JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 15 



waiting sometimes harder to endure than being in the midst of 

 the battle. 



Lieutenant Powell was on General McPherson's staff; within a 

 month after his marriage he lost his right arm at the battle of Pitts- 

 burgh Landing or Shiloh. 



General Grant was again at Cape Girardeau and Lieutenant 

 Powell, who then was on General McPherson's staff, begged that 

 he might be relieved from duty at that point as engineer, and or- 

 dered back to his regiment, which was then at Bird's Point. To 

 this the General would not consent, but shortly after sent him a 

 commission as Captain of Artillery. It seems the General had 

 written to Governor Yates, telling him he did not wish Lieutenant 

 Powell to return to his regiment, and that as the State of Illinois 

 was organising batteries of Artillery, he thought Lieutenant Powell 

 could make up a battery with some Missouri soldiers that were 

 there, and who had been enlisted without authority from Washing- 

 ton, under instructions from General Fremont, and that if Gover- 

 nor Yates could send a few men from Illinois, they would be put 

 together in this battery. 



When Lieutenant Powell received this Commission, he was in- 

 structed to take the Missouri soldiers who were camped outside of 

 the city of Cape Girardeau, together with some men sent by Gov- 

 ernor Yates, and with them organise under his command as their 

 captain the company which was afterwards known as " Battery F, 

 Second Illinois Light Artillery." 



While stationed at Cape Girardeau, the troops on two occa- 

 sions were sent into the interior of Missouri to operate against Jeff. 

 Thompson. On two occasions Captain Powell went with them as 

 staff-officer, his principal duty being to study the country and give 

 information of routes and to construct maps of the region to be 

 travelled. 



In the latter part of the month of March, 1862, he was ordered 

 to the Tennessee River. 



In his six weeks' experience with the Twentieth Illinois In- 

 fantry he paid close attention to the study of tactics, and as the 

 Lieutenant of Company H of that regiment he became a good drill- 

 master. When the battery was organised he manifested great in- 

 terest in artillery tactics, and became proud of the performance of 

 his battery on drill and parade. Full of activity, with zeal not 

 always characterised by the wisdom which more deliberate men 

 would have advised, he was a severe and almost unreasonable dis- 

 ciplinarian, drilling his men on every possible opportunity. When 



