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DOWNING'S CIVIL WAR DIARY (Illustrated)

DOWNING'S CIVIL WAR DIARY (Illustrated)

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Of the larger phases of the Civil War the Historical Department of Iowa has a library of published volumes quite replete. Of the official relations, civil and military, of our State to the Federal Government we have in our collections an adequate deposit. But of the proofs of the workings of the heart about the hearthstones of Iowa, where a son and support of a household is undergoing conversion into the volunteer soldier of the Republic, there is a lack.

The American Volunteer soldier of the Civil War—North and South—was in his day the most admired of all time for his soldierly qualities. For his convertability after Sumter from civil life into an effective soldier; and after Appomattox into a better citizen.

How were the best elements of the Citizen preserved throughout years in the ranks, and how was the good in the ranks carried back into life at peace? Where were the currents which blew a life out from the haven of home upon the sea of war and upon that part of such a sea which bore the standard of national as against state sovereignty? Whence came the poise in action and on march, which made of an Iowa boy the veteran soldier upon which Grant relied even in the major responsibilities of a great war?

Of Iowa soldiery in the ranks the intimate accounts are especially meager. The men who served in the nth, 13th, 14th and 15th Infantry were as conspicuous for valor as were those of the other notable Iowa regiments, and in addition were privileged to be together from Shiloh to the Grand Review under the designation of "Crocker's Iowa Brigade." The history of that Brigade is well preserved yet there is lacking that hearthstone phase of it all which has its secret and sacred appeal to the ordinary mind.
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