Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/312

 Sixteenth and Seventeenth Infantry and the Second Cavalry. The “Union Brigade” consisting of the remnants of the Eighth, Twelfth and Fourteenth regiments, which had escaped capture at Shiloh, was also engaged. The Second Infantry, under Colonel James Baker, went into the battle with three hundred forty-six men, lost in killed, wounded and missing one hundred eight, among whom were Colonel Baker and Lieutenant-Colonel N. W. Mills, mortally wounded. Major Clark R. Wever, upon whom the command devolved, paid a glowing tribute to the unflinching bravery of the officers and men of the regiment. The Seventh, under Colonel E. W. Rice, lost one-third of its number. The Seventeenth was under the command of Major Banbury, of the Fifth, and smarting under the censure cast upon it at Iuka, went into the Battle of Corinth with a resolve to redeem its good name from undeserved reproach. It fought with superb valor all through the fierce engagement. In the crisis of the battle, when Davis’ Division gave way and the army was in great peril, the Seventeenth made a heroic charge on the advancing foe, arrested the fierce onset and followed up the confused retreat. General Sullivan, in sending a stand of colors captured in this charge to Governor Kirkwood, wrote:

“I have never led braver men into action than the soldiers of the Seventeenth proved themselves in the desperate and bloody Battle of Corinth.”

The colors were captured from the Fortieth Mississippi by Corporal John King, of Company G, from Marion County, who was afterward mortally wounded at Champion’s Hill. General Rosecrans issued a special order commending the gallant conduct of the Seventeenth at Corinth. The regiment in this battle inflicted as heavy loss on the enemy as any in the engagement, but by good management lost but twenty-five from its own ranks. After many months’ service in various expeditions in