CHAPTER XXIV
THE THIRTY-FIRST IOWA INFANTRY
OF the companies making up this regiment, A was raised in Linn County, B, C, and D in Black Hawk County, E and F in Jackson, G in Cedar and Jones, H in Jones County and I and K in Jackson County. William Smyth of Linn County was commissioned colonel; J. W. Jenkins, lieutenant-colonel; Ezekiel Cutler, major; and E. C. Blackman, adjutant. The companies went into camp at Davenport in the early part of September, 1862, and were mustered into service on the 13th of October, numbering nine hundred seventy men. Early in November the regiment was ordered south and reached Helena on the 20th, where it went into camp. It was sent with the Hovey expedition to Coldwater River, Mississippi, and two weeks later joined Sherman’s army in the Vicksburg campaign. It fought with Hovey’s Brigade in the Battle at Chickasaw Bayou, but was not in the disastrous assault which closed the engagement. Colonel Smyth was not a military man and the thorough drilling of his regiment had been neglected, which for a time detracted somewhat from its efficiency in the early months of service. The Thirty-first was in the expedition against Arkansas Post and took part in the severe battle which resulted in its capture on the 11th of January, 1863.
The general history of the Thirty-first regiment from this time to the close of Grant’s campaign against Vicksburg is similar to that of the Fourth, Ninth, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth and Thirtieth regiments already given. In brief, it was in the Greenville expedition, in the battle at Raymond on the 12th of May, marched with that part of
