This is the first of six scripts used during Sunday's 16th annual Chariton Cemetery Heritage Tour. The subject was Alexander Van Meter, first to be buried in the G.A.R. Section of the cemetery; the performer, Trae Hall.
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That poor old tombstone over there marked my grave for 155 years --- until it fell in combat four years ago with one of those new-fangled mowing machines you use these days to keep cemeteries neat and efforts to repair it failed. That’s the bad news. The good news is, if you stop by to see me again next year --- the group that runs this show tells me that they’re ordering a new government marker for me and it should be in place by then.
My name is Private Alexander Van Meter --- call me Alec --- and I was just 19 when I died on May 4, 1863, one of the 150 young men from Lucas County who gave up their lives for the Union cause during the Civil War. In one sense I was lucky --- I died at home, one of only two or three of my Lucas County comrades who were able to do that. The rest are scattered in graves marked and unmarked near where they fell from St. Louis east to the Atlantic.
To be truthful, I wasn’t buried here until about 1894, when the old soldiers of the Grand Army of the Republic bought these lots and set them aside for veterans. My original grave was near my father, Miles, and little brother, Lewis, on the hilltop you call Douglass Pioneer Cemetery --- just beyond those trees to the southeast. I was moved here, the first burial in the new section, and my tombstone came along.
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Chariton hadn’t even been thought of when my folks, Miles and Nancy Van Meter, brought myself, age 5, and little sister, Hannah, west to Lucas County from Jasper County, Illinois, in an ox-drawn wagon during the fall of 1848. We settled in English Township, five and a half miles due north of where Chariton would be located a year later. My two little brothers were born after that, Lewis in 1849 and Eli, in 1852.
Pa was active in and around Chariton during the early 1850s, helping to survey and plat the city during April-May 1850, running for constable in April 1851 and voting in a February, 1852, election.
Then about 1855, both Dad and little Lewis died --- leaving me as the man of the house at age 12.
I grew up a farmer and took my responsibilities to my mother, sister and little brother seriously. That was why I didn’t answer Mr. Lincoln’s call at first when the Civil War began. Who would take care of them if I was gone?
But then Mother struck up a friendship with John Daniels, an older neighbor whose wife had died, and he proposed marriage, promising to provide for Hannah and Eli.
So I was greatly relieved when I rode into Chariton on August 2, 1862, and enlisted with Warren S. Dungan, a lawyer and a recruiter, as a private in what would become Company K, 34th Iowa Volunteer Infantry.
We had about six weeks free before we reported for duty. Mother married Mr. Daniels on the 14th of August and between us we got all the small grain harvested and everything squared away for winter. There also were weekly company drills in town.
The men of Company K, with Mr. Dungan as captain, marched away from Chariton during mid-September and arrived at Camp Lauman, just west of Burlington, on the 27th. We were 10 companies strong --- 950 men total --- when we were mustered into federal service on October 15.
Right off the bat, I came down with the measles --- as did about 600 of my comrades. And then there was an outbreak of pneumonia. Had it not been for the kind women of Burlington who came out to Camp Lauman to nurse and feed us, I’m not sure I’d ever have made it out of Iowa. Several died right there.
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Finally, on Nov. 22, we secured the riverboats needed to transport us to Helena, Arkansas, where we landed on Dec. 5th. There, the 34th joined the expedition of General Sherman against Vicksburg by way of Chickasaw Bayou --- a disaster for the Union in every sense of the word although the 34th fought bravely under impossible circumstances.
On January 10 and 11, 1863, we aided in the capture of Arkansas Post and its garrison of some 5,000 rebels --- and then were assigned to escort these prisoners upriver to prison camps at Chicago using three old, leaky, impossibly overcrowded boats.
With more than 6,000 men crammed aboard, disease ran rampant and we all were sick, but reached Chicago, delivered our prisoners and returned downstream to Benton Barracks, near St. Louis.
When we arrived at Benton Barracks, my health and that of hundreds of my comrades was broken. I suffered from dysentery that would not respond to any treatment known at the time. Some days I could be up and about; other days, I couldn’t leave my bed. I was terribly weak all the time.
Finally, along with many of my comrades, the doctors offered us a choice --- either remain at Benton Barracks and continue treatment in the hope we’d get better or accept an honorable discharge and transportation to our homes in the hope we might recover there. We could always re-enlist if we got back on our feet --- and many did.
I chose the latter course, and was discharged on April 20. A river boat carried me upstream to Keokuk, rail cars took me to Burlington and then west to Ottumwa, where the railroad stopped, and finally a stage coach transported me from the Des Moines River west to Chariton, where I arrived just as April was ending.
But by this time, no amount of love, care and attention could help me and on May 4, 1863, I died at the home of my mother and stepfather at the age of 19 years, 8 months and 12 days and was carried sorrowfully to into Chariton to be buried beside my father and my brother.
Some years later, when the clerks had finished their tallies, it was determined that only 27 of the 34th’s 1,000 men had died in combat or of wounds sustained during the war, but more than 300 --- including me --- had died of disease either while in service or immediately after discharge.
Altogether, 76,000 Iowa men served in the Civil War. Of that number, 13,000 gave up their lives for the Union cause.
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