Jack the Hugger--A Different Kind of Ripper

Jack the Hugger would sneak out from the shadows,
hug a woman, and disappear

London had Jack the Ripper. Muscatine had Jack the Hugger. He appeared out of nowhere the day after Valentine’s Day in 1904, randomly grabbing and hugging women on the street.

The Muscatine Journal was at a loss to explain the strange phenomenon and dubbed the perpetrator “Jack the Hugger.” The story quickly went viral, appearing in newspapers throughout the Midwest, and eventually spawned a slew of imitators.

The Hugger assaulted three women on the evening of February 15. The first attack occurred on East Seventh Street. The man jumped out of the shadows and embraced the girl, almost suffocating her in a giant bear hug. He grabbed his second victim as she walked through the cut on East Second Street. The Hugger leaped out and grabbed her tight.

The third assault occurred on the high bridge near Walnut Street. The Hugger was a little more daring this time. He threw his arms around the girl and planted a wet, juicy kiss on her lips. Then, when she screamed, he bit her under the eye and hurried off down the alley.

Buffalo Bill Cody Frontier Scout Wild West Performer

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show

Buffalo Bill Cody was born in Le Claire on February 26, 1846—the same year Iowa became a state.

The family left for Kansas in 1853, searching for freedom because Iowa was feeling a little too crowded. That wanderlust followed Bill for the rest of his life.

The Pony Express was Bill’s first brush with fame. It only ran for about eighteen months, but it changed everything. Riders hit relay stations at full speed, swapped horses, and kept flying. Mail moved across the country faster than anyone thought possible. It was dangerous, brutal work. A boy could vanish on the prairie and no one  would know.

Bill said he rode for it. People still argue about whether he did, but it doesn’t matter. The Pony Express fit the image he sold the rest of his life: an inexperienced rider in empty country, living on speed and nerve.

After that, he trapped, scouted, and rode with soldiers. Then he picked up the name that turned him into a brand.

27th Iowa Infantry in the Minnesota Sioux Uprising

Attack on the Lower Agency in Minnesota Sioux Uprising

In August 1862, violence swept across Minnesota in what became known as the “Minnesota Sioux Uprising.” It hit fast and close. Along the Minnesota River valley, families fled farms and small towns with little warning.

New Ulm was attacked on August 19, and panic spread across southern Minnesota. Fort Ridgely was assaulted on August 20 and again on August 22. Settlers crowded into towns or ran east, leaving wide stretches of countryside empty.

On September 6, the War Department created the Department of the Northwest and placed Major General John Pope in command, with headquarters at St. Paul. Pope’s orders were clear: restore order and end the violence. His first problem was also clear. He needed troops.

The Civil War made that difficult. Regular army units were tied down in the South and East. Pope had to pull help from nearby states, even if the men were brand new. Iowa responded with the 27th Iowa Volunteer Infantry.

Rearguard Action At Jenkins' Ferry

Iowa soldiers covering the retreat at Jenkins Ferry

Jenkins’ Ferry wasn’t a battle anyone went looking for. It happened because the Union army was tired, short on food, soaked to the bone, and trying to get out of southern Arkansas without being destroyed.

The trouble started weeks earlier with the Camden Expedition. The plan looked good on paper. A Union force would move south from Little Rock, link up with other columns tied to the Red River Campaign, and tighten the squeeze on Confederate Arkansas. In reality, it was a gamble. Supplies were thin. Roads barely deserved the name, as spring rain turned everything into mud and muck.

Iowa regiments made up a big part of the force. They knew what campaigning in the Trans-Mississippi looked like, and they knew it was usually miserable. This one got bad faster than expected.

Iowa Soldiers at Iuka and Corinth

General William Rosecrans

The fights at Iuka and Corinth tested Union troops in very different ways. Iuka was a confused collision in the woods. It came late in the day and never settled into a clean line. Units bent, folded, and drifted under pressure. Corinth followed two weeks later and felt nothing like it. It was a direct assault on a fortified railroad town. Success depended on whether men could hold ground while being hit again and again.

Iowa regiments ended up in the hardest places because the campaign pushed experienced units toward weak points. When the line thinned, they were sent there. When artillery needed cover, they were placed beside it. When ground had to be held no matter the cost, they were already close.

Iuka sits in northeastern Mississippi where roads and rail lines cross. The town was nothing more than a dot on the map. What mattered was control. Confederate General Sterling Price moved in during September, hoping to regain ground and threaten Union supply routes. Union commanders tried to trap him before he could slip away. A column under William S. Rosecrans marched in from the southwest. Another under Edward Ord moved in from the northwest.

On paper, the movement seemed simple enough. Two columns would close in and crush Price’s force. In the field, everything broke down. Roads narrowed into muddy paths. Wagons jammed. Units lost their bearings. Ravines cut across the landscape and split formations without warning. The woods were thick and uneven. Sound didn’t travel the way it should have. When fighting started, part of the Union force never heard it and stayed out of the battle, forcing Rosecrans’ column to take the full weight of the attack alone.

Second Iowa Infantry At Bull Run

Fighting at Bull Run

Most Iowa soldiers fought the Civil War in the West. Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga shaped Iowa’s war. But one Iowa regiment got its start closer to Washington than most Iowans would ever get.

When the war broke out in April 1861, Iowa moved fast. Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood called for volunteers. The Second Iowa gathered at Keokuk in May, where drilling started before uniforms and equipment fully arrived. Some men trained in work clothes. Discipline came quickly. So did confidence. The Gate City reported that the camp at Keokuk was “crowded daily with citizens watching the men drill.” The regiment showed “an uncommon seriousness for troops so newly raised.”

 

By early summer, the Second Iowa was sent east, attached to the Army of the Potomac. For many of the men, it was their first time away from home. The camps around Washington were crowded and noisy. Politicians, reporters, and spectators drifted in and out. Everything the army did seemed to be watched. The New York Tribune described western regiments arriving near Washington as “plain in dress but earnest in bearing,” a contrast not lost on eastern observers.

Battleship Iowa in the Spanish American War

Battleship Iowa at sea

By the time the Spanish–American War broke out in 1898, the Iowa was one of the most powerful warships afloat. Four 12-inch guns. Thick armor. A deep, steady hull built to fight, not parade. She represented a country that had finally decided it intended to be taken seriously at sea.

The New York Times called her “a floating fortress, built less for ceremony than for punishment,” while Harper’s Weekly said the ship looked “as if she had been designed to endure blows rather than admire them.”

Much of the ship’s personality came from her captain. Charles Edgar Clark.

He believed in drills, discipline, and doing things correctly even when no one was watching. Sailors described him as calm, blunt, and unmovable once his mind was made up. Lieutenant John M. Ellicott, one of the ship’s junior officers, said Clark “spoke little, expected much, and wasted no time convincing anyone twice.”