Iowa as a Literary Field
By Johnson Brigham[ [1]
Literary Iowa in the Nineteenth Century
Late in the last century readers of books awoke to the fact that the world-including, world-inviting prairies of the Mississippi Valley were no longer inarticulate; that in this great "Heart of the World's Heart," among the millions who have been drawn to these prairie states, there are lives as rich—in all that really enriches—as those immortalized in the literature of New England, or of the Pacific slope. It was not to be expected that the westward-moving impulse to create would cease on reaching the Mississippi River.
In Iowa's pioneer days but little original matter found its way into print except contributions to the rough and ready journalism of the period. A few pioneer writers, possessed of the historiographer's instinct, performed a rare service to the young commonwealth by passing on to future generations their first-hand knowledge of the prominent men and events of the first half of the century. Chief among these are Theodore S. Parvin, William Salter, Alexander R. Fulton, Samuel S. Howe and Charles Aldrich. The two last named published several series of "The Annals of Iowa" which remain unfailing reservoirs of information to later historians and students of Iowa history. Iowa Masonry is specially indebted to Professor Parvin for his invaluable contributions to the history of the order in Iowa. Dr. Salter wrote the first notable Iowa biography, that of James W. Grimes, published in 1876. Fulton's "Red Men of Iowa" is as valuable as it is rare, for, though written as late as 1882, it is the first exhaustive attempt to describe the tribes originally inhabiting Iowa.
The war period—1861-5—developed "Iowa in War Times," by S. H. M. Byers, and "Iowa Colonels and Regiments," by A. A. Stuart, also many valuable personal sketches and regimental histories.
Long before the close of the century, the name of Samuel Hawkins Marshall Byers had grown familiar to the people of Iowa, because of the popularity of his song entitled "Sherman's March to the Sea," and because contemporary historians, attracted by its suggestive title, adapted it as especially appropriate for the most dramatic event in the history of the war for the Union.
Major Byers' most lasting contribution to literature is his poem "The March to the Sea," epic in character and interspersed with lyrics of the war. Reading this, one can hear the thrilling bugle call, and "see once again the bivouacs in the wood."
Looking again, one can see the army in motion—
"A sight it was! that sea of army blue,