Of all the units that took the field at the First Battle of Manassas in July 1861, none exceeded the flair and intensity of the 1st Louisiana Special Battalion, ‘Wheat’s Tigers.’ Raised from the dregs of New Orleans, the Tigers, who were primarily Irish immigrant dockworkers, were as tough and resolute as their combative commander, Major Roberdeau Wheat.

Chatham Roberdeau Wheat, born on April 9, 1826, in Alexandria, Va., studied law at the University of Nashville and then served in the 1st Tennessee Cavalry as a lieutenant during the Mexican War. After the war, he moved to New Orleans, where he began his career as a filibuster–or mercenary–participating in several expeditions to Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua and Italy, and rising to the rank of general in both the Mexican and Italian armies.

In 1861, when his native South declared its independence, Wheat rushed to New Orleans to raise a regiment to defend the newly proclaimed Confederate States of America. Re-establishing his old recruiting station at 64 St. Charles Street, near the docks, he attracted three already forming companies, Captain Robert Harris’ ‘Walker Guards,’ Captain Alexander White’s ‘Tiger Rifles’ and Captain Henry Gardner’s ‘Delta Rangers,’ to his banner and formed a fourth on his own, the ‘Old Dominion Guards.’ The men of these companies were largely Irish immigrant dockworkers or ship hands who inhabited the southern edge of the city, near the Mississippi River. One observer expressed a widely held view that they were the ‘lowest scum of the lower Mississippi…adventurous wharf rats, thieves, and outcasts…and bad characters generally.’

At least some of the men, especially those in Harris’ Walker Guards, were also former filibusters who had served with Wheat in Nicaragua back in 1857. They mustered into service in their old filibuster uniforms–off-white cotton drill trousers, white canvas leggings, red flannel battle shirts and broad-brimmed, low-crowned straw hats. Once enlisted, the men also wrote provocative slogans–such as ‘Lincoln’s Life or a Tiger’s Death,’ ‘Tiger by Nature’ or ‘Tiger in Search of Abe’–on their hat bands.

Wheat next worked on outfitting his nascent command in the Zouave fashion. Zouaves were originally Algerian units that served in the French army and were considered among the elite fighting forces in the world. The Algerians wore their traditional, flamboyant uniforms during their French service, inspiring a sartorial style that was duplicated by Northern and Southern regiments during the Civil War. To uniform his Tigers as Zouaves, Wheat enlisted the support of A. Keene Richards, a wealthy New Orleans businessman and one of Wheat’s former filibuster financiers. The men were issued red wool fezzes with blue tassels; loose-fitting red woolen, placketed battle shirts; red woolen sashes; dark-blue wool, waist-length Zouave jackets with red trim; blue-and-white striped sailor’s socks; blue-and-white striped cotton pantaloons cut in the baggy Zouave fashion; white canvas leggings and black leather grieves.

Wheat uniformed himself in a dark-blue, double-breasted frock coat and trousers and looked much like a field grade officer in the U.S. Army. He also sported a buff general’s sash to commemorate his filibuster commission in the Mexican and Italian armies. For headgear, he wore a red, French-style kepi bedecked with gold lace to denote his rank.

By early April 1861, all the New Orleans units that intended to volunteer for Confederate service gathered at the Metairie racetrack, two miles northwest of the waterfront. There, Wheat’s men were issued Model 1841 ‘Mississippi’ rifles that had been seized from the U.S. arsenal at Baton Rouge in January 1861 and large bowie-style knives. With their new weapons and accouterments, mostly Mexican War surplus, the Tigers were quickly introduced to military drill and discipline by Wheat. Once drill was over, the Tigers drank, played cards or fought, often disrupting camp.

On May 13, Wheat was ordered to move his rowdy companies to Camp Moore, in northern Louisiana. Wheat hoped to attract four more companies to his command to form a full regiment, but he was unsuccessful. His rough Zouaves actually repelled potential allies. One man wrote of Wheat’s Tigers: ‘I got my first glimpse at Wheat’s Battalion from New Orleans. They were all Irish and were dressed in Zouave dress, and were familiarly known as Louisiana Tigers, and tigers they were too in human form. I was actually afraid of them, afraid I would meet them somewhere in camp and that they would do to me like they did to Tom Lane of my company; knock me down and stamp me half to death.’

Wheat was forced to stand by while seven other men with less military experience were commissioned colonels and their assembled companies were mobilized into Confederate service in regiments. Spurred to desperate action, he decided to make a deal with state officials to commission him a major and to recognize his four companies temporarily as the 1st Louisiana Special Battalion. With his status thus secured, Wheat hoped to attract four or five more companies and become the colonel of the soon-to-be organized 8th Louisiana Regiment.

In the political wrangling that followed, Henry Kelly, not Wheat, became commander of the 8th Louisiana. With Kelly’s ascension, Captain J.W. Buhoup’s company of Catahoula Guerrillas voted to leave Kelly’s command and throw in their lot with Wheat’s special battalion. Unlike the rest of the battalion, the Catahoula Guerrillas consisted of sons of wealthy planters, doctors and lawyers from Catahoula Parish in northern Louisiana. Outfitted in dark-gray battle shirts and blue kepis, they were complete social opposites from Wheat’s New Orleans dockworkers.

By June 6, Wheat felt that he could no longer wait for regimental command. He resolved to take the five companies that he had, about 415 men total, muster them into Confederate service and head for Virginia. In so doing, he gave up his bid to form a regiment from his special battalion, and his unit was officially named the 2nd Louisiana Battalion by state officials. To the officers and men of the battalion, however, they would always be known as the 1st Louisiana Special Battalion, or simply as Wheat’s Tigers.

On June 13, Wheat’s battalion entrained for Virginia. Passing through Mississippi and Tennessee, the Tigers arrived at Manassas Junction, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard’s assembly area, on June 20. As the men disembarked at the depot, some soldiers from the 18th Virginia Regiment noticed that several of the Tigers had been bucked and gagged for disorderly conduct.

The battalion was subsequently assigned to Colonel Philip St. George Cocke’s brigade, stationed well forward of the army, north of Centreville. Upon arrival, Wheat requested the honor of holding the most advanced position of the Confederate Army. Cocke obliged and sent the Tigers up to Frying Pan Church, just south of the Potomac River. The Tigers were in fact so close to the Potomac, the northern boundary of the Confederate States, that they could hear the Yankees’ 4th of July celebration in Washington.

Wheat and his Tigers were not alone for long. They were joined by two troops of Virginia cavalry under Captains John D. Alexander and William R. Terry and by Colonel J.B. Sloan’s 4th South Carolina Infantry. The whole lot, probably to Wheat’s dismay, was put under the command of Colonel Nathan Evans of South Carolina. Evans’ men began conducting light infantry operations, patrolling and setting up ambushes.

While at Frying Pan Church, the battalion fought its first action on July 14. The Federals tried to force a crossing at Seneca Falls on the Potomac, 15 miles northwest of Washington. The place happened to be guarded by Company B of the Tiger Rifles. ‘They had a nice little skirmish,’ Wheat reported, ‘killing three of the enemy and [their] loss was one man shot in the leg (both legs broken).’ Zouave James Burnes was the man wounded in the engagement, making him the first of the battalion’s many battle casualties.

On July 16, Evans was ordered to withdraw from his advanced post and redeploy behind Bull Run Creek with the rest of the army. His command, now designated a brigade, was assigned to guard the extreme left of Beauregard’s line that extended from Sudley and Poplar fords in the north to Farm Ford and the Centreville-Warrenton Stone Bridge in the south. Making his headquarters at the Van Pelt House, which was situated atop a ridge some 900 yards west of the Stone Bridge, Evans located his main camp on the western slope of the ridge, shielding it from Federal view.

Once the brigade was emplaced, Evans had his men cut away the foliage on the western slope of Van Pelt Ridge down to the creek, clearing fields of fire. Farm Ford, Wheat’s responsibility, was left in its natural state. Its only road was on the west, or Confederate, side of Bull Run. Off to the west, continuing up the ford road, was the imposing Carter mansion, which was located on the south side of the road. The mansion, an 18th-century Georgian-style house, was on the northeastern slope of a ridge that continued in a southwesterly direction toward the Manassas-Sudley Road. Beyond the mansion another 500 yards or so, the Farm Ford road forked again. To the right it led off to the northwest, toward Sudley Ford, on the Manassas-Sudley Road. To the left it led southwest atop the ridgeline, past a quaint house owned by Edgar Matthews, and then on to the Manassas-Sudley Road.

On July 18, Union Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell’s 35,000-man army opened hostilities by probing Beauregard’s defenses several miles south of the Stone Bridge at Mitchell’s and Blackburn’s fords. Convinced that Beauregard’s defenses were too strong to force a crossing there, McDowell decided to shift the bulk of his army to the north and west and attack Beauregard’s left soon after dawn on Sunday, July 21.

For this new attack, Brig. Gen. Daniel Tyler’s division was to be sent in first. Tyler was to march his division out of Centreville and down the macadamized Warrenton Turnpike to feint at the Stone Bridge. Meanwhile, the main column, two divisions commanded by Colonels David Hunter and Samuel Heintzelman, would march down a rough road and turn Beauregard’s left at Sudley Ford.

At about 3:30 on the morning of the 21st, Evans’ pickets, deployed on the east, or enemy, side of Bull Run, reported that they heard commands in the woods beyond. Half an hour later, their fears were realized when they saw some shadowy figures approaching their position through the dark woods without identifying themselves. Determining that the force was not friendly, the pickets broke the morning silence and opened up on them.

Wheat quickly got his men up and led Captain Buhoup’s Catahoula Guerrillas forward to reinforce Captain White’s company, picketing Farm Ford. In the meantime, Colonel Sloan of the 4th South Carolina formed the rest of his regiment into line of battle and sent two companies forward to reinforce his picket line. 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.’

With characteristic restlessness, Wheat decided to cross the creek and investigate. Riding across the creek into a field on the other side, Wheat spied a Federal column waiting on the pike. Soon after he entered the clearing, Wheat was spotted and forced to make a hasty retreat back to his side of Bull Run.

As Wheat splashed back across Bull Run, Evans began to receive reports that an even greater danger was brewing to his far left, near Sudley Ford. Captain Edward Porter Alexander, the army’s principal signal officer, had spotted movement and a brief metallic flash several miles to his northwest. Determining that this was a force to be reckoned with, Alexander quickly sent a message down to Evans: ‘Look to your left, you are turned.’

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