USA > West Virginia > West Virginia and its people, Volume II > Part 3
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of the army, and entered upon the practice of his profession as an attor- ney-at-law in the city of Wheeling, serving, in all, nearly four years as a soldier.
While with his commanders, Gen. Thoburn and Col. Curtis of his own regiment, making reconnaissance, just before the battle of Fisher's Hill, (called Mount Hope by the Confederates), a Confederate battery of field artillery, securing the range to where this clump of Union officers was gathered on an eminence, threw a shell into their midst, which car- ried off one leg of the horse upon which Adjutant Caldwell was riding. The next day he went into action on foot. As he was near one end of the Union line, which had pushed forward and covered ground faster than the rest of the assailants, he was one of the earliest to scale the Confederate works, and found himself almost alone when he jumped down amid the enemy. While shouting his commands to the Confed- erates, who were throwing down their arms and surrendering, to get over the works in the direction from which he had come, and behind the Un- ion lines, a private soldier, who had scaled the works long after he had done so, stooped down, right at the adjutant's feet, and picked up a Confederate flag or stand of colors, encased in a black oil-cloth case, which had been for some minutes lying at the officer's feet, unobserved by him. A sergeant of his regiment called to him and asked him to take the colors from this soldier who had picked them up, saying that they rightfully belonged to the adjutant, whose foot was almost on them, and who, as stated, had been in the works long before the man who picked the flag up. He refused to take the captured colors from the enlisted man who had picked them up, because, as he always said, he would not have it charged to him that he had exercised his power as an officer over an enlisted man in such a case, however much justification he might have for it.
Colonel Caldwell has received, under act of Congress, three brevets for his military services, to wit : the brevets rank of captain, major and lieutenant colonel.
He took part in the celebrated Hunters Raid, and for a long period served as assistant adjutant general of the second Brigade of the First Division of Gen. Crook's corps in the Shenandoah Valley, under Sheri- dan. He was in numerous engagements during the war, and it can be truthfully said that his military record was without reproach, and of the very highest order of merit.
After he left the army, he was for a time deputy marshal of the United States for West Virginia, and assistant district attorney of the United States for West Virginia, under Hon. Nathan Goff, United States Attorney for West Virginia, since a distinguished judge of the circuit court of appeals of the United States for the Fourth Circuit, and now a senator from West Virginia, in the United States senate. Colonel Caldwell also served as a member of the council, and for two years as city solicitor of the city of Wheeling. He was always an ardent Republi- can, and in the campaign of 1880 he was that party's candidate for attor- ney general of the state, but failed of election owing to the fact that his party was greatly in the minority at the time.
Colonel Caldwell has now retired from the practice of his profession, in which he was markedly successful, achieving a competence for him- self and family.
Alfred Caldwell, the younger-Alfred Caldwell. the younger, was the fourth child and second son of Alfred Caldwell, the elder, and Martha Baird, his wife. He was born at Wheeling, Virginia, July 14th, 1847. and educated at Prof. Harding's Academy at Wheeling, in the West Lib- erty Academy in Ohio county, Virginia, at Oahu College, near Hono-
alfred Caldwell 1913.
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lulu, Hawaiian Islands, and at Yale College, taking the degree of Ph. B. at Yale in 1867. He studied law in his father's law office in Wheel- ing, being admitted to the Wheeling bar in 1868, a few months after at- taining his majority. On September 14th, 1871, he was married to Laura Ellen Goshorn, daughter of William Scott Goshorn, and Priscilla Jane Goshorn, his wife.
The Goshorn family is an old and prominent family of Ohio county, Virginia. Mrs. Goshorn was from Martinsburg, Berkeley county, Vir- ginia. Joseph Scott, one of the ancestors of William Scott Goshorn. was a Revolutionary soldier, and the family originally lived in and about Shade Valley, near Mifflin, Pennsylvania, from which point they moved to the Ohio Valley, settling upon a farm upon McMahon's creek, which flows into the Ohio river at Bellaire, Belmont county, Ohio, and which farm they purchased from James Caldwell, the younger, hereinbefore mentioned.
The head of the family, when they arrived in the Ohio Valley, was Mr. John Goshorn, the father of William Scott Goshorn, and a man who became a prominent merchant and citizen of Wheeling. John Goshorn had entirely too much energy and initiative in his composition to remain long on the farm on McMahon's creek. Accordingly, he left this farm, and, having married a Miss Mary Farrier, moved with his wife to Wheeling, where he commenced merchandising in a building still belong- ing to his family, although about one hundred years have passed since he first started his store upon the property. His remarkable energy, fore- sight and honesty caused him to prosper, and the advance he made from small beginnings, at the time in which he lived, stamped him as a most remarkable man. When we consider the difficulties surrounding the transaction of business, the uncertainty as to money, the poor means of transportation, the length of time it required to obtain any reliable infor- mation about markets and prices, and the infinite number of minor diffi- culties from bad roads, and the generally crude and unsettled condition of the community, a man who could achieve success under such circum- stances, if he existed today, would probably belong to the class of very rich men that we call merchant princes. He accumulated a large estate. which he left to his son, William Scott Goshorn.
Mr. William Scott Goshorn was a man of fine ability and sterling character. He was well educated, having attended Washington College, and for a very considerable number of years was associated with his father in mercantile pursuits, but, never having felt the spur of necessity for great exertions upon his part, and having received from his father ample means for the support of himself and family, he was not as active as his father had been before him. However, he filled a number of im- portant public positions for many years in the city of Wheeling, and the duties of any office that he undertook were always conscientiously and faithfully performed by him. He was for a number of years a member of the council of the city of Wheeling, and served as a deputy sheriff of the county, and was also an assessor of the city. He was scrupulously hon- est in his dealings, and, although tenacious of his rights, he was a just man, and always respected the rights of others. The remains of these Goshorns are now resting in their family plot in Mt. Wood Cemetery at Wheeling, West Virginia.
Alfred Caldwell, the younger, and Laura Ellen Goshorn, his wife, have had eight children, to wit: William Goshorn Caldwell, born July 3rd, 1872, who graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University in 1895, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy ; Jane Caldwell, born February 5th, 1874, who was married to Otto Schroll, a native of Columbus, Ohio, and a graduate of the Ohio
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State University, a civil engineer by profession, on November 14th, 1894, (Mr. Schroll is now the superintendent of the Pennsylvania Lines West, at Toledo, Ohio) ; Laura Belle Caldwell, born July 18th, 1875, and married to Armistead Davis Mead, of Leatherwood, Ohio county, West Virginia ; Helen Baird Caldwell, born September 2nd, 1876, married to Morgan Ott Hart, and now a resident of Washington, D. C .; Martha Baird Cald- fred Caldwell, born December 15th, 1883; and Isabel Goshorn Caldwell, well, born June 15th, 1879; Mary Caldwell, born January 4th, 1881 ; Al- born June 15th, 1887, and who was married to Mr. George N. Flynn. These eight children were born at Wheeling, West Virginia, and are all living except Alfred Caldwell and Isabel Goshorn Caldwell, both of whom are now deceased.
Up to the time of and for a short period after the death of his mother, which occurred in 1859, young Caldwell attended a school con- ducted by that admirable instructor, Prof. Hugh Wilson Harding, in an academy in the old Atheneum building (afterwards a military prison during the Civil War), at the southeast corner of Sixteenth and Market streets, Wheeling.
In the summer of 1860 he was sent, although still a young lad, to the Academy at West Liberty, conducted by Prof. Andrew F. Ross, a fine scholar, who had been previously professor of ancient languages in Bethany College. The breaking out of the war in 1861 and the political campaign which was raging in the fall of 1860, caused excited state of the community, preventing the scholars at this academy from receiving the benefit from the instruction which they otherwise would have done.
After one year at the West Liberty Academy, he went with his fath- er, Alfred Caldwell, the elder, from Wheeling to Honolulu, on the Ha- waiian Islands, his father having, as hereinbefore stated, been appointed by Mr. Lincoln, consul at that port. There being no transcontinental railway lines at that day, Consul Caldwell and such of his family as were with him were compelled to travel to his post by way of the Isthmus of Panama, across the Isthmus by the then recently constructed Panama Railroad from Colon (then called Aspinwall) to the city of Panama 011 the Pacific. From Panama they traveled by an old steamer to San Fran- cisco, from which port they were compelled to take a small sailing bark, of about five hundred tons, to Honolulu. For three years Alfred . Cald- well, the younger, resided with his father at Honolulu, attending, during that period, Oahu College at Punahou, then about four miles from the city of Honolulu.
His vacation time was spent upon a cattle ranch on the further side of the Island, and over the mountains from Honolulu. At this college he was under the instruction of at least one very capable professor, who had charge of the classes in Latin and Greek. The college was a co-educa- tional institution, supported by the American Board of Foreign Mis- sions, for the education of the children of the missionaries on the Ha- waiian Islands. At the termination of three years he graduated from this college, and, being yet under seventeen years of age, his father de- termined that he would better return to the United States and enter some reputable institution of learning, rather than remain idle at Hono- lulu.
Owing to the mild climate of these semi-tropical Islands, the rigor of the sun shining thereon being always mitigated by the trade winds, a so- journ at Honolulu was an unalloyed delight. There were few wheeled vehicles in Honolulu at that time, and the usual method of travel was on horseback. Young Caldwell had to ride on one of the fine saddle horses then to be had on the Islands, the four miles from his father's residence in the city, to the college each morning and back each afternoon, and dur-
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ing vacation times, upon the cattle ranch, he was in the saddle from about daylight until dusk with the cow-boys, helping them attend to their duties.
Upon arriving at the college it was the custom of the students who came from the city of Honolulu to turn their horses loose in an enormous field containing probably seventy-five acres of ground, surrounded by a stone wall, in which space the horses would graze until the middle of the afternoon, when they would be driven by a native Hawaiian on horse- back into a large stone corral. Every boy student had to go into this cor- ral, pick his horse out from among the plunging twenty or more horses, and lasso him over the head. At first this was hard work for young Caldwell, by reason of his being entirely unaccustomed to throwing the rope, but no assistance would be offered him by any of the other students, whose delight it was to watch his unsuccessful efforts. It was not long, however, before he became skillful enough to pick his horse out with a rope, from amidst the plunging, running mass. At that day to be thrown from a horse on the Islands was considered a disgrace, for every one, male and female, was a skillful rider.
The long distances between the residences of the young white people at Honolulu prevented much visiting, and as for boyish plays and amuse- ments, they could only be indulged in when at the institution, during the short recesses. Therefore, practically the only way for a student to em- ploy his time was in close application to his books, and at no period of his life did young Caldwell advance so rapidly and acquire as much edu- cation in the same space of time as during his sojourn at Honolulu. Among his classmates were some who have since become quite distin- guished. Among others may be mentioned the Hon. Sanford B. Dole, who afterwards became the first president of the Hawaiian Republic, subsequently the Governor of the Territory of Hawaii, and who is now the Chief Justice of the Islands.
Very shortly after the commencement exercises at Oahu College, in the early summer of 1864, young Caldwell, who was then not yet seven- teen years of age, left Honolulu for San Francisco, on the clipper bark "Yankee," a sailing vessel of about five hundred tons. The winds being unfavorable, (one long calm being encountered,) the vessel had to run out of her usual course and far to the north, resulting in quite a change of climate from that of the islands. The boys on this bark had no wool- en clothing, being dressed in the duck and nankeen which they had been accustomed to wear at Honolulu. Even when they put on three and four suits of their light cotton clothing, they still suffered from the cold. This was soon remedied at San Francisco, however, by the purchase of heav- ier clothing. After a short stay at San Francisco, young Caldwell left those of his classmates who had come over with him from Honolulu, and took passage on an old leaky steamer called the "Uncle Sam," for Pana- ma. From the time the vessel left San Francisco until its arrival at Pan- ama, its pumps were kept continuously working, and it was only after several sleepless nights that he was able to get any rest, on account of the noise made by the pumping machinery.
In July of 1864, the vessel ran into the port of Acapulco, in western Mexico, for the purpose of getting a fresh supply of coal, lying in the harbor for between three or four days, before laborers could be obtained to coal the steamer. Finally, such labor was procured by the use of some colored sailors from the United States sloop of war "St. Mary." The coal was brought to the side of the steamer in a lighter in gunny bags, and was carried aboard in such bags, on the backs of these negro sailors. While at Acapulco, some of the fighting between Juarez, the Mexican leader's forces and the French, supporting the Emperor Maxi-
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milian, was witnessed. Back of Acapulco is a high range of hills or mountains, covered with a growth of trees and thickets, which har- bored the Mexican guerillas. The French had possession of the city or town, and of the fort that stood at one end of it, and in and near the fort were thick clumps of cactus or prickly pear. Three French war vessels were lying in the harbor. Every night the Mexicans would creep down close to the fort, amid the cactus, getting near enough for a good shot, and kill a French sentry at the gate of the fort, or on the parapet. At the sound of the shot the French military would rush into ranks, and a sergeant or lieutenant, with a squad of ten to fifteen men, would be ordered out to reconnoiter and find the cause of the firing and the loss of their comrade. This squad was sure to run into a Mexican ambu's- cade at close quarters, where the machete could be brought to play. The French would almost uniformly rush back to the fort in confusion, after a serious loss. Again, the Mexicans would build huge bonfires on the mountain side behind the city, which would attract the fire of the French ships, who would, as long as the fires lasted, continue shelling them. It is unnecessary to say that sleep was an impossibility in such surroundings.
At Panama the "Uncle Sam" was left, and young Caldwell, with a party, landed in a whale-boat, the rest of the passengers and baggage awaiting until the tide was up, so that they could make a landing at the depot dock of the Panama railroad, in a small, light draft steamer. The passage over the Isthmus, on the Panama railroad, cost at that time, in gold, the sum of twenty-five dollars, for about forty miles of travel. This gold was worth two dollars and fifty cents in greenbacks for each dollar in gold. The baggage was carefully weighed, and for every pound over fifty that a passenger's baggage weighed, he paid ten cents in gold or sil- ver. These prices, viewed at the present day, seem tremendous. From Colon, or Aspinwall. steamer was taken for New York, which passed through what is called the Windward channel, and around the eastern end of Cuba. The passage from Central America was made with lights out at night, for fear of capture by a Confederate vessel. This made things rather monotonous, as the passengers were absolutely prevented from reading at night. The passage from Honolulu to Wheeling occu- pied eight weeks.
After arriving at Wheeling, young Caldwell, desired to enter the army. . In the latter part of September or early in October, 1864, hap- pening to meet, accidentally, in the streets of Wheeling, an old friend, Colonel W. B. Curtis, of the Twelfth West Virginia Regiment, then acting brigadier general, he was invited by Colonel Curtis to accompany him to the front, an invitation which he very cheerfully and gratefully accepted. They reached the colonel's brigade at Martinsburg, West Vir- ginia, and proceeded from there to Winchester, from which point, after a very short delay, they started, with a large wagon-train, up the She- nandoah Valley. The march had proceeded some miles up the valley when the command heard a tremendous cannonading in their front, and in a short time were mixed up with all the uproar, turmoil and confusion of the great battle of Cedar Creek. The first thing done by the brigade commander was to detail four companies of his own regiment, two on each side of the main pike, in skirmish order, to intercept the soldiers rushing down the valley in front of the enemy.
At the same time, Brigade Commander Curtis sent one of his aides back to Winchester to inform General Sheridan, who was in that city. that a general engagement was going on. This aide conveyed the first information to General Sheridan of that fact. Young Caldwell, with his brother and Colonel Curtis, the brigade commander, were on horseback in the center of the pike, near the line formed by the deployed companies,
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with the residue of the brigade in their rear. The army wagons had made two clay roads close to and parallel with the main limestone pike that ran up and down the Shenandoah Valley. In due time, after the aide had been dispatched with the news of the engagement to General Sheridan, a cloud of dust arose in the rear of the brigade and out of it rode Sheridan, on his celebrated black horse, which was well tired out, covered with foam, and throwing quantities of it from his bit as he tossed his head. The General had his uniform coat upon the pommel of his McClellan saddle, and a knit jacket, at that time called an Afghan jacket, over his vest. His hat was pulled down over his eyes, and he looked neither to the right nor the left, but straight between his horse's ears, as he went by the little clump of horsemen. Behind him, some lit- tle distance, came his staff officers, and behind them a small cavalry es- cort.
The fact that the commanding general was passing. of itself excited the attention and curiosity of young Caldwell, but he never dreamed at that time that this ride of Sheridan's would be commemorated by Thom- as Buchanon Reed's poem, or become a matter of important history.
The battle started on the 19th day of October, 1864. and the incidents seen by young Caldwell at that time will never be effaced from his memory. Space will not suffice to chronicle all his experiences on this occasion. After remaining with his friend. Colonel Curtis, and his brother, until winter was coming on apace, he returned to Wheeling. per- fectly contented, after what he had seen of war and its horrors, to seek a quieter occupation than that of soldiering.
Just before Christmas in 1864 he went to New Haven, Connecticut. and presented himself for examination for admission to the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale Callege, since of Yale University. He was exam- ined in some branches by Prof. Gilman, afterwards the celebrated organ- izer and president of Johns Hopkins University, and a member of the Venezuelan Commission. It spoke well for the training he had received at Oahu College, that. although for six months he had never opened a school book, he was able to pass all the examinations, and enter the insti- tution the last half of the freshman year, being the youngest of his class.
His father having returned to Wheeling from the Hawaiian Islands, after his graduation from Yale, in 1867, young Caldwell commenced the study of law, in his father's office, being admitted to the Bar in Deceni- ber of the following year, 1868. very shortly after he became of age. For a long number of years thereafter, he has been actively engaged not only in the practice of his profession, but in political struggles. The first office he held was that of clerk of the First Branch of the Council of the city of Wheeling, to which he was elected early in the year 1868, and which office he held until the fall of 1875, when he was elected a member of the state senate of West Virginia from the First Senatorial District, serving at the sessions in 1875 and 1877. As a member of the senate he was one of the court of impeachment which tried the impeachments of the auditor of the state and of the state treasurer. in 1876, the auditor being acquitted and the state treasurer convicted and removed from of- fice.
He was a member of the city council of Wheeling, serving first in the second branch and afterwards for quite a number of years in the first branch. In January of 1881 he was elected city solicitor of his na- tive city (city attorney ), and served the two years term of 1881 and 1882. In 1884 he was elected attorney general of the state of West Vir- ginia, at the general state election in the fall of that year, and re-elected at the general election in the year 1888, serving two full terms, from March 4th, 1885. to March 4th, 1893. He was for a long time a mem-
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ber of the board of education of Wheeling, and, as such member, the chairman of the first committee which had in charge the public library of the city of Wheeling. He drafted the necessary legislation to authorize taxation to raise the necessary funds for the support and maintenance of the library, and did the major part of the work to secure the adoption by the legislature of the bill prepared by him for such purpose. As chairman of such committee, in conjunction with the Hon. John M. Birch, who was then city superintendent of the schools of Wheeling. and the Hon. Henry H. Pendleton, who was then clerk of the board of education, he prepared the rules and regulations for the government of the public library of the city of Wheeling, under which this library was launched upon a successful career. It was only after a strenuous debate in the board of education and by a majority of one vote, that the very proper rule, for the benefit of the working people who were entitled to enjoy the library that it should be open to their use on Sabbath after- moons, was made one of the rules to govern the library management, a rule which has never since been changed, although adopted in the first place by such a slender majority.
Alfred Caldwell, the younger, became a Democrat in politics when he arrived at the age of twenty-one years, in 1868, because of his strenuous disapproval of the reconstruction legislation, and especially of the op- pressive and unconstitutional test oath statutes passed by the Republi- cans in the legislature of West Virginia. He remained affiliated with the Democratic party until the national election in 1896. In that year the doctrine of the free and unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio of sixteen lo one was made part of the platform of the Democratic party, and was ardently advocated by its nominee for the presidency, the Hon. W. J. Bryan, of Nebraska. Being in radical disagreement with the views on the silver question, expressed in the National Democratic platform of 1896, and entertained by its presidential nominee, Mr. Caldwell allied himself with a number of prominent Democrats in West Virginia, in an effort to form an organization, which might, in the future, be, they hoped a nucleus for the Democratic party to rally around when it would return to sanity, after the inevitable defeat it seemed bound to receive.
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