Captainé Augusté Finnigan, of the 1st New Orleans Zouave

Captainé Augusté Finnigan, of the 1st New Orleans Zouaves was perhaps unique among Officers of the Confederacy due to his creole Irish mulatto heritage.  With both parents being mixed race (he was the son of a Canal Street prostitute and a gypsy riverboat Gambler)  Augusté grew up a wharf rat, foraging a living on New Orleans docks.  In his teens he managed to secure a job dealing faro cards in a back street gambling joint.  He became well known in the city for his dress (literally his dress, a silver sequined number, paired with feathered mules and a corsage) and his quick dealing.

His brief rise to prominence as one of the city's most notorious card players saw a legendary encounter with Major Quincy Ewing Whitemoore, still spoken of in hushed terms on Canal Street.  An ill considered bet on the cards by the Major was followed by an equally ill considered drawing of his Dawlish & Cook patented .32 spring loaded sleeve pistol.  The Major later claimed that the spring had failed, catapulting the firing weapon into his hand.   One bystander was shot through the big toe, and Augusté in his left eye before managing to stab Ewing in his left buttocks, giving the Major a need to rely on a walking cane for the rest of his days.  

Indeed the surgeon, Dr Hillary Rodham Bogenbroom, who operated on Augustè’s eye declared that since he could not recover the bullet he feared that his patient would suffer bouts of madness before finally succumbing to the wound.  Augusté is then living on borrowed time, and has fewer and fewer lucid moments.

Augusté’s weapon of choice in his faro dealing days was of course his “tinker” knife, reflecting his Irish gypsy heritage.  He used the knife to quell those who questioned the honesty of his faro dealing.  The blade was always referred to as his “leetle frien’,” and it was a brave man who could stay at Augusté’s table when he started playing with his tinker.

He was employed as one of Mayor Jackson Quimby Quilpé’s strong arm boys during the infamous 1858 election, and the gerrymandering that occurred realised Quilpé’s ambition to be the most corrupt Mayor in the history of the city.  Augusté’s reward was a table at one of Canal Street’s largest gambling joints, and a new pair of silver sequined ladies dancing shoes, size 14.

Sadly however New Orleans was not quite ready for a transvestite, transexual, one eyed, disabled, psychotic, mulatto card dealer.  Augusté was arrested by the city police on the orders of the Mayor.  Grounds of public morals and insanity were cited in the warrant, a hilarious irony from that particular Mayor, and Augusté thrown into the New Orleans gaol.  Fortunately he retained his knife and soon became King, or perhaps Queen of the Gaol.

With the outbreak of the Civil War a Zouave Regiment was proposed by the city fathers.  Recruitment was slow, and monies diverted to the pocket of the newly appointed Colonel Jackson Quimby Quilpé. Along with thirty two other prisoners Augusté was ‘volunteered’ from the cells of the city gaol.  Colonel Quilp was staggered however when, during company elections for officers, the men declared Augusté to be the Captainé of ‘B’ Company.  In fact it had been easy for the crazed Creole, since he merely introduced the boys to his ‘leetle frien’.

Augusté cannot ride a horse, and his accuracy with pistol or rifle is worse than useless.  As an Officer he is a complete amateur, however he terrifies his men as well as his superiors.  When historians ask how a cross dressing, transexual, black, Irish - gypsy whose best friend is a knife he talks to became an officer of the Confederacy, the answer must be because he waved his tinker about!