On Flag Day, Iowa community will honor 6 brothers who died during the Civil War

(Courtesy of Will Thomson)

Gov. Terry Branstad will be among the dignitaries attending Tuesday’s afternoon dedication in Louisa County of a monument to six Iowa brothers who died during the Civil War.

The Littleton siblings – George, John, Kendall, Noah, Thomas and William – will forever be memorialized in Toolesboro, the small farm community where they grew up after their parents moved from Maryland and Ohio.

Final preparations in the past weeks for the 4 p.m. ceremony include the planting of six memorial trees and the installation of benches near the 11-foot monument, made of Mesabi Black granite.

Tom Woodruff, who has been instrumental in the project, told the Picket that the effort has restored his faith in people. “People from our community in Iowa who came together to make it possible. But overriding all that is to know these very ordinary young brothers were given their place in history."

Janie Blankenship, associate editor of VFW Magazine, told the Picket in 2014 that it is believed that with six deaths, the Littleton family had the most sons to die during an American war.

Des Moines historian John Busbee told Radio Iowa the monument will symbolize ordinary soldiers who were the foundation of the Federal army. “It wasn’t the officers. It was the boots-on-the-ground front line people that so many families with their descendants connected to the Civil War can identify with.”

Buses at the Louisa County Historical Society Museum in Wapello will transport those interested to the monument site Tuesday. A reception will follow at the museum.

• Picket's previous look at the family