The Indicator

The American Civil War

This issue of Books at Iowa is devoted to the American Civil War. For many reasons, that conflict has long been an area of collecting interest at the University of Iowa Libraries. The Hawkeye state sent a very high percentage of its young men off to fight in the 1861-1865 period. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the politics of Iowa was dominated by veterans and there were frequent regimental reunions. In the early 1950s, the Libraries received the James Wills Bollinger Collection of Lincolniana, a large gathering of books and pamphlets about Abraham Lincoln. As a consequence of receiving that gift, a group of faculty and staff began the scholarly journal entitled Civil War History. These two occurrences, plus the centennial observances in the 1960s, led to the donation to the Libraries of a good many Civil War era manuscript diaries and collections of letters. Such generous gifts have continued up to the present time and the Libraries are now home to numerous manuscripts relating to the War. This richness of resources is of great benefit to researchers.

One of these manuscript collections, the William Titus Rigby Papers, was used extensively in the second article in this issue. The Rigby Papers were donated in two separate installments in 1963 and 1994. The collection, however, tells much more than the story of Captain Rigby in battle. After the War, Rigby returned to Iowa where he was involved in farming and banking. But, in 1895, he was elected secretary of the Vicksburg National Military Park Association and in 1899 he became the Park's resident commissioner. He lived in Mississippi until his death in 1929 and is buried at the Vicksburg National Cemetery. The Rigby papers are important for the history of the Park.