I have just arrived in Louisiana this morning as my Father-in-Law passed away early yesterday. As a result, I am away from my files right now and will look into it when I return home in a few days.

As to Company F, the "Alligator Rangers" or Pickens' Rangers, it was originally a part of the Breazeale Battalion of Louisiana Partisan Rangers (5 companies) and was recruited originally almost exclusively from Bienville Parish in June and July of 1862. The Company first mustered on August 11th or 12th of 1862, possibly near Grand Ecore, just north of Natchitoches. The five companies of the Breazeale Battalion mustered as a unit on August 14th at Camp Butler (location uknown, "two miles from Natchitoches"), which was probably either near Grand Ecore, or south of Natchitoches on the Cane River.

The Battalion was formally accepted into State and Confederate service on August 21, 1862 and then begin their march to Camp Pratt, a training camp just NW of New Iberia on Lake Tasse or Spanish Lake. Almost immediately, on Sept. 11, 1862, Major Winter Wood Breazeale, commander of the five companies of the Breazeale Battalion of Louisiana Partisan Rangers, was told that his unit was being absorbed into a new 10 company cavalry regiment, the 2nd Louisiana Cavalry. A few days later the Battalion, now Companies B to F of the 2nd LA Cavalry, marched to Camp Vincent, located on the St. Emma and Cresent plantations on Bayou Lafourche, 4 miles below Donaldsonville. They arived late in the evening of Sept. 22, 1862 and were incorporated into the 2nd LA Cavalry.

On the morning of September 23rd, at the Charles Anton Kock's St. Emma Plantation on Bayou Lafourche, the men had their first fight with the Union army (the 21st Indiana Infantry), just north of their camp, driving the 21st IN back four miles to Donaldsonville, where the Union troops were safely ensconsed under the heavy guns of several Union gunboats on the Mississippi River.

As a footnote, the commander of Co. F, Capt. Andrew Oliver Perry Pickens of Bienville Parish, deserted to a Union camp with one of his men in April 1865, took the amnesty oath, and was given a Union position as a Judge in a Union controlled area of Louisiana.

When I get home I will check my files to see what I have on Co. F, and its duties.

Hopethis helps

Don Parker