Mount Pleasant Home Journal - 1864 IWC Special Collections Raymond J. Chadwick Library Iowa Wesleyan College Mount Pleasant, Iowa
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – From The Army Of The Potomac
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Date: – January 16, 1864
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Description: – Article written by George B. Corkhill; Pg. 1, Col. 1
George Baker Corkhill •
After graduating from I.W.U. in 1859, George Baker Corkhill took the law course at Harvard and was admitted to the bar in Mount Pleasant and began practice. However, in 1862 he joined the Union Army and was appointed by President Lincoln Commissary of Subsistence and assigned to the Army of the Potomac. He served there until the end of the war. After the war ended Corkhill became a partner at A.H. Bereman in St. Louis but decided to return to Mt. Pleasant. In 1869, he was appointed the District Attorney of the First District and later became the clerk of the United States District Court for Iowa. Corkhill also worked as a private secretary for Senator James Harlan and was the Department of Interior special agent under him. In 1880 President Hayed selected him to be the United States District Attorney for the District of Columbia. He became nationally famous due to being the prosecutor of Charles Julius Guiteau, the lawyer who shot President James Garfield in 1881. Corkhill died in Mount Pleasant on July 6, 1886, and is buried in Forest Home Cemetery in Mount Pleasant.
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Source: Gue, Benjamin F. History of Iowa: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century. New York: Century History Co., 1903. Accessed October 15th, 2014. https://archive.org/details/historyiowafrom02guegoog
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – Destruction of the U.S.S. Housatonic
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Date: – March 12, 1864
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Description: – Article written by John S. Woolson; Pg. 3, Col. 1
John S. Woolson • John Simpson Woolson received his Master of Arts (1860) and Doctor of Laws (1863) degrees from I.W.U. He was assistant Paymaster in the United States Navy from 1863-66. After the U.S.S. Housatonic was sunk he was transferred to the U.S.S. Monadnock. He was admitted to the bar in 1866. In 1867, he married Mira Bird an 1862 graduate of I.W.U and Hiram Thornton Bird’s half-sister. He was secretary of the State Board of Commissioners of Insanity in 1870. Woolson was State Senator for three terms from 1875 and United States District Judge for Southern District of Iowa from 1890-99. He was still the District Judge when he passed away on December 4, 1899 in Des Moines, Iowa. He is buried in Forest Home Cemetery in Mount Pleasant.
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Sources: Gue, Benjamin F. History of Iowa: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century. New York: Century History Co., 1903. And Iowa Wesleyan College: Its History and Its Alumni 1842-1917. Copies are located in IWC Special Collections and IWC Newsom Archives.
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – From The Eighth Cavalry
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Date: – March 19, 1864
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Description: – Author Unknown; Pg. 1, Col. 5
Hiram Thornton Bird • Hiram Thornton Bird was a student at Iowa Wesleyan College in 1861-62 as a First Year Student in the Scientific Department. He joined the 8th Regiment, Iowa Cavalry in Davenport, Iowa on September 30th, 1863. He wrote a book, Memories of the Civil War when he was 79 years old, which was published in 1925. Throughout the book he mentions George Levell, a fellow I.W.U. student who had joined the war but on the Confederate side and John S. Woolson’s experience. Bird is also the brother of Alice Bird Babb, one of the seven founders of the P.E.O. Sisterhood. He died on July 9, 1926 and is buried in Forest Home Cemetery in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.
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Source: Bird, Hiram Thornton. Memories of the Civil War. 1925. *Copies are located in IWC Newsom Archives and IWC Special Collections.
Washington I. Babb Washington I. Babb was a student at Iowa Wesleyan University from 1860 to 1866. He left I.W.U. and enlisted in the Eighth Iowa Volunteer Cavalry where the regiment served in the Army of the Cumberland until the close of the war. He returned on Mount Pleasant after the war and reentered the college and graduated in 1866. He studied law and was admitted to the bar and began practicing law in 1868, at the law firm of Woolson and Babb where he worked for eighteen years. He was elected to the House of the Twentieth General Assembly in 1883 and later in 1890 chosen as the judge of the Second Judicial District.
Washington I. Babb He left that position and returned to practicing law in 1895. At the Democratic State Convention he was nominated for Governor because he had a large part in securing the adoption of a sound money platform. A year later he had the Democratic vote in the General Assembly for United States Senator. He was also a board of trustee member of Iowa Wesleyan University for more than twenty years, as well as, a regent of the State University. In 1907 the State University honored him with the LL.D (Doctor of Laws) Degree.
Sources: Gue, Benjamin F. History of Iowa: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century. Vol. IV. New York: Century History Co., 1903. And Iowa Wesleyan College: Its History and Its Alumni 1842-1917. Copies are located in IWC Special Collections and IWC Newsom Archives.
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – Ovation To The Veterans Of The Fourth
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Date: – March 19, 1864
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Description: – Author Unknown; Pg. 2, Col. 2
Erasmus T. Coiner •
Erasmus T. Coiner was an 1857 graduate of Iowa Wesleyan University. He became a Methodist Episcopal Minister and was ordained a deacon in 1859 and an elder in 1861. He enlisted in the army in 1861 and was the first lieutenant of Company D in the Fourth Iowa Cavalry. He was a causality of the war and died June 28th, 1862 in Jacksonport, Arkansas.
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Source: Iowa Wesleyan College: Its History and Its Alumni 1842-1917.
Peter Rummel Keck •
Peter Rummel Keck was an 1860 graduate of Iowa Wesleyan University. He enlisted in the army on October 6th, 1861 and was later discharged as Second Lieutenant of the Fourth Iowa Cavalry in 1865. He lived in Bentonsport, Iowa where he was a teacher and farmer until he retired to Des Moines, Iowa.
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Source: Iowa Wesleyan College: Its History and Its Alumni 1842-1917.
William H. Campbell •
William H. Campbell was an 1870 graduate of Iowa Wesleyan University. He enlisted as a private in Company C of the Fourth Iowa Cavalry and was mustered out in 1865 as Captain of Company C. In 1870, he became a House member of the Thirteenth General Assembly and in 1890 a member of the First Oklahoma Legislative Assembly.
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Sources: Iowa Wesleyan College: Its History and Its Alumni 1842-1917. And https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislators/legislator?ga=13&personID=5020
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – Letter From St. Louis
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Date: – March 19, 1864
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Description: – Author Edward Hemenway; Pg. 1, Col. 3
Edward Hemenway • Edward Hemenway was an 1862 graduate of Iowa Wesleyan University and was a private in the 1st Regiment, Iowa Infantry. In 1864, he also served has a Captain and Assistant Adjutant General of Staff of General Pile and later transferred to Staff of General Lawler and was station in Baton Rouge, and then on to Major General T.W. Sherman of the Department of Louisiana. Major General Sherman gave him the brevet promotion to Major. Hemenway returned to Mount Pleasant in January 1866 and died on April 4th, 1864 due to illness that he contracted during the war and the cold winter of that year. • Those who also served in the 1st Regiment, Iowa Infantry that are graduates of Iowa Wesleyan University are: Samuel Marks Fegtley (1862) and George W. Field (1864). •
Source: Iowa Wesleyan College: Its History and Its Alumni 1842-1917
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – From The Army Of The Potomac
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Date: – April 2, 1864
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Description: – Author George Baker Corkhill; Pg. 2, Col. 4
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – Death of Lieut. Lee
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Date: – April 9, 1864
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Description: – Author Unknown; Pg. 3, Col. 1
Lieut. Alexander Lee •
Lieut. Alexander Lee, who was in the 25th Regiment, Iowa Infantry. Lieut. Lee died on April 2, 1864, while at home on recruiting. His death was due to a disease he contracted while in the Army. He is buried in Mount Pleasant Old City Cemetery.
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – Our Schools
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Date: – May 7, 1864
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Description: – Author Unknown; Pg. 3, Col. 1
Rev. James Marshall McDonald •
Rev. James Marshall McDonald was President of Iowa Wesleyan University from 1852-63. He was also a faculty member from 1852-54.
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – State Of Iowa
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Date: – May 14, 1864
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Description: – Author Unknown; Pg. 2, Col. 2; This article is in reference to the 45th Regiment, Iowa Cavalry (aka: Hundred Day Boys)
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – Off For 100 Days
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Date: – May 14, 1864
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Description: – Author G.W. Edwards; Pg. 2, Col. 3
Facts •
This article is also in reference to the 100 days and how Hon. T.W. Woolson (John Simpson Woolson’s father) fills in for G. W. Edwards in the Editorial chair for the Home Journal.
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – Headquarters 45th Iowa Infantry
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Date: – May 28, 1864
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Description: – Author A.H. Bereman ; Pg. 4, Col. 1
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – Camp Lincoln
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Date: – May 28, 1864
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Description: – Author Unknown; Pg. 2, Col. 2
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – College Commencement
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Date: – June 18, 1864
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Description: – Author Unknown; Pg. 3, Col. 1; Brief overview of commencement week schedule
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – From The 45th Infantry
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Date: – June 25, 1864
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Description: – Author Unknown; Pg. 3, Col. 1
Facts • This article mentions the 44th, 37th, 14th, 8th, 3rd, and 4th regiments of the Iowa Cavalry. At the bottom of the third column the print becomes faded. It reads:
Memphis is at present occupied by a very strong force. The 44th Iowa regiment is encamped not far from us, also the 37th, 14th, 8th, and the 3d[sic], and 4th cavalry. So we have seen a great many familiar faces, much to the surprise. but greatly to the gratification of the boys. A force which left here on the 1st of July consisting of infantry and cavalry under command of Gen. Sturgis, numbering is at about 8,000, was defeated
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – Untitled #1
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Date: – July 2, 1864
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Description: – Author Unknown; Pg. 2, Col. 1
Facts •
This articles is a more extensive version of the college commencement exercises. In the article fives females are listed as Ruthean Literary Society Essayests[sic], three of which became I.W.U. graduates: Ruth E. Gregg Perry (1865), Belle Aurelia Babb Mansfield (1866), and Mary J. McDivitt Ketcham (1865). The Exhibition of the Hamline Society involved graduates Augustine M. Antrobus (1864), Francis Marion Davenport (1864), and Winfield Scott Miller (1865). Allen McDowell Ghost of the Hamline Literary Society read the conferring of degrees.
Facts • During the commencement several pieces of music were played. Listed are 1864 graduates: Delia Catherine Hemenway, Rufus J. Borghalthaus, Francis M. Davenport, Alice Jane Corkhill Weaver, Arpin C. Ross Antrobus, and George W. Field. Field was a First Corporal for Company F in the 1st Regiment, Iowa Infantry that lasted for three months in 1861. In the article Rufus J. Borghalthaus and John Melvin Mansfield are listed as being in the Army. Borghalthaus is listed under “Borgholthaus” in the National Park Service Soldiers and Sailors Database and was a Sergeant in the 45th Regiment, Iowa Infantry and Mansfield is listed as a First Sergeant in Company H of the 45th Regiment, Iowa Infantry according the National Parks Service Soldiers and Sailors Database. They completed all their studies before deployment and their degrees were waiting for them when they returned.
Mount Pleasant Home Journal •
Title: – Untitled #2
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Date: – July 2, 1864
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Description: – Author Unknown; Pg. 3, Col. 1; Update on previous article published on June 25, 1864, “From The 45th Infantry.”