USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume II > Part 3
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crisis unprecedented in its bearings. He left it at peace in all sections; with a currency unequaled in stability and abundance; with industries and trade in all branches at the maximum of healthful activity; and with the public credit higher than ever before at home and abroad, and second to that of no other nation. Among the supporters of Mr. Til- den, the democratic candidate, in 1876, was Hon. Charles Francis Adams, Jr. In an address before a meeting of "in- dependents," in New York, October 29th, 1880, he expressed himself, as to the administration of President Hayes, as follows :
" President Hayes was no choice of mine. 1 did not vote for him. 1 never considered him honestly elected, though he was legally inaugurated. Still, by-gones are by-gones, and, as a fair-minded man, 1 gladly and publicly concede that President Hayes's administration, taken as a whole, has been no less honorable to himself than creditable to the country. It has been cleanly and honest and of good repute. That in some respects it has fallen short of its own great promises, is apparent to all the world. But that is of course. It could not have been otherwise, for it promised the im- practicable. Taken as a whole, however, it has been an administration which will bear comparison with the best and purest of all those which preceded it ; and it is an adminis -. tration which the great mass of citizens who mind their own business would be glad to have continued for the next four years. It is an administration, too, which has left its mark in history. During its tenure of office, if not because of it, the country returned to specie payments and prosperity. During it, also, the most gigantic measures the world has yet seen were carried to a successful issue. It is mere idle carp- ing to say that for all this no credit is due to the executive, or to the party in power. Of course, they could not have accomplished these results had circumstances not permitted their accomplishment. But, circumstances permitting, they made no blunders. They were equal to the occasion. What more can statesmanship ever do? Napoleon did not make the French Revolution. He merely availed himself of the opportunities it afforded. So far as the administration of the last four years is concerned, its record, therefore, is not only honorable, but it is a record of success.'
An incident of the administration was the visit of the Pres- ident and a portion of his family, the Secretary of War and General of the Army, to the Pacific States and territories in the fall of 1880, where he was received at all points and by all classes with marked respect and cordiality-a fact the more notable on account of his then recent opposition to the sentiment of that section on the Chinese question. That was the first visit made by a President west of the Rocky Mount- ains. Though not part of the official administration of Pres- ident Hayes, the habits and customs which marked the social life of himself and family in Washington are entitled to rec- ognition in this connection. In these there was nothing demonstrative or obtrusive, while it was but the transfer to the capital of observances which had uniformly attended the family elsewhere ; yet, in the genuine simplicity, quiet mod- esty, and thoughtful consideration for resultant influences, the President and Mrs. Hayes furnished examples and precedents which met the cordial and general approval of their fellow- citizens. We close this brief and imperfect sketch with two letters written by an eminent lawyer and public man of New England, now dead, the Hon. Richard H. Dana, Jr., of Boston. One of the letters was written in 1876, soon after the nomi- nation of President Hayes, and the other in 1880, near the end of his administration :
" BOSTON, July 10, 1876. " His Excellency, R. B. HAYES :
"MY DEAR GOVERNOR HAYES,-Permit me to express my warm thanks for the character of your letter.
2-B
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"On the point of civil service reform, you have done the best service that has been done yet. You have done what our platform failed to do, and our politicians have failed to say in terms-either from not having thought deep enough, or from lack of civil courage. You have said what you mean by civil service reform. You have put your finger on the spot where the disease lies, and stated what is to be done. I regard all generalities about good men in office, faithful performance of their official duties, etc., as cant, which any one can sing.
"Of course, all expected you to be clear as well as sound on currency and specie payments. You have satisfied all on that. "So far as I am personally concerned, you have gone be- yond my fears, I will not say my hopes, in the thorough way in which you have dealt with reform. Ah! it would have been so easy to say what would have appeared to most voters all they could ask, and yet mean nothing practical.
" I hope you will not consider me as assuming if I also con- gratulate you upon the style and general spirit of your letter. RICHARD H. DANA, JR."
"Faithfully yours,
"FLORENCE, ITALY, November 25, 1880.
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES, President of the United States :
"SIR,-It may have passed from your memory, but it has not mine, that on the morning after your nomination I had the honor of a short conversation with you, at Columbus, on public affairs, and especially on the civil service reform. You paid me the compliment of understanding that I had no other purpose or interest than public affairs. The conversation in- terested and encouraged me. And now that your term of office is, by your own resolution, drawing to a close, I think it is due to you that those who assisted in your nomination should express to you their satisfaction in your administration. "To be sure, the nation has done this by the late unequiv- ocal election. But I desire to say to you, for myself, that as to the subject on which we conversed at Columbus, I did not expect much to be done in the way of changing the system of the civil service; but I believe you have done all in that direction that you could do, and as to improving the ad- ministration of the system, I think you have rendered a most valuable service to the country. There has been an air of justice, honor, and dignity about the administration, which fair-minded and intelligent foreigners have felt, which has elevated the tone of Americans abroad, and made a marked impression upon our own country.
"Let me offer you my best wishes for the remaining months of your administration, and express the hope that the rest of your life, whether passed in public or in private, may be one of happiness, founded on the domestic relation in which you are so fortunate, and in the consciousness of having dis- charged with wisdom, strength, and justice the duties of an office which has no superior in Christendom.
"May I ask you to present me, with my respects and hom- age, to Mrs. Hayes, to whom the public attribute no small agency in your success in securing public favor ?
" Believe me, very faithfully yours,
"RICHARD H. DANA."
On retiring from public life and returning to his home, President Hayes was welcomed at Fremont by his friends and neighbors in the heartiest way. In his speech to the assemblage he said :
"This hearty welcome to my home is, I assure you, very gratifying. During the last five or six years I have been absent in the public service. . My family and I have none but the friendliest words and sentiments for the cities of our late official residence-Columbus and Washington ; but with local attachments, perhaps unusually strong, it is quite safe to say that never for one moment have any of us wavered in our desire and purpose to return and make our permanent residence in the pleasant old place in Spiegel Grove in this good town of Fremont. The question is often heard, 'What is to become of the man-what is he to do- who, having been Chief Magistrate of the Republic, retires at the end of his official term to private life?' It seems to me the reply is near at hand and sufficient: Let him, like every other good American citizen, be willing and prompt
to bear his part in every useful work that will promote the welfare, the happiness, and the progress of his family, his town, his State, and his country. With this disposition he will have work enough to do, and that sort of work that yields more individual contentment and gratification than belong to the more conspicuous employments of the life from which he has retired. We all recognize, in a general way, that our institutions rest on the character of the private citizen. What our citizens are, our government will be. If the people are intelligent and virtuous, and have the vigi- lance of patriotism, the government will, as a general state- ment, be pure and wise and just. The character of the citi- zen is formed at home. The family and the home are the foundation of our free American society. With our homes, what they can and should be, and what, happily for our country, they usually are, places sacred to the cultivation of the virtues which make the home and the family happy, our whole people will be so reared, that our institutions will securely stand on the only foundation for free government, intelligence, morality, and religion."
SHERMAN, WILLIAM TECUMSEH, the General commanding the United States army, was born at Lancaster, Fairfield county, Ohio, February 8th, 1820. The name of Tecumseh was given him by his father from admiration he entertained for the great Indian chief of that name who figured so conspicuously in the wars which occurred during the early settlement of the State. When but nine years of age his father, a man of much distinction, and one of the judges of the supreme court, died, a comparatively poor man in everything but the high respect entertained for him by the members of the bar, and the people generally of his county. The former, knowing the burden that eleven young children would be on the widowed mother, resolved to adopt and educate a few of the elder ones, and thus our subject was taken by Hon. Thomas Ewing, then in the prime of life, as the child of his adoption. For seven years the bright and energetic boy was kept in school at Lancaster, his frank, generous and amiable disposition winning the love of all who knew him. When seventeen years old, Mr. Ewing secured a cadetship at West Point for his adopted son, and in June, 1836, William entered that famous military school until he was graduated in 1840 as sixth in his class, and assigned for duty with the artillery arm of the service. Appointed a first lieutenant, he was sent to Florida where he was engaged principally in garrison duty, though he participated in some of the later fights with the Seminole Indians. In 1842 he was, with his company, assigned for duty to Fort Morgan, at the entrance to Mobile Bay, and soon afterward transferred to Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor. Here he remained until his appointment as one of a board of officers to examine the claims of Georgia and Alabama for horses furnished the army in the Seminole war. Then it was that with the utmost diligence he devoted himself to a careful study of the topo- graphy of these States, in manner as military officers are in- structed to do, with the view of mastering a thorough topo- graphical knowledge of the country, but with little thought, however, of ever being called upon to use that knowledge as he did in 1864-65. He also took occasion during his leisure in those years to read the heavier law books known to the profession, such as Kent's Commentaries, and the various volumes of Blackstone. To use his own language, he entered upon this study "from feeling the want of it in the duties to which he was then lately assigned," in Georgia and Alabama. After serving for a short time in 1845 at the Augusta arsenal, and attending a court martial at Wilmington, in 1846 he was, with the beginning of the Mexican war, sent to Pittsburgh,
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Pennsylvania, on recruiting service, and this duty performed, he was assigned to duty as aide-de-camp to General Persifer F. Smith, and assistant adjutant-general to Governor S. W. Kearney, of Oregon. In those positions he saw no active service, as a soldier understands the term, but he performed the duties of them in manner to satisfy his superiors. Hav- ing returned to Washington City, May Ist, 1850, he married Miss Ellen Ewing, in the presence of, among others, Presi- dent Fillmore, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay, at the resi- dence of her father and his benefactor, Hon. Thomas Ewing, then Secretary of the Interior. Soon after he was appointed by brevet a captain, and was sent to St. Louis in charge of the military stores there when, seeing no prospect of more active service or promotion, he resigned his commission, and having as captain and commissary displayed practical ability of a financial character, some gentlemen of St. Louis who wished to establish a banking house at San Francisco, offered him the position of manager. This he accepted, and for five years devoted himself to his banking business in San Fran- cisco, and then removed to continue in the same business in New York City. After a short time thus engaged, his brothers-in-law having taken up their residence in Kansas, invited him to join them in the practice of law, but he soon wearied of that business and accepted the superintendency of the Louisiana Military Academy, with a salary of $5,000. He was well known in the South, and the business was most pleasing to him of any that could be offered. In 1859 he en- tered upon the duties of this position, and his ability having soon been manifested, pressure about this time was not want- ing to win him from fealty to the flag of his country, but in no case did he ever fail to boldly resist those blandishments, with the assertion: "A soldier's duty is to fight for, never against, the flag to which he has sworn allegiance." Events moved rapidly. Treason grew apace, and when it became manifest that Louisiana would be among the first of the States to secede, he wrote a patriotic letter to the governor of the State, requesting to be relieved from the position of superin- tendent the moment the State should throw off its allegiance to the general government. He returned to St. Louis. Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated. Hon. John Sherman, a younger brother of Captain Sherman, was in the Senate of the United States. He later hastened to Washington. He knew the Southern States were desperately in earnest, while the North- ern States and their leading men regarded the incipient movements of secession as a game of bluff, to be balked with an energetic proclamation. It was in vain Captain Sherman assured the President again and again that the whole power of the free States would be required to crush the rebellion. He was deemed insane, while those who believed with the President and his cabinet that 75,000 men, and a three months' campaign would finish the war, were really the in- sane ones. Though much disheartened by the languid movements, he took the commission of colonel of the 13th regiment of regular infantry, and reported to General Scott, who intrusted him with the command of a fort near Wash- ington City. His regiment was called into action in the first battle of Bull Run, and notwithstanding the military ability exhibited by its commander, it was swept away in the mad flight of raw recruits composing the Northern army. General Robert Anderson being placed in command of the depart- ment of Kentucky, and well acquainted with Colonel Sher- man, solicited that he might serve under him. Anderson's ill health threw the whole weight of his responsibility upon
Colonel Sherman, and who by seniority had to assume com- mand. The responsibility was so great that he entreated the President and General Anderson not to place him in so prominent a position, while at the same time expressing his willingness to take the position if required so to do. It was then supposed by the President and his advisers that ten or twelve thousand men would hold Kentucky. It was a barren and stupid idea. Two hundred thousand of the population of over a million were able-bodied men, nearly all violent secessionists, and skilled in the use of the rifle from their boyhood, while the adjoining slave-holding States of Virginia and Tennessee could aid Kentucky with thousands on a few days' warning. With clear vision General Sherman saw all this; and when the Secretary of War, Hon. Simon Cameron, inquired how many men were needed by him to hold the department in the Union, he promptly replied: "Sixty thousand to drive the enemy out of the State, and two hun- dred thousand to finish the war in this section." Again he was looked upon as insane, but when at a later day a million and a half of men were marshalled under the stars and stripes, he was believed to have considerable method in his madness. On the occasion mentioned, however, the War Department, surprised at his demand, relieved him of his command, and sent him to Benton barracks, Missouri, to superintend the drilling of troops. There the fruits of his ability increased his reputation, and caused him to be ordered to Paducah to forward supplies to Grant who had moved on Fort Donelson; and when the expedition was sent up the Tennessee river, General Sherman was placed in command of one of the divisions. Then Grant, having assumed the command in place of General Smith, he found his former fellow-student at West Point as General Sherman in the ad- vance, and after the battle of Pittsburgh Landing, it was gen- erally admitted that, although incautious before that battle, it was his coolness and courage that did much to stop the panic and overcome the reverses of that memorable engagement. Indeed, of his conduct on this occasion General Halleck wrote: "General Sherman saved the fortunes of the day on the 6th, and contributed largely to the glorious victory of the 7th." In the two days' battle General Sherman had three horses killed under him, and he was himself wounded in the hand. On the assumption of the chief command by General Halleck, he assigned to General Sherman most important positions, in which, having twice met the enemy with an admirable disposition of his forces, he was victorious on both occasions. After the evacuation of Corinth he was ordered to Memphis, and there he issued orders which, though by them regarded as fearfully severe, the conduct of the inhabi- tants fully justified. In a work like this we can only glance at the subsequent career of our subject - a most faithful and admirably written account of which has been produced by Mr. Whitelaw Reid in his "Ohio in the War." Not only the fiery and courageous spirit of General Sherman, but likewise his soldierly ability and military sagacity were duly appre- ciated by his chief in command, General Grant, when least understood by the members of the government and others; and on more than one occasion with fervent thanks had Gen- eral Grant acknowledged the aid afforded him by General Sherman, when, the war being over, and the succession of events political which followed having made the former Pres- ident of the United States, made the latter his successor, as general-in-chief of the regular army of the nation-a posi- tion he still continues to hold in 1883.
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STEINWEHR, ADOLPH WILHELM AUGUST FRIEDRICH, Baron von, was born on the 25th September, 1822, at Blankenburg, in the Duchy of Brunswick, Prussia, and died at Buffalo, in the State of New York, on the 25th February, 1877. His father, a land baron, was a major in the ducal army, and his grandfather a lieutenant-general in the army of Frederick the Great. His family is one of the oldest military families of Prussia, the first baron of the name having been created by the then emperor in 1342, as graf, or count, of the county of Steinwehr in Pomerania, where the family estates are yet situated. As a royal compliment Fred- erick the Great, so highly did he esteem this family, stood sponsor at the christening of the father of our subject, and when three years old conferred on him the rank of captain in his army. Educated in the military academy of Brunswick, as a lieutenant, the subject of this sketch entered the army of the duke in 1841. In 1847, on leave of absence for one year, he came to the United States, then at war with Mexico, in the expectation of obtaining a commission in the American army, but in this he was disappointed, and not until near the close of that war did he obtain, in the engineer corps, an appoint- ment under which he served with the United States commis- sioners appointed to define the new boundary lines between this country and Mexico. After this service he went to Mobile, Alabama, there married a lady of local distinction, and with her returned to his native land, where he resigned his commission in the army of the duke of Brunswick, and, in 1854, returning to the United States, purchased a farm near Wallingford, Connecticut. By profession a military engineer, he was also proficient as a military architect, the arsenal at Albany, New York, having been built under his supervision, and according to his plans and designs. At the first call of President Lincoln for troops in the spring of 1861, our sub- ject went to New York, and at once engaged in recruiting a regiment of which, as the 29th New York volunteers, he was made colonel, marched with it to and participated in the first battle of the war of the Rebellion. In October following, he was commissioned a brigadier general, and appointed to the command of the 2d brigade, of Blenker's division of Sigel's corps, known subsequently as the 11th, and which, first at- tached to the mountain department commanded by General Fremont, was subsequently as an army corps nearly entirely composed of Germans and other foreign-born citizens. When General Sigel assumed command of this corps, after the organization of General Pope's department, General von Steinwehr was placed in command of its second, known pre- viously as Blenker's, division, and with it he participated in Pope's campaign in Virginia. At Chancellorsville, on the 2d May, 1863, by his masterly command of his division, Gen- eral von Steinwehr prevented the memorable battle which there took place from proving a defeat for the Union arms. The demoralization of two other divisions of the 11th corps, then commanded, respectively, by Generals Devens and Schurz, consequent upon the impetuous attack of three divis- sions of Stonewall Jackson's corps, was so complete that but for the firm stand made by General Steinwehr's division, that battle would have been disastrous and a sore defeat, in- stead of a victory, for the Union troops. A report made of it by General von Steinwehr to headquarters is regarded as the only faithful account of that battle ever written that has not been based upon that report. We next find General von Steinwehr, on the Ist July, 1863, with his division in line of battle unsupported in the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,
opposed to a division of Hill's army corps, and a second division of the same on its left within supporting distance,- the other divisions of that corps occupying Seminary ridge. Here having fought his way south through these Confederate troops, he advanced by Taneytown road to the support of the Union troops opposed to Ewell's corps at Cemetery ridge, and having arrived there on the evening of the first day of that battle, took a position with his command on the brow of Cemetery hill, which he had previously indicated to his corps commander as the key of the defense, and held it during the twenty-four hours succeeding, and until, on the third day of the fight, victory had crowned this prolonged effort of the Union arms. No better fighting nor more determined stand than this was at any time made by a division of the Union army during the war. Our space will not permit us follow our subject through the two remaining years, and until the war of the Rebellion being over, and peace proclaimed, the gal- lant Von Steinwehr sheathed his sword which was among the very first to be drawn in behalf of the Union cause, and re- signed his commission on the 3d July, 1865. He was soon afterward military professor at Yale College, which position he filled with distinction. While. residing at New Haven and connected with Yale College, he continued his studies . and investigations in physical science and natural history, and labored by lectures and writings to direct public atten- tion more decidedly to those subjects. He also, about this time, projected the plan of a series of works on geography, to which science and cognate branches he had given much study and research. As a recognition of his literary and scientific qualifications, the degree of master of arts was con- ferred on him by Yale College. In the prosecution of his literary work, he removed to Philadelphia, where he edited "The Centennial Gazetteer of the United States," and super- intended the publication of maps and other educational works. He was also for three years connected with the United States engineer department, engaged making surveys in the New England States and drafting; and it was during this period that he imparted to that branch of the public service the better taste for beauty, completeness and accurate finish in the cartography of its surveys which has ever since distin- guished the works of this character published by the govern- ment. Nor was he content to labor for the government only during these years, but he also employed all of his spare time in the preparation of those school books now known as the "Eclectic Geographies," constructing on new and original principles of projection, mountain topography, and more ac- curate and clearly defined representation of the physical features and political boundaries of the country, those numer- ous fine maps for the illustration of their text, which have transmitted his name as the most excellent cartographer in America. In 1872, with his family, General von Steinwehr went to his native country on a visit, and there, as a more agreeable place of residence, leaving his wife and younger members of his family, he returned, and subsequently about once a year visited them, making his last visit in 1876. Except when absent on these visits, during the later years of his life he resided in Cincinnati, where he prepared a revised edition of his works; and it was while at Buffalo supervising the engraving of maps for them that he suddenly died in his hotel. A post mortem examination revealed the fact that his death was occasioned by congestion of the lungs. His last acts were to write a letter to his son, W. von Steinwehr, resident in Cincinnati, and another to his
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