Marie Alfred Coppens

He enrolled and was commissioned Captain of Company A, the First Zouave Battalion, Louisiana Infantry on 15 March 1861. He was promoted to Major and appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the Battalion, dates not given.

He commanded the Battalion in Maryland after his brother Lieutenant Colonel Georges A. G. Coppens was transferred to command the 8th Florida Regiment due to their lack of field-grade officers.

He continued in command of the Zouaves until retired from service on account of wounds on 17 November 1864.

He went to France to fight in the Franco-Prussian War (1870) as a Captain of Infantry, then returned to the US, living in New York, then Texas. He drowned, with two other men, while fishing in Galveston Bay on 14 August 1874.

His basic service from Bergeron.1 Details from Lee A. Wallace, Jr's Coppens' Louisiana Zouaves in Civil War History of September 1962 and from an announcement titled Death of a Zoauve in the Galveston News of 15 August 1874, also as Godfrey Koppens. Birth information from family genealogists. He's often seen simply as Alfred Coppens. The photo above is from a tinted ambrotype sold by Cowan's at auction in December 2004 for $14,375.

04/27/1838; La Trinite, Martinique, FRANCE

08/14/1874; Galveston, TX