USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 48
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TWELFTH OHIO BATTERY.
PRIVATES.
William H. Parmer, Milton S. Pollock.
FIFTEENTH OHIO BATTERY.
Private Jesse R. Nusum.
SEVENTEENTH OHIO BATTERY.
PRIVATES.
John H. Baker, Henry W. Crozier, Albert J. Wakefield, Charles H. Nichols, Frederick O'Brien.
EIGHTEENTH OHIO BATTERY.
On the twenty-second of August, 1863, the necessary number of men to constitute a new six-gun battery were enlisted, and in camp. September 13th, they were mus- tered into service at Camp Portsmouth. The first en- gagement in which the battery participated, was about three miles from Spring Hill, Tennessee, on the fourth of March, 1864. The second was on the day following at Thompson's Station. From this time the enemy at- tacked the National pickets daily. On the tenth of April Franklin was attacked, but unsuccessfully. The twenty- seventh of June Shelbyville was taken by the advance of the Fourteenth army corps, of which the Eighteenth formed an important part. In the battle of Chickamauga the battery did good service. September 21st, the enemy was again defeated at Rossville Road Gap, in Mission Ridge. Following this, the battery was under fire, and engaged with the rebel batteries on and near Moccasin Point for fifty-six days. Nothing of great importance occurred until the fifteenth of December, when it was in the battle of Nashville, where it did great execution with shell and solid shot. It joined in the pursuit that fol- lowed, and was in camp the most of the time after that until the order was received to muster out. The battery was discharged at Camp Dennison June 29, 1865.
NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS.
Corporal Malachi Brigham. Corporal Richy A. Thomas. Corporal Patrick O'Doud.
PRIVATES.
John Hart, Thomas Wallace, George W. Beadle, George Coy, Michael Coogan, Reinhard Christ, Darius Crossline, Edward Crotly, Michael Cowan, David Culliton, Charles Dicks, Samuel Dothwait, John Donohue, John Dougherty, Ferdinand M. Dugan, Dennis Ennis, John Fillspatrick, John Forrester, James Finley, John Farrell, Michael Feiler, Jeremiah F. Hatpin, Patrick Heelan, John Habback, John Haab, John Joice, Thomas Kelly, John Lloyd, James Malone, James B. Martin, James J. McBride, James Macon, Thomas Mahoney, John V. Mulvey, Edward O'Donald, George Rink, Michael Raney, Michael Ryan, J. Redmond, Henry Wolfe, Henry Kummings, Patrick Skinney, Michael Brophy.
TWENTY-FIRST OHIO BATTERY.
PRIVATES.
Charles Campbell, James Fitzpatrick, Thomas Martin; Sergeant William G. Ross.
TWENTY-SIXTH OHIO BATTERY.
Private Christian Seifert.
Many Hamilton county soldiers were also in the regi- ments and batteries from other States, and in the gun- boat service. The number of men offered by Ohio, upon the first call of the President, was so greatly in excess of her quota that, notwithstanding the State put in the field several additional regiments at her own cost, many volun- teers eager to serve were compelled to seek enlistment elsewhere. Kentucky offered a convenient receptacle for the overflow from southern Ohio; and the earlier Union regiments raised in that State were considerably recruited from Cincinnati and its vicinity. The Four- teenth Kentucky infantry and the First Kentucky battery,
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
for example, contained many men of Hamilton county. Others were in West Virginia, Indiana, Missouri and other State contingents; and not a few whose names, like those of men who went abroad to enlist, cannot be obtained now without great difficulty, and in many cases not at all, went into the regular army.
Besides all these, and those who enlisted from Hamil- ton county in the regular army-whose names, like the others, it is not now practicable to obtain-there was the noble army of
THE "SQUIRREL HUNTERS."
The dangers threatening Cincinnati in the latter part of the summer of 1862 led Governor Tod, as we shall see more fully hereafter, in the chapter on "The Siege of Cincinnati," to make a general announcement to the men of Ohio that all who reported with arms in hand would be transported at public expense to that city, and received for the time being into the service of the State. Telegraphic tenders had already been made to the au- thorities of that city, of militia in large numbers from Preble, Warren, Greene, Butler, Franklin and other counties; so that thousands stood ready to answer the call without delay. Before daylight of the next morning after the proclamation of the governor, the tread of the ad- vance of the grand army of Buckeye yeomen was heard upon the stony pavements of Cincinnati. As rapidly as possible the thronging hosts arriving were organized into companies and regiments, and sent to the works back of Covington, to the guard stations along the river, or to other posts of duty. The total number known to have entered this temporary service from the State at large is fifteen thousand seven hundred and sixty-six-which was doubtless exceeded by several hundreds at least-of which Hamilton county furnished five hundred and four. Some peculiarity of dress in many of them, and the armament of numbers with light squirrel-guns, suggested the happy title of "Squirrel Hunters" for the . entire unique contingent ; but by whom it was first applied the "historian has failed to learn. The designation has, how- ever, passed honorably into history. The squirrel, amid . appropriate scenery, and the squirrel-hunter, in fitting costume and in the act of loading his fire-arm, appear in good style upon the discharge certificates granted the Hunters upon the termination of their service; and a spirited page engraving, in the first volume of Mr. Reid's "Ohio in the War," further illustrates and commemorates their personnel and deeds.
The Hunters were not long needed. Their relief from service began within ten or twelve days after they were called out, and by the middle of September nearly all were relieved and had returned to their homes. One of the last battalions to be freed from the trammels of military organization was that stationed at Gravel Pit, on the Ohio & Mississippi railroad, to guard against the possible crossing of a rebel cavalry force at a shallow place in the river opposite that point. This command was under the personal direction of Major Richard M. Corwine, in general charge of the river defences, and was relieved on Tuesday, the sixteenth of September, by the Nineteenth Michigan volunteer infantry. Three days
previously Governor Tod telegraphed to Stanton, Secre- tary of War: "The minute-men, or 'Squirrel Hunters,' responded gloriously to the call for the defence of Cin- cinnati. Thousands reached the city, and thousands more were en route for it. The enemy having retired, all have been ordered back. This uprising of the peo- ple is the cause of the retreat. We should publicly ac- knowledge this gallant conduct."
At the next session of the legislature an act was passed and approved March rr, 1863, ordering the preparation and issue of formal discharge certificates "for the patri- otic men of the State who responded to the call of the governor and went to the southern border to repel the in- vader, and who will be known in history as the 'Squirrel Hunters.'" These papers, handsomely engraved and printed, and issued to large numbers entitled to them, read as follows:
THE SQUIRREL HUNTERS' DISCHARGE.
Our southern Border was menaced by the enemies of our Union. David Tod, Governor of Ohio, called on the Minute Men of the State, and the "Squirrel Hunters" came by thousands to the rescue. You, -, were one of them, and this is your Honorable Discharge. September, 1862. CHAS. W. HILL,
Adj't Gen. of Ohio. MALCOLM MCDOWELL,
Approved by DAVID TOD, Governor. Major and A. D. C.
This was accompanied, in each case, by this ringing letter from the governor, neatly printed for the purpose:
THE STATE OF OHIO, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, { COLUMBUS, March 4, 1863. To- , Esq., of- -County, Ohio:
The legislature of our State has this day passed the following resolu- tion:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Ohio, That the Governor be, and he is hereby authorized and directed to appropriate out of his contingent fund, a sufficient sum to pay for printing and lithographing discharges for the patriotic men of the State, who responded to the call of the Governor, and went to our southern border to repel the invaders, and who will be known in history as the "SQUIRREL HUNTERS."
And in obedience thereto, I do most cheerfully herewith enclose a certificate of your service. But for the gallant services of yourself and the other members of the corps of patriotic "Squirrel Hunters," rendered in September last, Ohio, our dear State, would have been invaded by a band of pirates determined to overthrow the best Govern- ment on earth, our wives and children would have been violated and murdered, and our homes plundered and sacked. Your children and your children's children, will be proud to know that you were one of this glorious band.
Preserve the certificate of service and discharge, herewith enclosed to you, as evidence of this gallantry. The Rebellion is not yet crushed out, and therefore the discharge may not be final; keep the old gun then in order; see that the powder-horn and bullet-pouch are supplied, and caution your patriotic mothers or wives to be at all times prepared to furnish you a few days' cooked rations, so that if your services are called for (which may God in his infinite goodness forbid) you mav again prove yourselves "Minute Men" and again protect our loved homes.
Invoking God's choicest blessings upon yourself and all who are dear to you, I am, very truly, yours,
DAVID TOD, Governor.
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
CHAPTER XII. THE MORGAN RAID THROUGH OHIO.
THE great Rebellion brought two notable and memor- able events to Hamilton county-the "Siege of Cincin- nati" in the summer and fall of 1862, and the raid of John Morgan through southern Ohio, traversing the entire length of this county as he entered the State, in July, 1863. The story of the former will be related in the history of Cincinnati; that of the latter will be told here, in the general history of the county. It is extracted, very nearly, from Whitelaw Reid's admirable chapter on the subject in the first volume of his Ohio in the War, omitting some of the less important foot-notes, and em- bodying others in the text .*
In July, 1863, Rosecrans lay at Stone River, menacing Bragg at Tullahoma. Burnside was at Cincinnati or- ganizing a force for the redemption of east Tennessee, which was already moved well down toward the confines of that land of steadfast but sore-tried loyalty. Bragg felt himself unable to confront Rosecrans; Buckner had in East Tennessee an inadequate force to confront Burn- side. But the communications of both Rosecrans and Burnside ran through Kentucky, covered mostly by the troops (numbering perhaps ten thousand in all) under General Judah. If these communications were threat- ened, this last force would at least be kept from reinforcing Rosecrans or Burnside, and the advance of one or both of these officers might be delayed. So reasoned Bragg as, with anxious forebodings, he looked about the lower- ing horizon for aid in his extremity.
He had an officer who carried the reasoning to a bolder conclusion. If, after a raid through Kentucky, which should endanger the communications and fully occupy General Judah, he should cross the border and carry terror to the peaceful homes of Indiana and Ohio, he might create such a panic as should delay the new troops about to be sent to Rosecrans, and derange the plans of the Federal campaign. There was no ade- quate force, he argued, in Indiana or Ohio to oppose him; he could brush aside the local militia like house- flies, and outride any cavalry that could be sent in pur- suit ; while in his career he would inevitably draw the whole Union force in Kentucky after him, thus diminish- ing the pressure upon Bragg and delaying the attack upon East Tennessee. This was John Morgan's plan.
Bragg did not approve it. He ordered Morgan to make a raid in Kentucky ; gave him carte blanche to go wherever he chose in that State, and particularly urged upon him the capture of Louisville, but forbade the crossing of the Ohio. Then he turned to the perils with which Rosecrans' masterly strategy was environing him.
Morgan prepared at once to execute his orders; but at the same time he gave confidential information to Basil W. Duke, his second in command, of his intention to disregard Bragg's prohibition. He even went further. Weeks before his movement began, he sent men to ex- amine the fords of the upper Ohio, that at Buffington Island among them, and expressed an intention to re- cross in that vicinity, unless Lee's movements in Penn- sylvania should make it advisable to continue his march on northern soil, until he thus joined the army of north- ern Virginia.
Here, then, was a man who knew precisely what he wanted to do. He arranged a plan far-reaching, com- prehensive, and perhaps the boldest that the cavalry ser- vice of the war disclosed ; and before the immensely su- perior forces which he evaded could comprehend what he was about, he had half executed it.
On the second of July he began to cross the Cumber- Yand at Burkesville and Turkey Neck Bend, almost in the face of Judah's cavalry, which, lying twelve miles away, at Marrowbone, trusted to the swollen river as sufficient to render the crossing impracticable. The mistake was fatal. Before Judah moved down to resist, two regi- ments and portions of others were across. With these Morgan attacked, drove the cavalry into its camp at Marrowbone, and was then checked by the artillery. But his crossing was thus secured, and long before Judah could get his forces gathered together, Morgan was half way to Columbia. He had two thousand four hundred and sixty men, all told. Before him lay three States- Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio-which he meant to traverse; one filled with hostile troops, the others with a hostile and swarming population.
The next day, at the crossing of Green River, he came upon Colonel Moore, with a Michigan regiment, whom he vainly summoned to surrender, and vainly strove to dislodge. The fight was severe for the little time it lasted; and Morgan, who had no time to spare, drew off, found another crossing, and pushed on through Camp- bellsville to Lebanon. Here came the last opportunity to stop him .- Three regiments held the position, but two of them were at some little distance from the town. Falling upon the one in the town, he overwhelmed it be- fore the others could get up, left them hopelessly in his rear, and double-quicked his prisoners eight miles north- ward to Springfield, before he could stop long enough to parole them .* Then, turning northwestward, with his foes far behind him, he marched straight for Branden- burgh, on the Ohio River, some sixty miles below Louis- ville. A couple of companies were sent forward to capture boats for the crossing; others were detached to cross be- low and effect a diversion ; and still others were sent toward Crab Orchard to distract the attention of the Union commanders. He tapped the telegraph wires, thereby finding that he was expected at Louisville, and that the force there was too strong for him; captured a train from Nashville within thirty miles of Louisville; picked up squads of prisoners here and there, and
* This chapter and that on the "Siege of Cincinnati," in the second part of this work, are extracted from Ohio in the War, by the cour- teous permission of the publishers, Messrs. Wilstach, Baldwin & Com- pany, of Cincinnati. We congratulate the Ohio public, and especially . the soldiers from the Buckeye State in the late war, upon the prospect of a second and improved edition of this great work, which is contem- plated by this house. It is one of those books which should never be "out of print"-an honor to the State, and a monument to the liber- ality and enterprise of its publishers and the industry of its compilers and editor.
* Some horrible barbarities to one or two of these prisoners were charged against him in the newspapers of the day.
25
194
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
paroled them. By ten o'clock on the morning of the eighth, his horsemen stood on the banks of the Ohio. They had crossed Kentucky in five days.
When the advance companies, sent forward to secure boats, entered Brandenburgh, they took care to make as little confusion as possible. Presently the Henderson and Louisville packet, the J. J. McCoombs, came steam- ing up the river, and landed as usual at the wharf-boat. As it made fast its lines, thirty or forty of Morgan's men quietly walked on board and took possession. Soon afterward the Alice Dean, a fine boat running in the Memphis and Cincinnati trade, came around the bend. As she gave no sign of landing, they steamed out to meet her, and, before captain or crew could comprehend the matter, the Alice Dean was likewise transferred to the Confederate service. When Morgan rode into town a few hours later, the boats were ready for his crossing.
Indiana had just driven out a previous invader-Cap- tain Hines, of Morgan's command-who, with a small force, had crossed over "to stir up the Copperheads," as the rebel accounts pleasantly express it. Finding the country too hot for him, he had retired, after doing con- siderable damage; and in Brandenburgh he was now awaiting his chief.
Preparations were at once made for crossing over, but the men crowding down incautiously to the river bank, revealed their presence to the militia on the Indiana side, whom Captain Hines' recent performance had made unwontedly watchful. They at once opened a sharp fusilade across the stream, with musketry and an old cannon which they had mounted on wagon-wheels. Morgan speedily silenced this fire by bringing up his Par- rott rifles; then hastily dismounted two of his regiments and sent them across. The militia retreated and the two rebel regiments pursued. Just then a little tin-clad, the Springfield, which Commander Leroy Fitch had dis- patched from New Albany, on the first news of some- thing wrong down the river, came steaming towards the scene of action. Suddenly "checking her way," writes the rebel historian of the raid, Colonel Basil Duke, in his history of Morgan's cavalry, "she tossed her snub- nose defiantly, like an angry beauty of the coal-pits, sidled a little toward the town, and commenced to scold. A bluish-white, funnel-shaped cloud spouted out from her left-hand bow, and a shot flew at the town, and then, changing front forward, she snapped a shell at the men on the other side. I wish I were sufficiently master of nautical phraseology to do justice to this little vixen's style of fighting; but she was so unlike a horse, or even a piece of light artillery, that I cannot venture to attempt it." He adds that the rebel regiments on the Indiana side found shelter, and that thus the gunboat fire proved wholly without effect. After a little Morgan trained his Parrotts upon her; and the inequality in the range of the guns was such that she speedily turned up the river again.
The situation had seemed sufficiently dangerous. Two regiments were isolated on the Indiana side; the gun- boat was between them and their main body; while every hour of delay brought Hobson nearer on the Kentucky
side, and speeded the mustering of the Indiana militia. But the moment the gunboat turned up the river, all dan- ger for the moment was past. Morgan rapidly crossed the rest of his command, burned the boats behind him, scattered the militia and rode out into Indiana. There was yet time to make a march of six miles before night- fall.
The task now before Morgan was a simple one, and for several days could not be other than an easy one. His distinctly formed plan was to march through southern Indiana and Ohio, avoiding large towns and large bodies of militia, spreading alarm through the country, making all the noise he could, and disappearing again across the upper fords of the Ohio before the organizations of militia could get such shape and consistency as to be able to make head against him. For some days, at least, he need expect no adequate resistance, and, while the bewilderment as to his purposes and uncertainty as to the direction he was taking should paralyze the gathering militia, he meant to place many a long mile between them and his hard riders.
Spreading, therefore, all manner of reports as to his purposes and assuring the most that he meant to pene- trate to the heart of the State and lay Indianapolis in ashes, he turned the heads of his horses up the river towards Cincinnati; scattered the militia with the charges of his advance brigade; burnt bridges and cut telegraph wires right and left; marched twenty-one hours out of twenty-four, and rarely made less than fifty or sixty miles a day.
His movement had at first attracted little attention. The North was used to having Kentucky in a panic about invasion from John Morgan, and had come to look upon it mainly as a suggestion of a few more blooded horses from the "Blue Grass" that were to be speedily im- pressed into the rebel service. Gettysburg had just been fought; Vicksburgh had just fallen ; what were John Mor- gan and his horse-thieves? Let Kentucky guard her own stables against her own outlaws!
Presently he came nearer and Louisville fell into a panic. Martial law was proclaimed ; business was sus- pended; every preparation for defence was hastened. Still, few thought of danger beyond the river, and the most, remembering the siege of Cincinnati, were disposed to regard as very humorous the ditching and the drill by the terrified people of the Kentucky metropolis.
Then came the crossing. The governor of Indiana straightway proclaimed martial law, and called out the legion. General Burnside was full of wise plans for "bagging" the invader, of which the newspapers gave mysterious hints. Thoroughly trustworthy gentlemen hastened with their "reliable reports" of the rebel strength. They had stood on the wharf-boat and kept tally of the cavalry crossed; and there was not a man less than five thousand of them. Others had talked with them, and been confidently assured that they were going up to Indianapolis to burn the State house. Others, on the same veracious authority, were assured that they were heading for New Albany and Jefferson- ville to burn Government stores. The militia everywhere
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
195
were sure that it was their duty to gather in their own towns and keep Morgan off; and, in the main, he saved them the trouble by riding around. Hobson came lum- bering along in the rear-riding his best, but finding it hard to keep the trail ; harder to procure fresh horses, since of these Morgan made a clean sweep as he went; and impossible to narrow the distance between them to less than twenty-five hours.
Still the purpose of the movement was not divined- its very audacity was its protection. General Burnside concluded that Hobson was pressing the invaders so hard, forsooth, that they must swim across the Ohio be- low Madison to escape, and his dispositions for inter- cepting them proceeded on that theory. The Louisville packets were warned not to leave Cincinnati, lest Mor- gan should bring with them his artillery and force them to ferry him back into Kentucky. Efforts were made to raise regiments to aid the Indianians, if only to recipro- cate the favor they had shown when Cincinnati was under siege; but the people were tired of such alarms, and could not be induced to believe in the danger. By Sunday, July 12, three days after Morgan's entry upon northern soil, the authorities had advanced their theory of his plan to correspond with the news of his movements. They now thought he would swim the Ohio a little below Cin- cinnati, at or near Aurora; but the citizens were more apprehensive. They began to talk about a "sudden dash into the city." The mayor requested that business be suspended and that the citizens assemble in their re- spective wards for defence. Finally General Burnside came to the same view, proclaimed martial law, and or- dered the suspension of business. Navigation was prac- tically stopped, and gun-boats scoured the river banks to remove all scows and flat-boats which might aid Morgan in his escape to the Kentucky shore. Later in the even- ing apprehensions that, after all, Morgan might not be so anxious to escape, prevailed. Governor Tod was among the earliest to recognize the danger; and, while there was still time to secure insertion in the newspapers of Mon- day morning, he telegraphed to the press a proclamation calling out the militia :
.
COLUMBUS, July 12, 1863.
THE PRESS OF CINCINNATI:
Whereas, this State is in imminent danger of invasion by an armed force, now, therefore, to prevent the same, I, David Tod, Governor of the State of Ohio, and commander-in-chief of the militia force thereof, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the constitution and laws of said State, do hereby call into active service that portion of the militia force which has been organized into companies within the counties of Hamilton, Butler, Montgomery, Clermont, Brown, Clinton, Warren, Greene, Fayette, Ross, Monroe, Washington, Morgan, Noble, Athens, Meigs, Scioto, Jackson, Adams, Vinton, Hocking, Lawrence, Picka- away, Franklin, Madison, Fairfield, Clark, Preble, Pike, Gallia, High- land, and Perry. I do hereby further order all such forces, residing within the counties of Hamilton, Butler, and Clermont, to report forth- with to Major General A. E. Burnside, at his headquarters in the city of Cincinnati, who is hereby authorized and required to cause said forces to be organized into battalions or regiments, and appoint all necessary officers therefor. And it is further ordered that all such forces residing in the counties of Montgomery, Warren, Clinton, Fay- ette, Ross, Highland, and Brown, report forthwithto Colonel Neff, the military commander at Camp Dennison, who is hereby authorized to organize said forces into battalions or regiments, and to appoint, tem- porarily, officers therefor; and it is further ordered that all of such forces residing in the counties of Franklin, Madison, Clark, Greene,
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