The Lyon Campaign in Missouri. Being a History of the First Iowa Infantry and of the Causes Which Led Up to Its Organization, and How It Earned the Th

by Eugene Fitch Ware

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

412 pages, Paperback

First published November 22, 1907

About the author

Eugene Fitch Ware was a soldier, journalist, politician, historian, lawyer, poet, and served as Commissioner of Pensions under the Theodore Roosevelt administration. Describing him, Roosevelt said he refused “to be swayed by any motive save the public good,” and, under the non de plume Ironquill, he remains one of Kansas’ well-known poets.

Reviews

[Devon]

A casual and natural account of the events, with color and flair

I started reading this book to get more of an idea of what life was like in the 1800's. I was not disappointed, as what followed was entertaining and required almost no additional context from what was in this book to follow along. Very easy to pick up and get started, vivid imagery, and engaging prose.

[Sean McLachlan]

An excellent first-person account by a "90 day volunteer". He covers the years leading up to the war and includes lots of interesting anecdotes about life in Iowa back then. There's not much fighting in this book, but you get a good look at the daily misery of the soldiers with their bad or sometimes nonexistent rations, hard marches, adverse weather, and incompetent officers. A must-read for anyone interested in a private's eye view of war in the Trans-Miss.
I read the free version on Google Books. Google has scanned many public domain books and while the price is right (free) they have done no editing. Often the scanner makes mistakes with these old books because of faded type and folded pages. At times there are obvious typos and occasionally complete gibberish. I'm almost tempted to shell out for the Camp Pope edition just to have this fine title on my shelf.

[Michael Donnelly]

Outstanding memoir from an enlisted man in the 1st Iowa Infantry in the Civil War. This state regiment was raised early in the conflict as a 90-day enlistment, and played a role in the Trans-Mississippi conflict, fighting at Wilson's Creek near Springfield, Missouri.

Although the battle was named a Confederate victory, it was a draw, with both parties leaving the field with about the same number of casualties. The Union accomplished their goal of pushing back against Confederate agitation in an occupied state.

Much better was the commentary about life before the war in Burlington, Iowa, and the political environment. In a time full of historic revisionism about this time in our history, the contemporary account was much more authentic and at times fascinating.

Great read, and another example of where the e-book format is making out of print works easily accessible.