Louisiana Tigers - Jackson's Valley Campaign

Jackson's Valley Campaign

In early 1862, Wheat's Tigers were assigned Brig. Gen. Richard Taylor's First Louisiana Brigade in the army of Stonewall Jackson. They participated in his 1862 Valley Campaign, proving instrumental in Confederate victories at the battles of Front Royal, Winchester, and Port Republic.

Tiger Fury:The Battle of Front Royal

From Schreckengost, Gary: The First Louisiana Special Battalion: Wheat's Tigers in the Civil War (McFarland, 2008): After recuperating from the first winter of the war, in March 1862, Confederate forces in Virginia braced themselves for a renewed Federal push into their territory. This time, it would be a four-pronged assault orchestrated by President Lincoln himself. His main effort, the newly created Federal Army of the Potomac, commanded by 35-year-old Maj. Gen. George Brinton McClellan, was to sail down the Chesapeake from Annapolis, Maryland, to Fortress Monroe, Virginia, with some 90,000 men in three corps (later enlarged to five), the II, III, and IV (and later the V and VI), the artillery reserve, and the bulk of the cavalry forces. From there McClellan was to march up the peninsula between the York and James rivers and attack Richmond from the east. While this occurred, McClellan’s I Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell (who wasn’t relieved of command, but was simply superseded by McClellan), was to advance from Alexandria and fix Joe Johnston’s 60,000 or so rebels at Manassas with 45,000 men. This would not only shield the U.S. capital from a feared Southern lunge, but would also give McClellan the time he needed to conduct his elaborate turning movement. Once Johnston moved south to protect Richmond, McDowell was to shadow him and join McClellan in his siege of Richmond.

To support this grand scheme, Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks’s Army of the Shenandoah, 20,000 strong, was to continue its drive up the Valley of Virginia to not only occupy and pacify the region but to also prevent Confederate forces operating there from reinforcing the Richmond defenses. And on Banks’s right, Maj. Gen. John “the Pathfinder” Fremont’s Mountain Army, 15,000 strong, was to march across the forested Allegheny Mountains of western Virginia, take Staunton and cut the main east-west Confederate rail line between Lynchburg and Knoxville. If all went as planned, it was hoped, the Southern Rebellion would be crushed by the end of the year.

To better meet this multiple threat, General Robert E. Lee, commander of all Confederate forces in Virginia, ordered Johnston to fall back behind the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg. On Sunday, March 9, therefore, in accordance with Lee’s order, the rebel encampments around Manassas and Centreville were abandoned. The Louisiana Brigade, being the last unit to leave Camp Carondolet, was tasked with burning the huts and superfluous supplies. Once done, the Tigers and others headed south, bringing up the rear of the column. The subsequent twenty-five-mile march to Orange County was an arduous journey made over roads that were turned into rivulets of mud by incessant spring rains. These ambient factors, coupled with the fact that the men had been cooped-up all winter, weighed heavily upon them. “We had,” recounted Louisianan W.G. Ogden, “a wet, miserable time of it.” On March 11 the Tiger Battalion, which now numbered only 250 men due to combat losses, sickness, or desertion from the previous year, crossed over the Orange and Alexandria Railroad Bridge to the south side of the Rappahannock and helped establish Camps Bellevue and Buchanan. Because of the continuing heavy rains, maneuvering was halted on both sides and the men saw little action along the bloated river.

In early April, as the Federals’ intentions became clearer, Lee moved the bulk of Johnston’s forces closer to Richmond, leaving only Ewell’s division behind to guard the Rappahannock line. While there, Ewell was probed by McDowell’s cavalry from time to time, getting into small unit actions along the river. After several weeks of this, Ewell finally received his much-anticipated marching orders. Instead of joining Johnston down on the Peninsula, Ewell was ordered to burn the railroad bridge that he had so carefully guarded and march his division west to the Shenandoah Valley with Thomas Munford’s 2nd and Thomas Flournoy’s 6th Virginia Cavalry regiments. There he was to reinforce Maj. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s grandly-named Army of the Valley—of one division—which was busily holding off three invading Federal divisions under Generals Banks and Fremont.

When the Tigers and others marched out of Camp Buchanan on April 18, the weather was reminiscent of their march out of Camp Carondolet. They had to march in a steady, soaking rain, sometimes coupled with sleet or wet snow. The freezing precipitation continued to torture the men of the battalion, one-time residents of the sub-tropical docks of New Orleans, for the next ten days. Although Taylor’s marching orders stipulated that each soldier should carry only the “barest of necessities,” this was hardly applicable because most of the men possessed very little following the Centreville withdrawal anyway. Taylor’s own kit, for example, consisted of a mere “change of underwear and a tent fly.” He reasoned that a fly, as opposed to a tent, “could be carried on horse… be put up in a moment, and by stopping the weather with boughs a comfortable hut made.” His soldiers were to each carry: "His blanket, and extra shirt and drawers, two pairs of socks (woolen), and a pair of extra shoes. These, with his arm and ammunition, were a sufficient load for strong marching. Tents, especially in a wooded country are not only a nuisance, involving much transportation, the bane of armies, but are detrimental to health. In cool weather they are certain to be tightly closed, and the rapidity with which men learn to shelter themselves, and their ingenuity in accomplishing it under unfavorable conditions, are surprising. My people grumbled no little at being 'stripped,' but soon admitted that they were the better for it, and came to despise useless impedimenta."

As for the men of the Louisiana Tiger Battalion, they, save for the Tiger Rifles, looked pretty much like the rest of the brigade, meaning that they were outfitted in standard gray wool jackets and trousers and issue kepis. The Tiger Rifles, however, still sported their pantaloons if they could and their dyed out (tan-gray) Zouave jackets. The fezzes would have been rare by this time, mostly being used as camp caps.

During westward movement, Louisiana Private T.A. Tooke remarked, “We have nothing but march, march, march, and halt and sleep in wet blankets and mud. I thought that I something soldiering, but I find that I had never soldiered it this way.” On Wednesday evening, April 30, Ewell’s division crossed over the Blue Ridge Mountains through Swift Run Gap and marched into Jackson’s camp at Conrad’s Store. While the totally exhausted men established their bivouac sites in the dark, Ewell met with his new commander, “Stonewall” Jackson.

Jackson informed Ewell that he planned to march his own division south and west, through Port Republic and Staunton, to the hamlet of McDowell, at the foot of the Alleghenies, and stop Fremont’s drive across the mountains. In the meantime, Ewell’s division, reinforced by Munford’s and Flournoy’s cavalry regiments, was to hold Banks in check—that is, prevent his army from taking Staunton (from either the east or west side of the Massanutten) or, as per Lee’s instructions, to discourage him from sending reinforcements east over the Blue Ridge to support McClellan’s drive on Richmond.

When Jackson marched his division out of Conrad’s Store the next morning, May 1, 1862, Ewell was left to his own devices to deal with Banks. At the time, unbeknownst to “Old Bald Head,” Nathaniel Banks’s army consisted of only one division, Brig. Gen. Alpheus Williams’s, and some assorted cavalry. Banks was so weak because soon after he drove Jackson from the northern reaches of the Valley in March, he was ordered by the War Department to send two of his three divisions, Brig. Gen. John Sedgwick’s and Brig. Gen. James Shields’s, east by rail to Manassas. From there, they were to march further south to join McDowell’s corps, which had pushed down to the north bank of the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg. Williams’s lone division, now Banks’s entire army, was therefore spread thin throughout the northern reaches of the Valley, in Winchester to Strasburg on the west side of the Massanutten, and at Front Royal and Columbia Bridge on the east side.

Over the next month, while Jackson marched west to drive Fremont back over the Alleghenies, Ewell established several outposts north of Conrad’s Store and sent numerous patrols down both sides of the Massanutten to ascertain the whereabouts, strength, and intentions of Banks’s army. On May 7 one of these patrols, led by Major Wheat himself, ran into elements of Banks’s force near the hamlet of Somerville. Wheat’s command consisted of one company from his battalion, a company from the 9th Louisiana, two companies from Flournoy’s 6th Virginia Cavalry, and one cannon. As his column approached the Shenandoah River just north of the town, he was surprised and driven back by Colonel Robert Foster’s 13th Indiana Regiment and a company from the 1st Vermont Cavalry. In the early phase of this skirmish, coined the battle of Somerville Heights, the Federals were able to push Wheat back two miles to Dogtown where he was reinforced by the rest of his battalion and Col. Hays’s 7th Louisiana. Once assembled, Hays and Wheat counter-attacked and drove the now-outnumbered Unionists back to Columbia Bridge, their starting point. Although the Tiger Battalion surprisingly listed no casualties in this engagement, the Pelican Regiment, “thrown headlong into the Federals,” lost two dead, four wounded, and one deserter, a “crazy Greek.”

The next day, May 8, Jackson defeated the lead element of Fremont’s army, Brig. Gens. Robert Schenck’s and Robert Milroy’s brigades, at the battle of McDowell and forced them to fall back upon Fremont’s headquarters at Franklin, Virginia. Content with Fremont’s subsequent inaction, Jackson informed Ewell that he intended to march back into the Valley and drive Banks back beyond the Potomac. On May 18, “Stonewall” met with Ewell at Mount Salon, about twelve miles southwest of Harrisonburg, to formulate a course of action. It was decided to hit Banks’s outpost at Front Royal, on the eastern side of the Massanutten, between the South Fork of the Shenandoah River and the Blue Ridge. The Manassas Gap Railroad ran through the place and it was this line that Banks was using to shift his army, most recently Shields’s division, to General McDowell who was preparing to cross the Rappahannock near Fredericksburg in order to support McClellan down on the Peninsula. If Jackson captured Front Royal, the key to the Valley, Banks would not only be cut off from McDowell, but his fortified position at Strasburg would also be turned.

With the general strategy worked out, Jackson cut the orders to unify his army. His own division was to march north along the macadamized Valley Pike through Harrisonburg and along the western side of the Massanutten, to New Market. Ewell’s division, on the eastern side of the Massanutten, was to march down to Luray. To help deceive the enemy into thinking that Jackson actually intended to attack Strasburg, on the western side of the Massanutten, Taylor’s brigade was detached from Ewell and ordered to march west, around the Massanutton through Keezletown, and onto Harrisonburg. From there it headed north down the graveled pike, and, after marching twenty-six miles, pulled into New Market, linking up with Jackson on the evening of May 20, 1862.

When the Louisianans marched into the encampment, the men of Jackson’s division, although worn-out by their recent campaign, stood up alongside the road to catch a glimpse of the famed “Louisiana Tigers.” They were, one man remembered, “stepping jauntingly as if on parade…not a straggler, but every man in his place, though it had marched twenty miles and more, in open column with arms at right shoulder shift.” Private George Neese of Chew’s (Virginia) Artillery, Jackson’s division, remembered: “I for the first time saw some of the much talked about Tigers…They looked courageous and daringly fearless.”

Once the Tigers and others marched past Jackson’s veterans, Taylor ordered them to halt, stack arms, and break ranks to establish a bivouac. As they did so, he sought out Jackson for further instructions. Finding his new commanding general perched atop a rail fence which overlooked the field the Louisianans were in the process of occupying, Taylor rode up to the Valley commander, crisply saluted, and declared his name and rank. Jackson slowly looked up, peering from beneath his “mangy cap with visor drawn low” and in “a low, gentle voice” asked the Louisiana sugar planter how far his brigade had marched that day.

“Keezletown Road, six and twenty miles,” Taylor proudly replied. “You seem to have no stragglers,” Jackson interestingly noted. “Never allow straggling.” “You must teach my people; they straggle badly,” Jackson concluded with a pained grimace. Just then, the brigade band started to play a gleeful waltz and some of the Tigers and others began to dance. Watching from his fence post, Jackson, “after a contemplative suck at a lemon,” murmured to Taylor, “Thoughtless fellows for such serious work.” Taylor assured the no-nonsense Presbyterian that his bayou-bred Louisianans were well up to the task at hand—that looks could be deceiving. He then politely excused himself to rejoin his brigade, more than likely to put a damper on the festivities.

The next day, May 21, Jackson placed the Louisiana Brigade on point to link up with Ewell’s division, which was on the east side of the Massanutten. With the colorful Zouaves from the tan-coated Tiger Rifles in front as skirmishers, setting the pace, Jackson’s column marched over the Massanutten toward Luray, the designated assembly point. Jackson adopted, at Taylor’s behest, the “old army” technique of marching for fifty minutes and resting for ten. Private George Neese of Chew’s battery remembered: “The troops are all in light marching order, having left all their surplus baggage, even their knapsacks at New Market, and as the Romans of old used to say of the gladiators, they are stripped for fight.” By evening, Jackson united with Ewell near Luray. The Louisianans impressed Captain Nisbet of the 21st Georgia, Trimble’s brigade, Ewell’s division, as they marched into the encampment. He remembered: "Each man, every inch a soldier, was perfectly uniformed, wearing white leggings, marching quick step, with his rifle at “right shoulder shift,” while the band at front played “the Girl I Left Behind Me.” The blue-gray uniforms of the officers were brilliant with gold lace, their rakish slouch hats adorned with tassels and plumes. Behold a military pageantry, beautiful and memorable. We stood at “present arms” as they passed. It was the most picturesque and inspiring martial sight that came under my eyes during four years of service."

Jackson’s army, with Ewell’s arrival, would now consist of two full divisions, his own and Ewell’s. Jackson’s consisted of four brigades of infantry, Brig. Gen. Charles Winder’s, Brig. Gen. William Taliaferro’s (pronounced TAL-iver), Colonel John Patton’s, and Colonel William Scott’s, seven batteries of Virginia artillery, and two regiments of Virginia cavalry, the Seventh and Eleventh, under Colonel Turner Ashby. These troops, coupled with Ewell’s division and Munford’s and Flournoy’s cavalry, would give Jackson 16,000 men to take on Banks’s 7,500.

On May 22 the Valley Army continued its historic journey north toward Front Royal with the Tigers and others again leading the march. The men trudged for hours through a soaking rain and ankle-deep mud, and their exhaustion grew more acute. “Almost tired to death,” one soldier remembered. Jackson encamped that evening within ten miles of Front Royal, the army’s first objective. Before the men were allowed to sleep, however, they were ordered to polish their rust-encrusted weapons, which was a sure sign of an up-coming battle.

During the next day’s march, Jackson learned for sure that a large portion of the Federal garrison at Front Royal consisted of Colonel John Reese Kenly’s 1st Maryland Regiment. He therefore placed his own Marylanders, Colonel Bradley Johnson’s 1st Maryland (C.S.), in the van to have a crack at them first. Jackson planned to use Johnson’s Marylanders and Taylor’s Louisianans to take Front Royal from the south while Flournoy’s 6th Virginia Cavalry, crossing a mile and a half below the town at McCoy’s Ford, rode up the west side of the South Fork of the Shenandoah and cut the Federals’ communication lines to Strasburg.

In order to avoid the Union pickets who were posted on the main road, Jackson chose to march his men up a steep, winding path, called Snake Road, about a mile south of the town, just past McCoy’s Ford. Soon after 1:00 P.M., Johnson’s Marylanders, somewhat winded by the climb, crested the last wooded rise that led into Front Royal and scattered some Federals from Company H, 1st Maryland who were resting quietly at the intersection of Snake and Gooney Manor Roads. Pushing forward another half mile, flushing out a few more Union pickets, the Confederates were met by the famous Rebel spy Belle Boyd, a “rather well-looking woman... citizen of the town” who was drawn by the fire. Boyd extolled the approaching Southerners to “charge right down and catch them all.” Believing young Belle’s story, Jackson ordered Johnson, Wheat, and Taylor to do just that—charge right down and catch them all—while he brought up the rest of his army.

Front Royal was about mile to the Tigers’ front, down below. Another half mile or so beyond the town, atop a commanding hill, was Kenly’s fortified camp. And beyond that was the confluence of the North and South Forks of the Shenandoah River. A bridge spanned each fork and a trestle of the Manassas Gap Railroad traversed the South Fork and headed west to Strasburg, Banks’s headquarters. The Federal garrison at Front Royal consisted of fifteen companies of infantry, nine from the 1st Maryland, three from the 2nd Massachusetts, two from the 29th Pennsylvania, and one each from the 3rd Wisconsin and the 27th Indiana. They were supported by Lieutenant Charles Atwell’s section of long-range Parrott Rifles from Captain Joseph Knap’s Independent Battery E, Pennsylvania Light Artillery (“the Fort Pitt Artillery”), two companies from Major Philip Vought’s 5th New York Cavalry, and a company of Empire State engineers. All told, there were about 1,100 Federal soldiers in and around the town. As ordered, Johnson’s Marylanders and Wheat’s Tigers swept down the hill and stormed into Front Royal while Taylor brought up the rest of his brigade. Major Wheat, excited by the order and no doubt wanting to vindicate his name after Somerville, charged down the left side of the road and was the first Confederate to enter the town. He “shot by like a rocket,” Johnson remembered. “His red cap gleaming, revolver in hand, and got in first, throwing his shots right and left.” General Taylor reported, “Major Wheat’s battalion, of five companies, was immediately ordered forward into the town, to assist the Maryland Regiment in dislodging the enemy…. Major Wheat performed his part in gallant style, charging through the town.” General Jackson similarly reported: "The 1st Maryland Regiment, supported by Wheat’s battalion of Louisiana Volunteers, and the remainder of Taylor's brigade, acting as a reserve, pushed forward in gallant style, charging the Federals, who made a spirited resistance, driving them through the town and taking some prisoners."

Lucy Rebecca Buck, the daughter of a respected local landowner, remembered the initial clash between Union and Confederate forces at Front Royal: "Going to the door we saw the Yankees scampering over the meadow below our house…. By this time some scattered parties of Confederate infantry came up and charged their ranks, when firing one volley they wheeled about—every man for himself they scampered out of town like a flock of sheep—such an undignified exodus was never witnessed before."

Once the Federal provost, Company I, 1st Maryland, was driven from the town, Wheat and Johnson ordered their men to head for the main Federal camp atop the hill. Colonel Kenly, the Union commander reported: “Two battalions of the enemy’s infantry pushed rapidly forward on both sides of the road leading from town toward the camp.” As the emboldened Tigers approached the ridge that fronted the hill, however, they were forced to the ground by Atwell’s Parrott Rifles, firing canister, and nine or so companies of infantry who were firing musketry down from the Federal stronghold. Lieutenant Thompson of the 1st Maryland (U.S.) remembered: “A brisk fire was opened by our men...doing great damage to the enemy’s rank and file, and throwing them into confusion, but they rallied.”

Wheat ordered his men to take cover around “Rose Hill,” a large brick and wood mansion, about 250 yards to the right-front of Kenly’s camp, where, according to Lucy Buck, “a good deal of fighting was done.” Before long, Jackson himself arrived on the scene with Carrington’s, Courtney’s, and Brockenbrough’s Virginia batteries, armed with 4.62-inch smoothbores of various makes and ordered them to be posted atop a hill to the Tigers’ right-rear. With Wheat’s and Johnson’s battalions pinned in front of the Federal breastworks, and with the relatively short-range Confederate guns unable to gain fire superiority, General Taylor recommended a double envelopment. While Wheat’s and Johnson’s men would continue to fix Kenly’s position in front, with Carrington’s, Courtney’s, and Brockenbrough’s guns offering at least some suppressive fire against Atwell’s Parrotts, Taylor could maneuver his 7th, 8th, and 9th regiments to the far right, out past Johnson’s Marylanders, and cross the relatively unguarded railroad trestle that spanned the South Fork, getting in Kenly’s rear. As they did so, Colonel Seymour’s Irish Regiment would sweep to the left, making a dash for the South Fork Bridge, immediately behind Kenly’s camp, drawing the Federals’ fire. Without an afterthought, and no doubt impressed by the Louisiana planter’s enterprise, Old Jack nodded in approval and Taylor led the first attack of his life.

Kenly watched helplessly as the Pelican Staters worked their way around his flanks and decided to order his men to torch the camp and retreat across both branches of the Shenandoah River before they were completely cut off. Once across the North Fork Bridge, screened by the 5th New York Cavalry, Kenly ordered Vought’s troopers to torch the bridge while he established a new line along the riverbank, anchored by a dominating rise called Guard Hill, previously held by two companies of the 29th Pennsylvania. He was determined to hold Jackson’s minions back as long as possible to alert Banks of the threat.

On the heels of the rapidly retreating Federals, Johnson’s Marylanders charged through the burning camp, snagged a few prisoners, and crossed over the South Fork Bridge—beating the 6th Louisiana—onto a low crop of land between the two forks where “Riverside” mansion stood. Progressing another 400 or so yards up the road, the Marylanders were stopped cold by Kenly’s new line atop Guard Hill and the burning North Fork Bridge. General Taylor soon joined Johnson with some of his Louisianans. With the low-lying bridge on fire, over-watched by a reinforced Federal infantry regiment and two pieces of artillery, and with no sign of reinforcement in sight, Taylor rode back to “Riverside” for instructions from Jackson, who resolved to continue the attack. Taylor’s Louisianians would charge across the North Fork Bridge, burning or not, and drive the enemy into the ground.

At that moment, almost by dumb luck, Wheat was escorting his desperadoes up through the destroyed Federal camp and across the South Fork Bridge. Jackson would use these “Tigers” to lead the forlorn attack and ordered them to pass through the Marylanders and take the burning bridge. Ewell’s assistant adjutant and future son-in-law, Captain G. Campbell Brown, remembered: "I shall never forget the style in which Wheat’s battalion passed us as we stood on the road. was riding full gallop, yelling at the top of his voice; his big sergeant-major running at top speed just after him, calling upon the men to come on; and they strung out according to their speed and “stomach for the fight,” following after, all running; all yelling; all looking like fight. Their peculiar Zouave dress, light striped, baggy pants, bronzed and desperate faces and wild excitement made up a glorious picture. Wheat himself looked in a fight as handsome as any man I ever saw."

With Wheat in the lead, the Tigers descended the dirt road toward the river’s edge, stormed across the bridge through the flames, and secured the opposite shore in the face of the enemy’s galling fire, which was plunging down from their left front atop Guard Hill. Wheat’s gutsy filibusters were soon joined by the rest of the Louisiana Brigade and they helped put out the blaze. The span was saved, “but it was rather a near thing,” Taylor recalled. “My horse and clothing were scorched, and many men burned their hands severely while throwing brands into the river.”

With the North Fork Bridge now in Confederate hands, Jackson ordered Johnson’s Marylanders and Taylor’s Louisianans to push up the road and through the wooded gap to press the Federals in front while Flournoy’s cavalry, just arrived, would exploit the breach. After another hour of fighting, Kenly’s position was once again turned and the frantic Yankees were forced to run for their lives toward Winchester. “The pursuit begun was kept up vigorously,” remembered Captain Henry Kyd Douglas, Jackson’s acting inspector general. “There was much handsome work done by Flournoy’s cavalry, with good results.” Flournoy’s pursuit, like Taylor’s double envelopment near the river’s edge, was carried out in textbook fashion.

By late afternoon, four of his companies had run down what was left of Kenly’s command near Cedarville, five miles from Front Royal. Literally cutting the Federals to pieces, Flournoy’s troopers captured almost all of Kenly’s command, including the colonel himself, Lieutenant Atwell’s invaluable rifled guns (which were given to the Rockbridge Artillery), and the once-proud colors of the 1st Maryland (U.S.).

As the Virginia cavaliers pursued Kenly’s doomed command, Wheat’s exhausted Tigers were recuperating along the shady banks of the North Fork of the Shenandoah when they unexpectedly heard a train whistle coming from the direction of Manassas Gap, passing behind their position. Earlier in the day, Ashby’s cavalry had cut the telegraph lines between Strasburg and Manassas and the engineer of the Federal train, which consisted of two locomotives, three passenger, and fifty tonnage cars, apparently had no idea that the town had been seized by Jackson’s army. No doubt sensing opportunity and more glory for his battalion, Wheat quickly roused his men from their late-afternoon snooze and ordered them to charge the slow-moving train. Swarming up the embankment and across the flat land behind “Riverside,” the Tigers hopped aboard the locomotive, threw its wholly surprised driver to the ground, and brought the train to a stop. When the filibusters opened the cars, they were pleasantly surprised to find over $300,000 worth of commissary stores packed inside, which were eagerly consumed by the Valley Army over the next few weeks.

With the battle won and the town secured, Jackson encamped the bulk of his army on the north side of Guard Hill, established his headquarters at “Riverside,” and garrisoned Front Royal with men from each regiment in Ewell’s division to care for the wounded. Among those left behind was Captain Henry Gardner of the Delta Rangers, Wheat’s Battalion. Lucy Buck remembered: " Captain Gardner of the N.O. Battalion came . He wore the badge of the battalion, one of the prettiest imaginable designs—a little silver crescent in a concavity of which revolved a silver star upon a pivot on which was inscribed on one side 'The Star Battalion from the Crescent City' in a revolution—on the reverse side 'Wheat’s New Orleans Battalion.' It was a cunning little ornament and I really coveted it."

All told, the battle of Front Royal cost General Banks about 900 men (750 prisoners, 32 killed, and 122 wounded) and Jackson 36 (mostly from Flournoy’s cavalry). Of this total, Wheat’s Battalion officially listed one man killed and six wounded, including Lieutenant Robert Grinnell of the Life Guards who was “injured in the hand.”