Iowa and the Civil War
Every year, the State Historical Society of Iowa bestows the Shambaugh Award upon the previous year’s best book about Iowa history. The award was named for Benjamin Shambaugh, who led the society for decades during the early 20th century.
This year, the society gave the top honor to two books, one about the Catholic Church and another about women’s suffrage. The society also gave an honorable mention to a new book about the Civil War, reviewed below.
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“Iowa and the Civil War, Volume I: Free Child of the Missouri Compromise, 1850–1862” by Kenneth L. Lyftogt (Camp Pope Publishing, 436 pages)
Kenneth Lyftogt’s book “Iowa and the Civil War, Volume I: Free Child of the Missouri Compromise, 1850–1862” is the opening volume of what is meant to be a three-volume history of Iowa’s experience in the Civil War.
The author follows the story from Iowa’s participation in abolitionism and the Underground Railroad through the Battle of Shiloh, with more presumably to come. It is a popular history, lightly footnoted, nicely illustrated, and peppered with the stories of individual Iowans who heard the call and headed off to fight.
It is the story of the men who trained with John Brown and followed him to Harper’s Ferry. It is also the story of teenaged drummer boys and Union generals. It is interspersed with homefront vignettes, such as those of young men who received white feathers and hisses from young women who believed they should be off fighting.
This is also the story of how Iowans actually fought. It is full of battles, soldiers and officers, and military logistics.
My favorite part of the military story focused on Clarissa “Clara” Hobbs, who did something most unusual when she followed her husband, an Illinois doctor, off to service. When he enlisted in the 12th Iowa Infantry, she decided to sign up, too, and left their three children with their Aunt Harriet. Possessed with a strong patriotic streak, Clara Hobbs offered her skills as a nurse at the battlefront. Her reminiscences, written during World War I, provide some of the book’s most interesting color.
However, I would have liked to have read more about the Aunt Harriets who held down the fort while family members marched off to battle. Iowa’s contribution of soldiers to the war was, proportionally, one of the greatest in the nation. Men were free to fight because there were people at home who were willing and able to carry on in their absence.
Lyftogt would have made this a more balanced treatment, and truly a history of Iowa at war, if he had spent more time on those left behind and had consulted some of the available work, such as J.L. Anderson’s essay on Iowa’s Civil War home front.
That said, the first volume of “Iowa and the Civil War” is a lively book, well written and engaging. It provides readers a chance to experience vicariously what some Iowans did when they left home and headed off to America’s bloodiest war.
Reviewer Pamela Riney-Kehrberg teaches American history at Iowa State University.
