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Chapter 11: The Ninth Iowa Cavalry
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94 Chapter 11 The Ninth Iowa Cavalry If Matthew Trumbull had dreams of domestic tranquility in Clarksville, they were unfulfilled. The war had produced another casualty—his marriage. Christiana’s story was the story of a Civil War wife. She married a glory hunter who marched off on his abolitionist crusade while she stayed home in Clarksville with four very young sons (Matthew Jr., the oldest, was twelve in 1862). Her health weakened under the strain. Matthew Trumbull, in the courteous fashion of the age, did not write of his marriage . However, sometime after the Hatchie battle, he and Christiana divorced. What happened to Christiana is not known. Trumbull raised their four sons who grew up to be a gold prospector, a railroad engineer, a store clerk, and a business secretary.1 Trumbull left Clarksville in December 1862. He moved to Cedar Falls and opened a law office. His business card read: “Will attend promptly in the collection of soldiers’ back pay and bounty.” His old friend, Henry Perkins, editor of the Cedar Falls Gazette, welcomed him with these words: If Lieut. Col. Trumbull can conduct a case through the labyrinthian intricacies of the law as successfully as he can lead a body of men upon an enemy’s stronghold, he will rank A No. 1 in his profession.2 Life in Cedar Falls went well for Trumbull. He had a thriving law practice, was often asked to lecture to local civic organizations, and had old comrades nearby. Former adjutant Fitzroy Sessions moved back to Cedar Falls in the fall of 1862. Lieutenant John Wayne of the Pioneer Greys, who was wounded and captured at Shiloh, resigned and came back home after a prisoner exchange in December 1862. Cedar Falls was a solid Republican town that firmly supported the war. However , a small but equally solid Democratic anti-war element existed in town. Twice anti-war editors tried to publish Democratic newspapers to rival Perkins’ Gazette but found few readers and fewer advertisers. Cedar Falls Democrats kept in close contact with Dennis Mahoney’s Dubuque Democrats, and, on occasion, there was trouble. When Stilson Hutchins, Mahoney’s co-editor of the Dubuque Herald, visited Cedar Falls, Fitzroy Sessions confronted him at the Carter House Hotel and beat him bloody with his fists. When John Hodnett of the Dubuque Herald visited, a team of The Ninth Iowa Cavalry 95 vigilantes met him and chased him out of town.3 In February 1863 the Dubuque Daily Times ran this short piece. The Knights of the Golden Circle have so stimulated the members of their fraternity that in Waverly, Cedar Falls and other places in the Cedar Valley, they are heard shouting in the streets for “Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy.” An instance of the kind occurred in Cedar Falls last week, in the hearing of Colonel M. M. Trumbull, late of the Iowa 3rd, when that gentleman immediately went for his revolver, declaring that he would shoot the scoundrel. While he was gone, the Secesh gathered in large numbers on one side and the Republicans began to collect on the other. At first a fight seemed inevitable, but the crowd finally dispersed, and there was no blood shed.4 The Cedar Falls home and law practice did not mean that Trumbull had surrendered his aspirations to military rank and glory. Rest and life in Iowa had restored his health and in mid-December 1862 he took another military physical and was declared fit for duty. He wrote to Governor Kirkwood and declared that he was ready to be recommissioned.5 Trumbull’s willingness to go back into the army was not matched by Governor Kirkwood’s willingness to give him a new command. Trumbull waited throughout the winter and spring of 1863. In June 1863 Assistant Adjutant General P. E. Hall resigned and Governor Kirkwood appointed Trumbull in his place. This was an important bureaucratic position that allowed Trumbull to travel across the state, but it was not the field command he wanted. Trumbull served under Adjutant General Nathaniel Bradley Baker. Baker, a former governor of New Hampshire, was a hard drinking Democrat, qualities that did not impress Trumbull. The two clashed on occasion but Trumbull and Baker managed to work together for the next few months. Baker ran the Adjutant General’s office out of Davenport, and Trumbull was forced to divide his time between there and Cedar Falls. Iowa’s anti-war movement was strongest in southern Iowa, almost...