36th Iowa Infantry Regiment
The 36th Iowa Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Service
Early days of the regiment
The Thirty-sixth Iowa Infantry Regiment, US Volunteers, was one of several Midwestern volunteer regiments raised in Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin in the late winter, spring and summer of 1862. Companies A and K consisted of men from Monroe County, while Companies B, C, D, E, F G, H and I were made up of men from Appanoose and Wapello Counties. A handful of additional men were mustered for the regiment from Wayne, Marion, Lucas, Davis, Lee and Van Buren Counties. The first recruits were mustered into state service as early as February 1862. The ranks were filled out with additional recruits following Lincoln's July 1862 call for 300,000 state volunteers and, by early September, the regiment was officially designated the Thirty-sixth Iowa Infantry Regiment. Colonel Charles W. Kittredge of Ottumwa Iowa was placed in command. Colonel Kittredge had previously served as a captain with the 7th Iowa Infantry Regiment in Missouri during the first year of the war and was an experienced combat veteran.All companies rendezvoused at Camp Lincoln, Keokuk, Iowa where, on 4 October 1862, they were sworn into United States service for a term of three years. The men were first issued old Austrian and Belgian smoothbore muskets with "sword" bayonets, but these antiques were eventually replaced with more effective.58 caliber Springfield rifled muskets. Following four weeks of basic training at Camp Lincoln, the regiment departed Keokuk on 1 November 1862 aboard two steamboats for St. Louis to await corps and division assignment and to continue training.
St. Louis, Memphis and Helena
At St. Louis, the regiment went into garrison at Benton Barracks. The Thirty-sixth was attached to the XIII Corps, Army of the Tennessee, and commenced drill by brigade and division. On 20 December 1862 they embarked by steamer for the federal garrison at Helena, Arkansas. The vessel halted at Memphis, Tennessee when the local citizens hailed it from shore with an alarming report that Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his cavalry were in the neighborhood and were preparing an attack on the city. That night the men of the 36th slept with their arms stacked nearby in Jackson Square. The regiment eventually moved to some old vacated mule-sheds and remained in Memphis performing guard duty at Fort Pickering until 1 January 1863, when it resumed its movement to Helena.At Helena, the regiment became part of the 1st Brigade, 13th Division, XIII Corps under General Benjamin Prentiss. The regiment was initially quartered in tents but later moved into winter quarters at Fort Curtis in semi-permanent "half-cabins" consisting of log walls with canvas ceilings and dirt floors. These billets had formerly been occupied by the 47th Indiana Infantry Regiment. According to Captain Seth Swiggett of Company B, the ex-Postmaster at Blakesburg, Iowa, the Iowans devised an efficient central heating system in these cabins by burying a length of stovepipe beneath the dirt floor and running it the length of the cabin from a small tin stove on one end to an exhaust pipe on the opposite end. With 5 to 8 men occupying each cabin, the regiment passed the month of January 1863 in as comfortable a manner as could be expected under the circumstances.
The Yazoo Pass Expedition and the First Military Action at Shellmound, Mississippi
In February 1863, the Thirty-sixth Iowa, 600 strong and part of 13th Division of the XIII Corps commanded by General Leonard Ross, embarked on troop transports for Mississippi to take part in the Yazoo Pass, or Fort Pemberton Expedition. This operation was conceived by General Grant and entailed blowing an opening through the east bank of the Mississippi River near Moon Lake below Helena to open a channel connecting with an inland water route that would enable Grant to encircle the Confederate stronghold at Vicksburg, Mississippi from the north. Veterans of the regiment recalled that during reconnaissance patrols the men had to wade through swamps waist deep. The regiment saw its first action at Shellmound, Mississippi where, after witnessing a fierce artillery duel between federal gunboats and rebel batteries, Captain Swiggett noted that the 36th Iowa had a "sharp exchange" with the rebels The regiment was holding a picket line some 2 miles above the enemy fort and was under frequent artillery fire for several days. No men were killed by enemy action due to the cover afforded by woods on the west bank of the Tallahatchie River. The regiment was engaged on this march for 43 days. They found no unguarded route to Vicksburg and the expedition was abandoned. The men suffered greatly because of almost continuous exposure to the elements on this campaign, including freezing rain and high winds that blew their tents down. In addition to colds, flu fevers and rheumatism, many men were struck down by typhoid and malaria.The Battle of Helena
Returning to Helena, the Thirty-sixth commenced a physically demanding daily regimen of drill and building fortifications in anticipation of a Confederate attack expected with the arrival of spring weather. The Thirty-sixth was assigned to build breast works and trenches in support of Battery A at Fort Curtis, on the northernmost end of the Union defenses. The federal line ran in a semicircle around the town with the Mississippi River being their east flank.On 4 July 1863, a Confederate force under General Holmes estimated at between 8,000 and 10,000 attacked Helena. With devastating artillery fire and additional fire support from the U.S. Navy gunboat Tyler anchored in the river offshore, the Union positions repulsed the assault in a savage, bloody slugfest lasting from dawn until 2 p.m. under a burning hot sun. The Confederates nearly captured some of the federal redoubts where the fighting devolved into hand-to-hand combat. Confederate losses were estimated at 2,000–3,000 and more than 700 of these were taken prisoner. The federals remained on the field in their assigned positions for two more days until it was clear that Holmes' rebels were in full retreat to Little Rock. Much of that time was allowed to burying hundreds of Confederate dead in mass graves where they had fallen.
Vicksburg also surrendered to Grant on 4 July while elsewhere General George Meade repulsed Lee at Gettysburg. The two victories at Helena and Vicksburg on 4 July, and the surrender of the rebel strong-post of Port Hudson on 9 July, ended further serious Confederate threats to federal operations along the Mississippi River and severed communication between rebel forces on opposite sides of the Mississippi for the remainder of the war. With New Orleans, Port Hudson, Vicksburg, Helena, Memphis and Columbus Kentucky in federal hands, the Confederacy west of the river was isolated from secessionist allies in the east. However, rebel guerrilla bands continued to harass federal river traffic from both banks of the Mississippi until the end of the war.
DeValls Bluff, Pine Bluff and the capture of Little Rock
Following the battle at Helena, the Thirty-sixth was attached to the Third Division, 1st Brigade, Expeditionary Army of Arkansas commanded by Major General Frederick Steele. Marching from Helena on 12 August, the Third Division reached Clarendon, on the White River. Steele complained to his superior, General Stephen Hurlbut at Memphis that he was burdened on his march by at least 10000 men on the sick list. It got even worse at Clarendon, a malaria-breeding village. A number of men of the 36th were left there awaiting river transportation north to DeValls Bluff, where Steele was establishing his main supply base. Those fit to march left Clarendon and proceeded north to DeValls Bluffs. At this point, Brigadier General John Davidson arrived with the 1st Division and rendezvoused with Steele. Davidson's division did most of the heavy fighting with the troops of Confederate generals Marsh Walker, John Marmaduke and Sterling Price over the next twenty days. As Davidson moved forward and captured Brownsville, the Third and Second Divisions followed. When Davidson's force was blocked at Reed's Bridge, on Bayou Metoe, the 36th and other regiments of the Third Division made a demonstration on the confederate left flank as a diversion. Steele and Davidson then decided on a surprise flank attack from the south bank of the Arkansas River, which was executed on the morning of 10 September. Although not unanticipated, Marmaduke and Price were surprised by the speed with which Davidson made the crossing at Ashley Ford. Driving westward straight toward Little Rock, the infantry of the Third Division followed a parallel course supporting artillery batteries firing on the rebels from the north shore. By 7:30 pm Price and Marmaduke had abandoned the capital and civil authorities surrendered Little Rock to Davidson. Steele arrived a day later. The 36th Iowa did not cross the Arkansas and enter the city until 15 September due to the fact that in their retreat, the Confederates had burned the boat-bridge spanning the two shores, and then a Union pontoon bridge broke down. Upon entering Little Rock, the Third Division and 36th encamped on the spacious high ground south of town near the re-captured U.S. Arsenal and there constructed a permanent camp for winter quarters and endured a bitterly cold winter. Meanwhile, Price and Marmaduke escaped toward Camden, Washington and Murfreesboro to winter while Arkansas state officials moved their capital to the county courthouse at Washington, Arkansas near the Texas-Louisiana border.The Dodd Affair
On 8 January 1964, an 80-man detachment from the 36th Iowa and similar detachments from all of the Union regiments encamped near the arsenal formed on the parade ground to witness the execution of 17-year-old David Dodd, a Confederate spy. Dodd had attended nearby St. John College—a private secondary academy—but dropped out after a few months and relocated with his parents to Texas when the Union Army occupied Little Rock. He became a telegraph clerk and learned Morse Code and next joined his father who was a civilian sutler for a Confederate regiment stationed in Mississippi. Returning to Camden Arkansas, Dodd intended to return to Little Rock, ostensibly to visit former classmates and an older sister still enrolled there. He obtained a pass to depart Confederate lines from General James Fagan, who allegedly told young Dodd, "I expect a full report upon your return." Approaching Union lines he obtained a legitimate US Army pass and continued into the city where he spent three days. As Dodd departed Little Rock on the afternoon of the third day, he headed down the Benton road southwest of the city and passed through a federal picket line, where he surrendered his pass, believing he had exited federal lines. Two miles further, however, Dodd encountered a second Union picket line and, having no pass, was arrested by federal troopers of the 8th Missouri Cavalry. Taken before an officer, Dodd was interrogated and could not provide a satisfactory explanation for wandering through the neighborhood at that hour. A notebook taken from him contained notes in Morse Code that, when translated by the assistant army telegrapher, described accurately much of the federal Order of Battle in Little Rock and the disposition of infantry regiments and artillery batteries. With this incriminating evidence in hand, Dodd was taken before a senior officer of the 8th Missouri and further interrogated. It was at this point the prisoner was body-searched, and additional papers and a loaded Derringer pistol were found in his coat. A full investigation revealed that Dodd was almost certainly assisted by a local female accomplice, who was also brought before military authorities and interrogated. Dodd was sentenced to death by a specially appointed Military Commission on a 4 to 2 vote on 5 January 1864. An execution date was set for 8 January. Steele did not bring charges against the female—a close friend of Dodd's and a vocal secessionist whose father quartered Union officers in his home. Instead of charging the daughter and son, Steele had them removed from the Department of Arkansas and deported to Vermont, their native state. There they were essentially placed on house arrest for the duration of the war.Dodd's case drew the attention of thousands of Arkansans who sought clemency. Steele offered clemency to Dodd if the youngster would reveal who his accomplices were, which offer Dodd refused. The morning of Dodd's execution he was placed on the end-gate of an army ambulance wagon that had been driven beneath a scaffold. Bound hand and foot, Dodd was made to step out onto the wagon tailgate which was propped up by a stout wooden post. The noose was placed around his neck and the post was knocked out from beneath the tail-gate causing the teenager to fall straight down. Unfortunately, the rope stretched, and the fall did not break Dodd's neck; he struggled for several minutes as he slowly strangled to death. After nearly 10 minutes a Union surgeon pronounced him dead. Some federal soldiers who witnessed the execution described it as a "sickening" and "ghastly" affair. but evidence from diaries and letters indicates most felt no remorse or were disturbed by Dodd's execution.