Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/424

 Eberhart were A, commanded by Captain L. H. Cutler; D, Captain Thomas De Tarr; F, Captain Joseph Edgington, and G, Captain C. A. L. Roszell. They, with a company of Missouri heavy artillery, made up the garrison of Cape Girardeau until the spring of 1863. On the 10th of March the garrison was reënforced by the First Nebraska Volunteers and soon after Major Eberhart marched his detachment with a regiment of Wisconsin cavalry and a battery of Missouri artillery to Bloomfield, where it remained until the 21st of April. The Confederate General Marmaduke was now threatening Cape Girardeau. General McNeil, commanding the Union forces in the vicinity, marched at once to threatened town and called in the scattered detachments. The companies under Major Eberhart guarding a train at Dallas marched twenty miles to Jackson in less than six hours, reaching Cape Girardeau on the morning of the 24th. The nest day General Marmaduke with his army 8,000 strong invested the place. At ten o’clock that night he sent an officer with a flag of truce demanding unconditional surrender. General McNeil declined and prepared for a vigorous defense. The attack began at ten o’clock on Sunday morning. An artillery duel ensued lasting until two o’clock, when the Confederates withdrew with considerable loss just as General Vandever came down the river with reënforcements for McNeil. Major Eberhart occupied a position on the right supporting a battery and lost but one man captured. General McNeil pursued the Confederate army some distance. Major Eberhart’s command remained at Cape Girardeau until the 11th of July, then marched to Bloomfield, where it was attached to the reserve brigade of a cavalry division of the Department of Missouri and began the campaign which ended with the capture of Little Rock.

On the 13th our detachment was sent on three gunboats up the White River. It ascended the Little Red River to the town of Searcy, there destroying a pontoon bridge and capturing two steamers. On the return the