Iowa has many wonderful monuments honoring Civil War Soldiers who fought and died for their country. Today we have a responsibility to properly maintain these monuments.

As the Iowa Memorials Officer for the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW), I have been inspecting each monument throughout the state. Once this is completed, we will identify monuments that need to be cleaned or repaired and work to accomplish this.

We are taking photographs of all Iowa monuments with a brief written description including directions about how to locate the monument. Our intent is to add more historical information in the future. We also hope to add Iowa monuments outside the state, such as those on battlefields at Vicksburg and Shiloh. The definition of monument is fairly broad as cannons, GAR Halls, stained glass windows and historic homes are included along with the traditional monuments or memorials.

I appreciate the encouragement of Kevin Pearson, the Commander of the Department of Iowa, SUVCW, on this project. I have also received a good deal of expert feedback from Jim Bender on proper identification of cannons. Jim maintains the National Registry of Civil War Artillery and I really appreciate his interest and assistance.

Please contact me if there are any additions or corrections. I am sure that there are other monuments that have been overlooked. Contact me at Gaardt@aol.com.

-Tom Gaard

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