PROCLAMATION BY THE
GOVERNOR.
The quota of this State of the 300,000 volunteers called for
by the President on the 2d of July last is 10,570.
The quota of this State of the 300,000 militia required to
be drafted by order of the President 4th of August instant is 10,570.
The quota of the first call is over full by the prompt and
patriotic response of our people within the last few weeks. I am satisfied that
from fifteen to twenty thousand men are now organized into companies awaiting
organization into new regiments, and I am urging upon the War Department the
acceptance of the whole number, and that our State be credited with the excess
upon the second call for drafted men. But the War Department refuses, as yet,
to give us such credit until the number of men required to fill the old
regiments (8,005) shall have been furnished.
These men for the old regiments are sorely needed, and the
cause of the country is better served by filling the old regiments than by
raising new ones.
The officers and men of the old regiments have gained a
knowledge of their duties by experience in the field, and new recruits joining
their regiments have the benefit of this knowledge gained by their officers and
comrades. An old regiment filled up with new recruits is more effective at the
end of two weeks than a new regiment at the end of two months. In order, then,
to get the credit due our State for the excess furnished over the first call,
and in order to give the country this most effective assistance and
sorely-needed help, we must fill up the old regiments. We can do this by
volunteering until the first of September. If not done by that time the
deficiency will be supplied by special draft, in addition to the draft under
the second call.
I appeal, then, to every man for aid. Let everything else be
laid aside until this needed work is done. Let the young men whose brothers and
friends are in the old regiments take their places by their sides. Any person
desiring to enter an old regiment can select the regiment and company he chooses,
and then go with his acquaintances and friends.
So deeply am I impressed with the imperative necessity of
filling the old regiments that I will, at the extra session of the General
Assembly to convene on the third day of September, recommend to that body the
creation of a State bounty, of such sum as may be deemed advisable, to all
persons who shall, before the first day of September next, enlist in any one of
the old regiments of this State.
I also earnestly advise all companies now incomplete, and which
will not certainly be completed by the 23d instant, to abandon their attempt at
organization as companies and enlist for the old regiments.
Samuel J. Kirkwood.
Governor of Iowa.
SOURCES: Henry Warren Lathrop, The Life and Times of
Samuel J. Kirkwood, Iowa's War Governor, p. 218; Benjamin F. Shambaugh, The Messages and Proclamations of the
Governors of Iowa, Volume 2, p. 499-501
