Executive Office, Iowa, April 3, 1862.
Hon. Israel Washburne, Jr., Governor of Maine, Augusta,
Maine:
Sir: — I have just received a certified copy of the
resolution of the general assembly of your state in reference to “our victories
in the west.”
Please accept my thanks for the compliment paid to our
western troops.
Permit me, however, to state that in my judgment strict
justice has not been done to the troops from Iowa. The troops of Illinois are
specially selected in the resolution for commendation for their gallant conduct
at Fort Donelson. Too much honor cannot be given to the Illinois men for their
gallantry there, unless, as in this case, it is done by preferring them to the
troops of other states. The men of Illinois did bravely and well, and I shall
never seek to pluck one leaf from the wreath of honor they there so nobly won;
but it is not true, as is implied in the resolution, that they did more bravely
or better than the men of Iowa. There was not any better fighting done by any
of our troops at Fort Donelson than at the right of their entrenchments. There
the crest of a long and steep hill was covered by well built rifle pits,
defended by three of the best regiments in the rebel service. To their left,
some 1,500 yards, was a rebel battery that swept the face of the hill with a
cross fire. The face of the hill had been heavily timbered, but every standing
tree had been cut down and thrown, with the tops down hill, in such manner as
most effectually to retard the approach of an attacking force. At that point,
through the fallen timber, exposed to that cross fire, and in the face of the
three rebel regiments behind the rifle pits, a regiment of western men, with
fixed bayonets, with guns at the trail, and without firing a shot, steadily and
unswervingly charged up the hill and over the entrenchments, and planted the
first union flag on that stronghold of treason. The men who did this were men of
Iowa. The flag borne by them and the first planted on Fort Donelson now hangs
over the chair of the speaker of the house of representatives, and will soon be
deposited in our State Historical Society as one of the most sacred treasures
of the state.
I cannot, therefore, by my silence, acquiesce in the implied
assertion of the resolution of your general assembly that any other troops did
better service at the capture of Fort Donelson than the troops of Iowa.
Three other Iowa regiments were engaged in the same fight,
and although our gallant second, from the fact that they led the charge,
deserved and received the greater honor, all did their duty nobly. Elsewhere
than at Donelson — at Wilson's Creek, at Blue Mills, at Belmont, and at Pea
Ridge — our Iowa men have been tried in the fiery ordeal of battle, and never
found wanting. Their well earned fame is very dear to our people, and I
trust you will recognize the propriety of my permitting no suitable occasion to
pass of insisting upon justice being done them.
I have sent a copy of this letter to his excellency the
governor of Illinois.
Very respectfully,
your Obdt. Sevt.,
Samuel J. Kirkwood
SOURCES: State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa
Historical Record, Volumes 1-3, Volume 2, No. 3, July 1886, p. 327-8; Henry Warren Lathrop, The Life and Times of Samuel J. Kirkwood, Iowa's War Governor, p. 180-1, which I believe incorrectly dates this letter as April 8, 1862, since this letter does not mention the Battle of Shiloh, which took place on April 6th & 7th, it is likely that April 3rd is the correct date for this letter.
