Carroll County IAGenWeb History Journal

     The people of the Northern States have just reason to be proud of the glorious record they made during the dark and bloody days when crimson-handed rebellion threatened the life of the nation. When war was forced upon the country by rebels in arms against the Government, the people were quietly pursuing the even tenor of their ways, doing whatever their hands found to do—working the mines, making farms or cultivating those already made, erecting homes, building shops, founding cities and towns, building mills and factories—in short, the country was alive with industry and hopes for the future. The people were just recovering from the depression and losses incident to the financial panic of 1857. The future looked bright and promising, and the industrious and patriotic sons and daughters of the free States were buoyant with hope, looking forward to the perfecting of new plans for the ensurement of comfort and competence in their declining years; they little heeded the mutterings and threatening of treason's children, in the slave States of the South. True sons and descendants of the heroes of the "times that tried men's souls"—the struggle for American independence—they never dreamed that there was even one so base as to dare attempt the destruction of the Union of their fathers—a Government baptized with the best blood the world ever knew. While immediately surrounded with peace and tranquility, they paid but little attention to the rumored plots and plans of those who lived and grew rich from the sweat and toil, blood and flesh of others—aye, even trafficked in the offspring of their own loins. Nevertheless, the war came, with all its attendant horrors.

     April 12, 1861, Fort Sumter, at Charleston, South Carolina, Major Anderson, U. S. A., Commandant, was fired upon by rebels in arms. Although basest treason, this first act in the bloody reality that followed was looked upon as a mere bravado of a few hotheads—the act of a few fire-eaters whose sectional bias and freedom and hatred was crazed by the excessive indulgence in intoxicating potations. When, a day later, the news was borne along the telegraph wires that Major Anderson had been forced to surrender to what had first been regarded as a drunken mob, the patriotic people of the North were startled from their dreams of the future, from undertakings half completed and made to realize that behind that mob there was a dark, deep and well-organized purpose to destroy the Government, rend the Union in twain, and out of its ruins erect a slave oligarchy, wherein no one would dare question their right to hold in bondage the sons and daughters of men whose skins were black, or who, perchance, through practices of lustful natures, were half or quarter removed from the color that God, for his own purposes, had given them. But they "reckoned without their host." Their dreams of the future, their plans for the establishment of an independent confederacy, were doomed from their inception to sad and bitter disappointment.

     Immediately upon the surrender of Fort Sumter, Abraham Lincoln, America's martyr President, who, but a few short weeks before, had taken the oath of office as the nation's Chief Executive, issued a proclamation calling for 76,000 volunteers for three months. The last word had scarcely been taken from the electric wires before the call was killed. Men and money were counted out by hundreds and thousands. The people who loved their whole Government could not give enough. Patriotism thrilled and vibrated and pulsated through every heart. The farm, the workshop, the office, the pulpit, the bar, the bench, the college, the school-house, every calling offered its best men, their lives, and fortune, in defense of the Government's honor and unity. Party lines were for the time ignored. Bitter words, spoken in moments of political heat, were forgotten and forgiven, and, joining hands in a common cause, they repeated the oath of America's soldier-statesman: "By the great Eternal, the Union must and shall be preserved!"

     Seventy-five thousand men were not enough to subdue the rebellion. Nor were ten times that number. The war went on, and call followed call, until it began to look as if there would not be men enough in all the free States to crush out and subdue the monstrous war traitors had inaugurated. But to every call for either men or money, there was a willing and ready response. And it is a boast of the people that, had the supply of men fallen short, there were women brave enough, daring enough, patriotic enough, to have offered themselves as sacrifices on their country's altar. Such were the impulses, motives and actions of the patriotic men of the North, among whom the sons of Carroll County made conspicuous and praiseworthy record. Of the offerings made by these people during the great and final struggle between freedom and slavery it is the purpose now to write.

     April 14, A. D. 1861, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, issued the following:

PROCLAMATION.

     "Whereas, The laws of the United States have been and now are violently opposed in several States, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed in the ordinary way; I therefore call for the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of 75,000, to suppress said combinations and execute the laws. I appeal to all loyal citizens to facilitate and aid in this effort to maintain the laws and the integrity of the perpetuity of the popular Government, and redress wrongs long enough endured. The first service assigned to the forces, probably, will be to repossess the forts, places and property which have been seized from the Union. Let the utmost care be taken, consistent with the object, to avoid devastation, destruction, interference with the property of peaceful citizens in any part of the country; and I hereby command persons composing the aforesaid combination to disperse within twenty days from date.

     "I hereby convene both Houses of Congress for the 4th day of July next, to determine upon measures for public safety which the interest of the subject demands. "Abraham Lincoln, "President of the United States." "Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State."

     The gauntlet thrown down by the traitors of the South was accepted—not, however, in the spirit with which insolence meets insolence, but with a firm, determined spirit of patriotism and love of country. The duty of the President was plain, under the Constitution and the laws, and above and beyond all, the people, from whom political power is derived, demanded the suppression of the rebellion, and stood ready to sustain the authority of their representatives and executive officers.

     Carroll County had at this time about 250 inhabitants. Nearly all the men were struggling farmers, illy able to leave their young families to make their own living in this new prairie region, remote from the centers of comfort and wealth and charity and society. Entirely unused to the stern duties of military service, it would have been small wonder if Carroll County had failed to contribute its quota of volunteers. The enthusiastic loyalty of the North was, however, nowhere more plainly visible than here, and the scattered settlers responded to their duty nobly. The Board of Supervisors, consisting of but two, Crockett Ribble and Jacob Cretsitiger, met in June, 1861, and passed the following order:

     "A petition was numerously signed praying to the supervisors to appropriate the sum of $25, or as much as would be necessary, to purchase a flag, drums and fife; and the same was granted and the clerk ordered to issue a warrant for the same."

     In April, 1862, the Board decided to allow each family a member of which had gone to the war, $25. This sum was then paid to Jacob Davis, Mrs. S. A. Daris, John Monroe, Amos Rhoades and Cyrus Rhoades. In October following the same bounty was paid to R. Haney and James F. McLuen, and in March, 1863, Alva Chambers drew a like amount. In December, 1863, the bounty to enlisted and drafted men was fixed at $100. P. T. Punteney was paid $100 under this provision in February, 1864. During the year Orrin Jerome, William Carter and L. Short became entitled to the bounty and received warrants for the amount.

     In June, 1864, the Board equalized the bounties by paying an additional $75 to those who had received but $25, under the first offer. This amount was paid to Alva Chambers, R. Haney, C. Babbitt, A. Mohen, C. Wright, George Short, S. Frazier, E. Carney, William Combs, James F. McLuen, W. W. Davis, Alpheus Stevens and John Monroe.

     In January, 1865, the Board resolved to issue $4,800 in bonds to raise money to pay volunteers under the last call of the Government. At the same time Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Isaac Higgins, Mrs. Orrin Jerome, Mrs. P. T. Punteney and Mrs. Robert Haney were allowed $50 out of the relief fund. The bonds were issued, but as the war ended soon after and recruiting ceased, most of the money was given as relief to the families of volunteers. A complete list of the county's contribution of volunteers cannot be obtained, as not all are credited to this county in the official reports. The first volunteers went to Guthrie County and joined a company from that county, and but a few of these were ever credited to Carroll. Subsequent enlistments were made at Jefferson, Greene County. Among the latter were Edmund Carney, Alva Chambers, William M. Coombs and Coleman P. Wright. These enlisted September 7, 1861, in Company H, Tenth Iowa Volunteer Infantry. Carney was wounded slightly in the leg at Champion Hills, Mississippi, May 16, 1863, and transferred to the Invalid Corps February 15, following. Coombs was wounded severely in the arm and head, at the same time and place.

     William Carter and Orrin Jerome enlisted in December, 1863, in the Thirty-ninth Infantry, Company E, but were on the 30th of the same month transferred to the Seventh Cavalry. In this regiment was also Parker T. Punteney, one of the first sheriffs of the county. Carter was killed at Allatoona, Georgia, October 6, 1864. It is said that altogether there were twenty-eight volunteers from Carroll County. The draft was put in force in this county on one occasion, in the fall of 1864, and three men drawn, among whom was T. B. Aldrich, then county superintendent of schools. This would make a total of thirty-one. If this is true, then more than 10 per cent, of the total population, and about half of the voters of the county, entered the service of the United States. The great bulk of the present population of Carroll County has settled here since the war, and includes a large number, certainly over a hundred, who enlisted from other counties or States.