8th Missouri Volunteer Infantry Regiment  The 8th Regiment Missouri Volunteer Infantry (aka the "American Zouaves") was an infantry regiment in the Union army during the American Civil War. Among its early leaders were Morgan Lewis Smith and Giles Alexander Smith, both of whom later became generals. The 8th Missouri Volunteer Infantry (US) was formed in St. Louis, Missouri, in the early summer of 1861. The regiment was a special project supported by General Nathaniel Lyon. Most of the volunteers in Missouri's early regiments were German immigrants, and Lyon supported the creation of a regiment of "native-born Americans" to demonstrate that the Union cause in Missouri had support beyond the German-American community. Ironically, the Eighth Missouri also ended up with a high percentage of immigrants. Many of its members were Irish Americans who had worked on the Mississippi River docks prior to the war, giving the regiment a distinct Celtic personality (an ironic result considering Lyon's goal of an ethnically "American" regiment). In addition to its St Louis recruits, several companies were actually raised in other states. The Illinois and Minnesota volunteers joined the Eighth Missouri because their home state's quota for enlistments was full. The Eighth Missouri wore a distinctive uniform patterned after those of the French-North African Zouave units. While most of the Zouave uniform elements were abandoned as the war progressed, the 8th Missouri apparently continued to wear their short, brightly decorated Zouave jackets throughout the war. The regiment's first commander was Col. Morgan Lewis Smith, a New Yorker who had moved west to Missouri after serving as an enlisted man in the Regular Army. Under his firm hand, the 8th Missouri would become one of the finest units to serve in the Army of the Tennessee. Smith's brother, Giles Alexander Smith, also served in the regiment. The 8th Missouri saw extensive service during the first three years of the war in the Trans-Mississippi Theater and Western Theater, and built for itself an enviable reputation on the battlefield. The regiment first fought in Missouri in the summer of 1861 against pro-Southern guerrillas who were attacking U.S. Army supply trains—for example, in Wentzville, Missouri. That autumn, the 8th Missouri participated in the Federal occupation of Paducah, Kentucky. In February 1862, the regiment fought its first major battle, the Battle of Fort Donelson, near Dover, Tennessee. Later that spring, it was heavily engaged in the second day's fighting at the Battle of Shiloh. After a two-month-long campaign, it was the first regiment to enter the strategic rail center of Corinth, Mississippi, following the Confederate evacuation in May 1862, and in late December, it took part in the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou.