USA > Iowa > Jackson County > History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I > Part 20
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Compliance was so slow, and the continued vocal volleys so exasperating, that Shoemaker John picked up a small bench, and using it as a battering ram, hurried the offender out of the door so violently that he fell at full length outside. The episode was seen by a group of young men in whom it at once aroused a spirit of fierce resentment. The country was then in the throes of war with a foreign power, and men's hearts were filled with patriotism and the war spirit. The person of a former soldier, especially if scarred in one of his country's bat- tles, was sacred in their eyes, and his ignominy and hurts became instantly theirs. They seized the bearer of the improvised battering ram, dragged him into the street, removed the top rail from a near by worm fence, mounted their victim on its sharpest edge, and "rode" him through the streets of the county capital with all the noise and abuse that their vocal powers allowed, and then compelled him to furnish two gallons of whiskey that the event might be duly celebrated.
Now it chanced that the principal figure in the exhibition which graced the streets of Andrew, was not only a shoemaker, but had been invested by the suf- frages of his fellow citizens with the dignity of justice of the peace for the county, and he was certain that in the indignities which his person and sensibilities had
* Letter to present writer from Sturgis, S. D., May 10, 1905.
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suffered, the majesty of the law had somehow been assailed. A law abiding grand jury shared his opinion, a true bill of indictment for the crime of riot was found against Thomas Cox, Robert C. Huttenhow, Ebenezer B. Curtis, Hastings Sand- ridge and Ira Griffin, and the District Court at its June term, 1847, found them guilty and adjudged a term of imprisonment in the county jail. But Ansel Briggs was governor of the state, he was an Andrew man and knew the young men and their provocation, and hence volume one of the Executive Register of the State of Iowa on page 29, contains a record of their pardon before the sentence was served .*
Of the culprits, Hastings Sandridge had been also a soldier in the Black Hawk War, and Thomas Cox was the son of another soldier in that conflict. Cox, Huttenhow, Sandridge and Griffin had enrolled in June, 1846, in the Jack- son county Mexican War infantry company, and were awaiting call from the government. One of the "rioters" was not present at the trial. It was known in Andrew that Captain John Haskell King of the First United States Infantry, had opened a recruiting office in Galena to supply the losses in that regiment in Mexico, and Ira Griffin gave leg bail to Iowa justice and in company with his brother, Edwin Griffin, and Joseph S. Shoemake, also of Andrew, went to Galena, and on the 6th of March, 1847, they enrolled as privates in Company I, First United States Infantry. Samuel Pickles, of Bellevue, also accompanied them and enlisted on the same day and in the same company.
Captain King took about eighty recruits in all from Galena to Jefferson Bar- racks, Missouri, where he was joined by others, including Company K, Fifteenth United States Infantry, an Iowa company under Captain Edwin Guthrie, of Fort Madison, and proceeded to Vera Cruz, Mexico, arriving at that port on the 25th of May. Here they found that the First Infantry formed the garrison of Vera Cruz, and it did not participate in the battles of Scott's campaign against the City of Mexico, but made the march to that city after its capture. Ira Griffin was sent from Vera Cruz to New Orleans on a hospital boat, in November, 1847, and was discharged there, December 1, 1847, "on a surgeon's certificate of disability because he was so strongly predisposed to attacks of intermittent fever that the slightest exposure brought such an attack upon him" (Official Army Record). He was born in the State of New York in 1824, moved to Ohio in 1831, and Jackson county, 1841. He was still living, in 1906, in Jasper, Missouri, and supplied some facts regarding his army career to the present writer in that year.
Edwin Griffin marched with his regiment to the City of Mexico in December, 1847, accompanied it when the country was evacuated in July, 1848, and was mustered out at New Orleans in that month. He removed to Nebraska among the early settlers of that state and died at Grand Island in May, 1904. Ira and Edwin Griffin were sons of Sylvester Griffin, who enlisted in the Fourteenth United States Infantry.
Joseph S. Shoemake was a farm employee of Nathaniel Butterworth, near Andrew, when he enlisted. He was discharged July 23, 1848, at Camp Jeff Davis, Mississippi, by reason of expiration of term of service. After living for a time at Andrew he located his army land warrant in Dubuque county near Buncombe, and died there in 1853, unmarried.
Samuel Pickles was a resident of Bellevue when he enlisted, but other ante- cedents were not ascertained. He died of yellow fever at Vera Cruz, Mexico, June 27, 1847.
Note .- Mr. Butterworth says in a recent letter, "Eb. Curtis was the leader, Huttenhow and Ira Griffin carried the rail and some of the rest of the crowd
* The item of their pardon was furnished the writer by Prof. B. F. Shambaugh. editor of the Exeutive Register of the State of Iowa. The story of the incidents of the "Riot" was given by N. B. Butterworth of Andrew, who was present on the occasion.
t Thomas Cox also enlisted in Morgan's Dragoons in July, 1847, about the time the pardons were issued.
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held him on. Some one made up a little ditty on the affair which the boys used to sing, part of which was:
'Eb. Curtis is a very fine man, He asked us chaps to lend him a hand, So we took the rail upon our shoulders, For that is the way to make good soldiers.'
John Rice was one of the bunch that came from White Oak Springs ; he afterward went to Bellevue and was a justice of the peace of that town for a number of years and died there." He was also recorder of Jackson county, 1845-1847.
FOURTEENTH UNITED STATES INFANTRY.
Sylvester Griffin :- Residence near Andrew, Jackson county, Iowa. An eccen- tric character, generally known as "Buck" Griffin. His sons, Ira and Edwin, had enlisted in March, 1847, at Galena, for the First United States Infantry, as already noted. In November of that year, although past the age for required military service, he started alone, took passage on a steamboat at Bellevue, Iowa, for St. Louis, to enroll himself as a Mexican War soldier, probably desiring to join his sons in the First Infantry. Not finding any satisfactory opportunity in St. Louis, he continued his journey to New Orleans, and was there enrolled on November 27, 1847, as a recruit for Captain C. M. Haile's Company (C), Fourteenth United States Infantry, a Louisiana company. * He was honorably discharged from the service July 28, 1848.
Mr. Griffin was of Welsh descent, born in Vermont in 1800, but removed with his parents to Franklin county, New York, in 1810. In 1831 he removed to Seneca county, Ohio, and in June, 1841, came to Jackson county, Iowa, locating on a farm in Perry township. After his return from Mexico he resumed farming, but in 1851 he was smitten with the gold fever, and with characteristic independence, he shouldered his army knapsack and started on foot to cross the plains to California.
He stopped for a time en route at Salt Lake City and worked for Brigham Young. In the Golden State he engaged in ranching for several months near Stockton, remained in California a year and then returned to his Iowa farm by way of Panama and New York.
In the early days of 1861, when filled with indignation that the country's flag had been insulted, Iowa men began to volunteer to maintain the honor of that flag. Buck Griffin, although sixty-one years old, resolved to again offer himself as a soldier for the Union. A company was being raised in Jackson county for the Twelfth Infantry, the regiment over which was to be placed one of her own citizens, the West Point graduate, Colonel Joseph Jackson Woods. Griffin did not choose to present himself at that home company where his age was well known, but betook himself to Dubuque, and offered to enroll in Company K of the same regiment. The question being raised as to his being of acceptable age, he indignantly proposed to refer the matter to his father Ashley Griffin, of La Motte. The recruiting officer did not know that Ashley Griffin was in fact his son, and accepted the enrollment, but the official records of Company K, Twelfth Iowa Infantry, show a blank in the place of the age of Sylvester Griffin.
He shared with his regiment the danger and exposure at Fort Donelson, con- tracted smallpox soon afterward, was confined in hospital at Paducah, Ken-
* At the time of Griffin's enlistment, the company was commanded by Captain Thomas Shields, promoted October 21, 1847. Captain Shields was a native of Mississippi, commis- sioned from Louisiana as first lieutenant on the organization of the Fourteenth Infantry. He served in the civil war as lieutenant-colonel of the Thirtieth Louisiana Volunteers, C. S. A (Hietman's Hist. Register U. S. A.).
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tucky, rejoined his regiment three days before the battle of Shiloh, and in the Hornet's Nest at 4 o'clock in the afternoon of April 6, 1862, was shot through the left lung and hand and was borne from the field.
Tenacious of life, as his hardy career would lead us to expect, he stood trans- portation to the hospital at Jefferson Barracks, but there succumbed on the 26th of May, and his remains were sent home for interment in the cemetery at An- drew, one of the first martyrs of Jackson county, and a veteran, in every sense, of two wars .*
CAPTAIN J. M. MORGAN'S COMPANY OF IOWA INDEPENDENT MOUNTED VOLUNTEERS.
The military post at Fort Atkinson, in what is now Winneshiek county, Iowa, established to protect the Agency in the Winnebago Indian Reservation, was tem- porarily evacuated when the Mexican War broke out, and its garrison of regulars was sent to Mexico. To supply its place, the enlistment of two companies of Iowa volunteers was authorized, one of infantry at Burlington and vicinity under command of Captain James M. Morgan (who had been quartermaster general with the rank of brigadier general on the staff of Governor Lucas), and one of cavalry in Clayton county, under command of Captain John Parker, of Dubuque. The former company assumed its duties at Fort Atkinson in July, 1846, and the latter assembled in September only to be mustered out three months later, so large a garrison being deemed unnecessary.
The infantry was enlisted for the term of one year. As the expiration of that period approached, orders were received authorizing its reenlistment as cavalry. A treaty had already been signed with the Winnebagoes, by which they agreed to relinquish the Iowa reservation, and to move to one on the Crow Wing River, in Minnesota, and a cavalry force was needed to escort them when the time for removal came. This was finally accomplished in the summer of 1848, and Morgan's Company performed two long marches of over three hundred miles and return as such escort. The new company was mustered into service July 15, 1847. As cavalry, the members were obliged to furnish their own horses. Not all of the infantry men could do so, and other men unwilling to reenlist, so it became necessary to obtain recruits to supply the vacancies. Recruiting officers were sent to Dubuque, among other places, and there young men from Jackson county took advantage of the opportunity to offer their services to their country.
Just when they left home is not known, but they were mustered at Fort Atkinson July 15, 1846. They were Thomas Cox, eldest son of the late Colonel Thomas Cox, pioneer legislator who had died two years previous; Samuel Balt- zer Carpenter,* stepson of Governor Ansel Briggs; and Stephen J. Palmer, of Fairfield township. About the first of January, 1848, efforts were begun to fill up the company to the maximum of one hundred enlisted men in anticipation of their somewhat hazardous trip with the Indians.
Cox, who had been promoted to first corporal of the company, took measures to have his friends in Jackson county notified of the opportunity for military ser- vice, and nine more young men of the county enrolled themselves before the march finally began. On the 21st of January, there came to the company Ashley C. Riggs, whose father lived at or near Wright's Corners on the line between Jackson and Clinton counties, directly south of Maquoketa, Wm. Snyder, who made his home with William Phillips, an 1836 pioneer, on the town site of Maquo- keta, and Thaddeus C. Seamands, who lived at Mann's Ferry, in Fairfield town- ship.
They were followed on the 26th of January by Alonzo Livermore, a son of one of the pioneers of Maquoketa. February 21st Horace Salter, of Maquoketa,
* From Reid's Early Military History of Iowa (in manuscript).
* Carpenter's name appears on the official roll as John B. Carpenter, but his relatives all agree that his name was Samuel.
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who had returned during the previous fall from service with Doniphan's expe- dition into northeastern Mexico, was enrolled in the company as farrier and blacksmith. May 25th another recruit from Jackson county came, in the person of Erastus C. Gordon, of Maquoketa, one of the Ohio contingent of early emi- grants to that settlement. Finally about the first of June, Corporal Cox wrote his friend Thomas Hilyard, of Fairfield township, who had been refused enlistment because the company was full, that there was danger of trouble with the Indians who had become unruly and restive, and that two or three more men would be accepted in the company.
Hilyard interested his chums, William E. Reed, of Fairfield township, and Albert Smith McKinley, of Andrew; the three procured horses and started at once for Fort Atkinson. They found that the cavalcade had already started but followed on and overtook the company two days' march distance, and were accepted and enrolled on the Ioth of June, 1847. To this fortunate joining of the last recruits admitted to the company we are indebted for the only complete account of the unique service of this Iowa Mexican War company that was ever written. Rev. William E. Reed wrote during the last years of his life a full itinerary of the long march and it will appear as part of the military history of Iowa presented by the Iowa State Roster Board.
The lives of Thaddeus Seamands and Horace Salter, of the Jackson county contingent in Morgan's Company, have also been spared long enough to supply details of military history of Iowa, that the absence or loss of official records makes very valuable.
We will recapitulate the members of Captain Morgan's Independent Com- pany of Iowa Mounted Volunteers, sometimes called Iowa Dragoons.
Thomas Cox, aged twenty-two; residence, Maquoketa township; farmer; en- rolled July 15, 1847, promoted first corporal January 1, 1848. Born at Spring- field, Illinois, November 9, 1824. Removed to California 1849. City marshal of Los Angeles in the early fifties soon after the city was incorporated. Died there May 1, 1897.
Horace Salter, farrier, aged twenty-four; residence, Maquoketa; enrolled February 21, 1848; was also a member of Captain E. J. Glascow's company in Trader's Battalion in the Doniphan expedition to Mexico, which see.
Charles Baltzer Carpenter, aged twenty-one; residence, Andrew; enrolled July 15, 1847; born at Galena, Illinois,June 13, 1827. Son of Samuel Carpenter of the American Fur Company, who died in Van Buren township, Jackson county, in 1838. His widow married Governor Ansel Briggs. Balt Carpenter (as he was generally known at home), went to California in 1849 and died in Sheridan in that state, October 9, 1893.
Erastus C. Gordon ,aged twenty-two; residence, Maquoketa; farmer ; enrolled May 25, 1848. Born in Huron county, Ohio, October 18, 1823; came to Jackson county in 1842 ; died at Maquoketa April 19, 1879.
Thomas Hilyard, aged twenty-three; residence, Fairfield township; farmer; enrolled June 10, 1848. Born May 18, 1825, Sangamon county, Illinois ; parents removed to Jackson county, Iowa, in 1838; went to California in 1854 and died there.
Alonzo Livermore, aged twenty-five; residence, Maquoketa ; enrolled January 26, 1848. Born in Chenango county, New York, in 1822; removed to Jackson county from Huron county, Ohio, about 1840; went to California about 1869 and died there a few years afterward.
Albert Smith Mckinley, aged seventeen; residence, Andrew; enrolled June 10, 1848. Born at White Oak Springs, Wisconsin Territory, in 1831. His father, Samuel Mckinley, a Kentuckian, was one of the early settlers of the Galena laid mining region, and came to Jackson county as one of Colonel Cox's surveying gang in 1837. Smith Mckinley died at Clinton, Iowa, May 29, 1896.
Stephen J. Palmer, aged twenty; residence, Fairfield township; farmer; en-
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rolled July 16, 1847; born in Chautauqua county, New York, March 6, 1828; came to Jackson county, Iowa, 1839; died at Andrew May 4, 1899.
Ashley C. Riggs, aged nineteen; residence, Bloomfield township, Clinton county ; farmer ; enrolled January 21, 1848; born in Allegany county, New York, September 14, 1828; came to Iowa 1838; removed about 1851 to the vicin- ity of the Winnebago Indian Reservation, in Minnesota, which he had visited as a soldier; laid out and owned an addition to Monticello, Minnesota, where he died about 1905.
William E. Reed, aged twenty-one, residence, Fairfield township; farmer and carpenter ; in later years Baptist local preacher ; enrolled June 10, 1848, was also member of Jackson county Mexican War company and Brush Creek Rangers, which see.
William Snyder, aged twenty-four; residence, Maquoketa; enrolled January 21, 1848; native of Maryland; removed to Texas after the Civil War.
Thaddeus C. Seamands, aged twenty-one; residence, Mann's Ferry, Fairfield township; farmer; enrolled January 21, 1848. Born in Cabell county, Virginia, (West Virginia), March 8, 1826; came to Jackson county, Iowa, from Lawrence county, Ohio, in 1847; went to California in 1850; served in the Civil War in Company E, Second California Cavalry; returned to Jackson county, Iowa, in 1873. Living (1910) at the State Soldiers' Home, Marshalltown, Iowa.
Morgan's mounted company was mustered out of service at Fort Atkinson, September II, 1848, being probably the last company of volunteers to perform service during the Mexican war,
JACKSON COUNTY IN THE CIVIL WAR.
(FROM ADJUTANT GENERAL'S REPORT AND FILES OF SENTINEL.)
In the presidential election in 1860, Jackson county cast three thousand and twenty-one votes for president. During the two years following, accord- ing to the adjutant general's report, the county furnished one thousand two hundred and eighty-eight men to put down the rebellion, or upward of forty per cent of the entire voting population of the county.
To many the war was a surprise. "When immediately surrounded with peace and tranquillity, and they paid little attention to the rumored plots and plans of those who lived and grew rich from the sweat and toil, blood and flesh of others; aye, even trafficking in the offspring of their own loins." The war was upon them, the cannon thundering within the nation's very gates, before the people of the northwest awoke to the issues at stake.
It was on the 12th day of April, 1861, when Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, was fired upon by what the more charitable of the nation believed to be a drunken mob. But the surrender of Captain Anderson, made necessary by the murderous and continued fire of the enemy's guns, awakened the entire North from a dream of fancied security and an unbroken Union.
The first company raised in Jackson county was in answer to the presi- dent's second call for volunteers, dated May 3, 1861. This was Company I of the Fifth Iowa Infantry, which went into quarters June 24th, and was mus- tered into the United States service at Burlington, on the 17th of July follow- ing. Company A, of the Ninth Regiment, under Captain Drips, went into quarters in August, and mustered into the service September 24th, with a total rank and file of one hundred and one men. Company I of the Twelfth Regi- ment, found itself in the service September 16, 1861. Companies L and M of the Second Cavalry, entered the service about the same time.
Then came that well remembered lull in the conflict when sanguine 'men grew more hopeful, and the desponding less in despair-a time when many thought the war would soon be at an end, and once more would be "beaten
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the swords into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks." But quickly was the spirit of the north again stirred, and the blood of northern chivalry sent leaping into boiling currents through veins swollen into righteous wrath, when the terrible news of Shiloh-of thousands slain, and Iowa sons in the southern prisons-came to fathers, brothers and friends of those who had gone to the front.
The call of President Lincoln for three hundred thousand men, August 9, 1862, met with a liberal response from Jackson county. From the plow, from the workshop and countinghouse, leaving the schoolroom, the desk, the bar, the pulpit, the press, men of every rank in life, of all ages, graybeard and youth -those who showed themselves the bravest of the brave, came forth and en- rolled their names among the men who were ready to face the cannon's mouth, if necessary, to die for their country.
Companies A and I, of the Twenty-fourth, various squads of the Twenty- sixth, and Companies F, I and K of the Thirty-first Iowa Infantry Regiments enlisted from Jackson county in the fall of 1862. Those who were kept at home by age, infirmity or sex, did noble service, too. They assisted with la- bor, money and words of cheer. Aid societies sprang up. Contributions were made. Sanitary stores were sent out. Mothers and sisters gathered in groups about quiet firesides where they talked over the hardships of absent dear ones on southern battlefields, in lone marches, in death dealing prisons, or death-bearing hospitals.
Many a needle contributed its mite, and many a pen its words of comfort, to render camp life more pleasant, and the army less a barbarism. Viewed in its true light, an even greater debt of gratitude is due to the wives and moth- ers who gave up their husbands and sons, their natural protectors, and suf- fered them, with a passive self-sacrifice, to go to a field of carnage, than to the brave men themselves, who, inspired by the thought of heroic action and gal- lant service, were led to encounter danger and death for the sake of preserving our common heritage, the legacy of our ancestors.
In August, 1861, a meeting was held in the Congregational church in Ma- quoketa, just before the departure of Company A, of the Ninth Regiment, which was raised under the name of the Jackson County National Guards.
This meeting was to concert measures for the comforts of volunteers and provide means for the families of those in the company known as the Jackson County National Guards. W. W. Eaton was called to the chair, and J. J. Marks was appointed secretary. An address was made by the chair, and by Captain Drips. The latter then offered the following resolutions :
WHEREAS, The military company called the Jackson County National Guards has been called by the governor of Iowa into the service of the United States ; and,
WHEREAS, We believe it to be the duty of every one who lives under the protection of the American flag to contribute, to the extent of his or her abil- ity, in maintaining the government which that flag represents ; and,
WHEREAS, Many of those who have volunteered in said company have families depending upon them for support ; therefore,
Resolved, That, having a great pride in our country, and wishing to see her well represented in the army of the Union, we will use every exertion to swell the ranks of said company to the maximum required by the government, viz., one hundred and one men.
Resolved, That we pledge ourselves to render such assistance to the fam- ilies of the volunteers as will provide them with all the common necessaries of life while their husbands, fathers and sons are absent fighting our battles.
The following soliciting committee was appointed: H. Shellenberger, William Sears, William Cundill, J. W. Jenkins, S. D. Lyman, J. J. Marks, Edwin Darling, D. A. Fletcher, J. R. Griffin and G. S. Martin. The meeting was
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closed by an address by J. W. Jenkins. A sword was presented to Captain Drips, with due ceremony, upon his departure .*
The ladies of Maquoketa, during the war, had a Sanitary Aid Society, and contributed much in stores and clothing to the comfort of volunteers. They also contributed money for the relief of those who were afflicted.
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