of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 133-137
THIRTY-FIFTH IOWA REGIMENT. The Thirty-fifth Regiment of Iowa Volunteer Infantry was sworn into the service of the United States on the 18th of September, 1862. There were nine hundred and fifty-seven officers and men in the regiment. Colonel Sylvester G. Hill was in command. James H. Rothrock was lieutenant colonel, Henry O'Connor major. Having had a little more than a month for drill and discipline at Camp Strong; the regiment moved by rail to Cairo, Illinois, arriving November 24. The regiment performed duty at Cairo, Mound City, Columbus, Kentucky and Island No. 10 during the winter. A detachment first moved to Columbus to assist in repelling a threatened attack and was soon followed by the remainder of the regiment. The whole command remained at Columbus about one month and then moved to Island No. 10 but soon moved back to Cairo. In March, 1863, a heavy detachment went to Fort Heiman, on escort duty, and about the same time two companies proceeded to the interior of southern Illinois in search of deserters.
VICKSBURG. The winter and early spring having been thus spent in these uninteresting operations--but not without considerable improvement in soldierly duties--the regiment embarked on the 12th of April and in due course of time joined the army under Grant in the vicinity of Vicksburg. Remaining in an unspeakably disagreeable encampment about a fortnight, the regiment took up the line of march in the grand campaign, being attached to General Mathies' Third Brigade of Tuttle's Third Division of Sherman's Corps. The regiment took part in the capture of Jackson and on the 18th of May went into line in front of Vicksburg. It was in the line of reserves during the assault on the 22d. The command took direct part in the siege until the middle of June, when it retired from the trenches and a few days afterward joined the army of observation and marched to Black River. Here the regiment was engaged on unusually heavy picket duty until the capitulation, whereupon it moved with the expeditionary army against Jackson. In the campaigns, both of Vicksburg and Jackson, Colonel Hill's command performed every duty assigned it with credit, but its casualties were not heavy. They numbered less than a score killed, wounded and captured.
From Jackson the regiment returned to the vicinity of Vicksburg in the latter part of July and went into camp on Bear Creek. Here it remained in perfect quiet for about three months. There were meanwhile several changes among the command. Lieutenant Colonel Rothrock and Major O'Connor had resigned, and had been succeeded by Captains William B. Keeler and Abraham John, respectively. There had also been several changes in the line officers. The latter part of October the command joined in reconnoisance to Brownsville, in which it had slight skirmishing with the enemy but sustained no loss.
IN TENNESSEE. Early in November the regiment broke camp near Vicksburg and moved up the river to Memphis. It marched thence to La Grange, whence the right wing, Major John commanding, moved to Middleton, and the left wing, Captain Burmeister, to Pocahontas, Colonel Hill at this time being absent on leave and Lieutenant Colonel Keeler on special duty at General Tuttle's headquarters. The operations of the regiment in Tennessee, where it remained until the latter part of January, 1864, were unimportant, consisting rather of scouts made by small parties than of movements of the command at large. The 25th of January, Colonel Hill moved to Memphis and thence at once began the voyage to Vicksburg but did not arrive in time to take part in the Meridian expedition. The command pitched tents on Black river and waited the return of the army. On the 10th of March, the regiment embarked on the steamer Baltic at Vicksburg and moved with the forces under General A. J. Smith at the department of the gulf, to take part in the Red River expedition. Colonel Hill commanded the brigade and Lieutenant Colonel Keeler commanded the regiment. The Thirty-fifth did not bear a prominent part in the capture of Fort DeRussey, being in reserve on that occasion, but in all the principal operations of the division after that, during the entire campaign, it was conspicuously engaged. It gained distinguished honor by the affair at Henderson's Hill on the 22d.
RED RIVER CAMPAIGN. Returning to Alexandria, the regiment soon joined in the further movement up Red River. It took part in one or two operations of no great importance in the vicinity of Comti, on the left bank of the river, some distance above Grand Ecore and on the 9th of April was heavily engaged at the battle of Pleasant Hill, where it lost many gallant officers and men. Captain Henry Blanck was here slain by the same ball which killed Private Peter Harrison. In the many skirmishes in the retreat through Alexandria, the Thirty-fifth had its due share but without loss except a few men slightly wounded. But at the battle of Yellow Bayou May 18th, the regiment was hotly engaged and lost nearly forty killed and wounded. It was here that Captain Burmeister received a mortal wound and here that young Frederick Hill, the colonel's son, fell dead by his father's side, his head pierced with a ball. An expression of deep sorrow escaped the colonel and he continued in the performance of his duties until the rebels had met with as thorough a defeat as ever befell an army. Five days afterward the regiment went into camp at Vicksburg, having lost nearly a hundred officers and men killed and wounded.
TAKE CHICOT. On the 4th of June, General Smith put his troops aboard transports and moved up the Mississippi. Two days later the battle of Lake Chicot took place. It was a short but severe battle, resulting in the complete defeat of the enemy. Perhaps no command ever exhibited more admirable gallantry than the Thirty-fifth at this combat. Coming suddenly upon the enemy in force, it stood like a stone wall to its position. The fight lasted only a few minutes, during which the regiment lost about twenty killed and wounded. Major Abraham John, commander, was mortally wounded, while Captain William Dill was severely wounded. Major John died the same evening, deeply lamented by the entire command. The regiment then proceeded to Memphis, where it engaged in the battle of Tupelo, in which engagement thirty-eight men were lost.
Early in September the regiment left Memphis for Brownsville, Arkansas. From this time until the middle of November it was engaged in most energetic marching after Price, first in Arkansas and then in Missouri. During this period it marched several hundred miles, many of the men much of the time without shoes, and all of them frequently without sufficient food. It was a campaign of great severity as to marching, the command traversing nearly the whole length of Arkansas and marching and countermarching across Missouri but not fighting, so far as foot soldiers were concerned. Hence, when the regiment returned to St. Louis November 15, there were no casualties to report. On the 23d the regiment embarked with General A. G. Smith's forces, and moved to the reinforcement of Major General Thomas in Tennessee.
HILL IS KILLED. In the battle of Nashville, which resulted in one of the greatest triumphs of the war, the Twelfth and the Thirty-fifth were in the brigade, commanded by Colonel Hill of the former regiment. Chaplain Frederick Humphrey of the Twelfth, after finally describing the operations of Hubbard's and McMillan's brigades, thus speaks of Hill's troops: "Meantime, 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 stormed the formidable redoubts far in the front. As the corps continues wheeling to the left, an opportunity is soon presented to gratify their importunate demands. About six hundred yards in advance of the brigade near the Hillsboro Pike, on a high and bastion-like ridge is another strong redoubt, whose rebel Napoleons redouble their fire and seem striving to make good the loss of the two first redoubts and hurl back our advancing columns. Shot and the fragments of shell fill the air. The roar of artillery, like Niagara's, is incessant and the flash of the exploding shells quickly follow each other like the vivid flashes of lightning. An officer in another brigade said to me, 'Those guns are more annoying to our lines than any other rebel battery. 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, fixed bayonets, and under a terrific fire of shot, minnie-balls and bursting shells, with uniform step and steady columns they descend a gentle slope, cross a ravine and on the double quick move in front of the enemy's fire up the hill to their works. Sergeants Clark and Grannis of the Twelfth Iowa, in advance of the charging line, first planted the regimental banner and the national colors upon the rebel battlements. The brave Colonel Hill, mounted on horseback, and gallantly leading his brigade to the assault, fell from his horse, shot through the head just as his troops were carrying the breastworks of the enemy. The men rushed forward to avenge the death of their lamented commander. The enemy had hastily limbered up the guns of the fort. withdrawn them to a redoubt a distance of about three hundred yards and again opened with grape, cannister and musketry upon our men, just as they entered the first redoubt. Continuing to advance without orders, the brigade charged across the Hillsboro Pike in the face of another torrent of fire, up to the second redoubt, captured its guns, caissons, horses, one headquarters and thirteen baggage wagons and two hundred and fifty prisoners."
LIVE ON SHELLED CORN. The Thirty-fifth marched in pursuit of the rebels as far as Pulaski. There it turned to the right, marched to Clifton on the Tennessee and went into camp January 2, 1865. Six days afterward the command embarked for Eastport, Mississippi, where it encamped for a month, the troops living on shelled corn part of the time. For this there was no good reason, communication being at all times open to Cairo. The encampment was in a pine forest, where the men constructed rude quarters, as they supposed, for the rest of the winter.
On the 5th of February the regiment embarked on the steamer Magenta and moved by the Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi to Vicksburg. Having encamped near that city a few days, it moved to New Orleans, and on the anniversary of Washington's birthday pitched tents on the very field where Andrew Jackson had defeated the British army a little more than fifty years before. From this historic ground the Thirty-fifth moved early in March to take part in the campaign of Mobile, the last in which the regiment joined, as it was the last important operation of the war. In this campaign the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Keeler commanding, bore an honorable share throughout, but with remarkably small loss.
After the occupation of Mobile the regiment marched to Montgomery, where it remained about a fortnight and then moved by steamer to Selma. Here the command remained until July 21st, when it received a welcome order to start for home. It was mustered out at Davenport, August 10th, but disbanded and was finally paid at Muscatine six days afterward, on which occasion there was a happy reunion of all the old soldiers of Muscatine county and as hearty a reception as volunteers ever received anywhere.
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