Joseph Poor was born in Kankakee, Illinois, on March 18, 1836. Elizabeth Miller was born on September 12, 1839, in Ohio. They were in Schulyer County, Missouri, when they were married by Isaac Newland, a Minister of the Gospel, on January 2, 1859.

      In 1860, a son, William J. Poor, was born on January 16th, the Pony Express was inaugurated on April 3rd and a census on July 26th showed Joseph, Elizabeth and their young son living in Delhi, Delaware County, Iowa. Southern states threatened to secede if Abraham Lincoln were elected, but the Clayton County Journal wasn’t convinced. “They say that the Union will be divided if Lincoln is elected President,” it wrote on October 25th. “Indeed! because a majority of the voters of the United States are in favor of a certain man and invest him with the highest office in their gift, the Union is to be dissolved! Ridiculous! Is there a sensible, an unprejudiced man, in the State of Iowa who believes this? Bah! No one anticipates such a result.”

      Abraham Lincoln was elected, Southern states did secede and, on April 12, 1861, Confederate guns fired on Fort Sumter. The ensuing war escalated beyond anyone’s expectations and by the middle of the next year the President called for 300,000 volunteers to augment the armies already in the field. Iowa was given a quota of five regiments and, if not raised by August 15th, would face a draft. Joseph Poor (his age erroneously listed as twenty-five) enlisted as a Private on August 14, 1862. His Descriptive Book said he had dark eyes, a dark complexion and dark hair; occupation farmer. He was mustered into Company K at Camp Franklin in Dubuque on August 23rd and, on September 9th, ten companies were mustered in as the state’s 21st regiment of volunteer infantry. After very brief and largely ineffective training, they marched through town on a rainy September 16th and, at the foot of Jones Street, boarded the sidewheel steamer Henry Clay and two barges tied alongside and started south.

      After one night on Rock Island, they continued their journey, debarked at Montrose, traveled by train to Keokuk, boarded the Hawkeye State, spent one night in St. Louis and left by rail about midnight on September 21st. They reached Rolla the next morning and spent the next month camped near a spring southwest of town before moving to Salem, Houston, Hartville and, after a wagon train was attacked on November 24th, back to Houston. That’s where they were on January 9, 1863, when word was received that a Confederate force was moving north to attack Springfield. Joseph was one of twenty-five volunteers from Company K who joined an equal number from the other companies and, with volunteers from an Illinois regiment, hurried westward on the “double quick.” On the 10th, they camped along Wood’s Fork of the Gasconade River and on the 11th fought a one-day battle at Hartville before returning to Houston.

      The regiment left for West Plains on January 27th, but Joseph was ill and left behind.  By April 10th he had rejoined the regiment at Milliken’s Bend where General Grant was organizing an army to capture Vicksburg. The regiment was assigned to a corps led by General John McClernand and traveled slowly south along the west side of the Mississippi walking along dirt roads, wading through swamps and crossing bayous. On April 30th they crossed from Disharoon’s Plantation to the Bruinsburg landing on the east bank where they were designated the point regiment for the entire Union army. On May 1st Joseph participated in the Battle of Port Gibson and soon thereafter was detailed as a company cook. There’s no indication that Joseph participated in the campaign’s subsequent battles and assaults, but he was with the regiment during the forty-seven day siege that ended on July 4, 1863.

      By then, like many others, Joseph had become sick. Suffering from chronic diarrhea, he was admitted to the hospital at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis on July 18th but, on September 23, 1863, (“emaciated eyes sunken and languid, tongue clear, appetite poor”) he was transferred to an army general hospital in Quincy, Illinois. At least sixty-five members of the regiment died from the debilitating effects of the illness, but hospital notes reflected Joseph’s slow recovery: October 20, “improving a little;” October 26, “has less pain while at stool appetite some better;” November 20, “still improving;” December 10th, “still has diarrhoea;” January 28th, “diarrhoea checked;” February 20, “gaining strength;” March 1st, “on duty in Ward;” March 9th, “returned to duty.” Joseph reached the regiment on Matagorda Island, Texas, on April 11, 1864. He maintained his health for several months during service in Texas and southwestern Louisiana but, in October and November was treated for remittent fever, back pain and diarrhea before being admitted to the hospital ship D. A. January on November 10, 1864, with a lung inflammation. From there he entered a general hospital at Mound City where he remained for the balance of his service. With the war winding down, he was mustered out on June 16, 1865 (one month before the regiment was mustered out) and returned home.

      Still living in Delhi, Joseph and Elizabeth had three more children - Isaac, John and Franklin. Joseph considered homesteading farther west, but stayed in Iowa where census records indicated the family was living in Delhi in 1870 and Illyria Township in Fayette County in 1880. Like most veterans who had been sick during the war, Joseph applied for an invalid pension indicating he was still suffering from illnesses contracted in the military. Comrades John Dalrymple and Gorham Nash had served with Joseph and testified to his wartime illnesses. Joseph Boleyn lived with Joseph from the fall of 1866 to 1876 and they had worked together “a great deal at chopping wood and farm work,” but Joseph was sometimes “laid up for two or three days at a time.” Samuel Boleyn had met Joseph in 1866 and recalled that he had a “troublesome cough and a sallow complexion.”After examination by a board of pension surgeons in West Union, Joseph was approved in 1887 for a monthly pension of $8.00, later increased to $10.00.

      Joseph never completely regained his health. He died on October 2, 1894, at fifty-nine years of age and was buried in the small Spring Branch Cemetery in Delaware County. Six days later, with Manchester’s John Dain as her attorney, Elizabeth signed (by mark) an application for a widow’s pension. A clerk in Schuyler County signed a certificate confirming she had been married to Joseph and John Dubois testified that after the war he had “lived neighbor to the Poors for a good many years.” He had known Joseph before the war, served in the regiment’s Company H, and knew that Elizabeth had not remarried. Elizabeth was quickly approved for a $12.00 monthly pension retroactive to the day after Joseph’s death.

      A new pension act was adopted on September 8, 1916, and nineteen days later, pursuant to provisions of the act, Elizabeth applied for an increase. Her application was approved and her pension was increased to $20.00. The pension had been increased to $30.00 and then to the $50.00 monthly that she was receiving when she died on September 14, 1929, two days after her ninetieth birthday. She is buried in Wadena Cemetery, Fayette County, where two of their sons (William and Franklin) are also buried.