Recollections with the Third Iowa Regiment

by Seymour D. Thompson

Our battalion was quartered in a large vacant building. We found the inhabitants of the place intensely disloyal. A newspaper had just been issued at the printing office, one side of which was belabored over with treasonable articles and extracts. This being completed, the editor had fled on the approach of the Union troops, leaving the typos to complete the paper, which they did, accommodating the other side to the views of the new comers. Their unionism was sickeningly submissive.

During the night and the following morning, a number of excesses were committed by members of our regiment, among which was breaking into a liquor shop owned by a secessionist, and emptying seven barrels of that delectable article into a ditch.

This affair being committed in the presence of a large number of citizens, greatly and justly incensed the Major, who called out the battalion, had roll-call in all the companies; when he mounted a box, and made a speech, in which he denounced such conduct, accusing us of having prostituted ourselves "and disgraced our State," and reproving us in unpleasant terms for having railed at our surgeon for giving us too much quinine, and at our quartermaster for giving us too little bread. He did not fail, however, to compliment us as having "stood before the enemy where fire and earthquake led the charge." After sundry similar compliments, denunciations and threats, he dismissed us, and allowed us to go to our quarters. Whatever apparent reason there might have been for this performance, it totally failed in producing a good effect upon the regiment. The men went away with the opinion that to make a boisterous speech in the streets of a public town, and to humiliate his men in the face of their enemies, did not become a military chieftain. Those who had not been guilty of any offenses felt the wrong most keenly.

It is true that whenever a halt had been ordered on the march hither, our quartermaster had been assailed with cries of "bread," our surgeon with cries of "quinine." In this respect we were undoubtedly "demoralized." But were these men abusing their superiors without a cause, or were they replying to abuse? The quartermaster furnished transportation for vinegar, beans and two negro servants, articles which are of no use to any army on the march, and the surgeon hauled his own private effects in the ambulances, while men marched in the ranks carrying heavy knapsacks and shaking with the ague. It is better to suffer abuse than to be insubordinate; but men do not always properly appreciate this doctrine; and to correct his conduct belongs first to his officer, then to the soldier.

At 4 P. M. General Schofield placed himself at the head of our battalion, and we moved back in the direction whence we had come. The troops took the railroad track. For the first three miles our route lay through timber, and then we reached a level stretch of prairie ten or twelve miles wide, the rank, dry grass affording an opportunity of setting a prairie fire, such as we had so often seen on our own prairies of Iowa. It was a temptation which we could not resist. Before eight o'clock the whole vault of night was illuminated. Lines of flame extended as far as the gaze could reach, sending up immense columns of red smoke. The clouds blazed like a sea of fire, and shed upon us a strange red light, which made our march almost as plain as day. We moved at a rapid rate, making but one or two short halts, and these in consequence of the wagons sticking in the mud. No one gave out; there was no straggling. Only a few sick men got aboard the wagons. General Schofield was surprised at the endurance of the men. He asked Major Stone if his men generally marched as well; and when the Major told him they did, he complimented them highly.

At 10 P. M. we reached Martinsburg, a distance of thirteen miles from Mexico, where we halted to pass the remainder of the night. We got our baggage unloaded, made our beds on the wet ground, covered ourselves with blankets and tents and tried to sleep. But the wind shifted to the northwest, and blew so hard that all our covering availed us little.

The New Year dawned with a sky overcast with gloomy clouds and with a boisterous northwest wind. The world without us corresponded exactly with the world within us. All was gloom. A few New Year's greetings were exchanged, and many fond thoughts went back to the happy firesides we had exchanged for the cheerless camp fires, the days of hunger and fatigue, the weary marches and watches, and the fearful chances of war.

In the middle of the day we moved five miles further to Wellsville, where General Schofield established his headquarters.

We took quarters in the vacant buildings and the first night slept on the cold floors, as crowded as though we had been in cattle cars on the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad. That night, or rather the next morning at two o'clock, three companies of our regiment, and one of the cavalry, went ten or twelve miles into the country expecting to surprise a company of guerrillas, but did not find them.

Our quarters were crowded and inadequate; but we accommodated ourselves to them cheerfully. The exposures of the past week had reduced many to the sick list. Surgeon Edwards treated our sick outrageously. I firmly believe that more than one good soldier died for no other reason than his neglect. Those in his hospital he left without food and proper nursing for twenty-four hours at a time. He absolutely refused to hear the complaints of twenty men reported on one sick list, declaring that they were malingerers, that it was impossible for such a number to be sick. Two or three of these men were coughing blood; others had raging fevers.