# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/2/6

​ ON the 22d of September, President Lincoln issued his famous Proclamation of Emancipation of the slaves in States which should be in rebellion against the United States on the 1st of January, 1863. On the 24th, he issued another proclamation declaring martial law, and suspending the writ of habeas corpus during the existing insurrection.
During this time of general anxiety, Governor Curtin of Pennsylvania, with others in the east, issued a circular letter, addressed to the Governors of the loyal States, inviting them to a conference at Altoona, Pennsylvania. On the 22d of September, 1862, the following named Governors assembled for consultation: A. G. Curtin of Pennsylvania; John A. Andrew, Massachusetts, Israel Washburn, Maine, N. S. Berry, New Hampshire; Wm. Sprague, Rhode Island; Frederick Holbrook, Vermont; David Tod, Ohio; O. P. Morton, Indiana; Richard Yates, Illinois; Austin Blair, Michigan; Edward Salmon, Wisconsin; and S. J. Kirkwood, Iowa.
They entered into a free discussion of the military situation and the Emancipation Proclamation, which all approved, and appointed Governor Andrew to prepare an address to the President expressing their views at length, and pledging their earnest support in all measures necessary to subdue the Rebellion. They visited the President in a body and Governor Andrew read him the address, to which Mr. Lincoln responded. A majority of the Governors were firmly of the opinion that the public interest required the removal of General McClellan from the command of the Army of the Potomac, but, as all were not agreed upon this, it was not mentioned in the address. ​Several of them, however, freely expressed their opinions of the incapacity of McClellan, to the President, among whom was Governor Kirkwood. He urged upon the President the consideration of the following facts:
President Lincoln remained silent for a moment, and then said slowly and with emphasis:
The Republican State Convention, which assembled at Des Moines on the 23d of July, nominated the following ticket: James Wright, Secretary of State; J. W. Cattell, Auditor; W. H. Holmes, Treasurer; C. C. Nourse, Attorney-General; J. A. Harvey, Register Land Office.
The Democrats nominated R. H. Sylvester for Secretary of State; John Browne for Auditor; S. H. Lorah, Treasurer; B. J. Hall, Attorney-General; Fred Gottschalk, Register Land Office.
The election resulted in the choice of the Republican candidates by an average majority of about 15,200.
The census of 1860 showed the population of Iowa to be sufficient to entitle the State to an increase of Representatives in Congress from two to six, and the Ninth General Assembly therefore apportioned the State into six Congressional Districts. The first election under this act was in October, 1862. The Republican candidates were James F. Wilson in the First District; Hiram Price in the Second; Wm. B. Allison in the Third; J. B. Grinnell in the ​Fourth; John A. Kasson in the Fifth; and A. W. Hubbard in the Sixth. The Democratic candidates were J. K. Hornish in the First; E. H. Thayer in the Second; D. A. Mahoney in the Third; H. M. Martin in the Fourth; D. O. Finch in the Fifth; and John F. Duncombe in the Sixth.
The result of the election was the choice of all of the Republican candidates. Iowa kept this able delegation in Congress until after the close of the war; with Grimes and Harlan in the Senate, no State in the Union had a stronger representation in the National Legislature during this critical period; and in point of influence and high order of statesmanship, it has not since been surpassed, if indeed it has been equaled.
The elections in the Northern States under the general depression felt over the disastrous defeats of the Army of the Potomac, the call for 600,000 more men to reënforce the armies, the opposition to a draft, the desire for peace, and opposition to the emancipation of the slaves, resulted in the defeat of the Administration tickets in the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. This left the Administration a bare majority of two in the House of Representatives. The majority in the Senate had also been lowered. There was little in the political or military situation at the close of the year 1862 to justify the hope of a speedy overthrow of the Rebellion. The Army of the Potomac, under McClellan, had checked Lee’s invasion of Maryland by the battles of South Mountain and Antietam, but at the fearful loss to the Union army of 25,620 men, made up as follows: 1,568 at South Mountain, 11,538 surrendered at Harper’s Ferry, and 12,469 at Antietam; while Lee lost but 13,533 in the campaign. At the Battle of Fredericksburg, fought in December by the Army of the Potomac, under General Burnside, our losses were more than 15,000, one of the most disastrous defeats of the war, while the Confederate’s army lost less than 6,000. This swelled the losses of the Union army, from September 9th to December 15th, to ​30,620; while the losses of Lee’s army were about 19,500. In the West, during this period, the invasion of Kentucky by a confederate army under General Bragg, had ended with his defeat at Perryville by General Buell, and his expulsion. General Rosecrans had won brilliant victories at Iuka and Corinth in Mississippi, in which many Iowa regiments participated. The Union armies had been reënforced by 300,000 men furnished under the President’s last call. Up to the close of the year 1862 Iowa had raised and sent into the service, forty regiments of infantry, five regiments of cavalry, three batteries of artillery, comprising a total of 48,814 men. During the year twenty-six regiments of infantry and one of cavalry had entered the service from Iowa. The result of the conflict up to the beginning of the year 1863, had, on the whole, been such as to encourage the leaders of the Rebellion to anticipate final success for the Southern Confederacy. The Army of Virginia held its defiant position on the banks of the Rappahannock River, its ranks replenished by a rigid enforcement of the conscription acts of the Confederacy. The long series of victories, under the able command of General Robert E. Lee, had inspired a belief in the ranks that it was invulnerable. Our Government learned from confidential reports, through our ambassadors in Europe, that there was danger of foreign intervention on the part of several of the great powers, by a recognition of the Southern Confederacy. Promptly, on the 1st of January, President Lincoln issued his proclamation declaring all slaves in the rebellious States FREE, and that the Executive, the naval and the military authorities of the United States would recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons. He also declared that such persons of suitable condition, would be received into the military service of the United States. Far-seeing statesmen had long believed that the emancipation of the slaves and their employment in our armies would be the death blow to the Rebellion, and so it proved. From this time on the slave became our ​allies, rendering invaluable service to the Union armies in every department.
From the beginning of the Civil War, there were people in the Northern States, who sympathized with their Southern brethren engaged in the Rebellion. They were opposed to coercion of States which had seceded from the Union. C. L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, was the ablest leader in Congress of this element. At the extra session of that body, called to meet on the Fourth of July, 1861, to provide means to subdue the Rebellion, Mr. Vallandigham, in an elaborate speech in opposition to the bill authorizing a loan of $250,000,000 for the support of the Government in the prosecution of the war, took the radical position that the Government had no right to coerce a State in rebellion, and, with Wood, of New York, voted against the bill. When the army appropriation bill was before the House, Mr. Vallandigham moved to add the following proviso:
The Democratic State Convention of Iowa, on the 24th of July, adopted the following resolution:
As the Rebellion grew in magnitude and the Union army met with repeated defeats, those in the North opposed to the suppression of the insurrection by force, became more outspoken and bitter in denunciation of the National Administration and its energetic prosecution of the war. Through newspapers and speeches they sought to cast odium upon the President and his supporters, to discourage enlistments in the Union army and to injure the credit ​of the Government by vicious attacks upon the constitutionality of its most important financial legislation. They also denounced the war as an “Abolition Crusade” and missed no occasion to endeavor to create sympathy for the leaders of the Southern Confederacy. These people, were called “Copperheads,” and were for the most part of that class in the North who were not opposed to slavery. Henry Clay Dean was the most prominent leader of this faction in Iowa, and a few extracts from his speeches and writing will give the reader a clear understanding of the views and teaching of the “Copperheads” during the War of the Rebellion.
“The pretext for war was the preservation of the Union—an organized Union fighting against organized States.
Again, in speaking of the bonds issued by the Government to meet the expenses of the war, Dean says:
In their efforts to discourage volunteering in the Union Army the “Copperheads” resorted to misrepresentation and slander. The following is the language used by Henry Clay Dean:
The above are but examples of the falsehoods industriously circulated, both in public speeches and in the newspapers under control of the “Copperheads.” A secret ​organization known as the “Knights of the Golden Circle” was beginning to invade the Northern States. Its members were bound to secrecy by solemn oaths, and under the protection of midnight gatherings in places unknown to the public, felt a measure of security in their plots against the Government. When more than a million patriotic men had gone from their homes to swell the ranks of the Union armies, the disloyal element at home, through its votes and unceasing assaults upon the Administration, became a serious menace to the country. The persistent assaults of the character set forth in Henry Clay Dean’s speeches and writings were having their effect upon thousands of people who believed them to be founded in truth. This was apparent from the result of the elections in the autumn of 1862, and the falling off of voluntary enlistments in the following months. When Congress found it necessary to provide for reinforcing our armies by draft, the most violent denunciations of the Government were poured forth by the disloyal leaders. Secret organizations in many places conspired to resist the draft. Absorbed in the mighty work that devolved upon them, President Lincoln, his Cabinet, and the loyal members of Congress, for a time gave little heed to these malicious enemies of the Government. But the patriotic people of the North, whose sons, brothers, or husbands, filled the ranks of the Union armies, were incensed beyond measure by slanders of as noble men as ever periled their lives for a sacred cause. The time came when the public safety required the strong arm of the Government to reach out and repress these treasonable practices. A few of the most prominent and influential of the “Copperheads” were arrested by officers of the Government and imprisoned for a short time; some were tried on charges preferred, while others were released without trial, after a period of imprisonment.
The most notable arrest of a citizen of Iowa, was that of Ex-Senator George W. Jones, who was the American ​Minister to Bogota, when the Rebellion began. As a delegate in Congress from Wisconsin, he had secured the establishment of the Territory of Iowa and was one of the first United States Senators chosen from the State of Iowa after its admission into the Union, serving until 1859. He was always faithful and untiring in his work for the interests of our State and was as widely known to its citizens as any man within its limits. When the news came of his arrest for treasonable utterances, in December, 1861, upon his return from Bogota to New York, and his incarceration in the military prison of Fort Lafayette, it produced great excitement in Iowa, and profound regret among his thousands of personal and political friends. It was in time learned that the cause of his arrest was found in an intercepted letter written by him to his long-time personal friend and colleague in the Senate, Jefferson Davis, lately chosen President of the Southern Confederacy. In that letter were found the following expressions:
General Jones was imprisoned several months but was never brought to trial, or even indicted for crime, and was finally released and returned to his home at Dubuque. His indiscretion in this affair was attributed to his warm personal friendship and long years of intimate association in the Senate with men who afterwards became leaders of the Rebellion. His great public services in behalf of our State, from the earliest period of its existence as a political organization, were gratefully remembered and appreciated by the people he had faithfully represented and their ​descendants. His mistakes were forgotten or forgiven long before he died.
D. A. Mahoney, of Dubuque, an editor of marked ability, and formerly a prominent member of the Iowa Legislature, was arrested at his home on the night of August 14th, 1862, by H. M. Hoxie, United States Marshal for Iowa. He was taken to Washington and confined for nearly three months in the Old Capitol prison. He was never brought to trial, which he repeatedly demanded, and it is not known what the charges were upon which he was arrested. He had been very bitter in denunciation of the Administration through his paper, the Dubuque Herald, charging it with gross violations of the Constitution, charging civil and military officers with infamous crimes. He was utterly fearless in his publications, which greatly exasperated the soldiers, who at times were with great difficulty restrained from acts of violence against him and his establishment. He was released on the 11th of November.
Gideon S. Bailey, of Van Buren County, who had served many years in both Territorial and State Legislatures, was at one time arrested, charged with disloyalty and after a short imprisonment was released without trial. About the time of the arrest of Dr. Bailey, Henry Clay Dean was arrested in Keokuk, while on his way to Keosauqua to make one of his speeches in denunciation of the Government and the war. He was held in confinement for several weeks, and then released.
Many of his speeches were published and widely circulated through the lodges of the “Knights of the Golden Circle,” for the purpose of discouraging enlistments in the army. They were sent to soldiers in the service to encourage desertion. In times of peace, these malicious assaults would have been harmless and passed unnoticed, but in the midst of rebellion, imperiling the very existence of our republic, the authorities felt justified in resorting to unusual and arbitrary measures to repress the disloyal from thus “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” ​The influence of this class of speakers and writers was serious enough to engage the attention of the State authorities, and on the 18th of March, 1863, Governor Kirkwood addressed a letter to Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, on the subject, in which he said:
The apprehensions of the Governor as set forth in this letter, that the disloyal teachings of certain leaders would ​result in serious trouble, were realized in the near future. There was a large settlement in Keokuk County of disloyal people who were aggressive in their treasonable utterances and public demonstrations. Their leader was a young Baptist minister, George C. Tally, a rough, uneducated man endowed with a rare gift of oratory. He was a firm believer in slavery as a divine institution, and a bold and fearless defender of the Rebellion. On the 1st of August, 1863, a mass meeting of “Peace Democrats” was held near English River, in Keokuk County. Several hundred came in wagons with arms concealed beneath straw in the vehicles. Threats had been made to destroy the town of South English, which was a Union stronghold. The citizens, having heard of the threat, armed themselves. On his way to the mass meeting Tally, with a disloyal badge prominently displayed, passed through South English and became engaged in an altercation with some of the citizens. He was the chief speaker at the meeting, and by his fervid eloquence in denunciation of the Government and the war, his hearers were wrought up to a state of wild excitement. A large crowd of Union men had gathered on the streets, and, as the armed procession made its way among them, it was greeted with cries of “Copperheads,” “cowards,” “why don’t you shoot?” A shot was fired by some one in the confusion and excitement, which was the instant signal for a general discharge of guns and revolvers by both parties. Tally was among the first to fire. Three shots from his revolver were sent into the crowd, when he fell dead in his wagon, pierced with three bullets. He was the only man killed or seriously injured. The news of the tragic death of their leader, as it spread among his sympathizers, produced a frenzy of excitement. They gathered from Wapello, Mahaska and Poweshiek counties in armed bands, making threats of vengeance. Their rendezvous was on the south bank of the Skunk River, about two miles from Sigourney. Here they formed a camp and soon had nearly 2,000 armed men drilling. ​Messengers were sent to Governor Kirkwood, and he ordered eleven military companies and a squad of artillery to assemble forthwith at Sigourney, and, then, accompanied by three aides, the Governor proceeded to the county-seat. A large assembly gathered at the court-house, where the Governor made an address. He urged obedience to the laws and promised that every effort should be made by the lawful authorities to bring to speedy trial and punishment the guilty parties in the late affray. In the meantime the “Tally army,” in camp near the river, had elected a commander-in-chief, and fixed the time to march upon South English. Charles Negus, a prominent attorney of Fairfield, had been called to the scene of the conflict, by friends of Tally, to assist in bringing the slayers of their leader to trial. He saw the imminent danger of a bloody collision if the army on the Skunk River made a hostile demonstration against the citizens of South English. He had an interview with the commander of the “Tally army” and told him of the presence of the State troops, under command of Colonel N. P. Chipman, and that it would be folly to inaugurate war against the legally constituted military power of the State. The commander-in-chief returned to the army and informed his men of the condition of affairs, and the advice of their counsellor. When they found themselves face to face with State militia, assembled by order of the Governor, their courage gave way to discretion, and, after consultation, they decided to disband. Twelve men were soon after arrested by the civil authorities charged with being implicated in the killing of Tally; they gave bonds to appear for trial at the next term of court. The prompt action of the Governor prevented a bloody conflict, and was unmistakable warning to the lawless element that the military power of the State would be used to suppress mob violence.
On the 30th of October, of the same year, a party of lawless men was discovered passing through the western portion of Fremont County. Provost Marshal Van Eaton ​called to his assistance Captain Hoyt and a few men, who followed them towards the Missouri River, to learn their intentions. The bushwhackers managed to conceal themselves in the brush, where they lay in ambush until the marshal and his party came within gunshot, when they fired, killing Van Eaton and wounding one of his men. The survivors returned the fire, wounding one of the bushwhackers, but the whole party escaped. On the night of the 17th of November, a party of mounted armed men intercepted the pickets guarding the road leading into Sidney from the west. After a sharp skirmish and rapid firing the enemy made a hasty retreat. On the 11th, a gang succeeded in entering the town by night and in blowing up the court-house, built at a cost of $36,000.
On the 17th, Adjutant-General Baker sent two hundred muskets, 4,000 ball cartridges and authority to Colonel Sears to call out as many companies of the Southern Border Brigade as were necessary to protect the county from marauders. Captain H. B. Horn, in command of a company in the Southern Border Brigade, stationed in Davis County, in March, 1863, reported to the Adjutant-General the doings of the disloyal citizens in that county. On the 9th of February, a force of armed men seized a negro and carried him into Missouri to slavery.
Captain Horn writes:
When the draft began in the fall of 1864, these disloyal utterances led to murder and mob violence. A draft had ​been made in September in Poweshiek County. The time for some of the drafted men to report had expired. In Sugar Creek township was a settlement of the disloyal, who had harbored deserters, and had a strong lodge of the “Knights of the Golden Circle.” On the 30th of September, James Mathews, the provost marshal, sent two officers—captain John L. Bashore and Josiah M. Woodruff—into that vicinity to arrest deserters from the draft. They had nearly reached the residence of one of the deserters, fourteen miles south of Grinnell, when they were fired upon by a number of armed men. Woodruff was instantly killed, his body was dragged into the bushes twenty yards from the road, where it was found riddled with bullets. Captain Bashore was lying in the road mortally wounded; he was shot in the head and through the body, then beaten over the head with the butt end of a rifle, which lay broken beside him. A man by the name of Gleason was found lying near Bashore, shot through the thigh, who, when found, said: “I came to the assistance of the provost marshal, and was shot by the band who attacked him.” Bashore, hearing what he said, had strength enough to exclaim, “that is not so, he fought us as wickedly as any of them.”; and in a short time Captain Bashore breathed his last. Upon investigation ordered by the Governor, it was ascertained that a company of pretended militia had been raised in Sugar Creek township, under the command of Captain Robert C. Carpenter, and that a portion of this band had pledged themselves to resist the draft. Joseph Robertson, Thomas McEntire and Samuel A. Bryant, living in that vicinity, had been drafted, and having been notified, failed to report to the provost marshal, and became deserters. When it was learned through spies that officers were coming to arrest them, members of Captain Carpenter’s company assembled in a grove near the road where it was expected the officers would approach the settlement. The men were armed with rifles and shot-guns, and planned to ​send a portion of the company to waylay and kill the officers. The plot was executed, but not without heroic resistance. Though taken by surprise, shot from ambush, and mortally wounded, Captain Bashore shot Gleason through the thigh, and he was left disabled in the road by his companions, when they fled from the scene of the murders.
Gleason made a partial confession, in which he admitted that the gang had pledged themselves to resist the arrest of any of the number who might be drafted, and that he broke his rifle over Bashore’s head in the murderous attack. Upon order of the Governor, Adjutant-General Baker went to Grinnell and instituted an investigation. Captain Mathews had six men arrested and, with Gleason, lodged in jail at Oskaloosa. One of the men, by the name of Fleener, fled and was never found. When Gleason recovered from his wounds he was tried in the United States court at Des Moines, convicted of murder, and sentenced to be hung. His wife went to Washington and appealed to the President to spare the life of the convict. President Lincoln commuted the punishment to imprisonment for life. After a few years in prison Gleason died.