USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Dayton > The story of Dayton > Part 10
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The Story of Dayton
Wounded at the battle of Bull Run, and forced retirement necessary, Congress again was the goal, and it was said that a "history of the course of Robert C. Schenck in the thirty- ninth and fortieth Congresses would be a complete history of the legislation of our country during the most eventful year of the war."
For five years General Schenck represented our interests at the Court of St. James with dignity, ability, and tact. To him as member of the Joint High Commission, at the Geneva Conference, America is indebted for the resulting peace- ful solution.
This, briefly, is the story of Dayton's most distinguished citi- zen during the nineteenth cen- tury. His fame and honor were ours, because he belonged here. He loved Dayton and worked for her interests while he lived, and now sleeps with others of his day on the green slopes of Woodland Cemetery.
All the banking interests of that day centered around the General Robert C. Schenck. name of Valentine Winters, who in his youth worked in a brick yard at Germantown at ten cents a day, came on foot to Dayton with his belongings in his hand, obtained a clerkship at the remarkable salary of fifty dollars a year, became cashier and then controlling member of the biggest bank in Dayton, promoted large busi- ness interests, built railroads, equipped a company of troops for the Civil War, supported whole families of soldiers, loaned the State of Ohio large sums with which to carry on the war, and died at last full of honors, after celebrating his golden anniversary with wife, nine children, and twenty- three grandchildren.
No story of Dayton could possibly be written that did not meet the name and vivid personality of Dr. Thomas E.
RODUCE &FORWARDING
R.CHAMBERS.
The Canal Basin in 1850.
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The Story of Dayton
Thomas coming into its pages constantly during the thirteen years in which he lived here. As minister of the First Pres- byterian Church, he preached throughout the most passion- ate period of our history. His was the most scholarly mind that ever occupied a Dayton pulpit. With vast Biblical knowledge, a fund of pathos and irony, absolute fearlessness in attacking wrong, Doctor Thomas' preaching greatly out- lived his own generation and is remembered with appreciation now, more than forty years after his death. During the great slavery contest, those bitter times of riot and hate, of fugitive slaves in one's cellars, of public speakers rotten-egged on the platform, of resistance to gov- ernment, his voice was always heard against injustice, whether the question was one of slavery or the Mexican War. As a boy of six, when landing from a ship Dr. Thomas E. Thomas Pastor First Presbyterian Church. at Baltimore, the first sight that met the eyes of Thomas E. Thomas was the public whipping of a slave. The experi- ence brought out a fiery indignation and made him, before the word had been invented, an abolitionist. In utter disre- gard of warnings against his life, Doctor Thomas came to Dayton and spoke fearlessly against slavery from the steps of the courthouse. So he preached and fought, with pen and tongue, against what he knew was our greatest national sin, until emancipation was an accomplished fact.
To some thoughtful people, of the type not interested in railroads, cash registers, or aeroplanes, Dayton will always be known as the birthplace of one of the sweetest lyric sing- ers in our language, Paul Laurence Dunbar, the negro poet. His verses, published in the pages of the "Century Magazine, took instant literary rank, before the editor of that magazine
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More Men Who Have Made Dayton
discovered that his contributor was a colored man. When, under cover of this prestige, Dunbar went to New York, he found a warm welcome from such men as William Dean Howells, Brander Matthews, James A. Herne, and George W. Cable. Major Pond took him to London, where he re- cited his poems, before many notables, at the home of Col. John Hay, our then ambassador. This was a far cry from the poet's first experiences in the Dayton High School and his later ones, as elevator boy in the Callahan Building. Robert Burns has been cele- brated as the "Plough Boy Poet," but no one has sung the praises of the "Elevator Boy Poet." He has done it for himself in the songs which have sung them- selves into human hearts-white no less than black. In "The Poet and His Song," "When Malindy Sings," "A Drowsy Day," and "Ere Sleep Comes Down to Sooth the Weary Eyes," there is an elevated tone which never has been surpassed. It should be a matter of pride to us all, to re- Paul Laurence Dunbar. member that right here in Day- ton, among our absorbing commercial interests, we have produced a real poet, whose work will never die.
William Dean Howells wrote, in 1915: "He is the chief citizen of your city, and one of the chief citizens of our nation. His poetry will live on as long as delicate humor, genuine feeling, and the music of lyric numbers unite to charm and keep the lovers of instinctively beautiful verse ; while the pathos of his lot will peculiarly endear his memory to all who love their fellow men."
The Union :-- It must and shall be Preserved.
MONTGOMERY COUNTY OHIO UNION PRESIDENTIAL
TICKET. Election November 8, 1-51 ;
For President, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, OF ILLINOIS For Vice President, ANDREW JOHNSON, OF TENNESSEE.
Electors,
JOHN M. CONNELL, )
JOHN P. BILIIN,
JOHN K. GREEN,
STANLEY MATTHEWS,
LEWIS B. GUNCKEL,
STEPHEN JJOHNSTON,
WILLIAM L. WALKER,
MILLS GARDNER,
HENRY W. SMITH,
OZIAS BOWEN,
JACOB SCRUGGS,
WILLIAM SHEFFIELD,
GEORGE A. WALLER,
HENRY F. PAGE,
JAMES R. STANBERY, JOHN H. M. COMBS,
FREDERICK W. WOOD,
LORENZO DANFORD, JOHN McCOOK, . ETH MARSHALL, ABNER KELLOGOR.
Presidential Ticket in the Lincoln-Douglas Campaign-Original at Newcom Cabin.
CHAPTER XV. 1861-1865.
What the Civil War Meant to Dayton.
The response to Lincoln's call for troops. "Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue!" The Dayton boys march out. Neighbor against neighbor. "Killed and missing." A telegram and cheers. A telegram and tears. Peace and union at last.
Dayton in war times. What does that not mean to those who lived through them? If you ask the older men in our city, they will tell you that never were days so interesting or so full of dread; never a time when hearts beat so high or ached so deeply. They will tell you that for months be- fore the war broke out, the words on every one's lips were "States' Rights." "Secession," the "Fugitive Slave Law," and "Abolition"; that the national colors blazed from store win- dows and private houses, from ribbons and notepaper ; that the girls wore red, white, and blue rosettes, the boys played soldier, and little children sat on gate posts and shouted. "Hurrah for the Red, White, and Blue."
With all this enthusiasm, you will be told, went much bitterness. because all the people in Dayton did not feel the same about the war. As the North and the South had con- flicted on the great issues of slavery and States' Rights, so each side of the question was represented by sympathiz- ers right here in Dayton. The Republicans loved their country so much that they wanted her kept strong and united. The Democrats loved their country so much that they could not bear to see her torn to pieces with civil war. The South claimed its rights to perpetuate slavery if it had to break up the Union to do it. To the North there was but one watchword, "The Union must and shall be pre- served." Those who were for peace expressed themselves in anything but a peaceful way, and in return were called
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The Story of Dayton
"Traitors," "Secesh," "Copperheads," and "Butternuts"- the last because of their sympathy with the South, whose sol- diers wore home-made uniforms dyed with butternut juice. Men's tempers got the better of them. Hot talk was not
The Elms that Van Cleve planted. The Levee in 1860.
confined to the elders, but spread to the schools, where fist fights between the sons of opposing sympathizers took place nearly every day. Stones were thrown, and names, too, that hurt as much. Children whose parents were on the
1
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What the Civil War Meant to Dayton
unpopular side, underwent real martyrdom at the hands of their companions. Neighbors who had been lifelong friends no longer spoke on the street.
All this was because of what happened on April 14, 1861, when Fort Sumter was fired on by Southern guns. If that shot had hit our courthouse it could scarcely have caused more consternation in our midst. The whole North was ablaze, and we with it. Newsboys yelled it on the street ; men shook their fists when they talked of it; crowds filled the "Journal" office, waiting for word. The South was de- fiant ; she had rushed into history, and the North was de- termined she should be punished. When, four days later, came Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand men, Dayton was quick to response.
All winter the militia had been drilling, and five com- panies held themselves in readiness for service. The first to answer the call were the Dayton Light Guards, com- manded by Captain Walter Pease. On the evening of the same day, just at dusk, they prepared to march to the train. The armory was on Third Street, east of Main, and there, in the middle of the street, facing the west, the ranks of soldiers formed. Surrounding the young recruits was a solid throng of parents and friends. The last man to join the ranks was the color bearer. Down the armory stairway he slowly stepped, and at the foot paused while he un- wrapped the folds of the Stars and Stripes and flung them out before the eyes of the waiting crowd. So wild was the cheering that nobody heard the horns and drums blar- ing out the national anthem. It was Dayton's first gift to the nation, and those who saw it will never forget.
As the train pulled out of the "Union Depot" (as it used to be called) some tears were shed; (the soldiers were mere boys), but there were more smiles and cheers. Three months at most, it was thought, would see them all back in Dayton and the war over. Not a soul foresaw the long, tragic struggle of the next four years-civil war-"brother against brother."
Daily Danton Journal.
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157
What the Civil Il'ar Meant to Dayton
Within the next few weeks, company after company went out; the Anderson Guards from the Beckel Hall Armory, where the girls presented a banner, and Doctor Thomas made one of his touching prayers; then the Day- ton Zouaves, the Montgomery Riflemen, the Lafayette Yagers-always with the same cheers and prayers ; mothers giving Bibles, small brothers keeping step, and girl friends in curls and hoopskirts waving goodbyes from the sidewalk. It went on all summer: Dayton a beehive of activity with flag raisings, banner presentations and patriotic speeches.
Then presently, with the father and the father's salary gone, the soldiers' families had to be thought of. Mr. Gunckel tersely expressed the obligation when he said, "We must either fight or pay." To this end, the Sanitary Commission was organized among the men, and various aid societies among the women. Five hundred dollars, to pro- vide for the families of enlisted soldiers, were promptly sub- scribed among these several organizations, and the City Council voted ten thousand. The women's societies met daily and rolled bandages, scraped lint, and packed boxes. Every day's occupations were for the war; the music was war music; the colors were war colors; the words on all lips were war, war, war, nothing else was of any moment.
You must not think the school boys of Dayton were idle. Their share of war service was to keep the wood-boxes of the soldiers' wives full to overflowing. This idea originated with S. D. Edgar, who suggested the formation of the "First Ohio Regiment of Woodsawyers," a humorous allu- sion to the fact that most of the Dayton recruits were in the famous "First Ohio." It was entered into with true military spirit, and from ward to ward the idea spread until every boy in town had joined either the "Oregon Bucks" or the "Red Rovers" or the "West Enders" as the occasion might be. If you had lived in war time you would have forgotten how you hated your own woodpile and done your share gallantly with the rest.
158
The Story of Dayton
Montgomery County farmers sent files of loaded wagons into town from all directions. Thirty came in from Beaver- town, forty from Harrison Township, others from the west, all meeting at the courthouse, where they were joined by a deputation of citizens with speeches and a brass band. The procession, nearly one hundred and fifty teams strong, led by the prize wagon drawn by six horses, with Mr. Edgar, flag in hand, on top of the load, wended its way toward the canal basin, at that time used as a public woodyard.
The loads of wood were there deposited, ready for the "First Regiment" to do its work, and all the farmers re- ceived a dinner ticket and many thanks for their patriotism. One of the inducements to men to enlist was the assurance that their families would be well cared for.
All through the summer and fall of 1861, Dayton fairly hummed with recruiting, political speeches, and sewing for the soldiers. All these meetings and marchings, these drill- ings and flag raisings were vastly exciting, but they were not war. It was more than a year before Dayton really felt what war was. Not at Lincoln's call, not when the troops marched away singing,
"We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thou- sand strong,"
but when, on April 8, 1862, the "Journal" printed inconspic- vously a private dispatch from a member of Grant's staff which had been copied from a Chicago paper and was then two days old. It was dated Pittsburg Landing, and read,
"We have fought and won the hardest battle ever waged on this continent."
That was all, but it was enough. The Dayton companies were in that division. Every heart that heard the news stood still.
You may grasp the nervous suspense that the town was under if you read the daily papers of that spring. They are in the files at the Public Library, dim with the dust of 1862, and brown with the flood mud of 1913, but still giving
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What the Civil War Meant to Dayton
out the spirit of those dreadful days. Looking for details of that bloody battle you search in vain through the issues of the week that followed. Not until April fifteenth do you find the first account of the battle of Pittsburg Landing, and not until the seventeenth the list of killed and wounded. Eleven long days to wait for news which meant so much to fathers and mothers in Dayton !
Then, if you had been a boy, you could have seen a side of war that had nothing to do with flag raisings and martial music. You would have gone from high school at noon with a heavy heart, to see the bulletin at the "Journal" office, afraid to look lest you find the name of a dear elder brother and have to take the news home. Even with no personal concern it was a horrifying experience to scan that list, for it more than once held the names of boys on your street or of young business men-fathers of families- drop- ped out of a busy. happy life, Colonel Hiram Strong. never to return.
From that time forth the story was constantly repeated- Missionary Ridge, Antietam, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chick- amauga,-always the war lists, always the wounded soldiers being brought home, always the funerals winding slowly out Brown Street, with muffled drums and a flag draped over the coffin. Then, perhaps, some girl in your class came to school in a black dress and with a different look in her eyes. All this is more than fifty years in the past, yet there are women still living who can never hear a war song or a funeral march without a choking at the throat and a dim- ness in the eye.
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The Story of Dayton
Two gallant young officers, with young families, gave up their lives that year-Luther Bruen and Hiram Strong. The latter was colonel of the Ninety-third Regiment. In his death the town sustained a personal loss, and his funeral wore a dramatic aspect even in those dramatic times. The crowd which followed the body to the cemetery filled the streets from curb to curb with a sombre and silent throng. As the flag-draped coffin was lowered into the earth, Doc- tor Thomas uttered these impressive words,
Luther Bruen.
"Treason dug this grave and Patriotism has filled it."
Is it any wonder that a plain- tive note crept into the war songs? and that while in 1861 we were singing
"The Union forever, Hurrah, boys, hurrah!" in 1863 we sang, "Just before the battle, mother, I am thinking most of you," or, "In the prison cell I sit,
Thinking, mother dear, of you."
They were doggerel, most of them, and set to mere jingles, but what the music lacked, human sentiment made up, and they still grip the heart.
When the First Ohio camped on Tate's Hill on the Springfield Pike, every boy who walked the three miles found something interesting to see when he got there; the clean, white tents in rows, the bright uniforms and prancing horses, the daily drills and manœuvers. A thousand fine young soldiers went from that hill down the road to Dayton and off to the South, some to win and wear laurels and some to a distant grave.
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IlThat the Civil War Meant to Dayton
The contrast to this scene came in 1864, when after the appalling defeat of our forces at Chancellorsville, the Eleventh and Twelfth Army Corps passed through Dayton on its way to rest and reorganize. Train load after train load of flat cars crowded close with soldier boys rolled into the old depot. No bright uniforms here, but hundreds of tired, dusty, and ragged heroes, weary from forced marches and severe fighting, and pale from a diet of half-cooked beans and hardtack. How the women of Dayton hurried to their aid! How they brought armfuls of clothing, fruit, white bread, and jellies to those half-starved boys. Wives, mothi- ers, sisters practically lived at the depot during the three days that the transfer lasted. Here again school boys did their share, running along the sides of the cars with drinking water and newspapers, mailing letters, and doing errands for the soldiers.
In 1863 during the Christmas holidays, in the unfinished second story of the Beckel House, a great bazaar was held. an occasion which brought every one into service. The cantata of "Esther" was presented, under the direction of James Turpin ; eighteen booths representing different coun- tries lined the walls ; there were drapings of red, white, and blue, pretty girls, uniforms, and more gayety than one would think possible in war time. All this activity netted twelve thousand dollars for the benefit of soldiers' families-a good, round sum for those days. During the bazaar week, one certain evening will always be remembered for a re- markable fall of temperature. It had been raining and was unseasonably mild until seven o'clock, when the mercury began to fall, and, by midnight registered thirty degrees be- low zero. It is said that sentries froze at their posts as far south as Georgia.
We shall need to refer to the histories to make some things plain in political situation during these years in Dayton. We had, as our Representative in Congress from this district, Clement L. Vallandigham, a man of powerful personality, forcible eloquence, but of the anti-war, Demo-
The Vallandigham Home.
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What the Civil War Meant to Dayton
crat camp. From first to last he was opposed to the war. On every occasion his voice was raised in protest to the Government, against the levying of taxes for equipment. In a speech in Congress he proclaimed that his vote would be "No, No, No," on any resolution favoring war. This persistent opposition to the Government, at a time when it became necessary to offer bounties to induce men to en- list, became insupportable, and led to a plan to get rid of him. General Burnside was stationed at Cincinnati, and he was offered a company to arrest Vallandigham.
In the middle of the night of May 5, 1863, the tramp of troops was heard coming up Ludlow Street and turning in at First. The house they sought was on the north side near Wilkinson .* A demand for admittance brought no response. Then the neighbors alert for every sound, heard the blows of an axe on the heavy oak doors, then a crash, then silence. The soldiers had penetrated to Mr. Vallan- digham's bedroom and arrested him in the name of the United States Government. He was tried at Cincinnati some days later and sent south of the Confederate lines.
The arrest and trial have since been termed both unjust and unconstitutional. Heated and bitter as were his utter- ances, they were undoubtedly those of a conscientious man. On the other hand, Lincoln said it was not in his heart to order a soldier boy shot for desertion when the voice which had weakened his faith in the government was allowed to go on unchecked. But can you imagine the anger of the friends of Vallandigham here in Dayton, at what seemed to them a brutal violation of the right of free speech ?
As soon as the news of the arrest spread, they gathered around the "Journal" office, ready for violence. The "Jour- nal" had made itself most obnoxious to those who opposed war. The "Empire" had supported Vallandigham. Both papers excelled in abuse and fanned the flames of party exas- peration. The crowd that hooted at the "Journal" office that
*On the site of present residence of H. G. Carnell.
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