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RECOLLECTIONS

WITH THE

THIRD IOWA REGIMENT:

BY
LIEUT. S. D. THOMPSON.

CINCINNATI:
PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR.
1864.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-four, by

LIEUT. S. D. THOMPSON

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the U. S. for the Southern District of Ohio.

[iii]

PREFACE.

At the solicitation of some of my comrades, the pages of thisbook were for the most part compiled from a diary which Ikept during most of the two years I served with them, andwhich was written amid the scenes it attempts to describe. Tofurnish them a faithful account of the principal scenes throughwhich they passed during this period, including sketches of theoperations in which they were engaged, and of which our Regimentformed a part; a record of what they saw, and did, andsuffered, such as I thought they would like to read in futuredays, has been my object in presenting it in this shape. As itwas written for my comrades, to them I dedicate it; and ingiving it to the public, I have only to say that if it suits them,it suits me. With regard to facts which have since becomehistory, to which I have had occasion to refer, I may have committedsome errors and inaccuracies; my book was not writtenin the library of the historian, but in the tent of the soldier,and with few exceptions without other information thansuch as observation and report could supply. In speaking ofprominent officers under whom we served, I have not forgottenthat some of them are still my superior officers, and that it innowise comports with my duties as a soldier to assume to betheir historian or critic. But the time has come when the conductof those who have passed into civil life may be criticized[iv]by those who were their inferiors in the military service. Ofsuch I have endeavored to speak honestly but plainly, rememberingthat they dealt plainly with us.

I am under obligations to Col. Scott, 32d Iowa, Lieut. Chas.P. Brown, A. A. Q. M., Fort Pickering, W. B. Lakin, Esq., CollegeHill, Ohio, for valuable favors and assistance. I trust that timewill afford me opportunities of paying them in a better mannerthan by this public acknowledgment.

And now I give these pages to the public, with the singleregret that the deeds of men who have so many titles to honorand gratitude could not have been better recorded and by amore worthy hand.

S. D. THOMPSON,
Fort Pickering, Memphis, Tenn., March, 1864.

[v]

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