Major Jeremiah WilcoxFifth Iowa Volunteer Cavalry
Jeremiah C. Wilcox was a twenty-nine year old resident of Omaha, Nebraska when he was appointed Second Lieutenant of Company B. However, when a vacancy opened to command Company H, he was promoted on January 4, 1862 to be captain of that unit. While he was serving as the company's company, the regiment was involved in a number of violent battles. During one such engagement, they were forced to battle their way through strong enemy lines out of a surrounded position. During that process, Lieutenant William Hays of their company, was captured by the Confederates. Due to the wound he had experienced shortly before, Wilcox was not with the regiment at the time. Nevertheless, following Hays' capture, he wrote the following letter to Hays' wife:
Camp Patrick Wilcox refers in his letter to Hays' wife to his own recuperation from the wound cited above. Apparently that injury was quite severe, as the following passage from the Official Roster reveals. It was during General Rousseau's Raid that the following occurred:
July 22d at daybreak the march was resumed, and at noon the command reached our pickets at Sweet Water Bridge, and arrived at Marietta at sunset and went into camp, the men and horses nearly worn out with the almost continuous march of thirteen days and nights, during which time the command marched 380 miles, entirely in the enemy's territory, destroyed 35 miles of railroad, five large depots filled with cotton and supplies for the rebel army, one shot and shell manufactory, one locomotive and train of cars, and captured many valuable horses and mules, inflicting a loss on the enemy estimated at twenty millions of dollars All this was accomplished with a loss to us of one Captain and four privates killed and eight privates wounded. All the above loss was in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, except one man of the Eighth Indiana Cavalry, wounded; which shows the prominent part the Fifth Iowa Cavalry bore in what may well be termed the most successful raid of the war. Wilcox did indeed recuperate and returned to his company. He was promoted to the rank of First Battalion Major on September 16, 1864, and mustered out of the regiment on March 4, 1865.
The Fifth Iowa Cavalry site is deeply indebted to Michael Breeling for sharing the civil war image of Wilcox, for which he maintains the copyright. We are also grateful to Laurie Hays Kleen for providing the letter quoted above. She is the great-granddaughter of Captain Hays.
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