SRHS
Steamboat Rock Historical Society
TIMES ARE CHANGING
CIVIL WAR VETERANS
A.J. Hadden 1837-1866
Asher W. Park 1819-1866
Charles T. Voiles 18– – 1866
Frank E. Root 1842-1868
Joseph Roberts 1833-1870
A.A. Campbell 1831-1878
Mason O. Smith 1813-1879
Asel M. Wickham 1810-1880
Geo. Briggs Alden 1842-1892
Peter Banagin 1835-1892
Thomas J. Riley 1843-1899
Albert L. Morgan 1823-1900
Henry Mason
Nicholas Kuster 18– -1901
Wm. W. McIntosh
Owen Williams 1847-1903
Charles Curtis 1838-1904
Geo. S. Spencer 1840-1907
David Cable 1837-1909
Moses A. Kellun 1845-1910
James B. Haley 1837-1912
Levi Chandler 1839-1914
John N. Voiles 1845-1915
Ruben S. Wardwell 1847-1917
Mathesa Minchan 1839-1918
H.J. Finster 1845-1918
W.R. Van Note 1841-1919
L. E. Campbell 1837-1903
Walter Harned 1842-1924
Daniel W. Turner 1836-1932
Those veterans of the Civil War who are buried in the Steamboat Rock Cemetery are as follows. There were many others of course who for one reason or another were buried elsewhere.
One casualty of the war did not die from his wounds until fifteen years after the war was over.
Asel Wickham, of Clay township, died suddenly on March 26, 1880. While sitting at his loom, weaving, he dropped over dead. Dr. Lowe performed an autopsy and found that a piece of rib that had been broken during the war had by some freak misfortune pierced his heart and caused his death. Though he was past fifty years of age when the Civil War began, he patriotically enlisted in Iowa’s 12th regiment. At Shiloh, he was captured, and imprisoned at Libby Prison, for eighteen months. During an unsuccessful escape
attempt, Wickham, received a blow from the butt of a musket, which broke his rib which ultimately caused his death.
Samuel W. Hoover was a native of Kentucky, and located in Clay township in 1852, and was among the earliest settlers. He located northwest of what would be Steamboat Rock, where he built a small cabin where he lived until the Civil War broke out. He enlisted in one of the infantry regiments, and served until his death in 1862, at Savannah, Tennessee. Mr. Hoover was a married man and was 42 years of age
when he died.
L.E. Campbell was born on August 3, 1837 in the east. He attended school at the Belleville Academy, in Jefferson county New York.
He headed west on July 14, 1857 and arrived in Steamboat Rock, September 13, 1857. On arriving he worked for S.F. Lathrop assisting in building the grist mill.
Mr. Campbell went into the mercantile trade in Steamboat in 1859. He then served as Township Clerk of Clay township and was elected to the Board of Supervisors as the first member from Clay township, and served until his enlistment in the army on August 11, 1862.
Campbell entered the service as Second Lieutenant, Company F, 32nd Regiment of the Iowa Volunteer Infantry. He was promoted to Captain of that Company in October, 1864 and was discharged on Surgeon’s certificate of disability August 10, 1865, at Montgomery, Alabama.
Descendants of L.E. Campbell living near Steamboat Rock today still have the diary Campbell kept while serving in the Civil war as well as his swords.
On returning home L.E. Campbell married Carrie E. Wright, the daughter of John and Elizabeth (Fruster) Wright on August 27, 1865. Once again entering public service he was elected County Treasurer in the fall of 1865, and served two terms.
S.B. (Squire) Cunningham, was commissioned Captain, and served until 1864, when he was discharged on account of disability. Details of his disability are not known. In 1865, he sold the Eldora, Mill, and returned to Steamboat Rock, and once more engaged in merchandising, which he continued until 1871.
Martha Cunningham, S.B. Cunningham’s daughter married Reuben S. Wardwell, a Civil War veteran in 1868. They had four children, three daughters; Charlotte Wardwell Noyes, Mabel Wardwell Doud, and Bessie Wardwell Edick, and one son Georgie.
Reuben Wardwell, was the only son of Polly Wright Wardwell, who died giving him birth. He was raised by his grandparents in the east until he was about 9 years of age when he came west to make his home with his Uncle John Wright who lived in Steamboat Rock. When Reuben was 16 years old he enlisted in the infantry by lying about his age and became a member of Company F, of the Iowa Infantry and served
in the Civil War. When the war ended he was chosen for the army occupation in the south. After he was mustered out of the service, he returned to Steamboat Rock where he later purchased a general store
which still later became part of the hardware store.
After the war several veterans of the war came and settled in Hardin county and Steamboat Rock. One such example is D. W. Turner who was born on June 8, 1836, in Chenango county, New York. He received
an education in the common schools of New York, and also attended a type of academy for a short time ending up with a good education. In 1862 he enlisted in the 44th Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry,
and served for nine months and was transferred to the 11th Regiment and was elected Lieutenant of Company A. After another nine months, he was promoted to Captain of the same company.
D. W. Turner
He was sent with his regiment from the Baltimore to New Orleans, and served under General Banks in the famous Red River expedition. He saw a great deal of rough service, and was mustered out in June of 1865. He returned to his home in New York and remained there until December of 1867, when he came to Steamboat Rock.
All was not necessarily quiet on the home front during the war. Politics of individuals at the time of the Civil War as in most wars stirred up strife between the citizenry.
Herbert Quick told of some experiences that his father had in Steamboat Rock during the Civil War.
“From the house where I was born, I believe, we moved into the village of Steamboat Rock, and lived there for a while during the Civil War…
“My Uncle Matt Coleman and Sam Hall and my Grandfather Coleman were Republicans: but my father was a Democrat. He had been a Democrat before the war, and it took more than one war to change a Dutchman. He voted for Stephen A. Douglas against Lincoln; but when it came to the election of 1864 he refused to support
McClellan and cast his vote for Lincoln. He was above forty-five years of age when the war broke, and physically disqualified for service; but he willingly allowed his son of sixteen years of age to volunteer and serve. I think therefore that the super-patriots who in any war always gather in the grocery stores rather than at the front were a little severe in calling my father a Copperhead; but in their favor they did so. Any Democrat was a Copperhead in our locality, if these grocery-store soldiers were to be believed, no matter how many minor sons he might have at the front.”
“One day when my father was working about the place, that same Charley Voiles who was afterward slain by Finn Rainsbarger came to him as an emissary of the Council of National Defense down at Harvey Robertson’s store.”
“’I came to tell you,’ said he to my father, ‘that we–that is, they down at the store–are talking of running you out of town.’”
“Father grasped his pitchfork in anger.”
“’Throw down your fork, Quick,’ said Charley; ‘throw down your fork!’”
“Father stabbed the fork down in the direction of China. ‘Charley,’ he exclaimed, ‘there’s men enough in this town
to carry me out–but not enough to run me out!’”
“It was agreed that father should go with Charley and face the Council of National Defense, whose accusation was that he had made treasonable remarks in criticism of the administration. They went. My father called upon them to repeat what he had said. This they seemed rather reluctant to do in the face of the belligerent Dutchman, but finally did so. Father repeated what he remembered to have said, and they admitted that perhaps that was correct. Then, after they had told him they were through with the inquisition, with a sweeping impeachment of the voracity of any one who represented his speech as having been other than what he had stated, father went back to his pitchfork.”
“I have often heard my father tell of sleeping that night with an ax by his bedside, and of his firm resolve to use it in case of forcible invasion of his home by the mob bent on ridding the town of a Copperhead. It was a mighty good thing for the mob–and for all of us–that they did not come. Such incidents show the stress and strain of civil war on any people.”