USA > Ohio > Lake County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 33
USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 33
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The daily pay-roll of men averaged eleven hundred employees, as teamsters and laborers at the depot. Two hundred six-mule wagons daily on duty for depot work. One winter, thirteen thousand mules and four thousand horses on hand, and at one time, twenty-three hundred wagons, with their outfit of mules and men, on the plains.
Early in the spring of 1867 he was ordered to Detroit to settle his accounts, and managed to get there just in time to meet an order directing him to report to General Sheridan in New Orleans. Arriving there in March, he was ordered to Galveston, Texas, to report to General Charles Griffin, as chief of the quarter- master's department.
Previous to leaving Leavenworth, his rank of colonel expired by limitation, and for fourteen days he was a captain again, but he was immediately promoted to a majority. On the 13th of March he was brevetted major, lieutenant-colonel, colonel, and brigadier-general United States army.
The events of the year 1867 in Galveston will ever fill a page in the history of yellow fever epidemics. On the 5th of July the fever was pronounced epidemic, and it was too late to try to get away. Suffice it to say that, worn out by the constant attentions required, the almost daily calls to bury some friend, the only officer except General Griffin left on duty at headquarters, doing the duty of adjutant-general, inspector-general, and chief quartermaster, he went to his resi- dence on the last day of August, bidding his general good-by, as was their daily custom, for they knew not when they parted daily at two P. M. that they would ever meet again. That evening at seven he was attacked by the fever, and on the evening of the third day was pronounced dying.
His wife, who had kept up her courage until that moment, when her husband was dying in one room, her infant son in a dying condition in another, and the corpse of her nurse-girl being then carried out of the house, kneeling down beside the bed, kissing him good-by, she was picked up and carried from his bedside with the fever raging in her veins. She died in six days.
During that night the fever took a favorable turn, and he was saved. After twelve days he was taken from his bed, to find his wife, his commanding general, his two body-servants, dead, and no one left but his little boy, his house in the hands of servants and strangers, and every trunk and drawer ransacked, and all his wife's jewelry, silks, laces, etc., gone.
Immediately he received a telegram, by order of General Grant, giving him three months' leave, and on the 10th of October he was assisted to the steamer, bringing with him his little boy north. At the expiration of his leave he reported again for duty at Austin, Texas, where the headquarters had been estab- lished. During the time he was stationed in Texas he was charged with the affairs of the quartermaster's department, and the building of several new posts at points selected in the western and northwestern part of the district.
In the course of duty he had occasion several times to visit the Mexican border, and speaks of some of his notable trips to the Rio Grande, and his pleasant visits at Matamoras with the different military governors. Being invited, with a num- ber of officers, to an entertainment given to them by General Palacio, governor of Tamaulipas, Nueva Leon, and states bordering on the frontier, he was fortu- nate enough to meet an old school acquaintance in the person of the chief of the Mexican staff, who was a thorough English scholar, and who commanded the firing-party that shot Maximilian, Mejia, and Miramon.
The regiment of Zapadores being paraded, the very men who fired on poor Maximilian were pointed out, and he was presented with several pieces of coin as being part of that distributed to the men by the emperor just before they shot him. One of the dollar pieces he sent to Horace Steele, Esq., of Painesville.
A history of one notable trip through western Texas beyond the Cross Timbers,
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with a command to select a site for a new post, near the borders of the " Llano Estacado," or Staked Plains, would be very interesting. The game killed, the change of base in consequence of Comanche interference, the hurried march to the highlands, and the return to Austin by an entirely new route, after a two months' tour, would fill a volume alone.
In the spring of 1869 he was relieved in Texas, and ordered to the charge of the large depot at Jeffersonville, Indiana, and after a year there was sent to New Mexico as chief quartermaster for that district, taking post at Santa Fe.
The year there was most agreeable. During his stay he erected complete sets of officers' quarters, building them of the sun-burnt "adobes" of that country, but putting on them civilized roofs of tin, very much to the surprise of the owners of the flat, mud-roofed residences of that country.
He burnt the first brick and built the first brick chimneys in Santa Fe. With a climate unsurpassed on the globe, and fertile valleys, the purest of water, hot, cold, and chalybeate springs equal to any known in the world, and more gold than in any known mining country, it does not seem to fill up with settlers.
His health failing he was sent out of the country, and after a year and a half on duty at Detroit, he was sent South, where for the past four years, during all the reconstruction troubles, he has been in New Orleans.
Returning to Painesville, Ohio, to settle his accounts this spring, by order of the War Department, he hopes to be retired from the army, and spend his old age among the companions of his early years, and wind up his long life in a home of his own.
WILLIAM L. UTLEY.
William Lawrence Utley, second child and eldest son of Polly and Hamilton Utley, was born at Munson, Massachusetts, July 10, 1813. The tide of emigra- tion that carried so many of the New England settlers out to the fertile lands and dense forests of the west took with it the Utleys in the fall of 1817, and it was at the early age of four that young Utley was set down in that section of the western wilderness now Newbury, Geauga County, to the simple life and untram- meled freedom of a pioneer boy. He was by nature a born woodsman; the dense woods were a vast and enchanted play-ground to his boyish years; and even in maturer life the deep, trackless forests were to him a source of unending delight. Though his parents were people of culture and refinement, who passed muster among the best in staid, well-regulated New England, their son grew into perfect harmony with his wild surroundings, and drank in the breadth and freedom of his forest home with the avidity of a nature tuned to the grand and beautiful ; and at the age of eleven, with his rifle for a companion, he scoured the woods as fear- less as an Indian. His love for, and skill with, his gun earned him the nickname of "Gunner," and one of his hunting exploits at the age of ten deserves to be preserved as a verification of some of the marvelous tales of boyhood adventure that so delight modern youth. While wandering one day in the woods with a boy-friend of his own age they came upon a bear. They had borrowed a rifle, and taken turns in firing it, and it was now young Utley's turn to shoot. He was enthusiastic over such formidable game, and, as neither of the boys was strong or large enough to hold the gun out for deliberate aim, he looked about for a place where he could rest the gun and at the same time cover the bear, but no- thing could be found. His boy-friend was dubious about attacking the brute, and perhaps did not care to face it long enough to steady the gun while the more courageous Utley could shoot. So the latter knelt down and directed his friend to fire over his shoulder, which he did. There was a flash and report, and the young hunters saw their prey topple over and lie motionless. They made a very circuitous and cautious approach, and found that their charge had taken effect in the creature's brain, but he was so large that they were obliged to content them- selves with stripping off the skin, which they did with an old Barlow-knife.
While young Utley's days were spent in the woods, the long evenings were en- livened by the wonderful tales which the hunters and trappers brought to his father's cabin, and his love of adventure and boyish admiration for daring and courage were kindled into a longing to share the dangers of their exploits. Even as he grew to manhood, his taste did not take the practical, thrifty turn which was considered the test of worth and excellence in the young men of that day. Felling trees, clearing out underbrush, and hewing logs had no charms that could compete with the woods and his gun. And the log-house raisings counted more upon the sweet tones of his violin when work was done and a dance in order, than upon his material aid in the labor of the day. To put it mildly, he was considered "unpromising." But with all the disapproval of the worthy mothers and fathers of the Reserve, there was a fund of energy, force, and will in bis composition that was only awaiting its proper outlet, and it came to the sur- face in after-years in a way that would have surprised the critics of his youth
had they lived to watch his career. Capability he had, and of a high order. His natural artistic talent was undoubtedly strengthened by his long wood rambles, and he was early the author of pencil-sketches of considerable merit. His taste for music was inherited from both sides of the house, and, when young, he was quite a master of the violin. He possessed a voice of strength and sweetness, which, aided by an accurate ear and true musical taste, made his singing a pleasure to all listeners; but in that practical, hard-working community, these gifts and their indulgence were looked upon as mere folly. His old father alone truly sympathized with his son's tastes, and regretted his own inability to aid in developing them.
At the age of eighteen the subject of this sketch was apprenticed to learn the carpenter's trade, and, to use his own words, " succeeded as well as a person hav- ing neither taste nor ingenuity for it could." His carpentering finally took a practical turn, which gave his career an impetus onward, and out of the sur- roundings and uncongenial pursuits of his Newbury life. An itinerant inventor passed through the neighborhood with an invention that was to startle the Reserve from its preoccupation with log hut raising and stock-breeding, and wake up the inventors of the age. The invention was a patent churn, warranted to bring butter under any and all circumstances. The young carpenter saw its possibilities ; and with an eye to speculation and, perhaps, a wish to prove to the Newburians the error of their judgment in regard to his practicality, he purchased a model and the right to manufacture, and gave himself up to churn-making. Then fol- lowed a brief dash into the mercantile world in an old wagon with his churns aboard, and a discouraging effort to dispose of the fruits of his labor ; but the neighborhood and immediate settlements were not alive to the merits of the in- vention. The patent churn was a drug in the market, and the result was a finan- cial catastrophe, in which the liabilities were thirty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents, and the assets one doctor-book, one dust-pan, and three brush brooms, the equivalent of the one churn disposed of. This, his first speculation, and its failure, seemed but a fulfillment of the harsh predictions as to his future, then current in the neighborhood. He had just passed his majority, and he resolved to get away from unfavorable comment and the scene of his defeat, and try his fortune in the world east of the western woods. He left his old home poorly clad and with just five shillings in his pocket, and after a few months' wandering found himself at the home of an uncle on his mother's side, who lived at Alex- ander, New York. Here he gradually took on the manners of the outside world, and met with encouragement in his artistic and musical tastes from his uncle, who was a celebrated violinist for his day, and also from a retired merchant and former portrait-painter, Mr. V. R. Hawkins, who discovered undoubted talent in his pencil-sketches, and gave him all of his brushes, colors, and implements of art, some of which Mr. Utley retains to this day. During the succeeding three or four years his life was in keeping with his inclination and talents. He devoted his time to painting and music ; traveled some, and spent one year in Lockport, New York, under the instruction of a recluse artist. One year he passed in Michigan, and then returned to Alexander, New York. In 1840 a company of wealthy gentlemen planned sending him to Rome to study the old art masters, but his spirit of independence would not allow of his incurring such an obligation, and so the idea was abandoned.
July 14, 1840, he married Louisa Wing, daughter of Benjamin and Eunice Wing. Miss Wing was born at Fort Ann, Washington county, New York, and was a lady of much grace of manner and person, who was esteemed for her char- acter, womanly qualities, and refined, gentle nature. Their first child, Hamilton, was born July 11, 1841, and in May of the following year Mr. Utley carried his family back to the Ohio home which he had left seven years before. He remained there a year, then went to Mishwaukee, Indiana, and in the summer of 1844 moved his family to Racine, Wisconsin, where he kept a public-house with little profit. In 1848 he began to figure in politics, and having previously seceded from the Democratic party and its pro-slavery tendencies, he became a radical Republican. He served as marshal and deputy sheriff, and in 1850, and again in 1851, he was elected to the Legislature. He became very popular, and was one of the prominent men of the State. In 1852 he was appointed by Governor Farwell adjutant-general of the State, and held the office two years, gaining much credit for the manner in which he organized the militia. For the next four years he was again a private citizen, and in 1860, much against his in- clination, he was called to the State Senate. Here he found himself a power in shaping the course of the State for the great struggle upon which the country was then entering. A memorable speech which he made at that time upon the attempted repeal of the personal liberty bill, brought the cravens of both parties to a realizing sense of the ruin they contemplated. The Republicans had agreed in caucus to vote for the repeal. The Democrats, of course, to a man, supported it ; and Mr. Utley returned to his place in the Senate, from a brief absence, to find affairs in this condition. In a short, stirring appeal, a brief venting of fiery
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eloquence and patriotic indignation, that left the cowardly measure helpless and demoralized, he brought the Republicans back to their allegiance, and showed Wisconsin her bounden duty to the cause of liberty and the honor of the country in the dark days of civil war. He was next active in the Senate in preventing the sending of delegates to John Tyler's peace convention, at Richmond, Virginia, after the firing upon Fort Sumter, and in 1861, without his solicitation or knowl- edge, he was again appointed adjutant-general of the State. At that time there was no official list of the number of troops in the State; but at the end of seven months he had put thirty thousand men into the field. An autograph letter from President Lincoln complimented him upon the accomplishment of his difficult task and expressed the hope that his record might be a model for older States. He also received a complimentary letter from the governor of New York, and Governor Randall, of Wisconsin, was officially congratulated by the War Depart- ment, at Washington, upon the efficiency of his adjutant-general. In 1862 the adjutant-general's office was changed from the jurisdiction of Wisconsin to that of the United States, and Mr. Utley left it and returned to the Senate, where he was again prominent.
After the extra session of 1862 he exchanged political life for the retirement of a little farm which had become one of his hardly-earned possessions, and one day in the latter part of July, while he was hoeing in a field, a man approached him and, to his great surprise, presented him with a commission as colonel in the volunteer service, with instructions to raise a regiment for immediate service. Although his first impulse was to refuse the commission because of his ignorance of military tactics, his patriotism finally prevailed, and he was soon on his way to Madison, where he received instructions to raise a regiment in ten days. At the end of that time he reported at Madison with two full regiments. He se- lected one, and in a few days had it in camp. On the 15th of September he was sworn into the United States service, and started for the front. He crossed the Ohio river at Cincinnati, September 20, in the face of the enemy, under Kirby Smith, who was then menacing Cincinnati, and aided in repulsing the enemy and driving him out of Kentucky. He entered Kentucky about the time that Lin- coln issued his first emancipation proclamation, and found the State in anything but a hospitable mood toward Union soldiers. He determined, nevertheless, to see the work of emancipation carried out to the letter in that State; was the first to undertake it, and the only one who never compromised in a single instance. He was hunted like a dog all over the State; his regiment was mobbed in the streets of Louisville, and he forced to make his way through with fixed bayonets. He had a fall and winter campaign in the State of the severest kind, and was constantly on the move in rain, snow, and mud. However, his hardships there were eclipsed by one persecution that followed him out of the State and haunted him for seven years in the garb of justice. It seems that while encamped in Kentucky a slave boy owned by Judge Robertson, a leading jurist of the State, took refuge in the colonel's camp. There he found protection, and made good his escape from slavery. Judge Robertson obtained a judgment against Colonel Utley in the Kentucky courts for a large amount, and carried it successfully to the Wisconsin courts; and though emancipation had knocked the fetters from slavery years before, Colonel Utley had, at the close of the war, to meet the judg- ment of the vindictive Kentuckian.
From Louisville, in 1863, Colonel Utley with his command was transported down the Ohio and up the Cumberland river to Nashville. From Nashville they went to Franklin, where they joined a portion of General Coburn's brigade, numbering about fifteen hundred men. Here they encountered Generals Forrest and Wheeler, and repulsed them. But during the night, Forrest was reinforced by General Van Dorn, which brought the number of the two commands to at least eighteen thousand men ; General Coburn was wary about advancing, and advised the post-commander of the overwhelming rebel force. But the commander ordered them to push forward (and was afterwards cashiered for the order). It is needless to say that the result was a desperate fight and the capture of Coburn's small command. Colonel Utley displayed great coolness and courage, at one time taking a rifle and going into the ranks with his men, and the rebels pronounced the engagement one of the hardest they had ever been in. The fate of the captured soldiers was that terrible one so often described in the history of the war,-a rebel prison with all of its horrors. Libby was their destination, and there Colonel Utley endured the hardships and privations for two months. He was then exchanged, and joined his regiment at Nashville, his men and the line-officers having all been exchanged first. From Nashville they went back to Franklin, the scene of their capture, and thence to Murfreesboro', where Colonel Utley was placed in command of the post containing the commissary stores of the entire Army of the Cumberland. The rebels, learning that there were only twelve hundred men protecting the supplies of the brave men then fighting and starving at Lookout Mountain and Chattanooga, sent Wheeler and Forrest back with six thousand mounted men to capture the small command and cripple
the main army by destroying their supplies. But they found Colonel Utley prepared for the encounter. Instead of remaining in the city, where, as the rebels calculated, he would have been an easy prey, he had everything in readiness to fall back upon the fort, three-quarters of a mile off, where there were twenty heavy guns bearing upon the city. He stationed scouts twenty miles out to give the alarm in case of an attack, and being notified of the rebels' approach within ten miles of his post, he issued circulars, previously prepared, notifying the citizens that he was about to fall back upon the fort ; that his guns bore directly upon the city, which he would level to the ground in case a rebel was allowed to step inside the city limits. His project was to have the property-holding rebels intercede with the rebel officers and keep the invaders out.
The plan worked to a charm. As soon as the colonel's pickets were driven in the terrified rebel citizens rushed out to stay the advancing host; and they suc- ceeded. The rebels formed about the city at a safe distance, but did not attempt to enter. A number of the circulars fell into their hands, and they were not at all consoled at having marched one hundred and fifty miles only to be outwitted by superior military strategy, which the colonel's manœuvre was thought to be by all the general officers in that region. The rebel citizens of the place were so pleased with the management of the affair that they tendered Colonel Utley a public dinner, which was declined. He commanded the post until the spring of 1864, and then went to Nashville to prepare for the Sherman southern campaign. At Nashville news reached him of the failing health of his wife, and, procuring leave of absence for twenty days, he hurried home, only to be in time for her funeral. Upon his return he joined General Hooker's corps and started on that memorable campaign known as Sherman's march to the sea. He participated in the battles of Rocky-faced Ridge, Resaca, Dallas' woods, Golgotha church, Culp's farm, and Kenesaw mountain. Besides these main fights, he was really under fire for fifty days at a time on the skirmish-line, most of the time without tent or blankets, and for fifteen successive days without change of clothing. During the entire campaign, up to the time of the taking of Atlanta, he was constantly on the front. line. But finally, just before the surrender of Atlanta, he broke down under the continued hard strain, and went home to recuperate with the gratifying conscious- ness of having helped the war to its end, and earned the gratitude of his country and the respect and admiration of his brother officers and soldiers.
An incident is related of his return from Libby prison that indicates the esteem with which he was held in Wisconsin. The old governor of his State, Randall, was then postmaster-general, and he presented Colonel Utley to Secretary Stanton as his former adjutant-general, and the man most entitled to credit for carrying the' war-measures through the Wisconsin legislature.
After recuperating for some months upon leaving the army, Colonel Utley turned his attention and varied experience to account in editing a paper. His paper, the Racine Journal, became the most prosperous weekly paper in the State, and after conducting it nine years he accepted the position of postmaster of Ra- cine under Grant's administration. This position he held eight years, and admin- istered the affairs of his office to the entire satisfaction of every citizen within his postal district. During all the various and responsible positions which he has held, no finger has ever been raised to mark him as other than the most upright of men. His frank, genial manners and generous impulses have always drawn to him the friendship of others, and his fearlessness, firmness, and decision in times of trial have made him one of the leaders of men. Above the distractions of war and politics he has managed to preserve his love of art and music, and, as a proof of his activity and enterprise in these latter days, he has recently launched another journal-the New Deal-upon what promises to be a successful career. Mr. Utley is still a resident of Racine, Wisconsin.
HON. LESTER TAYLOR.
Born Aug. 5, 1798, few lives comparatively have been so long; certainly in the varied usefulness of an active man of a fine practical ability, unusual public spirit, wide experience, and large intelligence, devoted more to general and public affairs, and the advance of the whole than to private gain and aggrandizement, very few in Geauga County have approached it. For the later years Mr. Taylor has quite given his time and unimpaired faculties to various causes of enlightened neighbor- hood, township, and county improvement; the collection, collation, and preserva- tion of the history of the county; and to other causes which absorb his time, trench on his means, and return to him no vulgar rewards whatever.
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