Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/222

 The battle opened about 5 p. m., and raged until darkness put an end to the conflict. No more desperate fighting was done during the war than that which, for four hours, sent death and destruction into the fiercely contending ranks at the front. Again and again the Confederates charged on our lines and were as often beaten back by the devouring flame of shot and shell that mowed them down. In the vicinity of the Ohio battery the combat raged with terrible fury. The guns were handled with wonderful effect, constantly hurling their iron missiles into the enemy’s ranks at close range. A supreme effort was made by Price to capture that death-dealing battery. A large force was massed and ordered to take it at any cost. Before this irresistible charge, the Forty-eighth Indiana was swept from its position and the left of the battery fell into the hands of the enemy. Fresh troops came to the rescue, charged bayonets on the exultant captors and drove them from the guns. Three times in an hour this battery was taken and recaptured. Most of the gunners were killed or wounded, the horses were all dead or disabled, the battery was a mass of ruins, the guns dismounted were the only remnants that had escaped the awful destruction. When darkness put an end to the struggle the guns were in the hands of the enemy, but the Union lines held their position, the men sleeping on their arms. During the night, Price retreated to Eastport, and the Union army marched into Iuka. General Rosecrans said of the Fifth Iowa:

“The glorious Fifth Iowa under the brave and distinguished Matthies, sustained by Boomer with part of his noble little Twenty-sixth Missouri, bore the thrice-repeated charges and cross-fires of the enemy’s left and center with a valor and determination, never excelled by the most veteran soldiery.”

General Hamilton, in his official report, says:

“The Fifth Iowa under the brave and accomplished Matthies held its ground against four times its number, making three desperate charges with the bayonet, driving back the foe in disorder each time; until with