Benjamin F. Gue

“ In many places the path of the tornado was from eighty to one hundred and sixty rods in width and this track was left a desert waste. Scores of people were killed and mangled and beautiful homes swept out of existence. As it neared the town of Camanche, the appearance of the storm was awful beyond description. The light of day was blotted out and the roar of the elements stilled every voice and blanched the cheek of the bravest. No escape seemed possible. Many families ran to the cellars, while others huddled together and clung to each other in their terror. ”

“ The roar of artillery was incessant and the flashes of exploding shells quickly followed each other like vivid flashes of lightning. The guns must be silenced and the redoubt captured without delay. Colonel Hill saw that it could only be carried by direct assault in front and immediately ordered a charge. The boys welcomed the order with a battle cheer and fixed bayonets and under a terrific fire of shot and shell, with uniform step and steady columns, they descended a gentle slope, crossed a ravine and, on the double quick, moved in front of the enemy’s fire, up the hill to their works. ”

“ The long marches beneath the burning sun, the chilling blasts of winter storms, camping at night without shelter amid rain and sleet and sinking exhausted by the wayside, the wary months in camp amid the deadly malaria of swamp, wasting away with disease in dreary hospitals, the indescribable horrors of the battlefield where every form of mutilation rends the human body, the hasty burial in unmarked graves, the hideous tortures of prison life. ”

“ In times of peril to our Government and the Union it becomes the sacred duty of all true patriots to unite in the preservation of constitutional freedom and in thwarting the designs traitors. It is a strange and sad necessity which compels American citizens to band themselves together in this manner to sustain the Constitution and the Union; but the Government under which we live is threatened with destruction. ”

“ As a leader he inspired his followers with the same abhorrence of human slavery that he had entertained during all the mature years of his life. Every man of his Harper’s Ferry band was willing to give his life, if need be, for the overthrow of slavery. No one was more impressed with this conviction than Governor Wise. Manly fortitude under sentence of death and upon the scaffold impressed the court, the Governor and the Southern people with the unwelcome conviction that slavery was in peril, when men would die for the liberation of its helpless victims. ”

“ In all this wicked, cruel war, there has been but these unchangeable objects in view: to glut the avarice of the rich, to satiate the vengeance of the spiteful, minister to the most groveling appetites of the vicious; to make the people the slaves of money, and their armies the tools of tyrants. The people are not bound in justice to pay this debt. Every consistent friend of peace must oppose the payment of this debt.” In their efforts to discourage volunteering in the Union Army the “Copperheads” resorted to misrepresentation and slander. ”

“ No sketch so brief as this can do justice to this superb regiment. The long term of service, extending through four years, was filled with deeds of daring, suffering and heroic endurance that have seldom been surpassed in modern warfare. It was always noted for vigor, fire and dash. Officers and men were of the best material to be found in the service. They seemed to be endowed with superhuman energy and endurance. No march was too long, no peril too great for these superb horsemen. Their fame will live in the annals of Iowa and make one of the brightest pages of her glorious war record. ”