|
We stayed
a couple of weeks in Camp Upton where the regiment was divided
and sent to different camps for mustering out and with the
remainder of the regiment that had marched away so proudly, three
thousand seven hundred strong, we started back to the old state
with about twelve hundred men.
We were divided into three trains, one coming into the state by
the way of Keokuk, one by Davenport and Cedar Rapids and one by
Dubuque and Waterloo. The thousands of people, wild with
enthusiasm, that greeted our train all along the line, the warm
welcome which they extended to us, made us forget the trials of
the trip and to feel that we had been doubly paid for whatever
service we may have rendered to the State and to the Nation.
As long as I
live I never shall forget our parade in Des Moines, People from
all parts of the state came to pay homage to the Iowa regiment,
which had had the privilege of helping to defeat the Huns and
thus right the great wrongs that had been done to the small
nations of Europe. They thronged the streets of the city, swarmed
over the state house grounds and kept up a continual cheering as
our boys, with eyes straight to the front, came swinging down
Walnut street, back on Locust to the Capital, where they were
reviewed by the Governor of the State. The next day the boys were
mustered out at Camp Dodge and as the war clouds rolled back and
the great storm, which had shaken the governments of the world to
their very foundations, had come to a close,, the Rainbow
disappeared with the clouds.
But the Rainbow will come
again if clouds arise. |
