Excerpt from From Iowa to the Philippines: A History of Company M, Fifty-First Iowa Infantry Volunteers
This is not the first time a newspaper correspondent has turned author, but in this case the action was almost involuntary. Mr. Markey had not the slightest notion when, at the request of the writer, he undertook to send to The Express each week a budget of Company M news, that his letters would ever be considered worth of being preserved in permanent form. In fact, he began the work of a correspondent without any journalistic training. But I knew him to be a man of wide reading, a close observer of men and events, and with the faculty of clearly expressing himself on paper. The immediate popularity of "Markey"s letters" bore out the writer"s judgment in securing him as a correspondent.
An important factor in adding to the popularity of the letters was the high standing and connections of the members of Company M, of whom he wrote. The company had, since its organization, been the social center of the town. Its members were taken from the best families. When war broke out the best class of young men in this and adjoining counties sought membership in Company M, hence the addition of recruits did not lower the character of the company. When it is remembered that nearly one hundred of the best young men in the community had gone to the war, many of them mere school boys, but fearless and patriotic, then it can be understood why any kind of news from camp or held was eagerly read by the home folks.
But Markey"s letters were somethings more than mere news letters. The were history - written in the midst of the events described. Friends sent copies of the paper all over the country and newspapers throughout the state copied them freely wherever there were people interested in the Fifty-First Iowa Infantry Volunteers.
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