It was an unmatched example of stout-hearted obedience to orders: the plucky Irishmen of the 10th Tennessee Infantry reportedly tried to make a bayonet charge against a Federal gunboat. Confederate troops posted to Tennessee's Fort Donelson at the beginning of the war vowed that the story was true. "The Tenth Tennessee was made up of Irishmen as brave and witty a set as ever entered the service," recalled one of the fort's defenders. s "With characteristic impetuosity, they were equally ready for a fight or a frolic, or to turn one into the other as occasion served. One day, while they were busy digging and fortifying, a report came to them from a breathless picket that a gunboat was just around the bend, coming up the river, and would blow them all into 'smithereens' in a jiffy. At once there was immense excitement."

"Trousers Rolled Up, and Bayonets Fixed"

The panic seemed justified: the 10th Tennessee had rifles and bayonets, but no ammunition. The gray-uniformed Irishmen dropped their picks and shovels and rushed to headquarters for battle orders. Colonel Adolphus Heiman, the regiment's first commander, received the urgent report without alarm. He knew the Cumberland River was too low at the time for Federal gunboats to come into range. Looking up from the field desk where he was writing dispatches, the Colonel jokingly advised the wide-eyed soldiers to use their bayonets if the gunboat appeared.
"In a couple of hours, having finished his work and almost forgotten the incident, [Colonel Heiman] strolled down to the bank of the river," recalled the observer. "There was the [10th Tennessee], drawn up in line, with set faces, shoes off and trousers rolled up, and bayonets fixed — ready to charge the gunboat as soon as she appeared."
The Colonel reportedly recalled his eager Irishmen — much to the amusement of other Confederate troops. Long into the war, the story continued to provoke hoots in the Confederate ranks. But the men of the 10th believed the Yankees would have lost a gunboat had the vessel appeared that day. "[We] would have got her sure, bedad," boasted one Irishman, "if she had shown her nose."

Composed of Southerners of Irish descent, the 10th Tennessee Infantry was organized at Fort Henry in May of 1861, and officially entered Confederate service on September 1,1861. Colonel Adolphus Heiman, the regiment's first commander, drilled his troops so well that they were declared by an aide to Confederate General Sidney Johnston as "one of the best regiments in the Tennessee line." Their first serious engagement came at Erin Hollow near Dover, Tennessee, during the defense of Fort Donelson on February 13,1862. Their determined defense was in vain: the 10th Tennessee was surrendered with more than 8,000 Confederate troops at the fall of Fort Donelson.

Exchanged and reorganized in late 1862, troops of the 10th Tennessee fought at Chickasaw Bayou on December 29, 1862. and were involved in the Port Hudson Bombardment in March of 1863. During the Vicksburg Campaign, the regiment was engaged in the Battle of Raymond on May 12, 1863. There the regimental commander, Colonel Randall W. MacGavock, was killed in action. A former mayor of Nashville, MacGavock was a beloved figure among the Irish Tennesseans. A loyal aide, Captain Patrick M. Griffin, preserved an account of the Colonel's death.
"We had been under fire about twenty minutes, when I heard a ball strike something behind me," Griffin recalled. "It was my colonel.... I knew he was going, and asked him if he had any message for his mother. His answer was: 'Griffin, take care of me! Griffin, take care of me!' He was shot through the left breast, and did not live more than five minutes...."
"It was fully two hours before the [Federal] rear guard came up. The officer in charge was an Irishman [named Captain McGuire]. He asked me who was this officer I was holding in my arms, and when I told him that it was my own colonel, MacGavock — an Irish name — he ordered his men to place the body in one of the army wagons.... I got Capt. McGuire's permission to have all the Confederate prisoners follow the Colonel's body to the grave.... I had the grave marked...so that his people would have no trouble finding him when they came to bear him home to Tennessee."
After the fighting at Raymond, troops of the 10th Tennessee were involved in the Siege of Jackson in July of 1863, then were engaged at the Battle of Chickamauga, the Siege of Chattanooga, and the Atlanta Campaign. In November of 1864, troops from the regiment formed part of the Confederate Army of Tennessee when General John Bell Hood led his ill-fated campaign against Federal forces in Tennessee. Troops from the regiment were engaged in the bloody fighting at Franklin and Nashville. Surviving members of the 10th Tennessee were consolidated with other regiments in the 2nd Confederate Provisional Army in December of 1864.
In March of 1865, remnants of the regiment joined General Joseph E. Johnston's depleted forces in opposing Sherman's army at the Battle of Bentonville in North Carolina. After Bentonville, survivors were consolidated into other regiments within the battle-worn Confederate Army of Tennessee. On April 26,1865, Johnston surrendered his army to Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina. Included among the Confederate troops who laid down their arms on April 26th was a skeletal force of Irishmen from the 10th Tennessee.