Iowans Return from the Civil War

After four years of fighting, the Civil War ended. The North had won. Iowa soldiers returned home to adjust to new lives in 1865.

Four short years ago I didn’t know these men, how often had they divided with me their meager fare and little comforts. I still see their faces as they answered role calls by day and by night. The canon war has stopped; the battle is over. The Union is preserved; but the scars remain.

The men who had fought so hard returned to their families and tried to take up their farms and businesses where they had left off. But things weren’t the same. Families had changed. Some men returned wounded; unable to do a normal days work. The war had been a test to see whether a group of states could remain as a unified nation. Iowa’s effort in that test helped prove that the union would endure and Iowans felt a new pride in being part of it.

Hold very still please… that’s it.