# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/2/31

THE IOWA ARTILLERY SERVICE
OUR State furnished four batteries of light artillery for service during the Civil War. The First Battery was organized early in the first year of the war and was mustered into the service at Burlington about the middle of August, 1861, having enrolled one hundred and sixteen officers and men. They were enlisted from the State at large. The first captain was Charles H. Fletcher of Burlington, who served until January 8, 1862. He was succeeded by Lieutenant J. A. Jones who was wounded at the Battle of Pea Ridge and resigned on the 24th of March, 1862. Harry H. Griffith, who was a captain of Company E, Fourth Iowa Infantry, was his successor. This battery did excellent service in many important battles and received honorable mention in reports of commanding officers. During its term of service the First Battery lost ten men killed in battle, fifty died of disease, twenty-seven wounded in action and twenty-six discharged fro disability. It was mustered out at Davenport, July 5, 1865.
The Second Battery was raised in the counties of Polk, Dallas, Harrison, Fremont and Pottawattamie and went into camp at Council Bluffs in August, 1861. It consisted of one hundred and twenty-three men and was organized with Nelson T. Spoor as captain. Upon the expiration of his term of service on the 30th of August, 1864, Lieutenant Joseph R. Reed was commissioned captain. Upon the expiration of his term of service, June 19, 1865, he was ​mustered out and succeeded by Lieutenant John W. Coons. This battery did excellent service during the war and was among the most famous for its brilliant action at the battles of Vicksburg, the Atlanta campaigns and at Nashville. Its losses were two killed, twenty-nine deaths from disease, fourteen wounded in action and sixteen discharged for disability. It was mustered out at Davenport on the 5th of July, 1965.
The Third Battery was raised in the Third Congressional District, and numbered one hundred and forty men. It went into camp at Dubuque in August, 1861, where it was mustered into the service. Captain M. M. Hayden was its first commander and served until October 3, 1864, when he was mustered out, being succeeded by Lieutenant Melville C. Wright who served until January 5, 1865, when he in turn was succeeded by Lieutenant O. H. Lyon. This battery took an active part in the battles of Pea Ridge and Helena as well as several engagements in other parts of Arkansas. Its losses during the war were four killed, thirteen wounded, thirty-three deaths from disease and twenty discharged for disability. This battery was mustered out of the service on the 3d of October, 1865, at Davenport.
A FORT DODGE CAVALRY COMPANY
In the spring of 1861 after Fort Sumter had been fired upon, a number of young men living in Fort Dodge and vicinity determined to make preparation for the war that was then seen to be inevitable. They assembled weekly for the purpose of receiving military instruction. After the Battle of Bull Run they decide to organize a military company and enter the service. Dr. L. L. Pease who was in Washington about time, learned from Senator Harlan that Colonel Josiah Harvey, a relative of the Senator, was raising a regiment of cavalry in Philadelphia and would be pleased to have a company from Iowa for his regiment. Upon his return to Fort Dodge the doctor conferred with the members of his home company. Desirous of meeting the enemy as soon as possible, the members of the Fort Dodge Company decided to join Colonel Harvey’s regiment of Pennsylvanians which became the Eleventh Pennsylvania Cavalry. The following officers were chosen by the members of the company who received their commissions from Governor Kirkwood of Iowa: Captain Frank A. Stratton; First Lieutenant George S. Ringland; Second Lieutenant George W. Bassett. This company reached Washington on the 6th of October, 1861, and was given the place of honor as “Company A, Eleventh Pennsylvania Cavalry.” It was the only organization of Iowa soldiers that served during its whole term of enlistment in the eastern armies. The regiment to which this Iowa company was attached was employed in Virginia during the greater part of the war. Captain Stratton became a major and Lieutenant Ringland was promoted to captain of the company. Upon the expiration of its term of service the company was given a cordial reception by the citizens of Fort Dodge.
ANDERSONVILLE AND OTHER CONFEDERATE PRISONS
During the war of the American Revolution the government of Great Britain won a record of infamy that has ​not been equaled by that of any civilized nation of modern times, in its treatment of American prisoners. Crowded in the holds of prison ships reeking with foul air and filth, suffering horrors indescribable, they perished by hundreds. The cruelties practiced by the prison keepers upon their helpless victims were perpetrated for the avowed purpose of punishing rebels and terrifying the patriots who were joining the armies of the Revolution.
The Confederate government in the treatment of prisoners captured from the Union armies surpassed the British in barbarity, in many of the prison pens. The horrors endured by inmates of Libby, Salisbury, Florence, Macon, Belle Isle, Tyler and Columbia have been told by survivors in every Northern State and the record of thousands who perished from inhuman treatment, disease and starvation and were buried in the prison cemeteries, bear witness to an infamous system of cruelty that must ever shock humanity.
Iowa soldiers endured the horrors of these prisons and hundreds sleep in nameless graves, who were slowly murdered within the stockades.
A brief description of the Andersonville stockade, where more Iowa soldiers perished than in any other prison, will give the people of present and future generations a truthful picture of the horrors of all of them.
Early in 1864 the site was selected in southern Georgia remote from any large city or town, in the heart of a swampy, desolate region covered with pine forests. A railroad station and seven small buildings made the town of Andersonville. Half a mile east, twenty-seven acres of the forest were cleared and inclosed with palisades firmly planted in the ground to a depth of five feet. This made a solid wooden wall twelve feet in height. Inside of this wall at a distance of seventy feet was another wall of palisades and, at a distance of one hundred feet inside of this, was a third wall eighteen feet high. Within this wall, at a distance of seventeen feet, was the “Dead Line,” ​made by driving into the ground posts which projected five feet above the surface upon which were spiked two by four scantlings. On the inside of the palisades were erected sentry boxes thirty yards apart in which were stationed the armed guards, with instructions to shoot any prisoner who should reach or step inside of this “dead line.” A swampy creek ran through the inclosure from west to east, so that there was left inside of the “dead line” not more than thirteen acres of dry ground upon which men could live. Into this pen were crowded in June, 1864, 22,291 prisoners. Dr. Joseph Jones, a distinguished Confederate physician and surgeon of Augusta, Georgia, made a visit to the stockade in August and gave a report of its condition from which the following extract is made:
“In July there were twenty-nine thousand and thirty, and in August thirty-two thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine prisoners confined in the stockade. No shade trees were left in the entire inclosure. But many of the Federal prisoners had ingeniously constructed huts and caves to shelter themselves from the rain, sun and night damps. The stench arising from this dense population crowded together here, performing all the duties of life, was horrible in the extreme. The accommodations for the sick were so defective and the condition of the others so pitiable that from February 24th to September 21st nine thousand four hundred and seventy-nine died, or nearly one-third of the entire number in the stockade. There were nearly five thousand prisoners seriously ill, and the deaths exceeded one hundred a day. Large numbers were walking about who were not reported sick, who were suffering from diarrhea and scurvy. I visited two thousand sick lying under some long sheds; only one medical officer was in attendance, whereas at least twenty should have been employed. From the crowded condition, bad diet, unbearable filth, dejected appearances of the prisoners, their systems had become so disordered that from the slightest abrasion of the skin, from the heat of the sun or even a mosquito bite, they took on rapid and frightful ulceration and gangrene. The continuous use of salt meat imperfectly cured and their total deprivation of vegetables and fruit caused the scurvy. The sick were lying upon the bare floors of open sheds without even straw to rest upon. The haggard, dejected, living skeletons, crying for medical aid and food, and the ghastly corpses with glazed eyeballs staring up into vacant space, with flies swarming down their open mouths, and over their rags infested with swarms of lice and maggots, as they lay among the sick and dying, formed ​a picture of helpless, hopeless misery, impossible for words to portray. Millions of flies swarmed over everything and covered the faces of the sick patients and crowded their open mouths, depositing their maggots in the gangrenous wounds of the living, and in the mouths of the dead.
“These abuses were due to the total absence of any system or any sanitary regulations. When a patient died he was laid in front of his tent, if he had one, and often remained there for hours.”
This was the language of a distinguished surgeon of the Confederacy who recites what he actually witnessed. His soul revolted at the cruelties that he saw on every side and the indifference of the officials who were directly responsible for the awful, needless sufferings that he so graphically describes. The condition of the perishing victims of this horrible prison was repeatedly reported by the Confederate surgeons in attendance upon the prisoners and to the Confederate Government at Richmond but not a word of rebuke came to check the horrid work of Winder and Wirz. Winder, the superintendent of prisoners, appointed by Jefferson Davis, openly boasted that “in 1864 he had destroyed more Yankee soldiers at Andersonville than had General Lee with twenty of his best regiments in the field.” Thus perished 12,853 Union soldiers in less than a year. They were buried in a cemetery near the scene of their awful sufferings and lingering deaths. These heroic men were repeatedly offered release from the horrors of the prison, if they would enlist in the Confederate army but to their enduring honor let it be here recorded that they spurned the offers with a patriotism unsurpassed in the annals of history and remained to suffer the martyr’s death. The following is the roll of honor of the Iowa victims of Andersonville, the number being that inscribed on the marble slab that marks the soldier’s grave:
| 167. | Henry M. Collins, Company G, Fourth Infantry. |
| 257. | John Moon, Company H, Thirty-ninth Infantry. |
| 362. | William H. Ennes, Company B, Fourth Infantry. |
| 307. | Emanuel Myers, Company G, Fifth Infantry. ​ |
| 328. | William Chenowith, Company K, Fourth Infantry. |
| 450. | James Moon, Company H, Thirty-ninth Infantry. |
| 451. | John C. Stout, Company A, Fifth Infantry. |
| 599. | John P. Shuffleton, Company H, Fifth Infantry. |
| 641. | Norman Seeley, Company B, Ninth Infantry. |
| 750. | Leonard Garn, Company C, Sixth Infantry. |
| 862. | Andrew Heller, Company D, Fifth Infantry. |
| 892. | Charles M. Lambert, Company H, Thirty-ninth Infantry. |
| 1192. | James McMullen, Company C, Fourth Infantry. |
| 1293. | Christian Bartshe, Company K, Fifth Infantry. |
| 1316. | James Tormey, Company K, Tenth Infantry. |
| 1317. | Francis M. Miller, Company H, Fifth Infantry. |
| 1472. | Wm. T. McCammon, Company A, Fourth Infantry. |
| 1484. | Jacob Gender, Company I, Fifth Infantry. |
| 1570. | Wm. H. Bingham, Company H, Thirty-ninth Infantry. |
| 1674. | Omer R. Whitman, Company E, Fifth Infantry. |
| 1796. | Charles Ryan, Company G, Fifth Infantry. |
| 1797. | Frank Moore. |
| 1816. | Isaac B. Hurley, Company H, Eighth Infantry. |
| 1820. | John Richardson. |
| 1951. | Elias Ratliffe, Company I, Fourth Infantry. |
| 1972. | Johann Peterson, Company E, Twenty-sixth Infantry. |
| 1981. | William Tippery, Company K, Fifth Infantry. |
| 2027. | Asahel McAllister, Company C, Fourteenth Infantry. |
| 2045. | Thomas S. Littleton, Company C, Fifth Infantry. |
| 2161. | Franklin Wells, Company I, Fifth Infantry. |
| 2168. | Robert J. H. Huffman, Company H, Fifth Infantry. |
| 2213. | Andrew R. Whitenack, Company K, Ninth Infantry. |
| 2703. | Thomas M. Davis, Company E, Third Infantry. |
| 2712. | Robert T. Smith, Company H, Tenth Infantry. |
| 2845. | Jasper N. Stattler, Company K, Thirtieth Infantry. |
| 2855. | Benjamin F. Wolfe, Company E, Eighth Infantry. |
| 2869. | Leroy Palmer, Company D, Ninth Infantry. |
| 3060. | Mathew T. Sparks, Company K, Fifth Infantry. |
| 3204. | Harmon Kolenbranden, Company H, Seventeenth Infantry. |
| 3423. | John W. McNiel, Company I, Fourth Infantry. |
| 3560. | F. Kessler |
| 3617. | John C. Clark, Company H, Thirty-first Infantry. |
| 3705. | Job M. Field, Company K, Fifth Infantry. |
| 3986. | Martin Thompson, Company G, Fifth Infantry |
| 4178. | Samuel Sutton, Company H, Fifth Infantry. |
| 4206. | John Davis, Company D, Fifteenth Infantry. |
| 4221. | Alfred C. Barnes, Company H, Fifteenth Infantry. |
| 4461. | Courtlin Jones, Company B, Fourth Infantry. ​ |
| 4503. | Seth Farnsworth, Company H, Second Cavalry. |
| 4582. | George W. Cromwell, Company F, Twenty-seventh Infantry. |
| 4675. | Lawrence Demotte, Company G, Fifth Infantry. |
| 4773. | Charles Smith, Company F, Twenty-sixth Infantry. |
| 4804. | William W. Moore, Company A, Fifteenth Infantry. |
| 4916. | John A. Wolfe, Company C, Second Cavalry. |
| 5005. | George Gentle, Company E, Fourth Infantry. |
| 5101. | Silas Cooper, Company B, Fifth Infantry. |
| 5244. | Edward D. Cox, Company G, Fifth Infantry. |
| 5378. | Bernard Kennedy. |
| 5410. | Charles F. Starr, Company H, Thirtieth Infantry. |
| 5445. | James I. Murray, Company I, Seventeenth Infantry. |
| 5461. | Moses Allen, Company K, Third Infantry. |
| 5622. | William A. Cox, Company I, Seventeenth Infantry. |
| 5836. | Christie Graushoff, Company I, Twenty-sixth Infantry. |
| 5878. | Rienza Reid, Company I, Sixteenth Infantry. |
| 5892. | John Shadle, Company C, Sixteenth Infantry. |
| 5999. | Ezra Coder. |
| 6167. | Thomas McCall, Company M, Eighth Cavalry. |
| 6209. | Charles P. Philpot, Company B, Thirty-first Infantry. |
| 6378. | Henry Cox, Company I, Fifth Cavalry. |
| 6464. | Ebenezer King, Company C, Second Cavalry. |
| 6572. | David Robertson, Company G, Thirteenth Infantry. |
| 6604. | Henry Clausen, Company E, Twenty-sixth Infantry. |
| 6687. | Charles D. Teevis, Company A, Fifth Infantry. |
| 6815. | William Merchant, Company G, Thirteenth Infantry. |
| 6848. | Malcolm J. Collins |
| 6849. | Samuel P. Driskell, Company F, Twenty-sixth Infantry. |
| 6878. | Isaac V. Maynard, Company B, Fourth Infantry. |
| 6932. | William A. Comar. |
| 6934. | John Whelan, Company D, Twenty-sixth Infantry. |
| 6959. | Richard O’Connor, Company I, Twenty-sixth Infantry. |
| 7715. | John W. Freel, Company F, Tenth Infantry. |
| 7779. | John L. Baird, Company H, Twenty-sixth Infantry. |
| 7878. | John Q. A. Fredericks, Company C, Sixteenth Infantry. |
| 7954. | Wm. W. Symms, Company D, Third Infantry. |
| 7959. | Lewis Lord, Company G, Thirteenth Infantry. |
| 8062. | Samuel S. Culbertson. |
| 8101. | Charles E. Washrath, Company K, Fifth Infantry. |
| 8106. | Joseph B. Hastings, Company B, Eleventh Infantry. |
| 8120. | Zach. L. McClure, Company C, Sixteenth Infantry. |
| 8131. | Simon P. Wolston, Company H, Thirteenth Infantry. |
| 8220. | James W. Smith, Company A, Thirteenth Infantry. ​ |
| 8263. | John A. Lanning, Company I, Thirteenth Infantry. |
| 8264. | Frederick Buckmaster, Company K, Fifteenth Iowa. |
| 8352. | Benjamin Crow, Company E, Fourth Infantry. |
| 8380. | George W. Trussell, Company D, Sixth Infantry. |
| 8656. | George A. Junk, Company C, Eighth Infantry. |
| 8974. | L. Ankobus. |
| 9125. | John Sherman, Company I, Third Infantry. |
| 9209. | Charles Smith, Company D, Fifth Infantry. |
| 9221. | Obed R. Ward, Company A, Third Infantry. |
| 9229. | Hugh Davis, Company A, Seventeenth Infantry. |
| 9214. | Sharridan S. Martin, Company G, Eleventh Infantry. |
| 9301. | J. Buel. |
| 9367. | Daniel Smith, Company D, Third Cavalry. |
| 9370. | Orlando Putnam, Company F, Twenty-seventh Infantry. |
| 9379. | Daniel Airel. |
| 9414. | Marx Henson, Company B, Sixteenth Infantry. |
| 9438. | Isaac M. Loudenback, Company B, Fifth Infantry. |
| 9456. | Cornelius Boylun, Company C, Fourteenth Infantry. |
| 9483. | Fernando T. Reeves, Company I, Ninth Infantry. |
| 9486. | Joseph B. Wagner, Company B, Third Infantry. |
| 9492. | Aaron M. Ashford, Company C, Eleventh Infantry. |
| 9509. | George W. Overturf, Company H, Fifth Infantry. |
| 9585. | Jacob Mann, Company A, Sixteenth Infantry. |
| 9692. | Michael B. Bowles, Company D, Eleventh Infantry. |
| 9784. | James W. Cowles, Company K, Fifth Infantry. |
| 9727. | F. Weisbrod. |
| 9820. | Ephraim Cobb, Company C, Second Cavalry. |
| 9846. | Daniel Bixler, Company B, Fifth Infantry. |
| 9852. | William Dingman, Company D, Thirty-first Infantry. |
| 10015. | Charles Reed. |
| 10017. | Alexander Rogers, Company G, Fourth Infantry. |
| 10048. | Noel Torkelson, Company H, Sixteenth Infantry. |
| 10110. | John Miller, Company D, Fifth Infantry. |
| 10224. | David R. Loudenback, Company B, Fifth Infantry. |
| 10262. | Daniel Himes, Company I, Third Cavalry. |
| 10270. | John W. Pitts, Company I, Sixteenth Infantry. |
| 10297. | Aaron Pugh, Company M, Eighth Cavalry. |
| 10351. | John M. Volk, Company B, Fifth Infantry. |
| 10360. | James S. Ireland, Company H, Fifth Cavalry. |
| 10361. | Isaac Gatherel. |
| 10403. | D. Parker. |
| 10511. | James Gray, Company C, Eleventh Infantry. |
| 10759. | James K. P. Billings, Company B, Fifth Cavalry. |
| 10827. | George B. McCoy, Company G, Fifth Infantry. ​ |
| 10845. | Philo D. Wilson, Company G, Fifth Infantry. |
| 10884. | William H. Sayer, Company E, Fifth Infantry. |
| 10901. | Philo J. Chapman, Company G, Third Infantry. |
| 10942. | J. Woodward, Sutler, Ninth Infantry. |
| 10950. | John A. Mercer, Company I, Fourth Cavalry. |
| 11078. | J. W. Finer. |
| 11098. | William H. Denoya, Company M, Fifth Cavalry. |
| 11114. | Josiah A. Whitten, Company I, Fifth Cavalry. |
| 11281. | John F. Knight, Company I, Ninth Infantry. |
| 11334. | George W. Blakely, Company B, Third Infantry. |
| 11414. | Titus England, Company E, Ninth Infantry. |
| 11429. | Daniel W. Estelle, Company L, Second Cavalry. |
| 11708. | Adam Thyne. |
| 11745. | Elmore Miller. |
| 11752. | Jonathan Luther, Company B, Ninth Infantry. |
| 11784. | Wm. W. Alderman, Company F, Thirty-first Infantry. |
| 11789. | Milton W. Shaw, Company H, Fifth Infantry. |
| 11896. | William Austin, Company K, Third Cavalry. |
| 12059. | George P. Littler. |
| 12169. | Frederic L. Osborne. |
| 12230. | Joseph B. Chamberlin, Company A, Eighth Cavalry. |
| 12264. | Elias W. Russell, Company G, Fourth Infantry. |
| 12287. | Albert Raser, Company L, Eighth Cavalry. |
| 12484. | Jeremiah B. Martin, Company B, Fifth Cavalry. |
| 12560. | Joseph H. Griffith, Company C, Fifth Cavalry. |
| 12561. | Cyrus F. Macy. |
| 12629. | Leveret J. Littlejohn. |
| 12659. | Wm. W. Dericson, Company M, Eighth Cavalry. |
| 12711. | Amos W. Ferguson, Company A, Fifteenth Infantry. |
| 12729. | Wesley Smice, Company E, Sixteenth Infantry. |
| 12747. | Charles J. Eubanks, Company H, Seventeenth Infantry. |
| 12864. | Nathan Beezly, Company I, Fourth Cavalry. |
| 12865. | Thomas J. Miller, Lieutenant, Company D, Third Cavalry. |
| 12866. | John W. Delay. |
| 12879. | James J. Jones. |
| 12888. | Alexander King, Company H. Seventeenth Infantry. |
| 12899. | John T. Rule, Company A, Tenth Infantry. |
| 12992. | Richard C. R. Young, Company C, Eighth Infantry. |
WOMEN’S WORK IN THE WAR
Volumes have been written on the noble services of the Union soldiers, in the somber years of the great Civil War. During the whole of that fearful drama the newspapers ​and periodicals told in glowing words of countless deeds of heroism of American soldiers in the bloody conflicts on a hundred battle-fields. The names of gallant officers are inscribed on imperishable records in every State of the Union. Their brilliant deeds will be an inspiration to patriotism in all the coming years of the Republic. But no history of the war however minute can record the silent sufferings on the countless marches, the heroic deeds in deadly conflict, the horrors of the prison pens, of the common soldiers. Their unmarked graves are scattered among the forests, swamps, highways and farms of more than twenty States. They marched away from northern homes in the years of early manhood when hopes were high and life was dear to them and to all the family circle from which they parted. If there is a more trying degree of patriotism than that which sent the young men of the family out into unknown dangers for love of country, it is the suppressed grief, too deep for utterance, the long, lingering ever present anxiety of the wives, mothers, sisters and dear ones who remained at home. No language can utter, no pen describe the silent, oppressive fear that never ceased to brood over the minds of the sufferers at home. How bravely they endured the fearful suspense of years has never been and can never be told. Many were left with heavy burdens to bear in providing for the family and with too much pride to accept assistance, struggled on with uncomplaining endurance. The women on farms took the places in the field of the volunteers who had gone to war, while others added to the long hours of labor by working late into the night to provide for the family support. These humble heroisms in every day life of the patient women all over the land, were inspired by as fervent patriotism as ever impelled the men of the family to face their country’s foes on the field of battle. Like the deeds and sufferings of the private soldiers they must ever remain unrecorded but like the nameless graves that the red demon of war left scattered all over the South, in ​which serenely slept the unknown dead, the memory of what they did in the great struggle “will never perish from the earth.”
During the war the women of Iowa were untiring in their work to alleviate the suffering and to add to the comfort of the soldiers in the field and hospital. Almost every town and neighborhood had its society to collect or make such articles as were needed by the sick and wounded. Hundreds of women offered their services as nurses in the hospitals but for a time were rejected by Regular Army officials. But, as the need of their services became great, and higher and more humane officials were appealed to, the obstructions were removed and their valuable services were gladly accepted.
Mrs. J. T. Fales was the first Iowa woman to visit army hospitals and minister to the sick. Mrs. I. K. Fuller, wife of the chaplain of the First Iowa Infantry, went with her husband to the field, was the first army nurse appointed from the State and rendered most valuable service. Mrs. Ann E. Harlan, wife of our distinguished United States Senator was the first to visit the battle-field of Shiloh.
MRS. ANN E. HARLAN. Who Ministered to Union Soldiers
Another Home was established at Cedar Falls where the soldiers’ orphans in the northern part of the State were cared for to the number of more than one hundred the first year.
So generous had been the contributions of the people of Iowa that, after the buildings had been remodeled and furnished, the Association had remaining in the treasury more than $75,000. All of the money used in this humane enterprise had come from the voluntary contributions of the people in addition to the heavy burdens cheerfully carried through the war. This generation cannot realize the continued sacrifices borne by the men and women during the war period. No pen can describe them in all of the ​varied forms in which they came upon the people from year to year as the conflict increased in magnitude. Every new emergency was met with a lofty and unselfish patriotism that has never been surpassed in any age or by any race.