Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/188

 -Colonel of the Twelfth; Sergeant Edward Coulter, a Captain in the Twentieth, and Private G. C. Burmeister, Captain in the Thirty-fifth. From its privates and officers, the First Iowa furnished, as the war progressed, officers of every grade from Second Lieutenant to Major-General.

SECOND IOWA INFANTRY

This regiment was the first from our State to enlist for three years’ service and the first that left the State for the theater of war. Its members volunteered during the first outburst of patriotic enthusiasm that followed the firing on Fort Sumter. It was made up of ten companies, one each from the counties of Lee, Polk, Jefferson, Van Buren, Davis, Washington, Clinton, Wapello and two from Scott.

The first field officers were Samuel R. Curtis, colonel; James M. Tuttle, lieutenant-colonel; M. M. Crocker, major. Lieutenant N. P. Chipman was appointed adjutant. The regiment was fortunate in its officers. Curtis was a graduate of West Point Military Academy, and had served as Adjutant-General of Ohio and as colonel in the War with Mexico. Crocker had also received a military education at West Point. Whereas most of the regiments were first necessarily officered by men from civil pursuits, entirely unacquainted with military drill or organization, the Second Iowa had the great advantage of being under the command of a veteran officer, who had won high honors in the military service. The regiment was mustered into the United States service on the 27th and 28th of May, and thorough drill was at once instituted. On the 13th of June, the regiment left camp at Keokuk, going by steamer to Hannibal, and from there was sent to Saint Joseph, where it helped to protect western Missouri from the Rebel element. Late in the summer it was sent south to Easton, Missouri, and in October, to St. Louis. It suffered greatly from sickness, since of nine hundred and eighty-nine men mustered in, but four hundred were now present, fit for