County Sesquicentennial Task Force remembers the Civil War

Editor?s note: As part of the nation?s 150th Remembrance of the Civil War, the Henry County Civil War Sesquicentennial Task Force will be publishing a monthly column, written by Henry County historians. The research for the articles comes from Henry County newspapers published between 1861-1865, as well as diaries, journals and letters written by Henry County Civil War soldiers and their families.

Today?s author is Dr. T. R. Brereton, PhD, Professor of History and Chair of the Division of Human Studies at Iowa Wesleyan College

WAR COMMENCED! THE REBELS ATTACK FORT SUMTER!

That was the headline (on page 2) in the April 20, 1861 Mt. Pleasant Home Journal. Several months earlier, a South Carolina newspaper ? the Charleston Mercury ? had exclaimed ?The Union is Dissolved!? upon that state?s secession from the Union after Abraham Lincoln?s electoral victory. Six other southern states quickly joined South Carolina and formed a rebel government, the Confederate States of America. Yet it was not that, but a dispute about ownership of Ft. Sumter, blocking Charleston?s harbor, that finally led to shots fired. On April 12, South Carolina militia bombarded the fort, plunging the nation into four years of ghastly conflict.

News of the event and the fort?s subsequent surrender prompted inflamed oratory all across the country. Citizens of Henry County joined in. The Home Journal reported that with the first shots ?The ball has now opened, and war is inaugurated.? With civil war at hand, President Lincoln appealed ?to all loyal citizens to facilitate and aid this effort to maintain the laws and integrity? of the U.S. and to ?redress wrongs long enough endured.? The Journal?s editors urged their readers, ?Stand by the government! Stand by the Flag! No matter what the cost, all other considerations yield to the importance of sustaining the best government the world ever saw.?

Henry County residents leaped to astonished action. ?R.L.B.C.?, writing to the Journal on April 20, knew ?no other difference between my fellow citizens than that of Loyalty or Disloyalty,? and asserted that southerners who had dishonored the flag were ?false to all [its] trusts, and betraying all [its] confidence.? If, he asked, ?there is in all Iowa, one poor wretch whose affinities and education lead him to heartily sympathize with the most causeless rebellion ... let him at once separate himself from among us.?

The news of Ft. Sumter?s surrender prompted a Union meeting in Mt. Pleasant, where community leaders expressed their views. Samuel McFarland admitted ?he did not feel like talking. This was a time for acting.? Henry Clay Dean ? the future celebrated Copperhead ? noted that ?while he was unchangeably opposed to the Administration ... he would never desert the American flag.? Colonel Alvin Saunders (a founder of Mount Pleasant and later provisional governor of the Nebraska Territory), while a man of peace, agreed that the time had come for ?men of all parties to come up and defend our Union from traitors.? Two other speakers suggested that any secessionist ?should be taken north where fire freezes and buried head foremost, 300 feet underground ? with ?No Resurrection? inscribed on his forehead.?

When D.S. Elliott (owner of the Journal) read Lincoln?s proclamation, there arose ?one grand and prolonged shout of joy.? Forthwith, the assembled fathers agreed upon a resolution ?That we, the citizens of Mt. Pleasant, will sustain the President in preserving the Union by enforcing the laws, and that Mt. Pleasant is ready to furnish men and bayonets for this purpose.?

War had come to Henry County.