ILLINOIS NINETY-FIRST INFANTRY (Three Years)

Ninety-first Infantry. Col., Henry M. Day; Lieut.-Cols., Harry S. Smith, George A. Day; Majs., Harry S. Smith, George A. Day. This regiment was organized at Camp Butler in Aug., 1862, and was mustered in on Sept. 8. It left for the front on Oct. 1, and arrived at Shepherdsville, Ky., on the 7th. On Dec. 27, at Elizabethtown, after an engagement with the forces of Gen. John Morgan, in which the regiment sustained a loss of 7 killed and a larger number wounded, the regiment surrendered and the men were paroled. On June 5, 1863, it was exchanged and newly armed and equipped for the fray. The regiment was sent to Louisiana, where in the following September the brigade to which it belonged had a fight with the enemy near the Atchafalaya river, the result of the contest being that the enemy held his ground and the brigade fell back 6 miles. On the following day the brigade again advanced, driving the enemy across the river. On Nov. 6 the regiment started for Brownsville, Tex., skirmishing all the way with the enemy, and reached Fort Brown on Nov. 9, going into winter quarters, where it remained until Dec. 31, when it made its famous raid on Salt Lake, 90 miles out in the enemy's country, capturing a lake of salt 2 miles square, a few hundred horses, mules and cattle, which were promptly confiscated for the good of the command. In Sept., 1864, the regiment had quite a fight with the Confederates near Bagdad, on the north side of the Rio Grande, and it was said at the time a squadron of French troops forded the Rio Grande to help the Confederates, but all to no use for they were driven back and over the "old battle field," Palo Alto, of 1846. Throughout the siege of Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely the regiment took a very active part and the fall of those strongholds resulted in the surrender of Mobile on April 12, 1865. Cos. A, B, C, D, F and H participated in a running engagement with Hardee after the surrender of the city, which was the last fight in which the regiment was engaged. The regiment was mustered out on July 12, 1865.

Source: The Union Army, vol. 3

Illinois 91st Volunteer Infantry (Union)

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