Warriors into Workers: The Civil War and the Formation of the Urban-Industrial Society in a Northern City 9780823293513

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Warriors into Workers

Warriors into Workers THE CIVIL WAR AND THE FORMATION OF URBAN-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN A NORTHERN CITY

RUSSELL L. JOHNSON

Fordham University Press New York 2003

Copyright 䉷 2003 by Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. The North’s Civil War, No. 24 ISSN 1089–8719 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Johnson, Russell L. (Russell Lee), 1960– Warriors into workers : the Civil War and the formation of urban-industrial society in a northern city / Russell L. Johnson.—1st ed. p. cm.—(The North’s Civil War, ISSN 1089-8719 ; no. 24) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8232-2269-1 (hard cover : alk. paper) 1. Dubuque (Iowa)—History, Military—19th century. 2. Dubuque (Iowa)—Social conditions—19th century. 3. Dubuque (Iowa)—Economic conditions—19th century. 4. Industrialization—Iowa—Dubuque— History—19th century. 5. Soldiers—Iowa—Dubuque—History—19th century. 6. Iowa—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Social aspects. 7. Iowa—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Economic aspects. 8. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Social aspects. 9. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Economic aspects. 10. United States—History—Civil War, 1861– 1865—Influence. I. Title. II. Series F629.D8J64 2003 977.7⬘39—dc21 2003012073 Printed in the United States of America 07 06 05 04 03 5 4 3 2 1 First edition Previously published material: Portions of chapters 2 and 3 previously published in Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M. Miller, eds., Union Soldiers and the Northern Home Front: Wartime Experiences, Postwar Adjustments, Fordham University Press, 2002. Portions of chapter 6 previously published and adapted from ‘‘ ‘A Debt Justly Due’: The Relief of Civil War Soldiers and Their Families in Dubuque,’’ by Russell L. Johnson, Annals of Iowa, 55 (Summer 1996): 207–38. Copyright 1996 State Historical Society of Iowa. Used with the permission of the publisher. Portions of chapter 7 previously published as ‘‘The Civil War Generation: Military Service and Mobility in Dubuque, Iowa, 1860–1870,’’ Journal of Social History 32 (Summer 1999): 791–820.

Dedicated to the memory of Thomas Lee Johnson (1927–2001)

Contents Acknowledgments

ix

List of Abbreviations

xi

Introduction: Military Service and Industrialization

1

Part I. Dubuque and Its Soldiers 1. The Key City: Dubuque before the Civil War 2. ‘‘Volunteer While You May’’: Mobilization for the War 3. Independent Soldiers and Soldier-Sons: The Social Origins of Enlistees

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Part II. Military Service and Its impact 4. ‘‘The Boys All Stood to the Work Manfully’’: The Army as an Industrial Workplace 5. Ten Thousand Men in Shebangs: The Army as an Urban Working-Class Environment 6. ‘‘A Duty of the Hour’’: The Home Front in Dubuque 7. The Civil War Generation: Military Service and Social Mobility

145 192 238 274

Conclusion: Hawkeyes in Blue

316

Appendix A: Data on Dubuque Society and Politics

325

Appendix B: Data on Dubuque’s Soldiers

333

Select Bibliography

351

Index

379

Acknowledgments I wish to thank several groups and individuals who made this project possible. From a material perspective, timely fellowships from the University of Iowa’s Graduate College (the Louis A. Pelzer Fellowship in American History) and from the State Historical Society of Iowa, Inc., funded research trips to Washington, D.C., Dubuque, and Kansas City. They also provided support during the time required to code and enter into the computer large amounts of data from censuses, military records, tax records, criminal courts, and similar sources. While I was revising the dissertation manuscript for publication, summer research travel money from Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, enabled me to spend time in Washington and at the Iowa State Historical Society in Des Moines. Finally, a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, though granted for my next project, on Civil War pensions, produced research that has also found its way into this manuscript. In Washington, the assistance of Michael Meier at the National Archives proved especially invaluable. Not only did he facilitate my getting access to military service records in quantity, but his good humor and our occasional jaunts into the closed stacks served to preserve my sanity as I flipped through service records by the thousands and pensions by the hundreds. I also want thank the anonymous technicians at the National Archives for their hard work pulling the individual pension files I needed; although the storage system for pensions works well enough for genealogy research, it is especially cumbersome when someone shows up wanting to see hundreds of files. In Dubuque, Michael Gibson of the Center for Dubuque History at Loras College provided crucial assistance and insights into the city’s history and generally created a pleasant environment in which to work. Many individuals have read portions or all of this manuscript (some more than once) prior to publication. Deserving of particular thanks for their contributions are H. Shelton Stromquist, Malcolm J. Rohr-

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

bough, and Linda K. Kerber. As my dissertation adviser, Shel at times seemed to know better than I did what I was finding in the sources, and he helped direct this work from being a fairly narrow quantitative analysis of Civil War soldiers from Dubuque into a broader analysis of the relationship between the military and American society. Mac and Linda have been most helpful in the revision process—due to my failure to keep them more in the loop on the dissertation itself— but even more valuable has been their unfailing encouragement as I have sought a publisher for this manuscript, have pursued academic positions, and have tried to navigate the confusing seas of academia. I still have much to learn. Many more individuals deserve acknowledgment and thanks for their contributions to the manuscript. A simple listing of names does not do justice to the value of their advice and recommendations, but unfortunately it will have to suffice. These individuals include Kenneth J. Cmiel and Kathleen Diffley, who offered important insights as members of my dissertation committee; Frank Towers, my erstwhile colleague from Bilkent University; Paul A. Cimbala, Mary Beatrice Schulte, Felicity Edge, and the editors at Fordham University Press; and Randall J. Miller and other anonymous readers for journals and university presses, who considered publication of parts or all of the manuscript. Colleagues from graduate school, other faculty at the University of Iowa, and participants in several conferences also had opportunities to respond to my arguments (including one particularly intense grilling from Steven Rosswurm) and helped make this a stronger book. Any inadequacies of argument or evidence that remain in the book are due to my failure to heed more fully all of these people’s sound advice. Finally, I would like to thank my family—my siblings, Sherry, Linda, Debra, Richard, and Laura, and especially my parents, Thomas and Gladys Johnson—for their unfailing support through long years of graduate school and an academic career that has taken me far from home, first to Turkey for five years and now to New Zealand. In particular, I dedicate this to the memory of my father, Thomas Lee Johnson. A warrior in World War II and a worker afterward, he was the first veteran I ever knew. Although he did not live to see the publication of this book, in writing and revising this manuscript I not only learned more about the effect of the Civil War on common people’s lives, but I also came to understand him better.

List of Abbreviations AAPMG

Acting Assistant Provost Marshal General.

CDH

Center for Dubuque History, Wahlert Library, Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa.

Census

U.S. Census manuscripts for Dubuque County, unless otherwise noted. Identified by year (1860 or 1870) and type (Population [Pop.], Manufacturing [Manuf.], or Agricultural [Agric.]). For example, Census 1860, Pop.

CM, NA

Court Martial Cases. From Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General, Record Group 153, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

CSR, NA

Compiled Military Service Records, Civil War, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780s– 1917, Record Group 94, National Archives, Washington, D.C. These are individual military service records.

DCC

Dubuque County Courthouse, Dubuque, Iowa.

DCHS

Dubuque County Historical Society, Dubuque, Iowa.

DCIR

Dubuque County Incorporation Records, County Recorder’s Office, Dubuque County Courthouse.

IHSD

Iowa State Historical Society, Des Moines.

IHSI

Iowa State Historical Society, Iowa City.

IJHP

Iowa Journal of History and Politics; after 1955, Iowa Journal of History.

IRN

Iowa Religious Newsletter (a monthly journal published in Dubuque during the 1860s).

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LAS

Ladies Aid Society.

MOLLUS—IA

Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States—Iowa Commandery.

NA

National Archives, Washington, D.C.

NW Farmer

Northwestern Farmer and Horticultural Journal (a monthly journal published in Dubuque during the 1850s).

OR

War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 serial volumes (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901).

Pensions, NA

Civil War and Later Pension Files, Records of the Veterans’ Administration, Record Group 15, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

SML Diary

Solon M. Langworthy Diary, IHSI.

VFB

Volunteer Fund Board.

INTRODUCTION

Military Service and Industrialization The war is an exceptional struggle in which the first combatants are met,—the highest principles against the worst. What a teacher! what a field! what results! . . . Anxiety of the youth, sensible, tender, from school, college, countingroom, with no experience beyond football game, or schoolyard quarrel, now to leap on a battery, or a rank of bayonets. He says, I know not how it will be with me; one thing is certain, I can well die,—oh, yes,—but I cannot afford to misbehave. —Ralph Waldo Emerson, November 1863

‘‘Much of the history of industrialism’’ according to Herbert G. Gutman, one of the pioneer students of working-class life in the United States, ‘‘is the story of the painful process by which an old way of life was discarded for a new one.’’ Similarly, historian James I. Robertson Jr. refers to the ‘‘process of making obedient soldiers out of carefree citizens’’ in the Civil War and calls that process ‘‘painful.’’ In each case, independent-minded farmers, artisans, shop clerks, and immigrants with ‘‘premodern’’ values, many of them quite young men, needed to adopt new habits of obedience, self-discipline, respect for authority, and time discipline—in other words, that constellation of values E. P. Thompson calls ‘‘the inner discipline of industrialism.’’ The qualities that made Emerson’s anxious, inexperienced young man into a soldier ready to impale himself on a bayonet rather than misbehave were the same qualities that an industrial capitalist society desired of its members, and especially of its workers.1 1 Herbert G. Gutman, ‘‘The Workers’ Search for Power: Labor in the Gilded Age,’’ in Gutman, Power & Culture: Essays on the American Working Class, ed. Ira Berlin (New York: Random House, 1987 [essay originally published in 1963]), 71; James I. Robertson Jr., Soldiers Blue and Gray (Columbia: University of South Caro-

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This study of Dubuque, Iowa, and its soldiers during the 1860s begins from a sense that the painful processes Gutman and Robertson describe are related. Military service in the Civil War, I argue, made a significant contribution to the creation of American industrial society, a contribution that has been heretofore unappreciated. Soldiers from Dubuque entered the Union army from a midsize, nonindustrialized city, were immersed for up to three years—sometimes more—in an intense urban-industrial experience, and then returned to a city increasingly penetrated by industrial capitalism. Life in the army paralleled urban life, with its crowding together of large numbers of people who were often poorly housed, indifferently fed, and exposed to new diseases. The army was also a workplace similar to a manufactory, where men performed unskilled, usually dull and repetitive, tasks for minimal remuneration. During their service, the men suffered material deprivation and were expected to obey orders and respect authority. At the same time, like any urban working class, the soldiers developed their own forms of resistance, sometimes within the system, other times not. Meanwhile, at home their families frequently suffered a similar material want and had to seek employment or turn to public charities; thus they, too, developed their inner discipline. Surprisingly, the relationship between the discipline of industrialism and what might be called the ‘‘inner discipline of the military’’ is poorly documented and less understood by historians. It has become commonplace for the post–World War II period—and especially since the creation of the all-volunteer army in 1973—to argue that, in the words of one scholar, ‘‘the experience of military service improves the individual’s qualifications for employment by acting on such qualities as self-esteem, self-discipline, or the ability to perform satisfactorily within a complex organization.’’ In other words, the U.S. Army of the late twentieth century was seen as both a social and a socializing institution. But surely the army did not suddenly become lina Press, 1988), 59; and E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (1963; reprint, New York: Vintage Books, 1966), 357 (page citation is to reprint edition). See also Herbert G. Gutman, ‘‘Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815–1919,’’ American Historical Review 78 (June 1973): esp. 560–77 (‘‘premodern’’ values).

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so in 1945 or 1973. Ralph Waldo Emerson perceived it that way in 1863, as did others around the same time.2 Indeed, the socializing impact of military service was even more important in the mid-nineteenth century than it would be later. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, military socialization occurs in a context of well-known relationships of production and an established institutional framework. The years before the Civil War, on the other hand, are commonly interpreted as an era of economic and institutional restructuring, characterized most significantly by the development of industrial capitalism. Although industrialization had been under way in the United States since the early part of the nineteenth century, its progress was limited and uneven before the Civil War, affecting various economic sectors, trades, and geographic regions at different times and with differing degrees of intensity. Historians argue that an early form of industrial capitalism ‘‘consolidated’’ between the 1840s and the 1870s, after emerging between the 1820s and the 1840s. But certainly, as Eric Foner concludes, ‘‘by 1873 . . . the North had irrevocably entered the industrial age.’’3 James A. Barber Jr., ‘‘The Social Effects of Military Service,’’ in The Military and American Society: Essays and Readings, ed. Stephen Ambrose and James A. Barber Jr. (New York: Free Press, 1972), quote from 158; and George M. Fredrickson, The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union (New York: Harper & Row 1965), 72–78, 148–50. For historians who do appreciate the significance of military service see, for example, Peter Karsten, Soldiers and Society: The Effects of Military Service on American Life (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1978); and Roger Horowitz, ‘‘It Is ‘the Working Class Who Fight All the Battles’: Military Service, Patriotism, and the Study of American Workers,’’ in American Exceptionalism? US Working-Class Formation in an International Context, ed. Rick Halpern and Jonathan Morris (London: Macmillan Press, 1997), 76–100. Two monographs deserve special notice for their effort to connect military service and inner discipline in the nineteenth century; both pursue the question on a national level. Mark E. Kann, On the Man Question: Gender and Civic Virtue in America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991) focuses on the Early Republic period and argues that militia service was seen as a way to restrain young men and make Lockean individualism possible; and Michael Pearlman, To Make Democracy Safe for America: Patricians and Preparedness in the Progressive Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984) evaluates the emphasis on universal military training after the Civil War. 3 For some institutional-restructuring arguments, see Fredrickson, Inner Civil War; and David Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971). For the quote, see Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 461. For economic development during the antebellum period, see 2

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Industrialization brought new social and cultural requirements, and historians have delineated certain important socializing influences within developing industrial society. In an extremely influential interpretation, E. P. Thompson argues for the central role of evangelical Protestantism in forging the inner discipline of industrialism among English workers; his argument has been transplanted to the United States.4 Herbert Gutman notes that a background in urban living contributed to the socialization process for workers; workers with such a background tended to be the most productive under early-industrial conditions. Other historians see the emerging public schools playing an important socialization role.5 Much of this scholarship builds on Max Weber’s notion of a Protestant work ethic. As military sociologist Jacques van Doorn points out, however, an intimate relationship can be traced between the inner disciplines of industrialism and the military. The Protestant work ethic ‘‘appears in a new light,’’ according to van Doorn, ‘‘if one realizes that not only the beginnings of modern capitalism but also those of the modern army—with its emphasis on duty, discipline, self-sacrifice and regularity—are to be found in Protestant countries.’’ Van Doorn further argues that modern military organization predated industrial capitalism by 200 years and established an organizational structure later copied in the industrial workplace. Another sociologist, Waldemar Kaempffert, takes the point further, arguing that ‘‘inthe detailed models in David M. Gordon, Richard Edwards, and Michael Reich, Segmented Work, Divided Workers: The Historical Transformation of Labor in the United States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), esp. 48–99; and Michael B. Katz, Michael J. Doucet, and Mark J. Stern, The Social Organization of Early Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), esp. 14–63. ‘‘Consolidation’’ is Gordon, Edwards, and Reich’s term. 4 Thompson, Making of the English Working Class, esp. 350–400; and Thompson, ‘‘Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,’’ Past and Present, no. 38 (1967): 56–97. For evangelical Protestantism’s influence in the United States, see, for example, Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815–1837 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978); and Daniel T. Rodgers, The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978). 5 Gutman, ‘‘Work, Culture, and Society,’’ 531–88. For public schools, see Michael B. Katz, The Irony of Early School Reform: Educational Innovation in Mid-nineteenth Century Massachusetts (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968); Stanley K. Schultz, The Culture Factory: Boston Public Schools, 1789–1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973); and David Nasaw, Schooled to Order: A Social History of Public Schooling in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).

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dustry learned everything, except invention, from war—organization, discipline, standardization, the co-ordination of transport and supply, the separation of line and staff, [and] the division of labor.’’6 Although social historians since the 1960s have vigorously pursued questions of race and gender, the transformation of work, the development of working-class culture, and labor activism, they have not traced the connection between the industrial workplace and the other great centralized, stratified, and authoritarian institution of the nineteenth century, the Union army. Indeed, in a 1989 article pointing to the ‘‘numerous community studies covering the years from 1850 to 1880,’’ almost none of which ‘‘discuss, or even mention, the Civil War,’’ Maris A. Vinovskis asks, ‘‘Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War?’’ Vinovskis, in fact, understates the situation in two ways. First, relatively few community studies cover the 1850–80 period. More commonly, community studies end in 1850 or 1860, or they begin with 1880; a 1995 synthesis of much of this scholarship even concludes that ‘‘all of [the] fundamental nineteenth-century socioeconomic and demographic developments can be described and analyzed without mention of the Civil War.’’ Second, Vinovskis also might have asked whether social historians have ‘‘lost’’ all the wars of the nineteenth century, not just the Civil War; discussion, or even mention of the War of 1812, the Mexican War, or the Spanish-American War is equally rare.7 6 Roger Horowitz’s observation that ‘‘for American men from the labouring class, participation in the military was a recurring, periodic experience stretching back to the creation of the Republic’’ is particularly relevant here. Jacques van Doorn, The Soldier and Social Change (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1975), esp. 8–16 (quote from 8); Waldemar Kaempffert, ‘‘War and Technology,’’ The American Journal of Sociology 46 (January 1941): 431–44 (quote from 443); and Horowitz, ‘‘It Is ‘the Working Class Who Fight All the Battles,’ ’’ 77. 7 Maris A. Vinovskis, ‘‘Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War? Some Preliminary Demographic Speculations,’’ Journal of American History 76 (June 1989): 34–58 (quote from 35); and Walter Licht, Industrializing America: The Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), quote from 78. For the antebellum period, one thinks, for instance, of the acclaimed book by Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), where the War of 1812 is mentioned once and the Mexican War not at all. Among the few community studies that cover the 1860s, two stand out for their attempt to consider the socioeconomic effect of the war: Michael Frisch, Town into City: Springfield, Massachusetts, and the Meaning of Community, 1840–1880 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972); and Steven J. Ross, Workers on the

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This failure to consider war and military service as elements in the formation of society and culture may be due to the circumstances under which the new social history originated. During the 1960s and 1970s social history developed largely as a reaction against older historians’ focus on wars, politics, and great white men. Two common shorthand definitions of social history emerged: ‘‘history with the politics left out’’ and ‘‘history from the bottom up.’’8 Neither definition seemed to leave much room for considering the military as an element of American social development. Karl von Clausewitz’s famous dictum that war is the continuation of politics by other means, for instance, would exclude the military under the first definition. Further, for much of its history the United States army has had two uses—subduing American Indians and suppressing labor activism— making it the enemy of the people of most interest to many social historians.9 Furthermore, graduate students in the 1960s and 1970s— including many nascent social historians—had their worldviews shaped by the Vietnam War, which gave added impetus to the reaction against things military. Many, perhaps most, saw the Vietnam Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788–1890 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). 8 For discussions of social history, see, for example, Peter Stearns, ‘‘The New Social History: An Overview,’’ in Ordinary People and Everyday Life: Perspectives on the New Social History, ed. James B. Gardner and George Rollie Adams (Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1983), 3–22; Olivier Zunz, ‘‘The Synthesis of Social Change: Reflections on American Social History,’’ in Reliving the Past: The Worlds of Social History, ed. Olivier Zunz (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 53–101; and Alice Kessler-Harris, ‘‘Social History,’’ in The New American History, ed. Eric Foner (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990), 163–80. 9 For discussion of the army’s mission to fight Indians, see Russell F. Weigley, ‘‘The Long Death of the Indian-Fighting Army,’’ in Soldiers and Civilians: The U.S. Army and the American People, ed. Garry D. Ryan and Timothy K. Nenninger (Washington, D.C.: National Archives Trust Fund Board, 1987), 27–39. For the army’s use against labor, see, for example, Jerry Cooper, The Army and Civil Disorder: Federal Military Intervention in Labor Disputes, 1877–1900 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980); and Ross, Workers on the Edge, esp. 51, 247–49, 264–69, 285–92. There were also problems with the field of military history itself: it was thought to be too ‘‘intellectually barren’’ and ‘‘narrowly utilitarian’’ to attract academic interest; see E. Wayne Carp, ‘‘The Problem of National Defense in the Early Republic,’’ in The American Revolution: Its Character and Limits, ed. Jack P. Greene (New York: New York University Press, 1987), 14–50 (quotes from 15).

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War as an unjust exercise of U.S. military power, and some tried to imagine a world where war was no longer an instrument of political and social policy. War opponents focused particular attention on U.S. Army atrocities. Prior to 1967, moreover, graduate students received a student deferment from the draft, making graduate school a refuge for war opponents. Combined, these factors made studying the contributions of military service to the formation of society and of working-class culture out of the question. The prevailing desire was to distance oneself from the military.10 Nevertheless, a ‘‘new’’ military history developed during the 1970s, which attempted to unite military history with the burgeoning field of social history. The effort met with some success. As early as 1975, for instance, some ‘‘old’’ military historians found the level of social history influence in the field troubling and offered, in the words of one, ‘‘A Modest Plea for Drums and Trumpets.’’ Still, the fact that in 1989 Maris Vinovskis was asking whether social historians had ‘‘lost the Civil War’’ suggests the limited influence of the new military historians through the 1980s. But the pieces were in place for a flowering of the field during the 1990s.11 In Civil War historiography, the results show less the influence of Maris Vinovskis and more that of Richard Kohn. In a historiographic essay published in 1981, Kohn describes a threefold outline for further progress in the field of new military history. First, Kohn argues that historians need to seek ‘‘the true identity of soldiers,’’ which 10 Thanks go to Linda K. Kerber for sharing her insights into the minds of graduate students in the Vietnam War era. 11 Dennis E. Schowalter, ‘‘A Modest Plea for Drums and Trumpets,’’ Military Affairs 39 (1975): 71–74. The number of Ph.D. dissertations in Civil War social history since the publication of Vinovskis’s article is evidence of the blossoming of the field. Some examples include David Costigan, ‘‘A City in Wartime: Quincy, Illinois and the Civil War’’ (Ph.D. diss., Illinois State University, 1994); Kathleen Lynn Gorman, ‘‘When Johnny Came Marching Home Again: Confederate Veterans in the New South’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of California—Riverside, 1994); Earl Francis Mulderink III, ‘‘ ‘We Want a Country’: African American and Irish American Community Life in New Bedford, Massachusetts, during the Civil War Era’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1995); and Marion Archer Truslow, ‘‘Peasants into Patriots: The New York Irish Brigade Recruits and Their Families in the Civil War Era, 1850–1890’’ (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1994). See also Timothy Cuff, ‘‘The Effects of Economic Development on the Biological Standard of Living: Market Integration and Human Stature in Antebellum Pennsylvania’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1998), which uses military records as a source of data on antebellum heights in the United States.

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includes ‘‘grounding them in the communities and time in which they lived.’’ Historians also need to reconstruct military life in ‘‘greater depth and detail.’’ And finally they should pay closer attention to ‘‘the interaction between the military and the rest of society’’ in terms, for example, of reactions to the dead and wounded when they return, the more general ‘‘re-entry of veterans’’ in local society, and the comparative social mobility of veterans and nonveterans.12 By separating three analytical threads, however, Kohn may have inadvertently encouraged other scholars to do likewise. The new military history of the Civil War includes quantitative analyses of who served from several different communities, mostly in New England;13 surveys of greater or lesser quantities of soldiers’ letters and diaries designed to reconstruct in depth the experience of military life and combat during the Civil War;14 and community-centered analyses of the Civil War home front.15 Much of this scholarship is impressive, and those working in the field are reaching important conclusions. 12 Richard H. Kohn, ‘‘The Social History of the American Soldier: A Review and Prospectus for Research,’’ American Historical Review 86 (1981): 553–67 (quotes from 564–67). 13 Vinovskis, ‘‘Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War?’’ 43–50; Emily J. Harris, ‘‘Sons and Soldiers: Deerfield, Massachusetts and the Civil War,’’ Civil War History 30 (1984): 157–71; W. J. Rorabaugh, ‘‘Who Fought for the North in the Civil War? Concord, Massachusetts, Enlistments,’’ Journal of American History 73 (December 1986): 695–701; Thomas R. Kemp, ‘‘Community and War: The Civil War Experience of Two New Hampshire Towns,’’ in Toward a Social History of the American Civil War: Exploratory Essays, ed. Maris A. Vinovskis (New York, 1990), 31–77; and Stephen J. Buck, ‘‘ ‘A Contest in Which Blood Must Flow like Water’: Du Page County and the Civil War,’’ Illinois Historical Journal 87 (Spring 1994): 2–20. Thanks go to Linda K. Kerber for calling Buck’s article to my attention. 14 Robertson, Soldiers Blue and Gray; Gerald F. Linderman, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (New York: Free Press, 1987); Reid Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers: Their Expectations and Their Experiences (New York: Viking Penguin, 1988); Mitchell, The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); and Earl J. Hess, The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1997). 15 J. Matthew Gallman, Mastering Wartime: A Social History of Philadelphia during the Civil War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Iver Bernstein, The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance in American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Stuart McConnell, Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); and Wayne K. Durrill, War of Another Kind: A Southern Community in the Great Rebellion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). See also the essays in Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber,

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Nevertheless, a certain emptiness exists at the core of the new military history of the Civil War, which can be traced to a failure to heed fully Kohn’s first suggestion: identifying soldiers and grounding them in place and time. Unless historians situate soldiers in place and time, neither of Kohn’s other two suggestions can lead to meaningful analysis of American society and the role of war and military service in the making of that society. The importance of place and time in the analysis of military service cannot be overstated. If, as I contend, military service contributed to the creation of American industrial society, given the uneven progress of industrial capitalism in the United States different wars might be seen as important for different locales.16 To study the impact of the Civil War on the development of urban-industrial society, one should examine one of the many cities that began industrializing during the mid-nineteenth century. With a population of 13,000, Dubuque was the eightieth-largest city in the country in 1860 and ranked ninety-third in manufacturing output. Originally a mining town, Dubuque’s location on the Mississippi River helped it emerge in the 1850s as a regional commercial center. An economic competition with the nearby city of Galena, Illinois, was decided in Dubuque’s favor when the Illinois Central Railroad established its terminus on the Mississippi opposite the city in 1855, bypassing Galena. Thereafter Dubuque eclipsed Galena and played an important role in both the north-south trade on the Mississippi and the eastwest railroad traffic. The city accordingly proclaimed itself the ‘‘Key City’’ in the commerce of the upper-Mississippi region and the entire Western United States. The Panic of 1857, however, exposed the fragility of Dubuque’s commercial capitalist economy and prompted a turn toward industrialization. By 1880 Dubuque had slipped to eighty-first in population but had gained twenty-three places to rank seventieth in manufacturing output.17 eds., Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 16 For suggestive beginning studies on other wars, see, for example, Steven Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class: The Philadelphia Militia and the ‘‘Lower Sort’’ during the American Revolution (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1988); and Steven Watts, The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790–1820 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). Neither of these books, however, does the sort of analysis pursued here. 17 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Mortality & Miscellane-

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Dubuque is thus an appropriate city for this analysis for several reasons. For one thing, it reached a particular stage of its development—the boundary between commercial and early-industrial capitalism—on the eve of the Civil War; in this it had much in common with many other cities nationwide. For instance, the 1860 census ranked the 102 cities in the United States with populations over 10,000 according to their manufacturing output. Fifteen of the 102 cities had manufacturing ranks at least twenty places below their population rankings. These fifteen cities covered all parts of the nation and included such later industrial centers as Detroit and Indianapolis. Meanwhile, fourteen cities ranked at least twenty places higher in manufacturing than in population; ten of these were in New England states, and only Peoria, Illinois, was not an Eastern city. By 1880, when a similar ranking was compiled, the nation’s manufacturing centers were more evenly distributed; Detroit and Indianapolis, for example, had manufacturing ranks more commensurate with their population ranks.18 With its massive mobilization of capital, raw materials, and above all labor, the Civil War made a significant contribution to the transition from commercial to industrial capitalism, locally and nationally. At the same time, unlike say Detroit or Indianapolis, Dubuque was small enough in the 1860s to facilitate the collection of data on its population and its soldiers. The complete 1860 and 1870 U.S. census manuscripts have been coded for analysis, and the roughly 1,300 volunteers from the city have been identified and traced back to the 1860 and 1870 censuses. The soldiers’ surviving letters and diaries, their military service records, and the pension applications based on their service have been examined for information about their military service experience and its effect upon their lives. The analysis is pursued through seven chapters. The first chapter describes Dubuque before the Civil War. After a brief introduction to Dubuque’s origins and early development, the chapter turns to ous Statistics, vol. 4 of Eighth Census of the United States 1860 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1866), xviii–xix; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Manufacturing, vol. 3 of Tenth Census of the United States 1880 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1883), 379–80. 18 Bureau of the Census, Eighth Census, 4:xviii–xix, and Tenth Census, 3:379–80. Detroit ranked 19th in population and 46th in manufacturing in 1860, but by 1880 was 18th and 19th; Indianapolis ranked 48th and 90th in 1860 and 24th and 21st in 1880.

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the sense of social crisis in the city that accompanied the Panic of 1857. Many of the city’s public opinion leaders thought Dubuque was on the verge of social disintegration. In particular, they singled out three groups as the source of the problem: young men and boys, immigrants and other geographically mobile people, and women. When the Civil War broke out, these three ‘‘problem’’ groups each figured prominently. Young males provided most of the Union army soldiers from Dubuque and the North generally, but recruiting efforts in Dubuque, as described in chapter 2, placed special emphasis on encouraging immigrant—especially Irish—enlistments. The enlistment of young males and immigrants was seen as a way of making these groups better members of society. Opinion leaders also thought that women, who before the war were criticized especially for failing in their roles as wives and mothers, would fill their social roles better after experiencing the privations incident to the war. Chapter 2 also analyzes the strength of opposition to the war in the city. Dubuque earned a national reputation for the outspokenness of its war opponents led by Dennis A. Mahony, editor and publisher of the Herald newspaper and the recognized leader of the large local Irish community. Mahony’s arguments against the war stressed legal, economic, and class issues.19 Chapter 3 identifies the soldiers from Dubuque and compares them to the overall population of the city. Although there was a certain validity to contemporary claims of ‘‘a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight,’’ this chapter moves beyond the usual historiographic focus on this contention. For one thing, the meaning of poor in this context is far from clear. To contemporaries the poor included both skilled and unskilled workers, but historians who analyze the ‘‘poor man’s fight’’ question generally define the poor as comprising un19 Although the local strength of opposition to the war may undermine Dubuque’s typicality in some ways, a serious analysis of Northern opponents of the war, or Copperheads, has been missing from much of the recent literature on the war, with one event, the New York City draft riots, receiving the most attention. Beyond the draft riots, the more useful analyses include Frank L. Klement, Copperheads in the Middle West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960); Klement, ‘‘Economic Aspects of Middle Western Copperheadism,’’ Historian 14 (1951): 27–44; Klement, ‘‘Midwest Copperheadism and the Genesis of the Granger Movement,’’ Mississippi Valley Historical Review 38 (March 1952): 679–94; Robert Sterling, ‘‘Civil War Draft Resistance in the Middle West,’’ 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Northern Illinois University, 1974); and Hubert H. Wubben, Civil War Iowa and the Copperhead Movement (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1980).

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skilled workers only.20 Local circumstances also need to be taken into account. In Dubuque, the move away from commercial capitalism and artisan production toward greater industrialization undermined the economic position of broad segments of the population— professionals and other white-collar workers as well as artisans and the unskilled. Enlistment in the Union army seems to have been adopted as one more option in family strategies for survival. The following two chapters suggest reasons why knowing who served in the army is important. Chapter 4 examines the army as a place where people worked, addressing in particular the industrial aspects of military life and service. Chapter 5 considers the army as a place where people lived, focusing especially on the urban, working-class character of enlisted men’s lives in the army. Taken together, these chapters argue that life and work in the Union army prepared men for a postwar urban-industrial society. Military service helped forge privates and noncommissioned officers into a working class. It also shaped officers into an entrepreneurial or managerial class. In his penetrating analysis of ‘‘the face of battle,’’ John Keegan argues that twentieth-century industry offered men ‘‘pre-conditioning for battle.’’ These chapters consider the converse of Keegan’s argument: Can mid-nineteenth-century military service be seen as ‘‘pre-conditioning’’ men for industry?21 The final two chapters turn to some of the effects of military service. Chapter 6 analyzes the experiences of soldiers’ families in their absence. Although soldiers went to the field amid promises of care for their families, special relief funds quickly dried up, and soldiers’ families were forced to rely on the normal channels of poor relief in 20 For the historiographic trend described here, see Vinovskis, ‘‘Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War?’’; Kemp, ‘‘Community and War’’; Rorabaugh, ‘‘Who Fought for the North?’’; Buck, ‘‘ ‘A Contest in Which Blood Must Flow’ ’’; and perhaps most influentially, James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), esp. 603–9. For contemporary inclusion of artisans among the ‘‘poor,’’ see for example, Bernstein, New York City Draft Riots, esp. 9, 18–24, 100–104. 21 John Keegan, The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme (New York: Viking Press, 1976), 325. See also the suggestive argument in Kenneth P. Langton, ‘‘The Influence of Military Service on Social Consciousness and Protest Behavior: A Study of Peruvian Mine Workers,’’ Comparative Political Studies 16 (1984): 479–504. Based on his interviews with Peruvian miners, Langton argues, among other things, that ‘‘the military . . . is a potentially important but little understood source of adult socialization’’ in nonindustrialized societies (496).

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the city and county and to find work in the city’s expanding manufacturing sector. In short, the soldiers’ families stepped into the typical roles for women and children in urban-industrial society. Meanwhile, middle- and upper-class women responded as those who considered women a ‘‘problem’’ group in prewar society might have hoped. Female benevolent societies, which had generally failed in the prewar years, quickly formed to meet the new challenges of the war. Rather than help the soldiers’ families, however, they focused their attention on forwarding relief supplies to the soldiers in the field. Relief workers mistakenly thought that supplies sent to the field would allow soldiers to send more of their monthly pay home to their families, thus preserving family ties, reinforcing family dependence on a male breadwinner, and preventing the families from slipping into dependence on charity. The final chapter, chapter 7, brings Dubuque’s soldiers home and compares their social mobility during the decade of the 1860s to that of their civilian counterparts. Did veterans’ experience of military service, with its urban-industrial lifestyle, translate into jobs and opportunity in postwar, urbanizing, and industrializing Dubuque? Or did continuity—the ability to continue their careers uninterrupted by military service—give nonveterans a significant advantage over veterans in upward mobility? Research on other eras suggests that military service significantly retarded an individual’s earning power compared to those who did not serve. Social Security records for the early 1980s, for example, indicate that Vietnam-era veterans earned 15 percent less than nonveterans of their generation.22 In Dubuque in the 1860s, veterans most commonly found stability after their military service. In 1870 they most often held the occupational status— frequently working class—that they or their parents held before the war, and they lagged behind similar nonveterans in the accumulation 22 See, for example, Mark C. Berger, ‘‘The Civilian Earnings Experience of Vietnam-Era Veterans,’’ Journal of Human Resources 18 (1983): 455–79; Joshua D. Angrist, ‘‘Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records,’’ American Economic Review 80 (1990): 313–36; and Angrist, ‘‘Estimating the Labor Market Impact of Voluntary Military Service Using Social Security Data on Military Applicants,’’ Econometrica 66 (March 1998): 249–88. For a comparable study of World War II veterans, see Harley L. Browning, Sally C. Lopreato, and Dudley L. Poston Jr., ‘‘Income and Veteran Status: Variations among Mexican Americans, Blacks and Anglos,’’ American Sociological Review 38 (1973): 74–85.

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of property. The warriors for the Union found themselves operatives in the industrial machine.23 The outline of what follows can be seen through the life of one man who figures prominently in these pages. Josiah Conzett was born in 1841 in Switzerland to German parents. In 1845 the Conzetts emigrated to the United States and moved directly to Dubuque. At that time the family consisted of John and Mona Conzett and their four sons, Jacob, Otto, David, and four-year-old Josiah. By trade, John Conzett was a shoemaker, but according to Josiah, he did not stick to his last, and consequently times were hard for the family during the 1840s. John Conzett also suffered periodic bouts of illness; when healthy he tramped the region for whatever work he could find. Meanwhile, Mona Conzett worked as a laundress and provided primary support for the family. Her work brought the family into contact—but no more than that—with the leading families of Dubuque, including the family of Stephen Hempstead, the first governor of Iowa.24 Josiah Conzett’s recollections begin with the family’s second home in Dubuque. In late 1847 or early 1848, they occupied the upstairs of a two-story frame house in ‘‘Dublin,’’ a poor and largely Irish section of town below First Street; a black family lived downstairs. The Conzetts left Dublin after only a few months because it was not a particularly congenial place for a German family to live. Josiah recalled that ‘‘us Boys hardly dared to go out on the Street.’’ For that 23 Strangely, in their research on mobility during the nineteenth century, social historians have overlooked the potential impact of Civil War military service. See, for example, Stephan Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964). In this otherwise pathbreaking book on social mobility in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in the years 1850–80, Thernstrom does not make any reference to military service or nonservice. More commonly, mobility studies evade the issue by skipping the 1860s; for example, mobility in Boston has been analyzed from 1830 to 1970—except for the years 1860–80. Peter R. Knights, The Plain People of Boston, 1830–1860: A Study in City Growth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971); and Stephan Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880–1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973). 24 For Conzett family history, see Josiah Conzett, Recollections of People and Events, Dubuque, Iowa 1846–1890 (from a manuscript written in 1905, Center for Dubuque History, Wahlert Library, Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa [the center is hereafter abbreviated in the notes as CDH]; Dubuque: Union Hoermann Press, 1971), esp. 226–27, 260; and Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War: Before, during & after, 1861– 1865,’’ memoir, 1909, pp. 1–3, CDH.

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matter, ‘‘Decent People’’ in general ‘‘hardly dared go down that St. . . . the place was all Doggeries & Low Class Boarding Houses.’’ They moved in 1848 to occupy one-third of a tenement on Main Street, and the next year, the family purchased a one-story, three-room house in a German neighborhood in the northern part of town for $160. In 1855, during the period of Dubuque’s greatest economic growth, when real estate prices spiraled upward, they sold the house for $1,800 in cash and $1,000 in groceries, a tidy profit but perhaps also evidence that times were hard for working-class families. Then, during the Panic of 1857, they got the house back when the purchasers could not meet the payments.25 In 1860, the census taker found the Conzetts living in the same one-story house. John Conzett was listed as a day laborer with real property worth $500, the family home; Mona had no occupation listed, but she may still have been taking in laundry. A fifth child, Mary, had been born in 1849. All four of the Conzett boys had jobs, and three of the four held an occupational status above their father’s, giving evidence of the possibilities for upward social mobility in 1850s Dubuque. Jacob, the eldest, was a minister; Otto was a harness maker; and Josiah, after defying his parents’ plan that he too study for the ministry, was a clerk in a dry goods store. Only David had not entered a skilled trade or white-collar position: he worked as a lead miner. Although Dubuque had been founded as a mining town in the 1830s, by 1860 mining was seen as an occupation for those otherwise unemployed or unemployable. The area west of the city, where the mines were located and many miners lived, was derisively called ‘‘Monkey Town.’’26 With the coming of the Civil War, the two youngest Conzett boys, David and Josiah, volunteered. David enlisted in April 1861 with one 25 Conzett, Recollections, 264–65 (for life in Dublin), 244 (for tenement), and 226–27 (for house). A note on quotations: When I quote from letters, diaries, or similar sources, all spellings, punctuation, use of capital letters, and syntax, are as they appear in the originals. I use [sic] only to indicate errors in published materials, including the local newspapers. 26 U.S. Census manuscripts for Dubuque County, 1860, Population (hereafter, Census [year], [type]), p. 239 (the ‘‘Concert’’ family), and p. 88, where Josiah, who was boarded in a hotel by his employers, is counted a second time; Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 9; Dubuque Daily Times, 23 August 1858; and Peter B. Hoffman, Concise History of the City and County of Dubuque, 1833–1934, manuscript, 1934, p. 62, CDH.

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of the first companies raised in Dubuque. He gave his occupation as harness maker when he enlisted, suggesting that in the meantime he had gotten a job with or through his brother Otto. Discharged when the ninety-day enlistment period of his company expired, David reenlisted for three years in September 1861 with the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, and, as this term neared expiration, he reenlisted for another three years at the end of 1863. He was killed in battle on July 31, 1864. Josiah joined the Fifth Iowa Cavalry along with David and also reenlisted at the end of 1863. Josiah’s experience as a dry goods clerk was put to good use in the army, as he was quickly promoted to the position of quartermaster sergeant for his company. He was thus responsible for getting his company’s rations and supplies through two regimental officers, the quartermaster, and the commissary. He held the position for most of the war, being passed over at least twice for promotions.27 Josiah Conzett survived the Civil War without being wounded and returned to Dubuque, where he lived most of the next twenty-five years. He married, and in 1870, after brief moves to Platteville and Trempealeau County, Wisconsin, he lived with his wife and two children in a house next door to his parents in Dubuque. He and his family left the city permanently in 1890, moving to Chicago, then to Minneapolis before his death in 1913. His status as a savior of the Union availed him little in terms of social mobility and may even have impeded it. With the exception of a two-month period in 1867, during which he had his own hardware store in Platteville, he spent the rest of his life as a dry goods clerk. At various times, he worked for Pascal W. Skemp and Charles S. Keller in Dubuque. Skemp and Keller had been among Conzett’s fellow clerks at the dry goods store of Sheffield & Scott before the war, but neither of them had enlisted in the army. Conzett also passed through a period of alcohol abuse and possibly drug addiction in the 1880s, during which time he could not hold onto a job.28 27 David Conzett, First Iowa Infantry, and David and Josiah Conzett, Fifth Iowa Cavalry, Compiled Service Records, Civil War Record Group 94, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780s–1917, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter, CSR, NA). Also Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 30–31, 37–38, 70. 28 Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 89–129; Census 1870, Pop., Fifth Ward, p. 4. Of his siblings, only Otto clearly remained in the city in 1870; see ibid., Third Ward, p. 75. The pages of the memoir referring to Conzett’s alcohol and possible drug abuse seem to have been removed prior to its being deposited at the CDH; enough remains in the manuscript, however, to sustain the statements in the text.

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Others of Dubuque’s soldiers had similar experiences. Most enlisted as young men from working-class or marginal white-collar backgrounds. Living and working conditions in the army reinforced that status for most. The promise of upward mobility in the army rarely materialized; noncommissioned officers were an undervalued commodity in the Union army, and men from higher civilian class backgrounds clogged the commissioned officer ranks. Coming home, veterans found themselves at a disadvantage compared to those who had stayed home. The veterans were often locked into the status they held before enlisting. Those who had been among the upwardly mobile before the war might continue their rise, but those who had not been, stagnated or sank. The latter was particularly true for veterans who had been wounded, who had their health broken by disease, or who developed alcohol or drug problems. But to understand the soldiers’ experiences and to appreciate their full significance, we need to return to the beginning of the story.

PART I

Dubuque and Its Soldiers Have you ever seen Dubuque? I could not describe it. No, nor would I if I could, only to say it is a wonderful panorama of art, enterprise and commercial life, engendered in fifteen years from a wilderness of swamps, prairies, sand hills and impenetrable woods. Seventeen thousand souls now hail the sun, rising unfatigued with climbing granite hills over its glittering spires. Babel might here strive to erect its tower, but it would need no imposition of Providence to confound the tongues of the workmen. All nations, races and climates are consolidated in this stupendous land-ark of civilization. . . . Notwithstanding this, Dubuque is an orderly and quiet city, not quiet like an old droning town, but free from popular outbreaks against peace and law. —An 1857 visitor to Dubuque, quoted in the Dubuque Daily Times, September 11, 1857

CHAPTER 1

The Key City: Dubuque before the Civil War Do you know that Dubuque aspires to be, and expects to be, one of the largest cities of the West? Do you know that we expect to absorb—to swallow up—all the other cities of the Upper Mississippi? We expect to do it, and we think that nature and our enterprise will give us this pre-eminence. . . . Who can deny that Dubuque must and will hold the sway over all the North-west and that she will be a Queen to which all the Upper Mississippi must pay homage and yield precedence? —‘‘Excelsior’’ (a Dubuque resident) to the Chicago Press in 1857, quoted in Weekly Express & Herald, April 22, 1857

The city of Dubuque lies on the west bank of the Mississippi River, about two-thirds of the way from Saint Louis to the south and Minneapolis and Saint Paul to the north. The main portion of the city in the mid-nineteenth century was situated on an alluvial plain approximately four miles long and one mile wide. Behind the plain rise, to quote one early visitor, ‘‘wild and beautiful bluffs’’ nearly 200 feet high. As late as the 1880s, the bluffs were almost exclusively occupied by ‘‘the homes of wealth, intelligence and liberality.’’ Beyond the bluffs lay the lead mines that attracted the first white settlers to the area. The topography of Dubuque creates a sense that the city has its back turned on the rest of Iowa. In the shadow of its bluffs, Dubuque developed a character—urban, industrial, and Democratic in politics—rather different from other parts of the state.1 Unless otherwise noted, all newspapers cited are Dubuque dailies. 1 Weekly Observer, 1 September 1854 (first quote); The History of Dubuque County, Iowa (Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1880), 518 (second quote);

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Although originated as a mining community in the 1830s, Dubuque’s location on the Mississippi determined its early development. In the years before the Civil War investment focused on improving the city’s commercial position, and repeating a pattern experienced in other emerging frontier communities, real estate speculation also tied up a large portion of Dubuque’s available capital. Compared to commerce and real estate, manufacturing was a poor investment before the war; it was risky and promised only small returns. Most local production, therefore, continued to be done in artisan shops with very few large manufacturing concerns as late as 1860. What could not be produced in Dubuque was imported.2 This pattern of local production helped sustain a sense of republican social order—based on concepts of personal independence, rough economic equality, commonwealth, and public virtue—into the late 1850s, though not without challenges. The presence of a sizable Irish population, for example, combined with the stress of rapid urbanization during the early to mid-1850s to produce a brief nativist backlash. In all, however, city boosters such as ‘‘Excelsior’’ remained confident that their city would overcome such problems and was destined for greatness. But after several years of exceptional economic growth the Panic of 1857 hit, exposing the weaknesses in Dubuque’s development up to that point. The city then entered a period of economic retrenchment. The Panic convinced many that commercial capitalism could not be the basis for Dubuque’s greatness. Newspaper editors and other opinion leaders then began advocating the development of local industry. Meanwhile many of the same opinion leaders focused their social commentary on an imagand Morton M. Rosenberg, Iowa on the Eve of the Civil War: A Decade of Frontier Politics (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972), 3–6, 12–22. A conversation with Michael Gibson, archivist at the CDH in July 1991 contributed to my understanding of Dubuque’s uniqueness in Iowa. See also William E. Wilkie, Dubuque on the Mississippi (Dubuque: Loras College Press, 1987), 185, 221; on the latter page Wilkie refers to ‘‘the State of Dubuque in the State of Iowa.’’ It is also worth noting that the rest of Dubuque County, though more agricultural, had more in common with Dubuque city than with other parts of the state. For instance, the county was even more strongly Democratic than the city; see ibid., 231. 2 For early histories of other frontier river cities, see Steven J. Ross, Workers on the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788–1890 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), esp. 3–41; and Richard C. Wade, The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790–1830 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959).

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ined impending social collapse. Thus on the eve of the Civil War, Dubuque was reeling economically and uncertain socially.3 Origins and Early History The origins of Dubuque date back as early as 1690, when the lead mining potential of what would become northeast Iowa attracted European interest. Between 1788 and 1796 Julien Dubuque, a Frenchman from Quebec, staked out the first European land claim in the future state of Iowa with the approval of the Sauk and Mesquakie Indians who controlled the area. After Julien Dubuque’s death in 1810, whites were effectively excluded from the area until 1830, when James L. and Lucius H. Langworthy obtained permission from the Sauk and Mesquakie to begin mining operations in the old Julien Dubuque claim. Other miners soon joined the Langworthy brothers before the Black Hawk War in 1832 interrupted their operations. The miners resumed operations shortly after Black Hawk’s defeat and the cession of Sauk and Mesquakie lands fifty miles inland from the Mississippi River. In 1836 an act of Congress established the city of Dubuque.4 During its early years, Dubuque was a rough-and-tumble frontier mining community. ‘‘The standard of morality was infinitely low,’’ said one account of early Dubuque published in the Express & Herald newspaper in 1859. ‘‘The taking of life or any other species of 3 A useful short introduction to republicanism and its extension into the nineteenth century is Rowland Berthoff, ‘‘Independence and Attachment, Virtue and Interest: From Republican Citizen to Free Enterpriser, 1787–1837,’’ in Uprooted Americans: Essays in Honor of Oscar Handlin, ed. Richard L. Bushman (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), 97–124. For some historiography, see Linda K. Kerber, ‘‘The Republican Ideology of the Revolutionary Generation,’’ American Quarterly 37 (1985): 474–95; and for the role of the frontier in a republican social order, see Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 (New York: Atheneum, 1985). 4 William J. Peterson, ‘‘The El Dorado of Iowa,’’ Palimpsest 45 (November 1964): 401–8; ‘‘James L. Langworthy,’’ Annals of Iowa, 1st ser., 3 (July 1865): 512–17; Lucius H. Langworthy, ‘‘Dubuque: Its History, Mines, Indian Legends, Etc.,’’ Iowa Journal of History and Politics (hereafter, IJHP) 8 (July 1910): 366–423; Langworthy, ‘‘Autobiographical Sketch of Lucius H. Langworthy,’’ IJHP 8 (July 1910): 321. Wilkie, Dubuque on the Mississippi, 46–63, 76–98; History of Dubuque County, 147–59, 166–70; and M. M. Hoffman, Antique Dubuque, 1673–1833 (Dubuque: Telegraph-Herald Press, 1930).

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crime was regarded [as] less a wrong than a pastime.’’ The writer clearly exaggerated, but the basic point was valid. On the other hand, the miners did enforce a rough brand of justice—tarring and feathering, riding people out of town on a rail—on those whose morality dipped especially low. Soon they fashioned a code of laws, and community leaders such as James and Lucius Langworthy, joined eventually by their brothers Edward and Solon, enforced the code to maintain order until federal territorial authority could be fully established.5 Two decisions in Washington, D.C., during the early 1850s changed Dubuque and set the city on the road to economic and social prominence in the Civil War era. In an 1854 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a long-standing land claim by the Chouteau family of Saint Louis. The Court concluded that even though the Chouteaus had received a deed covering a large portion of northeast Iowa from Julien Dubuque, he had not had the authority to transfer territory controlled by the Sauk and Mesquakie to a third party. Although significant for the city’s future, this decision created only a modest ripple of interest in Dubuque. Miner and smelter Richard Bonson, for example, noted the decision in his diary in his usual laconic style: ‘‘hear the Dubuque land claim is satteled [settled] in our favor.’’ Local newspapers barely noticed the event because, as one put it, the city ‘‘entertained no fears as to the result.’’6 5 Franklin T. Oldt, History of Dubuque County, Iowa (Chicago: Goodspeed Historical Association, 1911), 49; Express & Herald, 17 April 1859; Times, 25 June 1858; Langworthy, ‘‘Dubuque: Its History,’’ 385–92; ‘‘Meeting of the Old Settlers of Dubuque,’’ Annals of Iowa, 1st ser., 3 (April 1865): 469–75; J. B. Newhall, A Glimpse of Iowa in 1846 (Burlington, Iowa: W. D. Skillman, 1846; reprint, Iowa City: State Historical Society, 1957), 78–79 (page citations refer to reprint edition); John C. Holbrook, Recollections of a Nonagenarian (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1897), 63; and Dubuque County Historical Society (DCHS), comp., Dubuque: Its History and Background (Dubuque: DCHS, 1950), 7–9. 6 A. T. Andreas, Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa (Chicago: Andreas Atlas Co., 1875; reprint, Iowa City: State Historical Society, 1970), 403 (page citation refers to reprint edition); Richard Bonson Diaries, 24 February 1854, Iowa State Historical Society, Iowa City (hereafter IHSI); and Weekly Tribune quoted in Wilkie, Dubuque on the Mississippi, 104. See also ibid., 98–104; History of Dubuque County, 163–64; William E. Foley and C. David Rice, The First Chouteaus: River Barons of Early St. Louis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), 174; and M. M. Hoffman, ‘‘The Wilsons of Dubuque,’’ Annals of Iowa, 3d ser., 21 (July 1938): 326–27. Page 101 of Wilkie’s Dubuque on the Mississippi has a map showing just how vast the Chouteau claim was.

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The other decision, in contrast, generated significant enthusiasm in Dubuque, brought the city to the nation’s attention, and opened the door for subsequent commercial expansion. In 1850 George Wallace Jones, one of Dubuque’s earliest residents and at that point one of Iowa’s first two U.S. senators, convinced Stephen A. Douglas, the senator from Illinois, to modify a land grant bill for the Illinois Central Railroad, changing its terminus from Galena, Illinois, to Dunleith, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi opposite Dubuque. Earlier in 1850 Jones and Iowa’s other senator had failed to secure passage of an Iowa railroad bill, but with the powerful Douglas shepherding the Illinois Central bill through Congress, Dubuque was assured a rail link with the East.7 As the railroad slowly approached the city during the first half of the 1850s, Dubuque entered a period of tremendous economic growth. ‘‘We are at the most important point on the upper Mississippi,’’ declared the Express & Herald at the beginning of 1858, ‘‘a point which has given our city the soubriquet of ‘Key City.’ ’’ Nor was this idle boasting. According to historian Timothy R. Mahoney, as late as 1854 Dubuque was no more than a ‘‘local marketplace’’ in the upper-Mississippi trade network. But by the time the Illinois Central arrived at the Mississippi opposite the city in June 1855, three other railroads from the east had designated Dubuque as their western terminus, and much of the river traffic had been diverted from Galena to Dubuque. Dubuque thus emerged as a ‘‘secondary entrepot’’ on the upper Mississippi and thereafter generally surpassed its rival Galena in every way.8 The contest with Galena had been bitter, making Dubuque’s success that much sweeter. As the Illinois Central approached Dubuque during the early 1850s the city’s boosters responded enthusiastically. Real estate agent Leonard Horr’s newspaper advertisement in October 1854 fairly screamed the news. ‘‘Victory Proclaimed!’’ Horr’s 7 History of Dubuque County, 626–29; John Carl Parish, George Wallace Jones: Biographical Sketch and Autobiography (Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1912), 36–38, 189–205; and Wilkie, Dubuque on the Mississippi, 235. 8 Mahoney defines four levels of economic function, from lowest to highest: local marketplace, central marketplace, secondary entrepot, and regional entrepot. Express & Herald, 1 January 1858; Timothy R. Mahoney, ‘‘Urban History in a Regional Context: River Towns on the Upper Mississippi, 1840–1860,’’ Journal of American History 72 (September 1985): esp. 322–26 (figs. 2–6); and Times, 26 May 1858, for the other three railroads from the east.

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ad declared in bold type, ‘‘over all who have tried to injure the reputation of the city of Dubuque and vicinity.’’ A delegation of businessmen from Saint Louis attended the celebration of the railroad’s arrival, cementing the riverine relationship between that city and Dubuque. One of the Saint Louis delegation, noting that the occasion also marked the first lighting of houses in Dubuque with gas, heralded ‘‘a new era of business and brilliancy’’ for the city. Afterward, an 1856 Dubuque city directory saluted ‘‘the will of the people [which] could not be subdued’’ and placed Dubuque’s success firmly within a republican framework as a triumph of the ‘‘manly, independent virtue [of] her commercial men.’’9 Evidence of the city’s growth and development was everywhere. Population nearly quadrupled in six years, from 3,108 in 1850 to 11,780 by 1856. Construction of new buildings tried to keep pace with population growth, with over 1,200 new buildings erected in the three years 1854–56. The gasworks laid over 4,500 feet of pipe before 1857, illuminating downtown streets and businesses. Business boomed. In 1848 a local newspaper counted twenty-two retail stores of all types in the city; at the end of 1854 there were twenty-two groceries alone and more than that number of dry goods stores, and the next year saw ten more groceries and thirteen more dry goods stores commence business. Other retail businesses witnessed similar growth, while the growth of wholesale businesses moved one later historian to conclude that ‘‘from first to last such houses have constituted the backbone of Dubuque’s business and prosperity.’’ To sustain the boom, several corporations developed ambitious projects to improve the city’s waterfront facilities and attracted both private investors and public funds from the city government. Public funds also poured into street improvements, sidewalk construction, and the erection of four new market houses and a new city jail. The federal government contributed to the growth, too, approving funds for a new customs house in the city, suggesting that Dubuque’s commercial reach extended significantly beyond the upper-Mississippi region.10 Weekly Observer, 13 October 1854; ‘‘Visit to Dubuque, Iowa,’’ Western Journal (Saint Louis, Mo.), 14 (October 1855): 359–67 (quote from 360); and Dubuque City Directory [1856] (Dubuque: W. A. Adams, n.d.), 36. 10 City population 1850, from Iowa Secretary of State, Census of Iowa for 1880 (Des Moines: State Printer, 1883), 474; 1856 population from State of Iowa, Census 9

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But for those who cared to notice, signs of weakness were also present. For one thing, land values and rents spiraled upward during the economic expansion. The total assessed value of property in Dubuque increased from about $2.8 million in 1854 to $10.2 million in 1857, and value rose regardless of efforts to improve the property. Rents increased accordingly. When an annual rent of $1,200 was asked for a store on Main Street in April 1854, it was ‘‘an unheard of price,’’ but by 1857 few stores could be rented for less than that amount. Even the smallest houses rented for not less than $300–$400 per year in the mid-1850s, and farmer and merchant J. Hannibal Emerson said wealthier citizens should be prepared to pay $700– $1,000 per year for ‘‘anything like a good dwelling house.’’ One result was that, as the Express & Herald put it in 1855, ‘‘every dollar that can be spared is invested in real estate.’’ Construction projects began to suffer. By April 1858, for example, seven railroads leading west had incorporated in the city, but only the Dubuque & Pacific had laid any rails, and its funds had dried up after only forty miles.11 A second economic weakness appears in the city’s trade figures. Although Dubuque’s trade increased rapidly during the early 1850s, the city imported far more value than it exported. In terms of river commerce, this trade imbalance progressively worsened between 1851 and 1855, exceeding $7 million in 1855.12 The arrival of the Manuscript 1856, Population: Dubuque County. For other signs of growth, see Miners’ Express, 19 December 1848; Western Journal 14 (July 1855): 140–41; Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 105, 112, 114–15 (including wholesaling quote), 123, 124; Delphine Corpstine, ‘‘The Story of My Grandfather: Reminiscences of Christian A. Voelker,’’ manuscript, 1923, p. 2, CDH; Express & Herald, 20 June 1857; and John A. Baule, The Ham House and the Life of its Builder, pamphlet (Dubuque: DCHS, n.d.), 2–3. For harbor improvements, Weekly Observer, 6 October 1854; Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 106–7, 118, 337; and Dubuque County Incorporation Records, County Recorder’s Office, Dubuque County Courthouse, Dubuque, Iowa (hereafter DCIR), 1:33–36, 66–70, 123–28. 11 W. Blair Lord, The Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Iowa (Davenport, Iowa: Luce, Lane & Co., 1857), 486 (Emerson); and Express & Herald, 27 November 1855. For the broad developments noted here, see Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 102, 114, 125–26; Times, 28 April, 1 May (Dubuque & Pacific Railroad), 18 May 1858; and Express & Herald, 16 April 1858. 12 Specifically, in 1854 Dubuque exported $1,573,408 and imported $4,933,208 in value (ratio: 0.319), whereas in 1855 the numbers were $3,689,266 and $11,266,845 (ratio: 0.327). These figures reveal both the growth in commerce and the worsening trade balance. Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 93; Dubuque City Directory [1856], 33–34.

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Illinois Central, bringing improved connections with Eastern U.S. manufacturers, would only increase that imbalance. Imports from Chicago before the railroad were estimated at just $50,000 for 1853 and $75,000 for 1854. During the six months from May through October 1856, however, the Express & Herald reported freight charges alone totaling $456,745 on 31,233 tons of freight going through Dunleith by rail, apparently including both exports and imports. And while imports thus increased, Dubuque’s grip on its exporting hinterland was threatened as Iowa City and Davenport in Iowa; Red Wing, Minnesota; and Galena vied to usurp Dubuque’s place in the upperMississippi trade network.13 The local economy further suffered from the fact that Dubuque generally exported raw materials and imported finished products. The Express & Herald in 1857 identified the three ‘‘staples’’ of the Dubuque economy as lead, wheat, and lumber. Local manufacturing could have developed to advantage in all three areas, but before the Civil War it did not. Lead left the city after being processed into seventy-five-pound pigs by local smelters and returned as shot, lead pipe, and white lead (for paint). Efforts in the mid-to-late 1850s to develop shot and white lead manufacturing in Dubuque foundered, as local producers could not compete with monopolistic Saint Louis firms. Similarly, it was ‘‘notorious that vast quantities of wheat find its [sic] way to the eastern and southern markets from this city.’’ But local flour mills could not keep up with the amount of wheat flowing through the city, and some people seemed to prefer flour from elsewhere; the Conger brothers’ grocery in 1859 advertised that they carried ‘‘St. Louis flour’’ for those customers who wanted it. The story was much the same for lumber. Via the Mississippi, Dubuque had access to the vast Wisconsin pineries, yet before the Panic of 1857 it did little beyond sawing logs into lumber for export. The production 13 Weekly Express & Herald, 3 December 1856. For encroachment by other cities, see Express & Herald, 15 December 1858 (Iowa City); Timothy R. Mahoney, ‘‘Down in Davenport: A Regional Perspective on Antebellum Town Economic Development,’’ Annals of Iowa 50 (Summer 1990): 467–68 (Davenport); History of Dubuque County, 474 (Red Wing); and Weekly Express & Herald, 19 November 1856 (Galena). Numbers for Mississippi trade after 1855 and for railroad trade are unavailable. In 1858, the Express & Herald complained that transportation companies had long since stopped furnishing these numbers to the press, a complaint the historian can only second; Express & Herald, 13 November 1858.

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of local furniture, sash and door, and wagon makers was not sufficient to meet local demand, much less to provide a surplus for export.14

Panic of 1857 and Response Despite superficial signs of strength, therefore, the depression year of 1857 found the city’s economy in a vulnerable condition. In May, several months before the Panic of 1857 is commonly said to have begun, Dubuque experienced a rash of business failures. Although one new local newspaper tried to argue that these failures portended a wider disaster, the more established papers preached faith in local businessmen. In July, for example, the Express & Herald dismissed as ‘‘all gammon’’ a report that Dubuque was ‘‘shouldering too heavy a debt.’’ ‘‘Dubuque has in her midst men of means and of liberal and praise-worthy public spirit,’’ the paper added, men ‘‘who do not fear the loss of a few dollars when it becomes their duty to step forward and see her credit kept sacred and intact.’’ Between October 1857 and mid-January 1858, however, more than sixty businesses failed in the city. The most serious blow came in December, when one of Dubuque’s oldest banks failed, despite loans it received from publicspirited men of means. Even optimists had to face the facts. The Express & Herald began wondering if it was possible ‘‘to preserve the city from commercial ruin.’’15 14 Express & Herald, 9 December 1857. On lead see Express & Herald, 27 November 1855, 14, 15 April 1858; Times, 15 June 1861; Nathan H. Parker, The Iowa Handbook for 1856 (Boston: John P. Jewett and Company, 1856), 109; Peter B. Hoffman, Concise History of the City and County of Dubuque, 1833–1934, manuscript, 1934, pp. 96–98, CDH.; W. A. Adams, Directory of the City of Dubuque [for 1857–1858] (Dubuque: Nonpareil, n.d.), 204; and The Dubuque City Directory and Annual Advertiser [for 1859–1860] (Dubuque: Times, 1859), 115. For wheat/flour see Express & Herald, 27 November 1855 (quote); Herald, 6, 8 November 1859; Northwestern Farmer and Horticultural Journal (monthly) 5 (February 1860): 45 (hereafter, NW Farmer); Parker, Iowa Handbook, 109; and Times, 26 March 1859 (for Conger Brothers). For lumber/wood products see Express & Herald, 30 November 1855, 21, 30 October 1858; Times, 17 May 1858; ‘‘A Pioneer’’ [Platt Smith], Northern Iowa: Containing Hints and Information of Value to Emigrants (Dubuque: W. A. Adams’ Nonpareil Publishing House, 1858), 5–6; and Census 1860, Manuf. And see Times, 12 February 1858, which identifies railroad lawyer Platt Smith as ‘‘A Pioneer.’’ 15 Express & Herald, 22 May, 17, 18 July, 12, 13, 19, 22 September, 5, 8, 9 December 1857; and Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 123, for business failures. Du-

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Commercial ruin indeed loomed. According to one set of figures, Dubuque, which had one-tenth of the businesses and an even smaller share of the population in Iowa, accounted for one-third of the business failures and over half of the dollar value of liabilities in the state in 1857. The city’s share of the failures in Iowa was lower in the subsequent years of the Panic but remained very high. In fact, even though Dubuque’s 1860 population of 13,000 represented less than 0.1 percent of the nation’s population, the city accounted for over 1 percent of national business liabilities in 1858 and 1859. These numbers attest both to the importance Dubuque had achieved as a commercial center and to the magnitude of the economic crisis in the city. One local banker summarized the impact of the Panic by saying that it left Dubuque ‘‘financially without even a fig-leaf.’’16 In the face of the Panic, leading citizens and the local press tried to assess the causes of Dubuque’s troubles. Two elements that would gain significance as the city entered the 1860s and participated in the Civil War came to dominate local thinking: the weakness of a predominantly commercial economy and a perception that the social order was following the economy into collapse. Dubuque had entered its commercial epoch in the 1850s amid thoughts that commerce alone would make it one of the great cities of the nation. ‘‘The growth of cities,’’ an 1856 city directory had declared, ‘‘depends upon their commerce; and commerce centers on those points dictated by nature,’’ such as Dubuque. The Panic changed these thoughts. In May 1858, for example, the Dubuque Times launched an occasional series on the ‘‘Manufactures of Dubuque’s other established newspaper, the Times, viewed the Panic the same way as the Express & Herald did—with optimism at first, then with fears of disaster; see, for example, Times, 5, 27 May, 14, 18, 19, 28, 30 September, 1 October, 5, 11 December 1857. See also George W. Van Vleck, The Panic of 1857: An Analytical Study (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), esp. 64–79, 91–92; and James L. Huston, The Panic of 1857 and the Coming of the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987). 16 Specifically, in 1857 Dubuque had 33.3 percent of the business failures in Iowa, 55.1 percent of the dollar losses in Iowa, and 0.28 percent of national losses; in 1858 the same numbers were 27.6, 37.6, and 1.12 percent; and in 1859, 16.5, 42.2, and 1.13 percent. New York Herald, 6 January 1860, 1 January 1863; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Population, vol. 1 of Eighth Census of the United States 1860 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1864); and History of Dubuque County, 531–32 (‘‘fig-leaf ’’).

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buque’’ with the comment that ‘‘it does not require a very profound study of the principles of political economy to see that it is from what a community produces, rather than from that which it buys and sells, that it is to derive its wealth and consequent importance.’’ Five months later, the Express & Herald added that ‘‘capitalists are now more disposed to invest their capital in certain than in visionary magnificent profits.’’ Manufacturing offered a certain, if unspectacular, profit, and if ‘‘our own capitalists will pursue the proper policy,’’ Dubuque could emerge as ‘‘a great manufacturing city.’’ Even the Northwestern Farmer and Horticultural Journal, a local pro-farming monthly, allowed that manufacturing development was the only way Dubuque could ‘‘in a full and complete sense enjoy prosperity.’’17 Newspapers further editorialized on the need to patronize ‘‘home industry.’’ Why, the Times asked in 1859, do Dubuquers ‘‘send Hides to Boston and Philadelphia and New York, a distance of twelve to fourteen hundred miles to be converted into Leather and Boots and Shoes, and pay the transportation both ways, when they have all the elements at home for those branches of manufacture, and men who are suffering for the means of employment?’’ Likewise, the Express & Herald pointed out that ‘‘home manufacture’’ was the best way ‘‘to fill our city with a self-producing and self-supporting population.’’ The papers singled out particular businesses for special notice: J. L. Dickinson’s three-story sash, door, and planing mill; Valentine Herancourt’s similarly-sized furniture factory; and local hatmakers and shoemakers. The Times, a paper usually inclined toward temperance, even gave favorable notice to the city’s breweries, asserting that only Chicago among Western cities even ‘‘approaches’’ Dubuque in ‘‘the extent and magnitude of our manufacture of malt liquor.’’18 17 Dubuque City Directory [1856], 33; Times, 17 May 1858; Express & Herald, 17 October 1858; and NW Farmer 4 (August 1859): 248–49. See also Times, 29 September, 19 October 1858, 26 March 1859; Express & Herald, 7 April, 17, 21 October 1858, 19, 23 March 1859; and The Dubuque City Directory and Annual Advertiser [for 1859–1860] (Dubuque: Times, 1859), 3–4, 105–6. 18 Times, 29 September 1859 (‘‘home industry’’), 12 January 1859 (‘‘hides’’); Express & Herald, 17 October 1858; and for businesses singled out, see Times, 17 May 1858 (Dickinson); Express & Herald, 30 October 1858 (Herancourt); and Times, 29 September, 18, 19 October 1858 (hatters and shoemakers), 27 June 1861 (breweries). For other attempts to promote home manufacturing, see Times, 5 January, 26 March 1859; Express & Herald, 19, 23 March 1859; and Herald, 30 October 1859.

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The 1850 and 1860 manufacturing censuses can be used to suggest the development of local manufacturing during the 1850s.19 In terms of types of workplaces and the distribution of employees in Dubuque, the basic trend during the decade was toward larger, more mechanized workplaces. Overall, the number of workers per workplace nearly doubled from 3.8 in 1850 to 6.6 in 1860. Further, whereas in 1850 no mechanized workplace (defined as one whose machinery was driven by water, steam, or another power source) employed as many as ten workers, by 1860 mechanized workplaces with ten or more employees comprised 16 percent of the workplaces and employed 32 percent of the manufacturing workers in the city.20 The census data also reveal a basic trend toward increased investment during the 1850s. Nearly every industry present in both 1850 and 1860 increased in capital intensity (or decreased in labor intensity) over the decade, as measured by the ratio of capital invested to wages paid. The industries covering the individual businesses praised by the newspapers, including wood/lumber, furniture, and skins/leather, especially showed capital growth; brewing, which did not appear in the 1850 census, had one of the higher capital-to-wages ratios in 1860.21 It is important, however, to note also the limitations of this manufacturing development. Most production in Dubuque in 1860 continued to be done in small, unmechanized artisanal workplaces that did 19 The 1850 Manufacturing Census did not identify firms by township location; hence the discussion for 1850 covers Dubuque County as a whole (forty-five manufacturing businesses); for 1860, the discussion is limited to Julien Township, which included the city of Dubuque (fifty businesses). In 1860 there were only twenty-five manufacturers in Dubuque County outside Julien Township, so it is reasonable to assume that no more than one-third of the 1850 manufacturers were outside of the city (based on the 1860 ratio) and probably far fewer. 20 Census 1850 and 1860, Manuf. This discussion adapts workplace definitions (with slight modifications to fit the Dubuque case) from Bruce Laurie and Mark Schmitz, ‘‘Manufacture and Productivity: The Making of an Industrial Base, Philadelphia, 1850–1880,’’ in Philadelphia: Work, Space, Family, and Group Experience in the 19th Century, ed. Theodore Hershberg (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 53–65. 21 Specifically, the wood/lumber capital-to-wages ratio increased from 3.5 to 10.9; the furniture ratio from 1.6 to 2.6; and the skins/leather ratio from 1.7 to 7.0; the brewing ratio was 7.7. The idea for a capital-to-wages ratio comes from Ross, Workers on the Edge, 119, 351 n. 76. Ross argues that the capital-to-wages ratio ‘‘yields the most accurate representation of the growth of capital intensive industries’’; he computes the ratio as (capital/product)/(wages/product), which mathematically is the same as dividing capital by wages.

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not meet the $500 minimum annual product necessary for inclusion in the manufacturing census. The 1860 population census for Julien Township, which included the city of Dubuque, listed 1,173 skilled workers, whereas the manufacturing census found only 328 manufacturing employees. In the boot and shoe business, for example, where the manufacturing census found three firms with twelve employees, the population census found ninety-six shoemakers, and an 1861 city directory counted thirty-one firms in the boot and shoe business (including production, wholesale, and retail). Dubuque might also be compared to a more industrialized city. In 1850 Philadelphia had a population of 408,081, with 57,958 employees in the manufacturing census, or more than one-tenth of the total population. A decade later, a Julien Township population of 14,317 included only 328 manufacturing employees.22 Primary production—farming and mining—continued to be an important part of Dubuque’s economy in 1860. Julien Township had 112 farmers, 92 farm laborers, and 389 miners in its 1860 population. Consistent with the emerging view that production rather than commerce was the key to the city’s economic health, the newspapers regularly stressed the importance of farming and mining. The Express & Herald, for instance, argued that ‘‘we of the West must always look upon Agriculture as our real and greatest resource of wealth and prosperity.’’ The lead mines, meanwhile, were touted as ‘‘an inexhaustible source of wealth.’’ In the crisis of the Panic, moreover, the mines could function as a safety valve for the unemployed. In May 1858 the Times noted that although ‘‘one or two thousand’’ Dubuque workers were either unemployed or underemployed, ‘‘no one need starve or be out of work in Dubuque next fall or winter. . . . Thousands of men can find employment’’ in the lead mines. The Express & Herald added that mine work required only ‘‘enterprise and industry, and with these as your only capital, you can not only provide for your present wants but your future comforts.’’23 22 Census 1860, Pop.; Census 1860, Manuf.; James Sutherland, comp., Umberhine & Gustin’s Dubuque City Business Directory and Advertiser for 1861 (Indianapolis: Umberhine & Gustin, n.d. [1861]), 54–55. For Philadelphia, see Hershberg, Philadelphia, 59, 508. 23 Census 1860, Pop.; Express & Herald, 23 October 1857 (‘‘agriculture’’); Times, 17 May 1858; and Express & Herald, 23 May (‘‘inexhaustible’’), 23 June 1858 (‘‘enterprise’’). For other endorsements of farming, see NW Farmer, esp. 3 (March 1858): 88, 5 (June 1860): 207. For mining, see Express & Herald, 23 August, 25 April 1858; and Times, 5 October 1858.

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Important in itself, the emphasis on production also points to the second important theme emerging from the Panic of 1857 in Dubuque. As the city struggled with the consequences of commercial capitalist development, rapid population growth, and then economic depression, many concluded that certain basic values, such as honesty, thrift, and hard work, were being abandoned for corruption, luxury, and idleness. This produced, in turn, an uneasy sense of impending social crisis. The newly elected mayor Henry S. Hetherington signaled this unease at his inauguration in 1858. ‘‘The outward signs of prosperity are awfully deceptive,’’ he declared. ‘‘They indicate the disease and corruption at work upon the citadel of life.’’ Although Hetherington was speaking primarily about the city as a whole, his words could be read as an indictment of individuals as well. Two years later, the Northwestern Farmer offered a harsher judgment: ‘‘We are becoming in truth, lawless, immoral, and dishonest. . . . Our social system is breaking up. Fraud and deception, crime and corruption, prevail.’’24 This sense of social crisis reflected broader changes in Dubuque. For one thing, the commercial expansion of the 1850s produced a change at the top of the local economy and society. At the start of the decade, families that built their fortunes on mining had occupied the top rungs of the social ladder and provided the city’s political and economic leadership. The early mining town had been a place of opportunity. In theory any hardworking and lucky individual could have found a rich vein of lead and been catapulted into great wealth. Although many more failed than succeeded, the image of the old miners’ rags-to-riches stories exercised a continuing influence on the public psyche well into the 1850s. One needed only to look at the city’s wealthiest men. As late as 1857 the largest property owners in the city had nearly all been working miners at one time. These men had made their way through physical labor. None built their fortunes exclusively on the labor of others; none had inherited wealth. The early miners might be thought of as the city’s patricians: men for whom property, citizenship, and public service were defining characteristics. The patricians subsequently served as models for republican values such as independence, self-restraint, and civic virtue in the 1850s, and their example fostered a sense of social harmony in early 24

Express & Herald, 13 April 1858; and NW Farmer 5 (August 1860): 283.

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Dubuque, what another scholar calls ‘‘republican inequality.’’ Even the fact that most of them had long since abandoned physical labor for commerce could not upset the image.25 Although the patricians continued to be influential economically and socially, the city’s embrace of commercial capitalism in the 1850s brought a new generation—an entrepreneurial generation—forward to share leadership in the city. In contrast with the patricians’ physical labor, self-restraint, and civic virtue, the entrepreneurs seemed to have reached the top effortlessly ‘‘at a single bound.’’ Their path to success depended less on physical labor and more on education, ability to function in the market economy, access to capital, and personal connections. Individualism and emphasis on competition increased, while community-centered values seemed to erode. As lawyer Platt Smith put it, his generation lacked the ‘‘bond of sympathy’’ he saw in the first. The patricians, according to Smith, ‘‘were frank in their speech, there was no deceit about them. . . . They would walk twenty miles to do a neighbor a service, where a man would not walk a square [city block] to do it now.’’ An indication of the difference between the two generations can be seen in property ownership patterns. Whereas the ten-largest patrician property owners in 1860 owned an average of $85,100 in real and $11,500 in personal property, the ten-largest entrepreneur property holders averaged $44,200 in real and $31,200 in personal property. In other words, the rising generation lived a more sumptuous lifestyle and set a different example for the aspiring of Dubuque.26 25 Ross, Workers on the Edge, 17 (‘‘republican inequality’’); Express & Herald, 23 May, 23 June, 10 December 1858; and ‘‘Meeting of the Old Settlers,’’ 469–75, esp. 474. See also Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 120, for 1857 city assessor’s list— nine of the eleven-largest property owners on the assessor’s list began in Dubuque as working miners. The local press continued to assert the possibility of success through mining into the Civil War; see, for example, Herald, 1 September 1861; and Times, 1 July 1862. 26 NW Farmer 3 (January 1858): 10 (‘‘single bound’’); and ‘‘Meeting of the Old Settlers,’’ 471 (Smith quote). For other comments on entrepreneurialism, see NW Farmer 3 (May 1858): 176, 5 (August 1860): 282–83; Solon M. Langworthy, Diary (hereafter, SML Diary), 3 October 1858, p. 125, 15 April 1860, p. 171, IHSI; Times, 16 September 1858, 30 March 1859; and Express & Herald, 5 January 1859. Property data come from Census 1860, Pop.; membership in the two generations was derived using Census 1840, Pop.; Oldt, History of Dubuque County; Randolph W. Lyon, Dubuque: The Encyclopedia (Dubuque: First National Bank of Dubuque, 1991); and Wilkie, Dubuque on the Mississippi. Arrival (as an adult) before 4 July 1840, a date set by the Dubuque Early Settlers Association (est. 1865) to determine

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During the Panic of 1857 it seemed to many social critics that the crisis could be traced to the fact that the good example of the patricians had been ignored during the city’s economic boom. Even before the Panic, the Express & Herald argued in 1856 that Dubuque was growing complacent ‘‘in the luxury of content’’ and risked losing its commercial prominence. When the commercial economy subsequently collapsed, a contributor to the Times chided business men in Dubuque for becoming ‘‘gentleman-farmers, gentleman-lawyers, gentleman-merchants, [and] gentleman-shopkeepers,’’ adding that ‘‘if we mean to prosper again, we must pull off our coats and go to work; dispense with unnecessary help; do away with luxury; closely watch our business; till the earth and explore the mines.’’ A woman from Iowa Falls writing to the Northwestern Farmer asked, ‘‘Where is the vital energy, the vigor, and strength of mind, that the generation before us possessed?’’ She then answered her own question: ‘‘Are not the wan features of the Dyspeptic and the Consumptive a strong evidence that they have departed with the simple and industrious habits of our forefathers?’’ Even the patricians found themselves falling victim. In a diary entry in January 1859, for example, Solon M. Langworthy criticized city elites for being ‘‘to much Engaged in . . . all kinds of useless and imaginary Scheams Such as Building RRoads where they ware not needed and Towns Before the Country was Settled.’’ He included himself in this indictment, saying he had spent his ‘‘Entire time in Business Persuits the multiplicity of which has almost consumed in me the desire for a nobler existence devoted to Higher Pursuits.’’ In sum, Langworthy concluded, it was time for a return to ‘‘former Habits of industry and Economy.’’27 To the critics, at least, other things contributed to a sense of social decay in the city. Franc B. Wilkie, the ‘‘locals’’ editor at the Express & Herald in 1859, joked that the opening of a rag dealer’s shop and an membership, is the dividing line between the two generations here; see Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 156–58. My thoughts on these generational differences are informed by David Leverenz, Manhood and the American Renaissance (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), 72–90; and E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 10–30. 27 Weekly Express & Herald, 19 November 1856; Times, 10 April 1858; NW Farmer 3 (May 1858): 176; and SML Diary, n.d. [January 1859], pp. 128–29. See also NW Farmer 3 (April 1858): 126–27; Times, 10 April 1858; and Express & Herald, 29 May 1857.

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elopement evinced Dubuque’s ‘‘growing greatness.’’ But behind the joke was a serious comment on a change in values. A rag dealer—‘‘or a half dozen of them’’—could ‘‘do well’’ in Dubuque because people discarded their worn clothing rather than repairing it; elopement suggested promiscuity, instant gratification, and a loss of respect for marriage and the family. On another subject, concern about the state of law and order in the city caused the Times to become uncomfortable when the rivalry between two local fire companies threatened to degenerate into violence. Such ‘‘rowdyism’’ had ‘‘disgraced our sister cities of the East,’’ the paper declared, and ‘‘we are opposed to it.’’ Similarly, an allegation of corruption against Philip C. Morheiser, the city’s captain of police, moved the Express & Herald to ask: ‘‘Has Dubuque made such progress in the race of cities . . . has she so far thrown off the innocence of babyhood as to have acquired these vices of older communities?’’28 The feared social decay had more tangible elements. The number of poor people seeking relief increased, and local relief efforts failed to meet the challenge. In the nineteenth century, poverty was usually considered to be the result of individual moral failure (indolence, drunkenness, or other vice); these ‘‘unworthy’’ poor vastly outnumbered the ‘‘worthy’’ poor (the physically or mentally disabled, for example), who were considered the only truly appropriate recipients of charity. In reality in Dubuque, two groups proved particularly vulnerable to poverty. The first was laborers and their families. Unskilled workers in the city faced a precarious employment situation; many jobs were short term, and the coming of winter often signaled the disappearance of jobs. In December 1857 the city launched a program of street repairs ‘‘to furnish the heads of families dependent on their daily labor for a livelihood, with employment during the Winter.’’ Even during a subsequent crisis in city finances as a result of the Panic of 1857, the Times argued in favor of continuing some public works projects in order to provide employment for the city’s unskilled laborers. Some projects were maintained, but most had to be discontinued.29 Express & Herald, 13, 14 January 1859; Times, 25, 26 April 1859; and Express & Herald, 19 November 1858. See also ibid., 17 November 1858 for the allegation against Morheiser. 29 Express & Herald, 9 December 1857; and Times, 14 August 1858. For nineteenth-century attitudes toward the poor see, for example, Michael B. Katz, In the 28

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The second group vulnerable to poverty was female heads of household and their families. In one of his memoirs, for example, Josiah Conzett detailed the poverty of four families he knew, and in each case the removal of an adult male wage earner through death, divorce, or desertion began the decline into poverty. Data from the 1860 census reinforce Conzett’s recollection. Sixty percent of the women who headed households in 1860 owned no property, compared to 32 percent of male heads of household. Before the Civil War, moreover, Dubuque offered severely limited opportunities for women to earn a living. Although the census certainly undercounts the number of women employed in sewing, laundry, or other wage work, only 542 of the 4,642 women age twelve and over in the city had occupations listed in the 1860 census, with 456 having unskilled occupations, 417 of them domestic servants.30 Nevertheless, the image of opportunity in the city’s early years led many to believe, with Solon Langworthy, that Dubuque had ‘‘no Extreems in the Condition of the inhabitance.’’ Patrician Richard Bonson, for instance, seemed genuinely surprised during the Panic of 1857 to ‘‘find out thear are great many poor peopel in town.’’ Recognition that the economic crisis had caused many otherwise moral people to fall into poverty prompted the formation of private relief committees throughout the city. Analysis of the committees reveals a primarily entrepreneurial membership, and although the committees functioned effectively in the winter of 1857–58, the following year they faltered. One assessment of the 1858–59 effort concluded that ‘‘beyond reports on destitution we are not aware that anything was done to feed the hungry or clothe the naked.’’ A newspaper in Davenport, Iowa’s second-largest city, reported that Dubuque’s ‘‘poor houses are overflowing’’ and that its streets were full of ‘‘haggard children’’ begging for dimes. The following year, 1859– Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America (New York: Basic Books, 1986), esp. 3–66; and Walter I. Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America, 4th ed. (New York: Free Press, 1989), esp. 50–63. My understanding of vulnerability to poverty in commercial Dubuque is also informed by Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789– 1860 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), esp. 43–46. 30 Josiah Conzett, Recollections of People and Events, Dubuque, Iowa 1846–1890 (from a manuscript written in 1905, CDH; Dubuque: Union Hoermann Press, 1971), 196–97, 234, 236–37, 254–55, 267; and Census 1860, Pop.

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60, no private committees were formed, leaving the poor to rely on cash-strapped and ultimately inadequate public relief systems.31 Sometimes the increase in poverty was taken with equanimity. The Express & Herald, for example, dismissed the criticism from Davenport, noting ‘‘Cities are liable to such scenes—villages are generally exempt from them.’’ But other evidence of apparent social decay was harder to ignore. Houses of prostitution and gambling drew the attention of local newspapers, indignant citizens, and the legal system in the late 1850s. One policeman estimated in 1857 that Dubuque had six or eight houses of prostitution, with another on the outskirts of town and the locally infamous Marquette House across the river in Dunleith. The Express & Herald thought ‘‘the community ought to drive [these] out of our midst by force,’’ adding ‘‘there is enough vice without submitting to this addition.’’ A year later, a group of women apparently took the paper’s advice and armed ‘‘with tin pans, broomsticks, mops, and other warlike weapons, they stormed [the] fortress’’ of ‘‘a lady of infinite leisure’’ who had established herself in their neighborhood. The courts also intervened. According to data from the district court at Dubuque, although the number of cases in categories such as theft, property destruction, or personal injury remained constant during the Panic, the number of what can be called public morals cases jumped from five in 1859 to thirty in 1860. Five of the 1860 cases involved prostitution, but gambling was the particular target. Fifteen gambling cases came before the court in 1860, compared to just one during the previous three years combined.32 Dubuque the mining town had had houses of prostitution and gambling dens. What had changed was the context. As one early resident of Dubuque put it, the patrician generation had drawn ‘‘the line . . . between savage and civilized life in the West.’’ Although not condoned, prostitution and gambling might have been expected in a savage and half-civilized place. But the entrepreneurial generation 31 SML Diary, n.d., p. 120; Richard Bonson Diaries, 14 May 1858, IHSI; Express & Herald, 8, 14, 17, 19 December 1858 (last for Davenport newspaper), 9 January 1859 (‘‘feed the hungry’’); Herald, 21, 29 December 1859. For relief committees and their social origins, see Times, 3 December 1857; Express & Herald, 11 December 1858; Census 1840, Pop.; Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 156–58; and Lyon, Dubuque: The Encyclopedia. 32 Express & Herald, 19 December 1858, 14 July 1857; Times, 28 July 1858; District Court Record, County Clerk’s Office, vols. E–I, DCC.

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crossed another line—‘‘the line which separates the age of endurance, privation, and heroism from the age of learning and luxury’’— and these things seemed more out of place. In a memoir, Josiah Conzett described the difference as between the ‘‘Country Style’’ of the patricians and the ‘‘Metropolitan Airs’’ of the entrepreneurial city. Modern scholars might speak of the embourgeoisement of the city and of a consequent desire to enforce middle-class standards of female domesticity and male self-restraint in the city’s social life. Accordingly, when social critics sought to explain the causes of the social decay they perceived, they pointed to problems in both the city’s public and private life.33 In public life, the 1850s witnessed important changes in Dubuque’s class structure and political organizations. Despite the generational differences in the relative ownership of real and personal property noted earlier, economic interests broadly united the patrician and entrepreneurial generations into a single ‘‘business class’’ increasingly separated from the city’s working class.34 Corporate investment, for example, did not divide along generational lines. There was no ‘‘patrician’’ railroad, and even the several harbor improvement companies, which came closest to dividing along generational lines, brought the two groups together as much as separated them. Similarly, men of both generations provided political leadership and governed the city in the 1850s. Finally, business-class men created and dominated the city’s social and fraternal organizations, while business-class women provided most of the labor in benevolent organizations.35 33 ‘‘Meeting of the Old Settlers,’’ 473–74; and Josiah Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War: Before, during & after, 1861–1865,’’ memoir, 1909, p. 10, CDH. For middle-class values see, for example, Stuart M. Blumin, The Emergence of the Middle Class: Social Experience in the American City, 1760–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790–1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); and Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815–1837 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978). 34 My division of Dubuque’s social structure into two classes is informed by Michael Katz, The People of Hamilton, Canada West: Family and Class in a Mid-nineteenth-century City (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975). See also Katz, Michael J. Doucet, and Mark J. Stern, The Social Organization of Early Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), esp. 14–63. 35 This economic, political, and social dominance of the city is specified more fully in Russell Lee Johnson, ‘‘An Army for Industrialization: The Civil War and the For-

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Property ownership differences between the business and working classes reflect the economic and social position of each class.36 In 1860 the average member of the working class owned less than onetenth as much total property as the average member of the business class, $378.65 versus $4,533.97. To put these property ownership numbers into local perspective, inclusion among the upper half of Dubuque’s property owners required at least $501 in total property, and the working class averaged less than that amount. For some indication of what $500 represented in 1860 Dubuque, the Conzett famimation of Urban-Industrial Society in a Northern City’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1996), 119–25. 36 Briefly, the occupational groupings used in this study are as follows: high nonmanual—professionals, merchants, bankers, ministers, company presidents, and most elected and appointed officials; low nonmanual—small business proprietors, clerks, dealers, agents, students, editors; artisans—skilled workers, including ‘‘makers’’ of various items, printers, carpenters, brick masons; unskilled—includes both specific unskilled jobs such as miner, servant, teamster, and watchman, as well as nonspecific unskilled occupations such as laborer and farm laborer; farmers—can be seen as both proprietary and skilled, hence kept in a separate category; unclassifiable—illegible information, plus ‘‘occupations’’ such as inventor, convict, ‘‘benefactory,’’ and ‘‘sick’’; ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’—persons with no occupations listed in the census, or listed as ‘‘none,’’ ‘‘at home,’’ or ‘‘attending school,’’ and so forth. The highnonmanual and low-nonmanual groups comprised the business class; artisans and unskilled workers comprised the working class. The large number of miners (389) in Dubuque presented a special problem in classification, because clearly some of them belonged in the business class. George Ord Karrick, for example, though a ‘‘miner’’ according to the 1860 census, employed forty-one men, ran three daily shifts at his ‘‘Julien Mining Company,’’ and was not himself a working miner. In the absence of any other specific data on the extent of individual mining operations, Karrick’s real estate ownership, $3,000, was used to delineate a group of ‘‘entrepreneurial miners.’’ Thus, the thirty miners who owned real estate worth $3,000 or more were included in the business class (as low nonmanual); owning less than $3,000 in real property placed a miner in the working class. This estimate is clearly conservative—a miner with $2,000 or even $1,000 in real estate may have run a pretty large operation, too—but it is the best estimate possible given the available evidence. See Herald, 30 November 1859 for a description of a visit to ‘‘Karrick’s Diggings.’’ Occupational classification is based on Michael B. Katz, ‘‘Occupational Classification in History,’’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History 3 (Summer 1972): 68–88; Theodore Hershberg, Michael Katz, Stuart Blumin, Laurence Glasco, and Clyde Griffen, ‘‘Occupation and Ethnicity in Five Nineteenth-Century Cities: A Collaborative Inquiry,’’ Historical Methods Newsletter 7 (June 1974): 174–216; and Theodore Hershberg and Robert Dockhorn, ‘‘Occupational Classification,’’ Historical Methods Newsletter 9 (March/June 1976): 59–98. These sources divide the business class into high and low ‘‘white collar,’’ but Stuart Blumin’s term nonmanual was thought to better describe the occupations represented in Dubuque’s business class; see Blumin, Emergence of the Middle Class.

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ly’s one-story, three-room house in the northern part of the city was valued at $500 in the census. Anyone in the lower half of Dubuque’s property owners in 1860, in other words, either did not own a house or owned an even more modest one than the Conzetts’, perhaps in a poorer part of the city such as ‘‘Dublin,’’ the Irish neighborhood at the southern end of town. In fact, almost three-quarters of the lower half of the city’s property owners owned no real property at all, only personal property. In contrast, the upper portion of the business class, those with high-nonmanual and professional occupations, had average property holdings of $9,935.71, or more than the $9,500 required to be among the top 10 percent of property owners in the city.37 At the same time, a two-year difference existed in the average ages of the business and working classes and might be thought to explain the property ownership differences. Further statistical analysis, however, reveals that although age had an impact on whether or not an individual owned any property—older individuals were more likely to have at least some property—the amount of that property correlated more closely to occupation than to age.38 It is important, moreover, to consider the changing economic environment of Dubuque. Whereas many of the patricians had experienced mobility out of the working class, they achieved their mobility during the 1840s or early 1850s, before Dubuque’s commercial expansion. As Dubuque’s commercial importance increased in the 1850s, the best opportunities increasingly went to those with capital, education, or both. Although the avenues to upward mobility had not been completely closed by 1860—Josiah Conzett and one of his three brothers achieved upward mobility out of the working class in the mid-to-late 1850s—Dubuque offered fewer opportunities for workers to advance. More significant than age in the evolution of Dubuque’s class structure during the 1850s was the large percentage of immigrants, particularly Irish and Germans, in the working class. Although comprising just under half of those with occupations in the 1860 census, Irish and German immigrants constituted more than half of the working class. The Irish were concentrated among the unskilled; comprising a little more than one-quarter of employed persons in the 37 38

See table A.1, appendix A for more specific data. See table A.2, appendix A for specific data.

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city, the Irish were two-fifths of the unskilled. Similarly, Germans made up more than one-third of the artisans, compared to Germans’ overall share of less than one-quarter of the workforce. In contrast, native-born individuals dominated the business class in the city even more thoroughly than the Irish and Germans did the working class. Comprising just three-tenths of the people with occupations, the native born occupied over three-fifths of the high-nonmanual positions and nearly half of the low-nonmanual ones.39 Increasingly, immigrants and workers were identified with disorder in the city. According to statistics for 1858, for example, of 114 people spending time in the Dubuque County jail during the year, 92 were immigrants, 80 of them Irish. In 1860 the census taker found 19 people lodged in the jail, including 9 immigrants, 7 persons who did not list a place of birth, and just 3 natives of the United States. In terms of occupation, the 19 inmates included 4 farmers, 3 artisans, and 12 unskilled workers; among the last were three ‘‘fancies,’’ a term applied to prostitutes and keepers of houses of prostitution. Data from the district court indicate that these inmates were representative of those who found themselves in trouble with the law, especially in the public morals cases that occupied the court’s attention so extensively in 1860. Leaving aside eight cases of corruption in elective or appointive office, the twenty-two other public morals cases that reached the court in 1860 generally involved people with workingclass occupations. The two members of the business class caught in these cases, a speculator and a grain dealer, owned only $100 total property between them.40 Local politics during the 1850s also came to reflect the class, property, and nativity differences in the city. Dubuque’s early miners had been overwhelmingly Democratic in politics. Lucius H. Langworthy once offered a mystical explanation for this fact, saying that simply ‘‘passing over Mississippi water’’ seemed to be enough for men to ‘‘become entirely changed in political sentiments.’’ More likely, ties See table A.3, appendix A for more specific data. Express & Herald, 8 January 1859; Census 1860, Pop., p. 100; and District Court Record, County Clerk’s Office, vols. E–I, DCC. For a useful discussion of law enforcement and the working class, see David Montgomery, Citizen Worker: The Experience of Workers in the United States with Democracy and the Free Market during the Nineteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), esp. 59–71. 39 40

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with the South via the Mississippi River, the local prominence of a few Southern-born individuals—especially U.S. Senator George W. Jones—and federal government policy on mineral lot ownership explain Democratic power in the city.41 By the early 1850s, however, the local party was riven with factions. The patricians were divided into pro-Jones and anti-Jones groups (Thomas S. Wilson, who coveted Jones’s Senate seat, helped spawn the latter faction), while German and especially Irish immigrants increasingly held the balance of power. Then in 1854, after the divided Democrats lost their third straight mayoral election, party breaches were temporarily closed. Symbolic of a shift in party control away from the old miners, the city’s two Democratic newspapers, the Miners’ Express and the more immigrant-oriented Herald, merged under the name Express & Herald; in mid-1859 even the Express would be dropped. The party’s emergent leadership identified itself with ‘‘the interests of the people of this city—the interests of the working men,’’ and it carried on a traditional Democratic opposition to privilege in all its forms.42 Prior to the Panic of 1857, the Democrats’ opponents in the city were equally divided. The local Whig Party and former Democrats opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 represented two important strands of the opposition. Another small but important strand came from local nativists. In 1854 the Observer, a nativist newspaper, began publication and directed attention to Irish control of the Democratic Party. Accused of introducing a ‘‘spirit of bigotry and intolerance’’ into ‘‘a community, hitherto happily free from religious contensions [sic],’’ the Observer’s editor sneeringly dismissed the charge as ‘‘the syren song of jesuistical humbug about peaceful har41 Until the mid-1840s the federal government continued to own all the local mineral lots; miners could work land designated as a mineral lot but not own it. The miners chafed under such interference in their affairs and looked to Democrats, the party of minimal government, to change the policy. Langworthy, ‘‘Dubuque: Its History,’’ 403; History of Dubuque County, 525. 42 David C. Mott, ‘‘Early Iowa Newspapers,’’ Annals of Iowa 16 (1928): 177–80; Herald, 6 July 1859 (for dropping Express); and Express & Herald, 14 August 1858 (for quote). For the Herald’s immigrant emphasis compare, for example, comments about the Miners’ Express and the Herald in Weekly Observer, 22 July (Express) and 25 August (Herald) 1854; for more on working-class emphasis, see Express & Herald, 4, 17 March, 20, 26 May, 6, 22 June, 3, 9 July, 15–17 December 1858, 29 March 1859. And see Sean Wilentz, ‘‘Society, Politics, and the Market Revolution, 1815–1848,’’ in The New American History, ed. Eric Foner (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990), 51–71, for traditional views of the Democratic Party.

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mony.’’ But although the Observer itself survived only about one year and was widely denounced, it planted seeds that blossomed during the Panic. References to Irish control and ‘‘Jesuits’’ became staples of the opposition to the Democratic Party in the late 1850s. For example, because of its potential for division, religion had originally been omitted from the public school curriculum, but in 1858 opponents of the Democratic Party gained control of the school board and asserted that it would be better to ‘‘obliterate’’ the public schools than to continue them without prayer and Bible readings, preferably from the Protestant King James Bible. Germans were also warned, lest they become the unwitting tools of ‘‘the Hibernian Democracy’’ in the city.43 Data on party activists in Dubuque indicate that, in fact, immigrants did dominate the local Democratic Party. More than threefifths of Democratic activists identified using various sources were foreign born, mostly Irish Catholics and German Catholics or Lutherans, though specific individual religious affiliations cannot be determined. In contrast, nearly two-thirds of Republican activists identified in the same sources were born in the United States and hence more likely to be pietists in religion. Thus Dubuque politics appear to have fit within what some historians have called the ethnocultural interpretation of nineteenth-century politics.44 Or did they? Historian Ronald P. Formissano has argued that the so-called ethnocultural interpretation exists only in the minds of the critics of the new, quantitative political history. Those considered eth43 Mott, ‘‘Early Iowa Newspapers,’’ 177–80; Weekly Observer, 22 July 1854; Times, 11 September, 8 October 1858 (religion in schools); and Times, 9 October 1858. For further examples of anti-immigrant rhetoric during the Panic, see, for example, Times, 8 March, 21 September, 6, 11 October 1858; Express & Herald, 19 May 1858 (citing a Protestant preacher in the city); and Herald, 26 November 1859 (in a letter to the editor). And for private concerns, Bonson Diaries, 20 August 1859, IHSI; and SML Diary, 13 October 1860, p. 198. 44 The specific numbers cited in the text are 62.5 percent of Democrats were foreign born, and 64.9 percent of Republicans were native born; see table A.4, appendix A for more specific data. Lists of party activists in Dubuque were compiled using lists of candidates, speakers at party meetings, and participation in ‘‘Vigilance Committees’’—groups of ten or so members of each party per city ward appointed to watch the polls on election day to prevent frauds and illegal voting—published in the major party newspapers, the Times (Republican) and the Miners’ Express, the Express & Herald, and the Herald (all Democratic). In all, 111 Republican Party activists and 254 Democratic Party activists before the war could be identified in the newspapers and traced back to the 1860 census.

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nocultural historians, Formissano argues, actually paint a nuanced picture of mid-nineteenth-century politics and do not exclusively focus on religion or ethnicity. Many of the issues associated with an ethnocultural interpretation, for example, things such as temperance and Sunday-closing laws (Sabbatarianism), also involved class interests. Temperance frequently reflected the efforts of an emerging native-born middle class aligned with the Whig and, later, Republican Parties to reform the behavior of workers, many of whom were immigrants and Democrats; Sunday-closing laws, meanwhile, were directed at least in part at German beer gardens, where families would gather to socialize (and drink) on Sundays. For Lee Benson, one of the new political history pioneers, ‘‘ ‘localistic’ factors’’ dominated nineteenth-century politics, except where ‘‘intense ethnocultural and religious antagonisms’’ arose.45 A closer examination of the specifics of the Dubuque case similarly yields a more complex picture than would be seen by simply citing the large Irish and German Catholic population of the city or their numbers among Democratic activists. For one thing, to be competitive in Dubuque opponents of the Democrats needed to appeal broadly and especially to Germans, whose votes could swing from election to election. As a result, issues such as temperance and Sabbatarianism received less emphasis, almost disappearing around election time apart from de rigueur shots at Dennis A. Mahony, the Irish editor of the Express & Herald, for being a ‘‘Jesuit’’; the school board cited above, for instance, waited until after being elected to raise the Bible-readings issue. Slavery, beyond reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act—a law that prompted a number of prominent Democratic defections—was generally a nonissue in local elections before the war, especially once the depression hit in 1857. 45 For a general introduction to the ethnocultural interpretation see, for example, Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961), quotes from 293; Paul Kleppner, ‘‘Partisanship and Ethnoreligious Conflict: The Third Electoral System, 1853–1892,’’ in The Evolution of American Electoral Systems, ed. Kleppner (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1981), 113–46; Kleppner, The Third Electoral System, 1853–1892: Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979); and Ronald P. Formissano, ‘‘The Invention of the Ethnocultural Interpretation,’’ American Historical Review 99 (April 1994): 453–77 (esp. 453–55, 473). Thanks also go to Frank Towers for sharing his expertise in nineteenth-century U.S. political history.

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Before the Civil War local issues dominated Dubuque politics. Overtly at least, election battles during the 1850s tended to be fought on economic issues, particularly city finances. Voters, of course, may have made their selections based on other, less publicly discussed reasons or expectations. The critical election for establishing party alignments into the Civil War was the city election of 1858. After a fledgling Republican Party that pulled together various strands of opposition to the Democrats had been overwhelmed in 1857, the Panic of 1857 created an opportunity for the Republicans. As usual, the issue receiving the most newspaper attention in the 1858 city election was economic: specifically, the mismanagement of the city’s finances by pro-Jones Democratic governments the previous few years. Dennis Mahony’s forces in the Democratic Party recognized this and early moved to create a ‘‘People’s Reform’’ party for the local election. Having let the genie of reform out of the bottle, however, Mahony and his allies could not control it. The reform convention rejected Mahony’s leadership and nominated a slate of disgruntled Democratic businessmen instead. Republicans rushed to endorse the Reform Party and its promise to restore city affairs to a ‘‘practical business’’ basis. The Reformers swept the election, winning every office except alderman in the predominantly Irish First Ward.46 The Reform government faced its biggest test at the end of the year. In November, the stockholders of the Central Island Improvement Company, one of several corporations formed to improve the city’s harbor facilities, asked for help managing their $200,000 company debt. The company’s debt crisis threatened not only the stockholders but a large portion of Dubuque’s business community. Many shopkeepers had pledged to take at par the ‘‘post notes’’ (short-term company bonds that circulated as currency in the city) the company had issued during a local currency shortage in the winter of 1857. Those notes were all but worthless by the end of 1858.47 The Reform government, consisting as it did of mostly businessFor 1857 election results, see Weekly Express & Herald, 15 April 1857. For 1858 the most important coverage includes Express & Herald, 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 28 February, 2, 11 March, 13 April 1858; Times, 8, 15, 16, 22–25, 29, 31 March, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 April 1858 (last for results); and Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 108. 47 Express & Herald, 17 February, 28 November, 14, 21 December 1858, 11 March 1859; Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 106–7, 118, 125–27, 337; DCIR, 1:123–28. 46

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men, favored helping the Central Islanders. Reform alderman B. B. Richards made the case for a company bailout, arguing in effect that what was good for the company would be good for the city. In the current economic climate, Richards declared, Dubuque ‘‘cannot afford to lose a particle of the enterprise among us, and hence should encourage all that we have.’’ The Express & Herald, edited in 1858 by Mahony ally Joseph B. Dorr, vigorously opposed the idea. In response to Richards, Dorr hinted that the city might be better off without businessmen such as the Central Island investors. Dorr made the point more clearly in another context during the Panic: ‘‘if we have merchants and business men who must fail by their imprudence, the country at large will not suffer,’’ because better men were ready to take their places. Dorr also worried that a bailout designed to raise the value of Central Island post notes would destroy the value of city scrip, and the main losers in that transaction would be working people, especially laborers on city contracts.48 Alderman Richards’s argument carried the day, and the city assumed the Central Island Company’s debt. Most significantly, the Central Island incident cemented an identification between the local business community, particularly those of the entrepreneurial generation, and the opposition to the Democratic Party, especially as led by Mahony and Dorr. The 61 Reform Party members identified in the 1860 census included 37 business-class men, 4 farmers with large property holdings (average: $40,975), and 3 highly propertied men without occupations (average: $14,000). Forty-eight of the 61 reformers were subsequently active in the Republican Party before the war, including 30 of the business-class men, 2 of the farmers, and 2 of those without occupations. Although the native born comprised the largest portion of the reformers, the movement also mobilized Irish, Germans, and other immigrants, the majority of whom subsequently moved into the Republican Party, including such unlikely Republicans as two saloon keepers and Titus Schmidt, the second-largest beer manufacturer in the city in 1860.49 Eleven of the Reform Party City Council Proceedings, Express & Herald, 21 December 1858 (for Richards); and Express & Herald, 28 November 1858, 11 March 1859 (basic Dorr arguments). See also ibid., 22, 24, 25, 26 March 1859 for other notable anti–Central Island content; also Express & Herald, 23 October 1857 for Dorr’s broader comment about businessmen and the Panic. 49 Specifically, the 61 Reformers identified in the census included 29 native born (7 born in slave states), 8 Irish, 13 Germans, and 11 ‘‘other’’ immigrants. Of these, 48

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members—including Titus Schmidt, two of the Langworthy brothers, and five other business-class men but no one with a working-class occupation—had been active Democrats before using the reform movement as a transitional step on their way into the Republican Party.50 In short, the Reform government and the Central Island bailout indicate that although nearly two-thirds of Republicans were native born and a similar percentage of Democrats were Irish or German, the parties in Dubuque also divided along economic lines before the Civil War. Republicans can be thought to have rallied the successful, aspiring, and hopeful entrepreneurs, those old settlers who adapted easily to the entrepreneurial view of economic competition, and people inclined to want to enforce some standard of behavior on what they saw as an unruly mob of immigrants and workers in the city. Democrats, on the other hand, drew their support from artisans and unskilled workers, immigrants, old settlers uncomfortable with the entrepreneurial spirit, and men to whom the free market had not been kind. Some sense of these differences can be gained by looking at party activists identified in the 1860 census, with the caveat that party activists may not be representative of rank-and-file party members. Whereas almost 75 percent of Republican Party activists identified in the census had business-class occupations, fewer than 60 percent of Democrats did. Similarly, nearly 40 percent of Republican activists came from the top 10 percent of property owners in the city, compared to fewer than 20 percent of Democrats; indeed, more of the Democrats had no property than came from among the top 10 percent of property owners. The Civil War would reinforce these patterns.51 Moving from the public sphere to the private, social critics during the Panic of 1857 frequently blamed women for the city’s troubles, essentially accusing them of failing in their role as ‘‘republican mothers,’’ to use Linda K. Kerber’s evocative phrase. The local newspapers, for example, denounced the idea of women’s rights, which, according to the Times, ‘‘laid the axe at the root of the tree of domes23 native born (3 Southerners), 7 Irish, 12 Germans, and 6 other immigrants remained active in the Republican Party afterward. 50 See note 44 for sources on political affiliation. 51 See tables A.4–A.6, appendix A for data on the ethnicity, occupations, and property ownership of party activists before the war.

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tic virtue.’’ Several years of denouncing women’s addiction to ‘‘fashion,’’ while their social position in the family was ‘‘unworthily filled,’’ culminated with a letter on ‘‘Woman’’ by Episcopal bishop William Doane of New York, which the Herald published in 1861. ‘‘The age is self-indulgent,’’ Bishop Doane asserted, ‘‘and self-indulgence grows by what it feeds on. Women . . . are impatient of domestic restraints. . . . They vote their home a bore. They congregate away from its control.’’ The bishop then proceeded to lay all the country’s problems—which by the time the Herald published the letter included civil war as well as economic depression—at women’s feet: ‘‘Corruption stalks in high places. Licentiousness has well nigh lost its shame. Infidelity is bold and brazen-faced. The wave of barbarism is rolling back upon us. For these things your own sex is greatly answerable. Women are not true to themselves.’’52 Perhaps more important than the notion that women were failing themselves was the idea that they were failing their children, especially their sons. ‘‘Who ever heard of a fashionable woman’s child exhibiting any virtue and power of mind for which it became eminent?’’ the Express & Herald asked in 1859. Although the paper used gender-neutral language for the children who were being ruined and later in the same article referred to both sons and daughters of fashionable women, concern centered mostly on sons. In 1858, for example, the Times reprinted a story by Harriet Beecher Stowe about a young man gone bad, titled ‘‘What is to be done with our Charley?’’ ‘‘Many a hard, morose, bitter man,’’ Stowe argued, ‘‘has come from a Charley turned off and neglected [during childhood]; many a parental heart-ache has come from Charley left to run the streets, that mamma and sisters might play the piano and write letters in peace.’’ ‘‘Mamma and sisters,’’ Stowe concluded, ‘‘had better pay a little tax to Charley now than a terrible one by-and-by.’’ Thus, according to the newspapers at least, the perceived social decay was largely women’s fault.53 52 Times, 13 July 1858; and Herald, 25 August 1861. See also NW Farmer 3 (May 1858): 176, 3 (June 1858): 208, 4 (February 1859): 66, and 4 (March 1859): 96; Weekly Observer, 1 July 1854; Weekly Express & Herald, 29 October 1856, 15 April 1857; Express & Herald, 6, 21 December 1855, 23, 25, 27 June 1857, 4 July 1858, 27 March 1859; and Times, 22 May 1858, 31 January 1861. For ‘‘republican motherhood,’’ see Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 269–88. 53 Express & Herald, 27 March 1859; Times, 18 November 1858—Stowe’s ‘‘Our Charley’’ story originally appeared in the New York Independent. For a useful discus-

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Critics in Dubuque also perceived a more general problem with young males. An editor at the Times found it ‘‘painful . . . to witness the gradual demoralization going forward among youths of our fair city.’’ The ‘‘unrestrained independence’’ of ‘‘a hundred lads’’ in Dubuque, the paper warned, was ‘‘Education for the Gallows.’’ On one occasion the Express & Herald, alluding critically to public men whose ‘‘God is self,’’ came close to faulting the entrepreneurs for setting a bad example that young people imitated. The paper quickly added, however, that the solution lay not in reforming the current generation of men but in training ‘‘the hearts of our youth . . . from infancy up, in correct principles.’’ ‘‘The hopes of our country are centered in the young men of the nation,’’ the paper argued on another occasion. ‘‘If they grow up depraved, vicious and ignorant,’’ as the youths of Dubuque seemed to be, ‘‘they will give their character to society and to government.’’54 A related problem was that, as the Times put it in 1857, ‘‘boys become men half a dozen years sooner than they did a century ago.’’ In other words, young males very early learned to imitate the behavior of adult men, smoking, chewing tobacco, swearing, drinking, playing billiards, and adopting other vices. To suggest a lack of public support for the policies of the city government in late 1858, for example, Franc Wilkie at the Express & Herald asserted that supporters seemed ‘‘about as scarce as boys of twelve who don’t smoke, swear, and chew tobacco.’’ Henry W. Pettit, Wilkie’s ‘‘locals’’ counterpart at the Times in 1861, reported coming across an old school chum ‘‘wasting his hours in playing billiards’’ after having shown promise in school of ‘‘arriv[ing] at a useful manhood.’’ ‘‘He had become gross with dissipation; he puffed a villainous cheap segar; his breath smelled of liquor; an oath garnished every sentence.’’ In short, ‘‘he had arrived at that lowest depth of moral degradation occupied by the ‘fast boy.’ ’’ Pettit added that he had seen ‘‘scores of his schoolmates and acquaintances’’ arrive at a similar state. At the same time, however, the newspapers and other critics offered few solutions, suggesting only school attendance, family gatherings on evenings and sion of women’s child-rearing role in the nineteenth century, see Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class, esp. 155–65. 54 Times, 30 March 1861, 17, 18 November 1858; and Express & Herald, 15 October 1858, 5 January 1859. Also, Times, 22 January 1859; and NW Farmer 3 (January 1858): 10, 3 (July 1858): 221–22.

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Sundays, and corporal punishment, or what the Express & Herald called ‘‘a posteriori’’ reasoning.55

Dubuque Families on the Eve of the War Data from the 1860 census suggest that the reality in Dubuque differed from the critics’ emphasis on social decay. An important statistic here is the ratio of sons age twelve and over per family in the city. In an era before compulsory schooling to age eighteen, twelve was approximately the age at which the destinies of children began to diverge most sharply. Those whose families could afford it and could do without the income of another wage earner were able to delay their sons’ entry into the labor force; the delay meant additional education or training, which would allow them to enter the workforce at a higher level than their peers who lacked these advantages. Combined with other evidence from the census, data on school enrollment, and occupational information about young men who later enlisted in the Union army, the ratios of sons age twelve and over per family reveal much about the family strategies employed at various levels of society.56 The highest ratios of sons age twelve and over occurred among farm families and families whose head of household listed no occupation in 1860, more than double the overall city ratio.57 In other words, male children in these families lived in their parents’ households 55 For quotes, see Times, 22 December 1857; Express & Herald, 17 December 1858; Times, 30 March 1861; and Express & Herald, 31 March 1859. See also ibid., 10 March, 14, 22 April, 27 November 1858, 30 October, 11 December 1859; and Times, 31 March 1858. 56 Age twelve was also an important marker for military service. Although a few younger men enlisted, twelve was effectively the lower bound of the 1860 ages of Union army soldiers from the city. The following discussion of family strategies is informed by Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class, esp. 155–85; Claudia Goldin, ‘‘Family Strategies and the Family Economy in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Role of Secondary Workers,’’ in Hershberg, Philadelphia, 277–310; and, to a lesser extent, Gary S. Becker, A Treatise on the Family: Enlarged Edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991). 57 These ratios are computed by taking the total number of male children ages twelve and over in the relevant category of families and dividing that by the number of families in the category. Specifically, the overall city ratio was 0.38; for farm families, it was 0.77; and for families whose head had no occupation, 0.88.

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longer than any others in the city. These children were expected to contribute to their families’ support. The construction of the census data does not permit the tracing of occupations for all of the sons, but among those who subsequently joined the Union army almost half of the sons from farm families had jobs in 1860; one suspects, moreover, that even the farm sons with no occupations performed at least some farm labor. Similarly, with more than 85 percent employed in 1860, sons who enlisted from families whose head listed no occupation were more likely to be employed than any other such group from the city. Many of these families were female headed and hence particularly vulnerable to poverty, suggesting the importance of sons’ contributions to family survival. Further evidence comes from school attendance data. Dubuque opened its first high school in 1858. Although the school had to close at the end of 1859, sixty-nine of the students in the two classes admitted could be identified in the 1860 census, forty-three boys and twenty-six girls. Only 21 percent (nine) of the high school boys came from farm families or families whose heads had no occupation in the census; overall 30 percent of sons age twelve and over in the city came from these families. The high school students, moreover, came from wealthier families whose head had no occupation or from farm families whose children could combine schooling in the winter with farm work.58 Families with business class or unskilled heads had ratios of sons age twelve and over that approximated the overall city ratio.59 The explanations for this pattern diverge, however. For the business class, extended residency in the parents’ household allowed the pursuit of education and training to help children match or exceed their parents’ status. Business-class sons—business-class children in general— were greatly overrepresented among the high school students, with well over one-half of the male students coming from the less than one-quarter of boys age twelve and over who lived in business-class families; similar ratios held for the female students. Moreover, fewer For high school classes, see Times, 4 October 1858; and Express & Herald, 28 December 1858. Although begun during the Panic of 1857, the high school ultimately fell victim to the Panic and the city debt crisis; see Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 917. 59 Both high- and low-nonmanual families had ratios of 0.34, yielding an overall business-class ratio of 0.34. Unskilled families had a ratio of 0.33. Just a reminder: the overall city ratio was 0.38. 58

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than half of the business-class sons who subsequently enlisted in the Union army had occupations in 1860, further suggesting the extended opportunities for training and education such sons received. Sons who enlisted from high-nonmanual backgrounds were in fact more likely to be employed than those from low-manual ones (53 versus 41 percent), but only one such high-nonmanual son worked at an unskilled job; the other seven held low-nonmanual positions and were well placed for advancement. Among employed low-nonmanual sons who enlisted, more than half (eleven of twenty) held workingclass positions, more than half of those (six) unskilled. Thus it appears that although both business-class groups gave their sons extended opportunities for education and training, for some low-nonmanual families a son’s income was a crucial part of the family economy. Also making crucial contributions to business-class family economies were women, especially those in high-nonmanual households. In contrast to the suggestions that ‘‘fashionable’’ women failed in their role as wives and mothers, over half of high-nonmanual households in the city had related or unrelated boarders living in them, as did two-fifths of low-nonmanual households (excluding hotels, boarding houses, and institutional settings). Taking in boarders was clearly a strategy more likely to be followed in business-class households. Only a little over one-fourth of artisan households and not quite onefifth of unskilled households included boarders. Boarders increased a family’s income, with most or all of the additional work to maintain both the family and the boarders devolving on the women of the household. On the other hand, working-class women also contributed to family economies, though in ways not always reflected in the census: by taking in sewing or laundry, doing light manufacturing, or other work. Mona Conzett, for instance, frequently provided primary support for her family by taking in laundry but was shown with no occupation in the census.60 60 Specifically, the numbers of families with boarders or extended families were high nonmanual, 116 of 211 households (55.0 percent); low nonmanual, 164 of 414 (39.6 percent); artisans, 206 of 772 (26.7 percent); and unskilled, 182 of 920 (19.8 percent). Not cited in the text were farmers, 40 of 88 (45.5 percent); unclassifiable occupations, 3 of 6 (50 percent); and heads with no occupation, 82 of 272 (30.1 percent). It might also be noted that in addition to having higher percentages of households with boarders, business-class families had higher percentages of households with domestic help; domestics are not counted as boarders for this analysis. For Conzett family, see Conzett, Recollections, esp. 226–27 and 260; Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 1–3; and Census 1860, Pop., p. 239 (the ‘‘Concert’’ family).

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Families such as the Conzetts, headed by an unskilled laborer, kept sons at home at the same ratio as business-class families but not to support extended career training. Rather, unskilled families needed their sons’ labor to maintain the family, especially as the head of household aged and could do less work. Children from unskilled family backgrounds, for example, were scarcely represented among the city’s high school pupils. Only three of the male and two of the female high school students who could be identified in the census came from unskilled families; in other words, though unskilled families accounted for more than one-fourth of the sons age twelve and over in the city, their sons provided only one-fourteenth of the high school boys. The emphasis on employment for sons in these families can be seen in the data for those sons who enlisted in the Union army. Half of the sons who enlisted (twenty-seven of fifty-four) had occupations before enlisting—a higher percentage than almost any other group. Most of these sons, nineteen, worked unskilled jobs like their parents. Five others had achieved limited mobility into skilled work; one farmed; and just two had moved into the business class as clerks, including Josiah Conzett. Finally, by a significant margin, artisan families had the lowest ratio of sons age twelve and over in them.61 The evidence suggests that artisan sons normally took jobs and left home at a younger age than sons from other families. Sons from artisan families, for example, were the youngest group among Dubuque’s Union army soldiers. Furthermore, two-thirds (thirty-two of forty-eight) of the sons who enlisted from artisan families had no occupations before enlisting, the lowest such percentage in the city. Finally, only eleven of the sixty-nine high school students came from artisan families; among male students, six of forty-three came from artisan families. Taken together, these facts suggest that unlike business-class families, artisan families could not afford to support a son during a lengthy period of education and training. At the same time, in contrast with unskilled and farm families, artisan families apparently did not need more than 61 The artisan sons’ ratio was 0.24. At the same time, the available evidence suggests little difference in the overall size of artisan families compared to other families in the city. The number of children per family in those families that saw at least one son enlist averaged high nonmanual, 3.3; low nonmanual, 4.6; artisan, 4.4; unskilled, 4.6; farmers, 4.6; and ⬍blank⬎, 4.2. The construction of the data prevents computation of average family sizes for the city as a whole.

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one male wage earner to survive. Artisan sons, perhaps, also chose not to defer marriage for the sake of career, a common business-class family strategy.62 Anticipating the results of subsequent chapters, it seems that military service in the Civil War was absorbed as one more option in family strategies in Dubuque. Among sons who lived in their parents’ households, those most likely to enlist came from low-nonmanual and artisan backgrounds. Low-nonmanual families had a mixed record regarding their sons before the war: some had the opportunity for extended education, while others had to be prepared to take any job to help support the family. Artisan sons had commonly taken jobs and left home at a younger age than other sons in the city. On the other hand, high-nonmanual, unskilled, and farm sons and sons from families where the head had no occupation were less well represented among the soldiers from the city. High-nonmanual families generally protected their sons from enlistment, as they had provided extended opportunities for education and training before the war. For sons from unskilled and farm families and families where the head had no occupation, a rate of enlistment similar to that of highnonmanual sons suggests the extent to which these sons were needed to help support the family. At the same time, however, unskilled workers living independently of parents in 1860 were, along with similar artisans, the most likely independent men to enlist, a further indication of the precariousness of unskilled life in Dubuque. The army represented a permanent job and a steady paycheck. It may also be that unskilled families chose to have fathers enlist, both because of their traditional role as primary breadwinner and to protect the next generation from the dangers of war.63 On the eve of the Civil War, then, Dubuque was a fragile place economically, politically, and socially. The city’s commercially fueled economic boom of the mid-1850s had turned to bust in the Panic of 1857. Unskilled workers and female-headed households felt the impact first, but as recovery led the city away from commerce during That artisan sons left home to pursue apprenticeships is another possibility, although the low incidence of boarding in artisan households would suggest this was not a significant feature of life in pre–Civil War Dubuque. 63 As chapter 3 will detail, 30.3 percent of independent (that is, not living in their parents’ household) unskilled men who enlisted in the Union army had families with children; only independent artisan soldiers (37.7 percent) were more likely to have children at home. 62

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the war years, even those in high-nonmanual positions would feel the effects. Politically, years of effective Democratic Party hegemony gave way during the Panic to a hotly contested and deeply divided political scene. Although Democrats would reestablish their control during the war, the divisions if anything deepened. Socially, too, divisions ran deep, as entrepreneurs vied with patricians to stamp the city in their image and opinion leaders variously focused on immigrants, workers, women, and young men and boys as the source of an imagined social breakdown. In this case, however, many of the same leaders saw the war not as a problem but as an opportunity to promote civic virtue and to restore society to a harmonious basis.64

See the suggestive argument in Mark E. Kann, On the Man Question: Gender and Civic Virtue in America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), esp. ix–x, 3–32. Kann argues that early liberal theorists saw military service as the key to inculcating republican civic virtue and to making liberal individualism a viable social philosophy: ‘‘liberal individualism demanded republican civic virtue’’ (x). 64

CHAPTER 2

‘‘Volunteer While You May’’: Mobilization for the War Come, then, fellow citizens, come to the rescue. Come from your workshops, your stores, your farms and your labors. Come without distinction of party or nationality. Come without regard to position in society and without care for position in the army, save that of brave soldier in your country’s cause. Come of your own free will . . . volunteer while you may. —Dubuque Daily Times, July 16, 1862

Hopes that the war might reestablish harmony in Dubuque went unfulfilled. At the Herald, Dennis A. Mahony adopted a hard-line position against the war from its beginning. Meanwhile, the Times supported the war and regularly called for suppression of it rival, preferably by the government but by a mob if necessary; in 1861 a company of soldiers training the city was deployed to block one such mob action. With Peace Democrats dominant in the city, by 1862 Dubuque had earned a national reputation as ‘‘a Secession hole.’’ The next year, following the draft riots in New York City in July 1863, some in Dubuque feared the final disintegration of local society was at hand. Business-class residents accused the Herald of urging mob attacks on their residences and wrote to the governor for protection. They wanted soldiers stationed in the city, one said, who would ‘‘not fire blank cartridges but give them [possible rioters] cold lead’’; another thought 300 men and a couple of cannons necessary to preserve the peace. At about the same time, a group of German residents formed their own militia company to act as a home guard. Although they had guns, they wrote to the governor that they were not averse to receiving whatever arms the state might be able to spare. More important, they wanted it understood that they would not serve out-

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side of Dubuque County, because ‘‘no active resistance against the Government is to be expected, except in the County of Dubuque.’’1 The final conflagration never came. Beyond some isolated brawls, no war-related violence occurred in the city during the war. Moreover, the city filled its enlistment quotas throughout the war without having to employ conscription. Nevertheless, wartime opposition formed an important part of the context in which the Union army tried to recruit soldiers from the city. Another element of the context included the ongoing economic restructuring in the city. The local economy, which had just begun to emerge from the Panic of 1857 when the war broke out, plunged into a recession from which it would not recover until 1863. The war also stimulated manufacturing development, however, and this development, along with the continuing derangement of the commercial economy, meant that by the end of the war the city’s steps were firmly planted on the road to a manufacturing economy.2

1861: Volunteerism By early 1860 men as different as Dennis Mahony and patrician Solon M. Langworthy believed that Dubuque had, in Mahony’s words, ‘‘passed through the valley and shadow of financial Death and is now with vigorous steps climbing once more the ascents beyond.’’ Langworthy concurred, noting in his diary that ‘‘the business men of the City are in good Spirits.’’ For Mahony the issue was very personal. In 1855 he had turned control of the Express & Herald newspaper 1 Times, 12 July 1861, 21 January 1862 (quoting Philadelphia Press); F. E. Bissell to Governor S. J. Kirkwood, 20 July 1863, in Correspondence, Disloyal Sentiments, box 1, 1863, folder 1, Record Group 101, Iowa Adjutant General’s Office, Iowa State Historical Society, Des Moines (hereafter RG 101, [year], folder [no.]); Delos E. Lyon to N. B. Baker, adjutant general of Iowa, 20 July 1863, ibid., folder 5; and for German militia, see C. W. G. Joerns, et al. to S. J. Kirkwood, 30 July 1863, Joerns to Kirkwood, 5 August 1863, both ibid. 2 Useful overviews of recruiting in the North include James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); James W. Geary, We Need Men: The Union Draft in the Civil War (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1991); Fred A. Shannon, The Organization and Administration of the Union Army 1861–1865 (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clarke, 1928); and Eugene C. Murdock, One Million Men: The Civil War Draft in the North (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1971).

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over to his partner, Joseph B. Dorr, and tried his hand at other businesses, including real estate speculation. In February 1860, however, he wrote to a friend that he had ‘‘lost all I had, some $40,000 in the crash.’’ After considering leaving Dubuque, Mahony reacquired the newspaper under favorable terms negotiated with Dorr. He took possession after that fall’s presidential election.3 Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the election and the beginning of Southern secession in December squelched Dubuque’s economic recovery. Solon Langworthy found business suddenly ‘‘dull owing to the unsettled Condition of of [sic] the Country’’ and the suspension of ‘‘all Business Between the Free Ⳮ Slave States.’’ To Mahony it seemed as if ‘‘the blossom of prosperity just as it began to bloom out this way, has been plucked off.’’ Others remained optimistic. Railroad promoter Platt Smith, for example, argued as late as April 1861 that as Dubuque was a rail and river transportation hub, the city’s economic position would always remain strong: ‘‘The Mississippi River cannot be abolished, it is the great competitor of the railroads. . . . It adds ten cents and perhaps fifteen to the value of every acre of land in Iowa annually by reducing the prices of freights.’’ On the same day Smith’s comment was published in the Times, Fort Sumter surrendered to the Confederates. Dubuque’s merchants then watched as the river was in fact ‘‘abolished,’’ or at least closed to Northern trade along much of its length.4 News of Sumter’s surrender reached Dubuque two days later. A large crowd gathered outside the office of the Times, where the telegraphic dispatch with the news was printed on single sheets and sent ‘‘flying out of our windows.’’ A near mob scene followed. ‘‘The surging crowd beneath clutched the eddying strips, almost fighting for them, as starving men would strive for bread,’’ wrote assistant editor Henry W. Pettit. As Pettit read the crowd, it greeted the news with a mixture of relief at having some definite knowledge, resignation that 3 Herald, 24 November 1860; SML Diary, 21 May 1860, p. 176; and for Mahony’s personal history, see Express & Herald, 17 December 1855, 6 June 1857, 23 June 1858; Times, 25 August 1858; and letter Mahony to Charles Mason, 9 February 1860, Dennis A. Mahony Papers, CDH (originals in Charles Mason Correspondence, IHSD). For other declarations of the arrival of better times, see Express & Herald, 9 April 1861; and Times, 9, 14 April 1859. 4 SML Diary, 16, 23 December 1860, pp. 205, 206; Mahony to Mason, 27 December 1860, Dennis A. Mahony Papers, CDH; and Times, 13 April 1861. See also Times, 15 June 1861.

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Sumter had indeed fallen, and ‘‘determination to avenge the deed.’’ He further noticed that ‘‘the martial spirit runs high’’ and predicted that people’s ‘‘military longings will have an opportunity to be gratified before they are many days older.’’ Soon Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood sent word that Dubuque would be required to furnish two companies (roughly 200 men) to serve for ninety days in Iowa’s first regiment of soldiers. The companies filled quickly, and four days after the published call for troops they were aboard a steamboat headed toward their camp of rendezvous in Davenport.5 Recruiting during the first year of the war essentially relied on volunteerism. Men who aspired to commissions as officers sought approval of the state governor, then opened recruiting offices and advertised for recruits. Once they had filled a company (80 to 100 officers and men), it would be assigned to a regiment (a group of ten companies), sent to a camp of rendezvous and training to await the completion of the regimental organization, and then sworn or ‘‘mustered’’ into the army. After a longer or shorter stay in camp, depending on how quickly their regiment filled, they would be sent to the field. Regiments raised this way carried state designations—the First Iowa Infantry, for example—and throughout the war the Union maintained a separation between this ‘‘volunteer army’’ and the Regular Army; the former represented by far the largest share of the Union’s fighting force, though the latter also expanded during the war. In Dubuque, so many men came forward in the war’s first days that four companies, not just the two required, could have been created. For subsequent troop calls, however, the local recruiting field became more and more crowded—there was no lack of aspiring officers—while volunteers grew increasingly scarce. In addition to state organizations, Regular Army recruiters saw Dubuque as a convenient base of operation for reaching potential recruits in a large geographic area and thus swelled the number of recruiting offices in the city. From August 1861 until the recruiting environment was radically changed in 1863, Dubuque never had fewer than five open recruiting offices. With the recruiting field that badly fragmented, all struggled to fill their companies.6 5 Times, 16 April 1861; and Franc B. Wilkie, The Iowa First: Letters from the War (Dubuque: Herald Book and Job Establishment, 1861), 5. 6 This broad overview of the recruiting field in Dubuque is based on a close examination of the local newspapers for the war years.

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Other difficulties that arose in 1861 dampened the volunteer spirit. Guns, for example, were scarce. ‘‘If no arrangement has yet been made for arms for this State,’’ Governor Kirkwood told the War Department in April 1861, ‘‘do, for God’s sake, send us some.’’ A few months later Kirkwood added that ‘‘the delay in furnishing [arms and equipment] to other regiments discourages enlistments.’’ Once received, the arms themselves further discouraged enlistments. Franc B. Wilkie, traveling with the First Iowa Infantry as a reporter for the Herald, described the guns given to that regiment as ‘‘infinitely more dangerous to friend than enemy.’’ And, as Kirkwood told the War Department, ‘‘our boys don’t feel willing to carry [such guns] to the field to meet men armed with better weapons.’’7 The situation with other material elements of military service was little, if any, better. The First Iowa veterans made quite a spectacle in Dubuque when they returned home at the end of their ninety days’ service in August 1861 dressed in brand new uniforms given to them specifically for the occasion. For most of the period of their service, however, the men were dressed ‘‘in tatters to an extent . . . that would excite the profoundest contempt of the seediest beggar.’’ Nor was the food given the First Iowa likely to boost enlistments. During one four-day march that covered seventy-eight miles, for instance, members of the regiment were issued only one cup of cornmeal mush per day as their rations. The soldiers supplemented this unhealthy diet with corn foraged from surrounding fields. The other great staple of the soldiers’ diet was pork. ‘‘Oh ye gods, how I do loathe the cursed pork,’’ Franc Wilkie reported. ‘‘Its scrofulous, greasy, foul-looking slices cover every platter—it reposes in superlative nastiness in every barrel!’’ A member of a First Iowa company recruited in the city of Burlington, who claimed never to have eaten pork in his life before joining the army, considered the amount of 7 War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 serial volumes (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901; hereafter, OR), Series 3, 1:128, 499 (Kirkwood quotes); and Wilkie, Iowa First, 24. See also Eugene F. Ware, The Lyon Campaign in Missouri (Topeka, Kans.: Crane & Company, 1907; reprint, Iowa City: Press of the Camp Pope Bookshop, 1991), 79–80, 155–56, 196, 346 (page citations are to reprint edition). Other sources on supply include OR, Series 3, 1:163, 220, 221, 353, 407, 560–61, 790; and Cyril B. Upham, ‘‘Arms and Equipment for the Iowa Troops in the Civil War,’’ IJHP 16 (January 1918): 3–52 (esp. 15–23).

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pork fed the soldiers a measure of the country’s lack of regard for them.8 The homecoming of the First Iowa veterans gave a short-term boost to recruiting in Dubuque. Josiah Conzett noted that after seeing the First Iowa veterans parade through the streets in their new uniforms and the way the city’s young women responded to them, ‘‘us Boys envied them and then & there Vowed to be Soldier Boys.’’ Within a month, Conzett and two of his friends had enlisted in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry. Many members of the First Iowa themselves subsequently reenlisted, including another of Conzett’s friends and his brother David, both of whom also joined the Fifth Cavalry.9 But the stories Wilkie and the veterans told of supply problems as well as drudgery in the army discouraged enlistments in the longer term. To counter these negative stories, military recruiters began making greater use of advertising. The earliest advertisements for recruits had been simple and straightforward, such as a brief notice for ‘‘applicants’’ to fill a company for the First Iowa in April 1861. Later in the year a typical advertisement stressed the advantages of service in a particular company and asserted that material conditions in the army were better than rumored. An advertisement for a sharpshooter company, for example, said members would do ‘‘no guard duty’’ and receive ‘‘dry winter quarters.’’ John Ruehl, trying to raise a company of Germans for the Sixteenth Iowa Infantry, offered ‘‘Pay and Subsistence . . . from the day of Enlistment,’’ with ‘‘clothes [to] be furnished as soon as the men are in camp.’’ In its effort to promote Ruehl’s company, the Times added that ‘‘Beer’’ along with ‘‘rations and clothing’’ would start ‘‘from the date of enlistment.’’ And as part of an abortive attempt in 1861 to raise an Irish regiment in Iowa, John H. O’Neill’s advertisement explained that the regiment would ‘‘have the power to select its own Chaplin 8 Wilkie, Iowa First, 94–95 (uniforms), 69 (pork); Andrew Y. McDonald, The Personal Civil War Diary of Andrew Young McDonald, April 23, 1861 to September 12, 1861 (Dubuque: A.Y. McDonald Manufacturing, 1956), entries for 22 through 25 July 1861; and Ware, Lyon Campaign, 117, 211, and 346. 9 Josiah Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War: Before, during & after, 1861–1865,’’ memoir, 1909, pp. 9–11, CDH; Conzett, Recollections of People and Events, Dubuque, Iowa 1846–1890 (from a manuscript written in 1905, CDH; Dubuque: Union Hoermann Press, 1971), 197–98, 218, 247, 267; Charles Weigel and David Conzett, First Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; and Weigel, David and Josiah Conzett, George Healey, and Charles Gilliam, Fifth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA.

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[sic],’’ guaranteeing that Catholic Irishmen would not have to endure a Protestant chaplain.10 Despite such creative appeals, only a few companies managed to complete their organizations in late 1861; of the preceding examples, only Ruehl’s German company attracted enough volunteers to be mustered into service. Although many circumstances combined to slow the pace of volunteering, local war supporters laid the blame at the feet of Dennis Mahony, the editor of the Herald. After retaking possession of the paper from Joseph Dorr in November 1860, Mahony embarked on a course critical of the war. He began from the perspective that force alone could neither restore the Union nor earn the South its independence. Another Peace Democrat in Dubuque put it best: With Americans fighting on both sides, how could the North expect to whip the South, or vice versa? The result would be a long, bloody, and ultimately inconclusive war, so why not find a compromise? ‘‘This is not the time for men to give way to their passions,’’ Mahony urged after Fort Sumter surrendered.11 When war supporters responded by accusing him of disloyalty, Mahony declared his readiness ‘‘to put down rebellion, to sustain the Union, to defend the country and to make the American flag respected whether abroad or at home.’’ Indeed, he argued, ‘‘the class of citizens of which I am one and with whom I am presumed to have influence owe, besides the obligations of allegiance, a debt of gratitude to the Government which invested them with civil rights to serve it in time of need. This obligation, both of fidelity and duty, I fully acknowledge and am ready to perform.’’ He even offered to recruit a regiment of Irishmen to help fight the war, but Governor Kirkwood doubted his loyalty and commissioned someone else to raise an Irish regiment in Iowa.12 10 Examples and quotes in the text are from Times, 20 April 1861; Herald, 15 November 1861; Times, 9, 11 January 1862; and Herald, 17 September 1861. 11 Times, 18 May 1862 (Peace Democrat’s comment); and Herald, 16 April 1861. See also Herald, 11, 13 April, 28 August 1861. 12 Herald, 17 September 1861. For Irish regiment in 1861, see D. A. Mahony, The Prisoner of State (New York: George W. Carleton, 1863), 392–94; and C. C. Flint to S. J. Kirkwood, 4 August 1862, RG 101, 1862, folder 1. See also Randolph W. Lyon, Dubuque: The Encyclopedia (Dubuque: First National Bank of Dubuque, 1991), 71. Why Mahony should have offered to participate in a war he opposed is unclear. Several points suggest themselves. First, we can accept his statement that as an immigrant he felt a great sense of duty to the country. Alternatively, he may have thought that from the inside he would have more influence in holding the war within

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In reality Mahony was neither as dedicated to suppressing the rebellion by whatever means as some of his comments asserted, nor as eager for Southern success in the war as his critics charged. Instead, during the first sixteen months of the war Mahony offered forceful, reasoned arguments against the war rooted in the elements of his prewar ideology. He undertook, for example, to call the government ‘‘to a sense of its duty,’’ which in his terms meant strict adherence to the Constitution. In a long editorial in June 1861, he catalogued President Lincoln’s usurpation of constitutional authority, finding violations of nearly every article—from intruding upon free commerce to contravening the Second Amendment. Mahony’s devotion to his interpretation of the Constitution was unswerving. ‘‘If the Administration only conform to the Constitution in the prosecution of the war,’’ he wrote privately at the end of 1861, ‘‘much as the war itself might be justly deprecated, we could at least acquiesce in the existing state of things if not take a part in carrying out whatever policy the Administration may have marked out, providing always that it be Constitutional.’’ He added, however, that ‘‘I have a feeling of distrust and suspicion of the sincerity of the ruling powers.’’13 While maintaining his commitment to strict construction of the Constitution, Mahony’s arguments also reflected other prewar Democratic themes: antiprivilege, Western sectionalism, pro-workers, and republicanism. For instance, he declared his allegiance to the government but expressed his opposition to the Republican administration. In 1857 he had made a similar argument relative to the Dubuque & Pacific Railroad, criticizing the management but carefully separating that criticism from his support for the railroad itself. In the war crisis, as Mahony saw it, Republican management of the government seemed designed ‘‘to goad our erring . . . brethren of the South’’ into war, a war that Republican doctrine defined as ‘‘irrepressible.’’ Republicans would then have the opportunity to realize their dream of ‘‘a new kind of Union; not a Union of States,’’ as existed under the (what he saw as) the bounds set by the Constitution. The two points are not mutually exclusive. On the other hand, perhaps he offered anticipating rejection. 13 Herald, 19 June 1861; and Mahony to Charles Mason, 30 December 1861, Dennis A. Mahony Papers, CDH. For other constitutional arguments from Mahony, see Herald, 11 November, 9 December 1860, 11, 13, 14, 26, 27 April, 18 May, 3, 22 August 1861, 25 February 1862. See also Mahony, Prisoner of State, 29–116 and 246–47.

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Constitution, ‘‘but a consolidated Nation with a centralized power ruling over it.’’ On certain occasions, Mahony expressed his fear that the administration was raising a ‘‘subservient army’’ for the purpose of establishing a military despotism, or what he called a ‘‘stratocracy.’’ Whatever the form of government, he thought ‘‘the Massachusetts school of politics’’ would dominate the strengthened central government, with policies ‘‘including the total abolition of slavery, the imposition of a high protective tariff, the substitution of specie money by paper currency, the legal and social distinction of classes in community and society by which capital shall become the ruler and poverty the serf.’’ Republican policies, in other words, would ‘‘make rich men richer, and consequently, poor men poorer.’’14 Although historians usually focus on the federal draft law of 1863 as the major source of the complaint that the Civil War was a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight, Mahony stressed the war’s class elements from its beginning. It was an article of his faith that ‘‘to a great extent’’ the volunteers came from among ‘‘those who have the least interest in the result of the contest’’—namely, the poor and working class. He also thought that enlistments from Eastern manufacturing states, which in his view had provoked the war and had the most to gain from it, lagged far behind those from the West. In an August 1861 editorial he asked: ‘‘whose turn is it next’’ to enlist? ‘‘The Democrats of the North, and especially those in the humbler walks of life, have done a reasonably fair share of service in the Army and of fighting; is it not time now that those who provoked the war and who clamor loudest for its continuance enter the lists for a while and do their share of service? Come on ye talking Patriots, and fill up the ranks.’’ In September 1861 he even advocated the creation of a federal draft, suggesting that would be the only way to get the talking patriots into the army. Accordingly, when lawyer and vocal war supporter William Mills argued that Mahony’s class rhetoric helped ‘‘to prevent ‘ignorant Irishmen’ from enlisting,’’ Mahony had a ready anHerald, 9 (‘‘goad’’), 13 April (‘‘new kind of Union’’), 17 November 1861 (‘‘Mass. school of politics’’); and Mahony, Prisoner of State, esp. 246 (‘‘statocracy’’). See also ‘‘Source Material of Iowa History: Mahony-Smith Letters on the Dubuque and Pacific Railroad, 1857,’’ Iowa Journal of History 54 (October 1956): 335–60; Herald, 1 January 1863; Hubert H. Wubben, ‘‘The Dubuque Herald in the Fight for the Northwest’’ (M.A. thesis, University of Iowa, 1958), 31–33; and Wubben, Civil War Iowa and the Copperhead Movement (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1980), 32. 14

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swer. Mills was not an ignorant Irishman, so what was his excuse for not volunteering?15 Mills was one of many in the city who displayed a great zeal for the war. As early as January 1861, the then editor of the Times, Frank W. Palmer, asserted that ‘‘Treason has been stalking unobstructed over the country about long enough! If we have any Federal power; if we have any Union worth rallying for (and we have) let powder, and ball, and hemp be brought into full requisition!’’ Similar to the way some in the city had interpreted the Panic of 1857, many supporters saw the war as a catharsis that could restore the health of American society. In a sermon after Fort Sumter fell, for example, the Reverend A. A. E. Taylor at the First Presbyterian Church argued that the war represented ‘‘a harbinger of millenial [sic] days.’’ Local war supporters also rejected calls for compromise and peace. Peace through compromise appealed only ‘‘to the distorted mind,’’ according to the Reverend B. D. Alden of the Centenary Methodist-Episcopal Church. ‘‘Better have a secured and permanent peace,’’ Alden continued, ‘‘though purchased at the price of blood and suffering than the quiet of the past giving birth to treason and rebellion.’’ An anonymous letter to the Times in June 1861 further described ‘‘the Horrors of Peace,’’ including ‘‘legal sanction of slavery through all the Northern States,’’ ‘‘the reopening of the slave trade,’’ ‘‘repudiation’’ of debts, and an end to the ‘‘free pulpit and press.’’16 15 For 1861 Mahony class rhetoric, see, for example, Herald, 2 July, 2 August (‘‘whose turn’’), 7, 14 (‘‘least interest’’ and exchange with Mills), 18, 19 (draft advocacy) September, 1, 2 October 1861. Broadly speaking, Mahony’s positions were consistent with those of the better-known Clement Vallandigham and other peace advocates. Two differences stand out, however. First, Mahony was more critical of secession than Vallandigham was. And second, he more willingly acknowledged limits to states’ rights, as in his advocacy of a federal draft in 1861. For Vallandigham, see Frank L. Klement, The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham and the Civil War (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1970; reprinted New York: Fordham University Press, 1998). 16 Times, 16 January 1861 (Palmer); A. A. E. Taylor, Israel against Benjamin: A Sermon for the Times (Dubuque: Upham & Gilmore, 1861), quote from 15; and Times, 29 November 1862 (Alden), 4 June 1861. See also Times, 6, 17 January 1861. As with the opposition, local opinion in favor of the war was consistent with national views. See George M. Fredrickson, The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), esp. 73–84. See also C. Robert Kemble, The Image of the Army Officer in America: Background for Current Views (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973), 11–12, where ‘‘war as a necessary catharsis’’ is described as one of the four ‘‘overlapping national outlooks on warfare’’ in the United States.

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Furthermore, war supporters did not allow Mahony to monopolize talk of adherence to the Constitution and republican ideals. ‘‘The battle to-day is that of Liberty against Tyranny,’’ Reverend Taylor declared in April 1861, ‘‘and if we fail then liberty is lost and freedom finds its hopeless grave.’’ Every patriot, Taylor continued, had the duty ‘‘to stand up boldly and heartily for our Country and our Government, established by the blood, consecrated by the prayers, and baptized in the tears of our sires—to uphold with all the powers that God has given him, our Constitution and Union, the seal and bond of our liberty and national existence.’’ According to John Bittmann, a German newspaper editor, ‘‘our country and its free institutions are unquestionably on trial’’ in the war. More generally, war supporters presented Southern leaders as antirepublican ‘‘usurpers,’’ ‘‘tyrants,’’ and ‘‘autocrats.’’ Anyone, moreover, who wanted to know what life would be like in a union restored by compromise needed to look no further than Mahony and his followers in the Democratic Party. ‘‘Every person who knows anything of Mahony as a politician, knows that he is a perfect tyrant,’’ said the Times. To underline the antirepublican nature of peace men, war supporters called them ‘‘Tories,’’ equating them with the supporters of the British during the American Revolution.17 Along with rejecting calls for compromise and asserting the importance of the war in preserving liberty, war supporters in Dubuque responded to Mahony’s class rhetoric by accusing him of discouraging enlistments. Republicans and other war supporters believed that Mahony controlled the working class and Irish of the city, who could never be accused of ‘‘reasoning or thinking for themselves.’’ If the pages of the Herald contained little but criticism of the war effort 17 Taylor, Israel against Benjamin, quotes from 9, 8; and Times, 4 April, 11 September 1861, 2, 3 April, 11 June, 11 September (Bittman), 10, 11, 23 October, 4 November, 19 December 1862, 5 June 1863. See also SML Diary, 3 February, 6 October 1861, pp. 209, 229, for accounts of sermons similar to Taylor’s from more radical ministers; and Ware, Lyon Campaign, 75—a minister in Burlington told Ware’s company that if any of them died in battle, they ‘‘would go right straight to Heaven.’’ The term Tory remained in common usage until replaced by the more familiar Copperhead in spring 1863. Tory was also used in the South, with Unionists the ones accused of being Tories; Wayne K. Durrill, War of Another Kind: A Southern Community in the Great Rebellion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 99.

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and conditions in the military, therefore, those who read it would be less likely to volunteer. Mahony, according to the Times in June 1861, tried ‘‘to keep the readers of his paper from fighting the battles of their country.’’ But the deeper point, as Mills’s ‘‘ignorant Irishmen’’ comment suggests, is that war supporters expected the poor and working class to provide the largest proportion of the soldiers from the city. That Mahony’s antiwar position interfered with that expectation would become clearer in August 1862.18 Before that, however, Mahony’s class rhetoric helped further the identification of the business class in Dubuque with the opposition to the mainline Democratic Party. Specifically, the city’s War Democrats came precisely and overwhelmingly from the groups that were the least at home in the Democratic Party as it evolved during the 1850s and early 1860s.19 The outstanding features of the War Democrats were that more than six of every ten were native born, seven of every ten had business-class occupations, and eight of every ten owned at least some property. With average property ownership of $10,868.12, as a group War Democrats owned much more property than either the Republican ($7,527.60) or Democratic ($4,196.15) leadership. The defectors included patrician Richard Bonson: in the 1850s, Bonson had expressed concerns about Irish control of the party and participated in the Reform Party but in 1860 strongly supported Stephen A. Douglas for president and was generally uncomfortable with the city’s emerging entrepreneurial spirit. Joseph B. Dorr, Mahony’s ‘‘old and bosom friend,’’ also defected. Although Dorr asserted that Democrats would ‘‘hold the Republican party responsible for the manner in which they discharge the duties of the position entrusted to them by our people,’’ that could wait ‘‘to be determined when our National existence is assured.’’ Dorr, it might be added, fit the profile of the War Democrat. He was a businessman (newspaper proprietor) born in New York State and owning $8,000 18 See, for example, Times, 4 April, 26 June (comment on Mahony), 11 September 1861, 2, 3 April, 11 June, 12 September, 10 (‘‘reasoning’’), 11, 23 October, 4 November, 19 December 1862, 5 June 1863. 19 See tables A.7–A.9, appendix A for the specific data described in this and the following paragraph. Because of the coding scheme adopted, the activists here include all those active before or during the war, minus in the Democrats’ case the War Democrats. The total numbers are 279 Republicans, 376 Democrats, and 69 War Democrats.

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in total property in 1860. Mahony, in contrast, had the same occupation but was born in Ireland and owned no property.20 The propertyless, working class, and Irish filled the gaps in the Democratic leadership left by the defection of men such as Bonson and Dorr. The number of Democratic activists with no property increased from one in five in the prewar party to one in three, and the average property owned by party leaders declined by over $3,500. The working-class and Irish portions of the leadership each increased to almost half, compared to about one-third each before the war. Given the defection of the native born as War Democrats, moreover, it is not surprising that native, non-Southerners declined from one in four to one in six among Democratic leaders. Meanwhile, the Republican leadership also experienced greater working-class participation, increasing from about one in six to almost one in three working class, and it experienced an even larger, $5,000, decline in average property ownership; the average Republican activist still owned almost $3,500 more property than the average Democratic activist. A portion of the increase in working-class and poorer Republicans came from small gains in German and other immigrant (excluding the Irish) activism in the party. In general, though, although the war seems to have mobilized the poor and working class for greater participation in both parties, it also left the native born and the business class arrayed more than ever in opposition to the mainstream Democratic Party.21 Consistent with prewar political patterns, war supporters tried to make Mahony and the Democrats’ opposition to the war into an economic issue. As a ‘‘natural consequence’’ of its reputation for disloyalty, the Times asserted on one occasion, ‘‘Dubuque has been visited with very few of the favors incident to the war, either at the hands of 20 Richard Bonson Diaries, esp. 8, 12, 25, 29 January, 25 February, 15 April, 10 May, 13, 14, 21, 25, 26 June, 19, 25, 30 July, 21, 30 September 1861, IHSI; and Herald, 10 October 1861. For Dorr, Express & Herald, 12 February 1858 (‘‘bosom friend’’); Times, 18 June 1861; Herald, 17 August 1861 (Dorr quote); and Census 1860, Pop., pp. 43, 263. For his part, Mahony attacked Dorr with a vigor usually reserved for Republicans—he was ‘‘Dorr the Disorganizer,’’ ‘‘Miserable Dorr,’’ ‘‘Contemptible Dorr,’’ and ‘‘Demoniac Dorr’’ all in a single issue of the Herald: 5 September 1861. 21 The identification of the business community with support for the war can also be seen in fact that the Times never urged a boycott of ‘‘disloyal’’ merchants, perhaps for fear of a backlash against ‘‘loyal’’ ones; the one time a question about the loyalty of local merchants was raised, in a letter to the editor, the editors let it pass without further comment; see Times, 2 November 1862.

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the State or National Governments.’’ Although it cited little specific evidence, at various times during the war the Times reported rumors of injury to the city’s interests based on its disloyal image. For instance, in May 1863 the Times repeated a rumor copied from the Waterloo (Iowa) Courier that ‘‘loyal merchants’’ in towns west of Dubuque ‘‘are about to carry into effect a diversion of trade to Chicago’’ bypassing Dubuque.22 On the other hand, from a purely economic perspective, diverting trade from Dubuque might have made sense. In the years before the war the Mississippi River had lost much of its significance in the local economy; according to one source, by 1860 the debate raged not so much over the merits of rail versus river transportation but over how vigorously Dubuque should pursue a rail link with Milwaukee to compete with Chicago. Nevertheless, when the Mississippi closed in 1861, the economic impact in Dubuque was acute. The existing railroads struggled to keep pace with the volume of shipments into and out of the city. Early in the war, criticism of a ‘‘Great Freight Blockade’’ at Dunleith emerged. The situation was no better on the way into the city from the west. Like its cousin the Illinois Central, the Dubuque & Sioux City (formerly Dubuque & Pacific) had more business than it could handle; by February 1865, for instance, an estimated 1 million bushels of grain were stored at various depots along the road awaiting shipment.23 Perhaps inevitably, the railroads took advantage of their position of monopoly. Even the Times—long criticized by Democrats as ‘‘the organ of the railroad monopolists’’—noticed early on that whenever prices ‘‘improved a cent or two . . . in New York, the roads at once added on that amount to their freight rates.’’ ‘‘The railroad monopolies of the Free States between here and New York have not only ‘acted the hog,’ ’’ the commercial editor for the Times argued in May 1862, ‘‘but they have played the part of villainous and unconscionable extortioners.’’ While freight rates were rising, the Illinois Central fur22 Times, 22 March 1864, 24 May 1863. For other examples see, for instance, Times, 8 April, 4 December 1862, 12 March 1863. 23 Franklin T. Oldt, History of Dubuque County, Iowa (Chicago: Goodspeed Historical Association, 1911), 133–34; Helen Wulkow, ‘‘Dubuque in the Civil War Period’’ (M.A. thesis, Northwestern University, 1941), 11–14; Wubben, Civil War Iowa, 13–16; Herald, 21 June 1861, 2 February 1865; Times, 3 December 1864; Semi-weekly Times, 10, 14, 21 February 1865; and SML Diary, 11 February 1865, p. 285.

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ther acted the villain at Dubuque in spring 1862 by starting a transfer company to ferry goods across the river. As a result, the city’s independent teamsters and other working people who had previously done this work were thrown out of employment. Similarly, smaller produce merchants, who had been able to save a little money by delivering their produce to the depot in Dunleith themselves, lost that option. Commerce in Dubuque thereafter would favor businesses with greater capital and larger capacities.24

1862: Coercion War mobilization in Dubuque also spread to the local business community, which early began making references to the war in its advertising. The first such reference to the nation’s troubles appeared in January 1861 when saloon keeper J. F. Tousley proposed ‘‘to keep this Union together by serving up Oysters to the million at 25 cents per dozen, and warm meals at 25 cents each.’’ Others followed Tousley’s lead, especially W. J. Gilbert and W. H. Robison. Beginning in May 1861, Gilbert advertised his as ‘‘the Patriotic Bookstore,’’ selling ‘‘patriotic stationery’’ and American flags, among other items. In subsequent advertisements, Gilbert announced that he had recruited ‘‘a whole regiment of violins’’ for sale and suggested that the war would be ended if everyone purchased the photographs of Tom Thumb and his new bride that he had in stock. Robison christened his boot and shoe store ‘‘Camp Robison’’ and named himself ‘‘the general commanding’’ near the end of 1861. In March 1862 he announced that he had ‘‘evacuated’’ Dubuque for ‘‘reinforcements of boots and shoes’’ but would soon ‘‘return to combat’’ and give the city ‘‘a bombardment of leather.’’ He returned in April with ‘‘a stock of munitions sufficient, he thinks, to enable him to withstand the siege of the public for at least four or five months.’’ Later in the war, he announced a 24 Times, 19 April, 4 May 1862 (former for Herald calling Times the ‘‘organ of the railroad monopolists’’). For transfer company dispute, see Times, 12, 17, 18, 19, 26 April 1862. The railroad added an additional fee to any freight arriving in Dunleith from Dubuque or destined for Dubuque that the seller/buyer did not allow the road’s transfer company to handle.

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new supply of boots and shoes by saying they had ‘‘come at last through the Blockade at Dunleith.’’25 Recruiting soldiers, however, proved more difficult than recruiting violins or shoes. Beginning in late 1861, Union army recruiting evolved into what has been described as a carrot-and-stick system. The federal government did not follow Dennis Mahony’s suggestion and implement a draft in fall 1861. Instead it offered volunteers a ‘‘carrot’’—a $100 bounty (bonus) paid in installments to each new recruit. But the ‘‘stick’’—conscription—was not far away. Iowa’s Governor Kirkwood floated an oblique threat in September that if volunteers were not forthcoming, a draft would occur. When no draft followed, Mahony chastised Kirkwood for threatening conscription without intending to do it. Mahony did not know that Kirkwood had asked the War Department for authority to conduct a draft in Iowa but was rebuffed. The War Department replied that they still ‘‘prefer[red] to rely upon patriotism’’ to fill the ranks.26 That preference did not survive much longer. In April 1862 the new secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, either because of overconfidence about the war’s speedy conclusion or because he hoped to gain control of the unwieldy system he inherited from his predecessor, closed down the recruiting service; that is, the Union army stopped accepting new recruits. In June, confidence eroded or control established, Stanton rescinded his order and recruiting resumed the following month. Then on July 17, the Militia Act became law, adding an element of coercion to the recruiting process. If volunteering proceeded at its previous slow pace, state governors now had the authority to draft men to serve for up to nine months.27 Although Iowa never held a Militia Act draft, state authorities con25 Times, 5 January 1861 (Tousley); for Gilbert, see ibid., 31 May 1861, 15 August 1862, 24 April 1863; and for Robison, see ibid., 1 January, 27 March, 25 April 1862, 9 June 1864. For some other examples, see Times, 20 March (George Reese and the ‘‘United States Washing Machine’’), 21 April (Sadler & Son) 1861; Herald, 9 August 1861 (George Bowers); and Times, 5 April 1863 (Cecelia Richter). 26 Herald, 25 September 1861; and OR, Series 3, 1:520–21, 539 (quote from War Dept.). See also Geary, We Need Men, 12. Both Geary, We Need Men (65), and McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (492) use the ‘‘carrot-and-stick’’ metaphor to describe the recruiting system. 27 Shannon, Organization and Administration, 1:266 (overconfidence interpretation); McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 437 (control); and for a lengthier discussion of the historiography, see Geary, We Need Men, 7–8.

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sidered the draft a rousing success. ‘‘Our whole State appears to be volunteering,’’ Kirkwood informed the War Department in August. His chief military aide added, ‘‘I like a draft.’’ State authorities thus left no doubt that they considered the draft primarily valuable as a threat to stimulate volunteering rather than as a tool for putting men in uniform directly. Iowa proceeded to fill—indeed to exceed by far—its quotas of volunteers in the last months of 1862.28 In Dubuque, the Times asserted that it was ‘‘fallacious’’ to suppose that the ‘‘government has gone through all [the] expense and trouble of listing the militia [that is, those liable to a draft] merely for the purpose of getting up a big scare.’’ Nevertheless, the paper did its best to promote a scare, admonishing the men of Dubuque to ‘‘volunteer while you may.’’ The paper regularly asserted that the draft would be held ‘‘any day’’ or ‘‘next week.’’ On several occasions the paper cited specific days for the draft to commence. Often these announcements carried the stamp of official authority. In late September, for example, the Times published a letter from Governor Kirkwood that said ‘‘a draft is imminent’’; in November Henry Wiltse, a Dubuque lawyer serving on Kirkwood’s military staff, stated ‘‘authoritatively’’ that the draft would be held in Dubuque on the twenty-eighth. Occasionally, in its zeal to maintain the scare, the Times even lent credence to absurdities. In September the paper repeated a ‘‘street rumor’’ that the governor had ordered an immediate draft of 16,000 men from Dubuque. The city’s population in 1860—males and females, adults and children—was only 13,000.29 Perhaps the best way to remind people about the impending draft was through recruiting advertisements; they worked best because they ran day after day. When recruiting resumed in July 1862, the recruiting field in Dubuque remained as crowded as ever. In the month and a half after recruiting resumed, aspiring officers and regular-army 28 OR, Series 3, 2:417 (Kirkwood), 339 (aide). Seven states held militia drafts in 1862; Geary, We Need Men, 47. Geary, the closest scholar of the Militia Act, concludes that its designer, Senator Henry Wilson (Republican—Mass.), intended it more as an emancipation measure than as a way to raise an army. In addition to providing for conscription, the Militia Act granted freedom to slaves (and their families) employed in certain capacities by the Union Army. Ibid., 22–31. 29 For declarations of the last day to volunteer before the draft see, for example, Times, 16 July (‘‘volunteer while you may’’), 15 (‘‘fallacious’’), 22 August, 9, 18 (‘‘street rumor’’), 29 September (Kirkwood), 7, 22, 25 October, 12, 20, 21 (Wiltse), 26 November, 5, 30 December 1862, 7 January 1863.

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recruiters opened at least fifteen new recruiting offices; this does not include the organizations already in the field that sent officers to the city in an effort to replenish their depleted ranks. The character of the recruiting messages again changed. Whereas in late 1861 recruiters had emphasized material conditions—uniforms, prompt pay, dry quarters, good leadership—in late 1862 a reminder of the draft accompanied nearly every recruiting pitch, either as part of the advertisement or in a news item directing attention to it. The advertisement for a company to be called the Herron Rifles, for example, featured draftrelated information in four lines of text and only near the bottom in small print added that the ‘‘best of arms and equipments [were] all ready’’ for the volunteers. Joseph Dorr, who joined the Twelfth Iowa Infantry in 1861 after failing to establish a War Democrat newspaper in Dubuque, returned to the city seeking volunteers once recruiting had resumed. His advertisement in the Times stressed that ‘‘drafting will commence immediately’’ on September 1, so men would be wise to enlist in the Twelfth Infantry before then.30 In addition to constant draft reminders, men needed to be convinced that volunteering was a better option than gambling that their name would not come up in the draft. To be a drafted soldier, the Times asserted, was ‘‘a disgrace,’’ and conscripts’ ‘‘duties are usually more disagreeable, and they are not so well officered as others.’’ The paper published a variety of misleading or false information to reinforce the point. The purpose of ads such as Joseph Dorr’s, for example, was to remind prospective soldiers that volunteers could choose their branch of service, the officers they would serve under, and their comrades; conscripts would be assigned wherever they were needed. Although the choice difference was essentially accurate, it was only guaranteed for men who joined an organization such as Dorr’s, which was already in the field. A new company might be sent anywhere, as a company of prospective sharpshooters from Dubuque discovered. When the Iowa sharpshooter regiment failed to materialize, these 30 For opening of new recruiting offices, see Times, 11, 26 July, 1, 5, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 21 August 1862 (some days saw more than one recruiting office open); and for Herron Rifles and Twelfth Infantry advertisements, see ibid., 20 August 1862. See also ibid., 12, 14 August, 7 October, 20 November, 5 December 1862; and for Dorr’s history see Wubben, Civil War Iowa, 42; and Dorr, Twelfth Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA.

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volunteers found their company absorbed into the Sixth Iowa Cavalry; they also found themselves pursuing Indians in the Dakota Territory rather than rebels in the South. In 1864 Dubuque’s DeWitt C. Cram, captain of the company, expressed the disappointment some of its members experienced: ‘‘I regret much that I am obliged to serve my turn in this service. . . . Of all things, I would like to get into the Southern Service.’’ Even volunteers, in other words, did not always receive their choice of service, a possibility omitted from the recruiting pitches.31 More seriously, the Times distorted the pay and length of service of volunteers compared to conscripts. The paper told prospective soldiers that volunteer privates received $13 monthly pay, whereas drafted privates were paid just $11 per month. This was not true. Although there was a pay difference between volunteers and conscripts—because the latter did not receive an enlistment bounty under the Militia Act—volunteers and drafted men received the same monthly pay. On August 1, the paper presented a more detailed analysis of army pay. A volunteer soldier received $102 in bounty and premium plus $13 per month,32 which the Times computed to be $21.58 per month for a one-year enlistment; this was more than even the ‘‘high wages for [civilian] labor’’ the paper had reported the previous day. Conscripts, the careful reader of the paper would recall, supposedly earned only $11 per month, and in case anyone forgot, the paper repeated the point three weeks later. In reality, however, because a volunteer from Iowa at this point in the war had to commit himself for not one year but three, the compensation for volunteers was actually as low as $15.83 per month—just $2.83 more per month than conscripts actually earned. And the Times scarcely mentioned that anyone drafted under the Militia Act would serve for only nine months, not three years. The one time it did mention this fact, the paper commented that a law extending nine-month enlistments in31 Times, 26 July (‘‘disgrace’’), 7 October 1862, 20 January 1863; V. J. Williams to Brigadier General S. R. Curtis, 29 December 1862, in Williams, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; and DeWitt Cram to S. P. Adams, 4 March 1864, in Cram, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA. 32 The ‘‘premium’’ was a $2-per-recruit payment to individuals who presented new recruits at a recruiting depot. It could be paid to an enlistment broker—someone who made a business of rounding up potential recruits and bringing them in—or to the volunteer soldier himself, if he came in on his own.

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definitely could be passed at any time after the men were in the service.33 In sum, the question became ‘‘Will you take a generous bounty and an honorable enlistment, or endure the discredit of a forcible draft?’’ Even though this question affected all men of draft age, the Times directed it with particular emphasis toward the poor and working class. While stressing the inevitability of the draft and the desirability of avoiding it, war supporters emphasized favorable material conditions—housing, food, clothing, and medical care—which might be better than workers in Dubuque could expect, given the continuing economic depression and with winter approaching. The paper further promoted the idea that pay in the army was better than even some of the best civilian pay for workers but asserted that only volunteers could take advantage.34 War supporters also argued that working-class whites would be helping themselves by preserving the Union and destroying slavery. If workers were concerned about competition for jobs from freed slaves, the Times assured them that a Northern victory coupled with an emancipation policy was the best way for Dubuque to ‘‘keep white.’’ A Union victory would preserve the North and West as ‘‘homes for free white laborers’’ and as ‘‘an asylum for the oppressed white laborers.’’ Moreover, no African Americans would move north if they could enjoy the ‘‘blessing of liberty’’ in the South, and those already in the North would undoubtedly move to the South. On the other hand, a Confederate victory would expand slavery into the Northern states and Western territories, ending in ‘‘the serfdom of the entire laboring classes.’’ Although the secessionists and their Northern Tory allies such as Dennis Mahony were forcing Republicans to adopt an emancipation policy, that policy would be good, not bad for white workers. Abolition of slavery would elevate the status of all labor and firmly establish the superiority of white working men. Accordingly, poor and working-class whites should be eager to enlist; the war was being fought for their interests.35 Times, 19, 26, 31 July, 1, 22 August, 7 October 1862. Ibid., 23 July 1862. 35 The key statement of Dubuque war supporters’ opinion on emancipation is an editorial ‘‘How to Keep White’’ in ibid., 13 November 1962; this is the source of all quotes in this paragraph. See also ibid., 20 September, 13, 25 October, 6 November 1862, 3 July 1863. 33 34

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Another prime target for recruiters was young male clerks in the city’s stores. In the second half of 1862, Dubuque’s women for the first time very publicly inserted themselves into the recruiting process, making it clear that it was in clerks’ interest to volunteer. In July 1862, Masilla Hall offered to take the place of any clerk who would enlist; she added that she would surrender the place to the soldier upon his return. Within two weeks, twenty other women in the city made the same offer. In September the women offered their own carrot, saying they would give any replaced clerk one-half of the accumulated salary upon his return. But they also added a stick: ‘‘We’re going to have soldier husbands, we are.’’36 Poor and working-class men remained the special focus, however. Because the Militia Act specifically exempted nonnaturalized immigrants and workers in a number of artisan and unskilled occupations, at the same time that it promoted the 1862 draft scare the Times worked for the creation of an Iowa Irish regiment. After two weeks of items that pressed for such a regiment, in August two Dubuque Irishmen, George M. O’Brien and John H. O’Neill, came forward and offered to recruit one. Everyone knew, though, that Dennis Mahony was the real leader of the local Irish community. C. C. Flint, a former Republican newspaper editor in Dubuque, lobbied Kirkwood to give the commission to Mahony. Mahony was ‘‘poor and ambitious,’’ Flint argued, and so would accept the commission, the 1861 snub notwithstanding. Commissioning Mahony would also be a good way to redirect his formidable talents away from war opposition. Another Dubuque resident, John T. Brazill, wrote to the governor on August 10. ‘‘Mahony is loyal. He has more influence than any other in the state over the Irish and no other would be so good.’’37 Four days after Brazill wrote, circumstances changed dramatically. In the early morning hours of August 14, U.S. Marshal Herbert 36 Ibid., 30 July, 15 August, 2 (quote), 6 September 1862. See also ibid., 29 July, 16 August 1862. 37 Working-class exemptions in the Militia Act included telegraph operators and ‘‘constructors’’; locomotive engineers; steamboat engineers; stage drivers who carried the mail; pilots; mariners; and workmen in arsenals, gun factories, and gunpowder mills; see OR, Series 3, 2:257, 294, 322, 331, 334, 346, 348, 358, 392, 395, 396, 398, 458–59, 512. See Times, 1, 3, 5, 9, 13, 19 August 1862 for some of the Irish Regiment campaign. See also C. C. Flint to S. J. Kirkwood, 4 August 1862, RG 101, 1862, folder 1; Brazill letter quoted from Wubben, ‘‘Dubuque Herald,’’ 103.

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Hoxie, a former state Republican Central Committee chairman, swept into Dubuque, arrested Mahony, and sent him to prison in Washington, D.C. Although Hoxie asserted that he acted under authority of a recent War Department order directing the arrest of persons ‘‘discouraging enlistments,’’ reasons for the arrest remain murky. The Herald, for example, continued to publish, and according to local war supporters it expressed ‘‘even more violent and reckless opposition to the government’’ under Mahony’s replacement. Further, the Lincoln administration seems not to have known what to do with Mahony and others arrested at roughly the same time. No charges were ever filed against Mahony, and all efforts by his friends to find out the charges came to naught. Mahony had long been rumored as the likely Democratic nominee for Congress in the Third District, a nomination he received despite being imprisoned. Mahony and some of his supporters decided he was arrested to prevent his running an effective campaign. Mahony did lose the election, carrying only Dubuque County, but electoral failure for Democrats in the district was inevitable; the Republican majority in the state legislature offset Dubuque County’s Democratic strength by placing it in an otherwise Republican district.38 It seems most significant, however, that the period of Mahony’s incarceration corresponded with the draft scare and especially the renewed effort to raise an Irish regiment in Iowa. With Mahony disposed of and Irish recruiting under way, the Times celebrated. It ‘‘looks as though we are to have an Irish regiment sure.’’ The paper promoted the Irish regiment on an almost daily basis, using several types of items. Even though the draft exempted immigrants, naturalized citizens and anyone who had ever voted could be drafted. Hence the paper reiterated that the only way for Catholics to be sure of 38 Herald, 8 August 1862; Times, 14 November 1862 (‘‘more violent and reckless’’); Mahony, Prisoner of State, 169–70; Franc B. Wilkie, Pen and Powder (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1888), 9; Leland L. Sage, William Boyd Allison: A Study in Practical Politics (Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1956), 49–50, 54; Times, 22 October 1862 (election result); and Paul S. Pierce, ‘‘Congressional Districting in Iowa,’’ IJHP 1 (July 1903): 341–43. For historians’ attempts to interpret the arrest, see Phillip Shaw Paludan, ‘‘A People’s Contest’’: The Union and Civil War, 1861– 1865 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 239–40; and Allan Nevins, War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863, vol. 2 of War for the Union (New York: Scribner, 1960), 316–17.

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serving with a Catholic chaplain was to volunteer and choose the Irish regiment.39 The Times also reprinted speeches in which nationally prominent military men and civilians advocated Irish enlistments.40 Favorable notice of Irishmen already in the army became common.41 The final element of the campaign for an Irish regiment involved republican arguments—which Mahony himself had used the year before to respond to the first accusations of disloyalty—that the federal government protected Irish immigrants from the tyranny of the British monarchy, and hence the Irish owed the federal government protection from its despotic enemies too.42 Local war supporters had further cause for celebration in August 1862. Beginning in July they had been urging creation of an additional local bounty to spur volunteering. Henry Pettit, the assistant editor at the Times, summarized the argument best, saying ‘‘Let those who cannot go [into the army], offer inducements to those who will. Money inducements. Those are the best arguments now-adays.’’ As Pettit suggested, initially war supporters thought wealthier private citizens should offer their own bounties. Soon, however, they began pressing for local government to act. Near the end of July, an ‘‘Unconditional Union Democrat’’ wrote to the Times decrying the ‘‘criminal indifference’’ of the Democratic mayor and city council and urging that citizen meetings be held to ‘‘secure a liberal bounty to volunteers.’’ Several meetings were indeed held, and some money 39 Times, 16 August 1862 (quote). There was a message for Protestant, non-Irish in this, too—be drafted, and you may wind up in the Irish regiment. For examples of explicit links between the Irish regiment and the draft, see Times, 13 August, 9 September, 10 December 1862. 40 See, for example, Times, 16, 26 August, 14 September 1862. In Dubuque itself, Mortimer M. Hayden—a prewar Democrat and commander of the Third Iowa Artillery Battery—gave a speech on August 2 and exhorted ‘‘the Irish to Come to the Rescue’’; see SML Diary, 2 August 1862, p. 251. 41 See, for example, Times, 5, 16 August, 4 September 1862. This was a refinement of a broader Times policy of giving favorable notice to Democrats in the army. Compare Times, 19 August 1862 (praise for John H. O’Neill, then working on the Irish regiment) with Times, 29, 30 March 1861 (where O’Neill was denounced for antiwar views). 42 See, for example, Times, 18 September, 10, 12, 25 October, 23 November 1862; and for Mahony’s use of this argument, see Herald, 17 September 1861. See also advertisement for the 1861 version of a Irish regiment in the same Herald edition. This ‘‘protection from tyranny’’ argument was sometimes stated more generically in reference to immigrants, because, of course, it could also apply to Germans; for example, Times, 9 October 1862.

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for bounties was collected. But local bounties made little progress until 19 August 1862, when a special session of the county board of supervisors approved a $50 bounty for anyone volunteering before September 1. In its analysis, the Times asserted that this could never have happened without the arrest of Mahony five days earlier.43 Results from the bounty were encouraging. Men who had hesitated to enlist because they had seen the families of earlier volunteers suffer when local arrangements for their support broke down now came forward. Speaking for himself and others he knew, Ernst Renner, a lawyer and farmer from Peru Township in Dubuque County who enlisted as a sergeant in the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, explained that the $50 county bounty added to the promise of a $25 advance on their federal bounty money, a $2 enlistment premium, and a month’s pay in advance overcame many men’s reluctance. ‘‘We gladly went,’’ he noted, ‘‘trusting that our monthly pay would suffice to provide further for our families.’’ In this they were due to be disappointed. The supervisors decided to give the bounty only to those who had been mustered before September 1, something over which the volunteers had no control. Moreover, the irregularity of army pay and the difficulties of sending it to Dubuque meant that the volunteers’ families still suffered.44 Although the bounty produced results, recruiting for the Irish regiment proceeded poorly. Nothing that local government, the Times, or O’Brien and O’Neill did spurred sufficient enlistments. Finally, after Mahony’s release from prison in November 1862, the Times abandoned the Irish regiment idea, later adding that given the Herald’s pernicious influence, the project should never have been started. The paper printed the official death notice of the Irish regiment in January 1863. An order from the Iowa Adjutant General’s office announced that the Irish regiment recruits would form the nucleus for the Seventh Iowa Cavalry. George O’Brien would become lieutenant-colonel of the Seventh Cavalry; John O’Neill, recently elected city attorney on the Democratic ticket, would not be 43 Times, 13, 19, 23 (Pettit), 26 (Union Democrat) July, 20 August 1862; Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 284; and for citizen meetings, see Times, 26 July, 1, 3, 9, 12, 13, 14, 17 August 1862. 44 Times, 13 September 1862 (quote); and Ernst Renner, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA. For more on the failure of efforts to support soldiers’ families, see chapter 6 in this book.

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joining the army. Although they had not been officially mustered into the service, the Irish regiment volunteers were told they would be treated as deserters if they resisted enlistment in the Seventh Cavalry with its Protestant chaplain.45 Soon after the collapse of the Irish regiment, war supporters in Dubuque came out in favor of arming black soldiers. Previously, the Times had considered this the ‘‘last step of degradation.’’ Following Mahony’s release from prison, however, the Times began adjusting its rhetoric to support African American enlistments. It started by publishing letters from soldiers in favor of taking this step. In December, for example, George M. Staples, a Dubuque doctor who served as physician in the Fourteenth Iowa Infantry, wrote that he had seen numerous blacks grab guns in the heat of battle and join the fray, and ‘‘I have not yet heard that our men felt disgraced thereat.’’ The Times itself waited until February 6, 1863, before openly endorsing the idea of black soldiers: ‘‘There is no reason why Negroes should be rejected when Indians are accepted, and no reason why both should not be enlisted . . . under proper discipline and control.’’ Less than a month later, federal law allowed the recruiting of African American regiments.46 The end of 1862 brought an end to the militia draft scare. On December 30, a front-page editorial in the Times presented data indicating that although the state had enlisted about 22,000 men since July, Iowa was still 7,000 men short on its quotas. Therefore, the paper argued, Democrats were wrong to assert that Iowa had filled its quotas and that the governor merely planned to use the draft as a partisan weapon.47 Governor Kirkwood, however, convinced the War 45 Times, 26 August, 16 October, 22 November 1862, 10, 11, 13 January 1863. A few Irish regiment recruits attempted to sue for their release from the army, but Dubuque County judge Stephen Hempstead, a former governor of Iowa and noted war opponent, refused to grant writs of habeas corpus, saying it was a military matter and hence outside his jurisdiction. 46 Times, 12, 30 July, 18 December 1862, 20 January, 6 February, 29 March 1863. 47 Ibid., 30 December 1862. The idea that Republicans might use the draft for partisan purposes was not so far-fetched. On two occasions before the fall 1862 election, the Times published the list of persons who claimed exemption from the draft as immigrants. The paper reminded its readers to stay vigilant at the polls, because no one could both vote and claim exemption as a noncitizen. Times, 9 September, 10 October 1862. Other cities in Iowa likewise published their lists; see ibid., 18 September 1862. Geary, We Need Men, 44, cites evidence from other states that Republicans considered the use of the draft as a political weapon.

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Department that the more than 10,000 three-years men enlisted to meet the state’s quota under the call for nine-months militia were four times as valuable as the same number of nine-months men; the extra beyond the nine-month quota was then applied to meet deficiencies under other calls. In the January 7, 1863, City News column of the Times, the first item reported that Kirkwood had announced there would be no draft in Iowa.48

1863: Controlled Market As the 1862 draft scare faded from the scene, Dennis Mahony resumed the editor’s chair full time at the Herald. He returned a changed man, however. The vigorous defender of the Constitution disappeared, and his arguments became more aggressive. In February, for instance, Mahony warned ominously that Northerners should prepare for ‘‘the blood of revolution’’ to rip through their section of the country. A month later, he endorsed kidnapping any war supporter, any federal officer, or even the president in retaliation for abuse of dissenters: ‘‘There is really no other remedy left now.’’49 Still, Mahony seems not to have taken the final steps toward praying for Southern victory and race baiting. Those themes were not absent from the Herald, however. Mahony’s new partner Stilson Hutchins, who edited the paper during Mahony’s absences, supplied them. In February 1863, for example, Hutchins asserted that ‘‘Separation is inevitable,’’ adding ‘‘We have ever believed so, and ever said so.’’ Analyzing the Democratic victory in local elections in spring 1863, Times, 7 January 1863. Herald, 5 February, 25 March 1863; see also ibid., 3, 4, 6, 9, 16, 21, 23 January 1863 for other representative postarrest opinions. One of the closest readings of Mahony’s arguments describes the change in his writings as a ‘‘new aggressiveness’’; Wubben, ‘‘Dubuque Herald,’’ 75, 122. The change might also be seen in terms of the distinction David Lendt makes between Peace Democrats—those ‘‘committed to a negotiated peace for the sake of saving lives, saving the Union and resisting social change’’—and Copperheads—those ‘‘committed to obstruction of the federal government’’ and more openly sympathetic to the South. See David L. Lendt, Demise of the Democracy: The Copperhead Press in Iowa, 1856–1870 (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1973), 2. Lendt adds that the line between the two categories was ‘‘often imperceptible,’’ and he incorrectly places Mahony squarely among the Copperheads from the beginning of the war. More accurately, Mahony should be seen in the former category before his arrest and in the latter afterward. 48 49

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Hutchins exulted: ‘‘Old Dubuque never falters. She is copperheaded, copper bottomed, and copper fastened. She is, in short, the white man’s country, and we glory in it and will labor to keep her so.’’50 Some war supporters in Dubuque actually came to prefer Hutchins’s style. As the Times noted in May 1863, ‘‘Mahony is by far the most talented editor, but Hutchins is the most honest and the most indiscreet’’ and hence ultimately preferable. Soon the Times got all of Hutchins it could stand. In August Mahony announced his retirement from the Herald; later that fall the former prisoner of state was elected sheriff of Dubuque County. Hutchins edited the paper into 1864, before Mahony, Hutchins, and their stockholders sold it to a moderately pro-war Democrat.51 As in 1855, when Mahony had previously retired from the newspaper business to pursue other opportunities, his leaving the Herald in 1863 can be taken as a signal that better economic times finally had arrived in Dubuque. In particular, wartime inflation represented a boon to businesses that had teetered on the verge of bankruptcy during the depression. Dry goods clerk Josiah Conzett, for instance, thought that only the war saved his employers from bankruptcy in the wake of the troubles of the Central Island Company. War-induced inflation helped commercial establishments such as Conzett’s employers by increasing the value of their stock on hand while their debts stayed constant and could be paid in depreciated currency.52 Further fueling inflation, the federal government levied excise taxes on production at each stage, from raw material to finished product, the cost of which inevitably was passed on to consumers. On 50 Herald, 28 February 1863, 24 December 1862, 11 April 1863. For other examples of Hutchins’s arguments, see ibid., 24 December 1862, 20, 21, 26, 28 February 1863. For some secondary literature on Hutchins’s style, see Sage, William Boyd Allison, 55; and Wubben, ‘‘Dubuque Herald,’’ 68–69, 79–80, 106. Even a Dubuque County history—a genre not noted for critical analysis—noticed the difference between Hutchins and Mahony, while condemning both; see Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 144. 51 Times, 24 May 1863; and Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 152. The Herald had incorporated in 1862 after Joseph Dorr tried but failed to silence the paper by foreclosing on what Mahony still owed him; DCIR, 1:273–76. 52 Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 9–11; Conzett, Recollections, 205; and SML Diary, 23, 24 September 1864, p. 274. See also ibid., 30 October, 25 December, 22 January 1865, pp. 278, 284, 291. Also see Glenn Porter and Harold Livesay, Merchants and Manufacturers: Studies in the Changing Structure of Nineteenth-Century Marketing (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971), 116–21.

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the positive side, excise taxes encouraged the development of local manufacturing. Businesses that could bring production processes together under one roof could escape some of the tax. In part as a result, Dubuque witnessed a flowering of manufacturing in those industries that used raw materials readily available in the local economy. Lead shot manufacture, which had foundered in the city before the war, emerged as an important business, though only after local capitalist Julius K. Graves outwitted the Saint Louis monopoly that had stifled production in Dubuque. Wagon manufacture, taking advantage of the amount of lumber moving past the city down the Mississippi, similarly entered a boom period that would continue long after the war years. At the war’s end the Times concluded that ‘‘the manufacture of carriages and wagons has become a most successful and important business in Dubuque.’’53 Shot, wagon, and other manufacturers in the city received an additional boost from the fact that the Union army purchased and consumed their products in bulk. Despite assertions that Dubuque’s reputation for disloyalty would keep its businesses from receiving government contracts, that did not happen. Harness maker George Beaubien and wagon maker Thomas Connolly, for example, each received government contracts in 1864. Merchant tailor Mark Smith also received several contracts to manufacture uniforms. At one point during the war Smith was said to employ 660 workers, making him, temporarily at least, by far the largest employer in the city. Smith’s business, which had been too small to be listed in the 1860 manufacturing census, had an annual (gross) product of $42,250 by 1870, and his reported personal income rose by 50 percent during the latter years of the war, from $2,000 in 1862 to $3,000 in 1865.54 53 Paludan, ‘‘People’s Contest,’’ 130; Bray Hammond, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse: Banks and Politics in the Civil War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970), 56–58; Fred A. Shannon, Economic History of the People of the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1934), 383–84, 389, 572; and Semi-weekly Times, 19 May 1865 (quote). Also, for shot manufacture, see Peter B. Hoffman, Concise History of the City and County of Dubuque, 1833–1934, manuscript, 1934, pp. 96–98, CDH; and Times, 15 June 1861, 19 March, 18, 26, 27 July, 3 August 1862. 54 Evidence of specific contracts to purchase Dubuque shot could not be found, but undoubtedly shot manufactured in Dubuque made its way into Union army weapons. Times, 4 June, 14 September, 3 October, 5 December 1862, 1 February 1863; Census 1860, Pop., p. 47 (Smith); Census 1870, Pop., Third Ward, p. 45 (Smith); Census 1870, Manuf., Second Ward (Smith); and Records of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Iowa—Third District, Assessment Lists, 1862–66 (microfilm), IHSI.

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A boon to business, taxes and inflation hurt workers’ interests. Although inflation in the North never reached the ruinous levels of the South, by mid-1862 prices across the North had advanced 21 percent over 1860 while wages for skilled and unskilled workers had actually declined 3 percent; a year later, prices were up 51 percent over 1860. In Dubuque, wholesale food prices dramatically showed the impact of inflation. By January 1863, for example, the price for a bushel of potatoes had doubled over what it was in January 1861; beans were up between one-half and two-thirds per bushel; a barrel of flour, the price of which actually declined during the initial stages of the freight blockade in 1861, had increased over one-half during 1862 and was up one-sixth over January 1861; and the prices for dressed hogs and cattle were up by over one-half compared to two years earlier. And still prices had not reached their peak in the city.55 Inflation most disadvantaged the poor, working class, and those on low fixed incomes such as soldiers and their families. Those affected responded in various ways. One response was putting more family members to work for wages. Mark Smith’s 660 workers, for example, came from among families hurt by inflation, especially the wives and children of soldiers. An anonymous poet in the Times rhapsodized about how these women came forward ‘‘To fight for their native land,/With womanly weapons girt’’: O women with sons so dear, O tender, loving wives, It is not money you work for now, But the saving of precious lives. ’Tis roused for the battle we feel— Oh, for a thousand experts, Armed with tiny darts of steel, To conquer thousands of shirts!

The money was important, too. Even if their soldier-husbands and fathers’ pay had not been badly eroded by inflation, the arrangements Stanley Lebergott, Manpower in Economic Growth: The American Record since 1800 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 549; Ralph Andreano, ed., The Economic Impact of the American Civil War (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman Publishing, 1962), 179; Paludan, ‘‘People’s Contest,’’ 144–45; and Stephen J. DeCanio and Joel Mokyr, ‘‘Inflation and the Wage Lag during the American Civil War,’’ Explorations in Economic History 14 (1977): 311–36. For wholesale prices cited in text, see Times, 3 January 1861, 14 January 1862, 6 January 1863. 55

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for sending money home from the field functioned erratically at best. The war years, moreover, helped further establish women workers in the men’s clothing trade locally. In 1857, when some merchant tailors started giving work on men’s clothing to females to work on at home, journeymen tailors struck—unsuccessfully—to stop the practice. In contrast, during the war female workers joined journeymen in the manufactories, and the men made no public protest. Women would remain an important part of the clothing manufacturing workforce after the war.56 Although male workers failed to protest women’s presence in the manufactories, strikes occurred with increased frequency and greater rates of success during the war. The tailors, for example, carried out two successful strikes for wage increases in 1863. Ice cutters, shoemakers, and carpenters also waged successful strikes in 1863, whereas strikes by printers at the city’s two newspapers and by teamsters who hauled ice across the river for Union army hospitals failed. In contrast, only four strikes of any significance had occurred in the city before the war—the aforementioned tailors’ strike, two strikes by printers, and one by workers for one of the harbor improvement companies—and none had achieved their goals. The increased number and success of strikes can be attributed to the economic recovery and to the fact that by 1863 war mobilization had created a labor shortage, particularly of skilled workers. Artisans were in demand as the city’s manufacturing sector expanded, while many artisans joined the army and others headed west to escape pressures to enlist.57 The federal government also faced a labor shortage in 1863. Recruiting policies for the Union army continued to evolve and reflected the success in places such as Dubuque of the 1862 draft scare and the use of small local bounties. In March 1863 the Enrollment Act became law, creating a national draft structure. The new law maintained the element of coercion that had been introduced by the 56 Times, 13 February 1863; Express & Herald, 23 May 1857; and Census 1870, Manuf. 57 Herald, 30 January 1863, 18 February 1863; Times, 19, 22 March, 29, 30 August, 1 September 1863; and for prewar strikes, see Express & Herald, 7 December 1855, 23 May, 25 September 1857; Times, 4, 7, 25 June 1858. See also Herald, 7 February 1865 for linkage between enlistment pressure and labor shortage; and for some examples of demand for workers, see Times, 1, 2, 4, 27 April, 16 May, 12 July, 7 September 1862, 4 March, 28 April, 17 May, 1, 12 July, 13 August, 19 September, 4, 7 October, 14 November 1863.

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Militia Act but allowed a drafted man to avoid service by paying a $300 fee (commutation) to the government. The availability of the commutation option effectively limited the price a draft substitute could receive to the same amount. Shortly thereafter the federal government increased the amount of its enlistment bounty. Three-year soldiers who had enlisted in 1861—some without receiving any bounty money—benefited first. In the government’s ‘‘veteran volunteer’’ program, from June 1863 to April 1864 any of these soldiers who reenlisted received a $400 bounty, as well as the title veteran volunteer and a thirty-day furlough to visit home. In October 1863, the $100 bounty still in effect for new volunteers was raised to $300 for anyone enlisting for three years in an existing regiment. Then, in December 1863, the bounty for new, three-year volunteers in new regiments was also increased to $300. All federal bounties temporarily ended in April 1864, but in July 1864 the bounty for all white soldiers—veteran, new volunteer, or conscript—was set at $100 per year for up to three years. The Enrollment Act guaranteed conscripts the same bounty as volunteers.58 In Dubuque, Dennis Mahony, who had not yet retired from the Herald, came out in opposition to the Enrollment Act, even though he had advocated a federal draft as early as September 1861. According to the title of a pamphlet he wrote, the Enrollment Act was one of the Lincoln administration’s Four Acts of Despotism. He began his analysis with the argument that the new draft law was unconstitutional because it bypassed state militia organizations; the federal government had no constitutional power to raise troops independent of the states, he asserted. But perhaps because in 1861 he himself had proclaimed the federal government’s power ‘‘under the constitution to ‘draft’ men for the public service,’’ he quickly passed over that argument. He focused instead on the discriminatory nature of the commutation and substitution clauses. He had been attacking the class biases of the war effort from the beginning, and allowing indiBlack soldiers received a $10 bounty after November 1863; before that they received no bounty. OR, Series 3, 5:672 covers changes in bounty amounts. For discussion of the Enrollment Act and the evolution of the bounty system, see Geary, We Need Men, 65–77, 103–15; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 600–611; Shannon, Organization, 2:11–46; Murdock, One Million Men, 178–217; and Robert Sterling, ‘‘Civil War Draft Resistance in the Middle West’’ (Ph.D. diss., Northern Illinois University, 1974), 150–61, 314–18. 58

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viduals to purchase exemption for $300—a sum approximately equal to a worker’s annual income—was self-evidently class legislation. ‘‘Does the poor man owe more to the Government than the rich man that he should be compelled to give his life, while the rich man is required to give but a portion of his superabundant wealth?’’ he asked. ‘‘Is a rich man’s life, in a government of equals, more valuable than a poor man’s life?’’ It was in effect ‘‘military slavery’’ for the poor. If there had to be monetary exemptions, he argued, a better system would have been to base the exemption fee on the ability to pay.59 Local war supporters’ most effective voice in 1863 was the then proprietor of the Times, G. T. Stewart, and he welcomed the new draft law. As early as January 1863, after the failure of the Irish regiment, Stewart had called building the army by voluntary enlistments ‘‘an expedient’’ that had failed and needed to be replaced by ‘‘a system.’’ Subsequently, Stewart undertook the defense of the Enrollment Act. He first effectively refuted Mahony’s claim that the central government could not raise troops independently of the state militias. He cited the constitutional power of Congress to raise and support armies and noted that in the landmark McCullough v. Maryland case, the Supreme Court had recognized the right of Congress to enact laws to carry out its delegated powers. Going further, Stewart acknowledged and defended the class bias in the $300 exemption fee. ‘‘Men whose services at home are more valuable to themselves, or to others than the amount required, are thus retained there,’’ he argued, ‘‘while those go whose services in the army are more valuable to themselves and others there than at home.’’ And if poor people were forced into the choice between paying $300 they did not have or joining the army, Stewart left no doubt about whom they should blame: ‘‘For every volunteer discouraged from entering the ranks by [Democratic] lies, we must now furnish a conscript.’’ It was, in short, poor people’s own fault for believing and supporting Mahony.60 The poor of Dubuque did not immediately face this choice, how59 D. A. Mahony, The Four Acts of Despotism: Comprising I, the Tax Bill with All Amendments; II, the Finance Bill; III, the Conscription Act; IV, the Indemnity Bill; with Introduction and Comments (New York: Van Evrie, Horton, 1863), 7, 9–24. Also Herald, 19 September 1861. 60 Times, 27 January (‘‘expedient’’), 24 July (‘‘services’’), 25 August 1863 (‘‘discouraged’’); see also ibid., 26 March, 9 May, 23, 26 July, 4, 5 August 1863.

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ever, because Iowa continued to fill its quotas without conscripts. Efforts to promote volunteering during the Enrollment Act period followed earlier patterns. Threatening a draft to scare people into the army remained the most prominent tactic. Over the course of two weeks in July 1863, for example, while other parts of the country were experiencing the first draft under the Enrollment Act, the Times tried to whip up a draft scare, asserting that ‘‘in some parts of the State the Draft is about to commence immediately’’ and ‘‘will scoop nearly every man fit for military duty in the State.’’ In the fall of 1863, the paper repeated the tactic, with special reference to Dubuque’s situation. ‘‘Although deficient under every call,’’ it argued, ‘‘Dubuque County has escaped the draft by the large surplus of volunteers furnished from other portions of the State. . . . But from the impending draft there will be no such escape.’’ The paper added for the first time that failure to report after being drafted was equivalent to desertion, and ‘‘the punishment of desertion is death.’’61 Army recruiters also continued to feature the draft prominently in their advertisements. In May 1863 Joseph Dorr, recently promoted to colonel of the new Eighth Iowa Cavalry, asserted his regiment would be ‘‘undoubtedly the last Volunteer Regiment [from Iowa] . . . as active preparations are going on all over the State for the enforcement of the conscription.’’ Sergeant Frank Udell, back in town recruiting for the Sixth Iowa Cavalry in March 1864, noted that his regiment was stationed in Dakota and expected to go to Idaho soon. He added that ‘‘frontier service is the healthiest and most pleasant in the army’’ but that volunteering was the only way to be certain of assignment to a particular regiment.62 In the environment created by the Enrollment Act, war supporters further promoted enlistments with the old tactics of emphasizing the differences between volunteers and drafted men and arguing that the working class had the most to gain from enlisting. ‘‘True,’’ assistant editor of the Times, First Iowa veteran George Ballou, allowed in July 1863, conscripts ‘‘will receive the same pay and bounty’’ as volunteers. ‘‘But will money compensate brave and loyal men for the Ibid., 11, 12, 15, 25 July 1863, 3 November, 5, 17, 23, 31 December 1863, 5 January 1864. See also ibid., 17, 26 May, 16 July, 15, 19, 25 August, 10 September, 15, 29 October 1863, 12 February, 4 March 1864. 62 Ibid., 27 May 1863, 18 March 1864; for others, see ibid., 24 July, 3 October, 12 November, 2 December 1863. 61

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sneers and jeers of their comrades or the cold words and looks of those they leave at home?’’ The drafted man’s descendants ‘‘will have to bear the stigma’’ as well. Furthermore, the drafted men will not get promotions, will not get ‘‘credit for the hardships and sufferings they may endure,’’ and ‘‘must go as forced men among veteran soldiers who volunteered to defend their country.’’63 It was important, moreover, for workers to help sustain the government ‘‘which enables the poor to live decently and comfortably.’’ In August 1864 Ballou did some strange arithmetic to assert that pay in the army was $442 per year for a three-year enlistment, ‘‘in addition to ‘board and clothes.’ ’’ ‘‘This is better pay than most laboring men can get in any other business,’’ he argued. In fact, however, a new volunteer private earned just $292 per year in August 1864, which compared unfavorably to wages in Dubuque. In 1861 skilled workers in Dubuque were said to earn between $250 and $400 per year, and according to the 1860 manufacturing census, the average annual wage paid per employee in Dubuque County manufactories was $332.13.64 Given their emphasis on working-class and poor enlistments, war supporters naturally objected when Democrats laid plans, should the draft come, to raise the $300 draft commutation fee for those too poor to pay it. In July 1863 the Democratic State Central Committee made it party policy to support paying commutation for the poor, and in September the Dubuque County supervisors issued county bonds to create a commutation fund. The Times reacted by pointing out what it considered the inconsistency of denouncing the Enrollment Act and especially commutation as ‘‘unconstitutional’’ and ‘‘abominable’’ while making plans so that ‘‘its benefits may be enjoyed by the poor men of the State.’’ The paper also cited a decision from the 63 Ibid., 12 July 1863; see also 13 November, 5, 17, 23 December 1863. On 22 July 1863, an anomalous note snuck into Ballou’s ‘‘City News’’ columns, when he asserted that ‘‘there should be no encouragement given, in or out of the army, to the idea that the fact of being conscripted carries a stigma to the conscript.’’ That comment was at odds with everything that preceded and followed it. 64 Times, 27 April, 8 August 1864. See also 7 April 1861; and U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Manufacturing, vol. 3 of Eighth Census of the United States 1860 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1865), 155. See also Times, 31 December 1863. Ballou gives no indication of the source of his $442-per-year number. The $292 figure in the text comes from $100 in bounty per year and $16per-month ($192-per-year) pay; the $2 premium was also paid, which would add 66 cents per year for a three-year enlistment.

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Maine Supreme Court that declared taxation for such a purpose unconstitutional. Soon, however, the Times went further, quoting an argument from the pro-war Burlington (Iowa) Hawkeye that offering to pay commutation for poor men amounted to ‘‘a wholesale effort to impede the operation of the enrollment act.’’ But raising money to ‘‘purchase the freedom (as the rich are provided to do for themselves,) of each poor white man who may be drafted in Iowa,’’ as the Iowa Democratic Party put it, only represented a wholesale effort to impede the draft if the law was designed to force the poor and working class into the army. Thus the Time’s arguments against paying poor people’s commutation suggest very strongly whom war supporters wanted to reach with the Enrollment Act.65 Further evidence comes from the repeal of commutation for all except conscientious objectors in July 1864. Commutation, which had been intended to hold substitute prices to what Republicans in Congress considered a reasonable level—no one would pay more than $300 to a substitute when they could pay that sum directly to the government for exemption—had in fact produced more money than men.66 Although Iowa Democrats never needed to carry out their plans for extending the benefits of commutation to poorer people, other states did; individuals also acted, forming draft insurance clubs that paid commutation for anyone paying a small fee (usually about $25). In passing the Enrollment Act, Congress had not anticipated these means of extending commutation’s benefits to a broader segment of the public. Seeing their creation thus perverted, congressional Republicans sacrificed it.67

1864–1865: Free Market The repeal of commutation established a more free market for soldier labor and benefited most those men who were willing to go into 65 Times, 5 August (Iowa Democratic Party), 10 (Times’s own views), 20 (Burlington Hawkeye) September 1863; see also Times, 1, 13 August 1863. 66 By way of illustration, in the first draft under the Enrollment Act (in July 1863), only 9,881 drafted men personally entered the service, while 26,002 furnished substitutes and 52,288 paid commutation; in the next draft (April 1864), the same numbers were 3,416, 8,911, and 32,678. Sterling, ‘‘Civil War Draft Resistance,’’ 401–4, 424. 67 Geary, We Need Men, 49–64, 103–50. Geary argues that there was no class bias in commutation, as the fact that some poor people got access through community

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the army. Under the original terms of the Enrollment Act, neither prospective volunteers nor substitutes could sell their services to the highest bidder. Once the federal bounty was increased from $100 to $300, moreover, there was little incentive to being a substitute at all, because the substitute fee would be at most $300 but by becoming a substitute the soldier forfeited his $300 federal bounty. In this system the main beneficiaries were the people thereby enabled to stay out of the army. After repeal, prospective volunteers and substitutes could sell their labor for the best price. Before repeal, for example, in May 1863 Daniel Darrow advertised in the Times his willingness to go as a substitute for ‘‘any one . . . on payment of the $300 as authorized by the late Conscription Act of Congress.’’ No one took him up on his offer, however, and in March 1864 Darrow volunteered, taking his $300 as a federal bounty instead of as a substitute fee. In contrast after the repeal of commutation, in October 1864 the district provost marshal at Dubuque, Shubael P. Adams, received a letter from Grant County, Wisconsin, offering ‘‘several men that want to go as substitutes’’ who would ‘‘go where they can get the most money . . . they want about $1000.’’ D. S. Sigler, a veteran from Osceola, Iowa, wrote to Adams in December that he and another veteran were willing ‘‘to go on any quota.’’ ‘‘We have served three years without bounty & now want all there is going.’’ About two weeks later, Sigler added that he and his friend thought $700 each would be appropriate, but they would ‘‘go to the credit of the place from which we get the most Bounty—if we go at all.’’68 As these letters to Adams indicate, in the wake of commutation’s repeal substitute prices increased by 100 percent or more. But this simply meant they would be more in line with other prices. By mid1864, inflation in the North had driven prices up 89 percent compared to 1860; meanwhile wages for workers were up less than 40 percent. Wholesale food prices in Dubuque again showed inflation’s funds or insurance clubs demonstrates. But he fails to acknowledge that these recourses were not contemplated by the law and that their use led to commutation’s repeal. 68 Times, 26 May 1863; Daniel Darrow, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; and James M. Scott, postmaster at Glen Haven, Grant County, Wisconsin, to S. P. Adams, 8 October 1864, and D. S. Sigler to S. P. Adams, 2, 17 December 1864, in ‘‘Letters and Telegrams Received, 1863–65,’’ Iowa, Third District, no. 6425, Record Group 110, Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter, RG 110, no. 6425, NA).

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effect in the city. In January 1865 a bushel of potatoes cost 90 cents versus 15–20 cents in January 1861; similarly, a bushel of beans was $1.50–1.60 versus 60–75 cents, and a barrel of flour $8.00 versus $3.75. Dressed hogs commanded $13.50–14.10 per 100 pounds, compared to $1.90–$2.20 in January 1862, the earliest figure available. ‘‘Pork has reached such a high figure that it is a luxury,’’ the Herald declared in December 1864. Beef was about the only food commodity that had not more than doubled in price: 100 pounds cost $3.00–4.50 at the beginning of 1865 versus $2.00–2.50 four years earlier. Even eggs, which had remained remarkably constant in price from 1861 to 1863, reached 30–31 cents per dozen compared to the usual winter price of about 12 cents; among other things, this suggests that poorer people may have begun substituting poultry for pork in their diets.69 Other prices also increased. Firewood, for example, rose in price from a prewar ‘‘standard’’ of $3.75–4.00 per cord to $6.50–7.50 in June 1864, and a devastating $11.00–12.00 in December 1864. ‘‘Winter Seams to have Come in Earnest,’’ Solon Langworthy wrote in his diary in November 1864, ‘‘and I Realy dread it, because of the Suffering of the poor of our vilage & County—the Exceeding high price of Fuel Clothing & provisions will render it difficult if not quite impossible for the poor to obtain the Necessaries of Life.’’ Langworthy thought poor relief societies ‘‘must be astablished for the purposes [of] Raising funds to Supply the needy during the Winter.’’ Dubuque did not have a good record in the area of poor relief, however, and during the war, as chapter 6 will detail, efforts to send provisions to the soldiers in the field absorbed what little interest could be mustered for relief work. The Times said it most succinctly in December 1864: ‘‘God help the poor.’’70 A doubling or more of substitute prices similarly might be thought to be a disaster for the poor and working class. But, in fact, such individuals could not afford even the fixed $300 fee without help. The same methods, moreover, that gave them access to commutation 69 Lebergott, Manpower, 549; and Andreano, Economic Impact, 179. For Dubuque prices, see Times, 3 January 1861, 14 January 1862, 6 January 1863, 5 January 1864, 10 January 1865. See also Herald, 11 December 1864 for the comment about pork. 70 Times, 2 June 1861, 6 June, 12 December 1864; and SML Diary, 20 November 1864, p. 280.

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also worked to provide substitutes. Finally, in order to keep the cost to the community at a more manageable level, cities and counties worked harder to stimulate voluntary enlistments, offering their own bounties of $300 or $400 on top of the federal bounty. Still some people no doubt suffered. Orlando Clark of Fayette County, Iowa, for example, a self-described ‘‘Poor man,’’ was held to service under the draft in October 1864 when two men whose names were drawn ahead of his failed to report. Clark had to sell ‘‘most’’ of his farm property to raise the $800 necessary to hire a substitute in the market of October 1864.71 Clark was forced into this decision because in late 1864 Iowa could no longer avoid the draft. The credits on previous quotas that had kept the state clear of the draft were now exhausted, at least according to the War Department. State officials saw things differently, and as a September date set for the draft neared, the exchanges of messages between state and federal officials became increasingly testy. In the search for more volunteers, some novel solutions were offered. In early 1864 the Times urged ‘‘Let the women enlist!’’ This was not a Republican attempt to revolutionize society, as Dennis Mahony might have imagined. The paper made it clear that women should enlist ‘‘not to carry muskets—but to take the place of men, now employed in various light avocations at home, who can be spared, and who should come forward and serve in the ranks.’’ This message was directed with particular force at male shop clerks. ‘‘What a petty occupation for yonder stout, healthy young man to be standing behind the counter of a dry goods store,’’ the Times said. ‘‘Clear him out!’’ After hearing that his sister Florence had taken a clerking position, former clerk George W. Healey wrote home from the army, ‘‘bully for you.’’ He added that ‘‘I would not be surprised but what the ladies were going to run Dubuque if this war keeps on.’’ The reaction to this prospect in Dubuque itself was more mixed. John Bell, Florence Healey’s employer, was threatened with a boycott. Men said they would not trade with him, and he was ‘‘assured . . . that no woman would set foot in the place as long as that goodlooking girl was behind the counter.’’ Florence Healey stayed, however, and Bell’s store in fact prospered. Other scholars have noted the feminizing of occupations such as shop and office clerking after 71

Orlando Clark to S. P. Adams, 16 November 1864, in RG 110, no. 6425, NA.

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the Civil War. In Dubuque, the process began with Masilla Hall and other women offering in 1862 to replace temporarily any shop clerks who would enlist, continued with the 1864 effort to shame men out of ‘‘petty’’ occupations and into the army, and achieved its first notable success with Florence Healey at John Bell’s store.72 Despite the pressure on clerks and others to enlist, the results were meager. In Dubuque, as throughout Iowa, those who were going to volunteer generally already had. Florence Healey’s job, for example, did not mean the Union army gained a new volunteer soldier. Bell’s clerks had long since left for the army, and he hired Florence to ease the burden on himself. He also knew that with George in the army the Healeys needed money; Elizabeth (Weigel) Healey, Florence and George’s mother, had divorced before the war, and the family was described as ‘‘very Poor’’ thereafter.73 With few new soldiers coming forward in fall 1864, Iowa could no longer escape the draft, and if it came, there was every reason to believe Dubuque would be one of the hardest-hit locations in the state. According to figures in the Des Moines Daily State Register, Dubuque County, Iowa’s most populous, had furnished 1,768 men for the Union army, while the state’s second-largest county had sent 2,396. As of August 17, 1864, the city of Dubuque was 255 deficient on its quotas; the portion of Julien Township outside the city added another thirty-eight to the deficiency. A month later, the city’s deficiency had been reduced by only fifty and Julien Township’s not at all.74 Nevertheless, men in Dubuque reacted complacently to the im72 OR, Series 3, 4:567, 596, 597, 636–38, 648, 681; Times, 19, 24 May 1864; George W. Healey to ‘‘My dear Mother,’’ 2 July 1864, and undated article from the Times, both in George W. Healey Letters, Civil War Documents Collection, IHSD (hereafter, Healey Letters). For the supplanting of men by women as clerks after the war, see, for example, Cindy S. Aron, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Civil Service: Middle-Class Workers in Victorian America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Margery W. Davies, Woman’s Place Is at the Typewriter: Office Work and Office Workers, 1870–1930 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982); and Susan Porter Benson, Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890–1940 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986). 73 Undated article from the Times, in Healey Letters, Civil War Documents Collection, IHSD; and Conzett, Recollections, 234, 267. 74 Des Moines Daily State Register, 1 June 1864; Times, 17 August, 14 September 1864. See also OR, Series 3, 4:284–85, 287, 288.

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pending draft. After two years of draft scares, according to Provost Marshal Adams, ‘‘a large majority of the people . . . had really come to believe that there would be no draft here.’’ This ‘‘delusion’’ was ‘‘dispelled’’ when Adams received the order on September 21 to commence drafting. Wasting no time, Adams put the portion of Julien Township outside Dubuque city ‘‘in the wheel’’ the next day to fill a deficiency of twenty-three men. At this point, ‘‘several of the most prominent, and influential men of the County’’ approached Adams and asked him to suspend the draft in Dubuque County until the board of supervisors had time to meet and create a county bounty fund. Adams granted the delay for the rest of Dubuque County, but the Julien Township draftees were held, and the draft continued in the other counties of Adams’s district.75 Leading the delegation that waited on Adams was Dennis Mahony. In his report at the end of the war, Adams—as partisan a Republican as lived in the city—singled out Mahony as ‘‘the most active and efficient man in recruiting’’ after the commencement of the draft. With Mahony’s encouragement, the board of supervisors passed a $125,000 bond issue to fund a county bounty of $400 for each volunteer; the measure also extended the money to anyone drafted and entering the service as a result and to anyone who hired a substitute on his own. If townships and city wards wanted to offer additional bounties, they could, though they were urged to limit the additional amount to $200 to avoid bidding wars.76 At first glance, given his opposition to the Enrollment Act as one of the Lincoln administration’s ‘‘four acts of despotism,’’ Mahony’s 75 See Captain Shubael P. Adams, provost marshal, Iowa Third District, ‘‘Historical Report,’’ 1 June 1865, Microfilm, M1163, NA, 5a (hereafter, Adams, ‘‘Historical Report’’); Colonel Thomas Duncan, acting assistant provost marshal general (AAPMG) for Iowa, ‘‘Historical Report,’’ 5 October 1865, Microfilm, M1163, NA, 11 (hereafter, Duncan, ‘‘Historical Report’’); and Times, 23 September 1864, for a description of the Julien Township draft. 76 Adams, ‘‘Historical Report,’’ 5b; Times, 22 September, 4, 6, 8 October 1864; and for Adams’s partisanship, see Lyon, Dubuque: The Encyclopedia, 4; Sage, William Boyd Allison, 50–51; and Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 773. There were two restrictions on relief for men who hired substitutes. First, they had to put their names back on the draftable list for any future draft, and second, they would get only as much as they had paid for their substitute but not more than $400. This provision was put in the law in response to a concern raised in the Times; see Times, 26 September 1864; see also ibid., 19 November 1864 for two men who took advantage of the provision.

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leadership of the county bounty effort might be surprising. But Mahony recognized that the quota would have to be filled, and it would be better to have well-compensated volunteers than draftees torn from their families or forced to sell their property. The response of the Times is perhaps more surprising. In 1862 the Times had led the drive that culminated in a $50 local bounty, and throughout August and early September 1864, W. S. Peterson, the paper’s new editor, regularly chastised Dubuque’s city and county governments for not again establishing a bounty. As soon as it appeared that county officials would act, though, Peterson changed his tune. In a September 26 editorial, after noting the ‘‘inconsistency and impudence’’ of men who had long worked to ‘‘discourage enlistments’’ and were now working for a local bounty, he expressed his ‘‘hope that loyal men will give the whole movement a ‘wide berth.’ ’’ Peterson had ‘‘no right to object’’ if individual citizens chose to form committees and raise private funds, ‘‘but against an appropriation by the Board of Supervisors we do most earnestly protest.’’ For his part, the new Herald proprietor, Patrick Robb, took this opportunity to turn the tables on the Republicans. Quoting Peterson’s September 26 editorial, Robb noted that ‘‘Inasmuch as the movement referred to is the effort to fill our quota by volunteers, the above would seem very much like discouraging enlistments.’’ Robb stopped short of calling for Peterson’s arrest, however.77 Although it was a county bounty, Dubuque city seemed to be the major beneficiary. Every ward in the city filled their quotas and escaped the draft, whereas other parts of the county were not so fortunate. The portion of Julien Township outside the city of Dubuque, for example, was drafted, but simply because it had the bad luck to be the first subdistrict put into the wheel. Eventually, after allowing time for the bounty to work, five of the county’s sixteen other townships were also drafted. One of these five was Taylor Township, the most reliably Republican subdistrict of the county, which failed to fill a deficiency of six men. In contrast, each of the city’s five wards met a larger deficiency with the bounty; the largely Irish First Ward, for example, erased a deficiency of thirty-five using bounties. These two facts are not unrelated. Willing volunteers migrated from rural to urban areas in search of larger bounties, and Provost Marshal Adams 77

Times, 19, 31 August, 15, 26 September 1864; Herald, 27 September 1864.

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managed quotas and enlistments to the particular benefit of Dubuque city. Thus, in addition to being an element in the raising of the Union army, the Enrollment Act may have indirectly promoted urbanization and industrialization by mobilizing a workforce of ruralto-urban migrants.78 More immediately, the draft reinforced the political strength of Dubuque’s Democrats. The draft continued in the county throughout that fall’s presidential election campaign. Patrick Robb saw the draft as a powerful political issue against Lincoln, and in the weeks leading to the election, Robb could credibly assert that ‘‘Another draft will surely come if Abraham Lincoln is re-elected, and still others, each succeeding one more cruel and remorseless than the last, until the last man shall be taken. Who will vote for an administration so bloody in its policy and purposes?’’ Not many, came the answer from Dubuque County. Despite an early prediction from Dennis Mahony that the Democratic nominee, George B. McClellan, ‘‘will not receive the Democratic vote,’’ Lincoln, who had received 39 percent of the county’s vote in 1860, received only 35 percent in 1864; in the city, his percentage dipped from 46 to 42.79 Robb had been right. Safely reelected, the Lincoln administration issued a new call for troops in December, with a draft set for February 15, 1865. On December 24, 1864, readers of the Times were greeted with a lead story full of Christmas cheer: ‘‘Prepare for the Draft.’’ Ward meetings were held throughout the city that night to correct the lists of draft-eligible men. Few attended, however, and George Ballou at the Times concluded that despite the draft that had 78 OR, Series 3, 5:732, 734; Times, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 28 October 1864; Duncan, ‘‘Historical Report,’’ 9–11; Murdock, One Million Men, 356; and for Adams’s favoritism toward Dubuque, see Thomas Duncan, AAPMG, to Adams, 12 November 1864; Captain David Greaves, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, to Nathaniel Baker, Iowa adjutant general, 21 November 1864; Lieutenant Colonel S. G. Van Anda, Twenty-first Infantry, to Baker, 2 November 1864; and A. S. Blair, deputy provost marshal in Delaware County, to Adams, 26 January 1865—all in RG 110, no. 6425, NA. 79 Times, 14, 16, 19 November 1864 (for continuing draft in Dubuque County); Herald, 7 October 1864 (Robb’s opinion); Mahony to Charles Mason, 23 August (quote in text) and 20 September 1864, Dennis A. Mahony Papers, CDH. For election data, see Wilkie, Dubuque on the Mississippi, 231; and Times, 10, 16 November 1864. David Montgomery, Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862–1872 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 109, found Lincoln’s percentage of the vote declining in eight of nineteen major cities in the North.

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just occurred, ‘‘every man in the city is perfectly indifferent as to whether he is drafted at the coming draft or not.’’ Ballou even endorsed the payment of ‘‘a liberal bounty’’ to help meet the city’s quota. But this last draft scare of the war ended almost before it began. Three weeks before the scheduled draft date, Iowa’s new governor, William M. Stone, told the Times to ‘‘announce that no more men are due from this State, under the pending call, and that we are relieved from the Draft.’’80

Conclusion Recruiting for the Union army thus passed through several discernible phases during the war. An initial voluntary rush to enlist quickly gave way to a more sluggish period, which was met by adding an element of coercion via the Militia Act. After coercion proved its usefulness in fall 1862, the federal government moved to assert greater authority over the system via the Enrollment Act. Although it simultaneously tried to make the bounty system more attractive to volunteers, under the Enrollment Act the federal government controlled the soldier-labor market with the provisions for substitution and, especially, commutation in the law. That failed, however, and the government had to repeal commutation, restoring a free market for soldier labor. In Dubuque, furthermore, at each stage of the process emphasis was placed on encouraging working-class and poor enlistments, along with the enlistment of young men, who traditionally comprised the bulk of armies. This encouragement took several forms, including persistent draft scares, suggestions of the material benefits to be gained by enlisting, and assertions that the poor and working class had the most to gain by the successful prosecution of the war. Continuing economic depression reinforced these arguments, making the army a potentially attractive alternative for poor, working-class, and young men displaced in the shift from commerce to manufacturing. But who from Dubuque’s military-aged male population responded and why?

80 Times, 22, 24, 29 December 1864 (last date for Ballou quote); Semi-weekly Times, 27 January 1865 (Stone).

CHAPTER 3

Independent Soldiers and Soldier-Sons: The Social Origins of Enlistees I knew the young men who responded to the call,—knew them by hundreds. They were clerks on small salaries; they were lawyers with insufficient business; they were young men with no occupation and anxious for employment; they were farmers’ boys disgusted with the drudgery of the soil, and anxious to visit the wonderful world beyond them. To these were added husbands tired of the bickerings of domestic life, lovers disappointed in their affections, and ambitious elements who saw in the organization of men opportunities for command. Others, differing but little from the last named, scented political preferment, and joined the popular movement. —Franc B. Wilkie, Pen and Powder, 1888

While being held as a prisoner of war after the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, Second Lieutenant Luther W. Jackson from Dubuque recorded his impressions of the war in his diary. From Jackson’s perspective, the South had a natural beauty, ‘‘but give me old Iowa thank God she is Free.’’ Even ‘‘the moon [in the South] . . . don’t seem so bright as my old Iowa moon.’’ In another entry, he expressed his patriotic desire to see the war through to the end. Although Jackson missed his wife, he did ‘‘not wish to leave the service until this war is closed & the rebels conquered.’’1 Comments like these appear frequently in letters and diaries left behind by Civil War soldiers. Indeed, the pervasiveness of ‘‘themes of liberty and republicanism’’ in the soldiers’ private letters and diaries has led some scholars to argue 1 Diary of Luther W. Jackson, published as ‘‘A Prisoner of War,’’ Annals of Iowa, 3d ser., 19 (1933): 23–41 (quotes from 33, 31, 27).

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that ideological commitment explains why men enlisted and why they fought. In fact, however, the ideological interpretation loses much of its explanatory power when one notes that ‘‘themes of liberty and republicanism’’ generally pervaded mid-nineteenth-century discourse. In Dubuque, for example, while war supporters used the language of patriotism, liberty, and republicanism to make their arguments, Dennis Mahony used the same language to oppose the war.2 Furthermore, attempts to demonstrate soldiers’ ideological motivation have routinely divorced the soldiers from the context of their civilian lives. Dubuque’s Luther Jackson, for instance, was a relative failure at his chosen profession of merchant. With no property in 1860, the thirty-nine-year-old Jackson was an unusual merchant in Dubuque; more common were merchants such as thirty-five-year-old F. W. H. Sheffield, who owned total property worth $25,000, or 28year-old J. P. Scott, who owned $14,500. A commission as a second lieutenant, with its pay of $103.50 per month, may well have stirred Jackson’s patriotism in ways it did not stir that of Sheffield or Scott, neither of whom enlisted. Another example of the limits of the ideo2 Secondary literature on ideological motivation includes James M. McPherson, What They Fought For, 1861–1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994), quote from 6; McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Joseph Allan Frank and George A. Reaves, ‘‘Seeing the Elephant’’: Raw Recruits at the Battle of Shiloh (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989), 30–37; and Reid Mitchell, The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). For the pervasiveness of liberty and republicanism in nineteenth-century rhetoric, see, for example, Steven J. Watts, The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790–1820 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1987), esp. 63–107, which shows Americans interpreting the War of 1812 as a battle for liberty and republicanism as well as to purify society; Jean Baker, Affairs of Party: The Political Culture of Northern Democrats in the Mid-nineteenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983; reprinted New York: Fordham University Press, 1998), which argues that republicanism was the primary language of opposition to authority at mid-century; and Steven J. Ross, Workers on the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788–1890 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), which describes a century-long contest between workers and capitalists for control of the language of republicanism. And see Willard Waller, On the Family, Education, and War: Selected Writings, ed. William J. Goode, Frank F. Furstenberg Jr., and Larry R. Mitchell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 323–24, which argues that ‘‘the most obvious change in [social] mores’’ during wartime is ‘‘the reversion to the tribal morality which commands solidarity within the group and enmity to those outside.’’ Such solidarity—reflected in the soldiers’ ideological commitment—is, according to Waller, ‘‘a necessary precondition of war.’’

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logical explanation comes from Dubuque’s William Bach. In 1861 Bach joined the Union League, a secret organization of ultrapatriots in the North, but despite being an unmarried man and of legal age to enlist at the beginning of the war, he waited until late 1864 to volunteer. One could also cite Samuel McNutt. An assistant editor at the Times at the beginning of the war, in 1862 he left Dubuque saying he was going to establish his family in southern Iowa and then volunteer. Instead, he took a job at a newspaper in Davenport, where he continued patriotically and vociferously supporting the war.3 But perhaps the best example of the limits of ideology comes from comparing two Dubuque friends: David Greaves and Pascal W. Skemp. Greaves served with the First Iowa Infantry and then with the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, whereas Skemp did not enlist and even falsified a claim of deafness in an attempt to get a draft exemption. Greaves and Skemp had much in common. Both were immigrants from England of about the same age; both worked as clerks for much of the period before the war; and they lived in the same boarding house in 1860. From the army, moreover, Greaves wrote letters to Skemp that indicated Greaves believed Skemp’s patriotism was at least as strong as his own. Two differences stand out between the two men. First, Greaves was unmarried in 1860, but Skemp had a wife and child, which may explain his reluctance to enlist; as will be detailed below, however, many of Dubuque’s soldiers left wives and families behind. Second, although they lived in the same boarding house and neither owned any property, their economic circumstances were in fact quite different. Greaves had clerked in his father’s hardware store until March 1859, when the Panic of 1857 claimed the store as one of its victims; in 1860 he worked as a machinist. Skemp, on the other hand, clerked for dry goods merchants Sheffield & Scott. The Panic shook Sheffield & Scott, but the firm survived and during the war thrived. Skemp himself prospered, and in September 3 Census 1860, Pop., pp. 252 (Jackson), 88 (Sheffield), 113 (Scott); and Jackson, Twelfth Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA. For Bach, see letter from Bach to W. W. Dudley, Commissioner of Pensions, 26 December 1883, in William Bach, Civil War and Later Pension Files, Record Group 15, Records of the Veterans’ Administration, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter, Pensions, NA); Bach was born in 1838. For the Union League, see Eugene F. Ware, The Indian War of 1864 (Topeka, Kans.: Crane & Company, 1911; reprint, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1960); and for McNutt, Times, 19 August 1862, 20 March 1863.

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1865 he opened his own dry goods store in partnership with two other men.4 Thus the question remains: Why did some patriots enlist while others did not? Based on surviving letters, diaries, pension files, and other sources, men from Dubuque enlisted for a variety of reasons. Some responded from ideological motives; others rushed to volunteer after witnessing the reception given to the First Iowa Infantry veterans when they returned home at the end of their service in 1861; still others enlisted as a result of pressure from family, friends, neighbors, and prospective mates; and some young men enlisted to rebel against their parents. Adding quantitative data indicates that economic and personal circumstances also played a significant part in the decision. Many of the apparently financially secure volunteers or their families struggled through the depression beginning in 1857 and continuing with the closing of the Mississippi River, while the working class endured job instability and wages that failed to keep pace with inflation. This is not, however, to assert a crude ‘‘poor man’s fight’’ interpretation. The analysis of data on Dubuque’s soldiers reveals that those most likely to enlist were sons living in lownonmanual and artisan households and independent men among the city’s artisans and unskilled workers. These were also the people most likely to feel squeezed as Dubuque changed from a commercial to an industrial economy and society during the 1860s.

Personal Circumstances and Enlistments Recalling the men he knew from his days as a war correspondent for the Dubuque Herald and other newspapers, Franc Wilkie argued that the men who enlisted were poor, though not necessarily unskilled. They were young men, certainly, but also men in awkward positions 4 Greaves, First Iowa and Twenty-first Iowa Infantries, CSR, NA; Census 1860, Pop., p. 112; ‘‘Proceedings of the Board of Enrollment, May 1863–May 1865,’’ Iowa, Third District, no. 6426, RG 110, Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau, NA (Skemp specifically, vol. 2, p. 144; the examining surgeon rejected his claim of deafness); Greaves to Skemp published in Times, 6 April 1864; Herald, 22 March 1859; Josiah Conzett, Recollections of People and Events, Dubuque, Iowa 1846–1890 (from a manuscript written in 1905, CDH; Dubuque: Union Hoermann Press, 1971), 204–5; Conzett ‘‘My Civil War: Before, during & after, 1861–1865,’’ memoir, 1909, p. 90, CDH.

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economically: clerks, unsuccessful professionals, and the unemployed. Wilkie broadly opposed the war and accordingly downplayed—indeed ignored—patriotism as a factor in enlistment, but he did note a number of noneconomic reasons why men enlisted: a desire to break free from the narrow confines of home, failure in personal relationships, a quest for glory, and ambition for future advancement. A closer look at some of the men who enlisted from Dubuque reinforces many of Wilkie’s observations.5 Peer pressure, for example, was a powerful influence on enlistments, especially among younger men. The previous chapter noted that dry goods clerk Josiah Conzett enlisted in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry in September 1861 along with his brother David and three of his friends and coworkers. The ripple effects of these enlistments also reached another of Josiah Conzett’s coworkers at Sheffield & Scott. George G. Moser, who had more seniority at the store than Conzett, waited a year and then enlisted with the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry. Although Conzett and his friends initially joined the army after seeing the way the young women of Dubuque responded to the returning First Iowa Infantry veterans, once in the army patriotism became more important. ‘‘Tell the Iowa boys to come if they love their country and to do their duty,’’ Conzett’s friend George W. Healey wrote home in November 1861. ‘‘I think everybody that doesn’t take up arms against the south is a Rebel.’’6 Peer pressure also functioned outside the low-nonmanual world occupied by Conzett and his friends. Another group of soldiers clustered around the illiterate lead miners Julius F. and Burley W. Mabe. Perhaps responding, as did Conzett and his friends, to the reception given the returning veterans of the First Iowa, in September 1861 the Mabes joined the Third Iowa Artillery—dubbed the Dubuque 5 Franc B. Wilkie, Pen and Powder (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1888), 14. Wilkie left the Dubuque Herald shortly after returning from covering the First Iowa Infantry; he later worked off and on as field correspondent for the New York Times until the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863. 6 Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 9–11; Conzett, Recollections, 197–98, 218, 247, 267; George G. Moser, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; and George W. Healey to ‘‘Mother, Sisters and Brother Eddy,’’ 24 November 1861, George W. Healey Letters, Civil War Documents Collection, IHSD (hereafter, Healey Letters). The fact that all of his fellow Sheffield & Scott clerks enlisted around Pascal Skemp puts the spotlight back on his decision not to enlist. It might be noted, however, that Skemp was older than his fellow clerks and that none of the others was married.

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Battery because of the number of men from the city who served in it. The Mabes, natives of North Carolina, lived at home with their propertyless parents, but volunteering with them was a much wealthier neighbor and friend, George W. Goldthorpe. George’s father, John Goldthorpe, was one of Dubuque’s early settlers; in 1860 he listed his occupation as farmer, though he also carried on mining operations and owned real estate valued at $50,000. George Goldthorpe, who at age twenty-seven in 1860 was older than either Julius (twenty-six) or Burley (twenty-one) Mabe, had no occupation listed in the 1860 census; when he enlisted he gave his occupation as miner.7 Three neighbors of the Mabes and Goldthorpe and two other men with connections to the Mabe family also enlisted. Near neighbors included William J. Morgan, who boarded in the Goldthorpe household and joined the Fifth Iowa Cavalry in August 1861; Spencer Forshee, a propertyless miner who lived with his wife and two-year-old daughter in a house between the Mabes and Goldthorpes and who joined the Dubuque Battery at the same time they did; and forty-sixyear-old miner George M. Walker, who joined the Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry in 1862 and who lived next door to the Mabes in 1860 with his wife and three young children, plus a son from an earlier marriage and the son’s wife. Although not from the same cluster of houses, at least two other soldiers had ties to the Mabe family. Jacob Collins married Emily Mabe while they all lived in Virginia and enlisted a year after his brothers-in-law in the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry. Another Mabe brother, James, was married with a family of his own in 1860. James Mabe, a farmer with no property, did not enlist, but a farm laborer who boarded in his household, William Tomlinson, joined the Twenty-first Infantry two days before Jacob Collins did.8 The federal government’s ‘‘veteran volunteer’’ program in the win7 Census 1860, Pop., p. 335; George W. Goldthorpe, Third Iowa Artillery, CSR, NA; and Julius F. Mabe, Pensions, NA. Real property worth $50,000 made John Goldthorpe the fourteenth-largest owner of real estate in the city (along with twelve others with the same amount). 8 Census 1860, Pop., pp. 333–35, for Mabes and near neighbors; see also pp. 227 (Collins), 336 (Tomlinson); Spencer Forshee, Third Iowa Artillery, CSR, NA; William J. Morgan, Fifth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; George M. Walker, Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; Walker, Pensions, NA; Jacob Collins and William Tomlinson, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; and Collins, Pensions, NA. The Goldthorpe and Mabe houses were one-half mile apart; see Deposition ‘‘A’’ by John R. Goldthorpe (George’s brother), 23 December 1886, in Julius Mabe, Pensions, NA.

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ter of 1863–64 gave peer pressure another chance to work. First, the men in the army pressured each other to stay; if a large enough portion of any regiment reenlisted their regiment would continue its existence, and the men would be kept together. Some soldiers hesitated, however. When the idea of reenlisting was first brought to the regiment in November 1863, George Healey wrote home that although ‘‘a great many’’ of the men were reenlisting and there were ‘‘very good inducements,’’ ‘‘they don’t get this child!’’ A month later, Healey added that his cousin Charles J. Weigel would not reenlist and ‘‘I can’t because soldiering is played out.’’ Nevertheless, Healey and Weigel, plus Josiah and David Conzett and the fifth soldier in this group of civilian friends, Charles A. Gilliam, all reenlisted. Healey tried to explain his change of heart: ‘‘There is one thing: we know what soldiering is and have come down to it.’’ On the other hand, in one of his memoirs Josiah Conzett recalled that he and others reenlisted in order to receive the unpaid wages owed to them by the government; one inducement in the veteran volunteer program was immediate payment in full rather than having to wait until their term of service expired in September 1864. In all, forty-six of the fifty men (not all from Dubuque) remaining in Company E, Fifth Iowa Cavalry in late 1863 became veterans; one who chose to go home was William Morgan. Similarly, Julius and Burley Mabe and their friend George Goldthorpe became veterans with the Dubuque Battery.9 Another inducement in the veteran volunteer program was a furlough to visit home, giving peer pressure another chance to work. Looking over the results, the Times called the decision to grant the veterans furloughs ‘‘brilliant . . . almost every veteran, on his return [to the army], brings a comrade, a new recruit, with him.’’ Seeing Conzett and his friends on their furlough, for example, Matthias Blockly, who moved up from errand boy to clerk at Sheffield & Scott when Conzett enlisted, became, in Conzett’s words, ‘‘Wild to Enlist and go Back with us.’’ Conzett in fact talked him out of it, but Blockly Healey to ‘‘My dear Mother,’’ 11 November 1863, Healey to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 19 December 1863, and Healey to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 9 March 1864, Healey Letters; David and Josiah Conzett, Charles A. Gilliam, George W. Healey, William J. Morgan, Charles J. Weigel, Fifth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; Conzett, Recollections, 215; and George W. Goldthorpe, Julius F. and Burley W. Mabe, Third Iowa Artillery, CSR, NA. For the ‘‘veteran volunteer’’ program, see OR, Series 3, 5:650–51. 9

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enlisted later in 1864 in a regiment created to serve for 100 days. On their veteran furlough, the Mabes influenced an older man, Charles A. Morton, a thirty-seven-year-old married boatman and cook with three children; Morton enlisted in the Dubuque Battery and went south when the veterans’ furlough ended.10 The clustering of soldiers as a result of peer pressure shown by Conzett and his friends, as well as by the Mabes and their friends and neighbors, was not uncommon. Among the soldiers from Dubuque found in the 1860 census, almost 30 percent shared a household with at least one other (future) soldier. The largest group consisted of six boarders who enlisted from a hotel owned by John Russ; they did not enlist at the same time or in a single company or regiment, however. Another way to consider peer pressure is to look at neighbors. Almost 40 percent of the soldiers lived next door to one or more soldiers in 1860. Two soldiers, brothers Charles and Anton Zugenbuehler, for example, came from the dwelling next door to John Russ’s hotel, making a total of eight soldiers from those two households.11 If some men enlisted in response to peer pressure, others volunteered to rebel against parental authority. In part this was a factor in Josiah Conzett’s enlistment, because he had taken his job at Sheffield & Scott to defy his parents’ plan that he study for the ministry and then ignored their entreaties not to join the army. Another young rebel was Oscar A. Langworthy, eldest son of Lucius H. Langworthy. Langworthy enlisted in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry in August 1861, despite knowing ‘‘only one person beside the staff officers’’ in the regi10 Times, 3, 28 February 1864 (latter date for quote); Conzett, Recollections, 215; Census 1860, Pop., pp. 18 (Morton), 182 (Blockly); Julius F. Mabe, Pensions, NA (Morton deposition); Matthias Blockly, Forty-sixth Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; and Charles A. Morton, Third Iowa Artillery, CSR, NA. 11 Data for soldiers found in the census will be considered more fully below. For Russ’s hotel and the Zugenbuehlers, see Census 1860, Pop., pp. 35–36; John B. Aiken, First Iowa Cavalry (Company L); George R. Boswell, First Iowa Cavalry (Company G); Abraham Herbst, First Iowa Infantry; Dominicus Hovey, Twentyfirst Iowa Infantry (Company C); John S. Platt, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry (Company E)—all CSR, NA; and ‘‘Lists Showing Recruits Credited to Subdistricts,’’ Iowa, Third District, no. 6433, RG 110, Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau, NA (for enlistment of Hazen Jackman in the navy). The Zugenbuehlers did enlist in the same company (Company E), with Charles preceding his younger brother Anton into the army by two years; see Anton and Charles Zugenbuehler, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA.

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ment; indeed, as he wrote to his father, there were ‘‘but few of the men I wish to associate with [since] mostly all of these are germans who have a great hatred towards the Americans.’’ He also accepted a position as a private, whereas other well-connected young men of somewhat lower status were able to secure commissions as officers when they enlisted. Langworthy specified his rebellion in an October 1864 letter to his father. He had enlisted, he wrote, to defeat his father’s ‘‘plan for my future life,—to marry and settle down to a peaceable quit [quiet] life.’’ He added that he would never get married as long as he stayed in the army, even ‘‘should I remain in the service for ten years.’’ As early as December 1861 he had hinted at this, boasting ‘‘I am now in for the war, now and forever.’’ But he also hoped military service would make him a better man. ‘‘Some day,’’ he wrote to his father, ‘‘you will find in me more than, prehaps you expected.’’12 Others—both young and old—enlisted with the similar thought that the physical nature of military service would make them better men by improving their physical health. ‘‘Many’’ men, according to a surgeon with the Third Iowa Infantry, enlisted ‘‘to regain their health—a most fatal illusion.’’ The surgeon made his comment in discharging Sergeant Oscar H. Case, who enlisted knowing he had tuberculosis. The same surgeon also discharged printer Andrew D. Keesecker for ‘‘general prostration,’’ which ‘‘existed before enlistment.’’ Keesecker, he added, ‘‘is inefficient and worthless—has neither energy nor industry & will never make a soldier.’’ Among volunteers for the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, Joseph Allen volunteered despite chronic nephritis in his left kidney of six years’ standing; William E. Cumpton had a hernia; and Hiram H. Phillips had hepatitis, causing loss ‘‘of his appetite, strength, and ability to perform the duties of a soldier.’’ All had to be discharged within three or four months of their enlistment.13 12 Oscar A. Langworthy, Fifth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; and Oscar Langworthy to Lucius H. Langworthy, 5 December 1861, 2 December 1863, 31 October 1864, Langworthy Family Papers, folder 2, CDH. 13 Certificate of Disability for Discharge, in CSR, NA for Oscar H. Case and Andrew D. Keesecker, Third Iowa Infantry; Joseph Allen, William E. Cumpton, and Hiram H. Phillips, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry. It might be added that despite being discharged as disabled from the Third Infantry, Oscar Case returned to the army six months later—with a captain’s commission; Oscar Case, Eighteenth Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA.

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Most often historians have attributed the decisions that allowed men such as Oscar Case and the others into the army to the incompetence of examining surgeons and the speed at which they carried out their exams. These factors undoubtedly contributed, but it also seems likely that some surgeons, no less than the prospective volunteers, believed that military service offered an antidote to the sedentary nature of urban, particularly business-class, life. Anticipating the postwar emphasis on seeking the ‘‘strenuous life’’ and the ‘‘moral equivalent of war’’ to rebuild American manhood, as early as 1859 an essay extolling ‘‘Physical Education’’ appeared in the Times. The author, ‘‘Pupil,’’ directed attention to ‘‘that miserable enervated specimen of Young America’’ and asserted that ‘‘the only remedy for us dwellers in cities, who live by the yardstick and pen is systematic exercise.’’ What Pupil had in mind was the formation of gymnastics clubs, but it is only a short step from there to thinking the exertions of military service could promote health.14 Still other men apparently volunteered to escape local notoriety. In March 1861, for example, Irish laborer Patrick Loftus went on a drinking spree during which he battered his wife, threw rocks through his neighbor’s windows, and, it was alleged, murdered fellow laborer Stephen Cardiff. Loftus was acquitted of Cardiff ’s murder but served a two-month jail sentence for beating his wife and disturbing the peace. After finishing his sentence, he joined the Dubuque Battery and stayed in the army until dishonorably discharged in October 1865; he seems never to have returned to Dubuque or to his family. Laborer Samuel Haenni killed a man in a saloon fight shortly after returning home from service in the First Iowa Infantry. He spent three years in the state prison then immediately enlisted in the Dubuque Battery after being released. Unlike Loftus, however, Haenni returned to Dubuque and his family after the war and lived there the rest of his life. One of the more unusual situations involved Martin L. Rice. In June 1862, while working as watchman at the city’s Times, 2 April 1859; see also George M. Fredrickson, The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 217–38; and E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 222– 46. For discussion of medical exams for recruits, see, for example, Eugene C. Murdock, One Million Men: The Civil War Draft in the North (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1971), 121–53. 14

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Central Market building, Rice discovered a baby abandoned in the privy there. After a few days the plot thickened when it was revealed that the married Rice was in fact the baby’s father, but the baby’s mother was not his wife. Two months later, Rice joined the Twentyfirst Iowa Infantry.15 More men enlisted from apparently happier domestic situations than Loftus and Rice. At one end of the scale were the men who married just before leaving for the army or while in the service. Amos Russell cut things closest, getting married the night before he left Dubuque as a sergeant with the First Iowa Infantry; about a year after his ninety-days service in the First Infantry ended, he reenlisted in the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry. Horace Poole, like Russell a First Iowa veteran who reenlisted in the Twenty-first Infantry, visited home in 1864 long enough to marry Frances Langworthy, a daughter of Solon Langworthy. Other soldiers received additions to their families while in the army. Annie Clark, for instance, was pregnant with her first child when her husband, William Hyde Clark, left with the First Iowa; she gave birth during his absence. At the other end of the scale, according to the 1860 census three soldiers had as many as eight children: James B. Carroll, a farmer and laborer, enlisted in the Dubuque Battery, and William Burke, a clock maker, and Henry Miller, who worked as a cabinetmaker while his wife ran their boarding house, joined the Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry. One of Burke’s sons also enlisted, while Miller was the center of a larger cluster of soldiers, with two sons, one boarder, and two neighbors who also volunteered at various times.16 15 For Loftus: Times, 3, 10 March 1861; Loftus, Third Iowa Artillery, CSR, NA; and Loftus, Pensions, NA. For Haenni: Herald, 17, 18 September 1861; District Court Record, County Clerk’s Office, vol. I, case no. 178, pp. 370, 394, 395, 511, DCC; Haenni, First Iowa Infantry and Third Iowa Artillery, CSR, NA; and Haenni, Pensions, NA. For Rice: Times, 18, 21 June 1862; and Rice, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA. Other examples could be cited, including that of John Ryan, who lived in the county outside Julien Township but had several run-ins with the law in Dubuque city, including an 1858 conviction for attempted murder, another accusation of serious assault, and involvement in a string of burglaries after joining the Seventh Iowa Cavalry. See Express & Herald, 21 February 1858; Times, 20, 22 February, 14, 17, 18, 21 May 1858, 22 November 1862, 23 January 1863; John Ryan, Seventh Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; and Ware, Indian War, 86–87. 16 For Russell: Times, 24 April 1861; and Franc B. Wilkie, The Iowa First: Letters from the War (Dubuque: Herald Book and Job Establishment, 1861), 6. For Poole and Clark: Times, 28 September 1864, 25 May 1861. For the men with eight children each, see Census 1860, Pop., pp. 15 (Burke), 59 (Miller), 345 (Carroll); and Burke,

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All of the men in the Miller cluster, as well as Carroll and Burke, were artisans, unskilled, or, in the case of Miller and Burke’s sons, unemployed, suggesting the significance of the army as a potential steady job in a time of economic uncertainty. War supporters certainly encouraged men to think along those lines, urging workers to enlist for the job opportunity, if for no other reason. ‘‘Workmen have exceeded the demand for labor in several branches of manufacturing,’’ the Times quoted the New York World as saying early in the war. Hence many ‘‘were non-producers a great part of the time’’ and could easily be employed by the army at ‘‘no loss to themselves or the nation.’’ Some soldiers clearly accepted this logic. After enlisting in 1862 Ernst Renner, a lawyer and farmer from rural Dubuque County, wrote to the Times that he and others volunteered in the hope that ‘‘by going we should preserve the business men of our country in their places, and thus keep its main interests unimpaired.’’ Similarly, though writing many years after the fact, teamster Joseph Baule recalled that although he had a job and his employer, lead smelter John Watters, even raised his pay from $15 to $18 per month in gold in 1862, ‘‘I thought My service was of more vallue to our countrys Call than to John Watters.’’17 The continuing depression in the war’s first years followed by rapid inflation made the army an attractive alternative for some. Frank N. Doyle, for example, earned $40 per month as a printer before the war, a small sum compared to the $108.50 he earned each month as an infantry lieutenant. Men who waited until fall 1864 to volunteer as privates collected $700 in federal and local bounty plus $16 in monthly pay (an average of $35.44 per month for a three-year enlistment) and also may have come out ahead, especially when the war ended less than a year later.18 It must be emphasized, however, that Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; Miller, Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; and Carroll, Third Iowa Artillery, CSR, NA. And for clusters noted see Patrick Burke, Thirteenth U.S. Volunteer Infantry; Charles E. Miller, First Iowa Cavalry; William H. H. Miller, Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry; Nathan P. Stiles, Seventh Iowa Cavalry; Cornelius Bennett, Eighth Iowa Cavalry; and Andrew Hamilton, Ninth Iowa Infantry—all CSR, NA. Stiles was Miller’s boarder; Bennett lived next door to the Miller house, and Hamilton lived on the other side of Bennett. 17 Times, 19 June 1861, 13 September 1862; and Joseph Baule to Green B. Raum, Commissioner of Pensions, 22 September 1890, in Leonard Buehler, Pensions, NA. 18 When the war ended, bounties were paid in full, even if the individual was

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soldiers already in the army before federal bounties were increased or before the local bounty was created did not receive that money. Still, for those earlier volunteers the army offered stable employment at a time of instability in Dubuque. Although lead mining ‘‘flourished’’ during the war, for example, it was noted that fewer men worked as miners than previously. One miner, Thomas Lockey, reported earning $1.00 per day during the war; he did not enlist, but two of his sons did. For seasonal farm laborers, at the beginning of the war Richard Bonson paid $2.00 per day, raising it to $2.50 per day in 1864, still far below the inflation rate. Further, Bonson and other farmers increasingly relied on machinery. In 1864 Bonson acquired a hay rake, a sulky rake, and a reaper and shortly thereafter fired several of the hands he had hired that year. Calling it ‘‘the soldiers [sic] great benefactor,’’ an advertisement for William Fielding & Co.’s sulky rake indicated that women could operate the machine, freeing more men to go ‘‘to the war.’’19 The situation of James J. Wall’s family indicates the tenuous position of labor in Civil War–era Dubuque, as well as the potential attractiveness of the army alternative. Wall, a laborer who lived with his elderly parents before the war, was said to make $20 to $25 per month, with the significant qualifier ‘‘when at work.’’ In 1861 James Wall, his brother Francis M. (who had his own family), and their father, Elisha, obtained a contract to work mineral lands owned by Alexander Anderson, one of Dubuque’s patrician early settlers. Responding to their country’s call, James and Frank Wall soon thereafter enlisted in the First Iowa Infantry, and Elisha, who was fifty years old and in less than robust health, could not keep up the contract. Anderson, accordingly, canceled his contract with the Walls and gave it to three other men. Meanwhile, James Wall was killed in battle in August 1861. When Frank Wall returned from the army, he and his father attempted to sue Anderson for breach of contract but abandischarged before finishing his contracted term of enlistment. Frank N. Doyle, Pensions, NA; U.S. Adjutant General’s Office, Official Army Register for 1860–65 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1865), 108–13. For army pay, see United States, U.S. Statutes at Large (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1863, 1864), 12 (1863): 326, 13 (1864): 144. 19 Times, 4 April 1861; Herald, 19 September 1861; History of Dubuque County, 533; Thomas Lockey Jr., Pensions, NA; Richard Bonson Diaries, 20 June, 13, 19, 21, 23 July 1864, IHSI; and Times, 6 February 1864 (sulky rake ad).

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doned the lawsuit in October. A year later, after finding he could not earn enough by his own labor to support himself and his wife, Elisha Wall enlisted as a private in the Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry.20 Workers, of course, were not the only ones who suffered hard economic times in the late 1850s and early 1860s. A number of the Dubuque businessmen who joined the army had themselves suffered economic reverses. The best examples are probably Francis J. and Richard G. Herron, whose jointly owned bank collapsed during the Panic of 1857. In 1860 Francis Herron continued to list his occupation as banker, and he owned no property; Richard Herron was the city treasurer and owned $300 in personal property. Both were among the first from Dubuque to enlist. Francis Herron was captain of the one of the city’s companies in the First Iowa Infantry. When that service ended he immediately reenlisted as lieutenant colonel of the Ninth Iowa Infantry and subsequently became the youngest general in the Union army. Richard Herron missed the opportunity to serve in the First Infantry. He entered the army as captain of Company A, Third Iowa Infantry in May 1861 but resigned ten months later, citing pressing business at home.21 Other business-class volunteers had experienced prewar economic problems. In 1860 Leonard Horr was a wealthy real estate agent, but the real estate business was declining in Dubuque. As a result of first the Panic of 1857 and then the war, real estate became ‘‘almost worthless,’’ according to one agent. Meanwhile, the frontier of settlement pushed past the city. Dubuque, which had forty-three real estate agents in 1860, had just ten in 1870. Horr enlisted in 1862; two of his sons had enlisted earlier. The Horrs, in fact, represented a larger pattern among Dubuque’s soldiers. From twenty-one households, a father and one or more sons enlisted. Largely a low-nonman20 Herald, 5 October 1861; James J. Wall and Elisha Wall, Pensions, NA; Elisha Wall, Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA. See also Times, 1 May 1861. And see Census 1860, Pop., 328 (Elisha, Eleanor, and James Wall). Elisha and Eleanor Wall had another son, John W., who joined the army (with the First Iowa Cavalry), but neither he nor Frank Wall was found in the census. 21 For the Herrons’ bank, see Express & Herald, 12, 13, 19, 22 September 1857; and Times, 14, 18, 19, 28 September 1857. See also Iowa Adjutant General’s Office, Roster and Record of Iowa Soldiers in the War of the Rebellion, 6 vols. (Des Moines: State Printer, 1911), 1:42, 337, and 2:11 (hereafter, Iowa Adjutant General, Roster and Record) for brief summaries of the Herrons’ service; Richard G. Herron, Third Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA, for resignation; and Census 1860, Pop., pp. 98, 324.

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ual group (nine of these twenty-one fathers had low-nonmanual occupations), in general these families also owned below-average amounts of property. The Horrs were the exception, but their family experienced significant downward mobility during the 1860s. The real estate business collapsed, Leonard Horr died in 1869, and by 1870 the family’s real estate holdings had declined from $40,000 to $6,000.22 Other low-nonmanual families that experienced downward mobility before or during the war sent sons to the army. Frank R. Mitton, though only fourteen in the 1860 census, enlisted in September 1861. According to one description, the Mittons were ‘‘Nice People of the upper ten Class’’ before the Panic of 1857. Frank’s father, Robert Mitton, was a wholesale grocer and city alderman who got caught in the Central Island troubles and started on the path of downward mobility. In 1860 the Mittons owned total property worth $6,000, evenly divided between real and personal property, but by 1870 they owned just $1,000, none of it real estate; the family, which had been in the top one-third of property owners in 1860, had fallen into the lower half by 1870. In all, the examples of the Mittons, Horrs, and other low-nonmanual families that produced one or more soldiers suggest the economic displacement of low-nonmanual occupations as Dubuque’s economy shifted from commerce toward manufacturing. Without denying these men’s patriotism, it appears that their families may have viewed military service as an opportunity to revive flagging fortunes or to help sons achieve upward mobility.23 Urbanization in Dubuque also affected the personal circumstances of many who went on to volunteer. Bernard Mohan held the appointive position of city engineer during the period of the city’s greatest growth in the 1850s, but he lost his position when the Reform government took power in 1858 and raised doubts about his qualifica22 Census 1860, Pop., p. 95; Leonard Horr, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; Joseph L. Horr, Thirteenth U.S. Volunteer Infantry, CSR, NA; Henry R. Horr, First Iowa Artillery, CSR, NA; J. Biays Bowerman, Georgia Herman Glab, and Dennis Risher, comps., ‘‘Burial Records of the Dubuque City Cemetery, 1854–1875,’’ typescript, Key City Genealogical Society, Dubuque, Iowa, 1988; Census 1870, Pop., Third Ward, p. 23. For the state of the real estate business, see Daniel Timmer to Solon Langworthy, 19 November 1861, Langworthy Family Papers, CDH; and Mathias Ham to City Council, 30 October 1863, Mathias D. Ham Papers, CDH. 23 Frank R. Mitton, Fifth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; Conzett, Recollections, 188 (‘‘nice people’’); Census 1860, Pop., p. 255; and Census 1870, Pop., Third Ward, p. 19.

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tions for the post. Mohan turned to farming before enlisting in 1862. Otto Rothlander was a city watchman until the city government decided in 1856 that the watchman system was inadequate for a dynamic city like theirs and replaced the watchmen with a professional police force. Rothlander lost his job and went to work as a farrier. Two years later, he lost all of his property when he defaulted on a loan. He volunteered for the First Iowa Cavalry in June 1861, serving first as a private and later as a veterinary surgeon.24 Then during the Panic of 1857, the Reform government decided that the professional police force was an unnecessary luxury and replaced it with a single, elected city marshal, displacing more men. Daniel Wall had been a city watchman, but unlike Otto Rothlander, Wall stayed on as a policeman when the watchmen were abolished, finally losing his job when the police were disbanded. After earning $30 per month as a policeman, Wall went to work in the uncertain world of the city’s day laborers, then volunteered for the Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry in 1862. Jacob Swivel had moved to Dubuque to serve as the lone detective on the professional police force. Swivel, too, lost his job when the police were disbanded, but he won the first election for city marshal and served two terms before being defeated in April 1862. He then opened a saloon and formed a private detective agency with one of his former deputies, but when neither business took off, Swivel accepted a captain’s commission with the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry. When the police were eliminated, even the captain of police, Philip C. Morheiser, lost his job. He listed no occupation in the 1860 census nor when he became a captain in the Eighth Iowa Cavalry in 1863; he did own property worth $10,500 in 1860, enough to be among the top 10 percent of property owners in the city.25 24 For Mohan: Times, 19 May 1858; Express & Herald, 20 November 1858; Census 1860, Pop., p. 308; and Bernard Mohan, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA. For Rothlander: Times, 1 July and 7 August 1858; Peter B. Hoffman, ‘‘Concise History of the City and County of Dubuque, 1833–1934,’’ manuscript, 1934, p. 98, CDH; Dubuque City Directory [1856] (Dubuque, n.d.), 107–8; Census 1860, Pop., p. 77; and Otto Rothlander, First Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA. 25 Dubuque City Directory [1856], 107–8; Times, 18 May, 20, 27 July, 21, 28 September 1858; Express & Herald, 16 November 1858, 19 April 1859; Times, 17 April, 1, 5 August 1862, 11 October 1863; Jacob Swivel, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; Daniel Wall, Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; and Philip C. Morheiser, Eighth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA. Also Census 1860, Pop., pp. 21 (Wall), 64 (Swivel), 82 (Morheiser). No relationship between Daniel Wall and the Wall family discussed earlier could be established.

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Thus Dubuque’s soldiers volunteered for many different reasons and came from a variety of backgrounds. Although undoubtedly patriotic and in touch with the ideological currents of the day, the men who responded to their country’s call were influenced by peer pressure, the homecoming of the First Iowa veterans, and a desire to break free from parental restraints or to escape a bad reputation. There were, as one expects, many young men among the soldiers, but also many family men enlisted. Economic circumstances also seem to have played an important part in enlistment decisions. As Dubuque urbanized and industrialized people across the local class spectrum suffered job displacement. The working class found in the army steady jobs and steady incomes during a time of depression and uncertainty. The business class, especially those from low-nonmanual backgrounds, also found opportunity in the army—opportunity to revive sagging personal prospects and opportunity for training for their sons. Individual examples, however, can only go so far. A more systematic look at Dubuque’s soldiers using quantitative data will make the patterns of enlistment from the city clearer. Who Served? It is possible to talk about two populations of Dubuque soldiers: first, a group of 1,321 men credited to the city; and second, a smaller group of 595 representing that portion of the larger group who could be found in the 1860 census. Both groups include men from Dubuque city and the portion of Julien Township outside the city.26 The larger group of 1,321 soldiers represented 35 percent of the Julien Township population of males ages thirteen to forty-three. 26 A list of all soldiers from Dubuque County is contained in The History of Dubuque County, Iowa (Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1880), 421–51. Starting with that list, various sources were used to eliminate men not from Julien Township. These sources include Iowa Adjutant General, Roster and Record; RG 94, Compiled Military Service Records (CSR), and RG 110, Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau, NA, Washington, D.C.; and Iowa Adjutant General’s Office, Reports of the Adjutant General and Acting Quartermaster General of the State of Iowa for 1862, 1863, 1864–1865, and 1866 (Des Moines: F. W. Palmer, State Printer, 1863, 1864, 1865, 1866) (hereafter, cited in notes with applicable year only). See also Census 1860, Pop.—411 soldiers on the original county list were found living elsewhere in Dubuque County in 1860; though some of these may have migrated to the city before enlisting, all were excluded from the final city list of 1,321.

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Other scholars have determined that overall an estimated 35 percent of Northern men aged thirteen to forty-three enlisted. Although other cities saw larger percentages of their thirteen-to-forty-threeyear-old male populations enlist, the level of opposition to the war in Dubuque, coupled with the fact that the city nevertheless met its enlistment quotas, suggest that a number closer to the national average is about right for Dubuque.27 As might be expected, one of the most obvious characteristics of the soldiers was their youth. Across the North, men under the age of 21 made up almost 30 percent of the Union army, and those under age 25 comprised close to three-fifths; the average age of Union soldiers was 25.3 years. From Dubuque, a slightly smaller percentage of soldiers were under age 21, and not quite half were under age 25; the average age was 27.6 years. But although Dubuque’s soldiers were thus somewhat older than the national average, they were still rather younger than the city overall. Just over 30 percent of Dubuque’s military-aged males (defined as age 12 and over) were under the age of 25, compared to nearly 50 percent of the soldiers.28 One reason Dubuque’s soldiers were older than the national average is due to the impact of enlistments in Iowa’s ‘‘Greybeard’’ regiment, the Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry. The Thirty-seventh Infantry was created in 1862 to satisfy the desires of men over the age of fortyfive who wanted to join the army but were routinely rejected as too old to endure the rigors of military life. Once formed, the Greybeard regiment was assigned to garrison duty in fixed locations well behind the frontlines. In every other respect they were to be treated as regular soldiers—including being counted against district and state enlistment quotas. Company F of the Thirty-seventh originated in Dubuque and contained men as old as seventy-year-old Matthew P. Scott. Eight months after enlisting in September 1862, he was discharged because, according to his captain, he was ‘‘not able to controll his Evacuations rendering him disagreable in his quarters.’’ Other older men lied about their ages and were accepted into combat Maris A. Vinovskis, ‘‘Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War? Some Preliminary Demographic Speculations,’’ Journal of American History 76 (June 1989): 40. 28 See table B.1, appendix B for the specific Dubuque numbers cited in the text. Benjamin Althorp Gould, Sanitary Memoirs of the War of the Rebellion, vol. 2 (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1869; reprint, Investigations in the Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers, New York: Arno Press, 1979), 35 (page citation is to reprint edition). 27

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regiments. Because prewar laws defined age forty-five as the upper bound for militia service, forty-four was a popular age. Bernard Mohan, Ernst Fengler, Charles Hoag, Richard J. Long, and Patrick Noonan all said they were forty-four years old when they enlisted, but in the 1860 census their ages ranged from Mohan’s forty-five to Fengler’s fifty-eight.29 At the lower end of the scale, distortions also entered the age data. The laws in force at the beginning of the war required anyone under the age of twenty-one to submit parental approval of their decision to enlist or to certify that they were independent. In September 1862 the War Department issued a new directive that formal, written compliance with the under-twenty-one rule would not be required. Company commanders then simply needed to certify that parental approval had been obtained, and even that was scarcely enforced unless parents appeared demanding their son’s release. Eighteen then became the effective minimum age. Six Dubuque soldiers traced back to the 1860 census, however, were ten or eleven, meaning that they were no older than sixteen when they enlisted. One soldier, Eugene Guilbert, was nine years old in 1860; he served as drummer in a noncombat company enlisted to serve for 100 days in 1864 and commanded by his father. After being rejected as too young when he attempted to enlist as a fifteen-year-old in 1861 and as a sixteen-year-old in 1862, Frank L. Quade took no chances in 1864. Still two months shy of his eighteenth birthday, Quade claimed to be twenty and was accepted into the Eighth Iowa Cavalry.30 Allowing for the fact that the army has always been a young man’s institution, Dubuque men young and old can be said to have been well represented in the Union army. The same can not be said of 29 OR, Series 3, 2:352; Certificate of Disability for Discharge, in Matthew P. Scott, Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; and Bernard Mohan, Sixth Iowa Cavalry; Ernst Fengler, Twenty-fourth Illinois Infantry; Charles Hoag, Sixteenth Iowa Infantry; Richard J. Long, Third Iowa Artillery; and Patrick Noonan, Sixteenth Iowa Infantry—all CSR, NA. See also Census 1860, Pop., pp. 308, 203, 196, 169, 263, 191. 30 Times, 2 September 1862; Eugene Guilbert, Forty-sixth Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; and Jacob A. Swisher, comp., The Iowa Department of the Grand Army of the Republic (Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1936), 179. For some examples of compliance or noncompliance with the under-twenty-one rule as late as 1864, see William G. Andrews (father gave permission) and Lafayette Matteson (claimed to be ‘‘his own master Ⳮ trading for himself ’’)—both with the Fifth Iowa Cavalry. See also Peter Smith (no consent) and John Stoddard (father’s consent)—both with the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry. All CSR, NA. Andrews reported his age accurately as sixteen; Matteson, Smith, and Stoddard all said they were eighteen.

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immigrants. Despite local efforts to promote immigrant enlistments, in the group of 1,321 soldiers only Germans surpassed their percentage among males age twelve and over in the city. In contrast, every native-born group surpassed their percentage of the population. The soldiers’ youthfulness accounts for some of this difference. Young men who lived in Dubuque were simply more likely to have been born in the United States than abroad. The youth factor will be considered more fully when the soldiers traced to the 1860 census are discussed, and it thus becomes possible to identify some of the soldiers’ parents. Another factor, however, was undoubtedly the influence of Dennis Mahony. As the Times and other war supporters argued, Mahony and other war opponents in the city held particular sway among Irish immigrants, by far the most underrepresented nativity group among the soldiers. Further, as war supporter C. C. Flint noted in a letter to Governor Kirkwood, the failure to commission Mahony to raise an Irish regiment in 1861 ‘‘embittered’’ the Irish of Dubuque, who felt ‘‘rejected’’ and believed ‘‘that they were despised by the Government to which they owed allegiance, and for which they had offered to fight.’’ Beyond the influence of Mahony, moreover, the lack of Irish enlistments from Dubuque was consistent with what happened elsewhere. Across the North Irish enlistments lagged, as the Irish were often unwilling to fight in what they viewed as a Republican war to free the slaves.31 Military service records also collected information on soldiers’ prewar occupations, but these data are even less reliable than the age data in the records. For one thing, the men who filled out the muster rolls were not as zealous about completing occupational data as they were about age and nativity. Over one-third of the Dubuque soldiers had no occupations recorded in their service records. This problem was especially acute early in the war; because most people thought the war would be over quickly, accurate records were not a priority. For instance, 105 of the 156 Dubuque soldiers in the First Iowa Infantry had no occupation listed in their service records. When oc31 See table B.1, appendix B for the specific data. See also C. C. Flint to S. J. Kirkwood, 4 August 1862, Correspondence, Disloyal Sentiments, 1861–66, box 1, 1862, folder 1, RG 101, Records of Iowa Adjutant General’s Office, IHSD; Gould, Investigations in the Military and Anthropological Statistics; and Ella Lonn, Foreigners in the Union Army and Navy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951).

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cupations were recorded, moreover, the record often lacked accuracy. Those clerks who made the effort to collect occupation information had to categorize in some way anyone without steady employment. Farmer became an obvious choice, as nearly all had done something recently that might be considered farming, especially in a place such as Dubuque. The 1,321 Dubuque soldiers included 237 farmers, even though Julien Township as a whole had just 113 farmers in 1860. For the historian, at least, a related problem is that the farmers among the soldiers include men who more accurately would be seen as farm laborers; the former owned property and acted in many ways as small businessmen, whereas the latter were unskilled, and often seasonal or migratory, workers.32 These weaknesses in the occupational information in the service records undermine any attempt to draw meaningful conclusions from these data. The occupational data are useful, however, in making the transition from the larger group of 1,321 soldiers to the smaller group of 595 men found in the 1860 census. Most of the men with the occupation of farmer in their service records, for example, could not be traced to the census at all. Indeed, among the characteristics mentioned so far—age and nativity as well as occupation—men with occupation Farmer in their service record were the least likely to be found in Dubuque in the census. Although broadly consistent with the idea that the war promoted rural-to-urban migration, because of the weaknesses in the occupational data from the service records this should not be taken as conclusive.33 32 As an indication of the large number of farmers according to the service records who perhaps belong in other occupational categories, 77 of the 237 soldier-farmers could be traced to the 1860 census, and only two of them reported their occupation as farmer in that source; half (39) reported unskilled occupations (including 14 day laborers and 12 lead miners). And see Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States—Iowa Commandery (MOLLUS—IA), War Sketches and Incidents, 2 vols. (Des Moines, Iowa: P. C. Kenyon, 1893), 1:167, for one recruiter’s account of how he determined occupations for service records. 33 See table B.2, appendix B for more specific persistence data described in this and the next paragraph. The 45 percent of Dubuque’s soldiers found in the census is lower than the 54.5 percent Maris Vinovskis found for Newburyport, Massachusetts, the 47.8 percent W. J. Rorabaugh found in Concord, Massachusetts, and the 57.4 and 66.8 percent Thomas Kemp found in Claremont and Newport, New Hampshire. Because each of these scholars had available lists of soldiers specifically from their cities compiled around the turn of the twentieth century—whereas the Dubuque analysis started with a county list and subtracted names to approximate the city list—it cannot be expected that the analysis here would match the percentage

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Although persistence differences existed in the data for age (with younger soldiers less likely to be found in the census) and nativity (with no clear pattern), given the historiographic focus on the poor man’s fight question, differences in persistence rates for occupational groups perhaps have the largest significance. Soldiers giving business-class occupations when they enlisted were much more likely to be found in the 1860 census (58.1 percent found) than those with working-class occupations in their service records (48.7 percent found).34 In short, members of the business class were simply more likely to be found in the census, and hence one should expect them to be overrepresented in a population of soldiers traced into the census. Thus, although it will appear from some of the data presented below that the business class was slightly overrepresented and the working class somewhat underrepresented among the soldiers from Dubuque, those differences disappear when persistence from 1860 to time of enlistment is taken into account. Any community-based analysis of the relative representation of the business and working classes among the soldiers must take into account the difference in persistence rates.35 found in these other studies. Plus, given Dubuque’s status as a transportation hub and its location near the frontier, its population was perhaps more volatile than those of these other cities. Vinovskis, ‘‘Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War?’’ 44–45; W. J. Rorabaugh, ‘‘Who Fought for the North in the Civil War? Concord, Massachusetts, Enlistments,’’ Journal of American History 73 (December 1986): 697; and Thomas R. Kemp, ‘‘Community and War: The Civil War Experience of Two New Hampshire Towns,’’ in Toward a Social History of the American Civil War: Exploratory Essays, ed. Maris A. Vinovskis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 59. 34 The overall business-class persistence rate in the text combines the data for high (15 of 26 persisting) and low (75 of 129) nonmanual in table B.2; similarly, the working-class rate combines the artisan (135 of 275) and unskilled (87 of 181) rates in the table. The low persistence rate of working-class soldiers in Dubuque is consistent with broader mobility studies. See Stephan Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880–1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), 234; and Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), 84–114. For further discussion of geographic mobility, see Thernstrom and Peter R. Knights, ‘‘Men in Motion: Some Data and Speculations about Urban Population Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America,’’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History 1 (1970): 7–35. 35 One consequence of these differences in persistence rates is that they would seem to undermine any attempt to use multiple classification analysis (MCA), regression analysis, or other higher-order statistical tests to analyze the characteristics of those who enlisted compared to those who did not. Among the community studies

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To analyze the soldiers located in the census most fully, they must be further separated into two groups: independent soldiers, men living with their own families or otherwise apart from their parents, and soldier-sons, men living in their parents’ households in 1860. A similar division of the city population into groups of independent men and sons allows the soldiers to be compared to their appropriate peer group in the city. This division is necessary because so many of the soldiers were young men, often just starting their working careers and property accumulation. To leave the soldier and civilian populations in undifferentiated masses would distort the status of individuals in the city, especially that of young men who lived with their parents in 1860. In the city’s social life, such men most likely would have been viewed through the lens of their parents’ occupation, property, and status, perhaps regardless of their own personal status (which might have been higher or lower).36 Independent men accounted for roughly two out of every three soldiers found in the census (371 of 595). Overall, taking persistence rates into account, the independent soldiers came largely from among the city’s working-class, lower or nonpropertied, younger, native non–Iowa born, and to a lesser extent German residents. Occupationally, almost two-thirds of the independent soldiers held working-class occupations compared to less than one-third with business-class positions.37 Compared to independent men generally in the city, this represents a slight overrepresentation of the business class and a slight underrepresentation of the working class, but the substantial difference in the persistence rates between the two cited earlier, Vinovskis (who uses MCA) and Kemp mention persistence rates only by age and nativity, not occupation; Rorabaugh simply asserts that those found in the census were ‘‘reasonably similar’’ in age and occupation to those not found. Vinovskis, ‘‘Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War?’’ 45 n. 26; Kemp, ‘‘Community and War,’’ 60; and Rorabaugh, ‘‘Who Fought for the North,’’ 697. 36 Four married heads of households with an elderly parent or parents living with them are included in the independent group; see Census 1860, Pop., p. 41 (Fred Gottschalk household), 43 (Joseph B. Dorr), 107 (Gardner Hickok), and 199 (George Febetuizer). Some soldiers appear in the census twice (or more): in their parents’ household and as single men living apart from their parents. Although on the cusp of independence, they are included among the soldier-sons; see Census 1860, Pop., pp. 23, 83 (Ernst Amberg), 66, 76 (John Buckholz), 66, 182 (Matthias Blockly Jr.), 73, 161 (Charles Wullweber), 78, 147 (Wieland LaNicca), and 66, 239, 289 (Josiah Conzett). 37 See table B.3, appendix B for the data described in this paragraph. Also, however, recall persistence data in table B.2 and in note 34 above.

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classes would seem to erase the significance of these small margins of over- and underrepresentation. Farmers, on the other hand, were the least likely occupation group to be found in the census, and they were underrepresented among the soldiers. The farmer-soldiers found in the census were on average sixteen years younger than farmers in the city and minimally four years younger than other independent soldiers; they owned an average of just $290 in property compared to the $5,475 owned by the average farmer in the city. These data suggest that the independent farmer-soldiers were at best marginally better off than farm laborers in 1860.38 Similarly, among business- and working-class independent soldiers, the men who enlisted were younger than the comparable population of independent men in the city and owned less property, though the differences were not nearly as large as among the farmers.39 Thus, as might be expected, the independent soldiers were younger, poorer, and, taking persistence into account, perhaps more working class than were the independent men in the city. In terms of nativity, a clear pattern also emerges.40 Although the independent soldiers were about evenly divided between immigrant and native born, every immigrant group was underrepresented among the soldiers. For Germans and other non-Irish immigrants, this underrepresentation might be attributed to low persistence rates, because soldiers in these nativity groups were among the least likely to be found in the census (a combined 42 percent). The Irish had a higher persistence rate—nearly 50 percent of the volunteers were found in the census—but nevertheless were underrepresented in the army. Although this is consistent with larger patterns cited earlier, the Dubuque Irish did enlist more heavily during the first two years of the war than any other nativity group. Forty-one of the forty-nine Irish volunteers from the city joined before the end of 1862; efforts in 38 In Dubuque 3.1 percent of the 1860 independent male population were farmers compared to 1.4 percent among independent soldiers (using occupations from the census); the average ages were 42.7 and 26.4, respectively. 39 Comparing business- and working-class independent soldiers to similar independent nonsoldiers, the soldiers were about three years younger (on average); property ownership differences ranged from about $100 among artisans and unskilled to almost $2,300 among the high nonmanual, with the soldiers owning less in each case. 40 See table B.4, appendix B for specific data described in this and the next paragraph. Also recall persistence data in table B.2.

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1861 and especially 1862 to recruit Irishmen clearly made some impact. On the other hand, even during this early burst of volunteering, the Irish accounted for not quite 15 percent of the enlistments during 1861 and 1862, though they comprised almost a quarter of the independent men in the city. In contrast to immigrants, every native-born group in Dubuque was overrepresented among the city’s independent soldiers. In absolute terms, most native-born, independent soldiers were born in Eastern states, more than were Iowa, Midwestern, and Southern born combined. This might be expected to some degree, because the Iowa or Midwestern born were likely younger—that is, more likely to be sons—and the Southern born may have lacked incentive to enlist in the Union army; at least one, Virginian James ‘‘Booby’’ Williams, a former state assemblyman from Dubuque, even joined the Confederate army. With one exception, however, all of the native born among the soldiers also had higher persistence rates than the immigrant groups, which accounts for some of their overrepresentation. The exception occurred among the Midwestern born, who were overrepresented among independent soldiers (7.6 percent versus 5.1 percent in the city) despite having one of the lowest persistence rates (41.1 percent) of any nativity group. In fact, a broad correspondence existed between the two low-persistence groups: Midwesterners and farmers. Compared to every other nativity group, a larger percentage of the nonpersisting Midwesterners were farmers. Thus, the overrepresentation of Midwesterners might be taken as further suggesting that the war and recruiting stimulated rural-to-urban migration.41 The independent soldiers can also be considered in terms of their civil condition—whether or not they were married—and living arrangements—whether they were boarders or household heads. As might be expected, for several reasons single men with no children were overrepresented among the independent soldiers. The same can be said of boarders, whether in private houses or living in boardSpecifically, 36 percent of Midwesterners not found in the 1860 census had occupation ‘‘farmer’’ in their military service record; the only other nativity group over 30 percent was the Iowa born. For Booby Williams, see Des Moines Daily State Register, 29 May 1864; and see also Helen Wulkow, ‘‘Dubuque in the Civil War Period’’ (M.A. thesis, Northwestern University, 1941), 58–59. Independent Irishman Michael Consedine, a former Dubuque postal clerk, also joined the Confederate army. 41

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ing houses or hotels.42 These two groups largely intersected, of course. Of the boarders among the independent soldiers, 135 of 153 (including domestics) were single men; conversely, only 8 single men among the soldiers headed a household.43 At the same time, however, more family men enlisted than might be expected. For instance, married men with no children were overrepresented among the independent soldiers. Overall, three of every five soldiers in the independent group were married and/or had children in 1860; others married just before or during their service. The enlistments of family men had a strong class dimension to them. The 179 independent soldiers who had children in 1860 came from a poorer segment of the family men in the city. Both the business and working classes were overrepresented among the soldiers with families; among the working class, this occurred despite their low persistence rate and small underrepresentation in the independent group as a whole. Property ownership patterns among independent soldiers with children replicated those among independent soldiers generally. Soldiers with children owned less property than family men in the city as a whole, with average differences ranging from $80 among the unskilled to more than $5,000 among the high-nonmanual and the farmers.44 In sum, these initial data on independent soldiers offer a mixed picture. On the one hand, one might point to working-class soldiers’ low persistence rates, to the smaller property holdings of soldiers, to their younger ages, to the slight overrepresentation of non-Irish 42 See table B.5, appendix B for specific data. ‘‘Boarders’’ include men who were or may have been related to the head of the household, either by blood or through marriage; twenty-six of the soldier-boarders fit this description, but because firm conclusions are not always possible, this pattern cannot be pursued at this time. Among the reasons to expect overrepresentation of single men with no children among the independent soldiers are the soldiers’ relative youthfulness and the likelihood that men without dependents could enlist more easily than those with dependents. 43 Comparable numbers for the city as a whole are 987 of 1,176 male boarders were single (83.9 percent versus 88.2 percent among soldiers); 106 single men headed households. 44 See also Emily J. Harris, ‘‘Sons and Soldiers: Deerfield, Massachusetts and the Civil War,’’ Civil War History 30 (1984): esp. 168. Harris finds that 32 percent of Deerfield’s soldiers (combining what are here called independent soldiers and soldier-sons) were married. The comparable Dubuque percentage was 37.8 percent (225/595; the 225 include two married soldier-sons but exclude five unmarried men with children in 1860). Harris does not analyze occupation or property ownership among Deerfield’s married soldiers.

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immigrants (again taking persistence into account), and to the overrepresentation of single men and boarders and argue that the independent soldiers came from among men with the least apparent ties to the city. Further reinforcing this view is the fact that only about 10 percent of independent men in the city in 1860 enlisted in the army.45 In short, they can be seen as highly geographically mobile individuals of the type who contributed to the concern about the decay of Dubuque society before the war. On the other hand, clear majorities of the independent soldiers were family men and heads of household, the city’s business class was reasonably represented among the soldiers, and persons born in Iowa or the Midwest were overrepresented. Hence, individuals apparently more settled geographically and socially also enlisted. Combining these characteristics—the enlistment of the geographically mobile and of the geographically and socially settled—minimally indicates that patriotism knew no bounds of class or family status. Perhaps more significant, it also suggests the army’s attractiveness as a steady job and a support for one’s family, because what seems to have most distinguished the independent soldiers is their working-class occupations and low property ownership. During a period of economic hard times and a shift in emphasis from commerce to manufacturing in the city, moreover, the rising enlistment bounties offered the prospect of emerging from the war with a small capital base, an attractive feature of military service for business-class men as well. Steady work, a small nest egg, and association with the successful prosecution of the war—at enlistment, few imagined the Union army would fail—meant that while preserving their country they might also help themselves. Turning to the soldiers who lived with their parents in 1860, about one-third of the soldiers found in the 1860 census fell into this soldier-sons category. Although the soldier-sons were fewer in number among the soldiers, in fact a larger proportion of the potential soldier-son population enlisted than from among the potential independent soldiers. In all, 224, or over one-fifth, of the 1,067 military-aged sons (divided among 708 different families) living in Dubuque in 1860 enlisted. In Civil War Dubuque, the sense of social crisis that involved the city’s boys and young men lent additional significance to 45 There were 371 independent soldiers found in an 1860 population of 3,690 independent men in the city.

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enlistments of sons and other younger men. Social critics continued to focus on boys and young men during the war. ‘‘Mind Your Children,’’ the Times admonished parents in 1862. ‘‘Crowds of idle boys may be seen at all hours of the day, and many of the night, playing, fighting, and swearing by turns, and preparing themselves to be the future pests and curses of society.’’ As for young men, the Times argued in a separate article, they needed ‘‘to be told that the world does not owe them a living unless they honestly earn it. . . . Work! To become a man in every sense of the word, morally, mentally, and physically; virtuous, strong-hearted, and all that women love.’’ The paper repeated these messages throughout the war, noting in 1864 that the worst boys and young men were ‘‘not the miserable ‘brats’ from the haunts of vice and iniquity, but the hopeful sons of our bankers, merchants, professional men, christian men, respectable men in every way.’’46 Although the Times and other social critics never quite took the step from ‘‘Mind Your Children’’ to arguing that the most uncontrollable should be pushed into the army, several such critics showed no bashfulness about asserting ‘‘the wholesome restraints of military discipline’’ and the value of the army in teaching ‘‘systematic habits,’’ ‘‘the delights of hard work,’’ ‘‘obedience,’’ and ‘‘Puritan discipline.’’ A group of bankers, merchants, and other respectable men petitioned the State of Iowa in August 1861 for the creation of a military school at Dubuque. Such an institution, according to the Times, would counter ‘‘the growing insubordination of the rising generation’’ that threatened the nation’s future even more than the Confederacy did. It would teach young men ‘‘regular habits, and foster a spirit of promptness and decision that is highly beneficial in any pursuit of life,’’ and it would develop ‘‘the habit of cheerful but dignified submission.’’ The Times noted one further benefit of a military school in December 1862. It would prepare the ‘‘hopeful sons’’ of ‘‘respectable men’’ for leadership roles in the army ‘‘in the event of another peremptory call for volunteers in the spring.’’47 Times, 22 May 1862, 24 January 1862, 1 May 1864; and see also ibid., 15, 24 September 1863. 47 [Group of Dubuque Residents] to Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood, 13 August 1861, Petitions, 1858–75, box 1, folder 1861, RG 101, Iowa Adjutant General’s Office, IHSD; Times, 15 May 1864 (‘‘wholesome restraints’’), 23 April 1862 (‘‘growing insubordination’’), 7 (‘‘regular habits’’), 14 (‘‘cheerful . . . submission’’) May 1862, 1 May 1864 (‘‘hopeful sons’’). For benefits of military school in case of further troop 46

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The hopeful sons who enlisted from Dubuque came primarily from the city’s low-nonmanual and artisan families.48 Sons from these families were overrepresented among the soldiers and in fact comprised over half of the soldier-son group. Furthermore, soldier-sons from low-nonmanual and artisan backgrounds came from moderately more prosperous families, as measured by property ownership. In other words, the overrepresentation of low-nonmanual and artisan sons in the army was the result of enlistments from the across the spectrum of families in these two groups. In contrast, sons from highnonmanual, unskilled, or farm backgrounds and those whose parents had no occupation were underrepresented among the soldiers. Among the high-nonmanual and unskilled, it appears to have been the less-prosperous families that gave their sons to the army, whereas the sons from more propertied families stayed home. Although similarly underrepresented in the army, farmers’ sons and sons whose parents had no occupations came from somewhat more prosperous families.49 The patterns of enlistment of soldier-sons are in fact consistent with the prewar family strategies outlined in chapter 1. The sons from low-nonmanual and artisan families, who provided more than half of the sons’ enlistments, came from families that had not relied on their sons’ labor for survival before the war. For low-nonmanual sons, the army offered training and experience that could only be calls, see ibid., 20, 30 December 1862. For general comments on habits, hard work, obedience, and discipline, see, for example, ibid., 23 May, 30 August 1863; Iowa Religious Newsletter (IRN) (November 1863): 5; (January 1864): 5; (August 1864): 4; (October 1864): 4. 48 In this discussion of soldier-sons, parental data are used for occupation, property ownership, and nativity. Further, a similar substitution is made for all sons in the city. In other words, parental data are added once for each son over the age of twelve living in their parents’ home to establish the comparable civilian population. Other scholars have stressed the importance of making such a substitution of parental data for soldiers but fail to make a similar substitution for the nonsoldier population; these other community studies, moreover, fail to separate the discussion of independent soldiers from that of soldier-sons, instead combining them all in one ‘‘soldiers’’ group. See Vinovskis, ‘‘Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War?’’ 45–46; and Kemp, ‘‘Community and War,’’ 62–65. Other community studies—Rorabaugh’s analysis of enlistments from Concord, Massachusetts, and Steven J. Bucks’s on Du Page County, Illinois—never clearly address the issue. Rorabaugh, ‘‘Who Fought for the North,’’ 699 (where he comes closest); and Steven J. Buck, ‘‘ ‘A Contest in Which Blood Must Flow like Water’: Du Page County and the Civil War,’’ Illinois Historical Journal 87 (Spring 1994): esp. 12–15. 49 For specific data, see table B.6, appendix B.

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obtained with some expense in Dubuque, especially after the Panic of 1857 forced the high school to close in 1859. Artisan sons, in contrast, had generally taken jobs and left home earlier than other sons in the city before the war; enlistment in the army represented the same sort of move toward independence. Sons from low-nonmanual and artisan families, moreover, may have found it more difficult to resist the constant pressure on young men to enlist; their families did not need their economic contribution but might have found it difficult to provide an escape from the draft, if one had been held. For high-nonmanual sons, who before the war had received extended opportunities for education and training while living in their parents’ homes, military service was an option, but their families seemed generally able to shield them from the pressure to serve. And for unskilled and farm families and families whose head listed no occupation, the importance of their sons’ labor to family survival also made military service an option, but perhaps a less than attractive one because of the danger. Among the unskilled especially, the more common strategy during the war seems to have been to keep sons at home while fathers joined the army. In terms of both occupation and property, then, soldier-son enlistments reveal a different pattern than among the independent men in the city. Whereas the independent soldiers were mainly working class (artisan and unskilled), the soldier-sons came by and large from households on the boundary between the business and working classes (low-nonmanual and artisan). It might also be noted that more than twice as many farmers’ sons (thirteen) enlisted as farmers (five), the only category in which sons in the army outnumbered independent men. Further, independent soldiers in every occupational category (except the ‘‘no occupation’’ category) owned less property than their nonenlisting peers, whereas parents of soldier-sons in some occupation categories owned more property than other families with military-aged male children. Finally, comparing the independent soldiers and soldier-sons directly, the soldier-sons in each occupational group came from more prosperous families than the independent soldiers did; the soldier-sons’ families minimally owned almost twice as much average property as did the independent soldiers.50 Specifically, with the first number the independent soldiers’ property and the second the property of parents of soldier-sons (rounded to nearest $100): high nonmanual, $8,100, $17,800; low nonmanual, $1,900, $6,800; artisan, $700, 1,700; un50

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Soldier-sons also contrasted with the independent soldiers in terms of nativity. On the one hand, as the native and, especially, the Eastern born had been overrepresented among the independent soldiers, among soldier-sons the descendants from every native-born group were overrepresented, with sons of Easterners being the most overrepresented group.51 The contrast occurs among those of foreign birth or parentage. Whereas every immigrant group was underrepresented among the independent soldiers, among the soldier-sons children of German, British, or Canadian immigrants were overrepresented. Children of immigrants from all other countries, especially Ireland, were underrepresented.52 Sons of Irish parents were even more underrepresented in the Union army than were Irish immigrants, an enlistment pattern consistent with that seen for unskilled workers and their families from the city, many of whom were Irish. In all, the argument that immigrants owed allegiance to the government that shielded them from foreign tyrants seems to have held great salience for second-generation Germans, British, and Canadians. These sons may also have used soldiering as part of a strategy for Americanization. At the same time, the sons of other immigrants and the independent immigrants responded less readily to allegiance and Americanization notions in Dubuque.53 The soldier-sons, therefore, offer a somewhat different pattern of skilled, $100, $400; farmers, $300, $8,900; no occupation, $1,400, $2,600; overall, $1,500, $4,200. 51 See table B.7, appendix B for specific data described in this paragraph. As among the independent men in Dubuque, a few sons volunteered for the Confederate army: Virginian Warner Lewis and Indiana native but former slave owner George Wallace Jones each had two sons, whereas Connecticut-born Stephen Hempstead and Irish merchant Patrick Quigley each had one son join the Confederates. See Times, 9 March, 16 May, 9 December 1862, 29 November 1863; Conzett, Recollections, 231, 260; and Wulkow, ‘‘Dubuque in the Civil War Period,’’ 58, 59, 79. 52 Breaking down the numbers in the ‘‘other immigrants’’ category in table B.7 yields the result that sons of British/Canadian immigrants comprised 17.0 percent of the soldier-sons, whereas similar sons comprised just 13.2 percent of all sons in the city. For the remaining sons of ‘‘other immigrants,’’ the same numbers were 8.5 and 11.5 percent. 53 Elsewhere the Irish did respond to the Americanization argument; see, for example, Catherine C. Catalfamo, ‘‘The Thorny Rose: The Americanization of an Urban, Immigrant, Working Class Regiment in the Civil War. A Social History of the Garibaldi Guard, 1861–1864’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1989); and Earl Francis Mulderink, ‘‘ ‘We Want a Country’: African American and Irish American Community Life in New Bedford, Massachusetts, during the Civil War Era’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1995).

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enlistment than the independent soldiers. Most important, the evidence suggests that the soldier-sons came more clearly from among the more settled portion of the city’s population than did the independent soldiers. Sons from a wider range of economic backgrounds enlisted, and on average families of soldier-sons owned substantially more property than was owned by the independent soldiers. The fact that sons of immigrants appeared more likely to join the army than immigrants themselves might be thought to contradict this but not when viewed through the lens of Americanization. Then the enlistment of immigrants’ sons becomes a further element of a settling process. By and large, therefore, the soldier-sons came from among those ‘‘respectable’’ families about whose sons social critics worried most during the war. Of course, in the context of economic change and uncertainty in Dubuque, they were ‘‘hopeful sons’’ in the sense that, in addition to being the patriotic thing to do, military service also might boost their civilian prospects after the war.54 Other indications of who enlisted and why can be discerned by examining enlistments during each year of the war and reenlistments. Both contemporaries and later scholars have asserted that the early volunteers, whom they consider mostly motivated by patriotism, were better, more committed soldiers and came from a better class of citizens than later volunteers. In this view, later enlistees were mostly motivated by money and once in the army performed little actual duty, either deserting or surrendering to the enemy at first opportunity. Although some evidence exists for this view, much of it consists of oft-repeated tales of bounty men and substitutes escorted to the front under armed guard and of the grousing of early volunteers— perhaps resentful that the largest financial rewards went to the men who stayed home the longest—in letters and memoirs. Further research is necessary to establish the factual basis for supposed differences between early and late volunteers. Among Dubuque soldiers, for example, the lowest rate of desertion occurred among men who enlisted for the first time in 1864, when bounties reached their peak in the city.55 Times, 1 May 1864 (for quoted terms). McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 605–6; also see, for example, McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, esp. ix, 100–103, 116, 168, 173. In the latter book, McPherson both provides copious quotes from the letters of early volunteers condemning the later volunteers and gives us an example of a historian’s uncritical acceptance 54 55

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Beyond desertion rates, analyzing Dubuque’s soldiers by year and length of enlistment suggests who responded to each set of recruitment stimuli. As the previous chapter detailed, the recruiting system passed through a number of phases, from an initial rush to volunteer in April 1861 into a noticeable slowdown by the end of that first summer, with periodic revivals thereafter from the increasing application of the carrot of higher enlistment bounties and the stick of a threatened draft. In Dubuque, furthermore, two sets of short-term volunteers were recruited, the ninety-days men for the First Iowa Infantry and two companies of 100-days men in 1864; the latter were to perform garrison duty only and could expect to see no combat. One important feature of the data comes to the fore immediately: persistence. Each year of the war saw fewer and fewer of the city’s new volunteers, whether independent or sons, found in the 1860 census.56 Among the independent soldiers, significant differences existed in who enlisted when and for how long.57 The business class in Dubuque was largely overrepresented in the two groups of short-term enlistments from the city. Overall, fewer than 30 percent of independent soldiers enlisted for short terms, but short-term enlistments accounted for 40 percent of enlistments among business-class men.58 of these comments. In fact, much of the scholarship on desertion during the Civil War is badly outdated; the leading monograph remains Ella Lonn, Desertion during the Civil War (New York: Century Co., 1928), and scholars also rely on Fred A. Shannon, The Organization and Administration of the Union Army 1861–1865 (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clarke, 1928), 2:54–171. McPherson cites Bell I. Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952) (which cites Shannon) and Bruce Catton, A Stillness at Appomattox (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1953). Desertion rates in the group of 1,321 Dubuque soldiers by year were 5.9 percent (17 of 287) from 1861; 8.8 percent (17 of 194) from 1862; 12.5 (6 of 48) percent from 1863; 5.4 percent (9 of 167) from 1864; and 22.2 percent (2 of 9) from 1865; twenty-one soldiers with missing data on year of enlistment or circumstances of their departure from the army are omitted from these numbers. For some Dubuque grousing about later volunteers, see, for example, Times, 15 August 1864. 56 No comparable data on enlistments by year are available in the local studies discussed earlier or for the national data (North and South) in McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 608, 614. 57 See table B.8, appendix B for specific data described in this and the next two paragraphs. 58 Men with no occupations were also largely overrepresented among the shortterm enlistments, though the absolute numbers are small; 55.6 percent of independent soldiers with no occupations served in short-term companies—two in the First Iowa and three in the 100-days organizations.

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The fact that the short-term companies originated in the city’s civilian militia organizations perhaps makes this result less surprising. More fraternal than military organizations, militia companies appealed primarily to the business class, especially low-nonmanual men trying to rise in Dubuque society and to wealthier artisans hoping to maintain their positions in a changing economy; four of every five prewar militia company members who could be identified in the 1860 census were members of the business class, and three-quarters of the remainder were artisans.59 Still, the overrepresentation of the business class among the short-term enlistments suggests something about commitment and who fought the Civil War. The fact that the 100days men enlisted knowing that they would not see any combat also should not be ignored as a stimulus for enlistment. By enlisting in a 100-days company, men could immunize themselves against the ‘‘talking patriots’’ accusation while minimizing, though not eliminating, their risk of injury or death. It should be stressed, however, that the ninety-days men of 1861 had no such expectation—they were eager to fight, especially because they expected a single battle to be decisive and end the threat of secession once and forever.60 Whereas independent business-class men tended to join for short terms, throughout the war the working class—especially unskilled 59 On militia companies in general, see Marcus Cunliffe, Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America, 1775–1865 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1968), 215–54. Dubuque data compiled from Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 253–55; Times, 10 April 1861; Express & Herald, 28 February 1858; Herald, 12 November 1859, 10 April 1860; and Census 1860, Pop. Of sixty-two militia members identified in the 1860 census, fifty were business-class men; further, the sixty-two militia members owned average property worth $4,258.06 compared to an average of $1,583.60 for the city as a whole. 60 Specifically, among the 100-days independent soldiers, 18.6 percent were high nonmanual (compared to an overall high-nonmanual percentage of 9.4 among independent soldiers), 30.2 percent low nonmanual (22.1 overall), 23.3 percent artisans (30.7 overall), 18.6 percent unskilled (33.7 overall), 2.3 percent farmers (1.4 overall), and 7.0 percent without occupations (2.5 overall). These numbers would seem to provide the most accurate indication of who enlisted when, because they allow some control for the fact that as the war continued fewer of the new soldiers could be found in the census. Another way to look at the data, though, is to consider what percentage of the total enlistments from each occupation group were 100-days men: high nonmanual, 23.5 percent; low nonmanual, 16.3 percent; artisans, 9.0 percent; unskilled, 6.6 percent; farmers, 16.7 percent; and men with no occupations, 33.3 percent. (In other words, for example, 18.6 percent of all 100-days men in 1864 came from among men with high-nonmanual occupations, while 23.5 percent of all high-nonmanual independent soldiers joined 100-days companies.)

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workers—and farmers were generally overrepresented among the long-term independent volunteers. Overall, just over 70 percent of the independent soldiers enlisted for long-term service, but almost 75 percent of artisans and over 80 percent of unskilled workers and farmers did so. Furthermore, in 1864–65, when a draft was held for the only time in Dubuque County (but not the city) and when the county offered an additional $400 bounty, artisans, unskilled workers, and farmers were more overrepresented among the long-term enlistments than they had been in any previous chronological enlistment group. At the same time, high- and low-nonmanual persons and those with no occupations reached their greatest levels of underrepresentation in 1864–65; indeed, no one with a high-nonmanual occupation enlisted among the long-term independent soldiers in 1864–65. In all, these data strongly indicate where recruiting pitches, bounties, and draft scares had their greatest impact over the course of the war.61 Property ownership among independent soldiers by year and length of enlistment tells a more mixed story. Among men with highnonmanual, artisan, or unskilled occupations, the short-term volunteers in 1861 and 1864 owned more average property than longtermers who enlisted during the war; the differences ranged from more than $1,000 among the high nonmanual, to $400 among artisans, to just over $25 among the unskilled. Because, as noted above, the short-term companies derived from civilian militia companies and because, in 1861 at least, the number of prospective volunteers for ninety-days service allowed recruiters greater latitude in selecting volunteers, this pattern might have been expected. In contrast, among those with low-nonmanual occupations, farmers, and men with no occupations, long-term soldiers owned more property than short-termers. In each of these groups, the men with the most property enlisted for long terms during the 1862–63 recruiting drive. Indeed, among high-nonmanual and artisan long-term enlistments, the 1862–63 volunteers owned the largest amounts of property as well. This suggests several conclusions about enlistment decisions: first, Among long-term independent enlistments in 1864–65, there were no highnonmanual enlistments; low-nonmanual enlistments comprised 10.7 percent; artisans, 35.7 percent; unskilled 50.0, percent; and farmers, 3.5 percent; and there were no enlistments of men without occupations—see previous note for the overall percentages of each occupation group among the independent soldiers. 61

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the extent to which the 1862–63 recruiting effort, despite special attention given to the working class and Irish, reached all classes of society; second, the possibility that men had delayed enlisting initially to give themselves time to set their personal affairs in order; and finally, as the war unexpectedly continued into a second year, the determination of men from a variety of walks of life to put down the rebellion.62 Turning to the soldier-sons, strong differences also existed in terms of when and for how long men enlisted, though the patterns differed from those of the independent soldiers.63 For one thing, the sons of artisans were overrepresented among both groups of short-term volunteers but especially among the First Iowa volunteers in 1861. Otherwise, sons from artisan backgrounds were modestly underrepresented among each of the three long-term enlistment groups (in 1861, 1862–63, and 1864–65).64 Why this should have been the case is unclear, though in general artisan sons in Dubuque showed greater independence and eagerness to break free of family restraints. In addition to likely patriotic motives, then, enlistment in the short-term companies may be seen as giving them a chance to assert their independence, while at the same time limiting the period where one form of authority, military discipline, replaced another, family discipline. In contrast to artisan sons, business-class soldier-sons and those 62 Another factor in these enlistment decisions—military rank—will be discussed in the next chapter. For now, it might be noted that among independent soldiers the strongest determinants of the rank at which men entered the army were civilian occupation and property ownership; see table B.13, appendix B for specific data. The prospect of a high rank (and the benefits that came with it), in other words, may have encouraged men of greater property to enlist, especially in 1862–63, when many new, long-term companies and regiments were being created in Iowa. In 1861 in contrast, if men of social standing were determined to enlist, they often had to accept positions of lower military rank because of the limited numbers of higher positions available. 63 See table B.9, appendix B for the data described in this and the next three paragraphs. 64 The same was true among those with no occupations, though their much smaller numbers (six total, four short-termers) and the substitution of sons’ occupations where parents’ were missing (see note with table B.9) makes deriving any significant conclusions difficult. For artisan sons, the specific data are 28.6 percent of all soldiersons enlisted in short-term organizations, compared to 37.0 percent of artisan sons. Breaking the numbers down further, overall 25.4 percent of the soldier-sons came from artisan backgrounds, but artisan sons comprised 37.9 percent of sons’ enlistments in the First Iowa, 28.1 percent among the 100-days volunteers, and 19.6, 24.0, and 23.1 percent in the three long-term enlistment groups.

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from unskilled and farm backgrounds were overrepresented among the long-term enlistments from Dubuque. In the case of businessclass sons (both high and low nonmanual), this overrepresentation resulted perhaps from their failure to secure places in the First Iowa. Instead they joined long-term organizations recruited during the remainder of 1861, including a company that was recruited for but excluded from the First Iowa; that company ended up enlisted for three years as part of the Third Iowa Infantry. After 1861, however, business-class sons followed the same pattern as independent business-class men: they were underrepresented in long-term enlistments during the remainder of the war but overrepresented among the 100-days men.65 Sons of unskilled workers and from farm families, meanwhile, were the soldier-sons most overrepresented in the longer-term enlistments; over three-quarters of sons from unskilled backgrounds and over four-fifths of sons from farm families enlisted in long-term organizations. In particular, as among the independent soldiers, long-term enlistments in 1864–65 were dominated by those from unskilled backgrounds.66 These patterns also can be read as broadly consistent with prewar family strategies. Business-class families could not overcome the call of patriotism and the lure of adventure at the beginning of the war, but as drafts threatened and bounties increased, they could generally shield their sons from the need to enlist. Unskilled and farm families, on the other hand, made powerful claims on their sons’ labor, though those claims eroded under the influence of patriotism, the pressure of the draft, and the prospect of a handsome enlistment bounty. Property ownership patterns among soldier-sons generally reinforce these family strategy impressions. Volunteers for short terms from unskilled and farm backgrounds owned more property than 65 Among all soldier-sons, high-nonmanual sons comprised 7.0 and low-nonmanual sons 25.4 percent of enlistments. Among soldier-sons in the First Iowa, however, high nonmanual were 3.4 and low nonmanual 13.8 percent, whereas for the longterm 1861 soldier-son enlistments the numbers were 13.7 percent high nonmanual and 33.3 percent low nonmanual. In the other long-term enlistments of soldier-sons, high-nonmanual individuals comprised 4.0 (1862–63) and 3.8 (1864–65) percent; high-nonmanual sons were 9.4 percent of soldier-son 100-days volunteers. Low-nonmanual sons comprised 22.7 and 19.2 percent of long-term enlistments, in 1862–63 and 1864–65, and 34.4 percent of 100-days men in 1864. 66 Among both independent soldiers and soldier-sons, exactly half of the long-term 1864–65 enlistments came from unskilled backgrounds.

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long-term volunteers from the same backgrounds—by more than $2,000 in each case. Although consistent with the status of the shortterm companies as organizations more or less for the ‘‘elite,’’ the property ownership of short-termers from unskilled and farm backgrounds indicates that wealthier families in these categories were able to shield their sons from the need, if not the desire, to enlist. This was especially important for those families that relied on the extra income and labor of working sons. At the same time, the low property ownership of long-term soldier-sons from unskilled families (less than $300 on average) coupled with the fact that sons from unskilled and farm backgrounds were the only sons overrepresented in any group of long-term enlistments after 1861 suggest where the repeated draft threats beginning in 1862 had their greatest impact. Overall, the patterns of enlistment and property ownership for soldier-sons suggest that after an initial rush of sons to volunteer almost across the board in 1861 (considering both short- and long-term enlistments), families attempted to protect their sons from the need to enlist. Some were more successful than others. In every occupational category among the soldier-sons, when the volunteers’ families owned the most property, men from those backgrounds were underrepresented among the enlistments. This pattern held for sons from unskilled and farm backgrounds (underrepresented but highly propertied among the short-term enlistments) as well as for those from business-class and artisan families. Business-class and artisan soldiersons were overrepresented among the short-term volunteers but were underrepresented and owned more property among the longtermers; among the high-nonmanual volunteers, the average difference was a startling $14,000.67 Thus, the basic trend among both independent soldiers and soldier-sons showed men from business-class and wealthier non-business-class backgrounds enlisting in short-term regiments, especially later in the war. This suggests that factors beyond ideology influenced their willingness to fight the war. Further evidence of this willingness, or lack thereof, comes from the patterns of reenlistment among Dubuque’s soldiers. Men who served in the short-term regiments, as 67 As among the independent soldiers, military rank is also an issue. Soldier-sons with higher civilian-class backgrounds and average property ownership could generally count on entering the army with higher ranks. See discussion in the next chapter; see also table B.13, appendix B.

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well as some who were discharged for disabilities during the war, had the opportunity to reenlist, if so inclined. Furthermore, as noted earlier, longer-term 1861 volunteers were given the chance to reenlist while still in the army in the ‘‘veteran volunteer’’ program.68 Among independent soldiers, reenlistments, especially those of veteran volunteers, showed a clear class content.69 Just as many factors had influenced the decision to enlist in the first place, many factors, including the incentives offered, patriotism, and a desire to finish what had been started, affected the decision to reenlist. Nevertheless, with the exception of merchant Samuel F. Osborne and his $84,000 in total property, all independent soldier reenlistments came from poorer and more working-class elements of the group—a group that was already poorer and, taking persistence into account, more working class than the city’s independent male population. In short, the pattern of reenlistments, coupled with the chronological and length of service breakdowns of original enlistments, clearly suggests the significance of military service as a steady job for the working class and poor during a period of economic uncertainty and restructuring in Dubuque.70 Among soldier-sons a larger percentage, including some wealthier men, reenlisted; more than one-quarter (57 of 224) of the soldiersons reenlisted, compared to less than one-fifth (68 of 371) of the independent soldiers.71 But other patterns among the soldier-sons reflect those among the independent soldiers. Comparing soldier-son 68 James McPherson reports that about 136,000 of the roughly 236,000 men given the ‘‘veteran’’ option took it; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 720. 69 See table B.10, appendix B for specific data described in this paragraph. 70 Osborne served as a sergeant in the First Iowa Infantry and reenlisted as a first lieutenant in the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry in 1862; Samuel F. Osborne, First Iowa Infantry and Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; Census 1860, Pop., p. 87. One caveat in the reenlistment data is that officer commissions did not carry a fixed term, and hence officers may not have been given the same opportunity as other soldiers to become ‘‘veteran volunteers.’’ Officers, as the next chapter will show, tended to be business-class and wealthier men, which may skew the reenlistment data. On the other hand, four Dubuque officers (three business-class men and one artisan) are known to have been given the opportunity to become ‘‘veterans,’’ and all four took a discharge instead. See Mortimer M. Hayden to Colonel M. D. Green, 13 September 1864, in Hayden, Third Iowa Artillery, CSR, NA; and David W. Reed, Campaigns and Battles of the Twelfth Regiment Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry (Evanston, Ill., 1903), 195–96 (for Dubuque officers Charles S. Sumbardo, Edward M. Van Duzee, and Henry J. F. Small). 71 See table B.11, appendix B for specific data described in this paragraph.

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reenlistments to the entire soldier-son group, for example, it appears that men from working-class backgrounds were overrepresented among the reenlisters, as they were among the independent reenlisters. Two-thirds of the soldier-son reenlisters came from workingclass families even though working-class soldier-sons comprised only 57 percent of the sons’ enlistments. In terms of property ownership, the pattern is less clear than among the independent soldiers. For instance, farmers’ sons among the reenlisters, although there were just three of them, came from substantially more propertied backgrounds than the farmer soldier-sons overall. Other important exceptions occur among low-nonmanual sons who returned after receiving a discharge and for artisan sons among both the returners and veteran volunteers; in each of these cases, reenlisters owned more property than the soldier-sons generally. On the other hand, since over half of the soldier-sons came from low-nonmanual or artisan backgrounds, reenlistments of sons, like those of independent men, reinforced the basic pattern of enlistments and further suggest the importance of military service as an option in family strategies. In conclusion, certain tendencies can be discerned among Dubuque’s soldiers. Among soldier-sons, for example, a significant percentage of the city’s military-aged sons enlisted, with an overabundance of sons from low-nonmanual and artisan backgrounds among them; for artisan sons, this occurred despite the fact that artisan families had the lowest ratio of military-aged sons per family in 1860. Furthermore, soldier-sons, regardless of class, enlisted fairly evenly over the course of the war. Class really only became an issue in the 100-days enlistments in 1864, which were dominated by sons of business-class and more propertied families. Also, sons of immigrant parents enlisted at a somewhat higher rate than the immigrants themselves, perhaps because the former held or sought greater identification with their (new) country. And finally, working-class soldiersons reenlisted more frequently than business-class sons. Similar patterns can be observed among the independent soldiers. First, allowing for persistence rates, the independent soldiers were drawn disproportionately from the working class, particularly the native-born working class. Second, those with business class occupations tended to enlist in the short-term regiments, whereas the working class enlisted more evenly over the course of the war and avoided (or more likely was excluded from) the short-term regiments,

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especially in 1864. Third, regardless of their occupation, the independent soldiers came from a poorer segment of Dubuque’s male population, and age differences were small enough that they likely account for little of the difference in property ownership. Fourth, although men with families were less likely to enlist than men with no apparent family ties, over 60 percent of the independent soldiers left behind wives and/or children, and the largest percentage of these came from working-class families. And finally, once they were out of the army or as they neared the end of their term of service, the working class and men with little property chose to reenlist more often than the business-class or more highly propertied men did. None of this should be taken as in any way denigrating the patriotism and ideological commitment of the soldiers. Rather, it suggests why some patriots enlisted (and reenlisted) and others did not. Although a variety of factors can be seen influencing the decision of whether or not to enlist, what appears most forcefully in the overall pattern of enlistments as well as in the soldiers’ individual circumstances is that economics played an important role. For working-class independent soldiers, for example, the pressure of the draft and the need to support their families in hard economic times undoubtedly encouraged many to enlist; the army offered steady employment in a time of uncertainty. The business class might have been more immune to such influences, but the data and a closer examination of individual cases reveal that a number of business-class independent soldiers suffered economic reverses shortly before enlisting. At the same time, soldiers from the business class—whether independent or sons—tended to serve their time, get out of the army, and not return; they also took greater advantage of short enlistments, particularly the 100-days service in 1864. Working-class independent men and sons dominated three-year enlistments beginning in 1862 and reenlistments. In all, Dubuque’s soldiers came primarily from among the city’s low-nonmanual, artisan, and unskilled individuals and families. These were also the groups left most vulnerable by the crisis of Dubuque’s commercial capitalist economy in the late 1850s and early 1860s and by the beginnings of the push for industrial development. At the same time, they were men ill-prepared for army life. The military demanded discipline, regularity, and obedience from men who did not defer easily to anyone and who were accustomed to exercising

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independence on the job and in their everyday lives. In an interesting twist, one of the recurring images in the soldiers’ letters home was that they saw themselves bringing ‘‘civilization’’ to the Southern ‘‘wilderness.’’ In that sense, they were following the path of the fictional hero Natty Bumppo, with whom they shared the nickname ‘‘Hawkeye.’’ But before the Union army could conquer the Southern wilderness, it had to ‘‘civilize’’ its own membership. It had to make obedient, pliable, and reliable soldiers out of independence-minded Hawkeyes with premodern values. The following chapters tell that story.72

For examples of the ‘‘civilization’’ theme in the soldiers’ letters, see Times, 7 October, 6, 13, 25 November 1862, 20 March, 21 July 1863, 27 June 1864; and Semiweekly Times, 3 October 1865. For some discussion of this in the secondary literature, see Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 (New York: Atheneum 1985), 301–5; and Reid Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers: Their Expectations and Experiences (New York: Viking Penguin, 1988), esp. 90–147. 72

PART II

Military Service and Its Impact More graphically than anything else the history of the Army demonstrates the rightness of our views as to the connection between the productive forces and social relations. Altogether the Army is of importance in economic development. E.g. it was in the army of Antiquity that the salaire [wages system] was first developed. . . . Here too the first use of machinery on a large scale. Even the special value of metals and their use as money would seem to have been based originally . . . on their significance in war. Again, the division of labour within a branch was first put into practice by armies. All this, moreover, a very striking epitome of the whole history of civil societies. If you ever have time, you might work the thing out from that point of view. —Karl Marx to Frederick Engels, September 25, 1857

CHAPTER 4

‘‘The Boys All Stood to the Work Manfully’’: The Army as an Industrial Workplace War, civil war, with its dread punishments is not without its uses. In no other school than that of war can society learn subordination, in no other can it be made to appreciate order. It may be true, as has been affirmed, that men secretly love to obey those whom they feel to be their superiors intellectually. In military life they learn to practice that obedience openly. —John W. Draper, Thoughts on the Future Civil Policy of America (1865)

Whether as artisans or unskilled workers, or as the sons of the city’s low-nonmanual and artisan families, the soldiers from Dubuque had been accustomed to a certain independence as men and as workers before the war. That independence had generated growing concern among some people in the city. As described earlier, social observers worried that many of the city’s sons were growing up in apparent ‘‘unrestrained independence’’ during the late 1850s and early 1860s. Workers’ independence further troubled those who thought assertions of independence masked an absence of order and discipline in workers’ lives. The Times, for example, used an incident among workers digging a well in 1863 to mock workers’ ideas about independence. After deciding one day that the ‘‘damps’’ in the well made work impossible, the workmen ‘‘imbibed a little too much of the ‘craythur,’ and became too independent to work.’’ Workers exercised this independence because the city had few large workplaces in 1860, and even those it had were not very large; according to the

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census, for example, no manufactory employed more than twenty workers. Relatedly, the population census listed few individuals with supervisory jobs; only 9 of 3,800 employed males held such jobs.1 When they enlisted in the army, Dubuque’s young men and workers had to surrender much of that independent spirit. As soldiers they faced an extensive supervisory system, with a detailed set of army regulations enforceable according to the whim of their superiors. They also learned to respond to the sound of a bugle and the tap of a drum. This chapter and the one to follow argue that life and work in the Union army had much in common with urban-industrial society, especially as it developed during the postwar years. In this chapter, the Union army is examined as a workplace. Referring to professionalized European armies, one scholar argues that ‘‘it is not difficult to similarly apply the concepts of ‘alienation’ and ‘Verdinglichung,’ used so often to characterize the position of the nineteenthcentury proletariat, to . . . the army. Between their role in the organization and their place in society existed a direct correlation; as proletarians—without their own weapons and tools, without specific capacities or education—they had to be satisfied with what they were ordered to do or what was shifted onto them.’’ The Union army and developing industry, moreover, faced the same basic problem of, as the same scholar phrases it, ‘‘how a mass of badly trained, moderately motivated individuals who were cut off from their old social milieu, could be welded into [a] goal attainment organization.’’2 Of course, compared to a European army, the Union army was decidedly unprofessional, and most of the soldiers were undoubtedly more motivated than most industrial workers. Because local industry was still in its infancy, moreover, most soldiers from Dubuque brought little useful experience into the army with them. Indeed, for the North as whole, according to ‘‘a Prussian Officer’’ who wrote to the Army and Navy Journal, most volunteers came ‘‘from pursuits of life which are most certainly the very opposite of that of soldiers in the field.’’ Accordingly, ‘‘they must unlearn and learn a great deal in a very short time.’’ Acknowledging this conversion, one member of Times, 17, 18 November 1858, 1 August 1863; Census 1860, Manuf.; and Census 1860, Pop. ‘‘Supervisory’’ jobs included boss, foreman, manager, superintendent, and master. 2 Jacques van Doorn, The Soldier and Social Change (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1975), 15–16. 1

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the Twelfth Iowa Infantry referred to the regiment’s initial training as its ‘‘soldier childhood,’’ and in January 1862 the members of the Twelfth gave a sword to their Dubuque drillmaster, Samuel D. Brodtbeck, to thank him for ‘‘converting us from citizens into soldiers.’’3 It is, however, exactly this combination of the unprofessional and the unprepared that makes studying soldiers’ work experience in the Union army so important. The army had the task of molding obedient, reliable, and efficient soldiers out of inexperienced and independence-minded artisans, yeoman farmers, and others with ‘‘premodern’’ values. At the same time, military service gave Dubuque’s soldiers their first taste of industrial work relations and working conditions. Admittedly, substantial differences existed between the army and industrial workplaces: in addition to motivation differences, the dangers to life and limb in the army exceeded those of even the most dangerous factory; soldiers had substantially less freedom than other workers to abandon their jobs; and it is difficult to say what product the army produced. The argument here is not for a perfect correspondence between the two but for an analogy. As a workplace, the army demonstrated in varying degrees many of the features that would become common in postwar industry, including specialization or functional differentiation, standardization of tasks to ensure uniformity, hierarchical organization, and a spirit of formality and impersonality between officials and underlings.4 Functional Differentiation and Standardization: The Branches of Military Service For most, the first step in becoming a soldier involved choosing the branch of the service to join; that decision would have important 3 Army and Navy Journal (5 September 1863): 26; Times, 18 November, 29 January 1862. 4 Herbert G. Gutman, ‘‘Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815–1919,’’ American Historical Review 78 (June 1973): 531–88 refers to ‘‘premodern’’ values; and see Peter M. Blau and Marshall W. Meyer, ‘‘Theory and Development of Bureaucracy,’’ in A Study of Organizational Leadership, ed. Office of Military Leadership, United States Military Academy (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1976), 442–43. See also Merritt Roe Smith, ‘‘Military Entrepreneurship,’’ in Yankee Enterprise: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures, ed. Otto Mayr and Robert C. Post (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981), 63– 103.

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consequences for the individual’s army experience. The choices were essentially three—infantry, cavalry, or artillery—though one company of Dubuque soldiers did join an engineer regiment created in Missouri. In many ways the three main branches of service can be thought of as separate trades, each with its own history, tools, skills, uses, and attractions to the volunteer. In essence, the military had one trade for engaging the enemy at a distance (artillery), another for close work (cavalry), and a third that combined the two functions (infantry). Before turning to Dubuque soldiers’ experiences with military service, a little background on the three service arms is necessary. The military was itself an evolving institution in the years before the Civil War.5 During its early history, the U.S. Army distinguished between light and heavy forces in each of the three service arms. This distinction was reflected in different skills, tools, and uses for the light and heavy forces. The light infantry, for example, were companies A and B of each regiment, and before improvements in technology during the 1850s, these were the only companies commonly equipped with rifled muskets. These companies, also called skirmishers, engaged the enemy and drew them into the massed fire of the other eight companies, the heavy infantry armed with smooth-bore muskets. Similarly, light cavalry, or hussars, and heavy cavalry, or dragoons, had different uses. Hussars relied on speed, for reconnaissance or chasing a retreating enemy. Dragoons were the mounted forces used in the main part of the battle and could expect to fight mounted or dismounted, against other cavalry or against infantry. Hussars and dragoons also carried different sabers: hussar sabers were curved for slashing, whereas dragoon sabers were more pointed for stabbing. Light and heavy forces in the artillery differed from each other even more fundamentally than in the other two branches. Heavy artillery consisted of fixed guns in forts or garrisons and those used in siege warfare 5 Emil Schalk, Summary of the Art of War (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1862), 67–68; van Doorn, Soldier, 7; Maurice Matloff, ed., Army Historical Series: American Military History (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1969), 24; William P. Craighill, trans., Dufour’s Strategy and Tactics (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1864), 184–90, 217–20; and U.S. War Department, Instruction for Field Artillery (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1860), 1–4 (hereafter, Field Artillery).

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to lay waste to forts, garrisons, or towns. Light artillery, in contrast, accompanied infantry and cavalry on the battlefield.6 A critical technological innovation occurred in the 1850s, with the perfection of rifling for muskets. A rifled musket barrel imparted a spin to the musket ball as it traveled out of the barrel, yielding far greater range and accuracy than a smooth-bore musket. Smooth-bore muskets had a range of 250 yards but were only accurate to about 80 yards; rifled muskets had a range of 1,000 yards, and even an average marksman could hit a target at 400 yards. This resulted in tactical changes that emphasized greater mobility and speed. Infantry skirmishing increased, and massed charges of heavy cavalry decreased. During the Civil War wounds caused by bayonets and sabers—the army’s closest-range weapons—were relatively rare and then not very serious; according to the Union’s surgeon general, only 922 of 246,712 wounded men treated in hospitals had bayonet or saber wounds.7 In other words, the enhanced range and accuracy of musketry contributed to tactical changes that by the Civil War largely erased the distinction between specialized light and heavy forces in infantry and cavalry. But as in civilian industry, where industrialization also inJohn K. Mahon and Romana Danysh, Infantry, vol. 1: Regular Army (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1972), 19, 29–30; William J. Hardee, Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics; For the Exercise and Manoeuvres of Troops When Acting as Light Infantry or Riflemen (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1855; reprint, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1861), 5–6 and 171–213 (page citations are to reprint edition); Mary Lee Stubbs and Stanley Russell Connor, Armor-Cavalry, vol. 1: Regular Army and Army Reserve (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1969), 3, 11–16; Alonzo Gray, Cavalry Tactics as Illustrated by the War of the Rebellion (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. Cavalry Association, 1910), 7–8; Schalk, Summary of the Art of War, 61; Craighill, Dufour’s Strategy and Tactics, 300–12; Field Artillery, 1–4, 43–45; and John W. Rowell, Yankee Artillerymen: Through the Civil War with Eli Lilly’s Indiana Battery (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1975), 25–27, 59. 7 The innovation was the invention of the Minie´ ball—a musket ball that could be easily loaded through the muzzle of a rifled musket and would expand to fill the grooves inside the barrel when the gun was fired. Breech-loading rifles appeared later in the war and in limited numbers. See, for example, James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 473–77; and John K. Mahon, ‘‘Civil War Infantry Assault Tactics,’’ Military Affairs 25 (1961): 57–68. William F. Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861–1865 (Albany, N.Y.: Albany Publishing, 1889), 24, 425–26, cites the surgeon general’s report; see also John Buechler, ‘‘ ‘Give ’em the Bayonet’—A Note on Civil War Mythology,’’ Civil War History 7 (1961): 128–32. 6

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volved attempts by managers to take control of work processes, there was more going on than just technological change. As one scholar argues, the common denominator of military as well as industrial organization is the elimination of personal ‘‘initiative’’ on the part of the worker. The desire was described in one 1860s handbook of strategy and tactics: ‘‘As a general rule, it is best to have the corresponding parts alike in any military body, and this applies to the personnel as well as to the material.’’ Combining the functions of light and heavy forces transferred control of the work process away from specially trained and equipped soldiers to the officer corps. The soldiers would be generalists, or interchangeable parts. Interchangeability achieved its greatest significance during the Civil War, when the Union army absorbed vast numbers of men unskilled in soldiering and carried on supply operations over a vast geographical territory.8 Interchangeability also applied to artillery, though in different ways. For one thing, because light and heavy artillery emerged from a different set of circumstances than the light/heavy distinctions in infantry and cavalry, artillery retained its separate light and heavy forces unaffected by the 1850s advances in rifled musketry. Of the three service arms, however, artillery had most lost control of the work process over its history. Prior to the eighteenth century, artillery existed outside the military establishment. Organized as a skilled trade, there were artillery masters, journeymen, apprentices, and craft secrets. In this period, for example, gunpowder was scooped into field artillery with a shovel, requiring quick computations of the relationship between the amount of powder and the necessary elevation of the gun barrel to throw a shell of a given weight the distance to the target. As craftsmen, the artillery masters, or gunners, and their assistants exercised an independence not available to other soldiers. Furthermore, gunners, like civilian craftsmen, controlled the selection of apprentices and commanded higher salaries than common soldiers in the other service arms.9 8 Van Doorn, Soldier, 21; Blau and Meyer, ‘‘Theory and Development of Bureaucracy,’’ 444; Craighill, Dufour’s Strategy and Tactics, 97 (quote about interchangeability). See also Smith, ‘‘Military Entrepreneurship,’’ 63–103, which traces the origins of interchangeability—what Smith prefers to call the ‘‘uniformity system’’ to emphasize that total interchangeability was difficult to achieve and ‘‘an expensive luxury’’—to the nation’s military establishment. 9 Van Doorn, Soldier, 8–9, 16–17; and Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works (New York: International Publishers, 1975), 18:193–96. In 1857, Marx and

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The development of premeasured gunpowder cartridges—that is, the standardization of powder amounts—helped end the craft nature of artillery in the late seventeenth century. Soon handbooks appeared that contained tables developed from experimental trials relating distance, powder, and elevation for various guns and types of ordnance. About the only skills that remained to the gunner were estimating distance and setting the length of the fuse in exploding shells. Following the standardization of charges, artillery schools and military academies removed the last vestiges of craft independence; the artillery was completely absorbed into the military establishment. By the Civil War, artillerymen effectively had been reduced to the status of machine tenders.10 Perhaps the most important difference between infantry and cavalry on the one hand and artillery on the other was that the basic component part of the former was the individually armed soldier, whereas the basic component of the latter was the artillery gun. Seen this way, the artillery was the most industrialized of the three service arms during the Civil War. Production in the other two arms was the result of individual soldiers’ work with individual tools; according to one military handbook, each infantry or cavalry private ‘‘represent[ed] . . . a force capable of doing a certain amount of work,’’ though as part of a large group. At one time—one thinks of the stereotypical Revolutionary War minuteman—individual soldiers had supplied their own tools, their muskets. In the Union army, the tools were supplied by the men’s employer: the government. The infantry and cavalry as workplaces, therefore, were broadly analogous to civilian manufactories—typically defined as large, unmechanized workplaces, with a mix of skilled, semiskilled, and menial tasks. The artillery, in contrast, most resembled a civilian factory—a mechanized manufactory.11 Engels supplied a number of articles for Charles Dana’s The New American Cyclopedia; Engels wrote the essays on the military. See Marx and Engels, Collected Works, 18:85–126 (‘‘Army’’), 188–210 (‘‘Artillery’’), 291–316 (‘‘Cavalry’’), and 340–63 (‘‘Infantry’’). 10 Marx and Engels, Collected Works, 18:195–96, 202–4; and Field Artillery, 43–45 (for U.S. artillery tables). 11 Schalk, Summary of the Art of War, quote on 62. See also Francis A. Lord, They Fought for the Union (New York: Bonanza Books, 1960), 86 n. 9; Fox, Regimental Losses, 5; U.S. War Department, Revised Army Regulations of 1861 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1863), 398 (hereafter, War Department, Army

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Men who joined the Union army thus entered a work setting that had experienced the advance of uniformity and dilution of skill levels during the preceding years. Those joining the infantry would be expected to function as skirmishers regardless of company. The official tactics manual dropped the designation of special skirmishing companies in 1855, but it also assumed all troops would be armed with rifled muskets. This was not always the case during the Civil War, especially early in the war. Cavalrymen might be called upon to charge the enemy’s front, chase them on retreat, or fight dismounted. Only the machine tenders of the artillery knew what to expect. Individual artillerymen were assigned to a gun and given a specific task to perform in its operation. They were not equipped to fight apart from their gun; their only personal weapons were revolvers, useful for immediate self-defense but little else.12 Infantrymen comprised the largest portion of the Union army. Their tools were muskets and bayonets. Usually, especially after 1861, the muskets were rifled but not always. In 1861, the First Iowa Infantry Regiment and the Dubuque company in the Third Iowa Infantry—Company A, which in earlier years would have been a designated ‘‘skirmishing’’ company—were armed with smooth-bore muskets, some only recently altered from flintlock to percussion cap firing mechanisms. Franc B. Wilkie described these weapons as ‘‘miserable old muskets’’ that would ‘‘kick further than they will shoot.’’ ‘‘Ordinance,’’ who claimed to be an expert on muskets and rifles, responded to Wilkie in the Times. Without having seen the guns, Ordinance asserted that all they needed was a good ‘‘cleaning, polishing and browning.’’ Moreover, he continued, these muskets were the best thing for inexperienced troops, because rifles ‘‘require[d] no inconsiderable experience on the part of the soldier.’’ The weapons situation slowly improved thereafter. The Twelfth and Thirteenth Iowa Infantries received their muskets in December 1861; the Regulations); and Bruce Laurie and Mark Schmitz, ‘‘Manufacture and Productivity: The Making of an Industrial Base, Philadelphia, 1850–1880,’’ in Philadelphia: Work, Space, Family, and Group Experience in the 19th Century, ed. Theodore Hershberg (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 43–88. 12 Mahon and Danysh, Infantry, 29; Hardee, Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics, 171; Lord, They Fought for the Union, 86 n. 9; Schalk, Summary of the Art of War, 62; and Rowell, Yankee Artillerymen, 30.

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Twelfth was armed with new Enfield rifles, and the Thirteenth received guns comparable to those given the First and Third Infantries. In 1862, the Twenty-first Iowa, with four Dubuque companies, received Enfields in July, but for the Thirty-second Iowa in October, there were only enough rifles for Companies A and B. By 1864, however, the various makes of muskets, rifled or not, were all being replaced with new Springfield rifles, ‘‘the best arm in the service.’’13 Having received their arms, soldiers needed to learn how to use them. Prewar experience with guns counted for relatively little. According to textbook versions of combat, soldiers had to be able to load and fire quickly under duress, arrayed in two lines thirty-two inches apart and aligned shoulder to shoulder—all without impeding or injuring the men around them. To achieve this, infantry manuals divided the loading and firing process into a number of uniform and discreet movements. The infantry manual in use on the eve of the war, William J. Hardee’s Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics (1855), prescribed loading in nine ‘‘times’’ or commands, involving fifteen separate motions. The most critical steps involved the use of the ramrod. The ramrod was used to make sure the bullet was securely in place at the very back of the barrel; the rod also was supposed to be carefully replaced in its holder beneath the gun barrel after each use, because without it the gun was useless. Once the loading routine became automatic, a soldier should take one-ninetieth of a minute for each motion, according to Hardee. With the routine established, loading could be done ‘‘quick time’’ with only four commands, and eventually in battle a single ‘‘load at will’’ command could be issued. While loading at will, soldiers were expected still to perform each movement as it had been taught to them. Loading at will should be done, 13 Franc B. Wilkie, The Iowa First: Letters from the War (Dubuque: Herald Book and Job Establishment, 1861), 17, 24; Times, 23 June 1861; David W. Reed, Campaigns and Battles of the Twelfth Regiment Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry (Evanston, Ill., 1903), 11; and Times, 5, 22 January, 31 July, 30 October 1862. See also ibid., 2 April 1862 for quote on Springfields from a member of the Sixteenth Iowa. For general replacements in 1864, see Iowa Adjutant General’s Office, Reports of the Adjutant General and Acting Quartermaster General of the State of Iowa. 1866 (Des Moines: F. W. Palmer, State Printer, 1866) (hereafter, Iowa Adjutant’s Report, [year]), 179; and George Crooke, The Twenty-first Regiment of Iowa Infantry (Milwaukee: King, Fowle & Co., 1891), 130. See also Cyril B. Upham, ‘‘Arms and Equipment for the Iowa Troops in the Civil War,’’ IJHP 16 (January 1918): 3–52.

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according to an earlier manual by Winfield Scott, ‘‘without apparent hurry . . . with steadiness and coolness.’’14 Reminiscing years later, a general from Iowa mentioned his ‘‘extreme wonder’’ that ‘‘in the excitement of actual battle . . . men would be cool enough to see that before each shot was made the rammer [had been returned to] its place.’’ The general was romanticizing, of course. Other stories tell of ramrods being left in gun barrels and shot at the enemy along with the musket ball. One of the more famous stories of the lack of coolness under fire comes from an examination of muskets collected from the battlefield at Gettysburg. Of 24,000 muskets examined, only 6,000 were properly loaded. Of the rest, 12,000 contained two cartridges, and 6,000 contained three or more cartridges. One held an amazing twenty-three. So at least 18,000 men—and, by extension, perhaps as many as three-quarters of those engaged—were so intent on loading that they did not bother to make sure the gun had fired before starting again.15 Infantry service in the Union army, then, gave Dubuque soldiers a taste of the routinized work, divided into a series of simple motions repeated automatically, that had gained prominence in some civilian trades before the war and that would eventually spread to most trades after the war. Skill was not cultivated. Soldiers might be drilled over and over in the manual of arms, but few loaded, much less fired their guns in a nonbattle situation. One member of the First Iowa Infantry said he carried his musket for the full three months of his service but never fired it until the regiment entered the battle of Wilson’s Creek at the very end of its service. He further said he fired eighteen rounds without hitting anything, while the man next to him, who brought 14 Hardee, Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics, 30, 36–41; and Winfield Scott, Infantry Tactics, or Rules for the Exercises and Manoeuvres of the Infantry of the U.S. Army, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: Davis & Force, 1825), 1:23–27, 35–36. See also Army and Navy Journal (9 January 1864): 307, which gives a similar breakdown of motions for using sabers. The similarities between these instructions and Frederick W. Taylor’s postwar time-motion sequences are unmistakable; see Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper, 1911; reprint, New York: Norton, 1967), 77–84 (page citations are to reprint edition); see also van Doorn, Soldier, 8, 11–12. 15 MOLLUS—IA, War Sketches and Incidents, 2 vols. (Des Moines: P. C. Kenyon, 1893), 1:164; Bell I. Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952), 45–55; and Lord, They Fought for the Union, 28.

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some skill into the army with him, ‘‘would bring down a man nearly every time.’’ The Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, with four Dubuque companies, drilled extensively before leaving Dubuque, including ‘‘sham firing . . . and loading.’’ Although they took ‘‘hold of their work in earnest,’’ the Twenty-first did not actually fire their weapons until their first battle.16 The lack of skill that men brought into the army with them can be seen in the results of a shooting contest one of Dubuque’s volunteer military companies, the Governor’s Greys, held in 1859; the Greys provided the nucleus of Company I, First Iowa Infantry in 1861. With twenty-three men each taking three shots—without the added pressure of being shot at—only twenty-eight out of the sixty-nine shots hit the target. Seven men missed on each of their three attempts, and of the six who managed to hit the target once, only two got within ten inches of the bull’s eye. Only three men hit the target with all three shots, one getting no closer than eight inches from the bull’s eye. Only one of these three, Francis J. Herron, later enlisted in the Union army; Herron served as an officer and so had little opportunity to use his shooting skill against the enemy. In all, ten of the twenty-three shooters that day joined the army.17 According to one account, the mid-nineteenth-century military rejected the notion of target practice as ‘‘not only unnecessary but actually harmful.’’ Because infantry tactics emphasized fire by volley, which relied more on volume of fire than on accuracy for its effectiveness, target practice would only encourage individualism and harm unit cohesion. Moreover, because unrifled muskets were so inaccurate, practice would be a waste of time. Still, some thought practice might be a good idea. In September 1862, ‘‘S.’’ wrote to the Dubuque Times, asking whether the city could not do something to provide target practice for the soldiers of the Twenty-seventh Infantry, then forming in the city. The federal government would not provide muskets or ammunition for such practice. But ‘‘it is outrageously criminal to allow these men to go into battle without being taught the use of arms,’’ which involved more than learning Hardee’s time-motion seTimes, 28 August, 16 September 1862. Herald, 19 November 1859; see also 16, 17 November 1859. The newspaper did not state whether the men used smooth-bore or rifled muskets. 16 17

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ries. ‘‘These men have confidence in themselves in proportion to their skill,’’ the writer added. ‘‘Men that have no skill can not fight.’’18 The result can be seen in the experience of the Sixteenth Iowa Infantry. In a letter dated March 28, 1862, Frank N. Doyle, a Dubuque printer who served as first lieutenant in Company H, told his mother that the regiment was preparing to move from Saint Louis into Tennessee. He added, however, that ‘‘We will not go to fighting for a while yet as we are not drilled sufficiently yet.’’ The regiment had received new Springfield rifles the day before, an event that filled the men with great pride. ‘‘We hope,’’ Doyle wrote in a letter to his former employer, the Dubuque Times, ‘‘when we get through with them, Iowa and the guns will feel proud of us.’’ The regiment arrived in Tennessee on Friday, April 4. Two days later, Doyle’s protestation of insufficient training notwithstanding, the regiment was thrown into the Battle of Shiloh—one of the bloodiest and, on that first day, most confused battles of the war. Doyle, ‘‘shot through the neck,’’ was the first man in the Sixteenth killed.19 Whereas other regiments practiced ‘‘sham’’ loading before taking the field, the Sixteenth Iowa had little even of that. Indeed, although they had their guns about a week before Shiloh, the Sixteenth did not receive any ammunition until the morning of the battle. When criticism of the Sixteenth’s performance at Shiloh emerged, Company H’s second lieutenant, John F. Conyngham, a Dubuque clerk, responded that the regiment ‘‘never had any instructions in the manual of arms, all the instruction they had was firing half a dozen rounds Sunday morning before they were marched into the battle.’’ Private Frank Mitton, another Dubuque clerk in Company H, missed the battle because he was sick, ‘‘which I may thank God for’’ because ‘‘there was never a greater blunder than sending our regiment into the fight. Some of the men did not know how to load a musket.’’ The regiment’s commander that day concurred. They were ‘‘raw troops, only partially drilled, and utterly unpracticed in the use of arms. We Osha Gray Davidson, Under Fire: The NRA and the Battle for Gun Control (New York: Henry Holt, 1993), 21; and Times, 16 September 1862. See also Russell F. Weigley, History of the United States Army (New York: Macmillan, 1967; reprint, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 231 (page citation is to reprint edition); and Wiley, Life of Billy Yank, 26–27. 19 Doyle to his mother, in Frank N. Doyle, Pensions, NA; Doyle to Times, printed 2 April 1862. 18

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ought never to have been put in the field under such circumstances.’’20 But their employer, the federal government, was more interested in their physical presence than in their skill. Although beyond the scope of this study, the Union army seemed to place greater stress on its own casualties than those of the enemy in measuring its effectiveness, particularly early in the war. The best regiments were said to be those that took the most casualties. At Shiloh, the Sixteenth Iowa lost 131 men—killed, wounded, or missing—out of perhaps 800 engaged, and drew criticism for cowardice; one Dubuque member, Peter Kiene, was so disgusted that he threatened to remove the number 16 from his cap. Six months later, the regiment fought again at Iuka, Mississippi. This time, reported E. M. Newcomb, captain of Company H, they ‘‘went in to win and won.’’ Newcomb added that ‘‘the slanderous reports concerning them at the battle of [Shiloh], were fully and effectually refuted.’’ And how did he measure this? At Iuka, the Sixteenth went into battle with only about 300 men and lost a quarter of them: 15 killed, 45 wounded, and 15 prisoners. Newcomb did not mention how many of the enemy they killed. That was less important.21 Comparable evaluations of the qualities of soldiers can be found readily. In trumpeting the abilities of William Vandever, a Dubuque lawyer and the congressman from Iowa’s Third Congressional district who commanded a brigade at Pea Ridge in March 1862, ‘‘Fair Play’’ thought it unfair that other commanders in the battle were being lauded ‘‘to the skies,’’ while Vandever was ignored. ‘‘Figures prove that Colonel Vandever’s Regiment [the Ninth Iowa Infantry] lost more men than any other in the battle . . . , and that [his] brigade 20 Times, 20 (Mitton to parents), 24 (Conyngham to brother) April 1862; see also letter, Lieutenant Colonel Addison Sanders to his brother, 7 April 1862 in Mildred Throne, ed., ‘‘Document: Letters from Shiloh,’’ Iowa Journal of History 52 (1954): 247. For reports of criticism of the Sixteenth Infantry, see Times, 13, 16 April 1862. 21 Kiene made his comment to Phineas Crawford, a Dubuquer in the Third Iowa Infantry; see letter, Crawford to wife, 14 April 1862, T.[sic] W. Crawford Letters, DCHS. For Newcomb’s assessment, see Times, 8 October 1862. The obvious contrast with this method of measuring effectiveness is the Vietnam War, where the enemy’s ‘‘body count’’ became the central measure of progress; see, for example, Christian G. Appy, Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), esp. 153–56, 227–32; and Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Atheneum, 1992), esp. 536–48.

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lost more men than any other.’’ Similarly, an Iowa general noted after Pea Ridge that ‘‘The 4th [Iowa Infantry] gets great credit everywhere especially In Iowa. They quote the killed Ⳮ wounded and crow.’’ Few people, however, expressed it as bluntly as General C. F. ‘‘Old’’ Smith, who exhorted his troops—including Dubuquers in the Twelfth Iowa Infantry—at Fort Donelson in February 1862 with the prospect of their own deaths: ‘‘You damned volunteers—I’m only a soldier and I don’t want to be killed, but you came to be killed and now you can be!’’22 As in the infantry, the distinctions between light and heavy cavalry forces had been largely erased before the Civil War, creating cavalry generalists. With the outbreak of war in 1861, there was a general sense among the professional military that cavalry tactics, even in their generalized form, were too difficult to expect raw volunteers to perform adequately any time soon. As a result, much of the time cavalry fought dismounted, and a cavalry regiment rarely went into action as a unit, being instead broken up with its companies attached to various headquarters, to infantry regiments, to wagon trains, or employed in other ways.23 22 Times, 3 April 1862 (Fair Play); General Grenville M. Dodge to Col. James A. Williamson, Fourth Iowa Infantry, 26 March 1862, James A. Williamson Letters, Civil War Documents Collection, IHSD (on Fourth Iowa Infantry); Smith quoted in Bruce Catton, This Hallowed Ground: The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1956; reprint, New York: Washington Square Press, 1961), 119 (page citation is to reprint edition). For confirmation of Fair Play’s numbers, see William L. Shea and Earl J. Hess, Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 331– 34. For similar expressions, see OR, Series 1, 8:268–69; ibid., 17 (pt. 1): 101; Iowa Adjutant’s Report, 1866, 267; Times, 4 May 1864; and Fox, Regimental Losses, esp. 403–12. Fox identifies the ‘‘300 Fighting Regiments’’ of the Civil War, defined as those with 130 or more men who were killed in action or who died of wounds or those ‘‘whose percentage of killed entitles them to a place in the list’’; Vandever’s Ninth Iowa Infantry made Fox’s list. And see Gerald Linderman, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (New York: Free Press, 1987), for discussion of notions of battlefield valor—especially prevalent early in the war—which likely contributed to this way of evaluating the fighting qualities of regiments and commanders. But see also James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), ix, for a modern scholar who continues to evaluate the worth of regiments based on the number of casualties they took. As Grenville Dodge noted in another letter to James Williamson, large casualty figures may simply reflect incompetence among the officers; Dodge to Williamson, 4 February 1862, Williamson Letters. 23 Stubbs and Connor, Armor-Cavalry, 13, 16; Marx and Engels, Collected Works, 18:309–10; Fox, Regimental Losses, 425–26; and Stephen Z. Starr, The Union Cav-

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Still, the cavalry carried a reputation and romance that made it an attractive branch of the service. From its initial appearance in Europe, the cavalry had been associated with the nobility. In the Middle Ages, cavalry service was venerated whereas infantry was held ‘‘in contempt,’’ according to one source, being ‘‘composed of those who could not afford to appear mounted, principally of slaves or serfs.’’ Although the infantry’s status had been raised somewhat in the intervening centuries, the association between the cavalry and the elite continued in the Civil War. In September 1861, for example, Iowa’s Governor Kirkwood asked the War Department for permission to convert one of the infantry regiments then being raised to a cavalry regiment because ‘‘the class of men enlisting prefer the cavalry service.’’ But as befits the more democratic United States—and with a shortage of elites willing to volunteer to serve in the ranks— recruiters came to stress the romance of the cavalry more than its elitism. In October 1862 Dubuque attorneys DeWitt C. Cram and T. Palmer Rood, who needed forty men to fill their company for the Sixth Iowa Cavalry, advertised the ‘‘great attractions’’ of cavalry service: ‘‘in [no other service] is distinction so readily won, in none are so many opportunities for dashing exploits, and in none are such exploits so soon known to the people.’’ About a year later, the Times contributed its bit, calling the cavalry ‘‘the least laborious’’ and ‘‘the most rollicking and exciting of all’’ the service branches.24 Experience soon disabused cavalry volunteers of such notions. Reflecting on his time in the Union army many years later, Josiah Conzett recalled mostly the frustrations of cavalry service. After his regiment passed the battle at Fort Donelson in February 1862 ‘‘on the Courier Line Carrying dispatches from the Field to Grants HeadQuarters,’’ Conzett ‘‘began to think Soldiering was not Half as Romantic as it had Looked to me in Dubuque.’’ He also remembered the men’s dislike for their colonel, a Regular Army officer named William W. Lowe. ‘‘He was allways very cautious to much So we often Thought—We chaffed and Fretted because we were Kept in the alry in the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), 1:59–60. 24 Marx and Engels, Collected Works, 18:297–98; OR, Series 3, 1:499; and Times, 1 October 1862, 28 June 1863. See also Army and Navy Journal (20 February 1864): 402, which argued for ‘‘reorganizing’’ the cavalry to ‘‘be composed of the elite of our Army.’’

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Rear Gaurding Forts when we should have been at the Front . . . and we Blamed him for it.’’ Upon further reflection, however, Conzett developed a better opinion of Lowe. If Lowe had kept them out of battle before they were ready, ‘‘he done us a great Favor for had we been at the Front, many of us that got Home and those still Living would Now be filling Southern Graves.’’25 The transition from civilian to cavalryman during the Civil War was more difficult than the transition from civilian to infantryman. For one thing, the cavalry had three basic tools to master: the carbine, the revolver, and the saber. Training in the use of all three suffered from the same inadequacies as infantry musket training. Moreover, cavalrymen had to learn to handle horses, a task complicated by the fact that many cavalrymen had no previous experience with horses. Plus, the horses had minds of their own. Cavalry regiments, like infantry regiments, experienced shortages of appropriate tools and spotty training in their use. Reporting in February 1863 that the Sixth Iowa Cavalry had left the state, the Times noted that it was ‘‘the only one that has had the advantage of being trained in the use of complete cavalry equipment, before leaving the State’’; on the other hand, that regiment was not sent south to fight Confederates but west to fight Indians. The First Iowa Cavalry, mustered in August 1861, had only sabers and revolvers almost a year later. After fighting Confederate guerrillas in Missouri in 1862, Corporal Solomon Smith, a Dubuque bookkeeper, felt unwilling to meet them again, ‘‘at any rate until we are better armed.’’ George W. Healey and Josiah Conzett’s regiment, the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, took to the field in October 1861 with half the regiment armed with carbines and sabers, the other half with revolvers and sabers. Healey recalled that they ‘‘looked like a lot of cornfield scare-crows’’ at the beginning of their service; ‘‘it took about a year to get mature.’’ Conzett thought that early in its service the regiment was ‘‘in good Form . . . ready to Face the Foe,’’ although he added that they ‘‘still need more preparation especially in Drill on Horseback & Sabre Drill and especially with Carabine and Revolver Target Shooting.’’ The regiment had little time to perfect its drill before the battle at Fort Donelson, which followed within a week of their taking the field. When 25 Josiah Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War: Before, during & after, 1861–1865,’’ memoir, 1909, pp. 14–15, 32, CDH.

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the Fifth Cavalry eventually received breech-loading, seven-shot Spencer carbines and new Colt revolvers, Conzett noted that ‘‘now we felt like real Soldiers able and Willing to Meet the Rebs at any Time.’’26 At least the Fifth Cavalry all had horses at the beginning of their service; that would not always be the case. Initially, the federal government required cavalry volunteers to provide their own mounts. Hence, Otto Rothlander, a thirty-seven-year-old farrier, advertised in the Herald in July 1861 for donations so he could buy a horse and join the cavalry. But the requirement for cavalrymen to supply their own horses was dropped shortly after Rothlander’s advertisement appeared, opening cavalry service to men like him and Josiah Conzett. ‘‘It was hard on us Boys not used to Horseback Riding,’’ recalled Conzett. ‘‘We were sore for many days . . . , but finally got used to it.’’ Although Conzett may have gotten used to it, others apparently did not. Pension applications from Dubuque’s cavalrymen included a number that claimed disabilities from accidents involving horses and one from a soldier’s widow who claimed—successfully—that her husband’s suicide in 1875 was the direct result of brain damage incurred when he was thrown from his horse and landed on his head. The most illustrative disability case involved spar maker Frederick Hazelton, who was ruptured when his horse ‘‘became frightened at a pile of hay’’ and threw him to the ground.27 The horses also suffered. Men inexperienced in riding were also likely to be inexperienced in caring for horses. In April 1864, the War Department issued an order to cavalry commanders to report the 26 Times, 24 February 1863 (Sixth Cavalry), 20 July 1862 (Solomon Smith); Iowa Adjutant General’s Office, Roster and Record of Iowa Soldiers in the War of the Rebellion (Des Moines: Iowa State Printer, 1911), 4:847 (hereafter, Iowa Adjutant General, Roster and Record); George W. Healey to editor of the National Tribune (1899), George W. Healey Letters, Civil War Documents Collection, IHSD; and Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 12, 37. Conzett dated receipt of the Spencers to 1863, but although the regiment did receive all new arms in 1863, the Spencers did not arrive until 1865; Healey to ‘‘My dear Mother,’’ 26 May 1863, George W. Healey Letters, Civil War Documents Collection, IHSD; and Semi-weekly Times, 28 March 1865. 27 Herald, 11 July, 20 August 1861; Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 12; Michael Hogan (widow) and Frederick Hazelton, Pensions, NA. For other cavalrymen’s pensions, see, for example, Samuel D. Drake, William Maltz, Robert McKinlay, Henry Pfotzer, John Rankin, William Rebman, and William Wallace—all Pensions, NA. Only Rebman and Wallace failed to receive pensions for their horse-related disabilities. Research in the pensions for this project was limited to those men found in the 1860 or 1870 census of Dubuque.

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members of their units who habitually neglected their horses. Valconlon J. Williams, partner in Rouse, Williams & Co. machinery manufacturers and serving as captain of Company M, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, forwarded a list of twelve privates in his company whom he thought ‘‘unfit for Cavalry Service’’ under this criterion; the men cited included Dubuque butcher John Courtney and mason Charles Johnson. Williams added that he had ‘‘very many men in my Company who do not take very good care of their animals and I find it hard work to make them take any care of their horses generally.’’ Nothing came of it, however, perhaps because the War Department recognized that its own provision of care for horses was subpar. In February 1864 Orlo Dunton, a Dubuque farmer who brought his own horse into the army, saw that horse die due to ‘‘a scarcity of proper forage, Government having failed to furnish a sufficient quantity.’’ The government also sometimes failed in its commitment to provide horses: in August 1864 about a quarter of the Fifth Iowa Cavalry was mounted on mules.28 Thus in the cavalry, as in the infantry, the need to move men into the field quickly took precedence over providing proper tools and training. Infantry soldiers were expected to perform as skirmishers, sharpshooters, or in the main battle line, as their commanders wished; but they might be sent forward as skirmishers with smoothbore muskets or sent into battle never having actually loaded their weapons, much less fired them. Similarly, cavalry troopers could be assigned to reconnaissance, where speed held primacy, or to charge an enemy defensive position, where size and weight were crucial— perhaps astride a mule or plow horse—or they might be ordered to fight dismounted, as infantry. But at least cavalrymen and infantrymen retained some importance as individual actors. In the artillery, the basic unit was not the individual but the gun. Artillery guns were defined by the weight of the shell they could throw: 6-pounders, 12-pounders, 32-pounders, and so on. Still for some the artillery, like the cavalry, was thought to have a ‘‘glamour and dash’’ missing from the infantry. The Dubuque Times in 1863 quoted the Muscatine (Iowa) Journal, for example, 28 Valconlon J. Williams, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; Orlo Dunton, First Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; and Gray, Cavalry Tactics, 169. There was no compensation to men such as Dunton who lost their horses; they were paid an allowance while the animal was alive. See War Department, Army Regulations, 506.

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saying the artillery was ‘‘the prettiest as well as the most scientific branch of the service.’’ Observing the drill of the Dubuque Battery in Saint Louis in early 1862, ‘‘H.’’ waxed eloquent about ‘‘the beauty and symmetry’’ of ‘‘the battery in its evolutions’’ and ‘‘only regretted that the entire city of Dubuque could not have been present to witness this splendid array of the most effective arm of the service.’’29 As with the cavalry, however, reality in the artillery was somewhat less romantic. The men were expected to ‘‘service’’ or ‘‘work’’ a ‘‘machine,’’ the artillery gun. A light artillery battery, such as the Dubuque Battery, commonly contained six guns, each assigned a sergeant, two corporals, and seven privates, when at full strength.30 The privates were assigned numbers that corresponded to their jobs. Number one sponged the inside of the gun after firing, and he rammed the next charge (cartridge and ammunition) into place once number two put it in the gun. During the loading, number three held his thumb on the gun’s vent to prevent premature discharge; he then inserted the primer wire to prepare the cartridge for firing. Number four had the task of priming the piece and connecting and pulling the lanyard rope, which fired the gun. Numbers six and seven stood at the ammunition chest, preparing charges and giving them to number five, who carried them to number two. One corporal supervised the ammunition chest, and the other aimed the gun. The sergeant supervised the entire operation and informally seems to have retained the appellation of gunner.31 In other words, the functions that had been the exclusive province of an artisan gunner before the eighteenth century were by the Civil War divided among several soldiers, with the gunner himself filling a purely supervisory role. The craft had been, in a word, bastardized.32 29 Lord, They Fought for the Union, 66 (‘‘glamour and dash’’); and Times, 28 July 1863, 31 January 1862. For further discussion of Civil War artillery, see Schalk, Summary of the Art of War, 62, 63, 68; Lord, They Fought for the Union, 77; Rowell, Yankee Artillerymen, 25–30, 59, and Field Artillery, 1–4, 43–45. 30 Field Artillery, 4 (‘‘service’’) and 107 (‘‘machine’’); Times, 23 March 1862 (‘‘work’’). The Dubuque Battery can further be defined as ‘‘mounted’’ artillery, meaning the privates marched alongside their guns, as opposed to ‘‘horse’’ artillery, meaning they rode horses. 31 Field Artillery, 67, 107–17; Rowell, Yankee Artillerymen, 28–30; and Times, 23 March 1862, where Sergeant William H. Gifford refers to himself as a gunner. 32 Bastardization refers to the breakdown of craft traditions and skill levels. For the civilian context, see, for example, Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850 (New York: Oxford

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Under closer examination, even the remaining positions on the gun crew that might be thought to require a little skill—privates numbers six and seven and the corporal responsible for aiming—did not. Most of the ammunition was prepackaged, requiring little more skill to prepare than an ability to pull it out of the ammunition chest. On those occasions when exploding projectiles were used, the work of privates six and seven in setting the fuses was supervised by a corporal, a sergeant, and, for each two guns, a lieutenant. Moreover, when attrition caused the number of privates to fall below seven, the job of number seven was the first left vacant. The aiming corporal similarly exercised little personal initiative; he, too, was directed by higherranking individuals. In January 1862, for example, when the Dubuque Battery earned ‘‘H.’s’’ praise for its effectiveness on the practice ground, the aiming corporals were closely directed in pointing the guns and adjusting their elevation by the battery’s captain, Mortimer M. Hayden, and the lieutenant colonel of the Ninth Iowa Infantry, Francis Herron, as well as by the lieutenants and sergeants who normally supervised them.33 Under battlefield conditions, such close supervision might break down, but the skill required of Dubuque’s artillerymen was further diminished by the uses of light artillery during the Civil War. Although rifled muskets became increasingly commonplace during the war, rifled artillery remained rare. Artillery thus continued to demonstrate the weaknesses of all smooth-bore weapons, namely, limited range and accuracy. Historians commonly argue that artillery in the Civil War found its greatest use in repelling attacks by enemy infantry. For this purpose, two specialized projectiles that could only be fired by smooth-bores were used: grapeshot and canister shot. Grapeshot consisted of a cluster of nine iron or lead balls attached to a central stem, resembling, in other words, a bunch of grapes; canister referred to a larger number of musket balls packed into a tin can that could be loaded into the gun. With either ordnance, discharge of the piece sent a cloud of deadly missiles at the enemy. Neither type, however, required much skill, not even accuracy. Just pull it out of the ammunition chest, load, point in the general direction of the University Press, 1984), 108–42; and Bruce Laurie, Artisans into Workers: Labor in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Noonday Press, 1989), 28–46. 33 Field Artillery, 125, has a table showing how to rearrange the functions of privates as the numbers declined; the corporals were also considered redundant.

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target, and shoot; the dispersion of the balls compensated for inaccuracies in aim.34 As a machine tender, the position of artilleryman carried limited status during the Civil War. In part, this reflected a long-standing view of artillerymen as ‘‘commoners or of common origins.’’ But it also related to the specific uses of the artillery in the Civil War. Artillery functioned best as a defensive weapon in an era that venerated offensive military action. Artillery often remained behind the front lines in comparative safety in battle situations, and when it did go forward, it sometimes required heroic action from the infantry and cavalry to keep the enemy from capturing it. Moreover, although the artillery was ‘‘the most scientific branch’’ of the service, its individual members were seen as little more than common laborers. Two items in the Times on July 12, 1862, illustrate this point. First, the paper editorialized that African Americans should be ‘‘pressed into the service of the Union . . . in those capacities they are suited for,’’ although to arm them as soldiers would be ‘‘folly.’’ In a separate item, the Times quoted the Chicago Journal to describe the ‘‘capacities’’ suited to blacks. They could do heavy labor ‘‘in the fortifications and entrenchments, and as servers of ortillery [sic]’’ thereby relieving ‘‘our soldiers from a kind of duty that often unfits them for the more legitimate duties of the field.’’35 Accordingly, some scholars argue that artillery, like mechanized industry, for a long time made only modest contributions to the in34 Weigley, History of the United States Army, 236–37; Field Artillery, 11–14; Lord, They Fought for the Union, 157; Marx and Engels, Collected Works, 18:246–47; Rowell, Yankee Artillerymen, 60; and Thomas S. Dickey and Peter C. George, Field Artillery Projectiles of the American Civil War (Atlanta: Arsenal Publishing Company, 1980), 62. A wooden plug at the bottom of the canister pushed the musket balls out through the (sealed) top of the can when the gun was fired. Of the canister shot, the War Department’s artillery manual says there were 27 musket balls in a single 6-pounder canister, 48 for a 12-pounder; Engels wrote that the English used two different-sized balls, allowing up to 126 balls from a single discharge of a 9-pounder cannon. 35 Van Doorn, Soldier, 17; Marx and Engels, Collected Works, 18:208; James I. Robertson Jr., Soldiers Blue and Gray (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988), 20; and Times, 12 July 1862. For discussion of the importance of offensive action, especially early in the war, see Linderman, Embattled Courage; and for a Southern perspective, Grady McWhiney, ‘‘Who Whipped Whom,’’ in his book Southerners and Other Americans (New York: Basic Books, 1973); and McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson, Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1982).

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crease in productivity. The effectiveness of Civil War–era artillery was limited to softening an enemy’s position and to repelling charging infantry with grape and canister. For example, in the Battle of Hartville, Missouri, a small battle in 1863 that gave many of the Dubuque members of the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry their first taste of combat, the Confederate forces repeatedly charged the Union’s defensive positions and were just as often repelled. In the end, the commander of the Union force reported that although he only had two artillery pieces, they were ‘‘the terror of the foe, [and] inspire[d] our own men with confidence and firmness.’’ The Confederates brought five artillery pieces to the same battle, but the Union letters and reports about the battle scarcely mentioned them, further suggesting artillery’s limited value as an offensive weapon.36 Nevertheless, the appearance of artillery on the battlefield could be quite spectacular. ‘‘The artillery duel was one long to be remembered by those who witnessed it,’’ one Union officer at Port Gibson, part of the Vicksburg campaign in 1863, reported. ‘‘The extreme darkness, the screaming and bursting of shells, and the rattle of grape through fences and timber, conspired to render this midnight battle one of the most terrific grandeur.’’ On the other hand, although this officer considered the Confederate artillery at Port Gibson to be ‘‘quite accurate,’’ one of the Confederate officers at the same battle described his artillery’s ‘‘signal success’’ in terms of simply maintaining fire rather than accuracy: ‘‘Though in a very warm place’’ with ‘‘the enemy’s shells and balls [falling] thick around them, wounding many, yet they stood by their guns and kept up a regular fire.’’37 Regardless of their particular branch of service, then, men entering the Union army joined organizations undergoing a process of change. In all three service arms, the scope for individual initiative decreased in the years before the Civil War. Within this context, moreover, the Union army scarcely cultivated the skills of its individual members, relying instead on the mass to produce victory in battle. 36 Lord, They Fought for the Union, 77, 157; Marx and Engels, Collected Works, 18: 198–99, 206; van Doorn, Soldier, 17; OR, Series 1, 22 (pt. 1): 187–207; Iowa Adjutant General, Roster and Record, 3:442–45; Crooke, Twenty-first Regiment, quote in 26–38; and Times, 21, 29 January 1863. For the limited (early) impact of mechanization in American industry, see, for example, Laurie, Artisans into Workers, 16, 42; and Laurie and Schmitz, ‘‘Manufacture and Productivity,’’ 43–88. 37 OR, Series 1, 24 (pt. 1): 629 (Union officer quote); and Crooke, Twenty-first Regiment, 61 (quotes Confederate officer on Port Gibson).

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In short, all three service branches gave Union soldiers experience with standardized, homogenized, routinized, and, in the artillery, mechanized work. Although military service in its generalized form was perhaps most appropriate for molding large numbers of inexperienced volunteers into an effective army, it also mirrored the ongoing transformation from skilled, artisan production to semi- and unskilled industrial production in civilian society, a transformation that would gather steam in the postwar period. The Experience of Work in the Union Army When Dubuque’s soldiers wrote home about the army, their letters regularly made reference to their army experiences—especially combat—as ‘‘work.’’ Henry J. Playter, a Dubuque cigar dealer who served as captain of Company H, Twelfth Iowa Infantry, for instance, wrote of his company’s performance in battle at Fort Donelson that ‘‘they walked up like men to their work.’’ ‘‘Sigma’’ in the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry informed the home folks in November 1862 that ‘‘there is work for our forces not far distant. That there is work in the shape of fighting, is the prayer of the whole command.’’ ‘‘Iowa,’’ a member of the Twelfth Iowa Infantry, similarly told a story of thirty Union convalescents who held off two charges on their camp by Confederate cavalry near Corinth, Mississippi. ‘‘Iowa’’ noted that ‘‘the boys all stood to the work manfully, and acquitted themselves like heroes.’’38 One of the soldiers’ first experiences with the army as a workplace came with the signing of an enlistment contract. In the abstract, for volunteers at least, the enlistment contract was a ‘‘free’’ one, consistent with capitalist notions of ‘‘freedom of contract’’ between workers and employers.39 Wages were fixed by law, so the potential volunteer 38 Times, 8 March, 13 November, 16 October 1862 (quoted in this order). See also Earl J. Hess, The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1997), 133–42, for more on soldiers using ‘‘work’’ as a means of understanding military service. 39 Draftees, of course, did not enter into a ‘‘free contract’’ with the government; substitutes, on the other hand, did, though as long as commutation remained in effect their potential wages were controlled. For capitalist ‘‘freedom of contract,’’ see, for example, Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974), 52; and William A. Sullivan, The Industrial Worker in Pennsylvania, 1800–1840 (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1955), 35.

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knew how much he would be paid. The contract also fixed the length of the volunteer’s service; for Iowans, three years was the norm, but some regiments were enlisted for shorter periods, and some individuals in the last year of the war had the option of enlisting for one, two, or three years. Most of the rules to be followed were spelled out as 100 ‘‘Articles of War’’ that were supposed to be read to the soldiers every six months. And finally, the soldier agreed to serve the United States ‘‘against all their enemies or opposers whomsoever.’’ For its part, the government agreed to provide food, clothing, shelter, and the necessary tools. Early in the war, states had to provide food, clothing, and other material needs while the soldiers were in the state; they also had to arm their own troops. Gradually, the federal government assumed financial responsibility for the arming and subsistence of soldiers wherever they were.40 But as in civilian labor contracts, the army’s enlistment contract was less free and equal than it appeared. Although all of the soldiers from Dubuque city were in fact volunteers, the threat of a draft was a constant presence after July 1862; if they had not volunteered, they might have been compelled to enlist. Further, although the contract spelled out the length of soldiers’ enlistments, much confusion arose over this issue. The First Iowa Infantry, for example, volunteered for ninety-days service, but many failed to understand that their term of service did not commence when they volunteered in early April but rather began in mid-May, when they were officially sworn— mustered—into U.S. service by an officer specifically authorized and detailed for that purpose. Ninety days after they enlisted some began demanding ‘‘a fight or a discharge.’’ Eventually they got a fight on August 10 and were discharged a few days later. But it passed into First Iowa mythology that the Battle of Wilson’s Creek occurred after their enlistments expired and that they voluntarily overstayed their time. Similarly, some soldiers at the end of the war had trouble understanding why they were retained in the army—some for a year or more—after the Confederates had surrendered. In all, the government’s position seems to have been that expressed by General NaFor the Articles of War, see War Department, Army Regulations, 485–502; and for an example of the enlistment contract, see Peter Cain, Fifth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA. For the equipment and subsistence of Iowa troops, see Upham, ‘‘Arms and Equipment,’’ 3–52; and John E. Briggs, ‘‘The Enlistment of Iowa Troops during the Civil War,’’ IJHP 15 (July 1917): 323–92. 40

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thaniel Lyon when he was told that the First Iowa had voted to stay for the Battle of Wilson’s Creek. Regardless of what the contract said, Lyon asserted that ‘‘the government did not have to discharge a soldier until it got ready.’’41 Once in the service, all soldiers shared certain common work experiences. These included an almost industrial time orientation, rather than the task orientation more familiar to civilian miners, artisans, and farmers; long marches through all kinds of weather and road conditions, with hard work awaiting them at the end of the march; and the work itself—entrenchment digging, fortification building, other construction work (cutting roads through the wilderness or rebuilding railroads, for example), guard duty, combat—all of it carrying certain dangers. Comparing the army to civilian life and labor, an anonymous veteran writing to the Times asserted that ‘‘the hardest ordinary work at home is rest compared to this kind of work.’’ Moreover, in the army ‘‘a man will do as much work in two hours as he would in ten under ordinary circumstances.’’42 One important common experience of soldiers was the system of drum and bugle calls that organized their days and directed their work. As in a well-regulated manufactory or factory, the calls, no matter how performed, dictated the movements of the soldiers. At Camp Union, a training camp in Dubuque, reveille was at 5 a.m. Squad drill followed at 5:45. The surgeon’s call at 7:30 signaled the sick to report to the doctor. An end to squad drill was sounded at 7:45, followed by the breakfast call fifteen minutes later. The day continued in this manner, with more drill before and after noon. The men were allowed a half hour for breakfast and an hour for dinner. The structured part of the day ended with supper call at 6 p.m., 41 For the First Infantry, see Eugene F. Ware, The Lyon Campaign in Missouri (Topeka, Kans.: Crane & Company, 1907; reprint, Iowa City: Press of the Camp Pope Bookshop, 1991), 210, 231–34, 250 (‘‘fight or discharge’’), 259, 264, 270, 295 (Lyon quote) (page citations are to reprint edition); A.Y. McDonald, The Personal Civil War Diary of Andrew Young McDonald, April 23, 1861 to September 12, 1861 (Dubuque: A. Y. McDonald Manufacturing, 1956), entry for 26 June 1861; and Wilkie, Iowa First, 75. Wilkie argues that whereas soldiers from Burlington (such as Eugene Ware) and elsewhere struggled to understand the situation, the Dubuque soldiers in the First Iowa understood things properly. Nevertheless, and indicating the mythological status of the view, when Frederick Gottschalk of Dubuque applied for a pension in 1894, he asserted that Wilson’s Creek occurred after the First Iowa’s ‘‘time had already expired’’; Gottschalk, Pensions, NA. 42 Times, 15 August 1864.

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followed by tattoo at 8:30 and taps at 8:45 p.m. At the latter signal, privates had to extinguish all lights; officers were allowed to stay up later. There were also signals for field maneuvers. A drum or bugle call could be used to instruct marching infantry to change their pace to quick time or, perhaps, double quick time. There were also signals to fix bayonets, unfix bayonets, commence firing, cease firing, lie down, stand up, and more. Hence only with difficulty could soldiers ever ‘‘forget that our time belonged to our ‘dear old Uncle,’ and try to imagine ourselves civilians again.’’43 In civilian life, this sort of regulation of time was most closely associated with the rise of capitalism, particularly industrial capitalism. According to E. P. Thompson’s seminal article on the subject, a time orientation to work first emerged in the seventeenth century. It took another century or more before it could be said to be dominant anywhere and longer still before it was dominant (nearly) everywhere in the industrialized countries. In pre–Civil War Dubuque, people were just beginning to develop a time orientation. ‘‘Why is it,’’ a letter signed ‘‘Mechanic’’ asked the Times in 1858, ‘‘that we have no true time in our city?’’ The city hall bell was ‘‘rung at certain hours of the day for the benefit of business men, mechanics, &c.,’’ but according to Mechanic it would often ‘‘vary from five (5) to ten (10) minutes in one day’’ which ‘‘does more hurt than good.’’ The Northwestern Farmer similarly began extolling the virtues of time management on the farm. In 1859, recalling a visit to an Eastern factory, a subscriber from Minnesota compared farm management—‘‘slovenly’’ and ‘‘wanting in order’’—to the factory where ‘‘regularity and order’’ prevailed. ‘‘Remember,’’ the subscriber urged, ‘‘that the secret of success is, ‘A place for everything, and everything in its place,’ applied to time as well as things.’’ Still, it was not until 1864 that Dubuque erected its first town clock, bringing the ‘‘blessings’’ of this ‘‘needed institution’’ to the city.44 43 Ibid., 24 September 1862; Wilkie, Iowa First, 8, 13, 25–26, 36–37; War Department, Army Regulations, 39–40; Hardee, Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics, 217–40; and Times, 19 December 1862 (‘‘our time’’). The text emphasizes infantry, but cavalry and artillery had their own bugle calls. For a comparable civilian workplace experience, see, for example, Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 35. 44 E. P. Thompson, ‘‘Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,’’ Past and Present, no. 38 (1967): 56–97. See also Smith ‘‘Military Entrepreneurship,’’ 93; and

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Beyond the regulation of their time, soldiers faced a detailed set of rules that regulated many aspects of their behavior. The Articles of War governed most behavior, covering everything from punishments for dueling to handling the effects of a deceased officer, but other rules were adopted according to circumstances. At Camp Union, for example, a series of regulations prescribed that no soldier was to accept water or food from any civilian and that sentinels were not allowed to smoke, eat, sit, or talk while on duty. One member of the First Iowa Infantry later wrote of his bewilderment at hearing that he would be fined 10 cents for any ammunition expended without explicit order.45 Once in the field, soldiers endured daunting marches, after which they were often expected to go immediately into battle. For the Battle of Hartville, for example, members of the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry left Houston, Missouri, at 10 a.m. on January 9, 1863, and over the next three days marched 100 miles through country patrolled by Confederate cavalry, fought two engagements totaling eleven hours, and for two twenty-four hour periods (out of three) had no chance to eat or get much rest. On the day before the battle at Pea Ridge in 1862, the Ninth Iowa Infantry and two guns from the Dubuque Battery made a forced march of forty miles; over the next two days of battle, the Ninth suffered greater losses in killed, wounded, and missing than any other Union regiment, and the Dubuque Battery experienced the greatest casualties of any artillery battery. Two days before the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, the Sixteenth Iowa Infantry had to build a road ‘‘up a steep bluff ’’ so the army’s wagons could pass; the night before the battle, they were ordered forward four miles over muddy roads that ultimately proved impassable. Nevertheless, ‘‘we nearly succeeded in getting out there Saturday night,’’ the commanding ofDaniel T. Rodgers, ‘‘Tradition, Modernity, and the American Industrial Worker: Reflections and Critique,’’ in Industrialization and Urbanization: Studies in Interdisciplinary History, ed. Theodore K. Rabb and Robert I. Rotberg (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), esp. 222. For Dubuque material, Times, 20 October 1858 (also see 23 October 1858 for a letter signed ‘‘Watch,’’ concurring with ‘‘Mechanic’’); NW Farmer 4 (October 1859): 323–24 (also see 5 [April 1860]: 149); and for town clock, see Times, 3, 4 June 1864. The first town clock was installed atop John Bell’s dry goods store; later in 1864, Bell’s store attracted attention when Florence Healey went to work behind the counter. 45 War Department, Army Regulations, 485–501; Times, 20 September 1862; and Ware, Lyon Campaign, 135–36. For a civilian example, see Sullivan, Industrial Worker, 34.

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ficer wrote afterward. ‘‘Had we done so, we would have lost all our property, and perhaps all our regiment.’’ They still had not fired their guns.46 One of the more colorful descriptions of a forced march came from the pen of J. E. S. in the Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantry. Leaving Helena, Arkansas, August 28, 1863, to join an assault on Little Rock, the Twenty-seventh Iowa covered fifty-four miles in three days, ‘‘with many aching limbs and blistered feet,’’ then crossed the White River and received a day’s rest. On September 1, the Twenty-seventh covered ‘‘twenty hot, dusty miles,’’ but the next day ‘‘was a day for us to remember.’’ The regiment needed to travel eighteen miles in ‘‘intense’’ heat with little but muddy water to drink. ‘‘Men are faint, bewildered, and sink blindly down. . . . We push on—men stagger and fall—some faint and reel—some fall headlong by the wayside.’’ Reaching Brownsville, the regiment was given two hours to rest, then marched another two miles before camping for the night. Here the account ends, but the men of the Twenty-seventh would undoubtedly have concurred with the conclusion the raconteur of the Twelfth Iowa Infantry reached after a similarly strenuous march. For nineteen days, a Union force including the Twelfth pursued Confederate cavalry, a march that ‘‘used up’’ half the mules and most of the cavalry horses in the command. The men, however, persevered, proving that ‘‘men could march further in a given time than horses or mules.’’47 In contrast, prewar Dubuque was in most ways still a ‘‘walking city.’’ Some miners had to travel as many as three miles to work, but nothing in their prewar experience prepared soldiers for the sorts of ‘‘journeys-to-work’’ they faced in the army. Nor did civilians have to build their own roads to travel to the place where further deadly work awaited them. ‘‘The pen will fail to describe the almost impassible [sic] condition of the roads,’’ Sergeant James H. Russell wrote from Missouri in February 1863. ‘‘It has been snowing for the past 46 OR, Series 1, 22 (pt. 1): 187–207 (Hartville); OR, Series 1, 8:266 (Ninth and Dubuque Battery); Shea and Hess, Pea Ridge, 331–34 (casualties); and Sanders to brother, in Throne, ‘‘Document,’’ 247 (quotes). 47 Times, 26 September 1863 (quote); and Reed, Campaigns and Battles of the Twelfth Regiment, 175–79. See also McDonald, Personal Civil War Diary, entries 3 July through 11 July 1861; and Wilkie, Iowa First, 80–83, for similar experiences in the First Iowa Infantry.

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two days and nights. . . . Roads have to be made, for the teams, through the woods, by fatigue parties, and by the time twenty teams have passed over, it is so badly cut up that another has to be made along side it.’’ Further, those who joined the cavalry thinking they would have an easier time because they got to ride were likely disappointed. One cavalryman later recalled that with ‘‘long hours in the saddle, . . . [sometimes] from sixteen to eighteen in the twenty-four, physical endurance was often taxed to exhaustion.’’48 Although the marching could be exhausting, many soldiers took pride in their ability to endure it. In November 1862, Confederate cavalry attacked a lightly guarded wagon train bringing supplies to a small Union garrison at Houston, Missouri. The Twenty-first Iowa Infantry was ordered out to the train’s relief. They ‘‘double-quicked’’ fifteen miles but arrived too late to engage the Confederates. The Twenty-first then helped the survivors and marched back more slowly to Houston; elapsed time: six hours. Sergeant James Russell noted that this march ‘‘will give some indication of the stuff Iowa boys are composed of when there is work to do.’’ Throughout its short service, the First Iowa Infantry gave further indications, endeavoring to outpace the Regular Army troops in its brigade. On July 5, 1861, for example, with the Regulars in the lead, the brigade covered sixteen miles. The next day, with the First Iowa now in the lead, they covered twenty-three miles and for most of the day the Iowans maintained a gap of a half hour between themselves and the rest of the brigade. On the seventh, the Regulars, back in the lead, sought revenge, but the Iowans kept up; eventually the Regulars stopped and loaded all their extra baggage into wagons, and still the fully loaded Iowans kept pace. Dubuque’s Joseph Lockey, who joined the Sixth Minnesota Infantry, wrote home that although ‘‘You will remember that I have been constitutionally opposed to quick movements of all kinds from 48 Herald, 19 September 1861 (for miners); Russell to Times, published 28 February 1863; and MOLLUS—IA, War Sketches, 2:193–94. See also, Times, 19 February 1863, for a letter from ‘‘S.’’ in the Twenty-seventh Infantry describing an attempt to use infantry to pursue cavalry over muddy roads in Tennessee; and Crooke, Twentyfirst Regiment, 45, 118. For the concepts of ‘‘walking city’’ and ‘‘journey-to-work’’ see, for example, Theodore Hershberg, et al., ‘‘The ‘Journey-to-Work’: An Empirical Investigation of Work, Residence and Transportation, Philadelphia, 1850 and 1880,’’ in Philadelphia: Work, Space, Family, and Group Experience in the 19th Century, ed. Theodore Hershberg (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 128–73.

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my youth up,’’ the army had changed him. Now he willingly moved very quickly and worked extra hard.49 The end of a march did not mean the hard work had ended. Most often it marked the beginning. After the near-disaster at Shiloh in 1862—when Ulysses S. Grant’s army failed to prepare trenches and other fortifications the evening before a surprise Confederate attack—one of the first things troops did upon stopping for the night was to prepare as if an attack could come at any time. A general from Iowa later recalled that after Shiloh, ‘‘the men would not move, after breaking ranks at the day’s halt, until there arose by their prompt and sudden work, as if by magic, breastworks which would defy attack and save their lives.’’ An anonymous veteran writing to the Times in 1864 called fortification building ‘‘work for life.’’ The soldiers were ‘‘already worn down from marching, or fighting or working, or want of sleep. Nothing but the stern necessities of the case could induce them now to go to work again with all their remaining energies.’’ Writing a brief history of the Ninth Iowa Infantry, another veteran noted that for ‘‘two years’’ the men dug trenches ‘‘continually’’ and ‘‘incessantly’’ without ever having to use them. Still, they never stopped digging in every night, and in May 1864 they ‘‘suddenly’’ received their ‘‘reward for all this labor’’ when the Confederates unsuccessfully attacked their line during the Atlanta campaign.50 Another form of work was guard duty, which the Herald’s Franc Wilkie called ‘‘the severest duty of camp life.’’ Whether in permanent camp or stopped in the field, a line of sentries had to be maintained around the camp at all times. As Wilkie described it for the First Iowa’s camp in Keokuk, Iowa, a sentry detail consisted of several men from each company divided into three groups that took turns filling two-hour shifts on the line around the camp for a twenty-fourhour period. During his two-hour shift, a sentry was assigned a certain portion of the line to patrol and had to ‘‘keep constantly on the alert with his musket on his shoulder, and himself in motion during 49 Times, 9 December 1862 (Russell); Wilkie, Iowa First, 76–77; Ware, Lyon Campaign, 168–69, 173–74; and Times, 1 November 1862 (Lockey). ‘‘Double-quick’’ was defined in Hardee’s manual as 165 steps of 33 inches each per minute. There were three other marching speeds: ‘‘common time’’ (90 steps of 28 inches per minute), ‘‘quick time’’ (110 steps of 28 inches per minute), and ‘‘run’’ (which was not so specifically defined). Hardee, Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics, 24–28. 50 MOLLUS—IA, War Sketches, 1:159; Times, 15 August 1864; and Iowa Adjutant’s Report, 1866, 180.

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the two hours.’’ When not on the line, the other two shifts stayed at the guard tents, which controlled access to and from the camp. They, too, had to stay alert, though they could leave their arms stacked in front of the tents. The officer of the day (one of the regiment’s ten captains) or Colonel J. F. Bates could test the alertness of the men in the guard tents by simply approaching them; in response the men were supposed to emerge from the tent promptly and ‘‘present arms.’’51 In the field, there would be certain variations to the guard duty routine. If the army was on the move, for example, a sentry detail might only be for the night. On the other hand, the sentries would have to stay awake after a possibly exhausting day’s march with another to follow; sleeping on sentry duty was punishable by death. Although the sentries were thus more tired, the dangers to the army were correspondingly greater in, say, Arkansas than in Keokuk. Other things in the guard routine did not depend on the military situation, exposure to extremes of weather for instance. While still in Keokuk, Wilkie took a turn on sentry duty ‘‘for the fun of the thing.’’ Afterward, he told his readers that ‘‘I’ve got just ‘fun’ enough to last me to the end of this war, and the four following.’’ In his first two-hour shift, he ‘‘got soaked by a hurricane,’’ and in the next ‘‘the sun came out so hot that in my wet clothes I was boiled as effectually as a potatoe [sic] in a pot.’’ This pattern of rain and heat, he said, continued throughout the day. Then ‘‘at night . . . the thermometer took a trip down towards zero.’’ All the while, ‘‘the musket blistered my fingers and shoulders, the sun blistered my face and back, the shoes blistered my feet, the hat made my head ache, and the result was that as I hobbled tentward at 4 a.m., I had more aches and blisters than a first class hospital.’’ Although Wilkie undoubtedly exaggerated, sentries did face all the hardships he mentioned.52 At least long marches, fortification building, and guard duty served the larger purpose of winning the war. Soldiers also performed work that appeared to have no purpose other than to keep them occupied and away from idleness and vice. One of the best known of this kind Wilkie, Iowa First, 37–38. See also War Department, Army Regulations, 49–61, 87–88. 52 Wilkie, Iowa First, 37; War Department, Army Regulations, 493 (Forty-sixth Article of War); and William Maltz, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA. Maltz fell asleep on his post but was spared the death penalty. 51

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of project came during the winter of 1862–63. With his army unable to attack the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River, General Grant concluded that ‘‘it would not do to lie idle’’ until late March, the earliest any movement against the city could start. Accordingly, he approved ‘‘a series of experiments’’ to dig canals to rechannel the Mississippi away from Vicksburg. In theory this would have made it easier to mount an assault against the city, though in his memoirs Grant argued that he ‘‘never felt any great confidence that any of the experiments . . . would prove successful.’’ But even after his expectations of failure had been met, ‘‘I let the work go on, believing employment was better than idleness for the men.’’53 The Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, with four companies raised in Dubuque, was among Grant’s troops at Vicksburg that winter. The following winter found the Twenty-first stationed at Pass Cavallo, Texas, where they again worked on a project of dubious value. Despite the lack of any Confederate threat, commanders ordered the regiment to erect ‘‘strong, impregnable and enduring’’ fortifications. Then, before they could resume active campaigning in the spring, the men were forced to tear down the fortifications, leading some to grumble that ‘‘our time . . . [had been] lost, and our energies misdirected.’’ The Twelfth Iowa Infantry, with two companies from Dubuque, was likewise among Grant’s canal builders, and they, too, experienced other make-work projects. In April 1862 much of the regiment had been taken prisoner at Shiloh, and after being paroled by the Confederates, the men thought they would be sent home to await formal exchange. Instead, they were assigned to guard duty at Benton Barracks in Saint Louis—even though it violated their parole. Then, after the war had ended but before their muster-out, the Twelfth Iowa was put to work guarding cotton for speculators. In this case the work did not have the desired effect, however. The men found it ‘‘very 53 Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (New York: C. L. Webster & Co., 1885; reprinted as Memoirs and Selected Letters, New York: Library of America, 1990), 296–305 (quotes from 296, 297, 299) (page citations are to reprint edition). Grant may, of course, be revising the history of the Vicksburg campaign; there is, for example, no evidence in his correspondence at the time that he considered the canal projects anything other than a viable means of getting at the city. In his memoirs, he asserts that he kept his own lack of confidence in the canals a secret in order to better deceive the enemy and his own troops. See also, McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 586–87; McPherson takes Grant’s canal effort seriously, but he notes that even if the project had been completed it probably would have made little difference.

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demoralizing,’’ and they ‘‘began to object’’ as well as to steal some of the cotton for themselves.54 Not all the work was so seemingly pointless. Long hours of occupying the trenches at Vicksburg, for example, gave soldiers numerous opportunities to practice their marksmanship by sniping at the Confederate trenches. Even though the sniping had no effect on the course of the Vicksburg campaign, it helped make ‘‘capital shots of the whole army,’’ according to one officer. Similarly, among the members of the Twelfth Iowa taken prisoner at Shiloh was Joseph B. Dorr, then the regiment’s quartermaster. Dorr noted in his diary that while prisoners a number of officers ‘‘enlisted in drill squad,’’ the first real opportunity many of them—including Dorr—had for such training. After five days, however, the drill was abandoned. ‘‘As usual,’’ Dorr wrote, ‘‘too many were attacked by the worst of all diseases, ‘laziness.’ ’’ Beginning in July 1862, the Ninth Iowa Infantry spent five months camped at Helena, Arkansas, and ‘‘for the first and last time in its history [had] a permanent camp and the privilege of enjoying anything like a thorough course of discipline.’’ This training laid ‘‘the foundation’’ that ‘‘carried the regiment through its subsequent two and a half years of active and hard service.’’55 The soldiers’ main work, of course, was battle; everything else— exhausting as it might be—was mere preparation. ‘‘A battle,’’ according to one old veteran, ‘‘is a place of din, smoke, oaths, shouting, effort, and agonizing labor.’’ Further, ‘‘the confusing clamor, the odor that fills the air from burning powder, wounded men and dying horses, and the unceasing rattle and roll of musketry, is enough to turn the clearest head and weaken the strongest heart.’’ This veteran’s description of battle mentions two of the more industrial aspects of nineteenth-century combat: smoke and noise. One might com54 When prisoners were taken in the Civil War, release was often a two-stage process. The men might be ‘‘paroled’’ and allowed to return to their own lines, but they were honor bound not to participate in the war again in any way until they had been officially ‘‘exchanged’’ for a prisoner held by their side. Violators could be summarily executed if captured again before exchange. For the Twenty-first, see OR, Series 1, 34 (pt. 2): 702–4; and Times, 11 June 1864 (quotes). For the Twelfth POWs, see Reed, 12th Iowa, 114, 236–37. For the Twelfth after the end of the war, see letter, Charles Sumbardo to Joseph Dorr, 11 November 1862, published in Times, 18 November 1862 (quotes). 55 Times, 7 July 1863; Joseph B. Dorr, Diary of Prison Life (Dubuque: n.p., 1877), 26 April, 1 May 1862, pp. 15, 16; and Iowa Adjutant’s Report, 1866, 176.

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pare, for instance, the veteran’s description of battle with comments from two women who worked in the Lowell, Massachusetts, cotton factories in the 1830s and 1840s. One told of ‘‘air thick with smoke’’ from the oil lamps used to light the factory; the other recalled leaning out the window both for fresh air and to escape ‘‘the unceasing clash of sound inside.’’56 Military historian John Keegan calls smoke and noise ‘‘the two . . . most oppressive characteristics of the [nineteenth-century] battlefield.’’ Smokeless gunpowder was an invention of the post–Civil War period; as late as 1898, a military handbook considered smokeless powder of questionable value. Civil War muskets and artillery used black powder like that used in the Napoleonic era and that produced, in Keegan’s words, ‘‘dense, whitish-grey clouds’’ over the battlefield. In their letters home Dubuque’s soldiers actually made few comments about smoke, but others picked up the slack. Franc Wilkie described the ‘‘thick smoke’’ that hung over the battlefield at Wilson’s Creek ‘‘as if hell itself were flaming within.’’ Smoke contributed to the Union defeat at Wilson’s Creek, when an attacking Union brigade halted upon seeing troops approach who appeared to be the First Iowa. They turned out to be a Louisiana regiment whose counterattack helped destroy the Union advance. Similarly, at Iuka, Mississippi, in September 1862, according to a story copied by the Dubuque Times, ‘‘a dense cloud of smoke . . . enveloped the engaging forces so that it was impossible to distinguish friend or foe.’’ Several days later at Corinth, Mississippi, ‘‘a wall of dust and smoke rose between’’ the contending forces, according to a soldier from Davenport in the Sixteenth Iowa Infantry. The smoke at Corinth made such an impression on one war correspondent that he wrote that three days after the battle the smoke had still not completely cleared.57 Noise received more attention from Dubuque’s soldiers and those close to them. Franc Wilkie referred in his memoirs to the ‘‘peculiarly diabolical shriek’’ of ‘‘rifled shot,’’ in this case apparently artilMOLLUS—IA, War Sketches, 1:64; and Lowell workers quoted in Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), 224–25. 57 John Keegan, The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme (New York: Viking Press, 1976), 140; Arthur L. Wagner, Elements of Military Science (Kansas City, Mo.: Hudson-Kimberley Publishing Company, 1898); Wilkie, Iowa First, 107; and Times, 4 (Iuka quote), 18 (Corinth quote), 25 October 1862. 56

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lery shells. The first captain of the Dubuque company in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, a man who came to the company from New York, described artillery shells as approaching ‘‘with the rushing, clashing of a locomotive on a railroad.’’ A soldier, according to this account, first ‘‘heard the boom of the cannon . . . then the sound of the shell—and then felt it rushing at you.’’ Moreover, he added, ‘‘it was so quickly done that you had no time to anticipate or think—you were killed or you were safe, and it was over.’’ Musketry, to this captain, ‘‘sounded like a bundle of immense powder crackers’’ from a distance. ‘‘Allendale,’’ who wrote to the Dubuque Times from the Sixteenth Iowa Infantry, had a different view of musketry. ‘‘The whistling of the bullets is not as unpleasant as I had anticipated,’’ he said. ‘‘But for their effect, the music would be exhiliarating [sic].’’ Each of these men emphasized the noise on the receiving end of artillery and musket fire. But the loudest noise—the noise that, in John Keegan’s words, ‘‘assaulted the whole being’’—would have come from firing an artillery piece or being one of several thousand infantrymen discharging their muskets. Describing a battle at Fort DeRussy, Louisiana, in 1864, for example, army surgeon George M. Staples wrote to a friend that ‘‘the roar of artillery, the screaming of shells and the sharp crack of musketry would have drowned a hundred thunders.’’58 The impact of smoke and noise can be seen in other ways. Seven Dubuque soldiers received disability discharges for blindness or ‘‘opthalmia’’ traced to exposure to smoke on the battlefield and in camp. One of those seven, day laborer Henry Langeneckhardt, reentered the army nine months after being discharged for eye problems and within days of being rejected by another company because of his continuing eye problems; Langeneckhardt died of an unspecified disease in November 1864. Of those who survived the war, two of those receiving discharges for eye problems plus four other veterans claimed disability pensions for loss of eyesight traceable to smoke damage.59 Battlefield noise assaulted the sense of hearing. Only one 58 Franc B. Wilkie, Pen and Powder (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1888), 168; Charles C. Nott, Sketches of the War: A Series of Letters to the North Moore Street School of New York (New York: William Abbatt, 1911), 12; Times, 17 April 1862; Keegan, Face of Battle, 141–43; and Staples to H. A. Wiltse, published in Times, 12 April 1864. 59 For disability discharges see John Aiken, First Iowa Cavalry; John Corielle, Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry; Henry Fulmer, Second Iowa Cavalry; Andrew Keesecher, Third Iowa Infantry; Henry Longneckhard [sic], Ninth Iowa Infantry; Charles

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Dubuque soldier, carpenter William Schwaegler, was discharged for deafness; Schwaegler reenlisted eleven months later. Still Schwaegler plus three other men received disability pensions for deafness traceable to their military service. Carpenter Casper Wilky, for example, blamed his deafness on the intense artillery duel at Port Gibson. His regiment was detailed to protect the artillery and spent the night close enough to the guns that ‘‘the sparks [from the artillery discharges] burned our clothes.’’60 Injuries in combat, of course, were not limited to the effects of smoke and noise. Data on casualties among Dubuque’s soldiers indicate that infantrymen suffered wounds and death as a result of battle at a much higher rate than soldiers in either of the other service arms. Roughly one of every five infantrymen could expect to be wounded (many only slightly) or killed in battle during their service; fewer than one in twenty cavalry- or artillerymen among Dubuque’s soldiers had that experience. The highest percentage of wounded occurred among Dubuque soldiers in the First Iowa Infantry, the regiment that served the shortest time and fought only one significant battle, Wilson’s Creek, in August 1861. But it was also, as the name implies, the first regiment of Iowans in the Union army and hence unable to draw on the experience of other regiments. A number of First Iowa veterans subsequently reenlisted in other infantry regiments. The Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, in particular, received many First Infantry veterans, and the Twenty-first had the lowest casualty rate (along with the Twelfth) of the infantry regiments with concentrations of Dubuque soldiers.61 At the same time, casualty data reinforce the earlier discussion of Mattox, Sixteenth Iowa Infantry; and Patrick O’Keefe, Seventh Iowa Cavalry—all CSR, NA. For long-term disabilities see Mattox, Fulmer, Edward Beckett, Lovatus Fuller, John Kuntz, and Julius Mabe—all Pensions, NA. Also, for Langeneckhardt, see Henry Langeneckhardt, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; Iowa Adjutant’s Report, 1864–1865; and Census 1860, Pop., p. 151. Of the men discharged with eye problems, Aiken did not claim loss of eyesight on his pension, Keesecher never applied, and Corielle and O’Keefe were not identified in either census year, leaving them outside the pool of pensions examined for this project. 60 William Schwaegler, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry and Fifth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; Schwaegler, Casper Wilky, Patrick Berrill, George R. West—all Pensions, NA; and Census 1860, Pop., p. 200 (Schwaegler) and 230 (Wilky). 61 The casualty rates refer only to the Dubuque members (from the larger list of 1,321 soldiers credited to the city) of the particular military units. See table B.12, appendix B for some specific data on wounds.

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the uses of the three service arms in the Civil War. Infantry bore the brunt of the fighting, especially on the offensive, and had the casualties to show for it. Artillery, in contrast, was most useful as a defensive arm and had a very low casualty rate; no Dubuque members of the Dubuque Battery were killed in battle. Although this was partly due to the state of the technology, which imparted greater strength to the defensive, it might also be noted that an old military maxim held that ‘‘who wishes to live long must enlist in the artillery.’’ Given the uses of volunteer cavalry during the Civil War, the maxim held for that branch as well. In the Sixth Iowa Cavalry, sent west to fight Indians rather than south to fight rebels, the Dubuque members took no casualties whatsoever. On the other hand, the Seventh Cavalry was also sent west, and its members experienced the highest casualty rate among Dubuque soldiers in the cavalry, though in absolute terms the numbers were small (one killed and one wounded among thirty-two enlistments).62 Although combat was the most dangerous place for soldiers, even outside of battle the army was a dangerous place for men only marginally trained in the use of unfamiliar tools. Accidents with horses have already been noted. Other accidents came from inexperience with guns. ‘‘Many of our recruits never saw a gun before, and are about as competent to be trusted with a loaded firearm, as would be a mule or a half witted jackass,’’ Franc Wilkie wrote after an accidental discharge wounded two members of Company I, First Iowa Infantry. Similarly, although his lieutenant told the Pension Bureau that Private Joseph L. Carter lost two fingers on his right hand ‘‘manfully discharging his duty fighting the enemy’’ in 1863, Carter, a teamster and miner before the war, in fact lost the fingers when his gun accidentally discharged while he was on guard duty. At least the war was still in progress. A private in the Sixth Iowa Cavalry, though not from Dubuque, lost his arm while helping fire a 100-gun artillery salute in honor of Lee’s surrender in 1865.63 62 Marx and Engels, Collected Works, 18:208, cites the old maxim, though Engels added that the maxim ‘‘appears to be no longer true’’ in 1857. Two members of the Dubuque Battery were killed at Pea Ridge, but neither was among the 1,321 soldiers credited to Julien Township; Shea and Hess, Pea Ridge, 334. 63 Wilkie, Iowa First, 71; McDonald, Personal Civil War Diary, entry 26 June 1861; Joseph L. Carter, Pensions, NA (quote); and Joseph H. Drips, Three Years among the Indians in Dakota (Kimball, S.Dak.: Brule Index, 1894), 102. The Sixth Cavalry contained one company recruited in Dubuque, and its colonel was Dubuque lawyer David S. Wilson.

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The work in the Union army had one other effect: it impressed civilian observers. For social theorist John W. Draper, for example, war was a ‘‘school’’ in which men learned ‘‘subordination,’’ ‘‘order,’’ and ‘‘obedience.’’ Dubuque’s Julius K. Graves, the city’s leading postwar capitalist, was similarly impressed. Visiting Washington, D.C., and observing ‘‘untold thousands of soldiers’’ engaged in army drill, he ‘‘was astonished beyond measure at the great efficiency of military discipline. All march and counter march, and go through the various evolutions of the soldier with an ease and rapidity of motion which far surpassed my expectations.’’ Historians generally argue that the railroads pioneered modern, bureaucratized organizational techniques, but perhaps that idea needs modification. As military sociologist Jacques van Doorn puts it, ‘‘very schematically: industry copied the organization of labor from the army and then further developed the technique on its own.’’64 Indeed, as late as 1863 a decentralized, or contract, model for railroad organization existed and, according to one scholar, represented ‘‘a serious alternative to bureaucratic management.’’ That alternative disappeared after the Civil War. Why did the centralized model triumph? Although it awaits further research, one suspects that after the Civil War the Union army’s success in carrying out its large-scale operations—geographically as well as in numbers of employees— presented railroaders and other postwar businessmen with an inescapable model for their own operations. The army also provided the experienced personnel—army officers and noncommissioned officers—to implement the model. In fact, some of the prewar impetus toward bureaucratic management in the railroads had come from military men who, though hired for their engineering experience, brought new ideas for organizing men and material. After the Civil War, such individuals were more numerous than ever. Veterans such as Iowa’s Grenville M. Dodge went to work for companies such as 64 John W. Draper, Thoughts on the Future Civil Policy of America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1865), 251–52; Times, 19 February 1862; and van Doorn, Soldier, esp. 8–23, 29–33 (quote from 17). The argument that railroad management pioneered modern management is most associated with Alfred D. Chandler Jr.; see, for example, Chandler, Railroads: The Nation’s First Big Business (New York: Arno Press, 1965); and Chandler, ‘‘The Emergence of Managerial Capitalism,’’ Business History Review 58 (Winter 1984): 473–503.

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the Union Pacific Railroad, and Dodge in particular was said to organize his work crews like military companies.65

Hierarchy and Impersonality: Rank and Mobility in the Union Army Among other areas, civilian industry clearly derived ideas about hierarchical leadership structure and the separation of that leadership into line and staff functions from the military; railroad corporations even adopted the same terminology, line and staff. The line officer hierarchy ranged from the lieutenants and captains, who led companies, through the majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels, who provided leadership at the regimental level, and on to the generals, who commanded brigades (groups of regiments), divisions (groups of brigades), corps (groups of divisions), and armies (two or more corps).66 There were also noncommissioned officers (NCOs)—corporals and sergeants—at the company level, though during the Civil War NCOs held much less status and importance than they would in the twentieth century.67 Staff personnel in the Union army were charged with the myriad details necessary to the smooth functioning of an army ‘‘like one machine.’’ Also hierarchically organized, the range and complexity of staff duties ramified the further one progressed up the hierarchy. Using quartermaster functions as an example, each cavalry 65 Walter Licht, Working for the Railroad: The Organization of Work in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983), quote on 23; C. Robert Kemble, The Image of the Army Officer in America: Background for Current Views (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973), 40, 114; and Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 (New York: Atheneum, 1985), 286—Slotkin generally appreciates the Union army’s contributions as a model for postwar industrial management more than most scholars of American history do. 66 The text describes organization in the abstract. In practice during the Civil War, it was not unusual to find a colonel, for example, who commanded a brigade (as Dubuque’s William Vandever did at Pea Ridge in 1862) or other modifications in the standard organization. For railroads’ use of line and staff terminology, see Licht, Working for the Railroad, 15–19. 67 For the place of NCOs in the Civil War era, see Ernest F. Fisher Jr., Guardians of the Republic: A History of the Noncommissioned Officer Corps of the U.S. Army (New York: Ballantine Books, 1994).

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company and artillery battery had a quartermaster sergeant; each infantry and cavalry regiment had a quartermaster sergeant and a quartermaster with the rank of lieutenant; each brigade had an assistant quartermaster with the rank of captain; and so on up the organizational chart.68 At the beginning of the war, the members of volunteer regiments commonly chose their officers and sometimes even their NCOs by election. On the one hand, this merely followed past practice in the militia and was consistent with American democratic traditions. On the other hand, however, the thinking early in the war was that, as the Dubuque Times put it in 1862, ‘‘it is usually a good criterion by which to judge a man’s military capacity to note his success in business.’’ An article in the Atlantic Monthly in 1864 elaborated the point. Many Regular Army officers at the beginning of the war ‘‘were mere clerks in shoulder-straps.’’ But ‘‘a lawyer who could manoeuvre fifty witnesses as if they were one,—a teacher used to governing young men by the hundred,—an orator trained to sway thousands,—a master mechanic,—a railway superintendent,—a factory agent,—a broker who could harness Wall Street and drive it,—a financier who could rule a sovereign State with a rod of (railway) iron’’ could quickly master sufficient military knowledge and surpass the abilities of the Regular Army officers ‘‘in a year.’’69 Further reinforcing the association between business experience and military leadership, one of the recurring images of the army officer during the Civil War was as a manager. ‘‘One thing,’’ General Grenville Dodge wrote to the commander of the Fourth Iowa Infantry in 1862, ‘‘if the Reg gets into a fight dont lose it by . . . bad management. I dont care how hot or hard it has to fight but bad management will never be excusable.’’ Describing a brief skirmish involving the First Iowa Infantry in 1861, Franc Wilkie noted that ‘‘The management of Colonel [J. F.] Bates and the co-operation of 68 Schalk, Summary of the Art of War, esp. 70–71 (‘‘machine’’ quote from 70); Fred A. Shannon, The Organization and Administration of the Union Army 1861– 1865 (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clarke, 1928), 2:263–66; Craighill, Dufour’s Strategy and Tactics, 84; and Lord, They Fought for the Union, 95–126. See also War Department, Army Regulations, 159–459, for detailed discussion of the responsibilities of the quartermaster bureau, as well as of the commissary, medical, pay, and ordnance bureaus (called ‘‘departments’’ in that source). 69 Times, 11 September 1862; and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, ‘‘Regular and Volunteer Officers,’’ Atlantic Monthly 14 (September 1864): 348.

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his officers were admirable.’’ Similarly, after the fight at Port Gibson as part of the Vicksburg campaign in May 1863, the commander of the division that included the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, with four companies commanded by Dubuque officers, declared that ‘‘the regiments and batteries all showed great gallantry, and their commanders good management.’’ ‘‘The Boys were hard to manage for a time,’’ Dubuque lawyer and lieutenant colonel of the Sixth Iowa Cavalry Samuel Pollock wrote to lawyer and colonel David Wilson in 1862, until he told the company officers ‘‘that I would hold them responsible for the conduct of their men.’’70 In short, at the beginning of the war military experience counted for less than business or professional experience in the selection of officers. Not everyone accepted this logic, of course. As early as 1861 General George Gordon Meade, a Regular Army professional, reported that although ‘‘the men [in volunteer regiments] are good material . . . the officers . . . are ignorant, inefficient, and worthless.’’ By 1864, many had come to agree with Meade. Civilian business and professional experience had proved a less reliable indicator of military prowess than expected. On the other hand, over the course of the war a number of factors had combined to improve the quality of officership in the volunteer regiments. These factors included attrition, which reduced the size of companies and regiments while the number of officers and NCOs did not decline; a gradual ending of the system of electing officers, though it never disappeared completely; the creation of a system of examinations, which, though doing little about incompetent officers already in the field, did check ‘‘indiscriminate appointments’’ from civilian life; and the increased potential for promotions by merit as the war progressed.71 70 Dodge to Williamson, 4 February 1862, Williamson Letters; Wilkie, Iowa First, 103; OR, Series 1, 24 (pt. 1): 622; and Pollock to Wilson, 27 November 1862, David S. Wilson papers, IHSI. J. F. Bates was a Dubuque lawyer and held the position of clerk of courts before the war. 71 Meade to wife, 24 November 1861, in George Gordon Meade, Life and Letters of General George Gordon Meade (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913), 1:231. For a more complete discussion of officership and the factors leading to its improvement, see Russell Lee Johnson, ‘‘An Army for Industrialization: The Civil War and the Formation of Urban-Industrial Society in a Northern City’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1996), 429–38. Some secondary literature includes Shannon, Organization, 1:185–87 (‘‘indiscriminate appointments’’); Weigley, History of the United

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A closer look at Dubuque’s soldiers reveals the results of thinking that businessmen could easily provide the leadership necessary in the Union army; this discussion focuses on the soldiers located in the 1860 census. Among new recruits, men from working-class (artisan and unskilled) or farm backgrounds disproportionately entered the army as privates, regardless of whether they were independent soldiers or soldier-sons; over 80 percent of independent unskilled men, independent farmers, and soldier-sons from artisan, unskilled, and farm backgrounds entered the army as privates.72 In contrast, no one from an unskilled background entered the army as an officer, and only one officer, Second Lieutenant Henry H. Belfield, lived in a farm family. Significantly, although he lived with his farmer father, Belfield himself was a schoolteacher before joining the Eighth Iowa Cavalry in 1863. Overall, the business class was largely overrepresented among the officers. Adding the independent soldiers and soldiersons together, three-quarters of the initial officers (forty-three of fifty-seven) had business-class backgrounds. These included eight attorneys, two teachers (not counting Belfield), five elected officials, one minister, three entrepreneurial miners, and eleven assorted business men (bankers, merchants, agents, or contractors, for example), among others; further, seven master mechanics provided all of the working-class independent soldiers who entered the army as officers.73 Similarly, in the middle of the hierarchy, over half of the NCOs were independent soldiers who held low-nonmanual or artisan positions before enlisting (54 of 98). These backgrounds gave them some experience in business and management, which the military could States Army, 229–30; Robertson, Soldiers Blue and Gray, 22; Philip Shaw Paludan, ‘‘A People’s Contest’’: The Union and the Civil War, 1861–1865 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 46, 52–53; Bruce Catton, Mr. Lincoln’s Army (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1951), 190; and Mahon and Danysh, Infantry, 28. 72 For independent soldiers, the percentages of those entering the army as privates were high nonmanual, 18.2; low nonmanual, 44.6; artisan, 61.6; unskilled, 83.7; farmers, 83.3; and no occupation, 55.5; overall 61.3 percent of independent soldiers entered the army as privates. For soldier-sons, the percentages of privates were high nonmanual, 62.5; low nonmanual, 75.0; artisan, 82.1; unskilled, 89.7; farmers, 82.4; no occupation, 100.0; and overall, 81.7. 73 For independent soldiers, the percentages entering the army as officers were high nonmanual, 69.7; low nonmanual, 18.1; artisan, 6.3; unskilled, 0; farmers, 0; and no occupation, 22.2; overall 13.1 percent of independent soldiers entered the army as officers. For soldier-sons, the percentages of officers were high nonmanual, 12.5; low nonmanual, 5.4; artisan, 5.4; unskilled, 0; farmers, 5.9; no occupation, 0; and overall, 4.1.

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put to good use, but perhaps not enough social status to qualify them for commissions.74 Thus dry goods clerk Josiah Conzett, the son of a day laborer, was quickly promoted to the position of quartermaster sergeant in Company E, Fifth Iowa Cavalry. Three other men with more or less business experience entered the Sixth Iowa Cavalry with comparable staff positions. Richard W. Montross (a failed sewing machine manufacturer who worked as a druggist’s clerk) and Frank O. Udell (who worked in the American Express office) were made quartermaster sergeants, and Byron M. Richmond (a clerk) became a commissary sergeant. Some more prominent businessmen entered the army with appointments as commissioned staff officers. Solon M. Langworthy, one of the four Langworthy brothers who helped found Dubuque, was quartermaster for the Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantry, and Charles R. Morse, partner in the pork-packing firm of Brackett & Morse before the war, became quartermaster of the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry.75 Several civilian status factors, in fact, influenced the soldiers’ initial ranks. Among the independent soldiers, occupation and property ownership—that is, an individual’s class standing—were the best determinants of initial rank.76 Despite the fact that some Germans had military experience before emigrating to the United States, a slight preference existed for the native born in appointing officers—likely because of language. Still, nativity was no better than third in signifi74 For independent soldiers, the percentages entering the army as NCOs were high nonmanual, 12.1; low nonmanual, 27.7; artisan, 27.7; unskilled, 14.6; farmers, 16.7; and no occupation, 22.2; overall 21.3 percent of independent soldiers entered the army as NCOs. For soldier-sons, the percentages of NCOs were high nonmanual, 18.8; low nonmanual, 8.9; artisan, 8.9; unskilled, 7.4; farmers, 11.8; no occupation, 0; and overall, 9.2. If some of the percentages in notes 72–74 do not total 100, it is because some volunteers from a given occupation group initially entered the army as musicians in regimental bands. 75 Josiah Conzett, Fifth Iowa Cavalry; Richard W. Montross, Frank O. Udell, Byron M. Richmond, Sixth Iowa Cavalry; Solon M. Langworthy, Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantry; and Charles R. Morse, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry—all CSR, NA; Times, 29 October (Montross, Udell, and Richmond), 29 November (Langworthy), 15, 31 August, 3 September, 5 October 1862 (Morse). 76 See table B.13, appendix B for the specific data described in this and the following paragraph. This analysis describes results produced using the statistical technique of multiple classification analysis (MCA). The variables included in the MCA were occupation, property ownership, age, nativity, and height; separate MCAs including and excluding height data were produced because height data were missing for many soldiers (especially those in the First Iowa Infantry, where record keeping was particularly poor).

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cance as a factor influencing initial ranks. Given the idea that successful businessmen and professionals would make the best officers, age might have been expected to be an important factor for initial ranks, but age also ranked no higher than third in significance. Thus, simply having a business-class occupation, not the degree of experience, was the key factor; a young clerk had a better chance for a high initial military rank than an older artisan. Age and nativity switch places in terms of significance when height data are included in the analysis; with height included, age was fourth in significance, with nativity moving to third. Height might seem an odd variable for inclusion in this analysis, but a growing body of research suggests that height and standard of living—and hence socioeconomic class—are intimately related and that the former provides important clues to the latter. For independent soldiers, although socioeconomic class was the leading determinant of initial ranks, height was the least significant factor.77 Among the soldier-sons the pattern was almost reversed. Height appeared to be the most significant single factor, with age second. On the other hand, height and age are the only variables that contain the soldier-sons’ personal data; occupation, nativity, and property rank contain parental data. Hence, in initial ranks, at least, soldiersons seem to have gained little advantage or disadvantage from their parents’ status in 1860, except as their parents were able to provide the nutrition, housing, and medical care to allow their children to have a well-timed adolescent growth spurt and to reach more of their genetic height potential. That height then translated into higher military rank.78 77 This last point, in fact, would be expected, because two-thirds of the independent soldiers were born before 1836, and most of them grew up in different circumstances than those they lived under in 1860—they may, for instance, have grown up in a more rural place or a more urban one, in a different country or in the East or South—all of which could affect their final heights; see Robert A. Margo and Richard H. Steckel, ‘‘Heights of Native-Born Whites during the Antebellum Period,’’ Journal of Economic History 43 (March 1983): 167–74. For an introduction to the study of height as an indicator of standard of living see also, for example, Roderick Floud, Kenneth Wachter, and Annabel Gregory, Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom 1750–1980 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and Stephen Nicholas and Richard H. Steckel, ‘‘Heights and Living Standards of English Workers during the Early Years of Industrialization, 1770– 1815,’’ Journal of Economic History 51 (1991): 937–57. 78 Significance tests produced during the MCA runs further confirm these results. For soldier-sons, the factor with the greatest significance (defined as the number closest to zero) was height (.004); omitting height, the factor with the greatest sig-

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Having entered the army with a particular rank, most soldiers experienced little mobility. Eighty percent of the men who entered the army as privates ended their service as privates. For the NCOs among the independent soldiers, 68.4 percent ended their service as NCOs, 18.4 percent moved up to become officers, and 13.2 percent fell into the ranks of the privates. Soldier-son NCOs experienced more mobility: 40 percent stayed NCOs, 35 percent moved up, and 25 percent moved down. Officers from Dubuque experienced some upward but no downward mobility. Four of the thirty-nine independent soldiers who started as company officers moved to higher positions; no soldier-sons had this experience. Meanwhile, no one who entered the army from Dubuque as an officer ended his service as anything less than an officer. By and large, however, the ranks soldiers held initially determined their final ranks when they left the army.79 For independent soldiers, initial rank was the single most important determinant of final rank, after which the relative significance of other factors stayed the same; in other words, occupation and property remained more important factors in final ranks than age, nativity, or height. For soldier-sons, on the other hand, their parents’ occupations and property ownership replaced age as the most significant factors after initial rank, which suggests greater, not less, intrusion of outside factors in determining promotions. Height also remained a very important factor. Indeed, among soldier-sons height was more important than even initial rank in determining final rank, and the significance of height increased tremendously over what it had been for initial ranks. In other words, the distribution of soldier-sons’ final ranks more closely matched the distribution of their heights than even the distribution of initial ranks did. The soldier-sons who received promotions out of the ranks of the privates or NCOs were the tallest men holding those ranks, whereas those NCOs demoted were generally the shortest men. nificance was age (.024); no other factor had a significance greater than .1. For independent soldiers, occupation had a significance greater than .0001, whether height was included as a factor or not; next in significance was property rank (.003 without height, .005 including it), followed by nativity (.038 and .025), then age (with or without height), and last height (with significances greater than .1). 79 In other words, the ‘‘final rank’’ data are the ranks the various soldiers held when they died or were discharged from the army for the last time—taking all reenlistments into account. See table B.14, appendix B for the specific data described in this paragraph.

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The experience of mobility in the military was, in fact, about the same as men could expect in a mid-nineteenth-century city. The specific patterns of mobility in Dubuque during the 1860s will be examined in chapter 7, but studies of mobility in the period 1850–80 generally reveal several things.80 First, between 13 and 19 percent of the groups defined as the working class here (artisans and unskilled) could expect upward mobility between census years in the period. Among Dubuque’s soldiers, just under 20 percent of privates and NCOs achieved upward mobility; this includes moves within the army’s working class, from private to NCO. Second, 7–12 percent of the civilian business class could expect downward mobility in the period 1850–80. Among the soldiers, as noted, no one experienced downward mobility from officer to enlisted man, but nearly 16 percent of NCOs experienced downward mobility to the rank of private. Third, in civilian society, immigrants found upward mobility more difficult than natives did. The situation improved somewhat for the second generation, but nevertheless sons of immigrants lagged behind sons of the native born in terms of social mobility. Similarly, in the army, overall the native born and their sons achieved greater levels of upward mobility than immigrants and sons of immigrants, and sons of immigrants achieved greater upward mobility than immigrants themselves did. But, in contrast to civilian life, sons of native born and of immigrant parents had roughly the same opportunities for upward mobility in the military, with the sons of immigrants, in fact, slightly ahead.81 Finally, in civilian society, working-class sons generally showed more upward mobility than their fathers—or other adult males— though often that mobility was from unskilled family backgrounds into semiskilled or skilled positions. In other words, for working-class sons, as well as for working-class adults, the boundary between the working class and the business class was difficult to pierce. Among 80 For patterns of nineteenth-century mobility used here, see Stephan Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis 1880–1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), esp. 234; and Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), 84–114. 81 The mobility data by nativity for Dubuque’s soldiers are as follows: among independent soldiers, 23.4 percent of the native born and 11.9 percent of immigrants achieved upward mobility in the army; for sons, 19.1 and 20.2 percent; and overall, 21.9 and 15.3 percent.

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the soldiers, the most common form of mobility in the army was simply that from private to NCO. Fewer than 9 percent of those who started as privates or NCOs pierced the army’s class barrier and ended as officers; however in this instance, the independent men were a bit more successful than the soldier-sons (9.3 vs. 8.0 percent). More significant than the few opportunities the army provided for advancement was the broader fact that by initially giving higher ranks to men from advantaged civilian backgrounds and by basing promotions on largely the same characteristics, the army helped reinforce civilian class boundaries. Soldiers without civilian advantages found access to higher ranks effectively closed to them in a system that demanded their subordination to those above them. Civilian society increasingly desired the same of its lower classes. Moreover, the experience of work in the Union army helped prepare men for postwar work and society in other ways. With its functional differentiation of service arms and routinized work, with its drum and bugle calls to organize the day and to direct work, and with its journeys-to-work, semi- and unskilled labor, smoke, noise, and danger, work in the army mirrored ongoing industrial change. In the military, soldiers thus experienced limited social mobility and an industrial-like work discipline, two important features of postwar society. Living conditions and the experience of military discipline made comparable contributions in preparing soldiers for postwar life.

CHAPTER 5

Ten Thousand Men in Shebangs: The Army as an Urban WorkingClass Environment [T]he army under gen[era]l Steel at this Point ware Ordered to Erect Cabins . . . and awate further Orders and the government Teams under the direction of the various Regimental quarter masters ware Employed in Handling Timber and other materials for that Purpose and Cabins Sprand up Like New [illegible] all around the City of Little Rock and in Less than one month the whole army Nombering Some 10,000 men ware Liveing under the Roughs of Comfortable Shebangs Erected by themselves. —Solon M. Langworthy, quartermaster of Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantry, diary entry, on winter quarters in Arkansas, September 20, 1863

Near the beginning of the war, the Dubuque Times offered some advice to men about to embark on military service: ‘‘We would earnestly say to all of our noble hearted volunteers . . . [you] may come home maimed for life in body and limb, but do not return with crippled character, and poisoned faculties.’’ In other words, although it recognized the dangers the soldiers would face, the paper expressed most concern about the men’s moral well-being. Nor was the Times alone in this concern. ‘‘Great God!’’ the Iowa Religious Newsletter quoted an army chaplain saying in July 1862. ‘‘I tremble at the result of this war, lest tens of thousands of the valiant defenders of our country be turned into men of vile speech and ruined character and then turned loose to curse the country their arms have rescued.’’ Nationally, abolitionist Moncure Conway perhaps put it most succinctly. ‘‘The moralization of the soldier,’’ according to Conway, ‘‘is the demoralization of the man.’’ In all, such comments reflected a

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recognition that in many ways the army was a social environment unlike anything most soldiers had ever experienced.1 How can that environment be characterized? Solon M. Langworthy offered an important clue. When Frederick Steele’s army, including Langworthy, went into camp near Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1863, his 10,000 men in their ‘‘Shebangs’’ represented the largest concentration of people—the largest city—in Arkansas at the time. Little Rock itself had a prewar population of just 3,727; the United States as a whole in 1860 had only 102 cities with populations above 10,000. Langworthy did not record the reaction of the people of Little Rock to this new city of 10,000 men (plus assorted others) growing up on the outskirts of their city; discussing their reaction is a subject for another study. One suspects, however, that the people of Little Rock might have agreed with the assessment of another Dubuque soldier, Private Mathew F. King of the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry: ‘‘it is quite a scene to see an army encamped.’’2 Following the implications of Langworthy, King, and the others’ comments, therefore, this chapter describes the Union army as a place where people lived that was analogous to an urban environment. When thinking about cities and urbanization it is important to recognize that cities are, as one scholar says, ‘‘special types of environments.’’ The characteristics that distinguish urban environments include population concentration; changes in mortality rates, particularly due to disease; the separation of home and work; widening social (class) distances, often expressed in patterns of residence and in differences in ‘‘ideology, social life, and consumption patterns’’; and the emergence of the neighborhood as the most ‘‘relevant unit of socialization’’ after the family.3 1 Times, 1 June 1861; IRN (July 1862): 1; and Conway quoted in George Fredrickson, The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 123. 2 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Population, vol. 1 of Eighth Census of the United States 1860 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1864), 19; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Mortality & Miscellaneous Statistics, vol. 4 of Eighth Census of the United States 1860 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1866), xviii–xix; and Mathew F. King, Diary, entry 6 July 1863, IHSI. 3 Theodore Hershberg, ‘‘The New Urban History: Toward an Interdisciplinary History of the City,’’ in Philadelphia: Work, Space, Family, and Group Experience in the 19th Century, ed. Hershberg (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 3–35 (quotes from 7, 11, 10).

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Many of the same things can be said about military service through the ages, though these elements of service took on added significance for Civil War soldiers from places such as Dubuque. Dubuque soldiers in the Union army could consider themselves quite urbanized compared, for example, to Arkansans, but nevertheless the soldiers from the city had not experienced life in such a concentrated mass of people before the war; this was doubly true for the men who as civilians lived and farmed or mined on the outskirts of Dubuque. While Dubuque continued its urbanization during the 1860s, the city’s soldiers received a crash course in urban living conditions in the army, having to cope with overcrowding, dirt, and disease. Enlisted men in the Union army responded to the military version of urban life in much the same way that their civilian working-class counterparts did: they formed an enlisted men’s culture analogous to the neighborhood culture in cities. Meanwhile, the army’s upper classes—the officers—largely removed themselves from the worst aspects of the military experience. They lived apart, usually ate and were clothed better, and used the authority of their rank to enforce a distance between themselves and the enlisted men. As in civilian life, moreover, the officers did what they could to extinguish the enlisted men’s culture.

Standards of Living in the Union Army Soldiers’ baptism in military living conditions began early, in their Iowa training camps. The first companies from Dubuque went to Keokuk or Davenport to join their regiments, but late in 1861 the state established a camp of rendezvous, Camp Union, at Dubuque. Two regiments were organized at Camp Union before it was closed in December 1861. It reopened in July 1862 for use by four more regiments. After a visit to the camp in 1862, a writer for the Times remarked that ‘‘a large village has recently sprung up’’ on the outskirts of Dubuque; in fact, ‘‘we have made up our mind that Eagle Point [the location of the camp] is the most thickly settled portion of Dubuque.’’ The site chosen for the camp seemed a good one: forty or fifty feet above the Mississippi River at the northern end of Dubuque, with sandy soil for good drainage and plenty of fresh water nearby. When finished, the camp consisted of ten 100-man barracks, each 20 feet by 60 feet, and two 500-man barracks. In addition, there

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were ‘‘numerous temporary shelters to house the overflow from the barracks.’’ Separate officers’ quarters were provided ‘‘at a little distance from the barracks.’’ Other officers, for example Solon Langworthy, lived at home while their companies and regiments were in camp.4 Conditions at Camp Union never quite lived up to the early promise, however. Although the Times’s visitor noted that ‘‘all the buildings are new and of the latest style of architecture,’’ one soldier who stayed there thought differently. The barracks, he said, ‘‘were undoubtedly comfortable summer quarters but were quite too well ventilated for the rigorous winter weather.’’ The buildings had no floors or doors. Sleeping accommodations consisted of ‘‘two platforms, one above the other, each about twelve feet wide,’’ with fifty men expected to sleep on each platform in two rows of twenty-five. From the beginning, the camp lacked sufficient blankets, in both number and quality; the State of Iowa had a perpetual blanket shortage. The barracks had no stoves to heat them. Food at least was plentiful; once in the field, it would not always be so. But meal preparation was haphazard, being left to the individual soldiers, most of whom had no cooking experience whatsoever. Moreover, the cooking had to be done outside over an open fire in all kinds of weather. The ‘‘prevailing opinion’’ among soldiers of the Twelfth Iowa Infantry was that ‘‘it was a part of the necessary instruction of the camp to compel the men to live as uncomfortably as possible.’’5 Leaving the city or the state for the field brought a further decline in the soldiers’ standard of living. In terms of housing, for example, while the First Iowa Infantry was in camp at Keokuk, Franc Wilkie reported that the enlisted men slept ‘‘six, and quite as often seven men . . . in a tent calculated only for four. The men lay ‘heads and 4 Quotes from Times, 12 October 1862; and Herald, 17 August 1861. See also Franklin T. Oldt, History of Dubuque County, Iowa (Chicago: Goodspeed Historical Association, 1911), 268; DCHS Newsletter, January 1975; and SML Diary, 28 September 1862 (no page number). When Camp Union reopened in 1862, it had been renamed Camp Franklin, but to minimize confusion, the name Camp Union will always be used here. 5 Times, 12 October 1862; David W. Reed, Campaigns and Battles of the Twelfth Regiment Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry (Evanston, Ill., 1903), 3–4; Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 268–69; OR, Series 3, 2:417, 658; and DCHS Newsletter, January 1975. Blankets were scarce everywhere; see, for example, William J. Miller, The Training of an Army: Camp Curtin and the North’s Civil War (Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Publishing, 1990), 18.

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points’ and are packed in like a good many hogs in a very small pen.’’ Once in the field, Andrew Y. McDonald, a private in the First Infantry, noted in his diary that he was ‘‘crowded’’ into a tent with twelve other men. Several nights after making this notation, rain flooded McDonald’s tent, making things even more uncomfortable. In contrast, when they took the field the Twelfth Iowa Infantry received comparatively commodious Sibley tents, which not only accommodated sixteen men with ‘‘ample room’’ but contained space to build a fire in the center with a hole in the top of the tent for the smoke to escape. The Sibleys proved to be ‘‘luxuries’’ and ‘‘too heavy and unwieldy for active campaigning,’’ however, and were soon discarded. In their place the men were issued ‘‘what are called wedge tents.’’ Some thought them so named because ‘‘of their being made in the form of a wedge,’’ but the soldiers knew better. ‘‘On account of their having to accommodate five persons . . . it requires considerable wedging among their occupants to enable five of them to sleep in one.’’6 At least they had tents. In July 1861, in order to get a wagon out of a mud hole, part of the First Iowa Infantry discarded the damp tents that were weighing down the wagon, and they ‘‘never saw them afterwards’’; one member noted that during the final six weeks of his service, he ‘‘never slept in a tent’’ again. During the first part of the winter of 1863–64, the Fifth Iowa Cavalry was caught near Huntsville, Alabama, with no shelter. The locals informed them that it ‘‘was the Coldest & Hardest Winter They had for 60 Years.’’ Josiah Conzett does not record how the men solved that problem, but one suspects they took steps similar to those taken while they were camped near Fort Heiman, Kentucky, the previous winter. On that occasion, the men ‘‘jayhawked’’—stole—some abandoned cabins in the area and rebuilt them on the camp ground. In fact, winter quarters generally brought the men an improved standard of living; the men of the Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantry were not the only ones to build ‘‘Comfortable Shebangs’’ for themselves. It should be noted, however, that some medical men thought the shebangs more unhealthy than expo6 Franc B. Wilkie, The Iowa First: Letters from the War (Dubuque: Herald Book and Job Establishment, 1861), 41; A. Y. McDonald, The Personal Civil War Diary of Andrew Young McDonald, April 23, 1861 to September 12, 1861 (Dubuque: A. Y. McDonald Manufacturing, 1956), entries for 8, 18 July 1861; Reed, Campaigns and Battles of the Twelfth Regiment; and ‘‘Milites’’ to the Times, 22 January 1863 (quotes on Sibley and wedge tents).

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sure. With his regiment suffering numerous cases of typhoid fever in the winter of 1862–63, for example, the surgeon of the Twentyfourth Iowa Infantry ordered the roofs torn off the men’s shebangs.7 Exposure and the crowding of soldiers into barracks and tents brought another urbanlike experience: epidemic disease. First came epidemics of childhood diseases. Mumps were noted in several sources, but measles were a more common visitation in the regiments, especially early in their existence. The first regiments rendezvoused at Camp Union in Dubuque, the Ninth and Twelfth Iowa Infantries, seem to have avoided the measles there but were ravaged by the disease once they got to the field. Merchant Luther W. Jackson, a lieutenant in the Twelfth, sent home the advice that ‘‘parents had better take their children somewhere to catch the measles before they become soldiers.’’ Even that may not have been sufficient precaution, however, because, according to the regiment’s surgeon, ‘‘quite a number’’ in the Twelfth caught the disease despite having had it as children. Subsequent regiments organized at Camp Union contracted measles there. In the first of these regiments, the Twentyfirst Iowa Infantry, dentist Thompson Spottswood died of the disease in September 1862, and by the time the regiment got to Benton Barracks in Saint Louis later in the month, it had 200 or more cases of measles (at least one-fifth of its men). The Twenty-first also apparently left the virus behind in Camp Union for other regiments. At one point in November 1862, for instance, Camp Union had more than seventy-five measles cases.8 Measles and other childhood diseases laid the foundation for fur7 Eugene F. Ware, The Lyon Campaign in Missouri (Topeka, Kans.: Crane & Company, 1907; reprint, Iowa City: Press of the Camp Pope Bookshop, 1991), 165–66 (page citations are to reprint edition); Josiah Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War: Before, during & after, 1861–1865,’’ memoir, 1909, pp. 45–46, 22–24, CDH; SML Diary, 20 September 1863, p. 268; and MOLLUS—IA, War Sketches and Incidents (Des Moines: P. C. Kenyon, 1893), 1:109–10. For other winter camp scenes see, for example, Times, 23 November 1862 (letter from Third Iowa Infantry); also Reed, Campaigns and Battles of the Twelfth Regiment, 133, 221. 8 Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 287, 289; Times, 1, 5 (Jackson), 21 January (Twelfth Iowa Surgeon), 5 November 1862; Iowa Adjutant General’s Office, Report of the Adjutant General and Acting Quartermaster General of the State of Iowa. 1866 (Des Moines: F. W. Palmer, State Printer, 1866) (hereafter, Iowa Adjutant’s Report, [year]), 174; Reed, Campaigns and Battles of the Twelfth Regiment, 10–11, 58; Thompson Spottswood, Pensions, NA; and George Crooke, The Twenty-first Regiment of Iowa Infantry (Milwaukee: King, Fowle & Co., 1891), 18.

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ther illnesses among the survivors. One surgeon later recalled that it was easy to spot the ‘‘measly boys’’ later in their service. ‘‘They seemed of all the men to be most frequently and more easily impressed by other maladies, especially by the common ‘camp disease,’ ’’ dysentery. Francis Russell, a miner from Dubuque who had been among those to catch the measles in the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, argued in his pension application after the war that he developed chronic diarrhea at about the same time, and ‘‘I have never been able to cure it.’’ Other ailments also followed the measles. Although he argued for chronic diarrhea in his pension, Francis Russell had received a discharge in March 1863 on a surgeon’s certificate that he had developed incipient tuberculosis ‘‘by exposure while convalescing from the measles.’’9 It has been frequently noted that this disease environment caused more deaths in the Union army than battle casualties. For every death in the Union army attributed to battle, disease caused two others. In addition, according to Provost Marshal General James B. Fry, ‘‘where one man dies of disease at least five others are seriously sick.’’ Another source notes 6,029,560 disease treatments in an estimated population of 2,772,408 volunteer soldiers. Given the state of medical knowledge at the time, the value of those treatments might be called into question. One U.S. Sanitary Commission pamphlet on scurvy, for example, noted that ‘‘dietic’’ causes were most important (especially the absence of fresh vegetables) but added that the disease had physical (both lack of exercise and excessive exertion were cited) and moral (mental depression) causes, as well. Overall, regardless of how much attention was paid to physical, moral, and dietetic conditions, disease ravaged the army because, as historian Paul Steiner argues, preventative measures ‘‘were based on physical and chemical concepts of cleanliness rather than on microbiological ones.’’ At the same time, even the available sanitary measures were often ignored. As one officer noted, orders regarding sanitary matters were difficult to enforce because they seemed so ‘‘trifling.’’10 MOLLUS—IA, War Sketches, 1:107–8; Francis Russell, Pensions, NA; and Certificate of Disability for Discharge, in Francis Russell, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA. For another ‘‘measly boy,’’ see James Brunskill, Pensions, NA. For other comments about measles contributing to later diseases, see MOLLUS—IA, War Sketches, 1:115; and Crooke, Twenty-first Regiment, 18. 10 James B. Fry, Final Report to the Secretary of War by the Provost Marshal General, 39th Cong., 1st sess., 1866, House Executive Document no. 1, vol. 4, serials 9

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More interesting than the numbers and measures to combat disease, however, are the types of diseases that afflicted the soldiers and whom they affected. The diseases the soldiers contracted most frequently were the same diseases that attended increased urbanization—cholera combined with diarrhea/dysentery, typhoid and typhus, and tuberculosis.11 According to the massive Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion published after the war, over 1.6 million white soldiers in the Union army were treated for cholera, diarrhea, or dysentery during their service; over 38,000 died, and more than 17,000 were discharged for diseases in this category. There were fewer cases of typhoid or typhus, but they were much more deadly: nearly 78,000 cases resulted in almost 28,000 deaths. If an individual survived the disease, however, he was usually able to return to duty; only 909 men were discharged for typhoid or typhus. Although tuberculosis was less common than the previous two disease types, it was even more destructive. The roughly 13,500 cases of tuberculosis treated in the army produced almost 5,300 deaths. Soldiers diagnosed with tuberculosis were most often quickly discharged; after diagnosis 20,400 men were discharged. Other common ailments were those associated with exposure (rheumatism and pneumonia) or poor sanitation; malaria (1.2 million cases) was the most common disease after cholera and diarrhea/dysentery.12 1251–52 as reprinted in OR, Series 3, 5:599–932 (quote from 699); Paul E. Steiner, Disease in the Civil War: Natural Biological Warfare in 1861–1865 (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1968), 5 (quote), 9 (6 million treatments); U.S. Sanitary Commission, Report of a Committee of the Associated Medical Members of the Sanitary Commission on the Subject of Scurvy with Special Reference to Practice in the Army and Navy (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1862), 16–19; and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, ‘‘Regular and Volunteer Officers,’’ Atlantic Monthly 14 (September 1864): 350. 11 Although separate diseases, typhoid and typhus are combined here, because it is impossible to know to what extent medical personnel in the Civil War separated them. See Robert Woods and John Woodward, ‘‘Mortality, Poverty and the Environment,’’ in Urban Disease and Mortality in Nineteenth-Century England, ed. Woods and Woodward (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 30; see also U.S. Sanitary Commission, Report of a Committee of the Associated Medical Members of the Sanitary Commission on the Subject of Continued Fevers (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1862). 12 U.S. Surgeon General’s Office, The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 6 volumes (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1875–88), 1:636–45 (tables 100 and 101). For urban disease, see Woods and Woodward, ‘‘Mortality, Poverty and the Environment,’’ 19–36 (esp. fig. 1.4); although the meaning of the numbers in this source is unclear, it appears that in England and Wales in the

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Soldiers from Dubuque reflected the Union army patterns. Among the 595 soldiers found in the city in 1860, sixty-two died or received discharges because of disease. Fifteen of those were caused by diarrhea or dysentery; five (all deaths) were from typhoid; and four (all discharges) came for tuberculosis. Rheumatism caused five discharges, and one man died of pneumonia. The only thing missing among the city’s soldiers was deaths or discharges specifically attributed to malaria. Similarly, a group of 411 soldiers were located in the 1860 census living in Dubuque County outside of Dubuque city and Julien Township. Among this group of soldiers, there were eightythree deaths or discharges caused by disease. Twenty came for diarrhea/dysentery; six (all deaths) from typhoid; seven (just one death) from tuberculosis; one discharge for rheumatism; five (four deaths) from pneumonia; and one death from malaria. The difference in the impact of disease on the soldiers who lived in Dubuque in 1860 and those who lived in more rural parts of the county—10.4 percent versus 20.2 percent died or discharged— suggests a second important feature of disease data from the Union army. The men most vulnerable to disease were those who came to the army from the most rural backgrounds. Soldiers from Dubuque city, for example, had the opportunity in civilian life to be exposed to all of the diseases that afflicted soldiers in the Union army. Sanitary conditions in the city had reached a particularly low state in the years before the war. The position of city health officer was terminated during the Panic of 1857, and various harbor improvement projects had created several pools of stagnant water along the city’s riverfront where mosquitoes bred. In the absence of a system to supply fresh water to the city’s houses, moreover, people relied on water carriers to fill their cisterns, and these carriers often got their water from the same stagnant pools. As a result cholera, diarrhea/dysentery, typhoid, and even malaria were all among the leading causes of death in Dubuque before the war (table 5.1). But the number-one killer was second half of the nineteenth century, tuberculosis accounted for 76 percent of airborne diseases, and typhoid/typhus and cholera/diarrhea/dysentery for 51 and 36 percent of water- and food-borne diseases. See also Charles E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); and Michael P. McCarthy, Typhoid and the Politics of Public Health in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1987).

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Table 5.1 Deaths from Selected Diseases in Dubuque, 1856–1870 Number of Deaths Disease

1856–60

1861–65

1866–70

Cholera Diarrhea/dysentery Typhoid Tuberculosis Malariaa Pneumonia Measles Scarlet fever Whooping cough Diphtheria Smallpox

36 85 24 101 21 0 7 43 13 1 1

17 41 12 49 6 2 1 16 6 19 1

16 26 28 69 5 8 11 12 5 8 4

Source: J. Biays Bowerman, Georgia Herman Glab, and Dennis Risher, comps., ‘‘Burial Records of the Dubuque City Cemetery, 1854–1875’’ (Dubuque: Key City Genealogical Society, 1988). Note: Those diseases discussed in the text are in the table’s upper half; others are in the lower half. Among leading causes of death omitted from the table, only unspecified fevers (55), various types of ‘‘inflammation’’ (46), dropsy (24), cramps and croup (21 each), and stillbirths or other deaths of children in the first few months of life (75) were at least as frequent as malaria, which had the lowest incidence among diseases in the upper part of the table. a. Combines ‘‘remittent fever’’ and ‘‘bilious fever.’’

tuberculosis, and other scholars have cited a number of factors present in Dubuque (as well as in the military) that contributed to the incidence and deadliness of this disease, including exhausting labor; poor wages, diets, and housing; lack of cleanliness; and heavy consumption of alcohol.13 The data on disease deaths in Dubuque suggest an additional observation that awaits further research. In much the same way that the 13 For sanitary conditions in the city, see Weekly Observer, 22 July 1854; Josiah Conzett, Recollections of People and Events, Dubuque, Iowa 1846–1890 (from a manuscript written in 1905, CDH; Dubuque: Union Hoermann Press, 1971), 197, 204–5; Times, 13 July 1858; Express & Herald, 2 July 1858; and ibid., 31 May 1856. See also Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 89, 92, 94, 96, 104, 115. The city’s first water company was incorporated in 1855 but made little progress until the 1870s; see DCIR, 1:29–32 (1855), 138–42 (1857), 414–15 (1868), 460–63 (1870), 473–74 (1871) for various incarnations of the water company. And see David S. Barnes, The Making of a Social Disease: Tuberculosis in Nineteenth-Century France (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995).

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return of veterans to civilian society after World War I was thought to contribute to an international influenza epidemic, so too Civil War soldiers may have been active vectors for the spread of disease in civilian society. The incidence of tuberculosis in Dubuque, for example, declined during the war, only to pick up again afterward. A similar pattern occurred with typhoid, which caused more deaths in the five years after the war than in the five years preceding it. Also interesting are the patterns for two diseases usually associated with childhood but that were common in military regiments: measles and diphtheria. Both became more frequent and more virulent in Dubuque during and after the war. In all of these diseases human carriers are a leading cause of spread. Indeed, in the case of typhoid, the human carrier may never even get the disease but can spread it to others.14 Returning to the specific disease environment of the Union army, the difference between urban and rural dwellers in their susceptibility to disease in the army can be further pursued on the national level. In his report at the end of the Civil War, Provost Marshal General Fry divided the loyal states into four geographic regions and computed disease deaths per 1,000 soldiers by region and by state (table 5.2). Of the four geographical divisions, the ‘‘Middle states’’ showed a markedly lower incidence of disease death than any of the other three groups. Fry attributed this relative difference to climate, arguing that soldiers from the Middle states generally fought in Virginia, which had a healthier overall climate than the Deep South and Gulf areas, where New England soldiers were sent, and a healthier climate than the Mississippi River valley, where the Western soldiers were concentrated. Without rejecting the influence of climate on disease deaths in the Union army, Fry’s data suggest the need for an additional explanation. Separating the data for white and black soldiers, Fry found African American soldiers to have a ratio of 141.39 disease deaths per 1,000 soldiers—almost three times the ratio for whites. Because most black soldiers were former slaves who had lived most or all of their lives in the South, however, it would be hard to attribute their death rate to climate. And Fry did not try to do so. 14 W. I. B. Beveridge, Influenza: The Last Great Plague (New York: Prodist, 1977); Alfred W. Crosby, America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989); and for typhoid see Steiner, Disease in the Civil War, 22–23.

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Table 5.2 White Soldiers in the Union Army: Ratios of Disease Deaths per 1,000 soldiers Region State

Ratio

New England Conn. Maine Mass. N.H. R.I. Vt. Total

61.69 85.67 62.62 76.30 50.37 91.31 70.45

6 2 16 3 4 0 31

Middle Del. D.C. Md. N.J. N.Y. Pa. Total

17.57 16.07 20.48 44.13 43.00 34.24 37.88

1 1 1 7 19 6 35

Overall Union ratio

Cities 10,000Ⳮ

Region State

Ratio

Cities 10,000Ⳮ

Western Calif. Ill. Ind. Iowa Kans. Mich. Minn. Ohio Wis. Total

40.11 77.88 69.28 114.02 109.18 97.01 69.83 46.83 76.83 71.55

2 3 4 2 0 1 1 6 1 20

69.99 67.54 56.62 66.76

3 1 0 4

Border Ky. Mo. W.V. Total

59.22

Sources: James B. Fry, Final Report to the Secretary of War by the Provost Marshal General (39th Cong., 1st sess., 1866, House Executive Document no. 1, vol. 4, serials 1251–52), 82–83 (table III); and Compiled Census 1860, 4:xviii–xix. Note: Thus among Iowa soldiers, for example, there were 114.02 disease deaths among the state’s soldiers for every 1,000 soldiers credited to the state.

Instead he advanced a race-based argument about African Americans’ suitability for army life.15 On the other hand, if we substitute unprepared for unsuited, Fry’s racist argument becomes an argument that can account for disease death rates among both black and white soldiers. As a largely rural population who lived in small concentrations before the war, former 15 OR, Series 3, 5:667–69. The service locations Fry cited are broadly accurate. For instance, no Iowa regiments served in Virginia but a number did serve outside the Mississippi valley; regiments from most other Western states fought in all the major theaters of the war. The Border States are omitted from the discussion in the text because, as Fry noted, these soldiers served mostly as home guards and saw limited active campaigning.

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slaves were unprepared for the urbanlike living conditions of the army and furthermore had never been exposed to many of the diseases they would encounter there. The same argument can be applied to white soldiers. Looking at the ratios of disease deaths per 1,000 soldiers, the white soldiers who had the highest incidence of death by disease came by and large from frontier states and other states with low levels of urbanization. The State of Iowa, for example, where only the cities of Dubuque and Davenport had over 10,000 people, had the highest ratio of disease deaths per 1,000 soldiers. In other words, the incidence of disease in the army was similar to that in civilian society. It occurred as a feature of urban development and particularly among rural-to-urban migrants.16 Other circumstances also affected the incidence of disease. Exposure and overcrowding have already been noted. Food—both quantity and quality—was another. In one of his memoirs Josiah Conzett, of the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, recorded some of the most detailed descriptions of the food available to Dubuque’s Union soldiers. The regiment’s first dinner in the field, for instance, consisted of ‘‘Boiled Beef Cabbage Soup full of Flies on Tin Plates & Tin Cup.’’ As disappointing as that meal was, during the remainder of their service ‘‘I and the Rest often Sighed for a Meal as good and plenty as our First one.’’ At one point late in its service, the Fifth Cavalry found itself in Alabama cut off from supplies, and so for ‘‘several weeks’’ they lived on ‘‘Nine Ears Of Corn on the Cobb for Man and the same for Horses.’’ They even used parched and ground corn in place of coffee. Finally, a box of supplies sent from a community in Wisconsin reached the regiment. Although most of the food had spoiled in transit, the men consumed it with relish. Conzett’s bunk mate ‘‘got a Jar of Butter as part of his Share—but O My how Rank it was . . . but By Washing and Working it over—we got it so we could use it. . . . by & by we got used to it, and regretted to see it nearly gone.’’17 16 Other scholars have briefly noted this point. See, for example, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 487; and Miller, Training of an Army, 80–81. 17 Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 13–15, 68–69. In contrast to Conzett’s description of the food available to the Fifth Cavalry, his friend George W. Healey in letters home stressed that the regiment had more than enough to eat; at one point in 1861 he said that he had more ‘‘fresh, warm bread’’ than he could possibly eat, so he fed the excess to his horse. Although in most instances a contemporary letter would be considered better evidence than a later recollection, in this case it is clear that

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Other soldiers had similar experiences. In fall 1862 it was huckleberries, not corn, for the Dubuque Battery. ‘‘We were hemmed in by the rebels’’ near Searcy, Arkansas, one member recalled, ‘‘and lived nine days on Huckelberries’’; he noted further that diarrhea became nearly universal in the battery after that. Other regiments experienced food shortages that necessitated living for extended periods on ‘‘crackers and coffee,’’ ‘‘potatoes and a little meat,’’ or ‘‘beef alone, cut from . . . half-starved cattle.’’ And even when full rations were available, the quality was often poor, as Josiah Conzett’s comment about fly-blown beef cabbage soup suggests. Salt pork, despite the soldiers’ disdain for it and despite comments from diverse sources about its unhealthfulness, remained the great staple of the soldiers’ diet, along with hardtack crackers that defied attempts at mastication.18 Poor water supplies further contributed to disease. During one pursuit of retreating Confederates in July 1863, for example, the Twelfth Iowa Infantry found all the cisterns along the way emptied by the Rebels, who also tried to poison the water holes by dumping dead mules and horses into them. Still, the Union soldiers needed water, so ‘‘it was not an uncommon sight to see a soldier step upon Healey was putting the best possible face on the situation so that his mother would not worry when she heard stories of conditions in the army. For praise of the food and other conditions in the army, see Healey to ‘‘Mother,’’ 12 November 1861 (quote); to ‘‘Mother, Florence, Sis, and Tommy,’’ 16 September 1861; to ‘‘Mother and all the rest,’’ 21 September 1861; to ‘‘Mother,’’ 1 October 1861; to ‘‘Mother,’’ 15 October 1861; to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 1 April 1862; and to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 25 April 1862, George W. Healey Letters, Civil War Documents Collection, IHSD (hereafter, Healey Letters). For indications that things were not so good, see Healey to ‘‘Florence Healey,’’ 18 October 1861; to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 7 August 1862; to ‘‘My dear Mother,’’ 5 October 1862; to ‘‘My dear Mother,’’ 26 May 1863; and to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 9 August 1865— all in ibid. 18 Charles Franklin Deposition in Julius Mabe, Pensions, NA (‘‘hemmed in’’); Reed, Battles and Campaigns, 115–16; Times, 1 November 1862; Crooke, Twentyfirst Regiment, 123; and for contemporary comments about pork, see Times, 1 March 1863 (quoting Scientific American), 8 May 1864 (quoting Medical Common Sense); and U.S. Sanitary Commission, Report of Committee on Military Surgery to the Surgical Section of the New York Academy of Medicine (Washington, D.C.: McGill & Witherow, 1861), 12–13. For further discussion of the soldiers’ diet—both quantity and quality—see James I. Robertson Jr., Soldiers Blue and Gray (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988), 64–74; and Fred A. Shannon, The Organization and Administration of the Union Army 1861–1865, 2 vols. (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clarke, 1928), 1:76–80, 208–13.

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the carcass of a mule and dip water to make his coffee with.’’ The historian of the Ninth Iowa Infantry described men drinking water from ‘‘stagnant’’ pools ‘‘mixed with green slime and [the] accumulated filth of the hot summer months.’’ Solon Langworthy also saw men drinking ‘‘Swamp water,’’ and ‘‘many a Small mound Raised in a Hurry marks the Resting Place’’ of those who did so. The surgeon of the Twenty-fourth Iowa Infantry noted the effect, too. Three days after arriving at the entrenchments near Vicksburg, with only ‘‘impure surface water’’ to drink, the regiment’s sick list ballooned from eighteen to seventy.19 Suffering varying degrees of overcrowding and exposure, with poor adherence to sanitary guidelines while being fed an inadequate, monotonous, or unhealthy diet, the soldiers not surprisingly proved vulnerable to disease, particularly diseases to which they had not been exposed as civilians. There was, however, an exception to this broad pattern. The impact of disease differed remarkably according to military rank. Among the sixty-two Dubuque soldiers found in the 1860 census who died or were discharged for disease, only ten were officers at the time; among the Dubuque County soldiers from outside the city, just four of eighty-three victims of disease were officers. Further data come from Provost Marshal General Fry’s Report. In addition to separating the impact of disease by the soldiers’ place of origin and race, Fry also separated service deaths according to whether they were battle related or not, and further by rank. He found that in white regiments 91,566 privates and NCOs were killed in action or died of wounds received in battle, and disease claimed the lives of 218,806. For officers, 6,221 died in consequence of battle, but only 2,688 died of disease. Put another way, less than one-half as many officers died of disease as died of battle-related reasons, whereas more than twice as many enlisted men died of disease as died in combat or from wounds. Further, Fry once again separated African American regiments, where all the officers were white, from the rest: one of every seven enlisted men—but only one in seventyseven officers—died of disease in these regiments.20 Officers stayed healthier primarily because to varying degrees they 19 Reed, Campaigns and Battles of the Twelfth Regiment, 128; Iowa Adjutant’s Report, 1866, 176; SML Diary, 20 September 1863, p. 268; and MOLLUS—IA, War Sketches, 1:113. 20 OR, Series 3, 5:664–65.

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avoided the unhealthiest aspects of enlisted men’s experience: the exposure, overcrowding, and bad or insufficient food. While the enlisted men in the Dubuque companies of the First Iowa Infantry were wedging six and seven in a tent designed for four, for example, the captains each had their own tent and the two lieutenants in each company shared another. While his regiment was camped at Fort Heiman, Kentucky, the colonel of the Fifth Iowa Cavalry commandeered a steamboat and used that as his headquarters; on this occasion the men were also more comfortably ensconced than usual, in cabins stolen from the vicinity and rebuilt in camp. Other officers on other occasions routinely occupied hotels, plantations, or other houses in the neighborhood of their camps, while the men were left to fend for themselves, with or without tents.21 On the march, officers in the infantry and artillery as well as the cavalry were mounted, avoiding some of the severe fatigue occasioned by long, forced marches. Even when alternative transportation—steamboats or railroad cars—eased the burden on the enlisted men, moreover, the officers usually had it better. When the Dubuque companies of the First Iowa Infantry left the city in April 1861, they traveled by steamboat to Muscatine; the men occupied the open decks, while the officers stayed in cabins. Later in the year, the Twelfth Iowa Infantry was offered ‘‘open barges’’ for its transportation from Dubuque to Saint Louis, with only room for officers in the boat towing the barges. In this instance, the colonel refused such transportation, and the regiment went by rail the next day. When traveling by rail, the men were usually loaded into freight cars, while officers occupied passenger cars.22 Officers similarly had access to more and better food. When rations were available for distribution, regulations allowed officers as many as four full rations each; enlisted men were entitled to one each.23 More often than not, though, full rations were not available, 21 Wilkie, Iowa First, 41; Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 18–19; and Ware, Lyon Campaign, 107. 22 Wilkie, Iowa First, 5–6; Reed, Campaigns and Battles of the Twelfth Regiment, 9; and Crooke, Twenty-first Regiment, 16–17. See also Daniel Malven, Seventh Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; George M. Staples, Fourteenth Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA. 23 The official daily ration at the beginning of the war consisted of 12 ounces of pork or bacon or 20 ounces of salt or fresh beef, and 18 ounces of soft bread or flour or 12 ounces of hard bread or 20 ounces of cornmeal per man. Then, for each 100 men there would be 15 pounds of beans or peas or 10 pounds of rice or hominy, and

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but in this case, too, officers had the advantage over enlisted men. Officers received much higher monthly salaries and, unlike enlisted men, they were entitled to compensation for any rations not received. Thus unless their regiment was stationed in a particularly isolated spot, when the need arose officers were in a better position to purchase food from civilian sources. The result could be seen in certain officers from Dubuque. When Captain Henry A. Littleton visited home in 1863, for example, the Times noted he was ‘‘as fat and fine looking as ever.’’ Poor health forced David S. Wilson, the colonel of the Sixth Iowa Cavalry, to resign in June 1864. Wilson had entered the service with a preexisting rupture that was aggravated by horseback riding in the army but also by the fact that he had ‘‘increased in both size and weight’’ since he enlisted. Private Patrick Noonan, in contrast, said he left home in 1862 weighing 187 pounds and returned in 1865 weighing just 112.24 Thus, the military’s elite were able to separate themselves from the worst aspects of life in the army. They generally had better housing, suffered less exposure to the elements, and avoided the ravages of communicable diseases. Most often they had access to more and better food. And they had other material comforts, including horses to ride, larger clothing allowances, allowances for servants (David Wilson, for example, had two servants with him in the army), and access to the wagon train to carry more extensive equipment. In all, army officers had much in common with the emerging business elite in the city of Dubuque. During the war years, that elite also increased the separation between itself and the city’s working class, building large new houses—minimally away from the unhealthy waterfront area and often on the bluffs overlooking the city—and in general making a greater display of its wealth.25 10 pounds of green or 8 pounds of roasted (and ground) coffee. See OR, Series 3, 4:449, 481–82 for official ration; and U.S. Adjutant General’s Office, Official Army Register for 1860–65 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1865), 108–13 for officers’ rations. 24 Times, 11 February 1863; Letter of Resignation in David S. Wilson, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; and Patrick Noonan, Pensions, NA. 25 David S. Wilson to Henrietta Wilson, 10 April 1863, David S. Wilson, Correspondence and Papers, Civil War Documents Collection, IHSD. Dubuque’s elites were discussed above in chapter 1 and will be discussed further in chapter 7.

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Enlisted Men’s Culture in the Army Enlisted men in the army did not fail to notice the difference between their circumstances and those of their officers. ‘‘At first, riding on steamboat seemed easier than marching on land,’’ one recalled years later, but ‘‘to the common soldier it soon became irksome. The officers occupied the boat’s cabin, the soldiers being crowded on deck about like hogs in a car for shipment.’’ On some occasions, the analogy to hogs was more direct, as the men were loaded into cattle cars or into the hold of a steamboat only recently vacated by the horses of the officers or a cavalry regiment. Sometimes the men pushed the analogy themselves. The Twelfth Iowa Infantry spent a week at Eastport, Mississippi, in early 1865 with only corn—‘‘mule feed’’ according to the men—to eat. ‘‘One fellow, carrying the joke to its limit, harnessed six of his comrades’’ and ‘‘drove’’ them to the commanding general’s headquarters. They commenced ‘‘loud braying . . . and created a general disturbance,’’ until the general consented to give them a box of hardtack crackers he had set aside for his personal consumption.26 At least this officer understood and made allowances for the men’s plight; he could have had them arrested. Not so fortunate was Henry Pfotzer in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry. Early in the regiment’s service, while the men had little to eat and were camped in a spot they named ‘‘Camp Mud,’’ Pfotzer and another soldier, Henry Bertsch, rode out on an unauthorized foraging expedition ‘‘for Anything they could find to Eat.’’ The colonel found out, however, and when Pfotzer returned he was ‘‘tied up by his Thumbs several Hours for Going out without a Pass.’’ Bertsch never made it back to camp; he drowned when his horse was pulled under while trying to ford a flooded stream. In recounting the story Josiah Conzett failed to record whether Pfotzer and Bertsch found anything to eat, but he did note that at about the same time many in the company ‘‘were Sorry we had Come.’’ About two years later Conzett found his opportunity for a little revenge on some officers. As quartermaster sergeant, in June 1863 Conzett se26 Samuel Black, A Soldier’s Recollections of the Civil War (Minco, Okla.: Minco Minstrel, 1912), 25; and Reed, Campaigns and Battles of the Twelfth Regiment, 221–22; see also Wilkie, Iowa First, 6, for another example of soldiers pushing the ‘‘animal’’ analogy.

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cured a quantity of flour and set bakers to work making two loaves of bread for each man in the company. But ‘‘I did not have to give any to the Officers and out of pure spite did not.’’ The next day, when rain and muddy roads prevented supply trains from keeping up with the regiment, ‘‘it was Funny to see the Officers come Around the Boys Offering One dollar for a Hardtack.’’ The men would not sell, ‘‘so Mr Col, Major, Captains & the rest had to Go Hungry as the Men often had to—[they] received little Sympathie from us.’’27 Incidents such as the ‘‘mule raid’’ and Conzett’s spite toward his officers suggest the enlisted men’s response to the conditions of their service. Rather than responding to the adversity of their service by being purified in their morals and becoming more deferential to authority, as some civilian observers hoped, many enlisted men instead responded with a variety of behaviors and attitudes familiar to observers of urban, working-class social life. Historian Bruce Laurie, for example, details three distinct working-class cultures that emerged in response to early industrialization in antebellum Philadelphia— traditionalists, or ‘‘boys of pleasure,’’ who sought to maintain artisan traditions against attempts by industrialists and moral reformers to assert greater control over their workplaces and their lives; revivalists, who adapted to a changing economy and society by embracing God, reform, and individualist values; and (rationalist) radicals, who sought to unite, organize, and educate workers about their true interests.28 Enlisted men from Dubuque responded similarly to their immersion in a form of urban-industrial life and work in the Union army. Of course, the army’s structure of authority and control severely limited the opportunities for radical expression. Soldiers found it hard even to vote for Democratic candidates, routinely returning tallies such as 203 to 39 from the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry and 711 to 48 from the First Iowa Cavalry in favor of the Republican candidate for governor in 1863. When Democratic ballots for the fall 1862 election—including Dennis Mahony for Congress—reached his company in the Twenty-first Iowa, Captain Jacob Swivel, the defeated Republi27 Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 13–15; see also Times, 12 March 1862 (Pfotzer/ Bertsch story from the perspective of another member of the company, Horton Dickinson). 28 Bruce Laurie, Working People of Philadelphia, 1800–1850 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980), esp. 33–83; and Laurie, ‘‘ ‘Nothing on Compulsion’: Life Styles of Philadelphia Artisans, 1820–1850,’’ Labor History 15 (1974): 337–66.

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can candidate for reelection as city marshal in April 1862, ordered the ballots burned and the ashes buried—no one was allowed to vote Democratic in his company. Nevertheless, forms of radicalism did emerge among the soldiers, though not the same forms as in civilian society. Meanwhile, the lines between discrete traditionalist and revivalist cultures were not so clearly drawn in the army as in civilian society; soldiers moved back and forth between them easily. In all, however, what emerges is a picture of an enlisted men’s culture that, like traditional artisan culture, blurred the lines between work and leisure and as such had more in common with postwar working-class culture than with postwar bourgeois culture.29 Americans have a long history of concern about the moral impact of urban life, and for many civilians in Dubuque, enlisted men’s culture in the army echoed too strongly the behaviors of young men and workers that had led to fears of social collapse before the war and that remained worrisome during and after the war. Concern began with small things—the soldiers’ language—and moved onward from there. As early as June 1861, a writer for the Times urged the city’s ‘‘noble hearted volunteers’’ to ‘‘neither employ nor sanction any word of lewdness or obscenity, . . . but avoid this in the camp as you would in the family circle, to which you are to return.’’ Apparently few heeded the writer’s advice, as ‘‘High Private’’—most likely Melville Spaulding, son of Methodist minister Rufus Spaulding—discovered. Even men ‘‘who never uttered an oath before . . . ere long [find] the milder or stronger forms . . . upon their lips’’ in the army. Indeed, some of his fellow soldiers ‘‘curse their God like pirates, till it seems that a just Heaven ought to blast them with the wrath they invoke.’’ Army regulations, in fact, expressly prohibited ‘‘profane language,’’ but, as High Private noted, ‘‘this provision is seldom or never enforced.’’30 29 Times, 5 December 1863; and Leland L. Sage, William Boyd Allison: A Study in Practical Politics (Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1956), 49–50, 58. For postwar cultures see, for example, Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), esp. 57–64. 30 Times, 1 June 1861, 21 June 1864 (High Private); U.S. War Department, Revised Army Regulations of 1861 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1863), 485 (Third Article of War) (hereafter, War Department, Army Regulations). For Melville Spaulding, see Census, 1860, Pop., p. 253; Melville Spaulding, Forty-fourth Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; Marriage Circular, 19 March 1915, Melville Spaulding,

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As High Private saw things, cursing led to other, more damaging behavior. Gambling occupied much of many soldiers’ free time, and various authorities tried to eliminate it. The U.S. Sanitary Commission in 1861 reminded officers that ‘‘it is part of their duty to influence their men’’ to get out and exercise; gambling, on the other hand, ‘‘prevents . . . active amusement in the open air.’’ George W. Healey tried to reassure his mother that in fact there was ‘‘very little gaming or card playing among the soldiers’’ and that mostly among the officers. Still, a Dubuque veteran of the First Infantry who called himself ‘‘Smith’’ testified to the importance of gambling for some soldiers. In August 1861, as the regiment marched toward its first and only battle at Wilson’s Creek, other ‘‘timid repentant’’ men threw away their cards along the way, but Smith decided to keep his. ‘‘We’ve lived by ’em the last few weeks,’’ he told a friend in the ranks, ‘‘and now we’ll die by ’em.’’ Besides, he added, recalling something the men had been told by a missionary distributing pocket Bibles, ‘‘they might stop a bullet.’’31 Although alcohol was supposed to be prohibited from the army except for certain authorized uses, this did not present much of an obstacle to men determined to have a drink. Several sources existed, official (medical reasons and occasional rations) as well as unofficial; the latter included supplies sent from home, saloons established near permanent camps, civilians along the line of march, and sutlers. Sutlers perhaps deserve a little more attention as another element of the industrial nature of army life described in the previous chapter. SutPensions, NA; and Conzett, Recollections, 250. For cursing in the army, see also Wilkie, Iowa First, 34, 83, 91. For broader concerns about urban life, see, for example, Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950; reprint, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970); Richard Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860 (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1973); and Leo Marx, ‘‘The Puzzle of Antiurbanism in Classic American Literature,’’ in Cities of the Mind: Images and Themes of the City in the Social Sciences, ed. Lloyd Rodwin and Robert M. Hollister (New York: Plenum Press, 1984), 163–80. 31 Smith added that he and his friend had tested the ability of the pocket Bibles to stop a bullet by shooting at one—‘‘the very first shot knocked it to flinders.’’ U.S. Sanitary Commission, A Report to the Secretary of War of the Operations of the Sanitary Commission, and upon the Sanitary Condition of the Volunteer Army, Its Medical Staff, Hospitals, and Hospital Supplies (Washington, D.C.: McGill & Witherow, 1861), 39–41; George W. Healey to ‘‘My dear Mother,’’ 15 January 1863, Healey Letters; and Times, 18 September 1862 (‘‘Smith’’).

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lers were private citizens licensed by the army to sell an approved list of items beyond the normal rations or supplies to the soldiers. They acted, in other words, as a sort of ‘‘company store,’’ holding a monopoly contract for a particular regiment or camp and able to place a lien on soldiers’ pay. Regulations prohibited sutlers from selling alcohol, but in practice officers seem to have looked the other way.32 Whatever the source, men had ready access to alcohol. Even while on the move in July 1861, for instance, William Mobley, a son of banker Mordecai Mobley in the First Infantry, ‘‘got drunk and had to be taken out of the ranks.’’ John Kennedy, a laborer who joined the Dubuque Battery, was noted to have been a ‘‘hard drinker’’ in the army, sometimes blurring the line between work and leisure. ‘‘When not under the influence of liquor he was a good soldier & was allways on hand & ready to do his duty,’’ one comrade recalled. Or, as another put it, ‘‘he never shirked his duty. He would get drunk, but he done good service.’’ Out West, while preparing to ride toward a confrontation with Indians, the men of the Sixth Iowa Cavalry fortified themselves with rye whiskey, indulging a bit too heavily, and ended up brawling amongst themselves rather than fighting the Indians.33 Some defended the soldiers’ behavior. Writing about ‘‘the Western Soldier’’ years later for Century Magazine’s battles and leaders of the Civil War series, one author noted that the soldiers’ profanity ‘‘was usually of that robust and peculiar quality which Emerson guarantees to have a ‘fructifying’ effect.’’ ‘‘Some reformers,’’ a ‘‘Prussian Officer’’ wrote to the national Army and Navy Journal during the war, ‘‘object to the use of tobacco’’ by the soldiers. ‘‘Have these gentlemen [or ladies] ever fought during the day, taken, exhausted from fatigue, 32 For sources of alcohol, see Wilkie, Iowa First, 39–40; George W. Healey to ‘‘My dear Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 8 October 1864, Healey Letters. See also Gerald Linderman, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (New York: Free Press 1987), esp. 120–22; Robertson, Soldiers Blue and Gray, esp. 96–101. For sutlers, see Robert Cruden, The War That Never Ended: The American Civil War (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1972), 121; War Department, Army Regulations, 528–31; and U.S. Sanitary Commission, Report to the Secretary of War, 32–33. And see CSR, NA for Forty-sixth Iowa Infantry—many members of the Dubuque company (Company A) in this regiment had amounts owed to the sutler listed in their service records. 33 McDonald, Diary, entry 1 July 1861; depositions in John Kennedy, Pensions, NA; and Joseph H. Drips, Three Years among the Indians in Dakota (Kimball, S.Dak.: Brule Index, 1894), 75–76.

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some coarse, half-cooked food, then sank down into the mud to sleep . . .? If they have not, let them not grumble at their breakfast tables about the wickedness of . . . soldiers who solace themselves with a pipe of tobacco or a cigar.’’ In defense of the soldiers’ alcohol consumption, a private in the First Iowa, later an officer in the Seventh Iowa Cavalry, drew a more direct analogy with working-class life. ‘‘Whisky is a great curse, but it is a greater blessing,’’ he wrote. ‘‘Those who are on ‘soft duty’ in life’s great detail cannot understand it; but those who do the world’s work and carry its burdens do. Let them alone; they know what makes life endurable.’’34 Further down the scale of behavior, soldiers’ sexuality found no defenders. High Private noted that ‘‘the soldier seldom sees the other sex, except it be a class of abandoned females that always hang about and plunge him deeper into iniquity.’’ The result, many feared, would be a coarsening of soldiers’ ideas about women and sex. A few days after describing one soldier’s ‘‘tearful emotions’’ in writing to his wife, for instance, Franc Wilkie spied the same soldier lounging in front of his tent with several others ‘‘and making artistic comments upon each neatly turned ancle [sic] that passes along.’’ Wilkie cited this as an example of the ‘‘evanescence of good things’’ in the army. As a solution he suggested that the First Iowa needed ‘‘a Fille du Regiment—a dark or blue-eyed houri of seventeen or older’’ to travel with the regiment; someone ‘‘for whom all could entertain Platonic affection.’’35 The First Iowa seems never to have gotten its Fille du Regiment, at least Wilkie never mentioned it again, but soldiers in the field were not wholly without the ‘‘refining influence of woman.’’ The wives of some officers paid extended visits to their husbands in the field. One such visit among Dubuque soldiers brought forth expressions of gratitude ‘‘for the kind smiles and womanly influence that come with them.’’ Some wives of working-class soldiers were more permanent fixtures with the army. Accompanying husbands into the field seems to have been one solution to the problem of family support, a problem detailed in the next chapter. Thus, Jeane Gelston and Ann Kelly from Dubuque worked as laundresses in their husbands’ companies, Henry King, ‘‘The Western Soldier,’’ Century Magazine 38 (May 1889): 151; Army and Navy Journal (5 September 1863): 27; and Ware, Lyon Campaign, 260. 35 Times, 21 June 1864; Wilkie, Iowa First, 26. 34

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earning money and drawing rations. Nursing provided another opportunity for women to join the army; Ann Kelly eventually left laundry duty and became a hospital matron in Otterville, Missouri. Jerusha A. Small similarly chose nursing as her way ‘‘to accompany [her husband] and share the toils and privations that would attend such a life.’’ In telling her story, the Times noted that ‘‘long will be remembered by many a sick and wounded soldier at Donelson and Shiloh the kindly attentions of Jerusha A. Small.’’ After six or seven months in the field, Small herself became sick; she died in June 1862, a few days after returning to Dubuque.36 Still, concerned citizens worried that less virtuous women far outnumbered the Jerusha Smalls in the soldiers’ lives. Civil War military camps generally attracted plenty of prostitutes. The city of Davenport, the primary rendezvous point for soldiers in the state of Iowa, was particularly troubled; at one point, the officer in charge of the hospital at Camp McClellan in Davenport ordered that ‘‘several women of easy virtue’’ be thrown into the Mississippi River. While stationed in the city, James McCauley, a laborer from Dubuque in the Sixth Cavalry, ran into trouble because he became too fond of visiting the prostitutes. Military police finally arrested him, and after he resisted, he found himself sentenced to three years in prison at hard labor.37 Discussing sex in the Union army is difficult for the historian, however. Although the soldiers were sexually active, few wrote home about it and even fewer of their comments survive. From Dubuque, Josiah Conzett left the most extensive evidence of the sexual attitudes and proclivities of the soldiers. In particular, while his regiment was stationed at Fort Heiman on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, the soldiers found numerous opportunities for sexual relations with the women in the area. Eight miles away, in Concord, Kentucky, for example, ‘‘there was a so called Hotel’’ where for a pound or two of 36 Times, 28 January, 13 July 1864 (‘‘refining influence’’); ‘‘Mrs. Gelston’’ and John Gelston, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; Ann and William Kelly, Engineer Regiment of the West (a.k.a. First Missouri Engineers), CSR, NA; Times, 21 June 1862; and Census 1860, Pop., pp. 91, 257, 318. None among the Gelstons, Kellys, or Smalls had any children, making it easier for the wives to join their husbands in the field. See also OR, Series 1, 41 (pt. 3): 868. 37 Times, 21 June 1864; Wilkie, Iowa First, 35, also 32; Davenport (Iowa) Gazette, 12 August 1864; and James McCauley, Sixth Cavalry, CSR, NA. McCauley’s case will be further detailed later in this chapter.

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coffee the men could ‘‘get most anything they had,’’ including the favors of ‘‘a quite good looking young Girl’’ who waited tables there. Nearer to camp, about a mile away, were ‘‘Peggy and her [two] dirty Disolute Girls’’ and a German family consisting of an old man and a mother and daughter. The German girl especially became a favorite of the men, who nicknamed her the ‘‘Dutch Pony’’ and took every opportunity to ‘‘Flirt’’ with her ‘‘when the Old People were not Watching.’’ Also at the time the company had an African American cook whom the men called ‘‘Black Mary.’’ ‘‘She would do anything for the Boys at any time and Place even to Share her Bunk with any that asked the Favor and I am sorry to have to say that not only the Privates but Lots of the Officers took advantage.’’38 Venereal disease reports in the Union army provide one measure of the soldiers’ sexual activity. The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, compiled after the war, counted 82 cases of venereal disease per 1,000 soldiers for each year of the war. Specific evidence of sexually transmitted disease among Dubuque’s soldiers is more fleeting. Pension files provide one source for information on this score. A surgeon general’s office report in George Whittemore’s pension, for example, noted that he had ‘‘acute gonorrhea’’ in the service; treatment for syphilis is noted in John Anderson’s file. In the 1880s, a pension investigator uncovered indications that Julius F. Mabe and George W. Goldthorpe had contracted gonorrhea in the service. Goldthorpe allegedly came near dying from his case, and a vivid description of Mabe’s condition survives: ‘‘he laid on his back stripped there and stunk terribly, and there were fearful discharges from the penis and the scrotum.’’39 On the other hand, the pension investigator ultimately could not prove that either Goldthorpe or Mabe had gonorrhea; John Anderson eventually was pronounced free of any evidence that he ever had syphilis. But if specific evidence of soldiers’ sexual activities was hard to find and even harder to authenticate, evidence of the expectation 38 Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 24–26, 33. From Conzett’s account it appears that the soldiers always compensated the white girls (or their families) in some way, but there is no indication ‘‘Black Mary’’ received anything specifically for her favors. See also Thomas P. Lowry, The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell: Sex in the Civil War (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1994). 39 U.S. Surgeon General, Medical and Surgical History, 6:891; George L. Whittemore, John Anderson, and Julius F. Mabe—all Pensions, NA; see also Stanton Fanning, Pensions, NA, for another hint of venereal disease.

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that the soldiers would be sexually active was more apparent. Advertisements for treatments of sexually transmitted diseases were rare in Dubuque newspapers before the Civil War. In April 1859, for example, there were two such ads in the Times and none in the Express & Herald; by January 1861, even the ads in the Times had disappeared. Beginning in late 1861, however, such advertisements became increasingly common. It began with the appearance of two ads in the Times, one offering to cure ‘‘all private diseases’’ and the other selling ‘‘Ayer’s Compound Extract of Sarsaparilla’’ as (among other things) a syphilis cure. A year later, the first condom ad appeared—‘‘the only article ever recommended by the medical profession as a safe and sure preventive against pregnancy and disease.’’ By May 1864, such advertisements had become so common that the Times felt constrained to editorialize against ‘‘indecent and disgusting advertisements’’ and to assert its intention to stop running them. In December, however, a new advertisement for a gonorrhea cure appeared in the paper. The significance of this advertising becomes clear when one notes that even in the field soldiers often received the local papers, and, as Franc Wilkie put it, ‘‘a vigorous thumbing did these sheets get, till every particle of their contents, advertisements and all, was committed to memory.’’40 Despite the opportunities and influences to act otherwise, many in the army upheld standards of bourgeois morality. Some simply held themselves aloof from their comrades. Charles Franklin, a merchant from Floyd County in Iowa who uncharacteristically for a person of his class served as a private in the Dubuque Battery, was asked whether he knew if Julius Mabe ever contracted gonorrhea in the service. He replied that ‘‘one peculiarity about those matters was: that the boys liable to such diseases all associated together. I did not associate with them.’’ Horton Dickinson, a member of the Fifth Cavalry with Josiah Conzett, had the reputation of being ‘‘the Goody 40 See, Express & Herald, 19 December 1858; Times, 2 April 1859; Express & Herald, 12 April 1859; Times, 1 January, 3 April, 13 July 1862, 1, 19, 21 January, 24 February 1863, 18 May, 30 December 1864; and Wilkie, Iowa First, 93. Advertisers also targeted soldiers’ vulnerability to nonsexual diseases: see, for example, advertisements for ‘‘Perry Davis’ Vegetable Pain Killer’’ (‘‘every volunteer mess should have a bottle’’), ‘‘Strickland’s Anti-Cholera Mixture’’ (‘‘Soldiers! You ought not to be without such a valuable medicine’’), and ‘‘Lallemond’s Rheumatism & Neuralgia Specific’’ (with endorsements from two soldiers); Herald, 7 November 1861; Times, 9 June 1864, 13 December 1863.

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Good Boy of the Company.’’ According to Conzett, Dickinson ‘‘never [even] Used Profane Language’’ while in the army.41 In other instances, the military hierarchy tried to enforce standards of behavior. In 1863, for example, Iowan Grenville M. Dodge, in charge of the troops at Corinth, Mississippi, tried to stamp out gambling in his command. Although it is unclear from the sources whether Dodge succeeded in his aim, he decreed that officers caught gambling would be dismissed from the service, and enlisted men would be sentenced to hard labor on the fortifications. Similarly, in early 1864 whisky rations were abolished in the geographic department in which the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry was stationed. ‘‘God be praised,’’ Private James Russell wrote in a letter to the Times, ‘‘that so fearful a cause of disease and demoralization has been removed.’’42 Although it failed to attract as much attention as the traditionalist enlisted men’s culture, an alternative, revivalist culture of religious observance and temperance did emerge in the Union army. In the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, for example, members organized a ‘‘Christian Association,’’ which a few months into the regiment’s service had 186 members from eight companies. ‘‘These men,’’ the regiment’s chaplain added in a postwar report, ‘‘though in the minority . . . had a wide influence over their comrades.’’ The Twenty-first Infantry also experienced a religious revival during the first half of 1864, which led to ‘‘over forty [men] publicly embracing Christ’’ and a ‘‘marked change in the morals of the regiment.’’ The revival in the Twenty-first coincided with the abolition of whisky rations in its geographic department. Other individuals and regiments took the task of temperance upon themselves. Organized by a local lodge of the Good Templars, a number of the Dubuque members of the Twelfth Iowa Infantry took a temperance pledge before leaving the city. Frank N. Doyle, a founder of the local Templars’ lodge in 1860 and architect of its work with the Twelfth, joined the Sixteenth Iowa Infantry and pursued the work there until he was killed at Shiloh in April 1862. The Sixth Iowa Cavalry saw all of its field officers, including Colonel David S. Wilson and Lieutenant Colonel Samuel M. Pollock of Dubuque, and 750 of the men join the Order of the Sons of Charles Franklin Deposition in Special Examiner’s Report, 18 January 1887, in Julius F. Mabe, Pensions, NA; and Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 46. 42 Times, 4 March 1863 (Dodge), 6 March 1864 (Russell letter). 41

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Temperance shortly before the regiment left Davenport for the field. The fact that the Sixth subsequently had significant trouble with drinkers suggests the fluidity of the boundaries between traditionalist and revivalist enlisted men’s cultures.43 Successful or not, by leading their men into a temperance organization, the officers of the Sixth Cavalry provided the sort of leadership—moral leadership—that many thought officers should. An editorial in the Times in September 1862, for example, endorsed the view that any officer who drank to excess (though the latter qualification was merely implicit) should be removed from his position. Too many ‘‘officers ‘clean’ their men only at poker,’’ a contributor to the Army and Navy Journal noted. ‘‘Indeed, observation seems to show that most of the evils in our army are to [be] attributed to the officers.’’ If the officers could ‘‘be taught to at least imitate gentlemen’’ the men would follow suit, and the volunteer army would minimally be ‘‘brought to as high a state of discipline and drill . . . as in the regular army.’’ This would, moreover, have positive effects for civilian society, as well. ‘‘Men who are kept from the vices of the camp,’’ an ‘‘Army Missionary’’ wrote to the Times in July 1863, ‘‘are stronger men, better soldiers, and will be immensely better citizens when peace is declared and they again become civilians.’’44 Comments such as these, emphasizing the role of officers in bringing order and discipline to volunteer regiments, again point to the limited role of NCOs in the Union army. In brief, NCOs were an undervalued commodity in the 1860s. In an article that lauded the characteristics of ‘‘Our Soldiers,’’ for instance, the best Boston Brah43 For religion in the Twenty-first, see Times, 28 October 1862, 22 May 1864; ‘‘Chaplain’s Report,’’ in Crooke, Twenty-first Regiment, 157; and Mathew F. King, Diary, entries for 5, 6, 10, 17, 21, 24, 31 January, 7, 14, 17, 18, 21, 28 February, 6, 7, 27, 30 March, 3, 10, 17, 24, 27, 28 April, 1, 5, 8, May 1864. See also Times, 12 March, 23 April 1862 (Twelfth Infantry and Doyle), 7 February 1863 (Sixth Cavalry); and David S. Wilson and Samuel M. Pollock, Sixth Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA. Revivalism in the Union army remains a topic for future research; recent books on soldiers’ experiences emphasize revivalism in the Confederate but not the Union army, while noting the religious feelings among soldiers in both armies. See, for example, Robertson, Soldiers Blue and Gray, 186–88; Reid Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers: Their Expectations and Their Experiences (New York: Viking Penguin, 1988), 173–74; and James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 75–76, 159. 44 Times, 14 September 1862, 19 July 1863; and ‘‘Burghley’’ letter to Army and Navy Journal (9 April 1864): 547.

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min Charles Eliot Norton could say about NCOs was that ‘‘a sergeant should set a good example to the men by not grumbling.’’ In terms of living conditions, NCOs shared the same experiences of overcrowding, bad food, exposure, and disease as privates; indeed, privates and NCOs bunked together in camp and in the field. Moreover, NCOs received scarcely more pay than privates. Corporals were paid $2 more and most sergeants $4 more per month; the lowest commissioned officer received roughly $30 more per month than privates. Noncommissioned officers also received the same rations and clothing allowances as privates; officers’ rations and other allowances (for which they could take monetary equivalents) added another $58 per month to a second lieutenant’s salary and more to that of higherranking officers.45 In other words, NCOs in the Union army might be said to have occupied the same awkward position as factory foremen under earlyindustrial conditions, with a status between privates (workers) on the one hand and commissioned officers (managers) on the other. As one scholar argues, an NCO was ‘‘too near the lower layer to be independent from his men, too clearly a part of the line hierarchy not to ‘toe the line.’ ’’ During the Civil War the Army and Navy Journal recognized that an NCO’s position ‘‘is an arduous one. . . . He is in immediate contact with the men, and yet is not one of them.’’ Further, although the Journal encouraged officers to treat their NCOs ‘‘properly,’’ it added that ‘‘by proper treatment is not meant association,’’ because ‘‘it is well known that intimate association is subversive of authority.’’ In other words, the Journal advised that officers maintain formality and distance in their relationship with NCOs. By treating their NCOs with ‘‘official respect not akin to intimacy,’’ officers would set an example for the NCOs similarly to ‘‘hold themselves aloof from the men.’’46 Union army NCOs responded to this role conflict in various ways. 45 Charles Eliot Norton, ‘‘Our Soldiers,’’ North American Review 99 (July 1864): 193; and United States, U.S. Statutes at Large (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1863, 1864), 12 (1863): 326, 13 (1864): 144. For changing views after the war, see E. L. Zalinski, ‘‘The Future of Warfare,’’ North American Review 151 (December 1890): 693, which argues that ‘‘successful [military] action will in future rest more than heretofore on’’ NCOs. 46 Jacques van Doorn, The Soldier and Social Change (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1975), 15–16; and ‘‘Treatment of Non-Commissioned Officers,’’ Army and Navy Journal (5 September 1863): 18.

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The majority coped and undoubtedly performed their functions well. Some, however, became more assertive about exercising the little authority they had. Franc Wilkie described the NCOs in the First Iowa as men ‘‘who a month ago felt it an honor to be allowed to touch their hats to gentlemen, but who now holding a slight position would place their dirty stubbed fingers to their nose with a gesture of supreme contempt were the archangel Gabriel himself to meet them face to face.’’ Some privates in the Sixth Iowa Cavalry used verse to complain about their NCOs to the regiment’s colonel, Dubuque’s David Wilson: Now dear Colonel you know that in snow or in ice This standing on guard is not overly nice It’s got to be done though, but then it’s not fair To make a man double or treble his share Then will you please publish a general order To try to put down this crying disorder Do not choose your expressions; pitch in to them Perhaps they’ll remember that privates are men For at present those Non Commish seem to believe That a man’s no account without stripes on his sleeve Now please send your decree and you’ll merit the thanks Of all those ill used poor devils, the men in the ranks.

Other NCOs, risking the disapproval of their superiors, responded to the role conflict by moving closer to the privates. Sixteen NCOs from Dubuque, for example, suffered demotion to the rank of private for not maintaining the dignity of their offices. Still other NCOs apparently found the conflicting roles too hard to reconcile and asked to be relieved of their positions. In all, four of the Dubuque soldiers found in the census made this decision, including one who was an experienced civilian foreman. Although he gave his occupation as miner when he enlisted, Richard O. Chaney was in fact the superintendent of Julius K. Graves’s Dubuque Shot Manufacturing Company. Chaney enlisted as a corporal in one of the 100-days regiments in 1864 but soon resigned the position and served his time as a private.47 47 Wilkie, Iowa First, 32; anonymous poet in Company H to Wilson, D. S. Wilson papers, IHSI; and for men asking for demotions, see Richard O. Chaney, Fortysixth Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; Mathias Bickel, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; Patrick Murray, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; and John Pickup, Fourth Iowa Cav-

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Enforcing Order and Discipline As the demotions and requests for demotions among Dubuque’s NCOs suggest, the boundary between privates and NCOs in the Union army was very permeable, more so, in fact, than the boundary between NCOs and commissioned officers. This can be specified further by looking at court martial cases involving NCOs. The biggest difference between cases involving NCOs and those involving privates occurred in the area of punishment. The most common penalty for NCOs was to be stripped of their status and returned to the ranks of the privates, with some other private—one displaying a more appropriate work ethic, perhaps—promoted in their place. All the courts, in other words, concurred that the most necessary, and perhaps most effective, punishment for an NCO was reduction to the ranks.48 More generally, because the charges and testimony were recorded and in many instances preserved, court martial cases offer the historian a unique resource for studying life in the Union army. Admittedly, court martial cases represent situations when the normal processes of military order and discipline broke down. But they can be used to reveal what the primary threats to military order were thought to be. In some instances, these paralleled those apparently facing civilian society, for example drunkenness. In other cases, such as mutinies or desertion, the analogy may not be so readily apparent, but such cases, in fact, involved radical challenges to authority by withholding labor.49 Court martial cases can also be used to enhance alry, CSR, NA. For Chaney as employee of Graves, see Times, 30 March 1863. The sixteen NCOs demoted for not maintaining the dignity of their office came from the larger group of 1,321 soldiers from the city. 48 For cases involving Dubuque NCOs, see George M. Camp, First Iowa Cavalry; Joseph Brode, Sixth Iowa Cavalry; Christian Hanning, Sixth Iowa Cavalry; Edward F. Ormsby, Seventh Iowa Cavalry; James B. Jordan, Seventh Iowa Cavalry; Lewis A. Deaver, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry; John Launspach, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry; Charles Husted, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry; John M. Buckholz, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry; Anton Bloechlinger, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry; and William H. Lorimier, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry—all CSR, NA. Also Court Martial no. NN51 (John T. Robinson defendant) and no. LL2686 (Thomas Barber), Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General, Record Group 153, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter, [defendant’s name], [record no.], CM, NA). 49 ‘‘Mutiny’’ was also not unheard of grounds for dismissal in civilian industry; see, for example, Herbert G. Gutman, ‘‘Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815–1919,’’ American Historical Review 78 (June 1973): 551–52.

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understanding of the Union army’s class structure. The charges, treatment, and sentences of officers, NCOs, and privates varied significantly. Thus, the court martial cases further suggest the Union army’s contribution to the creation of both an urban-industrial working class and a managerial or business class.50 An industrial society, like an army, required discipline in its working class. In his treatise the Philosophy of Manufactures in 1835, for example, British moral economist Dr. Andrew Ure argued that ‘‘to devise and administer a successful code of factory discipline, suited to the necessities of factory diligence, was the Herculean enterprise.’’ He added further that it proved particularly difficult ‘‘to convert persons past the age of puberty, whether drawn from rural or from handicraft occupations, into useful factory hands.’’ The Union army drew its soldiers from the same sorts of people, and the army also struggled to make them ‘‘useful . . . hands.’’ As one Union army NCO put it, ‘‘it is hard work to manage some of the men; . . . they are old and want reasons for everything.’’ An officer added that if an order looked ‘‘utterly unreasonable’’ or ‘‘trifling,’’ one might ‘‘find that you still have a free and independent citizen to deal with, not a soldier.’’51 Through its enforcement of discipline, the Union army worked to ‘‘convert’’ the ‘‘free and independent citizen’’ into a ‘‘soldier,’’ a conversion that some thought would stand the soldier in good stead when he returned to civilian society. ‘‘During our service,’’ an officer 50 See War Department, Army Regulations, 495–96 (Sixty-fourth through Sixtyseventh Articles of War). Initially there were two levels of courts martial— regimental and general—but the regimental were effectively eliminated by a law passed July 17, 1862, that allowed a single field officer to hear and decide cases that would have invoked a regimental court martial earlier; War Department, Army Regulations, 538. Thus most of the cases to be discussed here were general courts martial. A transcript of every general court martial was supposed to be sent to the secretary of war, who was then responsible for seeing that the copy was preserved; see ibid., 126 (paragraphs 896–98), 499 (Ninetieth Article of War). Unfortunately, this procedure often broke down in practice, but transcripts of many general cases can be found in one or both of two places: if the copy was sent to the secretary and he preserved it, it can be found in the Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General, Record Group 153, at the National Archives; occasionally a transcript or other useful information will be found in the accused soldier’s Compiled Service Record (CSR) in Record Group 94. 51 Andrew Ure, Philosophy of Manufactures, or An Exposition of the Scientific, Moral, and Commercial Economy of the Factory System of Great Britain (London: Charles Knight, 1835), 15; and for quotes from soldiers, see Norton, ‘‘Our Soldiers,’’ 192; and Higginson, ‘‘Regular and Volunteer Officers,’’ 350.

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from Des Moines, Iowa, noted many years later, ‘‘we perhaps had the feeling at times that the discipline was more severe than was necessary, but as we have grown older we have felt that it was better so. If we did not need it then we needed it later.’’ Moreover, as sociologist Jacques van Doorn reminds us, ‘‘the modern army—with its emphasis on duty, discipline, self-sacrifice, and regularity’’ originated in the same Protestant countries as capitalism and predated the rise of industrial capitalism by 200 years. Anticipating Max Weber’s definition of the ‘‘Protestant ethic,’’ as early as the sixteenth century ‘‘the new [military] discipline became known in Europe as the Protestant discipline.’’52 Court martial cases involving Dubuque’s soldiers suggest four core values enforced on privates and NCOs by the ‘‘Protestant discipline’’ in the Union army. These are regularity, work discipline, respect for authority, and self-discipline—values considered equally necessary for urban-industrial life.53 The first category of cases, those involving regularity, encompassed two offenses: desertion and absence without leave (AWOL); in other words, these were instances when soldiers abandoned their positions without permission. The army seemed to distinguish between the two offenses by charging anyone who disappeared then returned on his own with being AWOL and anyone brought back under arrest with being a deserter. Cases in this category almost invariably produced guilty verdicts—only day laborer and army private George L. Nash, charged with desertion but producing undeniable evidence that he had an approved furlough, got a not-guilty verdict. Because desertion struck at the very existence of the army, however, sentences for this offense were generally stiffer than those for AWOL. Farmer and private Anton Busch, for example, convicted of being AWOL for 52 MOLLUS—IA, War Sketches, 2:107; and van Doorn, Soldier, 8. And see David Montgomery, Citizen Worker: The Experience of Workers in the United States with Democracy and the Free Market during the Nineteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), esp. 52–114, for discussion of law and the disciplining of a (civilian) working class—what Montgomery calls ‘‘policing people for the free market.’’ 53 The analysis of court martial cases in the following paragraphs focuses on a total of 85 cases that involved privates (64), NCOs (13), and officers (8) found among the larger group of 1,321 soldiers from Dubuque. For a reflection of similar values in civilian society, see, for example, Paul G. Faler, Mechanics and Manufacturers in the Early Industrial Revolution: Lynn, Massachusetts, 1780–1860 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981), 102–6, 137.

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six weeks, was sentenced to one month in prison at hard labor and to ‘‘forfeit all pay and allowances now due him.’’ In contrast, stonecutter and private Joseph Cassinett, convicted of desertion (he was absent for eleven weeks), was sentenced to spend the remaining year of his enlistment in prison at hard labor and to forfeit all pay and allowances due or to become due to him. In one sense, Cassinett got off easy, because army regulations established a maximum sentence of death for deserters.54 Work discipline cases, the second category, included things such as sitting down on sentry duty, leaving a post before being properly relieved, and sleeping on duty. Cases in this category among Dubuque’s soldiers without exception produced guilty verdicts. For instance, Edward Nagle, a civilian justice of the peace and one of the few nonworkingmen among the enlisted men who faced courts martial in the army, was found guilty of sitting as well as leaving his post and received the stiffest sentence of cases in this category: three months at hard labor, with a bread and water diet the first five days of each month, and forfeiture of his pay for the period. Testimony in his case revealed that generally Nagle’s ‘‘conduct was troublesome and he would use all Sort of subterfuge to evade duty,’’ and it further accused him of forging a medical certificate to escape duty on the day in question. In contrast, laborer and private William Maltz, tried and convicted of sleeping on his post and of attempting to shoot the sergeant who woke him up, received a sentence similar to Nagle’s; the same except without the bread and water diet at the beginning of each month. On the one hand, Maltz got off easy—a general who reviewed his sentence noted that ‘‘the sleeping on post alone, would justify his being shot, and his attempting to shoot the sergeant of the guard, would have justified the sergeant in shooting him.’’ On the other hand, these two cases suggest that the army rated chronic malingering a somewhat more serious offense than a physical attack on an NCO.55 Although Maltz’s sentence further reveals the NCOs’ lack of status in the Union army, cases in the third category, respect for authority George L. Nash, NN1669, CM, NA; Anton Busch, NN312, CM, NA; Joseph Cassinett, LL1846, CM, NA; and War Department, Army Regulations, 488 (Twentieth Article of War). 55 Edward W. Nagle, LL2254, CM, NA; William Maltz, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; and War Department, Army Regulations, 493 (Forty-sixth Article of War). 54

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above the NCO level, often led to the most severe punishments. Laborer and private James McCauley, convicted of assaulting his captain, was sentenced to three years in prison, while a mutiny in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry resulted in the mutineers’ dishonorable discharge and their being drummed out of camp before a court martial could be convened. These two incidents reveal larger patterns and will be detailed more fully below. Other respect for authority cases involved disputes over work rules. Laborer Robert Roper, a member of the Dubuque Battery, for example, was charged with mutiny for refusing an order to water some horses. He pled guilty but argued that he was detailed as a cook at the time and did not think watering horses was part of his job. The sentence in Roper’s case is missing from the record; he subsequently reenlisted, which perhaps suggests the punishment was not too harsh. Another soldier, farmer Marion Austin, was acquitted of mutiny, for what appears to be a primitive strike. Austin and two other privates from the Twelfth Iowa Infantry were accused of conspiring to lie in bed after reveille one particularly inclement morning and then refusing extra duty as punishment.56 The final category of court martial offenses, those involving a lack of self-discipline, included offenses such as drunkenness, fighting, disorderly conduct, gambling, theft, fraud, and any others that indicated an enlisted man not fully in control of himself. Charges from this category were frequently combined with those from others to increase punishments. So, for example, whereas William Maltz was sentenced to three months at hard labor for sleeping on his post and assaulting a sergeant, farmer John Byrne received two months at hard labor and a dishonorable discharge for resisting a guard and being drunk on duty. Often, moreover, drinking was cited in the case file without prompting a specific charge. In February 1865, farmer James B. Jordan defended himself against a charge of desertion by saying he got drunk and did not know what he was doing; he was sentenced to six months at hard labor and to forfeit his pay for the period.57 56 James McCauley, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; Henry Geiger, Pensions, NA (copy of order dismissing the Fifth Cavalry mutineers); Robert Roper, KK132, CM, NA; and Marion Austin, NN2182, CM, NA. The best explanation for Austin’s acquittal is testimony that the lieutenant who called the roll accepted the explanation for staying in bed (bad weather) and told the men there would be no punishment. The company’s captain brought the charges. Only Austin and the captain, Charles S. Sumbardo, were from Dubuque. 57 ‘‘Notation’’ card dated 18 July 1878 in John Byrne, Third Iowa Artillery, CSR, NA; and James B. Jordan, OO658, CM, NA.

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The matter of pleas entered in the court also can be discussed here as an element of self-discipline. The officers who comprised the courts seemed to look more favorably upon an enlisted man who admitted wrongdoing and accepted punishment. Whether admitting or denying guilt, nearly every private or NCO who appeared before a court martial board was found guilty; only four of the seventy-four cases with known verdicts involving Dubuque privates and NCOs ended in acquittal.58 But those who denied guilt generally received more severe punishments. This can perhaps be seen most clearly in the cases of William W. Kerr and Orson Willard, both farmers before the war. The two men were caught together stealing melons and charged with ‘‘depredations on private property.’’ Kerr pled guilty and was fined $5. Willard, however, tried to wriggle out of the case by pleading guilty to committing depredations but not guilty to the specification, theft. As a result, an AWOL was added to the charge against him (if Willard was AWOL, so was Kerr), and in addition to incurring the $5 fine also levied on Kerr, Willard was sentenced to ten days of hard labor in his regiment and to receive a public reprimand.59 Officers, too, were sometimes caught in infractions, but often they were allowed to resign quietly rather than face a court martial. The same general who thought William Maltz should have been shot for sleeping on his post, for example, later had Colonel Samuel M. Pollock of the Sixth Iowa Cavalry arrested for allegedly undermining the general’s authority. But in the letter filing charges against Pollock, he noted that ‘‘I consider courts martial as an inconvenient [and] expensive mode of enforcing discipline in the case of officers.’’ The general’s opinion was in line with army regulations, which also considered courts martial inappropriate for enforcing discipline on officers: ‘‘Officers are not to be put in arrest for light offenses. For these the censure of the commanding officer will, in most cases, answer the purposes of discipline.’’ Because other officers decided when courts 58 In three other cases involving Dubuque privates and NCOs, the results of the trials are not known. 59 William W. Kerr and Orson Willard, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA. Willard argued that there was no proof he stole any melons, because there were no witnesses and because he was not carrying any melons when apprehended. He may have told the truth. No witness to the theft testified, and one of the men who arrested the two men said that he could not state positively that Willard had any melons when arrested.

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martial would occur, an officer generally had to be an abject failure before a trial would be held.60 Most cases implicating officers, such as Samuel Pollock’s, caught them angling for some advantage over another (usually superior) officer. One officer’s case that did not fit this description, however, is particularly instructive, involving as it did an officer’s attempt gone awry to enforce discipline in his company. On the afternoon of May 12, 1863, Captain Mahlon Randolph, a Dubuquer in command of Company A, Engineer Regiment of the West, ordered Private James K. Currie of the same company suspended from a tree by his thumbs for disobeying orders. Currie, who had been drinking on the afternoon in question, resisted and soon freed himself. Currie then led the guards on a merry chase through the company grounds before ducking into his tent. At one point in the chase, Randolph ordered another private to stab Currie with his bayonet, but the private refused to obey the order. Randolph then fetched a pistol, went into Currie’s tent, and in front of several witnesses shot him dead.61 Six months later a court martial convened to ascertain the facts in the case and, if necessary, to punish Randolph. Charges had to be framed in terms of the Articles of War, and no article specifically enjoined officers from killing enlisted men. So Randolph was not charged with murder but rather with ‘‘conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline’’ and with ‘‘conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman’’; the murder was then the specification for both charges.62 For his part, Randolph never denied killing Currie, though he suggested at one point that it might have been an accident. 60 Letter, Brevet Major General Alfred Sully to the assistant adjutant general, Department of the Northwest, dated 19 June 1865, in Samuel M. Pollock, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; and War Department, Army Regulations, 38 (paragraph 222). Although Sully had Pollock confined to quarters for several months, he never followed through with a trial; Pollock was mustered out with his regiment in October 1865. 61 Mahlon Randolph, NN959, CM, NA. Randolph’s victim, Currie, was not from Dubuque. 62 The convention in court martial cases was to divide things into ‘‘charges’’ and one or more ‘‘specifications’’ for each charge. The charges cited a specific article of war violated and the specifications then detailed the incident(s) that provoked the particular charge. It was possible for an individual to be found guilty of the specification for a charge but not guilty of the charge itself. For an example of the last, see Marcus L. Talbert, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; although found not guilty of the actual charge against him, Talbert was punished anyway.

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After weighing the evidence, the court found him guilty of conduct prejudicial to good order, but not guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer. Of all the evidence presented in the case, the testimony that got him convicted on the first count seems to have been simply the statements of higher-ranking officers in the regiment that the company had been ‘‘orderly’’ while Randolph commanded it but that discipline had collapsed in the wake of the murder. The court sentenced Randolph to be dismissed from the army. The most interesting aspect of this case, however, is the not guilty verdict on the charge of conduct unbecoming an officer. Randolph placed considerable emphasis on his having behaved in a reasonable manner, as a good community leader or a good manager of his company; he devoted the bulk of his fifteen-page rebuttal of the charges to this one point. His arguments gain added significance when it is noted that he delivered them to fellow officers, hoping to strike the right chords with them. It worked. The officers on the court concluded that Randolph had indeed acted as an officer and a gentleman throughout his dealings with Currie. Thus Randolph’s statement becomes more than the desperate plea of a man on trial for murder. Others in the Union army’s management hierarchy shared his concept of an officer’s duty when it came to establishing and maintaining order and discipline.63 Randolph began his argument by emphasizing that Currie was a poor soldier and represented a long-standing disciplinary problem, something with which the officers on the court could identify. Currie was ‘‘notoriously bad,’’ ‘‘punished frequently for disobedience and disorderly conduct,’’ and ‘‘made the company difficult to manage.’’ The main problem with Currie was that he drank and when drunk became ‘‘disorderly and worthless.’’ On the day in question, Currie refused three times ‘‘to go to work.’’ This image of Currie contrasts with Randolph’s image of himself: ‘‘There is not the slightest evidence that the accused acted in a passionate or cruel manner towards Proceedings and findings of general courts martial, moreover, were subject to review, first by the commanding general of the particular army department (or more often, his adjutant general) and then by the president, usually through the Judge Advocate Bureau in the War Department. See War Department, Army Regulations, 126. The findings in Randolph’s case were approved by the appropriate authorities. Thus his arguments relative to his conduct as an officer were effective all the way up the army chain of command. 63

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the deceased but on the contrary maintained throughout the most officer-like bearing and conduct.’’ Randolph then focused on defining what ‘‘officer-like bearing and conduct’’ were: ‘‘Was it the duty of the accused in the face of such riotous proceedings to skulk away from duty and give license to disorder and lawlessness? But the accused did not desert the post of duty or abandon his purpose of reducing Currie to obedience. But he felt convinced that a show of force was necessary. The ordinary means had failed. . . . The accused went and got a pistol—Was there any Breach of duty in this, any unofficer-like conduct? The accused thinks not.’’ The court apparently agreed.64 The result in Mahlon Randolph’s case becomes more illuminating when compared to the results in cases involving two privates from Dubuque. Five months after the war had ended, while still awaiting discharge, Patrick Loftus along with several other members of the Dubuque Battery got into a brawl with soldiers from the Fifty-fourth Illinois Infantry. During the fight, someone knifed a member of the Fifty-fourth, and Loftus, who had been in trouble with the law as a civilian in Dubuque, was arrested for the crime. When a list of witnesses was compiled for the court martial, however, no members of the Fifty-fourth were on it because ‘‘those that saw the fight are unwilling to give up the idea that it was Seymour or Noon [two other members of Loftus’s battery, both slated as witnesses] that did the cutting.’’ Thus, in contrast to the favorable hearing Randolph received from his fellow officers, Loftus was not even allowed to call witnesses who might have at least raised questions about the official version of events. He was found guilty, dishonorably discharged, and sentenced to six years at hard labor, as well as to forfeit all pay and allowances due him for service already given.65 Earlier in the war, military police arrested James McCauley, a laborer before he enlisted in the Sixth Iowa Cavalry, at a house of prostitution in Davenport, Iowa, where his regiment was being orgaRandolph, NN956, CM, NA. Letter, Thomas A. Pollok, lieutenant and provost marshal Frontier District, to Captain O. H. Lyon, Third Artillery, dated 14 September 1865 (quote); and ‘‘Charges and Specifications preferred against Private Patrick Loftiss [sic] 3rd Iowa Battery’’—both in Patrick Loftus, Third Iowa Artillery, CSR, NA. For his civilian trouble with the law see above, chapter 3. The sentence in Loftus’s case was apparently never carried out. In a pension application after the war, Loftus said he was simply marched to the edge of the camp and told to disappear; the dishonorable discharge prevented him from claiming a pension. Patrick Loftus, Pensions, NA. 64 65

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nized. A struggle ensued, and McCauley found himself charged with striking a superior officer and with mutiny. The first charge was for punching and kicking his captain, lawyer DeWitt C. Cram, and the latter for attacking Cram with a saber scabbard and with a saber. The testimony, however, clearly revealed that McCauley never even held a saber during the incident, much less attacked Cram with one. In fact, Cram himself testified that he removed the saber from McCauley’s possession well before the struggle commenced. Nevertheless, McCauley was found guilty of both charges and all specifications. The officers comprising the court sentenced McCauley to be dishonorably dismissed from the army and drummed out of camp. Unfortunately for McCauley, the commanding general of the Department of the Northwest blocked the court’s sentence. The general informed the court that these were capital offenses, adding ‘‘The sentence in this case is not only utterly inadequate, but calculated to produce the worst effects—indicating as it does, to the vicious and insubordinate soldier that the speediest release from his obligation would be the flagrant violation of discipline. . . . To reward [these offenses] by dismissal would be, simply, to create and facilitate desertion in a legal form.’’ Apparently no one worried about the similar ‘‘reward’’ given Mahlon Randolph for murdering a private. After reconsideration, the court ordered McCauley ‘‘confined at hard labor for the term of three years, and [to] forfeit all pay and allowances now due, or that may become due . . . during said term.’’ They thus condemned him to serve his entire enlistment period in prison and without any compensation. The commanding general approved this sentence.66 These results of court martial cases suggest the truth of the observation that military justice serves the concrete end of discipline ahead of the more abstract justice.67 A case of mutiny that involved a large number of soldiers in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, including ten from Dubuque, further illustrates the emphasis on discipline rather than justice. The incident began in early May 1862, when Confederate Trial transcript in James McCauley, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA. By the time McCauley’s new sentence of imprisonment was approved, he had been taken with the regiment to Fort Randall, Dakota Territory. He was imprisoned there and listed as a ‘‘deserter’’ on the company rolls, which meant he could not receive a pension after the war, either. 67 Zak Taylor, ‘‘The Military Justice Debate,’’ Armed Forces and Society 2 (1976): 468–72. 66

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cavalry captured a detachment of the regiment composed of members of Companies E, F, and G and led by Dubuque’s Carl Schaeffer de Boernstein, a major in the army. Despite being in hostile territory and in imminent danger of attack, Boernstein had decided to halt his command, ostensibly so the horses could rest and the men refresh themselves with a cup of coffee. Meanwhile, Boernstein, ‘‘a great gallant where Fine Ladies were Concerned,’’ went into a nearby plantation house, where ‘‘no doubt [he] was also Refreshed.’’ While Boernstein indulged himself, Confederate cavalry attacked. In the ensuing melee, Boernstein was killed and most of his detachment captured.68 In early June, the captured soldiers were exchanged and returned to their regiment. But they refused to resume their duty, thinking that they needed something—a certificate, perhaps—showing they had been properly exchanged. Otherwise, they argued, if they were ever captured again, they would be shot for having violated their parole. Josiah Conzett explained: ‘‘of course the Boys were in the Wrong as they had been properly & Legaly Exchanged and it should have been more plainly & kindly Explained to them wich was not done— but they were harshly told to go back to duty at once or to take the Consequences.’’ Half of those involved decided to return to duty, including Conzett’s brother David, even though ‘‘he wanted to stick to the Boys.’’ Seven others deserted. The remaining twenty-two men were arrested and ‘‘made to do all the hard and Dirty Work for the intire Camp & Regiment.’’69 This situation continued for a few weeks before General Henry Halleck showed how the Union army dealt with recalcitrant workers. On June 26, without resort to legal niceties such as courts martial, Halleck ordered the men dishonorably discharged and drummed out of camp. Their names were also to be published in their hometown newspapers, and Halleck ‘‘declared [it] disgraceful for any soldier to associate with or recognize them.’’ Josiah Conzett remembered it as 68 This incident is detailed in Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’ 19–21 (the quotations in this and the following paragraph are from this source); but see also Iowa Adjutant’s Report, 1862; OR, Series 1, 10 (pt. 1): 883; and Times, 23 May 1862. Boernstein became Dubuque’s first military ‘‘martyr,’’ with a huge funeral procession in the city, photographs for sale, and poetic paeans to ‘‘the fallen hero’’—see, for example, ibid., 20, 22, 31 May 1862. 69 Conzett did not recall the exact numbers involved; specific numbers in the text come from Iowa Adjutant’s Report, 1862.

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a ‘‘Bleak Cold Day late in the Fall of 1862’’ when the men were drummed out of camp; it was actually the next day, June 27. Nevertheless, the punishment made a lasting impression and sent a strong message to the rest of the regiment, which was forced to watch. The Prisnors (25 or 30 I think) Poor Boys Were then placed in Line in front of us. The Adjutant then stepped to the Front and in a Trembling Voice Read Genl Hallecks Cruel Order to them—the Order was then given them to About Face—Forward March[.] the Drum Corps Played the Rogous [Rogues’] March and so excorted them out beyond our Lines into the Rebbel Country Infested by Gurrillas Robbers and Scoundrels, deserters from both sides who would not Hesitate to Rob and Kill them on Sight. . . . Oh, it was the Sadest Sight and hardest duty we were ever called to preform—and we were not Ashamed to Let our Tears flow freely.70

The mutineers had the strength of numbers; it is hard to imagine just two or three men holding out against the pressure exerted on this group. At the same time, the mutineers lacked a cohesive community background, which undoubtedly limited their strength. All of the mutineers came from Companies F and G, companies comprised of men from various parts of Iowa. The fourteen mutineers from Company F, for example, included six men from Dubuque, six from Fort Madison, and two from Davenport; in all, only seven of the twenty-five POWs from Company F (four deserted) and just four of the twelve from Company G returned to duty. In contrast in Company E, a relatively homogeneous Dubuque company, apart from three men who deserted, the other twenty-one POWs returned to duty. The mutineers and their comrades who were made to watch their disgrace discovered the limits of mere strength in numbers without community support. The mutineers could not extract any concessions. No one in authority apparently even bothered to explain the situation carefully to the men during the month or more that the confrontation continued; the officers of Companies F and G perhaps felt less attachment to their men who were not from their home communities. The mutineers’ comrades may have cried, but they also offered no help, unless pressuring the men to return to duty can be considered help. The message thus delivered was to rely upon your70

21.

Henry Geiger, Pensions, NA (Halleck’s order); and Conzett, ‘‘My Civil War,’’

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self as an individual and do not attempt to organize to challenge authority.71 The fact that the rest of the regiment was made to watch the mutineers’ disgrace was also important. The punishment thus served, as another veteran said about an execution his regiment was forced to watch, as a ‘‘lesson and warning against future offences.’’ At the beginning of the war, diverse observers had agreed that severe discipline—tying men up by their thumbs and ‘‘bucking and gagging’’ were popular—and trying to ‘‘warn’’ others by making an example of a few would not work with volunteer soldiers. Soon, however, most came to believe that any efforts to address the ‘‘lack of subordination and zeal in our ranks’’ were justified. The Dubuque Times, for example, repeated a story that General Benjamin Butler, upon being informed that one of the colonels under his command had shot a mutineer, responded ‘‘shoot another.’’ ‘‘This Jacksonian promptness of the General will do more to bring terror to the evil-doers in the camp than all the thumb-tying that has taken place since the war began,’’ the paper added. And in the Fifth Cavalry’s case, the example made of the mutineers may have worked. In October 1864, General Judson Kilpatrick, whose cavalry division included the Fifth Iowa, objected to the regiment’s assignment to duty in Nashville: ‘‘This regiment is one of my best and I cannot afford to lose it.’’72 71 Among the mutineers, in addition to Henry Geiger, a cabinetmaker in civilian life, cabinetmaker John C. Hoffman, farmer Henry Mehrdorf, laborer John Pals, shoemaker Frederick Unger, and the unemployed Henry Steiner enlisted from Dubuque. Only Steiner lived in the city in 1860; Hoffman, Mehrdorf, and Pals lived in Dubuque County outside Julien Township in 1860. Despite Halleck’s injunction against any further contact with the mutineers, Unger actually managed to reenlist in his old company in 1864. The three deserters from Company E were not found in the city or county in 1860; one, mason Joseph P. Hunter, later returned, was restored to duty, and was subsequently transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps. Hubert Munchrath of Dubuque was among those who deserted from Company F (joined by two men from Keokuk and one from Saint Louis); he also was not found in the 1860 census. See Geiger, Hoffman, Mehrdorf, Pals, Unger, Steiner, Hunter, and Munchrath—all Fifth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; Iowa Adjutant’s Report, 1862; and Census 1860, Pop., 176 (Steiner). 72 Reed, Campaigns and Battles of the Twelfth Regiment, 148 (‘‘lesson and warning’’); Wilkie, Iowa First, 73; Ware, Lyon Campaign, 152; Times, 19 September 1862 (‘‘lack of subordination’’ and Butler story); and OR, Series 1, 39 (pt. 3): 479 (Kilpatrick quote). The gagging portion of bucking and gagging is obvious; ‘‘bucking,’’ as the Times described it, consisted of ‘‘tying the hands together securely, placing them over the knees, and running a stick through under the knees and over the arms.’’ Times, 8 January 1864.

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In the end, although some soldiers may have adopted some bad habits, military discipline—and the army’s ability to apply severe sanctions to personal behavior—seemed to be just the thing for those who worried that society was in the throes of decay. Perhaps the single best local statement of the value of rigid discipline came in a lengthy May 1864 Times editorial on ‘‘the effect of the war on the morals of the people.’’ Although the ‘‘great majority’’ of the soldiers were ‘‘good citizens’’ even before they enlisted, they could not but benefit from ‘‘the wholesome restraints of military discipline.’’ Other soldiers, ‘‘having never known the mild but firm restraints of properly exercised parental authority,’’ were ‘‘decidedly immoral . . . and a few . . . positively vicious.’’ As a result of lax parenting, ‘‘they have naturally grown up wilful [sic], selfish, and impatient of restraint.’’ For these, the military offered a second chance. ‘‘If he never before perceived the value of system and order, he must perceive it now. Military life and discipline put into his head new ideas of neatness, precision, and order. . . . Such a life cannot fail to have a good influence upon the victims of evil and lawless habits,’’ as indeed upon all others. ‘‘Looking upon the ruin and devastation of the enemy’s country,’’ moreover, soldiers ‘‘must realize that this is the consequence of rebellion against lawful and righteous authority’’ with positive consequences for postwar society.73 While coming around to the view that military service was having a positive effect on soldiers’ morals, however, many of the same Dubuque commentators grew less sanguine about the war’s cathartic effects on civilian society as the city continued to urbanize. After being initially ‘‘struck with the sternness of military discipline,’’ a writer in the Iowa Religious Newsletter in 1864 had come to appreciate the value of such discipline. The author thought that ‘‘the Christian war against evil [generally] . . . would prosper more if the discipline were more strict [and] the obedience more unhesitating.’’ The military offered one model for achieving this. Earlier in the year, a committee of the board of education concluded that nothing except ‘‘willing obedience and entire subordination on the part of the learners’’ was necessary to perfect the system of education in the city. The committee recommended ‘‘the enforcement of a rigid discipline’’ in the schools to teach ‘‘young America . . . to submit to wholesome 73

Times, 15 May 1864.

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restriction.’’ The city marshal also looked for wholesome restriction. He petitioned the city council in 1864 to establish a chain gang for work on the city streets, believing that would cause a reduction in petty crime and disturbing of the peace.74 The marshal’s concerns were part of a larger focus on crime in mid-1860s Dubuque. In August 1864, prompted by concerns of a rising crime rate in the city, a grand jury investigated and concluded that ‘‘the evidence and facts presented before us would indicate that our communities in both city and county are losing moral caste, and that crime and profligacy of almost every hue and color is abounding in our midst.’’ In response, the city council reconsidered the false economies that had led during the Panic of 1857 to ending the practice of lighting downtown streets at night and to abolishing the city police force. The council soon voted to give the city marshal his chain gangs and to relight Main Street. This did not solve the problem to everyone’s satisfaction, though. A year after the grand jury investigation, the Times continued to assert its belief that ‘‘Never before since the establishment of the republic has crime been so prevalent as it is at this time.’’ A year later, in 1866, the city council appointed the city’s former police captain Philip C. Morheiser, fresh from command of a company in the Eighth Iowa Cavalry, to organize a new police force.75 Thus, urban Dubuque turned for solutions to some of its problems to things that had appeared to work in the military’s urban environment. Although civilian society could not enforce the kind of discipline seen in the military, it could draw lessons from military discipline and apply them as best it could. As the war ended, moreover, civilian society could call on personnel experienced in enforcing a more rigid discipline. For their part, soldiers returned from their baptism in urban living perhaps better prepared for postwar urban society than nonveterans in the city. The soldiers had experienced 74 IRN (August 1864): 4; and Times, 1 July (board of education), 6 August (city marshal) 1864. 75 Times, 13 August, 4, 8, 17 November 1864; Semi-weekly Times, 1 August 1865; Peter B. Hoffman, Concise History of the City and County of Dubuque, 1833–1934, manuscript, 1934, p. 98, CDH; Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 154, 158; and ‘‘Dubuque 67 Years Ago,’’ Telegraph-Herald, 6 August 1933. For more crime emphasis, see Weekly Herald, which during 1865 regularly devoted its column space on page 4 (of 4) to stories of crime—in Dubuque and in the nation—for example, editions of 2 August through 11 October 1865.

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many of the elements of urban life—crowding, dirt, disease, diversity, widened class differences, and new forms of socialization. Further, they had developed habits of obedience that might well make them, as the Times predicted in 1864, ‘‘among the most law-abiding, moral, and honest citizens of the land.’’76

76

Times, 15 May 1864.

CHAPTER 6

‘‘A Duty of the Hour’’: The Home Front in Dubuque [T]he Families of Soldiers are begging [throughout?] the City with less Success then Circus men meet with[.] Shame on the Community who Suffer the defenders of the Constitution to Complain that their Families are not Provided for while they are Batling for Liberty Ⳮ Law[.] —Solon M. Langworthy, diary entry, August 4, 1862, several weeks before enlisting himself

While expressing concerns about decaying civilian morals, some observers in Dubuque found at least one area to praise: the response of the city’s benevolent community, especially the women, to the relief needs of soldiers and their families. In its May 1864 editorial on ‘‘the effect of the war on the morals of the people,’’ for example, in addition to noting the positive impact ‘‘the wholesome restraints of military discipline’’ would have on the soldiers, the Times ‘‘affirmed’’ more broadly that the war was ‘‘a national purifier, burning, as by fire, the most insidious and destructive vices and preparing the way for the development of the noblest virtues.’’ Although prewar relief efforts had often fallen short of the need, ‘‘new views of duty towards our fellow men are impressed on our minds and hearts by the lessons of the war’’ and ‘‘cannot die out.’’ In short, the paper concluded that in the war emergency ‘‘the benevolence of the nation, phrenologically speaking, is almost as fully developed as its combativeness.’’1 On the other hand, Solon Langworthy’s diary entry from August 1862 indicates that perhaps the reality of war relief efforts differed from what the Times imagined. From Langworthy’s perspective— and more important from the perspective of the soldiers and their 1

Times, 15 May 1864.

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families—the nation’s benevolence lagged well behind its combativeness. At the beginning of the war, the benevolent community in Dubuque tried to provide both provisions to send to the soldiers in the field and relief aid to their families. But as the needs of both groups became greater and as the numbers and enthusiasm of Dubuque’s benevolent women and men waned, they faced a choice: continue to do both less well, or focus on one or the other. Then in March 1864 the Dubuque Ladies Aid Society, the largest private war relief organization, resolved the conflict, agreeing to organize a Northern Iowa Sanitary Fair for the specific and exclusive purpose of raising money and provisions for the soldiers. Thereafter, soldiers’ families were left to rely upon individual acts of kindness, public poor relief, and whatever money the soldiers could send home. Civilian relief work represented an important contribution to the war effort, and a number of scholars have argued that wartime relief efforts laid the foundation for postwar urban and moral reform movements culminating in the early twentieth-century progressive era. This scholarship, like the relief workers during the war, has focused on the patriotic provisioning of soldiers, what one scholar calls ‘‘warwork,’’ or ‘‘the voluntary contribution of homemade goods to the army.’’ Although this scholarship has led to important insights, especially about women’s wartime and postwar roles, it misses the ‘‘other’’ war work: the efforts on behalf of the soldiers’ families. A proper understanding of the total relief effort represents an important element in understanding the ways the Civil War contributed to the formation of urban-industrial society in the North. Through their involvement in provisioning work, middle- and upper-class women may have ‘‘chipped away at the ideology of domesticity,’’ as one scholar argues, but family relief was used to promote domesticity among the mostly working-class recipients. War relief work in Dubuque reinforced and extended existing class and gender boundaries for both aid givers and recipients. Indeed, like service in the military for men, war relief helped mobilize business- and working-class women for their roles in the urban-industrial society that developed in Dubuque during and after the Civil War.2 2 Jeanie Attie, ‘‘Warwork and the Crisis of Domesticity in the North,’’ in Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War, ed. Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 247–59 (quotes from 248). For broader historiography see, for example, George M. Fredrickson, The Inner Civil War: Northern

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Prewar Poor Relief in Dubuque In Dubuque, war relief fit existing patterns of prewar poor relief. The relief efforts directed toward the soldiers—the men in the army who were working to preserve their country—generated the most enthusiastic response during the war. Similarly, before the war the ‘‘worthy’’ poor, those whose poverty was no fault of their own, and ‘‘indoor,’’ or institutional, relief received the most favorable reception. Meanwhile, wartime efforts on behalf of the soldiers’ families at home met with distinctly less success, just as before the war ‘‘outdoor,’’ or noninstitutional, relief and efforts on behalf of the ‘‘unworthy’’ poor, those whose poverty was seen as the product of some personal moral failure (indolence, intemperance, or other vice), faltered. The failure of prewar relief efforts, moreover, coincided with concerns about the failure of women, especially business-class women, to fill their proper social roles. A brief survey of prewar relief work in Dubuque thus establishes the context in which wartime efforts operated.3 Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 98–112; Nancy A. Hewitt, Women’s Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822– 1872 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984); Lori D. Ginzberg, Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990), 1–10, 133–73; J. Matthew Gallman, Mastering Wartime: A Social History of Philadelphia during the Civil War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 153–66; Jeanie Attie, Patriotic Toil: Northern Women and the American Civil War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998); and Judith Ann Giesberg, Civil War Sisterhood: The U.S. Sanitary Commission and Women’s Politics in Transition (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000). All of these, however, miss the important distinction between family relief and soldiers’ relief. See also Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 73–113, for a view that war work (in another context) challenged the boundaries of domesticity in a fairly limited way, representing primarily the ‘‘deflection of women’s patriotism into benevolence’’ (p. 111). 3 For historiography on nineteenth-century poor relief, see Michael B. Katz, The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare (New York: Pantheon Books, 1990), esp. 4–5, 10–15; Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America (New York: Basic Books, 1986), esp. 3–66; Katz, ‘‘The Urban ‘Underclass’ as a Metaphor of Social Transformation,’’ and Eric H. Monkkonen, ‘‘Nineteenth-Century Institutions: Dealing with the Urban ‘Underclass,’ ’’ both in Michael B. Katz, ed., The ‘‘Underclass’’ Debate: Views from History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), 3–23, 334–65; and Walter I. Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America, 4th ed. (New York: Free Press, 1989), esp. 50–63. Also useful are David Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic (Bos-

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In the years before the Civil War, poverty and poor relief were not popular subjects in Dubuque. For one thing, most city leaders felt confident their city could escape the extremes of rich and poor seen in other cities because, as lawyer and railroad promoter Platt Smith asserted in a guide written for the Dubuque Emigrant Aid Society in 1858, ‘‘a small amount of labor will produce a larger amount of the necessaries of life in the West than in the East.’’ Indeed, Dubuque was even better placed than most Western cities, because the city’s lead mines were thought to be ‘‘inexhaustible,’’ affording work for ‘‘thousands’’ for the foreseeable future. All that was required, Joseph Dorr of the Express & Herald argued, was a willingness to work, a determination that ‘‘ordinary discouragements shall not dampen your ardor,’’ and individual ‘‘enterprise and industry.’’ Dorr added on another occasion that ‘‘it will cost but little more to live at prospecting for lead ore, than it will to live idle.’’4 Poverty, in other words, was rooted in individual failure. A simple willingness to work hard would save anyone from poverty and dependence on charity. In November 1858, a writer for the Express & Herald provided a full catalog of the necessary values. With an economic depression continuing, those ‘‘staring [poverty] in the face’’ should first consider whether ‘‘you performed all your duties to yourself and families by honest hard work.’’ Then, ‘‘have you, if in work, done your duty to your employer? Have you kept yourselves free from excess and dissipation?’’ ‘‘Overruling Providence,’’ the author added, ‘‘will provide for the honest and industrious.’’ ‘‘Self-reliance, and with that a firm reliance on Providence, is all [that is] necessary.’’ Poverty, then, resulted from idleness and unwillingness to work, intemperance and immorality, dependence on charity, and lack of faith.5 On the other hand, the next day the same writer declared that ‘‘the many petty thefts lately committed, and the many arrested in a state of destitution and want, give sad evidence of penury, poverty and ton: Little, Brown, 1971); and Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Idea of Poverty: England in the Early Industrial Age (New York: Knopf, 1984). 4 ‘‘A Pioneer’’ [Platt Smith, as identified in the Times, 12 February 1858], Northern Iowa: Containing Hints and Information of Value to Emigrants (Dubuque: W. A. Adams’ Nonpareil Publishing House, 1858), 13–15; Times, 23 August 1858; Express & Herald, 23 May, 23 June 1858. 5 Express & Herald, 13 November 1858.

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suffering. Those actually needy and honest should receive the charity of all.’’ He thus allowed that poverty might in certain cases happen to people through no fault of their own, making the typical distinction between the worthy and the unworthy poor. The economic panic swelled the ranks of the worthy poor. In the First and Third Wards in December 1858, for example, relief committees found ‘‘a vast amount of suffering and destitution’’ and ‘‘a great number of families . . . almost entirely destitute and suffering.’’ A month later, a Third Ward relief committee reported that it had helped forty-one families in its own ward, as well as twelve in the First, two each in the Second and Fourth, and three in the Fifth when relief efforts in those wards faltered.6 As noted in chapter 1, two groups proved particularly vulnerable to poverty in Dubuque before the Civil War: the families of unskilled workers and female heads of household and their families. Relief for these people before the Civil War relied on both private and public efforts. Private charities focused on outdoor (noninstitutional) relief to the worthy poor. The two most organized relief efforts before the war came during the winters of 1857–58 and 1858–59, coinciding with the onset of the Panic of 1857. In these years, relief committees divided each of the city’s five wards into five districts and appointed one man and one woman to canvass the need and to collect and disburse supplies to the needy; an additional two-person team covered the area of Julien Township outside Dubuque. In providing relief, the committees were admonished to be sure not ‘‘to encourage indolence or vagrancy’’ and to be sure that they were not ‘‘imposed upon by strangers’’—that is, they should not help people who moved to Dubuque simply for relief. Nor should they supply the poor with ‘‘luxuries’’ such as coffee but at most ‘‘only in part with the bare necessaries.’’ Indeed, the committees’ ‘‘design’’ was ‘‘to afford partial relief to persons temporarily out of employment or in feeble health.’’ All others, and anyone ‘‘with no prospect of doing anything for themselves,’’ were turned over to the public indoor relief establishments.7 Some public funds were also expended for outdoor relief, but most public poor relief efforts took the form of indoor relief at the County Poor House or the short-lived City House of Refuge. Both became Ibid., 14 November, 14 December 1858, 9 January 1859. Times, 7, 22 December 1857, 16 November 1858; Express & Herald, 22 December 1857, 4 December 1858. 6 7

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embroiled in the increasingly turbulent county and city politics of the late 1850s. The County Poor House came in for criticism in the form of a grand jury indictment in May 1858 for, as the Times put it, becoming ‘‘a general lying in hospital for all women whose husbands or paramours were too lazy or parsimonious to provide for them’’ and for aiding too many ‘‘men who have no claim whatsoever upon the county.’’ Political machinations colored the indictment. The People’s Reform movement had just captured the city government, but Democrats remained dominant in the county, and the Republican Times was only too willing to challenge that dominance. One Democrat in particular, former governor of Iowa and now Judge Stephen Hempstead, was thought to rule Dubuque County as his own private fiefdom. The attack on the poorhouse was thus as much as anything an attempt to expose Democratic corruption and break Hempstead’s power. The only result, however, was that some individual poor people were expelled from the poorhouse.8 Developments at the House of Refuge in 1858 followed the same pattern. Begun in the flush times of the mid-1850s as a reform school for juvenile delinquents, the House of Refuge quickly duplicated the function of the poorhouse, providing indoor relief for often unworthy ‘‘paupers.’’ With the city paying three-quarters of the tax to support the poorhouse, the budget cutters elected to the city council in 1858 concluded that the House of Refuge ‘‘has proved an unnecessary and expensive experiment.’’ Again politics intruded. The Reformers, abetted by Joseph Dorr at the Democratic Express & Herald, asserted that the House of Refuge had fallen under the control of holdover Republican councilman Robert Mitton and voted to close it. The Times, which generally supported budget-cutting measures, briefly advocated preserving the house, saying it was ‘‘a credit and an honor to the city,’’ but a week later the paper bowed to the inevitable and urged that the house be closed.9 Publicly, at least, only Democratic alderman Michael McNamara saw the attack on the House of Refuge for what it said about the poor 8 Times, 25, 29 May (quotes) 1858. See also ibid., 27 July 1858—between 13 April 1857 and the end of June 1858, the city spent $3,569 on indoor and $1,910 on outdoor relief. See also Katz, In the Shadow, 25–35, for the politics/corruption theme in discussions of poorhouses more generally. 9 Times, 15, 21, 24, 27, 31 July, 5 August 1858; see also Express & Herald, 25, 27 July 1858.

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and poor relief in Dubuque. The decision to close the house showed ‘‘no sympathy for the poor.’’ ‘‘If one dollar was expended for a poor person,’’ he added, ‘‘there was more sympathy for the dollar’’ than for the person. McNamara’s comment reflects a growing disdain for the poor in Dubuque. Earlier the same year in his guide to emigrants, for example, Platt Smith called collections for poor relief ‘‘an excessive bore.’’ Further evidence comes from the tepid response to the private relief committees in the winter of 1858–59. Although the Express & Herald declared the relief work a success within a few days of its beginning, efforts faltered in most city wards and meetings suffered from spotty attendance. At one meeting only six of the fiftytwo people on ward committees attended, and the more successful Third Ward committee ended up trying to aid the poor in other wards as well. In the following winter of 1859–60, no attempt was made to form a comparable citywide relief organization. ‘‘Poor friendless children of poverty,’’ Joseph Dorr wrote in December 1859 after seeing two ‘‘ragged’’ little girls ‘‘gazing hopelessly’’ through shop windows at the fine clothes on display, ‘‘you . . . are pariahs in this goodly city.’’10 The task of poor relief was about to get much larger. Beginning in April 1861, large numbers of Dubuque men left their families and headed south to fight the Confederacy. Interestingly, one source of female-headed households and poverty before the war was men going ‘‘South in search of employment.’’ In December 1858, for example, the Express & Herald had reported ‘‘not a few families . . . in more or less destitution’’ from this source after the men found themselves ‘‘unable to more than supply their own wants, and of course not able to send means of living to their families.’’ With the coming of the Civil War, the number of families with a male wage earner (or more than one) ‘‘gone South’’ increased. But because of low pay, delays in receiving it, and difficulties sending it home—if they were so inclined—they, too, had trouble sending ‘‘means of liv10 Times, 5 August 1858 (McNamara); ‘‘Pioneer’’ [Smith], Northern Iowa, 15; Express & Herald, 8, 14, 17 December 1858, 9 January 1859; and Herald, 21, 29 December 1859. The Saint Andrew’s Society and the Saint Vincent de Paul Society provided some poor relief during the winter of 1859–60. For nineteenth-century dislike for the poor, see Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State, 64–67.

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ing to their families.’’ The city’s poor relief workers and organizations struggled to find appropriate solutions.11

The Initial Response to the War Emergency When the war came, a group of Dubuque’s leading male residents moved quickly to form an organization ‘‘to receive and disburse funds for the benefit of families of volunteers.’’ Meeting in the Julien Theater on April 20, 1861, the group included Republican politicians such as Mayor Henry L. Stout, Congressman William Vandever, his successor, William B. Allison, and Shubael P. Adams, but also Democrats Dennis A. Mahony, David S. Wilson, and M. B. Mulkern. The local business community was well represented by, among others, bankers Julius K. Graves and Henry Markell, merchants W. P. Large and William A. Jordan, and manufacturers Sol Turck and Hammond Rouse. A pledge paper had circulated on the nineteenth, and at the meeting on the twentieth the group raised $1,670 in pledges of support from thirty-nine individuals and businesses. The president of the Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad, Herman Gelpcke, and the hardware dealers Andrew & Tredway led the way with $100 each. Mahony pledged $25 on the nineteenth. Not to be outdone, the Times’s management subscribed $30 at the meeting on the twentieth, and Henry W. Pettit, the paper’s assistant editor, offered $10 on his own.12 This organization, the Volunteer Fund Board (VFB), tried to assure Dubuque’s early volunteers that their families would be cared for in their absence. The first two companies of soldiers left town on April 23 for their 90 days of service (which actually extended closer to 120 days) with this understanding. The simple fact of the VFB’s existence was not enough for members of the third company of Dubuque soldiers, however. Having failed to be accepted into the ninety-days regiment, these men would have to commit to serving up to three years as Company A, Third Iowa Infantry. Accordingly, Express & Herald, 4 December 1858. Times, 13 February, 21 April 1861. See also Franklin T. Oldt, History of Dubuque County, Iowa (Chicago: Goodspeed Historical Association, 1911), 261–62; and The History of Dubuque County, Iowa (Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1880), 416–17. 11 12

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prospective soldiers approached the VFB for additional assurance, saying they would only enlist if the VFB guaranteed help for their families. Eight of the leading members, including Mayor Stout, banker Graves, and insurance agent Mathew Allison, brother of the future congressman, signed a statement pledging the VFB and themselves personally to care for the men’s families.13 Roughly eight months later, the VFB terminated its existence, and with it the pledges to the Third Infantry also expired. The VFB had shown promise at its start. In May 1861 the pledge total reached $6,000, and by September 1861 the VFB had helped sixty families of soldiers in Dubuque’s first three companies with about $1,800; twenty-five of these families had no other means of support and were being given $3 a week by the VFB. By November 1861, however, the VFB had to ask the county board of supervisors for an appropriation of $1,000 to cover its debts. Then in January 1862, the organizers announced that after providing $2,700 in cash and groceries to 116 soldiers’ families, its funds were exhausted. The rest of the pledges—as much as $4,300—could not be collected. The VFB disbanded and turned family relief over to the county board of supervisors.14 Several reasons for the failure of male relief work in Dubuque might be briefly cited. First, the men of the VFB, like the volunteers for the First Iowa Infantry, assumed the war would be short—ninety days, maximum. With VFB pledges collected on a quarterly installment basis, many pledgers may not have expected to make more than one or two payments. When the enlistments of the First Iowa ex13 Franc B. Wilkie, The Iowa First: Letters from the War (Dubuque: Herald Book and Job Establishment, 1861), 5–6; and History of Dubuque County, 262. 14 For the VFB’s history, see Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 264, 270–72; Herald, 14 September, 22 November 1861; Times, 8 January 1862; and Helen Wulkow, ‘‘Dubuque in the Civil War Period’’ (M.A. thesis, Northwestern University, 1941), 92. For indications that Dubuque’s failure to redeem its pledges for soldiers’ families was not uncommon (and hence not attributable to the antiwar climate in the city), see Dixon Wector, When Johnny Comes Marching Home (Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1944), 161–62; Joseph Allan Frank and George A. Reaves, ‘‘Seeing the Elephant’’: Raw Recruits at the Battle of Shiloh (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989), 59; and Stephen J. Buck, ‘‘ ‘A Contest in Which Blood Must Flow like Water’: Du Page County and the Civil War,’’ Illinois Historical Journal 87 (Spring 1994): 2–20 (esp. 15–20). In particular, in Du Page County, despite the absence of a strong antiwar sentiment, relief for soldiers’ families was handled in much the same way as ultimately in Dubuque—by turning them over to public poor relief.

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pired, so, many VFB pledgers thought, did their pledges. Second, the VFB consisted primarily of businessmen. They had difficulty sustaining their interest in organizations that demanded time, effort, and money but offered no remuneration—especially during an economic recession. Third, they were also men in a society that generally saw volunteer benevolent work as part of the women’s sphere. These last two points likely caused the failure of a second attempt at forming a male relief organization—the Soldiers’ Relief Society for Dubuque County, launched in May 1862; after a meeting or two, this organization was not heard from again. Nevertheless, the men’s attempt to shift from family relief to soldier relief suggests two final points that would gain prominence in all of the city’s wartime relief efforts. First, the soldiers were working and hence generated greater sympathy than their families, who appeared to be idle. Second, aid to the mostly female-headed families risked sundering the bonds of family and encouraging female independence.15 Dubuque’s benevolent women, meanwhile, also responded with alacrity to the war emergency. With the men of the VFB appearing to help soldiers’ families, the women initially directed their efforts to provisioning the soldiers in the field. At the end of April 1861, ten days after the first VFB meeting, a group of business-class women gathered in compliance with Governor Samuel Kirkwood’s call for the women of the state to sew uniforms for the First Iowa Infantry. Mayor H. L. Stout began the meeting in the chair; leading Republican and Democratic politicians, D. N. Cooley and David S. Wilson, made speeches; and local merchant-tailors Mark Smith and Gerhard Becker ‘‘volunteered to take charge of the work.’’ The men then withdrew from the meeting, and the women formed the Ladies’ Volunteer Labor Society. Within ten days, with up to 100 women working each day, uniforms for the two Dubuque companies in the First Iowa were finished. Male cutters working for Smith and Becker cut the cloth according to the patterns, while Smith and Becker supervised 15 Herald, 29 August, 9 October 1861; Attie, ‘‘Warwork,’’ esp. 249–52; and for Soldiers’ Relief Society, see Times, 17, 22, 25 May 1862. See also Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 2–3. In the context of comparing European and American welfare systems in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Skocpol observes that ‘‘in the United States, most men were preoccupied with partisan politics or business and ‘the initiative in civic matters . . . devolved largely upon women’ organized into voluntary associations’’ (3).

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the sewing. Although they ‘‘volunteered,’’ Smith, Becker, and the cutters were in fact paid for their work. The women, on the other hand, truly volunteered their work; they also supplied many of the sewing machines used, though local sewing machine dealers donated some.16 Before the war, commentary in Dubuque had stressed women’s failure to fill their social roles as an element of the perceived social crisis. The war, however, promised the ‘‘regeneration,’’ as Mary Livermore phrased it in her memoirs, of women. According to ‘‘R.G.,’’ a Dubuque woman who wrote to the Times in January 1861, the crisis then just beginning would save ‘‘our best classes’’ from the ‘‘enervating habits of life and thought’’ into which they had sunk. Women in particular, ‘‘R.G.’’ declared, would be held to a higher standard. ‘‘Let no American woman, young or old, hereafter believe, or affect to believe she has no influence. . . . If Revolution must come, let us meet it bravely and firmly, and leave it with God to determine whether it shall leave us women of the North, and our sisters of the South, purer, freer, and stronger, than it finds us.’’17 Local defenders of the domestic ideology were accordingly gratified to see women’s apparent willingness ‘‘to work night and day, until the rebellion is crushed out,’’ as evinced by their work on the uniforms for the First Iowa. Placing the work firmly within the domestic ideology, in his remarks at the meeting that launched the Ladies’ Volunteer Labor Society David Wilson expressed his gratitude that the women ‘‘as ever’’ showed themselves to ‘‘be for Union to a man.’’ To the Herald, it was ‘‘a pleasant sight to see mothers and sisters . . . wives, some of them young brides, . . . [and] prospective brides’’ all ‘‘industriously and devotedly working together to aid and comfort and benefit an absent son or brother . . . husband . . . [or] lover.’’ For the Times, the women’s response indicated that ‘‘no sacrifice will be two [sic] great for them to make.’’18 16 Times, 30 April, 1, 5 May 1861; Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 264–65; History of Dubuque County, 418; and Wulkow, ‘‘Dubuque in the Civil War Period,’’ 85. 17 Mary A. Livermore, My Story of the War (Hartford, Conn.: A. D. Worthington and Company, 1888; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1972), 110 (page citation is to reprint edition); and Times, 31 January 1861. Livermore, from Chicago, was a prominent member of the Western Sanitary Commission, a branch of the United States Sanitary Commission. 18 Times, 30 April 1861; Herald, 30 April 1861; and Times, 29 May 1861. See also Herald, 6 November 1861.

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Although women were not allowed to enlist, in other words, they still had a duty to perform consistent with prewar ideas of domesticity. ‘‘Our Dubuque boys are bravely doing their duty,’’ the Times wrote in June 1861, ‘‘let the ladies do theirs and at once.’’ In late 1861, the Volunteer Labor Society reorganized as the Dubuque Ladies Aid Society (LAS), with a continuing mission to supply the soldiers’ needs in the field. Then, when the VFB died in January 1862, the LAS added relief of soldiers’ families to its work. For the next two years, the LAS held various fund-raising events, collected and forwarded provisions for the soldiers, organized sewing circles, and tried to ascertain the needs of the families.19 The press continued to remind women of their ‘‘duty’’ and that a ‘‘true woman’’ could have no ‘‘higher mission’’ than to join the LAS. According to the Herald, women would thus have ‘‘the privilege and the pleasure of participating in the glorious work of aiding the soldiers in the great work of supporting and defending the Constitution.’’ For its part, the Times was certain that ‘‘if necessary to economize in the family as well as to work publicly for their country’s weal, [women] will do it.’’ One woman who wrote to the Times equated women’s provisioning work with what the soldiers were doing in the field. ‘‘Perhaps it seems hard to take the long, warm walk to the place where you are wont to meet. The soldiers that are now suffering, toiled, undaunted, beneath the rays of that Southern sun, without water or food all of that long day, until a cannon ball, sped with unerring aim, caused him [sic] to desist.’’ Women must persevere through their hardships as well.20 Despite such broad appeals to ‘‘true women’’ throughout the city, the LAS attracted the membership and participation of only a narrow range of Dubuque’s women. These were primarily business-class women similar to those who had been active earlier in the Volunteer Labor Society and in the prewar poor relief committees. Indeed, in many cases it was the same women. The first president of the LAS, 19 Times, 25 June 1861. For LAS activities, see, for example, ibid., 2, 4, 26 April, 10, 24 December 1862, 4, 6, 8, 17, 23 January, 1, 6, 14, 25 February, 7, 15 March, 13 June, 1 September, 28 November, 18 December 1863; and Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 297, 301. The LAS was variously known as the Volunteers’ Aid Society or the Soldiers’ Aid Society; for consistency, Ladies’ Aid Society will be the name used here. 20 Times, 25 June 1861, 11 January 1863; Herald, 6 November 1861; Times, 29 May 1861, 11 July 1863.

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for instance, was Julia Langworthy, wife of Solon and prominent participant in prewar poor relief. In addition, the LAS attracted some women who had not been active in poor relief before the war but who now had husbands or sons in the army. These women, too, generally had business-class husbands. In all, over three-quarters of the women in the LAS who could be identified came from business-class families. Only about 10 percent came from working-class families and those from only the most highly propertied working-class families; compared to the working-class families that produced soldiers, for example, the relative handful of working-class women in the LAS came from families that owned roughly seven times as much property. In short, the shared suffering of loved ones in the army and the common participation in wartime relief efforts failed to break down class boundaries in the city.21 The LAS women’s background in poor relief and the lack of participation by poorer soldiers’ families had important implications as the society assumed increasing responsibility for family relief as well as provisioning work. With more work than they could possibly manage, the LAS leaders found that only provisioning could generate significant enthusiasm. An LAS meeting on April 6, 1862, for example, drew ‘‘very few’’ of the society’s 227 members. Two weeks later— after reports of the Battle of Shiloh had reached the city—attendance was ‘‘unusually full,’’ and an ‘‘increased interest has been manifested by those present.’’ By June 1862, with the Shiloh emergency passed, attendance had again ‘‘diminished very much,’’ and according to the Times only ‘‘the persevering resolution and constant zeal of a few’’ kept the society’s work alive. Family relief clearly took a backseat to provisioning work. The Times summarized the LAS’s predicament in August 1863: ‘‘This Society was formed mainly for the purpose of sending supplies to the sick and wounded soldiers, but in the absence of any other organization, they have to procure aid for Soldiers’ families.’’22 The LAS had inherited the work of caring for soldiers’ families in large part because, after the collapse of the VFB in January 1862, the men of Dubuque spent their time arguing about the best way to pursue aid while doing little to provide actual relief. The discussion 21 22

See table A.10, appendix A. Times, 6, 19 April, 11 June 1862, 30 August 1863.

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began as early as October 1861, when Dennis Mahony at the Herald asserted that care for soldiers’ families was too important to be left to ‘‘the cold voluntary charity of the world.’’ Then, using the language of a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight, Mahony asserted, ‘‘if needs be, let the superfluous, superabundant wealth of the rich man who remains at his ease at home be taken and used for the support of the families of those who give their lives voluntarily to their country. . . . The rich man loves his money more than the poor man does his life.’’ As in his early advocacy of a military draft, Mahony departed from his usual opposition to increased federal authority, arguing that if the rich could not be induced to contribute voluntarily, ‘‘The Government—we care not whether State or Federal—must impose it as an obligation. . . . Thus will the rich be made to bear some share of the burden of the war.’’23 That suggestion went nowhere. Three months later, the VFB collapsed and dropped the relief of soldiers’ families into the laps of the LAS and the county board of supervisors. After considering the legality of a special appropriation and tax to pay for aid to soldiers’ families, the supervisors rejected that plan. They instead instructed the superintendent of the poor to consider soldiers’ families as he did the other poor and to provide aid to the truly needy; the vote was fifteen to two, with War Democrat Richard Bonson and political opportunist Henry S. Hetherington dissenting.24 Later in the year, during the fall 1862 recruiting campaign, the supervisors again discussed arrangements for soldiers’ families and decided against a change of policy. This time, in addition to questioning the legality, the supervisors felt that money from a $50 county bounty created in the same session would provide for soldiers’ families until government pay started. An additional appropriation for relief, they concluded, would be discriminatory and unnecessarily strain the county treasury.25 Herald, 29 August, 3, 9 October 1861. Bonson’s politics were fairly straightforward; a Democrat before the war, he helped organize a War Democrat slate of candidates for the fall 1861 election, which then united with the Republicans as the ‘‘Union’’ ticket. Hetherington’s politics were more confused: in 1855, he chaired the county Democratic Party; then he served as the Reform mayor in 1858; next he ran (and lost) as the regular Democratic nominee for mayor in spring 1861; finally, he joined the Union ticket in fall 1861. Express & Herald, 28 November 1855; Herald, 25 August, 25 September, 10 October 1861; and Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 352. 25 Dan Elbert Clark, Samuel Jordan Kirkwood (Iowa City: State Historical Society 23 24

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Whether the board’s various concerns were valid or not, the supervisors’ actions fueled Republican allegations of Democratic disloyalty. The Times thought the Democrat-dominated county board was more interested in discouraging enlistments than in legality, fairness, or frugality. In a brief editorial comment following the 1862 decision, G. T. Stewart offered a contrast. The supervisors of Polk County in Iowa appropriated $3,000 for soldiers’ families at their meetings in September 1862, levying a property tax of 1 mill (one-tenth cent) to pay for it. ‘‘For the same patriotic purpose,’’ Stewart pointed out, the Dubuque supervisors ‘‘appropriated nothing.’’ Later, a December 1862 City News item signed ‘‘How’’ but probably written by veteran George Ballou, argued that the supervisors could ‘‘clothe their corporate conscience with a clean shirt,’’ first, simply ‘‘by becoming patriots’’—that is, by supporting the war and Republican management of it unconditionally—and second, ‘‘by making an appropriation for the families of soldiers.’’26 Still, considering that the supervisors had in effect reduced soldiers’ families to the status of paupers, these denunciations seem relatively mild. They were, moreover, disingenuous. Although war opponents on the board of supervisors may have responded as they did in order to disrupt the war effort, few among even war supporters wanted to dole out money indiscriminately to soldiers’ families. That, they feared, would foster mendicancy, dependency on charity rather than their ‘‘natural supporters,’’ and indolence. If the board of supervisors stigmatized the soldiers’ families by classing them with other poor people, the Ladies Aid Society treated them similarly, adopting the same worthy/unworthy dichotomy that private relief organizations applied to the poor in general. Despite assertions that ‘‘to be a soldier’s wife is an honor’’ and that it was ‘‘no reproach to be poor,’’ as early as February 1862 the LAS appointed a visiting and ‘‘investigating’’ committee to call on soldiers’ families and ascertain their needs and worthiness. In June 1863, the Herald charged that the of Iowa, 1917), 194; Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 284, 286; Wulkow, ‘‘Dubuque in the Civil War Period,’’ 91; and Richard Bonson Diaries, entry 20 August 1862, IHSI. Concerns about legality were unfounded because the Iowa legislature in May 1861 had specifically authorized county governments to aid soldiers’ families with public moneys. The supervisors chose to place a strict construction on that authorization, concluding that it allowed payments out of existing funds only. 26 Times, 11 September, 21 December 1862. Ballou was the Times’s local editor at the time.

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LAS had refused to help a soldier’s family after the wife converted to Catholicism. The LAS denied the charge; they stopped helping the family because the wife ‘‘became utterly unworthy of any further assistance.’’ Once the society learned the woman’s ‘‘true character,’’ to continue aid would be ‘‘wronging the honest and worthy families of absent soldiers.’’ The prowar Times applauded the LAS’s decision.27 In both public and private charity, then, soldiers’ families were identified with ‘‘the poor’’ and hence evoked less interest and sympathy from even war supporters than the soldiers themselves did. Two decisions of the county board of supervisors in late 1863 and early 1864 offer further illustration. In October 1863, a politically mixed group of three men—including two Peace Democrats—approached the supervisors for an appropriation on behalf of a proposed soldiers’ home in Dubuque. As the transportation hub of northern Iowa, numerous sick and disabled soldiers passed through Dubuque on their way home. All needed a place to stay, and many needed medical care; the soldiers’ home would provide both. The supervisors, however, voted fifteen to four against making an appropriation. War opponent Stilson Hutchins explained the decision in the Herald. The board, he argued, had ‘‘wisely abstained from making special appropriations’’ for a private charitable organization, but they ‘‘have given the superintendent of the county poor additional instructions for relieving the wants of those in need.’’ ‘‘The charity,’’ he added, ‘‘will be dispensed to soldiers as freely as to others.’’28 War supporters and proponents of the soldiers’ home exploded with all the indignation that had been missing from their response to earlier board actions for the relief of soldiers’ families. The city council, with Mayor and Peace Democrat J. H. Thedinga casting the deciding vote, passed resolutions denouncing the board’s action as ‘‘ungenerous, ungrateful, and unjust’’ and deserving ‘‘the scorn and contempt of all patriotic men.’’ ‘‘A Friend of ‘The Home’ ’’ used the 27 Ibid., 21 November 1863, 4 February 1862, 21 (LAS denial of Herald charge), 23 June 1863; Herald, 20 June 1863. See also Herald, 26, 27 June 1863, 16 September 1864; and Times, 27 June 1863. 28 Times, 21, 23, 24 October 1863; Herald, 23 October 1863; Wulkow, ‘‘Dubuque in the Civil War Period,’’ 92–93; and Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 302. Bonson and Hetherington were again in the minority, joined by the supervisors from Taylor and Peru Townships; all four were lame ducks, having not run or, in Bonson’s case, having been defeated in the election earlier in October.

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pages of the Times to blast the board of supervisors and anyone who might agree with them. ‘‘The poor, deluded, imbecile, treason stricken traitors, in their rage and hate, supposed they could injure the cause of their suffering country, by stigmatizing her brave defenders as paupers, returning from the army. This was the aim and purpose of the whole proceeding.’’ The same individual also questioned the supervisors’ right to be considered ‘‘honorable men,’’ an argument the locals editor at the Times took a step further when he questioned their claim to be ‘‘men.’’29 When the board of supervisors next met, they passed further ‘‘ungenerous’’ resolutions regarding soldiers’ families; only this time the reaction was muted. In January 1864, the supervisors instructed the superintendent of the poor to help only ‘‘such families of soldiers as have enlisted from this county and are placed to its credit as furnishing its quota of volunteers or conscripts.’’ The resolutions further stated the supervisors’ concern that in the substitute and bounty regime then dominating army recruitment, Dubuque volunteers were being credited to the quotas of other counties and that families of volunteers from other parts of Iowa were relocating to Dubuque. ‘‘Dubuque County is sufficiently burdened with its own poor, and . . . the destitute families of soldiers, who have enlisted . . . to its credit.’’ With this decision, then, local families—Dubuque families—could be denied aid even as paupers, if the soldier enlisted to the credit of some other county.30 The Times declared, in response, that this repeated ‘‘the insult’’ of the soldiers’ home decision in October 1863. ‘‘In supplying the necessities of the soldiers’ families,’’ the paper’s locals editor argued, ‘‘we are not contributing to the relief of paupers . . . we are paying a debt due’’ to the soldiers. But that was the extent of the reaction, and even this was more directed at a renewed Herald complaint that the LAS did not give its help to all the needy, ‘‘without regard to caste, religion, political persuasion, or anything else.’’ The contrast is clear. Although most of the soldiers helped by the soldiers’ home came from outside Dubuque County—and all of them lived outside the city of Dubuque—aid to the soldiers’ home generated significant, Times, 6 November 1863 (city council), 27 October 1863 (‘‘Friend of ‘The Home’ ’’), 30 January 1864 (local editor). 30 Ibid., 9 January 1864. 29

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vociferous support. The city council, though evenly divided between war supporters and opponents, voted unanimously to appropriate money from city taxes to support the home. On the other hand, soldiers’ families, even if local, apparently did not have the same claim to the community’s generosity. When the political system denied direct aid to some soldiers’ families, war supporters grumbled a bit, but they did not unleash scurrilous attacks on ‘‘imbeciles . . . whose antecedents it will not do to scrutinize too closely’’ and making decisions based on ‘‘their rage and hate.’’31 Dubuque’s benevolent community had in fact reached a decision on the relative merits of aid to soldiers and their families. The New York–based U.S. Sanitary Commission (USSC), the dominant relief association on the national level, preferred the aid to soldiers approach. Combined with an effective system for transferring money from soldiers in the field to their families, the USSC thought that providing aid to soldiers rather than to families would prove beneficial to both. It would ‘‘preserve [the soldier] from the vices of the camps’’ because a soldier in the field could ‘‘scarcely spend [money] . . . without positive injury to himself ’’; without such aid, the soldiers might be tempted, for example, to turn to sutlers or other sources to supplement their diets, which might bring them into contact with liquor suppliers and other unsavory influences. Moreover, providing aid to soldiers would maintain the soldier’s ‘‘sense of a continuing relation with his family.’’ It would accustom soldiers to supporting their families with their wages, a lesson that would make the soldier ‘‘a better citizen when he returns to civil life.’’32 Dubuque’s Iowa Religious Newsletter (IRN), fleshed out what would happen meanwhile in the soldiers’ families. ‘‘Amidst all that has been said of the hopeful condition of our Union soldiers in respect to conversion, we do not remember a word implying that their families at home are more than others promising subjects of regenerating grace. We sincerely believe that they are.’’ The soldiers reIbid., 19 January 1864; Herald, 17 January 1864; and Times, 27 October 1863. For some numbers on soldiers who stayed at the home, see ibid., 13 January, 5 April 1864; for city council appropriations, see ibid., 6 November, 4 December 1863. 32 United States Sanitary Commission, A Report to the Secretary of War of the Operations of the Sanitary Commission, and upon the Sanitary Condition of the Volunteer Army, Its Medical Staff, Hospitals, and Hospital Supplies (Washington, D.C.: McGill & Witherow, 1861) 42–43. 31

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quired greater attention because they were ‘‘thrown into such temptations and moral perils.’’ Their families, on the other hand, ‘‘feel with unwonted sensibility their dependence on God, the precariousness of earthly supports, the hand of the Lord upon them.’’ ‘‘Never,’’ the IRN added, ‘‘was there a time when Christians could so readily make them realize that the people of God love their souls’’ and work to change the poor’s destructive behavior.33 Aid to soldiers rather than to families, in other words, promoted middle-class values (thrift, sobriety) among the soldiers and domesticity in their families. Thus there were clear ideological reasons for delivering aid to soldiers in the field rather than to families at home. Indeed, recent scholarship on the USSC argues that it pursued specific class, gender, and nationalist ideologies and was less interested in the relief itself. The commission admitted as much in its publications. It sought to create ‘‘better citizens’’ and to preserve family ties during the soldiers’ absence. Another USSC publication, this one from 1863, asserted that the organization’s ‘‘ultimate end is neither humanity nor charity. It is to economize for the National service the life and strength of the National soldier.’’ Aid to soldiers in the field could be more easily nationalized—and thus potentially accomplish the USSC goals more readily—than localized aid to families.34 The continuing strength of the Democratic Party in Dubuque, as well as the fact that the city’s LAS did not ally itself openly with the USSC until March 1864, suggests that perhaps most in the city never fully accepted the USSC’s vision of nationalism. Nevertheless, similar class and gender ideologies were plainly visible in Dubuque’s wartime relief efforts. Although Republicans, war supporters, and the women of the LAS criticized the Democratic political leadership for not providing for soldiers’ families outside standard poor relief channels, no one in Dubuque wanted to support people in idleness or vice, whatever their apparent claim to public largesse. The view of soldiers’ families as ‘‘poor,’’ which might be traced originally to the IRN (January 1864): 4. See, for example, Attie, ‘‘Warwork,’’ 247–59; and Fredrickson, Inner Civil War, 98–112; but see also Gallman, Mastering Wartime, 153–66, for an argument that even provisioning work failed to overcome localism. Fredrickson, Inner Civil War, 102 quotes the ‘‘ultimate end’’ of the USSC from Statement of the Object and Methods of the Sanitary Commission, USSC Document No. 69 (New York: William C. Bryant & Co., 1863), 5. 33 34

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war opponents, achieved general acceptance. Further, direct aid to families raised the specter of women’s rights, an idea that was roundly criticized before and during the war.35 These class and gender ideologies were on display in the Times in December 1863. On the thirteenth, the paper reported that the wife of a soldier, who had been supporting herself and ‘‘four or five’’ children by washing clothes and receiving help from the LAS, had just informed the society that she no longer needed their help. Her husband, who had been in the army for over a year without sending her any of his earnings, suddenly had sent her $80. Previously ‘‘profligate,’’ the man declared in a letter that he had ‘‘reformed,’’ saving his money and even earning extra pay—all of which ‘‘he thought would enable him to provide for his family.’’ Between his wages and her clothes washing, the woman thought the family would not need further assistance. In retelling this story the Times saved its greatest praise for the wife. ‘‘Would to heaven that all who depend upon the governmen [sic] for means of living . . . were as honest and selfdenying in these troublesome times, as this humble woman.’’ The most worthy poor, in other words, were those who did not want or accept charity; the act of pursuing relief defined one as unworthy.36 Earlier in the month, Carrie Lovell, a woman about twenty years old from one of Dubuque’s more prominent families, used the pages of the Times to announce the formation of a ‘‘Ladies’ Union League of Iowa.’’ The Ladies’ League would be devoted exclusively to the relief of soldiers’ families, especially those ‘‘who have sacrificed their all’’—that is, where a husband, father, or son had been killed or permanently disabled and hence could no longer provide for the family. It would not be ‘‘charity,’’ Lovell argued, but the payment of ‘‘a debt justly due.’’ Because the Ladies’ League would be run by women and would aid women apart from a male breadwinner, however, Lovell 35 For women’s rights before the war, see chapter 1 in this book. About the only positive comment about women’s rights during this period came in the valedictory column of J. L. McCreery, a locals editor at the Times, who said he ‘‘believed in woman’s having equal privileges with man’’ including the right to vote; see Times, 1 May 1864. On the other hand, no evidence of this opinion ever crept into the paper during the three months he worked there. 36 Times, 13 December 1863. See also ibid., 29 June 1864, where a group of Menomonee Indians in the Thirty-seventh Wisconsin Infantry were applauded for sending allotments to their families: ‘‘Is there a civilized community in Wisconsin that can show a better record . . . ?’’

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felt constrained to begin her proposal with the reassurance that ‘‘this is no Woman’s Rights Institution or any thing of that kind.’’ It was not ‘‘gotten up by those aspiring to occupy the places of the sterner sex.’’ Nevertheless, after Lovell’s initial announcement the Ladies’ League never reappeared in the public press. Most likely, despite Lovell’s assurances, it failed to attract sufficient participation from a public wary of women’s rights, weary of the poor, and not prepared for the implication of relief as an entitlement contained in Lovell’s organization.37

The Northern Iowa Sanitary Fair and the End of the War About the only people ready to see relief as an entitlement were the soldiers and their families. ‘‘Soldiers write home to us to take care of their families first, before we send contributions to them,’’ according to the locals editor at the Times in March 1864. The previous year, soldiers from the Dubuque company in the Greybeard Regiment (Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry) sent a petition to Governor Kirkwood asking for payment of the $25 advance on their enlistment bounties that had been promised when they volunteered, citing ‘‘the utter destitution and suffering of our families at home.’’ Because these bounties came from the federal government, Kirkwood could do nothing, but the advance was eventually paid.38 Some indication of the magnitude of the problem of poverty in 37 Ibid., 2 December 1863. It is possible, of course, that Lovell’s organization survived and even thrived but was deemed too contrary to prevailing gender and class ideologies to be a fit subject for publication. On the other hand, there were occasional expressions of concern about soldiers’ families during the remainder of the war (including one by McCreery, who claimed to support women’s rights), which almost certainly would have led to some notice for the Ladies’ League, if it existed. 38 Times, 12 March 1864; and Company F, Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry to Governor Samuel Kirkwood, n.d. [1863], in Petitions, 1858–75, box 1, folder 1863, RG 101, Iowa Adjutant General’s Office, RG 101, IHSD; see also Semi-weekly Times, 2, 6 June 1865. The Greybeards, like other soldiers enlisted in late 1862, were owed $100 in federal bounty, but because the regiment was not a combat regiment, the federal government tried to renege on paying bounties to the Greybeards. Although it eventually gave the men their $25 advance during the war, at the end of the war the government not only tried to avoid paying the remaining $75 bounty; it demanded repayment of the $25 already received. Eventually, the Greybeards received their full bounties.

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soldiers’ families can be gathered from information published in the newspapers and combined with data from the census. In January 1864 the Dubuque County superintendent of the poor reported that during 1863 he gave outdoor relief to 243 families, nearly half of which, 116, were families of absent soldiers. Then, in March 1864, the LAS reported that during the previous four months it had helped ‘‘over Eighty Soldiers’ Families,’’ with nearly sixty ‘‘entirely dependent’’ upon the society. Including men in the army as well as those who had died or were discharged for disability before the end of March 1864, 169 soldiers traced to the 1860 census had families in Dubuque; these would be particularly vulnerable to poverty according to the prewar association between poverty and female-headed households. The sixty families said to be ‘‘entirely dependent’’ on the LAS represented more than one-third of the 169 vulnerable families, and as many as two-thirds of those vulnerable families had received some outdoor relief from the county during the previous year.39 These numbers offer only a rough approximation, however. They do not, for example, account for mobility into or out of the city between 1860 and the time of enlistment. Thus, for example, William Jones is not included. Although Jones’s widowed mother and two younger sisters were found in the census, he was not. In July 1862 his mother, Margaret Jones, died, and William returned to Dubuque to live with his sisters. A month later, William Jones volunteered; he was killed in January 1863. Nor do these data account for other changes in circumstances. Luther Jordan and J. Ambrose Fanning, for instance, were living as sons in male-headed households in 1860. When they enlisted in August 1862, however, Jordan and Fanning were actually sons of female heads of household, their fathers having died in the meantime. Finally, the data also miss cases where sons and their widowed mothers lived as boarders in someone else’s household. Thomas Guilford of Company A, Third Iowa Infantry was one of these. Although he appeared in the data as a single boarder, 39 Herald, 26 January 1864; and Times, 12 March 1864. The numbers in the final sentence are computed using 60 dependent families and 116 receiving some aid from county, each divided by 169 vulnerable families (yielding 35.5 percent and 68.6 percent). Breaking the 169 down further, there were 115 soldiers married with children, 3 widowers with children, 33 soldiers married but without children in 1860 (though they may have had very young children by the time they enlisted), and 18 who were sons of widowed mothers. These numbers exclude 6 men whose dates and conditions of discharge from the service are unknown.

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he lived with and supported his blind mother, Margaret, and younger sister, Dora; like William Jones, Thomas Guilford died in the army.40 Jones, Jordan, Fanning, and Guilford all served as privates, earning at most $16 per month as well as small bounties, and their families can be expected to have had difficulty making ends meet. In July 1864, for example, Elizabeth Fanning and Margaret Guilford applied to the city council for property tax relief. In October 1864, Luther Jordan requested a discharge in order to better ‘‘contribute to [his family’s] support’’; it was not granted. Although their soldier relatives were much better paid, families of officers suffered as well. Charles Mackenzie was serving as adjutant of the Ninth Iowa Infantry when he resigned in 1863, saying that although he ‘‘left [his] father in comfortable circumstances’’ when he enlisted, ‘‘since that time he has become straigened in circumstances.’’ Six months later, having rectified his parents’ situation, Mackenzie returned to the army, only to resign again in January 1865 because his ‘‘aged and infirm parents’’ needed him. Peter M. Brown and Joseph J. Dengl also resigned to better care for ‘‘helpless’’ parents. Volney Curtis, first lieutenant in Company K, Ninth Iowa Cavalry, resigned in 1865 because his wife died and his house burned down: ‘‘I have the orphant children at home dependent on me for support, and at this time they are without a house or any one to look to for protection.’’41 40 Census 1860, Pop., pp. 31, 47, 178, and 273; William Jones, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; Thomas Guilford, Third Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; Josiah Conzett, Recollections of People and Events, Dubuque, Iowa 1846–1890 (from a manuscript written in 1905, CDH; Dubuque: Union Hoermann Press, 1971), 254–55; and Times, 22 April, 17 June 1862, 21, 27 January 1863. Two other weaknesses in the data should be noted: first, they assume that each enlistment came from a different household; second, they discount the possibility that sons from male-headed households may have had elderly parents who were hence vulnerable to poverty in their sons’ absence. These last two weaknesses may largely cancel each other out: the first overcounts and the second undercounts the number of vulnerable families. 41 Times, 8 July 1864; Luther B. Jordan, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA. See also letters of resignation in CSR, NA for Charles Mackenzie, Ninth Iowa Infantry; Peter M. Brown, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry; Joseph J. Dengl, Third Iowa Artillery; and Volney Curtis, Ninth Iowa Cavalry. For others who refer to family circumstances in resigning, see CSR, NA for Edgar Tisdale, Ninth Iowa Infantry; Henry Meyer, Sixteenth Iowa Infantry; Theodore F. Lewis, Fifth Iowa Cavalry; Nicholas J. O’Brien, Seventh Iowa Cavalry; James Hill, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry; and John W. Scott, Forty-second Illinois Infantry. As Luther Jordan discovered, enlisted men could not resign, but they could apply for furloughs; for those citing family suffering, see CSR, NA for Gottlieb Hammer, Fifth Iowa Cavalry; Arnold Allen, James Scripture, and William Van Horn, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry; and John Lampert, Six-

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Beyond the numbers involved, from the perspective of the people in need—the soldiers and their families—serious problems existed when aid societies emphasized aid to soldiers rather than to families. For one thing, soldiers did not receive their pay in a regular and timely fashion, making it difficult to send money home as needed. According to regulations, the soldiers were to be paid every two months ‘‘unless the circumstances of the case render [delay] unavoidable.’’ But when the Sixteenth Iowa Infantry was discharged in August 1865, for example, the men had not been paid since April; before that their last payday had been in August 1864, and before that, December 1863. Even when a regiment appears to have been paid regularly, appearances could be deceiving. In his diary, Private Mathew F. King of the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry recorded paydays every two months from June 1863 through February 1864. In March 1864, however, he noted receiving another $22.30, or two months’ pay; then in May, he was paid for yet another four months. Thus, although for a period of about eight months the Twenty-first seemed to be paid according to regulation, the payments King recorded for March and May suggest that earlier payments had been more irregular.42 The last payday before being mustered out of the service can be used as an indicator of the delays in payment experienced by Dubuque’s soldiers. Most nonveteran members of the Third Iowa Infantry, for example, were owed four months’ pay when they were mustered out in June 1864.43 The veteran volunteers of the Fifth Iowa Cavalry had not been paid since April 1865 when they were teenth Iowa Infantry. For officers who sought leaves of absence for family reasons, see Nathaniel E. Duncan, Twelfth Iowa Infantry; and George M. Staples, Fourteenth Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA. 42 U.S. War Department, Revised Army Regulations of 1861 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1863), 351 (hereafter, War Department, Army Regulations); James I. Robertson Jr., Soldiers Blue and Gray (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988), 79; for the Sixteenth Iowa Infantry, see individual service records—for example, Hiram Eighmey, Isaac Clements, and Ernst Amberg, CSR, NA; and Mathew F. King, Diary, IHSI, entries for 27 June, 29 August, 6 October, 14 December 1863, 29 February, 26 March, 18 May 1864. See also letter paymaster general U.S.A. to John C. Culbertson, paymaster general of Iowa, dated 20 October 1863, in Iowa Adjutant General’s Office, Report of the Adjutant General and Acting Quartermaster General of the State of Iowa. 1864–1865 (Des Moines: F. W. Palmer, State Printer, 1865), 926–27. 43 Nonveterans in this instance are those who did not reenlist as ‘‘veteran volunteers’’ in December 1863 or January 1864.

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mustered out in August 1865; in July 1865, George W. Healey claimed they in fact had ten months’ pay due. More generally, the pay owed Dubuque soldiers at muster-out ranged from three months for the Greybeard Regiment—which, not coincidentally, was assigned to garrison duty in permanent camps and hence easier for the paymaster to reach—to ten months, from December 1863 to October 1864, for nonveterans in the Dubuque Battery. Some individuals in these regiments were paid more or less regularly than the general group, depending upon detached service, illness, and other factors. For instance, some members of the Third Iowa Infantry were owed eight months’ pay at muster-out, while at least one, Lieutenant Daniel J. Duane, had been paid less than two months before. Rudolph Moy, mustered into the Fifth Iowa Cavalry in October 1864, received no pay before being mustered out in August 1865. Other examples of individual variation could be cited, with Moy’s situation more common than Duane’s.44 The situation inspired some humor. In place of a stamp, a Dubuque soldier wrote a little verse on a letter he sent home: Soldier’s letter, and na’ry a red. Hard tack in place of bread. Postmaster, shove this letter through. I’ve na’ry a stamp, but seven months due.

But the impact of these delays on families dependent on the soldiers’ wages was acute. Army regulations did allow for unavoidable delays in payment, and wartime conditions did create certain logistical problems for paymasters. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine the logistical problems that prevented First Iowa Cavalry veterans from being paid between June 1865 and February 1866; after all, the war 44 Most of the information in this paragraph is based on an examination of the service records for the Dubuque members of these (and other) regiments. For examples of the general trends noted here, see Hiram Eighmey, Sixteenth Iowa Infantry; Robert M. McKinley, First Iowa Infantry; Melville Spaulding, Forty-fourth Iowa Infantry; Lewis Converse, Forty-sixth Iowa Infantry; Peter Lorimier, Third Iowa Infantry; and Peter Bischoff, Fifth Iowa Cavalry—all CSR, NA. For examples of the specific differences within the Third Iowa Infantry, see William Brunton (owed eight months’ pay) and Daniel J. Duane, CSR, NA; and from Fifth Cavalry, Rudolph Moy, CSR, NA. See also George W. Healey to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 3 July 1865, George W. Healey Letters, Civil War Documents Collection, IHSD (hereafter, Healey Letters).

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was over. Something else must have been contributing to tardiness in paying the soldiers. In fact, the federal government deliberately withheld portions of the soldiers’ pay, both as one of the conditions of employment and to ease the strain on the budget. Confronted by General U. S. Grant in 1865 about the delays in paying the soldiers, General Henry Halleck, the army’s chief of staff in Washington, forthrightly admitted that the government did not have the money and argued that ‘‘if we pay the troops to the exclusion of other creditors of the Government, supplies must stop, and our armies will be left without food, clothing, or ammunition.’’ Interestingly, the soldiers—the workers—were apparently the last of the government’s creditors to deserve payment.45 Halleck’s argument, moreover, made no allowance for families dependent on the soldiers’ wages. But even if soldiers had received their pay on schedule, arrangements for sending it home to families were largely ineffective. The obvious solution would have been to pay soldiers’ wages directly to their families, but that seems never to have been contemplated. Instead, in response to pressure from the USSC and Iowa senator James Grimes, Congress passed a bill in December 1861 creating an ‘‘allotment’’ system. Three agents were appointed for each state to travel among their state’s soldiers ‘‘from time to time’’ to collect money and send it safely home. But if an agent was not present on payday—which could come at any time— soldiers had plenty of ways to spend even several months’ pay quickly. Furthermore, it was left to officers to decide whether their companies or regiments would participate in the allotment system. Many officers disliked the extra work and refused to cooperate with the agents. Finally, soldiers, knowing too well the irregularity of pay and vagaries of the allotment system, wanted the assurance that their 45 Times, 28 February 1863 (verse); War Department, Army Regulations, 545–46; George Dubois, First Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; and Grant/Halleck exchange quoted from James W. Geary, We Need Men: The Union Draft in the Civil War (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1991), 9. See also Bray Hammond, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse: Banks and Politics in the Civil War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970), esp. 252 (and note), 306, 315—Hammond argues that after issuing $300 million in greenbacks between February and July 1862, the federal government issued another $100 million in January 1863, specifically to pay soldiers’ wages. Increasing the money supply in this way, however, fueled inflation, making the soldiers’ wages less valuable.

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families were not suffering while they were away and could do little about it.46 Among Dubuque’s soldiers, for example, only the members of Twenty-first Iowa Infantry seem to have had regular access to the allotment system, although on at least one occasion each, Dubuque members of the Third Iowa Infantry, and First and Fifth Iowa Cavalries did send allotments home. George W. Healey’s surviving letters indicate that he sometimes sent money home independently of the allotment system; he also worried constantly about its safe arrival and frequently reassured his mother that he did not need the money so she should use it. Even when soldiers did send money home, it was often insufficient to support their families. John Kuntz, a bricklayer in the Twenty-first Infantry, sent money home regularly, but still his family was found living in ‘‘great destitution’’ in 1863. Edward Nagle, a justice of the peace before the war, tried to resign from the Dubuque Battery in January 1865 because his family could not live on what he could send home. As long as both Nagle and his son Maurice were in the army, they had been able to support his wife and five other children. But Maurice died in December 1863, and Edward claimed to be hobbling on an injured ankle that left him ‘‘crippled for life,’’ thus impairing his future earning ability. As a private with no surgeon’s certificate attesting to his injury, Nagle was neither allowed to resign nor given a discharge until the Third Artillery was mustered out in June 1865.47 Lieutenant Ernst Renner, a farmer and lawyer in civilian life, also 46 Allan Nevins, The Improvised War, 1861–1862, vol. 1 of The War for the Union (New York: Scribner, 1959), 236; and OR, ser. 3, 1:764. For a positive interpretation of the allotment system, see Philip Shaw Paludan, ‘‘A People’s Contest’’: The Union and the Civil War, 1861–1865 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 179; for a more negative view, see Fred A. Shannon, Economic History of the People of the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1934), 392. 47 For allotments from Dubuque soldiers, see Times, 30 December 1862, 10 January, 22 February, 8 May, 17 July, 3, 8 November 1863, 10, 12 January, 11, 14 June, 6 July 1864 (Twenty-first Iowa Infantry); 21 June 1862 (Third Iowa Infantry); 1 August 1862 (First Iowa Cavalry); and 16 July 1862 (Fifth Iowa Cavalry). For Healey see, for example, George W. Healey to ‘‘Mother,’’ 22 January 1863, Healey to ‘‘Mother,’’ 17 July 1865, Healey to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 8 August 1865, and ‘‘Healey to Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 9 August 1865—all in Healey Letters; for Kuntz, see Times, 24 October 1863; and for Nagle, see letter Edward Nagle to Major General J. J. Reynolds, 23 January 1865, in Edward Nagle, Third Iowa Artillery, CSR, NA. For other publicized cases of destitution, see Times, 2 March, 27 May, 19 July 1862, 3 January, 12 February, 8 July 1864.

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tried to resign from the military to better care for his family. In Renner’s case, the decision to emphasize aid to soldiers over aid to families had the opposite of the intended consequence: it weakened his family relationship and made him a thief. ‘‘My wife and family were against my becoming a soldier,’’ he wrote in a letter of resignation in 1864, ‘‘and subsequent privations seem to have further alienated them from me.’’ His resignation was not accepted, but he was given a twenty-day leave of absence. Then in January 1865, he was arrested for drawing pay ‘‘twice for the same [pay] period which,’’ according to his commanding officer, ‘‘could not of been by mistake.’’ Renner was then allowed to resign rather than face a court martial.48 The pivotal moments in the history of relief for soldiers and their families in Dubuque came in March 1864. Two things happened. At the beginning of the month, Mary Livermore of the Chicago Sanitary Commission spoke in Dubuque and encouraged the local LAS and the rest of the benevolent community in the city to turn all their efforts toward provisioning the soldiers in the field. Then, near the end of the month, the state legislature passed a law that mandated aid to soldiers’ families out of public funds and levied a special tax for the purpose. Thereafter, private benevolent efforts in Dubuque, which had traditionally emphasized aid to the ‘‘worthy’’ poor, turned primarily to provisioning work. Soldiers’ families passed into the care of public poor relief systems, which traditionally took care of the ‘‘unworthy’’ poor or ‘‘paupers.’’ Before Mary Livermore spoke in Dubuque, enthusiasm for relief work had reached an especially low ebb. Two months earlier, in January 1864, the men of Dubuque had proposed that the women of the LAS hold a ‘‘large scale entertainment’’ to raise money to send vegetables to the army. At a community meeting to discuss the idea, the LAS women objected, saying they ‘‘had now on hand all they could possibly attend to.’’ Hence the meeting concluded to wait until ‘‘the ladies of Dubuque might deem it possible or expedient to get up such a Sanitary Fair’’; for now, however, ‘‘the additional burden . . . would be beyond [the women’s] strength to bear.’’ After their Letters of resignation in Ernst Renner, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; see also Times, 13 September 1862. Six months after he left the army, Renner sold his 175-acre farm, perhaps further indication of the strain military service placed on his personal financial situation and of the suffering his family endured; see Semiweekly Times, 20 June 1865. 48

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failures at relief work early in the war, the men of Dubuque seem not to have considered the possibility that they could arrange such an event themselves.49 Livermore’s appearance in the city reenergized relief work. Immediately following her speech, many of the same people who had opposed a local sanitary fair in January began planning for a Northern Iowa Sanitary Fair to be held in May. Those in attendance also subscribed over $700 in cash, 56 barrels and 15 bushels of potatoes, and 2 barrels of onions. Unlike the VFB subscriptions in 1861, which ultimately could not be collected, within three days of Livermore’s speech the Times reported that the subscriptions had ‘‘nearly all been paid.’’ In another three days the total collected had reached $1,000. As planning for the fair continued, the response overwhelmed the organizers. The original idea had been to hold the fair in the City Hall and Turners’ Hall. So many donations of items for sale poured in, however, that the fair quickly outgrew these two buildings. The Executive Committee, therefore, decided to enclose the park at Washington Square and erect temporary buildings for the fair. This necessitated a delay of one month before opening, and the fair finally began on June 21, 1864.50 When it closed a week later, the Northern Iowa Sanitary Fair had been a smashing success. With no individual contributions of over $100, the fair raised $86,000; a similar fair in Chicago the year before had raised only $4,000 more. On a per capita basis, the Dubuque Fair was said to be the most successful in the country, raising $2.88 per inhabitant of Dubuque County; Saint Louis had the next-highest per capita figure, at $2.10. ‘‘If the value of services were measured by the extent of sacrifice made in rendering them,’’ the USSC office in New York concluded after the fair, ‘‘it would probably be found that no state in the Union had done so much for the war as Iowa[.] . . . [I]t is doubtful if there is on record any other so splendid example of the heroism, farsightedness, and self-abnegation with which freedom long enjoyed, can gift a whole community.’’51 49 Times, 14 (‘‘large scale entertainment’’), 15 (‘‘all they could possibly attend’’), 17 (remaining quotes) January 1864. 50 Ibid., 12, 13, 16 March 1864; Des Moines Daily State Register, 3 May 1864; see also Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 306–7; and Samuel H. M. Byers, Iowa in War Times (Des Moines: W. D. Condit & Co., 1888), 457–58. 51 ‘‘Donations and Treasurer’s Report of the Northern Iowa Sanitary Fair’’ (June 1864), 6 (at CDH) for data; and Earl S. Fullbrook, ‘‘Relief Work in Iowa during the Civil War,’’ IJHP 16 (1918): 245–46 (quote).

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A group of Dubuque ministers, though, declared the fair a failure, ‘‘a moral failure.’’ In its original organizing circular, the Executive Committee of the fair resolved that ‘‘raffling, selling of shares, or other disposal by lottery’’ of the contributions ‘‘be discountenanced.’’ Several ministers agreed to participate and to encourage their congregations to participate because of this promise. But, they later asserted, ‘‘the President of the Fair had scarcely concluded his excellent and eloquent opening address, before the sale of lotterytickets was begun,’’ and it continued throughout the fair. In their defense, the organizers argued that several of the donated items—a piano and a cannon, for example—could only be disposed by lottery because of expense or lack of demand. Still, the ministers concluded that the fair had had ‘‘pernicious moral effects,’’ especially ‘‘upon young men,’’ who were taught that gambling was acceptable and that wealth could be the product of something other than hard work and slow, steady increments.52 The few remaining advocates of aid to soldiers’ families also judged the fair somewhat of a failure. J. L. McCreery, the new locals editor at the Times, was one such advocate. On the same day that the Times reported Mary Livermore’s speech and the resulting decision to hold a Sanitary Fair, McCreery pleaded with his readers not to let the soldiers ‘‘hear that while they are fighting our battles, their families are starving in Dubuque.’’ Although he was not opposed to efforts on behalf of the soldiers, McCreery correctly foresaw that the fair would redirect relief efforts toward the soldiers almost exclusively at a time when the LAS had just reported that it had sixty families ‘‘entirely dependent upon it for support.’’ ‘‘This ought ye to do,’’ McCreery argued referring to aid to soldiers, ‘‘but not to leave the other undone.’’53 The new level of enthusiasm for relief work generated by Livermore’s appearance in the city did not extend to family relief, however. At about the same time as Livermore’s speech, for example, a subscription paper for family relief began circulating in Dubuque. But whereas within six days of Livermore’s speech $1,000 had been IRN (July 1864): 1 (ministers’ comments); Fullbrook, ‘‘Relief Work,’’ 241–43; and ‘‘Donations and Treasurer’s Report,’’ 20–21. 53 Times, 12 March 1864. In fact, not only did the fair absorb all war-related relief work; it led to the suspension of most other private poor relief work in the city—see ibid., 20 March 1864. 52

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pledged and paid for provisioning soldiers, the family relief subscription had attracted only $350 after two months. In November, another subscription paper netted $700 and two cords of wood for the families, but at Thanksgiving the LAS had insufficient resources to provide its usual dinner to the soldiers’ families. The organization reported that unless individuals stepped into the breach and adopted a family, as many as 100 soldiers’ families would ‘‘pass an enjoyless Thanksgiving day.’’ At Christmas, people in the city ‘‘entirely forgot’’ the families of soldiers, while spending more on gifts ‘‘than at any other Christmas time in [the city’s] history, with the exception of the Christmas of ’56.’’ Fortunately, the LAS had ‘‘a little money in the Treasury’’ on this occasion, which it used to supply Christmas dinners. The soldiers’ children were given gifts ‘‘plucked’’ from their Sunday school Christmas trees; those not in Sunday school apparently received nothing.54 Meanwhile, the LAS continued its work of collecting and shipping boxes of supplies to soldiers in the field. After peaking during the Sanitary Fair, attendance at society meetings again declined; in a three-month period ending in November 1864, for example, weekly attendance averaged only ten members and only $32 was paid into the treasury from dues. Then in November a group of 100 men and women met to form a local auxiliary of the Christian Commission, the USSC’s rival on the national level. Concluding that part of the LAS’s problems stemmed from its mixed mission of helping soldiers and their families, the auxiliary made clear that its mission extended only to provisioning soldiers in the field. W. S. Peterson, the new proprietor of the Times and himself an auxiliary member, praised the ‘‘stimulus’’ to relief work that the ‘‘rivalry and cooperation’’ of the LAS and the auxiliary would provide. Both groups were needed, he argued, in order ‘‘to exhaust the benevolence of the community.’’ There was, however, more rivalry than cooperation. With the auxiliary directing all of its efforts toward provisioning soldiers in the field, the LAS tried to maintain its role in soldier relief as well, rather than turning its focus to the less popular task of family relief.55 Ibid., 13, 17 March, 21 May, 17, 23 November, 27 December 1864. For the Christian Commission in Dubuque, see ibid., 21, 23 November 1864; Wulkow, ‘‘Dubuque in the Civil War Period,’’ 91; and IRN (January 1864): 5. See also Times, 20 August 1864, for an annual report in which the LAS described its work. 54 55

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The LAS responded as it did for two reasons. First, on the evening of Mary Livermore’s speech in Dubuque, the LAS had voted itself into open alliance with the USSC. Previously, two organizations vied for Dubuque’s—and other Iowa cities’—allegiance. An independent Soldiers’ Aid Society, headed by Annie Wittenmyer and based in Keokuk, held the reins of Iowa provisioning work for most of the war. In October 1861 the state legislature had created a rival organization, the Iowa State Army Sanitary Commission, which almost immediately applied for inclusion under the USSC umbrella. Still Wittenmyer’s organization had the advantage because it offered local control; the USSC would not guarantee that supplies raised in Iowa would go to Iowa soldiers. Moreover, a common complaint during the war was that relief supplies sent to the field via the USSC never reached the soldiers, being skimmed off by medical personnel. Livermore devoted a significant portion of her two-hour speech in Dubuque to dispelling these notions. She evidently succeeded, as the local LAS decided to join the USSC. And the USSC sanctioned only aid to soldiers, not to their families.56 The LAS also tried to maintain its provisioning role because aid to families had always been the least popular component of its work. The history of war relief efforts in the city makes this clear. The first relief organization, the VFB, which was designed to help the families of soldiers, collapsed after eight months with most of its pledges of money unredeemed. When relief work moved into the political arena, war supporters reviled opponents for even the smallest slights toward the soldiers but failed to respond similarly when families were denied aid even as paupers. The LAS, in turn, began as an organization to provision the soldiers and quickly built a large membership. Enthusiasm for the LAS subsided almost as quickly, however, when the society added family relief to its work. Periodic revivals of enthusiasm occurred, but generally only when terrific battles highlighted the soldiers’ needs. Attendance at LAS meetings and participation in 56 Times, 12 March 1864. See also ibid., 30 September, 30 October 1863, 9 January 1864; Attie, ‘‘Warwork,’’ 249, 257–59; Fullbrook, ‘‘Relief Work,’’ 212–35; and Elizabeth D. Leonard, Yankee Women: Gender Battles in the Civil War (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), 51–103. See also letter Frederick Law Olmsted to Rev. George Magoun (Secretary of Iowa State Army Sanitary Commission), 6 February 1862, in Defending the Union: The Civil War and the U.S. Sanitary Commission, 1861–1863, vol. 4 of The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, ed. Jane Turner Censer (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 260–66.

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its events fluctuated wildly, always pegged to the needs of the soldiers. The Sanitary Fair in 1864 temporarily revived flagging enthusiasm, but the families continued to suffer. Then in November 1864, the local Christian Commission Auxiliary, which included some former LAS members, formed for the exclusive purpose of provisioning soldiers in the field.57 As far as the families were concerned, the benevolence of the community had been ‘‘exhausted’’ long before the advent of the auxiliary. But at about the same time as Mary Livermore’s speech in Dubuque, Iowa’s state government finally moved to fill the family relief void. For the previous three years of the war, state government had done little for soldiers’ families beyond authorizing local governments to take whatever steps they deemed necessary for their relief but without requiring that cities and counties take action. In contrast, during the same three-year period Iowa’s legislature passed several laws giving the governor authority to expend public moneys on behalf of soldiers in the field and appointed two paid relief agents to travel among the soldiers. No agents were paid to ascertain the families’ needs. The lack of state action in the realm of family relief resulted in a patchwork of county laws whereby, for example, in 1862 Polk County taxed its property owners an extra one mill for the purpose, whereas Dubuque County levied no extra tax.58 In his last State of the State address, outgoing governor Samuel Kirkwood in January 1864 noted that efforts to provision soldiers were ‘‘well arranged and systematized.’’ He recognized, however, that the same could not be said of family relief and urged that the 57 For LAS membership and attendance, see Times, 8, 14 January, 6, 19 April, 11 June, 16 August, 11 September, 15 November 1862, 27 February, 29 May, 13 June, 1 September, 21 November 1863, 26 February 1864; and Oldt, History of Dubuque County, 271–72. 58 Fullbrook, ‘‘Relief Work,’’ 248–51. For state laws prior to 1864, see Acts and Resolutions Passed at the Extra Session of the Eighth General Assembly of the State of Iowa (Des Moines: F. W. Palmer, 1861), 3, 31; Acts and Resolutions Passed at the Regular Session of the Ninth General Assembly of the State of Iowa (Des Moines: F. W. Palmer, 1862), 7–8, 72; and Acts and Resolutions Passed at the Extra Session of the Ninth General Assembly of the State of Iowa (Des Moines: F. W. Palmer, 1862), 37–39, 47–48. The same patchwork quality extended to the states. Iowa’s neighbor Wisconsin, for example, paid soldiers’ families $5 per month beginning in May 1861; another neighbor, Illinois, made no statewide provisions for the families—not even to the limited extent Iowa did. See Carl R. Fish, ‘‘Social Relief in the Northwest during the Civil War,’’ American Historical Review 22 (1917): 309–24.

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state legislature now adopt ‘‘some systematic mode of furnishing aid to the needy families of our soldiers.’’ Finally, in March 1864 the legislature responded, mandating that counties levy a minimum property tax of two mills and create local ‘‘Relief Funds’’ for the families. The law placed strict limits on eligibility: families of commissioned officers were ineligible; no family could receive more than $150 per year, regardless of their circumstances; and family was clearly defined to include ‘‘only a wife, dependent children under the age of twelve years, brothers and sisters under the age of twelve years, and aged and infirm dependent parents.’’ The law did not, in other words, define all soldiers’ families as eligible—or ‘‘worthy’’—by virtue of having a husband, father, son, or brother in the military. Ward and township assessors were made responsible for compiling lists of families, but the county boards of supervisors were responsible for determining need. In practice this task likely fell to the local poor relief officer, as it did in Dubuque.59 Consequently, although Dubuque County had been singled out for criticism for its treatment of soldiers’ families as ‘‘common paupers’’ during the discussion of the Relief Law, the law in effect ratified what Dubuque had been doing and extended it to the rest of the state. Henceforth, although there would be a special fund for them, the families would have to apply to their local poor relief agency and be evaluated in their worthiness like any other poor people seeking relief. At the end of the year, new governor William Stone tried to soften the law’s impact, urging that the families not be subjected ‘‘to a lynx-eyed scrutiny of [their] circumstances and means,’’ which would be equivalent to ‘‘degrading them to pauperism.’’ On the other hand, even Stone, himself a veteran, was not prepared to define the families as automatically worthy of aid; ‘‘appearances and general repute’’ could and should be used, Stone argued, to separate the worthy from the unworthy.60 The Relief Law, moreover, still left room for denying families aid, regardless of their need. In November 1864, a member of the Dubuque County Board of Supervisors proposed denying relief to the families of soldiers who collected the county’s $400 enlistment 59 Times, 15 January 1864; and Acts and Resolutions Passed at the Regular Session of the Tenth General Assembly of the State of Iowa (Des Moines: F. W. Palmer, 1864), 99–101. 60 Times, 30 January 1864, 7 December 1864.

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bounty, on the theory that they had received enough from the county. The Democrat-dominated board of supervisors recoiled from that resolution, but at the next meeting of the board, in January 1865, one of the Julien Township supervisors introduced a similar resolution, which passed by a narrow ten to eight vote. As a result, even if the soldier took all the bounty money with him, or otherwise failed to provide for his family, that family would be defined as ‘‘undeserving’’ and denied aid under the Relief Law. And as on earlier occasions when the supervisors moved to deny aid to some soldiers’ families, war supporters allowed this resolution to become law with little public condemnation.61 Even veteran and occasional Times locals editor George Ballou, who for much of the war had been a voice for helping families first, came around to seeing war relief in terms of deserving and undeserving poor. In May 1865, Ballou made one final appeal on behalf of soldiers’ families, calling it ‘‘a duty of the hour.’’ He noted, first, that the LAS had helped sixty-three families during the preceding six or seven months, expending $1,141.70 in the process. ‘‘Think of it, fellow citizens!’’ Ballou wrote. ‘‘Sixty-three families of soldiers in need of life’s necessities!’’ He added that the LAS had uncovered ‘‘harrowing’’ ‘‘scenes of want and wretchedness.’’ Nevertheless, Ballou also invoked images of the worthy poor. The most commendable families were those ‘‘absolutely suffering’’ but who ‘‘would only consent to accept enough to keep life in themselves.’’ Ballou further framed the work of helping even the deserving families in a negative way. The LAS, as Ballou put it, was ‘‘averse to begging for any more money for these families.’’62 The ‘‘duty of the hour,’’ Ballou made clear, was not to the suffering families; it was to the soldiers. And if one theme emerges from the evolution of war relief in Dubuque and from the responses of both war supporters and opponents to relief efforts, it was that work should be rewarded, and no one—male or female, adult or child— should be supported in idleness. For this reason, relief for soldiers in the field took precedence over aid to families in the city. The soldiers were at work saving the Union. Relief directed toward them would make them better workers—by preserving them from evil influ61 62

Ibid., 18 November 1864; Semi-weekly Times, 6 January 1865. Semi-weekly Times, 23 May 1865.

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ences—and better providers for their families—by encouraging and enabling them to send more money home. It would also maintain their families’ dependence on them. The fact that most in the city looked to women, especially business-class women, to lead the relief efforts further reinforced the class and gender ideologies operating in Dubuque and carried those ideologies forward into the city’s urbanindustrial future. Ballou’s final appeal, though framed in terms of aid to the families, was thus for the city to make one last demonstration of Dubuque’s gratitude ‘‘to the soldiers who have saved our Government for us’’ before the soldiers resumed the full-time support of their families. ‘‘Now, unless voluntary donations are made—in what condition will the war worn soldiers find their families when they return?’’ The unstated question was: Would finding their families in destitute circumstances aid or hinder the project of reassimilating soldiers into civilian society?63

63

Ibid.

CHAPTER 7

The Civil War Generation: Military Service and Social Mobility Hail to the returning heroes! . . . Make way for them, ye who have opposed the war and denounced them as hirelings and butchers; make way for them, ye skedaddlers from the draft; make way for them, ye superannuated political demagogues! Make way for them in the domestic circle, in the counting room, at the bar, in the workshop, in all the honorable professions, in the political arena! They are the rising stars—the coming men! The soldiers who have saved the republic are the sovereigns who shall rule it! —Dubuque Semi-weekly Times, July 11, 1865

Americans often have held conflicting opinions about their returning soldiers. On the one hand, as the Times put it in July 1865, the Union soldiers were ‘‘returning heroes,’’ fresh from a successful crusade to preserve freedom and democracy from evil tyrants seeking to destroy both. Having passed through the fires of war, moreover, some thought the veterans had emerged composed of sterner stuff, better able to run and win the race of life. In his farewell to his troops, for instance, General William Tecumseh Sherman expressed his confidence that ‘‘as in war you have been good soldiers, so in peace you will make good citizens.’’ At the same time, however, the nagging doubt remained that, as abolitionist Moncure Conway put it in 1862, ‘‘the moralization of the soldier is the demoralization of the man.’’ The editor of Dubuque’s Iowa Religious Newsletter (IRN) similarly ‘‘confess[ed]’’ in December 1862 ‘‘that we look forward with dread to the restoration of peace and the disbanding of the army.’’1 1 Semi-weekly Times, 11 July 1865; Sherman quoted in MOLLUS—IA, War Sketches and Incidents (Des Moines: P. C. Kenyon, 1893), 2:63; George Fredrick-

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This chapter, then, turns to the reintegration of Dubuque’s Union army veterans into civilian society. After considering civilian responses to the returning soldiers and after describing the changes in the city’s economy and social structure during the 1860s, census data will be used to compare the veterans to their nonveteran peers. Despite numerous studies of geographic and social mobility in the nineteenth century, historians have said little about the impact of military service on individual life courses. When the subject does arise, scholars either conclude that veterans avoided the difficulties of reintegration by fleeing to the open frontier, or they assume—implicitly or explicitly—that veterans experienced patterns of mobility similar to nonveterans. These arguments are rarely substantiated by any evidence, however. In Dubuque during the 1860s, veterans broke the usual link between low geographic mobility and high social mobility. They persisted in the city at a higher rate than nonveterans but were little more than occupationally stable and were less successful at accumulating property. The veterans’ experience with a form of urban-industrial society in the military apparently helped them cope, though not necessarily excel, in postwar urban-industrial Dubuque.2 son, The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 123 (Conway); and IRN (December 1862): 4. These mixed feelings are neither unique to the Civil War era nor even to the United States; see, for example, E. Wayne Carp, ‘‘The Problem of National Defense in the Early Republic,’’ in The American Revolution: Its Character and Limits, ed. Jack Green (New York: New York University Press, 1987), esp. 27–29; Willard Waller, Veteran Comes Back (New York: Dryden Press, 1944); Myra MacPherson, Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984), esp. 207–328; and Richard Severo and Lewis Milford, The Wages of War: When America’s Soldiers Came Home—From Valley Forge to Vietnam (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989). See also Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (New York: Atheneum, 1994) for ancient Greek attitudes toward veterans; and Edith Abbott, ‘‘Crime and the War,’’ Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology 9 (May 1918): 32–45 for some British and French ideas about World War I veterans. 2 For instance, in his pathbreaking book on social mobility in Newburyport, Massachusetts in the years 1850–80, Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), Stephan Thernstrom makes no reference to military service or nonservice. See also, for example, Peter R. Knights, The Plain People of Boston, 1830–1860: A Study in City Growth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971); and Stephan Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880–1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973). For mention of Civil War veterans’ postwar possibilities, see for example, Waller, Veteran Comes Back, 126; and James

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Civilian Response to the Returning Veterans For many the Civil War had not only been a war to preserve the union or to free the slaves; it had also been a necessary catharsis for U.S. society. ‘‘Every consideration of morality, of social comfort, of substantial prosperity, of rational enjoyment, and of lofty patriotism,’’ according to Times editor W. S. Peterson in 1864, demanded that the war be used to purge the country of the ‘‘madness’’ that ‘‘has converted our population into a feverish, eager throng of restless seekers.’’ ‘‘Uninterrupted material prosperity is a curse to any nation,’’ Peterson added, ‘‘while adversity may be, under Providence, the greatest of material blessings.’’ The war apparently did not have the anticipated cathartic effect for everyone, however. During and especially after the war, local commentators continued to imagine impending social collapse and to scapegoat women and young men and boys. Quoting the journal Round Table late in 1865, for example, the Times stressed extravagance and idleness as the leading faults it saw in the women of the day. ‘‘It did not seem that so much of imitation, reckless waste, and useless display, could possibly survive the sad discipline of a great war.’’ The paper further asked, ‘‘Do the women of the country understand whither these things lead? It can be nothing short of . . . the breaking up of the laws of social life.’’ Young men and boys meanwhile could be seen throughout the city ‘‘yelling about the streets in the evening’’ and committing acts of vandalism, assault, and theft. As a solution, the Times advocated tighter parental control—‘‘keep [your] boys at home Sundays and evenings’’—as well as the creation of a reform school for those beyond parental control or without parents. The latter institution would give children ‘‘intellectual, moral and physical training’’ and keep them from ‘‘growing up in idleness, ignorance, and degradation.’’3 M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 608. See also note 22 of the introduction to this book. 3 For Peterson’s comments, see Times, 11 July, 1 August 1864; Round Table quoted and analyzed in Semi-weekly Times, 10 October 1865; also Times, 16 December 1864 (parental control); and Semi-Weekly Times, 4 April 1865 (reform school). For more on women, see for example, ibid., 28 March, 10 October 1865; and IRN (August 1862): 6; (December 1864): 3; (August 1865): 7; (December 1865): 7; and (January 1866): 7. For young men and boys, Semi-weekly Times, 28 March 1865; IRN (October 1862): 5; and (November 1864): 7. And for non-Dubuque catharsis talk, see Fredrickson, Inner Civil War, esp. 79–97.

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In marked contrast to the riotous young men of Dubuque stood the good deportment of furloughed and discharged soldiers, easing many of the fears of the demoralizing effect of military service. These were men—many of them still young—who for four long years of war had learned the value of hard work, perseverance, and slow steady gains. ‘‘The ‘boys in blue,’ ’’ according to the Peoria Transcript quoted in the Times, ‘‘have quietly taken to their former occupations as kindly as if there had been no interruption in the relation they bore to the community.’’ Moreover, ‘‘many [soldiers] have taken to other industrial pursuits, and so far from engaging in riot and pilfering as was predicted, they have been the most exemplary, as a body of any class of young men we have.’’ Thus, the Transcript argued, the soldiers had invalidated the prediction—which it incorrectly blamed exclusively on ‘‘the copperheads’’—that the soldiers would return ‘‘too lazy to work’’ and that ‘‘our jails would be filled with them.’’ Indeed, ‘‘it was left to the stay-at-homes to verify the prediction that demoralization would run riot through the land.’’4 Local commentary during the last months of 1865 featured a number of similar statements. ‘‘About nothing have some persons been in greater error than in their predictions as to the future conduct of our returned soldiers,’’ the Times argued in June 1865. The soldiers were ‘‘but too glad to return to their homes . . . [and] will, at the first opportunity, return orderly and industrious citizens to the varied avocations of civil life.’’ A month later, the paper added that the soldiers ‘‘come back, not as enemies predicted they would—demoralized, reckless and unmindful of their duty as citizens. They return with honor untarnished, with morals unimpaired, nobler, braver, manlier, more worthy of affection, for the trials through which they have passed . . . every community will benefit by their presence.’’ Even the Herald found cause to praise the veterans’ character. After voting overwhelmingly Republican during the war, in the 1865 fall election the soldiers returned to what the Herald saw as their working class, Democratic roots. In fact, ‘‘at least one-half of the soldiers who voted here on Tuesday cast a straight democratic ticket, [Dennis] Mahony [reelected sheriff] and all.’’ Even men still in the military, and hence under the control of their officers, showed their manhood—indeed, their ‘‘white manhood,’’ because an important issue was black suf4

Semi-weekly Times, 1 September 1865.

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frage in Iowa—by voting largely for the Democratic ticket throughout the state.5 With the veterans’ morals and industriousness unimpaired by military service, the Times thought it only appropriate that employers ‘‘Give the Soldiers a Chance.’’ ‘‘In each locality,’’ the Times urged in August 1865, if only ‘‘the narrow spirit of selfishness and personal aggrandizement give place to the impulses of patriotism and gratitude . . . we will not hear of the inability of returned soldiers to obtain employment.’’ ‘‘Patriotic manufacturers, merchants, farmers, and others, should make it a point to employ soldiers in preference to other applicants for situations,’’ the paper declared on another occasion. And in December 1864, when John Melhop, the government inspector of cigars and tobacco at Dubuque, resigned his position so disabled veteran Henry Winninghoff could have it, the Times could only applaud. ‘‘This is as it should be. . . . [W]henever an office exists, the duties of which can be discharged by one of our crippled officers or privates, that office, of right, belongs to the soldier.’’6 Still, some doubt apparently remained. Arguments in favor of giving veterans jobs emphasized ‘‘gratitude’’ for the services they had rendered to the country more than the soldiers’ likely good qualities as workers. After the war, however, ‘‘gratitude for the risk of their lives in our behalf,’’ the IRN noted, was not always enough ‘‘to open a door to a livelihood’’ for the soldiers. ‘‘Selfishness objects strongly to having them preferred,’’ but there was danger in not exercising preference for veterans in employment. If not employed, the Newsletter thought, the veterans could fall ‘‘to idle ways and whisky-shop temptations.’’ Thus, ‘‘for their sake and our own let right be done.’’ Society had reason to fear what would happen, in other words, unless the soldiers received jobs and other tokens of gratitude.7 Jobs were especially necessary because pensions and other forms of relief provided little immediate help to the veterans. Although historians have noted that by the end of the nineteenth century Civil Ibid., 27 June, 11 July 1865; Weekly Herald, 18 October, 22 November 1865. Semi-weekly Times, 29 (‘‘Give the Soldiers a Chance’’), 1 August 1865 (‘‘patriotic manufacturers’’); and Times, 12 December 1864—on the last occasion, the author was George Ballou, himself a wounded veteran. For similar comments, see Times, 4 May 1864; and Semi-weekly Times, 15 September 1865. 7 IRN (October 1865): 5. See also Times, 11 July, 20 August 1863; and Semiweekly Times, 25 August 1865. 5 6

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War pension payments constituted by far the largest portion of the federal budget, in the 1860s the great growth of the program lay in the future. At the individual level, moreover, payments were almost always small—insufficient to exempt the disabled or their families from the need to work. The basic pension law passed in 1862 established a rate of just $8 per month for a private or NCO judged totally disabled for manual labor or for his widow or other dependents if deceased; officers, despite the fact that they were usually from backgrounds that did not leave them reliant upon manual labor, were paid $15 or more per month for a total disability or death. Other disabilities were then expressed as percentages of total. For a gunshot wound in his left thigh, for example, Sergeant Ernst Pitschner, a painter in civilian life, was judged one-half disabled in 1862 and hence granted $4 per month. The system, furthermore, left the veterans at the mercy of examining physicians. In 1867, a doctor re-rated Pitschner’s disability as three-eighths, reducing his pension to $3 per month.8 Most of the soldiers or their dependents who applied for pensions during the 1860s had experiences similar to Pitschner’s. A total of fifty-three Dubuque soldiers found in either the 1860 or 1870 census had applied for disability pensions by 1870, with thirty-four of the pensions approved before the end of that year. The average original monthly payment for those receiving pensions was $5.27; taking into account five increases and eight decreases of individual pensions before the end of 1870, the average rose slightly to $5.40. These numbers include lawyer David B. Henderson, paid $17 per month as totally disabled for manual labor as a result of the amputation of his left foot. Fortunately for Henderson he did not rely on manual labor; 8 For the pension law of 1862, see William H. Glasson, Federal Military Pensions in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1918), 123–47; and Ernst Pitschner, Pensions, NA. For emphasis on the later size of the pension system, see, for example, Stuart McConnell, Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 153; and Megan McClintock, ‘‘Civil War Pensions and the Reconstruction of Union Families,’’ Journal of American History 83 (September 1996): 458. For officers’ rates, see, for example, Lieutenant Luther W. Jackson, Pensions, NA; and Captain John Ruehl, Pensions, NA—Jackson’s wife received $15 and Ruehl’s $20 after their husbands died in the service. There were also special rates for specific, catastrophic injuries. The loss of both feet, for example, entitled a veteran to monthly payments of $20 in 1864, $31.25 in 1872, $50 in 1874, $72 in 1878, and $100 in 1903; Glasson, Federal Military Pensions, 133.

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he prospered and went on to a long career in the U.S. House of Representatives, including a stint as Speaker.9 Excluded from the average disability payment, however, was bricklayer John Kuntz. Kuntz applied for a pension shortly after returning home in 1865, claiming rheumatism and badly failing eyesight as results of his service. His claim was rejected in 1866 and again in 1870. Building contractors G. L. Baumgartner and Arnold Nicks gave Kuntz work despite the fact that his poor eyesight meant they had to be careful about what work they assigned him and had to supervise him closely. For Baumgartner, except ‘‘for the pity I had for him I would not have employed him’’; Nicks hired Kuntz ‘‘out of charity’’ and because both were members of the bricklayers’ union. Finally, in 1887, twenty-two years after he first applied, Kuntz was given a pension of $2 per month for rheumatism; a year later his pension was increased to $14 per month, adding his vision loss. In 1891, Kuntz, nearly blind but still working at his trade at age sixty, made a misstep on the scaffolding at the new Dubuque County Courthouse and plunged to his death.10 Dependents of deceased soldiers also sometimes had to wait long periods before receiving pensions and then received similarly small payments. Apparently because her husband was killed by a sentry while trying to slip back into camp after a night out, the Pension Bureau rejected Mary Mullins’s application for pension; it required a special act of Congress in 1873 for her to begin receiving the standard $8 per month. After a series of delays involving his commission, Laura Knowlton’s husband died before being formally mustered into the service, and as a result she could not receive a pension without a special act in 1878. Knowlton, too, received $8 per month, but if her husband had been mustered as planned as a veterinary surgeon, her pension would have been twice that amount. Overall, among twentynine Dubuque dependents who were approved for pensions before 9 Henderson lost his foot in January 1863 after being wounded at Corinth in October 1862; he was a first lieutenant at the time, hence the $17 rate. In 1864, however, Henderson reenlisted as colonel of one of Iowa’s 100-days regiments; his pension was suspended for the period of that service, then resumed at the same $17 rate. David B. Henderson, Twelfth and Forty-sixth Iowa Infantries, CSR, NA; Henderson, Pensions, NA. 10 John Kuntz, Pensions, NA.

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the end of 1870, the average monthly payment was $9.79. Mary J. Dorr, widow of Colonel Joseph B. Dorr, received the largest payment, $30 per month. Twenty-five of the twenty-nine dependents, however, received just $8 per month, not enough to compensate families for the loss of an adult male wage earner. Even disabled John Kuntz could earn more than that.11 What is apparent, therefore, is that the pension laws in force in the 1860s were designed to supplement, not replace, individual earnings and other means of support. As the Dubuque Times put it after the war, the disabled veterans ‘‘don’t ask [for] charity, but such work as they can do, and do as well as others more favorably conditioned.’’ In 1861, the U.S. Sanitary Commission outlined what would become the basic principles for dealing with Civil War veterans for almost the next thirty years; although framed in terms of the disabled, the same principles applied to dependents of the deceased. ‘‘Outside interference’’ with ‘‘natural laws,’’ the commission began, would deprive the veteran of his dignity without really helping him; ‘‘natural laws’’ in this case referred to laws of supply and demand in the labor market and to family ties. Indeed, as a second point, veterans should be encouraged to turn to their families—their ‘‘natural reliances’’—in times of need, rather than to the government or charities. Finally, the ‘‘utmost endeavor’’ should be made ‘‘to promote the healthy absorption of the invalid class into the homes and into the ordinary industry of the country.’’ For the severely disabled or those without families, a later Sanitary Commission report advocated ‘‘military colonies on public lands, the occupation of the disabled in garrisons and 11 As with the disabled, inclusion here is limited to dependents of soldiers found in one or both census years (though mostly in 1860, of course). A total of thirty-six dependents had applied before the end of 1870; in addition to the 29 successful cases cited in the text, 2 claims were rejected outright, 3 were approved after 1870, and 2 pensions were unavailable at the National Archives (so their disposition is unknown). The cases approved by 1870 included 17 widows, 10 mothers, 1 father, and 1 minor child (without a mother) among the dependents. Payments for minor children of widows (an additional $2 per child per month) are excluded from the numbers in the text, because these ended when the children reached age sixteen, which occurred at varying intervals for each child. Some of the other payments also ended before 1870 due to death, remarriage of a widow, and the attainment of age sixteen by the orphaned minor child. For cases cited in the text, see Thomas Mullins, Pensions, NA; Thomas J. Knowlton, Eighth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; Knowlton, Pensions, NA; and Joseph B. Dorr, Pensions, NA.

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in subordinate civil offices,’’ and the creation of ‘‘industrial military asylums’’ in every state.12 In subsequent years Civil War pensions would expand dramatically, especially in 1879 with the passage of the Arrears Act (which allowed any newly approved pension to be backdated to the end of the soldier’s service) and in 1890 with the Dependent Pension Act (which removed the requirement that the soldier’s disability or death had to be a consequence of his military service to qualify for a pension). Such changes in pension law, however, came too late to make a significant impact on soldiers’ readjustment to civilian life. Indeed, sociologist Willard Waller argued in the 1940s that the five years after any war were the ‘‘crucial years of readjustment to civilian life,’’ adding that ‘‘once those years have passed, little that is constructive can be done with any group of veterans.’’ By this standard, the Dependent Pension Act came twenty years too late. ‘‘We have spent immense sums on veterans’’ in programs such as the Dependent Pension Act, Waller concludes, ‘‘mostly after it was too late to do any good.’’13

Economic and Social Change during the 1860s Before examining how Dubuque veterans were doing in 1870, five years after the end of their war, changes in the city during the decade need to be considered. The Dubuque to which the veterans returned after the war was different from the one they had left three or four years earlier. Commerce had relatively declined. Completion of a railroad bridge over the Mississippi River in 1868, which allowed trains unimpeded passage through the city, further weakened the city’s commercial position. After 1868, using historian Timothy R. Mahoney’s model for commerce on the upper Mississippi, Dubuque had slipped from the status as a ‘‘secondary entrepot’’ it had wrested 12 Semi-weekly Times, 15 September 1865; Severo and Milford, Wages of War, 135 (1861 report); and IRN (June 1864): 5—quotes in the text regarding the second report are from the Newsletter’s analysis of it. 13 Waller, Veteran Comes Back, 225, 245.

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from Galena in the 1850s to a ‘‘central marketplace.’’14 Manufacturing meanwhile expanded dramatically during the 1860s. By 1870, the number of workers in the city’s manufactories had tripled compared to 1860, as had capital invested; gross product had increased fourfold, and the yearly wage bill was up five times. This takeoff likely would have occurred without the war, but nevertheless, and despite the apparent consensus among historians that the Civil War retarded industrialization, the war made several contributions to the expansion of manufacturing in Dubuque.15 Chapter 2 noted the contributions of inflation and federal tax policies to development in Dubuque. More immediately, the economic downturn at the beginning of the war, just as the city began to emerge from the Panic of 1857, gave renewed impetus to the drive to develop Dubuque’s manufacturing sector. ‘‘It is a great commercial folly,’’ an item in the Herald argued in September 1861, ‘‘for Iowa to ship the raw material east and receive manufactured products with freight both ways added to the price.’’ Two months later, the paper’s local editor added that ‘‘the prosperity of the city’’ required property owners to act ‘‘to encourage manufactures here.’’ The Times went further, explicitly rejecting the pre-Panic wisdom that ‘‘the growth of cities depends upon their commerce.’’ ‘‘The wealth of cities is to a great extent dependent upon their manufacturing interests,’’ the Times declared in October 1862. ‘‘Manufactories,’’ the paper asserted several months later, ‘‘give character and energy to a city, which no other business possibly can.’’ And in July 1865, the paper argued that in contrast to commerce, which was limited to ‘‘the extent and resources of the country of which [a city] is the commer14 ‘‘Central marketplace’’ was the second lowest of Mahoney’s categories, ‘‘local marketplace’’ being the lowest. In the 1870s and 1880s Dubuque would try to recoup some of its lost commercial status by turning back to the Mississippi River with steamboat commerce. Times, 25 February 1864; Semi-weekly Times, 10 January, 10, 14 February 1865; and Timothy R. Mahoney, ‘‘Urban History in a Regional Context: River Towns on the Upper Mississippi, 1840–1860,’’ Journal of American History 72 (September 1985): 327 (fig. 7). 15 Census 1860, Manuf. and Census 1870, Manuf.—these data will be presented more fully below. For apparent consensus in the historiography, see, for example, Walter Licht, Industrializing America: The Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), esp. 96–99; for a contrary view, see Jeffrey G. Williamson, ‘‘Watersheds and Turning Points: Conjectures on the Long Term Impact of Civil War Financing,’’ Journal of Economic History 34 (1974): 636–61.

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cial metropolis,’’ markets for manufactures knew ‘‘no limit.’’ ‘‘More favored centres of trade, such as Chicago and St. Louis, may overshadow us in commercial greatness, but Manufacturing will give us life, growth and real importance.’’16 Particularly favored in Dubuque’s manufacturing growth were wood products industries, such as furniture and wagon making. During the 1860s, the number of firms that manufactured furniture increased from 3 to 9 and the number of workers from 23 to 128. The Herancourt factory led the way in the industry as it had in 1860; when Valentine Herancourt died in 1867, his wife, Catherine, took over the business. In 1860 Valentine Herancourt employed 10 men and had an annual product of $8,000. In 1870, Catherine Herancourt employed 50 workers, 10 of them children, and had a product of $35,000.17 In wagon manufacture, there were 12 firms with 155 workers in 1870 compared to just 6 with 41 in 1860. Wagon manufacturer A. A. Cooper emerged by 1870 as the third-largest manufacturer in the city in terms of annual product. In 1862 Cooper had bought out William Newman, his partner since 1850, and by 1866 Cooper’s business had expanded sufficiently to warrant the construction of a larger, steam-powered factory. When that building was destroyed by fire, he rebuilt on an even larger scale in 1868. Cooper’s wagons soon gained a national reputation for quality. After Newman and Cooper employed eight men and produced $5,000 in 1860, Cooper employed sixty-two men and had an annual product of $120,000 in 1870. On the personal level, too, Cooper prospered. His income rose from $2,000 in 1863 to $3,964 in 1865; his property ownership increased from $18,000 real and $100 personal in 1860 to $60,000 real and $65,000 personal in 1870.18 16 Herald, 25 September, 16 November 1861; Times, 29 October 1862, 22 May 1863; and Semi-weekly Times, 21 July 1865. See also Dubuque City Directory [1856] (Dubuque: W. A. Adams, n.d.), 35, for pre-Panic ideas about commerce. 17 Census 1860, Manuf.; Census 1870, Manuf.; J. Biays Bowerman, Georgia Herman Glab, and Dennis Risher, comps., Burial Records of the Dubuque City Cemetery, 1854–1875 (Dubuque: Key City Genealogical Society, 1988). The Herancourts owned no property in 1860; Catherine Herancourt could not be found in the 1870 population census, though she should have been there. 18 Perhaps significantly, the only firms with a larger product in 1870 than Cooper’s were H. L. Stout’s Dubuque Lumber Company and a planing mill operated by Clark and Scott. Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, 14 November 1909, 23 September 1919; The History of Dubuque County, Iowa (Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1880), 648; Franklin T. Oldt, History of Dubuque County, Iowa (Chicago: Goodspeed His-

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Beyond the furniture and wagon businesses, manufacturing development in the city more generally can be seen at the individual level. The seven manufacturers from the 1860 census who paid taxes on their 1862 incomes averaged incomes of $857.71. Because of an increase in the income exemption from $600 to $2,000, only eight 1870 manufacturers paid taxes on their 1869 incomes, but those eight had an average income of $3,086.63. In 1860 twenty-nine individuals described themselves as manufacturers and owned average total property worth $8,043.10; in 1870 the city’s fifty-six manufacturers had a property average of $14,907.14.19 Dubuque’s turn to manufacturing had significant consequences beyond the city’s manufactory owners. Although approximately the same proportions of Dubuque’s population qualified as working and business class in 1870 as in 1860, in each class shifts had occurred in the relative significance of the upper and lower portions. Among the working class, more workers held artisan (upper working-class) job titles in 1870 than in 1860. This change did not represent a surge of upward mobility for the city’s unskilled workers, however. Instead, it was consistent with the change from a commercial to a manufacturing economy. As historian Steven J. Ross argues, the semiskilled ‘‘factory artisan,’’ as opposed to the unskilled, machine-tending ‘‘factory laborer,’’ was an important transitional figure in the history of industrialization in the United States. Although they might still use artisanal titles such as wagon maker, cabinetmaker, or shoemaker, factory artisans lacked the range of skills associated with traditional artisanship; to use Ross’s term, they were ‘‘particularists,’’ highly skilled in a particular part of the production process and expected to perform it over and over. Factory artisans, moreover, had lost much of the artisans’ traditional control over the work process—how much torical Association, 1911), 499–501; Randolph W. Lyon, Dubuque: The Encyclopedia (Dubuque: First National Bank of Dubuque, c. 1991), 85–86; Census 1850, Manuf.; Census 1860, Manuf.; Census 1870, Manuf.; Census 1860, Pop.; Census 1870, Pop.; and Records of the Internal Revenue Service, Assessment Lists, 1862–66, Iowa— Third District (microfilm), IHSI (hereafter, IRS, Assessment Lists, 1862–66). See also A. A. Cooper Ledger, 1858–65: Merchandise Accounts, May 1862–February 1865, pp. 182–315 (CDH). Somehow Cooper avoided being assessed any income tax after 1867, when he declared an income of $1,798. 19 Census 1860, Pop.; Census 1870, Pop.; IRS, Assessment Lists, 1862–66; and Assessment Lists, 1867–73, Iowa—Third District, RG 58, Records of the Internal Revenue Service, NA, Kansas City, Missouri (hereafter, IRS, Assessment Lists, 1867–73).

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to produce, how fast, and of what quality—to employers and managers.20 The manufacturing census suggests the increased reliance on factory artisans in Dubuque after the Civil War. Although artisan shops (five or fewer workers; no outside power source) were more numerous in 1870 than in 1860, artisan shops actually employed a smaller percentage of the workforce in 1870. In contrast, large factories (twenty or more workers with power-driven machinery) comprised fewer than one-tenth of the workplaces in the city but employed 45 percent of the manufacturing workforce in 1870, up from 12 percent in 1860. Adding the workers in smaller factories, moreover, reveals that nearly three-fifths of manufacturing workers toiled in mechanized workplaces, even though more than three-fourths of the workplaces in the 1870 census were nonmechanized. The shift could be seen beginning during the Civil War, when help wanted advertisements started to specify men ‘‘that understand using machinery,’’ as J. L. Dickinson put it in May 1864. Indeed, as early as October 1861 most of the work at Cumings & Remington’s foundry and machine shop was said to be ‘‘done by machinery’’ with ‘‘very little’’ hand labor.21 In many ways work as a factory artisan would be familiar to Dubuque’s returning Union army veterans. Like factory artisans, soldiers experienced homogenized, routinized, and, in the artillery, mechanized work. They also had little control over how their labor would be used, surrendering that control to officers. The work was dirty, noisy, and dangerous, with the level of danger determined by where the work was and by the competence of the officers and their willingness, within the limits allowed in time of war, to look out for the men’s safety. Finally, like factory artisans, enlisted men in the army had little opportunity to move into the management stratum; the most they could reasonably hope for was appointment as an NCO, a sort of foreman, much closer in status to the privates than to 20 Steven J. Ross, Workers on the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788–1890 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 97–100; and for Dubuque’s class structure in 1870, see table A.11, appendix A. Although the conditions under which artisans in Dubuque plied their trades by 1870 were different from those experienced by artisans before the war, the term artisan will continue to be used to describe the upper portion of the working class in Dubuque. 21 Census 1860, Manuf.; Census 1870, Manuf.; Times, 13 May 1864; and Herald, 26 October 1861.

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the officers. Moreover NCO status, as noted in chapter 4, was less available to men from farm backgrounds, older men, shorter men, and the illiterate, and the possibilities for downward mobility for NCOs were greater than their chances for upward mobility. The change and development of Dubuque’s industrial environment could be seen in other areas. Engineers, indispensable to factory development, increased in number from thirty to eighty-one between 1860 and 1870, with average property of $1,927.78 in 1870 compared to just $218.33 in 1860. Nine engineers paid income taxes for 1862 on average incomes of $984.00; thirty paid taxes for 1869 on incomes averaging $3,318.87. Moreover, corresponding to the increase in artisan shops and factory artisans, the number of ‘‘makers’’ (shoemakers and brick makers, for examples) in the city increased from 205 in 1860 to 380 in 1870. The number of makers required to pay income taxes remained unchanged at four from 1862 to 1869, but their average incomes rose by nearly $700. Meanwhile, the average property owned by makers rose to $1,283.29 in 1870 from $711.12 in 1860. Although this suggests prosperity for some, most saw little status gain in Dubuque, because the line dividing the top and bottom halves of property owners in the city similarly increased to $1,000 from $500 during the decade.22 Further down the economic ladder, though their proportion of the overall working class declined, the number of unskilled workers increased from 1,462 in 1860 to 1,664 in 1870. Their average property rose also, from $194.79 to $619.56, but the average unskilled worker remained in the lower half of property owners in the city in 1870. In addition to day laborers, miners, and other unskilled job titles, a new category of unskilled worker appeared in the 1870 census. Eightyseven people said they ‘‘work in’’ such and such a place; representative jobs included ‘‘works in distillery,’’ ‘‘works in cabinet factory,’’ and ‘‘works in cigar store.’’ With average property ownership of $346.55, these eighty-seven owned less property than their fellow unskilled laborers in the city, and like most unskilled workers no one in this group had to worry about paying income taxes for 1862 or 1869. At the same time that this new job category appeared, the number of miners in the city decreased by more than half, from 356 22 Data in this and the next paragraph come from Census 1860, Pop.; Census 1870, Pop.; IRS, Assessment Lists, 1862–66; and IRS, Assessment Lists, 1867–73.

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to 163, indicating a substantial decline in that once vital source of jobs for the unskilled. Miners’ average property rose modestly, from $234.45 to $445.09, but no miner earned the $2,000 minimum for the income tax in 1869. As the figures for working-class property ownership suggest, there was a general upward trend in property ownership during the decade. More people in Dubuque owned at least some property in 1870 compared to 1860; the minimum amount owned by the top 10 percent of property owners rose from $9,500 to $10,600; and the maximum amount owned by the bottom 50 percent doubled from $500 to $1,000. Much of the gain, however, was in personal property. Although average amounts of real property roughly doubled over the decade, average amounts of personal property increased between three and eight times. Overall, the ratio of real-to-personal property in the city declined from roughly 75/25 in 1860 to 60/40 by 1870.23 The overall gains in personal property ownership indicate another change in Dubuque over the decade of the 1860s that should be briefly noted. During the decade, the entrepreneurs completed their replacement of the patricians at the top of Dubuque society. Indeed, many of the patrician early settlers—including the two eldest Langworthy brothers, James and Lucius—died during or shortly after the war. Those who survived increasingly moved to the sidelines. Richard Bonson, for example, resolved at the end of March 1864 to put all his money into real estate. His subsequent diary entries show he generally lived up to that resolution. One of the few times his resolve broke down came in November 1864, when he bought $27,000 in Dubuque & Sioux City railroad stock at 60 cents on the dollar, a price he considered ‘‘tolerable cheep.’’ By 1870 Bonson’s real property ownership had increased by $50,000 compared to 1860. At the same time, however, even Bonson had followed the entrepreneurs’ lead: In 1870 his personal property had doubled over 1860, and personal property comprised one-quarter of his total property in 1870 after being one-fifth in 1860.24 23 Specifically, 77.8 percent of the property in 1860 was real estate, compared to just 58.2 percent in 1870. Census 1860, Pop.; Census 1870, Pop. See also table A.11, appendix A; although that table does not separate property ownership by real and personal, it does indicate the general growth in property ownership over the decade. 24 Richard Bonson Diaries, 31 March, 28 September, 5 November 1864, IHSI. See also ibid., 31 December 1864, where he repeats his resolution to stay in real estate; and Census 1860, Pop., p. 343; and Census 1870, Pop., Julien Township, p. 18.

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As noted earlier, the entrepreneurs shared the broad characteristics of having arrived in the city, for the most part, in the early to mid-1850s and of owning substantially more personal than real property. In 1860, with the patricians still prominent in the city, nearly everyone in the top 10 percent of property owners had more real than personal property. By 1870, with the entrepreneurs having largely replaced the patricians, only about half of the largest property owners had more real than personal property. Thus, despite the fact that the share of the total property in the city owned by the top 10 percent actually fell slightly, from 73.9 percent in 1860 to 70.6 percent in 1870, because a higher proportion of that was personal property, wealth in the city was more visible than ever in the form of more luxurious lifestyles. Many of the entrepreneurs, moreover, built lavish mansions during the 1860s, making even their real property holdings more visible; in the patrician generation, much of their real property had consisted of farmland and mineral lots.25 Nevertheless in the business class, as in the working class, a redistribution of occupations occurred during the decade. Although the business class accounted for roughly the same percentage of the population in 1870 as it did in 1860, a higher percentage of businessclass individuals were engaged in low-nonmanual pursuits. In large part this resulted from the shift from commerce to manufacturing as the city’s economic base and the incompleteness of that transition in 1870. The number of ‘‘merchants’’ in the city fell from 123 to 19, including 8 who were ‘‘retired.’’ Meanwhile the number of ‘‘manufacturers’’—who would replace the merchants in the highest occupational category—rose only from twenty-nine to fifty-six by 1870. At $9,847.37 in 1870, the average property of merchants remained large, but also relatively unchanged from an average of $9,585.77 in 1860. And after thirty-five merchants met the minimum income ($600) subject to the federal income tax in 1862 (with an average of $2,884.69), none of the merchants in the 1870 census reported earning the $2,000 minimum during 1869.26 25 Specifically, 89 percent of the top 10 percent of property owners had more real than personal property in 1860; the number was 58 percent in 1870. Census 1860, Pop.; Census 1870, Pop. For some house building see, for example, Times, 9, 23, 24 September, 6 October 1863, 26 September 1864. 26 Sources for this and the following paragraphs include Census 1860, Pop.; Census 1870, Pop.; IRS, Assessment Lists, 1862–66; IRS, Assessment Lists, 1867–73.

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Sixty-three merchants from 1860 persisted in the city in 1870, but just seven of the sixty-three—including three who remained merchants and two who became manufacturers—still held high-nonmanual positions. Six merchants had slipped into the working class, and the remaining fifty held low-nonmanual positions. Most of the last group were still involved in commerce, though at a lower level and with less independence than in 1860. Nineteen merchants from 1860 called themselves storekeepers, saloon keepers, or grocers. Another twenty used the titles dealer, agent, or peddler; in contrast, only one peddler from 1860 had become a merchant in 1870. Dealers and agents had less status than merchants because they usually represented someone else’s company in the city and sold their product (for example, sewing machines); merchants ran their own businesses, which involved finding suppliers, where necessary arranging for shipment of goods to Dubuque, maintaining a sufficient stock on hand, marketing, and other things the parent company generally handled for the agent or dealer. Overall, the number of dealers and agents in the city increased from 91 in 1860 to 308 in 1870, and their average property ownership more than doubled from $6,742.86 to $16,722.56. Seventeen dealers and agents paid income taxes for 1862 on average incomes of $1,633.59; that increased to thirty-nine with average incomes of $3,237.46 in 1869. Although the numbers and success of Dubuque’s agents and dealers attest to a continuing commercial vitality in the city, the decline in status of the merchants indicates a simultaneous loss of independence as the city became more absorbed into national rather than regional trade networks. The experience of Dubuque’s merchants during the 1860s reflects a broader trend of downward mobility among high-nonmanual persisters in the city. Among men who lived in Dubuque in both 1860 and 1870, fewer than 40 percent of those with high-nonmanual occupations in 1860 held the same status ten years later. One exception occurred among the city’s manufacturers. Whereas merchants experienced downward mobility during the 1860s, manufacturers held their positions more successfully, and the shift to manufacturing created opportunities for upward mobility for some workers. Thirteen of the twenty-nine manufacturers from 1860 persisted in 1870. Six remained manufacturers, while three others had adopted the artisanal title of brewer, even though at least two of the brewers continued to operate manufactories according to the manufacturing census.

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Only one manufacturer from 1860 had clearly slipped to workingclass status. Meanwhile, among the fifty-six manufacturers in 1870 were thirty-one individuals who had lived in the city in 1860. Eleven of these had been skilled and five unskilled workers in 1860.27 Dubuque’s upwardly mobile workers shared one important characteristic: None had served in the Union army. The same could be said for most of the city’s leading entrepreneurs in 1870. Many had, in fact, used the war to get ahead. Some received government contracts or otherwise received a boost from being in businesses—such as lead shot, clothing, or wagon manufacture—that supplied items crucial to the military. The war also opened other profitable businesses. In addition to his involvement in the Dubuque Shot Company, for example, Julius K. Graves held a contract to supply provisions to Camp Union, the military camp established in the city. He also acted as the local agent for government war bonds, selling them through his bank and receiving compensation with a percentage of the sales. More aggressive entrepreneurs not only bought up bonds but other government securities. Banker Henry Markell, for example, purchased vouchers issued by Camp Union quartermasters to local businesses, paying 80 to 85 cents on the dollar and cashing in when the funds arrived from Washington to pay the vouchers in full.28 Markell’s successful speculation in quartermaster vouchers seems not to have had a lasting effect, however. He lost his $5,000 in total property between 1860 and 1870; his family, which had lived in its own house in 1860, lived in a hotel in 1870. On the other hand, Markell had served in the army, as captain of one of the city’s 100days companies. In contrast, among the thirty Dubuquers who owned total property worth $100,000 or more in 1870, not one had served in the army. Was there a connection? Solon M. Langworthy thought so. The youngest of the Langworthy brothers who founded the city, Solon Langworthy was commissioned quartermaster in the Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantry in 1862 and served fifteen months until poor health forced him to resign. He remained active in business after the war, but by 1870 many of the entrepreneurs had surpassed him in terms of property ownership; indeed, his total property Census 1860, Pop.; Census 1870, Pop.; and Census 1870, Manuf. Times, 2 June 1864; SML Diary, 28 September 1862, p. 254; Times, 19 September, 22, 23 November 1862, 7 May 1864. See also Times, 26 October 1862, 15, 22 August 1863; and Herald, 18 August 1861. 27 28

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actually declined from $52,000 to $45,000 over the decade. A number of years later, Langworthy expressed his bitterness that by serving for even the short period he did, he had ‘‘sacrificed on the altar of my country years of uninterrupted business prosperity during which many of my business friends and acquaintances had made themselves rich.’’29 More of the city’s veterans may have shared Langworthy’s opinion, but the impact of the war on veterans’ lives was not as simple as he framed it. The soldiers did fall behind many of their civilian counterparts over the course of the decade. But although the soldiers failed to match the upward mobility and property accumulation of nonsoldiers, they also did not experience the same level of downward mobility as the latter. The veterans’ position in Dubuque society was, in a word, stable.

Geographic and Social Mobility of Dubuque’s Veterans Turning to the census data, the first form of stability for Dubuque’s veterans is geographic. Excluding sixty-two soldiers who died in the army, 275 veterans, or over 50 percent of the survivors, returned to Dubuque and were living in the city in 1870, compared to a persistence rate of 42 percent for nonveterans.30 That higher rate of persistence, moreover, held regardless of particular characteristics. Considering occupations and ages in 1860 and nativities, the veterans in nearly every subgroup persisted at a higher rate than nonsoldiers; the major exceptions occurred among farmers and persons born in the South. Interestingly, working-class soldiers, who had been less 29 Henry Markell, Forty-fourth Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; Solon Langworthy, Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; and Solon Langworthy, ‘‘Autobiographical Sketch of Solon M. Langworthy,’’ IJHP 8 (1910): 339 (quote). Langworthy wrote this sketch around 1880. 30 See table B.15, appendix B for specific persistence data. The civilian persistence data do not make a similar exclusion of the deceased; it was assumed that the soldiers had a much higher death rate between 1861 and 1865 than the comparable set of men in the city, especially among men in the age cohorts that produced most of the soldiers. Even including the sixty-two deceased soldiers in the data, however, the soldiers’ persistence rate remains higher than the nonsoldiers’ rate: 46.2 versus 42.0 percent. Three other soldiers, though included in the persistence data (as nonpersisters), had died in Dubuque before the 1870 census; see George W. Barnes, Dennis Fitzpatrick, and Chauncey G. Lawrence, Pensions, NA.

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likely than business-class soldiers to be found in the 1860 census (that is, they were less geographically stable before enlisting), persisted at the highest rate—higher than business-class soldiers and higher than business-class or working-class nonsoldiers. In terms of age, one interesting pattern is that the oldest veterans (ages sixty-one and over in 1860) persisted at a rate twice that of comparable nonsoldiers; given the prevalence of debilitating disease in the Union army, one might have expected greater attrition between separation from the army and 1870. More significantly, however, the veterans in every age group showed greater persistence than the nonveterans. The youngest veterans, in particular, persisted at a much higher rate than the youngest nonsoldiers; up to age thirty, soldiers persisted at a rate between 15 and 18 percent greater than nonsoldiers; normally the youngest men would be expected to be the most geographically mobile.31 To establish the link between military service and the veterans’ persistence more firmly, Dubuque’s veterans can be compared with those most like them in terms of prewar background and hence most likely to share their preservice values, beliefs, and attitudes—namely, their fathers, brothers, and sons. Combining the ‘‘independent’’ and ‘‘sons’’ groups, 155 of the veteran-persisters shared households with male family members totaling 319 in the 1860 census. In 1870, while all 155 soldiers still lived in Dubuque (by definition as persisters), only 199, or 62.4 percent, of their male family members had persisted. In other words, the soldiers’ closest relatives persisted at a rate over one-third less than the soldiers themselves. In 1860, miner Reuben Stiles, for example, had four sons, ages twenty-five, twentytwo, seventeen, and fifteen; two of the sons, Edwin, age twenty-two, and Alonzo, the fifteen-year-old, enlisted in the Union army. In 1870, Reuben, Edwin, and Alonzo remained in Dubuque; the other two sons had left. Day laborer Joseph Lambert had five sons in 1860, ages twenty-five, twenty, nine, five, and two. Twenty-year-old John Lambert was the only member of the family to enlist, and he was the only (male) member of the family living in Dubuque in 1870.32 For studies of geographic mobility see, for example, Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress; Thernstrom, Other Bostonians; Knights, Plain People of Boston; and John Modell, ‘‘The Peopling of a Working-Class Ward: Reading, Pennsylvania, 1850,’’ Journal of Social History 5 (1971): 71–95. 32 For the specific examples, see Census 1860, Pop., p. 107 (‘‘Styles’’ family), 135 31

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At this point, one might recall the concerns that American society as a whole, and Dubuque society in particular, had grown rootless and ‘‘nomadic’’ in the mid-nineteenth century. The volatility of Dubuque’s population during the 1860s lent additional credence to the concern. To note that the population of Dubuque city (excluding for the moment the remainder of Julien Township) had increased from 13,000 in 1860 to 18,434 in 1870, for example, tells only a small portion of the story. The city’s population during the 1860s reached a peak of 21,222 in 1867, before declining to the 1870 figure. Moreover, historians of mobility tell us that net population figures, such as an increase from 13,000 in 1860 to 21,222 in 1867, hide considerable gross population movement of people who do not stay long enough to be counted. There was, in other words, a great deal of movement into and out of Dubuque during the 1860s. Dubuquers were indeed, as one article on the subject of nineteenth-century mobility calls Americans in general, ‘‘men [and women] in motion.’’33 Contemporary observers, moreover, worried that military service might actually increase the soldiers’ rootlessness, making them ‘‘accustomed to a moving and irregular life’’ and leading them to prefer ‘‘a nomadic life.’’ So why were Dubuque’s soldiers so much more rooted than its nonsoldiers? The most tangible explanation comes from the soldiers’ letters and diaries, in their longings for home and their disgust with the ‘‘semi-civilized,’’ even ‘‘barbarous,’’ South. Historians of social mobility generally conclude that geographic and social mobility were inversely related; the less social mobility individuals achieved, the more geographically mobile they were likely to be. The comparative social mobility of Dubuque’s veteran-persist(Lambert); and Census 1870, Pop., Third Ward, p. 106 (Reuben and Alonzo Stiles), Fourth Ward, p. 86 (Edwin Stiles), and Julien Township, p. 31 (Lambert). See also Edwin Stiles, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; Alonzo Stiles, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, CSR, NA; and John Lambert (as ‘‘Lampert’’), First and Sixteenth Iowa Infantries, CSR, NA. 33 Iowa Secretary of State, Census of Iowa for 1880 (Des Moines: State Printer, 1883), 474; and Stephan Thernstrom and Peter R. Knights, ‘‘Men in Motion: Some Data and Speculations about Urban Population Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America,’’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History 1 (1970): esp. 17–23. The geographic mobility of nonsoldier males in Dubuque was within the range found by other historians—they were more mobile than residents of some (usually smaller) cities, less mobile than those of other (usually larger) cities. See Thernstrom, Other Bostonians, 221–28 (esp. table 9.1, p. 222) for discussion of geographic mobility and population volatility.

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ers and nonveteran-persisters will be detailed shortly, but for now one should simply note that whereas nonveterans from Dubuque might have been inclined to respond to ill fortune by trying their luck elsewhere, the city’s veterans had seen ‘‘elsewhere’’ and found it wanting. As George W. Healey put it in a letter home, ‘‘Soldiers can see something of the world free of charge. I have seen all towns, cities from Dubuque to St. Louis, but they don’t compare with Dubuque.’’ In his prisoner-of-war diary, Luther W. Jackson noted his observation that even for whites Southern society represented a mere ‘‘Burlesque on Freedom’’ and concluded that Southerners themselves were ‘‘Philistines,’’ ‘‘Heathens,’’ and ‘‘the most ignorant and conceited set of people on the face of the globe.’’ In sum, Jackson thought, ‘‘give me old Iowa thank God she is Free.’’34 Jackson died before he could see ‘‘old Iowa’’ again, but he was not alone among Dubuque’s soldiers in his views of the South. Henry W. Pettit, for instance, found it to be ‘‘the most God forsaken, miserable country on [God’s] footstool. It is no more to be compared to Iowa than the Desert of Sahara is to the Garden of Eden.’’ A letter writer in the First Iowa Cavalry concluded that ‘‘in short, Texas has been very much overrated. I see nothing to induce a man to leave his home and friends in the North and settle here.’’ What Solon Langworthy saw was no evidence that schools or places of worship had ‘‘ever existed’’ in Moscow, Tennessee, and in the South more generally. As for the Southern people, ‘‘Sigma’’ in the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry found them ‘‘ignorant, lazy, [and] impudent’’ with ‘‘the women . . . , if possible, more degraded than the men.’’ And to ‘‘C. B.’’ in the Eighth Iowa Cavalry, ‘‘the people . . . are a slabsided, cadaverous, stoop-shouldered, ignorant race, living mostly in log houses.’’35 To some extent this negativity derived from being at war with the South and with Southern society. After the train on which his regiment was traveling was shot at near Collierville, Tennessee, a member of the Forty-sixth Iowa Infantry admitted that ‘‘we did not feel IRN (February 1864): 5; NW Farmer 3 (August 1860): 176; George W. Healey to ‘‘Mother and all the rest,’’ 21 September 1861, George W. Healey Letters, Civil War Documents Collection, IHSD (hereafter, Healey Letters); and Luther W. Jackson, Diary, published as ‘‘A Prisoner of War,’’ Annals of Iowa, 3d ser., 19 (1933): 23–41 (quotes on 27, 29, 31). 35 Times, 7 October 1862; Semi-weekly Times, 3 October 1865; Times, 21 July 1863, 13 November 1862, and 27 June 1864. 34

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in a very [good] temper towards the inhabitants.’’ That feeling was undoubtedly stronger in regiments that saw more active service than the Forty-sixth, one of Iowa’s 100-days regiments. Indeed, the sense of identification with Iowa was enhanced in the combat regiments because the soldiers believed the honor of their state depended upon them. ‘‘Iowa—it not only raises the best crops and stock—but Men!’’ was how George Healey put it. But the soldiers’ experience of the South—and of the West, because some Dubuque soldiers fought there as well—also seems to have led many soldiers to conclude that, whatever Dubuque’s faults, there were few places more attractive to live. ‘‘St. Louis is a large city,’’ George Healey noted for instance, ‘‘but it is not as pleasant as Dubuque.’’ Nor were Dubuque’s soldiers unique in this. Letters and diaries from other soldiers, Union and Confederate, reveal similar assessments of the other section and its people.36 Furthermore, Dubuque’s soldiers left for the war amid popular acclaim that they were fighting to protect their homes, communities, and indeed the whole Northern way of life. Lieutenant Ernst Renner, for example, complaining about the county board of supervisors’ decision to place limitations on eligibility for the $50 county bounty in 1862, wrote to the Times that the decision broke that ‘‘courage, heart and love [of] home and county which alone can uphold and strengthen the soldier.’’ Although George Healey’s letters during the war often stressed what a great time he was having, when the war ended he confessed that these comments were mostly a happy front for the benefit of his mother. His time in the service had been ‘‘dreary and many a day I was Homesick, but I would not say anything to anybody about it.’’ For those soldiers held in the service, as Healey was, for several months after the war ended, moreover, the longing for home became almost desperate. ‘‘I think I have this word ‘Home’ every other word,’’ Healey wrote in June 1865. ‘‘I don’t think of any36 Times, 8 July 1864; Healey to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 23 July 1862, and Healey to ‘‘Mother and all the rest,’’ 21 September 1861, Healey Letters; and see Times, 1 November 1862 for a Dubuque soldier’s opinion about the Western frontier. For other negative assessments of the ‘‘other’’ section, see, for example, Reid Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers: Their Expectations and Their Experiences (New York: Viking Penguin, 1988), 90–147; Mitchell, The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 135–50; and Earl J. Hess, The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1997), 122–26.

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thing else but Home and I’ll be darned if I don’t get Home!’’ Other scholars have also noted the extent to which thoughts of ‘‘home’’ helped to sustain the soldiers during their service. This surely generated a greater sense of attachment to a particular place, perhaps precluding the moves to bigger cities and other shorter moves that some scholars consider more common forms of geographic mobility in the nineteenth century than moves to the ‘‘frontier’’ (broadly defined). As Luther Jackson put it, ‘‘I feel today as though if I were only with my wife, I would never leave home again.’’37 On the other hand, military service itself was a form of geographic mobility—men left Dubuque and spent months or years traveling through greater or lesser areas of the country.38 George Healey gave some sense of this movement in a letter that described a cavalry scout during which he and his comrades covered 150 miles in three days: ‘‘very good travelling don’t you think so—50 miles a day?’’ Aggregate mileage totals offer another indication. After two months of campaigning in Missouri, for example, members of the First Iowa Infantry computed that they had traveled 620 miles on foot, or an average of ten miles each day. Regiments that served for longer periods compiled even more impressive mileage totals. During its three years of 37 Times, 13 September 1862; Healey to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 9 August 1865 and to ‘‘Edward’’ [his brother], 18 June 1865, Healey Letters; and Jackson, ‘‘A Prisoner of War,’’ 27; see also others of George Healey’s letters: to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 28 May 1865, to ‘‘Mother and Sisters,’’ 18 June 1865, to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 21 June 1865, and to [not specified], 9 July 1865—all in Healey Letters. For other soldiers’ comments about the virtues of ‘‘home,’’ see Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers, 3–23; Mitchell, Vacant Chair, 19–37; Hess, Union Soldier in Battle, 122–26; James I. Robertson Jr., Soldiers Blue and Gray (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988), 3–18, 102–16; and James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 80–89, 131–47. On nineteenth-century mobility, see, for example, Fred A. Shannon, ‘‘A Post Mortem on the Labor-Safety-Valve Theory,’’ Agricultural History 19 (1945): 31–37; and Modell, ‘‘Peopling of a Working-Class Ward, 71–95. Thernstrom and Knights disagree, stressing long-distance moves; Thernstrom and Knights, ‘‘Men in Motion,’’ 28–29. 38 For this reason, the argument here discounts the possibility that the explanation for the greater persistence of soldiers in Dubuque might simply be because they were found in the city later than 1860 (namely, at their enlistment). Analyses of geographic mobility generally indicate that finding an individual in a record after the initial record increases the likelihood that the individual will be found in subsequent records. Of course, studies of geographical mobility also typically stop looking for individuals once they are missing from the record, ignoring the possibility that individuals—like the soldiers—might return.

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service, the Sixteenth Iowa Infantry traveled 5,186 miles over land (foot and rail) and 3,332 on water, for a total of 8,518 miles. The Ninth and Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantries each covered more than 10,000 miles during their service; the Twenty-seventh visited ten states, from as far north as 150 miles above Saint Paul, Minnesota, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.39 In the end, a majority of the soldiers decided to return to Dubuque and stayed, at least through the 1870 census. Many stayed much longer. George Healey, for example, died in Dubuque in 1913 apparently without ever leaving the city again. Similarly, George W. Thompson was born in Dubuque in 1844 and lived there until he died in 1922, with the exception of his military service in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, September 1861–August 1865. In a letter to the Pension Bureau in 1900, First Iowa Cavalry veteran Augustus Brulot noted that he had lived continuously in Dubuque since his discharge in 1866, having several residences over the years but all ‘‘within a radius of one mile of each other.’’ Sometime after that, Brulot finally left Dubuque and died in the Washington state soldiers’ home in 1909. In addition to long residence in Dubuque, Healey, Thompson, and Brulot also shared the characteristic that all had reenlisted under the Union’s veteran volunteer program. Such reenlistments apparently reinforced soldiers’ identification with Iowa and Dubuque. Veteran volunteers persisted in Dubuque at an even higher rate than other soldiers.40 Thus, in contrast to assertions that military service bred wanderlust and unfitted men for life anywhere else than on the open frontier, it seems to have had the opposite effect. The opportunity to travel in 39 Healey to ‘‘My dear Mother,’’ 4 June 1863, Healey Letters; Eugene F. Ware, The Lyon Campaign in Missouri (Topeka, Kans.: Crane & Company, 1907; reprint, Iowa City: Press of the Camp Pope Bookshop, 1991), 344 (page citation is to reprint edition); Report of the Adjutant General and Acting Quartermaster General of the State of Iowa, 1866 (Des Moines: F. W. Palmer, State Printer, 1866), 268–75 (Sixteenth Infantry) and 182–83 (Ninth); and Semi-weekly Times, 18 July 1865 (Twentyseventh). 40 Omitting those who died in the service, 61.3 percent of the veteran volunteers persisted, compared to 51.6 percent of all soldiers. George W. Healey, Fifth Iowa Cavalry in Organization Index to Pension Files of Veterans Who Served between 1861 and 1900, Microfilm T289, National Archives; George W. Thompson and Augustus Brulot—Pensions, NA; George W. Healey and George W. Thompson, Fifth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; and August Brulot, First Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA.

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the army produced a longing for home and a desire for stability. Having visited large portions of the country, most of Dubuque’s soldiers concluded that the opportunities at home matched or exceeded those that might be found elsewhere. There really was, as George Healey wrote, ‘‘No place like Home!’’ Finally, exposure to urban-industriallike conditions in the military, in fact, made the ‘‘freedoms’’ of the frontier more alien to the veterans than the more controlled life of urban-industrial Dubuque. Discussion of the comparative social mobility of soldiers and nonsoldiers over the decade of the 1860s helps make this last point clearer.41 As noted above, scholars of geographic mobility have generally found a relationship between upward social mobility and persistence; namely, that upward social mobility is the key to geographic persistence. Hence perhaps Dubuque’s soldiers persisted at a higher rate because they experienced a higher rate of upward mobility than nonsoldiers. Reasons for supposing soldiers might have been upwardly mobile are several. First, there is the view that military service prepared soldiers for life. As the Times argued in 1864, ‘‘the wholesome restraints of military discipline’’ taught ‘‘the value of system and order’’ as well as ‘‘new ideas of neatness, precision, and order’’; ‘‘such a life,’’ the paper concluded, ‘‘cannot fail to have a good influence.’’ Moreover, young men just starting out on their careers made up a large portion of the soldiers. Upward mobility for many might be anticipated, especially when one adds the often expressed ‘‘debt of gratitude’’ that civilians owed to the soldiers. This debt, many agreed, ‘‘should find more practical and earnest expression than that of mere words.’’ Nevertheless, Dubuque’s veteran-persisters in the decade of the 1860s are remarkable for their lack of social mobility. They experienced neither great upward nor great downward mobility compared to their nonveteran peers.42 To analyze the social mobility of the 275 veteran-persisters, it is necessary to separate them—as well as nonveteran-persisters—into the two groups used earlier to analyze enlistments: soldier-sons and Healey to ‘‘Mother, Sisters, and Brother,’’ 29 July 1865, Healey Letters. Times, 15 May 1864, 24 August 1862 (‘‘gratitude’’); also McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 608 and n. 34. For more emphasis on ‘‘gratitude’’ see, for example, Times, 11 July, 20 August 1863, 4 May 1864; Semi-weekly Times, 25 August, 15 September 1865; and IRN (October 1865): 5. 41 42

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independent soldiers. Because no veteran found in 1870 was under the age of eighteen, that age is used to define the lower boundary for the inclusion of nonveterans in this analysis. Further classification yields four subgroups of interest: those who lived with their parents or independently of their parents in both census years, and those who changed status from ‘‘son’’ to ‘‘independent’’ or vice versa. Overall, 104 of the veteran-persisters lived as a subordinate member of their parents’ household in at least one of the census years. Just two, Richard Fengler and Peter de Lorimier, made the move from independent before the war to son afterward, however. Neither veteran’s father was living in 1870; de Lorimier’s father was deceased prior to 1860, and Ernst Fengler died in Dubuque shortly after returning from service in the Twenty-fourth Illinois Infantry.43 Fengler and de Lorimier remained occupationally where they had been in 1860, the former a skilled and the latter an unskilled worker, though de Lorimier gave a skilled occupation (printer) when he enlisted. The veterans’ mothers owned an average of $1,100 total property in 1870, with the entire $2,200 owned by Betheria de Lorimier; Emily Fengler owned no property in 1870 after her husband had owned $1,500 in 1860. The veterans themselves had owned nothing in 1860, and Richard Fengler owned $200 in real estate in 1870. In comparison, seven nonveterans who had been independent in 1860 lived in their parents’ household in 1870. Four of the seven had working-class occupations in 1860, and all four were unskilled in 1870, with one having slipped from artisan status. The property owned by these working-class families remained unchanged at an average of $825; in fact, however, this actually represented a decline in status because the dividing line between the top and bottom 50 percent of property owners increased from $500 to $1,000 between 1860 and 1870.44 43 In fact, de Lorimier lived with his mother in 1860 as well as in 1870, but in 1860 both were subordinate members of Peter’s brother’s household; Peter was thus coded as an independent soldier because he did not live in a household headed by his parents (or parent). By 1870 Betheria de Lorimier headed her own household; Peter and one of his sisters continued to live with her. 44 It might be added that both Fengler and de Lorimier returned home from the army in apparent good health (at least as far as their service records evidence; neither ever applied for a pension), so they were not living with their mothers because of poor health. On the other hand, eleven soldier-sons who were wounded, injured, or discharged for illness left their parents’ household (that is, became independent) during the decade; only four stayed with their parents. Census 1860, Pop., pp. 116 (de Lorimiers), 160 (Richard Fengler), and 203 (Emily Fengler); Census 1870, Pop., Fourth Ward, p. 17 (de Lorimiers); ibid., Fifth Ward, p. 82 (Fenglers).

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Little can be drawn from these data due to the small numbers involved. More numerous and analytically significant were the other two categories of men who lived with their parents in one or both census years. Thirty-eight veteran-persisters and more than 400 nonveterans lived in their parents’ household in both census years. In contrast, 64 veterans but fewer than 200 nonveterans left their parents’ household and were living independently in 1870. In other words, when sons in Dubuque who were not soldiers left home they tended also to leave town, whereas the sons who were veterans stayed.45 At the same time, with nearly two-thirds of persisting soldier-sons leaving their parents’ homes compared to fewer than onethird of persisting nonsoldiers, military service seems to have increased the veterans’ desire to break free from parental restraints. It also seems to have stimulated a desire to form their own families. Over 80 percent of the soldiers in the subgroup leaving their parents’ households had started families by 1870 compared to just over 60 percent of the nonsoldiers.46 Turning first to those who were sons in both census years, the most noticeable thing about these families is that those with sons who were veterans of the Union army lost ground, especially in property accumulation, compared to those that had no veteran sons.47 In 1860, 45 In all, 52.3 percent of surviving soldier-sons (102 of 195) and 43.9 percent of sons who were not soldiers (564 of 1,284, including those ages eight and over in 1860, to better approximate the fact that no soldier-sons were under age eighteen in 1870) persisted over the decade, roughly the same percentages as overall for soldiers and nonsoldiers. 46 Age might be thought a factor in this—one might assume the soldier-sons who left home tended to be older than the sons who were not soldiers and stayed home. Comparing soldiers with nonsoldiers according to 1870 age groups, this turns out not to have been the case; younger veterans had a greater tendency to leave home than younger nonveterans. Among the persisters in Dubuque, the numbers and percentages in each age group who left their parents’ home to live on their own are

Age 18–22 23–27 28–32 33–37 38–45

Soldier-sons n % 2 30 23 5 4

25.0 58.8 71.9 71.4 100.0

n

Nonsoldier-sons % 38 56 46 31 11

11.8 38.4 66.7 93.9 78.6

47 See table B.16, appendix B for the data described in this and the next two paragraphs.

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these soldiers’ families as a group owned more property than the comparable nonsoldiers’ families, in round figures $9,600 to $6,400. This advantage came from large amounts of property owned by business-class, farm, and no occupation soldiers’ families; working-class soldiers’ families lagged behind nonsoldiers’ families in 1860. During the decade, however, soldiers’ families showed less ability to accumulate property than nonsoldiers’ families; again in round figures, by 1870 the veterans’ families were up modestly to an average of $10,000, whereas the nonveterans’ families’ property had nearly doubled to $11,600. This pattern also held in each individual occupational category—except among the unskilled. Among the unskilled, property ownership gains occurred because the 1860 census coded female heads of household without occupations, while in 1870 they were assigned the unskilled occupation ‘‘keeping house.’’ Three soldiers’ families moved from the no occupation category into the unskilled as a result. These families held a decisive edge in property ownership over similar nonsoldiers’ families in 1860, an edge they continued to hold as unskilled families in 1870. In general, though, stability marked the property ownership of soldiers’ families over the decade, especially compared to the nonsoldiers’ families.48 For the most part, these property ownership patterns were consistent with the broader changes in Dubuque society over the decade. Age also played a part. The parents of soldiers were generally older and hence more advanced in their careers and property accumulation in 1860 than the parents of nonsoldiers. By 1870, the parents of soldiers had begun to decline with age—in four cases fathers had died, creating female-headed households—whereas the parents of nonsoldiers were reaching their career peaks. Military service was another factor, however. Sons who had not served in the army were entering their earning years as their fathers’ careers peaked, reinforcing their advantage. In contrast, having sacrificed between three months and four years of their civilian careers, and perhaps disabled or suffering health problems as a result of their service, the soldiers could make 48 Specifically, the three female-headed families of soldiers owned total property worth $41,100 in 1860 and $48,500 in 1870. Census 1860, Pop., p. 75, 360, 78; Census 1870, Pop., First Ward, p. 1, Julien Township, p. 15, Second Ward, p. 86— families of Henry D. Nightengale, Charles Simplot, and Jesse R. Thomas.

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less of a contribution to family economies at a time when their contributions were more important than ever.49 Stability also figured as the most important fact about the occupations of soldiers’ parents. To take just one figure, excluding the three female-headed families noted above that became working class because of changes in census classifications, there was a net shift of one family of a veteran into the working class (3 percent of the total) compared to a net shift of thirty-four families of nonveterans into the working class (8 percent of the total). As with geographic mobility, however, net figures conceal rather more gross movement. For instance, four out of five high-nonmanual soldiers’ families slipped to low-nonmanual status, and three low-nonmanual soldiers’ families skidded into the working class, two after the death of the 1860 male head of household. Meanwhile, two working-class soldiers’ families climbed into the business class; John Schwaegler, father of veteran John Schwaegler Jr., opened a grocery store during the 1860s after working as a carpenter in 1860, and Reuben Stiles and his veteranson Alonzo had become lumber dealers by 1870 after working as miners in 1860.50 If their parents were stable, the veteran-sons personally showed somewhat more mobility, although veterans were more successful at slipping into the working class than climbing out of it. Almost half of the veteran-persister sons from business-class families in 1860 (six of fourteen) held working-class jobs in 1870, including one, S. Edward Booth, who had worked as a clerk before the war. In contrast, fewer than one-third of those from 1860 working-class families had climbed into business class occupations (five of eighteen). Two of these cases were John Schwaegler Jr. and Alonzo R. Stiles, who followed their 49 Although the arrangement of the data makes it impossible to link a specific individual with the age of his parents, it is possible to single out among the 1870 persisters fathers from 1860 who did and did not have sons enlist in the Union army. The average age of fathers of soldiers in 1870—whether the soldier still lived at home or not—was 57.1 years; fathers in 1870 who had no sons enlist in the Union army averaged 48.3 years. In addition to four new female-headed households with veteran-sons, another five were female headed in 1860 and remained so in 1870. The average ages of the sons who continued living at home in 1870 were 25.7 for veterans and 21.5 for nonveterans (excluding males under age eighteen in 1870). 50 Census 1860, Pop., pp. 107–8 (‘‘Styles’’ family) and 200 (‘‘Schwafer’’ family); and Census 1870, Pop., Third Ward, p. 106 (Stiles family) and Fifth Ward, p. 80 (Schwaeglers).

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fathers up the occupational ladder. Furthermore, Stiles was the only upwardly mobile soldier-son who held a position other than store or office clerk in 1870.51 John Schwaegler Jr. and Alonzo Stiles had brothers who were also veterans, though their experiences of mobility differed in important ways. For one thing, both William Schwaegler and Edwin S. Stiles married and began families after their military service; their brothers remained single. Perhaps as a result, William and Edwin had each left their parents’ home during the decade; in short, after being soldier-sons in 1860, they were independent veterans in 1870. By leaving home, however, they seemed to have sacrificed some (immediate at least) opportunity for social mobility. While their fathers and brothers had moved from working-class to business-class occupations, William Schwaegler and Edwin Stiles remained in workingclass positions in 1870; Schwaegler was a carpenter (as his father had been in 1860), and Stiles worked as a railroad machinist.52 Schwaegler and Stiles, in fact, typified the occupational (lack of) mobility of soldier-sons who left their parents’ households during the decade. These independent veterans showed a greater tendency than similar nonveterans to hold the same occupational status in 1870 as their parents had in 1860, with the exception that no veterans from high-nonmanual backgrounds held that status in 1870.53 The veterans had, in other words, generally matched but not exceeded their parents’ status. The now independent, nonsoldier-sons, in contrast, showed greater amounts of both upward and downward mobility. Among those from 1860 low-nonmanual families, for example, 46 percent of the veterans but only 39 percent of the nonveterans held low-nonmanual positions in 1870; all mobility for these sons, whether veterans or not, was downward. Among those originally from artisan backgrounds, somewhat more than half of the veterans (56 percent) and slightly less than half of the nonveterans (48 percent) were themselves artisans in 1870. More than one-quarter of both veterans and nonveterans from prewar artisan backgrounds climbed into high or 51 Census 1860, Pop., p. 342; and Census 1870, Pop., Julien Township, p. 16—for Booth. See previous note for Schwaegler and Stiles. 52 Census 1860, Pop., pp. 107–8 (‘‘Styles’’ family) and 200 (‘‘Schwafer’’ family); and Census 1870, Pop., Fourth Ward, p. 86 (Edwin Stiles) and Fifth Ward, p. 102 (William Schwaegler). 53 See table B.17, appendix B for the data described in this and the next paragraph.

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low-nonmanual positions, but roughly twice as large a percentage of nonveterans as veterans slipped to unskilled positions. The only son from an artisan background to attain a high-nonmanual position was a nonveteran, though the veterans had a greater prospect of becoming farmers. For those from low-nonmanual and artisan backgrounds, then, military service seems to have marginally improved their postwar prospects, though stability was the watchword. Stability for veterans existed at the top and bottom of the occupation hierarchy as well. As noted, no soldier-son from a high-nonmanual background managed to hold that status on his own in 1870, but the veterans from these families avoided the drop into the working class much more successfully than the nonveterans did; in fact, no veteran from a high-nonmanual family was working class in 1870, though total numbers were also small (just three veteran-persisters in this category). Among those from unskilled backgrounds, a larger portion of the nonveterans had climbed into the business class (21 versus 12 percent), including two who held high-nonmanual positions in 1870. The most realistic aspiration for veterans from unskilled backgrounds was an artisan position, at a time when artisanship was losing its status in Dubuque. Just two veterans from unskilled families, Josiah Conzett and William E. Puls, had climbed into the business class in 1870. In general, then, the now independent veterans from the top and bottom of the hierarchy found class boundaries— both upward and downward—more impermeable than other young men living with their parents in 1860 did. Combine this with the experience of the low-nonmanual and artisan sons, and in terms of occupation at least, soldier-sons who lived independently in 1870 had done better over the decade than similar nonsoldiers, even though that meant little more than occupational stability, especially workingclass stability.54 The discussion above compares the soldiers’ 1870 occupations to those of their fathers in 1860. But the occupational stability of the soldier-sons who left their parents’ homes before 1870 becomes even clearer when the soldiers’ own occupations before enlisting are considered. Among those from unskilled backgrounds in 1860, for example, five of the nine upwardly mobile (including mobility to artisan 54 Census 1860, Pop., pp. 225, 239 (Puls and ‘‘Concert’’); Census 1870, Pop., Fifth Ward, pp. 4, 76 (Conzett and Puls).

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positions) veteran-sons achieved their upward mobility before 1860 and another before he enlisted in 1864. Josiah Conzett had become a clerk in the late 1850s, and he worked as a clerk the rest of his life. Four other veterans from unskilled families who worked as artisans in 1870 already held artisan positions in 1860; similarly, George Deckert had no occupation in 1860 but gave his occupation as blacksmith when he enlisted in 1864, and he was still a blacksmith in 1870. Elsewhere in the occupational hierarchy, both of the soldierpersisters from high-nonmanual backgrounds who had slipped to low-nonmanual status by 1870 already held low-nonmanual positions in 1860. Anthony Hemmelder, the son of a merchant, worked as a clerk in 1860 and after four years in the Union army was a boot-andshoe dealer in 1870; John P. Lewis, the son of a physician, also served four years in the army and after being a clerk in 1860 worked as an insurance agent in 1870. The same pattern existed for veterans from low-nonmanual backgrounds (more than half of the downwardly mobile, four of seven, already held working-class positions in 1860) and those from artisan families (four of the five upwardly mobile and one of the two downwardly mobile individuals had occupations prior to enlistment comparable to their 1870 positions). Although these patterns suggest the possibilities for mobility, especially upward mobility, before 1860, they also indicate a closing of those opportunities during the decade of the 1860s, especially for veterans.55 Further evidence of veterans’ basic stability comes from property ownership data. The property accumulation of former soldier-sons 55 Mobile sons from unskilled 1860 backgrounds: Census 1860, Pop., p. 107 (Edwin S. Stiles), 201 (George Deckert), 208 (Edward Merz), 217 (Nicholas Horch), 239 (Josiah ‘‘Concert’’), 245 (Orson W. Bennett); and Census 1870, Pop., Third Ward, p. 72 (Merz), Fourth Ward, p. 86 (Stiles), Fifth Ward, pp. 4, 70, 89, 91 (Conzett, Horch, Bennett, Deckert). See also George Deckert, Fifth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA. From high nonmanual: Census 1860, Pop., p. 96 (John P. Lewis), 170 (Anthony Hemmelder); Census 1870, Pop., Third Ward, pp. 20, 93 (Lewis, Hemmelder); and Hemmelder and Lewis, Fifth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA. From low nonmanual: Census 1860, Pop., p. 84 (Lewis B. Tuttle), 99 (Edward J. Brown), 243 (Edwin Gillham), 275 (Burton Woolton); Census 1870, Pop., First Ward, p. 80 (Tuttle), Fourth Ward, p. 38, 46 (Woolton, Gillham), Julien Township, p. 26 (Brown). From artisan: Census 1860, Pop., p. 76 (John Buckholz), 279 (Eugene Bonce), 105 (Lewis N. Converse), 223 (George H. Hess), 173 (George W. Cole); and Census 1870, Pop., Third Ward, pp. 1, 53 (Cole, Buckholz), Fourth Ward, pp. 60, 78, 85 (Hess, Bonce, Converse); also, for occupations at enlistment for men with no occupations in 1860, see Bonce, Forty-fourth Iowa Infantry, Converse, Forty-sixth Iowa Infantry, and Hess, Twentyfirst Iowa Infantry—all CSR, NA.

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who lived on their own in 1870 lagged behind that of those who did not enlist.56 In general, in each occupational category the nonsoldiers’ families had owned more property in 1860 than the families that produced soldiers, and the nonsoldiers remained ahead in 1870. There were only two exceptions. The low-nonmanual families that produced soldiers had owned more property than those which did not produce soldiers in 1860 by roughly $1,700, but in 1870 nonveterans with low-nonmanual occupations had surged ahead with average property that exceeded that of veterans with similar occupations by more than $3,000. Among farmers, too, the families that produced soldiers had been ahead in 1860, but in this case the veterans remained ahead in 1870, though the gap had shrunk from about $3,500 to less than $600.57 Bringing together information about the three subgroups thus far described—the subgroups that involved individuals as subordinate family members in one or both census years—the incorporation of military service into the family strategies outlined in earlier chapters can be more fully assessed. In the business class, before the war sons generally lived at home longer than sons from working-class families and received advantages in education and training. With the coming of the war, most high-nonmanual parents shielded their sons from the need to perform military service. This appears to have been the more successful strategy. Although sons from high-nonmanual backgrounds who left their parents’ home experienced greater downward occupational mobility than comparable soldier-sons, in general where high-nonmanual sons enlisted, the veterans or their families fell further behind the nonveterans and their families during the decade. Among low-nonmanual families, a larger proportion of their sons enlisted, perhaps because these families viewed military service as another opportunity for education and training. The possibility of being drafted may also have been an issue, but a draft was never held in Dubuque, and the threat only became very serious in late 1864—well after most of these men had enlisted. The results were mixed. The soldier-sons who had left their parents’ low-nonmanual households by 1870 showed greater stability of occupation than their See table B.18, appendix B for specific data. Families whose head had no occupation in 1860 are omitted from the discussion in the text because none of the independent men in 1870, whether veteran or not, remained in the no-occupation category. 56 57

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nonsoldier counterparts. On the other hand, the nonsoldiers accumulated more property during the decade, and the families with nonveteran-sons living in them forged ahead of the families with returning veteran-sons. Among the working class, artisan and unskilled families had pursued differing strategies before the war. Sons from artisan families usually left home at a younger age, going to work and starting families. Military enlistments from artisan families followed the same pattern—sons from artisan families were overrepresented in Union army enlistments from Dubuque. For the individual artisan sons, enlistment seems to have helped their careers modestly. Compared to similar nonveteran-sons, veteran-sons from artisan backgrounds who lived on their own in 1870 experienced greater occupational stability and relatively more ability to accumulate property, though they remained behind in total accumulation. For artisan families with returning veteran-sons, however, military service did not help. Families with veteran-sons who lived at home in 1870 fell further behind families without veteran-sons. For families of unskilled workers, as well as for farm families and families whose head listed no occupation in the 1860 census, the family strategy had been to keep sons home longer to provide labor to help support the family. Accordingly, sons from families in these three occupational categories had been more or less underrepresented in the army. Beginning with sons from families whose head listed no occupation, all of the veteran-sons and nearly all of the nonveterans had occupations in 1870. Nonservice seems to have led to greater personal success. Nonveterans had a much larger range of occupations open to them than did veteran-sons, more than half of whom took unskilled jobs after their military service. The veteransons from unskilled or farm backgrounds in 1860, as was the case in other occupational categories, showed greater stability of occupation than comparable nonveteran-sons. Of course for the unskilled, that meant stability at the bottom of the occupational hierarchy, whereas greater mobility for nonveterans meant artisan—or higher—status. Soldier-sons living on their own in 1870 with unskilled occupations also lagged behind comparable nonveterans in property accumulation. Farmers among the now independent veteran-sons continued to own more property than nonsoldiers, but the gap had closed considerably compared to prewar property ownership.

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For unskilled and farm families with returning veteran-sons—that is, men who lived with their parents in both census years—the situation was reversed. Unskilled families with veteran-sons surged ahead of unskilled families without veteran-sons in terms of average property. Enlistment bounties may have contributed, though that does not explain why other veterans, who also received bounties, lagged behind. Nevertheless, ten of the twelve veterans in this group received enlistment bounties of at least $100, and most received $300 or more. Half of these families owned more property in 1870 than in 1860; at the same time, three families owned no property in either census year and two owned less in 1870. In these last two families, fathers had died during the decade, creating a female-headed household. On the other hand, four of the five families that gained property over the decade were also female headed in 1870, two after fathers had died and two that also had been female headed in 1860. This suggests that the addition of bounty money helped some femaleheaded families avoid the drop into severe poverty that had so often accompanied the death or absence of male family heads in prewar Dubuque. The opening of opportunities for women to work for wages outside the home, and the hiring preference shown for the families of soldiers during the war also undoubtedly contributed.58 Farm families with veteran-sons, in contrast, fell behind those who kept their sons at home throughout the war. In this instance, the decline of one of Dubuque’s patrician families explains the change. John Goldthorpe had owned $51,000 in total property, $50,000 of it real estate (farm and mineral lands), in 1860; by 1870 when he was sixty-two years old, his property had declined to $14,800, just $12,000 of it real. Two Goldthorpe sons continued to live at home in 1870: twenty-five-year-old John and thirty-seven-year-old veteran George. 58 Peter V. Lorimier, Third Iowa Infantry; William H. Simmers, Sixteenth Iowa Infantry; Jesse R. Thomas, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry; Charles Simplot and John M. Starr, Forty-sixth Iowa Infantry; William G. Andrews and Oscar Reece, Fifth Iowa Cavalry; James McCormick, Sixth Iowa Cavalry; John O’Brien, Ninth Iowa Cavalry; Michael Noon, Third Iowa Artillery; Joseph L. Horr, Thirteenth U.S. Volunteer Infantry; and William J. Clark, Forty-sixth Iowa Infantry and Third Iowa Artillery—all CSR, NA. Census 1860, Pop., pp. 116, 281, 78, 360, 341, 347, 299, 2, 6, 191, 232, 291 (in order above); and Census 1870, Pop., First Ward, pp. 38, 46 (O’Brien, McCormick), Second Ward, p. 1 (Thomas), Third Ward, pp. 23, 36 (Horr, Noon), Fourth Ward, pp. 17, 71, 74, 76, 96 (Lorimier, Clark, Starr, Simmers, Reece), Julien Township, pp. 15, 32 (Simplot, Andrews),

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In 1878, as part of George’s effort to claim a pension, a medical board in Dubuque examined him and concluded that the strength of his left hand was impaired; George alleged this resulted from having broken his wrist in the army. But the Pension Bureau rejected George’s claim, and an investigation into a pension claim by his friend Julius Mabe uncovered evidence that he may have contracted gonorrhea in the service. Whatever the truth of the latter allegation, during the last half of the 1860s, while John Goldthorpe Sr. aged, his eldest son, as a result of his military service, was less able to take his place in running the family’s farm and mine operations, perhaps leading the family to sell land to support itself.59 Turning, finally, to the group of veteran-persisters who were independent in both census years, the same broad patterns emerge as among the soldier-sons. The independent veterans showed greater occupational stability than nonveterans, while generally falling further behind in terms of property accumulation. Occupationally, the independent soldiers from 1860 generally did not experience as much upward mobility as their nonsoldier peers, nor did they experience as much downward mobility.60 Veterans with low-nonmanual occupations or who were artisans in 1860 more successfully held onto their status in 1870 than did nonveterans. The veterans in these occupations also found class boundaries more impermeable; a larger percentage of low-nonmanual nonveterans slipped into the working class, and a higher percentage of artisan nonveterans climbed into the business class. Similarly, a larger portion of the veterans who had been high nonmanual in 1860 held that status in 1870 compared to similar nonveterans. The high-nonmanual veterans thus more successfully avoided the downward pressures exerted by the changes in Dubuque’s economy over the decade. Those among the veterans who 59 Census 1860, Pop., p. 335; Census 1870, Pop., Julien Township, p. 8; George W. Goldthorpe, Pensions, NA; and Julius F. Mabe, Pensions, NA. A third son of John Goldthorpe Sr., Edward, had started his own family by 1870 and lived next door to his parents; Edward owned no real property. The Pension Bureau rejected George’s claim not because they did not believe the medical board but because there was no evidence that George’s wrist was still injured when he was mustered out with his unit in October 1865; in other words, they concluded that if George’s strength was impaired in 1878, it must have been the result of an injury received after leaving the service and hence not covered by the pension law. 60 See table B.19, appendix B for the data described in this and the following paragraph.

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were downwardly mobile, however, were more likely than nonveterans to skid through the class boundary into the working class, 15.8 percent versus 8.9 percent. The major exception to the basic pattern of veteran stability occurred among the unskilled from 1860 who were independent in both census years. Unskilled veteran-persisters achieved greater levels of upward mobility than their nonveteran peers. For most that simply meant movement into an artisan position by 1870, but the veterans also climbed into the business class and established themselves as farmers more successfully than nonveterans. Some examples of business-class climbers included George Hoiffi, a servant in 1860 who enlisted in the Sixth Iowa Cavalry in 1864, served for a year, and in 1870 was clerking in a store; miner William R. Larcom who served twenty months as a commissary sergeant in the Sixth Cavalry before being discharged for a wound to his right hand and who was an agent for a sewing company in 1870; and laborer John Murphy, who served more than four-and-a-half years in the First Iowa Cavalry, ending with the rank of corporal, and who worked as a railroad section boss in 1870. Among the five unskilled men who became farmers, only Jacob Collins, a miner before the war who served three years in the Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, owned any real property in 1870.61 Collins, who owned just $50 in personal property before the war, but a total of $6,800 in 1870, indicates the basic pattern of property ownership change among the independent in both census years.62 Those 1860 working-class veterans who managed to accumulate property over the decade seem to have combined that with occupational mobility, either upward mobility or into farming. Business-class veteran-persisters on average gained ground compared to the nonsoldiers over the decade. Among the high-nonmanual group, for instance, in 1860 the soldiers owned 82 percent as much property as the nonsoldiers, but by 1870 the veterans’ property ownership exceeded that of the nonveterans; similarly, among the low-nonmanual group, the ratio of property ownership, veterans to nonveterans, im61 For individuals cited in the text, see George Hoiffi and William R. Larcom, Sixth Iowa Cavalry; John Murphy, First Iowa Cavalry; Jacob Collins, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry, all CSR, NA; Census 1860, Pop., pp. 324, 337, 30, 227; and Census 1870, Pop., Second Ward, p. 40 (Murphy), Fourth Ward, p. 12 (Larcom), Fifth Ward, p. 105 (Hoiffi), and Julien Township, p. 7 (Collins). 62 See table B.20, appendix B for the specific data described in the text.

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proved from 25 percent to 36 percent over the decade. The farmers among the veterans also made gains in property relative to nonveterans, though more modestly; veteran-farmers still owned less than one-fourth as much property as nonveterans in 1870. For the working class, although the veteran-to-non-veteran property ratio remained closer over the decade than among either the low-nonmanual or farmer groups, the veterans’ position in fact had worsened. For artisans, soldiers had owned 86 percent as much property as nonsoldiers in 1860 but just 65 percent as much in 1870; the ratio among the unskilled declined from 49 to 41 percent over the decade. Thus independent soldiers who had come largely from among the working class and among propertyless men with families achieved mixed results after their military service. If they had been unskilled workers before enlisting, military service may have given them an occupational boost; the veterans experienced more upward occupational mobility than nonveterans. Those who remained unskilled workers, however, were disadvantaged in property accumulation. For men who had been artisans before the war, the results were more modest; they held onto their titles but lost status, becoming factory artisans, and watched nonveterans achieve greater occupational mobility and property accumulation. Soldiers who had been in the business class in 1860 experienced occupational stability similar to that of artisans, but business-class veterans improved their average property holdings relative to nonveterans. Combining the results from the analysis of sons and independent men leads to several conclusions about the relationship between military service and social mobility. For one thing, despite the facts that most veterans were simply stable occupationally and that most actually lost ground in property accumulation compared to nonveterans, the surviving veterans from the 1860 census did not respond to their circumstances by leaving Dubuque, at least not to the extent that their nonveteran peers did. On the other hand, nonveterans experienced more downward occupational mobility than veterans did, placing their geographic mobility more firmly within the usual interpretation. The veterans’ geographic and occupational stability takes on its full significance in combination with the economic changes that were occurring in Dubuque over the decade. Again taking the sons and independent men together and using the veterans’ own occupations

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in 1870, the veterans had clustered into the middle of the occupational hierarchy: 30 percent held low-nonmanual positions, and 37 percent were artisans.63 This was consistent with the broader changes seen in Dubuque, where occupation distribution generally shifted toward the middle of the hierarchy. As noted, however, for both business men and workers, this was accompanied by a loss of independence. Frequently, prewar merchants in the city became agents or dealers by 1870. Likewise, among the veterans, two-thirds of the 1870 low-nonmanual workers were agents, dealers, clerks, or bookkeepers—in short, white-collar workers, not proprietors.64 Three of these veterans, prewar bankers Solon Langworthy and Henry W. Markell and merchant Noble C. Ryder, moved down from high-nonmanual status to agent or dealer positions by 1870. All three thus had civilian business experience before the war, and they each served in military positions that provided further useful experience for postwar business: Langworthy and Ryder held staff positions that involved them in provisioning their units, and Markell commanded a company in the 100-days service. Others, who moved up from artisan or unskilled occupations into low-nonmanual positions, also had received useful experience in the army. William Larcom, a prewar miner and former commissary sergeant who was local agent for a sewing machine manufacturer in 1870, was mentioned previously. After serving as a corporal and later commissary sergeant in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, William J. Morgan, a miner before the war, was a bookkeeper in 1870. Quartermaster of the Eighth Iowa Cavalry, Cornelius Bennett also worked as a bookkeeper in 1870 after being a printer before the war.65 Similarly, among the artisan veterans, although it is impossible to place individuals with specific employers or work settings, the census data show that 54 percent had job titles that placed them in the industries identified earlier as having become particularly the province 63 These numbers differ from the tables in appendix B because they combine all soldiers and use the veterans’ occupations, even for those who still lived with their parents in 1870 (only one of whom did not have his own occupation). 64 Specifically, 55 of 83 low-nonmanual veterans were agents, or similar. 65 For examples cited in the text, see William R. Larcom, Sixth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; William J. Morgan, Fifth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; Cornelius Bennett, Eighth Iowa Cavalry, CSR, NA; Census 1860, Pop., pp. 337, 335, 60; and Census 1870, Pop., Fourth Ward, pp. 12, 71, 62.

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of semiskilled factory artisans: carriages and wagons, furniture, wood/ lumber, construction materials, machinery, and printing.66 For example, Private Augustus Brulot, a prewar day laborer, enlisted in September 1861, veteranized in January 1864, and was finally mustered out in February 1866; in 1870 he painted wagons in one of the local wagon factories. Prewar saloon keeper Augustus Reinhardt, who waited until 1864 to volunteer, served ten months as a private and in 1870 worked as a planer in a lumber mill. Two veterans in 1870 held unskilled positions in the new ‘‘works in’’ a factory category. Private August Figg, who operated a boarding house before the war, worked in a bucket factory in 1870, and Felix Flanagan, who served nearly three full years as a private, exchanged the independence of mining for similar unskilled work in the more regimented environment of the local gas works; Flanagan’s employer, Jeremiah B. Howard, served as a sergeant with the First Iowa Infantry and as a lieutenant in one of the 100-days companies. Factory artisans worked in conditions quite similar to those of soldiers in the army, and the veterans’ experience made them an important nucleus around which Dubuque’s working class developed.67 Thus although the veterans’ geographic stability belied their limited social mobility, explanations can be found in their military service. One explanation lies in their largely negative impressions of the South, the West, and the large cities they had seen—the most likely places for migrants to relocate in the 1860s. But their army experiences contributed in other ways, too. Their experience with mobility in the military—only a select handful ever became officers, and NCO status, although more available, was also precarious and often fleeting—prepared them to accept limited mobility in civilian life. Moreover, having served as cogs in the Union army’s machine, they were 66 Specifically, 55 of 101 artisan veterans worked in factory artisan industries in 1870. See note 63 for further explanation. 67 For examples cited in the text, see Augustus Brulot, First Iowa Cavalry; Augustus Reinhardt, Twenty-first Iowa Infantry; August Figg, Seventeenth Missouri Infantry; Felix Flanagan, Sixth Iowa Cavalry; and Jeremiah B. Howard, First Iowa Infantry and Forty-fourth Iowa Infantry—all CSR, NA. And see Census 1860, Pop., pp. 297, 69, 188, 7 [Howard was not found in 1860]; Census 1870, Pop., Fourth Ward, p. 68; Third Ward, p. 30; Fifth Ward, p. 40; First Ward, p. 37; and Fourth Ward, p. 10. And for the importance of experience in industrial working conditions, see, for example, Herbert G. Gutman, ‘‘Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815–1919,’’ American Historical Review 78 (June 1973): 531–88.

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more prepared for a similar status in the developing industrial economy of Dubuque. Unlike their nonveteran counterparts, they exhibited greater patience with slow, steady gains; civilians were apparently more restless, more eager to seek their fortunes elsewhere. As a result, despite the physical disabilities of some veterans, employers perhaps viewed veterans as better, more reliable workers. Although their occupational mobility and ability to accumulate property gave veterans little cause for optimism about their place in society, they returned to the city and stayed.

CONCLUSION

Hawkeyes in Blue War shall yet be, and to the end; But war-paint shows the streaks of weather; War yet shall be, but warriors Are now but operatives; War’s made Less grand than Peace, And a singe runs through lace and feather. —Herman Melville, ‘‘A Utilitarian View of the Monitor’s Fight,’’ 1862

Throughout their history, Americans have seen their national mission as a march into the wilderness, a symbolic rejection of ‘‘the past—Europe and the city—for the future, the frontier, and the countryside.’’ In this symbolic world, the Civil War represents a clash between competing visions of that future, each equally consistent with the perceived national mission. For the South, and many Northern conservatives, the urbanizing, industrializing North subverted the national mission. Northern Republicans, however, asserted a different vision, one in which ‘‘free labor’’ and an open frontier made urbanization and industrialization safe. Central to the competition between these two visions was the issue of which section would control the West, the frontier; the most explosive sectional issues involved whether or not slavery would expand into the frontier.1 With the election of the Republican Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860, the issue seemed to be resolved—the frontier would be the province of free labor, with everything that implied in terms of social organization. The South responded by seceding, thus rejecting the 1 John Hellmann, American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), esp. 4–15, quote from 29; Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 9, 11–39; and James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 860–61.

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Northern Republican vision and declaring its determination to seek its own vision of the future. For their part, Northern Republicans and other war supporters declared, in the words of one, that secession represented a ‘‘process of disintegration [which] brings the community to barbarism, precisely as its converse has built up commonwealths . . . out of original barbarism.’’ Consequently, Southern secessionists ‘‘must expect to be arraigned for their deeds before the tribunal of the civilized world.’’ In other words, by the act of secession the South had itself reverted to the status of a ‘‘wilderness’’ that needed to be conquered by the ‘‘civilized’’ North.2 In the war that followed, according to one scholar, the North waged a war of annihilation against Southern civilization similar to that waged by whites against Native American civilizations. With the defeat of the South, the contest between free and slave labor for control of the frontier, and with it the contest for the future of the country, ended. Thereafter, the frontier would be open for industrial capitalist development under a free labor regime. It would also continue its perceived function as a safety valve, preventing the ‘‘European’’ evils of class struggle and a degraded urban proletariat and making the future safe for industrialization and urbanization. Secondarily, the South itself opened as a frontier for free labor civilization.3 The Civil War accomplished more than the defeat of the Southern slave labor system, however. Coming when it did, the war made significant contributions to the creation of an industrial-capitalist society in the North. Its most important, but heretofore least appreciated, contribution came in helping lay the foundations for postwar business 2 John Lothrop Motley, ‘‘The Causes of the American Civil War: A Paper Contributed to the London Times’’ (1861), in Union Pamphlets of the Civil War, ed. Frank Freidel (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1967) 1:36–37. See also Times, 12 March 1862, where the editor calls the Confederate army ‘‘the champions of a semi-barbarous civilization.’’ 3 Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 (New York: Atheneum, 1985), 301–5. Although the idea of the South as a ‘‘wilderness’’ or a ‘‘frontier’’ is imperfectly developed in the secondary literature, other suggestive analyses include Reid Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers: Their Expectations and Their Experiences (New York: Viking Penguin, 1988), 90–147; James H. Moorhead, American Apocalypse: Yankee Protestants and the Civil War, 1860–1869 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1978), esp. 196– 201; and Philip Shaw Paludan, ‘‘A People’s Contest’’: The Union and the Civil War, 1861–1865 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), esp. xii–xxii, 199–200.

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and working classes. What happened during the Civil War era can be thought of as the reverse of what historian John Keegan describes for World War I. In the first part of the twentieth century, Keegan argues, industrialization had advanced to a point where men could be said to have received ‘‘pre-conditioning’’ for the military by their experience of civilian urban-industrial society. For the Civil War, few of the potential military recruits had had such experience. Instead the Union army absorbed large numbers of men from farm fields, artisan shops, and low-nonmanual backgrounds and gave them their first taste of an urban-industrial-like lifestyle. Thus whatever their prewar background, all of the Union army veterans who returned home brought with them ‘‘pre-conditioning’’ for urban-industrial life.4 The analysis of Dubuque’s Civil War soldiers offers a point of entry to understand this important process. The city resembled numerous others—some larger, most smaller—in its progression before the war from a preindustrial, primary production economy (lead mining and farming) to a commercial-capitalist economy. The twin crises of the Panic of 1857 followed closely by Southern secession and the closing of the Mississippi River then forced Dubuque’s business class to rethink its commitment to commerce as the basis of the city’s economic future. The war further helped this process by stimulating demand for certain products Dubuque could produce at some advantage— lead shot and wagons, for instance. By 1870 the city’s businessmen had clearly embarked upon a course of industrialization, which bore fruit in following years. In 1873 the city boasted the second-largest carriage and wagon manufactory in the nation. And in 1880 Dubuque ranked seventieth among manufacturing cities in the country, after ranking ninety-third in 1860.5 While representative economically, Dubuque was also unique in 4 John Keegan, The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme (New York: Viking Press, 1976), 325. And see Herbert G. Gutman, ‘‘Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815–1919,’’ American Historical Review 78 (June 1973): 531–88 for a discussion of the importance of ‘‘experience’’ in making productive workers in the nineteenth century. 5 C. C. Childs, comp., Dubuque City Directory for 1873–1874 (Dubuque: C. Childs & E. Arntzen, 1873), 11; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Eighth Census of the United States 1860 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1866), 4:xviii–xix; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Tenth Census of the United States 1880 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1883), 3:xxiv–xxv.

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some ways during the 1860s, especially in the city’s substantial opposition to the Civil War. On the one hand, this opposition affected the city’s response to the war in important ways. Perhaps most significant, opposition to the war may have hindered enlistments, particularly among the city’s Irish residents, whose enlistments lagged behind their overall percentage in the city. Nevertheless, enough men volunteered from Dubuque to keep the city free of the draft throughout the war; war opponents even took the lead in recruiting efforts when the draft threatened most seriously in late 1864. In a second area, emerging divisions in society, war opposition also played a substantial role. Political divisions and concerns about a decaying social order predated the Civil War, but during the war these tensions increased. Much of the tension—on both sides—was class based, exacerbated by the large-scale defections of business-class men and wealthier citizens from the Mahony-led Democratic Party. Finally, in a third area of impact, war opponents largely set the parameters within which relief efforts operated during the war. Although war supporters did not directly endorse war opponents’ views on relief for soldiers’ families, they accepted them in practice. On the other hand, war opposition had little effect on the economic development of Dubuque as an urban-industrial place. War supporters charged that investors bypassed the city in response to its ‘‘pre-dominance of disloyalty’’ and ‘‘mobocratic preponderance,’’ but little evidence exists to support this view. Indeed, Mahony and his successors at the Herald backed the city’s turn toward industrial development. Further, the Herald, traditionally the working man’s friend in Dubuque, mirrored the Times in its reaction to labor activism during the war. The two papers supported and opposed the same strikes, and when unionized printers struck against both newspapers simultaneously in 1863, the two bitter rivals acted in concert to defeat the union. Capitalists, in short, had little reason to fear that the city was an unfriendly environment for them. Although the level of opposition to the war in Dubuque thus makes the city during the 1860s a more interesting place than some others to study and contributes to further understanding of that opposition, it did not alter the city’s path of development and hence its representativeness.6 Lansing (Iowa) Union, quoted in the Times, 4 December 1862. Also, for strikes during the war, see Herald, 30 January, 18 February, 2, 3 April 1863, 23 April, 4 May 1864; Times, 19, 22 March, 3 April, 29, 30 August, 1 September 1863, 16, 23 Febru6

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Opposition to the war may have kept some immigrants out of the army, but otherwise Dubuque’s soldiers came from among the groups who were prominent in both the Union army and subsequently in the industrial working class—men from farm, artisan, unskilled, and, among younger men especially, low-nonmanual backgrounds. Allowing for differences in persistence rates, independent soldiers generally held artisan or unskilled occupations before the war, whereas (future) soldiers who lived with their parents in 1860 generally came from low-nonmanual or artisan families. Other basic characteristics of the city’s soldiers included low property ownership, an overrepresentation of the native born (and the children of the native born), and an emphasis on younger men; older men from the city were well represented among the soldiers, too, primarily through enlistments in Iowa’s ‘‘Greybeard’’ regiment for men over age forty-five. The children of immigrants also showed a greater tendency to enlist than immigrants themselves. Reenlistments reinforced these patterns of enlistment from the city, especially those involving occupational backgrounds and property ownership. The men who reenlisted came from less propertied and lower-class backgrounds than did the soldiers as a whole. In the military, all endured hardships on the march, in battle, and in camp. These hardships were similar to those experienced by an urban-industrial working class. In industrial terms, the work was dangerous, semi- or unskilled, physically exhausting, and accompanied by oppressive smoke and noise. Urbanlike elements of Union army service included poor housing, overcrowding, poor sanitation, and epidemic disease. In describing the process of early industrialization, historian Merritt Roe Smith notes its ‘‘social and psychological toll.’’ ‘‘The very process of factory innovation uprooted a large segment of the nation’s population,’’ Smith argues, ‘‘catapulting it into a vastly different, bureaucratically organized environment.’’ The same can be said about the Union army. It uprooted over 2 million Northern men, placing them in an unfamiliar environment. That environment was bureaucratically ordered and extracted a social and psychological toll on its members. As in an industrial environment, moreover, soldiers ary, 21 July, 4, 12 August 1864; Hubert H. Wubben, Civil War Iowa and the Copperhead Movement (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1980), 137–38, 151–52; and Franklin T. Oldt, History of Dubuque County, Iowa (Chicago: Goodspeed Historical Association, 1911), 147.

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in the army were expected to exercise little initiative on the job, often had limited training, and, in the artillery, were little more than machine tenders. Off the job, however, the soldiers asserted their independence, adopting many behaviors familiar to observers of civilian working-class life: drinking, gambling, walking off the job, and, occasionally, organizing to resist the worst elements of the system in which they found themselves.7 In many of its features, the Union army was little different than armies throughout history. What matters most here is the context. Life and work in the army for most of the soldiers represented their first exposure to an urban-industrial social and work environment. The Union army, for example, gave many Dubuque workers their first experience with ‘‘wage’’ labor. Artisans in the city had long emphasized that their labor had a ‘‘price’’; they did not work for a ‘‘wage.’’ Certain trades in Dubuque continued even during the 1860s to promote this idea. Thus, in March 1863, the city’s painters, paper hangers, and glaziers met to discuss ‘‘adopting a more uniform price and establishing a price list.’’ About two weeks later, the city’s Typographical Union likewise established a ‘‘price’’ list for newspaper work and struck when the city’s two dailies refused to adopt it. Dubuque tailors struck several establishments on two occasions in 1863 when merchant tailors refused to meet their prices for labor. Finally, the city’s blacksmiths met in October 1863 to ‘‘consider the prices paid us for labor.’’ Similarly, prewar mining contracts in the city generally gave the mine owner claim to a portion of the product, with a certain minimum guarantee, but otherwise left the miners on their own to produce and sell in the marketplace as much or as little as they chose. As other scholars have noted, however, the advance of industrialization eroded the idea of a price for labor. During the war, for instance, Dubuque’s carpenters, wagon makers, cabinetmakers, and shoemakers—all among the earliest industrialized trades in the city—had shifted to thinking in terms of ‘‘wages.’’ When the soldiers Merritt Roe Smith, ‘‘Military Entrepreneurship,’’ in Yankee Enterprise: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures, ed. Otto Mayr and Robert C. Post (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981), 89. James W. Geary, We Need Men: The Union Draft in the Civil War (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1991), 85, calculates that fewer than 2,467,170 different individuals enlisted in the Union army, though the state of the records kept during the war makes it impossible to be more precise. 7

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returned home and resumed their trades, they too would be ready to think of their compensation as wages rather than the artisanal price.8 The military preconditioned the soldiers for urban-industrial society in other ways. The difference in status between officers and enlisted men and the demands for discipline, order, and deference went far beyond anything the men had experienced in civilian life. The most basic status difference between officers and enlisted men was that the former avoided to some extent the hardships and perils of army life. Although army life was still arduous for officers, their higher pay, greater subsistence allowances, and other perquisites meant that they did not experience military service the same way enlisted men did. Perhaps the most telling evidence of this fact is the difference in death rates: twice as many enlisted men (privates and NCOs) died of disease as died in battle or of wounds, whereas for officers the reverse was true. Furthermore, the boundaries between officers and enlisted men were fairly impermeable—few men from Dubuque who began their service as enlisted men managed to become officers and none who began as officers ended as enlisted men—and rigidly enforced by army regulations. Finally, although the demands of discipline in the military far exceeded anything experienced by an urban working class, adherence to army discipline prepared men to accept more readily the milder forms of restraint in civilian society. While the soldiers had their baptism into urban-industrial life, Dubuque itself was changing along similar lines. For example, civilian society in Dubuque became increasingly stratified, and even before the soldiers came home their families experienced this change. The families felt very acutely their position near the bottom of the society. Relief work channeled wives and other dependents of the soldiers in two directions, both of which emphasized their dependency. One choice was reliance upon the soldier’s pay and his ability and willing8 For ‘‘prices,’’ see Times, 22 March 1863 (painters and related others); 3 April 1863 (printers); 19 March, 29 August 1863 (tailors); and 6 October 1863 (blacksmiths). For ‘‘wages,’’ see Wubben, Civil War Iowa, 137–38, 151–52; and Times, 16 February 1864 (cabinetmakers), 4 March 1864 (shoemakers). For example, David Brody talks about ‘‘price’’ for labor in Brody, ‘‘Time and Work Discipline during Early American Industrialism,’’ Labor History 30 (Winter 1989): esp. 27–28. See also Norman J. Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States, 1860–1895: A Study in Democracy (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1929), 74; Ware comments that even in the late 1860s ‘‘the wage system was comparatively new.’’

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ness to send some or all of it home. The second choice was dependence on charity, which more often than not meant common poor relief, because the city’s benevolent community increasingly functioned under the assumption that soldiers should be able to support their families from their wages. Some employment opportunities did open for soldiers’ families, but many were of a temporary nature— sewing uniforms in the employ of merchant tailor Mark Smith, for example—and failed to break the cycle of dependency. Even clerking, which began to be taken over by women during the war, remained temporary employment, typically ending when a woman married. Florence Healey, in many ways the pioneer female clerk in Dubuque, for example, left her position at John Bell’s store after marrying First Iowa Cavalry veteran George W. Walton in 1871.9 When the veterans returned home and resumed their lives, they discovered a changed Dubuque. In the city of 1860, the soldiers had been men poised to move either up or down socially and economically, as the city moved toward greater emphasis on manufacturing. When they returned, the veterans showed an essential immobility; they did not move down—as many Dubuquers did during the decade—but they also failed to move up. They were not only immobile socially but geographically as well. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the lives of Dubuque’s veterans is that they broke the usual nineteenth-century connection between low social mobility and high geographic mobility. In 1870, the veterans were more likely than nonveterans to still live in Dubuque and to hold the same broad occupational status they held in 1860 before they enlisted. The soldiers returned home more rooted (after all their travels in the army), more accepting of limited mobility (which they had also experienced in the army), and satisfied to be mere cogs in the much larger social machinery. Their civilian counterparts, in contrast, were more restless, less accepting of limits, and more prone to try their luck elsewhere if things did not work out satisfactorily in Dubuque.10 Dubuque’s soldiers thus repeated one of the basic adventures of American myth. One theme in romantic fiction of the mid-nineUndated article from the Dubuque Times, George W. Healey Letters, Civil War Documents Collection, IHSD; and George W. Walton, Pensions, NA. 10 See, for example, Stephan Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis 1870–1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), 221–28. 9

324

WARRIORS INTO WORKERS

teenth century portrayed heroes embarking on a journey wherein they left behind a corrupt city, traveled through and tamed a raw wilderness, then returned ‘‘to the city where the fruits of triumph could be enjoyed.’’ Fictionally, but also in history such as Frederick Jackson Turner’s, the influence of such heroes makes urban-industrial society in the United States appear to be ‘‘the fruition of nature’’ rather than a vision of the apocalypse, as Americans imagined the cities of Europe to be. The archetypal hero in this mythology was James Fenimore Cooper’s Natty Bumppo—the ‘‘Hawkeye’’ of fiction. Like their namesake, Dubuque’s soldiers left behind a city seemingly on the verge of social disintegration and helped bring civilization to a wilderness; they thus ensured, as Abraham Lincoln so memorably put it in 1863, ‘‘a new birth of freedom.’’ But unlike the other Hawkeye, who always moved on ahead of advancing civilization, Dubuque’s soldiers completed their mythic journey by returning home. As J. E. S. in the Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantry wrote at the end of the war, ‘‘thank God, the work is done, and well done, and home is before us.’’ ‘‘Long may [the returning soldiers] live,’’ he added, ‘‘to enjoy the fruits of their labors.’’ Although the tangible fruits of their triumph in the form of social mobility were meager, the veterans committed their immediate futures to the city and contributed by their experience to the development of urban-industrial society in Dubuque.11

Bernard Rosenthal, City of Nature: Journeys to Nature in the Age of the American Revolution (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1980), 21, 177–83 (quotes on 178 and 177); and Times, 1 August 1865 (J. E. S. letter). See also, for example, Hellmann, American Myth, 4–10; Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), esp. 71; and William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), esp. 9–19, 46–54. 11

APPENDIX A

Data on Dubuque Society and Politics Table A.1 Occupational Distribution and Property Ownership, 1860

n

% Without ⬍blank⬎

Average Property (dollars)

Average Age

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual

1,125 315 810

25.9 7.3 18.7

4,533.97 9,935.71 2,433.30

33.8 36.7 32.6

Working class Artisan Unskilled

3,096 1,172 1,924

71.3 27.0 44.3

378.65 732.50 163.10

31.6 32.9 30.8

Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’

113 9 9,974

2.6 0.2

5,038.70 3,908.33 71.78

41.2 33.2 16.5

Total

14,317

Source: U.S. Census Office, Population Schedules, Dubuque County, 1860 (hereafter, Census [year], [type]). Note: These data cover Julien Township, including men and women, and children and adults. Occupational classifications are detailed in chapter 1, note 36.

326

APPENDIX A

Table A.2 Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA) of Property Ownership by Occupation and Age, 1860 Including the Excluding the Propertyless Propertyless eta-squared eta-squared Occupation Age in 1860 Multiple R-squared

.1600 .3025 .392

.2025 .0361 .241

Source: Census 1860, Pop. Note: Occupation refers only to those in the four hierarchical occupation categories: high nonmanual, low nonmanual, artisan, and unskilled. Because they do not fit the hierarchy, farmers, persons with no occupation, and those with unclassifiable occupations had to be omitted from this analysis. Property ownership was classified into a six-tiered hierarchy: top 10 percent, 11 to 30 percent, 31 to 50 percent, and bottom 50 percent for persons owning property; heads of household and nonheads of households for persons with no property. For those unfamiliar with MCA analysis, eta-squared measures the proportion of variation in property rank explained by each variable; multiple R-squared measures the proportion of variation in property rank explained by the two variables together. Numbers closer to one indicate greater explanatory value.

Table A.3 Occupation by Nativity, 1860 A.

Iowa Midwest U.S. Eastern U.S. Slave states Ireland German states British Empire Other Europe Miscellaneous Total

All in Table

High Nonmanual

Low Nonmanual

n

%

n

%

n

%

120 225 795 196 1,138 979 402 445 21 4,321

2.8 5.2 18.4 4.5 26.3 22.7 9.3 10.3 0.5

1.0 6.4 44.9 10.9 9.3 12.8 8.7 5.1 1.0

28 57 247 49 117 149 71 90 2 810

3.5 7.0 30.5 6.0 14.4 18.4 8.8 11.1 0.2

3 20 140 34 29 40 27 16 3 312

327

APPENDIX A

Artisan

Iowa Midwest U.S. Eastern U.S. Slave states Ireland German states British Empire Other Europe Miscellaneous Total

Unskilled

Farmers

n

%

n

%

n

%

18 64 203 30 180 392 119 156 5 1,167

1.5 5.5 17.4 2.6 15.4 33.6 10.2 13.4 0.4

70 82 180 71 775 389 162 180 10 1,919

3.6 4.3 9.4 3.7 40.4 20.3 8.4 9.4 0.5

1 2 25 12 37 9 23 3 1 113

0.9 1.8 22.1 10.6 32.7 8.0 20.4 2.7 0.9

B. Native born

70.0%

German and Irish

63.1%

60.7%

60.0% 50.0% 40.0%

49.0%

49.0%

47.0%

40.7% 35.4%

32.8%

30.9%

30.0% 20.0%

Other immigrants

19.6%

22.1%

27.0% 19.9%

23.6%

13.8%

21.0%

23.0% 17.8%

10.0% 0.0% % All

% High Nonmanual

% Low Nonmanual

% Artisan

% Unskilled

% Farmers

Occupations Source: Census 1860, Pop. Note: Table excludes persons with no occupations in the census (n ⳱ 9,974), persons with unclassifiable occupations (n ⳱ 9), and persons with no place of birth listed in the census (n ⳱ 13). Percentages in the chart (B) do not total 100 because they do not include those with miscellaneous (and unclassifiable) places of birth.

328

APPENDIX A

Table A.4 Prewar Political Party Activists by Nativity Republicans 60.0%

Democrats

53.2%

50.0% 40.0%

35.6% 26.1%

30.0%

17.8%

20.0% 11.7%

16.2%

12.6%

11.5%

9.1%

6.3%

10.0% 0.0% Native

Native-South

Irish

German

Other Immigrant

Nativity Sources: Census 1860, Pop.; Dubuque Miners’ Express; Dubuque Daily Express & Herald; Dubuque Daily Herald; and Dubuque Daily Times.

Table A.5 Prewar Political Party Activists by Occupation Republicans Democrats 45.0% 40.0%

38.7% 34.2% 33.5%

35.0% 30.0% 25.0%

23.6%

20.5%

20.0% 12.6%

15.0% 10.0%

13.8% 4.5%

5.0%

2.7%

3.9%

6.3% 0.9% 0.4% /Other

Unclassifiable

Occupations

Farmers

Unskilled

Artisan

Low Nonmanual

High Nonmanual

0.0%

Sources: Census 1860, Pop.; Miners’ Express; Express & Herald; Herald; and Times.

4.3%

329

APPENDIX A

Table A.6 Prewar Political Party Activists by Property Ownership Republicans

45.0% 40.0%

Democrats

41.5% 36.9%

36.9%

35.0% 30.0% 25.0% 19.7%

18.9%

20.0%

20.1% 18.0%

15.0% 8.1%

10.0% 5.0% 0.0% Top 10%

11–50%

Bottom 50%

No Property

Property Ownership Sources: Census 1860, Pop.; Miners’ Express; Express & Herald; Herald; and Times.

Table A.7 Wartime Party Leadership Groups by Nativity Republicans 60.0%

Democrats

War Democrats

56.5% 51.6%

49.5%

50.0%

40.0%

30.0%

20.0%

16.0% 15.8%

14.5% 9.4%

10.0%

15.9%

18.4% 14.5%

10.2%

8.6% 5.8%

8.7%

4.7%

0.0% Native

Native--South

Irish

German

Nativity

Sources: Census 1860, Pop.; Times; Express & Herald; and Herald.

Other Immigrants

330

APPENDIX A

Table A.8 Wartime Party Leadership Groups by Occupation Republicans 50.0% 40.0%

34.8% 31.1%

35.0% 30.0%

26.1%

22.9% 20.8% 17.4%

22.9%

20.0% 15.0%

War Democrats

44.9%

45.0%

25.0%

Democrats

10.6%

25.3%

9.3%

10.0%

8.7%

4.3% 3.6%

5.0%

7.2% 1.4%

0.0%

0.0% High Nonmanual

Low Nonmanual

Artisan

Unskilled

Farmers

5.9% 1.4%

1.4% 0.0%

/"None" Unclassifiable

Occupation

Sources: Census 1860, Pop.; Times; Express & Herald; and Herald.

Table A.9 Wartime Party Leadership Groups by Property Ownership Republicans 50.0%

20.0%

War Democrats

43.5%

40.0% 30.0%

Democrats

33.0% 22.6%

34.0%

31.4%

23.2%

19.7%

24.7%

23.7%

20.3%

13.0%

10.9%

10.0% 0.0% Top 10%

11-50%

Bottom 50%

Property Ownership

Sources: Census 1860, Pop.; Times; Express & Herald; and Herald.

No Property

331

APPENDIX A

Table A.10 Class Backgrounds of Ladies Aid Society Women Compared to Families Producing at Least One Soldier Ladies Aid Society Families

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’ Totals

n Families

%

Average Property

n Soldiers in these Families

149 78 71 21 12 9

78.4 41.1 37.4 11.1 6.3 4.7

10,055.03 15,033.97 4,585.21 5004.76 7,604.17 1,538.89

36 19 17 6 4 2

3 0 17 190

1.6

1,058.33

1

8.9

14,094.12 9,716.18

8 51

All families with at least one soldier

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’ Totals

n Families

%

Average Property

n Soldiers in these Families

121 40 81 230 121 109

28.9 9.6 19.4 55.0 28.9 26.1

7,450.21 13,028.75 4,695.37 787.15 1,257.89 264.59

139 43 96 251 130 121

15 1 51 418

3.6 0.2 12.2

7,353.67 0.00 2,070.10 3,106.22

15 1 56 462

Sources: Census 1860, Pop.; Times; Herald; Iowa Adjutant General’s Office, Roster and Record of Iowa Soldiers in the War of the Rebellion, 6 vols. (Des Moines: Iowa State Printer, 1911); and Compiled Military Service Records, RG 94 (hereafter, CSR, NA), and Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau, RG 110, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Note: Ladies Aid Society women here exclude unmarried women living with parents. ‘‘Families producing soldiers’’ exclude single men. Each family, regardless of how many soldiers it produced, is counted only once.

332

APPENDIX A

Table A.11 Males in 1860 and 1870 Censuses 1860 Males, Age Twelve and Over

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’ Totals

n

% Without ⬍blank⬎

Average Property (dollars)

Average Age

1,078 315 763 2,594 1,132 1,462

28.4 8.3 20.1 68.4 29.8 38.5

4,724.83 9,935.71 2,573.55 439.58 755.73 194.79

34.0 36.7 32.9 33.2 33.1 33.3

113 9 849 4,643

3.0 .2

5,038.70 3,908.33 469.26 1,558.60

41.2 33.2 22.2 31.6

1870 Males, Age Eighteen and Over

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’ Totals

n

% Without ⬍blank⬎

Average Property (dollars)

Average Age

1,493 232 1,261 3,576 1,912 1,664

28.0 4.4 23.7 67.1 35.9 31.2

10,426.10 23,010.13 8,110.88 1,206.55 1,717.41 619.56

36.8 43.6 35.6 36.1 36.1 36.1

256 4 67 5,396

4.8 0.0

5,631.09 2,125.00 205.97 3,955.65

43.1 46.0 39.0 36.7

Sources: Census 1860 and 1870, Pop. Note: Ages twelve and eighteen are used as the cut-off ages for inclusion in the table for 1860 and 1870, based on the ages of soldiers/veterans. There were, in fact, eight (future) soldiers under age twelve in 1860, but expanding the age pool would not have contributed any meaningful data, as it would have simply increased the size of the group with no occupations. All veterans found in the 1870 Census were at least age eighteen.

APPENDIX B

Data on Dubuque’s Soldiers Table B.1 Age and Nativity Distributions Soldiers and Military-Aged Males A. Age Dubuque

40.0%

27.4%

30.0% 25.0%

Soldiers

33.7%

35.0%

22.1%

21.7%

21.4%

24.0%

21.3%

20.0% 15.0%

10.6%

9.5%

10.0%

5.1%

2.6%

5.0%

0.5%

0.0% 12–20

21–24

25–30

31–45

46–60

61+

B. Nativity 3 0 .0 %

D ubuque

S o ld ie rs

2 7 .4 %

2 5 .0 % 2 2 .3 %

2 1 .8 %

2 0 .0 %

2 2 .6 %

1 9 .5 %

1 8 .8 %

1 6 .5 % 1 5 .0 % 1 2 .8 %

1 0 .0 % 8 .4 % 6 .8 % 5 .9 %

6 .5 % 4 .9 %

5 .0 %

5 .2 %

0 .0 % Iow a

M id w es t U .S .

E as tern U .S .

S lave S tates

Iris h

G erm an

O th er Im m ig ran t

Sources: Census 1860, Pop.; Iowa Adjutant General’s Office, Roster and Record; and CSR, NA, and RG 110, Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau, NA. Note: In table B.1.A, military-aged males are defined as those age twelve and over, and all data on soldiers come from their service records. Percentages do not total 100 percent due to absence of those with unclassifiable places of birth.

334

APPENDIX B

Table B.2 Percentages of Soldiers Found in the 1860 Census by Occupation, Nativity, and Age Occupations

ALL

45.0%

High Nonmanual

57.7%

Low Nonmanual

58.1%

Artisan Unskilled

48.1% 32.5%

Farmer /"none" 0.0%

% Found

49.1%

43.6% 10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

Nativity 67.5%

Iowa 41.1%

Midwest U.S.

48.1%

Eastern U.S.

48.5%

Irish 41.6%

German

42.6%

Other Immigrant 0.0%

% Found

52.5%

Slave States

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

Age 12–20

44.1%

21–24

42.3%

25–30

40.2%

31–45

% Found

53.5%

46–60

39.3%

61+ 0.0%

100.0% 10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

Sources: See table B.1.

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

335

APPENDIX B

Table B.3 Soldiers Found in the Census Living on Their Own Compared to Similar Military-Aged Males Independent Soldiers % Without ⬍blank⬎

Average Property (dollars)

Soldiers’ Average Age

119 34 85 237 114 123

32.9 9.4 23.5 65.5 31.5 34.0

3,687.18 8,123.53 1,912.65 387.78 702.54 96.06

32.2 34.4 31.3 31.2 31.7 30.8

5 1 9 371

1.4 0.3

290.00 0.00 1,416.67 1,468.68

26.4 33.0 30.1 31.5

n Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’ Totals

Comparable Census Males

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’ Totals

n

% Without ⬍blank⬎

Average Property (dollars)

Average Age

976 301 675 2,290 1,043 1,247

28.9 8.9 20.0 67.8 30.9 36.9

5,191.88 10,395.52 2,871.44 494.40 819.45 222.52

35.5 37.4 34.6 34.9 34.1 35.5

104 8 312 3,690

3.1 0.2

5,474.74 4,356.25 1,275.32 1,951.64

42.7 34.4 35.2 35.3

Sources: See table B.1. Note: This table must be read in light of the differing persistence rates noted in table B.2. The approximately 10 percent difference in the persistence rates of soldiers with businessclass versus working-class occupations would seem to more than compensate for the small overrepresentation of the business class and the similar underrepresentation of the working class among the soldiers. For soldiers, all data in table B.3 are the soldiers’ personal data; if the soldier had no occupation listed in the census, the occupation from his service record (if any) is substituted. The group of military-aged census males here excludes sons who lived in a household headed by a parent or parents, but the 109 sons who lived as boarders along with their parent(s) in someone else’s household are included, even though among the soldiers such sons are placed in the ‘‘Sons’’ group. The construction of the data did not allow their exclusion from the city’s independent male population, but were they excluded, the result would be to reinforce the patterns revealed in the table, because these were mostly younger men with no occupations or property.

336

APPENDIX B

Table B.4 Nativities of Independent Soldiers Comparable City Males 35.0%

Independent Soldiers

32.0%

30.0%

22.5%

20.2%

19.8%

20.0%

14.1%

13.6%

15.0% 10.0% 5.0%

25.1%

23.4%

25.0%

1.5%

5.1%

3.5%

7.6% 4.9%

6.8%

0.0% Iowa

Midwest U.S.

Eastern U.S.

Slave States

Irish

German

Other Immigrant

Nativity

Sources: See table B.1.

Table B.5 Living Arrangements of Independent Soldiers, 1860 A. Civil Condition 56.9%

60.0% 50.0% 40.0% 30.0%

46.9%

Comparable City Males Independent Soldiers

38.5% 29.6%

20.0%

10.8%

13.2%

10.0%

2.6%

1.3%

0.0% Single

Married, No Children

Married, w/children

Unmarried, w/children

B. Relationship to Head of Household Comparable City Males Independent Soldiers

80.0% 70.0%

68.1% 58.8%

60.0% 50.0% 40.0%

28.0%

30.0%

20.8%

20.0%

8.3%

10.0%

11.3% 1.8%

1.1%

0.9%

0.8%

0.0% Head

Boarder—Private Home

Boarder—Boarding House/Hotel

Boarder—Other

Domestics

Sources: See table B.1. Note: In table B, ‘‘other’’ households include the jail, a rectory, and other institutions, as well as a number of households (twelve in all) that consist primarily or entirely of single men with no apparent family relationships and that are not designated a boarding house or hotel. In the ‘‘other’’ households, the first name in the census is designated the head of household and counted as such for this table.

337

APPENDIX B

Table B.6 Soldiers Found in 1860 Living with Their Parents Compared to All Military-Aged Sons Living with Their Parents Soldiers Living with Parents % Without ⬍blank⬎

Average Property (dollars)

Soldiers’ average age

64 15 49 102 48 54

35.8 8.4 27.4 57.0 26.8 30.2

9,362.50 17,866.67 6,759.18 987.89 1,688.85 364.81

17.1 17.9 16.9 16.9 16.3 17.4

13 0 45 224

7.3

8,860.00

19.0

2,558.33 4,152.99

20.6 17.8

n Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’ Totals

Military-Aged Sons Living with Parents % Without ⬍blank⬎

Average Property (dollars)

246 83 163 501 189 312

30.0 10.1 19.9 61.0 23.0 38.0

13,466.77 27,580.12 6,280.21 992.43 1,678.5 576.79

72 2 246 1,067

8.8 0.2

7,733.79 250.00 1,928.46 4,537.73

n Families Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’ Totals

Sources: See table B.1. Note: Data on occupations and property in this table are those of parents, for both soldiers and nonsoldiers. The fathers’ data are used, if available; otherwise data are from mothers. For parents of more than one soldier or military-aged son, their data are added once for each son; the n in each case is the number of sons. Ages in the upper part of the table are the soldiers’ ages in 1860; average ages for military-aged sons in the city could not be computed.

338

APPENDIX B

Table B.7 Nativities of Parents of Soldier-Sons Parents of City Males

Parents of Soldiers 28.1%

30.0%

24.7% 25.6%

25.1%

25.0% 20.0%

17.0%

16.0%

15.0%

11.1%

13.5%

19.3%

13.0%

10.0% 5.0%

0.2% 0.4%

2.9% 3.1%

0.0% Iowa

Midwest U.S.

Eastern U.S.

Slave States

Irish

German

Other Immigrant

Nativity

Sources: See table B.1. Note: Breaking down the numbers in the ‘‘other immigrants’’ category in table B.7 yields the result that sons of British/Canadian immigrants comprised 17.0 percent of the soldier-sons, whereas similar sons comprised just 13.2 percent of all sons in the city. For the remaining sons of ‘‘other immigrants,’’ the same numbers were 8.5 and 11.5 percent.

339

APPENDIX B

Table B.8 Independent Soldiers by Chronological Groups, Occupation, and Property A. Occupation 20.0% 15.0% 10.0% 5.0% 0.0% -5.0% High Nonmanual

Low Nonmanual

Artisan

Unskilled

Farmer

/"none"

-10.0% -15.0% -20.0% 1st Infantry

Rem. 1861

1862–1863

100-days

Rem. 1864–1865

B. Average Property 20,000.00 18,000.00 16,000.00 14,000.00 12,000.00 10,000.00 8,000.00 6,000.00 4,000.00 2,000.00 0.00 High Nonmanual

Low Nonmanual

1st Infantry

Rem. 1861

Artisan

Unskilled 1862–1863

100-days

Farmer

/"none"

Rem. 1864–1865

Sources: See table B.1. Note: Table A uses a baseline whereby zero equals the percentage of independent enlistments from each occupational group over the entire war, and the bars measure over- or underrepresentation. Specifically, the baselines are high nonmanual, 9.4 percent; low nonmanual, 22.1 percent; artisans, 30.7 percent; unskilled, 33.7 percent; farmers, 1.4 percent; and ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none,’’ 2.5 %. Missing data here include seven independent soldiers with no year of enlistment available and one with an unclassifiable occupation. Missing years of enlistment arise in cases where the soldier joined a Regular Army organization, or the navy; those service records have not been examined. Rem. ⳱ Remainder of year or other period.

340

APPENDIX B

Table B.9 Soldiers Living with Parents by Chronological Groups, Occupation, and Property A. Occupation 25.0% 20.0% 15.0% 10.0% 5.0% 0.0% -5.0% High Nonmanual

Low Nonmanual

Artisan

Unskilled

Farmer

/"none"

-10.0% -15.0% 1st Infantry

Rem. 1861

1862–1863

100-days

Rem. 1864–1865

B. Parents’ Average Property 20,000.00 18,000.00 16,000.00 14,000.00 12,000.00 10,000.00 8,000.00 6,000.00 4,000.00 2,000.00 0.00 High Nonmanual

Low Nonmanual

1st Infantry

Rem. 1861

Artisan

Unskilled 1862–1863

100-days

Farmer

/"none"

Rem. 1864–1865

Sources: See table B.1. Note: For this table, if a soldier’s parent had no occupation given in the census, the soldier’s own occupation, either from the census (preferred) or his service record, is substituted. This increased the number of low-nonmanual soldiers by five, artisans by six, unskilled by thirteen, and farmers by four (compared to table B.6). The resulting occupational baselines are high nonmanual, 7.0 percent; low nonmanual, 25.4 percent; artisans, 25.4 percent; unskilled, 31.5 percent; farmers, 8.0 percent; and ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none,’’ 2.8 %. Eleven soldier-sons with no year of enlistment available are omitted from these data.

341

APPENDIX B

Table B.10 Reenlistments Among Dubuque’s Independent Soldiers Veteran Volunteers

Returners

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’ Totals

n

Avg. Property (dollars)

Avg. Property (dollars)

n

13 2 11 23 10 13

7,511.54 42,000.00 1,240.91 200.00 420.00 30.77

1 0 1 28 14 14

0.00 60.71 121.43 0.00

0 1 37

50.00 2,764.86

1 1 31

1,300.00 50.00 98.39

0.00

% of all Reenlisters 20.6 2.9 17.6 75.0 35.3 39.7 1.5 2.9

Sources: See table B.1. Note: ‘‘Returners’’ are men who served one term of enlistment, were discharged (either because their enlistment expired or because they had become disabled), and later reenlisted; ‘‘veteran volunteers’’ were men who reenlisted while still in the service.

342

APPENDIX B

Table B.11 Reenlistments among Dubuque’s Soldier-Sons Veteran Volunteers

Returners

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers ⬍blank⬎‘‘none’’ Totals

n

Avg. Property (dollars)

n

Avg. Property (dollars)

% of all Reenlisters

5 1 4 14 7 7

7,180.00 1,000.00 8,725.00 828.57 1,371.43 285.71

10 2 8 24 8 16

3,505.00 3,225.00 3,575.00 997.92 2,400.00 296.88

26.3 5.3 21.1 66.7 26.3 40.4

1 1 21

10,500.00 0.00 2,761.90

2 0 36

25,750.00

5.3 1.8

3,069.45

Sources: See table B.1.

Table B.12 Battle Casualties by Military Service Arm

Infantry First Iowa Third Iowa Twelfth Iowa Sixteenth Iowa Twenty-first Iowa Cavalry First Iowa Fifth Iowa Sixth Iowa Seventh Iowa Artillery Third Iowa

Killed and Died of Wounds

Discharged for Wounds

Other Wounded

Total Dubuque Enlistments

% Hit

8 1 0 8 15

1 2 2 3 7

34 6 8 7 19

157 41 51 85 209

27.4 22.0 19.6 21.2 19.6

1 4 0 1

0 0 0 1

2 3 0 0

74 189 76 32

4.1 3.7 0.0 6.3

0

2

1

70

4.3

Source: CSR, NA. Note: These data come from the service records of the 1,321 soldiers from Dubuque; see chapter 3. The data include all enlistments—initial enlistments, reenlistments, and ‘‘veteran volunteers’’—in a particular organization, as well as all men transferred to one of these organizations from another. For example, if a man reenlisted under the veteran volunteer program at the end of 1863, he is counted in the data twice—once for his initial enlistment and once for his ‘‘veteran’’ enlistment in the same organization.

343

APPENDIX B

Table B.13 Multiple Classification Analysis of Ranks when Entering the Army Independent Soldiers n Multiple R-squareda

Occupation Age in 1860 Nativity Property rank

348 .378

Soldier-Sons 206 .139

eta-squaredb

betac

eta-squared

beta

.3025 .0576 .0484 .1936

.42 .15 .10 .22

.0484 .0676 .0009 .0529

.18 .23 .04 .18

With Height n Multiple R-squared

Occupation Age in 1860 Nativity Property rank Height

206 .428

139 .258

eta-squared

beta

eta-squared

beta

.3136 .0256 .0676 .2025 .0289

.43 .13 .14 .27 .10

.0441 .0900 .0004 .0484 .1156

.22 .33 .12 .10 .34

Sources: CSR, NA; and Census 1860, Pop. Note: Because MCA requires that the dependent variable (in this case initial rank) be rank ordered with a fixed distance between values, soldiers who enlisted as musicians had to be omitted from the analysis; they do not fit easily into the rank hierarchy. For the independent variables, only two nativity categories are used: native born and immigrant. Occupations were limited to high and low nonmanual, artisan, and unskilled. Property owners were divided into seven groups according to their status in the city—top 10 percent, next 20 percent (11 to 30 percent overall), next 20 percent (31 to 50 percent overall), bottom 50 percent, heads of household owning no property, employed non–heads of household with no property, and unemployed nonheads with no property. Based on enlistment patterns, ages were grouped as age 20 and below, 21–24, 25–30, 31–45, 46–60, and 61 and older. Finally heights, which ranged from a low of 60 inches to a high of 74 inches, were separated into five groups spanning three inches each; that is, 60–62, 63–65, 66–68, 69–71, and 72–74 inches. For soldier-sons, the occupation, nativity, and property rank data are those of their parents, unless the parental data are missing, in which case the soldiers’ personal data are substituted. a. Multiple R-Squared ⳱ the proportion of variation in initial ranks accounted for by the specified variables taken together. b. Eta-squared ⳱ the proportion of variation in initial ranks explained by each variable separately; this can also be expressed as a percentage (e.g., for independent soldiers excluding height data, 30.25 percent of the variation in rank can be explained by occupation). c. Beta ⳱ the effects of each particular variable, adjusting for the other variables.

344

APPENDIX B

Table B.14 Multiple Classification Analysis of Ranks When Leaving the Army Independent Soldiers n Multiple R-squared

Rank-in Occupation Age in 1860 Nativity Property rank

334 .543

Soldier-Sons 194 .278

eta-squared

beta

eta-squared

beta

.5184 .2025 .0289 .0484 .0784

.70 .11 .08 .05 .11

.2401 .0576 .0225 .0004 .0324

.46 .15 .05 .01 .09

With Height n Multiple R-squared

Rank-in Occupation Age in 1860 Nativity Property rank Height

206 .428

139 .258

eta-squared

beta

eta-squared

beta

.3969 .1764 .0196 .0400 .0676 .0144

.61 .15 .11 .01 .13 .09

.1521 .0441 .0144 .0009 .0196 .5625

.39 .17 .04 .03 .10 .76

Sources: CSR, NA; and Census 1860, Pop. Note: In this table, ‘‘rank-in’’ is the first rank the soldier held in the army. As in the previous table, the occupation, nativity, and property rank for soldier-sons are those of their parents, unless the parental data are missing, in which case the soldiers’ personal data are substituted.

345

APPENDIX B

Table B.15 Persistence Rates, 1860–1870 Male Nonsoldiers Found 1870 Total Occupations Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’ Nativities Iowa Midwest U.S. Eastern U.S. Slave states Ireland German states British Empire Other Europe Miscellaneous Missing data Ages in 1860 0–11 12–20 21–24 25–30 31–45 46–60 61 and over Missing data

Soldiers from 1860 Found 1870

n 2,753

% 42.0

n 275

% 51.6

395 132 263 910 428 482

42.6 47.1 40.6 39.7 42.9 37.2

69 19 50 137 64 73

49.6 55.9 47.6 51.9 52.9 51.0

61 3 1,384

55.5 37.5 43.1

1 1 67

50.0 100.0 53.2

941 160 351 109 405 400 169 208 3 7

48.5 33.9 35.9 39.8 41.2 40.5 41.4 45.1 14.3 38.9

29 29 65 12 28 66 23 22 0 1

49.2 50.9 43.0 37.5 52.8 67.3 50.0 62.9 0.0 100.0

1,129 280 100 338 645 225 35 1

45.3 35.5 29.2 36.5 45.4 48.4 30.4 50.0

5 97 42 48 66 14 3

62.5 53.0 47.7 51.6 49.6 60.9 60.0

Sources: Census 1860 and 1870, Pop.; and CSR, NA. Note: The data in this table come from the individuals’ personal (not parental) data from the 1860 census. The soldiers’ data exclude sixty-two soldiers found in the 1860 census who died in the military (hence, 1860 total n ⳱ 533 for soldiers; for male nonsoldiers 1860 total n ⳱ 6,552).

346

APPENDIX B

Table B.16 Persister ‘‘Sons’’ in Both Census Years: Occupational Mobility and Property Accumulation 1860 Data (From Parents, Where n ⳱ Number of Sons) Nonsoldiers

n

Average Property (dollars)

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual

123 50 73

Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’ Totals

Soldier-Sons

n

Average Property (dollars)

Property Ratio

14,905.69 23,979.00 8,691.10

14 5 9

17,678.57 22,280.00 15,122.22

118.6 92.9 174.0

220 89 131

1,650.95 2,845.90 839.12

18 11 7

701.39 1,081.82 103.57

42.5 38.0 12.3

24 2 33 402

8,988.46 500.00 4,310.61 6,357.17

2 0 4 38

25,750.00

286.5

12,900.00 9,558.55

299.3 150.4

1870 Data (From Parents, Where n ⳱ Number of Sons) Nonsoldiers

n

Average Property (dollars)

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual

113 30 83

Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎/‘‘none’’ Totals

Soldier-Sons

n

Average Property (dollars)

Property Ratio

25,684.51 23,296.67 26,547.59

14 1 13

19,721.43 6,500.00 20,738.46

76.8 27.9 78.1

254 92 162

4,904.53 6,238.04 4,147.22

22 10 12

3,977.27 2,250.00 5,416.67

81.1 36.1 130.6

34 0 1 402

15,027.94

2 0 0 38

8,150.00

54.2

9,997.37

86.2

600.00 11,591.17

Sources: See table B.15. Note: Nonsoldiers in this table are limited to males age eighteen and over in 1870 (because no soldier was found in the 1870 census younger than age eighteen). Subsequent tables will also use age eighteen to define the 1870 civilian population. ‘‘Property ratio’’ ⳱ soldier parents’ average / nonsoldier parents’ average.

347

APPENDIX B

Table B.17 Persister ‘‘Sons’’ in 1860, but ‘‘Independent’’ in 1870, Occupational Mobility (Row Percentages) Sons’ 1870 Occupations Parents’ 1860 Occupations

High Low Nonman. Nonman.

High nonmanual Nonveteran Veteran Low Nonmanual Nonveteran Veteran Artisan Nonveteran Veteran Unskilled Nonveteran Veteran Farmers Nonveteran Veteran ⬍blank⬎ Nonveteran Veteran Total Nonveteran Veteran Column (1870) n Nonveteran Veteran Sources: See table B.15.

20.0

Artsn.

Row (1860) Unsk. Farmer n

50.0 66.7

10.0

20.0

39.1 46.2

34.8 46.2

26.1 7.7

4.0

24.1 27.8

48.0 55.6

20.0 11.1

4.0 5.6

25 18

2.8

18.3 11.8

26.8 41.2

46.5 47.1

5.6

71 17

26.3 50.0

26.3

15.8

31.6 50.0

19 2

28.6 36.4

34.3 9.1

31.4 54.5

5.7

35 11

2.7

26.2 31.3

31.1 37.5

32.8 26.6

7.1 4.7

183 64

5 0

48 20

57 24

60 17

13 3

33.3

10 3 23 13

348

APPENDIX B

Table B.18 Persisters: ‘‘Sons’’ in 1860, but ‘‘Independent’’ in 1870 Property Accumulation 1860 Data (From Parents, Where n ⳱ Number of Sons) Nonsoldiers

n

Average Property (dollars)

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual

33 10 23

Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎‘‘none’’ Totals

Soldier-Sons

n

Average Property (dollars)

Property Ratio

14,606.06 38,660.00 4,147.83

16 3 13

5,578.13 4,550.00 5,815.38

38.2 11.8 140.2

96 25 71

1,023.59 2,313.60 569.37

35 18 17

425.71 555.56 288.24

41.6 24.0 50.6

19 0 35 183

5,432.00

2 0 11 64

9,045.00

166.5

3,277.27 2,473.28

112.6 57.6

2,910.71 4,291.52

1870 Data (Former Sons’ Personal Data) Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual

53 5 48

6,184.91 6,000.00 6,204.17

20 0 20

3,027.50

Working class Artisan Unskilled

117 57 60

741.88 777.19 708.33

41 24 17

484.15 654.17 244.12

65.3 84.2 34.5

Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎‘‘none’’ Totals

13 0 0 183

2,280.77

3 0 0 34

2,833.33

124.2

1,389.06

57.2

Sources: See table B.15.

2,427.60

48.9 48.8

3,027.50

349

APPENDIX B

Table B.19 ‘‘Independent’’ Persisters in Both Census Years: Occupational Mobility (Row Percentages) 1870 Occupations High Low 1860 Occupations Nonman. Nonman. Artisan Unskilled Farmer High nonmanual Nonveteran Veteran Low nonmanual Nonveteran Veteran Artisan Nonveteran Veteran Unskilled Nonveteran Veteran Farmers Nonveteran Veteran Unclassifiable Nonveteran Veteran ⬍blank⬎ Nonveteran Veteran Totals Nonveteran Veteran Column (1870) n Nonveteran Veteran

Unclassifiable Row and (1860) ⬍blank⬎ n

37.9 63.2

49.2 21.1

6.5 15.8

2.4

2.4

1.6

124 19

8.1 8.6

64.8 71.4

15.7 14.3

9.7 5.7

1.3

.4

236 35

4.0

10.1 7.7

76.0 84.6

7.3 5.8

2.5 1.9

2.0 2.0

11.3 16.3

19.2 22.4

61.4 42.9

5.4 10.2

1.8

15.8

10.5

5.3

66.7 100.0

66.7 100.0

33.3

4.1 7.1

24.3 28.6

17.6 21.4

41.9 35.7

9.5 7.1

2.7

74 14

7.2 9.9

25.4 26.9

34.2 38.6

26.1 18.1

6.4 4.7

.6 1.8

1,297 171

94 17

329 46

444 66

339 31

83 8

8 3

396 52 .7 6.1

407 49 57 1 3 1

Sources: See table B.15. Note: Rank in the army seems to have had little correlation with upward civilian mobility. For those independent in both census years, multiple classification analysis (MCA) confirms that a veteran’s prewar occupation affected his 1870 occupation more than his final military rank did; using only the four hierarchical occupational groups (high nonmanual, low nonmanual, artisan, and unskilled) and four hierarchical rank groups (privates, NCOs, company-level officers, officers above company level), 1860 occupation had an eta-squared value of .3721 versus .2209 for final military rank in determining 1870 occupations.

350

APPENDIX B

Table B.20 ‘‘Independent’’ Persisters in Both Census Years: Property Accumulation 1860 Data Nonsoldiers

n

Average Property (dollars)

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual

360 124 236

Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎‘‘none’’ Totals

Soldiers

n

Average Property (dollars)

Property Ratio

7,923.72 14,660.48 4,384.07

54 19 35

4,955.56 12,089.47 1,082.86

62.5 82.5 24.7

803 396 407

667.20 1,025.62 318.48

101 52 49

529.75 883.46 154.39

79.4 86.1 48.5

57 3 74 1,297

8,155.05 7850.00 3,352.37 3,180.24

1 1 14 171

1,300.00 0.00 171.43 1,899.44

15.9 0.0 5.1 59.7

1870 Data Nonsoldiers

n

Average Property (dollars)

Business class High nonmanual Low nonmanual

423 94 329

Working class Artisan Unskilled Other Farmers Unclassifiable ⬍blank⬎‘‘none’’ Totals Sources: See table B.15.

Soldiers

n

Average Property (dollars)

Property Ratio

20,556.97 24,715.43 19,368.85

63 17 46

11,793.65 24,735.29 7,010.87

57.4 100.1 36.2

783 444 339

2,701.88 3,722.35 1,365.34

97 66 31

1,827.32 2,421.21 562.90

67.6 65.0 41.2

83 1 7 1,297

11,744.58 2,000.00 1,800.00 9,098.36

8 0 3 171

2,900.00

24.7

133.33 5,519.59

7.4 60.7

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Index t ⳱ table. absence without leave (AWOL), 224 Adams, Marshall, 97, 98–99 Adams, Shubael P., 93, 245 advertising, 63, 93, 113, 217; draft recruitment in, 90; war in business, 72–75 African Americans, 77, 82, 88n58, 165, 202–4, 206 age: as determinant of initial rank, 188, 343t; distribution among soldiers, 118–19, 300, 301n45, 46, 333t, 334t; geographic stability and, 293; occupational grouping and, 325t; parents’, 302; property ownership and, 42, 325t, 326t aid to soldiers, 255–56, 260–65, 272 aid to soldiers’ families, 238–39, 254–58, 267–72, 319, 322–23; bounty payments as, 81, 251; Ladies Aid Society (LAS) and, 250; Volunteer Fund Board (VFB) and, 245–46 alcohol, problem of, 212–14, 218– 19, 226 Alden, B. D., 67 Allison, William B., 245 allotment system, 263–64 Anderson, Alexander, 113–14 Anderson, John, 216 army contracts, 85, 291 Arrears Act, 282 Articles of War, 168, 171, 228

artillery service, 148, 162–66; analogy to manufactories, 151; casualties of, 181, 342t; interchangeability of, 150 Austin, Marion, 226 AWOL (absence without leave), 224 Bach, William, 103 Ballou, George, 90–91, 99–100, 252, 272–73 Bates, J. F., 185 battle, description of, 177–79 behavior, military standards of, 171, 218 Belfield, Henry H., 186 Bell, John, 95 benevolent societies, 13, 238–39, 265–67 Bennett, Cornelius, 313 Benson, Lee, 46 Bittmann, John, 68 Blockly, Matthias, 107–8 boarders, 54, 125–26, 247 Bonson, Richard, 24, 38, 113, 251, 288; defection from Democratic Party, 69 bounties, 258n38; county funds for, 80–81, 95, 97–98; enlistment, 76– 77, 88, 309; federal, 93 Brazill, John T., 78 Brown, Peter M., 260 Brulot, Augustus, 298, 314 Bumppo, Natty (fictional character), 142, 324

380

INDEX

Busch, Anton, 224–25 business class, 70, 186, 303; assessment of family strategies, 307; independent soldiers in, 335t, 341t; length of service among, 133–35, 141; occupational groupings within, 41n36; persistence rates of soldiers from, 345t; property ownership and, 41–42, 325t, 332t; soldier-sons in, 337t, 342t; women in the, 249, 272, 331t Byrne, John, 226 Camp Franklin, 195n4 Camp Union, 169, 171, 194–98, 291 capitalism, 3, 35, 170 Cassinet, Joseph, 225 casualties, 157–58, 180, 342t; from disease, 198, 200, 201 cavalry service, 158–60, 181; casualities of, 342t Central Island Improvement Company, 47–49, 84 Chaney, Richard O., 221 charities. See benevolent societies Chicago Sanitary Commission, 265 Christian Commission, 268, 270 City House of Refuge, 242 Clark, Orlando, 95 class distinctions, 40 class shifts, 285 Clausewitz, Karl von, 6 climate, 202 Collins, Jacob, 106, 311 community, strength of, 234 commutation, 88, 91–94 conscription, 73 conscripts, 76, 88–90 Conway, Moncure, 191–92, 274 Conyngham, John F., 156 Conzett, David, 15 Conzett, Josiah, 14–16, 40, 84; on

cavalry service, 159–60; frustrations of cavalry service, 159; homecoming of First Iowa, 63; on military food, 204; promotion of, 187; on readiness of soldiers for battle, 160–61; reenlistment of, 107; rise to business class, 305–6 Cooper, A. A., 284 Cooper, James Fenimore, 324 Copperheads, 83n49, 277 County Poor House, 242–43 courts martial, 222–27, 228n62, 231 Cram, DeWitt C., 76, 231 Currie, James K., 228–29 Curtis, Volney, 260 Dakota Territory, 76, 90 Darrow, Daniel, 93 Deckert, George, 306 Democratic State Central Committee, 91 Dengl, Joseph J., 260 dependency, 321–23 Dependent Pension Act, 282 desertion, 90, 132, 222, 224 Dickinson, J. L., 286 disability claims, 161, 179–80, 198, 279–80 discipline, military, 182, 222–24, 232–36 disease, 197–205, 216–17; death from, 198, 200–204, 206 Doane, William, 50 Dodge, Grenville M., 182–83, 184, 218 domesticity, 239, 249, 256 Doorn, Jacques van, 4, 182, 224 Dorr, Joseph B., 48, 60, 69, 75, 90, 177 Dorr, Mary J., 281 Douglas, Stephen A., 25 Doyle, Frank N., 156, 218

INDEX

draft, 73–75, 78, 130; Iowa, 96–100; national, 87–89; threat of a, 82, 168 drum and bugle calls, 169–70 Duane, Daniel J., 262 Dubuque, 9–10, 21–34, 40, 318–19; after the Civil War, 282–85, 323; economy, 59, 84, 283–84; first town clock, 170, 171n44; police force, 116, 236; political history, 43–47; railroad industry in, 71; social unrest, 34, 57, 58; urbanization of, 115; walking city, 172 Dubuque, Julien, 23, 24 Dubuque and Pacific Railroad, 27, 65, 71 Dubuque and Sioux City Railroad, 71, 288 Dubuque Battery, 105–7, 163, 262, 264 Dubuque Emigrant Aid Society, 241 Dubuque Ladies Aid Society. See Ladies Aid Society (LAS) Dubuque Times, 58, 319 Dunleith, Illinois, 25 Dunton, Orlo, 162 economic changes, impact on stability, 312 education and training, 54–55 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1, 4 employment, 112, 323; Dubuque, 72; postwar, 278; women and, 38, 86–87, 309, 323 endurance, physical, 173 Engels, Frederick, 143 engineers, 287 enlistment, 55–56, 68, 90; bounties, 76–77, 88; contracts, 167–68; motivation for, 104–10; soldier-sons patterns, 130, 138 Enrollment Act, 87–92, 99, 100

381

entrepreneurial class, 35, 39–40, 48, 288–89 escape from society, 110 excise taxes, 84–86 exposure, 206 Express & Herald (newspaper), 44, 59–60 factory work, 286 families, 52–56, 130, 252–57, 262, 301; relief aid to, 238–39, 265, 267–69, 272 family strategy, 12, 307–8; military service as, 56, 140; prewar, 52–56, 129–30, 137–38; women at the battlefield as a, 214 Fanning, J. Ambrose, 259–60 Fengler, Richard, 300 Figg, August, 314 Flanagan, Felix, 314 Flint, C. C., 78, 120 Foner, Eric, 3 food, military, 62, 204–5 Formissano, Ronald P., 45–46 Forshee, Spencer, 106 Fort Donelson, battle of, 160, 167 fortification building, 174 Four Acts of Despotism, 88 frontier, 316–17 frontier service, 90 Fry, James B., 198, 202–3, 206 Galena, Illinois, 9, 25, 28 gambling, 39, 212, 218, 267 German immigrants, 42–46, 120, 123, 131, 187; Reform Party government and, 48–49 Goldthorpe, George, 106, 107, 216, 309–10 Goldthorpe, John, 106, 309 Governor’s Greys, 155 Grant, U. S., 176, 263

382

INDEX

Graves, Julius K., 182, 245, 291 Greaves, David, 103 Greybeards, 118–19, 258, 262 Grimes, James, 263 guard duty, 174–75 Guilford, Thomas, 259–60 Gutman, Herbert G., 2 Haenni, Samuel, 110 Hall, Masilla, 78, 96 Halleck, Henry, 232, 263 Hardee, William J., 153 Hartville, battle of, 166, 171 Hazeleton, Frederick, 161 heads of household, 52–53, 125–27; female, 38, 53, 56–57, 242, 309 Healey, Florence, 95, 96, 171n44 Healey, George W., 160, 262, 264, 295–98; comments on sister’s enlistment, 95; on reenlistment, 107 Health: conditions at Camp Union, 197; as motivation for enlistment, 109 height, 188–89, 343t, 344t Hemmelder, Anthony, 306 Hempstead, Stephen, 243 Henderson, David B., 279–80 Herald (newspaper), 11, 44, 58, 319 Herancourt, Valentine, 284 Herron, Francis J., 114, 155 Herron, Richard, 114 Hetherington, Henry S., 34, 251 Hoiffi, George, 311 home, longing for, 294, 296–99 homecoming, 275–77 Horr, Leonard, 25–26, 114 horses, treatment in the military of, 160–62 House of Refuge, 243–44 housing, 195–96 Howard, Jeremiah, 314 Hoxie, Herbert, 78–79 Hutchins, Stilson, 83–84

Illinois Central Railroad, 25, 26, 28, 71–72 immigrants, 42–45, 120, 131, 190, 320; strategy for Americanization, 131–32. See also German immigrants; Irish immigrants independence of spirit, 142, 145–46, 321 independent soldiers, 123–28, 312; analysis by rank when entering army, 343t; analysis by rank when leaving army, 344t; defined, 123–27; length of service and, 133–35, 339t; living arrangements of, 335t, 336t; marital status of, 125; nativity of, 124–25, 336t; as NCOs (noncommissioned officers), 186; occupational grouping and, 339t; occupational stability of, 310–11; property ownership and, 126, 135, 141, 311, 339t; reenlistment among, 140, 341t; social mobility of, 299–305 industrial society, 1–5, 223, 317 industrial workplace, army as, 146– 47, 151, 169–81, 189–91 industrialization, 147, 318 infantry service, 152–58, 162; casualties of, 181, 342t; history of, 148, 150 inflation, 84, 86, 93–94, 112 initiative, reduction of personal, 150, 166–67 institutional relief, 240 interchangeability, 150 Iowa Religious Newsletter (IRN), 192, 255–56, 274, 278 Iowa State Army Sanitary Commission, 269 Irish immigrants, 11, 42–46, 120, 131; enlistments of, 124–25, 319; First Ward, 98; recruitment of,

INDEX

64, 78, 79–82; Reform Party government and, 48–49 Jackson, Luther W., 101–2, 197, 295, 297 Jones, George Wallace, 25, 44, 47 Jones, William, 259–60 Jordan, Luther, 259–60 Jordan, William A., 245 journeys-to-work, 172–73 Julien Township, 33, 96–98, 117 Kaempffert, Waldemar, 4 Kansas-Nebraska, Act of 1854, 44, 46 Keegan, John, 178, 318 Kennedy, John, 213 Kerr, William W., 227 Kilpatrick, Judson, 234 Kirkwood, Samuel J., 62, 78, 159, 258, 270–71; recruitment efforts of, 61, 73–74, 82–83 Knowlton, Laura, 280 Kohn, Richard, 7–8 Kuntz, John, 264, 280–81 Ladies Aid Society (LAS), 259, 265–70; membership of, 249–53, 272, 331t; Northern Iowa Sanitary Fair and, 239; USSC (U.S. Sanitary Commission) and, 256 Ladies’ Union League of Iowa, 257 Ladies’ Volunteer Labor Society, 247–49 Langeneckhardt, Henry, 179 language, 211, 213 Langworthy, James L., 23, 24, 49 Langworthy, Julia, 250 Langworthy, Lucius H., 23, 24, 43, 49 Langworthy, Oscar, 108–9 Langworthy, Solon M., 94, 187, 193,

383

291–92; business ventures of, 59–60; change of occupational status, 313; criticism of city business leaders, 36; views on Texas, 295 Larcom, William R., 311, 313 Large, W. P., 245 Laurie, Bruce, 210 leadership models, 183, 219 length of service, 76, 168; independent soldiers and, 133–35; soldier-sons and, 136–37 Lewis, John P., 306 Lincoln, Abraham, 88, 99 Little Rock, Arkansas, 193 Livermore, Mary, 248, 265, 266 living arrangements: independent soldiers and, 125, 335t, 336t; with parents, 127, 301, 337t, 340t Lockey, Joseph, 173 Loftus, Patrick, 110, 230 Lorimier, Peter de, 300 Lovell, Carrie, 257–58 Lowe, William W., 159–60 Lyon, Nathaniel, 168–69 Mabe, Burley W., 105–6, 107 Mabe, Julius, 105–6, 107, 216, 309–10 machinery, 286 Mackenzie, Charles, 260 Mahoney, Timothy R., 25 Mahony, Dennis A., 11, 47, 120, 245, 275, 319; arrest of, 78–79, 81; business ventures of, 59–60; on care for soldiers’ families, 251; Four Acts of Despotism , 88; opposition to war, 58, 64–66, 68–70; retirement from newspaper, 83–84; support of Iowa draft, 97 make-work projects, 175–77 males, 51–52, 78, 128; distribution by class, 332t

384

INDEX

Maltz, William, 225, 226 management, 184 manufactories, 151, 169 marches, forced, 171–73 Markell, Henry, 245, 291, 313 Marx, Karl, 143 McCauley, James, 215, 230–31 McCreery, J. L., 267 McNamara, Michael, 243 Meade, George Gordon, 185 measles, 197–98 Melhop, John, 278 merchants, 289–90 military service; family strategy for, 56; impact on societal productivity, 167; industrial society and, 2–7; influence on geographic mobility, 294; as means of stable employment, 112–13, 127, 139; social mobility and, 115, 312, 314 military training, 153–56, 162 Militia Act, 73, 76–78, 88 militia companies, 134–35 Mills, William, 66–67 Miners’ Express, 44 Minie´ ball, 149n7 mining industry, 15, 23, 33, 113 Mississippi River, 9, 28, 71, 318 Mitton, Frank, 115, 156 Mitton, Robert, 115, 242, 243 mobility, 13, 17, 190–91, 323; geographic, 292–93, 297, 323; occupational, 304–10, 346t, 347t, 349t; social, 115, 275, 290–94, 299– 300, 312 Mobley, William, 213 Mohan, Bernard, 115 ‘‘Monkey Town’’, 15 Montross, Richard W., 187 morality, 51, 217, 241, 256; soldiers’, 192, 211, 235 Morgan, William J., 106, 107, 313

Morheiser, Philip C., 37, 116, 236 Morse, Charles R., 187 Morton, Charles A., 108 motivation to serve, 101–3, 117, 132, 136, 141 Moy, Rudolph, 262 Mulkern, M. B., 245 mumps, 197 Murphy, John, 311 musketry, 149, 152 mutinies, 222, 226, 231–34 Nagle, Edward, 225, 264 Nash, George L., 224 nativity, 70, 120, 124, 131, 190; as determinant of initial rank, 187–88; distribution among soldiers, 333t, 334t; independent soldiers and, 124–25; occupation and, 326t–327t; of parents of soldier-sons, 338t; political parties, prewar and, 44–45, 328t; political parties, wartime and, 70, 329t NCOs (noncommissioned officers), 183, 186, 189, 219–27, 286–87 Newcomb, E. M., 157 Newman, William, 284 noise and smoke, 177–79 noncommissioned officers (NCOs). See NCOs (noncommissioned officers) noninstitutional relief, 240, 242 Northern Iowa Sanitary Fair, 239, 266–70 Norton, Charles Eliot, 220 O’Brien, George, 78, 81 Observer (newspaper), 44–45 occupational groupings: age and, 325t; artisan, defined, 41n36; as determinant of initial rank, 187, 188; distribution among soldiers,

INDEX

334t; high non-manual, defined, 41n36; independent soldiers and, 141, 187; living arrangements of sons and, 53; low non-manual, defined, 41n36; nativity and, 326– 27t; political parties, prewar and, 328t; political parties, wartime and, 330t; property ownership and, 325t; soldier-sons and, 130; unskilled, defined, 41n36 occupations, 136n64, 189, 302; data on pre-war, 120–21; feminizing of, 96; postwar, 289 officers, 194, 207–8, 219, 227–30 O’Neill, John, 78, 81 Order of the Sons of Temperance, 218–19 organization, centralized model of, 182 overcrowding, 206 Panic of 1857, 9, 22, 29–30, 34, 36, 47, 59 parental authority, rebellion against, 108, 117 particularists, 285 patrician class, 34–35, 36, 44, 288 patriotism, 103, 105, 127, 132, 141, 296 Pea Ridge, battle of, 157–58, 171 Peace Democrats, 59, 83n49 peer pressure, 105, 107–8, 117 pensions, 216, 278–82; disability claims, 161, 179–80, 279–80, 309–10 People’s Reform party. See Reform Party government persistence: independent soldiers and, 123–24; for occupational groupings, 122; occupational mobility and, 346t, 349t; property ownership and, 346t, 348t, 350t; rates of, 1860–1870, 345t

385

Peterson, W. S., 98, 268 Pettit, Henry W., 51, 60–61, 245; view of the South, 295 Philosophy of Manufactures, 223 physical improvement, 109 Pitschner, Ernst, 279 Playter, Henry J., 167 police force, 116, 236 political parties, postwar, 277 political parties, prewar, 43–49, 57; election of 1858, 47; nativity and, 44–45, 328t; occupation and, 328t; property ownership and, 329t political parties, wartime, 69, 70, 99; nativity and, 70, 329t; occupation and, 330t; property ownership and, 70, 330t politics, 243 Pollock, Samuel, 185, 227 poor, 11, 37–39, 94, 252; commutation and, 91–92; recruitment directed toward, 77–78 poor relief, 240–45, 250 population, 26 poverty, 37–39, 53, 240–45, 259 pre-conditioning, 12, 318, 322 prisoners, release of, 176n54–177n productivity, 151, 166 property ownership, 35, 70, 136n62, 189, 302; age and, 42, 325t, 326t; among independent soldiers, 126, 135, 311; among soldier-sons, 129–30, 137–38, 306–7, 340t; class differences, 41–42; as determinant of initial rank, 187; independent soldiers and, 141, 187, 339t; occupation and, 325t, 326t; persistence and, 346t, 348t, 350t; political parties, prewar and, 329t; political parties, wartime and, 330t; postwar, 288; of veterans, 301–2, 308

386

INDEX

prostitution, 39, 215 Protestant work ethic, 4, 128, 224 Puls, William E., 305 radicalism, 210–11 railroad industry, 9, 71, 182–83 Randolph, Mahlon, 228–30 rank, military, 183, 222; determinants of initial, 187–89; and impact of disease, 206 recruitment, 73–78, 133, 136; cavalry, 159; volunteers and, 61–64 reenlistment: among independent soldiers, 139, 341t; among soldiersons, 139–40, 342t; patterns of, 138–41, 298, 320; peer pressure and, 107 Reform Party government, 47–49, 69, 115–16, 243 regularity as value of discipline, 224 Reinhardt, Augustus, 314 relief efforts, 224–46, 265–67, 319, 322–23; for the poor, 37, 94 Relief Law, 271–72 Renner, Ernst, 112, 264–65, 296 Republican, 49, 68 respect for authority, 224, 225–26 revivalists, 210, 218 Rice, Martin L., 111 Richards, B. B., 48 Richmond, Byron M., 187 Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics (Hardee), 153 Robb, Patrick, 98, 99 Robertson, James I., Jr., 1 Roper, Robert, 226 Ross, Steven J., 285 Rothlander, Otto, 116, 161 Rouse, Hammond, 245 rural-to-urban migrants, 98–99, 121, 204 Russell, James, 173

Russell, James H., 172 Ryder, Noble C., 313 sanitation, 198, 206 Schmidt, Titus, 48, 49 schools: attendance at, 53; discipline in, 235–36; military, 128 Schwaegler, John, Jr., 303 Schwaegler, William, 180, 304 Scott, Matthew P., 118 self-discipline, 224, 226–27 self-reliance, 241 service arm organization, casualty count by, 342t sexual activity, 215–17 shebangs, 193, 196 Sherman, William Tecumseh, 274 Shiloh, battle of, 156, 157, 171, 174, 176 Sigler, D. S., 93 Skemp, Pascal W., 103 skirmishers, 148, 152, 162 slavery, 46, 77, 316, 317 Small, Jerusha A., 215 Smith, C. F. (‘‘Old’’), 158 Smith, Merritt Roe, 320 Smith, Platt, 241 Smith, Solomon, 160 smoke and noise, 177–79 soldier-labor market, 100 soldier-sons, 127–32, 301; defined, 123; determinants of military rank, 188; length of service and, 136–37; living with parents, 337t; nativity of parents, 338t; occupation and, 340t; occupational mobility and, 304, 307; property ownership and, 340t; rank when entering army, 186, 343t; rank when leaving army, 344t; reenlistment among, 140, 342t; social mobility of, 299–305; time of service, 340t

INDEX

soldiers: aid to, 238–39, 268; in context of place and time, 9; independent (see independent soldiers); distribution by age and nativity, 333t; quality of, 157; relief efforts for, 13 Soldiers’ Aid Society, 269 soldiers’ home, 253–55 Soldiers’ Relief Society, 247 sons: education and training of, 54–55; living arrangements of, 52; nonveteran, 302; veteran, 303 South, 142, 295; war against the, 316–17 Spaulding, Melville, 211 stability, 292, 303; desire for, 299; geographic, 292, 314–15; occupational, 305; occupational groupings and, 307; patterns of, 311 standards of living, 188, 195 Stanton, Edwin, 73 Staples, George M., 178–79 Steiner, Paul, 198 Stewart, G. T., 89, 252 Stiles, Alonzo, 303–4 Stiles, Edwin S., 304 Stone, Governor William, 271 Stone, William M., 100 Stout, Henry L., 245 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 50 strikes, labor, 87, 226 sutlers, 212–13 Swivel, Jacob, 116, 210–11 task orientation, 169 taxes, excise, 84–86 Taylor, A. A. E., 67–68 Taylor Township, 98 temperance, 218 tents, 196 Thedinga, J. H., 253 Thompson, E. P., 1, 4, 170

387

Thompson, George W., 298 time, concept of industrial, 169–70 tobacco, 213–14 Tomlinson, William, 106 traditionalists, 210 Turck, Sol, 245 Udell, Frank O., 187 uniforms, 62 Union League, 103 unworthy poor, 37, 242, 252–53, 265 urban-industrial environment, 193– 99, 204, 318–22 Ure, Andrew, 223 USSC (U.S. Sanitary Commission), 212, 255–56, 263, 266, 281 Vallandigham, Clement, 67n15 Vandever, William, 157–58, 245 venereal disease, 216–17 veteran volunteers, 88, 106–7, 139, 261 veterans; disabled, 281; persistence and, 292–94, 310, 311, 347t, 348t, 349t, 350t VFB (Volunteer Fund Board). See Volunteer Fund Board (VFB) Vicksburg, 176, 177, 206 Vinovskis, Maris, 7 Volunteer Fund Board (VFB), 245– 47, 250–51, 266, 269 volunteers, 76, 90–91, 93, 124, 132; bounties for, 80–81, 88, 98; preparedness for army life, 146–47; recruitment and, 61–64, 73–75; regiments of, 184 wages, 76–78, 91, 167–68, 261; allotment system, 263–64; labor for, 321–22; officers’, 208; sending money home, 86–87, 322 Walker, George M., 106

388

INDEX

walking city, 172 Wall, Daniel, 116 Wall, James J., 113–14 Waller, Willard, 282 War Democrats, 69–70, 75 water supply, 205–6 wealth, 34 weapons, 149, 152–54, 160 Weber, Max, 4, 224 Weigel, Charles J., 107 Wilkey, Caspar, 180 Wilkie, Franc B., 62, 101, 175, 184–85; comments on changing economic values, 36–37; description of Wilson’s Creek battle, 178–79; on guard duty, 174; on gun accident, 181; on weapons, 152; on why men enlisted, 104–5 Willard, Orson, 227 Williams, Valconlon J., 162 Wilson, David S., 185, 245, 248 Wilson, Thomas S., 44 Wilson’s Creek, battle of, 154, 168– 69, 178, 180, 212

Winninghoff, Henry, 278 Wittenmyer, Annie, 269 women, 54, 78, 214–15, 240, 276; benevolent societies and, 13, 40, 238–39, 247–48; blamed for social decay, 49–50; employment and, 38, 86–87, 309, 323; enlistment of, 95; vulnerability to poverty, 38 work, 167, 225; environment, 191, 321; experiences, 169; leisure and, 211 working class: independent soldiers from, 123–24; length of service among, 135; occupational groupings within, 41n36; property ownership patterns, 41; recruitment directed toward, 77–78; recruits, 186; substitute prices, 94; women, 54 workplace, army as industrial, 146– 47, 151, 169–81, 189–91 worthy poor, 37, 242, 252 wounds and wounded, 180

The North’s Civil War Series Paul A. Cimbala, series editor 1. Anita Palladino, ed., Diary of a Yankee Engineer: The Civil War Story of John H. Westervelt, Engineer, 1st New York Volunteer Engineer Corps. 2. Herman Belz, Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era. 3. Earl J. Hess, Liberty, Virtue, and Progress: Northerners and Their War for the Union. Second revised edition, with a new introduction by the author. 4. William L. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers: The Union’s Ethnic Regiments. 5. Hans L. Trefousse, Carl Schurz: A Biography. 6. Stephen W. Sears, ed., Mr. Dunn Browne’s Experiences in the Army: The Civil War Letters of Samuel W. Fiske. 7. Jean H. Baker, Affairs of Party: The Political Culture of Northern Democrats in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. 8. Frank L. Klement, The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham and the Civil War. With a new introduction by Steven K. Rogstad. 9. Lawrence N. Powell, New Masters: Northern Planters during the Civil War and Reconstruction. 10. John A. Carpenter, Sword and Olive Branch: Oliver Otis Howard. 11. Thomas F. Schwartz, ed., ‘‘For a Vast Future Also’’: Essays from the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. 12. Mark De Wolfe Howe, ed., Touched with Fire: Civil War Letters and Diary of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. With a new introduction by David Burton. 13. Harold Adams Small, ed., The Road to Richmond: The Civil War Letters of Major Abner R. Small of the 16th Maine Volunteers. New introduction by Earl J. Hess. 14. Eric A. Campbell, ed., ‘‘A Grand Terrible Dramma’’: From Gettysburg to Petersburg: The Civil War Letters of Charles Wellington Reed. Illustrated by Reed’s Civil War Sketches. 15. Herbert Mitgang, ed., Abraham Lincoln: A Press Portrait. 16. Harold Holzer, ed., Prang’s Civil War Pictures: The Complete Battle Chromos of Louis Prang. 17. Harold Holzer, ed., State of the Union: New York and the Civil War.

18. Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M. Miller, eds., Union Soldiers and the Northern Home Front: Wartime Experiences, Postwar Adjustments. 19. Mark A. Snell, From First to Last: The Lifetime of William B. Franklin. 20. Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M. Miller, eds., An Uncommon Time: The Civil War and the Northern Home Front. 21. John Y. Simon and Harold Holzer, eds., The Lincoln Forum: Rediscovering Abraham Lincoln. 22. Thomas F. Curran. Soldiers of Peace: Civil War Pacifism and the Postwar Radical Peace Movement. 23. Kyle S. Sinisi. Sacred Debts: State Civil War Claims and American Federalism, 1861–1880.