USA > Iowa > Poweshiek County > History of Poweshiek County, Iowa: a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume 1 > Part 24
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The roster of Company C and E of the Fourth Cavalry :
Company C.
Stickle, George W., enlisted Sept. 15, 1862; promoted to fourth corporal, Nov. 21, 1862.
Stickle, Emanuel, enlisted Sept. 15, 1862; discharged July 5, 1864.
Andrews, John M., enlisted Oct. 27, 1862.
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Company E .*
Alonzo B. Parkell, Nov. 23; promoted to major, Aug. 10, 1862.
Orson N. Perkins, first lieutenant, Sept. 18; resigned June 20, 1862.
Edward W. Dee, second lieutenant, Sept. 18; promoted to first lieutenant, June 24, 1862; to captain, Aug. 10, 1862.
Simon K. Fuller, quartermaster-sergeant, Sept. 14.
James C. Kelsey, second sergeant, Sept. 14 ; promoted to first sergeant, June, 1862; to second lieutenant, Aug. 10, 1862; resigned Aug. 22, 1864.
Hugh H. Ditzler, third sergeant, Sept. 18; promoted second sergeant, June, 1862; to first sergeant, Sept. 1, 1862 ; to quartermaster-sergeant; transferred to invalid corps, March 15, 1864.
Samuel F. Cooper, fourth sergeant, Sept. 18; promoted to battalion adjutant, Dec. 25, 1861 ; mustered out Sept. 6, 1862.
Wm. K. Short, Oct. 5 ; promoted fifth sergeant, June 8, 1862; discharged Jan. 29, 1863.
John W. Jones, second corporal, Sept. 23; promoted first corporal, June 1862; to fifth sergeant, Sept. 1, 1862; fourth sergeant, Nov. 1, 1862.
Wm. S. Leisure, third corporal, Sept. 14; discharged April 8, 1862.
Hiram H. Cardell, fifth corporal, Sept. 6; promoted fourth corporal, June, 1862; to third corporal, Sept. 1, 1862; second corporal, Oct. 1862; sixth ser- geant, Nov. 1, 1862; to third sergeant ; to second lieutenant, Nov. 26, 1864.
John H. Park, sixth corporal, Sept. 16; promoted to fifth corporal, June, 1862; to third corporal, Oct., 1862; to first corporal, Nov., 1862.
Charles G. Penfield, Sept. 25; discharged, June 30, 1862.
Levi W. Little, musician, Sept. 14.
Chas. W. Black, musician, Sept. 16.
Ephraim T. Palmer, farrier, Sept. 18.
Ithamer C. Kellogg, wagoner, Sept. 25; discharged, date unknown.
PRIVATES.
Allen, Eli, Sept. 28.
Arnold, Henry D., Sept. 28; appointed second farrier, Feb. 21, 1862; dis- charged, Nov. 29, 1862.
Barnett, Fenton, Sept. 16; promoted to saddler, July 1, 1862.
Bates, Norman F., Sept. 16; promoted eighth corporal, Oct. 1, 1862; to sixth corporal, Nov. 1, 1862; received Medal of Honor for capturing a rebel flag and its bearer in battle.
Bagsley, Jeremiah J., Sept. 23.
Black, Henry, Sept. 14.
Blanchard, W. P., Sept. 24; promoted to seventh corporal; to sixth corporal, Sept. 1, 1862; to fifth corporal, Oct., 1862; to third corporal, Nov. 1, 1862.
Carney, John, Sept. 24. (Later mayor of Gilman.)
Connor, Andrew W., Sept. 24; promoted to seventh corporal.
Chapman, Wm. A., Sept. 30; discharged Sept. 19, 1862.
Craver, Chas. F., Oct. 5. (Later member of Iowa Legislature.)
*This company enlisten in 1861 unless noted otherwise.
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Craver, Henry, Oct. 8. Craver, Joseph A., Oct. 8. Cox, David M. S., Oct. 9.
Dow, Isaac N., Sept. 27; discharged July 23, 1864.
Davidson, Wm., Sept. 30; died Dec. 30, 1861, at Mt. Pleasant.
Dalby, J. Walter, Oct. 5; promoted to fifth sergeant, April, 1862; to fourth sergeant, June, 1862 ; to second sergeant, date unknown.
Fisher, Edward, Sept. 24; discharged Aug. 27, 1862.
Griffith, Benjamin T., Sept. 27; captured Feb. 18, 1864, at Marion, Miss .; died Feb. 25, 1865, at Florence, S. C.
Griswold, Albert, Sept. 30.
Harrington, John, Sept. 25; discharged Feb. 23, 1864.
Heckman, Henry L., Sept. 25.
Horn, Martin L., Sept. 25.
Harmon, Henry, Sept. 25. Hays, Wm. M., Sept. 28.
Jones, Uriah C., Sept. 25; appointed saddler ; discharged June 21, 1862. Johnson, John L., Oct. 5; died at West Plains, Mo., May 10, 1862.
Johnson, Garland G., Oct. 22; discharged Nov. 17, 1861.
Lyon, John, Sept. 16. Meigs, Sylvanus R., Sept. 16.
Morrison, Alexander, Sept. 23.
Merriam, Harvey R., Sept. 23.
Morrison, Jesse, Sept. 30. Norris, John S., Sept. 23.
Parks, Henry F., Sept. 14; wounded.
Price, Wm. H., Sept. 16.
Pruyn, Chas. T., Sept. 16.
Robinson, Wm., Sept. 27 ; promoted battalion hospital steward Jan. 15, 1862; to assistant surgeon, Jan. 7, 1863.
Shaffer, Joseph, Sept. 18; discharged Oct. 18, 1862.
Spicer, David, Sept. 18.
Soper, Chas., Sept. 23; died at Springfield, Mo., May 1, 1862.
Sterling, Martin, Sept. 23.
Shaw, Chas. H., Sept. 23.
Smeed, Fayette, Sept. 23. Snyder, Israel, J., Sept. 25; discharged, Dec. 18, 1862.
Wasson, James W., Sept. 16.
Wallace, Warren P., Sept. 18; discharged Oct. 15, 1862. Wilmoth, Leonard C., Oct. 1; discharged Nov. 20, 1862. Yaple, Emory, Sept. 16; discharged Feb. 5, 1862.
ADDITIONAL ENLISTMENTS.
Craver, Theophilus, Jan. 4, 1864. Craver, Thomas H., Jan. 4, 1864 ; died May 17, 1864, at Memphis. Daggett, Landon H., Sept. 20, 1862. Frazier, Donald, Feb. 20, 1864.
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Harrington, Benj. F., Feb. 11, 1862.
Griffith, John A., Feb. 15, 1864. Hamilton, Chas. L., Sept. 3, 1862 ; discharged Feb. 8, 1863 ..
Lattimer, Nathaniel T., Feb. 29, 1864. McVey, Stephen H., Jan. 4, 1864. O'Connor, Martin, Jan. 15, 1864. Morrison, Fred P. T., Oct., 1862. Palmer, States D., Sept. 12, 1862.
Pendlum, Chas., Jan. 4, 1864; died June 21, 1864, at Memphis.
Rakestraw, Benton, Jan. 4, 1864. Simpson, Thomas, March 31, 1864. Smith, Cortland V., Sept. 2, 1862.
Wilmoth, Lemuel C.
VETERAN REENLISTMENTS.
Company E.
Edward W. Dee, captain.
Exum R. Saint, first lieutenant ; promoted to captain, Nov. 26, 1864.
James C. Kelsey, second lieutenant.
Simon J. Fuller, first sergeant.
John V. Park, fourth sergeant.
Walter P. Blanchard, third corporal; promoted to fifth sergeant, May 1, 1864. Norman F. Bates, sixth corporal; promoted to first corporal, Jan. 1, 1864. Andrew W. Connor, seventh corporal; promoted to fourth corporal Jan. I, 1864; sixth sergeant, May 1, 1864.
Levi W. Little, bugler.
Charles M. Black, bugler.
Ephraim T. Palmer, farrier.
David S. Spicer, farrier.
Fenton Barnett, saddler.
James H. Stewart, teamster.
PRIVATES.
Allen, Eli. Bagsley, Jeremiah J. Black, Henry C.
Craver, Henry.
Craver, Chas. F.
Craver, Joseph A.
Cardell, Hiram H .; promoted to second lieutenant.
Griffith, Benj. T.
Harmon, Henry.
Hayes, Wm. M .; promoted to eighth corporal, May 1, 1864; to seventh cor- poral, July 1, 1864. Horn, Martin L. Harrington, Benj. F. Lyon, John. Meigs, Sylvanus R.
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
Merriam, Harvey R .; promoted to eighth corporal, Jan. 1, 1864; seventh cor- poral May 1, 1864; killed at Ripley, Miss., June 1, 1864.
Morrison, Alex C. Morrison, Jesse P.
Norris, John N.
Parks, Henry F.
Price, Wm. H. Shaw, Chas. H. Shaffer, Joseph.
Totten, Chapin; promoted to seventh corporal May 1, 1864; sixth corporal, July 1, 1864.
THE FOURTH 10WA VOLUNTEER BRASS BAND.
The Fourth Iowa Infantry was made up of men almost entirely from the western part of the state. Granville M. Dodge, of Council Bluffs, was its colonel. He was made brigadier general, March 31, 1862, and major general, June 7, 1864, and has been very prominent as a railroad builder and manager since then.
The regiment was mustered in, August 8, 1861, at Council Bluffs. Most of the band joined it October 28 following. Eleven of its fourteen members were from Grinnell. The names of all were as follows: James H. Porter, Edgar D. Fenno, Fred W. Porter, Alonzo P. Loveland, Elmer Stockwell, Andrew J. Larra- bee, Samuel Osborne, James G. Harriman, Ezra H. Grinnell, John M. Ladd, David W. Critzer, John Crooks, John Richheart and William Beaton.
This regiment received its arms too late to take part in the battle of Wilson's Creek, where General Lyon fell, but were in time to see the wounded men and shattered regiments as they returned from there to spend the winter at Rolla, Missouri. At Rolla their winter service was peculiarly laborious in building log houses and in trying to keep warm, while between chopping and building they tried to cheer the soldiers with music and song. All was fairly successful until midwinter, when camp fevers, measles and pneumonia began to sweep off many of them. The regiment lost seventy from disease before one fell in battle. Over- work soon prostrated the men of the band. One died from aggravated lung trouble.
When the band entered the service they expected to remain three years, or during the war. Our able, patriotic and curt secretary of war thought otherwise and all unnecessary music was dispensed with. This band received their honor- able discharge, July 26, 1862, or they would have received their "baptism of fire" at Pea Ridge, Arkansas. Had they entered that battle, doubtless some of them would have remained there .. Some of the Confederates were very careless there in using their guns. Their remaining away may have been a longer life to some Confederates also.
THE ROSTER OF "THE DEMOCRATIC RANGERS."
We have given the names of the murderers of Woodruff and Bashore and of their captain, because their names are well known from the records of the court,
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and in local notices of the period. The captain was often chosen to represent his township in business, in school affairs and in politics, esteemed as a gentle- man of respectability and of integrity and one who never had any difficulty with his neighbors, or, if he had, we never heard of it. The murderers had a widely different reputation. Their neighbors are said to have had frequent disputes with them, to have suffered from their excitable disposition and to deem them most ready for desperate deeds.
Of the others we can say that they would rank well with their neighbors for industry, fair dealing and good companionship. Most of them came directly or indirectly from the slave states, thought that the negro was in his proper place when working under the direction of a white man, admired Jackson above all men perhaps, deemed Calhoun, Stephens, Mason, Slidell and Jefferson Davis as the greatest statesmen of recent times. Their favorite papers called the republicans black, quoted Garrison as their representative, and deemed John Brown's invasion of Virginia what the republicans would all like to do if they had courage enough. They attributed all manly virtues to the south, brilliant statesmanship, self-re- specting gentility, with the courage of the battlefield and the dwelling grounds. The north could make wooden nutmegs, peddle tin lanterns, make books and read them, were not very sensitive about their honor, would take an insult like a spaniel, and should the chivalry of the south ever meet the funny seeking north on the battlefield, the Yankees would not stand long on the order of their leaving. Even a few months before Appomattox, men and papers and parties in Iowa were declaring the war a failure and that the government would soon acknowledge it.
It is strange that men, who then read little of the brightest side and much of the darkest, could and did believe that it was folly to draft men who must be surrendered so soon ?
We do not name the rank and file of the "Democratic Rangers." They were evidently misled. We are glad to accord them an honorable place among good citizens since that unfortunate hour in 1864. We had scarcely written the words above when the report came from Plymouth pulpit, where Henry Ward Beecher thundered for the Union and from which he went to Liverpool to conquer a se- cession mob by his magic speech during the Civil war, that his illustrious succes- sor, Newell Dwight Hillis, as flamingly radical for a united nation as Beecher could be, had just announced from his pulpit "Twenty-one of the southern gen- erals who fought for states rights were born in New York and New England. Eighty distinguished Confederate officers were born north of Mason and Dixon's line, were graduates of West Point, yet these northern soldiers rejected Web- ster's argument for the Union and accepted Calhoun's theory of State Rights. On the other hand many of our greatest Union leaders said there would be no war; that the dominant party in the north desired separation from the south and would gladly let their 'erring sisters go in peace.'"
The north thought the south were playing "bluff." The south thought the north would surrender the control of the territories if they should put on a bold front and seem to be ready to drop a bomb into New York or Boston in order to carry their point.
Many in the north came from the south. Their friends were there. They had long been bound to each other by the strongest social and political ties, by
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
cooperation with them in war and in peace, and were proud of their Lees and their Davis, of their Masons and their Stephens, of Hayne and their Calhoun.
But when war did come, these men who had cooperated with Breckenridge, especially, had been getting their information of political and military action from papers with southern sympathies, often written by southern men. The deeds of "black republicans" seemed so atrocious as to demand resistance. Suc- cess in maintaining the Union could not be attained. Their greenbacks were not worth taking. The north must fail. The south will succeed.
But who believed this? There were those who did. Such an election would be a momentous change. But why such a change? What will those who have made the change do when all the power should be in their hands? When they can do whatever they wish, where will they pause? Abolish slavery, transform our labor system ?
Slaveholders were the elite of society. In their circles were the educated, the politicians, men of influence at home and abroad, the men of power. Slavery was at the bottom of all this. They were feeling with Shakespeare's Shylock :
"You take my home, when you do take the prop That doth sustain my home; you take my life When you do take the means whereby I live."
Consequently they were as indignant and resentful as we would be if a party should arise that seemed to us determined to rob us of our cattle or our corn, and then of our government.
But the war is over. Neighborly relations have been restored. Republicans vote for men whom once they thought they ought to shoot, and they have been excellent officials, honorable and high-minded men and citizens whom their localities will gladly honor in the future.
OPPONENTS OF THE WAR.
We have already noticed that slavery and questions connected with it created two parties in the nation, more or less distinctly from the very foundation of the nation. Slavery shrank southward until the area of freedom to the negro reached Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio. It materially affected the old parties, as new questions of importance arose, one party endeavoring to leave it to the states where it existed to be disposed of as they should desire; the other party emphasizing the duty of the nation to take action concerning it in the District of Columbia and in the territories which were directly under the government of the nation.
Secession was suggested as a probable necessity. Political opposition in- creased. The party most favorable to slavery held the power in the nation from 18- to 1860. The whig party shriveled and disappeared. The pro-slavery party of the south grew till it embraced practically the entire group of voters. The anti-slavery sentiment of the north increased steadily. In 1860 it was a com- mon expression that the Union would be dissolved if a president should be elected by the north against the vote of the south.
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The north believed that leading men in the south were talking, not to convince or to mold southern opinion, but to frighten the north into more moderate thought and action. They were said to be telling the less influential slaveholders and the non-slaveholders of the south that secession would never mean war in the nation, that the north would not fight, they couldn't be driven to war. The south were familiar with guns, liked to use them. The north didn't have guns; were not fond of using them; would pocket a gross insult rather than fight a duel.
It was said that the southern leaders offered to drink all the blood that should be shed in such a conflict.
Thus there was no sincere belief among "the rank and file," north or south, that secession would follow the election of Lincoln. If it had been believed, men would have shrank from the ballot box that year, and what the vote actually cast would have been, no one can tell.
Now let us go through our county and make out a list of the best men in it fifty years ago, the most honorable men in a trade, those who do most exactly as they agree, those who are most helpful in need, those who are most welcome as neighbors. Now let us go through this list. We shall be surprised by the number of those who sympathized with the south then that are in the group. They are few in fact, but we are amazed that there are any at all and that they are such men of good repute. Let us think of ourselves. How many of us would have turned away from old friends, admired politicians, trusted states- men, at that time, to "march steadily to the music of the Union?" How many of us would have kept step with men whom we had denounced as hostile to the best interests of the nation ?- men whom we had long been learning to regard as fanatics, frenzied with a long cherished desire to make negroes bosom com- panions ?
We are pleased to make a quotation from a letter written by a man intim- ately acquainted with those men in southwestern Poweshiek, himself of southern extraction and a republican :
"I sincerely believe they were as honest in their convictions as I was in mine. I am speaking of the whole group, the Fleeners as well as the others. I posi- tively assert that in my humble judgment, better citizens (as they saw their duty to the state), kindlier neighbors, truer friends, never drew breath. I say this notwithstanding their hot Tennessee blood came near getting some of their necks into a halter."
Now let us all join the Maryland poet as he sings in
"Oh, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war's desolation ! Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must for our cause it is just ; And this be our motto,-'In God is our trust ;'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
SLAVERY AND THE NEGRO QUESTION.
When Iowa was admitted to the Union, the question of slavery had already reached fever heat in portions of the country. Garrison had begun a conscien- tious yet a radical opposition to slavery, and his "Liberator" was circulated widely through the mails. Anti-slavery societies were organized in several states. Just then, in 1831, Nat Turner, a slave, led a murderous insurrection in Southampton county, Virginia, and sixty-one whites, mainly women and chil- dren, were their victims. Virginia and the slaveholding states were aroused. They saw how easily their cooks and their servants could make a charnel house of every home. Anti-slavery pamphlets and papers floated through southern mails, filled the Charleston postoffice. Rewards were offered for the heads of abolitionists, and the state of Georgia offered $5,000 for the arrest and convic- tion of Garrison for publishing a "seditious" paper. Congress was flooded with petitions to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and a New Hampshire representative secured the passage of the "Atherton Gag Bill" that such pe- titions should be laid on the table without being debated, printed or referred.
Nevertheless, ex-President John Quincy Adams presented 511 such petitions in a single day! This agitation was the beginning of the end. Calhoun was al- ready the great pro-slavery leader. He saw what few others saw. He was be- ginning to say, "It is not we, but the Union, which is in danger! We love and cherish the Union we remember, with the kindest feelings, our common origin, with pride our common achievements, and fondly anticipate the common great- ness and glory that seem to await us, but origin, achievements and anticipation of common greatness are to us as nothing compared with the question. We will not, cannot permit it (slavery) to be destroyed."
"They who imagine that the spirit now abroad in the north will die away of itself, without a shock or a convulsion will have found a very inadequate con- ception of its real character. Abolition and the Union cannot co-exist."
Calhoun was a powerful friend, a mighty enemy. It is questioned whether Webster was his equal in mental power, or Clay was his peer in convincing speech. Be this as it may, north and south became more and more irreconcilable. The great compromise of 1850 drove them farther apart, and then Senator Mason read in the senate the last words of the great South Carolinian whom the approach of death had rendered unable to speak. Then Clay exhausted his arts of compromise, and Webster, by his famous "7th of March" speech, made it forever impossible that he should be president of the United States. Nothing could have been more touching than the words of the dying Calhoun on that stirring occasion. His speech was calm, deliberate, written without anger and without frenzy, but with genuine sorrow as he remembered his vain efforts for more than a score of years, and anticipated the end which came before the month closed. The statesman would die, but his thoughts ripened into the bloodiest war of all history eleven years later.
THE KANSAS CONFLICT.
Stephen A. Douglas, a Vermonter by birth and an Illinoisan by residence, the nation's "little giant," came forward with his compromise of "Squatter Sov-
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ereignty." It was hoped that this would be a political panacea. By the Missouri Compromise the inhabitants of Kansas were forbidden to introduce slavery there. That provision was repealed in 1854 and the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery co- horts rushed into deadly conflict beyond Missouri. Missourians dashed into Kansas, elected its first legislature and returned home. That legislature made slavery legal there. Northern men hastened up the Missouri to settle in Kansas. They were stopped on the way. Then they passed through Iowa to the land of promise. These men were driven out of the territory or murdered at the polls.
John Brown with his four sons led a company from the north. Colonel Bu- ford sent a force from Georgia and Alabama, armed with rifles and bibles. Lawrence's and Eli Thayer's emigrant aid company sent more men, equally well armed, from the north. Kansas became a battlefield, her courts were dishonored, her governors became weary, her constitutions were a farce, and she came into the Union, at last, as a free state. In that bloody contest men from Iowa and from this county took an active part.
No other event of fact so aroused the working man of the north as did the political doctrine of squatter sovereignty and the contest in Kansas.
JOHN BROWN IN AND OUT OF KANSAS.
John Brown, a native of Connecticut, a business man in Ohio and later in New York, went to Kansas not so much to find a home for himself as to make it a home for freemen of whatever color. He took part at once in the conflict and showed himself without fear. He reached Kansas in the fall of 1855, set- tled with five children near Osawotomie. Then neighbor murdered neighbor and shot down one another as they met on the street. Brown was too late to defend Lawrence in the spring of 1856. It was affirmed and denied that he took part in the murder of pro-slavery men at Dutch Henry's crossing. Captain Pate went out to capture him and he himself became the prisoner. Anti-slavery people trusted and aided Brown At length slaves in Missouri were about to be sold further south. A rescue was sought. Brown, and tried assistants, re- sponded. An owner resisted the effort. He was shot. Who used the gun is unknown.
Now the journey toward the north star. It was the well known route through Tabor and Grinnell. The twelve "refugees" and their defenders were in Grin- nell several days, were entertained in Mr. Grinnell's house and at the hotel, took part in public meetings, and a collection was taken up for their traveling ex- penses. They made no effort at concealment, although $3,000 was offered for Brown's arrest, and the United States marshal of the district had sent word that he would be arrested immediately. His word was: "Get the old devil away to save trouble, for he will be taken, dead or alive."
Brown's reply was "Tell him if he thirsts for the honor of my arrest, I will wait here one day longer for his accommodation. We can shoot sixty times in as many seconds." The marshal did not appear.
OPPOSITION TO NEGROES IN THE COUNTY.
Some localities in this county objected to the admission of colored persons to the schools, or rather certain persons in some localities.
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I. Grinnell had encouraged "foreign" students to attend their schools, i. e., students from outside the district. At the school meeting in 1858 a motion was made to "exclude foreign students." The superintendent explained as follows : (A.) "There is no class in school for foreign students alone. One or more home students is in every class.
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