Hawkeyes in Missouri: The 3rd Iowa Infantry

A number of fine regiments served in the Civil War from Iowa; among them was the 3^rd Iowa Infantry that started its combat service in Missouri. The regiment went on to serve on the storied battlefields of Shiloh, Vicksburg, Atlanta, Ezra Church, and several other actions. Links to further information about the 3^rd Iowa follow the sketch included here from Regimental Losses In The American Civil War, 1861-1865 (1898) by William F. Fox.

“ Pugh's Brigade — Lauman's Division--Sixteenth Corps.

（1) Col. Nelson G. Williams.

（2) Col. Aaron Brown.

companies.		killed and died of wounds.			died of disease, accidents, in Prison, &c.			Total Enrollment.
		Officers.	Men.	Total.	Officers.	Men.	Total.
Field and Staff		1		1		1	1	15
Company	A	1	10	11		16	16	104
	B	4	18	22		15	15	117
	C		15	15		8	8	109
	D	1	10	11		13	13	92
	E		12	12		15	15	103
	F		10	10		10	10	116
	G		9	9		13	13	111
	H	1	15	16		12	12	110
	I		13	13		10	10	121
	K		7	7		9	9	101
Totals		8	119	127		122	122	1,099

127 killed == 11.5 per cent.

Total of killed and wounded, 459, died in Confederate prisons (previously included), 12.

Battles.	K. & M. W.	Battles.	K. & M. W.
Monroe, Mo., July 11, 1861	1	Siege of Vicksburg, Miss.	5
Kirkville, Mo., Aug. 20, 1861	1	Jackson, Miss.	36
Shelbyville, Mo., Sept. 2, 1861	1	Canton, Miss.	1
Blue Mills, Mo., Sept. 17, 1861	11	Atlanta, Ga., July 21, 1864	3
Shiloh, Tenn.	40	Atlanta, Ga., July 22, 1864	16
Metamora, Miss.	7	Ezra Chapel, Ga.	1
Greenville, Miss.	1	Siege of Atlanta, Ga.	3

Present, also, at Corinth, Miss.; Bolivar, Miss.; Middleburg, Miss.; Moscow, Tenn.; Resaca, Ga.; Kenesaw, Ga.

Notes.--Organized at Keokuk, Iowa, in June, 1861. It served in Missouri for several months, during which time the regiment had a sharp fight at Blue Mills with a superior force under the Confederate General Atchison. The Third was alone in this fight, and behaved with great gallantry, capturing a piece of artillery. In the spring of 1862, it joined Grant's Army in the advance up the Tennessee River, and was engaged at Shiloh. It was then in Williams's Brigade, of Hurlbut's Division, the brigade sustaining the heaviest loss of any brigade in that battle; the loss of the regiment was 23 killed, 134 wounded, and 30 missing. Under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Trumbull, it fought at Metamora, or Hatchie Bridge, where it lost 2 killed, and 60 wounded, out of about 300 present; the brigade was then under command of General Lauman. At Vicksburg, the regiment was in Pugh's (1st) Brigade, Lauman's Division, Sixteenth Corps. After the fall of Vicksburg the Army invested Jackson, Miss., where the brigade met with a severe loss in an unsuccessful attack on the enemy's works; the regiment losing 17 killed, 57 wounded, and 39 missing, out of 223 men and 18 officers engaged; the missing ones proved to have been all wounded or killed. The regiment participated in Sherman's Meridian Campaign in February, 1864, and on the Atlanta campaign in the following summer. At the expiration of its term of service it was mustered out, and the recruits and reeinlisted men remaining in the field were consolidated into a battalion of three companies, which was transferred November 4, 1864, to the Second Iowa Infantry. During the Atlanta campaign the regiment was stationed at Etowah Bridge until July 17th, when the battalion was ordered to the front and placed in Gresham's (4th) Division, Seventeenth Corps” (Fox, p. 404).

Iowa in the Civil War: links to a history of the unit and the regiment's roster plus links to information on other Iowa units

State Historical Society of Iowa: a history of the unit that contains photographs of flags carried by the 3rd Iowa Infantry

Badger State Soldiers in Louisiana

Some of the twenty-three fighting regiments were in the trans-Mississippi for only a short time such as the 16^th Wisconsin Infantry that served for a few months in Louisiana in 1863. Below is William Fox’s sketch of the unit from his Regimental Losses In The American Civil War, 1861-1865 (1898). At the end of Fox's history, I have included some links to additional materials about the fighting 16th.

“Force's Brigade — Leggett's Division--Seventeenth Corps.

（1) Col. Benjamin Allen.

（2) Col. Cassius Fairchild; Bvt. Brig.-Gen.

companies.		killed and died of wounds.			died of disease, accidents, in Prison, &c.			Total Enrollment.
		Officers.	Men.	Total.	Officers.	Men.	Total.
Field and Staff					1	1	2	15
Company	A	2	16	18	1	25	26	208
	B		14	14		19	19	175
	C	1	12	13	1	26	27	220
	D	1	7	8		14	14	149
	E		23	23		39	39	241
	F	1	13	14	1	21	22	166
	G		13	13		22	22	217
	H		15	15		26	26	178
	I	1	14	15		28	28	203
	K		14	14		27	27	172
Totals		6	141	147	4	248	252	1,944

Total of killed and wounded, 466; captured and missing 45.

battles.	K. & M. W.	battles.	K. & M. W.
Shiloh, Tenn.	79	Kenesaw Mountain, Ga.	3
Corinth, Miss.	14	Battle of Atlanta, Ga.	43
Goodrich, La. (Foraging)	1	Lovejoy's Station, Ga.	2
Guerrillas, Miss.	1	Siege of Atlanta, Ga.	3
Jackson, Tenn.	1

Present, also, at Siege of Corinth; Lumpkin's Mills, Miss; March to the Sea; The Carolinas; Brush Mountain, Ga.; Nickajack Creek, Ga.; Jonesboro, Ga.; Siege of Savannah; Pocotaligo, S. C.; Salkahatchie, S. C.; Orangeburg, S. C.; Columbia, S. C.; Bentonville, N. C.

notes.--Organized at Madison, Wis., and mustered into the United States service on January 31, 1862. After a few weeks of drill and discipline it left the State March 13, proceeding to St. Louis, and thence to Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., where General Grant''s Army was then encamped. It was assigned to Peabody's (1st) Brigade, Prentiss's (6th) Division, Army of the Tennessee, and was engaged soon after its arrival in the great battle of Shiloh. On the morning of that battle, April 6th, the pickets of the Sixteenth Wisconsin received the first fire of the enemy; the regiment was hotly engaged soon after, its losses at Shiloh amounting to 40 killed, 188 wounded, and 26 missing; total, 254. At the battle of Corinth, the Sixth Division was commended by General McKean for its efficiency; the regiment took an active and meritorious part in the fighting, losing there 7 killed, 28 wounded, and 10 missing. In November, 1862, the regiment was consolidated into a battalion of five companies,--A, C, E, G and I. The year 1863 was spent in Louisiana and Mississippi, encamped at various points, on duty with the Seventeenth Corps. During the spring and summer of 1863 the regiment was stationed near Lake Providence, La., proceeding in August to Vicksburg, in which vicinity it was encamped until the spring of 1864. In March, 1864, four new companies joined the regiment; the old battalion reenlisted, and in November, 1864, another new company joined, making ten companies again. On June 8, 1864, the regiment joined Sherman's Army at Ackworth, Ga., the army being then engaged on the Atlanta campaign. The Sixteenth was then in the First Brigade (Force's), Third Division (Leggett's,) Seventeenth Corps. It was prominently engaged at Atlanta, July 22, losing 25 killed 83 wounded, and 11 missing. The regiment marched with Sherman to the Sea and through the Carolinas" (Fox, p. 398).

Wisconsin Veterans Museum: link to photographs of battle flags of the 16th Wisconsin

Battle of Shiloh blog: 16th Wisconsin casualty list from the battle of Shiloh

Wisconsin Valley Library Service: history of the 16th Wisconsin with a focus on soldiers from Clark County

One of the Fighting Regiments: 114th New York Infantry

This is the first entry in an occasional series highlighting twenty-three regiments from William F. Fox’s list of 300 fighting regiments from his Regimental Losses In The American Civil War, 1861-1865 (1898). Each of the twenty-three regiments featured served at some point in the trans-Mississippi. What follows below is the entry about the 114^th New York Infantry from Fox’s book; there are several places online where you can peruse (for free!) Fox’s important reference work. For example, the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University includes a free, online version of Fox's book in their collection. After Fox’s entry, I have included some online resources that include additional information about the fighting 114^th.

“Beal's Brigade — Dwight's Division--Nineteenth Corps.

（1) Col. Elisha B. Smith (Killed).

（2) Col. Samuel R. Per Lee; Bvt. Brig.-Gen.

companies.		killed and died of wounds.			died of disease, accidents, in Prison, &c.			Total Enrollment.
		Officers.	Men.	Total.	Officers.	Men.	Total.
Field and Staff		1		1				16
Company	A		14	14	1	24	25	113
	B	1	10	11		22	22	120
	C	1	12	13		21	21	113
	D	1	16	17		20	20	115
	E		10	10	1	15	16	110
	F	1	15	16		14	14	120
	G	2	10	12		10	10	105
	H	2	9	11		22	22	110
	I		8	8		20	20	106
	K		8	8		24	24	106
Totals		9	112	121	2	192	194	1,134

121 killed==10.6 per cent.

Total of killed and wounded, 423.

battles.	K. & M. W.	battles.	K. & M. W.
Fort Bisland, La.	3	Opequon, Va.	44
Port Hudson, La.,June 14, 1863	21	Cedar Creek, Va.	38
Port Hudson Trenches, La.	7	Guerillas	1
Sabine Cross Roads, La.	2	Place unknown	2
Pleasant Hill, La.	3

Present, also, at Cane River, Mansura; Fisher's Hill.

Organized at Norwich, N. Y., leaving there on September 6, 1862, and journeying to Binghamton on canal boats, a long line of them being used for the purpose. Seven of the companies had been recruited in Chenango county, and three in Madison. The regiment sailed from Baltimore on November 6, 1862, for New Orleans, where it was assigned to Weitzel's Brigade, Augur's Division, Nineteenth Corps, and stationed at Brashear City, La.

Its first experience under fire was at Fort Bisland, April 112, 1863, where several men were wounded, some of them mortally. After the Teche Campaign,--a march through “the garden of Louisiana,” --the One Hundred and Fourteenth, on May 30, 1863, joined its Corps, which had already invested Port Hudson, and for forty days participated in the incessant fighting which echoed through the magnolia woods about the works. In the grand assault of June 14th, Colonel Smith, while in command of the brigade, was killed. The total loss of the regiment during the siege of Port Hudson was 11 killed, 60 wounded, and 2 missing.

On March 15, 1864,--in Dwight's (1st) Brigade, Emory's (1st) Division,--it started on Banks's Red River campaign, traversing the Teche country for the sixth time, and fighting at Sabine Cross Roads, where Lieutenant-Colonel Morse, the regimental commandant, was wounded. The Nineteenth Corps having been ordered to Virginia, the One Hundred and Fourteenth embarked for Washington on July 15, 1864, and after marching through Maryland, fought under Sheridan in his famous Shenandoah campaign against Early. At the battle of the Opequon, the regiment lost 185 men killed and wounded--three-fifths of those engaged — eliciting by its gallantry a complimentary notice from the Division General. At Cedar Creek it lost 21 killed, 86 wounded, and 8 missing. The regiment was mustered out at Elmira on June 17, 1865” (Fox, p. 225).

Additional resources:

New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center—links to a number of primary sources relating to the regiment.

New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center—battle flag of the 114^th New York Infantry

Fighting Regiments of the Trans-Mississippi

As someone who enjoys learning about regiments, it should not come as a surprise that one of my favorite books is William F. Fox’s Regimental Losses In The American Civil War, 1861-1865 (1898). Yes, it is old-fashioned and the writing can be overwrought, but there is much of interest between its covers. The heart of the book consists of mini-histories of what Fox deemed “Three Hundred Fighting Regiments” in the Union army. As he explained at the beginning of the section, “It is not claimed that these are the Three Hundred Fighting Regiments of the Army; but, that they are three hundred regiments which evidently did considerable fighting. There were, undoubtedly, others which did equally good, or, perhaps, better fighting, and their gallant services will be fully recognized by the writers who are conversant with their history. But, for lack of other information, this chapter deals only with those which sustained the heaviest losses in battle” (p. 122).

Recently, I perused the section describing Fox’s Three Hundred Fighting Regiments to determine which ones served at some point in the trans-Mississippi. A total of twenty-three of the three hundred Union regiments or 7.6% of the total saw duty in the trans-Mississippi. This posting marks the start of a new series briefly highlighting the activities of Twenty-three Fighting Regiments of the trans-Mississippi.

Another Long March

While reading Little To Eat And Thin Mud To Drink: Letters, Diaries, and Memoirs from the Red River Campaigns, 1863-1864 (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2007) edited by Gary D. Joiner, I noticed yet another example of hard marching by a unit in the trans-Mississippi.

Private Julius Knapp served in the 116^th New York Volunteer Infantry of the 19^th Army Corps, and he noted that on 22 April 1864, his unit started retreating from near Grand Ecore, Louisiana, at approximately midnight. Knapp wrote that the men kept marching without a break until noon when there was a “dinner” break of one hour. Afterwards, the march resumed and continued until the men arrived near the lower crossing of the Cane River at 11:00 pm. According to Private Knapp this made “’a march of forty five miles with out a hours Sleep and only time enough given us to cook our dinner the longest march in one day ever done by the 19^th Army Corps’” (p. 109). The next day the regiment saw action during the battle of Monett’s Ferry.

Bookstore Finds

On the way back to Oklahoma, my mom and I stopped at Recycled Books in Denton, Texas. It had been several years since I had last shopped there, and I was in for a pleasant surprise. The Civil War section has always been a large one, but since I last visited it has probably increased in size by 30%. So, it took awhile to peruse the many Civil War titles. It was difficult to restrain myself, but I parted with about $80.00 to purchase the following titles plus one murder mystery:

Edmonds, David C. Yankee Autumn In Acadiana: A Narrative of the Great Texas Overland Expedition through Southwestern Louisiana, October-December 1863 (hardcover)

Girardi, Robert I. ed. Campaigning with Uncle Billy: The Civil War Memoirs of Sgt. Lyman S. Widney, 34^th Illinois Volunteer Infantry (paperback)

Josephy, Alvin M., Jr., The Civil War In The American West (hardcover)

McGowen, Stanley S. Horse Sweat and Powder Smoke: The First Texas Cavalry in the Civil War (hardcover)

Ragan, Mark K. Submarine Warfare In The Civil War (paperback)

Rosenblatt, Emil and Ruth, eds., Hard Marching Every Day: The Civil War Letters of Private Wilbur Fisk, 1861-1865 (hardcover)

So many books, so little time…

Brigadier General Thomas Neville Waul

Born in South Carolina in 1813, Thomas Neville Waul died in Hunt County, Texas, in 1903. He started heading westward as a young man by first becoming a school teacher in Alabama; next, he was in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he was admitted to the bar in 1835. Waul’s next move was to Gonzales County, Texas, where he established a plantation and practiced law.

For a relatively brief time, Waul served in the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy, and then he recruited “Waul’s Legion, a true legion with infantry, artillery, and cavalry…in late spring 1862” (Ralph A. Wooster, Lone Star Regiments in Gray, Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 2002, p. 100). He served as commander of this unit until its surrender at Vicksburg in July 1863. Brigadier General Stephen D. Lee praised Waul in his after action account—“Col. T. N. Waul, commanding Texas Legion, by his dashing gallantry and coolness, inspired every one around him with confidence, and handled his Legion with skill” (Official Records, v. 24, pt. 2, p. 351). Authorities promoted Waul to brigadier general after his exchange, and eventually he became commander of a brigade in Major General John G. Walker’s Texas division. Waul served during the Red River campaign and fell wounded at the battle of Jenkins’ Ferry. Following the war, he became involved in Reconstruction politics in Texas and eventually took up farming near Greenville in Hunt County. According to Ezra J. Warner in Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders, Waul had “no blood relatives” when he died and “was the last of his line” (p. 329). You can see Waul’s final resting place not far from Khleber Miller VanZandt’s grave site in Oakwood Cemetery in Fort Worth. To see a photograph of Waul as well as his grave site, click on the link.

"'One of the quiet men'"

While visiting the Texas Civil War Museum recently, two employees suggested that I trek into Fort Worth and visit Oakwood Cemetery because it is the resting place of two notable Texas Confederates. Even though I spent a number of years living in Denton, Texas, while I was in graduate school, I had never heard of Oakwood Cemetery. The desk clerk at the hotel kindly provided directions to the cemetery, and on Christmas Eve morning, my mom and I drove to Oakwood Cemetery. It was a chilly, dreary morning with light rain—not surprisingly we were the only visitors. Oakwood Cemetery was established in 1879, and it made the Texas Monthly “Bucket List” earlier this year. It is a peaceful and beautiful place. We had no idea what part of the cemetery to look in for our two notable Confederates but found them fairly quickly not far from the cemetery’s entrance.

The gravesite of Khleber Miller VanZandt was the first one that we located, and it is marked by a tall obelisk. Unfortunately, I neglected to take my camera on this trip so click on the link to see photographs of VanZandt as well as his grave marker. VanZandt was born in Tennessee in 1836 and moved with his family to Harrison County, Texas, in 1839. The young man was admitted to the bar and started practicing law in 1858 in Marshall. After the war started, VanZandt helped to organize and then became captain of Company D of the 7^th Texas Infantry. During the war he was captured at Fort Donelson and then exchanged later in 1862. Following his exchange, he became Major of the 7^th Texas and served with the regiment until his discharge for disability in 1864. The 7^th Texas is perhaps most famous for its stubborn stand during the battle of Raymond (Mississippi) in May 1863, but the unit was also heavily engaged during the battle of Chickamauga. VanZandt led the regiment on the second day of fighting at Chickamauga after Colonel Hiram Granbury fell wounded.

Just a few months after the war ended, VanZandt moved to the then small town of Fort Worth where he soon became a civic and business leader. His many achievements are outlined in an entry in the Handbook of Texas Online. This article states that “According to his biographer…[VanZandt was] ‘one of the quiet men who built homes,…engaged in business, promoted towns,… opened schools, and enforced law and order.’”