Memorial Day Weekend - Rededicating a memorial to Iowa heroes in Mississippi

[caption id="attachment_563100" align="alignnone" width="619" caption="The Iowa State Memorial at Vicksburg (National Park Service)"]

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Our governor will be spending part of his Memorial Day weekend in Mississippi:

Ceremonies in Mississippi this weekend mark the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Vicksburg and a monument to Iowa soldiers who died there will be rededicated.

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad is on his way there this morning.

“That was a very key turning point in the Great Civil War,” Branstad said earlier this week. “It happened at almost the same time as Gettysburg was happening in the east…Up to that time it looked like the Confederacy could win that war. (The Battle of Vicksburg) around and it led to the Union victory and to the preservation of our nation as one nation.

Iowa had 28 infantry regiments, two batteries and two cavalry units involved in the Vicksburg campaign, not to mention Iowans serving on ships and gun boats on the Mississippi river. So scores of of Iowa soldiers and sailors were in Mississippi in May of 1863, when control of the river, and the fate of the union, still hung in the balance.

One sign of Iowa's significance at that key turning point of the Civil War is the fact that there are dozens of monuments connected to the state's units, soldiers and leaders at Vicksburg. The grandest of all is the Iowa State Memorial:

This spectacular monument in the Vicksburg National Park was dedicated on November 15, 1906. Governor Albert B. Cummins, General Grenville Dodge and a delegation of 150 Iowans were present for the dedication. The cost to the State of Iowa was $150,000. It is 64 feet wide and 29 feet high in the center portion. There are 6 bronze relief sculptures (4 are shown below) and a large equestrian statue. The reliefs, which depict different scenes from the Vicksburg Campaign, were done by Henry H. Kitson The equestrian statue was done by Kitson and his wife, Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson. There is also a bronze plaque listing the 28 Iowa infantry regiments, 2 cavalry regiments and 2 batteries present at the seige of Vicksburg.

The location is also near the positions of the Iowa 21st and Iowa 22nd which led the heroic charge on May 22, 1863.

Retired Army Col. Robert Pitts writes an account of that day posted at iowavalor.com:

On May 22, 1863, MG Ulysses S. Grant had hoped to avoid a long siege by assaulting the strong Confederate defense works along a 3 ½ mile front. An assault might save lives in the long run. But the Confederate defensive works were formidable. Confederate engineers started constructing these fortifications in September 1862. They consisted of forts with overlapping fire and they used the terrain's ridges and ravines to great advantage. Each fort had a steep front slope with obstacles such as a deep ditch at the bottom of the slope. Union soldiers assaulting these forts would have to crawl up the steep slope and under a hail storm of minie balls.

At one of the forts, the Railroad Redoubt, a bugler sounded the charge at 10 o'clock on May 22nd and the attack was under way led on the right by the 22nd Iowa Infantry Regiment and supported by the 21st Iowa Infantry Regiment. There, Iowa soldiers of the 22nd Iowa , Sergeant Joseph Griffith and Sergeant Nicholas Messenger encountered fierce Confederate resistance, clambered and clawed up the steep slope with fixed bayonets and through a gap in the fort's very thick wall made possible, with compliments, by the XIII Corps cannonade earlier that morning. They led a small band of brave and daring Iowans into the Railroad Redoubt where fierce fighting was hand-to-hand, planted the regimental flag, drove out the defenders, captured others and held that fort for several hours. Of all the forts along that 3 ½ mile front, only the Railroad Redoubt saw Yanks (Iowans) inside the works.

But it was, at best, a toe hold. Skepticism, mistrust misunderstanding and mismanagement reigned among the three corps commanders on this day, as well as their commander, General Grant. Not all the regiments in General McPherson's XVII Corps were actively engaged. General Sherman's XV Corps was conducting disjointed and piecemeal attacks. The reported successes of General McClernand's XIII Corps were received with skepticism by General Grant. Grant didn't trust McClernand and later replaced him. The Confederates later in the afternoon on the 22nd counterattacked and regained possession of the Railroad Redoubt. Thus, the forces on both sides settled down into siege operations with only a couple of minor Federal excursions.

Then came a 47-day siege, described by Samuel Marshall Hawkins Byers in his 1888 book "Iowa in War Times:"

Now commenced a kind of conflict unique in the history of warfare. Every man in the investing line became an army engineer. Day and night the soldiers worked at digging narrow, zigzag approaches to the rebel works. Intrenchments, rifle pits, and dirt covers were made in every conceivable direction. When intrenchments were safe and finished, still others, yet farther in advance, were made, as if by magic, in a single night. Other zigzag, underground lines were made, and saps and mines for explosion under forts.

Every day the regiments, foot by foot, yard by yard, approached nearer the frowning, strong-armed rebel works. The soldiers burrowed like gophers and beavers- a spade in one hand and a musket in the other. The pickets were not squads of soldiers only; whole regiments filled the extremely advanced trenches all the time, being relieved only in the night. These regiments poured a constant fire of musketry into the embrasures and over the parapets of the forts. Day and night were heard the ceaseless firing and roar of musketry, whole batteries of artillery often joining in the midnight chorus, while the shells from the gunboats rose into the air like burning comets and fell into the devoted city. It was a wonderful spectacle.

The rifle pits of the two armies were now so close that the pickets talked with each other and nightly traded tobacco for coffee. Sometimes, as if by sudden impulse, a fierce bombardment with all the artillery would take place-or a mine beneath a fort explode, throwing its occupants into the air, while whole regiments would dash into the fearful crater only to be driven out. Forty-two days and forty-two nights the singular siege went on, and they were bold Rebels who dared to show their heads in all that time above the parapets of their forts, or over the sand bags of which they made little breastworks outside the ditch.

Inside the city, the rebels lived in caves and holes in the ground. No other life was possible, so frequent were the storms of shot and shell from the gunboats and the batteries, and the musketry from the rifle pits now right under the slopes of the forts. The history of one regiment during that historic siege was almost the history of all. In front of each the same perpetual skirmishing by day and by night went on-the same sapping and mining, the same slow advancing on the enemy's works, the same dangers that were scarcely second to battle. It was hard work for the union soldiers there, digging under the almost tropical sun of Mississippi. They lived in the deep ravines back of their lines, or in their rifle pits, forever loading and firing their muskets.

Once Gov. Kirkwood and his adjutant general. with Surgeon General Hughes, came down to visit the boys, and were serenaded by a storm of rebel cannon balls. They made speeches to the brave boys- the boys cheered a little, and, divining what was going on, the Rebels turned their batteries on the scene.

Kirkwood honored and loved the soldiers. He knew what their sacrifices meant. He knew that they stood between the state and destruction-that there would be no state, no governor, no liberty, no life, but for these men in the ditches at Vicksburg. "The heroism of our soldiers has made it a high privilege to be a citizen of Iowa," said he. So it had. The forty-two days of fighting, burrowing and besieging, were drawing to a close. Meantime, other troops were added to Grant's investing army. With them, came more from Iowa, until at last the proud state had thirty regiments besieging Vicksburg, or helping to keep back Joe Johnston's army in the rear.

Then came that memorable day, that fete day of a nation, that victory day- Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Helena,-that dawning of new light all over the North, that ringing of bells from sea to sea. With the joyous clangor of those bells, the knell of the rebel confederacy was sounded. From that 4th of July, the fate of the lost cause was sealed. Invasion of the North was a thing no more to be thought of-the confederacy was in twain. The men came out of the trenches that day, for Vicksburg had fallen, and the waters of the great river towed unvexed to the sea."

That may have been the most dangerous Iowa gubernatorial speech ever delivered. I read another account claiming that Kirkwood also took a few shots at the enemy lines.

Our current governor will face a much less hazardous assignment, rededicating the Iowa monument after the Iowa Legislature put $320,000 toward its much-needed restoration. Civil War re-enactors in Company A of the 49th Iowa Volunteer Regiment, and others lobbied hard to have the monument restored, including Pitts, who wrote the Vicksburg account excerpted above. Well done, and a fitting way to mark Memorial Day weekend.