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The Second Iowa Battery was organized at Camp Kirkwood on the 4th of July, 1861, with Nelson T. Spoor as Captain, J. R. Reed and David Watling, First Lieutenants, and Fred T. Reed as Second Lieutenant. The record of this battery is a glorious one, and the organization was mustered out of the service on the 5th of August, 1865, it's last fighting being in the capture of Mobile, Ala. When the seige of the latter city began, it was found that the troops were deficient in mortar batteries with which to assail Spanish Fort with the ordinary bombshell. To supply this deficency, wooden mortars were constructed from the ordinary southern gum wood, at the suggestion of Vic Keller, of Council Bluffs, a member of the Second Iowa Battery, and under his direction and supervision with most effective mortar batteries thus organized, they threw shells with the force, precision and effect of a regularly constructed cast-iron regulation mortars. |