Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/337



company took part. Mills was commissioned Major of the Fifteenth Regiment and was a most gallant officer. He was slain on the 20th of August after the Battle of Cherubusco, while leading a detachment in pursuit of a portion of the Mexican army, near the walls of the City of Mexico. Isaac M. Griffith, a sergeant in the Iowa company, lost an arm at Cherubusco. In June, 1848, Captain Guthrie was mortally wounded while gallantly leading his company in battle.

In June, 1846, soon after the war began, Captain James Allen, of the First Dragoons, was sent by the War Department to Iowa to confer with the Mormon leaders at Mount Pisgah and Kanesville for the purpose of procuring volunteers for the army. Brigham Young, then at the head of the Mormons, urged his people to raise a battalion for the war. In a short time five hundred men were enlisted and organized into what was known as the “Mormon Battalion,” which joined the army of General Stephen W. Kearny, then gathering at Forth Leavenworth. This army marched over the plains by way of Salt Lake to California. The Mormon Battalion remained with the army of General Kearny, doing good service in California until the term of enlistment expired. The first were mustered out at Los Angeles in July, 1847 and the remainder at San Diego in March, 1848. The loss of the battalion during the term of service was nine men.

The twelve companies which had been raised in Iowa under the President’s first call for fifty thousand were never organized into an Iowa regiment. The men were anxious to go to the seat of war, but so many regiments had been accepted from the various States that the Secretary of War, on the 25th of November, 1846, notified Governor Clarke that the Iowa regiment would not be needed. An Iowa officer who greatly distinguished himself in the war, was Benjamin S. Roberts, of Fort Madison. He went into the army as a lieutenant of mounted riflemen at the beginning of the war, was in General [Vol. 1