Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/464

 in on all sides, the Union army was forced to surrender. Lieutenant-Colonel Drake was severely wounded early in the action. Major Hamilton was cool and courageous throughout the struggle. When he saw there was no hope for the little army he advised his men to escape as best they could and many tried but few succeeded. The major with about three hundred forty of his regiment were taken prisoners, and at five o’clock the prisoners were started southward and marched fifty-two miles without rest or food. They were sent by way of Camden to the Confederate prison at Tyler in Texas, reaching that place on the 15th of May. From here Major Hamilton and Captains Lambert and Miller succeeded in making their escape in July and after enduring great hardships reached Little Rock on the 2d of September. Major Hamilton recovered from the effect of imprisonment, but Captains Miller and Lambert died soon after reaching home. On the evacuation of Camden the remnant of the Thirty-sixth, consisting of two officers and sixty men, accompanied the retreat. At the Battle of Jenkins’ Ferry thirty-nine of these men and Lieutenant and seven of his men were wounded. On their arrival at Little Rock they found a number of recruits for the regiment so that the rolls showed six officers and two hundred fifty men, including the sick. Colonel Kittredge soon after assumed command of the post and the regiment thus reduced by capture, disease and death remained there during the year, a sad remnant of the 1,000 strong men who left Keokuk two years before. From this time to the close of the war the regiment was usually on post duty at Little Rock, St. Charles and Duvall’s Bluff. Lieutenant-Colonel Drake was brevetted a Brigadier-General in February, 1865.

In April the survivors of those captured at Mark’s Mill returned to the regiment at St. Charles. They had been released from imprisonment in Texas in February, where