On December 9, 1861, at 11:30 AM General Edmund Kirby Smith’s brigade formed a three-sided square just outside their camp. A covered wagon escorted by two companies of infantry drove to the open end of the square. The two men inside the wagon, privates Michael O’Brien and Dennis Corcoran, sat on their coffins with three officers and a Catholic priest. The men were walked to two stakes that were driven into the ground about six feet apart where two freshly dug graves were located. A colonel on horseback read the charges against the men and the sentence of death by firing squad. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they were made to kneel before the stakes.

The two men had been convicted by a military court of striking an officer and trying to free prisoners from a guard house. Both men were members of the Louisiana Tiger Rifles, one of five companies of Major Roberdeau Wheat’s 1st Special Battalion. The Battalion had performed well at First Bull Run but had gained a subsequent reputation for unruly behavior and criminal activity. Their Brigade commander General Richard Taylor was anxious to be rid of them. O’Brien and Corcoran had struck Colonel Harry Hays of the 7th LA in a dispute with the 21st GA over some stolen whiskey. Several of the Tigers were arrested and Corcoran and O’Brien led a group of men in an attempt to break them out of the guard house and in the process struck Colonel Hays. Major Wheat pleaded with General Taylor for leniency but General Taylor wanted to make an example of the men and their unruly unit.

The men were blindfolded. Twelve soldiers from their unit would make up the firing squad. Two groups of six were each commanded by a Sargeant and would fire from 25 feet away. One company of the 8th LA commanded by Colonel Henry Kelly were behind the firing squad with instructions to execute the firing squad if they did not carry out their duty. Their services were not required. A heartbroken Major Wheat was the only man from the division excused from the execution. One of the condemned men had risked his life aiding the severely wounded Major Wheat to safety at the Battle of First Manassas. In 1979 when National Park Service Historian Michael Thomas heard that the area of the grave sites was going to be developed he led a group to excavate the bodies and reinter them in the St. John’s Episcopal Church Cemetery.

On the 118th anniversary of their death, December 9, 1979, the men were buried at the site below.