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October 17, 2022 3:01 am
On this episode of Our American Stories, John Busbee of The Culture Buzz on KFMG 98.9 tells the story of the remarkable sacrifice made by one family in Iowa during the Civil War.
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It's almost me know me from the recap on LA TV now, all podcasts life as a gringo, to every Tuesday and Thursday will be talking real and unapologetic about all things light and culture and everything in between. From someone who's never quite been listen to life as a gringo on the iHeartRadio app or web you gave podcasts brought to you by State Farm like a good neighbor, State Farm is there this is Lisa V. This is our American stories and retell stories about everything here on the show including your send them to our American stories.com there are some of our favorites. Next story from the Civil War was nearly forgotten to history. John Busby of the culture buzz on KF MG 90.9 FM in our own Monty Montgomery with the story a lot of history although it deserves to be remembered and can easily be forgotten if people while forget about it. It then becomes almost like buried treasure waiting for someone to uncover delving into history is it's almost like beachcombing you never quite sure what you can find, but sometimes you find some incredible things and that's what happened over 10 years ago someone who's a friend of mine now, Tom Woodruff, Eliza County, Iowa. He had a call from the widow of a boyhood friend of his who said that this friends grandmother had put together a scrapbook roughly went from the late 1800s to the first years 1900s and she knew it might be of interest to Tom because Tom is an amateur historian and so she is getting that scrapbook to Tom's of course. What is a do. He sits down and he has to go through the entire scrapbook and they are on this 57 page scrapbook on page 23 was a little news clipping. It was from a 1907 Columbus Gazette newspaper and they were talking about the devastating toll.
The Civil War had and it talked specifically about the Littleton family were less fortunate when it came to losing people of the six brothers only one live to return and he shortly died of disease contracted in the service, and right there. That was the flashpoint for Tom Woodruff to try and find out more about the six Littleton Brothers Tom had started working on this for a few years and a mutual friend of ours connecting me to Tom. She knew that I loved history that I did stories about history and she said I got affiliate need to meet well.
I met Tom Woodruff and the chase was on this that they say what can we do to bring the story back to light because it was one of those profound stories that inspirational in service to country tragic in the total loss of the male lineage of a family. There were four sisters left from that family and fact, many of the relatives, the descendents of those four sisters knew very little if anything about the six great great great uncles that they had at one time so that was kind of the genesis of getting involved with the Littleton Brothers story.
We have a lot of missing puzzle pieces, some of the pieces we have are based in census record so number the Littleton family members were notated as the lotto the migration of the Littleton family.
They originated from Maryland and it looks like James and Martha.
They were the mother and father.
They started toward moving west because they wanted more opportunity and their first four children Sarah, George, John and Thomas were born in Maryland. They probably left Maryland in late 1836 or so they ended up stopping in Ohio for a while to keep expanding their family. So Ohio became home for the birth of William and then Mary then after Mary was born sometime after that between 1839 in 1841 they completed their migration to Iowa so when they got to Eliza County. Around 1840 1841. That is when the family completed its expansion. Rebecca was born in 1841 Camilla in 1843 and her twin brother Kendall same year. No one in 1845 and that completed the family trying to figure out why the Littleton Brothers served. That is where the best historical forensic researcher would really have a challenge. You could go to the newspapers, but there didn't seem to be a lot of information about the Littleton's in their so we really don't know but Iowa has kind of a Janice personality when it comes to the Civil War there were virtually no important battles fought in Iowa during the Civil War.
But there was a sense of dedication and duty that the people who targeted Iowa as the place they were to sink their roots that they wanted to support that fierce patriotism that they seem to have and that's what Drawing so many people to enlist in the service from Iowa. I think that's part of what drove them into a listing as they did. Thomas was the first one to enlist.
He enlisted in July 16 of 1861 he was in Company C, fifth Iowa infantry. Next was William Littleton, he enlisted in September 21 of 1861. Company K, eighth Iowa infantry, the third Littleton brother to enlist with George Littleton. He was the oldest brother, he enlisted in 1862, and because he was working at the time in Illinois, he enlisted in Illinois three final brothers work in the Littleton John and Nola and those three brothers all enlisted on August 21, 1862 and served in Company F of the 19th Iowa infantry and their service was to be relatively short-lived and you been listening to John Busby tell the story of the little things and little things lost all six of the boys in that family. The bloodline four sisters remained in so many of these stories are untold until they're told you're hearing it here on our American stories John Busby telling the story of the Littleton family and so many other families ravaged by the Civil War, the highest death count and all of the wars America has ever fought 600,000+ story continues on Littleton Brothers here on our American story.
Folks if you love the stories we tell about this great country and especially the stories of America's rich past. Know that all of our stories about American history from war to innovation culture and faith are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College place for students study all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life. If you can get the Hillsdale bills that will come to you with a free and terrific online courses go to Hillsdale.edu to learn more. Everything is more expensive these days with inflation, rising Medicare beneficiaries living on a fixed income are concerned about increasing costs make your Medicare dollars go further by picking the right plan. Start by looking for a plan that gives you more. For example, many Medicare advantage plans include dental, vision and hearing benefits while original Medicare doesn't learn more about plan costs beyond premiums such as deductibles and co-pays and drug coverage find that right plan for you, visit you HC Medicare health plans.com dramas really know me from the recap on LA TV now got my own podcast life as a getting to come at you every Tuesday and Thursday will be talking real and unapologetic about all things light and culture and everything in between. From someone who's never quite been listening to life as a gringa on the iHeartRadio app or webby gate podcast brought to you by State Farm like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Lemme guess unknown caller, you can reduce the number of unwanted calls and emails with online privacy protection. The latest innovation from Discover will help regularly remove your personal info like your name and address from 10 popular people search websites that could sell your data and will do it for free activate in the Discover app see terms and learn more@discovery.com/online privacy protection, then we returned to our American stories and the story of the six Littleton brothers who all enlisted to fight in our nations Civil War our bloodiest war here again is John Busby of the culture buzz on KF MG 98.9.
And here's monthly. At the outbreak of the Civil War. All six Littleton brothers would enlist the fight for the union and some of them see action Prairie Grove, Arkansas. Unfortunately it was that battle that took its greatest and quickest toll on the Littleton family in battle. Kendall died and was buried in a mass grave.
There John was severely wounded in the thigh and he was transferred to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to hopefully recover. However, he died eight days later and is buried in an unmarked grave. There in the national Cemetery. Chances are that he didn't die so much from his wounds as from the infection.
Nola did survive the Prairie Grove battle, but it was interesting on what happened to him.
He shows that even accidents can happen in war and that's exactly what happened to Noah. Noah was part of a foraging group that's one thing that in the Civil War. The troops had to forage what was available in the land that they were crisscrossing what was on a foraging trip that included ferrying goods that they acquired across the White River, which is down between Missouri and Arkansas during the time that they were ferrying things though brains had kind of made the river turbulent.
There is a great passage here. This was a first-hand account by Timothy… A member of Company A, of the Iowa 19.
Several days ago, nearly 100 men were sent out his guards to a forage train.
They were touring the day the new boat was built under the supervision Lieut. Faust the first light duty.
The boat was considered ample to carry 26 mule teams across loaded in a number of horsemen and footmen.
The boat was unmanageable in passing to the center of the stream and sunk water pouring over the boat washing one team in several men from the boat chapter became submerged loose.
The water was very cold and water setting from shore made require superhuman strength, reach it while we as geezers could not render assistance and be only witnesses of their death struggles one of those who perished was no Thomas the first to enlist.
Ironically, fought more battles and served an actual, I guess you call combat situations than any of the other brothers. He fought in the battles of eye hookah in Champion Hill. The siege of Vicksburg and Mission Ridge. And that's where he was captured when he was captured, he was sent to Andersonville Andersonville was located in Georgia and it was situated in a wide open field area just bare dirt ground. There is very sluggish stream of terrible water that did come through it a little bit not pure food rations were inconsistent at best. The prisoners were packed in. If the disease was brought in by a prisoner it could run rampant through the ranks of the prisoners there. It was a good logotype situation when word about what Andersonville was about got around to the Union army.
They knew that if any of their compatriots were sent Andersonville. It was almost assuredly death stamp and after 2 1/2 almost 3 years of captivity. That is when he died of chronic diarrhea in Andersonville and he ended up being buried at the Andersonville National Cemetery.
William was in Company K, 850 infantry was the second of the Littleton brothers to enlist the fought in the battles of Shiloh and he was wounded there. Jackson and the siege of Vicksburg and that's where he contracted a disease, a disease he would later die of like so many others in a St. Louis hospital. But what happened to George. George was in Company B of the 65th Illinois infantry. He did have a battle and it was it a name. It's well-known as a battle in Harpers Ferry. He was captured and imprisoned briefly but in these early days there were prisoner exchanges the honor system what's in place where my side has this many prisoners we want to exchange for that many prisoners on your side and they will not go into combat for X number of months or something like that. George was reassigned after the person exchange and he was reassigned to Chicago where they had what was kind of the unions version of Andersonville. The winters were brutal and that is where he probably had pneumonia. He did get back home and he lived for a while longer. But he finally succumbed to the brutal toll that the military life. The diseases that he encountered took on his body and that's what made George become the sixth victim of the six Littleton brothers. The Littleton brothers story resonates with me because it encompasses a national level of kind of cross sectioning of what happened during the Civil War in a single-family you had all these brothers enlist in the war. All the sisters were married. Back home, some of the been multiple marriages because they outlive husbands things like that but with the brothers.
You have the diversity of ways that those who served perished. You had in battle you had wounded from battle and perished afterwords probably a combination of the wound and disease you had disease you had accident you had imprisonment you had all these different ways. In this microcosmic perspective of six brothers and that's where the tragedy is because these days, we don't think of having to endure this kind of tragedy in the Littleton brothers is is a special unequaled sacrifice tragedy that needs to come to light again and a good way to bring it to light would be a monument monument that only recently came about, even though the idea had been floating around for a long time that the wise a newspaper 100 years ago actually commented about this when they talked about the six brothers there needs to be memorial built to honor the lives of the six brothers from tools Berlin Liza County who all died as a result of volunteering to fight in the Civil War when it was dedicated on Flag Day June 14, 2016. The keynote was delivered by Tom Lorraine who is an exceptionally well-known historian and scholar. He read something that has always stuck with me in his words.
He quoted the Bible the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and sent me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor.
The Valley bones were very dry. He asked me, Son of Man can these bones live in with that question begins. The Bible account of how Ezekiel watched dry bones take on a new life and in this story, the people of Israel are the dry bones would lost touch with her heritage, but who could live again if they recover that historical memory in a similar way, the Littleton brothers would not mean much to us today.
If we know them only through the bare bones of the census record George John Thomas Kendall William and no one at a great job as always by Monty Montgomery on the production of the piece, and a special thanks to John Busby of the culture buzz on KF MG 99 sharing with us this remarkable story of the low Isaac Kelly Iowa family Littleton's in the Littleton brothers in all six perished in the Civil War or just fair. After the Littleton family story here on our American story vacation like bottomless margaritas going snorkeling whenever I want to party and drink everything we need a Little beach vacation in Mexico and the Caribbean help DEA keep our community safe and healthy. By participating in national prescription drug take back day Saturday, October 29 take action right in your own home by cleaning out your family medicine cabinet of unneeded medications keep them safe and clean them out. Take them back, find a collection site near you@deatakeback.com. Do your part to lower overdose deaths and prevent prescription drug misuse before it starts. DEA takeback.com that's DEA takeback.com. Let me guess, unknown caller, you can reduce the number of unwanted calls and emails with online privacy protection. The latest innovation from Discover will help regularly remove your personal info like your name and address from 10 popular people search websites that could sell your data and will do it for free activate in the Discover app see terms and learn more@discovery.com/online privacy protection