The forts were quickly handed over by the lone ordnance sergeants in charge of them on 10 January and Bragg forced the surrender of the outnumbered arsenal garrison on the same day.

[9] In response to the secession vote, Moore ordered the seizure of the only remaining unoccupied Federal post, Fort Macomb, which was carried out on 28 January by a Captain Henry A. Clinch's Company C of the 1st Louisiana.

[20] The dispatch of the regiment was initially opposed by Moore due to his fears that the Union would attack New Orleans, but Confederate Secretary of War LeRoy Pope Walker's insistence that the threat was nonexistent prevailed.

[24] After a Union picket discovered the Confederate approach early in the morning of 9 October, their camp was charged by Colonel John K. Jackson's 3rd Battalion of the force and its occupants fled.

Companies G and H and a detachment of the regiment, all under the command of Jacques, manned the batteries at the Navy Yard and opened up a return fire,[26] but did not inflict much damage on Fort Pickens due to lack of gunnery practice caused by shell shortages.

[28] Pensacola remained quiet for the next few weeks until 1 January 1862, when a steamer docking at the Navy Yard drew Union fire, causing the inebriated Richard Anderson, in command while Bragg was away on inspection, to order a return bombardment.

[29][30] After the fall of Fort Donelson on 16 February, the Tennessee River was opened up for a Union advance against the critical rail junction of the Memphis and Charleston and the Mobile and Ohio Railroads at Corinth, Mississippi.

[14] When Lew Wallace's division debarked at Crump's Landing on 13 March, Adams led a detachment that reconnoitered the Union positions, burning cotton bales owned by Unionists.

The regiment lost 28 killed and 89 wounded in the initial fighting; among the dead was Company G Captain John Thomas Wheat, the former secretary of the Louisiana secession convention.

[51] In the late afternoon, the brigade participated in the flanking and encirclement of Prentiss' reformed division at the Hornet's Nest, with the 1st Louisiana being ordered to advance by Bragg with the exhortation "My old bodyguard I see your ranks are thinner but enough are yet left to carry your flag to victory—Forward".

In intense fighting amidst the hills and valleys of the Crescent Field, they engaged two brigades of Wallace's division for half an hour, with attacks failing against the weight of the Union numbers.

Falling back, they participated in Beareaugard's final attack launched at 16:00, buying time for the Confederate retreat, with Deas' command reduced to roughly 60 men.

During the withdrawal from Corinth, Colonel Joseph Wheeler took over command of the brigade, which formed the Confederate rear guard, mounting a series of skirmishes and burning bridges to delay the pursuing Union troops.

[67] Later that day, during the battle for the Round Forest, Jacques, who had deserted the 1st Louisiana, rode up to Colonel Egbert E. Tansil of the 31st and 33rd Tennessee of Brigadier General Alexander P. Stewart's Brigade.

Coltart's and White's Brigades were forced to retreat by the attack, losing 48 captured, but the Union troops abandoned their gains an hour later, allowing the Confederates to reoccupy their old positions.

Fearing Union reinforcements and with the rising Stones River threatening to split his army, Bragg decided to retreat and Withers' Division began moving out from the battlefield on the morning of 4 January.

One example of its duties during this period was an unsuccessful expedition of 100 men drawn from the regiment under Batchelor's command to heavily Unionist Jackson County, Alabama between 9 and 14 April in an attempt to arrest a band of deserters and draft evaders.

[73] After supporting the army reserve artillery in the spring and summer of that year, including during the Tullahoma campaign, the 1st Louisiana Regulars were temporarily consolidated with the 8th Arkansas Infantry on 25 August[74] and fought under this arrangement in the Battle of Chickamauga between 19 and 20 September.

They surprised the unprepared regiments on the right of Scribner's Brigade on the far side of the Winfrey Field, with the 8th Arkansas and 1st Louisiana overrunning Van Pelt's Battery and killing or capturing its gunners.

In response, Gibson's Brigade, under Stewart's Division of John Bell Hood's Corps, was posted on Rocky Face Ridge on 7 May and spent several days skirmishing there before Sherman outflanked the Army of Tennessee.

After the retreat from New Hope Church when the Confederates were outflanked again, the brigade was constantly on the march until 18 June as Johnston attempted to cover his flank in the face of Sherman's advance.

[90] Deciding to decisively end the siege of Atlanta, Sherman took his army out of the Union lines on 25 August and swung them to the west of the city against the Macon and Western Railroad.

Clayton's Division made a tiring fourteen-mile march to Jonesborough, where Gibson's brigade was tasked with building fortifications parallel to the Macon and Western after it arrived at noon on 31 August.

In the face of what Gibson described as "heavy and well-directed fire", the surviving men of the brigade stopped at the Union picket line to find cover, effectively ending the assault.

[92][93] The brigade retreated to its original positions, where Gibson rallied them to renew the attack, but Lee's Corps was pulled out of the fight by Hood to defend Atlanta from what he believed was another Union thrust later that day.

The brigade reached Lost Mountain on 3 October, where it built breastworks while other troops attacked the railroad, where a division from Stewart's corps was embarrassingly defeated by the Union garrison at Allatoona.

Reaching Gadsden on 21 October, the troops of the army were finally able to receive new shoes and clothing after several weeks of marching which involved sleeping under only blankets in the cold and inadequate food supplies.

The army halted there for nearly a month while Hood awaited the arrival of Nathan Bedford Forrest's Division in order to begin the Franklin–Nashville campaign in earnest, allowing the men of the brigade a respite from the constant marches.

On the outskirts of Nashville, the brigade took position on the right of the Confederate line, south of the city, in which it dug trenches as the weather turned increasingly cold while the men still had only blankets for shelter.

Gibson's brigade formed part of the rear guard at Hollow Tree Gap, where it suffered heavy losses fighting its way to the Harpeth River north of Franklin to avoid destruction by pursuing Union cavalry on 17 December.