The sun was drooping close to the tree line as the day wound down in southern Pennsylvania eight years ago.
A retired U.S. Army officer, now a historian, led
Some Americans may think their country is divided politically more than ever but political acrimony was more serious, and sometimes violent, in other times in U.S. history, former long-time U.S. congressman James Leach, of Iowa, said in an IowaWatch interview. Listen to the interview in this podcast
Curiosity has led me to contemplate events like the Civil War, the growing tensions in Europe and America before World War II, the lynching of black people by vigilantes in the South during the first half of the 20th Century, the internment of Japanese-Americans in the Western United States during t
Joseph Riley from Erie County, N.Y., was in a train station in New Jersey in 1873 when he overheard a conversation between two men sitting on a bench across
Shoppers in downtown Des Moines on September 11, 1874, were curious about a little fruit stand on wheels they saw on the sidewalk. It wasn’t unusual to see the
"He thanked me, and, oh, he was a fine gentleman,” Mary Wiseman Hindman recalled in 1930 when a Wisconsin newspaper reporter interviewed her. Mary was talking about Confederate Civil War General Robert E. Lee.
Loudly applauding crowds of people filled the “gaily decorated” streets of Des Moines on September 29, 1875, as President Ulysses S. Grant arrived for the reunion of the Army of the Tennessee, according to the Union (Missouri) Record.
On fliers posted across the South in 1865 the U.S. government promised a reward of $100,000 to “any person or persons who will apprehend and deliver Jefferson Davis” to authorities. The president of the Confederacy was on the run with his family and some of his Confederate officials.
“I never had a rude word from a soldier in my life. I’ve met rebuffs from steamboat captains and paymasters and that kind of fish, but never from one of the boys!” Aunt Becky Young told a reporter with the Chicago Tribune in 1888.
In May 1862 a group of 12 men from Clear Lake traveled to Cedar Falls to enlist in the Union army. Among the group who were willing to join the fight to preserve the Union during the Civil War were two brothers, Winslow Casady (W.C.) Tompkins and Caleb Tompkins.
The Twelfth Iowa Volunteer Infantry had made a name for themselves in the Civil War. Formed in Dubuque in 1861, the company left Iowa in November to spend two months
Weeks of planning went into an event to honor the Iowa Hornets' Nest Brigade that served in the Civil War, including at the Battle of Shiloh. Here's the rest of the story.
