38th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment The 38th Regiment Iowa Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War . Service . Known as " Iowa ' s Martyr Regiment " . The 38th Iowa Infantry was recruited for the most part in five counties , Fayette , Winneshiek , Bremer , Chickasaw , and Howard . Rendezvous and initial training was conducted at Camp Franklin , Dubuque , Iowa and mustered in for three years of Federal service on November 4 , 1862 . The Regiment re - occupied New Madrid , Missouri on January 2 , 1863 . They remained at this location as the garrison at Fort Thompson patrolling the woods and swamps of New Madrid and Pemiscot counties . Although threatened many times with attack they were never assaulted . On June 6 , 1863 the Regiment left for Vicksburg as part of Major General Francis Herron ' s Division . The Regiment arrived in the vicinity of Vicksburg on June 11 , 1863 . General Ulysses S . Grant , in command of Union forces besieging the city , originally planned that Herron ' s Division should be placed between general ' s Hovey and Lauman ' s divisions , but due to rumors that rebel cavalry were moving from Yazoo City , Herron ' s division was ordered to a position on the southernmost portion of Grant ' s line . On June 14 , 1863 the 38th crossed the river and camped on the bluff above Warrenton . On June 15 the 38th occupied a position on the extreme left of the line , extending from the river to a short distance across the Warrenton Road . The regiment was ordered to be consolidated with the 34th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment on December 12 , 1864 . Consolidation was completed on January 1 , 1865 . More than 500 men will continue to serve . On April 9 , 1865 , these men will participate in the last major battle of the civil war at Fort Blakely , Alabama . Charging over 500 yards against redoubt # 4 , one man will be killed and seven wounded from the old 38th . The charge was made just hours after Confederate general Robert E . Lee surrendered his army of northern Virginia to General Grant . Total strength and casualties . A total of 1037 men served in the 38th Iowa at one time or another during its existence . The Regiment suffered 1 enlisted man ( Bendick Bendickson ) killed in action at Vicksburg on July 16 , 1863 , when he was shot through the head , and one other ( Evelyn Califf ) who died of his wounds there on July 1 after being struck by pieces of an exploding shell . Four officers and 311 enlisted men died of disease , for a total of 317 and losses from all other causes had been 180 . Most of these men died or were discharged due to disease from mid - July 1863 to mid - October 1863 . The mortality loss alone amounted to over thirty percent of the total number enrolled , while the aggregate number of its casualties constituted nearly fifty per cent of its total enrollment . The regiment , without having had the opportunity to participate in any one of the great pitched battles of the war , passed through a frightful struggle with disease and death , only surpassed by other regiments whose conflicts with the enemy involved the loss of so many lives in addition to those claimed by disease . This period , when the Regiment lost more men to disease than any other Iowa regiment will come to symbolize the Regiment , s place in Iowa ' s civil war history .