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14 The McLaurys in Tombstone, Arizona War and the Failed Marriage Following the outbreak of war in 1861, twenty-one-year-old “Eddie” McClaury and twenty-three-year-old Daniel Arbuthnot joined the Iowa 14th Volunteers, an infantry unit from Tama County. Several of the messmates in Company G were their neighbors from other parts of the county. From their muster in the Toledo area, the men of the 14th traveled by wagon to Marengo, Iowa, and then by rail to Camp McClellan, located just north of Davenport, for training. In late November they removed down the river to a place outside St. Louis dubbed “Benton Barracks.” Sickness was soon evident among the ranks. Ed McClaury, a boy from Irving and my bunkmate since we started, was very sick. Had a high fever and was out of his head part of the time. There were a number of boys sick. … [Sometime later] McClaury was very full of measles but was not nearly so sick as he had been nor as some of the other boys were.1 Despite illness and death, the drilling and training continued. The company was not issued rifles until January 13th by which time, according to Private Peter Wilson: “[Company G] got the name of being the best Co. in the Reg. as far as drilling goes. We have the most and loudest swearers. We are said to have more quarrelling among ourselves, which is probably the case, than any other Co. in the Reg.”2 On Wednesday, January 29th, 1862, two men from Co. G were discharged : S. Jenks and Daniel Arbuthnot. The Arbuthnot genealogy states it was due to ill health. The Army recorded it as a disability. Whatever the illness or disability, it spared Daniel’s life and allowed him to go home. Despite his illness, Eddie McLaury remained in the regiment. As he wrote to his sister, Mary, “It was a hard march on me for I am very weak with the diareah [sic].”3 In February, the 14th Iowa was called upon, but arrived too late to be of any help in the attack on Ft. Henry on the Tennessee River. On the 12th of Three 15 An O.K. Corral Obituary February, they began their march on Ft. Donelson and the siege began, even before the main force had arrived. “We lay quiet all day Friday [Feb. 14] and Saturday afternoon the Iowa Second & the Ind. 25th and Iowa 14th were brought into it. The Iowa 2nd stormed the breastwork in gallant style. We came up over the same ground and the sight of so many dead and wounded was shocking.”4 [W]hen we first went in there they had two cannons that they played upon us from in front and off to one side and the way they made the shots and shells fly over our heads was a caution[.] [B]ut before they got them low enough to do us much harm there was a regiment of sharpshooters attached to our brigade that are armed with long shooting rifles[.] [T]hey will, some of them will, kill a man a half a mile off …5 Then, quite suddenly, the siege ended in surrender. About the time Daniel Arbuthnot arrived at home, the marriage of Robert and Jane McClaury collapsed. Daniel’s discharge may have contributed to the breakdown of the marriage, but whatever the issues were, nothing was ever said of it. Indeed, the family histories of both the McLaurys and the Arbuthnots make no mention of this marriage at all. On March 17, 1862, after less than 18 months of marriage, she took her children and moved into the house she owned in Irving Township. The court records kept track of the disputes over property, some of which had to be jointly sold, and the divorce decree itself which Jane never contested. Robert sued for divorce on grounds of abandonment, but it was only after being separated nearly five years that he took the trouble.6 In April, all the Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant pushed farther up the Tennessee River toward Corinth, Mississippi. The Confederate forces under Albert Sidney Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard engaged them at Pittsburgh Landing. “Tremendous battle in Tennessee,” the newspaper headline read, “Grant and Buell against Beauregard. Two Days Battle. The Enemy Completely Routed. Terrific Slaughter!” The battle began on a Sunday, and the small Shiloh Church which stood near a clearing called Duncan’s Field became the center...

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