USA > Ohio > The history of the state of Ohio; from the discovery of the great valley, to the present time > Part 70
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
How far your execution of whatever has been given you to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving you cannot know as well as I."
In Sherman's reply he said, in words which do alike honor to his intelligence, his modesty, and his high patriotic principles, "You do yourself injustice and us too much honor, in assigning to us too large a share of the merits which have led to your high advancement. You are now Washington's successor, and occu- py a position of almost dangerous elevation. But if you can continue, as here- tofore, to be yourself, simple, honest, and unpretending, you will enjoy through life the respect and love of friends and the homage of millions of human beings who will award you a large share in securing to them and their descendants a government of law and stability."
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Sherman received the appointment of chief commander of the department be- tween the Alleghanies and the Mississippi River. He met Grant at Nashville, where, quietly seated at a table with a map before them, in long consultations they planned the ensuing campaigns. He was now intrusted with independent command, having a vast force at his disposal. Plans were decided upon which would task the energies of the highest military genius. The following sketch of remarks made by Sherman will give the reader some idea of the grandeur of the plans in contemplation.
" At a signal given by you Schofield will drop down to Hiawassee and march on Johnston's right. Thomas, with forty-five thousand men, will move straight on Johnston wherever he may be, and fight him to the best advantage. McPher- son, with thirty thousand of the best men in America, will cross the Tennessee at Decatur and feel for Thomas. Should Johnston fall behind the Chattahoo- chie I would feign to the right, but pass to the left, and act on Atlanta. This is about as far ahead as I feel disposed to look."
The three armies which General Sherman had under his command numbered one hundred thousand men. General Johnston was, perhaps with the exception of General Lee, the ablest commander of the Confederacy. Early in April the renowned campaign of General Sherman to Atlanta, Savannah and Raleigh was commenced. With sixty thousand men he made a march of over a thousand miles, through the heart of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, until his victorious columns were blended with the triumphal army of General Grant in the possession of Richmond, and the hideous rebellion was quelled.
This wonderful campaign of Sherman was, beyond all question, the most brilliant achievement of the war. It was brilliant, but it was awful. No tongue can tell the woes which resulted from that dreadful march. The rebels always fought from behind carefully prepared ramparts. These formidable works, bristling with artillery and musketry, the patriot troops were compelled to storm. Though the rebels were ever beaten, and driven to other intrenchments in the rear, the Union victories were purchased at a fearful sacrifice of life. Each death sent a wail of grief to some distant home. In these dreadful battles the patriots lost on the first forty miles of their march, nearly five thousand men. The rebels lost perhaps half as many more. Thus the groans, which rose from the mangled and the dying on these fields of blood, were echoed back from between eight and nine thousand woe-stricken families. Many children were made orphans ; many maidens lost their lovers ; many mothers were widowed and doomed to life-long want.
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But onward advanced the impetuous columns of Sherman, sweeping all oppo- sition before them. In one short battle on the 27th of May, three thousand patriot soldiers were torn to pieces by the terrible enginery of war, while the rebels, behind good breastworks, lost but four hundred and fifty. At length, through a long series of bloody battles, Atlanta was reached and captured. Seventy-two days had been occupied in advancing one hundred miles. In one of the battles before that strongly intrenched city General Sherman struck down five thousand rebel soldiers while his own loss was but six hundred. But these five thousand men were our fellow-countrymen, with parents, and many with wives and children, whose tears have not yet ceased to flow.
General Sherman's care of his soldiers and tender regard for the feelings of his officers won for him the warmest affection of his whole army. He intended to make Atlanta the base of his infinitely important future operations, which were kept a profound secret even from his subordinate officers. He deemed it needful that the whole of Atlanta should be converted into a military fortress, and that no rebel families should be left there to consume his provisions, spy out his plans and communicate them to the enemy. He therefore issued an order that all the inhabitants should leave the place. Those who professed to adhere to the Union, were to be carefully transported to the North, within the Union lines, there to be tenderly fed and housed at the expense of the government. Those who adhered to the rebellion were ordered to go to the south, within the rebel lines, where the Confederate Government was bound to take care of them. The Mayor of Atlanta, remonstrating against this order, addressed the follow- ing pathetic appeal to General Sherman :
" It involves in the aggregate consequences appalling and heart-rendering. Many poor women are in an advanced state of pregnancy. Others have young children, and their husbands are either in the army, prisoners or dead. Some say ' I have such an one sick at home. Who will wait on them when I am gone ?' Others say ' What are we to do? We have no houses to go to, and no means to buy, build or rent any. No parents, relatives or friends to go to.'
"The country, south of this, is already crowded with refugees, and without houses to accommodate the people. Many are now starving in churches and other out buildings. This being so, how is it possible for the people here, mostly women and children, to find any shelter? How can they live through the Winter in the woods?"
In General Sherman's reply he said, " I give full credit to your statement of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my order, simply because my orders are not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions, yea hundreds of millions, outside of Atlanta have a deep interest.
" The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it. And those who brought war on our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against the terrible hardships of war.
" When peace comes, you may call upon me for anything.
Then will I share
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with you the last crust, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter. Now you must go and take with you the old and feeble. Feed them and nurse them, and build for them, in more quiet places, proper habitations to shield them against the weather, until the mad pas- sions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to settle on your old homes of Atlanta."
" War is cruelty. You cannot refine it." This sentiment was certainly true in the sense in which General Sherman used it. You cannot throw bomb shells affectionately, and make cavalry charges in a gentle and loving spirit, and bom- bard cities without endangering the limbs of mothers and maidens. It was not very modest for the Secessionists to call upon our government to protect the families of those soldiers who were fighting for the destruction of the Union. It was right for General Sherman to demand that the Confederate government, which was even then starving tens of thousands of northern prisoners of war at Andersonville, to support the families of those men whom that government had enlisted for the entire overthrow of our nationality.
We cannot follow General Sherman in his heroic march to Savannah. On the 22d of December, 1865, he telegraphed President Lincoln :
"I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns, and plenty of ammunition, and also about twen- ty-five thousand bales of cotton."
On the 15th of January he recommenced his march through South Carolina to Raleigh, in North Carolina. About the middle of March he entered Raleigh, the victor in innumerable battles, and having severely punished and greatly weakened the enemy, his magnificent campaign was ended. The foe could no longer oppose him, and he had reached a point from which he held unobstructed communication with the army of General Grant. On the 12th of April, as these triumphant columns were approaching Raleigh, the joyful shout ran along the lines, " Lee has surrendered his whole army to Grant." Sherman issued the following order, which was read to the assembled staff officers and commanders of brigades :
" The general commanding announces to the army that he has official notice, from General Grant, that General Lee surrendered to him his entire army on the 9th instant, at Appomattox Court House.
" Glory be to God and our country ; and all honor to our comrades in arms towards whom we are marching. A little more labor, a little more toil on our part, and the great race is won, and our Government stands regenerated after its four years of bloody war."
Two days after this, on the evening of the 14th, General Johnston sent in a flag of truce, with proposals for surrender. At that time there was great diver- sity of opinion, or rather there was no established opinion, respecting the proper mode of reconstructing the Rebel States, and thus reorganizing the Union. Gen- eral Sherman made proposals to Johnston, to be submitted to the President, which he supposed to be in accordance with the views of the Government. He was mistaken. The Government rejected them, and so did the nation at large. But no one can doubt the purity of General Sherman's motives, in his earnest desire to reunite the North and South in the bonds of a lasting peace. General
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Sherman, being informed of the rejection, at Washington, of the memorandum of agreement, notified General Johnston of the fact, and demanded surrender upon the same terms granted to General Lee. Johnston's condition was hope- less, and the surrender was made.
The renown of General Sherman was now such that very many urged his claims as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. When that high office was conferred upon General Grant, the position of Lieut. General, which he was thus called upon to vacate was, by universal assent, conferred upon General Sherman. From that day to this his popularity has been on the increase, and none will deny that he merits the gratitude of a nation which he has so efficiently and faithfully served.
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CHAPTER XLV.
THE TOLEDO WAR AND THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.
ORIGIN OF THE DIFFICULTY BETWEEN OHIO AND MICHIGAN- THE IMPRACTICABLE LINE - MENACES OF CIVIL WAR -THE AMICABLE SETTLEMENT - OHIO IN 1860-ITS WONDERFUL INCREASE IN POPULATION - WEALTH AND PRODUCTIONS- THE OBJECT OF THE REBELLION - THE WOES IT HAS CAUSED - THE HONOR DUE THE DEFENDERS OF THE UNION - PA- TRIOTISM OF THE PEOPLE OF OHIO - JOHN MORGAN'S RAID- HEROIC RESISTANCE - THE ENTIRE DISCOMFITURE AND DE- STRUCTION OF THE REBELS- PARTING WORDS.
A DIFFICULTY arose between the inhabitants of the State of Ohio and those of the then Territory of Michigan which calls for brief notice. The Ordinance of the United States Congress of 1789 providing for a government for the Northwest Territory, de- fined the northern boundaries of the present States of Ohio, In- diana and Illinois, by the line dividing the United States from the British Possessions. There was also a proviso included that Congress might hereafter form one or two states in the territory north of a line drawn east and west from the extreme southerly bend of Lake Michigan.
When in 1802 the people of Ohio were authorized to form a state constitution the northern boundary was defined by Con- gress, as formed "by an east and west line drawn through the southerly extremity of Lake Michigan, running east, after inter- secting the due north line from the mouth of the Great Miami (the Maumee), until it shall intersect Lake Erie or the territorial line, and thence with the same through Lake Erie to the Penn- sylvania line."
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The Maumee River was then called the Great Miami or Miami of the Lake. In 1808 the Territory of Michigan was organized. The boundaries were defined as including " the territory which lies north of a line drawn east from the southerly bend of Lake Michigan, until it shall intersect Lake Erie, and east of a line drawn from the said southerly bend through the middle of said lake to its northern extremity, and thence due north to the northern boundary of the United States."
It was subsequently found that such a line was impossible. A line running due east from the southern extremity of Lake Michi- gan, instead of striking Lake Erie, would pass nearly eight miles south of its shores, dividing the Counties of Cuyahoga, Geauga and Ashtabula. Thus there was disputed territory running the whole length of the north line of the State of Ohio. It was about eight miles in width in the east, and five miles in the west. This land included much of the Connecticut Reserve. It was very valuable farming land. It commanded much of the commerce of the vast lakes. But what rendered it particularly important was, that it contained the excellent harbor on the Maumee where the beautiful City of Toledo now stands. The place was then called Swan Creek.
As the country of Ohio became rapidly settled, and internal improvements of great magnitude were contemplated, and espec- ially a canal to traverse the whole breadth of the State, from Cincinnati to the navigable waters of the Maumee, the inhabi- tants of Ohio deemed the possession of this territory of vital im- portance. There can be no question that Congress intended that the northern boundary of Ohio should extend to the shores of the lake. There can be as little question that the boundary which Congress, with its then limited geographical knowledge, distinctly defined, did not extend to those shores, or rather was an impossi- ble one.
The Territory of Michigan was also rapidly filling up with an intelligent, vigorous and enterprising population. That magnifi- cent peninsula extended far away into the icy north, up to the forty- fifth degree of latitude. Her far-seeing statesmen were alive to the importance of a commercial center in her most southern and sunny region.
The few inhabitants in the then wilderness of Swan Creek were very anxious that their little town should be made the termination
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
of the Maumee Canal. They therefore petitioned Governor Lucas to extend the laws of Ohio over them. The authorities of Michi- gan had previously exercised jurisdiction there. In accordance with the suggestion of the governor, the Legislature of Ohio, on the twenty-third of February, 1835, passed a law extending the dominion of the state over that region.
But only a few days before this the Territorial Legislature of Michigan, alarmed by the threatening aspect of affairs, had passed, on the twelfth of February, " An act to prevent the organization of a foreign jurisdiction within the limits of the Territory of Michigan." By this act any person who should exercise any offi- cial functions within the limits of the Territory of Michigan, un- less commissioned by the Government of the United States or of the Territory of Michigan, was liable to a penalty of a fine of one thousand dollars and five years' imprisonment at hard labor.
The inhabitants of the disputed territory were somewhat divided in opinion, and all were greatly perplexed in deciding what laws they should obey. On the thirty-first of March, Governor Lucas, accompanied by his staff and boundary commissioners, arrived at Perrysburg, supported by a military force of six hundred men fully armed and equipped. This strong body took up its encampment at old Fort Miami. Governor Mason of Michigan hastened to Fort Swan, but a few miles below Perrysburg, with a force of about a thousand men. A bloody conflict seemed inevitable. Governor Mason, being in possession, in this trial was defendant. Governor Lucas was plaintiff.
Just at the critical moment two commissioners arrived from Washington to endeavor to arrest hostilities. They with difficulty succeeded in persuading the antagonistic parties to allow the in- habitants of the disputed territory to obey either jurisdiction they might please until the next Congress could meet and settle the question. Andrew Jackson, who was then President of the United States, wrote to Benjamin F. Butler, of New York, the attorney- general, for his official opinion in regard to the President's power over the two parties. He replied that the President had no power to annul a law of the territorial legislature, and that the act of the Legislature of Ohio in extending jurisdiction over a part of the Territory of Michigan was a serious violation of the laws of the United States, authorizing executive interposition. His decision was decidedly in favor of Michigan.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
The antagonistic parties still continued facing each other, and many scenes, both tragic and comic, ensued. At the next session of Congress the question was taken up, and after being thoroughly discussed was decided in favor of Ohio. Michigan in the mean- time had applied for admission as a state. She was told that her request could be granted only upon condition of her recognizing the boundary established by Congress. She received, however, as an equivalent for the narrow strip she had claimed along her southern border, the large peninsula between Lakes Huron, Michi- gan and Superior, now found to be so rich in mineral ores. Thus this important question was settled without resorting to the folly of killing and burning
And now let us turn to the wonderful efficiency of Ohio in the terrible war of the rebellion. As has been seen, at the com- mencement of this century the region now organized as Ohio was a vast wilderness of gigantic forests and pathless morasses, over and through which the painted savage pursued his game. Scarcely the solitary hut of a white man could be found through all the wide extended realm. Nearly the whole surface was covered with the gloom of an almost impenetrable forest. Look at Ohio after the lapse of three-score years. In the year 1860 Ohio contained nearly a million and a half of inhabitants. And it is safe to say that a more intelligent, enterprising and religious population could nowhere be found. Her stately cities, her beautiful rural villages, her palatial mansions and her cottage homes, commanded the ad- miration of all tourists. The state had already become the third in wealth and rank in the Union. More than half of its luxuri- ant surface was under cultivation.
One-half of the male inhabitants of the state were agricultur- ists, busy, energetic men, under whose sinewy arms the desert was blossoming like the rose. Two hundred and seventy-seven thousand owned farms averaging nearly one hundred acres each. The cul- tivation was so thorough, and the fertility of the soil so abundant that the state produced annually four times the amount of food, animal and vegetable, which was required for the support of its inhabitants. In the year 1860 Ohio, besides feeding abundantly her own million and a half of hungry mouths, exported about two million barrels of flour, two and a half million bushels of wheat, three million bushels of other grains, and five hundred thousand barrels of pork. The value of these exports thus earned by the
GEN. WILLIAM T.SHERMAN.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
agricultural labors of the people amounted to fifty-six and a half million dollars.
The manufacturers were not less busy, or less profitably em- ployed. The products of their skilled labor reached the sum of one hundred and twenty-two million dollars. In Cincinnati, where but three-score years before wolves were howling through an almost unbroken forest, or a half naked Indian appeared, treading the narrow trail to exchange the skin of a deer or the fur of a beaver for a quart of whisky or a pound of powder, one of the most beautiful cities on the globe had arisen, containing a population of two hundred thousand souls. In that city alone, in that one year, clothing was manufactured to the amount of sixteen million dollars.
The assessed value of the taxable property of the inhabitants was a thousand million dollars. Eminently wise legislation had provided free schools for all the children, that they might be trained to the intelligent exercise of American citizenship. To feed the cravings of the reading multitude for information, twenty- four newspapers were published in the state, many of them having wide circulation. There were sixty-five weekly journals, and fifty- four monthly. The aggregate circulation of these was thirty-two million copies. The amount of information thus sent to all the varied dwellings of the realm cannot be computed. The church edifices contained sittings enough for the entire population of the state.
It is with reluctance that I speak of that cruel, fratricidal war of the late rebellion, when American was arrayed against Amer- ican, and brother against brother, on fields of blood. The woes that war engendered no tongue can tell, no imagination can con- ceive. Thousands of impoverished families of widows and orphans will be in penury until they die. Thousands of homes are des- olated, where true joy can never come again. And yet had rebellion triumphed, had our national banner been trailed in the dust, had this glorious Union been dismembered by the foul assault which was waged against it, the hopes of humanity for free government, would have sunk in a dismal night. Terrible as is the price which has been paid for the integrity of our Union, the result attained is worth it all. Many years must elapse ere another attempt will be made to overthrow this government, which surely, when con- templated in all its aspects, is the best on the globe.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
Upon the overthrow of the throne of Charles X., when Paris and France were menaced with anarchy, that most terrible of all ca- lamities, La Fayette presented Louis Philippe to the vast throngs of the metropolis from the balcony of the Hotel de Ville. As the illustrious champion of universal freedom held the hand of the new candidate for the throne, he said to him :
" You know that I am a republican, and that I regard the Con- stitution of the United States as the most perfect which has ever existed."
"I think as you do," replied Louis Philippe. " It is impossible to pass two years in the United States, as I have done, and not to be of that opinion. But do you think that, in the present state of France, a republican government can be maintained here ?"
" No," said La Fayette ; " that which is necessary for France now is a throne surrounded by republican institutions ; all must be republican."
" That is precisely my opinion," rejoined the monarch, who was just putting on his crown. ยป
When we consider the speakers and the occasion, we must regard this as the highest compliment ever paid to the Constitu- tion of the United States. Our country would be lost to all sense of gratitude should it ever cease to regard with the very highest sentiments of affection and honor those heroic soldiers of our land who rescued from dire rebellion, at the peril and expense of their blood, that glorious flag in whose folds the interests of all humanity are enshrined.
The almost infant State of Ohio sent into the field for the defense of the national life three hundred and ten thousand men. The three most illustrious Generals of the war, William T. Sherman Ulysses S. Grant and Philip H. Sheridan, were natives of Ohio, and received their first appointments from that state. O. S. Mitchel, alike renowned as an astronomer, a patriotic orator and a soldier, was a citizen of Cincinnati. Rosecrans, McDowell and Gilmore, each of whom rendered very efficient service in the great conflict, were sons of Ohio.
E. M. Stanton, whose wonderful executive capacity as head of the War Department, has given him renown throughout all the world, and S. P. Chase, whose wonderful administration of the finances, as Secretary of the Treasury, carried the government safely through expenditures such as no government ever encoun-
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tered before, were both from Ohio. "It was not your generals," said a leading rebel, " who defeated us; it was your Treasury."
In the gloomiest hours of the dreadful strife, when thousands of the bravest hearts were sinking in despair, Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, as Chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, revivified again and again the drooping energies of the nation by his glowing words of cheer. And Thomas C. Schenck, Major General of Volunteers, maimed by the wounds which he had receiv- ed on the field of battle, passed to the House of Representatives, and as Chairman there of the Military Committee, served his country still more efficiently than he could have done with his sword.
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