The act of the extra session of the Legislature providing for the issue of State bonds to the amount of $800,000, drawing seven per cent. interest, also provided for a Board of Commissioners, consisting of the Governor, Charles Mason, William Smyth, James Baker and C. W. Slagle, to determine from time to time how many bonds should be issued. Various newspapers of the State, which were unfriendly to the administration and to the prosecution of the war, published articles claiming that the law authorizing the issue of bonds was unconstitutional. This attack upon the legality of the bonds discredited them in the eastern cities where they were offered for sale and capitalists declined to buy them except at great discount. Finally sales were made in Iowa at ninety-four cents on the dollar. $300,000 worth were sold at that price, which amount provided all of the money required for war purposes, and the remaining $500,000 worth were eventually destroyed.
Additional calls for troops came in rapid succession as the eastern armies met with disastrous defeats and the war assumed an unexpected magnitude. The vast amount of labor devolving upon the State administration called for additional help. Governor Kirkwood appointed N. H. Brainerd Military Secretary, and J. C. Culbertson was commissioned Assistant Adjutant-General.
On the 31st of July, 1861, the Republican State Convention assembled at Des Moines and nominated Governor Kirkwood for reelection by the following vote: Samuel J. Kirkwood, three hundred and ten votes; Samuel F. Miller, three, and Fitz Henry Warren, twenty-nine. John R. Needham was nominated for Lieutenant-Governor and Ralph P. Lowe was nominated for reëlection as Supreme Judge. The resolutions indorsed the National and State Administrations, and a vigorous prosecution of the war, and invited the cooperation of the loyal men of all parties in support of the Government.
On the 24th of July, the Democratic State Convention
