USA > Pennsylvania > Historical register : notes and queries historical and genealogical, chiefly relating to interior Pennsylvania. Volume I > Part 24
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We next find Ziegler detailed by General St. Clair, then the Commander of the Department of Pennsylvania, as Commissary General of that department, with headquarters at Waynesbor- ough, (from May, 1779, to May, 1780.) It is quite interesting in connection herewith to introduce extracts from a couple of official letters written by Ziegler during that period, as bearing upon the characteristics of the man, as well as the progress he made in acquiring the English language during the short · period of his stay in America, being but little over four years since his arrival. These letters. in his own handwriting, are preserved, among numerous others, in the Archives of the State of Pennsylvania at Harrisburg.
Extract from a letter of Ziegler to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, dated at Waynesborough, May 4, 1779:
"Your Honours Instructions. received from Major Gen. St. Clair the first may, shall strictly observe. [On account of]
*"Pennsylvania in the War of the Revolution," Vol. i, p. 6.
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The scarcity of some articals received by the last cargo, [I] Is- sued of every artical one Week[s] Allowance to the non com- missioned Officers and Soldiers only, [and will] Keep the rest for the Gentlemen Officiers, except spirit and Soap, which will be sufficient Quantity on hand for distribution for the Line this [these] 3 weeks; the[y] approve of it, if it would have your Honours Approbation by doing so allwase [always] in the future. This moment have an Opportunity to send with Cap- tain Heydrick, of Philadelphia, 6000 dollars to Lieut. Col'o. Farmer.
"Honourable Gentlemen, I am, &c., DAVID ZIEGLER, Capt. 1st Penn'a. Reg't."
Extract from a letter dated December 26, 1779, and addressed to President Joseph Reed :
"Honourable General,
"Great Uneasiness was among the Gentlemen Officiers in not receiving Tea and Coffee, or some article in Liu of said. After informing them that it could not be procured, they all was Sat- isfay'd. Humbly I beg your Excellency of [for] a few Lines to the Officiers Commanding the Division in regard to this, which would have more to say than if [I] was Able to Speak a week long to them, and would take [give] general Satisfac- tion in the Line. I am no writer to make Expressions, how well it would be for the Gentlemen which takes my place after this.
" The Artillery, 4th and 11th P. Regiments proposed to draw from me by the 1st January. I therefore send my Serjeant to Philad'a for forwarding a Large Cargo, which will be trans- ported by Land from Philadelphia.
"Honourable General, I have the Honour to be &c.,
DAVID ZIEGLER, Capt. 1. P. Reg't."
Ziegler, however, loved the active service better than the attending to the troublesome business affairs of the commis- sary department. Again and again he applied to the Supreme Executive Council to relieve him of this disagreeable position,
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so that he might take to the field once more-his original love. In the beginning of the year 1780, during a temporary illness. he was gratified by receiving a successor in the person of Captain Lytle. but the latter proved inefficient for the place, and Zieg- ler was again ordered on duty at the commissariate depart- ment. Under date of April 27, 1780, he writes to President Reed : "I should be very happy if Mr. Lytle could fulfil the post, as I would rather do my duty in the regiment : but as it is the desire of the Honble. Counsil that I should resume the office [that of Commissary-General.] I should be very happy if agreeable to the Honble. Counsil that Mr. Lytle should issue and other [another] Cargo, and then if he does not get Acquainted with the Business. I cannot refuse, &c."
Of the high estimation in which Ziegler's services in this department were held by the authorities, we have an apprecia- tive testimony in the correspondence between Colonel Francis Johnston and President Reed. Colonel Johnston, in a letter to Reed, dated Morristown, May 2, 1780, complains that the Council intended to again put Captain Ziegler in the charge of the commissary-general's department, and dismissing Mr. Lytle therefrom, to which President Reed replies, on May 10, 1780, as follows: "SIR :- I received your Favour of the 2d Inst. As Mr. Lytle only acted during Capt. Ziegler's Absence from Camp, and the office of issuing the stores must be at- tended with a great deal of Trouble, we didn't expect our Intimation to Capt. Ziegler could have given any Uneasiness. As we had no Intention to hurt Mr. Lytle's feelings, or injure his character, we have no Difficulty in saying so, and hope on a like occasion he will express himself more cautiously. At the same Time from our Knowledge and Experience of Capt. Ziegler, the Regularity of his Accounts, his Accommodating himself to our Circumstances, and I may add also his respect and attention to the authority of the state, we did not desire any change, and allways considered Mr. Lytle as temporary officer during Capt. Ziegler's Illness. . . If Capt. Ziegler can resume the Office, it would be most agreeable to us ; if he cannot, Mr. Lytle may continue, or the command g
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Officer of the Division may nominate one who will be agree- able to the officers."
It seems that his wishes were gratified, for we find him, August 2, again with his regiment at Verplank's Point on the Hudson, where he presided that day at a court-martial. Never- theless, when in the division to which his regiment belonged, (St. Clair's,) there were derelictions in the commissary or quarter- master departments, he would invariably be sent to attend to the matter. Notices like the following : "Capt. Ziegler was sent to look after the Commissary, who failed to appear ;" and " Capt. Ziegler was dispatched to procure a new store of cloth- ing, or of provisions ;" or "Capt. Ziegler arrived this morning with his stores," may be found all through Feltman's or Denny's journals.
He was, likewise, considered a model disciplinarian, and many proofs are extant on the order-books of St. Clair's Divi- sion, testifying to this fact. For instance, on June 23, 1779 : "Capt. Ziegler is to take the Command of Capt. Hamilton's Company, which appeared very lax at the maneuvres last even- ing, and drill the same, and he is to be obeyed and respected." Or the following notice from Feltman's journal of March 31, 1782 : "Capt. Ziegler was ordered to take command of Capt. Stevenson's Company for drilling, until otherwise commanded."
An excellent and intrepid soldier, he was particularly proud of the discipline and military appearance of the company he commanded, "which," as Alexander Garden, adjutant of Lee's Legion, testifies, "was a model company in the service." On one occasion, while Ziegler was commanded to conduct a num- ber of prisoners to a British out-post, he addressed himself to his men, whom he was ambitious to show to the best advantage; assuming an erect posture, and with an air of great dignity said : "Gentlemens, you are now to meet with civility the enemy of your country, and you must make dem regard you with profound and respectful admiration. Be please, den, to look great, (gerade-straight-erect)-to look graceful-to look · like der Devil-to look like me."
After the revolt of the Pennsylvania Line, which to subdue, Ziegler aided St. Clair with all his power-his own company
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not being among the mutineers, owing to the strict discipline enforced by Ziegler-General Wayne marched with the rem- nant of Pennsylvania troops to Virginia, where he joined Gen- eral Lafayette, June 9th, 1781. We find Ziegler here in active service, also participating in the siege of Yorktown, his com- pany of Wayne's army belonging to the Division of the Baron Steuben, that held the trenches on the day of capitulation.
The fall of Yorktown virtually ended the war. Neverthe- less, there was as yet no peace, nor was there a cessation of hostilities agreed upon. So the Pennsylvanians under Wayne were ordered to South Carolina, where they joined the army of General Greene at Round O, January 4th 1782. Mean- while, Ziegler was again detached on commissary duties, but on March 29th 1782, rejoined his regiment. From that time on we have very little information of his movements, excepting that on April 12th he was sent with a flag of truce to the enemy's lines.
The end of the war came, however, and, though it was ac- ceptable in the highest degree to the American people, it was not quite so welcome to the soldiers of fortune, who sought not only reputation, but also support, by their swords. This was likewise the case with Captain Ziegler.
Alexander Garden, in his " Anecdotes of the American Revo- lution," ( Vol. ¿ , p. 370,) relates the following of our meritorious officer: "I remember full well, when the army was reviewed for the last time on James' Island, and a feu de joie was fired to celebrate the return of peace, that Captain Ziegler of the Pennsylvania Line, after saluting General Greene, significantly shrugging up his shoulders, and dropping the point of his sword, gave vent to an agony of tears. The review ended. On being questioned as to the cause of his emotion, he feel- ingly said-'Although I am happy in the thought that my fellow-soldiers may now seek their homes to enjoy the rewards of their toils and all the delights of domestic felicity, I can-, not but remember that I am left alone on the busy scene of life, a wanderer, without friends, and without employment ; and that, a soldier from infancy, I am now, in the decline of life, compelled to seek a precarious subsistence in some new
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channel, where ignorance and inability may mar my fortune, and condemn me to perpetual obscurity.'" Garden adds that that was only the purport of his speech in plain language, but that it was not in the exact words, as Ziegler's usual style of speaking was a mixture of German and English words, by which he formed a dialect not easily to be comprehended.
But Captain Ziegler should not end his life in obscurity,- a fate which he dreaded so much. He was destined to become a useful American citizen, and beside earn the distinction of becoming the first chief magistrate of the metropolitan city of the Ohio valley. With the chronicles of Cincinnati his name will forever be indestructible linked together, and when the future historian of the "Queen City " shall delineate the events which indicate the tracings of that city's annals, he will find the footmarks of David Ziegler ingrafted so indelibly on its monumental rock that he cannot but take that cognizance thereof, which is due to one of its most distinguished and honorable citizens.
To return to the narrative of Ziegler's life. When the Revo- lutionary army was mustered out of service, which in his case took place January 1, 1783, he settled in Carlisle, Pa., where he established a grocery and produce store. This was, how- ever, not precisely in accordance with the sapidity of our man, born to military life, and so he was highly gratified when, through the intercession of General Irvine, he received again a captain's commission from President Dickinson, of Pennsyl- vania, to take part in the then threatening western Indian war. Ziegler was assigned to the first Pennsylvania regiment, under command of Colonel Josiah Harmar, and soon after detailed for the recruiting service, to raise for himself a company, (August, 1784,) with which he marched to Fort MacIntosh, at the time the deputation from Congress concluded their treaty with the western Indian tribes (1785.) In the autumn of the same year Major Doughty was detailed from Fort MacIntosh to march with three hundred men to the mouth of the Musk- ingum river, to build there the "Fort Harmar," on the spot where the city of Marietta now stands. On May 4, 1786, Cap- tain Ziegler, with his company-the fifth of the newly re-organ-
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ized first regiment of the line under the authority of Congress -joined Major Doughty at Fort Harmar, from whence he was dispatched to the mouth of the Great Miami river, where he erected Fort Finney (October. 1786.) Here he remained until the summer of 1787. when his company was ordered to the Wabash, to take part in the expedition of General George Rogers Clark against the Kickapoos.
During his stay at Fort Harmarhe had a contest of rank with Captain Ferguson, who had joined the service after Zieg- ler, but whose company was mustered into the service of Con- gress a few days before Ziegler's. In spite of Colonel Harmar's siding with Captain Ferguson, Ziegler came out the victor, General Knox, then Secretary of War, ruling that the service began with the mustering of the troops by the Province of Pennsylvania, before Congress had resolved to make the army general, and of the United States. Ziegler, therefore, was un- questionably the senior in the service, and had the priority of rank. When Washington-1789-became President, he settled the dispute by appointing Ferguson to a captaincy of the artillery in Harmar's little army, and promoting Ziegler to be major of the regular army ; "a deserved rebuke," writes Klauprecht, "to the intrigues that sought to shove a highly meritorious officer to the rear, because he happened to be a foreigner." [The records of this quarrel are fully set forth in "Pennsylvania Archives," O. S., vol. xi, p. 240 sq., and the "Colonial Records of Pennsylvania." vol. xv, pp. 381, 394, 437.]
The expedition of General Clark miscarried, or rather failed in its execution, on account of the low water in the Wabash preventing the transportation of supplies for the army, which had to return to Fort Steuben (now Louisville) without result. Ziegler then went back to the Muskingum, and from there re- paired to Philadelphia on a recruiting service. This removed him, to his own satisfaction, from the intriguing sphere of Gen- eral Harmar and his confederates, who had a pique against him, ever since his dispute of rank with Captain Ferguson. In the summer of 1790, he came again to the West and was placed on service at Fort Washington (Cincinnati-then called Losantti-
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ville,) and in the autumn participated in the bloody battle on the upper Maumee, where he distinguished himself by his cool- ness and bravery. General Harmar met, however, with signal defeat and was soon after dismissed from the service. The savages, now intoxicated with joy over their victory, began to swarm all over the settlements on the Ohio, carrying death and destruction with them. They even rushed under the guns of Forts Washington and Harmar, in the attempt to besiege them. A cry came from the settlers at Marietta to Fort Washington, begging Governor St. Clair for protection. In this critical sit- uation the Governor dispatched Major Ziegler to Marietta with two companies for the relief of the inhabitants, giving him at the same time the command of the post. The Major here was completely successful in clearing the Muskingum district from the besieging Indians, and inaugurated such measures that the settlers at once felt confident under his command which won for him the favors of the entire settlement. He had already, pre- viously, during his former stay at Marietta, gained the good side of the inhabitants, and, says Klauprecht in his " Deutsche Chronik in der Geschichte des Ohio-Thales," the love and affec- tion of a fair young lady belonging to one of the first and most respectable families of New England, Miss LUCY ANN SHEF- FIELD, daughter of a sister-in-law of Charles Green ; the young lady, a few months thereafter, (February 22, 1789,) becoming the wife of our heroic warrior. It will be interesting to note from the military journal of Major Denny, Ziegler's fellow-offi- cer in the first regiment of the army, the following extract :
"22nd (February, 1789.) Married, this evening, Captain David Ziegler of the first regiment, to Miss Sheffield, only sin- gle daughter of Mrs. Sheffield, of Campus Martius, city of Ma- rietta. . On this occasion I played the captain's aid, and at his request the memorandum's made. I exhibited a character not more awkward than strange at the celebration of Captain Zieg- ler's nuptials, the first of the kind I had been a witness to." Major Denny records at another place the following high com- pliment to Ziegler's soldiership and the bearing of his company : "always first in point of discipline and appearance."
The Indians, flushed with their success achieved over General
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Harmar, continued to devastate the settlements in the territory, from one end to the other. carrying murder and pillage every- where, as has already been said, to even the very walls of the strongly garrisoned Fort Washington, so that St. Clair had to use all his exertions in keeping them from making an assault upon the fort. In order to relieve the settlements from these threats of the intrepid red-skins, he at once resolved to under. take another campaign against their villages on the Maumee. An army of two thousand men, regulars and volunteers, was recruited and drilled. the militia of the territory and the adjoin- ing Kentucky was called into service, provisions and quarter- masters stores were collected at Forts Washington and Hamil- ton, and vigorous preparations made for an efficient stroke against the savages ; General St. Clair, in person, taking the command. They began their march to the Auglaize river, where the In- dian warriors had assembled under the command of their war chief "Little Turtle," early in the autumn of 1791. Major Ziegler with the first regiment of the line, of which he had be- come the commander, was likewise ordered to the field. The preparations, however, were so totally inadequate, that Ziegler at once predicted a defeat.
On the 24th day of October, the army began to march from Fort Jefferson, near Greenville, to which place they had moved from Fort Hamilton on the 17th of the preceding month. Im- mediately after the outset, the scarcity of provisions was felt in the army, which was provided with but three days' rations, and already on the second day several horses died from want of forage. Among the troops, especially the militia, a great dissatisfaction at once began to spread itself, and on the 31st several of the Kentucky militia deserted. General St. Clair. being afraid that these deserters would plunder the baggage- wagons, which had been ordered up with fresh supplies, dis- patched Major Ziegler with his regiment after the deserters, with the object of protecting the stores. The campaign was planned by General Washington in person, who, however, had cautioned St. Clair to be on the alert, and not to rely too much on the size of his army; but St. Clair was not careful, and consequently suffered a severe and signal defeat, November 3.
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1791. On the flight of the remnants of his army, Major Zieg- ler was ordered to cover the retreat. This was, indeed, a diffi- cult and extremely dangerous task, his little force. being con- stantly harassed on all sides by the pursuing enemy, firing from behind every tree, in their endeavor to wrest from their defeated adversaries still more scalps. But Ziegler was the man for the occasion, and managed with cool circumspection to keep up the discipline of his force intact, now wheeling to the side to clear the flanks, and then turning about to keep the wild savages at bay, until the fragments of St. Clair's army were again safely covered within the walls of Fort Washington. The highest praises were bestowed upon the heroic commander of the rear guard; and the garrison of the fort, as well as the people of Cincinnati, again assumed a degree of confidence and security, when St. Clair, in the absence of Colonel Wilkinson, the next in command, gave his powers as commander-in-chief into the hands of Major Ziegler, himself hastening to Philadelphia to lay before a court of inquiry the information about the causes of the calamity.
So Ziegler was, however, for a short period only, the interi- mistic commander-in-chief of the United States forces. But envy did not rest, and at once intrigues were begun for his decapitation. Ziegler knew full well that, being in inferior rank to Wilkinson, Butler, and others, he would have to give wray at an early date to them; but the mean spirit with which the intriguers went to work was disgusting to him in the high- est degree. Of course, Wilkinson could not assume the com- mand, except upon the proper orders, which had not arrived. So he and Captain Armstrong, afterwards brigadier general, set to work circulating slanderous reports about Ziegler, some of which are happily preserved in print. They accused him of drunkenness and insubordination. Weary to cope with these mean schemings and machinations, he not only gave up his command, but resigned from the army (March 5, 1792.)
Ziegler then went to farming. He bought a tract of land, then said to be four miles distant from Cincinnati, but at pres- ent in the First ward of the city, in the vicinity of the "East- End Garden," where he erected the first stone house in the
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Territory, by which his farm obtained the soubriquet, " Zieg- ler's Stone-house Farm." Farming, however, did not agree with his tastes, and so he sold the same-1797-to one John Smith, and then settled in Cincinnati, where he opened a store on Front street. east of Sycamore, next to Yeatman's tavern.
By the year 1802. Cincinnati had grown rapidly-so much so that the Legislature of the Territory thought proper to in- corporate the same as a village, vesting the legislative and executive power in a board of council of seven, a president, who was to act as the chief magistrate of the place, a recorder. a clerk, and a marshal. The first election was held on the 3d of April, 1802, when Ziegler was chosen president of the town-that is, to the chief magistracy-by a large majority. "This was expressly done," says Judge Burnett, "as a recog. nition of Ziegler's valuable services in the protection of the place during the perilous days of 1791- 92. as well as to make a public amende for the ill-treatment which he had received at the hands of the General Government." The next year Zieg- ler was unanimously reelected, and would have been so for a third term, in 1804, had he not declined.
The principal affairs agitating the mind of the inhabitants at the time were, first, their own protection from the constant attacks of the Indians, who continued to swarm about the settlement until the Tecumseh war (1811 ;) and second, the con- trolling of the rougher elements, who were at the time infest- ing all the backwoods towns. Nor were the inhabitants them- selves, as a general, of the finest class. Fights and gambling, brawls, thefts, murders, and plunder prevailed everywhere. Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary, who visited the Ohio towns at an early period, and whose sons and descendants after- wards settled there, writes that the people of the town were, indeed, a hard set, and that drunkenness and fights were of daily occurrence. This testimony is corroborated by Judge Burnett in his "Notes on the Settlement of the North-West- ern Territory." In an emergency of this kind, "Burgo- master " Ziegler was the suitable person to hold the reins of the unmanageable village team. He organized the militia of the town, and enforced the most rigid discipline. Every able-
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bodied man had to be a member of the militia, and there was no skulking permitted from the drills and musters. which were regularly held by the vigorous commander. Ziegler, likewise, established the rule which afterwards was adopted at most of the new settlements of the west, that all male persons over fourteen years of age, when they went to church on Sundays, had to bring with them their muskets, powder-flasks, and bullet-pouches, well filled, on penalty of a fine.
When Ziegler retired from the chief magistracy of the village, (1804,) he was unanimously chosen the commander of the . militia, a position which he held during the remainder of his life. He was likewise at the time of his death the Adjutant General of the State of Ohio. He died September 24, 1811, at his residence on Broadway, near the lower market, mourned by the entire inhabitants of the town, whose first chief magis- trate he had been. The Western Spy contained the following memorial of Ziegler's death, clad in mourning borders, which was likewise copied into the Liberty Hall, the political adver- sary of the deceased, with some kind remarks of its own :
Died in this town on Tuesday evening the 24th instant, DAVID ZIEGLER, EsQ., collector of the port of Cincinnati. He was a native of Germany, and came into Pennsylvania some time before the com- mencement of the Revolutionary war. He was among the first in that war who entered the field as a subaltern, in the cause of his adopted country, and in the course of it received several wounds,- maintaining, on all occasions, the character of a zealous, a brave and active officer, to the end of the glorious struggle. When it was found necessary to raise an army for the protection of our western frontier, he was appointed a captain under the command of Brigad. Gen. Harmar, and in that capacity served first in garrison at Fort Har- mar, where he married at Marietta ; afterwards at Fort Washington and in the memorable, tho' unfortunate, campaign of 1790 against the Indians, which crimsoned the field with much of the best blood of our little army. After this Captain Ziegler was promoted to the rank of Major of the first regiment, in which he had served as a captain-and marched with the army, then commanded by Major Gen. St. Clair in the still more unfortunate campaign of '91-but was not in the battle, his regiment having been previously detached on separate service. From some cause of disgust, the Major soon afterwards resigned his commission, and once more retired to private life. He returned to the western country, and commenced a success- ful commercial career in this town, until sickness disabled him,
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