Recollections with the Third Iowa Regiment

by Seymour D. Thompson

On this train we were crammed so closely together that it was impossible to lie down. Jolted and jammed by the motion of the cars, we passed the night somehow, and most of us got some sleep. Annoyed by these inconveniences, we little thought of the dangers of this nocturnal ride. The removal of a single rail by a mischievous citizen would have precipitated many of us into eternity.

Daylight found us at Macon city, where the train had halted for some reason to pass the latter part of the night. We were exceedingly hungry, having eaten nothing since yesterday's breakfast. Colonel Williams, knowing the difficulties of restraining men, and especially hungry men, in a town, posted guards and would allow no one to leave the train. He, however, took some of the officers with him and breakfasted at a hotel—an act which created, and justly, great indignation. An officer that will not share with brave men their hardships, as they share with him the perils from which he reaps glory, deserves universal execration.

About ten o'clock we reached Chariton Bridge, and Company F was detached to guard it. An incident had occurred here, a couple of hours previous to our arrival, not a little exciting. A party of a dozen men of the Second Iowa had come from the west to guard this bridge. Arriving early in the morning, they had gone into a log house close by to get breakfast, when a party of rebels suddenly appeared and began preparations to set the bridge on fire. The Iowa boys sprung to their guns and rushed upon them. The rebels fled in confusion; but Lieutenant McKinney, the commander of the guard, attacked their leader, a young school teacher and law student, by the name of Marmaduke. He fell upon his knees and begged for mercy. But the lieutenant told him a bridge burner had no claims to mercy, and shot him through the head with his revolver. His dead body lay upon the railroad embankment near where Company F encamped. We buried him decently, giving him a soldier's grave. Subsequently some Union people of Callao came in behalf of his friends and disinterred the body and took it away.

The situation of Company F was not at all enviable. As soon as we had got off the train with our few effects it moved on. Since the previous morning, we had had nothing to eat, and for several days our rations had been scant. Our hunger was intense, a few rations of flour and bacon had been left for us; but we had no cooking utensils except a few mess pans which we had procured, no one knew how. We kindled a fire, kneaded some dough in these mess pans, wrapped it around sticks, and baked it in the blaze. We had scarcely had time to commence cooking dinner in this way, when half the company were ordered on picket. This, we thought, was seeing service. During the eight days we were here we were on guard half the time and suffered all these inconveniences. Contrary to the endeavors of our officers, none of our camp equipage was sent to us,—another circumstance which tended to increase our affection for Colonel Williams.

Having left Company F at Chariton Bridge, the train proceeded five miles further to Brush Creek Bridge, which the rebels had burned. Here the regiment halted till the following night, when having repaired the bridge, Colonel Williams left Company C to guard it, and sent Company E back to Chariton Bridge to reinforce Company F. He then proceeded with the remainder of the regiment to Chillicothe, where he arrived the following forenoon. A detail was immediately made to go to Utica to bring hither our tents, baggage, and camp equipage. The whole mass was thrown together without respect of companies, and brought to Chillicothe. A regimental camp was established, which the officers united in naming Camp Williams.

The regiment was now disposed as follows: In the regimental camp at Chillicothe, Companies A, B, H, I and K; at Grand River Bridge, four miles west of Chillicothe, Companies D and G; at Brush Creek Bridge, forty miles east of Chillicothe, Company C; at Chariton Bridge, forty-five miles east of Chillicothe, Companies E and F.

These detached companies were continually threatened more or less seriously by the enemy. They were expected to protect the bridges and the railroad track in their vicinity. Reports frequently came in to them from the surrounding country, that the rebels were organizing to attack them. But their instructions did not allow them to send out scouting parties to ascertain the truth of these reports. Indeed, the military knowledge we had expected on the part of our Colonel, he had as yet failed to exhibit. He did not even recommend these detached companies to construct stockades, nor were they provided with tools to do so, should it become necessary. None of these companies constructed works except Company F. We built of logs and sawdust a small square work around an old steam saw-mill, and named it Fort Brown after its projector, Lieut. Brown. Company A, which was subsequently detailed to guard Medicine Creek Bridge, built a small work near it of earth and logs.

On the evening of July 20th, Companies E and F, after having passed a week of almost constant fasting and watching, sleeping what little they were allowed to sleep in the open air, harassed by day by continual reports of the enemy approaching in force, and by night by clouds of famished mosquitoes, were, to their great joy taken aboard a train of cars, and expected to be conveyed immediately to Chillicothe. Imagine, then, the surprise and rage of Company F, at being awakened about midnight and ordered to get off at another railroad bridge in a timbered swamp. Company C was served in the same way. Company F relieved them at Locust Creek; but instead of being taken through to Chillicothe, they were left at Medicine Creek. The following day, however, these companies were relieved, the former by Company H, and the latter by Company A, and joined the regiment at Chillicothe. Subsequently Company D was recalled from Grand River Bridge; but no companies were relieved after this, till the regiment changed camp to Brookfield.

The time spent in guarding these bridges was a period of constant, and sometimes harassing watchfulness. We were constantly on the lookout for the enemy. We had an unusual number of reports of enormous forces advancing against us, and night was prolific of false alarms. For in those days when the enemy were "bushwhackers," and videttes did not go to sleep on post, it was not hard for one of them, straining his eyes in the darkness, to convert an approaching horse or cow into a man; and, as dumb beasts do not understand the meaning of the word halt, it is readily converted into an enemy. It was easy for him to hear "the tramp of armed feet" in the rustle of the wind among the leaves or in the walking of a few swine. And in the "wee sma' hours," when the mind in spite of all its efforts to keep awake, is in a half-waking, half-sleeping state; when imagination plays such tricks with reason as to weave a thousand airy images, and make us think they are real, it would require no great effort amid these noises, for the sentinel to see in the darkness forms of assassins moving from tree to tree, or lines of skirmishers approaching through the gloom. And, seeing this, of course he must fire, and the report of his piece would alarm the neighboring sentinels, and they, too, would see images and fire. Thus the camp would be alarmed, and the men would be compelled to stand in ranks until the matter could be thoroughly investigated.