USA > Iowa > An illustrated history of the state of Iowa, being a complete civil, political, and military history of the state, from its first exploration down to 1875; > Part 74
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represent his county and district in the constitutional convention, and served as an active and influential member. In 1851, Mr. Bartley, his partner, hav- ing been elected to the supreme ju- diciary of the state, Kirkwood formed a copartnership with Barnabas Barns, with whom he continued to practice until the spring of 1855, when he re- moved to the west. Up to 1854, Gov. Kirkwood had acted with the demo- cratic party, but the Kansas-Nebraska act had the effect to drive him as was the case with many others, out of the party. In 1855. he came in a quiet way to Iowa, and settled two miles northwest of Iowa City, and engaged in the milling business, but soon en- tered into the political interests of the day. In 1856, he was elected to tlie state senate from the district com- posed of the counties of Iowa and Johnson, and served through the last session of the legislature held at Iowa City, and the first one held at Des Moines. In 1859, Kirkwood was made the standard bearer of the repub- licans of Iowa, and, after a stern con- test with as able and popular a com- petitor as Gen. A. C. Dodge, he was elected governor of Iowa by a majori- ty of over three thousand. In Octo- ber, 1861, he was with comparatively little opposition, reelected governor - an honor accorded for the first time in the history ot the state - his ma- jority having been about eighteen thousand. We cannot enter into de- tails respecting Gov. Kirkwood's ad- ministration, which have been more fully brought out in a former part of this volume ; suffice to say, that as gov- ernor during the darkest days of the rebellion, he proved himself an able as well as a loyal executive. During his second term, he was appointed minister to Denmark, but declined the position. In January, 1866, he was a prominent candidate before the legislature for United States senator. It happened that the legislature had two terms of United States seuator to fill - a short term of two years, to fill Harlan's unexpired term, and a long term of six years to succeed this. Ul- timately, Kirkwood was elected for the first, and Harlan for the second term. At the close of his senatorial. term, March 4, 1867, he resumed the practice of law, which he has lately relinquished to accept the presidency!
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of the Iowa City Savings Bank. Gov. [ family, to Fairfield, Jefferson county, Kirkwood was married in 1843, to Miss Jane Clark, a native of Ohio. They have no children. By the people of Iowa, or by the general govern- ment, he may yet be recalled from the retirement he delights in to hon- ors higher than he aspires to.
[Since writing the above biography, I am in receipt of the intelligence that Mr. Kirk- wood has been reelected to the office of gov- ernor of Iowa, by the largest vote ever given for a candidate for governor of Iowa .- C.R.T.]
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Col. John Q. Wilds. John Q. Wilds, was born at Fort Littleton, Pa., Octo- ber 24, 1822. Although unable to ob- tain a classic education, he secured for himself, by perseverance and hard study, a general knowledge of the common English branches, which, combined with sound judgment and good business tact, was the talisman of his success in after life. His earlier years were spent as a tiller of the soil. From 1850 to 1854, he was successfully engaged in mercantile pursuits at his native town. But he soon became restless and turned his gaze westward. Iowa was his choice among all the north western states, and he soon found himself within her borders. Settling in the village of Mount Vernon, he engaged in selling goods and specula- tion in lands and met with great suc- cess. In 1857, he was married to Miss Rowena Camp, who, with their two children, died in the fall of 1864. Sometime during the summer of 1861, he was elected captain of company A, 13th Iowa infantry. Serving with this regiment but a short time, he resigned to accept the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 24th Iowa infantry, sometimes called the "Iowa Temperance Regi- ment," or " Methodist Regiment." In 1863, Col. E. C. Byam was compelled to leave the service by reason of ill health, and Lieut. Col. Wilds took his place. At the battle of Cedar Creek, Col. Wilds was mortally wounded, and his death occurred at Winchester, November 18, 1864. For account of his military services, see " Iowa in the Rebellion."
Gen. Marcellus Monroe Crocker. Macellus Monroe Crocker was born Feb. 6, 1830, in Johnson county, Ind., where his early life was spent. In 1844, he removed with his father's
Iowa, and two years later, received from Senator A. C. Dodge, the appoint- ment of cadet in the United State Mil- itary Academy at West Point. After two years creditably spent at the ac- ademy, he was suddenly called home by the death of his father. Seeing his mother but poorly provided for, he at once resigned his cadetship, that he might better assist her in the support of herself and his sisters. In 1850, Crocker, then 20 years of age, entered upon the study of the law, and was also married to a young lady whose heart he had won. He was admitted to the bar the following year, and opened an office in Lancaster, where he pursued his profession honorably and successfully till 1854, when he re- moved to Des Moines, and was soon afterwards recognized as one of the leading lawyers of the state. When the rebellion broke out, Crocker was among the first to respond to the pres- ideut's call, by raising the first mili. tary company organized in Central Iowa, which was incorporated into the 2d Iowa Infantry, of which he be- came the first major, and the following September, when he was promoted to the grade of lieutenant colonel. On the 30th of October, 1861, he was com- missioned a full colonel, and given the command of the 13th Iowa Infantry ; he remained in command of his regi- meut till the battle of Shiloh occurred, when the commander of the brigade to which the 13th was attached, being wounded and disabled early in the action of the first day, Crocker, as the next senior officer, took his place. On the 29th of November, 1862, Crocker was appointed a brigadier general, but the confirmation of his appointment by the senate was deferred till the following March, up to which latter date he remained in command of the Iowa Brigade. Gen. Grant's army was about moving for the rear of Vicksburg when Crocker received his commission as brigadier, and he was immediately put in command of the 7th division of the 17th Army Corps. which, under him, greatly distin- guished itself at the battle of Jack- son, on the 14th of May, and bore a conspicuous part at the battle of Champion Hill, on the 16th of May, 1863. He accompanied Gen. Sher- man in his expedition to Harri-
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son's Landing, La., in the early part | upon him, in consequence of the ab- of 1864; from Vicksburg to Meridian, and in the spring of the same year began the Atlanta campaign with the 17th corps. However, his health failed and he was obliged to leave the field ; with the hope of improving it, how- ever, he accepted a command in the department of New Mexico. Here his health improved, and at his own re- quest, he was ordered to report to the commander of the department of the Cumberland in the spring of 1865. His anxiety to return to the field and to active duty, induced him to start from New Mexico too early in the season, and his health became worse than ever. On the 6th of August, 1865, he started for Washington, and on the 26th of the same month he died at Willard's Hotel, in that city, of Con- sumption, the disease which had for many years harrassed and hindered him.
Maj. Gen. F. J. Herron. Francis Jay Herron was born at Pittsburgh, Pa., Feb. 17, 1831; was educated at the Western university of Pennsyl- vania, graduated in 1853, and two years afterwards took up his resi- dence at Dubuque, Iowa, where the beginning of the war of the rebellion found him engaged in the busines of banking. He seems to have had a love for the discipline and exercises of military life, for, long before the war he helped to organize, and was in command of the "Governor's Greys." Early in December, 1860, he made a tender of the company to the govern- ment. This was the first offer of troops made to the government, as ap- pears from the letter of Hon. Joseph Holt, in his acceptance of the com- pany. No requirement of duty was made, however, but on the 14th of May it was mustered into the U. S. service, as company I, of the 1st regi- ment of Iowa volunteers. One month from this date commenced the actual campaigning in the west. Through- out this campaign, Capt. Herron was in command of his company, and always on duty. He was mustered out, with his regiment, Aug. 23, and very soon after commissioned by Gov. Kirkwood, lieut. colonel of the 9th Iowa infantry, and immediately took the field. Very soon after joining his regiment the command of it devolved
sence of its colonel, Vandever, who had not yet been relieved of his duties in congress, and who, upon his return to the army, was assigned to the com- mand of a brigade. "Of the bravery of Lieut. Col. Herron, in immediate command of the Iowa 9th, too much cannot be said." was the report made of him by the brigade commander, Col. Vandever. In July, 1862, he was commissioned and confirmed a brigadier general, and soon afterward assigned by Gen. Schofield to the com- mand of a brigade, stationed at Rolla, Mo. Nov. 29, 1862, Gen. Herron was commissioned major general. He was, we believe, at the date of this commission, the youngest officer of that rank in the army. Having been the first to offer his services to the government, having participated in the first determined and brilliant fight made by the union forces, with the lamented Lyon, he was also the last federal officer to receive surrenders from the enemy. The first troops offered to the government were his, and the last rebel flag surrendered .to the government was received by him. He resigned his commission July 16, 1865, and returned to civil life, closing a military career of remardable activ- ity, and full of heroic incident.
Maj. Gen. S. R. Curtis. Samuel Ryan Curtis, U. S. Pacific Railroad commissioner, and first general of vol- unteers from Iowa, was born in Ohio, Feb. 3, 1807, and graduated at West Point July 1, 1831. After a brief ser- vice in Arkansas as brevet 2d lieuten- ant in the 7th U. S. infantry, he re- signed to engage as a civil engineer, both on the national road, and as chief of the Muskingum river im- provement in his native state, where he also commanded various military bodies, and engaged in the practice of the law. At the opening of the Mexi- can war, he was made adjutant general of Ohio, and soon afterwards colonel of the 3d Ohio volunteers. In Mexico, he served with distinction, with his regiment, as military governor of con- quered cities, and on the staff of Gen. Wool. In 1847, he removed to Keo- kuk, Iowa, always afterwards his home. In Iowa, he was long chief en- gineer of the Des Moines river im- provement, and here also he practiced
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Jaw. From 1850 to 1853, he was chief | coln, "not for any fault," but at the engineer of St. Louis city, where lie instance of a clique of Missouri poli- ticians. On Jan. 1, 1864, Gen. Curtis was assigned to the department of Kansas, including all of his old terri- torial command except Missouri and Arkansas. On Feb. 16, 1865, Gen. Curtis assumed command of the de- partment of the northwest, including Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Dakota, and all north of Nebraska. This de- partment was dissolved July 26, 1865. In the fall of 1865, the general went far up the Missouri as commissioner, to treat with the Indians, and effected some important treaties. He was also appointed U. S. commissioner to in- spect the Union Pacific Railroad. He had just completed an inspection of the last thirty-five miles, terminating three hundred and five miles west of the Missouri river, signed the report at Omaha, walked over the river on the ice, stepped into a carriage in appar- ent perfect health, and died within half a mile of the river bank. His re- mains were brought to their last rest- ing place in Keokuk, escorted by Gen. J. H. Simpson, Dr. Wm. White, Pa- cific railroad commissioners, Col. R. H. Hunt, of his former staff, and oth- ers. left a lasting monument of his abilities by connecting Bloody Island with the Illinois shore, thus saving St. Louis from becoming an inland town. Sub- sequently he acted as engineer for va- rious railroads through Indiana, Illi- nois and Iowa, and for these compa- nies in 1853, he indicated the line of a Central Pacific Railroad, as subse- quently adopted. As an original re- publican, he was thrice elected to con- gress from the 1st congressional dis- trict of Iowa, serving in the 35th, 36th, and 37th congresses. Here he was member of the committee on military affairs, and chairman of the commit- tee on the Pacific Railroad. He intro- duced a bill to construct this road on a plan substantially similar to the routes since adopted. He represented Iowa in the great " peace conference," which failed to prevent the greatest of civil wars. In the fall of Sumter, he left his home, and was one of the first to arrive in Washington, piloting the New York 7th regiment to the city as volunteer aid to its commander. Re- turning, he was unanimously elected colonel of the 2d Iowa infantry, and leading his regiment, the first from Iowa to follow the flag below the state boundary, he seized the line of the Gen. Wm. Vandever. Gen. Wil. liam Vandever is a native of the city of Baltimore, and was born March 31, 1817. When he was ten years of age his parents removed, or rather re- turned, to Philadelphia, their former place of residence, where they re- mained until young Vandever had grown to man's estate. His education was received in the public schools of that city. At the age of twenty-two, that is in 1839, he emigrated westward, and locating at Rock Island, Ill., he remained there until 1851, when he took up his residence at Dubuque, Iowa. During his residence in Illi- nois, he was for several years engaged in the survey of the public lands, and part of the time owner and editor of a paper published at Rock Island, called the Northwestern Advertiser. At Dubuque his first two years were spent in the surveyor general's office. Afterwards he was admitted to the bar, and commenced the practice of law in that city, in partnership with Hon. Ben. M. Samuels. In 1858, he was nominated by the republican Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, thus virtually capturing half the great state of Missouri, then in incipient rebellion. Having completed this movement, he hastened to attend the extra session of congress, called July 4, 1861, and while in attendance, was present unofficially at Bull Run. Re- signing his seat in congress, he was made a brigadier general from May 17, 1861, and repaired to St. Louis, where, under Fremont, he organized the "camp of instruction," first at Jefferson, and afterwards at Benton Barracks. Under Halleck, he first held the important command of the St. Louis district. He was ordered to assume command of the department of the Missouri, Sept. 24, 1862. This command he held for eight months, during the most gloomy period of the war. His position was one of vast re- sponsibility and importance, in which every duty was discharged to the sat- isfaction of the patriotic north. At the end of his eight months' adminis- tration, he was removed by Pres. Lin-
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party to represent the second congres- sional district in congress. The can- vass was a spirited and close one, his his competitor being his former part- ner, Mr. Samuels. Mr. Vandever was elected, and in 1860 reelected by near- ly ten thousand majority. In 1861 commenced the war of the rebellion. Curtis and Vandever both offered their services to the government, were accepted abandoned and their seats in congress to share in the strife. They retained their seats, however, until after the extra session of that year. Very soon afterward, Mr. Vandever tendered to the war department a reg- iment to be recruited by himself from among his constituents. The offer
having been accepted he set about raising his men without delay. This work was soon accomplished, and tak- ing command in person, Col. V. re- ported at St. Louis with the 9th Iowa infantry in September, accompanied also by the 3d Iowa battery. In 1862, he accompanied Gen. Curtis in his southwestern campaign through Mis- souri and Arkansas. In November, 1862, Col. V. was commissioned brigadier general, and having been transferred to the department of Mis- souri, was placed in command of the second division of the old army. In 1863, he took part in the siege of Vicksburg, and, after its capture, joined in an expedition to Yazoo City. Returning from this place his next field of service was the department of the gulf, accompanying Gen. Banks in his first expedition to Texas. From Texas, he returned in December, and reported to Gen. Grant at Nashville; served with Grant, and afterwards with Sherman, on the line of opera- tions to Atlanta, and subsequently from Savannah to Richmond. At the battle of Bentonville, N. C., the general won distinction, and for it, afterwards, a brevet major generalship. He was mustered out of the United States service in September, 1865, after over four years of brave and faithful service.
Gen. Cyrus Bussey. Cyrus Bussey, major general by brevet, United States volunteers, came to Iowa in the sum- mer of 1855, then a young man of twenty-two years of age; located at Bloomfield, Davis county, and entered into mercantile business. He was born in Trumbull county, Ohio, Octo-
ber 5, 1833. His father was a Meth- odist minister in poor circumstances, with a large family. His early educa- tional advantages were very limited, but his native ability, joined with hab- its of persistent study, have largely made up for these drawbacks of his youth. The war found him a success- ful and thriving merchant. Up to this time he had been an earnest and effi- cient democrat; a member of the state senate in 1858, a delegate to the Charleston and Baltimore conventions of 1860; but the signal gun having been fired at Sumter, he stepped out of the ranks of his party, no longer a partisan but a patriot. Gov. Kirk- wood had not failed to notice the in- telligence and energy which Senator Bussey had shown since the opening of the war, and sent him a commission as aid-de-camp, with rank of lieuten- ant-colonel, and assigned to him the control of the militia of the southeast part of the state. About this time Col. Bussey was authorized by the United States government to raise a regiment of cavalry, which he set about with his usual energy and suc- cess; and, by the 20th of August, had his regiment, the 3d Iowa cavalry, in rendezvous, having been commis- sioned its colonel on the 10th of the same month. In 1862, he became in- corporated with the army of the south- west, and was assigned the command of a brigade of cavalry. On the 10th of July, 1862, he was assigned the command of the third brigade of Gen. Steele's division, of the same army. On the 11th of January, 1863, was ap- pointed to the command of the district of Eastern Arkansas, which he filled until the following April, when he succeeded Maj. Gen. Washburn in command of the second cavalry divis- ion, Army of the Tennessee. At his own suggestion, he was relieved and ordered to report at Vicksburg, then the most active field of military oper- ations in the west. Soon after his arrival, he was appointed chief of cav. alry, and, until the fall of Vicksburg, commanded all the cavalry engaged in that famous seige. January 5, 1864, he was commissioned brigadier gen- eral, United States volunteers, for, " special gallantry." His promotion found him at Little Rock, where he remained until the winter of 1865. When Gen. Reynolds took command
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of the department, relieving Gen. | in the campaign against Vicksburg Steele, Gen. Bussey was assigned to a and the capture of Jackson; Missis- sippi. In the fall election of the year, he was the democratic candidate for governor of Iowa, but failed of elec- tion probably because he was not the candidate of the dominant party in the state, etc. Returning to the field, he performed efficient duty until the spring of 1864, when he was mustered out of the service. new and very important command, embracing western Arkansas and the Indian territory, and the third division of the seventh army corps. Gen. Bus- sey was commissioned major general by brevet, March 13, 1865, remaining in command of his district until the 1st of October, of the same year, when, the war having ended, he was mus- tered out of service.
Brig. Gen. James M. Tuttle. James Madison Tuttle is a native of New York; was born on the 24th of Sept., 1823, near Summerfield, in Monroe county. His father emigrated to Fay- ette county, Indiana, when James was ten years of age. Here he remained until grown to years of maturity. His opportunities for education were the common schools. Soon after arriv- ing at his majority, he came to Iowa, and located at Farmington, Van Bu- ren county, where he engaged in mer- cantile pursuits. In 1855 he was elec- ted sheriff, and two years afterward, treasurer and recorder of the county. On the opening of the war, he was among the first to respond to the call for volunteers, and, closing his busi- ness, recruited a company of which he was elected captain. So deeply was the patriotic sentiment stirred, and so rapid the response to the call, that Capt. Tuttle and his company were of the surplus volunteers who were unable to be mustered in. But biding his time patiently, his com- pany was in the following May (1861 ?) assigned to the second Iowa Infantry, and mustered into the service on the 27th of that month.
The rendezvous of the regiment was at Keokuk. Here Capt. Tuttle was elected Lt. Colonel, and further pro- moted to the rank of colonel, Sept. 6, Col. Curtis having been appointed brigadier general. His intrepidity at Fort Donelson, and cool self-posses- sion at Shiloh, won him promotion, and on the 9th of the following June, he was commissioned brigadier gen- eral. During the fall of 1862, and the following winter, he was in command of Cairo, Illinois ; but in the spring of 1863, he was relieved from this comparatively idle position, and as- signed the command of a division of Gen. Sherman's corps, participating
Antoine Le Claire. Antoine Le Claire, the subject of this memoir, was of French and Indian descent, his father being a Canadian Frenchman and his mother being the granddaugh- ter of a Pottawattamie chief. His father was with the early adventurers among the Indians when they were al- most the only inhabitants of the northwest territory. As early as 1808, he established a trading post at what is now Milwaukee, Wis., for the pur- chase of furs from the Indians. In 1809, he was associated with John Kinzie, at Fort Dearborn, now Chica- go, Ill., conducting the business of the trading post. During the war of 1812, and while many of the Indians were hostile to the United States through British influence, he was loyal, entered the American service, and was taken prisoner in the conflict xt Peoria. He was confined, with others, at Alton, but was released the same year of his captivity. Antoine Le Claire, his son, was born on the 15th of Dec., 1797, at what is now called St. Joseph, in the state of Michi- gan. Little is known of his early. youth, except that, about the time of his father's captivity during the war with Great Britain, at the instance of Gov. Clarke, of Missouri, when some fifteen or sixteen years old, he was taken into the American service, and placed at school that he might learn the English language. In 1818, at twenty-one years of age, he served as interpreter to Capt. Davenport at Fort Armstrong, on Rock Island, Ills. In 1820, he went to Peoria, where he married the granddaughter of A-co-qua (the Kettle), a Sac chief. Her father was Antoine Le Page, a Canadian. The same year Mr. Le Claire was sent to Arkansas to watch the movements of the Indians in that region. In 1827, he was again stationed at Fort Arm- strong; and, in 1832, he was present
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as interpreter, at the Indian treaty by which that part of the country west of the Mississippi river, known as the Black Hawk purchase in Iowa, was obtained from the Indians after the Black Hawk war. As the cholera, so prevalent throughout the United States that year, was among the troops at Fort Armstrong, the council at which the treaty was formed was held on the west side of the Mississippi, in the marquee of Gen. Scott, used for the purpose. where afterwards was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Le Claire for many years, until it aud the ground around gave place to the depot of the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad, in Davenport, as it now is. In this treaty, the chiefs of the Sacs and Foxes re- served one section at the Rock river rapids, where Davenport is now situ- ated, as a gift to Mrs. Le Claire upon condition of her house being placed on the spot where the treaty was made; and also a section at the head of the rapids, on which the town of Le Claire is built, was reserved for Mr. Le Claire. The Pottawattamies, also, in the treaty of Prairie du Chien, presented Mr. Claire two sections in Illinois, on which reserve the flour- ishing manufacturing village of Mo- line is now situated. The treaty with the Sacs and Foxes was ratified by congress in the following winter, and. in the spring of 1833, Mr. Le Claire erected a small building in what was then the village of "Morgan," where these Indians had lived for years. In 1833, Mr. Le Claire received the ap- pointment of postmaster and also of justice of the peace, being deemed a very suitable person to adjust any difficulties with the Indians. His ju- risdiction was the largest of any jus- tice of the peace in Iowa, embracing the whole Black Hawk purchase. As early as 1836, he established a ferry across the Mississippi, and, it is said, used to carry the mail in his pocket as postmaster.
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