Book Review: A Desperate Fight: The Lives of Louisiana’s Confederate Soldiers

A Desperate Fight: The Lives of Louisiana’s Confederate Soldiers. By Henry B. Motty. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2026. Hardcover, 272 pp. $49.95.

Reviewed by Sean Michael Chick

Of all the Confederate states, Louisiana produced the most diverse units and, debatably, the most colorful ones. This has led to numerous unit studies, with Lee’s Tigers by Terry L. Jones being a classic. Many regimental books have been written and self-published by Michael Dan Jones.

The state is worthy of such attention. For one, Louisiana units served in all major theaters. For another, Louisiana itself had a unique experience. The state was devastated by war and became particularly lawless as the war dragged on. Louisiana regiments were noted often for hard fighting but also high desertion rates, leading to many questions. Henry B. Motty’s A Desperate Fight: The Lives of Louisiana’s Confederate Soldiers is the latest work on the Pelican State’s soldiers.

A Desperate Fight concentrates on the communal and familial forces that sustained Louisiana’s Confederates. These, of course, were buttressed by both more ideological and tangible goals. Slavery, after all, was not merely an economic factor in Southern life but determined much of the political and social world in an era of emerging scientific racism. There was also the initial rush to battle that happens every few generations when those who remember the last major bloodletting are gone. Indeed, Motty finds that at least in the initial cohort, Louisiana’s foreign-born population was just as eager as the rest of them.

A Desperate Fight is a highly personalized account. Soldiers are quoted often and within the broad range of experiences and backgrounds. Some of it is funny, touching, or, in other cases, quite searing. The author does not hide away the most unpleasant aspects. At one point Motty quotes Edwin Fay of the Minden Rangers, who was upset one slave was not pregnant, saying, “when I come home that I’ll either whip her most to death or sell her to the meanest man I can find on Red River…I bought her to breed her.” (137)

Motty pays close attention to how women fostered Confederate nationalism. Their support, material and emotional, was key to sustaining a war effort anywhere, but particularly in Confederate society, which lacked the national resources of their foes. At the same time, the early war brought the classes together. However, the strain of war seared these short-lived bonds, and privations mounted over time. Once the South suffered battlefield defeats, morale at home cracked, and so did the soldiers. However, like many contemporary studies, Motty downplays this erosion, at least before the late summer of 1864. Even as Louisiana was ravaged, Motty sees her soldiers staying in the field longer than usual.

One unique aspect of the book is something of a move away from a dependence on letters. Such documents are key to understanding the conflict, but they can be relied upon too much, as such documents were meant for a particular audience. Instead, there is much here on the day-to-day experience of the war, often but not always gleaned from letters. Indeed, the book is less about fighting. It is there, but in dealing with the fighting, much is about the lure of battle, irregular warfare, and the psychology of the experience. In that regard, Motty forges a more total picture of the experience. A particularly good chapter is on camp life.

Motty’s A Desperate Fight is a good first effort. It is not the usual work in its scope. Motty was doubly shrewd to use Louisiana given its place in the war. Most of all, the diversity of topics makes for an interesting read.