21ST IOWA VOLUNTEER INFANTRY REGIMENT

21ST IOWA VOLUNTEER INFANTRY REGIMENT. The 21st Iowa Infantry, organized at Dubuque, was mustered in for three years of Federal service during the CIVIL WAR on August 25, 1862. The regiment left CAMP FRANKLIN in Dubuque by barge and aboard the sidewheel steamer Henry Clay to St. Louis, Missouri. They boarded railroad cars usually used for freight and livestock and started west. Arriving in Rolla on the 22nd, they camped near the railhead. On October 31st at Salem, Missouri and December 31, 1862 in Houston, Missouri They left Houston on January 27th, walked south to West Plains and then moved to the northeast passing through Thomasville, Ironton, Iron Mountain, Pilot Knob and Farmington before reaching Ste. Genevieve on March 11th. From there they were transported downstream to Milliken’s Bend where General U. S. Grant was organizing a large army with three corps led by Generals James McPherson, John McClernand, and William Sherman. The intent was capturing Vicksburg, Mississippi. (1) The brigade, under the command of General Henry Fitz Warren, included the 21st Iowa, 99th Illinois, and 33rd Missouri regiments as well as detachments from the 3rd Missouri Cavalry, 3rd Iowa Cavalry, and the 1st Missouri Artillery.

The regiment's first test was the Battle of Hartville, Missouri. Fought from January 9–11, 1863, in Wright County, Missouri, the battle marked Confederate General John S. Marmaduke's first expedition into Missouri.

General Marmaduke's strategy was two-pronged. Col. Joseph C. Porter led one column of his Missouri Cavalry Brigade, out of Pocahontas, Arkansas, to assault Union posts around Hartville, Missouri. When he neared Hartville on January 9, he sent a detachment forward to reconnoiter. It succeeded in capturing the small militia garrison. The same day, Porter moved toward Marshfield. On January 10, some of Porter's men raided other Union installations in the area before making contact with Marmaduke's column east of Marshfield. Marmaduke had received reports of Union troops approaching to surround him and prepared for a battle.

On January 10, Col. Samuel Merrill commanded an approaching Union relief column from Houston, Missouri. He and his command arrived in Hartville that morning. Discovering that the small garrison had already surrendered; they set out toward Springfield and camped on Wood's Fork of the Gasconade River. Early on the morning of January 11 the approaching Confederates under Porter made contact with Merrill's scouts and fighting began. The opposing forces:

Colonel Samuel Merrill

       99th Illinois Infantry - Lt. Col. Lemuel Parke
       21st Iowa Infantry - Lt. Col. C.W. Dunlap (w)
       3rd Iowa Cavalry (detachment)- Maj. George Duffield
       3rd Missouri Cavalry (detachment) - Capt. Thomas G. Black
       2nd Missouri Artillery, Battery L (section) - Lt. William Waldschmidt

Confederate

Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke

       Shelby's Brigade - Col. J.O. Shelby

       1st Missouri Cavalry - Lt. Col. B.F. Gordon - Maj. George R. Kirtley (k)[1]
       2nd Missouri Cavalry - Lt. Col. C.A. Gilkey
       3rd Missouri Cavalry - Col. G.W. Thompson
       1st Battn. Missouri Cavalry - Maj. Ben Elliott
       Quantrill's Partisan Rangers - Lt. William H. Gregg

       Porter's Brigade - Col. Joseph C. Porter (mw)[1]

       Burbridges' Regt. - Lt. Col. John M. Wimer (k)[2]
       Green's Regt. - Lt. Col. L.C. Campbell
       Jeffers' Regt. - Col. William M. Jeffers

       Not Brigaded

       MacDonald's Missouri Regt. - Col. Emmett MacDonald (k)[3]

       Artillery

       Capt. Brown's Arkansas Battery - Capt. Louis T. Brown [4]
       Lt. Collins' Section of Bledsoe's Battery (later Collins' Battery) - Lt. Richard A. Collins [5]

Marmaduke believed he was being pressed by several forces. He diverted Porter and Shelby's columns along another road to Hartville. Observing this movement, Merrill marched his force directly to Hartville and took a strong defensive position on covered, high ground west of the courthouse. Shelby and Porter's brigades attempted to dislodge Merrill's force, but it was too strongly positioned. Over a four-hour period several Confederate assaults were made, each being defeated. Eventually Merrill withdrew most of his force, although a third of the men under Lt. Col Dunlap never received the order and remained on the field until nightfall.

Elements of both sides observed the other withdrawing from the field as night approached resulting in both claiming victory. The real results were mixed. From the Union command's perspective they had repulsed Marmaduke's assaults inflicting heavy casualties, but the Union had been forced to leave the field. From the Confederate perspective Marmaduke had united his force and secured his line of withdrawal. He set up a field hospital in town and could claim to briefly control the field. However, he was forced to make a rapid retreat into Arkansas and then an difficult marh to winter camp. Additionally, the frontal assaults had resulted in the death or mortal wounding of several senior Confederate officers including: brigade commander Col. Joseph C. Porter, Col. Emmett MacDonald, Lt. Col. John Wimer, and Major George R. Kirtley.

The raid itself caused great disruption of Federal forces in the region and a number of small outposts had been overrun, destroyed, or abandoned. The other major objective, the depot at Springfield, remained in Union hands. The successful escape of the raiding party did show the vulnerability of Federal Missouri to fast-moving expeditions. (2)

Following the expedition in Missouri, the regiment was formed with the 22nd Iowa, 23rd Iowa, and 11th Wisconsin regiments in March, 1863, to form the 2nd Brigade (Lawler's Brigade) of Gen. Carr's Division, of the 13th Army Corp under Ulysses S. The brigade saw action in Mississippi at Port Gibson.

On May 17th, at Champion’s Hill with the 23rd Iowa Infantry, the 21st led an assault on Confederates hoping to keep the railroad bridge over the Big Black River open long enough for all their forces retreating from Champion’s Hill to cross. The three-minute charge over an open field was successful. Grant’s army hurried across the river. (3) The path to Vicksburg was opened resulting in Grant's army enveloping the city.

Lawler's brigade distinguished themselves again during the initial assaults at Vicksburg by the brigade's assault on the Railroad Redoubt. The brigade charged up the slopes toward those waiting at the top in the redoubt. After fierce fighting, the brigade controlled the ridge at the top for a few hours before being driven off. Gen. Grant abandoned his efforts to take Vicksburg by force and settled into a prolonged siege which ended with Gen. Pemberton's surrender of his Confederate forces and the city on July 4, 1863. An impressive memorial near the redoubt honors the Iowans who fought and those who sacrificed themselves in the Vicksburg Campaign.

Following Vicksburg, the regiment was part of a force that marched on Jackson, MS. The regiment then took part in expeditions in Louisiana and then moved to Matagorda Island, TX.

The regiment finally saw action in the Mobile campaign, taking part in the capitulations of Ft. Blakely and Spanish Fort. (4)

The regiment was mustered out on July 15, 1865. [5]

The 21st Iowa mustered 1181 men into service during the war. (6) It suffered 4 officers and 77 enlisted men who were killed in action or who died of their wounds and 1 officer and 168 enlisted men who died of disease, for a total of 250. (7)

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Sources:

1. "Military Biography--George Carroll, Jr." Dubuque County IAGenWeb. Online:http://iagenweb.org/dubuque/military/cw/Carroll_George.htm

2. "21st Iowa Volunteer Infantry," Wikipedia, Online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Iowa_Volunteer_Infantry_Regiment

3. "Military Biography--Alexander Milne," Dubuque County IAGenWeb. Online: http://iagenweb.org/dubuque/military/cw/Milne_Alexander.htm

4. "21st Iowa..."

5. Ibid.

6. http://www.civilwararchive.com/Unreghst/uniainf3.htm#20thinf The Civil War Archive website after Dyer, Frederick Henry. A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. 3 vols. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959.

7. Iowa Genweb Iowa in the Civil War Project after Logan, Guy E., Roster and Record of Iowa Troops In the Rebellion, Vol. 1