USA > Ohio > Topographical and historical sketch of the state of Ohio, with an historical map > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Oct. 6, 1818.
At St. Mary's.
The Miamis surrendered the re- maining Indian territory in Ohio north of the Greenville line, and west of the St. Mary's River.
From the French war of 1754 to the battle of the Maumee Rapids in 1794, a period of forty years, there had been at least 5000 persons killed or captured west of the Alleghanies. Eleven organized military
-------
. ..
---
16
expeditions had been carried on against the western Indians, prior to the war of 1812; seven regular en- gagements fought, and about 1200 men killed. More whites were slain in battle, than there were Indian braves killed in the military expeditions, and by pri- vate raids and murders; yet in 1811 all the Ohio tribes combined could not muster 2000 warriors.
Attempts to determine the correct number of per- sons composing Indian tribes and nations in the olden time, and their precise geographical location, at dif- ferent periods, has resulted in nothing better than estimates. On the accompanying map, I have been governed in the endeavor to fix the general bounda- ries of the Ohio tribes, by the location of their vil- lages. But these are little more than movable camps. Savages, like wild animals, are engaged in perpetual migrations.
Approximate Numbers of the Indian Tribes.
In 1728, the Ottawas of the west end of Lake Erie
were estimated to have (French MSS.) .... 200 warriors.
In 1764, the Shawnees of the Ohio (by Hutchins) .. 500
Delawares of the Ohio. 600
€6 Miamis, or Mineamis, partly in Indiana ..... 350
1
Wyandots or Hurons, partly in Michigan ... 300
66 Senecas and Mingoes of the Six Nations,
partly in Ohio. 200
Ottawas 200
2,350 warriors.
By this rude census, it may be inferred that there were within the limits of the State, at the commence- ment of the Revolution, about 1500 fighting Indians and about 6,000 persons.
OCCUPATION BY THE WHITE RACES .- By the broad and indefinite terms of her first charters, Virginia claimed all the territory embraced in Ohio, and a vast
.
17
territory beyond to the west and northwest, limited only by the great South Sea, a mythical ocean, whose shores had not been seen by white men.
As early as 1748, and probably before, traders in furs, from Virginia and Pennsylvania, penetrated Ohio, along the rivers in canoes, and along the In- dian trails on foot, carrying a budget of trinkets, cloths, and powder, - articles most precious in the eye of the aborigine, and his dusky squaw. George Croghan is known to have been at the mouth of the Cuyahoga in this year. Himself or his brethren in traffic were also at Sandusky.
On the French maps of that date, their boundary is laid down along the crests of the Alleghanies. The movements of the Colonial traders westward brought them in contact with French traders from Detroit. A company of Virginia militia, under Capt. Wm. Trent, took possession of the forks of the Ohio, on the site of Pittsburgh. As the recent peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, like that of Utrecht, left the question of boundaries in North America unsettled, both the French and the English resorted to force in order to test their claims. In 1749, the Governor- General of Canada sent an expedition from Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, by way of Presque Isle (now Erie in Pennsylvania), down the Alleghany and the Ohio rivers, asserting possession of all the eastern branches of the Mississippi. A great company, known as the " Ohio Land Company," was formed in Virginia and in London, having extensive grants on the waters of the Ohio. In 1751 an English trading fort was planted on Loramie's Creek, near the north-west corner of Shelby County, to the mani- fest annoyance of the French. To resent and bring to naught these audacious plans of the American colonists, they strengthened their forts at Miami (now
2
:
18
Fort Wayne), Sandusky, Cuyahoga, and Presque Isle, and determined to take military possession of the Ohio and its waters.
The fort at Loramie's, generally known as Picka- thillory, was destroyed in 1752 by an expedition from the Miami fort, which inaugurated the old French war, to the details of which I cannot refer. In 1759, Gen. Forbes retook Fort Duquesne, at the forks of the Ohio; and in 1760, Montreal, Niagara, and De- troit, with all Canada, came into possession of the English by conquest. This was made complete by a treaty of peace and cession in February, 1763, known as the Treaty of Paris.
The British government, hoping to conciliate the Indian tribes, who much preferred the Frenchmen to the Englishmen, solemnly guaranteed to them the territory north-west of the Ohio forever. None of the Colonial land companies, or the holders of war- rants for military service, were allowed to locate beyond this river. But the exclusion of civilization from the finest country on earth, did not have the effect to conciliate the savages, t.) whom it was de- voted. In the spring and summer of 1763, the great Indian Confederacy under Pontiac or Pondiack, at- tacked every British fort on the western frontiers, and, with the exception of Niagara, Fort Pitt, and Detroit, their success was complete. Not less than 1000 traders, soldiers, and women were killed or made prisoners. Of those not killed, a large part were tortured to death, after the custom of the Northern Indians.
The only fort occupied in Ohio was situated near Sandusky, which shared the fate of all the other iso- lated and feeble ones of the west.
In the autumn of 1764, two important military ex- peditions were sent into the Ohio country. Most of
"
19
1
the troops were colonists, raised in Connecticut, Mas- sachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Col. John Bradstreet commanded the one from Fort Niagara, and Col. Henry Bouquet the southern one, which had its rendezvous at Pittsburgh. Both were officers of the regular service. When Col. Bradstreet with 3000 men, provincials, Indian allies, and regu- lars, reached Presque Isle (Erie in Pa.), in August, the hostile Indians became alarmed. Not being versed in their devious ways, he made a sort of treaty or armistice with a portion of their chiefs, who pro- fessed to be very submissive. Col. Bouquet, with more sagacity, disregarded this arrangement, and pressed on with his 1,600 men by way of Beaver, along the Indian trail, over the hills of Columbiana County, and down the Big Sandy to its mouth. He reached there in October, made a fortified camp, and gave the terrified tribes his ultimatum. Gen. Gage, his commander-in-chief, approved his course, and censured Col. Bradstreet.
.
The Ohio tribes had attacked Col. Bouquet at Bushy Run, on his route to Fort Pitt the year pre- vious, and had been grievously beaten. He advanced along the principal road towards their towns on the Muskingum, with pack-horses and men only, so cau- tiously, that at no moment could they effect a surprise. Not a man or a horse had been lost. Their fears of such a man and his troops, amounted to a panic. Their chiefs gathered at his camp, near where Boli- var now is, in Tuscarawas County, not to ask favors, but to learn their fate. He refused at first to speak with them. On the 11th of October he stated in council that they had kept none of their promises to Col. Bradstreet or to the Government; had not ceased to make war, and had not delivered up their captives. He gave them ten days to deliver into his hands all
20
white persons and negro slaves at the mouth of the Walhonding, where he would then be.
Many of the provincials had volunteered with eagerness in order to recapture their children, wives, and brethren, held as slaves by the tribes, not reflect- ing that at home they held the wives and children of other men in slavery. When those captives, num- bering over two hundred (200), were brought into camp, a scene of joyous transport occurred as they mutually recognized each other, which drew from many a rough soldier honorable tears. Descriptions of this meeting sent to England, made such an im- pression upon Benjamin West, the leading American artist in London, that he executed an historical paint- ing, to commemorate the event.
Bradstreet reached and relieved Detroit, and re- turned to Sandusky. Instead of punishing the tribes who had not brought in their prisoners; on the 18th of October, he hastily went on board his batteaux, and proceeded down the coast with eleven hundred (1100) men, and several 6-pounder guns.
As to the remainder of this march to Niagara, after ten years' diligent research in this country and in Europe, no detailed accounts or reports have been found.
A serious misfortune happened to it at Rocky River, seven (7) miles west of Cleveland, probably within twenty-four hours after its embarcation. The wrecks of boats, muskets, swords, bayonets, coins, spoons, flints, and bullets, have been found along the shore for several miles; and a mound, filled with human skeletons, supposed to be of the party.
The provincial battalion was commanded by Israel Putnam, of Revolutionary fame, then a Lieut .- Colonel. As there were not boats enough after the catastrophe to carry all of the men, the volunteer
1
21
troops are said to have been compelled to go by land, on foot, through the forest, to Presque Isle and Niagara, sustaining themselves by hunting as they marched. It was winter before they reached Niagara, barely saved from perishing by hunger on the route by the good offices of the Senecas.
Ten years after Bouquet, Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, found it necessary again to chastise the irrepressible Shawnees and Delawares of the Scioto. This expedition moved in two columns, one under Col. Andrew Lewis, by way of the Green Brier valley and the Kanawha; the other, under Dun- more, by way of Fort Pitt, descending the Ohio to the mouth of the Hocking. At Point Pleasant, the left wing under Lewis was attacked at sunrise on the 10th of October, 1774, by Cornstalk, Logan, and other Indian chiefs. A fierce personal conflict raged all day, among the trees in the rear of the point, which closed by a decisive rout of the savage war- riors. Dunmore and Lewis joined their forces at Camp Charlotte, on Sippo Creek, in Pickaway County, a few miles south-east of Circleville. The proud- spirited Logan refused to treat; but Cornstalk pur- sued the traditional policy of the red man-agreeing to do what was required of him.
During the Revolution the western Indians joined the British against their revolting Colonies.
A number of expeditions from Kentucky crossed the Ohio to lay waste their towns on the Great and Little Miamis and on the Scioto. In March, 1782, an unauthorized raid was made by the militia of Western Pennsylvania under Col. Williamson, on the Moravian towns situated in Tuscorawas County, near New Philadelphia. This expedition became notorious, wherever history is read and murder con- demned, on account of the butchery of ninety-two
1
22
unarmed men, women, and children. Some of them were beaten to death with clubs, while their hands were uplifted in prayer for the forgiveness of their murderers.
Having, as they supposed, annihilated the Mora- vian band of Delawares, the cabins containing their mangled bodies were set on fire. Their bones are yet found among the ashes of their homes.
1
It was by mere chance, if chance can be said to have control of human affairs, that the Moravian Delawares or " praying Indians " were at their towns on the Muskingum when the bloodthirsty Pennsyl- vanians reached there. This band was then at San- dusky, having been forced away from their homes, in the fall of 1781, by the heathen portion of the tribe. They were suffering from starvation at Sandusky, and had sent a party to the Muskingum, to gather some corn left in the fields the year previous. Not satisfied with the partial slaughter on the Mus- kingum, the frontier-men assembled at the Mingo Bottoms, near Steubenville, on the 25th of May, determined to destroy the remainder of the Del- awares, at their village on the Sandusky River. Colonels Williamson and Crawford, who were both in the first expedition, were candidates for the command, which was decided for Crawford. They set forward on the old trail, with the motto, “No quarter to any Indian, man, woman, or child."
1
On the 4th of June, on the plains near the Broken Sword Creek, in Wyandot County, they were sur- prised by a large Indian force. As might have been expected of murderers, they proved themselves to be cowards; refused obedience to their officers, and fled. More than fifty never returned. The accounts of eye-witnesses to the torture of Col. Crawford, who was captured, embrace more that is fiendish, disgust-
23
ing, and horrible, than can be found in any other historical record of man's depravity. Nothing can exceed the vengeance of the red man, which, in this instance, had many of the elements of retributive justice.
By the close of the Revolution the people of Vir- ginia had become well acquainted with the rich country north of the Ohio. They considered it a part of that colony, and had located themselves on the waters of the Hocking, Muskingum, and Scioto. During the negotiation of the Treaty of Paris, the English commissioners insisted upon the Ohio as a boundary instead of the Lakes.
They had pledged the territory north-west of this river to the aborigines, in the Proclamation of 1760. Our commissioners represented the Ohio Indians as war allies of the British, and therefore a conquered people. However, the Congress of the American Confederacy, as soon as peace was secured, deter- mined to deal fairly with the tribes, and obtain their consent. It is true, this was the consent, in most cases, of a defeated enemy, who would never have made such engagements except under duress, and who intended to break them as soon as it would be safe to do so. The ingredients were force on one side, and cunning on the other. (A list of those so- called treaties has already been given.) In 1784 it became necessary to have a show of military organi- zation, which had been given up at the peace. A battalion was raised, and the command given to Lieut .- Col. Harmar, of Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh, Beaver, and Venango were reoccupied, and Fort Steuben, Fort Harmar, and Fort Washing- ton built.
The protection of law was taken away from in- truders on the Indian lands, who were also removed
1
24
by force. Little was gained, however, in the inter- est of peace by treaties, annuities, and concessions to the savages. Murders were perpetrated continu- ally, by white men and by Indians. The fires of an inherent and deadly animosity of races never went out, though there were moments when the flames were less furious than at others. Scalps were taken on both sides, but prisoners only by the red men, who sometimes subjected them to torture by fire, and sometimes adopted them as children.
In 1784, the State of Virginia relinquished to the United States her claim to the soil of Ohio, except as to that part between the Little Miami and Scioto rivers, and her entire claim to jurisdiction. The first surveys of the Government lands were made in 1785, next the Pennsylvania line, extending westward seven ranges of six miles wide. This was done under the direction of Thomas Hutchins, the Geographer of the United States, who had acted as military en- · gineer to Bouquet. He devised, for the first time in the history of surveying, the simple plan of towns, ranges, and sections, which has been in use in surveys of the public lands ever since.
The impoverished soldiers of the Revolution, espe- cially those of New England, little caring for the hostility of the Indian tribes, determined to settle in the West. Congress offered to take in part pay for lands the worthless scrip of the Confederacy.
After much negotiation, the "Ohio Company " purchased a large tract on the Muskingum, whose first settlers and agents arrived at Fort Harmar, or Marietta, April 7, 1788.
From the 41st parallel of north latitude the State of Connecticut claimed title, under a conveyance from Robert Earl of Warwick, of date March 21, 1632. In 1786, the State offered to sell this land,
1
. .
1
--
. 1
25
1638653
from the Pennsylvania line westward, and a tract of a few thousand acres was purchased, embracing the Salt Spring on the Mahoning, in Weathersfield, Trumbull County. The United States, in 1788, sold a large tract, between the two Miamis, to a New Jersey company, generally known as the "Symmes purchase."
East of the Scioto, and south of the Greenville treaty line, several counties were appropriated by Congress to satisfy the military land bounties of the Revolutionary War. After much bargaining, the United States, in 1800, acknowledged the right of soil to be, in Connecticut, to that part of Ohio north of the 41st parallel, extending 120 miles west of Pennsylvania, the jurisdiction to remain with the Federal Government. By the cession of 1784, Vir- ginia retained only the disposal of the soil between the Scioto and Little Miami, without political juris- diction.
In the Virginia military district the lands were surveyed according to the fancy of the party who held military warrants, taking care to secure the full quantity named in the warrant, and in many cases twice that amount. On the Reserve, and in the United States Military District, the land was surveyed into townships of five miles square, sometimes sub- divided into quarters, and sometimes into 25 sections of a mile square each. The remainder of the State was run into townships of six miles square, by meridians and parallels : each township subdivided into 36 sections of a mile square, or 640 acres, in accordance with the Hutchins' plan. Each section line had at the middle a half-mile post, from which it could be sold and divided into quarters of 160 acres, and this again into quarters of 40 acres each. The first seven ranges, surveyed in 1785-6, were
1
26
offered for sale at New York, in 1787, at two dollars per acre ; which sales were continued at Philadel- phia and at Pittsburgh until 1796. They brought $121,540 into a treasury that was very much in need of money.
As the Indian tribes continued to capture and murder the settlers, it is one of the wonders of human history, that they should persist in emigrating to the Western wilds, and that they were not annihilated. It can be solved only on the basis of a superintend- ing Providence, - by many called destiny, - under which a people disposed to till the soil, were predes- tined to have it. An Indian family cannot subsist upon the spontaneous productions of nature, on less than a township of six miles square, - a tract that, in our State, should support 2,000 people. The in- creasing millions of the race cannot subsist as mere hunters and fishermen. The British Government, however, labored persistently to devote the entire Lake and Mississippi country to such uses.
I can only touch briefly upon the war expeditions organized by the Government to protect the pioneers of the West. Col. Harmar, who was a favorite of Washington, was, in 1789, made a brigadier by bre- vet. This was a merited promotion, and was neces- Bary in order to give him precedence of the State officers in the coming Indian war.
Harmar advanced cautiously from Fort Washing- ton in the fall of 1790, to destroy the villages on the Maumee. He reached the Indian towns which lay around the forks of this river (now Fort Wayne, Indiana), and on the 19th and 22d of October his advanced parties met with a severe disaster. After destroying the corn of the enemy, Harmar consid- ered it prudent to retire to Fort Washington. His instructions required the construction of a fort on the
27
Maumee; but his troops were unreliable, his supplies short, and the season too far advanced to bring for- ward others.
Gen. Arthur St. Clair, the territorial Governor of the Ohio country, was soon after made a major- general and commander-in-chief.
An army was collected at Fort Washington in the fall of 1791, composed, like Harmar's, principally of volunteers, which set forward again to punish the tribes on the waters of the Maumee. Early on the morning of November 4th, 1791, this expedition, about 1400 strong, was surprised in its camp, on the banks of the Wabash, in the south-west part of Mercer County, and entirely dispersed, with the loss of more than 600 men.
The third expedition was intrusted to the com- mand of Gen. Anthony Wayne, but was not pre- pared to leave Fort Washington until the fall of 1793, and was not able to reach the Indian towns that year. Little Turtle was the principal war-chief at the defeat of St. Clair, and also in the campaigns of Wayne in 1793 and 1794. In Indian warfare, secrecy, dispatch, and surprise constitute the princi- pal tactics. Swarming unseen through the thick forest, which surrounded our army on every mile of their advance, the red warriors found no moment and no place where they could execute a surprise. The savage forces fell back to the Maumee, and thence down that river to the Rapids. What befell them there on the 14th of August, 1794, is well known. Wholly discomfited, they rushed to the British fort at the foot of the Rapids, opposite Per- rysburg, closely pursued by our nimble backwoods soldiers, who slaughtered them as they ran. The gates were shut against them. They were saved from annihilation by scattering in all directions in the depths
-
:
28
of the forest. The power of the North-western Con- federacy was there thoroughly broken. From that day the frontier of Ohio became a safe residence, until the outbreak of the war of 1812.
The " Connecticut Land Company " received a conveyance of the "Western Reserve" from the State, Sept. 5, 1795, immediately after Wayne's treaty at Greenville. In this deed, the proprietors took all the rights and powers of the State over the purchase, both of soil and jurisdiction.
Under it they supposed they had power to found a colony and a State, which they called "New Con- necticut," fixing the capital at " Cleaveland." But the recent Constitution of the United States, with new ideas of State rights, and the conflicting claim of Virginia, which had been transferred to the Fed- eral Government, destroyed this expectation. In 1800 a compromise was effected, the Land Company retaining the soil, and the Government the jurisdic- tion.
Gen. St. Clair resigned the command of the army in 1792, but remained Governor of the territory north-west of the Ohio. This temporary government, which began in 1788, and terminated March 4, 1803, was one of the political anomalies of the times. The Governor was inclined to be absolute, leaning to the old British views of prerogative. A number of talented, ambitious, and energetic young men, with strong Democratic proclivities, in consonance with the administration of 1801, controlled the territorial legislature, and were bitterly opposed to St. Clair. They devised means to get rid of him, by organizing a State. Before this was fully effected, he was re- moved by the President. A convention to form a Constitution was convened at Chillicothe, in Novem- ber, 1802, which adopted one, without the consent or
-----
.29
dissent of the people, and Congress legalized their proceedings.
The progress of settlement was rapid until the second war with England occurred, in 1812. This brought suddenly upon the frontiers the horrors of Indian warfare.
Our space does not allow of much detail concern- ing this war. There were no settlements in the north-western part of the State, except along the Maumee river. The military of the State constituted four divisions, of which the fourth embraced about one-third of its territory, on the north-east, in com- mand of Major-Gen. Elijah Wadsworth, an officer of the Revolution.
As there had been anticipations of war, when they became real by the declaration of June 19, 1812, political differences were forgotten, and by unani- mous consent, the militia resolved to defend their country. A regiment of this division, under Col. John Campbell, was ordered out as soon as the de- claration arrived, on the 25th of June. It reached Cleveland on the 10th of July, and Lower Sandusky or Fort Stephenson, on the 17th. When news arrived of the disgraceful capitulation of Gen. Hull, on the 16th of August, the entire division was ordered for- ward. All the able-bodied men of the Reserve seized their rifles and started for the frontier.
Most of the 3d Brigade, commanded by Gen. Simon Perkins, were at the rendezvous at Cleveland on the 26th of August.
With equal alacrity three regiments had been raised before the declaration, in the central and south- western part of the State, under Cols. Cass, Mc- Arthur, and Findlay, to form part of Gen. Hull's garrison at Detroit. By the surrender, two of these regiments were lost.
/
30
Having been put upon their parole by the British general, the men came in open boats to Cleveland, full of indignation against their commander. Spread- ing themselves over the State, the people were ad- vised of the completeness of the disaster, and that no sufficient means of defence were in possession of the Government. But one sentiment pervaded the frontier men of Kentucky and Ohio. Their legisla- tures had thoroughly organized the militia. On the 5th of September, the Secretary of War called upon Governor Meigs, of Ohio, for 1500 men from each division, to be advanced to the Maumee, where Gen. Winchester was in command.
Gen. Harrison had been placed in command of the Kentucky levies, now on their way to Fort Defiance. On the 27th of September, he was installed as com- mander-in-chief of the army of the Northwest. His plan was to advance to the Maumee by three routes. These and other principal military roads of this and prior wars are laid down on the map. The troops from the 4th division were to open roads and con- centrate, by way of Cleveland, the old Portage, and Mansfield; at Lower Sandusky, constitu ting the right wing. From Franklinton and Urbana, the middle column followed Hull's road nearly north to the Rapids, through an unbroken wilderness, with a branch to Upper Sandusky, and down the river to Fort Stephenson. From there a road was cut and bridged, through the most extensive swamp in the State, filled with malaria, direct to the Rapids of the Maumee. On all these lines, block-houses or stock- ades, formerly called " forts," were constructed, at about a day's march apart.
I must pass over the fatal expedition of Winchester to the river Raisin, in January, 1813, and the im- portant affairs which occurred around Fort Meigs in
31
May following. During that summer the north- western army was concentrated on the Sandusky river, awaiting the result of Perry's fleet then cruis- ing in the west part of Lake Erie.
Immediately after his victory of September 10th, Harrison crossed his army to Malden, and on the 5th of October, put an end to the war on this frontier, at the Moravian towns in Canada.
When the war closed, the public rejoicings, fêtes, and carousals were no less hearty than those of the peace of 1783. Especially at the West, the years which succeeded were like those which followed the Revolution, - a period of universal prostration in finance and business. Here, indeed, the rich soil furnished an abundance of food; but there was no inducement to raise a surplus, for which there was no market. Money was, for general use and circu- lation, entirely wanting. With the price of wheat at 25 cents per bushel, and corn 12 to 16 cents, payable only in trade or barter, the mere payment of taxes was a source of universal distress. It was not until the canal, commenced in 1825, reached the interior of the State, in 1830, that the State of Ohio was re- lieved from these embarrassments, and entered upon a career of material prosperity, which has had no serious check since that day; as the annexed table sufficiently demonstrates.
Taxable Property in Ohio, at Periods of Twenty Years.
1810, not given, tax levied $92,702, estimated at ...... $25,000,000 1830, (report of 1829) 66,724,299 1850 439,996,340
1870
2,234,160,300
Area 39,964 square miles.
By comparing this with the population, it will appear that the ratio of increase in property is much the most rapid.
/
32
Population of Five Largest Cities, 1870.
Cincinnati. 216,239
Cleveland 92,829
Toledo 31,584
Columbus. 31,274
Dayton
30,473
Of the State (third in the Union) 2,665,260.
State Debt (1870) $9,732,078 Total Indebtedness, State, County, and Town, (1870). $22,241,983
THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. - On the part of the United States, this might be styled a "holy war;" on the part of Ohio, a war of defence. She was threatened by a powerful conspiracy, gotten up by the worst of men for the worst of purposes. While the Federal Government was lax in its pre- cautions, armed traitors approached the Ohio border in West Virginia. As soon as the Proclamation of April 15, 1861, reached this State, her population was moved by one all - pervading impulse. The militia had, for many years, been regarded as a standing source of merriment, by the name of the " corn-stalk troops."
A few companies of organized volunteers, with arms and uniforms, existed in the cities, not exceed- ing 1500 men. These scattered companies started for Columbus so promptly, that, on the 18th, two regiments were organized there. Before sunrise of the 19th, the First and Second Ohio Volunteers were on their way to Washington, without arms, clothing, or rations. The President had called for thirteen regiments from this State, and the men for thirty regiments were on their way to the State capital.
At Washington, the rebellion was not as well un- derstood as it was here. The Government refused the surplus troops, but the Ohio Legislature author-
1
33
ized Gov. Dennison to put ten additional regiments in the field, as a defensive measure, and gave him power to carry on this defence outside the State. For this policy there were the best of reasons, both military and political. That part of Virginia along the Ohio river was loyal, and well knowing the mad animus of secession, was calling on us for . help.
.
In Indiana, the people and their Executive were equally energetic. Six of her surplus regiments has- tened, with the Ohio troops, into West Virginia, and took possession of the B. & O. Railway. Together, they soon achieved the victories of Philippi, Laurel Hill, Rich Mountain, and Carrick's Ford. Under Gen. Cox, the Ohio troops drove Gov. Wise up the Kanawha Valley, over the mountains whence he came.
Although the Government was not saved by states- manship or generalship, but by the exhaustless cour- age and determination of the people, Ohio furnished her full share of leading men. Her most prominent generals were, Grant, Sheridan, Sherman, McPher- son, Rosecranz, McClellan, McDowell, Mitchell, Gil- more, Hazen, Sill, Stanley, and Steadman, - all but one children of the country, reared at West Point for such emergencies. Before the close of the con- flict, in the spring of 1865, 300,000 of our citizens had become soldiers in the school of actual war. Of these, probably 50,000 were killed in battle or died of wounds or of diseases due to service.
In the battle of Shiloh Church, there were 34 regi- ments and batteries from Ohio ; at Stone River, 38 ; at Chickamauga, 48; and at Mission Ridge, 34.
At least three out of five of her able-bodied men stood in the line of battle. On the headstone of one of these soldiers, buried in a National cemetery, the
3
34
following touching sentiment is inscribed : "We charge the living to preserve that Constitution we have died to defend."
With the close of the war a general prostration of business was expected, with the prominent trou- bles which usually follow great military conflicts. But in no period of her existence, has Ohio pro- gressed more rapidly in wealth, and the accumula -. tion of capital, than during the past seven years.
3530
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.