Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 125

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

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The Sixth, or Guthrie Gray Regiment, marched away in gray and came back in the army blue after an absence of three years, when they were mustercd out of service, about 500 strong. They were received in a sort of ovation by the citizens as they marched through the city. Their Colonel, N. L. Anderson, brought back "the boys," largely from the elite of the city, in splendid physical condition. They had an entirely different appearance from the ordinary re- turning regiments, being very neat and cleanly in their appearance. Some thought- ful friends had supplied them, as they neared the city, with a due quantity of fresh paper collars-as we were told-which were quite striking in contrast with their bronzed war-

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hardened countenances. It was a proud moment for the young men to be welcomed after their long absence by their lady friends from the streets, doors, and windows, with smiles and the waving of handkerchiefs. Eleven of their number subsequently received commissions in the regular army.

To have lived anywhere in our country during the long four years of the rebellion was to have had a variety of experience and emotion ; especially was this true of Cincin- nati. They were grand and awful times. What was to be the outcome no one could divine. Our first men could not tell us any- thing. They seemed insignificant in view of the stupendous, appalling events. At the beginning all dissenting voices were hushed in one general outburst of indignation. Later on, what were termed the "copper- heads" raised their hissing heads. One mode of striking their fangs into the Union cause was by trying to weaken respect for those at the head of affairs. Mr. Lincoln seemed an especial object for their abuse. The most obscene anecdotes were coined and circulated as coming from him, to arouse disgust and destroy all respect and confidence in him. One of their public prints described him "as an ape, a hyena, a grinning satyr, and the White House at Washington but a den where the baboon of Illinois and his satellites held their disgusting orgies." Going through our lower market one morn- ing during the war, our ears were greeted with an expression that was new to us. We turned to see the speaker and there stood be- fore us an immense, fat, blowsy-faced market woman, evidently from the Kentucky side of the Ohio half a mile distant. It was she that had just belehed forth in bit- ter, contemptuous tones the epithet, "Old Link."

During the gloomy period when news of defeat was received, the faces of some of those around us would light up with exulta- tion : then they would say : "O, I told you so : they are better fighters than our soldiers, more warlike, and in earnest. We can never conquer them. The old Union is dead. We shall probably have three confederacies. The New England States and the East ; the West ; and the South, its geographical situation in connection with the Mississippi making it a necessity." Such was the talk to which those who loved the Union were compelled to listen in those times. It added to their distresses, while it excited their in- dignation and loathing. Not to record it would be a rank injustice to those who sacri- ficed for their country and a falsification of the truth of history by its concealment.

In such a time as we had in Cincinnati there are very many isolated scenes and in- eidents that each in itself is perhaps of no especial consequence, but if itemized and given in bulk are instructive, illustrating life there in the time of the rebellion. We give some within our personal experience.

The First Funeral .- When our volunteers left for Western Virginia it was generally

thought the trouble would soon be over. Never was there a greater hallucination. In a few weeks came tidings of skirmishes and deaths among those who had but just left us. At this juncture one day I was brought to a realizing sense of what war was. By chance I saw on Broadway, just above Fifth street, a group of servant-girls and children, with others, standing before a small brick house, evidently the home of humble people. A hearse and a few carriages were in front. The group looked on with sad, curious eyes. On inquiry I learned it was the funeral of a young man who had been killed in a skir- mish in Western Virginia. In a little while an old man with his wife leaning on his arm, parents of the deceased, came out, bowed and heart-broken, followed by sorrowing brothers and sisters; they got into the carriages, which then slowly moved away. And this was what war mecut. Tears and heart-breaks and lives of sorrow and suffering to the inno- cent and helpless.

The Gawky Officer .- There was, ordina- rily, very little pride of military show among those engaged in so serious a business as war. The officers, when not on duty, generally ap- peared in undress. Our streets at times were thick with such. It was near the beginning when there passed, walking on Fourth street, by Pike's Opera House, a very tall, gawky officer, over six feet in stature. He was in full parade dress, with spreading epaulettes, and his stride was that which showed he had passed his days in plowed fields straddling from furrow to furrow. He evidently felt he was creating a sensation in the big city-and he was. Every one turned and looked at this specimen of pomp, fuss and feathers, with comical emotion.

Falling in Battle .- We asked a young man, a captain who had come home on fur- lough, by the name of Emerson, whom we well knew, if he had ever seen any one fall in battle. He laughed as though the thought was new and replied, " No, I don't know that I ever did," and then turning to a compan- ion said, "Tom, did you?" The latter re- plied the same. Being always in front they had their eyes only to watch the enemy be- fore them. Both had seen plenty after they were down, but never one in the act of falling. A few months passed. Emerson had gone to the front. He had command of a small fort down in Tennessee, built to protect a railroad bridge. The enemy made an attack and were repelled. One man only had they killed. It was its commander, Emerson, his head carried away by a cannon ball. He was a handsome fellow, black eyes and rosy cheeks. His character was of the best. His pastor, Rev. Dr. Henry M. Storrs, said in speaking of his sacrifice : "So pure and noble was he that his very presence on our streets was a continued fragrance." That laughing, pleas- ant face is now before me, just as though it was yesterday that he said, "Tom, did you ?"

Contraband Soldiers .- Ordinarily, men in uniform are so transformed that it was rarely that we could tell, on seeing a regiment

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marching through the streets, whether it was Irish, German or American. In regard to one class of Union soldiers there could be no mistake-the negro. On Fifth street, close to Main, on the large space in front of the pres- ent Government Building, was reared a huge, shed-like structure, one story high, for bar- racks. Late in the war it was occupied briefly by a regiment or more of plantation blacks, clad in the Union uniform. They were a very different-looking people from our North- ern blacks, many of whom possess bright, in- teresting faces. These were stolid-appearing, their faces with but little more expression than those of animals. When I saw them they had finished their suppers and were en- gaged in whiling away their time singing plantation melodies in the gathering shadows ofthe evening. The voices of this immense multitude went up in a grand orchestra of sound. The tunes were plaintive, weirdlike, and the whole exhibition one that could not but affect the thoughtful mind. It was singu- larly appealing to one's best instincts to look upon these poor, simple children of nature,

who were acting their humble part in the midst of events so momentous.

At times our city was alive with troops, and then it was that the theatres and places of amusement-and places of wickedness-as in Paris during the Reign of Terror, were extraordinarily prosperous. At other times only a few people were seen on the streets, so many of the men having gone to the war. After the fall of Richmond it was felt that the great bulk of the fighting was over : but it was largely feared that the South would for years continue a scene of guerilla warfare and keep society in a state of chaos. The assassination of Mr. Lincoln came-a terrible blow in the midst of rejoicings at peace. Strong men could only speak of it with swell- ing throats and choked utterance. The na- tion writhed in agony. Then came the return of the regiments to their varied homes ; but everywhere, amid the general rejoicings, were the stricken families to be reminded only the more vividly of the terrible loss of fathers, sons and brothers, who had died that the na- tion might live.

CINCINNATI IN 1877.

In 1877, after a residence in Cincinnati of thirty years, we returned to our native city, New Haven, when we gave, in a publication there, the annexed de- scription of Cincinnati as it then was. The article is now historical, and hence proper here for permanent record ; beside, we wish to preserve it as a heartfelt tribute to a city where, and a people among whom, our children were born, and where we had so much enjoyment of life. The caption of the article was "Cin- cinnati on the Hills."

Recently an Eastern gentleman, a divine of national reputation, at one time like the writer a resident of Cincinnati-a gentleman of broad experience of travel and association in this and other lands-remarked to us : "Cincinnati is the exceptional city of the world, for the social character of its people and the wise generosity and the public spirit of its wealthy men and citizens generally." We had long felt this, and were pleased to see it so emphasized by one with such oppor- tunities for a correct opinion.

In April, 1832, Catherine Beecher first ar- rived at Walnut Hills, then largely in the primeval forest, and before her sister Harriet had come to eventually marry Calvin Stowe, and fill up forthe writing of "Uncle Tom." To her Catherine wrote: "I never saw a place so capable of being rendered a paradise by the improvements of taste as the environs of this city." Thirty years later the improve- ments were well started when out came The- odore Woolsey, president of Yale College, to Walnut Hills for a visit, and, alike enthused, said : "No other city on the globe has such beautiful suburbs."

Prevalence of Public Spirit-While other of our great cities may each point to one or two living citizens who have contributed in single gifts tens of thousands to objects pro- motive of the public welfare, Cincinnati can

point to five gentlemen of this class now walk- ing her streets, pleasant to meet, as seeing them recalls their beneficence. They are Renben Springer, who gave $175,000 toward a music hall, and later regretted that he had not given its full cost, $300,000 ; Joseph Longworth, $50,000 for a Free Art School ; Henry Probasco, $105,000 for a public foun- tain ; David Sinton, $33,000 for a Christian association building, and also $100,000 for the Bethel Sunday-School, where every Sab- bath from 2,500 to 3,000 children of the poor are gathered under one roof; and William S. Groesbeck, $50,000 for music in the parks. Beside these are scores of others equally lib- eral, according to their means, often dispensing hundreds and sometimes thousands in their gifts.

Cincinnati's Blessings .- The people are so social, come together so much for social ob- jects, that everybody worth knowing is gen- erally known. Pride in themselves, in their city and in their public spirit, is a manifest and righteous characteristic. They stand on tiptoe when their city is named, and feel a foot taller.

The city is near the centre of population, in the very heart of the Union. It is said to be more familiarly known on the continent of Europe, more noticed in the public prints, especially in Germany, from its peculiar

RETURNING FROM THE WAR.

The War is ended, and now we are marching home, Our noble girls rejoicing to see us soldiers come.

They love the drum-beat, the shrill notes of the fife; They love our dear old flag-are UNION, too, for life.

-American Revolution Song Modernized.

SQUIRREL HUNTERS CROSSING THE OHIO AT CINCINNATI.

The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio and Indiana, many thousands strong, having poured into Cincinnati to defend it from invasion, are crossing the Ohio on pontoons, Wednesday morning, September 10, 1862, to meet the enemy, only five miles distant.

MT. AUBURN INCLINED PLANE.

ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN.

THE HIGHLAND HOUSE,

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bright points, than any other of our large cities. Among these is its zoological garden, established by an association of gentlemen simply as a matter of public beneficence. It occupies a half-mile square of undulating, picturesque ground on the summit of the hills, and is the only one in the country with a single exception. Within the inclosure are numerous buildings containing a great variety of animals, beside those in the park outside the buildings, where is a town of prairie dogs and dens with white and grizzly bears.

Within the city is a public fountain, a free gift, the finest in the Union ; a free public library of over 80,000 volumes, in a magnifi- cent library building, where nearly a score of assistants stand ready to loan out the choicest books to the humblest citizens without money and without price ; a free art school, where one can learn, without cost, to draw and paint, carve and mould, and listen to attract- ive lectures from Benn Pitman on art ; and a music hall and organ, both the largest on the continent, and costing unitedly nearly a third of a million, also a free gift. The steam fire engine is a Cincinnati invention, and the city the first to adopt it, which it did through a severe conflict, largely through the indomita- ble pluck and will-power of Miles Greenwood, one of the city's strongest citizens, literally an iron man.

Musical Festivals .- A distinguishing feat- ure of the city has been her musical festivals, to be still greater, for she is to be the centre of music in this country, especially so now that she has secured as her guiding spirit the graceful, manly maestro, Theodore Thomas, whom simply to see while wielding the baton is alone worth the price of admission. The opening of these festivals is always a gala day. The streets are gay with flags, the hotels and public buildings resplendent with artistic adornments, illustrative of music and musical celebrities, and at night illuminated. Multitudes come, some from hundreds of miles away, to attend these festivals; from Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, and other West- ern States ; and it is said that once there was a man who came all the way from Boston ! But we never believed it. At the seasons of these festivals the streets are crowded with a body of ladies and gentlemen, elegantly at- tired, with refined and thoughtful expres- sions, perhaps beyond anything seen there on any other public occasions, thus attesting to the elevating influence of music upon her votaries, and the elevated class which the art divine brings within the circle of her magic wand.

Industrial Expositions .- In the past years Cincinnati has taken the lead in her indus- trial expositions. Her experience was so great that when Philadelphia gave her Cen- tennial she wisely went there for her Director General. This she found in Alfred C. Gos- horn, the Cincinnati manager, a gentleman of but few words, who, by silent energy and brain power, could bring order from chaos and master inharmonious and distracting elements to unite and move together as in

the harmony and beauty of a grand sym- phony.

Inclined Planes .- The city proper is on two planes, one called the " Bottom," "' 60 feet and the other 112 feet above low-watermark in the river. This, with the exception of New York and Boston, is the most densely populated area in the Union. Owing to the contracted dimensions of the plains, popula- tion is rapidly extending on to the river hills. These are nearly 400 feet above the city, and take one on to the general level of the coun- try. Besides roads leading to their summits, there are in all four inclined railway planes- on the north, east and west-where, by sta- tionary engines at the top, people are taken up, sometimes nearly a hundred in a car, and in ninety seconds. They are hauled up by a wire rope large as one's wrist, which winds around a drum with a monotonous humming sound, quick resounding, as though in a hurry to get you up. An extra rope is attached to each car as a precaution in case the one in use should break.

Bird's-eye Views .- The views from the hills are unique. Seemingly within a stone's throw one looks down from a height of between 300 and 400 feet into a huge basin-like area filled by a dense, compact city. Beyond this wilderness of walls, roofs and steeples, is seen the Ohio, with its magnificent bridges, the Kentucky towns of Covington and New- port opposite. Encircling hills everywhere bound the view, through which the Ohio pierces, turning its broad silvery surface to that sun which shines equally for us all.

Beer Gardens and Music .- At the sum- mit of these planes are immense beer gardens with mammoth buildings, where on stifling summer nights the city hive swarms out thousands upon thousands of all classes and . nationalities, who thus come together and alike yield to the potent influences of music and lager. One, the Highland House, trav- elers say, is not only the largest in the world "but is unequalled in splendor and appoint- ments. It is on Mount Adams, east of the city plain, where nearly 40 years ago John Quincy Adams, "the old man eloquent," delivered his oration on the occasion of lay- ing the corner stone of the Cincinnati Ob- servatory, the first astronomical building erected in human history by the joint con- tributions of private citizens. Thus early had this people initiated those habits of pub- lic beneficence which bring down blessings from the stars. In the summer of 1877 Theodore Thomas with his orchestra gave there three continuous weeks of music, with audiences on some nights of from 6,000 to 8,000 people, many of them around tables and taking in music with their beer.

Viewed from the city the long lines of hundred lights, in places rising tier above tier, marking the spot, made the place ap- pear as an illuminated palace in the skies ; while the lighted car in incessant motion up and down the inclined plane looked like a huge fire ball in transit.

The city itself, hundreds of feet below,

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with its miles of street lamps vanishing in the distance, and the broad Ohio with its moving steamers lighted up, gave to those on the hill top an equally picturesque view as they sat there listening to the music, their brows whilom fanned by the cool breezes from the west. This was comfort, solid com- fort up there as one might say at an alight- ing place between the basin-placed city and its overhanging stars.

The Germans .- The prevalence of music and lager in the city is largely owing to the Germans. Of the 300,000 inhabitants at this centre nearly one-third are Germans or of German stock. In these respects the Americans have become largely Tentonized.

The Germans are notably frugal and thrifty. The ambition of each family is to own its dwelling-their great ambition a three-story brick. They associate with and cultivate the acquaintance of their own families more thoroughly than our people do theirs. They resort on Sunday afternoons, with their wives and children, to the beer gardens on the hill tops, where there is music, green arbors, kindly skies and soft airs. The utmost de- corum prevails. All classes of Germans with their families to the toddling infant thus mingle in calm, peaceful recreation. They learn to know and sympathize with each other, a matter seemingly impossible with a certain class of our snobbish country- men who ever seem dreadfully apprehensive of soiling their gentility.

Love of Flowers .- A pleasing characteris- tic of the Germans is their passion for flowers. While an American woman of humble rank will spend her money for an article of personal adornment that perchance may destroy all grace of movement and crucify all beauty, a German woman will purchase a pot of flow- ers. On passing even tenement houses occu- pied by Germans, one will often see every window, may be thirty or forty in all, story upon story, filled with pots of flowers. These please the thoughtful passer-by as he thinks of a people who thus endeavor to make fra- grant their hard work-day lives.

German Peculiarities .- The original Ger- mans are largely of the working class. Like old-country folk, generally, they are clannish and let their affections go back to the father- land, while their children take especial pride in being thought Americans; indeed some manifest shame at being overheard by Amer- icans talking in the German tongue.

A very common sight in the German quar- ters is to see old men, grandfathers, on their last legs, acting as nurses for babies, pushing them around in carriages or dangling them on their knees, they meanwhile regaling them- selves with their everlasting pipes.

The common class of Germans in the city know next to nothing of the inner life of Americans. Some of them stigmatize us as "Irish." Their gross ignorance after a resi- dence on our soil of often half a life-time im- pressed us with the sheer folly of people travelling in Europe, fancying they receive anything more than a surface knowledge of

Europeans. Of the earnest spiritual life of our orthodox Christian people they have not the faintest conception. Nothing like it ex- ists among them. As to Sunday, even the Protestant Germans attach to it no especial sanctity, while with the Catholics everywhere every day is equally " the Lord's."

The Crusaders Among the Germans .- When the temperance crusade opened the Germans were dumbfounded. Beer is with them as water is with us, and is used from infancy to old age. They received the cru- sading bands with stolid silence, looking at the ladies from out of their round blue eyes with an expression that showed that their sensations must have been queer, indescrib- able. Not a saloon in the city was closed. The ladies might as well have prayed and sang before the Rock of Gibraltar.

One day the crusade among the Germans came to a sudden end. An entire band of ladies, wives and mothers of the very best citizens, were arrested by the city police-re- spectfully arrested and escorted to the police station, and charged with violating the city laws in obstructing the sidewalks. As is usual with criminals, they were compelled to regis- ter their names, residence and ages ! As they were not put in " the lock-up," their pockets were saved the usual emptying.

During these exciting times the temperance meetings were crowded, and men and women alike addressed the multitudes, the exercises being varied with prayer and song. It was noted that while the men always more or less hesitated, the women never. Their words always flowed as from an everlasting foun- tain. Pathos, poetry and matter of fact were the concomitants in varied measures of their speech.

At some of these meetings the narratives were so touching that hundreds were melted in tears. We remember one we attended when we were so affected by an involuntary twitching of the facial muscles, that to con- ceal anything that might happen we bowed our head and looked into the bottom of our hat to study and see if we could not improve the lettering of the hatter's advertisement. And we believe we succeeded !

And the speaker who so aroused our emo- tions by the plaintive melody of her voice and the heart-melting scenes of her narrative, was a woman, and she with crispy hair and black as the ace of spades ! The earthly tabernacle is as nothing, but it is the divine spirit, wher- ever it enters, that gives dignity to its pos- sessor, lifts and unites with the Infinite.

In the interior of the State, among an American orthodox population, the Crusaders were for a time wonderfully successful. Peter the Hermit had come again-this time in the form of Dio Lewis. In some villages every saloon was closed. It seemed for a time as though another age of miracles had dawned upon mankind.

Some ladies spent weeks in the open air, often exposed in cold, inclement weather. Two whom we knew of caught colds and died ; another, from being lean, dyspeptic and com-

Furny del.

THE TRANSRHENANE WAITER.

Farny del. THE SAUSAGE MAN.

Farny del. THE WIENER WURST MAN.

Farny del. OVER THE RHINE SALOON.

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plaining, grew fat and cheerful and has looked smiling from that day to this. She had been to Palestine and got back.

This speaking of the Holy Land carries us back by association to childhood years, to our father's house, to a pretty picture acted there, wherein the maid of the broom, moving from room to room, rosy, blithe and happy, doing the useful things, as making the beds and spat- ting the pillows, was wont, from the abun- dance of her heart, to burst out, birdlike, in song, her mind being upon love and the gay cavaliers in the days of chivalry, as she ca- roled forth :

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 125

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006