Just as everybody predicted, at the recent great battle in Arkansas, when Gen. Curtis, of Iowa, met the horde of rebels under the combined generalship of Price, McCulloch, Van Dorn and McIntosh and defeated them, the Iowa boys led in the contest and were the chief suffers. In the commencement of hostilities, the 1st regiment organized in our State, carved out a name for Iowa on the plains of Springfield, and ever since it has been the ambition of her sons to keep that name untarnished before the world. They have done it; the bloody fields of Belmont, Mill Spring, Fort Donelson and Sugar Creek attest their bravery, while Missouri can “rise up and call them blessed” for the noble manner in which they have defended her when basely betrayed by her own citizens. If the Iowa troops continue to maintain the high stand for bravery and patriotic devotion to their country which have thus far characterized them, when the rebellion shall have ceased and peace once more spreads her banner over us and all the industrial pursuits of the country are resumed, Iowa will be an honored name in the nation, and next to that proudest title ever uttered by mortal man, “I am a citizen of the United States,” will rank the appellation, “I am a citizen of Iowa.”
– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 15, 1862, p. 2
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