Forty-Seven Days Under Fire: The 26th Iowa Infantry at Vicksburg

Union troops fighting in the trenches outside of Vicksburg

The 26th Iowa Infantry was officially mustered into federal service in September 1862. Its companies came primarily from Clinton, Jackson, Dubuque, Scott, and surrounding eastern Iowa counties. Muster rolls show an average age in the mid-twenties, with a noticeable number of teenagers and men in their thirties who left families behind. An Iowa editor said the regiment appeared made up of “men more accustomed to tools than to arms,” who carried themselves with seriousness rather than excitement.

 

Training at Camp McClellan in Davenport was hurried. The papers said the state was sending men south faster than they could be fully prepared. The Davenport Democrat warned readers the new regiments would “learn the war by meeting it,” not by drilling safely behind the lines.

Private John McKay of Company B wrote from Arkansas in early 1863 that the men were learning to soldier “by exhaustion,” noting that marches ended not when orders said so, but “when the road itself gives out.” The Dubuque Herald observed that McKay’s tone was typical—plain, uncomplaining, and focused on conditions rather than glory.

 

Their first commander, Colonel Milo Smith of Clinton, wasn’t a professional soldier. Contemporary reports described him as methodical and steady. The regiment’s early correspondence showed confidence in Smith’s ability to keep order and discipline, even as sickness thinned the ranks before they reached the front. 

 

Colonel Milo Smith of Clinton was the 
first commander of the 26th Iowa Infantry

Corporal William H. Stiles of Company E said Smith “keeps things straight when men feel crooked.” Discipline mattered more than enthusiasm once the novelty wore off. The Clinton Herald said Smith’s greatest strength seemed to be that “he neither overpraised nor over-punished,” a trait the paper believed essential for new regiments.

 

By late fall, the 26th Iowa was ordered south into Arkansas as part of the Union effort to stabilize the region following the Battle of Prairie Grove. The terrain immediately became an enemy. March routes dissolved into mud. Rivers overflowed. Supply wagons lagged. Regimental reports show repeated delays caused not by Confederate resistance but by the geography itself. A soldier told the Davenport Democrat that Arkansas roads were “roads in name only.” The regiment spent more time hauling wagons than guarding against attack.

 

Disease was everywhere. Typhoid, dysentery, and malaria struck harder than bullets in the regiment’s first months. Iowa newspapers regularly published casualty lists marked not by combat deaths, but by illness. Editors reminded readers that “the war is fought as much in hospitals as on fields.” Corporal Stiles wrote again in February that “there are more men laid low by fever than by the enemy,” warning families not to measure danger only by the sound of guns.

 

In early 1863, the regiment was reassigned as Union attention shifted toward the Mississippi River. The fall of Vicksburg became the central aim of the western war, and the Iowa units were pulled into the slow, grinding machinery of Grant’s campaign. The scale of the movement surprised many of the men. 

 

Private Henry Vollmer of Company K said the army felt “too large for any one man to understand,” describing columns stretching beyond sight and camps that rose and vanished overnight. The Davenport Democrat printed his letter with a note that it offered “a glimpse of war as it appears to the man in the ranks.”

 

The march toward Vicksburg tested everything the men had learned. The regiment crossed swamps, bayous, and narrow ridges under constant strain. Official reports confirm repeated instances of men wading waist-deep through water while carrying weapons, ammunition, and rations. Heat exhaustion became routine. Letters home mentioned thirst and insects in equal measure. Vollmer said the water was “warm when found and gone when needed,” and the insects “seem to belong to the country more than the people.”

 

When the first assaults on the Vicksburg defenses came in May 1863, the 26th Iowa was positioned in terrain that offered little natural cover. Confederate fortifications dominated the high ground. After-action reports acknowledged that the May 22 assault was costly and unsuccessful across the entire line. An unnamed soldier, quoted in the Iowa State Register, said, “No courage could climb that ground and live.”

 

The 26th Iowa Infantry spent seven weeks in the trenches
during the seige if Vicksburg

Casualty figures show the 26th Iowa suffered significant losses in killed and wounded during the advance. Officers reported the men maintained formation under heavy fire until ordered to withdraw. Private Vollmer said, “We did all that was asked, and more would have been useless.” The Davenport Democrat printed that line beside a casualty list.

 

After the failure of the direct assault, siege warfare settled in. For nearly seven weeks, the regiment lived in trenches cut into hard clay under relentless heat. Confederate artillery fire remained constant. Union batteries answered day and night. Soldiers rotated between digging, standing watch, and short bursts of rest that rarely brought relief. Sergeant Charles A. Fuller of Company C said trench life erased the difference between day and night. “We dig, we watch, we listen. Time has no meaning here except between shells.”

 

The fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, marked a turning point for the regiment and the war itself. The Mississippi River reopened to Union control. Iowa editors framed the victory as proof that Western armies had carried the decisive weight of the conflict. The role of Iowa regiments, including the 26th, was emphasized repeatedly in post-surrender coverage. 

 

The Muscatine Journal published a brief note from Private George Kramer of Company F, written two days after the surrender. “The river runs free, but we are still here.” The editor said the sentiment appeared in many letters from veterans who understood that victory did not end labor.

 

Within months, the regiment was reassigned to operations in Texas as part of Union efforts to prevent Confederate influence from crossing the Mexican border. Official correspondence shows concern about supply shortages, extreme heat, and low morale. Skirmishes occurred, but disease remained the primary threat. A letter from Private Samuel Reardon published in the Dubuque Times said service in Texas felt “like being forgotten on purpose.” The mail arrived irregularly, and the men measured time “by heat rather than days.”

 

In 1864, the 26th Iowa was drawn into the disastrous Red River Campaign. The campaign’s failures were rooted in poor coordination and unrealistic planning. The regiment’s movements during the retreat are well documented in official reports describing flooded roads, abandoned equipment, and exhausted men attempting to maintain cohesion under pressure. Orders changed frequently. Routes vanished overnight. Officers struggled to keep units together.

 

At Jenkins’ Ferry in April 1864, the regiment was engaged in one of the war’s most punishing rear-guard actions. Rain turned the battlefield into mud. Visibility was limited. Confederate attacks were relentless. Union commanders credited the stubborn defense at Jenkins’ Ferry with preventing the retreat from turning into a rout. 

 

Private Martin J. O’Neill of Company A described the fight in a letter published by the Council Bluffs Bugle. “The road was water. The woods were fire. We stood because moving meant falling.” The editor said O’Neill’s letter arrived stained and barely legible, “as if written in the conditions it described.”

 

Casualty returns confirm that the 26th Iowa took heavy losses during the campaign, particularly from exhaustion and illness following the engagement. Iowa newspapers described Jenkins’ Ferry not as a victory, but as an ordeal survived. The Clinton Herald printed an officer’s remark that the regiment “held together when holding together was all that could be asked.”

 

The final year of the war saw the regiment assigned primarily to garrison and security duties. These tasks lacked drama but were essential. Guarding supply routes, suppressing guerrilla activity, and maintaining order in unstable regions required discipline and endurance. Muster rolls from late 1864 show a regiment worn down but intact. Letters during this period were sparse. The Iowa City Republican observed that silence from the field often meant endurance, not ease.

 

When the 26th Iowa mustered out in 1865, the men returned quietly to farms, workshops, and river towns, altered by absence. Iowa papers recorded their return with respect, noting that many regiments like the 26th had carried the war without ever becoming famous for it. The Davenport Democrat revisited letters printed in 1863 and remarked that “these men told us what the war was while it was happening, and we did not always listen closely enough.”

 

Out of roughly one thousand men who served in the 26th Iowa Infantry, hundreds died—most from disease rather than combat. The numbers were printed plainly in postwar summaries, without rhetoric.

 

The regiment never fit neatly into the popular memory of the war. They weren’t present at Gettysburg, Antietam, or at the close of the war in Virginia. They didn’t appear in paintings or popular songs. What they did instead was endure the long middle of the war—the part fought in trenches, swamps, and retreating columns.

 

An Iowa editor said regiments like the 26th “did not shine in dispatches, but they held the ground on which dispatches were written.” Meaning they were unrecognized heroes.

Want to learn more about Iowa in the Civil War? Learn the full story here.