[February 10, 1862.]
I do not get any reply to my letters to the President in
regard to brigading our Iowa regiments and the appointment of additional
Brigadiers from this State. I am fully satisfied that this is necessary, that
our soldiers may have fair play; and I intend to persist in it till 1 know the
thing is done or can't be done. We must look at things as they are.
Brigadier-Generals, if not religious men, are yet generally believers in a
hereafter to this extent — they think they may hereafter want votes. Now
suppose one of our regiments in a brigade, the balance of which are from
Illinois under an Illinois Brigadier. He knows our men can not vote for or
against him when the war is over, and that the Illinois men can, and we may
presume the human nature that exists inside, as well as outside the army and
among Brigadiers, as well as others, will lead them to favor those who may
hereafter benefit them at the expense of those who can't. And such I am advised
is the fact. Our regiments under such circumstances are made the drudges of the
brigade, are not properly looked after and cared for, and the credit of what
they do is given to others, as at Belmont.
It may be, the President thinks we have not fit men in Iowa.
I wish we had better men than we have, but I feel sure Perczel, Dodge and
Crocker are better, much better, than men from States who have Brigadiers'
commissions now. * * * It seems to me there might be room made for
three Iowa men, and I will guarantee that neither of the men named will believe
that his first duty will be to preserve slavery.
There is a man named Brodie, a brigade surgeon, appointed
from Detroit, of whom I am continually hearing bad accounts of his brutality
and intemperance. Can't you cut his head off?
SOURCES: Henry Warren Lathrop, The Life and
Times of Samuel J. Kirkwood, Iowa's War Governor, p. 178
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