John W. May, 36th Iowa, Confidence & the G.A.R.

I hadn't made a connection until Monday between this tombstone in Lucas County's Greenville Pioneer Cemetery (in Washington Township, southeast of Russell) and one of the smallest of Iowa's 519 documented Grand Army of the Republic posts --- J. W. May Post No. 405 at Confidence, five miles south of the cemetery.

The G.A.R. was equivalent to today's American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars, but unlike those organizations was intended to dissolve nationwide as the last Civil War veterans died --- and it did. Iowa's State Historical Department then became the repository for surviving records.

Confidence is located in Wright Township, Wayne County. Today, one can't drive directly from cemetery to village because of the intervening waters of Lake Rathbun. But back in the day, the trip was quick and easy.

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There's actually no grave associated with the J. W. May tombstone. It is a cenotaph erected by his father and siblings soon after John was killed and is located next to the grave at Greenville of John's mother, Nancy, who died in 1857.

Lt. May, apparently a memorable young man and an outstanding officer, died on April 28, 1864, of wounds sustained on April 25 in the battle of Mark's Mills, Arkansas. His actual grave is in Little Rock National Cemetery.

John was the youngest child of John May Sr. (1792-1873) and his wife, Nancy (Hight) May (1794-1857). He was born April 8, 1836, in Putnam County, Indiana, and was 16 when he came west to Lucas County, Iowa, with his parents and older siblings. The younger Mays settled in both Washington and Wright townships.

John was living with his parents and older brother, Henry A., in Cedar Township, Lucas County, when the 1856 state census of Iowa was taken; and at the time of the federal census of 1860, with the family of another brother, Humphrey G. May, in Wright Township, Wayne County. His occupation was given as school teacher.

On the 6th of August 1862, both John and his brother, Humphrey, enlisted in Company F, 36th Iowa Volunteer Infantry and were mustered at Keokuk on October 4. Humphrey was appointed 1st lieutenant of the company and John, 1st sergeant.

Ill health, however, forced Humphrey to resign his commission during January of 1863, he was discharged for disability and had returned home to Wayne County by spring. On Jan. 17, 1863, John was appointed to fill the position of 1st lieutenant held formerly by his brother. It's tempting to speculate that Humphrey in later life felt that John had taken a bullet that might well have killed him.

By 1864, John was an experienced combatant and respected officer, but nothing encountered previously could alleviate the disaster experienced by Union forces --- including the 36th Iowa --- on April 25 at Mark's Mills where a Confederate force outnumbering four to six times the Union force executed an ambush with devastating results. 

More than 1,000 Union troops were captured, more than 100 killed. In addition, the Confederate forces slaughtered more than 100 unarmed black freedmen who were either working for the Union forces or traveling with them in an attempt to escape a hostile region.

John was shot in the leg during that battle, then captured and taken to a makeshift regimental hospital. On April 28, he died. By some accounts, the leg had been amputated; according to others, it had literally been blown off. 

Centerville's own Lt. Col. Francis Marion Drake, a future Iowa governor, also wounded and sharing a room with John when he died, wrote of him in a later report to Iowa's Adjutant General, "Among the killed was Lieutenant J. W. May, of Company F, one of the most promising young officers in the service."

A more complete account of John's last days is found in the wartime diary of Benjamin F. Pearson, of Van Buren County, published in several installments during the 1920s in "Annals of Iowa." Pearson was serving as 1st lieutenant of Company G, 36th Iowa, when captured. Here's his entry for April 28 (I've added punctuation):

"I busy myself this day among the wounded at James Crane's & Mrs. Hunter's in Red land township, Bradley Co. Ark. The men that came out from Pine Bluff with a flag of truce to bury the dead returned this day to the bluffs & I wrote a line to my children & sent it open with them. Lieut John W. May of Co. F, 36th Iowa, died of the wound he received in battle on the 25th. He was shot in left leg below the knee & the bone shattered to pieces & not amputated. He was resigned to his fate & requested me to write to his father, John May, at Confidence Wayne Co. Iowa. He was a brave man & beloved by all his comrades & men. He died at Crane's hospital in the room where Lieut. Col. F.M. Drake is confined with his wound. Lieut. McVay of Co. B & myself assisted in burying Lieut. May."

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J. W. May Post No. 405 was chartered on Sept. 26, 1885, some 20 years after its namesake died and included 11 charter members --- including Humphrey G. May. He may have suggested that the new post be named in honor of his brother.

Whatever the case, Confidence was too small a community in the long run to support a G.A.R. post and total membership never exceeded 19. It's not clear how long the organization remained viable, but it would appear that eventually several of its members transferred to Corydon's Robert Jackson Post No. 102.

Here, according to surviving records, are the names of members: Henry Blakely, James M. Blevins, Josiah Davis, Daniel Easley Jr., John A. Fenton, Stephen A. Fenton, Marion Husted, Nimrod Marchbanks, Humphrey G. May, Randolph Moore, Greenberry B. Owen, William S. Ramsey, Eli Smith, Isaac Stephens, Peter Talkington, George W. Thomas, Stephen Van Benthusen, Matthew Westlake and Thomas L. Willis.

Several of these men were buried in the Confidence Cemetery as they passed. Others had moved on. Humphrey G. May, who died at the age of 66 on October 28, 1895, is buried with his wife, Julia, in Evans Cemetery --- located at the four-corners intersection of Lucas, Monroe, Appanoose and Wayne counties.

The name "John W. May" is inscribed there, too, upon what is one of Iowa's earliest public memorials to its Civil War dead, erected during 1866.