[318] first in command. He served in this capacity with distinction at Cedar Run or Slaughter's mountain, and in the Second Manassas campaign he was again called on to command the brigade when General Starke took command of the division on the 28th of August. In the desperate fighting at the railroad cut he and his men were conspicuous. After the capture of Harper's Ferry, he went into the battle of Sharpsburg, and won new honors by his coolness and intrepidity in that great struggle. Though wounded in the foot, he was soon again in the fight. After Sharpsburg his regiment was transferred to the brigade of General Hays, with which it participated in the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Winchester and Gettysburg. In the latter battle he gained the plaudits of his commanding officers by conspicuous gallantry. Early in October he was promoted to brigadier-general and assigned again to command of the Second Louisiana brigade, in the Stonewall division. He commanded this brigade in a gallant action during the Mine Run campaign, fall of 1863, and in May, 1864, led it into the battle of the Wilderness. In that tremendous conflict he received a mortal wound while ‘leading his command with conspicuous valor,’ as Gen. Robert E. Lee stated in his official report.
Brigadier-General Allen Thomas
Brigadier-General Allen Thomas was commissioned colonel of the Twenty-eighth Louisiana May 3, 1862. This regiment was one of the Louisiana commands at Vicksburg under Gen. M. L. Smith, who defended that important post on the Mississippi after the fall of New Orleans and Memphis. During the long bombardment in the summer of 1862 by the Federal fleet, he and his Louisianians were among the trusted men on guard. This Federal attempt ended in failure, but in December following a renewed assault was made with land forces by General Sherman, and the famous battle of Chickasaw bayou resulted. In that victorious defensive combat,