Recollections with the Third Iowa Regiment

by Seymour D. Thompson

On the 3d of January we received a meager mail from home, and the following day papers arrived announcing for the first time that General Burnside had been defeated at Fredericksburg. We also learned to our mortification that Vicksburg was not taken. But this news had a transient compensation in reports, coming from no one knows what source, that Burnside had again crossed the Rappahannock and gained a great victory, and that Sherman was only waiting the arrival of Banks, when Vicksburg would certainly fall. At any rate we were always in luck or about to be. But what was still more agreeable was the arrival of a day's full rations, and news that our railroad communications were open to Memphis by way of LaGrange.

On the 5th of January, our division broke up camp on the Tallahatchie, and again took up the northward march. When the column had formed on the main road, General Lauman rode along and the boys of our regiment cheered him lustily. The country through which we passed, particularly in the vicinity of Waterford and Lumkin's Mills was putrid with the offal of slaughtered animals and the debris of deserted camps. The animals in our beef corral were driven along with us. They were the most motley looking herd we ever beheld; oxen that could not make a shadow; cows of the most lilliputian dimensions; embryo calves (for indeed they seemed intended for calves); and sheep that would not make a meal for a rat terrier. These, we were told were a fair specimen of Mississippi cattle! The herd would have made a menagerie worth a northern man's fifty cents in the hardest times.

Before we reached Holly Springs, Gen. McPherson received a dispatch from General Grant stating that Sherman had captured Vicksburg with 20,000 prisoners. The report was circulated along the column and caused great rejoicing. Reaching Holly Springs we found conflicting reports among the troops; and though the latest dispatches did not warrant the belief that Vicksburg was taken, we clung to the pleasant delusion, and for a long time would not believe that Sherman had been defeated.

We found Denver's Division here. The 109th Illinois was also here, and, with the exception of Company K, was in confinement for mutiny. The case of these traitors has become a matter of history. As regiment after regiment of the division passed their guard house, the boys growled and hooted at them in the most decisive manner.

We camped on the beautiful level ground north of the city. Gen. Grant still had his head quarters at Holly Springs, and our regiment furnished his head quarter guard.

At two o'clock the following morning, reveille began to beat in the camps of Denver's Division, and we knew they were preparing to march. No sooner had they evacuated their camps than our boys rushed to them, bearing away tables, bunks, boards, everything that could assist in furnishing our tents, or making them more comfortable.

All the troops except the 4th Division were withdrawn to the line of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Our division was left to cover the evacuation of the country and protect the removal of property. The 1st and 2d brigades occupying Holly Springs; the 3d yet remaining at Lumkin's Mills. On the 7th, a guard was sent to the latter place to bring forward a wagon train. It returned without molestation. The next day, the 3d Brigade joined us, which was quite a relief, as hitherto our picket duty had been very heavy. The cars were busy night and day removing stores, cotton, and negro women and children. The same day, January 8th, the cavalry, which had been watching the front, moved to the rear, and all felt confident the infantry and artillery would go the next day. And now we were to witness a tragedy which reflects infamy upon its perpetrators, and a dishonor upon the 4th Division.

Under the belief that we would move in the morning, a number of soldiers of the different regiments met and concerted a scheme for firing the city. Shortly after dark, the flames broke out in its eastern limits, and did not spread, but soon rose in another quarter. We saw it from our camp with little amazement; for we could not but expect that there would be found some reckless enough to undertake to execute the threats of vengeance made by exasperated soldiers against the citizens, on account of their conduct towards our prisoners captured by Van Dorn in his raid. The provost guards in some instances did their duty, arresting the incendiaries; but generally they connived at their operations. The flames spread and broke out in new directions. Two additional regiments were ordered on duty as provost guards. Generals McPherson and Lauman rode through the city with their escorts and endeavored to arrest the work of barbarism. But their efforts were unavailing. Men, seizing their guns and accoutrements, ran into the city from all the camps, and filled the streets with bogus guards, whose purpose was to counteract the operations of the real ones. By 9 o'clock the confusion was at its hight—hideous and indescribable. The fiendish yells of the assassins and their accomplices, the shrieks of women and children, the shouts of the swaying crowds, applauding or rebuking, the commands of officers, the rushing sounds of the devouring flames, and the crash of falling timbers, mingled all their noises together. Citizens assisted by soldiers vainly endeavored to arrest the flames. The rich and the poor; the friendly and the unfriendly were served alike. The most stately residences and the meanest hovels were alike consumed. Not even the negro quarters were spared. To whatever could make a blaze, the incendiaries applied the torch. In the midst of it all, but few collisions took place, and but one casualty was reported, the wounding of a member of the 41st Illinois by a provost guard.

From our camp, the spectacle was grand in the extreme. The flames illuminated the heavens far around, and sent up huge columns of red smoke, which, driven by the south wind, rolled over our heads in clouds reflecting the yellow light and shutting out the dark storm clouds above. We saw from our camp the splendid sight; but we did not hear the cries of the helpless around the flames and over the ashes of their once happy homes.