Campuses were not immune to war fever. Normal college president Charles Hovey organized the 33d Illinois Infantry, while he convinced students and teachers to spend their time after school and on Saturdays learning to be soldiers.

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In the summer of 1861, Bryant returned to Princeton to recruit a teachers’ brigade, which became the nucleus of Company E of Hovey’s ‘brain regiment.’ Because Bryant had accumulated military knowledge from listening to his father, who had attended West Point, he was elected second lieutenant of Company E. Isaac H. Elliot, chosen captain, later wrote, ‘If the fitness of things had been observed, he (Bryant) would have been captain and I his subordinate.’

The company left Princeton on August 19, arriving at Camp Butler, near Springfield, by September 1. Bryant wrote home on that day, stating cheerfully: ‘We are encamped here in a fine shady grove, with a good clear lake nearby, which the men use freely for bathing purposes. The regiment to which we belong will soon be made up.’ That same month, they moved south. Following the Higginbotham Plantation incident, Bryant’s regiment marched to Arcadia, Missouri for the winter. Here, Bryant and his friends avoided monotony by searching abandoned buildings for lumber to construct tent floors, chairs, bunks, tables and writing desks. Dances and parties offered further diversion. They saw little military action until spring.

In March 1862, the 33d Illinois marched into Arkansas to Bayou Cache. On July 7 Bryant’s unit, with fewer than 300 effective men, defeated a force of 3,000 Texas cavalry, killing 117 Confederates in the effort. In the fall Bryant’s abilities were recognized, and so were Hovey’s. The academician became a brigadier general and Bryant was detached from Company E to Hovey’s staff. He remained in this position, until his skills were again acknowledged early in 1863.

Hovey had been promoted to brigadier general in September 1862 for his conduct at the Battle of the Cache, and soon he left the 33d to assume command of the 2d Brigade, 1st Division, XV Army Corps, under Major General William T. Sherman. As a junior officer under Hovey, Bryant participated in Sherman’s unsuccessful attack on Chickasaw Bluffs and then in the capture of Arkansas Post in January1863. For his conduct in the latter action, official reports submitted by Hovey gave Bryant honorable mention. These reports signaled an end to one phase of his military career.

In the early years of the war Bryant utilized his special talent for quick pen-and-ink drawings and produced 28 sketches of the Missouri-Arkansas region that he kept in a portfolio. Among them are river scenes, soldiers’ off-duty diversions, fortifications, and river conveyances. But after the Arkansas Post victory, Bryant’s new responsibilities overshadowed his art. His leadership capabilities surpassed his other aspirations, allowing no time or energy for observations, except those pertaining to the impersonal art of war.

Early in 1863 Bryant accepted an appointment to major of the newly organized 1st Mississippi Infantry, African Descent. His task involved the discipline of black soldiers, only recently unshackled from slavery. Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas, who had issued the appointment, remarked later in a New York Times article that it had been his purpose to organize black troops into regiments, and that he preferred those white officers whose hearts were fully in the work. Thomas emphasized, ‘I didn’t care what rank he came from, from the highest position down, I was going to select the best men I could find, even if I had to take the colonel from the ranks. The officers should be good.’

Bryant’s first experience as an officer of a U.S. colored unit was a violent one. His first assignment was the defense of Milliken’s Bend. Just 20 miles upstream from invested Vicksburg, a fort at Milliken’s Bend already in Union hands was inadequately manned and in danger of being lost. In addition to the 1st Mississippi, the 9th Louisiana, and the 11th Louisiana black regiments, all comprising the untrained African Brigade, only the undermanned 23d Iowa Volunteer Infantry and the 10th Illinois Cavalry were present.

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