Soldier Letter From 4th Iowa Cavalry At Fort Scott

This letter from an unnnamed captain of the 4th Iowa Cavalry dated Fort Scott, October 26, 1864, was published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye on November 12, 1864.

Dawn attack at Trading Post on the Marais Des Cygnes River

Yesterday was a glorious day for the gallant Second Division. We encamped the night we left you three miles north of New Santa Fe. Moved next morning at 6 a.m. and marched 20 miles, coming up with Price’s army at a little Trading Post on the Marais Des Cygnes River where we halted at 11 p.m. The next morning at daybreak, Sanborn’s Brigade M. S. M. in front, supported by the 4th Iowa Cavalry drove the enemy from a strong position on the bluff north of the river, routed them from their camp on the south side of the river, capturing one piece of cannon and followed them out on the prairie closely.

Two miles from Mound City and fourteen from Trading Post, Marmaduke’s division made a stand. Phillips’ First Brigade M. S. M. came up on the right and formed first. Then our command came up on the left and formed a column of regiments, the 10th Minnesota in advance, the 4th Iowa next, and the 3rd Iowa in the rear of our 21st Brigade.

Civil War Letter From 6th Iowa Infantry 1863

This letter from the 6th Iowa Infantry at Oak Ridge, Miss., dated August 24, 1863, was printed in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye on September 12, 1863.

6th Iowa Infantry on a scouting expedition

Having just returned from a sojourn at Paducah, Ky., made in consequence of a wound received at Black River on the 6th of July, I thought an account of a few things noticed on the trip down the river might not prove uninteresting to your readers. 

 

And first, allow me to say that the hospitals at Paducah are just what they ought to be. Those who have friends there may rest assured that everything possible is being done to make them comfortable, and if they do not recover, it will not be because they are beyond the reach of medical skill and the equally important attention of the kindest and best nurses. 

Civil War Soldier's Letter From 2nd Iowa Cavalry

 On May 8, 1863, The Muscatine Journal printed this letter from an unnamed member of the 2nd Iowa Cavalry.

2nd Iowa Cavalry setting off on a scouting expedition

April 17, we, the 2nd Cavalry, started out on a scout, in company with the Sixth and Seventh Illinois Cavalry, having five pieces of two pounders. We all went south together as far south as Houston, which is south and east of Grenada. Here our regiment was sent off on the Columbus Road. When within about 20 miles of Columbus (on the Ohio and Mobile railroad), we were attacked by parts of three rebel regiments, 900 strong. We had about 500 men, but soon made the rebels fly, with no loss whatever on our side. We wounded 12 of the rebels, that we know of.

About an hour before this fight, 27 of our men were sent out on a byroad, leading into a swamp, to get a lot of horses and mules, known to be secreted there. They got some 60 head, and mounting a lot of darkies on them, started to rejoin the regiment. Soon, however, they found out that they were cut off by the rebels and endeavored to reach us by another route. After riding on this tack eight or ten miles, they found themselves between a heavy rebel column and their advanced guard. They now took off through the woods, on no road at all, but in executing this maneuver four men who were in the rear were taken prisoner. The rest got back to the regiment about 11 o’clock at night. The four men taken were from Atalissa. Their names are: Chas. Cope, C. Eves, B. F. Barkalow, and Barclay J. Embree.

Cy Slapnick Didn't Make It In The Majors But He Knew How To Pick Them

 

Cyril Charles Slapnicka was born in Cedar Rapids in 1886. Farm country. Immigrant parents. Baseball was the quickest way out of town and the surest way back in.

He pitched forever in the minors. Iowa. Illinois. Anywhere they’d pay him. In 1911 he won 26 games in Rockford and forced the Chicago Cubs to notice. September call-up. Big league clubhouse. A few appearances. Then, back on the train.

He resurfaced with Pittsburgh in 1918. Ten major league games total. Record: 1–6. He wasn’t a star. Not even close.

A lot of men would’ve faded right there.

Slapnicka didn’t.

In 1921, he signed on with Cleveland as a scout. That’s where the story actually starts. He had an eye, and knew what a big-league arm looked like before it knew itself. He drove Iowa’s back roads. Watched high school kids throw in half-empty parks. Talked to parents. Took notes. Made bets with other scouts and usually won.

In 1936, he found Bob Feller, an Iowa farm kid throwing gas past grown men. Slapnicka signed him. That changed Cleveland for a decade. Later came Bob Lemon and a pipeline of players who filled out rosters that could actually win.

For a stretch in the mid-1930s, he ran the club. General manager. Contracts, salaries, egos. No draft system back then. You wanted a player; you found him first and signed him fast. Slapnicka operated like a man who understood scarcity. Talent was gold. Hesitation was death.

He stayed with Cleveland over forty years, scouting into his seventies because he trusted his judgment more than anyone else’s reports.

He died in 1979 at 93, back in Cedar Rapids.

Here’s the clean version: He had a short, forgettable pitching career and a long, consequential second act.

He didn’t conquer the mound. He built the roster. And in baseball, that can matter more.

Historic old Buildings in Des Moines

 

Des Moines in 1858

On September 30, 1906, the Des Moines Register ran a pictorial on the historic old building of Des Moines. I picked two of them to feature hereL  a look at Des Moines in 1858, and the Des Moine Hotel in 1855. Some of the other pictures not shown here included the Old Congregational Church in 1858, the first bridge on Walnut Street in 1866, and the D. F. C. Grunell House, built in 1848.

Mrs. W. F. Mitchell President Des Moines Women's Club 1906

 

Picture from the Des Moines Register. September 30, 1906.

Mrs. W. F. Mitchell became the president of the Des Moines Women's Club in September 1906. She succedded Mrs. H. L. Carrell.

Colonel Earl D. Thomas Fort Des Moines 1906

Colonel Earl D. Thomas, commander of the Eleventh Cavalry at Fort Des Moines, took command several cavalry units in Cuba in 1906.

Thomas began his military service as a private in the Eighth Illinois, rising to sergeant-major during the Civil War. He graduated from West Point in 1869 and was assigned to the Fifth Cavalry where he took part in many of the Indian Wars. He fought in the Indian campaigns in the Republican River Country, the Apache Campaign of 1872-1874, at Four Peaks, Salt River Canyon, Music Mountain, and many more campaigns in the West.

Thomas was on frontier duty in Kansas and Nebraska from 1878 to 1885, led a surveying expedition in 1879, and fought in the Western Indian Wars from 1885 to 1898. 

When the Spanish American War broke out, he helped outfit Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders, then served as an inspector general of volunteers. In 1899, he became an associate judge in a provincial court in Cuba. He returned to the United States in 1900 and served on the frontier for several more years.

Thomas was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1904 and took command of the Eleventh Cavalry at Fort Des Moines in April of that year. When he headed to Cuba in 1906, two-thirds of the 851 men at Fort Des Moines went with him.

Artists' Sketch Proposed Fleming Building in Des Moines

The Des Moines Register printed an artists' sketch of the proposed Fleming Building in its September 30, 1906. The building was to be erected on the southwest corner of Sixth Avenue and Walnut Street. When completed, the ten story building would be the largest office building in the city, and one of the most expensive at a cost of $350,000. Each floor would house 28 offices.

Capitol Park High School Baseball Team 1903

The Des Moines Register printed this picture of the Capitol Park High School baseball team on May 3, 1903. They didn't identifty the players in the picture, but they did list the team members and positions. 

Robert Gates, catcher; Andrew Chalmers, pitcher and team captain; Martin Peterson, first base; Fred Gates, second base; Walter Sargent, third base; Ray Prather, shortstop; Burt Sargent, left field; Ray Hampton, center field; John Dwight, right field; and Benjamin Franklin and Charlie Holmes, substitutes.

Capitol Park High School Football Team 1903

The Des Moines Register printed this picture of the Capitol Park High School football team in a special section on area schools in th May 3, 1903 issue.Unfortunately they didn't name the individual players.

Robert Gordon Cousins Eight Term Iowa Congressman

 

Watercolor after a photograph in the Des Moines Register. February 16, 1908.

Robert Gordon Cousins grew up on a farm near Tipton where people argued politics as seriously as they planted corn. By the time he left Cornell College in 1881 he knew two things: how to work and how to talk.

 

He started in the Iowa House in 1886, cut his teeth in an impeachment trial, and proved he could prosecute a case without blinking. In 1892, he landed a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and stayed there for eight straight terms.

 

Washington at the turn of the century was loud, partisan, and spoiling for big arguments. Cousins thrived on it. He memorized his speeches and delivered them like a man who trusted his own voice. When he stood up, people listened.

 

After the Spanish-American War, the country split over what to do with the Philippines. Cousins backed expansion and said America couldn’t grab global power and then pretend it was shy. Strength meant responsibility. Retreat meant weakness.

 

His showpiece was a speech called The Glory of the Republic. It was red meat patriotism, wrapped in constitutional language. He talked about sacrifice, duty, and the price of liberty. Newspapers picked it up. Crowds asked to hear it again. He became one of the Republican Party’s go-to voices when the subject was national pride.

 

He chaired the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, stayed firm on America’s role in the world, and then stepped away in 1909. He went back to Iowa, took to the Chautauqua circuit, and kept preaching citizenship under canvas tents.

 

Cousins died in 1933.

 

Civil War Letter Fourth Iowa Cavalry At Vicksburg

 

Union advance at Vicksburg, from an 1885 print

Following is an extract of a letter from James B. Gregg, a soldier in the Fourth Iowa Cavalry, written from Bear Creek, Mississippi on July 6, 1863. It was published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye on July 25, 1863.

 

Our regiment has not been idle. Since we left Helena on 29 April, we have not lain in camp more than ten days altogether. We have scouted and explored all the country for 40 miles around Vicksburg. We have been engaged in a great many skirmishes, some which would’ve been called battles a year ago.

 

In all these, we have lost as many men as any one of the regiments engaged in the investment line of Vicksburg, excepting a few; we are satisfied, we will become generally known and respected by the rebels we have met in battle, and the smoke houses and beehives we have visited. The Fourth boys are fond of ham, honey, and milk.

Iowa Barely Noticed The First Plot To Kill John F. Kennedy

 

Watercolor drawing of a public domain image from Wikipedia

A plot to kill President elect John F. Kennedy in December 1960 barely got a mention in the Des Moines papers.

 

The Des Moines Tribune reported the story on page 7 in the December 16, 1960 issue. Headline: “Plot to Kill Kennedy, Man Seized.” The December 19 issue of the Des Moines Register buried the story on page 9, lumping it in with an article titled, “Kennedy Sets Talks On Bills.”

 

The Iowa City Press-Citizen was the only paper to run the story on the front page. It was one small column wedged between an article on the plane crash in New York and Christmas for missing airmen. The tiny headline said: “Hold Man In Death Plot On Kennedy.”

 

The story that claimed the front page that week was the crash of two airliners in New York, which claimed 126 lives. The Kennedy story faded into the background.

 

And yet, what happened in Palm Beach that week could have blown the entire decade apart.

 

The man at the center of it didn’t look like a villain out of central casting. Richard Paul Pavlick, 73, was a retired postal worker from Belmont, New Hampshire. The guy you’d expect to argue about stamps, not wire a car full of dynamite.

 

But he’d convinced himself Kennedy was dangerous. Too rich. Too Catholic. Propped up by “big money.” Pavlick decided the country needed saving.

 

So he bought explosives.

 

Not one stick. Not a little bundle tucked under a coat. Authorities later said there was enough dynamite in his Buick to level a building. He rigged it with blasting caps and a detonator. The plan was simple and horrifying: park close to Kennedy, hit the switch, and die along with him.

 

This wasn’t Dallas. No rifle. No long distance.

 

It was going to be a suicide car bomb in broad daylight.

 

Kennedy was in Palm Beach in December 1960, staying at his father’s estate and easing into the role of president-elect. He hadn’t taken the oath yet. The inauguration was still weeks away. Security was present, but nothing like the wall of protection that would surround presidents after 1963.

 

Pavlick followed him.

Des Moines Iowa Automobile Advertisements 1909

Iowa residents had a large assortment of automobiles to choose from in 1909. Like today, you could select a gas or electric model, and in some cases steam driven. 

Here are two advertisements from Des Moines Automobile dealers taken from the Des Moines Register. November 28, 1909.

Thomas Flyer - Model H, sold by Moyer Auto Co,

Proposed Route Davenport-Iowa City Interurban Railway

 

Map showing the proposed route of the Davenport-Iowa City Interurban Railway. Company name: Davenport, Iowa City & Western Traction Co. It would run within five miles of the Rock Island and Clinton-Iowa City branch of the same road.

(The Daily Times. October 18, 1909)