Iowa and the Rebellion
Lurton Denham Ingersoll
Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1866
CHAPTER XXII.
THIRD CAVALRY.
ORGANIZATION——ACTIVE OPERATIONS ABOUT HELENA—COLONEL BUSSEY
TASTES COMMAND OF THE CAVALRY OF THE UNION ARMY INVESTING
VICKSBURG—OPERATIONS ON THAT FIELD—AGAIN IN ARKANSAS
The Honorable Cyrus Bussey, a member of the upper house of the legislature from
Davis County, became an Aide-de-camp on the staff of Governor Kirkwood soon after
the outbreak of the rebellion, and was specially entrusted with the protection of our
southern border. He procured arms and ammunition, and organized several companies of
militia in his own country, Van Buren, and Lee. Upon the intelligence of the battle of
Athens, Missouri, just beyond the border of our State, the people thereof for an hundred
miles in the interior were not a little excited, and in large numbers rushed towards the
scene of conflict with such weapons as could be hastily gathered. Colonel Bussey reached
Athens on the morning after the battle, and found a large number of our people, not ill
armed, ready to pursue the rebels who had been defeated by Colonel David Moore.
Others demurred to invading the State of Missouri. Wherefore Colonel Bussey proceeded
to St. Louis and obtained the requisite authority to use the militia of Iowa in Missouri in
case of necessity. Major-General Fremont also requested Colonel Bussey to raise a
regiment of horse for the United States service at Keokuk. Bussey consented, and the
Third Iowa Cavalry was the result.
The 13th of August he issued a call for volunteers, requesting each volunteer to bring
with him a good cavalry horse to sell to the government. On the 28th, there were a
thousand men well mounted in rendezvous at Keokuk, and had the mustering officer been
ready the command might have entered the service, nearly eleven hundred strong, on the
first day of September. But a fortnight after this had not passed till the regiment
numbering one thousand and ninety-six, officers and men accepted, formed a part of the
volunteer Army of the Union. Colonel Bussey had for his second in command
Lieutenant-Colonel Henry H. Trimble, and for majors Carlton H. Perry, Henry C.
Caldwell, and William C. Drake. John W. Noble was adjutant; Rufus L. Miller, H. D. B.
Cutler, and Glenn Lowe, battalion adjutants; T. D. Johnson, quartermaster; Thomas H.
Brown, Commissary; D. L. McGugin, surgeon, with Christopher C. Biser, assistant; Rev.
Pearl P. Ingalls, since so distinguished in Iowa for his exertions in behalf of the Orphans'
Home, chaplain.'

During the long stay of headquarters at Helena, the two most important expeditions in
which the regiment took part, in 1862, were the unsuccessful attempt on Arkansas Post
by General A. P. Hovey, and the march to Grenada under General Washburne. In the
former of these Colonel Bussey had command of the cavalry, two thousand picked
troopers. The troops embarked on transports and arrived at the mouth of White River,
November 22d. On account of the low stage of the water, Colonel Bussey disembarked
his command at Montgomery Point and proceeded to march by land, or rather by swamp,
to Prairie Landing, with instructions there to await further orders. The river was too low
for even the smaller vessels to move toward Arkansas Post. But Colonel Bussey
proceeded to carry out his part of the plan. He found the roads almost impassable. They
were simply horrible. But he waded through, and having spent a most miserable night in
a deluge of rain which made the swamp a boundless waste of water with no square inch
of dry land in sight, he countermarched to Montgomery Point, and found the fleet still
there, with nothing accomplished. The expedition returned to Helena. In the expedition to
Grenada, Mississippi, the cavalry destroyed the railroad near that place, and caused the
rebels in front of Grant on the Tallahatchee to fall back before his legions. An
engagement took place near Grenada, in which the rebels were worsted. The Third Iowa
took part in the affair and lost four men captured. The expedition, like that under Hovey,
returned to Helena, but it had accomplished something, and brought back much property
captured from the enemy, and many negroes.
8
The army was now again reorganized, General Washburne being assigned to the
command of the Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Tennessee, Colonel Bussey to the
command of the Second Brigade of that division, in which brigade was his own regiment.
His command was kept on active duty, scouting, but did not meet the enemy in force.
Small parties were dispersed and the country about Helena kept quiet. For a considerable
part of the month of January, 1863, Colonel Bussey was in command of the District of
Helena. Under the administration of General Gorman, the post had become a center of
illicit trade and a general headquarters of speculators, successfully engaged in fleecing
the government. Colonel Bussey's administration was short, but it was wise, pure, and
energetic. It was a public calamity that General Gorman so soon returned, and outranking
Bussey, again assumed command, on which account the stealings began to go on
as usual.
Colonel Bussey now resumed command of the brigade to which he had been assigned
in December, Major Scott being in command of the Third Cavalry, Major Noble
commanding a battalion. These officers made frequent expeditions into the enemy's
country—to Clarendon, St. Charles, and along the St. Francis river—on several occasions
met the rebels in some force and always defeated them. In April, a detachment of the
regiment moved by steamer up the St. Francis River nearly to the Missouri line, with the
object of capturing a rebel steamer said to be in the vicinity of Witsburg, or Willsburg.
On the return of the expedition there was a considerable skirmish at Madison, in which
the rebels were defeated with loss in wounded and prisoners. In this affair, Lieutenant
Niblack was distinguished for gallantry, and severely wounded. On the 21st, Major
Noble, commanding regiment, attacked a part of Dobyn's command near the St. Francis,
and gained a quick, decisive victory. Within a week he met the enemy again, near Big
Creek, and defeated him.
9
There were other affairs in which small detachments of the regiment were engaged.
Thus on the 1st of May, Captain J. Q. A. De Huff, with one hundred and sixty men
marched to La Grange, where he attacked three hundred rebels, and had them about
whipped, with heavy loss, when he was himself attacked in rear by full as large a force as
that in his front. The Captain and his command fought stoutly against the now
overwhelming numbers, but were defeated with a loss of more than a fourth of the
command, killed, wounded, and captured. Adjutant Glenn Lowe and Lieutenant
Cornelius A. Stanton were wounded. They and Lieutenant Niblack were specially
mentioned for brave and efficient conduct on the field. Another affair in which a
detachment of the regiment took part occurred near Helena, the 25th of May. Lieutenant
Samuel J. McKee, commanding a detachment of fifty men Tom Companies A and B.
joined Major Walker, commanding Fifth Kansas, and, marching out the Little Rock road,
met the enemy in superior force about six miles from Helena. A combat ensued in which
the detachment fought conspicuously. "Lieutenant McKee of the Third Iowa Cavalry,"
says Major Walker, "and the men under his command, acted with distinguished gallantry
during the whole engagement." The detachment lost five men wounded and two missing.
4
4 The killed and wounded at La Grange were:—Killed, Sergeants Arthur K. Ewing,
James H. W. Rigg; Private John Macy. Wounded, Adjutant Glenn Lowe, Lieutenant C.
A. Stanton; Corporal Jasper Bromley; Privates Ambrose H. Hill, Nathan Cash, John W.
Shook, John H. Lawson, John Davis, William De Lay. The missing soon after the battle
were in part recaptured from the enemy, by a fine exploit on the part of Sergeant
Breeding, of Company A, and Corporal Birdsall of Company B.
The wounded in the skirmish near Helena were:—Corporal Asa E. Coleman: Privates
Louis Hesse, James M. Legg, Alfred W. Mederas, James Matthews, Missing, Samuel
Parsons, Thomas Walker.
Nor should it be forgotten that, during the period now under review, the Third Iowa
Cavalry performed valuable labors in the immediate vicinity of Helena, in the way of
fortifying the post, and making it difficult for the enemy to approach from the interior.
There is no doubt that there labors under the direction of Major Scott, were of
incalculable service to our arms when the post was attacked by overwhelming numbers
on the 4th of July.
But, after all, campaigning in Arkansas, though ever so well performed at this time
attracted little of the public attention which was centered on the campaign of Vicksburg,
and which was, in sober truth, one of the finest campaigns of which there is any record in
military annals. Colonel Bussey after repeated endeavors, was at length ordered to join
the army under Grant. His regiment arrived at Haine's Bluffs early in June, and was at
once assigned to duty under General Sherman, in command of the Army of Observation
along the line of the Big Black River. Colonel Bussey was made Chief of Cavalry. From
this time until the capitulation of Pemberton the cavalry under Bussey were exceedingly
active. They traversed all the roads and by-ways in rear of Vicksburg for a distance of
thirty miles at all points between the railway and the Yazoo, exploring every forest, field,
and swamp, till the whole region became known to the command like one's own dooryard.
In the campaign of Jackson it performed even more active services— forming the
advance of the army as it moved against Johnston, skirmishing daily with the enemy till
he put himself behind the works of the capital. This event but added to the labors and
services of Colonel Bussey's command, in which were his own regiment and the Fourth
Cavalry from Iowa, besides other troopers. Whilst Sherman invested Jackson these
troopers were engaged to the northward, heavily skirmishing with the enemy at times,
destroying railways, and depots, and confederate property of all kinds in immense
quantities and in every way aiding the principal operation and adding to the great value
and renown of the final triumph, which was the recovery of a vast State from the hands of
the insurgents. For the manifold splendid services of Colonel Bussey and his command
during this campaign, General Sherman gave his unqualified praise.
At the close of the campaign the command went into encampment on the Big Black,
not far from where General Sherman established his headquarters. Here Major O. H. P.
Scott, who had commanded the Third Iowa most of the time for the past three months,
gave up his commission by resignation, and the command devolved upon Major Noble
The 12th of August, Colonel Winslow, Fourth Iowa, started on an expedition
northward, the Third joining the column. Moving by Yazoo City and Grenada the
command traversed the State of Mississippi, and reached Memphis on the 22d, having
met the enemy several times and defeated him, destroyed vast quantities of stores, and,
generally, made a most useful and brilliant raid, in all respects superior to some which
had brought deserved promotion to the commanders who made them. On this expedition
the Third Iowa lost a few men wounded

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