My source was my own book "Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units, 1861-1865" (LSU Press, 1989). Contemporary reports and accounts state that the only unit in the Fort Jackson garrison that did not join in the mutiny was the St. Mary Cannoneers. My book gives the dates on which the various regiments were mustered into service and the parish in which they were raised.

I hesitate to expound very much on Pierson's article because I am seriously contemplating writing a letter to the editor of "North & South" with some arguments against his conclusions. It should be sufficient to say that he has no real evidence as to why the men mutinied because none of them left any written records of the event. He speculates based on sometimes conflicting and flimsy "evidence." Over the years, no serious historian has disputed that there was a strong pro-Union element in New Orleans. It was one of the reasons Lincoln experimented with Reconstruction in Louisiana. These men were not coerced into joining the Confederate army, and all enlisted before the Confederate Congress passed the Conscription Bill.