Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/289

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a battalion of the Forty-first Iowa Infantry. They were sent to Fort Randall in Dakota Territory, and finally became a part of one of the cavalry regiments. During the first year of its existence the Fourteenth Regiment had but seven companies, D to K. These were largely recruited in the counties of Henry, Lee, Van Buren, Des Moines, Dubuque, Johnson, Jones, Linn, Iowa and Jasper. These companies assembled at Davenport, where the regiment was organized on the 6th of November, 1861, with the following officers: W. T. Shaw, colonel; E. W. Lucas, lieutenant-colonel; Hiram Leonard, major; N. H. Tyner, adjutant; C. C. Buel, quartermaster; G. M. Staples, surgeon; S. A. Benton, chaplain. Toward the last of November the regiment was sent to St. Louis and went into a camp of instruction. The men here suffered greatly from sickness and many died of pneumonia and measles. Early in February the regiment was ordered to join General Grant’s army, then about to move against Fort Donelson. In the battle it was in Lauman’s Brigade, which was one of the first to enter the Confederate works. The loss in this first engagement was three killed and twenty-one wounded. On the 18th of March the Thirteenth went with the army to Pittsburg Landing, where it was assigned to General Smith’s Division in a brigade composed of the Second, Seventh, Twelfth and Fourteenth Iowa regiments, under command of Colonel Tuttle. All of that long, terrible day of April 6th this brigade made a desperate fight against superior numbers, at the “Hornet’s Nest,” for hours, by heroic resistance, it stayed the progress of the enemy. Just as the sun went down, cut off from aid and surrounded, the gallant regiment was forced to surrender. The officers and men were held as prisoners until late in the following year, when, on the 19th of November, they were released in exchange and sent to St. Louis, where the regiment was reorganized during the winter. Two new companies, A, and B, had been enlisted and here joined the regiment in place of