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William Clark Newlon

William Clark Newlon (20 June 1837-25 June 1902), Madison County, Iowa Civil War Veteran, farmer, Land Agent, County Clerk, newspaper publisher.

On 28 May 1861, in Indianola, Iowa, twenty-four-year old Will Newlon from Winterset, Iowa, enlisted into a small group of Volunteers called the “Union Zouaves of Winterset”.

Will was mustered into Company G, 3rd Infantry Regiment, Iowa Volunteers, as a private. Two years later, 7 April 1863, as a Third Sergeant, he received a medical discharge at Jackson, Tennessee.

The war veteran then returned to Winterset, Iowa, and married his sweetheart, Lydia Philbrick. The couple farmed in Madison County, Iowa, and surrounding counties, while Will sold real estate and worked in local government. He later served as editor and publisher of the Winterset Sun in the late 1800s.

Will and Lydia raised a large family, of which nine survived. Mary, a middle child, married Army 1st Lt. Clarence Roy Green, who was killed in the First World War. She bore a son by him, Willard Newlon.

William Clark Newlon chronicles his Civil War experience in two journals written from April 1861 to August 1863. Both have been transcribed and preserved by Will’s Great Grandson, Christopher Newlon Green.

Sgt. Newlon describes his move west from Iowa through Missouri, and then down to Tennessee. Between these events, Will pens the tedium and daily suffering of being a Civil War soldier, the drilling and parades, the cooking and camp making, the cold and the rain, the fighting and the loneliness.

Will’s first journal begins just prior to his enlistment, then, ends with his arrival, for the winter, to Benton Barracks, outside St. Louis, Missouri. By that time he and the 3rd Iowa Infantry had traversed Missouri twice; they had engaged in at least two actions (Hagor’s Woods and Shelbina), and had fought the Battle of Liberty.

The second journal picks up where the first leaves off - Benton Barracks. Will begins his story as his regiment prepares to travel down the Mississippi River. He writes of the Siege of Corinth and the Battle of Shiloh, and the scramble back to Pittsburg Landing. The journal ends five months later, from his Jackson, Tennessee, hospital bed.é Sgt. Newlon recalls the Battle of Davis Bridge over the Hatchie River, Tennessee, where he lost his right leg to a canister shot.

The chapter, “War Record of the Third Infantry”, in History of Madison County Iowa, (Des Moines, Iowa: Union Historical Company, 1879), describes these events, and whence the Iowa 3rd marched.