James C. Wilkins, started with a rifle company (Captain Wilkin's Rifle Company). I have the muster roll for Captain Wilkin's Rifle Company. The Natchez Volunteer Riflemen Regiment seems to have been put together in the months prior to the Battle of New Orleans maybe in the weeks before. Colonel James C. Wilkins chaired the memorial committee for General Hinds when he died in 1840.

The Natchez Vol. Rifle Company came onto the battlefield at New Orleans at the height of the battle. Captain Wilkins, since he had no orders, saw the best service he could profide would be to reinforce the west bank of the Mississippi, where the Americans were being pushed back. He found several plantation ferry boats and moved his men across the river where they dug in behind a ditch in order to check the British advance. The British, realizing that the battle of the east side of the river was lost, reversed their advance on the west bank and began to withdraw back to the east.

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David Upton