Hurrah for the Red, White & Blue

Memorial Day is a week away now, so I thought I'd fly the flags for a few days. This arrangement is displayed some years on Memorial Day in the Grand Army of the Republic section of the Chariton Cemetery, but other years not. So this photo is a few years old.

The G.A.R. section was purchased during the late 1890s by Daniel Iseminger Post No. 18, Grand Army of the Republic, for a couple of purposes. For one, it became the staging area for annual Decoration Day ceremonies at the cemetery. For another, it was intended that veterans be buried here, primarily if they had no other place to be buried although that restriction was loosely enforced. And several are.

Here's a report on activities at the cemetery on Memorial Day, 1898, lifted from The Chariton Patriot of June 2, that year. Try envisioning this next time you're at the cemetery and drive past the G.A.R. plot:

MEMORIAL DAY IN CHARITON

Soldiers' Graves Decorated by School Children --- Colonel S.A. Moore Delivers the Address

Memorial Day dawned clear and bright. It was an ideal day. Promptly at 2 o'clock the procession, headed by Iseminger Post martial band, started for the cemetery. Nearly ninety soldiers, each one carrying a basket of flowers, followed the band. Then came the school girls and boys, then the W.R.C. (Womens Relief Corps), and lastly the carriages of citizens.

On reaching the cemetery the G.A.R. repaired to its lot south of the gate. The lot had a large number of banners and flags waving in the breeze, and a notable feature of this lot decoration was the world "Dewey" spelled out with flags stuck in the ground to form the letters.

Chaplain Blous and H.G. Curtis delivered the regular order for service for the decoration of graves. A beautiful song by about eighteen girls and boys from our high school was well rendered. A list of the soldiers' graves to be decorated was then read and the baskets of flowers were placed in the hands of little girls dressed in white. After the graves had been freely covered with these flowers the procession then formed and returned to the city, where the opera hall was used in concluding the services.

The high school choir sang "Our Banner," after which Rev. Whitten led in prayer. Col. W.S. Dungan then introduced the orator of the occasion, Col. S.A. Moore, of Bloomfield, referring to him as "the silver tongued orator of Iowa."

At the conclusion of this patriotic and sould stirring address, the audience joined the choir in singing "America" and the services of the day were over.

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Headed home from the cemetery after taking a look at the G.A.R. plot last evening, I stopped at the American Legion Hall to drop off a couple of tattered U.S. flags collected during the last few weeks while roaming around country cemeteries.

There's a big hinged container just north of the main stairs to the hall where tattered, worn and/or unwanted U.S. flags can be depositied --- and Legionnaires then will dispose of them properly.

Frankly, I don't care whether folks fly the flag or not --- but I do engage in considerable self-righteous indignation when I spot tattered flags flying or happen upon faded, frayed or otherwise damaged gravesite flags that look like they've been abandoned for years.

For heaven's sake people --- if you're inclined to fly or post the flag, remember that the follow-up obligation is to take care of it.

The small gravesite flags that will be placed in holders at veteran graves prior to Memorial Day aren't an issue. Those who place them will collect them as soon as possible after Memorial Day and they'll be stored away for use another year if in good condition.

But occasionally, family members or others decide to place flags at veteran gravesites at other times. And that's fine --- the protocol related to gravesite flags is relaxed. But don't just leave the flags there to rot. Monitor their condition, remove them before they become frayed and tattered or don't place them at all.

Iowa's grand old battle flags

I've been gnashing my teeth for a couple of weeks now about a plan percolating among state government types in Des Moines to knock down half of Iowa's new (1984-87) State Historical Building, rechristen what's left the Iowa Cultural Center, build a few shops along Locust and turn the balance of the site into green space. Grrrr.

No big fan of the building itself here --- I've disliked the beast since the day it opened, principally because it was an absurd and wildly impractical design. But to knock it down after 30 years of use does seem improvident. And then there's the fact I'm not sure how many Iowans would notice --- or care. 

But this is all a topic for another day.

Instead, its good to remember some of the projects undertaken by the State Historical Society of Iowa, under siege for decades as lawmakers of both parties chipped away at its funding in order to finance their own pet projects.

One of those worthy Historical Society project, with specific ties to Lucas County, involves the conservation and display of more than 130 battle flags carried by Iowa units during the Civil War and enshrined in the state Capitol since 1894. You can read at length about the project here.

These flags, a mix of unit banners and U.S. flags, had accumulated during the post-war years at the State Armory, then located near the riverfront in downtown Des Moines --- on part of the site now occupied by World Food Prize headquarters (formerly the Des Moines Public Library). But they weren't being cared for.

That began to change in 1892 when Chariton's Warren S. Dungan (left), late a lieutenant colonel of the Iowa 34th Volunteer Infantry and now an Iowa senator, introduced legislation to remove the flags from the arsenal and place them in sealed cases in the Capitol. Although his bill passed both houses, it did not reach the governor's desk until the next year, when it was duly reappoved and signed.

As a result, August 10, 1894 --- a sweltering 95-degree day --- was designated "Iowa Battleflag Day." Every effort was made to get as many Civil War veterans to Des Moines as possible for the occasion, and an estimated 4,000 marched with the flags in procession from the Armory east on Locust to the State Capitol that day.

One of the incentives to travel had been a special round-trip rate offered by all of the state's rail line --- a round-trip ticket for the cost of one-way fare. In Chariton, on the morning of the 10th, old soldiers and others boarded a train at the C.B.&Q. Depot and rode east to Albia, where they changed trains and headed northwest to Des Moines. The trip home was via Indianola.

Dungan, now Iowa's lieutenant governor, had been assigned to deliver an address at the old armory and then pass the flags on to color-bearers for the march to the Capitol. In as many cases as possible, the bearers had carried these flags into battle during combat. Dongan's own 34th Iowa --- raised largely in Lucas, Warren, Wayne and Decatur counties --- had three flags in the parade, two U.S. flags and one unit banner. The designated bearers were Clark W. Whitten of Chariton, Co. K; F.M. Clark of Warren County, Co. C; and M.W. Parkhurst of Altoona, Co. B.

The parade from the Armory to the Capitol was perhaps mile in length. The old soldiers marched as best they could with other representatives from their original units. Although thousands lined the route, they were largely silent. The Des Moines Sunday Register staff plucked a few lines from contemprary accounts, republished in "Picture" magazine during 1964:

"None cheered --- their hearts stirred too deep .... The tinge of melancholy that seized on the multitudes almost silenced demonstrations .... The occasion was too great for noise .... There were white-haired mothers looking on whose sons lay dead on southern battlefields; and sisters whose brothers filled nameless graves in dark forests of the South ....

" 'My boy fell defending that flag,' said an old man as the banner of his son's regiment passed by. The crowd about him gave way till the colorbearer could let the old man touch the sacred colors with his hands."

Upon arrival at the Capitol and after more speeches, the flags were sealed in custom-built cases near the second-floor entrance to the State Law Library, where they remained until a major fire broke out in the House chambers in the Capitol's north wing on Jan. 4, 1904. Old soldiers reportedly rushed to the Capitol to help evacuate the flags, if necessary.

Although the flags were not threatened, they were removed to the state's new armory while the Capitol was under repair. On Aug. 27, 1905, the flags were returned to the Capitol and sealed in four cases built around the main floor level of the rotunda --- and that's where I remember seeing them as a kid, gradually disintegrating into dust.

That had been the initial plan --- that the flags would be allowed to return to dust. But the result was not especially attractive in a very public place and over the years came to seem disrespectful to the men who had served under them.

As a result, the Legislature authorized funding for a conservation effort and, during 2002, the first of the four cases was opened for the first time in nearly a hundred years and the flags carefully removed to a conservation laboratory in the State Historical Society building. The last of the flags were removed during 2006.

The restoration process is an ongoing project of the State Historical Society and the cases in the Capitol rotunda have been rebuilt. Restored flags are displayed there, as well as in the Historical Building, on a rotating bases. But a majority of the flags remain in safe storage in that threatened Historical Building much of the time to protect them.

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If you're interested in reading it, here's the text of Warren S. Dungan's address, delivered at the old State Armory on the morning of Aug. 10, 1894:

Comrades, Survivors of the splendid army of over 75,000 men, furnished by the State of Iowa during the great rebellion: This day is to the whole people of the state, and especially to you, a day of absorbing interest --- a day to become historic in the annals of our beloved state. You have been called together by the proclamation of the governor of the state, for the purpose of removing these old battleflags, borne by you and your comrades on so many sanguinary battlefields, during that momentous struggle, from their present resting place in this arsenal to the place prepared for them in the corridors of the new capitol of the state, for their better preservation.

The sight of these dear old flags stirs your souls to their very depths. They awaken afresh in your memories the thrilling scenes of a third of a century ago. The whole panorama of that great war passes in review before you. You hear anew the startling sound of an enemy's artillery firing upon a United States fort. You feel again the depths of that emotion which stirred the hearts of all loyal citizens to realize the danger which threatened the union, and awakened in your hearts the patriotic resolve to swear anew allegiance to the old flag and to offer your services, and your lives, if need be, to preserve the union bequeathed to us by the fathers of the republic.

You recall the hour of the greatest trial experienced in your soldier life ---bthe hour of parting from your wife and child; or from father and mother, sisters and brothers, or your sweetheart.

You remember the shout which greeted the first flag received by your regiment as it was unfurled to the breeze in your sight. It was perhaps the gift of the patriotic women of your own neighborhood. The Thirty-fourth Iowa regiment, to which I belonged, went into camp at Burlington. The patriotic women of that city presented us with our first regimental flag.

In doing so they charged us to bear it bravely in the face of the foe, and never allow it to be trailed in the dust or to be dishonored. We pledged them life, fortune and honor to obey their injunction. This was an inspiration which the regiment could never forget. How well our pledges were redeemed history must record. An evidence of our fidelity, however, is seen in this battle-scarred flag --- the one they presented to us, and one of the three flags the Thirty-fourth furnished to the collection before us. If I remember aright the patriotic women of Burlington presented the First Iowa cavalry and perhaps other regiments with their first regimental flag.

Comrades, you recall the battles in which you were engaged and in which the stars and stripes were your inspiration to noble deeds. You bore them until they were torn and tattered, often bullet-riven and blood-stained, until no longer fit for service and then, with careful hands you folded them up and sent them to the adjutant-general of the state for safe keeping, where you find them to-day.

In recalling the heroic deeds witnessed by you in your army life nothing swells your breasts with greater pride than to remember the devotion of the color-guard to the flags and standards in their keeping. Their heroism was witnessed on many a battlefield. One color-bearer is shot down and another springs to his place, raises the fallen flag and moves forward only to fall as the first, until sometimes three or four have fallen in a single battle. Witness the Second Iowa at Fort Donelson; the fourth color-bearer falls, but is able to rise and bear the flag to the end of the fight and to victory. And that color-bearer is with us to-day in the person of Comrade Twombly, late treasurer of state. Many instances of a similar character might be enumerated, but time will not permit.

Comrades, your hearts may well beat with honest pride to-day when you remember how gallantly you bore these flags at Wilson's Creek, Vicksburg, Donelson, Lookout Mountain, Mission Ridge, Atlantic, Mobile, Blakely, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Fredericksburg, and on to victory at Appomatox. You kept your pledges to the noble women who presented you so many of these flags. Our flags have never been lowered or disgraced by an Iowa regiment; a few of our flags were captured by the enemy, but the troops that bore them were facing the foe defending them with undaunted courage. Here are the great body of the flags we carried to battle and to victory, our witnesses to the people this day.

Look upon them! Not only battle-scarred, but purple-stained with the blood of your fallen comrades. They were placed here for safe keeping, but soon they began to fade and waste away. Seeing this, the patriotic care of an Iowa woman, partly with her own hands, encased them in tarlton for their preservation --- the wife of the then governor --- Mrs. John H. Gear. This was a partial protection, but it was evident that they could not long be kept intact unless otherwise cared for. Iowa is proud of the record made by her citizen soldiery. She has shown this by many liberal laws on her state statute books. Proud of her military record and of the fidelity, valor and patriotism of her sons, and regarding these flags as the best evidence of that record, of that valor and patriotism, and viewing their possession as a sacred trust, she has prepared receptacles in the rotunda of our new capitol for their deposit, consisting of hermetically sealed glass cases, where, it is hoped, they may be preserved in their present condition for long years, if not for ages to come. There they will be in a position where the whole people of the state may look upon them as often as they pass through the capitol, patriotic object lessons, not only to the present generation, but to our children's children down the ages.

Color-bearers, yours is the post of honor to-day; you take these old flags in your hands for the last time; you carry them to the capitol and deliver them into the hands of the governor of the state who, on behalf of the state, receives them at your hands and sees to their proper deposit.

Comrades with us in the great struggle for the union who served in regiments from other states, we are glad to welcome you with us on this occasion. To you is equal honor due for the triumph of our cause. Being now citizens of Iowa, we know that you share with us the just pride we feel in preserving, as long as possible, our revered old battleflags.

Citizens of Iowa, your presence with us signifies your deep interest in all that pertains to the honor and welfare of our beloved state. Your loyalty to both the state and nation has ever been conspicuous. Your devotion to the flag has never faltered, and your regard for the union soldier has been constant. We are proud of the fact that the whole people of the state unite with us in our care for these battleflags, and share with us the honors and the responsibilities of their safe preservation.

One very sad thought forces itself upon us as we gaze at these battle-scarred and blood-stained banners--the thought that so many of the gallant men who carried them to battle and to victory were not permitted to return with them. All honor to the noble dead who "died that the nation might live." And are they dead to us? An Iowa poet has said:

"There is no death! The stars go down 

To rise upon some fairer shore, 

And bright in heaven's jeweled crown 

To shine forever more. 

There is no death! The dust we tread 

Shall change beneath the summer showers 

To golden rain or mellow fruit, 

Or rainbow-tinted flowers. 

There is no death! An angel form 

Walks o'er the earth with silent tread-- 

He bears our best loved things away, 

And then we call them dead."

They shall live in our hears and memories and in history, so long as patriotism continues to be the crowning virtue of good citizenship.

The true history of Lucas County's grandest old flag

The insignia of the Grand Army of the Republic still sails high above the rotunda of the Iowa Capitol Building in Des Moines. Until early in the 21st century, the first battle flag of the 6th Iowa Volunteer Infantry, hand-sewn in Chariton, probably was sealed in one of four glass cases around the rotunda's base.

Back in the summer of 1861, as the first company of Lucas County men raised for Civil War service was being recruited, the women of Chariton were engaged in sewing a large flag that would be presented to these brave men on the morning of Monday, July 8, 1861, then carried by them as they marched away to Burlington to be mustered as Co. B, 6th Iowa Volunteer Infantry.

There were no "flag stores" in those days and state and federal governments, hard-pressed to provide uniforms and weapons, had no supply on hand to distribute.

What neither the women of Chariton nor the men of Company B knew that July morning was that this hand-sewn flag would become the regimental battle flag --- carried into combat for the troops of the 6th to rally around until it was shot to pieces nine months later at the bloody Battle of Shiloh and retired.

I wrote about the 1861 departure ceremony, including presentation of the flag, back in April of 2016, in a post headlined "Farewell to the Boys of Company B." The front porch of the St. John House hotel (above), then located where Hammer Medical Supply now stands on the south side of the square, was the setting for the ceremony. You can read that post here.

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Two and a half years later, during December of 1863, the people of Burlington were raising funds to purchase a new flag for the 6th Iowa Volunteers. Company I, 6th Iowa, the "Colours Company," had been raised largely in Des Moines County and by that time the regiment's second battle flag had been shot to pieces, too, and a new banner was needed.

On Dec. 19, 1863, the following article, authored by "C," was published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, outlining the history of the regiment's battle flags, including that tattered banner that had been carried away from Chariton by the boys in blue back in July of 1861:

"The notice in the Hawk-Eye of the 14th inst., calling attention to the propriety of presenting the Sixth Iowa Infantry a National banner suggests to the writer a few incidents that may not be uninteresting to your readers.

"The regiment in question went into service from this place without any provision for their usefulness or comfort having been made, further than such marks of respect or friendship as were tendered to the several companies by the respective communities in which they were organized.

"There were some five or six companies in the regiment that had been presented with flags by their friends; but Company I, from Des Moines county, commanded by Capt. Brydolf, was, I believe, never thus honored. When ascertained that a stand of colors could not be procured from the Government, Co. B of Lucas County tendered their flag for regimental use --- the other flags being sent by the respective companies to the donors for safe keeping, as orders prohibited the use of more than one flag in the organization.

"The flag of Co. B was not a 'regulation National color,' being smaller, and bearing on one stripe some words, the exact import of which I forget. However, if not au fait, the men recognized it as the stars and stripes, and, though not of proper dimensions or of the best material, would as willingly die in its defense.

"This banner was borne through all the affairs in North, Central and South Missiouri, in which the command participated, and finally was completely riddled at the battle of Shiloh.

"The young man who bore the flag during the two days fight at Shiloh, Sergeant Roberts, Co. E, was slightly wounded and the staff was shot away three times while in  his hands. He finally carried it by the stump and bore it through the entire conflict, in the language of his comrades, 'without ever flinching.'

"This flag, I believe, was carried to Memphis, and from thence sent to the Historical Society at Iowa City."

At Memphis, the regiment received its first Government-issue flag which "was borne through the celebrated Central Missouri campaign, and in all of the engagements in which the 6th Iowa participated in South Tennessee and North Mississippi, was carried through the Vicksburg and Jackson campaign; was furled on Lookout Mountain near McLemore Cove before the battle of Chattanooga, and has the honor of being the first flag planted on Mission Ridge in that celebrated battle. On the 23rd of November, during the assault on Tunnel Hill, it was literally shot into ribbons, and only by wrapping the remnants around its staff could its identity as a flag be preserved.

"The gallant Roberts, still Color Sergeant, was hit six times by ball and fragments of shell, and towards the end of the conflict was so injured as to be compelled to relinquish his banner, and was borne to the rear. As soon as he recovered from the shock he left the hospital, returned to the Color Company in time to join in the pursuit of the enemy, carrying the remnants of his beloved banner throughout the entire chase, thence up to Knoxville, where the 6th went to aid in relieving Gen. Burnside.

"In this connection it is entirely proper that mention should be made of the gallant Sergeant Edwards, who has carried the Regimental colors since the battle of Shiloh, with great credit to himself and honor of the command.

"The company from Burlington, Company I, commanded by Capt. Clune, is the Color Company, and will accept with great pride a National color at the hands of their friends at home.

Contributions for the purpose of raising a new flag for the above Regiment will be received at the book stores of J.L. Corse and J.P. Brown."

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I don't know what the outcome of this fund-raising effort was, nor am I entirely sure what became of that first battle flag --- carried from Chariton and in use by the 6th Iowa through the Battle of Shiloh. But now we all know a little more about its history.

In 1922, Asa N. Callahan --- Lucas County's last surviving Company B veteran --- believed that the tattered old flag was "on exhibition at the state capitol building in Des Moines." If that were the case, it would have been among the flags sealed in glass cases in the capitol rotunda during 1894 (then sealed into those cases again during 1905 after a major fire in the capitol building).

The original plan had been to allow the flags to deteriorate into dust, in honor of those who carried them. Beginning in 2002, however, the flags were removed gradually and carried away to the Historical Building to see what could be salvaged. So perhaps this grandest of old Lucas County flags still survives.

Faded letters and tattered flags

The Iowa Memorial at Shiloh (Ask.com)

I visited Vicksburg at dawn once, on a May morning when great flowering trees were in bloom. This was toward the end of a long overnighter downriver from St. Louis to Natchez and in another world --- before Vietnam and AIDS, middle age, the Internet, September 11, Afghanistan and Iraq. Life seemed as full of promise as the day ahead.

The guide who met us as the sun was rising spoke of war and death, courage and lost causes. He told improbable stories of nightfall during the siege when undeclared truces brought Confederate and Union boys from behind their lines to play together before dark, then return to camp, sleep, arise and kill again.

I could not fathom death then; none of us, except the guide, were over 30. I did not think of James Rhea, dead in his 30th year and buried here among the Union unknowns, his grave marked by a small block of stone inscribed with a number related to nothing more than the order of burial when his unidentified body was brought from its temporary resting place near the division hospital where he died.

Eleven thousand of those gray blocks climb the hills in sweeping curves, fill wooded glades and cover terraced slopes. None of us could comprehend, in the utter green silence, that this beautiful place had once been shattered by war and spattered with blood.

James M. Rhea, whose life ended on the battlefield at Vicksburg 144 years ago, was my uncle. He left behind only a penciled letter to his little sister, Lucinda, headed "tenasee camp pitsburg," written on 2 April 1862, two days before the carnage at Shiloh began. There are no photographs, fond family memories or great-great-grandchildren.

That letter is beside me now, the writing badly faded, barely legible.

A record page from the family Bible tells me that James was born on the 17th of February, 1834, in Island Grove Township, Sangamon County Illinois --- Lincoln country. My family knew Lincoln. He was their lawyer.

James was only 5 when his father, a Baptist preacher and farmer named Richard Rhea, died during November of 1839 at the age of 31. His older sister, Elizabeth Rachel, was my great-great-grandmother.

When James was 8, his mother --- Eliza --- married the widower Thomas Etheredge and they brought their blended family to Iowa about 1848.

As a young man in Lucas County, James farmed and worked in a grain mill. Who knows what dreams he had?

When the Civil War began, he enlisted on 10 August 1861 in Co. I, Eighth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and was mustered on 17 September at Davenport. He was 27, profiled in his company's descriptive book as 5 feet, 10 and a half inches tall with a light complexion, blue eyes and sandy hair.

After several months of service, the Eighth Iowa moved between 11 and 21 March, 1862, from Sedalia, Mo., to St. Louis and then on to Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.

And so it was that James came to be camped at Pittsburg Landing on the evening of 2 April when he took pencil in hand to write a letter to his sister, Lucinda, who had celebrated her 18th birthday a few days before.

"tenasee camp pitsburg
aprile the 2, 1862

"dear sister: it is with pleasure that i take the opertunity in leting you know that i am well and harty at present and tolerable well sadisfied and i hope these few lines may find you and the rest of the folks well and doing well. i have ben well sense we have been here with the except a bad could. there is a heap of sickness here for there is so many here. there is one out of our company at the hospitle. there is a few that is not able for duty. the wether is warm and nice. the timber is green nice. in a few days catle can liv. we have plenty of hard crackers to eat and meat. it is geting late and i must go and eat some of the hard crackers. i am very lazy this evening. tell demcy to not hurt the oald blu hen and so also no more at present.

"James M. Rhea
lucinderia etheredge"

Four days later, the hideously destructive Battle of Shiloh began. Fatalities totaled 23,746, 13,047 of them Union and 10,699, Confederate.

"Brave of the brave," begins an inscription on the Iowa monument at Shiloh. "The twice five thousand men who all that day stood in the battle's shock, fame holds them dear, and with immortal pen inscribes their names on the enduring rock."

Although James was neither wounded nor captured, he was ill enough after the battle to merit leave. His company's May and June muster roll lists him as "absent" and contains the note, "sick at Monroe Co., Iowa, since April 19, 1862."

He rejoined his unit during late June and was listed as "present" on its muster roll to 18 August. On 15 August, the Eighth moved to Danville, Miss., where its headquarters remained until the Battle of Corinth.

The death toll at Cornith was 7,197, 2,359 of them Union and 4,838, Confederate, and James was among wounded.

Treated at the U.S.A. General Hospital in Mound City, Ill., he was listed as "present" on muster rolls for November and December of 1862 and January and February of 1863.

It was during James's time at the hospital that his stepfather, Thomas Etheredge, died on Christmas Eve, 1862, back home in Cedar Township, Lucas County.

By March, 1863, James had rejoined his unit and between May 2 and 14, the Eighth moved to join the siege at Vicksburg. Surely James must have had a heavy heart.

His younger half- brother, Robert Etheredge, only 16, had lied about his age the previous summer and enlisted as a private in Co. F, 36th Regiment, Iowa Infantry, on 9 August. He was plagued by illness almost from the time he was mustered, however, and on 20 February 1863, Robert was discharged for disability at Helena, Arkansas, and made his way home to Lucas County where he died on 9 April, the same day the Eighth was ordered to Louisiana en route to Vicksburg. He had just turned 17.

It was at Vicksburg, that James' life ended, too. He sustained a gunshot wound to the knee on the 22nd of June, and while a patient at a division hospital nearby his leg was amputated, perhaps after gangrene set in. On the 25th of July, 1863, he died.

Following James’ death, his personal effects were claimed by his mother and forwarded to her at Lagrange on or about the 9th of August --- A forage cap, a uniform coat, a flannel sack coat, a pair of trousers, 2 flannel shirts, 2 pair of socks, a testament, a memorandum book, a portfolio and $5 in bank notes.

Elizabeth had given two sons to the Union cause. Somehow it seems that there should have been more.

We have learned little since, hundreds of thousands more have died and in Iraq, more will die today.

Faded letters and tattered flags and one day, each year during May, set aside to honor them.

Having traveled widely in graveyards ...

I've written a lot about Memorial Day over the years, occasionally with grace but more often not. It's an odd holiday, mixing Day of the Dead, fond remembrance, survivor guilt and flag-waving civil religion. Or maybe just beer and barbecue.

Back in the day, silk was big --- I know where all the bodies are buried and there are many of them in Lucas, Monroe, Marion, Appanoose and Wayne: 28 grandparents of varying generations alone. A couple of times, I decorated the graves of all just to be able to say I'd done it. Greener now, that doesn't happen. Live plants go to a few graves, then come home to be replanted a few days later. Fond remembrance.

I can take you to the scattered gaves of all Lucas and Wayne countyans who died in Vietnam and are buried here and to a few other graves in neighboring counties and elsewhere besides. Survivor guilt?

I know where many young men who died of AIDS are buried, too --- another war on many fronts in my lifetime and one that continues. The first were buried quietly by families shamed by myth. I could stand with you at the grave of the first whose actual cause of death was acknowledged in an obituary in the Chariton newspapers.

Haven't attended a formal Memorial Day program in years, although I used to. These often go well until a speaker, asked to say something appropriate, gets up and tries to do so.

Decoration Day commenced formally in 1868 to commemorate the Union Civil War dead. There's a little about that here in an old post entitled "A flag for Daniel McDermott."   The "Evans Cemetery monument" is, to my mind, the most evocative reminder nearby. And "Faded letters, tattered flags" talks a little about two of my uncles, brothers who were Civil War fatalities. Survivor guilt comes though uncomfortably here, at "Names."

I used to think it was kind of shameful, all that revelry on a solemn day of remembrance. But the more people you bury, the more appealing beer and barbecue become.

A letter home before the Battle of Shiloh

There's not much to this brief letter written home on April 2, 1862, by my uncle, James M. Rhea, to his younger sister, Lucinda Etheredge, then nearly 18 and living with her widowed mother and brothers, Robert and Dempsy,  in Cedar Township. It was found among my maternal grandfather's papers and the fact that it survived for more than 150 years is in itself notable.

From an historical standpoint, it is interesting because James wrote it at Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., four days before the awful Civil War battle we know now as Shiloh commenced.

It also is the last surviving physical trace of James, who survived Shiloh but was killed at Vicksburg a year later, during the summer of 1863. He is buried among the "unknowns" on that battlefield.

James's mother, Elizabeth (Rhea) Rhea/Etheredge/Sargent, lost two sons to the Civil War. His younger brother, Robert, who became critically ill while serving, was sent home to Lucas County to die, and did so two months before James was killed. Robert, at least, has a marked grave --- in what now is known as Bethel Cemetery.

It was not unusual among Lucas County families to sustain such losses --- cousins, brothers, fathers and sons.

"tenasee camp pitsburg

aprile the 2, 1862

"dear sister: it is with pleasure that i take the opertunity in leting you know that i am well and harty at present and tolerable well sadisfied and i hope these few lines may find you and the rest of the folks well and doing well. i have ben well sense we have been here with the except a bad could. there is a heap of sickness here for there is so many here. there is one out of our company at the hospitle. there is a few that is not able for duty. the wether is warm and nice. the timber is green nice. in a few days catle can liv. we have plenty of hard crackers to eat and meat. it is geting late and i must go and eat some of the hard crackers. i am very lazy this evening. tell demcy to not hurt the oald blu hen and so also no more at present.

"James M. Rhea

lucinderia etheredge"

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James was born Feb. 17, 1834, in Sangamon County, Illinois, to first-cousins who had married --- Richard Rhea, a farmer and Baptist preacher, and Elizabeth Rhea --- an amazing woman.

When James was 5, his father died; and Elizabeth married soon thereafter Thomas Etheredge, who brought the family to Iowa about 1849. James had two full sisters, Mary and Elizabeth Rachel (my great-great-grandmother); and three Etheredge half-siblings --- Lucinda, Robert and Dempsy.

About 1854, the family moved from the hills south of Columbia in far south Marion County to Cedar Township, Lucas County, where they settled on land that included the oldest part of what now is called Bethel Cemetery. This was, and is, located a few miles east of Chariton.

James was 27 when he enlisted in Co. I, Eighth Iowa Volunteer Infantry, on Aug. 10, 1861. His military records contain a brief physical description, so at least we have some idea of what he looked like --- 5 feet, 10 and a half inches tall with a light complexion, blue eyes and sandy hair. He gave his occupation as farmer.

His brother, Robert, lied about his age when he enlisted as a private in Co. F, 36th Regiment, Iowa Infantry, on 9 August 1862 at Iconium in Appanoose County, Iowa. He said he was 19, but was only 16.

Robert was discharged on Feb. 20, 1863, at Helena, Arkansas, due to disability, and somehow made it home to his mother in Lucas County, where he died 9 April 1863, three months before James was killed on July 25, 1863, at Vicksburg.

Their sister, Lucinda, to whom the letter was addressed, married Amos Hixon on May 6, 1864, and they settled on a nearby Cedar Township farm where their six children were born: Flora (Long), Anna (Cooper), Lenna (Carson), Mildred (Foster), Rocella (who died as an infant) and Harry Schwimley.

Lucinda developed diabetes, untreatable at the time, and died of its complications on June 11, 1882, when she was 38. She is buried at Bethel near her parents and her brothers, Robert and Dempsy.

More of this story is included in an earlier post, entitled "Faded letters and tattered flags."  I've just added image of this letter to that post as well.