Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/266

 works. Colonel Boomer, commanding the brigade, was killed in one of the charges and Captain Head was severely wounded. After the surrender, the Tenth marched with Sherman against Johnston and after his retreat again returned to Vicksburg, remaining for two days for two months garrison duty. Near the close of September it was transferred to the Fifteenth Corps and marched with Sherman to Chattanooga. General Matthies, of Iowa, had succeeded to the command of the brigade after the death of the gallant Boomer, and the Tenth took part in the brilliant battles which Grant fought in and about the city. Here, many of its best officers and men perished in the storming the defenses and bravely facing the death–dealing batteries. The soldiers never faltered in the line of duty and everywhere sustained the high reputation won on many battle-fields.

At Missionary Ridge the Tenth won high honors. At three o’clock on the 24th of November, General Sherman moved against Missionary Ridge, where General Bragg was strongly posted on that range of hills. The Tenth Iowa, with its brigade and division, marched down through the timber and low bottom land to the assault. Reaching the first hill on a high range beyond, the enemy was seen strongly fortified and in force, and against this position the Seventh Division directed its attack the next day. The Union army had won Lookout Mountain and on the night of the 24th, held the entire line from the north side of Lookout Mountain through the Chattanooga Valley to the north end of Missionary Ridge. General Bragg was now defeated and was fighting to save his army, artillery and baggage. The point against which the Fifth, Sixth, Tenth and Seventeenth Iowa regiments were directed on the 25th, covered Bragg’s line of communication to the rear, and if this hill were lost Bragg’s defeat would be disastrous. The Tenth, with its brigade, moved at eleven o’clock to reënforce General Ewing, marching over an open field to low ground covered with underbrush and