# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/2/26

THE THIRTY-FIFTH IOWA INFANTRY
THE county of Muscatine raised eight companies for this regiment and Cedar County furnished the other two. They went into camp on Muscatine Island late in the fall of 1862, numbering nine hundred fifty-seven men. Sylvester G. Hill was appointed colonel; James H. Rothrock, lieutenant-colonel; Henry O’Connor, major; and Frederick L. Dayton, adjutant. The regiment was sent to Cairo in November and during the winter performed duty at Columbus, Kentucky, Mound City and Island Number Ten. In 1863 the regiment joined the besieging army before Vicksburg. After the fall of that city it was with the army of observation on the Black River and moved with the army against Jackson, returning to Vicksburg. About this time Lieutenant-Colonel Rothrock and Major O’Connor resigned and were succeeded by Captains W. B. Keeler and Abraham John. In November the regiment moved to Memphis, and served in Tennessee during the remainder of the year. In March, 1864, it joined the army under General A. J. Smith in the Department of the Gulf, to take part in the Red River campaign. Colonel Hill was now in command of a brigade in General Mower’s Division and Lieutenant-Colonel Keeler commanded the regiment.
On the 22d of March the Thirty-fifth Iowa and the Thirty-third Missouri regiments were sent to capture a post at Henderson’s Mill, forty miles from Alexandria. It was a cold stormy day of alternate rain and hail, the mud was deep and night found the troops a long distance from their destination. They pushed on, however, through the ​darkness and rain. Lieutenant-Colonel Keeler and his regiment making a detour of the place effected a complete surprise. There was a short, sharp struggle and the post was captured with three hundred fifty prisoners, four pieces of artillery, caissons, horses and other property. The captured guns were named “Keeler’s Battery” in honor of Lieutenant-Colonel Keeler then in command of the regiment.
The regiment was heavily engaged at the Battle of Pleasant Hill on the 9th of April and met with heavy loss. Captain Henry Blank was killed and Lieutenant Dugan was mortally wounded. It fought with the greatest courage on that bloody field and retreated with reluctance by order of a demoralized commander-in-chief after a hard won victory. At the Battle of Yellow Bayou on the 18th of May the regiment was actively engaged and lost about forty men in killed and wounded. Here Captain Burmeister received a fatal wound and young Frederick Hill, the colonel’s son, a brave and generous youth, fell dead by his father’s side. Five days after the battle the regiment went into camp at Vicksburg, having lost on the Red River campaign, nearly one hundred officers and men in killed and wounded. On the 4th of June the troops were moved up the river on transports. Two days later was fought the Battle of Old Red River which was a short, severe, combat resulting in the defeat of the enemy. It was here that the Thirty-fifth won additional fame. Coming suddenly upon the enemy in strong force it never wavered for a moment, but stood like a wall to its position, losing twenty men in the short time the engagement lasted. Major Abraham J. John was mortally wounded and died the same evening; his death was mourned by the entire regiment. Captain William Dill was very severely injured. The Thirty-fifth next proceeded to Memphis and joined the column under Smith which soon after defeated Forrest at the Battle of Tupelo. In this engagement the Thirty-fifth lost in killed and wounded thirty-eight men. It returned to Memphis with the army and took part in the Oxford expedition. ​About the last of August the regiment was again in Memphis and early in September was moved to Brownsville in Arkansas, where it joined the army in the pursuit of Price, first in Arkansas and later in Missouri. In this campaign it marched several hundred miles. Many of the soldiers were without shoes and all of them destitute of sufficient food and clothing. The suffering of the army was very great in the long marches through the States of Arkansas and Missouri. Returning to St. Louis about the middle of November, on the 23d, the regiment with General Smith’s troops marched to reënforce the army of General Thomas in Tennessee.
THE BATTLE OF NASHVILLE
When the Confederate General Hood crossed the Tennessee River, General Thomas was but poorly prepared to meet him. The Battle of Franklin had been fought on the 30th of November and was practically a Union victory although General Schofield abandoned the field. It checked, however, the advance of the Confederate army and dampened its ardor, but after a brief pause General Hood pushed on and threatening a wide extent of country, invested Nashville. General Thomas at once began to call in all of the garrisons from points within reach and put his cavalry in good fighting condition. There was great activity and often heavy skirmishing all along the lines from a short distance below Nashville to Chattanooga on the Tennessee River. At Nashville the Cumberland River makes a sharp bend north and within this bend on the south side the city stands. South of the city and two or three miles distant, General Thomas had posted his army behind strong earthworks. General Hood took a position on a range of hills about two miles beyond and extended his lines from the river on his right to the river on his left. Here he began to fortify, after making a slight demonstration, merely feeling our position and sending his cavalry to cut our lines of communication and harass our army. ​On the morning of the 14th Thomas issued orders for a general attack on the Confederate position. The flanks of the Union Army rested on the Cumberland and were covered by gunboats. The right was heavily supported by cavalry. A body of colored troops held the left under command of General Steadman. General Thomas’ plan was to demonstrate boldly on the left but to deliver his real attack from the right. Steadman moved a heavy force of white and black troops under General Cruft against the enemy on the morning of the 15th. They made an impetuous attack causing Hood to heavily reënforce his left and the assailants were repulsed with heavy loss.
Soon the plan of General Thomas began to develop. Smith advanced on the right, supported by Wood and covered by cavalry under Wilson; the whole right wing made a grand left wheel, sweeping like an avalanche over the enemy’s left wing. The first line was quickly crushed, the batteries stormed and carried, his position flanked and his whole line doubled up in the greatest confusion. Our cavalry dismounting joined in the charge and it was not long before the whole left wing was hopelessly broken. Hood saw the mistake he had made in sending his masses to the left and now hurried long lines of infantry and artillery from that part of his lines to support the center. He still held a strong position, protected by breastworks, fringed with rifle pits and abatis and bristling with artillery that swept all approaches. Smith prudently halted to reconnoiter. Wood came up on his left, Schofield swing round to his right, the cavalry being still to the right of him and well on to the enemy’s rear.
The army made a further advance, feeling the enemy’s position under a heavy fire of artillery and musketry and about nightfall Wood made a splendid dash against a battery, and carrying it, closed the battle for the day. Many guns and a large number of prisoners had been captured and so far Thomas had been successful. During the night both armies made a disposition for renewing the battle the ​next day. Hood drew back his right center and right wing so as to straighten the new line he had been forced to form. It was now about two miles in the rear of his original line and but half as long. He occupied the crests of closely wooded hills, with a line about three miles in length, and admirably adapted for defense.
General Thomas pursued a plan similar to that which had proved so successful the day before. Steadman on the left and Wood in the center made strong demonstrations against the enemy and the roar of battle was continuous all the morning on the left of Thomas’ lines. On the right it was comparatively quiet. Wilson’s cavalry was sent to the rear of the enemy and about four o’clock the sharp rattle of carbines was heard on the enemy’s left. Simultaneously with ringing cheers and with leveled bayonets, the lines swept steadily forward up to and over the Confederate works while Wood and Steadman on their left pressed forward and in a general movement carried all before them. For a short time there was hot work, the whole Confederate line was ablaze with musketry and cannon. The shock was awful as the contending forces met, but in thirty minutes the conflict was over, as the Union army bore down all opposition and Hood’s army was broken into a mass of flying fugitives, pursued to the Tennessee River. The results of this great victory were the capture of 8,000 prisoners, including five major generals, fifty-six cannon and a large number of small arms.
The State of Iowa was represented in this battle by the Second, Fifth and Eighth Cavalry, the Twelfth, Twenty-seventh, Thirty-second and Thirty-fifth Infantry and the Second Battery. The artillery and infantry fought under General Smith; the cavalry under Wilson on the extreme right. Of the cavalry General Hatch commanded a division which received the warm praise of General Thomas.
The Twenty-seventh and Thirty-second Infantry were in a brigade commanded by Colonel Gilbert of the former regiment. This brigade did some of the most intrepid ​fighting of the battle. The Twelfth, Lieutenant-Colonel John H. Stibbs, and the Thirty-fifth, Major Dill commanding, were in the brigade commanded by Colonel Hill of the latter regiment. An eye witness thus describes a charge made by Hill’s Brigade:
“Meanwhile Hill’s men, who had borne the brunt of the battle of Tupelo and had now witnessed the splendid charges of their comrades, were eager to emulate their heroism and storm the formidable redoubts far in their front. As the corps continued wheeling to the left, an opportunity was soon presented. About six hundred yards in advance of the brigade, near the Hillsboro Pike, on a high and bastion-like ridge, was another strong redoubt where the Rebel guns redoubled their fire and seemed striving to make good the loss of the two first redoubts and hurl back our advancing columns. Shot and fragments of shell filled the air. The roar of artillery was incessant and the flashes of exploding shells quickly followed each other like vivid flashes of lightning. The guns must be silenced and the redoubt captured without delay. Colonel Hill saw that it could only be carried by direct assault in front and immediately ordered a charge. The boys welcomed the order with a battle cheer and fixed bayonets and under a terrific fire of shot and shell, with uniform step and steady columns, they descended a gentle slope, crossed a ravine and, on the double quick, moved in front of the enemy’s fire, up the hill to their works.
The Thirty-fifth marched in pursuit of the enemy as far as Pulaski. Soon after the command embarked for Eastport, Mississippi, and there encamped for the winter. Early in February, where it went into camp. From this historic ground the Thirty-fifth moved early in March to join in the Mobile campaign, where its last military duties were performed. In this expedition the regiment was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Keeler. After the fall of mobile the regiment moved to Montgomery and from there to Selma, where it remained until the 21st of July. It was mustered out at Davenport on the 10th of August. When the regiment reached Muscatine the veterans met a most cordial welcome from old friends and neighbors. The ranks were sadly thinned by battle and disease and many comrades were sleeping in southern graves.
The Thirty-fifth had traveled more than 10,000 miles, had unflinchingly fought in a dozen battles with honor to itself and credit to the State it represented.
THE THIRTY-SIXTH IOWA INFANTRY
This regiment was made up largely of companies recruited in the counties of Monroe, Wapello, Appanoose, Marion, Lucas and Van Buren, and was organized at Camp Lincoln near Keokuk in September, 1862. While there a great amount of sickness from small-pox and measles prevailed, resulting in loss to the regiment of more than a hundred men. This was a gloomy beginning and had a ​depressing effect upon the troops from which they did not soon recover. From Keokuk they were sent to the malarious swamps of the Yazoo River and from there to the deadly region about Helena. Disease reduced their ranks until but a fragment was left of the nine hundred seventy men who enlisted.
The field officers were: Colonel Charles W. Kittredge of Wapello County, Lieutenant-Colonel Francis M. Drake of Appanoose, Major Thomas C. Woodward of Wapello, Adjutant A. G. Hamilton of the same county, and Moses Cousin of Monroe, surgeon.
[Edmund L. Joy]
There had never before been a time since the organization when disease had not been thinning the ranks of the regiment. Sickness and death had followed it everywhere. Now the conditions changed and for the first time good health and corresponding goods spirits prevailed in the camp. The regiment now numbering six hundred thirteen men, toward the last of March accompanied the army of General Steele on its way to coöperate with General Banks then marching up the Red River. But learning of the defeat of Banks at Camden, Steele went no farther. In the campaign thus far the Thirty-sixth had taken part in a number of skirmishes and was engaged at the Battle of the Little Missouri, where it repelled an attack with coolness and courage. While at Camden, on the 22d of April, a detachment of the Twenty-sixth with other troops, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Drake, was sent to escort a train of about three hundred wagons in which it was proposed to bring back supplies for the army. The road taken bore northwest crossing the Saline River near Mount Elba. On the third day out the command went into camp on the western border of Moro Bottom, a low marshy margin of a bayou of the same name.
BATTLE OF MARK’S MILL
[F. M. Drake]
In April the survivors of those captured at Mark’s Mill returned to the regiment at St. Charles. They had been released from imprisonment in Texas in February, where ​they had suffered great hardships and had been allowed to return home on furlough. It would be impossible to describe the joyous meeting of these old comrades after their long separation. The regiment was mustered out of the service on the 24th of August at Duvall’s Bluff. On the 2d of September, 1865, the survivors of the Thirty-sixth reached Davenport, where they received a most cordial welcome.