The Farmer Guards were recruited in Union Parish and arrived at Camp Moore in July 1861. Charles W. Hodge was elected Captain at Camp Moore and served in this capacity for six months. He resigned in January 1862, presumably due to ill health, and returned to Union Parish. Later that spring he organized another company which became Company G of the 31st Louisiana Infantry. Elisha Sellers who had enrolled at Camp Moore as the senior 2nd Lieutenant was appointed Captain over the head of 1st Lieutenant John E. Woodward to replace Hodge. However, Sellers was not elected Captain at the May 10, 1862 re-organization and returned to his position as 2nd Lieutenant. John E. Woodward served as Captain until his resignation at Port Hudson on March 7, 1863 due to poor health. John W. McBride  enrolled as company 1st Sergeant at Camp Moore and was elected 1st Lieutenant on May 10th, 1862. McBride was promoted to Captain replacing Woodward and led the company for the next 18 months.

At the beginning of the final Vicksburg campaign in 1863, the Farmer Guards and the Claiborne Rangers were detached from the 12th Louisiana Infantry and mounted to serve as cavalry. The Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana had been depleted of cavalry to support General Bragg's 1862 expedition into Kentucky. When General Grant sent Colonel Grierson on his raid down through Mississippi to Newton Station and on to Baton Rouge, the Farmer Guards were involved in the pursuit.

Captain John W. McBride who led the company during the heavy fighting in 1863 and 1864 was wounded in the arm by shell fire at Franklin, Tennessee on November 30, 1864 ending his active military service. 1st Lieutenant Elisha Sellers was detailed to provost duty in May 1864. In August he was sent with Lieutenant Colonel T. C. Standifer to collect the large number of absentees from the 12th Louisiana regiment at home in Louisiana and return them to duty. 1st Lieutenant Edward Z. Bussey, 2nd Lieutenant Joseph Pipes, Corporal Nelson R. Williams and 8 privates were accounted for as present for duty at the final surrender in North Carolina. Bussey signed the final roster as 1st Lieutenant, commanding the company. Other members of the company were present in North Carolina in hospitals and on detached duty with logistics units.

COMPANY I ROSTER

The Compiled Military Service Records are organized alphabetically by regiment. 

This company roster was derived from the author's 12th Louisiana database

and is not available as such from the National Archives.

Copyright registered with the Library of Congress.

Data presented below:  (1) name as it appears in the Compiled Military Service Records with spelling variations, (2) highest rank held in the company, and (3) initial enrollment data. Camp Moore volunteers are designated by the letters CM. Volunteers who joined after the regiment left Camp Moore are designated by the year of their enrollment.

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