The publication of the wartime letters of Major Lyman Allen of the 37th Regiment Iowa Volunteer Infantry, known as “The Graybeards,” along with excerpts from the diaries of his step-daughter Viola Baldwin represents the first book-length history of this regiment, unique in all the Union army.

The Graybeard regiment was the idea of an enterprising farmer from Muscatine, Iowa, named George W. Kincaid. Its ranks would be filled with men over the age of 45—men who were ordinarily rejected from service in other volunteer regiments. Their mission would be to perform mundane, behind-the-lines tasks such as guarding prisoners, protecting railroad lines, garrisoning supply depots and escorting combat troops to the front.

Lyman Allen was a 54 year old building contractor in Iowa City, Iowa, with a large blended family and a calling to fight secession. He enlisted as a private on September 1, 1862, in the newly authorized 37th Iowa, and was promoted to Major by Iowa Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood two months later. Major Allen wrote regularly to his wife Hepsy from his various service posts, usually imploring her to join him, which she did on three occasions: in Alton, Rock Island, and Gallipolis, Ohio.

Hepsy’s daughter, 20 year old Viola Baldwin, a well-educated and vibrant young lady, divided her time between living with her mother and step-father and with her sister and brother-in-law in Chicago. Beginning on November 30, 1863, she kept a diary. Never missing a day, she described the weather, her domestic duties, friends and neighbors, her many social activities, and army life as she was able to observe it during those periods she lived with her step-father. Among other things, she gives a memorable description of the funeral cortege of Abraham Lincoln as it passed through Chicago in May of 1865.

While the 37th Regiment never fought in any battles and turned in a frankly spotty record as soldiers, it has always provoked a certain amount of curiosity. Immediate post-war impressions were of a selfless band of men not content just to give their sons to the cause of preserving the Union. More recent scholarship has dwelt on the negative characteristics that are only to be expected of a mob of slovenly, hard-drinking old men, commanded by an unpopular, teetotaling martinet.

Harriet Stevens, granddaughter of Viola Baldwin and for many years keeper of the Allen family treasures, has long been toiling to bring to the public attention the surviving letters of her great-grandfather and the diaries of her grandmother. One of the greatest difficulties of her task has been the fact that there is no published history of the 37th Iowa Infantry to work from as a framework. The regiment has scarcely been given more than a few pages in the various histories of Iowa in the Civil War, and most of that repetitious and littered with inaccuracies. She introduces each group of Lyman Allen’s letters with a succinct explanation of the circumstances and significance of the regiment’s various postings around the Mississippi Corridor and beyond. In those places where the family was together and no letters were written, the editor excerpts portions of Viola’s observant and entertaining diaries. The narrative is supplemented with numerous wartime photographs and other illustrations, many from the family’s collection and previously unpublished. The text is fully annotated and indexed.

Harriet Stevens passed away in November of 2005, and her estate reclaimed most of the copies of her book. We do have a limited number available for sale, however.

127 pages, Illustrated, Map, Notes, Index, Paperback, ISBN 0-9628936-7-6 $12.00