CHAPTER V.
ANTE-WAR AND WAR PERIODS (CONT'D).
The regiment lay in camp at this place until the 22d of September, when it embarked upon steamers and landed at Memphis. Thence it set out with the army for the relief of Chattanooga, held by General Thomas and closely invested by the Confederates under Bragg. Grant ordered Hooker to cross the Tennessee at Bridgeport, advance to Wauhatchie, in Lookout valley, and menace Bragg by a flank attack. The division of which the Fourth Iowa formed a part was ordered to remain south of the river, to hold in check General Forrest, with his 5,000 cavalry and battery of flying artillery; and it was a task which tested the metal of the bravest and hardiest. There was no rest for the soldiers, night or day, from the lightning movements of the Confederate forces under their able leader. But the division accomplished its object, and had the later honor of participating in the memorable battles of Lookout Mountain and Mission Ridge. At the latter engagement the Fourth, commanded by the gallant Major Nichols, drove the enemy before them on the run and captured 300 prisoners.
The Fourth also had a hand in the defeat of the Confederates at Ringgold, Ga., September 27, 1863, and after remaining in camp for several months at Woodville, Ala., and enjoying a veteran's furlough during the following winter, joined Sherman's army in April, 1864, for the historic March to the Sea.
When the remains of the Fourth Regiment reached Des Moines, in February, the members of the Legislature honored the returned heroes with an impromptu reception, which in some faint degree indicated the warm feeling they possessed in the hearts of the people at home. Their days of enjoyment being over in April, the regiment once more left Iowa in the midst of tears and shouts to return to the field. They halted a few days to rest at Nashville, and then moved forward to join General Sherman's army. By one of those singular coincidences that often occurred in army life, just as the regiment landed from the transport the place of the Fourth in the line was actually before them, and, hastily disembarking, the troops took their positions and were once more part of the Grand Army.
Now under the command of Lieutenant Colonel S. D. Nichols, of Guthrie county, the regiment participated in all the movements and engagements, and the weary marches among mountains and through ravines, and along narrow bad roads, until the army reached the Chattahoochee river, across which, eight miles distant, lay the city of Atlanta. The boys of the Fourth had most honorably acquitted themselves at Snake Creek Gap, Resacca and Dallas. In the last named engagement it occupied the extreme right flank of the army, and by the rapidity and force of the Confederate charge was forced to retire a short distance. Its line was thus curved back, and suffered greatly from a fire in both front and rear. W. DeHuxley, a sergeant of Company C, was killed by a shot from the rear, over the line of battle in that direction, and several men were wounded.
The Fourth also participated in the immortal charges on Kenesaw Mountain. It was here that Colonel Nichols, seeing his men fall around him, deployed his men in open order, and led them to the charge. They met with a withering fire, but being in some degree protected by the trees, escaped serious injury.
In the investment of Atlanta the Fourth was ordered forward to occupy a small abandoned earthwork in front of the Confederate line. In charging a battery from this position Lieutenant Charles W. Hill, of Company C, was struck in the breast by a shot and fell to the ground, his comrades passing over him as dead. But he soon rallied, and made the discovery that a dime novel and another small book had stopped the ball and saved his life. Colonel Nichols was wounded, but not severely. On the night of the 26th of June the regiment moved, with the balance of the Fifteenth Corps, to the right, near Ezra church, and behind rude rail ramparts received the charges of Hood's army, and repulsed them.
Again in the fight at Jonesborough the Fourth was in line, and to quote Greeley, in his "History of the Civil War," "These soldiers stood as still as though bullet proof." In all the after campaigns and marches to the sea the regiment bore its part manfully and bravely, and in May, 1865, participated in the grand review at Washington. The Fourth Iowa, when it was finally mustered out of the service at Davenport, Iowa, had marched 5,000 miles and been present in thirty-six engagements. It had been both a marching and a fighting regiment, and had never shirked eith soldierly duty.
In the Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fifteenth Infantry regiments were Pembroke H. Branen, James Turner and John A. C. Whitney, respectively, from Cass county.
"Compendium and History of Cass County, Iowa." Chicago: Henry and Taylor & Co., 1906, pp. 80-82.
Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, August, 2018.
