The Tom Howard Post No. 101 of the Grand Army of the Republic was organized at Clear Lake, Iowa, on Oct. 15, 1872, honoring Lieut. Thomas Howard of the 32nd Iowa, a Clear Lake soldier killed at the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, on April 9, 1864. A county newspaper article published after the post's preliminary meeting praised Howard as brave, beloved, and worthy of having the veterans' post named for him, and recounted how the writer and Howard were carried from the battlefield together, lay side by side through the night, and were separated in a makeshift hospital before Howard, mortally wounded, was left behind during the army's retreat and buried in Louisiana. The account also preserves the memories of Edwin C. Nichols, who came to Cerro Gordo County in 1854, served in Company B of the 32nd Iowa, and wrote in his journal of April 9, 1864, that after an early morning call and a poker game played with grains of corn, he alone of the ten men in that game answered roll call at day's end. Nichols recalled moving to the extreme front on the road to Mansfield, hearing grim warnings from troops driven back the day before, witnessing the signs of an approaching battle, and waiting through the day until Colonel Scott warned that if the enemy came that day, they would arrive within half an hour. Soon after writing this journal, Nichols was discharged after three years of service because of physical disability, returned to Clear Lake, and resumed farming.