Flag, American Civil War, US National, 34 stars and 13 stripes. State Historical Society of Iowa Accession number 199. The Fortieth Iowa Infantry used a national flag that could have been similar to this one. https://iowa.minisisinc.com/SCRIPTS/MWIMAIN.DLL/R1ZW3qMFkHI1M2J6/4/1/12798?RECORD

Page 6

The Regiments

Three regiments rendezvoused and trained at Camp Pope in preparation for combat during the Civil War. These were the Twenty-Second, Twenty-Eighth, and Fortieth Iowa Volunteer Infantry regiments. In the abstract, a military regiment at the time of the Civil War would ideally have been 1000 soldiers, divided into ten companies of 100 men each. In this ideal, there are 950 men or soldiers in the ranks and 50 officers in command and support operations. In reality, the United States Army found it prudent to set the nominal level of full strength for Iowa companies at 97 men, including field and support officers, making the regulation size of regiments around 970 men. ⁴⁹

Within the regiment, divisions included battalion, company, and squad. A squad was a few men from one or more companies, a company was a unit that officially had no more than 97 soldiers, officers and support staff, and a battalion was two or more companies but less than eight companies. Above the regiment the Union army included the brigade consisting of two to three regiments. Brigades were assembled into divisions, divisions gathered into corps, and corps organized into armies. The federal army was in fact an army of armies. The ranks were filled out with privates and corporals. Each company had three officers, a captain and a first and second Lieutenant. Companies were formally designated with a letter, including A through I and K. ⁵⁰ 

LLeadership positions were gained through a process of the soldiers voting within companies to nominate their own officers but the official appointment was made by the governor as the senior civilian leader of the Iowa militia. Some men who had political influence wrote letters to the governor to advocate for their choices for senior officers. Examples of this two-step process include David Moore, a veteran of the Mexican War and a Douglass Democrat elected to be colonel of the Pro-Union regiment at Athens, Missouri. Richard Herron and Mathew Trumbull were elected to leadership positions in the Third Iowa. Announcements for elections for the officers at Camp Pope appeared in newspapers across the state. Taylor Pierce also mentioned the elections there. A fair amount of criticism came to Samuel Kirkwood, the Republican governor of Iowa, for what the public saw was his bias toward the appointment of Democrats to the leadership of Iowa militia regiments over Republicans. Many Republicans could not see past the differences between pro- or anti-Federal Democrats. But also, military appointments were seen as a position of honor that could raise the status of an individual in their community, possibly working toward the political hopes of aspiring politicians, including the future Republican governor of Iowa William M. Stone and his Democratic opponent James M. Tuttle. In some cases support officers were appointed directly by the colonel. For example, Colonel William Stone of the Twenty-Second Iowa appointed the quartermaster for the regiment.⁵¹

Under normal circumstances a colonel led the regiment, but understandably absences to illness, injury, capture, or death could result in a subordinate taking command. For this reason, a redundant chain of command was in place that followed down each leadership level as needed to replace command staff that were lost. The right-hand man of the colonel was the lieutenant colonel. Below him, the regiment had one major, and one sergeant major. Support staff included an adjutant to manage personnel, organize companies, oversee drills, and administer discipline, and keep official records. The sergeant major was his main assistant. There also was a quartermaster to manage supplies and equipment. His assistants were a quartermaster sergeant and a commissary sergeant. The medical staff included a surgeon and two assistant surgeons, and an ambulance wagon driver. The regiment had a wagonmaster to oversee the work of the supply train. Horses and mules were used in the infantry to pull supply wagons and ambulance wagons. Command staff used horses when available for mobility, better line of sight, and to create a visible presence on the field. Message runners usually rode a horse as well. The quartermaster saw to their care. Some regiments had animals for mascots. ⁵²

Army Wagon Going to Commissary Depot, City Point, for Supplies. This half of a stereograph image shows a four-mule team pulling a covered wagon. Library of Congress number 2015647557, Brady’s National Photographic Portrait Galleries, New-York : E. & H.T. Anthony & Co., stereo 1s04379 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/stereo.1s04379

Most regiments had a chaplain as part of the support staff. Official musicians who played fifes and drums were included on the payroll. The drum major and fife major were part of the non-commissioned staff. There was a bugler for each regiment who generally was the head musician. Sometimes the musicians were adolescents who were too young to be enlisted as soldiers, but some fought when necessary and provided assistance to the medical staff. Often the colonel would appoint a merchant to act as a Sutler, a private commissary who supplied items not available through the Army. ⁵³

At the brigade level, the commanders were ideally a brigadier general, but in the case of the Iowa regiments, they more often were a colonel or even lieutenant colonel, just as regiments could be temporarily commanded by a major. Divisions were intended to be commanded by a major general but often was a brigadier general or colonel. A major general was in command of a corps that were styled in roman numerals, as in XII Corps for Thirteen Corps and XIX Corps for Nineteen Corps. A division contained two or more corps and was also led by a major general as was an army, which could have two or more divisions sometimes including hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Armies were styled after a geographical landmark, such as the Army of the Tennessee, Army of the Gulf, and Army of the Potomac. Organization on the higher levels was very fluid and different names might be assigned to armies for different battles or objectives. ⁵⁴

There were two major theaters of the war, the Eastern and Western. Some researchers have separated military actions west of the Mississippi as a third theater, the so-called Trans-Mississippi theater because a number of important battles took place in Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, but others simply include this area as the Western Theater. Earl J. Hess has described the contrasts between the Eastern and Western Theaters. While the Union armies won every major battle in the Western Theater and established permanent control over vast areas, the Eastern theater captured the attention of the press, elected US officials, and the imagination of the general public. The Eastern Theater had a much larger population. The capitals at Washington, D.C. and Richmond were in the east and stood at around one hundred miles away from each other. Both capitals were also less than 100 miles from the Chesapeake Bay and the Appalachian Mountain chain, where most of the eastern battles were confined. In the Western Theater, a middling distance was more than 500 miles, such as the distance of St. Louis to Vicksburg. The Western theater has been said to be an area larger than France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland combined and was covered in dense woodlands, many streams and wide rivers, and swampy bottom lands along the middle and lower Mississippi valley. Battles in the Western Theater also took place along the west slopes of the Appalachians and in strategic passes. With such great distance to cover quickly, the use of steam powered boats and trains was a significant advantage for the federal forces in the Western Theater. Troops, weapons, and equipment could be rapidly brought to areas and supply lines could be extended for long lengths. The Confederate general Mosby Monroe Parsons noted the Union could move an army larger than Napoleon’s from Boston to New Orleans in a week. The Union also controlled the rivers, reducing the Confederate’s use of the Mississippi to a trickle at the same time that they destroyed rail lines as needed to prevent their use by Confederates forces. Along with rails came telegraph lines and telegraphic communication also played an essential role in rapid communications for the north, despite Confederate troops tapping the lines to gain strategic information. The generals in overall command of Union forces sometimes required troops from the Western theater to support initiatives in the East. For example, the Twenty-Second and the Twenty-Eighth Iowa participated in Sheridan’s campaign in the Shenandoah Valley at a strategically important point of the war. ⁵⁵

The population was much denser in the east and there were more newspapers from this region and they and foreign newspapers covered more of the events in the East especially as the Union forces attempted to capture Richmond. The Western Theater differed by geography where movement was more challenging and strategic efforts were hampered at times by the priorities of the East. Eastern armies tended to be larger while the federal policy set the size of volunteer regiments that dominated the West as permanently under full strength. The eastern soldiers were close to the supply centers and always received the newest uniforms and equipment first but other distinctions such as hat type and knapsacks or bedrolls didn’t exist. Some regiments wore non-regulation slouch hats, a wide-brimmed hat that was also called a Kossuth hat, or a regulation Hardee hat. Other units wore regulation or non-regulation kepi, a flat topped hat with a short visor. John Myers of the Twenty-Eighth Iowa wore a Kepi, but William P. Marvin of the Twenty-Second Iowa wore a Hardee hat. Similarly, some regiments were issued a knapsack and others simply carried their two blankets rolled up and tied with a cord over their shoulder. Most soldiers carried a haversack, along with their firearm, cartridges, bayonet, canteen. Other equipment and supplies would be carried in the wagon train. ⁵⁶

William P. Marvin, Twenty-Second Iowa. Photo found in social media posts and is likely the photo he had taken in Iowa City.

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notes to page 6

49. Buchanan County Guardian (Independence), May 28, 1861, page 2; State Democratic Press (Iowa City), June 5th, 1861, page 2 (Return ↩) 

50. David J. Eicher, “Civil War High Commands,” Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001, page 65 https://archive.org/details/civilwarhighcomm0000eich/; “Civil War Army Organization and Rank,” North Carolina Museum of History, Internet Archive, Wayback Machine, July 18, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170718010330/http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/civil-war-army-organization-and-rank (Return ↩) 

51. William Garret Piston, “The 1st Iowa Volunteers: Honor and Community in a Ninety-Day Regiment,” Civil War History, volume 44, number 1, 1998, page 8, https://doi.org/10.1353/cwh.1998.0024; Kenneth L. Lyftogt, Iowa and The Civil War, volume 1, Iowa City: Camp Pope Publishing, 2018, pages 166, 214, 229;State Democratic Press (Iowa City), April 24, 1861, page 3; Buchanan County Guardian (Independence), May 28, 1861, page 2; Iowa City Weekly Republican, Wednesday, August 27th, 1862; State Democratic Press (Iowa City), August 30, 1862, page 3; Davenport Daily Gazette, Iowa City Weekly Republican, September 17, 1862, page 3 September 25, 1862, page 1; Iowa City Weekly Republican, October 1, 1862, page 3; Davenport Daily Gazette, October 24, 1862, page 2; Iowa City Weekly Republican, October 15th, 1862, page 3; Richard L. Kiper, editor, Dear Catharine, Dear Taylor, 2002, page 23; Davenport Daily Gazette, October 24,1862, page 2 (Return ↩) 

52. Iowa City Weekly Republican, Wednesday, August 27th, 1862, page 2; “Affairs at Camp Pope” Iowa City Weekly Republican, September 17th, 1862, page 3; Burlington Daily Hawk-Eye, October 14, 1865, page 7; Kenneth Lyftogt, Iowa and the Civil War, Volume 1, pages 166, 232, Volume 3, pages 185, 320; National Park Service, Animals of the Armies https://www.nps.gov/articles/animals-of-the-armies.htm (Return ↩)

53. For an example of a chaplain, see Iowa Adjutant General, Roster and Record of Iowa Soldiers, volume 3, page 575; As an example of drummers and fifers, refer to the Twenty-Second Iowa Regiment in Iowa Adjutant General, Roster and Record of Iowa Soldiers, volume 3, pages 575, 581, 583, 600, 602, 603, 605, 607, 608, 609, 624, 627, 632, 637 639, 638, 642, 649, 654, 655, 657, 659; Kenneth L. Lyftogt, Iowa and The Civil War, volume 1, 2018, page 155–156; “Ed Finkbine’s Endless Loyalty,” Iowa City Daily Press, July 28, 1909, page 4; Burt S. Child, “Civil War Musicians,” Annals of Iowa, volume 25, number 2, 1943, 122-128 https://doi.org/10.17077/0003-4827.6223; Iowa City Weekly Republican, October 15th, 1862, page 3 (Return ↩)

54. Refer to Armies in the American Civil War, wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armies_in_the_American_Civil_War (Return ↩)

55. Earl J. Hess, The Civil War in the West: Victory and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012, pages 60, 307–308, 313, find and cite Kirkwood and us company size debate, initial cite is a newspaper article from 1862; Kenneth L. Lyftogt, Iowa and The Civil War, volume 2, Iowa City: Camp Pope Publishing, 2020, pages xi, 1; Kenneth L. Lyftogt, Iowa and The Civil War, volume 3, Iowa City: Camp Pope Publishing, 2022, page 175; Called a Hardee hat and illustrated here, David Miller, editor, The Illustrated Directory of Uniforms, Weapons, and Equipment of the Civil War, London: Salamander Books, 2001, pages 9–10; 21 https://archive.org/details/illustrateddirec0000unse_h7r5; Russ A. Pritchard, Jr., Civil War Weapons and Equipment, Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2003, page 14 archive.org/details/civilwarweaponse0000pri; John Myers to Cecelia Myers, November 12, 1862, Myers, John, 1838-1863, Civil War Collection, MsC0906, University of Iowa Special Collections and Archives; Samuel Calvin Jones, Reminiscences, 1907, page 10 https://archive.org/details/reminiscencesoft02jone; Earl J. Hess, The Civil War in the West: Victory and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012, pages 4, 21, 34, 43,60, 81, 250, 259, 270, 307, 309–311, 318 (Return ↩)

56. Russ A. Pritchard, Jr., Civil War Weapons and Equipment, London: Salamander Books, 2003, pages 12–14; Angus Knostam, The Civil War Soldier, New York: Universe, pages 20–21 (Return ↩)