38th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment - Total Strength and Casualties

Total Strength and Casualties

A total of 1037 men served in the 38th Iowa at one time or another during its existence. The Regiment suffered 1 enlisted man (Bendick Bendickson) killed in action at Vicksburg on July 16, 1863, when he was shot through the head, and one other (Evelyn Califf) who died of his wounds there on July 1 after being struck by pieces of an exploding shell. Four officers and 311 enlisted men died of disease, for a total of 317 and losses from all other causes had been 180. Most of these men died or were discharged due to disease from mid-July 1863 to mid-October 1863. The mortality loss alone amounted to over thirty percent of the total number enrolled, while the aggregate number of its casualties constituted nearly fifty per cent of its total enrollment. The regiment, without having had the opportunity to participate in any one of the great pitched battles of the war, passed through a frightful struggle with disease and death, only surpassed by other regiments whose conflicts with the enemy involved the loss of so many lives in addition to those claimed by disease. This period, when the Regiment lost more men to disease than any other Iowa regiment will come to symbolize the Regiment,s place in Iowa's civil war history.