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

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The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863, Scott Mingus, Louisiana State University Press, 352 pages, 8 maps, notes, bibliography, index, $34.95

Certainly The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863 will be one of the highlights of both the Battle of Gettysburg and Civil War literature in 2009. Mingus' work advances both the history of the Louisiana Tigers and the history of the 1863 Pennsylvania Campaign. Reminiscent of the best brigade histories, such as Nolan's Iron Brigade, Roberston's Stonewall Brigade and Wert's dual history of the Stonewall and the Iron brigades, Mingus relies heavily on the soldiers' accounts of their travels and travails.

Wheat's Tigers, the predecessor of the Louisiana Tigers, is acknowledged in the first pages of the book. In 1861 Company B (The Tigers) of the 1st Louisiana Special Battalion took the nickname in New Orleans and fought in Wheat's Louisiana Battalion at the First Manassas. In the spring of 1862 the battalion was brigaded with the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Louisiana regiments. This brigade became the First Louisiana Brigade (Louisiana Tigers) on the Peninsula when the battalion was decimated and Wheat killed.

One of the strengths of Mingus' book is that it balances the Pennsylvania campaign's history with the brigade's history. The author describes the campaign to the extent that the brigade is fully in context at all times. Mingus never gives the reader more than is needed regarding the campaign. Having read Trudeau's, Sears' or Coddington's campaign histories, a reader will have enough background information to enjoy The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign.

In Mingus' book, the Louisiana Tigers never operate in a vacuum. When finishing the work, the reader will have a good understanding of the Tigers' opponents also. The march of the Tigers from Chancellorsville to the Potomac is succinctly covered. The Battle of Second Winchester is thoroughly described with Milroy and his weary Federal boys fully depicted. Mingus cites participants' recollection that of all the battles of the Army of Northern Virginia, Second Winchester was the best planned and executed of them all.

Mingus does not limit his account to the testimony of the Louisianians regarding themselves. The testimony of the civilian witnesses and the Federal soldiers who negotiated with and fought against the Tigers is regularly offered by Mingus. These primary sources are among the best descriptions in the book. The accounts of the Louisiana sharpshooter in the McCreary house, the death of the 8th Louisiana flag bearer whose canteen carried whiskey laced with gunpowder, the escape of a Louisiana deserter through a Rebel picket line on July 3, the lonely death of a sick and worn out campaigner in in the care of a Gettysburg doctor in an Adams County farm house are among the many anecdotes that lift The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863 above the plethora of Gettysburg books that appear every year.

CWL appreciates Mingus' attention to the calendar and the clock throughout the story. Another strength are the appendices: order of battle, official reports, casualties, weather, chronology. The eight maps show the advance of the brigade from the Mason Dixon line to York, Pennsylvania and then to Heidlersburg, Adams County. Unfortunately other maps showing the fighting on July 1 and 2, the street fighting of July 2 and 3, and the retreat routes are not offered. In particular the July 2nd assault path of the First Louisiana Brigade from Winebrenner's Run to the east slope of East Cemetery Hill needs a map. Owners of Trudeau's Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage will have sufficient maps. Also the McElfresh watercolor map with the crops and fence lines of East Cemetery Hill is very helpful. There are no photographs or illustrations in the book. Portraits of Harry T. Hays, the rank and file soldiers, or civilian structures though not necessary are always helpful to a reader. Louisiana Tigers is a book to which this reader will often return.

Having written five books on the Gettysburg Campaign, I have a pretty good grasp of what makes a good book and a not so good one. I really liked Mingus' Tigers book at many different levels. It does a great job of detailing the brigade's activities prior to Gettysburg. The brigade played a major role at the Second Battle of Winchester and it subsequently made long marches through the Pennsylvania countryside. The book really shines when it gets down to the Battle of Gettysburg, particularly the second day, when it successfully stormed Cemetery Hill. The writing is crisp and clear and definitely holds one's interest. Factually, it is first rate, and although I wrote a book entitled, "The Brigades of Gettysburg," I still learned some interesting facts. Several informative appendices complete the volume. In all honestly, I did contribute two maps to the volume, but that in no way has influenced my review. It is a top-notch book that belongs on the shelf of every Gettysburg enthusiast.

Brad Gottfried

This latest book by Pennsylvania native, Scott Mingus, is a well written account of the exploits of the famous Louisiana Tigers during the summer 1863 campaign against Winchester, Virginia and the invasion of Pennsylvania by the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.

Scott Mingus has that rare talent of breathing life into his writing as he includes fascinating snapshots of personal interest in the words of individual soldiers, citizens of both Virginia and Pennsylvania, and newspaper accounts of the day. The reader develops a pretty good feeling of what it was like to march and fight with the Louisiana Tigers, a group that raised eyebrows among contemporary Southerners and Northerners alike, yet who fought like their namesake on many different battlefields.

The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign, June - July 1863 fills a definite void in the Civil War literary works and provides much new information about the Louisiana Tigers and their role in the Gettysburg campaign. I highly recommend it.

I had a direct ancestor in the Louisiana Brigade (Company C, 6th La, wounded at Second Winchester) so I was excited to read this book, which details the actions of the Louisiana "Tigers" of Hays' Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign, from the time it left the Fredericksburg area until the retreat across the Potomac after Gettysburg. It is well-researched and skillfully written, using Union and Confederate primary sources to give a full picture of the Tigers' triumphs and tragedies during that campaign. In this way we get to see what the Tigers were doing at a given time, and how their actions impacted and were viewed by the Federal units they were facing.

The book's main problem has been noted in a couple of other web reviews: although it has maps tracing the brigade's moves during Second Winchester, it has NO maps for its two major actions at Gettysburg: the decisive defeat of the Eleventh Corps on July 1, and the briefly-successful attack on East Cemetery Hill the following night. Anyone who has more than a passing interest in Gettysburg will still be able to visualize these movements in his head, but I still think it's a major oversight for a respected press like LSU to leave out a map of those actions, which can be confusing.

This is not a fatal flaw, however. Mingus' book contains probably the best account of the attack on East Cemetery Hill we will be able to get for a while, and some of the descriptions of the horrors of that night will move even the most hardened reader. The chapter on Second Winchester is equally fascinating. Appendixes include Harry Hays' reports on those two battles, a list of brigade members killed during the campaign, and weather conditions faced by the Tigers. In the end, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Gettysburg itself or the Louisiana Brigade in particular, and I look forward to reading the author's study of General Gordon's activities concerning the Wrightsville bridge over the Susquehanna, "Flames Beyond Gettysburg."

No other campaign of the American Civil War has had more paper and ink devoted to it than the Gettysburg Campaign - and I'm admittedly guilty of contributing a few of those books myself :) While most of those recently published are very worthy, there are a select few that deserve the title "cream of the crop." Mingus' latest work, on the venerable Tigers in the campaign, is one of the few that rises to the top.
The Tigers were definitely Tigers at heart - and Mingus does a fabulous job telling of their exploits in their own words and those who fought them and observed them. The writing is captivating, and the book really shines in the narratives of 2nd Winchester and the storming of Cemetery Hill on July 2. Few few historians today - and I mean very few - research their topic as deeply as does Scott. He is a hound dog when it comes to digging up those obscure and enlightening gems locked away where few have seen them. As one who loves the obscure myself, this was readily apparent the first time I held the book and examined his bibliography.
The trend today is to pen treatments of battles and campaigns that focus on single regiments, small actions, parts of a day, the action in a particular region, etc. Gettysburg continues to receive its share of them, and all these parts of the whole tell the never-ending story of the campaign and battle of Gettysburg. The Louisiana Tigers could not have been more proud to have one such as Scott Mingus to tell their story for history. The story will evoke all emotions in the reader - I in particular enjoyed the civilian accounts - and among the concentrated works dealing with the Gettysburg Campaign, this book is one of the best of the best.

Recently I have not read a better publication concerning the Gettysburg Campaign. Gettysburg has seen its fair share of publications over the years including many books that focus solely on some aspect of the battle. There are books that talk only about the horses of Gettysburg, the artillery, the cavalry, the struggle for Little Round Top, Devils Den, The Wheatfield, Culps Hill/Cemetary Hill and so forth. Many of them are very good and many of them aren't so good. Scott Mingus has taken a very "over-published" topic and found a new angle for his readers to enjoy. This book focuses solely on the experiences of the Louisana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign. Mingus has done an exceptional job acquiring the infomation necessary and going the extra mile to dig up the fascinating facts that make a book like this worth reading. I recommend this book to everyone who is interested in the Gettysburg Campaign. Its detail, its organization is amazing. The only drawback is that the publisher has not included enough maps to depict the Tigers experience. However, Mingus has assembled all the key infomation that is needed and what makes this work so impressive is his ability to transport his readers back in time and make you a part of this brigade as it attempted to sieze Cemetary Hill from the Federals as the sun began to set on July 2, 1863. Excellent work Scott

Perhaps a better title for this book would be "A Nothern View of the LA Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign". The book is an entertaining read, but is not a fair handed presentation. I thoroughly enjoy books on the War for Southern Indpendence which are either a memoir, or rely on many first hand accounts from the participants and Mingus includes plenty of accounts. The problem with the accounts that Mingus includes is that the great majority of them are from Union soldiers. We are therefore left with, by and large, a yankee view of the Tigers and the Confederacy. Though Mingus does not dwell on yankee revisionism, he does slip some in every now and then. Those knowledgeable of the facts will recognize it, but those not, will come away with a skewed view. There is certainly no lack of writings from the Tigers themselves, but these apparently were not pursued and instead the northern ones were included. Soldiers, such as Lt. Worcester of the Tigers, who is mentioned in the book, a Boston native who relocated to Baton Rouge just a few years before the war, left ample correspondence. But such ample information is spurned for northern accounts.
Also noted is a fairly large number of typos, spelling and gramatical errors in the author's narrative of the action. This is surprising coming from a book published by the usually thorough Louisiana State University Press.
The book is worth the read, but those reading it should keep in mind the slanted description of the events.