USA > Ohio > Ohio's progressive sons; a history of the state; sketches of those who have helped to build up the commonwealth > Part 11
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Governor Tod hurried down from Columbus, and as soon as the situation was fully understood issued telegraphic orders to all available enlisted men to be sent to Cincinnati, and for a full supply of arms and ammunition. He issued a warning to all the border counties to organize for their defense. In response to numerous offers of assistance from neighboring counties he announced that all bodies of men who were armed would be received : that they must repair at once to Cincinnati, and report to General Lew Wallace, who would complete their organization. None but armed men were to be received, and all the rail- road companies were notified to transport them at the expense of the State. Exception was made of armed men residing in the river counties, who were directed to remain for the protection of their homes. These orders and proclamations were issued by Governor Tod on the 2d of September. Next morn- ning the first companies from the rural parts of the State, who have passed into history as the "Squirrel Hunters," began to appear in Cincinnati. They were a motley but enthusiastic assemblage of people. Without uniforms, practice in marching, ignorant of the duties of a soldier, possessing nothing but their guns and courage, they had hurried to the scene of threatened war. At that time there was no bridge across the Ohio river between Cincinnati and the cities on the Kentucky side of the Ohio, but rapid and certain communication between the States, menaced by this invasion, was an imperative YACHTS ON ROCKY RIVER CLEVELAND
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necessity. As soon as it was known that Cincinnati must prepare for her own defense, a pontoon bridge of novel construction was laid almost in a night. Coal barges were placed side by side, parallel with the current, and anchored firmly in position. On top of these timbers were laid from shore to shore, on which the bridge planks rested, wide enough for four wagons abreast. It served every purpose for which it was intended. For two days after the appearance of the first "Squirrel Hunters," they kept pouring along the streets from all the railroad depots, and moving across the huge pontoon bridge.
SUSPENSION BRIDGE CINCINNATI
Photo by Young & Carl, Cincinnati, O.
Every necessary preparation for their comfort had been made by the patriotic citizens. The Fifth Street Market House, which stood where the famous Tyler-Davidson Fountain later took its place, was turned into an eating establishment, where all were bountifully fed before crossing the river. In addition to the committees of citizens who were busy providing for the wants of the defenders of the city, the sanitary commission was ener- getic and liberal in the performance of all duties that came within its reach. At the front, as it was called-that is, the hills southward of Covington and Newport, details of citizens were kept busy with picks and spades under the direction of competent army engineers,
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IN THE TALL BUILDINGS DISTRICT CINCINNATI,
Photo by Young &' Carl. Cincinnati, O.
constructing earthworks at every available point. Whatever may have been possible if a rapid movement had been made at first by the enemy, it became clear within three days that the cities could not be taken by a hurried assault. Time had been gained, and time assured final safety. The enemy had halted three days in Lexington, and, even when the movement on Cincinnati was made, it had not the energy and rapidity that betokens serious en- deavor. On the 5th of Septem- ber the Governor announced to the public that no more volunteers would be needed for the defense of Cincinnati, but he advised that all military organizations be kept up for possible future needs. At this time about fifteen thousand of the picturesque citizen soldiers had reached the city. On the fol- lowing day General Wright, com- manding the department, issued an order permitting resumption of all lawful business except the sale of liquors, until four o'clock of each day. After that hour all business houses were required to be closed, and the citizens were to respond to requisitions which were daily made for laborers, and these were equitably distributed among the different wards of the city.
The enemy did not attack or even provoke a collision of any kind until the 10th of September, when some forward movements were made, which indicated a purpose of assault. There were some trifling skirmishes, but no attack. The General commanding the depart- ment again appealed to the Governor, and the march of the "Squirrel Hunters" from the interior was resumed. On the 13th this movement was checked, and the volunteers returned to their homes. It was ascertained on the 12th of the month that the enemy had quietly departed. The advance of the army under General Buell from Nashville threatened Briggs' main army, so that he was compelled to concentrate his forces. The absolute relief of Cin- cinnati from threatened attack was now at last secured. On the 15th of September, General Wallace left the city. All restrictions upon business were removed and all apprehensions ceased.
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The next year, 1863, Mr. Vallandigham, a leader of the Democratic anti-war party, began to influence public sentiment in Ohio by the eloquent and fearless presentation of his peace views, tending to the aid and comfort of those in arms against the Union, was seized, tried by court martial, and found guilty of disobedience of military orders, and sen- tenced to imprisonment during the time of the war. President Lincoln changed this sen- tence to transportation to his friends within the line of the Southern Confederacy. He reached Wilmington, North Carolina, on the 17th of June, where, taking a blockade run- ner, he finally reached Canada, and established himself at Windsor, opposite Detroit. From here he communicated with his friends in Ohio and awaited results.
The summer of 1863 was made further notable by the raid of General John Morgan through Ohio. While General Rosecrans with his army still lay inactive along Stone river,
"SQUIRREL HUNTERS" CROSSING THE OHIO RIVER AT CINCINNATI
John Morgan, the rebel guerilla chieftain, crossed the Cumberland river at Burkesville, on the 2d of July, and advanced directly toward the Ohio river. He had been ordered by General Bragg to make a raid through Kentucky, so as to break up communications between General Rosecrans and his base of operations. Disregarding the order of his commanding officer, he crossed the Ohio river below Louisville, and started upon his aimless march through the States of Indiana and Ohio. He was closely pressed by the National cavalry under command of General Hobson, so that his march partook more of the character of a flight than a military invasion. Navigation was suspended upon the Ohio river about Louis- ville, and all river craft put out of his reach. On Monday, the 13th of July, at one o'clock in the afternoon, he entered the State of Ohio at the town of Harrison. The military forces at hand were sufficient to intercept Morgan's forces, and with the assistance of the forces
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of General Hobson, completely routed them. General Burnside has been criticized for his failure to end Morgan's career in Hamilton County, but that General purposely declined, as he expressed it, "to fight a battle in the suburbs of a great city." His opinion was, that to bring on a conflict would result in useless destruction of property and unnecessary suffer- ing. So he purposely allowed the enemy to pass to the eastward, taking care that its march through the wealthy and populous regions about Cincinnati should be as harmless as pos- sible, intending to capture and destroy Morgan's forces somewhere in the upper Ohio Valley. As soon as it was known that the enemy was pushing energetically toward Cincinnati, martial law was again proclaimed in that city, and hurried preparation was made to over- take the enemy. But before an organized body of men could be formed, the great raider had passed to the eastward, through the village of Glendale, and, continuing in an easterly direction, had reached the Little Miami by daylight on the morning of the 14th of July.
WOODLAWN CEMETERY TOLEDO
There was no destruction of property in Hamilton County, except the burning of a bridge over the Great Miami river at New Baltimore. Morgan's flight continued castward until he reached the Ohio river at Buffington Island, where he had intended crossing the river. The night was pitch-dark, the ford was guarded by a battery, and precious time was lost by the enforced delay. Gunboats arrived in time to make the crossing impossible, and Hob- son's cavalry had time to overtake the enemy they had pursued so far. About one-half of Morgan's force was captured, the rest escaping to continue their flight to the castward, until they finally found it necessary to surrender.
The final capture of Morgan and the remnant of his force occurred at Salineville, Columbiana County, on the 26th of July. He had been thirteen days in crossing the State of Ohio, had plundered many small towns, had taken many horses by the way, had fought
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several skirmishes, and so rapid had been his movements that, although fifty thousand men from all directions were hurrying to overthrow him, he was within a few miles of the east- ern limits of the State when he was captured by soldiers who began their pursuit from Wheeling. The total loss to the citizens of Ohio by this raid was about a half million dollars. Mor- THE gan was confined at the peniten- tiary in Columbus, where he, with six companions, made their escape in the night of the 27th of FOLDING BOXES . COLOR PRINTING November, 1863, by cutting through the stone floor of his cell with knives from the prison table, until they reached an air cham- ber below, from which they tun- LABELS . SHOW CARDS neled through the wall of the prison and by means of ropes made from their bed clothes scaled the outer wall. Hastening to the depot, Morgan and the other fugitives boarded a train of the Little Miami Railroad for Cincinnati, and when near that city jumped from the train, made their way to the Ohio river, which they crossed, and were soon within the Confederate lines. A year later Morgan was killed on a raid in an obscure little village of East Tennessee. After the Morgan raid the life of the war drifted away to the southward, so that Ohio was never again dis- turbed by the approach of a hos- tile force. The wasted armies of the rebellion were too remote to be a menace, and too feeble for A PICTURESQUE INCLINED PLANE CINCINNATI diversions.
On the 17th of June, 1863, the Union Republican convention met at Columbus and nominated John Brough, an old line Democrat, for Governor - he being of great popularity and of such extraordinary exec- utive ability, as well as oratorical powers, as to be thought more likely to carry the State than Mr. Tod, the then Governor of Ohio. The peace party nominated Mr. Clement Val- landigham. His banishment had aroused so much sympathy for him, the exiled "hero," that his followers nominated him for the office of Governor. During the summer of that year, as before mentioned, Mr. Vallandigham resided at Windsor, Canada, from where he directed his campaign. As the campaign drew towards its close, when the speeches had all been made, and the issues fairly laid before the people, and only a few hours remained
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before the depositing of the ballots, a feeling of deep solemnity pervaded the entire com- monwealth. Everybody understood the grave importance of the coming election. The eyes of the whole nation were upon Ohio; on the result of the coming election hung the death or salvation of the Union. If Ohio should prove recreant, all was lost. But Ohio was true- Ohio always is. John C. Brough was elected Governor by the unprecedented majority of 101,000 votes. Of this the home majority was 61,920 and the soldiers' majority 39,179. Out of 43.755 soldier votes, only 2,288 were given to Vallandigham. Of the citizens who remained at home, over 180,000 signified their preference for Vallandigham.
HOSPITAL BUILDING TOLEDO, O.
Governor Brough, the last of Ohio's war Governors, was the man for the most trying crisis. From the opposition to the war, President Lincoln was afraid that another draft upon the people would result in failure, and more troops were imperative. Seeing this, Governor Brough called a convention of the Governors of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa, which, with himself representing Ohio, met, and on the 21st of April, 1864, notified President Lincoln that they could furnish him with 85,000 men for one hundred days, without a dollar of bounty or a single draft. These were citizen volunteers, largely men
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advanced in years and with families, and holding responsible positions, the object of their brief services being mainly to garrison the forts, and thus relieve the veteran soldiers to reinforce Grant in Virginia, and enable him to crush the rebellion. Of these citizen soldiers Ohio supplied nearly half the number required-over 30,000 men-National guards, as they were called. The measure was most effective and their services most timely. It was a splendid contribution of the loyal West to the cause of the Union.
Ohio had done more than her share in the war of the rebellion. When the Nation, striving only to enforce its laws and maintain its lawfully elected rulers, suddenly found itself plunged into a war that promised to envelop half its territory, it confided its "Grand Army" to the leadership of an Ohio General, Irwin McDowell. When, beaten, less by the enemy than by its own rawness, that army retreated in disorder from the field it had fairly won, and the panic of the first Bull Run seemed to freeze the currents of National life, another Ohio General, George B. McClellan, fresh from the first successful campaign of the war, was called in to restore public confidence and reorganize the army on the grander scale which the increasing perils demanded, while still another Ohioan, William S. Rose- crans, was left to assume McClellan's vacated command in the mountains. As the war expanded, the State continued to preserve a similar pre-eminence. Through three cam- paigns, the greatest of the National armies remained under the leadership of an Ohio Gen- eral. This officer also succeeded the veteran Scott as General-in-Chief, in command of all the Federal armies. An Ohio General, Don Carlos Buell, commanded the great depart- ment which lay south of his native State, till, after pushing back the war from the border to the Alabama line, he was caught and submerged in its refluent tide, and another Ohio General was summoned from fields of victory in the Southwest to take his place. Another Ohio General, O. M. Mitchell, after brilliant services elsewhere, commanded the Department of the South, until, in the midst of his labors death came to relieve him; and when active operations in the department were resumed, it was reserved for another Ohio General, Quincy A. Gilmore, to destroy the fort around which the war had opened, and in whose downfall was written the doom of the Rebellion.
No less signal were the services rendered by the sons of the State through the whole duration of the war. Its close found another native of Ohio, Ulysses S. Grant, after a career as wonderful and as varied as that of any Marshal of France, in command of all the Federal armies, and hailed by popular acclaim our greatest soldier. Another, Philip H. Sheridan, rising from the rank of a Quartermaster, was foremost in forcing the surrender of Lee, and stood acknowledged the first cavalry General of America. Another, William Tecumseh Sherman, set aside for insanity at the outset, led the great consolidated armies of the West from victory to victory, till one of their successes decided a Presidential contest, and another, as they marched down to the sea, and swept like the destroying angel through the birthplace and home of secession, ended the war.
Other sons of the State had borne parts no less conspicuous in the National councils. One, at the head of the War Department, E. M. Stanton, illustrated by his fiery energy and his wonderful executive capacity all, and more than all, that has been said of the greatest war minister of the most warlike nation of Europe. Another, Salmon P. Chase, so well dis- charged the great duties of the Treasury Department that a leader of the rebellion had been forced at its close to say : "It was not your Generals that defeated us-it was your treasury.". Another, Ben F. Wade, was the chairman of the committee on the conduct of the war, and another, Robert C. Schenck, maimed with honorable wounds received in the public service, passed from the field to take his place at the head of a committee which controlled the military legislation of the country. The people of Ohio gave to the nation, in its prosecu-
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tion of the war throughout its entire extent, their whole-hearted and unswerving support. They counted their greatest sons their treasures, and sacrificed them on the altar of right and justice.
At the close of the war. the State of Ohio had in the national service two hundred regiments of all arms. In the course of the war she 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 contingent, two credited to the Kentucky contingent, two transferred to "United States colored troops," and a large proportion of the rank and file for the Fifty- fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteers. Of these organizations twenty-three were infantry regiments furnished for three months at the outbreak of the war, being an excess of nearly one-half over the quota allotted to the State. The quota was only thirteen regi- ments. The Government would not then accept more and so the State put them in the field on her own account. One hundred and ninety-one were infantry regiments, afterwards
IN SPRING GROVE CEMETERY CINCINNATI
furnished in cbedience to the several calls of the President-one hundred and seventeen for three years, twenty-seven for one year, two for six months, three for three months, and forty- two for a hundred days. Thirteen were cavalry and three were artillery regiments for three years. And of these three years' troops from Ohio, over twenty thousand re-enlisted as veterans at the end of their long term of service -to fight till the war should end in vic- tory.
In these various organizations, as original members or as recruits, the State furnished for the National service, according to the figures of the United States Provost Marshal- General in his final report to the War Department, the magnificent army of three hundred and ten thousand, six hundred and fifty-four soldiers. The older, larger and more populous commonwealth of Pennsylvania gave not quite twenty-eight thousand more, while Illinois fell forty-eight thousand behind, Indiana a hundred and sixteen thousand, Kentucky two
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hundred and thirty-five thousand, and Massachusetts one hundred and sixty-four thousand. Nobly through all those years of trial and death did she keep the promise of the memorable dispatch of her first war Governor: "If Kentucky refuses to fill her quota, Ohio will do it for her."
It is conservatively estimated that Ohio sent to the front fully one-third of a million of men, and of these nearly all were volunteers. Only eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty had to be raised in Ohio by the draft during the whole course of the war. But the vol- unteers received from the people of the State, independent of Government pay and premiums, over twenty-three and one-half million dollars of local bounties. Their service was deadly. Eleven thousand, two hundred and thirty-seven of them were either killed or mortally wounded in action, of whom six thousand, five hundred and sixty-three were left dead on the field of battle. Thirteen thousand, three hundred and fifty-four died before the expira-
IN SPRING GROVE CEMETERY
CINCINNATI
tion of their terms of enlistments, of diseases contracted in the service. Thirty-seven Ohio soldiers out of every thousand fell dead or mortally wounded in battle. Forty-seven more died in the hospitals; seventy-one more were honorably discharged, unable longer to per- form the duty of soldiers, by reason of wounds or sickness incurred in the country's service, but also, forty-four out of every thousand deserted.
Ohio soldiers fought on nearly every battlefield of the war ; their bones, reposing on the fields they won, are a perpetually binding pledge that no flag shall ever wave over these graves of our soldiers but the flag they fought to maintain.
The arms of Ohio's sons in the field were sustained by the work of Ohio's daughters at home. As her soldiers were the first to gain victory, so her women were the first to organize a society. In five days after the fall of Fort Sumter the ladies of the "Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio" organized at Cleveland, which eventually distributed food
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and clothing to the amount of a million of dollars. A similar organization was started in Cincinnati, which was alike successful. and every church and Sunday-school in the State became tributary channels to which flowed gifts to sustain the soldiers at the front. When the war closed more than one-half of her able-bodied men had taken up arms for the Union, and she had shown herself to have been the most efficient of all the States, supplying, as she had, the most successful Generals, the largest number of able men in the Cabinet of the President and in the councils of the nation, and a powerful army of a third of a million brave and loval soldiers.
MUSIC HALL, CINCINNATI
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CHAPTER VII
Progress of Ohio after the Civil War
Ohio after the War of the Rebellion .- Two Ruinous Panics .- Tremendous Floods in the Ohio Valley .- Bloody Riot in Cincinnati .- Participation of Ohio in the Spanish War .- Ohio Soldiers in China .- Centen- nial Celebration of Ohio's Statehood at Chillicothe .-- "The Mother of Presidents."- Statesmen from Ohio .- Population of the Buckeye State.
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FTER the cessation of hostilities between the North and South the Buck- eye State advanced rapidly in agricultural and manufacturing develop- ment. Her fair skies are darkened by the smoke of myriads of chimneys; her broad acres are dotted with prosperous farms; thriv- ing villages, towns and cities are to be encountered on every hand ; her mines are disgorging their hidden wealth; a network of steam and traction roads convey her products to the marts of the world; steamers plough the lake and rivers of Ohio in response to the demands of commerce and business activity. Her educational advantages are constantly improving; every sect in Christendom worships within the boundaries of the State, and her public school system is unexcelled. These are facts which make Ohio great-the most brilliant gem in the diadem of the Union.
The prosperity and development of the State of Ohio during the period following the Civil War and the close of the first century of her Statehood were interrupted by two panics, in the '70s and '90s. Both cast a gloom over the whole country, bringing with them the crash of many of the great business and financial institutions, and carrying in their wake misery, want and suffer- ing for millions of people. The spread of these panics was only confined by the limits of the United States, and Ohio suffered her proportion.
The most important events in the history of Ohio in the last quarter of the first century of her existence as a State were the tremendous floods in the Ohio valley in 1884; the bloody Cincinnati riot, in April of the same year; the participation of the Buckeye State in the Spanish-American War and the Centennial Celebration of Ohio's Statehood in May, 1903, at Chillicothe, the first capital of Ohio.
Disastrous floods have visited the Ohio valley since time immemorial; in fact, when the first settlers arrived at Columbia, a part of the present Cincinnati, the lower lands had been transformed by the flood into a lake of considerable size, but never before in the mem- ory of men did a flood have such tremendous dimensions as that of 1884. The year previous the Ohio River had reached a stage of sixty-three feet and seven inches, causing considerable damage. During the summer and fall of that year the stream had never overstepped its borders, and on the 14th of December, 1883, the stage of water in the Ohio River amounted to but ten feet and seven inches. On that day a heavy snow fell in the valleys of the Ohio River and its tributaries. All through the month the river rose rapidly, until, on the 28th of December, it had reached a stage of forty-nine feet and six inches at Cincinnati. On the 29th cold weather set in, checking the waters in the upper regions. All during the month of January, 1884, except on the 14th and 15th, when a heavy snow fell, cold weather prevailed. This was followed, on the 30th of January, by a general thaw and heavy rains. On that day the stage of water registered at Cincinnati only fifteen feet and nine inches, but a rapid rise followed. Two days later the waters of the stream had reached a height of thirty-one feet and three inches and continued to rise until on the 14th of February, 1884, they had advanced to the phenomenal height of seventy-one feet and three-quarters of an inch. The losses caused by this disastrous flood were tremendous.
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