Some of the Louisiana regiments found their way from Richmond and its delights to the Peninsula. There Magruder and his ‘foot-cavalry’ still kept the wretched roads free from the tread of foemen. Among the number may be named the Tenth Louisiana volunteers which, in July, 1861, camped under Lee's Mills, on Warwick river. This regiment's first commander was Col. Mandeville Marigny, who was a Creole by birth, the son of a man who had at New Orleans placed under obligations a fugitive prince, afterward king of the French. Marigny was, by the gratitude of the same monarch, educated at St. Cyr, serving afterward in the French army. It was regretted in the Tenth that this accomplished officer should have remained but a few months with the regiment. The Confederate government had recognized, however, his high military fitness, and assigned him South to organize a force of cavalry among the planters of Louisiana and Mississippi.
Marigny was succeeded in the command by Eugene Waggaman, major of the Tenth. Though bred a planter, Waggaman must have been born a soldier. He survived, with great reputation as a fighter, to lead the Tenth at Appomattox. Careless of danger, he oddly carried before his men, whether on the march or charging in a forlorn hope, a cane instead of a sword. The Tenth used to laugh at Waggaman's conceit, and yet they followed Waggaman's cane into some of the deadliest fights in the war.
