The Civil War generation: military service and mobility in Dubuque, Iowa, 1860-1870.

In mid-1865, the people of Dubuque, Iowa - like people in cities and towns across the North - prepared to welcome home their husbands, sons, brothers, and neighbors who had successfully restored the Union. Outwardly festive, the event may have caused some trepidation since few knew what to expect from the returning veterans. "Great God!" the Iowa Religious Newsletter, a newspaper founded in the city during the war by a group of pro-war ministers, had quoted an army chaplain saying in July 1862. "I tremble at the result of this war, lest tens of thousands of the valiant defenders of our country be turned into men of vile speech and ruined character and then turned loose to curse the country their arms have rescued." The city's primary political newspapers, the Democratic and strongly anti-war Herald and the Republican, pro-war Times, each expressed similar concerns during the war. The Herald's proprietor for the first two years of the war, Dennis Mahony, regularly worried in print about the creation of a "subservient army" of "rapine and plunder" to do Lincoln's bidding and tied it to a more general loss of the "sturdy manliness which [once] characterized the citizen of the United States." For its part, the Times offered this advice to the soldiers: "We would earnestly say to all of our noble hearted volunteers ... [you] may come home maimed for life in body and limb, but do not return with crippled character, and poisoned faculties."(l)

Americans have generally held conflicting opinions about their returning soldiers and their reintegration into society. Focusing on the Civil War, as the Dubuque Times said in July 1865, the soldiers were "returning heroes," fresh from a successful crusade to preserve freedom and democracy from evil tyrants seeking to destroy both. Having passed through the fires of war, moreover, the veterans were thought to emerge composed of sterner stuff, better able to run and win the race of life. In his farewell to his troops, for instance, General William T. Sherman expressed his confidence that "as in war you have been good soldiers, so in peace you will make good citizens." At the same time, however, the nagging doubt remained that, as abolitionist Moncure Conway put it in 1862, "the moralization of the soldier is the demoralization of the man," or, according to an anti-draft pamphlet from Providence, Rhode Island in 1863, "Three years spent in indolence, amid all the corrupting influences of army life, demoralizes the once circumspect and industrious mechanic." Plus, the

soldiers had been taught to kill and maybe even to enjoy it.(2)

Scholars also have expressed a range of opinions on the question of Civil War veterans' reintegration into society, often unsubstantiated by any evidence. Thinking about what Civil War veterans might suggest about the reintegration of World War II veterans, for example, sociologist Willard Waller asserted in the 1940s that Civil War veterans had an easy time adjusting to civilian society, mostly because an open frontier meant they did not have to adjust; they could flee civilian society for something more comparable to their accustomed military lifestyles on the frontier. More recently, James McPherson assumes that the young men who dominated Union Army enlistments could count on the same level of upward mobility as pre-war civilians. Finally, there is this comment from Walter Licht on the impact of the Civil War: "all of [the] fundamental nineteenth-century socioeconomic and demographic developments can be fully described and analyzed without mention of the Civil War."(3)

These analyses leave many unanswered questions. What is the evidence that Civil War veterans were significantly more geographically mobile - which Waller's argument implies - after their service than their non-veteran peers? Indeed, was life on the open frontier really the life for which Civil War military service prepared men? Similarly, is there any evidence that Civil War veterans could expect the same upward mobility as non-veterans? One searches the historiography in vain for answers to these questions. Despite numerous studies of geographic and social mobility during the nineteenth century, not one has considered veteran status as a characteristic with as much potential to influence mobility patterns as occupation, property ownership, nativity, age, or any other factor.(4) Some of this neglect can be tied to a larger pattern identified during the 1980s of social historians' disinterest in topics tainted by militarism.(5) With the problem identified, an outpouring of articles and monographs on the "social history of the Civil War" followed, but still veterans have been largely omitted from this literature. As one example, the military experiences of common soldiers in the Civil War have been the subject of no fewer than six significant monographs since 1987, while for veterans the number is one.(6) Thus, it would be more accurate to argue that nineteenth-century socioeconomic and demographic changes have been described without the Civil War, mostly because no one has made the effort.

This essay offers a beginning of this effort, analyzing the geographic and social mobility of Union Army veterans from Dubuque and comparing them to the city's non-veterans. Their experiences in the Union Army changed Dubuque's soldiers, though not in the ways generally thought. The veterans were more, not less geographically rooted; they were also more occupationally stable, experiencing neither great upward nor great downward mobility. The reasons for this are complex and can be only briefly sketched here, but they involve seeing military service not as a great break with civilian life but rather as a form of urban-industrial society. Meanwhile, Dubuque itself changed during the soldiers' absence, becoming more urban and industrial. The returning veterans thus found in post-war Dubuque a society in which they could cope, though not necessarily excel.(7)

Originally founded as a lead-mining community in the 1830s, Dubuque experienced a period of tremendous commercial and population growth during the 1850s, emerging by 1857 as the largest city on the Mississippi River north of St. Louis. It was, locals said, the "Key City" for trade in the upper-Midwest, destined "to absorb - to swallow up - all the other cities of the Upper Mississippi." The Panic of 1857 then came as a rude shock to the city, exposing the fragility of its commercial capitalist economy and causing many to rethink the city's commitment to commerce as the basis of its greatness. Before the Panic, an 1856 city directory had assured its readers that "The growth of cities depends upon their commerce; and commerce centers on those points dictated by nature," such as Dubuque. But in the wake of the Panic the Dubuque Times concluded that "It does not require a very profound study of the principles of political economy to see that it is from what a community produces, rather than from that which it buys and sells, that it is to derive its wealth and consequent importance."(8)

The Civil War decade witnessed the beginnings of Dubuque's growth into an important manufacturing city. The 1860 Census ranked the 102 cities in the United States with populations over 10,000 according to their manufacturing output. With a population of 13,000, Dubuque was the 80th largest city in the country in 1860 and ranked 93rd in manufacturing. By the time the 1880 census compiled a similar ranking of cities, Dubuque was the 70th largest manufacturing center in the country despite slipping to 81st in population. Other cities experienced a similar shift to an industrial economy in the years 1860-1880; Dubuque's gain of twenty-three manufacturing places, for instance, compared favorably with Detroit's gain of twenty-seven. Dubuque, in other words, was one of many cities reaching the developmental crossroads between commercial and industrial economies on the eve of the Civil War. This context needs to be borne in mind when assessing the impact of military service on geographic and social mobility.(9)

Accompanying the economic changes in Dubuque were social changes no less pronounced. Observers of Dubuque society before the Panic had remarked that, despite an ethnically heterogeneous population, a certain social harmony prevailed in the city. "All nations, races, and climates are consolidated in this stupendous land ark of civilization ... [nevertheless] Dubuque is an orderly and quiet city" was how one visitor put it. With the coming of the Panic, however, commentators began noticing holes in the local social fabric. Elements singled out included: the Democratic party's control of city and county government; increasing immigrant, especially Irish, influence in the Democratic party; corruption in municipal government; a large city debt; control of local development corporations by "Wall street vultures; "fashionable" women who "laid the axe at the root of the tree of domestic virtue;" and "the inordinate love of gain, so rife in the land."(10)

Three developments to which such commentators directed attention hold particular significance for the analysis of military service and post-war mobility. The first stems from the volatility of the city's population. Dubuque's population increased by nearly 10,000 during the 1850s, from 3,108 in 1850 to 13,000 in 1860; further, this net population change hides considerable amounts of gross population movement. If anything, from the perspective of local commentators the situation worsened during the 1860s. The city's population reached 22,589 by 1867, before setting back to 19,849 in 1870. Some saw this mobility as a problem. "We are becoming emphatically a nomadic race," an editor at the Northwestern Farmer, a local agricultural monthly, argued in 1860. This editor then concluded that "our social system is breaking up" as a result. "No people can be a wandering, and at the same time a civilized, intelligent and virtuous people." (11)

A perceived decline in the local work ethic became a second area of concern. In a representative comment, a female contributor to the Northwestern Farmer wondered when "labor" had come to be "looked upon as degrading." "Where," she lamented, "is the vital energy, the vigor, and strength of mind, that the generation before us possessed? Are not the wan features of the Dyspeptic and the Consumptive a strong evidence that they have departed with the simple and industrious habits of our forefathers?" A contributor to the Times added that "if we mean to prosper again, we must pull off our coats and go to work; dispense with unnecessary help; do away with luxury; closely watch our business; till the earth and explore the mines."(12)

But although excessive geographic mobility and a decline in the work ethic evoked much comment, concerns about the habits and morals of the city's boys and young men dominated public expressions of social concern. Despite strong political differences, the city's newspapers agreed on this issue and developed a catalogue of sins. These included behavior such as smoking, chewing tobacco, swearing, drinking, playing billiards, and throwing stones and snowballs at passersby, as well as actual crimes like arson, larceny, and assault. To emphasize the lack of public support for the policies of the city government in late-1858, for example, the Express & Herald asserted that supporters seemed "about as scarce as boys of twelve who don't smoke, swear, and chew tobacco." An assistant editor at the Times found it "painful ... to witness the gradual demoralization going forward among youths of our fair city." Moreover, these were "not the miserable 'brats' from the haunts of vice and iniquity, but the hopeful sons of our bankers, merchants, professional men, christian [sic] men, respectable men in every way." The Express & Herald explored the implications of this, arguing "The hopes of our country are centered in the young men of the nation. If they grow up depraved, vicious and ignorant," as the youth of Dubuque seemed to be, "they will give their character to society and to government."(13)

Then came the Civil War. For some commentators, military service seemed to offer just the solution to the "unrestrained independence" critics noted among the city's young men and boys. The Democratic Herald's (formerly Express & Herald) opposition to the war seems to have precluded it from endorsing military service as a positive influence, but the city's pro-war publications more than made up the slack. The Times and the Iowa Religious Newsletter regularly stressed "the wholesome restraints of military discipline" and asserted the value of the army in teaching "systematic habits," "the delights of hard work," "obedience," and "Puritan discipline." The Times even promoted the establishment of a local military academy to spread the benefits of military discipline to those too young or not inclined to join the army. In sum, the paper argued in the last year of the war, "we believe that our soldiers, after the war will be among the most law-abiding, moral, and honest citizens of the land."(14)

Nevertheless, doubt remained. What if military service further reinforced the tendency to geographic mobility and the decline in the work ethic among the young men who made up a large portion of the city's soldiers? The Iowa Religious Newsletter perhaps expressed the concern most succinctly. In February 1864, the Newsletter wondered whether the constant movement of military service might not actually increase the soldiers' rootlessness, making them "accustomed to a moving and irregular life" and leading them to prefer "a nomadic life." Somewhat later, reflecting other concerns about the soldiers, the Newsletter decided that if the soldiers were to prefer a wandering life on the open frontier it might not be such a bad thing. If veterans stayed in cities and towns, unless doors of employment opened for them the Newsletter thought it likely that they would fall "to idle ways and whisky-shop temptations."(15)

Before assessing whether the veterans lived up to the hopes or down to the fears of the civilians, it is first necessary to consider briefly who served in the Union Army from Dubuque. A list of 1,321 soldiers from the city has been compiled using various sources; these 1,321 men have been traced into the 1860 census yielding a group of 595 who lived in the city in that year.(16) A detailed analysis of who enlisted from Dubuque is beyond the scope of this essay, but several characteristics of the group of 595 soldiers found in the 1860 census should be noted, to introduce both the soldiers and the framework for the analysis of their mobility. Before proceeding, however, it is important to note that all of Dubuque's soldiers were volunteers. Despite the presence of an out-spoken antiwar group (perhaps a majority of the population), the city filled its enlistment quotas without being drafted. The draft came closest in late-1864, but quick action by some leading citizens to establish a county-wide bounty (enlistment bonus) of $400 averted it for the city, though not for portions of the county. At the same time, the threat of the draft undoubtedly influenced many to volunteer, and a handful of the city's wealthier men paid the commutation fee ($300) or hired substitutes without waiting for an actual draft.(17)

To analyze the civilian status of the soldiers, the city population was separated into two broad classes: a business class and a working class. Within each class, two subgroups were defined: high and low nonmanual in the former; artisan and unskilled in the latter. Farmers, whose occupation combined elements of both classes, were held outside the two classes; farm laborers, however, were included in the working class as unskilled.(18)

In terms of this model, men from low-nonmanual and working-class backgrounds dominated enlistments from the city (Table 1). Although less than one-fifth of the population of military-aged males (defined as those age 12 and over), men with low-nonmanual occupations before the war comprised just over one-quarter of Dubuque's soldiers. For the working class, men with both artisan and unskilled occupations initially appear somewhat underrepresented among the volunteers. But taking geographic mobility into account that underrepresentation disappears. In tracing the larger group of 1,321 Dubuque soldiers into the census, those giving working-class occupations when they enlisted (enlistment papers included a space for civilian occupation) were significantly less likely to be found in the census than those with business-class occupations, 48.7 percent found versus 58.1 percent; this difference held for both the "higher" and "lower" portion of each class. Further, indications from the larger group of 1,321 suggest that as many as three-quarters of Dubuque's soldiers were working-class men.(19)

Table 1

Occupations, Property Ownership, and Ages All Soldiers Found in
the Census Compared to Military-Aged Males

SOLDIERS                          percent      Average
found in 1860(a)                  without      Property     Average
                           n      <blank>      (dollars)      Age

BUSINESS CLASS             179       32.0      2,567.46        27.3

High Nonmanual              36        6.4      7,672.22        33.6
Low Nonmanual              143       25.6      1,282.34        25.7

WORKING CLASS              349       62.4        275.37        27.3

Artisan                    159       28.4        516.60        28.0
Unskilled                  190       34.0         73.50        26.8

OTHER

Farmers                     30        5.4         62.50        17.7
Unclassifiable(b)            1         .2          0.00        33.0
<blank>/"none"              36          -        352.78        18.4

TOTALS                     595                   958.41        26.3

DUBUQUE                           percent      Average
in 1860                           without      Property     Average
                           n      <blank>      (dollars)      Age

BUSINESS CLASS            1078       28.4      4,724.83        34.1

High Nonmanual             315        8.3      9,935.71        36.7
Low Nonmanual              763       20.1      2,573.55        32.9

WORKING CLASS             2594       68.4        439.58        33.2

Artisan                   1132       29.8        755.73        33.1
Unskilled                 1462       38.5        194.79        33.3

OTHER

Farmers                    113        3.0      5,038.70        41.2
Unclassifiable               9        0.2      3,908.33        33.2
<blank>/"none"             849          -        469.26        22.2
                         4,643                 1,558.60        31.6

a This Table uses the soldiers' occupations from the 1860 Census,
except where a soldier had no occupation listed (n = 138). In that
case, it substitutes the soldier's occupation from his service
record, if one was included. All ages come from the 1860 Census.

b "Unclassifiable" occupations mostly contain illegible information
but also titles like inventor, convict, benefactory, and "sick."

Even clearer results emerge from the data on property ownership. In every occupational category, soldiers owned less property than men who did not enlist. But, it might be objected, the soldiers were young men, on average 3 to 8 years younger than non-soldiers; many still lived in their parents' household. Other analyses of Civil War soldiers from particular communities have routinely resolved this problem by substituting parental data for the personal data of soldiers living with their parents in 1860, but without similarly substituting parental data for sons who did not enlist. In other words, they assume all soldiers will minimally attain their parents' status, but all non-soldiers (apparently) will not.(20)

A better approach is to divide both the civilian and soldier populations into two groups - the "independent" (including men with families and single men living on their own) and "soldier-sons" (those living in their parents' household in 1860). Doing so for Dubuque yields the result that, bearing in mind differences in geographic mobility, Dubuque's soldiers came largely from among independent working-class men and the sons of the lower (low nonmanual) portion of the business class and the upper (artisan) portion of the working class (Tables 2 and 3). The independent soldiers in nearly every occupational category (excepting only those with no occupation available), moreover, owned less property than independent men in the city as a whole. For sons the pattern is more mixed. On average soldier-sons from low nonmanual, artisan, and farm backgrounds came from moderately more prosperous families while less prosperous high nonmanual and unskilled families gave their sons to the army.

These patterns can be related to pre-war family strategies in Dubuque. During the late-1850s, business-class families generally supported their children in extended periods of education and training, though sons in low-nonmanual families were more likely than those from high-nonmanual to have jobs of their own in 1860. Among the working class, sons from artisan families apparently took jobs and left home sooner than those from unskilled families; artisan families had fewer children living at home than any other subgroup. Because of the uncertainty of unskilled employment, unskilled families needed more than one (potential) wage-earner and so kept sons home longer; artisan employment was more stable, removing the need for multiple wage-earners. In other words, viewing military service as a job, the men who enlisted were low-nonmanual sons (who generally took jobs before leaving home), artisan sons (who took jobs as part of their transition out of their parents' home), and the primary wage-earner (fathers) from unskilled families.(21)

In sum, Dubuque's soldiers came from precisely the groups which had caused concern and consternation before the war. As evinced by their low persistence rate before enlisting, the soldiers originated among some of the least settled elements of the city; this fact is further reinforced by noting that over two-fifths of the soldiers found in the 1860 census enlisted during the first year of the war (253 of 595) and fully three-quarters (447) enlisted in the years 1861-1863.(22) The soldiers also came from among the city's younger men, with a number coming from "respectable" families. Did military service further reinforce their pre-war tendencies? By no means. An analysis of mobility in Dubuque during the 1860s suggests that, in fact, the city's veterans were among its most stable citizens after the war.

Table 2

Soldiers Found in the Census Living on Their Own Compared to
Similar Military-Aged Males in the City

Independent                       percent      Average
Soldiers(a)                       without      Property     Average
                           n      <blank>      (dollars)      Age

BUSINESS CLASS             119       32.9      3,687.18        32.2

High Nonmanual              34        9.4      8,123.53        34.4
Low Nonmanual               85       23.5      1,912.65        31.3

WORKING CLASS              237       65.5        389.43        31.2

Artisan                    114       31.5        702.54        31.7
Unskilled                  123       34.0         96.06        30.8

OTHER

Farmers                      5        1.4        290.00        26.4
Unclassifiable               1        0.3          0.00        33.0
<blank>/"none"               9          -      1,416.67        30.1

TOTALS                     371                 1,468.68        31.5

Comparable                        percent      Average
Census Males(b)                   without      Property     Average
                           n      <blank>      (dollars)      Age

BUSINESS CLASS             976       28.9      5,191.88        35.4

High Nonmanual             301        8.9     10,395.52        37.4
Low Nonmanual              675       20.0      2,871.44        34.6

WORKING CLASS             2290       67.8        494.40        34.9

Artisan                   1043       30.9        819.45        34.1
Unskilled                 1247       36.9        222.52        35.5

OTHER

Farmers                    104        3.1      5,474.74        42.7
Unclassifiable               8        0.2      4,356.25        34.4
<blank>/"none"             312          -      1,275.32        35.2

TOTALS                    3690                 1,951.64        35.3

a All data in this part of the table are the soldiers' personal
data. If the soldier had no occupation listed in the census, the
occupation from his service record(if any) is substituted.

b The group of Military-Aged Census Males here excludes sons living
in a household headed by a parent or parents. Sons living as
boarders along with their parent(s) in someone else's household are
included here, though among the soldiers such sons are placed in the
"Son" group; the construction of the data did not allow their
exclusion.
Table 3

Soldiers Found in 1860 Living with Their Parents Compared to All
Military-Aged Sons Living with Their Parents

Soldiers Living                   percent      Average
with Parents(a)                   without      Property     Average
                           n      <blank>      (dollars)      Age

BUSINESS CLASS              64       35.8      9,362.50        17.1

High Nonmanual              15        8.4     17,866.67        17.9
Low Nonmanual               49       27.4      6,759.18        16.9

WORKING CLASS              102       57.0        987.89        16.8

Artisan                     48       26.8      1,688.85        16.3
Unskilled                   54       30.2        364.81        17.4

OTHER

Farmers                     13        7.3      8,860.00        19.0
Unclassifiable               0
<blank>"none"               45          -      2,558.33        20.6

TOTALS                     224                 4,152.99        17.8

Military-Aged
Sons Living                       percent      Average
with Parents(b)                   without      Property
                           n      <blank>      (dollars)

BUSINESS CLASS             246       30.0     13,466.77

High Nonmanual              83       10.1     27,580.12
Low Nonmanual              163       19.9      6,280.21

WORKING CLASS              501       61.0        992.43

Artisan                    189       23.0      1,678.54
Unskilled                  312       38.0        576.79

OTHER

Farmers                     72        8.8      7,733.79
Unclassifiable               2        0.2        250.00
<blank>/"none"             246          -      1,928.46

TOTALS                    1067                 4,537.73

a Data on occupations and property are those of the soldiers'
parents. Ages are the soldiers' ages in 1860.

b Data in this part of the Table also come from the parents (except
"n" which is the number of military-aged sons living with parents in
the city). The fathers' data are used, if available; otherwise data
are from mothers. For parents of more than one military-aged son,
their data are added once for each son. Average ages for military-
aged sons in the city could not be computed.

Turning to the soldiers' mobility between 1860 and 1870, the first question is Willard Waller's - were veterans more geographically mobile than non-veterans? The Dubuque data reveal that the answer is no; veterans demonstrated much less geographic mobility than non-veterans (Table 4). Excluding the 62 soldiers who died in the army, 275 veterans, or over 50 percent of the survivors, returned to Dubuque and were living in the city in 1870, compared to a persistence rate of 42 percent for non-veterans.(23) That higher rate of persistence, moreover, held regardless of particular characteristics. Considering occupations and ages in 1860 and nativities, the veterans in every subgroup, excepting only Farmers and persons born in Slave States and "miscellaneous" places, persisted at a higher rate than non-soldiers. Interestingly, working-class soldiers, who had been less likely than business-class soldiers to be found in the 1860 census (that is, they were less geographically stable before enlisting), persisted at the highest rate - higher than business-class soldiers, and higher than business-class or working-class nonsoldiers. In terms of age, one interesting pattern is that the oldest veterans (age 61 and over in 1860) persisted at a rate twice that of comparable non-soldiers; given the prevalence of debilitating disease in the Union Army, one might have expected greater attrition between separation from the army and 1870. More significantly, however, the veterans in every age group showed greater persistence than the non-veterans. The youngest veterans, in particular, persisted at a much higher rate than the youngest non-soldiers; up to age 30, soldiers persisted at a rate between 15 and 18 percent greater than non-soldiers.

To establish the link between military service and the veterans' persistence more firmly, Dubuque's veterans can be compared with those most like them in terms of pre-war economic background and most likely to share their pre-service values, beliefs, and attitudes - namely, their fathers, brothers, and sons. Combining the "independent" and "sons" groups defined earlier, 155 of the veteran-persisters shared households with male family members totaling 319 in the 1860 census. In 1870, while all 155 soldiers still lived in Dubuque (by definition as persisters), only 199, or 62.4 percent, of their male family members had persisted. In other words, the soldiers' closest relatives persisted at a rate over one-third less than the soldiers themselves. Miner Reuben Styles, for example, had four sons, ages 25, 22, 17, and 15; two of the sons, Edwin, age 22, and Alonzo, the 15-year-old, enlisted in the Union Army. In 1870, Reuben, Edwin, and Alonzo remained in Dubuque; the other two sons had left. Day laborer Joseph Lambert had five sons in 1860, ages 25, 20, 9, 5, and 2. Twenty-year-old John Lambert was the only member of the family to enlist, and he was the only member of the family living in Dubuque in 1870.(24)

Why were Dubuque's soldiers so much more rooted than its non-soldiers? The most tangible explanation comes from the soldiers' letters and diaries, in their longings for home and their disgust with the "semi-civilized" even "barbarous" South. Historians of social mobility conclude that geographic mobility was often a response to a lack of social mobility; or, phrased another way, property ownership often determined whether an individual persisted from one census year to the next. The comparative social mobility of Dubuque's veteran and non-veteran persisters will be detailed shortly, but for now one should simply note that while non-veteran Dubuquers might have been inclined to respond to ill fortune by trying their luck elsewhere, Dubuque's veterans had seen "elsewhere" and found it wanting. In his prisoner-of-war diary, for example, Dubuque's Luther W. Jackson noted his observation that even for whites Southern society represented a mere "Burlesque on Freedom" and concluded that Southerners themselves were "Philistines," "Heathens," and "the most ignorant and conceited set of people on the face of the globe." In sum, Jackson thought, "give me old Iowa thank God she is Free."(25)

Table 4

Decadal Persistence Rates, 1860-1870(a)

                              MALE NON-SOLDIERS    SOLDIERS FROM 1860
                                  Found 1870          Found 1870
                                 n          %         n           %

TOTAL                           2753      42.0       275        51.6

OCCUPATIONS
BUSINESS CLASS                   395      42.6        69        49.6

High Nonmanual                   132      47.1        19        55.9
Low Nonmanual                    263      40.6        50        47.6

WORKING CLASS                    910      39.7       137        51.9

Artisan                          428      42.9        64        52.9
Unskilled                        482      37.2        73        51.0

OTHER

Farmers                           61      55.5         1        50.0
Unclassifiable                     3      37.5         1       100.0
<blank>/"none"                  1384      43.1        67        53.2

NATIVITIES

Iowa                             941      48.5        29        49.2
Midwest U.S.                     160      33.9        29        50.9
Eastern U.S.                     351      35.9        65        43.0
Slave States                     109      39.8        12        37.5
Ireland                          405      41.2        28        52.8
German States                    400      40.5        66        67.3
British Empire                   169      41.4        23        50.0
other Europe                     208      45.1        22        62.9
Miscellaneous                      3      14.3         0         0.0
missing data                       7      38.9         1       100.0

AGES IN 1860

0-11                            1129      45.3         5        62.5
12-20                            280      35.5        97        53.0
21-24                            100      29.2        42        47.7
25-30                            338      36.5        48        51.6
31-45                            645      45.4        66        49.6
46-60                            225      48.4        14        60.9
61 and over                       35      30.4         3        60.0
missing data                       1      50.0

a The data in this Table come from the individuals' personal (not
parental) data from the 1860 census. The soldiers' data exclude 62
soldiers found in the 1860 census who died in the military (hence,
1860 total n = 533 for soldiers; for male non-soldiers 1860 total
n = 6552).

Jackson died before he could see "old Iowa" again, but he was not alone among Dubuque's soldiers in his views of the South. Henry W. Pettit, for instance, found it to be "the most God forsaken, miserable country on [God's] footstool. It is no more to be compared to Iowa than the Desert of Sahara is to the Garden of Eden." A letter writer in the 1st Iowa Cavalry concluded that "in short, Texas has been very much overrated. I see nothing to induce a man to leave his home and friends in the North and settle here." What Solon Langworthy saw was no evidence that schools or places of worship had "ever existed" in Moscow, Tennessee and in the South more generally. As for the Southern people, "Sigma," in the 21st Iowa Infantry, found them "ignorant, lazy, [and] impudent" with "the women ..., if possible, more degraded than the men." And to C.B. in the 8th Iowa Cavalry, "the people, at least those whom I have seen, are a slabsided, cadaverous, stoop-shouldered, ignorant race, living mostly in log houses."(26)

To some extent this negativity derived from being at war with the South and with Southern society. After the train on which his regiment was traveling was shot at near Colliersville, Tennessee, a member of the 46th Iowa Infantry admitted that "we did not feel in a very [good] temper towards the inhabitants." That feeling was undoubtedly stronger in regiments which saw more active service than the 46th, a regiment formed in 1864 to do garrison duty for 100 days. But the soldiers' experience of the South - and of the West, since some Dubuquers fought there as well - seems to have led many soldiers to conclude that, whatever its faults, there were few places more attractive than Iowa to live. Nor were Dubuque's soldiers unique in this. Letters and diaries from other soldiers, North and South, reveal similar assessments of the other section and its people.(27)

Furthermore, Dubuque's soldiers left for the war amid popular acclaim that they were fighting to protect their homes, communities, and indeed the whole Northern way of life. Other scholars have noted the extent to which thoughts of "home" helped to sustain the soldiers during their service. This surely helped generate a greater sense of attachment to a particular place, perhaps precluding the moves to cities and other shorter moves that were in fact more common forms of geographic mobility in the nineteenth century than moves to the "frontier" (broadly defined). On the other hand, military service itself was a form of geographic mobility. During its three years of service, for example, the 16th Iowa Infantry traveled 5186 miles by land (foot and rail) and 3332 on water, for a total of 8518 miles. The 9th and 27th Iowa Infantries covered over 10,000 miles during their service; the 27th visited ten states, from as far north as 150 miles above St. Paul, Minnesota and south to the Gulf of Mexico. Thus, contrary to their contemporaries and Willard Waller's assertions that military service may have bred a wanderlust in the soldiers, it seems just as likely to have had the opposite effect - to have purged the soldiers of any desires to move. As Dubuque's Luther Jackson put it, "I feel today as though if I were only with my wife, I would never leave home again."(28)

Scholars of geographic mobility, however, have generally found a direct relationship between upward social mobility and persistence or, in other words, that social mobility is the key to geographic persistence. Hence perhaps Dubuque's soldiers persisted at a higher rate because they experienced a higher rate of upward mobility than non-soldiers. Reasons for supposing soldiers might have been upwardly mobile are many. First, there is the view that military service prepared soldiers for life. As the Times argued in 1864, "the wholesome restraints of military discipline" taught "the value of system and order" as well as "new ideas of neatness, precision, and order"; "such a life," the paper concluded, "cannot fail to have a good influence." Then, as James McPherson argues, young men just starting out on their careers made up a large portion of the soldiers. Upward mobility for many might be anticipated, especially when one adds the often expressed "debt of gratitude" which civilians owed to the soldiers. This debt, many agreed, "should find more practical and earnest expression than that of mere words." To the Times, for example, "whenever an office exists, the duties of which can be discharged by one of our crippled officers or privates, that office, of right, belongs to the soldier." "Patriotic manufacturers, merchants, farmers, and others, should make it a point to employ soldiers in preference to other applicants for situations," the paper asserted on another occasion.(29)

Nevertheless, Dubuque's veteran-persisters in the decade of the 1860s are remarkable for their lack of social mobility. They experienced neither great upward nor great downward mobility compared to their non-veteran peers. They were, in a word, stable.

Before analyzing mobility patterns, however, a few words should be said about the changes in Dubuque itself during the 1860s. Most importantly for the analysis here, the balance between the upper and lower portions of both the business and working classes shifted over the decade. Although each class accounted for roughly the same percentage of the population, more of the business class was engaged in low nonmanual pursuits, and more of the working class held artisan job titles in 1870 than in 1860.30 This reflected the city's evolution from a commercial capitalist toward a manufacturing economy during the 1860s, as well as the incompleteness of that transformation by 1870. In the business class, the loss of status among the city's merchants accounts for much of the shift. Of the fifty merchants who persisted from 1860 to 1870, for example, forty-six (92 percent) had slipped from high nonmanual to low nonmanual occupations.(31) Overall, the number of "merchants" declined from 123 to nineteen, while the number of"manufacturers" - who would replace merchants in the highest occupational category - rose only from twenty-nine to fifty-six. The shift within the working class is also consistent with the change from a commercial to a manufacturing economy. As historian Steven Ross argues, the "factory artisan" was an important transitional figure in the history of industrialization in the United States. Though they might still use artisanal titles such as wagonmaker, cabinetmaker, shoemaker, etc., factory artisans lacked the range of skills associated with traditional artisanship; they were, to use Ross' term, "particularists," highly skilled in a particular part of the production process and performing it over and over. Factory artisans, moreover, had lost much of the artisans' traditional control over the work process - how much to produce, how fast, and of what quality - to employers and managers.(32) For consistency, however, the term "artisan" will continue to be used here to describe the upper portion of the working class in Dubuque.

To analyze the social mobility of the 275 veteran-persisters, it is necessary to separate their data - as well as the data for non-veteran persisters - into the two groups used earlier to analyze enlistments, soldier-sons and independent soldiers. Since no veteran found in 1870 was under the age of 18, that age is used to define the lower boundary for the inclusion of non-veterans in this analysis. Further classifying the data yields four sub-groups of interest: those who lived with their parents or independent of their parents in both census years, and those who changed status from "son" to "independent" or vice versa.

The sub-group of soldiers changing status from independent to sons were too few in number to make analyzing them in detail meaningful. Only two veterans and seven non-veterans moved back to their parents' household between 1860 and 1870; both veterans and one non-veteran made the move after the death of their fathers. None of these nine individuals showed much social mobility during the decade. Both veterans were unskilled workers in 1870, with one having slipped from his status as an artisan in 1860. The veterans' mothers owned an average of $1.100 total property in 1870, after the veterans themselves had owned nothing in 1860. In comparison, four of the non-veterans were working class in each census year, with one artisan and three unskilled in 1860 and all four unskilled in 1870. The property owned by these working-class families remained unchanged at an average of $825; in fact, however, this actually represented a decline in status since the dividing line between the top and bottom 50 percent of property owners increased from $500 to $1,000 between 1860 and 1870.(33)

More numerous and analytically significant were soldiers and non-soldiers who lived with their parents in both census years. The most noticeable thing about these families is that those with sons who were veterans of the Union Army lost ground compared to those who had no veteran sons (Table 5). In terms of occupational status and property accumulation, the soldiers' families had been ahead of the non-soldiers' families in 1860, but the parents of soldiers showed greater downward occupational mobility and failed to increase their property ownership during the decade relative to other parents.(34) Why this should have been so remains unclear. For one thing, one suspects that age has something to do with these patterns. The parents of soldiers may have been older and hence more advanced in their careers and property accumulation in 1860 than the parents of non-soldiers. By 1870, in this hypothesis, the situation would have been reversed, with parents of soldiers beginning to decline with age, or perhaps fathers having died creating a female-headed household, while the parents of non-soldiers were reaching their career peaks. Although the configuration of the data allows little more than speculation on this point, it can at least be concluded that these soldier-sons often returned to families who needed their support.(35)

Table 5

Persisters: Occupational Mobility and Property Accumulation "Sons"
from 1860 still Living with Parents in 1870(a)

1860 DATA (from Parents, where n = # of sons)

                   NON-SOLDIERS   SOLDIER.SONS
                         Average          Average
                         Property         Property     prop
                    n    (dollars)    n   (dollars)   ratio(b)

BUSINESS CLASS     123   14,905.69   14   17,678.57    118.6

High Nonmanual      50   23,979.00    5   22,280.00     92.9
Low Nonmanual       73    8,691.10    9   15,122.22    174.0
WORKING CLASS      220    1,650.95   18      701.39     42.5

Artisan             89    2,845.90   11    1,081.82     38.0
Unskilled          131      839.12    7      103.57     12.3

OTHER

Farmers             24    8,988.46    2   25,750.00    286.5
Unclassifiable       2      500.00    0
<blank>/"none"      33    4,310.61    4   12,900.00    299.3

TOTALS             402    6,357.17   38    9,558.55    150.4

1870 DATA (from Parents, where n = # of sons)

BUSINESS CLASS     113   25,684.51   14   19,721.43     76.8

High Nonmanual      30   23,296.67    1    6,500.00     27.9
Low Nonmanual       83   26,547.59   13   20,738.46     78.1

WORKING CLASS      254    4,904.53   22    3,977.27     81.1

Artisan             92    6,238.04   10    2,250.00     36.1
Unskilled          162    4,147.22   12    5,416.67    130.6

OTHER

Farmers             34   15,027.94    2    8,150.00     54.2
Unclassifiable       0                0
<blank>/"none"       1      600.00    0

TOTALS             402   11,591.17   38    9,997.37     86.2

a Non-soldiers are limited to males age 18 and over in 1870 (because
no soldier younger than age 18 was found in the 1870 census).
Subsequent Tables will also use age 18 to define the 1870
population.

b Property ratio = soldier parents' avg./non-soldier parents' avg.

Compared to the previous sub-group, a larger group of soldier-sons from 1860 were found living independently in 1870. Before discussing their social mobility, however, these men suggest something else interesting about the geographic mobility of sons in Dubuque. Whereas 38 soldier-sons and 402 non-soldier sons over the age of 18 continued to live with their parents in 1870, 64 soldier-sons and a relatively small 183 non-soldier sons had left their parents' household and were found living independently in 1870. These numbers represent persistence rates of 52.3 percent for surviving soldier-sons and 43.9 percent for non-soldier sons.(36) In other words, when non-soldier sons in Dubuque left home they tended also to leave town. while the veteran soldier-sons stayed. At the same time, with 62.7 percent of persisting soldier-sons leaving their parents' home compared to just 31.3 percent of non-soldiers, military service seems to have increased the veterans' desire to break free from parental restraints. It also seems to have stimulated their desire to form their own families: 81.2 percent of the soldiers compared to 61.7 percent of the non-soldiers in this sub-group had started families by 1870.(37)

In terms of occupational mobility, the soldier-sons who left their parents' household during the decade showed a greater tendency than similar non-soldiers to hold the same occupational status in 1870 as their parents had in 1860, with the exception of those from high nonmanual backgrounds (Table 6). They had, in other words, matched but not exceeded their parents' status. The non-soldier sons, in contrast, showed greater amounts of both upward and downward mobility. Looking, for example, at those from 1860 low-nonmanual backgrounds, no sons in this sub-group managed to exceed their parents' status, but a larger portion of the non-soldier sons than soldier-sons had skidded into the working class (60.9 vs. 53.9 percent). Among those with unskilled backgrounds, on the other hand, a larger portion of the non-soldiers had climbed into the business class, while the most realistic aspiration for soldier-sons from such backgrounds was an artisan position. In general, then, the veterans found class boundaries more impermeable than the non-veterans did.

A similar pattern emerges from property ownership in this sub-group (Table 7). Few sons, regardless of family background, military service, or personal occupation, managed to accumulate more property by 1870 than their parents had owned in 1860. The only exceptions were the low-nonmanual and unskilled non-soldiers, and, more modestly, artisan veterans. In general, in most occupational categories the non-soldiers' families had been ahead in 1860, and the non-soldiers remained ahead in 1870. In this case there were two exceptions. Low-nonmanual families producing soldiers had, in fact, been ahead of those not producing soldiers in 1860, but by 1870 veterans with low-nonmanual occupations had fallen behind non-veterans with similar occupations. Among farmers, the families producing soldiers had been ahead in 1860, and the veterans remained ahead in 1870, though by a much smaller margin.

The three sub-groups thus far described - the sub-groups which involved individuals as subordinate family members in one or both census years - an be analyzed further in terms of the family strategies outlined earlier. Before the war, sons from business-class families generally lived at home longer than sons from working-class families and received advantages in education and training. With the coming of the war, most high-nonmanual parents shielded their sons from military service. This appears to have been the more successful strategy, since in the few cases where high-nonmanual sons did volunteer, the veterans or their families fell further behind the non-veterans and their families during the decade. Among low-nonmanual families, a larger proportion of their sons enlisted, perhaps because these families viewed military service as another opportunity for education and training; the possibility of being drafted may also have been an issue, but, as noted earlier, a draft was never held in Dubuque, and the threat of one only became very serious in late-1864 - well after most of these men had enlisted. The results were mixed. The soldier-sons who had left their parents' low-nonmanual household by 1870 showed greater stability of occupation than their non-soldier counterparts. On the other hand, the non-soldiers accumulated more property during the decade, and the families of those who did not leave home forged ahead of the families with returning veteran-sons.

Table 6

Persisters: Occupational Mobility "Sons" in 1860, but "Independent"
in 1870(a)

(Row Percentages)

PARENTS'             SONS' 1870 OCCUPATIONS
1860          High   Low                            row
OCCUPATIONS   NM     NM    Artsn   Unsk.   Farmer   n

High Nonm.
Non-Vet.      20.0   50.0   10.0   20.0              10
Veteran              66.7                   33.3      3
Low Nonm.
Non-Vet.             39.1   34.8   26.1              23
Veteran              46.2   46.2    7.7              13
Artisan
Non-Vet.       4.0   24.1   48.0   20.0      4.0     25
Veteran              27.8   55.6   11.1      5.6     18
Unskilled
Non-Vet.       2.8   18.3   26.8   46.5      5.6     71
Veteran              11.8   41.2   47.1              17
Farmers
Non-Vet.             26.3   26.3   15.8     31.6     19
Veteran              50.0                   50.0      2
<blank>
Non-Vet.             28.6   34.3   31.4      5.7     35
Veteran              36.4    9.1   54.5              11
TOTAL
Non-Vet.       2.7   26.2   31.1   32.8      7.1    183
Veteran              31.3   37.5   26.6      4.7     64

a See Table 5 for note on ages.

Among the working class, artisan and unskilled families had pursued different strategies before the war. Sons from artisan families usually left home at a younger age, going to work and starting families. Military enlistments from artisan families followed the same pattern - sons from artisan families were overrepresented in Union Army enlistments from Dubuque. For the individual artisan sons, enlistment seems to have helped their careers modestly. Compared to similar non-soldier sons, veteran-sons from artisan backgrounds living on their own in 1870 experienced greater occupational stability and relatively more ability to accumulate property, though they remained behind in total accumulation. For artisan families with returning veteran-sons, however, military service did not help. Families with veteran-sons living at home fell further behind families without veteran-sons.

Table 7

Persisters: Property Accumulation "Sons" in 1860, but "Independent"
in 1870(a)

1860 DATA (from Parents, where n = # of sons)

                   NON-SOLDIERS                SOLDIER-SONS

                         Average          Average
                         Property         Property     prop.
                    n    (dollars)    n   (dollars)   ratio(b)

BUSINESS CLASS      33   14,606.06   16   5,578.13     38.2

High Nonmanual      10   38,660.00    3   4,550.00     11.8
Low Nonmanual       23    4,147.83   13   5,815.38    140.2

WORKING CLASS       96    1,023.59   35     425.71     41.6

Artisan             25    2,313.60   18     555.56     24.0
Unskilled           71      569.37   17     288.24     50.6

OTHER

Farmers             19    5,432.00    2   9,045.00    166.5
Unclassifiable       0                0
<blank>/"none"      35    2,910.71   11   3,277.27    112.6

TOTALS             183    4,291.52   64   2,473.28     57.6

1870 DATA (ex-Sons' personal data)

BUSINESS CLASS      53    6,184.91   20   3,027.50     48.9

High Nonmanual       5    6,000.00    0
Low Nonmanual       48    6,204.17   20   3,027.50     48.8

WORKING CLASS      117      741.88   41     484.15     65.3

Artisan             57      777.19   24     654.17     84.2
Unskilled           60      708.33   17     244.12     34.5

OTHER

Farmers             13    2,280.77    3   2,833.33    124.2
Unclassifiable       0                0
<blank>/"none"       0                0
TOTALS             183    2,427.60   64   1,389.06     57.2

a See Table 5 for note on ages.

b Property ratio = soldier-sons' avg./non-soldiers' avg.

For families of unskilled workers, as well as for farm families and families whose head listed no occupation in the 1860 census, the family strategy had been to keep sons home longer to provide labor to help support the family. Accordingly, sons from families in these three occupational categories had been more-or-less underrepresented in the army. The veteran-sons from unskilled or farm backgrounds, as was the case in other occupational categories, showed greater stability of occupation than comparable non-veteran sons; as among the low nonmanual, however, they personally lagged behind the non-veterans in property accumulation. For sons from families whose head listed no occupation, the non-veterans had a much larger range of occupations open to them; in contrast, more than half of the veteran-sons found themselves channeled into unskilled occupations after their military service. In terms of property accumulation, however, unskilled and farm families with returning veteran-sons parted company. Unskilled families with veteran-sons surged ahead of unskilled families without veteran-sons in terms of average property; perhaps the addition of bounty money collected by the enlistment of one or more sons explains this phenomenon, though it fails to explain why so many other veterans and their families lagged behind the non-veterans. Farm families with veteran-sons, however, seem to have been unable to make up for the lost labor of one or more sons in the army and fell behind those who kept their sons at home.

The final group for analysis is veterans who were independent in both census years. This group reveals the same broad patterns as among the soldier-sons; that is, veterans showed greater occupational stability than non-veterans, while generally falling further behind in terms of property accumulation. Occupationally, a larger share of veterans than non-veterans held onto their status in nearly every occupational group (Table 8). The veterans, in other words, did not experience as much upward mobility as non-veterans, but they also did not experience as much downward mobility. The only artisans to achieve high-nonmanual status, for example, came from among the men who did not serve in the military; meanwhile no high-nonmanual soldier skidded into the ranks of the unskilled, though a higher proportion did drop to artisan status. More generally, those veterans who experienced mobility - whether upward or downward - found class boundaries slightly more impermeable than non-veterans did. Among the business class, 20.2 percent of the non-soldiers skidded into the working class, compared to 18.5 percent of the veterans. For the working class the difference was smaller, with 14.3 percent of non-soldiers climbing into the business class compared to 14.1 percent of the soldiers.(38)

A significant exception to the pattern occurred among the unskilled. Veterans holding unskilled occupations in 1860 showed less stability of occupation than their non-veteran peers. Indeed, it was the upwardly-mobile unskilled who helped veterans who were independent in both census years nearly match the upward mobility of non-veterans. A significant portion of the occupationally-mobile unskilled veterans actually broke through the class barrier to take high-or-low-nonmanual positions - a larger portion than from among either unskilled non-veterans or artisans whether veterans or not. On the other hand, the largest segment of the unskilled veterans simply moved into artisan occupations. But, as noted earlier, the conditions under which the veteran unskilled-become-artisans plied their trades in 1870 differed greatly from those experienced by artisans before the war. Although impossible to place individuals with specific employers or work settings, thirty-four of the sixty-six artisan-veterans in 1870 (51.5 percent) had job titles which placed them in industries which became particularly labor intensive over the decade - that is, industries likely to employ "factory artisans" instead of true artisans.(39) Moreover, since these numbers include those who held artisan job titles in both census years, it is possible to argue that even artisan veterans who appear occupationally stable in fact experienced a loss of status.(40)

Table 8

Persisters: Occupational Mobility "Independent" in Both Census
Years(a)
(Row Percentages)

                 1870
              OCCUPATIONS

1860          High    Low                              Unclass. &
OCCUPATIONS   NM      NM     Artsn   Unsk.   Farmer    <blank>

High Nonm.

Non-Vet.      37.9     49.2    6.5     2.4      2.4        1.6
Veteran       63.2     21.1   15.8

Low Nonm.

Non-Vet.       8.1     64.8   15.7     9.7      1.3         .4
Veteran        8.6     71.4   14.3     5.7

Artisan

Non-Vet.       4.0     10.1   76.0     7.3      2.5
Veteran        7.7     84.6    5.8     1.9

Unskilled

Non-Vet.       2.0     11.3   19.2    61.4      5.4         .7
Veteran        2.0     16.3   22.4    42.9     10.2        6.1

Farmers

Non-Vet.       1.8     15.8   10.5     5.3     66.7
Veteran                                       100.0

Unclass.

Non-Vet.               66.7   33.3
Veteran               100.0

<blank>

Non-Vet.       4.1     24.3   17.6    41.9      9.5        2.7
Veteran        7.1     28.6   21.4    35.7      7.1

TOTAL

Non-Vet.       7.2     25.4   34.2    26.1      6.4         .6
0Veteran        9.9     26.9   38.6    18.1      4.7        1.8

where number of non-veterans = 1297

number of veterans = 171

a See Table 5 for note on ages.

In terms of average property ownership, working-class veteran-persisters in general lost ground compared to the non-soldiers over the decade (Table 9). Among artisans, for instance, the veteran-persisters owned 86.1 percent as much property as the non-veteran persisters in 1860, but only 65 percent as much by 1870. Although business-class veterans as a group also lost ground, veterans in each of the occupational groups within the business class in fact gained ground; the veterans with high-nonmanual occupations in 1870 had even moved slightly ahead of their non-veteran counterparts.(41) At the same time, however, about one in ten unskilled veterans - a larger portion than any other group, except pre-war farmers - seem to have come home preferring the independence offered by farming and had the money to invest in purchasing a small plot of ground. But it was only a small plot. Veterans engaged in farming had made up little of the pre-war gap between the holdings of farmers who enlisted and those who did not.

Thus independent soldiers who had come largely from among the working class and among propertyless men with families achieved mixed results after their military service. If they had been unskilled workers before enlisting, military service gave their careers a boost; considering what happened to non-veterans, the veterans experienced much more upward occupational mobility than they otherwise could have expected. If they were artisans, the results were more modest; they held onto their titles but lost status, becoming factory artisans, and watched non-veterans move past them on the occupational ladder. Those few working lass veterans who, despite their prolonged absence from the city, did accumulate property during the decade seem to have combined that with upward occupational mobility. More generally, though, absence from the city for as many as three or four years left the working-class veterans trailing working-class non-veterans in terms of property accumulation. Veterans in the business class in 1870, on the other hand, departed from the experience of working-class veterans, improving their average property holdings relative to non-veterans.

The veterans' geographic stability thus belied their limited social mobility; this was especially true for men with working-class backgrounds in 1860. The most geographically mobile of Dubuque's residents before the war (as measured by the percentage located in the 1860 census), working-class veterans equaled or exceeded the stability of working-class non-veterans and business-class veterans and non-veterans. Nor are Dubuque's veterans likely unique in this. In an era before the creation of a unified "national" culture - best known, perhaps, is Robert Wiebe's characterization of pre-1877 American society being composed of "island communities" - other scholars have stressed the unifying character of military service. With small variations among the Eastern and Western Theaters and the frontier service, soldiers, whatever their origins, had very similar experiences. Some of the experiences potentially affecting geographic stability have already been mentioned, especially the soldiers' negative impressions of the South and West and their increased attachment to their place of enlistment as "home."(42)

Table 9

Persisters: Property Accumulation "Independent" in Both Census
Years(a)

1860 DATA           NON-SOLDIERS                SOLDIERS

                          Average          Average
                          Property         Property      prop.
                    n    (dollars)    n    (dollars)    ratio(b)

BUSINESS CLASS     360    7,923.72    54    4,955.56    62.5

High Nonmanual     124   14,660.48    19   12,089.47    82.5
Low Nonmanual      236    4,384.07    35    1,082.86    24.7

WORKING CLASS      803      667.20   101      529.75    79.4

Artisan            396    1,025.62   52       883.46    86.1
Unskilled          407      318.48   49       154.39    48.5

OTHER

Farmers             57    8,155.05    1     1,300.00    15.9
Unclassifiable       3    7,850.00    1         0.00     0.0
<blank>/"none"      74    3,352.37   14       171.43     5.1

TOTALS            1297    3,180.24   171    1,899.44    59.7

1870 DATA

BUSINESS CLASS     423   20,556.97    63   11,793.65    57.4

High Nonmanual      94   24,715.43    17   24,735.29   100.1
Low Nonmanual      329   19,368.85    46    7,010.87    36.2

WORKING CLASS      783    2,701.88    97    1,827.32    67.6

Artisan            444    3,722.35    66    2,421.21    65.0
Unskilled          339    1,365.34    31      562.90    41.2

OTHER

Farmers             83   11,744.58     8    2,900.00    24.7
Unclassifiable       1    2,000.00     0
<blank>/"none"       7    1,800.00     3      133.33     7.4

TOTALS            1297    9,098.36   171    5,519.59    60.7

a See Table 5 for note on ages.

b property ratio = soldiers' avg./non-soldiers' avg.

But it seems likely that other elements of the men's experience with military life had an impact on their post-war stability. Most significantly, life and work in the Union Army can be compared to urban-industrial society. A Dubuque diarist in the 27th Iowa Infantry recorded an interesting moment in 1863. Having driven Confederate forces out of Little Rock, Arkansas, the Union army of General Frederick Steele was ordered to make camp. Accordingly, "the government Teams under the direction of the various Regimental quarter masters ware Employed in Handling Timber and other materials for that Purpose and Cabins Sprand up Like New [illegible] all around the City of Little Rock and in Less than one month the whole army Nombering Some 10,000 men ware Liveing under the Roughs of Comfortable Shebangs Erected by themselves." These ten thousand men in their "Shebangs" represented the largest concentration of people - the largest city - in Arkansas at the time; Little Rock itself had a prewar population of just 3,727.(43) Other elements of the "urban" character of army life included: changes in mortality rates, particularly due to disease; widening social distances between the elite (officers) and non-elite (enlisted men); and the creation of an enlisted men's culture analogous to the neighborhood culture in cities.(44)

The soldiers, moreover, used "work" as a frame of reference for understanding and coping with military service. Henry J. Playter, a Dubuque cigar dealer serving as captain of Company H, 12th Iowa Infantry, for instance, wrote of his company's performance in battle at Fort Donelson that "they walked up like men to their work." But combat was not the only work soldiers did; indeed, according to another Dubuque soldier, in the army "a man will do as much work in two hours as he would in ten under ordinary circumstances." Army work shared much in common with factory work: an almost industrial "time" orientation, rather than the "task" orientation more familiar to civilian miners, artisans, and farmers; long marches ("journeys-to-work") through all kinds of weather and road conditions, with hard work awaiting them at the end of the march; and the "work" itself - digging entrenchments, fortification building, other construction work (cutting roads through the wilderness, rebuilding railroads, etc.), guard duty, combat - all of it carrying certain dangers.(45) The soldiers' experience with mobility in the military - only a select handful ever became officers, and NCO status, although more available, was also precarious and often fleeting - further prepared veterans to accept limited mobility in civilian life.(46)

Other scholars have noted these similarities between the military and urban-industrial society. Sociologist Jacques van Doom, for example, emphasizes the fact that modern military organization predated industrial capitalism by two hundred years, and established an organizational structure later copied in the industrial workplace. He argues further that "a direct correlation" exists between common soldiers and an industrial proletariat: "as proletarians - without their own weapons and tools, without specific capacities or education - they [soldiers] had to be satisfied with what they were ordered to do or what was shifted onto them." John Keegan, in his penetrating analysis of "the face of battle," believes that twentieth-century industry offered men "pre-conditioning for battle."(47)

Thus, in contrast to the view that life and work in the Union Army spoiled men for civilian society and made them more likely to seek the open frontier, military service in the Civil War might be seen as helping "pre-condition" men from Dubuque - and the numerous places similarly on the cusp between commercial and industrial societies and economies - for post-war civilian society. In both their lifestyles and work routines, the soldiers had grown more accustomed to the urban-industrial conditions which after the war became increasingly common in cities across the North. Having served as cogs in the Union Army's machine, veterans were well prepared to accept a similar status in the developing industrial economy. In Dubuque, veterans exhibited greater patience with slow, limited gains; it was non-veterans who were apparently more restless, more eager to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Although their occupational mobility and ability to accumulate property gave Dubuque's veterans little cause for optimism about their place in society, they returned to the city after their military service and stayed.(48)

Department of History

06533 Bilkent-Ankara Turkey

ENDNOTES

The author wishes to thank Shelton Stromquist, Malcolm Rohrbough, Linda Kerber, Kenneth Cmiel, Kathleen Diffley, Frank Towers, and Peter Stearns and the anonymous readers for the Journal of Social History for their contributions to refining the arguments presented here. Timely financial assistance came from The State Historical Society of Iowa, Inc. and the Louis A. Pelzer Dissertation Fellowship of the University of Iowa Graduate College.

1. Iowa Religious Newsletter, July 1862, p.1; D.A. Mahony, The Prisoner of State (New York 1863), 246-247 (for "subservient army" comment); Herald, 6 February 1863 (for broader loss of "manliness") as well as Herald, 18 November, 23 and 28 December 1862, and 23 and 24 January 1863 for other Mahony comments; and Times, 1 June 1861. All newspapers are Dubuque dailies, unless otherwise noted.

2. Quotes from Semi-Weekly Times, 11 July 1865; Sherman quoted in Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States - Iowa Commandery, War Sketches and Incidents (Des Moines, IA, 1893), 2: 63; George Fredrickson, The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union (New York, 1965), 123; and "The Draft, or, Conscription Reviewed by the People" in Frank Freidel (ed.), Union Pamphlets of the Civil War (Cambridge, MA, 1967) 2: 792. Nor are these mixed feelings unique to the Civil War era or even to the United States; see, for example, comments of George Richards Minot quoted in E. Wayne Carp, "The Problem of National Defense in the Early Republic" in Jack P. Greene (ed.), The American Revolution: Its Character and Limits (New York, 1987), 14-50; Willard Waller, Veteran Comes Back (New York, 1944); Myra MacPherson, Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation (New York, 1984), esp. 207-328; Richard Severo and Lewis Milford, The Wages of War: When America's Soldiers Came Home - From Valley Forge to Vietnam (New York, 1989); plus Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (New York, 1994) for ancient Greek attitudes toward veterans; and Edith Abbott, "Crime and the War," Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology 9 (May 1918): 32-45 for some British and French ideas about World War I veterans.

3. Waller, Veteran Comes Back, 126; James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York, 1988), 608; and Walter Licht, Industrializing America: The Nineteenth Century (Baltimore, 1995), 78.

4. For instance, in his path-breaking book on social mobility in Newburyport, Massachusetts