Just thought I'd share this bit of information regarding a relic in the Old State House Museum that will be on display in the upcoming CW Sesquicentennial exhibit at the museum. The relic is a "gold-headed" cane presented to Arkansas Confederate General Daniel C. Govan. On the gold head of the cane is the inscription: “Presented by the 16th Iowa Infantry to Gen. D.C. Govan—1864-1885.” In 1883, General Govan traveled from his home in Marianna, AR to attend a reunion of the 16th Iowa at Cedar Rapids, IA where he returned the Union regiment's flag that his brigade had captured on July 22, 1864 at the Battle of Atlanta. A couple of years later, the remaining Iowa veterans purchased the cane and mailed it to General Govan. In Govan's acceptance letter he writes: “I accept the beautiful gold-headed cane as a memento of the stirring incidents of the past, and pledge of our good will and friendship in the future, and as I look upon the inscription on its beautifully carved head, I will have very much the same feeling as the old patriarchs, when, after the terrible disaster of the deluge, they saw in the heavens the [rain]bow of promise, which gave to them assurance of immunity in the future of a like disaster. So, I feel that never again will this great nation be convulsed with civil war, but between your people and my people there will be peace forevermore.”