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ANNALS OF IOWA
VOL. XIV, NO. 7 DES MOINES, JANUARY, 1925
A WARTIME DOCTOR'S ACCOUNT BOOK, 1861-1862
BY HON. CHARLES J. FULTON
In the
attic of an old house, once the pretentious home of Christian W. Slagle, whose
name is intimately associated with the early legal, political, and educational
history of Iowa, was found an account book. Perhaps because it had lain
undisturbed and unopened for sixty years, its writing is as clear and legible as
if written but yesterday. On the first inner face of its board cover is the
inscription, "Drs. Woods and Dial's Book, Fairfield, Jefferson Co., Iowa,
July 2nd, 1860," and on the flyleaf opposite the note, "Entries of
Accounts made from and since January 12th, 1861, commencing on page 76th, belong
exclusively to W. C. Dial."
Dr. P. N. Woods from the opening of his office in 1856
was for thirty years, save for the period of his military service, a familiar
figure to the people of Fairfield. My inward eye can yet see him as in the '70's
and '80's he stood straight and tall in the Methodist choir. Of his record in
the war he must have been proud as he had reason to be, but there was never a
suggestion in act or word of his that he capitalized or attempted to capitalize
the personal distinction he won therein.
To the urgent call in 1862 for additional troops, he
responded at once by becoming a recruiting officer, next by acting as examining
surgeon for Jefferson County, and finally by enlisting in Company H of the
Thirty-ninth I. V. I., of which he was commissioned surgeon. Early in 1864 he
was appointed surgeon in chief of the division to which his regiment belonged
and was assigned to the staff of General Sweeny with headquarters at Pulaski,
Tennessee. In the advance on Atlanta, he was given special supervision on the
field of the wounded of the Fourth Division of the Fifteenth Army Corps. In July
he was made surgeon of the Division Hospital, of which he continued in charge
during the March to the Sea. At Savannah, requesting to be relieved that he
might rejoin his regiment, he was ordered instead to Beaufort, South Carolina,
to be surgeon in chief of Sherman's Provisional Division, numbering nearly ten
thousand men. He retained this position until the division was disbanded in
March, 1865, at Raleigh, North Carolina. On May 24, at Washington, he marched
with the victorious veterans in the Grand Review which celebrated the
preservation of the Union and the close of the war. On June 5 he was mustered
out at Clinton, Iowa. Though resuming the practice of medicine, he did not
confine his activities to his profession. In 1866 he and Captain J. M. Woods, a
brother, erected and put in operation a woolen mill, thus promoting the material
and industrial development of the community. His death on March 19, 1886, ended
an active, laborious, and useful life.
Who was Dr. William C. Dial? The account book witnesses
that he once lived and practiced his profession in Fairfield, but the shadow of
his presence is very dim. The little brought to light about him suggests that he
was a cast-up bit of human driftwood, which, left high and dry for a season, was
then seized and carried off by another rush of water. The oldest inhabitant does
not remember him. Some younger persons who were at an impressionable age at the
time of the Civil War aver they recognize the name, but recall the man not at
all. One of them holds a faint impression that he came from Ohio and after a
short sojourn returned to Ohio. This is not sustained by any available evidence.
A brief obituary in the Fairfield Ledger notices that he "died September 1,
1864, in his 31st year." It further says of him, "He was loved and
respected by all who knew him and by his death the community has met with a
severe and heavy loss." He rests in the cemetery at Mount Pleasant.
The account book discloses that Dr. Dial's practice was
not limited to Fairfield. It included the surrounding country and extended to
the villages of Libertyville, Glasgow, Glendale, Salina, Richwoods, and Pleasant
Plain. The identity of some of his patients is veiled in the obscurity
occasioned by death, marriage, and removal; their names now have no
significance. The identity of others is preserved in local tradition, local
history, and their descendants. Rev. A. S. Wells was a Congregational minister,
who, in a green old age, was respectfully and affectionately called "Father
Wells." George Stever and Daniel Young were leading merchants. S. Light was
a jeweler and bookseller, but later became a nurseryman and encouraged the
planting of vineyards and orchards. Rev. John Burgess was a Methodist minister
who was mustered on November 1, 1862, as chaplain of the Thirtieth I. V I. On
account of serious illness due to the inhospitable climate of the South, he
resigned on January 29, 1863, at Vicksburg, Mississippi. David Switzer was one
of the early county surveyors. As such he surveyed and fixed the boundaries of
the counties of Wapello and Kishkekosh, now Monroe. Mathew Clark was a farmer
and one of the representatives of Jefferson County in the Eighth General
Assembly. He was mustered September 23, 1862, as first lieutenant of Company H
of the Thirtieth I. V. I. On March 18, 1863, he was promoted to the captaincy.
At Cherokee Station, Alabama, on October 21 he was severely wounded but lived to
reach Fairfield, where on December 2 he died. Miss Helen E. Pelletreau was
principal of a girls' private school, or, to apply the designation then in use,
a female seminary. She presented in an appropriate address a silk flag, a gift
from the women of the city, to the first volunteers as they were about to depart
on May 24, 1861, for Keokuk, where they were mustered as Company E, Second I. V.
I. Anthony Demarce was a machinist and foundryman. He invented or improved a
mill for crushing Chinese sugar cane, "sorghum," which had lately been
introduced and from the juice of which it was expected to manufacture sugar. W.
W. Junkin was the editor and publisher of the Fairfield Ledger, a journal noted
throughout the state for its advocacy of temperance and for its hostility to
slavery. A. H. Streight was a painter of portraits and landscapes. His art
afforded only a precarious living. There is a story that he was once saved from
self-destruction by the timely sale of a picture. He removed to Colorado where
he achieved both success and distinction. D. P. Stubbs was a lawyer and a
partner of James F. Wilson, the congressman from the First District of Iowa. He
was a Republican, but in the period of resumption he turned Greenbacker, and in
the struggle for the free and unlimited coinage of silver, he turned Democrat.
He did the state an important service as a pioneer in the importation of draft
horses from France and Belgium. With a clientele of such character, it is a
reasonable presumption that Dr. Dial was of good repute as a physician and as a
man.
The parenthesis "(soldiering)" and the term
"widow" appear often in this account book. The first indicates a state
of war and the second perhaps one of its unfortunate but certain results. The
Doctor's customary charge was fifty cents for "a visit and medicine,"
but for a call to the country it was in some cases one dollar, in others three
dollars. He was recompensed largely in service and goods. This was not so much
due to common poverty as to the lack of a ready market and the consequent
absence of money. He credits corn, hay, wood, coal, flour, beef, pork, ham,
chickens, eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, molasses, honey, apples, blackberries,
groceries, dry goods, stocking yarn, vials, and bottles, making linen coat,
making pants, cassimeres and trimming for pants, tailoring, a vest, cutting
wood, shoeing horse, repairing sulky springs, a violin, and an oil painting. The
prices at which these things were exchanged would tickle a present day customer,
but would scarcely make a present day farmer envious, however hard his lot. Oats
were 15c per bushel. Corn was 16 and 20c per bushel; hay $2.00 per ton; flour
$1.75, $2.00, and $2.25 per hundred weight; beef 3c per pound; pork 2 l/2c per
pound; ham 5c per pound; chickens $1.00 per dozen; and eggs 3c per dozen.
In his settlements the Doctor is generous to a fault as
the frequent entry, "By donation," testifies. He embodies the spirit
of the Good Samaritan. Especially to soldiers and their families does his heart
warm. The account of William Maxwell he closes "by donation, because he is
in the army fighting for the supremacy of law and order." It is a merited
tribute, for William W. Maxwell was mustered on August 31, 1861, as wagoner in
Company F, Third I. V. C.; on February 1, 1864, he re-enlisted, and served until
August 9, 1865, when he was mustered out at Atlanta, Georgia. Sympathy and
charity are shown in the notation beneath the account of Robert Reddy: "I
hereby donate the above to Mrs. Reddy as she has lost her husband by death in
the army of the United States." Robert Reddy, mustered on May 28, 1861, in
Company E, Second I. V. I., died about July 24, 1862, of wounds received when
his regiment led in the attack and capture of Fort Donelson, Tennessee. Faith in
the righteousness of the Union cause is expressed in this simple statement of
Joseph McMurray: "I hereby donate the above claim to this family because of
his death in the army of the U. S. and the Lord." Joseph McMurray was
mustered on August 18, 1862, in Company B, Nineteenth I. V. I. He was fatally
wounded on December 7 of the same year at Prairie Grove, Arkansas, dying the
next day. He rests in the National Cemetery at Fayetteville, Arkansas. Under the
account of Warren Sisson is glimpsed the Doctor's estimate of his character:
"The above I hereby donate; he enlisted as a private in defense of his
country; contracted disease and died, loved by all his acquaintances."
Joseph Warren Sisson was mustered on May 28, 1861, in Company E, Second I. V. I.
He was discharged on August 28 for disability, to which he later succumbed.
In the case of "Mr.——Brown" the Doctor
gives vent to indignation. His comment is, "Deserter to his country and God
to[o], I verily believe." The harshness of the judgment is not quite
justified. William A. Brown was mustered August 30,1861, in Company F, Third I.
V. C., and on December 10 deserted. That is the fact; but another fact is that
on February 25,1862, he was mustered in Company L, Fourth I. V. C., and was
discharged at the expiration of his term of service, March 7, 1865, at Gravelly
Springs, Alabama.
Dr. W. C. Dial loved his country and his country's
defenders, and for them he spent and was spent without reserve. Let this at
least be recorded in his praise.
PLANK ROAD NOTICE
The subscribers to the stock of the Fairfield and Mount
Pleasant Plank Road are required to pay an installment of five per cent on the
amount of their stock subscribed, on or before the 15th of February next, being
the sixth installment. By order of the Board,
W. H. WALLACE, president.
The Observer at Mount
Pleasant and Daily Telegraph will please copy.
—Advertisement in The Fairfield Ledger, January 22,
1852. (In the newspaper collection of the Historical Department of Iowa.)
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