7th Iowa Volunteer Infantry In The Civil War

 

Battle flags of the 7th Iowa infantry

The 7th Iowa Volunteer Infantry mustered into service in July 1861 at Burlington. The men came off farms, out of shops, off the river. Most had never been farther than the next county. They signed on thinking they’d be home before long. That idea didn’t last.

 

They were organized fast and pushed out just as fast. Colonel Jacob G. Lauman took command. He wasn’t a trained soldier, but he knew how to keep men together. Augustus J. H. Merritt served as lieutenant colonel. Elliott W. Rice came in as major. That was the core. Everything else would be learned in the field.

 

They moved south into Missouri almost at once. The job was simple on paper—secure the river, hold ground, keep Confederate forces from pushing north. The reality was marches over bad roads, long stretches without supplies, and constant uncertainty about where the enemy was.

 

Their first fight came at Belmont in November 1861. Grant’s force crossed the Mississippi and moved against Confederate camps opposite Columbus, Kentucky. The plan was to hit hard and pull back.

 

It didn’t stay that simple.

Colonel J. C. Parrott

The 7th Iowa went forward with the first advance. They pushed through the camps and drove the Confederates back. Then the situation changed. Reinforcements came in. Fire started hitting from different directions. Smoke settled over everything. Units lost contact.

 

The 7th Iowa was in the middle of it when things turned. They were ordered forward, then found themselves pressed from the front and both flanks.

 

Lauman tried to hold the line together. Officers moved up and down the ranks, trying to keep formation, but the pressure kept building. Men fell. Lines bent and broke.

 

Lauman was wounded and captured. With him gone, command broke down further. Companies fought on their own or in small groups. Some men cut their way back toward the river. Others were surrounded.

 

When it ended, more than half the men were gone—killed, wounded, or captured. Later accounts didn’t soften it. No Iowa regiment, they said, “suffered more severely in its first engagement.”

 

Major General Elliott W. Rice

What was left pulled back across the river and started over. The survivors regrouped under new officers. Prisoners were exchanged over the following months. Recruits filled the gaps. The regiment rebuilt, but Belmont stayed with it. It had gone into its first fight as a new unit and come out of it hardened.

 

In early 1862, they moved into Tennessee for the campaign against Fort Donelson. This time they were part of a larger, better organized force under Grant. The movement was slower, more deliberate.

 

Icy rain soaked everything. Roads turned to mud. Wagons lagged. Men slept in the open or under makeshift cover. Fires were hard to keep going. Rations were basic and often short.

 

The 7th Iowa was placed in line as Union forces closed in on the fort. There was constant skirmishing before the final surrender. The men held their position under fire, dug in where they were told, and moved when ordered.

 

When the Confederate commander asked for terms, Grant answered with the line that made him known across the country: “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender.” The fall of Fort Donelson opened the Tennessee River and forced Confederate forces to pull back deeper into the South.

 

The regiment moved again. This time toward Pittsburg Landing.

 

Shiloh came in April 1862.

 

The Confederate attack hit at dawn. It came fast and hard. Camps were overrun. Men were driven out of tents and into the open with little time to form up.

 

The 7th Iowa was caught in the first shock of it. Officers pulled men together as best they could. Lines formed quickly, but they didn’t hold long. Pressure came from the front. Units fell back, then formed again.

 

Grant said the attack “was made with a vigor that could only be repelled by stubborn resistance.” That resistance came from regiments like the 7th Iowa, holding in place when everything around them was giving way.

 

General John W. Corse

The fighting moved back toward the river. The regiment shifted position more than once, falling back with the rest of the line, then taking a stand again. There was no clean front. Smoke and noise made it hard to see or hear commands.

 

On the second day, Union forces pushed forward. The 7th Iowa advanced with the line, driving Confederate forces back over the same ground they had taken the day before.

 

The record later said the regiment “was engaged during the greater part of both days, and its losses were heavy.” That covered it. They had held, moved, and held again.

 

After Shiloh, the army moved on Corinth. The advance was slow. The Confederates fell back, and Union forces took the town without a major assault, but the cost came in other ways.

 

“The troops suffered much from heat and want of water.” That line shows up again and again in reports. It wasn’t just heat. It was sickness. Camps filled with men who couldn’t stand. Typhoid and dysentery spread. Some men never returned to duty.

 

Through the rest of 1862, the 7th Iowa stayed in the field. Marching, guarding lines, holding positions. No single battle stood out, but the strain built.

 

By early 1863, the focus shifted to Vicksburg. Control of the Mississippi River meant everything. The 7th Iowa moved south with Grant’s army, part of a long column pushing through Mississippi.

 

Movement defined the campaign. The army crossed rivers, cut roads, and marched through ground that slowed everything down. Supply lines stretched thin. Men carried what they could and waited for the rest.

 

Grant said, “The enemy was driven from point to point until he took refuge in the stronghold of Vicksburg.” That was the pattern. Advance, engage, push forward again.

 

The 7th Iowa took part in those movements, shifting from one position to another, often under fire, often digging in at the end of the day.

 

When they reached Vicksburg, the war changed again.

 

General Jacob Lauman

There were assaults at first. Direct attacks against strong positions. They failed. The ground favored the defenders. Losses came quickly.

 

After that, the army settled into a siege.

 

Grant described it in plain terms: “approaches were made by regular saps and mines.” That meant digging trenches forward, inch by inch, under fire.

 

The 7th Iowa worked those lines. Digging, carrying dirt, building up positions, then moving them forward again. Sharpshooters kept heads down. Artillery fired at all hours.

 

“The duty was severe, the exposure constant, and the danger unceasing.” That was how the regiment remembered it. There was no break. Day and night ran together.

 

Food came when it could. Water wasn’t always good. Sleep came in short stretches. Still, the lines moved forward.

 

When Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863, the campaign ended. The Mississippi River was under Union control. The army didn’t stop long enough to celebrate.

 

In 1864, the 7th Iowa joined Sherman’s campaign toward Atlanta. This was a different kind of fighting. No single decisive battle. The army moved in stages. Advance, engage, force the enemy back, repeat.

 

At Resaca, Confederate forces held strong ground. Sherman said, “The enemy was strongly posted, and the contest was severe.” The 7th Iowa went in with the rest of the line, advancing against prepared defenses.

 

They moved forward under fire, held where they could, and pushed when the line moved. It wasn’t clean. It never was.

 

At Dallas, the ground made everything worse. Thick woods. Limited visibility. Sherman noted that “the ground was densely wooded, rendering the movements difficult.” That meant confusion. Units lost alignment. Fighting broke out at close range.

 

The regiment stayed in line through it. March. Dig. Fight. Move again.

 

Leadership shifted as the campaign went on. Elliott W. Rice rose to command the regiment and later a brigade. Officers like James C. Parrott stepped in when needed. By that point, survival mattered more than rank. Men followed those who could keep them steady.

 

By the time Atlanta fell, the 7th Iowa had been in continuous service for three years. The original men were mostly gone. Killed. Wounded. Sick. Discharged. New recruits filled the ranks, but the regiment carried its history forward.

 

The regimental history said: “It entered the service with full ranks and high hopes; it left it thinned by battle and disease, but rich in honorable record.”

 

After Atlanta, the war slowed for the regiment. They were assigned to garrison and occupation duty. Guarding rail lines. Watching supply routes. Holding ground that had already been taken.

 

There were still dangers. Guerrilla attacks. Long stretches of routine broken by sudden violence. But it wasn’t Belmont. It wasn’t Shiloh. It wasn’t Vicksburg.

 

In July 1865, the regiment was mustered out. The war was done. The men went home by the same rivers and roads they had taken south.