USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. I > Part 16
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60
"Every expedition I sent out to overtake the guerrillas failed to achieve the object sought. We could not overtake them. On every side of us were living, people who not only befriended and sympathized with the guerrillas, but furnished them with advantageous information as to the movements of the army or any detachment. After they had committed many depredations and then penetrated to Lawrence, where they murdered nearly 200 people in cold blood and burned the city, I knew some decisive measure had to be adopted. The Kansas people were aroused, and it seems providential inter- ference that stayed them from going into Missouri and at least murdering those people they knew kept the guerrillas posted. I believe as to General Schofield and I know as to myself, that Order No. 11 was issued out of a spirit of mercy to the people whose homes were in the border counties. It was a deliberate order and my judgment has never faltered an instant. But I confess I have suffered a great deal from the weak and partisan construction put upon it. When it was issued and before it went into effect, Montgomery Blair made an appeal to President Lincoln to have it revoked. In turn President Lincoln called upon General Schofield for an explanation-and the order went into effect. It was to me the only means of restoring peace. Those people were told that they must move and they did so withont any show of military interference, and I am sure were no more inconvenienced than any of you would be to-day who had to change your place of abode. All you people, who were with me, know the truth of these statements. I remember that my own father remonstrated with me about that order and I know his heart was right, but he didn't know. I have been pelted by the Democratic party on this account; and the charge that I was cruel to my fellow beings
118
BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.
while in a position to command is galling. Yet if I had it all to do over again I would do it in the same way."
After General Ewing had thus removed the spies and purveyors from " the hills of the robbers," Quantrill, unable to continue the vendetta, led the guerrillas south. Under General Ewing's firm administration re-settlement of the country soon began, and the Border War, which had raged for eight years, was ended forever. General Ewing conducted one campaign where he dis- played military ability sufficient, had the operations been larger, to give him rank as a great commander. In September, 1864, the distinguished Confeder- ate lieutenant general, Sterling Price, a brigadier general in the Mexican War, once governor of Missouri, and a man of great political influence in the State, crossed the Arkansas river with 20,000 men, and marched on St. Louis. By capturing that city he hoped to bring Missouri into the Confederacy, thus securing a great base of supplies, and possibly so discrediting the administra- tion as to prevent the re-election of President Lincoln in November. General Rosecrans was in command of the Department of the Missouri, and General Ewing of the District of Southeast Missouri. The Federal troops were scat- tered in small detachments at important towns, and could not be concentrated in numbers sufficient to defeat General Price's large army. The only chance of averting the immense loss of prestige and resources which the surrender of St. Louis would involve was to check General Price until the city could be reinforced with troops brought from other States, by holding fast to Fort Davidson, a small work with capacity of about a thousand men, situated in a low valley ninety miles south of St. Louis at the village of Pilot Knob, so called from a near-by hill. In this fort were large quantities of ordnance, and commissary's and quartermaster's supplies, which General Price sorely needed. General Rosecrans, at the urgent request of General Ewing, sent him to Fort Davidson. He reached there on the morning of Monday, September 26, instructed to hold the fort against any detachment, but to evacuate should General Price's main army move against it. He found the main army approaching ; but the advantage of delaying the enemy if only for two or three days was so great, that, as he says in his report, he " resolved to stand fast and take the chances." He held Shut-in Gap, four miles below the fort, throughout the 26th, and then fell back to a gap about one thousand yards from the fort, between Shepherd's Mountain and Pilot Knob. Early Tuesday morn- ing his troops were ejected from this gap, the enemy following and moving down the hillside in strong force. The guns at the fort drove them back with heavy loss. The gap was retaken, again lost, and again the artillery drove the enemy from the hillsides. But in the afternoon they swarmed into the valley in such numbers that General Ewing had to draw in his entire command. The enemy made one splendid assault upon the fort, and were repulsed with terrible slaughter. General Price, thinking he had the little garrison, as General Ewing afterward said, "like a nut in a cracker," mounted guns jon the surrounding hills preparatory to shelling the fort next day. About midnight General Ewing evacuated. He slipped
119
BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.
through the enemy's lines along a road opened, as has since transpired, by the- strategy of a Union woman of the neighborhood, who having by an invitation to a barbecue tolled off the Confederate Colonel Dobbins and his hungry com- mand, sent word that the Potosi road was unguarded. The fort was blown up. soon after the troops withdrew. Then began a life or death retreat toward a fortified camp at Rolla, 100 miles away. The command was pursued by over- whelming cavalry forces, and embarrassed by refugees, men, women and children, who were in almost constant panic ; but before it was overtaken it reached a ridge with precipitous sides, where the pursuers could not head it off, along which it retreated. Its rear was protected by veterans of the 14th Iowa Infantry. In thirty-six hours it reached Leesburg, sixty-five miles from Pilot Knob, where it had to leave the ridge, and was soon completely sur- rounded. By hard fighting a fortified position was reached. The command was so exhausted that further retreat was impossible. The enemy made several assaults on Friday, and appearing in large force on Saturday they reeonnoitered General Ewing's position. Apparently concluding that to carry it by assault. would be too costly, they drew off, and on October 2nd the band of heroes marched into Rolla. General Ewing's total loss did not exceed 350 men, while- the enemy's loss exceeded 1,500 men at Fort Davidson alone. General Priee was delayed a week, during which St. Louis was reinforced. The attack was. abandoned and the invading army was driven from Missouri without captur- ing an important town. General Ewing was made a brevet major general for meritorious conduct at Pilot Knob. He resigned on February 23, 1865, at the close of the war in the West. In the spring of 1865 he removed to the eity of Washington, where he enjoyed for six years a large and lucrative practice. He was at different times in partnership with his father, Senator O. H. Brown- ing, and his brother, General Charles Ewing. He was the general attorney for the Central Pacific Railroad Company. He defended Arnold, Spangler and Dr. Mudd when on trial with Mrs. Surratt and four others before a mili- tary commission charged with conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. In the words of a writer of authority, he "became the leading spirit of the defense * * and wrought the miracle of plucking from the deadly clutches of the judge-advocates the lives of every one of the men he de- fended." During this period he opposed the reconstruction policy of the Republican party. His objections were that it would proscribe the whites of the South and make the negroes the rulers; that their government would have to be propped by bayonets and must fall when the support was withdrawn : that it would prove a vast burden on the North and de- structive to the South, and was wholly unconstitutional. Ile addressed the soldiers' eonvention which met at Cleveland, Ohio, in September, 1866. Of this address James G. Blaine says, in his Twenty Years of Congress : " The only noteworthy speech in the convention was delivered by General Thomas Ewing. * He and Mr. Browning were law partners at the time of Mr. Johnson's accession, and both now resolved to oppose the Republican party. General Ewing's loss was regretted by a large number of
120
BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.
friends. He had inherited talent and capacity of a high order, was rapidly rising in his profession, and seemed destined to an inviting political career in the party to which he had belonged from its first organization. In supporting the policy of President Johnson he made a large sacrifice, -large enough certainly to free his action from the slightest suspicion of any other motive than conviction of duty." President Johnson offered Mr. Ewing the positions of secretary of war and attorney-general; but he declined both offers. In 1870 he removed to Lancaster, with ample means acquired in his profession, and embarked in the work of developing the Hocking valley. He was largely instrumental in the construction of the Ohio Central Railway. But the panic of 1873 robbed him of all pecuniary return from his efforts, and cast upon him a vast indebtedness, which he could easily have avoided, but which he strug- gled to pay during the remaining quarter century of his life. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Ohio in 1873-4, where his legal attainments and admirable powers of debate gave him a leading place. But the proposed Constitution failed of adoption by the people. In the financial discussions following the war to the resumption of specie payments in 1879, General Ewing was pronounced in his opposition to the various statutes devised to enhance the value of the currency and effect the payment of the government bonds in gold. He opposed the law of 1869 which declared that bonds, the principal of which was originally made payable in greenbacks, should be paid in coin. In 1871 he attacked the refunding operations of the government, and the policy of currency contraction, from which he anticipated commercial dis- aster, an anticipation fulfilled in the panic of 1873. In January, 1875, the Act was passed by Congress providing for the resumption of specie payments. He aroused the Democratic party against the resumption policy, and for the next four years was the most conspicuous figure in the Greenback movement. In 1875 William Allen was elected governor of Ohio, upon a platform written by General Ewing, which squarely opposed resumption. In 1876 Allen G. Thur- man sought the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. Though less pro- nounced in opposition to resumption than was Governor Allen, Senator Thur- man was General Ewing's preference for the nomination, but upon condition that the declaration of financial policy adopted in 1875 should not be modified. When the State Convention met in Cincinnati, the followers of Senator Thur- man, led by the Honorable Frank Hurd, controlled its organization, and intro- duced resolutions which in effect declared for the abandonment of opposition to the resumption policy. Minority resolutions re-affirming the platform of 1875 were reported by Governor William D. Morgan. At a moment when defeat seemed certain General Ewing mounted the stand. "I rise," said he, "not to speak for a man, but for the cause." By a powerful and impassioned speech he carried the Morgan resolutions. He himself pre- sented the name of William Allen, at St. Louis. as the nominee of the Ohio Democracy. General Ewing represented the Lancaster district in Congress from 1877 to 1881, where he advocated the remonetization of silver, and became the leader in the successful fight to amend the resumption
121
BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.
scheme so as to provide that the greenbacks should be reissued instead of being destroyed when once presented for redemption. But for this amendment the currency, already reduced in volume, would have been greatly contracted, to the immeasurable distress of the industrial classes. And resumption would have been impossible, as Secretary Sherman admitted in his interview with the committee on finance, March 19, 1878, where the question was put to him by Senator Allison : " In other words, you think we cannot come to and inain- tain specie payments without the power to reissue ?" To which Secretary Sherman answered : " I do not think we can." On the money question Gen- eral Ewing was unwarrantably charged with advocating inflation. His position was, in fact, the conservative position. He sought to preserve the greenbacks, and to avert the fall in prices which forced resumption produced. He proposed to retire the national bank currency, and fix by constitutional amendment the volume of the greenback currency and its enlargement in proportion to the annual percentage of increase in the population. In Con- gress he was also largely instrumental in stopping the employment of Federal troops and supervisors at elections conducted under State laws. Respecting the tariff he was a moderate protectionist. During his last year in Congress a bill was reported unanimously from the committee on the postal service which proposed very large reduction in the appropriation for the service in the far West. Any one familiar with the conduct of business in Congress knows how all but certainly the unanimous report of a committee controls. General Ewing knew that the people affected would suffer by the proposed changes, and after a vigorous debate he carried an amendment continuing the usual appropriations. In closing his speech he referred to the famous pony-express, established by Ben Holliday before the war, between St. Joseph, Missouri, and San Francisco, and in one of his happiest expressions likened it to a "spider's thread swung across the desert." In 1879 General Ewing was the Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio, but was defeated after a brilliant campaign which attracted the attention of the Nation. it being recognized that success would place him in the front rank of Presidential possibilities. Intensely dem- ocratic, he aimed to serve the whole people and had the courage of his convic- tions; and the Democracy of Ohio honored him with a devotion such as has been enjoyed by few men. In 1881 he retired from Congress and from poli- tics. Removing to Yonkers, New York, in 1882, he practiced law in New York City. He was for many years in partnership with the Honorable Milton I. Southard, formerly of Ohio, who had represented the Zanesville District in Congress. In 1893 he organized the firm of Ewing, Whitman & Ewing, in order to join with him his sons, Thomas and Hampton Denman Ewing. In 1895 he was attorney to the department of buildings of New York City. He delivered addresses on numerous public occasions, which he prepared with great care. In an address before the Law School of the University of the City of New York, he favored the abolition of the requirement of unanimity of the jury in civil cases, and the codification of the " private law." In closing, he said :
122
BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.
" Gentlemen, always recollect that you are American lawyers, and owe allegiance to the people. Be loyal to your sovereign in word and deed. The experiment, of self-government has been concluded and is a world acknowl- edged success. * * Exert your influence in perfecting the law, and in administering it expeditiously, economically and justly. Seek to make a lawsuit a terror to evil-doers only. Guard the liberty of the people and that equality which is the soul of free government. Punish abuse, oppression and corruption wherever and however they appear in the profession or in the courts. So that the people may forget the grievances of which poets and novelists have bitterly and mournfully written ; and Oily Gammon, and Samp- son Brass, and Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and poor little Miss Flite, may be remembered only as myths showing the griefs of the olden time; and so that American jurisprudence may illustrate Sir Matthew Hale's lofty and eloquent tribute to law : 'All things on earth do her reverence, the least as feeling her protection, the greatest as not exempt from her power. Her voice is the harmony of the world ; her seat is the bosom of God.'"
General Ewing was a founder of the Ohio Society of New York in 1886, and its president until 1889. He loved the people of Ohio and hoped to return to live in Lancaster, at or near which city lived, with their families, his broth- ers, General Hugh Boyle and Judge Philemon Beecher Ewing, his sister, Mrs. C. F. Steele, his eldest son, William Cox Ewing, and elder daughter, Mrs. Edwin S. Martin. General Ewing was struck down by a cable car in New York on January 20, 1896. He was taken to his apartment where he was liv- ing with his wife and younger daughter Beall. He died on the morning of January 21, without recovering consciousness. He was buried at Yonkers on the Friday following. His wife and all his children survive him. In his every-day life he was pure and unselfish. Though full of high ambition, he was hopeful and cheerful under adversity and disappointment. In manner he was dignified and simple ; in conversation ready and interesting, full of humor and amiability. Always generous and approachable, he had hosts of friends. No one appealed to him in vain. " His hand gave help, his heart compassion." He was an affectionate son and brother, a loving father, a devoted husband. In noting his death the Cincinnati Enquirer said :
"Though General Thomas Ewing removed to New York about fifteen years ago, he resided still in the warm affections of the people of Ohio. His death will be mourned in every community in which he ever lived. Thomas Ewing was an ideal gentleman. Handsome in person, easy and gracious in manner, and lofty in his ideals, he made a deep impression on everybody he met. He was a gallant and effective soldier, an able lawyer, a sincere states- man, and a politician who set a high moral example in the practice of politics. He was worthy to be the son of the eminent Thomas Ewing of old, whose name is inseparably woven in the history of Ohio and the administration of national affairs."
.
123
BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.
JOSHUA REED GIDDINGS, Jefferson. Few figures in Ohio history attained greater prominence than Joshua R. Giddings. He was born at Athens, Pennsylvania, in 1795, and died at Montreal, in the Dominion of Canada, May 27, 1864. Much of the intervening period his life was turbulent and always active. His ancestors settled in New England about the middle of the seventeenth century. As an infant he was taken by his parents to Canan- daigua, New York, and thence, at the age of ten, to Wayne township, Ashta- bula county, Ohio. In 1805 the settlers of Jefferson county were few and the forests almost unbroken. The Giddings family were made of the stuff out of which the best pioneers are fashioned. Joshua was athletic in his physical proportions, well fitted to be a hard fighter or a good runner. He was not only qualified for work in the clearing and on the farm, but his intellectual faculties made him ambitious to achieve something in the realm of mind. He was industrious in reading and study, appropriating to himself with avidity the contents of all books available. He was keen to take advantage of every opportunity for advancement. In the War of 1812 he became a volunteer soldier, and was in the engagement fought at Sandusky. At the age of nine- teen he was a good scholar. It is a commentary on his desire to be informed that all of his acquirements in the way of literature and mental culture were obtained at night, without interference with the hard physical labor which he was required to perform. He taught school for a time and entered upon the study of law in 1819, with Elisha Whittlesey. He absorbed readily and assimilated what he read. He was, therefore, soon qualified for practice. In 1829, after practicing ten years, he formed a partnership with Benjamin F. Wade, under the style of Giddings & Wade, which continued several years. In 1826 he was elected to the legislature and declined re-election. He also declined to permit his name to be used as a candidate for United States senator, because of the intense anti-Masonic feeling in the legislature aroused by the dis- appearance of Morgan. Mr. Giddings was a Mason. Ten years later he was elected to Congress as a Whig, and was kept in Congress continuously for twenty-one years. His first election was for the residue of the term of Elisha Whittlesey, who died in office. In 1848 he became a Freesoiler and developed into one of the great abolition leaders. His whole being revolted against the slave traffic, and the auction block in the District of Columbia in sight of the Capitol he regarded as a national humiliation and disgrace. He became the advocate of the slaves who mutinied on board the Creole, landed her at Nassau and sccured their freedom. For his opposition in Congress to the demand against Great Britain for compensation, the House of Representatives voted to censure him without a hearing. He resigned at once, appealed to the people of his district for vindication, and was re-elected by a large majority. This support at home gave him increased strength in Congress. He was never wanting in courage. Standing six feet two inches in height and weighing two hundred and twenty- five pounds, he was a veritable Titan in physical strength and was under all circumstances fearless. His moral courage was equal to his physical strength. His feeling was so strong on the subject of human slavery that he regarded it
124
BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.
his duty to protect and defend the slaves struggling for freedom, to the utmost extent of his ability. His efforts in behalf of one hundred of these fugitives who were caught and imprisoned at Washington almost subjected him to mob violence. In the emergency, when the danger seemed greatest, he was calm, stern and even defiant. Retiring from public service on the 4th of March, 1859, he returned to his quiet home at Jefferson, in the Western Reserve, and resumed the practice of law, which, indeed, had never been abandoned. In 1861 President Lincoln appointed him consul-general of the British North American provinces, and he died in Montreal at his post of duty. Mr. Giddings was one of the greatest orators the State of Ohio has produced, but it required a great question or an important occasion to rouse him. When thoroughly interested and aroused he was able to stir the multitude by his wonderful oratory. His imagination was marvellous and his words came almost by inspiration. His convictions were deep and overpowering. He spoke with intense earnestness. Opposition was necessary to bring out his best qualities, and on such occasions his manner was impassioned and inflamed. He was the master of a good style of English, but in ordinary speech, on a question having no vital interest, he was rather a stammerer and his address was halting. He had none of the graces of the cultivated orator, but on every question involving a great principle or exciting human sympathy he had the soul of oratory. He served in Congress during a period when the South was represented by her greatest leaders, many of whom were famil- iar with the "code duello," and extremely sensitive to any opposition to their domestic institution. Several anecdotes are related of Mr. Giddings, illus- trating his physical courage and his utter indifference to the "code." He was so ready in sarcasm and denunciatory speech that he soon became an object of dislike to the " fire-eaters." And yet none courted a personal encounter with him. He was not accustomed to carry resentment or cultivate malice, and yet the men with whom he had engaged in acrimonious discussion on the floor of the House preferred not to meet him outside until a reasonable time had elapsed. He once had rather a fierce contention with a Mr. Black, and soon afterwards, when walking on Pennsylvania Avenue, he discovered Mr. Black approaching him in the opposite direction. The latter discovered Mr. Giddings about the same time, and not caring to meet him face to face, turned suddenly from the street and passed down a convenient alley, while Mr. Giddings walked leisurely along, swinging his ponderous cane and not saying a word. On one occasion he was challenged by Preston Brooks, of South Carolina, to fight a duel, and the challenge was not noticed. The South Carolinian regarded this as an indignity, and declared that nothing but a personal encounter would satisfy him. Finally the patience of Mr. Giddings was exhausted, and he announced on the floor of the House that he was ready for the battle to proceed, and authorized Mr. Brooks to name the time, place and weapons. The enraged Mr. Brooks retorted : "Now is my time, and my weapon a pistol." "Oh, very well," re- joined Mr. Giddings, "all I want to settle this affair is a York shilling raw
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.