Remembering Camp Pope & Our Civil War Veterans (1862).
Camp Pope, established in August 1862 on land next to Ralston Creek, north of the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad, bordered on the west by present day Summit Street, on the east by Oakland Avenue and on the north by Seymour Avenue. The southern boundary of the camp extended beyond the tracks, to Governor Kirkwood’s house on Wyoming Road (today Kirkwood Avenue) and that that portion of the camp was used as a parade ground. It may be that the land for the camp was owned and donated for that purpose by Samuel Kirkwood.
A mass rally was held in Iowa City on August 9, 1862, to encourage enlistment. Local enthusiasm, plus the threat of a draft, ultimately brought out more than twice Iowa’s quota for this particular call for volunteers. The regiments that mustered at Camp Pope (the 22nd, 28th, and 40th Infantry Volunteers) were formed in response to Abraham Lincoln’s call for 300,000 volunteers in July of 1862.
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