encountered the rebel Porter with his force of about four hundred men, strongly
posted in the dense brush on the " Botts" farm in Monroe County.
Killed one rebel and wounded many others. Our casualties were one man killed,
Captain B. F. Crail, of Company F, and nine men wounded. Porter fled south into
Callaway County, wither we pursued. On the 27th day of July, 1862, one hundred
men of the Ninth Missouri S. M. And fifty men of Company E, under command of
Captain Duffield of Company E, drove the rebel Porter with his force, which had
been augmented to nearly eight hundred men, from Brown's Springs in Callaway
County. He retreated in the direction of Moore's Mill. On July 28th a detachment
of Missouri S. M. Merrill's Horse, and of this Battalion, with a section of the
Third Indiana battery, all under command of Colonel Guitar, encountered Porter
in a strong position in a dense thicket near Moore's Mill in Callaway County.
After a desperate fight of four hours the rebels were utterly routed with a loss
of thirty killed and nearly one hundred wounded; a great many guns and horses
fell into our hands. The casualties of this battalion were four men killed and
twenty wounded.
Company E of this battalion had twenty-seven horses killed. The rebels fled
northward, this battalion with the other forces continued in pursuit, and on the
6th day of August found the rebels two thousand strong posted in the town of
Kirksville, in Adair county A severe engagement ensued, resulting in a complete
rout of the rebels. Rebel loss one hundred and twenty-eight killed, two hundred
wounded and forty taken prisoners. We captured two hundred stands of arms and
about two hundred horses. Casualties in this battalion; Killed, Captain E. Mayne,
Company G; wounded, Captain Jesse Hughes, Company R; Lieutenant M. 1. Birch,
Company H, and ten men. Battalion continued in pursuit of rebels and rebel bands
until they were utterly routed and dispersed, when we were ordered to this post
where we are now stationed.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H. C. Caldwell, Major
Second Battalion, Third Iowa Cavalry.
A recapitulation of the losses sustained by the battalion during the campaign
shows six killed, sixty-five wounded and two captured by the enemy, total
seventy-four. This was a heavy percentage of loss-more than thirty percent of
the actual number of the battalion able for duty. There is a slight discrepancy
in the official reports as to the loss of the detachment of the Third Cavalry in
the battle of Moore's Mill.
Colonel Guitar, the senior officer in command, in his official report states
that the loss of Major Caldwell's battalion was 2 killed and 24 wounded, and
that the horses killed belonged almost entirely to the Third Iowa Cavalry. At
the battle of Kirksville the loss of the Third Iowa was one-third of the total
loss sustained by all the Union troops engaged. In his official report Colonel
John McNeil mentions the gallant conduct of Captain Mayne, who was killed at the
head of his command, and also commends the bravery and efficiency of Major
Caldwell. It will thus be seen that this battalion performed most efficient and
gallant service in those early days of the war, doing more than its share of the
fighting andlosing more than its proportion of men in the engagements in which
it fought in conjunction with other troops. The subsequent operations of this
battalion, prior to the time it rejoined the regiment, embraced
such a wide scope that the compiler finds it impossible to describe them in
detail, owing to the limited space assigned to this historical sketch. He
therefore has recourse to the summarized record of the services of the battalion
as given by a well known compiler of Iowa military history.
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