BIOGRAPHY OF HERMAN DROGE, COMPANY D
Written and Submitted by Carol Ellis
Descendant of Herman Droge

Born:   14 August 1835    Place: Herford, Germany
Married: 8 June 1866    Place: Clayton Co. Iowa
Died:   16 December 1916  Place:  Council Bluffs, Iowa
Buried:   Walnut Hill Cemetery   Pottawattamie Co.

Herman Droge was born in Herford Germany.  According to records located in the town hall of Herford, by the German branch of the Droge family, in 1851 Johann Heinrich Droge applied to emigrate to the United States with his wife and his five children.  Their intention was to arrive in New Orleans.  In the 1960 census of Garnavillo, Clayton County, Iowa we find only Herman Droge, 26, Mary, 19 and Ann 15.  This leaves us wondering what happened to their parents and two other siblings, as they are living with a family named Ripke and Herman is working as a laborer and the females as domestics.

On his 27th birthday in 1862, Herman volunteered to serve as a soldier in the Army for a period of three years.   He is described as having brown hair and eyes, a dark complexion and being 5'5½" tall.  He served in Company D of the 27th Regiment of the Iowa Infantry.  Immediately after being mustered in, the Regiment was sent to take part in Major-General Pope's campaign against hostile Souix Indians waging warfare in Minnesota.  The Indians had been put down before the 27th Regiment arrived, so the Regiment proceeded to Cairo, Illinois and then downriver to Memphis where they reported to General Sherman.  They served as part of the outer guard protecting Grant at Vicksburg.  The Regiment was then sent to Jackson, Tennessee by train.  The Confederates had partially destroyed a railroad bridge by fire, and as the structure was about to fall, they put out the flames so that the train would not notice the damage and would cross the bridge.  Two women walked ten miles and by waving lanterns caught the eye of the engineer who was able to stop the train in time to avoid plunging into the ravine.

August 20, 1863 Regiment went through Memphis to join General Steel's army then moving on Little Rock, Arkansas and participated in that campaign and the capture of the city, remaining near that place about two months. According to Herman Droge's records, he had been sick at camp for several days before the Regiment left Helena, Arkansas on August 28.  His 2nd Lieutenant asked him if he were able to go with the regiment, and he indicated that he could not.  On the 26th of September 26th, his 1st Sergeant Blieding found him in the hospital  at Duvals Bluffs, Arkansas and he took him to his regiment at Little Rock.  He was then court martialed for being absent without leave and was found not guilty.

Until the end of January 1864, the 27th Iowa had not come into direct conflict with the enemy for 15 months, yet they lost more than 25 percent of their soldiers and officers to disease and discharge due to illness.   Early in 1864 they moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi where they took part with Sherman in his Meridian, Mississippi raid.  Confederate supplies were captured and destroyed as well as railroad tracks and locomotives.  Then they were with General Banks in the Red River expedition where they participated in many skirmishes, and in the Battle of Pleasant Hill, their first actual battle, in April of 1864.  They took part in the Battle of Nashville on December 15 and 16 and Herman was severely wounded in the abdomen on the 15th of December .  From the report of Lieutenant Colonel Lake, "On the 15th inst. at daylight we formed in line of battle.  About sunrise, by orders from Colonel Gilbert, we moved across an open field under fire of the enemy's guns, for about a mile.  We were ordered to lie down in a cornfield.  Here the fire of the artillery was very heavy, the missiles from the enemy's battery, and our own passing directly over my Regiment. About 4P.M. I received orders from Colonel Gilbert to prepare for the charge.  At the command, 'Forward, double quick march,' every man went forward with a will.  On reaching the open field, about 200 yards in front of the enemy's works, immediately deployed and went over the parapet in good style.  The enemy were doing their best to escape, and we followed them through the woods and across an open field to the foot and up the side of the mountain until men from the top hung out the white flag in token of surrender."  Only 13 men from his Regiment were wounded in this battle, two dangerously and most of them severely as was Herman.

Herman was hospitalized in Nashville immediately and then was moved to a hospital in Evansville, Indiana where he remained until May 26, 1865 when he was discharged from the hospital. his discharge from the Army at the end of May.

On June 8, 1866 Herman Droge married Wilhemina Schaffer in the German Protestant Church in Garnavillo, Iowa.   Family tradition says that they had lived within 20 miles of each other in Germany, but met in the United States.  They had ten children, born between 1867 and 1889 when their last child, Katherine, our progenitor, was born.  Note that Herman was 53 years old and his wife was 44 when she was born.

Their first two children were born in Garnavillo, Iowa.  Sometime before 1870 they moved to the outskirts of Nebraska City, Nebraska, located on the Missouri River.  The 1870 census indicates that they owned a farm valued at $3,000.  Herman was eligible to vote, so probably became a naturalized citizen in Nebraska City.  Before 1874 the Droges relocated again for the last time.  He crossed the Missouri River again and went back to Council Bluffs, Iowa.  The 1880 census showed that they lived in town rather than on a farm, and Herman's occupation was teamster.

Granddaughter Ellen Mitchell related that Herman liked to help in the kitchen.  "He always peeled the vegetables dry, and then washed them.  He seemed to help with the cooking too.  When they lived on an acreage on Woodbury Avenue, (the photograph we have of the farm house with the three girls sitting on the ground and their parents nearby) he raised a big garden, and usually a pig or two.  In the late fall he would butcher the pig and make two to three kinds of sausage.  Also, he would bring some to us, and they were yummy.  This house was the place Aunt Lillian (married 1909) held her wedding reception.  As a child of 8 or 9, I remember the house was very large with several rooms upstairs."

Herman Droge lived until his youngest daughter was 27, married and the mother of twins!  He was 81 and died of a stroke.  His wife, Wilhemina, was nine years younger than he, and she died August 31, 1931 at the age of 86.