Colonel John W. Rankin 17th Iowa Infantry Civil War

 

(Colorized image from Iowa Colonels and Regiments by A. A. Stuart. 1865)

John W. Rankin helped raise the 17th Iowa Infantry in 1862 and went in as one of its field officers. They got little time to settle in. By fall, they were in Mississippi. At Iuka in September, the fighting came quick in broken ground. Lines blurred. Men fired at shapes more than targets.

A few weeks later came Corinth. October 4 hit hard. Confederate attacks drove into the line and shook it. The 17th Iowa took heavy losses. Parts of the regiment gave ground. Some were captured. Still, enough held for the army to recover and push back. Rankin was there at Corinth, where the fighting broke and reformed under pressure… and at Champion’s Hill, where Grant later wrote the battle was “stubbornly contested at every point.”

In 1863, they moved with Grant into Mississippi. Jackson fell after a quick fight. Then came Champion Hill on May 16. That was the one that decided things. The ground was rough. The fight didn’t move cleanly. Units went in, stalled, shifted, and went in again. The 17th stayed in it as the line bent and pushed forward.

After that came the Big Black River and then Vicksburg. The work changed there. No charges. Just digging, holding, and waiting under fire. They spent weeks in the trenches. Heat, dirt, sickness. Rankin stayed with the regiment through it, part of the long grind that ended when Vicksburg finally gave up in July 1863.