USA > Iowa > Jefferson County > History of Jefferson County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 38
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On May 7th, Union men of Locust Grove Township assembled at Cross Lanes schoolhouse, where they raised a pole and flag. Withdrawing to the Methodist Church, they chose Joseph Ball for chairman, and J. L. Hartman for secretary. Resolutions were passed. Preliminary steps for the enrollment of a company of "Home Guards" were taken. A few days later the company was organized with forty-seven members. D. M. Parrot was elected captain.
The details of the organization of other companies are lacking. At Fairfield were the "Fairfield Home Guards," W. M. Clark, captain; the "Fairfield Guards," D. Rider, captain; and a mounted company, A. M. Robinson, captain. The mem- bership of the first came from the town; of the second and third, largely from the country. At Germanville were the "Walnut Township Home Guards," John Wal- eiser, captain ; at Salina, the "Salina Home Guards," J. H. Allender, captain ; at Coalport, the "Coalport Home Guards," A. R. Pierce, captain; at Glasgow, the "Prairie Home Guards, a horse company," H. Gaylord, captain; and the "Prairie Home Guards," Jonathan Turner, captain.
These bodies cultivated a military spirit. Their chief value was psychological. They were nuclei that prepared men's minds to look forward to entrance and service in the army of the Union.
On June Ist, "a grand military parade" was given at Fairfield. The various companies were assembled in the morning on the depot grounds and marched to the park. The officers were P. L. Huyett, colonel; Dr. Peter Walker, lieuten- ant colonel; J. H. Allender, major; Daniel Rider, adjutant; and Robert Pattison, sergeant major. A heavy rain in the early afternoon put a stop to the evolutions.
At intervals through the summer and fall schools of instruction for the officers alternated with battalion drills. Their text-book was "Hardee's Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics," which was industriously studied. Gage's meadows, now built over with homes and factories, was a drill-ground.
The board of county supervisors met on June 3d and continued in session during the week. This board consisted of twelve members, each township having one representative. C. W. Slagle presented a petition praying for an appropria- tion to defray the expenses of families of volunteers. There was considerable opposition on the grounds of illegality and misuse of public money. The division was drawn along partisan lines. A proposal to devote $1,000 to the purpose was first laid on the table, but on a reconsideration was carried. Those voting for it were E. C. Hampson of Fairfield Township; S. C. Farmer of Buchanan Town- ship; W. Z. Hobson of Blackhawk Township; Elijah Billingsly of Round Prairie Township; G. P. Loomis of Liberty Townshp and G. N. Parks of Lockridge Township. Those voting against it were J. A. Galliher of Cedar Township; L. T. Gillette of Polk Township; John Messner of Walnut Township; Robert Brown of Des Moines Township; and Robert Leeper of Locust Grove Township; J. W. Nicholson of Penn Township, on account of illness, was not present. Authority to distribute and disburse the fund was vested in W. K. Alexander, William Long and George Acheson. The action was criticised by a few as "hasty and unneces- sary" and was seized upon for a political issue. Neverthelss, it was sanctioned
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by popular sentiment. In October $500 more were appropriated to relieve evident wants. The value of the assistance rendered by the small gifts from this source to needy women and children never will be computed.
The appearance in June of seventeen year locusts and the army worm, both in incredible numbers, caused general alarm. The peculiar cry of the former was heard from morning till night. They did much damage to the young growth of trees. The latter in long ranks swept over the ripening fields. In its devas- tating course, it entirely devoured the blades from the stalks of grass and grain. It rendered the timothy meadows it fed on unfit for hay, but beyond that did no particular injury. One farmer in his fright offered to sell fifty acres of fall wheat for $5.00. Fortunately for himself, he found no buyer, and threshed from them 1,000 bushels of fine grain.
The observance of the 4th of July at Fairfield took on new and deep meanings. It stood for a living reality, not for a cold abstraction. "At a time when the patriotic fires which kindled the bosoms of our forefathers glow with increased ardor," read the invitation to the citizens, "it is peculiarly fitting that we all join heartily and fraternally in commemorating their deeds and in manifesting our devotion to that flag which is the emblem of the liberty purchased and secured to us by the sacrifices of the revolution."
There was an elaborate organization. George Acheson was president. Each township was honored with a vice president and with a member on the commit- tee of arrangements. Rev. Andrew Axline was chaplain. T. D. Evans was chief marshal. John McCulloch and Alvin Turner were assistant marshals.
The day is chronicled as "one of beauty and splendor." The national salute of thirty-four guns was fired under the direction of "T. J. Keck, Artillerist." The military companies of the county paraded under the command of Col. P. L. Huyett. W. B. Littleton read the Declaration of Independence. W. T. Burgess pronounced the oration, closing with a review of the "unhappy disturbances in our country" and attributing them "partly to sectional animosities, political demagogues, geographical distinctions and excessive party strife." A "basket dinner" intervened and was succeeded by the toasts and responses. These show the thoughts uppermost in their minds.
"The signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Soldiers of the Revolution."
"George Washington-the Father of his country : first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
"The day we celebrate: The Fourth of July, 1776 our nation's birthday." W. B. Littleton responded.
"The flag of our country-the Stars and Stripes: 'If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.'" . Dr. J. M. Shaffer responded.
"The soldiers of the United States now fighting the second contest for free- dom and independence." A. M. Scott responded.
"The Union and the Constitution as our fathers made them." R. C. Brown responded.
"The President of the United States."
"To the memory of Stephen A. Douglas-the statesman and patriot."
"The veteran, General Scott: 'His eye is not dim, nor his natural force abated.'" James F. Wilson responded.
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"Iowa. 'Her affections, like the rivers of her borders, flow to an inseparable union.'" John W. Dubois responded.
"The loyal and patriotic women of our country: Their zeal in the present hour in behalf of freedom's flag shows them to be the true descendants of the women of the Revolution." D. P. Stubbs responded.
"Our Jefferson County Volunteers, and the girls they left behind them."
"Old Jefferson County and the City of Fairfield: With true loyalty their sons keep step to the music of the Union." Charles Negus responded.
Republicans and democrats on July 20th selected delegates to attend their respective state conventions. The former met in the courthouse, the latter in the park. Both formally referred to the national situation. The republicans briefly asserted "that this is no time to compromise" and approved the acts of the administration, the democrats, with argumentative detail and at length professed devotion to the Union, hostility to secession, condemned Lincoln and "Kirkwood and Company," and the conduct of affairs of county, state and nation, and affirmed "That we are yet 'in favor of a fair, just and immediate compromise of the slavery question, in preference to a dissolution of the Union or a civil war'-and this not as a concession to rebellion, but to afford such a platform to the Union men of the South as may enable them to outvote secession in their respective states and thus stop the useless expenditure of blood, and avert an otherwise hopelessly protracted desolating civil war; and we express our deep regret that the repub- licans at the last regular session of Congress rejected every compromise that was offered by the Border Slave States, and which might then have saved the Union and averted war-or at least confined the secession to the cotton states; we also consider it unfortunate that even the 'Corwin amendment,' which merely prohibited Congress from abolishing slavery in the states has been silently re- jected." The expressions disclose a general failure to interpret the portents. The future was seen through a glass darkly. Before the lapse of another twenty- four hours, the battle of Bull Run determined there could be no peaceable adjust- ment between the North and the South.
George Strong, the first in the county to volunteer for the defense of the Government, also was the first to give his life in the cause. A young man of twenty-one, a teacher in the Fairfield schools, a promising student of law, he resigned his position and put aside his hopes of a professional career to respond to the call of duty. On July 18th, he died of fever at St. Joseph, Missouri. His personal worth and rank as first lieutenant of Company E, Second Iowa Infantry, combined to deepen the sense of loss in the community which he represented. He was buried on the 21st with military honors in a quiet country graveyard near his home in Round Prairie Township. The funeral exercises were held in a neighboring grove. There was a sermon by Rev. E. L. Briggs, who took for his text, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." George Acheson and James F. Wilson spoke briefly but feelingly. At the grave, the Home Guards under Captain Turner "discharged their pieces into it" as a final and parting salute. Though short his service, George Strong's example in patriotism was not in vain.
On August 8th, there appeared the initial number of D. Sheward's proposed paper. It bore for a motto, "A strict observance of the Constitution and laws is the safeguard of liberty." In harmony with this sentiment, it was styled "The
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Constitution and Union." Its declared purpose was to support the spirit and policy of the democratic party.
Rumors of threatened invasions of the state from Missouri began to fill the air. A report having circulated that a raid through Croton, Farmington, Hills- borough and Salem was in contemplation, the Home Guards of Glasgow under Capt. Thomas Howell and the Home Guards of Coalport under Capt. Abial R. Pierce, early on August 5th proceeded in wagons to the indicated line of advance to aid in anticipating and repelling the invaders. Their arms were chiefly shot- guns and squirrel rifles. The movement of Captain Pierce's company on this expedition may be accurately followed. The weather was extremely hot. Some of the horses gave out and were left at Hillsborough. Farmington was reached in the afternoon. Camp was made for the night. The next morning, he moved his men to Croton. In the meantime, Col. David Moore, with his Home Guards and the assistance of the forces hastily armed and sent forward by Col. Cyrus Bussey, had fought and won the battle of Athens just across the Des Moines River which there is the boundary between the two states. At this point, it is said that Captain Howell, being a firm believer in states' rights, stopped his men at the middle of the stream. No scruples of this character deterred Captain Pierce. He continued across with his command, which "was immediately put on duty by orders from Colonel Moore." Relieved on the 8th by other troops, they then "marched for Iowa, camped at Hillsborough, and on the 9th arrived at home having been out five days."
A story of an attack on "Dogtown," a current appellation of Mount Sterling, confirmed by affirmations that heavy cannonading had been heard in that direc- tion, renewed and increased the feverish excitement. Late on Sunday evening, the IIth, a letter from Colonel Moore addressed to Judge George G. Wright at Keosauqua and by him sent to Fairfield, advised that that officer's little force was in imminent_danger near Memphis and needed reinforcements. On Monday to the summons of fife and drum, there was a hasty assembling of men, guns and ammunition. A cannon, cast when no thought of disunion marred the times that its voice might proclaim the arrival of festal days, was brought out to serve the sinister purpose of its kind. On horseback and in wagons, some seventy-five men set out for Keosauqua. In the muster were James F. Wilson, A. S. Jordan, John Cummings, C. W. Slagle, H. B. Mitchell, S. M. Bickford, Richard Gaines, J. Shrive Beck, B. F. Crail, W. W. Junkin, R. F. Ratcliff, Dr. C. S. Clarke and John McLean. Capt. W. M. Clark headed the footmen; Capt. A. M. Robinson headed the horsemen On Tuesday they were followed by a company from Elm Grove under Captain Parr, a company of fifty-seven from Abingdon under Capt. Joshua Wright, and a company of fifty from Batavia. These improvised troops invaded Missouri about fifty yards and encamped while two men scouted toward Memphis to locate the enemy. Having learned the rebels were in retreat. all returned on Wednesday. This demonstration no doubt had a salutary effect on those along the border who were inclined to cause trouble.
A democratic mass meeting assembled at Fairfield on the 24th to select dele- gates to Congressional and Judicial conventions and to a second state conven- tion. Samuel Jacobs offered resolutions which demanded implicit obedience to the Constitution. M. M. Bleakmore submitted a substitute series which insisted in strong terms upon the preservation of the Constitution. A lively and lengthy
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debate ensued, terminated by employment of the previous question. Bernhart Henn, D. Sheward and Alexander Clark vigorously opposed Bleakmore's pro- posals. "There is some chaff and a little smut, to use a farmer's phrase, mixed in with the good wheat," was the way Henn described them. Bleakmore sup- ported them with much spirit. In the end, they were rejected. According to a republican comment, the objection to them was to their assertion "that the emissaries of the great treason to our Government are in every loyal state seek- ing to infuse the poison of apathy or indifference into the masses." The staid and conservative declarations prepared by Jacobs prevailed.
Capt. A. M. Robinson's cavalry company assembled in Fairfield on the 26th and after listening to addresses by James F. Wilson and D. P. Stubbs, promptly departed in wagons overland for the rendezvous at Keokuk. At Birmingham, they were given a public dinner.
Samuel R. Curtis, the representative in Congress from the First District of Iowa, having resigned to enter the army, there was a successor to be chosen at the coming election. At Oskaloosa, on September 4th, on the first ballot, James F. Wilson was nominated by the republicans to fill the vacancy. At this time he serving the state as a senator and as acting lieutenant governor so that the voters were acquainted with his attitude toward public questions. The almost unanim- ity of choice was therefore a seal of approval upon his political judgment as well as a recognition of his personal force and strength of character.
The republican county convention assembled on the 7th to select candidates for state senator, for representatives of whom there were two, and for the vari- ous county offices. Dr. J. M. Shaffer was named for senator. Dr. Peter Walker and A. R. Pierce were named for representatives. The essential planks of the platform were direct and unequivocal. They were: "That there is now but one issue before the people of this country-the preservation of our Government in its present form; and that we recognize true patriots in all men who stand by the country in the present struggle to enforce obedience to the constitution and laws:"-"That we have no sentiment but detestation for rebels now in arms against our Government in the socalled seceded states, and nothing but contempt for their sympathizers here:"-"That we endorse the action of the state and Federal Governments, in their extra sessions, in providing means to suppress the present rebellion, and that the President of the United States and the Governor of the State of Iowa have done nothing more in the premises than was their imperative duty."
The democratic county convention met on the 14th for the selection of candi- dates. There were chosen for senator, Charles Negus, and for representatives. W. J. Rodgers and Alexander Clark. The party position on the main issues was expressed in these terms: "That the Government should be administered, and the war carried on in accordance with the constitution and the laws of the country ; that whilst we admit the present necessity for armies, and vigorous and scientific war, which must be maintained whilst a hostile Southern army is in the field, (as evils entailed upon us by abolition and secession), we hold that our flag should be garlanded with the olive branch, and inscribed with the old demo- cratic motto, 'Exact and Equal Justice to All Sections:"-"That if the storm must rage abroad, we should have peace at home; and to this end we counsel our fellow citizens to credit each other with good intentions; we recommend
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moderation and forbearance, and the avoidance of irritating discussions; we remonstrate against the use of threats and abusive epithets, and we advise our party friends to rely upon the circulation of democratic Union papers and the sober second thought of the people."
In Abingdon, on the 22d, a democratic meeting, with Capt. S. McReynolds as chairman and R. Weller as secretary, adopted a manifesto, which directly and by implication illuminates the local points of view at this period. The very strength of its unconscious partisan spirit adds to its interest.
"We," the preamble began, "the democracy of the surrounding vicinity of Abingdon, Iowa, assembled in mass meeting, regarding the gift of American liberty as the greatest beneficence of an Almighty being to man, and its per- petuity the highest duty of the American people-that in the discharge of this important trust it is incumbent upon us, for ourselves and posterity, to use all possibly successful and just means for the maintenance of our glorious Union. That history and experience teach us that the destruction of our republican confederacy would establish upon its ruins a consolidated despotism, against which the great national democratic party have heretofore successfully strug- gled, and to avert the bitter cup from which this nation is now drinking, should- have continued in power. Therefore,
"Resolved, That, taking the political history of the past as marking the aggres- sive footsteps of tyranny in the overthrow of republican forms of government and the robbing our race of their natural and inalienable rights, and comparing our present condition with such history, we justly fear the object of the present chief magistrate of the United States is, by the assumption of doubtful and dan- gerous unconstitutional powers, to revolutionize and subvert our present repub- lican form of government into one of a consolidated and despotic character, in proof of which we point the American people to the facts of his having been elected by a sectional party, having for their object an unconstitutional attack and destruction of the constitutional rights of another portion of the Union ; his form- ing a cabinet and ministry of men of well known irrepressible sectional abolition record-criminally and unconstitutionally deferring to convene Congress for four months, enabling himself thereby to inaugurate a civil war, to enlist for a large standing army, to increase the navy, to seize private papers, to deny citizens the right to bear arms, to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in direct and known violation of Article 1, Sections 8 and 9 of the constitution as is manifest, not only by the reading of the same, but by the absolute refusal of a republican senate to declare his acts constitutional. He has imprisoned our citizens for cir - culating peace petitions which were intended to be offered to Congress. He has arrested and imprisoned others in the center of free states for slight expressions unfriendly to his acts. He has, and continues to silence such papers of our land as oppose his administration. Express offices are sacked and robbed of their paper mails, lawfully and sacredly entrusted to them for transit. Postmasters are ordered to not deliver public journals that do not favor the administration. Letters are ruthlessly violated. Loyal cities and states are declared under martial law-their slaves and property confiscated. Suffering mothers and defenceless children are driven from their homes to gratify the brutal passions of the newly emancipated slaves, or be murdered to revenge his hate, or starve uncared for in a country once happy, now desolated by a fratricidal war. All these, and
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countless other violations of our once sacred constitutional rights, are inflicted upon a suffering people by the present executive, for the same purpose, and copied as they appear to be, from the policy of Louis Napoleon in his successful attempts to overthrow the French Republic and elevate himself to an Imperial throne. These daring strides of the president are awful and solemn admonitions to the American people that the day is at hand when the president's house will be the guarded palace of a crowned despot, the national capitol the halls of an imperial council, the people of this once free republic the vassals of a military tyrant, and our soil the patrimony of a landed nobility.
"Resolved, That the trouble which now threatens the permanent overthrow of government, in the present effort to dismember the Union, are upon the one hand the legitimate fruits of political corruption and Northern irrepressible con- flict of abolitionism upon the institutions of the South, by sectional parties, the enactment of personal liberty bills in direct and known violation of the Consti- tution and the laws of the general government-intended to obstruct the enforce- ment of the fugitive slave law by Federal officers, to incite the escape of slaves and afford a shelter for abolitionists to operate underground railroad interests, sanctioning servile insurrections, interrupting the transit of slaves from one por- tion of the Union to another, the perpetual robbing of slaves from their owners, scorning their appeals for redress, denying them their equal rights in the terri- tories, crowning the whole by the triumph of a hostile, sectional party, having the power but sternly refusing overtures for any just compromise, or any solution of our difficulties short of the extinction of slavery and the construction of an absolute consolidated government. On the other hand, notwithstanding the provocations given the South for dissatisfaction, we unequivocally condemn the course they have pursued to obtain a redress of their grievances; believing as we do, had they not so precipitately seceded but remained in Congress, aided as they would have been by the conservative people of the North, their griev- ances would have been redressed and their rights and interests respected and secured in a constitutional manner and by constitutional means.
"Resolved, That we oppose the political heresy of secession as unwarranted by the Constitution, destructive of the best interests of the whole country and the Union; that the obligation we owe to government, to ourselves, to posterity, and the advancement of political progress, freedom throughout the world, de- mands of us the preservation of the Federal Union; and we hereby pledge the whole power we possess to all constitutional means used for its maintenance, whether assailed by the higher law abolition republican party, or by an armed rebellion against it, and declare in the language of the immortal Jackson, 'the Federal Union shall be preserved.'
"Resolved, That we endorse the conduct of those who, from purely patriotic motives to protect the capitol and repel invasion-to sustain and preserve- not violate-the constitution and laws of the general or state government, have enlisted in the army either as officer or private. But we bitterly condemn the riotous and treasonable course of collecting unorganized and unlawful armed bodies intended to violate the sovereignty of sister states, by marching them as an invading force upon their soil. We regard such steps as eminently calculated to produce a bloody civil war, with all its aggravated horrors, on the border of states where peace and quiet might otherwise exist. That such acts are nothing
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