At 92, he still pushes recognition for six Iowa brothers killed in Civil War

It was 14 years ago when Tom Woodruff of North Liberty uncovered a significant historical event – that six Iowa brothers from the Littleton family of Louisa County fought and died for the Union in the Civil War.

Soon after that, Woodruff spearheaded the construction of a one-acre memorial to the brothers on land near the unincorporated village of Toolesboro where they grew up. Their story is memorialized there in granite, attracting travelers along the Great River Road.

And now, at the ripe age 92, Woodruff still fights for more recognition for “these boys,” as he fondly calls them, seeking to have a new federal court building in Des Moines named in their honor.

“They deserve it,” he told me last week. “It’s the single highest immediate family loss to war in Iowa -- and possibly the nation as well.”

How Woodruff made his discovery can be attributed to his tenacious pursuit of history and an affection for Louisa County, where he grew up on a farm near Cairo. Among his many retirement projects spanning the past 30 years, he has researched and written nearly 80 articles for its county historical society, plus several other short books, and helped with several cemetery restorations there.

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A lost story emerges

It all started in 2010 when a North Carolina woman gave Woodruff a faded scrapbook of news clippings compiled by her Louisa County grandmother covering local news from the late 1800s into the 1900s. This woman’s late husband was a boyhood friend of Tom and she knew he’d preserve the scrapbook for county history.

“It was a gold mine of information,” he said.

Buried in a “Local History” column of the Columbus Gazette of 1907, Woodruff found mention of those who served in the Civil War. It was noted that one local family with 10 kids lost six of their male children to the nation’s deadliest conflict. Tom had to find out more.

He soon formed a team of other amateur historians to help his research.

He found that the Littleton men/boys were ages 17 to 34 when they died ? all in the Iowa Infantry but one, who signed up in Illinois.

Thomas Littleton was in 10 major battles, including the Siege of Vicksburg, was captured at Missionary Ridge and died at the infamous Andersonville Prison in Georgia. William was in seven battles, including Shiloh, and died of disease in an Army hospital. The other four brothers were in one battle each and died from combat, disease or accident while serving. At least two were buried in unmarked graves.

As an interesting sidebar, the research team discovered that the heritage of the boys’ father, John Littleton, was listed as mulatto in census records.

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Sullivan Museum assists

Woodruff approached the Sullivan Brothers Museum in Waterloo before the memorial was built. The museum is dedicated to the five Iowa brothers who died on a single Navy ship sunk during World War II.

“I said that we did not want to upstage them,” Tom told me. “And they were very helpful to our project.”

The team raised $150,000 in cash and grants and another $100,000 in in-kind donations, allowing the memorial to be built in 2016. Besides granite monuments, the one-acre site includes six oak trees with two-ton white rocks identifying each of the six brothers.

“It’s beautiful,” said Tom. “No taxpayer money was used and we now have an endowment to maintain it forever.”

Four years ago, Woodruff learned of the new federal building to be constructed in Des Moines and began writing local, state and national office-holders and others to promote naming the structure to honor the Littletons. This work, he said, has since been turned over to a descendent of the Littleton family, Jake Shoppa of Freedonia, who is pursuing it with passion. He also cites two other key volunteers for the memorial project ? Iowa City artist Will Thomson and Des Moines author and fundraiser John Busbee.

Woodruff said the naming effort is an uphill battle and puts his group’s chances of success at 50 percent. The federal red tape is considerable and whether the building will even be named after anyone is uncertain at this point, he said.

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Descendents now bonding

Regardless of how the naming quest turns out, Woodruff is proud that his work to track down the Littleton descendants has inspired the family to hold annual gatherings to tour the monument and renew ancestral ties dating back some 160 years.

Woodruff gets emotional talking about this, remembering the hard times in his own family when his mother died young and his dad was confronted with raising six kids alone.

“You talk to this family,” he told me, “and you give them something to be proud of, something to hang on it. I want that building named ? for both the family and the pride of our state.”

During his 30 years since retiring from a career in civil engineering and human relations, Tom has amassed an amazing list of historical publications and community service projects. He was instrumental in establishing the Devonian Gorge fossil site near Coralville Dam and recently won the “Community Caring Award” from the Community Foundation of Louisa County.

He was also active in another interesting Louisa County historical project, which recognized a 1.5-mile stretch of highway near Fredonia built by convicts in 1914 using innovative concrete construction techniques. He published a detailed account of this “Convict Road” project in book form and narrated a CD covering the rededication ceremony.

Woodruff has also authored a book, “Last Portage North,” based on his 50 years of exploring remote areas of northern Canada with a boyhood friend.

More information:  For the complete story of these brothers, go to www.littletonbrothers.com. Information on “Convict Road” can be found at  https://www.tri-rivers.org/1914-build-convict-road-fredonia.

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Richard Hakes is a freelance columnist for the Iowa City Press-Citizen.

This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Hakes: Meet the N. Liberty man advocating for Iowa Civil War vets