History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II, Part 12

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1196

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An annual convention of the Ohio militia was held in December, 1859, at Cin- cinnati. It adopted a memorial to the General Assembly asking for appropria- tions to encourage militia organization. Speaking of the five Columbus companies existing at that time, the Capital City Fact said :13

The companies are composed of men in early manhood, or in the prime of life, who generally are not in circumstances to justify them in the loss of time in attending the drills and parades of their respective companies. If to this loss of time is added the expense of providing suitable uniforms and other equipments, it will become a heavy burden which no class of our citizens ought to be required to bear in the public service, alone and unaided. The old militia system having become nearly or quite obsolete, reliance must henceforth be placed mainly upon volunteer companies for keeping alive the military spirit, and for maintaining an efficient guard, prepared at all times, and on a moment's warning, to put down domestic violence and rebellion, or to repel foreign invasion upon the soil of our commonwealth.

On January 10, 1860, one hundred survivors of the War of 1812 met in state convention at the Adjutant-General's office. Resolutions were adopted claiming pensions of the same rate granted to the soldiers of the War of Independence. Delegates to a convention of the soldiers of 1812, to be held in Chicago the ensuing June, were appointed.

The remains of Colonel William A. Latham, who died at Houston, Texas, during the autumn of 1849, were brought to Columbus in April, 1860, and on the sixth of that month were interred with military honors at Green Lawn. The services of Colonel Latham as commander of Columbus volunteers in the war with Mexico

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

have been elsewhere narrated. The ceremonies at the burial of his remains were participated in by the whole body of the citizen military of the capital, and also by the Circleville Guards, Captain C. B. Mason.14 The remains were borne on an artillery caisson.

On Jammary 7, 1860, the Governor's Guards were armed by the State, and on the twentysixth of the same month they took part, with the other local military organizations, in the reception given to the legislatures of Tennessee and Kentucky, then visiting Columbus. About this time Captain C. C. Walcutt resigned from the command of the Vedettes and was succeeded by Lieutenant H. Thrall, who was chosen to the captainey. Ou the tenth of the ensning September the Vedettes took a conspicuous part in the great parade ineidental to the dedication of the Perry monument, at Cleveland. In November of the same year, the Steuben Guards, Captain F. Haldy, were honored with a handsome banner thus inscribed : Pre- sented by the Ladies of Columbus, November 22, 1860. Reverse: In Unity is Strength. Organized March 22, 1858. The presentation took place at Kannemacher's Hall, the ladies making it being Mary Hinderer, Elizabeth Herz and Barbara Miller. Miss Hinderer pronounced a handsome address to the Guards which was responded to by Captain Haldy. Dancing followed the ceremonies.

On February 13, 1861, Abraham Lincoln, Presidentelect, then en route to Washington, visited the capital of Ohio. In the ceremonies of that occasion the Columbus battalion bore a conspicuous and honorable part, the Vedettes serving as the Guard of Honor to the Presidentelect. Washington's birthday anniversary in the same month, was celebrated by the Fencibles, who held on this occasion their last parade. The evening exercises included some striking tableaux, one of which represented the ceremony of raising the National flag on Fort Sumter. Before the company was afforded another opportunity for display or festivity it was summoned to the stern duties of the field.

When the President's call for seventyfive thousand volunteers reached Columbus in the ensuing April, a member of the Fencibles, Corporal J. K. Jones, instantly put down his name, and led the musterroll of the Ohio volunteers. He was quickly followed by many of his company associates. Seventyfive of the Fencibles entered the volunteer service, and of these fiftyseven became commis- sioned officers. Ten served as noncommissioned officers, and eight as privates. One of these volunteers, Mr. John N. Champion, wrote in 1867 :

There were then in the city [at the outbreak of the rebellion] two inde- pendent military companies ; . . . also a battalion of state troops commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel H. Z. Mills, and composed of the Steuben Guards, Montgomery Guards, Columbus Vedettes and State Fencibles. . . . There also existed here a battery of light artillery under charge of Captain John F. Ijams, afterwards com- mander of a battalion in the Fifth Independent Cavalry, which did good service in Kentucky and Tennessee. . . . Each of these companies was a basis for speedy recruiting, and all were soon filled up to the war maximum. The Coldstream Zouaves, under Captain Harding C. Geary, entered the Fortysixth O. V. I., and the Steuben Guards, Captain William Snyder, entered the Thirteenth O. V. I. The Montgomery Guards, under Captain Owen T. Turney, became Company G, Third O. V. I., while companies A and B, of the same regiment, under Captains

CITIZEN MILITARY BEFORE 1860.

Wing and Lawson, were recruited largely from the Governor's Guards. The Vedettes under Captain Henry R. Thrall, and the State Fencibles, under Captain A. O. Mitchell recruited their ranks in two days' notice, at the first call to arms, and entered the Second Ohio Infantry, which, with the First Ohio, was composed entirely of old companies. . . . After Company B [the original Fencibles] had left for the war, a second organization was formed here, under the name of Company C, State Fencibles No. 2, using the armory and accoutrements of the old company. Its officers were Captain, George C. Crum, First Lieutenant, James N. Howle, and Second Lieutenant E. A. Fitch. This second company, with other state troops, was ordered by the Governor, June 21, 1861, to do guard duty on the Marietta Railroad. . . . It became Company A of the Eightyeighth O. V. I., and in June, 1862, went to Kentucky.

NOTES.

1. Sullivant Family Memorial.

2. In May, 1822, Colonel McElvain was appointed by Governor Trimble to be Adjutant- General of the Ohio Militia. T. C. Flournoy was, about the same time, appointed Quarter- master-General.

3. Ohio State Journal, January 22, 1867.

4. Henry Brown, Treasurer of State.

5. John M. Kerr, named in General Griswold's order, informs the writer that the very first organization of the Guards took place in 1835. His company badge bears the legend : 1836. Nemper paratus. 1846.

6. At Cincinnati they were to be joined by the Grays and Washington Cadets of that city, the Dayton Grays and the Troy Blues.

7. In April, 1843, General Sanderson was appointed Quartermaster-General of Ohio.

8. At the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846, the Montgomery Guards enlisted in the United States volunteer service, and were assigned to the Second Ohio Regiment. See Chapter III.

9. Ohio State Journal.

10. Ibid.

Il. Ibid.

12. A site was chosen on West Mound Street. The foundation for the building was laid in July, 1860.

13. September 30, 1859.

14. This company and the Lancaster Guards, Captain William Cloud, were attached to the Columbus battalion.

CHAPTER VIII.

I. IN WARTIME-1861.

On Saturday morning, April 13, 1861, the people of the Capital and State of Ohio were startled as never before by the following announcements telegraphed the preceding evening from Charleston, South Carolina :

The ball is open. War is inaugurated. The batteries of Sullivan's Island, Morris's Island and other points were opened on Fort Sumter at four o'clock this morning. . . . Moultrie began the bombardment with two guns, to which Ander- son replied with three shots from his barbette pieces, after which the batteries at Mount Pleasant, Cumming's Point and the floating battery opened a brisk firing of shot and shell. . . . The firing has continued all day without intermission. Two of Fort Sumter's guns have been silenced and it is reported that a breach has been made in the southeast wall.

The bombardment continued for thirtysix hours, at the end of which time the walls of the fort were shattered, its combustible part was on fire, and its stores of powder had to be east into the sea. Further attempts at its defense being hopeless, its commandant, Major Robert Anderson, capitulated on the thirteenth, and at noon of Sunday, the fourteenth, saluted and hauled down the flag of the United States and quitted the stronghold he had so gallantly defended. On that same Sunday President Abraham Lincoln wrote with his own hand and gave to the tele- graph a proclamation calling for seventyfive thousand state militia " to maintain the honor, the integrity and the existence of our National Union."

The response to this call was instantaneous and splendid. In Ohio it was a prodigious outburst of patriotic fervor. Before the firing on Sumter had ceased twenty full companies had been tendered to the Governor for immediate service. An executive proclamation of the fifteenth, appealing for enlistments, was anti- cipated by the volunteers. Their enrollment began in Columbus before the Gov- ernor's summons had yet gone to the state at large. Some of the members of the Fencibles had enlisted, as we have seen, as soon as they knew of the President's call 1 During the evening of the fifteenth the Governor's Guards marched to the Capitol and offered their services in a body. Recruiting began immediately at their armory in the Deshler Hall. The other companies were equally prompt in doing likewise, the Vedettes at their headquarters at Walcutt's Hall, the Fencibles at the Armory Hall, and the Montgomery Guards at their rendezvous at the north- west corner of High and Gay streets. The Steuben Guards, keeping abreast with their comrades, very soon had sixtyfive men enrolled for the field.

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I. IN WARTIME-1861.

Messages tendering individual or collective service were literally showered upon the Executive Department from all parts of the State. The following synopsis of a few of the current announcements will indicate the many and illus- trate the spirit of the time : General W. H. Lytle, of Cincinnati, arrived on the fifteenth and personally tendered to the Governor the services of his division. Generals Fyffe, of Urbana, and Schleich, of Lancaster, tendered their brigades. W. E. Gilmore, of Chillicothe, telegraphed : " We can raise a hundred men. Shall we go on and enroll them ?" The Springfield Zouaves offered themselves, forty in number, armed and equipped. Captain Childs offered the services of Company A, Light Artillery, Dayton. General Garrison, of Hamilton : "I hold my- self in readiness for orders." Lebanon offered two companies. J. B. Steedman, of Toledo, promised a full regiment within ten days. W. W. Laughlin, of Mans- field, tendered his company of one hundred men for immediate orders. Canton requested acceptance of two companies Captain G. B. Bailey, of Portsmouth, tele- graphed : " Will leave for Cincinnati with company on first boat; thence by rail- road." Senator J. D. Cox, of the General Assembly, offered his services. C. B. Mason, Circleville : " We will be on hand tomorrow [April 19] at noon, seventy- five strong." President Lorin Andrews, of Kenyon College, tendered a company. Anticipating the war, he had already offered his personal services three months previously and is said to have been the first citizen of Ohio so to do. M. G. Mitchell, of Piqua, offered a company ready to march. R. F. Day, Plymouth : " We are ready." Pease's Dayton Company left for Columbus April 17. James Collier, of Steubenville, sixtytwo years old, had a company ready. J. C. Hazlitt, of Zanesville, awaited orders with seventyfive men. Captain Frank Sawyer, of Norwalk, had forty men ready on the sixteenth. Captain Weaver, of Kenton, announced a full company. J. E. Franklin awaited orders with his company at Tiffin. Captain McCook telegraphed from Steubenville that his company was ready to march. Durbin Ward's Company at Lebanon awaited orders. Captain Bossman, of Hamilton, had a company ready. Captain P. D. Smith promised to report with a company from Wellington April 17. Jacob Ammen awaited orders, with a company, at Ripley, Brown County. Captain Hawkins, at Marysville, and Captain Muse, at Zanesville, each had a company ready.

Columbus immediately became a centre of extraordinary activity and excite- ment. Not only volunteers but contractors, officeseekers and adventurers of every kind rushed from all directions to the capital. Every train brought its contingent until the hotels, boarding houses and streets swarmed with strangers, and the newspapers found it impossible to announce even a tithe of the arrivals. Mean- while an intense eagerness for news from Washington and the South possessed every mind. Sunday, the fourteenth, was a day of feverish anxiety and unrest. Churchgoers as well as streetloungers gathered about the bulletinboards, and the newspaper and telegraph offices were besieged for information. Sumter bad fallen ; so much was known, but what would be done? A tremendous crisis had come : would the National Government be equal to it? The President's proclama- tion published on Monday afforded positive relief. It gave a definite trend to the course of events. A decisive policy was announced at last; the national authority

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

was to be asserted. The time for palaver and concession had passed ; the time for action had come. The General Assembly, then in session, had been discussing the the Corwin constitutional amendment, pledging noninterference with slavery ; the subject was soon dropped forever.2 Governor Dennison's proclamation quickly followed that of the President and was accompanied by orders of instruction from the Adjutant General. The Governor also sent a message to the General Assem- bly asking for an appropriation of 8450,000 for the purchase of arms and equip- ments for the volunteer militia. A bill appropriating 8100,000 for war purposes was already pending ; it immediately gave place to one appropriating a million. On the eighteenth the General Assembly, nobly ignoring its partisan differences, passed this milliondollar bill unanimously.

A palpable stimulus to this action was doubtless given by the rising tide of popular feeling. In the principal towns and cities all over the State the people, in almost complete disregard of party distinctions, were demanding, in great assem- blies, the application of every resource for the preservation of the Union. Such a meeting was held at the Armory Hall, in Columbus, on Wednesday evening, April 17. Hon. Joseph R. Swan was chosen to preside and Samuel Galloway, Judge Rankin, L. J. Critchfield and S. M. Mills were appointed to report resolutions. The meeting was addressed by prominent men of both the leading political parties, including J. A. Garfield, R. B. Warden, Samuel Galloway, Joseph H. Geiger and Judge Rankin. The resolutions adopted emphatically demanded the suppression of the rebellion and pledged a loyal support to all efforts in that behalf.

By the terms of the legislative war appropriation the Sinking Fund Commis- sioners were authorized to borrow the money at six per cent. interest on certifi- cates exempt from state taxation. Mr. D. W. Deshler, of the National Exchange Bank of Columbus, offered the Governor what money he needed for present neces- sities until the loan could be placed, but no difficulty was encountered in negotiat- ing the certificates. Cincinnati took one quarter of the whole amount and Mr. Deshler's bank $100,000. Many applications were received for small amounts and the entire loan was speedily negotiated.

The General Assembly had no sooner passed the milliondollar bill than the organized bodies of volunteers began to pour into Columbus. The Lancaster Gnards arrived first, quickly followed by the Dayton Light Guards, the Cincinnati Zouaves, and a score of others. The number of troops required of Ohio was thir- teen regiments; in the course of a very few days the Governor had more than twice that number at his disposal. The embarrassments of the State authorities cansed by the redundancy of volunteers for Mexico were repeated, but on im- mensely greater scale. Although this emergency had been foreseen for months as an inevitable event, it caught Ohio, as it did the Nation, wholly unprepared. If the absence of all ready resources and arrangements to meet it had been deliberately studied it could not have been more complete. Militia organization and training had become almost obsolete for want of legislative encouragement The very few civilian bodies which had the hardihood to keep up the forms of soldierly practice had done so, for the most part, unassisted and unthanked. Some mouldy harness,

I. IN WARTIME-1861.

oldfashioned muskets and rusty pieces of artillery constituted the resources of the State Arsenal. Military science had been studied by scarcely anyone not a profes- sional soldier, and the knowledge of tactics was limited mainly to the fancy drill for occasions of parade. The forms of military organization in vogue were chiefly imperfect imitations of foreign methods. The Governor and his staff, like the President and his cabinet, were almost wholly unversed in the practical business of war.3 " The Adjutant-General," says Reid's Ohio in the War,' " a person of con- siderable and versatile ability, was an enthusiastic militiaman, but just then not much of a soldier. He was withal so excitable, so volatile, so destitute of method as to involve the affairs of his office in confusion and to bewilder himself and those about him with a fog of his own raising. He accepted companies without keeping account of them ; telegraphed hither and thither for companies to come immediately forward ; and soon had the town so full of troops that his associates could scarcely subsist or quarter, and he could scarcely organize them; while, when he came to reckon up, he found he had far outrun his limits and had on hand troops for nearer thirty than thirteen regiments. Then, when he attempted to form his companies into regimental organizations, he met fresh troubles. Each one wanted to be Com- pany A of a new regiment and was able to prove its right to the distinction. The records of the office were too imperfect to show in most cases definitely which had been first accepted. Then Senators and Representatives must needs be called in to defend the rights of their constituents and the Governor's room, in one end of which the Adjutant-General transacted his business, was for weeks a scene of aggravating confusion and dispute."5

When the volunteers began to arrive no provision had been made either to feed or shelter them. Many came in civilian dress, some even wearing high silk hats, and found no uniforms ready. Those who uniformed themselves had adopted such styles as suited their fancy, which manifested itself in many whimsical notions as to military propriety. A red shirt with blue trousers and a felt hat constituted the dress most common.

Summoned from Cincinnati, the Commissary-General, Mr. George D. Runyan, found some hundreds of hungry men awaiting him, not knowing how they should be fed much less wherewithal they should be clothed. Taking counsel with Gen- eral Lucian Buttles, Mr. Runyan concluded that to quarter these men at the hotels was the best and only practicable thing that could be done. The men of one company were arranged for at the Goodale House at $1.25 each per day ; others were distributed to different hotels and boarding houses at rates varying from seventyfive cents per day upwards. But this resource, expensive as it was, soon found its limit. Of tents there were none. Grounds for a camp must therefore be selected and barracks erected thereon as speedily as possible. Sheds were im- mediately contracted for and within forty-eight hours thereafter were under roof. Some of them were arranged with long dining tables; others were provided with bunks for sleeping.

Meanwhile troops continued to pour into the city and had to be temporarily lodged. For this purpose the Capitol, the Public Benevolent Institutions, the Starling Medical College and even the Penitentiary were drawn upon. At night

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

the terraces, rotunda and crypts of the Capitol were crowded with weary sleepers, who thus first tasted, perhaps during the first night of absence from their homes, the preliminary -- but comparatively how significant !-- hardships of the field. A member of the State Senate thus describes one of these memorable scenes :

Going to my evening work as I crossed the rotunda I saw a company mareh- ing in by the south door and another disposing itself for the night upon the mar- ble pavement near the east entranee. As I passed on to the north hall I saw another that had come a little earlier, holding a prayermeeting, the stone arches echoing with the excited supplieations of some one who was borne out of himself by the terrible pressure of events around him, while, mingling his pathetic and beseeching tones as he prayed for his country, came the shrill notes of the fife and the thundering din of the ubiquitous base drum from the company marching in on the other side. In the Senate Chamber a company was quartered and the Senators were supplying them with paper and pens with which the boys were writing their farewells to mothers and sweethearts, whom they hardly dared hope they should see again. A similar scene was going on in the Representatives' Hall, another in the Supreme Court room. In the Executive Office sat the Governor, the unwonted noises when the door was opened breaking in on the quiet, business- like air of the room, he meanwhile dictating despatches, indicating answers to others, receiving committees of citizens, giving directions to officers of companies and regiments, accommodating himself to the wilful democracy of our institutions which insists upon seeing the man in chief command and will not take his answer from a subordinate until, in the small hours of the night, the noise was hushed and after a brief hour of effective, undisturbed work upon the matter of chief impor- tance, he could leave the glare of his gaslighted office and seek a few hours' rest, only to renew his unceasing labors on the morrow 6.

Thus matters went for some days until the barracks were ready and arrange- ment could be made for feeding the incoming thousands. In this emergency pro- positions were made by C. P. L. Butler, Luther Donaldson and Theodore Com- stock, all Columbus men, to provision the soldiers at fifty cents each per day, and the State, unable to do better at the time, closed a contract on these terms. By this arrangement the embarrassments of the Commissary Department were shifted to the contractors, who soon found themselves nnable to feed the troops as fast as they came in. Time was required to perfect a system for serving so many, but the hungry volunteers, fresh from the comfort of their homes and not yet accustomed to discipline, were impatient of irregularities and delays in the supply of their food and sometimes confused matters by inconsiderate interference with the arrangements for their benefit. While a few seized what they wanted many went hungry ; breakfasts were postponed until noon and dinners until night; loud complaints filled the air, and on one occasion over a thousand men broke for the hotels and restaurants of the city to supply the cravings of their stomachs. At this juncture additional contracts for commissary service were made; William G. Deshler and associates assumed part of the burden of provisioning the troops; systematic supply and service were organized ; the cost of subsisting the men was reduced onehalf, and the complaints, so far as food was concerned, were gradually quieted.

But the supply of camp equipage, arms and clothing was also beset with diffi- culties. For the twentythree regiments which had responded to the Governor's

I. IN WARTIME-1861.

call the State had but 2,767 muskets and 197 sabres. In this emergency Judge- Advocate-General Wolcott was dispatched to New York to negotiate for the pur- chase of arms and tents, and Senator Garfield was appointed to confer with the Governor of Illinois as to the transfer to Ohio of part of the war implements with which that State happened to be supplied. Garfield obtained five thousand mus- kets and had them shipped immediately to Columbus. Mr. Wolcott sent first a large supply of tentpoles which arrived by express. They were useful only as harbingers of tents to come and as stimulants to the biting humor of the unsheltered and unarmed volunteers. But the Judge Advocate's mission was not barren. Besides the poles he had obtained five thousand muskets, with accontre- ments, and arranged for the purchase of $100,000 worth of Enfield rifles in Eng- land. He also obtained from the War Department pledges of arms for the Ohio troops. Another of Governor Dennison's agents obtained from General Wool a shipment of ten thousand muskets for immediate use.8 In these and subsequent arrangements for the equipment and supply of the Ohio volunteers the Governor was materially assisted by Messrs. Noah H. Swayne, J. R. Swan and Aaron F. Perry, all Columbus men, although Mr. Perry, was then a resident of Cincinnati and Justice Swayne of Washington.

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History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II, Part 12

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1196

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1196