After spending two months training at Camp Fuller near Rockford the regiment took to the field, proceeding to Jackson by way of Cairo and Columbus.

There they joined the growing army under Major General Ulysses S. Grant, who was preparing to advance on the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg.

This abortive first move against Vicksburg ended when the Union supply line at Holly Springs was disruption by Confederate cavalry under General Earl Van Dorn.

Reassigned to the XVII Corps under General James McPherson in January 1863, the regiment spent time in occupied Memphis before embarking down the Mississippi River to Lake Providence.

Their brigade was thrown into action at the Battle of Champion Hill but by the time they reached the front the enemy had been defeated and was fleeing back toward Vicksburg.

Ransom's brigade of General John McArthur's division, plunged ahead and gained a point near the Confederate works.

In this assault Colonel Thomas Humphrey was wounded in the foot but remained in control of the regiment and led them off the field when ordered to do so.

After spending the rest of the summer in Natchez, the regiment returned to garrison duty at Vicksburg through the fall and winter of 1863.

In early March 1864, the regiment was detached from the Army of the Tennessee and joined the Department of the Gulf under General Nathaniel P. Banks.

Union commanders ordered the fort destroyed by explosives, but nobody told the 95th Illinois and other regiments that were camped nearby.

The day was murderously hot and their brigade was rushed in to support Grierson at the double-quick, with many men falling out due to the heat.

Finally Captain Almon Schellenger took command and held the regiment together as Confederates wrapped around both left and right flanks.

The line held for about two hours but the surprising vigor of Forrest's assault was too much and the 95th Illinois, along with the rest of the Union force, fled from the battlefield.

In the late summer of 1864, with the presidential election approaching, Confederate general Sterling Price made a final desperate attempt to bring Missouri into the Confederacy and sway public support away from the Lincoln Administration.

The Battle of Nashville was a complete disaster for the Confederates and what was left of Hood's Army of Tennessee fled into northern Mississippi.

[8] The regiment stayed in Eastport for a month and faced sickness and starvation as freezing rain, snow, and muddy roads prevented their supply wagons from reaching them.

In March they once again loaded onto a troop transport and taken to an island off the Alabama coast for a few days where the men busied themselves with hunting oysters.