This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
By the time Private Basil Messler left Camp McClellan in Davenport on March 23rd, 1864 and headed south for his stint in the Union Army, the Civil War had already dragged on for almost three dreary years. The bands, speeches, parades and waving relatives, which had set off the first troops in 1861, were long gone.
Even most of the major battles had already been fought. Lookout Mountain, Antietam and Gettysburg had become household names. Instead, Private Messler and his 600 fellow recruits ended up keeping the peace in the stretch of Mississippi River around Vicksburg, already safe in Union hands.
No one would ever write the annals of Messler and his company of men. One dull day followed another, with four-hour drills in between marches through town. There were forages to local plantations for cattle and hogs to feed the men. There were long evenings of letter writing and long visits over dinner with officers at local hotels, where he read the Chicago Times. Often Private Messler check books out of the library.
On rare occasions, there was some action. On April 11th, Messler's company took one rebel prisoner along with four horses and 20 head of cattle. There were a few encounters with rebels themselves, but even here Messler had time to pick blackberries in the woods whenever he came across a patch.
There was only one skirmish large enough to consider a battle. At one plantation, Messler and his men came across a dance in full swing, and were able to capture ten Confederate soldiers, two civilians, four slaves and several mules. Before he left the plantation, he spent some time talking with the ladies of the house, who gave him a pound cake.
His stomach pains began in September. Messler spent the entire winter in and out of the camp hospital, taking larger and larger doses of pills. With the war winding down, Messler and his fellow soldiers were mustered out of the service on January 30th, 1865 and headed home to Iowa.
He had not died as a hero. There had been no great battles to tell the grandchildren, no glorious war wounds to show his friends, and back in Iowa there were no bands or parades to welcome him home. He had been just an average soldier and we are left with a question: had the fates smiled on Private Basil Messler, or had they frowned?
Rock Island Lines is underwritten by the Illinois Humanities Council and Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, with additional funding from Humanities Iowa, the Iowa Arts Council, and Augustana College, Rock Island.
