Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/334

 for the seat of war. On the 8th of September arriving at St. Louis it remained in Benton Barracks about a week, when it was sent to Springfield under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Leake, Colonel Dye being in command of a brigade consisting of the Twentieth Iowa, Thirty-seventh Illinois, First Iowa Cavalry and a section of the First Missouri Light Artillery. This brigade was assigned to the division under command of General Totten and for two months was kept moving through the rough country of southwest Missouri and western Arkansas.

During the months of October and November the Twentieth marched more than five hundred miles over bad roads, encountering cold rains, mud and swollen streams, which had to be forded. The baggage trains and artillery were often mired in the water-soaked roads, while the soldiers in drenching rains, shivering in their wet clothing, waited for them for hours unsheltered. The sufferings were so great that hundreds were prostrated by sickness until the hospitals were overflowing and deaths were frequent. At no time during the entire term of service did the Twentieth regiment endure more wretched discomfort than during these first two months of hard marching unrelieved by any of the exhilaration of a conflict with the enemy. To the common soldiers it seemed like a useless, fruitless and even a cruel campaign as they could see no results. But General Curtis, who commanded the department and was more competent to judge of its effects, held a different opinion. Hard marches sometimes accomplished more far-reaching results in a comprehensive campaign than a brilliant battle. Toward the last of November the Second Division, in which was the Twentieth regiment, was back in Camp Lyon near Springfield, where it remained about two weeks. On the evening of December 3d a courier arrived from General Blunt calling for reënforcements as he was about to be attacked by a largely superior army. Early the next morning the Second Division was on the road and made the march of one hundred ten miles in