Wallace sent out cavalry on the same day to conduct an expedition towards the Mobile and Ohio Railroad near Purdy, Tennessee, where Gladden had stationed 700 infantry of the regiment and the 22nd Alabama; the cavalrymen skirted Purdy to damage a bridge before Wallace reembarked.