November 22, 1906
_____
9:45 A.M.
Music: Fifty-fifth
Iowa Regimental Band
"Lead, Kindly
Light"
Introduction of
Speaker:
Captain Charles W.
Kepler
A son of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander J. Miller, who at the
time of the battle of Shiloh was Lieutenant of Co. G, Sixth Iowa, but who on
July 18, 1863, became Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment, will speak a few
words for the Sixth Iowa Infantry.
Address:
Jesse A. Miller of
Des Moines, Iowa
Ladies and Gentlemen:
We have heard this morning that certain regiments went into
this battle as green troops. That is true of almost all the regiments that were
here, for this was one of the early battles of the war, but there was no
regiment that was placed here in as bad a predicament as the Sixth Iowa. On the
morning that the battle commenced, its Colonel was in command of a brigade. Its
Major was away on staff duty, and its Lieutenant Colonel was drunk and unable
to command the regiment. The regiment fought here on this field for some time,
without any commanding officer at all, except its company commanders, and when
the commander of the brigade found that the Lieutenant Colonel was drunk he had
him placed under arrest and sent to the rear. Captain Williams, who was not a ranking
captain, was placed in command, and he commanded the regiment during the
battle, until he was wounded, and then Captain Walden was placed in command.
And so, while I say they were green troops, they were even worse off than other
regiments, for they started without any commanding officers at all, and when
they got one, he was not the one who had commanded them in the past. And yet
this regiment did as valiant service as any regiment engaged. This regiment
lost more men killed and mortally wounded in this battle than any other from
Iowa, and more than any other regiment engaged, either north or south, with
possibly one exception. I believe the Ninth Illinois had more men killed or
mortally wounded here than the Sixth Iowa.
Throughout this battle, when Albert Sidney Johnston in the
front was charging them, this regiment stood as a wall until they were driven
back, and when driven back, although separated into two detachments, they again
formed and on the second day of the battle they again went into the fight and
fought until the end of the engagement.
This monument is erected to the memory of those who fought
and suffered here, and it is a fitting memorial. The thing it teaches to us is
not so much the valor of those who died and suffered here, as that we who come
after them must live a high and noble life to merit what our forefathers have
done for us. I, as one who was born after the war, as one who knows nothing of
the war except as I have heard and read, feel that I am a better man and will
live a better life for having visited these battlefields; and I believe that
the people of all the states of this Union would be better citizens if they
would visit the battlefields and see what we have seen and hear what we have
heard. I hope that as the days go by and as the years roll on, that annually
there will be pilgrimages from the north and from the south to these fields,
that inspiration may be received by others, as it has been received by us, and
that these memorials will ever tend to raise the citizenship of this country
and make the people of this nation a better and higher type of civilization
than any that has gone before.
Benediction:
Rev. S. H. Hedrix of
Allerton, Iowa
"Our Father and our God, we praise thee for all of this
great work and for this great regiment. Do thou bless the Sixth Iowa, its
living and its dead; Lord bless and care for them all. Help us who are here
today to know that our part is linked together with all of these great
regiments on this and other fields, and do thou keep us all near to thee,
looking forward and upward to better things, with purity of heart and life. May
we keep our schools, our churches, our homes and our land, in all of its
civilization, growing wondrously, in the great Redeemer's name. Amen."
SOURCE: Alonzo
Abernathy, Editor, Dedication of Monuments Erected By The State Of Iowa, 212-4
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