The next day, March 27, the South Dakotans bore the brunt of the battle at Marilao, one of the hardest-fought and bloodiest engagements of the war. All of the regiment was engaged and fought with valor. Nine men were killed, including Adjutant Lien and Lieutenants Adams and Morrison. Twenty-five others were wounded, one of them—Sergeant Preacher—mortally.
That day at Marilao another South Dakotan won fame for a most valorous deed: Captain Clayton Van Houten. The bridge across the river had been almost destroyed, so that only the steel stringers remained. The enemy was as usual intrenched across the stream. The South Dakotans plunged into the river and with their guns held high above the water struggled across it. A squad of Nebraska soldiers came up with a mountain howitzer, which Colonel Frost desired to plant upon the further bank of the stream; so he sent Sergeant Major Beck to order the Nebraskans to bring it across. They hesitated to obey, as the only means of reaching the further shore was by the stringers of the broken bridge, and it seemed an impossible feat to carry the gun over so narrow a footing. Captain Van Houten appeared upon the ground at that moment, and, taking in the situation at a glance, he caught the heavy gun from its carriage, swung it to his shoulder, and directing the Nebraskans to follow with the carriage, he carried the howitzer across the river, unaided, on the single span of steel. From the strain of that exertion he never recovered, but died at his home in Worthing three years later.
The regiment continued in the campaign, being among
