Rice, Robert Marshall

RICE, BETHARD, BUTLER, MATHER, JESSUP, HARNED, PRICE

Posted By: Lynn Diemer-Mathews (email)
Date: 7/23/2024 at 12:32:02

During the 1850s, many Northerners were moving father west. Iowa advertised in eastern newspapers and in 1854 published a book, “Iowa As It Is,” that described the state, its benefits and the procedures for homesteading. Fortner Mather was a Methodist Episcopal minister when he left Union County, Ohio, and moved to Clayton County, Iowa, to try to raise a congregation. Before long he was followed by his four brothers. The Mathers were related to the Rice family. Joel and Sarah Rice decided they too would move their family to Clayton County but, before leaving, their daughter, Caroline, told a neighbor, Jim Bethard, that she was moving. Jim and Caroline (known as “Cal” to her friends) were “sweet on each other” and he soon followed her to Iowa where they were married.

During the presidential campaign of 1860, many Southerners threatened to secede if Abraham Lincoln was elected, but the Clayton County Journal discounted the threat: “Bah! No one anticipates such a result,” it said. “This cry was invented only to frighten the people into voting for the Democratic candidate. Divide the Union! The people of the United States are not prepared to do any such thing.” But Lincoln was elected, Southern states did secede and war followed, but still the Journal wasn’t concerned. “There are men enough in Pennsylvania alone to subdue South Carolina without the aid of Iowa volunteers,” it told readers. As casualties escalated, more volunteers were needed. Jim Rice (Robert’s brother), John Mather (Robert’s cousin) and Jim Bethard (Robert’s brother-in-law) joined the 21st Iowa Infantry. Darius Mather joined the 27th Infantry and Daniel Mather joined the 40th Infantry while Sterling and Squire Mather joined the state’s 9th Infantry as did Robert’s brother, George Rice.

On September 30, 1863, nineteen-year-old Robert enlisted in Iowa’s 9th regiment of volunteer cavalry where he was soon promoted to Saddler Sergeant. Cal wrote to her husband and Jim replied, “I think Bob has done a good job in getting into the army as a saddler.” Throughout the war the brothers and cousins and families tried to keep in touch, but Jim was in Louisiana when he asked Cal, “tell me in your next how to direct a letter to Bob and also how to direct to George.”

Robert’s cavalry regiment saw extended service in Missouri and Arkansas, but communications were difficult as they were often on the move as detachments from the regiment scouted Confederate movements along the White River and the Little Red River. In June, 1864, Jim told Cal, “we have never got a letter from Bob since he enlisted.” By October, Jim was at St. Charles, Arkansas, when he told Cal, “I saw some of the boys that belong to the 9th Iowa cavalry last Friday; I inquired about Robert but none of them new him; the regt is at Brownsville Ark” where it arrived in September and “all supplies were received and forwarded. Quarters for the men and stables for the horses were constructed.” Robert was with his regiment while Jim was at DeValls Bluff on the White River when he told Cal, “the 9th cavalry is at Brownsville 25 miles from here.”

Detachments from Robert’s regiment continued their scouting expeditions along the White River and the Little Red, monitored movements of Confederate General Price and guarded government transports near Lewisburg. In another letter, Jim told Cal that on November 21st his regiment “received orders to be ready to embark at ten Jim Rice had gone out to Brownsville the day before to see Bob and would not be back until Tuesday evening but owing to the boat that we were to go on having broke her wheel we did not embark until about ten-o-clock at night and while we were waiting on shore Jim came and Robert with him he had a pass for three days and we would have had a pleasant visit I was only with him a few minutes til we had to go on board we tried to get him to go on board with us but he was afraid of being carried off and would not the boat moved up to town and lay there until Thursday morning Bob came up on Wednesday morning and staid with us until the train left for Brownsville about eight o-clock in the morning he looks well and says he is contented but he wants to get out of Steels department he is tiered of Arkansas.”

Despite his wishes, Robert’s cavalry remained in Arkansas. On April 11, 1865, they learned that Lee’s army had surrendered in Virginia two days earlier and then soon received word that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated on the 15th. On June 11th, with the war practically at an end, they marched from Brownsville to Lewisburg and during the next several months worked to restrain “the lawless element,” garrison various posts in the area, protect civilians from outlaws and help restore civil governments. On February 16, 1866, an order from department headquarters directed that they move to Little Rock. There, on February 28, 1866, Robert was discharged from the military.

While he was gone his parents had moved to Sigourney in Keokuk County. There, in December 1866, he and Henrietta Butler were married in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Their five children included Joel who was born in 1867 but died in infancy, Edward in 1870, Catherine in 1872, Sarah in 1874 and Clarence in 1880.

Like most veterans, Robert applied for an invalid pension. In his 1890 application, he said he was partially disabled from performing manual labor due to heart disease and piles contracted in the service. His application was supported in an affidavit by John Jessup and Zachariah Harned, two of his former comrades. The pension office sent a circular to the War Department that confirmed Robert’s service and on July 8, 1891, he was examined by a board of pension surgeons in Sigourney. The surgeons agreed he was partially disabled from earning his subsistence by manual labor and a pension of $12.00 monthly, payable quarterly through the Des Moines Pension Agency, was approved.

Robert’s father died in 1892 and his mother in 1906. Both were buried in Sigourney’s Pleasant Grove Cemetery.

A new pension act was approved by Congress on May 11, 1912, and, only eight days later, Robert applied. Again, his application was approved and a certificate was mailed entitling him to $17.00. monthly effective May 22, 1912, when his application was received. In 1914, he applied again and this time he was approved for an age-based pension of $23.00, an amount increased to $30.00 in 1919.

Henrietta, died on November 15, 1917, and, like Robert’s parents, was buried in Pleasant Grove Cemetery.

In 1918, a private bill was approved authorizing an increase to $40.00 but Robert elected, instead, to receive the same amount under a bill enacted that June so he would be eligible for further age-based increases. When a new act became effective on May 1, 1920, Robert applied but, on May 23rd, he died. Members of the G.A.R. participated at his funeral where the Sons of Veterans served as pallbearers. Robert, like Henrietta and his parents, is buried in Pleasant Grove Cemetery.

An obituary said Robert had worked as a stockbroker and was ill for many months prior to his death. He was survived by his four children.