CIVIL WAR CENTENNIAL COMMISSION-1969 Part 1

Years of Valor
by
EDITH WASSON McELROY
Published by
THE IOWA CIVIL WAR CENTENNIAL COMMISSION
1969-Part II

Civil War Part 1

When the Civil War blazed, Iowa was a young state, barely fifteen years old, untried,
as were its hundreds of youthful volunteers who marched out to battle. Five years later,
these men returned, matured, seasoned, unafraid of whatever might lie before them, ready
to build the new Iowa which would emerge during the next few years.
Iowa's pioneer period was brief. It ended climatically with the Civil War's close. The
years from 1861-65 transformed its scattered settlements into a closely knit whole. The
men who had marched with Sherman to the Sea, who had fought at Vicksburg and
Shiloh, who had seen a way of life disappear before their onslaught, brought home with
them a new sense of values. Destruction was no longer for them. Now they sought
security, permanence, a future with a place in it for them. In a hard school they had
learned to work together to win an objective. During the years to come, they would turn
this knowledge to advantage.
33 War
As the clouds of war formed and slowly moved closer, John Meigs joined the little
groups of men in town, at church, in the fields, who stood on the corners, around a
glowing stove, or by a plow, arguing and debating states' rights, the extension of slavery,
the new Republican party. A few of the hot heads clamored for war: "Time we show 'em
we mean business," growled an angry man. "We can lick 'em in a month! The younger
men talked eagerly of forming militia companies, drilling, and being ready for war when
it came.
Jeremiah was restive, anxious as were his friends to show the South the North meant
business. "They'll back down in a hurry!" he told John. John's look of worry deepened:
"It's not that simple, boy," he said. 'The Southerners are Americans, same as we are.
They're fighters. Put on uniforms and march into Missouri and you'll be starting
something that can't be stopped. Lincoln's got a level head on him. He's slow to anger but
quick to stand for the right. Give him time!"
Deep in his thinking John knew that war was close . . . closer than he dared admit.
"It's the Union we must consider," he told the excited men. "Nothing must weaken its
structure. The Union is first."
Like the majority of his neighbors he did not believe in slavery, for himself at least,
but where it was established he was willing to accept it as an institution. The pioneer was
quick to resent intrusion into his beliefs and rights, equally quick to grant the same
privilege to others. "Let them keep their slaves," said John "so long as they keep them out
of Iowa and the new states. After all a man's property rights must be protected!" The
more sober-minded agreed. Property rights were the foundation of the new nation. Belief
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in the rights of the individual was strong in early America. Uneasily aware that slavery
was morally wrong, Iowans nevertheless recognized that slaves were property. John
agreed with Lincoln that if the slaves were freed, their owners should be reimbursed for
their value.
"Slavery is wrong," said his friend, Quaker Isaac Garretson. "No man has the right to
own another man. America cannot survive if we permit men to own the bodies and souls
of others."
"Perhaps," said John. "Perhaps." He disagreed with the violent arguments of the fiery
abolitionists. Like thousands of other men across the nation he was slow to move,
unwilling to force his opinions on those of differing beliefs.
"We founded this country so folks could think as they chose," he told Ezekiel Barnes
who was for gathering a group of men and boldly marching into Missouri to free the
slaves across the state line. "Better we get together and talk it out. Maybe we can find a
peaceful solution." The calm reasoning of his Quaker friend Garretson sank deep into his
thinking. The Quakers were neither hotheads nor troublemakers eager start a fight. There
was sound thinking in the arguments of Garreton and his group. John thought uneasily of
his own attitudes. Freedom to him was paramount. Without it nothing else was important.
To be free . . . that was the one thing worth living for.
He thought of his children, happy, well fed, looking forward to a safe and secure
future. He remembered the little black children huddled in his wagon, ragged, hungry,
frightened, on their way to an unknown, uncertain future. Helping these families to
freedom seemed right to him, but were these families whom he had helped different from
others like them in the South; families unable to find their way to liberty?
John shook his head and laughed wryly: "I'm purely unreasonable" he thought. On the
one hand I help runaway slaves into Canada, and on the other hand I accept the system
that makes this situation possible!" The Quakers, he admitted, had a long history of
struggle for freedom for all men; struggle for the dignity of human beings. Isaac
Garretson and his like didn't believe in killing, but over the years they had endured abuse
and mistreatment while standing for their belief in human liberty.
"I fear it will come to war." he told Mary sadly "and our sons will fight it. The
differences between North and South are too deep to be settled with words. We're too
much alike. Neither side will back down and say it is wrong. Too bad we can't sit down
and work out our problems with talk. Since we can't, it will take bullets and blood and
death. It's like a fight between brothers, more bitter and ugly than a fight between
strangers."
Mary sighed. Her boys, so strong and young and good, must they die fighting to free
men and women whom they had never seen? She, too, thought of the fleeing families
they had sheltered. Even if their color was different, they were human beings. The
mothers loved their children just as she did. She thought of the tiny Indian baby the
children had found hidden in the brush by the creek after the Indians had camped there
for a day. He made no sound, but his big black eyes followed her every move.
"Can we keep him, Ma?" the children begged. "He's so sweet!" The baby clutched at
her heartstrings. "If no one claims him," she promised them gently.
When Wa-te-ma-ho, the Indian chief, at his heels a young girl her face covered with
her blanket, demanded the child. Mary carefully dressed him in the little clothes she had
made, and gave him to the pair.
"His father was a wandering white man," John angrily told his wife. "The girl was
frightened. Thought she and the baby would be killed. That's why she hid the child. I
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talked with Wa-te-ma-ho. He speaks English. Made him understand the baby was his
grandchild. He's promised to raise the boy as his own."
"And the girl?" Mary breathed.
"She'll care for the boy. It's a big step forward in Indian thinking. A few years ago
Wa-te-ma-ho would have killed both without question."
Mary watched the Indians go toward the west. The boy was not white but she loved
him. If the chief had not come for him, she would have raised the child as her own. "It is
better the baby be with his own people," she told the crying children, "even though he
leaves a vacant place in our hearts. It is better he be with his own people."
"Black, white or red," she told herself "we're all people and we must learn to live with
and respect one another."
She remembered the night when John Brown with his friend, J. B. Grinnell had
slipped into their home after dark. For hours John and the older children sat by the fire
talking with their visitors. The tall, gray old man, his eyes flashing, told of his plans for
the raid on Harper's Ferry. He spoke of the price on his head and the search being made
for him:
"It is," he cried, "a disgrace to sit still in the presence of the barbarities of American
slavery. Slavery has made me an outlaw, but an old man should have more care to end
life well than to live long!"
Brown told how he had crossed the line into Missouri and carried off eleven slaves
who were to be "sold down the River". With the help of friends he had spirited them
across Iowa and into Canada. Mary never forgot Brown's story of the baby who was born
during the flight and who was named John Brown. A baby she thought sadly, without
shelter or food except that given it by kindly folk along the road.
"It's a question," John said after the visitors were gone "if what Brown did was right
or wrong. Slavery is the law in Missouri. Brown's men stole property, not only the slaves
but wagons and teams with which to transport stolen property. Two wrongs don't make a
right. We should correct these wrongs by law not by violence, either war or Brown's
way!"
Reason was not to prevail. In the early hours of April 12,1861, a shot echoed across
Charleston Harbor, the first shot of a war that was to last for four endless bloody years
and cost many thousands of lives to say nothing of millions of dollars.
Three days later President Lincoln called for 75,000 militia to maintain the law,
integrity, national union, perpetuity of popular government, and redress wrongs long
condoned."
Iowa replied with more men than Lincoln asked for.
34 Arms
At the time of Lincoln's election, the nation's leaders knew the country was sitting on
a volcano—a volcano ready to erupt at any moment. While the new president sat in his
Illinois office awaiting the day of his inauguration, Governor Kirkwood visited him
bearing the message that although Iowa was greatly disturbed over the unhappy state of
the nation, the state would never consent to the dissolution of the Union.
"Iowa will not," said Kirkwood stoutly "be frightened into abandoning its principles."
When the tidal wave of war rolled across the land, Iowa was fortunate its governor
had the judgment and common sense needed to face the crisis and measure up to its
demands. As did Lincoln, he exemplified the concept that the times produce the man. He
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was calm, sensible, patriotic, with an earthy wisdom. He did not seek war, but when he
realized it was inevitable, he accepted it. As an institution he was opposed to slavery, and
strongly against its extension into the new lands, but where slavery was an accomplished
fact, he was willing to make compromises.
Four days after Sumter, following his call for 75,000 volunteers President Lincoln
through Samuel J. Cameron, Secretary of War, wired Governor Kirkwood asking for one
regiment of militia. The telegram was received in Davenport then the terminus of the
wires. Governor Kirkwood was in Iowa City, and Vandever who later was to become a
major general, volunteered to deliver it to him. When he reached Iowa City on horseback,
and rode out to the Kirkwood farm, he found the governor dressed in homespun working
in the field. Kirkwood read the message and exclaimed: '`The president asks for an entire
regiment! How, Mr. Vandever, can I raise that many?"
The Governor's question was decisively answered within the next few days. When he
told Lincoln that Iowa would not abandon its principles, he spoke truly. Iowa
immediately took a stand for the Union Dissenters existed but they were an impotent
minority in the vast sweep of patriotism that brought thousands of volunteers into as yet
non-existent camps. The original regiment was filled with hundreds unable to find a place
in its ranks, clamoring to go. Press and public agreed the war would be of short duration,
and young Iowans feared it would end before they could taste its excitements.
The First was ready and eager to march but it lacked guns, ammunition, uniforms. So
many had volunteered that the governor authorized two additional regiments. To the War
Department he reported. "I can raise ten thousand men in this state, but we have no arms!
Send us arms!" The state's treasury was empty, taxes were unpaid. The economic crisis
that blackened the years 1857-58 still hung heavy over the land. Kirkwood called a
special session of the Legislature, and in May, 1861, the assembly voted $800,000 in
bonds, a tremendous sum in those days. Selling the bonds, however, was not so simple.
The young state was in debt. Its people were impoverished by the financial debacle of the
late fifties.
To get the First Regiment to its rendezvous, Governor Kirkwood promptly pledged
his personal fortune, added to by similar pledges from his friends. To insure Iowa's first
soldiers in the Civil War such necessities as blankets, food, and tents in which to sleep,
he gave his personal bond pledging not only his property but his earnings in business and
from the state. The state's banks promptly came to his aid, loaning thousands of dollars
without security and without thought for repayment.
When the governor called for volunteers, except for a few companies of militia the
state was totally unprepared militarily. The militia which originated in pre-Revolutionary
times as a frontier protection against Indian outrages and attacks by the French, Spanish
and English enemies had in the 1850's become a social organization rather than a
practical fighting machine. Uniforms were colorful, designed to catch the eye when the
company was on parade but completely inappropriate for wear in the field. Dances and
social affairs to which the young men about town invited their girl friends were the units'
chief activities. Few of the companies were armed and equipped for more than drilling on
the courthouse square or taking part in the grand march at the annual military ball. Now a
military organization must be built from its beginning.
The day after Sumter was fired on, Senator J. K. Graves of Dubuque and his brother,
R. E. Graves, sent word to the governor they would honor his drafts in the amount of
$30,000, a sizable sum in those days, to aid in equipping men for the front. Banks all over
5
Iowa made like offers. Railroads carried volunteers without charge. Private citizens gave
generously of supplies as well as money.
Jeremiah Meigs told his father he was enlisting.
Without comment John hitched the team, loaded the wagon with supplies, and the
two drove into Burlington.
While the boy stood in the long line of youthful volunteers before an oak table in the
courthouse square, clamoring to enlist, John walked soberly into the bank and pledged
food, animals, his services, wherever and whenever they were needed. At home, Mary
kept her hands busy packing blankets, food, and the simple necessities Jeremiah would
need. On top of the pile she laid her well worn Bible, the one her mother had placed in
her hands when she and John had left Indiana for Iowa. For a long moment she looked at
the Bible remembering the times it had brought her comfort. The night when her babies
battled the death-dealing diphtheria, and one had died. The long day when John, driving a
team of oxen, had been caught in the great blizzard which after hours of struggle brought
him safely home. At last she folded her hands across it and prayed that the road be not
too difficult for her boy. She walked to the window and looked across the fertile
blooming acres which she and John had developed from prairie sod and knew she could
not ask that Jeremiah be spared. "No", she sorrowfully told herself "I cannot ask for that.
Too many women in our country today, North and South, are watching their sons march
away into untold dangers. Not all can come back. I will only ask that Jeremiah be given
the strength to meet each day." She brushed a wandering strand of hair out of her eyes
and took one long last look across the fields. A look which said good-bye to the good life
she and John had known and which faced the deadly unknown future. "This," she said
softly "is farewell to a way of life!" She walked into her kitchen planning as she went on
what she could spare from their stores of food from the wool from their flocks, from their
cured meat.
She remembered what John had said at breakfast: "Wars are won with supplies, with
materials, as well as with men. Victory will come to the side with the most pounds of
meat, the most rounds of ammunition..."
"Don't forget men, Pa," said Jeremiah, "One good Northerner is worth a dozen
Southerners!"
John smiled slowly "Don't over estimate yourself, boy! Those southern boys have
plenty of gimp, too! They're as smart as you are, as brave, and believe as you do that one
of them is worth a dozen of boys like yourself!"
He spoke yet more slowly: "In the end, victory will go to the side with the most
money, the most men, the most brains, the most food! Wars are won by organization.
Organization of men and supplies, and wise planning on how and when to use them. This
war will be no different. Because it will be a battle of brothers, it will be more bitter,
more ugly, and with more lasting scars. It is a sad state when men of the same country
must resort to war to settle their differences. Keep your head, boy, and remember North
and South alike are Americans!"
Jeremiah did come back. He was no longer the boy who ran so lightly to the wagon
where his father waited to drive him into town to enlist but a man tough and hard,
seasoned by thousands of miles of marching; of facing men like himself, armed and
seeking their chance to kill him; by hunger, and cold; bearing the marks of wounds and of
horrors faced. The shabby Bible was still in his pack reduced now to a few and necessary
articles, the excess tossed out along the line of march. "Months went by, Ma, when I
didn't look at it" he confessed to his mother. "Sunday doesn't mean much when you're
6
under fire, but there were times when I knew I couldn't take one more step ahead; times
that I opened the Book and for a moment it brought you and home to me. I knew the
reason I was where I was, and it gave me strength to live through another day."
Mary took the worn book and laid it on the clock shelf where for so many years she
had kept it "Thank you, God," she murmured softly, "You answered my prayers!" But
today this all lay far ahead in the uncertain future and for years to come her part was to
write as often as she could hoping at least a few of her letters would reach her son
wherever he was, and to help in every possible way to produce the supplies to keep
Jeremiah and the other lads fed and as comfortable as it was possible for them to be.
Meanwhile across the state, Republicans and Democrats were forgetting old
animosities, and meeting together to plan for a common cause. Money, materials, food,
even a brass cannon were quickly donated, and sent to the camps or onto the wharves for
shipment south. Women spun wool, and wove it into cloth for uniforms or shipped it to
the new factories springing up everywhere to do this work more efficiently than it could
be done by hand. Gardens were expanded, flocks of chickens were increased. Cattle, pigs,
sheep, fed on the lush pastures grew fat for slaughter on the corn and oats and wheat
raised by the older men.
The women of Burlington led by the wife of Senator Grimes made 300 soldiers' coats
in six days. The newly organized Women's Relief Corps quickly spread to every cross
roads settlement. Patriotism became the religion of the day. From every pulpit patriotic
sermons were preached that heightened the frenzy of enlistments. The ant-slavery clergy
saw the end of the hated bondage in sight and publicly rejoiced. Serious minded men and
women recognized in the crisis a tremendous test of the principles on which the Union
was founded.
From the towns, from the farms, Iowa's young men marched with firm step and
strong heart to the southern battlefields.
John Meigs went soberly about his daily rounds. He laid careful plans to increase his
planting, to enlarge his herds. Food will be needed," he told Mary. "With so many young
men gone and going, it means the older men, and the women and children, must take up
the load. We can't raise too much.'" He read the reports in the few Burlington papers he
was able to secure, and talked with men returning from the camps and from the front.
"The time may come when men my age will be needed," he told Mary. Mary looked at
her younger children, at Araminta and Hiram and Isaac. Surely Sarah and Mary were too
young for even the long war John said this would be, to go. Already Isaac, 13, was
marching proudly up and down the road beating the drum his great grandfathers had
carried in the War of 1812 and the Revolution.
He had begged for the drum and John with a premonition of what lay ahead, took it
down from above the great stone fireplace in the keeping room and gave it to him. Later
when Isaac joined his brother on Sherman's March to the Sea, proudly beating the drum
at the head of the regiment, Mary sadly realized she had known from the moment John
handed Isaac the old drum, that the boy, too, would march away. Hiram she knew would
go. Araminta she had thought would be spared. But Araminta went south with Annie
Wittenmeyer as a nurse in the Army hospitals.
Through the years as John hauled load after load of grain and stock to the wharves in
Burlington, he saw his prediction fulfilled. Great piles of corn lay on the wharves waiting
transportation. The decks of the stern wheelers were heaped high as they drifted out into
the river. Cheering young soldiers rode on top of the heaps and slept wherever a corner
could be found.
7
In the early years of the war, Grant in particular opposed foraging along the way. The
Federals bought and paid for supplies secured along the line of march. Occasional
chickens, a young pig, or water melons disappeared from their owners to reappear in the
rations of men tired of corn pone and the monotony of army rations, but foraging from
the plantations along the way was frowned upon. Later in the war, Grant reluctantly
adopted Sherman's belief that an army should forage as it moved. The difficulties, not
only of producing food on northern farms stripped of their able-bodied men, and the
transportation on boats essential in shipping the endless reinforcements of recruits for
replacements in the field, made living on the land through which the army moved,
economically sound. "Every pound of food." said Sherman "our army uses is that many
pounds of food the enemy cannot use. It is food the civilians cannot eat which will
weaken their opposition." A ruthless policy but as Sherman pointed out "war is hell", and
the more rapidly it can be brought to a climax the less of life and property loss there will
be in the long run.
35 Attitudes
The first camps were small and ill-equipped, Since the Mississippi was the great
highway south down which the troops would move by packet, inevitably these were
located along its banks. Later regiments rendezvoused at inland areas; Mt. Pleasant, Iowa
City, Des Moines. In later years, Council Bluffs on the Missouri also became an
important muster point. Since communications throughout the state were limited,
centralization of troop training centers was essential. From three to five days were
required for a letter to reach Des Moines from Keokuk. The Burlington Hawkeye
advertised for a "pony" express to carry its papers from Eddyville to Des Moines, a
distance of seventy-five miles, in five hours. Army centers sprang up where orders could
reach them with the least delay.
The First Volunteer Infantry Regiment rendezvoused in Keokuk. Governor Kirkwood
had recommended Davenport to the Secretary of War as the better location since Keokuk
had neither railroad connection to the east or telegraph wires. To the distant War
Department, Keokuk's proximity to the half rebel state of Missouri made it seem the
logical point from which to start south, so Keokuk it was.
In these first camps the enthusiastic young volunteers received a dampening
welcome. Their bleak accommodations lacked even the supposed essentials. Each man
was supposed to receive a woolen blanket in which to wrap himself on his bunk stuffed
with wheat straw, but often this was not possible. Mothers learning of this lack, sacrificed
cherished hand woven blankets, comforters and quilts, to protect their sons from the cold
and the rain. The tents were primitive and there were no sidewalks. When it rained, the
water spread across the field and being no respecter of the military, crept into the shelters
soaking the rude beds. Snow was less of a problem. It banked up against the outside of
the tents and kept the bleak winds from sweeping across the mud floors.
For light each man received a candle; a luxury for which he had scant need. At
daybreak he crawled stiffly from his bunk to spend the daylight hours in drill. By dusk,
his bed was a welcome sight. In many knapsacks the daily candles accumulated. They
were seldom used except when the boys spent a few moments at night in writing plaintive
letters home about their plight. Letters which resulted in new volunteers from their home
areas arriving in camp weighted down with blankets, food and such small luxuries as
worried mothers could send for their sons' comfort.
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Neither was the food provided to the recruits' liking. By the 1860's Iowa farms were
stocked with cattle, lush with food crops. Pantry shelves were crowded with jams and
preserves. Fat hens swimming in noodles or dumplings, roasts of beef and pork, fried
chicken and game, with a half dozen vegetables and a variety of baked delicacies,
decorated the Sunday or holiday dinner table. The state's fare was plain and largely
produced on the farms, but it was plentiful and good. In camp not only was the menu
limited to staples, but the food was cooked by the men themselves over an outdoor
campfire without even the simple convenience of an Iowa kitchen of that day. One man
wrote home that his first meal consisted of boiled potatoes, fried fat pork, and baked
beans; a meal that but a few months later when he was punching cold corn pone in
Missouri, would have seemed sumptuous. At the moment, lacking the tasty touches of
mother's sweet cream butter, jams, crusty homemade bread, vegetables and pickles, the
meal seemed meager indeed. The beans were hard, the bacon swimming in a sea of fat,
the potatoes half peeled. Huddled by a flickering campfire as he ate in the rain, many a
lad salted his food with tears! But
there were bright moments, too. Frequently the kindly townspeople brought huge baskets
of home-cooked food and picnicked with the men. New volunteers arrived, covered with
dust, their mounts winded and steamy, or lacking a ride and having walked, their feet
swollen and their muscles aching with exhaustion. But their saddlebags or knapsacks
were heavy with fried chicken and apple pies, which they shared with their new found
friends. Occasional men developed a knack for cooking or had earlier learned the art in a
home lacking women folk As the days passed, and the men at last moved down the river,
they ruefully learned that eating was no longer for pleasure, but to keep a man's body
strong. Often they ate the wretched food only to keep alive, and forgot it as soon as
possible.
Arms and equipment were impossible to secure. Volunteers were abundant but not
guns The change from handmade to machine made guns was underway, but the
manufacture of guns by the thousands was still in the future. In the camps, sticks,
shovels, broom sticks, served instead of muskets, and regiments moved down the river
armed only with makeshifts. Every variety of gun, even ancient flintlocks, were issued.
On one antedated type of gun, men had to bite off the cartridge ends before loading these
ancient models, and recalcitrants evaded the draft by pulling their front teeth, and thus
were unable to tear the papers. Fortunately the use of a gun was common frontier practice
and few boys of army age were unfamiliar with loading and discharging a weapon. Once
the gun was placed in their hands, they could use it. At Shiloh, Iowa regiments marched
from river boat to battlefield, to load for the first time, their just issued guns under enemy
fire.
Early volunteers furnished their own uniforms. Many communities raised funds to
purchase materials, when the materials could be had, and local women, not always too
professionally, cut and sewed them into shape. Some militiamen were already uniformed,
but these outfits were too often designed to delight the eyes of the onlookers, particularly
those of the ladies, when the company was on parade, rather than to endure the mud and
rain of a southern battlefield.
When the First Regiment rendezvoused at Keokuk, the companies arrived in the
motley array of their various organizations. Their jackets varied from dark blue to light
gray. The pants differed from black with red stripes to pink satinet with light green
stripes. Dubuque's Governor's Grays, one of the first companies to volunteer, wore a
uniform identical except for the buttons, to that which later became the Confederate gray.
9
Bright red plumes nodded merrily on Burlington's hats. In action these proved so
attractive a target for Confederate sharpshooters, that they were precipitately discarded.
The regiment's uniforms, made of sleazy material thought adequate for summer in
Missouri arrived in that state badly worn, particularly behind. Resourceful lads made
aprons from flour sacks, reversing the customary wearing position. An officer observing
this deviation sharply ordered the men to turn the aprons about. The resulting disclosure
brought a hasty change of command.
Shoes were equally unsatisfactory. Until the Civil War, footwear was largely
handmade usually by the village cobbler, and were designed to fit either foot with equal
comfort. One of the manufacturing developments of the Civil War was a vast increase in
the shoe industry, but in the war's initial stages, much of the footwear was shoddy, poorly
made, and illy formed. The constant marching wore these shoes out quickly, and soldiers
often walked barefooted for miles in snow and slush, or in footwear so worn as to be of
no protection.
With few exceptions, officers and men alike, had little training for war. Militia duty
during a long period of peace had become a social rather than a military obligation.
Service was on a volunteer basis, since compulsory military training was unknown and
unpopular. The brief interval in camp before the volunteer regiments shipped out was
spent in intensive study and drill; lessons surprisingly well taught and well learned as
demonstrated in the brief but bitter Missouri campaigns.
Dust and mud were an intolerable burden to Iowa's camp cities and towns, as it was
wherever soldiers assembled in large numbers. Except in rare instances, hard surfaced
roads were unknown. On the river front the tramping of thousands of booted feet down to
the transports churned the soil, wet or dry. Davenport reported its sidewalks in sad repair
from constant usage, and loosened boards a menace to unwary pedestrians. In 1860
householders fenced animals out not in, and the prevalent wooden fences vanished in the
smoke of cooking fires, leaving vegetable gardens and lawns unprotected from the family
cows and hogs. Public buildings suffered from the jocular soldiery, but despite the
irritations the citizens whole-heartedly welcomed the young men so soon to be under
gunfire on southern battlefields, and turned out with huge baskets of food for the camps.
Food which the boys received with cheers and sadly remembered in the lean days to
come. The people of Keokuk greeted the First Volunteer Infantry with a "grand picnic,"
offering both food and speeches, and bravely continued to welcome the new recruits and
returned veterans until the close of the war.
Volunteers became a commonplace to Keokuk which had four camps, as they were in
the other river cities. During the four years of war, army transports crowded the river
front. Six mule-team wagons piled high with supplies clattered down dusty or muddy
streets to the wharves. A bestarred general, his mount's hooves plop-plopping in and out
of the mud, made his way from camp to steamboat. Regiments moving south stepped
briskly along the town's main street.
As the heavily loaded boats, the men crowded along the rails, moved slowly down the
river, crowds of well wishers on shore waved hats and handkerchiefs, their cheers turning
to tears, as the billowing smoke from the funnels hung low over the rolling water, and
drifting heavily through the treetops lining the banks, obscured the boat from view. River
boats burned pitch pine beneath their boilers, and so heavy was the river traffic from
Dubuque and Davenport to Keokuk and south, that the sluggish oily smoke continuously
drifted along the river banks.
10
All too soon, similar black smoke clouds loomed to the south. The boats now loaded
with wounded men, were returning. April 19, 1862, the first hospital ship from Shiloh,
the John Warner, slid somberly into port with 1900 wounded men aboard. A half hour
later, the Governor Wood, equally loaded, joined her. Now the camps housed two groups:
the young and healthy men on their way to war, and the refuse of that war; the sick, the
worn, the battle-scarred. Schools, hospitals, public buildings, were commandeered to give
shelter to the wounded. Through the long months, the sorrowful cavalcade crept slowly
into port, many to die, others to live with shattered health. As late as July, 1865, 1500
patients were ill in camp in Keokuk. And it was but one of the cities with army hospitals.
As the war progressed, many camps took on permanence. Camp McClellan in
Davenport, the United States recruiting depot for Iowa was pleasantly situated on hills
rolling back from the Mississippi with a spacious view of the river and its teaming traffic.
The camp was built on three sides of a square leaving the side toward the river open The
buildings built of rough pine boards housed the myriad activities of a great army on the
march, with parade grounds, a hospital, quarters for men and officers, a commissary, and
headquarters. In the early 1860's, Davenport was a thriving young city with many
handsome buildings and many business transactions. Because of this and its possession of
both railroad and eastern telegraph wires, it became at various times during the Civil
War, the site of five military camps: McClelland, Roberts (later named Kinsman), Joe
Holt, Herron and Hendershott, the last being in service only during 1861-62.
By the close of the war, camps for the volunteers were built across Iowa from the
Missouri, to the Mississippi. One of these, Camp Harlan at Mt. Pleasant has today a few
remnants of Civil War occupancy. In particular a spring house on the walls of which are
crudely scrawled initials of men who stopped in for a drink of the cool spring water
which still flows across its floor. The buildings here were of rough pine boards, 80x20
feet in floor space, high enough for three tiers of double bunks between floor and eaves.
Smaller quarters for officers and stables for their mounts were also built. Other camps
consisted of rows of white tents which vanished when the troops marched out, leaving
only rubble to show where they had stood. When a new contingent arrived, the tents
bloomed again. By 1865, the army had become an organized functioning machine into
which raw material was poured to come out trained, equipped fighting men. In one of the
finest armies the world has known, Iowa held a proud place.
36 Heritage
Due to the shifting of its population, Iowa faced the Civil War pro-Union and
anti-slavery. Its leadership was Republican, a party new and untried in both state and
nation, with inexperienced leadership, without cohesion, with an undisciplined party
organization. There was little unity between the states and the nation faced the secession
of some of its oldest and best organized states. In spite of this, in North and South alike,
there was a unanimity of purpose unusual in civil war. Civil wars are apt to be
disorganized, poorly managed, without central leadership. The American passion for
organization made itself apparent in both North and South. The Civil War's military
program is still a pattern for army organization. Several of the world's greatest generals
were created in its ranks. The rank and file of its army has never been surpassed. In its
columns marched a type of man developed in its pioneer system of a quality superior to
anything produced before that era.
11
As we have said, in the North except for certain hard-core groups there was little
organized opposition to slavery as it already existed. As an institution slavery was
deprecated but as an academic problem The Quakers in Iowa helped the slaves as did
other individuals, but it was only as an incident in a broad political movement. The
average Iowan as did the citizens of other states had sublime confidence in the power of
our institutions to bring about justice without war. Nevertheless when war came, Iowans
stood ready to defend the union, a position deeply ingrained in their thinking which the
abolishment of slavery was not. The small group of abolitionists who violently and
unquestioningly opposed slavery, were not always the true friends of the Union. Iowa's
patriotic service in civil life largely originated among the men and women who were not
extremists but who steadfastly insisted the country see the war through until its end.
When Lincoln decided that emancipation was essential to the war's continuance, these
men and women supported his stand.
Iowa's heritage of freedom came to it from the old Northwest Territory. Prohibition of
slavery in Iowa was proclaimed by the Missouri Compromise and in 1839, the Supreme
Court of Iowa ruled against slavery within its boundaries, and that its laws must protect
men of all colors. The constitution of 1846 stated forcefully that neither slavery, nor any
involuntary servitude unless for the punishment of crime should be permitted. A proviso
which still appears in our constitution:
Sec. 23. There shall be no slavery in this state; nor shall there be involuntary
servitude unless for the punishment of crime.
The years from 1835-1865 began and ended the pioneer period. This included not
only the transformation of our prairies from a vast sea of waist high grass spreading from
horizon to horizon into an ocean of productive fields, but a bitter war which enlarged and
revolutionized the economic scope of those years. The war left in its wake a tremendous
liability which must be paid either as an honest debt or by inflation.
The state faced a demand for transportation to accommodate the increasing flow of
population and a rise in its production which must go to distant markets. Immigration
problems must be met. Many of the early settlers resented the flood of foreign
immigrants, forgetting that the Indian met their forefathers with equal resentment.
Protection became a political catchword designed to bring the agricultural vote into the
Republican party. Industrial enterprise and the mechanics for bringing a better, freer life
to the state were in the air. Tremendous changes were also taking place throughout the
world. The intrusion of masses of people from foreign countries into America was
bringing new attitudes, new thinking, in their wake. The Suez Canal and other new forms
of transportation were reducing distances and bringing boundaries closer together.
In Iowa, a people accustomed to hard labor and drudgery were finding themselves
living in a comfort beyond that of which they had dreamed. Security was won. Not the
unbelievable, gadget-filled life of today, but a life which encompassed food, clothes,
shelter, the necessities, even a degree of luxury. Now the pioneer could escape from his
log or sod cabin into the ornate frame houses with wide porches and many windows. He
could buy books, music, art, even travel. The self discipline imposed in conquering a new
land held him back from foolish extravagance of materials and attitudes. No state church
or school or pre-destined way of life hampered his mind or his freedom of choice. The
pioneer and the soldier made it possible for the prairie lands created by the destruction of
the wilderness to become a center for outstanding character and intellectual development.
Boys and girls trained and educated in Iowa with their roots deep in our black soil, go out
today as leaders in every field of endeavor. They succeed in the arts, the sciences,
12
industry, the professions, all of the varied interests of the complicated world about us.
This leadership is a culmination of the pioneer period in the state's history which laid the
strong foundations for our later accomplishments.
37 Bullets
While history records no Civil War battle on Iowa soil, invasion from slave owning
Missouri was a constant threat, and along the border feeling ran high before and during
the war. Missouri was a hotbed of dissension with slave owners opposing those who
believed the state should be free. Iowa's open aid to runaway slaves was a source of
resentment of Missourians, and Missouri's retaliatory abuse of unionists aroused the ire of
Iowans.
When news of the routing of Union troops at Bull Run flashed across the nation, and
Missouri secessionists went wild, the fear of border Iowans that Missouri was a threat to
their safety increased. Citizens slept with guns at hand. Governor Kirkwood authorized
the organizing of militia in southeastern Iowa. When rumor spread the rebels were
marching north boasting they would breakfast in Athens (Missouri), dine in Farmington
and sup in Keokuk, a few home guards and virtually unarmed recruits were the border's
only defense.
On Sunday, August 4, 1861, word came that a band of confederates, the number
varying from 500 to 2000 according to the reaction of the person bearing the tidings, led
by the notorious Mart Greene, was approaching Athens. Mexican war veteran, David
Moore, born in Missouri whose sons were rumored to be with the oncoming rebels aided
by Colonel Belknap's Rifles and Captain Semplers Cavalry (on foot at the moment) from
Keokuk met the enemy and routed them.
The Fifth and Sixth Volunteer Infantry regiments rendezvousing in Keokuk were
hastily dispatched to the border but arrived too late— the battle was over. Threatened by
Union soldiers in force, the Confederates had retreated. Since the rebels were mounted
and the Federal on foot, they escaped. The Iowans marched into Missouri but were
unable to overtake them. The northern recruits gained a night of campaign experience
bivouacking in an open field and had a breakfast of hard tack.
During the fighting, men from Primrose, Salem, and surrounding communities armed
with whatever weapons they had, many with only hatchets, knives and clubs, hurried to
Croton, ready to defend their homes should the Johnny Rebs overcome the Union troops
and cross the river into Iowa.
The number of casualties varies. The Keokuk Gate City listed the Confederate dead as
43. The Chicago Tribune gave the dead as 14, and the wounded as 40.
Unable to overtake the fleeing Confederates, the Fifth and Sixth marched back to
Keokuk where they were loaded on steamboats and moved south.
Two landmarks are silent proof that gunfire touched Iowa. The Benning home in
which a cannon ball went through the wall stands on the south bank of the Des Moines
River in Missouri across from Croton, Iowa. The Sprouse house in Croton where
wounded were cared for and which the elder Sprouse, among the battle wounded, later
died. This quaint little cottage, typical of the Civil War era, was presented by the Sprouse
family to the Iowa Society for the Preservation of Historic Landmarks as a permanent
monument to the battle. In turn, that Society presented it to the Lee County Conservation
Commission which will maintain it. Local historic groups are anxious that this house and
the open land sloping down to the river may become a state park, preserving Iowa's
13
single claim to a Civil War battlefield. A community center is already being maintained
there, and each year on the Sunday closest to August 6, the anniversary of the "Battle of
Croton" is observed. Actually, only bullets and a few cannonballs reached the Iowa side
of the river. The battle or "skirmish" as historians term it, was fought at Athens, Missouri.
The Des Moines River formed the boundary between North and South in the struggle,
but the feelings of the residents were not so clearly defined. In one school near Athens, a
pro-southern teacher's attempt to influence children of Union parents precipitated a
school battle injuring several pupils. When angry parents headed for the school, the
teacher fled, never to be heard from again.
Standing by the Sprouse House where the land slopes gently down to the tree
bordered river banks, it is difficult to imagine that peaceful Iowa was once threatened by
enemy troops, and that wounded men were carried into this quiet little white frame house,
and laid on the old plank floors to be cared for by the women of the community.
Incredible as it may seem, one hundred years ago neighbor fought neighbor, and states
looked angrily across their borders at one another.
38 Northern Brigade
With the removal of the bluecoats who manned the northern and northwest military
posts protecting the isolated settlers in these areas from the warlike Sioux, to serve as a
nucleus for the Union's volunteer armies, the Indians swept down on Minnesota in the
most terrible massacres in the history of our country.
For a time, so great were these massacres and depredations, that it seemed the
northern border settlers must leave their homes or die. Many fled with their families to
the interior of the state carrying such of their possessions as they could. A few with the
hardihood to remain banded together using the largest cabin in the community as a
blockhouse when the danger signal sounded, hoping to fight off the Indians until new
troops could arrive. Some of these daring ones were killed or captured. Many of the men
who led their families to a place of safety, enlisted in the army hoping the end of the war
would bring peace to the frontier and allow them to return to their homes.
As always Governor Kirkwood moved promptly. He sent George Davenport to the
Minnesota frontier to make a first hand report. The massacres, said Davenport, were the
largest ever known. Six hundred persons were killed and one hundred women and
children were in the hands of the Indians. The hostiles, he reported, were defiant. Boldly
they were attacking forts and soldiers, plundering stores and farmhouses, driving off
livestock. The constant attacks kept the settlers in a state of wild alarm. More than five
thousand persons, Davenport estimated had left their homes with resultant suffering and
loss of property. A chain of forts across northern Iowa, said Davenport, would bring the
Iowans back to their homes and encourage them to remain and continue the production of
food so needed to feed the army. The situation would grow worse for Iowa, he reported,
as Minnesota aided by the United States Cavalry drove the Indians to the Missouri River
from which vantage they could more easily raid Iowa's scattered and defenseless
settlements.
From Minnesota, Davenport traveled west crossing the Missouri River and on
through the Nebraska Territory to the Omaha Reserve where he found this tribe living in
two large villages busy farming. They were in comfortable circumstances, and,
fortunately, friendly to the whites. Further north were the Poncas, another peaceable and
quiet people. On the east side of the river were the Yankton Sioux, who were stealing
14
fewer horses than was their custom, and who had refused to join the Santee Sioux in the
Minnesota raids. The Missouri River border, said Mr. Davenport, was in no danger from
these tribes From the Yankton Sioux, he learned that Little Crow, the Indian leader
planned to escape into the Black Hills with his helpless prisoners captured in the
Minnesota raids. At once, Davenport set in motion a plan to secure a trade for these
women and children, but friendly Minnesota Indians had already accomplished this.
Davenport reported that, as was too often the case with the Indians their
dissatisfaction arose from mistreatment by government officials. War inflation played a
part also. This year the Indians had been paid in goods instead of money. The previous
year goods were cheap, and the money paid the Indians bought much more. Now because
of war prices, goods were high, and the Indian received less. Naturally he believed his
agent was cheating him.
On his way home, Mr. Davenport visited the Tama Fox. This was the group which
eight years previously had returned from Kansas and purchased land. He found them in
starving condition. Their annuities had not been paid, as each individual was required to
collect them in Kansas. Because of the distance this was impossible. To support
themselves the Fox were raising corn and beans, and hunting. Now because of the
settlers' fear of Indian raids. the Fox dared not leave their land to hunt, which meant
traveling to a distance, and they feared white attacks. They asked only that their annuities
be paid. White men's fears of the Fox, reported Mr. Davenport to the governor, were
groundless.
Meanwhile the governor had named another agent, S. R. Ingham, to survey the Iowa
settlements. In Dickinson, Emmet, Kossuth, Humboldt, and Webster counties, he found
the inhabitants in a frenzy of fear. Oddly, so Mr. Ingham noted, this fear was less in the
border counties closer to the Minnesota raids than in those further inland. In Emmet and
Kossuth counties he was told all that was needed was a small force of mounted men
stationed on the east and west forks of the Des Moines River to act with United States
troops stationed at Spirit Lake, but the settlers made clear, they did not want young,
inexperienced volunteers from the interior. They wanted men chosen from among
themselves, trappers and hunters, familiar with the customs and habits of the Indians. One
such man, Mr. Ingham was firmly told, was worth a half dozen of the untrained men sent
earlier.
A company of forty men was quickly raised, officers were elected, the men mustered
in and armed. Twenty were sent to Chain Lake, and twenty to Estherville on the west fork
of the Des Moines, the company to be increased if necessary.
Forty regulars from the Sioux City Cavalry were stationed at Spirit Lake.
Frontiersmen, these men understood the Indians and their fighting customs. Both on our
northern frontier and in the Indian territory these men gave long and arduous service.
Arms and ammunition had already been distributed in several counties, but these were
recklessly used in hunting small game. The arms were carried off or traded. Fear of the
Indians was less it would seem than the settlers' urge to hunt and profit. The available
arms were collected, and with whatever ammunition could be located, placed in central
locations. A good man, Mr. Ingham suggested, should be hired to guard them. The
settlers of Kossuth and Emmet counties were eager for arms but there were none
available, nor the ammunition necessary to face an Indian attack. Fortunately a gun was
considered as essential to the pioneer farmer as his plow, so had a raid occurred, it would
have found the settlers at least partly equipped, even though not all their guns were of
recent design and their owners were lacking in ammunition.
15
His mission in northern Iowa ended, Ingham started for the northwest where the
Indians driven from Minnesota were gathering. The repelling of the tribes from our
northern borders was turning them to the Missouri, endangering our outlying settlements
in that area.
At Fort Dodge he learned the legislature had authorized troops for the northern border
protection, each troop to include not less than forty nor more than eighty men. Each man
was to furnish his own horse and equipment, Sioux City, Denison, Crawford County, Fort
Dodge and Webster County were to each raise one company. Spirit Lake-Chain Lake
already had one company.
Tools to build block houses and stockades were provided. These forts were to be
rallying points for the settlers should the Indians attack the scattered settlements,—a
place where security could be found until help could be sent. Food for men and horses
was to te furnished by the state. Said Governor Kirkwood, the first objective was the
protection of the frontier; the second to affect it as economically as possible. Two
hundred and fifty men were mustered in. Not all the horses met army standards but as
they were the best available, they were accepted. One company was stationed at Chain
Lake, one at Estherville, parts of companies at Ochevedan, Peterson, Cherokee, Ida
Grove, Sac City, Correctionville, Little Sioux and Melbourne. With the troops at Sioux
City and Spirit Lake, this made a fortified line from Sioux City to Chain Lake, with
blockhouses and stockades at Correctionville, Cherokee, Peterson, Estherville and Chain
Lake. At Spirit Lake, a stockade was built around the red brick courthouse, turning it into
a fort.
In establishing these posts, the settlers' wishes rather than those of the military were
recognized. Said Mr. Ingham "since these works were solely for their use and benefit, if
the settlers themselves were satisfied certainly the state should be."
With but a single exception, Peterson, the settlers enthusiastically entered into the
project, supplying timber without charge for the buildings, in some instances, delivering
it to the proposed fort. At Peterson, owners of the large bodies of standing timber
demanded payment. Since the fort was for the settlement's protection, Mr. Ingham
ordered that material furnished be accepted, and anything additional be assessed as
equally as possible. Where timber was scarce, sod was used to build the stockade walls.
Forage for the animals was a major problem. The companies put up hay from the
surrounding prairies, but as it was late in the season the quality was poor. Little corn and
oats were grown in the vicinity of the posts, and the settlers demanded high prices.
Considering their only market was the troops sent at their urgent plea to protect their
families from the savages, this was slightly inconsistent. Hauls of twenty to sixty miles
were often necessary, and the severity of Iowa's northern climate added to the wagon
train's difficulties.
In June, 1863, Lieutenant Colonel Sawyer reported the northern order works were
complete. In late September of that same year, the Indians were routed by General Sully's
forces at White Stone Hill in Dakota Territory. With the lessening of the danger, the
Northern Border Brigade was disbanded, and a smaller force substituted, although
General Sully protested this reduction of his small force. Adjutant General Baker pointed
out that other states received credit for men raised for temporary defense since they were
mustered into the United states service. Because the national government had been to no
expense or trouble in this Indian warfare, he stated this injustice should cease, and
suggested that the men so released enlist where the state did receive credit for them. Not
16
until many years dater did this Brigade receive pensions and recognition as veterans,
although they served in situation brought on by the Civil War.
There is no record the Brigade engaged in battle with the Indians, but they endured
frontier hardships and stood ready should need arise. While constructing the fortifications
they were in continual danger from raids as well as suffering from the bitter cold of
winter. The Indian danger past, the men were eager to return home or to join the Union
forces in the south.
That the war begun in the South placed a heavy burden on the frontier states of the
North who were compelled to furnish both a quota of volunteers and to guard their
borders against hostiles, is seldom noted. With every man needed on the southern front,
to station an army of regulars along the northern borders was impossible. The wise and
warlike Sioux were well aware of this weakness. When the governors of Minnesota and
Iowa joined hands to protect the desperate settlers against an enemy more vicious and
dangerous than the rebels to the south, it meant the raising of militia companies.
Railroads into the danger area were non-existent, and the Missouri River was the main
route of transportation to Sioux City and the northern territory. Lurking savages along its
banks made the route a dangerous one, thus slowing relief to the settlers.
Before the formation of the Northern Border Brigade, only the Sioux City Cavalry
Company and three companies of Iowa Volunteer Infantry were in service on our
northern frontier. So small a number could do little more than protect themselves and the
immediate area in which they were stationed.
Later the Sixth and Seventh Iowa Volunteer Cavalry saw active duty along the
northern border. On mustering in, the Sixth was ordered at once to Sioux City, and then
into the Dakota Territory policing the restless tribes. The Seventh Regiment Iowa
Volunteer Cavalry was later organized to assist in this defense against the Indians.
Eight companies mustered at Davenport marched to Omaha, and from there they were
transferred with the Sioux City Cavalry and three companies of the Forty First Iowa
Infantry stationed at Fort Randall and scattered by detachments over a wide area.
These companies escorted wagon trains, then moving west in great numbers,
protected emigrants, guarded lines of travel, scouted, and watched the warlike Sioux.
They fought in the battles of Horse Creek, White Stone Hill, Tahkahokutah, Bad Lands,
Little Blue, Jules Burg, Mud Springs, as well as in many skirmishes with roving Indian
bands.
With the Bluecoats engaged in a bitter war far away in the South, the Indians found
tempting opportunities to plunder and raid scattered settlements and homesteaders. The
area of these raids was so wide it kept the cavalry constantly in the saddle pursuing the
elusive raiders, who swept down on isolated homes and settlements.
Under General Sully with Fort Pierre as their base, the Sixth and Seventh Iowa
Cavalry with the Second Nebraska and the "Prairie Battery" moved up the Missouri, met
the steamer bringing supplies and camped at the mouth of the Little Cheyenne River.
Here the battle of White Stone Hill was fought. The number of Indians reportedly
engaged varies from 1200 to 1500. General Sully had between 600 and 700 men. The
hostiles armed with rifles, shotguns, revolvers, and bows and arrows, were beaten and
driven off the field.
General Sully notes that much plunder was found in the deserted Indian camp. He
reports "I do not exaggerate when I say we burned four or five hundred thousand pounds
of buffalo meat and a very large quantity of property of great value to the Indians."
17
The troopers could well have taken lessons from the Indian hunters. Earlier in the
same report the General notes, "We came into the buffalo country and I formed a hunting
party of the command which I had soon to disband as they disabled more horses than
buffalo."
The destruction of the Indians' winter food is ironic when we read the report of a
Seventh Iowa captain that he is leaving Laramie en route to Julesburg with 70,000 rations
for the Sioux! Further in his report we learn that despite these rations the Indians suffered
from starvation during the winter months. Typical also of the era is the report: "By actual
count the number of my prisoners is one hundred fifty-six-men thirty-two, women and
children one hundred twenty-four.''
Iowa troopers protecting emigrant trains and scouting the Indians, traversed the vast
bleak region from the Missouri to the Yellowstone. A band of Indians camping beside the
Bad Lands was driven into its arid depths, and again great quantities of food were
destroyed. When at last the Yellowstone was reached two little river steamers, Alone and
Chippeway, loaded with supplies, the Stars and Stripes bravely flying from their
mastheads, floated on the swift waters. Aided by the steamers ferrying the men across the
river, the Iowa troops reached Ft. Union, the country of the Crows to the west, the
Assiniboine to the east, and even to the British possessions on the north.
Much of the troopers' time was spent in marching, or quartered in forts, without sight
of the Indians, except for those who lived under the walls. At Fort Sully one letter-writer
describes the monotony of their garrison life being broken by "hops" at which their
partners were Indian maidens who danced as gracefully as city belles.
At Horse Creek, Captain Wilcox reports his men marching from Laramie to Julesburg
in charge of 185 lodges of Sioux Indians, 1500 to 2000 persons in all. By day they moved
along the glaring sandy country north of the Platte, Indian signal smokes pointing
skyward along the sand hills of the horizon. By night a close guard was kept against the
loss of their mounts or skulking attack. One morning after a night long palaver between
the supposedly friendly Indians accompanying the troops and the hostiles, the train
moved out at five o'clock in the morning with Captain Wilcox's men in advance, the
wagon trains following the troops and the Indians in the rear. Just as the wagons were
moving out, Captain Wilcox heard a shot. Fearful for the families of Captain Fouts and
Lieutenant Trigg, and a woman and child rescued from the Indians, Wilcox circled the
wagons, the teams inside and the men ready for action. A breathless messenger reported
that Captain Fouts hurrying the Indians along had been killed. Captain Wilcox hurriedly
dispatched a rider eighteen miles to the nearest telegraph station to ask for help.
Mounting their starving horses (forage was non-existent) seventy men rode to the rear
to find the Indians had fled to the nearby Platte. Assuming part of the Indians were
friendly, Wilcox charged the band bedecked in fight array circling on their war horses
while their women and children swam the river, asking his Indian friends to return. To his
amazement they charged. Faced with 500 warriors better armed than his little band, he
fell back to hastily dug rifle pits around which the screaming Indians circled refusing to
fight the men so protected. When Wilcox marched out, he realized that Indians in greatly
superior numbers were forming ahead and riding over the hills. Prudently he retreated
and awaited the reinforcements which soon came to his rescue.
At Julesburg, the Seventh suffered its greatest loss. After wintering at Fort
Cottonwood, the regiment moved to Fort Laramie and then to Julesburg. Here 37 men
engaged 1500 warriors concentrated for battle. The Indians retired and Major O'Brien
18
ordered his men to follow to the bluffs ringing the post. Suddenly from every ravine and
from behind every rock, the Indians erupted. A hasty retreat left 14 men dead on the field.
A writer of the period comments that in battles with the Indians, the killed far
exceeded the wounded, while in battles with the Confederates, the wounded exceeded the
dead. Evidently in Indian warfare, a wounded man preferred to fight until killed rather
than fall into enemy hands.
The history of our northern border fighting is monotonous. Life on a plains cavalry
post was filled with danger and loneliness. The marches were long, each regiment
covering three to five thousand miles in their years of service, always in a desolate land,
far from civilization. For a time the Department of Missouri as this service was known,
was under General Dodge (Iowa) who devoted his energies and those of his men to
making safe the overland lines of travel for the emigrants.
Much of this vast wasteland was not at that time thought suitable for settling. It
served only as a path over which the wagon trains journeyed to the far west, and as a land
in which the Indians survived under almost unendurable conditions. The men who
struggled to make the overland trails safe for the emigrants and to protect the settlers
along Iowa's northern borders, and those still further away in Minnesota, Dakota and
Nebraska, are seldom mentioned in the great saga of the Civil War but they played an
important role for Iowa during those desperate years. Without them, our northern
settlements would have been ravaged, and our central Iowa communities endangered.
Lacking their watchful surveillance, the westward tide of emigration would have been
slowed to a stop, and the vast upward economic surge after the war retarded. Not for
many years after the war's end, did Iowa take proper recognition of her northern border
fighters in the volunteer militia companies.
39 Southern Brigade
While Iowa along its northern border was confronted with Indian warfare, along its
southern border it had problems with its rebel neighbors. Just across the state line,
Missouri was seething with internal conflict. Rebel raiders were attacking Missourians
who favored the Union, and these attacks were returned. The state's sentiment was
bitterly divided. Northern and Southern sympathizers formed two armed camps. The first
Union troops sent into Missouri guarded not only railroads and army supplies from
Confederate sympathizers but protected Unionists from their neighbors. Union troops
were hurried here and there across the state to repel threatened rebel invasions as well as
to control the local rebels.
A large Confederate force stationed at Grand River, Missouri, boldly threatened to
invade Iowa, and the southern border settlers were panic-stricken. At the least, the force
was making life uncomfortable for Union sympathizers. Lt. Colonel Edwards sent to
investigate the situation, ordered troops concentrated at Allenville and Chariton and
hurriedly asked Keokuk for more men. After a show of force on both sides, an exchange
of messengers and no doubt, of threats, a treaty of peace was agreed upon in which
Unionists and Confederates in Missouri would lay down their arms and join in enforcing
Missouri's laws. The treaty, Colonel Edwards knew was entered into by Union
sympathizers because of their fear for their lives and property. and the secessionists were
the more bold because of this fear. Many northern sympathizing Missourians were
abandoning their homes and property and fleeing into Iowa and other northern states,
which encouraged the rebels to still greater audacity.
19
This border unrest was handicapping the Union army. Fifteen hundred Iowans left
their harvest fields and families to rush to the aid of their Missouri neighbors, resulting in
a great loss of standing grain. The arming and military parades along the border did have
one constructive result. It encouraged the Missouri Unionists to come forward, take the
Union oath and remain in their homes to cultivate their crops and the economic lives of
their communities.
Colonel Edwards, however, reported that had the rebels stood their ground and
attacked, they might well have vanquished our untrained troops fighting in the unfamiliar
hills and timber of Missouri. Our citizen soldiers, he said, without officers or training,
might well have killed one another or have been killed or captured by the enemy. He also
reminded Iowa that the loyal Missourians fed and cared for our citizen troops, many
spending their last dollar to do so.
The immediate urgency over, Edwards pitched his camps and set about organizing his
companies in readiness to march across the border should need arise. He sent out spies
who passed as secessionists in rebel camps and war councils. He frankly admitted the
enemy had spies in his camp as well. Throughout the Civil War the infiltration of enemy
camps was constant. Particularly in the states bordering the line between North and
South, where families were often divided in their sympathies, Confederates and Unionists
alike sent spies into opposite camps with comparative ease.
In September 1861, defense camps extended from the east line of Appanoose County
to the west line of Taylor County. General Pope, then in command of northern Missouri,
authorized Colonel Edwards to take any steps necessary to protect Unionists and prevent
an invasion of Iowa. Three hundred refugee families from Missouri were camped on
Iowa's prairies, and in Iowa homes sleepless nights were frequent. Mounted Confederates
were daring riders, and between darkness and dawn, a raider troop could sweep up from
Missouri into Iowa, to burn and plunder a quiet home.
At Allenville, without commissary stores and without equipment, Edwards was
headquartered with seven or eight hundred men, to face some 1200 rebels encamped
twenty five miles from the Iowa line on the Grand River.
The southern counties were in a state of wild excitement. Iowa border families fleeing
into the interior of the state, abandoned acres of crops ready for harvest at a time when
the nation was crying for food for its army. More daring citizens joined the army or the
militia to protect their families, likewise dooming their crops to ruin in the fields.
At last Colonel Edwards marched on St. Joseph, with the rebels, fortunately,
retreating before him. Joined in St. Joseph by Colonel Cranor of Gentry, Missouri, they
found the Confederates had captured the town and were busily plundering its stores and
citizens. After driving the rebels out the army estimated they had taken $75,000 worth of
goods. Garrisoning the town, the Union troops marched on Chillicothe upon which 4000
Confederate cavalry and a battery section were also advancing.
Lewis Best, a noted rebel, was moving to cut off the Union troops. Desperately
Edwards telegraphed General Fremont for reinforcements. Luckily for the Federals, a
rebel named Jones was in the telegraph office when the reply arrived stating one regiment
would reinforce Edwards in the morning. Looking over the operator's shoulder, Jones
who didn't read well thought it said ten and hurried off to inform the advancing
Confederates of his discovery. The rebels hastily retreated to Lexington, and with his
little band, the relieved Edwards returned home. His command, he says, was overrun with
refugees and he found it difficult to discriminate between the loyal and the disloyal, a
situation which plagued both sides.
20
In four days Edwards made a forced march of 100 miles subsisting on the enemy, his
command largely made up of substantial farmers, many over fifty years of age. "They
endured," so he says, "with light and patriotic hearts. They never flinched or complained
of their hard fare, and their bravery was unquestioned."
Meanwhile Colonel Dodge had left Camp Kirkwood in Council Bluffs to march into
southwestern Iowa. His first camp was three miles south of Glenwood; his second camp
was near Sidney. Here the Council Bluffs Artillery joined him. So footsore were these
men, that teams with wagons were procured to transport them. Camp No. 3 was made at
Lark's Creek. Returning stragglers from Missouri, reported the treaty made in that state,
but the indomitable Dodge pushed on to Clarinda where his own scout confirmed the
rumors. This scout had been in the secessionist camp in Gentryville where he found 600
men, but little equipment. Following the treaty, they had quickly disbanded and returned
to their homes. A prisoner brought into camp claimed he knew where the rebels had
buried two artillery pieces. Dodge detailed ten men to dig them up. Either the
Confederates never buried them, or changed their minds and dug them up. They were
never found.
Dodge, too, reports that he found great excitement on both sides of the line. His
scouts reported the people of Missouri feared an Iowa invasion as much as the Iowans in
turn feared the Missourians. Gentry and Nodaway Counties were desolate, the farms
abandoned and crops neglected while their owners sought safety to the north or south as
their sympathies directed.
On July 5, Colonel Morledge with volunteer militia from Page, Taylor, Adams and
Montgomery Counties was called out at midnight to rescue Unionists about to be
overpowered by rebels. With 250 men, between midnight and dawn, he marched to
Maryville where he found its citizens armed and ready. In a skirmish he took a
Confederate flag together with 60 prisoners, all of whom willingly took the oath of
allegiance and were discharged. He then marched to the aid of Colonel Cranor of
Missouri, but learning that reinforcements had reached the colonel, and being without
provisions and with little ammunition for his men, he left two infantry companies and one
cavalry company under Lt. Colonel McCoun to continue to Gentry, with the remainder of
his troops he returned to Iowa. McCoun reached Cranor's camp just as the treaty was
signed so he, also, returned.
In August, Colonel Cranor again called for relief, and McCoun with his three
companies marched to join him. Together they had a force of six or seven hundred men
and were faced by two hundred Confederate cavalry and one thousand infantry soldiers.
Outnumbered, Cranor and McCoun retreated to the state line. On September 3, Morledge
with additional men joined Cranor and McCoun and prepared to attack. At daylight, the
Union troops discovered the Confederates had slipped away in the night and the battle
was over before it was begun. When the pursuing Union troops reached St. Joseph, they
found it a city of desolation. Whole blocks of business houses were closed, many of
which had been looted.
For his border services, Colonel Edwards a resident of Chariton, was made a
brigadier general.
The final raid into Iowa was by Missouri guards in 1864. A dozen young men rode
boldly into Davis County, robbing, murdering, looting. Bloomfield's county fair was in
progress and a posse was quickly formed. Under Colonel James Weaver, they rode forth
only to find the raiders had fled across the border.
21
40 Dissidents
While as a state Iowa stood staunchly by the Union, it had its internal dissension.
Many Iowans had a southern background, and accepted slavery and a state's right to
secede. The Peace Democrats (Copperheads as they were commonly known) as
differentiated from the War Democrats who supported the war effort, and the Knights of
the Golden Circle, worked against the state and national administration program. The
Knights opposed the draft, encouraged desertion, discouraged volunteering. Organized in
every township in the state, at the peak of their activity, they were said to number 42,000.
Refugee Confederate soldiers and paid agents fomented the disaffection. The so-called
"Mahoney" wing of the Democratic Party was in outspoken opposition to the Union
army. With so many patriotic supporters of the government in the fighting lines, this
boring from within became an increasing danger.
So overwhelmed were Lincoln in Washington and Kirkwood and his fellow state
governors with the tremendous problems of the war, that at first this "fifth column"
activity received little attention. Not until the families at home and the men in the lines
became irate at this open internal rebellion, did Kirkwood move. At last several of the
most bold of the dissidents were arrested, and others warned that to continue in their
subversive policies would result in imprisonment, even death, only then did this
opposition lessen.
The most prominent among those imprisoned was George W. Jones, a former United
States Senator. Southern born, he had long been an outspoken sympathizer of the
southern thinking, had even owned slaves while a resident of Iowa. He was minister to
Bogota when the war began. As one of the first senators from Iowa he had an excellent
record. He had helped to secure the establishment of the Territory of Iowa, and was well
known in the state and nationally. When the news reached Iowa of his arrest in New York
for treasonable conduct, the people were astounded. The immediate cause was an
intercepted letter which he had written to his close school friend, Jefferson Davis, then
president of the Confederacy. Jones was imprisoned but never brought to trial. His
southern affiliations were of long standing and his record of outstanding service
outweighed his alleged treason. Both of his sons were in the Confederate army, and as a
native southerner, his sympathies were understood. After his release he returned to
Dubuque, his long time home, where he died.
Another distinguished Iowan who was imprisoned was D. A. Mahoney, editor of the
Dubuque Herald, and a former member of the Iowa legislature. His paper had long
bitterly denounced the government, and was particularly vehement against the army
which he charged with infamous crimes. Dubuque citizens were furious with his
outbursts and only the firm stand of local authorities prevented his newspaper, and even
his life, being destroyed. Threats of "tarring and feathering" were sounded, as well as
other violence, to all of which Mahoney appeared impervious. He too, was released after
a brief imprisonment. Gideon S. Bailey who served in both the territorial and state
legislatures was another who was arrested for disloyalty. Other men, less prominent,
fomented local dissension among southern sympathizers, hut were not brought to trial.
These lesser offenders were punished by the outspoken disapproval of their neighbors.
Cries of interference with our traditional "free press" and "free speech" were raised
but the reading of anti-Union editorials and reports of the opposition speeches by the
soldiers at the front enduring the discomforts and danger of an all-out war, aroused such
indignation that the government firmly ended this form of incipient treason. Actually the
22
Copperheads were fortunate. The authorities might have found them guilty of treason and
executed them. They certainly were guilty of giving "aid and comfort to the enemy" as
well as handicapping Union military organization.
Astute Governor Kirkwood clearly recognized the danger of this open subversion. He
recognized that disloyalty within the state was small as compared with the loyalty of its
soldiers and home patriots. Missouri to the south was a slave state honey-combed with
dissension, and our border was subject to invasion which might be fostered by disloyal
citizens at home. The families of southern background in southeastern Iowa who strongly
sympathized with the Confederacy and supported a state's right to secede, created a
nucleus for dissension. Spokesman for this group was George Tally, uneducated but with
a natural gift for oratory which he used to inflame the southern sympathizers. Slavery, he
cried, was divinely ordained, and the government had no right by force of arms to hold
the South in the Union.
On August 1, 1863, with a group of Peace Democrats, he held a meeting near South
English, a community strongly loyal in its sympathies. As a climax to the meeting, the
party, with Tally at its head, paraded through the town, challenging the townspeople and
a group gathered in a Republican convention. A shot was fired which led to others. Tally
was killed. Rumors flashed through the town that a band of several thousand armed men
was readying an attack. The Tally followers, wildly angry, were camped on the Skunk
River near Sigourney, drilling and making threats of vengeance.
Governor Kirkwood was notified and promptly ordered eleven companies of the
Home Guard to the scene, hurrying there himself. In a speech from the courthouse steps
in Sigourney, Kirkwood promised to make an example of those engaged in these
disturbances which would deter others from like proceedings. "I say what I mean," said
the governor firmly and "I mean what I say!" Faced with armed resistance and the
resolute Kirkwood, the Tally enthusiasts lost their thirst for revenge and disbanded.
Disputing Iowa's armed might was not to their liking and the "Skunk River" war ended.
Meanwhile Charles Negus, a prominent attorney from Fairfield, called in to aid in
bringing the killers of Tally to justice, had prudently gone to the camp where the Tally
forces were making preparations to wipe out the town of South English, advising them
that they were outnumbered, and for them to continue with their plan could only result in
bloodshed and either death or imprisonment for many of the band.
Twelve men were arrested. They posted bond and the matter was forgotten. Tempers
were high in the early Sixties, and differences of opinion were common. That all citizens
did not see eye to eye was accepted. In the free states bordering on the slave states,
families and friends were divided in sympathies and although feeling ran high, these
differences were understood, and up to a certain point, overlooked. The pioneer was a
man who thought and spoke for himself, and his utterances were respected as his own by
those about him.
Later in the same year, a party of "lawless men" as they were described, was
discovered in Fremont County. That these men were southern sympathizers was indicated
by their seizure of a slave in Davis County whom they carried back to Missouri from
which he had fled. One of their objectives was to resist the introduction of free Negroes
into Iowa by lawful means or if that failed, they threatened to drive by armed force not
only the Negroes but the whites who supported them from the state.
As in all wars, Iowa had its quota of conscientious objectors during the Civil War
period. The state had a considerable number of Quakers who had proved their convictions
throughout the pre-Civil War days by a firm stand against slavery, and their open help,
23
short of violence, to the slaves. While the Quakers refused to bear arms, they served
under fire as medical aides and in any posts in which they were not required to kill and
injure their fellow men.
Another organization, less well known than the Quakers, but equally firm in their
stand against bearing arms, were the citizens of the Amana Colony. Like the Quakers
they had left Europe, in part because of their opposition against war, to make a new start
in America. In war torn Europe where they refused to bear arms, their lot was difficult.
As did the rest of the populace, they suffered from the impact of war. In this new land
they were determined that war should not cast its ugly shadow across their homes. After a
brief settling near Buffalo, New York, where they experienced considerable difficulty
with the Seneca Indians, they were advised to move west and came to Iowa. Here they
founded the Amana Villages, purchasing land which included both timberlands for the all
essential lumber and fuel, and prairie lands suitable for farming. Woolen and flour mills
were built, a hand dug canal some six miles in length furnishing the water power. The
people lived a community life, each village preparing its food in a common kitchen and
eating in a common dining room. These centers were largely self supporting, each with
its own slaughter house, blacksmith and wagon shop, bakery, harness shop, and other
industries. The women dressed alike in plain dresses with black cap, neckerchief, and an
apron. The men likewise wore "plain" clothing.
The colonies were devoutly religious. Their name is derived from the Song of
Solomon and means "remain true". They stood firmly against militarism which had
resulted in their members' emigration to America. A few men did volunteer for active
service and when the war was over returned and were reinstated in the community. When
the draft came, the colony leaders, while grimly refusing to send men, paid the bonus to
secure substitutes for Iowa County in the stead of the men in the communities. Today this
seems inconsistent, but as their leader expressed it "Since war is contrary to our calling
and faith we know of no other way out than to pay the $300 prescribed by the law in
order to show our patriotic attitude as citizens and supporters of the Union." Offered in
good faith, this was accented by their neighbors.
The suffering of Iowans who did fight was an aspect which the Communities did
know how to meet. Again in a letter from Christian Metz, the head of the colonies, he
explains that letters were sent to the Communities pointing out it was the duty of every
member, household and family to contribute each according to his means, a gift or
offering of woolen blankets, socks, woolen shirts, jackets, underwear, etc. These
offerings were brought to the weekly prayer meeting. Says Metz, "Almost everyone
showed such willingness that it was real joy." The Brethren had already sent $200 to the
governor, but Metz states "I believe that this is or will be even more acceptable, for all
these contributions consist of good warm clothing." The original contributions were
repeated generously and amounted to thousands of dollars before the close of the war.
Amana then as now was famous for its fine woolens, and no doubt the Iowa soldiers
shivering in the snow and rain of southern battlefields, blessed the kindly generosity of
the Amana women, who despite their innate opposition to war, spent so many hours
carding and weaving the wool from the flocks of their husbands and fathers, to make
stout garments for soldiers to wear in a war to which they were opposed.
41 Contribution
24
When war became an accomplished fact, it found little unity between the states as
well as within the states. The government was controlled by a party which was new and
untried, without cohesion in its raw and undisciplined organization, headed by an
inexperienced leader. With all of this, and in spite of the division of opinion throughout
the nation, men flocked to the army, leaders accepted their new responsibilities, taxes
were levied and paid, and little thought was given as to whom were Republicans and
whom were Democrats.
The primary concern was the enlistment of soldiers, and the turning of hundreds of
civilians into an army. The surprise that war had come was so great, and the belief that
the revolt would fall of its own weight so general, together with the hope always deep
rooted in Americans that all would end well, that little concern existed beyond the
original three months enlistment period. In the thinking of the average American, North
and South, three months would see the end of the war, and the nation would return to
normalcy. Little partisanship or prejudice existed at this period, only a determination to
support to the limit these young men going into battle. Few realized that it would take the
next two years to build a real army. In the war's early years, men and materials seemed
inexhaustible, but as time went on, and call succeeded call, procuring men grew more
difficult, not alone because of the exhaustion of the state's man power, but for other
motives. The state was growing weary of war, tired of scraping the bottom of the barrel.
The state's man power reserve was now the older men. Some men felt that polities and
selfish considerations were creeping in and that too much favoritism existed in the army.
Others objected to the introduction of slavery as a major issue. Young and old had
discovered that war is not the great adventure. They had learned the bitter lesson that this
angry conflict was no brief junket into the south, but that it meant months and years of
continuing struggle and sacrifice. Despite its disillusionment, Iowa met its army demands
for men and materials. Older men with families, men established in life, walked soberly
to the recruiting station and enlisted, knowing full well what lay ahead. Growers
increased their planting, industrialists strained machinery beyond its capacity, women in
their kitchens served short rations to their families, that food and supplies saved could be
shipped south. War was the all-absorbing business of old and young.
In 1860, Iowa had a population of 675,000, of which number 116,000 were subject to
military duty. The state, not yet fifteen years old when the Battle of Bull Run was fought,
sent in all more than 75,000 volunteers into the army. Before Appomatox, more than onesixth
of this number, over 13,000 men, were in their graves. In proportion to its
population, Iowa contributed more men to military service than did any other state, North
or South. Iowans left their farms and villages to fight from Wilson's Creek in Missouri to
Atlanta in Georgia.
During the four years of fighting, Iowa organized forty-eight infantry regiments, nine
cavalry regiments and four artillery companies. Almost one-half of the eligible male
population bore arms, a record that has never been exceeded in any war since. Iowa's
participation was principally in the War in the West; our troops fought in Missouri, in
Arkansas, at Fort Donelson, Shiloh and Chattanooga in Tennessee, Vicksburg and
Corinth in Mississippi. They marched with Sherman to the Sea and fought with General
Phil Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley and with the Army of the Potomac in Virginia.
They died of starvation and disease in Andersonville and other prisons.
Twenty-seven Iowans won the Congressional Medal of Honor, first awarded in the
Civil War.
25
Four major generals—Curtis, Dodge, Herron and Steele—were contributed by Iowa
to the Federal armies, together with a long list of brigadier generals.
Samuel Ryan Curtis was born somewhere in New York state while his parents were
on their way from Connecticut, westward. He was educated at West Point, graduating in
1831. In 1831, he resigned his commission and was admitted to the Ohio bar.
When war with Mexico broke out, he was made adjutant general of Ohio, later
colonel of the Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry serving in Mexico. At the close of that war
he came to Iowa, settling in Keokuk. In 1856 he was elected to Congress, and in 1860
re-elected. In Washington he was active in the passage of the Pacific Railroad Act, and a
leading member on the Military Affairs Committee.
When the Civil War broke out, he was active in recruiting, and on June 1, 1861, was
named colonel of the Second Iowa Infantry. The latter part of June he was promoted to
brigadier general, and resigned his congressional seat. In December, 1861, he was placed
in command of the District of Southwest Missouri and marched against Confederate
General Price, resulting in the Battle of Pea Ridge which he commanded. Thirteen days
after his victory there he was made a major general.
Because of his strong anti-slavery beliefs, in January, 1864, he was transferred from
the Department of Missouri to the Department of Kansas where he defeated Price who
had loudly boasted he would capture Leavenworth (Curtis' headquarters) and lay Kansas
waste Rebel Generals Marmaduke and Cabell were captured, and large quantities of
Confederate equipment burned.
The first and the oldest of Iowa's major generals, Curtis was also the largest. Despite
his sixty years, he was erect and vigorous. Intellectually he was not brilliant, but he had
excellent judgment and readily available ability and these qualities plus hard and
unremitting labor made him a great leader. Like General Dodge he believed in the west,
and in Congress sponsored the Pacific railroad enterprises.
Grenville Mellen Dodge was born in Massachusetts where he attended the Norwich
Military University. He came west in 1851 and for a time was with the Rock Island
Railroad Engineers' Corps. Later he moved to Nebraska, then the limit of frontier
settlements. Finding the Indian tribes hostile, he settled in Council Bluffs.
When Sumter was fired on, he recruited a company, reporting to Governor Kirkwood
who sent him on to Washington, seeking arms and munitions for the state. On his return,
he was commissioned colonel of the Fourth Infantry.
Less than two weeks after he organized the regiment, he was in Missouri. In
December, General Curtis assigned him to command a brigade, and sent him in search of
Price. At the Battle of Pea Ridge, outnumbered almost ten to one, he held his position.
For his service there he was made a brigadier general assigned to the Army of the
Tennessee.
October, 1863, found him with Sherman on the way to Chattanooga. At Atlanta, he so
distinguished himself that he was made a major general. Before Atlanta, he was wounded
for a third time, having been previously wounded in Missouri and at Pea Ridge.
Returning to his command after his third wound, he was sent to Yicksburg, later
succeeding General Rosecrans in Missouri. During the Vicksburg operation, he was
stationed at Corinth. 150 miles from the city, yet General Grant officially stated, that
there was no officer of Dodge's rank to whom he was more indebted for the capture of
that stronghold.
During the time Dodge commanded the Department of Missouri, he devoted much
energy to making overland travel safe for the emigrants pouring west. After the war, he
26
was a leader in the Union Pacific Railroad's drive to the west, and was prominent in
post-civil war years, both in Iowa and the nation.
A man of iron will, with an alert mind and unretiring perseverance his mature
judgment made him an outstanding officer.
Francis Herron was Iowa's youngest major general, and the second Iowan awarded
that honor. He was born into a distinguished Pennsylvania family in February, 1837. In
1855 he came to Dubuque and entered the banking business.
His military career began in the First Iowa Infantry and he was at Wilson's Creek. In
September, 1861, he was commissioned lt. colonel of the Ninth Iowa Infantry. For his
gallantry at Pea Ridge where he was wounded and taken prisoner, he was made brigadier
general, and for courage and military skill at Prairie Crove, Dec. 7, 1862, he was made
major general.
In the Army of the Frontier, he commanded the Third Division. At Prairie Grove so
superior was his generalship, that with 4,000 men he outfaced General Hindman and
20,000 Confederates. Major Hubbard, an officer on Herron's staff, was captured and
taken before Hindman. "How many men," demanded the Confederate general "has
Herron?" "Enough," retorted Hubbard "to annihilate you!" Herron's bluff, the plan on
which the engagement was fought, to Hindman confirmed Hubbard's boastful report, and
made Herron a major general.
General Herron operated in Missouri and Arkansas until May, 1863, when he moved
to Vicksburg. Following the city's fall, he made an expedition to the Yazoo River and
into Louisiana.
During the winter of 1863-64 and for some time afterward, Herron served in Texas.
During this time, the Mexican forces of Ruiz and Cortinas clashed at Matamoros. The
United States consul in that city alarmed sent to Herron for protection, and was escorted
to safety by United States troops.
Herron's ventilation of abuses in the Department of Arkansas was published in all the
leading newspapers of the country bringing an end to many outrageous abuses and
distinction to his name.
Taciturn, but possessing charm and a warm heart, he was popular with his men. Calm
and composed, he never lost his self control no matter how great the peril.
He was the only Iowa officer to be promoted to brigadier general from lieut.-colonel.
Frederick Steele was born in Delhi, New York, in 1819. He attended West Point
Military Academy and served with General Scott in the Mexican War, distinguishing
himself at the battles of Contreras and Chapultepec. In the capture of the City of Mexico
he commanded a company.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was serving in Missouri. Enlisting in the First
Iowa Infantry, he fought under General Lyon at Wilson's Creek. In September, 1861, he
was commissioned colonel of the Eighth Iowa Infantry. Shortly after for his good conduct
at Wilson's Creek, he was promoted to brigadier general. Except for time served with
Sherman at Vicksburg in the spring and summer of 1863, and under General Canby at
Pensacola and in the Mobile area, he held commands in Missouri and Arkansas.
Following Chickasaw Bayou, he moved to Arkansas Post, and due to his valor and that of
his troops these works were captured.
After Vicksburg and Jackson, Steele was appointed to command of the Department
and Army of Arkansas. In August, 1863, Steele left Helena for Little Rock, Arkansas,
compelling Confederate generals Price and Marmaduke to evacuate the latter city. In this
brief campaign, he restored all but a few counties of Arkansas to the Federal government.
27
His Camden campaign ended in failure largely because of General Bank's disasters.
Steele met and defeated Price, Marmaduke, Cabell and others at Pierre Noir Creek,
Elkin's Ford, Prairie de Anne and northwest of Camden. Incredulous of the reports of
Banks' crushing defeats, Steele kept on to Camden where he learned the truth. A large
supply train reaching him, he undertook to hold his position. The capture of the train now
returning from Pine Bluffs, Ark., with additional supplies, may have saved his army, as
he started back to Little Rock. Because of a failure by Confederate General Fagan to
comply with orders, Steele evaded the rebels and reached his destination.
He remained in Arkansas until January, 1865, when he was ordered to report to
General Canby at New Orleans, and performed his final service in the Pensacola and
Mobile area.
While Steele cannot be called an Iowan, he was commissioned from the state. A kind
hearted, humane man, he was easily approached and popular with his men. By some
critics, he was said to lack firmness and judgment and made a poor military governor. He
stood high in the confidence of General Grant, which is a commendation.
In the Civil War the regiment was the unit of command and relatively permanent.
Often men fought throughout the war under a single regimental flag resulting in an
undying loyalty for their flag which produced incidents of incredible courage when the
regiment was put to test and the flag endangered.
Regimental colonels were appointed by the governor and on occasion men were
commissioned whose single qualification was political prowess. Despite this political
overtone, their ability was high. Mistakes were made. It could scarcely be otherwise. Few
Iowa colonels had previous military training. An occasional appointee had served in the
Mexican War, against the Indians, or had West Point or other military academy training.
In a few instances, a colonel had served in European armies before emigrating to
America. All had proven state and community leadership if only in political
organizations. Iowa then as now had a high level of citizenship. From the state's
beginning, the men and women who settled the lush farmlands were an intelligent, stable
people with a deep sense of responsibility to their government which was reflected from
private to colonel in Iowa's Civil War regiments. In the years following the close of
hostilities many of colonels as well as other line officers went on to high place in the state
and nation.
For organization purposes, the regiment included ten companies of one hundred men
each, so a regiment supposedly comprised one thousand men Actually regiments
occasionally left for the front with several hundred less than that number. So great was
the urgency, that men without muskets or uniforms were hurried to the fighting lines.
Rarely did a regiment go into battle at its full recruited strength. Sometimes only a few
hundred were available. Sickness was so devastating that it was not unusual to find more
men in the hospital than in the field. Men were called home on furlough or assigned to
special detail. Almost entire regiments were captured. This so-called "effective strength"
was the brigade commander's worst headache. Four or six regiments did not mean four or
six thousand men. Often the regiment was an unknown quantity, half or less of its
"authorized" strength.
As the war dragged on, recruiting inevitably became more difficult, and regimental
deficiencies in both men and officers increased. However, the seasoned veterans were so
superior to the green recruits who had started the fighting, that no doubt as each man
firmly believed, he was worth a dozen of the original regimental members.
28
The colonel had a lieutenant colonel and a major to assist in administration and
command, and each company had its captain, lieutenants, and staff sergeants. In the
beginning these officers were elected by the men. Common practice was for a man
important in the community to recruit a company and in return be elected to officer ship.
In a pioneer civilization dedicated to self government, the system functioned well.
In the field, regiments were joined in brigades, divisions, and corps which forms
frequently changed, while the regiment continued its existence as a unit. In part this
explains the men's fanatical devotion to the regiment's colors. The colors stood for the
regiment and men died defending them. The greatest honor paid a regiment
distinguishing itself in the field, was to receive a stand of colors to replace its battle worn
flags sent home for safekeeping. Such presentations were made to Iowa regiments from
as far away as Boston, Mass.; the colors made by patriotic women in recognition of
outstanding service. Companies were known by letter (A, B, C, etc.), and one company
became the "color" company, carrying the regimental flags into battle and on parade.
While the company, originally at least, was largely made up of men already
acquainted with another, and who in its small circle became better acquainted, the
permanence of the regiment developed an even closer knit group with enduring
friendships, annually renewed in after-war years around reunion campfires.
Because of the army's rapid expansion, the early officers won quick promotion and
shouldered responsibilities above their rank. Colonels, even lieutenant colonels and
majors, led brigades, leaving regimental command to majors and captains. In an
emergency, privates led the men. Unquestionably Iowa's preeminence in the field was
won by the superiority of its leadership, from the ranks to general officers.
The early practice of permitting the companies to elect their line officers while in
theory a democratic process, from a military viewpoint was not always successful. The
first officers like the men who served under them had little or no military experience, but
they learned fast in a hard school. This free choice of leadership did have one noteworthy
advantage. The elected officer had the liking of his men, an important asset in a civilian
army. In the latter years of the war with a more highly organized army officered by men
who had proved their worth, promotions from the ranks filled the gaps left by officer
losses. Many such officers were those who had served through the years under several
regimental flags. and were hardened and tempered by experience.
42 Home Defense
As the war dragged on and the older men and boys volunteered, responsibility for the
home front fell more and more upon the women and the children. Early enlistments took
a heavy toll of the older boys. Now their younger brothers and sisters must take up their
burdens.
Except for the occasional heavily populated center, the way of life in 1860 between
village and farm, differed but little. Each farm and town lot was an independent unit. A
family vegetable garden, a cow, the chicken lot, even a pig to eat the table scraps, were
almost as much a part of town living as they were of country living. The important
difference was that the farmer raised a greater quantity of produce and stock, and sold it,
while the townsman raised his to provide a major part of the family living, although the
excess production on a town lot was frequently sold. Small town boys carried milk to the
neighbor who did not own a cow. Housewives sold spring fries, fat hens, and eggs.
Women made soap from surplus fats. Slaughtering the family hog included rendering lard
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for home use, with a few extra pounds to exchange with the town grocer for staples not
produced at home.
On the farm and in outlying villages, spinning wheels whirred, and carding wool was
a household chore. Little girls knitted busily shaping warm socks for the men of the
family and themselves. Garments were made and re-made as they were handed down to
the younger children. To waste was a cardinal sin. A popular motto "Waste Not, Want
Not" hand painted in fancy script decorated with bright flowers and framed in walnut,
hung prominently in many early Iowa homes.
This ability to provide without turning to a public source was fortunate, since no
provision existed in Civil War days for allowances to soldiers' families or benefits for the
improvident. The pittances paid the men were pitifully small, even in an era when money
went much further than it does today. In letters written home to their families, soldiers
tell their wives that $5 or $10, in rare instances $15, is being sent with a neighbor
returning home from the front on furlough. And this small sum meant months of saving.
Volunteers to the early regiments received $7 a month, and many men furnished their
own horse and saddle as well as a uniform tailored for them by the townspeople or
members of their own families.
As the war progressed and the needs of the soldiers' families increased, communities
banded together to raise funds, and programs to meet the most urgent of these needs, as
well as those of disabled soldiers, were established. Occasionally small amounts of tax
money were added to these funds in response to the ever increasing number of widows
and orphans, as well as for those whose husbands and fathers were on the fighting front,
but this assistance was meager, and meant little more than a few pounds of coal or a sack
of flour. Fortunately, families in the 1860's considered themselves as self supporting
units. A mother with a brood of children cultivated a garden, raised chickens, milked a
cow, cooked, preserved, knitted, sewed for her flock, while the children, from babies up,
worked busily at the business of self preservation. In the midst of this endless activity,
time was found to knit for the soldiers, scrape lint for bandages and prepare food and
comforts to be sent to the men on the firing lines.
This was an era of self-help, when as a matter of course each individual provided for
himself or herself and helped those about them who were in difficulty. Families in want
or with sickness were aided without question. Organized welfare was unknown. When a
lone woman was without wood for stove or fireplace, the men in the neighborhood came
with axes and cut down a tree, splitting it into proper lengths. Young boys stacked it
conveniently by the kitchen door. If the woman did not have a tree on her property, a
neighbor provided one from his woodlot, and another neighbor brought his ox team to
haul the wood when it was chopped. If the family crops were too much for a woman to
harvest or plant and she lacked children of an age to assist her, neighbors came in and
shucked the corn, cut the hay, slaughtered a beef, or plowed the land.
When flour or meal was needed, grain sacks were loaded on the family wagon or
sled, and more often than not during the war years, a nine or ten year old boy picked up
the reins and drove off on the long trip to the mill where it would be ground. The grain
had been grown on his home place, or was perhaps, a gift from a kindly neighbor.
Even a distance of five or ten miles over roads which were little more than dim trails,
throughout much of the year snow covered or deep with mud, driving a loaded wagon or
sled hitched to a team of plodding oxen or horses, was a long difficult trip for a boy who
was seldom further from home than his church or school, but who with his father and
brothers away in the army, found himself the man of the house. Driving home in the deep
30
dusk, along the lonely road, perhaps facing rain or snow with the wind whining through
the trees along the way, remembering the tales of ferocious, man-eating wolves which the
men told, took the same high courage his father knew when he marched down another
long muddy road with armed Confederates waiting for him.
When at long last the boy came over the hill and looked down into the valley, where
the light shone through his mother's kitchen window, he proudly knew he was doing a
man's job. He strode into the warm smells of home, remembering to take off his muddy
boots so as not to track his mother's white wood floors, and hungrily sniffed the warm
fragrance of sizzling brown pork, of sweet potatoes oozing richness, or best of all, a spicy
pumpkin pie. He stood before the fireplace and let the heat from the crackling hickory
logs soak into his chilled bones, and knew himself a man.
When sickness struck the mother of a family, the women in the neighborhood took
over her care and that of her family. Ten and twelve year old girls in the stricken family
or in a neighbor's family did the cleaning and cooking and cared for the ill. For several
years these young girls had worked beside their mothers, as their brothers had worked in
the fields and shops with their fathers. Placed in charge, they ran a house with almost
equal efficiency to their mothers. Girls of five to eight knitted, peeled endless baskets of
fruit and vegetables, stirred the soup flagrantly boiling in the big kettle, swept up, made
beds stoutly fluffing the feather ticks, minded the baby, ran innumerable errands, and
were generally useful. By the age of ten, a daughter graduated from these small tasks to
become her mother's right hand in the involved operation of a pioneer household.
A girl of fifteen was frequently as capable as her mother. and often "worked out" in
prosperous homes, where she managed the household. From babyhood, boys did chores,
slopped the pigs, fed the chickens and animals, walked behind a plow, dropped corn into
the hills, put in long hours of physical labor working with the men. By the age of fifteen a
boy was a man, and until he was twenty one his time was his father's to use as the man
saw fit. A large family preferably of sons, was a definite asset in developing the prairie
land into a producing farm, or in building a business.
Except in rare instances, hospitals were unknown and doctors almost equally so.
Nursing was a matter for the family, or the neighborhood pattern contributed by
neighbors and relatives as a matter of course.
As the war years passed, men straggled home from the front. Men in dilapidated
uniforms, the jaunty pride with which they had marched away lost in the mud and mire of
southern battlefields. Men with missing arms and legs, with shattered health and minds,
limped home to add their care to the burden of already overworked households.
Since most of the basic foods were home grown, few families were hungry. Sugar and
coffee were among the few items which must be purchased, and during the war almost
vanished from; Iowa kitchens. Sorghum made from cane raised on the family's land and
crushed in the local sorghum mill, provided the sweet. The hardworking bees stored
honey in hollow trees which small boys discovered by following the flight of the insects
on their endless trips from flower to tree, whose delicate flavor lent zest to bread took the
place of sugar. Spices disappeared from the grocer's shelves, but hard work lent zest to
the appetite. The family cow gave milk, and teas steeped from mint and other herbs, took
the place of the missing coffee. Summer vegetables were canned, and winter vegetables
stored. Fruits, pickles, jellies, jams, catsup and meat relishes, preserved in the summer,
crowded the sacks of winter vegetables and fruit. A root cellar, damp and dark, was an
integral part of the pioneer home where barrels of ruddy apples, sacks of winter pears,
potatoes, squash, turnips, onions, and other fruits of the garden and orchard were heaped.
31
The well stocked vegetable and fruit cellar took the place of today's deep freezer, and
convenient supermarket. Mince pies were baked, and carefully covered to protect them
from vermin' stored in the attic to freeze. Thawed in a hot oven, the thick rich pies were a
meal in themselves. Sauer kraut ripened in ten gallon earthenware jars. Pungent horse
radish ground, and flavored with apple cider vinegar, lent zest to the stringy dried beef,
salt pork, hams, and venison.
Iowa women met their home responsibilities with a courage and devotion that was at
least the equal of the work of its men on the fighting front or at home. Women's work
was done in obscurity, much of it tedious, all of it lonely with only their children for
companionship. Fear for their men at the front walked with them by day and night, and
the knowledge that all too soon their young sons must join the fighting men. Yet these
women met each day with a gallant valor, accomplishing miracles of achievement with
the small things that were at hand. From dawn until dark, and often far into the night,
these lonely women created from the products of their own hands, the necessities of life
for their families, and of war to aid their fighting men.
It was the unsung heroes and heroines who carried the burden, kept food and supplies
moving to the front, who cheered the men on the fighting lines with letters and
newspapers from home. Each community suffered the loss of its outstanding leadership
and its most able young men, who were first to volunteer for army duty. But older men
who had laid down the load of civic leadership, took it up again, and the women moved
forward to fill the gaps. The Civil War was as truly and as hard fought on the home front
as on the battle front. Without this sustaining support, the fighting lines would have
crumbled.
In the long run, the placing of unnatural burdens on old and young was one
unreckoned asset of the war. It heightened the level of community responsibility, and
trained youth to accept its share of community leadership. Responsibility drew together
the wide flung elements of pioneer living and welded them into a single mold.
As in every war, women took up the burden of production in the field, in the shop,
wherever men laid down their work to take up arms, and as in every war in which
America has joined, not every woman relinquished those tasks when the men returned
from the front. The Civil War was no exception to this rule. In its wake, it left women
entrenched in jobs closed to them before it began, and girls seeking places in so-called
men's work.
The willingness of the nation's citizenry to sacrifice was greater, actually, than was
the energy poured into government management, or the directing of our armies. Each
community, as is true under stress, developed its leaders to point the way. As there were
deserters from the army, so there were men who found enlistment an easy path to
desertion of their families, and there were those in each community who found in the
war, an abundant opportunity for making money at the expense of the tragic. Human
nature being what it is, the seamy side of certain people appeared, but these men and
women were in the minority, greatly in the minority. True the costs of the war would
have been less but for the cheating in buying and selling supplies, horses and cattle. Lives
were lost needlessly because of fraud in clothing, in arms and ammunition, in food and
shelter, and in the failure of supplies to reach the front when needed. Graft is a
by-product of every war.
One of the amazing things about Iowa's tremendous contributions to the army was
that these contributions were produced by a peaceful people who had lost even the
tradition of war, many of whom had come to America to avoid army service and the
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trappings of war. The pioneer's goal was the elimination of war, yet these men left their
families, their property, their daily lives, and plunged without hesitation into the
discipline and peril of combat.
An inevitable result of this tremendous outpouring of men to war and the part they
played, was to increase the assertiveness of Iowa and other midwestern states. It bred
men of decision, accustomed to leadership, who found the after war expansion of
business and industry to their liking.
Grant's western victories and his opening of the Mississippi increased these states'
belief in their star, and the use of western troops in the east, and Grant's appointment to
leadership, heightened this belief. Before the war, Iowa was made up of scattered
communities, with little communication with one another. The close of the war found the
state a commonwealth, a strong and centralized unit of the Union, its communities bound
together in thinking and action, ready to take its place in the pattern of the nation. Its
leadership stood ready to take part in the national program. Iowa had met its trial by fire,
and proven itself worthy. The years following the Civil War were years of growth in
industry, agriculture, education, wherever the people of Iowa found a need. These were
years in which Iowans built fine homes, furnished them with elegant hand-crafted or
machine made furniture. They bought the newly invented farm machinery and turned to
new production methods. These were years in which the pioneer culture disappeared as
America swung into its stride as one of the powerful nations of the world, with an
aggressive, hard working, ambitious citizenry seeking out new and better ideas for
manufacturing and growing the necessities of the better life which they saw ahead.
Men returned from the front conquered the wild lands to the west. They timbered,
fished, hunted, mined, built. These men primed in one of the hardest fought and most
bitter wars the world has ever known, found in the wresting of wealth from our vast
national resources, an outlet for energies created in that conflict.
43 Realization
As did the majority of Iowa's soldiers, Jeremiah's regiment moved down the
Mississippi in a flat bottomed river packet. Along the shore, families, sweethearts, and
friends, stood waving and calling a last farewell until the last ripple stirred by the
churning paddle wheel vanished around the bend. Only then did the recruits turn their
faces toward the new and frightening world which lay ahead to the south. Excitement
quickened, and the stimulation of the unknown overrode the fears of the terrifying future
which had troubled their long night in camp at Keokuk. Echoes of the stirring war songs
sung by the on lookers on shore as the boat swung out into the current, floated with them.
Here and there a group of recruits sang loudly, if not melodiously, "Rally Round the Flag,
Boys," or "Mine Eyes Have the Glory." In later months around southern campfires they
would sing "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," '`Tenting Tonight," and as the
darkness crept across the tents and stacked arms, "The Girl I Left Behind Me," and more
softly, songs of home and mother.
Now in the full flush of patriotism, marching songs and robust threats of what the
Johnny Rebs might expect once the troops were on the battle line, resounded from the
heavily wooded river banks slipping steadily by.
The great river was crowded with boats loaded to the water line men and supplies.
Before Cairo, Jeremiah counted forty packets. Their own boat could barely find its way
through the near blockade of river transportation, each boat awaiting its turn to move in
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to unload at the docks along both shores. In Cairo, Jeremiah learned the great convoy was
in charge of General Grant, and the boy's heart warmed to know his father's old and
trusted friend was near at hand. Lank townsmen loafing about the wharves predicted the
war would soon be over.
"This here rebellion is a plumb failure," one such loafer told Jeremiah. "We've been
tricked by our head men. All we want is peace quiet again." Older and better dressed men
expressed their disagreement without words by directing angry looks toward their
talkative countryman. These men were the plantation owners and businessmen who
owned the slaves or did business with those who did.
The young bluecoats swaggered self consciously along the wharves picking their way
with care lest they be spattered by the mud and dirt stirred up by barrels and boxes being
thrown ashore, or by the horse and oxen drawn wagons waiting in long lines to haul the
supplies to waiting camps. A boyish lieutenant, his glittering sword rattling against his
brightly polished boots, ordered the soldiers back on board the packet. The pilot blew
sharp blasts on his whistle, and the top heavy boat swung out into the muddy channel.
"We're taking troops aboard," one of the men told Jeremiah, "to kill the space left
vacant by the supplies we've unloaded. Probably they'll come on in the night. Grant
doesn't want the Rebs to know just how many men we have. He's quiet" the man went on
chuckling, "but he's smart!"
On board the men hung over the rails, calling to those on the wharves or watching
their chance to slip ashore to mix with the townspeople. At every house in town, guards
were posted to protect the inmates especially those favoring the north, as well as to keep
out of the homes of southern sympathizers, possible spies or rebels who might intend
damage to the great piles of ammunition and food, or the reporting of troop movements.
When their boat was tied up along shore, Jeremiah and his new found friends jumped
to the bank, and climbing the scrub oak trees brought down clumps of mistletoe to send
home. In a cotton field, they picked cotton bolls, a novelty to the northern lads. Jeremiah
sent home a few cotton seeds in a letter: "Plant them in the house, and I'm sure they will
grow" he told his father.
At one stop they climbed the bluffs overlooking the river to a area plantation house.
Jeremiah drew a picture of it in his next letter home:
"It has a wide hall running clear through it," he told his mother "through which you
can see plainly the vegetable garden in the back. The family use the hall as an office. The
Negroes waiting to see the master, sit on benches along the walls.
"There is a huge chimney up the side of the house, and chimneys for cooking and
heating in the cook and wash houses. It all seems much like home except that it is warmer
here and the houses are more open to the weather. The meals are prepared by Negroes in
the cook house and carried into the main house. This keeps the heat out of the dining
room. In the home we visited, there was a big fan in the dining ceiling, operated by a
small giggling colored girl in a bright blue dress with pink ribbons in her hair. By pulling
a rope she kept the fan moving which cooled the family while eating and kept the flies
away from the food."
The men of the family were away, no doubt in the Confederate Army. Jeremiah and
his friends agreed, but the mother and daughters brought plates of food to the
embarrassed young Yankees as they stood on the verandah, and invited them to sit down
and rest.
"We'd be purely sorry for you to be hungry even if you are our enemies," their soft
voices brimmed with merriment, their bright eyes peeped out flirtatiously from behind
34
dark lashes, at the stalwart young northerners. Not yet had the ugliness and viciousness of
the fight brought the deep rifts which came later between North and South.
"The girls down here are mighty pretty," he wrote to his mother "fancier dressed than
our girls, with their hoop skirts swinging. The crops look good. Garden peas are several
inches high, and my mouth watered just to look at them. No green vegetables in our
mess!'
When at last the troops disembarked in Missouri, for many it meant a lengthy, tedious
stay. Jeremiah's company spent the summer months moving up and down the state,
guarding supplies, railroads, northern sympathizers, chasing elusive raiders who knew the
mountain trails, swooped down on a camp, attacked, and disappeared into the darkness
like phantoms, over terrain in which they were thoroughly at home. Not all the raids were
by Confederate troops. Many were led by guerrillas who profited in the capture of
materials, which later were sold to the rebel army.
In the crowded and poorly organized camps, disease broke out. Measles proved itself
to be a more deadly enemy than the Confederate troops. Many of the recruits came from
isolated farms and small communities without previous exposure to the childish diseases.
The history of the regiments is a common one. Measles, chickenpox, and the more deadly
smallpox, ran riot through the camps. The men marched seeking an elusive enemy, one
which knew the trails and mountain passes sweeping down unexpectedly, only to vanish
before the bewildered Federals could stage an attack. Fatalities were numerous.
Inexperienced soldiers were picked off by sharpshooters hidden at strategic points. But
greater than these losses, were the losses of those incapacitated by illness. The men
marched over almost impassable roads, in cold and storm, short of rations, improperly
clothed, without shelter. Lacking even the most primitive sanitary precautions, only those
with the greatest endurance survived. The weak succumbed to hardship and disease
heightened by homesickness.
Winter meant little change to the men, except that life in a tent in the mud and cold of
a gloomy winter, was more difficult. Jeremiah's regiment was encamped in the hills,
without the simplest conveniences. The river towns with their friendly faces and
excitements, and the home-cooked food for sale along the wharves, were far behind.
Now they were camped near Rolla, Missouri, many of them sick, often they were
hungry, and always they were homesick. Iowa life in the 1860's was simple, but within its
limitations, comfortable. Food was plain but generous. Open fires and the stoves rapidly
supplanting them, sent out a circle of warmth around which the family gathered. Hand
woven and the new manufactured woolens made warm clothing. The family seldom
traveled far from home, but community and home good times banished loneliness.
In camp this was changed, and for the worse. The boys existed in an army of
strangers, living in the closest intimacy, under difficult conditions. Snow fell seldom, but
the frequent cold rain and sleet formed a coating of ice over everything. The men slept in
tents. Six or eight often huddled in their blankets on the ground in one tent without room
in which to move about. "Spooning," Jeremiah wrote home, "helps to keep us warm. We
sleep closely together until we become so cramped we can no longer endure it, then all
turn at once, each trying to keep his place which is a little warmer than the surrounding
ground. We don't always have tents enough to cover us. Sometimes we sleep under a
tree."
The tents were principally of the A-type, consisting of a horizontal pole supported by
two upright timbers over which a canvas was stretched. Timber was plentiful, and
35
transporting the tent was simple since new supports could be quickly secured in each
camp.
When the men were in camp for a lengthy period, they built log or stone walls to keep
out the wind and rain. The more ambitious laid timber or stone on the dirt floors to
protect themselves from the ever present damp. Stone and timber abounded. Only their
labor was needed to build a snug cabin with fireplace up the side, a type of building with
which the men were familiar. Inside, pegs driven between the planks held tin cups and
knapsacks, and wearing apparel not in use. Bunks were built with small timbers, and
crude shelves constructed from packing boxes or slabs of wood nailed on the walls. Their
muskets stood in a convenient corner. In part this was a matter of self protection since
rebel raiding parties ranged through the hills, and might strike at any moment. Candles
cast a feeble glow over the small space. Bayonets detached from the muskets and stuck
into the floor made convenient candlesticks. If potatoes were plentiful (which was
seldom), a potato flattened on the bottom with a hole carved in the top served in stead.
"Shebangs" the men dubbed their makeshift homes.
During the long days and night in camp, writing letters home was a principal
occupation. A hardtack box was upended, and held between the knees to serve as a desk.
The letter writing over, the box served as a table around which the boys gathered to play
checkers or dominoes. Iowa's strict church people frowned upon card playing, with the
result that many Iowa boys took their first lessons in this art in camp. The soldier's pipe
was his constant companion. With a bag of smoking tobacco and a few grains of coffee,
he counted himself fortunate.
Originally the companies were made up of recruits from the same community, led by
officers elected among themselves. Later in the war, these companies were formed and
re-formed, but in the evenings, men from the same community scattered throughout the
camp, would gather beneath a tree or in some accessible spot to exchange news from
home. Letters were passed from one to another, read and re-read and bits of gossip
bandied about. Good and bad news from home reached the men largely through this
exchange. Newspapers and clippings were passed from hand to hand, and devoured until
they finally disintegrated. A daily news service was unknown, and due to transportation
difficulties, newspapers seldom reached the camps with any frequency.
When the last scrap of news was digested, the men sat around the campfire and sang.
Each tent boasted at least one instrument, if only the ubiquitous mouth harp, that familiar
of pioneer camp life. Singly or together, in the moonlight or fog, their owners performed,
while the audience wholeheartedly sang familiar melodies ranging from hymns to songs
written in complaint of their hard lives. Occasionally a Negro from a nearby plantation,
eager to see the "Yanks" for himself appeared at their fires and danced the Juba while the
men clapped time to the swift rhythm of his steps. The more exuberant of the men
stepped out with the Negro in a clattering buck and wing, to the cheers of the onlookers.
Later he sang in a deep, rich voice, old southern melodies and ancient chants brought by
his forefathers from Africa.
When the blazing logs died to coals, one by one the men slipped quietly away through
the rows of tents to crawl into their blankets and hope for a night's sleep undisturbed by
raiding parties.
44 Rations
36
Food in the camps, at least in its original state, was not too bad. The government's
intent was that it be good, but slowness of transportation, lack of proper storage, and poor
cooking facilities, resulted that in its final state, it did little more than to ward off
starvation. As is true in all times of stress, occasional rascally contractors and conniving
inspectors made themselves rich at the soldiers' expense, but the majority of the
purveyors of army supplies were honest men. Men whose sons were in the camps. Men
who did their best in a difficult time.
The rank and file of the men received salt meat (fresh meat was seldom available),
rarely ham or bacon, hard bread, soft bread when it was possible to bake it, potatoes, an
occasional onion, flour, beans, split peas, rice, dried fruit, desiccated vegetables, coffee,
tea, sugar, molasses vinegar, candles, soap, pepper and salt. Not always each of these
items, and too often not in a quantity sufficient to answer their appetites. Occasional fresh
vegetables, dried fruits, pickles and sauerkraut, were issued only when scurvy became too
prevalent. On the march, the issue, naturally, was less since the men could not carry too
great loads. Commissioned officers had a cash allowance with which to purchase supplies
from the commissary. This allowance included the wages of a servant, who cooked, cared
for the officer's horse, and clothing, and was paid in the order of military rank. Forage
and a horse were also allowed to each officer.
Hard tack, a flour and water biscuit about 3 1/8" by 2", were rationed by number to
the men. These chunks were so hard they could not be bitten or soaked to softness.
Letting them stand in water reduced them to a form of elasticity allowing them to be
swallowed. What they lacked in nutrition they made up in their "filling" quality. On the
march the hard tack issued was often moldy or wet. A common procedure was to stack
the boxes containing hardtack at railroad stations or distributing centers, not sheltered, or
so inadequately protected that they absorbed moisture. Maggots and weevils infested
them.
The first years of the war each soldier usually prepared his own food or joined around
a common campfire with his buddies. The thin, tasteless soup was thickened with hard
tack pounded to crumbs between two rocks. Others added water to the crumbled hard
tack, and fried the soaked mixture in fat from the meat ration. "Skillygalee" was a
popular camp name for this dish. Other soldiers split a small branch from a tree, inserting
the hard tack into a split end, toasted it over the campfire and then soaked it in coffee. At
times it was tossed into the fire until burned black, then retrieved and eaten with soup.
Small wonder the men spent their spare time writing mournful songs of many verses
about "hard crackers," which they sang plaintively as they marched.
One general hearing the men singing these sad verses, ordered cornmeal mush served
for a change, whereupon a new verse was added:
But to groans and murmurs
There has come a sudden hush
Our frail forms are fainting at the door;
We are starving now on horse feed
That the cooks call mush,
Oh, hard crackers come again once more!
Chorus:
It is the dying wail of the starving
Hard crackers, hard crackers come again once more.
You were old and very wormy, but we pass your failings o'er,
Oh, hard crackers come again once more!
37
Without comment, the general ordered a return to hard tack, preferring the earlier
plaintive verses to the new form.
Coffee was the mainstay of the weary men. When the regimental supply was received
it was carefully divided, together with each man's share of sugar. The precious hoard was
then secreted about his person. Old timers mixed coffee and sugar, then dumped it into
their haversacks. Milk was a rarity. On the march, an occasional roving cow was milked,
but as the war dragged on, fewer and fewer cows presented themselves, having been used
either by the local inhabitants or passing troops for beef. Most of the men preferred
boiling their own coffee to pooling it to be prepared by a camp cook. The men claimed
the flavor of coffee made in small quantity over open fires was superior, even
compensating for the difficulties involved in handling a red hot container. The can
rapidly became black inside, and no doubt the men's stomachs were the same.
On the march, footsore and weary, men would drop out of the line, hastily gather a
few scattered branches for a little fire, boil coffee, and catch a moment's rest behind a tree
or bush, then hurry along to overtake their company. The origin, perhaps of the coffee
break!
Bivouacking on the march, each man seized a rail from the nearest fence, or branches
from a convenient tree, and soon hundreds of tiny campfires were blazing surrounded by
tired men who first boiled coffee in which to soak their hard crackers, and often with no
more for their meal, rolled up in their blankets, dropped down on the hard ground and
were instantly asleep. If midnight march was called, a pot of coffee preceded it.
Together with coffee and hardtack, cornmeal was also a mainstay. The local mills
built to supply their communities in peacetime, now maintained the armies. Iowa
regiments halted and camped in the hills of Missouri and other southern states, while
wagons powered by stolid ox teams plodded long miles over the hills on seemingly
bottomless trails to the gristmill, where the corn they carried was ground into meal, to be
dragged back to the troops over the same tedious path. Corn pone, flat cakes made of
cornmeal and water, and fried with their salt pork, and a cup of black coffee often
comprised the evening meal.
In the early years of the war, men and oxen alike were fed corn purchased along the
line of march. At times, when the march was halted for darkness, so hungry were the
men, the corn was shelled from the cob and chewed down whole. To begin with, foraging
as the men marched was frowned upon, and officers insisted that food be purchased. In
later years, when the high command came to agree with General Sherman's theory that an
army should subsist on the land it traversed, foraging produced some fresh vegetables,
occasional chickens and eggs, or with good fortune, perhaps a fat young porker. By this
time, however, the demands of the Confederate army, plus those of the local people, had
pretty well stripped even the southern plantations of their plenty. Anything edible was
carefully cached away by its owner, and searching parties came back to camp with little
success.
As the army became better organized, especially in camps which were maintained for
a period of time, company cooks, selected from the ranks, often prepared the food. At the
sound of the bugle, the men lined up each with a tin plate and cup to be filled by the cook
with a long handled tin dipper. Even in such situations, many of the men preferred to
continue cooking their own food to having it prepared in large tasteless quantities. Onions
were scarce and wild garlic was used to season the lobscouse. When meat was issued, the
old timers impaled it on a forked stick and broiled it over the coals. Others threw it on the
coals to burn black on the outside while it remained raw inside. To fry, a skillet was
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essential. Lashed to the musket tip, it was often proudly carried aloft on the march. Other
men tucked their skillet beneath the straps of a knapsack.
The desiccated or dried vegetables dubbed by the men "desecrated" consisting of
layers of cabbage leaves, turnip tops, sliced carrots, parsnips and a breath of onion,
swelled amazingly when soaked, and whatever they lacked in flavor, at least they were
filling.
As the men moved further and further south, their rations grew even more limited.
Transportation was a continuing problem, and the local supply of fruit, vegetables, and
meat was not adequate to feed the local inhabitants. In every letter written home was the
constant complaint of the lack of appetizing food. They begged for onions, partly for
flavor and partly as a preventive of scurvy. As one soldier tersely put it: "I prefer onions
to strawberries, they're more expressive!"
In the closing years of the war as the men marched, worn and battered, the signs of
southern misery grew more apparent. Children, ragged and hungry, stood along the line
of march to watch the soldiers pass by. Again and again, a hungry doughboy reached in
his pocket to find a treasured piece of bread to toss to big-eyed youngsters.
"Hell," he grumbled apologetically, "babies don't fight!" He pulled his belt up a
notch. "I'm not starving!"
Looking straight ahead, the men marched on. "Fighting women and children ain't no
kind of a war," an older man whispered under his breath. "At least," he explained to the
men around him "my kids are safe, and, I hope," he qualified softly "they're not going to
bed hungry."
This was a re-enlisted regiment, veterans all. Their boots clumped in steady rhythm
down the muddy road. Talk wasted breath important in a long day's march. The only
sound was the swish of mud, and the changing of a musket from one hand to another.
War, these men knew, was an ugly business. Like a well oiled machine the army moved
forward. Its single objective was to win the war and get it over with.
45 Women
Although the majority of Iowa's Civil War heroines labored unsung and unknown
except in their immediate community, not always recognized beyond their immediate
neighborhood, as always, a few women did stand out from the crowd, to receive state and
national recognition.
From the beginning of the settlement of Iowa, women played an active part. The wife
was her husband's partner in his undertakings, and had a principal role in the management
of the home and family. The pioneer family knew a togetherness far greater than exists in
the modern home. Work and recreation were centered in the home, and the outside
interests—church and school—were family affairs. While there were limitations on
women's political and social life which do not exist today, her good judgment and
contribution to the family's economic welfare, was important.
In the overland immigration, women had an equal place with the men. As one
observer reports: "No person in all that multitude traveled alone or unattached to a
family; and of the very few unmarried men among them, each was usually, if not in every
case, a member or near member of the family to which he was attached." The
predominance of women among the state's pioneer settlers contributed to early Iowa's
citizenship stability, and laid the foundations for its cultural standards. Nor was this
westward migration of women limited to the poor and ignorant. Wives and daughters of
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well-to-do families, women of culture and education, sheltered women, came to the Iowa
frontier, a fortunate situation for the state when war blazed. In Iowa homes from log
cabin to the finest structures, were women of proven leadership. Women capable of
assuming responsibility for businesses and farms left behind by the men. Throughout the
pioneer period, these women originated high standards of culture which were reflected
throughout not only this period but in today's living.
Three women in particular achieved distinction in the Civil War organization of
activities behind the fighting lines: Annie Turner Wittenmyer of Keokuk; Kate
Harrington of Farmington; and Amelia Jenks Bloomer of Council Bluffs. With the
cooperation of other women less well known but no doubt equally able, these three
women played leading roles, organizing the-Soldiers' Aid Societies and Sanitary
Commissions to help the soldiers in the field and in the hospitals. Rebecca Smith
Harrington, or Kate Harrington as she was more commonly known, turned her attention
not only to current political problems but to schools for the children, as well as doing
much newspaper and writing work. Before the war, under her nom de plume, Kate
Harrington, she wrote a novel Emma Bartlett which originated in her experiences while
living in both the North and the South, with particular emphasis
upon the time she spent in Kentucky. Her depiction of the social and political problems of
the era received both acclaim and blame. Her book which was a reply to the
tremendously popular Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, was written out of
observations while living in Louisville, where she knew slave owners who treated their
slaves with kindness. In Emma Bartlett, she sought to present this side of the story, and
point out the political and religious fanaticism which permeated existing anti-slavery
groups such as Abolitionism, Know Nothingism, and similar heresies. During her life in
Louisville she was a constant contributor to the Louisville Journal, a widely read
newspaper of the day whose editor strongly opposed secession, and from whom she
imbibed the spirit of Unionism. Through him Kate met her first husband, Oliver I. Taylor,
a New York poet and editor, whom she married in Farmington, Iowa.
In Keosauqua, the Taylors edited a newspaper and later in Burlington published the
Gazette. After her first husband's death, and even following her second marriage to James
Pollard of Bloomfield, Kate devoted her time and thought to teaching. Mr. Pollard was
active politically, an enthusiasm in which she evidently did not participate. Throughout
this period in her life, she taught in her own private schools in Farmington, Keokuk, and
Fort Madison, where she developed unique and advanced methods for teaching young
children. To illustrate volcanic action, she boiled a kettle of mush on the stove, pointing
out to her pupils its similarity to boiling lava. Fractions were taught by dividing apples,
later to be eaten during school hours, an act unheard of at that time. Each year a garden
was planted with delicate plants, one set to be pulled up to study their growth, while the
surviving plants matured to demonstrate the results of their growth. Battles of the
Revolutionary War were refought in the school yard with beating drums, broom, stick
guns, and eraser pistols. Out of her experiments Mrs. Pollard produced a series of readers,
spellers, stencil pictures, and a teacher's manual, very advanced for the times. Her books
and method, were widely used, and in Boston, the distinguished teacher, Edward Everett
Hale, strongly endorsed her controversial theories.
Throughout Kate Harrington's life she continued to write. In later years she wrote
hymns as well as poetry. Many of her articles were political in nature, dealing with
controversial problems of the day She was a woman of charm, who looked with
40
understanding upon the weaknesses and prejudices of mankind, while undertaking to
interpret them to her many readers.
Known principally for the pantaloon style of women's costume, which she espoused
but did not originate, Amelia Jenks Bloomer was not only a militant female reformer, but
active in the Soldier's Aid Society. The Bloomers came to Iowa in 1855, that Mr.
Bloomer might pursue his career in the new state as an editor and lawyer. The pair were
part of the vast movement of people from all over the world as well as within our own
country, to Iowa's lush Prairies, and like others of their ilk, lent their talents to the
building of the new state. In Seneca Falls New York, Bloomer had edited a small Whig
newspaper, while Amelia published a ladies' journal dedicated to temperance and
literature. 1853, the Bloomers moved to Mount Vernon, Ohio, where they edited the
Western Home Visitor.
Arrived in St. Joseph, Missouri, on their way to Iowa, they carried their carpet-bags
down the swaying gangplank, only to find the stage for Council Bluffs had left. After
several days of waiting, they found space in a stage in which Kit Carson was a fellow
passenger. Iowa, they discovered, differed greatly from the established villages of Ohio.
The buildings passed as the stage wheeled dustily along its route, were mostly of logs.
Village streets were usually only paths through fields of sunflowers, and sidewalks were
unknown. In Council Bluffs as Amelia unpacked her cherished dishes and furniture, and
hung crisp curtains at the windows, she heard on every side the noise and clatter of
building. So modern was the new city, that occasional brick and frame houses were
among those being constructed. The shrubs and grafts brought from Ohio were planted to
the merry tune of hammers building nearly a three story hotel to shelter the anticipated
rush of immigrants to the new city. Songs and shouts of the men lined along the bar of a
nearby saloon were an all-night clamor. Indians camped nearby. Frontiersman thronged
the nearby land office. Land near Council Bluffs was brining as much as ten dollars an
acre, a tremendous price which enthusiasts cheered, and the less optimistic decried as a
forerunner of doom.
Both the Bloomers entered with vigor into the hurry burly of frontier living, and its
enthusiasms. In 1856 Amelia almost persuaded the Nebraska legislature to adopt
Woman's Suffrage, a defeat which was a victory since "Votes for Women" was unthought
of in the 1850's, except for a few zealous women and an occasional man supporter, who
were advanced beyond their time. Mr. Bloomer entered the practice of law with W. H.
Kinsman, who as a young man had walked from the Mississippi to the Missouri, to settle
in Council Bluffs. Kinsman later died in battle near Vicksburg to become a hero and his
name a battle cry.
The firing upon Fort Sumter quickened the excitement of Council Bluffs living.
Coincident with the recruiting of Company B of the Fourth Volunteer Infantry, Amelia
formed a local Soldiers' Aid Society. Meeting in her living room, the group stitched a
large silk flag, which was later presented to Company B of the Fourth drawn up in parade
formation.
Mrs. Bloomer made a speech: "You are now going forth to sustain and defend the
Constitution," she told the command dressed in its best, "against an unjust and monstrous
rebellion, fomented and carried on by wicked and ambitious men who have for their
object the overthrow of the best government the world has ever seen." So moving were
her words that the local press reported "many a brawny breast heaved, and tears trickled
down many a face!"
41
To this dramatic speech, Lieutenant Kinsman responded. His words, however, were
more restrained than were Mrs. Bloomer's. He pointed out that the company was not
imbued with a spirit of revenge, nor was it motivated by malice against the South, but it
was taking the field to "preserve inviolate the institution for which our fathers fought."
With cheers for the ladies, a round of drums, and the playing of "Yankee Doodle," the
command passed in review, and the affair ended in a blaze of glory for Mrs. Bloomer and
her co-workers. Similar scenes were enacted all over Iowa, as their men marched away,
each with his knapsack stuffed with home cooked food, with a flag made by fond
mothers, wives and sweethearts fluttering bravely before them.
Inseparable in the history of this particular regiment is that of General Grenville M.
Dodge, who won fame as an army commander and who was the close personal friend and
advisor of both President Lincoln and General Grant.
Towels, havelocks, needle books, bed sacks, pillow sacks and pillows, all made and
packed in the Bloomer living room were shipped a month following its departure to
Company B in Rollo, Missouri. Not to be outdone by his energetic wife, Bloomer opened
a recruiting station in his office, and chaired the committee accepting donations for the
soldiers' families. Almost a hundred families were cared for in the first fall and winter of
the committee's activity. Through their committees, both the Bloomers vigorously
supported the Christian Commission and the United States Sanitary Commission. On her
return from the Northwest Sanitary Fair in Chicago. Mrs. Bloomer pridefully reported
that Iowa "made a very creditable appearance in fancy articles and curiosities."
Throughout the war years, Amelia laid aside her suffrage activities, not returning to
them until the war's end, when she again took up cudgels for the cause of women's rights,
devoting an increasing attention to winning the vote for Iowa women and to the placing
of women in posts of responsibility. Despite her activities outside her home, she and her
husband led a happy domestic life. Her home was surrounded with blooming fruit trees
and shrubs, many of which she had brought from Ohio as slips and grafts. Their apple
trees were weighted down with prize-winning apples, and in the fall her yard was a blaze
of asters. Currants hung heavy behind the house from which she made glasses of colorful
jelly which joined the other jams and jellies crowding her cupboard shelves. She was
famous for her crusty loaves of graham bread, which she baked in a wood stove, the same
stove on which she cooked her crab apple jelly and prepared her sweet pickles. In the
midst of her busy life she found time to make soap and smoke hams and bacon, as well as
to entertain in her comfortable home, distinguished guests from foreign lands and those
nationally prominent in America.
Until her death in 1890, she retained her consuming interest in the political and social
life about her, as well as in the history and events of the past.
Best known of Civil War women leaders and the one who probably attained the
greatest distinction, is Annie Turner Wittenmeyer, born in Ohio, whose mother claimed
descent from soldier of fortune, John Smith of Virginia. At the age of twenty, Annie
married prosperous William Wittenmeyer, much older than herself, and moved to
Keokuk. When the war began, she was a financially independent widow, a cold-eyed
executive type with boundless energy. In war work, she found an outlet for her urge to
public service, and a limitless field for her tireless activity. Beginning her work in the
camps and hospitals around Keokuk, she soon was involved in organizing supplies for the
battle front.
In January, 1862, Annie, by now an experienced soldiers' relief worker, walked into a
military hospital in Sedalia, Missouri. Breakfast was being served, and to her surprise,
42
she recognized her sixteen year old brother, David on one of the cots. The suffering boy
had just refused his breakfast tray.
"If you can't eat this," the attendant told him angrily, "you will have to go without!"
Horrified Mrs. Wittenmeyer looked at the tray. "On a dingy looking wooden tray,"
she later wrote "was a tin cup full of black, strong coffee; beside it was a leaden looking
tin platter on which was a piece of fried fat bacon swimming in its own grease, and a
slice of bread." This was not a case of discrimination; it was the food served to all Civil
War soldiers whether ill with typhoid or acute dysentery, or suffering from amputations.
Fortunate it was for the sick boy and other thousands like him, that his sister happened to
be in the hospital that morning and that she was Annie Wittenmeyer who believed in
doing something about conditions which could be prevented. She nursed the boy back to
health, then turned her organizing ability to providing proper diets for army hospital
patients.
Annie Wittenmeyer was then in her middle thirties. Her hair was already snow white
but her keen blue eyes and tremendous energy denied any suggestion of age. For almost a
year she had been working camps and hospitals up and down the Mississippi River
wherever Iowa regiments were stationed, bringing tasty food and supplies to the men in
the hospitals. She had been active in organizing the Keokuk Soldiers' Aid Society, one of
the many such groups which mobilized Iowa women to supply money, jellies, fruits,
sheets, hospital garments, whatever the men needed for comfort.
As the days passed she went about her work, and became more and more impressed
by the lack of foresight in government hospitals in the feeding and care of the sick and
wounded men. The fare issued to a man dying of fever, was the same as that issued to a
man in the front dines. Today these rations would be condemned as unfit for a well man,
but for men sick with typhoid or running a high temperature from infected wounds such
food was deadly, more deadly than rebel bullets. More than medicine, the suffering men
needed a proper diet to restore their health. The aid societies, the United States Sanitary
Commission, and the United States Christian Commission tried to supply delicacies to
the critically ill, but representatives of these organizations could not be in these hospitals
all the time, and spasmodic gifts were unsatisfactory.
The women's efforts to remedy these conditions met with a complete lack of
cooperation if not out and out opposition by the medical staffs of the hospitals.
Frequently delicacies turned over to the commissary for distribution among the patients
failed to reach those for whom intended, even appearing on the tables of able-bodied
officers and medical officials.
Mrs. Wittenmeyer wrestled with the insuperable obstacles until in December, 1863,
an idea came to her "like a divine inspiration." She proposed that special diet kitchens be
established in the larger military hospitals with experienced women in charge. The diet
for each patient needing special food was to be ordered by the attending surgeon,
prepared in the diet kitchen, and served to the patient according to the name or number on
the slip. The idea today seems obvious, but in the 1860's it was revolutionary.
Her plan, as might be expected, did not at first meet favor by the hospital surgeons
but experiments with the special kitchens soon convinced the commanding officers and
the surgeons of their worth. In May, 1864, the United States Christian Commission
undertook the work of the diet kitchens, and Mrs. Wittenmeyer, who by then had been
named by the legislature as the Sanitary Agent for Iowa, resigned that post to devote her
time to the organization, management, and supervision of her kitchens in the army
hospitals. By the war's close more than a hundred of these were in operation and through
43
them passed such tasty items as toast, chicken soup, milk, tomatoes, jellies, tea, gruel,
and vegetables, enhancing the crude army fare or replacing it altogether.
Attendants and supplies to operate the kitchens were mostly furnished by the
government; much of the specially prepared food was donated by hundreds of Iowa
women as well as those of other states, working in their kitchens to prepare the good food
which was to save the lives of so many of their men.
As agent of the United States Christian Commission, Mrs. Wittenmeyer named the
attendants employed in the kitchens, and the Commission paid their expenses and
maintenance. By October, 1864, the War Department issued special orders that Mrs.
Wittenmeyer and her ladies might visit the United States hospitals to superintend the
operating and cooking in these special diet kitchens.
Mrs. Wittenmeyer's standards for her kitchens and those who supervised them were
high. Not only must the kitchens be clean and the food carefully prepared, but those who
worked in them must be clean and refrain from gossiping or unchristian actions. Thus the
standards for womanhood of that era were maintained. In a period when women seldom
ventured outside their homes to engage in either social or economic activity, the
maintenance of these standards was the more important. No taint of evil must be
permitted to in any way lessen the effectiveness of these kitchens.
Graft was a relentless enemy. Despite precautions against misuse of materials, Mrs.
Wittenmeyer learned that the food, particularly the coffee in one kitchen was poor. An
investigation disclosed that the used coffee grounds were poured in a barrel after drying.
The grounds then were dyed with logwood and re-used, a practice profitable to its
instigator. Discovering this was done on orders of the hospital surgeon, Mrs.
Wittenmeyer, never one to hesitate, went forthwith to General Robert Wood, the
Assistant Surgeon General. The astonished officer protested:
"Why, he is one of my best surgeons !"
"My opinion of him is that he ought to be hung higher than Haman," snapped Mrs.
Wittenmeyer.
When Annie presented her proofs, General Wood ordered the recalcitrant surgeon
before a commission, authorizing Mrs. Wittenmeyer to name the commission, whereupon
the guilty surgeon hurriedly took himself away, telegraphing his resignation from a safe
distance from this militant woman.

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