The Roster and Record of Iowa Soldiers (1910)
indicates that Joseph Schoepf was a native of Switzerland and a
thirty-eight-year-old resident of Dubuque when he enlisted on
August 16, 1862, in Company E of the 21st Iowa Infantry one week
after earlier company enlistees had been ordered into quarters at
Dubuque’s Camp Franklin. They were mustered in as a company on
August 22, 1862, and as a regiment on September 9th. The Company
Muster-in Roll does not mention Switzerland, but says Joseph was
born in “Tyrolese” (a probable reference to the area known as
Tyrol), was 5' 8" tall and had blue eyes, dark hair and a dark
complexion; occupation mechanic. Like other enlistees, he was paid
$25.00 of the $100.00 enlistment bounty and a $2.00 premium.
They left Dubuque on board the
Henry Clay and two barges tied alongside on a rainy
September 16, 1862. Due to low water at Montrose, they debarked
and traveled by rail to Keokuk where they boarded the Hawkeye
State and continued south. They reached St. Louis on September
20th, spent that night at Benton Barracks, and on the 21st boarded
rail cars of the kind usually used for freight and traveled
through the night to Rolla.
3
On the bimonthly Company Muster Rolls, Joseph
Schoepf is listed as “present” on October 31st at Salem and
December 31st at Houston, Missouri. He continued to be marked
“present” on February 28, 1863, at Iron Mountain, Missouri, on a
“special muster” on April 10, 1863, at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana,
and on April 30, 1863, the day they crossed the Mississippi River
from Disharoon’s Plantation to the Bruinsburg landing in
Mississippi.
On May 1, 1863, Joseph participated in the daylong
Battle of Port Gibson during which regimental casualties were
light. This was the first battle of what would be a successful
campaign to capture the city of Vicksburg. A large battle was
fought at Champion’s Hill on May 16th, but the regiment did not
participate since it and others in its brigade were held in
reserve by General McClernand (although Company I’s Joseph Carter
accidentally shot himself and lost two fingers). The next day they
were rotated to the front of the army and were among the first to
encounter Confederates entrenched on the east side of the Big
Black River who hoped to keep its railroad bridge open so comrades
still withdrawing from Champion’s Hill could cross. Colonels Sam
Merrill of the 21st Infantry and William Kinsman of the state’s
23rd Infantry gave orders to charge and their two regiments led an
assault across an open field.
Casualties included seven killed in action, another
eighteen with fatal wounds, and forty with non-fatal wounds.
Joseph participated in the assault, but was not injured.
After the assault they were allowed to rest,
recuperate, tend to the wounded and bury the dead, but were soon
positioned on the line slowly encircling the city. A hasty assault
on the 19th had been unsuccessful, but General Grant thought a
second assault could have better results. This time the
able-bodied men of the regiment were present. An artillery
bombardment ended at 10:00 a.m. and the assault followed.
Twenty-three members of the regiment were killed during the
assault, twelve more had fatal wounds, and at least forty-eight
had non-fatal wounds. This assault, like the one three days
earlier, was unsuccessful. Some of the wounded crawled back to
their lines under cover of darkness, but it was the 25th before
the stench from the bloated, decomposing bodies became so
offensive that Confederate General Pemberton proposed to Grant "in
the name of humanity ... a cessation of hostilities for two hours
and a half, that you may be enabled to remove your dead and dying
men.”
Joseph Schoepf was among those most seriously
wounded and military records indicate one of his arms was
amputated on the day of the battle. He was transported north,
reached Memphis on June 4th, and was admitted to the Adams General
Hospital. Still in the hospital, he died on June 27, 1863. His
personal effects consisting of one hat, a pair of shoes and a
blanket were to be disposed of by a Council of Administration.
Joseph may or may not have had a wife, children or
dependent parents who applied for a pension, but the National
Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D. C., could
find no pension file and nothing more is known.
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