Chapter XXV
The deep and abiding camaraderie developed
between teacher and pupils is shown in the following incident years later. “On July 4, 1893, General Pemberton
surrendered Vicksburg to General Grant.
The next day I rode into the city to view the results of the siege. I rode to where a large number of Confederate
soldiers were loitering. One of them, at
my request, handed me a cup of water. I
said to them, ‘Boys, are any of you from Panola, Mississippi?’ ‘Yes’ said a large fine looking fellow who
stood some distance from the crowd, as he advanced and laid his hand on my hip,
‘I’m from Panola’ What is your name, sir?’ I asked. He answered: ‘Nelson, but why do you ask?
“I said, ‘Your father’s name is Garland G.
Nelson and I taught school in Panola and you were one of my pupil.’ He was as
glad to see me as if no war existed and said: ‘You must go with me to our camp
on the hill yonder. Your scholars
organized a section of battery and we admitted no one to membership who had not
been your pupil. We thus organized
“Dungan’s Battery.” When we got to the
camp and saw the boys, I knew them all and for several hours we had a pleasant
reunion.”
Wake of War
Another experience at the time reveals the
feeling of utter despair in the south in the wake of the war. Col. Dungan met John Harris in whose home he
had been a tutor. His only son, Captain
Harris, had been killed in battle at Port Hudson a few weeks before and his
father was a lonely, broken man. He felt
like a man without a country. He was
sure the nation could not survive, the Union could never be restored.
Said he: “The west will withdraw and we
shall have a dozen governments where one existed and perpetual strife will
exist until some Caesar shall, upon their ruins, establish a despotism.” Col. Dungan writes: “I tried to picture what
has now (1902) come to pass – a united and happy nation, stronger than ever
before… but my arguments were of no avail.
We parted as strong friends as in the days of years before.”
Letter to Wife
Camp of the 34th Iowa
South Vicksburg
July 4, 1863
Dearest:
“Praise God. Vicksburg is ours. It surrendered about noon. There has been no firing today and we felt
sure of its surrender, but received no official announcement of the fact until
about 12 noon while we were at dinner.
Such shouting never was heard before.
The artillery was let loose, firing blank cartridges in honor of the
event. The gunboats made the river
quake.
A few moments before the news of the
surrender Jones and the others. who had been home on furlough, arrived bringing
my boots and slipper. I like the boots
very well. I wrote to Harden by Jones to
make me a pair of boots and you would pay for them. I thought I wrote you to that effect. My health is very good…. The health of the regiment
is pretty good. There have been no
further casualties. The remainder of the
boys who were wounded in the fort are getting along finely.”
Awaiting Orders
We are still in camp waiting for orders. I do not know whether we will march into Vicksburg
or not. If this regiment doesn’t move
today, Colonel Clark and I are going into the city this afternoon. Your letter of June 14 was received
today. I believe Jones brought it. I congratulate myself and thank God that I
was at this place on this proud day for our country. I will not dispatch this until the last
moment in order to put in any further news we may receive.
With much love,
Your husband,
Warren S. Dungan
The three-year sojourn in the south
convinced the observing Mr. Dungan that war between the states was
inevitable. He returned to Pennsylvania,
studied law, was admitted to the bar and four days later came to Chariton to
‘remain for life” and practice law. This
was in 1858. He built a fine practice
but sensed his country’s call and obtained a commission from Governor Kirkwood
as recruiting officer in 1862.
He organized a company of 100 men, was
sworn in as a private but was soon chosen captain by acclamation. They left from Des Moines in “road wagons”
going without orders, fearing the war would be over before they could get there
and thinking that at the capital they would get orders sooner. Three months they were in Des Moines,
sleeping on straw beds, their blankets for cover, without uniforms or arms but
drilling every day.
They were sent to Burlington where Captain
Dungan was breveted to Lieutenant Colonel, 34th Iowa Infantry. In November they were ordered south for three
years. They were through all the
southern states bordering on the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the charge and capture of Ft.
Blakely in the rear of Mobile that Lt. Col. Dungan was promoted to full colonelcy
for gallantry in action April 9, 1865 – the day General Lee surrendered to
General Grant at Appomattox.
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The war was over, “War! That mad game the
world so loves to play!” wrote Johnathan
Swift and from General Grant this: “Altho a soldier by profession, I have never
advocated it except as a means to peace.”
“When I left for war,” writes Col. Dungan, “the severest trial of my
army experience was parting from my wife and children – Fayette two and
one-half years old and Frances Mae six months.
On my return little Frances Mae had been laid to rest in the Chariton
cemetery.”
Back in 1861 Mr. Dungan had been elected State
Senator from Lucas and Wayne counties, but after serving only one year of his
four-year term, he had gone to war. In
1879 he was elected to the House of Representatives and was re-elected in 1881.
After two terms he was elected to the
Senate where he was chairman of the ways and means committee and at various
times during his terms of office on such standing committees as the judiciary,
agriculture and appropriations, as commissioner for Mines and Mining and
others.
Coal Miners
He writes:” In all my legislative action,
while I tried to be just to all interests and all classes, I labored earnestly
for legislation to protect the coal miners and other wage earners, feeling that
they were entitled to greater protection than the rich who could better take
care of themselves.
The satisfaction of an approving
conscience is balm for every wound. I
was fortunate in securing as my committee clerk Thomas Whisenand, a Lucas
County boy who had been admitted to the bar and had practiced in Des
Moines. He was an efficient clerk. He wrote all the reports even though some of
the committees worked till midnight. He
had them all ready promptly every morning by the time the Senate convened.”
Col. Dungan authored the bill to remove
from the arsenal the battle flags of the Iowa troops and place them in hermetically
sealed glass cases in the corridors of the Capital.
Senate Chair
In 1883 he was elected lieutenant governor
for the 25th General Assembly.
He writes: “I knew no party lines. I showed no favoritism. I considered it my duty to carry out the
wishes of the majority. I was surprised
to find that there was never an appeal from my ruling.” At the close of the session. The Senate, as
was their custom, presented me the chair and the gavel I had used.”
The chair is now in the pastor’s study in
the First Presbyterian Church, the gift of the Dungan family. Col. Dungan was one of 14 persons who, on
July 5, 1856 organized the Presbyterian Church in Chariton. He was Clerk of Session for many years, a
faithful member of the Sunday School and a Ruling Elder until his death in
1913.
In the Daily State Register of April 16,
1894, appeared the following editorial:
“No man ever presided over the Senate with
greater success than Warren S. Dungan.
He was absolutely fair. There was
never a murmur of complaint during the whole session He was prompt in his
rulings and kept business moving right along.
He was even great enough to correct a mistake when he thought he had
made one His voice, peculiarly well
adapted to the position, kept up to the end.
Col. Dungan is still in prime vigor and there was not a Senator but
hoped to see him president over the Senate of the 26th General
Assembly.”
“In 1900 I was appointed by the governor
as one of the commission authorized by the legislature to go to Vicksburg and
locate the position of Iowa troops in the siege of that place in 1863. There were 32 organizations from Iowa in the
siege: 28 infantries, two cavalries, two
regiments and two batteries. I was to
represent the 34th Iowa and mark its place on the line of investment
in the U.S. Military Park then being established.
Great Hospitality
Although there had been changes in the
intervening 37 years, I had no trouble in locating the correct positions. We were received and treated with great
hospitality. It was a great and
patriotic inspiration to contrast our relative positions then arranged in
deadly strife attempting to destroy one another and now so closely united not
only in the ties of fellowship but of devotion to the ‘more perfect union’ the
fathers dreamed of in the adoption of our National Constitution.
The colonel was a member of many civic
organizations. He, with Miss Margaret E.
Brown and others, on June 10, 1901 organized the first historical society in
this county, which was also the first in the state. He was its first president. He was a member of the school board when the
first large school house was built. It
was three stories high and nearly as large as the one that replaced it. It stood where the Columbus building now
stands. He was city solicitor and county
attorney. In short, he was a public
spirited man.
Says he: “I was never an office seeker and
while at one time I had some aspirations toward Congress, I now look back on my
public career of some 35 years and feel that I chose the better part, that is
years of quiet serenity, living to be an octogenarian, in possession, in large
measure, of the buoyancy of younger years and writing my memoirs.” Their family consisted of six daughters and
one son. Daughter Myrtle was county
superintendent of schools here for several years. Myra operated the Chariton Business College
for a number of years.
Col. Dungan’s long life in Lucas County
prompted him to write of the people: “My experience and observation of the
early settlers in Iowa showed me that a large percentage of those who came here
in those days were people of more than ordinary intelligence, energy and will
power and this is what has put Iowa in the front rank among the states of the
Union for the intelligence and general excellence of her population.
“Iowa, like most of the northwestern
states, was settled by various classes of people. There were the pioneers, a restless, nomadic
and generally illiterate class of people always pushing on in the van of
civilization. Next came the permanent
settler, pioneer home-seekers, the leading classes, when studied, will
illustrate the character of many of Iowa’s early settlers.
Misfortunes
The latter composed of well-educated and
well-to-do people, some of them wealthy who by venturing beyond their means
financially of from some misfortune, their property is swept from them. Too energetic and too ambitious to sit down
in despondence “waiting for something to turn up” and too proud to remain where
their prospects seemed to be hopeless.”
In studying the memoirs of a man, one
moves with him along the guideposts that have fashioned his philosophy – his
credo, revealing his depth of spirit, his high resolves, the width and breadth
of his interest and appreciation of all that goes to make up a good life on
this planet.
This man was brought up in a family of
true believers in the Christian faith and the observance of the Sabbath. He writes: “On Sunday the sky was bluer, the
birds sang more softly, all sounds were modified, even those of the domestic
animals seemed to be a lower key.
Stillness everywhere and all things awed into comparative silence.
“The age in which I have lived, I believe
to be the most progressive the world has ever seen. It may rightly be called the “Age of Wonders”. In 1822 (the year he was born) there was not
a railroad in the United States. Fulton’s steamboat, the Clermont, had gone up
the Hudson but little progress had been made in steam navigation.
Great Advancements
Now the telegraph, telephone and an
innumerable number of inventions have revolutionized transportation, commerce
and the arts. No less have advanced in
education, in common schools, academies, colleges, universities and the press,
all of which have greatly advanced knowledge and civilization.
“I am also of those who believe that
Christianity has shared in the general progress. The churches are nearer together in sympathy
and in belief in all essential truths, while less stress is laid on
non-essentials and the Bible is better understood than ever before. At one time the discoveries of science seemed
to be in conflict with revelation but advanced scientific truth and the Bible,
correctly interpreted, are found not in conflict.”
Two Books’
God has given two books – the book of
Nature and the Bible and when rightly understood, they agree. The first was intended for the habitation of
man and his comfortable existence. This
was a state of happiness. Through disobedience
he lost this happy estate. The second
book was written not to explain the first, but to restore man to his first
estate, to reveal the life to come and how to reach it.
“I think the true character of God is
better understood today than formerly.
The former view seems to have been as a sovereign ruler… a God to be
feared. The better view seems to be that
God is the supreme ruler of the universe and in justice visits sin with
impartiality, not to a degree of vengeance, but by the immutable law of
retribution and all the time ‘His hand is stretched out still’, pleading with
the sinner to turn and live – the fatherhood of God pleading for the
brotherhood of man.”
“Man is a religious being. All men worship. All look to some power outside themselves for
aid at times, especially in times of peril.
As the tendrils of the vine reach out to cling to another object, so
man’s hope reaches forth to a life to come.”
From “History of the 15th
Volunteers of Iowa 1861-1864 the following is quoted from Dr. Gibbon: “At
daylight April 7, the trail opened furiously on both sides. About 10 o’clock we heard a yell, which
seemed to shake the ground. It was a
genuine ‘Yankee yell’ and immediately after the firing grew more distant and we
knew the day was ours. The battle was
won and now came the herculean task of the surgeons to take care of the
wounded. We had the Confederate wounded
to look after also, which gave us about 10,000”.
The Union forces did hold the real estate
but at an awesome price in life and limb on both sides. The record shows the following men from Lucas
County having sacrificed their all on the altar of our Nation in her hour of
peril: Capt. Don Iseminger, Alkana
Malone, Abraham Ellis, William Shutts, Charles Dooley, Monroe Hardine, William
Spurling, Abel T. Edwards, Olive B. Miller, Jesse Welles.
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Dr. Gibbon remained with the Army
of the Tennessee until the capture of Vicksburg and was with the 17th
Army Corps during Sherman’s March to the Sea.
In September of that year he was in a Brigade that was ordered to march
from Goodrich’s Landing to Monroe, Louisiana.
It was an ill-advised, unjustified expedition. No officer was ever found
who could explain why it was ordered.
Reading it brings to mind “The Charge of the Light Brigade” immortalized
by Tennyson.
“Into the jaws of death, into the
mouth of hell
Not tho’ the soldiers knew,
Someone had blundered
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why
Theirs but to do and die,
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.”
The march was made through swamps that had
been flooded, solid lines of canebrake lined the road, with no breath of air in
129-degree heat; rattlesnakes everywhere; moist air, dank and fever laden,
nauseating stench. The last day’s march
brought them to a heavily timbered country.
The Brigade had gone on, leaving about a dozen men too sick to
move. Among them was Dr. Gibbon but he
mounted his horse with difficulty and led the men to a clump of holly trees
where they could defend themselves from bushwhackers who were bearing down upon
them. Most of the men were
delirious. The bushwhackers came in and
took all their rations and medicines and had put ropes in the trees vowing to
“hang the whole – Yankee outfit”. Just
at this time, Capt. Middleton of the Confederate Cavalry came along, put the
guerillas to flight and set a guard for the sick men.
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Three torturing weeks went by during which Mrs. Gibbon could hear
nothing from her husband. She went
straight to Gen. McPherson who gave her a cartel of exchange of prisoners and
sent his bodyguard of cavalry with her and a number of ambulances loaded with
supplies for the sick. They went up the
river to Goodman’s Landing, then marched over the same route taken by the
ill-starved expedition. A mile-long
causeway ran straight through the woods from where the prisoners were and when
a comrade ran to tell Surgeon Gibbon that a flag of truce was coming, he feebly
raised his head and said: “That is my wife”.
The first thing she did was to provide
food and then they set out for “God’s country and the old flag and many were
blessings showered upon the brave little woman who had never rested until she
had brought relief to her husband and his sick and starving comrades.”
When he had recovered she got a little cart,
filled it with medicines and supplies for the sick and went along with him as
he continued ministering to the sick and wounded of the war. Dr. Gibbon received his honorable discharge
December 22, 1864 and at the same time he received a testimonial considered the
highest military honor conferred upon a soldier. He returned to Chariton and resumed his
practice, which extended over 27 years.
In 1879 he built the Rexall building,
which has continuously housed a drug store.
The interior woodwork is all native walnut. The front of the building was finished with
an ornamental cornice containing a “date stone” 1879. In the early 1950’s the whole cornice
loosened and had to be removed.
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Dr. Gibbon was a man who, with his family
had high literary taste. They liked good
books and collected First Editions. He
allowed the second floor of his building to be used as a library and Mary
Lockwood remembers going there for books.
The doctor also built the large residence at 316 South Grand
Street. High in the front gable is the
letter “G”. Construction was finished
just before his death in October 1895 and his funeral was conducted from there.
Dr. Gibbon wrote a resume of his war
experiences for the “HISTORY OF THE 15TH IOWA VOLUNTEERS 1861-1865,
which volume is in the Chariton Public Library.
The last paragraph is a farewell to his former comrades in arms: “We
have made our last march, and fought our last battle; we have buried our
beloved comrades by every stream from bloody Shiloh to the sea and shall soon
cross the river, whence there is no return and, camping on the other side we
will sing the old songs and joyously greet each other in the last Grand Review.”
Signed
W.H. Gibbon
Surgeon 15th Iowa
Volunteers
May 1887
Pages 105-113
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