The Littleton Brothers: A Family Erased by the American Civil War
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, The Civil War took more American lives than any other conflict in the nation’s history, but few families endured loss like the Littletons of Iowa. When the war broke out, all six brothers enlisted to serve in the Union Army. One by one, they were lost to battle, disease, captivity, and accidents, leaving behind four grieving sisters and no surviving sons. Their story nearly disappeared into history, buried in a forgotten scrapbook. But thanks to a local historian, the Littleton brothers have been remembered for the sacrifices they made. John Busbee shares the story of how this Iowa family lost all six of their boys during America’s bloodiest conflict.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.1 | This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, |
| 0:18.1 | and we tell stories about everything here on this show, |
| 0:22.8 | including yours. Send them to our American Stories.com. They're some of our favorites. Up next, a story from the Civil War that was |
| 0:28.6 | nearly forgotten to history. Here's John Busby of the Culture Buzz on KFMG 98.9 FM and our own Monty |
| 0:37.3 | Montgomery with a story. |
| 0:39.9 | A lot of history, although it deserves to be remembered, can easily be forgotten if people, |
| 0:46.3 | well, forget about it. It then becomes almost like buried treasure waiting for someone to uncover it. |
| 0:55.0 | Delving into history is, it's almost like beachcombing. |
| 0:59.0 | You're never quite sure what you're going to find, but sometimes you find some incredible things. |
| 1:04.0 | And that's what happened over 10 years ago. |
| 1:08.0 | Someone who's a friend of mine now, Tom Woodruff of Loiza County, Iowa, |
| 1:12.2 | he had a call from the widow of a boyhood friend of his who said that this friend's grandmother |
| 1:18.6 | had put together a scrapbook. It roughly went from the late 1800s to the first few years of |
| 1:24.2 | the 1900s, and she knew it might be of interest to Tom because Tom is an |
| 1:29.3 | amateur historian. And so she ended up getting that scrapbook to Tom. So of course, what does |
| 1:35.5 | he do? He sits down and he has to go through the entire scrapbook. And there on this 57 page |
| 1:42.3 | scrapbook on page 23 was a little news clipping. |
| 1:50.4 | It was from a 1907 Columbus Gazette newspaper, and they were talking about the devastating toll the Civil War had. |
| 1:59.9 | And it talked specifically about the Littleton family, |
| 2:04.8 | were less fortunate when it came to losing people. Of the six brothers, only one lived to return, |
... |
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