Alton Jaeger Guards - Outside Corinth, MS
9th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Company A.
9th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment was mustered in on April 26, 1861 for three-month's service, and re-enlisted for three additional years on July 26, 1861. The regiment was comprised mainly of German and Swiss immigrants and was commanded first by Col. Eleazer Paine, but he was replaced by a Prussian officer, and eventually revolutionary from the "Hecker Uprising" of 1848, Col. Augustus Mersy.
After the Battles of Ft. Donelson, Shiloh, and the Siege of Corinth, the men of the "Bloody Ninth" were a tattered remnant of the once proud German regiment. They led the charge at Ft. Donelson, losing a third of their men. The regiment then went into action at Shiloh with just under 600 men. By the next day, only 70 answered the morning role call. For the next year, the regiment was assigned to duty in Corinth, MS where it did mainly guard and picket duty, with occasional reconnaissance probes and small raids were sent out, while the regiment licked its wounds. Having earned the trust and admiration of the entire Army of the Tennessee, "The Bloody Ninth" as they became to be known would take advantage of their brief respite from major action.
After their duty in Corinth, the regiment would take part in operations against Vicksburg. They would go on to see action at Kennesaw Mountain, Peachtree Creek and Jonesborough. They took part in the March to the Sea and the Campaign of the Carolinas. They returned home after the Grand Review in Washington DC.
Company A, The Alton Jaeger Guards had only a small fraction of the same faces return to Alton that had left in 1861. This album gives a look at how the 9th Illinois Volunteers would have appeared during the late summer months of 1862.