Iowa In The Civil War

Wade Hampton observing the damage after
the surrender of Fort Sumter

The news that Fort Sumter fell hit Iowa like a slap across the face. Newspapers ran extra editions. Church bells rang. Flags went up on courthouse roofs and storefronts. Men stopped to read telegrams tacked to doors or shouted out by editors who could barely keep their voices steady.

For most Iowans, the fine print didn’t matter. The Union had been fired on. That was the entire story.

 

President Lincoln called for volunteers, and Iowa answered. Men signed up faster than the government could arm them. Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood scrambled to organize regiments while scrounging for uniforms, rifles, and tents.

 

Training camps filled up almost overnight. Camp McClellan in Davenport turned into a city of canvas and confusion. Farm boys slept in long rows of tents. Clerks learned how to march. Teenagers lied about their age and hoped nobody looked too closely. Drills ran from sunup to sundown. Sometimes the guns were real. Sometimes they were wooden sticks, something to practice with until the real thing came along.

 

Most of the men figured they’d be home by fall. Letters home talked about the war like it was a job that needed doing, like planting corn. One early volunteer wrote home saying he hoped “to give the rebels a lesson and return in time for harvest.”

 

They had no idea what was coming. No one did.

 

No major battles were fought on Iowa soil, but Iowa soldiers were everywhere else. Once the regiments left the state, they were thrown straight into the messiest parts of the war. Missouri. Tennessee. Arkansas. Mississippi. Places where orders were unclear, maps were wrong, and men learned fast or didn’t learn at all.

 

After the fall of Fort Sumter, Abraham 
Lincoln called 75,000 volunteers to
help put down the rebellion

Iowa troops were there at the start, when nobody knew how to fight a modern war and everyone pretended they did. They were still there years later, older, tougher, and moving steadily south.

 

Over 76,000 Iowans served. For a small state, it was an enormous number. Disease killed more men than bullets. It always did. Amputations were common. Survivors limped home coughing, bandaged, and quieter than when they’d left.

 

Nearly every town paid for the war in names and graves.

 

Some veterans went into politics. Others went back to farming and never spoke much about what they’d seen. Some never really left the war at all. Courthouse lawns filled up with monuments. Regimental histories were printed. And life went on. 

 

No battles were fought on Iowa soil, but its men shed blood at Wilson’s Creek, Pea Ridge, Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, on Missionary Ridge, and on the long road to Atlanta and beyond.

 

Once Iowa entered the war, it didn’t stand in the back. And it didn’t get out easy.

 

Wilson’s Creek (August 10, 1861)

 

Wilson’s Creek was Iowa’s first look at the war, and it wasn’t a good one.

 

Death of General Nathaniel Lyon at Wilson's Creek

The 1st Iowa Infantry, a three-month regiment that had barely finished learning how to march, found itself in the middle of a chaotic, swirling fight in southern Missouri. The battle opened early, with gunfire echoing through brush and tall grass, and almost nothing went according to plan.

 

Iowa troops fought as part of a Union force trying to surprise the Confederates. Instead, the fight turned into a series of disconnected clashes, with regiments advancing, falling back, then advancing again with no clear sense of where the lines even were.

 

The 1st Iowa took heavy fire. Men went down fast. Officers struggled to keep formations intact as smoke and noise swallowed everything. For soldiers who’d expected neat lines and explicit commands, Wilson’s Creek was a shock.

 

When the battle ended, the Union army withdrew. Technically, it was a defeat, but for Iowa, it was something worse: a realization. The war would not be short. It would not be clean. And nobody was in full control of it.

 

The 1st Iowa left Wilson’s Creek bloodied and older than it had been the day before. Many of the men went home when their enlistments expired, carrying stories that would shape how Iowa talked about the war from that point on.

 

Belmont (November 7, 1861)

 

Union and Confederate troops at the Battle of Belmont
(colorized print from 1896)

Belmont was supposed to be simple. Cross the Mississippi. Hit the Confederate camp. Get out.

 

Iowa regiments — including the 2nd, 7th, and 14th Iowa — went in alongside a little-known general named Ulysses S. Grant. At first, it worked. The Confederate camp was overrun. Tents burned. Supplies were smashed. Men cheered.

 

Then the situation flipped.

 

Confederate reinforcements arrived fast, and suddenly Iowa troops were fighting their way back toward the river with enemy fire closing in. What had looked like a victory turned into a running fight for survival.

 

The 7th Iowa took heavy losses trying to hold ground long enough for the army to escape. The 2nd Iowa fought stubbornly in the retreat, earning praise for staying organized when everything else was coming apart.

 

Grant later admitted how close the battle came to disaster.

 

For Iowa soldiers, Belmont taught another hard lesson: winning a fight didn’t mean you were safe. Not for a second.

 

When the boats finally pulled away from the riverbank, the Iowa regiments were battered but intact. They’d gone in green. They came out steadier. Grant remembered that.

 

Pea Ridge (March 7–8, 1862)

 

Pea Ridge was where Iowa helped decide the war west of the Mississippi.

 

Battle of Pea Ridge

Under General Samuel R. Curtis — an Iowan himself — Union forces faced a determined Confederate army trying to reclaim Missouri. Iowa regiments formed the backbone of Curtis’s army, spread across a long, twisting battlefield in northern Arkansas.

 

The fighting was fierce and often confused. Confederate attacks came from unexpected directions. Units were forced to pivot, regroup, and fight almost independently.

 

Iowa infantry held.

 

Regiments like the 4th, 9th, and 22nd Iowa absorbed repeated assaults. The Iowa artillery played a crucial role, blasting Confederate positions and helping break momentum when attacks threatened to overwhelm Union lines.

 

Curtis stayed calm. Iowa troops followed suit.

 

By the second day, the Confederate army was beaten and in retreat. Missouri stayed in Union hands for the rest of the war.

 

Pea Ridge didn’t get the attention of battles back east, but it mattered. A lot. For Iowa, it was proof. Proof that its soldiers could fight, endure, and win a major battle — not just survive one. They left Pea Ridge knowing they belonged in the war.

 

Fort Henry (February 6, 1862)

 

Fort Henry fell fast, almost too fast for infantry to take credit for it.

 

Bombardment of Fort Henry by Union Gunboats
(colorized print from at 1896 image)

The actual damage was done by Union gunboats pounding the fort into submission, but Iowa regiments were close behind, moving in to secure ground and prove they could operate as part of a larger machine. Units like the 2nd, 7th, and 11th Iowa Infantry were among those pushed forward after the surrender, stepping into muddy works still smoking from naval fire.

 

For many Iowa soldiers, this was their first look at a modern combined operation. Ironclads. Infantry. River transport. Everything moved at once, whether or not it was ready.

 

Officers took note. So did Grant.

 

There wasn’t much glory at Fort Henry, but there was momentum. Iowa regiments learned how quickly a victory could open doors, and how fast the army expected them to move through them. They didn’t get long to think about it.

 

Fort Donelson (February 11–16, 1862)

 

 

Donelson was where Iowa earned its reputation. The fighting was cold, violent, and relentless. Snow on the ground. Frozen rifles. Men slipping on ice while under fire. Iowa regiments were thrown into the thick of it again and again.

 

Colonel James M. Tuttle, later a Brigadier 
General, led the 12th Iowa at 
Fort Donelson

The 2nd Iowa Infantry, led by Colonel James M. Tuttle, made a hard charge against Confederate positions, pushing forward under brutal fire. The 7th Iowa,under Colonel Jacob G. Lauman, fought nearby, holding ground that seemed impossible to keep.

 

The 12th Iowa, commanded by Colonel Joseph J. Woods, and the 14th Iowa under Colonel William T. Shaw, were also heavily engaged as the battle seesawed back and forth.

 

At one point, Confederate forces broke through part of the Union line. The Iowa units helped seal it back up. When the Confederates finally gave in, Grant demanded “unconditional surrender.”

 

Iowa soldiers were there to see the white flags come out. They’d charged. They’d frozen. They’d bled.

 

Donelson told the army — and the country — that Iowa regiments didn’t fold when things turned bad.

 

Shiloh (April 6–7, 1862)

 

Shiloh hit Iowa like a hammer. More than a dozen Iowa regiments were present, including the 2nd, 6th, 7th, 8th, 12th, 14th, 15th, and 16th Iowa. Many had already seen combat. None of it prepared them for what came out of the woods at dawn.

 

Fighting near the little church at Shiloh

The 2nd Iowa, again under Tuttle, was hit early. The 6th Iowa, led by Colonel John Adair McDowell, lost its commander when he was killed while leading his men. The 14th Iowa fought near the Hornet’s Nest under Colonel Shaw, holding a sunken road that filled with smoke and dead.

 

The 12th Iowa, still under Woods, fought until ammunition ran out and was eventually surrounded and captured. It wasn’t cowardice. It was exhaustion and numbers.

 

Iowa artillery batteries fired until horses dropped and barrels overheated.

 

By the time Shiloh ended, Iowa regiments were gutted. The men who walked away were different from the ones who’d arrived. Nobody talked about quick wars anymore.

 

Corinth (April–May 1862)

 

Corinth was a lesson in patience and pressure. Iowa troops moved slowly toward the rail hub under constant threat, digging trenches, advancing by inches, and waiting for a fight that never quite arrived. Regiments marched, halted, dug, and repeated the process until it became routine.

 

Battle of Corinth

Officers like Colonel Grenville M. Dodge — still early in his rise — paid close attention to terrain, railroads, and logistics. Corinth wasn’t about charges. It was about control.

 

When the Confederates finally abandoned the town, Iowa regiments marched in without a climactic battle. It felt strange. Almost disappointing.

 

But Corinth mattered. The rail lines mattered. The supply routes mattered. Iowa soldiers learned wars weren’t always decided in one bloody afternoon. Sometimes they were decided by who could endure the longest. And Iowa was proving it could.

 

Iuka (September 19, 1862)

 

Iuka was supposed to be clean.

 

It wasn’t.

 

General Sterling Price commanded the
Confederate troops at Iuka

Iowa regiments, including the 11th, 13th, and 16th Iowa Infantry, were thrown into a badly coordinated fight in thick woods where sound traveled strangely and commands got lost almost immediately. Cannon fire echoed and overlapped. Units fought without knowing who was on either side of them.

 The 11th Iowa, under Colonel Matthias M. Trumbull, moved forward into heavy resistance and took serious losses. Men fired at muzzle flashes. Officers shouted orders that vanished into the trees.

 

The battle ended without a clear decision. The Confederates slipped away. The Union army stood on the field and argued about who was supposed to be where. Iowa troops came away frustrated and angry.

 

Iuka showed how dangerous poor communication could be. It wasn’t a defeat, but it didn’t feel like a victory either.

 

Second Corinth (October 3–4, 1862)

 

Corinth was different. This time, the Iowa regiments knew what was coming and where they needed to stand. The 11th, 17th, and 21st Iowa helped defend key positions around the town as Confederate attacks slammed into Union earthworks.

 

The 17th Iowa, under Colonel John W. Rankin, fought stubbornly near Battery Robinett, one of the hottest spots on the field. Attacks came in waves. The Iowa infantry held, fired, reloaded, and held again.

 

The fighting was close. Brutal. Personal. When the Confederate army finally broke and retreated, Iowa troops stayed in place, exhausted but standing. This time, the line held.

 

Prairie Grove (December 7, 1862)

 

Prairie Grove didn’t look like much on a map. On the ground, it was a slog.

 

Iowa regiments, including the 19th, 20th, and 26th Iowa, were ordered into long, punishing fights against entrenched Confederate forces. The battle dragged on for hours with little visible movement.

 

The 19th Iowa, under Colonel Benjamin Crabb, took heavy fire while advancing across open ground. Men went down fast. The regiment didn’t break.

 

By nightfall, both sides were exhausted. When the Confederates withdrew, Iowa troops stayed put, too tired to cheer. Missouri stayed Union. Again.

 

Arkansas Post (January 11, 1863)

 

Arkansas Post was one of those rare days when everything worked. Iowa regiments like the 19th and 26th Iowa moved in alongside gunboats and heavy artillery. Confederate defenses were hammered from river and land.

 

General Stephen Burbidge's troops planting the
Stars & Stripes over Fort Hindman

The 19th Iowa helped push forward through smoke and broken ground. Resistance collapsed faster than expected. Thousands of Confederates surrendered. It was decisive. Clean. Almost shocking.

 

Iowa troops marched away knowing what overwhelming force felt like for once.

 

Port Gibson (May 1, 1863)

 

Port Gibson cracked Mississippi open. Iowa regiments, including the 21st and 23rd Iowa, fought through rough terrain and stubborn resistance to secure Grant’s crossing east of the river.

 

The fighting wasn’t neat. It was steep hills, thick brush, and sudden fire. Officers struggled to keep formations intact.

 

The 23rd Iowa, commanded by Colonel William Kinsman, fought aggressively, pushing Confederate forces back step by step.

 

When the enemy withdrew, Iowa troops stood on Mississippi soil knowing there was no turning back.

 

Raymond (May 12, 1863)

 

Raymond surprised everyone.

 

Iowa regiments, including the 23rd and 28th Iowa, ran into stronger resistance than expected. The battle turned sharp and personal fast.

 

Colonel William Kinsman was killed leading the 23rd Iowa, struck down while urging his men forward. His death hit the regiment hard. They kept moving anyway.

 

Raymond taught another lesson: nothing in Mississippi would come easy, and every mile would be paid for.

 

Jackson (May 14, 1863)

 

Battle of Jackson, Mississippi

Iowa troops marched into Mississippi’s capital under fire, including the 11th, 21st, and 23rd Iowa. They drove Confederate forces out, wrecked railroads, destroyed factories, and tore up anything that could be used again.

 

It was fast, violent work. Then they turned west toward Vicksburg.

 

Champion Hill (May 16, 1863)

 

Champion Hill decided the campaign.

 

Battle of Champion Hill

The Iowa regiments — 11th, 17th, 21st, and 23rd Iowa — helped smash the Confederate line in one of the most important fights of the war.

 

The fighting was intense. Lines bent. Officers rallied the men personally. The 17th Iowa again proved steady under fire. When the Confederates broke, Iowa troops pressed hard.

 

After Champion Hill, Vicksburg was living on borrowed time.

 

Big Black River Bridge (May 17, 1863)

 

Battle of Black River Bridge

Big Black was quick and vicious. Iowa regiments charged earthworks under fire and broke through almost at once. Confederate resistance collapsed.

 

The road to Vicksburg lay open.

 

Siege of Vicksburg (May–July 1863)

 

Vicksburg was dirt and patience.

 

Fighting at Vicksburg

Iowa regiments dug trenches, launched assaults, and endured weeks of heat, disease, and constant fire. Units rotated in and out of the lines, never far from danger.

 

Men lived underground. Tempers frayed. Letters home grew shorter.

 

When Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, Iowa troops were part of the force that split the Confederacy in two.

 

They didn’t celebrate much. They were too tired.

 

Lookout Mountain (November 24, 1863)

 

Lookout Mountain wasn’t supposed to turn into much of a fight.

 

General Ulysses S. Grant at
Lookout Mountain

The fog rolled in thick, wrapping the slopes above Chattanooga until men could barely see ten yards ahead. Iowa regiments moved forward almost by accident, climbing through mist, brush, and scattered fire.

 

The 5th, 6th, and 10th Iowa were among the troops pushing uphill. Officers struggled to keep units together as formations dissolved into clusters of men following sound and instinct.

 

Colonel Charles H. Mackey of the 9th Iowa later said it felt like fighting “inside a cloud.” Confederates fired blindly. Union soldiers returned fire the same way.

 

Then the fog lifted just enough for both sides to realize what was happening.

 

By the time the shooting died down, Iowa troops were standing higher up the mountain than anyone had planned. Confederate defenders fell back. The position was lost.

 

Lookout Mountain didn’t last long, but it mattered. It cracked open Chattanooga and proved the Confederates could still be surprised.

 

Iowa troops came down the mountain knowing the war had shifted again.

 

Missionary Ridge (November 25, 1863)

 

MissionaryRidge wasn’t planned. Iowa regiments were ordered forward to take rifle pits atthe base of the ridge. Then somebody kept going. Then everybody did.

 

Battle of Missionary Ridge

The 5th, 6th, 10th, and 15th Iowa surged uphill with no clear orders and no intention of stopping. Fire poured down from above. Men fell. The rest kept climbing.

 

Officers like Colonel Hugh T. Reid of the 15th Iowa tried to restore order and failed. The charge was unstoppable.

 

Confederate lines broke. The ridge collapsed. Chattanooga was saved.

 

Later explanations mattered little. Iowa troops remembered it as a moment when planning gave way to momentum. Sometimes that was enough.

 

Atlanta Campaign (1864)

 

Georgia was a grind.

 

Ruins of the Atlanta train depot
after Sherman's March

Iowa regiments fought at Resaca, Kennesaw Mountain, and in the endles strenches creeping toward Atlanta. Units like the 2nd, 6th, 7th, 11th, and 15th Iowa rotated through heat, mud, and constant fire.

 

Colonel Grenville M. Dodge, now a general, played a key role in railroad repair and logistics, keeping Sherman’s army moving. The Iowa infantry did the rest the hard way.

 

Kennesaw was brutal. Resaca was confusing. Atlanta was relentless. When the city finally fell, Iowa troops were worn down but unbroken.

 

The war was nearly decided.

 

March to the Sea (Late 1864)

 

The March wasn’t about battles.

 

Iowa soldiers marched through Georgia tearing up railroads, burning supplies, andliving off the land. Regiments moved fast and light. Resistance collapsed ahead of them. It was deliberate. It was destructive. And it worked.

 

For many Iowans, it felt like the war had turned into something new — less about lines and more about pressure.

 

Carolinas Campaign (1865)

 

The last marches were the hardest.

 

General Sherman's bummers foraging in the 
Carolina Campaign

Rain. Cold. Mud. Iowa regiments slogged north through the Carolinas as Confederate resistance faded. Fighting still happened, but it lacked the fury of earlier years.

 

Men were exhausted. Everyone knew the end was close. When it finally came, it felt quiet.

 

After the War

 

Governor Samuel Kirkwood guided Iowa
through the first four years of the war

When the war finally ended, Iowa didn’t celebrate the way it had sent men off. There were parades and speeches, but underneath it all was the math no one could avoid.

 

Over 76,000 Iowans had served in uniform. For a state that barely topped 675,000 people in 1860, that was staggering. Nearly one out of every five adult men had gone to war.

 

Around 13,000 never came home.

 

Only a fraction were killed outright in battle. Most died the slow way. Disease. Infection. Dysentery. Typhoid. Pneumonia. Camps killed men more efficiently than bullets ever did. Soldiers who survived Shiloh or Vicksburg sometimes died weeks later in a hospital tent, far from the noise that made headlines.

 

Almost every Iowa town lost someone. Often more than one.

 

The men who came back weren’t the same. Some were missing limbs. Others carried injuries that never healed right. Many carried memories they didn’t have words for. They went back to farms, shops, courtrooms, and classrooms, but the war came with them.

 

It changed Iowa.

 

Veterans became leaders almost by default. They filled county offices, statehouses, and courtrooms. Military service became a kind of currency, proof that a man could be trusted when things went bad. Iowa politics tilted hard toward Union loyalty, Republican power, and a strong federal government. The war had settled that argument.

 

General Grenville M. Dodge led Iowa troops in 
the war. Afterward, he built railroads and
served as a Congressman

The economy shifted too. Railroads expanded faster. Towns grew. Iowa leaned into its role as a supplier of food, men, and raw materials for a nation that now thought bigger than it had before.

 

Monuments went up on courthouse lawns. Names were carved into stone. Regimental histories were printed and read until the bindings wore out. Decoration Day became sacred. Old soldiers gathered, swapped stories, and argued over details that only mattered to men who’d been there.

 

Iowa remembered where it had fought. Not on its own soil, but everywhere else.

 

From Wilson’s Creek to Pea Ridge. From Donelson and Shiloh to Vicksburg. From Missionary Ridge to Atlanta and beyond. Iowa regiments were present at the turning points, not watching from a distance but standing in the lines, taking losses, filling gaps, and moving on.

 

The Civil War forced Iowa to grow up fast. It left scars, graves, and a generation shaped by fire.

 

Once Iowa entered the war, it didn’t stand in the back. And when it finally came home, it was no longer the same state that had answered Lincoln’s call in 1861.