The Annals of Iowa

Volume 1870 | Number 4 ( 1870) pps. 376-381

General John Edwards

ISSN 0003-4827

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Recommended Citation"General John Edwards." The Annals of Iowa 1870 (1870), 376-381.Available at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/annals-of-iowa/vol1870/iss4/13

376 ANNALS OF IOWA. [OOTOBEE,

GEHEEAL JOHN EDWAEDS.

We present in this number a portrait of General John Ed-wards, whose countenance will at once be recognized bymany of our readers who account themselves as elder citizensof Iowa.

He was born, October 24, 1815, in Jefferson connty, Ken-tucky, almost within the present boundaries of the city ofLouisville, and near the childhood home of old Zack Taylor,twelfth President of tbe United States, and is at this writingjust fifty-five years old. His father, whose name was alsoplain John Edwards, was one of the earliest pioneers ofLouisville's itnmediate vicinity, and had acquired, before heof whom we write was born, a large and valuable tract ofland, part of which is embraced in what is now the suburbsof that pleasant city, and extending from Bear Grass creekfor several miles on the Lexington road.

Besides his domain near Louisville, the elder Edwardsowned a large extent of rich bottom land in Lawrence county,Indiana, near what is now Lawrenceport, near White rivei',which he gave to the subject of our sketch when the latterhad attained his eighteenth year, and had acquired such edu-cation as the schools of Lotiisville then afforded, on conditionthat he should occupy and improve it. These terms weregladly acceded to by the son, who, even at that early age,had discovered a prejudice against slavery, and longed to be-gin his career under tbe auspices of impartial freeiiom, butsoon after found himself captured and bound by Cupid, who,at that remote period, had already forced his way to the banks,of White river. The upshot of this was, that young Ed-wards, shortly after his removal to Indiana, was wed to Miss

••Eliza, daughter of Marcus Knight, who had immigrated therewith his family from Kentucky, and was an early pioneer ofLawrence county.

Soon after his marriage. General Edwards removed to Bed-fbrd, the seat of justice of Lawrence county, and for several

1870.] GEIÎEEAL JOHN EDWAED8. Stt

years was engaged in the shipment of cattle and produce, byfiat-boat to New Orleans, after the manner of " Honest OldAbe." Finding it nnprofitable to carry on his farm and liveat the county seat, he soon after removed to Lawrenceport,within one mile of his farm, where he resided till 1849, carry-ing on his trade in grain and stock by boating from his farmto New Orleans.

In 1849, he took four young men (two of whom had servedhim faithfully on his farm), fitted them out, and went withthem to California, where he arrived with the first ox-trainthat reached the El Dorado that year. His first stoppingplace, with a view to mining, was Nevada Gulch, where hehad remained but a short time when the miners of his dis-trict elected him to tbe Alcalde. He was one of the foundersof Nevada City, and built the first hotel in that place, in co-partnership with a lawyer from Illinois named Ellis. Thishotel, with the whole town, was shortly afterwards destroyedby fire, and General Edwards barely escaped with his life,the clothes on his back and five dollars, all else that he hadbrought to or acquired in California being consumed in theflames.

He remained in California, performing the functions of ajudge, or in law practice with his partner, Ellis, until 1852,when he was called home to Indiana by the illness of hiswife, whose precarious state of health forbid his returning tothe " Golden State," as he had intended.

The same year that he returned from California, the whigparty in Lawrence county nominated fiim for the state sen-ate, against Gen. Ben Newland, and notwithstanding ademocratic majority of three hundred in the county, he wastriumphantly elected over bis opponent by a handsome ma-jority. But this was no great feat for Edwards to perform ;for he had, previously to going to California, been elected tothe lower branch of the Indiana legislature, as a whig, in theface of a strong majority of the opposite party. It must berecollected that " Harry of the West " held sway in thosedays iu Kentucky, and tbe great majority of the politicians

48

378 ANNALS OF IOWA. [OCTOBER,

bailing from the land of Boone, were of the same politicalfaith as the great orator of Ashland. It is, therefore, by nomeans surprising that General Edwards began his politicallife as a whig, as was his father before him.

At the death of General Edwards's father, which occurredin 1840, in the distribution of his many slaves among hischildren, he bequeathed, in his will, a family eonsisting of afavorite man-servant, his wife and several children, to hisson John. But General Edwards had lived too long in acommonwealth of universal freedom to accept such a legacyfor his own benefit. He therefore took his slaves to Indiana,emancipated them, and made liberal provision for them forlife. As before stated, he entertained an aversion for slaveryin his youth, which ripened into hatred from seeing the enor-mities and brutalities of the " peculiar institution " on hisboating trips to the more distant south, on each return frotnwhich he would implore his father, hy letter or orally, tomanumit his slaves.

In 1853, General Edwards removed frotn Indiana to Iowa,and established his home at Chariton, in Lucas county, and in1856 was elected to represent the ninth senatorial district(embracing Lucas county) in the constitutional convention,which met in Iowa City, January 19, 1857, to frame the be-nign constitution under which the happy people of Iowa areeven unto this day panoplied.

As a member of the constitutional convention, he took aprominent and leading part in framing the present organiclaw of our state, serving as chairtnatt of the cotnmittee "Onright of suffrage." There was, perhaps, no subject consideredby the convention which elicited so much, and such angry,debate as that assigned to this comtnittee; tor it opetied thewhole question of African slavery from the establishment ofthe federal government to the middle of the present century.In all these debates General Edwards was an eloquent partic-ipant, in favor of the most liberal and judicious measureswhich in that dark, though so recent, age could be projectedto pave tlie way toward itripartial suffrage, and in the course

1870.] GENERAL JOHN EDWARDS. . 379

of one of his speeches making the following prediction, whichhas since beeu fully verified : —

" I have hoped, and I hope yet, the day will come whenthe fetters shall be stricken from all this unfortunate race.Aye, and the day will come, as sure as there is a just God inheaven. And the unfortunate colored man, who was stolenfrom his native land, and is now suffering under the yoke ofoppressiou and bondage, will some day receive justice, andwhen that justice is meted out to him, heaven grant that thisnation does not suffer."

General Edwards also served three terms in the legislature -of Iowa, and was Speaker of the House of Representatives atthe breaking out ofthe rebellion.

It was while a member of the Iowa legislature that he re-ceived from the democratic members and press the sobriquetof " Honest John." It occurred on account of a charge madeby him of ten or fifteen dollars for examining into the schoolfund of three counties, and representing to the legislatnre thecondition of the same, while tbe most of those appointed toperform the same service for other counties, had charged thestate from fifty to a hundred dollars, and in some instancesmore.

In June, 1861, General Edwards's military career began,by his receiving a commission as aid-de-camp to GovernorKirkwood, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, the first ap-pointment of the kind which was made, and under which hischief duties were to keep the rebels on the southern bordersof Iowa in subjection. This he did pretty effectually, twicemarchiug his troops far beyond the northern boundary ofMissouri, through nests of armed revolters. So well did heperform this difficult task, that, a year later. Governor Kirk-"wood made him a full colonel, and gave hÍDi command of theeighteenth Iowa infantry. His service as colonel of this gal-lant regiment was mostly performed in Missouri, where hereudered valuable assistance to tbe Union cause in manyminor actions, and conspicuously distinguished himself forcourage and good generalship at the battle of Springfield.

3 8 0 . AHNALB OF IOWA. [oOTOBEB,

Here, with his own regiment, three companies of raw Mis-souri militia, and a few score of Bick, altogether aggregatingless than a thousand men, he utterly routed and completelyfoiled the rebel General Marmaduke, who, with a force morethan double that under Edwards, had come to take the town.In August, 1863, while still colonel of the eighteenth, he waBassigned to the command of a district in Missouri, and tbefollowing October marched into Arkansas and captured FortSmith, which, before the war, had been selected on accountof its strength aB a United States military poBt. It was now,hy a field order, re-established aB a post, the eoriimand ofwhich was assigned to General Edwards, aB a mark of ap-proval for his gallantry in capturing it. Commanding ahrigade, he took a valiant part in many of the afiairs foughtin Arkansas, in 1864, including the battles of Prairie d'Anne,Oamden, and Saline river ; in recognition of which he waspromoted hy the president to the rank of brigadier general.

In military administration, as in civil service, he was char-acterized by etern integrity and strict justice, that left noroom for suspicion of a weakness for cotton, which, duringthe rebellion, sullied the escutcheons of so many of our mili-tary commanders. While just to the government he served,it is an evidence of the leniency he accorded the conqueredwho found themselves under martial law as administered byhim, that, at the close of the war, after retiring from thearmy, ha made his home at Fort Smith, Arkansas (a town hehad captured and commanded), where he still resides—secureand respected as an unarmed citizen among those he hadsubdued, where, while surrounded by body-guards and reg-iments, his life was in danger from the cotton-thieves andpeculators he had warned and forbidden.

The war.heing over. President Johnson appointed him arevenue assessor for the district including Fort Smith, whicholEce he relinquished on the accession of the present federaladministration. As before stated, he is Btill a resident ofFort Smith, which forms a part of the third congressionaldistrict of Arkansas, and, true to those instincts of independ-

1870,] PIONEEES OF MAEION COTTNTT. 381

ence and patriotism which have caused him formerly to bedenounced in the place of his nativity, by his fire-eating rela-tives, as an àboHtWîiist, and more recently by the extremistsof the dominant party as a conservative, he is now canvassinghis district as an independent candidate for congress.

In person. General Edwards is of medium size, warm andgenial in manner, with a pleasing cast of features, which, weregret to say, is not well portrayed in the engraving. Hehas a number of children, some of whom are happily marriedand settled in life. It is to his son, E. E.' Edwards, of Char-"iton, Lucas county, and to his son-in-law. Dr. H, H. Maynard,"of Tipton, formerly a surgeon of the eighteenth Iowa, butnow the leading physician of Cedar county, that we are in-debted for most of the facts relating to General Edwards'sprivate life contained in this sketch.

PIONEEES or MAEION OOUUTT.

BY WM. M. DONNELL.

(Continued from page 253.)

CHAPTER Xni.

LIST OF COUNTY TEEASUSJSBS. THE STANFIELD DEFALCATION.

— BOBBEEY OF THE TEEASUEY IN 1867 .

The following is a list of county treasurers from the organ-ization of the county till the present date, —1870 : —

David T. ^Durham, elected September, 1845 ; re-electedAugust, 1846, and served till August, 1847. Isaac Walters/^from August, 1847, to 1849, and re-elected f/om that uutil1851. Claiborn'ilall, 1852 and Iß53. David Stanfield, 1854,1855, 1856, and 1857. William Ellis, 1858, 1859, 1860, and