Colonel John Scott’s, Story of the Thirty Second Iowa Infantry
Volunteers (1896), is one of the better trans-Mississippi unit histories.
Dr. Ludwell H. Johnson deemed it as the most useful regimental history in his
research on the Red River campaign. Mostly this is due to Scott’s inclusion of
a number of eyewitness accounts of the battle of Pleasant Hill. The 32nd
Iowa Infantry experienced heavy combat at Pleasant Hill and ended up losing 86
men killed or mortally wounded there. Scott’s book has been digitized and is
available for reading on archive.org. This is fortunate because Scott’s work
has never been reprinted and copies can be expensive. Occasionally, I will
feature some of the eyewitness accounts from the book and will start with:
“Corporal D. W. Robbins,
Company D, now a retired merchant of Colorado Springs, at one time Mayor of
that pleasant city, has taken pains to revisit the battle-ground of April 9th,
1864, and to collect and preserve many relics, and to record many incidents of
the battle….Corporal Robbins found in 1891 the old field that lay in front of
the line of the 32nd Iowa had changed to a forest of pines; many of
the trees being from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter. Other parts of the
battle-ground were equally changed. The village of Pleasant Hill has been
abandoned; the smaller buildings having been removed, and the larger ones
having fallen into ruins. A railroad now runs between Shreveport and New
Orleans, passing about two miles south of the battlefield, the nearest station
being named Sodus, but retaining Pleasant Hill as the name of the post office.
Corporal Robbins remained
in that neighborhood several days, picking up things that had for him
particular interest. He cut some bullets from a tree that stood in the rear of
the position occupied by his company, cutting to a depth of six to eight inches
for them; and also cut some sticks for canes. He found and secured possession
of relics that had been picked up by others, and has them among his treasures
at Colorado Springs.
In his reminiscences of
the battle he speaks of the demoralized troops of Banks passing to the rear, ‘many
of them bare-headed, and many having thrown away their guns,’ which were met by
the 32nd Iowa when taking position to check the pursuing foe. He saw
Lieut. Col. Mix fall and heard him say “I am killed!’ It also appears that when
the right of the Regiment began to fall back, noting the withdrawal of the 27th
Iowa, that the movement extended to Company D, and when checked by Colonel
Scott, as being without orders, only a part of the men of that Company heard
the order and resumed the former position; in which they remained till they
were captured, failing to receive the order to move out by the left flank, at
the close of the battle.
Robbins says it was
reported among the rebels, and told to the prisoners, that of the bold riders who
rushed upon our brigade at the opening of the battle, only twenty-six reported
for duty the next morning.
After meeting the rebel
battery that was rushing to this dance of death the prisoners met Gen. Kirby
Smith, who inquired to what troops they belonged, and on being told he remarked
that he knew very well that they were not the sort they had met the day before.
As they passed to the rear they saw many of those killed in the battle of the 8th,
lying where they fell, and so covered with the dust raised by the troops that
they could hardly be recognized as human beings” (pages 162-165).
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