Capt Frederick Steele, 2d U. S., Gen. Grant's classmate and lifelong friend, who had won brevets in Mexico, commanded a battalion of two companies. He was to become Colonel of the 8th Iowa, Brigadier and Major-General, and render brilliant service at Vicksburg and in Arkansas.
Maj. John A. Halderman, 1st Kan., who succeeded to the command of the regiment when Col. Deitzler was wounded, was commended by all his superior officers, for his handsome conduct. He had been appointed by Gen. Lyon Provost Marshal-General of the Western Army, and was afterwards commissioned a Major-General. He entered the diplomatic service under President Grant; became Minister to Siam, and was praised all over the world for his success in bringing that country into touch with civilization.
Lieut.-Col. G. L. Andrews, who in the absence of Col. F. P. Blair, commanded the 1st Mo., was a Rhode Island man, who afterward entered the Regular Army, fought creditably through the war, and in 1892 was retired as a Colonel.
In the 1st Mo. was Capt. Nelson Cole, who was severely wounded. He served through the war, rose to be a Colonel, became Senior Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, and was a Brigadier-General of Volunteers in the war with Spain.
In the 1st Kan. were Col. Geo. W. Detzler, who later became a Brigadier-General; Capt. Powell Clayton, who was to become a Colonel, Brigadier-General, Governor of Arkansas, Senator, and Embassador to Mexico, and Capt. Daniel McCook, who was to become Brigadier-General, and fall at Kene-saw.
In the 2d Kan. were Col. Robert B. Mitchell, of Ohio, who rose to be Brigadier-General and did gallant service in the Army of the Cumberland; Maj. Charles W. Blair, who became a Brigadier-General, and Capt. Samuel J. Crawford, who became a Colonel, a brevet Brigadier-General, and Governor of Kansas.
In the 1st Iowa were Lieut.-Col. W. H. Merritt, a New Yorker, who commanded the regiment and afterwards became a Colonel on the staff, and Capt. Francis J. Herron, who became a Major-General of Volunteers and commanded a division at Prairie Grove, Vicksburg, and in Texas.
There were very many in these regiments serving as privates and non-commissioned officers who afterwards made fine records as commanders of companies and regiments and became distinguished in civil life. Taken altogether, Lyon's army was an unusually fine body of fighting men. The Iowa and Kansas men were ardent, enthusiastic youths, accustomed to the use of the gun, and who hunted their enemies as they did the wild beasts they had to encounter. They were free from the superstition inculcated in the Eastern armies that the soldier's duty was to stand up in the open and be shot at. When it was necessary to stand up they stood up gallantly, but at other times they took advantage of every protection and lay behind any rock or trunk of tree in wait for the enemy to come within easy range, and then fired with fatal effect.