“More Loss Than Success”: Nicholls’s Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign

Gettysburg Magazine, no. 54 brigade, also known as the 2nd Louisiana Brigade, which fought under the temporary command of thirtytwoyearold Col. Jesse M. Williams of the 2nd Louisiana Volunteers. At the time the Gettysburg campaign began, Brig. Gen. Francis T. Nicholls was in no condition to lead his brigade, having suff ered his second serious wound of the war at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Army of Northern Virginia commander Gen. Robert E. Lee had serious reservations about Williams’s qualifi cations to lead the brigade through the campaign. One concern was that Williams had no formal military training. Another concern was whether Williams could control his troops in combat, because he had experienced substantial diffi culties leading Nicholls’s brigade in the closing phase of Chancellorsville aft er Nicholls was wounded. But owing to attrition among suitably qualifi ed commanders, Lee could not fi nd a replacement for Nicholls aft er Chancellorsville, and therefore he left Williams in command of Nicholls’s fi ve Louisiana regiments.2 To fully understand the capabilities and limitations of the 2nd Louisiana Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign, it’s necessary to trace Williams’s rise through the ranks and to assess his performance during the campaign. Fortunately for Williams, the regiments that made up the 2nd Louisiana Brigade had fought together for one year by the time the Gettysburg Campaign began. Lee established the 2nd Louisiana Brigade in the reorganization in July 1862 that followed the Seven Days Battle. Four of the fi ve regiments (the exception being the 14th Louisiana Volunteers) that