‘m having a minor procedure to remove the silicone oil from my right eye on September the 4th. The oil has been in there since 2018. Though it has done a great job of keeping my retina attached, it is causing other problems, such as retina swelling and eye irritation. Recently, it has emulsified, making my vision cloudy.
I expect to see better after the oil is removed. It will be replaced with a gas. I won’t be able to see anything with that eye for a week or so while the natural fluid displaces the gas. (I will be able to navigate the apartment with the limited vision I have in my left eye.) With the oil out, I will be at increased risk for another retina detachment. If that happens, the oil goes back in.
I will be out of touch for a while as the natural eye fluid is replenished. I’ll ask Karen to keep you posted if there are any significant developments.
Sorry I haven’t written. We have been on the march through hostile territory since April. We arrived at Helena, Ark on the 11th. We can now receive and send mail by steamboat, since Helena is on the Mississippi.
Tell Ma and Pa that Willis is hale and hearty. He is itching to put some more Rebs out of the War. John and Will are also doing fine. There isn’t much that can stop a DeLay. I wish I could say the same for Captain Taylor. He is very sick with the typhoid fever. He’ll be sent north on the next steamer. Bussey left the regiment to become a brigadier. Major Drake has taken his place as our commander.
I sure do miss you and the little ones. Can you get a picture taken of the baby? Perhaps you could hold him to get a good exposure. I’m eager to meet him for the first time. When that might happen, I cannot say.
I am sending you $3 I won at Poker. It is all I have until the Paymaster catches up with us. I know you will put it to good use. I have four months pay due. That is over $50. I need to spend some with the Quartermaster for a new pair of trousers. The Sutler, who has been traveling with us, will get his pound of flesh from each of us for the overpriced goods he sold us on the march. I should have about $40, left to send home by express. I trust you are making good use of all the money I am able to send. I hope you can pay some toward our planting expenses and use some for clothes and nice things for you and the kids. I hear that the New York troops are getting allotments deducted from their pay to send home to their families. I will sign up for one as soon as it becomes available to us.
It is good that you sew. Socks are in great demand here. Mine have been holding up well, but the Infantry can use all they can get. They will gladly trade coffee and sugar for them.
Could you please tell me how the crops are doing? Are you getting enough help from the neighbors? If all goes well with the harvest, you should be able to get a hired hand, assuming all the useful men are not already in the Army.
I don’t know how much news is getting back to you, but the 3d Iowa has been doing the country proud. We rejoined Col Bussey’s command at Forsyth, Mo in early April. We are now part of Sam Curtis’s Army of Southwest Missouri which fought so valiantly at Pea Ridge. His Army left Springfield in late March and picked up our 2 detached companies along the way. You may remember General Curtis as our district’s representative in the US Congress. He was a good congressman and is an even better general. After joining Curtis, we marched back into Arkansas, going through West Plains, where Willis lost his horse back in February.
At first, we were headed for Little Rock, but that would have stretched our supply lines too far. Instead, we turned toward Batesville following the White River east. The 3d led the Army for much of the way.
Major Drake, who was our commander at Salem, had a big dust up with the Rebs at Kickapoo Bottoms, near Sylamore, Ark. He took 25 prisoners, suffering 1 dead and 2 wounded. He also came back with 25 Negroes, who had been hidden in the Boston Mountains by Union men. Unfortunately, the Rebs caught and abused the Union men badly. Three of them who refused to join the Rebel Army were hanged.
As the Army approached Batesville, Ark, we expected to find our old adversary, Col Coleman. We were determined to surround him with an overwhelming force. We arrived at Batesville on the 3dt of May, only to be greeted by a handful of Rebs who soon fled across the river. We captured some much-needed stores of sugar and rice. Coleman was holed up on the other side of the river, but we couldn’t get across. He tried to shoot at us from his side, but the range was too far. The whole town turned out when we brought up our howitzers to return the fire. A couple of well-aimed rounds drove them off. Four Rebs were seen to fall to the fire. The locals later said that one of them was a Lt Col.
We stayed at Batesville a while trying to get resupplied by steamer. Alas, that was not to be. We resorted to foraging to feed ourselves and our animals. Then we marched east toward Helena.
Though General Van Dorn took his Army and left Arkansas, there are still plenty of small bands of Rebs that harassed us on the march. As always, the cavalry leads the march, so we encountered these bushwhackers regularly. I Company ran into a roadblock of fallen timbers at a place called Bayou Cache. Twelve of us went into the woods to see if the Rebs were fixing to ambush us. We flushed out 18 Rebs, killing or wounding half of them. The rest escaped across the river. A funny thing happened there. As the firing commenced, I felt a big thump in my side. It was a hot fight, so I kept on firing. When things slowed down, I reached down to see how badly I was hit. I touched what felt like blood. Then I noticed my canteen, which was full of molasses, was gone. My bloody owie turned out to be molasses from a ball that had taken my canteen clear off. An inch closer, I would have come home on convalescent leave.
As we crossed Arkansas, we lived off the land. The Army split into separate columns, and we scavenged the countryside for anything we needed. What we didn’t take, we often burned to keep it from helping the Rebs. Because all the forage along our path was used up, we had to send a foraging party before us. I knew many of the men because the party was mostly drawn from Company K. On the way back, they got ambushed by a large force. They had a hot fight, with Lt Griswold and 2 troopers I knew well being killed. We were dispatched to save them, but the 9th Illinois beat us to the rescue.
The lower delta of the White River is cotton country. We had many runaway slaves follow us to Helena. Their masters won’t need them since we burned all the cotton fields we came across. Curtis is requisitioning food to feed them from the local citizenry. It bothers none of us that these secessionists are not happy about feeding their former slaves.
Helena is a pretty important place to occupy. It’s on a bluff overlooking the big river. It’s easy to defend and has a good port. We are getting boatloads of rations and ammunition and can send our sick and wounded upriver. The new leader of the Confederates in Arkansas is Gen Hindman. I’m not sure he’s happy that Gen Curtis is now headquartered in the Hindman Mansion here in Helena. Hindman is busy trying to organize the various outlaw Rebel bands of Ark into a real army. The Union men and runaways coming here are telling us that Hindman is abusing Arkansas’s citizens at least as much as we did. He’s taking everything he wants from them and offering potential recruits the choice of a rifle or a noose. Once we get fully resupplied, we’ll be going after him.
Speculation holds that Grant has his eye on Vicksburg as his next prize. With New Orleans now in Union hands, the Mississippi River could be ours again. That would surely help Iowa farmers.
Kiss my babies for me and tell them Daddy loves them.
P.S. The Adjutant says it’s OK to share the details in this letter, except for the part about Grant’s plans to take Vicksburg.
Centerville Iowa
July 28, 1862
My Dearest Husband,
Thank God, my brave and noble husband is safe! We worried so much while you were on the march. We had no word for nearly 3 months. I prayed constantly for your safety. A vigil at church went on for weeks. There was great rejoicing when the papers reported that the 3d Iowa had reached Helena. We were still worried that some of our soldiers might not have made it.
We are fine. The kids are growing like weeds. I spend most of my evenings making new clothes for them. Rosellen says she misses her Papa. I’m teaching her to cook and sew. The kids found a rattler under the porch, and I killed it with a shovel. Hopefully, you can dispatch the next one. My family is fine, as is yours. Uncle Jacob is still here, but looking for a posting as a regimental chaplain.
Your Pa and the neighbors are helping with crops. If conditions hold, it will be a good harvest this year. I hope to hire someone, perhaps an invalid from the Army, to help next year. I hear that freed slaves are arriving in Keokuk. They are supposed to be good workers. The farmers are saying, “Keep sending them our way.”
I’m afraid I have some bad news to report. Captain Taylor died on his way home. He is to be buried in Illinois, but we are having a memorial service here. Everyone is stunned by his loss.
I hope you are getting some news of the War now. While you were in the field. President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act. Think of it! We can now get a farm free and clear just for working it 5 years. Let’s do Nebraska next time. I really hated Kansas with all its troubles. I am so glad you missed that horrible battle at Shiloh. I can’t imagine how many families are grieving. Did you hear about the Union men who stole a locomotive in Georgia and almost made it to Tennessee while tearing up the tracks? They were caught and, I fear, executed. Don’t you go trying any such foolishness!
It is time to put the children to bed. You will be in our prayers as always.
The sound was deafening. It rattled the windows and shook the walls. It seemed to suck the air right out of the room as it moved off.
Instinctively. I dashed for the door. My boss chuckled.
“That was a sonic boom.”
The date was August 18, 1959, my 15th birthday. Though I loved airplanes and wanted to be a jet fighter pilot, breaking the sound barrier for the first time over my little town on that particular day was a dumb thing to do.
The night before I was awakened about midnight by my bunk bed shaking violently. It was dark and I was sleepy, so I shrugged it off. Maybe one of my brothers had come home on leave from the service and crawled into the top bunk.
When the alarm rang at 5:30 AM, I got up, dressed, and had a bowl of Shredded Wheat. Then I dashed off to my job at Markles Hardware Store. My first task was to sweep the floor and the front sidewalk. By the time I finished, the usual crowd of old-timers had gathered in the front of the store to discuss everything from wheat prices to the national debt. Those topics had been forgotten today.
“Turn on the TV! There was an earthquake last night.”
Earthquake? I wondered. Those only happen in California. I had visited there once and saw repairs in the roads from earthquake cracks. I’d seen earthquaukes in far-off places like Japan and Turkey on the Movietone Newsreels.. Those things never happened here, did they?
The TV hummed as electrons woke up the cathode ray tube. A wavy image of a newscaster appeared.
“The quake was centered about 15 miles north of West Yellowstone, Montana. Access to the area is blocked due to multiple landslides. The National Earthquake Reporting Center registered the shock as a 7.2 on the Richter Scale. That is roughly the same size as the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. That would be a devastating number had it hit a populated area.”
Populated area? I thought. Do they think Montana doesn’t have any people? Hell, there are over 3 people per square mile in this state. And at this time of the year Yellowstone Park is full of tourists. I had been there and I knew.
“There are reports that a mountain has slid into the valley of the Madison River. The area is frequented by fishermen and campers.”
Excuse me? A mountain slid into a river? Preposterous! I went back to work. Business was slow, but people kept gathering in the front of the TV.
“I camped on the Madison last year, at Hebgen Lake,” someone said.
“Hebgen Lake? The radio just said it had waves over 20 feet tall when the quake hit. They are trying to get to the campgrounds, but the roads are all blocked.”
Then the TV announcer mentioned aftershocks, two big ones about 6.0. The weathered old men in the store began to look serious. Montana had floods and blizzards, never an earthquake. This one had been felt a thousand miles away. We were about 300 air miles from the epicenter and it had woken nearly everyone up.
I got home in time to catch the evening news. The bad news kept coming in. Pictures showed a shattered mountain sitting in the middle of a quiet valley where a campground had once been. This dammed the river and a lake was filling up fast. The road had fallen into it. Part of an overturned car was poking out from the debris.
Eyewitness reports started to trickle in. People were trapped. There was a frantic effort to reopen shattered roadways. A few lucky people had somehow left just before the quake hit. A deaf woman was reported to have felt the tremors early. Animals had gotten excited and tried to warn their owners. Boaters remembered that Hebgen Lake had been inexplicably choppy just before the quake hit. Other people said they had barely missed the quake because the campground was full, or someone got sick, or they had car trouble. Those who had found their ideal camping spot weren’t so lucky.
Survivors remembered a huge roar as the top of the mountain slid into the Madison. Material moved with such speed that it created its own wind. A woman barely escaped as her house slid into the water. A couple in their 70’s clung to a tree for over six hours before being rescued by a boat. One camper was a nurse who helped others. Her picture, black eye and all, made it into Life Magazine. Phone lines at the Red Cross and the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office were jammed with people looking for missing loved ones. There was another aftershock.
Virtually everyone in Montana felt the quake. Kids remember being thrown out of bed. The closer they were, the greater the shaking. Walls cracked and chimneys fell in Bozeman. Houses shifted off their foundations. Three hundred new geysers erupted in Yellowstone Park. Almost overnight, Quake Lake on the Madison River filled up. Quake Lake is still there. Its current average depth of 47 feet over its 6-mile length would be higher had the Corps of Engineers not moved massive amounts of debris restoring the channel. It took 3 days to get all the survivors out. The records of the campground were buried, so no one knew how many people were lost. Authorities finally settled on a casualty count of 28 souls. Most of the bodies were never recovered.
By the end of the day, I felt older than my 15 years. The world was no longer the quiet, comfortable place that had nurtured me, and kept me safe. Unknown dangers lurked out there. Security is not a given.
Years later, I learned that the Yellowstone Quake was only a precursor of the next explosive geothermal event that could happen in Yellowstone. Indeed, the Yellowstone super volcano explodes every 600 to 800 thousand years. The last big blast dwarfed the Mount St Helens eruption many of us witnessed in 1980. It buried places 400 miles away with a dozen feet of ash. No one knows when it will blow again. The last blast was 640,000 years ago putting us well within the window for the next one. When it does blow, and it will, its impact will devastate much of the American West.
Should we be concerned? Maybe. There are still seventy and eighty-year-old Montanans who retain the trauma they felt as children on the night the mountain fell.
“Don’t make a sound,” whispered Reuben as he crooked his arm around the Rebel picket’s throat and clapped his other hand over the man’s mouth.
The sleepy man grunted as Reuben tightened his grip on his throat. The Rebel’s beady dark eyes looked at Reuben in terror. Another trooper grabbed the hapless man’s rifle.
So far, so good. They had managed to capture the Rebel without giving away their presence. Now they needed to sneak him away from the bridge without alerting the rest of the men guarding it.
Reuben dragged the man backwards from the bridge’s approach until they were safely under the cover of the woods. Releasing his grip on the man, he pulled out his revolver and pushed the man toward where the horses were waiting.
They needed to get him back to their camp as soon as possible. With luck, he’d provide some valuable intelligence. The troopers mounted their horses as Reuben kept his revolver trained on the prisoner.
“Start walking, Reb!”
“Kin we just talk?” asked the man. “I’ve got some federal script. Maybe we can make this right.”
“You a damn bounty jumper?” asked Reuben pointedly.
“No Suh, I jes sold me some stuff I found.”
“Found? Did you steal it? How does a ragged old Reb get Yankee money?”
“It’s a long old story. If’n I give ya a twenty-dollah gold piece, kin ya let me go?”
“Nope, I’m taking you to the Provost Marshal. Behave yourself and I won’t have to shoot you along the way. If you’re lucky, you’ll get exchanged for a real soldier.”
“Now, you know that ain’t right. I’m jes a po old boy who got conscripted. I don’t mean you Yankees no harm.”
“Last I heard, a ball from a Confederate conscript will kill you just as sure as one from a true believer. If you had any scruples, you’d have sided with the Union.”
The conversation kept up until the party reached the main camp of the Army. By then, Reuben and his squad had determined that their Rebel captive was a spineless piece of human excrement who would do anything to save himself.
On reaching their camp, a Sergeant from another Regiment took a special interest in the prisoner. He walked up to the man and looked him straight in the eye. The sergeant began to scowl.
“O’Brien? They caught you, you sonuvabitch.”
“Hold up there!” yelled Reuben as the sergeant lifted the butt of his rifle to strike the helpless prisoner. “That man’s my prisoner.”
“He ain’t no prisoner. He’s a bounty-jumpin’ traitor!”
O’Brien, if that was his name, looked terrified.
“OK, calm down. We can sort this out with the 3rd Iowa Provost Marshal.”
“We damn sure kin. Wait ‘til I tell my captain who turned up.”
O’Brien hunkered his body down, trying to look inconspicuous as he was marched to headquarters. Not 5 minutes after the men reported to the Provost Marshal, two officers from the other regiment appeared along with the sergeant who had spotted O’Brien.
“That’s him. That’s O’Brien.”
O’Brien looked horrified at being identified.
“Deserter?” asked the Provost Marshal.
“Yes, and a traitor to boot,”
“I see the butternut uniform. That makes him a turncoat. What else did he do?”
“Let’s ask him. How’d you come to be in the Rebel Army?”
“I left camp to pick some huckleberries and got captured. When they found out I was born in the South, they threatened to hang me if’n I didn’t join their cause.”
“You’re a damn liar! You deserted so’s you could run off and spend that bounty you never earned. You’re such a sorry soldier that you ran the wrong direction when you deserted.”
“I ain’t no deserter and I ain’t no bounty-jumper.”
“We just learned you enlisted in a Connecticut outfit for the money. Then you deserted and joined our regiment to collect another bounty. The morning after you turned up missing, our supply train was ambushed. We think you told the Rebels about the train.”
“Tain’t so. I’m innocent. All I did was wander off in search of some better food.”
“Shut up!” The interrogating captain turned to the Provost Marshal. “I thank the 3rd Iowa for catching this scoundrel.”
“Looks like I need to release him to your custody. What do you plan to do with him?”
“We’re still investigating, but I suspect we’ll have to shoot him.”
O’Brien stiffened at the thought of his probable execution. “Yer makin a big mistake. I ain’t done nuthin wrong.”
The three visitors escorted O’Brien back to their guard house. His court-martial took place immediately. Word reached Reuben that his former prisoner was to be executed the following morning.
The morning of the execution, Reuben joined several of his fellow troopers to watch the somber event. He felt a small pang of remorse that he had captured the one rebel soldier who deserved to be shot. Most of the other men he’d captured had been paroled.
They arrived at the other regiment’s assembly area early. The men formed up in front by companies for roll call. After muster, they made two U-shaped double ranks around the perimeter of the field. The lines faced each other from 6 feet apart. Reuben could see the freshly dug grave in the center of the U.
“I wonder how his folks are gonna feel?”
“He’s a bounty-jumper. Like as not, O’Brien isn’t his real name. Unless he told someone who he is, his folks ain’t gonna ever know what happened to him. They’ll think he was some hero that never came home from the War.”
“Helluva way to go, though.”
“Look! There’s the execution detail.”
The procession was led by the Provost Marshal, riding between the ranks. He was followed by the regimental band mournfully playing The Death March. Next came the execution squad of 12 armed men. An officer had loaded their rifles earlier. One contained a blank round. None of the men knew which. Next came 4 men carrying the coffin.
The prisoner, the Chaplain, and 2 guards made up the next contingent. O’Brien was marched through the ranks of his former comrades, hanging his head low. He had betrayed them. There was no use in looking to them for forgiveness. The march brought him past every soldier in the regiment. The firing squad was already in position by the time he finished his sad trek. The coffin was placed near the open grave.
“Sit!” ordered the Provost Marshall, pointing to the coffin.
O’Brien sat dejectedly on the edge of the rude box. A guard moved forward and prodded him into a more upright posture with his bayonet. The Chaplain began to pray.
Reuben was too far away to hear the prayer. He imagined, at some point, the Chaplain was saying, “May God have mercy upon your soul.”
Finishing the prayer, the Chaplain stooped to offer some words to the condemned. O’Brien nodded gratefully.
The Provost Marshall stepped forward and tied a handkerchief over O’Brien’s eyes. Then he pulled out the general order of execution and read it to the command. Finishing, he backed off and stood next to the firing squad.
“Ready! Aim!”
“Fire!”
Smoke and flame belched out of the rifles. O’Brien jerked backwards, falling haphazardly into the coffin. Both feet and one arm protruded over the edge. Reuben could see no further movements as the Surgeon approached. Checking for a pulse, the surgeon nodded to the Provost Marshal. The coffin bearers stepped forward and shoved O’Brien’s limbs into the coffin. Before he was buried, the entire regiment marched past his remains. Then they were dismissed.
No one spoke as Reuben and his companions returned to their bivouac. O’Brien’s death was just another sad chapter in the greater tragedy of the Civil War. There would be more. Many more.
Outlaws, Outrages and Outright Lies 