USA > Ohio > History of Ohio, covering the periods of Indian, French and British dominion, the territory Northwest, and the hundred years of statehood > Part 36
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The Ohio legislature passed resolutions declaring that the general government could not permit the secession of any state without vio- lating the bond and compact of union, and, after President Lincoln had been inaugurated, "hailed with joy his firm, dignified and patri- otie message," and pledged "the entire power and resources of the State for a strict maintenance of the constitution and the laws." But there was a considerable party that objected to such expressions, holding that the general government had no power to "coerce a state." The leaders in the legislature, favoring the maintenance of the Union by force, were James A. Garfield, who since leaving the Mahoning canal had fitted himself to become president of Hiram college : Jacob Dolson Cox, a graduate of Oberlin who had married the daughter of President Finney, and James Monroe, an oldtime abolitionist of the Oberlin distriet.
At the election of a United States senator in February, to succeed George E. Pugh, Sahnon P. Chase was elected by a vote of 76 to 53 for Pugh and 5 for Thomas Corwin. A month later President Lin- coln selected Mr. Chase as his secretary of the treasury, and John Sherman was elected to the vacancy, his Democratie antagonist leing
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William Kennon, Sr. Thus Ohio was represented in Congress in 1861 by Wade and Sherman in the senate, the first a radical, the other a conservative, but firm and unyielding ; and in the house by George H. Pendleton, John A. Gurley, Clement L. Vallandigham, William Allen (of Darke county), James M. Ashley, Chilton __ 1. White, Thomas Corwin, Richard A. Harrison, Samuel Shellabar- ger, Warren P. Noble, Carey A. Trimble, Valentine B. Horton, Sammel S. Cox, Sanmel C. Worcester, Harrison G. Blake, Robert H. Nugen, William P. Cutler, James R. Morris, Sidney Edgerton, Albert G. Riddle, John Hutchins and John 1. Bingham. Bingham, Shellabarger and Horton were leading supporters of the war power of the nation, and Pendleton, S. S. Cox and Vallandigham, the prom- inent crities of the exercise of power by the administration.
On April 10th, after there had been an actual state of war on the southern coast for many weeks, but not officially recognized, the peo- ple of Cincinnati displayed a sense of the situation by stopping the shipment of arms through that eity to Arkansas. This aroused great. indignation southward; but the United States was denied the right to send food to the soldiers at Forts Suinter and Pickens. When it was attempted, Fort Sumter was bombarded, April 12th, and Major Anderson, son of the old land officer of the Virginia reserve in Ohio, was compelled to haul down the flag.
This, at last, removed all restraint from the spirit of war. Before the bombardment had ended twenty full companies were offered to Governor Dennison for immediate service. Ou the 13th eame Presi- dent Lincoln's call for 75,000 men for three months service to re-establish the laws of the United States where they were defied. Governor Dennison immediately gave out a patriotie proclamation to the State, and when Governor Magoffin telegraphed that "Kentucky would furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subdning her sis- ter southern states," Dennison telegraphed to Washington, "If Kentucky will not fill her quota, Ohio will fill it for her." The Ohio legislature promptly passed a bill appropriating one million dollars to put the State on a war footing, and Cincinnati offered to take one-fourth of the loan. Some of the members voted for the war act with explanation. Judge Thomas M. Key, the ablest of the Democrats, "believed it was an unwarranted declaration of war
a usurpation by the president the beginning of military despotism ; but he was opposed to secession, and could do no otherwise than stand by the stars and stripes." Thomas Moore, of Butler county, a type of the "Silver Gray Whigs," felt that this was "the most painful duty of his life but he could do nothing else than stand by the grand old flag of the country." There was one vote against the bill in the sen- ate, but the house, waiting a day for public opinion, was unanimons, and in the speeches made there was unreserved national spirit. Mr.
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Flagg, a Democrat of Hamilton county, said he was "ready for peace for the Union, or war for it, love for it, hatred for it, everything for it." Mr. Vallandigham visited the capital and earnestly remon- strated with the Democrats for giving their sanction to the war ; but the patriotie enthusiasm of the erisis could not be controlled by such partisanship.# With particular reference to Vallandigham, it was supposed, Garfield seeured the passage of a bill to punish trea- son.
There was no hesitation in the response to the call for troops in Ohio. Three months before, President Lorin AAndrews, of Kenvon college, had offered his services in case of war, and he now set about forming a company. He was a type of the men who enlisted or encouraged enlistment. As soon as the President had called for troops, telegrams came to the governor from various towns, tender- ing companies. Cincinnati, Dayton and Cleveland offered thou- sands. James Barrett Steedman, of Toledo, who had been a delegate to the Charleston Democratie convention, pledged a regi- ment in ten days. Prominent men, in every quarter, without regard to party, offered their serviecs and asked what they could do. The militia system was, of course, worthless, and of no avail in the emer- geney. There were a few companies of volunteer infantry, armed and trained, and a few one-gun squads of artillery. The best known of these companies immediately offered their services. It is interesting to note that Lucius V. Bierce, the invader of Canada in 1835, was among those who raised companies, largely at his own expense. Later he was made assistant adjutant-general of volun- teers, under the national government, and was engaged for two years in the mustering of volunteers at Columbus.
The feelings with which the greater part of these soldiers enlisted have been frequently stated, but perhaps nowhere so naturally and simply as in a memorandum found among the papers of Col. Minor Milliken. He was the son of a wealthy lawyer and farmer of But- ler county, before the war graduated in Miami college and Harvard law school, and began the practice of law with Thomas Corwin, but returned to farming until the spring of 1861, when he organized a company of cavalry and furnished the money to partly equip it. He went to West Virginia as a private, and later was commissioned major of the First Ohio cavalry, from which rank he soon rose to colonel. The memorandum here referred to was made public after Colonel Milliken was killed at Stone River, and in part was as fol- lows :
"It was not pleasant to leave my friends and my home, and, relin- quishing my liberty and pleasure, bind myself to hardships and obedience for three years by a solemn oath. Why did I do it ?
*"Ohio in the War." by Whitelaw Reid, at the beginning of the war an editor at Xenia, his native town.
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"First. I did it because I loved my country. I thought she was surrounded by traitors and struck by cowardly plunderers. I thought that, having been a good government to me and my fathers before me, I owed it to her to defend her from all harm; so when I heard of the insults offered her, I rose up as if some one had struck my mother, and as a lover of my country agreed to fight for her.
"Second. Though I am no great reader, I have heard the taunts and insults sent us workingmen from the prond aristocrats of the South. My blood has grown hot when I heard them say labor was the business of slaves and mudsills; that they were a noble-blooded and we a mean-spirited people ; that they had ruled the country hy their better pluck, and if we did not submit they would whip us by their better courage. So I thought the time had come to show these insolent fellows that Northern institutions had the best men, and I enlisted to flog them into good manners and obedience to their betters.
"Third. I said that this war would disturb the whole country and all its business. The South meant rule or ruin. It has Jeff Davis and the Southern notion of government ; we our old constitu- tion and our old liberties. I couldn't see any peace or quiet until we had whipped them, and so I enlisted to bring back peace in the quickest way.
The Lancaster Guards arrived at Columbus April 15th, closely followed by the Dayton Light Guards and Montgomery Guards, and on the morning of April 18th two regiments were made up of the companies that had reached the capital. The First ineluded the Lan- easter Gnards; the Lafayette Guards, and Light Guards and Mont- gomery Guards, of Dayton ; the Grays and the Hibernian Guards of Cleveland, the Portsmouth, Zanesville and Mansfield Guards, and the Jacksons of Hamilton. In the Second regiment were the Rovers, Zonaves and Lafayettes of Cincinnati, the Videttes and Feneibles of Columbus, the Springfield Zouaves, the Covington Blues (of Miami county), one Steubenville and two Pickaway companies. The men elected their own officers, and Edward A. Parrott was made temporary commander of the First, and Lewis Wilson, chief of police of Cincinnati, colonel of the Second. Without uniform and without arms, they started out by train next day under the command of George W. MeCook, a Mexiean war veteran, to defend the capital founded by George Washington. The First was mustered into the I'nited States service at Lancaster, Pa., by Lient. Alexander MeDow- ell MeCook, a New Lisbon boy, who had been educated at West Point. He was then made colonel, and Parrott lieutenant-colonel. The Second was mustered in at the same place and Wilson retained in command. Both regiments, after some delay, reached Washing- ton, and were assigned to a brigade under the command of Robert C. Schenek, who was made a brigadier-general, as ITamer had been in 1846, and who, like Hamer, justified the honor.
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The quota of Ohio, in the call for 75,000 men, was 13,000, and after two thousand had been sent to meet the most urgent demand, there remained the work of organizing eleven regiments from the hosts that poured into Columbus, where there was no shelter for them, no tents, no supplies, nobody with experience to take care of the men and organize them. Governor Dennison established Camp Jackson in the woods, naming it in honor of the old Democrat patriot, and his staff, Adjutant-General Henry B. Carrington, Com- missary-General George W. Runyan, and the others, did the best they could under the circumstances, soon embarrassed by the usual disparaging comment that accompanies the organization of armies.
To command the troops the governor wanted Irvin MeDowell, whose career has already been noticed, then on the staff of General Scott, but upon the urgency of Cincinnati friends he selected George B. MeClellan, a Pennsylvanian, then thirty-five years old, a West Pointer who had seen war in Mexico and had been sent to Europe by Jefferson Davis, when secretary of war, to observe the ('rimean war. In 1860 he had come to Cincinnati as president of the Ohio & Mississippi railroad. For brigadier-generals, Newton Schleich, the Demoerat leader in the state senate, J. II. Bates, of Cincinnati, and J. D. Cox were selected. Presently the governor's staff was reinforced by the addition of Catharinns P. Buckingham, Charles Whittlesey, J. W. Sill, and William S. Rosecrans, a native of Delaware county, a graduate of West Point, who had left the army in 1834, and since then had been interested in coal and oil production in Ohio. He had drilled the home guards at Cincinnati, which was in fear of invasion, and in the latter part of April he located Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati, and was busy caring for the volunteers until made chief engineer for the State. As finally re-organized the governor's staff was C. P. Buckingham, adjutant- general; George B. Wright, quartermaster-general, Columbus Delano, commissary-general, and C. P. Waleott, judge advocate- general.
Thirty thousand men assembled in answer to the call for thirteen. Out of these, eleven more regiments were organized for three months' service for the United States: the Third, Col. Isaac H. Marrow; Fourth, Col. Lorin Andrew>: Fifth, Col. Sammel HI. Dunning; Sixth, Col. William K. Bosley: Seventh, Col. Erastus B. Tyler; Eighth, Col. Hiram De Puy; Ninth, Col. Robert L. McCook ; Tenth, Col. William Il. Lytle: Eleventh, Col. James F. Harrison ; Twelfth, Col. John F. Lowe; Thirteenth, Col. A. Saunders Piatt. A little later these were sent to Camp Dennison and re-organized for three years' service, with some change in officers. Two or three thousand declined to re-enlist, and were sent home on furlough until their three months' enlistment had expired. They had not been paid. "Their feelings were participated in by their friends, until very
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many were led to believe that the promises of the government were worthless, and bitterness and wrath succeeded to suspicion and disappointment."#
In addition to these thirteen for the national army, Ohio organ- ized ten regiments of her own out of the companies that were offered. These were the Fourteenth, Col. James B. Steedman ; the Fifteenth, Col. George W. Andrews ; the Sixteenth, or Carrington Guards, Col. James Irvine : the Seventeenth, Col. John M. Connell ; the Eight- eenth, Col. Timothy R. Stanley; the Nineteenth, Col. Samuel Beatty ; the Twentieth, C'ol. Thomas Morton ; the Twenty-first, Col. Jesse S. Norton ; the Twenty-second, Col. William E. Gilmore .; Besides these regiments, enough companies for four others were held in reserve at their homes.
The State was expected to uniform, arm and equip its soldiers, and the difficulties of doing this were enormous, requiring the generous services and counsel of the best qualified citizens. To aid in the work Miles Greenwood, who had established an iron foundry in Cin- einnati in 1831, undertook the contract for rifling the old smooth- bore muskets, producing the "Greenwood rifle," which carried for a long range a bullet that would nowadays be considered very large. Greenwood also undertook the casting of eannon, and during the war turned out over two hundred bronze cannon, the first ever made in the West, as well as gun caissons, and the armanent of a monitor.
As soon as it was known that troops would be called out for three years, Governor Dennison recommended MeClellan for the rank of major-general, so that he could retain chief command in the West. "Ohio must lead throughout the war," said the governor. The com- mission was issued. Mcclellan at first could hardly believe in his sudden advancement, but it was not long before he was exercising authority with ample sway, and betraying toward Dennison an ingratitude that hurt the governor more than the extravagances of public opinion and newspaper tirades.
Governor Dennison's chief duty, aside from the furnishing of troops to the general government, was the protection of the State from invasion. There was no Confederate army near, in the carly part of 1861, for Kentucky was neutral and western Virginia largely Union in sentiment. But Confederate companies were organizing all along the border, and it was reasonable to expect that Confederate armies would occupy those regions adjacent to Ohio, if they were not. forestalled. General Carrington in April advised the Governor that the Ohio river was not a practical line of defense, and that Ohio could be guarded only by occupying western Virginia and Kentucky. But did the Ohio troops have a right to invade the soil of another
* Report of Adjutant-General Buckingham, 1861.
t Que of the ten went to St. Louis and mustered in as the Thirteenth Mis- souri, under Col. Crafts J. Wright.
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state ? When it was being discussed whether United States troops could take possession of the Long Bridge at Washington, Governor Dennison said : "We can let no theory prevent the defense of Ohio. I will defend Ohio where it costs less and accomplishes most. Above all, I will defend Ohio beyond rather than on her border." Ile joined with Governors Yates and Morton in urging the govern- ment to garrison the important points in Kentucky; but that was not attempted until the enemy had occupied the strategie positions. Regarding western Virginia, the governor obtained permission to aet, because in that quarter it was desired to encourage the people to secede from Virginia and form a new state. In April Colonel Bar- nett and part of his artillery was sent to Marietta to hold in check the rebellions element at Parkersburg, and when it was heard that the Virginia volunteers had taken possession of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad at Grafton, the government permitted Ohio to go ahead. General Mcclellan had given his first advice regarding the cam- paign: "I advise delay for the present. I will soon have Camp Dennison a model establishment. In heaven's name don't precipitate matters. . Don't let these frontier men . hurry you on. . Morton is a terrible alarmist." But on the 24th of May he began to move, and asked for the nine regiments of state troops, which were in motion for the border in six hours, Col- onel Steedman crossed with the Fourteenth and Barnett's artillery at Marietta, occupied Parkersburg May 27th, and swept out on the rail- road repairing the track and rebuilding bridges, at Grafton joining Colonel Irvine, who had brought the Sixteenth and Kelly's Virginia regiment along the other branch of the road. Pushing on to Philippi, they fought the first battle of the war, June 3d, and drove the Confederate forees into the mountains.
Colonel Norton, with the Twenty-first Ohio, crossed at Gallipolis and seized thirty Virginians of secession activity, who were sent to Camp Chase, near Columbus, and were the first prisoners at that camp, afterward famous as a place of detention for Confederate soldiers. The Twenty-second went across in May.
The Fifteenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth rapidly supported the advance guard. MeClellan soon entered western Virginia, with other Ohio State troops, and some Indiana regiments. William S. Rosecrans, promoted to brigadier-general, was with the army, and Gen. Charles W. HTill led a considerable body of Ohio militia. 1 slow advance was made against the new position of the Confederates at the Rich Mountain and Laurel Hill gap in the mountains. The attack was made July 11th, a victory was won by Rosecrans, and a sharp blow to the retreating enemy delivered at Carrick's Ford by Stoodman's regiment.
Gen. J. D. Cox, under the orders of General Mcclellan, had taken command of the district of the Kanawha in July, with the
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Eleventh, Twelfth and Twenty-first Ohio and First and Second Kentucky, organized near Cincinnati, Cotter's Ohio battery and Pfau's Cincinnati cavalry, and moved up the river, driving the enemy from the Kanawha valley into the mountains, a little battle occurring at Scary Creek, July 17th, that caused the death of several gallant Ohioans.
Meanwhile Irvin McDowell had been major-general in command at Washington, and occupied Arlington, Va., in the latter part of May. Moving into Virginia, he fought the disastrous battle of Bull Run, July 21st. The First Ohio, which had lost nine killed and two wounded in a little fight at Vienna, June 17, was but slightly engaged at Bull Run, losing three killed. The Second, their com- rades, had two killed.
Such was the first experience of Ohio in the war. Her native son, MeDowell, a really capable military man, missed his chance to be the great Union leader, and became the victim of slander as well as just criticism ; and another native son, Rosecrans, won an easy victory on account of which, Mcclellan, the ablest of all the generals that went out from Ohio in winning popularity, was hailed as a young Napo- leon, and called to supersede McDowell at Washington. But the main thing to be remembered is, that though valuable aid was given by Indiana, it was mainly the Ohio militia that established the power of the Union in western Virginia, and saved that region, inhabited by descendants of the mountaineers who opened the West, from the danger of secession. As Governor Dennison desired, the Virginia mountains were made the bulwark of Ohio on the southeast.
The State troops that did this work in West Virginia returned home at the end of their three months' enlistment, but were neglected by the United States government in the matters of muster out and pay. "Disappointed and disgusted by the treatment they had received," says General Buckingham, "they aggravated in a tenfold degree the mischief produced by the three-months' men sent home from Camp Dennison. The prospect of raising troops in Ohio was for a time very discouraging." The neglect was, of course, due to the lack of efficient general organization, not to any desire of the goverment to disappoint the men. It is well to remember how impatient and distrustful and ready to accuse the government and hound unlucky generals public sentiment was in that period where, looking back through the haze of forty years, the hasty observer can see only a glorious unanimity and patriotic devotion. There was, in fact, a wonderful readiness to sacrifice self for country, as com- pared with any other American war. If men had enlisted as read- ily for the war of the Revolution, George Washington would have had an army large enough, one might say, to crowd the British into the sea in a fight with clubs and stones. Yet, with all this degree of unanimity, there was the same fault-finding, sensational misrepre-
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sentation and unwillingness of a great many to do their duty, that have characterized other wars. The newspapers of both parties indulged in censure of the State government, persnading the people that the soldiers were given bad rations, shoddy uniforms and worth- less guns. Some of them daily denounced the management of Camp Dennison, "exaggerated every defect and sought for criminal motives in every mistake,"" justifying that seathing indictment of the news- papers of the United States that Charles Dickens had made a few years before.
So much was enlistment discouraged that it was fortunate that Ohio had four regiments in reserve. In June these were called to Camp Chase, near Columbus, and organized in the Twenty-third regiment, Col. E. P. Seammon; the Twenty-fourth, Col. Jacob Ammen ; Twenty-fifth, Col. James 1. Jones, and Twenty-sixth, Col. E. P. Fyffo. The nine regiments that had been in West Virginia having been mustered out, the entire force of Ohio three-years' men in the field August 1st were the four just named, the eleven organ- ized at Camp Dennison, the cavalry companies of Captains George and Burdsall, and two sections of artillery. These were on duty mainly in West Virginia.
But the effect of disaster at Bull Run was to stiffen the determina- tion of the patriotie leaders. Venomous criticism was stifled in the face of danger to the national capital, and new regulations removed some disagreeable features of enlistment. The nine three-months' regiments that had been in West Virginia were re-organized for three years, generally with the same commanders, except that Col. Moses R. Dickey re-organized the Fifteenth, John F. de Coureey the Sixteenth, and Charles Whittlesey the Twentieth. Besides these many other entirely new regiments were organized, so that by the end of the year the infantry numbers ran up to eighty-two. At Mansfield, under the encouragement of Senator Sherman, who for a time intended to go to the field, but was dissnaded, there was organ- ized the Sixty-fourth and Sixty-fifth, under Colonels Forsythe and Harker, with MeLaughlin's squadron of cavalry and Bradley's bat- tery. Congressman Gurley gave special attention to the promotion of distinctive regiments from the Cincinnati district, such as the Twenty-eighth, Thirty-fourth, Forty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth, Ger- inan or Zonave, and the Fiftieth, Irish Catholic. Cavalry was at first discouraged, but the State raised one regiment in July, Senator Wade and John Hutchins raised another in the Reserve, and by special efforts six cavalry regiments were formed in the year. These were the First, Col. Minor Milliken ; Second,, Col. Charles Double- day ; Third, Col. Lewis Zahm; Fourth, Col. John Kennett: Fifth, Col. W. H. II. Taylor, and Sixth, Col. William R. Lloyd.
* Reid, "Ohio in the war."
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In the artillery branch seventeen batteries were organized, besides Barnett's regiment, which was filled to ten companies. Notable among these batteries was Wetmore's, of Cleveland, associated with Col. William B. Hazen's# Forty-first regiment, and Mitchell's bat- tery, of Springfield, that went to Missouri. Hoffman's Cincinnati battery was the first to go to Missouri, followed by the Thirty-ninth, Twenty-seventh and Eighty-first regiments and part of the Twenty- seeond. Ohio troops did gallant service in saving Missouri as well as West Virginia and Kentucky.
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