Although trained at West Point, he soon resigned his commission to become a civil engineer and then a sugarcane grower, while also serving as a brigadier general in the Louisiana State Militia.

On the outbreak of the Civil War, he commanded the 18th Louisiana Infantry Regiment, where he proved a strict disciplinarian who was also notably friendly and sociable with the rank and file.

Wounded at Shiloh, he was made a brigade commander under General Richard Taylor, with whom he successfully obstructed Union efforts to secure the Bayou Teche region of southern Louisiana.

Upon his graduation from St. Charles College, Alexandre Mouton secured for Alfred an appointment to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.

At West Point, Mouton was an average student scoring good marks in certain areas, including French, but it was evident that he struggled with the new language he was around.

I have seen him drill the regiment for an hour in a square, the sides of which ware equal to the length of his line of battle, without once throwing a company outside or recalling a command when given.

During the weeks before the Battle of Shiloh, the 18th Louisiana was one of the regiments called to the tiny crossroads town of Corinth, Mississippi, for Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston's planned attack on Union forces encamped near Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.

The duo of Mouton and Taylor would prove to be one of the most efficient during the war and they, along with cavalry commander Thomas Green, would harass, confuse, frustrate, and delay Union attempts to secure the Bayou Teche region of southern Louisiana.

Mouton's leadership in his Louisiana brigade helped the Confederates undermine Union attempts to access the rich Bayou Teche region.

He was a key participant in the battles of Irish Bend, Fort Bisland, Franklin, and Bayou Borbeau, along with numerous other smaller skirmishes.

Historian John D. Winters reports on the battle: "On his horse, Mouton made a perfect target, and a Federal marksman dropped him from his saddle.

"[3][4] In 1922, a statue of General Mouton was erected in downtown Lafayette by the United Daughters of the Confederacy as part of its larger efforts to promote the Lost Cause mythology.