The 6th Iowa Infantry And The War That Wouldn’t End

The 6th Iowa Infantry found itself stalled in the mud and muck

The 6th Iowa Infantry, organized in the summer of 1861, was drawn largely from Johnson, Linn, Cedar, Scott, and Muscatine counties. The recruits ranged from teenagers to men in their forties, many of whom enlisted alongside relatives or longtime neighbors.

The regiment mustered in at Camp Ellsworth in Keokuk, where weapons and uniforms were scarce to nonexistent. The Keokuk Gate City worried Iowa’s first regiments were being sent forward faster than the state could properly equip and train them.

 

Private Ezra L. Brown of Company D echoed that sentiment in a letter home. “We march and halt,” he said, “until our legs do not care which comes next.” What made it harder was the officers were no help. Many of them were learning their duties alongside the enlisted men.

 In September 1861, the 6th Iowa was ordered into Missouri, a state still deeply unsettled despite Union victories earlier in the year. Official correspondence from the Department of the Missouri shows the regiment was assigned largely to rail protection and occupation duty. Soldiers spent weeks guarding lines, dispersing suspected guerrillas, and holding towns where loyalty remained divided. A letter printed in the Muscatine Journal described Missouri as “a place where the war keeps starting over.”

 

Wagons were abandoned after being stuck in the mud and muck

That sense of unfinished conflict followed the regiment into Tennessee in early 1862. The soldiers’ letters showed a noticeable shift in tone. Complaints gave way to acceptance. Private Brown said the men had stopped counting days and measured progress instead by distance. “The country decides how fast we move,” he said, referring to roads that collapsed into mud after rainstorms.

The regiment entered heavy combat for the first time at Shiloh in April 1862. According to Colonel John Adair McDowell, the 6th Iowa regiment became engaged near the Hornet’s Nest, where the ground was broken and visibility poor. Orders were often transmitted by voice rather than signal because of the smoke and terrain.

 

Private James H. McConnell of Company B, said the fighting was “noise without direction.” The men fired toward sound and smoke rather than clear targets. “We stood because standing was the only clear thing to do.”

 

Casualty returns filed after Shiloh confirm the severity of the fighting. The regiment suffered heavy losses in killed and wounded, with several companies cut nearly in half. The Davenport Democrat said the casualty list was so long, it resembled “a census undone.”

 

After Shiloh, the soldiers wrote less about movement and more about endurance—sleep when it came, food when it arrived, and the steady presence of death. Sergeant William T. Riggs of Company F said the men no longer speculated about how long the war would last, “only of what must be done next.”

 

A soldier writing a letter by firelight. Many of the letters were
reprinted in local papers, giving readers a different perspective
on the fighting

Through the remainder of 1862, the 6th Iowa moved south with Union forces through Corinth and into Mississippi. Official reports noted heat exhaustion and sickness as limiting factors. Water sources were unreliable, marches long, and men frequently fell out. Iowa newspapers resumed publishing hospital rolls, reminding readers casualties were not confined to battlefields.

 

By the time the regiment reached Vicksburg in 1863, the men were veterans. They had marched hundreds of miles and buried comrades in states many had never expected to see. The campaign for Vicksburg placed them inside the central effort to control the Mississippi River. Grant’s reports emphasized constant pressure rather than dramatic assault, a reality reflected in the soldiers’ letters.

 

Private McConnell said the size of the army outside Vicksburg made individual regiments feel almost invisible. “There are too many men here for glory,” he said. “Only work.” 

 

The 6th Iowa took part in the May assaults on the Confederate defenses, advancing over exposed ground under heavy artillery fire. After-action reports acknowledged the assaults failed not for lack of courage, but because the defenses were too strong.

 

When the assaults ceased, the siege began. Trench duty defined daily life. Digging, standing watch, eating when possible, and sleeping in brief intervals became routine. Riggs said the artillery fire faded into the background, “noticed only when it changes,” a description echoed in multiple Iowa letters that summer.

 

After Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863, the regiment stayed there to secure the area. Letters printed in the Iowa City Republican noted the sudden quiet after months of bombardment. One soldier said the silence felt “unnatural,” as if the war had stepped away rather than ended.

 

In late 1863 and early 1864, the 6th Iowa joined the Red River Campaign. The campaign suffered from uncertain leadership and unclear objectives. Orders changed frequently; routes were altered mid-March; and supply trains were abandoned when roads disappeared or rivers rose. For the men in the ranks, the campaign felt like a constant adjustment to confusion.

 

Fighting at places such as Pleasant Hill reflected that strain. The regiment was not tested by battle so much as by exhaustion—long marches, inadequate supplies, and repeated withdrawals that left little sense of progress.

 

Private Ezra L. Brown wrote home, saying, “We are still together. That seems to be the measure now.”

 

Iowa newspapers were unsure what to say. Rather than repeat official assurances, editors printed soldiers’ letters. The Clinton Herald reported that during the Red River Campaign, survival itself had become the achievement. Maybe that was enough.

 

During the final year of the war, the 6th Iowa was assigned largely to garrison and security duty. They protected supply lines, suppressed guerrilla activity, and maintained order in unstable regions. 

 

The regiment mustered out in mid 1865. Postwar summaries reported that of the roughly one thousand men who served, hundreds died—most from disease rather than combat.

Learn more about Iowa soldiers in the Civil War.