Iowa’s Sacrifice: A Civil War Story
When President Abraham Lincoln called upon the loyal states to send 75,000 volunteers to preserve the Union, the people of Iowa answered with fervor. Although still a young state on the frontier, Iowa would go on to contribute more than its share to the Civil War effort. Over the course of the conflict, 76,309 Iowans enlisted to serve—a number that represented more than half of all the men in the state eligible for military service.
At the time, Iowa’s total population was just 675,000, including about 116,000 men of military age. By the war’s end, over 11% of the state’s entire population had worn the Union blue. The cost was steep: 13,169 Iowans never returned. One in every six soldiers from Iowa died, a third in battle and two-thirds from disease—an all-too-common killer in Civil War camps and hospitals. Another 8,500 men came home bearing severe wounds that would mark them for life.
Throughout the war, Iowa raised 48 infantry regiments, nine cavalry regiments, and four artillery batteries. While many Eastern states sent their soldiers to fight in Virginia and Pennsylvania, Iowa’s sons battled in the West—across the Confederate states of Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Later in the war, they joined General William Tecumseh Sherman on his infamous march through Georgia and into the Carolinas, helping to bring the war to a close.
Among the brave were three Iowans who rose to the rank of major general. Samuel Curtis of Keokuk left his seat in Congress to command troops at the Battle of Pea Ridge, securing a vital Union victory in Arkansas. Grenville Dodge, a visionary railroad engineer, assembled a regiment of volunteers and also fought at Pea Ridge under Curtis’s command. Francis Herron, a banker from Dubuque, joined them there as well, eventually rising through the ranks with distinction.
Iowa may have been distant from the major battlefields of the Civil War, but its people were anything but removed from its impact. Their courage, sacrifice, and commitment to the Union left a legacy that still echoes through the state’s history today.
