Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/263

 the town were commanded by direct and cross-fire with at least sixty guns of heavy caliber. General Pope sent a detachment of infantry with a battery of Parrott guns, under command of Colonel Plummer, twelve miles below to seize Pleasant Point and there blockade the river. The enemy had now been heavily reënforced from Island Number Ten, having in all 9,000 infantry, a large addition to its artillery and nine gunboats. The siege guns reached General Pope on the 12th of March and early on the morning of the 13th a vigorous bombardment began. The trenches were steadily extended nearer the town, and by night the army was within easy musket range. A furious thunder storm broke over the armies at night, and under cover of the noise and darkness, the Confederate army evacuated the town. The Tenth Iowa was the first to enter the place and learn that the enemy had fled in a panic, leaving artillery, tents, ammunition, horses, mules, wagons and camp supplies for an army of 10,000 men, to fall into the hands of the victors. The Union army lost but fifty-one men in the siege. General Pope’s army was immediately sent to support the gunboats of Commodore Foote in an attack upon Island Number Ten. After a vigorous bombardment of twenty-three days, this stronghold was also evacuated on the 7th of April. The trophies of this victory were one hundred and twenty-three pieces of heavy artillery, nearly 7,000 prisoners, 7,000 stands of small arms, several steamboats and wharf boats filled with stores, 2,000 horses and mules, 1,000 wagons and a vast amount of ammunition and army stores. The Iowa regiments that took part in this successful campaign were the Fifth, Tenth, and Second Cavalry. Soon after, General Halleck absorbed General Pope’s army in his march against Corinth, and the Tenth Iowa took part in the so-called siege. The Tenth went into camp at Corinth, where for months it was kept on duty, suffering greatly from sickness. Week after week through the hot summer the men were kept in idleness, the long sultry days bringing