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Shiloh I n both eastern and western theaters of the war, the fall of 1861 was a much-needed period of recovery and reorganization. The Army of the Potomac, which had all but turned into a frightened mob at its first battle, Bull Run, was placed under a new commander, George B. McClellan. General McClellan had graduated from West Point, served in the Mexican War, and had a successful civilian career. He soon turned that mob into a real fighting force. While McClellan readied his eastern army, a general in the West, Ulysses S. Grant of Illinois, was making a name for himself. Grant had also graduated from West Point and was a veteran of the Mexican War, but unlike McClellan, he had never been a great success, either in the military or as a civilian. It took the personal influence of his congressman to finally get him a command. Once in command of troops, Grant had quickly earned a reputation as a tough, efficient officer who was eager to take the war to the enemy. By August of 1861, he was a brigadier general and soon would rise even further. The Confederate defensive line stretched, roughly, along the Ohio River from Virginia to the Mississippi River. At some point, Union armies had to smash through that line and invade the South. The first attempt to do so, Bull Run, had failed, and Lincoln looked to the West. The president sent a personal envoy to travel the length of the Confederate line, inspect its fortifications, and look for its weakest point. The envoy, a woman named Anna Carrol, reported that the key to winning the West was not an invasion straight down the Mississippi River but through the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. The keys to the rivers were two forts, Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. If those forts could be captured, the Confederates would have to retreat deep into Tennessee. The way would then be open for a full-scale invasion by both land and water.' Grant was given the task of taking the forts. Central to his plans was something new in American warfare, river gunboats-well-armored, SHILOH shallow-draft boats armed with up to 13 guns and designed to operate in shallow river water. He planned coordinated attacks by both land and water. The first fort, Fort Henry, was captured on 6 February 1862 by the gunboats alone; the infantry had not even been needed. Fort Donelson fell after two days of hard fighting that cost 500 Union soldiers killed and another 2,108 wounded. Forty of the dead and 251 of the wounded were from Iowa regiments? While Grant was preparing his winning campaign, another Union victory was in the making. A former Republican congressman, Samuel Curtis, now General Curtis, had taken command of the dead Nathaniel Lyon's Missouri army. Curtis intended to drive Sterling Price's Confederates out of Missouri. The two armies met at a place called Pea Ridge, or Elkhorn Tavern, on the Missouri-Arkansas border on 7 and 8 March 1862. The battle was a sprawling, bloody affair, the worst yet seen in the West, with more than 1,300 Union and 800 Confederate dead and wounded.' It was also a Union victory, and that, combined with Grant's success, was the first step toward a final triumph. The Pioneer Greys were not with Grant or Curtis. After Blue Mills, the 3d Iowa had been so worn out, sick, and in need of rest that the men petitioned their commanding officer to transfer them to a place where they could recover their health and morale. "Occasional" described the regiment's condition: Our regiment entered Missouri 965 strong, composed of as healthy, robust and patriotic a body of men as ever entered the field. Sickness and death, the result of severe exposure and neglect, have so thinned our ranks that we cannot now turn out over 300 men for field service. Under all these trying vicisitudes, our men have acted bravely and nobly; they have passed through them almost without a murmur.' A camp at Quincy, Illinois, served the purpose. The scattered companies of the 3d, those who had been too ill to march to Blue Mills and those on detached duty, were reunited. Mail and gifts from home were delivered, and passes into town and furloughs home were allowed. The men were allowed to rest and were issued new regulation-Union-blue uniforms. The people...

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