USA > Iowa > A history of the Sixth Iowa infantry > Part 4
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caused orders to be issued to the troops en route to press forward with the greatest celerity, even if the troops had to live on fresh beef alone.
On November 1st, at the break of day, Mckinstry's whole division commenced the remarkable forced march to Springfield, that was not equalled in hardship again during the war. The camp was pitched late in the even- ing near the town of Bolivar after a distance of thirty- five miles had been marched. The troops marched thirty miles on the next day and camped 5 miles north of Springfield. On November 3rd, the division passed through Springfield and camped one mile west of town.
Considering the rough topography of the country and the bad condition of the roads traveled over; the un- seasoned troops, with overloaded knapsacks; scant sup- plies and many other deficiencies - the 65 miles travel - ed in two days by Mckinstry's division of 6000 men was a severe test of the patient endurance and the soldierly qualities of those who composed the command. Many robust and physically sound men of the command dated their disability, contracted in the service, from the effects of that forced march.
The camps were rife with rumors of a large force of the enemy under Generals Price and Benjamin McCulloch, assembled at Wilson's Creek, and marching on Spring- field. The beating of the long roll and the shrill notes of the bugles aroused the troops to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, as they formed in line ready for battle. At the call to face the enemy they forgot the fatigue of the hard marching and their sore feet, and assembled under arms with such promptness and enthusiasm, that many regular army officers, who were distinguished in the war, marked the good conduct of the volunteers, which
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established a feeling of confidence that when the time came for action they would do their part as soldiers, and as became intelligent and patriotic citizens - conscious of a just cause.
The order relieving General Fremont of the command of the army and placing General David Hunter in com- mand aroused the greatest indignation throughout the army. The men in the ranks had the greatest confidence in the patriotism and generalship of the "Pathfinder" of the western plains and the Rocky Mountains, and were ready to follow him wherever he led.
President Lincoln and the authorities at Washington were dissatisfied with General Fremont's conduct of op- erations in the department, since assuming command in July, on account of his failure to reinforce General Lyon at. Wilson's Creek; allowing General Price to advance into the center of the State, with a poorly organized and equipped army, capture the garrison at Lexington, and fall back behind the Osage River with thousands of re- cruits for his army and great quantities of supplies and animals; and the heralding of political manifestos and issuing proclamations jointly with generals command- ing the secession forces, which influenced and jeopard- ized administrative questions involved in the war.
Satisfactory knowledge of sure failure in the pend- ing operations was the real and immediate cause of his removal and the placing of General David Hunter, an old and trusted officer of the regular army, in command of the army of occupation. The delicate duty of delivering the order was entrusted to General Samuel R. Curtis by the President, subject to the conditions that if General Fremont should then have fought and won a battle, or should then be actually engaged in a battle, or should
ยท
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then be in the immediate presence of the enemy in ex- pectation of a battle, it should not be delivered, but should be held for further orders. The President, in a communication of the same date to the commander of the Department of the West, which was "half letter, half order", said :
The main rebel army (Price's) west of the Mississippi is believed to have passed Dade County in full retreat upon Northwestern Arkansas, leaving Missouri almost freed from the enemy. Assuming this basis of fact, it seems desir- able, as you are not likely to overtake Price, and are in danger of making too long a line from your own base of supplies and re- enforcements, that you should give up the pursuit, halt your main army, divide it into two corps of observation, one occupy- ing Sedalia and the other Rolla, the present termini of railroad it would be so easy to concentrate and repel any army of the enemy returning on Missouri from the southwest, that it is not probable any such attempt to return will be made before or during the approaching cold weather.
General Benjamin McCulloch, with a division of 5000 effective men, well equipped and well disciplined, was encamped at the Missouri and Arkansas State line south of Springfield, and General Price, with his Missouri State Guard, consisting of 12,000 men of all arms, poorly equipped and in a state of discipline bordering on demor- alization, was at Pineville in the southwest corner of the State.
The regiment was exercised several hours each day at battalion drill, while encamped at Springfield. On November 6th, Company I, Captain Brydolf command- ing, was sent on a scout to the battlefield of Wilson's Creek, and returned the same day.
On November 9th, the regiment broke camp and started
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north with the rest of the army on the return march. A distance of seven miles was traveled and camp was made on Bear Creek. The troops recrossed the Osage at Warsaw and camped along the valley of a small creek 2 miles north of Sedalia on the Georgetown road, No- vember 16th, where the camps of the brigade were estab- lished. The return march was made without particular incident, the regiment marching an average of 15 miles a day. The cold chilly winds that swept across the great broad prairies traveled over, and the freezing cold at night, made doubly severe on account of scarcity of fuel, caused great suffering and hardship during the march.
The Union army of 30,000 men of all arms, that was engaged in the Fremont campaign to Springfield, had "returned north to its base of supply at Rolla, Sedalia, and Kansas City. On the abandonment of Springfield the secession forces in that vicinity made a spasmodic effort to pursue the Union columns and reoccupy the country, which proved feeble and caused no serious an- noyance to the army on either route of march. General McCulloch returned with his division to Northern Ar- kansas where he established winter quarters, while General Price attempted to maintain a force along the Osage River and thereby threaten another advance into Central Missouri - more for political effect than as a military demonstration.
The struggle for military supremacy in the State of Missouri involved delicate questions of civil and military government, gravely complicated on account of the divid- ed sentiment of the population on the questions involved in the war. Thousands of the young men and sturdy citizens of the State had flocked to the standard of General Sterling Price, who had been a Governor of the
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State, and enrolled in the southern cause, while an equal number of intelligent and liberty loving people, repre- senting all sections of the State, were enrolling in the Union regiments to fight for their homes and the Union.
Major-General Henry W. Halleck was assigned to the command of the reorganized department, with head- quarters at St. Louis.
The prospect for a winter camp in such a frigidly cold climate, on an open prairie, housed in canvas tents, was not very inviting even to those who had escaped so far the chills, fevers, measles, and other camp ailments, and, to those so afflicted, the situation was distressing in the extreme. A large number of those who had succumbed to disease and the fatigue of hard marching were sent by railroad transportation to the hospitals at Jefferson City and St. Louis, where they could receive better care and medical treatment.
The camp of the regiment was situated in a cornfield along the valley of a small creek, with troops camped above and below, all depending upon the creek and tem- porary wells dug along its banks for the supply of water to be used in the camps. The sanitary condition of the camps was deplorable, and, coupled with the extreme inclemency of the weather, the result was a sick report alarming in its magnitude.
Quite a number of recruits, who had enlisted in Iowa, joined the regiment while at Springfield and Sedalia, filling up the ranks depleted by death and discharge. Furloughs were granted to a limited number of officers and men, for ten and thirty days, to return to their homes in Iowa.
Battalion drill, guard mount, and dress parade were had almost daily in spite of the cold weather and the
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deplorable conditions generally about the camps. It was at one of the parades that Colonel McDowell gave the command: "Fix! Fix !! Why in the h -1 don't you fix ?" meaning to give the command, "Fix bayonets", but the men had their arms at "Right Shoulder Shift", and stood fast, knowing the command to be an error.
At another time a newly arrived recruit alarmed the whole camp by firing at a flock of crows while on duty as a camp guard on a lonesome beat out on the big prairie near a cornfield where the crows were accustomed to perch on the high stakes of a rail fence. With the loud noise they made, they tempted the sentinels to test the serviceable qualities of their guns and their marksman- ship on them.
The young man had enlisted from patriotic motives and had some practical ideas of the duties that would be required of him as a soldier, which prompted him to try the merits of his gun on the crows. The cannon-like reports of the old Austrian musket, when he opened fire, aroused the camps and the whole command was sum- moned to arms. Colonel McDowell, mounted on his horse, proceeded in great haste to the point of danger. In a rage of anger and with abusive language, he assailed the sentinel for his breach of discipline; when, in fact, he had only demonstrated what the military genius of those in command had failed to do, that the troops were inexperienced in the use of firearms and non-effective with the unserviceable guns then in their hands. When approached in a respectful manner by those with whom he was acquainted and asked concerning the firing, he replied in a spirit of injured dignity, "that he was try- ing the killing merits of his gun and that it wasn't worth shucks". When the absurdity of the affair was fully
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realized everybody laughed and the young soldier re- turned to duty.
On Sunday, December 1st, the regiment was visited by the army paymaster and the men received two months pay in the midst of a snow storm. The camp was desig- nated as "Sole-leather-pie Camp", on account of the quality of the pies peddled in the camps by Irish women, who were connected with the stranded railroad construc- tion crew in the vicinity.
On December 7th, the camp was struck and every- thing loaded in the wagons ready to march at an early hour, but after a tedious and uncomfortable wait in the cold, the orders to march were countermanded and the camp was reestablished. A cold rain set in during the afternoon and night, which made the situation about as uncomfortable as it could be. Sunday, December Sth, was marked as being one of the most trying days in the history of the regiment. The rain poured down in tor- rents all day with the temperature down to the freezing point, covering everything with a heavy sleet.
On Monday, December 9th, at 8 a. m., the camp was again struck and the column marched east to La Mine Crossing, a mile east of the village of Otterville, a station on the Missouri Pacific Railroad, the distance marched being 14 miles. The roads traveled over during the day led through a rough hilly country, traversed by numer- ous small creeks which were swollen by the recent snow and rain, making them very muddy and causing great fatigue and discomfort for the men - many of whom did not reach the camp that night. The camp was pitched on a bleak bluff on the west bank of the La Mine River south of the track and near the railroad bridge, which promised no immediate comfort.
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The remainder of the month was devoted to bettering the conditions about the camp; chopping and hauling immense quantities of fuel from the heavy timber in the bottoms along the La Mine River; working on the forti- fications, erected for the protection and defense of the railroad bridge; escorting foraging trains to the country, for hay and grain; standing camp and picket guard, with the thermometer below zero; and attempting to carry on battalion drill. Each one of the large Fremont tents was furnished with a sheet iron stove, which served to keep a squad of ten to twelve men from freezing. Huge fires were also kept burning in each one of the company streets during extreme cold weather, which consumed hundreds of cords of wood. The supply of rations issued was bountiful and the quality excellent; also, clothing and blankets were issued, to the satisfaction of all.
The sunrise service, held by the chaplain each morning on the regimental parade ground, sometimes with the temperature below zero, where he read a service and repeated a long prayer with many men standing in line in the ice and snow with only stockings on their feet, on account of not being able to put on their frozen shoes, was a test of endurance and discipline not to be tolerated always. On an especially cold morning, just as the de- vout chaplain closed his eyes in prayer, a shower of snowballs pelted him on his bald head in such a manner and with such force that the service was at once aban- doned, and for all time in the future.
The Christmas holidays were passed without particu- lar incident, and on the 1st day of January, 1862, the regiment was paraded for inspection and review by General John Pope, commanding the division. Under the direction and supervision of Colonel J. W. Bissel
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and his engineer regiment, a system of earthworks was commenced, enclosing the camps, requiring large details of men each day to work on the forts.
Dr. Albert T. Shaw, Surgeon of the regiment, made a report covering the time from July 17 to December 31, 1861, as follows:
The exposure to miasma at "Camp Curtis" was a fruitful source of sickness. The camping ground at Syracuse was damp and, that combined with the intensity of malarious in- fluences added largely to the sick list. There were 175 cases of measles in the regiment, but the epidemic was of a very mild type. There has been one case of pernicious fever, several cases of severe bilious remittent fever, and upon the whole the miasmatic diseases have put on rather a severer form than usual.
Except a few cases cared for in the camps the sick have been sent to the hospitals at Jefferson City and St. Louis. On the march to Springfield and return, although ordered to carry the sick, no means of transportation was furnished, excepting the baggage wagons of the regiment and the commissary train. About a quarter of the medicines applied for, on requisition, were furnished by the medical department; staple drugs were obtained, in some instances, through the Quartermaster. The number reported sick, on the daily morning reports, varied from 46 to 100. Measles, diarrhoea, bilious remittent, inter- mittent and typhoid fevers have been the principal diseases contended with.
Two gunshot wounds, from accidents, occurred - resulting in loss of two fingers of the left hand in the case of Martin L. Ware, private in "Company D"; a fracture of the fibula, in the other, A. P. Alexander, Corporal in "Company A".
The report showed that the regiment had present for duty 746 men. There were absent on sick leave 156 men, while 35 were sick in camp quarters. There had died in
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camp and in hospitals, 34 men, and 16 men had been dis- charged for disability.5
On January 6th, the announcement was made in orders that the 7th Missouri and the 6th Iowa regiments would constitute the garrison for the post at La Mine Bridge.
A serious epidemic of homesickness prevailed through- out the camp after taking up winter quarters, but was dispelled as the prospect for active campaigning bright- ened. It was a current camp rumor, which attracted serious attention, that the regiment would be a part of a proposed expedition to Texas, commanded by General James Lane of Kansas, to consist of 30,000 men - 15,000 cavalry, 10,000 infantry, 1000 fusileers, 4000 loyal In- dians, S batteries of flying artillery, and 1000 contraband negroes - to serve as cooks and teamsters. This rumor served to enliven the never ceasing discussion of how to put down the rebellion.
A series of anonymous communications appeared in the St. Louis dailies and the home papers, severely crit- icising the commanding officers and those generally who were charged with the administration of affairs in the regiment. This caused much bitter feeling and did much to aggravate the growing contention and discontent, on the part of a few officers and a considerable number of enlisted men.
On January 13th, the phenomenon of a reflection of the United States flag in the sky, immediately under the bright moon, was witnessed by many in the regiment. A great epidemic of sickness broke out in the camps, caus- ing many discharges for disability. For a time great
5 The report of the Adjutant General gives a total of twenty-three died and twenty nine discharged for disability up to January 1, 1862. - Report of the Adjutant General of Iowa, 1862-1863, Vol. I, pp. 210-247.
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discouragement prevailed throughout the camps on ac- count of the increasing sickness, believed to be caused by the severely inclement weather and exposure on duty while working on the trenches and guarding the camps.
On January 21st, the regiment had dress parade in the evening, Captain Walden in command, when orders were read announcing Thomas J. Ennis - a young man who had been seen at the headquarters with Colonel Mc- Dowell -- as Adjutant of the regiment. Marching orders were also read on parade, which were received with shouts of approbation by the men, when dismissed in quarters. All the companies had done service escorting foraging trains to the country for hay and grain and were not entirely new to marching. The contemplated move would change the camp and that alone gave great satis- faction.
The camp was struck at an early hour on January 22nd, and the regiment marched out - foot and horse, bag and baggage - crossed the La Mine River and passed by the camps of several regiments that had recently camped in the timber on the bottom along the river. The wagon roads were covered with melting snow and slush, shoe- mouth [ ankle deep] deep, causing great discomfort and fatigue to men and animals.
While passing a plantation just north of Syracuse the band struck up "Hail Columbia" in honor of a party of ladies who appeared at the farm house. A negro woman who was standing at the gate on the roadside was charmed by the music and commenced dancing and caper- ing in great glee, displaying a prodigious mouthful of ivory white teeth, while the tired men in the ranks raised a tremendous shout. All hands seemed to feel better for the shaking up. The troops marched 15 miles and camped
5
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on the north edge of Tipton, a station on the Missouri Pacific Railroad and an important military post. The tents were pitched and the bivouac for the night was made on the snow and frozen ground, which was decid- edly chilly. On the next day camp was moved to more suitable grounds near the depot, where lumber was se- cured and the tents made reasonably comfortable.
The new Adjutant was deeply mortified at his first appearance on parade on account of his error in giving a command. The men jeered him unmercifully after they were dismissed in quarters.
Three regiments of infantry marching south passed through town on their way to join the new expedition, organizing under General Samuel R. Curtis, to destroy the secessionists commanded by Price and McCulloch, in Southwest Missouri.
On January 30th, the regiment received two months pay, each one having the option of receiving his due in silver, gold, or the new U. S. greenbacks. Many of those who had taken silver and gold returned to the paymaster and exchanged it for the nice crisp paper notes.
The whole month of January was marked by the ex- treme severity of the weather; deep snow, with alternate freezing and thawing, made camp life disagreeable and most uncomfortable.
On February 1st, companies A, B, F, and K, command- ed by Captain Daniel Iseminger, struck their tents and marched 5 miles to Syracuse, where they relieved the 39th Ohio Regiment as a garrison for that post. The regi- ment was supplied with new dress coats and feathers and brass ornaments for the hats, while they retained the almost totally unserviceable arms.
By February 7th, the snow had melted and the mud
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dried up, so that daily battalion drills, with guard mount and evening parades, were reestablished, together with strict camp and provost guards, placing the troops under strict military discipline and greatly improving the morale of the command.
Major Corse, serving on the division staff of General Pope at Otterville as Assistant Inspector-General, visited the regiment and imparted the gratifying news that the regiment would soon depart for service in Kentucky, in General Grant's army.
On February 12th, it was reported in camp that the 7th Missouri had surrendered as prisoners of war, be- tween Sedalia and Lexington, while the 8th Iowa sta- tioned at Sedalia had retreated from there in the face of a superior force of the enemy. Extra guards were posted, the outposts reenforced and Captain Brydolf, with twelve mounted men, scouted the vicinity of the camp during the night. Great excitement prevailed in the camp, on account of the wild rumors circulated, with- out regard to their origin or probable truthfulness. A most improbable story was circulated and added mate- rially to the fevered excitement, that the 8th Iowa had acted disgracefully in the presence of the enemy, by run- ning four miles to the woods.
The usual quiet and routine order of the camp was restored, and on February 15th, an inspection and review of the troops was held by Major Corse, when he ex- pressed himself as being greatly pleased with the soldier- ly bearing of officers and men, and the general good ap- pearance of equipment and good order in the camp.
On February 17th, orders were received from the Gov- ernor of Iowa annulling the appointment of Ennis as Adjutant, which greatly aggravated the wrangling then
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going on in the regiment over appointments and promo- tions. Meddling politicians at home and a discordant element in the regiment had caused not a little grief to true and deserving soldiers, and they did much to destroy efficiency and discipline in the command. On the petition of Dr. Albert T. Shaw, Surgeon of the regiment, and many others, to the Governor, the appointment of Thomas J. Ennis was confirmed and he was commissioned as First-Lieutenant and Adjutant of the regiment, there- by saving to the regiment the services of one of its most gallant soldiers.
Of the many details made for scouting and escort duty with forage trains was that, on February 19th, of Lieu- tenant L. C. Allison and 10 men from Company E, Lieu- tenant H. B. Harris and 10 men from Company C, and 10 men from Company I, with five six-mule teams, who went 18 miles south to Versailles and returned with two Con- federate prisoners. Captain Walden, with a like detail from Company D, conducted a scouting party in the same vicinity, breaking up a dancing party at a farm house, being held in honor of returned Confederate soldiers.
The news of the great victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson was received in camp with great rejoicing, and all were eager to serve with General Grant in his great campaign up the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. Every camp rumor promising an early departure for the scenes of the recent victories was hailed with enthusias- tic shouts by the men in the camp.
The loyal citizens of Moniteau County seized upon February 22nd - Washington's birthday - as a fitting occasion to show their devotion to the Union cause and as- sembled at Tipton in large numbers; raised a Union lib- erty pole 90 feet high; decorated the town with flags and
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arches, bearing appropriate and patriotic mottoes; and joined in a program at which patriotic speeches were de- livered by prominent citizens, Lieutenant Halliday and Lieutenant Clune, musie was furnished by the regimental band and drum corps, and a salute of three volleys was fired by the regiment. It was a great day for the Union in Moniteau County.
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