Previous works on Confederate brigadier general Harry T.
Hays’s First Louisiana Brigade—better known as
the “Louisiana Tigers”—have tended to focus
on just one day of the Tigers’ service—their role
in attacking East Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863—and
have touched only lightly on the brigade’s role at the
Second Battle of Winchester, an important prelude to Gettysburg.
In this commanding study, Scott L. Mingus, Sr., offers the
first significant detailed exploration of the Louisiana Tigers
during the entirety of the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign.
Mingus begins by providing a sweeping history of the Louisiana
Tigers; their predecessors, Wheat’s Tigers; the organizational
structure and leadership of the brigade in 1863; and the personnel
that made up its ranks. Covering the Tigers’ movements
and battle actions in depth, he then turns to the brigade’s
march into the Shenandoah Valley and the Tigers’ key
role in defeating the Federal army at the Second Battle of
Winchester.
Combining soldiers’ reminiscences with contemporary
civilian accounts, Mingus breaks new ground by detailing the
Tigers’ march into Pennsylvania, their first trip to
Gettysburg in the week before the battle, their two-day occupation
of York, Pennsylvania—the largest northern town to fall
to the Confederate army—and their march back to Gettysburg.
He offers the first full-scale discussion of the Tigers’
interaction with the local population during their invasion
of Pennsylvania and includes detailed accounts of the citizens’
reactions to the Tigers—many not published since appearing
in local newspapers over a century ago.
Mingus explores the Tigers’ actions on the first two
days of the Battle of Gettysburg and meticulously recounts
their famed assault on East Cemetery Hill, one of the pivotal
moments of the battle. He closes with the Tigers’ withdrawal
from Gettysburg and their retreat into Virginia. Appendices
include an order of battle for East Cemetery Hill, a recap
of the weather during the entire Gettysburg Campaign, a day-by-day
chronology of the Tigers’ movements and campsites, and
the text of the official reports from General Hays for Second
Winchester and Gettysburg.
Comprehensive and engaging, Mingus’s exhaustive work
constitutes the definitive account of General Hays’s
remarkable brigade during the critical summer of 1863.
Scott L. Mingus, Sr., has written numerous
books on the Civil War, including the two volume Human
Interest Stories of the Gettysburg Campaign, its companion
volume Gettysburg Glimpses: True Stories from the Battlefield;
and Flames beyond Gettysburg: The Gordon Expedition, June
1863. He lives in York, Pennsylvania. | 
