The Palimpsest

Tanner, Thomas

English

The Boonesboro Connection: Richard A Ballinger and Ray Lyman Wilbur

The Palimpsest, vol.66 no.1, January-February 1985

The Palimpsest, vol.66 no.5, September-October 1985

The Palimpsest, vol.66 no.6, November-December 1985

Cone, Carl B

Those Wonderful Iowa Firehouses

Smith, Jr, Raymond A

He Opened Holes Like Mountain Tunnels'

Peterson, Richard William

Richard W. Petersonby
Tell the
Boys I Die
Happy
Illustration by Kirk M. Johnson
»* • ̂
The Palimpsest 187
By midmorning of May 18, 1863, the sun was high in the sky over western Mis­
sissippi, and the day was already blisteringly 
hot. The heat of the Deep South that day was 
adding misery to the already stern demands of 
combat for the Union forces on the attack and 
the Confederate troops defending as Grant s 
army pushed relentlessly west from Champion 
Hill toward soon-to-be besieged Vicksburg. If 
the excessive heat was misery for the troops in 
combat, it was agonizing torture for those 
wounded in the fierce fire fight the day before 
at Black River Bayou, who were lying in a 
nearby makeshift aid center beneath the blaz­
ing sun. There, among the dying, was William 
H. Kinsman who, as commanding officer of the 
Twenty-third Iowa Volunteer Infantry Reg­
iment, had suffered fatal wounds the morning 
before when he led his regiment in a classic 
infantry charge across a cotton field toward the
Confederate lines into a fusilade of enemy fire.✓
Death came late that morning to the twenty-
nine year old colonel, and he was buried by his
men in an unmarked grave on the battlefield.
There his remains lav for almost four decades
*
until recovered by former soldiers of his com­
mand and returned north. The story of 
Kinsman's brief life, his death and burial on a 
southern battlefield and, years later, the 
removal and reinterment of his remains in his 
adopted northern hometown is a unique and 
compelling one.
Kinsman was born in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, in 1834 but as a young man came 
to the United States and west to Council Bluffs, 
Iowa, then a bustling rough-and-ready frontier 
town on the Missouri River. Energetic and
ambitious, he was by turns a schoolteacher, a
*
reporter for the Council Bluffs Nonpareil, a 
local newspaper, and a lawyer; his adventurous 
nature took him to Colorado in the gold rush in 
1859. Returning with a wealth of experience
© Iowa State Historical Department/Office of the State Histor­
ical Society 1985 0031—0360/85/1112—0186 $1.00
but not much gold to Council Bluffs that same 
year, he was practicing law' in the office of a 
local attorney when the guns of Charleston 
opened fire on Fort Sumter in April 1861.
In both the North and South many foreign- 
born Americans became fervent supporters of 
their respective causes; Kinsman was no excep­
tion. He was one of the first to enlist in the 
Fourth low'a Volunteer Infantry Regiment 
which was raised locally by Colonel (later 
Major General) Grenville M. Dodge, a gradu­
ate of Norwich Military Academv in Vermont 
and in 1861 a civil engineer with an extensive 
background in railroad surveying. Dodge and 
Kinsman had already become acquainted in 
local party politics; Kinsman, said Dodge later, 
had impressed him by his intense and active 
work on behalf of the newly formed but bur­
geoning Republican party. After Dodge had 
completed raising the Fourth Iowa and had 
become its commanding officer, Kinsman, first 
elected as an officer in B Company, later 
became its captain and served with the reg­
iment, including duty with distinction at the 
Battle of Pea Ridge, Missouri, until the sum­
mer of 1862. Following Dodge’s promotion to 
brigadier general and his transfer from the 
Fourth Iowa, Kinsman also left the Fourth 
Iowa to become a newly appointed lieutenant 
colonel and the second-in-command of the 
Twenty-third Iowa Volunteer Infantry Reg­
iment which was raised at Des Moines in 
August 1862. Following that regiment s trans­
fer to St. Louis in the autumn of 1862 and the 
death of its commander, Kinsman was pro­
moted to full colonel and placed in command.
Military command apparently only increased Kinsman’s energy and ambi­
tion. Descriptions of the man by members of 
his regiment with whom he w'as popular and 
respected emphasized his restless, rather 
impatient, and certainly ambitious nature. 
Dodge, in later accounts, suggested that 
Kinsman sometimes chafed under the
restraints of discipline and often questioned 
the older officer as to its necessity, but was 
reassured by Dodge of its importance. Follow­
ing the Battle of Pea Ridge, however, Dodge 
continued, Kinsman came forward to acknowl­
edge with appreciation the good advice and 
how greatly he had benefited from it. (Dodge 
had many admirable character traits; modesty 
was not among them.) A letter written by 
Kinsman to Samuel J. Kirkwood, governor of 
Iowa, on January 3, 1863, from St. Louis 
requesting his [Kinsman s] appointment as a 
brigadier with five Iowa regiments and four 
batteries to act independently in the southern 
region [M issouri] while commanding officer of 
the Twenty-third Iowa displayed his extreme 
enthusiasm for and zealous attitude toward the
Union cause. “To serve the country,’ his letter/ *
to the governor said, “our soldiers must fight. I 
repeat it, they must fight. Let me do my share.
I know the ropes. My life is worth nothing to 
me if my country goes to ruin. In an 
expression of a later war, Kinsman was more 
than a little “eager!
Although Kinsman’s letter to the governor 
had no effect, his restless independence did. In 
early 1863, when his regiment had received no 
supplies, Kinsman defended freebooting forag­
ing by the Twenty-third’s troops around the 
Missouri countryside to his brigade com­
mander, General Davidson. The general s crit­
ical remarks about the Iowa volunteers and 
their undisciplined ways led Kinsman, always 
loyal to his men, to respond in kind, and to the 
point of disobeying a direct order. The result 
was a court-martial in March 1863. Following a 
trial of over two weeks duration Kinsman 
received basically a reprimand and was 
restored to duty, but the restoration, unfortu­
nately, was too late to allow him to rejoin his 
regiment before it left for the South to become 
a part of the massive assault force being 
assembled by Ulysses S. Grant for the encircle­
ment and capture of Vicksburg.
After months of being frustrated during the
188 The Palimpsest
winter of 1862-63 in his attempts to capture the 
strategically important Mississippi River port 
city, Grant, in March 1863, was at his daring 
best and on the move: crossing the Mississippi 
River miles south of Vicksburg, he intended to 
drive northeast to take Jackson, Mississippi s 
state capital, and then turn west to attack, 
encircle, and capture Vicksburg by land. In 
March 1863, the Twenty-third Iowa and its 
sister regiments, the Twenty-first and Twenty- 
second, became a part of the corps of General 
John A. McClernand. It was after the Mis­
sissippi crossing, and after sharp fighting at 
Port Gibson had bloodied the Twenty-third, 
that Kinsman arrived to resume command in 
the first week of May. As earlier planned, the 
prongs of the Union drive pushed northeast 
and captured Jackson. In the second week oi 
May the entire Federal force turned west and 
began its concerted drive toward Vicksburg. 
Lawler s Brigade, composed of the Eleventh 
Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry and the three 
Iowa regiments, was in a minor action at Cham­
pion Hill on May 16, but on the following day, 
as the Federal troops pushed the Confederate 
forces of General Pemberton west, the Iowa 
regiments were in the vanguard. W hen the 
advance paused near Big Black River, a natural 
barrier east of Vicksburg, Kinsman repeatedly 
requested permission of General Lawler to 
charge the Confederate line of defense on the 
river’s east embankment. Dubious at first of 
the wisdom of a frontal assault, Lawler finally 
gave way to Kinsman’s insistence and the four 
regiments, in column order, moved first to the 
near bank of the river, which flowed at that 
point from east to west before bending south to 
where the Confederates were waiting. The bri­
gade advanced cautiously along the shore to 
the west under the cover of the south embank­
ment with the Twenty-third Iowa in the lead 
followed by the other three regiments. By mid- 
morning all four regiments were positioned 
along the river embankment ready for an 
assault across a cotton field toward the Con-
The Palimpsest 189
federate lines several hundred yards to the 
west where a bayou opened into the main 
stream of the Big Black. At 11:00 a.m . on 
May 17 the regiment’s “moment of truth 
arrived.
In his eulogy of Kinsman, Joseph A. 
Straight, a veteran of the Twenty-third Iowa 
who was present that day at Black River Bayou, 
described the attack and Kinsman’s part in it. 
In the fulsome, oratorical stvle of the dav he* j
said:
The order came, and at a signal, like a 
cloud bursting from a clear sky, a solid 
line of brave boys in blue mounted the 
river bank without firing a gun, and fly­
ing as upon the wings of the wind across 
those cotton roivs into the jaws of death— 
into the very rain offire, of shot and shell, 
up against a solid line oj brave men in 
gray, with a torrent of musketry thick as 
hail-stones tearing their ranks upon the 
left flank, with men falling like leaves in
Grenville M. Dodge, 
Kinsman's friend and 
commanding officer for a 
time during the war, 
c. 1865. (SHSI)
190 The Palimpsest
/Vie Big Black River Bridge batlefid, take from a War Department map. (SHSl)
The Palimpsest 191
autumn—yet ever onward went the bra­
vest of the brave, until the bayou was 
crossed and the strong works were 
taken. . . / But where was the brave com­
mander? About fifty feet from the top of 
the river bank, while waving his sword 
and coolly ordering the regiment to be 
steady, double-quick, march, he was 
shot, a minie bullet passing through his 
sword belt and entirely through his body 
from the left side, his face being turned 
towards his regiment as he was urging 
them into a rush upon the enemy s works.
He said to a comrade who stopped to 
ask him where he was shot, “/ am all 
right—go on with the boys! Give me your 
canteen; the Twenty-third will get there! 
Go and help them! and with his hand 
upon the bleeding wound, proceeded to 
tear part of his shirt to staunch the flow of 
blood.
The boys did get there, and as they 
passed over the breast-works after pass­
ing through a bayou of water up to their 
arm-pits, leaving ninety officers and men 
scattered on the cotton field dead and 
wounded, their loved commander, their 
wounded and dying colonel, without coat, 
hat or sword-belt, came rushing across 
the bayou like as upon the wings of the 
wind, and with his naked sword waving 
around his head, shouting, "My brave 
boys; I knew you would do it! and while 
shouting "On boys, on to the bridge, a 
stray shot from some Tennesseean to the 
right oj him passed through his body from 
right to left.
Men of his regiment carried him to a grove of 
trees where an improvised aid center had been 
established. There he lay in undoubtedly great 
pain until the next morning, when, after a few 
final words to those attending him, he quietly 
died. His body was buried as he had requested 
on the nearby battlefield.
A s death ended Kinsman s career, the tide of war carried that of Dodge, his former 
commanding officer, to ever greater responsi­
bility and recognition. After leaving the Fourth 
Iowa and gaining his first star, Dodge joined 
Sherman’s western forces and served in secur­
ing and maintaining effective control of the 
railroad system serving the Union forces in 
Tennessee for his superior officer and close 
friend, “Gump. ” Later as commanding officer 
of the left wing of the Sixteenth Army Corps, 
Army of the Tennessee, he fought with vigor 
and distinction from the beginning of Sher­
man’s campaign at Chattanooga in May 1864 
until he was wounded during the siege of 
Atlanta in August. Following a term as com­
mander of the District of Missouri, Dodge con­
cluded his active military career on the Great*
Plains in the Indian conflicts of the mid-1860s; 
Dodge City, Kansas, named for him, is a pres­
ent-day reminder of his days on the western 
frontier. His railroad engineering background 
and a chance meeting with Abraham Lincoln 
when the president-to-be had visited Council 
Bluffs in August 1859 had involved him in early 
transcontinental railroad planning. In 1866 he 
was appointed chief engineer of the embryonic 
Union Pacific Railroad which was then edging 
west from the Missouri River. He would con­
tinue in that position until the road’s comple­
tion at Promontory Point, Utah, in May 1869. 
As his railroad enterprises progressed, Dodge 
became well established not onlv in railroad 
development, but in other business ventures 
as well, and counted as close friends his former 
commander-in-chief, General—or Presi­
dent—U. S. Grant and many other influential
business and national leaders of the dav. While/
there were—and still are—critics of Dodge, he 
was a man of his times: energetic, innovative, 
crafty, and, at times, ruthless. Yet even with 
the mercenary qualities, loyalty to friends, par­
ticularly old comrades-in-arms, was a para­
mount feature of his character. Thus when the 
century was drawing to a close, and two vet-
Grenville M. Dodge responded immediately with earnest encouragement and financial assistance when 
two veter ans of the Twenty-third Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment requested his help in locating the 
remains of his friend and former junior officer, Colonel William It. Kinsman. (courtesy the Historic 
Grenville Dodge House, Inc., Council Bluffs)
erans of the Twenty-third Iowa Volunteer 
Infantry Regiment approached him for 
assistance in locating the remains of his former 
junior officer, Kinsman, on the Mississippi bat­
tlefield and returning them to Council Bluffs 
for reinterment, he responded immediately 
with earnest encouragement and financial 
assistance.
One attempt to locate the colonel’s grave in 
the 1880s had been unsuccessful. In 1898 
Joseph A. Straight and Jesse Truitt, both aging 
members of the Grand Army of the Republic 
(G.A.R.), gained the support of Dodge and 
returned to the Black River Bayou battlefield 
armed with more accurate information. They 
located the colonel s remains and returned 
with them to Council Bluffs. Under the direc­
tion of General Dodge and with the assistance 
of the local G. A. R. post, an appropriate granite
memorial was erected by public subscription in 
Fairview Cemetery at the north edge of the 
city, in a section called the “Soldiers’ Circle, 
already the location of many Union veterans 
graves. Dedicatory exercises were scheduled 
for May 17, 1902, the thirty-ninth anniversary 
of the battle in which Kinsman had fallen.
Early on the morning of the 17th, thirty-five veterans of the Twenty-third Iowa, mem­
bers of Kinsman Post No. 7, G.A.R., mustered 
in the rotunda of the Iowa Statehouse in Des 
Moines. There, under the watchful eye and 
direction of the state archivist in charge of Cavil 
War memorabilia, the battle colors of the 
Twenty-third Iowa were carefully removed 
from the large glass display where they were 
kept with the flags of dozens of other Iowa Civil 
War regiments and delivered with ceremom
The Palimpsest 193
into the hands of the former regimental color 
sergeant of the Twenty-third Iowa. The con­
tingent then marched from the statehonse west 
across the Des Moines River and south to the 
Rock Island depot where a special train was 
waiting to take them to the Kinsman Memorial 
ceremonies in Council Bluffs, one hundred and 
thirty miles to the west. Arriving late in the 
morning, the veterans of the Twenty-third 
detrained, formed ranks, and, led by the color 
sergeant proudly bearing the now unfurled 
standard, marched north to a central city park 
to join veterans of the Fourth Iowa who 
awaited them. From the park the dedication 
parade with General Dodge as president of the 
day, composed of local and out-of-town digni­
taries, hands, veterans groups, National 
Guard troops, and the Council Bluffs High 
School Cadet Corps marched north to Fairview 
Cemetery and up the long slope where they 
finally reached the shrouded Kinsman Memo­
rial on the top of one of the bluffs from which 
the citv took its name.
I he newspaper descriptions of the dedica­
tion ceremony provided a wealth of detail: the 
grey-bearded, distinguished General Dodge in 
the center of the platform as master of cere­
monies with old soldiers and veterans, citv 
officials, and citizens of Council Bluffs gathered 
about him; the unveiled granite shaft monu­
ment with the bronze medallion of Kinsman 
rising behind the townspeople, old and young. 
Members of the high school cadet corps in grey 
uniforms on the east side of the large memorial 
circle faced on the west side the khaki-clad, 
campaign-seasoned veterans of the local 
National Guard unit which had recently 
returned from combat duty in the Philippine
Insurrection. The newspaper reprinted the 
speeches which were filled with the typically 
florid language of the day. In our own times 
such oratory might seem flowery, bordering on 
the grandiose or the exaggerated, but on 
May 17, 1902, it was the style of the moment, 
and was considered in order.
More than twelve decades have passed since 
the fury of the infantry assault that morning at 
Black River Bayou near Vicksburg, decades 
during which the nation has endured other 
wars—wars that brought both the high fervor 
of patriotic response and the depths of frus­
trated confusion. During those wars Kinsman 
and his comrades-in-arms have rested in quiet 
vigil on the peaceful hilltop overlooking the 
Missouri River Valley. To visit the Kinsman 
memorial and the graves of those lying there, 
as it is to visit the thousands of similar memori­
als and grave sites in both the North and the 
South, is to be reminded of the sacrifices made 
by those lying there. It is to reflect and, 
indeed, be moved to know that there was once 
a place, a time, and a day in which a mortally 
wounded military commander would sav, as✓  • j  7
did Kinsman in his final hours, ‘Tell the boys I 
die happy, I fell at the head of my regiment, 
doing my duty!” □
Note on Sources
A wealth of material for this article was drawn from the 
Council Bluffs Nonpareil for the period before and during 
the dedication exercises for the Kinsman monument. A 
published volume of Nonpareil news stories was also 
valuable, the History of the Recovery and Final Inter­
ment of the Remains of Col. W.H Kinsman and the 
Erection and Unveiling of the Kinsman Monument at 
Council Bluffs, Iowa, May 17, 1902. Source materials 
were also provided by the Historic General Dodge 
House, Inc., Council Bluffs, which included photographs 
of both Kinsman and Grenville M. Dodge.


Tell the Boys I Die Happy

Macbride, Thomas H


The Okoboji Lakeside Laboratory
by Thomas H. Macbride
The following material has been drawn from Pro­
fessor M acbride’s article published in the 
Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science for 
1909. It is an important article for the information it 
conveys about the new lakeside laboratory’s pur­
pose and Macbride’s plans for it in the year of its 
creation.
The establishment of the Okoboji Lakeside Labora­
tory, founded by the alumni o f the State University 
of Iowa, promises to affect so deeply the future 
scientific work of our state that some account of its 
beginning and especially its raison d etre may 
rightly claim the attention o f the Academy. The 
laboratory has been located on the west shore of
Lake Okoboji in Dickinson county for the reasons 
following:
In the first place the topography o f Dickinson 
county is peculiar, unique. Situated on the western 
border of the Iowa Wisconsin drift, the region illus­
trates, as possibly no other equal area in the state, 
the special characteristics, not only of glacial mo­
raines in general, but in particular the very 
cxpressioti o f the Wisconsin moraine. In fact, I 
think that it must be admitted that the Okoboji lakes 
and their encompassing hills do indeed form the 
finest bit o f morainic topography to be found on our
(Left) Thomas Huston Macbride, the dreamer 
" hose tireless efforts sustained the laboratory in its 
first twenty-five years. Just two days before bis 
death in 1934, he completed an article for the Des 
Moines Register describing the laboratory. His sup­
port of the research station continues, even from 
the grave. Recent bequests from bis estate will be 
used in the fall of 1985 to enlarge the laboratory 
ibrary, construction which will include pillars 
[which will] shine among [the] trees . . / ’(courtesy 
Iowa Lakeside Laboratory)
western prairie. . . .
Secondly, the region having Okoboji for its cen­
ter is, by reason o f the peculiar topography just 
mentioned, the field o f a special floral display diffi­
cult to illustrate anywhere else within such narrow 
limits. We have a forest flora and a prairie flora; 
and neither in this part o f the world has ever been 
adequately studied. It is believed that the fungal 
flora of the region, for instance, is especially rich 
and interesting. We have all kinds o f habitat condi­
tions, from aquatic to xerophytic. We have deep 
water, shallow water, but permanent; marshes, 
springs; and zerophytic [sic] slopes and hill-tops, 
some so dry as to offer home to the vegetation of the 
higher western semi-arid plains. The plankton of 
the lakes is filled with desmids and diatoms and all 
manner o f algal flora, during July and August rich 
beyond comparison in all that makes up the tide of 
life for these simple but fascinating forms.
. . . the factors o f ecology and distribution are 
all here, in large part so far, unexplored and certain 
to interest for centuries generation after generation 
of Iowa students.
For similar reasons, the fauna o f the lake district 
will reward our constant study. The varied flora, 
just described, insures a varied fauna. The waters 
teem with animal life. Probably the protozoa of the 
whole valley will be found hiding on the vegetation 
of these [quiet] lakes and pools. O f course, the 
avian and vertebrate aquatic fauna are rich, and 
even the terrestrial vertebrates are likely to prove 
more than commonly worthy o f investigation. 
While this is writing the papers tell o f a mountain 
lion shot in one o f the near-by marshy lakes! It is not 
believed that carnivores o f size are likely to abound, 
not to such extent at least as to warrant a future visit 
from our nimrodic ex-president, but it is believed 
that natural science, in all its branches, ento­
mology, ostracology, ornithology, will be greatly 
enriched by using such opportunity for research as 
Okoboji may afford.
68 T he  Fa u n ipsest
Again, Okoboji as the world knows is already a 
place o f resort, thousands o f people find summer 
habitation on its shores. So that we find  here 
unequalled opportunity for bringing scientific work 
to the attention o f people o f every class and kind, 
and confessedly natural history work in all our 
schools, colleges and universities is too formal, too 
artificial, too much based upon material specially 
prepared, laid up in herbaria, or conserved in cases 
and bottles; the lakeside laboratory offers an oppor­
tunity to correct this, at least in some small mea­
sure. Ever since the immortal Agassiz stood 
bareheaded with that famous company on the rocks 
of Pennikese, the naturalists o f the world, at least, 
have realized that the proper and reverent place for  
the study of natural objects is in their natural sur­
roundings. Dry dead fungi are dusty labelled 
things, as meaningless as the stuffed skin o f mam­
mal or bird, or a fossil in a box; better than no 
exhibit at all, to be sure, but poor indeed as com­
pared with the natural world, where the fungus 
starts in the forest shade, the wings o f bird or insect 
fan the sunny air, or the fossil speaks its significance 
from the stony pages o f the riven quarry stone. The 
lakeside laboratory shall afford to all interested, for  
once at least a chance to see the real world, nature 
alive, accomplishing her miracles in their own silent
splendor, often needing not, fo r  the student s
appreciation, the voice of interpreter or teacher. . . .
The classes sought to be accommodated are;first, 
all students o f nature competent to enjoy the labora­
tory method o f instruction; the laboratory shall be 
open to anybody capable o f using its privileges; 
second, teachers o f biologic subjects in academies 
and high schools everywhere, who may desire to 
combine recreation with work and who may find in 
the service o f the laboratory occasion to acquaint 
themselves with Iowa conditions and thus better 
equip themselves fo r serving the children o f the 
schools; third, graduate students who may desire to 
perfect themselves in some line o f research pre­
paratory or introductory to an advanced degree. 
Such students are presumably competent to con­
duct work for themselves, needing simply a place at 
table and such suggestions as occasion may develop.
. . . the laboratories fo r use are to be open to the
world, students enrolling in the order in which 
application arrives. It is hoped that the open door 
may be thronged and that the enterprise may not 
only serve those already engaged in scientific work, 
but may reach and influence thousands and make 
real all natural science to the upbuilding and quick­
ening o f every school, college or academy within the 
borders of our state.
(David Boot Album, SIISI)


Not a member yet

The Boonesboro Connection: Richard A Ballinger and Ray Lyman Wilbur

The Palimpsest, vol.66 no.1, January-February 1985

The Palimpsest, vol.66 no.5, September-October 1985

The Palimpsest, vol.66 no.6, November-December 1985

Those Wonderful Iowa Firehouses

He Opened Holes Like Mountain Tunnels'

Tell the Boys I Die Happy

The Okoboji Lakeside Laboratory

School Days

Lowell Houser and the Genesis of a Mural

2,796

4,035