USA > Iowa > History of the Fifteenth Regiment, Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry, from October, 1861, to August, 1865, when disbanded at the end of the war > Part 7
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1874, from paralysis bringing on Brights disease of the kidneys.
The story of the battle of Shiloh has been so often told I shall refer to it as far as Company I is concerned very briefly .
Being our first battle, it tested the courage of our men who fought with great gallantry and suffered severely .
I counted the men in ranks before we left the landing for the field, and found we had 66 officers and enlisted men, and out of this number our casualties were 23, or one more than one-third of the whole, every one of the commissioned officers being shot. Lieutenant Hamilton being killed early in the action. Later, Cap- tain Day was shot through the thigh, which made him a great man at home, District Judge and Judge of the Supreme Court of Iowa. The Johnny Reb who did him the favor to shoot him was never
afterwards heard of. I took command of the company; was wounded myself, being shot by a minne ball, which tore through my coat, vest and two undershirts, and as the surgeon of an Illinois Regiment said to me, cut a beef-steak out of the left side of my neck, which bled profusely, but I continued in command of my own company and of Company F, whose Captain claimed he was dis- abled from the concussion of a passing shell, and the First Lieuten- ant was disabled by a shot in one of his fingers, " Old Throggy,", Second Lieutenant, who was a brave man, having been left on de- tail in charge of our baggage and stores at the steamer Minnehaha.
James Doyle, of Company I, as we advanced by the movement "On the right by file into line," to a front facing the enemy shel- tered in the timber, was the first man of the Regiment killed. He was a large, broad-chested, finely-formed Irishman, and fell dead shot through the heart. Marshall H. Wilson was shot dead. James Murphy died on the field. Daniel Buckley died in the hos- pital at Mound City, Ill .; Corporal Geo. H. Kuhn died at Keokuk U. S. general hospital, all from wounds received in that day's battle.
Garrett W. Colenbrander, who was wounded, was the only man
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captured . The total list of casualties, as I have heretofore stated, from wounds and death of commissioned officers and enlisted men, was twenty-three in my company, and as commanding officer of Company F on that day, Company I is, I claim, entitled to the additional credit of its casualties. First Lieutenant Goode was dis- abled in the finger, and Captain Blackmar had concussion of the spine from a shell or solid shot passing in dangerous proximity to his back.
Colonel Francis Markoe Cummins, then Lieutenant-Colonel of the 6th Regiment of Iowa Infantry Volunteers, then under arrest and afterwards Colonel of the 124th New York Infantry, who died the 26th of March, 1884, at Goshen, New York, fought that day as a private soldier under my command. He came up to me armed with a musket, his fiery red face begrimmed with powder, and knowing him well, I asked what he was doing there. His answer was, "I am under arrest and hunting a place to fight."
Here's the place! Glad to have you, Colonel! He loaded and fired, and stayed with us until the last, for which he, if living, would be entitled to the credit. Now that he is dead I mention the fact in honor to his memory .
Birds are never seen where there is artillery firing, as the con- cussion kills them, and speaking of birds reminds me of how wildly some of the excited new recruits shot into the tree tops instead of aiming at the enemy in their front. I called their attention to this, and inquired if they were shooting at birds, and directed them to lower their muskets.
Some very amusing incidents took place on the march to the field. Daniel Boone, a relative of the distinguished Kentucky pioneer hunter, and an ex-soldier of the Mexican war, being old and stiff was not able to keep up and fell in the rear. William Ward, a simple-minded, gawky country boy, nick-named General Ward, could not keep in ranks and was slower than a funeral. They were both taunted by their comrades, who believed they were
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both trying to shirk. I knew better; they both got to the company in line of battle and did good service. Ward was shot through the hand, his musket at the time being only half loaded, and on account of the shot in the hand he was not able to ram down the cartridge, and came to me and asked what he should do. I completed load- ing his musket and told him to give one more shot and leave the field, which he did. Ward spent all his money for pies with the Suttler, and could eat a dozen before stopping. The poor fellow died in the United States hospital at Keokuk after he came home on veteran furlough in March, 1864. We had him buried with military honors, and Colonel Belknap and myself and Lieutenant Henry Schevers, all the commissioned officers of the Regiment present, marched out with all the enlisted men we could collect, with the escort furnished by the hospital to the cemetery. Here it is proper to state the detail of hospital soldiers, better known as "hospital pimps," were not able to properly go through the manual of arms.
No soldiers who died in hospital were buried with military hon- ors then, but an undertaker furnished a cheap pine coffin, hauled the dead to the cemetery where they were dumped into the hole in the ground dug for them as if they were animals. Many loud- mouthed hangers-on and furnishers of supplies made it their bus- iness to rob them and the government when they were living, and found no further use for them when dead. Many of these thieves I could name, made their thousands and lost them as easily, and are long ago dead and almost forgotten.
Henry Morgan, an Irishman from Keokuk, had been in jail for fighting. He enlisted and I got the charge against him dismissed, and he never forgot it.
In the midst of the battle, when the men were ordered to lie down, Joe Richards, a little Frenchman who was badly frightened, wiggling about got under Morgan, who was a large, stout, square- built, red-faced and broad-chested, square-shouldered man, when
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Morgan cried out, "get out from under me, I am high enough now!" Soon after this he came back to me behind the line of bat- tle, where I was standing, while the rebel bullets were coming thick and fast, and said to me, " Lieutenant, if I am killed, don't bury me with a Republican." I told him to go back and attend to his fighting .
Later in the day, when we were driven off the field, and he was at the landing, he heard I was killed or badly wounded, and went to our Suttler, got a fresh musket and cartridge box, and asked for a drink of whisky, which he got, saying, " I'm going out to look for the Lieutenant; he took me out of jail!" He went out to look for me on the field and got a shot through the arm. After we were some time at Corinth, Mrs. Morgan came down to see him, and though there was strict orders at the time against bringing liquor through the lines, she smuggled through a five-gallon keg of whisky, but finding that Henry had deserted, she sold out her whisky at an enormous profit and went home.
After the battle of Shiloh, on account of the change of climate, and using surface water which could be found everywhere by dig- ging down about two feet to the clay, where it had settled after the heavy rain storms during the first night after the battle and after- wards, our whole command had the bloody flux or diarrhea. Ad- jutant Pomutz and his comrade, old. Major Compody, a Hungarian exile of the revolution of Kossuth in 1848, slept together under the same blanket at night, smoked out of their long pipes, and grunted, slept and awoke one another in the night and smoked again. If Pomutz awoke first he punched his partner and said: Compody! He answered with a gutteral "Nach! Pomutz!" Then they got their hig Hungarian pipes and commenced to smoke. If Compody awoke first it was the same programme; he punched Pomutz, who replied, " Compody ! Nach!" As a remedy for flux Pomutz brewed what he called Garibaldi Tea. It was in short hot tea, brown sugar, and commissary whisky .
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Compody was seven years a close prisoner of state and in chains in an Austrian dungeon, and walked with a lock step, acquired by being so long in chains. He could speak but little English, could not ride on the cars for the reason he was in a dropsical condition, and came from the Hungarian settlement in New Buda, ( named by the exiles in memory of Buda-Pesth) Decatur county, Iowa, as a companion of Pomutz. He was a first-class military engineer and swordsman, but too old for active service. He had a romantic his- tory . At Boliver, Tenn., in August, 1862, General Ross employed him to survey and lay out fortifications, and while doing so he was captured by the enemy; his assistants escaped. He was taken for a spy, as he wore citizen's clothes, and as he could not talk enough to explain what he was doing, they whipped him severely with switches and turned him loose several miles from our Regiment in the enemies country .
He started out on his long, slow and painful march on foot back to Decatur county, Iowa, living on green corn and whatever he could pick up from negroes, sometimes attacked by blood hounds, which, with his huge walking stick he killed, as he was very pow- erful in his arms, and handled his stick with the skill of a profes- sional swordsman.
He had reached Salt River bottom in Missouri, not far from the Iowa line, more dead than alive, when, exhausted from hunger and fatigue, he sank by the roadside to die. Mr. Bechtold, a merchant of Decatur county then, now a German editor in Omaha, fortun- ately was driving that way, and saw by the roadside a huge heap of what looked like a bundle of old, many colored rags, got out of his buggy to examine it, and found it was a man, but did not at first recognize his friend, Major Compody. With chafing and stimu- lants he revived him, spoke to him in German, and with great dif- ficulty got his huge, heavy and helpless body in his buggy and carried him home. He became so he could get about as usual, and as he was a gentleman of education and understood metalurgy, he
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was engaged and given a partnership with a wealthy mining com- pany operating in Colorado, and went thither, and made very val- uable discoveries, and ended his career by death from falling over a precipice-supposed to have been pitched over by his partners.
Corinth was evacuated May 30, 1862, and the march from Shiloh in April, 1862, nearly two months digging ditches and building works in the advance on Corinth, was called the siege of Corinth, General Halleck commanding the army. As there was only one line of breast-works, by advancing at once Corinth could have been taken in a week with a General like Grant, who was then under a cloud and virtually had no command. At Corinth in June and July we were on picket duty and provost guard; after this at Boli- var, Tenn., until the 13th of September, when we made a forced march back to Corinth, and then to Iuka, where General Price was defeated on the 19th of September, and came back to Corinth, where Company I participated in the battles of October 3 and 4, and on the 5th in the battle of Hatchie. Bolivar contains the old Polk homestead, and in its cemetery "Zeke" Polk, uncle of the President, and others of his relatives lie buried.
Bolivar was the stamping ground of the notorious John A. Mur- rell and his land pirates, and he was confined in jail at Jackson near by.
While at Corinth and vicinity many men were on the sick list from malarial fevers.
When we first got in quarters there, Sergeant Schevers got hold of an iron camp bedstead and mosquito bar, abandoned by the enemy, fixed up a bed on it, and was taking a good sleep one warm afternoon when Sergeant Bennett lifted up the mosquito bar and put a handfull of' brown sugar near his head and let in a big lot of flies, which swarmed about and lit on his face and the sugar. The Sergeant snored and fought the flies while a crowd of idlers gath- ered outside and laughed so loud he awoke mad as a hornet, and swearing in his best Dutch. Schevers was a gallant soldier; was
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seven times wounded; was promoted from First Sergeant to Sec- ond Lieutenant; resigned in October, 1864, and died at Keokuk the 12th of August, 1872.
Many promotions to commissioned officers were made from Com- pany I: Sergeant William F. Bennett, who went home on re- cruiting service, became a Captain of the 39th Iowa Infantry ; Sergeant William Christy, discharged at Grand Junction, Tenn., in 1862, became Captain in 8th Iowa Cavalry, and afterwards Treas- urer of State. Edgar T. Miller, made Second Lieutenant to suc- ceed Hamilton, became First Lieutenant and Captain of Company C, Provost Marshall on General Frank P. Blair's staff, and was breveted Major.
Ensign H. King was made Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant and Adjutant; was elected Chaplain ; went home and got ordained as a Methodist Minister; came back, and as the representative of the morality of Company I, served faithfully as Chaplain to the end of the war. He was a very gallant and efficient officer, and captured the Adjutant of the 45th Regiment Alabama Volunteers on the 22d of July, 1864, before Atlanta. When the boys won money at " Chuck-a-luck " on the " March to the Sea," they always deposited with him for safe keeping. He is now a Minister at Napa City, California .
William C. Wells and Oliver P. Fleming were promoted First Lieutenants, and both became Captains in Colored Regiments.
Sergeant James C. Bonar, one of the coolest and bravest men in action, after serving with honor through the war-being in every siege, skirmish and battle-re-enlisted as a veteran; was wounded in the hand, and after discharge was elected Sheriff of Clark county, and died holding that office at Osceola October, 29, 1886. Always jolly and full of humor, he amused the company in quarters by playing auctioneer, and before Atlanta he often got up on the breast- works, and exposed to the fire of the enemy, would shoot among them deliberately, taunting them by calling out to them, which
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would provoke a shower of bullets in reply, no shot ever touching him on such occasions.
In October, 1862, I left Corinth on sick leave of absence and re- turned to the Regiment at Abbeville, Miss., November, 1862, passing through Holly Springs two days before it was raided, and our stores destroyed by General Van Dorn, which caused the return of Grant's army from Yokena Station, Miss., to Memphis, and thence, January, 1863, down the river to commence operations from the Louisiana shore against Vicksburg.
In passing through Holly Springs I called on Colonel Murphy commanding the Posts, to ascertain the whereabouts of our com- mand, and as there was no hotel in the place, I called at the large brick building occupied as the Post Hospital, and saw the surgeon in charge, and requested permission to stay there over night, which he insolently refused .
Later, when we were coming home on furlough in 1864, from Memphis, Tenn., to St. Louis, I met this same surgeon, then pro- moted as United States Surgeon of Volunteers, on our boat. I was assigned to the state room with him, and going to it he was not in, but I found the sword and green sash, and all his dress parade uniform, and a brace of revolvers lying on his bed. He came in while I was there and wanted to know who I was and what I was doing there. I told him I was assigned to that state room and said, " Who are you, and where are you from, and were you not in charge of hospital at Holly Springs?" He answered he was a Surg of U. S. Volunteers, had been at Holly Springs, and gave me to understand I must get out, handling his revolvers menacingly. I looked him over first, as I did not want to attack an armed man with only a sword, sheathed, and no room to draw it. The back state room door facing on the river was open. Taking up my sword as if to leave the state room, I suddenly punched him in the stomach with it, when he cried out as he thought he was run through the body. I seized his revolvers and threw them in the
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river, and as I slapped his face told him, " I think I met you once at Holly Springs; you would not let me stay over night in your Hospital." As he gathered up his traps I gave him a parting salute. Colonel Hall put me under arrest, but no charges were preferred and was soon released, and of one thing I am certain, I settled the hash of this fancy surgeon and broke the puppy from sucking eggs.
Going down the river from Memphis, Tenn., I was officer of the day. The 15th and 16th Iowa were aboard our boat, and nearly every German officer had one or two dogs, and they made night hideous with their howling. When night came I promised a nig- ger a canteen of whisky if he would pitch them all overboard in the river.
Next morning at daylight we landed on the Louisiana shore, and the stage plank was put out, and as I looked I saw a dog, a tall grey hound. I called up the nigger and asked him what he had been doing-look at that dog! " Massa," said the darkey, " I put dem all over, but de long dog he comed back up de plank." The long dog was Captain John Henry Smith's grey hound, and if he had known it he would have raised eain.
We were at the siege and surrender of Vicksburg July 4, 1863, and during the winter and spring of 1863, before we crossed over to Mississippi, were stationed at General Sparrow's plantation at Lake Providence, La., where we had an epidemic of small-pox, and the small-pox hospital was full of patients.
We landed at Grand Gulf May 13, south of Vicksburg; thence embarked for Young's Point, crossed it, again embarked on steamer and arrived at Haines' Bluffs, northeast of Vicksburg, May 20, and were moved to Warrentown, eight miles below Vicksburg, on the 21st; thence in the rear of Vicksburg to General McPherson's headquarters, the center of the besieging federal forces.
Under the command of General Blair from May 27 to 29, we were on an expedition to Mechanicsville, in the direction of Yazoo
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City, on which expedition James Martin, of General Belknap's staff, was mounted upon the noted stallion " Epamimondas," and distinguished himself by charging on the fleeing rebels. We again returned to the rear of Vicksburg in the center of General McPher- son's line, in the midst of a cane brake filled with jiggers, a yellow thread-like insect or worm, which creeps or works itself into the flesh, creating sores, for which the sovereign remedy was a piece of bacon rind or salt pork, salt killing all the lowest forms of animal- culæ. While here on a high ridge we had nightly a grand spec- tacle or pyrotechnical display of bursting shells, with their fiery fragments falling in showers over the devoted city .
Here Governor Kirkwood and Hon. James F. Wilson made speeches to us. And from the frantic way in which the Governor scratched with one hand, while he gyrated with the other, grey backs and jiggers must have "snuffed the battle from afar," and taken him to their embrace as a long-lost and savory-scented brother .
We were moved again to Black River to look after General Joc Johnston, who, it was expected, would attack us in the rear, but came to the rescue of Pemberton too late, as his supplies of mule beef were exhausted.
We had a grand celebration of the 4th of July, 1863, memorable now for the surrender of Vicksburg, and General John McArthur commanding our Division, swung his Scotch cap jubilantly in the air and ordered a barrel of Commissary whisky in lieu of milk to be distributed to every Regiment. The big oak tree under which Pemberton signed the articles of capitulation to General Grant, like Joseph's coat of many . colors, was cut to pieces and dug up by the roots and carried away as souvenirs.
After tne surrender of Vicksburg we were camped in the sub- urbs of the city, and in August, 1863, while most of the officers of the Regiment were North on leave of absence, Company I, with Lieutenant Schevers in command, made an expedition to Monroe,
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La., Lieutenant Colonel Hedrick commanding Regiment, while I was acting as a field officer, Major Pomutz being on detail as Divi- sion Picket Officer. Monroe is part of the Attackapas grant to Baron Bastrop, ( which Aaron Burr contemplated purchasing when he was charged with treason ) on the 27th and 28th of August. We had a skirmish with the enemy, and on the 29th a spirited engage- ment at Monroe, which they abandoned with all their military stores, which fell into the hands of General Stephenson, command- ing our expedition, and beat a hasty retreat .
Company I was on the expedition to Redbone, 12 miles from Vicksburg, on the 24th and 25th of December, 1863; the brigade, 11th and 15th Iowa, being commanded by Colonel Belknap, Lieu- tenant-Colonel Hedrick commanding Regiment.
While at Redbone I was Brigade Officer of the day, my head- quarters being at a large white house on the hill occupied by four widows and a young lady of sixteen. When I entered the house I found it occupied by a lot of guards of the 2d Wisconsin Cavalry, and with their swords at a shoulder arms. I demanded of them by what authority they were there, and found every one of them had a paper showing he was detailed there on guard, and decided at once that the officers of the 2d Wisconsin were sweet on the widows. I called one of my Sergeants with a detail and said to them, "all right, I will relieve you;" made them get out and substituted my detail in their stead. I devoted my attentions to a young and buxom cross-eyed widow, and when badgered about why I selected the cross-eyed widow, gave as my reason to General McArthur, she could look two ways for Christmas-it was Christmas eve- keep one eye on me and the other on the key-hole.
When we marched away next day every one of the widows and the clipper young lady, gathered together on the hillside, and with their handkerchiefs waived us a parting adieu! We were on an expedition to Jackson in October. Before December, 1863, we were busy re-enlisting as veteran volunteers, and Company I had
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the honor of being the first full company to re-enlist as veterans in the 17th Army Corps.
On February 3, 1864, we went on the expedition under General Sherman to Meridian, Miss., and returned to Vicksburg on the 4th of March. On the return march Company I, on detail under my command, was the first company to cross the Pontoon bridge over Pearl River, at Ratcliffe Ferry, and captured A. H. Branch and some other citizens mounted on blooded horses, one of them a val- uable black Morgan stallion. We raided the plantation of one Terry, a wealthy planter and relative of Judge Terry, of Califor- nia, who is noted as having killed Senator Broderick in a duel, and seized a bountiful supply of much-needed rations of cured meats, honey, molasses, corn meal and flour.
On our return to Vicksburg nothing of much interest occurred until we left for the North on veteran furlough in March, 1864, and on our arrival at St. Louis, Mo., were entertained by Mayor Thomas, and again by the citizens of Keokuk. On our arrival home with depleted ranks and our flag and banner torn by bullets in battle, the sun-burnt veterans presented a widely different ap- pearance to what they did in 1862, when, with full ranks, they gaily marched through Main street with new banners, new uni- forms, headed by the band with their new flag and banners flying to embark for the seat of war.
The veterans return, and we are off again for the front via St. Louis, Cairo, Paducah, and thence up the Tennessee River to Clifton, where we halted for a brief period, then marched to Pu- laski, Tenn., thence to Huntsville, Ala., when we met the non- veterans, and halting for a few days were again on the march via Decatur, striking the line of Sherman's army at Rome, going thence onward to Ackworth, Big Shanty, to the front of Kenesaw Mount- ain, where we met the enemy in force and followed him in his masterly retreat in June, 1864; fought the battle of Nickajack, memorable in history as the battle-field with the Indians. John-
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son's army still fought and retreated, and we met them in battle on the 20th, 21st and 22d of July, the last day when General Mc- Pherson was killed and Company I reduced to 31 men; lost 16 captured in battle, besides killed and wounded. For 87 days we were under constant fire, every day equal to a battle, and again fought at Ezra Church July 28, our Regiment alone re-enforcing Leightburn's brigade of Morgan L. Smith's Division, and fought the last battle about Atlanta. Were at Jonesboro on September 2, 1864, defeating Hood's Army, which evacuated Atlanta on the 3d, and took up its line of march on retreat.
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