History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio, Part 23

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1104

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Chase; one who never faltered nor lost faith ; and who was at the helm of State; in the halls of Con- gress; chief of one the most important bureaus of the Government, and, finally, Chief Justice of the United States. When war came, after the election of Abraham Lincoln by the Republican party, Ohio was one of the first to answer to the call for troops. Mr. Chase, while Governor, had re-organized the militia on a sensible basis, and reseued it from the ignominy into which it had fallen. When Mr. Lincoln asked for seventy-five thousand men, Ohio's quota was thirteen regiments. The various chaotic regiments and militia troops in the State did not exceed 1,500 men. The call was issued April 15, 1861 ; by the 18th, two regiments were organized in Columbus, whither these companies had gathered; before sunrise of the 19th the first and second regiments were on their way to Wash- ington City. The President had only asked for thirteen regiments ; thirty were gathering; the Government, not yet fully comprehending the nature of the rebellion, refused the surplus troops, but Gov. Dennison was authorized to put ten additional regiments in the field, as a defensive measure, and was also authorized to act on the defensive as well as on the offensive. The immense extent of southern border made this necessary, as all the loyal people in West Virginia and Ken- tucky asked for help.

In the limits of this history, it is impossible to trace all the steps Ohio took in the war. One of her most talented sons, now at the head of one of the greatest newspapers of the world, says, regard- ing the action of the people and their Legislature:

"In one part of the nation there existed a grad- ual growth of sentiment against the Union, ending in open hostility against its integrity and its Con- stitutional law; on the other side stood a resolute, and determined people, though divided in minor matters, firmly united on the question of national supremacy. The people of Ohio stood squarely on this side. Before this her people had been di- vided up to the hour when-

""""That fierce and sudden flash across the rugged black- ness broke,

And, with a voice that shook the land, the guns of Sum- ter spoke;

* *

* * * * * * *

And whereso'er the summons came, there rose the angry din,

As when, upon a rocky coast, a stormy tide sets in.'

" All waverings then ceased among the people and in the Ohio Legislature. The Union must be

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preserved. The white heat of patriotism and fe- alty to the flag that had been victorious in three wars, and had never met but temporary defeat then melted all parties, and dissolved all hesitation, and, April 18, 1861, by a unanimous vote of ninety-nine Representatives in its favor, there was passed a bill appropriating $500,000 to carry into effect the requisition of the President, to protect the National Government, of which sum $50,000 were to purchase arms and equipments for the troops required by that requisition as the quota of Ohio, and $50,000 as an extraordinary contingent fund for the Governor. The commissioners of the State Sinking Fund were authorized, by the same bill, to borrow this money, on the 6 per cent bonds of the State, and to issue for the same certificates, freeing such bonds from taxation. Then followed other such legislation that declared the property of volunteers free from execution for debt during their term of service; that declared any resident of the State, who gave aid and comfort to the enemies of the Union, guilty of treason against the State, to be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for life; and, as it had become already evi- dent that thousands of militia, beyond Ohio's quota of the President's call, would volunteer, the Legislature, adopting the sagacious suggestion of Gov. Dennison, resolved that all excess of volunteers should be retained and paid for service, under direction of the Governor. Thereupon a bill was passed, authorizing the acceptance of volunteers to form ten regiments, and providing $500,000 for their arms and equipments, and $1,500,000 more to be disbursed for troops in case of an in- vasion of the State. Then other legislation was enacted, looking to and providing against the ship- ment from or through the State of arms or mu- nitions of war, to States either assuming to be neutral or in open rebellion; organizing the whole body of the State militia; providing suitable offi- cers for duty on the staff of the Governor; re- quiring contracts for subsistence of volunteers to be let to the lowest bidder, and authorizing the appointment of additional general officers.

" Before the adjournment of that Legislature, the Speaker of the House had resigned to take command of one of the regiments then about to start for Washington City ; two leading Senators had been appointed Brigadier Generals, and many, in fact nearly all, of the other members of both houses had, in one capacity or another, entered the military service. It was the first war legislature ever elected in Ohio, and, under sudden pressure,

nobly met the first shock, and enacted the first measures of law for war. Laboring under difficul- ties inseparable from a condition so unexpected, and in the performance of duties so novel, it may be historically stated that for patriotism, zeal and ability, the Ohio Legislature of 1861 was the equal of any of its successors; while in that exu- berance of patriotism which obliterated party lines and united all in a common effort to meet the threatened integrity of the United States as a nation, it surpassed them both.

" The war was fought, the slave power forever destroyed, and under additional amendments to her organic law, the United States wiped the stain of human slavery from her escutcheon, liberating over four million human beings, nineteen-twentieths of whom were native-born residents.

" When Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Ohio had two hundred regiments of all arms in the National service. In the course of the war, she had furnished two hundred and thirty regiments, besides twenty-six independent batteries of artillery, five independent companies of cavalry, several companies of sharpshooters, large parts of five regiments credited to the West Virginia con- tingent, two regiments credited to the Kentucky contingent, two transferred to the United States colored troops, and a large proportion of the rank and file of the Fifty-fourth and Sixty-fifth Massa- chusetts Regiments, also colored men. Of these or- ganizations, twenty-three were infantry regiments furnished on the first call of the President, an ex- cess of nearly one-half over the State's quota ; one hundred and ninety-one were infantry regiments, furnished on subsequent calls of the President- one hundred and seventeen for three years, twenty- seven for one year, two for six months, two for three months, and forty-two for one hundred days. Thirteen were cavalry, and three artillery for three years. Of these three-years troops, over twenty thousand re-enlisted, as veterans, at the end of their long term of service, to fight till the war would end."

As original members of these organizations, Ohio furnished to the National service the magnificent army of 310,654 actual soldiers, omitting from the above number all those who paid commuta- tion money, veteran enlistments, and citizens who enlisted as soldiers or sailors in other States. The count is made from the reports of the Provost Marshal General to the War Department. Penn- sylvania gave not quite 28,000 more, while Illinois fell 48,000 behind; Indiana, 116,000 less ;

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Kentucky, 235,000, and Massachusetts, 164,000. Thus Ohio more than maintained, in the National army, the rank among her sisters which her popu- lation supported. Ohio furnished more troops than the President ever required of her; and at the end of the war, with more than a thousand men in the camp of the State who were never mustered into the service, she still had a credit on the rolls of the War Department for 4,332 soldiers, beyond the aggregate of all quotas ever assigned to her; and, besides all these, 6,479 citizens had, in lieu of personal service, paid the commutation ; while In- diana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and New York were all from five to one hundred thousand behind their quotas. So ably, through all those years of trial and death, did she keep the promise of the memorable dispatch from her first war Governor : " If Kentucky refuses to fill her quota, Ohio will fill it for her."

"Of these troops 11,237 were killed or mor- tally wounded in action, and of these 6,563 were left dead on the field of battle. They fought on well-nigh every battle-field of the war. Within forty-eight hours after the first call was made for troops, two regiments were on the way to Wash- ington. An Ohio brigade covered the retreat from the first battle of Bull Run. Ohio troops formed the bulk of army that saved to the Union the territory afterward erected into West Virginia ; the bulk of the army that kept Kentucky from seceding; a large part of the army that captured Fort Donelson and Island No. 10; a great part of the army that from Stone River and Chickamauga, and Mission Ridge and Atlanta, swept to the sea and captured Fort McAllister, and north through the Carolinas to Virginia."

When Sherman started on his famous march to the sea, someone said to President Lincoln, "They will never get through; they will all be captured, and the Union will be lost." " It is impossible," replied the President ; "it cannot be done. There i's a mighty sight of fight in one hundred thou- sand Western men."

Ohio troops fought at Pea Ridge. They charged at Wagner. They helped redeem North Carolina. They were in the sieges of Vicksburg, Charleston, Mobile and Richmond. At Pittsburg Landing, at Antietam, Gettysburg and Corinth, in the Wilderness, at Five Forks, before Nashville and Appomattox Court House ; " their bones, reposing on the fields they won and in the graves they fill, are a perpetual pledge that no flag shall ever wave over their graves but that flag they died to maintain."

Ohio's soil gave birth to, or furnished, a Grant, a Sherman, a Sheridan, a McPherson, a Rosecrans, a MeClellan, a McDowell, a Mitchell, a Gilmore, a Hazen, a Sill, a Stanley, a Steadman, and others-all but one, children ofthe country, reared at West Point for such emergencies. Ohio's war record shows one General, one Lieutenant General, twenty Major Generals, twenty seven Brevet Major Generals, and thirty Brigadier Generals, and one hundred and fifty Brevet Brigadier Generals. Her three war Governors were William Dennison, David Todd, and John Brough. She furnished, at the same time, one Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, and one Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase. Her Senators were Benjamin F. Wade and John Sherman. At least three out of five of Ohio's able-bodied men stood in the line of battle. On the head stone of one of these soldiers, who gave his life for the country, and who now lies in a National Cemetery, is inscribed these words :

" We charge the living to preserve that Constitution we have died to defend."

The elose of the war and return of peace brought a period of fictitious values on the country, occa- sioned by the immense amount of currency afloat. Property rose to unheard-of values, and everything with it. Ere long, however, the decline came, and with it " hard times." The elimax broke over the country in 1873, and for awhile it seemed as if the country was on the verge of ruin. People found again, as preceding generations had found, that real value was the only basis of true prosper- ity, and gradually began to work to the fact. The Government established the specie basis by gradual means, and on the 1st day of January, 1879, began to redeem its outstanding obligations in coin. The effect was felt everywhere. Busi- ness of all kinds sprang anew into life. A feeling of confidence grew as the times went on, and now, on the threshold of the year 1880, the State is en- tering on an era of steadfast prosperity ; one which has a sure and certain foundation.

Nearly four years have elaped since the great Centennial Exhibition was held in Philadelphia ; an exhibition that brought from every State in the Union the best products of her soil, factories, and all industries. In that exhibit Ohio made an ex- cellent display. Her stone, iron, coal, cereals, woods and everything pertaining to her welfare were all represented. Ohio, occupying the middle ground of the Union, was expected to show to foreign na- tions what the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio

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HISTORY OF OHIO.

could produce. The State nobly stood the test and ranked foremost among all others. Her cen- tennial building was among the first completed and among the neatest and best on the grounds. During the summer, the Centennial Commission extended invitations to the Governors of the several States to appoint an orator and name a day for his

delivery of an address on the history, progress and resources of his State. Gov. Hayes named the Hon. Edward D. Mansfield for this purpose, and August 9th, that gentleman delivered an address so valuable for the matter which it contains, that we here give a synopsis of it.

CHAPTER XIII.

OHIO IN THE CENTENNIAL-ADDRESS OF EDWARD D. MANSFIELD, LL. D., PHILADELPHIIA, AUGUST 9, 1876.

O NE hundred years ago, the whole territory, from the Alleghany to the Rocky Mountains was a wilderness, inhabited only by wild beasts and Indians. The Jesuit and Moravian missionaries were the only white men who had penetrated the wilderness or beheld its mighty lakes and rivers. While the thirteen old colonies were declaring their independence, the thirteen new States, which now lie in the western interior, had no existence, and gave no sign of the future. The solitude of nature was unbroken by the steps of civilization. The wisest statesman had not contemplated the probability of the coming States, and the boldest patriot did not dream that this interior wilderness should soon contain a greater population than the thirteen old States, with all the added growth of one hundred years.

Ten years after that, the old States had ceded their Western lands to the General Government, and the Congress of the United States had passed the ordinance of 1785, for the survey of the pub- lic territory, and, in 1787, the celebrated ordinance which organized the Northwestern Territory, and dedicated it to freedom and intelligence.

Fifteen years after that, and more than a quarter of a century after the Declaration of Independ- ence, the State of Ohio was admitted into the Union, being the seventeenth which accepted the Constitution of the United States. It has sinee grown up to be great, populous and prosperous under the influence of those ordinances. At her admittance, in 1803, the tide of emigration had begun to flow over the Alleghanies into the Valley of the Mississippi, and, although no steamboat, no railroad then existed, nor even a stage coach helped the immigrant, yet the wooden "ark " on the Ohio, and the heavy wagon, slowly winding over

the mountains, bore these tens of thousands to the wilds of Kentucky and the plains of Ohio. In the spring of 1788-the first year of settlement- four thousand five hundred persons passed the mouth of the Muskingum in three months, and the tide continued to pour on for half a century in a widening stream, mingled with all the races of Europe and America, until now, in the hundredth year of America's independence, the five States of the Northwestern Territory, in the wilderness of 1776, contain ten millions of people, enjoying all the blessings which peace and prosperity, freedom and Christianity, can confer upon any people. Of these five States, born under the ordinance of 1787, Ohio is the first, oldest, and, in many things, the greatest. In some things it is the greatest State in the Union. Let us, then, attempt, in the briefest terms, to draw an outline portrait of this great and remark- able commonwealth.

Let us observe its physical aspects. Ohio is just one-sixth part of the Northwestern Territory -40,000 square miles. It lies between Lake Erie and the Ohio River, having 200 miles of navigable waters, on one side flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, and on the other into the Gulf of Mexico. Through the lakes, its vessels touch on 6,000 miles of interior coast, and, through the Mississippi, on 36,000 miles of river coast; so that a citizen of Ohio may pursue his navigation through 42,000 miles, all in his own country, and all within naviga- ble reach of his own State. He who has cireumnavi- gated the globe, has gone but little more than half the distance which the citizen of Ohio finds within his natural reach in this vast interior.

Looking upon the surface of this State, we find no mountains, no barren sands, no marshy wastes, no lava-covered plains, but one broad, compact

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body of arable land, intersected with rivers and streams and running waters, while the beautiful Ohio flows tranquilly by its side. More than three times the surface of Belgium, and one-third of the whole of Italy, it has more natural resources in proportion than cither, and is capable of ultimately supporting a larger population than any equal sur- face in Europe. Looking from this great arable surface, where upon the very hills the grass and the forest trees now grow exuberant and abundant, we find that underneath this surface, and easily accessible, lie 10,000 square miles of coal, and 4,000 square miles of iron-coal and iron enough to supply the basis of manufacture for a world ! All this vast deposit of metal and fuel does not in- terrupt or take from that arable surface at all. There you may find in one place the same machine bringing up coal and salt water from below, while the wheat and the corn grow upon the surface above. The immense masses of coal, iron, salt and freestone deposited below have not in any way diminished the fertility and production of the soil.

It has been said by some writer that the char- acter of a people is shaped or modified by the character of the country in which they live. If the people of Switzerland have acquired a certain air of liberty and independence from the rugged mountains around which they live; if the people of Southern Italy, or beautiful France, have ac- quired a tone of ease and politeness from their mild and genial clime, so the people of Ohio, placed amidst such a wealth of nature, in the tem- perate zone, should show the best fruits of peace- ful industry and the best culture of Christian civilization. Have they done so? Have their own labor and arts and culture come up to the ad- vantages of their natural situation? Let us exam- ine this growth and their product.

The first settlement of Ohio was made by a colony from New England, at the mouth of the Muskingum. It was literally a remnant of the officers of the Revolution. Of this colony no praise of the historian can be as competent, or as strong, as the language of Washington. He says, in answer to inquiries addressed to him: "No col- ony in America was ever settled under such favor- able auspices as that which has just commenced at the Muskingum. Information, prosperity and strength will be its characteristics. I know many of the settlers personally, and there never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a community;" and he adds that if he were a young man, he knows no country in which he

would sooner settle than in this Western region." This colony, left alone for a time, made its own government and nailed its laws to a tree in the vil- lage, an early indication of that law-abiding and peaceful spirit which has since made Ohio a just and well-ordered community. The subsequent settlements on the Miami and Scioto were made by citizens of New Jersey and Virginia, and it is cer- tainly remarkable that among all the carly immi- gration, there were no ignorant people. In the language of Washington, they came with " infor- mation," qualified to promote the welfare of the community.

Soon after the settlement on the Muskingum and the Miami, the great wave of migration flowed on to the plains and valleys of Ohio and Ken- tucky. Kentucky had been settled earlier, but the main body of emigrants in subsequent years went into Ohio, influenced partly by the great ordinance of 1787, securing freedom and schools forever, and partly by the greater security of titles under the survey and guarantee of the United States Government. Soon the new State grew up, with a rapidity which, until then, was unknown in the history of civilization. On the Muskingum, where the buffalo had roamed; on the Scioto, where the Shawanees had built their towns ; on the Miami, where the great chiefs of the Miamis had reigned ; on the plains of San- dusky, yet red with the blood of the white man ; on the Maumee, where Wayne, by the victory of the " Fallen Timbers," had broken the power of the Indian confederacy-the emigrants from the old States and from Europe came in to cultivate the fields, to build up towns, and to rear the insti- tutions of Christian civilization, until the single State of Ohio is greater in numbers, wealth, and education, than was the whole American Union when the Declaration of Independence was made.

Let us now look at the statistics of this growth and magnitude, as they are exhibited in the cen- sus of the United States. Taking intervals of twenty years, Ohio had : In 1810, 230,760; in 1830, 937,903 ; in 1850, 1,980,329 ; in 1870, 2,665,260. Add to this the increase of population in the last six years, and Ohio now has, in round numbers, 3,000,000 of people-half a million more than the thirteen States in 1776; and her cities and towns have to-day six times the population of all the cities of America one hund- red years ago. This State is now the third in numbers and wealth, and the first in some of | those institutions which mark the progress of

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mankind. That a small part of the wilderness of 1776 should be more populous than the whole Union was then, and that it should have made a social and moral advance greater than that of any nation in the same time, must be regarded as one of the most startling and instructive facts which attend this year of commemoration. If such has been the social growth of Ohio, let us look at its physical development; this is best expressed by the aggregate productions of the labor and arts of a people applied to the earth. In the census statistics of the United States these are expressed in the aggregate results of agriculture, mining, manufact- ures, and commerce. Let us simplify these statis- ties, by comparing the aggregate and ratios as between several States, and between Ohio and some countries of Europe.

The aggregate amount of grain and potatoes- farinaceous food, produced in Ohio in 1870 was 134,938,413 bushels, and in 1874, there were 157,- 323,597 bushels, being the largest aggregate amount raised in any State but one, Illinois, and larger per square mile than Illinois or any other State in the country. The promises of nature were thus vindicated by the labor of man ; and the industry of Ohio has fulfilled its whole duty to the sustenance of the country and the world. She has raised more grain than ten of the old States together, and more than half raised by Great Britain or by France. I have not the recent statistics of Europe, but MeGregor, in his statistics of nations for 1832-a period of pro- found peace-gives the following ratios for the leading countries of Europe: Great Britain, area 120,324 miles ; amount of grain, 262,500,000 bushels; rate per square mile, 2,190 to 1; Austria-area 258,603 miles ; amount of grain, 366,800,000 bushels ; rate per square mile, 1,422 to 1; France-area 215,858 miles ; amount of grain, 233,847,300 bushels ; rate per square mile, 1,080 to 1. The State of Ohio-area per square miles, 40,000; amount of grain, 150,000,000 bushels ; rate per square mile, 3,750. Combining the great countries of Great Britain, Austria, and France, we find that they had 594,785 square miles and produced 863,147,300 bushels ofgrain, which was, at the time these statistics were taken, 1,450 bushels per square mile, and ten bushels to each one of the population. Ohio, on the other hand, had 3,750 bushels per square mile, and fifty bushels to each one of the population; that is, there was five times as much grain raised in Ohio, in proportion to the people, as in these great countries of Europe.

As letters make words, and words express ideas, so these dry figures of statistics express facts, and these facts make the whole history of civilization.

Let us now look at the statistics of domestic animals. These are always indicative of the state of society in regard to the physical comforts. The horse must furnish domestic conveyances; the cattle must furnish the products of the dairy, as well as meat, and the sheep must furnish wool.

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History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio, Part 23

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848- Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey Number of Pages: 1104

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1104