John Dimitry , A. M., Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 10.1, Louisiana
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

In the same battle gallant Colonel Hays, of the Seventh Louisiana, whose regiment was with Early's brigade, handled his men with skill and coolness while relieving Corse's Virginians at Blackburn's ford. This movement, never other than a hazardous one, was made under a pouring fire of bullets from a force of infantry vastly superior to his own. The elan of General Hays, first shown at Bull Run, was to find voice in a proverb which ran like a red line through the fighting years of the Confederacy— ‘Dashing as Harry Hays’ shouted the army and echoed the newspapers. In 1861-65 army and press combined made a war proverb.

On the evening of July 20th, Beauregard, bidding good night to his generals at his headquarters at McLean's, said in a loud tone: ‘Now, gentlemen, let to-morrow be their Waterloo.’

On the morning of July 21st, the Louisiana regiments occupied the same general ground as on the evening of the 18th. In the early hours of that victorious Sunday several encounters had taken place between the Louisianians and the enemy possessing as before, heavier odds in men and guns. At 8 a. m. Wheat's battalion, deployed as skirmishers, were eyeing an extended line of the enemy in their front. Of the attack upon Wheat; of the cool courage with which he met it, and of the formidable odds united against Evans' line which he was protecting, Beauregard says:

‘The enemy, galled and staggered by the fire and pressed by the determined valor with which Wheat handled ² ’