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| Grenville M. Dodge |
Grenville Dodge is well known as the Chief Engineer of the Union
Pacific Railroad who surveyed the route for the Transcontinental Railroad. Dodge wasn’t the only individual who surveyed
potential routes west of the Missouri River.
However, he was the first to convince future President Abraham Lincoln
of a line running along the Platte River Valley in Nebraska and over the Rocky
Mountains to meet the railroad coming east from California. With Lincoln, Dodge was able to inaugurate the
greatest building project of the nineteenth century. 1
Two weeks after Lincoln assumed the Presidency, Dodge called on him to
press the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. In a letter to his wife
after the meeting, Dodge wrote, “Politically the skies are dark. Lincoln has a hard task before him, but he
says he thinks he can bring the country out all right.” 2 Nearly a month later, the
Confederates fired upon Fort Sumter and the Civil War began. Rather than linking the nation together east
and west, Dodge decided to abandon his project for the time being and hold the
country together north and south. One of Dodge’s first stops during the war was
Rolla, Missouri.
On August 24th, 1861, Colonel Grenville Dodge arrived in
Rolla with the Fourth Iowa just weeks after the regiment was mustered into
service in Council Bluffs, Iowa. His regiment was assigned to the Army of
Southwest of the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the Civil War. Their mission in Rolla was to protect the
railhead of the Missouri Pacific Railroad and aid in the transportation of
goods to Springfield. Within two months,
Dodge was given command of the military post in Rolla. The nascent Rolla
Express comment on Dodge’s appointment on October 19, 1861 stating;
“Col. G.M. Dodge, of the 4th Iowa, is at present commandant of this
post. His affability and quiet attention
to those having business to transact with him without official pomposity or any
manifestation of bad temper has commended this accomplished officer to
everyone.”
When Dodge assumed command of the post, Southern sympathizers were
still operating in small bands throughout the Ozark hills surrounding
Rolla. To quell the occasional attacks on Union
pickets, the disruptions to wagon trains and the sabotage of railroad track and
telegraph lines, Dodge took harsh action.
A scouting party led by Col. Nicholas Greusel of the 36th
Illinois was sent to Texas County to flush out the secessionist and all who
gave aid to them. Dodge instructed
Greusel, “If the men who are away from home in the rebel army, or if their
families cannot give a good account of their whereabouts, take their property,
or that portion of it worth taking; also their slaves… take all they have got.” Col. Greusel returned with nine prisoners,
five hundred cattle, forty horses and mules. Subsequent scouting parties
returned with similar spoils. The 1st
Missouri Cavalry returned from Crawford County with ten prisoners. Captain Wood’s Kansas Rangers captured
seventeen prisoners and a large amount of rebel property. 3
The second scourge effecting Dodge’s troops in Rolla was liquor. Booze ran freely in Rolla and the soldiers
readily partook in the drink. Col. Dodge
issued several orders prohibiting the establishment of saloons to prevent the
sale of liquor in Rolla. However, stills
began to emerge in the forest and hollows surrounding the village and pop-up
saloons appeared outside of the city limits.
On December 16, 1861, the Rolla Express published an article entitled “A
Leak Somewhere” questioning if Col Dodge’s orders were actually having an
effect on the sale of intoxicating beverages.
The article stated;
“A boozy Captain tumbled from his horse yesterday in front of our
office. The horse was standing stock
still, Captain leaned backward on the animal’s rump, pulled on the rein, and
pitched down head foremost, as easy as falling off a log. A sore head was the consequence, and the
Captain was shoved into a neighbors house opposite, sans ceremonie, to get
sober.”
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| Grenville Dodge (seated far left) with his staff in Corinth, Mississippi. |
During his time in Rolla, Dodge likely didn’t witness any military action. His only fray was with a pistol he had
forgotten was in his pocket. On the
evening of December 29, 1861, Col. Dodge was returning from General Franz Sigel’s
camp when the following occurred.
“a small pocket pistol, one of Smith and Wesson’s patent, accidently
discharged in his pocket. The bullet
passed through the fleshy part of his leg, inflicting a severe though not
dangerous wound, which may disable him from duty a few days. The Surgeon being fortunately present, the
ball was extracted and the wound dressed just in time for the Colonel to
receive the compliments of Gen. Curtis, who had just arrived from St. Louis to
be his guest.”
It’s has been reported in several publications that Dodge received the
wound to his leg during a skirmish near Rolla.
Due to the dutiful reporting of the Rolla Express, we know that wasn’t the case.
Col. Dodge and the 4th Iowa remained in Rolla where they
built log buildings including a camp hospital and participated in incessant
drilling. A large scale movement wasn’t
taken against the enemy until January 22, 1861, when the regiment started upon
a winter campaign to overtake General Sterling Price, former Governor of
Missouri and commander of the Confederate Missouri State Guard.
After Rolla, Dodge participated in the Battle of Pea Ridge where he was
twice wounded. After the battle he was
appointed Brigadier General. Dodge also participated
in the Battle of Atlanta, the second battle of Corinth, Mississippi and became
General U.S. Grant’s Chief of Intelligence.
In 1863, he was summoned by President Lincoln and was asked to divine a
location along the Missouri River where the Transcontinental Railroad should
start. Of course, Dodge thought it
should start at his home in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Subsequently, an executive order was issued
the following year making Council Bluffs the starting point of the railroad.
After the war, Dodge completed the Transcontinental Railroad and
retired to his home in Council Bluffs.
He served in the House of Representatives for Iowa’s 5th
Congressional District from 1867 to 1869.
Dodge was seldom in Washington since he spent much of his time building
the railroad. When he was there, he
spent most of his time lobbying for the Union Pacific. Dodge died in 1916 at his home in Council Bluffs.
1. Stephen E. Ambrose, Nothing Like it in
the World: The Men Who Built the Trancontinental Railroad 1863-1869 (New
York: Touchstone, 2000), 32
2. Ibid, 41
3. Bryce D. Benedict, Jayhawkers: The Civil War Brigade of James Henry Lane (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009), 249.
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