plished, Colonel Frederick returned to St. Louis, and after overcoming many difficulties succeeded in getting the nine companies back to the arsenal. The next

thing to be done, was to have them uniformed and drilled. This, also, was perseveringly and successfully attended to by the Colonel and Major McGibbon.

The men and the officers with one or two exceptions, were sadly deficient in a knowledge of military tactics or drills, and Colonel Frederick consequently took upon himself the task of drilling the regiment daily. In a short space of time he succeeded in making them quite well acquainted with company and battalion drills.

About the 1st of September 1861, Colonel Frederick and Major McGibbon, in order to promote the welfare of the regiment and secure good to the Union cause, tendered the command to Captain J. C. Kelton, then A. A. G. for General Fremont. Captain Kelton, after a time, accepted the command with the proviso that Frederick should have the Lieut. Coloneley, and McGibbon the Majority. This arrangement was speedily confirmed by an election of the officers of the regiment, and the organization became complete,-one company only being required to make a full regiment. Upon Colonel Kelton assuming command, he procured the Tenth Company, viz. Company K, Captain Snyder, of Chicago, Ills., commanding, and this completed the Ninth Missouri, Volunteer Regiment.

Company K, was organized in the city of Chicago in

the month of September, 1861. A majority of the men were recruited by Lieutenant Abram J. Davids. It was originally intended as a company of sappers and miners, to be attached to Bissell's Engineer Regiment of the West. At least that was the inducement held out to the men. On the 5th of September the company was not quite full, and its services being needed immediately, forty-five men were taken from the Forty-Second Illinois, (then organizing at Chicago), and enrolled with the company on its muster into service on the 6th day of September, making an aggregate of ninety-seven men. Their camp equipage was drawn on the night of the 6th, and on the morning of the 7th marched under the command of Captain Henry N. Snyder, to the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis depot, and took the cars for St. Louis. They arrived at Illinoistown the evening of the same day, and in the morning crossed the Mississippi, and marched through St. Louis to Benton barracks; they here learned that they were to be attached to the Ninth Regiment Missouri Volunteer Infantry. It caused considerable dissatisfaction in the company, not that they had any objection to the regiment, but they wished to enter the arm of service for which they were recruited. Notwithstanding, there was no disobedience of orders.

On the 2d of September they were armed with Harper's Ferry rifles, and well equipped throughout; no company in the service ever started out better supplied

with ordnance and camp equipage. On the afternoon of the 22d of September they left Benton barracks, marched to the depot, and took the cars en route for Jefferson City, where they arrived the next evening. They joined the Ninth Missouri on the following morning, and embarked with them on the steamer War Eagle, September 30th, bound for Boonville.

On the 22d of September, 1861, the regiment was ordered to Jefferson City, Mo., and on the 26th again ordered to Boonville, Mo. After remaining in camp a short time, Colonel Kelton was placed in command of a brigade, under General Pope. The brigade consisted of the Ninth Missouri, Lieut. Colonel Frederick, commanding; Thirty-Seventh Illinois, Colonel Julius White, commanding, and the Fifth Iowa, Colonel Worthington, commanding.

While at the St. Louis Arsenal, two companies under the command of Lieut. Colonel C. H. Frederick, were sent by Colonel F. P. Blair, up the Mississippi river to Howell's Island, where he captured five valuable steamboats from the hands of the rebels, who were about to use them to cross their forces to the south side, to join the rebel General Price. The total value of property thus secured from the hands of the rebels, amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He also skir mished over the island in search of a rebel camp, and by this movement it was effectually broken up. Those two companies were composed of picked men from the different companies of the regiment.

HISTORY

OF THE

FIFTY-NINTH REGIMENT,

ILLINOIS VOLUNTEER INFANTRY.

CHAPTER I.

The Fifty Ninth Illinois Regiment entered the service of the United States, on the 6th day of September, 1861, under the cognomen of Ninth Missouri, at St. Louis, in that State. At that time the State of Illinois had · filled her quota of volunteers, and would not receive the services of the patriotic young men who had collected themselves together for the purpose of preserving the glorious Union, then in danger of being severed.

The call of the President for seventy-five thousand volunteers, as well as that for forty-two thousand, had been so speedily filled by men whose business engagements, and perhaps entire want of business, permitted to enter the service without much sacrifice on their part, excluded, for the time being, these noble men from entering the service in the name of their own State. Although disappointed, they were still deter mined to devote their services to their country in some useful field of labor. Missouri was the most convenient