Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/314

 mined under direction of General John A. Logan. On the 25th of June it was ready to be fired and the Seventeenth was one of the two regiments chosen to assault and hold the works after the explosion. Early in the afternoon the center of the fort was blown up and some of the troops rushed into the breach and held it, but were not able to make much impression on the enemy. At eleven o’clock at night the Seventeenth Iowa entered the breach and for three hours made a desperate effort to dislodge the enemy. Our men stood on the summit of the shattered parapet and kept up a continuous fire. The enemy hurled shells and hand-grenades among the assailants continuously. Thus the combat continued for three hours, when the regiment was relieved by the Thirty-first Illinois. Its loss in this conflict was three killed and thirty-three wounded, many of whom died. Major Walden was in command of the regiment in this assault.

After the surrender of Vicksburg the Seventeenth remained in the city until the 9th of September, when the division of which it formed a part embarked for Helena, to reënforce General Steele’s army, and participated in the capture of Little Rock. Soon after the regiment was sent to General Sherman and marched with the Army of the Cumberland to Chattanooga. It took a conspicuous part in this brilliant campaign, fighting with great valor on Missionary Ridge, where it lost fifty-seven men, killed, wounded and prisoners. For several months the regiment was employed in Georgia and Alabama scouting, guarding foraging trains and lines of railroad. During the two years’ service the Seventeenth had traveled over 4,000 miles, taken part in twelve battles, two sieges of Confederate strongholds and a score of skirmishes. Its numbers had been reduced to four hundred seventy-nine men, all of whom reënlisted as veterans on the 1st of April, 1864.