ASTONISHED KEOKUKIAN The following appeared in the Keokuk Journal in May, 1861:  "A crowd gathered along Main street yesterday evening to witness some extraordinary performances of Capt. Bob Littler's State Guards, Company B, of the Second Regiment.  Up and down Main and down other streets, around squares and back again for three miles, without halt or slack, this company ran in double quick time last evening, and this, too, after a squad drill of four hours during the day, besides a long company parade.  Toward the last of the double quck one of the men picked up the drummer, put him on his shoulder, and so marched along, apparently without incumbrance.  After all this drilling the company halted on main street and built a pyramid, three men high and consisting of twenty men in all.  Then six men forned a lock step, three abreast, with two men laid across their shoulders.  One man stood on top of them and so they marched for a square or so, and after this, executed a double quick drill, the whole performnance being entirely voluntary.  The members of this company in age average twenty-five years; in height, five feet and seven and a half inches; in weight, one hundred and sixty pounds, and composed mostly of raftsmen and firemen.  In muscular exercise they challange the worst.  They may almost be called a company of gymnasts and athletes.  Some of their performances are actually astonishing.  Captain Littler was himself chief engineer of the fire department and local editor of the Daily Gazette of Davenport for six years, and perhaps a part of his present power of muscle came from so much of that needless running after items which must be tried to be appreciated.  If their pluck be equal to their muscle (and no one who sees them can doubt it) this company will make mighty men of war and we wish them and their gallant captain every success in the world." When Captain Wentz's company was organized in 1861 at the first call for a regiment by Governor Kirkwood, there were no uniforms for the newly made soldiers.  The ladies of Davenport came to the rescue and made for the members of Captain Wentz's company the uniforms they wore when they left the city for the front.  They probably were not so well fitting and so natty looking as those now in vogue in the United States army, and for that reason the members of a Dubuque military organization poked fun at Captain Wentz's boys and their home-made blouses.  Subsequently the good ladies of Dubuque made for their soldier boys new uniforms and Franc B. Wilkie wrote for his home paper the following intensely humorous description of the Dubuque Grays' military togs. Debbie Clough G-erischer G-erischer Family Web Site http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/ Assistant CC, Iowa Gen Web, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ List Manager for: IASCOTT-L * G-erischer-L * D-encker-L Fitzpatirck-L * V-lerebome-L * Huntington-L * Otis-L * Algar-L EIGS-L * Pickens-L * McNab-L * Patris-L - Rankin-L