Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/243

 ability. His regiment stood unflinchingly up to the work the entire portion of the day during which it acted under my orders.”

The loss of the regiment in killed and wounded, was nearly two hundred. Captain W. F. Hogin was killed; Colonel Geddes, Major Andrews, Captain F. S. Palmer and H. H. Benson, and Lieutenants E. Tichenor, D. J. Craigie, C. S. Wells and W. T. Hayes were wounded. About four hundred were captured, including most of the officers of the regiment.

That portion of the regiment not captured went into the Union Brigade, and participated in the campaign of the summer and fall in Tennessee and Mississippi under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel J. P. Coulter of the Twelfth Iowa, and fought bravely at the Battle of Corinth. This brigade consisted of soldiers of the Eighth, Twelfth and Fourteenth Iowa Volunteers who escaped capture when their regiments were compelled to surrender at Shiloh. The prisoners of these regiments captured at Shiloh were confined in various Confederate prisons, suffering from sickness, starvation and every kind of inhuman treatment, resulting in death and life-long disability to many. Most of them were released on parole or exchanged in the course of eight months. The Eighth Regiment was reorganized at St. Louis early in 1863, and in April joined General Grant’s army and participated in his brilliant campaign against Vicksburg. The regiment was in General Tuttle’s Division in the Battle of Jackson and took part in the assault on Vicksburg, May 22d. It served with Sherman in the pursuit of General Johnston’s army, where Colonel Geddes commanded a brigade. During the siege of Vicksburg Lieutenant-Colonel Ferguson died from sickness. He was a gallant and highly esteemed officer whose death was a loss to the service. For many months after the fall of Vicksburg the Eighth was engaged in service in Tennessee and Mississippi. Toward the close of 1864 a large majority of the men reënlisted