The 33rd Illinois was on duty near Helena until 1 September 1862, including being in action at Totten's Plantation on 2 August. The regiment was assigned to the 1st Division, District of Eastern Arkansas in July–November 1862. The unit skirmished at Bolivar Township in Poinsett County, Arkansas, on 24 September and Friars Point, Mississippi, on 28 September. The regiment was assigned to the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, Army of Southeast Missouri in November 1862 – March 1863. It marched first to Pilot Knob, Missouri, and arrived at Van Buren, Missouri on 15 November. As part of a column under Benton, the regiment made a winter campaign in southeast Missouri, ending at Pilot Knob on 1 March 1863. 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.