FLIGHT OF THE HAWKEYES
Iowa Infantry was among several Hawkeye State regiments formed to fight for the Union in the summer of 1862. On September 4, about 1,000 soldiers and officers boarded ships and headed down the Mississippi River toward heavy fighting. Three months later, the regiment—part of Brig. Gen. Francis Herron’s 3rd Division in the Army of the Frontier—was severely bloodied at the Battle of Prairie Grove and then took part in the Siege of Vicksburg. Eventually transferred to the 13th Corps in Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks’ Department of the Gulf, the 19th on September 29, 1863, fought at the Battle of Stirling’s Plantation, La. In the Confederate tactical victory that day, nearly all of the Hawkeyes present, as well as roughly half the 26th Indiana Infantry, would be captured. ¶ By mid-October, the members of the 19th had been marched more than 300 miles to Tyler, Texas, and imprisoned at Camp Ford (named after legendary Texas Ranger and Civil War Confederate Colonel John S. “Rip” Ford). The Iowans were among the first of the 5,500 Union prisoners eventually sent to Camp Ford, which made it the largest Confederate prison in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. Importantly, the stockade had a clean water supply, and soon POWs had built suitable wood huts within its 4-acre expanse. ¶ Camp Ford was certainly no Andersonville. In fact, its 5.9 percent death rate was one of the lowest of the war, either North or South. But despite the tolerable conditions, J. Irvine Dungan grew tired of prison life after a few weeks and decided to attempt an escape. After the war, Dungan wrote the 19th Iowa’s official history. The following is part of
