The Seventh Iowa Cavalry

This regiment was made up largely of companies raised for other organizations, and was not fully organized until July 1863.  Its field officers were: Colonel, Samuel W. Summers; lieutenant-colonel, John Pattee; majors, H. H. Heath, George W. O’Brien and John S. Wood.  The regiment was sent to Omaha, where it remained until July 1864, but many of its companies were scattered at posts on the western frontier.  In Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas they marched and were in several skirmishes at times with the Indians. At Julesburg, in Colorado, Company F, under Captain O'Brien, fought a band of Indians, killing fifty-five of them and losing thirteen men. Colonel Heath fought and defeated the Indians in a battle near Alkali late in the fall, and for a long time had command at Fort Kearney. The Seventh cavalry was not sent south during the war.

SOURCE: Benjamin F. Gue, Biographies And Portraits Of The Progressive Men Of Iowa, Volume 1, p. 123