Louisiana Tigers - The First Battle of Bull Run

The First Battle of Bull Run

The battalion first saw combat during the First Battle of Bull Run, where it anchored the left flank on Matthews Hill long enough for reinforcements to arrive. During this action, the Tiger Battalion conducted several brazen attacks, with Roberdeau Wheat himself suffering a horrid wound.

Report of Major Chatham Roberdeau Wheat, First Special Battalion Louisiana Volunteers, of the Battle of Manassas, Virginia, July 21, 1861. Manassas, August 1, 1861, Sir:

I beg leave herewith, respectfully, to report the part taken by the First Special Battalion of Louisiana Volunteers, which I had the honor to command in the battle of July 21. According to your instructions, I formed my command to the left of the Stone Bridge, being thus at the extreme left of our lines. Your order to deploy skirmishers was immediately obeyed by sending forward Company B under Captain White. The enemy threatening to flank us, I caused Captain Buhoup to deploy his Company D as skirmishers in that direction.

At this conjuncture, I sent back, as you ordered, the two pieces of artillery which you had attached to my command, still having Captain Alexander’s troop of cavalry with me. Shortly after, under your orders, I deployed my whole command to the left, which movement, of course, placed me on the right of the line of battle. Having reached this position, I moved by the left flank to an open field, a wood being on my left. From this covert, to my utter surprise, I received a volley of musketry which unfortunately came from our own troops, mistaking us for the enemy, killing three and wounding several of my men . Apprehending instantly the real cause of the accident, I called out to my own men not to return the fire. Those near enough to hear, obeyed; the more distant, did not. Almost at the same moment, the enemy in front opened upon us with musketry, grape, canister, round shot and shells. I immediately charged upon the enemy and drove him from his position. As he rallied again in a few minutes, I charged him a second and a third time successfully.

Finding myself now in the face of a very large force—some 10,000 or 12,000 in number—I dispatched Major Atkins to you for more reinforcements and gave the order to move by the left flank to the cover of the hill; a part of my command, mistake, crossed the open field and suffered severely from the fire of the enemy. Advancing from the wood with a portion of my command, I reached some haystacks under cover of which I was enabled to damage the enemy very much. While in the act of bringing up the rest of my command to this position, I was put hors de combat by a Minie ball passing through my body and inflicting what was at first thought to be a mortal wound and from which I am only now sufficiently recovered to dictate this report. By the judicious management of Captain Buhoup I was borne from the field under the persistent fire of the foe, who seemed very unwilling to spare the wounded. Being left without a field officer, the companies rallied under their respective captains and, as you are aware, bore themselves gallantly throughout the day in the face of an enemy far outnumbering us.

Where all behaved so well, I forbear to make invidious distinctions, and contenting myself with commanding my entire command to your favorable consideration, I beg leave to name particularly Major Atkins, a distinguished Irish soldier, who as a volunteer Adjutant, not only rendered me valuable assistance but with a small detachment captured three pieces of artillery and took three officers prisoners. Mr. Early, now Captain Early, as a volunteer adjutant, bore himself bravely and did good service. My adjutant, Lieutenant Dickinson was wounded while gallantly carrying my orders through a heavy fire of musketry. Captain Miller of Company E, and Lieutenants Adrian and Carey were wounded while leading their men into the thickest of the fight. All of which is respectfully submitted C. R. WHEAT, Major, First Special Battalion, Louisiana Volunteers.

From "Our Blood Was on Fire: The Battle for Matthews's Hill" from Gary Schreckengost's The First Louisiana Special Battalion: Wheat's Tigers in the Civil War (McFarland, 2008):

On June 20, after a week of tedious train travel across the Southern Confederacy from Camp Moore, Louisiana, the 1st Louisiana Special Battalion (2nd Louisiana Battalion—Wheat’s Tigers) pulled into Manassas Junction, Virginia, the designated assembly area for Brig. Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard’s Confederate Army of the Potomac. As the colorful Tigers disembarked at the depot, some soldiers from the 18th Virginia noticed that “one freight car was pretty nearly full of Louisiana ‘Tigers’ under arrest for disorderly conduct, drunkenness, etc., most of which were bucked and gagged as some of my men reported who were at the station when they arrived.” The rambunctious battalion was subsequently assigned to Colonel Philip St. George Cocke’s brigade, stationed in Centreville, just north of Manassas. Upon arrival, Wheat requested the honor of holding the most advanced position of the Confederate army. Cocke obliged and sent the Tiger Battalion up to Frying Pan Church, south of the Potomac River between Leesburg and Alexandria, near Washington City. The Tigers joined Colonel Nathan George Evans's command that consisted of two companies of Virginia cavalry, Captain John Alexander’s and Captain William Terry’s, and one regiment of infantry, Colonel John B. Sloan’s 4th South Carolina. While at Frying Pan Church, the Tigers and others were tasked with patrolling the south bank of the Potomac, the proclaimed northern boundary of the Southern Confederacy and, when able, with harassing the Federal troops who guarded its crossings. Evans’s insurgents, according to Colonel Charles Stone of the 14th U.S. Infantry, engaged in “the unsoldierlike practice of firing at pickets across the river.” Private Drury Gibson of the Catahoula Guerrillas, Wheat’s Battalion, similarly remembered: “We were especially the guerrillas, completely exhausted, we lying in ambush and marching around for two weeks, without tents or anything to cover us, save the canopy of heaven, it raining part of the time and with nothing to eat." An officer from Wheat's battalion wrote to his father: "Our duties have tried the mettle of our men. I have seen them night after night lying uncovered in the woods and fields, hungry and half-naked (officers faring the same) expecting the advance of the enemy at any moment, with out a murmur."

In conducting these bold but limited offensive operations, Wheat was not only able to better ease the Tigers into battle by striking the nervous Yankee pickets, many of whom were demoralized by the aggressive Confederate probes, but was also able to instill confidence in his men and indoctrinate them in the spirit of attack—to hit the enemy often and at leisure. During this pivotal period for the Tigers, Robert Going Atkins, the Irish soldier of fortune who had served with Wheat in Italy, joined the Special Battalion and was made aide-de-camp by the Old Filibuster who was hoping to eventually secure for Atkins a commission in the Confederate Army.

On June 28, 1861, on the heels of numerous successful and casualty-free raids, Captain White’s company of Tiger Rifles was ordered to hit the “8th Battalion, District of Columbia Volunteers” who were posted at Seneca Falls, about fifteen miles upriver from Washington. The Tigers “had a nice little skirmish,” Wheat reported, “killing three of the enemy and loss was one man shot in the leg.” Private James Burnes was the unlucky Zouave who was wounded in the engagement, making him the first of many battle casualties of the Special Battalion. His leg was “amputated at the thigh” by Dr. Samuel Fisher.

On July 16, General Beauregard ordered Colonel Evans to withdraw from the Potomac crossings and redeploy behind Bull Run Creek with the rest of the army. Evans’s command, now designated the 7th Brigade, Army of the Potomac, was assigned the important task of guarding the extreme left of the Confederate line astride the Alexandria-Warrenton Pike at “Stone Bridge.” Locating his headquarters at the Van Pelt House or “Avon,” Evans tasked Captain Alexander’s troop with guarding nearby Poplar and Farm fords and deployed Wheat’s Battalion and the 4th South Carolina along Van Pelt Ridge, which was about 600 yards west of Stone Bridge. While Wheat’s Battalion was assigned to cover Farm Ford, Sloan’s regiment was deployed immediately to the left of the pike and the bridge. Wheat deployed his Tiger Rifles and Catahoula Guerrillas forward as skirmishers to patrol the creek while the Walker Guards, Delta Rangers, and Old Dominion Guards fortified the ridge. The battalion was encamped "in an orchard back of Van Pelt's House." Two 4.62-inch Field Howitzers from Captain H. Gray Latham’s Lynchburg (Virginia) Artillery, commanded by Lieutenant George Davidson, were posted on the south side of the pike, covering the bridge itself.

Once the brigade was emplaced, Evans had his men dig several rifle pits along the ridge and fell trees along the west side of the creek to not only clear a better field of fire but also to “obstruct passage over the flat except by the defile of the bridge and road.” As the enlisted men toiled, Colonel Evans had a local resident, Dr. Bronaugh, take himself and his officers on a reconnaissance to become better acquainted with their surroundings. The good doctor showed them that the country road that led north from the pike just behind their position led in many different directions. It snaked past “Avon,” Evans’s headquarters, and wrapped around the ridge to the left. About 400 yards northwest of the house a path angled back to the right, to Farm Ford. Continuing along the road for another 500 yards, a path from Poplar Ford angled in from the northeast. The ford itself was about 1,500 yards from this point. Off to the northwest, continuing up the main road was the imposing Carter Mansion that was located on the left, or south side of the road. The mansion, a Georgian-style house named Pittsylvania, was on the northeastern slope of a ridge that continued in a southwesterly direction toward the Sudley-Manassas Road. Another 500 yards or so, beyond the mansion, the road forked again; to the right it led off to the northwest, toward Sudley Ford, on the Sudley-Manassas Road. To the left it led southwest atop the ridgeline, past a quaint house owned by Edgar Matthews and then on to the Sudley-Manassas Road. The distance from Pittsylvania to Matthews’s house was about a thousand yards.

On July 18, a week after the Tigers settled into their positions along Van Pelt Ridge, the expected Federal attack began when part of Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell’s 30,000-man Army of Northeastern Virginia, sent down from Alexandria to disperse Beauregard’s Confederate Army of the Potomac, launched a reconnaissance-in-force against the Confederate right at Mitchell’s and Blackburn’s fords, well south of the pike. Once it was determined that the Louisiana Creole had in fact moved some of his forces to meet the threat, McDowell began to shift the bulk of his army to the north and west and attacked Beauregard’s left on Sunday, July 21, 1861.

While Colonel Israel Richardson’s 4th Brigade, Brig. Gen. Daniel Tyler’s 1st Division, was kept at Blackburn’s and Mitchell’s fords to hold the Confederate right, three divisions were to conduct an en echelon attack against the Confederate left. Two of these divisions, Brig. Gens. David Hunter’s Second and Samuel P. Heintzelman’s Third, were to cross Bull Run at Sudley Ford and march down the Manassas Road, flanking Evans’s dug-in brigade at Stone Bridge. Once Evans was turned, the bulk of Brig. Gen. Daniel Tyler’s 1st Division, previously demonstrating at Stone Bridge, was to force a crossing and link up with Hunter and Heintzelman. All three divisions, commanded by McDowell himself, would then drive south, link up with Richardson, disperse the rebel army, capture Manassas Junction, and continue on to Richmond, quelling the "slaveholder’s insurrection."

The battle resumed just after 4:15 A.M. (5:15 A.M. Daylight Savings Time) when skirmishers from Tyler’s 1st Division stumbled into some of Evans’s pickets who were posted along the pike on the east side of Bull Run. Alerted to the Federal approach, Evans mobilized his brigade, reinforced the rifle pits along Van Pelt Ridge, and kept two companies from Sloan’s 4th South Carolina behind the hill as a reserve. About an hour later, Tyler made his “appearance in line of battle on the east side of the stone bridge, about 1,500 yards in front of ,” and opened fire with a massive 4.67-inch Parrott Rifle commanded by Lieutenant Peter Haines of Battery G, 1st U.S. Artillery. One of Sloan’s Carolinians reported that the pike was “filled with columns of infantry as far as the eye could reach.” Private Drury Gibson of the Catahoula Guerrillas remembered, “We were anxious to meet the enemy, in fact our hearts jumped for joy when we saw their bayonets through the distant forest.”

Haines's gun, planted on the north side of the pike, was soon joined by Captain James Carlisle's Battery E, 2nd U.S. and together they "commenced firing at intervals at different directions show his position, which was still concealed." Knowing that he was more than likely outnumbered, Evans chose to keep his men hidden and ordered all of them, including Davidson's well-camouflaged cannon, to hold their fire until the Federals made an actual push across the creek. After about an hour of incidental shelling, Tyler advanced "a considerable force of skirmishers" from the wood line toward the bridge. To match them, Evans ordered Sloan and Wheat to reinforce their picket lines down near the creek to challenge the Federal push.

As the skirmishing intensified, Wheat, with “characteristic daring and restlessness” crossed Bull Run at Farm Ford to investigate with some of the Tiger Rifles and Alexander’s cavalrymen in tow. Riding along a cornfield to a clump of trees, the Old Filibuster carefully watched some Federals who were about 500 yards distant. After a full hour of fighting, Wheat thought, Tyler should have been advancing his entire force across the pasture in an attempt to storm Evans's position, and not merely fiddling with a few skirmishers. Riding closer to get a better look, the Yankees finally spotted the Tiger commander, fired at him, and forced him and his patrol to withdraw.

As Wheat and his entourage splashed back across the creek, Colonel Evans received a report from Captain John Alexander at Poplar Ford that a “large enemy force” was marching up the country road north and east of his position. Another report, the one that apparently sealed it for Evans, came from Captain E. Porter Alexander, the army’s principal signal officer, who spotted "the reflection of the sun from a brass cannon" several miles to the north, near Sudley Ford. "Look out for your left," Alexander warned, "you are turned."

With Wheat's and the Alexanders' information in hand, Evans correctly deduced that the action to his front was merely a ruse and boldly decided to "quit his position and meet the enemy in his flank movement." Informing Beauregard and Cocke of his intentions and leaving but four companies from the 4th South Carolina to help Cocke hold Stone Bridge and Farm Ford, Evans ordered the bulk of his brigade, eleven companies of infantry, Alexander’s and Terry's troops of cavalry, and Davidson’s yet-to-be-fired howitzers—about 900 men total—to cover Poplar Ford. Lt. Thomas Adrian's Zouave platoon from the Tiger Rifles, posted at Farm Ford, apparently did not get the order to move and stayed in its position until it was relieved by members of the 4th South Carolina.

Evans therefore moved again, this time up to "Pittsylvania" to try to stop or at least slow the advancing Federal column. Following Alexander’s horsemen, Wheat’s Tigers trotted along the country road to the Carter Mansion where Wheat deployed them and Davidson’s guns in the fields surrounding the house. As the 4th South Carolina came up, deploying to the Tigers' left, Evans and his cavalry scouted further north, across the farm fields, to a position that overlooked Sudley Ford. There Evans and Wheat spotted Colonel Ambrose Burnside's brigade of Brig. Gen. David Hunter's 1st Division, the lead element of McDowell's main effort, crossing the ford and marching down the Sudley-Manassas Road.

Understanding the danger to the Confederate line, Evans ordered his brigade to move once again, farther to the west, to establish a blocking position somewhere near the cross roads where the Sudley-Manassas and Alexandria-Warrenton Pike intersected. While Sloan, Terry, Wheat, and Alexander were to advance cross-country toward the cross roads, Davidson's two guns were to counter-march to the Van Pelt House, march west up the pike, and link up with Sloan's and Wheat's infantry somewhere near the crossroads. Wheat reported: “At this conjuncture, I sent back, as ordered, the two artillery pieces which had attached to my command, still having Alexander’s troop of cavalry with me. Shortly after, under orders, I deployed my whole command to the left, which movement, of course, placed me on the right of the line of battle.” Before the commands departed, Evans instructed them “to open fire as soon as the enemy approached within range of muskets.”

With the Tigers on the left and the Guerrillas on the right deployed as skirmishers (the rest of the battalion advancing in column), Wheat led his command west along the along the ridge line that stretched from "Pittsylvania" to the Sudley-Manassas Road. Leaving the grounds of "Pittsylvania," his skirmish line entered a wood lot and came out the other side to a fence line and the Edgar Matthews's Farm. Meanwhile Sloan, moving further to the left with Terry's cavalry, advanced to Buck Hill, faced north, blocking the road, and deployed Captain James Hawthorne’s Saludia Guards to the front as skirmishers along a fence at the edge of a patch of woods at the foot of Matthews's Hill.

At this point, the Tigers were advancing across the midsection of Matthews's Hill perpendicular to Sloan's line, in a corn field. Seeing blue (the Tiger Rifles) to their front, Hawthorne's Saludia Guards unknowing fired into the New Orleans Zouaves' left flank. Aroused, the surprised Tigers turned about and returned fire. A small battle could have ensued right then and there if Wheat had not rushed into the woods and straightened the matter out with Captain Hawthorne. Wheat later reported: ”From the covert, to my utter surprise, I received a volley of musketry which unfortunately came from our own troops, mistaking us for the enemy, killing three and wounding several of my men. Apprehending the real cause of the accident, I called out to my men not to return fire. Those near enough to hear, obeyed; the more distant, did not.” Among the mortally wounded of this friendly fire incident were Tiger Zouaves Hugh McDonald and James Wilson.

Soon after this friendly fire incident, the Catahoula Guerrillas spotted several Federals crest Matthews's Hill to their front, about 200 yards away. “Almost at the same moment,” Wheat reported, “the enemy opened up on us” as it crested Matthews’s Hill. “The enemy” consisted of two skirmish companies from Colonel Ambrose Burnside's brigade of Brig. Gen. David Hunter's 1st Division, the lead element of McDowell's main effort. Behind them, stacked up on the Manassas-Sudley Road, were Col. Slocum's 2nd Rhode Island Infantry, Captain William Reynolds’ Battery A, 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery, the 2nd New Hampshire, the 71st New York and the 1st Rhode Island. Behind the 1st Rhode Island was Colonel Andrew Porter's brigade, which consisted of Captain Charles Griffin's battery, a battalion of recently recruited U.S. Marines, the 8th, 14th and 27th New York, a battalion of U.S. Army Regular infantry, and a battalion of regular Army cavalry.

Despite the fact that his battalion was in disarray and in the middle of a corn field, Wheat, not wanting the Federals to maintain a superior position, resolved to attack them first. Directing his battalion to wheel to the north, the Old Filibuster ordered the attack. Wheat's aide and fellow Garibaldian, Robert Going Atkins said: "Wheat seemed the genius of the fight--conspicuous by his great size and soldierlike mein, his flashing eye and his glittering blade." The battalion probably advanced up the hill, from left to right, in the following order: Tiger Rifles, Walker Guards, Delta Rangers (acting as color company with their Stars and Bars), the Old Dominion Guards, and the Catahoula Guerrillas.

In full battle line, Wheat's Battalion made its way slowly but surely up through the corn field as errant Federal musketry buzzed over their heads. About 250 yards from the hill top, the Tigers assembled behind a fence where they exchanged musketry with the Rhode Islanders. After a few minutes, the Federal skirmishers pulled back under the cover of the north slope of the hill to await reinforcement.

Seeing this, Wheat led his men over, under, or through the fence to the hill top (first charge). During this maneuver, 15-year-old William Wrigley of the Walker Guards, "with the courage worthy of the hero of Lodi," mounted the fence rails and, waving his small company flank marker, "shouted encouragement to his comrades." Capt. White, advancing on horseback, reportedly yelled "Wood pile!" as he galloped to the top.

Once the Tigers topped the hill and crossed the lane that linked the Edgar Matthews House with the Sudley-Manassas Road, however, they were met by a deadly fusillade that drove them back onto the southern slope, between the hill top and the fence line. One Tiger remembered that the Federals “fairly poured into and over our ranks a perfect hail-storm.” Wheat’s men returned the fire but with minimal effect as the Rhode Islander skirmishers reportedly flung themselves to the ground with each volley.

Before long, Slocum's 2nd Rhode Island came into full battle line (ten companies to Wheat’s five) and was being reinforced by Captain William Reynolds’s battery of six rifled guns which were being rushed forward into battery on the east side of the Manassas-Sudley Road, linking up with the 2nd Rhode Island’s right. Seeing time running out, the Old Filibuster ordered his battalion to charge a second time.

The second charge drove the 2nd Rhode Islanders back from the crest for a short time until they, reinforced by the 1st Rhode Island, counter-attacked, once-again driving Wheat’s Tigers back from the crest. Not accepting defeat and hoping to be reinforced by the 4th South Carolina, Wheat ordered a third charge. He later reported: “The enemy in front opened up upon us with musketry, grape canister, round shot, and shells. I immediately charged upon the enemy and drove him from his position. As he rallied again in a few minutes, I charged him a second and a third time successfully.”

During this third attack, many of the Tiger Zouaves reportedly dropped their rifles and unsheathed their “murderous-looking” Bowie Knives and "plung unmercifully into their foe." The New Orleans Commercial Bulletin reported that the Zouaves of the Tiger Rifles “disgusted with their Mississippi Rifles (without bayonets)” and when ordered to charge, “threw away the rifles and charged with Bowie Knives, as the enemy say like demons, and put all to flight before them.” The New Orleans Daily Delta similarly reported" “upon reaching the enemy’s column, threw down their rifles (having no bayonets), drew their bowie knives, and cut their way through the enemy, with a loss of two thirds of the company." Robert Richie, the Tiger Rifles’ tough first sergeant, remembered: “Our blood was on fire. Life was valueless. The boys fired one volley, then rushed upon the foe with clubbed rifles beating down their guard; then they closed upon them with their knives, “Greek had met Greek;” the tug of war had come. I have been in battle several times before but such fighting never was done, I do believe as was done for the next half hour; it did not seem as though men were fighting, it were devils mingling in the conflict, cursing, yelling, cutting, and shrieking.” Private Sam English of the 2nd Rhode Island remembered that this attack “seemed to me to be the most terrible moment of this terrific contest.” It is believed that Major Sullivan Ballou of the 2nd Rhode Island was killed during this exchange.

The dramatic active defense of Matthews's Hill by the 1st Louisiana Special Battalion—Bowie Knives and all—forever placed Wheat’s “adventurous wharf rats, thieves, and outcasts” among the pantheon of Southern gods. The October 1861 issue of the widely read Southern Literary Messenger wrote:"Among the accounts of the battle of Manassas, mention is made of the Tiger Rifles of Louisiana, one of those capacious names, perhaps, that were common among the Roman legions…. They fought after the Roman manner with some improvements of their own. The regiment which they charged received them with a murderous fire. They divided the distance which separated them by falling upon their faces and so waiting for a few moments. Then rising, they delivered their fire, and with a terrible shout rushed forward. They clubbed their rifles, beat down the bristling bayonets before them, and unsheathing their long and heavy Bowie knives (a weapon somewhat similar to the Roman sword) they began to hack their antagonists to pieces. A dreadful carnage ensued. They performed prodigies of valour and made good their claim to the sobriquet 'the Tigers,' which they had assumed." Wheat later said: "I played my hand as if I had a brigade and the damned Yankees thought so too." In ordering these brazen up-hill assaults into the face of a superior enemy, there is no doubt that Wheat wanted to establish his reputation in the Confederate Army as a tough, aggressive, and personally brave officer, who merited command of not just a regiment, but an entire brigade.

At this point, the supporting artillery arrived and Evans deployed Lt. Clark Leftwich’s piece atop Buck Hill to directly cover Sloan and the Sudley-Manassas Road and Davidson’s gun on a slight rise just north of the pike, near the Robinson House, to cover Wheat. To support the guns, Evans placed Alexander’s and Terry's troops on both flanks of Buck Hill.

It was also around this time that Lt. Thomas Adrian, a veteran of the Filibuster Wars, finally came up from Farm Ford with the Tiger Rifles' "lost" second platoon and slammed into the Rhode Islanders' left near the Matthews House. Adrian remembered that his Tigers advanced to a “point near the top of the hill, and not far from the Matthews’s House” and “gave the enemy much trouble, killing an officer and many of his men.” Their volley drew returning fire and Adrian went down with a ball in his leg, "wounding him slightly." Prone and wounded, his men heard him yell:“Tigers! Go in once more! I’ll be great gloriously God-damned if the sons-of-bitches can ever whip the Tigers!”

Even though the Tigers were able to keep the enemy "in check for some time," they were forced to yield the hilltop to the hated Yankees. Adrian later reported that the Tigers "were compelled to abandon their position fell back, having sustained much loss.” One of Reynolds’s Federal artillerymen wrote: “Never will I forget how that Rebel flag looked as it bobbed out of sight under the hill.” Three hapless Tigers, Privates Thomas Hayes of the Delta Rangers, John Kuntz of the Old Dominion Guards (who was wounded in the back), and Chester Woods of the Catahoula Guerrillas were reportedly snagged during the retreat by members of the 2nd Rhode Island. A few other unfortunates from the Special Battalion were left dead or mortally wounded at the feet of Burnside’s victorious New Englanders.

As the fighting raged on Matthews's Hill, Brig. Gen. Barnard Elliott Bee, Jr. of Johnston’s Confederate Army of the Shenandoah, sent up from Manassas to support Evans, was deploying his command about a thousand yards south of Matthews’s Hill along the northern slope of Henry Hill. Bee had with him two regiments of infantry, Colonel Egbert Jones’s 4th Alabama and Colonel William Falkner’s 2nd Mississippi, and one battery of light artillery, Captain John D. Imboden’s. Directly behind Bee were two infantry battalions from Col. Francis S. Bartow's brigade, the 7th and 8th Georgia regiments.

Seeing that Evans was holding out against incredible odds, Bee rode down to the pressed South Carolinian to urge him to fall back to Henry Hill, a stronger position. But Evans, not recognizing Bee’s authority, balked and instead dared him to come down and support his men who were bravely holding their ground against the contemptible Yankees. Faced with Evans’s daring obduracy, Bee rode back up to Henry Hill and ordered his two regiments to take up a position to the right of the 4th South Carolina. “Here is the battlefield,” Bee cried, “and we are in for it!”

Bee, conferring with Evans, decided to elongate the 4th South Carolina's right, out toward the Carter Mansion, with the 2nd Mississippi adjoining with the 4th SC in the center and the 4th Alabama adjoining on the right. One soldier from the 4th Alabama remembered: "As we emerged from the little wood we caught sight of these Tigers, utterly overwhelmed and flying pell-mell, most of them running off to our right and toward the stream."

With Bee's reinforcements in and seeing that the Federals were extending to the left of the Sudley-Manassas Road atop Dogan's Ridge, Wheat resolved to launch another attack, this one directed against Col. Gilman Marston's gray-clad 2nd New Hampshire Regiment, Burnside’s brigade. The Old Filibuster apparently planned to take New Hampshiremen in flank so that Evans and Bee could advance and hold the crest of Matthews’s Hill. “Dispatching Major Atkins for more reinforcements,” the enterprising Wheat “gave the order to move by the left flank to the cover of the hill” and led his skirmish companies across the road, and into a field of cut hay. During the move, however, some of the men “by mistake, crossed the open field and suffered severely from the fire of the enemy.”

Wheat directed his riflemen to take cover from behind some hay stacks while he rode back to bring up the rest of his command. As the Old Filibuster ran the gauntlet of enemy fire, however, a bullet that was claimed to have been fired by a sergeant in the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment, nailed the Tiger commander and knocked him from his horse. Wheat remembered: "Advancing from the wood with a portion of my command, I reached some haystacks under cover of which I was enabled to damage the enemy very much. While in the act of bring up the rest of my command to this position, I was put hors de combat by a Minie Ball passing through my body."

The bullet clipped Wheat’s left arm, drilled into his left side “immediately under and a little in front of the armpits” and “perforated one of his lungs,” before passing out the other side. Falling heavily to the ground near the road (a marker currently locates the spot at the national park), the Tiger commander was quickly surrounded by several men of his battalion who, “by the judicious management of Captain Buhoup,” rolled him onto a blanket. The loyal Tigers then began to lug their burly commander (he weighed over 250 pounds and topped six feet) back to the woods behind the 4th SC. The enemy fire was so terrific that Wheat shouted, “Lay me down, boys, you must save yourselves!” His pleas were ignored.

As Wheat was dragged into the woods, Lieutenant Austin Eastman of the red-shirted Delta Rangers reportedly ripped the battalion colors from its staff and placed it under Wheat’s head as a pillow. The Tigers then frantically searched for a way to evacuate their horribly wounded commander and before long snatched up a “mounted staff officer” who was riding up the pike. The sympathetic officer draped Wheat across his horse like a bag of meal and taxied him down the Manassas Road to a field hospital that was located at the New Market crossroads, just north of the junction.

Wheat’s wounding proved momentous. The once-brave Tigers, all alone on the far-left, under intense enemy fire, and without the guiding hand of their charismatic leader, began to scatter in the face of the 2nd New Hampshire. "After Major Wheat had fallen, Captain Harris took command, and after receiving orders to that effect, fell back to the bridge across Young's Branch ." Harris apparently held his position with at least some of the Tigers while most of them apparently didn’t stop running until they reached the plantation of “Portici,” Beauregard’s headquarters, which was about a mile east of Henry Hill near Ball’s Ford, or Camp Pickens, near Manassas, which were well away from the battle area. Some of Adrian's Tigers, out on the far-right, reportedly "charged again in conjunction with the 4th Alabama Regiment . In this...charge they advanced from the foot of the hill near the woods back of the Stone House to a point near the top of the hill, and not far from the Matthews's House, from behind which the enemy was sending deadly missiles at the Alabamians. From this point, their fire was sharp and destructive."

Lt. Col. Charles de Choiseul, who later commanded the Tigers for a short time later wrote: "From own accounts they broke an hour after the action began on the 21st, and never rallied again as a battalion during the day though many of them fought in small squads to the last." For example, Robert Going Atkins, Wheat's friend and loyal aide, "armed with but a bayonet," reportedly appeared amidst a section of New Orleans's Washington Artillery at Henry Hill with "tears in his eyes." He stated that the battalion had been scattered and that he "feared Wheat dead."

Just before noon, Evans, Bee, and Bartow were soon over-matched as Colonel William B. Franklin’s 1st Brigade, Brig. Gen. Samuel P. Heintzelman’s 3rd Division, was brought up to support Hunter’s two brigades. This reinforcement included twelve guns from Captains James Ricketts’s and Charles Griffin’s batteries of regular army artillery. With overwhelming force now on the field, the Federals charged down both sides of the Sudley-Manassas Road and crushed Bartow’s, Bee’s, and Evans’s commands, forcing them to retreat across the pike and onto Henry Hill. As was already noted, some of the Tigers fought on with these units as they retreated behind Jackson's sobriquet "stone wall" atop Henry Hill.

As the battle shifted to Henry Hill after 1:00 P.M., some “New Orleans Zouaves and Alabamians” were assembled into a "makeshift battalion" at Beauregard’s headquarters. The "makeshift battalion" was placed under Colonel Francis Thomas, a Maryland ordnance officer from the general staff. Thomas led the ad hoc battalion to Henry Hill and it helped repel the Federal attacks during the latter stages of the fight. For example, some Tigers reportedly tangled with members of the 11th and 14th NY (Fire Zouaves and Brooklyn Chasseurs) as both sides fought over Griffin's two abandoned guns on the south side of the hill.

For this particular attack, several red-shirted filibusters from the Walker Guards, the Delta Rangers, and the Old Dominion Guards, coupled with some colorful “New Orleans Zouaves” from the Tiger Rifles, just arrived with Colonel Thomas from “Portici,” were again asked to charge the enemy uphill and at close range. Griffin’s guns, the Tigers’ immediate objective, were situated on a small clear knoll about a hundred yards above their position. Once they “emptied their rifles in a fateful discharge at close quarters,” the Tigers bolted out from the tree line “with a terrible shout” and charged up the steep slope. The Federals, who were posted above, shot withering fire into their ranks and downed many officers and men in the process.

Despite the odds, the Tigers and others continued their attack up the smoky knoll and into the faces of the enemy. Plunging unmercifully into the New York Fire Zouaves and Brooklyn Chasseurs, the Tiger Zouaves reportedly once again dropped their rifles, unsheathed their “murderous-looking” Bowie Knives, and “by dexterous blows, beat down the bristling bayonets before them began to hack their antagonists to pieces. A dreadful carnage ensued.” According to the New Orleans Bee, 1 August 1861: “The Tiger Rifles having no bayonets to their Mississippi rifles, threw them away when ordered to charge, and dashed upon the Fire Zouaves with bowie knives.”

One Federal prisoner, interred in a Richmond hospital after the battle, told a Confederate reporter that he had tangled with a Tiger in hand-to-hand combat. The reporter wrote: "During the fight he observed that one of the Tigers had sighted him out, and after trying to shoot the Tiger who had dropped his gun, he charged him with his sword bayonet, then he perceived that the Tiger had a short and heavy bowie knife, when the Yankee, being a powerful man, dropped his gun and seized the arm of the Tiger to prevent him stabbing him, whereupon the Bengalese reached over and catching the Yankee’s nose between his teeth, bit it off close to his face, and then proceeded to perform a like service upon his cheeks, and thus he literally chewed his face into jelly."

As the Tigers and others consolidated around Griffin’s captured guns, McDowell’s last available unit, Colonel William Tecumseh Sherman’s 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, swept across the plateau and headed for Ricketts’s guns. After another thirty minutes of intense fighting, Sherman’s 13th, 38th, 69th, and 79th New York regiments, supported by the gray-clad 2nd Wisconsin Volunteers, were able to boot the 5th Virginia and Hampton’s Legion from the battery and drive them back. The tough survivors from the Special Battalion, over near Griffin’s guns with what was left of the 4th Alabama, the 2nd Mississippi, the 7th Georgia, and the 18th Virginia, were now left in an exposed position.

Luckily for them, at about 4:00 P.M., the 2nd and 8th South Carolina regiments from Brig. Gen. Milledge Bonham’s 1st Brigade, Army of the Potomac, marching up the Manassas Road, arrived at the southern base of Henry Hill and slammed into Sherman’s right, driving his brigade from Ricketts’s battery. This enabled Jackson to sweep across the plateau with his command and finally seize or drive away all of Ricketts’s and Griffin’s guns. Bonham’s regiments were soon followed by Colonel Jubal A. Early’s 6th Brigade, Army of the Potomac, which began to deploy atop Bald Hill, elongating the Confederate left. No doubt inspired by this turn of events, 1st Sergeant Richie led what remained of his Tiger Zouaves across the road and to the far-left of Early’s brigade where Lieutenant Robert Beckham’s Culpeper (Virginia) Artillery was going into battery just above “Hazel Plain.” The Tigers reportedly helped the pressed Virginia artillerists man their pieces.

Inspired by the intrepid Tigers, Colonel Harry Hays of the 7th Louisiana, Early’s brigade, yelled, “Hurrah for the Tigers! Charge for the Tigers and for Louisiana!” These troops—Beauregard’s last—finally tipped the scales against McDowell’s forces that were now surrounded on two sides by advancing rebel infantry and well-placed Confederate artillery. Before long, after another gallant Confederate charge (in which General Bee and Colonels Bartow and Thomas were killed), the Federals were driven from Chinn Ridge, and ultimately, from the field of battle itself.

As the battle for Henry Hill reached its crescendo, Colonel Robert Withers of the 18th Virginia Regiment, Cocke’s 5th Brigade, sent up from Lewis Ford to reinforce Beauregard’s line on Henry Hill, noticed several stragglers heading out of the battle area. Among them were two Tiger Zouaves from Wheat’s Battalion. Unlike the other fugitives who refused Withers’s pleadings to rejoin the fight, the combative Tigers agreed and fell in with the 18th Virginia for the rest of the battle. Withers remembered: “We pushed on past the House in the direction of Henry House, when we netted a string of wounded men and stragglers, streaming to the rear. As many of these were unhurt, I urged them to go back with us into the fight, all refused except two ‘Tigers,’ who, from their brogue were evidently Irish. They fell into line and we passed through some pines and emerged on the open plateau near the Henry House, where most of the fighting had been done, some skirmishing was going on between a mob of disorganized men on my left and some of the enemy beyond the, who were invisible to us. No other troops being in sight, I told the men to lie down until I could ascertain something of my surroundings, expecting each moment to see the other regiments of the brigade emerge from the pines. Just then, one of the ‘Tigers’ who had joined us ran up the slope to an orchard occupied by the skirmishers, got behind an apple tree, and fired two or three times, when he was shot through both legs. He squatted down, and turning his head over his shoulder called to his comrade: ‘I say, Dennis, come up here and give them hell, for they’ve got me!’’

Later, as the beaten Union army pulled back toward the Bull Run crossings, some men from the 79th New York were surprised to find an unidentified Tiger Zouave “prisoner” (who later escaped) in their ranks. Private William Todd remembered: “Considerable astonishment as well as amusement was caused by the presence in our retreating ranks of a solitary prisoner, who plodded along with us and entertained us by his quaint remarks. His uniform attracted our attention: a Zouave cap of red, and jacket of blue, with baggy trousers made of blue and white striped material, and white leggings, gave him a rather rakish appearance; he announced himself as a member of the Louisiana Tiger Battalion, Major Wheat commanding.” This Tiger no doubt took cover in the woods around Young's Branch and was snagged by the advancing (or retreating) Federals.

In his after action report of the battle, General Beauregard himself noted that the Tigers “maintained their stand with almost matchless tenacity…dauntless courage and imperturbable coolness,” and cited Wheat for his “brilliant courage.” The Louisiana general went on to say, “In the desperate, unequal contest, to which these brave gentlemen were for a time necessarily exposed, the behavior of the officers and men was worthy of the highest admiration, and assuredly hereafter all those present may proudly say: ‘We were that band who fought the first hour of the battle of Manassas.’”

All told, the 1st Louisiana Special Battalion officially listed forty-seven casualties (thirty-one wounded, twelve killed, three captured, and one wounded and captured) at the battle of Manassas. Its commander, Major Chatham Roberdeau Wheat, was wounded in the left arm and breast and shot through a lung. His adjutant, Lieutenant Robert Dickinson, was wounded in the leg, “His horse having been killed under him, he was on foot with sword in one hand and revolver in the other, about fifty yards from the enemy when a Minnie ball struck him. He fell and lay over an hour, when… Capt. McCausland passed. The generous McCausland dismounted and placed Dickinson on his horse”; Captain Alexander White was supposedly “stunned” when his horse was shot out from under him during the first charge on Matthews’ Hill; Captain Obedia Miller of the Old Dominion Guards was wounded in the ankle; Lieutenant Thomas Adrian of the Tiger Rifles was wounded in the thigh; and Lieutenant Henry S. Carey of the Old Dominion Guards was “shot in the foot, and when lying on the field stabbed through the thigh by a Yankee officer, whom he killed.”

The Tiger Rifles suffered ten casualties, paying the highest price of the battalion with seven men killed and three wounded. The Walker Guards took seven casualties (all wounded); the Delta Rangers lost six men (five wounded and one captured), and the Catahoula Guerrillas lost four men killed, three wounded, and one captured. The Old Dominion Guards took the most casualties in the battalion with one killed, twelve wounded, and one wounded and captured (total of fourteen). Most of the battalion’s known casualties were the result of fourteen leg wounds, followed by four head wounds. There were two shoulder wounds, two arm or hand wounds, and three back wounds.

When Wheat was brought to the field hospital after getting mangled at the foot of Dogan’s Ridge, the surgeons who examined him declared his wound to be mortal. But the Old Filibuster defied their grim forecast by spouting: “I don’t feel like dying yet.” One surgeon then sadly relayed that he knew of “no instance on record of recovery from such a wound.” “Well then,” Wheat gurgled as he spat up blood from his punctured lung; “I will put my case upon record.” To echo this tenacity, on July 23, 1861, the editor of the New Orleans Daily Picayune wrote: “In every corner of this land, and at every capital in Europe, will be relived as the emphatic and exulting endorsement, by a young and unconquerable nation, of the lofty assurance President Davis spread before the world on the very eve of battle, that the noble race of freemen who inherit these States will, whatever may be the proportions of the war may assure, renew their sacrifices and their services from year to year, until they have made good to the uttermost their right to self government. The day of battle shows how they redeemed this pledge for them, and in adversity as in victory, it is the undying pledge of all.”