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Returning to Davenport, Iowa, after the war, Spier Whitaker Jr. remembered his teenage friendships and the path that led to his freedom.

Spier Whitaker Jr. was born in 1841 in North Carolina.  When he was thirteen years old, his father, prominent lawyer Spier Whitaker Sr., moved their family to Davenport, Iowa.  His father sent Spier Jr. back to North Carolina to attend a prep school the following year.  In 1857, Spier Jr. enrolled in the University of North Carolina.  He came back to Iowa during school breaks.

Spier Jr. was in his final year of college when the “rage militaire” swept North Carolina.  Three of his brothers enlisted in the Confederate Army, and he joined a company assigned to the Bethel Regiment.  General Ambrose Burnsides’s troops captured Private Spier Whitaker Jr. on March 14, 1862, while attacking New Bern.

Judge James Grant (Spier Jr.’s cousin and a Davenport notable) tried to arrange for Spier Jr. to be paroled and exchanged.  Judge Grant asked former congressman (and fellow Davenport resident) James Thorington to intervene:

Noble Tyner, adjutant 14th Iowa, was taken prisoner by the enemy at Pittsburg.  Lt. Spier Whitaker Jr., son of Spier Whitaker of Chapel Hill, N.C., was taken prisoner by our forces at New Bern, N.C.  These men hold the same rank.  Their fathers and families are intimate friends.  They desire to get one exchanged for the other.

If you can get Spier Whitaker Jr. paroled, I will be responsible for his exchange at any time and place required. If you will get a letter to his father at Chapel Hill, N.C., he will go and find Tyner if he is alive.  You and I know him and know that he has influence, wherever he lives.  He was formerly a resident of this place [Davenport], and I believe Jr. and Tyner were schoolmates in this town.

In spite of Judge Grant’s best efforts, Spier Junior spent four months in a POW camp before rejoining his unit.

Spier Jr. had a fresh promotion (to second lieutenant) when he joined Lee’s army on the eve of invading Maryland.  He was in the battle of “Antietam and most of the struggles of 1863 and 1864.”  Spier Jr. sheathed his sword at Appomattox.

He returned to Davenport, Iowa, and studied law under his accomplished father.  The next year, 1866, Spier Jr. moved back to North Carolina, where he began climbing the public ladder.  After becoming solicitor, Spier Jr. entered the state senate, practiced law, became a Superior Court Judge, and resumed practicing law.

Spier Jr. was commissioned as major with the Sixth Regiment, U.S. Volunteers during the Spanish-American War.  He drilled with his men in Knoxville, Tennessee, and departed for Puerto Rico, but the war ended before they saw active duty.

Spier Whitaker Jr. died at his home in Raleigh, North Carolina, on July 11, 1901. A caretaker shrouded his body in a Confederate battle flag, according to his wishes.

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