William Sanford Brooks (1839–1864)

William Sanford Brooks was a young soldier from Iowa who fought in the Battle of Prairie Grove and later became colonel of the Fifty-sixth U.S. Colored Infantry, which was based in Helena (Phillips County).

William S. Brooks was born on September 4, 1839, in Butler County, Ohio. He was the eleventh child of Tinley Messick Brooks and Elizabeth Ann Gray Brooks. The family moved to Iowa in 1846.

After the Civil War began, Brooks, age twenty-one, enlisted on April 23, 1861, as a private in Company F, First Iowa Infantry Regiment, a three-month regiment with which he fought at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek in Missouri on August 10, 1861. He mustered out of the First Iowa eleven days later.

On August 20, 1862, Brooks was commissioned as a second lieutenant in Company D, Nineteenth Iowa Infantry Regiment, which was involved in the heavy fighting around the Borden House during the December 7, 1862, Battle of Prairie Grove. In his report after the battle, Major Daniel Kent, the ranking officer of the Nineteenth Iowa, singled out “Lieutenant Brooks, of Company D, who brought the colors [of the Twentieth Wisconsin Infantry Regiment] off the field, and in doing so was badly wounded” in the leg. Brooks was promoted to captain of Company D on March 13, 1863.

After the Union began recruiting Black soldiers in 1863, Brooks secured an appointment on July 7, 1863, as lieutenant colonel of the Third Arkansas Infantry Regiment (African Descent), which later became the Fifty-sixth U.S. Colored Infantry. He was promoted to colonel of the regiment on March 30, 1864.

Brooks participated in the April 29 to May 2, 1864, expedition from Helena to Desha County, during which he fought in a skirmish in which he “severely wounded the robber Miller [and] he received a shot through his coat skirt,” as well as a May 13–14 expedition from Helena to Council Bend and a July 1–2, 1864, expedition from Helena to Stewart’s Landing, Mississippi.

On July 26, 1864, Brooks led a force of 360 infantrymen from the Fifty-sixth and Sixtieth U.S. Colored Troops, as well as a two-gun battery of the Second U.S. Colored Artillery, to Wallace’s Ferry on Big Creek in rural Phillips County. They were attacked there by Confederate horsemen led by Colonel Archibald Dobbins. Brooks was shot from his horse early in the battle and died of his wounds on the battlefield, though his troops, aided by horsemen of the Fifteenth Illinois Cavalry Regiment, fought their way back to Helena.

Writing to Brooks’s mother, Lieutenant Samuel J. Clark, who had served as Brooks’s adjutant, declared that “Colonel Brooks lived a noble life, he died a glorious death. Bitter are our memories of his loss, but sweet are those of his many manly deeds.” A local Iowa newspaper eulogized him, writing, “Thus lived and thus died a talented boy—a brave soldier—an uncompromising patriot. Peace be to his ashes; honor, love and glory to his name.”

Brooks’s remains were shipped to his home, and he is buried in Brooks Cemetery in Jefferson County, Iowa.

For additional information:
“Col. William Sanford Brooks.” Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/33845336/william-sanford-brooks (accessed December 6, 2024).

E Carmichael to Captain T.C. Meatyard, May 4, 1864, National Archives and Records Administration, Records of Named Departments, 393P2E299, Box 1.

Piston, William Garrett, and Richard W. Hatcher III. Wilson’s Creek: The Second Battle of the Civil War and the Men Who It. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

Robertson, Brian K. “‘Will They Fight? Ask the Enemy’: United States Colored Troops at Big Creek, Arkansas, July 26, 1864.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 66 (Autumn 2007): 320–332.

Roster and Record of Iowa Soldiers in the War of the Rebellion, Vol. 1. Des Moines: Emory H. English, 1908, p. 18; Vol.3, 1910, p. 243.

Shea, William L. Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series I, Vol. 22, Part 1, p. 135. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1888.

W. S. Brooks to T. C. Meatyard, May 15, 1864, National Archives and Records Administration, Records of Named Departments, 393P2E299, Box 1.

William S. Brooks Civil War Collection (MSS.06.03). Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. Central Arkansas Library System, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas