By Dean Karau    July 10, 2025

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(Only a day after I sent in this column to THE KEWANEE VOICE, on June 10, 2025, President Trump gave a speech which required an update to the facts of this story.)

On March 27, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity in America,” which mandated, in part, that:

“The Secretary of the Interior shall: (i) determine whether, since January 1, 2020, public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction have been removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology. . .”

Then, on June 10, President Trump spoke at Ft. Bragg, renamed Fort Liberty in 2023 as part of a wider effort to remove names of Confederate generals from military installations. However, in early February 2025, the base was renamed back to Fort Bragg. In his speech, the president announced that

“we are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort AP Hill, and Fort Robert E. Lee.”

Those forts were originally named for Confederate generals George Pickett, John Bell Hood, John Brown Gordon, General Edmund W. Rucker, Leonidas Polk, Ambrose Powell, Robert E. Lee and General Braxton Bragg.

Does that also mean that statues of Confederate leaders taken down will soon be returning and others be put up as well? Does that mean that the South’s “Lost Cause” myth, that asserts the cause of the Confederate states during the Civil War was not treasonous and not centered on slavery, will be espoused once again?

Perhaps the words of Kewanee’s only Civil War general, John Homer Howe, might shed light on how he and our hometown’s early citizens might have viewed the current president’s actions.

John Homer Howe was born in New York in 1822. In 1855, Howe and his wife, Julia, moved to Kewanee, where he set up a law office. Howe and three other men acquired and platted about 60 acres in the southwest quarter of Section 33, which included “The Grove” or just “The Park,” what would later become West Park. Howe himself bought a block of land and built a house in which he and Julia would raise their family.

After a foray in the newspaper business, Howe, a staunch Republican, was elected judge of the Sixth Judicial District.

After the Civil War began, Howe led the effort in Kewanee to form two companies of volunteers for the war, the Kewanee Volunteers and the Kewanee Guards. But the companies were not called up and both were disbanded. Then, after Union setbacks in 1862, Howe led the organization of those two companies again, both of which became part of the 124th Illinois Infantry Regiment, and Howe was appointed lieutenant colonel, second in command of the 124th.

Fighting primarily in and around Vicksburg throughout the course of the war, Howe was brevetted a full colonel and took command of the 124th. In March 1865, Howe was brevetted brigadier general by President Lincoln. The 124th engaged in 14 skirmishes, 10 battles, and sieges of 47 days and nights, and 13 days and nights, respectively. It was under the fire of the Confederate flag-waving enemy for 82 days and 60 nights.

After returning to Kewanee in 1865, on July 4, 1866, General Howe spoke at an Independence Day celebration held at The Grove.

Howe began:

“Ninety years ago this day, in Independence Hall, in the City of Philadelphia, a little band of Patriots, 56 in number, representing the 13 Colonies of North America, adopted and published to the world the immortal document which has to day [sic] been read in your hearing & before millions of our Countrymen, all over this Good and beautiful land whose inheritance is our boast and pride.

“That declaration was really the first great trumpet of Liberty ever sounded on the Earth, and its soul inspiring tones swept like pealing thunder over land & sea – over mountain and plain – reverberated on every shore, and their deep sonorous diapason swelled up from every nook and cavern of the inhabited globe.

“The nations heard those novel sounds and were amazed – Despots heard that strange refrain – and while they laughed with derision, they quaked with fear.

“Those who sighed for freedom in despotic lands listened, and hoped and feared.”

Howe provided a brief history of the events leading up to the American Revolution, the results, the wonderous growth of our nation of freedom and a summary of bounty flowing thereafter.

Howe then transitioned to the Civil War and its real cause:

“The rebels were without a single excuse which they dared openly to avow. – Not one Constitutional obligation had been broken – not one compact violated, – not one duty (however odious) had been unperformed by the Government – while their own violtion [sic] of law – breaking of solemn compromises – Contempt of the Constitution, and regularly appointed authorities of the land – plundering of the Treasury – & robbery of the Government – and the most barbarous & inhuman outrages upon the persons & property of loyal men for a long period of time, were blazoned upon the very sky & will there remain to confront and condemn them before God & man forever! . . . The leaders in the Rebellion were never loyal to the Government. They have always secretly despised it and Sought its overthrow. No fact in History is better Established than that this Rebellion had been contemplated & deliberately planned for many years.

“He is deceived, or in sympathy with the Rebellion who attempted to find any excuse for it in the history of the last ten years!” (Emphasis added.)

Howe then put lie to the treasonous rebels’ claims:

“These rebel leaders were opposed to the government on principle – because it was a government of the people – a government of Equality – a government where every free man however lowly, in all the essential civil and political rights and relations, stands upon an Equality with every other man! Where the humblest citizen in the Republic, is as powerful at the Ballot Box as the President himself & may thus protect himself from the ambitions of the more powerful. (Underline emphasis included.)

“They desired an aristocratic government, controlled by the wealthy & the proud & so that the few could govern & control the many. They sought to build up a titled nobility & to erect barriers between the rich & well born & the poor & humble – They distained all intercourse and association with the laboring classes, & sought to establish a government which should make the rich man richer and the poor man poorer – So it was plain to be seen that the great test was not to be applied to our Government – the capacity of war for the government was and to be determined that the battles of the Revolution on wider fields and a far more extended scale were to be fought over again. (Underline emphasis included.)

“The same principle was involved in the contest, and if there were reasons for establishing the government – if there were reasons for maintaining & defending it for nearly a century – those reasons still remembered, and were in free force, and addressed themselves to every loyal beat with all the added force of 86 years of experience & attention of their its value wisdom & justice, and I stand here to declare that never since the evening stars sang together had there been and never until the sun shall cease to rise will there be a war waged for a nobler and holier purpose than to crush out the Rebellion, restore the Union of the states upon the basis of freedom. Justice & Equality and to plant the stars & stripes again upon every foot of soil from the Pacific to the Atlantic & from the lakes to the gulf there to float in triumph forever! (Underline emphasis included.)

“The vital principles of the Republic the very theory of the Government was involved. The booming of the guns at Sumpter [sic] was the signal of the great [war] and I trust final contest between aristocracy and Democracy. Every man, woman & child was deeply interested in crushing out the fatal heresy of secession. It was only another name for destruction – annihilation.” (Underline emphasis included.)

Torture, starvation & death murder & inhumanity which should shame Hell itself – treachery, . . . all these could not avail, and the banner of treason went down before the Banner of the Union. (Emphasis added.)

“Torture, starvation & death murder & inhumanity which should shame Hell itself – treachery, . . . all these could not avail, and the banner of treason went down before the Banner of the Union.”

Continuing, Howe counselled that the rebel leaders were but demagogues to be banished:

“Justice to the memories of the dead heroes of 100 battle fields, and the starved & slain at Andersonville requires that the wicked authors of the late rebellion should no longer go ever [bereft] of Justice . . . let the bolts of Justice fall upon those who inviegled [sic] & betrayed [the people] in this awful Crime. Let the wicked Demagogues of this nation be taught a lesson which shall never be forgotten among men. They have ever been the base of our political system, and now, with their hands red with the blood of their countrymen let them not escape . . . .”

As he began to close his remarks, Howe said:

“Fellow Citizens, let us all draw new inspirations of genuine patriotism from the day we celebrate. Let the sacred truths of the Declaration, and the lessons of the past, sink deep into our hearts. Let our temples of justice & our Halls of legislation be kept free and uncontaminated by the breath of traitors, & none but the loyal & the true, minister in our holy temple – of Liberty.“

After Howe’s speech, the Park was filled with revelers as they celebrated the birth of the nation.

I believe that President Trump’s executive order and his orders for continuing to use names for forts originally named for Confederate generals are antithetical to everything that Kewanee’s General John Homer Howe stood for. General Howe saw the horrors of nearly 700,000 deaths, more American deaths than all other major wars, before and after, combined. Howe knew the causes of those deaths and the men who perpetrated them.

I believe that, if he were alive today, General Howe would lead the charge against what is happening today, just as he led many charges against the treasonous Confederate rebels during the Civil War.

(The Kewanee Historical Society has Howe’s handwritten speech, and I have provided a transcription of it to the Society.)