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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY 367
THE SEVENTY-SECOND INFANTRY
This regiment in the main was recruited in the County of Sandusky,
Companies A, B, C, D, E, F, H, and I being'raised almost wholly in
that county, while Company G, and a very small contingent of Companies
II and A were recruited in Erie County. Company K was principally
from Medina County, and a few men in C and E were from Wood
County.
The regiment, about 950 strong, left Fremont for Camp Chase,'on
the 24th of January, 1862. In February it was ordered to General
Sherman's army and reported at Paducah, where it was brigaded with
the Forty-eighth and Seventieth Ohio regiments, and placed under command
of Colonel Buckland.
The first regular engagement in which the Seventy-second took part
was at Pittsburg Landing, and it was not until the third day's proceedings
at that place that it became fully initiated in army service. On this
day, the Cth of April, 1862, the brigade to which our regiment belonged
withstood three successive attacks from the enemy, and firmly held their
position until General Sherman ordered it to retire. The next day it
was again engaged and took part in the charge that routed the rebels
and drove them from the field. This battle cost the regiment 135 men in
killed, wounded and missing.
During the service of the regiment down to and after the siege of
Corinth, the ranks were fearfully reduced by disease, and nearly as many
were lost or unfitted for field service from this cause, as by the results of
battle. At Corinth the army proceeded to Memphis, the Seventy-second
being stationed at Fort Pickering. While here it was brigaded with
the Thirty-second Wisconsin, the Ninety-third Indiana, Ninety-third
Illinois, and the One Hundred and Fourteenth Illinois, and designated
as the First Brigade of the Third Division, Colonel Buckland again
assuming command of the brigade, and General Layman the division.
While holding the bridge over Wolf River the brigade had a 1 taste of
guerrilla tactics, but they suffered no loss. It remained in this place some
two weeks and in January, 1863, received orders to proceed to Corinth,
where it arrived after a long and weary march in the dead of winter.
Here the brigade was assigned to the Sixteenth Corps, and placed on
picket duty at White's Station, nine miles from the city. The strength
of the regiment was increased while at this place by about forty nine
months recruits and other men formerly of the "command who had been
absent and sick.
About the middle of March commenced the movement southward,
by a series of journeys by land and by water until Jackson, Mississippi,
was reached and a battle fought on the 14th of May, and after that
came the labor of the siege of Vicksburg. After the, surrender of that
city the regiment participated in the movement against General Johnson,
at Jackson, and afterward pursued the rebels to Brandon where another
engagement took place. In September the command joined in the four