Vanishing Footprints

Friday 22 May 2009
0530

Today marks a historic date in American history. I’d like to share the reason why the 22nd of May is a special date to me personally.

I have the honor and privilege of claiming descent from several ancestors who fought in the Civil War. Family lore says there were five or six who went to fight, and only one or two who came back. About the others, nothing is known, not even their names (at least not to me nor any relatives I know), although it is said that some died in Andersonville. But one of the men who returned did leave behind some artifacts from his life, and I am their current caretaker. I have a couple of photographs, a letter, two pocketbooks, a little glass pitcher that was beside his bed when he died, and his canteen and musket from the Civil War.



Christian Small's standard-issue rifle musket from the Civil War. My dad and his brother used to play with it when they were kids.

I have known about my Great-great-great Uncle Christian Small for years, but it wasn’t until recently that I began to find out more about him and his service in the Union Army, and to realize that he was a part of some very historic campaigns and battles. Now that I know more about his service, I plan to write an article for a military history or firearms magazine once I return to the United States. It turns out that “Uncle Chris” was a veteran of the Vicksburg Campaign. He served as a private in the 22nd Iowa Volunteer Infantry, which was the only Union regiment actually to penetrate the fortifications at Vicksburg on 22 May 1863.

“Vanishing Footprints” is the name of a book that was written by Samuel D. Pryce, the 22nd Iowa’s Regimental Adjutant (who kept the records and filed every official report for the Regiment for their entire wartime service). The book was never actually published and might have been lost to history, but for the manuscript having been preserved at the University of Iowa for all these years. It was finally edited and published in 2008, and recently I discovered it while researching the 22nd Iowa. There are other books that were written and published many years ago, but this is the official history, endorsed by the 22nd Iowa Regimental Association in 1903 in anticipation of its publication. The book is available through the 22nd Iowa website:

22nd Iowa

I normally wait to write about a book until I have finished it, and I have read two military history books recently that I want to review here, so I am behind. But time doesn’t wait, and I want to write something today, on the anniversary of the Regiment’s most famous achievement, as well as in time for Memorial Day.

The assault by the 22nd Iowa Infantry on the Railroad Redoubt at Vicksburg on 22 May 1863 is famous and well-documented. This book contains much more detail than any other account I have read. It was a terrible, bloody day. After nine months’ service, only 200 soldiers in the Regiment remained able to take part in the attack (out of 1008 mustered in the fall of 1862). The 22nd Iowa led the assault on their part of the line, made it through the ditch and up the embankment, and planted the United States and Regimental flags on the parapet, where they were visible up and down the line. They drove the confederate forces from that part of the fort, and their flags remained there all day. These were the only Union flags to be planted on any part of the Vicksburg fortifications at any time before the surrender of the city on July 4th.



The Assault of the 22nd Iowa on the Vicksburg Defenses, 22 May 1863 (Todd Pederson Collection)

It is apparently a matter of some controversy that Gen Grant did not reinforce the breach made by the 22nd Iowa. Whatever the reasons for the decisions at higher levels of command, it is clear that conditions on the ground were appalling. The Iowa soldiers held the redoubt all afternoon, suffering greatly from the hot sun and from unrelenting Confederate fire on their position. Uncle Chris’s service record says that he was wounded on this day. He does not appear on the list of names of those who personally entered the fortifications - only about 20 men made it inside. But he was there. Nearly every member of the Regiment was wounded, killed, or captured. The adjutant's records show 28 killed and 142 wounded out of the 200 men in the attack, a casualty rate of 85%. This was the highest casualty rate for any unit on either side in any battle of the entire Civil War.



My Great-great-great Uncle Christian Small and my Aunt Lorraine in 1927. He died in 1932 at the age of 95. What that mans' eyes must have seen...

This book is very well-written, although not highly polished. Much of it is typically florid 19th-century prose, very descriptive and evocative. But it is also very immediate and personal, and is peppered with folksy witticisms and humorous observations that made me laugh from time to time despite the tragedy described in its pages. The picture it paints is probably typical for any war – enthusiastic, patriotic youths who muster into the Army with excitement and anticipation, go off to war, then live through terrible privations and horrible, bloody battles, and come home diminished in number and changed forever by their experiences. I may write more later once I’ve finished it, to share any additional thoughts I have or things that I learn. For now I’d like to close by sharing some of the author’s own words, so that my friends and family will have a small taste of the book and perhaps even want to read it for themselves.

Here are some excerpts from the first chapter, starting with the opening paragraphs and ending with the closing words:

“Once again open the casket of the past---with its strife, its fever and fret, its bloodshed and death, the indescribable and terrible past. Those who live in this generation, and who have passed through the portal of the new century, may consider it a long distance back through the receding four decades, when the south was devastated by the iron heel of war---the tumult years of civil strife; and yet to those who participated in that conflict, it seems more like a brief span than two score crowded years.

In the ordinary affairs of life the harsh outlines are often lost in the dim and hazy past—but to the soldiers of the Civil War, the wake of fire and sword, and every feature of the red panorama, passes before their eyes with a distinctness nothing can obliterate. A tide of fearful memories sweep through their minds every day in the year, with all the grotesqueness of a nightmare.

Iowa’s share in the great tragedy of horrors for the preservation of the union was costly in the sacrifice of human life. It cost blood and treasure to crush out the arrogant and blind scheme of empire based upon the human slavery--a pandemonium of lust and maddening injustice. Iowa soldiers toiled in almost every campaign from Virginia to the mouth of the Rio Grande River, and were distinguished in nearly every battle of the great war. With its gallery of heroic figures, the sturdy young commonwealth is pregnant with examples of patriotism –and love of country.”

“…The present volume is written to a large extent for private circulation, for the amusement and edification of the survivors themselves, and as a sacred legacy to their children--and their children’s children--to the latest generation… And yet soldiers of other regiments and other wars may enjoy reading the story of marches and battles, to scale mountains with them, wander over flower-strewn valleys, over blackened landscapes, and over bloody battlefields. It will be like a leaf out of their own lives, written with blood and tears.”

“The story is told just as it occurred at the time…It is written to honor the brave men who gave the best years of their lives to their country. It is written to supplement the archives of the state with a more extended regimental history, so that future generations may learn of what material the foundation is composed upon which their temple of liberty is erected, and at what cost of blood and treasure it was preserved.”



Uncle Chris's resting place in Panora, Iowa. "...until the Lord said 'your work is done'."

Mood: Reverent
Music: Battle Hymn of the Republic