Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/410

 was a brave and skillful officer who had served in the Mexican War and at the beginning of the Rebellion had raised a company for the First Iowa Cavalry. Captain W. H. Randall was also slain, and Captains H. C. Hall, Joseph Smith, Mathew Clark and Adjutant J. H. Clendening were severely wounded. The loss of the regiment was thirty officers and men. Soon after this battle the division marched to Chattanooga to reënforce the Army of the Cumberland. Here the Confederate army occupied a strong position on Missionary Ridge under command of General Braxton Bragg. The Union army under General Grant fought a series of brilliant engagements in this vicinity known as

General Rosecrans had been defeated at the Battle of Chickamauga and his army saved from disaster by the skill and firmness of General Thomas, who held his position on the battle-field immovable as the granite rocks, while the commander-in-chief fled with a shattered wreck of the army to Chattanooga for safety. Rosecrans was superseded by General Thomas, and General Grant, who had been appointed to the command of the Department of the Mississippi, which embraced the region about Chattanooga, proceeded in person to that place on the 23d of October. The Confederate lines extended for six miles from south of Chickamauga River, along Missionary Ridge across Chattanooga Valley and Lookout Mountain to Lookout Creek on the left. The position was one of great natural strength and was fortified on the sides and summit of the mountains by lines of rifle pits and elaborate earthworks. Early on the morning of November 23d Generals Thomas and Howard moved against the enemy in front of Chattanooga, seizing the first line of works and a range of hills south of them. During the night the position was strongly fortified and artillery planted to sweep the approaches. General Sherman began operations on the left