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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 2 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 3 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 4 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. 8 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 29 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 32 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 33 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 |