...daughter,—and were living in prosperity on their farm when the war began. In August, 1862, at the age of thirty-six, he enlisted as a private in the Twenty-first Iowa Volunteers (Infantry), Colonel Samuel Merrill . In a subsequent letter, referring to this enlistment (October 17, 1862), he says:— If there had been an abundance of young men in our State ready to enlist, I should undoubtedly have ...