As they mustered into service, Louisiana's volunteer companies adopted colorful nicknames: the Alligator Rangers, Big Cane Rifles, Catahoula Guerrillas, Hussars of the Teche, Lafayette Prairie Boys and Pinewood Sharpshooters. Louisianians fought in every major Civil War Battle, distinguishing themselves by both their courage and fighting abilities.
Louisiana furnished the Confederacy with both military and civilian leaders. Twenty-four natives or residents became generals in the Confederate army. Pierre Gustave Toutant (PGT) Beauregard and Braxton Bragg, two of the Confederacy's highest-ranking generals, were from Louisiana. When the war began with the firing on Fort Sumter, Beauregard was in command at Charleston. He was second in command at the first large battles in both the east and west: Manassas and Shiloh. Beauregard saw his finest hour at Petersburg, Virginia, when his army saved that town from Union attack.
Before the war, Bragg, was a planted in Lafourche Parish. From 1862 to 1863, he commanded the mail Confederate army in the west. Although he was a good organizer and strategist, success eluded him on the battlefield. Late in the war, he served as military adviser to President Jefferson Davis.
Two other Louisianians attained the rank of lieutenant general. Richard Taylor, son of President Zachary Taylor served under Stonewall Jackson in Virginia. From August 1862 until August 1864, Taylor commanded Confederate forces in western Louisiana and saved the state from being overrun by Union armies.
Leonidas Polk, the "Bishop General" or the "Fighting Bishop" as he was alternately known , was Episcopal bishop of Louisiana in 1861. He served as a division and corps commander in the Army of Tennessee. Reputedly a troublemaker, he performed competently but not brilliantly on several battlefields.
Several prominent Louisianians occupied governmental positions. Prior o the war, Judah P. Benjamin, the "Brains of the Confederacy," was a lawyer and a U.S. senator from New Orleans. He held three positions in Jefferson Davis' cabinet" attorney general, secretary of state and secretary of war.
John Slidell was also a former U.S. senator and a state political boss. Davis appointed him Commissioner to France. As a diplomat, Slidell was not successful.
Henry Watkins Allen was a planter before the war. He rose to the rank of brigadier general and served as Louisiana's governor from 1864-65. One historian called Allen "the single great administrator produced by the Confederacy."