Andrew W. Drips was born around 1826 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, to William A. Drips and Martha A. Clarke. His father was a carpenter, and he began work as a printer by the late 1840s. Drips served as a private in the 2^nd Pennsylvania Infantry during the Mexican American War, enlisting on January 3, 1847, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 10 inches tall, with dark hair and hazel eyes. He was wounded in the Battle of Chapultepec in 1847, and army officials sent him to the general hospital in Mexico City. He remained there until at least February 1848, and he mustered out on July 14, 1848.

 

Drips returned to Pennsylvania after the war, and he married Margaret A. Jacobs on March 21, 1850. Their daughter Blanche was born around 1852. By 1850, he was working as a printer in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, and he owned $1,600 of real estate. The family moved to South Fork, Iowa, sometime in the 1850s, and by 1860, he owned $300 of real estate and $50 of personal property. He served as editor of the Weekly Excelsior, a Republican newspaper in Jackson County, Iowa.

 

When the Civil War erupted, Drips through his support behind the Union war effort. He helped organize a meeting in Jackson County in August 1861, and he declared it “the duty of every one who lives under the protection of the American flag to contribute…in maintaining the government which that flag represents.” Drips helped organize Company A of the 9^th Iowa Infantry, and he mustered in as its captain on September 7, 1861. He died in the Battle of Pea Ridge six months later, on March 7, 1862.

 

As his brother John reported, Drips was “first struck by a spent ball in the arm tearing his coat and shirt sleeve, and drawing a little blood. I suppose it knocked him down, as he was lying on his elbow when another ball entered his abdomen and did not come out.” His soldiers “immediately carried him from the field to a building used for a hospital where two of our boys remained with him until he died.” John claimed that his brother spoke “but a few times—once saying ‘tell Mrs. Drips I died blessing her name. I tried to fight well and do my duty.’ His last words were ‘Oh God! If I am prepared, take me to thyself.’”

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