The Iowa in the Civil War Message Board

Fort Blakely letter

Here is the text of a letter by Seth Cummins of the 20th Iowa Infantry regarding the storming of Fort Blakely. Letter was recently donated to Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park.

Wedensday 5th – Built bomb proofs to protect us from the enemes shells they shell our camp evry day

Thursday 6th – On fatigue in front building cordroy road across a slough Rebs shelled us but did not drive us from our work Heavy piquet fireing all day

Friday 7th – Co. D, Laid out on piquet line all night to support the piquets Heavy fireing in the morning the Regiment fell in line of battle

Saturday 8th – Heavy musketry at one o,clock in morning the Regiment fell in line and went to the front under Heavy fire one man in Co. _ wounded. Slightly

Sunday 9th – Laid in camp until five in after noon the regiment then fell in and marched to our front works and formed in line of battle and laid down in the entrenchment the colonel did not tell us what we were there for but we very well knew that the enemes works had got to be charged at six we got the command to forward a cheer went up along the line and in an instant we scaled our works and went forward on double quick cheering as we went the Rebs fired grape and canister and miney balls and shells at us but they were so excited that fired to High or to low one cannon ball and two miney balls went throgh our colors. It seems to me a miricle there was not a man of our regiment that got a scrach the Rebs kept up their fire untill we got close to their works then they throwed up their Hands and Hollered we surrender don’t shoot I never saw a lot of men worse fritened. When we planted our colors on their works you never saw nor Heard such shouting and throwing up Hats as went up along our lines. Our line around this place I suppose is about five miles long and the whole line was charged at the same time I do not know what our loss is around the whole line but I Hear it is near eight-hundred killed and wounded I don not think there was an other Reg- except ours on the whole line but what had some killed and wounded the 37 Ills was on our left they Had one killed and seven wounded Leman and Earheart are all right. I will tell you little about the ground we Had to charge over the distance was Half a mile the timber Had ben fell in evry direcion the open spots were full of torpedoes then they Had two lines of stakes set into the ground slanting and the points sharpened and close to them they Had a wire streched about a foot from the ground to throw us against the sharp sticks but we were looking out for their tricks and escaped them all. I think it was about fifteen minets from the time we left our works untill we were inside of theirs the obstrucions did not seem to check us in the least. We got between two and three thousand prisoners and fifteen or twenty peices of artilery and a lot of small arms and a large quantity of provisions

Today is the eleventh day of Apr and we have ben buisey cleaning up and getting ready to leave Here I think we will leave in a few days for Mobile this place is on the opsite side of Tensas river and about ten miles North east of Mobile. I will bring my letter to a close the boys are all well I have a Hard cold My respects to all good by

From Seth Cummins