Friday, November 23, 2012

Good for the 1st Iowa Cavalry

ST. LOUIS, March 24. – The following is a copy of a dispatch to the Secretary of War:

“A detachment of the 1st Iowa Cavalry sent out from Jefferson city by Gen. Totten against a guerrilla band had a skirmish with the enemy killing and wounding one and taking seventy-five prisoners, over twenty horses, forty-eight kegs of powder and a quantity of arms were captured.  Our loss was four wounded.

(Signed.)
H. W. HALLECK,
Major General.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 29, 1862, 

1 comment:

Sean McLachlan said...

I've read a lot about small-unit action in Civil War Missouri and it seems that quite often the amount of booty taken was a lot greater than the size of the fight would lead one to believe. Either commander's were exaggerating (a common problem in the OR) or people were hightailing it as soon as powder started getting burnt.
Losing that many horses and kegs of gunpowder would have been a serious setback for the local rebels.