USA > Iowa > Story County > History of Story County, Iowa: A Record of Settlement, Organization. > Part 29
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a squadron of river boats under command of Admiral Porter, and when the army retreated, there was much of difficulty about getting the steam- boats back down the river. One or two of them, in fact, did not get back, but, notwithstanding an exceptional low stage of the river, some lumber- men from Wisconsin with the Western army, put to use their logging ex- perience and built temporary dams, the opening of which made a flood which carried the most of the boats safely down the river. This escape of the gunboats was after the battle of Pleasant Hill, which was the turning point of the expedition.
Prior to that battle, however, and yet more notably after it, there had been manifest one result of the expedition, which has been variously sus- pected to have been its real objective, although no one would ever wish to make such confession. This result was that a large amount of cotton was gotten out of the Red river country and down to the Mississippi, whence it could be shipped to cotton mills in the north. The time was that period of war, when the cutting off of traffic between the north and south had made the price of cotton in the north exceedingly high, and the cotton itself in the south a drug in the market where it was raised. Under such condi- tions, it was a very great favor to the rebels of a mercenary turn, to have some channel through which their cotton could get out of the Confederacy, and it was a corresponding favor to the cotton spinners of the north to have some means by which they could get cotton to their mills. From such conditions, there was possible an immense profit for those officers who were able and willing in their relations to the expedition to mix their military and business affairs; and from this circumstance, there hangs and always will hang over the Red river expedition a certain cloud of scandal, which was quite as unfortunate as was any of the bad generalship in the field.
But neither in the scandal nor in the bad leadership did the western con- tingent of the army have any share. A prominent western officer who was un- fortunately only third in rank in the expedition, was Gen. A. J. Smith, who was distinctly a fighter and a commander of much capacity and was exceed- ingly admired and trusted by the Iowa soldiers under his command. He re- fused to take cotton aboard his transports, and his feelings at the unwarranted retreat from Pleasant Hill and the ensuing failure of the expedition, ex- cepting as pertains to cotton and finance, were so pronounced that it is well authenticated that he deliberately proposed to Gen. Franklin, who was second in rank in the expedition, that Gen. Banks, the commander of the expedition, be put under arrest; that Franklin assume command of the army; that Smith and his command should support Franklin in such as- sumption, and that together they should then attack the enemy whom they would, no doubt, defeat. Franklin said that such proposal was mutiny and did not accept the suggestion, but that such a proposal should have been made by an officer so capable and responsible as Gen. A. J. Smith, is enough to justify the 32d Iowa and Shaw's Brigade of which it was a part, in any or all of their complaints over their treatment at Pleasant Hill.
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The battle of Pleasant Hill was fought on the 9th of April, 1864, late in the afternoon. The Union army had been repulsed in an engagement the day before at Mansfield, and had fallen back to Pleasant Hill. Here it took what was, in part at least, a good position, and awaited the attack of the rebels under General Dick Taylor, who appears to have been as little affected by the cotton interest and as much in favor of a real fight as was Gen. A. J. Smith of the Union side.
Of the Union line, the central position was held by Col. W. T. Shaw's brigade of Smith's division. This brigade consisted of the 24th Missouri and 14th, 27th and 32d Iowa regiments, the last named being on the left of the brigade. Beyond this brigade, to the left and too far beyond, was the division of Gen. Dwight, an eastern officer, who appears to have been a favorite with Banks, but who, at the time of the battle of Pleasant Hill, appears further to have been in a condition quite unfit for the responsibilities upon him. His forces were so disposed as to leave a considerable gap between them and Shaw's brigade; and when Shaw, with considerable diffi- culty made him understand the matter, he promised to send a regiment to fill the gap, but did not do so. When the rebels charged, the Shaw brigade stopped them effectively, but they passed through the gap, to the left of the 32d Iowa, and swung around in the rear. The position of Shaw's brigade with the rebels in front and on their flank and in their rear, became in- creasingly difficult, but they held their position until the brigade was ordered back to form on the second Union line through which no gaps had yet been afforded to the rebels. In accordance with this command, the 24th Missouri fell back, the 27th Iowa did so, and the 14th Iowa, all of which regiments, and especially the last, had already met great losses in the engagement, but had distinctly held their ground; but the 32d Iowa was off a little too far to the left to get the command to fall back when it was passed down the line, and the officer who was sent with the order was killed before he delivered his message. So the 32d, not being ordered back, staid where it was, and Col. Scott was left to get his command out of its isolated position the best he could. Lieutenant-Colonel Mix, and one after another of the other officers had been killed. The companies on the right had some of them been swept back when the 14th Iowa fell back, and it was a much disorganized and broken body of men who still had left the choice of cut- ting their way out through the rebel lines or of surrendering. Apparently the rebels who had gone on and attacked the second Union line had been so abundantly occupied by that line that their opportunity to give to the remnant of the 32d the attention which they might otherwise have given, was limited; so the breaking out for the 32d was not impossible, and the regiment started to the left. In this movement, a fallen tree in the way divided the regiment once more, and the remnants of Companies H and K were thus separated from the others. It thus became very much a free for all fight to get through, and very much, everyone for himself, and Comrade Silas See says that when they did get through and back, and out
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of the fight, he was the only one actually with Capt. Wheeler of Company K; but other troops came in in squads, and the companies reformed after a fashion, and in the gathering dusk, Col. Scott led the remnant of his regiment back to the Union line.
As a matter of fact, the rebel army had been defeated in the final en- gagement; and those who, in the position of the 32d survivors, had seen the actual condition of the rebels at the end of the battle, knew that the rebels were defeated and retreating; but the truth that Pleasant Hill had been a Union victory did not penetrate to Banks' headquarters. Accord- ingly, in the night, the army was ordered back, and the survivors of the 32d and of the other regiments of Shaw's brigade, were not so much as permitted to return to the abandoned field to bury their dead and gather up their wounded. This conclusion of the battle was attended with in- tense grief and humiliation by the men who had held the line against su- perior numbers and had broken through the surrounding lines of their enemy. The injustice of being ordered, under such circumstances, to retreat was never forgotten nor forgiven; and when the promotion to the brigade gen- eralship, which was certain to come to some colonel in the brigade, was not awarded to the colonel of the regiment that had held the line to the end, but to another colonel of another regiment that had done well, but that had achieved less distinction and suffered smaller losses, the 32d felt that its disappointments were multiplied. The loss of the 32d in this en- gagement, was variously reported as 210, 215 and 220 out of a total of about 500 men engaged. It was an awful fight such as one regiment rarely goes through but once in one war.
After the return of Banks' army down the Red river to the vicinity of the Mississippi, the 32d Iowa was quite actively engaged for a time on general guard duty to keep the rebels from coming too close to the big river; but soon the regiment went up the river by boat to Vicksburg and thence was sent with many other regiments on a hasty chase after the rebel General Forrest, who was raiding in northern Mississippi and in Ten- nessee. The 32d marched from Vicksburg by way of Jackson to Tupelo near the northeast corner of Mississippi, at which place Forrest was caught and his command badly broken up. In this fight at Tupelo the 2d cavalry with Company B, another of the especial Story County companies, was engaged.
Marching back to Vicksburg, the 32d was shipped by boat to St. Louis, whence it marched across Missouri and back in a chase after the rebel General Sterling Price. Then another steamboat trip took the regiment up the Cumberland to Nashville in time to join in the three-days' fight that destroyed Hood's army. From Nashville the 32d marched across the coun- try to Eastport, Mississippi, which is on the Tennessee river and within a few miles of Tupelo, where the regiment had fought a few months, be- fore and whence it had made a very wide circuit. Here the regiment started to build quarters in which to spend the rest of the winter; but before the
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quarters were done, new orders came and the regiment boarded a steam- boat that took it from Eastport down the Tennessee and Ohio to Cairo, thence down the Mississippi, past New Orleans, to the gulf and along the coast to Dolphin Island at the mouth of Mobile bay.
Thus the 32d, marching up the east side of the bay, entered upon its last campaign. It was a campaign whose purpose was to conclude the work which Farragut so well begun when he pushed the Union fleet by the forts at the lower end of the bay and defeated and destroyed the rebel squadron inside. The occupancy of New Orleans and the other points along the Mississippi by the Union army and Sherman's victories about Atlanta and his march to the sea, had left Mobile as the principal point of what was left of the Confederacy in that portion of the south, and the strong de- fenses remaining to Mobile were Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely. These posts the rebels held with a desperation pertaining to the last ditch fight; and though the Union army besieged them in numbers, of white and colored troops together, sufficient to make the outcome of the campaign as certain as any movement can be, yet the rebels offered a defense that made the cam- paign one of the most difficult of the successful campaigns of the war. The Union army besieged the rebel posts, approaching as close as was possible by the usual methods of conducting a siege, and in the end, as- saulted. The assault on Spanish Fort was made on the 8th of April, 1865, and that on Ft. Blakely on the 9th. The remnants of the 32d Iowa were engaged at Spanish Fort and in the thick of the fight at Ft. Blakely, and their victory at the latter point finished their service against organized op- position. This battle was on the afternoon of the day, on the morning of which Lee had surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, and the two events together marked the close of the war. Afterwards there was some service in chasing the remaining disorganized bands of rebels and in restoring order; but the 32d soon returned home with the other victorious troops, and Company K was welcomed back to Story County with all possible enthusiasm.
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CHAPTER XXIV.
HOME AFFAIRS IN WAR TIME.
During the years from 1861 to 1865, the thought, attention and energies of the people of Story County were directed chiefly to matters concerning the war and concerning those who were at the front. But there were other interests. First and foremost was the matter of the railroad. In spite of all of the difficulties concerning the railroad construction in war time, the work of the railroad convention in Cedar Rapids in 1859 had been so well done, and the organization of the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad, under the patronage of the Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska Railroad had been so fortunate and had commended itself so well to the people of the counties along the line of the proposed railroad from Cedar Rapids westward, that the work of railroad construction did, in fact, progress. The Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska road was completed to Cedar Rapids, and the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad proceeded to build westward. The railroad finally reached Nevada on an ever memorable Fourth of July, 1864. It was extended in 1865 to Boone, and on the last day of 1866 it reached Council Bluffs, being the first railroad from east to west to be completed across the state of Iowa.
Other matters of the time included some more building in the town of Nevada and growth over the county; also there was a gradually increasing intensity of the struggle in Nevada between the north and south sides of the Slough. The files of the local paper in that time indicate among other things that there was much real trouble over the question of fuel. Ap- parently the timber which the people wanted to use for fuel was getting scarce, and the fashion which became current some ten years later, after barb wire had come into vogue, had not yet found approval, to-wit: That of burning up fence rails for fuel; so we find in the current discussion of that time quite a lot on the subject of peat, and the idea seems to have been seriously entertained that it might be possible to keep Iowa warm with peat, in spite of blizzards such as in these later years, Iowa people know nothing of. Another matter that for the time excited the very great- est local interest was the discovery that a murder had been committed on the borders of the village of Nevada, the body of the victim buried and his property gone with the murderer. In time, the murderer was arrested,
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brought back for examination, sent for trial to Cedar Rapids, convicted and sent to the penitentiary. Also in the early morning of January 1, 1864, in the midst of the worst blizzard that the northwest has probably ever known, the court house was burned; and from this event there grew controversies that never entirely died out, while the men concerned were politically active.
The politics of this time seems to have been really of less moment in a local sense than the politics of almost any other time in the county. Doubt- less, the reason for this is that so large a proportion of the men who might naturally have been expected to engage in politics were absent with the army ; and, at the same time, those who remained at home were sufficiently interested in the war so that they were able to reconcile and compromise their differences over matters at home. By this, it is not to be understood that there was no politics; for the line of division between the democratic and republican parties was probably at this time deeper and better defined than at any other time; but the controversies were over the state of the Union, and the suppression of the rebellion, and the status of the negro, rather than over local concerns. Of the bitterness of this national issue, it is quite impossible for one of the later generation to have any just con- ception; but the controversy was of such order that, years afterwards, it was apparent to one who came as a youth into the community that the old- timers who had been strong for the Union still had and wanted very little if anything to do with the old-timers whom they rated as "copperheads," or who, as they themselves understood it, had been desiring the restora- tion of the Union as it was.
Expressive of this controversy was the publication of the paper known as the Nevada Democrat. This paper was published by E. B. Potter, who at the time was the leading democrat of the county, the manifest purpose of the publication being, not to secure a revenue from it, but to have an avenue for the public expression of political opinions. This paper was published on the lot where the compiler of this history has lived for many years; the fact somewhat suggesting that different sorts of politics may, at different times, come from the same quarter. We do not know that any copy of this paper is still in existence, and its republican contemporary managed to get along without quoting from it extensively or referring to it very much. Hearsay testimony, however, is all to the effect that it was conducted with both vigor and frankness, whether its sentiment, in the view of historical events, could be justly recorded as patriotic or not. Not for the purpose of reviving bitterness, but because the controversy is a part of the history of the county, we will quote on this subject from the letter elsewhere mentioned, of Captain George Child, written from Ft. Pillow, Tennessee, in March, 1863, to W. G. Allen of Nevada. Captain Child expressed the soldier view of the matter, and he said: "You ask me what I think of the self-trumpeter of the Nevada Democrat. Well, I have this to say: It is one of the most contemptible sheets I ever saw, and I think the rebels that are in arms are gentlemen in comparison with the editor
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of such a paper. I have watched it carefully, and I have yet to see one word in favor of the Union. Do the democrats endorse that paper as a general thing? Bill McGuire, when he was sending that letter purporting to be from a soldier from the Second Iowa, said if he had been the editor, he would not have published such a letter as he did." The quarrel is over and the Union is preserved, but such bits as this are necessary if we are to understand what was in the minds of people who lived in the time of the Civil war.
The most strenuous politics of the Civil war period seems to have per- tained to choice of members of the General Assembly. In 1861, Thomas C. McCall, afterwards repeatedly a member of the General Assembly from Story County, was the republican nominee for representative, and was elected after a vigorous contest over issues of the war, the majority being much increased from the dozen or so of two years before. At this time Col. Scott was a hold-over member of the senate, and the district not be- ing regarded as safely republican, because of the democratic proclivities of Boone County and because of the absence of soldiers in the war; it was the republican suggestion that he continue to hold his senatorship, not- withstanding his service in the field at the same time as lieutenant colonel of the Third Iowa Infantry. In the ultimate, however, it was held by the state senate that such duplicate service was not allowable, and the sena- torial seat was declared vacant. Accordingly a special election was called in mid-winter of 1862, the candidates being John L. Dana of Nevada, former representative, and E. B. Potter before mentioned. It was a poor time for getting out the vote, but in this matter, the democrats were the more active, and Potter was elected. The republicans, however, retained a working majority in the state senate, and it does not appear that this local democratic success had any effect further than to accentuate the local quarrels before suggested.
In the next legislative election, that of 1863, the republicans elected both senator and representative for this district. The senator was H. C. Henderson of Marshalltown, afterwards for a number of years district judge in this judicial district. The nominating convention was held at Nevada, the district being composed of Marshall, Story and Boone Coun- ties. Boone and Marshall Counties both had candidates, and, between them, Story chose the Marshall candidate, who was accordingly nominated and elected. In this same year, Geo. M. Maxwell of Cambridge came to the fore as the representative of Story County. Mr. Maxwell was a pioneer of notable ability and force. He was a fluent speaker and a very effective campaign debater. Prior to the war, he had been a very keen spokesman of the democrat party, and in April, 1858, he had, upon the nomination of that party, been elected the first county superintendent of schools. The outbreak of the war caused a very considerable break in the democratic party ; and while some democrats, with the views of Mr. Potter and others, continued with increasing bitterness their opposition to the Lincoln admin-
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NEVADA ETMEYEAT
NEVADA CEMETERY
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istration and policies, yet many others like Mr. Maxwell, followed Logan and other conspicuous antebellum democrats into the republican organiza- tion, and gave their support to the prosecution of the war to the fullest possible extent. Such democrats in that time found most cordial welcome in the republican party, and the spirit of this welcome was locally manifest in the early nomination of Mr. Maxwell as representative in the General Assembly. Story County had at this time become entitled to elect a re- presentative by itself, its last joint representative having been Rosenkrans of Hamilton County, who was elected in 1859, and Mr. McCall having been in 1861 the first representative of this county alone. McCall had in the meantime gone into the army as quartermaster of the 32d Infantry Regi- ment, and it thus came about that the succession fell easily to Mr. Max- well. Mr. Maxwell proved to be a very capable representative, and he not only upheld the policy of raising troops and spending money to put down the rebellion, but he also did much to promote the success of the supremely important local enterprise, to-wit: the construction of the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad.
Possibly the most interesting political incident of this period, which is not to be regarded as important, pertained to the efforts of his friends to get D. P. Ballard of Howard township into county office. Mr. Ballard was a very bright young man, a son of Dr., Moses Ballard of Howard town- ship, a school teacher and lawyer and one possessed of many qualities that ought to have gotten him along well in the world. In 1858 he had been the republican nominee for county clerk, but had been beaten by 20 votes, the county not yet having turned republican. Early in the first year of the war, he had been elected county superintendent, but in a short time he resigned to go to the war as first lieutenant of Company A of the 23d Iowa, in which company he later became captain. His popularity at home increased with his service in the field, and in 1864 he was again nominated for county clerk. Following this nomination, E. G. Day, who had been holding the office, resigned to take a position with Capt. McCall in the quartermaster's department, and John M. Brainard, then editor of the Story County Ægis (now the Representative) was appointed to the place. After- wards Captain Ballard wrote home indicating that he would not be able to get out of the army to accept the position, and the republican convention was re-convened to make a new nomination. In the meantime, however, some other advice was received, and the convention confirmed the previous nomination of Ballard. Ballard was accordingly elected, but when in the following January the time came for qualifying for the office, he was still in the field and unable to get his resignation as captain accepted; so a new vacancy was declared and Mr. Brainard again appointed. In the summer of 1865, a new nomination for the vacancy was to be made; but in the meantime the boys had come home from the war, and by almost common consent, the nomination was given to a young veteran, whose qualifications were undoubted and whose record excited much admiration, and thus it Vol. 1-17
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was that J. A. Fitchpatrick entered upon his long period of county service, while the efforts of Ballard's friends to get him into the court house were finally remitted.
WAR-TIME NEWSPAPERS.
Concerning the newspapers in this period of the war, mention has been made of the Nevada Democrat, but that paper was not very long continued. With this exception, the one paper in the county was the original paper which had been started early in 1857 by R. R. Thrall as the Story County Ad- vocate, and which he in 1862 had sold to George Schoonover. It was the fashion in those days apparently that newspaper men when they bought a paper, which was something of frequent occurrence among them, for the reason that they seem to have bought and sold quite readily, to change the name of the paper. "Advocate" had been a good name to start with, but it was by no means spirited enough for so enthusiastic an upholder of the war as was Mr. Schoonover, who therefore mixed both political and military affairs in the name of "Republican Reveille." In November, 1863, Schoonover in turn sold to John M. Brainard, whose choice for a name for the paper proved to be "Ægis." Prior to this latter transfer, the files of the paper for war time are very imperfect.
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