USA > Ohio > The Biographical encyclopedia of Ohio of the nineteenth century. Pt. 2 > Part 22
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Colonel Hildebrand, then recruiting the 77th Regiment | tions of Sherman's division during the siege of Corinth- Ohio Volunteer Infantry, at Camp Putnam, Ohio, There, constructing field-works, roads and bridges, picketing, skir- mishing and fighting, until it rested in Fort Pickering, Mem. phis, Tennessee, July 21st, 1802. He was then promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and, having been mus- tered out of the 77th Regiment to secure the promotion, re- ported to his new command, the 92d Regiment Ohio Volun- teer Infantry, in his native State. Now again came the arduous labor of urging forward the preparation of his men for the approaching conflict. Spending very little time in the camp of instruction, however, they were soon ordered to the front, and, after a stirring period of marching and fighting in Virginia, moved with General Crook's command to East Tennessee, where there was an endless round of exciting soldier-life. Ilere, Colonel Van Voorhes being compelled by ill health to resign his position, Lieutenant- Colonel Fearing was promoted to the vacated Colonelcy, The command then joined the main Army of the Cumber. land, with Crook's 3d Brigade in 4th Division, 14th Army Corps, and led the advance in the grand movement south in the spring. Ile was at the head of his regiment in the fight at Iloover's Gap, which General Reynolds gave him to hold after a magnificent charge, in which the cavalry of the di- vision had driven the enemy through and beyond the posi- tion. The forces at his command to relieve the cavalry were the 18th Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, the 92d Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Andrew's Battery. The enemy made a splendid effort to plant himself in the gap and repossess it, but this vantage-ground was steadily held until the 14th Army Corps, under General Thomas, moved through the gap and swept everything before them. Soon after this came an important reconnoissance up to the enemy's works at Tullahoma, where he gained information of the greatest moment to the General in command. His regiment then fell under the command of that famous fighter, General John B. Turchin, and under him, with Reynolds' Division, 14th Army Corps, marched to Chickamauga, and was engaged in the very important preliminary skirmishes at Catlett's Gap, in Pigeon Mountain, the Chattanooga and Lafayette Pike, and at Lane's Church. At the opening of the action at Chickamauga he was sent in command of the 18th Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Infantry and the 92d Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry to recover some lost ground and recapture the lost regular battery (the rest of the brigade moving rapidly to a left point of the field where matters were approaching a crisis). After a sharp and stub- born contest the ground was retaken, the enemy falling back under the persistent pressure. In a third attempt to retake the battery he was severely wounded, a ball passing through the front part of his right and the thick portion of his left thigh. (The battery was eventually recaptured by the 9th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the same charge, which body entered into action on the right of the 92d Regiment.) The enemy on the following day captured the hospital in which Fearing, his officers and men had been knowing that the call to the front would be sharp and quick, he worked by night and by day to transform the new men fresh from the country into disciplined soldiers. While Grant was in front of Fort Donelson the expected summons came on a Sunday morning : " Your regiment will move at once to Paducah, Kentucky, and report to General W. T. Sherman. How soon will your command be ready to march?" The superior officer being absent and unattain- able by telegraph, he answered : " In an hour." He then departed by the earliest train and boat, and his regiment was the first, out of the nine ordered from Ohio, to report at Paducah, Kentucky, to General W. T. Sherman. Early in April, when Sherman was conducting an expedition for the destruction of the bridges on the railroad near Iuka, Missis- sippi, sudden and heavy rains caused a rise in the bayous, which, taking effect upon Yellow creek, threatened seriously to cut off the return of his division to the boats. Fearing rode to the front, and, reporting the situation to Sherman, asked permission to build bridges of boats. Granting the request, Sherman gave him orders to the commodore of the fleet for all the yawls and gangway-planks needed from the fleet, and instructions to construct pontoon bridges. So rapidly and well was this order executed, that the General deemed it fitting to notice him in a highly complimentary manner. Afterward, while with Sherman, he was intrusted with a large share of the bridging operations on railroads and over streams, and of the construction of corduroy roads through the great swamp lands. At the battle of Shiloh, Colonel Hildebrand being in command of a brigade, while the Lieutenant-Colonel was at home, the command of the regiment devolved upon him, with the troops posted at Shiloh Church, the line of the regiment traversing the main Corinth road, which was regarded by Sherman as the key- point of his position. Realizing the importance of his post, he retained it with persistent tenacity and gallantly repulsed the desperate charges of the exultant and confident enemy for the capture of Taylor's Battery, A, of Chicago. The General commended the conduct of this regiment in its de- termined and protracted struggle for the position of the church, and in baffling the enemy in all his attempts to cap- ture the coveted battery. The brigade commander, in his official report, says : " Major Benjamin D. Fearing, who com- manded the 77th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was cool and brave, and acquitted himself with as much skill as an old officer of larger experience, and was not excelled by any other field-officer who came under my observation." Dur- ing the battle of Shiloh he kept his regiment well into the edge of the fight. Its loss tells the story of its part in that engagement : one officer and forty-nine rank and file killed ; seven officers and one hundred and seven men wounded, and three officers and fifty-three men missing ; total killed, wounded and missing, two hundred and twenty. From Shiloh he commanded the regiment in all the active opera-
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placed, but a cavalry dash under Minty recovered the build. ing temporarily, and the greater portion of those installed there were thus enabled to make good their escape. He and four of his officers were saved by the cool and heroic conduct of his colored servant, who carried them to an am- bulance, and under a continuous fire drove them a distance of two miles, bringing them finally within the protection of the Federal lines. When sufficiently recovered for partial duty, he was detailed on several courts-martial at Cincinnati and Louisville, where he remained on duty until March, 1864. Ilis regiment made a name and a splendid record at Chickamauga, under the leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel Putnam, in Turchin's famous charge, where he hewed a way out for Thomas and Reynolds, and formed a part of the illustrious rear-guard that devoted itself heroically to save the main army. Also it gained distinction at the mem- orable storming of Mission Ridge. Turchin's brigade had been manceuvring in front of the rebel position from the 2Ist until the 25th of November-now spectators of the stern struggle of Hooker for Lookout Mountain, now on the left watching with eager impatience the mortal combat of the Army of the Tennessee under Sherman. Finally, bracing themselves for the perilous feat of scaling the ridge, the 92d, 36th and 11th Ohio, supported by the 31st, 17th and 89th Ohio Regiments and the 82d Indiana, moved steadily over the plain and through the woods, swept over the works be- neath and advanced unvaryingly for those on the crest. No position ever presented more difficulties ; the Confederate lines, bending back around the head of a ravine that pierced the assaulting lines, breaking them and destroying their im- petus, had their ends terminated in batteries on the advanced knobs. The batteries and supports, as the storming parties rose higher and higher, changed from a front to a flank fire, and as the line struggled, under the crushing storm of grape, canister shot and musketry, through the entanglements at the summit, their guns belched forth terrible havoc. Mid- way up the steep ascent the regiment's commander, Lieu- tenant-Colonel Putnam, was struck down; near him Lieu- tenant Townsend fell dead, and the color-sergeant and guards met with instant death. While rallying the men by the colors, young Captain Whitlesey, a brave and noble officer, was slain. But the men went on; they needed no leader then. Mingling their tattered flags with those of the 36th and 11th Ohio, they swarmed over the works. While lead- ing the storming party Adjutant Turner received his death- wound. . . . Again at Rocky-Faced Ridge the 92d made its mark ; charging through a retreating Federal line, they valiantly repulsed a charge of the enemy, thus rescuing the color-bearers and colors of an Indiana regiment ent off and at bay. ... Fearing returned to his command at Ringgold, Georgia, in March, 1864. In the following May he moved south with Turchin's brigade, and fonght with it in that extraordinary campaign which counted one hundred days of continuous fighting, many of the so-called skirmishes swelling into the proportions of grand battles. Ile took
part also in the ensuing campaign north, after I lood's army, also in the march from Atlanta to the sea. At Savannah he received from President Lincoln a commission as Brigadier- General by brevet, a promotion which was awarded him under the most flattering circumstances. The commission bore date of December 2d, 1864, and was conferred "for gallant and meritorious services during the long campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and from Atlanta to Savan- nah." Ile was assigned to duty in Morgan's division, 2d Division of the 14th Army Corps, and selected the 3d Brig- ade as his command, a body of troops known familiarly as "Colonel Dan McCook's fighting brigade," and composed of the following regiments : 85th, 86th, 110th and 125th Illi- nois ; the 22d, Jefferson C. Davis, Indiana, and McCook's 52d Ohio. January 20th, 1865, the brigade marched out of the city of Savannah, crossed the Savannah and " fol- lowed the eagles into the Carolinas." Carrying with them ponderous trains and artillery, the troops crossed the Edisto, Santee, Broad, Saluda, Waterce, Catawba, l'edee, Lumber, Cape Fear and Neuse rivers, and at Averysborough had " a sharp and beautiful fight at close quarters " with Rhett's brigade of South Carolinans, fresh from their defences of Charleston and Sumter. At Bentonville, North Carolina, when the enemy had broken the Union left and centre and was everywhere victorious, General Jefferson C. Davis snatched Fearing's brigade from its post on the right and hurled it impetuously in on the right as a forlorn hope, ex- plaining, as the brigade took the charge pace, the great stress and need to General Fearing, in a few sharp and inciting orders : " Push your way on to their flank at all hazard ; roll it up and cut in as deep as you can ; hang on to it, and give them no rest or time to reform. You must check and hold them for a time, if it cost you the entire brigade." Unmask- ing the main line, and putting it abreast on the right (the enemy's edge) of the heavy line of skirmishers, the charge was made with the front of a division. The charge was glorious; square on the tender and sensitive flank. The advancing lines on the left were compelled to inaugurate a new, confused formation, and the sorely-needed check was administered. But what a hornets' nest the hrigade had gotten into in their impetuous onset ! So much ground was gained that their right flank was brought into opposition with the enemy's reserves, and down pounced Hake's North Carolina division ere the exposed flank could be turned into a front, and then ensned a desperate struggle in the Trouble- Field Swamps, which resulted ultimately in the defeat of the rebels. During this terrible action Fearing's horse was shot under him, while a Minie ball carried away the thumb, forefinger, and a part of his right hand. This wound proved a dangerous one, and permanently disabled him for active service in the field. Van Horne, in his " Ilistory of the Army of the Cumberland," after describing in detail the battle, thus sums it up: " Viewed in relation to the magni- tude of the army successfully resisted by eight brigades of in- fantry and Kilpatrick's division of cavalry, which held posi-
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tion on the left and rear, the objects and hopes of the enemy and the character of the fighting by Morgan's division, the | Blymyer, Day & Co., and at Cincinnati, Ohio, Blymyer, Horton & Co., with a distributing house in Chicago, Bly- myer, Fearing & Co. Hle settled in Mansfield primarily, then took the field and devoted himself to the task of establishing a complete system of agencies in all the States for the sale of the machinery manufactured by the houses with which he was connected. From 1866 to 1871 he travelled from seven to eight months during each year in the South and West assiduously engaged in prosecuting this business. In 1872 he relinquished his former relations and associated himself with T. J. Cochran, one of his old com- rades in the army, in the manufacture and sale of oil, and in a general commission business, under the firm-style of Cochran & Fearing, at Cincinnati, Ohio. The partnership is still in existence, and they are the proprietors of the Anchor Oil Works, Cincinnati.
engagement takes rank amongst the great decisive battles of the war. The defence under such unequal conditions was triumphantly successful, and General Johnston here failed in the only special aggressive effort against General Sherman in his march from Atlanta to Raleigh. That the issne turned upon the action of the brigades of Mitchell, Vanderveer and Fearing cannot be doubted. The two former did not give an inch of ground to the enemy, though thrown into single lines, cut off from support, surrounded and compelled to fight in front and rear. The action of Fearing's brigade was not less important, as it disturbed and defeated General Johnston's combination to utilize for com- plete success his first advantage. General Fearing fought in complete isolation for some time, without defences, and when his right flank was struck by the enemy, with such force as to shatter it, he changed front upon his left, rallied his shattered troops, and held the ground essential to the stability of the new line. The later dispositions and re- sistance by the whole command gave a symmetry and bril- liancy to the conflict which have seldom found expression in such urgent improvision." At the close of the war he re- signed his position, and was then offered the rank of Major in the regular army, which, however, he declined to accept. Ilaving as a private taken part in the first important battle of the war, and as commander of a brigade in the closing action, he resolved to return to his home, gladdened by the reflection that he had assisted in a measure in the saving of the nation's life. The names of those places where he fought for his country's flag are now historie : Manassas; the battles of West Virginia, Shiloh, Catlon Mountain, Iuka, Corinth, Carthage, Hoover's Gap, Tullahoma, Catlett's Gap, Lane's Church, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Buzzard Roost, Rocky- Faced Ridge, Resaca, Etowah, Allatoona Pass, Pine Knob, Kenesaw (June 27th), Nicojack, Peach Tree Creek, Chat- tahoochee (July 20th, 22d and 28th), Utoy Creek, Rough and Ready, Jonesborough, Atlanta; the regions traversed in the march to the sea; Savannah ; through the Carolinas; Averysborough, Bentonville. As a field-officer he was ever rendy, night and day, for active service ; was quick to seize upon all the salient points of a position for defence, attack, or picket; was admirably careful in the selection of good camping ground ; attended personally to the instruction and comfort of his troops; knew the men of his regiment by name, and also their qualities ; possessed the ability which organizes rapidly and effectively in the eamp or during ac- tion ; was strict in discipline, and under all circumstances was extremely wary in his measures to avoid surprises, while incessantly devising new measures to ensure the safety of his command; once engaged, he never hesitated to expose either it or himself, when extremities demanded a sacrifice. Upon his retirement from the service, and before his wounds were entirely healed, he purchased an interest in a manufae- turing company, whose business relations extended through-
out all the States. The works were at Mansfield, Ohio,
MITH, RICHARD, Editor of the Cincinnati Gazette, was born in Ireland, January 30th, 1823. In I841 he came to America. One of his brothers had preceded him and located in Cincinnati, and through this brother's instrumentality the other members of his family were brought to this country after the death of their father. Mr. Smith had received a fair education in the old country, but not at once finding anything to suit his inclination, he spent the first three years of his residence in Cincinnati in learning and working at the carpenter's trade. Ile was afterwards connected with the Chronicle newspaper, which was subsequently merged into the Gazette. In 1846 he became Assistant Superin- tendent of the Chamber of Commerce, and in the following year was appointed Agent of the Associated Press. This position he held until 1850, when he was appointed Super- intendent of the Chamber of Commerce. This he resigned in 1855 on account of his connection with the Gazette, which had been entered into during the preceding year. Ile soon acquired a small proprietary interest in and is now the largest individual stockholder and the responsible editor of the Gasette. In 1867 he received the nomination of his party for Congressional Representative from the Hamilton county district, but was not successful. Ile has always been a Republican, and through his management the Gazette has become one of the most reliable and solid organs of the party principles in the country, as well as the most high- toned and safe among secular journals on all questions of the day. He is a writer of more than ordinary ability, and a fine speaker, and although his body is too short and light, yet his large head and general aspect, with his earnest man- ners, will always give him weight and mark him favorably before an audience or in a public body. Ile is one of the noteworthy successful men of the day, and has, in addition to his fine position as a leading journalist and his high stand- ing in the business community, acquired a comfortable for-
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tune. Ile is a member of the Presbyterian Church. In 1846 he was married to Mary Quinn, of Kentucky, and has a family of five children.
was frequently called out to deliver temperance lectures, many of which found their way into print. He was widely known for his skill in obstetrics, and his aid was sought frequently at distances remote from his own proper theatre of action. Ile wrote and published a small treatise on this subject. In 1840 Dr. Denig found his health failing, and concluded to go West and engage in some other pursuit. lle removed to Columbus, Ohio, in 1841, and established the drug store of Denig & Son. In politics in his young days he was a Jeffersonian Democrat, in maturer life a Whig, and in his declining years an uncompromising Re- publican. During his whole life he was a consistent member of the Presbyterian Church. Ilis death occurred in 1875. John M. Denig, his son, was born on November 17th, 1818, in McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania. Ile went to Illinois in 1837, and resided there four years. Returning to his native place in 1841, he opened a drug store, and re- mained there until 1849, when he removed to Columbus and continued the drug business in that city. Ile married, in 1858, Ada S. Buck, daughter of William L. Buck, of Truxton,, New York.
ENIG, GEORGE, M. D., Physician and Surgeon, was born in Chambersburg, Franklin county, Pennsylvania, on November 25th, 1785. 1Ie ** ) received a good English education, and had some knowledge of the classics, His familiarity with drugs, acquired while conducting his father's store, suggested the study of medicine, and he at once entered upon it with all the ardor of his impetuous nature, Ilis preceptor was Dr. S. D. Culbertson, of his native place, a man of brilliant intellect, large experience, and extensive practice. In iSog he married and commenced the practice of medicine in Strawsburg, a village in the same county in which he was born. During his residence here, a period of three years, he formed the acquaintance of Dr. William Awl, who was also just entering upon the active duties of life in a neighboring town, Between them arose a sincere friendship and mutual esteem, the social intercourse and kindly offices resulting from which were renewed after a lengthy separation, in this city, and continued uninterrupted until his death. On the breaking out of the war of 1812, he ROWN, Il. WILSON, was born in Greenville, Mercer county, Pennsylvania, November 9th, 1826, and is of Scotch and Irish lineage, a direct descendant of one of the pilgrims of the May- flower, and a relative of the Wilson who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Ile first attended the common school of his native town, and then finished his education in Westminster College, of Law- rence county, Pennsylvania, " Ile removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, in April, 1847, and engaged as shipping clerk for Peter A. Sprigman & Son. In 1849 he obtained a position as cleik of the steamer " lloosier State," one of the Cincinnati and Madison packets. In November, 1852, he became a mem- ber of the firm of Sprigman & Brown, and was appointed Freight Agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad for Cincinnati, and has been occupied in that department in connection with the " Star Union " and " National " lines to the present time. lIe was an active member of the old volunteer fire department until the steam fire-engines were adopted. When the Harmonic Society was organized he assisted in the work, and became one of its original members, and has day. During the first four years of the Cincinnati Industrial Exposition he was one of its most energetic officers, serving in 1871 as First Vice-President. In 1869 he was elected an elder in the Fifth Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati, and is one of its most indefatigable workers. Mr. Brown was married, October 7th, 1852, to Louisa Whiteman Coffin, of Madison, Indiana, and by her has had four children, three boys and one girl-two boys and one girl now living. The eldest, Willie Brown, was born August 8th, 1853, and was was appointed Surgeon's Mate to a regiment from his own county, of which his preceptor, Dr. Culbertson, was Surgeon. Soon after his return home at the expiration of his commis- sion, he removed to McConnellsburg, Bedford county, a beautiful village situated in one of the most fertile and pic- turesque valleys of the State. IIere he spent thirty years in the active and laborious pursuits of a profession to which he was almost idolatrously attached, and of which he was indeed an ornament. During the greater part of the many years the doctor spent there, he was the sole representative of the medical profession within a radius of fifteen or twenty miles. The amount of labor he was compelled to do would be appalling to almost any physician of the present day. Although eminently successful as a practitioner of medicine, his strong bias was toward the department of surgery, and here his mechanical skill was no small element in his success. Ile had extraordinary constructive powers. Ile made with his own hands, notwithstanding his extensive business, most of his means and appliances for the treatment of fractures, and they were in those days numerous and complicated. Ile invented, and had constructed, beds for been its Vice- President nearly all of the time to the present sick and injured persons; casy chairs admitting of every variety of motion; fine electric apparatuses; and a great many ingenious addenda calculated to amuse and instruct. In this way his mechanical skill was of much service to him, but especially so in the facility with which it enabled him to perform surgical operations. In the social questions of the day he took an active and influential part, espec- ially in the first temperance movement. Always temperate himself, he was an implacable foc to intemperance. Ile
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drowned on the steamer " Pat Rogers," August 5th, 1874, and was buried on his twenty-first birthday, Angust Sth, 1874. Ile was possessed of a lovely character, of pleasing personal presence, and eagerly sought for in all social and musical gatherings; his gay and buoyant spirits were tem. pered with an unfailing courtesy that always made him a welcome and favorite guest. Ile gave bright promise as a musician, and very few can fill his place in the Harmonic Society.
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