The 13th Iowa Infantry: Veterans of Many Campaigns

The 13^th Iowa Infantry began their wartime career in Jefferson City, Missouri, where they saw no combat but suffered from various illnesses. Altogether, this regiment had over 200 men die as a result of disease. Several of the Iowa regiments that I’ve featured from William F. Fox’s “Three Hundred Fighting Regiments” suffered an unusually high number of deaths from disease. Here are the Iowa regiments that I’ve had postings about from Fox’s list and the number of deaths by disease. By the way, these totals include those who died as a result of accidents but those numbers would be small; also prison deaths are included but many of those men died as a result of disease.

2^nd Iowa Infantry: 163 died of disease [120 combat deaths]

3^rd Iowa Infantry: 122 died of disease [127 combat deaths]

5^th Iowa Infantry: 133 died of disease [117 combat deaths]

6^th Iowa Infantry: 128 died of disease [152 combat deaths]

7^th Iowa Infantry: 164 died of disease [141 combat deaths]

9^th Iowa Infantry: 232 died of disease [154 combat deaths]

13^th Iowa Infantry: 209 died of disease [119 combat deaths]

22^nd Iowa Infantry: 136 died of disease [114 combat deaths]

24^th Iowa Infantry: 215 died of disease [128 combat deaths]

 For more information about the 13^th Iowa, check out the following websites:

 The Civil War Archive: transcription of letters written by assistant surgeon Senaca B. Thrall from the fall of 1862 through the Vicksburg campaign

 Iowa in the Civil War: a short history of the regiment

 Iowa’s Civil War Battle Flags: photograph of the 13^th’s National color

 William F. Fox’s sketch of the 13^th from his Regimental Losses In The Civil War, 1861-1865 (1898):

 “Hall’s Brigade —Giles A. Smith’s Division--Seventeenth Corps. 

(1) Col. Marcellus M. Crocker; Brig.-Gen.

(2) Col. John Shane.

(3) James Wilson; 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	1		1	15
Company	A		15	15		19	19	118
	B	1	12	13	2	22	24	115
	C		12	12		23	23	103
	D		8	8		25	25	118
	E		9	9		21	21	102
	F	1	3	4		22	22	95
	G	1	19	20		21	21	120
	H		10	10		15	15	114
	I	1	11	12	1	19	20	116
	K		15	15		18	18	102
Totals		5	114	119	4	205	209	1,118

[In addition to this enrollment, there were 635 unassigned recruits.]

119 killed == 10.7 per cent.

Total of killed and wounded, 443; died in Confederate prisons (previously included), 12.

Battles	K. & M. W.
Shiloh, Tenn.	41
Corinth, Miss.	4
Siege of Vicksburg, Miss.	1
Hillsboro, Miss.	2
Kenesaw Mountain, Ga.	2
Nickajack Creek, Ga.	4
On Picket, Ga. Sept. 5, 1864	1
Atlanta, Ga., July 20, 1864	3
Atlanta, Ga., July 21, 1864	23
Atlanta, Ga., July 22, 1864	29
Ezra Church, Ga.	3
Siege of Atlanta, Ga.	3
Lovejoy’s Station, Ga.	2
Columbia, S. C.	1

Present, also, at Siege of Corinth; Resaca Ga.; Flint River, Ga.; Savannah, Ga.; Pocotaligo, S. C.; Rivers's Bridge, S. C.; Orangeburg, S. C.; Bentonville, N. C.

Notes.--Organized at Davenport, Iowa, in October, 1861. It served in Missouri until the spring of 1862, when it moved with Grant to Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., and fought at Shiloh, it being then in McClernand’s Division; loss, 20 killed, 139 wounded, and 3 missing; a total of 162, out of 717 present in action. Soon after this battle the famous Iowa Brigade--Eleventh, Thirteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Iowa--was organized, and placed under command of Colonel Crocker. This brigade participated in the Siege of Corinth, and on October 4th, 1862, in the battle at that place, in which the Thirteenth lost 1 killed and 14 wounded. During the Vicksburg campaign the brigade was under the command of Colonel Hall, and served in McArthur’s Division, Seventeenth Corps. The autumn of 1863, and most of the following winter, was passed in camp at Vicksburg. In February, 1864, it was engaged in Sherman’s March to Meridian, Miss., after which the regiment, having reenlisted, went home on a “veteran furlough.” The reenlistments numbered 379, officers and men, which, with the recruits, preserved the organization after its term of service had expired. Upon its return it entered the Atlanta campaign, the Iowa Brigade serving as the Third Brigade of Gresham’s (4th) Division, Seventeenth Corps. At the battle of Atlanta--July 21st and 22d--the regiment, under Colonel Shane, was in the thickest of the fight, losing 247 in killed, wounded and missing, out of 410 present for duty; Major Wm. A. Walker, a gallant officer, was killed in the second day's fight. The regiment marched through Georgia to the Sea, and was the first to enter Columbia, S. C. (February 17, 1865), its colors being the first to wave over the State Capitol” (Fox, 409).