USA > Ohio > Lake County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 32
USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 32
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As soon as his limb permitted he reported for duty, and, being an accomplished lawyer, was detailed on the court-martial for the trial of Surgeon-General Ham- mond. He earnestly protested, and implored to be returned to the front. Stanton was inexorable, and he sat down to his fate. This brought him to the capital, where, on that and similar duty, he remained during the following winter, his wife winning her way in the society she was so well fitted to adorn. When Early invaded the district the next June, he saw one day of promised work. He was assigned to the command of a division of the fortifications. Soon after he was placed in command of the military district of Illinois, with headquarters at Rock Island. This was during the draft riots, the threat of liberating the prisoners at Chicago, and the meeting of the Mcclellan convention in that city. By the industry and care with which he collected and collated the information, it became clear that the threatened danger of a movement from Kentucky and by the Knights of the Golden Circle was no idle rumor. General Sweet was placed in command at Chicago, and received stringent orders, and all through the State the utmost vigi- lance was exercised. Undoubtedly the thorough preparation and prompt action of the commander, with his reputation for courage and good conduct, although his available force was small, were a main cause that the impending danger never came to a head. McClellan was peacefully nominated, and as peacefully crushed out at the ensuing election. General Paine was afterward assigned to Hancock's new corps, and repaired to New York. Meantime Richmond fell, the war was over, and he soon after resigned his commission, formed a copartnership with James H. and Byron Paine, and resumed the practice of his profession at Mil- waukee.
In the mean time, in his absence, without action on his part, the Republicans of his district elected him to Congress at the election of 1864, and he took his seat at the opening of the Thirty-ninth Congress. He was elected and served in that body and through the Fortieth and Forty-first. His admitted ability, and the fame which he brought from the war, his modesty, pleasant address, and still youthful appearance, united to make him a conspicuous object in the House, and secured him prominent places on important committees. He was placed at the head of the committee on militia, and served on the committee on reconstruction during its entire existence. He was on the committee of elections, and chairman of it during his last Congress. It is one of the most responsible places in the House, the post for a good lawyer, where a man can do more really hard service for the public, with less reputation to himself, than in any other place in either House. The duties of this arduous position were never better performed, and more to the satisfaction of the House. He also matured and secured the adoption of the signal-service act, of such great value to the country. Few men have ever passed through six years of more devoted service in the House so creditably, and with such an universal esteem, confidence, and respect of his fellows. After all, he is not so much a leader of men in civil life. The beat of his pulse and tone of his nature are martial. The blare of trumpets, the roll of drums, a plain filled with troops in array, the handling of masses, the conflict, roar and clangor of battle, riding at the head of charging squadrons, were more in his life, naturally bright and gay of spirit though he is.
After his congressional service he became a citizen of Washington, where he practices his profession with success, having the care of important election cases, and appearing in the Supreme Court of the United States among his varied calls.
It was said that he has been offered the post of commissioner of patents. He was offered the post of assistant secretary of the interior by the present adminis- tration. He has a pleasant home on South A street, a few minutes' walk from the capitol, and rather avoids society, where his wife is at home and his daughter greatly admired.
In manners graceful and pleasing, one of the most genial of men in his own rather private circle. Just at the meridian of life, self-exiled from active politics, with his name high on the list of his country's heroes, one still thinks that a public career must be in store for him.
GENERAL MORTIMER D. LEGGETT
was born at Ithaca, New York, April 19, 1821. He moved to and settled in Montville, Geauga County, Ohio, with his parents in September, 1836. He worked at clearing land during the day, and studied by hickory-bark fires at
night, under the instruction of his parents and his older sister, Ann Eliza. At the age of eighteen he went to the Teachers' Seminary, at Kirtland, where he remained until he graduated at the head of his class, and became a tutor. He married Marilla Wells, the daughter of Absalom Wells, of Montville Centre, July 9, 1844. Was admitted to the bar the same year. He became interested in common schools, and labored incessantly with Dr. A. D. Lord and M. F. Cowdry, Esq., for the estab- lishment of our present system of free schools. He graduated at the Willoughby Medical College in the spring of 1846. He went to Akron in the fall of the same year, and organized the first system of free graded schools ever instituted west of the Allegheny mountains, under what was known as the Akron school law. He remained there two years; then went to Warren, Trumbull county, in 1849, and organized the same system. At Warren he commenced the practice of law in 1850. In 1856 and 1857 he was professor of pleading and practice in the Ohio Law College. At the end of 1857 he removed to Zanesville, Ohio, where he continued his law practice, and had general supervision of the public schools.
When the war broke out in 1861, being a personal friend of General McClel- lan, he went with him to West Virginia as a volunteer aid, without pay. In the latter part of 1861 he was commissioned by Governor Dennison to raise and organize the Seventy-eighth Regiment of Infantry. He enlisted as a private,- the first enlistment in the regiment. He completed the organization of the regi- ment of ten hundred and forty men within forty days, and in the same time was private, second lieutenant, first lieutenant, captain, major, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel. With his regiment he joined General Grant at Fort Donelson during the short siege of that place.
The discipline and conduct of his regiment were such as to win the favor of General Grant there, and an intimacy sprang up between General Grant and him- self at that time which has since continued. He being the youngest colonel in rank at Fort Donelson, General Grant attached him to his staff in order to enable him to use General Grant's name in issuing orders, and thereby take a larger com- mand than his regiment.
He was in the battle at Shiloh, and received there his first wound, but did not leave the field. He commanded in an affair of the 16th of May, 1862, while advancing on Corinth, Mississippi, where he won his commission as brigadier. In this action he had one horse killed under him and another wounded, he escap- ing uninjured. He had command of our forces at Middleburg, Tennessee, on the 31st of August, 1862, when, by a ruse, with five hundred men he defeated Van Dorn's four thousand, and got honorable mention by General Grant, and a special letter of thanks from the secretary of war. He was in the battle known as " Hell on the Hatchie," and the battle of Iuka, in the latter part of 1862. He was in all the movements against Vicksburg in the spring and summer of 1863, including the running of the blockade, the battles of Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills (where he received a severe flesh wound in the thigh), Big Black, and the siege of Vicksburg.
Up to this point he had commanded the Second Brigade of the Third Division of the Seventeenth Army Corps. But the Second Brigade being by " turn" in reserve, he was transferred to the command of the First Brigade of the same division, which held the only position where there was reasonable hope of breaking the rebel line of works by assault. The rebels had erected a heavy fort to protect this exposed position. A sap was driven under this fort, and in the afternoon of July 1 twenty-seven hundred pounds of powder exploded directly under the fort, utterly demolishing it. General Leggett had a body of picked men standing ready, and at their head rushed into the crater this explosion made before the rebels had recovered from their surprise, and after a very fierce and bloody con- test, lasting twenty-three hours, was left in peaceable possession of the position, though severely wounded in the right side, left shoulder, and elsewhere. This was the evening of July 2d. Early on the 3d, negotiations for the surrender of Vicksburg commenced, and continued nearly all day.
In consequence of the First Brigade having broken the enemy's line, it was assigned the honor of first marching into Vicksburg, receiving the surrender and raising its flags. General Leggett was helped upon his horse, and went in at the head of his brigade. As soon as sufficiently recovered, he was promoted to the command of the Third Division, Seventeenth Army Corps, and placed in com- mand of the post. While there he commanded in an expedition to Monroeville, Louisiana, to destroy some rebel boats, also up the Yazoo river, and during the early part of 1864 commanded his division in Sherman's raid to Meridian. After the capture of Vicksburg he was brevetted major-general.
He entered the Atlanta campaign in the spring of 1864 as commander of the Seventeenth Army Corps, and participated in all the battles of that campaign. He received special mention from General Sherman for his action at the battles of Kenesaw Mountain and at Atlanta. He captured the mountain at the left of the Kenesaw during a terrible thunder-storm, when the raging elements so
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drowned the din of battle that our own army had not discovered his advance until the storm broke away, when his command on the mountain crest was taken for the enemy preparing to attack our forces, and a brisk cannonading was opened upon him and continued until an aid-de-camp could be sent back to notify of the mistake.
In the evening of July 20, 1864, he received orders from General McPherson to order his troops, if possible, so as to capture a hill overlooking Atlanta. This hill was strongly fortified, and held by a large force. At sunrise on the morning of the 21st he advanced, and, after a short but desperate struggle, took the hill and captured a number of prisoners nearly equal to the number of his troops en- gaged. The great battle of the 22d of July, one of the fiercest contests of the whole war, was brought on by the Confederates to recover possession of this hill. The battle raged almost without a moment's cessation from half-past eleven A.M. until eight P.M., but he held the hill, and against fearful odds and at a great loss of life on both sides. McPherson was killed in trying to get to him, almost at the beginning of the battle. For his conduct here he was promoted to full major-general. The hill was named in General Sherman's report " Leggett's Bald Knob," and is known generally at present as Leggett's Hill.
He was with Sherman in Sherman's march to the sea. His last engagement was at Pocotaligo, South Carolina, where he had a running fight of twenty miles, and captured a large fort at Pocotaligo in January, 1875, releasing our army from Savannah and opening the way through the Carolinas. At the close of war he returned to his business at Zanesville. When Grant entered the presi- dency he was at once offered very desirable positions, but at first declined entering political life in any shape. He once said in the hearing of the President that he knew of but one position he would be willing to accept, if tendered, and that was commissioner of patents, which was then satisfactorily filled. This is a position re- garded as less partisan than almost any other, and was in the line of his tastes and business. A few months later the place was vacant, and was immediately tendered to him, and accepted about the beginning of 1871. He held the place four years (two years longer than he intended), and then resigned, and settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where he has since established a very large practice in his profession.
He had one daughter and four sons. His two older sons are partners with him in the practice of law in Cleveland. His youngest son died in infancy. His son Mortimer died at Cornell University in the fall of 1873, under circum- stances of mystery adding to the severity of the bereavement. He graduated from Columbia Law College, and was admitted to the bar before he was seventeen. His daughter married H. A. Seymour, Esq., of Connecticut, who is settled in Washington, District of Columbia, and engaged in the practice of law. His wife died in the autumn of 1856. She was remarkable for her intelligence, her grace- ful manners, her even temper, her cheerful disposition, her hearty entertainments, and her great benevolence. Her house was always open, and all who knew her loved her.
This is a sketch too slight and rapid to do any justice to the man and his career. It indicates rather than portrays one of the most heroic, energetic, and successful commanders of the war,-a man who, by virtue of his high personal endow- ments, great energy, indomitable courage, and skill, marched directly from the ranks to a major-generalship, who was in as many battles as any officer of the war, and who when in command of a party never suffered defeat.
At the grand review of all the armies at the capital, after the close of the war, no general officer was more heartily and cordially received in the President's pa- vilion, and congratulated with greater warmth and heartiness by the President and secretary of war, than was he. What a day when the great secretary, in presence of the nation, of the nations of Europe, first met and thanked the gen- erals whose names and fame filled the land ! Of the best of these, General Mor- timer D. Leggett was recognized as the peer on that day of fame and glory.
In person of the ordinary height, broad-shouldered, athletic, and well-made, with a large, broad, finely-formed, and striking, manly face, ruddy and well-look- ing, of easy and frank manners, well endowed mentally, the tone of his mind, like that of his physique, is robust vigor. A good public speaker, always acquitting himself well.
A man of ardent temperament, kindly and amiable, he wins life-long friend- ships, and is steady in his devotion to others.
The cause of education has been specially advanced by him. He filled the important post of commissioner of patents with ability and credit; and now, at the maturity of fine and well-cultured abilities, he may look forward to a long career of honorable usefulness.
We regret our inability to place his portrait at the head of this sketch.
JOSEPH ADAMS POTTER,
brevet brigadier-general United States army. Born in the village of Potter's Hollow, Albany county, New York, June 11, 1816. His father, R. H. Potter, was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1782, where he spent his boyhood until the age of eleven.
His grandfather, Samuel Potter, with six brothers, enlisted in the Revolution- ary army the day Washington assumed command of the army, under the old elm- tree yet standing near Cambridge, Mass. He rose to be a sergeant in the army, and was detailed as sergeant of the guard at Washington's headquarters at the old stone house in Newburgh, New York, during the famous winter when Washington, Lafayette, Knox, Putnam, and others made it their winter home.
The mother of J. A. Potter was of the Adams family of eastern Massachusetts, and a direct descendant of Samuel Adams,-hence his name. His grandfather, Joseph Adams, built and resided in the third house built in Catskill, New York.
GEN. JOSEPH ADAMS POTTER.
Of J. A. Potter, up to the age of seventeen, his youth was spent in school and university, occasionally assisting his father, who was a large merchant for those days, when tan-yards, asheries, and other branches were component parts of a business man's operations.
At the early age of six his passion for powder and firearms was developed to such an extraordinary degree that a careful watch had to be kept over him. Where there is a will there is a way, however, and in connection with his brother, Champlin R. Potter, three years his senior, he outwitted his parents often, and had many a hunt on the hills at the base of the Catskill mountains with his brother.
The school and university days, passed without more than the usual escapades of spirited youth, brings him to the age of seventeen. Through all this time, how- ever, the love of his rifle exceeded that of anything else, and many a day was spent in the woods. It may not be amiss here to illustrate how early predilec- tions will cling to a man through life.
At the age of nine or ten his most intimate boy friend was a boy by the name of Tremaine. One day, while they were sitting under a tree, they talked together, as boys will, as to their plans when they had grown to manhood. Tremaine said, " I am going to be a lawyer and remain at home in this county." Potter says, " As soon as I get to be my own master I will go to the far west and lead a roving hunter's life." The life of Hon. Lyman Tremaine, attorney, judge, member of Congress, and attorney-general for his State, shows how his prediction was ful- filled. As for the other, these pages will show part of his career, as before stated.
In the early summer of 1833, at the age of seventeen, by consent of his father, he went to Michigan with a party of friends, ostensibly to pay the taxes on his father's lands, but in reality to carry out his ideas of adventure as far as possible. The party he traveled with were relatives of General Charles C. Paine, and stop- ping here a week with them gave him his first look at Painesville.
But pages could not write his history from that date. After a series of ad- ventures in the territory of Michigan, he went by stage to White Pigeon, paid the taxes on his father's lands, and then at the suggestion of a Chicago merchant, Mr. P. F. W. Peace, who was a fellow-passenger in the stage, he accompanied him to that village, then not having over six hundred inhabitants. The only way of getting there by land was by wagon from Niles, Michigan, down to the
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beach of Lake Michigan, near Michigan City, and from there on the beach around the head of the lake to Chicago.
After a few days there with nothing to do, he joined a party of Indians, being put under the care of the chief by Robert Kinzer, then an Indian trader of Chicago, and went on a tour with them west and north of Chicago.
They went directly west without finding inhabitants until they reached the house of Mr. Dixon, at what is now Dixon's Ferry, Illinois; and this was the last house seen until they reached Fort Winnebago, way up in now the State of Wisconsin. Where the city of Madison now stands there was one trapper's shanty, according to his recollection ; and coming east the next point they made was the trading-post of Mr. Junot, where the city of Milwaukee now stands. There were few, if any, white inhabitants there or in the vicinity. Mr. Junot told him there would be a village there some time, but it might not be in his day ; but people would eventually settle there. The Milwaukee of to-day would seem to have fulfilled the prediction.
He relates with much interest the incidents of the trip,-the days of feasting and starvation, and the gradual change from white man to Indian in looks,- starting with clothing, and returning with nothing but a coon-skin cap, buckskin shirt, leggings, and moccasins. Returning to Chicago from Milwaukee, they followed the beach of the lake when practicable, though a short distance back was a good trail on the bluffs, passing Root River, Little Fort, etc. After five days' tedious march the flag of old Fort Dearborn came in sight.
The romance of the Indian character had descended to a very common reality, and after a half-day's scrubbing and a change to the habiliments of a white man he felt much relieved. He has never repeated the experience of that five weeks. Returning to Monroe, Michigan, he was invited by a Mr. Wadsworth to accom- pany him on a trip through the woods from the river Raisin to the trading-post, where the city of Grand Rapids now stands. After getting up their outfit,-a pony, saddle, a tin-cup or two, a frying-pan, and other necessary traps,-they started. Living entirely on the products of their trusty rifles, sleeping under the trees with no covering but the canopy of heaven, studying nature in its wildest forms, an almost daily adventure with the wild denizens of the forest, it was truly one of the pleasantest episodes of his life; and while he has always looked upon his Indian trip with disgust as the most disagreeable of his life, the trip of four or five weeks in the wilds of Michigan is among the bright spots of his existence.
The winter of 1833-34 was spent at Monroe, Michigan, and in the fall of 1834 he went to Illinois with his father and family, spending the winter of 1834- 35 in a log house on government land just below La Salle, on the south side of the Illinois river, near where the village of Toneca now stands.
The uneventful life of a farmer could not suit him; and after seeing his father and brother in a good house on a section of land they had united in purchasing, he bade them good-by, and in two weeks was back again at Monroe, Michigan.
Being at once employed by the government as assistant engineer on the ship canal just commencing at this point, it decided his destiny and business for life.
In 1836 he was tendered an appointment to West Point by General Lewis Cass, which he declined, but was immediately appointed civil engineer, attached to the war department, and as such was sent in 1837 to superintend the repairs at Grand Run harbor, Ohio. This brought him to Painesville, where he mar- ried Catherine, daughter of the late Dr. S. Rosa, on the 31st of December, 1840. She died in February, 1853, at Painesville, Ohio.
Being tired of public service, and in consequence of the reduction of his pay by the failure of appropriations, he engaged in mercantile pursuits in a small way ; but not having the requisite tact for trading soon found himself in embarrassed cir- cumstances, and after struggling along for a year or two he applied again for duty as an engineer. The connection between himself and the government had not been entirely severed, as he was at all times in receipt of a small pay as agent in charge of public property and repairs at different harbors along the lake.
Reporting again for duty, he was sent to make the survey of the reef in the northern end of Lake Michigan, on which the far-famed Waugothanee light-house now stands.
Being off duty for six months, he was engaged by the Lake Shore railroad company, and built the greater part of the road between Painesville and Willoughby, with the first bridges, both at Willoughby and Painesville.
While thus engaged he was called to go to Waugothanee and complete the light-house there. From that time he has never left the service. The war found him engaged in surveys on Lake Superior, under the then Captain, but afterwards Major-General, George G. Meade, United States army.
. Being ordered back to Detroit, he there found his appointment as lieutenant, Fifteenth Infantry, United States army, and captain in the quartermaster's de- partment, with orders to go to Chicago, to take charge of the fitting out of the troops for Illinois, Wisconsin, and incidentally of Iowa and Minnesota.
Very few know the amount of business devolving upon a quartermaster in time of war. It was no uncommon thing to disburse two or three million dollars in a month. The numerous employees necessary, the necessity for signing each paper in person, and the entire responsibility for the extended operation, render the position one of great care.
In addition to the regular duties of supplies, the charge of building, maintain- ing, and providing for the prison camps at the west was on his hands. At one time he had thirteen hundred prisoners in Camp Douglas, one thousand at Mad- ison, Wisconsin, and from four to six thousand at Springfield, Illinois.
While stationed in Chicago, he married Mrs. Hattie Spafford, of Hartford, Connecticut, whose sad death, at Galveston, is spoken of farther on.
Made a colonel by act of Congress, July 4, 1864, he was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, to the charge of that immense depot, and the districts of Kansas and Nebraska, including the plains to New Mexico, in one direction, and Salt Lake on the other. All the posts on the plains and the new posts in the Terri- tories drew their supplies from this depot and St. Louis, and, as may be supposed, the officers responsible for all could not have what might be called an easy time of it.
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