Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/323

 CHAPTER XVIII THE NINETEENTH IOWA INFANTRY

HE opening days of July, 1862, brought a feeling of despair to thousands of patriotic people in the North. The great Union Army of the Potomac organized, equipped and drilled under the personal supervision of General George B. McClellan, from which so much had been expected, after seven days of fierce battles near Richmond had been defeated, and by direction of its commander had retreated to the protection of the gunboats. President Lincoln, however, undismayed by the great disaster, promptly issued a call on the 2d of July for 300, 000 more volunteers to reinforce the ranks of the Union armies. Under this proclamation Iowa raised twenty-two additional regiments. The first of these was the Nineteenth, which was composed of companies raised in the counties of Lee, Van Buren, Jefferson, Henry, Louisa and Washington. The regiment numbered nine hundred eighty-two officers and privates, the first field officers being Colonel Benjamin Crabb, Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel McFarland, Major Daniel Kent. The Nineteenth went into camp at Keokuk in August, where it remained about two weeks. Arriving at St. Louis on the 4th of September it was soon after attached to a brigade commanded by General F. J. Herron, which was sent to Springfield. About the middle of October the Army of the Frontier was organized, and the Nineteenth was attached to the Third Division under the same General. On the 17th began a campaign of hard marching, passing the battle-fields of Pea Ridge and White River, a distance of one hundred miles, over a rough mountain region, in