by Kenneth Lyftogt
The American Civil War was one where the greatest share of the fighting and dying was done by volunteers, citizen soldiers who left families, homes, and careers behind them.
Iowa was a Union state, a free state, the first child of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which outlawed slavery north of Iowa's southern border and Iowa prospered with an established tradition of free labor.
The tradition of anti-slavery in Iowa was, however, coupled with the equally strong tradition of Iowa as a place that did not welcome black people, free or slave. For years free blacks seeking to find homes in Iowa, a state eagerly courting settlers, were forced to post a security bond under penalty of forced labor on the state road gang. Such state, and local, restrictions kept Iowa's black population low, but by 1860 there were over a thousand blacks in the state, most living in communities along the Mississippi river, and a very few had moved inland to places like Black Hawk County.
The spring and summer of 1861, after the election of Abraham Lincoln as president, was a time of great military celebration and preparation across Iowa and the entire North. Hundreds of volunteer militia companies were formed with men eager to offer their services to the Union cause. The first call for volunteers from Iowa, one full regiment, was easily met with thousands of volunteers left for further calls.
The federal government offered the volunteers military pay of nine dollars a month which was subsidized by contributions from local citizens who also promised to provide aid for the families of the volunteers. The first soldiers from Black Hawk County shipped out of Waterloo in June of 1861 expecting a glorious victory for the Union and a quick return home.
But the war turned long and bloody, the thousands of volunteers who had come forward in 1861 were all but used up by the summer of 1863, there would be no more great volunteer armies, the draft would begin that summer and be a major force in the inducement of volunteers for the rest of the war.
The draft itself did not directly force citizens into the army, but it acted as an incentive for local districts to do all that could be done to raise volunteers. Community pride in not needing to draft soldiers became extremely competitive with local volunteers being offered generous federal and local bounty payments far beyond the modest incentives offered in 1861.
Iowa did not offer a state bounty, but in 1863 a veteran soldier from Black Hawk County who re-enlisted would receive $400.00 from the federal government, and $200.00 from the county government, plus a two dollar enlistment bonus. New recruits from Black Hawk County would receive $300.00 from the federal government, the $200.00 county bounty, and the two dollar enlistment bonus. Anyone acting as an enlisting agent would receive a $15.00 bounty for every volunteer he recruited.
The quota assigned to Black Hawk County in the summer of 1863 was 157 men to be met by the end of the year. Recruiting was slow throughout the summer but as winter came closer the threat of the draft became more real and Black Hawk County recruiters became more active. Soldiers from the veteran regiments came home to find new recruits while the state created more new regiments that needed to be filled.
When the war began black men were not allowed into the Union armies, and the abolition of slavery was not one of the war's goals, but as of 1863 and the Emancipation Proclamation, that changed. One of the new Iowa regiments was the lst Iowa Volunteer Infantry (African Descent), a regiment of black soldiers representing Iowa.
Military recruiters had much to offer the volunteers, in addition to the bounty payments local land owners often pledged tracts of land to new recruits and cash bonuses were often raised on the spot as immediate rewards to enlisting. One important attraction was the privilege of choosing one's branch of service. A volunteer could serve with his hometown companions either by joining old friends in the veteran regiments, or going with friends to one of the new regiments, With such incentives it seemed that a draft would not be necessary in most Iowa communities in 1863.
The Black Hawk County towns of Waterloo and Cedar Falls competed fiercely to raise the required number of volunteers before the deadline at the end of the year. Cedar Falls succeeded, and even had a surplus by December, but Waterloo was still two short of its quota of twenty-six men. When one of the recruits from Cedar Falls offered to be counted from Waterloo the city was only one man short of its quota.
The search for the one man who would save the town from the disgrace of having an actual draft became intense with crowds of recruiters descending upon the shops and homes of any who might be willing to join. One of those so eagerly recruited, the man who's enlistment fulfilled Waterloo's quota, was George Butler, a forty-six year old barber and one of the few black men living in Black Hawk County.
The editor of The Cedar Falls Gazette, in a most obnoxious manner, was able to brag that 'Thus it was that Waterloo was saved from the draft, and her quota is now filled by twenty-five white men and one darkey."
A few weeks later Butler bid farewell to his family and joined the other volunteers on the train for Davenport and its federal army post of Camp McClellan. It was at Camp McClellan that he was informed by the officer in charge of mustering the volunteers into federal service that those who had recruited him had lied.
As a black man Butler was not going to receive the federal bounty, and was not going to be allowed his choice of service. Butler had agreed to enlist as a member of the 4th Iowa cavalry where he would be with friends from Waterloo but now he was informed that the army was segregated, he had no choice but to be enlisted in the new 1st Iowa Infantry (African Descent).
Butler complained to the mustering officer but to no avail. He received no support back home either, his name on the Provost Marshal's books kept the city out of the draft and no one in Waterloo took up his cause. The editor of The Cedar FalIs Gazette expressed the general attitude of acceptance of the injustice done to Butler when he acknowledged that Butler "may have been deceived," but that the Black Hawk County recruiter "had no part in drawing the wool over the darkey's eyes."
George Butler was assigned to the "African Descent" regiment over his objections.
Butler and his regiment never went into battle but the conditions of Civil War service were often more deadly than gunfire, and within a year George Butler's family in Waterloo was informed that he had died in camp, another Union casualty.
The war would continue until the spring of 1865, and the last Black Hawk County soldiers would not come home until that summer. Many never came home at all, they remained far away, buried in military graves, one of those was George Butler.