Muscatine and the Civil War: A Sesquicentennial Commemoration

June 26, 2011 - May 26, 2012

At the onset of the Civil War in 1861 Muscatine men hurried to enlist, sending more men to the conflict than any other county in the state despite the fact that others had much larger populations. That same year, young Shelby Norman of Muscatine was mortally wounded at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, the first Iowan to be killed in action on a Civil War battlefield. The recorded history of the county reports that in the Muscatine area in 1862 "the excitement of war continued unabated. Muscatine’s loyalty was kept up to the front. The empty sleeves, the crutch, the widow’s weeds, grew rapidly in numbers."  Thus begins the story of Muscatine’s involvement in the Civil War.

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