The soldiers were so well educated that the standard joke was that men discharged for mental incapacity would have made officers in other regiments.

At discharge, Henry H. Pope of Taylorville was lieutenant colonel and Elijah H. Gray of Winchester was major.

In one struggle, Lippincott stabbed an enemy officer in the ribs with his sword and then, grabbing the Confederate's pistol, shot him in the back.

[3] Facing a supply shortage, Curtis marched south along the White River in an attempt to make contact with a Union fleet.

Hovey's force included one cannon and four companies each of the 33rd Illinois and the 11th Wisconsin Infantry Regiments.

As the Wisconsin troops began to fall back, Hovey ordered three companies of the 33rd Illinois to take cover in a cornfield.

When the Confederate horsemen galloped after the retreating Federals, the Illinois soldiers opened fire from ambush, routing Parsons' cavalry.

Later, 200 Union cavalry and two artillery pieces arrived as reinforcements and Hovey's troops began pressing back their adversaries.

After Brigadier General William Plummer Benton's Union brigade arrived, the Confederates retreated rapidly.

During the battle, Edward M. Pike of the 33rd Illinois earned the Medal of Honor for saving a cannon from falling into enemy hands.

The regiment was assigned to the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, Army of Southeast Missouri in November 1862 – March 1863.

[3][note 1] As part of a column under Benton, the regiment made a winter campaign in southeast Missouri, ending at Pilot Knob on 1 March 1863.

[10] A soldier from the 33rd Illinois wrote that their brigade commander Benton lacked the proper qualities to be a general, and that the most courageous thing the man had ever done was to marry a woman after a 10-day courtship.

Genevieve, Missouri, on 5 March, and was then shipped to Milliken's Bend near Vicksburg, Mississippi, where it remained until 25 April.

Carr's other brigade under Brigadier General Michael Kelly Lawler make the decisive breakthrough.

The unit had garrison duty at Vicksburg until August 20 when it was transferred to the Department of the Gulf, where it served until June 1864.

[3] For the 33rd Illinois, this operation up the Bayou Teche was a lark in which the soldiers stole "wagonloads" of chickens from the inhabitants.

The men claimed that this scared the townspeople so badly that they began to fly French flags from their homes.

"[22] When soldiers of the 33rd Illinois and the 3rd Rhode Island Cavalry Regiment got into a drunken fistfight, the Illinoisans ended with fewer injuries.

[24] On 22 November, the regiment landed on St. Joseph's Island with every soldier carrying three days of rations and 80 rounds of ammunition.

[30] On 18 September 1864, the more than 100 soldiers of the 33rd Illinois who had not reenlisted embarked on the steamer Cassandra along with 300 Confederate prisoners that they were assigned to guard.

[3] Entering the statehouse, the soldiers of the 33rd Illinois held a mock legislative session in which they voted for Jefferson Davis to be hanged for treason, army rations to be changed to roast beef and turkey with cranberries, and their army pay to be increased to $100 per month.

[32] The 33rd Illinois Infantry Regiment suffered the loss of 2 officers and 56 enlisted men who were killed in action or who died of their wounds; and 1 officer and 250 enlisted men who died of disease, giving a total of 309 war fatalities.

The band members perform songs with Civil War era musical instruments at re-enactments and other events.