Charles Didier Dreux

Charles Didier Dreux (May 11, 1832 – July 5, 1861) was an American lawyer and soldier known for being the first Confederate field officer killed during the American Civil War.

Biography He was the son of Guy Dreux and Léontine Arnoult. Prior to the Civil War, Dreux had served as district attorney and a member of the Louisiana state legislature. 30,000 mourners attended his funeral in New Orleans. He is buried in Metairie Cemetery. According to Grace King, those who knew him described him "as a man of great personal magnetism; brilliant, eloquent, dashing." He left for the battlefield as lieutenant colonel of the Louisiana Guard Battalion, in command of Dreux's (1st) Battalion, composed of the first five companies that volunteered from Louisiana. Three months later, he died at Young's Mill (Warwick, Virginia, now Newport News, Virginia) during the Skirmish at Smith's Farm. His last words were "Steady, boys! Steady!”

Honors An Elegy on the Death of Lt. Col. Chas. Dreux, words by James R. Randall and music by G. M. Loening, was published in New Orleans in 1861. A monument to Dreux is located in New Orleans at the intersection of Canal Street and South Jefferson Davis Parkway. The text on the monument reads:

Vandalism to the statue includes having its nose was chiseled off in 2017, being covered in a white hood and spray-painted with obscenities in 2018, and being pulled down in 2020.