The Fifteenth Iowa Infantry

This regiment was organized at Keokuk in the winter of 1861-2. The companies composing the Fifteenth Iowa were raised chiefly in the counties of Linn, Clinton, Polk, Mahaska, Wapello, Van Buren, Lee, Fremont, Mills, Marion, Warren, Pottawattamie, Harrison, and Clarke, and mustered into service on the 14th of March, 1862. The first field officers were Hugh T. Reid, colonel; William Dewey, lieutenant-colonel; W. W. Belknap, major. Its first service was at the bloody battle of Shiloh, where it went into the fight the day it landed. Colonel Reid and Major Belknap were wounded and the total loss of the regiment was 188. At the battle of Corinth the Fifteenth was under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Belknap, Colonel Reid being sick, and Dewey transferred to command of the Twenty-third. The regiment fought bravely and lost eighty-five men in the battle. It was in Grant's campaign against Vicksburg, taking part in several of the battles without loss. Belknap was now promoted to colonel; J. W. Hedrick, lieutenant-colonel, and George Pomutz, major. The Fifteenth was in General Sherman's Meridian expedition and afterwards in his march and battles through Georgia. At Kenesaw Mountain and before Atlanta it did good service and sustained heavy loss. At the battle of the 22d Colonel Belknap captured the confederate colonel, Lamply, seizing him by the collar. Thirteen Iowa regiments fought in this battle and the Iowa brigade contributed largely to the victory. Colonel Belknap was soon after promoted to brigadier-general, and Major Pomutz took command of the Fifteenth. The regiment continued with Sherman to the end of the famous campaign, and was mustered out at Louisville, Ky., on the 24th of July, 1865.

SOURCE, Benjamin F. Gue, Biographies And Portraits Of The Progressive Men Of Iowa, Volume 1, p. 100