Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Pearson, September 23, 1862

Variable & Pleasant 7 Oc I took the cars went to Madison then the packet Kate Cassel for Devenport

SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 90

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Pearson, September 24, 1862

7¼ Oc got to Davenport attended to some buisiness with the Adgt Gen'l got my Commission as 2nd Lieut & was mustered in by HB Hendershot 1 Oc started in the steam packet Kate Cassel for Keokuk my boil broke

SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 90

Franklin B. Sanborn to Hugh Forbes, January 15, 1858

Concord, Jan. 15, 1858.

Sir. — Yours of the 9th and 14th is received. I regret that you 1 should have continued the abusive strain of your letter to Mr. Sumner, towards a person of whom you are wholly ignorant, and whose character you so greatly mistake. Let me give you some facts, which you may believe or not, as you choose. I became acquainted with Captain Brown a little more than a year ago, and have since been his warm friend and admirer. Being a member of the Massachusetts Kansas Committee, I interested myself with my colleagues in his behalf, and we furnished him with some five thousand dollars in arms and money. As a temporary member of the National Committee, I procured the passage of a resolution appropriating five thousand dollars from that committee also, of which, however, only five hundred dollars has been paid. I also introduced him to a public meeting of my townsmen, who raised something for him. In the summer I visited Mr. Gerrit Smith, and made arrangements with him for the settlement of property worth one thousand dollars on the wife and daughter of Captain Brown. The money was raised in Boston by the men whom you calumniate. I visited the families in the wilderness where they live, and arranged the transfer of property. Mr. Smith first mentioned your name to me, — unless it were a member of his family, Mr. Morton. Captain Brown had never done so, nor did any one hint to me that there was any agreement between you and him of the kind you mention. I think I wrote to Brown from Peterboro', informing him that you were at Davenport, having seen your letter to Mr. Smith announcing that fact. On September 14 I received Mr. Smith's letter, asking that some money be raised for your family, but merely on general grounds. I was pledged to aid and support Brown, and could not give money to persons of whom I knew little or nothing. Had Brown or yourself informed me of your agreement, the case would have been different. I kept Mr. Smith’s draft just a week, returning it to him September 21; it was out of his hands just eleven days. Since then, I have had a few letters from Brown, and have seen some from you, but have heard nothing of any compact. To answer Brown's call for “secret service” money, I procured about six hundred dollars to be sent him, which, as he has not yet come into active operations, has probably been sufficient. My property is small, — my income this year hardly up to my expenses; but to carry out the plan which Captain Brown has matured, if the time seemed favorable, I would sacrifice both income and property, as he very well knows. But it is probable that Captain Brown placed too much confidence in the expectations of others, and that he may have mistaken hopes for promises. Does he join in your vituperation of his Boston friends? I know he does not.

I can excuse much to one who has so much reason for anxiety as you have in the distress of your family. Yet be assured that if you had written to me (or if Captain Brown had done so) the true nature of your compact with him, I would have supported your wife and children rather than have allowed what has happened to take place. You knew my address, — why, then, did you not write to me rather than send a slanderous letter to Mr. Sumner?

As for your threats, you are at liberty to speak, write, and publish what you please about me, — only be careful to keep within the limits of your knowledge; do not tax your imagination for facts. I have written to Captain Brown for his statement of the relation between you, and have also sent to Mr. Gerrit Smith for any information in his possession. In the mean time I send you ten dollars, promising that if I find you have any further claim on me, either in law, justice, or humanity, I will discharge it to the uttermost.

The gentlemen with whom I am associated, and for whose action I am in any way responsible, are honorable men, and as far from deserving the vulgar slanders you heap upon them as your language is lacking in common courtesy and justice. They always keep and always will keep their engagements; but they have made none with you. You cite the people of New Haven. I have nothing to do with them, nor with the other towns which have failed in their promises.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 429-30

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant John S. Morgan: Monday, February 13, 1865

Rained all day. A. M. Send Boxes to express office, addressed to Alexander care of Wells & co Oskaloosa, 12. M orders to move at 5 A. M. tomorrow. P. M. in town to see frinds Ewing boys from 40th Iowa over, go to 9th Wis & have a gay old time. 2 recruits to Regt recd from Davenport.

SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, 33rd Iowa Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 13, No. 8, April 1923, p. 573

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Sunday, July 23, 1865

I started for home, thirty miles distant, with Abner Hatch, who had come down from our neighborhood with a team for the purpose of taking a load of the boys home. We left Davenport at 7:30 o'clock this morning and I reached home at 5 p. m. I found my folks all well. I am at home this time never to go to war again. It was a fine day for a ride in Iowa; it had rained yesterday, and though it was somewhat cloudy, the prairies never looked so nice and green as they did today.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 289

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Wednesday, July 19, 1865

Our night along the lake shore was quite cool. We arrived in Chicago this morning at 2 o'clock, and then marched to the Rock Island station, where at 8 o'clock we took train for Davenport, Iowa. We arrived at Davenport at 5 p. m. A large crowd of citizens was at the station to receive us, among them our old colonel, William Hall, who gave us an address of welcome.¹ Although he was suffering from sickness, he came to welcome us, and as he could not stand on a platform, he remained in his carriage to address us. We then marched up to old Camp McClellan, where we shall remain till we get our discharge and pay, which we expect in two or three days. The Second and Seventh Iowa have just received their pay and are striking out for home.

_______________

¹ “I cannot stand long enough to make a speech, I can only say to the citizens of Davenport, In response to the warm and generous welcome that they have extended to my comrades of the Eleventh Iowa, and myself, that the record we have made as good soldiers from the State of Iowa, while fighting in defense of our common country, will be duplicated by the record we shall make as good citizens, when we shall have returned to homes and loved ones.” — Roster Iowa Soldiers II, p. 282.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 288-9

Diary of Corporal Alexander G. Downing: Friday, April 22, 1864

I started with Uncle John this morning for Davenport, but one of his neighbors, Mr. Lathrop, soon overtook us and as he had to go to town anyway, I rode with him and Uncle John returned home. I reached Davenport by noon and went to the Davis House for my dinner, after which I called for my knapsack and accouterments and made a bee-line for Camp McClellan. Eight companies of the Eleventh Iowa have already reported and it is expected that we shall leave for the South in a few days. I went down town and got my new watch repaired — costing $2.00 — and purchased a few necessary articles, such as a diary, pocket dictionary, stationery, etc., costing in all $3.15.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 181

Diary of Corporal Alexander G. Downing: Tuesday, March 22, 1864

We reached La Salle at 2 o'clock this afternoon and changed cars for Davenport, arriving at our destination at dark. I took lodging at the Davis House. The taverns are all crowded, because of so many soldiers coming home on their furloughs.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 175

Diary of Corporal Alexander G. Downing: Monday, March 21, 1864

We reached Cairo at 4 o'clock this morning and I went ashore with my comrades to the Soldiers' Home for breakfast. We then went to the provost marshal's office for our railroad transportation from Cairo to Davenport. We boarded the train at noon and arrived at Centralia at 5 o'clock. We had to lie here until after midnight when we took the Illinois Central for La Salle, Illinois. The train was so crowded that in order to get a comfortable place, we bought sleeping berths. The weather is cold here, and we saw snowbanks for the first time in two years.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 175

An Evening Drive

MR. EDITOR:  I have been reconnoitering, in force, in the vicinity of Davenport, and as in duty bound, report to headquarters.  Perhaps my document will be unacceptable, as I have nothing to report respecting slaughter and desolation, of broken cohorts, and flying phalanxes of Parrott’s and Dahlgren’s belching forth their iron hail, and mimicking thunders of heaven.  I speak but of Davenport and its surroundings.

I have been visiting the cemeteries, the home of the departed, in which all feel interested.  This is a pleasant and befitting season to visit our cemeteries, when vegetation is regaining its strength and the balmy breath of the advancing spring is driving back to its polar empire, the savage and unrelenting blasts of an invading winter which has plundered and laid waste the charms of the vegetable kingdom, and annihilated for a time the flowery nations.

I set out from Davenport with one of livery Smith’s best teams, piloted by his trusty man Friday.  We headed for Bridge Avenue – Mount Ida soon loomed majestically in sight.  Alas, Mount Ida! she appears in a wintery state; the painter and gardener have forsaken or neglected her; yet I feel a reverence for Mount Ida, for here in ’58 I undertook to master music and astronomy!  Now the then eighty merry students, as well as the worthy but unrewarded and neglected Codding, have disappeared, and the district school mistress, with a small class, occupies the then classic premises.  Fair schoolmates, whose merry laugh then gladdened the hearts of all, where are you?  Some perhaps have gone to the cold and silent tomb; others, with bitter tears, are contrasting the bright tints of girlhood’s morning with the dark somber hues of despair, that now in dusky folds, wraps their aching hearts.  All here now appears dreary, desolate and sad, yet a spirit of prophecy tells me that Mount Ida will yet fulfill her destiny and become a first class institution for the education of the young ladies of Iowa.  The location is beautiful, situated on the summit of the bluff some one hundred and twenty feet above the lower plain, overlooking the most might of rivers, the majestic Father of Waters.  Once Beautiful Ida,

Where the willow boughs entwining,

Cast a shadow o’er the plain,

In her classic shades reclining,

Genius will return again.

Leaving Mount Ida to the southward, we drove over hill and dale, upon nature’s primitive carpet of green and through a continuous wood made vocal by a thousand warbling songsters, we entered Oakdale Cemetery.  This is quite a beautiful Cemetery, embracing an area of some thirty acres laid out with taste and neatness.  A natural growth of oak and hickory trees, add greatly to its beauty, and the care with which many of the tombs are decorated, bear witness to the love borne towards the departed.

Leaving Oakdale for the northward, we entered one of nature’s most magnificent specimens of prairie, upon which is located Pine Hill.  Here we found the sexton, who welcomed us to the city of the tombs.  We found him not unlike the grave digger that Shakespeare gave to Hamlet – a philosopher.  Grave-diggers are all philosophers!  This philosopher informed me that Pine Hill embraced an area of 60 acres, with five miles of carriage road and eleven miles of walks.  This cemetery in time will vie with any in the west.  Art is furnishing the trees and shrubbery, and settling them down wherever taste and beauty require their presence.  The grounds are elevated, and susceptible of being rendered beautiful with little labor.

I will examine the stone records of mortality.  Here rests a man of years and experience, who tarried through many of the long years that make up the great past, and here will his mortal part mingle with the soil until the Almighty arm shall dash to pieces the structure of the earth.  And here’s an infant by its fond mother’s side.  The record speaks of a life of months.  Happy innocent! it did not long sip the cup of life.  And here the grim messenger of death has summoned to his tribunal a youth of sixteen.  Fair youth! hadst I been thy advocate, I would have plead thy tender years, and pointed to those who had outlived their allotted time.  And yonder rests, side by side, three of tender years.  Happy voyagers! no sooner launched than moored in Heaven; but you have escaped the barbed arrows of calumny, the finger of scorn, and the temptations of a sinful and dangerous world. – Highly favored probationers! were it not sinful, I would envy you your sweet and happy repose.  Sleep, angels, sleep, Heaven will guard and protect you.

We now depart for the City Cemetery – westward.  We pass a large and stately mansion, with its lawns, vineyards and well selected shrubbery, situated on the bluff.  It is not only grand, but magnificent, and does credit to its projector.  It is built on the Ionic order, and is, beyond question the most beautiful and perfect mansion within the county – and I claim to be a connoisseur in architecture, as well as in furbelows and flounces.  Our contraband driver informs me that this splendid mansion is owned by J. M. D. Burrows, Esq.

The City Cemetery I find to be a small enclosure of some five acres, located on the river’s bank.  Here discord reigns supreme; an unfinished and rickety stone wall graces the eastern ditch; uncared for shrubbery, sunken graves and shattered tombs.  It needs no ghost to arise from the dead to tell the visitor that this Cemetery is under the supervision of a soulless body.

We now visit Westphal & Co.’s flower garden and nursery, then homeward bound.  Here, at Westphal’s, can be found choice plants and shrubbery, both in the useful and ornamental department.  The gentlemanly proprietor showed me over his expansive flowery domain, and gave me valuable information in the art of cultivating shrubbery, and presented me with one of May’s richest and choicest pearls – a boquet of flowers.

Concluding I have seen sufficient for one afternoon, I retire to rest, bidding you and all the world good night.

STE. MARGUERITE’S HILL.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, May 22, 1862, p. 2