Tramps & Triumphs of the Second Iowa Infantry

This is the forgotten story of the Second Iowa Infantry and one of the most stirring chapters in the annals of Iowa and the Civil War. The regiment was the first enlisted in the state for three years' service, and the 989 men mustered into its ranks were the first Iowa troops to take the field in June, 1861. Fully 2,000 Iowans fought and died in the service of this gallant regiment before the end of the war. Nearly half of them succumbed to exposure and disease or fell in a score of bitter battles. Few regiments of the Civil War volunteers had a more notable battle record. The men of the Second Iowa led Grant's victorious charge on Fort Donelson in February, 1862, to give the North its first good news of the war. They fought stubbornly in the "Hornet's Nest" at the bloody battle of Shiloh, and suffered nearly one-third of their 346 officers and men killed or wounded in helping to repulse the Confederate attack at Corinth, Mississippi, in October. The survivors of the Second Iowa returned to their homes and families in July, 1865, having endured their full share of misery and horror of the war. The brief but valuable recollections of Lt. John T. Bell provide one of the few remaining original sources of a fighting regiment of Civil War volunteers. Lieutenant Colonel John Bell rose from the ranks at the age of 19 to become company commander after joining the Second Iowa Infantry in December, 1861.