"Wants to Hear From Many."

On January 31, 1907, Private William Royal Oake of Company A, 26th Iowa wrote in earnest to the editor of The national tribune, in hopes of finding the boys of the 26th he had passed through the war beside. In the process, he left an interesting account of the volunteers from the Fifteenth Corps who manned the Tigress to "run the guns" at Vicksburg but failed in their attempt, washing ashore atop floating debris. Oake met these men in the Vicksburg Jail where he was himself at the time, having been captured while fighting in John Thayer's Third Brigade of Steele's First Division during the fighting.
 

Wants to Hear From Many.



Editor National Tribune: How is it I never see anything in The National Tribune from any of the old 26^th Iowa boys? Are they all dead or are they still behind stumps and in the ditches, where so many of them were during the war, afraid to come out for fear of being shot? Come out of your holes, boys; the war is over, and you won't be shot! I would like to hear also from the boys of the 76^th Ohio and 27^th Mo., which for quite a while were brigaded with us. Especially would I like to hear from Serg't Sam Cooper, Co. A, 27^th Mo., or from any of the boys who may know of him or who were in prison with him in 1863. I also would like very much to hear from the boys of, I think, the 57^th Ohio, who volunteered to go as crew of the transport Tigress, which was trying to run the batteries at Vicksburg in the early part of 1863. She was sunk and the crew all taken prisoners and confined in the Vicksburg jail, where I was at that time. There were newspaper men on that ill-fated steamer when she sank. There were three of them on board, all representing New York papers, I think, who were captured and confined in the Vicksburg jail with the rest of us cattle. One of them was a man by the name of Richardson, who was afterwards shot in New York by a lawyer named McFarland. One of the others was the author of a book entitled “Four Years in Secession.” Well do I remember the morning these men were brought to jail. They looked like drowned rats. They had been floating on bales of hay which had been used as a protection to the steamer, and when she sank they took refuge upon them until picked up by the rebs and brought to Vicksburg Jail. Let me hear from any of those boys thru the columns of that valuable paper, The National Tribune.

– W.R. Oake, Co. A, 26^th Iowa, Sabula, Iowa.

Source: The national tribune, 31 January 1907.