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CAPTURED AT SHILOH April 6, 1862 Officers wept as they waved their handkerchiefs in token of surrender. seth jones crowhurst, company e F1 on verso Near sundown on November 30, 1861, the fresh recruits of the 12th Iowa Infantry marched from the St. Louis train station to Benton Barracks, near the abandoned fairgrounds. They had a makeshift dinner of coffee and crackers and bedded down for the night. The next morning, as the regiment was ordered out for its first inspection, snow had already begun to fall. By that night, three inches blanketed the fairgrounds. Soaked by snow and rain, these fields where the men drilled were churned to mud in the weeks to come. On January 9, 1862, James F. Zediker of Company I wrote in his diary: ‘‘The mud not quite knee deep . . . the company most all sick.’’1 Indeed, the entire regiment suffered through that harsh, wet winter. Nearly half were hospitalized in those months with measles, mumps, or pneumonia. Seventy-five died. On January 27, the regiment was ordered to report to General Ulysses S. Grant at Cairo, Illinois. From there, they were sent to the mouth of the Cumberland River, near Smithland, Kentucky, to establish their camp in the field. On February 5, the 12th joined the expedition against Fort Henry but arrived around nine o’clock that evening, in time for the Confederate retreat toward Fort Donelson. On February 12, the regiment was assigned to Cook’s brigade, Smith’s division, and participated in the ensuing Battle of Fort Donelson, February 13–15. After the rebel surrender , they remained at the fort almost a month. Here the misery and malaise experienced at Benton Barracks only escalated. David W. Reed of Company C wrote: ‘‘[T]he barracks occupied by the Twelfth were each supplied with large ‘stick and mud’ fireplaces in one end and bunks in the other, and were furnished with split log benches. . . . [T]he warm barracks were appreciated after the experience of several days lying out in the cold rain and snow without shelter.’’2 Erastus B. Soper of Company D agreed that their quarters were ‘‘warm and comfortable’’ but noted that ‘‘the terrible exposure during the siege told on the boys. Scarcely one escaped the diarrhea, and day and night the skirmish line formed on the side of the hill below the camp was being constantly relieved.’’3 Many men were too sick from exposure and diarrhea to eat. For those who could, there was a large amount of flour for biscuits and meal to make corn bread in captured Dutch ovens. Some members of Company { 19 } C even managed to acquire some contraband pork. Unfortunately, the water used to prepare all these meals, according to Reed, ‘‘was said to contain sulfur, produced a scourge of diarrhoea, which afflicted nearly every member of the regiment and put a large number of them under the surgeon’s care.’’4 Soper remembered that most of the 12th’s time at Fort Donelson was spent ‘‘endeavoring to cook something they could eat, and find some medicine that would relieve the diarrhea; and not succeeding well in either.’’5 On February 21, by General Order No. 6, they were brigaded together with the 2nd, 7th, and 14th Iowa under James M. Tuttle of the 2nd and designated the 1st Brigade. At the time, the order was significant, because it marked the first brigade composed entirely of Iowa soldiers, but in the weeks to come it would take on entirely new importance as this group became known as the Hornet’s Nest Brigade. ★ On March 7, 1862, the newly formed brigade was ordered to march twelve miles north to Metal Landing — sometimes called Mineral Landing — on the Tennessee River, some four miles north of Fort Henry, to await transport to Pittsburg Landing. Though the men were forced to shoulder heavy loads, not yet reduced to marching weight, and travel mostly on mud-clogged roads, they were pleased to be finally on the move after three weeks at Fort Donelson where, Soper wrote, ‘‘we had succeeded the rebels, not only to their huts, but also to their body lice — ever after called ‘Graybacks.’’’6 On March 13, the steamer John Warner arrived at Metal Landing to transport the 12th Iowa and the 1st Minnesota Battery upriver. The horses and mules, together with the artillery and wagons, were loaded onto the lower deck, then the men crowded aboard the guard and hurricane decks. That night...

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