CHAPTER XXVI
THE THIRTY-FIFTH IOWA INFANTRY
THE county of Muscatine raised eight companies for this regiment and Cedar County furnished the other two. They went into camp on Muscatine Island late in the fall of 1862, numbering nine hundred fifty-seven men. Sylvester G. Hill was appointed colonel; James H. Rothrock, lieutenant-colonel; Henry O’Connor, major; and Frederick L. Dayton, adjutant. The regiment was sent to Cairo in November and during the winter performed duty at Columbus, Kentucky, Mound City and Island Number Ten. In 1863 the regiment joined the besieging army before Vicksburg. After the fall of that city it was with the army of observation on the Black River and moved with the army against Jackson, returning to Vicksburg. About this time Lieutenant-Colonel Rothrock and Major O’Connor resigned and were succeeded by Captains W. B. Keeler and Abraham John. In November the regiment moved to Memphis, and served in Tennessee during the remainder of the year. In March, 1864, it joined the army under General A. J. Smith in the Department of the Gulf, to take part in the Red River campaign. Colonel Hill was now in command of a brigade in General Mower’s Division and Lieutenant-Colonel Keeler commanded the regiment.
On the 22d of March the Thirty-fifth Iowa and the Thirty-third Missouri regiments were sent to capture a post at Henderson’s Mill, forty miles from Alexandria. It was a cold stormy day of alternate rain and hail, the mud was deep and night found the troops a long distance from their destination. They pushed on, however, through the dark-
