Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/471

, 1864, General Canby issued an order for the consolidation of the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-eighth Iowa regiments into the Thirty-fourth Iowa Volunteers and the Thirty-eighth Iowa ceased to exist as a separate organization. Lieutenant-Colonel Hodnutt was honorably discharged. The history of the Thirty-eighth Iowa is a sad and pathetic one, beyond that of any other that went from our State. Before it had been in existence two years more than three hundred members had died of disease in the unhealthy camps where it had been stationed or on the march, and more than one hundred had been discharge on account of illness. There were many long dreary weeks when disease and death brooded over the camp and there were not enough well to care for the sick and to bury the dead. Finally, with decimated ranks the regiment itself yielded to a hard fate, passed out of existence and sadly saw its survivors transferred to another. The Thirty-eighth was made up of as brave men as ever marched from Iowa, but fate decreed that it should achieve no heroic deeds on the field of battle, where amid shot and shell noble sacrifices are made and undying glory won; but in dreary camps devoted men were stricken with disease which carried them to a soldier’s lonely grave.

While other more fortunate regiments have emblazoned upon their banners the names of historic fields where fame was won in fierce, deadly strife, the martyr regiment, deprived of these emblems, will not be forgotten by a grateful posterity.

THE THIRTY-NINTH IOWA INFANTRY

This regiment was made up of two companies each from the counties of Madison, Polk and Dallas, with one each from the counties of Clarke, Greene, Des Moines and Decatur, although other counties were represented in most of the companies. Nine of the companies went into camp near Des Moines in September, 1862, and