- NOTES FROM STEPHEN GREGORY "STEVE" LUKE (1947-2002):
At the beginning of the civil war April 1861, Frederick and Benjamin were living in Leon Iowa.
By the summer of 1862 they had decided to serve the Union cause and both enlisted in a new unit , I company 34th Iowa. They trained at Burlington, Iowa and in October the unit passed muster i.e. or were accepted for Federal service.
The regiment sailed on the Mississippi river to Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis Mo.
Over the next few weeks a measles epidemic killed every ninth man in the regiment, followed by pneumonia which killed one man in seven.
In December 1862 the regiment sailed to Helena, Arkansas, where a smallpox epidemic incapacited or killed one man in six, while the men remained aboard ship for three weeks.
The survivors were assigned to Thayer's Brigrade, Steele's Division, Sherman's Corp, Grants Command and on 27 December entered the lines at Chickasaw Bayou (Chickasaw Bluff). For three days they lay under artillery fire and thunder storms and then charged the enemy across a half mile of open prarie in the face of artillery fire and rifle fire from Confederate skirmishers hiding in several ravines. Reaching the bluffs, they attempted to climb them under enemy fire but failed and with nightfall withdrew.
At the close of battle one man in five from the Regiment had been killed or wounded.
On the 10th of January 1863 the regiment attacked Arkansas Post, coming to within 150 yards of the Confederate line. Remaining there all night they attacked the following day and engaged tthe Confederates in hand to hand combat.Eventually the Confederates surrendered. This battle cost the regiment one man in four.
The regiment was detailed to guard 5000 prisoners aboard ship, and took two weeks to sail to St. Louis, and a further two weeks to reach Chicago. The regiment then returned to Jefferson Barracks, Mo. In time for a smallpox outbreak. Frederick was layed low by this disease and on the 19th of March 1863, was discharged as completely disabled.
Benjamin remained with the regiment, which was down to 240 men from it's original 1100, and in June sailed to Vicksburg, entering the trenches, with Herron's Division, on the 15th and spending 19 days under sniper and artillery fire and patrol actions.
On the morning of the 4th of July a small group of Confederates attempted to capture a Federal cannon, located 3 miles due south of the center of Vicksburg. Several of the Iowans, including Benjamin ran into "no mans land" and fought the confederates hand to hand. They saved the gun, it cost four dead and five wounded, including Benjamin, whose wounds were severe. A few minutes later the entire Confederate Army at Vicksburg, 30,000 men, surrendered. Benjamin was taken by ship to the hospital at Jefferson Barracks, were he died on 27 August,1863. He is buried in section 33,grave 34
at Jefferson Barracks cemetary, St. Louis, Missouri.
Vicksburg was the turning point of the war and Benjamin was possibly the last Union soldier to be killed there, in as much as the surrender took place immediatly afterward, at 10:00 am.
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1821 - 1863 (42 years)
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