,mtmm ^ (fJarncU Uniuetaitg ffiibratg THE JAMES VERNER SCAIFE COLLECTION CIVIL WAR LITERATURE THE GIFT OF JAMES VERNER SCAIFE CLASS OF 1Se9 1919 i CORNELL UNIVERSITY UBRAflY 3 1924 103 067 397 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924103067397 Eag f iyAamtdiV«- OHIO m THE WAR HER STATESMEN, HEB GENERALS, AND SOLDIERS. By WHITELAW REID, VOL UME I HISTORY OF THE STATE DURING THE WAR, AHS THE LIVES OF HER GENERALS. " I conceive that la these latter times the scale upon which Tre measure warlike prowess has been bronght down too low by the custom of awarding wild, violent praise to the common performance of duty, and even now and then to actual misfeasance; so, if I keep from this path, it is i^ot becanse I think coldly of our army or our navy, but becauBo I desire— as I am very sure our bent officers do— that we should return to our ancient and more severe standard of excellence. There is another reason which nlDV^I me iu the same direction : not only Is the utterance of mere praise a lazy and futile method of attempting to do justice to worthy deeds, but it even intercepts the honest growth of a soldier's renown."— Kiholasx's Csiu. Was, Chap. W. "Whoever has committed no faults has not made war."— Mabsba.l Tcxihhi. PUBLISHERS: MOORE, WILSTACH & BALDWIN, 25 WEST FOUBTH STEEET, CINCINNATI. New Yokk: 60 Walker Stbeeiv 1868. Entered according to Act of Congrese, in the year 1867, by MOORE, WILSTACH & BAtuWlTS, In the Clerk's OflSce of the District Court of the United States for the Sonthem District of Ohio. FROM THE PUBLISHERS. AT an early date in tl^gyogress of the War the most casnal observer of passing events could not fail to eee^e conspicaons part the men of Ohio were preparing to take in its prosecution. Watchful attention to the rapid developments of the time, and the tremendous issues involved in the great struggle, was sure to intensify feeling already enlisted. That the doings of Ohio Soldiers and Statesmen in the War should be fitly chronicled and published in a convenient and permanent form, was a decision more easily made than carried into execution. The difference in the present instance is measured by an interval of more than four years, and the labor of not less than two persons during an equal period in preparing this work for the press. The collecting of materials in MSS. obtained by correspondence and conference with thou- sands of people located at widely extended points, with the labor of collating the facta given, and condensing them into narratives of such proportions as would bring the whole into reasona- ble compass for publication, has been much greater than could have been readily foreseen, or than is likely to be appreciated by the inexperienced. To these difficulties are to be added the numer- ous /ibstacles which are sure to arise in getting a work of this magnitude through the press in the time anticipated, whatever allowances for delays may have been originally made, and com- plicated as in the present case in the destruction by fire of one-half the stereotype plates, when the volumes were nearly two-thirds finished, and by the fact that the work has grown to be one- fourth larger than calculated for. The groups of portraits were engraved from time to time, by KllCHlE, Rogers, and other eminent artists, as photographs were secured from reliable sources from which to produce them. The original intention was to have these include no person who had not attained the rank of Brigadier-Gteneral (excepting a few heroes of lower rank who had fallen in the service); gradu- ally however, exceptions were suggested in favor of such as had discharged the duties of their brevet rank and finally the sketches were extended to include notices — in many instances far too brief— of all officers of like rank appointed from the State. The two volumes contain three limes the amount of matter usually published in volumes of similar size and in a dress not less attractive, even when as profusely illustrated, and pre- sent facts equal to what are ordinarily given in a dozen volumes published under Legislative authority. The prices put upon the work, in its several styles of binding, are the same per vol- ume as those affixed by the publishers to "Appleton's New Amemsan Oydopedia," while the style of publication is more costly and the contents one-half greater. Thus, reliance for remuneration From the Publishers. is based upon luge «iles at moderate prices to the soldiers and their hosts of Mends. Only thns can a return be expected for the twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars expended in producing the book, not to speak of profit on the venture. On this score, however, the publishers have no reason to be especially fearful. Several thousand copies have found purchasers in advance of publication ; and, aa heretofore arranged for, the work will continue to be delivered only to sub- scribers by duly-authorized agents. The work is believed to be incomparably more complete than any similar one undertaken in any other State, and on a plan not attempted elsewhere. Fablished to portray the patriotic efibrts of the people of Qhio, the deeds of her soldiers, and of those who were at once her sons and the Nation's cherished leaders in the fierce struggle, the work will be found singularly free from the fulsome and vapid praise which was so striking a feature in works on the war published during the heat of the contest or at its close, to catch the sympathies of the public. Our author, with his careful, fearless, and polished pea, will doubtless find many eager readers, and be the means of exciting much discussion among the thinking men of the'Nation. PREFACE. AN effort ia made in these pages to present some leading facts in the illustriona record of the State of Ohio during the war of the Great Rebellion. It is sought, first, to ex- hibit the home history of the State through the long struggle; second, to present in whatever fullness of detail may be possible, the careers of the General OfiScers from Ohio, whether born in or appointed from the State ; and third, to trace in outline the history of each regiment sent out, with the roster of its oflScers, and the leading facts in its organization and service. The wol-k owes its origin to Mr. William H. Moobe, the senior partner of the house by which it is published. As early as in the summer of 1863 he visited me in "Washington to arrange for its preparation. Its main features were then agreed upon, and he straightway set about procur- ing such facts for it as were then accessible. I desire now to add that but for his zeal, courage, and energy the work would probably have failed of completion. — It was a part of the contract made by Mr. Moore on behalf of the publishers, that they should procure for me all books, documentary matter, personal statements, etc., necessary for the preparation of the work. In pursuance of this arrangement, they have employed persons of apparent fitness for such service to visit the armies in the field, and, since the close of the war to wait upon officers of regiments, Generals, private soldiers — upon any one, in short, who might be thought able to contribute any fact not yet known or cast light upOn any occurrence hitherto ill- understood. With the material thus furnished my own work began. Many of the statements I was able to correct or modify from personal knowledge — many more could be verified from published documents or from official reports on file at the War Department — still others could be compaTed with the versions given in the reports of battles and of investigating committees, and in other documentary matter published by the Bebel Congress, of which I was fortunate enough to pro- cure nearly complete sets at Richmond.* And on many points a residence of over a year at the South since the close of the war had given me additional light. That these facilities have been used to the best possible advantage I dare not hope; but that they have been used honestly and conscientiously, I trust the succeeding pages may make clear. The book has been written without any theories of the war to sustain, and without any pet repu- tations to build up. I have striven earnestly to write always in the spirit of those golden words that stand as mottoes upon the title page of this volume — to avoid the custom of awarding wild, violent praise to the common performance of duty — to remember that whoever has committed no faults has not made war — to promote the honest growth of a soldier's renown by simply tell- ing what he did. And if I have had any theory whatever that has influenced my expressions, it has been that of the gruff, good Count Gurowski, that the real heroes of this war were the great, brave, patient, nameless People. It is quite probable that I shall have very few readers to agree with the estimates placed upon the performance of many of our most distinguished Generals. It is a National habit to go to * For a general guide as to the events of the war, constant use has been made of Mr. Greeley's ** American Con- flict"— n work with which 1 have not in all cases been able to agree, but which has always seemed to me a marvel of comprehensiveness and condonaation. 2 Preface. extremes. At first we could endure no comparison for the young commander of the Army of the Potomac but Irith Napoleon ; after a time we could scarcely hear without impatience any defense of him from the gross charges of cowardice and treason. At first we denounced the man who fought Belmont and Pittsburg Landing as a drunkard and an incapable; now we echo the words of Sherman that he is the legitimate successor of Washington, and believe him the greatest Gen- eral of the century or the continent. It is not by any reflection of such popular verdicts that honest History can be written. Yet I have experienced too many proofs of the generous con- sideration given by our people to honest convictions, to have any doubt as to the kindly reception they will extend to these frank statements of opinions that have not been formed without much study, and are not expressed without conscientious care. It is doubtless impossible, in a work of this magnitude, to avoid errors. No page — not even the briefest sketch of a cavalry company or independent battery — ^has gone to the printers without being carefully revised or rewritten. The rosters of the regiments have been first taken from the rolls of the Adjutant-General, then compared with the War Department Volunteer Register, and finally corrected and enlarged in almost every case by some officer of the organiza- tion concerned ; every page has been again and again revised. After all, in so many names, and dates, and brief accounts of great transactions, many errors must have escaped notice ; but it may be safely affirmed that, in the main, the record of Ohio soldiers as here presented, is incompara- bly more complete and correct than any, official or unofficial, that is elsewhere accessii>le. It has been earnestly desired to add to the work an unique collection of incidents in the war, narratives of personal experience, sufierings in' Southern prisons, and the like — the materials for which were mostly furnished by Ohio private soldiers. But the work has already swelled far beyond the limits to which it should have been restricted ; and it becomes an unfortunate neces- sity to omit this further illustration of the' lives and works of the men in the ranks. For the same reason some mention of the Western gunboat service must be left out. I am specially indebted to Major Frank E. Miller (of Washington C. H., Ohio) for intelli- gent and valuable assistance in reducing to shape the vast mass of material placed in my hands by the publishers. He has also prepared the exhaustive index which accompanies the volumes, Hon. William T. Coggeshall, Private Secretary to Governor Dennison (who has since died at his post as United States Minister to Ecuador); Hon. William Henry Smith, Private Secretary to Governor Brough, and subsequently Secretary of State; F. A. Marble, Esq., afterward Private Secretary to Governor Brough and to Governor Anderson, and Edwin L. Stanton, Esq., of th« War Department, have placed me under obligations for valued assistance in many ways. I have also to thank the Adjutant-General and the Governor of Ohio for access to any documents among the State archives which it was needful to consult. Finally, to a whole host of the sol- diers of Ohio, for the kindness which loaded me with whatever facts were asked, and for the delicate consideration which intrusted these to me to be used according to my own sense of fitness, I can never sufficiently express my obligations. No General or other officer df Ohio has failed to furnish whatever I sought; and no one (with a single exception) has asked that any feature in his career should be-concealed or any other extolled. And now as this labor, which for nearly two years has engrossed my titoe, is brought to an end, I lay aside the pen regretfully. Here are many pages, and many efforts to do some justice to features in the war history of our noble State. No one can better understand how far they fall short of the noble theme. And yet — who can write worthily of what Ohio has done? W. R. Cincinnati, December 24, 1867. CONTENTS. Pago. Preface 1 CHAPTER, I. Ohio's Pabt in the War fob the Union 13 — 15 CHA.PTER II. The State at the Outbreak op tthb War .' 16 — 19 CHAPTER III. Initial War Legislation — The SiBUGaiiB and Surrender oj? Party 20— 24 CHAPTER IV. The Opening Acts of Dennison's War Administration 25 — 44 CHAPTER V. Webt Virginia Rescued by Ohio Militia under State Pa-?. 45 — 51 CHAPTER VI. The Progress and Close op Dennison's Administration 52 — 63 CHAPTER VII. General Features of the First Year of Tod's Administration 64 — 82 CHAPTER VIII. Siege of Cincinnati < 83 — 98 CHAPTER IX. The Arrest and Trial op Vallandigham 99 — 124 CHAPTER X. Armed Resistance to the Authorities 125 — 129 CHAPTER XI. The Organization op the National Guard 130—133 CHAPTER XII. The Morgan Raid through Ohio 134—152 CHAPTER XIII. The Vallandigham Campaign 153—171 CHAPTER XIV. The Closing Features op Tod's Administration ,.... 172—181 (3) 4 Contents. chapteb xv. Page. The Openino of Bbouqh'b Ai>Miin:8TEA.Tiojr — His Cabe foe the Soldiebs, ajstd THE Strifes to which it Led , "2 199 CHAPTER XVI. The last EECBtJiTnTO — its Pbogeess and Pekim 200—207 CHAPTER XVII. The Hxtndeed Days' Men 208 — 220 CHAPTER XVIII. BbOUGH'S TbOUBLES with OFnOEKS, AND his PATLirEB TO BE KENOHmATED 221 — 230 CHAPTER XIX. Close of Beottgh's Administeation 231 — 237 CHAPTER XX. Militaey Legislation of the State 238 — ^244 CHAPTER XXI. Ohio Suegeons in the Wae 245 — ^251 CHAPTER XXII. The Relief Work; Aid Societies, etc 251—272 GENEEAL. Ulysses S. Geant 351—416 LIBTJTENANT-G-ENEEAL. Wm. Tecumseh Sheeman *. 417 — i93 MAJOE-GBNEEALS. Geoeoe B. McClellan 275—309 William S. Bosecbans 311—350 .Philip H. Sheeidan., .' : 495 — 560 James B. McPheeson 561 — 590 O. M. MiTCHEL 591—616 Q. A. GiLLMOEE r- 617—656 Ievin McDowell 656—694 Don Caelos BOell 695—724 robeet c. schenck 725 — 738 James A. Gaefield 739 — 764 William B. Hazen ^ 766—769 Jacob D. Cox 770 — 777 Gbobse A. CusTEB 778—783 Contents. 5 Page. Jaues B. Steedman 784 — 788 Godfrey Weitzel 789 — 795 David S. Stanley 796—798 George Ceook 799—804 Waqee Swayne 804—805 Alexander M. MoCook 806—809 MOETIMEE D. Legoett 809 — 810 BEBVET MAJOE-GENBEALS. Chaeles W. HJXL 811—815 John C. Tidball .-. 816—820 BoBERT 8. Granger 821 — 822 John W. Poller 823 — 827 Manning F. Foece 827 — 828 Hi^NBY B. Banning 829 — 830 Ebastds B. Tyler 831 — 833 Thomas H. Ewing "... 834^836 ' Emerson Opdycke .' 837 — 839 WiLLARD Warner , 839—840 Charles B. Woods , 841 — 843 AuousT V. Kautz <.... 844 — 848 Rutherford B. Hayes 848 — 849 Charles C. Walcdtt ~ 850—851 Kenner Garrard 852 Hugh Ewing 853—856 Samuel Beatty 856 James S. Eobinson 857 Warren Keifer 858 — 860 Eli Long 861—862 William B. Woods '. 863—864 John W. Sprague 864—866 Ben. p. Eunkle 866—867 August Willich 868—870 Charles Griffin 871 — 873 Henry J. Hunt.. .J 874 B. W. Brioe 874 3EIGADIBE-GBNEEALS. Robert L. McCook 875—879 WiLLLAJt H. Lytle 880—883 William Sooy Smith 884—887 C. P. Bucbjngham - 887—889 Pekdinand Van Dehveer 890 — 893 George P. Este 894^897 Joel A. Dewey 897 Benjamin*F. Potts 898—900 Jacob Ammen - 901—903 Daniel McCook 904—906 6 Contents. Page. J. W. FOHSYTH 906 Ealph p. Buckland .'. 907—908 William H. Powell 909— «10 John G. Mitchell 911—913 A. Saitoebs Piatt 913—918 Eliaeim: P. Scammon 915 — 916 Charles G. Habkeb • 917-^18 J. W. Reillt 918—919 Joshua W. Sill 919—920 N. C. McLean 921—922 William T. H. Brooks 922 George W. Mohgau 923 John Beatty 924 — 026 William W. Burns. i 927 John S. Mason „ 928—^29 S. S. Carroll ., 930 Henry B. Carbington 931—932 Melancthon S. Wade : 932 John P. Slough 933 Thomas Kilby Smith , 939 BEBVET BEIGADIER-GENEEALS. E. N. Adams, 954 ; Franklin Askew, 957. William H. Baldwin, 957; W. H. Ball, 958; Gershom M. Barber, 958; James Bamett, 958; Eobert H. Bentley, 959 ; J. Biggs, 959 ; John E. Bond, 959 ; Henry Van Ness Boynton, 959 ; Eosliff Brinkerhoff, 960 ; Charles E. Brown, 961 ; Jefferson Brumback, 961 ; Heniy L. Burnett, 961 ; Joseph W. Burke, 962. John Allen Campbell, 962; Charles Candy, 962; John S. Casement, 962; Mendal Churchill, 962- Henry M. Cist, 962; Benjamin F. Coates, 963; James M. Comly, 963; Henry S. Comm^ger^ 963; H. C. Corbin, 963; Benjamin Eush Cowen, 963 ^ John E. Cummins, 965; J. R. Coct- erill, 965. Andrew E. Z. Dawson, 965; Henry F. Devol, 942; Francis Darr, 965; Azariah N. Doane, 965. Charles G. Eaton, 965 ; John Eaton, jr., 965 ; B. B. Eggleston, 955 ; John J. Elwill, 966. Benj. D. Fearing, 940; J. M. Frizzell, 966; Joseph S. Fullerton, 966; Edward P. I>ffe, 966. Israel Garrard, 943; Horatio G. Gibson, 966; William H. Gibson, 967; Samuel A. Gilbert, 967; Josiah Given, 967; William Given, 967; Heniy H. Giesy, 967; James H. Godman, 967; C. H. Grosvenor, 952. WilUam Douglas Hamilton, 967 ; Andrew L. Harris, 968 ; James H. Hart, 968 ; Eussell Hast- ings, 968 ; Thomas T. Heath, 968 ; Andrew Hickenlooper, 937 ; George W. Hoge, 968 ; E. S. Holloway, 969; Marcellua J. W. Holton, 969; Horace N. Howland, 969; Lewis'c. Huntj 969; Samuel H. Hurst, 969; E. P. Hutchins, 969; Walter F. Herrick, 969. John S. Jones, 948 ; Theodore Jones, 970 ; Wells S. Jones, 970. John H. Kelley, 970; E. P. Kennedy, 970; Eobert L. Kimberly, 970; Henry D. Kingsbury, 970 ; Isaac Minor Kirby, 956. John Q. Lane, 971; E. Bassett Langdon, 971; John C. Lee, 972; Frederick W. Lister 973- B; C. Ludlow, 934. ' ' Charles F. Manderson, 973; William H. Martin, 973; Edwin C. Mason, 973; O. C. Miiiwell 973; James McCleary, 973; Daniel McCoy, 944; Henry K. McConnell, 974; Anson q! McCook, 974; J..E. McGowan, 974; Stephen J. McGroarty, 974; Edwin S. Meyer, 976' Granville Moody, 975; John C. Moore, 975; August Moor, 975; MarshaU F. Moore 976' Samuel E. Mott, 975 ; F. W. Moore, 950; Eeuben Delavan Musse;., 975, ' ' Contents. 7 George W. Neff, 977 ; A. B. Nettlelon, 977 ; Edward FoUensbee Noyes, 978. John O'Dowd, 979. Augustus C. Parry, 979 ; Don A. Pardee, 981 ; Oliver H. Payne, 945 ; John S. Pearce, 981 ; William S. Pierson, 981; Orlando M. Poe, 981; Eugene. Powell, 981. B. W. Biitliff, 981 ; W. H. Baynor, 981 ; W. P. Eichardson, 945 ; Americus V. Bice, 982 ; Or- lando C. Eiadon, 982. Thomas W. Sanderson, 982 ; Franklin Sawyer, 982 ; Lionel A. Sheldon, 982 ; Isaac E. Sher- wood, 953; Thomas C. H. Smith, 982; G. W. Shurtliff, 982; Patrick Slevin, 982; Benjamin F. Smith, 982; Willard Slocum, 983; Orland Smith, 983; Orlow Smith, 983 ; Joab A. Staf- ford, 983 ; Anson Stager, 983 ; Timothy E. Stanley, 983 ; William Steadman, 983 ; William Stough, 984; Silas A. Strickland, 984; Edgar Sowers, 984; Peter J. Sullivan, 984. Jacob E. Taylor, 984 ; Thomas T. Taylor, 984 ; David Thompson, 984 ; John A. Turley, 984. Thomas M. Vincent, 947 ; Lewis Von Blessingh, 984 ; Alexander Von Sohraeder, 985. Durbin Ward, 985; Moses B. Walker, 955; Darius B. Warner, 986; Henry E. West, 986} Horatio N. Whitbeck, 986; Carr B. White, 987; Aquila Wiley, 987; Wm. T. Wilson, 987;, Oliver Wood, 987; Thomas F. Wildes, 951; G. F. Wiles, 946. Thomas L. Young, 988 ; Stephen B. Yeoman, 949. Lewb Zahm, 989 ; George M. Zeigler, 989. OUE HEROIC DEAD. Colonel Minor Millikin, 990; Colonel Lorin Andrews, 995; Colonel Fred. C. Jones, 997; Col- onel William G. Jones, 999; Lieutenant-Colonel Barton S. Kyle, 1000; Colonel John H. Patrick, 1001; Colonel John T. Toland, 1002; Colonel George P. Webster, 1003; Colonel Leander Stem, 1004; Lieutenant-Colonel Jonas D. Elliott, 1005; Lieutenant-Colonel James W. Shane, 1006; Colonel Joseph L. Kirby Smith, 1007; Colonel Augustus H. Coleman, 1008; Colonel John W. Lowe, 1009; Lieutenant-Colonel Moses F. Webster, 1011. TABLES OF STAFF OFFICERS, Etc. Assistant Adjutant-Generals, 1012; Additional Aids-de-Camp, 1013; Aids-de-Carap appointed under Act of July 17, 1862,. 1013; Hospital Chaplains, 1013; Judge Advocates, 1013; Signal Corps, 1014; Additional Paymasters, 1014; Assistant Quartermasters, 1014; Commissaries of Subsistence, 1016. WAR GOVERNORS, Etc. Page. Ex-GovEKNOR Wn-LiAM Dennison 1017 " David Tod 1020 " John Bboogh '. 1022 Secretary Edwin M. Stanton 1027 Ex-Sbcbetaby Salmon P. Chase 1030 U.S. Senator Benjamin F. Wade ,.. 1033 TJ. 8. Senator John Sherman • 1035 Jay Cooke 1037 8 Contents. MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF VOL. L MAPS. Pace. Some of th^', Routes to, and Battle-fields AEOtrND, Bichhon'd 295 The Battle-field of Stone Biveb • 331 Chickamauga and Chattanooga •• 341 Battle of Belmont 360 Pittsburg Landing and Vicinity 376 vicksbubg and subboundings 383 PirrEESBUEG AND THE FlANKINO MOVEMENTS TO THE LeFT 407 Sherman's Atlanta Campaign 451 Sherman's March to the Sea 468 Sherman's Campaign op the Cabolinas .' 473 Shebidan's Valley Campaign 624 The Bull Kun, • Kappahannook, Antietam, and Gettysbubg Campaigns 669 Defenses of New Orleans 790 WOOD CUTS. Pontoon Bridge over the Ohio Eivee 92 The Squirrel Hunter 9g Gunboats on the Ohio 135 Feeding Troops, Fifth Street Market Space, Cincinnati 192 GiLLMORE Shelling Charleston 638 FRONTISPIECE. PORTRAIT OF LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT. MEDALLION PORTRAITS SECOND PLATE. Pago. Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant 273 Maj. Gen. Wm. T. Shebman 273 " George B. McClellan 273 " Don Carlos Buell 273 " Ormsby M. Mitchel 273 Ma J. Gen. William S. Eoseceans 273 " Robert C. Schenck 273 " James A. Garfield 271 " James B. McPherson 273 " David S. Stanley 273 Contents. 9 THIRD PLATE. JUj. Gbk Ibvin MoDoweli, Page. ... 495 i< James B. Sieedkak ... 495 u Philip H. Shebidait ... 495 It Alex. McD. McCook.... ... 495 If William Sooy Smith .... ... 495 Page. BvT. Maj. Gen. Samuel Beattt. " " R. B. Hates 495 Subgeon-Geit. Gustav C. E. Webbb.. 495 Bbig. Gen. Edwaed P. Noyes 495 " John S. Mason 495 FOURTH PLATE. Page. Maj. Gen. Quincy Adams Gillmoke. 617 " • Jacob Dolson Cox 617 " Godfrey Weitzei; 617 " Geobqe Cbooe 617 " MoBTiMEB D. Leggett 617 Page. Bvx. Maj. Gen. John W. Fullee 617 " Hugh EwiNG 617 Bbig. Gen. Nathaniel C. McLean .... 617 " Geoege W. Moegan 617 BvT. Bbig Gen. James M. Comly 617 FIFTH PLATE. Page. Maj. Gen. Geoege A. Custee 778 "WiLiAM B. Hazen 778 " Wagee Swatne 778 Bvt. Maj. 'Gen. August; V. Kautz.... 778 " Kennee Gaeeaed 778 Page. Bvt. Maj. Gen. S. S. Carroll 778 " Manning F. Force... 778 " Chas. C. Waloutt ... 778 Brio. Gen. A. Sanders Piatt.. 778 Bvt. Beig. Gen. Benj. D. Fearing... 778 SIXTH PLATE. Page. Bvt. Maj. Gen. Chaelis E. Woods.. 841 " " William B. Woods. 841 " " J. Wabeen Keiebe. 841 " " John C. Tidbajol 841 Bbig. Gen. John Beattt 841 Pago. Bbig. Gen. H. B. Cabrington 841 B. E. CowEN 841 M. S. Wade 841 Bvt. Bbig. Gen. Feed'k W. Moore... 841 " " Frank Askew 841 SEVENTH PLATE. Page. Bvt. Maj. Gen. John W. Sprague.... 887 " " EoBERT S. Geangee. 887 Bbiq. Gen. C. P. Buckingham 887 " Jacob Ammen 887 " Ealph p. Buokland 887 Pago. Beig. Gen. Eliakim P. Scammon 887 " John G. Mitchell 887 " Eli Long 887 " William W. Burns 887 " Benjamin F. Potts 887 EIGHTH PLATE. Page. Bvt. Maj, Gen. Eeastus B. Tylee ... 909 " " Emeeson Opdycke... 909 " " James S. Eobinson... 909 Bbig. Gen. Ferdinand Van Derveeb ,909 " Thomas Kilby Smith 909 Brig. Gen. William H. Powell.... Bvt. Brig. Gen. Israel Garrard.... " " B. B. Eggleston.... " « A. C. Parry " " James A. Wilcox.. Page. 909 909 909 909 909 10 Contents. NINTH PLATE. Page. BvT. Maj. Gen. Willabd Warneb ... 951 Bma. Gen J. W. Beilly 951 BvT. Bbiq. Gen. Heney F. Devoi. 951 " " Thomas F. Weldes... 951 " " Isaac E. Shekwood. 951 p.g.. BvT. Bbio. Gen. Moses B. Waxkbb... 951 " " Benj C. Ltjdlow 951 " Thomas L. Young... 951 " " Chas. F. Mandeeson 951 « " W. P. KiCHABDSON.... 951 TENTH PLATE. Paee. BvT. Maj. Gbn. Chables W. Hill 971 " " Heney B. Banning... 971 Bvt. Bbig. Gen. E. Bassett Langdon. 971 " " C. H. Grosvenob 971 " W. H. Baldwin 971 Page. Bvt. Beig. Gbn Dubbin Wabd . 971 >i « A. HlCKENLOOPEB.... .. 971 11 11 Geoegb W. Neff.... . 971 11 11 S. A. Steickland... .. 971 11 11 S. J. McGeoabty... . 971 ELEVENTH PLATE. "OUR HEROIC DEAD." Page. Beio. Gen. Joshua W. Sill 990 " ROBEBT L. McCooK 990 " William H. Lytle, 990 Col. Minoe MrLLiKiN, (1st O. V.C.).... 990 " LoEiN Andbews (4th O. V. I.).... 990 Col. J. H. Pateick (5th O. V. I.) " Feed. C. Jones (24th O. V. I.) " John T. Toland (34th O. V. I.).. •■ Will. G. Jones (35th O. V. I.)... Lt. Col. B. S. Kyle (71st O. V. I.) Page. 990 990 990 990 990 TWELFTH PLATE. "OUR HEROIC DEAD." Pago. Beig. Gbn. Chables G. Haekee 1008 " Daniel McCook 1008 Col. a. H. Coleman (11th O. V. I.) 1008 " John W. Lowe (12th O. V. I.)... 1008 " J. L. Kieby Smith (43d O. V. I.) 1008 Col. Page. Geo. p. Websteb (98th O. V. I.) 1008 " Leandeb Stem (101st O. V. I.)... 1008 Lt. Col. M. F. Woosteb (lOlst O. V. I.) 1008 Jas. M. Shane (98th O. V. L).. 1008 J. D. Elliott (102d O. V. I.) 1008 THIRTEENTH PLATE. OHIO CIVILIANS. Page. Salmon P. Chase, Sec. of the Treasury.. 1017 Benj. F. Wade, U. S. Senator and Chair- man of Com. on Con. of the War 1017 John Sheeman, U. S. Senator and Chair- man of Finance Committee 1017 Page. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War... 1017 Gov. Dbnnison 1017 " Tod 1017 " Beough 1017 Lt. Gov. Andeeson*. 1017 :E^-A.K.a? I. THE HISTORY OF THE STATE DURING THE WAR, HER WAR ADMINISTRATIONS. Intboductoky. 13 CHAPTER I. OHIO'S PLACE IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. WHEN tho Nation, striving only to enforce its laws and maintain its lawfully elected rulers, suddenly found itself plunged into a war that promised to envelop half its territory, it confided its "Grand Army"' to the leadership of an Ohio General.* When, beaten less by the enemy than by its own rawness, that army retreated in disorder from the field it had fairly won, and the panic of the first Bull Eun seemed to freeze the currents of National life, another Ohio General, f fresh from the first successful campaign of the war, was called in to restore public confidence, and reorganize the army on the grander scale which the increasing perils demand'ed; while still another Ohioan J was left to assume his vacated command in the mountains. As the war expanded, the State continued to preserve a similar pre-emi- nence. Through three campaigns, the greatest of the National armies remained under the leadership of an Ohio General. This officer also succeeded the vet- eran Scott as General-in-Chief in corrimand of all our armies. An Ohio Gen- eral 11 commanded the great department which lay south of his native State, till, after pushing back the war from the Border to the Alabama line, he was caught and submerged in its refluent tide, and another Ohio General was summoned from fields of%ictory in the South-West to take his place. An Ohio General,§ after brilliant services elsewhere, commanded the Department of the South, till, in the midst of his labors, death came to relieve him; and when active opera- tions in the department were resumed, it was reserved for another Ohio Gen- eral ** to revolutionize gunnery, in destroying the fort around which the war had opened, and in whose downfall was written the doom of the rebellion. ■ No less sigtoal were the services rendered by the sons of the State through the whole duration of the war. Its close found another native of Ohio,ff after •Irvin McDowell, native of Ohio, and one of her cadets ^t "West Point. t George B. McClellan, citizen of Ohio, and lately Major-General of Ohio Militia. tWilliam S. Eosecrans, native of Ohio, and one of her cadets at West Point. II Don Carlos Buell, native of Ohio, but appointed to the service from Indiana. i 0. M. Mitchel, citizen of and appointed from Cincinnati. ** Quincy A. Gillmore, native of and appointed from Ohio. tt U. S. Grant, bom in Clermont County, 09io, and originally appointed to the army from that district. 14 Ohio in the Wab. a career as wonderful and as varied as tbat of any Marshal of France, in com- mand of all our armies, and hailed, by popular acclaim, our greatest Soldier. Another, * rising from the rank of a Quartermaster, was foremost in enforcing the surrender of Lee, and stood confessed the first Cavalry General of the Continent. Another, f set aside for insanity at the outset, led the great con- solidated armies of the West from victory to victoryv till one of their successes decided a Presidential contest, and another, as they marched down to the Sea, and swept like the destroying Angel through the birth-place and home of Secession, ended the war. Other sons of the State had borne parts no less conspicuous in the National oounojls. One, at the head of the War Department,! illustrated by hia fiery energy and his wonderful executive capacity, all, and more than all, that haa been said of the greatest war minister of the most warlike nation of Europe. Another, II so well discharged the great duties of the Treasury Departmenk,! carrying the Nation, and its armies through financial expenditures withonlPB parallel, with a security and public confidence without precedent in the world's history of war, that a leader of the rebellion had been forced at its close to say: "It was not your Generals that defeated us, it was your Treasury." Another,§ foremost among all the brave hearts who surrounded and upheld the Government, and in all the gloomiest hours never once despaired of the Eepublic, was the Chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War. And another,** maimed with honorable wounds received in the public service, passed from the field to take his place at the head of the committee which controlled the military legislation of the country. The exalted fame rofiected on the State which could boast euch representa- tives in the field, and at the head of the great Departments and Committees that controlled the business and met the expenditures of the war, was still further increased. Energetic Administrations at home successively devoted the State and all it contained to the great struggle — "rising to the height of the occasion, dedicating this generation, if need be, to the sword, and vowing, before high Heaven, that there should be no end to the conflict but ruTn absolute or absolute triumph." They gave to the Nation, in its prosecution of the war throughout its entire extent, this whole-hearted and unswerving support, and could still find means, beside, for such special achievements as the rescue of West Virginia by Ohio militia, the destruction of one of the most formidable cavalry commands of the rebellion on Ohio soil, and the re-enforcemcnt of the Army of the Potomac, at the critical hour when the fate of a Nation hinged'oH the fate of a campaign, by the voluntary contribution of over forty regiments * Phil. H. Sheridan, native of and appointed from Ohio. t W. T. Sherman, native of and appointed from Ohio. t E. M. Stanton, native of Ohio, and resident of the State for the greater portion of hia life. B S. P. Chase, ei-Governor and ex-United States Senator of Ohio. ? Ben. F. Wade, United States Senator from Ohio, and Vice-President of the United Statfli. *» Robert C. Sohenck, native of Ohio, M^"or-Qeneral of Volunteers, and Chairman of tht Military Committee of the House of P-epresentatives. Intboductoky, 16 of Ohio Hundred Days' men, called to the field at but little more than an hour's notice, from every busy avocation throughout the State. Yet the People who filled these regiments, and made these Administrations, and furnished these Statesmen and these Generals, merited more praise than all the rest. They counted their sons and sent them forth. They followed them to the camps. They saw them waste in inaction and die of disease. Then they saw them led by incompetents to needless slaughter. Stricken with anguish, they still maintained their unshaken purpose. They numbered the people again, and sent out fresh thousands. They followed them with generous gifts. They cared for the stricken families, and made desolate lives beautiful with the sweet charities of a gracious Christianity. They infused a religious j zeal into the contest. They held their soldiers to be soldiers in a holy war; they truly believed that through battle, and siege, and reverse, God was wait-/ ing, in His own good time, to give them the victory. Then they saw the struggle broadening in its purposes as in its theater. They did not shrink when they thus found how they had walked these paths of War with open but sightless eyes, while unseen hands were guiding them to ends they knew^ot of After a season the war came very near to each one of them. Almost every family had in it one dead for the holy cause; by almost every hearthstone rose lamentation and the sound of weeping for those that were not. Then came the voice of the tempter. Able sons of the State, men foremost in her honors and her trust, besought them to pause, declared the • war at once a failure and a crime, entreated them to array their potential influence against the Government in its struggle, and in favor of peace on any terms ; conjured them to save the blood of sons, and husbands, and fathers. They spurned the temptation. By a vote more decisive than had been known in the history of American elections they rejected the tempter. Thenceforward the position of Ohio was as a watchword to the ITation. It seems right that the history of such services and such devotion should be specially preserved. The State which contributed such leaders in the Cab- inet, such Generals in the field, and an army of three hundred and ten thousand soldiers to follow them, may be pardoned for desiring her achieve- ments separately recorded. Finding them grouped thus together, those who come after us may trace the career of Grant, and Sherman, and Sheridan; of Eosecrans, Mitchel, McPherson; of McDowell, McClellan, Buell; of Gillmore, and Steedman, and Hazen, and Schenck, and the whole host of our worthies; of Stanton, and Chase, and Wade; of Dennison, Tod, and Brough, and the two hundred and thirty military organizations they sent into the field. They may watch how by the aid of these the army grew into shape and substance. They may see how, following those it was led "always to honor, often to victory," and at last to glorious success. Then, contemplating this whole magnificent offering to the ^National cause, they may come to saj', with something of the pride with which we, who have seen these things with our eyes and heard them ▼ith our ears, regard the noble State, the gracious Mother of us all, "This, this Was Ohio in the Wae." 16 Ohio in the Wab. CHAPTER II. THE STATE AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAE. THE State of Ohio, which in -the next four years was to contribute to the National service an army of soldiers amounting in the aggregate, according to the figures of the Provost-Marshal General, to three hundred and ten thousand men, had in 1860 a population of not quite two and a half millions,* The existence of its territorial organization had only begun a year before the Century ; but it was already, and as it seemed was likely long to remain, the third State in population and wealth in the Union. More than half of its area, was under cultivation,f and more than half of its adult males were farmers, therQ being of this class two hundred and seventy -seven thousand owning farms, aver- aging a little over ninety acres to each man. So well was this most important body of the State's producers aided by the natural fertility of the soil, that they, furnished each year more than double the entire amount of food, animal and veg- etable, that was needed for the support of the whole population of the State. In 1860 they exported nearly two million barrels of flour, over two and a half mill- ion bushels of wheat, three million bushels of other grains, half a million barrete of pork. The value of the exports of agricultural products for that year from Ohio swelled to fifty -six and a half million dollars. Not less industrious and prosperous were the mainufacturers of the State. The value of their products for 1860 was over one hundred and twenty-two mill- ions of dollars, an increase of ninety-eight per cent, in a single decade. Thft city of Cincinnati alone, where Indians were trading wampum and buyingj blankets when New York had already attained the rank of the metropolis of the continent, manufactured in 1860, sixteen million dollars, worth of clothing, a larger quantity than New York itself produced in the same year. But the wealth of the State and the welfare of her people, so eloquently illustrated in figures like these, may perhaps be more clearly presented in a briefer statement. The assessed value of her taxable property rose in 1860 to nearly a thousand million dollars ; while, by the estimate of her Commissitsier of Statistics, the entire debts of the people would not amount to twenty per cent.' of that valuation. Let us not fail to add that, by the beneficent legislation of th^ * 2,343,739. In 1850 it was 1,980,329. And in 1830 only 937,903. t It had 13,051,945 acres of improved land to 12,210,154 of unimproved. Condition of the State. 17 State, none of her children were growing up without the free gift of an education that should fit them for the duties of citizenship; that tivere were published and mainly circulated within her borders twenty-four daily newspapers, two hundred and sixty -five weeklies, and fifty -four monthlies, making in the aggregate seventy- two million copies; and that so general was the devotion to religion and the provision for religious instruction, that the church edifices in the State contained sittings enough for the entire population of the State. The impending war was to have for its essence the fipirit of hostility to the existence, or at least to the power of the system of human slavery; and so it comes that the position of the State on this subject is not less essential to a comprehen- sion of her great part in the struggle, than is an appreciation of her wonderful progress and resources. The political conservatism, which prosperity and accu- mulating wealth naturally engender, was further favored in Ohio by the circum- stances of her settlement and geography. Along four hundred and thirty-six miles of her border lay slave States. From these many of her pioneers had come; many more traced with Kentuckians and West Virginians their common lineage back to the eastern slope of the ancient Dominion. In time of war the most effect- ive support to the exposed settlements of the infant State had come from their generous and warlike neighbors across the Ohio. In the long peace that followed, the heartiest friendships and warmest social attachments naturally went out to those who had been proved in the hour of trial. If her churches on every hill- side taught a religion which found no actual warrant in the Bible for the system of human slavery, they at least had no difficulty in believing that the powers that be are ordained of God, and by consequence in enforcing, a toleration which proved (juite as acceptable across the Border as the most exhaustive Scriptural exegesis. North of the National Eoad, which for many years was the Mason and Dixon's lino of Ohio politics, different views prevailed; and the people, tracing their ancestry to Puritan rather than Virginia stock, cherished different feelings; but the southern half of the State, being more populous and more influ- ential, long controlled the elections, and inspired the temper of the government and the legislation. In the Presidential contest of 1848, the electoral vote of the State was thus thrown for Lewis Cass. In 1852, it was in like manner given to Franklin Pierce. But by this time a change had begun. In the very heart of the conservative feeling of the State, one of the foremost lawyers of the city of Cincinnati had for years been keeping up an antislavery agitation. He had found a few, like- minded with himself, but Society and the; Church had combined to frown him down. Still, so single-minded and sincere was he, that, though the most ambi- tious of men, he resolutely faced the popular current, shut his eyes to all hope of political advancement, and daily labored at the task of resisting the preten- sions of Slavery, giving legal protection to the friendless and helpless negroes, and diffusing an Abolition sentiment among the conservative men of the Border, • and the influential classes of the great city of the State, whose prosperity was supposed to depend upon her intimate relations and immense trade with the slave-holding region8>to the south of her. To this task he brought some peculiar Vol. I.— 2. 18 Ohio in the Wak. qualifications. Profoundly ignorant of men, he was, nevertheless, profouad^ versed in the knowledge of Man. The baldest charlatan might deceive him^ into trusting hie personal worth; hut the acutest reasoner could riot misteajfe him in determining the general drift of popular sentiment, and the poJitioal tendencies of the times. Conscious of abilities that might place him in the front rank of our Statesmen, his sagacity, not less than his conscience, taught him to take Time for his ally; and lightly regarding the odium of his. present work, to look confidingly to the larger promises of the Future. Loving per-, sonal popularity, he was entirely destitute of the qualifications for attaining^^it Eeally warm-hearted and singularly tenacious in his attachments, he was ])erpet- ually regarded as utterly selfish and without capacity for friendsibip; so tliat his defects, no less than his merits, shut him up to a course which could hope for personal triumph only in the triumph of great principles. He was gifted by nature with a massive and cogent eloquence, little likely to sway the immediatj^n passions of the populace, but sure to infiltrate the judgment and conseienc&pf the controlling classes in the community. His energy was tireless, and his wiil absolutely inflexible. Under such leadership, ably seconded by the faithful and true old man who so long stood in Ohio the champion of Abolition, pure and simple, and the peculiar representative of the EeservOj a new element sprang up in Ohio politiea It cast a handful of votes for Birney for the Presidency; had risen to propor- tions which made it a respectable element in political calculations when it cast, what was thought to be, the vote of the balance of power for Van Buren; and had reached the height of its unpopularity with the old ruling class of the State when, in 1852, refusing to sustain General Scott on account of the " anti-agillh- tion" and "finality of the slavery question" features in his platform, it persisted in again giving the votes of its balance of power to John P. Hale, and thu*. permitting the triumph of Franklin Pierce. But before another Presidential election the shrewd calculationti of the sagacious leader of this outcast among parties had been realized. Holding, as has been seen, the balance of power, and subordinating all minor questioostta what they regarded as the absorbing issue of slavery or antislavery, they had already, with a handful of votes, controlled a great election, and sent this Abolition leader to the United States Senate. A greater triumph now awaited him. As dexterous in managing parties as he was blind in managing men, he placed such stress upon the new organization which had risen upon the ruin* of the old Whig party, that, detesting hia principles and distrusting himself, they were, nevertheless, forced to secure the votes without which the election were lost in advance, by placing his name at the head of their ticket, and bearisng the odious Abolitionist in triumph into the chair of the Chief Executive of the State. The impulse thus given was never wholly lost ; for though the people were by no means as radical as their Grovernor, they gave at the next Presi d'ential election a handsome majority to Fremont, and a year later i^aia electeii their Abolition leader. Whether it was through a far-seeing anticipation of what was to grow out CoNDBTIO^Sf OF THE StATE. 19 of this antislavery struggle, or whether it was only a result of the sagaciouB forecast which in most things distinguished his administration, Governor Chase early began to attempt an effective organization of the militia. In this, as in his political views, he was in advance of his times. In every State west of the Alleghanies the militia had fallen into undisguised contempt. The old-fash- ioned militia musters had been given up ; the subject had been abandoned aS fit only to bo the fertile theme for the ridicule of rising writers and witty stump oratord. The cannon issued by the Government were left for the uses of polit- ical parties on the occasion of mass meetings or victories at the polls. The small arms were scattered, rusty, and become worthless. In Chicago a novel drill had been an inducement for the organization of the Ellsworth Zouaves ; and here and there through the West the young men of a city kejjt up a mil- itary company; but those were the exceptions. Popular prejudice against doing military duty was insurmountable, and no name for these exceptional organizations so struck the popular fancy as that of "the Cornstalk Militia." Governor Chase at once essayed the formation of similarly uniformed and equipped militia companies at all leading points throughout the State, with a provisional organization into regiments and brigades. At first the popu- litr ridicule only was excited; by-and-by attention to the subject was slowly aroused. Some legislative support was secured, a new arsenal was established'; an issue of new arms was obtained from the General Government; and an approximation was at last made to a military peace establishment. Such was the interest finally excited that at one time a convention of nearly two hundred officers assembled at Columbus to consult as to the best means of developing and fostering the militia system; and the next year, before going out of office, Governor Chase had the satisfaction of reviewing, at Dayton, nearly thirty companies, assembled from different parts of the State — every one of which wis soon to participate in the war that was then so near and so little antici- pated. His successor continued the general policy thus inaugurated, urged the Legislature to pay the militia for the time spent in drill, and enforced the necessity of expanding the system. Comparatively little was accomplished, and yet the organization of Ohio militia was far superior to that existing in any of the States to the westward. All of them combined did not possess so largo a militia force as the First Ohio Eegiment, then under the command of Colonel King, of Dayton. Thus, rtaterially prosperous and politically progressive, yet with much of the leaven of her ancient Conservatism still lingering, and with the closest affiliations of friendship and trade with the slave-holding States of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, but with the germs of a preparation fbr hostilities, and such a nucleus of militia as might serve to protect the border from immediate ravages, Ohio entered upon the year that was to witness the paralysis of her indufltpy and trade, the sundering, of her old friendships, her political revolu- tion and the devotion of her entire energies to the business of war. 20 Ohio in the Wab. CHAPTER III. INITIAL WAR LEGISLATION -THE STRUGGLE AND SURRENDER OF PARH, THE legislative and executive dopartraents of the State Government, upon which were precipitated the weightiest burdens of the war, had been chosen as representatives rather of the average antislavery progress of the Whig party, than of the more advanced positions to which ex-Governor Chase had been committing his supporters. Great pains were taken to welcome the Legislatures of Kentucky and Tennessee on their visit to Columbus, and to convince them 9f the warm friendship borne them, not less by the Government than by the people of the State. Union-saving speeches and resolutions marked* the popular current; and, as had long been usual, the Union-saving temper' went largely toward the surrender to the South of everything save the abso- lutely vital points in controversy. The Governor, in his inaugural address^ while firmly insisting upon hostility to the extension of slavery, hTid also advo- cated the colonization of the blacks in Central or South America, and faithfkil obedience to what were regarded as our constitutional obligations to the slave- holding States. A leading member of the party in the Senate* had introduced a bill to prevent by heavy penalties the organization or the giving of any aid to parties like John Brown's, and it had come within three votes of a passage. More striking proof of the conciliatoiy disposition with which the Legisla- ture was animated was to be given. The constitutional amendment carried through Congress by Thomas Corwin, and submitted to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification, provided that hereafter no amendment or other change in the powers of Government should be permitted, whereby the National authorities should be enabled to interfere with slavery within its pr'esent limits. Before the beginning of actual hostilities in Charleston Harbor, it was apparent that, carrying the effort for conciliation to the furthest extreme, the heavy Ee- publican majority in the Legislature meant to give the sanction of Ohio to this irreversible guarantee to slavery in the fundamental law of the land. Befora its place on the Senate calendar was reached, however, came the bombardment of Sumter, the surrender, and the call of the President to protect the capital from the danger of sudden capture by the conspirators. On the l!ith of April •Hon. E. D. Haniaon, afterward elected from the Seventh District, to succeed ex-GovernO^ Corwin in Congress. Initial Wak Legislation. 21 Columbus was wild with the excitement of the call to arms. On the 16th the feeling was even more intense; troops were arriving, the telegraphs and mails were burdened with exhortations to the Legislature to grant money and men to any extent; the very air came laden with the clamor of war and of the swift, hot haste of the people to plunge into it. On the 17th, while every pulse around them was at fever-heat, the Senators of Ohio, as a last effort, passed the Corwin constitutional amendment, only eight members out of the whole Senate opposing it.* But this was the last effort at conciliation. Thenceforward the State sti-ove to conquer rather than to compromise. Already, on the 16th of April, within less than twenty-four hours after the President's call for troops had been re- ceived, the Senate had matured, carried through the several readings, and passed a bill appropriating one million of dollars for placing the State upon a war- footing, and for assisting the General Government in meeting the shock of the rebellion.f The debate which preceded the rapid passage of this bill illustrated the melting away of party lines under the white heat of pati-iotism. Senator Orr, the Democratic representative of the Crawford County Senatorial District, ' was opposed to the war, and even to the purposes p£ the bill, but he should vote for it as the beist means of testifying his hostility to secession.' Judge Thomas M. Key, of Cincinnati, the ablest Democrat in the Senate, foUowed.J He, too, was in favor of the bill. ' Yet he felt it in his soul to be an unycarranted declara- tion of war against seven sister States. He entered his solemn protest against the line of action announced by the Executive. It was an usurpation by a President, in whom and in whose advisei-s he had no confidence ; it was the be- ginning of a military (lespotism. He firmly believed it to be the desire of the Administration to drive off the border States, and permanently sever the Union. But he was opposed to secession, and in this contest he could do no otherwise than stand by the stars and stripes.' Next came Mr. Moore, of Butler County, conspicuous as the most conservative oif" those reckoned at all. with the Eepubli- •The eight who had the foresight to perceive that the 17th of April, 1861, was not a time to be striving to add security to slavery were, Messrs. Buck, C!ox, Garfield, Glass, Monroe, Morse, Farriab, and Smith, tSome days earlier a bill had been introduced appropriating a hundred thousand dollars for war purposes. On a hint from the Executive that perhaps other and more important measures might be needed, action was delayed. Then the million war bill was introduced, in response Co a message from Governor Dennison, announcing the call from Washington, maintaining the necessity for defending the integrity of the Union, and concluding as follows: " But as the contest may grow to greater dimensions than is now anticipated, I deem it my duty to recommend to the General Assembly of this State to make provisions proportionate to its means to assist the National authorities in restoring the integrity and strength of the Union, in ill its amplitude, as the only means of preserving the rights of all the States, and insuring the permanent peace and prosperity of the whole country. I earnestly recommend, also, that an appropriation of not less than four hundred and fifty thousand dollars he immediately made, for the purchase of arms and equipments for the use of the volunteer militia of the State. 1 need not remind you of the pressing exigency for the prompt organization and arming of the mili- tary force of the State." t Subsequently Colonel and Judge Advocate on McClellan's staff. 22 Ohio in the Wak. can party in the Senate; in fact as almost the ideal of the old " Silver-Grsjjr Whig."* Hitherto he had voted consistently against all military bills, and Juid even avowed his readiness to surrender the Southern forts rather than bring on a collision. ' Now he felt called upon to do the most painful duty of his lifig. But there was only one course left. He had no words of bitterness for pai'ly with which to mar the solemnity of the hour. This only he had to say : He could do nothing else than stand by the grand old flag of the country, and stand by it to the end. He should vote for the bill.' Thus, to recur to the figure already used, did the iron rules of party disol- plihe and prejudice, melting beneath the white heat of patriotism, still mark iji broken outline the old divisions beneath and through which the molten curreni) freely mingled. The bill passed by an almost unanimous vote ; one Senator only, Mr. Newnxan, of Scioto County, voting against it.f In the House, however, party opposition gave way more slowly. That same afternoon. the bill went over from the Senate, and an effort was made to jsuspend the rules, so as to put it upon its passage. The Democrats demanded time for coasultation. Mr. Wax. B. Woods J (ex-Speaker and Democratic leader) gave notice that it could not be unanimously passed without time were given. For one, he wanted to hear from his constituents. Mr. Geo. W. AndrewB,|| of Auglaize County, denounced the excitement on the subject of war, here and over the country, as crazy fanaticism. Mr. Devore, of Brown County, 'regarded the interests of tlje country, south of the Ohio Eiver as well as north of it. The dispatches about the danger to Washington were preposterous, and were mostly pianufactured for evil purposes.' Ma-. Jessup, of Hamilton County, gave notice that if the majority wanted his vote they must wait for it. And so, the Eepub- licans agreeing to delay in the hope of securing harmony, the bill went over, after two ineffectual efforts to suspend the rules.§ The next day, the Democrats having in the meantime spent three hours in excited debate in caucus, the effort to 'suspend the rules again failed. Bat the leaders earnestly assured the House that with another day's delay there was » strong probability of the unanimous passage of the bill. A dispatch had al- ready been received from Scioto County, denouncing Senator Newman for his vote against it in the Senate, and it was said that .his son was enlisted in one of the companies then on the way to Columbus. Mr. Hutcheson, of Madison County, an extreme States'-Eights Democrat, and almost a secessionist, spoke handsomely in favor of the bill, and drew oat hearty applause from House and •Subsequently Colonel of one of the hundred days' regiments. t Under the terrible pressure of public condemnation, especially in his own district, Mr. i Newman shortly afterward asked leave to change his vote. ' t Subsequently Colonel of a three years' regiment, and Brevet Major-General of vol- unteera. II Subsequently Colonel of the Fifteenth Ohio in the three months' seryiee, and Lieutemate Colonel, until after the Clarksville surrender, of the Seventy-Fourth Ohio. I In these efforts twenty-five Democrats voted against suspending the rules, fourteen voted < with the Kepublicans for suspension, and eight were absent when the roll was called. The Struggle and Surrendee of Party. 23 galleries. But delay was still insisted upon, and so the bill went over to the third day from th« date of its introduction. Then all were ready^ Ex-Speaker Woods led off in a stirring little speech, declaring his intention 'to stand by the G-ovcrnmeiit in peace or in war, right or wrong.' Mr. Wm. J. Flagg, of Hamilton County, followed. ' He was glad that delay had produced unanimity. But ho had been of the number that had fovored instant action. Ho had done so because Jefferson Davie had shown no hesitation in sasponding the rules, and marching through first, seeond, and third readings without waiting to hear from his constituents. He had ever advocated peace, but it was always peace for the Union. Now he was ready for peace for the Union, or war for it, love for it, hatred for it, everything for it." Mr. An- drejva, of Auglaize County, had less to say of the crazy fanaticism of the ex- citement. 'The act of South Carolina toward the Democrats of the North was a ci-ime fbr which the English language could find no deBcription. It had for- ever severed the last tie that bound them together.' Amid such displays of feeling on the part of the Opposition, the bill finally went through, on the 18th of April, by an unanimous vote ; ninety-nine in its favor. It appropriated half a million dollars for the purpose of carrying into effect any requisition of the President to protect the National Grovernment ; four hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the purchase of arms and equipments for the militia of the State ; and the remaining fifty thousand as an extraordinary contingent fund for the Governor. The Commissioners of the Sinking Fund were authorized to borrow the money, at six per cent, interest, and to issue cer- tificates thei'efor which should be free from State taxation. Meantime the" Senate, under the leadership of Mr. Garfield, had matured and passed a bill defining and providing punishment for the crime of treason against the State of Ohio. It declared any resident of the State who gave aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States guilty of treason against the State, to be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary at hard labor for life.* With the passage of these bills all semblance of party opposition to neces- sary war measures disappeared from the proceedings of the Legislature. Mr. Vallandigham visited the capital and earnestly remonstrated with the Demo- crats for giving their sanction to the war ; but the patriotic enthusiasm of the i crisis could not be controlled by party discipline. Under the leadership of ex- Speaker Woods, a bill passed exempting the property of volunteers from exe- cution for debt during their service. Then, as within a few days it became evident that far more troops were pressing for acceptance than were needed to fill the President's call for thirteen regiments, the Legislature acceded to the sagacious suggestion of the Governor that they should be retained for the serv- ice of the State. The bill authorized the acceptance of ten additional regi- ments, provided five hundred thousand dollars for their payment, and a million and a half more to be used in case of invasion of the State, or the appearance of danger of invasion. Other measures were adopted looking to the danger of •This bill was understood at the time to be specially aimed at Mr. Vallandigham. 24 Ohio in the War. shipmehts of arms through Ohio to the .South ; organizing the militia of the State ; providing suitable officers for duty on the staff of the Governor; requir- ing contracts for subsistence of the volunteers to be let to the lowest bidder; authorizing the appointment of additional general officers. No little hostility towaj'd some members of Governor Dcnnison's staff was exhibited, but with the Governor himself the relations of the Legislature were entirely harmonious. In concert with him the war legislation was completed ; and when, within a month after the first note of alarm from "Washington the General Assembly adjourned, the State was, for the first time in its history, on a war footing. Before the adjournment the acting Speaker had resigned to take a command in one of the regiments starting for Washington ; two leading Senators had been appointed Brigadier-Generals ; arid largo numbers of the other members had, in one capacity or another, entered the service. It was the first of the war Legislatures. It met the first shock ; under the sudden pressure matured the first military laws. It labored under difficulties inseparable from so unexpected a plunge into duties so novel. But it may now be safely said that in patriotism, in zeal and ability, it was second to neither of its successors, and that in the exu- berance of patriotic sentiment which wiped out party lines and united all in common efforts to meet the sudden danger, it surpassed them both. Dennison's War Administration. 25 CHAPTER IV. THE OPENING ACTS OF DENNISON'S WAR ADMINISTRATION. ALTHOUGH the country bftd been greatly excited by the acts of seces- sion by several States, the seizure efforts, and the defiance of the General Government, there still lingered in the minds of the most a trust that in some way the matter would be adjusted, and bloodshed would be avoided. There was much war talk on the part of the young and excitable, but the influ- ential men and the masses were slow to believe in the possibility of war. Yet. the portents still grew darker and darker at the South, " Then a fierce, sudden flash across the rugged blackness broke, And with a voice that shook the land the guns of Sumter spoke ; And wheresoe'er the summons came, there rose an angi-y din, As when, upon a rocky coast, a stormy tide sets in."* Before the bombardment had ended twenty full companies were offered to the Governor of Ohio for immediate service. With the news of the surrender, and the call of the President for volunteers, the excitement became fervidly intense. Militia officers telegraphed their readiness for orders. The President of Kenyon College tendered his service in any capacity, and began by enlisting in the ranks.f The Cleveland Grays, the Eover Guards, the Columbus Videttes, the State Feneibles, the Governor's Guards, the Dayton Light Guards, the Guthrie Grays — the best known and best drilled militia companies in the State — held meetings, unanimously voted to place themselves at the disposal of the Government, and telegraphed to Columbus for orders. Portsmouth announced a company ready to march. Chillicotlie asked if she should send a company that day. Circlevillc telegraphed, offering one or more companies, announcing that they had two thousand dollars raised to equip them. Xenia asked leave to raise a battery of artillery and a company of infantry. Canton sent up an officer, beg- ging the acceptance of two companies. Lebanon wanted two companies accepted. Springfield wanted the same. Lancaster started a company to Columbus. Cin- * " War Poems," by E. J. Cutler : Little, Brown & Co. 1867. tThree months, indeed, before tlie fall of Sumter, foreseeing the necessity for war, President Andrews had written the Governor, offering his services whenever it should break out. He was the first citizen of Ohio to make such tender. 26 Ohio in the War. cinnati, Dayton, Cleveland counted their, offers by the thousand. Steedman, from Toledo, pledged a full regiment in ten days. Prominent men, all over the State, telegraphed asking what they could do, and placing themselves at the disposal of the authorities. The instant, all-devouring blaze of excited patriot- ism was as amazing as it was unprecedented. Let it not be forgotten that among the first offers were some from colored men promising companies, atal that, in obedience to the temper of those times, they were refused. The officer upon whom the full pressure of this sudden avalanche fell had filled one-half of his term as Governor of the State. He was a man of excel- lent social connections, of suave, elegant manners, a master of deportment, and a favorite in polite circles. His experience in public affairs had been limited to a single term in the State Senate, and of military matters he was, like most other officials, profoundly ignorant. Among railroad managers and bank offioera he had the reputation of financial ability, and of capacity for controlling large operations. But the public had not been accustomed to regard him as one of the leading men of the State, or scarcely, indeed, as one of heraecond -rates. Bank and railroad influences, combined with the general lack of formidable aspirants, had united to secure him the nomination for the Governorship. In the debates between himself and his Democratic antagonist before popular as- semblages, the Eepublicans had been in great fears lest their champion should prove unequal to such a contest, and greatly delighted and surprised at the un- expected power of his performance. Still the old idea of him, as a man wholly frittered away in polish, was not entirely dispelled. His inaugural w^s not happy. It was severely criticised as prolix, verbose, and occasionally stilted. One luckless sentence had fastened itself in the minds of his opponents, and had been laughed at over the State, whenever his name was mentioned: "If at- tended with success at the threshold in dissolving the great Confederacy and creating a small one, the introduction of standing armies to confront border war on the slave and free frontiers, and to push the scheme of Southern con- quests, and to maintain them, and keep down domestic insurrection, would he the succedaneum for the security conferred by a common government." TJp to the period of which we write the opposition press, and even influential Eepub- lican journals, had delighted to speak of Mr. Dennison as " the succedaneum Governor." In the easy duties of his office in time of peace he had acquitted himself creditably; but, unfortunately for him and for the State, there was a general distrust of his ability to sustain the larger responsibilities now upoB him, and a general disposition to judge all his a.ctions harshly in advance. Thus unfortunate in the public estimate of his qualifications for, the task he was now essaying, he was still more unfortunate in the tools with which he had to work. We have already seen how unwisely his distingtiished predecessor was liable to act in his selections of men. But as Mr. Chase had made the re- vival of the militia one of the features of his administration, Governor Denni- son, wishing to continue the same work, found it easiest, and most consonant with his polite ways, to do it with the same staff ; accepting those officers the Dennison's War Administration. 27 more readily as it was never dreamt that they would have anything of marked importance to do. It thus came about that when the bewildering mass of mil- itary business was precipitated upon him on the 15th of April, he met it with a staff in which it seemed as if the capacity of bad selection had been almost ex- bausied. Some of them had no executive ability ; some had no tact ; one was wholly unpractical ; they failed to command the confidence of the gjithering volunteers, and at least two of them were the butt of every joker and idle clerk about the Capitol. "We are presently to see what complications of evil these circumatanccs brought about. But a single day was required to raise the first two regiments, in answer to the President's call. On the next they arrived, in separate companies, at Co- lumbus, on their way, as it proved, to Washington. The " Lancaster Guards " were the first to report on the ground. Close behind them came the Daytoa Light Guards and the Montgomery Guards ; then swiftly following a score of others. On the morning of the 18th of April the First and Second Ohio were or- ganized from the first companies that had thus hurried to Columbus. They were mostly made up of well-known militia organizations, from leading towns and cities, as follows : First Ohio — Company A, Lancaster Guards. « " " B, Lafayette Guards (Dayton). " «' " C, Dayton Light Guards. « " '• D, Montgomery Guards. « « " B, Cleveland Grays. «« " " F, Hibernian Guards (Cleveland). « « " G, Portsmouth Guards. «« " " H, Zanesville Guards. " « « I, Mansfield Guards. « « " K, Jackson Guards (Hamilton). Second " " A, Eover Guards (Cincinnati). « « « B, Columbus Videttes. «' " " C. Columbus Fencibles. «« " " D, Zouave Guards (Cincinnati). « « « E, Lafayette Guards (Cincinnati). « " " F, Springfield Zouaves. « « " G, Pickaway company. u u li H, Steubenville company, ic « " I, Covingtou Blues (Miami County). «« «« " K, Pickaway company. At the outset the State Administra^on fell into the vicious policy of per- mitting the soldiers to elect their own commanders. Till an election could be held ox-Speaker Edward A. Parrott, of the House of Representatives, was as- 28 Ohio in the War, signed for the First Eegiment as commandant, and Lewis Wilson (who had re- signed the office of chief of police in Cincinnati, to enter the service) for the Second. There were no arms, uniforms, equipments, transportation for them. Biit the Government was importunate. " Send them on instantly," was the order from Washington, '' and we will equip them here." Even among the civilians, then for the first time attempting the management of soldiers, there were fore- bodings concerning the policy of starting troops to defend a threatened city without guns or ammunition ; but with wild cheers from the volunteers, and many a "God bless you" from the on-lookers, the trains bearing the unarmed crowd moved out of the Columbus depot, long before dawn, on the morning of the 19th of April. But before they started, fresh arrivals had more than filled their places in the hastily-improvised camp in the woods beyond the railroad depot, which, with a happy thought of the first advocate for the " coereiowof sovereign States," Governor Dennison had named Camp Jackson. Already had begun the first of a long series of troubles that were to cloud the career of a faithful and able administration. The Commissary-General, Mr. Geo. W. Eunyan, of Cincinnati, had been called upon to provide for the troops as soon as they began to arrive. Hurrying up to Columbus, he found several companies there almost as soon as himselL Where were they to be put ? How were they to be fed ? For an hour or two they could march about the streets with their martial music, and for another hour or two they could be trusted to stand on grassy spots about the Capitol at a parade rest, but — what then ? To this novice, and to his associates and supe- riors, indeed, then clustering about the Governor's table in the excited crowd at the Executive rooms, the question was almost startling. To all of them, how- ever, the most natural suggestion was a hotel ; and to the hotels accordingly, our Commissary-Genei-al sallied forth, having for aid Mr. Lucien Buttles, of Co- lumbus. These gentlemen found the Goodale House capable of accommodating one company, and willing to reduce its charges, in aid of the common cause, ta a dollar and a quarter per day. Second-class houses could take four more com- panies at somewhat lower rates — some even as low as seventy -five cents per day. And so the first-arriving soldiers were quartered at the hotels. Little as they knew about army life, the authorities knew enough to under^ . stand that this could only be temporary. So next the Governor instructed the Commissary-General to see what he could do for the permanent subsistence of volunteers. He saw; reported, as the best he could do, a contract with a Mr. Butler at fifty cents per day ; and, on his recommendation, the contract waa straightway signed. The contractor found himself unable to provide food aa; fast as the troops came in. Within a few days loud complaints arose about breakfasts delayed till twelve o'clock, and the like irregularities; the volun- teers, fresh from the comforts of home, and haying little else to do, growled; lustily ; the newspapers discussed the grievance ; ardent members of the Legi|| lature presently took up the burden of constituents whom they found in the Dennison's Wak Administkation. 28 ranks ; and eo, amid the enthusiasm of the people and the straggles of the Ad- ministi-ation, rose a hoarse clamor against heartless contractors and incompetent State officials who permitted them to abuse our gallant citizen-soldiery. Other, complaints presently began to be heard from Cleveland, where the subsistence contract had been given to O. C. Scoville at fifty cents per day, and from Cin- cinnati, where it had been given to H. P. Handy at sixty cents per day; In the midst of this came fresh food for' censure. Great bundles of round poles began, to come through by express from New York in numbers that to the uneducated eye seemed absolutely enormous, consigned to the Governor. They were the tent-poles belonging to certain purchases. of tents made for the State in New York. Uniforms were to be provided for the gathering troops, and con- tracts were hastily given out on such terms as were offered. Messrs. J. & H. Miller, of Columbus, were to furnish four thousand overcoats at nine dollars and sixty-five cents apiece; Mack & Brothers and J. H. Luken, of Cincitinati, Eng- lish & Co., of Zanesville, and McDaniel, of Daj-ton, were each to furnish one thousand uniforms (coats and trowsers only), at sixteen dollars — one-sixth to be delivered weekly. Mr. Eobinson, of Cleveland, was to furnish two thousand at the same rates. Stone & Bstabrook were to furnish one thousand flannel shirts at one dollar and a half a piece. Other prices were in proportion, and on all it appeared that large profits were likely to accrue. Shipments of arms presently^ began to arrive, and there were stories of large purchases, at extravagant rates, in New York. These several facts and rumors were discussed in the newspapers with gi-eat severity, and the leading Eepublican journals were foremost in cen- suring the Governor's subordinates, and, impliedly, the Governor himself Other sources of dissatisfaction appeared. The Adjutant-General, a person of considerable and versatile ability, was an enthusiastic militiaman, but, just then, not much of a soldier. He was withal so excitable, so volatile, so destitute of method, as to involve the affairs of his office in confusion, and to bewilder him- self and those .about him in the fog of his own raising. He accepted companies without keepifig count of them ; telegraphed hither and thither for companies to come immediately forward ; and soon had the town so full of troops that his associates could scarcely subsist or quarter, and he could scarcely organize them; while, when he came to reckon up, he found he had far outrun his limits, and had on hand troops for nearer thirty than thirteen regiments. Then, when he attempted to form his companies into regimental organizations, he met fresh troubles. Bach one wanted to be Company A of a new regiment, and was able to prove its right to the distinction. The records of the office were too im- perfect to show in most cases definitely which had been first accepted. Then Senators and Eepresentatives must needs be called in to defend the rights of their constituents, and the Governor's room, in one end of which the Adjutant- General transacted his business, was for weeks a scene of aggravating confusion and dispute. For a little the popular discontent fermented. Then, on the Ist of May, the House of Eepresentatives took it up. The general regard felt— in spite of his weakness— for the Adjutant-General, spared him. But a resolution was 30 Ohio in the Wae. introduced, declariftg it to be the sense of the House that the Quartermaeter- General and Commissary-General were unfit for their places, and appornting.a committee to wait upon the Governor and request their removal. Eiforts wen made to couple with this an indorsement of the Governor himself, bat the House refused. One prominent Eepublican declared that he hoped the Gover». nor was not to blame, but he 'was n't bound to say grace before mentioning- hig name and return thanks afterward for the privilege; he wanted those men turned out, and he wanted the Governor to know it; and he wasn't disposed to mince many words ovec-the matter.' A similar strain was adopted by others^ and the resolution was passed by a vote of sixty-one to twenty-four. The Governor assured the committee that all the subsistence contraiets would be virtually annulled by the removal of the trooj)s to other camps within the next forty-eight hours; but knowing better than they the injustice of a portion of tfee clamor, he gave no indication of an immediate purpose to remove the obnoxious officers. He kept his promise by the speedy selection of a site for a large camp near Miamiville, on the Little Miami Eailroad, in the south-woBtern corner of the l^tate, where the main portion of the force should rendezvous, and wher»a recommendation of one Captain McClellan, then an officer on the Ohio and Mississippi Bailroad. The Governor remembered him as a young man whom he had met at a rail- I'oad convention a year or two before. He had paid but little attention to hin^ and should scarcely have remembered the name but for the enthusiastic praises of a Mr. Clark, who was in attendance. This gentleman had assured Mr. Den- nison that Captain McClellan was a man of remarkable ability, and had taken the pains, on returning home, to send him McClellan's Report on the Organisa- tion of European Armies. All this came back now into the Governor's memory, as he listened to the praises of the young railroad officer, from the personal friends who hurried to Columbus to urge his appointment. He hunted up the old report, sent him a year or two before, and looked through it. Finally he began to think that the man who understood the organization of armies so well would be very valuable in his office, to take charge of the organization of tho Ohio army. Still, not quite willing to abandon McDowell, he determined to have a look at his rival. Accordingly he wrote to Captain McClellan, asking him to come up to Colum- bus and give the benefit of his advice about the fortifications then thought by the alarmed citizens of Cincinnati to be necessary to protect them from the hos- tile Kentuckians. The Captain replied that he was unable to come; but that he would send in his stead Captain Pope, of the regular army, who happened then to be in the city, and .whose judgment about such matters was excellent. Captain Pope came, but the Governor was not favorably impressed with him. He recommended the purchase of a considerable number of huge Columbiads, to be mounted, it would seem, on Walnut Hills, since it was then the policy to hold sacred from the tread of United States troops the soil of Kentucky. In the fullness of his desire to do whatever was needed, the Governor, though with some misgivings, actually signed the order, and the Columbiads were procured. The friends of McClellan continued their urgency, and, at last, under the high-pressure system which the enthusiasm and the emergency had created, Governor Dennison hastily wrote a second time, asking the young army officer, whom by this time he was beginning to believe almost an absolute authority ojd military matters, to come up to the Capitol for consultation. Judging that by this time the efforts of his friends must have paved the way for him, McCleHan came. The Governor, favorably disposed already, was greatly pleased with hia Dennison's War Administeation. 33 Appearance and demeanor. He reflected that McClellan seemed to have more reputation than McDowell, and that his appointment would be likely to have more prestige and exert a better influence over the gathering volunteers ; and so, at length, he af)pointed him a Major-General of the Ohio militia, to command the forces called into the field ; and sent a note to McDowell, regretting that circumstances seemed to require the retraction of the implied promise that he should receive the place.* Governor Dennison's expectation now was that McClellan would remain in Columbus, and relieve him of the burdens of military administration. In this, however, he was disappointed from the outset. The new Major-General re- mained perhaps a couple of weeks, and gave some little advice to the legislative committees concerning some of the military legislation they had in hand. But meantime he had opened a correspondence with the War Department, and it presently appeared that he was about to be elevated to a wider command. Before this, however, he had, only two days after his appointment, ap- proached the Governor with a private dispatch from Governor Curtin, of Penn- sylvania, which oifored him the command of the troops of his native State. This, he said, had it come two days earlier, he would have accepted. If the Governor now chose, in view of this fact, to renew his offer to McDowell, he (McClellan) would gladly get out of the way, and go on to Pennsylvania. Den- ilison promptly declined. General confidence, he said, seemed to have been, ex- cited by his appointment, and he would not unsettle it by any change. McClel- lan accordingly wrote his reply : " Before I heard yoa wanted me in any position I had accepted the command of the Ohio forces. They need my serv- ices, and I am bound in honor to stand by them." Presently came news that three yeai-s' troops were to be called out, and that their Generals were to be appointed by the President. Straightway Den- nison determined to secure, if possible, the three years' appointment for the new Major-General of his making. On the 11th of May he telegraphed to Sec- retary Chase : " Can McClellan get a commission for three years at once, so as to make him rank over all others, and make sure of his holding the chief com- mand here? Ohio must lead throughout the war." No immediate reply came. Baton the 14th of May, while the Governor was in Cincinnati, on a hasty trip to look after the requirements of the southern border, a dispatch was handed him from Mr. Chase : " We have to-day had McClellan appointed a Major-General in the regular army." He was in a room with McClellan, Marcy, and others, and he immediately handed over the dispatch to the one whom it most con- cerned. Governor Dennison has since described the utter amazement that over- spread the face of the young officer, and the difficulty with which he could be persuaded that so overpowering an honor had really been conferred upon him. His father-in-law and chief of staff, Major Marcy, was equally incredulous; and the next day the Go\iBrnor had even to» produce the dispatch again, before Mrs/ McClellan could satisfy herself that her husband had been so suddenly raised so high. They all seemed to imagine that it must be some inexplicable mis- * See post. Part II. Life of McDowell. Vol. 1.— 3. 34 Ohio in the Wak. take, and that the Washington authorities could really intend nothing of th« kind.* Meanwhile, having given the chief command to a regular officer, who seemed to be thus highly appreciated by the army authorities at Washington, Governor Dennison next looked about him for influential and energetic men,, anxious to enter the war, on whom he could confer the three Brigadier-Gfeneral- ships. Newton Schleich, of Fairfield County, then the Democratic leader in the State Senate, was the first selected ; J. H. Bates, of Cincinnati, an officer of tlie old militia, was the second; and J. D. Cox, one of the Eepublican leadera in'the Senate, and a gentleman who had already made himself of gnesat use in the Gov- ernor's office in aiding the transaction of business, was the third. Even these appointments, in the temper to which the public mind was now brought, became subjects of complaint. The most absurd was the charge of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a loading Democratic newspaper in the northern part of the State, which denounced the Governor for the gross partisasBship- of hii appointments, and particularly for the "promotion of Schleich, a Bepublitt(iM| greenhorn, to the high rank of Brigadier-General ! " So easy was it by thii^ * It IB scarcely negesoary (since it is substantially intimated in the text) to add that in the above I have followed GoTernor Dennison's personal statement^ as to the circumstances attend- ing the rapid promotion of General McClellan. Stories have been widely circulated to the effect' that the original appointment as Major-General of Ohio militia was procured by the accidental discovery that Curtin intended to offer a^imilar position in Pennsylvania, and even that this dis- patch was itself a forgery. From the numerous versions set afloat, I talce this one, from the Bos- tun Commonwealth, because it happens to be authenticated by the iaitiala of Bev. D. A. Wasson : "McClellan was an officer of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad. He managed matters so miserably as greatly to embarrass the principal roads connecting with that of which he had charge. To get rid of him became, therefore, an important desideratum with those most con- cerned in these roads. " When the war broke out there was a meeting between three of the persons thus interested? Two of them said : * Now is our time. McClelInn is a military man ; let us get him am srppoint- ment to the command of our State troops. He will do good service there, and we shall be rid of an ugly incumbrance.' The third demurred. ' I do n't know about that,' he said. 'McClel- lan has given no evidence of ability as a man of business ; and I see no reason to think that he would do better as a General. It would hardly be patriotic to take a load from our own shouU ders and place it on those of the nation.' ' But he has been trained to the art of war,' ui^;ed the others ; 'if he is not good for that, what is he good for?' The objector refused to be convinced, but the others made haste to carry their project into efiect. A petition was accordingly sent to> Governor Dennison, praying him to bestow command on this blocker of business — who rose from bed, it was said, at eleven in the morning. Governor Dennison hesitated. While he was con- sidering the matter, a telegram, signed by Gtivernor Ourtin, came from Pliiladelphia, containing a request to McClellan to take command of the Pennsylvania troops. This indication tliat hq was desired abroad decided the Governor to employ him at home. He was appointed accordingly. " The Philadelphia telegram, which secured him his place, was afterward discovered to i^ bogus — concocted in Cincinnati for the purpose which it served I " So far at least as this refers to any influence from Philadelphia, by means either of genuirtj or forged dispatches, tending to impel Governor Dennison to the appointment, the story is erro- neous. The appointment was made befoi-e Governor Curtin's dispatch was heard of. As the matter was once thought of much importance, ^and as the appointment certainly did exercise '( large and long-ootfSnued influence upon the fortunes of the war, it is well enough that the exHl facts should be recorded. Dennison's War Administeation. 35 time to find causes for denouncing the Governor, and so little care did influeiu tial men take to see whether there was the slightest basis for their charges. Kepublicans, on the other hand, were disposed to complain that the Demo- crats received more than their share of the high promotions. MoClellan was a Democrat, and so was Schleich, and, in fact, but one Eepublican had been ap- pointed, out of the four general oflScers assigned to the State. What it now remains to us to-tell of the first "War Administration of Ohio, constitutes the highest claim of the maligned Groverrlor to the regard and grati- tude of his S'tate and of the country. To a man of his sensitive temper and- special desire for the good opinion of others, the unjust and measureless abuse to which his earnest efforts had subjected htm were agonizing. But he suf- fel-ed no sign to escape him, and with a single-hearted devotion, and an ability for wliich the State had not credited him, he proceeded to the measures most necessary in the crisis. First of all, the loan authorized by the Million War Bill' was to be placed, for without money the State could do nothing. The Common Council of Cin- cinnati offered to take a quarter of a million of it, and backed its offer by for- warding the money. The State Bank, full of confidence in its old ofiicer, row at the head of the Administration, was entirely willing'to take the rest; the Common Council of Columbus was willing to take a hundred thousand dollars; and offers speedily came in for smaller amounts from other quarters. Th(? Gov- ernor was anxious, however, that a general opportunity should be given to pa- triotic citizens throughout the State. He, therefore, discouraged somewhat the large subscribers, and soon had the loan favorably placed. Next after money came the demand for arms. For its twenty -three regi- ments already raised, the State of Ohio had only one thousand nine hundred and eighty-four muskets and rifles of all calibers and one hundred and fifty sabers. The Governor of Illinois had on hands a considerable number, of which Denni- son heard. He at once resolved to procui-e them. Senator Garfield was at hand, ready and willing for any work to which, he might be assigned. Duly armed with a requisition from the proper authorities, he was dispatched to the Illinois Capital. He succeeded in securing five thousand muskets, and shipped them Bti-aightway to Columbus. At the same time — for the Governoi-, in the midst of the popular abuse, had already begun to display a capacity for broad and states- manlike views — he was instructed to lay before the Illinois Executive u sugges- tion as to the propriety of uniting the Illinois troops and all others in the Mississippi Valley under the Ohio Major-General. Glad to hear of an ofiicer anywhere who knew anything about war, they joyfully consented, and so Mc- Clellan's department was, with their full approval, presently extended from West Virginia to the Mississippi. Five thousand arms, however, were but a drop in the bucket, and accoutre- ments were alpiost wholly wanting. The supply in the entire country was quite limited • even in Europe there were not enough immediately accessible to meet the sudden demand ; and it was evident that the first and most energetic in th© 36 Ohio in the War. market would be the first to secure arms for their soldiers. Governor Dennison accordinglj' selected Judge-Advocate-General Wolcott of his staff* a gentleman of fine ability and of supposed business capacity, to proceed forthwith to New York as his agent for the purchase of arms. It was under his management that the hasty shipment of tent-poles had been made, on which was based one of the earliest complaints against the State Administration. He secured at once, on terms as favorable as could then be obtained, about five thousand muskets, with equipments, knapsacks, canteens, etc., to correspond. Meeting the agent of the State of Massachusetts, just as he was about to sail for England to pur- chase arms, he commissioned him to purchase there for Ohio a hundred thou- thousand dollars' worth of Enfield rifles. Subsequently, Mr. Wolcott secured authority from the Ordnance oflftce of the War Department to purchase directly on the account of the United States such arms and accoutrements as were, needed for Ohio troops; and the energy and personal supervision which the Gov- ernor was thus able to Secure in the transaction of the Government business for his State, went largely to aid the rapid arming and equipment of the Ohio troops. Before this, however, by the aid of another agent. General Wool had been prevailed upon to order ten thousand muskets through to Columbus, and the first needs were thus supplied.f Next, so soon as the first rush of volunteers gave him time to look abont him, he prepared to reorganize his staff by the selection of men better fitted for fts duties on a war establishment. The confusion in the Adjutant-General'B office, and the enormous labors actually devolving upon that overworked oflScer^ first directed attention to the task of securing an able Assistant Adjutant-Gen- eral. With this view he offered the place to Mr. Samuel Craighead, of Dayton. That gentleman visited Columbus, looked at the workings of the office and de- clined. Mr, C. P. Buckingham, a citizen of the State, of high position, a grad- uate of West Point, and a gentleman of calm, methodical habits and thorough knowledge of the business, was then obtained. Next Colonel Charles Whit- tleslj', another old army officer, was given to the luckless Quartermaster-General as an assistant. A few da3's later the Coramissarj'-General was displaced, and the new Assistant Adjutant-General was assigned to his duties, while Lieutenant J. W. Sill took the place thus vacated under the Adjutant-General. Lieutenant William S. Eosecrans — a name soon to become notable in the history of the war — was made Chief Engineer. By this time the attitude of Kentucky had become a source of alarm along * Subsequently, and till his lamented death, .\ssistant Secretary of War. t In this, and in all the other operations in the same crowded season, one of the most grati- fying features was the earnest anxiety of the ninst prominent citizens to be of service any way or anywhere, to the State. Foremost among them was the Hon. Noah H. Swayne (now Justice »f the Supreme Court of the United States), -who repeatedly visited Washington at the Governor's request, on business for the State — permitting the authorities to make no remuneration for his labors save the payment of his traveling expenses. Not less zealous were the Hon. A. F. Perry, of Cincinnati, Hon. J. R. Swan, of Columbus, Mr. Ball, of Zanesville, and such members of th* Legislature as Garfield, Cox, and Flagg. Dennison's War Administbation. 37 the border, and of grave apprehension with all. Her Governor had refused, •with insult, the call of the President for troops. Her most influential newspa- pe» had professed itself " struck with mingled amazement and indignation " at the audacity of such a call ; declared the policy of the Administration to " de- serve the unqualified condemnation of every American citizen ; " and called upon the people to " take him and his Administration into their own hands.'' A State guard had been organized, which speedily became a convenient driU and recruit agency for the Cionfederate armies. And finally, on the 20th of May, Governor Magoffin had risen to the height of folly and treason involved in a proclamation, whereof this is the eubstance : " Now, therefore, I hereby notify and warn all other States, separate or unitecl, and espe- cially the United States and Confederate States, that I solemnly forbid any movement upon Ken- tacky soil, or occapalion of any part, post, or place therein for any purpose whatever, until Mithorized fay inwtation or permission of the legislative and executive authorities, I especiall)^ forbid all citizens of Kentucky, whether incorporated in the State guard or otherwise, making any hostile demonstrations against any of (he afore.said authorities ; to be obedient to the order^ of the lawful authorities; to remain quietly and peaceably at home, when off military duty ;' to re&ain fk'om all words and acts likely to proVoke a collision, and so otherwise conduct- them- selves that the deplorable calamity of invasion may be averted ; but, meanwhile, make prompt and efficient preparations to assume the paramount and supreme law of self-defense, and strictly pf self-defense alone." Before the issue of this open proclamation of treason — indeed in the very first throbs of the excitement following the President's call for troops and Ken- tucky's refusal — Governor Dennison, alarmed lest the border should become the (theater of hostilities, sent a gentleman to confer with Governor Magoffin, and io attempt to commit him to a friendly policy. He was politic and sagacious in the selection of his agent. Judge Thomas M. Key, of the State Senate, was an able, earnest, and patriotic Democrat, and it was then the policy to employ in Oa prominent positions as possible every member of that -party who could be secured. Moreover, he was a Kentuckian by birth, and like most natives of that State, he cherished a lively regard for her honor and her interest still. He was, therefore^ likely to be all the more acceptable as a messenger from the Gov- ernor of the State of his adoption to the Governor of that of his birth.* Judge Key was accordingly sent to Kentucky, with a letter acprediting him as a rep- resentative of the Governor of Ohio, charged to express " the kindly and neigh- boriy feeling " of the people of Ohio ; and the earnest wish of the Governor that "the same complete devotion to the Constitution and Union of the United States should animate the action of both ; " as well as " to confer freely in regard to the condition of the people upon the common border, and the proper means for retnoving all apprehensions of strife between them." What view Judge Key then took of the position of the Governor of Ken- tucky may be inferred from the dispatch to Governor Dennison, in which he made his first report : • It sliould be added that the selection of Judge Key was warmly sanctioned by Senator J. D. Cox who was actively occupied in the aid of the Governor, and whose counsels had already become potent. 38 Ohio in the Wak. " Interview long, free, and eatisfactory. Expresses purposes and policy friendly and pru. dent. Anxious for instant communication between Executives upon aggression by citizens of either State. Kentucky arming for defense and neutrality." In his subsequent more extended report, Judge Key added that Governor Magoffin had dwelt particularly upon "his firm purpose to permit nothing to be done that could be viewed as menacing the city of Cincinnati," a point then calculated greatly to ease the excited apprehensions of that metropolis.* It was on the 28th of April that Judge Key reported his free and satisfac- tory interview, with the assurance of the friendly and prudent purposes of the Governor of Kentucky. On the 20th of May that officer issued the proclama- tion above quoted. Four days later, on the suggestion and at the earnest request of Governor Dennison, the Governors of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio met at Indianapolis, in conference, on the occasion of McClellan's review of the Indiana troops. In this conference Governor Dennison dwelt upon the position of defiance which Kentucky had assumed, and the essential service she was rendering the Confed- eracy. He urged the policy of seizing the prominent points in Kentucky, Lou- isville, Columbus, Padueah, Covington, Newport, and the railroads leading there- from. Do this, said he, and we at once remove the possibility of war from our own borders, stop the recruiting of Confederate troops in Kentucky, prevent the possibility of the State being betrayed into the Confederacy, and greatly aid and strengthen our friends in Tennessee. To secure the action of the Govern- ment on this suggestion, he wanted it indorsed by the Governors of the three great loyal States lying north of the border. Governors Yates and Morton promptly fell in with the idea; Senator Trumbull, who was present, reduced it to writing in the form of a memorial to the Government; the three Governors signed it, and Yates and Trumbull went on to Washington to present it. It is impossible. to overestimate the change in the subsequent course of the war which the adoption of this wise suggestion would have insured. The treachery of Buckner would have been either hindered or neutralized ; the for- tification of Columbus and Bowling Green would have been prevented; Ten- nessee, after a majority of sixtj'-seven thousand against secession in March, could scarcely have been crowded out of the Union, in the ensuing June, by the pressure of Eebel sentiment from all quarters. But it was not till the 6th of September that Grant, actj^ig on the policy originated and urged by Governor Dennison in May, crossed over into Kentucky and seized Padueah and Smith- land. By that time the opportunity was lost. Columbus was strongly garri- soned, Buckner had consummated his treason. Bowling Green was fortified, Ten- nessee was gone — and Kentucky held back all the armies of the West until March, 1862. * Five days after the presentation of this report by Judge Key, Mr. Thos. L. Crittenden, rni e.stimable citizen of Kentucky, lifted into importance (to the country's misfortune, when he sub- sequently became a Major-General of volunteers) by being the son of John J. Crittenden, wrote to Governor Dennison, asking liis influence to secure a truce between the General Government and tlie seceded States till tlie extra session of Congress in July. ILENNisoif's Wak Administration. 39 In another direction the forecast of Governor Dennieon was to receive an equally signal illustration, and with a happier result. About the time that he opened negotiations through Judge Key with the Governor of Kentucky, his eyes were also turned to the gathering convention of Virginia Unionists at Wheeling. "When the magnificent response of the peo- ple to the call for troops began to be seen, he telegraphed Mr. Jno. S. Carlile, then the leading Union man of West Virginia,* asking him and his friends to meet, at Bridgeport (opposite Wheeling, on the Ohio side), a representative of the Governor of Ohio, for conference. They promptly assented, and he sent forward as his spokesman Judge- Advocate-General Wolcott, of his staff. This gentleman bore thfem the assurance that if they would break off from old Vir- ginia and adhere to the Union, Ohio would send an ample military force to pro- tect them. It was a pledge the State was nobly to redeem. The first note pf war from the East threw Cincinnati into a spasm of alarm. Her great warehouses, her foundries and machine shops, her rich moneyed in- stitutions were all a tempting prize to the Confederates, to whom Kentucky was believed to be drifting. Should Kentucky go, only the Ohio Eiver would re- main between the great city and the needy enemy, and there were absolutely no provisions for defense. The first alarm expended itself, as has already been seen, in the purchase of huge Columbiads, with which it was probably intended that Walnut Hills should be fortified. There next sprang up a feverish spirit of active patriotism that soon led to complications. For the citizens, not bcipg accustomed to draw nice distinctions, or in a temper to permit anything whereby their danger might be increased, could see little difference between the neutral treason of Kentucky to the Government and the more open treason of the seceded States. They ac- cordingly insisted that shipments of produce, and especially shipments of arras, ammunition, or other articles contraband of war, to Kentucky should instantly cease. The citizens of Louisville, taking alarm at this threatened "blow at their very existence, sent up a large delegation to protest against the stoppage of shipments from Ohio. They were received in the Council Chamber of the City Hall, on the morning of April 23d. The city Mayor, Mr. Hatch, announced the object of the meeting, and called upon Mr. Eufus King to state the position of the city and State authorities. Mr. King dwelt upon the friendship of Ohio for Kentucky in the old strain, and closed by reading a letter which the Mayor had procured from Governor Dennison, of which the essential part was as follows : "My views of the Bubject suggested in your message are these: So long as any State re- mains in the Union, with professions of attachment to it, we can not discriminate between that State and our own. In the contest we must be clearly in the right in every act, and I think it better that we should risk something than that we should in the slightest degree be chargeable with anything tending to create a rupture with any State which has not declared itself already out of the Union. To seize arms going to a State which has not actually seceded, could give a * And since the most conspicuous and shameless of her renegades. 40 Ohio in the War. pretext for tke assertion that we had inaugurated hostile conduct ; and might be used to» create a popular feeling in favor of secession where it would not eisist, and end in border warfare, which all good citizens must deprecate. Until there is such circumstantial evidence as to create a moral certainty of an immediate intention to use arms against us, I would not be willing to order their seizure ; much leas would I be willing to interfere with the transportation of provieionB." " Now," said Mr. King, " this is a text to which every citizen of Ohij^ must Subscribe, coming, as it does, from the head of the State. I do not feel the least hesitation in saying that it expresses the feeling of the people of Ohio." But the people of Ohio did not subscribe to it. Even in the meeting Judge- Bellamy Storer, though very guarded in his expressions, intimated in the course of his stirring speech the dissatisfaction with the attitude of Kentucky. "This is no time," he said, " for soft words. We feel, as you have a right to feel, that you have a Governor who can not be depended upon in this crisis, but it is on the men of Kentucky that we rely. All we want to know is whether yon are for the Union without reservation. . , . Brethren of Kentucky! the men of the liTorth have been your friends, and they still deserve to be. But I will speak plainly. There have been idle taunts thrown out that they are cowardly and timid. The Iforth submits;- the North obeysj but beware! There is a point which can not be passed. While we rejoice in your friendship, while we glory in your bravery, we would have you understand that we are your equals as well as your friends." To all this, the only response of the Kentuckians, through their spokesman. Judge Bullock, was that Kentucky wished to take no part in the unhappy struggle; that she wished to be a mediator, and meant to retain friendly rela- tions with all her sister States. But he was greatly gratified with Goveraor Dennison's letter. The citizens of Cincinnati were not. Four days later, when their indignaP tion had time to take shape, they held a large meeting, whereat excited speeches were made, and resolutions passed deprecating the letter, calling upon the Gov- ernor to retract it, declaring that it was too late to draw nice distinctions between open rebellion and armed neutrality .against the Union, and that armed neutrality was rebellion to the Government. At the close an additional resolution was offered which passed amid a whirlwind of applause: "ileaoJtwd, That any man or set of men in Oineinuati or elsewhere who knowingly sell or ship one ounce of flour, or pound of provisions, or any arms or articles which are contraband of war, to any person or any State which has not declared its firm determination to sustain the Government in the present crisis, is a traitor, and deserves the doom of a traitor." So clear and unshrinking was the- first voice from the great conservative city on the Southern border, whose prosperity was supposed to depend on her Southern trade. They had reckoned idly, it seemed, who had counted on hesita- tion here. From the first day that the war was open, the people of Cincinnati were as vehement in their determination that it should be relentlessly prosecuted to victory as the people of Boston. They immediately began the organiEation of Home Guards, armed and drilled vigorously, took oaths to serve the Government whenever called upon, Dennison's^ Wa.b Administeation, 41 and devoted themselves to the suppression of any contraband trade with the Southern States. The steamboats were watched; the railroad depots were Searched, and wherever a suspicious box or bale was discovered, it was ordered bacli into the warehouses. After a time the General Government undertook to prevent any shipments into Kentucky, save such as should bo required by the normal demands of her own population. A system of shipment permits was established, under the supervision of the Collector of the Port, and passengers on the ferry-boats into Covington were even searched to see if they were carrying over pistols or other articles contraband of war; but in spite of all efforts Kentucky long continued to be the convenient source and medium for supplies to the South-western seceded States. Few will now doubt that Governor Dennison was wrong in the positions taken in his letter to Mayor Hatch. Yet, as being in accordance with the policy then pursued toward Kentucky by the General G^jvernment, it may be justified; and none, in any event, will be disposed to censure it harshly who remember the hurrying confusion of the times and the innumerable mistakes made by every one, from the highest to the lowest. But the official refusal to furnish troops at the President's call was all the notice any one should have required of the exact position of Kentucky. Had she been thenceforth treated as the enemy she was, some pages of the history of the war might now bear brighter colors. The day after the Cincinnati meeting denouncing his course relative to Kentucky, Governor Dennison, stimulated perhaps by this censure, but in ac- cordance with a policy already formed, issued orders to the presidents of all railroads in Ohio to have everything, passing over their roads in the direction of Yirginia or any other seceded State, whether as ordinary freight or express matter, examined, and, if contraband of war, immediately stopped and reported to him. The order may not have had legal sanction, but in the excited state of the public mind it was accepted by all concerned as ample authority. The next day similar instructions were sent to all express companies. A week earlier, on the 2l8t of April, the Governor had taken possession of the telegraph lines of the State, forbidding, as his somewhat vague order said, the passage of any news of the movements of troops from any quarter, without previous submission to and approval by him. Mr. Anson Stager, the General Superintendent of the Company under whose control were all the lines in the State, heartily seconded the Governor's efforts in this direction; but the matter was one involving numerous difficulties, and the system was never made to work satisfactorily.* In all these orders there was a stretch of authority which only the stress of public danger could sanction, and which no exigency could keep from •One effect of the order was to check all "Aastx^ted' Press" dispatches to the newspapers of the country in trarmtu through Ohio, to eliminate from them references to troops which the newspapers of other States were freely publishing, and to delay the delivery of the dispatches. 42 Ohio in the Wab. arousing the hostility of those whom they affected. The interference with the ordinary telegraphic dispatches to the newspapers excited the most ill-feeling. As it only touched the newspapers of Ohio, its tendency was to place them behind the journals of other States in the publication of the news. As it could not extend to the mails, its only effect was to produce an aggravating delay of a few hours. Very possibly even this might, in some few instances have been bene- ficial to the interests of the Government; but the good was more than balanced by the ill-will excited, and by the hostility to the Governor thus intensified in the minds of the class most influential in shaping the public opinion of the State. Seeing how ill-adapted the means were to the end the Governor had in view, being familiar with the subject themselves, they conceived a very low estimate of the ability of the man who could not perceive its bearings as clearly as tliey. On the whole, the only credit we can assign the Governor for this measure is the credit of being ready to assume grave responsibilities and excite tlie dis- pleasure of his supporters, for the sake of what he believed to be a public neces- sity. On this subject he was in advance of every other Governor in the Union,* and of the Government of the United States. When the response of the Governor of Kentucky to the call of the Presi- dent for volunteers — "I say emphatically that Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States" — when this response was made public. Governor Dennison immediately telegraphed the War Department, "If Kentucky will not fill her quota, Ohio will fill it for her!" He more than kept his promise. In two daj-s two regiments were dispatched. In a week the quota of the State was more than full. Within ten days so many companies had been accepted that the State was forced to take ten extra regi- ments into her own pay. Before two weeks had elapsed more companies had been offered than would have filled the quota of Ohio, the quota of Kentucky, and half the quota of Virginia. Sixteen days after the President's call, Adju- tant-General Carrington announced that the offers of troops from Ohio wore enough to fill the full quota of seventy-five thousand men allotted to the entire country I We can now read these statements with no emotion save that of pride at the magnificent conduct of the noble State. We can scarcely realize that they furnished at the time one of the weightiest causes for the increase of clamor against the Governor. ®It must not be understood that the above 19 intended as any censnre of the effort to sup- press publications of the movements of troops. The censure is because the measure aroused all the ill-will of that effort— far more indeed— and accomplished nothing. The means employed were utterly without adaptation to the end in view. It is due to Governor Dennison to add that it was generally understood that he was guided in this matter by the advice of a member of bis staff, wlio, being a practical newspaper man, should have known that » revision of telegraphic dispatches in the State of Ohio alone could accomplish no conceivable good, and that even a. revision in all the States, under a common authority, would have been of little avail, while the papers were free to publish whatever reached them by mail. And it is further due the Governor to add, as the common testimony of all jdurnalists who were thus thrown in contact with him, that he discharged the task he had undertaken with unvarying courtesy and consideration. Dennison's War Administration. 43 In tlie flurry of his nervous excitement, as well as by reason of the rush of •work and lack of assistance, Adjutant-General Carrington preserved no eomplele record of his operations. As hour by hour the telegraph brought him the offers of fresh companies, he promptly made answer to each, accepting them all. Pres- ently, when it came to making up the regiments, it was found that he was una- ble to give the order in which he had accepted them, or sometimes even the order in which they had arrived. Then, when the thirteen regiments called for were made up, the camp was still full of troops. In perplexity, recourse was had to the Legislature, and at the same time an order was made that no more should be accepted. The Legislature authorized ten more regiments for State sei-vice. These were made up, and to the Adjutant-General's despair the camp was still full. Thirty companies accepted, and on the spot bad to be disbanded j and permission given for others that had been accepted to come forward, was hastily revoked. But the mischief was done. The disappointed and enraged vol unieers' went home, cursing the Governor and his staff for having taken them to Columbus on a fool's errand ; and deepening the conviction that the crisis was too weighty for the management of the gentlemen at the State Capitol. Meantime the organized regiments, as fast as they were mustered into the United Slates service, were sent to the new camp, selected by General Eose- crans near Cincinnati, to give a feeling of security to that city, and named by McClellan, in honor of the oflScer to whom he owed his appointment, and under whose management the troops were gathering. Camp Dennison. Here new confusion began. By this time the Government had realized its first mistake, and having little further need for three months' troops, since the capital was safe, was striving to convert them into soldiers for the war. Many preferred to finish the term for which they had enlisted and get their pay for it, before entering upon ano"ther engagement. Distinctions were made between these and those who re-enlisted ; discipline was still lax ; there were loud (and in great measure groundless) complaints about rations ; and for every mistake or wrong the whole blame was laid straightway on the officer "whose name the camp bore. Yet it was entirely under the control of General McClellan, now, as we have seen, a Major-General of the United States regular army, and in no sense under the orders of Governor Dennison. The General saw the newspapers teeming with complaints against the Governor for the man- agement in Camp Dennison ; saw the man who had raised him to high ofiice daily loaded with abuse for acts done under his own authority, by his own subordinates; and yet never once uttered even a whisper in explanation or defense. For a time the Governor bore all this in patience. He never once men- tioned to the gentlemen of the press whom he daily met that these faults at Camp Dennison were none of his — that it was an United States camp, under the exclusive control of United States officers. He reasoned that it was better for him to bear the odium — if odium there needs must be — than for McClellan 44 Ohio in the Wak. to bear it, since McClellan must by all means retain the confidence of the troopa. The view may have been fallacious, but it was certainly generous. Even the generosity never touched the Major-General he had made, who, now that his rank was secure, had grown so indifferent to the one on whom ho climbed. IfcClellan daily read in the papers eulogies on his own brilliant capacities pointed by contrasts like that presented by Camp Dennison, which only showed, it was said, how a oirvilian blundered when he attempted military things. And still he made no sign. At last G-overnor Dennison wrote to him, somewhat sharply, saying that he ought to stop the troubles in the camp and the clamors about them, and that be suspected some of McClellan 's people of fomenting both. No satisfactory reply was made, and the troubles and the clamor went on. Not till months afterward did the people of Ohio know that their Governor had been powerless in the camp, for whose mismanagement they had been loading him with censure, and that the author of the miamanagement was the man they had been loading with praises. West Virginia Rescued by Ohio Militia. 45 CHAPTER V. WEST VIRGINIA RESCUED BY OHIO MILITIA UMDER STATE PAT. IN the early days of the war, while communicatioii with Washington was in peril, and sometimes cut off, and men's minds were familiarized with the idea of losing the capital, the isolated State Governors became in a measure their own strategists. To some, under these circumstances, nothing presented itself save to wait ; to at least one there arose a plan of campaign for the defense of his State. Circumstances led him to dwell upon it after the initial danger to Washington had passed, and the War Department had extended its control over the whole theater of operations. He was successful in securing its adoption ; it was his good fortune that he was able to furnish State militia for its execution; and thus it came about that the campaign became a part of the history of Ohio rather than of the history of the war, and that the first offering made to the G-eneral Government by the State whose Governor had been bold enough to say that " Ohio must lead throughout the war," was the offering of rescued and regenerated West Virginia. During the dark hours of April, 1861, after the anxiety about the National Capital, came apprehensions at Columbus concerning the danger on the border. Along four hundred and thirty-six miles Ohio bounded slave States ; and at, every point in the whole distance was liable to invasion. On the south-eastern border lay the State of Virginia, already threatening to secede, and soon to be- come the main bulwark of the Eebel cause. On the southern border lay the State of Kentucky, already furnishing recruits by the regiment to the Eebel army, and soon to threaten yet greater dangers. To these States the first earn- est glances of the Governor were turned'. The attitude of Virginia was the more alarming, and her geographical po- sition made her hostility a thing of gi-ave purport. Thrust northward, into the space between Pennsylvania and Ohio like a wedge, she almost divided the loyal part of the nation into two separate fragments. Here, as an acute military critic* has since observed, was the moat offensive portion of the whole Eebel frontier. Behind the natural fortification of the mountains the communication with Eichmond and the whole South was secure. The mountains themselves • Emil Bchalk'B " Summary of the Art of War," pp. 45, 46. 46 Ohio ik the War. admitted of perfect defense. Beyond them it was easy, at any unexpectHr moment, to pour down upon the unguarded frontier; or to fall, east or west, on the exposed flank of any advancing army of the nation. Yet the peo- ple of this territory were not hostile to the Union; and indeed they were unexpectedly bitter in their opposition to their fellow-citizens of the eastern slope, both on the subject of eecession and on the score of old local griev- ances. Seeing then the strategic importance of the region, and the disaffection of its inhabitants, there was every reason to think that the Eebel authoritiea would at the earliest possible moment seek to occupy it. Now the Adjutant-General of Ohio was a man who had theorized on war, and had well learned some of its conditions. General Carrington suggested that the Ohio Eiver was not a proper line of defense as against hostile action on the part of Virginia. It would be better, he urged, to seize the mountain ranges of Western Virginia and rally the loj-al inhabitants to their defense, lest an enemy, operating from Eichmond, should occupy the passes, and thence, fro^' that secure advanced base, overawe the natural Union sentiment of the region and debouch at pleasure upon the Ohio border. But, could the territory of Virginia, a State not yet actually seceded, be en- tered by the armies of the Unitefl States, or even by the militia of Ohio? The most said no. The action of the General Government said no. Eather than cross upon that sacred soil of his native State, General Scott was permitting Eebel pickets to guard the Long Bridge across the Potomac, and Eebel patrols to pace their beats within rifle range of the White House. The question arose in the discussions in the Governor's office at Columbus. " We can let no theory prevent the defense of Ohio," was his answer ; an answer that itself entitles the man to the gratitude and regard of the State so long as her history shall be read. "I will defend Ohio where it costs least and accomplishes most. Above all, I will defend Ohio beyond rather than on her border." And so, as in the case of Kentucky, Governor Dennison had united the Ex- ecutives of Indiana and Illinois with himself in an earnest eff'ort to secure the Beizui'e of her leading strategic points, so now in the case of West Virginia he sought to bring about the prompt occupation of her territory.' As early as 19th April, only four days after the call for volnnteei's,he deter- mined to begin by protecting the exposed points. Parkcrsburg, a Virginia town at the western terminus of one branch of the great Baltimore and Ohio Eail- road, was violentij' hostile in the tone of many of its inhabitants, and by reason of its easy railroad communication with th^ mountains, was thought to be the point at which the Secessionists would first aim. Across the river from Park- crsburg, on the Ohio side, Mas Marietta, the terminus of the railroad from Cin- cinnati — exposed to any raid across the river, and liable to be cut off from its railroad connection by the burning of the extensive trestle-work on which the track approached it. Hero, then, was the first diinger. A battery of six-pounders in good condition had been tendered by Colonel Barnutt, of Cleveland. It was ordered at once to Columbus. Meantime on Sunday, the Columbus machino shop was oponed at the request of Governor West Virginia Rescued by Ohio Milita. 47 Denniaon * and before night two hundred solid shot were cast. The next day the battery arrived by special train. It went immediately on to Loveland, thence south-eastward to Marietta. It was on the border in position to defend the town, and to overawe -Parkersburg, within forty-eight hours after the issue of the order and before the movement had been discovered by friend or foe.f Lieutenant 0. M. Poe of the Engineers, the first oflScer of the regnlav army to offer his services to the Governor, was next sent down to see what further measures of immediate defense were required at Marietta, at Gallipolis, and at other exposed points. Then, on the 7th of May, Governor Dennison telegraphed to Washington, asking that the boundaries of the department they had just assigned his new General, McClellan, should be extended so as to include Western Virginia. The next day the extension was made. Then he wrote to McClellan, setting forth the request of John Hall, of Parkersburg, of a committee of gentlemen subse- quently sent from the same place, and of still others who appealed in earnest letters, for the immediate crossing of the Ohio and occupation of the town. The designs of the Secessionists were explained, and the importance of fore- stalling them was pressed. Governor Dennison indoreed the request, and urged further reasons why the troops should immediately enter West Virginia at this point, and perhaps at others also along the border. Qa more accounts than one. General McClellan's reply possesses a historic interest : "I have carefully considered your letter of the 10th, with the accompanying letters, and many others that I have received, bearing on the same subject : " Strange as the advice may seem from a young General, I advise dela/t/ for the present. I fear nothing from Western Virginia. I have written urgently to General Scott for his views as to Western Virginia. Every day I am making great progress in organization, and will soon have Camp Dennison a model establishment. We have to-day seven regiments — by Wednesday Bates's brigade will be there — the six new regiments can be received as soon as mustered in. Send me the State regiments then, and in two or three weeks they can be rendered manageable. I do not like tlie idea of detaching raw troops to the frontier. My view is to strike effectively when we move, and everything is progressing satisfactorily. . . . " Let us organize these men and make them effective — in Heaven's name do n't pre- cipitate matters. . . . "Do n't let these frontier men hurry yon on. I had hoped to leave for Columbus on Monday morning, but I find I must remain here to organize the secret service — it will be the most thorough and effective I have ever known, and must be attended to at once. . . . . "I am pressed by Cairo — Yates, Morton, etc. The latter is a terrible alarmist, and not at all a cool head."t "From the reception of that letter," said Governor Dennison afterward, 'I dated the beginnings of my doubts as to McClellan's being, after all, a man • By John S. Hall, Esq., one of the Directors. t As the battery entered Columbus, a committee of citizens from Marietta arrived to repre- ■ent their danger to the Governor and to ask for succor. They found that his foresight had already secured them, and some of the committee, turning immediately back, reached Marietta again on the same train which bore the battery they had gone to ask. t Archives Executive Department, State Capitol. Many of the preceding statements, which I have not thought it needful to credit separately, are drawn from the same source. 48 Ohio in the Wab. of action." T^he historian who shall seek to trace in detail the steps to the strange torpor that subsequently befel the Army of the Potomac, may indeed find in it suggestive hints. The General to whom the war in the West was theij practically committed, had begun by regarding men like Oliver P. Morton and Eichard Yates as alarmists, and bad already placed himself in the attitude o|^ holding back. But Governor Dennison was not disposed to yield the point. The repre, sentations of alarm along the border increased, and he continued to press on McClellan his wishes. On the 13th of May that officer agaip wrote him ; "Most of the information /obtain from the frontier indicates that the moral effect of troops directly on the border would not be very good — at least until Western Yirginia has decided for herself what she will do. . . . If it is, clear that th«j Union men will be strengthened by the movement, of course it should be made." While thus engaged in putting off the Governor and the alarmed people oa the river, General McClellan was conducting a correspondence with Lieutenant- General Scott as to a grand operation in the Kanawha Valley. He would move directly up it to the mountains, using the river for his line of supplies as far as the mouth of the Gauley ; would then strike across the AUeghanies, move down the James, and thus take Eichmond by the back door. The reply of tiie burdened but still wary and diplomatic veteran was adroit. It was a good plan, he said — bold and apparently feasible. But he had himself been considering a plan for a grand movement down the Mississippi, for the command of which he had thought of McClellan!* And so the postponement of the West Virginia project was all the easier. But by this tiine matters were approaching a crisis. On the 20th of May, John S. Carlile telegraphed Governor Dennison from Wheeling that troops, under the proclamation of Letcher, were approaching — would enter Grafton that day, Clarksburg probably the day after, and Wheeling very soon. They openly avowed their intention to break up the loyal Convention at Wheeling. If the Unionists of West Virginia were to be saved, and that portion of the State was to be rescued from the rebellion, now was the time to do it In his anxiety lest the golden opportunity should be suffered to slip, and in the natural distrust which General McClellan 's previous course had excited, the Go^'ernor now telegraphed these facts not only to McClellan, but also to Scott, Four days passed. Finally, on the 2-ith of May, the Secretary of War asked McClellan if he could not counteract the effect of the Eebel camp at Grafton^ and save the eviLeffects on Wheeling and all West Virginia. Then at last McClellan decided that it was time to move. He had wanted the State troops (i. e., the ten regiments in excess of the President's call, kept in service by the State on her own responsibility) sent to Camp Dennison "for two or three weeks," that he might "render them manageable." Now he found * It will be observed (see post. Part II, Life of McDowell) that this is almost prebieely thfi language that General Scott was addressing at the same time to General McDowell in Walking ton. The original of General Scott's letter to McClellan is— or was once — in the hands of (iot- emor Denninon, West Yikginia Rescued by Ohio Militia. 49 that these troops which had not been sent to Camp Dennison were the only " manageable " ones in his department on whom he could instantly rely. He accoi'dingly asked Governor Dennison for leave' to use them. The Governor, overjoyed to find that his cherished movement was at last to be executed, re- sponded by an order placing all the State troops under General McClellan's command. On the 26th "of May Adjutant-General Carrington, who had been sent down to aid in moving these troops, reported to General McClellan. The General was anxious to have a regiment sent to Marietta, opposite one western terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad at Parkersburg, and another to Bellair opposite the other terminus, near "Wheeling. He also wanted the other eight regiments to be in readiness for prompt movements. Adjutant- General Carrington at once took the cars back to Columbus. On the train he wrote the dispatches inaugu- rating the movement, and they were sent one by one from the several way sta- tions along the route, as at each the train stopped for a moment : "Fourteenth regiment, Colonel Stee'dman, at Zanesville: Move at once by river to Marietta to Bapport Barnett's Battery already there, and await orders. "Seventeenth regiment, Colonel Connell, at Lancaster: Move by rail to Zanesville to support Steedman, ordered to Marietta. Transportation ordered. "Fifteenth regiment, Colonel Andrews, at Zanesville: Move by rail to Bellair, and await orders. "Sixteenth regiment. Colonel Irvine, at Columbus: Move by rail to Zanesville to support Andrews, ordered to Bellair. "Nineteenth regiment, Colonel Beatty, and Twenty-First regiment. Colonel Norton, at Cleve- land : Move forthwith to Columbus for orders and immediate service. "Senior officer of the Twentieth regiment: Complete your organization forthwith. "To all Camp Commanders: Obey promptly all orders of Major-General McClellan; Gov- ernor Dennison puts him in command of the State troops." At the same time dispatches were sent to the various railroad and steam- boat companies concerned, to furnish transportation. Within six hours after General McClellan had asked it, the State troops were in motion. What followed may here be briefly told. Colonel Steedman crossed with the Fourteenth and Barnett's Artillery at Marietta, repressed with a stern hand the rising tendencies to disturbance in Parkersburg, swept directly out into the country along the railroad, rebuilt bridges (one of them sixty -five feet long and forty-five feet high), repaired the track, and brought up a subsistence train be- hind him. Colonel Irvine crossed with the Sixteenth at Wheeling, united with a regiment of loyal Virginians under Colonel Kelly, and moved out on the rail- road, repairing it as they went. At the junction of the two tracks at Grafton the columns met, the Eebel force fleeing precipitately a few hours before their arrival. Then they pushed after them toJPhilippi, fought the first little skirmish of^the war drove Colonel Porterfield and his Eebel Virginia regiment out, and there rested. The great railroad lines were secured, the Wheeling Convention was protected and West Virginia was practically rescued. Vol. 1.- 50 Ohio in the Wab. Meanwhile the Twenty-First regiment had been sent to Gallipolis, opposite the mouth of the Kanawha, where it also presently crossed. The uniforms hastily procured for the men who had thus secured a State to the "Union were found to be defective ; and the Adjutant-General was presently sent to the field to remedy the evil. "While there, in company with Colonels Stecdman and Barnett, he arged upon the General whom McClellan had sent out after the occupation, the policy of pushing on from Philrppi to the Cheat Mountain passes beyond Huttonsville, and thus completing their control of the country. Lack of transportation was assigned, however, as a reason for delay- ing a movement which would have robbed McClellan of his early laurels, by leaving him no "W"est "\^irginia campaign to fight. The delaj- gave the Eebela time to recover their energies. General Garnett, an accomplished officer of the old army, was sent out, troops were collected, and the Eebel advance was again pushed forward as far as Laurel Hill. Then McClellan took the field with some regiments from Indiana and with the rest of the Ohio State troops. After some unfortunate delay's he moved upon the enemy at Laurel Hill in two columns; sending one under General Morris to demonstrate on their front, while he pushed around with the other to Huttonsville in their rear. General Morris obeyed his orders to the letter; Gen- eral McClellan with the other column was too late. Eosecrans (already pro- moted from Chief Engineer on Dennison's Staff to Colonel of one of the militia regiments, and thence to a Brigadiership in the regular army) was left with McClellan's advance to fight the battle of Eich Mountain unaided. Garnett, taking alarm at the defeat there of his outpost, hastily retreated; McClellan had not pushed up soon enough after Eosecrans's victory- to intercept him. Morris did the best he could in a stern chase; Steedman, commanding Ais advance, overtook the rear-guard of Garnett's army at Carrick's Ford, had a sharp skirmish, in which Garnett himself fell, and drove the army on in a state of utter demoralization. General Hill, a General of Ohio militia, sent into the field on account of the militia regiments there, who had taken the State, and mainly fought the campaign, was expected to head it off, but the dispositions to that end had not been perfectly arranged, and so the scattered fragments es- caped. "West Virginia was again free from armed Eebels, from the Kanawha Eiver to its northern boundary.* » In the above account of the rescue of West Virginia by Ohio State troops, not mustered into the United States service at all, the only effort has been to trace the steps of that rescue. The subsequent campaign, conducted mainly but not exclusively by tlie State troops, may be found more fully described in a more appropriate place hereafter. Part II, Lives of McClellan and Rosecrans. It has been explained that the Fourteenth (the first of the militia regiments mustered only into the State service) was the first to cross at Parkersburg, and the Sixteenth the first to cross at "Wheeling and Bellair. These, with the aid of the Virginians and Barnett's Cleveland Artillery, opened the roads and occupied the whole country from the river to Grafton— being rapidly sup- ported by the Fil\eenth, the Nineteenth, the Eighteenth, and others of the State troops, and by the gallant Seventh and Ninth Indiana. These troops saved West Virginia, fought 'the first skirmish o( the war in the West, and decided the Union tendencies of the population Subse- quently, after unfortunate delay. General McClellan took the field with large re-enforcements. West Virginia Rescued by Ohio Militia. 51 Subsequent campaigns had for their only object to retain the territory thus won. "West Virginia was already under Union control. The movement as we have seen was inaugurated, against considerable opposition at first from McClel- lan, by Governor Dennison. It was effected entirely by the militia of Ohio, with no assistance whatever save that derived from the Virginiians themselves. When McClellan delayed reaping the fruits of their success till the Eebels had returned with re-enforcements, these militia regiments constituted the heavy majority of the fightipg troops that won the campaign then required, and thus completed their conquest. It was rightly said then, at the beginning of t^iis chaptei-, that West Vir- ginia was the gift of Ohio, through her State militia, to the Natiotl at the out- set of the war. Counting the column sent to the Kanawha, he had thirty regiments in all under his command in West Virginia, of which seven were Indiana regiments and one was composed of loyal Virgin- ians. The rest were all from Ohio (with the exception of a company or two of Illinois cavalry), though two of them were credited to Kentucky. On the Rich Mountain line the only Ohio reg- iment in the battle was the Nineteenth, one of the State militia. On the Laurel Hill line thg only regiment engaged in serious fighting was the first of the State militia. Colonel Steedman's Fourteenth. None of the other troops, either from Ohio or Indiana, lost a man liilled or wounded in the action with Garnett's rear-guard at Carrick's Ford. 52 Ohio in the War. CHAPTER VI. THE PROGRESS AND CLOSE OF DENNISON'S ADMINISTRATION. THE sagacious policy of Governor Dennison concerning an early occupa- tion of the territory beyond the Oiiio border had a full vindication in the events in West Virginia. He was doomed to see it delayed in Kentucky by the tenderness of the President toward the neutrality of his native State. The fruits that an early movement there might likewise have secured were thus measurably lost. When, however, the earnest occupation of Kentucky began, ho was able to furnish here, as in West Virginia, the bulk of the army. Before he went out of office his Adjutant-General reported twenty-two Ohio three years' regiments on duty in Kentucky, besides a considerable number of others almost ready for the field, who were soon to be sent in the same direction.* Jiloantime these splendid contributions to Kentucky did not diminish the helpful care extended over West Virginia. At the end of the brief campaign there which the Ohio militia had made successful, General McClellan had been called to Washington. His successor, General Eosecrans, was left with a dis- solvin"- army of three months' men. The few Ohio regiments for three j-ears, which he had taken from Camp Dennison just before McClellan's advent, barely served to maintain his hold upon the country. B}- the 8th of August he was telegraphing vigorously to Governor Dennison for re-enforcements. He was none too early or too earnest. For already the Confederate Governm^t, real- izin"' its enormous loss in West Virginia, had sent its most trusted General, Robert E. Lee, to regain the territory. The General Government was far off and slow to hoar ; and so Eosecrans appealed directly to the power that had Beizod the State for aid, in this emergenej-, in holding it. Governor Dennison at once telegraphed to the forming regiments to hasten their organization. " If you, Governor of Indiana and Governor of ilichigan, will lend your efforts," wrote Eosecrans again, " to get mo quicklj' fifty thousand men, in addition to mj' pres- ent force, I think a blow can be struck which will save fighting the rifled-cannon batteries at Manassas. Lee is certainly at Cheat Mountain. Send all troops * The Ohio regiments fii-st thrown into Kentucky were the First, Second, Fourteentli, Fif- teenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth, Twenty-First, Thirly-First, Thirty-Third, Thirty-Fifth, Thirty-Eighth, Fortieth, Forty-First, Forty-Second, Forty-Ninth, Fifty-First, Fifty-Ninth, Sixty-Fourth, and Sixty-Fifth. Tliese were all in service in Kentucky in the fall or winter of 1801. Progeess and Close of Denkison's Administration. 53 you can to Grafton."* But five days after the appeal, all available troops in the West were ordei-ed to Fremont, in Missouri, and Eosecrans's plan was foiled. Before this heavy re-enforcements had^been sent to the column in the Kanawha Valley under General Cox., Six days after the appeal from Eose- crans, Cox became alarmed, and telegraphed anxiously to Governor Den nison about his command.f Then, a few days later, Eosecrans again appealed to Dennison for troops to aid him in marching across the country against Floyd and Wise, to Cox's relief. " I want to catch Floyd, w:hile Cox holds him in front.'' So immediate and effective was the response to these appeals that Gen- eral Eosecrans was enabled to employ twenty-three Ohio regimentsj in the ope- rations by which he now cleared his department of Eebels, and put an end to efforts for the recapture of the country ; while, to guard the exposed railroads in South-eastern Ohio, companies of State troops were again employed. With the aid given in this emergency the direct connection of the State Administrations with the conduct of campaigns ended.|| The country gradually learned to make war methodically; and with the passing away of the^ crisis which Governor Dennison had turned to so good account, the sphere of State Executives became limited to the organization and equipment of troops and the care for sick and wounded soldiers. To this, indeed, with the most, it was prac- tically limited all the time. But Ohio was " to lead throughout the war," and we have seen how in the initial operations in West Virginia and Kentucky she led, not only her sister States, but the Kation. What now remains to be told of the first of our War Administrations is, therefore, a story of details in recruiting and organization. The staff with which Governor Dennison met the first shock of the war was already undergoing a complete change. With this staff, without practical knowledge of war, without arms for a regiment, or rations for a company, or uniforms for a corporal's guard at the outset, and without the means or the need- ful preparations for purchase or manufacture, the Administration had, in less than a month, raised, organized, and sent to the field or to the camps of the Government an army larger than that of the whole United States three months before. Within the State the wonderful achievement was saluted with com- plaints about extravagance in rations, defects in uniforms, about everything which the authorities did, and about everything which they left undone. With- out the State the noise of this clamor was not heard, and men saw only the splendid results. The General Government was, therefore, lavish in its praise. The Governor under whom these things were done grew to be the most influ- • State Archive8,Exeoutive Dept., Dennisdn's Admr. 1 14th August, 1861. t Thetwentv-three Ohio regiments in service in Virginia in the fall and winter of 1861. were the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Twenty-Third, Twenty-Fourth, Twenty-Fifth, Twenty-Sixth, Twenty-Eighth, Thirtieth, Thirty- Second, Thirty-Fourth, Thirty-Sixth, Thirty-Seventh, Forty-Fourth, and Forty-Seventh. n With the notable exception of the campaign three years later, in which Ohio threw in her heavy re-enforceraents of hundred days' men. 54 Ohio in the Wab. ential of all the State Executives, at Washington, at the very time when at home he was the most unpopular of all who had within the memory of a gen- eration been elevated to that office. His staff officers were rapidly tendered better positions in the National service. His Adjutant-General was made a Co- lonel in the regular army, and some little time later a Brigadier-General of volunteers.* His Quartermaster-General was made a Captain of regularsif His Engineer-in-Chief was made a Brigadier- General of regulars, and Major-Gen- eral of volunteers.J His Judge-Advoeate-General became an Assistant-Secre- tary in the "War Department.|| His second Commissary-General, after some faithful service as his Adjutant-General, was made Brigadier-General of volun- teers, and assigned to duty in the War Department.g Two of the assistants in his Adjutant-General's Department became respectively Major-General of vol- unteers, and Assistant Adjutant-General to the Atmy of the Cumberland.»lf* His Surgeon-General became Colonel of a regiment, and Brigadier-General of volunteers.ff His Paymaster-General became a Colonel, and gave up his life on the field.JJ Some of the changes thus wrought, however, proved of great advantagerto the Governor and to the service. He was able, when the troops began to re- turn from their West Virginia campaign, to enter upon the work of recruiting for the three years' service with a better understanding of the requirements, and a more systematic preparation. But, on the other hand, there now began to affect the service a long train of hinderances ; some the result of previous misfortunes of the State administra- tion, some the operation of extraneous causes, all combining to delay and em- barrass the work. The slanders of the State Government, in which the newspapers of both parties had indulged, produced their legitimate fruit. Men who thought of enlisting were not willing to go under the authority of a State which gave its soldiers bad rations, which allowed them to be swindled in uniforms, and badlj supplied with arms, which was universally denounced as inefficient, and soW- times as worse. In consequence, they enlisted in the regiments of other State* * Colonel H. B. Carrington, Eighteenth Infantry, United States Army. t Captain D. L. Wood, Eighteenth Infantry, United States Army. t W. S. Eosecrans. || C. P. Wolcott. ? C. P. Buckingham. ** Major-General Sill and Assistant Adjutant-General C. F. Goddard. tt W. L. McMillen. Jt Colonel Phelps. The staff of Governor Dennison, as finally organized, wa-s as follows: Adjutant-General Catharinus P. Buckingham. Assistant Adjutant-General Rodney Mason. Quartermastet-Gcneral George B. Wright Assistant Quartermaster-General Anthony B. Bullock. Commissary-General Columbus Delano. [With nine Assistant Commissaries of Subsistence, ranking as Captains and Lieutenuits. Judge-Advocate-General Christopher P. Wolcott. Surgeon-General Wm. L. McMillen, Aid de Camp Adolphus E. Jonea. Aid de Camp Martin Welker. Progress and Close of Dennison's Administration. 55 The very competent Adjutant-General under whom the work was now con- ducted (General Buckingham), oflScially reported that in this way the State had furnished through the latter half of 1861 not less than ten thousand soldiers to the Govei-nmeat for which she received no credit. The number was undoubt- edly swelled by the dislike to the hard and obscure service in West Virginia, to which it seemed for a time as if all Ohio soldiers were doomed ; and by. the ad- ditional fact that as it happened during the latter part of the year, Ohio fur- nished the most of the soldiers and Indiana the most of the Generals in that field of operations. The Camp Dennison troubles soon made their effect visible. When the camp was first occupied the only troops were those enlisted for three months. General McClellan decided not to take them out of camp till they should re-en- Ijst for throe years. Many naturally hesitated. They wanted to try the service for which they had first volunteered ; and then to be paid and discharged from thiit before they undertook fresh obligations. They had already been demoral- ized by the vicious system of electing their own officers, under which election- eering, bribery, drunkenness and lax discipline sprang up. They were now, on the other hand, displeased tO' find that they were to be deprived of a privilege which they had come to look upon as a right, by the wise determination of the Governor to appoint the officers on his own judgment of their fitness^ Under such influences many — and among them a fair share of the best material for soldiers — refused to re-enlist. Their presence among the three years' troops who were thus compelled to wait for the slow progress of recruiting to fill up the vacancies, soon led to disturbances. It was finally found necessary to sepa- rate the three months' troops altogether from those enlisted for three years. Instead of mustering them out — since it never meant to take them from camp — as the Governor urged, the War Department had them sent to their homes on furlough, without discharge and without pay. They were naturally dissatisfied with this reception of their patriotic Volunteering to fight. They scattered over the whole State, telling, each in his own home-circle, the tale of the treat- ment they had received, and adding to the popular distrust. Meantime their departure from Camp Dennison did not diminish the troubles- there. The enthusiasm with which the men had volunteered was ill-fed by the inaction of the camp. The officers were not sufficiently attentive to the thor- ough occupation of the time of the men with drill and preparation for the field, and they soon found ample leisure to compare the zeal with which they rushed to the service with the dullness of their life, and to look about them for griev- ances. Sometimes the camp authorities furnished indifferent rations or quarter- masters' stores. The discontent thus engendered was inflamed by the incendiary conduct of some of the newspapers, circulating by hundreds through the camp, which daily denounced its management, exaggerated every defect and sought for criminal motives in every mistake. Some of the regiments were still per- mitted to indicate their choice for officers, and in all it was well known that if the men took care to represent a certain officer as unpopular he would not be reappointed. Lax discipline on the one hand, and perpetual fault-finding on the 56 Ohio in the Wak. other, were the inevitable result. This notorious condition of Camp Dennison exerted an influence against recruiting through the whole State, both directly on the men who would have enlisted, and indirectly, by leading the whole com- munity to still further distrust of Governor Dennison. For even yet he had been left by the United States oflEicials to bear all the burden of their misman- agement in the canip they had named after hira; and, stung by the injustice wiiich he felt he had already received when he merited gratitude, he proudly refused to make any explanation whatever that should relieve him from this undeserved odium. And now there came in still another cause to operate against recruiting in the time of our sore need. The Government, on realizing its mistake in limiting Ohio to thirteen regiments, and on seeing the splendid service i-endered by the ten militia regiments, patriotically put into the field by the State on her own re- sponsibility, volunteered the assurance that it would muster these men into the United States service and assume their payment and discharge. As the time approached Governor Dennison visited Washington to see that the authorities would be sure to be prepared. His precautions, however, notwithstanding the assurances he received, proved fruitless. The regiments came home to find no paymaster ready to receive them, and no mustering oflScer to discharge them. vTheyhadto be sent home, therefore — after a campaign brilliant and fatiguing — without pay and with no knowledge of when they would get it. Many believed they would never be paid, all were dissatisfied and displeased, and in this mood they were scattered over the whole State.* Thus was the cause of recruiting, which depended on popular approval and enthusiasm, still clouded by occurrences the best calculated to work its ruin. I The dissatisfaction and disgust thus spread throughout the State resulted in bringing the work of recruiting almost to a stand. Fortunately, when disband- ing the companies in excess of the thirteen regiments for the Government and the ten for the State, raised in the first flush of the public enthusiasm, the Gov- ernor had decided to retain enough for four regiments, under drill at their respect- ive homes. These were now accessible. So, when the Government began to press for troops, these were collected and organized, and thus the State was able, at an early period, to throw the Twenty -Third, Twenty-Foul-th, Twenty-Fifth, and Twenty-Sixth regiments into West Virginia at the first call of need. When at last the evil effects of all the mistakes and misfortunes we have enumerated began to be counteracted, fresh diflScnlties in recruiting were en- countered. The Government expected the regiments to be full and fully organ- ized before it would receive or begin to supply them. If it took two months to recruit a regiment, the men who enlisted first must remain in camp two months without' pay, without uniforms, blankets or arms, without subsistence save as the State furnished it, and without aiiy authority over them save as they saw fit to yield to it. Not even a Lieutenant could be mustered in, to exercise a legal military command over them till their ranks were full. After a time the Gov- ♦When the Government was ready it was hard to find and collect the men again, and two months and more possed before they were all paid. Progress and Close of Dennison's Administration. 57 ernment consented that whenever a company was half raised a Lieutenant might bo mustered in. Still clothing and blankets could not be procured. Then, at the earnest solicitation of the Governor, special permission was given to mus- ter in the Quartermaster, Adjutant, Surgeon, and Assistant-Surgeon of regi- ments prior to their organization. Their clothing and their sick were thus provided for. Finally, authority was procured to muster in a Lieutenant at the beginning for each company and to muster in the men as recruited. The change was magical. "Within two weeks ten thousand men were -mus- tered into the service, and recruiting soon became again an easy task. The Adjutant-General, however, complained of troubles still remaining. Under General Scott's influence the Government had refused to permit the State to furnish cavalry. At last authority for one regiment was procured ; but it was presently discovered that, under direct permission from the War Depart- ment, two more were being raised in the northern part of the State, by Messrs. Wade and Hutchins, and two more in Southern Ohio, bj' permission of General Fremont. Confusion was thus wrought, and considerable detriment to the in- fantry recruiting ensued. Furthermore, the war which was to be ended in a single battle, opened in gloom and disaster. The paralj-sis of Bull Eun was followed by mortification from Ball's Bluff, .and the like blundering defeats; general inaction ensued, and from the Potomac to the Mississippi the Eebels seemed likely to maintain their ground. In spite of difHculties and depression the Adjutant-General was able, at the close of the ye.ar, to report forty-six regiments of infantiy, four of cavalry, and twelve batteries of artillery in the field, with twenty-two more regiments of infantry and four of cavalry full or nearly full, and thirteen in process of organ- ization. In all, the State then had in the three years' service, seventy-seven thousand eight hundred and forty-four men, besides the twenty-two thousand three hundred and eighty men furnished at the first call for three months.* For these troops Governor Dennison made the most earnest efforts to pro- cure competent and instructed commanders. At that early day no civilians in the State had any military experience, save the few who had served in the com- •Thia force may be stated more in detail as follows: Infantry,-for three years 67,546 Cavalry, for three years 7,270 Artillery, for three years 3,028 Total three years ; 77,844 Add twenty-two regiments three months' infantry 22,000 Two companies three months' cavalry 180 Two sections three months' artillery 80 Barnett's Battery, three months' artillery 120 Whole number of men enlisted in 1861 in Ohio 100224 It ia impossible to assign accurately to each county the number raised in it, but the follow- 58 Ohio in the Wak. paratively ineignificant operations in Mexico. He sought first, therefore, for men trained at West Point, who might be supposed to be familiar, theoretically at least, with the duties of their offices. Of these he secured fourteen in all, who were at once given the command of regiments. For the rest he sought carefully for men of any, even the least, experience, of ability, zeal, and fitness for the service. How well he succeeded may be judged, not only from the honorable record of the regiments, but fnom the high promotions that came to the commanders. The Colonel of the Seventh (E. B. Tyler) became a Brigadier-General of vol- unteers and Brevet Major-G-eneral. The Colonel of the Eighth (S. S. Carroll) received the same promotion. The Colonel of the Ninth (E. L. McCook) be- came a Brigadier; of the Tenth (W. H. Ly tie), the same; of the Thirteenth (W. S. Smith), the same; of the Fourteenth (J. B. Steedman), a Major-General; of the Nineteenth (S. Beatty), a Brigadier ; of the Twenty-Third (W. S. E08&- crans), a Brigadier in the regular army, Major-General of volunteers, and dis- tinguished commander of a great department ; of the Twenty-Fourth CJacob Ammen), a Brigadier; of the Twenty-Sixth (E. P. Fyfl'e), a Brevet Brigadier; of the Twenty-Seventh (Jno. W. Fuller), a Brigadier and Brevet Major-Gen- ing statement of the troops raised under the seyenty-five thousand and three hundred thousand' calls is an approximation : Adams 915 Allen 776 Ashland 578 Ashtabula 1,306 Athens 1,358 Auglaize 565 Belmont 1,030 Brown 1,027 Butler 1,141 Carroll 386 Champaign 828 Clark 841 Clermont 1,260 Clinton 703 Columbiana 854 Coshocton 806 Crawford 448 Cuyahoga — Darke 685 Defiance 410 Delaware 894 Erie , 556 Fairfield 832 Fayette 686 Franklin 980 Fulton 654 Gallia ....' 696 Geauga 646 Greene 1,074 Guernsey 775 Hamilton 8,192 Hancock 747 Hardin 694 Harrison 459 Henry 526 Highland 860 Hocking 692 Holmes 550 Huron 929 Jackson 750 Jefferson 666 Knox 913 Lake 550 Lawrence 1,263 Licking.... 1,307 Logan 870 Lorain 823 Lucas..; 1,108 Madison 406 Mahoning 629 Marion 579 Medina..... 579 Meigs 1,292 Mercer 556 Miami 1,405 Monroe 836 Montgomery 1,158 Morgan 750 Morrow 696 Muskingum l,lfflll Noble 617 Ottawsy i ...^, 325 Paulding '254 Perry 702 Pickaway 604 Pike 560 Portage 721 Preble 857 Putnam 337 Richland 1,087 Boss 1,457 Sandusky 789< Scioto 1,083 Seneca 928 Shelby 475 Stark 1,048 Summit _ 969 Trumbull 1,144 Tuscarawas 1,029 Union 691 Van Wert 361 Vinton ■ 601 Warren 1,186 Washington 1,381 Wayne 734 Williams.-. 682 Wood 740 Wyandotte 759 Pkogkess and Close of Dennison's Administkation. 59 eral; of the Thirtieth (ffugh Ewing), a Brigadier and Brevet Major-General ; of the Thirty-First (Moses B. "Walker), a Brevet Brigadier ; of the Thirty-Third (J. W. Sill), a Brigadier; of the Thirty-Fourth (A. S. Piatt), a Brigadier; of the Thirty-Fifth (Ferdinand Tan Derveer), a Brigadier; of the Thirty-Sixth (George Crook), a Major-General; of the Forty-First (William B. Hazen), a Major-feeneral ; of the Forty-Second (James A. Garfield), a Major-Gen- eral; of the Forty-Fifth (B. P. Eunkle), a Brevet Brigadier ; of the Forty -Ninth (Wm. H. Gibson) a Brevet Brigadier; of the Fifty-Second fDaniel McCook), a Brigadier; of the Fifty-Fifth (Jno. 0. Lee), a Brevet Brigadier; of the Sixty- Third (Jno. W. SpragTie), a Brigadier; of the Sixty-Fifth (C. E. Harker), a Brigadier; of the Seventy-Second (R. P. Buckland), a Brigadier; of the Sev- enty-Fourth (Rev. Granville Moody) a Brevet Brigadier ; of the Seventy-Fifth «(N. C. McLean), a Brigadier ; of the Seventy-Sixth (Chas. R. Woods), a Major- General ; of the Seventy-Eighth (M. D. Leggett), a Major-Geneml. Many of the subordinate officers also rose tohigh promotion ; and although Rome, also, brought disgrace upon themselves and damage to the cause, yet of the entire list it may bo said that it -would compare favorably with the appoint- ments from any other State. Camps Dennison and Chase, the one near Cincinnati, the other near Co- lumbus, were controlled by the United States authorities. On Governor Den- nison fell the selection and management of other camps throughout the State, of which the following are the principal ones established during his admin- istration : Camp Jackson Columbus, Camp Putnam at Marietta. Camp Harrison near Cincinnati. Camp Wool at Athens. Camp Taylor at Cleveland. Camp Jefferson at Bellair. Camp Goddard at Zanesville. Camp Scott at Portland. Camp Anderson ' at Lancaster. tJntil'the United States undertook the task of subsisting'and supplying sol- diers as soon as they were recruited, these were supplied by the State Quarter- master. Of the magnitude of the other interests intrusted to this officer during Governor Dennison's administration, some idea may be formed from statements like these : The number of rifles purchased on State account for the useof infantry was eleven thousand nine hundred. The number of carbines and revolvers for cavalry was one thousand eight hundred and eighty-five. The number of six-poundcr bronze field guns was forty-one. A laboratory was established at Columbus for the supply of ammunition, which the United States arsenals, before there was time for a vast enlargement of their capacities, were unable to furnish. From this laboratory two million five hundred and five thousand seven hundred and eighty musket and pistol cartridges were supplied ; with sixteen thousand five hundred and thirty-seven cartridges, fixed shot,, canister, and spherical case for artillery. 60 Ohio in the War. In the absence of a sufficient supply of rifles, the old muskets were rifled^ Miles Greenwood, of Cincinnati, taking the contract. The " Greenwood rifle" thus manufactured became quite popular, being held by the troops the equal of the Enfield in precision and range, and more destructive, inasmuch as it carried a heavier weight of. metal. During Dennison's administration twenty-five thousand three hundred and twenty -four of these smooth-bore muskets were thus changed, at a cost of one dollar and a quarter per gun. The State had under its control, at the outbreak of the war, thirty-three smooth-bore six-pounders. Twenty-seven of these were likewise rifled and made equal to the best rifled guns. Twelve additional batteries were contracted for— the guns for which Miles Greenwood had already begun casting. The ofiice received from the Government and issued to troops fifty-eight thousand five hundred and sixty-six- rifles and muskets. It expendad in the purchase of uniforms $1,117,349 35. Of none of the vast quantity of clothing thus bought were complaints ever made, except in the case of a few regiments, which in the first rush and at a time when the goods to make regulation uniforms were not in the country, received a pretty bad sample of shoddy. We have seen. that the operations of the Commissary Department Were the first to arouse the clamor which continued till near its close to pursue our first War Administration. At the end of the year, however, the Commiseary-Gen-'' eral was able to report that, in issuing nearly three-quarters of a million rations the State had paid only thirteen and one-quarter cents per ration; and that in commuting four hundred and eleven thousand seven hundred and ten rationB,1S in the haste of the first organization, before it was possible to issue rations, and when it was unavoidable that the troops should either be quartered at hotels or otherwise boarded, the State had paid only an average of about forty-four and one-half cents per ration. Large as this last sum seemed it was small com- pared with that allowed by the United States Army Eegulations, under which a soldier so stationed as to have no opportunity of messing, was allowed to commute at the rate of seventy-five cents per day — the highest sum paid in the State anywhere in the greatest pi-essure of troops just after the April call. The whole sum of expenditures by the State for subsistence of soldiers was $488,858 71. For all these operations large sums of money were required. It was held by the Auditor f that of the three millions appropriated by the Legislature for war purposes, only half a million was available in direct aid of the United, States. This was soon exhausted. Presently, however, under the efiective.; *" Commuting rations" is to pay money for the Bubsistenoe of soldiers instead of issuing to them lations m kind. The ration, as used in the above, means a supply of proTisiona for one man for one day. tE. W. Tayler, an exceedingly scrupulous and exact financial officer, who has since been made one of the Comptrollers of the United States Treasury, to succeed Elisha AVhittlesey. Pkogress and Close of Deknison's Administeation. 61 financial management of Secretary Chase, the Government was able to refund the sums thus advanced. Here a new difficulty arose. The Auditor decided — and in this he was sustained by the Attorney-General — that these refunded monej's could afford the Governor no relief, since, if they once entered the treasury, they could not again be used in aid of the United States — the full appropriation of a half million dollars for that purpose having already been used. Technically there was no doubt that this was correct. Governor Dennison at once determined to evade this technicality and em- ploy the money. Accordingly, instead of permitting it to be refunded to the State Treasury through the ordinary channels, he caused it to be collected from the Government by his personal ^agents, when he proceeded again to use it for the various niilitary purposes for which it was needed. As it was again, after a ■time refunded, he again collected it by hi* personal agents, and continued to employ it so long as was needful. In this way it vras eventually reported that he had kept out of the State Treasury the sum of $1,077,600. For every dollar he presented satisfactory accounts and vouchers to the Legislature. The use of tliis money was a bold measure, but it was vindicated by the law of public necessity, and it never cast a shadow upon the integrity of the Governor who retained it, or of the officers through whom he disbursed it. During the fall and early winter of 1861, a cry of suffering came from the Ohio troops among the Alleghany Mountains in West Virginia. Sanitary and Christian Commissions were not then prepared to respond to such calls, and the Governor had no resource, save an appeal to the liberality of the people. In October he accordingly issued a proclamation calling upon the people for con- tributions of clothing, and particularly of blankets. Within a few weeks nearly eight thousand blankets and coverlets had been sent in, besides nearly ten thousand p^irs of woolen socks, and proportionate quantities of other articles. The suffering in the mountains however proved to have been much exaggerated, and only a, small part of the articles thus contributed was sent there. Some were used in hospitals, others were issued to troops in Kentucky, and a con- siderable quantity remained on hands for the next year's uses. The annual nominating convention of his party had been held during the height of Governor Dennison's unpopularity. Most of the party leaders were already aware of the injustice with which he had been treated, and a strong disposition was felt to renominate him in spite of the odium that would thus be attached to their ticket. ' But reasoning as politicians will, "that the party could not afford such a risk, and being moreover anxious to draw off the war wing of tlie Democratic party, they passed Governor Dennison by with a compli- mentary resolution, indorsing his administration, and bestowed their nomina- tion upon David Tod, of the Eeserve, a patriotic and prominent Democratic leader. Governor Dennison betrayed no unseemly mortification at the result, and gave his cordial efforts to aid in the success of the ticket. In his final message 62 Ohio in the War. he recited the efforts made to place the Stale on a war footing and to fumieh all the troops called for, with scarcely a reference to the misrepresentation with which he had been pursued. The facts were his conclusive vindication. As a hank man, he protested against the policy of Secretary Chase for the destruction of State banks and the establishment-of the National Bank system.* As a somewhat conservative Republican be deplored any proclamation of im- mediate emancipation, as a measure which would insure the extermination of the negro race. He favored confiscation of Eebel property, and advocated, the establishment of a negro colony in Central America. "I do not doubt," he con- cluded in a manly strain, "that errors have occurred in conducting my civil and military administration ; but I am solaced by the reflection that no motive has ever influenced me which did not spring from an earnest desire to promote the interests of my fellow-citizens, and preserve the honor of the State and the integrity of the Nation. . . I felt that I wouM be recreant to the duties en- trusted to me, if I failed to exert all my powers and employ all the instrumen- talities at my command, to support the Government in its efforts to suppress the insurrection and maintain its constitutional authority." For this singleness of aim and purity of purpose, as well as for marked sagacity and ability in the discharge of his public duties, his fellow-citizens have long since given him credit. It was his misfortune that the first rush of the war's responsibilities fell ■ upon him. Those who came after were enabled to walk by the light of his painful experience. If he had been as well known to the State, and as highly esteemed two years before the outbreak of the war as he was two years after- ward, his burdens would have been greatly lightened. But he was not credited with the ability he really possessed, and in their distrust, men found it very easy to assure themselves that he was to blame for everything. That he made some mistakes is not to be disputed. Some of tlfe early ex- penditures were less closely retrenched than they might have been. He was scarcely quick enough in reorganizing his peace establishment staff. He was not quite right iu his policy for checking contraband goods, and his well-meant efforts to suppress contraband news were ill-considered and productive of need- less irritation. But these are small matters. He led in securing the redemption of West Virginia. He led in seeking to enforce upon the Government the need of speedy action in Kentucky. He led in pressing the necessity for a large army. He met the first shock of the contest, and in the midst of difficulties which now seem scarcely credible, organized twenty -three regiments for the three months' service and eighty -two for three years ; nearly one-half the entire number of organizations sent to the field by the State during the war. He left the State : *He subsequently declared, in a welcoming speech to Mr. Chase at Columbus, that he had been wrong in this opposition, and that the Secretary was right. He pronounced him indeed the greatest financier that had controlled the finances of a great government within the century. See " Going Home to Vote," a pamphlet published by the Union Loyal League of Waahiiigton, in which this speech is given. Peogeess and Close of Dennison's Administeation. 63 credited with twenty thousand seven hundi'ed and fifty-one soldiers above and beyond all calls made by the President upon her.* He handled large sums of money beyond the authority of law and without the safeguard of bonded agents, and his accounts were honorably closed. His fate was indeed a singular one. The honest, patriotic discharge of his duty made him odious to an .intensely patriotic people. With the end of his service he began to be apprecia'ted. He was •the most trusted counsellor and efficient aid to his successor. Though no longer more than a private citizen, he came to be recognized in and out of the State as her best spokesman in the De- partments at Washington. Those who followed him on the public stage, though with the light of his experience to guide them, did not fas in the case of most military men similarly situated) leave him in obscurity. Gradually he even became -popular. The State began to reckon him among her leading public men, the party selected him as President of the great National Convention at Baltimore, and Mr. Lincoln called him to the Cabinet. • From calculations in final report of United States Provoat Marshal-General Fry, Vol. I, p. 161. 64 Ohio in the Wab, CHAPTER VII. GENERAL FEATURES OF THE FIRST YEAR OF TOD'S ADMINISTRATION. IlSr January, 1862, David Tod entered upon the duties of Governor of Ohio. He had been the candidate of the Democratic party for Governor in 1844, had run ahead of his ticket, and had come within a tliousand votes of election ; had been a popular stump orator, the President of the Na- tional Douglas Democratic Convention at Baltimore^ and for nearly five years United States Minister to Brazil. Then, for some years, he had been success- fully engaged in iron manufactures, and as President of the Cleveland and Ma- honing railroad. He brought, therefore, to the office the reputation of a good business man, of a political leader with experience and public honors, and an earnest patriot, ready, at the call of the country, to droj) old prejudices and party connections. Thus secure in advance in the confidence of the people, he entered upon a path which the trials of his predecessor had smoothed for him. His knowledge of affairs aided him in the business details of his office. The Legislature, now thoroughly aroused to the magnitude of the war, gave him a hearty co-operation. The staif left by his predecessor was trained by the expe- rience of the first crowded year, familiar with the work and its wants, and now able to give system to all the details of the military administration.* Governor Dennison had established military committees in every county in the St^ite to aid and advise him in the work of recruiting, and camps for the regiments not yet complete. At the outset there was little to do, save to continue these agen- cies, and to fill up the regiments in camj). r" * Governor Tod retained the three chief officers of Governor Dennison's staff. Judge Ad- vocate-General Wolcott being called to the War Department, and Surgeon-General McMillen to the command of a regiment, he was compelled to fill their places with new men. His staff for the year 1862 was as follows : Adjutant-General C. P. Buckingham. [Resigned April 18, 1862, to enter War Department.] Adjutant-General Charles W. HilL Quartermaster-General Geo. B. Wright. Commissary-General Columbus Delano. Judge Advocate-General Luther Day. Surgeon-Genera) Gustave C. E. Weber. [Resigned, from ill-health, October, 1862.] Surgeon-General Samuel M. Smith. Aid-de-Camp Garretson J. Young. ToD's Administration. 65 With trained assistants, an organized system, and tho work thus gradually coming upon him, Governor Tod speedily mastered his new duties. There was no opportunitj'- for distinguishing his administration by the redemption of a State, or the appointment of officers who were soon to reach the topmost round of popular favor, or the adoption of independent war measures during a tem- porary isolation from the General Government. But what there was to do he did prudently, systematically, and with sucb judgment as to command the gen- eral approval of his constituents. The first feature of his administration was the care for the wounded of the State, sent home from the terrible field of Pittsburg Landing. Then he exer- cised a general care over the troops in the field, and established the system of State agencies at important points for their benefit. The only other striking features of the first year of his incumbency were the alarm about the capital and the rapid recruiting for its defense; the filling of the State quotas under the President's calls, and the draft to complete them ; the arrests which hostility to the draft provoked ; the alarms along the border, first for the safety of Cincin- nati when Kirby Smith threatened it, and then for the upper Kentucky and West Virginia border ; and the special efforts thus required for the State defense. The outline of these several subjects we may now seek to trace. No great battles had, during Governor Denjiison's administration, excited the sensibilities of the people in behalf of their wounded sons and brothers; and no system of supplementing the army treatment by State care for the wounded had been held necessary. The initial movements of 1862 did not lead to great losses in any of the armies over the theater of war where Ohio soldiers were now scattered. On the Potomac the quiet was still unbroken, r In West Virginia the season was too inclement to permit extended operations. In Ken- tucky, save the battles of the Sandy Valley, of Wild Cat, and of Mill Springs, tho advance to Nashville, and even to the northern border of Mississippi, was made almost without fighting. At Port Donelson, and in the operations in Missouri, the losses of Ohio troops had been too small to arouse a general feeling of anx- iety in the State. But Pittsburg Landing was a sudden, startling shock, " And heavy to the ground the first dark drops of battle came." Then followed rumors of the sad slaughter and of the terrible suffering. Thewhol© State was aroused. Men everywhere talked of it as a personal calamity, denounced its authors, and demanded haste to relieve its victims.* It was not till the afternoon of the 9th of April that authentic news of the great battles of the 6th *It was currently helieved in the West, at the time, that the first day's disaster at Pittsburg Jianding had been aggravated by the drunkenness of General Grant. He was a long time very un- popular, in consequence of his management at this battle, in the States whose troops suffered the moat by it; and he was never fiiUy re-instated in public confidence in the West till after the fall of Vicksburg. It need scarcely be said that the charges of drunkenness or needless absence ■were gross slanders. A discussion oi' t.'ie real causes of the disaster may be found in the suc- ceeding pages, part II, Life of Grant. Vol. T.— 5 66 Ohio in the Wak. and 7th reached Cincinnati. The losses were reported at eighteen to twenty thousand. The Sanitary Commission at once ordered the charter of a steam^ boat to visit the battle-field with surgeons, nurses, and stores, and within an hour the " Tycoon" was secured. Then, as the Quartermaster-General, in a dis- patch from Washington, assumed the expenses of this boat, the Commission, in the course of the afternoon, chartered another, the "Monarch." Mayor Hatch had meantime chartered the "Lancaster No. 4" on the city's account. By dark she was equipped with supplies, hospital stores, a full corps of physicians and nurses under Doctors Blackman and Vattier, prominent mem- bers of the profession in Cincinnati, and fifty members of the city police force, under Colonel Dudley, and was rapidly steaming down the river. G-overnor Tod, on being advised of this action, promptly telegraphed that the State would assume the expenses of this, the first boat off to the scene of suffering ; and that he had selected thirty volunteer surgeons who, with the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor of the State, would arrive in Cincinnati the next morning, in time for passage on the "Monarch." At nine o'clock this same evening, a few hours after the departure of the "Lancaster No. 4," the " Tycoon" set out, likewise fully equipped, with twenty- three nurses, one hundred and fifty boxes of hospital supplies, and eleven physicians, at the head of whom was Dr. Mendenhall, another well-known- practitioner of the city. Eight more physicians, under Dr. Comegys, were ready to go out in the morning on the "Monarch" with the thirty from Colum- bus.* Meanwhile the Chamber of Commerce appointed a committee to secure from the City Council appropriations to meet the expenses thus incurred, and the Sanitary Commission received fi-om individuals who feared this aid, though certain, might be a few hours too late, cash contributions to the amount of over two thousand dollars for instant wants. Within a few hours citizens of Day- ton swelled this sum by forwarding five hundred more; while the "sanitary supplies" in store were speedily augmented by generous shipments from Cleveland. The system thus inaugurated was kept up so long as there appeared any necessity for it. Ohio surgeons and nurses visited the great battle-field and the hospitals along the rivers; Ohio boats removed the wounded with tender care to the hospitals at Camp Dennison and elsewhere within the State ; the Ohio treasury was the sufficient warrant for any expenditures for the comfort of the sick or wounded, concerning the approval of which by the General Government there was doubt. At the close of the year it was announced in the official re- ports that the State had paid the expenses of eleven steamboats, sent to Pitta- burg Landing and other points along the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers for sick and wounded soldiers, amounting in the aggregate to forty -seven * Eli C. Baldwin, Charles F. Wilstach, and C. R. Fosdick were appointed a committee i the Sanitary Commission to take command of the "Tycoon." B. P. Baker, Larz Anderson, a« J. H. Bates were a similar Committee for the " Monarch." Among the nurses off in the first boat, the "Lancaster No. 4," were ten Sisters of Charity. ToD's Administkation. 67 thousand thirty-eight dollars and seventy-five cents* — a sum which the pay and expenses of nurses, volunteer surgeons, etc., increased to seven thousand six hundred and eighty-three dollars and eighty-five cents. The Surgeon -General was likewise sent with over twenty surgeons to the battle-field of Antietam, a few months later; and in the autumn, to Perryville, with eight surgeons and a corps of nurses. Special agents were likewise sent to Louisville and Cleveland to look after suffering paroled prisoners, and to the troops in the Kanawha Val- ley and at other points where suffering was said to exist. In much of this work Dr. Samuel M. Smith, of Columbus (who soon after became Surgeon -General), was conspicuous. He was sent no less than five times in charge of steamboats to Pittsburg Landing, as well as once to Antietam. This system presently received a development in a new direction, We have just spoken of the agents of the Governor sent to the Kanawha Valley and elsewhere, on the reception of reports about the wants of Ohio troops in the respective localities. Another step was soon taken, of which this furnished the suggestion. The suffering on the battle-fields, and the subsequent distress of many poor men, discharged for disability or sent home on sick leave, whose ignorance of the regulations delayed them in the settlement of their accounts, the procuring of transportation, and the scores of other things for which, in general, the sol- dier is accustomed to look to his ofiicers, led to the establishment of a system of State agencies at the most important points. At first the only object con- templated was to oare for and assist the sick and disabled soldiers found, unat- tended by friends, about the princi)jal depots. Agencies for this purjjose were established at Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, CrestUne, and Bellair.f Then, as the discharged soldiers seemed to have great difficulty in the settlement of their accounts — owing often to their own ignorance of the necessarj- details, and often to the negligence of theii- officers — the Quartermaster-General was charged with the duty of establishing an agency in his office, to which such soldiers could resort for gratuitous aid, and for protection from ravenous claim agents. Finally, as the excellent workings of the S3'8tem were developed, and as the progress of the war increased the necessity for it, the agencies were gradually extended. Be- fore the close of the Governor's first year in office, they had been established at Cincinnati under the care of A. B. Lyman, and at Louisville under the care of Eoyal Taylor. He soon afterward started others, as the varying wants of the servioo indicated the necessity, at Washington under J. C. Wetmore, at Mem- phis under F. W. Bingham, at Cairo and St. Louis under Weston Flint, at Nashville under Royal Taylor (who continued also to supervise the Louisville agency), and at New York under B. P. Baker. * Governor's message, 5th January, 1863, Report of Contingent Fund, p. 33. Some of the eteamers made two or more trips. Tlie names of those engaged were "Magnolia," "Glendale," "Tycoon," " Emma Duncan," "Lady Franklin," "Sunnyside," and " Lancaster No. 4." tThe expense of these agencies for the year, including the gubsistence furnished by them to Buflerin" soldiers, was only one thousand nine hundred and thirty- seven dollars and fifty- eight cents. 68 Ohio in the Wak. Gradually tlie care thus exerted by the State authorities over Ohio troops on the battle-field, in the hospital, and on the way to their homes, came to ibl- low them in all their movements in the field. The General Government, for a time, allowed an insufficient number of euri;eo!i.s. Under authority conferred by the Li'gislature, Governor Tod supplomented tliis want (up to the time Avhen Congress authorized assistant regimental Surgeons), by sending State Surgeons into the field. For this species of relief an expenditure of seven thousand eight hundred and twenty-two dollars and twenty-five cents was incurred. Presently, we find the Governor beginning to plead the case of Ohio troops in the field with the authorities. The Second Ohio Cavalry was in some trouble on the frontier. "The Kansas authorities," said Governor Tod, "do not com- mand my confidence ;" and thereupon he appealed to the Secretary of War to see to it that the court in the case should be composed of officers "noways im- plicated or interested in the matter."* Reports were in circulation of troubles among the paroled Union prisoners in camp near Chicago. Thereupon an agent was sent to see what number of Ohio troops were there and what was their condition. f In the alarm over Kirby Smith's invasion, raw troops, half equipped, were hurried into Kentucky. The Governor telegraphs to the Com- mander of the Department, begging that tents be sent them at once ; J in a little time telegraphs again; then sends a characteristic dispatch to Secretarj- Stan- ton to the effect that it "is well he doesn't know whose fault it is, or he would whip the fellow if he were as strong as Samson ;"|| once more appeals to the Commander of the Department, and finall}- solicits ex-Governor Dennison to visit head-quarters and give his personal attention to the matter. § The peculiar vein "crops out" again in a dispatch about the same time to the Cincinnati Quartermaster: "For God's sake, furnish our Ohio troops now in Kentucky with canteens,"** but the humane purpose was accomplished. A Colonel sends him, from Eosecrans's battle-field of Corinth, a bloodj- flag, captured from a Texas i-egiment by private Orrin B. Gould, of company G. in the Twenty-Sev- enth Ohio, who fell in the act. The Governor determines that the hero, though dead, shall be rewarded, and his fiimily are accordingly gratified by the recep- tion of a Captain's commission for him.-ff All this was well meant and productive of good. Scarcely so much conld be said for this foolish dispatch : " Tlie gallant people of Ohio are mortified to death over the rumored cowardice of Colonel Rodney JIason, of the Seventy- First Ohio, and in their behalf I demand that he have a fair but speedy trial; and, should he be convicted of cowardice, that the extreme penalty of the law be in- flicted upon him, for ill that event we can not endure even his foul carcass upon our soil."tt The various forms of the efforts to raise troops and the alarm along the border, constitute the prominent remaining features of the first year of Gover- nor Tod's administration. When Stonewall Jackson, bursting unannounced into the Valley, scattered *Ex. Doc. 1862. PartI, p. 67. flbid. t Ibid, p. 72. |llbldd.77. ?Ibid, p. 74. «'Ibid, p. 78. ttlbid, p. G8. HIbid,p.71. ToD's Administration. 69 tho fragmentary armies of the fragmentary department commanders wlio held pie'/emeul ]ios8ession therein, and created the liveliest apprehensions for the safely of Washington itself, the War Department issued a liasty appeal for troops to protect the Capital. In obedience to this, Governoi- Tod, on the 2Gth of Ma}', 1S02, published his proclamation calling for volunteers for three months, for three years, or for tenipdrarj' guard-duty within the limits of the State. The day before he had sent telegraphic dispatches to the military committees of every county in tiie State, announcing tlie '"imminent danger" at Washington, assigning the number expected from each countj^, and urging that whoever was willing to volunteer should hurry to Camp Chase — the railroads being instructed to pass such recruits to Columbus at the Slate's expense. The people responded promptly. At Cleveland a large meeting was held, and two hundred and fifty men immediately enlisted — among them twenty- seven out of the thirtj'-two students in attendance at the Law School. At Zanesville the fire bells rang out the alarm, and by ten o'clock a large meeting had assembled at the court-house. Three hundred men enlisted before three in the afternoon. Court was in session, but the Judge announced that it was adjourned sine die, as he and the lawyers were all going to join in the military movement. The Judge at Bellefontaine hastened to enlist.* At Putnam only three unmarried men between the ages of eighteen and thirty were left in the town. At Western ReServe College twenty of the college cadets volunteered on the day of the call, and more followed the next morning. In all five thousand volunteers reported at Camp Chase under this call — the majority of them within the first and second days after its issue. The men were permitted to elect their company officers, and the field and staff were at once appointed, so that the organization was almost as sudden as the enlistment. Within ten daj's after the call, the first of the new regiments, the Eighty-Fourth, was dispatched to the field. The Eighty-Sixth and Eighty -Eighth soon fol- lowed; while the Eighty-Fifth and Eighty-Seventh organized for duty within the State, relieved other troops for the front, and afterward furnished from their ranks considerable numbers of volunteers for active service. Up to this time Governor Tod had been called upon to undertake no work of importance connected with the raising of troops, save to fill up the regi- ments which Governor Dennison had left nearly completed. The progress that had been made in this work may be suflSciently set forth in tabular form, as follows: 43d Infantry, Colonel J. L. Kirby Siiiith, completed 14th February, 1SG2. 46th " " Thomns Worthington, completed 20th .January, 1862. 48th " " Peter J. iSullivan, completed 16th January, 1862. 5:!(1 " " Je.sse J. Appier, completed 3d February, 18G2. 54th " " Thomas Kilby Smith, completed 6th February, 1862. 55th " " J. C. Lee, sent to field 25th January, 1862. 56th " " Feter Kinnoy, sent to field 10th February, 1862. 57th " " Wm. Mungen, completed 10th February 1862. * Judge Wm. Lawrence, since member of Congress. He became Colonel of the first three months' regiment thus raised, the Eiglity- Fourth Ohio. 70 Ohio in the War 58th Infantry, Colonel Valentine Bausenwein, completed 3d February, 1862. 60th " " Wm. H. Trimble, completed 25th February, 1862. 61st " " N. Schleich, completed 1st May, 1862. 62d " " F. B. Pond, sent to field 17th January, 1862. 63d " " J. W- Sprague, sent to field 18th February, 1862. 66th " " Charles Candy, sent to field 16th January, 1862. 68th " " Samuel H. Steedman, sent to field 7th February, 1862. 69th " " Lewis D. Campbell, completed 24th March, 1862. 70th " " J. B. Cockerill, completed, 3d February, 1862. 71st " " Kodney Mason, sent to field 10th February, 1862. 72d " " E. P. Buckland, sent to field 15th February, 1862. 73d " " Orland Smith, sent to field 23d January, 1862. 74th " " Granville Moody, completed 28th February, 1862. 75th " " N. C. McLean, sent to field 23d January, 1862. 76th " " Charles R. Woods, completed 9th February, 1862. 77th " " Jesse Hildebrand, completed 5th February, 1862. 78th " " M. D. Leggett, sent to field 10th February, 1862. 80th " " E. K. Eckley, sent to field 20th February, 1862. 82d " " James Cantwell, sent to field 23d January, 1862. 6th Cavalry, " W. K. Lloyd, sent to field 13th March, 1862. Tvs'o or three of the attempted organizations proved unsuccessful, and the companies raised were attached to other commands. The impetus given to the others during the close of Governor Dennison's administration was sufficient, as maj- be seen above, to carry them to completion and into the field very soon after Governor Tod's inauguration. Toward the close of !Maj- the Governor was beginning to prepare for rais- ing three new regiments, when the sudden alarm about Washington interfered. There followed the hasty mustering of three months' men we have already de- scribed. Then, till the middle of July, three regiments for the war, the Forty- Fiilh, Fiftieth, and Fifty-Second, had the range of the entire State for recruit- ing. They grew slowly, and the work of raising troops seemed to have come almost to an end. Meantime, in June, had come the President's call for three hundred thouB- and, and soon after for three hundred thousand more, closely following on the failure of the peninsular campaign, and the stupor that seemed to have befallen the armies in the South-west. Uiuier these calls (not counting the previous excess of credits) the quota of Ohio was seventy-four thousand ; for thirty- seven thousand of which, under the recent legislation of Congress, the State mi- litia was liable to draft. It was evident that some new plan must be devised for raising these troops. The community that was spending a whole summer in filling three regiments was not likely, within a couple of months, to fill ten times as many fresh ones. From this point may bo reckoned the beginning of the radical error by which all subsequent recruiting in Ohio, and in the sister States as well, was poisoned. Men had an instinctive repugnance to a draft ; an unwise fondness for being able to say that all the soldiers from the State were volunteers. It followed that if actual volunteers did not present themselves, artificial stimu- lants must be employed to produce them. Thus it came about that the burden! ToD's Administration. 71 of the war rested, not equally upon all, but heaviest upon the most ardent, the most willing, and the most patriotic ; and that ultimately, when this class was measurably exhausted, those to whom money, rather than patriotism, was a controlling consideration, became " volunteers " through the use of enormous bribes in the shape of bounties. Upon two classes came the whole weight of the war — the most willing and the most purchasable. There were many fea- tures about this unwise .policy which commended it alike to the tenderness and the pride of public feeling. It prevented the exceptional cases of peculiar hard- ship which no care could have kept the draft from inflicting; it heaped upon those who were willing to fight the rewards which a grateful community felt that they deserved; it ministered to the vanity which was unwilling to ac- knowledge the necessity of a draft in a particular locality to secure its quota of soldiers for the war. If at the outset the volunteering had been confined exclusively to the regi- ments needed under former calls, and it had been distinctly announced that a draft would be held to fill the whole quota under the new call, and no volunteers therefor would be accepted, a better system might have been inaugurated, to which a relieved treasury and a diminished tax list might even now be bearing testimony. But the considerations in favor of the volunteering system were held con- clusive. The surrounding States adhered to it. The people revolted from the idea of a draft. Some States and many communities were beginning the offer of a local bounty. The Government was about to offer a ^^ational bounty. The leading newspapers were calling upon the Governor to " take the responsi- bility," and make a similar offer for the State. This he did not do; but the opportunity for adopting the draft as the sys- tematic, fair, and common mode of raising such troops as were called for was lost. Following the bent of public temper, and undoubtedly carrying out the wishes of those who had elected him, the Governor proceeded with an effort to distribute the new quota equitably among the several counties, and to secure the proper number of volunteers from each. The draft, if used at all, was only to be held as a last resort for filling irremediable deficiencies. Up to this time it was estimated that one hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred voluntary enlistments had been made in the State, and from this num- ber over sixty thousand three j'ears' troops were then in the field.* It was only by localizing the regiments, making the completion of each one the par- ticular duty of a particular region, that the work could again be made popular. An order was therefoi-e issued, on the 9th of July, making the following assignments : FIRST DISTKICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP DENNISON. The Seventy-Ninth and Eighty-Third Begiments will be raised in the counties of Hamilton, Warren and Clinton; the Eighty-Ninth in Clermont, Brown, Highland, and Ross; the Ninetieth in Fayette, Pickaway, Hocking, Vinton, Fairfield, and Perrry. (Bendezroused at Ciroleville.) • Qovernor'a Annual Message for 1862, p. 5. 72 Ohio in thb Wak. SECOND DISTRICT— KENDEZVOUS AT CA:MP POKTSMOUTH. The Ninety-First Regiment will be raised in the counties of Adums, Scioto, Lawrence, Pike, Jackson, and Gallia. THIRD DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP MARIETTA. The Ninety-Second Eegiraent will be raised in the counties of Meigs, Athens, Washington, Noble, and Monroe. FOURTH DISTRICT— RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP DAYTON. The Ninety-Third Eegiment will be raised in the counties of Butler, Preble, and Montgom- ery ; the Ninety-Fourth in Greene, Clarke, Miami, and I);ake. FIFTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP CHASE. The Ninety-Fifth Regiment will be raised in the counties of Champaign, Madison, Frank- lin, and Licking; the Ninety-Sixth in Logan, Union, Delaware, Marion, Morrow, and Knoz. (Rendezvoused at Delaware.) SIXTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP ZANESVIM.E. The Ninety-Seventh Regiment will be raised in the counties of Morgan, Muskingum, Guern- sey, and Coshocton. SEVENTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP STEUBENVILLE. The Ninety-Eighth Regiment will be raised in the counties of Belmont, Tuscarawas, Harri- son, Jeii'erson, and Carroll. EIGHTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP LIMA. The Ninety-Ninth Regiment will be raised in the counties of Shelby, Mercer, Auglaize, Hardin, Allen, Van Wert, Putnam, and Hancock. NINTH DISTRIi'T — RENDEZVOUS AT CA5IP TOLEDO. The One Hundredth Regiment will be raised in the counties of Paulding, Defiance, Henry, Wood, Sandusky, Williams, Fulton, Lucas, and Ottawa. TENTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP MANSFIELD. The One Hundred and First Regiment will be raised in the counties of Wyandot, Crawford, Seneca, Huron, and Erie. (Rendezvoused at Munroeville) ; the One Hundred and Second in Richland, Ashland, Holmes, and Wayne. ELEVENTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP CLEVELAND. The One Hundred and Third Rfegiment will be raised in the counties of Lorain, Medina, and Cuyahoga; the One Hundred and Fourth in Stark, Columbiana, Summit, and Portase. (Rendezvouseil at ?iIassillon) ; the One Hundred and Fifth in Mahoning, Trumbull, Geauga, Lake, and Ashtabula. The milittiry committees of the counties within the several districts were consulted as to the appointment of officers for their resiiective rejiiments, and the T\iirk speedily received a fresh impulse. Each community took a special interest in filling its own regiment, and in "getting clear of the draft." Mor- gan's invasion of Kentucky, speedily followed by that of Kirby Smith, had ivn excellent effect in stimulating these efl'orts ; and the alarm along the AVesl Vir- ginia border very happily co-operated toward the same end. The regiments were assigned, as we have seen, on the 9th of July, 18G2. How rapidly they were tilled may be gathered from, the following table ; ToD's Administration. 73 lOOth Eegiment rendezvoused at Toledo; was full on 8th August. 93d " " Dayton ; was full on 9th August. 99th " " Lima ; was full on 11th August. 105th " " Cleveland; was full on llth August. 96th " ' Delaware ; Was full on 12th August. 94tli " " Piqua; was full on 14th August. lOlst " " Monroeville ; was full on 14th August. 104th " " Massillon; was full on 17th August. 92d " " Marietta; was full on 15th August. 98th " " Steubenville ; was full on 15th August. 95th " " Camp Chase; was full on 16th August. 102d " " MansSeld; was full on 18th August. 103d " " Cleveland; was full on 18th August. 89th " " Camp Dennison ; was full on 22d August. 90th " " Circleville ; was full on 22d August. 91st " " Portsmouth ; was full on 22d August. 97th " " Zanesville ; was full on 22d August. The HamOton County regiments, the Seventy-Ninth and Eighty-Third, •were less successful. Two German ones, raised south of the National Road, the One Hundred and Sixth, Colonel Tafel, and the One Hundred and Eighth, Colonel Limberg, were however nearly filled in August, when they were or- dered in their incomplete state into Kentucky, only, as it proved, to be speedily captured. The One Hundred and Seventh, Oolonel Meyer, another German regiment, raised north of the National Road, was complete by 6th September. Efforts by Captain O'Dowd to raise an Irish Catholic regiment proved futile, and excited the wrath of the State Adjutant-General to such a pitch that he reported: "If the intention had been to enlist men to stay at home and be exempt from the draft, no change of proceedings would have been required to effect these objects.* Other regiments were, about the middle of August, assigned as follows: {Recruits from Greene, Clark, Miami, and Darke, to the 110th, to rendezvous at Camp Piqua. " " Paulding, Defiance, Henry, Wood, Sandusky, Williams, .Fulton, Lucas, and Ottawa, to the 111th, to rendezvous at Toledo. " " Montgomery, to the 112th, to rendezvous at Camp Dayton. " " Champaign, Madison, Franklin, and Licking, to the ll'Sth, to rendezvous at Camp Chase. " " Fayette, Pickaway, Fairfield, Perry, Hocking, and Vinton, to the 114th to rendez- vous at Camp Circleville. " " Stark, Columbiana, Summit, and Portage, to the 115th, to rendezvous at Camp Massillon. " " Meigs, Athens, Washington, Noble, and Monroe, to the 116,th, to rendezvous at Camp Marietta. " " Adams, Scioto, Pike, Jackson, Lawrence, and Gallia, to the 117th, to rendezvous at Camp Portsmouth. " " the Eighth Military District, to the 118th, to rendezvous at Camp Lima. " " Hamilton, Butler, Preble, Warren, and Clinton, to the 119th, to rendezvous at Camp Derinison. " " Richland, Ashland, Holmes, and Wayne, to the 120th, to rendezvous at Camp Mansfield. •Adjutant-General's Report for 1862. 74 Ohio in the War. Eecruits from Logan, Union, Delaware, Marion, Morrow, and Knox, to the 12lBt, to rcndezvouj at Camp Delaware. " " the Sixth Military District, to the 122d, to rendezvous at Camp Zanesville. " " Wyandot, Crawford, Seneca, Huron, and Erie, to the 123d, to rendezvouB at Camp Monroeville. " " Medina, Lorain, and Cuyahoga, to the 124th, to rendezvous at Camp Cleveland. " " Mahoning, Trumbull, Geauga, Lake, and Ashtabula, to the 125th, to rendezvous at Camp Cleveland. " " Belmont, TuscarawaSj Harrison, Jefferson, and Carroll, to the 126th, to rendezvous at Camp Steubenville. Of these the Adjutant-General was able before the end of the year, 1862, to report the majority full, as follows: 110th Regiment rendezvoused at Piqna; was full* on 3d October. Ulth « « Toledo; was full on 27th August. 115th " " Massilloii ; was full on 22d August. 114th " " Circleville; was full on 22d August. 120th " " Mansfield; was full on 10th September. 12l3t " " Delaware; was full on 11th September. 123d " " Monroeville; was full on 26th September. 122d " " Zanesville; was full on 8th October. 126th " " Steubenville; was full on 11th October. 116th " " Marietta; was full on 28th October. 118th " " Lima; was full on 5th December. Most of the others were also in a fair way for speedy completion. Some new batteries were also raised, and the " River Regiment " (Seventh) of Cav- alry, and several more organizations of each arm were begun. Meantime this effort to fill the quota by volunteering involved a necessary but very grave evil. Eecruits could not be secured save by multiplying organi- zations, and so making energetic recruiting agents of the new officers, whose commissions depended upon the completion of their commands. The numbei of regiments and of officers thus grew out of all proportion to the number vH men; and the thinned ranks at the front, which most of all needed recruits, ana in which these recruits could be most speedily fitted for active service, received scarcely any. Governor Tod did his best to change this unfortunate shape of affairs ; but the vice was inherent in the system. The tendency was all to the new regi- ments; the public excitement and effort were in regard to them; the State was filled with their agents. In the too rare cases in which the regiments in the field sent home officers to recruit, the difference in their operations was pithily stated by the Governor in one of his official letters: "The great trouble is that the recruiting officers sent home have their commissions in their pockets, and thus situated, encounter at every corner recruiting officers who have their com- missions to earn." He proposed that commanders of regiments should send borne non-commissioned officers or privates, with the promise of commissions, provided they should recruit a given number of men; but this sagacious hint * In point of fact one company was missing at this date — ^being only partially full — but tilt regiment was then ordered to the field in Kentucky. ToD'8 Administration. 75 ■was not adopted. Then ho suggested to the Secretary of War that the compa- nies of the weakest regiments should be consolidated, and that the officers of the companies thus broken up should be sent homo to recruit — their remaining in the 8ei*vice to be conditional upon their success. Still striving to fill up the old organizations, he next adopted the plan of giving commissions for the lower vacancies in certain regiments to men who had not hitherto been in the service, on condition that they should take with them to the field a certain number of recruits. But the- well-meant effort awakened at once the most outspoken hos- tility. Officers in the field naturally complained that their chances for pi-omo- tion were injured by this foisting in above them of men who had won rank not by fighting but by recruiting; and they took the very sensible ground that it was the duty of those who staj-ed at home to keep their files full. Yet they should have seen that this was impossible so long as the volunteering system made rank the reward of recruiting agents, and service at home a surer way of securing it than service at the front — in short, as we have already said, that the vice -wtes inherent in the system. The only serious difficulties between the Governor and the officers in the field grew out of this subject. Some refused to recognize the commissions which he had given to recruiting agents, or permit them to be mustered into the service as belonging to their regiments. Two, out of the many tart letters thus evoked, will serve to illustrate the difficulty : The State of Ohio, ExEcumrB Depabtment, ) Columbus, November 7, 1862. J Lievtenant'CoUmel E. W. Hollingsworth, Nineteenth Regiment 0. V. I,, Columbia, Kentucky : Deab Sir: — Your letter of the lat inst., by Lieutenant Case, is before me. I am surprised, Colonel, that you should be so short-sighted as not to second my efforts in filling up your regi- ment. To save the existence of your regiment, and thereby the official existence of yourself, I appointed Lieutenant Case as Second-Lieutenant, upon condition that he recruit thirty men for your regiment, and take them with him. He could much more easily have earned a position for himself by recruiting for a new regiment, but my fear that the gallant old Nineteenth might be attached to some other old regiment, and thereby strike from the rolls its brave officers, induced me to urge him to recruit for it. Notwithstanding the bad taste of your letter, I have ordered Lieutenant Case to return to you again, and ask of you that you either assign him to duty or give him up his men, that he may find a place in some other old regiment, the officers of which may be able to appreciate that the Secretary of War will not keep regiments in the field simply to make place for officers. , EespectfuUy yours, DAVID TOD, Governor. The State of Ohio, Executtve Department, I Columbus, November 27, 1862. J Colonel J. G. Hawkins, Thirteenth Begiment 0. V. I., Silver Springs, Tennessee: giB: Deeply as I regret to differ with you, I can not comply with your wishes as to Lieu- tenant Charles Crawford. To preserve the existence of your regiment, as I supposed, I offered this young man the po- sition of Second-Lientenant, upon the express condition that he recruit a given number of men within a time specified. In thus doing I supposed that I was laboring for the interests of your regiment and therein for the best interests of the Government. Lieutenant Crawford more than performed his part of the agreement — he recruited fifty-two men — and you must not interfere with its performance on my part. very respectfully yours, DAVID TOD, Governor. 76 Ohio in the Wae. In spite of these difficulties considerable numbers for the old r^imentg ivere secured by the persistent efforts of the Governor, whose sagacity was no- where more conspicuous than in perceiving this to be the essential necessity of the recruiting service. By the end of the year it was estimated that, of the troops raised in various ways throughout the State during the last eight months, about twenty-four thousand had gone to fill the wasted ranks at the front. A final opportunity to break away from the volujiteering system was lost. "When the orders of the Secretary of War for a draft were issued, many loe^> ties seemed disposed to slacken their efforts and await it. Thereupon, on the 5th of August, the Governor addressed the military committees, by means of a cir- cular published in the newspapers: "The recent order of the Secretary of War in relation to drafting may cause diversity of opinion and a,ction among you. Hence I deem it proper to urge that you proceed in your efforts to complete the regiments heretofore called for, and fill up those already in the field, as though the recent order had not been promulgated ; and it is hoped that the generous and liberal oSem now being made all over the State, in the shape of bounties to recruits, will not be withdrawn or interfered with. It is believed that with continued vigorous efforts the regiments may be filled up by the fifteenth." And then, as the Government found it necessary to make still further post- ponements of the draft, the Governor again (Ist September) addressed the mili- tary committees : "For the new regiments there are wanted about two thousand men, and for the old regi- ments about twenty-one thousand men, or, in all, about twenty-three thousand. Can this iorce be raised by voluntary enlistment, and thereby save the trouble, expense, and vexation of resort ing to drafting in Ohio? It is believed that it can be. More than twice that number has been raised within the past few weeks ; and surely, the gallant men of Ohio are not weary in their good work." For the original prejudice against the draft as a systematic and permanent mode of sustaining the army, Governor Tod was not responsible. But it is thus seen how he fell in with and finally led the opposition to it. After all, the draft came. It was postponed to the 15th of September. The number then deficient was twenty thousand four hundred and twenty-sevMigl and it was further postponed to the 1st of October. On the Ist of September only thirteen counties had filled their quotas. On the Ist of October only thir- teen more had escaped the draft, and it was finally ordered for twelve thousands two hundred and fifty-one. The Secretary of War appointed six Provost-Mar- shals: Charles F. "Wilstach of Cincinnati, Wells A. Hutchins of Portsmouth, M. G. Mitchell of Piqua, Henry C. Noble of Columbus, Charles T. Sherman of Mansfield, and J. L. Weatherby of Cleveland. The State was divided into six districts and assigned to these gentlemen, under whose supervision the draR proceeded— each community striving by high and higher bounties, and by everjt; form of individuali effort, continued to the last moment, to escape. The counties that filled their quotas before the draft was ordered, and those that filled them after its first postponement, with the number of enrolled militia and the whole number of volunteers furnished in each, from the outbreak of the ToD's Administration. 77 war lip to the 1st of October, 1862, together with the number then drafted, may be found set forth in the following table : COUNTIES. Adams Allen : Ashland Aehtabula Athens Auglaize Behnont Brown Butler Carroll Champaign . Clark Clermont Clinton Columbiana .. Coshocton Crawford Cuyahoga Darke Defiance Delaware Erie Fairfield Fayette Franklin Fulton Gallia Geauga Greene Guernsey Hamilton Hancock Hardin Harrison Henry Highland Hocking Holmes Huron Jackson i'efFerson Knox Lake Lawrence Licking Logan Lorain Lucai! iladisoti Mahoning ■■-. Marion Medina Meigs Mercer Miami Monroe Montgomery , Morgan Morrow Nnmber Number of Number of ITumber Volunteers of Volunteers ordered to be and correc- to the Ist drafted September. Octuber. 3,820 1,428 137 164 3,792 1,411 105 139 4,033 1,322 289 86 5,945 2,129 238 146 4,297 1,963 3,282 1,102 210 46 5,973 2,217 172 71 6,127 1,753 294 165 6,544 2,759 2,615 850 189 64 4,112 1,493 152 ■212 4,838 1,869 75 102 6,191 2,295 177 201 3,910 1,424 139 41 5,738 1,830 465 256 4,299 1,490 227 29 4,524 1,161 042 62 14,360 4,874 869 569 4,913 1,503 458 141 2,535 813 202 39 4,430 1,724 46 15 4,223 1,532 157 94 4,878 1,888 60 35 3,243 1,278 18 39 7,841 3,105 31 371 ■ 2,7>J2 931 185 90 3,832 1,288 244 35 2,711 983 100 42 5,099 1,889 150 25 3,961 1,445 138 138 39,926 14,795 1,175 1,529 4,156 1,260 404 27 3,077 1,197 35 55- 3,277 1,098 215 10 1,559 704, 78 24 4,755 1,711 185 4 2,935 1,195 3,522 962 447 41 5,318 1,914 202- 153 3,221 1,058 230 172 4,379 1,856 4,981 1,630 361 59 2,579 945 88 29 4,062 1,852 6,595 2,208 430 69 3,924 1,635 5,496 1,704 493 '2O6 5,918 2,143 225 419 2,909 1,095 .71 43 4,895 1,501 457 80 3,213 929 356 116 3,858 1,112 431 48 4,736 1,716 177 177 2,530 814 198 5 5,814 2,120 205 341 4,4ff9 1,694 100 39 ' 8,959 2,822 755 93 3,872 1,309 237 65 3,530 1,179 232 29 Number drafced.' 78 Ohio in the War. COUNTIES. Muskingum Noble Ottaw:iy Paulding.... Perry Pickaway ... Pike Portage Preble Putnam Kichland.... Rosa Sandusky ... Scioto Seneca Shelby Stark Summit Trumbull.... Tusca rawas . Union Van Wert... Vinton Warren Waabington Wayne Williams.... Wood Wyandot — Total Number ■ of Enrollment. 7,020 3,617 1,587 1,025 3,104 4,294 2,353 4,420 3,575 2,459 5,870 5,853 4,387 4,797 5,497 2,602 7,910 5,076 5,997 5,757 3,059 2,172 2,446 ' 5,352 6,089 5,786 3,175 3,699 3,322 425,147 Number of Voluuteers to thu let September. 2,314 961 575 458 1,145 1,933 1,060 1,261 1,307 869 1,970 2,687 1,403 2,116 2,001 990 2,477 1,622 1,937 1,739 1,161 685 1,002 1,842 2,243 1,847 975 1,487 1,304 151,301 Number ordered to be drafted. 489 483 58 "96 503 124 114 377 351 190 52 686 411 461 564 62 182 298 193 467 295 15 20,427 Number Volunteers and correc- tione to let October. 182 145 21 '52 190 37 39 150 163 94 63 11 145 55 218 140 9 31 "246 86 98 71 12 9,508 Number drafted. 307 339 37 "44 313 87 75 227 188 127 41 541 356 243 424 53 151 52 107 369 224 12,251 Threo hundred and fifty-nine of those thus drafted were released on the ground of belonging to churches conscientiously opposed to fighting, as follows: Ashland '.■■ 8 Henry 1 Muskingum 3 Belmont 2 Clinton 9 Ck>lumbiana 3 Crawford 7 Darke 18 Defiance 11 Delaware 1 Erie 2 Fulton 5 Gallia 4 Greene 7 Hancock 3 Total Holmes 72 Jackson 1 Knox 9 Licking 2 Mahoning 12 Marion 2 Medina 3 Monroe 12 Mercer 6 Montgomery 78 Morgan 7 Morrow 1 Perry 2 Putnam 8 Richland 1 Sandusky 1 Stark 16 Summit 3 Tuscarawas 11 Van Wert 1 Warren 4 Wayne 20 Williams 2 359 Opposed from the outset as something discreditable, the draft naturally failed to accomplish all that its advocates had expected. Of the twelve thou- ^sand to be drafted, about four thousand eight hundred either in person or by substitute volunteered after the draft; two thousand nine hundred were for various reasons discharged; one thouBand nine hundred ran away, and the old ToD's Administbation. 79 regiments received only the beggarly re-enforcement of two thousand four hun- dred. How these were distributed may be seen in part from the following: AT CAMP C1,EVELAND. Noyember 20, 1862, to the 6tli Keg'ment O. V. Cavalry 69 men. " 20, " " 38tli " " Infantry 1 83 " 20, " " 41st " " " 11 " " 20, " " 42d " " " 23 " " 20, " " 72d " " " 44 " Total 230 AT CAMP DENNISON. November 19, 1862, to the 25th Kegiment O. V. Infantry 15 men. " 19, " " 30th " " " 12 " " 17, " " 36th " " " 32 " « 19, " " 62d " " " 30 " " 19, " " 69th " " . " ^.. 11 " " 19, " " 70th " " " 2 " " 19, " " 77th " " " 60 " Total 162 AT CAMP MANSFIELD. November 11, 1862, to thel6th Kegiment O. V. Infantry 90 men. " 12, " " 19th " " " , 91 " " 13, " " 20th " " " 116 " « 13, " " 21st " ': " 54 " December 9, " " 27th " " " 9 " November 11, " " 37th " « " 56 " " 13, " " 41st " " " 26 « " 13^ « " 42d " " " 47 " " 13, " " 43d " " " .-. 50 " " 13, " " 46th " " " 25 " « 11, " " 49th " " " 77 " " 13, " " 51st " " " - 17 " " 14, " " 56Lh " " " 65 " « 13, " " 57th " " " 129 " " 13, " " 64th " " " 93 " " 12, " " 76th " " '• • 80 " « 12, « " 82d " " " 53 " Total ^ ■ 1,078 AT CAMP ZANESVI1.LE. November 11, 1862, to the 2d Regiment O. V. Infantry 19 men. « 10, " " 43d ' " " - 55 « « u, « " 46th " " " 3 " 10, « " 5lBt " " " 34 « 10, " " 65th " " '■ 44 " " 6, " " 76th " " " 130 « 11,' " " 78th " " " 16 « 10, " " 80th " " " 25 " Total ■ 326 The deficiencies from runaway drafted men were, soon more than made np by voluntary enlistments, bo that at the end of the year the Governor was able 80 Ohio in the Wab. to report the State ahead of all calls upon her, and his Adjutant-General to reckon up the sum of Ohio's contributions to the war at one hundred and sev- enty-thousand one hundred and twenty-one men— not counting the first three months' men who had re-enlisted, the recruits for 'the regular army, or those found in the naval service, or in organizations credited to other States. In so far as the appointment of new officers for these troops fell upon him, Governor Tod acted upon excellent principles. As far as possible he sought to secure for the leading officers men already in the service, whose conduct had shown them worthy of promotion. Thus the Colonels of a number of new reg- iments were chosen as follows : 45th Regiment, Colonel Runkle, late Lieutenant-Colonel 13th O. V. I. 62d " " D. McCook, late Captain on General StafiF. 79tli " " Kennett, late Lieutenant-Colonel 27th 0. V. I. fj3,j " " Moore, late Captain 5th O. V. I. 91,t « " Tuiley, late Lieutenant-Colonel 22d and 81st O. V. L 92a " " Van Vorhes, late Quartermaster 18th O. V. I. g4tii •' " Frizell, late Lieutenant-Colonel 11th O. V. I. ggtli " " Webster, late Lieuten.ant-Colonel 25th O. V. I. 99th " " Langworthy, late Captain 49th O. V. I. 100th " " Groom, late Major 84tli O. V. I. 103d " " Casement, late Major 7th O. V. I. 105th " " Hall, late Lieutenant-Colonel 24th O. V. I. 106th " " Tafel, late Captain 9th O. V. I. lOStli " " Limberg, late Captain in Kentucky Repment. 110th " " Keifcr, late Lieutenant-Colonel 3d O. V. I. 111th " " Bond, late Lieutenant-Colonel 67th O. V. I. 115th " " Lucy, late Captain 32d O. V. I. ll'jth " " Washburn, late Captain 25th O. V. I. 118th " " Mott, late Captain 31st O. V. I. 120th " " French, late Lieutenant-Colonel 65th O. V. I. 121st " " Reed, late Brigadier-General of Militia. 123d " " Wilson, late Lieutenant-Colonel 15th O. V. I. 124th " " Payne, late Captain in Illinois Regiment. 125th " " Opdycke, late Captain 41st O. V. I. 126th " " Smith, late Captain 6th U. S. I., and Colonel 1st O. V. I. So far as possible the Governor assiduously sought to secure men for the lower offices in the same way. Many obstacles, however, were encountered, from the unwillingness of the War Department to grant furloughs to good offi- cers in the midst of active campaigns, merely that they might go home on re- cruiting duty. Of course the majority of the appointments had to be taken from civil life. In the selection of these Governor Tod relied largely upon the recommendations of the county military committees. He was quite as success- ful as could have been anticipated; and the troops of the State thus continued to be, in the main, well-officered. During the progress of these eflforts to fill up the army, difficulties were from time to time thrown in the way by persons hostile to the war. The moat conspicuous perhaps of these was Dr. Edson B. Olds of Lancaster, a Dem«eratio politician of some local prominence. His speeches were considered by Gove^ ToD's Administration, 81 nor Tod as calculated to discourage enlistments so seriously that he recom- mended the Washington authorities to arrest him, under the provisions of the proclamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Dr. Olds was accordingly- arrested on the evening of the 12th of August by a couple of United States officers. Some resistance was attempted by one or more members of the family, but it proved trifling, and the prisoner was conveyed with little difficulty out of town, and sent forward to Fort Lafayette, where the United States authorities continued to hold him for many months. Arrests of some other parties of less prominence followed. In all, eleven were made — only two of which were on the Governor's recommendation. He likewise felt constrained, in one instance, to interfere with the organiza- tion of a military force. About the time Cincinnati was threatened by the Eebel columns operating in Kentucky, a Democratic meeting was held in Butler County, in which it was resolved to form a regiment to oppose the threatened invasion of the State. Doubting, as it would ^eem, the entire good faith of this procedure, and unwilling, at any rate, to permit the efforts of his officers at re- cruiting to be embarrassed by such anomalous organizations. Governor Tod addressed a letter to Eobert Christy, Esq., of Hamilton, whom the meeting had appointed to take charge of the movement, "Whether it was intended," he said in this letter, "by this proceeding to interfere with the voluntary enlistments now being made all over the State, in response to the President's recent calls for troops, is now immaterial. Believing such to be the effect, I feel it my im- perative duty to direct that you, and all associated with you in the effort to raise said regiment, at once desist. It is hoped that you and your associates will give cheerful obedience to this order, and join all loyal citizens of the State in their efforts to suppress the unholy rebellion in the manner designated by the National authorities." The state of affairs in which orders like this are necessary, and in which arrests of respectable men for interfering with the operations of the~ Govern- ment become common, may generally be taken as betokening a popular reac- tion. It was more marked now than had been' expected. The war presented. East and West, but a gloomj' prospect. The peninsu- lar campaign had ended in failure. The Army of Northern Virginia, which next essayed an advance toward Eichmond, had been hurled back in disorder to the defenses of Washington. The successful Eebel army had invaded Mary- land, and had only been checked, not beaten, at Antietam. The opening of the Mississippi had met with sudden check at Vicksburg. The great army that had pressed the Eebel column from Kentucky to North Alabama came hurrying back to defend the Ohio border. Cincinnati and Louisville were threatened. Along the whole Western Virginia and Kentucky border alarms about impend- ing invasion were frequent; and, in the midst of this gloomy outlook, the President, had declared his purpose to abolish slavery throughout the Eebel States (with the exception of some inconsiderable localities), by proclamation, 88 a war measure. - We have seen how nobly, through all discouragements, the people labored at Vol. 1.— 6. 82 Ohio in the Wae. the good work of filling up the army. But the drain of men, the absence of large numbers of Eepubliean voters in the field, the initial unpopularity of the Emancipation Proclamation, the embittered feelings aroused by the arrests, and the general gloom that grew out of the military situation, secured the reaction.. The State which, a year before, had elected Tod Governor by a majority of fifty, five thousand, now went Democratic by a majority of five thousand five hun^ dreJ and seventy-seven. Out of nineteen Eepresentatives in Congress barely five Eepublicans were elected. There might have been some legitimate ground for fears that Governor Tod, as an old Democrat, long trusted in the councils of the party and likely, j from all past associations and prejudices, to revolt from the Proclamation of Emancipation, would now be drawn by this triumph of his old friends to renew his connection with them. But his patriotism was made of sterner stuff; the motives which had led him to abandon party for country at the outbreak of the war were now only strengthened.^ He made no allusion, in his annual message,, to the Emancipation Proclamation ; but he dwelt upon the necessity of sustain- ing the war, urged the lack of provocation for the rebellion of the insurgent States, and fully indorsed the obnoxious arrests. He recommended better pro- visions for soldiers' families, efficient militia organization, and thfc support of a military school. For the rest, h^ proposed to provide against another defeat at the polls by enacting that the soldiers of the State should not be longer dis&aB- chised while fighting the battles of the Country. Siege of Cincinnati. 83 CHAPTER VIIT. THE SIEGE OT CINCINNATI. IN the early days of 1862 a new name was growing at once into popular favor and popular fear among the prudent Eebels of the Kentucky bor- der. It was first heard of in the achievement of carrying off the artil- lery belonging to the Lexington company of the Kentucky State Guard i'ht|| the Confederate service. Gradually it came to be coupled with daring " sccf:^, by Irttla' squads of the Eebel cavalry, within our contemplative picket ifnes, along Green Eiver; with sudden dashes, like the burning of the Bacon Creek Bridge,* which the lack of enterprise, or even of ordinary vigilance on the part of some of our commanders permitted ; with unexpected swoops upon iso- lated supply -trains or droves of army cattle ; with saucy messages about an intention to burn the Yankees out of Woodsonville the next week, and the like. Then came dashes within our lines about Nashville, night attacks, audacious captui'es of whole squads of guards within sight of the camps and within half a mile of division head-quarters, the seizure of Gallatin, adroit impositions upon telegraph operators, which secured whatever news about the National armies was passing over the wires. Then, after Mitchel had swept down into North- •Aa the burning of this Bacon Creek Bridge was once the subject of newspaper controversy, and as it is not elsewhere spoken of in this work, it may be interesting here to show what view the Rebels themselves took of it. Colonel Basil W. Duke, Morgan's second in command through- out the war, jn his '' History of Morgan's Cavalry," pp. 106, 107, says : "This bridge had been destroyed at the time our forces fell back from Woodsonville. It was a small structure and easily replaced, but its reparation was necessary to the use of the road. The National array then lay encamped between Bacon and Nolin Creeks, the advance about three miles from Bacon Creek, the outposts scarcely half a mile from the bridge. A few days' labor served to erect the wood work of the bridge, and it was ready to receive the iron rails, when Morgan asked leave to destroy it. It was granted, and he started from'Bowling Green on the same night with his entire command, for he believed that he would find the bridge strongly guarded, and would have to fight for it. . . . Pressing on vigorously, he reached the bridge, . . . and to his surprise and satisfaction found it without a guard, that which protected the workmen during the day having been withdrawn at night. The bridge was set on fire, and in three hours thoroughly destroyed, no interruption to the work being attempted by the enemy. The damage inflicted was trifling, and the delay occasioned of little consequence. The benefit derived from it by Morgan was twofold : it increased the hardihood of bis men in that species of service, and gave himself still greater confidence in his own tactics." 84 Ohio in the Wae. ern Alabama, followed incursions upon hie rear, cotton-burning exploits under the very noses of his guards, open pillage of citizens who had been encouraged by the advance of the National armies to express their loyalty.* These acts covered a wide range of country, and followed each other in quick succession, but they w«re all traced to John Morgan's Kentucky cavalry ; and such were their frequency and daring, that by midsummer of 1862 Morgan and his men occupied almost as much of the popular attention in Kentucky and along the border as Beauregard or Lee. . The leader of this band was a native of Huntsville, Alabama, but from early boyhood a resident of Kentucky. He had grown up to the fi-ee and easy life of a slaveholding farmer's son, in the heart of the "Blue Grass country," near Lexington ; had become a volunteer for the Mexican war at the age of nineteen, And had risen to a First-Lieutenancy; had passed through his share of personal encounters and " affairs of honor " about Lexington — not without wounds — and had finally married and settled down as a manufacturer and spec- ulator. He had lived freely, gambled freely, shared iu all the dissipations of the time and place, and still had retained the early vigor of a powerful consti- tution, and a strong hold ui^on the confidence of the hot-blooded young men of Lexington. These followed him to the war. They were horsemen by instiuut, accustomed to a dare-devil life, capable of doing their own thinking in emer- gencies without waiting for orders, and in all respects the best material for an indej)endent band of partisan rangers the country had produced. They were allied by family connections with many of the leading people of the "Blue Grass" region; and it could not but result that when they ap- peared in Kentucky — whatever army might be near — they found themselvefi among friends. The people of Ohio had hardly recovered from the spasmodic effort to raise regiments in a day for a second defense of the capital, into which they had been thrown by the call of the Government in ite alarm at Stonewall Jackson's rush through the valley. They were now, rather languidly, turning to the effort of filling the new and unexpected call for seventy-four thousand three years' men. Few had as yet been raised. Here and there through the State were the nuclei of forming regiments, and there were a few arms, but there was no ade- quate protection for the Border, and none dreamed that any was necessary, Beauregard had evacuated Corinth; Memphis had fallen; Buell was moving eastward toward Chattanooga ; the troops lately commanded by Mitchel held Tennessee and Northern Alabama ; Kentucky was mainly in the hands of her Home-Guards, and, under the supervision of a State military board, was raising volunteers for the National army. ♦ "The command' encamped that night in a loyal neighborhood, and, mindful always of a decorous respect for the opinions of other people, Colonel Morgan made all of his men 'play ■ Union.' They were consequently treated with distinguished consideiation, and some were fur- nished with fresh horses, for which they gave their kind friends orders (on the disbursing office™ at Nashville) for their back pay. . . . Over one store the stars and stripes were floating re- ppleiident. The men were so much pleased with this evidence of patriotism that they would ptt- ■ lonizB no other store in the place 1" Basil W. Duke's History of Morgan's Cavalry, pp. 158-9. Siege of Cincinnati. 85 Suddenly, while the newspapers were still trying to explain McClellan's change of base, and clamoring against Biiell's slow advances on Chattanooga, without a word of warning or explanation, came the startling- news that John Morgan was in Kentucky I The dispatches of Friday afternoon, the 11th of July, announced that he had fallen upon the little post of Tompkinsville, and killed or captured the entire garrison. By evening it was known that the pris- oners were paroled; that Morgan had advanced unopposed to Glasgow; tliathe had issued a proclamation calling upon the Kentuckians to rise ; that the author- ities deemed it unsafe to attempt sending through trains from Louisville to ITashville. By Saturday afternoon he was reported marching on Lexington, and General Boyle, the commandant in Kentucky, was telegraphing vigorously to Mayor Hatch, at Cincinnati, for militia to be sent in that direction. A public meeting was at once called, and by nine o'clock that evening a' concourse of several thousand citizens had gathered in the Fifth Street market- space. Meantime more and more urgency for aid had been expressed in suc- cessive dispatches from General Boyle. In one he fixed Morgan's force at two thousand eight hundred ; in another he' said that Morgan, with dne thousand five hundred, had burned Perryville, and was marching on Danville ; again, that the forces at his command were needed to defend Louisville, and that Cin- cinnati must defend Lexington I Some of these dispatches were read at the public meeting, and speeches were made by the Mayor, Judge Saffln, and others. Finally a committee was appointed,* headed by ex-Senator Geo.- B. Pugh, to take such measures for organized effort as might be possible or necessary. Before the committee could organize came word that Governor Tod had ordered down such convalescent soldiers as could be gathered at Camp Dennison and Camp Chase, and had sent a thousand stand of arms. A little after midnight two hundred men belonging to the Fifty-Second Ohio arrived. On Sunday morning the city was thoroughly alarmed. The streets were thronged at an early hour, and by nine o'clock another large meeting had gath- dred in the Fifth Street market-space. Speeches wei-e made by ex-Senator Pugh, Thos. J. Gallagher, and Benj. Bggleston. It was announced that a bat- talion made up of the police force would be sent to Lexington in the evening. Arrangements were made to organize volunteer companies Charles F. Wilstaoh and Eli C. Baldwin were authorized to procure rations for volunteei's. The City Council met, resolved that it would pay any bills incurred by the commit- tee appointed at the public meeting, and appropriated five. thousand dollars for 'mmediate wants. Eleven hundred men — parts of the Eighty-Fifth and Eighty- Sixth Ohio from Camp Chase — arrived in the afternoon and went directly on to Lexington. The police force, under Colonel Dudley, their chief, and an artil- lery company, with a single piece, under Captain. Wm. Glass, of the City Fire Department, also took the special train for Lexington in the evening. Similar scenes were witnessed across the river, at Covington, during the same period. While the troops were mustering, and the excited people were volunteering, it * ConBlBting of Mayor Hatch, Geo. E. Pugh, Joshua Bates, Thos. J. Gallagher, Miles Green- wood, J. W. Hartwell, Peter Gibson, Bellamy Storer, David Gibson, and J. B. Stallo. 86 Ohio in the Wak. was discovered that a brother of John Morgan was a guest at one of the prin- cipal hotels. He made no concealment of his relationship, or of his sympathy with the Eebel cause, but produced a pass from General Boyle. He was detained. Monday brought no further news of Morgan, and the alarm began to abate. Kentuckians expressed the belief that he only meant to attract attention by feints on Lexington and Frankfort, while he should make his way to'Bourbon county, and destroy the long Townsend viaduct near Paris, which might cripple the railroad for weeks. The Secretary of War gave pei-mission to use some cannon which Miles Greenwood had been casting for the Government, and Gov- ernor Morton furnished ammunition for them.* The tone of the press may be inferred from the advice of the Gazette that the "bands sent out to pursue Mor- gan '' should take few prisoners — " the fewer the better." "They arc not worthy of being treated as soldiers," it continued; "they are freebooters, thieves, and murderers, and should be dealt with accordingly." For a day or two there followed a state of uncertainty as to Morgan's whereabouts, or the real nature of the danger. In answer to an application for artillery, the Secretary of War telegraphed that Morgan was retreating. Pres- ently came dispatches from Kentucky that he was still advancing. Governor Dennison visited Cincinnati at the request of Governor Tod, consulted with the " Committee of Public Safety," and passed on to Frankfort to look after the squads of Ohio tiwops that had been hastily forwarded to the points of danger. The disorderly elements of the city took advantage of the -absence of so large a portion of the police force at Lexington. Troubles broke out betweeoi the Irish and negroes, in which the former were the aggressors; houses were fired, and for a little time there were apprehensions of a serious riot. Several hundred leading property-holders met in alarm at the Merchant's Exchange, and took measures for organizing a force of one thousand citizens for special service the ensuing night. For a day or two the excitement was kept up, but there were few additional outbreaks. While Cincinnati was thus in confusion, and troops were hurrying to the defense of the threatened points, John Morgan was losing no time in idle de- bates. He had left Kuoxville, East Tennessee, on the morning of the 4th of July; on the morning of the 9th he had fallen upon the garrison at Tompkina- ville; before one o'clock the next morning be had possession of Glasgow; by the 11th he had possession of Lebanon. On the Sunday (13th) on which Cincinnati had been so thoroughly aroused, he entered Harrodsburg. Then, feigning on Frankfort, he made haste toward Lexington, striving to delay re-enforcements by sending out parties to burn bridges, and hoping to find the town an easy capture. Monday morning he was within fifteen miles of Frankfort; before *Xhe Columbus authorities were asked for ammunition, and sent word that it would be fur- nished only on the requisition of a United States officer commanding a post. The Indianapolis authorities furnished it on the order of the Mayor; and the newspapers commented with some severity on what they called "the difference between the red-tapeism of Columbus, and the man- ner of doing business- at Indianapolis." Siege of Cincinnati. 87 nightfall he was at Versailles — having marched between three and four hundred miles in eight days. Moving thence to Midway, between Frankfort and Lexington, he surprised the telegraph operator, secured his office in good order, took off the dispatches that were flying back and forth; possessed himself of the plans and prepara- tions of the Union officers at Frankfort, Lexington, Louisville, and Cincinnati; and audaciously sent dispatches in the name of the Midway operator, assuring the Lexington authorities that Morgan was then driving in the pickets at Frank- fort ! Then he hastened to Georgetown — twelve miles from Lexington, eighteen from Frankfort, and within easy striking distance of any point in the Blue Grass region. Here, with the Union commanders completely mj'stified as to his whereabouts and purposes, he coolly halted for a couple of days and rested his horses. Then, giving up all thought of attacking Lexington, as he found how strongly it was garrisoned, he decided — as his second in command naively tells us* — "to make a dash at Cynthiana, on the Kentucky Central Eailroad, hoping to induce the impression that he was aiming at Cincinnati, and at the same time thoroughly bewilder the officer in command at Lexington regarding his real intentions." Thither, therefore, he went; and to some purpose. _ The town was garrisoned by a few hundred Kentucky cavalry, and some home- guards, with Captain Glass's firemen's artillery company from Cincinnati — in all perhaps five hundred men. These were routed after some sharp fighting at the bridge and in the streets ; the gun was captured, and four hundred and twenty prisoners were taken ; besides abupdance of stores, arms, and two or three hundred horses. At one o'clock he was off for Paris, which sent out a deputation of citizens to meet him and surrender. By this time the forces that had been gathering at Lexington had moved out against him with nearly double his strength ;f but the next morning he left Paris unmolested ; and marching through Winchester, Eichmond, Crab Orchard, and Somerset, crossed the Cum- berland again at his leisure. He started with nine hundred men, and returned with one thousand two hundred — having captured and paroled nearly as many, and having destroyed all the Government arms and stores in seventeen towns. Meanwhile the partially-lulled excitement i« Cincinnati had risen again. A great meeting had been held in Court Street market-space, at which Judge Hugh J. Jewett, who had been the Democratic candidate for Governor, made an earnest appeal for rapid enlistments, to redeem the pledge of the Governor to assist Kentucky, and to prevent Morgan from recruiting a large army in that State. Quartermaster-General "Wright had followed in a similar strain. The City Council, to silence doubts on the part of some, had taken the oath of alle- giance as a body. The Chamber of Commerce had memoralized the Council to make an appropriation for bounties to volunteers ; Colonel Burbank had been * Basile W. Duke's History of Morgan's Cavalry, p. 199. The foregoing statements of Mor- gan's movements are derived from the same source. t Under General Green Clay Smith. 88 Ohio in the Wab. appointed Military Governor of the city,* and there had been rumors of martial law and a provost-marshal. The popular ferment largely took the shape of clamor for bounties as a means of stimulating volunteers. The newspapers called on the Governor to "take the responsibility," and offer twenty -five dol- lars bounty for every recruit. Public-spirited citizens made contributions for such a purpose — Mr. J. Cleves Short a thousand dollars, Messrs. Tyler, David- son & Co. one thousand two hnndred, Mr. Kugler two thousand five hundred, Mr. Jacob Elsas five hundred. Two regiments for service in emergencies were hastily formed, which were known as the Cincinnati Eeserves. Yet, withal, the alarm never reached the height of the excitement on Sun- day, the 13th of July, when Morgan was first reported marching on Lexington. The papers said they should not be surprised any morning to see his cavalry on the hills opposite Cincinnati ; but the people seemed to entertain less apprehen- sion. They were soon to have greater occasion for fear. For the invasion of Morgan was only a forerunner. It had served to illus- trate to the Eebel commanders the ease with which their armies could be planted in Kentucky, and had set before them a tempting vision of the rich supplies of the "Blue Grass." July and August passed in comparative gloom. McClellan was recalled fi'om the Peninsula. Pope was driven back from the Rapidan, and after a be- wildering series of confused and bloody engagements, was forced to seek refuge under the defenses at Washington. In the South-west our armies seemed tor- j)id, and the enemy was advancing. In the department in which Ohio was specially interested there were grave delays in the long-awaited movement on Chattanooga, and finally it appeared that Bragg had arrived there before Buell. Presently vague rumors of a new invasion began to be whispered, and at last while Bragg and Buell warily watched each the other's maneuvers, Kirby Smith, who had been posted at Knoxville, broke camp and marched straight for the heart of Kentucky with twelve thousand men and thirty or forty j)ieces of artillery.f "With the first rumors of danger, Indiana and Ohio had both made strenuous exertions to throw forward the new levies, and Indiana in particular had hastily put into the field in Kentucky a large number of perfectly raw troops, fresh from the camps at which they had been recruited. Through Big Creek and Rogers's Gaps Kirby Smith moved without moles- tation ; passed the National forces at Cumberland Gap without waiting to attempt a reduction of the place, and absolutely pushed on into Kentucky un- opposed, till within fifteen miles of Richmond and less than three times that distance from Lexington itself, he fell upon a Kentucky regiment of cavalry under Colonel Metcalf and scattered it in a single charge. The routed cavalry- "This was done in response to a dispatch reque-sting it from Mayor Hatch, Captain J. H. Dickerson (then Post-Quartermaster, U. S. A.), and Joshua H. Bates, Chairman of the Com- mittee of Public Safety. tThis statement of Smith's strength follows the account of Colonel Basil W. Duke, History Morgan's Cavalry, p. 235. He says Smith had in East Tennessee about twenty thousand, and that he left eight thousand in front of Cumberland Gap. Siege op Cincinkati. 89 men boro back to Eiclimond and Lexington tbe first authentic news of the Rebel adva,nce. The new troops were hastily pushed forward, in utter igno- liance of the strength of the enemy, and apparently without any well-defined plans ; and so, as the victorious invaders came up toward Richmond, they found this force opposing them. Smith seems scarcely to have halted, even to con- centrate his command, but precipitating the advance of his column upon the raw line that confronted him, scattered it again at a charge.* /General Manson, who commanded the National troops, had been caught before getting his men well in hand. A little farther back, he essayed the formation of another line, and the check of the rout; but while the broken line was steadying. Smith again came charging up, and the disorderly retreat was speedily renewed. A third and more determined stand was made, almost in the suburbs of the town, and some hard fighting ensued; but the undisciplined and ill-handled troops wore no match for their enthusiastic assailants, and when they were this time driven, the rout became complete.f The cavalry fell u]3on the fugitives, whole regiments were captured. and instantly paroled ; those that escaped fled through fields and by-waj's, and soon poured into Lexington with the story of the disaster. Thither now went hurrying General H. G. Wright, the commander of the department. A glance at the condition of such troops as this battle of Rich- mond had left him, showed that an effort to hold Lexington would be hoiieless. Before Kirby Smith could get up he evacuated the place, and was falling back in all haste on Louisville, while the railroad company was hurrying its stock toward the Cincinnati end of the road ; the banks were sending off their specie ; Union men were fleeing, and the predominant Rebel element was throwing off all disguise. On the Ist of September General Kirby Smith entered Lexington in tri- umph. Two days later he dispatched Heath with five or six thousand men ' against Covington and Cincinnati ; the next day he was joined by John Morgan, who had moved through Glasgow and Danville ; and the overjoyed people of the city thronged the streets and shouted from every door and window their welcome to the invaders.J A few days later Buell was at Nashville, Bragg was moving into Kentucky, and the "race for Louisville," as it has sometimes been called, was begun. So swift was the Rebel rush upon Kentucky and the Ohio Border; soTSudden the revolutionin the aspect of the war in the South-west. We have told the simple story of the Rebel progress. It would need more •29th August, 1862. t General William Nelson arrived in time to command at this last struggle, and to exert all liis influence in striving to check the rout. He subsequently claimed that the battle was brought on by disobedience to orders on the part of General Manson, and that his instructions, if obeyed, would have secured such a disposition of the troops as would have kept the Rebels from crossing the Kentucky River. He was himself wounded. But one Ohio regiment was in the action, the Ninety-Fifth. Its share may be found more fully described in Vol. II, pp. 527-28. t Duke's History Morgan's Cavalry, pp. 233-34. Pollard says the bells of the city were rung, and every po.ssible manirestation of joy was made. 90 Ohio in the War. vivid colors to give an adequate picture of tlie state into wliicb Cincinnati and the surrounding country were tliereby tlirov/n. News of the disaster at Eiclimond was not received in Cincinnati till a late hour iSalLirday nigiit.* It pi'odueed great excitement, but the full extent of its coTisequeiiees was not realized. Tbei-c were soldiers in plcnt3' to drive back the invaders, it was argued, only a few experienced officers Avere needed. The San- itary Commission hastened its shipments of stores toward the battle-field, and the State authorities began preparations for sending relief to the wounded; while the newspapers gave vent to the general dissatisfaction in severe criti- cisms on the management of the battle, and in wonders as to what Buell could, be doing. Thus Sundaj- passed. Jlonday afternoon rumors began to fly about that the troops were in no condition to make any sufficient opposition — that. Lexington and Frankfort might have to be abandoned. Great crowds flocked about the newspaper offices and arm}- head-quarters to ask the jiarticulars, but all still thought that in any event there were plenty of troops between the in- vaders and themselves. By dusk it was known that instead of falling back on Cincinnati the troops were retreating through Frankfort to Louisville — that between Kirby Smith's flushed regiments and the banks and warehouses of the Qiiccn City stood no obstacle more formidable than a few unmanned siege guns back of Covington, and the easilj-crossed Ohio Eiver. The shock was profound. But none thought of anything save to seek what might be the most efficient means of defense. The City Council at once met in extra session — pledged the faith of the city to meet any expenses the military authorities might require in the emergency; authorized the Mayor to suspend all business, and summon ever}- man, alien or citizen, who lived under; the protection of the Government, to unite in military organizations for its de- fense; assured the General commanding the departmcntf of their entire confi- dence, and requested him to call for men and means to any extent desired, no limit being jn-oposed save the entii-e capacity of the community. "Wliile the municipal authorities were thus tendering the whole resources of a city of a quarter of a million people, the Commander of the Department was sending them a General. Lewis Wallace was a dashin"- vouno- officer of volunteers, who had been among the first from Indiana to enter the field at tha outbi'cak of the war, and had risen to the highest promotion then attainable in, the army. He Avas notably quick to take responsibilities, full of energy and enthusiasm, abundantly confident in his own resources, capable of bold plans. Wlien tlie first indications of danger in Kentucky appeared he had waived liis rank and led one of the raw regiments from his State into the field. Then,] after being for a short time in charge of |;he troops about Lexington, he had, on being relieved by General Xelson, returned to Cincinnati. Here the Coramandai- of the Department seized upon him for service in the sudden emergency, sum- moned him first to Lexington for consultation; then, when himself has(eninn-to Louisville, ordered Wallace back to Cincinnati, to assume command and defend the town with its Kentucky suburbs. lie arrived at nine o'clock in the evening. *30tli August. . 1 Major-General Horatio G-. Wright. Siege of Cincinnati. 91 The Mayor waited iii^on him at once with notice of the action of the City Council. The Mayors of ISTewport and Covington soon came hurrying over. The few army officers on duty in the three towns also reported; and a few hours wore spent in consultation. Then, at two o'clock, the decisive step was taken. A proclamation of mar- tial hiw was sent to the newspapers. JSText morning the citizens read at their brealcfast-tables — before yet any one knew that the Ecbels were advancing on Cincinnati, two days in fact before the advance began — that all business must be suspended at nine o'clock, that they must assemble within an hour thereafter and await orders for work; that the ferry-boats should cease plying, save under military direction; that for the present the city police should enforce martial law; that in all this the principle to be adopted was: "Citizens for labor, sol- diers for battle." It was the boldest and most vigorous order in the history of Cincinnati or of the war along the Border.* ■'If the enemj' should not come after all this fuss," said one of the General's friends, "you will be rained." "Very well," was the replj^, "but they will come, or, if they do not, it will be because this same fuss has caused them to think better of it.''f The city took courage from the bold course of its General; instead of a panic there was universal congi-atulation. "From the appearance of our streets," said one of the newspapers the next day, in describing the operations of martial law, "a stranger would imagine that some popular holiday was being celebrated. Indeed, were the millennium suddenly inaugurated, the populace could hardly seem better pleased." All cheerfiillj- obcj-ed the order, though there was not militarjr force enough present to have enforced it along a single street. Every business house was closed; in the vinexpectedly scrupulous obedience to the ''"The following is the text of this remarkable order, which practical!)' saved Cincinnati: "The undersigned, by order of Major-General Wright, assumes command of Cincinnati, Covington, and Newport. "It is but fair to inform the citizens that an active, daring, and powerful enemy threatens ■ them with every consequence of war; yet the cities must be defended, and their inhabitants must assist in the preparations. Patriotism, duty, honor, self-preservation, call them to the labor, and it must be performed equally by all classes. "First. All business must be suspended. At nine o'clock to-day every business house must be closed. "Second. Under the direction of their Mayor, the citizens must, within an hour after the suspension of business (ten o'clock A. M.), assemble in their convenient public places ready for orders. As soon as possible they will then be assigned to their work. This labor ought to be that of love, and the undersigned trusts and believes that it will be so; anyhow, it must be done. ;The willing shall be properly credited, the unwilling promptly visited. "The principle adopted is; Citizens for the labor, soldiers for the battle. "Martial law is hereby proclaimed in the three cities, but until they can be relieved by the military, the injunction of this proclamation will be executed by the police. "The ferry-boats will cease plying the river after four o'clock, A. M., until further orders. "LEWIS WALLACE, "Major-General Commanding." f'The Siege of Cincinnati," by Thomas Buchanan Bead, in Atlantic Monthly, No. 64, Feb- ruary, 1863. Mr. Read served during the siege on General Wallace's staff. 92 Ohio in the Wae. letter of the proclamation, even the street-cars stopped running, and the teaeli. era, closing their schools, reported for duty. But few hacks or wagons were to be seen save those on Government service. Working parties of citizens had been ordered to rfcport to Colonel J. V. Guthrie; companies of citizen-soldiery to Jliijor Malcom McDowell. Meetings assembled in every ward; great numbers of military organizations were formed; by noon thousands of citizens in fully, organized companies were industriously drilling. Meanwhile, back of Newport and Covington, breastworks, rifle-pits, and redoubts had been hastily traced, guns had been mounted, pickets thrown out. Toward evening a sound of ham- mors and saws arose from the landing; by daybreak a pontoon bridge stretchod from Cincinnati to Covington, and wagons loaded with lumber for barracks and material for fortifications were passing over. In such spirit did Cincinnati herself confront the sudden danger. Isot less vigorous was the action of the Governor. While Wallace was writing liis proclamation of martial law and ordering the suspension of business, Tod was hurrying Sown to the scene of danger for consultation. Presently he was tele- graphing from Cincinnati to his Adjutant-General to send whatever troops were accessible without a moment'3 delay. "Do not wait," he added, "to have them mustered or paid — that can be done here — they should be armed and furnished ammunition." To his Quartermaster he telegraphed: "Send five thousand stand of arms for the militia of this city, with fifty rounds of ammunition. Send also forty rounds for fifteen hundred guns (sixty-nine caliber)." To the people along the border through the press and the military committees he said: "Our southern border is threatened with inv.o.'fion. I have therefore to recommend that all the loyal men of your counties at once form themselves into military companies and regiments to beat back the enemy at any and all points he may attempt to invade our State. Gather np all the arms in the county, and furnish yourselves with ammunition for the same. The service will be of but a few days' duration. The soil of Ohio must not be invaded by the enemies of our glorious Government." To Secretary Stanton he telegraphed that he had no doubt a large Eebel force was moving against Cincinnati, but it would be successfully 'raet. The commander at Gamp Dennisou he directed to guard the track of the Little Mi- ami Eailroad against apprehended dangers, as far up as Xenia. The rural districts wore meanwhile hastening to the rescue. Earl}- in tbe diiy — within an hour or two alter tlie arrival of the Cincinnati papers with news of the danger — Preble and Butler counties tclcgrnphod oifcrs of large numbers of men. Warren, Greene, Franklin, and half a score of others, rapidly fol- lowed. Bt'Iurc night the Governor had sent a general answer in this proclamation; " Cincinnati, September 2, 1862. "In response to several communications tendering companies and squads of men for the protection of Cincinnati, I announce that all such bodies of men who are armed will be received. They will repair at once to Cincinnati, and report to General Lew. Wallace, who will complete their further organization. None but armed men will be received, and such only until the Si instant. Railroad companies will pass all such bodies of men at the expense of the State. Itis not desired that any troops residing in any of the river counties leave their counties. All such are requested to organize and remain for the protection of their own counties. "DAVID TOD, Governor." J'-liilll Siege of Cincinnati. 93 before daybreak the advance of the men that were thenceforward to be known in the history of the State as the " Squirrel Hunters," were filing througli the streets. Next morning, throughout the interior, church and fire-bells rang; mounted men galloped through neighborhoods to spread the alarm ; there was a hasty cleaning of rifles, and molding of bullets, and filling of powder-horns, and mustering at the villages ; and every city-bound train ran burdened with the gathering host. While these preparations were in progress perhaps Cincinnati might have been taken by a vigorous dash of Kirby Smith's entire force, and held long enough for pillage. But the inaction for a day or two at Lexington 'was fatal to such hopes. Within two days after the proclamation of martial law the city was safe beyond peradventure. Then, as men saw the vast preparations for an enemy that had not come, they began, not unnaturally, to wonder if the need for such measures had been imperative. A few business men complained. Some Germans began tearing up a street railroad track, in revenge for the invidious distinction which, in spite of the danger, had adjudged the street cars indispensable, but not the lager- beer shops. The schools had unintentionally been closed by the operation of the first 8weej)ing proclamation, and fresh orders had to be issued to open them ; bake-shops had been closed, and the people seemed in danger of getting no bread ; the drug-stores had been closed, and the sick could get no medicines. Such oversights were speedily corrected, but they left irritation.* The Evening Times newspaper, giving voice to a sentiment that undoubtedly began to find expression among some classes, published a communication which pronounced the whole movement " a big scare," and ridiculed the efforts to place the city in a posture of defense.-j- To at least a slight extent the Commander of the Department would seem •The following order, issued by the Mayor, with the sanction of General Wallace, obviated the difficulties inyolved in the literal suspension of all business in a great city: " 1st. The banks and bankers of this city will be permitted to open their offices from one to two P. M. "2d. Bakers are allowed to pursue their business. "3d. Physicians are allowed to attend their patients. "4th. Employees of newspapers are allowed to pursue their business. " 5th. Funerals are permitted, but only mourners are allowed to leave the city. " 6th. All coffee-houses and places where intoxicating liquors are sold are to be closed and kept closed. . "7tb. Eating and drinking houses are to close and keep closed. " 8th. All places of amusement are to close and keep closed. 9th. All drug-stores and apothecaries are permitted to keep open and do their ordinary business. "GEOKGE HATCH, " Mayor of Cincinnati." t Within an hour or two after this publication, General Wallace suppressed the Times; for this article as was generally supposed, although it was subsequently stated that the offensive matter was an editorial reviewing the military management on the Potomac. The zealous loy- ally of the paper had always been so marked that Greneral Wallace was soon made to feel the popular conviction of his having made a grave mistake, and the next day the Times was per- mitted to appear again as usual. 94 Ohio in the Wae. to have entertained the same opinion. After two days of martial law and mm- teririg for the defense of the city, he directed, on his return from Louisville, a relaxation of the stringency of the first orders, and notified Governor Tod that no more men from the interior were wanted. The next day he relieved General Wallace of the command in Cincinnati, and sent him across the river to take charge of the defenses ; permitted the resumption of all business save liquor- selling, only requiring that it should be suspended each afternoon at four o'clock, and that the evenings should be spent in drill ; sj-stematized the drain upon the city for labor on the fortifications, bj- directing that requisitions be made each evening for the number to be employed the next day, and that these be equita- bly apportioned among the several wards.* The day before the issue of this order had witnessed the most picturesque and inspiring sight ever seen in Cincinnati. From morning till night the streets resounded with the tramp of armed men marching to the defense of the city. From ever}' quarter of the State thej' came, in everj- form of organization, with every species of arms. The "Squirrel Hunters," in their homespun, with pow- der-horn and buckskin pouch; half-organized regiments, some in uniform and some without it, some having waited long enough to draw their equipments and some having marched without them; cavalry and infantrj-; all poured out from the railroad depots and down toward the pontoon bridge. The ladies of the city furnished provisions by the wagon-load ; the Fifth Street market- house was converted into a vast free eating saloon for the Squirrel Hunters- halls and warehouses were used as barracks. On the 4th of Se])tcmber Governor Tod was able to telegraph General Wright: " I have now sent you for Kentucky twenty regiments. I have twenty- one more in process of organization, two of which I will send j-ou this week, five or six next week, and the rest the week after, . . . I have no means of knowing what number of gallant men responded to my call (on the militia) for the protection of Cincinnati, but presume they now count by thousands." And the next day he was forced to check the movement." *This order, which was hailed by the business community as sensible and timely, andwhick certainly gave great mitigation to the embarrassments caused by the suspension of business, was ae follows: " Head-Quaetees, Department of the Osio,i " Cincinnati, September 6, 1862.J "Genekax Order No. 11. "The resumption of all lawful business in the city of Cincinnati, except the sale of liquor, ii hereby authorized until the hour of four o'clock, P. M., daily. ' "All druggists, manufacturer.s of breadstufifa, provision dealers, railroad, express, and transfer ; companies, persons connected with the public press, and all persons doing business for the Gov- ernment, will be allowed to pursue their vocations without interruption. "By command of Major-General Wright. "N. H. McLEAN, "Assistant- Adjutant General and Chief of Staff." Siege of Cincinnati. 95 " CoiiTTMBTTS, September 5, 1862. "To THE Fkess: "The response to my proclamation asking volunteers for the protection of Cincinnati was most noble and generous. All may feel proud of the gallantry of the people of Ohio. No more volunteers are required for the protection of Cincinnati. Those now there may be expected home in a few days. I advise that the military organizations throughout the State, formed within the past few days, be kept up, and that the members meet at least once a week for drill. Re- cruiting for the old regiments is progressing quite satisfactorily, and with continued effort there is reason to believe that the requisite number may be obtained by the 15th instant. For the want of proper accommodations at this point, recruiting officers are directed to report their men to the camp nearest their locality, where they will remain until provision can be made for their removal. Commanding officers of the several camps will see that every facility is given neces- sary for the comfort of these recruits. "DAVID TOD, Governor." The exertions at Cincinnati, however, were not abated. Judge Dickson, a well-known lawyer of the city, of Eadical Eepubliean politics, organized a negro brigade for labor on the fortifications, which did excellent and zealous service. Full details of white citizens, three thousand per day — judges, law- yers, and clerks, merchant-prince and day-laborer, artist and artisan, side by side — were also kept at work with the spade, and to all payment at the rate of a dollar per day was promised. The militia organizations were kept up, " regi- ments of the reserve" were formed, and drilling went on vigorously. The Squirrel Hunters were entertained in rough but hearty fashion, and the ladies continued to furnish bountiful supplies of provisions. Across the river regular engineers had done their best to givp shape to the hasty fortifications. The trenches were manned every night, and after an im- perfect fashion a- little scouting went on in the front. General Wallace was vigilant and active, and there was no longer a possibility that the force under Kirby Smith could take the city. At last this force began to move up as if actually intending attack. One or two little skirmishes occurred, and the commander of the Department, de- ceived into believing that now was the hour of his greatest peril, appealed has- tily to Governor Tod for more militia. The Governor's response was prompt : "CoLTTMBUS, September 10, 1862. "To THE Peess of Cleveland: "to the several MILITAEY OOMMrrTEEa OF NOBTHERKr OHIO. " By telegram from Major-General Wright, Commander-in-Chief of Western forces, re- ceived at two o'clock this morning, I am directed to send all armed men that can be raised im- mediately to Cincinnati. You will at once exert yourselves to execute this order. The men should be armed, each furnished with a blanket, and at least two days' rations. " Railroad companies are requested to furnish transportation of troops to the exclusion of all other business. „„.„ „„„ „ "DAVID TOD,- Governor." The excitement in the city once more sprang up. Every disposition was made for defense and the attack was hourly expected. The newspapers of Sep- tritember 11th announced that before they were distributed the sound of artillery might be heard on the heights of Covington; assured readers of the safety of the city, and exhorted all to "keep cool." Business was again suspended, and 96 Ohio ix the Wak. the milita, companies were under arms. The intrenchments back of Covington were filled; and, lost a sudden concentration might break through the lines at some sjiot and leave the city at the mercy of the assailants, the roads leading to it were guarded, and only those provided with passes could travel to or fro, while the river was filled with gunboats, improvised from the steamers at the wharves. P.ut the expected attack did not come. As we now know, Kirby Smith had never been ordered to attack, but only to demonstrate; and about thi.s very time the advance of Buell seemed to Bragg so menacing that he made haste to ovdef Smith back to his support. General Wallace gradually pushed out his advunte a little and the Eebel pickets fell back. By the 11th all felt that the danger was over. On the 12th Smith's hasty retreat was discovered. On the 13th Gov- ernor Tod checked the movement of the Squirrel Hunters, announced the safetj- of Cincinnati, and expressed his congratulations.* On this bright Saturdaj' afternoon the "I^egiments of the Eeserve" came marching across the pontoon bridge, with their dashing commander at the head of the column. Joyfully these young professional and business men traced their waj' through Front, Broadway, and Fourth Streets to the points where thej were relieved from the restraints of military service, and permitted to seek the pleasures and rest of home! An examination of the dockets and day -hooks of that eventful fortnight, will show that the citizens of Cincinnati were absent from their usual avocations; but Monday, the 15th, brought again to the count- ing-rooms and work-shops the busy hum of labor. * » "Columbus, September 13, 1862, eight o'clock A. M. "To THE Pkess of Cleveland: "Copy of dispatch this moment received from JI^jor-General Wright at Cincinnati: 'The enemy is retreating. Until we know more of his intention and position do not send any more citizen troops to this city. (Signed) H. G. Wright, M:ijor-General.' In pursuance of this order all volunteers en route for Cincinnati will return to their respective homes. Those now at Cin- cinnati may be expected home so soon as transportation can be secured. The generous response from all parts of the State to the recent call, has won additional renown for the people of Ohio, The news which reached Cincinnati, that the patriotic men all over the State were rushing toils defense, saved our soil from invasion, and hence all good citizens will feel grateful to the patriotic men who promptly offered their assistance. It is hoped that no furtlier call for minute-men will be necessary; but should I be disappointed in this, it is gratifying to know that the call vrill be ag:uii cheerfully and gallantly responded to. Railroad companies will pass all volunteers to their homes, at the expense of the State. The Captains of each squad, or company, are requested to give certificates of transportation to the superintendents or conductors of the railroads over which they may pass. I avail myself of this opportunity to renew the request heretofore made, that the several military volunteer organizations, formed within the past few days, be maintained, meeting for drill as often as once a week at lea.st. I have further to request, that the command- ers of said squads or companies report by letter to the Adjutant-General, the strength of their respective commands. "DAVID TOD, Governor." "Columbus, September 13, 1862. "To Hon. E. M. Stanton, Sec'y. of Wab, Washington, D. C. : "The minute-men or Squirrel Hunters responded gloriously to the call for the defense ot Ciuciiniati. Thousands reached the city, and thousands more were en route for it. The enemy having retreated, all have been ordered back. This uprising of the people is the cause of tlie retreat. You should acknowledge publicly this gallant conduct. Please order Quartermaster Burr to pay all transportation bills, upon my approval. "DAVID TOD, Governor. THE SQUIRREL HUNTER—KIRBT SMITH'S RAID. Siege of Cinciknati. 97 General Wallace took his leave of the city he had so efficiently served in a graceful, and manly address: "To the Peopk of Cineinnati, Newport, avd Omngton : — For the present, at least, the enemy hare fallen hack, and your cities are safe. It is the time for acknowledgments, I beg leave to make you mine. When I assumed command there was nothing to defend you with, except a few half-finished works, and some dismounted guns; yet I was confident. The energies of a great city are boundless; they have only to be aroused, united and directed. You were appealed to. The answer will never be forgotten. "Paris may have seen something like it in her revolutionary days, but the cities of America never did. Be proud that you have given them an example so splendid. The most commercial of people, you submitted to a total suspension of business, and without a murmur adopted my principle : ' Citizens for labor, soldiers for battle.' "In coming time strangers, viewing the works on the hills of Newport and Covington, will aek, 'Who built these intrenchments?' Yon can answer, 'We built them,' If they ask, 'Who guarded them?' you can reply, 'We helped in thousands.' If they inquire the result, your an- swer will be, ' The enemy came and looked at them, and stole away in the night.' "You have won much honor; keep your organizations ready to win more. Hereafter be always prepared to defend yourselves. < "LEWIS WALLACE, "Major-Greneral Commanding." He had done some things not wholly wise, and had brought upon the people much inconvenience not wholly necessary. But these, were the inevitable neces- sities of the haste, the lack of preparation, and the pressure of the emergency. He took grave responsibilities; adopted a vigorous and needful policy; was prompt and peremptory when these qualities were the only salvation of the city. He will be held therefor in grateful remenibrance so long as Cincinnati continues to cherish the memory of those who do her service. As the regiments from the city were relieved from duty, so the Squirrel Hunters were disbanded and sought the routes of travel homeward, carrying with them the hearty thanks of a grateful populace.* While the attack was expected, there were many in Cincinnati who thought that the enemy might really be amusing the force on the front while preparing to cross the river at Maysville, above, and so swoop down on the city on the nndefendod side. To the extent of making a raid into Ohio at least, such an intention was actually entertained, and was subsequently undertaken by Col- onel Basil W. Duke, of John Morgan's command, who was left to occupy the forces near Cincinnati as long as possible after Kirby Smith's withdrawal. He went so far as to enter Augusta, on the river above Cincinnati, where he was encountered by a determinfed party of home-guards, and given so bloody a re- ception that after a desperate little street fight he was glad to abandon his • The Legislature at its next session adopted the following resolution : "Seiolved by the Senate and Houte of Bepre>ent(Uive» of the State of Ohio, That the Governor be and he is hereby authorized and directed to appropriate out of his contingent fund, a sufficient sum to pay for printing and lithographing discharges for the patriotic men of the State, who re- sponded to the call of the Governor, and went to the southern border to repel the invader, and who will be known in history as the Squirrel Hunters. "JAMES R. HUBBELL, "Speaker of the House of Bepresentatives. "P. HITCHCOCK, Columbus, March 11, 1863. "President pro tern of the Senate." Vol. I.— 7. 98 Ohio in the Wak. movement, and fall back in haste to Falmouth, and thence, soon after, toward the rest of the retreating forces. Work on the fortifications was prudently continued, and some little time passed before the city lapsed into its accustomed ways ; but the " Siege of Gin- eiunati" was over. The enemj' was before it about eight days — at no time twelve thousand strong. The following summary of persons in charge of some of the various dutiei connected with the sudden organization for the defense of the city may hero be given : STAFF OF MAJOR-GENERAL LEWIS WALLACE. Chief of Staff. Colonel J. C. ElBton, jr. Chief of Artillery Major C. M. Willard. • Aid-de-Camps: Captains James M. Koss, A. J. Ware, jr., James F. Troth, A. G. Sloo, G.P. Edgar, E. T. Wallace. Volunteer Aid-de-Camps: Colonel J.V.Guthrie; Lieutenant-Colonel G. W. Neff; Majpn Malcom McDowell, E. B. Dennison; Captains James Thompson, A. S. Burt, Thomas Buchajn Bead, S. C. Erwin, J. J. Henderson, J. C. Belman. ' NEGRO BRIGADE — CAUF SSALER. Commander Judge Dickson. Commissary Hugh McBirney. Quartermaster J. S. Hill. FATIGUE FORCES. In Charge Colonel J. V. Guthrie. Commissary Captain Williamson. Quartermaster Captain George B. CassiUy, Camp Mitchel, under Captain Titus. " Anderson, under Captain Storms. " Shaler, (back of Newport) under Major Winters. RrTER DEFENSE. In Charge E. M. Corwine. Aid Wm. Wiswell, jr. Men in Millcreek, Green, Storrs, Delhi, Whitewater, Miami, Columbia, Spencer, and An- -derson Townships, subject to orders of aboTe. COLLECTION OF PROVISIONS. Committee appointed by General Wallace: Wm. Chidsey, T. F. Rogers, T. Horton, T. F. Shaw, and A. D. Bogers. nj COIIMAND OF CINCINKATI. Military Commander Lieut. Col. S. Burbank, U. S. A. j Aid John D. Caldwell. Provost-Marshal A. E. Jones. EMP,LOYMENT OF LABORERS FOR FORTIFICATIONS. Hon. A. F. Perry, assisted by Hon. Benjamin Eggleston, Charles Thomas, and ThonM Gilpin. , . About the same time and throughout the autumn, there was much alarm along the West Virginia and the upper part of the Kentucky border. Governof^ Tod was energetic in sending troops to the exposed points, and in enforcing upon all officers the duty of preventing invasion. "Stand firm," he telegraphed to one Captain commanding a post; "if you fall I will escort your lemainB home." At one time the danger from Guyandotte seemed imminent; but iK spite of sad reverses and barbarities in West Virginia it passed away. Areest and Tbial of Vallandigham. 99 CHAPTER IX. THE ARREST AND TRIAL OF VALLANDIGHAM. FEOM the outbreak of the war, two Representatives in Congi-ess from Ohio were the most conspicuous leaders of the Opposition to Mr. Lin- coln's Administration, and to the policy of the party in power. Both were able and outspoken. One, a gentleman by birth and by education, maintained a relentless hos- tility to the prosecution of the war; but, withal,^he brought to his discussions of the subject such enlarged views, and so accustomed himself to the modera- tion of language habitual with fair-minded men,'who, penetrated with strong convictions themselves, r^pect the strength of opposite convictions in others, that he was generally popular even among his political antagonists. To the other life had been a rougher struggle, and there was, moreover, something in the texture of the man's mind that inclined him to the rancor and virulence of the most intemperate partisanship. He cherished a boundless am- bition, and it was not more his natural fondness for producing sensations and saying things that should attract attention, than a shrewd calculation of the value of extravagance in times of high excitement as a means of retaining party favor, that led to the peculiarly aggressive and defiant nature of his opposition to the war. We must not fail to add that he was sincere in his position ; that all his past political course, and the prejudfces of his whole life, combined with the natural vehemence of his character to make a zealot of him in his advocacy of peace by compromise. He had been in Congress for six years, but at the election in 1862, in spite of the general triumj)h of his party, he had been defeated by a soldier in the field. PFom the last session of the Congress to which he had been elected he returned, therefore, in the spring of 1863, a soured politician out of place, whom it behooved to be all the more vehement lest he should be gradually forgotten. The first ardor with which the people of Ohio had rushed into the war seemed to have passed away. The pressure of its burdens displeased some ; the gloomy prospects in the field discouraged many more. The armies of the South-west were still foiled before Vicksburg; Eosecrans had lain in seeming exhaustion ever since his victory at Stone River ; the Rebel invasion of Mary- land had been followed by the slaughter about Fredericksburg, and new threats 100 Ohio in the War. of an advance into Pennsylvania. Their success at the late election had greatly encouraged those Democrats who opposed the war, and as a new draft began to be talked about, there was much popular ferment, with some hints of resist- ance. Mr. Vallandigham naturally became the spokesman for the irritated and disaffected people. He expressed himself with great boldness of utterance, de- nounced the war, denounced the draft, stirred up the people with violent talk, and particularly excited them and himself over alleged efforts on the part of the military authorities to interfere with freedom of speech and of the press, which he conjured them to defend under any circumstances and at all hazards. Possibly with some reference to Mr. Vallandigham, certainly with direct reference to the state of public feeling which he was helping to bring about, and to the acts, that were growing out of it, the new Commander of the Department finally felt constrained to issue an order that was to be a noted one in the his- tory of the State. This commander was Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside, an ofiGlcer of distinguished personal gallantry, of the most loyal devotion to the cause .of the country, of great zeal, not always according to knowledge, and of very moderate intellectual capacity. He was fresh from the field of a great disaster incurred under his management; and this fact helped to increase the bitterness with which his efforts to subdue the sympathizers with the South were received. His " General 'Order No. 38," some results of which we are now to trace, was understood at the time to haVe the approval of the State and Na- tional authorities. It was as follows : "Head-Quaktebs, Department of the Ohio,-> " Cineinnali, April 13, 1863. J " Genekal Orders, No. 38. "The Commanding General publishes, for the information of all concerned, that hereafter all persons found within our lines who commit acts for the benefit of the enemie.i of our country, will be tried as spies or traitors, and, if convicted, will suffer death. This order includes the following class of persons : "Carriers of secret mails. " Writers of letters sent by secret mails. " Secret recruiting officers within the lines. " Persons who have entered into an agreement to pass our lines for the purpose of joining the enemy. " Persons found concealed within our lines belonging to the service of the enemy, and, in fact, all persons found improperly within our lines, who could give private information to the enemy. " All persons within our lines who harbor, protect, conceal, feed, clothe, or in any way aid the enemies of our country. " The habit of declaring sympathies for the enemy will not be allowed in this Department. Persons committing such offenses will be at once arrested, with a view to being tried as above stated, or sent beyond our lines into the lines of their friends. "It must be distinctly understood that treason, expressed or implied, will not be tolerated in this Department. " All officers and soldiers are strictly charged with the execution of this order. "By command of Major-General Burnside. "LEWIS RICHMOND, "Assistant Adjutant-General -1 "Official: D. R. Larned, Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General." 1 The publication of this order was the signal for a stream of invective from Arrest and Trial of Vallandigham. 101 the bolder of the exponents of the Peace Democratic feeling, in the press and on the stump. Mr. Vallandigham was, of course, bitter and outspoken. Some of his more intemperate remarks were reported to General Burnside. Eegarding them as a soldier, and with the tendency to magnify his oflSce common to all pro- fessions, the General resolved, on the repetition of the offense, to arrest this leader of the discontented party and bring him to trial. Presentlj' Mr. Vallan- digham was announced to speak at Mount Vernon, in Knox County, to a Dem- ocratic mass meeting. A couple of military officers were at once ordered to i-e- pair thither, and, without attracting attention to their presence, to observe what was said. The meeting was on Friday, the 1st of May. On the ensuing Monday, after hearing the reports of the officers, General Burnside gave orders for Cajj- tain Hutton, of his staff, with a company of the One Hundred and Fifteenth Ohio, to proceed to Mr. Vallandigham's residence in Dayton, arrest him as qui- etly as possible, and to return to Cincinnati by special train before daylight the next morning. Everything had been managed with great caution thus far, but on attempting to make the arrest. Captain Hutton found the popular agitator apparently suspicious of his impending fate. When, approaching Mr. Vallan- digham's door after midnight, he aroused the inmates and explained his errand, he was refused admission, while the object of his visit, thrusting his head from the second story bed-chamber window, shouted, " Asa, Asa, Asa." Signals, sup- posed to be in answer to this call, were heard, and presently the fire-bells of the city began ringing. Fearing an attempt at rescue, the officer waited no longer to parley, but, battering in the front door, he entei'ed the house with his sol- diers, forced two other doors which Mr. Vallandigham had fastened in his way, and finally made the arrest. Then, returning to the railroad depot, he departed with his prisoner in the special train before the crowds gathering in answer to the signals were large enough to make any resistance. The unusual circumstances. of the arrest were of themselves enough to pro- duce great excitement in a community so evenly divided in political sentiment, and with such bitterness of feeling on each side as in that of Dayton. It was believed by many at the time that secret societies, formed for purposes hostile to the Government, had also much to do in fomenting the agitation. The streets were crowded all day with the friends and adherents of Mr. Vallandigham; liquor seemed to flow among them freely and without price; and the tone of the crowds was very bitter and vindictive. In the afternoon the journal formerlj' edited by Mr. Vallandigham, the Dayton Empire, appeared with the following inflammatory article : " The cowardly, scoundrelly Abolitionists of this town have at last succeeded in having Hon- orable C. L. Vallandigham kidnapped. About three o'clock this morning, when the city was quiet in slumber, one hundred and fifty soldiers, acting under orders from General Burnside, ar- rived here on a special train from Cincinnati, and,' like thieves in the night, surrounded Mr. Val- landigkam's dwelling, beat down the doors, and dragged him from his family. The frantic cries of a wife, by this dastardly act almost made a maniac; the piteous tears and pleadings of a lit- tle child for the safety of its father, were all disregarded, as a savage would disregard the cries of a helpless infant he was about to brain. All forms and manner of civil law were disregarded. 102 Ohio in the Wak. Overpowered by one hundred and fifty soldiers, and with pickets thrown out, so as to prevent any alarm being giving to his friends, they tore him forcibly from his home and family, and marched with all possible speed to a special train in waiting, and before it was known to liny of his friends they were ofi' like cowardly scoundrels, fearing, as they had reason to, the vengeance of an outraged people. > "Mr. Vallanaccomplish their purposes, the peo- ple would be deprived of their liberties, and a monarchy established ; but that, as for him, he was resolved that he would never be a priest to minister upon the altar upon which his country was being sacrificed.' " The prisoner, in the cross-examination, brought out the facts that, notwith- standing his violent language, he had cautiously added that the remedy for these evils was at the ballot-box and in the courts; that he had denounced the cheers for Jefferson Davis which some of his remarks had evoked; that he had professed his firm adherence to the Union, his desire to try by compromise to restore it as the fathers made it, and his determination not to take any part in agreeing to its dissolution. These extenuating circumstances he proposed to 106 Ohio in the War. prove a so by other witnesses, but the Judge-Advocate admitted them all with- out further testimony. When the trial was begun, Mr. Vallandigham refused to enter anj- plea, de- nying the jurisdiction of the Court. At the close of the evidence he simply- read to the Court this protest, with which he submitted the case : "Arrested without due 'process of law,' without warrant from any judicial officer, jj^w in a military prison, I have been served with a 'charge and specifications,' as in a cou^^Hal or military commission. ^^^^ "I am not in either 'the land or naval forces of the United States, nor in the mjBna in the actual service of the United States,' and therefore am not triable for any can^By any such court, but am subject, by tlie express terms of the Constitution, to arrest only ^M^T process of law, judicial warrant, legularly issued upon affidavit, and by some officer or gK of competent jurisdiction for the trial of citizens, and am now entitled to be tried on an in^j^ent or present- ment of a grand jury of such court, to speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State of Ohio, to be confronted with witnesses against me, to have compulsory process for witnesses in my behalf, the assistance of counsel for my defense, and evidence and argument according to the common laws and the ways of judicial courts. "And all these I here demand as my right as a citizen of the United States, and under the Constitution of the United States. " But the alleged ' ofl'ense' is not known to the Constitution of the United States, nor to any law thereof. It is words spolcen to the people of Ohio in an open and public political meeting, lawfully and peaceably assembled, under the Constitution and upon full notice. It is words of criticism of the public policy of the public servants of the people, by which policy it was alleged that the welfare of the country was not promoted. It was an appeal to the people. to change that policy, not by force, but by free elections and the ballot-box. It is not pretended that I counseled disobedience to the Constitution, or resistance to laws and lawful authority. I never have. Beyond this protest I have nothing further to submit. "C. L. VALLANDIGHAM." The Judge-Advocate replied that he had nothing to say as to the jurisdic- tion of the Court — that question having been decided by the authority conven- ing it; and that as to counsel and witnesses, the prisoner had been enabled to have any witnesses he wished summoned, and had three counsel of his owe choice in an adjacent room, whom he had not chosen, for reasons unknown, to bring into the Court. And so, after a two days' trial, the case was left to the Court. Eight days later the findings were approved by the General Commanding, and published in general orders. Mr. Vallandigham was found guilty of the charge and specifi- cations (with the exception of the words, "That propositions by which the- Northern States could be won back, and the South guaranteed their rights under" the Constitution, had been rejected the day before the late battle of Fredericks- burg, by Lincoln and his minions," meaning thereby the President of the United States, and those under him in authority, and the.^words, "asserting that he firmly believed, as he asserted six months ago, that the men in power arc at- tempting to establish a despotism in this country, more cruel and more oppres- sive than ever existed before"), and was sentenced to close confinement in some United States fort during the continuance of the war. General Burnside named Fort Warren in Boston harbor, as the place of confinement; and forwarded the proceedings in the case to the President. Akkest and Trial of Vallandigham. 107 There was a general fear that the result of the trial would be to exalt Mr. Vallandigham in public estimation as a martyr to the cause of free speech. On this account the entire proceedings had been generally disapproved at the Bast; and even among the supporters of the Government within the State were very many who regretted that any notice whatever had been taken of the Mount Vernon speech. Now that the thing was done, it was held that the least objec- tionable course out of the difficulty would be to send Mr. Vallandigham through the lines to the South, there to remain " among his friends," as the newspapers phrased it, till the end of the war. To this view the President acceded. He accordingly^ ordered General Burnside to send Mr. Vallandigham under secure guard to the head-q[uarters of General Rosecrans, to be put by him beyond the military linesi, In case of his return he was to be ari-ested and punished in accordance with' the original sentence. This order was promptly obeyed; and, under a flag of truce, Mr. Vallandigham was sent over into the Rebel lines in Tennessee. We shall have occasion in reciting the events speedily following in the State's history to see what course he took, and what was the final result of all these proceedings upon the popular action in favor of the prosecution of the war. Two days after the close of Mr. Vallandigham's trial before the Military Commission, Hon. George E. Pugh, of his counsel, applied to Judge Leavitt of the United States Circuit Court for a writ of habeas corpus. The application was ably argued — ^by Mr. Pogh for the prisoner, and by Mr. Aaron F. Perry, and the United States District-Attorney, Mr. Plamen Ball, in behalf of General Burnside. The Clerk had been directed to notify General Burnside of the application and of the day on which it would be heard. He appeared, not only by counsel, but in the following personal statement, which was presented for him bj' the District-Attorney : "If I were to indulge in wholesale criticisms of the policy of the Government, it would de- moralize the army under my command, and every friend of his country would call me a traitor. If the officers or soldiers were to indulge in such criticism, it would weaken the army to the ex- tent of their influence ; and if this criticism were universal in the army, it would cause it to be broken to pieces, the Government to be divided, our homes to be invaded, and anarchy to reign. My duty to my Government forbids me to indulge in such criticisms; officers and soldiers are not allowed so to indulge, and this course will be sustained by all honest men. "Now, 1 will go further. We are in a state of civil war. One of the States of this depart- ment is at this moment invaded, and three others have been threatened I command the depart- ment, and it is roy duty to my country, and to this army, to keep it in the best possible condition; to see that it is fed, clad, armed, and, as far as possible, to see that it is encouraged. If it is my duty and the duty of the troops to avoid saying any thing that would weaken the army, by pre- venting a single recruit from joining the ranks, by bringing the laws of Congress into disrepute, or by causing dissatisfaction in the ranks, it is equally the duty of every citizen in the depart- ment to avoid the same evil. If it is my duty to prevent the propagation of this evil in the army, or in a portion of my department, it is equally my duty in all portions of it; and it is my duty to use all the force in my power to stop it. " If I were to find a man from the enemy's country distributing in my camps speeches of 108 Ohio in the War. their public men that tended to demoralize the troops or to destroy their confidence in the consti- tuted authorities of the Government, I would have him tried, and hung if found guilty, and all the rules of modern warfare would sustain me. Why should such speeches from our own public men be allowed? " The press and public men, in a great emergency like the present, should avoid the use of party epithets and bitter invectives, and discourage the organization of secret political societies, which are always undignified and disgraceful to a free people, but now they are absolutely wrong and injurious ; they create dissensions and discord, which Just now amount to treason. The pimple names ' Patriot' and 'Traitor' are comprehensive enough. "As I before said, we are in* a state of civil war, and an emergency is upon us which re- quires the operations of some power that moves more quickly than the civil. " There never was a war carried on successfully without the exercise of that power. "It is said that the speeches which are condemned have been made in the presence of large bodies of citizens, who, if they thought them wrong, would have then and there condemned them. That is no argument. These citizens do not realize the effect upon the army of our coun- try, who are its defenders. They have never been in the field ; never faced the enemies of their country ; never undergone the privations of our soldiers in the field ; and, besides, they have been in the habit of hearing their public men speak, and, as a general thing, approving of what they say; therefore, the greater re.sponsibility rests upon the public men and upon the public press, and it behooves them to be careful as to what they say. They must not use license and plead that they are exercising liberty. In this department it can not be done. I shall use all the power I have to break down such license, and I am sure I will be sustained in this course by all honest men. At all events, I will have the consciousness, before God, of having done my duty to my country, and when I am swerved from the performance of that duty by any pressure public or private, or by any prejudice, I will no longer be a man or a patriot. " I again assert, that every power I possess on earth, or that is given me from above, will be used in defense of my Government, on all occasions, at all times, and in all places within this department. There is no party — no community — no State Government — no State Legislative body — no corporation or body of men that have the power to inaugurate a war policy that has the validity of law and power, but the constituted authorities of the Government of the United States; and I am determined to support their policy. If the people do not approve that policy, they can change the constitutional authorities of that Government, at the proper time and by the proper method. Let them freely discuss the policy in a proper tone ; but my duty requires me to stop license and intemperate discussion, which tends to weaken the authority of the Govern- ment and army : whilst the latter is in the presence of the enemy, it is cowardly to bo weaken it. This license could not be used in our camps — the man would be torn in pieces who would attempt it. There is no fear of the people losing their liberties; we all know that to be the cry of dema- gogues, and none but the ignorant will listen to it: all intelligent men know that our people are too far advanced in the scale of religion, civilization, education, and freedom, to allow any power on earth to interfere with their liberties ; but this same advancement in these great characterisi^ tics of our people teaches them to make all necessary sacrifices for their country when an eme^ gency requires. They will support the constituted authorities of the Government, whether they agree with them or not. Indeed, the army itself is a part of the people, and is so thoroughly educated in the love of civil liberty, which is the best guarantee for the permanence of our republican institutions, that it would itself be the first to oppose any attempt to continnir the exercise of military authority after the establishment of peace by the overthrow of the rebell- ion. No man on earth can lead our citizen-soldiery to the establishment of a military despot- ism, and no man living would have the folly to attempt it. To do so would be to seal his own doom. On this point there can be no ground for apprehension on the part of the people. "It is said that we can have peace if we lay down our arms. All sensible men know this to be untrue. Were it so, ought we to be so cowardly as to lay them down until the authority of the Government is acknowledged? " I beg to call upon the fathers, mothers, brothers, sistei-s, sons, daughters, relatives, friends, and neighbors of the soldiers in the field to aid me in stopping this license and intemperate dis- cussion, which is discouraging our armies, weakening the hands of the Government, and thereby strengthening the enemy. If we use our honest efforts, God will bless us with a glorious peace Aerrest and Trial of Vallandigham. 109 and a united conntiy. Men of every shade of opinion have the same vital interest in the sup- pression of this rebellion; for, should we fail in the task, the dread horrors of a ruined and dis- tracted nation will fall alike on all, wlietber patriots or traitors. "The?e are substantially my reasons for issuing 'General Order No. 38;' my reasons for the determination to enforce it, and also my reasons for the arrest of Hon. C. L. yallandigham for a supposed violation of that order, for which he has been tried. The result of that trial is now in my hands. " In enforcing this order I can be unanimously sustained by the people, or I can be opposed by factious, bad men. In the former event, quietness will prevail ; in the latter event, the re- sponsibility and i-etribution will atljaoh to the men who resist the authority, arid the neighbor- hoods that allow it. * "All of which is respectfully submitted. "A. E. BURNSIDE, Majoe-Genebal, "Commanding Department of the Ohio.'' Mr. ^ngh complained that this was in effect a return to the writ, avowing the facts detailed in the petition therefor; and that yet, without having the body of the petitioner in court, or without any order compelling General Burn- side to stay the execution of sentence, he was required to proceed with his duties as an advocate. The habeas corpus, he maintained, was a writ of right, under which, whenever it appeared on affidavit, that the prisoner was unlaw- fully imprisoned the Court had no choice, no latitude, no right even of post- ponement. After fortifying this position, asserting that the only question was whether upon the allegations of the petition, Mr. Vallandigham was lawfully or unlawfully imprisoned, and, quoting the preamble and enacting clause of the Constitution, he continued : "There can be no Usioir except as intended by that compact. The people have not agreed to any other; and without their consent, it is impossible that any other should be legitimately established. The justice to be administered in this court, and in all other tribunals, military and civil, must be such as the Constitution requires. Domestic tranquillity is a condition greatly to be envied ; but it must be secured by observing the Constitution in letter and in spirit. Gen- eral Burnside admonishes us of a certain * quietness' which might prevail as the consequence of enforcing his military order : I answer him that quietness attained by the sacrifice of our ances- tral rights, by the destruction of our constitutional privileges, is worse than the worst degree of confusion and violence. Touch not the liberty of the citizen ; and we. in Ohio, at least, will be unanimous. We may not concur as to the causes which induced so mighty a rebellion ; we may differ as to the best methods of subduing or of mitigating it; we may quarrel as partisans, or even as factionists ; but we will, nevertheless, with one accord, sustain the General in the dark- est hour of his despondency as well as in the day of triumph — sustain him by our counsels, by all our means, and, if necessary, at the expense of our lives. But we can not give him our lib- erties. That sacrifice would be of no advantage to him ; and it would render us and our pos- terity forever miserable. It is not necessary to the common defense ; it would not — it can not — promote the common welfare." He quoted the clause of the Constitution prohibiting Congress from passing any law abridging freedom of speech, or the right of peaceable assembly, to protest against grievances, and continued : "General Burnside holds an office created by act of Congress alone — an office which Congress may, at any time, abolish. His title, his rank, his emoluments, his distinction above his fellow-citizens, are all derived from that source. I take it to be absolutely certain, therefore, that he can make no 'law' which Congress could not make. He can not abridge the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to assemble and to consider of their grievances. 110 Ohio in the Wae. And yet, sir, of what does he accuse Mr. Vallandigham? Let the specification of Captain Cutta answer: Of having addressed a public assembly of the electors of Ohio, at Mount Vernon in Knox County, on the first day of this month. Nothing more ; nothing whatsoever. It was an assembly of the people lo deliberate upon their grievances, and to advise with each other in what way those grievances could be redressed. Into that forum — the holiest of holies in our political system — has General Burnside intruded his military dictation. Need I say more? What avails a right of the people to assemble, or to consult of their public affairs, if, when assembled and that peaceably, they have no freedom of speech?" He pointed out the difference between General 5ui"nside's relation to the President as his military Commander-in-Chief, bringing him under the Articles of War, which forbid disrespectful language of his superior officers, and that of Mr. Vallandigham, as simply a citizen. He answered the complaint as to the effect of Mr. VallaiTdigham's language on the people, bj^ saying in effect that the people must do their own thinking after their own fashion, and with such aid in the way of speeches as they should choose for themselves; and the comijlaint as to the effect upon the soldiers, thus: "O! — but the effect on the soldiers. Well, sir, let us inquire into that. The soldiers have been citizens ; they have been in the habit of attending public meetings and of listen- ing to public .speakers. They are not children, but grown men — stalwart, sensible and gallant men — with their hearts in the right place, and with arms ready t* strike whenever and wherever the cause of their country demands. The General assures us of more even than this: 'No man on earth,' 'he says, ' can lead our citizen-soldiery to the establishment of a military despotism.' And are these the men to be discouraged, and, especially, to feel weary in heart or limb -unable to cope with an enemy in the field because Mr. Vallandia^ liam, or any other public speaker, may have said something, at Mount Vernon or elsewhere, with which they do not agree? The soldiers have not chosen me for their eulogist; but I will say of my own accord, that they are no such tender plants as General Burnside imagines. They know, exactly, for what they went into the field; they are not alarmed, nor dissatisfied, nordiv couraged, because their fellow-citizens, at home, attend public meetings, arid listen to public Bpeeche.s, as heretofore; they have no serious misgivings as to the estimation in which they are holden by the people of the Northern and N.uth-western States, without any distinction of sects, parties, or factions. "Let the officers, and especially those of highest degree, observe their military duties; let them see to it, as General Burnside has well said, and as, I doubt not, he has well done, so far a-. his authority extends, that the soldiers are 'fed, clad, and armed,' and 'kept in the best pos.iible condition' for service. Allow them to vote as they please ; allow them to read whatever news- papers they like; cease any attempt to use them for a partisan advantage: I do not accuse Gen- eral Burnside of this— but others, and too many, have been guilty of the grossest tyranny in regard to it. Protect the soldier against the greed of jobbers and knavish contractors-against deal™ in shoddy, in rotten leather, in Belgian muskets, in filthy bread and meat— against all the hide- ous cormorants which darken the sky and overshadow the land in times of military prepani- tion. Let the party in administration discharge these duties; and my word for it, sir that the volunteers from Ohio, from Indiana, from Illinois, from every other State, will do and dare as much, at least, as the best and bravest soldiers in the world can accomplish." Eeviewing- the several specifications in the arraignment of Mr. Vallandig- ham before the Military Commission, he sought to show how none of the words quoted, even in the disjointed, unconnected shape in which they were given, passed the lawful latitude of free discussion; asked how mere words could, in General Burnside-s language, "amount to" treason ; and discussed at cousidera- Arrest and Trial of Vallandigham. Ill ble length the question of constructive treason, and arrayed a formidable pre- sentment of authorities on the subject, concluding: " But, 8ir, what become of our eafeguarda — what avails the experience Of seven hundred years — where is that CoNSTlTUTioir which declares itself to be the supreme law of the land- — if a Major-General commanding the Department of the Ohio, or any other officer, civil or military, can create and multiply definitions of treason at his pleasure? The ancient Ruminalis put forth new leaves when all men supposed it to be dying ; whether the tree of American liberty will be able to supply the place of that splendid foliage which has been stripped from its branches, and scattered beneath our feet, by this rude blast of arbitrary and unlimited authority, is a question hereafter to be determined. That question does not concern my distinguislied client any more than it concerns every other citizen. The partisans in power to-day will be the partisans in op- position to-morrow ; then military command will be shifted from those who oppress lo those who have been oppressed ; and so, with the mutations of political fortune, must the personal rights and rights of property, and even the lives, of all be in constant hazard. I pray that my learned friends upon the other side will consider this in time ; that they will use their influence not only with the defendant, but with those to whom at present he is amenable, to revoke — ere it be too late — the dreadful fiat of tyranny, of hopeless confusion, of Ultimate anarchy, which hiia been sounded In our midst." Then, saying that the argument for the prisoner might well be here con- cluded, he nevertheless, under his instruction, must jjroceed to present the bear- ings of another article of the Constitution ; that guaranteeing the right of the people against unreasonable searches and seizures, and forbidding the issue of warrants but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation. Arraying the authorities on this subject, and enumerating the requisites for arrest and trial, he then concluided : " And yet, sir, to that we have come — in the first century of our Republic, with a written Constitution less than eighty years old, in a country professing to be civilized, intelligent, refined, and (strangest of all) to be free 1 It is our case — if your Honor please — your own csise and mine ; and not merely the case of Clement L. Vallandigham. He is the victim to-day ; but there will be, and must be, other victims to-morrow. What rights have we, or what security for any right, under such a system as this? '"Every minist'ring spy That will accuse and swear, is lord of you. Of me, of all our fortunes and our lives. Our looks are call'd to question, and our words. How innocent soever, are made crimes ; We shall not shortly dare to tell our dreams, Or think, but 't will be treason.' " And the excuse for it, as given by General Burnside, is that a rebellion exists in Tennessee, in Arkansas, in Louisiana, in Mississippi, in Alabama, in otljer States a thousand miles distant from us. Does any rebellion exist here? President Lincoln, by his proclamation of January 1, 1863, has undertaken to ' designate ' the States, and even ' parts ' of States, at present in rebell- ion ; but I do not find the State of Ohio, nor the county of Montgomery, nor the city of Dayton . 60 designated. How can the Rebels, in addition to disclaiming their own rights under the Con- stitution of the United States, also forfeit the rights of my client? I ask General Burnside, or his counsel, to answer me that question ; because, until it has been answered, and answered sat- isfactorily, there can be no excuse, no apology, not the least degree of palliation, for such extra- ordinary proceedings as have been avowed here, and vainly attempted to be justified. " You have presided in this court almost thirty years; and, during that time, have heard and determined a vast number and variety of important controversies. But never, as I venture to affirm, have you been called to the discharge of a greater duty than upon this occasion. I had supposed in the simplicity of my heart and understandiag, that all the propositions for which I 112 Ohio in the War. have contended were too firmly established in America, as well as in England, to be disturbed or even doubted. It seems otherwise ; and, therefore, at unusual length, and without as lucid an order and as close an argument as I could wish, have I descanted upon the mighty themes of contest, in all past ages, between the supporters of arbitrary power and the defenders of popular rights. I pray that you will command the body of my client to be brought before you, in this court of civil judicature, and in the open light of day; to the end that he may be informed here of what he is accused, and may be tried on that accusation, whatever it be, in due form of law. Let us know the worst any man has to allege against him ; and then let him stand before a jury of hia^countrymen, in the face of all accusers, for deliverance, or, if guilty, for condemnation. " I ask this, sir, in the interest of that Constitution which has been violated by his arrest and imprisonment — in the interest of that Union, the fortunes of which now depend qn the arbitrament of the sword — in the interest of that army which we have sent into the field to maintain our cause — in the interest of peace at home, and of unanimity in waging a battle so bloody and so hazardous — in the interest of liberty, of justice, of ordinary fairness between man and man. "I have tried to say what ought to be said, and no more, in vindication of the rights of the petitioner. God help me if I have said anything which ought to have been omitted, or omitted anything which ought to have been said ! " Mr. Perry began his reply as follows : "May it please the Coukt: When General Burnside requested me to assist the District Attorney on this occasion, he forebore to give me any instruct-'ons, except to present such consid- erations to the judgment of the court as should seem to me right and proper. I have a distinct impression that he has no preference that the questions here presented should be heard before any other jurisdiction or tribunal rather than this; and that he wishes his proceedings to be here discussed by his counsel, chiefly on the broad basis of their merits; that they should be made to rest on the solid ground of the performance of a high and urgent public duty. The main ar^'u- ment which I shall precsent to the court will, therefore, be founded on the obligations, duties, and responsibilities of General Burnside as a Major-Gencral in command of an army of the United States, in the field of military operations, for the purposes of war, and in the presence of the enemy. I shall not place it on any ground of apology, excuse, or palliation, but strictly and confidently on the ground of doing what he had a lawful, constitutional right to do; and on the ground of performing a duty inaposed upon him as one of the necessities of his official position. I shall make no plea of an exigency in which laws are suspended, and the Constitution forgot- ten, but shall claim that the Constitution is equal to the emergency, and has adequately provided for it ; that the act complained of here is an act fully warranted by law, and authorized by the Constitution. I shall support this claim by references to tnore than one opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, and to other authorities." After dwelling upon some defects in the application for the writ, and ridi- culing its rhetorical features, he laid down the principle that the habeas cotyus could not meddle with arrests legally made, and that arrests under the laws of war were legal as well as those under the .ordinary forms. ^Yithout relying upon the President's Proclamation of 24th September, 1862, suspending the writ and deiaring martial law, he proceeded to maintain that, with the privilege of the writ admitted to be still in full force, the application should not be granted' "I claim, then, that the facts before this court show that the arrest of Clement L. Yallsn- digham, by Ambrose E. Burnside, a Major-General in the United States service, commanding in the Department of the Ohio, was a legal and justifiable arrest. For the facts showing its legality I rely— 1. On the petition and aflidavit of the prisoner ; 2. On facts of current public history of which the Court is bound to take judicial cognizance. Among the facts of public history I need retail but few. Unfortunately, the country is involved in dangers so many and so critical, thit its people neither do nor can divert their thoughts to other topics.'' Aerest and Trial of Vallandioham. 113 "The power and wants of the insurrection are not all nor chiefly military. It needs not only food, clothing, arms, medicine, but it needs hope and sympathy. It needs moral aid to sus- tain it against reactionary tendencies. It needs argument to represent its origin .ind claims to rtepect favorably before the world. It needs information concerning the strength, disposition, and movements of government force. It needs help to paralyze and divide opinions among those who sustain the government, and needs help to hinder and embarrass its councils. It needs that troops should be withheld from government, and its financial credit shaken. It needs that gov- ernment should lack confidence in itself, and become discouraged. It needs that an opinion should prevail in the world that the government is incapable of success, and unworthy of sym- pathy. Who can help it in either particular I have named, can help it as effectually as by bear- ing arms for it. Wherever in the United States a wish is entertained to give such help, and such wish is carried to its appropriate act, there is the place of the insurrection. Since all these helps combine to make up the strength of the insurrection, war is necessarily made upon them all, when made upon the insurrection. Since each one of the insurrectionary forces holds in cheek or neutralizes a corresponding government force, and since government is in such extremity as not safely to allow any part of its forces to withdraw from the struggle, it has no recourse but to strike at whatever part of the insurrection it shall find exposed. All this is implied in wnr, and in this war with especial cogency. 'If war be actually levied — that is, if a body of men "be actu- ally assembled for the purpose of effecting by force a treasonable purpose — all those who per- form any part, however minute, or however remote from the scene of action, and who are actu- ally leagued in the general conspiracy, are to be considered as traitors.' 4 Cranch, 126." •Eulogizing the Generals in Command (Burnside and Cox), he then asked: "Why are these men here? Have they, at any time since the war begun, sought any other but the place of danger ? They are here ; they are sent here for war : to lay the pame military hand upon this insurrection, wherever they can find it, in small force or large force, before them or behind them, which they have laid upon it elsewhere. They are not here to cry peace, when there is no peace ; not here to trifle with danger, or be trifled with by it. They are patriot Gen- erals, commanding forces in the field in the presence of the-enemy, constrained by their love of country, and in the fear of God only, to strike. Are they to fold their arms and sleep while the incitements to insurrection multiply around them, and until words shall find their way to appro- priate acts? Are they to wait until the wires shall be cut, railroad tracks torn up, and this great base of supplies, this great thoroughfare for the transit of troops, this great center and focus of conflicting elements, is in a blaze, before they can act? Must they wait until apprehended mis- chief shall become irremediable before they can attempt a remedy ? Jefferson Davis would answer, 'Yes I' Traitors and abettors of treason would everywhere answer, 'Yes! ' I seem to hear a solemn accord of voices rising from the graves of the founders of the Constitution saying, 'No 1' And I seem to hear the response of loyal and true friends of liberty everywhere swelling to a multitudinous and imperative ' Amen !' " " I understood the learned counsel to intimate that Government would receive the unani- mous support of the people of Ohio, if it would do nothing which displeased any of them. ' Touch not the liberty of the citizen, and we, in Ohio, at least, will be unanimous.' May it please your Honor, the liberty of the citizen is touched when he is compelled, either by a sense of duty or by conscription, to enter the army. The liberty of the citizen is touched when he is forbidden 1 to pass the lines of any encampment. The liberty of the citizen is touched when he is forbidden to sell arms and munitions of war, or to cany information to the enemy. Learned counsel is under a mistake. We in Ohio, could not be unanimous in leaving such liberties untouched. The liberty to stay at home ii-om war is at least as sacred as the liberty to make popular ha- , rangues. But since all these liberties are assailed by war, they must be defended by war. We, in 'c Ohio, never could be unanimous in approving the action of a government which should force one prtion of the population to enter the army, and allow another portion of it to discourage, de- ..alize and weaken that army. Unanimity, on such conditions, is impossible. But this sug- «tion of unanimity is not quite new. The zeal of the advocate, the charming voice, the stir- Iring elocution with which it is now reproduced, do all that is possible to redeem it from its early nociations. But we can not forget that the same thing has played a conspicuous part in the his- TOL. I.— 8. 114 Ohio in the War. tory of the last few years. At the last presidential election it happened, as it had on all preceding similar occasions, that a majority of lawful votes, constitutionally cast, elected a President of the United States, and placed the federal administration in the hands of persons agreeing in opinion, or appearing to agree with that majority. It happened, as it had ordinarily happened before, that the minority did not agree with the majority, either as to principles oras to the men selected. It claimed to believe the majority in the wrong, and no minority could find provocation or excuse forbeingin the minority, unless it did believe the majority in the wrong. It is not now necessary to inquire which were right in their preferences and opinions. The minority were fatally wrong in thif, that they refused the arbitrament provided in the Constitution for the settlement of such controversies. The new Administration must yield, because the minority found itself unwilling to yield. The old Constitution must be ch.nnged by new conditions, or run the risk of overthrow. In other words, it must be overthrown in its most vital principles, by compelling a majority to accept terms from a minority, accompanied by threats of war, or it might be nominally kept alive by consenting to abdicate its functions. All that the pcccssion leaders proposed was, that they should be allowed to administer the Government when elected, and, also, when not elected. They were willing to respect the constitutional rights of elections, provided it should be conceded that if they were beaten they should go on with public affairs the same as if they had been elected. They were willing to take the responsibility of judging what they would like to do, and all they asked was the liberty to do it. 'Touch not our liberties, and we can be unanimous! ' The same old fallacy reappears in every phase of the insurrection ; sometimes with and sometimes without disguise. Neither cliange of wigs, nor change of clothing, nor presence nor absence of burnt cork, can hide its well-known gait and physiognomy. The insurrection will support the Gov- ernment, provided the Government will support the insurrection; but the Government must con- sent to abdicate its functions, and permit others to judge what ought to be done, before it can he supported. One of its favorite disguises is to desire to support the Government, provided it were in proper hands; but to be unable to support it in its present hands. The proper hands, and the only proper hands for Government to be in, are the hands in which the Constitution places it. If tiie whole country should believe any particular hands to be the most suitable, those hands would be chosen. He who can not support the Government on the terms pointed out in the Con- stitution, by recognizing as the proper hands for its administration the hands in which the law places it, is not a friend, but an enemy of the Constitution. What he means by liberty is notthat qualified liberty in which all may share, but a selfish, tyninnical, irresponsible liberty to have his own way, without reference to the wishes or convenience of others. This notion of selfish and irresponsible liberty is an unfailing test and earmark of the insurrection. AVhatever other ap- pearances it may put on, it can always be known and identified by this. No darkness can con- ceal, no dazzling light transform it. Wherever it may be found, there is insurrection, in spirit at least, and according to different grades of courage, in action also. This kind of liberty can not live at the same time with the liberty which our Constitution was ordained to secure. Gov- ernment must lay hands upon it or die. Dangerous as its hostility may be, its embrace would be more fatal. Its hostility may, in time, destroy the Government, but any government consent- ing to make terms with it is already dead." He noticed the claim that Mr. Vallandigham's violent language and appeals for resistance pointed only to resistance at the ballot-box and in the courts. Eeading the specifications, he continued: " It appears from this that he publicly addressed a large meeting of citizens. He was not expressing in secresy and seclusion his private feelings or misgivings, but seeking publicity and influence. The occasion and circumstances show the purpose to have been to produce an effect on the public mind, to mold public feeling, to shape public action. In what direction ? The charge says, by expressing his sympathies for those in arms against the Government of the United States, by declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions. He declared the war to be wicked and cruel, and unnecessary, and a war not waged for the preservation of the Union: ii war for crushing out lib- erty and erecting a despotism. What is this but saying that those who fight against the United States are in the right, and that it would be cowardly and dishonorable not to fight against the United States? In what more plain or cogent language could he urge his audience themselva Aerest and Trial of Vallandigham. 115 to take np arms against their Government 7 If those who heard him could not be incited to fight against a Government by persuading them it was making an unjust and cruel war to crush out liberty, how else could he expect to incite them? If he did not hope to persuade them to join their sympathies and efforts with the enemies of the United States, by convincing them that these enemies are in the right, fighting and suffering to prevent the overthrow of liberty, standing up against wickedness and cruelty, what must he have thought of his audience ? What else but the legitimate result of his argument can we impute fairly as the object of his hopes? To whatever extent they believe him, they must be poor, dumb dogs not to rally, and rally at once, for the overthrow of their own Government, and for the support of those who make war upon it. But he did not leave it to be inferred. He declared it to be a war for the enslavement of the whites and the freedmn oj the hlacles. Which of the two was, in his opinion, the greater outrage, he does not appear to have stated. It is one of the unmistakable marks of insurrection, by which it can always be identified, that its declarations for liberty are for a selfish and brutal liberty, which in- cludes the liberty of injuring or disregarding others. If his white audience were not willing to be enslaved, that is to say, not willing to endure the last and most degrading outrage possible to be inflicted on human nature, they must, so far as they believed him, resist their own Govern- ment. If he himself believed what he said, he must take up arms to resist the Government, or stand a confessed poltroon. A public man, who believes that his Government is guilty of the crimes he imputed, and will not take up arms against it, is guilty of unspeakable baseness. If his audience believed what he told tliem, they must have looked upon advice not to take up arms as insincere or contemptible. No public man, no private man, can make such charges and de- cently claim not to mean war. All insurrections have their pretexts. The man who furnishes these is more guilty than the man who believes them and acts on them. If the statements of Vallandigham were true, the pretexts were ample, not merely as pretexts, but as justification of insurrection. They were more : they were incitements which it would be disgraceful to resist, and which human nature generally has no power to resist. The place where such things are done is the place of insurrection, or there is not and can not be a place of insurrection anywhere. If these laboratories of treason are to be kept in full blast, they will manufacture tr,aitors faster than our armies can kill them. This cruel process finds no shelter under the plea of political discussion. Whatever might be said about ballots and elections, the legal inference is that it is intended to produce the results which would naturally flow from it. If the President, with all the army and navy, and his ' minions,' is at work to overthrow liberty and enslave the whites, every good man must fear to see that army victorious, and Ijail its disasters with joy. Every good man must strike to save himself fromslavery now while he can. The elections are far off, and may be too late. It can not be claimed that the motive was to influence elections, because the argument does not fit that motive. It fits to insurrection, and that only. He pronounced General Orders No. 38 to be a base usurpation, and invited his hearers to resist it. How resist it ? How could they resist it, unless by doing what the order forbade to be done? " What was there to be complained of except by persons wishing to do, or to have done by^ others, the acts by that order prohibited? He invited to resist the order. The order thus to be resisted prohibited the following acts, viz.: Acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country, such as carrying of secret mails ; writing letters sent by secret mails ; secret recruiting of sol- diers for the enemy inside our lines ; entering into agreements to pass our lines for the purpose of joining the enemy ; the being concealed within our lines while in the service of the enemy ; being improperly within our lines by persons who could give private information to the enemy; the harboring, protecting, concealing, feeding, clothing, or in any way aiding the enemies of our country; the habit of declaring sympathies for the enemy; treason- These are the, things pro- hibited in Order No. 38, which Mr. Vallaodigham invited his audience to resist. ' The sooner,' he told them, ' the people inform the minions of usurped power that they will not submit to such restrictions on theii- liberties, the better.' The 'minions' here referred to were the commanding General of the Department and others charged with official duties under their own Government. The 'liberties ' not allowed to be restricted were liberties to aid the enemies of the United States. He declared his own purpose to do what he could to defeat ths attempt now being made to build up a monarchy upon the ruins of our free Government. The resistance could mean nothing but re- sistance to his own Government, which he had before declared to be making attempts to enslave the whites. These appeals to that large public meeting are charged to have been made 'for the 116 Ohio in the Wae. purpose of weakening the povier of his own Oovemment in its efforts to suppress am unlawful rebellim,' all of which opinions and sentiments 'lie well knew did aid, comfort, and encourage those in ami against the Government, and could but induce in his hearers a distrust of their own Government, and sympathy for those in arms against it, and a disposition to resist the laws of the Umd.' Not one syllable of all this is denied, and yet the arrest is complained of as unconstitutional." He denied the claim that the laws of war could only ajjply to military men, and that, under them, only those in the military service could be arrested; showed how fatal to all war-making power would be such an admission, and that even Eebels in arms, not being in the military service of the Government could not be arrested; drew the distinction between military and martial law, and arrayed the authorities thereon ; dwelt particularly on the opinion of the Supreme Court in cases growing out of the Dorr rebellion, concluding this branch of his argument as follows : " Jlay it please your Honor ! I have pursued this branch of the argument at some length. If the view of the Constitution here presented be, as it appears to me, well grounded in reason, and sustained by authority, the main proposition on which the petitioner rests his application ii overthrown, and, with it, the claim to a writ of habeas corpus. "I did not understand counsel to argue that, in the case of Vallandigham, there were cir- cumstances to render this arrant illegal or unnecessary, provided such arrests can in any case be justified. I did distinctly understand him to disclaim the idea that the Constitution permits a military arrest to be made, under any circumstances, of a person not engaged in the militaiy or naval service of the United States, nor in the militia of any State called into actual service ; and to rest his case on that broad denial. The whole petition is framed on this idea, for none of the charges are denied. "Upon first impression, your Honor may have inclined to the belief that petitioner had as- sumed an unnecessary burden, and might have more easily made a case by putting , General Burnside to show the propriety of this arrest ; admitting the general right to make such arrest as were indicated by the necessities of the service, but denying any ground for this arre-st. But yow Honor will find that no mistake has been made by learned cotmsel on the other side, in this particular. The circumstances shown justify the arrest, if any arrest of the kind can be justi- fied. If General Burnside might have arrested him for making the speech face to face with his soldiers, the distance from them at which it was uttered can make little difference. He might make it in camp ; and unless he could be arrested, there would be no way to prevent it. The right of publication, of sending by mail and telegraph, are of the same grade with freedom of speech. If utterance of the speech could not be checked, its transmission by mail and telegraph could not be. And I so understand the argument of the counsel of Vallandigham. It appears to claim, and go the whole length of claiming that it can do the army no harm to read such ad- dresses ; nor, of course, to hear them. It is necessary the argument should not stop short of that in order to meet the question, and it does not. Yet this is not the whole extent to which it must go to avail the petitioner. It must go to the extent of showing that this Court is authorized to determine that such addresses may be heard by the army, the opinion of the commanding Gen- eral to the contrary notwithstanding. It goes and must go the extent of transferring all responsi- bility for what is called the morale and discipline of the army from its commanding General to this Court. It is not certain that if these addresses shall persuade nobody, their authors will be disap- pointed? It is not certain that any soldier persuaded to believe that liis Government is striving to overthrow liberty, and for that purpose is waging a wicked and cruel war, can no longer, m good conscience, remain in the service? The argument leads to one of two conclusions. We are to be persuaded by the men who make the speeches, that the speeches will not produce the e«fect they intend— a persuasion in which their acts contradict their words— or we are to consent to the demoralization of the army. The Constitution authorizes and even requires the army to I» formed, but at that stage of the transaction interposes an imperative prohibition against the usull means of making it effective. " It is said, however, that the charges against Vallandigham are triable in the civil trihu- Aebest and Tbial of Vallandigham. 117 nala. So are a large proportion of all the charges which can be brought against any one engaged in an insurrection. No Bebel soldier has been captured in this war, no guerrilla, who was not triable in the civil tribunals. The argument in this, as in other particulars, necessarily denies the applicability of the laws of war to a state of war." Then, after maintaining the irrelevancy of much of Mr. Pugh's argument to the case in hand, ho concluded : "May it please your Honor! I must bring this argument to a close. Are we in a state of war or not? Did the Constitution, when it authorized war to be made, without limitations, mean war, or something else? The judicial tribunals provided for in the Constitution, throughout twelve States of the Union, have been utterly overthrown. In several other States they are maintaining a feeble and uncertain hold of their jurisdiction. None of them can now secure to parties on trial the testimony from large portions of the country, to which they are entitled by the Constitution and laws. The records of none of them can be used in the districts dominated by the insurrection. They are all struck at by this insurrection. Counsel tells us that, except the TJnion provided for in the Constitution, there is no legal Union. -Yet that Union is, tempo- rarily I hope, but for the present, suspended and annulled. This Court can have no existence except under that Union, and that Union now, in the judgment of those who have been intrusted by the Constitution with the duty of preserving it, depends upon the success of its armies. The civil administration can no longer preserve it. "The courts which yet hold their places, with or without njilitary support, may perform most useful functions. Their jurisdicition and labors were never more wanted than now. But they Were not intended to command armies. When Generals and armies were sent here, tliey were sent to make war according to the laws of war. I have no authority from General Burnside to inquire, and I have hesitated to inquire, but, after all, will venture to inquire, whether an in- terference by this Court with the duties of military command must not tend to disturb that har- mony between dijSerent branches of government, which, at this time, is most especially to be desired? " Counsel expresses much fear of the loss of liberty, through the influence of military as- cendency. Are we, on that account, to so tie the hands of our Generals, as to assure the over- throw of the Constitution by its enemies ? I do not share that fear. It has been the fashion of aociety in many countries to be divided into grades, and topped out with a single ruling family. In such societies the laws and habits of the people correspond with its social organization. The two elements of power — intelligence and wealth — are carefully secured in the same hands with politi- cal power. It has happened in a number of instances, that a successful General gained power enough to push the monarch from his throne and seat himself there. In such instances the change was chiefly . personal. liittle change was necessary in the social organization, laws, or habits. It has also happened that democracies or republics, which have, by a long course of ccttroption, lost the love and practice of virtue, have been held in order by a strong military hand. But in this country no man can gain by military success a dangerous ascendency, because the change would require to be preceded by a change in the whole body of laws, in the habits^ opinions, and social organization. History furnishes no example of a successful usurpation under similar circumstances, and reason assures me it would prove impossible. Our society has no ele- ment on which usurpation could be founded. My sleep is undisturbed, and my heart quite fear- less in that direction. I do not fear that we shall lose our respect for the laws of peace by respecting the laws of war ; nor our love for the Constitution by the sacrifices we make to uphold it. I do not fear any loss of democratic sympathieig by the brotherhood of camps. I do not itear any loss of the love of peace by the suft'erings of war. I am not zealous to preserve, to the ut- most punctilio, any civil right at the risk of losing all, when all civil rights are in danger of overthrow. The question of civil liberty is no longer within the arbitrament of our civil tri- bunals. It has been taken up to a higher court, and is now pending before the God of Battles. May he not turn away from the sons whose fathers he favored I As he filled and strengthened the hearts of the founders of our liberty, so may he fill and strengthen ours with great con- stancy I Now, while awaiting the call of the terrible docket, while drum-beats roll from the At- lantic Ocean to the Bocky Mountains, while the clear sound of bugles reaches far over onr once 118 Ohio in the Wak. peaceful hills and valleys; now, when the hour of doom is about to strike, let us lose all sense of individual danger; let us lay upon a common altar all private griefs, all personal ambitions; let us unite in upholding the army, that it may have strength to rescue from unlawful violence, and restore to us the body of the American Union— £ Pluriirug Union/ Above all, O Almighty Godl if it shall please tliee to subject us to still more and harder trials ; if it be thy will that we pass further down into the darkness of disorder, yet may some little memory of our fathers move thee to a touch of pity ! Spare us from that last human degradation! Save ! O save us from the lit- tleness to be jealous of our defenders !" A briefer argument was made by District-Attorney Ball, and Mr. Pugh rejoined. The decision of Judge Leavitt was awaited with much interest by all classes. He took the case briefly under advisement, and finally denied the writ — giving an opinion, which we quote in full : "This case is before the Court on the petition of Clement L. Vallandigham, a citizen of Ohio, alleging that he was unlawfully arrested, at his home in Dayton, in this State, on the night of the 5th of May, instant, by a detachment of soldiers of the army of the United States, acting under the orders of Ambrose E. Burnside, a, Major-General in the army of the United States, and brought against his will, to the city of Cincinnati, where he has been subject to a trial before a mihtaiy commission, and is still detained in custody, and restrained of his liberty. The petitioner also avers that he is not in the land or naval service of the United States, and has not been called into active service in the militia of any State ; and that his arrest, detention and trial, as set forth in his petition, are illegal, and in violation of the Constitution of the United States. The prayer is that a writ of habeas carpus may issue, requiring General Burnside to produce the body of the petitioner before this Court, with the cause of his caption and detention. Accompanying the pe- tition is a statement of the charges and specifications on which he alleges he was tried before the Military Commission. For the purposes of this decision it is not necessary to notice these charges specially, but it may be stated in brief that they impute to the prisoner the utterance of sundry disloyal opinions and Statements in a public speech, at the town of Mt. Vernon, in the State of Ohio, on the 1st of May, instant, with the knowledge 'that they did aid and comfort and encour- age those in arms against the Government, and could but induce, in his hearers, a distrust in their own Government, and sympathy for those in arms against it, and a disposition to resist the laws of the land.' The petitioner does not state what the judgment of the Military CommiBsion is, nor is tlie Court informed whether he has been condemned or acquitted on the charges exhib- ited against him. "It is proper to remark here, that, on the presentation of the petition, the Court stated, to the counsel of Mr. Vallandigham, that, according to the usage of the Court, as well as of other courts of high authority, the writ was not grantable of course, and would only be allowed on a Bufflcient showing that it ought to issue. The Court is entirely satisfied of tJie correctness of the course thus indicated. The subject was fully examined by tlie learned Justice Swayne, when present, the presiding Judge of this Court, on a petition for habeas corpus, presented at the last October term ; a case to which further reference will be made. I shall now only note the au- thorities on this point, which seem to be entl,rely conclusive. " In case Ex parte Watkins (3 Peters, 193), which was an application to the Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus, Chief-Justice Marshall entertained no doubt as to the power of the court to issue the writ, and stated that the only question was whetlier it was a case in which the power ought to be exercised. He says, in reference to that case, 'the cause of imprisonment is shown as fully by the petitioner as could appear on the return of the writ ; consequently, the writ ought not to be awarded, if the court is satisfied the prisoner would be remanded to prison.' The same principle is clearly and ably stated by Chief- Justice Shaw, in the case Hz parte Sims, before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. (7 Cushing's Kep. 285). See, also, Hurd on hah. corpits, 223, et seq. ;, " I have no doubt of the power of this Court to issue the writ applied for. It is clearly colfe ferred by the fourteenth section of the Judiciary Act of 1789; but the ruling of this Court in Akrest and Trial of Vallandigham. 119 the esse just referred to, and tlie authorities just cited, justify tlie rerusal of the writ, if satisfied the petitioner would not be discharged upon a hearing after its return. The Court, therefore, di- rected General Burnside to be notified of the pendency of the petition, to the end that he might appear, by counsel, or otherwise, to oppose the granting of the writ. "That distinguished General has accordingly presented a respectful- communication to the Court, stating, generally and argumentatively, the reasons of the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham, and has also authorized able counsel to represent him in resistance of the application for the writ. And the case has been argued at great length, and with great ability, on the motion for its allowance. " It IB proper to remark, further, that when the petition was presented, the Court made a dis- tinct reference to the decision of this Court in the case of Bethuel Rupert, at October term, 1862, before noticed, as an authoritative precedent for its action on this application. On fall reflection, I do not see how it is possible for me, sitting alone in the Circuit Court, to ignore the decision, made upon full consideration by Justice Swayne, with the concurrence of myself, and which, a.s referable to all cases involving the same principle, must be regarded as the law of this Court un- til reversed by a higher court. The case of Rupert was substantially the same as that of the present petitioner. He set out in his petition, what he alleged to be an unlawful arrest by the order of a military officer, on a charge imputing to him acts of disloyalty to the Government, and sympathy with the rebellion against it, and an unlawful detention and imprisonment as the result of such order. The application, however, in the case of Rupert difiered from the one now before the Court, in this, that affidavits were exhibited tending to disprove the chai-ge of disloyal conduct imputed to him; and also in this, that there was no pretense or showing by Rupert that there had been any investigation or trial by any court of the charges against him.. " The petition in this case is addressed to the judges of the Circuit Court, and not to a single judge of that Court. It occurs, from the absence of Mr. Justice Swayne, that the District Judge is now holding tlie Circuit Court, as he is authorized to do by law. But thus sitting, would it not be in violation of all settled rules of judicial practice, as well as of courtesy, for the District ■Judge to reverse a decision of the Circuit Court, made when both judges were on the bench? It is well known that the District Judge, though authorized to sit with the Circuit Judge in thu Circuit Court, does not occupy the same official position, and that the latter judge, when present, is ex officio, the presiding judge. It is obvious that confusion and uncertainty, which would greatly inipair the respect due to the adjudications of the Circuit Courts of the United States, would result from the assumption of such an exercise of power by the District Judge. It would not only be disrespectful tq the superior judge, but would evince in the District Judge an utter want of apprepiation of his true official connection with the Circuit Court. "Now, in passing upon the application of Rupert, Mr. Justice Swayne, in an opinion of some length, though not written, distinctly held that this Court would not grant the writ of habeas cor- pu«, when it appeared that the detention or imprisonment was under military authority. It Im true, that Rupert was a man in humble position, unknown beyond the narrow circle in which he moved; while the present petitioner has a wide-spread fame as a prominent politician and states- man. But no one will insist that there should be any difference in tlie principles applicable to the two cases. If any distinction were allowable, it would be against him of admitted intelli- gence and distinguished talents. "I might, with entire confidence, place the grounds of action I propose in the present case upon the decision of the learned judge, in that just referred to. Even if I entertained doublH of the soundness.of his views, I see no principle upon which I could be justified in treating the decision as void of authority. But the counsel of Mr. Vallandigham was not restricted in the argument of this motion to this point, but was allowed the widest latitude in the discussion of the principles involved. It seemed due to him that the Court should hear what could be urged against the legality of the arrest, and in favor of the interposition of the Court in behalf of the petitioner. And I have been greatly interested in the forcible argument which has been sub- mitted, though unable to concur with the speaker in all his conclusions. " If it were my desire to do so, I have not now the physical strength to notice or discuss at length the grounds on which the learned counsel has attempted to prove tlie illegality of General Burn- eide'a order for the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham, and the duty of the Court to grant the writ ap- plid for. The basis of the whole argument rests on the assumption that Mr. Vallandigham, not 120 Ohio in the Wab. being ill the niililaiy ov naval service of the Government, an.l not, therefore, subject to the Eules and ArticlcH of W;ii", was not liable to arrest under or by military power. And the various pro- visions of the Constitution, intended to guard the citizen against unlawful arrests and imprison- ments, have been cited and urged upon the attention of the Court as having a direct bearing on the point. It is hardly necessary to quote these excellent guarantees of the rights and liberties of an American citizen, as they are familiar to every reader of the Constitution. And it may be conceded that if, by a just construction of the constitutional powers of the Government, in the solemn emergency now existing, they are applicable to and must control the question of the legality of the arrest of the petitioner, it can not be sustained, for the obvious reason that no warrant was issued ' upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation,' as is required in ordinary arrests for alleged crimes. But are there not other considerations of a controlling character applicable to the question? Is not the Court imperatively bound to regard the pre-sent state of the country, and, in the light which it throws upon the subject, to decide upon the expe- diency of interfering with the exercise of the military power as invoked in the pending applica- tion? The Court can not shut its eyes to the grave fact that war exists, involving the most im- minent public danger, and threatening the subversion and destruction of the Constitution ilseli In my judgment, when the life of the Kepublic is imperiled, he mistakes his duty and obligation as a patriot who is not willing to concede to the Constitution such a capacity of adaptation to cir- cumstances as may be necessary to meet a great emergency, and save the nation from hopeless ruin. Self-preservation is a paramount law, which a nation, as well as an individual, may find it necessary to invoke. Nothing is hazarded in saying that the great and far-seeing men who flamed the Constitution of the United States supposed they were laying the foundation of our National Government on an immovable basis. They did not contemplate the existence of the state of things with which tlie nation is now unhappily confronted, the heavy pressure of which is felt by every true patriot. They did not recognize the right of secession by one State, or any number of States, for the obvious reason that it would have been in direct conflict with the purpose in view in the adoption of the Constitution, and an incorporation of an element in the frame of the Government which would inevitably result in its destruction. In their glowing visions of futurity there was no foreshadowing of a period when the people of a large geograph- ical section would be guilty of the madness and the crime of arraying themselves in rebellion against a Government under whose mild and benignant sway there was so much of hope and promise for the coming ages. We need not be surprised, therefore, that, in the organic law which they gave us, they made no specific provision for such a. lamentable occurrence. They did, how- over, distinctly contemplate the possibility of foreign war, and vested in Congress the power to declare its existence, and 'to raise and support armies,' and 'provide and maintain a navy.' They also made provision for the suppression of insurrection and rebellion. They were aware that the grant of these powers implied all other powers necessary to give them full effect. They also declared that the President of the United States ' shall be Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy and of the militia of the several States when called into actual service,' and they placed upon him the solemn obligation 'to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' In refc^ eiKC to, a local rebellion, in which the laws of the Union were obstructed, the act of the 28th of February, 1795 was passed, proviiling, in substance, that whenever, in any State, the civil author- ities of the Union were unable to enforce the laws, the President shall be empowered to call out such military force as might be necessary for the emergency. Fortunately for the country, this law was in force when several States of the Union repudiated their allegiance to the National Government, and placed themselves in armed rebellion against it. It was sufficiently compre- hensive in its terms to meet such an occurrence, although it was not a case within the contempla- tion of Congress when the law was enacted. It was under this statute that the President issued his proclamation of the 15lh of April, 1861. From that time the country has been in a state of war, the history and progress of which are familiar to all. More than two years have elapsed, during which the treasure of the nation has been lavishly contributed, and blood has freely flowed, and this formidable rebellion is not yet subdued. The energies of the loyal people of the Union are to be put to further trials, and, in all probability, the enemy is yet to be en- countered on many a bloody field. " It is not to be disguised, then, that our country is in imminent peril, and that the crisis de- mands of every American citizen a hearty support of al! proper iiicai>s for the restoration of the Arrest and Trial of Vallandigham. 121 Union and the return of an honorable peace. Those placed by the people at the head of the Government, it may well be presumed, are earnestly and sincerely devoted to its preservation and perpetuity. The President may not be the man of our choice, and the measures of his Ad- ministration may not be such as all can fully approve. But these are minor considerations, and can absolve no man from the paramount obligation of lending his aid for the salvation of his country. All should feel that no evil they can be called on to endure, as the result of w.ar. is comparable with the subversion of our chosen Government, and the horrors which must follow from such a catastrophe. " I have referred thus briefly to the present crisis of the country as having a bearing on the question before the Court. It is clearly not a time when any one connected with the judicial de- partment of the Government should allow hiinSelf, except from the most stringent obligations of duty, to embarrass or thwart the Executive in his efforts to deliver the country from the dangers which press bo heavily upon it. Now, the question which I am called upon to decide is, whether General Burnside, as an agent of the executive department of the Government, has transgressed his autlrority in ordering the arrest o f Mr. Vallandigham. If the theory of his counsel is sus- tainable, that there can be no legal arrest except by warrant, based on an aflBdavit of probable cause, the conclusion would be clear that the arrest was illegal. But I do not think I am bound to regard the inquiry as occupying this narrow base. General Burnside, by the order of the President, has been designated and appointed to take the military supervision of the Depart- ment of the Ohio, composed of the States of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. The precise extent of his authority, in this responsible position, is not known to the Court. It may, however, be properly assumed, as a fair presumption, that the President has clothed him with all the powers necessary to the efficient discharge of his duties in the station to which he has been called. He is the representative and agent of the President within the limits of his De- partment. In time of war the President is not above the Constitution, but derives his power ex- pressly from the provision of thijt instrument, declaring that he shall be Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy. The Constitution does not specify the powers he may rightfully exercise in this character, nor are they defined by legislation. No one denies, however, that the Presi- dent, in this character, is invested with very high powers, which it is well known have been called into exercise on various occasions during the present rebellion. A memorable instance is seen in the emancipation proclamation, issued by the President as Commander-in-Chief, and which he justifies as a military necessity. It is, perhaps, not easy to define what acts are prop- erly within this designation, but they must, undoubtedly, be limited to such as are necessary to the protection and preservation of the Government and the Constitution, which the President has sworn to support and defend. And in deciding what he may rightfully do under this power, where there is no expreas legislative declaration, the President is guided solely by his own judg- ment and discretion, and' is only amenable for an abuse of his authority by impeachment, prosecuted according to the requirements of the Constitution. The occasion which justifies the exercise of this power exists only from the necessity of the case ; and when the necessity exists there is a clear justification of the act. " If this view of the power of the President is correct, it undoubtedly implies the right to arrest persons who, by their mischievous acts of disloyalty, impede or endanger the military ope- rations of the Government. And, if the necessity exists, I see nci reason why the power does not attach to the officer or General in command of a military department. The only reason why the appointment is made is, that the President can not discharge the duties in person. He, there- fore constitutes an agent to represent him, clothed with the necessary power for the efficient su- pervision of the military interests of the Government throughout the Department. And it is not necessary that martial law should be proclaimed or exist, to enable the General in command to perform the duties assigned to him. Martial law is well defined by an able jurist to be ' the will of a military commander, operating, without any restraint save his judgment, upon the lives upon the persons, upon the entire social and individual condition of all over whom this law extends.' It can not be claimed that this la,w was in operation in GJeneral Burnside's Depart- ment when Mr. Vallandigham was arrested. Nor is it necessary that it should have been in force to justify the arrest ; the power is vested by virtue of the authority c&nferred by the appoint- ment of the President. Under that appoitrtment General Burnside assumed command of this Department. That he was a man eminently fitted for the position there is no room for a doubt. 122 Ohio in the Wab. He had achieved, during liis brief military career, a national reputation as a wise, discreet, pat riotic, and brave General. He not only enjoyed the confidence and respect of tlie President and Secretary of War, but of the whole country. He has nobly laid his party preferences and pre- dilections upon the altar of his country, and consecrated his life to her service. It was known that the widely-extended Department, with the military supervision of which he was charged, was one of great importance, and demanded great vigilance and ability in the administration of its military concerns. Kentucky was a border State, in which there was a large element of disaf- fection toward tlie National Government, and sympathy with those in rebellion against it. For- midable invasions have been attempted, and are now threatened. Four of the States have a river border, and are in perpetual danger of invasion. The enforcement of the late conscription law was foreseen as a positive necessity. In Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois a class of mischievous pnH- tioians had succeeded in poisoning the minds of a portion of the community with the rankest feelings of disloyalty. Artful men, disguising their latent treason under hollow pretensions of devotion to the Union, were striving to disseminate their pestilent heresies among the masse,-! of the people. The evil was one of alarming magnitude, and threatened seriou-sly to impede tlie military operations of the Government, and greatly to protract the suppression of the rebellion. General Burnside was not slow to perceive the dangerous consequences of these disloyal efforls, and resolved, if possible, to suppress them. In the exercise of his discretion he issned the order — No. 38 — which has been brought to the notice of the Court. I shall not comment on that order, or say anything more in vindication of its expediency. I refer to it only because General Burnside, in his manly and patriotic communication to the Court, has stated fully his motives and reasons for issuing it ; and also that it was for its supposed violation that he ordered the ar- rest of Mr. Vallandigham. He has done this under his responsibility as the commanding Gen- eral of this Department, and in accordance with what he supposed to be the power vested in him by the appointment of the President. It was virtually the act of the Executive Department un- der the power vested in the President by the Constitution ; and I am unable to perceive on what principle a judicial tribunal can be invoked to annul or reverse it. In the judgment of thecom- mandiug General, the emergency required it, and whether he acted wisely or discreetly i? not properly a subject for judicial review. "It is worthy of remark here that this arrest was not made by General Burnside under mj claim or pretension that he had authority to dispose of or punish the party arrested, according to his own will, without trial and proof of the facts alleged as the ground for the arrest, but with s view to an investigation by a Military Court or Commission. Such an investigation has taken place, the result of which has not been made known to this Court. Whether the Military Com- mission for the trial of the charges against Mr. Vallandigham was legally constituted and had jurisdiction of the case, is not a question before this Court. There is clearly no authority in this Court on the pending motion, to revise or reverse the proceedings of the Military Commission, if they were before the Court. The sole question is, whether the arrest was legal ; and, as before remarked, its legality depends on the necessity which existed for making it ; and of that neces- sity, for the reason stated, this Court can not judicially determine. General Burnside is unqnea- tionably amenable to the executive department for his conduct. If he has acted arbitrarily and upon insufficient reasons, it is within the power, and would be the duty of the President, not only to annul his acts, but to visit him with decisive marks of disapprobation. To the President, as commander-in-chief of the army, he must answer for his official conduct. But, under our Con- stitution, which studiously seeks to keep the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of the Government from all interference and conflict with each other, it would be an unwarrantable exercise of the judicial power to decide that a co-ordinate branch of the Government, acting «nder its high responsibilities, had violated the Constitution, in its letter or its spirit, by author- izing the arrest in question. Especially in these troublous times, when the national life is in peril, and when union and harmony among the different branches of the Government are so impera- tively demanded, such interference would find no excuse or vindiciition. Each department of the Government must, to some extent, act on a presumption that a co-ordinate branch knows its powers and duties, and will not transcend them. If the doctrine is to obtain, that every one charged with, and guilty of, acts of mischievous disloyalty, not within the scope of criminal laws of the land, in custody under the military authority, is to be set free by courts or judges on habmeor- pus, and that there is no power by which he may be temporarily placed where he can not perpetrate Akeest and 'Trial of Vallandigham. 123 miechief, it requires no argument to prove that the most alarming conflicts must follow, and the action of the Government be most seriously impaired. I dare not, in my judicial position, as- sume the fearful responsibility implied in the sanction of such a doctrine. "And here, without subjecting myself to the charge of trenching upon the domain of polit- ical dbcussion, I may be indulged in the remark, that there is too much of the pestilential leaven of disloyalty in the community. There is a class of men in the loyal States who seem to have no . just appreciation of the deep criminality of those who are in arms, avowedly lor the overthrow of the Government, and the establishment of a Southern Confederacy. They liave not, I fear, risen to any right estimate of their duties and obligations, as American citizens, to a Government which has strewn its blessings with a profuse hand, and is felt only in the benefits it bestows. I may venture the assertion that the page of history will be searched in vain for an example of a rebellion so wholly destitute of excuse or vindication, and so dark with crime, as that which our bleeding country is now called upon to confront, and for the suppression of which all her ener- gies are demanded. Its cause is to be found in the unhallowed ambition of political aspirants and agitators, who boldly avow as their aim, not the establishment of .a government for the better security of human rights, but one in which all political power is to be concentrated in an odious and despotic oligarchy. It is, indeed, consolatory to know that in most sections of the North those who sympathize with the rebellion are not so numerous or formidable as the apprehensions of some would seem to indicate. It may be assumed, I tfust, that in most of the Northern States reliable and unswerving patriotism is the rule, and disloyalty and treason the exception. But thew should be no division of sentiment upon this momentous question. Men should know, and lay the truth to heart, that there is a course of conduct not involving overt treason, or any offense technically defined by statute, and not, therefore, subject to punishment as such, which, never- theless, implies moral guilt and gross offense against their- country. Those who live under the protection and enjoy the blessings of our benignant Government, must learn that they can not etab its vitals vrith impunity. If they cherish hatred and hostility to it, and d&'>ire its subver- sion, let them withdraw from its jurisdiction, and seek the fellowship and protection of those with whom they are in sympathy. If they remain with us, while they are not of us, they must be subject to such a course of dealing as the great law of delf-preservation prencribes and will enforce. And let them not complain, if the stringent doctrine of military necessity should find them to be the legitimate subjects of its action. I have no fears that the recognition of this doc- trine will lead to an arbitrary invasion of the personal security or personal liberty of the citizen. It is rare, indeed, that a charge of disloyalty will be made upon insufficient grounds. But if there should be an occasional mistake, such an occurrence is not to be put in competition with i the preservation of the life of the nation. And I confess I am but little moved by the eloquent appeals of those who, while they indignantly denounce violations of personal liberty, look with I no horror upon a despotism as unmitigated as the world has ever witnessed. " But I can not pursue this subject further. I have been compelled by circumstances to pre- I sent my views in the briefest way. I am aware there are points made by the learned counsel representing Mr. Vallandigham, to which I have not adverted. I have had neither time nor , strength for a more elaborate consideration of the questions involved in this application. For the reasons which I have attempted to set forth, I am led clearly to the conclusion that I can not ju- I dically pronounce the order of General Burnside for the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham as a nul- . lity, and must, therefore, hold that no sufficient ground has been exhibited for granting the writ , applied for. In reaching this result, I have not found it necessary to refer to the authorities , which have been cited, and which are not controverted, for the obvious reason that they do not , apply to the theory of this case, as understood and affirmed by the Court. And I may properly ] add here, that I am fortified in my conclusion .by the fact, just brought to my notice, that the Legislature of Ohio, at its last session, has passed two statutes, in which the validity and legality of arrests in this State under military authority are distinctly sanctioned. This is a clear indi- cation of the opinion of that body, that the rights and liberties of the people are not put in jeopardy by tlie exercise of the power in question, and is, moreover, a concession that the pres- ] ent state of the country requires and justifies is exercise. It is an intimation that the people of onr patriotic State will sanction such a construction of the Constitution as, without a clear viola- tion of its letter, will adapt it to the existing emergency. ' "There is one other consideration to which I may, perhaps, properly refer, not as a reason 124 Ohio in the Wae. for refusing the writ applied for, but for the purpose of saying that, if granted, there is no prob- ability that it would be available in relieving Mr. Vallandingham from his present position. It is, at least, morally certain, it would not be obeyed. And I confess I am somewhat reluctant to authorize a process, knowing it would not be respected, and that the Court is powerless to enforce obedience. Yet, if satisfied there were suiBcient grounds for the allowance of the writ, the con- sideration to which I have adverted would not be conclusive against it. " For these reasons I am constrained to refuse the writ." * The Democratic party assailed this judicial decision with unwonted bitter- ness; and the correctness of parts of the opinion was doubted by many earnest supporters of the Government. It stood however as the law of the land; and under its influence the utterance of the sentiments to which Mr. Vallandigham had given so free expression, became much more guarded. A strong popular reaction set in in favor of the Government, and the soldiers had thenceforward less reason to complain of the "fire in the rear." Since the war a subject similar in some of its features has been brought before the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of the Indiana Con- spirators. The decision was adverse to some of the positions assumed by Judge Leavitt; and, freed from technical terms, was substantially that, in States not in rebellion, where the civil courts were in session and the territory was not the actual theater of war, such cases should be tried, not before military commis- sions, but in the ordinary tribunals, and with the accustomed forms of law. *The above opinion, and the extracts from the speeches and other documents, have all been carefully revised by their respective authors. We are indebted to the courtesy of Jlr. R. W. Car- roll, whose publishing house brought them out in book form, for permission to use them hei*. Abmed Resistance to the Authoeities. 125 CHAPTER X. ARMED RESISTANCE TO THE AUTHORITIES. THE excited feeling among the Peace Democrats, of which Mr. Val Ian dig- ham's inflammatory speech at Mount Vernon was an exponent, continued for some months. One outbreak that threatened for a little time to prove serious had occui-red in Noble, County, before his arrest. Two occuiTed after- ward; one, that in Dayton, growing immediately from it; the other arising in Holmes County out of resistance to the enrollment for a draft. None of these were so serious or so wide-spread as the similar movements about the same time, in Indiana on the West, or in Pennsylvania and New York on the East; but they nevertheless rose to the importance of organized and armed efforts to resist the authorities ; and no regard for the fair fkme of the State should now lead to their concealment. It was near the middle of March, 1863, that what the newspapers of the day called "the speck of war in Noble County "made its appearance. This county, in the south-eastern pai*t of the State near the Virginia line, is rough, hilly, and sparsely peopled — in great part by an uneducated community of Vir- ginia and Kentucky origin. Peace Democracy was the general political faith at that time, and the citizens had been not a little excited by seditious teach- ings, by their hostility to a draft, and by the indications that the fortune of war was going steadily against the Government. Mr. Flamen Ball, then the United States District-Attornpy for Southern Ohio, came into possession in February, of a letter written by F. W. Brown, a school-teacher in the village of Hoskinsville, Noble County^ to Wesley McFar- ren, a private soldier of company G, Seventy-Eighth Ohio Infantry, denouncing the Administration, expressing opposition to the war, and urging McFarren to desert. The soldier did desert, and found harbor and concealment hear Hos- kinsville. A Dejiuty United States Marshal and a corporal's guard from the One Hundred and Fifteenth Ohio, were thereupon dispatched from Cincinnati to arrest the deserter and the instigator of desertion. This force presently re- turned with the report that, at Hoskinsville, they had found the men they sought under the protection of nearly a hundred citizens, armed with shot guns, rifles, and muskets, and regiilarly organized and oflicered. The Captain pleasantly 126 Ohio ix the Wae. proposed to the Deputy United States Marshal and squad, that they surrender and be paroled as prisoners of the Southern Confederacy! On the 16th of March au order was thereupon issued by the post command- ant at Cincinnati* to Captain L. T. Hake, to report with companies B and H, One Hundred and Fifteenth Ohio, with ten days' rations and forty rounds of ammunition, to United States Marshal A. C. Sands, to serve as his posse in making arrests in Noble County. On the evening of the 18th they reached Cambridge, the seat of justice of the adjoining county, where they received all possible aid and information from the inhabitants. Leaving the railroad, they now marched across the country to Hoskinsville. On the way word was re- ceived that the people were still in arms, and were determined to continue tlieii' resistance to the officers. But, on their arrival on the afternoon of the 20tli, they found no force to meet them. The men had secreted themselves in the woods, and only a few frightened women and children were to be found. The business of searching for and arresting the parties concerned in the previous resistance to the Deputy Marshal was then begun, on the strength of an affida- vit, before United States Commissioner Halliday, by Moses D. Hardy, giving names of some of them, as follows : "William McCune, James McCnne, Joseph McCune, Mahlon Belford, Absalom Willey, "Wil- liam Willey, Curtis Willey, Wesley Willey, Asher Willey, Milton Willey, Edmund G. Brown, William Campbell, Henry Campbell, William Pitcher, Joshua Pitcher, Joseph Pitcher, Andrew Coyle, John Coyle, Thomas Eacey, John Racey, George A. Eacey, Peter Eacey, William Cain, Samuel Cain, Abel Cain, A. G. Stoneking, Samuel McFarren, Eichard McFarren, Joel MoFar- ren, David McFarren, Lewis Fisher, Milvin M. Fisher, James McKee, Benton McKee, William Archer, James Harkens, George Ziler, Peter Rodgers, William Lowe, Andrew Lowe, Samuel Marquis, Arthur Marquis, John Marquis, M. Norwood, Robert Boggs, Elisha Fogle, Abner Davis, William Davis, Taylor Burns, John Manifold, G«orge Manifold, Henry Engle, Joshua Hillyer, Benton Thorle, Eichard Burlingame, George Willey, H. Jones, Joseph Jones, Gordon WestcoU, G. E. Gaddis, William Engle, Jacob Trimble, Charles Brown, Andrew J. Brown, William Barnhouse." The expedition remained, making arrests and searching for the guilty par- ties through the 20th, 21st, and 22d. It then marched to Sharon, then to Cald- well, the county seat, and thence to Point Pleasant — halting for the night and making arrests at each place. Alter thus marching over nearly the entire dis- trict in which the disaffection had been fomented, the command returned with its prisoners to Cambridge, where they were welcomed at a public banquet. Messrs. F. Clatworthy and E, Henderson acted as aids to the Marshal throughout. Subsequently the following prisonei's, thus arrested, were brought tefore the United States Court in Cincinnati, Judges Swayne and Leavitt presiding: "Andrew Coyle, George Willey, Henry Engle, Lewis Fisher, Charles Brown, Andrew Brown, William Barnhouse, Gordon WestcoU, William Engle, Jacob Trimble, Samuel Marquis, William McCune, Joseph McCune, James McCune, Joshua Hillyer, Benton Thorle, Richard Burlingame, Samuel Cain, John Racey, William Norwood, Eobert Boggs, Richard McFarren, Thomas Kacey, Georse A. Eacey, William Campbell, Henry Campbell, Harrison Jones, Joel McFarren, Gt E. Gaddis, William Lowe, John Willey, James McKee, James Harkens, Mahlon Belford, Samuel McFarren." * Then Lieutenant-Colonel Eastman. Armed Resistance to the Authorities. 127 These were aiTaigned on indictment for obstructing process, and those of them named below plead guilty, and were fined and imprisoned: "Samuel McGennis, Benton Thorle, William McCune, John Willey, Jamea Harkins, William Lowe, Joel McFarren, Lewis Fisher, Mahlon Belford." In the cases of Samuel McFarren, John Wesley McFarren, Curtis "Willey, John Eacey, Alexander McBride, Benton McKee, TertuUus W. Brown, Andrew Coylc, Peter Eacey, and James McKee, indictments for conspiracy were found ; and Samuel McFarren, John Eacey, and Andrew Coyle, were convicted, sen- tenced, and fined five hundred dollars each. T. W. Brown made his escape, as did many others implicated, a number of them going to the territories. The Noble County Eepublican (newspaper) stated that, at a meeting held by the men engaged in the protection of the deserter, resolutions had been passed, declaring, 1st, that they were in favor of the Union as it was, and the Constitution as it is ; 2d, that they would oppose all arbitrary arrests on the pai"t of the Government; 3d, opposition to the enforcement of the conscription act; 4th, recommending the raising of money, by contribution, for the purchase of arms to enable them successfully to resist a draft, should another be ordered ; 5th, the assassination of an obnoxious person. How these brave words ended has been told. Quiet was restored in the county, and the liealthy influence of the punishments inflicted was soon mani- fest in the tone of the community. In speaking of Mr. Yallandigham's arrest, we have already mentioned the disturbances and incendiarism following it, which led to the proclamation of martial law in Montgomery County. The only remaining outbreak of importance was one in resistance to the enrollment for a draft in Holmes County, on the south-western verge of the Western Eeserve, in the following June. On the 5th, while the enrolling oflScer, Mr. E. W. Eobinson of Loudonville, was proceeding with his duty, he was attacked by some of the excited populace. Some stones were thrown, and he was told that if he ever returned on such work his life would be in danger. He repoi'ted the facts to Captain J. L. Drake, Provost-Marshal of the district, who promptly arrested four of the ringleaders. The alarm however spread quickly, and before he had conveyed them to prison he was encountered near the village of Napoleon, by a force reported at the time to number sixty or seventy men, armed with rifles and revolvers. They demanded the immediate release of the prisoners, and he was forced to comply. Then they proceeded to revile him as a secessionist himself, declared that he should never again visit their township in his oflSclal capacity, and even levelled their guns upon him, ordering him to kneel in the road and take the oath of allegiance ! Finally, however, with renewed warnings never to return, they suffered him to depart. These occurrences were reported to Colonel Parrott, then the Provost-Mar- shal General of the State, and to Brigadier-General Mason, in command at Columbus. Colonel Wallace, of the Fifteenth Oliio. was ordered to the scene 128 Ohio in the Wab. of disturbance, with a force made up of scraps of commands found at Camp Chase— a part of the Third Ohio, tlie Governor's Guards, Sharp-Shooters from Camp Dennison, twenty Squiri'cl Hunters from Wooster, and a section of Cap. tain Neil's Battery— in all about four hundred and twenty men. It was re- ported that they would find the malcontents in a regular fortified camp, with pickets, intrenchnients, and cannon. Governor Tod, anxious that bloodshed should be avoided if possible, prepared the following judicious proclamation: "Columbus, O., 16th June, 1863. "To the men who are now assembled in Holmes County for the purpose of using armed force in resisting the execution of the laws of the National Oovemment: " I have heard with pain and deep mortification of your unlawful assemblage, and as Gov- ernor of the State to which you owe allegiance, and as the friend of law and order, as well as the friend of yourselves and your families, I call upon you at once to disperse and return to your quiet homes. This order must be immediately complied ivith, or the consequences to yourselves will be destructive in the extreme. The Government, both of the State and Nation, must and shall be maintained. Do not indulge the belief for a moment that there is not a power at hand to compel obedience to what I now require of you. Time can not be given you for schemes or machinations of any kind whatever. I have felt it my duty to give you this timely warning; and having done my duty, I sincerely hope you will do yours. "DAVID TOD, Governor." This, General Mason was requested to have sent forward under a flag of truce, before firing upon any party he might meet. If the party should then offer to disperse he asked that they might be permitted to do so. If they re- fused, he continued, with the indiscreet language that sometimes got the better of him, "then show them no quarter ichatevtr."* On the moi'ning of the 17th Colonel Wallace landed with his command at Lake Station, on the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne, and Chicago Eailroad, twelve miles from Napoleon, where the malcontent camp was said to be located. Marching in that direction, he came upon the pickets about three miles south-east of the village, and drove them in. Then, throwing out skirmishers to the front, he advanced. A number of men stationed behind a rude stone breastwork de- livered a single volley as the skirmishers approached, and then fled to the woods. The command pursued, taking two or three prisoners, and wounding two.f No organized force, however, was encountered after the first volley from behind the stone breastwork. Squads of men scouted through the hills, under the gnidance of Union men of the neighborhood, and brought in six prisoners before evening. Meantime leading Peace Democrats wore striving to have all thought of resistance abandoned; and one of the rescued prisoners, J visiting the neighbor- ing village of Williamsburg that night to ask re-enforcements, met with a VC17 cold reception. Finally a committee of both parties was appointed to visit the camp and endeavor to adjust the diificaltj'-. Hon. D. P. Lcadbetter, ex-sheriff John French, Llewellyn Allison, and Colonel D. French represented the Demo- crats, and Piobert Long and Colonel Baker the Unionists. * Ex. Doc. 1863, part I, p. 297. tQeorge Butler and Brown, both shot through the thigh. JWm. Greiner. Aemed Resistance to. the Authokities. 129 On tho morning of the 18th they waited upon Colonel Wallace, and finally agi'eed to visit the insurgents and try to secure the surrender of the prisonei's. The Democratic members spent the day in visits to different squads of those in arms; and by evening returned with the promise that, the next day, such men as were wanted would be delivered. Next morning Mr. Leadbetter and Colonel French appeared with the four i-escucd prisoners, William Greiner, Jacob Stuber, Simeon Snow, and Peter Stuber. They promised to deliver the ringleaders in the rescue, Lorenzo Blanchard, Peter Kaufman, James Still, William H. Dyal, Emanuel Bach, Godfrey Steiner, and Henderson, and with this under- standing Colonel Wallace returned with his command to Columbus. It was reported in the newspapers at the time, and generally believed, that over a thousand men had been in the insurgent camp the previous Sunday, either as combatants or as auditors' to the inflammatory speeches that were then made. A considerable store of cooked provisions was found in houses in the neighborhood. They had four little howitzers; and, on Colonel French's admis- sion, there were nine hundred men fully armed. With the subsidence of this difficulty, the violent passions that had been engendered were turned into a new channel. The great Vallandigham and Brough political campaign absorbed the energies of all: and its result was such as to end all efforts at resistance to the authorities. Vol. 1.-^9. 130 Ohio in the Wak. CHAPTER XI. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE NATIONAL GUARD. WE have seen that before the outbreak of the war Governor Chase had sought to revive the despised militia system of Ohio; that the few mililia companies thus kept up were seized upon, when the guns of Sumter rang across the Land, for organizing the first regiments hurried to the field ; that thenceforward, in the stern presence of a war that called for volunteers by the hundred thousand, militia and musters fell into utter neglect. But the alarm along the border in the fall of 1862, and particularly the siege of Cincinnati, served to illustrate the mistake thus made. The State, while crowd- ing brigades of her sons to the front armed and equipped for battle, was bare and defenseless at home. A handful of bold riders could throw a gi-eat city into a panic ; a regiment or two could convulse the State, ring alarm-bells through- out her limits, and summon the crude, unorganized swarms of Squirrel Hunters to ready but unsatisfactory service in her defense. The lesson was not lost upon the people; and their representatives in the State Legislature — assembling a few months later in adjourned session — were made to understand that a satisfactory organization of the militia of the State, and the complete arming and equipment of a suflScient number of them for im- mediate service in such sudden emergencies, were popular demands. Governor Tod fully appreciated the general feeling, as well as the palpable necessity which suggested it. In his message to the Legislature, at the opening of the session of 1863, he said : " The necessity of a thorongh organization of the militia of the State, must now be apparent to all, and .your attention is earnestly invited to the subject. A plan, embracing my views and opinions on this important subjert, will be presented for the consideration of the military com- mittee of the House in a few days. I liave given the matter much consideration, and hope that my labors may prove of service to the committee." Throughout the session the committees continued to labor npon the subject. At last, after considerable j)artisan opposition, and only in the last hours of the session, a bill was passed "to organize and discipline the militia of Ohio." It was the basis of the organization that afterward enabled Governor Brough, at scarcely two days' notice, to throw to the front at the critical hour of the East- ern campaign, the magnificent re-enforcement of forty thousand Ohio National Guards. National Guard. 131 The bill kept in view throughout two objects : First, it was to secure the enrollment, organization, and, as far as might be, the drill of the entire military strength of the State, including every able-bodied man between the ages of eighteen and forty -five ; and, second, it was to provide for a force of volunteers raised from this militia, who should be armed, uniformed, and equipped, and should be instantly available at any sudden call for the defense of the State. These distinct classes were to be designated respectively the Ohio Militia and the Ohio Volunteer Militia. It was accordingly provided that the assessors should make an enrollment, and return the same to the county auditor, and proper penalties were imposed for any efforts to deceive the assessors or defeat the enrollment. The township trustees were to hear applications for exemption, divide their localities into company districts, and order elections for c6mpany officers, the returns of which should be made to the county sheriffs. The sheriffs should then organize the companies into regiments and order the election of regimental officers ; and the Governor was empowered to consolidate these regiments, or order the organiza- tion of new ones, as the good of the service should seem to require — while regi- mental officers could do the same as to companies. Thus the "Ohio Militia" was to be made up. The "Ohio Volunteer •Militia" was to be composed of such companies or batteries as the Governor should choose to accept; it was to be fully armed and equipped, and its members were to provide themselves with United States regu- lation uniforms; it was to muster on the last Saturday of each September, at the same time with the militia, and was, beside, to have not less than two addi- tional musters each year ; it was to be subject to the first call in case of invasion or of riot; it was to unite with the officers of the militia in the last two of the eight days' encampment for "(fficers' muster" for which the act provided. The volunteer companies were to draw two hundred dollars per year from the State military fund (batteries at the rate of one hundred dollars for every two guns), for the care of arms and incidental expenses; their members were to be held for five years, and at the end of that time they were to be exempt fronv further military duty of any kind in time of peace. The bill was long and complicated ; it was incumbered with much machin- ery for Courts of Inquiry, fines, elections of company, regimental, and even bri- gade commanders, transportation to officers' musters, payment of encampment expenses, and all manner of minutiae; but the above were its essential features. In organizing the militia under this law Governor Tod derived invaluable aid from his Adjutant-General. This officer* had been a devoted militia-man in the old peaceful times. His little field-service had not been brilliant, and, indeed, was then resting under weighty, though unjust, censure. But he was earnest, laborious, possessed of considerable system, familiar with the wants of the mili- tia service and capable of infinite attention to small things — peculiarly quali- fied, in fact, for the onerous task to which he was now called. •General Charles W. Hill. 132 Ohio in the Wak. lie at once undertook tlio enforcement of the new law. At the outset-it was found to be so cumbrous that the newspapers would not print it; and so complicated that, even after it was cii-culated in pamphlet form, tho^e who had most interest in it could scarcely unilcrstund its provisions. At last the Adju- tant-Gcneral had resort to public meetings. lie itinerated in the interest of the militia system throui,^h the State, held meetings and made speeches at ^JJarielta Dayton, Cleveland, Woostcr, ^Mansfield, Noi'wal'k, Elyria, JSTewark, ZancsviHa Lebanon, Cincinnati, Portsmouth, Ironton, Gallipolis, Pomeroy, London, Dela- ware, Urbana, Piqua, and Toledo. The Quartermaster-General assisted him at some of these places, and made speeches alone at some others. Finally addi- tional meetings were held on the fith and 7th of July, 1863, in Cincinnati. There was trouble in jjrocuring arms, and some slowness among the people in aidiii"' to get the sj'stem into operation, but by the end of the first week in July the returns of company elections were beginning to come in. Then came the JIdryan raid, suspending all work of this kind, and plunir- ing the State once more into the spasmodic effort of unorganized masses to op- pose on the instaTit an organized and swiftly-moving foe. The exhaustion which followed, and the necessary attention to ordinary business which had been neglected during the invasion, wrought still further delay. Then scarcely anj' arms could be secured for cavahy or artillery. Uni- forms were, however, obtained at less than Government rates,* and the orsan- izing companies took prompt advantage of this excellent arrangement. To the encampments and officers' musters the Adjutant-General was par- ticularly' attentive. lie succeeded in getting grounds, fuel, water, and the like necessaries free of exjiense to the State, by ^-onvincing the towns at which en- campments were to be held of the business advantages that would thus accrue. He had competent and experienced officers assigned to each, and at three he himself assumed personal command. The militia officers and the volunteer companies were kept at drill during the time prescribed by law, and the organ- ization was thus given shape and cohesion. As the result of these labors, he was able at the end of the year to report an organized militia of one hundred and sixty-seven thousand five hundred and seventy two men, and a volunteer militia, equipped and available for duty at any hour's call, forty-three thousand nine hundred and thirty strono-.f Governor Tod justly reported in his last message that the services of the Adjutant-General in this work could not be too highly commended. We shall have occasion to see how, within a few months, it was to jn-ove a thing of Na- tional significance; and we can not better conclude this too brief account of» great Uisk well accomplished, than in the words of pregnant advice which Gen- * Fatigue suit, cap, lined blouse, and trowsera, at seven dollars and twenty-one cents; and full-dress suit, with hat trimmed, at twelve doUara and seventy-two cents. t Of these, thirty-one thousand nine hundred and fifty-three were uniformed before the Ut of November, 1863, and thirty-two thousand one bundred and thirty-five bad been iu attendant at the fall encampments. Tbey bad voluntarily expended, for uniforms and other articles of outfit, up to that time, three bundred and thirty-four thousand, two hundred and four dollars and Na'tional Guard m eral HilJ gave, in turning over the Bubject to his successor, a wider application than he tlien imagined : They were to have " Keeping in mind the probabilities, or even possibilities, of having to call the troops for service before midsummer, it is recommended that all of the preparations be made early, and tliat the encampments commence in time to be completed by the first week In July. Every or- ganization will thus be brouglit into good working order, and ready for efficient service. If llbe State is menaced, or a raid or invasion corap?, its ability;' to put any requisite number of effective troops in the right positions at once, will be a mere question of railroad transportation, and if the year brings no such occasion for service, there will be the satisfaction of knowing that the State is ready." eighty-two cents. The Adjutant-General does not report the distribution of these volunteers among the several counties, but he gives the following enrollment of the militia in each county : COUNTIES. Adams Allen Ashland Ashtabula ... Athens Auglaize. ■'■ Belmont Brown........ Butler ^.; Carroll Champaign Clark Clermont .. Clinton Columbiana C-oshocton... Crawford ■-. Cuyahoga... Darke Defianpe ...... Delaware ... Erie Fairfield .... Fayette. Franklin .... Fulton Gallia Geauga Greene Guernsey.... Hamilton ... Hancock..... Hardin Harrison .... Henry Highland.... Hocking Holmes Huron Jackson Jefferson Knox Lake Lawrence .... Licking Number of EnroUiiiGnt. 3,336 3,356 3,049 4,231 2,574 2,644 4,095 3,861 5,993 2,126 3,769 4,102 4,416 2,991 4,605 3,T00 3,122 11,188 4,552 1,802 2,929 3,556 4,432 2,426 6,904 2,563 2,949 2,205 3,728 2,982 41,960 3,098 2,974 : 3,092 1,172 3,687 2,584 2,549 5,038 2,453 3,905 3,381 2,37S 2,965 5,009 COUNTIES. Logan Lorain Lucas , Madison Mahoning Marion^ Medina Meigs Mercer Miami Monroe ....i .'... Montgomery ....j^..., Morgan Morrow Muskingum Noble.: Ottaway Paulding Perry Pickaway Pike Portage Preble , Putnam Kichland Koss Sanddsky Scioto ■ Seneca Shell)y Stark Summit Trumbull .•. Tuscarawas Union Van Wert Vinton Warren Washington Wayne Williams ' Wood Wyandot Total Number of Enrollm't. 3,518 4,015 5,339 1,894 3,574 2,87.8 2,917 3,991 1,730. 4,485' 2,959 7,430 3,1.57 2,891 5,oS3 2,830 1,183. 788 2,289" 3,-561 1,572 3,77S 3,573 1,751 3,880, 4,620 3,296 3,116. 3,808 2,7i;i' 6,482 3,643 4,425 4,042 2,631' 1,516; 1,723 3,872 4,629. 5,140 2,659' 2,713 2,841 345,593 134 Ohio in the War. CHAPTER XII. THE MORGAN RAID THROUGH OHIO. LITTLE progress had been made in the organization of the State Militia, when, in July, 1863, there came another sudden and pressing demand for it. Rosecrans lay at Stone Eiver menacing Bragg at Tullahoma. Barnside was at Cincinnati organizing a force for the redemption of East Tennessee, which was already moved well down toward the confines of that land of stead- fast but sore-tried loj^alty. Bragg felt himself unable to confront Eosecrans; Buckner had in East Tennessee an inadequate force to confront Burnside. But the communications of both Eosecrans and Burnside ran through Kentucky, covered mostly by the troops (numbering perhaps ten thousand in all) under General Judah. If these communications could be threatened, this last force would at least be kept from re-enforcing Eosecrans or Burnside, and the advanco of one or both of these offifiers might be delayed. So reasoned Bragg, as, with anxious forebodings, he looked about the lowering horizon for aid in his ex- tremity. He had an oflScer who carried the reasoning to a bolder conclusion. If, after a raid through Kentucky, which should endanger the communications and fully occupy General Judah, he could cross the Border, and carry terror to the peaceful homes of Indiana and Ohio, he might create such a panic as should delay the now troops about to be sent to Eosecrans, and derange the plans of the campaign. There was no adequate force, he argued, in Indiana or Ohio to oppose him ; he could brush aside the local militia like house-flies, and outride any cavalry that should be sent in pursuit; while in his career he would io- evitably draw the whole Union force in Kentucky after him, thus diminishing the pressure upon Bragg and delaying the attack upon East Tennessee. This was John Morgan's plan. Bragg did not approve it. He ordered Morgan to make a raid into Ken- tucky; gave him carte blanche to go wherever ho chose in that State; and par- ticularly urged upon him to attempt the capture of Louisville; but forbade the crossing of the Ohio. Then ho turned to the perils with which Eosecrans's masterlj' strategy was environing hini. Morgan prepared at once to execute his orders ; but at the same time be ]36 Ohio in the Wak. The next day, at the crossing of Green Eiver, he came upon Colonel Moore with a Michigan regiment, whom ho vainly summoned to surrender and vainly strove to dislodge. The fight was severe for the little time it lasted; and Mor- gan, who had no time to spare, drew off, found another crossing, and pushed oa through Campbelisville to Lebanon. Here came the last opportunity to stop him. Three regiments held the position, but two of then\ were at some little distance from the town. Falling upon the one in the town he overwhelmed it before the others could get up, left them hopelessly in his rear, and double- quicked his prisoners eight miles northward to Springfield before he could stop long enough to parole them.* Then turning north-westward, with his foos far behind him, he marched straight for Brandenburg, on the Ohio Eivor some sixty miles below Louisville. A couple of companies were -sent forward to cap- ture boats for the crossing; others were detached to cross below and effect a diversion ; and still others were sent toward Crab Orchard to distract the atten- tion of the Union commanders. He tapped the telcgra.ph wires, thereby finding that he was expected at Louisville and that the force there was too stroug for him ; captured a train from Nashville within thirty miles of Louisville; picked up squads of prisoners here and there, and paroled them. By ten o'clock on the morning of the 8th his horsemen stood on the banks of the Ohio. They had crossed Kentuckj^ in five days. When the advance companies, sent forward to secure boats, entered Bran- denbui-g, they took care to make as little confusion as possible. Presently the Henderspn and Louisville packet, the J. J. McCoombs, came steaming up the ri\'er, and landed as usual at the wharfboat. As it made fast its lines, thirlj* or forty of "Morgan's men" quietly walked on board and took possession. Soon afterward the Alice Dean, a fine boat running in the Memphis and Cincin- nati trade, came around the bond. As she gave no sign of landing, they steamed out to meet her, and before captain or crew could comprehend the matter, the Alice Dean was likewise transferred to the Confederate service. When Morgan rode into town, a few hours later, the boats were ready for his crossing. Indiana had just driven out a previous invader — Captain Hincs, of Mor- gan's command, who, with a small force, had crossed over ''to stir up the Cop- perheads," as the Eebel accounts pleasantly express it. Finding the country too hot for him, he had retired, after doing considerable damage; and in Bran- denburg ho was now awaiting his chief. Preparations were at once made for crossing over. But the men crowding down incautiouslj' to the river bank, revealed their presence to the militia on the Indiana side, whom Captain Hines's recent performance had made unwont- edly watchful. They at once opened a sharp fusillade across the stream with musketry and with an old cannon, which they had mounted on wagon wheels. Morgan speedily silenced this fire by bringing up his Parrott rifles; then hastily dismounted two of his regiments and sent them across. The militia retreated. *Some liorrible barbarities to one or two of these prisoners were charged against him in Ike newspapers of the day. Morgan Raid. 137 and the two Eebel regiments pursued. Just then a little tin-clad, the Spring- field, whicli Commander Leroy Pitch had dispatched from New Albany on the first news of sometliing wrong down the river, came steaming toward the scene of action. "Suddenly checking her way," writes the Eebel historian of the raid,* "she tossed her snub nose defiantly, like an angry beauty of tlie coal- pit-*. sidled a little toward the town, and commenced to scold. A bluish-white funnel-shaped cloud spouted out from her left-hand bow, and a shot flew at the town, and then changing front forward she snapped a shell at the men on the other side. I wish I were sufficiently master of nautical phraseology to do justice to this little vixen's style of fighting; but she was so unlike a horse, or even a piece of light artillerj-, that I can not venture to attempl it." He adds that the Eebelregimenls on the Indiana side found shelter, and that thus the gunboat fire proved wholly without effect. After a little Morgan trained his Parrotts upon her; and the inequality in the range of the guns was such that she speedily turned up the river again. The situation had seemed sufficiently dangerous. Two regiments were isolated on the Indiana side; the gunboat was between them and their main body; while every hour of delay brought Hobson nearer on the Kentucky side, and speeded the mustering of the Indiana militia. But the moment the gunboat turned- up the river all danger, for the present, was past. Morgan rapidly ci'ossed the rest of bis command, burned the boats behind him, scattered the militia, and rode out into Indiana. There was yet time to make a march of six miles before nightfall. % The task now before Morgan was a simple one, and for several daj's could not be other than an easy one. His distinctly-formed plan was to march through Southern Indiana and Ohio, avoiding large towns and large bodies of militia, spreading alarm through the country, making all the noise he could, and disappearing again across the upper fords of the Ohio before the organizations of militia could get such shape and consistency as to be able to make head against him. For some days at least he need expect no adequate resistance; and while the bewilderment as to his purposes and uncertainty as to the direction he was taking should paralyze the gathering militia, he meant to place many a long mile between them and his hard-riders. Spreading, therefore, all manner of reports as to his purposes, and assuring the most that he meant to penetrate to the heart of the State and laj^ Indianapolis in ashes, he turned the heads of his horses up the river toward Cincinnati, scattered the militia with the charges of his advance brigade, burnt bridges and cut telegraph wires right and left, marched twenty-one hours out of the twenty-four, and rarely made less than fifty or sixty miles a day. His movement had at first attracted Jittle attention. The North was used to having Kentucky in a panic about invasion from John Morgan, and had come to look upon it mainly as a suggestion of a few more blooded horses from the "Blue Grass" that were to be speedily impressed into the Eebel service. Get- • Duke's History Morgan's Cavalry, p. 433. 138 Ohio in the Wae. tysburg had just been fought; Vicksburg had just fallen — what were John Morgan and his horse-thieves? Let Kentucky guard her own stables against her own outlaws! Presently he came nearer, and Louisville fell into a panic. Martial law was proclaimed; business was suspended; evcrj^ preparation for defense was hastened. Still few thought of danger beyond the river; and the most, remem- bering the siege of Cincinnati, were disposed to regard as very humorous the ditching and the drill by the terrified people of the Kentucky metropolis. Then came the crossing. The Governor of Indiana straightway proclaimed martial law, and called out the Legion. General Burnside was full of wise plans for "bao-ging" the invader, of which the newspapers gave mysterious hints. Thoroughly trustworthy gentlemen hastened with their "reliable reports" of the Eebel strength. They had stood on the wharfboat and kept tally as the cav- alrj- crossed ; and there was not a man less than five thousand of them! Others had talked with them, and been confidentially assured that they were going np to Indianapolis to burn the State House. Others, on the same veracious authority, 'were us.sured that they'were heading for New Albany and Jeffersonville to burn Government stores. The militia everywhere were sure that it was their duty 'to gather in their own towns and keep Morgan off; and, in the main, he saved them the trouble by riding around. Hobson came lumberingf along in the rear- riding his best, but finding it hard to keep the trail, harder to procure fresh horses, since of these Morgan made a clean sweep as he went, and impossible to narrow the distance between them to less than twenty -four hours. Still the true purpose of the movement was not divined — its very audacity was its protection. General Burnside concluded that Hobson was pressing the invaders so hard, forsooth, that they must swim their horses across the Ohio below Madison, to escape, and his disi^ositions for intercepting them proceeded upon that theory. The Louisville packets were warned not to leave Cincinnati lest Morgan should bring them to with his artillery, and force them to ferry him back into Kentucky. Efforts were made to raise regiments to aid the Indianians — if only to reciprocate the favor they had shown when Cincinnati was under siege — but the people were tired of such alarms, and could not be induced to believe in the danger. By Sunday,* three days after Morgan's entry upon Northern soil, the author- ities had advanced their theory of his plans to correspond with the news of his movements. They now thought he would swim the Ohio a little below Cincin- nati, at or near Aurora. But the citizens were more apprehensive. They began to talk about "a sudden dash into thp city." The Mayor requested that busi- ness be suspended, and that the citizens assemble in their respective wards for defense. Finally General Burnside came to the same view, proclaimed martial laAv, and ordered the suspension of business. Navigation was practically stopped, and gunboats scoured the river banks to remove all scows and flatboats which might aid Morgan in his escape to the Kentucky shore. Later in the evening apprehensions that, after all, Morgan might not be so • 12th July. Morgan Raid. 139 anxious to escape, prevailed. Governor Tod was among the earliest to recog- nize the danger; and while there was still time to secure insertion in the news- papers of Monday morning, he telegraphed to the press a proclamation calling out the militia: "C!oi.trMBT78, July 12, 1863. "To THE Press of Cincinnati: " Whebeas, This State is in imminent danger of invasion by an armed force, now, therefore, to prevent the same, I, David Tod, Governor of the State of Ohio, and Commander-in-Chief of the militia force thereof, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of said State, do hereby call into active service that portion of the militia force wliich has been organized into companies within the counties of Hamilton, Butler, Montgomery, Clermont, Brown, Clinton, Warren, Greene, Fayette, Ross, Monroe, Washington, Morgan, Noble, Athens, Meigs, Hcioto, Jackson, Adams, Vinton, Hocking, Lawrence, Pickaway, Franklin, Madison, Fairfield, Clark, Preble, Pike, Gallia, Highland, and Perry. I do hereby further order all sucli forces residing within the counties of Hamilton, Butler, and Clermont, to report forthwith to Major-General A. E. Burnside, at. his head-quartgrs in the city of Cincinnati, who is hereby au- thorized and required to cause said forces to be organized into battalions or regiments, and appoint all necessary officers therefor. And it is further ordered that all such forces residing In the coun- ties of Montgomery, Warren, Clinton, Fayette, Ross, Highland, and Boone, report forthwith to Colonel Neff, the military commander at Camp Dennison, who is hereby authorized to organize said forces into battalions or regiments, and appoint, temporarily, officers therefor ; and it is further ordered, that of all such forces residing in the counties of Franklin, Madison, Clark, Greene, Pickaway, and Fairfield, report forthwith at Camp Cliase, to Brigadier-General John S. Mason, who is hereby authorized to organize said forces into battalions or regiments, and appoint, tem- porarily, officers therefor ; it is further ordered that ^11 of such forces residing in the counties of Washington, Monroe, Noble, Meigs, Morgan, Perry, Hocking, and Athens, report forthwith -to Colonel William B. Putnam at Camp Marietta, who is hereby authorized to organize said forces into battalions or regiments, and appoint, temporarily, officers therefor. "DAVID TOD, Governor." It was high time. Kot even yet had the authorities begun to comprehend the tremendous energy with which Morgan was driving straight to his' goal. While the people of Cincinnati were reading this proclamation, and considering ■whether or not they should put up the shutters on their store-windows,* Morgan was starting out in the gray dawn from Summansville, for the suburbs of Cin- cinnati. Long before the rural population within fifty miles of the city had read the proclamation calling them to arms he was at Harrison.f "Here," pleasantly explains his historian,! "General Morgan began to maneuver for the benefit of the commanding oflScer at Cincinnati. He took it for granted that there was a strong force of regular troops in Cincinnati. Burn- side had them not far off, and General Morgan supposed that they would of course be brought there. If we could get past Cincinnati safely the danger of the expedition, he thought, would be more than half over. Here he expected to be confronted by the concentrated forces of Judah and Burnside, and he an- ticipated great difficulty in eluding or cutting his way through them. Once safely through this peril, his escape would be certain, unless the river remained •Many business men wholly disobeyed the orders, and kept their stores or shops open through the day. tHe reached Harrison at one P. M. on this same Monday, 13th July. t Duke's History "Morgan's Cavalry," pp. 439, 440. 140 OriTO IN. THE War. so h\ii;\\ that tlie transports could carry troops to intercept liim at the upper cnissiiiKS."— Unless, indeed! "... Ilis object therefore, entertaining these views, and believing that the great effort to capture him would be made as he crossed the Hamilton and Dayton Eailroad, was to deceive tlie enemy as to the exact i)oint where he would cross this road, and denude that point as much as possihle of troops. He sent detachments in various directions, seeking however to create the impression that he was marching to Hamilton." This was wise and prudent action in the audacious Rebel commander; hat, well as he generally read the purposes of his antagonists, he here made one mis- take. He supposed that he was to be confronted by military men, acting on military principles. As it was, he deceived everybody. The Hamilton people telegraphed in "•reat alarm that Morijan was marching on their town. A fire was seen burning at Venice, and straightway they threw out pickets to guard the main roads in that direction and watch for Jlorgan's coming. Harrison sent in word of the pass;i<;e of the Rebel cavahy through that place at one o'clock, and of the belief that they were going to Hamilton. Wise deputy sheriffs, who had been cap- tured by Morgan and paroled, hastened to tell that the Rebel chief had con- versed with them very freely; had shown no hesitation in speaking of his plans, and had assured them he was going to Hamilton. All this was retailed at the head-quarters, on the streets, in the newspaper offices. That night, while the much-enduring printers were putting such stories in type, John Morgan's entire command, now reduced to a strength of bare two tliousand,* was marching through the suburbs of this city of a quarter of a million inhabitants, within reach of troops enough to eat them up, absolutely unopposed, almost without meeting a solitarj- picket, or receiving a hostile shot! "In this night-march around Cincinnati," writes again the historian of Moi'gan's cavalry ,t "we met with the greatest difficulty in keeping the column together. The guides were all in front with General ilmuan, who rode at the head of the second brigade, then marching in advance. This brigade had, con- sequently, no trouble. But the first brigade was embarrassed bej'ond measure. Cluke's regiment was marching in the rear of the second, and if it had kept closed up we would have had no trouble, for the entire column would have been directed lij', the guides. But this regiment, although composed of superb ma- terial and unsurpassed in fighting qualities, had from the period of its organiza- tion, been under lax and careless discipline, and the effect of it was now observ- able. The rear companies straggled, halted, delayed the first brigade — for if was impossible to ascertain immediatelj- whether the halt was that of the brigade in advance or only of these stragglers — and when forced. to move on they would go off at a gallop. A great gap would be thus opened between the rear of our brigade and the advance of the other; and wo, who were behind, were forced to grope our way as we best could. When we would come to one of the many *Duke says less than two thousand; and from what we now know of the extent to whicii straggling and desertion had gone in their ranks, this seems probable. Tlbld, p. 443. Morgan Raid, 141 junctions of roads which occur in the suhnrbs of a large city, we would be com- pelled to consult all sorts of indications in order to hit upon the right road. The night was intensely dark, and we would set on fire large bundles of paper or splinters of wood to afford a light. The horses' tracks on roads so' much traveled would give us no clue to the route which the other brigade had taken at such points; but we could trace it by noticing the direction in which the dust 'settled' or floated. . . . We could also trace the column by the slaver dropped from the horses' mouths. It was a terrible, trying march. Strong men fell out of their saddles, and at every halt the officers were compelled to move continuallj- about in their respective companies, and pull and haul the men, who would drop asleep in the road — it was the only way to keep them awake. Quite a number crept oif into the /fields and slept until they were awakened by the enemy. ... At length day appeared, just as we reached the last point where we had to anticipate danger. We had passed through Glendale and across all of the principal suburban roads, and were near the Little Miami Railroad. Those who have marched much at night will remember that the fresh air of morning almost invariably has a cheering effect upon the tired and drowsy, and awakens and invigorates them. It had this effect upon our men on this occasion^ and relieved us also from the necessity of groping our way. We crossed the railroad without opposition, and halted to feed the horses in sight of Camp Dennison. After a short rest here and a picket skirmish, we resumed our march, burning in this neighborhood a park of Government wagons. That evening at four o'cloalc we were at Williamsburg, twenty-eight miles east of Cincinnati, having marched, since leaving Summansville in Indiana, in a period of about thirty-five hours, more than ninety miles — the greatest march that even Morgan had ever made. Feeling comparatively safe here he per- mitted the division to go into camp and remain during the niglit." From this picture, ^by a participant of the maVch of two thousand Rebel cav- alry unopposed through the suburbs of Cinoinnati, we turn to the heart of the cit3'. Through the day there had been a little excitement and some drilling. Part of the business houses were closed, but the attendance at the ward meet- ings was very meager. General Cox, under directions from General Burnside, had divided the city and county into militia districts, assigned commanders to each, and ordered the completion of the organizations.* The district command- * The following are the orders in question : "Head-Quaetebs, District op Ohio, ■> " Cineinnati, July 13, 1863. / " Special Orders No. — , " I. For the more perfect organization of militia of the city of Cincinnati, the city is divided into four di3trict.i, as follows : First District, consisting of the First, Third, Fourth, and Seven- teenth Wards, under command of Brigadier-Greneral S. D. Sturgis, head-quarters, Broadway Hotel. Second District, consisting of Second, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Wards, under com- mand of Major Malcom McDowell, head-quarters, Burnet House. Third District, consisting of Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Wards, under command of Brigadier-General Jacob Ara- men, head -quarters. Orphan Asylum. Fourth District, consisting of the Eighth, Twelfth, Fif- teenth, and Sixteenth Wards, under command of Colonel Granville Moody, head-quarters, Fin- ley Methodist Episcopal Chapel, on Clinton, near Cutter Street. 142 Ohio in the War. ants had ordered the militia to — "parade to-morrow."* By " to-morrow," as we have seen, John Morgan, after riding through the suburbs, was twenty-eight miles away I Toward midnight glimmerings of how it was being overreached began to dawn upon the official mind, as may be seen from the latest bulletins from head- quarters, which the newspapers were permitted to publish. "While the printers were busy with them, Morgan was marching his straggling, exhausted, scat- tered column through the suburbs ; about the time city readers were glancing over them, he was feeding his horses and driving off the pickets at Camp Dennison : "11.30 P.M. A courier arrived last evening at General Burnside's head-quarters, having left Cheviot at half past eight P. M., with information for the General. Cheviot is only seven miles from the city. He states that about five hundred of Morgan's men had crossed the river " II. The militia of Covington will report to Colonel Lucy, commandant of that post. Those of Newport will report to Colonel Mundy. " III. The independent volunteer companies will report to Colonel Stanley Matthews, head- quarters at Walnut Street House. "IV. The officers of the militia companies are ordered to parade their companies forthwith, and to report to the commandants of their districts, severally named above. In districts where officers have not been elected, they will be temporarily appointed by the commandants of the districts. " V. After the militia have been paraded, and their company organization so completed that they can be rapidly and systematically called into service, details will be made of such compa- nies, etc., as may be needed for immediate use, and the remainder will be allowed to go to their homes, subject to future calls. It is, therefore, of advantage to the citizens that the primary or- ganization be completed with the greatest speed. "By command of Brigadier-General J. D. Cox. " G. M. BASCOM, Assistant Adjutant-General." Upon the arrival of the Military Committee they were requested to district the county, as had been done for the city, and to appoint commanders, and the following was the result : " Head-Quasters, District of Ohio,i "Cincinnati, July 13, 1863. J "General Orders No. — . "Hamilton County, beyond the limits of the city, will be divided into Military Districts as follows, and commandants of militia companies will report to the following-named officers: " 1st. Millcreek Township, report to General J. H. Bates, city. "2d. Anderson, Columbia, and Spencer Townships, report to James Peal, Pleasant Eidge. "3d. Sycamore and Symmes Townships, report to C. Constable, Montgomery. "4th. Springfield and Townships, report to Henry Gulick, Bevis P. O. "5th. Crosby, Harrison, Miami, and Whitewater Townships, report to W. F. Converse, Harrison. ' " 6th. Delhi, Storrs, and Green Townships, report to Major Peter Zinn, DelhL " The above-named officers will immediately assume command and establish their head- quarters. " By order of Brigadier-General Cox. "J. NEWTON Mcelroy, " Lieutenant-Colonel and Acting Assistant Inspector-General, District of Ohio." *"The Enrolled Ohio State regular militia of the First District of the City of Cincinnati will parade to-morrow, July 14, 1803, at eight o'clock A. M., in their respective sub-districto. All who fail to comply with the above will be considered as deserters, and treated accordingly." From order of General Sturgis, commandant of First District. MoKGAN Raid. 143 at Miamitown, and attacked our pickets, killing or capturing one of them. Morgan's main force, gaid to be three thousand strong, was then crossing the river. A portion of the Bebel force had been up to New Haven, and another had gone to New Baltimore and partially destroyed both of those places. The light of the burning towns was seen by our men. When the courier left, Morgan was moving up, it was repoi-ted, to attack our advance. " 1 A. M. A courier has just arrived at head-quarters from Colerain, with dispatches for G^cneral Burnside. He reports that the enemy, supposed to be two thousand five hundred strong, with six pieces of ai-tillery, crossed the Colerain Pike at dark at Bevis, going toward New Bur- lington, or to Cincinnati and Hamilton Pike, in direction of Springdale. " 1.30 A. M. A dispatch from Jones's Station states that the enemy are now encamped be- tween Venice and New Baltimore. "2 A. M. Another dispatch says the enemy are coming in, or a squad of them, from New Baltimore toward Glendale, for the supposed purpose of destroying a bridge over the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Bailroad near Glendale. " 2 A. M. A dispatch from Hamilton says it is believed that the main portion of Morgan's force is moving in that direction going east. At this writing — quarter past two A. M. — it is the impression that Morgan's main force is going east, while he has sent squads to burn bridges on the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Bailroad, and over the Miami Biver, but he may turn and come down this way on some of the roads leading through Walnut Hills or Mount Auburn."* The next day, with the revelation that Morgan was gone, began the gath- ering of the militia.f Some hurried to Camp Chase, to be there held for the protection of the Capital, or thence thrown toward South-eastern Ohio, on his front. Others assembled at Camp Dennison, to be hurried by rail after him. All over the Southern part of the State was a hiasty mustering and crowding upon extra trains, and rush to the points of danger. Hobson, who, in spite of Morgan's tremendous marching, was now onlj' a few hours behind, pressed so hard upon his trail that the flying band had little time for the burning of rail- road bridges, or, indeed, for aught but the impressment of fresh horses. Judah, with his troops, was dispatched by boats to gain the front of the galloping col- umn »nd head it off from the river. Meantime the excitement and apprehension in all the towns and villages within thirty' or forty miles of Morgan's line of march was unprecedented in the history of the State. Thrifty farmers drove off their horses and cattle to tlie woods. Thrifty housewives buried their silver spoons. At least one terri- fied matron, in a pleasant inland town forty miles from the Eebel route, in her husband's absence, resolved to protect the family carriage-horse at all hazards, and knowing no safer plan, led him into the house and stabled him in the par- lor, locking and bolting doors and windows, whence the noise of his dismal tramping on the resounding floor sounded, through the live-long night, like dis- tant peals of artillery, and kept half the citizens awake and watching for Mor- gan's entrance. There was, indeed, sufficient cause for considering property insecure any- where within reach of the invaders. Horses and food, of course, thej"^ took wherever and whenever they wanted them ; our awn raiding parties generally • Squads of Morgan's men passed from Lockland, through Sharpsburg and Montgomery, and even so close to the city as Duck Creek, two miles from the corporation line, stealing all the fine borMsthey could lay their hands upon. t Preble County, in the front here, as at the siege of Cincinnati, had sent down a. company or two the night before. 144 Ohio in the War. did llio same. But tlie mania Ibi- plunder which befel this eoniniaiid and made its lino of march look like a procession of peddlers, was something beyond all ordinarj' cavalry plunderin;;. We need look for no other or stronger words, in describing it, than the second in command has himself chosen to use. "The disposition for wholesale plunder," he i'rankly admits, "exceeded anything that anj' of us had ever seen before. The men seemed actuated by a desire to pay off, in the enemy's country, all scores that the Union army had chalked up in the South. The great cause for apprehension, which our situation might have inspired, seemed only to make them reckless. Calico was the staple article of appropriation. Each man (who could get one) tied a bolt of it to his saddle, only to throw it away and get a fresh one at the first opportunity. They did not pillage with any sort of method or reason ; it seemed to be a mania, sense- less and purposeless. One man carried a bird-cage, with three canaries in it, for two days. Another rode with a chafing-dish, which looked like a small me- tallic coUin, on the pommel of his saddle till an officer forced him to throw it awaj-. Although the weather was intensely warm, another slung seven pairs of skates around his neck, and chuckled over the acquisition. I saw very few ar- ticles of real value taken ; they pillaged like boj-s robbing an orchard. I would not have believed that such a passion could have been developed so ludicrously among anj- bodj- of civilized men. At Piketon, Ohio, some days later, one man broke through the guard posted at a store, ruslicd in, trembling with excitement and avarice, and filled his pockets with horn buttons. They would, with few ex- ceptions, throw away their plunder after a while, like children tired of their toys."* Some movements of our own were, after their different fashion, scarcely loss ridiculous. Some militia from Camp Dennison, for example, marched after Morgan till near Batavia, when they gravely halted and began felling trees across the road to — check him in case he should decide to come back over the route he had just traveled I A worthj- militia officer telegraphed to Governor Tod Morgan's exact position, and assured him that the Rebel forces numbered precisely four thousand seven hundred and M\y men ! Burnside himself tele- graphed that it -was now definitely ascertained that Morgan had about four thousand men. At Chillicothe they mistook some of their own militia forEebel scouts and, bj' way of protection, burned a bridge acro.ss a stream always ford- able. Governor Tod felt sure that only the heavy concentration of militia at Camp Chase had kept Morgan from seizing Columbus and plundering the State treasiny. Several days after the bulk of the invading force had been captured, the Governor gravely- wrote to a militia officer at Cleveland, whom he was ex- horting to renewed vigilance, "1 announce to you that Morgan may yet reach the lake shore 1 " f But if there was an error in the zeal displayed, it was on the safe side. Over tilly thousand Ohio militia actually took the field against the sore pressiSd, fleeing band. I jSot half of them, however, at any time got within three-scoifl miles of Morgan. * Duke's History of Morgan's Cavalry, pp. ■436, 437. t Ex. Doc., 1863, part I, p. 230. t Adjutant-General's Eeport for 1863, p. 82. Morgan Raid. 145 That officer was meantime intent neither upon the lake shore nor yet upon the treasury vaults at Columbus, but, entirely satisfied with the commotion he had created, was doing his best to get out of the State. He came very near doing it. On the morning of the 14th of July he was stopping to feed his horses in sight of Camp Dennison. That evening he encamped at "Williamsburg, twenty- eight miles east of Cincinnati. Then marching through Washington C. H., Fiketon (with Colonel Richard Morgan going through Georgetown), Jackson, Vinton, Berlin, Pomeroy, and Chester, he reached the ford at Buffington Island on the evening of the 18th. But for his luckless delay for a few hours at Ches- ter, it would seem that he might have escaped. Until he reached Pomeroy he encountered comparatively little resistance. At Camp Dennison there was a little skirmish, in which a Eebel Lieutenant and several privates were captured ; but Lieutenant-Colonel H'eff, th^ commandant, wisely limited his efforts to the protection of the bridge and camp. A train of the Little Miami Road was thrown off the track. At Berlin there was a skir- mish with the militia under Colonel Runkle. Small militia skirmishes were constantly occurring, the citizen -soldiery hanging on the flanks of the flying in- vaders, wounding two or three men every day, and occasionallj'- killing one. At last the daring little column approached its goal. All the troops in Ken- tucky had been evaded and left behind. All the militia in Indiana had been dashed aside or outstripped. The fifty thousand militia in Ohio had failed to turn it from its predettermined path. Within precisely fifteen days from the morning it had crossed the Cumberland — nine days from its crossing into Indi- ana — it stood once more on the banks of the Ohio. A few hours more of day- light and it would be safely across in the midst again of a population to which it might look for sympathy, if not for aid. But the circle of the hunt was nan-owing. Judah, with his fresh cavalry, was up, and was marching out from the river against Morgan. Hobson was hard on his rear. Colonel Runkle, commanding a division of militia, was north of him. And at last the local militia in advance of him were beginning to fell trees and tear up bridges to obstruct his progress. Near Pomeroy they made a stand. For four or five miles his road ran through a ravine, with occasional in- tersections from hill roads. At all these cross-roads he found the militia posted; and from the hills above him they made his passage through the ravine a per- fect running of the gauntlet. On front, flank, and rear the militia pressed; and, as Morgan's first subordinate ruefully expresses it, '' closed eagerly upon our track." In such plight he passed through the ravine, and, shaking clear of his pursuers for a little, pressed on to Chester, where he arrived about one o'clock in the afternoon.* Here he made the first serious military mistake that had marked iiis course on Northern soil. He was within a few hours' ride of the ford at which he hoped to cross ; and the skirmishing about Pomeroy should have given him am- • 18th July. Vol. I.— 10. 146 Ohio in the Wae. pie admonition of the necessity for haste. But he had been advancing through the ravine at a gallop. He halted now to breathe his horses, and to hunt a guide. The hour and a half thus lost went far toward deciding his ftite. When his column was well closed up and his guide was found, he moved forward. It was eight o'clock befbrfe he reached Portland, the little village on the bank of the Ohio nearly opposite Buffington Island. JSTight had fallen— a " night of solid darkness," as the Rebel officers declared. The entrance to the ford was guarded by a little earthwork, manned by only two or three hundred inftintry. This alone stood between him and an easy passage to Virginia. But his evil genius was upon him. He had lost an hour and a half at Chester in the afternoon — the most precious hour and a half since his horse's feet touched Northern soil ; and he now decided to waste the night. In the hurried council with his exhausted officers it was admitted on all hands that Judah had ari^ved — that some of his troops had probably given force to the skirmishing near Pomeroj' — that they v.-ould certainly be at Buffington by morning, and that gunboats would accompany them.* But his men were in bad condition, and he feared to trust them in a night attack upon a fortified position which he had not reconnoitered. The fear was fatal. Even yet, by abandoning his wagon-train and his wounded, he might have reached unguarded fords a little higher up. This, too, was mentioned by his officers. He would save all, he promptlj' replied, or lose all together. And so he gave mortgages to fate. By morning Judah was up. At daybreak Duke advanced with a couple of Rebel regiments to storm the earthwork, but found it abandoned. He was rap- idly- proceeding to make the dispositions for crossing when Judah's advance struck him. At first he repulsed it and took a number of prisoners. f the Ad- jutant-General of Judah's staff among them. Morgan then ordered him to hold the force on his front in check. He was not able to return to his com- mand till it had been broken and thrown into full retreat before an impetuons charge of Judah's cavahy, headed by Lieutenant O'Neil, of the Fifth Indiana. He succeeded in rallying them and re-forming his line. But now, advancing up the Chester and Pomeroy road, came the gallant cavalry that over three States had been galloping on their track — the three thousand of Hobson's com- mand — who for now two weeks had been only a day, a forenoon, an hour be- hind them. As Hobson's guidons fluttered out in the little vallej- by the river bank where they fought, every man of that band that had so long defied a hundred thousand knew that the contest was over. They were almost out of ammuni- tion, exhausted, and scarcely two thousand strong; against them were Hob- son's three thousand and Judah's still larger force. To complete the overwhelm- ing odds that, in spite of their efforts, had at last been concentrated upon them, the tin-clad gunboats steamed up and opened fire. Morgan comprehended the situation as fast as the hard-riding troopers, * Duke's History Morgan's Cav., p. 447. t Forty or fifty, he claims. M.OKGAN Raid. 147 who, still clinging to their bolts of calico, were already beginning to gallop toward the rear. He at once essayed to extricate his trains, and then to with- draw his regiments by cdlumn of fours from right of companies, keeping up, meanwhile, as sturdy resistance as he might. For some distance the with- drawal was made in tolerable order ; then, under a charge of a Michigan cav- alry regiment, everything was broken, and the retreat became a rout. Morgan, with not quite twelve hundred men, escaped. His brother, with Colonels Duke, Ward, Huffman, and about seven hundred men, were taken prisoners. This was, the battle of Buffington Island. It was brief and decisive. But for his two grave mistakes of the night before, Morgan might have avoided it and escaped. Yet it can not be said that he yielded to the blow that insured his fate without spirited resistance, and a courage and tenacity worthy of a better cause. Our superiority in forces was overwhelming and our loss trifling.* The prisoners were at once sent down the river to Cincinnati, on the trans- ports which had brought up some of their pursuers, in charge of Captain Day, of General Judah's staff,f of whose " manly and soldierly courtesy " they made grateful mention, albeit not much given to praising the treatment they received at the North. The troops, with little rest, pushed on after Morgan and the fugitive twelve hundred. And now began the dreariest experience of the Eobel chief Twenty miles above Buffington he struck the river again., got three hundred of his command across, and was himself midway in the stream, when the approaching gunboats checked th-e passage. Eeturning to the nine hundred still on the Ohio side, he once more renewed the hurried flight. His men were worn down and exhausted by long-continued and .enormous work; they were demoralized by pillage, dis- couraged by the shattering of their command, weakened most of all by their loss of faith in themselves and their commander, surrounded by a multitude of, foes, harassed on every hand, intercepted at every loophole of escape, hunted like game night and day, driven hither and thither in their vain efforts to double on their remorseless pursuei-s. It was the early type and token of the similar fate, under pursuit of which the great arraj' of the Confederacy was to fade out; and no other words are needed to finish the story we have now to tell than those with which the historian of the Array of the Potomac decribes the tragic flight to Appomattox C. H. : "Dark divisions, sinking in the woods for a few hours' repose, would hear suddenly the boom of hostile guns and the clatter of the troops of the ubiquitous cavalry, and they had to be up and hasten off. Thus pressed on all sides, driven like sheep before prowling • Among the few killed, however, waa Major Daniel McCook, a patriotic old man, for whose fate there was very general regret. He was not in the service, but had accompanied tlie cavalry at a volunteer. He was accorded a military funeral at Cincinnati, which was largely attended. He waa the father of Eobert L., Alexander M., and George W. McCook, besides several other eons, nearly all of whom, with notable unanimity, had been in the service from the outbreak of the war, and most of whom had risen to high rank. t Afterward on the staff of Governor Cox, at Columbus. 148 Ohio in the Wab. wolves, amid hunger, fatigue, and sleeplessness, continuing day after day, they fared toward the rising sun: '"Such resting found the soles of unblest feet.'"* Yet, to the very last, the energy this daring cavalryman displayed was such as to extort our admiration. From the jaws of disaster he drew out the rem- nants of his command at BuflSngton. When foiled in the attempted crossing above, he headed for the Muskingum. Foiled here by the militia under Eunkle, lie doubled on his track and turned again toward Blennerhassett Island. The clouds of dust that marked his track betrayed the movement, and on three sides the pursuers closed in upon him. "While they slept, in peaceful expectation of receiving his surrender in the morning, he stole out along a hillside that had been thought impassable — his men walking in single file and leading their horses; and by midnight he was out of the toils and once more marching hard to outstrip his pursuers. At last he found an unguarded crossing of the Mus- kingum, at Eaglesport, above McConnellsville, and then, with an open country before him, struck out once more for the Ohio. This time Governor Tod's sagacity was vindicated. He urged the shipment of troops by rail to Bellaire, near "Wheeling, and by great good fortune. Major "Way, of the Ninth Michigan Cavalry, received the orders. Presently this officer was on the scent. "Morgan is making for Hammondsville," he telegraphed General Burnside on the 25th, "and will attempt to cross the Ohio Eiver at Wellsville. I have my section of.battery, and shall follow him closely.'' He kept his word and gave the finishing stroke. " Morgan was attacked with the remnant of his command, at eight o'clock this morning," announced General Burnside on the next day (26th July) "at Salinoville, by Major Way, who, after a severe fight routed the enemy, killed about thirtj-, wounded some fifty, and took some two hundred prisoners." Six hours later the long race ended: "I captured John Morgan to-day at two o'clock, P. M," telegraphed Major Eue of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry on the evening of the 26th, "taking three hun- dred and thirty-six prisoners, four hundred horses, and arms." Salineville is in Columbiana County, but a few miles below the most north- erly point of the State touched by the Ohio Eiver, and between Steubenville, and Wellsville, nearly two-thirds the way up the eastern border of the State. Over such distances had Morgan passed after the disaster at BuflSngton, which all had supposed certain to end his career; and so near had he still cometn making his escape from the State, with the handful he was still able to keep together. The circumstances of the final surrender were peculiar, and subsequently led to an unpleasant dispute. Morgan was being guided to the Pennsylvania line by a Mr. Burbeck, who had gone out with a small squad of volunteers against him, but with whom, according to Morgan's statement, an arrangement had been made that, on condition that he would disturb no property in the •Swinton's History Army Potomac, p. 614. Morgan Raid. 149 county, he was to be safely conducted out of it. Seeing, by the clouds of dust on a road parallel with the one he was on, that a cavalry force was rapidly gaining his front, and that thus his escape was definitely cut off, he undertook to make a virtue of his necessity, and try to gain terms by volunteering sur- render to his guide. Burbeck eagerly swallowed the bait, and accepted the surrender upon condition that officers and men were to be immediately paroled. In a few minutes Major Eue was upon them. He doubted the propriety of such a surrender, and referred the case to General Shackleford (second in command in Hobson's column) who at once disapproved and refused to recognize it. Morgan thereupon appealed to Governor Tod, as Commander-in-Chief of the Ohio militia, claiming to have surrendered upon terms to one of his sub- ordinates, and calling upon him to maintain the honor of his officer thus pledged. Governor Tod took a little time to examine the case, and on the Ist of August responded: "I find the facts substantially as follows: A private citizen of New Lisbon, by the name of Burbeck, went out with some fifteen or sixteen others to meet your forces, in advance of a volunteer organized military body from the same place under the command of Captain Curry. Said Burbeck is not and never was a militia officer in the service of this State. He was captured by you and traveled with you some considerable distance before your surrender. Upon his discovering the regular military forces of the United States to be in your advance in line of battle, you surrendered to said Burbeck, then your prisoner. Whether you supposed him to be a Captain in the militia service oi\ not is entirely immaterial." The officers of Morgan's command — not so much perhaps because of the alleged lack of other secure accommodations as through a desire to gratify the popular feeling that Ihey should be treated rather as horse-thieves than as sol- diers, and with a wish also to retaliate in kind for the close confinement to which the officers of Colonel Straight's raiding party were then subjected in Eebel prisons — were immured in the cells of the Ohio Penitentiary.* They have since made bittpr complaints of this indignity, as well as of the treatment there received, thereby only illustrating the different feelings with which men guard Andersonvilles and Salisburies, from those with which they themselves regard, from the inside, places much less objectionable. After some months of confinement, Morgan himself and six other prisoners made their escape, on the night of the 27th of November, by cutting through the stone floors of their cells with knives carried off from the prison table, till they reached the air-chamber below ; tunneling from that under the walls of the building into the outer yard, and climbing the wall that surrounds the grounds by the aid of ropes made from their bed-clothes. The State authorities were very much mortified at the escape, and ordered an investigation. It was ' thus disclosed that the neglect which enabled the prisoners to prosecute the •The official dispatches requesting the use of the penitentiary for this purpose indicate that it was to General Halleck that Morgan and his officers were indebted for the practice of this method of treating prisoners of war. 150 Ohio in the War. tedious task of cutting through the stone floors undiscovered, had its origin in the coarse-minded suggestion of one of the directors of the penitentiary that the daily sweeping of the cells might be dispensed with, and " the d d Eebek made to sweep their own cells." This poor efTort to treat the prisoners of war worse than he treated the convicts, enabled them to cover up their work and conceal it from any inspection of cells that was made. It was oflScially re- ported that misunderstandings between the military authorities in Columbus and the civil authorities of the penitentiary led to the escape. Morgan quietly took the Little Miami train for Cincinnati on the night of his escape, leaped off it a little outside the city, made his way across the river, and was straightway concealed and forwarded toward the Confederate lines by his Kentucky friends. He lived to lead one more raid into the heart of his fa- vorite "Blue Grass," to witness the decline of his popularity, to be harassed by officers in Eichmond who did not understand him, and by difficulties in his com- mand, and finally to fall, wbile fleeing through a kitchen garden, in a morning skirmish in an obscure little village in East Tennessee.. He left a name second only to those of Forrest and Stuart among the cavalrymen of the Confederacy, and a character which, amid much to be condemned, was not without traces of a noble nature. The number of Ohio militia called into service during the Morgan raid has already been roughly stated at fifty thousand. The Adjutant-General, in his next annual report, gave the following tabular statement of the number from each county, and the amount paid for their services: Athens Adams Biiilev Belmont Clai-ke Clinton Ck'imont.... Cliiiiiipaign. J.'L'l.i\va.re Franklin .... Ficyette Fairtield Gallia Greene Guernsey.... ilamillon ... Higliland.... lloekiiig Jackson Miint^oniery No. of No. of Conipa- Men on uiea. duty. . 26 1,967 4 340 14 1,202 G 378 27 2,697 25 1,980 i 507 2 1 49 3,952 20 1,530 25 2,094 27 2,032 16 1,135 4 323 15 1,461 2;i 1,898 15 1,307 5 510 1 60 Amount paid. $11,671 74 1,171 44 3,220 73 816 86 7,947 71 6,282 64 1,328 51 214 41 45 26 10,441 59 7,083 39 5,091 39 17,408 50 3,780 06 1,147 82 8,001 00 6,858 17 4,.>54 82 2,294 92 102 35 COUNTIES Jefterson Lawrence Liekiiig MMdison Monroe Meigg Morgan Muskingum Noble .r. Pickaway Perry Pike Koss Scioto Vinton Washington Knox Warren Total amounts No. of Conipii- nit-9. 1 16 28 17 2S 2 18 25 11 9 48 7 13 32 1 10 587 No. of Men on duty. 511 572 109 1,478 2,449 1,661 2,409 150 1,741 1,980 911 782 4,180 639 1,059 2,542 807 49,357 Anouut paid. $939 10 2,783 01 482 15 4,643 24 11,256 26 11,108 52 10,834 61 1,161 71 5,620 61 9,627 68 4,665 07 3,254 51 22,816 18 3,537 43 5,298 SI 13,092 U!) 77 60 2,657 58 §212,318 9' To this an explanation was added : " Many companies that re.sj)onded promptly and performed efficient service for from one to MoKGAN Raid. 151 five days, have returned muster-rolls and declined payment for the service rendered in defense of their own homes ; still others have never made out rolls for pay, generously donating their services to the State. The entire militia force of Harrison County,. through Mr. Shotwell, Secre- "tary of the Military Committee, unanimously declined payment for the very important service they rendered. There are, however, rolls outstanding that liavebeen returned on account of some defects. I have information of about seventy additional companies that have reported for pay, most of which will be ultimately paid ; they will increase the number paid to upward of fifty- five thousand men, and add twenty thousand dollar.^! to the sum total." The Governor stated some of the expenses of the raid as follows: Pay proper of militia i $250,000 Damage by the enemy 495,000 Damage by our troops 152,000 $897,000 This was exclusive of the heavy expense of subsisting and transporting the militia. He maintained that there was wisdom in the very heavy concentration of this force at Camp Chase to protect (.he Capital, but at an early period in the raid, two days after Morgan's entry upon Ohio soil, he announced to the men there assembled that they were not needed, and dismissed one-half of them, chosen by lot, to their homes. Four days later, on receipt of news of the ac- tion at Buffington Island, he discharged all the rest from the camp. Nearly all in South-western Ohio were also discharged early in the progress of the raid. Two days before the battle at Buffington Island ho issued a circular to the Military Committees of the several counties through which Morgan passed, asking full reports of the losses, public and private, from the raid, and the names of the individual sufferers. These amounts were afterward made the subject of a claim on the General Government for reclamation. After Morgan's sur- render, the Governor issued an address to the people of the State, reciting the main facts of the invasion, and congratulating them upon " the capture and de- struction of one of the most formidable cavalry forces oi the EebeJs; a force that had been a terror to the friends of the Union in Tennessee and Kentucky for about two years." It should not be forgotten, in contrasting the numbers of the Ohio militia thus called out with their performance, that they were only being organized wl^en the call was made upon them ; that they were utterly without drill, and that many of them feven took the field before their officers had been commis- sioned. In 1864 the Legislature ordered the appointment of a Board of Commis- sioners to examine and pass upon the claims for damages to property during the Morgan raid. Messrs. Albert McVeigh, Geo. W. Barker, and Henry S. Bab- bitt, who were appointed the commissioners, passed over the route of the raid,' and had public hearings of the claims at each point. They reduced them largely in most cases, and classified them into damages done by the Eebels, by United States troops, and by State militia respectively. A summary of their report sets forth the results of their investigation in tabular form, as follows: 152 Ohio in the Wab. e r- 31 m t; — rf T S i l8SSS8S8§SSSSgSSSS8SS 8 g 88835 ;3 01 ^ --C '/■- •-. : '-'i in 01 3L c^ — : ~- 8855 PI r^ ?i -X! §SS5SS83SS5?ggSgSS8gS C^, _- t- I- .r. y: -r x ■r^^-i-l-'/r-cO^rfOO I* S88ggSSSSS8Sg§ CM — Tf-J: — 33)r— 1^ — -^PjlCa gsgggg 5S38 SSSSggSgfeSS ■^ — X O Ci -^ tr -r (^ r- O u: M h~ ^- C> Mumbor of Claims. 8g= is-2 8 :g = = = £ES;S8 Is :R 1 r- « r- .- T m o I't -j; — .- r-. ?■ ^ ij '"^ -~^ 7 - — "" i T '"^ ~ '" ZSSS --. o?»««— — — r; — •; •-- N lO t^ 'c r: — -^ x x - - >. = -"d o ^ s ja±: c *- S - ^= -ts S^gS ■i^^ o-s. - a£.t;= ^ E i !^ sail's-^ tii^Sc-j SS5gS-'|"S"S|gRSSgS|SS?!5§2SS-S 8 ■4 94 n ^ K) w r« 00 O) o "H N n ^ >n to t^-a»a> s -M M Sriss^assi^i^s Vallandigham Campaign. 153 CHAPTER XIII. THE VALLANDIGHAM CAMPAIGN. THE early summer of 1863 was the dead-point of danger in the war. We have been seeing how arbitrary arrests, popular disaffection, resist- ance to the draft, and an audacious invasion were features of its his- tory within the limits of Ohio. Elsewhere the gloom was far greater. The worse than failure at Chancellorsville was followed by the transfer of Lee's en- tire army to the soil of Pennsylvania. The long labors before Vicksburg had not yet been rewarded with success, and fresh disasters at Galveston and else- where had combined to deepen the general gloom. It was in the midst of this feeling that General Burnside, by his arrest of Mr. Vallandigham, lifted that politician into the position of a representative man, and, in making him the martyr of his party, made him also its leader. He had scarcely reached the Confederate lines until the Rebel newspapers were emphasizing the fact that he could only be received as a prisoner — as one emi- nently deserving kindness and consideration, but none the less a prisoner; that it would be the height of folly for him to think of remaining in the Confeder- acy ; that his true base of operations was Canada, and his true mission to be- come the candidate of his party for the Governorship of Ohio.* The idea which would thus appear to have been suggested at the South was soon found to have taken firm hold upon the minds of the masses in the Democratic party. Its leaders regarded such a policy as unwise in the ex- treme, and would greatly have preferred the nomination of a moderate war Democrat, like Hugh J. Jewett, their former candidate. But the masses were dissatisfied — sore about the draft, inflamed with anger at the treatment of the man who had most boldly championed their views, and absorbed to such a de- gree in these personal grievances as to consider their redress a question of more importance than the prosecution of the war or the preservation of the Nation. As the time for the convention approached, the tide of opinion set in stronger. and stronger for Vallandigham, until it soon became a popular furor. For days before the date for the assemblage Columbus was crowded with dele- gations from the rural districts, whose intensity of feeling and bitterness of expression found no parallel in any previous political excitement in the State. • For the earliest expressions of these views the curious reader is referred to the first num- bers of the Chattanooga Kebel issued after news of the arrival of Mr. Vallandigham within General Bragg's lines had been received. 154 Ohio in the Wae. They denounced, especially, General Burnside's "Order 'No. 38," declared it an insufferable tyranny, proclaimed their intention of violating it on all oc- Ciisions, and defiantly threatened resistance to attempted arrests. Governor Tod, General Burnside, and Secretary Stanton wel-e the subjects of peculiarly virulent attack. Mr. Vallandigham was the suffering champion of their cause, whose wrongs wei-o 'to be redressed, whose election as Governor was to be mado the fitting rebuke to his persecutors. His absence made no difference. When elected he could easily gain access to the Border; ^nd then, where wns tliu General, or even higher official, who would dare to keep the chosen Governor of this great State in exile beyond its limits? Only let that be attempted, nntl the Lieutenant-Governor elect would lead an army of a hundred thousand Democrats to the Border to bring him home in triumph ! • The talk of the masses thus developed a deliberate purpose to provoke the gravest issues, and a readiness to embroil the State in civil war. They had re- solved on resistance to arrests, resistance as far as might be to the draft and to the war, and they were reckless as to consequences. The leaders vainly tried to stem the current. As a last resort they strove to bring forward General McClellan, who was still a citizen of Ohio, as a can- didate for the Governorship, but he refused the use of his name. When the convention assembled an immense crowd took possession, overslaughed the del- egates, elected as permanent chairman a man who was not a delegate at ail,* and clamored for the nomination of Vallandigham by acclamation. The most of the members fell completely in with the current; a fetv war Democrats made sturdy resistance for a little, demanded a call of the delegates by coun- ties, and cast their votes for Judge Jewett. But the pressure was overwhelm- ing. Jewett's own county presently insisted upon withdrawing his name, and, amid a wild saturnalia of cheering, and embracing, and all manner of extrava- gant demonstrations of delight, the convict of General Burnside's Military Commission was nominated by acclamation as the candidate of this great party for the office of Governor of Ohio. A strenuous struggle was made for a resolution in favor of peace in the platform, but the most shouted: "Vallandigham is platform enough ;" and so the leaders were left to fit their declaration of principles to their candidate with what skill they might, while the great crowd hung with delight on the address of ex-Senator Pugh, who, having been Mr. Vallandigham's legal repre- sentative in the trials, was naturally called out to speak for him now. It was known that through the morning Mr. Pugh had been urging moderation ; but by this time the air of the convention had infected him. His violent, inflam- matory address completely carried away his hearers ; and, in the whirlwind of enthusiasm which he evoked, he was nominated by acclamation for Lieutenant- Governor, in spite of his protests and refusal. Some passages of this remark- able speech (as reported in the newspapers of the day) were as follows: "The Democracy did not bring the war about— it was by the acts of the Administration in power. No one but the abject slave of the Administration would say that this controversy could * Ex-Governor Medill. Vallandigham Campaign. 155 not have been settled on honorable terms of peace. He could not, and he did not state this as a matter of opinion, but as a fact. The Administration had been warned and implored not to launch the country into a civil war. The inevitable result was predicted, and he now called it to its account. If the Government should demand untold treasures to suppress the rebellion it shoufd have them ; it should have all its wants under the Constitution. If then the Administra- tion did not succeed, its folly would be apparent, and the judgment of God and history would be against it. "He would utter no word and commit no act that could be construed as an excuse for its failure. Having all the constitutional power, if it succeeded and preserved the Union, it would have credit, but if it failed, it should not put on him or his any excuse for the failur.e. If these gentlemen declare martial law, and if the security of himself, his wife, and his children, and his property, was to be subject to the whim of General Burnside, or any other General, the time for them and him had arrived to call a convention, which should never adjourn until it had achieved the liberty ,of the people. He scorned ' Ordej' 38.' He trampled under foot the order of every military officer outraging the laws; and if his fellow-citizens were such abject slaves as to hold their liberty and right of free speech subject to the dictation of any military man, whether Gen- eral, C!olonel, Corporal, or private, they deserved to be slaves. He had already said that his friend, their nominee for Governor, had dared to express his opinions, and for so doing he had been banished. He (Pugh) might not have agreed with all Vallandigham had said, but he in- sisted upon his right to express his opinions, and he exhorted them to postpone every other ques- tion to the great question of the vindication of our liberties. "He would exhort Mr. Lincoln on the question of war when he (Pugh) had the liberty to discuss war or peace. He would express his opinions under the rights guaranteed him by the Constitution, even at the hazard of his life. He begged the Democracy to think of this; not to go home and think of crops and workshops, and put it off. It ought to fill their hearts every hour; it ought to be their business from now until the second Tuesday of October. What was their property worth to them — what the safety of their wives and children, and every thing dear to them, if they were liable at the dead hour of the night to have their doors broken open and to be dragged, from the presence of wife and children, to a mock tribunal and tried? Don't cheer and repent to-morrow. It was easy for them to cheer without responsibility. Say what you mean and stick to it. Let each man take counsel of his own heart, and then come to the resolution that this thing must be stopped peaceably if possible, but stopped it must be. If you do that it will be stopped. Do n't talk about it ; do it and maintain it at all hazards. "Somebody must meet the issue. If I, God help me, I will meet it. I am out of political life, and will accept no office; but claim my rights as a private citizen, guaranteed to me by the Constitution. If we had an honest man as Governor my rights and liberties could have been pre- served. That creature who has licked the dust off the feet of the Administration is less than the dust in the balance. We have no Governor. We have a being, and he has the audacity to say, and has said to my face, after this'war is over he will come back into the Democratic party, and put such men as Vallandigham and Olds to the wall. I told him if he showed his face in a Democratic convention I would move to suspend all business until he was expelled. I can par- don an honest man who might have been misled, but the man who not only sold himself, but sold the birthright of Democracy, his crime is infamous. If General Burnside should arrest me to- morrow, will you act? (Cheers, and 'yes.') Then your liberties will be safe. I have considered that possibly you might not act; but, whether you will act or not, if it be at the cost of my life, I intend to maintain my rights as a freeman. Our fellow-citizen, for expressing his opinions, was seized between night and morning by an overpowering force of -soldiers and dragged from Day- ton to Cincinnati to be imprisoned. The judicial officer, knowing his duty, refused to interfere from personal cowardice, and he trampled the Constitution under his feet. Judge Leavitt's name will be handed down to posterity with scorn and shame. I tell you nothing less than the safety and necessity of my family brought me here. Life is no longer tolerable under the despotism that exists. I would rather be led to the altar than submit to ' Order 38.' The question is, will you submit to it? If, after a fair and honest appeal, a majority of the people decide to submit, then I connsel you to sell your goods and chattels and emigrate to some other country, where you can find freedom. I say, like Patrick Henry, 'If this be treason make the most of it.' Now, my friends, I think I have violated 'Order 38' enough. 156 Ohio in the War. " I knew perfectly well when Lincoln changed the sentence of Vallandigham, that the Re- publicans wonld say it was done at Vallandigham's request. While on the gunboat with Pen- dleton, Dr. Fries, Mr. Ware, and Mr. McLean, I asked Mr. Vallandigham: 'Has the President given you a choice?' He replied that he had not. I asked him : ' If he gave you a choice which would you take?' and his answer was, 'I would go to Fort Warren a thousand times rather than go South and be placed in the hands of the Eebels.' He authorized me to say this. If General Burnside has spies here and should lead me out between a file of soldiers, I have given you my opinions. Free speech is the only security for our freedom, and we must assent to this right. If I suffer I shall only consider that I have gone in the way of a true patriot; I shall look to the Democracy in prosperous times for a vindication in this hour of trial. I will not desert my prin- ciples, and if I suffer they will say at least that that man was ever true to the principles he pro- fessed. Do not adjourn, I beg of you, until, in the name of the one hundred and eighty thousand Democrats of Ohio, you have demanded of Abraham Lincoln the restoration of Vallandigham to his home. " We will not talk of war, or peace, or rebellion, until our honored citizen has been reiitored to us. If you make that your platform you will be victorious. If not, I counsel you to seek a home where liberty exists." This convention was held on the 11th of June. At that time Mr. VaUan- digham was still within the Confederate lines, and it is not known that hie friends had received any conamunications from him since the party under a flag ^of truce from General Eosecrans had carried him over.* The convention ap- pointed a committee to urge upon the President the duty of giving him permis- sion to return. A similar appeal from Xew York Democrats had, a little before, drawn from Mr. Lincoln an elaborate vindication of his policy of arbitrary ar- rests. He therefore replied now to the Ohio committee with more brevity. Their address and his reply are subjoined : " Washington City, June 26, 1863. " To His Excellency, the President of the United States : "The undersigned having been appointed a committee, under the authority of the resolutions of the State convention held at the city of Columbus, Ohio, on the 11th instant, to communitate with you on the subject of the arrest and banishment of Clement L. Vallandigham, most respect- fully submit the following as the resolutions of that convention, bearing upon the subject of this communication, and ask of your Excellency their earnest consideration. And they deem it proper to state that the convention was one in which all parts of the State were represented, and one of the most respectable as to numbers and character, one of the most earnest and sincere in support of the Constitution and the Union ever held in that State. "Resolved, 1. That the will of the people is the foundation of all free government; that to give effect to this will, free thought, free speech, and a free press are indispensable. Without free discussion there is no certainty of sound judgment ; without sound judgment there can be no wise government. " Resolved, 2. That it is an inherent and constitutional right of the people to discuss all meas- ures of their Government, and to approve or disapprove, as to their best judgment seems right They have a like right to propose and advocate that policy which, in their judgment, is best, and to argue and vote against whatever policy seems to tliem to violate the Constitution, to impair their liberties, or to be detrimental to their welfare. " Resolved, 3. That these, and all other rights guaranteed to them by their Constitution, are their rights in time of war as well as in the time of peace, and of far more value and necessity in war than peace; for in time of peace liberty, security, and property are seldom endangered; in war they are ever in peril. " Resolved, 4. That we now say to all whom it may concern, not by way of threat, but calmly * A report, however, was in circulation at the convention, that his wife had received letters from him, saying he would soon be home again. V'ALLANDIGHAM CAMPAIGN. 157 and firmly, that we will not surrender these right!), nor Bubmit to their forcible violation. We will obey the laws onrselvea, and all others must obey them. "Resolved, 11. That Ohio will adhere to the Constitution and the Union as the best, and it may be the last, hope of popular freedom, and for all wrongs which may have been commilte4, or evils which may exist, will seek redress under the Constitution, and within the Union, by the peaceful but powerful agency of the suffrages of the people. " Resolved, 14. That we will earnestly support every constitutional measure tending to pre- serve the Union of the States. No men have a greater interest in its preservation than we have, none desire more; there are none who will make greater sacrifices or endure more than we will to accomplish that end. We are, as we ever have been, the devoted friends of the Constitution and the Union, and we have no sympathy with the enemies of either. " Resolved, 15. That the arrest, imprisonment, pretended trial, and actual banishment of Clem- ent L. Vallandigham, a citizen of the State of Ohio, not belonging to the land or naval forces of the United States, nor to the militia in actual service, by alleged military authority, for no other pretended crimes than that of uttering words of legitimate criticism upon the conduct of the Administration in power, and of appealing to the ballot-box for a change of policy — (said arrest and military trial taking place where the courts of law are open and unobstructed, and for no act done within the sphere of active military operations in carrying on the war) — we regard as a palpable violation of the following provisions of the Constitution of the United States : " 1. ' Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.' "2i 'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated ; and no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.' " 3. ' No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service in time of war or public. danger.' "4. ' In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed ; which district shall have been previously ascertained by law.' "And we furthermore denounce said arrest, trial, and banishment, as a direct insult oflTered to the sovereignty of the people of Ohio, by whose organic law it is declared that no person shall be transported out of the State for any ofiense committed within the same. "Resolved, 16. That C. L. Vallandigham was, at the time of his arrest, a prominent candidate for nomination by the Democratic party of Ohio for the office of Governor of the State ; tliat the Democratic party was fully competent to decide whether he is a fit man for that nomination, and that the attempt to deprive them of that right, by his arrest and banishment, was an unmerited imputation upon their intelligence and loyalty, as well as a violation of the Constitution. "Retolved, 17. That we respectfully, but most earnestly, call upon the President of the United States to restore C. L. Vallandigham to his home in Ohio, and that a committee of one from each Congressional District of Ohio, to be selected by the presiding officer of this convention, is hereby appointed to present this application to the President. "The undersigned, in the discharge of the duty assigned them, do not think it necessary to reiterate the facts connected with the arrest, trial, and banishment of Mr. Vallandigham ; they are well known to the President and are of public history ; nor to enlarge upon the positions taken by the convention, nor to recapitulate the constitutional provisions which it is believed have been contravened ; they have been stated at length, and with clearness, in the resolutions which have been recited. The undersigned content themselves with a brief reference to other suggestions pertinent to the subject. "They do not call upon your Excellency as suppliants, praying the revocation of the order banishing Mr. Vallandigham, as a favor, but by the authority of a convention representing a majority of the citizens of the State of Ohio, they respectfully ask it as a right due to an Amer- ican citizen, in whose personal injury the sovereignty and dignity of the people of Ohio, as a free State, has been offended. ^ 158 Ohio in the War. "And this duty they perform the more cordially from the consideration that at a time of great national emergency, pregnant with dangers lo our Federal Union, it is all-important that the true friends of the Constitution and the Union, however they may differ as to the mode of ad- ministering the Government, and the measures most liltely to be successful in the maintenance of the Constitution and the restoration of tlie Union, should not be 'thrown into conflict with each other. "The arrest, unusual trial, and banishment of Mr. Vallandigham have created wide-spread and alarming disaffection among the people of the State; not only endangering the liarmony of the friends of the Constitution and tlie Union, and tending to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the State, but also impairing that confidence in tlie fidelity of your Administration to thegreat landmarks of free government essential to a peaceful and successful enforcement of tlie laws of Ohio. "You are reported to have used, in a public communication on this subject, the following language : " 'It gave me pain when I learned that Mr. Vallandigham had been arrested ; that is, I was pained that there should have seemed to be a necessity for arresting him, and that it will afford me great pleasure to discharge him so soon as I can by any means believe the public safety will not sutler by it.' "The undersigned a.ssure your Excellency, from our personal knowledge of the feelings of the people of Ohio, that the public safety will be far more endangered by continuing Mr. Val- landigham in exile than by releasing him. It may be true that persons differing from him in political views may be found in Ohio and elsewhere who will express a different opinion; but they are certainly mistaken. " Mr. Vallandigham may difl'er with the President, and even with some of his own politiral party, as to the true and most effectual means of maintaining the Consiitution and restoring the Union; but this difference of opinion does not prove him to be unfaithful to his duties as an American citizen. If a man devotedly attached to the Constitution and the Union conscientiously believes that, from the inherent nature of the Federal compact, the war, in the present condition of things in this country, can not be used as a means of restoring the Union ; or that a war to subjugate a part of the States, or a war to revolutionize the social systeni in a part of the States, could not restore, but would inevitably result in the final destruction of both the Constitution and the Union, is he not to be allowed the right of an American citizen to appeal lo the judg- ment of the people for a change of policy by the constitutional remedy of the ballot-box? " During the war with Mexico many of the political opponents of the Administration then in power thought it their duty to oppose and denounce the war, and to urge beJ'ore the people of the country that it was unjust, and prosecuted for unholy purposes. With equal reason it might have been said of them that their discussions bclore the people were calculated to di.scourage enlistments, ' to prevent the raising of troops,' and to induce desertions from the army ; and leave the Go.veinment without an adequate milit;iry force to carrv on the war. "If the freedom of speech and of the press are to be suspended in time of war, then the es- sential element of popular government to effect a change of policy in the constitutional models at an end. The freedom of speecb and of the press i^- indispensable, and necessarily incident to the nature of popular government itself. If any inconvenience or evils arise from its exerrasei thej' are unavoidable. " On this subject you are reported to have said further: " ' It is iusserted, in substance, that Mr. Vallandigham was, by a military commander, seized and tried, 'for no other reason than words addressed to a public meeting, in criticism of the course of the Administration, and in condeiunaiiou of the military order of the General.' Now, if there be no mistake about this, if there was no o;her reason for the arrest, then I concede that the arrest Wiis wrong. But the arrest, I understand, was uiailo (or a very different re:ison. Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility to the war on the part of the Union, and his arrest was made because he was laboring with some effect to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage dftsertiona" from the army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it. He was arrested, not because he was damaging the political prospects of the Administration, or the personal interests of the Commanding General, but because he was damaging the army, upon the existence and vigor of which the life of the ^'aiiou depends. He was warring upon the Vallandigham Campaign. 159 militar}', and this gave the military cciistitutional jurisdiction to lay hands upon him. If Mr. Vallandigham was not damaging the military power of the country, then his arrest was made on mistake of facta, which I would be glad to correct on reasonable satisfactory evidence.' "In answer to this, permit us to Bay— First: That neither the charge, nor the specifications in support of the charge on which Mr. Vallandigham was tried, impute to him the act of either laboring to prevent the raising of troops or to encourage desertions from the army. Secmdly: No evidence on the trial was offered with a view to support, or even tended to support, any such charge. In what instance, and by what act, did he either discourage enlistments or encourage desertions from the army? Who is the man who was discouraged from enlisting? and who en- couraged to desert by any act of Mr. Vallandigham? If it be assumed that, perchance, some person might have been discouraged from enlisting, or that some person might have been encouraged to desert, on account of hearing Mr. Vallandigham's views as to the policy of the war as a means of re.storing the Union, would that have laid the foundation for his conviction and banishment? If so, upon the same grounds, every political opponent of the Mexican war might have been convicted and banished from the country. "When gentlemen of high standing and extensive influence, including your Excellency, opposed, in the discussions before the people, the policy of the Mexican war, were they ' war- ring upon the military?' and did this 'give the military constitutional jurisdiction to lay hands upon' them? And, finally, the charge of the specifications upon which Mr. Vallandigham was tried entitled him to a trial before the civil tribunals, according to the express provisions of the late acts of Congress, approved by yourself, July 17, 1862, and March 3, 1863, which were man- ifestly designed to supersede all necessity or pretext for arbitrary military arrests. " The undersigned are unable to agree with you in the opinion you have expressed, that the Constitution is different in time of insurrection or invasion from what it is in time of peace and public security. The Constitution provides for no limitation upon or exceptions to the guarantees of personal liberty, except as to the writ of habeas corpus. Has the President, at the time of invasiort or insurrection, the riglit to engraft limitations or exceptions upon these con- Btita^ional guarantees whenever, in his judgment, the public safety requires it? " True it is, the article of the Constitution which defines the various powers delegated to Congress declares that ' the privilege of the writ of habeas eorpiis shall not be suspended, unless where, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.' But this qualifica- tion or limitation upon this restriction upon the powers of Congress has no reference to or con- nection with the other constitutional guarantees of personal liberty. Expunge from the Consti- tution this limitation upon the powers of Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and yet the other guarantees of personal liberty would remain unchanged. " Although a man might not have a constitutional right to have an immediate investiga- tion made as to the legality of his arrest, upon habeas corpus, yet ' his right to a speedy and pub- lic trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been com- mitted,' will not be altered ; neither will his right to the exemption from ' cruel and unusual punishments ; ' nor his right to be secure in his person, houses, papers, and effects, against un- reasonable seizures and searches ; nor his right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ; nor his right not to be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous offense, unless on presentment or indictment of a grand jury be in anywise changed. " And certainly the restriction upon the power of Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, in time of insurrection or inva.sion, could not affect tlie guarantee that the freedom of speech and of the press shall not be abridged. It is sometimes urged that the proceedings in the civil tribunals are too lardy and ineffective for cases arising in times of insurrection or inva- sion. It is a full reply to this to say that arrests by civil process may be equally as expeditious and effective as arrests by military orders. " True, a summary trial and punishment are not allowed in the civil courts. But if the offender be under arrest and imprisoned, and not entitled to a discharge on writ of habeas corpus, before trial, what more can be required for the purpose of the Government? The idea that all the constitutional guarantees of personal liberty are suspended, throughout the country, at a time of insurrection or invasion in any part of it, places us upon a sea of uncertainty, and subjects the life, liberty, and property of every citizen to the mere will of a military commander, or what hfc might say that l.e considers the public safety requires. Does your Excellency wish to have 160 Ohio in the Wab. it understood that you hold tliat the rights of every man throughout this vast country are sub- ject to be annulled whenever yon may say that yon consider the public safety requires it in time of invasion or insurrection? " Yon are further reported as having said that the constitutional guarantees of personal lib- erty have ' no application to the present case we have in hand, because the arrests complained of were not made for treason ; that is, not for the treason defined in the Constitution, and upon the conviction of which the punishment is death ; nor yet were they made to hold persons to answer for capital or otherwise infamous crimes ; nor were the proceedings following, in any constitu- tional or legal sense, criminal prosecutions. The arrests were made on totally different grounds and the proceedings following accorded with the grounds of the arrests,' etc. " The conclusion to be drawn from this position of your Excellency is, that where a man is liable to ' a criminal prosecution,' or is charged with a crime known to the laws of the land he is clothed with all the constitutional guarantees for his safety and security from wrong and injus- tice ; but that where he is not liable to ' a criminal prosecution,' or charged with any crime known to the laws, if the President or any military commander shall say that he considers that the pub- lic safety requires it, this man may be put outside of the pale of the constitutional gnaranteea and ai-rested without charge of crime, imprisoned without knowing what for, and any length of time, or be tried before a court-martial, and sentenced to any kind of punishment unknown to the laws-of the land, which the President or military commander may deem proper to impose. "Did the Constitution intend to throw the shield of its securities around the man liable to be charged with treason as defined by it, and yet leave the man not liable to any such charge un- protected by the safeguard of personal liberty and personal security ? Can a man not in the mil- itary or naval service, nor within the field of the operations of the army, be arrested and impris- oned without any law of the land to authorize it? Can a man thus, in civil life, be punished without any law defining the offense and prescribing the punishment? If the President or » court-martial may prescribe one kind of punishment unauthorized by law, why not any other kind? Banishment is an unusual puni.shment, and unknown to our laws. If the President has the right to prescribe the punishment of banishment, why not that of death and confiscation of property? If the President has the right to change the punishment prescribed by the court-mar- tial, from imprisonment to banishment, why not from imprisonment to torture upon the rack, or execution upon the gibbet ? " If an indefinable kind of constructive treason is to be introduced and engrafted upon the Constitution, unknown to the laws of the land and subject to the will of the President whenever an insurrection or invasion shall occur in any part of this vast country, what safety or security will be left for the liberties of the people? "The constructive treasons that gave the friends of freedom so many years of toil and trouble in England, were inconsiderable compared to this. The precedents which you make will become, a part of the Constitution for your successors, if sanctioned and acquiesced in by the people now. " The people of Ohio are willing to co-operate zealously with you in evei-y effort warranted by the Constitution to restore the Union of the States, but they can not consent to abandon those fundamental principles of civil liberty which are essential to their existence as a free people. " In their name we ask that, by a revocation of the order of his banishment, Mr. Vallandighara may be restored to the enjoyment of those rights of which they believe he has been unconstitu- tionally deprived. " We have the honor to be, respectfully, yours, etc., "M. BIRCHARD, Chairman, 19th District. " David A. Houk, Secretary, 3d District. " George Bliss, 14th District. George S. Converse, 7th District. "T. W. Bartley, 8th AVarren P. Noble, 9th U "W.J.Gordon, 18th George H. Pendleton, , 1st u "John O'Neill, 13th W. A. Hutchins, 11th n " C. A. White, 6tli V Abner L. Backus, 10th (I "W. D. Finck, 12th J. F. McKinney, 5th 11 " Alexander Long, 2d K. C. Le Blond, 5th i% "J.W.White, leth Louis Schaefer, 17th u " Jas. R. Morris, loth Vallandigham Campaign. 161 BEPLY OP THE PRESIDENT. "Washington, D. C, June 29, 1863. "Gentlemen: The resolutions of the Ohio Democratic State Convention, which you present me, together with your introductory and closing remarks, being in position and argument mainly the same as the resolutions of the Democratic meeting at Albany, New York, I refer yon to my response to the latter as meeting most of the points in the former. This response you evidently used in preparing your remarks, and I desire no more than that it be used with accuracy. In a single reading of your remarks, I only discovered one inaccuracy in matter which I suppose you took from that paper. It is where you say, 'the Undersigned are unable to agree with you in the opinion you have expressed, that the Constitution is different in time of insurrection or invasion from what it is in time of peace and public security.' "A recurrence to the paper will show you that I have not expressed the opinion you suppose. I expressed the opinion that the Constitution is different in its wpplication in cases of rebellion or invasion, involving the public safety from what it is in times of profound peace and public secu- rity ; and this opinion I adhere to, simply because by the Constitution itself, things may be done in the one case which may not be done in the other. " I dislike to waste a word on a merely personal point, but I must respectfully assure you that you will find yourselves at fault, should you ever seek for evidence to prove your assumption that I 'opposed in discussions before the people the policy of the Mexican War.' "You say, 'Expunge from the Constitution this limitation upon the power of Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and yet the other guarantees of personal liberty would remain unchanged.' Doubtless if this clause of the Constitution, improperly called as I think a limita- tion upon the power of Congress were expunged, the other guarantees would remain the same; but the question is not how those guarantees would stand with that clause out of tlie Constitution, but how they stand with that clause remaining in it, in case of rebellion or invasion, involving the public safety. If the liberty could be indulged of expunging that clause, letter and spirit, I really think the constitutional argument would be with you. " My general view on this question was stated in the Albany response, and hence I do not state it now. I only add that, as seems to me, the benefit of the writ of habeas carpus is the great means through which the guarantees of personal liberty are conserved and made available in tire last resort; and corroborative of this view, is the fact that Vallandigham in the very case in ques- tion, under the advice of able lawyera, saw not Where else to go, but to the habeas corpus. But by the Constitution the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus itself may be suspended when in cases of rebellion and invasion the public safety may require it. "You ask in substance whether I really claim that I may override all the guaranteed rights of individuals, on the plea of conserving the pablic safety — when I may choose to say the public safety requires it. This question, divested of the phraseology calculated to represent me as strug- gling for an arbitrary personal prerogative, is either simply a question who shall decide, or an afSrmation that nobody shall decide, what public safety does require in cases of rebellion or in- vasion. The Constitntion contemplates the question as likely to occur for decision, but it does not expressly declare who is to decide it. By necessary implication, when rebellion or inyasion comes, the decision ia to be made from time to time; and I think the man whom, for the time the people have, under the Constitution made the Commander-in-Chief of their army and navy, is the man who holds the power and bears the responsibility of making it. If he uses the power justly, the same people will probably justify him ; if he abuses it, he is in their hands, to be dealt with by the modes they have I'eserved to themselves in the Constitution. "The earnestness with which yon insist that persons can only in times of rebellion be law- fully dealt with, in accordance with the rules for criminal trials and punishments in times of peace, induces me to add a word to what I have said on that point in the Albany response. You claim that men may, if they choose, embarrass those whose duty it is to combat a giant rebellion and then be dealt with only in turn as if there was no rebellion. The Constitution itself rejects this view. The military arrests and detentions which have been made, including those of Mr. Vallandigham, which are not different in principle from the others, have been for prevention and not for punishment— as injunctions to stay injury— as proceedings to keep the peace, and hence, like proceedings in sYich cases.and for like reasons, they have been accompanied with indictments, or trials by juries, nor, in a single case, by any punishment whatever beyond what is purely Vol. 1.— 11, 162 • Ohio in the War. incidental to the prevention. The original sentence of imprisonment in Mr. Vallandigham's caas Avas to prevent injury to the military service only, and the modification of it was made as a lass disagreeable mode to him of securing the same prevention. "I am unable to perceive an insult to Ohio in the case of Mr. Vallandigham. Quite surely nothing of this sort was or is intended. I was wholly unaware that Mr. Vallandigham was at the time of his arrest, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor, until so informed by your reading to me the resolutions of the Convention. I am grateful to the State of Ohio for many things, especially for the brave soldiers and officers she has given in the present National trial to the armies of the Union. "You claim, as I understand, that, according to my own position in the Albany response, Mr. Vallandigham should be released ; and this because, as you claim, he has not damaged the mili- tary service, by discouraging enlistments, encouraging d&sertions, or otherwise ; and that, if he had, he should have been turned over to the civil authorities under the recent acts of Congreiw, I certainly do not knmii that Mr. Vallandigham has specifically and by direct language advised against enlistments, and in favor of desertion and resistance to drafting. We all know that com- binations, armed in some instances, to resist the arrest of deserters, began several months ago; that more recently the like has appeared in resistance to the enrollment preparatory to a draft; and that quite a number of assassinations have occurred from the same animus. These had to be met by military force, and this again has led to bloodshed and death. And now, under a sense of responsibility more weighty and enduring than any which Ls merely official, I solemnly declare my belief that this hindrance of tlie military, including maiming and murder, is due E6 the course in which Mr. Vallandigham has been engaged in a greater degree than to any other cause, and is due to him personally in a greater degree than to any other one man. These things have been notorious, known to all, and of course known to Mr. Vallandigham. Perhaps I would not be wrong to say they originated with his special friends and adherents. With perfect knowledge of them he has frequently, if not constantly, made speeches in Congress and before popular assemblies, and if it can be shown that with these things staring him in the face, he has ever uttered a word of rebuke or counsel against them, it will be a fact greatly in his favor with me, and one of which, as yet, I am totally ignorant. When it Ls known that the whole burden of his .speeches has been to stir up men against the prosecution of the war, and tliat in the midst of resistance to it, he has not been known in any instance to counsel against such resistance, It is next to impossible to repel the inference that he has counseled directly in favor of it. With all this before their eyes, the convention you represent have nominated Mr. Vallandigham for Gov- ernor of Ohio, and both they and you have declared the purpose to sustain the National Union by all constitutional means. But of course tliey and you, in common, reserve to yourselves to decide what are constitutional means; and, unlike the Albany meeting, you omit to .state or inti- mate that in your opinion an army is a constitutional means of saving the Union against rebell- ion, or even to intimate that you are conscious of an existing rebellion being in progress, with ■ the avowed object of destroying that very Union. At the same time your nominee for Governor, in whose behalf you appeal, is known to you and to the world to declare against the use of an army to suppress the rebellion. Your own attitude, therefore, fincourages desertion, resistance to the draft, and the like, because it teaches those who incline to desert and escape the draft to believe it is your purpose to protect them, and to hope that you will become .xtrong enough to do so. After a personal intercourse with you, gentlemen of the Union look upon it in this light. Itisi substantial hope, and, by consequence, a real strength to the enemy. It is a false hope, and one which you would willingly dispel. I will make the way exceedingly easy. I send you dupli- cates of this letter in order that you, or a majority of you, may, if yon choose, indorse yonr names upon one of them, and return it tlius indorsed to me, with the understanding that those signing are thereby committed to the following propositions, and to nothing else: "1. That there is now a rebellion in the United States, the object and tendency of which is lo destroy the National Union ; and that, in your opinion, an army and navy are constitutional means for suppressing that rebellion. "2. That no one of you will do anything which, in his own judgment, will tend to hinder the increase or favor the decrease, or lessen the efficiency of the army Jtnd navy while engaged in the effort to suppress the rebellion; and, " 3. That each of you will, in his sphere, do all he can to hav6 the oflScers, soldiers, and sea- Vallandigham Campaign. 163 men of the nrmy and navy, while engaged in the effort to suppress the rebellion, paid, fed, clad, and otherwise well provided and supported. "And with the further understanding that upon receiving the letter and names thus indorsed, I will cause them to be published, which publication shall be, within itself, a revocation of the order in relation to Mr. Vallandigham. " It will not escape observation that I consent to the release of Mr. Vallandigham upon terms not embracing any pledge from him or from others as to what he will or will not do. I do this because he is not present to speak for himself, or to authorize others to speak for him, and hence, I shall expect, that on returning he would not put himself practically in antagonism with the position of his friends. But I do it chiefly because I thereby prevail on other influen- tial gentlemen of Ohio to so define their position as to be of immense value to the army — thus more than compensating for the consequences of any mistake in allowing Mr. Vallandigham to return, so that, on the whole, the public safety would not have suffered by it. Still, in regard to Mr. Vallandigham and all others, I must hereafter, as heretofore, do so much as the public serv- ice may seem to require. " I have the honor to be respectfully yours, etc., A. LINCOLN." The Committee responded to thfs proposition in another long argument, closing as follows : "The people of Ohio were not so deeply moved by the action of the President, merely because they were concerned for the personal safety or convenience of Mr. Vallandigham, but because they saw in his arrest and banishment an attack upon their own personal rights ; and they attach value to his discharge chiefly as it will indicate an abandonm'eht of the claim to the power of such arrest and banishment. However just the undersigned might regard the prin- ciples contained in the several propositions submitted by the President, or how much soever they might, under other circumstances, feel inclined to indorse the sentiments contained therein, yet they assure him they have not been authorized to enter into any bargains, terms, contracts, or conditions with the President of the United States to procure the release of Mr. Vallandigham. "The opinions of the undersigned touching the questions involved in these propositions are well known, have been many times publicly expressed, and are sufficiently manifested in the resolutions of the convention which they represent, and they can not suppose that the President expects that they will seek the discharge of Mr. Vallandigham by a pledge, implying not only an imputation upon their own sincerity smi fidelity as citizens of the United States ; and also carry- ing with it by implication a concession of the legality of his arrest, trial, and banishment, against which they and the convention they represent, have solemnly protested. And while they have asked the revocation of the order of banishment, not as a favor, but as a right, due to the people of Ohio, and with a view to avoid the possibility of conflict or disturbance of tlie public tran- quillity; they do not do this, nor does Mr. Vallandigham desire it, at any sacrifice of their dignity and self-respect. "The idea that such a pledge as that asked from the undersigned would secure the public safety sufficiently to compensate for any mistake of the President in discharging Mr. Vallandig- ham, is, in their opinion, a mere evasion of the grave questions involved in this discussion, and of a direct answer to their demand. And this is made especially apparent by the fact that this pledge is asked in a communication which concludes with an intimation of a disposition on the part of the President to repeat the acts complained of. "The undersigned, therefore, having fully discharged the duty enjoined upon them, leave the responsibility with fhe President. The effort of the President to commit these gentlemen to the support of the army and the war thus failed. It was well understood that this happened, not entirely because they disliked his "evasion of the grave questions involved" in the treatment of Mr. Vallandigham, but also and mainly because of the fact that, in the temper then prevalent in their party, they were unwilling to give any countenance to the war. v 164 Ohio in the War. Mr. Vallandigham passed through the Confederacy, from Chattanooga to Eichmond, and thence to Wilmington. Here he took passage on a blockade- runner, which, escaping capture, landed him safely at the British port of Nas- sau, whence he made his way under the British flag to Canada, taking up his quarters on the Canada side at the Niagara Falls. He arrived at Niagara on the 15th of July, and on the same day issued the following address, acceptin? the nomination which had been conferred upon him while he was in the Confederacy : "Niagara Falls, Canada West, July 15,1863. "Arrested and confined for three weeks in the United States, a prisoner of state; banished thence to the Confederate States, and tliere held^as an alien enemy and prisoner of war, though on parol, fairly and honorably dealt with and given leave to depart, an act possible only by run- ning the blockade at the hazard of being fired upon by ships flying the flag of my own country I found myself first a freeman when on British soil. And to-day, under the protection of the British flag, I am here to enjoy and in part to exercise the privileges and rights which usarpera insolently deny rae at home. The shallow contrivance of the weak despots at Washington and their advisers has been defeated. Nay, it has been turned against them, and I, who for two years was maligned as in secret league with the Confederates, having refused when in their midst, under circumstances the most favorable, either to identify myself with their cause, or even so much as to remain, preferring rather exile in a foreign land, return now with allegiance to my own State and Government unbroken in word, thought, or deed, and with every declaration and pledge to you while at home, and before I was stolen away, made good in spirit and to the very letter. " Six weeks ago, when just going into banishment because an audacious but most cowardly des- potism caused it, I addressed you as a fellow-citizen. To-day, and from the very place then selected by me, but after wearisome and most perilous journeyings for more than four thousaud miles by land and upon sea, still in exile, though almost in sight of my native State, I greet you as your representative. Grateful, certainly I am, for the confidence in my integrity and patriotism, im- plied by the unanimous nomination as candidate for Governor of Ohio, which you gave me while I was yet in the Confederate States. It was not misplaced ; it shall never be abused. But this is the last of all considerations in times like these. I ask no personal sympathy for the pei-sonal wrong. No; it is the cause of constitutional liberty and private right cruelly outraged beyond example on a free country, by the President and his servants, which gives public significance lo the action of your convention. Yours was, indeed, an act of justice to a citizen who, for his devo- tion to the rights of the States and the liberties of the people, had been marked for destruction by the hand of arbitrary power. But it was much more. It was an example of courage worthy of the heroic ages o£ the world ; and it was a spectacle and a rebuke to the usurping tyrants who, having broken up the Union, would now strike down the Constitution, subvert your present Gov- ernment, and establish a formal and proclaimed despotism in its stead. You are the restorere and defenders of constitutional liberty, and by that proud title history will salute you. "I congratulate you upon your nominations. They whom you have placed upon the ticket with me are gentlemen of character, ability, integrity, and tried fidelity to the Constitution, the Union, and to liberty. Their moral and political courage, a quality always rare, and now the most valuable of public virtues, is beyond question. Every way, all these were nominations fit to be made. And even jealousy, I am sure, will now be hushed, if I especially rejoice with you in the nomination of Mr. Pugh as your candidate for Lieutenant-Governor and President of the Senate. A scholar and a gentleman, a soldier in a foreign war, and always a patriot; eminent as a lawyer, and distinguished as an orator and a statesman, I hail his acceptance as an omen of the return of the better and more virtuous days of the Republic. ' I indorse your noble platform ; elegant in style, admirable in sentiment. You present the true issue, and commit yourselves to the great mission just now of the Democratic party— to restore and make sure first the rights and liberties declared yours by your Constitutions. It is in viin Vallandigham Campaign. 165 to invite the States and people of the South to return to a Union without a CJonatitution, and dis- honored and polluted by repeated and most aggravated exactions of tyrannic powers. It is base in yourselves, and treasonable to your posterity, to surrender these liberties and rights to the A'eatures whom your own breath created and can destroy. " Shall there be free speech, a, free press, peaceable assemblages of the people, and a free ballot any longer in Ohio ? Shall the people hereafter, as hitherto, have the right to discuss and condemn the principles and policy of the party — the ministry — the men who for the time con- duct the Government ? To demand of their public, servants a reckoning of their stewardship, and to place other men and another party in power at their supreme will and pleasure? Shall Order 38 or the Constitution be thp supreme law of the land ? And shall the citizen any more be arrested by an armed soldiery at midnight, dragged from wife and child at home to a military prison ; thence to a mock military trial ; thence condemned and then banished as a felon for the exercise of his rights? This is the issue, and nobly you have met it. It is the very question of free, popular government itself. It is the whole question : upon the one side liberty, upon the other despotism. The President, as the recognized head of his ^arty, accepts the issue. What- ever he wills, that is law. Constitutions, State and Federal, are nothing; acts of legislation nothing; the judiciary less than nothing. In time of war there is but one will supreme — his will; but one law — military necessity — and he the sole judge. Military orders supersede the Constitution, and military commissions usurp the place of the ordinary courts of justice in the land. Nor are these mere idle claims. For two years and more, by arms, they have been enforced. It was the mission of the weak but presumptuous Burnside — a name infamous for- ever in the ears of all lovers of constitutional liberty — to try the experiment in Ohio, aided by a judge whom I name not, because he has brought foul dishonor upon the judiciary of my country. In your handfi now, men of Ohio, is the final issue of the experiment. The party of the Adnain- istration have^cepted it. By pledging support to the President they haTe justified his outrages upon liberty and the Constitution, and whoever gives his vote to the candidates of that party, commits himself to every act of violence and wrong on the part of the Administration which he upholds ; and thus, by the law of retaliation, which is the law of might, would forfeit his own right to liberty, personal and political, whensoever other men and another party shall hold the power. Much more do the candidates themselves. Sufier them not, I entreat you, to evade the issue; and by the judgment of the people we will abide. " And now, finally, let me ask, what is the pretext for all the monstrous acts and claims of •arbitrary power, which you have so nobly denounced? ' Military necessity?' But if indeed all these be demanded by military necessity, then, believe me, your liberties are gone, and tyranny is perpetual. For if this civil war is to terminate only by the subjugation or submission of the South to force and arms, the infant of to-day will not live to see the end of it. No, in another way only can it be brought to a close. Traveling a thousand miles and more, through nearly one-half of the Confederate States, and sojourning for a time at widely diflTerent points, I met not one taan, woman, or child who was not resolved to perish rather than yield to the pressure of arms, even in the most desperate extremity. And whatever may and must be^ the varying fortune of the war, in all which I recognize the hand of Providence pointing visibly to the ulti- mate issue of this great trial of the States and people of America ; they are better prepared now every way to make good their inexorable purpose than at any period since the beginning of the struggle. These may, indeed, be unwelcome truths, but they are addressed only to candid and honest men. Neither, however, let me add, did I meet any one, whatever his opinions or his station, political or private, who did not declare his readiness, when the mar shall have ceased, and invading armiet been withdrawn, to consider and discuss the question of re-union. And who shall doubt the issue of the argument? I return, therefore, with my opinions and convictions as to war or peace, and my faith as to final results from sound policy and wise statesmanship, not nu(ttt. David Simpson. William Bush. S. B. Ayres. John KelUr, Si-c'y. BELMONT. B. P. T. Cowen, Ch'n. John Lippencott, Alex. Braiinuni. 8t. Glair Kelly. Lewis Beyer. William Smith. Hon. Wm. Kennon. BROWN, G.W.King, Chaii-m'n Jncob Iferiuaun. I. BInir. 8. Hemphill. J.P. Bw'hn, Soc>. BtJTLKR. N. C. McKarlund, Ch. Alex. F. Hiinit!. Israel Williiiuiii, Sec^. Henry Bi-tirditley. J.M. Milllkin. C AH ROLL. Genrxe Uardcuty. William Duford. Qi-ornoieatty. Edwin Forrell. C. A. Shobur, Sec'y. CHAUPAIOM. Wm. McDonald, Ch'n, JohnH. Bryan. Thomas Chance. Isaac Johnson. B. C. Pulton, S(>c*y. CLARK. John B. il:i;;an, Oh*n. AlfX.W^.Idlr-. Sumupl E. btiirrell. D. A. HiirriHon, Si'c'y. Olmvles M. Clark. William S. Mvranda. Kruidc-r Mowur. CLERMONT. Philip B. Swing, Ch'n. E.W. Chirk. John Goodwin. Dr. Cyrus Oai^kins. Dr. John P. Emriu. CLINTON. B. B. Hiivlan. Oh'u. William C. Kifo. C. M. BoBworth. William B. if'inlier. A. W. Miller. J. Q. Smith. CnLUHBIANA. Hon. L.W. Potter. John Voglesoug. J.J. Boone. Josiah ThompsuD. jusuph G. Ltiycoul^. COBHOCTON. Dr. A. L. (jtitiH, Uh'u. HouHtou Hiiy. Capt. E. Shamir. Coi. J. Irvine, Sec'y. Soth McCItiiti. lion. John Juhnson. CSAWFORD. T. J. OiT, chairman. Jacub Scrugxs. George Quiiiby, Sec'y. H. C. Carhart. W. W. Bagloy. ' CUYAHOOA. W.B. Castle, Cli'n. William Bingham. F. Nicola. £. HfeifieDmnenor. Col. Gtorgo B. Seiiter. Stillman Witt. fll. Biirlow. Sec'y. Willism Eawsirds. William h\ Cary. DABKK. Daniel U. Dii\i:i. Capt. Charleci Culkins. C'upt. B.B. Allen. W. M. Wilsoa, Sec'y. DEFIANCE. Jonas Colby, Ch'b. John rritW'. S. A. Strung. John Puul. J.P.Bufflngton.Sec'y. DKL\WAUR. Hon. T.W. Piiwt-Il, Ch. KoliiTI McKiniiey. Chnrlc^i Sherman. Jimn'S W. Stark. Johu W. Lndd. B. C. Wat*TB. George F, Stuyman. Ungh Oolo. Burtou Muoro. SBIB. Hon. J. U. Boot, Ch. Henry C. Bush. Walter V. Stone. Capt. Thomas Fernald. Charles Bosford. FAIRFIELD. M. A. Daugherty,vCh. A. Syfert. Juhu Beber. P. B. Evung. John B. McNeil, Sec'y. FAYETTE . Hon. J. Pursell, Ch'n. Peter Weiidd. tl. B. MayiiHi'd, Sec'y. Gilbert TorriU. James M. Edwards. FRANKLIN. John Miller, Ch'n. David Taylor. L. W. Babbitt. Peter Amboa. John Field. FULTON. N. Merrill, Chairm'n. t)ctaviii8 Wati'ri«. D. W. II. Howiir.l. O. B. Verity. Sec'y. Joel Brighiim. VVilliani Sutton. OALLIA. Joseph Bruilbury. Junic.i UiirpiT. Aiiioa Keplfy. Kubei't B]ax:k. Wm. JN'iidh, Sec'y. OGAUOA. Hon. D.Woodbury, €h. EittHtiis Spencer. Chester P'lihiier. Hon. P. Hitchcock, Sec. David Bobinson. GREENE. B. Nesbitt, Chairman. Capt. A. McDuwell. B. H. niuuffer. iluruce Brtilsford. .losepb Wilson. QUERNSEY. Hon.C.J.Albrijtht.Ch. Josf-ph D. Taylor. TIioniRs Ohlham. Isaac Morton. Joseph Ferrell. BAUILTON. Gen. J. H. Bates^Ch. Hon. N. W. Thomas. Cot. A. E. Jones. W. W. Lortwick. John W. Ellis. Francis Weisnewskl. W, U. Davis, Sec*y. Thomas Sherlock. Eii Muchmore, Amzi Maffill. HAKcaOK. Edaon Goit, OU*n. J. JT. Perky. Henry Bro^D, Sec*y. J. 8. Patterson. J. B Bothsph^, MAftBIN. Henry Harris. B-^nj. R. Brunson. 1-Tush LetsoQ. K. L. Chasn.i David Goodln. C. H. Gatch, SecV' HABni80N. 0. Slemmons, Ch'n. James M. Paul. John Jamison. HA-RnisoK— Continued. Cbiirh'S Warfell. S. B. Shot-well , Sec'y. HENRY. E. Sheffield, Chairm'n. Cyrus Howard. Achilles Smith. .lames Durban. L. U. Bigelow, Sec'y. 'highlaho. Dr. Wm. Smith, Ch'n. Dr. Enos Holmes. James H. Thompson. Col. Jacob Hyer, irOCKINO. James B. Grozan, Ch. Alex. White. U. W. James. Capt. G. 31. Webb. H0LHP.6. Col. A. Baker, Ch'n. Dr. John G. Bingham. ,lolin Corbus. B. C. Brown, Sec'y. Trayer Anderson. John W. Vorhes. HURON. C. L. BoaIt,Ea(i., Ch. John Dewey. GeorgE> G. Bakor. Jbhu Gardiner. J. M. Parr. C. A. Preston, Sec'y. JACKSON. Davis Mackley, Ch*n. Joshua E. Furrell. George W. Johnson, .lames Tripp. J. E. Jones. John M. Martin. JEFFERSON. Col. G.W. McConk, Ch. K. 0. Hoffman. .Joseph Means. Charles Mather. Beatty McFarlane, KNOX, James Blake. C. H. Scribiier. T. P. Tri'derick. Adam Weaver. S. L. Taylor. Sherman Pyle, Sec'y, LAKE. Hon. S. 8. Osborn, Ch. C. C. Jennings. Chan. D. Adams, Sec'y. Sellick Warren. D. B. Page. LAWRENCE. John (JompbRll. Hon. H. S. Neal. Banj. F. Cory. Ralph Leet. Thomas McCarthy. Wm. W. Kirker. John Morrill. LICKINa. Joseph White. Cnl. Andrew Lcgg. Michael Moratli. Dr. J. N. Wilson. Noah Wilkins. LOGAN. I. S. Gardner, Ch. John Underwood. LOGAN— Coiifmuerf. R. E. Bunklo. ' J. B. McLauhlin, Sec'y. John Emery. Isaac Smith. ^ LORAIN. H. E. Musaey, Ch'n. G. G. Waahburn. B. A. How. Conrad Btdd. J. H. Dickson. LUCAS. ^ Gen. John E. Hunt.Ch. John J. Manor. George W. Reynolds. Caut. B. Waite, Sec'y. Peter Lent. Jnmes W. Brigbam. Peleg T. Clarke. HADISON. Ttvmas P. Jones, Ch. Gabriel Prugh. Benj. V. Clark, Sec'y- Oliver P. Crubb. Bobert Armstrong. MAUOKINO. Hosea Hoover. Fred. W. Whitslar. John M. Edwards. C. Fitch Kirtland. F. 0. Arms MARION. John Merrill, Ch'n. Amos H. King. ImOhler.SecV. Adam Ault. B. W. Davis. MEDINA. Hon. H. G. Blake, Ch. William Shaijcespear. N. H. BoBtwick. Asaph Severance, jr. Ephraim Brigga. HEIOS. Hiram G. Daniel, Ch. David B. Jacobs. H. B. Smitb, Sec'y. Nicholas Stanberry. Ed. Tiffany, MERCKR. Dr. J. Taylei\ Chn Wm. 0. A. Mnnsel. Oliver BUia, Sec'y. William Dickman. Adam Jewitt. MIAMI. Hon.M.G.MitcheIl,Gh. Dr. Harrison. Robert L. Douglass. Charles Morris. William \V. Crane. John WigWu. James M. Bowe. HONROp. Hon. "Wm. F. Hunter. Hon. J. A. Davenport. John Kerr, Esq. Stephfn S. Ford. J. M. Kirkbride, Sec'y. ■ MONTGOMERY. Hon. D. A. Haynes. James Turner. T. A. Philips. Geo. Startaman. Henry Fowler. B. W. Steele, Sac'y. 174 Ohio in the I^ar. regiments in the field had dwindled from a thousand to an average of from two to four hundred each. They had been decimated in battle, had languished in hospitals, had borne the manifold sufferings of the camp and the march, had gone through a Eed Sea of troubles, and even yet were far from the sight of the promifcied land. ThejMiad left families, unprotected, behind them; they felt that others at home should be in the ranks beside them; they saw as jet little reward for all their toils, privations, and wounds. With such a past and such prospects to contemplate, they heard the demand of the Generals for more troops. Their own terms of enlistment were expiring; long before the great campaign to which they were then looking forward should be ended many of- them would have the right to turn their faces homeward. But, with a patriotism to which the history of the war furnishes no equal dis- play, they turned from this alluring prospect, resolved that the vacant places by the loved firesides should remain vacant still, perhaps for the war, perhaps for- ever, and pledged themselves to the Government once more as its soldiers to the end. Over twenty thousand veterans, the thin remnants of nearly eighty reg- iments of Ohio soldiers, re-onlisted for the war within a few weeks after tlic subject was first proposed to them. It was the most inspiring act since the uprising aft(^* Sumter. The Sixt3'"-Sixth was the first of these regiments to return to the State after its re-enlistment, on the veteran furlough of thirty days, by which the Govern- ment wiselj^ marked its gratitude for their unexampled fidelity. It reached Military Committees fob 1863 — Continued., MORGAN. Gen. JjiF. Cornelius. Jolui B. StODC. Enoch l)yc. Hon. W. V. Sprasfue. Hon. J. M. Giiylord. Joshua D;ivi9. F. W. Wood, MOKROW. A. R. Duiiii, Ch'n. J. G. Ulihs. Wni. Chiise. B<-itr;ind AndrowB. Dr. J. M. BrijzgS, Sec, MUSKINGUM, Hon. T. J. Mnginnia. V--ilyntin<- Brst. Mivi. R. \V. r. Muse. D. MrCiUtv. Perry Wih's. NOULR. J. Bclf. Dr. H. ,\. Hamilton Chairman. J;k<. W. Russ. E. Graliiuii. Gi'oriiu Liifkcy. Col. J. T. Kurtoo. , WTANPOT. J. Y. Roberts, Ch'n. S. H. Hnnt. J. D. Sears. S. H. White. , T. K. GrlsoU. Sec'y. Closing Features of Tod's Administration. 175 Columbus on the 26th of December, 1863, The Twenty-Ninth 8|Oon followed, and aftfef it in rapid succession came a stream of them — the Twelfth, the Four- teenth, tlie Seventeenth, the Nineteenth, the Twenty-Third, the Twenty-Seventii, the Thirty First, the Thirty-Sixth, the Thirty-Eighth, the Thirty-Ninth, the Forty-Third, the Forty-Fourth, the Fifty-First, and all the rest of the noble list. The Twenty-Third, Colonel E. B. Hayes, was the first in which re-enliIe, and the principle is worthy of encouragement. "The main cause of trouble with^the Sanitary Commission, which is now alienating the gen- erous people of this State from it, is that it will not permit any other exertion ; will not allow any rivalry in the good work ; demands a monopoly of all the donations of the people, and the dis- tribution of them without any check or investigation. Its publications declare that the people of Ohio have constituted the Commission the 'sole almoners of their bounty' — the people say they have done no such thing. " The State officers and agents have no desire to monopolize relief, or to break down or drive the Sanitary Commission from the field. "We are willing to work alongside of them, to do all the good we can j to aid them when short of supplies ; to give them full credit for what aid they may render us, but we can not put our contributions for Ohio men into their general pot, and then receive it, or a fraction of it, back, on orders, as Sanitary stores. " Such a demand, on their part, is unreasonable, and is made in a spirit of superiority and monopoly. Our position is a clearly proper and defensible one ; and we shall steadily hold it. We would avoid conflict — ^we desire to work in harmony. " Our people have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Commission, let that be administered for the purpose of its donation. What these same people give to the State authori- ties, will be distributed under State authority, for the benefit of Ohio men. We will do this in the spirit of kindness and co-operation. If the Commission is not satisfied, and choosey to cut off supplies from Ohio men, because the State desires to aid them, let that position be assumed and made known. The State and its people will be found equal to the emergency. We do not desire to invite or provoke such a result, but we will not shrink from it if forced upon us as a retaliation for attempting to preserve the character and identity of the State in the care of its soldiers. " Your duty, therefore, in this matter, while a delicate, is a firm one. "Avoid controversy and strife; but minister to those under your care the comforts that are sent to them. When our people or myself desire to use the Sanitary or any other commission to do the work of your agency, you will be regularly notified. Until then, pursue the straight line of duty, kindly but firmly. If a room is found necessary for your supplies, get it as economically as yon can. If you find help necessary in the work of receiving and distributing, more than you have, you are authorized to employ it. But in all assume no prerogative, and give no unneces- sary offense. Work in harmony as long as it is possible to do so, making all proper concessions, but not yielding the great principle that the State will look after her sons, without accepting the dictation or patronage of any institution." The most serious difSculty, bovpever, was that in which the State agent became involved with the Sanitary Commission at Washington. The trouble here was primarily about a contract made by the Commission with the Balti- more and Ohio, and connecting roads, by which all soldiers' for Northern Ohio were forced to go over tbese roads, and thus to make long and expensive detours from their direct jontes home. As a practical railroad man, Governor Brough saw at once the injustice and the motives of this arrangement. As soon as com- plaints began to reach him, he directed the State agent to take entire charge, thenceforth, of the supply of transportation to Ohio soldiers going home. Against this the Sanitary Commission protested. The feeling grew bittej-, and some things that had been better unsaid, crept into the newspapers. In how temperate and wise a spirit of moderation Governor Bi-ough him- self viewed the controversy may be seen in his own hand-writing, in a letter preserved among the State archives 'for the year 1864. "I am afraid," he wrote to his agent, " that you have a little too much personal feeling in regard 192 Ohio in the Wab. to the Sanitary trouble. Public servants must remember that great public inter- ests must not be affected by personal wishes or feelings. The interests of others are involved in this matter. We have soldiers to be fed and cared for. In this work the Sanitary Commission is doing well." And to this he added these golden words of advice: "In everything that affects the interest of our soldiers we must conciliate where necessary; we must heal and not widen breaches; we must crucify personal feelings; we must bear injuries as they come rather than resent them when no good will follow. In this case, as in all others we must not provoke a conflict, and if it must come, let us be sure that we ai'e in the right. We must not weaken confidence in an institution that is doing good, even though it eomrait some errors."* But, with all his moderation, he was iinmovablo in his resistance to what he rfecrarded as the encroachments of the Sanitary Commission. He would not place the State machinery for the relief of her soldiers in its hands. He would not withdraw his agents ; would not give them the money and stores from the State; would not yield his personal respoiisibilit}- for the eoldiero sent out by his constituents. In the case of the railroad imbroglio at Washington he finally ended the controversy as follows : "Executive Depaetment, Columbus, January 20, 1864. " Feed. X. Knajp, Esq., Associate Seeretanj Sanitary Commuuion, Washington City, D. C: "Sie: Your communication of December 23, addreMsed to Governor Tod, has come to my hands. Of the accompanying correspondence I had been in po~hts»irin for some weeks. My peisonnl knowledge of this ticket department covered ranch more than the topics of this contro- versy. I do not propose to follow the intricacies of the controversy itself, bnt to deal as briefly as possible with the facts. " 1. I concede to the Sanitary Commission all they claim as to the motives which actuated their principal officers in this arrangement for soldiers' transportation. I cheerfully acknowl- edge their great labors and usefulness in the work of ministering to the comforts of soldiers. I impeach them with no frauds or attempts at fraud. Yet they are but men, and may err in judg- ment, even where motives are pure. " 2. I hold they did err in judgment first, when in organizing this plan they gave a monop- olizing control to one line of road out of Washington and its connections ; and second, when a controversy arises they at once adopt the independent ticket office of that road as a part of their own organization, and defend it with great ze.il against all charges. This ticket office is not under your control. It is the office of the Baltimore and Ohio Road ; the agent is appointed by them, reports to Wiem, is paid by them, and, of course, works for them. He is independent of you, and you can not know what he does only as he sees fit to disclose to you. He has injured you, and ho can con'.imu' to ilo so. Ho is .in a;;ent to b«. w.ii. bed, an.', not to be imidici.ly trusted. " 3. The argument that is made by Mr. Abbott to you in favor of giving a monopoly in tbij transportation to the Baltimore and Ohio Road is inisound in this, that that road makes a ter- mination and connections at Wheeling that disables it from accommodating many Western sol- dieia in direct routes of travel to their homes. Their ticket ag«nt will always send over his whole line, wiiile many a soldier would be facilitated in getting to l'itl>bui-g. Let me illustrate: I have known soldiers for Fort Wayne, and parUs west of it, sent via Wheeling, Columbn.':, and Indi- anapolis. Look over the map for the detour. I know of three soldiers going to Winchester, K»n- dolpli County, Indiana, sent on tickets to Indianapolis, Indiana, seventy-five miles west of tlicir destination, with no further transportation ; for, fiom that point I passed therti home. Soldiers from Northern Oliio have been sent to Wheeling, thence back to Wellsville, and thepoe to CleT^ •Letter to James C. Wetmorc, February, 1864. Letter Books Brough's Administration, St-ile Archives. Opening of Beough's Administration. 193 land and Toledo. All these should have had transportation to Pittsburg, whence they had straight roads home. All these things are within my personal knowledge. Granted there was trouble in getting the Northern Central Boad into the arrangement. They did come into it for Northern Pennsylvania soldiers, for Ohio soldiers at Governor Tod's request, and would, with a fair distribution of business, have done it with you. Mr. Abbott's argument shows that he was as willing to get rid of them, upon a slight refusal, as he was anxious to give a monopoly to the Baltimore and Ohio Boad. I do not attribute to him any bad motive in doing so, but the fact is none the less fixed. " 5. Here, therefore, is the root of the evil. Mr. Abbott did not understand all the ramifi- cations of these routes of communication. He did not foresee that in a great work of this kind he must have not only immediate but remote lines open to him. He did not comprehend the fact that Pittsburg was a more important distributive point for Northern and Central Ohio than AVheeling. He was not versed in the sympathies of trunk lines and their connections. He wanted to do with one party Only. Granted that orders have been given to send soldiers by the direct routes. The ticket agent interj\rets that for himself, and acta for the interests of his em- ployers. You can not know his transgressions ; you can not control his acts ; you can do noth- ing but implicitly take his statements, and become at once his shield and defense. Hence what was intended for a good thing for soldiers has, by a mistake in the beginning, and interested management on the part of railroad agents vested with its monopoly, become a source of strife, and, in sonle cases, of small wrongs and oppression. Monopolies always produce su'ch results. " 6. It was partially in view of this that Governor Tod organized his system of furnishing half-fare transportation to Ohio soldiers, and intrusted his tickets to his own agent. He could not have them sold at that o£Bce, and his agent bore many complaints before he gave a public caution to Ohio men. " 7. A strict construction of M. Wetmore's card, I admit, implies a censure upon the Sani- tary Commission. If I had written it I would have embraced the ticket agency alone. And yet, as the beginning of the trouble is in your granted monopoly (which was an error of judg- ment and not of intention), you should not blame him for his course in not more strictly defining the line of responsibility. "8. I attach very little importance to the case of McDonald, except as to its having been the initial point of this controversy. Mr. Wetmore has affidavits of other cases. Still others have been matters of complaint here in Ohio, and others, and more flagrant ones, have come under my own personal observation in Ohio and Indiana. Because you are ignorant of any other thanthe case of McDonald, if for nothing else, I acquit the sanitary committee, as a body, of any knowl- edge or complicity in this thing, except the great mistake in the beginning. " 9. The controversy has been a very unpleasant one. I would regret it were it not that I see that good will come from it. The officers of this State do not desire any collision with the Sanitary Commission. We would much rather co-operate with them ; but when we know that they have, however honestly, made a mistake, we shall not hesitate to protect our soldiers from the results of it ; and especially will we not permit them to grant as a monopoly the whole mat- ter of transportation from Washington when, through our own agents, we can do better for our soldiers, " "10. No further good can come from a prolongation of this controversy. I respectfully sug- gest that the sanitary committee not only send all Ohio soldiers to the Ohio quarters for trans- portation, but protect them from being seized at the ticket office on their grounds ; and that, on the other hand, Mr. Wetmore withdraw his card, and co-operate in works of kindness with you. So shall both State and Sanitary Commission work together harmoniously for a common purpose, the protection of the interests of the soldiers. " Very respectfully, JOHN BKOUGH." The Commission was unable to deal with these trenchant statements, but it never regarded the Governor afterward with a kindly eye. With its Western Branch, however, his relations were generally cordial, as they were also with the Christian Commission everywhere. The State Quartermaster was directed to take charge of all contributions Vol. 1.— 13. 194 Ohio in the Wab. which the people might prefer to send to the soldiers directly through the medium of the State Agencies. The supplies thus forwarded were liberal, and it was believed that they were distributed to the soldiers for whom they were intended with more accuracy, promptness, and economy than could have been secured in any other way. How conciliatory in wish, yet firm in action, Governor Brough was as to hia relations to outside organizations for relieving the soldiers, we have been seeing. It remains to observe that his patience gave way, and his strong passions were inflamed to the utmost at any maltreatment of Ohio soldiers in hospitals. Other errors he could regard with charity; but this was a crime for which he could scarcely find words to express his feelings, or hot, vigorous action prompt enough to satisfy his demands. 1 He kept a watchful eye upon all the hospitals where any considerable num. bers of Ohio troops were congregated. The least abuse of which he heard was made matter of instant complaint. If the Surgeon in charge neglected it, he appealed forthwith to the Medical Director. If this officer made the slightest dehiy in administering the proper correction, he went straight to the Surgeon- General. Such, from the outset, was the weight of his influence with th^ Sec- retary of "War that no officer about that Department dared stand in the way of Brough's denunciation. It was known that the honesty and judgment of his statements were not to be impugned, and that his persistency in hunting down oifenders was remorseless. Into the details of his dealings with hospital authorities wo can not enter. But the cases of the Camp Dennison and Madison Hospitals may servo as illus- trations. Through the autumn of 1864 complaints as to the food of patients at Camp Dennison were rife — particularly complaints as to the food of convalescents. To these the Governor promptly called the attention of Surgeon Tripler, the Medical Director at Cincinnati. That officer sent up Surgeon Stanton, a cousin to the Secretary of War, to make an investigation, the report of which was duly forwarded to Governor Brough. The two letters from him thus evoked do, perhaps, some injustice, or, at least, express a possibly harsh judgment. But as instances of the rough, sturdy way in which he stood up for his wounded men, like a bear for its wounded cubs, of the pitiless severity with which he cut through all excuses for mistreatment of the soldiers, and of his utter indifference to mere considerations of social and official standing in the persons whom he attacked, they are unique. No soldier will read them without fresh feelings of gratitude to the strong champion who thus espoused his cause against all comers: "Executive Department, Columbus, November 29, 1864. "SuKOEON C. S. TripI/EK, Medical Director, Cincinnati, Ohio: "Sib: Absence in part, and in part other objects, have prevented an earlier respon-'e to your favor of September 26tb, inclosing report of Surgeon Stanton, touching the complaints of bad Ireiitment of our men at Camp Dennison. "Upon a careful reading of the report of Surgeon Stanton, I was forcibly struclc with the fact that, while he admitted that insufficient and deteriorated food was furnished the men, and the Opening of Brough's Administration. 195 iMn^tal fund largely reduced without providing an equivalent to the sick aud wounded, he was Dtter^ unable to discover by what process this was accomplished, or upon whom the responsi- bility of tliig state of things should rest. Whether this defect of vision was personal or official — artificial or Kal — I had not then any means of determining : but I have always entertained the opinion that an honest public servant i-arely finds a dithoneH effect without being able to trace it to the proper causa., I was very far from being satisfied with the superficial and gingerly report of Surgeon Stanton. The reports to me of the gross wrongs perpetrated on sick and wounded soldiers at Camp Dennison had become a serious matter. I had several times pressed you for an investigation. You finally send me a report which admits all that has been charged; measurably evades the point of liability, nther seeking to cover up than expose; presents facts that tell an open story of wrong, if not of fraud; and glosses all over with glittering generalities and specious, phrases without vigor or honesty of purpose. Still no remedy was proposed; no change of offi- cials recommended ; no remedy for the wrongs or sufferings of our men pointed out ; but the scarred and wounded veterans of a score of battle-fields were coolly sacrificed to the esprit de corps of the medical profession. I felt that your blood would be stirred by this thing ; that your repu- tation, if nothing else, would spur you to a further investigation of this wrong, and an applica- tion of a remedy. I waited sometime patiently for such a demonstration, but it came not. I then instituted inquiries on my own account. By whom, and in what manner, I am prepared, on a proper occasion, to disclose. It must be sufficient for the present purpose to state that I offi- cially indorse the parties making it, as capable, truthful, and honest men. No information of theirs comes from hospital patients — ^but from undoubtedly reliable sources. "The three following points are clearly established: "1. That the quantity of the food provided for the convalescent soldier in this hospital for the past six months, has been entirely inadequate. "2. The quality of an important article— kiofTee — has been deteriorated. " 3. The variety which is designed to be furnished to the sick under the name of delicacies, has been deficient. "4. The question of the capacity or hmesty of the Surgeon-in-chjef is left to conjecture; from the facts, charity pointing to the former in the absence of the actual and positive proofs as to the latter. "I am willing to accept the first part of the suggestion myself; but unwilling that it shall any longer work injury and wrong to our soldiers. "During all this time it is shown, as by Surgeon Stanton, that full rations have been drawn, and a good quality of articles furnished; but the men have not reaped the benefit; and the sick and wounded have langnished for the delicacies which the hospital fund should have furnished. "In relation to the article of oojSee it is found: I " 1. That instead of the issue of the briginal berry parched, to be ground in the hospital kitchens, a large coffee-mill has been procured, and the coffee drawn from the Post Commissary has been ground in the large mill, and issued in that form. "2. The coiks have been instructed to save their coffee grounds after boiling, dry them, and then return them to the issuing clerk of the hospital. "As a matter of course the coffee is a miserable slop. "4. The question naturally occurs, ' Do the dried coffee grounds after being returned to the iBsning clerk get mixed with a portion of good toffee, and find its way to the soldier's table a second time?' Perhaps Dr. Stanton could have determined this, if he had drank a cup of the 'miserable slop' with which our soldiers are regaled. The smallness of the hospital fund is a matter of surprise. "Dr. Stanton admits this himself. He can not imagine the reason. I am not willing to suggest it. The prior history of the hospital proves that. Under former management, this fund was not only ample to supply the men with extras and delicacies, but a surplus of several thousand dollars was paid over to other hospitals in 1863. "I trouble you merely with t)ie points, not copying the very interesting detail with which they are illustrated. There is enough of this in all conscience. If we grow indignant over the starvation and inhuman treatment of our soldiers in Bebel prisons, what emotion will our people manifest when they find the same thing in their own hospitals, even though it occur only from the incapacity of those who should be stewards of our bounty? "I learn from the public. papers, that tbe Surgeon in charge at Camp Dennison haa been 196 Ohio in the Wak. relieved there and ordered to Evanaville. From other Bources I am adyised that efforts are being made to get that order reversed, and continue the present order of things. To the latter, you may be assured, I shall not consent; on the other hand, while I am not only willing but deter- mined to be rid of him in Ohio hospitals, I have strong scruples about having him imposed upon the hospitals of other States. My own judgment is, that hi.s want of capacity, exemplified in this case disqualifies him for any similar position. Be thi.s as it may, I now insist upon his imme- diate removal from Camp Dennison ; and if you feel any hesitancy about assuming this responsi- bility, I am ready at any moment to forward a copy of this communication, with the report on which it is predicated, to the "War Department. If the removal is not promptly made, I shaU ask it direct of the Surgeon-General. " I am aware that I have not kept strictly within regulations by instituting an investigation into a hospital under your control. I have explained that I waited one month after Dr. Stanton's report for you to move in the matter. It did not seem possible that you would rest in silence over that document. You did not act. From that report, if from nothing else, I knew the wrong existed. You did not apply the remedy. I could not see our men suffer, and daily read their appeals for relief. I sympathized with them if their military guardians did not. Thus you have my reasons for my action. I regard them as sufScient, and am confident the War De- partment will so consider them. " I will relieve you from any indignation by making the confession to the Department myseJf. I have tried to keep within regulations and to co-operate with you. I regret any collision; but I can not hear complaints from our men without investigating them ; and where I find wrongs I am always restless until I find a remedy. Very respectfully, " JOHN BEOUGH, Governor of Ohio."* This very naturally drew out a reply from Surgeon Tripler — the tiatui-e of ■which may be gathered from the Governor's response : " Executive Department, Columbus, December 7, 1864. "Surgeon C. S. Tripleb, Medical Director, Cineinimti, Ohio : "Sir: I acknowledge your favor of the 3d instant. As I have assurance therein that Surgeon Varian has been relieved from Camp Dennison, my object is accomplished, and, though my time does not admit of extended correspondence on the subject, I owe it perhaps in justice to you to notice a few points. "1. I have heretofore done full justice to your official conduct as director in the department, artd the general promptitude of your action. It was on this account that I was so greatly sur- prised at what I took to be your acquiescence in the state of things at that camp after the report of Surgeon Stanton. , " I supposed you would regard that report as I did — as an evidence that an immediate change was required there. I read your letter accompanying that report hastily, and did not then recog- nize, what now appears to me, that you considered it a sufficient explanation, not requiring anj immediate action. "The papers came to me as I was leaving to go East. Had I supposed it possible that yon regarded the investigation as satisfactory, I would have advised you that it was not so to me, and required prompt action. Such an idea never occurred to me, and I daily expected to hear that Surgeon Varian was removed. " 2. I do not comprehend the reason for the delay on the ground tliat Surgeon Varian wss detailed by your superiors, and not under your immediate control, A report from you as to liis incapacity in the position he filled would have brought a change at any moment. My experience is that the department looks to the care of our men, and not to places for incompetent officers over them. " 3. My course is, where I find a wrong to institute a remedy, and I will not allow any man living to stand in the way of it. I may sometimes act impulsively, but I have not done so in this case. I waited a full month, during which time the wrong prevailed, and no movement of • visible character was made until I took the matter in charge. " 4. I nave no disposition to do injustice to Surgeon Stanton. I have read his report again, and *Brough's Letter Books for 1864. State Archives. Opening of Beough's Administration. 197 I can not' take back a word by which I have characterized it. He found a grave wrong to our men at camp. He could have acquired the details, and the requisite remedy. He lacked either the capacity or dispoRition to do so — am willing to admit the latter. He could have ascertained the details fully as well as others did it after him. He took the case as made by Surgeon Va- rian and there rested it. His iympathies stopped there. What were the wrongs of a lot of sick and wounded men to him, compared with the reputation and place of the man through whose incapacity these wrongs were inflicted ! " Did he inspect the insufficiency of food and its results? He could have tasted, analyzed the miserable slops called coflee; he could have ascertained that coffee grounds were dried and sent back to the post commissary ; he conld have ascertained that food was deteriorated, and that it was . distributed without regard to the ability of the men to consume it. " All these things were subject to his knowledge; but he passes them by, and 'draws on his imagination for his facts,' undertaking to speculate about what he could have demonstrated in an hour. This is why I denominated it a 'gingerly report.' If not designed, it was calculated to screen the officer through whose ' incapacity' these things existed. Surgeon Stanton may be an honest and good officer. I do not seek to controvert your opinions on this point, but he does not conduct investigations to my satisftiction. I desire a little more earnest and thorough inquiry into matters connected with .this hospital. "5. It is proper to say that in the facts communicated to me, no one is based on the state- ments of the patients in hospitals. I am glad you realize the position of these men. I do the same. I do not want to wrong surgeons, but I will not screen them, nor any other class of officers, either from charges or complaints; many of the latter are fictitious, some of them exaggerated; but all of them, or nearly so, merit investigation, beyond the statements of the surgeon in charge, and outside of his influence. " I hope we understand our relative positions. I do not feel that I have misjudged or wronged you in this matter, but that you have done injustice to yourself. I desire to co-operate cordially with you. All I have said or done in this case has been directly with yourself, except the investigation I directed when I found you had determined to re."!! the matter upon the report of Surgeon Stanton. The complaints of men come direct to me. I can not pass them by, es- pecially after this experience. If they can be investigated through your department, I much prefer that course; but I can not abide superficial ex.xminations that stand self-condemned on their fece, nor permit incompetent officers to remain in charge for months after they should be dismissed. I can only assure you that my personal feelings toward yourself are as kindly .is ever; my severity of speech is not intended to wound but to aid as a corrective in past or future wrongs to our men. " Very truly yours, JOHN BROUGH."* u These Camp Dennison troubles had scarcely been settled till complaints be- ' gan to grow more uniform and continuous concernii:g the bad food at the hos- , pital in Madison, Indiana, where a large number of Ohio patients were collected. The Ohio Agent at Louisville reported these complaints, and from many other ' sources the Governor satisfied himself of th^pth^stice. As in other cases he fol- lowed the hesitation of the medical authorities to administer the correctives which he demanded, with swift, strong action on his own account. On the same day he forwarded orders to his agent and notification to the Medical Director, as ■follows : 'i "Executive Dbpabtment, Columbus, January 5, 1865. i" Captain V. Hobb, Agent, Louisville, Kentucky: '■■ "Sie: You will please call on Assiatant-Surgeon-Gcneral Wood, or the Medical Director ipf your department, and respectfully request that no more transfers of Ohio men be made to the Hospitals at Madison, Indiana, whileut is under the charge of Surgeon Grant. Send them any- 'where else but there. The treatment at that place is inhuman and villainous. I have appealed to tlie Medical Director of this department for a change, but no movement is made, I ask, there- •Brough's Letter Books for 1864. State Archives. 198 Ohio in the Wak. fore, that our men be protected from any further injustice and barbarity. You may furnish a copy of this letter. Very respectfully, JOHN BEOUGH." " Executive Depaktment, Columbus, January 5, 1865. "Surgeon C. S. Tripleb, Medical Director, Cincinnati, Ohio: " Sir: I am under obligations for the transfer of one hundred Ohio men from that pest-house called a hospital at Madison, to points where, I hope, they will be properly fed and decently treated. "I respectfully request that the rest of the Ohio soldiers at that point be transferred at the earliest possible moment, and that no more Ohio soldiers be sent to that hospital while it is under the control of Surgeon Grant. If your own reputation as Medical Director of this department does not require a change in the management of that hospital, my duty as Governor of the Stale is to protect our soldiers, as far as practicable, from the brutal treatment they have received there. If I can not accomplish this through your department, I must attempt it elsewhere. I regret much to be compelled to assume this position. "It is three weeks since I called your attention to this matter. The complaints accumu- late on me every day — and I know them to be well founded. 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Nabl(i..° ""26 269 17 1 13 24 3 57 mtt'vftiiA Ouyahogtt. Dtii'ke .. Piiuldiii"' i}ti Pftiiy 16 2 Pike 25 I^Brfltti'd" 7 1 9 2 9 15 Prnblf ^^^tte 7 5 67 9 7 10 13 13 ^^Brakl i n 208 43 86 2 28 1 95 IS 4 42 25 Richland .. .. S^ulton Ro.ss 18 Sailia. 22 " "ii ""io 18 8 179 17 21 7 Slirlby 25 30 4 Hardtn 44 6 £Fai'rlBon Tuscarawas .... 128 ^■jg_„y ' ' "2 17 7 35 2 131 3 1 1 IS Kj^j,]^._JJ " ' 15 25 Van Weit '^jl^ikins Vinton 20 Hmolihflfi 70 9 7 11 144 96 6 38 Warrun 16 SgSTgj, AVashingtuii.... ^'l^rakiOQ 13 5 9 45 ^iG^wson 46 l^OX Wood 16 L»k= Wyandot 5 Licking... 7 26,022 21,868 1,415 23,283 88 2,827 202 Ohio in the Wae. On the 23d of August, 18G4, the people of the State were startled by a proclamation appealing to them not to offer organized resistance to the draft then impending. The language of the Govoi-nor was conciliatorj', and he made few disclosures as to any secret knowledge of the danger wh-icli he professed to apprehend. After reciting the facts connected with the order for a draft, h'e mentioned a fear of organized opposition to it, explained the punishments for conspiracy against the Government, and continued : "Mdst earnestly do I appeal to the people of the State not to engage in this forcible resist- ance to the laws, which evil counsellors and bad men are leading them. It can not, and will not, succeed. Its triumph, if it achieve any, must be of a mere temporary character. The Govern- ment is not weak. It is strong and powerful. It can not, and it will not, permit an armed insurrection to impeach its strength, or impair its power, while contending with the Southern rebellion. I do not say this to you in any spirit of intimidation, or in any threatening tone. I speak it to you as a warning, and with an imploring voice to hear and heed it. I know what the determination of your Government is, and I fully comprehend the power at hand to enforce it. "What can you, who contemplate armed resistance, reasonably expect to gain by such a movement? You can not effectually or permanently prevent the enforcement of the laws. You can not in anywise improve your own condition in the present, and must seriously injure it in the future. Judicious and consei-vative men, who look to the supremacy of Government for the pro- tection and safety of their persons and property, will not .sympathize or co-operate with you. You may commit crime; you may shed blood; you may destroy property; you may spread ruin and devastation over some localities of the State; you may give aid and comfort for a season to the Rebels already in arms against the country; you may transfer, for a brief time, the horrors of war from the fields of the South to those of the State of Ohio; yon may paralyze prosperity, and create consternation and alarm among our people. This is a bare possibility, but it is all you can hope to accomplish; for you have looked upon the progres.s of our present struggle to little purpose, if you have not learned the great recuperative power, and the deep earnestness of the country in this contest. The final result will not be doubtful; the disaster to you will be complete, and the penalty will equal the euormiiy of the crime. "From the commencement of this rebellion the State of Ohio has maintained a firm and inflexible position which can not now be abandoned. In this internal danger that now threatens us, I call upon all good citizens to assert and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the land. These constitute the great elements of our strength as a nation, and they are the bulwarks of our people. Hold in subjection by persuasion and peaceable means, if you can, all attempts at civil insurrection, or armed resistance to the laws. Failing in this, there is another duty as citizens from which we may not shrink, and to which I earnestly hope we may not be enforced. To those who threaten us with this evil, I say, we do not use any threats in return — there is no desire to provoke passion, or create further irritation. Such men are earnestly and solemnly invoked to abandon their evil purposes; but at the same time they are warned that this inwcation is not prompted by any apprehension of the weakness of the Government, or the success of the atteniptsto destroy it. I would avert, by all proper means, the occurrence of civil war in the State; but if it must come, the consequences be with those who precipitate it upon us. "JOHN BEOUGH." "VVe now know that it was the discovery of the "Order of American Knights" or "Sons of Liberty," and the knowledge of the extent of their plans, which prompted these precautions. His Private Secretary* has since explained the circumstances: "Governor Brough received his first intimation of what was being done by that secret organization in the State of Ohio from Major-Goneral Eosecrans, whose watchfulness was very extraordinary. The ■'■Hon. Wra. Henry Smith, subsequently Secretary of State. The extract above given is from a private letter to the author. Peoghess of Recruiting. 203 Governor then employed secret agents, who penetrated the most hidden recesses -of the order, and ascertained all that was going on. One of his agents was a short-hand writer, who took reports of the most remarkable declarations made at their meetings. This same officer aided in distributing the arras to the mem- bers — which was done by moonlight — in the country. The Governor was so vigilant — sitting up all night, often for several nights in sueeession, to receive reports from his agents — that he was able to foil their treasonabk schemes without bloodshed." ' For bloodshed seems to have been really intended. They met in secret for drill, armed themselves as w^ell as they could, boasted of their strength, and openly tlM;eatened that the second draft of 1864 should not take place. But before the draft came on, the regiments of the National Guard (whose history we have next to trace) were pouring back into the State. "I claim very little credit for my own counsels," said the Governor modestly in his annual message some months afterward, "but as regiment after regiment was discharged from the camps, and went to their homes, with arms in their hands and well-known loyally in their hearts, the wave of rebellion very rapidly subsided; and the conspirators who had been the boldest in their demonstrations of resistance to the laws, were among the first to hurry substitutes into the ranks of the army, or relieve the State of their presence, in order to avoid the service they had openly threatened could not be imposed. The draft went forward promptly, and in the most peaceable manner. The persecution and abuse of Union citi- zens ceased at once. Law and order were again in the ascendant; and no doubt or fear was entertained as to the perfect ability of the State to maintain them. And yet no force was used; no considerable body of men kept under arms in mtlitarj' array — no parade or exhibition of armed forces. But there spread all over our territorj^ a consciousness that. the State was pi-epared for any emer- gency ; that its protectors were ready at a moment's warning, and could be implicitly relied upon ; and that the first movement toward forcible resist- ance of the laws would be speedily crushed, entailing its consequences upon those who might inaugurate it. It was a peaceful triumph, achieved by the inherent power of a State, in its least pretentious manifestation; and its i-esult and consequences were of a thousand times more value than the expenditure the organization and support of the National Guard have imposed upon the people." Sundry facts as to this organization were given by the Adjutant-General in Lis report : "One of the most noticeable features of the rebellion during the year, in Ohio, which neces- sarily engaged a large share of the attention of this department, was the existence throughout the State of a formidable secret organization, known as "The Order of American Knights." The origin of this society is directly traceable to the rebellion, of wliich it has been at all limes an auxil- iary. Early in the year the Governor organized a system of espionage upon certain auspicious movements of well-known Eebel sympathizers in the State. Through the instrumentality of detectives, and other means not necessary to enumerate, the entire workings of the order, their objects, principles, and strength were ascertained. By comparing the information thus obtained with what had been learned of the order byv the military authorities in Missouri, Indiana, and 204 Ohio in the Wae. other 'Western States, it was clearly demonstrated that there existed in the State of Ohio a secret, treasonable organization, numbering from eighty thousand to one hundred and ten thousand mem- bers, bound together by oaths, which they professed to hold paramount to their allegiance to their State and country. This organization was to a considerable extent armed, drilled, and supplied with ammunition. It had a qiuui military organization, and a system of signals by which large numbers might be called together at the very shortest noticed The written principles of the order recognize and defend the institution of slavery, and its twin abomination, the right of secession. These doctrines were sugar-coated by fallacious arguments and nicely-rounded periods, to tickle the ears of the groundlings, and entice the unsuspecting neophyte to advance to the higher degrees, where all disguise was thrown aside, and the knife was whetted and the gun shotted, to take the life of any man who dared stand up for the cause of the country. " The purposes and operations of the order were fully known early in the summer, and ample steps were taken to meet any overt act of violence with such a power as would crush it out at once and forever. The programme of the uprising last contemplated embraced the destruction of the railroads and telegraph lines, and the sudden movement of a force to this city; the seizure of the State and United States arsenals here ; the release of the Rebel prisoners at Camp Chase, who were to be armed by the arms captured here. The column, thus re-enforced, was to co-operate with John Morgan, or some other Rebel commander, who was expected to demonstrate at some point on the border, more probably in Kentucky. The time fixed for the commencement of this grand movement was the 16th day of August last. This date was learned from several sources, and from lodges in different parts of this and other States. It was also known to the Rebel prisoners at Camp Chase, and of course they were on th6 qui vive for their expected deliverance. "The real causes of the failure of this movement are known to be the increased vigilance of our military authorities in strengthening the prison and arsenal guards, in arresting the leading conspirators in the several States, and the seizure of large quantities of arms known to belong to tiie organization.'' Serious as this hidden danger would now seem to have been, there was an open one, connected with the work of recruiting the army, which threatened far more alarming consequences. It was no less than the demoralization of' the peo- ple and the bankruptcy of the country, by the fast-growing evils of the ruinous bounty system. The machinery itself was imperfect — cumbrous in detail, and open to abuses. "There is more or less corruption in at least one-half the subordinate provost-marshalships of the State," wrote Brough in a confidential letter to the Provost-Marshal-General. Men furnished substitutes who were ineligible. Substitutes deserted bj"- the hundred, and enlisted again for fresh and higher bounties. The business of substitute brokerage came to be almost a respect- able way of making a fortune. While the army was thus cheated, the people were impoverished in their eflPorts to buy soldiers. ISTo Government in the world, in the whole history of war, ever had an army raised at such cost as were the recruits of 1864. No Government in the world could ever long endure such a financial strain. All the bounties, it is true, did not come from the National or State Treasuries but where they were made up by local efforts, the communities in question were thus weakened by the drain, and rendered less capable of bearing the heavy taxation. One way or another, by public or pri- vate extravagance in purchasing military duty, the money of the country was being swept into the vortex, credit was being exhausted, debts were accumu- lating, and sagacious men came to dread bulletins from the treasury far more than those from the army. Difficulties of Recruiting. 205 From the outset Governor Brough protested against anj delaj'S in the draft, having for their object the extension of opportunities for piling up bounties in the hope of getting soldiers. As early as March 14, we find him writing in this vigoi-ous strain to the Secrej;ary of War:* "CoiTJMBtJS, March 14, 1864. "Hon. E. M. Stastoh, Secretary of War, Washington City, D. C: "Sib: In your general remark to the Senate, that State executives were pressing the exten- sion of bounties I hope you made a mental reservation in favor of your servant. I have favored the draft steadily from the day the proclamation ordering it on the 10th wag issued. The result of this last postponement has fulfilled my prediction to the President. "Kecruiting has virtually stopped. The bounties even will not tempt, and the local authori- ties and citizens having the fear of the draft removed, are making no further effort to fill quotas. They regard the postponement of the draft as indefinite, both because of the recruiting and becanse, as they say, 'Ohio is so near being out she will not be drafted, even if a draft is ordered.' We shall do very little more in this State until our people realize that a draft will be had on a fixed day, and that promise must be kept. "I favor a draft for another consideration. I regard our financial position as rapidly becom- ing' the most critical one connected with the war. With every man we put into the army, costing us over three hundred dollars, we are ama.ssing a debt and corresponding taxation, that will soon force us to resort to the same means as the Confederacy to get rid of it, except that in our case such a measure will be our destruction. If the call is to be filled, let us have the draft on the Ist of April. Yours, very truly, "JOHN BROUGH." In other and equally vigorous communications he had even earlier placed himself upon the record, in earnest opposition to the whole bounty system as then administered. We have seen that no man outdid him — no man indeed came near equaling him in the extent of his claims for the families of soldiers, but he did not regard the wasteful bounties to the men as the proper method of supplying the wants of the families they left behind. To Congress he appealed for the aid which Congress alone could give, in at least modifying a system against which no one State could make effectual opposition. His two letters to the Chairman of the Military Committee of the House of Eej)resentatives were regarded at the time as the ablest presentment of the case which reached that body from any quarter. With them we may fitly close this account of the re- cruiting in the last years of the war, and the evils and dangers that beset it : "Columbus, February 6, 1865. "Hon. R. C. Schenck, Souse of Sepresentatives, Washington Oity, D. C: "Sib: The local bounty system is i-uining the armies and the Government. The present system of allotting quotas and filling them is weakening if not actually destroying the confidence of the people, and with it our political ability to sustain the Government. It has run into cor- ruptions, or rather created them, of the mo.st serious and alarming character all over the State. This is a general statement I know ; but details are plenty enough to make a respectable-sized volume. The temptation to the subordinate under slender pay is great, while the controlling and examining power is too remote. A deputy provost-marshal or a surgeon can only be re- moved by an order from Washington. He may have influences enough to hold himself in position for months over the head and even against the recommendations of the State Provost- Marshal, who perhaps has not strictly legal evidence, but yet information of such a character as to satisfy him that the man should be removed. Why not regard them as civil ofScers to be removed when the public service required? Why hold them under the military rule, to be reached only by charges, arrests, and court-martial investigations? Why should they not be responsible to the •Brough's private Letter Books, State Archives, War Department Letters, 1864, p. 33. 206 Ohio in the War. state proYOst-mar«l>al«, and tl.ey in turn to tl.e Provost Marshal-General? What is the neces- sity of all the red-tape that now exists? But u. more pertinent and practical inquiry comes up: why not change the whole programme of assigning quotas and filling them? Why not under a call for troops, assign to each State its quota of the call, and leave the assignment of local credits and quotas, and the raising of the men to the State authorities under Government inspection and muster? It can be done for less than half the expense of the present system, and would com- mand the confidence of the people much more than the present system. " We are dailv overwhelmed by delegations and letters from all parts of the btate in regard to local quotas, and representations of errors and injustices. We have no information and of course can not give any; we can only refer to the Assistant Provost Marshal-General. His an- swer is that he has no knowledge of details. The quotas of congressional districts are given to him from Washington, and the rule fixed' by which to distribute below that. Men go away dissatisfied— in many cases despondent, in some bitter opponents of the whole Government ma- chinery. It needs simplification, and it can be simplified. It is necessary to bring it nearer to the people, where they can know its workings and hold some one responsible for it. I give yon merely a general idea. The details may be a little troublesome, but they can be readily worked out. It would not strike out the provost-marshal's department, but simply relieve it of its tedious and cumbrous details, dividing them round among the respective States. Under it I think we could control and restrain much of the fraud and corruption that is now prevailing, and unless checked will effectually break down the power of the Government to replenish its armies. 1 can say to you confidentially, that of the thirty thousand men raised, credited, and mustered in Ohio during the last call, over ten thousand failed to reach the front. This appears here of record. Pennsylvania shows a worse result. About one thousand one hundred men have been forwarded to Camp Chase under the present call, and of these two hundred and sixty-three were on the lists last night as ' absent without leave,' and this although the money brought here with them is taken from them on arrival. Still they have been mustered and credited, and fill so much of the 'quota,' though not of the army. "The State swarms with bounty-brokers, bounty-jumpers, and mercenaries of every descrip- tion. Men take contracts to fill 'quotas ' as they would to furnish hay or wood. They take the largest share to themselves, and frequently the recruit deserts because he says he has been swindled in his bounty. Patriotism and love of the cause are supplanted to a large degree, as a motive of filling our armies by the mercenary spirit of making money out of the operation. In our own State I am alarmed at the enormous debts we are creating and piling upon weak localities. I have not the data to fix it, but I am satisfied it now exceeds six millions of dollars. Tliere Ls a pay day for it all, either in crushing taxation or dishonor. "In addition to this apprehension is the painful conviction that it does not give us men to fill our wasting ranks — it does not add to our power to crush the rebellion and end the war. Instead of that it is constantly weakening u.s, both in a militarj- and financial sense. We are drifting upon the breakers! We are going to ruin ! I have been trying to persuade our legisla- tors to provide a State bounty, merely duplicating the bounty of the Government, and prohibit all local bounties or debt on taxation for them. But the answer is, 'other States will not do it,' and we must keep up in the general scramble. I do not know that we can get co-operation, but I would have some faith in doing so if the States had control of filling their own quotas, and were required to produce men for them. Perhaps we might fail, but we would remedy one class of evils and have a chance for the other. '■A recent convention of Adjutant-Generals at this city brought here some experienced and able men. Upon this point of States filling their quotas, there was a full debate and a perfefit unanimity of opinion. Is anything practicable in the waning hours of this session of Congress, or will we necessarily go on under the present system through another year? If so, I cim only deplore it. I am full of anxiety upon this subject. I would almost try to break the chains that bind me here, and go to Washington if I were convinced I could do any good thereby. Unless we can change our policy I have painful forebodings of the future. We have strength enough, but we are throwing it away; we are weakening our armies by every call and draft, iiwtead of strengthening them; we are piling up enormous debts and taxations upon our people; we are impairing the confidence of the thinking and earnest portion of our people, and pampering the desires of the weak and profligate; we are making a traffic of the holiest duty we owe to the Difficulties of Receuiting. 207 country, and procrastinating a struggle that we have the power to speedily terminate, if our means were less popularly and more earnestly directed. " I have written more than I intended, and yon will patiently read. I hope I am wrong in my forebodings. I will be gratified to find myself so. I do not profess to be wiser than other men. In this particular I would be almost glad to find myself a fool. It has been a subject of much examination and reflection. I can see its remedy only in the wisdom of Congress — I can not add to that, but I can not refrain from making Fome suggestions for your consideration in this private way. Very truly yours, JOHN BEOUGH." "Columbus, February 9, 1865. " Hon. E. C. Schbnck, House of MepresmtativeB, Washington City, D. C. : "SlE: After so long a communication only three days ago, I will no doubt be considered obtrusive in again reviewing the subject; but anxiety grows upon me every day, and I cannot forbear every exertion to remedy the evils that beset us. " Present indications are that we will not enlist over ten thousand men out of a quota of twenty-six thousand ; of whom fully twenty-five per cent, will fail to reach the service. The argument is constantly repeated, that one State can not inaugurate a reform where other States refuse to co-operate. This sentiment pervades and influences alike legislators and people! Tlie overweening anxiety is to fill the quotas — get the credits, no matter what the material, or how the army is affected. I feel the force of all this, yet I see its consequences not >enly in my own Slatebut elsewhere. ' "It seenia^to me there must be and is a controlling power somewhere. All admit that the bounty is the source of the evil. But it is saicj that having inaugurated the system we can not get rid of it; that it has passed beyond our control, and we must patiently await the ruin tliat is lapldly working out. I will not discuss this latter proposition. I simply do not believe it. If we have the moral courage we can control the evil, provided we concentrate pur energies and our strength. "The bounty system began with the General Government — that Government must assume the initiative in restraining it. To that end I suggest that Congress should enact : 1. That no bounty or payment shall be given or made by any locality or community to any man for entering the service, except such bounty as may be provided by his State, wbich shall not exceed the amount paid by the Government for a like term of service. 2. That the price of a substitute shall be fixed at double the amount of the Government bounty, and no higher sum shall be paid or received. 3. That no soldier shall enlist as substitute out of his own State, and on Ijis offering to do so, shall be returned to his State for punish^lent. " These enactments will cut present evils up by the roots, and I fail to see any new ones they can breed. Why is it not in the power of the present Congress to enact them ? Do not answer that concentration of action can not be had. We must have it. No measure is before that body of such vital moment as this. We are at the turning point of our destiny, militarily and financially. The next campaign settles the impending controversy for good or for evil. "But I will not argue it. 1 make the, suggestion and it is the only one I can make that t^ems to give promise of good results. 1 hope it will commend itself to your own good judg- ment, and that you will lend it all your valuable aid. i "1 have not written to any of our delegation but yourself. I would like you tp show my notes to General Garfield, if it is consistent with your views. I need not repeat that I am deeply solicitous on the subject. I may write a note to our senators to-night, but I can not go into the matter as fully as I have done lo you. Very truly yours, JOHN BROUGH." The next campaign did "settle the impending controversy." The sagacitj' of Bro.ugh was not at fault — we are next indeed to see how in other ways and with potent weight his policy was to aid in settling it. But the evils to which his forebodings so gloomily turned were not averted. The frightful expenses of an army of a million men, raised with such waste, to confront the remnant of the hundred thousand that was left to ujjhold the Rebel banner, still press down the country. For many weary j-ears to come they must continue to press, unless, alas! relief be sought in National dishonor. 208 Ohio in the Wab. CHAPTER XVII. THE HUNDRED DAYS' MEN. THE summer of 1863 had been marked in Ohio by unusual turbulence and by invasion. The arrests, the trial of Vallandigham, and his sub- sequent defiant candidacy for the Governorship, the organized efforts to resist the draft, the dangers along the whole southern border, and the invasion bj' John Morgan, had combined to make the year memorable in our local annals. As the season for military operations in 1864 approached, Governor Brough dis- played special anxiety to be prepared for similar dangers. Toward the close of February he discussed with ex-Governor Dennison the plan of having a few regiments of the volunteer militia of the State called into active service for duty along the southern border ; and, at his request, Governor Dennison visited Washington to urge this policy upon the Secretary of War. Mr. Stanton doubted the immediate necessity, and for various reasons, specially including the jealousy of other States, which it would arouse, discouraged the proposition. On the 15th of March Governor Brqugh addressed the Secretary at some length, renewing his proposition, and strenuouslj' urging its necessity. "Pass- ing events in Ohio and in Canada," he wrote, "point to a pressing danger of raids upon us from that quai-ter ; while our southern frontier, including that of Indiana, is undoubtedly to be the object of an assault by Morgan and his forces, as soon as their preparations are completed." The true way, he argued, to pre- vent such raids, as M'ell as the only economical way, was to have a force of drilled men on the frontier. A knowledge that the State was prepared to receive him would be the surest way to prevent Morgan from coming, and he insisted that he ought therefore to have authority to call out two to four regiments. But the view which other States would take of such a measure, still seemed sufficient reason for delay.* Meantime all saw the critical point of the war to be approaching. The Nation had enormous armies in the field, but they were lai-ger on the pay-rolls than in the list of men present for duty at the front. A General had been pro- moted to the chief command whose avowed policy for conquering the rebellion was the lavish use of overwhelmingly superior forces. The Government stand- * Brough's private Letter Books, State Archives, "War Department Letters, pp. 36-37. Hundred Days' Men. 209 ing aghast at tho frightful expenses into which the bounty system and this pol- icy of demanding untold numbers had plunged it, held success in the impending campaign to be indispensable — it could not, as was declared, bear up under such a drain for another year. Because, therefore, success then was held to be vitally necessary, and because the General in command would only promise a prospect of success, on condition that he should have treble 6r quadruple the number of soldiers his antagonist could- muster, it became an object of the utmost solicitude that every veteran in the forts about Washington, or the block-houses along the railroads, should be added to the ranks then about to plunge into the blind, bloody wrest- ling of the Wilderness. But neither forts nor railroads could be left exposed. John Brough was the first to comprehend the situation and divine its wants. He wasled, likewise, to it by a continuation of his recent effort. He had sought the protection of his State by placing its militia in the field in such numbers that an invader would keep away. He now sought a similar but larger end, the protection of the Capital and the whole territory of the North, by keeping the enemy so busy on their own soil that they would have no opportunity for incur- sions Northward. Under his suggestions the State militia law had been care- fully revised and improved, and the militia force which Governor Tod had left was in excellent condition. He conceived, therefore, the idea of calling out this militia to hold the forts and railroads, while Grant should throw his whole strength upon the Eebel army, crush it, and end the war. Within a hundred days — siich was then the understanding of the Eebel peril, and sucli was un- doulbtedly a correct apprehension of the possibilities which a Frederick or Napo- leon might have grasped — the struggle should bo over. For the lass great effort that should end the contest, therefore, he rightly held that Ohio would make any sacrifice, and that the sister States to the westward could be induced to unite with her. Accordingly, on his suggestion, a meeting of the Governors of Ohio, Indi- ana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa was held at Washington. Governor Brough stated his ability to furnish thirty thousand men. Governors Morton and Yates believed they could each add twenty thousand. There was some difference as to the time for which the offer could be made, but the term of one hundred days was finally agreed upon; and under Governor Brough's direction the fol- lowing proposition was prepared : " Wab Depabtmekt, Washington Citt, April 21, 1864. " To THE PB£8I»EKT OF THE UNITED STATES : * "I. The Governors of Oliio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin offer to the President infentry troops for the approaching campaign, as follows : Ohio ^ .'. 30,000 Indiana 20,000 ( Illinois 20,000 ^. Iowa 10,000 Wisconsin •—•■•• 5,000 "II. The term of serTice to be one hundred days, reckoning from the date of muster into ?.lwe service of the United States, unless sooner discharged. "III. The troops to be mustered into the service of the United States by regiments, when Vol. I.— 14. 210 Ohio in the War. the regiments are filled up, according to regulations, to the minimum strength — the regiments to be organized according to the regulations of the War Department ; the whole number to be fur- nished within twenty days from date of notice of the acceptance of this proposition. "IV. The troops to be clothed, armed, equipped, subsisted, transported, and paid as other United States infantry volunteers, and to serve in fortifications, or wherever their services may be required, within or without their respective States. "V. No bounty to be paid the troops, nor the services charged or credited on any draft.i. "VI. The draft for three years' service to go on in any State or district where the quota is not filled up ; but if any officer or soldier in this special service should be drafted, he shall be credited for the service rendered. "JOHN BBOUGH, Governor of Ohio. "O. P. MORTON, Governor of Indiana. "EICHAED YATES, Governor of Illinois. "W. M. STONE, Governor of Iowa." All believed that this would insure the speedy success of Grant's campaign. The President, taking the same hopeful view, accepted the proposition two days after it was presented. On that eventful Saturday afternoon the Adjutant-General of Ohio was startled with this dispatch : " Washington, April 23, 1864. "B. E. CoWEN, Adjidard- General: "Thirty thousand volunteer militia are called from Ohio, the larger portion to ser- vice out of the State. Troops to be mustered into service of United States for one hundred days, unless sooner discharged ; to be mustered in by regiments, of not less than the minimum strength, and organized according to laws of War Department. " They will be clothed, armed, equipped, transported, and paid by the Government, and to serve on fortifications, or wherever services may be required. Not over five thousand to be detailed for home service ; no bounty to be paid or credit on any draft. The draft to go on in deficient localities, but if any officer or soldier in the special service is drafted, he will be cred- ited for the service rendered. Time is of the utmost importance. It is thought here, that if substitutes are allowed, the list of exemptions may be largely reduced ; say, coufiimig >t to tele- graph operators, railroad engineers, officers and foremen in shops, and mechanics actually employed on Government or State work for miltary service. This is left to your discretion. Set the machinery at work immediately. Please acknowledge receipt by telegraph. "JOHN BROUGH." The Adjutant-General of Ohio was a mun who had been trained to matters of detail, and had long displaj^ed a special aptitude for such executive work. He thoroughly understood all the minutiae of the militia system. He was sin- f^ularly accurate and comprehensive in his grasp of details ; was incapable of being confused by any sudden pressure of business; was not liable to lose liis judgment or his coolness under the bewildering rush of exciting matters; not to be cliscoiiraged by difficulties, not to be swerved from his straight path by any representation of hardships or clamor for exemptions — an officer of clear, strong common sense. Governor Brough well knew the man upon whom his unexpected dispatch was to throw this sudden weight, and he assured the Secrelarj' of War that, by the time he could get back to Columbus, he should find the great movement well begun. He was not disappointed. The announcement was received at Columbus on Saturday afternoon. There were no adequate means of reaching the people before Monday morning. Hundred Days' Men. 211 ■}• Meantime the necessary orders were maxle, and such preparations as foresigbW; could suggest, wore devised. The; papers of Monday morning, throughout' the State, contained the following: ! i "GhENEltAi HEADjQbASTERS SXATE OF OstlQ, : . , "ADJUTAjTT-GpifBBAx's OFFICE, ColumbuB, April 25, 1864. "Genekai. Obdees No. 12. "Tile regiments, battalions, and independent companies of infantry of tlie National Guard of Oliio are hereby called into activ^ service for the term of one hundred days, unless sooner discharged. They wiU be clothed, armed, equipped, transported, and paid by the United States Government. "These organizations' will rendezvous at the most eligible places in their respective counties (the place to be fixed by the commanding officer, and to be on a line of railroad if practicable), on Monday, May 2, 1864, and report by telegraph, at four d'dlock P. M. of the same day, the number present for duty. ' '. "The alacrity with which all calls for the inilitary forces 6P the Slate have been heretofore met, furnishes the surest guaranty that the National Guard will be prompt to assemble at the appointed time. Our armies in the field are marshaling for a decisive blow, and the citizen-soU diery will share the' glory of the crowning victories of the campaign, by relieving our veteran regiments from post and garrison-duty, to allow them to engage in the Biore arduous labors o! the field. By order of the Governor: ■* "B. B. CO WEN, Adjntant-General, Ohio." ' I At the same time an ordeii was promulgated, making the exemptions whiel^ the &overnor had suggested. And now came the tremendous pressure which, for a little time, the Adju- tant-General had to bear alone. A week had been givfen preparatory to the rendezvous. Through this time protests, appeals for exemption, warnings of danger to the State, financially and politically, poured in. General Cowen bore stoutly up against them all, refused' every a'ppeal fbr exemption that did not come under the term§ of his order, referred applications for discharge to th^ regimental commanders, assured every objector that the call was necessary, that it would be enforced at all hazards, and that tlve State Administration was ready to accept all responsibilities. Throughout the State arose a sudden, excited, sometimes angry buzz^ The men who composed the volunteer militia companies (now known as the jN"ational Guard) werfe artiong the most substantial and pati-iotic 'citizens of the State. They were in the midst of the opening business or labors of the s'easdn. To almost every m_an it came as a personal sacrificietO'bP made for a necessity not very clearly understood. Some prominent Union leaders discouraged th6 movement; all saw that it would prove a repetition of thewd,steful foll^ Of thd early calls for three months' and six months' troops (who had just corne to be useful when their term of service had expired), unless, indeed, the crisis wer^ such that this sudden re-enforcement would insure the etrHiing of the final blow. The day came for the mustering of the regiments at their respective rendez- vous. A cold rain prevailed throughout the State. Many had predicted thap the moTement would be a failure ; it now seemed as i£ it must be. But by four o'clock in the afternoon commanders of regiments begtin to report by telegraph'. At seven in the evening the Adjutant-General telegraphed the Secretary of- 212 Ohio in the War. War: "More than thirty thousand National Guards are now in camp and ready for muster." At half-past seven the reports showed thirty-eight thousand men in camp, and clamorous to be sent forward. Considering the exhaustion, the previous discouragements, the period in the war, it was the grandest uprising of soldiers, the most inspiring rush of armed men from every village and ham- let and walk of life that the whole great struggle displayed. Governor Brough gave fitting expression to the general feeling of admira- tion which the stirring spectacle evoked, in an address, the next day issued: " Executive Depabtment, Columbus, May 3, 1864 " To THE National Gttakd or Ohio : "The Commander-in-Chief cordially and earnestly thanks you for your noble response on yesterday to the call made for the relief of our army, and the salvation of the country. This manifestation of loyalty and patriotism is alike honorable to yourselves and your noble State. In the history of this great struggle it will constitute a page that you and your descendants may hereafter contemplate with perfect satisfaction. "The duty to which you will be assigned, though comparatively a minor one, will be none the less beneficial to the cause of tlie country. While you hold fortifications, and lines of army communications, you will release veteran soldiers, and allow them to strengthen the great army that is marshaling for the mightiest contest of the war. In this you will contribute your fnll measure to the final result we all so confidently anticipate, and so much desire — the end of the rebellion, and the restoration of peace and unity in the land. "There is no present imminent danger that calls you from your peaceful avocations. But, it is necessary that we enter upon the spring campaign with a force that will enable us to strike rapid and efiective blows when the conflict opens. Though we have met with a few reverses this spring, the general military situation is everyivhere hopeful, and those in command of your armies were never more confident. But we can not permit this war, in its present proportions, to linger through another year. It is laying a burden upon us which, by vigorous and united exertion, we must arrest. It is true economy, as well as the dictate of humanity, to call to the termination of this contest a force that will be sufficient for the purpose. Time, treasure, and blood will alike be saved in augmenting our forces, and making the contest short and decisive. The hope of the Bebel leaders is in the procrastination of the war. In this a, political party in the North sympathizes with them, and is laboring, by the same means to secure a political triumph at the expense of the unity and future prosperity of the Nation. The first we must subdue with our arms within the hundred d.iys, and then we can turn upon the other and win over it a more peaceful, but not less glorious victory. "I am not ignorant of the sacrifices this call imposes upon you, nor of the unequal manner in which it imposes the burdens of the war. You must reflect, however, that hitherto we have experienced comparatively little of the inconveniences and depression consequent upon a state of war. If a part of these come home to us now, we can well afford to meet, for so short a time, the tax imposed upon us, especially when the sacrifice gives promise of materially hasten- ing the close of the contest. The burden must necessarily be unequal, for the Union men of this counti-y must work out its salvation. The disloyal element is not to be relied upon either to encourage our armies, or to aid in the crushing of the rebellion. You are,'in this particular, not onlike your ancestors who achieved the independence of your country against a foreign enemy on the one hand, and the tories of the revolution on the other. " Bemember then, that like unto those who wrought out your nationality, through adveisily that you have not yet experienced, the greater the sacrifice the higher the honor of those who are called to preserve it. "Fully comprehending the effects of this call upon the industrial interests of the Sute,I would not have made it, had I not been fully impressed with the necessity of an increase of out forces, as the most effective means of hastening the close of the contest and the advent of peace. I have done what I conscientiously believed to be my duty in the present position of affairs, and you have responded in a manner that challenges my admiration, and will command the gratitude of the country. Hundred Days' Men. 213 "Go forth, then, soldiers of the National Guard, to the fulfillment of the duty assigned to you. I have entire confidence that you will meet all its requirements with fidelity and honor. The prayers of t^e people, of the State will follow you; and may your return be as glorious as your going forth is noble and patriotic. JOHN BKOUGH." Then followed the difficult work of coiiaolidation. Since the original organization of the volunteer militia, thousands of its members had entered the National service, and every regiment was thus reduced below the minimum. The principle adopted was to bi-eaJfe iip the smaller companies and divide the men among the others in such proportions, as were needed. Army officers of experience were called in to aid in this delicate; duty; Colonel W. P. Eichard- Bon at Camp Chase, General A. M. McCook at Camp Dennison, and Colonel Aquila Wiley at Camp Cleveland. On these, and on all ottiers, the Governor now pressed again and again the importance of haste. "Nothing," as an eye-witness wrote, "was neglected. There was no detail so small that it did not receive the personal attention of the Governor. He had an eye on every officer and kept him to his woi'k. There I were men selfish and unpatriotic enough at this time to seek to create disturb- ance by filling the minds of the men with fear that they were being entrapped only to be ofiered up as a sacrifice to the Moloch of war, To a Major -of a regi- ment that refused to be mustered, he telegraphed: 'The Guard will be promptly mustered out at the end of the hundred days. The faith of the Government and the State are both pledged to this. The regiment can serve in the State if it wants to do so. We want a regiment at Camp Chase to guard Eebei prisoners and patrol Columbus. No other regiment wants to do it. Men who refuse to muster will be held to this service. The muster into the United States service is a mere form to make the payment from the Government instead of the State. Advise me if this is satisfactory.' This regiment was mustered within a few hours, and asked to be allowed to go out of the State. Delay in the organiza- tion of regiments was not tolerated. To Colonel Jackson, of the Ninth, he tel- egraphed: 'Your regiment was reported ready yesterday. President Jewett says no requisition has yet been made for transportation. The War Depart- ment is thnndering at me for these troops every hour. No trivial cause for delay must be suffered to • intervene. Jewett says he can have a train this afternoon if immediate notice is given. Why can not this be done? Time is precious. Make every hour count.' To Major-General McCook, at Camp Den- nison, he telegraphed nearly the same. Mustering officers and qnaTtermasters were kept driving, and, with a few exceptions, they were willing to do all in their power, and the importance of this energy and haste will be more appre- ciated when it is remembered that at this time Ohio was the only State furnish- ing militia to take the place of veterans."* The War Department was amazed and caught napping. It had no expecta- tion of such a response, and was unprepared with mustering oflScers. But for this — 80 tremendons was the energy with which the work was driven forward — * From a newspaper sketch of the raiding of the Hundred Days' Men, written by Hon. Wm. Henry Smith. 214 Ohio in the Wae. the whole force might have been on its way to the field several days sooner. Ai it was, within two weeks, over thirty thousand men, fully armed and equipped were put into the service. Within a single week after the assefriblage, it was found that there were several thousands more in camp than the Government had agreed to accept, and Governor Brough was telegraphing: " E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C: "I have five or six regiments organized and in camp more than my quota. Will you take them or must I disband them? It" you take them where shall they be assigned? Answer early as they are crowding me. JOHN BEOUGH." On the same day the Secretary of War replied as follows : "I will accept all the troops you can raise. The other States will be deficient and behind time. We w,ant every man now. . . . Let us have all your regiments within the next week. They'mdi/ decide the war. EDWIN jM. STANTON, Secretary of War." Before this indeed, the Secretaiy, finding with what implicit confidence he might call upon Ohio in hours of need, had telegraphed: "Washington, D. C, May 5, 1864. "GoVEENOR BBOroH: General Sigel's advance has exposed the Baltimore and Ohio Eail- road, and a guerrilla force of about a hundred have seriously injured the shops and several engines at Piedmont. Mr. Garrett says that a regiment of your men will, if promptly for- warded, prevent any further injury. "EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War." "Washington, D. C, May 5, 1864. " Governor Bkouoh : If you have any regiments organized, please forward them immedi- ately to Wheeling and Cumberland. Th? Eebels, in small squads, are already on the Baltimore and Oliio Railroad, and unless driven ofi" may do considerable damage. Sigel has moved hU force down the Valley, and is too far off to do any good. " EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War." " Washington, D. C, May 13, 1864. "Governor Brough: Official dispatches have been received from the Army of the Poto- mac. A general attack was made by General Grant at four and a half o'clock A. M. yesterday, followed by the most brilliant results. At eight o'clock Hancock had taken four thousand pris- oners, including Major-General Edward Johnson and several Brigadiersi, and between thirty and forty cannon. Now is the time to put in your men. " EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of AVar." In answer to the first of these dispatches the first of the National Guard rngir'ionts left on the 5th of May, three days after reporting in camp. The last one was ready to leave on the 16th. Within that time forty-one minimum reg- ments and one l^attalion of seven companies, in all thirtj^-flve thousand nine hundred and eighty-two men, had, as the Adjutant-General, with justifiable pride, recited in his report, "been consolidated, organized, mustered, clothed, armed, equipped, and turned over to the United States military authorities fof transportation and assignment." Two days later Governor Brough had the pleasure of sending this cautious recital : " Coi,TiMBDa, May 18, 1864. "E. M. Stanton, -Secretary of War, Weish^ngton, D. C: "Ohio has sent regiments as follows: Four to Baltimore, M.aryland, two to Cumberland, thirteen to Washington, and the fourteenth will leave to-night; three to Parkersburg, four to Hundred Days' Men. 215 CHarleston, tkres to New Creek, three to Harper's Ferry. Haa stationed one at Gallipolis, two at Camp Dennison, two at Camp Chase, two regimentn and a battalion of seven companies at Johnson'si Island ; being forty regiments and one btttalion, comprising an aggregate of thirty- four thousand men. This work has-been completed in sixteen' days. . "JOHN BROUGH." But before Mr. Stanton received this, he had already made Jiaste to express his gratitude. "The Department and the«Nation are indebted to you," he tele- graphed, "more than I can tell, for your prompt and energetic action at this crisis." The provision that members of the National Guard in active Service should not be exempt from the draft then pending, v^as obviously calculated to create a feeling that they were being unjustly dealt with. Governor Brough sought a change in this respect, which should cause the burderis of the draft to fall upon the oJ)ponents of the war, the great class which had thus far evaded military duty, and was now peacefully at home, whilO' the mor* patriotic had' been sud- denly carried by thousands to the front. He regarded the National Guard movement as having pretty well sifted out the young Tlhion men liable to naili7 tai'y duty, and he wanted the draft, therefore, at.this opportune moment, to fall upon the communities at' home, where the Peace men were now largely in the majority. His eiforts failed, but he persisted — the correspondence sho'WB with what results: "CoLUMB'OS, May 4, 1?64. "E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C: "The National (Juard of Ohio have fully responded to my call. They db not want to be credited on'the quota, and they want the draft to go forward, but they asfc to be exempt fipom it, that the draft may fall upon the stay-at-home men. That is, if the name' of a nJan is drawn whd belofigB to the" National Guard, it be laid aside the snnje ds an enlisted volunteer, and anothe'f name be drawn. For many rea-sons, I recommend this, if it can properly be done. It will increase rather than ' decrease our military strength, and' somewhat equalize the burdens off service. Our Guard is composed exclusively of Union men. JOHN BEOUGH." "CoMiMBXJS, May 4, 1864. " E.' M. Stakton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C,; "Your dispatch received. , I will crowd the force ,t)y ivll practicable means.. , Carefully con- siden ^nd grant, if possible, my request to exempt the .National .Guard from the present draft making it fall on the 'shirks.' There is great future value in this movement. :- " ■ • " ■■' t.' ^/. /'JOHN BEOUGH." Washington Ciiy, May 4, 1864. ''His 'Excellency John Bkou&h, Oooembr of Ohio-}' ir " AAer much consideration of your suggestion in regard tq the draft, it seems to me impos- sible for the Deparjiment to coijfarm to your wishes, for the|following, among other reasons: "1. Any change in the terms agreed upon between the Governors and the President in one instance, would form certain occasion for an infinite number of changes tnit wb'illd Be applied for by others, and ivould lead either to great discontent at their being refused, or to serious injury to the service by -adopting them. "2. The terms of the arrangement were called for by the Committee on Finance, and formed the basia of their rtecommendations for the appropriation. In their view, and in the view of General Grant, it was deemed an indispensable condition that the special volunteers should in no wise interfere with the operatiton of the law for drafting. A change now made in the particular you mention, would be charged immediately as a breach of faith on the part of the Executive with Congress, and might lead to very serious complications. "E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War." ' 216 Ohio in the War "General Head-Quaeters, State of Ohio, -v "Adjctant-Genebal's Office, Columbua, May 5, 1864./ "Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C: "My request was to exempt the members of the National Guard, actually in service, from operations of the present draft to fill Ohio's quota on the last call, but not to extend to any draft on any future call. No other State tendering militia can object to this, as their quotas are all full ; neither does it break any faith with Congress, as it does not change the position of the State as to filling her quota by draft. I propose that the draft shall go on, and the quota filled thereby, but simply to limit its operations to men who have not enlisted or responded to the call for the National Guard. Thus I put you thirty thousand National Guards into the hundred days' ser- vice, and by draft fill my quota of ninety-two hundred from other citizens of the State. I do not reduce you a man in the service, but add to it in the number of men who may be drafted from the Guard. I do not ask any credit for the Guard on quotas, nor any exemption for it on ftitnre calls, if any are made. Is not this reasonable and just? I know it will be acceptable to our people. JOHN BEOUGH." "CoLtTMBUS, July 5, 1864. ' " Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C: "Sib: I respectfully urgf that in the pending call for additional men, the principles be established : "1. That at the expiration of the notice of fifty days, any balance of the quota of any State that may be deficient, shall be drafted from the population of the State that may not be, at the time, in the service of the United States. " 2. That this be construed to embrace the one hundred days' men of the several States furnishing them, and that if any such men be drafted, the name of such man be set aside, and another name be drawn to fill the place. "3. That this rule be observed only while the hundred days' men are in service, and for fifty days thereafter; and after the expiration of such time, this class of men to become liable to other and future calls, as other citizens of the State. "4. I submit to you the expediency of providing that if hundred days' men shall volunteer under the first call, they be allowed to join such regiments as they may elect, and be credited with such time as they may have served under the hundred day call, not exceeding fifty days. " I do not press this point beyond your own convictions as to its policy and propriety. The three first propositions, however, I do urge as a matter of justice to the men who have so promptly come forward in the hundred day service, and as a fair and equitable distribution of the burdens of the war among those who have heretofore avoided them. I do not see any legal difficulty in exempting from the first call and draft men who are actually in service at the time, however proximate their term of service, especially if they become liable to a future call after that service has expired. The principle seems to me just and equitable, and I urge its adoption. "Very respectfully, JOHN BKOUGH." Subsequently, however, under an opinion from Solicitor "Whiting, of the War Department, all men actually in the service of the United States — no mat- ter for what term of service — at the time of the draft, were held to be exempt from its operations. But no credit was ever given the State on subsequent quotas for this magnificent and instant re-enforcemmit of the National armies on the sudden call. Of the whole volunteer militia of the State but one company absolutely refused to obey the order calling it out. Under the authority of the Governor, this case was dealt with as follows : "General Head-Quabteks, State of Ohio, i "Adtdtant-Genebal's Office, Columbus, May 26, 1864./ "Special Orders, No. 314. "Company B, Captain Wendell Mischief, Fortieth Battalion, National Guard, is hereby dishonorably dismissed from the service of the St*te of Ohio, with forfeiture of all pay and alloT- Hundred Days' Men. 217 ances, or having refused to come lo the relief of the Government, under the recent call of the President for one handled days' troops. "The National Guard of Ohio, by its promptness in responding to said call, has won an immortality of honor, and justice to it demands that all recusants should be promptly punished, and the Guard relieved from the odium of so disgraceful a course of action. "To tife honor of the Guard, it is announced that the above company was the only one among the forty-two regiments sent to the field that lacked faith in the honor of their State and adopted country, and refused to fly to the relief when the fate of the country was trembling in the balance. "They can return to their homes and say to their friends and neighbors that they have regarded their country and its safety as secondary to their own p^sonal ease and security ; and that in the hour of most imminent peril to that Government which haid received and protected them when aliens, they basely betrayed their trust, and refused to follow their gallant comrades to the field of honor and of danger. " No member of said company will be allowed to enlist in any other company of the National Guard, under any circumstances whatever, as men who wish to be 'soldiers in peace and citizens in war,' will not be allowed to disgrace the Guard, or peril the State and Nation by their pres- ence and example. "By order of the Governor: ' B. E. COWEN,' Adjutant-General of Ohio." The sudden summons of the National Guard to active service was specially likely to lead to suffering among the families thus left, at a week's warning, unprovided for. Profoundly alive to this aspect of the movement, Governor Brough lost no time in appealing to the citizens at home for aid " ExEcxjTivE Department, Columbus, May 9, 1864 "To THE Mn-rrAKT Committees and the People op the State : "The departure of the National Guard from the State, in the service of the country, will necessarily work much individual hardship. In many cases in each county, families of laboring men, dependent on the daily labor of the head, will be left almost wholly unprovided for. The compensation of the soldier will not enable him to provide for the daily wants of his family. We who remain at home, protected by the patriotism and sacrifices of these noble men, must not per- mit their families to suffer. The prompt response of the Guard to the call has reflected honor upon the State, We must not sully it by neglecting the wants of those our gallant troops leave behind. No such stain must rest upon the fair character of our people. "As organized, is ever better than individual action, I suggest to the people of the several counties that they promptly rais^ by voluntary contribution, a suflicient sum to mCet the proba- ble wants of the families of the Guards, who may require aid, and place the same in the hands of the military committee of the county, for appropriation and distribution. The committee can des- ignate one or two good men in each township who will cheerfully incur the'trouble and labor of pass- ing upon all cases in their townships, and of drawing and paying such appropriation as may be made to them. Citizens, let this fund be ample. Let those whom God has blessed with abuudunce con- tribute to it freely. It is not a charity to which you may give grudgingly. It is payment of only part of the debt we all owe the brave men who have responded to the call of the country, and whose action is warding off from us deadly perils, and saving us from much more serious sacri- fices. What is all yonr wealth to you if your Government be subverted ? What the value of your stores if your public credit or finances be ruined, or Rebel armies invade and traverse your State? Be liberal and generouj then in this emergency. Let no mother, wife, or child of the noble Guard want the comforts of life during the hundred days; and let these noble men feel on their return that the people of the State appreciated, and have, to some extent, relieved the sacri- fices they so promptly made in the hour of the country's need. " As these families do not come within the means provided by the Relief Law, we must look to Voluntary contributions to provide for them. In aid of these, I feel authorized to appropriate the mm of five thousand dollars from the Military Contingent Fund. This sum will be appor- tioned among the several counties in proportion to the number of the Guard dr.-iwn from each, and the chairman of the military committee early notiGcd of the amount subject to his order. 218 Ohio in the War. "In many casea men have left crops partly planted, and fields sown, that in due time must be harvested or lost. In each township and county there should be at once associations of men at home who will resolve, that, to the extent of their ability, they will look to these things: It Ls not only the dictate of patriotism, but of good citizenship, that we make an extra exertion to save the crops to the country, and the accruing value to the owners, who, instead of looking to seed-time and harvest, are defending us from invasion and destruction. Men of the. cities and towns, when the harvest is ready for the reaper, give a few days of your time, and go forth by the dozens and fifties to the work. The labor may be severe, but the sacrifice will be small, and the reflection of the good you have done will more than compensate you for it all. " In this contest for the supremacy of our Government, and the salvation of our conntiy, Ohio occupies a proud position. Her standard must not be lowered ; rather let us advance it to the front. No brighter glory can be reflected on it than will result from a prompt and generous support to the families of the Guard. Let us all to the work. " Very respectfully, JOHN BEOUGH." A few days afterward, changing his views as to the proper interpretation of the law providing relief for soldiers' families, the Grovernor addressed a sep- arate appeal to the military committees of the several counties: "ExECUTFVE Depaktment, Columbus, May 16, 1864. "To THE MlirrABT CoirMITTEES: "Upon more careful examination of the provisions of the Eelief Law, I feel constrained to change my former position as to the right of families of the National Guard to its benefits. They liave the same rights as families of other soldiers in the service. Still, our people should bear in mind that with the large addition thus made to the dependent families of soldiers, this fund will now be severely burdened. The taxation was made on the basis of our quotas under the calls. We have now added over thirty thousand men ; and to that extent have increased the number of families that will require aid. Therefore, it is necessary that we should add to the fund, by vol- untary contribution, to the extent, at least, of this increase of its liability. You should see that your county commissioners levy the discretionary tax for this year ; or, at least have a clear record of a refusal to do so. "Some complaints in regard to the action of trustees in the distribution of this fund, are an- swered in this form : "1. It is asked. Where the absent soldier owns a house and lot, or a small tract of land on which his family resides, is the family thereby debarred from relief? Certainly not ; unless the property, independent of furnishing a home for the family, is productive of the means of support- ing it. Unpr<^ductive property may be an incumbrance, in the way of taxes and other expense'. Sensible and well-meaning men should not have any trouble in deciding questions of this kind. A helpless family may not be able to work ground, even to the partial extent of a livelihood. . The simple question with practical men should be: Does the family, considering all its circum-. stances, its capability to produce, its ordinary industry and economy, need aid to live comforla-i bl'y ? If so, the aid should be extended. It is mortifying to add, that in a few cases trustees are represented as deciding that where the family held a small homestead, entirely unprodnctive, it was not entitled to relief until the property be sold, and its proceeds consumed. Such a position is at variance alike with the provisions of the law, and the dictates of humanity. "2. It is asked whether the family of a deceased soldier in receipt of a Government pension is entitled to relief? The answer depends upon the circumstances, sensibly viewed. Is the pen- sion, considering the size and helplessness of the family, sufficient for its support? If not, relief should be extended from the fund, and the amount of the pension is to be taken into the account , when equalizing the fund in the township. "Other questions that may arise should be settled, not by the strict rules of legal refinement, but upon the principles of practical common sense. Tlie trust should be liberally and honestly construed. There is no requirement to practice a niggardly economy, but to fairly distribute tlio fund in the spirit of justice and humanity, and accomplish with it the greatest amount of good. "In ciises where the military committees feel warranted in doing so, they can relieve them- selves of some labor and responsibility, and probably secure a more equitable distribution, by Hundred Days' Men. 219 apportioning the, voluntary. contributions among the townships, upon the basis adopted by the county co(umig»ipner8, and lyinding tlie amounts to the township trustees, to be paid out in the same manner, and as a part'of the relief fund. ''Plaaae have this circular published in your county. "Very respectfully, . , . JOHN BBOUGH." The service of the National Guard did not accomplish the result that h.id been expected With' such confidence, alike by National and State authorities. It did relieve the men whom Granfwainted frpm forts and railroads!, btit with these re-ehforcements he did not win the greiit victory that Had 'been expected; the war was not ended within the hundred days!- and; in a certain sense, therefore, the great movement was a failure. In another and larger sense it was not. In accordance with (he prophetic declaration of her first war Governor, Ohio still led throughout the war. She was incomparably ahead of all the States that had united with her in the offer of hundred days' men to the Government, alike in the numbers that she furnished and in the promptness with which they were forwarded. Even Indiana, usually so near the front, fell ftir behind her now. The Ohio National Guard regiments guarded the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from the river to the sea-board; they manned the forts at Baltimore, and filled the fortifications around Washington. They liberated the garrisons over this great extent of territory, and thus swelled Gramt's army with thirty thousand veterans. They grew restive under mere guard-duty, and finally begged that they too might go to the front.* Nearly all of them were under fire; and none brought discredit upon the Commonwealth that sent them forth. Into the details of their service we can not enter here. Elsewhere f we have sought to tell the story of each ; it is enough here to add that their numbers, pi-omptness, and uniform bearing drew forth, not only such eulogies as we have already quoted, but this, at the close of their service, froni Mr. Lincoln himself: "ExEctrrrvE Mansion, Washington Citt,! September 10, 1864. / "The term of one hundred days, for which the National Guard of Ohio volunteered having expired, the President directs an official acknowledgment of their patriotism and valuable service during the recent campaign. The term of service of their enlistment was short, but distinguished by memorable events in the Valley of the Shenandoah, on the Peninsula, in the operations of the James River, around Petersburg and Richmond, in the battle of Monocacy, in the intrenchments of Washington, and in other important service. The National Guard of Ohio performed with alacrity tlie duty of patrioiic vulunieers., for which lliey ure tntitli.d, and are hereby teiiJereJ, through the Governor of their State, the National thanks. "The Secretary of War is directed to transmit a copy of this order to the Governor of Ohio, and to cause a certificate of their honorable service to be delivered to the officers and soldiers of the Ohio National Guard, who recently served in the military force of the United Slates as vol- unteers for one hundred days. [Signed] "ABRAHAM LINCOLN." In calling out the National Guard Governor Brough assumed a responsi- bility and ran a risk, from which all but the boldest would have shrunk back. •The One Hundred and Thirty -Second, Colonel Haines, of Logan County, waa the first to ask to be sent to the front. Several others speedily followed. , T Volume II, Sketches National Guard Regiments. 220 Ohio in the Wae, It did not accomplish all the good he hoped, and it may have helped to swell the unpopularity which we are next to see growing at home and in the army against him. But it was through no fault of his that Grant was foiled in the "Wilderness, and faced with Lee's steady front at every bloody step of his painful progress toward Richmond. Brough had done what he could to "organize victory;" he had kept the Slate, whose honor he so jealously guarded, far in advance of all her sisters, and had displayed an energy and devotion beyond all praise. Others of his actions may have produced more lasting good, but none displayed more consummate ability, and none reflected brighter honor upon the State. Beough's Tboubles with Officers. 221 CHAPTER XVIII. BROUGH'S TROUBLES WITH OFFICERS, AND HIS FAILURE TO BE RENOMINATED. THE anomalous poBitibn of regimental oflScers — owing their commissions to the Governor of their State, but owing him no obedience — ^looking to him for promotions, but looking elsewhere for the orders under which promotions must be won — has already been described. It insured difficulty between the Governor and his officers, no matter what policy of promotion he might adopt. Governor Tod had preferred to get on without a policy. At one time he would promote according to rank, at another time in spite of rank ; now he would give the ranking Sergeant the vacant Second-Lieutenancy; again he would jump a Captain over the heads of all superiors to the vacant Lieuten- ant-Colonelcy ; to-day he would be governed by the recommendations of the ■ Colonel ; to-morrow by the recommendations of military committees or personal acquaintances; the next day by the apparent sentiment of the regiment; the next by the requirements of rank. That this was unwise is not here argued. Perhaps it was well thus to set- tle each case as it arose, upon such varying considerations as should seem to suggest the need of a peculiar treatment ; certainly it resulted in less difficulty than a contrary course was to bring on. But Governor Brough was a man of severe methods. He must work on clearly-defined rules, or he could work with no satisfaction. One of his earliest efforts, therefore, was to secure a system of promotions. He saw the evils resulting from promotion on the recommendation of the com- manding officer, the openings it gave for tyranny and for favoritism, the abso- lute mastery of the fortunes of subordinates it secured to the Colonel. Looking to the regulations and the orders of the War Department, he saw a way pro- vided for driving out incompetent officers, and where they were not incompe- tent, he conceived it unjust to ignore their rank in making promotions to fill vacancies. It was a cardinal theory with him to bear only his legitimate respon- sibilities, and to compel all others to do as much. He was unwilling to assume the responsibility of punishing inefficient officers in the field; that was made the duty of those who were conversant with the facts, and were therefore able to resort to the remedy in the regulations. He would, thei-ofore, promote 222 Ohio in the Wae. according to rank, save ia cases where known intemperance would make this course one of immediate danger to the command, and would put upon tlio reg- iment itself the task of ridding its roster of men who proved unfit, and who stood in the way of the promotion of others. Acting on such views he early promulgated his noted " General Order No. 6," the fertile source of many of the troubles which embittered his administra- tion, and turned the officers of the army agaiaet^him : "General Hbad-Quajetebs, State of Ohio, " Adjutant-General's Office, Columbus, February 6, 186t } "General Ordebs No. 5. " Hereafter, all vacancies in established regiments, battalions, or independent companies will be filled by promotion according to seniority in the regiment, battalion, or independent company, except in cases of intemperance. " Existing orders from the War Department afford the necessary facilities for ridding the service of incompetent or inefiScient officers, by ordering them before an examining board, which will relieve the Governor from the disagreeable necessity of deciding the merits of an officer ou the mere opinion of the regimental or other commander. " Section ten of an act of Congress, approved July 22, 1861 (General Orders No. 49, series of 1861),' provides as follows: " ' That the General commanding a separate Department or detached army, is hereby author- ized to appoint a military board or commission of not less than three nor more than five officers, whose duty it shall be to examine the capacity, qualifications, propriety of conduct and efficiency of any commissioned officer of volunteers within his Department or army, who may be reported to the board or commission, and upon such report, if adverse to such officer, and if approved by the President of the United States, the commission of such officer shall be vacated; Provided, always, that no officer shall be eligible to sit on such board or commission whose rank or pro- motion would in any way be affected by its proceedings, and two members, at least, if practicable, shall be of equal rank of the officer being examined.' " No officer shall be deprived of his right to promotion on the mere expression of his com- manding officer that he is not competent to discharge the duties of the position to which his seni- ority entitles him. " In the case of promotions of sergeants the same rule will govern, and for this reason: com- manding officers of regiments and other organizations will give careful attention to the appoint- ment of non-commissioned officers, that none but competent, proper, and efficient men shall be brought into the line of promotion. " Officers who seek' to be detailed on duty which detaches them from their commands, will be considered out of the line of promotion during their continuance on such detached service. No- tice of such detail must be furnished this department, and also notice of the time they are returned to their commands. " Commanding officers must promptly deliver all commbsions to the parties for whom they are intended. By order : " B. K. COWEN, Adjutant-General of Ohio." Abstract theory would pronounce this rule perfect; practical results might give a different verdict. The leading officers claimed that Governor Broughdid not always act on his own regulation, and they were opposed to it at any rate from the start, for very obvious reasons. Their power to promote or retard promotions was measurably taken away ; and it was from this an easy step to open hostility against the man who had done it. Then Governor Broqgh himself was led, by the logic of his position, into becoming more and more the champion of the private soldier as against the officer, and of the subordinate officer as against his superiors. That a strong sense of justice to the weak Brough's Troubles with 'Officers. 223 inspired this is plain; tliat it proved Bometimes subversive of all commonly- accepted rules of subordination and military etiquette can not be denied. Disputes with the oflScers in the fiold soon sprang up. For a time these were kept within bounds, but as the officers began to feel more and more out- raged, they threw off the tone of deference to the Governor. He, on the other hand, treated theta as he would his railroad operatives; held them to the same rigid performance of duty ; rebuked with as little search for soft phrases when ho thought they were ueglecttag their work. Thus, by and by, a state of affairs sprang up which led- to tl^e most aci'imonious correspondence, to the dib- missal of officers for disrespect to the Governor, and, to, a corabinq.tion of officers against Brough's renomination. To such a pass did things coiile that, on a reference by the Governor to the Colonel of a regiment of a, complaint which a soldier of tlie regiment had chosen to send to the Governor, this extraordinary interchange of indoj'sements on the soldier's letter could ensue : ( . ."HEAD-QlTABTEESSECOiro BbIGADE, ThIBD DrVISIONFoUKTH A. C.,') "New Market, March 25, 1865. J " Respectfully returned. This communication to the Governor is a studied assault on my character as an officer, and should not have received the official attention of the Commander-in- Chief of the military of Ohio. It certainly will receive no attention from me until it shall have gone to the Gqvernor through the soldier's commanding officer. This private channel of slan- dering military officers, has been too freely used, and has certainly received tacit sanction at the Capital. vAs inattention to a soldier's wants and rights by an officer is among the gravest of offenses, so is such a charge, when not well founded, a low slander. " If his Excellency desires to know the history of this case, it will afford me pleasure to give it, but his request must in no way indorse the grave charges of wanton cruelty against me. "Very respectfully, your obedient servant, " H. K. McCONNELL, Colonel Seventy-First Ohio Infantry." Executive Department, Columbus, April 13, 1865. "Returned to Colonel McConnell as unofflcer-like and insolent. It is alike the prerogative and the duty of the. Commander-in-Chief to hear and investigate ^he complaints of the humblest private against the acts of his commanding officer. He does not acknowledge any regulation requiring a privSite to ask permission'of the officer, of whose injustice he complains, to graciously permit him to forward his petition. Tn every case of this kind' the officer has been first called upon for a statement of facts or explanation of the case, and the officer who throws himself upon his dignity, and talks of slander and defamation, naturally provokes the suspicion that he has no better explanation or defense. Colonel McConnell can act his own pleasure in regard to farther report in this case. He can have no mitigation of the terms in which it was originally called for. In the pie»n time, he can rest assured that this department will receive the complaint, and redress, as far as practicable, the grievances of the soldiers of the State, as it will protect itself, from the insolence of officers who do not comprehend the courtesies and duties of their positions. "By ord,er of the Governor. SIDNEY D. MAXWELL, "A. D. C, etc., to Governor. Brough." Long before this, a gallant officer, soon to lay down his life for jhe cause, had been betrayed by the feeling which was already spreading among men of his rank against the Governor, into a letter which drew out this response: "ExBOBTiVE Defajitment, Columbus, March 8, 1864. "Colonel Daniel McCook, IKfty-Seeond Regiment 0. V..L, MdAffee Ghurch, Georgia: "Sir: When the Colonel of the Fifty-Second Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry clothes his communications in language becoming 'an officer and a gentleman,' they will be courteously 224 Ohio in the Wab. responded td. How true his ailegqtions maj be as to the Provost-Marshal, I have not taken the trouble to inquire ; but as to this department, both directly and inferentially, they are alike insulting and unfounded; As I can not present as disrespectful a communication as this to the Provost-Marshal, I leave Colonel McCook to redress his own grievances, until he appreciates a more courteous and respectful manner in seeking it through this department. "Very respectfully, JOHN BEOTJGH." While thus addressing oflScers who treated him with disrespect, he was remorselessly hunting down others whom he helieved to be shirks, in a manner which these letters that follow may illustrate: "Executive Depabtment, Columbus, July 21, 1864. "Major W. G. Neixson, Annapolit, Maryland: "Sib: I am surprised to learn to-day that yoo left the regiment on the second day of May, and have not been with it since; that a part of the time you have been sick, but the greater portion you have been managing to keep on detached service out of the field. I do not know how much of this is true, but so long an absence from the regiment requires an explanation. I have no fancy for officers who play off from their r^mentg, and I have therefore written the War Department requesting that your case be investigated. "The regiment requires its officers; if you can not serve in your line of duty, you shonid not prevent another from doing so. Yours truly, JOHN BEOUGH." " ExEcnrrvE Defabtiiekt, Colnmbua, August 5, 1864. "Major W. G. Neilson, Ttcenty-Seventh Regiment U. S. Colored Troops, Elmira, Nea York: " Deab Sib: I have yours of the 3d instant. I gave you reports that reached me, and oF the ti-uth of which I had no knowledge, while I have not charged yon with any improper con- duct or shirldng from duty (though others have done so), and do not make any such charges now. I am still impressed with the fact that in the critical condition of your regiment you should not have laid sixty d.ays inactive without at least some effort to relieve it, or some communica- tion with this department. It is very certain that your prestige with the regiment is gone. I will have it full to the maximum in fifteen days, and it needs officers badly. ,As you admit you can not return to it, the question is with yourself whether you will deprive it of tn officer, and remain a drone in the service. " Very respectfully, JOHN BROTJGH, Governor of Ohio." The Governor was no less outspoken in defense of officers whom he believed to be doing their duty, and against whom prejudicial efforts were making at head-quarters or in the department. Of his representations on this class of subjects, the letter below may serve as a sample, while it also illustntes his views of the strong practice at elections which the times would warrant: " ExEcmavB Depabtmeht, Colnmbns, October 14, 1864. " Ma job-Gsnebai> Hookeb, Commanding Department, OineiriTuxti : " Sib : I am informed that Colonel Greene, in charge of draft rendezvous here, is asking that Major Skiles, Eighty-Eighth Begiment O. V. I., in chalice of Tod Barracks heie, be relieved and superseded. I have not had any conversation with Colonel Greene myself, but my information comes from responsible parties. Major Skiles is one of the very best officere we have in service here. His offense, I am informed, is that he acted as marshal of a Union torch- light procession here on Saturday night, and on election day refused to allow Mr. Congrensman Cox to go within the barracks to electioneer among, the soldiers, where the poll was opened. On the one hand, it is said that Colonel Greene is a sympathizer with General McClellan; of this I have no evidence. On the other hand, an army officer states his position to be that he holds it improper for an army officer, either regular or volunteer, to take any part in eleetioM beyond his vote. On whichever ground it is placed is to me immaterial. Major Skiles hia done his duty as an officer, and I hold he is doing it as a citizen, and in both; he is sustaining (he Government and aiding to crush the rebellion. I therefore respectfully protest ngsin»t his being superseded therefor. Very respectfully, JOHN BBOUGH." Bkough'8 Troubles with Officers. 225 We have spoken of the charge by the oflScers that Governor Brough did not uniformly adhere to his own rule about promotions, as laid down in " Order No. 5." They pointed to a class of cases like that of Captain Mayer as proof: " ExECUTrvE Depaktment, Columbus, November 17, 1864. "Bmoadier-Genebal J. P. Hatch, Jacksonmlle, Florida: "Sik: I have the honor to acknowledge your favor of the 2eth instant. While I have great respect for yonr opinions, I think I have folly ejcamined and understand the troubles in the One Hundred and Seventh Regiment. Captain Mayer is, in my judgment, so intimately connected with them that his promotion to the command would be a step I can not consent to take. I frankly told him so when he called on me, some months since; and I further said, what I now repeat, that I would hail his resignation as a token of future promise and usefulness of the regiment. I have seriously thought of asking his removal by the War Department, but have heretofore forborne, what, upon less provocation, I shall hereafter do. During my absence the Adjutant-General sent him a commission as Major, which I directed should be revoked. " In the hope of promoting the efficiency of the regiment, I have to-day appointed Captain J. S. Cooper Lieutenant-Colonel, and sent him to the regiment. He is a good officer and known to the command. He is conversant with the troubles in the regiment, and I trust he will be able, by a conciliatory but iirn;i course, to remedy them. I shall not permit Captain Mayer to embarrass him for an hour after that fact comes to my knowledge. I have no personal feeling in the matter ; my only object is to promote the harmony and efficiency of the regiment. "Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." The letter-books of Brough's administration, in the State ai'chjves (from which the documents here are taken), swarm with similar evidences of his activity, his remorseless pursuit of men whose ponduct he thought unsatisfac- tory, his habitual disregard of the dignity of officers, his championship of the private soldiers, his watchfulness for those he ^uspected to be shirks. Thus, within two or three weeks after his inauguration, we find, him addressing the Secretary of War* concerning Colonel De Haas, of the Seventy-Seventh Ohio : " The fact is presented that during t>venty-one months' service of said regiment, since Colonel Mason took command, Colonel De Haas hasi,been with it but one hundred and sixty-one days, and those were during the titne it was not en- gaged in field service. He has been in action with it but once, and that but two hours ; and my information is (from other sources than Colonel Mason) that his record on that occasion is anything else than houQir^blc, . . . On seven days' furlough he has been absent six months. . . . The regiment should not be sent back under this officer, . .,, . He stands in the way of the promotion of officers who have shared the privations of the regiment. If the power were mine I would find a way to right this wrong." A few days later,f we find him writing to Colonel J. A. Lucy, of the One Hundred and Fifteenth Ohio : " You will save yourself and your, officers some trouble and improve the morale of your regiment by refraining from sending me the proceedings of indignation meetings on the subjeot of promotions. If an error is committed by this department it does not require the machinery of a national convention to have it corrected I " Some soldiers in the Second Ohio Heavy Artillery complained that they had been treated with unjust cruelty by some of the officers. Brough straight- • On 25th January, 1864. t February 11, 1864. Vol. I.— 15. 226 Ohio in the Wae. way wrote to General Steedman, in whose command the regiment was, asking that the complaints be quietly investigated. He defended "Order No. 5" against all complaints, and wanted it adopted as the rule also in the promotions beyond the rank of Colonel. "Let me illus- trate," he said, in the course of a long letter about affairs in Sherman's army. '/* The nomination of Colonel Harker to a Brigadier-Generalship has cost us four of the best Colonels in the army. He was No. 16 in the rank of Ohio Colonels; and, of the fifteen i-anking him, twelve at least were as meritorious as himself. Two of these have resigned and been discharged the service hon- orably. Two more have resignations pending." In this matter he had been opposed by Senator John Sherman, between whom and himself strife as to promotions seems to have been common. On another occasion, Brough having recommended Colonels Van Derveer and Gibson for Brigadier-Generalships, Sherman wrote to him, asking that he would with- draw these recommendations, for the purpose of insuring the promotion of Colonel Stanley. Brough replied : " I respectfully protest against the injustice of overslaughing his (^Stanley's) ranking oflScers, who are his equals in merit." In the re-enlistment of the veteran.s, Fuller's well-known brigade was credited' to Tennessee instead of Ohio, to the great astonishment of the officers as well as of the Governor. Colonel Edw. F. Noyes, of the Thirty-Ninth, and other officers concerned, wrote earnestly to the Governor on the subject, pro- testing against the change. He seems finally to have been convinced that Ful- ler himself was to blame for it, and that the new muster-rolls had been pur- posely made to show that the enlistment took place in Tennessee (which was technically true}, for the purpose of compelling Ohio to raise more troops. Brough thereupon writes to Judge Spaulding at Washington, complaining of Fuller's action, and adding: "I submit whether these facts constitute a good reason for his promotion to a Brigadier-Generalship."* Thus, on all hands, Brough's brusque ways with the officers, and his utter indifference to their feelings when he felt they were in the wrong, were raising up enemies for him, whose enmity was to prove potential. A case was yet to come which should attract more general attention, and seem to the army to involve some elements of persistent injustice. On this the feeling against him concentrated. It was a much-disputed case, but the facts generally agreed upon were about these : In accordance with a policy which we have seen to be somewhat common with liim. Governor Tod had given a comniission to Sergeant John M. lYood- ruff, of the One Hundred and Eleventh, on condition that he should rocruit thii'ty men for the regiment, and take them back with him to the field. Two days after Governor Brough's inauguration Woodruff reported at Coliimhui, gave proofs of having the men, and received the commission in due form. When, however, ho presented himself in the field to Colonel J. R. Bond, the commandant of the regiment, that officer took his commission, but refused fo * A movement for which was then on foot. The rolls were finally changed, and the la- ments thus restored to Ohio. Bbough's Troubles with Officers. 227 muster him into the sepvice, for the reajsons, as subsequently appeared, (1), that Woodruff had been commissioned without any recommendation from the regi- ment, not having been even sent hom^ to recruit, but to conduct drafted men back to the regiment; (2), that some of the men whom he claimed as recruits, entitling hini to the commission, had not been recruited by him; and (3), that he merited no promotion by behavior either in' the regiment or at home. Governor Brough did not leai'n for some months that his commission to WoodruflF was being- ignored. The news then came in a letter of complaint from Woodruff himself, dated 22d May, 1864. He thereupon' asked Colonel Bond to I'eportthe reasons for preventing his muster. To this the only response received was as follows: " HEAD-QnA^TEBS One Hundked and Eleventh O. V. I., \ NeaT Acwortli, Georgia, June 9, 1864. I " Respectfully returned to the Adjutant-General of Ohio, a report having been made in the case to the department. (Signed) "JOHN R. BOND, Colonel One Hundred and Eleventh O. V. I." This Brough construed as referring to a report E(6nt to the War Depart- ment, and as, therefore, intimating that the matter was one with which the Governor of Ohio had nothing to do, and on which the Colonel did not pro- pose to be catechised. Meantime Wpodruff had been severely wounded and crippled for life, and the Governor had issued to him, in acknowledgment of his gallantry, a commission, as Ilirst-Lieuten^^nt. He now at once forwarded to the Secretarj- of War Woodruff's letter, the inquiry of the Adjutant-General, anci Bond's reply — malting n'6 recommendation, but- calling the Secretary's at- tention to the language of Bond's reply, and stating that he had failed to report as requested. The Secretary Of War had a profound admiration fqr, Governor Brough, as had also the President. , They held him the ablest of the Governors, relied im- plicitly upon him, and about this time were specially grateful to him for the 1/ splendid keeping of his promise of bundred-daya' men. Thp result could, of course, be foreseen. A special order was promptly issued, " dishonorably dis- missing Colonel Bond from the service for refusing to recognize the commis- sions of the Governor of Ohio." A copy of this order was sent to Brough, but no other correspondence was had on the subject, Subsequently Colonel Bond explained that th^ report -referred to in his offensive indorsement above quoted was in reality one which he had previously I sent to the Gbveimor on this case, which had never been received. Supposing that before his reply could reach Columbus this report must come to hand, and that, therefore, his indorsement would be understood, alPd a longer explanation I needless, ho sent it as quoted, being the more disposed to be very brief where he could, because they were then in,, the midst of the Atlanta campaign and on the march. He had many warm friends in Toledo, who interest«|d themselves in his case, and made efforts, both at Columbus and Washington, to have him reihstated. To this end a special order was finally procured from General Halleck, directing him, as an indispensable preliminary, to make a satisfactory 228 Ohio in the Wab. apology to Governor Brough. On this document, when received, ' Brough placed the following indorsement : "ExEcurrvB Depabtmekt, Colnmbns, November 12, 1864. " The within is, probably, a technical falfillment of the order of the Secretary of War, bat, in my judgmeot, it is deficient in the elements of repentance and frankness. It does not meet the fact that Colonel Bond had determined, from favoritism to others and personal repngnance^ that Woodruff should not be mustered. " The record shows that after a personal interview with the Adjutant-General of Ohio, in August, he went to his regiment and reported that the commission would be revoked, and bii» tered another man over him, thus filling the only vacancy in the raiment. ' " The Adjutant-General says he made no such communication. The averment that Wood- rufl' had not recruited his men is a pretext. He produced evidence of that fact when the com- mission was issued. Captain Seal's statement that he recruited the men is not justified. "In my judgment the good of the regiment and of the service require that Colonel Bond should be relieved from his command, for these reasons : " 1. This is his second offense of this character. In 1862 Governor Tod was compdled to procure a special order of the "War Department to muster a Lieutenant and Adjdtaat. ' The offense was passed over. •'■ "2. He has passed a large portion of his time avay from his r^ment. He has been twice arrested for gross intemperance, and was six months absent from the regiment at home under one of these arrests. Both arrests were released without trial, under promise of re'formatioD. " 3. He has been, and is now, in political sentiment, opposed to the head of the- GoTem- ment, and, consequently, its politiy in the proeecutiom of the war ; and in thispaiticolar is very obnoxious to a large majority of his command. " He appeals to have the stigma of a dismissal removed. Whfle I respectfully, bot ea:^ nestly, protest against his being assigned to command again, I have no objections, if the De- partment sanctions such a course, to a reinstation, accompanied by an immediate resignation. - 1 leave this for the Secretary to determine. I am convinced the service wonld be benefited by tin retiracy in one form or the other. JOHN BBOUGH, Governor of Ohio," Some, at least, of the charges thus made could probably have been sus- tained ; but there was a good deal of sympathy with Bond, espedally among the officers of the army. He was said to be bravo, and a good fighting Colonel, and to such a man they held that much ought to be pardoned. The matter got into the newspapers; several of the most influential journals of the State attacked Brough's course in the case, as exhibiting a petty spirit of personal revenge and an unwillingness to drop his cause of quarrel after the most sat- isfactory apologies. The latent hostility to the Governor, which his previons treatment of many others had aroused, now broke out openly, and he speedily became intensely unpopular, with a large portion of the officers, at least, of that army which, a year before, had given him forty-one thousand votes, to only two thousand against him. We can now see that much of this feeling was unwarranted. Among the confidential letters in the State Archives, for the term of Brough's administra- tion, is one on this subject, touchingly expressing his appeal to the safe judg- ment of time, which may be .properly made public. It is addressed to Colonel W. H. Drew, then the acting military agent of the State at Chattanooga. Tkis •gentleman seems to have expressed fears as to the effect which the fecmf aroused by the Bond case would have on the Goverpor's political prospects. He replied on the 20th of February, 1865, explaining the facts at some length, and concluding in this wise and temperate strain : Beough's Failure to be Renominated. 229 " This is a simple hiatorjr of the a&ar. 1 had no personal feeling in it — never saw Colonel Bond until he first called on me — never bad any controversy with him until it grew out of this affair. I treated him and his counsel with uniform courtesy and kindness; heard them patientlyi and assured them I had no offended dignity to avenge and propitiate. My only object was the good of the service, and to prevent the return to it of an officer who I conscientiously believed should not be there. I understand the case is now under review at Washington. I can not tell what may be its resnlt, but I am satisfied I have done nothing bat my duty in regard to it. " Personally, I am very indifferent as to political consequences to myself on account of this, or any other of my public acts. The most earnest desire I have is^ to be permitted to retire from a position I did not seek, and really involuntarily assumied. I am equally indifferent as to who may be my successor, though I confess to some anxiety that he shall be one who will make it a cardinal principle not to put in the military service, or continue there, officers who disqualify themselves by intemperate habits or immoral conduct. "Kow for the moral of this long story. You, as well as myself, have an important duty to perform toward our men who can not help themselves. To do this successfully, we must some- times crucify our feelings and our animositi^. We may think wrong is being done — that friends are being Jiyuied — that improper means are being used to forward ambitions purposes. But we must pass this all by in the present. Time and truth will set all things right To hasten this end we must avoid controversies with those who have power that they can use, either to favor or injure the success of our labors. Your relation to the commander is such that you should be extremely cautious as to your feelings and utterance where third parties are concerned. If he looks t6 high political position you need not become his partisan, but you should not become his opponent, nor make him yours in such form as to impair your ueefulnesa to, the men under your charge. Avoid harsh expressions, avoid controversies, avoid even allusion to an irritating sub- ject. While I personally appreciate and prize your friendship for and confidence in me, I would not for a moment you should weaken your own position or usefulness by assuming my defense against any charges or imputations. Livii^g or dead, I have no fears of any assaults that may be made upon my public acts. I know they have all been dictated by honest motives. They may be marked by errors, but not by weakness or dishonesty. And so time and ttuth will prove them. "This is a miserable scrawl, but I have not time to le- write. Accept in a purely confiden- tial character, and believe me Very truly yours, "JOHN BRODGH," Other causes combined to increase the unpopularity which ol-iginated in the army. The Governor was rough, harsh, and implacable; with men who were guilty of little offenses. His honesty was fierce and aggressive, and it led him to denounce many men for practices which the most considered quite in the line of official precedents. He utterly scorned the arts of popularity, and refused to court the " local great men " of Columbus and other political centers in the State. His manners were often offensive, and his personal habits, in some respects at least, if not in all with which he was freely charged, were not cor- rect. Besides all this, the call on the ^National Guard had left some soreness in the minds of many people whom it inconvenienced. He still had hosts of friends throughout the State; men who could overlook all minor considerations in their admiration for his splendid ability, and their gratitude for the incorruptible honesty, the economy, and the wonderful and wise seal that had marked his service of the State, These urged him to be a candidate for renomination. For a time he held the question under advisement, decftiring that he would consider it only in the light of what would be best for the Union party. Then he wrote to all who addressed him on the subject, that while he believed he might secure a nomination, he was unwilling to struggle 230 Ohio in the War. for it; that it would be better for the party to have a candidate who would arouse less personal hostility, and that he would not enter the contest. And finally he addressed this frank and characteristic communication to the press: "Coi-TJMBus, June 15, 1865. " To THE People of Ohio : "I accepted the nomination of the Union party for Governpr of Ohio two years ago with unfeigned reluctance. I did not seek or desire it, and I only accepted from' congiderationi of public duty, which, in vieA* of the state of the country, it clearly imposed upon me. I came into office with the firm determination that if the military power of the rebellion shduld be broken, and the war closed during the first term of my administration — which I confidently anticipated— under no circumstances would I be a candidate for re-election. This determination I freely com- municated to my friend.s. Durin'^ the past spring, under pressing importunities from nearly every section of the State, I allowed this position to be modified to this extent, that while I would not seek the^omination, and did riot desire it, yet if it was conferred with a reasonable degree of uoanimity and good feeling, I would not decline it. I however reserved to myself the privilege of following ipy original purpose, and withdrawing my name from the canvass whenever, in mjr judgment, the same should become requisite to the harmohy of the conventibn and the saccM of its nominations. " Many prominent men of the Union organization will bear me witness that I have freqnentlj urged upon them the conflicts that would arise from my renomination. In times like fhose through which we have passed in the last four years, no man Who filled the positipDj and honestly and conscientiously discharged the duties of the office of Governor of Ohio, could hope to escape censure and opposition, or fail to destroy what politicians term his 'availability' as a candidate for re-election. Such was the case with two of my predecessors, who were earnest, good men. I could not, and did not, hope to avoid the same result; and therefore I made the reservation, and based it upon my own judgment of passing events. Even if I desired the position,'! owe the people of the State too much to embarrass their future action for the gratificittit>if of my own ambition. As I have no political desires, either present or future, the path of duty becomes not only plain, but personally pleasant. "After a careful survey of all the surroundings, I am entirely satisfied that the same con- siderations of duty that pressed upon me the acceptance of a nomination two years ago, as impe- riously require that I should decline it at the present time. Under this conviction, I respectfully but unconditionally withdrew my name from the convention and. the canvass. " I am aware that by this decision I do violence to the wbhes and feelings of a host of friends, whose good opinions I cherish. But they must pardon me. I have no sentiment of doubt or distrust, either of their friendship or good judgment; bat I see my own course so clet|j|jr that I may not turn aside from it. " Of course I have no personal regrets or disappointments. On the contrary, I am highly gratified that I can honorably retire. I doubt very much whether my health — mmch impiirad by close confinement to official duties — ^would sustain me through a vigorous campaign'} while increasing years, and the arduous labor of- a long life in public positions, strongly invite me to retirement and repose during the few years that may yet remain to me. " To the people of the State, who have so nobly sustained me, I owe a lasting debt of grati- tude. I have served them, during the trying periods of my administration, to the best of my ability. I know that I have done it conscientiously and honestly. I look bac^upon my recoid with bub a single regret, and. that k, &at I have not b^en able to make it more efiecUve in the cause of the State and Nation. Yeiy respectfully, "JOHN BRODGa" Close of Brodgh's Admin isteation. 231 CHAPTER XIX. CLOSE OF BROUGH'S ADMINISTRATION. TO the illustrations of Governor Bvough's activity for the army, for the soldiers in the hospitals, for recruiting, and for the advancement of Grant's campaign, it is fitting to" add here some indications of the in- fluence he exerted upon the Union party. Early in 1864 he openly committed himself to the renomination of Mr. Lincoln for the Presidency. He seized the opportunity, however, of a malignant attack upon Secretary Chase, which that gentleman had some apparently substantial reasons for supposing to have been made with, the connivance of the President, to address him his congratulations on the triumphant mauner in which hie had passed the investigation that ensued. In reply to Mr. Chase's acknowledgment of this letter he wrote again, striving to soften the asperities between Mr. Chase and Mr. Lincoln, and to convince him of the hopelessness of any effort to defeat Mr. Lincoln: "JuNB 1,1865. "Hon. S. p. Chase, Washington City, B. C. , " Mt Deab Sik : An unusual pressure of business engagements has prevented an earlier acknowledgment of your esteemed favor of the 19th instant., I confess I , feel highly gratified, not only that you found some benefit, however slight, in the suggestions I had the honor of making to you, but that you appreciate and so kindly credit m,e with the motives that prompted them. Not the least of these, let me now assure you, was the cordial personal friendship which I have ever'entertaihed for you ; a sentiment I have cherished from the fii;Bt day of our acquaint- ance, and which no difierence of opinion in public matters has ever interfered with. I confess to you I had other motives — tlie condition of the country, the value and importance of your serv- ices in the Treasury, the disaster tliat would follow a breach in the public councils and your retiracy, the shock to our whole system of credit and finance—^but I felt that all these wera reconcilable with the personal desire I had for the preservation of your own high character aijd reputation. I was satisfied then, and am now, that your best vindication, and yonr highest meed of honor, would be found in remaining at your post, and demanding through your friends in Con- gress a full investigation of the charges made against you. I urged that course on the Ohio del- egation, and they plec^ged themselves to it. The result has justified you nobly before the country. It has sustained you, and sustained your friends. You stand better before the Nation to-day than if Blair had not afforded you the opportunity for so triumphant a vindication. I know this result Yios been reached at a terrible cost of personal feeling to yoursplf — but tli£se things are ever so. It is the penalty men pay in this age for inflexibly holding and pursuing a course dictated by honor and integrity. It is said that every worldly affliction has its consola- tion. Yours must be that your personal suffering is immensely less than would have been, the conacioasness that you merited the reproaches cast upou you, andithat your friends could not suc- cessfully vindicate your official conduct. I am more than gratified if I contributed to a result 232 Ohio in the War. that I am satisfied has alike enured to your benefit and the protection of the Nation from a eerious disaster. "While I have no palliation for the course of Blair, you must allow me to say, in all kindnen, that I think you in error in attributing any portion of his malignaty to the promptings or even the knowledge of the President. I think Mr. Lincoln erred in his original promise to reinstate Blair in the army. Having given that pledge, his innate honesty of character prompted him to keep it. I think that at the last moment he saw that error more clearly than he did the meani of correcting it. But I am most certain that it was no part of his purpose to prompt or even to jus- tify Blair's hostility to you. The whole affair has been an unfortunate one. I do not feel willing to discuss it; but while, with my knowledge of all the facts, I concede that a little sterner course on the part of the President would have produced better results. I do not find in them any evi- dence of falsity or hostility on his part toward you personally or officially. I admit that I have been anxious to find this so— but I do not think that my judgment has been colored by my desires in this particular. " While I would have preferred not to have opened the political campaign at so early a day, I accept the nomination of Mr. Lincoln as one that I think would have been made as certainly sixty or ninety days hence. It is to an unusual extent an impulse of the popular mind, tuid nothing but a great disaster to our cause woUld have changed it. I do not regard it as a measuie of hostility to you or any other of the distinguished men whose names were connected with tl|e canvass. It grows out of the circumstances, and, perhaps, the necessities of the case. It is the point upon which the public anxiety, for a favorable result to our great struggle, has concentrated as promising more of harmony and unity of action than any other. After much reflection, I am inclined to accept it as the best practicable result we could attain. "I do not sympathize in your apprehensions as to the result. I have no reasonable doubt u to the election of Mr. Lincoln — that is, if the Union party of the country can elfect any man of undoubted Union sentiments and policy. That which would defeat him, would defeat any other man on the same platform ; that is, disaster to our cause in the field. We must achieve socoea with our arms; we must see the 'beginning of the end' of this rebellion during this year; we must defeat the Fabian policy of the Rebels by bold and vigorous progress — or he who fcretella adverse political results, will not be entitled to the reputation of a prophet. But with militaty success comes political triumph ; and I think I see more certain indications of that now than at any former period of the war. There may be, and there will be, some dissenters from this noiu- ination; some will find one cause in the past, and others an apprehension in the future. But I am impressed with the peculiarity of this contest. While there is an anxious and earnest desire to terminate this great straggle, there is an equal purpose to terminate it rightfully, and a fixed determination to lay aside all prejudices, and sacrifice for the present all preieienoes and wishes, to accomplish the great end. The nearer we approach this end through the successes of our arms, and the firmness and energy of our jGiOvernment, the more irresistible will the popular tide be- come — and all opposition will be swept away by it. You may see this indicated by the late con- , vention at Cleveland. There are leading politicians enough who do not prefer Mr. Lincoln — bat they did not cast their fortunes with that manifestation of opposition to him. They realize the political 'situation,' and stand back. They see the riaiug of the tide and wait to calculate it> altitude. They know that the success of our oause by the military arm leaves no room to doubt the political result. I do not care to contemplate the other side of the picture; but this coovio tion impresses itself upon my mind, that if disaster does come in the field, and we can not breast it under Mr. Lincoln, we should be as badly, if not worse, defeated under any other political leader. I crave your pardon for the infliction of this terribly long epistle. I did not contemplate the half of it when I took up my pen. It is my honest view from my own stand-point; whetlier correct or judicious, you can determine. It is hastily written, without choosing phrases, and il given as friend to friend in our friendly relations. I have only to repeat that though we may differ on these points, it is my earnest desire that these relations may not thereby be disturbed. " Very truly yours, JOHN BROUGH." Later in the Presidential campaign there were grave apprehenBions, among some, of Mr. Lincoln's buccosb, and at the time there were reports of a move- Close of Brough's Administration. 233 ment designed to force him off the Republican ticket. Possibly with reference to this, the following letter was sent to Mr. Theodore Tilton : "CoiUMBns, September 5, 1864. "Thbodok^ TtLTON, Esq., Editor Independent^ New York: " Sib : I hav« the note under date of 3d instant of Messrs. Greeley, Godwin, and yourself, I answer your interrogatories: "1. I not only regard the election of Mr. Lincoln as a probabiiity, bat I am satisfied that unity and co-operation in the Union element can easily make it a certainty. "2. At this time I have no doubt of the result in the State of Ohio. "3. Under these convictions I answer your three interrogatories very decidedly in the neg- Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." The unpublished letters of the Governor abound in evidences of his con- tinued and constant activity for the service of the State. In February, 1864, hewi'ites to the Secretary of War concerning the appointment of an officer from New Hampshire as Provost- Marshal for Ohio, after the resignation of Provost-Marshal Parrott: " Is Ohio so poor in men and material that it is necessary to import upon her? I have now four crippled Colonels who can not for some time go back to the field (either of whom is abundantly competent for this place), and all desiring some position of useful- ness, but they find themselves some morning turned out to shift for themselves. Are our veterans to be made to know that their toils and dangers go for nothing? Is the Colonel who left his leg at Mission Eidge,* or he who came frOm Einggold covered with wounds, to be told that a place he could fill in Ohio is reserved for some sotfnd Colonel from New Hampshire?; Have we done anything to merit this slight? Eespeetfully, but firmly, I protest against this wrong to the State and its band of war-worn veteran officers." In January, 1864, he writes to the Secretary of War, calling his attention to the exposed condition of the Border, and asking for artillery, owed by the Government under old militia laws. Stanton at first objected ; but Brough per- sisted until his efforts resulted in the equipment of four complete batteries, which, during the hundred days' movement, did good service. He remonstrated against the injustice which kept between twenty and thirty independent batteries in the field from Ohio, and asked a regimental organization for them, that their officers might have some chance of promo- tion. "I more than ask," he said in a letter to the Secretary of War, in Febru- ary, 1864, " I urge that at least two regiments, of artillery be created from Ohio batteries now in service. They are all re-enlisting — must they go back as independent batteries only?" He felt the passions of his kind at witnessing the hprrible condition of some of the starved Union prisoners, on their return from Southern confinement. A relative of General Cass, of Michigan, and a personal friend of his own, wrote to him about this time, asking his influence to secure the release on parole of a Rebel General, then confined at Detroit, that he might remain with friends * Understood to refer to Colonel Wiley, Forty-Fint Ohio. 234 Ohio in the War. there who would entertain bim,,aBd be responsible for his condact. This is Brough's reply: • "ExECUTrvB Dbpabtmekt, Columbus, May 23, 1861 "General Johk E. Hunt, Detroit, Michigan: "Sih: I have your favor of the 19th inntant. All prieoners of war. civil and militaiy, are under tlie sole charge of Colonel William Hoffman, Commissary-General of Prisoijers, Washing- ton City. I can not interfere with them if I would, and I Can not give an order to any to com- municate with them without his permission. "I am glad it is so. Some four weeks ago I saw, at Baltimore, the arrival of a veaef loaded with our prisoners from Belle Isle, who, in the very refinement x>l bmtKaism, had been reduced b_y starvation to mere skeletons, liar ao otier -porpose than toi incapacitate them for furtlher service in the Union armies.. Over one-third of these men were too far gone to be resuscitated, and died within forty-eight hours after arrival. While I would not retaliate on Bebel prisoners by prac- ticing like means, I confess. General, I have very little sympathy with, or desire to parole or release from confinement, men who have been upholding a rebellion that has deluged tife land with sorrow and blood — and whose leaders have resorted to cruelty and barbarism in the treat- ment of prisoners more infernal than any ever practiced by savages. The higher the rank and social position of men, the less are they entitled to sympathy. They sinned against light and knowledge. Therefore I am glad their fate is not in my keeping, lest, under such provocation, I should not be over merciful. " I return letter as teqtteeted, "Very respectfully, JOHN BEOUGH." Some lawyers, understood then to be sympathizers with the rebellioni wrote him a letter urging with pertinacity, but without much courtesy, his duty to help to get some claims of clients allowed at Washington. He replied: , "ExECtrrrvE Department, Columbus, May 26, 1864. "C. & C, Attomeyt, Athtns, Ohio: "GentleKEn: I have been honored with two epistles from yoar firm. The incloiures in your first communication I forwarded to the War Department. Your second note I shall send after them, giving you an introduction to the Secretary. " I duly appreciate the lecture you so emphatically read to me as to my dbty to my constit- uents, but I fail to see any obligation to become the agent of 'attorneys' to, press tbeir|cUinii upon the departments, especially when those 'attorneys' are blessed with a manner of commnni- cation so much more emphatic and persuasive than my own. Your clients undonbtedly com- mitted their interests to your hands in consideration of your business energy, and your influence with the departments at Washington ; and it would be improper for me to rob you of the honon of success, by any interference on my part. On the other hand, while I am ever readjito respond to the appeals of my constituents, I do not recognize the right of 'attorneys' to command mj services for their own benefit, especially when in so doing they berate and denounce the Govern- ment which it is alike my pleasure and my duty to support. ' "Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." In mai'kod contrast was the cordial letter — to select one out of many— which he wrote in November to Samuel Pike, of Washington C. H., symp«- thizing with his fatherly solicitude for the special- exchange of his son, but add- ing that, heartily as he wished he could help him, he felt bound to oppose all special exchanges, for the reason that they tended to render moi-e hopeleis 4* case of those still kept in Southern prisoiis, and to xjostpone still further tbeday of their deliveraneie. While the struggle lasted, Governor Brough was second to no Statesman of the Nation in the clearness of vision with which he perceived the popular demand, or in the zeal with which, amid all discouragements, he enforced tie Close of Bbobgh's Administration. 235 neOMsity for the steady prosecution of the war to the ends of human freedom and Natwnal supremacy. In the height of the personal vexations we have shown as surronikding him,- he closed his message to the Legislature with these brave words : "Instead of voting this i^ar 'a tiSttnti,' and comiiianding a 'cessation of hostilities,' the peo- ple have declared it a success thus ^r in its 'fnamreaS) and required its continuance until the rebellion is suppressed, and their GoTeroment restorefl t» .its original power and usefulness. They have counted its cost and measured its sacrifices ; they have V0(»d to themselves heavy tax- ation, and if necessity requires it, more calls upon them to fill up the ranks oTYheiTtmialesj they have left their authorities no discretion; have forbidden them to take any backward step, buflo press onward with energy and vigor, calling for and using all th& resources of tlie Nation until the Ifebel power is brokefl,jan,d t^e peace and unity, of ^he country is restored. They liaye gone further, and declared with clear and unmistakable emphasis that with the conquest of this rebell- ion must perish its most potent element, as well as one of its exciting causes; and that when yeace sheds its blessings again upon our people this shall be, whdt God and our fathers designed it — ^A LAND OF HTIilAjr FREEDOM. . , " From the commencement of this great contest the State of Ohio has opcupied no doubtful or hesitating pqsition. Our people have assumed their burdens with alacrity, and borne them with cheerfulness. They have responded with promptitude to every call that has been made upon them ; and without passing the bonnda of becoming modesty, they may point with emotions of pride to the record which hei; sons have mad^ for the State in the council and in the field. Ohio officers hav^ commanded with distinction and honor in nearly every department of the service ; and Ohio soldiers have battled with exalted courage and patriotism upon nearly every field of the war, and inarched over portions of fe'very State that the treasonable leaders took into rebellion. At all times and at all places they have nobly done their duty; achieving for themselves and reflecting upoui their State the highest honor. True, there have been, grievous sacrifices ; there has been mourning at many hearth-stones ; and we have often been called upon to pause in our exultation over the noble conduct of our living heroes, to lament our heroes dead; but even the ey^ beaimttied'with tears has cauglit a glance of the future, and the stricken heart has found con- solation in the assurance that all these sacrifices will be hallowed in the triumphjof freedom, and the coming greatness and glory of our country. The commandment of the people is to you and to me, in our allotted spheres, to move qnward to the accomplishment of this great end ; and to contribute all of ability and usefulness, we possess to the consummation of that grand triumph in which not only we ourselves but the friends of free government throughout the World will rejoice." When at last the tidings from Appomattox G. H.. flashed across the Land, and the rapidly following; reduction' of the army that was no longer needed began, , Secretary Stanton found qowhere more efficient aid in hurrying the sol- diers li^ack to, .their peaceful avoca,tiQp8 than jn the,Bxebutiye of Ohio, on whom he h^d so often relied. The tables elsewhere, given* may show the rapidity with which the worlc was done, but they can n,ot exhibit the fervid energj' with which the Governor pressed it at every point; the persistency with which he assailed the paymasters and mustering officers, forcing them to work harder than they were accustomed, and greatly arousing .their indigpation thereW; the vehemence, with which he strove to preveht the addition, of unnecessaiy expenses for, a single day to the enormous i debt under wljieh the Nation was staggering. At the same time he hastened temporary provision fqr a home for disabled soldiers. f These were services that gained him no credit then ; we owe t^em at least the reward of grateful remembrance now. ♦Vol. 11, p. 7. • :' t Charles Anderson became Governor of Ohio before these arrangements for the Soldiers' 236 Ohio in the Wak. The simple words with which the Governor had concluded his address to the people of the State, declining the canvass for renomination, were soon to receive a sad significance. " I doubt very mucsh," he then wrote, " whether my health much impaired by close confinement to official duties — ^would sustaia me through a vigorous campaign, while increasing years and the arduous labor of a long life in public positions, strongly invito me to retirement and repose during the few years that may yet remain to me." But the Government had other purposes. Secretary Stanton wished to reure at the close of the war, and it was arranged that the man whom of all others he and Mr. Lincoln held fittest for the place should succeed him. Gov- ernor Brough was expected to assume charge of the War Department at least at the close of his term as Governor, if not at an earlier date. Neither his own longings for a few years' retirement and repose, nor Mr, Lincoln's wish that his services should be transferred to the National arena, were to be gratified. In the midst of his labors his health began to give way. The store of .strength on which he had been drawing so profusely, was even lower than he thought when, with some natural forebodings, he doubted whether it would be sufficient to carry him through the labors of an active canvass of the State. Through the closing work, connected with the disbandment of the army, he. labored more unremittingly than ever, often spending the whole night at hii desk, in his eifprts to hasten the reduction of expenses. No human system could endure this strain. Early in June, while his health was broken dpwn by harassing labor, and before he seemed to have recovered from the shock and anxiety consequent upon the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, he stepped upon a stone in such a way as to bruise the foot and give a severe sprain to'the ankle. His great weight and the soreness of this foot compelled him for days to lean heavily upon his cane, and in the diseased and impoverished condition of his blood, inflammation in the. band was thus brought on. In both foot and hand gangrene set in, and for two months his sufferings were continuous and acute. The liveliest alarm was man- ifested by the Government at his condition. The Secretary of War sent out the army Surgeon most conversant with such cases, to remain in constant attend- ance upon him, in conjunction with the Surgeon -General of the State. Daily dispatches as to his condition were required to be forwarded to the Government Every care which family affection or professional skill could suggest was given, but it all proved vain. He was literally worn out in the public service, and hij system had no powers of recuperation. After incredible sufferings he at length passed into a state of insensibility, from which he was never in this life aroufled. He died at his residence in Cleveland, on the afternoon of the 29th of August, about half a year before the expiration of his term of office, and some weeks before the election of his successor. Home were finished. He placed it under the charge of five troetees, SnrKeon-Gkneral R K. But; Hon. Lewie B. Gunckle, of Daytou ; Hon. Jas. C. Hall, of Toledo ; Stillman Witt, Esq., o( Cleveland; and Hon. Chae. F. Wilatach, of Cincinnati. It was first located at the old Tripla Hospital, near Columbue. Close of Bjioxjgh's Administration. 237 Of the administration thus brought to an untimely close it maybe said that it vr&a at once the most vigprous and the most unpopular, as well as perhaps the most able with which Ohio was honored throughout the war. It grappled with no such sudden rush of momentous and new questions as did Dennison's ; it passed through no such gloomy periods of depression as did Tod's. With fewer necessities therefor, it created more dissatisfaction than did either. Governor Brough was impetuous, strong-willed, indiflPer^nt to personal considerations, often regardless of men's feelings, always disposed to try them by a standard of integrity to which the world is not accustomed. His administration was constantly enxbroiled — now with the Sanitary Commission — ^then, with the offi- cers in the field — again with the surgeons. But every struggle was begun and ended in the interest of the private soldiers as against the tyranny or neglect of their superiors ; in the interest of subordinate officers as against those who sought to keep them down ; in the intferfest of the men who fotlght as against those who shirked ; in the interest of the maimed as against the sound'; in the •interest of their femiliesas against all other expenditures. Never was a Knight of the old Chivalry more unselfishly loyal to the defense' of the defenseless. We write no apology for his errors, attempt no concealment of his 'vices. We have nosympathy with the false charity that would belie history in order to hide them. They were such that, proud as is the heritage of fame he has left ns, no parent in the State can point to John Brough as an exarpple for his boy. But they rarely injured the public service ; and they scai'cely mar the picture he has left us of statesmanlike ability and of patriotic devotion ; of an integrity like that of Cato, and an industry without a parallel. 238 Ohio in the Wab. CHAPTER XX MILITARY LEGISLATION OF THE STATE. .TTr"riTH the death of Governor Brough properlyenda our account of tiie |/|/ War Administrations of Ohio* What followed Was merely the resnmp- ' ' tion, with a rapidity that approached the marvellous, of their ciyil duties by the returning soldiers. After the initial war legislation of the Legislature at the session of 1860-61, we have taken little pains thus far to trace the additional acts by>which the tpirit of the people was mirrored in their laws. We may here, therefore, fitly present a summary of the legislation on military matters at succeeding sessions thi-ough- out the war : LEGISLATION OF 1862. Dr. Scott, member from Warren Connty, introduced into the Honse in Januaiy, 1862, » bill for the relief of soldiers families. The bill provided for a levy of three-fourths of one mill on the dollar valuation on the grand list of the taxable property of the State. The revenae so raised was to be disbursed, without compensation by the commissioners of the several counties of the State, to the families of all volunteers enlisted in the service of the United States from thii State. [A similar bill wiis introduced by Mr. Ready in 1863, and passed, providing for«krf of one mill on the dollar — to be disbursed in the same manner.] Several bills of a local nature were passed at the session of 1862, authorixing the county coa- missioners of several of the counties to transfer moneys from certain coanty funds to the leM fund for soldiers families. Mr. Sayler, member from Hamilton County, introduced in the House in January, 1862, t bill to enable the volunteers of Ohio, when in the military service of the State or of the United States, to exercise the right of suffrage, and designating the manner in which, where, and bj whom, such elections should be conducted. The bill was referred to a select committee, who »■ ported it baclc without recommendation. A bill upon the same subject was introduced into the Senate by Mr. Gunckle, Senator from the Montgomery District, which was passed by the Senate, and transmitted to the Huuseforili action, where, after its second reading, it was referred to a select committee, who reported itbuk without recommendation, when the House ordered it to be laid on the table. No further actioo was had upon this bill at that session. At the second session in 1863, Mr. Odlin, member from Montgomery County, reported fi«| a select committee of the House nn amended bill, which provided that whenever any of to qualified voters of this State shall be in the actual military service of this State or of ,llie United States, they may, upon the usual days for holding rx>unty, state, congressional, and presidentiw elections, exercise the right of suffrage at any place where there shall be twenty such voiu^it fully as if present at their usual places of election. The remaining sections of the bill pMnB MiLiTAKY Legislation of the State. 239 the manner in which and by whom snch electione shall be condacted; requiring the return of the poll-bookn used and ballots voted at such election to the proper county and State officers. This bill (House Amendments to S. B., No. 143) was passed by the House, and the amendments were agreed to by the Senate. Mr. Stiver, member from Preble County, introduced into the Honse a bill to prohibit per- sons in this State from trafficking with persons engaged in armed hostility to the Government of the United States. The penalty for violation of the provisions of this act was imprisonment in the penitentiary. The bill passed both branches of the General Assembly. Mr. Flagg, member from Hamilton County, introduced into the House in April, 1862, a bill authorizing the Governor to contribute out of his contingent fund to the Cincinnati branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, such sums of money as in his discretion he might deeii, proper, to be applied to the relief of the wounded and sick soldiers of the State of Ohio. Tlie bill passed both branches of the General Assembly. A bill reported from the Senate Judiciary Committee was passed by both- branches of the (General Assembly in January, 1862, exempting from execution the property of all persons mus- tered into the service of the United States, so long as they continued iri such service, and two (UOQths after muster out. This law was amendatory of the act of May, 1861. , Mr. McVeigh, Senator from the Fairfield District, introduced into the Senate a bill supple- mentary to the act of April, 1861, to provide for the defense of the State, and for the support of the Federal Government against rebellion, apd making appropriations for the payment of claims for the purchase of arms and equipments for the militia of the State; also troops of the United States Afhere such purchases were made under the authority of the Governor, and creating a board' of commissioners for the examination and adjustment of claims against the State arising out of military transactions. The Auditor of State, Secretary of State, and' Attorney-General, constituted the board. The bill was passed by both branches of the General Assembly, 1862. Mr. Hitchcock, from a select committe of the Senate, reported a bill providing for the ap- pointment by the Grovernor of pay agents, whose duty it was to visit the volunteers from Ohio in the lervice of the United States, and obtain from them aliotmenta of pay and remittances ef money for the benefit of their families or friends. All moneys received by such agents was to be paid into the State Treasury. The bill was passed by, both branches of the General Assembly, in 1862, and was found, for a year or two, to give tolei-able satisfaction by its workings. Mr. Eggleston, Senator from Hamilton County, introduced into the Senate a bill appropri- ating three thousand dollars to aid the Cincinnati branch of the United Sanitary Commission, in promptly and efficiently giving relief to such wounded and sick Ohio soldiers in the service of the Ujiited States as n^igbt be brought to that point for care. The bill passed b.oth branches of the General Assembly in 1862. A joipt. resolution was passed in January, 1862, tendering, thanks to General Thomas and Colonels Garfield and McCook, and men of their commands, for the victory achieved by them in Eentncky over the enemies of the Union. A joint resolution was passed in February, 1862, tendering thanks to General Grant and Flag-Officer Foote, and men of their commands, for the courage, gallantry, and enterprise ex hibited in the bombardm,ent and capture of Fort Henry ; also for capture of Fort Donelson. A joint resolution was passed in February, 1862, tendering thanks to General Burnajde and Commander Goldsborough, and men of their commands, for the victories achieved in North Carolina, A joint resolution was passed in March, 1862, tendering thi^nks to Brigadier-General Cur- tis, Brigadier-General Sigel, and Colonels Asboth, Davis, and Corr, and men of their en, ii mantis, for the victory achieved over the Rebel forces under Van Dorn, Price, and McCulloch, at Pea Bidge, in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. ^ A joint resolution was passed in March, 1862, declaring that the Government could make no peace save on the basis of an unconditional submission to the supremacy of the Constitution ud the laws ; that the future peace and permanency of (lie Government, as well as the best 240 Ohio in the Wab. interestB of humanity, demanded the speedy trial and summary execntion of all the leading conepiratorB ; and that, in the name of the people of Ohio, the Legislature protested against any peace, save upon this basis. A joint resolution wag passed in April, 1862, tendering thanks to Brigadier-General Shields and officers and m«n of his command for their gallant conduct in the victoiy achieved at Winchester, Virginia. LEGISLATION OF 1863. Mr. Krum, from a select committee of the House, reported a bill to provide for bounty paid to Ohio volunteers who enlisted and were mustered into the service of the United States, under the calls of the. President issued on the second day of July and on the fourth day' of August, A. D. 1862, and creating the County Commissioners of the several counties of this State a Connty Board, whose duty it shall be to ascertain and make record of the amount of such bounty paid, or agreed to be paid, to volunteers in their respective counties, and the maimer in which such bounty was paid, or agreed to be paid ; and anthorizing the county commissioners to assess a tax upon the taxable property entered upon the grand tax dnplicate of their respective counties for the pay- ment of such claims. The bill passed both branches of the General Aaaembly. Mr. McVeigh, Senator from the Fairfield District, introduced a bill to provide more effect- ually for the defense of the State against invasion. Thia bill anthorbwd the Governor, in case of invasion of the State, or danger thereof, to call into active service the militia of the State, or such numbers as, in his opinion, might be necessary to defend the State and repel such invasion, and making an appropriation of five hundred thousand dollars for the payment of the neccasaiy expenses that may be incurred by the Governor in calliog out the militia of the State for any of the objects provided for in thia act, and empowering the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund to borrow such sum on the faith and credit of the State, and to issue certificates to. the parties loan- ing the State the said sum, bearing six per cent, interest, payable semi-annually, exempt fnun taxation under the authority of this State. This passed both branches of the General ABsembly. Mr. Sinnet, Senator from the Licking District, introduced a bill empowering the Governor to appoint such number of military claim agents as the good of the service might require, whose duty it was to investigate, give advice, and take snch other action as would enable dis- charged Ohio soldiers speedily to obtain, free of charge, the money due them from the General Government for military service. This passed both branches of the General Assembly. A joint resolution was passed in January, 1863, tendering thanks to M^or-General Rose- crans, staff, officers, and men under their command, for the achievement of the victory at Mar- ' freesboro', Tennessee. A joint resolution was passed in January, tendering thanks to Major-General Benjamin F. Butler for his distinguished services to the country during the rebellion. A joint resolution, passed in February, 1863, tendering thanks to the Eighty-Third, Ninety- Sixth, and Seventy-Sixth, Ohio Begiments, and the Seventeenth Ohio Battery, for gallantry and good conduct at the capture of Arkansas Post. A joint resolution, passed in March, 1863, tendering thanks to patriotic dtiaen-Boldiers of the State — the " Squirrel Hunters " — for their gallant conduct in repairing to points of danger on the border to defend the State from the threatened invasion of the Bebel hordes under the command of Kirby Smith. A joint resolution, passed in March, tendering thanks to Major-General Lew. Wallace, for the promptness, energy, and skill exhibited by him in organizing, planning the defense, and exe- cuting the movements of soldiers and citizens under his command at Cincinnati, at the time of the threatened invasion of Ohio by the forces under Kirby Smith. A joint resolution, passed in March, authorizing the GJovemor to procure lithographed dis- charges for the " Squirrel Hunters." A joint resolution, passed in March, tendering thanks to Captain Abner Bead, commander of United States gunboat " New London," for his patriotism, gallantry, and distinguished serv- ices against the enemies of his country. Military Legislation of the State. 241 [Cnptain Bead captured fourteen, and aided in the capture of nine more vessels of the enemy, and also captured two Rebel forts, Wood and Pike.] The trustees of Green Lawn Cemetery, which is located near Columbus, Oliio, having prer sented a lot in their cemetery grounds for the burial of Union soldiers who died in the c^mps in the vicinity of Columbus, the General Assembly, by joint resolution, authorized the Governor to contribute a sum not exceeding five hundred dollars out of his military contingent fund fcir the removal of the dead bodies of those brave men, and their proper interment in the grounds thus given for this purpose. LEGISLATION OF 1864. Mr. Odlin, member from Montgomery County, introduced into the House, in March, 1864, a bill to enable the qualified voters of any city in this S^te, who may be in the military service of this State or of the United States, to exercise the right of suflrage when absent in such service of the United States or of this State, on the days provided by law for electing the municipal officers thereof, the same as if present at their respective places of voting in said cities. The elections under this act were to be conducted in the same manner as provided in the act of April, 1863. The bill passed both branches of the General Assembly. Mr. Odlin, from the House Committee on Finance, reported a bill to provide more effectually for the defense of the State against invasion. This bill authorizes the procurement of arms, field batteries, equipments, camp equipage, subsistence, munitions of war, and all other means and appliances as may be necessary to provide the State against invasion, riot, insurrection, or danger thereof, and making an appropriation of one million dollars to pay the expenses incurrred by the Governor u nder authority of this act. The bill passed both branches of the General Assem- bly. Under it four batteries were equipped. Mr. Gunckle, Senator from the Montgomeiy District, introduced into the Senate, in Febru- ary, 1884, a bill to provide relief for tlie families of soldiers and marines. The act authorizes a levy of two mills on the dollar valuation of the grand list of taxable property of the State, and in counties where the State levy shall be insufficient, grants the board of county commissioners power to levy and assess an additional amount, not exceeding one mill on the dollar valuation on the grand list of taxable property of such county ; also city councils the power to levy and assess an additional amount, not exceeding one-half mill on the dollar valuation of the grand list of taxable property of such city, for the purpose of affording the relief contemplated by this act. The benefits of this act ejctend to the families of colored soldiers and marines actually in the. service of the United States, or who have died or b^n disabled therein. In cases of refusal or neglect of township and county officers to discharge the duties required' by this act, the Governor was empowered to appoint suitable persons, citizens of such counties, to perform said dtrties. Mr. Stevenson, Senator &om the Ross District, introduced a bill to authorize county commis- sioners, trustees of townships, and city councils to levy a tax for the payment of bounties to vol- unteers, and to refund subscriptions made for that purpose. The act authorizes the commissioners of the several counties, the city council of the several cities, and the trustees of each township in this State (if they deem the same expedient), in 1864, to levy a tax upon the taxable property within their respective jurisdictions for the purpose of raising a fund to pay bounties to volun- teers, and fixing the amount of bounty to be paid each volunteer at one hundred dollars. In order to anticipate the proceeds of the tax authorized by this law, the county commis- sioners, township ti-ustees, and city councils were allowed to borrow moneys or transfer money from certain other funds in the county, township, or city treasuries. This act also authorizes the payment of bounty to each veteran volunteer not having previ- ously received a local bounty. Said bounty not to exceed one hundred dollars. This act also authorizes, upon proper evidence shown to the county commissioners, township trustees, or president of the proper city council, the payment of all moneys advanced by indi- viduals for the purposes named in this act. Mr. Sinnet, a. Senator from the Licking District, introduced into the Senate, in February, 1863, a bill to organize and discipline the militia of the State. This bill was passed by both branches of the General Assembly. See ante, Chap. " Organization of the National Guard." Vol. I.— 16. 5242 UHIO IN THE WAR. Colonel John M. Connell, Senator from the Fairfield District, introduced, in March, 1864, a bill for the same purpone, and repealing the act of 1863. It differed therefrom mainly in being better arranged and more clearly expressed, in changing the name " Volunteer Ohio State Mih- tia " to " National Guard," in giving a more satisfactory system of exemptions, in. abandoning the effort to keep up an official organization of the common militia until it shall be called oat, and in perfecting the organization and arrangements for drilling the National Guard. The Adjutant- General, in his report for 1864, stated that -the original draft for this bill was prepared by Hon. Len. A. Harris, then Mayor of Cincinnati. On the passage of the bill four Senators voted in the negative : Messrs. Converse, Lang, O'Connor, and Willett, all Democrats. Mr. Lang moved to amend the title as follows : " A bill establishing an expensive and oppressive standing army in the State of Ohio, and to tramp out of existence the few last vestiges of civil liberty still remaining with the people." The same Senators who voted negatively on the passage of the bill, voted affirmatively on the motion of Mr. Lang to amend the title. An act was passed in March, 1864, authorizing and requiring theGovernorto appoint a com- mission of three persons, whose duty it was to examine claims growing out of the Morgan raid. The commissioners were required to appoint times and places for the examinatiou of claimi within the counties through which said raid passed, and to give notice by publication in a news- paper. The commissioners had power to call and examine witnesses. All claims examined by the commissioners to be reported to the Governor, separated into the following classes: 1. Claims for property taken, destroyed, or injured by the Rebels. 2. Claims for property taken, destroyed, or injured by the Union forces under command of United States officers. 3. Claims for property taken, destroyed, or injured by Union forces not under the command of United States officers, with a statement showing specifically in each case under what circnni- gtances, and by what authority such property was so taken, injured, or destroyed.* An act was passed in February, 1864, to prevent enlistments of residents of this Slate, by unauthorized persons, in or for military organizations of other States, and to punish any citizen of the State who, by offers of bounties or otherwise, should attempt to induce such enlistments. An act was passed in March, 1864, to establish in the office of the Adjutant-General a bureau of military statistics, for the purpose of perpetuating the names and memories of the gallant and patriotic men of this State who volunteered as privates in the service of the United States, whidi was to be done by preserving lists of their natnes, and sketches of the organizations to which they belonged.t- An act was passed in March, 1864, for the relief of debtors in the military service of the" United States, providing that any party in a suit against whom judgment had been entered with- out defense made, while the said party was in the service, should have the privilege of re-opening judgment or order in his case at any time within one year after his discharge, for presentation of his defense. LEGISLATION OF 1865. An act was passed in February, 1865, creating a bureau of soldiers' claims, and providing for the appointment by the Governor of a commissioner, whose duty it shall be to furnish and give all necessary instructions, information, and advice, free of charge, to the soldiers and marines of Ohio, or their heirs or legal representatives, respecting any claims which may be due them from this State or the United States, t * The results of the investigation under this law have been given, ante, Chap. "The Morgan Raid." * t Repeated efforts were subsequently made to secure an appropriation for publishing thin matter, but it would have made a cart-load of volumes, and the Legislature always refused. t An attempt to make this bureau amount to something led to serious complications with the State Military Agent at WoAhington. Military Legislation op the State. 243 A Bupplementarj act to the act of March, 1864, enabling qualified voters of cities, etc., who may be in the military service of the State, or of this United States, to exercise the right of suf- fir:ige, was passed March 31, 1865. It gave the privilege of voting for all township officers save assesaora, and adapted other provisions of the existing law to correspond with this. A relief bill for the families of soldiers and marines in the State and United States service was passed in April, 1865, providing for a State levy of two mills on the dollar valuation of the grand list of taxable property of the State, and should the fund so raised be insufficient, author- izing the county commissioners to make an additional levy of two mills, and city councils an additional levy of one mill. An act was passed in April, 1865, for the relief of discharged soldiers and marines, being merely a modification of the State Agency system for their benefit. An act supplementary to an act entitled "an act to provide a board of commissioners to examine certain military claims," and making an appropriation for their payment, was passed in April, 1865. It gave system to previous legislative action looking to the payment of the irregular claims arising out of the necessity for haste and vigor in the early part of Governor Dennieon's military administration. A considerable number of new amendments to the National Guard law were passed. An act to provide bounty for veteran volunteers, who had not previously received local bounty, was passed in April, 1865, authorizing the trustees of the several townships of this State to issue to each re-enlisted veteran volunteer a bond for the sum of one hundred dollars, liearing six per cent, interest, redeemable at the pleasure of the trustees, one year after the date thereof. An act was passed in April, 1865, to authorize the trustees of townships, councils of cities, and commisBioners of counties in this State, to levy a tax to refund money borrowed or pledged for local bounties. Bounty under this act limited to one hundred dollars. A bill was introduced into the Senate in March, 1865, to establish a soldiers' home. The home so established to be maintained at the expense of the State, for the care and support of such soldiers of the State as have been disabled in the war. The bill provided for the purchase of Ohio White Sulphur Springs Farm and buildings, at a cost not to exceed fifty thousand dollars. For the management and control of said home the Governor was authorized to appoint six trustees, who shall hold their office for one, two, and three years. Their successors for three years each. The board of trustees were empowered to appoint a superintendent and other necessary officers for the home. The home to be governed by such rules and regulations as shall be made by the board, and approved by the Governor. The board shall admit as many disabled soldiers as the home will comfortably contain, having due reference to a just and equitable distribution of the benefits thereof to the several counties of the Slate. All soldiers admitted to the home were required to transfer to the board all incomes which they are entitled to receive from the State, United States, or other sources, except the amount of two dollars per month. The board was authorized to receive and accept in trust for said home any donations of land, money, or other property, and to hold or dispose of the same for the benefit of the home, as they deemed most advisable. The commissioners of the several counties of the State were authorized and required to appropriate out of the fund raised for the relief of soldiers' families, a sufficient amount to sup- port indigent and disabled soldiers within their respective counties, until such dependent soldiers shall be transferred to the home established by this act. Fifty thousand dollars were to be appropriated for the purpose of carrying out the pro- visions of this act. The bill did not pass. The Greneral Assembly of 1866 passed a law establishing a home, which is now in successful operation near Dayton. At the session of the General Assembly in 1867 a memorial from Major-General Eaton and ^•dr* v/±iJHJ Id xjiii YV Ait. others, was presented to the Senate, asking an appropriation by the State to aid in erecting a monument to the memory of M^jor-Oener^I James B. McFherson, at Clyde, Ohio. The memorial was referred to a select committee of one — General Warner, Senator from the Licking District — who, in his report upon the prayer of the memorialists, recommended the adoption of the following joint resolution: "Jlesolved, by the General Aaembly of the State of Ohio, That the sum of fire thonaaod dollais is hereby directed to be appropriated out of any funds in the treasury, not otherwise appro- priated, to aid in the erection of a monument at Clyde, Ohio, to the memory of Major-General James B. McPherson.'' The resolution was adopted by the Senate by a strict party vote, eyeiy Democrat Toting against it. The resolution was then transmitted to the House, by which body it was indefinitely post- poned. Ohio Subgeons in the Wab. 245 CHAPTER XXI. OHIO SURGEONS IN THE WAR. "VTOTHING in the general management of Ohio military affairs through- \\ out the war did more to raise the character of the State than the care -*- with which medical officers were selected, and the unusually high class of officers thus ohtained. Among the many excellent acts for which ex-Governor Dennison has never received proper credit, was his determination, in the very climax of the confu- sion that followed the first call to arms, that no Ohio regiment should enter the field without a surgeon whom the hest judgment of the profession in the State would pronounce fitted for the place. It was the time of crudities in every branch of military organization — when troops were electing their officers, and regiments were demanding thirty wagons each for transportation, and recruits were receiving quarters at first-class hotels at Government expense. To have perceived, in the midst of this rawness and ignorance, the necessity for rigid examinations of medical officers was a piece of sagacity that was to inure to the benefit of every soldier sent out, and to secure for the State pre-eminence in the surgical and medical history of the war. Within a few days after the organization of troops began, Governor Denni- son appointed George C. Blackman, M. D., of Cincinnati; J. W. Hamilton, M. D., of Columbus ; and L. M. Whiting, M. D., of Canton, a board to examine all applicants for appointments as surgeons or assistant-surgeons for Ohio regi- ments. No one was to be eligible who had not been regularly educated, had not been a practitioner in good standing for ten years, and could not pass a rigid examination before this board ; while for even the assistant-surgeons, five years of previous practice were required. The system thus begun was kept up through the succeeding administra- tions. As the business of the war became more systematized, the State Surgeon- General assumed charge of such matters, and saw to it that the standard required by the examining board should be raised rather than lowered. During the summer of 1861, Drs. Blackman and Whiting retired, and S. M. Smith, M. D., and William M. Awl, M. D., of Columbus, took their places. These gentle- men discharged the delicate duties of the board throughout the administration of Governor Dennison. Governor Tod, on his entrance into office, appointed C. 246 Ohio in the War. C. Cook, M. D., of Youngstown ; John W. Eussell, M. D., of Mount Yernon ; and John A. Murphy, M. D., of Cincinnati. Afterward, on the death of Dr. Cook, Guatav. C. E. Weber, M. D., of Cleveland, took his place Through tba administration of Governor Brough these gentlemen were retained ; but during the absence of Dr. Weber in Europe, and the illness of Dr. Murphy, Drs. S. M. Smith and Starling Loving, of Columbus, acted in their places. Before these gentlemen — all commanding the confidence of the profession throughout the State — every surgeon or assistant-surgeon for an Ohio regiment wag compelled to pass. The examination was exhau-stive, and moral habits in the appli- cant, temperance, and fair standing in the profession, were required ag rigor- ously as satisfactory answers to the professional questions.* When, having appointed General McClellan in the hope of having him as military adviser. Governor Dennison asked of him who should be made Sur- geon-General, a prompt recommendation was given to George H. Shumard, of Cincinnati, and an appointment was as promptly made. The profession, par- ticularly in Cincinnati, manifested some astonishment, and began to inquire who Dr. Shumard was. Presently it came to be known that he was really a repu- table phj-sician, though long absent from Cincinnati, engaged in geological surveys in Texas when the war broke out, and for years previously a resident of Arkansas. He had avowed his Union sentiments in spite of the terrible pressure of public opinion against him, and when he was finally forced to flee, General McClellan, in introducing him to Governor Dennison's attention, had spoken of him as "the last Union man of Arkansas." These facts tended to mollify the first harsh judgment of the profession ; but they never quite recon- ciled themselves to his appointment as Surgeon-General of Ohio; and he was never popular. Ho nevertheless did some valuable, though fragmentary service. The troops first hurried into the field were ignorant of everything necessary to com- fort or health in camp life; the camps were filthy, the hospitals crowded, ill- ventilated, and worse attended, the medical supplies insufiScient. To the correc- tion of these evils Dr. Shumard addressed himself with industry and zeal. He visited the camps of the State troops, helped to organise their medical depart- ments, and did what in him lay to inaugurate system in medical matters. But he was made to feel so keenly the opinion of the profession that he was an interloper, enjoying undeserved promotion over Ohio physicians, that he was very glad to embrace the opportunity of entering the United States service as a brigade surgeon. He was succeeded by William L. McMillen, M. D., of Columbus, who had enjoyed opportunities of becoming familiar with army surgery in Bussian hos- * The following is a summary of medical offioers appointed, resigned, promoted, dismiased, and deceased during the rebellion : "Appointed — Burgeons, 287; Assistant-Surgeons, 694. Resigned — Surgeons, 122; Aasiit- ant-Surgeons, 171. Promotions — Assistant-Surgeons to Surgeons, 165 ; Surgeons and Assistsnta to Surgeons and Assistants TJ. S. V., 46. Dismissed — Surgeons, 2; Assistant-Surgebiis, 12. Deceased— Surgeons, 18 ; Assistant-Surgeons, 24." Ohio Subgeons in the Wab. 247 pitals during the Crimean war. Ho served as Surgeon -General during the few remaining months of Governor Dennison's administration. , Governor Tod appointed Gustav. C. E. Weber, M. D., Professor of Surgery in the Cleveland Medical College, as' Surgeon -General on his staif. This gentle- man was of German birth and education, and was a physician of high repute in Cleveland and throughout the State. He began the system of hospital boats, of which we have already had occasion to speak at length ; visited the field of Pittsburg Landing and labored faithfully among the wounded, till he was himself prostrated by disease ; visited hospitals where Ohio soldiers were congregated elsewhere, and particularly those in Washington; had repeated con- ferences with the Surgeon-General of the United States army and co-operated zealously with him in promoting the good of the service; perfected the system of examination for applicants for appointment as regimental surgeons, and made it more stringent and systematic. When Dr. Weber's health gave way he was succeeded by Samuel M. Smith, M. D., Professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine in Starling Medical Col- lege, and long a well-known and highly esteemed practitioner in Columbus. Dr. Smith had completed his medical studies in Paris, and had long been recog- nized as one of the foremost men in the profession in the State. He continued the svstem of hospital boats, and gave the closest personal attention to its work- ings. He was a man of peculiarlj^ warm temperament, and his whole heart was in the work to which he now devoted himself. He made repeated personal visits to the great battle-fields; was always jjrepared to forward corps of select surgeons and nurses wherever needed; was active in seeking occasions for ren- dering aid to the medical ofiicers in the field, and watchful as to the conduct of those whom he sent out. He maintained the high standard of appointments to the medical service. When Governor Brough entered upon the duties of his office he selected his personal friend, R. N. Barr, Professor of Anatomy in the Medical College of Cleveland, and a man of excellent standing in the profession, as his Surgeon- General. There was now less necessity for attention to the wants of the troops in the field, or special efforts to render assistance after great battles, since the more perfect organization of the medical strength of the army and the opera- tions of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions left less for the medical authorities of the several States to do. *rhe Government now had its own hospital boats, hospital cars, and abundant medical supplies ; while, for special wants, the thorough organization of the charitable commissions might be safely trusted. Dr. Barr's duties were, therefore, more closely confined to the routine of office work than had been those of his predecessors. It is high praise to say that he kept up the standard they had fixed. Under the administrations of these several gentlemen the State expended, on her own account, in bringing home her wounded or in sending additional surgeons and supplies to them on the battle-fields where they fell, nearly two hundred thousand dollars. Professor J. H. Salisbury, of Cleveland, under an appointment from Gov- 248 Ohio in the War. ernor Tod, visited a number of hospitals in the different theaters of military operations, looking after the condition of the Ohio sick and wounded, and making known their wants. He gave, however, the larger share of his time to experiments and investigations bearing on the great epidemics that invade the army, and specially on chronic diarrhea, malarial fevers, and camp measles, « well as on the army ration as largely entering into the causation of many army diseases. He made meritorious experiments looking to the proof of the theoij that some of these diseases have a cryptogamic origin, and presented an elab- orate report, which was given to the profession as an appendix in succesBtTo reports of the several Surgeon-Generals. Besides the regimental surgeons,* who embraced a representation of the best professional talent of the State, a number of the leading physicians entered the United States service as " United States Volunteer Surgeons," with the rank of Major, or as assistants, with tho rank of First-Lieutenant, afler an exhaustive examination under authority of the Secretary of War, before a board of regular army surgeons at Washington.f They were assigned to duty as surgeons in charge of hospitals, division or corps surgeons, and in more than one instance as medical directors of great departments. One of these, Dr. Wm. H. Massey, of Cincinnati, was subseqnentiy pro- moted to bo one of the small board of medical inspectors, who stood nest to * Whose names appear, together with the important facts of their military history, in the rosters of their respective regiments, in Vol. 11. rSTJEGEONS OF VOLUNTEERS, WITH RANK. DATK OF COM. BK81DKirCS. Uajor Do. . Do. 1)0. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Du Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Isl Llentontnt Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Cbas. O'Lxakt Wh. Clehdenin Jas. D. Rimi.'oo.N 0W>. 11. SlfVHABD T. V. Burke D. \V. H\BT8H0BN.... Oko. V. Blackmah .. Wm. H. Ml)«8KT NoBHAN Gat RvrUS II JoiINSTON Frbdb. Skyhijus Wh. W. Hi.lmm A. J. PlIKLl'S Clabbk McDerhott BOWABS Cui.BERTnoIf Fbamoh SaLTKR JWO. M. ItOBINSON... Oko. R. Weeks Sam'l D. TriiMEv.... IluOBB Y. Cham... A. O. SWARTZW itORBBT fLBTCHBll.. Samurl Habi J. Y. Uamtwbli. ...., W. O. DAKIBta IlXIIBT 'A. 6IU. ...— Thos. B. Hood Chai. U. Hood m. 0. woouwobth woodwabo... Aug. Seft. Oct. Dpc. April Not. Feb. 31 arch Hay SIDBB July - - Not. Jan. M»y Jnna Not. 10, 24. 2<. 24, 4, 4, K. 7, 7, 19. >9. 26, 27, 9, av, li),) 10, M, 311, au, 25, 2i, Ireland , Penn Ohio N.J Ireland . Maaa N. T N. H ...... Tt Maaa. England 1862 OMo Ohio Ireland . Cincionari... Cincinnati... Cincinnati... Ciocinnati... Ciucinnati... Cincinnati... Colambni.... Cincinnati... .Athenfl Portsmouth Da7ton...«.„ }BP3 Ohio Knslanil Ohio . Delnwart' Ohio Ohio Penn England Ohio Ohio.-.. N. T . Penn... Ohio ... OUto ... N.T.., Ohio ... Circleville... Cincinnati.- Toledo ...-.-, Warren .. Warren ., ASS'T SUBGBONS. RDVia Fbbebiam.—... J. W Applkoate M. K. HOXI.XY Oxbuabd Saai. llHaT H. KiBK.., Sasiikl Kitoiiks. John MoCdbdt .... ,1. STKU Ely .FORX 8. McOiiKW . Hot. Feb. SiTt. Sov. Jan. April Inly N. 8... 7, IMK,' 19, ■ - 19. », 7, a, IWU Canada Oincinnatl.... Oorm'ny Penn. Cincinnati... Ireland Ohio Ohio Toungetown Cincinnati... DiTision Surgeon. Ass't Med. Dir. Dept. Cumberland. Snperi&tendmt Hoapltala, LonisTflle. Diriiion Surgeon. [luBp'i of Anar. Prom, to Lt. Col. and sieailier Board Mm. Corps Medical Director. Hoapltal SnrgMio, NaahriUe. Division Surgeon. Med. Director, Department Eentackr. - Med. PnrTn-or and Surg. In charge, Cbb'' berlnnd Hospital, NasnTitle. Corpe Medical Director. Hospital Surgeon. Hospital Surgeon. DiT. and Post Mad. Dir., MnrfrHsbon'. DiTision Surgeon. , . Mr4ical ParTSTor, Amj CBmoerlaB*. Hospital Surgeon. Division Surgeon. DiTision Surgeon. Hospital Surgeon. DiTision Surgeon. Hospital Snrgeon, Cincinnati. Hospital Surgeon, DiTision Medical Director. Ohio Surgeons in the Wak. 249 the Surgeon -General and his Assistant as the ranking oflScors of the medical service in the army. In this capacity he proved singularly industrious in his search for mismanagement or abuses, and. unshrinking, to a degree rarely wit- nessed, in exposing them and applying the necessary correctives. He was spe- cially watchful as to the character of the medicines and supplies furnished the hospitals, the rations issued to soldiers in the field, and the quality of clothing fui'uished to the troops. On the battle-fields his authority was interposed to save the wounded from unscrupulous operators. In all respects, he was an un- tiring and faithful public servant. Dr. Wm. Clendenin, of the same corps, aside from his professional serv- ices, was esteemed for the thorough system of registration of sick and wounded which he introduced, first into some hospitals under his own care, and after^ ward into the entire medical service of the army. Under the old regulations it was impossible to trace, from the hospital records, the successive stages of any particular case, where the patient had either been transferred to another hos- pital or gi'antod a furlough. Under the system introduced by Clendenin's blanks the hospitals of the entire service conld be explored, the case could be followed anywhere, its ultimate result was always discoverable, and the entire multiforhi experience of the war thus became available for the instruction and advancement of the profession. ■ Dr. Clendenin filled various posts of enlarged usefulness, and finally becstrae Assistant Medical Director of the Army of the Cumberland. His chief, the honored director in this army through, a largo part of its bloody experience (Dr. Glover Perrin), though an old ofiicer of the regular army, may, nevertheless, be properly reclaimed by his native State in a record like this. In establishing the chain of hospitals from Louisville to Kenesaw, and in organizing the medical and surgical work after the great bat- tles that mark this historic route, he did a work second to none in importance, and ever worthy to be gratefully cherished, not only by his State, but the Na- tion whose soldiers he served and saved. Another of the brigade surgeons. Dr. Fletcher, rose to distinction in the same field, as Medical Purveyor at Nashville for the great armies that, step by stop, won Stone Eiver and Chickamauga, Mission Eidge, and Atlanta, and swept thence to the sea and back through the Carolinas. He was pronounced by the Surgeon-General among the best, if not the best, of the purveyors in the service, and the grateful testimohy of Eosecrans, Thomas, and Sherman more than confirms the encomium. Dr. McDermott of Dayton did a similar work as Medical Purveyor at Murfreesboro' for a time, and afterward took charge of the noted Cumberland hospital at Nashville, the largest in the department. Dr. A. J. Phelps, at first a regimental surgeon, and then "surgeon of volunteers,'' became Medical Director of one of the army corps under Thomas, and afterward Medical Director of the Department of Kentucky. Dr. Francis Salter passed through the same promotions and became the chief medical officer of the cavalry of the whole army. Dr. W. W. Holmes became Medical Director in the command of General Cox, and gave up his life in the service. Dr. Nor- man Gay of ColninbuB became a Corps Medical Director. 250 Ohio in the Wab. The high standing which these examples may illustrate, extended through- out the long rolls of regimental surgeons as well. They can appear on the rolls only in connection with their respective regiments; but they were constantly called to other and important fields of duty. Thus Dr. James, of the Fourth Ohio Cavalry, became the chief medical officer of the entire cavalry of the army, and held this place till the end of his service — making his administration notable for improvements in the ambulance system specially adapted to the peculiar wants of the cavalry service, a new foi'm of haversack for cavalry use, and other reforms. Dr. Muscroft of the Tenth Ohio became a division surgeon, and performed a great variety of service on army boards, medical inspections, and the like. Dr. Brelsford of Bellbrook had charge of the important hospitals at Cumberland. The list might be indefinitely extended. They made large and valuable contributions to the Army Museum of Surgery and Surgical and Medical Pathology at Washington ; in reports and office labors they did their full share toward the advancement of the profession which the war brought about ; most of all, with a faithfulness more nearly uniform than could reasona- bly have been expected, they devoted themselves to the relief of those ready to perish on the ghastly battlefields, and in the more ghastly hospitals that over half the continent marked the last sacrifices of the loyal people for the life of the Nation. In this work some of them fell on the battle-fields, more breathed their last in the hospitals, where they had so often ministered to the wants of others,* more still carried back to civil life constitutions broken down by the exposures they had courted in the service of our braves. •DEATHS OF MEDICAL OFFICERS DURING THE REBELLION. Surgeon AssU Surs. SuiEeoii AesHSurg. Surprcon Aas't Surg. SurgHun AbbH I t Burg . Burgeon AbbU Surg. Surgeon Abb t Surg. Surgeon . Aes't Surg. Surgeou AHH't Surg. Surgeon AsB't Surg . 8urgeoQ . R. R. McMcanB H. H. McAbe.- Jamep liiivt-nport W. W. Uolm-'B Henry Spfllmun J, U. Biteman John G. Purple Williiim Y. Dean G. S. Giitlirk' John A. Soliday FriiucisD. Morris John N. Minor W. W. Bridgi- Gre'-nleaf C Korton J. K. Lewis A. J. Itosii Snmuil Miithenj N. H, Fisher John P. Haggptt William I>. Ourlin Bruno Liiukrict Willinni S. Moore MoRt'B B. Iltiinos E. \V. Stuulo (.'harh-B U. Pierc^ Robert P. Miicnschor Pardon Cook L. C. Brown A. Lnngwell Alfn-d Taylor F. \V. MarsrlUcB G. W. SayreB F, M. Andrews Chiirli's A. Ilaitnian D. H. Silver A. R. Gilkcy Tliomas .1. bhanuon Martin Doty Z, North way R. H. TulliuB JaniPB W. ThompBon William F. Brown REGIMENT. DATE. 3.1 0. V. I... Oct. 30, 1862 nh " ... Sept. — , 1S6< nth " ... Mar. Zll, 1S6J 12th " ... April 2K, 1&62 isth •' ... I'Jth " ... Sept. 25, isia 20th " ... May 13, 1SA2 25th " ... S<>pt. 17, " l>b. 20, 1864 32d " ... 32d " ... Mnr. 26, IMa 3.ith " ... Sept. 23, ItUvl 42d •• ... Dec. 13, 1»;2 4IJth " ... Aug. 6, 1S64 *ifh " ... Aug. 10, l«t>2 «th •• ... Oct. 11, •• ■■iZ.I " ... Ti'ii. 20, i«m 53d " .. Mny 23, iS«6 56th " ... Jan. 25, 1862 57lh " ... April 30, " 57th " ... Dec. 26, " teth '• ... Oct. 27, " 6l8t " ... July 3, 1863 r>yth " ... 74th " ... 7llt I " ... Jan. 2S, i«B 7iit I " ... Ort. 2, IKi2 77t 1 " ... Sept. 23, 1S6.1 ^5^ 1 " Nov.—, 1862 esth " ... Miir. IS, l.MiS S'Jih " ... May 23, 1863 9»th " ... May 1, 1S64 ia2d " ... Sept. — , " IIBd " ... Oct. 9, " May 9, 186.1 lU7th " ... Illth " ... June 27, 1864 116th " ... Juno 4, lb63 116lh " ... Oct. 19, 1*64 174th " ... Dec. 10, " 6th 0. v. C... Nov. 10, " 7th •• ... Sept.- " 10th " ... Nov. 23, " laiith 0. H. G... Juno — , " »y r Died of diBeaae contracted ib Berrice. Died of consumption. Died at Evansville, Indiana. Died in Texas. Died of disease contracted is Berricp. Died of disease contracted in serrica. Dieil at Chattanooga. I>ied at GoId^bo^o\ North Carolina. Died at Hamilton, Ohio. Died at Marietta, Georgia. Died at Lookout Mountain. Died at Seminary Hospital, CoInmboitO. Died at Memphis, Tennessee. Killed at Gettysburg. Died at Yicksbnrg, MiBsisslppl. Died at Camp Cliase, Ohio, Drownt'd in Ohio Kiver. Died at Chattanooga. Dieil at home. Died ai Atlanta. Killed at the battle of FredsrickSMirs. Died at Knoxville, Teuncssce. Died at Winchester, Virginia. Killed in battle Died at home. Died at Ripley, Ohio. Died at home. Relief Woek; Aid Societies, Etc. -51 In all this it cau at least be claimed that Ohio stood second to no State in the Union. Certainly, in the care with which her medical officers were selected, and in their uniformly high professional character, she was in advance of the most; and in the early period in the war at which the rigid system of examina- tions before appointment was instituted, s^e was in advance of all. CHAPTER XXII. THE RELIEF WORK; AID SOCIETIES, ETC. OF the position of the great State throughout the war, of its support of the National armies, of its support of the National purpose, of its official care for its stricken ones, we have now some hope of having spoken — if not satisfactorily, at least suggestively. But of that great popular movement which made care for the soldiers and their families the business of life for our tenderest and best at home while the war lasted, no man may speak. Charity is not puifed up, Charity vaunteth not itself; and the myriad works of love and kindness to which the best of both sexes and all ages devoted them- selves, fell like the gentle dew and like it disappeared — leaving no sign and having a memory only in the immortality of their beneficent results. In closing, therefore, this sketch of the home history of the State during the war, with a reference to the unofficial efforts of the whole people in behalf of their soldiers, we may gather up some records of their organized action through the medium of Aid^ Societies, and Sanitary Commissions, and Christian Com- missions, and Soldiers' Pairs; some names of the fortunate ones whose privilege it was to work as the almoners of the people's bounty; some traces of the more public demonstrations. But the real history of the work will never bo written, never can be written, perhaps never ought to be written. Whc shall intrude to measure the love of the Mothers, and Sisters, and "Wives, at home for the Soldiers in the field? — who shall chronicle the prayers and the labors to shield them from death and disease? — who shall speak worthily of that religious ferVor which counted loss, and suffering, and life as nothing, so that by any means God's work might be done in the battle for Liberty and Eight? Some of the mere tangible results, the organizations and visible work and dollars and cents of the great movement, that gathered into one common effort as they had never been gathered before, all the elements of a vast community, we may here set down; and, with that, rest. 252 Ohio in the Wab. The largest and most noted organization in Ohio for the relief of soldiers ■vpas, of course, the "Cincinnati Branch of the United States Sanitary Commis- aion." This body throughout its history pursued a policy little calculated to advance its own fame— admirably adapted to advance the interests of the sol- diers for whom it labored. It had b«t one salaried officer, and it gave him but a meager support for the devotion of his whole time. It spent no large funds in preserving statistics, and multiplying reports of its good works. It entered into no elaborate scientific investigations concerning theories as to the best san- itary conditions for large armies. It left no bulky volumes of tracts, discus- sions, statistics, eulogies, and defenses. Indeed, it scarcely left a report that might satifactorily exhibit the barest outline of its work. But it collected and used great sums of mone^ and supplies for the soldiers. First of any consider- able bodies in the United States it sent relief to battle-fields on a scale com- mensurate with the wants of the wounded. It was the first to equip hospital boats, and it led in the patient faithful work among the armies, particularly in the West, throughout the war. Its guardianship of the funds committed to its care was held a sacred trust for the relief of needy soldiers ; the incidental expenses were kept down to the lowest possible figure, and were all defrayed out of the interest on moneys in its hands before they were needed in the field, so that every dollar that was committed to it went at some time or other directly to a soldier, in some needed form. In short, it was business skill and Christian integrity in charge of the people's contributions for their men in the ranks. In some of these features it differed from other organizations of the Sani- tary Commission. We mean here to utter no word in condemnation of the policy which they thought it wisest to pursue; we only speak of these features as peculiar and noteworthy. And with this introduction we can give no fitter record of a great work, faithfully done and modestly told, than in a synopsis of the operations of the Cincinnati Branch of the Sanitary Commission, under- stood to have been prepared under the eye of its executive officers : * " Soon after the Burrender of Fort Sumter, the President and Secretary of War were induced hy certain gentlemen to issue an order authorizing them and their associates to co-operate with the Government in the relief of sick and wounded soldiers, and to prosecute such inqniries of a sonitai; character as might further the same end. Under this authority these parties organized the United States Sanitary Commission, and have since elected to that body a few others not origin- ally acting with them. They also construed their powers as enabling them to create a class of associate members, several hundred in number, residing, respectively, in almost every loyal SUtt and Territory. The duties of these associates, and the extent to which they share the power oau- mitted to the original members, have never been precisely defined. "Appointments were made as early as May, 1861, of several such associate members, resident at Cincinnati; but no organization of a Branch Commission was effected until the succeeding &U. "Through the instrumentality of Dr. W. H. Mussey, the use of the United States Marii* Hospital, an unfurnished building, originally intended for Western boatmen, was procured from Secretary Chase, a board of ladies and gentlemen organized for its management, and the house furnished by the donations of citizens, and opened for the reception of sick and wounded soldiera in May, 1861. This institution was carried on without cost to the Grovernment, all necessary • From the History of the Great Western Sanitary Fair (C. F. Vent & Co., Cincinnati), pp- xziii to zzx. Relief Woek; Aid Societies, Etc. 253 Bervices of surgeons and nurses, and all supplies, having been provided gratuitously until August, 1861, when the success of the enterprise induced the Government to adopt it, and it was taken charge of by the Medical Director of the Department.* ^'The Western Secretary of the Sanitary Commission having given notice to the associate members resident in Cincinnati of their appointment, the Cincinnati Branch was formally organized at a meeting at the residence of Dr. W. H. Mussey, November 27, 1861. Kobert W. Burnet was elected President, George Hoadly Vice-President, Charles R. Fosdick Corresponding Secretary, B. P. Baker Recording Secretary, and Henry Pearce Treasurer. "The body thus created was left almost wholly without instructions or specification of powers. It had no other charge than to do the best it could with what it oould get. It was permitted to work out its own fafe by the light of the patriotism and intelligence of its members. If any authority was claimed over it, or power to direct or limit its action, it was not known to the members for nearly two years from the date of its organization. "The steps actually taken were, however, from time to time, communicated to the United States Sanitary Commission at Washington, and by them approved. Delegates more than once attended the sessions of that body, and were permitted to participate in its action. The Branch were requested to print, as one of the series (No. 44) of the publications of the Commission, their report of their doings to date of March 1, 1862, and two thousand five hundred copies of the edition were sent to Washington for distribution from that point. "Previous to the organization of this Branch, an address had been issued by the United States Sanitary Commission to the loyal women of America, in which the name of Dr. Mui^sey was mentioned as a proper party to whom supplies might be sent. A small stock had been received by him, which was transferred to the Branch, and circulars were at once prepared and issued, appealing for the means of such useful action as might seem open. A Central Ladies' Soldiers' Aid Society for Cincinnati and vicinity was organized,t and the co-operation of more than forty societies of ladies in Hamilton County thus secured. This Society, it is proper to add, continued its beneficial connection with the Branch in vigorous activity, furnishing large quantities of supplies of every description, for nearly two years, and until the dispiriting effect of the change hereafter to be noticed, in the relations of the Branch to the work of disti-ibution, paralyzed its efforts, and resulted, finally, in a practical transfer of the labors of the ladies to other fields of no less patriotic service. "The camps and hospitals near Cincinnati were subjected to inspection, and all necessary relief was furnished. Concert of action was established with the Volunteer Aid Committee, appointed at a public meeting of citizens in October, 1861, of whom Messrs. C. F. Wilstach, E. C. Baldwin, and M. E. beeves were elected members of the Branch. Their rooms, kindly fur- nished, free of expense, by the School Board, became its office and depot, and finally, in the spring of 1862, a complete transfer was made of all the stock in the hands of that Committee to the Cincinnati Branch, and the former body was merged in this. "Under the stimulus of constant appeals to the public, and by the wise use of the means received, the confidence of the community having been gained, large quantities of hospital and camp supplies, and some money, were received, and the members entered with zeal upon the duty of distribution. The force which the United States Sanitary Commission then had in the West consisted of the Western Secretary and a few inspectors, who were engaged in graveling from camp to camp, without any fixed head-quarters. That body was not prepared and did not profoes to undertake this duty. " A serious question soon presented itself to tlie mind of every active member of the Branch — whether to prosecute the work of distribution mainly through paid agents, or by means of volun- tary service. At times there have b«en diffierences of opinion upon the subject, and some of the members have had occasion, with enlarged experience, to revise their views. The result of this experience is to confirm the judgment that the use of paid agents by such an organization, in such a crisis, is, except to a limited ractent, inexpedient. It has been dearly proved that volun- * Mrs. Cadwell became its matron. Her name is a sacred one with thousands of soldiers throughout the West. t Of which Mrs. George Carlisle was President, and Mrs. Judge Hoadly Secretary. All its members were devoted workers. 254 Ohio in the Wab. tary service can be had to a sufficient extent, and such eervice connects the army and the people by a constantly renewing chain of gratuitous, valuable, and tender labors, which many who can not serve in the field esteem it a privilege to be permitted to perform in the sick-room and the hospital. ~- "The members of this Branch felt at liberty to pledge publicly, in their appeals for contribu- tions, that the work of distribution should be done under their personal supervision, subject, of course, to the control of the proper medical officers of the army; and, until late in the autumn of 1862, they faithfully kept this pledge, and were able to effect, as they all believe, a maximum of benefit witli a minimum of complaint. Fault-finding never ceases while the seasons change; but the finding of fault with the gratuitous services of men well known in a community has no power to injure. "While their labors were prosecuted under this plan, nearly every member of the Branch was brought into personal contact with the work of distribution. They were present on the battle- field of Shiloh. They were first at Perry ville and Fort Donelson, at which point they inaugurated the system of hospital steamers. They called to their aid successfully the services of the most eminent surgeons and physicians, and the first citizens of Cincinnati. They gained the confidence of the Legislature of Ohio, which made them an appropriation of three thousand dollars, and of the City Council of Cincinnati, who paid them in like manner the sum of two thousand dollars, and of the Secretary of War and Quartermaster-General, who j)laced at their control, at Govern- ment expense, a steamer, which for months navigated the AVestern waters in the transportation of supplies and of the sick and wounded. They fitted out, in whole or part, thirty-two such steamers, some running under their own management, others under that of the Governor of Ohio, the Mayor of Cincinnati, the United States Sanitary Commission, and the War Department. " The relief furnished at Fort Donelson by this Branch constituted a marked, and at the .same time, novel instance of their mode of management, which may properly receive more specific men- tion here, as it elicited high praise from the Western Secretary and the compliment of a vote of encouragement from the United States Sanitary Commission. In this case a handsome sum was at once raised by subscription among the citizens, and the steamer 'Allen ,Collier' was chartered, loaded with hospital supplies and medicines, placed under the charge of five members of the Branch, with ten volunteer surgeons and thirty-six nurses, and dispatched to the Cumberland Eiver. At Louisville the Western Secretary accepted an invitation to join the party. It was also found practicable to accommodate on board one delegate from the Columbus, and another from the Indianapolis Branch Commission, with a further stock of supplies from the latter. The steamer reached Donelson in advance of any other relief agency. Great destitution was found to exist — on the field no"chloroform at all, and but little morphia, and on the floadng hospital 'Fanny Bullitt,' occupied by three hundred wounded, only two ounces of cerate, no meat for soup, no wood for cooking, and the only bread, hard bread — not a spoon or a candlestick. The suffer- ing was corresponding. Happily the 'Collier' bore an ample stock, and with other parties on a like errand, who soon arrived, the surgeon's task was speedily made lighter, and his paticnla gained in comfort. The 'Collier' returned after a short delay, bringing a load of wounded to occupy hospitals at Cincinnati, which this-Branch had meanwhile, under the authority of General Halleck, and with the aid of that efficient and able officer, Dr. John Moore, then Post-Surgeon at Cincinnati, procured and furnished. "This was but the beginning of very arduous and extensive services personally and gratuit- ously rendered by members of this Branch. They traveled thousands of miles on hospital steamers on their errands of mercy, and spent weeks and months in laborious service on battle- fields and in camps and hospitals. They aided the Government in the establishment of Hght hospitals in Cincinnati and Covington, and suggested and assisted the work of preparing Camp Dennison, seventeen miles distant, as a general hospital, for the reception of thousands of patients. They bought furniture, became responsible for rent and the pay of nurses, provided material for the supply table, hired physicians, and in numberless ways secured that full and careful attention to the care and comfort of the soldier, which, from inexperience, want of means, or the fear of responsibility, would otherwise, during the first and second years of the war, have been wanting. " During the period to which allusion has been made, the United States Sanitary Coramissiofi had few resources, and those mostly employed in proper service at the East, where the members principally reside. This Branch was called on to aid that body, and to the extent of its taws, Relief Woek; Aid Societies, Etc. 255 responded. At one lime (early in 1862) it was supposed impossible to sustain that organization, except by a monthly contribution from each of the several branches, continued for six months ; and this Branch was assessed to pay to that end the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars per month for the time specified, which call was met by an advance of the entire sum required, viz. . two thousand three hundred and seventy-five dollars. This sum, small as it now seems in com- parison with the enormous contributions of a later date, was then considered no mean subsidy by either of the parties to it. "In May, 1862, the Soldiers' Home of the branch was established, an institution which, since its opening, has entertained with a degree of comfort scarcely surpassed by the best hotels of the city, over eighty thousand soldiers — furnishing them three hundred and seventy-two thousand meals. It has recently been furnished with one hundred new iron bedsteads at » cost of five hundred dollars. The establishment and maintenance of the Home the members of the Cincin- nati Branch look upon as one of their most valuable works, second in importance only to the relief furnished by the ' sanitary steamers ' dispatched promptly to the battle-fields, with surgeons, nurses, and stores, and with beds to bring away the wounded and the sick, and they may, per- haps, be permitted with some pride to point to these two important systems of relief inaugurated by them. The necessity for the last-mentioned method of relief has nearly passed away; we hope it may soon pass away entirely, never to return. The Home long stood, under the efficient superintendence of G. W. D. Andrews, offering food and rest to the hungry and way-worn sol- dier, and reminding us of the kind hearts and loyal hands whose patriotic contributions and patient toil, supplementing the aid furnished by the Government through the quartermaster and commissary departments of the army, enabled them to establish it. To this aid of a generous and benign Government, dispensed with kindness and alacrity by the officers who have been at the heads of these departments in this city, this institution is indebted, in great measure, for its existence and usefulness. " The importance of perpetuating the names of all soldiers whose lives had been or might be sacrificed in the defense of our Government, being an anxious concern of many of the members of our Commission, and regarded by them as pf so much importance, they early resolved that, so far as they could control this matter, not only should this be done, but that their last resting-place should be in our beautiful city of the dead, Spring Grove Cemetery. An early interview was had with the trustees, who promptly responded to the wishes of the Commission, and gratuitously donated for that purpose a conspicuous lot, near the charming lake, of a circular shape, and in size sufficient to contain three hundred bodies. In addition thereto, this generous association have interred, free of expense for interment, aU the soldiers buried there. This lot having be- come occupied, the Commission arranged for another of similar size and shape near by, for the sum of fifteen hundred dollars. The subject of the payment of the same having been presented to the Legislature of Ohio, the members unanimously agreed that, as a large proportion of those who were to occupy this ground as their last home were the sons of Ohio, it was the proper duty of the State to contribute thereto. In accordance therewith, an appropriation of three thousand dollars was made for the purpose, subject to the approval of his Excellency, Governor Tod. A third circle, of the same size and shape, adjacent to tlie others, was therefore secured at the same price. The propriety of this expenditure was approved of by the Governor, after a careful ex- amination of the ground and its value. Two of these lots have been filled, and the third is in readiness for occupancy, should it become necessary. A record is carefully made on the books of the cemetery, of the name, age, company, and regiment of each soldier interred there, that relatives, friends, and strangers may know, in all time to come, that we, for whom their lives were given, were not unmindful of the sacrifice they had made, and that we properly appreciate the obligations we are under to them for their effiirts in aiding to secure to us and future genera- tions the blessings of a redeemed and regenerated country. ' " In view of the work of this Branch from the cpmmencement, we can not but express our heartfelt gratitude to that kind Providence which has so signally blessed its eiforts, and made the Commission instrumental in the distribution of the large amount of donations which have been poured into their hands by full and free hearts, for the benefit of sufierers who are bravely defending our country and our homes. " It will be seen that one and a half per cent, on the cash receipts, from the commencement, will cover all expenses for clerk-hire, labor, freight, drayage, and other incidental matters ; and 256 Ohio ix the Wab. this comparative small expense is, in great measure, owing to the extreme liberality, which should here be gratefully acknowledged, of the free use of the telegraph wires, and the free car- riage of hundreds of tons of stores by the several express companies, railroads, and steamboats* "With all this liberality our supplies would long since have been exhausted by the con- stantly-increasing requirements of our soldiers, had not the sagacity and enterprise of a num- ber of energetic and patriotic gentlemen suggested the idea of and inaugurated the Great West- ern Sanitary Fair of this city, the wonderful result of which realized (to the Commission) over a quarter of a million dollars. E- W. BUKNET, President. " Geo. Hoadly, Larz Andekson, Vice-Pr«sidents. "J. J. Bkoadwell, Recording Secretary. " R. W. Subnet, Thomas G. Odioen e, Chakles F. Wilstach, Executive Committee. " Geo. K. Shoenberger, A. Aub, M. Bailey, Eli C. Baldwin, Joshua H. Bates, E. S. Brooks, A. E. Chamberlain, Rev. B. W. Chidlaw, Charles E. Cist, C. G. Comegys, M. D. ; Geo. F. Davis, Charles R. Fosdick, L. B. Harrison, James M. Johnston, B. F. Baker, David Judkins, M. D. ; Edward Mead, M. D. ; George Mendenhall, M. D. ; W. H. Mussey, M. D. ; Henry Pearce, Elliott H. Pendleton, Chas. Thomas, Mark E. Reeves, E. Y. Bobbins, all of Cindn- nati ; Charles Butler, of Franklin ; James McDaniel, J. D. Phillips, R. W. Steele, of Day- ton ; David S. Brooks, of Zanesville. J. B. Heich, General Secretary." To this sketch it need only be added that the Cincinnati Branch of the San- itary Commission continued to devote its moneys sacredly to the precise pur- pose for which they were contributed. At the close of the war many thousands of dollars were in its treasury. These it kept invested in United States bonds, using the interest and drawing on the principal from time to time as it was needed for the relief of destitute soldiers, and specially for their transportation to their homes, in cases where other provision was not made for them. Three years after the close of the war it still had a remnant of the sacred sum, and was still charging itself as carefully as ever with its disbursement. Incomparably the greatest and most eflScient organization bf this kind for the aid of soldiers, outside of the leading city of the State, was that first *Ttae following statement bIiowb fully the receipts and disbursements of money f^om the treasury to Aagnst 11, 1864. A detailed account of the variety of stores nnd supplies which has passed through the storeroom of the Brancb vould cover many pages. The value can not be accurately estimated, but the donations alone exceed one million of dollars. BECK1PT8. ITrom the State of Ohio (part of $3,000 appropriated) $1,000 OO *' city of Cincinnati — donation 2,000 00 " citizens of Cincinnati— donations 33,265 73 '* citizens of other parts of Ohio a « 14,423 43 *' sale of unconsumed rations at Soldiers' Home „ 2,175 52 '* Sanitary Fair (per committee) „ .235,406 62 " citizens of California, through the United States Sanitary Oommission „ lo,000 00 " interest and premium on securities 5,655 00 Total „ $313,926 30 DISBDHBKHKNTS. For purchase of medicines - $1,412 37 " three sets of hospital-car trucks „ 3,10S 00 •* expenses at rooms (for salaries of clerks, porters, laborers, freights on receipts, shipments, etc.) 16,402 16 " Ladies' Central Soldiers Aid Society , 3,10t 65 " charter of hospital steamboats , 13,272 31 '* dlsburscmouts on account of Soldiers' Home 5,502 49 *' supplies for distribution to hospitals, camps, etc -146,215 40 ** remittance to United States Sanitary Commission 2,003 75 Balance on hand, eighty Hve-twonty bonds $?0,000 00 i Thirty-eight one-year certificates - 37,164 45 ' Cash in bank 5,720 70 — : 12 2,805 15 Total $313,926 30 After this date the receipts were mainly from the interest on the investments in United StaW Relief Wokk; Aid Societies, Etc. 257 known as the "Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio," and afterward as the Cleveland Branch of the Sanitary Coinmiesion. Indeed it -maj be questioned if, considering its location and opportunities, it was not the fii'st in efficiency in the West. On another account it deserves honorable distinction and a cheerful award of pre-eminence. It was the first general organization in the United States for the relief of soldiers in this war. The '* Woman's Central Association of jSTew York," which has been generally regarded the first, was organized on the 25th of Apiil. 1861. The Cleveland association was organized on the 20th of April, 1861, five days earlier than that in New York, and only ^yg days after the first call for troops. For the quick charity of her generous w^omen let Cleveland bear the palm she fairly merits, and Ohio — proud in so many great achievements — be proud also of this. Of the spirit with which the women of Cleveland entered upon the work bonds. The following summary was aftenward published of aggregate receipts of Sanitary stores from December 1, 1861, to March 28, 1865, by the Cincinnnati Branch: Arm-slinKS, 3068. Alum, pulv. 3 pounds- Arrow iloot, 3 pounds. Ale, 10 bis., Ulilf. bis., IZltgs., 2,592 bottles. Apples, ffi'een, 1547 buii. Applo Butter, 34 bis., 48 hlf. bis., 115 kegs, 9 boxes, IKi cans i\nd jars Asricultural Iraple- mt-nts, 2.'>. Artichokes, 1 bushel. Blankets, 5,976. Bodticks, 9,lf)f>. Bed Gowns, 3r.9. Boots and Shoes, 1,2S0 pairs. Bags, 995. Baaters, fil. Bed8te'ds,Cot8,etc.732. Iron Bedsteads, 100. Bad Pans, 24-1. Bowls, drinking, 3019. BruE^es, 305. BoetB, 91 bush. Bi^ans, 3r>M bush. Butter, 10,233 pounds. Bread, 2,043 loaves. Barley, Pearl,2,690 lbs. BuckeiB, 360. Bowls, wash, .516. Beef, diied,ll,051i^ lbs. BlacKing, 15 boxua. BrooDiH, 83. Blackberry Koot, 137 pounds. Black berry Sy rup, 7 Ms., 4 hlf. bis, and 13 kegs. BeeflExtract of, 6 c'ns. Comforts, 13,892. Cushions, 21,953. Coats. 2,yl4. Crutches, 1,250. Combs 7,^30. Ciirmta, 73^ bush. Cabba;?e,green,6 hlids. Hills., 181 bush., and 522 heads. Candles, 118 pounds. . Crackers. 137,488 lbs. r Coilfish, 5,4f.0. Cupa and Saucers, 270. Canteens, 28. Cinnamcin, 2.1 pounds. ! Coron, 41)7 pounds. SCbor-olate, 312 pounds. H;(.ffins. 72. Chambers, ?Ai. Ci-lo:-'ne, 77 bottles anil 1 gallon. Chairs, 341. roir.T, 1,133 pounds, (-'liickens, dn-ssed and livR, 2,avj. Citric Acirt, 20 bottles, Corn-meal, 10,553 lbs. Coffee Mugs. 402. Cheese, l.tiOii pounds. Corn, parched, 5i):j lbs. Corn, dried, 783>^ lbs. Cigars, 3 boxes. Candlesticks, 72. Cakes, 2,1)39 pounds. Corn Starch, 7,177 lbs. Collars, 53. Coffee Pots, 87. Condensed Milk,61,76I. Ci'anbevries, fresh, I barrel. Catsup, 3 bis., 4 hlf. brl,, 3 kega, 9 jugs 1,1S1 bottles. Cabbage in curry, 176 bis. and 38G hlf. bis Checker Boai"d, 31. Currant Wine, '4 kegs and I jug. Conipound Tincture of Gentian, 10 gallons. Drawers, 47,312 pairs. Dresains-gowus, 3,7fi'J, Dried Fruit?, 250,743 pounds . Dishes, yo. Dippers, 49. Desks^ 3. Drinking tubes. 10<. Dandelion Kooc, 21b8. Eggs, 15,319 dozen. Egg-beiiters, 4. Envelopes 73,800. Eye-shndes, 1,949. Fruits, 75,079 cans and jars. Flour, 2 bis. Fish, white, 7 bis. and 1 keg. Flaxst-ed, 209 pounds. Faucets, 24. Fans, 10,214. Feeders, 180. Flat-iroHB, 6. Finger-stalls, 625. Foot-warmers, 6. Farina, 13,1.19 pounds Fruit Saucera, 266. Funnels, 2. Fly-brushes, 171. Flannel, l,4(i6 yards. Grocorii's, Sundries,2,- 700 pounds. GrefH Corn, 3 sacks. Groats, 100 pounds. Gastrions, 3 pounds. Grapes, 1.30 boxes and 2 half boxes. Ginger, dry , 2, 239 pkgs and 4 cans. Ginger, Essence of Ja^ mnca, 16 bottles. GooH';berrl(*s, ripo, C bushels. Graters, 23. Garden Seeds, 20boxes. Gridirons, 4. Hospital Car-trucks, 3 sets. Handkerchiefs, fi4,?A5. Hats and Caps, 1,150. Hottse\Yives, ^,"^76. Hams, fiSfi. Haversacks, IS. Hops, 561^ pounds. Herbs, fj-'i^i pounds and 227 packages. Hatchets, 16. Herrings, 22 boxes. Hominy, l,y55 pounds. Honey, Scans 2botiles, Havelocks, 319. Horseradish, 1 keg, 1 sack, 63 jars, 228 bot- tles. Head Govera, 13. Ice, 81 tons. Ice-cream Freezers, 2. Ink. 432 bottles. Knives and Forks, 1,208 Kettles, 13. Lard Oil, 2 kega and 1 can. Lanterns, 128. Lumber, 14,500 feet. Lemons, 131 boxes and SS' dozen. Liquorice, 6 pounds Lemon, extract of, 120 jars. Lemon Syrap 141 bot- tles. Linseed Oil, 1 keg. Lobsters, 26 cans. Lard, 41 pounds. Ladles, 2. Lead Pencils, 209 doz. Meats, 4,165. Mittens, 11,174 pairs. McLean^s Pills, 6 bxs. Miner'l Plants, 250 bxs, Milk, 129 gallons. Martrc'BSes, 472. Mi'Ilons, 7. Mustard, ground, 143^ pounds. 102 bottles, and 898 boxes. Mops, 78. Macaroni, 3 boxes. MnlaBses,4 hlf. bis. and 8kg8, IScans, 15jugs, 15 bottles, and 7S gal- lons. Mugs, 200. Mosquito Bars, 1,758, Muss Pans. 23. MnttonTallow 123 c'ns and 5^ pounds. Mustard Seed, 21 lbs, Neck-ties, 914. Napkins, 1,359. Nuts, Hickory, 19 bush, Nuts, Walnuts, 6 bush, Nails, 1,350 pounds. Night-caps, 153. Nutmegs, 13 pounds. Needb-'S, 7,000. Oat-meal, 495 pounds. Oranges, 2.'J>^ boxes. Oysters, 1,310 cans. Oakuin, 6 pa<^kages. Onions, 10,yo.s bushels. PillOH-e, 26,234. Pillow-casea, 71,671. Pants, 2,993 pairs. Pin-cushions, 8,963. Pig's i'eet, 29 kegs. Pepper, ground, & . . lbs. and 1,5S7 papers. Parsnips, 17M bushela Pretzels, 2.S2. Prunes isu pounds. Porter. .Jg dozen. Pen-holders, 84 dozen. Pins, 15 pat'ks. Peppt-rs, 6 buttles and 6 jai-s. Potatoes, 29,592 bush Peaches, ripe, 2i bush. Pic Plant, !ii\ poands. Pepper-sauce, 113 bot- tles. Puzzles, 7. Pickles, 911 bis., 355 hlf. bis., 501 ke^s, 6 firkins, 14 crocks, 77 bottles, 752 cans and jars. Portable Lemonade,30(i cans. Paper, \Vriting,2,«8 rme Rice, 921 ponndH. Kaisins, 19 boxes. Kags, Lint, and Band- aires, .55,018 pounds. Shawls, 54. Spit-cups, 1,125. Slippers, 6, 590 pairs. Sheets, 37,777. Socks, 50,774 pairs. Shirts, 104,199. Strainers, 20. Slippery-elm Flour, 2 packages. Shoulders, Pork, 556 pouurls. Strawberries, 21 boxes, Sardines, 23 boxes. Sausages, .375 pounds. Spittons, 292.^ Straw, 79 bales. Sponges, 15 packiiges. Scissors, 24 pairs. Stretchers, 16. Stone Jugs, 612. Soap, 3,6S9>^ pounds 1,017 cakes, 168 bare, and 6 boxes. Sago, 1,032 pounds. Spo'His, Table and Tea, 2,fl28. Sugar, 5,797>^ pounds. Shovels, 6. Spices, fi boxea,67 pack- ages, and 15 puutidb. Sliinimei'B, 14. Suspenders, 5t7 pairs. Salt, 4i)i pounds and 2 barrels. Stickiufi: salve, 6 boxes and 11 rolls Saucepans, (iO. Sour-krout, 1,174 bis., 193 hlf. bis., 17 keg!?, and 5 jars. Starch, 7J32 pounds. Solitaire Boards, 25. Steel pens, 5 gross. Towels, 62.lyi. Tin Cups, 2l,3tl. Tjjictiire of Blackb'ry Root, Sgalliina. Tuinips, 99 bushels. Tanmrinds, 6 jiirs. Thumb- stalls, 22. Tin Plates, 1,062. Tinware, assorted, 2 boxes. Tcnsues, dried, 757. Toast, dry, 26 bis. and l,fi80 pounds. Tumbler*. 7i>2. Tea, 1,570>^ pounds. Tables, 34, Tea Pots, .33. Tapioca, 76 pounds. Tobacco, 3,088 'papers, 8M boxes, 1,051 lbs., and 3 barrels, Thread, Patent,128 lbs. Tomatoes, ripo,3M bush TurkeySjlive and dr'sd, 29. Tomatoes, cnnned, 2,- 765 pounds. Urinals, 125. Vests, 538. Vermicelli, 70 pounds. Vinegar, 19bls.. Skegs, 4JUKB, and loiiottles. White-wash brushes, 24. Wines, Liquors, and Cordials, 28,269 bot- tles. Wash-stands, 100. White Lead. 1 keg. Whi.-*ky, lOsallons. Yeast Powders, 20 lbs. Yeast Cakes, 28 lbs. Yeast, 7 sacks. Vol. L— 17. 258 Ohio in the Wak. that was to be eo long, so sad, and so honorable, no better illustration can be given than this extract from the (unpublished) "History of the Cleveland Branch Sanitary Commission," by Miss Mary Clark Brayton : " Two days later (April 23, 1861), while busy but unskillful hands were plying the sad task of bandage-rolling, a gentleman from the camp of instruction just opened near the city begged to interrupt. Mounting the platform, he announced that one thousand men, from towns adjoin- ing, were at that moment marching into camp, and that, expecting (with the pardonable igno- rance of our citizen -soldiery at that early day) to be fully equipped on reaching this rendezvons, many had brought no blankets, and had now the prospect of passing a sharp April night uncov- ered on the ground. This unexpected occasion for benevolence was eagerly seized. Two ladies hastened to engage carriages; others rapidly districted the city. In a few minutes eight hacks were at the door, two young ladies in each, their course marked out, and they dispatched to rep- re.sent to the matrons of the towns this desperate ca.se. At three o'clock this novel expedition setoff; all the afternoon the carriages rolled rapidly through the streets; bright faces glowed with excitement ; grave eyes gave back an answering gleam of generous sympathy. A word of explanation sufficed to bring out delicate rose blanket.^, chintz quilts, thick counterpanes, and by nightfall seven hundred and twenty-nine blankets were carried into camp. " Next morning the work was resumed, and before another night every volunteer in Camp Taylor had been provided for. " While yet this ' blanket riud ' was going on the ladies at the meeting, startled by sound of fife and drum, hurried to the door just in time to see a company of recruits, mostly farmer lads, march down the street toward the new camp. These had 'left the plow in the furrow,' and, imagining that the enlistment-roll would transform them at once into Uncle Sam's blue-coated Boldier-boys, they had marched away in the clothes that they were wearing when the call first reached them. Before they turned the corner motherly watchfulness had discovered that some had no coats, that others wore their linen blouses, and that the clothing of all was insufficient for the exposure of the scarcely-inclosed camp. On this discovery the bandage meeting broke up, and the ladies hurried home to gather up the clothing of their own boys for the comfort of these young patriots. Two carriages heaped with half-worn clothing drove into camp at sundown." Of the results to which this spirit ultimately led, the barest outlines may be read in these suggestive figures : Estimated value of stores disbursed $1,000,000 00 Total cash disbursed to November, 1867 $162,956 09 Number registered at Soldiers' Home 56,645 Number lodgings given at Soldiers' Home i 30,000 Number meals given at Soldiers' Home 112,000 Number of soldiers supplied with employment 206 Number of claims received at the PVee Agency 1,900 Beceipts (net) of Cleveland sanitary fair $78,000 Number of Aid Societies enrolled as branches 525 Office of the Society still open (November, 1867) for settlement of remaining claims— about three hundred. And of the general history of their work we can give no bettor outline than in this summary by one of the members : "The officers, at organization, were: Mrs. B. Bouse, President; Mrs. John Shelley, Mrs. Wm. Melhinch, Vice Presidents ; Mary Clark Brayton, Secretary ; Ellen F. Terry, Treasurer. "No changes occurred, except the resignation of Mrs. Shelley, on removal from the city in 1863, when Mrs. Lewis Burton was elected to her place. She soon resigned and Mrs. J. A. Har- ris was chosen to succeed her. The list as given below best expresses the working force of the society throughout its whole existence : "Mrs. B. Bouse, President; Mrs. Wm. Melhinch, Mrs. J. A. Harris, Vice Presidents; Mary Clark Brayton, Secretary; Ellen F. Terry, Treasurer; Carrie P. Younglove, Document Clerk. Relief Woek; Aid Societies, Etc. 259 " The society was the outgrowth of an earnest purpose to do with a might whatsoever a woman's hand should find to do. In the eagerness to work, no form of constitution or by-laws was ever thought or spoken of. Beyond a, memberahip fee of twenty-five centa monthly, and a verbal pledge to work while the war should Ia,st, no form of association was ever adopted; no ^yritten word held the society together even to its latest day. *'Tlie entire business of influencing, receiving, and disbursing money and stores — the prac- tical details of invoicing, shipping, and purchasing — were done by the officers of the society. There was no finance, advisory, or auditing committee of gentlemen, as was usual elsewhere in such institutions. The services of officers and managers were entirely gratuitous, no salary was ever asked or received by any one of them. Several of the officers made repeated trips to the front; to head-quarters Sanitary Commission at Louisville and Washington; to hospitals of Wheeling, Louisville, Nashville, and minor points; to the battle-fields of Pittsburg Landing, Perry ville, Stone Kiver, and Chattanooga. These ti-ips were undertaken with a view to stimu- late tlie benevolence of the people of Northei-n Ohio, by informing them of the real needs of the sick and wounded. The officers were happily able to bear their own charges, and not one cent was ever drawn from the treasury of the society for traveling or other expenses. "The teritory from which supplies were drawn was extremely limited, being erabi'aced in eighteen counties in the north-eastern part of Ohio. A few towns in Southern Michigan and North-western Pennsylvania were, during the first years, tributary to the Cleveland Society, but later these were naturally withdrawn and associated with the agencies established at Detroit and Pittsburg. Meadville, Pennsylvania, was the only considerable town outside of the State of Ohio that remained to the end a branch of the Cleveland Commission. The north-western part of Ohio having more direct railroad communication with Cincinnati, sent its gifts generally to that supply center. Columbus had its own agency.* The geographical position of Cleveland limited, the territory influenced by its society, since it could not be expected that towns in the central part of the State would send their stores northward, knowing they would be at once reshipped south toward the army. The small field was carefully and thoroughly cultivated, and from it a con- stituency was built up of branch societies numbering, at the close of the war, five hundred and twenty-five. ♦ The officers of this Columbus society were: " Dr. W, M. Awl, President; Dr. J. B. Thompson, Vice-President ; John W, Andrews, Secretary ; Prof. T. G. Wormly, Treasurer ; Dr. J. B. Thompson, Peter Ambos, and F. 0. Sessions, Executivi! Committee. Mr. Andrews, though continuing a zealous worker when in the city, was compelled to resign the BecrL'tnrysliip, when F. C. Sessions took his place. The society was organize,! in the summer of 1661. A brief out- line of its workings is fuinished in the following extract from a letter from one of its members : '* The Soldier s Home was started at the depot, April 22, 1862, under the charge of Isaac Dalton. A two-story biiiild- ing, twenty-four by oixty, near the depot, was commenced in the Bprini? of 18i)3, and occupied in October following, erecto 1 by Columbus Branch of the United States Sanitary CommisBion, at a cost of about two thousand three hun- dred dollars. It M'as finished so as to appear as home-like, comforlable, and attractive as possible to the soldiers. It was plastered and painted, and we were often told by the soldiers that it was the most attractive Home that they had ever visited in any place. Soon after we erected an addition, tv^ enty-aix by eighty feet, at a cost of about two thou- sand dollars, making the whole building twenty-four by one hundred an 1 forty. Afterward another small building was erected, eleven by twenty-five. The whole cost about five thousand dollars. It was furnished mostly by the cit- izens of Columbus. T. E.Bntsford and Isaac Dalloii were supei-intendeiits. Ulr. Dalton was superintendent from the first, and proved a fiiithful and self-sacrificing officer. The same could be said of Mr. Botsford. It was tlioir duty to care for the sick and wounded, to furnish soldiers with meals and lodging, to assist them to and from the depot, onaor both to be present at the arrival and departure of every train, procuring transportation, and in every way assisting the soldiers who came to the city on business, or were on their way to and from the front. One huudro 1 and thirty-six thousand meals were furnished, and about fifty thousand with bed-". Several of the members of our Com- mission visited the battle-fields to take supplies to our sick and wounded, ami assist in various ways, as their services were needed. Dr. S. M. Smith, Dr. Loving, and F. C. Sessions nt difftirent times, the latter spending most of hia time without pay for nearly two years, visiting Kentucky, Fort Donelson, Pittsburg Landing, Murfreesboro', Naah- Tille, Antietam, Fremont's and Grant's armies on the Potomac several times. " The Ladies' Aid Society was indefatigable and self-sacrificing in their labors in providing clothing and delica- cies for the sick and wounded, and sending them to the hospitals by so mi member of the Commission, or as they might learn where they were most needed, without reference to what Statu the soldiers were from. The amount s.nt U Valued by those most familiar with its work at about seventy-flvB thousand dollars. It is difficult to sinale out nay to name as most active in the work during the war, when so many were so faithful, but I will venture to name Mrs- Governor Dennison, who was the first President, and Mrs. W. K. Ide, who succeeded Mrs. Dennison, and acted until nearly the close of the war, and by whoso sympathy and enthusiasm bthers wore aroused to duty. Also Mrs. S. J. Haver, Mrs. George Heyl, Mrs. LewisHeyl. Miss M. L. Swayno, Mrs. S. M. Smith, Miss Panielia Snllivant, T^lvs. II. 0. Noblo, Mrs. Harvey Coit, Mrs. Alex. Housten, Mrs. Joseph Geiger, Mrs. Isaac Castor.Mrs. James Beebe, Mrs. John B.Hall, Mrs. Wm. G. Deshler, Mrs. Walter Brown, Mrs. E. T. Morgan, Mrs. Sessions, and Mrs. John W. Andrews were among Its oflicere and active members, "Our Sanitary Commission visited the camps and hospitals in the city and vicinity, and suggested such changes In sewerage, food, and location as they deemed best. We employed u police force at the depot, to see that the soldiers were not swindled." 260 Ojiio in the Wab. "It is believed that no otiier arm of the Sanitary Commission had so intimate commnnicii- tion with its tributary societies, or drew from so small a district such large results. The stores contributed run very close to the receipts of Cincinnati and Chicago, and in some leading arti- cles outrun their tables. No attempt was ever made- to divert contributions out of the direct channel toward the army. Towns were always advised to send to the sanitary agency nearest the point of demand. State lines were ever scrupulously ignored ; the only passport to aid was the suffering need of a Union soldier, without a question whether his enlistment roll was signed in Maine or Minnesota. " It is believed that the Aid Societies of Northern Ohio were a power for loyalty. The work at first undertaken for sweet charity only, soon became an exponent of political sentiment. The 'Peace' or 'Union' proclivities of a man was surely indicated by his generosity and goodwill toward ' the Sanitary,' or his open or covert attacks upon it. The Union sentiment of a town vas sure to crystallize around its Aid Society. The hands of Union men at home were as certainly held lip by this little band of workers in every town and village, as w«re the hearts of the sol- diers in the field cheered and strengthened by knowledge of the agencies employed at home for their comfort. This was sharply brought out in the Brough-Vallandigham campaign. Thou- sands of loyal documents were scattered both at home and in the army by the Aid Societies ; mass conventions and Union leagues recognized the power and value of these organizations, and showed their appreciation by liberal contributions to them. " For the first six or eight months the Cleveland society had a hard struggle for life. So much desultory work was done by the people directly to their friends in the army that it was only by much persistence that sanitary labors were centralized. The society does not claim to have engrossed all the relief work of its territory, but to have gathered it into form, and have given it wise direction and made it more effective. " The supply work was strictly confined to issues of hospital stores, except during the snm- mers of 1863 and 1864, when the campaign against scurvy began, and the Sanitary Commisdon called upon its branches to furnish the regiments in the field the vegetables that became the oimce of prevention which i)roverbially outweighs even the pound of cure. Through these sea- sons four and five car-loads of vegetables per week, on an average, were sent down to the army from the Cleveland rooms, exclusive of the usual shipments of hospital stores in the same direction. "The stores disbursed were the clothing, bedding, surgeons' supplies, light groceries, stimn- lants, dairy stores, fruits, vegetables, and articles of hospital furniture, common to all sanitary supply stations. The estimated value of stores disbursed is over one million of dollars. " A great deal was done in Xorthern Ohio in sending boxes to individuals in the army; pro- visions, Christmas and thanksgiving boxes to camps, presentations of socks and mittens to regi- ments marching away ; sending messengers loaded with good things down to the front. (See I Samuel, xviii: 17, 18.) This outside work enters into no records of sanitary effort, hat it is cer- tain that the Aid Societies were the ' head centers ' of all communication between the home and the army, and that their being kept in so healthy and vigorous condition gave an impetus to all such work, whether done strictly within their limits or not. "The agencies used for stimulating supplies were the frequent issues of circulars, containing appeals and instructions; publications in newspapers; the circulation of sanitary documents from the General Commission (about seventy thousand copies) ; the employment of canvassers among farmers in the home-field ; and constant personal correspondence with the officers of branch societies. As a ready means of communicating with branches, a small printing office was added to the rooms, and its frequent bulletins sensibly increased the receipts by giving prompt information of the ever varying demand ; while the cheering letters that we received from the army were thus made to stimulate and strengthen the hands of many who waited only to be directed and encouraged. For more than two years the ladies of the Cleveland Society were allowed a space in the Cleveland Leader of two columns weekly. This was devoted to the inter- ests of sanitary work, and was edited at the aid rooms. " After the establishment of head-quarters of Sanitary Commission at Louisville, most of the shipments went down from Cleveland by car-load, in locked cars, to the Ohio Biver; thence transferred to steamers and shipped to Louisville, there to be forwarded to the army at the dis- cretion of Dr. S. S. Newberry, General Secretary for the West. The books of the society, how Relief Work; Aid Societies, Etc. 261 ever, show that so early as the close of the year 1862 its stores had reached fifty-seven camps, regimental hospitals, and recruiting stations; forty general and post hospitals; eighteen estab- lished or temporary depots of the Sanitary Commission, besides supplies to floating hospitals and storeboats. These issues had been made to points in Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Ten- nessee, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, besides small supplies to the army of the Potomac. " The money shown in the summary of operations was obtained by contributions and by entertainments given under management of the society. It also includes ten thousand dollars given by California, a part of the one hundred thousand dollars divided among the Western branches of the Sanitary Commission in the winter of 1862-3, and money received at various times from the General Commission for purchase of vegetables, krout, etc., in the war against scurvy. Personal solicitation of money by the officers of the Cleveland Society was scrupulously avoided, and never resorted to save in raising mean^ for building a Soldiers' Home, in August and September, 1863, when one thousand seven hundred dollars were obtained from citizens of Cleveland for that specific object. " The Cleveland Soldiers' Home was built upon land adjoining the Union Depot. It was sustained and conducted by the Aid Society, and large additions were subsequently made for the entertainment of returning regiments. The records of this Home show : "Number registered 56,645 Number of lodgings given 30,000 Number of meals given 112,000 "No Government support was received, and' no rations drawn from the commissary stores, as was usual in institutions of this kind. Below is a short report which illustrates the character of the Home: * " It is scarcely a year since the building now used as our Soldiers' Home was opened, and as its walls rose many had been the doubts expressed of its usefulness. Time has proved us not unwise in thus extending our moans for entertaining; the sick and friendless soldier while passing through our city. The number of men admitted into the Home in the last six mouths is greater than the whole number previously receiving our care since the opening of the war. The Home was soon found too small, and in August last repairs and additions were made. The house, now two hundred feet long, with sixty beds, two small wards for the very sick, reading room, bathing room, and good dining and kitchen arrangements, is but barely sufficient to receive those who have a right to claim its shelter. " The Home stands near the Union Depot, and each railroad train that enters our city, day or night, brings its freight of worn and weary travelers to its door. The sick, wounded, or destitute discharged man, who can no longer draw help from the Government— the soldier on his sick furlough, or painfully bearing homeward his honorable wounds— the released prisoner or the homeless refugee, all have in their need of kindness and aid, a passport to this way-side inn, where a hospitable welcome, good cheer, and a comfortable bed are freely given in the name of tho Sanitary Commission. "A few hours generally finds the soldier on his way again, rested and refreshed ; but there are often cases of severe and lingering illness to watch and tend, and seven times within the period embraced in this report has tho angel of death thrown the shadow of his sable wing across the threshold of our 'Home. " We have often begged for the Home the notice and the charities of our friends, and no one enters its doors with- out acknowledging its claims upon the benevolent ; -yet its good Samaritan work can never be fully known to any bu t a constant visitor. Though conducted on an average of only twelve cents to each meal and lodging, the expenses of so large a household are a serious draft upon,our treaeui-y, and we gratefully acknowledge all gifts of money, provisions and coal ; also the gratuitous medical and surgical attendance, and medicines and dressings furnished. Several of our Branch Societies have sent bread, cake, apple-butter, poultry, apples, and spring vegetables to the Home, and one small township has lately given one hundred pounds of butter. The amount due for milk left daily during the month of December was given as a ' Christmas present,' and many similar tokens have come from those who sympathize with its charitable mission. " We again beg from the abundance of our citizens and friends in the country anything that will furnish the tables and make the soldier feel that the • Home ' to which he is directed la not unworthy of its name. All who are interested in learning more of its objects and management are cordially invited to visit it when in tho city, and we hope that in the coming year our Home may find many new friends." " In the autumn of 1863 the Cleveland Society, catching the enthusiasm and the spirit of sanitary fairs, from a visit to the fair of Chicago, resolved to launch its own little boat upon the the wave of prosperity, and projected a fair, which opened February 22, 1864, running sixteen days, with net results of seventy-eight thousand dollars ; a brilliant success for Cleveland. The fair, though not as large as many others, was considered extremely attractive. It was held in a, building erected for the purpose on the public square, and on an area of sixty-four thousand square feet. The structure was in form of a G;reek cross, the four arms -being respectively, a bazaar, bright and bewildering in its gay ornamejntation and profusion of costly, ingenious, fan- ciful, and useful wares ; a mechanics' or power hall, filled with inventions of machinery or fab- rics of their manufacture; a vast dining-hall, where scores of pretty girls, in bewitching 262 Ohio in the Wak. cap and coquettish apron, served the visitors to a 'feast of fat things ; * a grand audience room, with seats for three thousand persons, where evening entertainments of varied character were given. The central building — forming a junction of all these halls — was an octagon, seventy-six feet in diameter, rising in a dome, and inclosing the Perry Statue. This building was decorated as a Floral Hall, and was tte crowning beauty and attraction of the fair- — a marvel of taste and skill, where ' well-skilled art, taking its text from nature, formed grottoes that might have been fairy homes- bowers fit for the garden of a king — cascades, rocky hillsides, and tangled copses that vie with nature itself.' In connection with the fair there was also a museum of heaped-up wonders, and a picture gallery, where the art treasures loaned by citizens, or given by artists, were exhibited. "The unexpectedly successful results of the Sanitary Fair placed the Cleveland Society in a state of financial security to the end of its existence. Its plans were enlarged, and were thor- oughly carried out. Until the close of the war money was freely used in purchasing vegetables, and material for hospital clothing, and in sustaining the branch societies, by furnishing to them material to make up for the hospitals. When the close of hostilities diminished the work of the supply department, and regiments began to return, the Soldiers' Home was much enlarged, and a cordial welcome was extended to every returning regiment or squad. Day after day, and night after night, the long dining tables were spread with an abundance of home dainties, such as the soldier had long been a stranger to. The ladies of the Society were always at the Home to wel- come the regiments, and to serve at the tables. "After the troops were disbanded, an employment agency was opened, and continued for eight months. "Out of four hundred and eleven applicants two hundred and six were supplied with situa- tions. A considerable number failed to report a second time, and were discharged from the boofa, BO that only ninety-seven remained unsupplied with business. Moct of these were disabled men, unfit for any duty, and these were admitted into the Home' or became regular pensioners of the Society in their own homes. "The Society could not consider its duties over till the last soldier had been supplied. The following bulletin shows how the supply department was kept up for months after the war closed: "'SoLDiEBS' Aid Socikty or Nobthebn Ohio, -i " 'Central Office, yo. S9 Bank Stuket, Cleveland, July 10, 1865. J " * Dear Madam : We nro coDTlnced that the closing of your Society is premature, and it is certain that for theei MONTHS longer your work should continue. Will you not AT ONCE call together your faithful mem hers and reorganize? '** Until you can raise means to purchase material vre will continue to furnish cut garments as heretofore, and would bjg you to have these made and returned as soon as possibly. " ' Our returned soldiers, without money, and with clothing worn and travel-stained, are doily besieging our doon for articles of comfort, which wc, fob lack of youb help, have not to give them ! These men, now disowned by Government, are properly our care until they assume their citizeQ'a.duties, and can provide themselves with citizen's dress. " ' We are daily purchasing and giving out cotton socks, suspenders, combs, soap, writing material, etc. We ask your help in supplying shirts, drawers, towels, and handkerchiefs. Tuu have nohly followed our soldiers into camp and fleld with your gifts— do not let them ask in vain when they return to this land of plenty. '" It is no time to stop now, and it will bring discredit upon all that has been done should \re close our doors in tbe face of any demand. One day in our rooms would satisfy auy one that Sanitary work is by no means over. Let as go on until ^e can all clone, knowing that our work has bec-n well and thoroughly done. " ' Send for a package of gaTmcnts to make up. MART C. BRATTOK, Secretary.' " In October, 1865, when the Ohio State Soldiers' Home was opened, the Cleveland sodety appropriated from the treasury five thousand dollars to support that institution until the Slate appropriation should be received. "On January 1, 1865, a free claim agency was established under the auspices of the Cleve- land society. This agency has received about nineteen hundred claims, and in November, 1867, wiis still open for prosecution of the unsettled claims. It ceased to take new claims January 1, 1807. The claim agency was under the immediate supervision of the Secretary and Treasurer of the society, who employed clerical assistance in the business." To these outline sketches of the work accomplished, at the two great dis- trihuting centers of the relief associations of the State, may here be fitly added a synopsis, prepared by a member, of the facta in the history of the Ohio Be- lief Association at Washington, of some of the operations of which we have, in preceding chapters, had occasion to make mention : Relief Woek; Aid Societies, Etc. 263 " Early in Jane, 1862, it was found necessary to establish a large number of hospitals in and near Washington, D. C, for the care and shelter of the numerous sick and wounded soldiers who required attention. The Government at this time was, in a great measure, without suitable buildings and necessary supplies for them. In the emergency, churches were seized by military authority and occupied, and medical officers placed in charge of them. Some of these latter took delight in showing their ' little brief authority,' by snubbing individual visitors wlio called to see that our suffering soldiers were made as comfortable as possible. On the 12th of June a number of ladies and gentlemen from Ohio, temporarily residing in Washington, met at the residence of A. M. Gangewer, No. 537 H street, and organized the ' Ohio Kelief Association,' by electing Hon. S. T. Worcester President, Major G. P. Williamson Vice-PresidenI, David Rees Treasurer, and A. M. Gangewer Secretary. Committees were appointed to visit the various hos- pitals and report the names and condition of Ohio soldiers in them, with the companies and regiments to which they belonged, in order that a record might be made of them, their friends advised of their condition, and their wants supplied, so far as the means of the society would enable them to supply them. As there were nearly fifty hospitals established in and near the city, it will be readily seen that the work to be done was one of some magnitude. Weekly meetings were held at No. 537 H street, ' Ohio Head-quarters,' to hear reports of committees and devise means to relieve the wants of the suffering soldiers. A committee of three (Messrs. U. H. Hutchins, John E. French, and D. Eees) was appointed to solicit funds and procure del- icicles for the soldiers. Governors Dennison and Tod, and the Senators and members of Con- gress fi'om Ohio gave the society their confidence and favor. From this time until near the close of the war these weekly meetings were kept up, and much good was done in an unobtrusive way to our disabled soldiers. "In April, 1863, Mrs. S. T. Worcester wrote as follows to the Norwalk Keflector respecting the operations of the association : " ' The operntions of this association are well known to me, having been an attendant upon their weekly meetings during the past winter ; and 1 take this opportunity to aak the friends of the sick soldier, especially tliose who have sons, brothers, cousins, or acquaintances in Eastern Virginia, to send money or hospital stores to it. Its committees go to the bedside of every sick Ohio soldier within their reach, converse freely with them, ascertain in wliat manner they can assist them, and then do the best possible thing for them. Government allows the association the use of an ambulance, two mules, and a driver, so that they are able to reach the hospitals within seven miles of the city. In innny cases these sick men need something that can be better purchased in Wasliington than sent from here. Such, for inutancc, as apples, oranges, lemons, wine, a baker's biscuit, a custard (for which eggs, milk, and sugar must bo bought), newspapers, both English and German, a Testament, a hymn-book, a towel of their own, a piece of soap, strawberries in their season, etc. The visits of these ladies and gentlemen, from their own State, with their little comforts, the men tell me, do them more good than medicine. Let me mention a single case from fifty which I conlil enumerate. Last week I received a letter from a young German, to whose wants I attended while in Washington. In it he says : ' I suppose my poor heart would have bnrsted if it had not been for the German hymn-book yon gave me. There I found my hopes when near dying. 1 shall take good care of it in remembrance of you, and try to keep its words holy. It used to be hard for me to shed tears, but since I have been sick it has often been the case.' For this young man I provided while I staid in Washington, and Mrs. Gangewer attended to him afterward. He is now fast recovering. He had lost all his clothing, had not a cent of money, and had a ' cry ' every day because ' no one from Ohio came to see him.' The German hymn-book (Lutheran) alluded to came from the Belgian legation, and was sent, with many other publications in the same language, to us for distribution. " ' I can testify to the excellent character of the ladies and gentlemen of the Ohio Relief Association. I know what the]/ receive goes directly to th6 sick soldier, and is the answer to his own requests. All the other loyal States, except the border States, have similar organizations. Each looks after its own men tenderly.' " The names of those who were most active in the association were Messrs. J. C. Wetmore, D. Rees, Rev. B. F. Morris, G. P. Williamson, J. Van OflTenbacher, W. G. Finney, J. R. French, J. W. Dwyer, Henry Beard, L. H. Rann'ey, C. S. Mattoon, L. A. Lyons, J. C. Winn, U. H. Hutchins, J. C. Brand, J. W. Schuckers, J. D. Patton, J. E. Dodge, J. H. Wilkinson, D. Chambers, L. D. Reynolds, J. E. Fitch, O. B. Olmstead, and a few ladies — Mrs. D. Eees, Mrs. A. M. Gangewer, Mrs. Gunckel, Mrs. Staats, Miss Maggie Eees, Miss Sue Helmick, Miss J. H. Gangewer, Miss Julia Baldwin, and others. Quite a number of ladies in Ohio co-operated with the society in furthering its objects, among the more prominent of whom were Mrs. T. L. Jew- ett, of Steubenville ; Mrs. Annie P. Trimble, of Chillicothe ; Mrs. J. E. Osborn, of Toledo ; Mrs. S. T. Worcester, of Norwalk, and various ladies connected with local ladies' soldiers' aid societies in Ohio, all of whom contributed generously to sustain its operations. " In December, 1862, the Secretary of the association, A. M. Gangewer, published the fol- lowing statement of the articles distributed by the society to that date, viz. . " ' Clothino, ETC.r-195 wool shirts, 131 wool drawers, 405 prs wool sucks, 1,034 prs cotton socks, 700 prs cotton drawers. 264 Ohio in the Wak. 1 ,t47 cotton thirtB, 45 coatB, 65 prs pants, 117 prs Bltppors, 47 iffi ehocv. 16 veets, 43 hats, S6 caps, 31 dressins-^onnds, I J97 handkerchiefs, 1,401 towtls, 3G prs suspenders, hair-brusbcs, looking-glasses, combs, fiuis, ping, neodlef, thread, pin- cushions, tobacco, letter-paper, cnrelopea, books, magazines, newspapers, etc. " * Beddzno, Etc.— 116 sheets, left pillows, 253 pillow-cases, 59 bedticks, 195 blankets, 37 quilts and comforts. '"Sanitaiiv 810KES, Etc.— 397 cans fruit, 997 bottles wines and cordials, 14 bottles shrub, 64 bottles brandy, 2 jara beef essence, 5 jars pickles, 15 jars apple-butter, 1 keg do. , 1 tub kale slau, 2 boxes onions, 209 cans jellies. 2 bris toa«t bread, 4 brls green apples, 53 sacks, 7 bnshels, and 5 boxes dried fruit, com starch, grapes, lemons, dried beef, honey tea, sago, dried com, cornmeal, crackers, cheese, peppers, 4 tubs butter, fai-ina, sugar, hams, tomatoes, peach-butter, oysters, chickens, lint, bandages, pads, soap, crutches, 18 rocking-chairs, etc. ** * Cooking Utknsils, Etc.— 2 coffee boilers, 3 tin pans, 30 knives and forks, 24 table-spoons, 50 tin cops, 24 plates couking lamps, cups and saucers, etc. " * The number of names of Ohio soldiers entered on the register as visited by their committees, is 3,766, bat tiis wants of a much larger number have been supplied whose names have not been report^ and the urgent needs of many soldiers frt>m other iStates have been met, when made known to their visiting conimitteflfl. '"The amount of money collected, principally from Ohio residents in this city, wa9 $1,296 fi7; amount cxpeniled 31,240 92, leaving in the hands of the treasurer S55 75.' "About this time a committee was appointed to represent to the State authorities the necessity of having an agent in Washington, to especially look after sick soldiers vho are unable to reach home without assistance, and to see that they obtain their pay promptly. The Association recom- mended the appointment of Mr. J. C. Wetmore, who had been active and untiring in his efibrtu to aid our weak and suffering soldiers. Newspaper representations having inforced the same policy, he was accordingly appointed. , " The Association did not confine its operations to Washington, but sent visitors to hospitab at Fredericksburg, Alexandria, and camps in Virginia; to Baltimore, Annapolis, and Frederick, Maryland, and to Gettysburg. "On the 24th of February, 1863, a special meeting was held to present a service of silver to Mrs. A. M. Gangewer, for her exertions in behalf of the soldiers. The meeting was attended by Hon. S. f". Chase, Secretary of the Treasury; Judge Johnson of Cincinnati, and a crowd of Ohio people then in Washington. "On the 5th of August, 1863, the Association rented a room near the City Hall for a store- room. By this time the Government was enabled to supply the v&nts of the inmates of the hos- pitals, which were generally efhciently managed ; but still there were occasional isolated cases of suffering which needed attention, and relief was freely bestowed. Those who are acquainted with the operations of the society know well that it has done a work of which none who partici- pated in it need be ashamed. Governor Brough made appeals to the people of Ohio to support it, and its work was constantly performed in harmony with the State Agency system." The general work in the more active of the home organizations through the State may be best illustrated, on a large scale, by this graphic picture of the Cleveland Aid Eooms, from the forthcoming history of that association, by Miss Miiry Clark Brayton : " At eight o'clock, or even earlier, the rooms are open for the business of the day. The boxes unloaded from the dray upon the sidewalk are trundled through the wide doors, and the lids skillfully removed by the porter, or energetically pried off by some impatient member of tin' unpacking committee, whose duties now begin. " Cautiously she peeps under the layers, not without fear that some mischievous cork, &IM' to its trust, may have spread liquid ruin among the soft folds. Shirts, drawers, and gowns, u they are drawn forth, are duly counted, examined, and noted. If zealous lia-ste has dispatched them minus a button or a string, the deficiency is supplied by some careful matron who sits ne.ir. The garment is then thrown with the others upon a high counter, behind which is enthroned a third committee woman with stencil-plate and brush. The labeL< and mottoes that she may find nestling in the pocket of a dressing-gown, or hidden in the soldier's thread-case are not retuoved, but steadily she works there, affixing the indelible stamp, 'Soldiers' Aid Sodety of Northern Ohio,' and each article passes from her hand into its appointed place in one or another of the great hinged receiving cases that form a row down the long wall. " Books and pamphlets, too, are stamped and piled upon their allotted shelf, where some soldier from the city camps may often be seen turning over their leaves, with free permission lo choose. "Bags of dried fruit are tumbled in a heap upon the scales Bottle? and jars; its they appear. Relief Work; Aid Societies, Etc. 265 are closely inspected ; the sound to be carefully repacked in Baw-dust, and the defective cemented anew, or, if too far gone for that, they are Bet aside ^or the ' Home,' the city hospital, or the sick soldier not many squares off. " At a table in the center of the room a bandage machine is whirling . under a hand grown dexterous by much practice in these sad days; and at the old-linen box stands an embodiment of patience, vainly toiling to bring order out of the ever-uprising mass. " Just behind is the busy packing committee, upon whose skillfulness rests the good name of the society with the army. Bending over their work, they fold and smooth and crowd down each article with its kind, until there is space only for the invoice sheet at top, and the box awaits the porter's hammer and its t^lly number, before being consigned to the store-house. . "The long table at the end of the room is occupied by the work committee. Here bed- sacks and sheets are torn off with an electrifying report, and two pairs of savage shears are cut- ting;. their vigorous way through a bolt of army-blue flannel. The cut garments, rolled and ticketed, are stowed away in the great work-box till given out to ladies of the city, or sent in [lackages to bridge over a financial gap in some Country Aid Society. " Two or three ladies, delegates from neighboring branches, are narrowly watching this busy nucne, while receiving from highest official sources suggestions and sympathy, if need be, and under the same hospitable guidance are making a tour of inspection through the room and into the little office in the rear, which is separated from the main apartment only by a glazed partition. Here some tokens of femininity have crept in, despite the evident determination to give it a severe business air. A modest carpet covers the floor ; the big box of documents in the corner, cunningly cushioned, takes ambitious rank as a sofa; some kind body has sent in a rocking- chair; occasionally a bouquet graces the table; two or three pictures have found their way upon the walls, among railroad time-tables and shipping guides. But the latest war bulletin hangs with them there, and all these amenities fail to disguise the character of the room, or to draw attention from the duties- of the hour. " Here at her desk sits one whom fate and the responsibilities of office have called to ' carry the bag,' and to make the neatest of figures in the largest of ledgers. There stands another, knitting her brows over the oomplieations of a country invoice or a ' short shipping bill.' A tliird is perpetually flitting between the entry desk in the main room and the bright-eyed girls who are folding circulars at the office table ; and a fourth drops her plethoric file of ' letters una!n- swered ' to read proof for the printer's boy waiting at her elbow, or to note down for future use the sanitary news as it falls fresh from the lips of an agent who has called in en route from the 'fivnt,' to give a cordial hand to the ladies." In October, 1863, the patriotic citizens of Chicago held a great fair, an ex- paMJon of the common church festivals given by ladies in the interest of the Sanitary Commission. As the reports of its success came to attract attention, the gentlemen of. the Sanitary Commission and the National Union Association in Cincinnati began to discuss the policy of undertaking a similar enterprise on a larger scale. For some days the matter was confined to private discus- bions. Meantime, as happened so often through the war, a woman stepped for- ward to lead in the movement for good works for the soldiers. On the after- noon of the 31st of October this communication, the first public appeal for a Sanitary Fair in Cincinnati, appeared in the Evening Times : " Editob Times : I wish to call the attention of the patriotic ladies of Cincinnati to the fair that is now progressing in Chicago for the benefit of the soldiers, and which is realizing a handsome sum of money. Taking into consideration the fact that the winter is fast approach- ing, and that the soldiers will stand in need of much assistance, would it not be well for our Cin- cinnati ladies to get aroused up in the same cause, and in the same way 7 We should not let Chicago, or any other place, be in advance of us in our efforts. I know we have ladies here who are devoted friends of the soldiers, and now is the time for them to be up and doing. Please call public attention to this subject, and oblige. A LADY." 266 Ohio in the War. This appeal* was copied in the morning papers, but no public action was taken till, on November 7th, in response to an article on the subject in the Gazette, "Who speaks for Cincinnati?" Mr. Jno. D. Caldwell inserted in the papers a call for a meeting of the executive and finance committees of the National Union Association, "to initiate movements toward a grand fair in Cin- cinnati, in aid of the cause of families of Union soldiers." At this meeting n committee of public-spirited citizens was appointed to hold a conference with committecsof existing organ izatioi^p on the 11th of November. Circulars and public notices followed; the attention of the entire community was arrested; the enterprise rapidly took shape; Mr. Edgar Conkling reported a plan of oper- ations involving an undertaking incomparably more extensive than any previ- ous one in the same direction ; and presently the whole city was alive with the enthusiasm of a common generous effort. Those who best know the usually staid and undemonstrative Queen City unite in the testimony that she was never before so stirred through all the strata of her society, never befoio so warm and glowing for anj' cause or on any occasion. Churches, citizens' asso- ciations, business men, mechanics took hold of the work. Committees were appointed, embracing the leading men and the best workers in every walk of life throughout the city; meetings of ladies were held ; circulars were distrib- uted ; public appeals filled the newspapers. General Eosecrans, then fresh from the TuUahoma and Chickamauga campaigns, and the more popular in the city of his residence in proportion to his loss of favor with the War Department, was made President of the fair, and his name evoked fresh enthusiasm for the effort. On the 25th of November the organization had been completed, and the following general address to the public was issued : "This fair, in aid of the Cincinnati Branch of the United States Sanitary CommiBsioa, will be opened, with appropriate ceremonies, on Monday, the 21st day of December next, and con- tinue through the holidays. Arrangements have been made on an extensive scale for collecting and disponing of every article of a salable nature that may be contributed. Nothing will be amiss that can aid the Sanitary Commission, either in funds or in any of the stores so well known to be wanted in the camp and hospital. " This branch of the Sanitary Commission extends relief throughout the armies of the Union operating in the West and South-west. It supplies, without distinction, all who are in tlwie armies, no matter whence they come. Therefore, the far East and the Central States will sceand feel, as well as the West, the grand object to be accomplished by this fair, and may well join lod share with us in this grateful effort, before the rigors of winter beset them, to provide for the wants and cheer the hearts of their sons who are with ours in these fields. Each congregation or society, of whatever name, in all the loyal States, is invited to elect a lady delegate or corns- ponding member, who will be registered as such, and, if an active contributor, will be entitled to a handsomely-engraved certificate, commemorative of the occasion, bearing her name tnd residence. " Contributions from far and wide will be thankfully received ; contribntions in money ; con- tributions of every production of the farmers, manufacturers, machinists, mechanics, mercJianti, clothiers, jewelers, milliners, gardeners ; contributions of music, decorations, fruits, flower?, mi refreshments ; contributions or loans for exhibition in the fine arts and sciences ; relics, niemo- * Written by Mrs. Dr. Mendenhall, who afterward became the ladies' Vice-President of ilie fair. Relief Wobk; Aid Societies, Etc. 267 rials, and curiosities of every sort ; contribntions of lectures, concerts, and dramatic or other ben- efits ; and, to give efficiency to all, a general contribution of the influence of the press in fur- thering our efforts. Every offering, in short, which can add beauty, interest, or profit, to any department of the fair, or be used as material in the work of the Sanitary Commission will be acceptable. In order, moreover, that nothing, however small, which even our youth can con- tribute, may be lost to the general offering, it is requested that directors and teachers of schools, public and private, everywhere, invite their pupils to prepare articles of their own handiwork, which will form a special department of the fair. And, above all, we invoke the aid and influ- ence of the women of the land, as individuals, in their home and social circles, and as classes, in their churches, aid societies, and other organizations. " The whole arrangements of the fair have been assigned to committees on finance, buildings, machinery and mechanical exhibitions, public conveyances and transportation, mercKandise and donations, refreshments, art hall, g.allery of paintings, music and decorations, floricultural exhi- bitions, relics, curiosities and war memorials, lectures, concerts, and benefits, each having duties corresponding to their titles. The character of the parties comprising these committees is suffi- cient evidence of their ability to provide extraordinary attractions and accommodations for our visitors and patrons, no matter how large their number. " One of the chief attractions of the fair will consist of an immense bazaar, four hundred feet long by sixty feet wide, under charge of the ladies, and devoted to the sale of fancy and useful merchandise. Similar buildings, for use as refreshment hall and exhibition and saleroom of heavier articles of merchandise, machinery, etc. " Hozart Hall and its anterooms have been secured for the purposes of lectures, concerts, exhibitions, etc. " The most liberal terms that could be desired are proffered to our transportation committee by all the express, railroad, and steamboat lines centering at this city. " The dining hall will be in charge of a committee of ladies, and will be able to accommo- date, in space and variety, all who may come. " A plan is under consideration for the publication of a complete history of the fair, from its inception to its close. This is intended to embrace a list of the officers, committees, managers, and corresponding members, the name of every contributor, a list of the articles donated, and such other matters of interest as may occur,, and will serve to give permanency in history to this evidence that the people of the Union never forget their brave defenders. " All contributions of money should be remitted to Kobert W. Burnet, Esq., Treasurer. All the express, railroad, and steamboat lines centering in this city have offered to carry freight for the fair free of chakge. Heavy goods should be sent by railroad; light and valuable pack- ages by express. All articles should be carefully packed, and marked 'Sanitary Fair, Cincin- nati, Ohio.' " When articles are donated a list of the articles, their estimated value, and the donor's name and residence, should be sent by mail to John D. Caldwell, Corresponding Secretary, to whom all correspondence may be addressed. Articles for exhibition should be accompanied by directions for their return, similarly addressed. " Special infgrmation as to any department may be obtained by addressing the chairman of the proper committee, whose name appears in the annexed list. " No further appeal ia needed ; all hearts will feel and respond to this call. Let no one sup- pose that enough is or ever will be done in this direction. The Cincinnati Branch of the Sani- tary Commission has distributed to the army nearly nine hundred thousand dollars' worth of supplies generously furnished; but it has never yet reached the maximum of demands upon it. " Present movements Indicate i winter campaign of unusual activity and hardship. Let every one do his part, that there may be no want or suffering among our brave soldiers. " Major-General W. S. ROSECBANS, President.* " John D. Caij)WEM., Corresponding Secretary." *Tlie organization of the working force of the fair « u liirga and complicated. We append the names of the lead- ing officers, and of the chairmen of committees : OrFIUERS. Uajor-General Bosecbans, President; Mayor 1. A. Hakbib, First ^ce- President; Mrs. Dr. G. Mzndenhall, Hccond Vice-Prosldent ; E. W. Bubhet, Treasurer ; Joszfu 0. Bdtlid, Assutsnt Treasurer ; John D. Oaldwbll, Cor- reipuuding Secretary. 268 Ohio in the Wak. The committees and the whole community now pressed forward their labora, and for the time the "cause of sweet charity" for the soldiers was the engross- ing subject of all thought. On the morning of the 21st of December the fair was opened with an address from General Kosecrans at Mozart Hall. That evening the various hulls were crowded with a curious and liberal throng; and for weeks thereafter there followed such a lavish expenditure of money as the city had never before dreamed of. The great salesroom of the ladies — the "Bazaar "—was in a building specially erected for the purpose on the Fifth Street Market-Space, four hundred feet long and sixty feet broad. On the Sixth Street Market-Space was another building of the same dimensions — "Produce Hall" — used for the display of agricultural productions. In. Mozart Hall were the relies, war memorials, art gallery, etc. Crreenwood Hall was devoted to the horticultural department; and the Palace Garden was made a refreshment hall. To describe the display in these various departments were an endless task. The bewildering exhibition in the Ladies' Bazaar was, of course, the center of attraction, and its appearance was the result of a degree of faithful and varied labor on the part of thousands of ladies not easily expressed. Prom every quarter came the gifts that filled the attractive tables — from aged fingers which could scarcely direct the needle, but must needs make something for the fair that was to help the grandson soldier — from children eager to do something for the cause to which their fathers were offering their lives — from the wealthiest and most fashionable — from the humblest poverty-stricken homes that were still not too poor to help the soldiers — from even the Lunatic Asylums and the Home of the Friendless. Ladies presided behind the counters, fair prices were charged, and the sales were enormous.* In the other halls were collected such displays as the oily had never before HONORARY OFFICERS. His Excellency Abbahah Lincoln, PreBideot of the United States ; Hon. BAiraiBAL Huclin, Vice-Preanienf; the Honorable the Govebnoeu of thb Lotal Statju. EXKcnxrvE gommittsb. CnXimiMn.— Edgar Conklln, Chairman ; David T. Woodrow, Charles BeaUrt, Beiuamln Bruce, Charles F. Wilitsck, L. 0. Hopkins, James Dalton, Charles B. Gist. £a<2iet.— Utb. S. B. WiUiams, Urs. W. S. Nelson, Mrs. B. H. W. Taylor, Hn. Robert Hosea, Mrs. Joseph TUner, Mrs. Joseph Guild, Mrs. C. W, Staibuck, Mrs. John Ksbler, Mrs. Dr. C. A. Schneider. COMMITTEES. Cvrculara and Printing.— John D. Caldwell, Chairman. Finance.— S. S. Davis, Chairman. Bvitdiiifff.— Philip HinUs, Chairman. Merchandise and Donalions.~W . T. Perkins, Chairman. Counbv Produce.— Adolph Wood, Chairman. Ife- ehinerg and Mechanieal ExhibiUom.—'E. M. Shield, Chairman. On Agricnltitral JHacMnerv.— J. M. McCnllongh, Chair, man. Rt^twsAmenls.—l . W. Garrison, Chairman. Art Ball, GaUay of VaxMttgt, JIfiute, awd DecoratioM.-Win. Wlsvell, Chairman. Wor Jlfwnoriob, BeliM, ond OurtomfMe.— George Graham, Chairman. Circofcirs ond Cbrre^pomlaioe.— Bw. •• T. Collins, Chairman. IVarJIfemaniib.— Colonel A, W. Gilbert, Chairman. Oiihj and ^ntovmpki.— T.O. Day, Chairmu. Hertieulftirol and Fotnotoft'caf DepardiHiri.— Gentlemen : D. B. Pierson, Chairman ; Ladies : Mrs. W. 8. Groesbwk, (teii- man. Fniit and Flowerj.— Mrs. D. T. Woodrow, Chairman. (3uii*ma» IVne.— Miss Rebecca Groesbeck, diairmsn. Rp/iMfcrnento.— Mrs. W. H. Dominick, Chairman. AervrMH DeooraMona.— Mrs. Wm. Proctor, Chairman. IWdjrop* ""^ Po8/-OJffce.— Miss. E. 0. Smith, Chairman. LteiMm, Obncertf, Dromajic, and otJhsr £H/«r(awimenli.— W. G. Peters, Chair* man. i«!lo|/Mi.— James H. Walker, Chairman. Ckitdran'i iJqMrtment.— Lyman Harding, Chairman. * L. C. Hopkins, the well-known dry goods merchant, was the Superintendent of the Baiaar. Belief Woer; Aid Societies, Etc. 269 gathered — an accumulation of autographs immense and unique; a vast number of relics and mementos of the war; cabinets of shells and scientific specimens; a gallery of paintings that included some works of European masters, and a fine representation of American, and particularly of Western artists; "a glimpse of Fairy Land " in the luxuriant profusion of the Horticultural Department ; machinery, agricultural implements — something to interest and attract from every walk of life. The great Mozart Hall was night after night filled with audiences that congregated to hear readings from Jas. E. Murdoch or Buchanan Eead, or lectures from others who patriotically gave their services to the cause ; and the refreshment saloon was filled with the first ladies of the city, who served like waiters in some mammoth restaurant. The net result of all this labor and display was the payment of $2.S5,406 to the Cincinnati Branch of the Sanitary Commission.* The indirect result was the quickening of the sympathies of a vast community for the soldiers, a warmer flame of loyalty throughout the State, invigoration in the purpose that upheld the war, and an example that was to stir up Philadelphia, New York, Pittsburg, and St. Louis, to yet more splendid exhibitions of the munificent generosity of the people. The suggestion of these fairs came from Chicago. Cincinnati showed the Nation what a large plan and liberal purpose could make out of them,f and may well cherish her record in this particular as one of the brightest pages'in her history through the war. In the story of noble deeds at home, which we must now end, we have reserved the noblest feature for the last. Prom the outbreak of the war till the hour of its close, the hands of the Government and of the army were held up by the warm hearty zeal of the churches and the clergy. They led in the demand for the maintenance of the National supremacy. They inspired the moral purpose of the war and made it a thing of more than territorial signifi- cance. They furnished the nucleus for home organizations for the relief of the soldiers. They followed with their ministrations to the camps and the battle- fields. They pierced the disguises- of the false pretense of Humanity and Christianity that clamored for peace without Liberty and Union. The sun did stand on the mountains of Gilboa at their prayer — the most excitable and unstable people of the Anglo-Saxon race were held true to a fixed purpose, through rivers of blood, and mourning by every heai-th-stone, and the countless cost of a four years' fearful struggle, till the battle between Freedom and Slavery should" be manfully fought out. Among the earliest volunteers were clergymen. The pulpits of the various * The outlay for expenses amounted to eight and one-fifth per cent, on this amount, which added thereto gives the gross receipta. t The receipts of the Cincinnati Fair were larger in proportion to population than those held in any other cities, excepting Pittsburg and St. Lonis, which, coming later, had the advantago and stimulus of the experience and success elsewhere. The net result of the series of Sanitary Fairs which this in Cincinn.iti fairly opened, was over four million dollars, given in aid of sol- diers and their families. m 270 Ohio in the War. churches became the foremost stimulants to recruiting. As early as the 3d of June, 1861, the association of Evangelical ministers of Cincinnati adopted a deliverance,* whereof these sentences should not pass out of men's memories in the State they inspired : " Deeply grateful to Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, for his past mercies to this Nation, and particularly noting at this time His gracious goodness in leading our fathers to establish and preserve for us a Constitutional Government unequalled among the governments of the earth in guarding the rights and promoting the entire welfare of a great people — we, the Evangelical ministry of Cincinnati, have been lead by a constrained sense of accountability to Him, the autlior of all our good, and by unfeigned love for our country, to adopt the following statement: " We are compelled to regard the rebellion which now afflicts our land and jeopardizes some of the most precious hopes of mankind, as to the result of a long-contemplated and wide-sprend conspiracy against the principles of liberty, justice, mercy, and righteousness proclaimed in the Word of God, sustained by our Constitutional Government, and lying at the foundation of all public and private welfare. In the present conflict, therefore, our Government stands before as u representing the cause of God and man against a rebellion threatening the Nation with ruia, in order to perpetuate and spread a system of unrighteous oppression. In this emergency, as min- isters of God, we can not hesitate to support, by every legitimate method, the Government in maintaining its authority unimpaired throughout the whole country, and over this whole people.'' The sentiments thus expressed were echoed by almost every religious body throughout the State. Among others, was this declaration from the venerable Bisliop Mcllvaine, in the Protestant Episcopal Convention at Cleveland, in June, 1861: "Our duty in this emergency is bravely, earnestly, to sustain our Govern- ment in its administration in the use of all lawful means to preserve the integrity of the Union." Not less emphatic and early were the expressions of Archbishop Pureell, who caused the American flag to be raised over the Cathedral at Cin- cinnati, and the churches in every part of his diocese, and whose great iiiflaence in the Roman Catholic Church was thrown throughout in favor of the Govern- ment in this holy war. As the struggle progressed, the efforts for the relief of soldiers clustered around the prayer-meetings, Sunday-school associations, and ladies' mite socie- ties of the church congregations throughout the State. To trace the history of these societies here would be impossible — they were in ever}- village and hamlet— but the good works they wrought are faithfully set down in the record of Him who rcvvardeth openly. As the Sanitary Commission grew up, the stream of church contributions was turned into this channel. After a time the good men who had followed the army with the Bible and the sermon felt the need of an organization for specific religious eifort for the soldiers, combined with relief labor, and the Christian Commission began its noble work.f * Reported by a committee consisting of Granville Moody, H. M. Storrs, C. B. Boynlon, E. T. Robinson, and Jgscph White. T In tlie last annual report of this Commission the following list of the Ohio membership i« given : CINCINNATI BRANCH UNITED STATES CHRISTIAN COMMISSION. A. E. CiMMnrnLAiN, rraBldcnt ; U. Thank MiLLStt, Vice-Priaideut; Kev. J. »'. Uablai, SecrotaiTi »"■ B W. CnintAW, Ueiu'ral Agent. CiiuMiTTKK-WUlium T. Perkins, Thomas F. Shaw, George II. Warner, E. Sargent, W. W. Scarliorough, Hon. Relief Work; Aid Societies, Etc. 271 The reports give the cash receipts of the branches in Ohio as: Cincinnati Branch np to 1864 $70,493 Gncinnati Branch up to 1865 38,396 Cleveland Branch— total 8,144 Total $117,033 Besides, stores were received in Cincinnati amounting in value to the splendid sum of two hundred and eighty-nine thousand six hundred and two dollars, and publications for distribution among the soldiers, valued at three thousand and twenty-four dollars. In Cleveland the gifts of stores amounted to five thousand five hundred dollars, and of publications to twelve hundred dollars.* Some further facts as to the operations of this unobtrusive but most efiS- cient organization may be presented in the condensed closing report of the Cincinnati Branch: " From the 1st of January, 1865, the date of the last annual report, until the office was closed, about the middle of August, the work of the Cincinnati Branch continued to prosper. It was understood, soon after the fall of Richmond, that the business of the Commission would be closed up as speedily as possible. Notwithstanding u, public statement to this effect, the people of Ohio continued to furnish the means necessary to carry on our operations creditably and suc- cessfully, until supplies were no longer needed. Some of the most prominent items of receipts and distributions are given in the following table : Nnmbor of boxus, n Pf.ukinb, Vicri-President ; L. F. Meilej, Sec- retary ; B. H. Matkbr, Treasurer; Gbobgx Myoatt, Receiver of Supplies ; Hon. William Ciistic, Rev. T. H. Hawks, D. D.; T. P.^undy, Dr. H. K. Cushins, Kev. J. M. Hoyt, Daniel P. Eels, Horace Bjnton. COHMiTTr.*— Hon. Williaa A. ptiB, Rev. Samuel Wolcott, D. D.; Rev. Dr. W. H. Goodrich, Ansel Roberts, J. E. •Mngeyoll, Bav. i^ilojjtistfi, jr.; Rev. S. B. ^ige, George W. Whitney, Hon. John A. Foiite, Ecv. Charles Hammer, Dr. Allcyni-llliiynnrdC *5odoll, Hon. J. P. Bishop, Rev. Willinm A. Hose, Dr. Eilward Taylor, Kev. C. Eutenick, E. B. r rerkins, J. H. Dcwitt, Rev. J. A. Tboroe, Rev. Moses Hill, Bev. Bishop C. Kingsley. NOBTH-WESTEBN BRANCH UNITED STATES CHRISTIAN COMMISSION, TOLEDO. W. Bakeb, President; Rev. C. T. Wxlu, Recording Secretary; llev. H. W. PiKnsoH, D. D., Corresponding Sec- retaiT ; D. B. Suith, Treasurer. *The Toledo collections seem, in the reports of the Christian Commission, to have gone to swell the sums credited to Chicago. 272 Ohio in the Wae. . Societies and Ladies' Christian Commissions, by scores and hundreds, Ifept us supplied with the means to minister largely to the comfort and temporal wants of our noble boys in blue ! We held no large sura of money in our treasury, believing that Providence would furnish us the means to do our work. God honored the faith of his servants — since, although our funds were often low we never were without the means to meet our obligations. "The removal of Rev. E. P. Smith, thp[efficien4 and successful Field Agent of our depart- ment, to the Eastern work, was felt to be a severe loss. From the beginning he had superin- tended the work in the West with a sagacity, dificrimination and zeal worthy of the highest praise. His self-denying labors, amid suffering and personal dangers, in behalf of his country in all the dark days and months of the great rebellion, should endear him,, to the hearts of bis countrymen. " His place at Nashville was well filled by Mr. T. E. Ewing, an earnest Christian gentleman and a moat genial, kind-hearted man and efficient administrator. Mrs. E. P. Smith remained in charge of the 'home' at Nashville, performing a service for which fe( women could have been found equally qualified, with a cheerfulneag and hearty enthu.siasra worthy of all honor. Hun- dreds and thousands of soldiers, who have been in the borstals of Nashville, will remember Mrs. Smith to their dying day. Not a few will join in gratitude with an Illinoia 'soldier, who said to the friend at his cot, taking his dying message, 'Tell Ml^B, Smith I 8hal^''thaDk her in heaven for the ice.' > ■ ' "The transfer'of Eev. J. F. Loyd to the Louisville agency was an important and satisfactory change. Under his wise and faithful administration, and by the transfer of General Sherman to Louisville, this became one of our most interesting fields. We believe that the Christian Com- mission has had few workers more reliable, faithful, and competent than Mr. Loyd. The statis- tical tables published in this report will exhibit the receipts and expenditmcs of the year. During the last year of our work our financial records were kept by Mr. W. J. Breed, of the Commission, Who rendered thus, gratnitoDsly, a service, of great magnitude ancfeiin^rtance, in addition to his very liberal cash contributions. "A. E. Chamberlain & Co., have given us office and store-room without charge. ^ ■■" "Our President llr. Chamberlain, contiiraed to serve the cause with unabated zeal and ilb- cess until the last. For more than two years all his time was consecrated to his sufieringcoigitry. By public addresses, all over Ohio, he aroused the zeal of others, and contrn^Ld more .largely than any other person to make the GfcristiWl Commission the people's favoriteCTiannel of com- munication with the army. In this work of appeal to the people at home, we have, also, been very largely aided by services most cheerfully and efficiently rendered by Hon. Bellamy Storer and Eev. B. W. Chidlaw. Th« volume which records the closing labors of so beneficent an institution would be incomplete and unsatisfactory if it did not make special mention of these noble men, who rendered such utetjfish and signal service to ij/e best Government God ever gave to man, in the darkest hour of its whole histoiy. JOHN F. MARLAY, Secretary." With this we close. No eifort KaS^pcn made to present in detail this great Belief Work, in^which, through various organizations and in^any ways for all the weary years of the war, those at homo strove in labo^hprivatiooK and prayer^ to emulate the sacrifices and the achievements of the mcnnWIWUfird. To do that were impossible. But we hope to have left some traces, however imper- fect, which may show to those who come after us that the people of Ohio were worthy of their Soldiers. And bo we turn from the work at home to tke front. ^* %' •>■!■' ..J. ^ FJLS/T II. THE LIVES OF OHIO GENERALS, WITH SKETCHES OF THE WAR GOVERNORS AND OTHER PURLIC MEN, INOIDEISTTS, ETC. Gi-EOKGE B. McClellan. 275 MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN. "The uncertain future, king, has yet to come, with every possible variety of fortune; and him only to whom the gods have continued happiness unto the end, we call happy. To salute as happy, one still in the midst of life and hazard, we think as little safe and conclusive as to crown and proclaim victorious the wrestler that is yet in the ring."* IT was the peculiar misforttine pf the first General whom Ohio gave to the War for the Union, that his friends, not even satisfied with proclaim- ing victorious the wrestler yet in the ring, insisted upon crowning him at the very moment of his entrance. Christened "Young Napoleon " before he had ever commanded a regiment under fire,t and accepted by the Nation, in its piteous want of a Leader, at his ostensible valuation, it was not wonderful that when summer had ripened into fall around his motionless battalions, and winter had snowed them in, and spring had found them motionless still, he discovered the patient people begin to demand some sign of Napoleonic deeds. Thenceforward he was forever judged by the false standard which his own friends had §pt up. And when he failed to reach this standard, whether through lack of sup- port or in spite of it, in the eyes of the Grovernment that had accepted him in implicit faith, and in the eyes of the People that had crowned him Leader in advance and on trust, his failure was absolute. No excuses were heard ; no just and proper pleas of youth and inexperience were admitted in abatement. He had not been taken from the obscurity of his Cincinnati home, and his resigned Captaincy to a Major-Generalship above Harney and Wool, and the whole hierarchy of our body of regulars; from the theater of insignificant mountain skirmishes to the command of the grandest army ever assembled on the continent, and thence to the still giddier height of the command of all our armies, because he had been an industrious military student, and had written pains-taking accounts of the various organizations of European troops. So much was true of him, and with this basis for his starting-point, he might have vrwi a creditable career. But this would not satisfy the vaulting ambition of his quick-witted and influential friends. The Country must take him — the Country did take him through their solicitation, and, (alas that it must be writ- ten !) through his own connivance — as a very god of War, leaping in full panoply, as from the brain of Jove himself, out of the smoke and coal-dust of the Ohio and Mississippi Eailroad Office. Fifteen months of trial brought forth, perhaps respectable, but certainly neither god-like nor Napoleonic achievements ; and 80 it came to pass, through an inevitable law of the human mind, that when, * Plutarch, Life of Crcesus. tFor his achievements in West Virginia rose to no such dignity. 276 Ohio in the Wae. after this time, men spoke of him they gave no credit for what he really did but recited what he had promised to do ; treated him as men treat those who have obtained valuables of them under false pretenses ; stigmatized the friends who had borne him forward as the utterers of false coin. But these friends were blinder than the Bourbons. On the platform of military failure they conceived the project of erecting a fabric of political success. An elegant writer has very justly said, that " the outposts of an army mark the line where the sphere of party politics ends."* But in this case the very head-quarters ""of the army marked the spot where the sphere of party politics began. For more than a year the utterances of those head-quarters were addressed scarcely more to soldiers than to voters — were meant to inspire ballots quite as much as bayonets. From such command of the army, .the General passed into the heat of a fervid Presidential campaign ; and from that time whatever ill he had done was magntfied and distorted by his opponents, whatever good he had done was magnified and distorted by his partisans, till the atmosphere about the man being thus perpetually disturbed, a clear, honest view of him was impossible. If now, the war being over, and the political campaign which he led being no less definitely closed, we find, in reviewing his character and career, some- what to praise, for which due praise has not been given, some blame to lift to other shoulders which his have thus far borne, it will be none the less satisfac- tory that at last an impartial judgment of the man and his doings seems possible. George Brinton JlcClellan, the first General appointed in Ohio after the outbreak of the War for the Union, was born in Philadelphia, December 3d, 1826. His father, who was of Scottish descent, was a physician of high repute, and had been graduated from Tale College. Young McClellan spent his school- boy days, under careful training, in Philadelphia ; first in Mr. "Walker's select school, then in Mr. Schipper's, then in the University of Pennsylvania. He came to be known as a solid, pains-taking scholar, not at all precocious, rather slow than otherwise in mastering his tasks, but likely to be thorough in any- thing which he professed to know. AYhen not quite sixteen years of age an appointtnent was procured for him at West Point, whither some hints of a military taste seemed to indicate that he should be sent. In the military academy he was guilty of no escapades, was involved in no combinations against the discipline of the institution. Youth and elasticity of spirits were happily bent to the duties of his class, and at the end of his four years he came out just what might have been expected fi-om the promise of the preparatory schools, a good, plodding, industrious, well-read military scholar. One of his classmates has since made immortal the name of Stonewall Jackson. Among others were such names as John G. Foster, Jesse L. Eeno, Darius N. Couch, George Stoneman, Dabney H. Maury, George H. Gordon, and George E. Pickett. Among these men Stonewall Jackson ranked •Life of McClellan, by George S. Hillard, page 139. G-EOKGE B. McClellan. 277 seventeenth, George B. McClellan second, and Charles G-. Stewart (now a Major of Engineers), the first. So worthless are academy standards as an indication of standing in life and in history ! Young McClellan, a well-educated, well-featured, well-mannered, strong- limbed boy of twenty, came out from the academy with the golden opinions of his pl-ofessors, just as the outbreak of the Mexican War gave special meaning to the uniform he wore. He was at once assigned to the duty of organizing a company of sappers and miners, and, in September, he sailed with his command for the seat of war. Presently we find him a brevet Second Lieutenant, tracing lines of investment before Vera Cruz, under such immediate superiors as Cap- tain E. E. Lee, First Lieutenant P. G. T. Beauregard, and Second Lieutenant G. W. Smith. Good old Colonel Totten thanked them all in a lot for their work, and reported them to Winfield Scott as having rendered engineering services whose value could not be overestimated. Thenceforward we catch occasional glimpses of Lieutenant McClellan, in lists of official reports, in notes of recommendation to superior officers, in orders of thanks. At Cerro Gordo his command cleared away the obstacles in front of Pillow's assaulting columns ; at Puebla, while reconnoitering, he captured a Mexican cavalryman; at Mexicalcingo he made another reconnoissance, and Lieutenant Beauregard saved him from capture ; at Contreras, while posting batteries, he had two horses killed under him, and finally was himself knocked down by a spent grape shot, which struck the hilt of his sword. At last the City of Mexico was assaulted, and we get a fresh glimpse of Lieutenant McClel- lan at the San Cosme gate, burrowing with his miners through the walls of a block of adobe houses, to emerge in the street at the rear of a Mexican battery which held the gate, and, in his eagerness, falling full length into a ditch of dirty water that had nearly been the death of him. And so his services in Mexico ended. Our boy of twenty was now a little more than a year older. He had seen some active campaigning; had behaved as any lad of spirit would; and had come out with praise and brevets, some of which he deserved, and some of which, to his credit, he refused.* He returned with his company to West Point; and, for a time, was engaged in drilling them, (does it not sound characteristic that, writing to his sister-in- law of this formidable work, he should say, " I've enough to do to occupy half a dozen persons; but I rather think I can get through with it?") in writing military papers to be read before his club, and, finally, in translating from the French a manual of bayonet exercise for the use of our little army. Then followed a short service under Captain Marcy, in explorations on the Indian frontier; and a longer task of coast-soundings and harbor-surveys along the fioast of Texas. A brief, business-like report to Colonel Totten, suggesting * It is curiously illustrative of the value of these Mexican honors, and of the miscellaneoua manner in which they were dealt out, that Lieutenant McClellan was brevetted Captain for "gallant conduct in the battle of Molino del Eey." He declined the honor, for the very satis- factory reason that he had not been present at the battle. 278 Ohio in the Wab. improvements in the harbors and giving estimates, closed this labor, in April, 1853. . Captain McClellan* was now given charge of an exploring expedition of his own among the Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington — being one of the general series of Pacific Eailroad Explorations about this time ordered. The summer and fall were spent in the duties of this exploration — the result being, in brief, the report to the Secretairy of "War, that through the region explored he had found but two practicable passes for a railroad, the best of which, that of the Columbia Eiver, was quite easy. On his return to Washington Captain McClellan was given the duty of visiting the West Indies secretly, and selecting a desirable coaling-station for the United States navy. He chose the harbor and peninsula of Samana, in Hayti, a point which the United States has thus far failed to secure. In these various services Captain McClellan had shown industry and com- mendable skill. The Secretary of War, Mr. Jefferson Davis, now selected him as the third of a commission charged with the duty of visiting Europe, during the progress of the Crimean War, to take note of the military organizations and improvements there displayed. A year thus sp^nt, with only average facilities for observation, resulted in an elaborate report to Secretary Davis on the organization of European armies — a work well but not brilliantly written, furnishing much that had been dug out of books and reports, and a little that was derived from personal observation, the whole giving a disproportionate prominence to the cavalry arm, to which the author had been recently trans- ferred. Shortly after his return, in January, 1857, Captain McClellan tendered his resignation as an officer of the army. He had been in it from boyhood; he was now thirty years of age and still a Captain. Other pursuits, for which his military education fitted him, offered pleasanter life and far more lucrative returns. He was soon selected as Engineer of the Illinois Central Eailroad, and, shortly afterward, as its Vice-President. Here he continued for three years, winning little outside fame, but making such an impression upon rail- road men, that in 1860 he was elected as the President of the Ohio and Mississippi. He accepted the situation, and removed to Cincinnati, where he continued to reside till the outbreak of the war. In May, 1860, in his thirty-third year, he married Miss Ellen Marcy, the daughter of Captain E. B. Marcy, of the army, under whom he had served in his first frontier exploration. Such was the entire public career of the man whom the Government was about to advance to its highest trusts. He had behaved well as a Second Lieu- tenant through the Mexican War; had, as an Engineer, made some good coast- soundings and a couple of minor frontier explorations, and had wi'itten a highly respectable work about European armies. But, beyond this, he had made such an impression upon the small body of men giving attention to the affairs of our * For the Department had followed up its brevet for Molino del Rey by the better-deserred one of " Captain for meritorious services in the assault on the City of Mexico." Geokge B. McClellan. 279 army, that they thought of him as among the most promising of its younger officers. His experience in civil life was practically nothing, save as connected with railroading. Of politics he knew nothing, and was careless. He had voted but once in his life; then it was in Hlinois, against Mr. Lincoln and in favor of Mr. Douglas. When the whirlwind of military enthusiasm, that followed the assault on Fort Sumter, swept over Ohio, Governor Dennison, overrun with military questions of which he felt himself ignorant, and with military applicants for offices the very duties of which he did not understand, felt at once the necessity of advice from experts, and cast about him for "West Point officers. Ho had been largely in the railroad business himself, and thus happened to know that the Ohio and Mississippi road was managed by a Captain McClellan, of whom army men had spoken highly. He telegraphed for the Caj)tain at once, asked his aid in the organization of the Ohio volunteers, and, at the request of the Captain himself, sent to Washington, asking his re-instatement in the regular army, in some position commensurate with the wants of the service. No im- mediate reply was received. Meantime, Captain McClellan two or three times visited the Governor's office, and spent an hour or two answering questions and making suggestions.^ Presently, under authority of a law hurried through the Legislature, Captain McClellan was appointed Major-General, and Messrs. Schleich, Cox, and Bates, Brigadier-Generals of Ohio Militia Volunteers. Three, weeks later, on the 14th of May, 1861, the War Department, on the suggestion of General Scott, commissioned Captain McClellan a Major-General of the regu- lar army ; John C. Fremont being, on the same day, re-appointed to the army and promoted to the same rank. At the same time the new Major-General was assigned to the command of a department, embracing the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Hlinois— so that Governor Dennison lost almost at the moment of receiving the aid he had sought in the organization of Ohio troops. But he was soon to experience an unexpected result of the promotion he had suggested. A camp of instruction was formed near Cincinnati, known as Camp Dennison, where, as fast as they were raised, troops were rendezvoused and turned over to General McClellan and the other United States author- ities. For months the people of the State were besieged with complaints as to the mismanagement of this camp, to the great injury of the recruiting service, not less than to the demoralization of the troops already raised. The whole burden of the complaint — for lack of proper food, insufficient arms, tents, clothing, everything — was laid upon Governor Dennison. General McClellan never uttered a word to relieve him of this obloquy, though the entire matter was all the time entirely in his own hands ! Much of the complaint was unjust and unreasonable ; but it would at least have been considerate, as well as a del- icate courtesy to the man who had first appointed him, to have simply borne his own burdens. One of General McClellan's earliest actions as department commander was to enter into negotiation with General Buckner, then Inspector-General of Ken- ■} 280 Ohio in the Wab. tucky, on the subject of the "neutrality" of that State. He went so far as to agree that " the territory of Kentucky should be respected on the part of the United States, even though the Southern States should occupy it," only exact- ing a promise that, in this last case, Kentucky should try to drive them out, and, in event of her failure, McClellan should then have permission to do it, on condition of straightway retiring again to the north side of the Ohio Eiver.* ■ * General McClellan having subsequently disputed Greneral Buckner's statements concerning this agreement, and the matter having formed the subject of some acrimonious political discus- sion, I subjoin the correspondence of different parties concerned, throwing light upon it. Gen- eral McClellan's denial is first given : " Gratton, ViBGruiA, June 26, 1861. " Captain W. Wilson, United States Navy : " My interview with General Buckner was personal, not official. It was solicited by him more than once. I made no stipulation on the part of the General Government, and regarded his voluntary promise to drive out the Confederate troops as the only result of the interview. His letter gives his own views, not mine. G. B. ilcCLELLAN." " Head-Quarteks KENTrcKT State Guaed, LoinsvrLi.E, June 10, 1861. " Sir : On the 8th instant, at Cincinnati, Ohio, I entered into an arrangement with Major- General George B. McClellan, commander of the United States troops in the States north of the Ohio River, to the following effect : " The authorities of the State of Kentucky are to protect the United States property within the limits of the State, to enforce the laws of the United States in accordance with the interpreta- tions of the United States Courts, as far as those laws may be applicable to Kentucky, and to enforce, with all the power of the State, our obligations of neutrality as against the Sonthem States, as long as the position we have assumed shall be respected by the United States. " General McClellan stipulates that the territory of Kentucky shall be respected on the part of the United States, even though the Southern States should occupy it ; but in the latter case he will call upon the authorities of Kentucky to remove the Southern forces from our territory. Should Kentucky fail to accomplish this object in a reasonable time, General McClellan claims the right of occupancy given the Southern forces. I have stipulated, in that case, to advise him of the inability of Kentucky to comply with her obligations, and to invite him to dislodge the Southern forces. He stipulates that, if successful in so doing, he will withdraw his forces from the territory of the State as soon as the Southern forces shall be removed. " This, he assures me, is the policy he will adopt toward Kentucky. " Should the Administration hereafter adopt a different policy, he is to give me timely notice of the fact. " The well-known character of General McClellan is a sufficient guarantee for the fulfillment of every stipulation on his part. " I am. Sir, very respectfiilly, " Your obedient servant, " S. B. BUCKNEB, Inspector-General." " CiNcrNNATi, June 7, 1861. " To Hon. J. J. Cnttenden, Frankfort, Kentucky : " The papers of this morning state that General Prentiss, commander United States forces at Cairo, has sent troops across the Ohio River into Kentucky. I have no official notice of such a movement ; but I at once telegraphed General Prentiss for the facts, and stated to him that if the report were true, I disapproved his course, and ordered him to make no more such movements without my sanction previously obtained. GEO. B. McCLELLAN, Major-General." " CmcnnsfATi, June 11, 1861. '• Oovemor B. Magoffin : " I have received information that Tennessee troops are under orders to occupy Island No. 1, BIX miles below Cairo, In accordance with my understanding with General Buckner I call upon Geobge B. McClellan. 281 And General Buckner was good enough to assure Governor Magoffin that " the well-known character t)f General McClellan is a sufficient guarantee for the ful- fillment of every stipulation on his part." It is not known that there was any Government sanction for this extraordinary action ; but, so anomalous and un- settled were the times, it was never noticed, and eoon, of course, became a dead letter. Meanwhile a few regiments of Ohio State troops had been hurried across the West Virginia border; they had been followed by Indiana re-enforce- ments, under General Thomas A. Morris, to whom General McClellan addressed a sagacious and comprehensive letter of instructions ; and proclamations had been issued to the soldiers on taking the field, and to the West Virginians on entering their territory. This last assured the people that there would be no interference with their slaves ; that, on the contrary, " we will, with an iron hand, crush any attempt at insurrection on their part." The equipment of troops was hastened ; most of all, efforts were made to secure adequate trans- portation, by which, at that early period, was meant not less than fifteen to eighteen wagons for a regiment.* At last, on the 20th of June, 1861, General McClellan himself started for the field. The army now under the command of General McClellan at Grafton and Clarksburg, West Virginia, was about eighteen thousand strong. The Eebel force, under General Garnett, probably reached six thousand — fifteen hundred, under Colonel Pegram, in fortifications at Eieh Mountain, the remaining forty- five hundred, under Garnett himself, in a fortified camp on Laurel Hill. The troops were equally raw on either side, and whatever advantage there was from the sympathy of the inhabitants inured to the benefit of the National forces. The plan for the campaign, as elaborated during the few days spent by General McClellan at Grafton, was simple. Colonel Pegram's force at Eich Mountain was a mere outpost, protecting Gamett's flank and rear. If that could be suddenly overpowered, the victors would be planted upon Pegram's line of retreat. He was, therefore, to be amused by the demonstrations of a considerable force in his front while the outpost was being carried. Then, from front and rear, a simultaneous advance upon him was to end in his surren- der of his whole command. To General Morris, with a force little if any supe- rior to Garnett 'b, was assigned the task of moving upon his front and keeping him occupied on Laurel Hill, while General McClellan himself, at the head of the bulk of the army, was to move hastily from Clarksburg across the country you to prevent this step. Do you regard the islands in the Mississippi Kiver above the Tennes- see line as within your jurisdiction ? and if so, what ones ? "EespectfaUy, GEO. B. McCLELLAN, " Major-General United States Army." " Frankfort, June 11, 1861. " Oeneral Geo. B. McCldUm, Oineinnati, Ohio: " General Buckner has gone to Faducah and Columbus ; has orders to carry out. his under- standing with you ; am investigating the questions of jurisdiction over the islands to which you allude ; will answer further probably to-morrow. ' B. MAGOFFIN." *Some of the troops moving on Philippi complained bitterly of having only twelve 1 282 Ohio in the War. to Rich Mountain, capture Pegram, and reach Garnett's rear. McClellan's march was about four times as long as that of Morris. The latter oflScer made his movement on the night the order was received, reaching Laurel Hill a little after daybreak on the morning of the 7th of July. General MeClellan, however, found difficulties in getting up supplies— so early did this chronic complaint make its appearance — and was not ready for decisive movements at Eich Mountain until the 10th. General Eosecrans, com- manding one of his brigades, then asked permission to make a detour and attack Pegram in the rear, to which General MeClellan assented. Eosecrans fought and drove the enemy, bitterly complaining that MeClellan utterly failed to second him by an attack in front. MeClellan explains that he meant to do this — next morning ! and that he was prevented from doing it then, up to the time when the news of Eosecrans's success arrived, by accidents to the artillery.* Pegram, however, beaten by Eosecrans, and with MeClellan in his front, was compelled to take to the mountains, where, in a day or two, he surrendered the shattered remnants of his command. Garnett, hearing of this disaster, retreated, and MeClellan having failed to move promptly forward in his rear,f the bulk of the Eebel army escaped in a demoralized condition, and with the loss of bag- gage and artillery — the latter secured by Morris's pursuit and engagement with the rear-guard. Of this brief little campaign, afterward so loudly lauded and so little under- stood, it may be said that the conception was excellent and the execution indif- ferent. It was undertaken without orders from Washington and carried forward solely on the General's own responsibility. Up to the time when, having ordered Morris to Garnett's front at Laurel Hill, General MeClellan put him- self at the head of the main column, moving against Pegram, and so to Gar- nett's rear, he had controlled the various movements with good judgment. Once, however, in the field in person, he delayed needlessly, lost the advantage of a surprise, handled his force irresolutely and without nerve. In the excite- ment over Eosecrans's victory he seems to have forgotten that, in his original plan, this had been but a preliminary movement, and failed to move rapidly forward upon Garnett's rear. He thus lost the ultimate object of the whole campaign, in failing to secure the surrender of the main Eebel force. He had still seen no actual fighting,"having at no time during the movement been so near troops in action as when, from his head-quarters tent, he listened to the sound of Eosecrans's guns, three miles away. * Rep. Com. Con. War, series of 1865, Vol. I. Rosecrans's Campaigns, p. 6. McClellan's Report, preliminary chapter. — It is even true that MeClellan, instead of attacking when he heard the sound of Rosecrans's guns, fearing, on account of the Rebel cheers, for the safety of his own camp, sent back orders to arm the teamsters, so as to be prepared for any emergency ! Yet the force then about him (aside from Rosecrans's brigade) was more than double Pegram's entire command. tit was not till the second day after Rich Mountain that MeClellan reached Beverly. Gar- nett indeed supposed him to be there, and did not retreat that way ; but had MeClellan moved only a few miles toward him, he would have shut up the St. George Road, and prevented the possibility of retreat in any direction. GrEOKGE B. McClellan. 283 But Fortune, whom most soldiers at first find very like a stcjj-mother in her regards, seemed determined , to exhaust all means of forcing greatness upon this favorite young son. Four months ago a retired Captain, three months ago an ofiicer of Ohio militia, he was already commander of a great department and the popular hero of a successful campaign. The Country, recovering from the stupefaction of Bull Eun, read with delight the story of the marches and skir- mishes that had liberated West Virginia. The newspapers, quick to furnish what was pleasing, dilated on the glories of the achievement, and compared it to Napoleon's liberation of Italy. General Scott, broken down under the failure before "Washington, telegraphed General McClellan to come on and take com- mand of the Potomac army, and the people hailed him as a victor, come from the mountains, to secure, by another campaign not less brief, results as much more brilliant as the field was more extensive. Never was a General more completely master of the situation. The Gov- ernment received him with unlimited confidence, and practically gave him unlimited power. The people, humiliated and chastened by Bull Eun, hastened to support and re-enforce the new General. The soldiers, led to look upon him as a veritable " organizer of victory," became his enthusiastic champions. Arms, artillery, ammunition, horses, supplies were demanded for the reorgan- izing army on a scale rarely witnessed in the history of modern war, but there was no question of anything — it was McClellan who asked it. From every State the stream of new regiments set steadily to "Washington, for McClellan had said that his army must be quadrupled. "When he took the command, he found the remnants of McDowell's Bull Run army, fifty thousand infantry, one thousand cavalry, and less than a thou- sand artillery with thirty guns. These men were dispirited by defeat and bad management. Their commissai-iat and quartermasters' arrangements were defective, and the vicious system of electing their own officers had effectually prevented any respectable discipline. McClellan at once addressed himself to the work of reorganization with a skill to be expected from one who had, under Government support, made the organization of armies a special study, and with a vigor which deserves the highest praise. A Provost-Marshal speedily thinned the streets of the stragglers and deserters, who were still retailing their stories of how they had performed prodigies of valor till the "Black Horse Cavalry" swept down at the very moment a "masked battery" had opened and was cut- ting them to pieces. A Bgard weeded out the incompetent officers. Thorough inspections, drill, and reviews reduced the regiments to discipline. An accomplished tactician (General Casey) was assigned to the task of brigading the new troops as they came in. As they began to acquire some skill in the evolutions, and the qualifications of their commanders began to be ascer- tained, the brigades were formed into divisions. A skillful artillerist (General Barry) was instructed to form an artillery establishment for the army, and a body of trained officers of the regular service were assigned to duty under him. Field batteries, composed of guns of uniform caliber, were assigned to divisions, in the proportion of at least five pieces to 284 Ohio in the War. each two thousand men; an artillery reserve of a hundred guns and a siege- train of nearly a hundred more were equipped, and careful instruction in their duties, both by text-books and practice, was given the artillerists of each division.* Into the hands of a no less skillful "specialist," Major (subsequently Major- General) Barnard, of the Engineers, was given the task of placing Washington in a condition of defense. The works on the Virginia side were strengthened and connected, and fortifications soon began to crown the heights to the north- ward, till a chain of earthworks, professedly modeled on the lines of Torres YedraSjf encircled the Capital with a sweep of forts on every eminence, and infantry parapets spanning every valley for a circumference of thirty-three miles. In like manner the Quartermaster's and Commissariat Departments were reorganized, competent Ordnance officers were appointed; the whole business of the army was systematized. In all this it is true that the plans were not of General McClellan's origina- tion. General Barry submitted a memorandum of the principles on which the artillery should be organized; General Barnard traced the fortifications; Gen- eral McDowell had left a nucleus of fifty thousand men, properly brigaded and divisioned; General Casey took charge of the new levies of infantry, and Gen- eral Stoneman of those of cavalry. Nor were the plans new plans; the work was but to follow the beaten path which the best armies of Europe had trodden for a hundred years. But it was McClellan who enforced the necessity for thia work, and selected these men for their respective duties; who procured for them the materials they demanded; who supervised their operations, and after due investigation, gave to all the sanction of his authority. Of high credit for all this, no fair criticism can deprive General McClellan. It was not great work, stamping its author as a man of the highest genius, but it was congenial work, exactly in the' line of his studies, leading him over pre- cisely the ground, in the whole scope of the Art of War, with which he was most familiar, and he did it faithfully, wisely, and well. "If other Generals, the successors of McClellan, were able to achieve more decisive results than he, it was in no small degree because they had the perfect instrument he had fash- ioned to work withal." J But now the army had grown to triple its original size. Three months had been consumed in giving it form and consistency; while, meantime, a foe every way its inferior held it close under the fortifications of the besieged Capital. The people had by no sign or word diminished the fullness of the trust in which, with touching patience, they awaited their General's own time for using this trenchant blade. The very abandon of their confidence increased the weight under which it placed the trusted General. But already had begun the development of that strange perversity of vision • Report Engineer and Artillery Operations Army Potomac, p. 106. t Barnard's Report, p. 12. JSwinton's History Army of Potomac, p. 61. G-EOBGE B. McClellai^. 285 which was to prove among the foremost causes for the downfall of the popular idol^ that worse than near-sightedness which not only diminished tenfold what- ever obstacles were at a distance or in other departments, but no less exaggerated such as were near at hand. As early as the 4th of August General McClellan had, in an elaborate memorandum, assured the President that no large additions to the troops in Missouri were needed, that twenty thousand would form an amply strong column for Kentucky and Tennessee, and that for his own army he would need two hundred and seventy -three thousand men! Toward the close of October, having then an army of one hundred and sixty-eight thousand, he informed the Secretary of War that he considered at least two hundred and eight thousand requisite to enable him to advance I And his reason for demand- ing this colossal army was, that "the enemy have a force on the Potomac not less than one hundred and fifty thousand strong, well-drilled and equipped, ably commanded, and strongly intrenched!" Outside the head-quarters few then believed the enemy's force to be more than half this number; we now know from General Jos. E. Johnston's official report, and from the actual consolidated morning returns of his army, that the entire Eebel strength in Northern Vir- ginia on Slst of October, 1861, was sixty-six thousand two hundred and forty- three, of which only forty-four thousand one hundred and thirty-one were present for duty. General McClellan, while ciphering his own army down to its lowest point, depreciating its arms, and complaining of its rawness, had mag- nified the raw levies of the enemy nearly fourfold, and had ascribed to them an equipment and discipline which, according to the confessions of their own commanders, they neither had then, nor ever subsequently acquired ! But he still thought he might move by the 25th of November. Meantime, as vague hints of these strange conceptions of the enemy's force, and these enormous demands percolated official circles, a feeling of uneasiness began to appear. The Eebel columns, in a spirit of taunting braggadocio, had been advanced till their flags could be seen from the President's windows. Eebel batteries lined the Potomac till, with an enormous army lying idly about it, and a sufficient navy within call, the Capital of the Nation was actually blockaded. Foreign nations construed the endurance of these things as signs of conscious weakness ; and statesmen regarded 'the danger of European inter- vention, or at least of European recognition of the Southern Confederacy, as imminent. A strange affair happened at Ball's Bluff, on the Upper Potomac, not indeed by General McClellan 's direct orders, but certainly with his implied Binction, in which there was a sad waste of life, without appreciable objec1<, and under the grossest mismanagement; and the fall in it of a highlj'-esteemed Sonator of the United States intensified the public horror at the details. But when men asked w^iy our immense force did not remedy some of these things, they were pointed, for answer, to the glittering staff surrounding the handsome young Napoleon, as he swept down the Avenue and across the Long Bridge to some new review, to the sight of which, as to a holiday parade, the wives and daughters of Congressmen had been invited. Still, though the whispers swelled to muttering, there was little open dis- 286 Ohio in the Wak. content, and when, at the close of October, the President was called to appoint a successor to General Scott, he was subsequently able to say, "neither in council nor country was there, so far as I know, any difference of opinion as to the proper person to bo selected."* It was indeed known, even then, to a few, that the retiring chieftain had bitterly complained of lack of respect and even of actual insubordination on the part of General MoClellan; but Scott was old and testy, and little importance was attached to these complaints.f By the middle of November, however, the patience of the public became pretty thoroughly wearied, and frequent demands were made as to why nothing could be done with the grand Army of the Potomac. But there had now sprung up about the General commanding a knot of parasites and flatterers, who deemed such inquiries from those whose sons and brothers constituted this army a great impertinence. The General was maturing his plans; they would in due time be found to cover every point and satisfy every expectation; and till he chose, in his own good time, to develop them in action, it only became the public to be thankful for his genius and to admire such fruits of it as were already apparent. Talk like this from the head-quarters was taken up and amplified by the newspapers, and for months the public heard little but eulogies upon the matchless General and his mysterious plans; glowing descriptions of his martial appearance on a review; and sanguine accounts of the havoc he would work upon the Eebel hordes, when once his strategy dictated the time for placing himself at the head of his heroic battalions and leading them to glory. Meanwhile, sword presentations, addresses of admiring delegations, and the like filled up the time, and still the Army of the Potomac lay motionless before Washington, while Eebel guns by river and by land still besieged it. It would seem — so absolute was the deference with our young favorite of Fortune yet commanded — that even now the President failed to require of him his reasons for continued inaction. He himself informs us J that, "had the discipline, organization, and equipment of the army been as complete, at the close of the fall as was necessary, the unprecedented condition of the roads and Virginia soil would have delayed an advance till February." Here, again, we have the strange visual defect. The unprecedented condition of the roads con- sisted in this, as described by -a Southern annalist: "A long, lingering Indian summer, with roads more hard and skies more beautiful than Virginia had seen for many a year, invited the enemy (i. e., the Unjted States forces), to advance. Ho steadily refused the invitation to a general action; the advance of our lines to Munson's Hill was tolerated, and opportunities were sought in vain by the Confederates, in heavy skirmishing, to engage the lines of the two armies. The young Napoleon was twitted as a dastard in the Southern newspapers." || "With an army nearly four times the size of that which "confronted it, the * President's Annual Message, December, 1861. t The letter on which these statements are based was written by General Scott before his resignation, and was read by Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, in the course of debate in the House of Representatives, nearly two years later. t McClellan's Eeport, Government edition, p. 35. || Pollard's History, Vol. I, p. 184.. George B. McClellan. 287 daily increasing demand of the public, who, after all, controlled the war, for a movement that should at least clear away the Bebels from the front of the Capital, was reasonable. As General-in-Chief, McClellan naturally desired that the movements of the Potomac army should be simultaneous with those of the Western armies, whose "total unpreparedness " he makes a plea for still further delay. But a special movement upon Manassas would not have interfered with such subsequent co-operation, while its moral effect would have been invaluable. Here was the grave error General McClellan now committed. Accepting the confidence with which he had been received as an unreserved tribute to his merits, he forgot that the stress under which he was placing popular expecta- tion must within a reasonable time be relieved ; that he could not be forever taken upon trust, while, in the absence of actual performance, he called for such supplies as were unheard of in this country, and almost unparalleled among the most- warlike nations of Europe. But to the complaints which indignant Con- gressmen soon began to make, the only reply from head -quarters came from the glitfering young staff-officers, who roundly denounced the interference of civilians, and especially of politicians, in military affairs, which they could not be^xpected to understand. The winter passed in profound inactivity. General letters of instruction were addressed to the commanders of the various departments, all good, and in one "case (that of the letter to General Butler ,.giving directions for the move- ment against New Orleans), exceptionally clear-sighted and explicit. No new operations, however, were planned ; the General-in-Chief seemed satisfied either with countermanding or permitting the completion of the operations already in progress. The stress of the public demand, that something should be shown in return for the vast resources bestowed upon the commander of the Army of the Poto- mac, became greater; the danger of foreign recognition was now known to be imminent; and Mr. Lincoln grew very uneasy. "If General McClellan does not want to use the Army of the Potomac," he said, quaintly and almost patheti- cally, to some officers with whom he was consulting, "I should like very much to borrow it of him;" and, "if something is not done soon, the bottom will be out of the whole ^ffair."* Just at this time McClellan became ill; and, in his distress, the President, failing several times to secure interviews with his Gen- eral-in-Chief, sent for other officers, and sought, by their aid, to find out how "something could be done." Before the last of these consultations. General McClellan recovered. He scarcely concealed his chagrin at what had been going on, and with great reluctance imparted even to the President, the pur- poses he had been nourishing so long. These, it proved, were to transfer the army by water to the Lower Chesapeake, and move thence from some such base as Urbana on the Eappahannock, against Eichmond, leaving at Washington only a sufficient body of the newest troops to garrison the forts. But, on the 13th of January, before the President, members of the Cabinet, ' * McDowell's Memorandum of Interviews with President Lincoln. Swinton's History Army Potomac, p. 80. 288 Ohio in the Wak. and army officers, whom the President had called in consultation, General McClellan, after evading a direct answer to the question what he intended to do with the army, had finally protested against developing his plans, unless under peremptory orders, but had given assurance that he had a time fixed for beginning operations. Two weeks later, the President having received no further information, had lost all patience and issued a peremptory order, fixing a date, about a month in advance, for the movement of all the armies of the United States. After this, McClellan came forward with his plan for taking sail to Fortress Monroe. There was manifestly not time to accomplish this and be ready for offensive operations within the time already fixed by the President. Partly for this reason, partly also, without doubt, because of a sincere conviction of the injudicious nature of the plan, Mr. Lincoln promptly disapproved it, and ordered instead a turning movement against Manassas. McClellan, instead of obeying, inquired if this order was final, or if he might present his objections to it in writing. Leave was graiited, his objections were set forth, and finally, less because the President was convinced than be- cause he feared that he could look for no hearty execution of any other plan, he yielded to McClellan's urgency, and ordered the water transportation to be pre- pared for the execution of McClellan's plan, requiring, however, that it should be approved by his corps commanders, that the Eebel blockade of the Potomac should be broken, and that an ample force should be left for the security of Washington. While these preparations were in progress, the enemy quietly evacuated Manassas, in pursuance of measures begun three weeks before, for moving nearer their base of supplies. The troops of the grand Army of the Potomac were now marched out, over the roads which up to this time had been gazetted as "impassable," and then, there being nothing for them to do, were marched back again. The movement intensified the popular discontent, and led to innu- merable pasquinades. At last the preparations for the long-expected movement were complete. Eighteen thousand men only were left in garrison at Washington, but General McClellan reckoned, as also available for its defense, the thirty-five thousand in the Shenandoah Valley, and those at Warrenton and Manassas. One hundred and twenty-one thousand (besides Blenker's division, withdrawn at the start, and McDowell's corps, subsequently withheld), were left for the movement from Portress Monroe. The temper of the Administration, by this time, may be inferred from the closing sentence of an order from the Secretary of War; " Move the remainder of the force down the Potomac, choosing a new base at Fortress Monroe, or any- where between here and there, or at all events, move such ^remainder of the army at once in pursuit of the enemy by some route!"* Under such pressure, the movement finally began. By the 2d of April — eight months after receiving the command — General McClellan was at Fortress Monroe, ready to begin his campaign. He had, in the meantime, possessed the unlimited confidence of the • McClellan's Eeport, Government edition, p. 60. Geobge B. McClellan. 289 Government and the country, and had measurably lost that of both; he had received the baton of General-in-Chief, and had lost it again ; had at first been 80 absolute that not even the President thought of inquiring as to his plans ; and had at last been fairly ordered out of Washington in words that, scarcely veiled in polite phraseology, meant "go any-whe^-e, move anywhere you please, only let us have an end of excuses — do something." He still possessed, how- ever, in a remarkable degree, the admiration of his untried soldiers. General McOlellan's original plan had been to land at Urbana on the Eap- pahannock, and move thence on Eichmond. The retreat of Johnston from Manassas, placing the Eebel army behind the line of the Eappahannock, had prevented this. He had then proposed to move up the James. The presence of the dreaded Eebel iron -clad Merrimae prevented this. And so it was now determined to move up the York Eiver. The second day's march brought the army to a halt. It was discovered that the Eebels had earthworks at Yorktown as well as at Manassas. These works were manned by General Magruder, (an officer who in the old army had ranked chiefly as a coxcomb), with a force, in all, of not quite' eleven thousand men.* Here, at the very outset of his campaign, where if ever vigor and dash were required, that the objective might be reached before the enemy had time to concentrate 'his troops on the new line of operations, General McOlellan's evil genius overcame him. All his troops not yet having arrived, he only had about five times as large an army as that which confronted him, and so he deliberately sat down to besiege them! His information, he said, "placed Gen- oral Ttfagruder's command at from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand men, independently of General Huger's force at Norfolk, estimated at about fifteen thousand men!f Huger's real force at Norfolk is now known to have been eight thousand, eo that the whole force possible to be combined against General McClellan at Yorktown was nineteen thousand, instead of the thirty-five thou- sand which he thus estimates. It was the painful story of " one hundred and fifty thousand behind the intrenchments of Manassas" over again. Then General Johnston had arrived with part of the Manassas army, and he felt sure that he "should have the whole force of the enemy, not less than one hundred thousand," on his hands! "In consequence of the loss of JJlenker's division and McDowell's corps," his force was already "possibly less than that of the enemy." J And one of his corps Generals confidentially wrote, with his approval, that "the line in front of us is one of the strongest ever opposed to an invading force in any country." || In point of fact. General Johnston had then brought down no re-enforcements at all, had only come to inspect the defenses, * This seems to be the largest number that any of the authorities will allow. It is proper, however, to say that Pollard (Southern History of the War, p. 293) says that Magruder had only seven thousand five hundred. Magruder himself reports his strength, exclusive of the garrisons at Glonceater Point and elsewhere, at five thousand. t McOlellan's Eeport, Government edition, p. 74. t McOlellan's Eeport, Government edition, p. 79. llbid, p. 81. YOL. I.— 19. 290 Ohio in the Wae. had pronounced them faulty in construction, and untenable, (in which opinion he was fully sustained by General Eobert E. Lee, then chief-of-stafif to Mr. Davis), and had therefore strongly recommended the entire evacuation of the Peninsula* That the Eebel works at Torktown could and should have been taken by assault, without one day's delay, is therefore a verdict which no informed mili- tary critic, in the light of facts now known, will presume to question. But, while nothing can excuse the General, who, at the outset of a great campaign, planned by himself, suffers a force only one-tenth as gi-eat as his own to para- lyze his army and destroy his plans, there are still some circumstances which tend to place General McClellan's conduct in a more favorable light. He had desired to turn Yorktown by a movement on Gloucester, but the navy was unwilling to undertake its share of such an enterprise, and McDowell's corps, to which he had assigned the task, failed to reach him. His mind, always mor- bid on the subject of the numbers of his army, was thus greatly depressed; he never formed new plans with rapidity, and his old ones for the disposition of his troops were thus shattered. And to this it should be added, that the opinion of his engineer was decidedly against assault.f It may further be remarked, that while nothing can excuse General McClel- lan's failure to uso the abundant foroes he bad, in sweeping over Yorktown and on up the peninsula, there is likewise uo suflScient excuse for the vexations to which the Administration now subjected him. He had been given the command of Fortress Monroe and the forces there, that he might thus control his own base of operations. Alarmed at finding how nearly he had stripped "Washington of effective troops, and fearing a similar performance at Fortress Monroe, this com- mand was taken from him, almost before he had begun to exercise it— a humilia- tion, under all the circumstances, which it was unwise to inflict upon a General left at the head of an army. If he could not be trusted with the troops at his own base, he could not be trusted with troops anywhere, and the Administra- tion should have promptly superseded him. Equally unwise was the withdrawal *The above facts have been repeatedly stated by both the Confederate Grenerals named. They may be found as given by General Johnston to the author, in Sainton's History Army Potomac, pp. 102, 103. 1 1 make no account whatever of the two excuses urged by General McClellan himself in his report, and continued, in the form of charges, against the Administration, with such perti- nacity by his friends ; viz., that there had been just ground to expect the co-operation of the navy, and that there was just cause of complaint for the withholding of McDowell's corps. It was General McClellan's business, before he set out on a campaign to which the Govern- ment had been steadily opposed from the beginning, and which was only tolerated in deference to his persistent advocacy of it, and virtual unwillingness to undertake any other, to hoi" whether or not he could count on the support of the navy. His Council of Corps Commanders had made this a peremptory sine qiia non, (McClellan's Report, p. 60), and he had given the President assurance that the conditions imposed by that Council had been complied with. The disposition made of McDowell's corps by Mr. Lincoln was, of course, unmilitary, and the consequent disappointment great, but the force left General McClellan was still overwhelm- ingly superior to4hat of the enemy, or to any force which, for the next three weeks, the enemy could, by any possibility, have concentrated against him. And, furthermore, eleven thousand of McDowell's corp's did reach him before he left Yorktown. George B. McClellan. 291 of McDowell's corps. It was not needed for the defense of Washington ; and although it was true that McClellan still had an ample force for his work, yet he had heen fairly led to rely upon more, and should not have been dis- appointed. The siege went on — to the infinite mortification of the President, who wrote, " the country will not fail to note, is noting now, that the present hesitation to move upon an intrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated."* But the General's requisitions were all promptly filled; an enormous siege-train, comprising one and two hundred-pounder rifled guns, was gathered about the handful of Eebels under Magruder; rope mantlets were constructed in JSTew York for the' batteries ; shells were forwarded, charged with Greek fire ; the whole army was delayed from the 4th of April to the 4th of May; 'and then — let poor General Barry, of the artillery, finish the story: "It will always be a source of great professional disappointment to me, that the enemy, by his pre- ^ mature abandonment of his defensive line, deprived the artillery of the Army of the Potomac of the opportunity of exhibiting the superior power and effi- ciency of the unusually heavy metal used in this siege !"f That was all ! The enemy had waited till the siege-train was ready to open, and then had quietly retreated, leaving their empty works and the heavy guns (taken from the Nor- folk Navy-yard) which they had been unable to carry with them. Sumner's corps was at once pushed forward in pursuit. Eesistance might well be-expected, for the existence of considerable defensive works at Williams- burg, twelve miles up the peninsula from Torktown, was well known at head- quarters.J If the pursuit was of any use at all, it was likely to reach the trains near this point; and, with fortifications ready to his hand, the Eebel com- mander would be sure to m^e a stand till his trains were saved. But, either these considerations did not occur to General McClellan, or the disappointment of the unexpected retreat had so destroyed his poise of mind that he was inca- pable of perceiving the import of such facts, or he did not consider that, a battle being imminent, his presence was necessary. In. any event this was what he did : Eemaining at Torktown to superin- tend the starting of Franklin's division, which he had decided to send up the York Eiver on transports, he permitted the eager troops to push forward, with- out reconnoissance, upon the batteries of Williamsburg. What followed may be easily inferred. The cavalry advance had warned General Johnston of the pur- suit, and he had hastily sent back Longstreet to man the deserted works. Be- fore our infantry arrived, night had fallen, a heavy rain came on, the troops bivouacked in confusion in the woods. Next morning Hooker found himself, with his division, confronting the Eebel intrenchments. He immediately deared his front and opened fire with a couple of batteries. Longstreet responded by a series of efforts to turn his flank. Hooker was left completely •McCIellan'a Beport, Gk>vemment edition, p. 84. '* ' 't Engineer and Artillery Operations Army Potomac : Barry's Beport, p. 134. t Ibid, Barnard's Beport, p. 63. 292 Ohio in the War. unsupported, suffered heavily, and about four o'clock was running out of ammu- nition, when the opportune arrival of Kearney enabled him to re-form his lines and maintain his position. Meantime, about noon, Hancock's brigade, almost by accident as it would seem, stumbled into the extreme flank of the enemy's works (which had been neglected in the heat of the contest with Hooker), and thus held a position commanding his flank and rear. But, instead of being re- enforced, he was now ordered to fall back, l^ight came on again, the wet and hungry troops threw themselves on the ground, and the battle was over. Next morning it was found that Longstreet, having secured the desired delay, had .continued the retreat. Hooker had lost two thousand men in a needless conflict, which he was left to bear alone, while thirty thousand soldiers were within sound of his firing and almost within sight of his colors ; and the General of the army was twelve miles in the rear, supervising the departure of transports. There was now open to General McClellan the route which he had pre- viously characterized as "promising the most brilliant results.'' The enemy had destroyed the Merrimac, on the evacuation of Torktown, and there was no longer anything to prevent a combined land and naval advance up the James Kiver, which, in ten days, as it would now seem, might have planted the Na- tional flag on the Confederate capitol at Richmond. But, whether through the same disturbance of mind that led to loading transports instead of supervising the advance of the army upon fortified positions, or whether the General's attention had become so morbidly fixed upon the possibility of still having McDowell's corps march overland to re-enforce him, that he could see nothing else, it is certain that no further thought was given to the James, and the move- ment of troops up the York Eiver went deliberately on. By the 16th of Hay, twelve days after the evacuation of Yorktown, the head of navigation on the Pamunkey River (a continuation of the York) had been reached; and in two weeks more the troops had crossed the intervening twenty or thirty miles, and reached the Chickahominy. These movements were greatly hindered by the difiicult nature of the roads. But while admitting this as sufficient explanation of much of the delay, we can not omit to add that General McClellan had him- self foreclosed the admission of such excuses in his behalf at as early a day as the 3d of February, when, in the course of a communication protesting against having to execute Mr. Lincoln's order to move against Manassas, and setting forth the superior advantages of his own plan, he had particularly urged that, on the Peninsula, "the roads are passable at all seasons of the year."* By this time, however, owing to the delays which had filled up the season from the 17th of ]\Lirch to the 30th of May in moving the sft-my from "Washing- ton to the Chickahominy, the enemy had been given ample time to concentrate his forces. So consummate a strategist as General Jos. B. Johnston was not likely to leave unimproved so signal an advantage. The interval was employed in gathering the whole army of Northern Virginia, as well as that of the Peninsula, into the defenses of Richmond, with the passage and enforcement of *McClellan's Report, Government edition, p. 47. G-EOEGE B. McClellan. 293 the conscription bill, and with the most vigorous and successful efforts to put the army in thorough fighting trim. So now, when at last the army of the Poto- mac began really to confront the enemy it was to encounter, the mind of its com- mander was already weighed down again by the chronic fear of numerical inferi- ority. Even from Williamsburg, whence he had exultantly telegraj)hed that he "was pursuing hard, and should push the enemy to the wall,'' he had, within a day or two, written that, if not re-enforced, he would be. " obliged to fight nearly double his numbers, strongly intrenched." Four days later he assured the President that he would have to attack an intrenched foe, " much larger, per- haps double his numbers." He did not think "it would be at all possible" for him " to bring more than seventy thousand men upon the field of battle." Yet at this time his own reports show his strength to have been one hundred and twenty-six thousand three hundred and eighty-seven, of whom he had given eleven thousand leave of absence ; but, deducting all absentees, sick, deserters, and men under arrest, he had actually present for duty, one hundred and four thousand six hundred and ten. But so strenuous were his repreisentations, and so continuous his calls for re-enforcements, that, on the afternoon of the 18th of May, twenty -four hours before the army reached the Chickahominy, the President ordered the portion of McDowell's corps, which had still been withheld, to march overland to join him. Six days later — that is to say, four days after McClellan's arrival at the Chickahominy — he was notified that McDowell must be again withheld, Stone- wall Jackson having broken loose in the Valley. Thenceforward General McClellan understood that whatever he did at Eichmond he must do with the forces he had ; and he was further notified by the weary and alarmed President that " the time is near when you must either attack Eichmond or give up the job and come to the defense of Washington." There is no need here to add anything to the disputes of which this dispo- sition of McDowell's corps has been the prolific theme. Two points, however, are worthy of notice. There was no wisdom in the President's use of McDow- ell ; in so far McClellan was right. The corps was sent on a fool's errand (a "stern-chase " after Stonewall Jackson), at a time and by a route that rendered Buceess physically impossible. But McClellan was not forced (as he claims in his report), by the promise of this corps, and by the subsequent uncertainty concerning it, to attack Eichmond from the north, instead of seeking the line of the James. Eight days before he learned that McDowell was ordered to him, at Eoper's Church, on the 11th of May, the decision was made not to move to the James, but to continue on the Williamsburg Eoad to Eichmond.* * Furthermore, in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, he subse- quently stated that " the navy was not at that time in a condition to make the James Eiver per- fectly sure for our supplies. I remember that the idea of moving on the James Eiver was seriously discussed at that time. But the conclusion was arrived at that, under the circumstances then existing, the route actually followed was the best." So that General McClellan became en- tangled in the swamps of the Chickahominy, not because he expected re-enforcements to reach him there from Fredericksburg, but because he had previously decided that, under the circumstances, that was the best route. 294 Ohio in the Wae. Eeplying to the President's remark that he must soon attack Richmond or come to the defense of Washington, General McClellan telegraphed (25th May) that " the time is very near when I shall attack Eichmond." The next day he "hoped soon to be within shelling distance." And later in the day: " We are quietly closing in upon the enemy, preparatory to the last struggle." Yet all this time, and for five days longer, he allowed his army to lie along the Chiekahbminy, one-third on the Richmond side, the remainder on the northern side, with bridges only for the one wing, and with a .march of near twenty miles to be made by the remainder of the army before, in case of attack, the bridges could be reached over which to re-enforce it. The position was most unfortunate — necessary, possibly, for a day or two ; but all the more potent, therefore, as a reason for hastening such operations as should reunite the army, now perilously divided in the face of the " enemy of double its numbers." General Johnston perceived the exposure, and instantly gave orders to profit by it. A heavy storm the same night swelled the Chickahominy, flood- ing the lowlands; and, while it rendered the attack more difiicult, it likewise increased the danger of the isolated wing and the diflUculties in the way of re- enforcing it. By ten o'clock Johnston struck the front of Casey's division, and speedily crumbled it up. The troops were rallied at General Couch's position at Seven Pines. Presently this division was likewise repulsed and broken in two ; and Kearney, advancing on the left, was hurled back into the swamp. The whole corps seemed about to be annihilated, when the fortune of the day was changed by the entrance of a column from the north side of the Chicka- hominy. Sumner, with the soldierly instinct that led him toward the sound of a battle, had called out his troops as soon as the firing began ; and when he learned that re-enforcements were needed, not daring to delay by marching to the bridges in rear of the imperiled corps, adventured across the swollen stream on an imperfect bridge, which he had himself been building, that waa all afloat, and swung tiiut against the ropes which tied it to stumps on the bank, and alone prevented it from floating off. By great good fortune it bore the corps across ; a few hours later it was impassable. This, then, was the column that saved the day. General Johnston was wounded; his forces retreated before Sumner's splendid charge; and, in the opinion of many of the best officers of the army, this defeat of Fair Oaks, thus suddenly converted into a victory, might have been followed by a successful advance of the army of the Potomac into Richmond.* But, only too well con- •William Henry Hurlbert, a partisan of McClellan's, then in Eichmond, says of the effect of this defeat in the Rebel capital; "The roads into Richmond were literally ci-owded with stragglers, some throwing away their guns, some breaking them on the trees— all with the same story, that their regiments had been cut to pieces, that the Yankees were swarming on the Chick- ahominy like bees, and fighting like devils. In two days of the succeeding week the ProTOSt- marshal's guard collected between four thousand and five thousand stragglers, and sent them into camp. What had become of the command no one knew." If to these five thousand stragglers be added the seven thousand Rebel loss in the buttle, we have an aggregate of twelve thousand taken out of a force which at best did not yet exceed, sixty-five thousand around Richmond. Under the circumstances would not McClellan's one hundred thousand have had a fair chance for van- quishing the remainder ? G-EOKGE B. McClellan. 297 tent at having so narrowly escaped the destruction of one-third of his army, General McClellan recalled Sumner from the pursuit, when within four miles of Eichmond, and sent his troops to resume their old positions. He was not on the field during the fighting, and his only share in hringing about the barren victory consisted in directing Sumner to cross, after that old hero had for hours been awaiting such orders. And now began a change, of ill-omen to the procrastinating General on the Chickahominy, and to the brave army he was keeping out of action. General Johnston, who had hitherto controlled the Eebel movements around Eichmond, had never been a favorite with their Government, and his representations of the necessity of concentration to oppose McClellan's advance had fallen upon unwill- ing ears. At the very time when this latter officer was telegraphing, from day to day, that the enemy was double his numbers, that enemy was vainly striving to secure re-enforcements from the Yalley of Virginia and from the seftccoast, that should bring his numbers up to even two-thirds of those of his assailant. But it was now seen that General Johnston's wound was likely to keep him long out of the field, and Mr. Davis was nowise loth to improye the opportunity by filling his place with his own Ghief-of-Staff and particular favorite. General Eobert E. Lee. The change was fatal to McClellan. For, such was General Lee's influence with his Government, that the troops for which his predecessor had vainly applied, were freely given him, and the long-talked -of Eebel con- centration about Eichmond really began. The army of Beaaregard was broken up and transferred to Lee ; troops were brought in from other points on the sea-coast ; the conscription, now beginning to work effectively, was made to yield its best fruits to the Eichmond army. Worst of all. General Lee took measures for the secret and speedy return of Stonewall Jackson's- tried troops from the Valley. Thus the danger which McClellan had discounted, to borrow a figure from the stock -brokers, so long in advance, was now actually upon him. There was yet time to escape it ; but the crisis, which from the moment of his landing on the Peninsula, had demanded speedy and vigorous movements, now more than ever, and more imperatively, demanded them. But a strange stupor seemed to settle down upon his army. Its perilous position, astride the Chickahominy, with the boggy lowlands intervening to retard the movements of either wing to the support of the other, was continued, and the line was even extended ; while no effort was made to secure the base of supplies, which lay almost as accessible to Lee's army as to his own. And here, in this anomalous position, he contin- ued building bridges ajid constructing great lines of fortifications, as if, with the Rebel army daily swelling before him, he meant to enter upon another siege. And yet it would seem that he was fully sensible of the dangers of his position and the necessity of assuming the offensive. On the 2d of June, two days after the battle of Fair Oaks, life telegraphed that he hoped almost imme- diately "to cross the right," which still lay north of the Chickahominy, and thus reunite his army. On the 4th, as if expecting an immediate battle, he 298 Ohio in the War. begged to know what re-enforcements he could receive " within the next three days." On the 7th: "I shall be in perfect readiness to move forward and take Richmond the moment McCall reaches here, and the ground will admit the pas- sao-e of artillery." On the 10th: "I shall attack as soon as the weather and ground will permit. * * I wish to be distinctly understood, that whenever the weather permits I shall attack with whatever force I may have." On the 12th General McCall arrived, and on the 14th McClellan telegraphed, "weather DOW very favorable." These were the conditions that were to place him in "perfect readiness to move forward and take Eichmond," but now "the indica- tions are, from our balloon reconnoissances and from all oiher sources, that the enemy are intrenching, daily increasing in numbers, and determined to fight desperately." That was all ! No word of moving forward and taking Eich- mond, (although on the 18th he did say "a general engagement may take place any hour"); but, six days later, on the 20th, this: "I would be glad to have, permiajdori to lay before your Excellency, by letter or telegraph, my views as to thW^present state of military affairs throughout the whole country. In the meantime I would be pleased to learn the disposition, as to numbers and posi- tion, of the troops not under my command, in Yirginia and elsewhere." This remarkable proposition, that the General of an invading army, in a perilous posi- tion, with one wing isolated from the rest of the army, with a daily increasing enemy, and the necessity of doing something hourly more and more urgent, should stop to furnish his government a volunteer essay on the general aspects of a war that covered half a continent ; meantime requesting, as preparatory thereto, a detailed statement of the positions and numbers of all the troops in the country, seemed, for a time, to exhaust his energies. It was not till five days later — eleven days after he was "in perfect readiness to take Eichmond" — that, on the 25th, " an advance of our picket-line of the left was ordered, prepara- tory to a general forward movement." Precisely three hours later, " several contrabands came in," giving such information that the General abandoning, it would seem, all thought of his "forward movement," telegraphed, "I shall have to contend against vastly superior odds ; but this army will do all in the power of men to — hold their position and repulse any attack ! "* It is the strangest, and, were it not so tragic, it would be the most ludicrous chapter of the whole sad story. One day just about to advance and take Eich- mond ; the next just ready to move ; the next likely to have a battle any hour; the next desirous of furnishing the Government his views on the war at large; the next heroically resolved to — hold his position and repulse any attack. The perpetually recurring mystery is how the Government persuaded itself to leave such Unreadiness and Uncertainty incarnate in command of its finest army. Even at this late day it was still possible to move successfully against Eich- mond, or at least to deliver general battle in front of Eichmond, with fair pros- pects of success, and with elaborate fortifications for refuge in case of defeat. Forty-eight hours afterward it was too late. *McClellan's Eeport, Government edition, pages 113 to 121. George B. McClellak. 299 For now General Lee had gathered his forces, had recalled Jackson, was ready for the onset. A preliminary cavalry raid had circled the Army of the Potomac, shown him how exposed was McClellan's hase, and laid bare the danger of the Isolated right wing, which still held the north bank of the Chickahominy. Leaving, therefore, Magruder with twenty-five thousand men to occupy the bulk of McClellan's army on the south side of the Chickahominy, facing Richmond, Lee massed the remainder of his forces,* and, moving away to the north-westward from Richmond, crossed the Chickahominy at Meadow Bridge with his advance, then, turning down the north side of the stream, confronted Fitz John Porter's isolated corps. A sharp fight ensued, in which Porter held his ground and inflicted severe punishment upon the enemy. Jack- son had not yet arrived, but it was known that another day must bring him within co-operating distance of the rest of Lee's army. General McClellan was promptly advised of the appearance of the Rebel column that afternoon on his isolated right. Now, therefore, havinj^by a month's delay astride the Chickahominy, lost the initiative, it behoowl him forthwith to decide where and how he would meet the attack which the enemy was about to deliver. He had on that day present for duty one hundred and fifteen thousand one hundred and two men.f His antagonist had an aggregate of about ninety-five thousand ; but General McClellan believed him to have one hundred and eighty thousand. Acting under this belief, it would seem that the moment he found himself about to be attacked he resolved to retreat. He had definitely rejected the idea of adopting the James River route two months before, at Roper's Church, and, indeed, even before that, at Williamsburg. Knowing for weeks that he had no longer a hope of being joined by McDowell's corps, marching overlund, he was free, if he had now seen occasion to revise that previous judgment, to transfer his base to the James River. But, having' adhered to his position on the Chickahominy, and continued his promises to take Richmond from that point, up to the hour of Lee's appearance on his right, he now, within a few hours, decided to abandon his base and accumulation of supplies and retreat to the James River. For, Porter's affair with the advanc- ing Rebels having first developed Lee's design on the afternoon of the 26th, before the morning of the 27th Porter's baggage and the great siege-train had been moved to the south side of the Chickahominy, orders had been sent to the White House to move off what supplies could be saved and to burn thfe rest, and the water transportation had been ordered around to the James. It can not be disguised that, under the circumstances, this decision was as unwise as it was hasty. If General McClellan had determined at last to adopt the James River route, he should have done so before the attack of the enemy converted his movement into a retreat. That attack, rightly considered, might • About seventy thousand men, induding Jacksou'e corps, which joined him the next day, .^ appears from their official reports. t The official records of the Adjutant-General's office in the War Department show the fol- lowing figures for the Army of the Potomac on June 26, 1862 : Present for duty, 115,102 ; on ■pedal duty, sick, etc., 12,225 ; absent, 29,511. Total aggregate McClellan's army, 156,838. 300 Ohio in the War. have proved the very opportunity for decisive battle under favorable circum- stances, for which he had been seeking. Hastily withdra,wing Porter on the night of the 26th, it was possible for him to have hurled his united army upon the fragment of the enemy's force that now alone intervened between him and tlie Eebel capital.* This would have conformed to one of the elementary prin- ciples of war; it would have been — the enemy having divided his force — ^to beat him in detail. Or, if he had believed that the main army still lay between him and Eichmond, he could have manned the defensive works — the very emergency for which, as he often said, he had constructed them — and could then have massed the bulk of his army on the north side of the Chickahominy, at Porter's position, and there delivered decisive battle. Or, finally, if either of these operations seemed to him "too daring, he might still have withdrawn Porter's corps, and at once started for the James Eiver with his entire force, thus avoid- ing that evil fate by which, on the next day, he left this devoted body of twenty- seven^i^ouBand men to bear up against the attack of Lee's massed army. But General McClellan either really believed himself confronted by an army of one hundred and eighty thousand men, notwithstanding his certainty of "taking Eichmond" a week ago; or, under the alarm created by suddenly finding himself attacked instead of the attacker, he lost that well-poised bal- ance of mind ' essential to the decision of purely military questions. Oneway or the other it came about that, after all his intrenching, he now left a single corps without intrenchments to fight the bulk of the Eebel army on the north side of the Chickahominy before he began his retreat. He did, indeed, ask the Generals on the south side if they could spare any troops for Porter's relief; but, as is usual, (and following the example which McClellan himself, on a larger scale, had set them), each General magnified his own dangers and held on to his troops. For there was opposed to these Generals, on the south side of the Chickahominy, the same skillful braggart, who had succeeded with eleven thousand men in stopping the whole National army before his lines at York- town. Adopting the same tactics, marching his few regiments to and fro, keep- ing up a tremendous cannonade and dreadful pother, he convinced not only the Corps Generals but even McClellan himself, that a mighty force was about to be . hurled against their intrenched lines. With twenty-five thousand men he thus actually held seventy -five thousand National soldiers inside their works; while across the river their brethren, only twenty-seven thousand strong, were fight- ing the decisive battle that had been so long expected, without intrenchments, * The Eebel commandej subsequently said : " I considered the situation of our army as extremely critical and perilous. The larger part of it was on the opposite side of tbe CMcka- hominy, the bridges had been all destroyed, but one was rebuilt, and there were but twenty-five tliousand men between McClellan's army of one hundred thousand and Eichmond. Had McClel- lan massed his whole force in column, and advanced it against any point of our line of battle, as was done at Austerlitz, under similar circumstances, though the head of his column would have suffered greatly, its momentum would have insured him success and the occupation of our works about Eichmond. His failure to do so is the best evidence that our wise commander fully under- stood the character of his opponent." — Magruder. Official Eeports Army Northern Virgmia. Rebel Government edition, vol. I, pp. 191, 192. Geoege B. McClellan. 301 and against nearly treble their numbers. It is difficult to conceive of any theory of military science on which such generalship could b^ justified. The battle of Gaines's Mill, thus fought, was necessarily a defeat. Porter did his best, and sacrificed near ten thousand men; but when night fell, his routed columns, having left their dead and wounded with much of their artil- lery on the field, were huddling about the bridge that led to the main army on the south side, and were only saved from total destruction by the arrival of a couple of brigades from Sumner's corps, and by the friendly darkness, unfler whpse cover they crossed the bridge and destroyed it behind them. It remained to seek the James Eiver. General Lee was still uncertain what course McClellan would pursue, and lost the next day moving on the late base of supplies. While he looked upon the smouldering piles of flour and meat, that told him of the abandonment, the trains and material of the army were already swiftly moving among the silent woods, far on their way to the James. At this moment, with Porter's loss of ten thousand men, by a o&dless battle still staring him in the face. General McClellan brought himself to say to the Secretary of War: "I have lost this battle because my force was too small. Had I ten thousand fresh troops to use to-morrow, I could take Eichmond. I know that a few thousand more men would have changed this battle from a defeat to a victory. If, at this instant, I could dispose of ten thousand fresh men, I could gain the victory to-morrow. If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army."* Of the tone of such language to his superior we say nothing. But what could present a stranger picture of a mind chaotic, revengeful, and without dis- tinct ideas? He believes the enemy to be one hundred and eighty thousand strong; yet, with ten thousand fresh men (i. e., if he stood now precisely where he stood twenty-four hours ago), he could take Eichmond ! With ten thousand iresh troops he could to-morrow win the victory — speaking as if fresh battles were still in his mind, when, in fact, his retreat was in progress ! Beginning his movement in such temper, it. is not strange that we find him still, with persistent ill-luck, contriving, through the rest of the movement, to be in the last places a Commanding General would be expected to occupy; until one of his corps commanders was warranted in testifying before the Committee on the Conduct of the War : " We fought the troops according to our own ideas. We helped each other. If anybody asked for re-enforcements, I sent ^hem. If I wanted re-enforcements I sent to others. ***** He (McClellan) was the most extraordinary man I ever saw. I do not see how any man could leave so much to others, and be so confident that everything would go just right."t * McClellan's Report, Government edition, p. 132. T General Heintzleman's Xestimony, Rep. Com. Con. War, series of 1863, vol. I, pp. 358, 359. It ghoald be added, in justice to General McClellan, that he had found grave fault with one por- tion of General Heintzleman's conduct during the retreat — a fact which may unconsciously have given a tinge to the above evidence. 302 Ohio in the Wae. Yet things did, after a fashion, " go right." The vast baggage-train coiled its way through the woods till it emerged upon the James in safety. Lee was delayed a day by his doubt as to where McClellan had gone, and by the skillfol manner in which the old front on the south of the Chickahominy was kept ap till the last moment. On the 29th he fell, with Magruder's corps, on Sumner,' who guarded the rear at Savage's Station, but was held at bay till dark. By daylight the advance of the army with the artillery was emerging upon the James, and Sumner was safe through the White Oak Swamp. Of McClellan himself we catch but a passing glimpse. He gave careful and well-considei-ed orders to Sumner, Heintzleman, and Franklin, for guarding the passage through the White Oak Swamp, and the road leading down from the Eichmond side upon the route of the army beyond the swamp, andthen rode off to the front of the column to see to the trains and select other positions for defense. The intersection of these roads was the key to the whole retreat. If the enemy secured it, he had planted himself upon the rear of one-half the retreat- ing army and isolated it from the rest. If he failed to secure it, the change of base was accomplished. McClellan's fortunate dispositions, and the splendid tenacity of the troops hfld the ground, and made the battle of New Market Cross Eoads a success. Stonewall Jackson, pursuing through the swamp, was stopped at the bridge by General Franklin and held powerless. Longstreet swept down from the open country toward Eichmond, but, within a mile of the point where his junction with Jackson was to be effected, Sumner and Heintzle- man held Mm. The attack was furiously delivered, but every assault was repulsed till night again closed the scene. There were no orders to retreat ; the rest of Lee's army was rapidly advancing ; by morning the whole of it would be upon them. McClellan was off at James Eiver ; before there could he time to communicate with him the opportunity would be lost. Thus reasoning, General Franklin abandoned his hold on the swamp bridge, on Stonewall Jack- son's front, and, under cover of the darkness, rapidly retreated without orders. Discovering this, Sumner and Heintzleman hastily abandoned their positions and likewise retreated. They thus saved the army. At daybreak Lee's whole army stood on the battle-field of the previous evening, but its opportunity of dividing or attacking in flank the retreating column was gone. Continuing the pursuit, however, General Lee, in a few hours, overtook his antagonist, only to find him securely posted on Malvern Hill. This point General McClellan had selected during the progress of the fight of the day before at New Market Cross Eoads; it com- manded the entire region along the James, and was admirably adapted to the most liberal use of artillery. Under any circumstances the National army must have received attack here with advantage, but the superiority of the position wasgreatlyenhancodby the confused, blundering, and isolated assaults made by Lee's successive corps as they arrived. The repulse was finally complete, and the pursuer recoiled with heavy loss from the last stand of the retreating army. The retreat was ended, and "this army saved." If, by an infirmity of purpose and a timidity of execution amounting to GrEOKGE B. MgClellan. 303 I crimes, General McClellan had frittered away his opportunities, from the time he had landed his invading army on the Peninsula up to the time when he was thus driven from his fortifications on the Chickahominy, it was now equally true that he had skillfully extricated this army from the thick-gathering dan- gers that did so beset it, and had foiled a victorious enemy, who already regarded his destruction as assured. He owed much of this to the nature of the country, which protected his flanks, concealed his movements, and delayed the pursuit; much he owed to the splendid tenacity with which his corps commanders guarded his rear; and for the actual control of the fighting he can claim less credit than ever attached before to General commanding such an army in such a plight. But, if his absence in the rear, selecting lines of retreat and points for defense, was without precedent, it may be said that the work which he thus chose to do was admirably well-done; and if his Generals were forced to fight through the day on the orders of the morning alone, and thenceforward by hap-hazard and without unity of action, it so fell out that this plan of conducting battles under suet circumstances proved successful;. and in War, Success is the absolute test. The movement by the Peninsula against Eichmond was palpably ended. General McClellan indeed clung to the idea that he might still be re-enforced and permitted to renew his attempt; and he had conceived the bold and saga- cious plan of crossing to the south side of the James and moving against Bichmond by the way of Petersburg.* But there were no re-enforcements for him; his campaign was regarded as an utter failure; he had lost the confidence of the Governmentf and measurably of the country; there was a general shock at the sight of an invading army, of which such hopes had been entertained, fleeing for seven days before an enemy not even then believed to be his equal in numbers. Furthermore, General Lee, having as it seemed, effectually disposed of the immediate danger to Eichmond, had already detached Jackson, with large re-epforcements, to renew his operations in the Valley; and the alarm which that brilliant officer speedily succeeded in renewing, added to the pre- vious considerations, decided the Government to recall McClellan's army in all haste to be united with the forces in front of "Washington. There was some- thing piteous in the tone of McClellan's remonstrances and petitions to remain ; but, in the existing temper of the Government, they only served to confirm the impression that he would be insubordinate, if he dared. Then followed a painful delay. , The first order for the withdrawal was sent on 30th July. It was not till 15th August that General McClellan was able to telegraph that his advance was started; and not until 24th August that,, preceding the' bulk of his command, he was able personally to report • Precisely the plan to which General Grant found himself ultimately forced. t There is sufficient evidence for the assertion that, at this time, the Government suffered onder the greatest apprehensions that McClellan might yet surrender his entire army I This may ftlw help to explain the subsequent reluctance to explain plans to him, or even, when he was ordered to send back his sick, to disclose to him the real intention of withdrawing the army, N^ioh prompted that order. 304 Ohio in the Wae. for orders at Aquia Creek. The interval had been occupied with blunders and delays about transportation, and with a telegraphic correspondence with Gen- eral Halleck (now made General-in-Chief) which, on the part of the latter grew daily more and more curt and jjeremptory as the delays continued. It is doubtless true that the Quartermasters insisted upon their inability to move the army back faster than they did; but it is equally true that, if McClellan's heart had been in the matter, he could have controlled Quartermasters and their transportation, and if he did not fully satisfy tlie unreasonable expecta- tions that were entertained, could at least have lessened the delay. As it was, so thoroughly was the patience of the Government exhausted that on his arrival at Alexandria his troops were taken from him, and his own peti- tions for active service, or at least for permission to be present with his men, could gain no audience. But affairs now reached a very critical posture. Lee had thrown his whole force to the support of Jackson ; Pope's army, confronting it, had come back in a jumble; the divisions of -the Army. of ^ho Potomac began to re-enforce him only as he neared the fatal ground of Manassas. McClellan was accused — with questionable cause- — of delaying these re-enforcements, through a malicious desire to "leave Pope to get out oif his scrape,'' as he was unfortunate enough to ex- press himself in a dispatch to the President; and this only tended to increase the acerbity of his relations to the War Department and the General-in-Chief Presently, however, Pope's army came streaming back, broken up and demoralized by much fighting and some bad handling. The enemy was at the gates. In this crisis, whatever it thought of him as a General, the Administra- tion was glad to use McClellan as an organizer. Furthermore, it was believed that there was no other name that still had such magic for the rank and file 'of the Army of the Potomac. And so it proved. Taking up the demorahzed fragments of two armies, as they poured back from the second Bull Eun, Gen- eral McClellan moved them across the Potomac and out on the Seventh Street and Tenallytown Eoads, a compact, orderly organization, ready for fresh con- flicts, and actually in better fighting trim than they had been for months. Still he moved slowly, less than six Iniles a day ; primarily, doubtless, because of his inherently cautious and circumspect nature, but likewise, it must be remembered, under perpetual injunctions to caution from the General-in- Chief. Lee had crossed the Upper Potomac into Maryland. Covering Wash- ington and Baltimore, McClellan felt his way forward to meet him ; till on the 13th of September, at Frederick City, by great good fortune, there fell into his hands an order issued by Lee on the 9th, fully detailing the movements then in execution. Thus informed of his adversary's designs, McClellan threw forward his army toward the passes of the South Mountain, threatening the isolated corps with which Lee was trying to reduce Harper's Ferry. A brilliant action here, handsomely managed by McClellan, carried the pass, but too late to succor the small force at the Ferry. Lee, with a master-hand, now began to gather together his scattered forces, and, flushed with the victory at Harper's Ferry, they opposed their front to the pursuing army along the bank of Antietam Creek. George B. McClellax. 305 McClellan came in sight of their ostentatiously displayed lines on the after- noon of the day following the action at South Mountain, and spent the remain- ing hours of daylight in reconnoissanees. The next day was similarly occupied; a delay precious to Lee, for before its close his scattered divisions all arrived, (save the two at Harper's Ferry), and stood compact again to face their old antag- onist. Late in the afternoon Hooker was thrown across the creek to turn Loo's left, but no decisive result followed, save the consequent premature revelation of McOleilan's plan, for which Lee through the night quietly prepared. Next morning Hooker opened the battle, advancing against Lee's left. At first successful, he was subsequently repulsed, as the inaction along the rest of the line showed Lee that he could transfer fresh troops to the left with impunity. Hooker was wounded and carried off the field ; and as brave old Sumner came up with his corps he " found that Hooker's corps had been dispersed and routed, and saw nothing of the corps at all."* Pushing forward he too became hotly engaged and soon had occasion to regret that "General McClellan should send these troops into action in driblets," and to find that " at the points of attack the enemy was suj)erior.""j- AVith varying fortunes, however, he at last succeeded, with heavy losses, in j)ushing back the Rebel left till he had almost reached their center. Ee-enforcing again from the rest of the idle line, Lee was about tothrovfr fresh battalions upon Sumner's exhaiisted front when another "driblet" arrived, in the form of Franklin's corps. Sumner might then have advanced again, but four out of the six corps of the army "were now drawn into this seething vortex of the fight " on the enemy's left; and he, not unwiselj', judged it inexpedient, three of them being already much shattered, to expose the whole right of the army to destruction, by crippling the fourth, while still uncertain as to the plans or possibilities on other parts of the field. He accordingly con- tented himself with holding his ground. It was now one o'clock, and as yet nothing had been done elsewhere. McClellan indeed was not ignorant that, through this inaction, Lee was being enabled to mass his forces to resist the attack on hie left ; and as early as eight o'clock in the morning he had ordered Burnside to take the bridge over the Antietam Creek, on the enemy's extreme right, and advance against him. But Burnside, though directly under McClellan's eye, was permitted to consume the time in frivolous skirmishing, till it was now one o'clock, and the whole action on the enemy's left was over, before he carried the bridge. Two hours more delay here ensued, when, advancing up the hill, he swept the enemj'-'s right from its crest. At nine o'clock in the morning, when Sumner was charging the , enemy's left, this success would have gained the day, but now at three, Sumner, ' with four corps under him, lay exhausted, and the two Rebel divisions from Har- per's Ferry were just arriving upon the field. This last re-enforcement settled the question. Burnside was driven back to the bridge by night-fall, and the action was over. McClellan had lost twelve thousand five hundred men. Lee's loss reached eight thousand. •General Sumner's evidence, Eep. Com. Con. War, series of 1863, Vol. I, p. 368. tibid. Vol. I.— 20. 306 Ohio in the Wab. The next day General McClellan did not feel able to renerw the attack, but he proposed to do so, if his re-enforcements (to the number of fourteen thousand, then marching from Washington), should arrive on the day following. But by that time Lee, having kept up a bold front during the day on Antietam Creek, was safely across the Potomac and back into Virginia again, with all his trains and material. This was the first and only battle of importance in which, during his whole career. General McClellan commanded in person. Viewing it in the light of facts now known it is easy to see its mistakes. It was on the 13th that, by the singular good fortune of capturing Lee's field order to his Corps Generals, General McClellan was put in possession of all his adversary's positions and plans. It was quite possible for him, acting with the dash which such knowl- edge warranted, and which Stonewall Jackson again and again exhibited, to have carried the South Mountain pass that evening, when it could have been done almost without resistance, and to have thrown himself upon the rear of McLaws's Eebel division then beleaguering Harper's Ferry. This would have enabled him to beat Lee's scattered troops in detail. But, passing this by, when the armies fairly met at Antietam he had double the numbers that his weak- ened antagonist was able to muster. "We now know, from Eebel official reports, that Lee's whole force barely reached forty thousand ; that of McClellan was over eighty thousand. Yet, holding his force feebly, be delivered isolated attacks, from hour to hour, on different parts of the field, enabling the wary enemy so to muster his thin battalions, as at each point of attack to oppose to the onset a stronger force. The tactical management of the battle thus admits of no defense. Of the failure to renew the attack on the next day more may be said. General McClellan did not know how completely the enemy was exhausted by lack of supplies, straggling, and actual loss in battle. He only knew that in front of him still stood that indomitable line against which, the day before, he had vainly sacrificed twelve thousand men ; that his Corps Generals felt their commands unfit for immediate renewal of the attack ; that a few hours would bring him fourteen thousand fresh men ; that he held in his hands the safety of the capital, and, under continual monitions of caution from the General-in- Chief, alone stood between the enemy and the defenseless North. He might indeed have reflected that this enemy must be exhausted; that he lay in a dan- gerous position, with his back to a large river, and at an immense distance from his base of supplies. But, remembering what he did, and the difficulties that beset him, we may well conclude that if his conduct was not that of a gi-eat General, it was still in that safe line by which a prudent General seeks to guard the interests committed to his keeping. General McClellan, however, had largely contributed to such a state of feel- ing between himself and the Adminstration that he could expect no lenient judgment on mistakes or delays. Ho had claimed Antietam as a great victory. The Government, therefore, demanded that he should promptly follow.it up- GrEORGE B. McClellan. 307 Instead, it saw the beaten enemy quietly extricate himself from his perilous position, and, in the face of the victorious army, march unmolested away. Then it demanded prompt pursuit. Instead, General McClellan telegraphed for shoes and blankets. The Government thought the crisis demanded some sacri- fice, even to the extent of calling upon the troops for such hard service as the enemy was performing. If the shoeless Eebels could beat a great army and invade Maryland, it was even willing that our troops should, shoeless, drive them back. Not so General McClellan. His methodical genius would permit no such irregularities ; and strong in the recollection that, after trying to dis- place him, the Government had been forced to recall him, and, doubtless, de- termined as well to teach the Government something of his importance and power, he suffered the splendid fall weather to go by, while, for over a whole month, he lay on the Potomac, reorganizing and reclothing his army. At last he moved, but he had already presumed too far ; and, on the 5th of November, 1862, when his advance-guard was about reaching the new positions which General Lee had assumed, the outraged Government relieved him of his command, and thus put an end to his military career in its service. He contin- ued to hold his commission for two years longer, until after his defeat for the Presidency, but he was never put on duty, and, for the most part, he lived in rttiracy with his family in New Jersey. Thus passes from the field a General in whose favor Fortune seemed at first to have exhausted her resoxirces. He was still popular with his army, for whose comfort he sedulously exerted himself, and for whose good-will he skillfully strove. That he had disappointed public expectation was not wonderful, for, greatly through the folly of his own friends, public expectation had been raised to dizzy heights, which genius of the first order could scarcely have reached. In that he had disappointed the Government he was more blameworthy. If he had been willing to place himself at the outset on the footing of a trained the- orist, confessedly ignorant of the practice of war, many of his mistakes might have been forgiven. But it was precisely here that the complaint rested. Ig- noring all the national considerations which constrained action ; narrowing his vision till he saw for his whole duty the task of building up on the banks of the Potomac a colossal army, which should equal, in all the perfection of dis- cipline and equipment, the finest of those he had seen in Europe, he then arro- gated to himself the privileges of an acknowledged Expert in a recondite Sci- ence; claimed the exclusive power of planning and deciding, while the sorely- " beset Government must, in blind faith, await his own good time for defeating the enemy; and encouraged the talk of the brainless upstarts around him, who declaimed against the impertinent interference of mere civilians — the Com- mander-in-Chief, to-wit, and his constitutional advisers. When, after all this, it was found that his Generalship exhausted itself in preparations, that in the field he handled his great forces irresolutely, and, perpetually debating between brilliant alternatives, perpetually suffered each to escape him, the disappoint- ment was as great as the promises had been high. It was, perhaps, more hia 308 Ohio in the War. misfortune than his fault that thenceforward (to repeat what we have ah-eady said at the outset of this sketch) he was forever judged, and severely judged, by the false standard which his friends had set up. "Worse than all, when it happened that his military career was about to become one of the vexed points in a Presidential canvass, he lirought himself to disingenuous subterfuges and adroit after-thoughts, by which he sought to shift the blame of his errors upon other shoulders.* Still these circumstances, which so powerfully affected the immediate judg- ment of his countrymen, will not entirely control the place in history to which a calm review of his career must assign him. He never made good his claim to the character of a great General. His conduct showed no flashes of genius, and never exhibited that inspiration of battle which, in the moment of action, lights up the minds of truly warlike men. He was singularly deficient in that species of executive capacity which controls the tactics of an army in the face of an enemy, and he never gave evidence of his ability to handle skillfully even fifty thousand men in battle. Bi;t he thoroughly understood the theory of war, and especially the organization of armies. " Too military to be warlike,' there was much in his conduct to suggest a comparison to that Grand Duke Gonstantine, of Eussia, who had so perfected the drill and equipment of the army that, in his love for its splendid appearance, he protested against war, because it would ruin his soldiers. In the field his professional and tech- nical knowledge overburdened him till he was incapable of skillfully using it; in the solitude of his head-quarters, and freed from his absorbing attention to personal considerations, it made him an excellent strategist. It was his misfortune that he overrated his own capacity, and set himself tasks to which he was unequal. But he was always able to oppose a front of opposition to the enemy, and to maintain the viorale of his army. Twice he was fortunate enough to have a field for the display of his peculiar abilities ; and on those occasions, once in the restoration of confidence after Bull Eun and the organization of the army, and again in the reorganization of the demoralized fragments that drifted back in disorder from the second Bull Eun, he so served the imperiled Country that his name must forever find a place in the list of those who have helped to save the Eepublic. Prom the date of General MeClellan's first taking the field in West Vir- ginia, he had been accompanied by a staff oflScer from Cincinnati, who was a sagacious politician, and quick to perceive those currents of popular favor along which politicians may guide their barks to ofiieial harbors. The whirlwind of popular applause had no sooner set in around the " Young Napoleon " from West Virginia than this astute ofiicerf recognized his opportunity. Thenceforward it was sedulously cared for that in whatever McClellan said or did, his sayings and actions should be so shaped as not to unfit him for the candidacy of the * Throughout the labored self-vindication, misnamed " Report." tWho has the credit of the revision of the most and the authorship of the most important of VcClellan's proclamations and other papers having political bearings. Geoege B. McClellan. 309 party with which he affiliated — the party opposed to the Administration whoso officer he was — in the next Presidential election. The pojicy was shrewdly planned and carried out. Had military success re-enforced it, its author might have seen it successful. But when the Democratic party assembled in convention at Chicago, they Were compelled by the pressure of their peace wing to resolve that the War for the Union was a failure. Upon this platform, and that of his own military failure, they placed General McClellan. The combination defeated him in ad- vance. He still polled a respectable vote in each of the States, but he only learried three of them, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Delaware. , The heat of the canvass, and his anomalous position as a Soldier on a Peace Platform, opposing the cause which the Country regarded as peculiarly the cause of his fellow-soldiers, led to his being assailed with unusual and often with unjust bitterness. Now that political passions have cooled, there are few who will not regret that the loyalty, and even the personal courage of General WcClellan were once slanderously called in question. Eesigning his commission as a Major-General in the regular army, after Lib popular defeat, General McClellan sailed for Euroj»e, where he remained in retirement with his family till' long after the close of the war. In person General McClellan is below the middle height, compact and inuscular, with unusually large chest, and well-shaped head. His features are regular, and, in conversation, light up with a pleasing smile. His manners are .^singularly charming and graceful; and the magnetism of his personal presence and his gracious ways is always sure to fill his private life with friends, as it bound to him the officers and soldiers of the array of the Potomac, with an iiifectionate regard which no subsequent commander was able to inspire. William 8. Roseceans. 311 MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS. TH B greatest of modern strategists never rose beyond the rank of a Briga- dier-General. Napoleon was once on the point of making him a Marshal of France ; he repeatedly rendered such services as, in the case of his compeers, were wont to command high praise and the largest promotion ; but, do what he would. General Jomini could never " get on." His hot temper and his open contempt for the blunders, or the foibles of his superiors, for ever barred his promotion and embittered his daily life, till at last, insulted in Gene- ral Orders, he revenged himself by going over to the enemy. When Ohio was called on for her men best fitted for the instant emergencies of a sudden war, two were at once presented. At a stroke of the pen, one was made a Major-General, the other a Brigadier in the Eegular Army ; though the one, when he had retired to civil life, had been a simple Captain, and the other but a First Lieutepant. Yet the Army vindicated the wisdom of both promo- tions. Both came to fill large space in the attention of the Nation, and the records of the war ; both wielded great armies and fought great battles ; but both passed from a brief season of the highest favor with the Government, and with those who controlled the business of the war, by steady progression, from cool- ness to open hostility, and both were stranded long before the peaceful port was reached. If we have found the one so far blinded by his resentments and his ambi- tion as to suffer himself to be affiliated (at least) with friends of the enemy, it will now be our pleasanter task to trace the career of that other, hot-tempered and indiscreet as Jomini himself, who yet permitted no recollection of private wrongs to warp his discharge of public duty ; who through many discourage- ments and buffets of fortune bore bravely up and made a good fight ; who was, throughout the war, as unwise for himself as he was wise in controlling the interests of the Country, committed to his care ; and of whom at last it must be said that for his Country's sake he made greater sacrifices than his haughty temper could brook to make for his own, and, faithful ever to his Comrades and the Cause, was ever his own worst enemy. William Starke Rosecranb* was born in Kingston Township, Delaware County, Ohio, 6th September, 1819. His parents were Craiidall Eosecrans. whose ancestors came from Amsterdam, and Jemima Hopkins, of the family of * The name is Dutch, and signifies " a wreath of roses." 312 Ohio in the Wae. that Timothj' Hopkins, whose name has passed into history as one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. His father was a native of Wyoming Val- ley, Pennsylvania, who had emigrated to Ohio in 1808. His mother was reared in the same beautiful valley, and was a daughter of a soldier of the Eevolution. Young Eosecrans was a close student, and at fifteen was master of all that the schools of his native place could teach. He already evinced the stroDg religious tendency which has continued to characterize him through life, and was noted, among all the boys of his neighborhood, for his disposition to study the Bible, and to engage preachers and others on religious topics. Not less characteristic is another glimpse that we get of his boy life. His proficiency ^n such mathematical and scientific studies as he had been able to pursue, led him to look longingly upon the treasures of a West Point education. Consulting no one, not even his father, he wrote directly to Hon. Joel E. Poinsett, Secretary of War under President Van Buren, asking for an appointment as Cadet. It was not strange that such an application failed to receive an instant response; hut young Eosecrans thought it was, and presently applied to his father for eoine plan to re-enforce his request. A petition for the cadetship was prepared and largely signed, and, as he was depositing the bulky document in the post- oflSce, he received the letter informing him of his appointment. At West Point Cadet Eosecrans was known as a hard student, something of a recluse and a religious enthusiast. His class — that of 1842 — numbered fifty-six, and among them the reader of the histories of those times will not fail to recognise such names as James Longstreet, Earl Van Dorn, John Pope, Abner Doubleday, Lafayette McLaws, E. H. Anderson, Mansfield Lovell, G. W. Smith, John Newton, and George Eains. Among these men Cadet Eosecrans stood third in mathematics and fifth in general merit, while Pope was seventeenth, Doubleday twenty-fourth, and Longstreet fifty-fourth. Entering the elite of the Eegular Army, the Engineer Corps, as a Brevet Second Lieutenant, young Eosecrans was now, at the age of twenty -two, ordered to duty at Fortress Monroe, under Colonel De Russej'. A year later he was returned to West Point as Assistant Professor of Engineering, and about this time was married to Miss Hegeman, only daughter oS Adrian Hegeman, then a well-known lawyer of New York. Prom 1843 to 1847 Lieutenant Eosecrans was kept at West Point; first, aa we have seen, as Assistant Pi-ofessor of Engineering, then as Assistant Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy ; then, again, in charge of the depart- ment of Practical Engineering, and finally as Post Quartermaster. In 1847 he was ordered to Newport, Ehode Island, where be took charge of the fortifica- tions, and the reconstruction at Fort Adams of a large permanent wharf. He was thus continued on engineering duty till, in 1852, we find him in charge of the survey of New Bedford and Providence harbors and Taunton river, under the Act of Congress requiring their improvement. In April, 1853, the Secretary of the Navy having asked for the services of a competent Engirieer from the War Department, Lieutenant Eosecrans, now promoted to a First Lieutenancy, was ordered to report to him for duty, and was assigned to service, under the William S. Roseceans. 313 Bnreau of Docks and Yards, as Constructing Engineer at the Washington Navy Yard. He continued on service here until November, 1853, when his health broke down. Lieutenant Eosecrans was now thirty -four years of age ; he M^as an ackowl- edged master in the profession of Engineering, and had given, in its practice, eleven of the best years of his life to the Government without yet having reached the dignity of a Captain's commission, or the meager emoluments of a Captain's salary. In the army, where, "few dying and none resigning," pro- motion in peaceful times seemed hopelessly remote, he could see nothing more brilliant in the future, and was already growing discouraged, when his illness now gave additional force to these considerations and determined him to tender his resignation. The Secretary of War, (Jefferson Davis), expressed his unwill- ingness to lose so valuable an officer from the service, and proposed, instead, to give him a year's leave of absence, with the understanding that if he should then insist upon it, he would be permitted to resign. In April, 1854, his resig- nation was accordingly accepted. General Totten. the Chief of Engineers, for- warding the acceptance accompanied with a complimentary letter, referring to the "services rendered the Government by Lieutenant Eosecrans," and his "regret that the country was about to lose so able and valuable an officer." The next seven years were to Lieutenant Eosecrans years of more varied than profitable' activity. At first we find him in a modest office in Cincinnati, on the door of which appeared the inscription, " William S. Eosecrans, Consult- ing Engineer and Architect." Next, a little more than a year later, he figures as Superintendent, and then as President of the Cannel Coat Company, striving, by locks and dams, on the little Coal Eiver in West Virginia, to secure slack-water navigation there, and thus make available the vast wealth that lay emboweled in the banks of that stream. From this position he passed to a somewhat similar one, that seemed to offer larger returns, in charge of the interests of the Cincinnati Coal Oil Company. In all these positions he displayed such ability as to command the confi- dence of capitalists; yet, after all, his ventures ended in pecuniary failures. His restless mind was constantly bent on making improvements and substituting better methods; his ingenuity left everywhere its traces in new inventions, and others have since largely profited by his researches and experiments ; but it is possible that the stockholders in his Companies might have received better divi- dends if he had been content to plod steadily in the old paths. It is only the usual fate of inventors to hew out the new roads by which others and not them- selves may advance to fortune. And so, in the Spring of 1861, we find the future General, now in his forty- second year, not very much better situated than when, seven years before, he had resigned his Eirst Lieutenancy; but matured, broadened, in the prime of vigorous manhood, become a man of affairs, and possessing, both by virtue of his professional abilities and of his religious affiliations, marked influence in the oreat city which he had made his home. For it is now the time to observe 314 Ohio in the War. that Eoaecrans was a devout Eoman Catholic, implicitly believing in the infal- libility of his Church, and reverently striving to conform his life to her pre- cepts. His brother was Bishop of the Diocese, and his own relations to the Church were such that his example was likely to have large weight with the great mass of voters in the city of Cincinnati, whom that Church held within her folds, and who might be said, by virtue of the balance of power which they often possessed, to control the attitude of the city toward the Government and toward the war. In the first frenzy of the rush to arms after the attack on Fort Sumter, these considerations seem to have had no w^eight; but we shall have occasion to see how signally, in more than one critical period, they enabled the Eoman Catholic General more effectively to serve the country to whose service he had again devoted himself. From the moment that the war had declared itself, Eosecrans gave thought and time to no other subject. The city, it was supposed, might be in some danger from a sudden rush over the border, and citizens- hastened to enroll themselves as Home Guards, Eosecrans's military education at once came into play, and he gave himself up to the task of organizing and drilling these Home Guards, till, on the 19th of April, General McClellan, just appointed Major- General of Ohio Militia, requested him to act as Fngineer on his Staff, and to select a site for a camp of instruction for the volunteers now pouring in. He selected the little stretch of level land, walled in by surrounding hills, a few miles out of Cincinnati, which has since been known as Camp Dennison ;* and, for the next three weeks, he was here occupied by General McClellan in encamp- ing and caring for the inchoate regiments as they arrived. Governor Dennison next claimed his services, sending him first to Phila- delphia to look after arms, next to Washington to make such representations to the Government as would secure proper clothing and equipment for Ohio troops, and particularly for the extra regiments, mustered into the State servicCj hut not coming into the quota of Ohio under the first call for troops. On these missions he was fully succeesful, and, by June 9th, he returned to Cincinnati to find himself commissioned Chief Engineer for the State, under a special law. A day or two later he was made Colonel of the Twenty-Third Ohio, and assigned to the command of Camp Chase, at Columbus. Four days afterward the com- mission as Brigadier-General in the United States army, which had been issued to him on 16th of May,t (on the recommendation of General Scott, backed by such names as those of Secretary Chase and his old chief, General Totten, of the Engineers), reached him, and, almost immediately- afterward. General McClellan summoned him to active service in West Virginia. Of the mode in which the General entered upon his new duties we catch * This selection was made with reference to the fears, then prevalent, of a sudden descent upon Cincinnati. It was thought especially desirable, in view of the doubtful position of Ken- tucky, to keep whatever available troops the State might have within call. The name was chosen by General McClellan, in compliment to Governor Dennison, by whom he had just been appointed. t Two days after McClellan's appointment to a Major-Generalship of Eegulars. William S. Rosecrans. 315 many pleasant little pictures like this one, from the pen of an eye-witness at Parkersburg : " Our General is an incessant worker. He is in his saddle almost constantly. He has not had a full night's sleep since he has been in Virginia, and he takes his meals as often on horseback as at his table. His geniality and affability endear him to all who come in contact with him; and his soldiers recognize in him a competent commander." These soldiers were those of the Seventeenth and Kineteenth Ohio, and Eighth and Tenth Indiana — the first troops whom General Rosecrans ever com- manded in the field. Within two weeks after he assumed command, they had fought a battle under him and won the victory that decided the first campaign of the war. Moving as the advance of McClellari's column, Eosecrans's brigade had been brought to a halt before the intrenched position on the western slope of Rich Mountain, held by Colonel Pegram as defense for the flank and rear of the main Eebel force under General Garnett, then lying at Laurel Hill. Within an hour or two the restless General had gained an idea of the enemy's position — ? " his right covered by an almost imperietrable laurel thicket, his left resting high up on the spur of the mountain, and his front defended by a log breastwork and abatis" — and had heard of a loyal guide who could tell how to turn it. He rti>orted the facts to an officer of McClellan's staff, but no notice was taken of the communication, and the next day an extended reeonnoissance was ordered which only developed the strength of the position more fully. General ■MoClellan, as it appears, had now decided upon an assault on the front of the enemy's works, and had, in fact, assigned to Eosecrans's brigade the advance in the' movement, when that officer, having found his loyal guide, took him to McClellan. "Now, General," said he,* "if you will allow me to take my brigade, I will, by a night-march, surprise the enemy at the gap, gain posses- sion of it, and thus hold his only line of retreat. You can then take him on the front. If he give way we shall have him ; if he fight obstinately, I will leave a portion of my force at the gap, and, with the remainder, fall upon his rear." General McClellan, " after an hour's deliberation, assented ;" it being finally agreed that Eosecrans should enter the forest at daylight, and report progress by couriers as he advanced, and that the sound of his firing should be the signal for McClellan's attack in front. A drenching rain-storm poured down upon the raw troops as they entered the forest,, and it was found necessary to deflect the line of march, far to the right, to avoid discovery by the enemy. Marching with the awkwardness of perfectly raw troops, and under peculiarly dispiriting circumstances, it was one o'clock before the column reached the crest ; and, about half-past two, when, after another toilsome march through the woods and a hasty reeonnoissance, the brigade came out upon the enemy's line. The last courier had been sent at eleven, with the message that the growing difficulty of communication would prevent another dispatch until something decisive had occurred. • The details of this interview are given in Eosecrans's testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, Keport, series 1865, Vol. Ill, p. 2. 316 Ohio in the Wak. Forming his line as hastily as the rawness of the troops and the repeated misconceptions of orders by some of the equally raw Colonels would perraitr- the enemy meanwhile keeping up a sharp musketry fire and a fusilade from two pieces of artillery — General Eosecrans, comprehending that, with troops who had never before been under fire, instant action was the only safe course, ordered a charge, and, at the head of the Thirteenth Indiana, led it in person. The one or two volleys previously fired had shaken the Eebel line, and, as the attacking brigade now leaped the log breastworks with a ringing cheer, the enemy broke and fled, abandoning the two pieces of artillery. The excited troops rushed pell-mell after them through the woods, and the next two hours were consumed in getting our men together again. Meantime there had been no attack in the front. General McClellan had stated to General Eosecrans that the enemy was from five to six thousand strong.* The little brigade, thus left isolated and unsupported, lay between this force and one of unknown size at the town of Beverly, on the other slope of the mountain. The situation appeared critical, and the main column, still lying on the enemy's front, seemed to have abandoned them; but they biv- ouacked in good or-der, turned out half a dozen times through the night on false alarms caused by indiscriminate picket firing, and in the morning marched down on the camp to find that part of the enemy had escaped to the mountains and the rest had hoisted the white flag. Those who escaped, finding themselves hemmed in on the mountains, soon sent in their surrender. Garnett, at Laurel Hill, perceiving his line of retreat imperilled, hastily retreated, and the cam- paign was ended. General Eosecrans's conduct in this affair merited the praise which it instantly and everywhere received. The plan, as has been seen, was entirely his own ; and though it was his first action, as well as the first for the troops he commanded, his conduct showed a thorough corSprehension of the true method of handling raw voluntoers, not less than that disposition to "go wherever he asked his soldiers to go," which always made him a favorite with the men in the ranks. But he already exhibited symptoms of the personal imprudence which was to form so signal a feature in his character, by casual hints as to his dis- satisfaction with the conduct of his superior oflScer — a dissatisfaction which he afterward expressed officially, by complaining that " General McClellan, con- trary to agreement and military prudence, did not attack" the' enemy in front.f "We shall soon see how this began to affect his subsequent career. The affair of Eieh Mountain — it scarcely deserves the name of a battle, for our loss was but twelve killed and forty-nine wounded, and the enemy left but twenty wounded on the field — raised Eosecrans from the head of a brigade to the command of the department. The force at his disposal, with which to retain and secure the fruits of the Eieh Mountain victory, was but eleven thousand * Eosecrans's testimony Eep. Com. Con. War, series 1865, Vol. Ill, p. 5. t MS. sketch of military career, furnished in obedience to War Department Cii'cular, and on file in Adjutant-General's office. i William S. Rosecrans. 317 men ; for it was one of that peculiar combination of circumstances which tended to deepen the horror of the first Bull Eun, that the disaster befell us just as the " tirae of service of most of our troops was expiring. The very train which bore General McClellan out of the Department, on his way to Washington, took out of it also the first of a long succession of three-months' regiments, embracing almost the entire army that had won the campaign just ended. Thanks how- ever, to the forecast of Governor Dennison, of Ohio, a few more regiments of raw troops were hastily forwarded to General Rosecrans. They were not sent a day too soon, for now it became known that, lying on 'the defensive in front of Washington, the enemy had resolved to wrest the west- ern portion of the State, that had become the battle-field of the war, from the hands of the invader ; and that there had been delegated to this task th^ officer of largest reputation within the Confederate Army. Presently General Robert B. Lee appeared in front of the works which Rosecrans had already erected at Cheat Mountain pass, and proposed an exchange of prisoners. At the outset the " Dutch General," as the Rebel newspapers were con- temptuously naming him, seized the advantage which he did not once fail to the end to retain. " I can not exchange prisoners as you propose. You ask me for the men captured here, hardy mountaineers, familiar with every pass and bridle- path, who would at once go to re-enforce your army operating against me. You propose to give me, in return, men captured at Bull Run, who know nothing of service here, and whom I should have, at any rate, to send East to their old commands. I can not consent. But if you can remedy this inequality, I shall be very glad to make an exchange."* But the presence of the Virginia officer, who had stood so high in the esti- mation of General Scott, and had been popularly regarded as the ablest officer in the old army, created general alarm. The Unionists of West Virginia were ])rofoundly disturbed ; the Secessionists exulted in the thought that they should speedily gain the control ; and friendly warnings from Washington began to admonish General Rosecrans of the widely-prevailing fear that he was about to be i outgeneraled. "Don't you think Lee likely to prove a troublesome antag- onist?" asked one about this time at the General's head-quarters. "Not at all," was Eosecrans's reply; " Iknow all about Lee. He will make a splendid plan of a campaign ; but I '11 fight the campaign before he gets through with plan- ning it."t The General's confidence was not unsustained by rapidly-following events. General Lee brought to bear upon his front at Cheat Mountain a force of six- teen thousand men, to meet which General Reynolds, the officer in immediate command, had less than half as large a number. Meantime General Cox, to * Beport Com. Con. War, series of 1865, Vol. Ill, Rosecrana's testimony, page 13. tl was myself present at this conversation. It is a curious confirmation of this estimate to find the Rebel annalist Pollard (vol. I, p. 177) recording the failure of Lee's plan of campaign, and then adding : " General Lee's plan, finished drawings of which were sent to the War Depart- ment at Richmond, was said to have been one of the best laid plans that ever illustrated ,the conaammation of the rules of strategy, or evei went awry on account of practical failures in its execution." 318 Ohio in the War. •vvbom had been confided the task of holding the Kanawha Valley, found him- self about to be overwhelmed by the co-operation of the columns of Wise and Floyd, the former holding his front, the latter advancing so as to menace his communications, and having already overwhelmed and /scattered to the four winds a considerable outpost, under Colonel Tyler, at Cross Lanes. General Eosecrans promptly met the emergency. Calling in outposts and detachments everywhere, he did what he could to strengthen General Eeynolds; and then, trusting to that officer's sagacity not less than to his admirably forti- fied position, he left him to cope with Lee's threatened attack, collected such raw regiments as were within his reach, and, at the head of a column of seven and a half regiments, three of which had just received their arms, marched southward from the line of the North-Western Virginia road toward the Kanawha, to the relief of General Cox. By the 10th September he had reached Somerville, a few miles from the Gauley,* where he Avas duly informed by the frightened citizens and scouts that Floyd lay a few miles ahead of him, intrenched near Cross Lanes, with a force of from fifteen to twenty thousand men. "We can not stop to count numbers," was his remark to the staif; "we must fight and whip him, or pass him to join Cox." The column pressed onward. By two o'clock, after a march of sixteen miles that day, the advance brigade engaged the enemy's outposts. Xow it so happened that, in the scarcity of experienced officers, this brigade had been intrusted to a newly-made Brig- adier, recommended not Only by the warm indorsement of General McClellan,f but by that lion's skin, so often used in the early days of the war to cover the ass's shoulders, " service in Mexico." The Brigadier had the misfortune of always seeing causes for staying out of reach of the enemy when he was sober, and of being too drunk to understand his surroundings whenever he was likely to have to fight. The Eebcl outpost having retreated, this obfuscated officer conceived the idea that he had won a great victory, and plunged ahead pell-mell with his brigade through the woods, contrary to his explicit orders, and without even a line of skirmishers deployed to the front, till suddenly they found them- selves before a formidable earth-work which barred further progress, and in a moment were exposed to a withering fire from seven or eight pieces of artillery and the musketry of Floyd's whole command, at a distance of scarcely more than fifty yards. The General commanding had now either to order up re-enforcements for this attack upon a fortified position, concerning every detail of which he was in absolute ignorance, or withdraw the young troops, under the enemy's fire, at the imminent risk of creating a stampede. He ordered up the re-enforcements, hastened in person to form the line as well under cover of the woods as possible, and then sought, by various demonstrations, to discover a weak point in the enemy's position. The troops thus placed kept up a tremendous fusilade against the earth-works, which had no particular eff'oct except to cause the enemy to lie close, although it did not prevent a tolerably rapid and skillful retui-n-fire * One of the streams which, by their junction, form the Kanawha, t First official dispatch concerning affair at Carrick's Ford. William S. Roseceans. 319 from musketry and artillery. It was soon found that the Eebel. intrenchments stretched, across a bend in the Gauley, with both flanks protected by the pre- (lipitous banks of that stream, here rising to a perpendicular height of from four to five hundred feet, while at his rear was Carnifex Ferry, the only point at which, for a distance of twenty-five miles, a passage could be effected. Arrange- ments were therefore begun for an assault, but night fell upon the combatants before they were completed. Anticipating a sortie during the night. General Rosecrans drew his command back through the woods, from the immediate front of the enemy's works, to some cleared fields, where they were bivouacked in line of battle, with skirmishers well to the front. In the confusion two of the raw regiments in the woods mistook each other for the enemy, and inter- changed several volleys before the sad mistake was discovered. Through the night the rumbling of artillery was heard, and by daylight it was discovered that the enemy was gone. He had crossed the ferry, and destroyed the boat behind him. This action, in which we lost about one hundred and twenty, killed and wounded, was neither bo well judged nor so well delivered as the first in which General Eosecrans had commanded. The advance was intrusted to an incom- petent, of whom some little previous knowledge might have taught^ him to beware.* The subsequent movements were too vigorous for a reconnoissance and too feeble for an attack ; and at least one good opportunity for an assault, that on the enemy's right, was overeautiously delayed till darkness prevented its execution. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the movement had been seriously imperiled by the blunders of the Brigadier commanding the advance, and that the troops were thus thrown into a confusion which, under the circumstances, it took long to rectify. But Floyd, who really had only seven- teen hundred and forty mcn,f was frightened, into retreating; the chance for cutting oflf Cox was prevented. Wise, thus left alone, speedily retreated from Cox's front; and so the substantial fruits of victory remained with General Rosecrans, although tactically the affair could not be called by so brilliant a name. Meantime the sagacity of his judgment concerning affairs at Cheat Mount- ain had been vindicated. Lee had made a partial attack and had been repulsed; his able strategic plan for a combined movement that was to maneuver the Na- tional commander out of his intrenchments had failed through want of cohe- sion in the different parts ; and, abandoning the effort, Lee had hastily marched southward, apparently with a view of concentrating Floyd's and "Wise's com- mands with his own, and overwhelming Eosecrans. He soon had Floyd's army, and, at the head of twenty thousand men, awaited Eosecrans's advance at Mount Sewell. Uniting with Cox, General Eosecrans was now able to muster only about •And whom he still failed to expose, till further blunders had entailed greater losses. It i« scarcely necessary to explain that the ofScer here referred to is Heniy W. Benham, subse- quently dismissed from the volunteer service. , t Pollard's Southern History of the War, Vol. I, p. 171. 320 Ohio in the Wak. ten thousand,* but he nevertheless pressed hard on the enemy's front, till a ter- rible storm intercepted his communications, and he judged it prudent to retire to the junction of the Gauley and Xew Eivers.f One more act closes the West Virginia campaign. General Lee now pro- posed to cut oflf Eosecrans's communications by throwing a column to his rear on the Kanawha, and then to attack him with superior forces, simultaneously in front and rear. Knowing the country better than Lee, General Eosecrans argued that such a column could only come out over Cotton Mountain, striking the river opposite the mouth of the Gauley, where his rear-guard was placed; and he forthwith took measures to surround instead of being surrounded. Stationing a small force, sufficient to delay the enemy at least twenty-four hours, at a gap through which Lee's main column must advance, he awaited the appearance of Floyd on Cotton Mountain with the column that was to cut his communications. He had so arranged it that General Benham, with one brig- ade, was to cross the Kanawha secretly, six miles below, and by a sudden march throw himself upon Floyd's rear ; while General Schenck was to cross above, at a hastily improvised ferry, and General Cox, from the mouth of the Gauley, was to attack in front. A heavy rain destroyed the ferry above, hut General Schenck crossed promptlj"- at the mouth of the Gauley. All worked well till it was discovered that General Benham, passing from the extreme of rashness to the extreme of either negligence or timidity, wasted his time and opportunity in needless halts, till the enemy was gone. The obedience of his instructions by this incomjietent could scarcely have failed to result in the cap- ture of Floyd's whole force. General Lee was now recalled and sent to the coast ; the Eebel forces were all retired, and General Eosecrans was enabled to put his ttroops in winter- quarters, with scarcely a Eebel bayonet to be found in the Department of West Virginia. No further comment on the campaign is needed than that which the enemy himself supplied. The Eebel annalist. Pollard, saj-s:^ "The campaign, * * * after its plain failure, * * * was virtually abandoned by the Govern- ment. Eosecrans was esteemed at the South one of the best Generals the North had in the field. He was declared by military critics, who could not be accused of partiality, to have clearly outgeneraled Lee, who made it the entire object of his campaign to 'surround the Dutch General;' and his popular manners and amiable deportment toward our prisoners, on more than one occasion, pro- cured him the respect of his enemj'." The Ohio Legislature, by unanimous vote, thanked General Eosecrans and his army for their achievements ; and, so satisfactory was the General's civil admin- istration to the people of West Virginia, that the Legislature of that State, by * He himself places hie force at eight thousand five hundred " effectives." Eep. Com. Con. War, series of 1865, Vol. Ill, Eosecrans's testimony, p. 10. tit subsequently appeared that he had not retired a day too soon. Lee had arranged for a combined movement on his front and rear, and it was actually to have been executed the night before Eosecrans fell back ; but some delay in the starting of the flanking column led I^e to postpone the movement till the next night. The next night Eosecrans was gone. tVol. I, pp. 175, 179. William S. Rosecrans. 321 uDanimous vote, passed a similar resolution of thanlcs for his conduct of civil as well as of military affairs. He sought, during a visit to "Washington, to procure leave to mass his troops and throw them suddenly upon Winchester ; but he already found that his free criticisms of the General-in-Chief had bol-ne their natural fruits, and he was condemned to see the task which he sought commit- ted to his own troops under other leadership. In April, 1862, under,the press- ure which demanded of Mr. Lincoln thai; John C. Fremont should not be banished the public service for declaring the principles of the Emancipation Proclamation earlier than himself, General Eosecrans was relieved to make room for Fremont, and ordered to Washington. Then followed some work in the immediate service of the Secretary of War — hunting up Blenker's division, which had incomprehensibly disappeared, consulting with General Banks as to the amazing blunders by which Stonewall Jackson was permitted to paralyze three armies in the Valley, a"nd at the same time threaten Washington, laying plans before the War Department, and the like. By the middle of May he was ordered to General Halleck, before Corinth. For a General who has commanded a department and planned his own campaigns, to be reduced not merely to the position of a subordinate, but to that of a subordinate's subordinate, as General Eosecrans now was by his assignment to the command of some divisions in General Pope's column, consti- tuting the left wing of Halleck's army, is never, a grateful change; but the General bore it handsomely ; was alert enough to be among the very first in discovering the evacuation of Corinth and getting off troops in pursuit ; kept his place in the advance till the enemy were found in new positions; held this front till ordered back to assume command of the Army of Mississippi on the departure of General Pope for the Bast. The departure of General Halleck, a little earlier, to assume the position of General-in-Chief at Washington, left General Grant in chief command at the South-West, and thus, for the first time, brought General Eosecrans into relations with that officer, whose subsequent ill-will was to prove so baleful. Mr. Jefferson Davis, about the same time, in a fit of passion, displaced General Beauregard from th^ command of the opposing forces, to make room for his subordinate, General Braxton Bragg. The change was to prove an- auspi- cious one. Whether it was through his own engrossment with the civil cares of his great department, or through the chilling influence of General Halleck's excess of caution, General Grant suffered the Eebels quietly to recuperate from the demoralization into which they had been thrown by the retreat from Corinth, the fall of Memphis, New Orleans, and Natchez, and in their own good time to assume the offensive. On the 10th of September General Sterling Price, with a force of about twelve thousand, marching northward, took Jacinto, and moved upon luka, a point on the railroad between Tuscumbia and Memphis. Eosecrans, sending out a reoonnoissance, under Colonel (since General) Mower, determined that lukaAvas Vol. I.— 21. 322 Ohio in the Wab. occupied in force, and ro advised General Grant. Meantime it had been ascer- tained that Earl Van Dorn, with another Eebel column, was rapidly advancing in the direction of Corinth. By rapid movements there was time to concentrate and overwhelm Price before Van Dorn's arrival, and on this course Grant at once resolved. On the recommendation of Eosecrans, he determined to attack Price at luka, with General Ord's command, moving eastward upon him from the direction of Memphis, while Eosecrans, coming up from his camps below Corinth, should seize his lines of retreat. Ord was able to muster about sis thousand five hundred, Eosecrans nearly nine thousand. Price, with his twelve thousand, might be expected to defeat either of these forces alone; the only salvation for either seemed to be in a nearly simultaneous attack. On the evening of the 18th Eosecrans's column was concentrated at Jacinto, nearly south of luka. Ord lay on the railroad to Memphis, seven and a half miles west of luka, and Grant was with him. Eosecrans dispatched a courier, informing Grant of his position, saying that he should move hrthe morning at three, and hoped to reach luka not later than four in the afternoon, and adding that he should send couriers from points every two or three miles along the route. But General Grant, i*csting, as it would seem, on the single idea that Eosecrans's troops had not all reached Jacinto till nine o'clock at night, ordered Ord next morning to delay his attack. Again, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the very hour fixed by Eosecrans for his arrival. Grant again cautioned Ord against attack, but directed him to move forward to within four miles of luka, and there await the sound of Eosecrans's guns from the opposite side. Now it 80 happened that the wind was blowing fresh in the face of Eosecrans's column. It might have been remembered that this would prevent the guns from being heard, but it was not. Finally, at five, the advance of Ord's command reported a dense smoke seen rising from luka. Even this, coupled with Eosecrans's dis- patch announcing that he should be on hand at four, was not enough to arouse either Grant or Ord himself, and the column lay idly watching the smoke, and listening for the sounds that the wind was blowing away from them.* Meantime Eosecrans had kept his promise. "Within ten minutes of the time he had fixed, his skirmishers were driving in the enemy's pickets; and a few moments later Price opened upon him with grape and canister. He list- ened in vain for the guns from the opposite side, and soon had the mortification to see Eebel troops marching from that direction to co-operate in a charge upon his weak and exposed lines. Till dark the battle raged. At sunset a heavy assault on Eosecrans's right was made. It was repulsed, and a heavier one came. Half an hour's conflict ensued ; the Eebel line at last drifted back in disorder, and the soldiers discovered, in the moment of success, that they had fired their last cartridge. Bivouacking his men in line of battle, Eosecrans now sent a last message to General Grant, reciting the events of the afternoon, sajdng he was fighting superior forces unsupported, and begging that Ord might be hurried up. Then, making his dispositions to seize some adjacent heights at daybreak for his artil- *For all above statements concerning Grant's orders, see Ord's Official Keport. William S. Roseceans. 323 My, and replenisliing his ammunition, he had the men called at three o'clock, and at daylight was moving. But meantime Price had learned of the prox- imity of Ord's column, and had hastily evacuated. General Eoseerans pushed the pursuit as far as was prudent ; then, under orders, hastened back to Corinth. The enemy's loss in this engagement was one thousand and seventy-eight, prisoners, dead, and wounded, left on the field, with three hundred and fifty more wounded estimated to have been carried away. Our loss was seven hun- dred and eighty-two killed, wounded, and missing. General Eosecrans's con- duct was energetic, courageous, and hopeful. General Grant said, in his official dispatch : " I can not speak too highly of the energy and skill displayed by General Eoseerans in the attack." General Grant's own course might be crit- icised as unduly cautious. Eosecrans's dispatch, naming his hour for attack, the smoke from his guns, and the adverse wind, plainly explaining the failure to hear the sound of firing, might have been sufficient warrant for moving Ord's column. But it is to be said that Ord's command was the weaker of the two, that it therefore behooved to take special care not to suffer it to be overwhelmed by engaging too soon, and that Eosecrans's distance, the night before, from the field of battle — nineteen miles — might well be held a sufficient cause for Grant's doubt about his getting up in time for action that day. Of course, however, Eoseerans could not omit the opportunity to do him- self an injury, and so, even in his official report to General Grant, he curtly expressed his disappointment at Ord's failure, and elsewhere was even more explicit. But, at Washington, the McClellan opposition being neutralized by that officer's own failure, he was now rising rapidly in the favor of the War Depart- ment, and events in the near future were to give him still further advancement. The day after luka he received notice of his appointment as Major-General of Volunteers, and General Grant assigned him to the command of the District of Corinth. Twelve days after the battle of luka * Eoseerans became convinced that Van Dorn's column, moving northward, had been re-enforced by Price's defeated army, and by the commands of Lovell and Villepigue, and was likely either to attack OT pass him within a day or two. He had already been vigorously engaged in fortifying an inner line, which he claims to have urged upon Gene- ral Grant all through the summer, and which he now pressed forward by organ- izing from the slaves of the neighborhood a strong force of negro engineers, the first used in the war. Meantime his cavalry had been everywhere. His hope was that Van Dorn and Price, dreading the fortifications of Corinth, would pass him to attack Jackson or Bolivar, in which case he would have an opportunity to fall upon their rear. But on the 2d September his vigilance in reconnoitering was rewarded with the conviction that they were about to attempt the recapture of Corinth, and his dispositions were accordingly made, so as to be ready to repel *That is, 2d September, 1862. 324 Ohio in the War. an attack from any direction. His force was fifteen thousand seven hundred infantry and artillery, and two thousand five hundred cavalry. His estimate of the combined strength of the enemy was thirty-five thousand, in which he subsequently felt himself fully warranted by the fact that he had taken pris- oners from fifty-three regiments of Eebel infantry, eighteen of cavalry, and sixteen batteries. By nine o'clock on the morning of 3d September the enemy began to press his advance. His orders were to "hold positions pretty firmly to develop the enemy's force." General Davies, under these orders, held a slight hill on which he was posted with such tenacity as to concentrate the Eebel attack, induce him to send for re-enforcements, and to cause the contest here to develop almost into the proportions of a battle. But by one o'clock he had fallen back. The enemy now renewed the vigor of their attack. Eosecrans gradually withdrew his line till it rested on the intrencbments, and meantime swung Hamilton's division in across the Columbus Eailroad on the enemy's flank. This began sensibly to diminish the fierceness of the assault in front, and darkness, now closed opera- tions for the day. Eosecrans spent the night re-forming the lines on his batteries, so as to bring the enemy's next attack within converging artillei-y fire, reassuring the men, and giving detailed instructions to his division commanders. It was three o'clock before his work was done. The feeling in Corinth, under the retreat of the army into the town, was a nervous one; but, as an eye-witness described it, "Eosecrans was in magnificent humor. He encouraged the lads by quoting Barkis, assuring them that 'things is workin'." Before daybreak the Ohio Brigade heard the enemy placing a battery in front, not over six hundred yards from Port Eobinett. "Let 'em plant it," said Eosecrans.* The officers, and through them the men, were inspired witl^ his confidence. Not all could see how well the preparations for resisting the attack promised; but those who saw no meaning in the massing of artillery for raking fires from right and left into charging columns, could interpret more readily the meaning of the glad smile on their General's face, better than re-onforcements to the beleaguered and bleed- ing but courageous garrison. Before daylight the Eebel battery planted so near Fort Kobinett opened; but it was speedily silenced, and by seven o'clock all was quiet again. Eose- crans improved the lull to gallop along the lines, and encourage the men. But by nine the crackling of the skirmishers' fire gave warning of a hostile advance, and presently the Eebel columns, emerging from the woods, swept grandly up to the National lines. The batteries poured in their double charges; the crash- ing volleys of musketry told of sturdy resistance; but, "riddled and scattered, * From the graphic account of the battle furnished the Cincinnati Comviercixd by W. D. Bickhara, Esq., Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Doc, p. 501. The account adds: "Captain Williima opened at daylight his thu-ty-pounder Parrotts in Fort Williams, on the battery which the enemy had 80 slyly posted in darkness, and in about three minutes it was silenced. This was why Gen- eral Rosecrans had said ' Let 'em plant it." The enemy dragged off two pieces, but were wwblo to take the other. Part of the Sixty-Third Ohio and a squad of the First United States Artilleiy went out and brought the deserted gun within our lines." William S. Rosecbans. 325 the ragged head of Price's storming columns advanced" — breaking the thin National line, and pushing on to the center of the town. Of what followed Eosecrans himself, in his report, modestly says only this : that he had the personal mortification of witnessing the untoward and untimely stampede. But it lives in the memory of every soldier who fought that day, how his General plunged into the thickest of the conflict, fought like a private soldier, dealt sturdy blows with the- flat of his sabre on runaways, and fairly drove them to stand. Then came a quick rally which his magnificent bearing inspired, a storm of grape from the batteries tore its way through the Eebel ranks, re-enforcements which Eosecrans sent flying up, gave impetus to the National advance, and the charging column was speedily swept back outside the intrenchments. Let us hear again from the contemporaneous description of this battle, the splendid story of the charge and the repulse. "A prodigious mass, with gleaming bayonets, suddenly loomed out, dark and threatening, on the east of the railroad, moving sternly up the Bolivar road in column by divis- ions. Directly it opened out in the shape of a monstrous wedge, and drove forward impetuously toward the heart of Corinth. Hideous gaps were rent in it, but those massive lines were closed almost as soon as they were torn open. Oar shells swept through the mass with awful eft'ect, but the brave Eebels pressed onward inflexibly. Directly the wedge opened and spread out magnifi- cently, right and left, like great wings, seeming to swoop over the whole field before them. But there was a fearful march in front. Abroad, turfy glacis, sloping upward at an angle of thirty degrees, to a crest fringed with determined, disciplined soldiers, and clad with terrible batteries, frowned upon them. Tliere were a few obstructions — fallen timber — which disordered their lines a little. But every break was instantly welded. Our whole line opened fire; but the enemy bent their necks downward and marched steadily to death, with their faces averted, like men striving to protect themselves against a driving storm of hail. At last they reached the crest of the hill, and General Davies's division began to fall back in disorder. General Eosecrans, who had been watching the conflict with eagle eye, and who is described as having expressed his delight at the trap into which Price was blindly plunging, discovered the break, and dashed to the front, inflamed with indignation. He rallied the men, by his splendid example, in the thickest of the fight. The men, brave when bravely led, fought again."* But before that wild charge was repelled, General Eose- crans's own head-quarters were captured! Seven corpses, wearing Eebel gray, were found lying in his door-yard when the lino fell back. Meanwhile, not less violent had been the charge led by Van Dorn. It Bwept up in four columns, under storms of grape and canister, to within fifty yards of Port Eobinett, when the Ohio Brigade f delivered a murderous volley, before which it reeled and retreated. Again they advanced, steadier, swifter than before, till they were pouring over the edge of the very ditch around the •Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Doc, p. 501. t Composed of the Twenty-Seventh, Thirty-Ninth, Forty-Third, and Sixty-Third Ohio, com- manded by Colonel Fuller. 326 Ohio in the Wae. fort, when this deadly musketry fire of the Ohio Brigade broke their formation. A moment later, and, at the word, the Twenty-Seventh Ohio and Eleventh Missouri sprang over the intrenchments, charged the disordered foe, and drove them again to the woods. The battle was over. Fourteen hundred and twenty-three Eebel dead were left upon the field. They lay at Eosecrans'a head-quarters — within the forts — on the parajyets— ;in the ditches, in short, everywhere over the field. With these "Van Dorn and Price left twenty-two hundred and sixty-eight prisoners, fourteen stand of colors, two pieces of artillery, thirty-three hundred stand of small arms, forty- five thousand rounds of ammunition. On the National side three hundred and fifteen were killed, eighteen hundred and twelve wounded, and two hundred and thirty-two prisoners and missing. Yet the contest was eighteen thousand against thirty-five thousand. It has been well said that such fighting was Homeric. To the losing side the magnitude of the defeat may be estimated from the words of the Eebel annalist, who describes it as "the great disaster which was to react on other theaters of the war, and cast the long shadow. of misfortune upon the country of the West." * Knowing the exhausted condition of his troops and their inferior numbers, the General, as prudent amid the delirium of victory as he was heroic under the crush of disaster, cautiously felt the retiring foe with his skirmishers. Then, convinced that the defeat was assured, he ordered pursuit. Soldierly McPher- son arrived, in the nick of time, with five fresh regiments, and was given the advance. The enemy tried to delay pursuit by a flag of truce with a burial party. It was ordered to stand aside. Van Dorn was informed that his old class-mate knew the rules of war well enough to bury the dead on the field he had won, and the column pressed onward in pursuit. Bridges were destroyed; the pursuers rebuilt them. The enemy had eighteen regiments of cavalry; the four National regiments everywhere drove them. Eations were hm-ried for- ward; for three days the troops that had fought through the preceding two pushed on, capturing deserters and stragglers, forcing the enemy's baggage- train to abandon half its loads, occasionally engaging the enemy's rear-guard, till, on midnight of 7th of October, Eosecrans proudly exclaimed that "Missis- sippi is in our hands." At this inauspicious moment he was notified by General Grant that no aid could be sent; that he did not regard the column strong enough for pursuit. Eosecrans, of course, remonstrated. His long dispatch closed: "I beseech you to bend everything to push them while they are broken, weary, hungry, and ill- supplied. Draw everything from Memphis to help move on Holly Springs. Let us concentrate * * * and we can make a triumph of our start." In reply. Grant ordered him to stop the pursuit and return to Corinth. Eosecrans promptly obeyed, but, true to his argumentative and indiscreet nature, added that he most deeply dissented from the policy. And now began to bo seen the first developments of a feeling that, growing with age, was to draw after it an expanding train of evil. There is some rea- "Pollard's Southern History, Vol. I, p. 516, William S. Roseckans. 327 son to believe that Grant had been nettled at the complaints, partly official from Eosecransiimself, far more unofficial from thoughtless staff-officers who "knew all their General knew,"* about the failure to support hica at luka. The order to stop the pursuit renewed this indiflcreet chatter, and whispfiring tongues were soon poisoning truth, by the reports they made at Grant's head- quarters. Grant congratulated the army on its victory in General Orders,, but, passing by the brilliant battle at Corinth with a single clause, devoted the most of the order to extravagant praise of Hurlbut, for the brief onslaught he had made upon the enemy during their retreat, f There was subsequently an effort at explaining away misunderstandings; both Grant and Rosecrans professed them- selves ■ satisfied, and they parted promising friendly intercourse in the future; J bat it is doubtful if the scars were ever fully effaced from the memory of either, till later events came to brand them deeper and broader with both. But in the War Department, where Grant's hostility, even if existing and exerted, could as yet avail little, the star of Eoseerans was now rapidly rising to its zenith. Nine days after his return to Corinth he was ordered to Cincin- nati, whei'e fresh orders instructed him to relieve General Buell and assume command of the great but demoralized army, which, retiring steadily through the. early fall, to keep pace with Bragg's advance into Kentucky, had fallen from North Alabama to the Ohio Eiver. The Country and the Army, remem- bering his heroism and his victories, gave implicit confidence to the new Gen- eral commanding; and he entered upon the duty of pushing back the war from his native State, and holding the center of that great line which stretched from the Potomac to the Arkansas, under outward auspices the most cheering. But he found the troops dispirited, discipline lax, unsoldierly complaints gen- eral. "Winter was approaching; the railroad lines were a wreck, and even if tlte army had been pushed forward through the country which Bragg had exhausted, it would have been impossible to supply it. In the midst of the first comprehension of these unexpected difficulties came an order from the General-in-Chief at "Washington, to undertake a march after Bragg, to East Tennessee, a distance of two hundred and forty miles, at a time when the army had transportation enough- to supply it less than fifty niiles from its depots, while the cavalry was utterly unable, over even so short a route, to protect the trains. Briefly replying that such a march was impossible, Eose- erans hastened the work of supply and reorganization, and at the earliest moment concentrated ,his troops at Nashville. . Here speedily came Bragg with his army from the mountains, thus vindicating the judgment of Eoseerans in refusing to be drawn' after him into an impracticable country. Yet, already irritated at the ignoring of his first order, and the subsequent vindication of such policy, Halleck soon found fresh cause of complaint. Before the first train could get through from Louisville to Nashville, over the destroyed • Bickham'a Kosecrans's Cainpaign with the Army of the Cumberland, p. 145. t Grant and his Campaigns, p. 131. t Kep. Com. Con. "War, series of 1865. Eosecrans's Testimony, p. 66, 328 Ohio in the Wak. railroad, and before it had, been possible to accumulate five days' supplies for the army at Nashville, the General-in-Chief again urgently demanded a forward movement; and Eosecrans having again represented its impossibility, as well as the ■.leedlessness of marching into a rough country to meet Bragg, when Bragg was already coming far away from his base of supplies to meet him, General Halleck once more required the movement, "for urgent political reasons," and significantly added that "he had been requested by the President to designate a successor for General Eosecrans."* The reply to this was manly and testy, as might have been expected: "My appointment to the command having been made without any solicitation from me or my friends, if the President continues to have confidence in the propriety of the selection, he must permit me to use my judgment and be responsible for the results; but if he entertains doubts he ought at once to appoint a commander in whom he can confide, for the good of the service and of the country.'' f This seemed to be sufficient, and Eosecrans was molested no furthei. He bent every energy toward hurrying forward supplies, kept his cavalry vigor- ously at work, handling them so skillfully that they were generally successful, and soon became animated with the prestige of victory; skirmished all along his line of outposts with the enemy. Bragg having persisted in robbing pris- oners of their overcoats and blankets, and having on one or two oecasions taken unwarrantable advantage of flags of truce, Eosecrans, after energetic remonstrances, finally notified him that — "I shall not, therefore, be able to hold any further official intercourse with you. Indeed, you render it impracticable, because I can not trust your messengers, or the statements made by them of occurrences patent as the sun. No flag will, therefore, be received from you excepting one conveying reparation for your outrages." J Within less than a month afler the re-opening of the railroad between Lou- isville and Nashville, a sufficient store of supplies had been accumulated at the latter place to warrant the undertaking of an ofifensive campaign, with it as the immediate base. Meantime the enemy had been skillfully led to believe that the army would be able to accomplish nothing during the winter; and resting secure in this belief, he had sent away a large force to operate in Kentucky, and another of cavalry to harass Grant in "West Tennessee. Now, therefore, had come the fitting moment for the attack. It was two months, lacking one day, since Eosecrans had assumed command of the army. He had found it so weak- ened that, as shown \)y the rolls in the office of the Adjutant-General, there were absent thirty-two thousand nine hundred and sixty-six men, whom the Government and the countrj' supposed to be in the ranks. || Even now he was only able to muster an effective offensive force of forty-six thousand nine hun- dred and ten men of all arms. > On the 26lh December, 1862, the advance upon Murfreesboro', where Bragg *Bep. Com. Con. W;ir, series of 1865, Vol. III. Eosecrans's Testimony, p. 25. t Md. iEosecrans's Campaign with the Army of the Cumberland, by W. D. Bickham, p. 105. II Of whom six thousand four hundred and eighty-four were deserters, through the demorali- zation consequent upon Buell's retreat. William S. Rosecrans. 329 had thrown up slight intrench men ts and gone into winter-quarters, began. Already men not unskilled in war, and not wishing defeat to the National army, were predicting it. For Eosecrans, with the lamentable ignorance of human nature which wie have before had occasion to notice, had confided the command of the two As^ngs of his army to two soldiers scarcely equal to the command of divisions.* Moving his troops in three columns, and handling them skillfully, the General was soon able to develop the Rebel positions. Hardee he found holding the enemy's left, in intrenchments west of Murfreesboro' and north of Stone Eiver. Bragg himself was in the town with Polk, and the right was held by Breckinridge^ who lay behind Stone River, and not far from the most avail- able fords. Their outposts contested the advance stubbornly, and on the 29th there was sharp skirmishing all along the line, but particularly on Hardee's front. That evening, however, found the line well up, and its left in sight of Murfreesboro'. At nine o'clock the corps commanders assembled, and the General explained to them his plan for the ensuing day. McCook, on his right, (opposite Hardee) wfts to hold the enemy; Thomas, in the center, was to push straight to the river; while Crittenden, on the left, crossing the river at the fords, was to take Breckin- ridge in flank and rear, when Thomas, now up to the river, was to assail him at the same time in front. With this preponderance of force there could be no doubt of Breckinridge's defeat. Then the left and center, (Crittenden and Thomas), sweeping through Murfreesboro', were to fall upon the roar of Hardee and whatever forces might be united with him against McCook. Manifestly this plan pivoted on one single point : Could McCook hold the right while center and left were th as hurled upon the enemy's rear? The General asked him: "You know the ground — you have fought over its diflSculties. Can you hold your present position for three hours?" "Tes; I think I can." Thereupon he was admonished that his present formation of his line was faulty ; that his extreme right was too much in the air, and therefore in imminent danger of being turned. Great fires were to be built along three or four times the extent of his line, to lead the enemy to the belief that he was massing troops there. And so the corps commanders rode back to their places, f Early next morning Crittenden began his movement against the enemy's flank and rear. But, away off to the right, the enemy had been quicker, and before Crittenden's men had moved to the fords, already the mass of the Rebel army was advancing in columns of assault upon McCook. That officer had failed to correct the faulty formation of his line — indeed, considered that "a better disposition of his troops, under the circumstances, could not be made." J The result was inevitable. • Excepting when under the eye of a superior officer, who could do their thinking for them. t Kosecrans's Official Report Stone River, Gov't. Edition. In opposition to all this, however, Shank's "Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals," (Harper & Bros., 1866, pp. 148, 149), Bays: "The official reports tell very elaborately of a grand plan, but that plan was uranged after the battle was finished. The soldiers fought the battle on our part, not the Gen- eral commanding.'' No evidence, however, is given for so grave a statement. fMcCook's Official Report of action of right wing in battle of Stone River. 330 Ohio in the Wab. Presently a tide of fugitives began to sweep back out of the cedars on the ri'i-ht. " McCook's corps was beaten ; " "Sill was killed;" "two batteries were captured ; " " the Eebel cavalry was charging the rear." Close upon their track came a staff-officer from McCook, confirming the evil news, but giving no par- ticulars. " Tell General McCook to contest every inch of the ground," exclaimed Eosecrans ; " if he holds them it will all work right." But he did not hold them. The tide of disaster swept on ; it was soon seen that McCook's corps was coming back bodily ; that the battle was spreading to the center. And yet the attack had lasted less than an hour; it was scarcely half an hour since Crittenden's advance had begun to cross the river for the movement in flank and rear. McCook was not checking the enemy "three hours," nor one, nor a moment. The instant of attack had been the instant when his ill-formed line began to crumble. It was now, therefore, fallen upon the General commanding tp decide at once whether to abandon the attack on the left, and narrow his efi'orts to a struggle for the safety of his own army, or whether he could still trust this routed corps, of which parts might retain their solidity, till he could attack the enemy's rear, according to the original plan. The last course was already perilous in the extreme ; half an hour later it was impossible. Yet it must have been with a pang that the General sent orders withdrawing Crittenden's advance, and forwarding re-enforcements instead into the cedar brakes on the right. Thenceforward it was technically s defensive battle. " The history of the combat in those dark cedars will never be known. No man could see even the whole of his own regiment, and no one will ever be able to tell who they were that fought bravest, or they who proved recreant to their trust. It was left to Sheridan to stay the successful onset of the foe. Xever did a man labor more faithfully than he 'to perform his task, and never was leader seconded by more gallant soldiers. His division formed a pivot on which the broken right wing turned in its flight, and its perilous condition can easily be imagined, when the flight of Davis's division left it without any protection from the triumphant enemy, who now swarmed upon its front and right flank; but it fought until one-fourth its number lay upon the field, and till all its brigade commanders were gone."* As Sheridan came out of the cedars, with his riddled but still compact division, he rode up to Eosecrans, pointing to his men : " Here is all that is left of us. General. Our cartridge-boxes are empty, and so are our guns." Meantime Eosecrans had been busy re-forming the line, grouping batteries on the crest of the knoll near the turnpike, once or twice heading charges to repel advancing Eebel columns. With the lines re-formed, the rest of the battle was simple. By eleven o'clock the rout of McCook's corps was over, the new formation was complete, and a lull had come. Then followed assault after assault, mainly upon the left. All were handsomely repulsed ; and in all the 'From the admirable account of the battle furnished by Mr. W. S. Furay to the Cincinnivti Oazetie. William S. Roseceans. 331 William S. Rosecrans. 333 presence of Eosecrans himself was the inspiring feature. Garesche's head was blown from his body as he galloped by the side of the General* in one of these movements. Eichmond and Porter, of the staff, were shot. Kirby was shot. Two or three orderlies weve shot; and nearly a dozen of the staff lost their horses. To every remonstrance about this personal exposure, the General only replied : " This battle must be won." When Garesche fell, his most intimate and trusted friend, the General made no sign. But, a moment later, he thun- dered up to a regiment and ordered it to charge. So, with unretrieved disaster in the morning, and with handsome defense through the afternoon, the day ebbed out; with the ebbing fire. Twenty-eight pieces of artillery had been lost ; seven thousand men lay dead and wounded on the field. The General galloped back and selected ground, a few miles in the rear, to which, in case of necessity, the retreat could be conducted; then returned to his corps commanders, and, with few orders, simply said : " Gentle- men, we fight it out here." The rear was swarming with the enemy's cavalry ; communication with Nashville was nearly or quite cut off; in front lay an army that had already driven one wing in confusion, broken up the whole plan of battle, and thrown the attacking column into an attitude purely defensive. But, "Gentlemen, we fight it out here." "Most men in that army were whipped," it was afterward well said, "excepting the General who com- manded it." The next day passed quietly, till, in the afternoon, the enemy made one or two partial demonstrations, which were easily repulsed. It began to be seen that, in spite of his -seeming success, Bragg had been severely punished. The next forenoon likewise passed inactively ; but in the afternoon the enemy con- centrated his strength for a final effort. Eosecrans, finding his position appar- ently secure, had extended his left across Stone Eiver, at the point where he had originally intended that his main attack on the enemy's flank and rear should begin. On this isolated forcef the enemy now poured down, driving it in hot haste back across the river again, and crossing himself in pursuit. But here he came under the fire of a great collection of batteries skillfully placed on the north bank. The slaughter was terrible ; and, as a couple of brigades advanced upon him, the enemy in turn fled in confusion. His loss in less than forty minutes was two thousand men. Excepting Malvern Hill, it was, per- haps, the handsomest artillery fight of the war. This was the last sullen effort of the enemy, and ended the battle of Stone Eiver. Next day, under cover of heavy rains, and a vigorous maintenance of skirmishing on the front, Bragg was in full retreat. No pursuit was attempted. The battle thus inauspiciously begun and happily ended, electrified the Nation. At the capital, men waited, day by day, during the continuance of the fighting, for dispatches from Eosecrans, as if he held in his hands the fate of the Government. General Halleck, lately so dissatisfied, and about, "pt the President's request," to name General Eosecrans's successor, could scarcely say •To whom he was Cliief of Staff. t Van Cleve's division. 334 Ohio in the Wak. too much. "The victory was well earned, and one of the most hrilliant of the war. You and your brave army have won the gratitude of your country and the admiration of the world. The field of Murfreesboro' is made historical, and future generations will point out the place where so many heroes fell gloriously in defense of the Constitution and the Union. All honor to the Army of tho Cumberland ! Thanks to the living, and tears for the lamented dead ! " Scarcely less enthusiastic was the President : " God bless you, and all with you ! Please tender to all, and accept for yourself, the Nation's gratitude for your and their skill, endurance, and dauntless courage." The Country re-echoed the words. Admiring journals dwelt upon the details of the General's personal movements through the battle. Men compared him to that Marshal of France to whom, when Napoleon had said: "I give you sixty thousand soldiers," and he had replied : " Sire, Your Majesty mistakes ; I have but forty thousand," the great Master of War rejoined: "No, sir, I do not mistake; I count you for twenty thousand." Yet now, on a calm review of all the facts, it must be confessed that the battle is open to criticisms. It was a fatal mistake to intrust a forlorn hope (such as Eosecrans proposed to make the right while he pushed the left and center upon the enemj^'s flank and rear) to an officer like McCook. Most of all was it a mistake to do this in an army which then numbered among its Gen- erals, George H. Thomas and Philip H. Sheridan. The man that could do this was hopelessly ignorant of human nature ; hopelessly deficient in that foremost quality of a General which teaches how to select the right men for the right places. Had the original plan not been ruined at the outset by this blunder, it would have been exposed to similar danger further on, from its counterpart, for Crittenden, though abler than McCook, was still unfit for such responsible positions. Furthermore, in a case like this, where everything depended upon this right wing, while he was convinced that its position was faulty, and knew that the enemy was massed upon it, the General commanding was not absolved from responsibility by a simple statement that, as his corps General* "knew tho groiind best, he must leave it to his judgment." f But when tho diaster had enveloped half the army, and from that time to the end, Eosecrans was magnificent. Eising superior to the disaster that, in a moment, had annihilated his carefully-prepared plans, he grasped in his single hands the fortunes of the day. He stemmed the tide of retreat, hurried brig- ades and divisions to the points of danger, massed the artillery, handled his troops as Morphy might his chess-men, infused into them his own dauntless spirit, and out of defeat itself fashioned the weapons of victory. As at Eich Mountain, luka, Corinth, it was his personal presence that magnetized his plans into success. * Throughout the above, the Generals of the center and wings have, for the sake of conve- nience been designated as corps Generals, though in reality they held no such rank. Kosecrans himself was, as yet, only a corps General, and his army was known at the War Department ai> the Fourteenth Corps. tRosccrans's own explanation in his official report. William ' S. Roseckans. 335 Of his forty-six thousand men, Eosecrans lost fifteen hundred and thii-ty- tbrco killed, and seven thousand two hundred and forty-five wounded, besides nearly three thousand prisoners. In other words, his kille4 and wounded alone constituted one-fifth of his entire command. He took prisoners from one hun- dred and thirty-two regiments of Eebel infantry. On this basis he estimated the strength of his antagonist at sixty-two thousand five hundred and twenty, which was unquestionably an exaggeration. Bragg, in his official report, said, ho had but thirty-five thousand men in the field when the battle commenced. Out of these he admits a loss of nine thousand killed and wounded and one thousand prisoners; but he consoled himself and the Eebel Government by estimating Eosecrans's loss at twenty-four thousand killed and wounded. And now there followed the most unfortunate six months of Eosecrans's career. He kept up a series of skirmishes and aifairs of more or less import- ance with isolated bodies of the enemy ; sent General Carter on a raid into East Tennessee; resisted raids upon his communications by Forrest and Morgan; sent Jeff. C. Davis and Sheridan on movements to the southward against small Rebel forces; engaged Morgan, Van Dorn, and others, at points near Murfrees- boro' ;■ dispatched Colonel Straight, with eighteen hundred cavalry to the rear of Bragg's army, to cut the Eebel railroad communications and destroy their depots of supplies. Most of these movements were successes; the last, by unskillfulness, resulted in the capture of the entire command. But these were trifling matters. General Eosecrans had a great army, which had won a great victory. He was expected to improve it. The winter was given him to recruit and reorganize. With spring came an impatience for his advance, which every delay intensified, till at last the dissatisfaction of the Government culminated in such oi'ders as it never in any other case brought itself to address to a General to whose hands it still intrusted an army. ■ J'rom 4th January to 23d June, 1863, the army lay at Murfreesboro'. In his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, General Eose- lirans explains this delay by the weakness of his cavalry force, the scarcity of forage, the nature of the roads, and the policy of holding Bragg on his front rather than driving him out of Tennessee, only that he might unite with Jos. B. Johnston and fall upon Grant, who was still ineflectually struggling before Vickaburg. In his sketch of his military career, officially furnished to the War Dteatment,* he says : " The detachment of General Burnside's troops to Vicks- burg, the uncertainty of the issue of our operations there, and the necessity of 'nursing' — so to speak — General Bragg on my front, to keep him from retiring behind the mountain and the Tennessee, whence he could and would have been obliged to send heavy re-enforcements to Johnston, delayed the advance of my army until the 23d of June, when, the circumstances at Vicksburg and the arrival of all our cavalry horses warranting it, we began the campaign." And in hiijjeorrespondence with the General-in-Chief, he said that to fight in *3Ianuncript on file in rolls of Adjutant-General's office at Washington. 336 Ohio in th'k Wae. Tennessee while Grant was about fighting at Vicksburg, would violate one of the fundamental maxims of war, the proper application of which would " for- bid this Nation from engaging all its forces in the great West at the same time, so as to leave it without a single reserve to stem the current of possible disaster."* Some of these considerations are of undoubted weight ; but on the whole they will hardly seem now to have afforded sufficient cause for the, delay. In point of fact, Bragg profited by it to detach a considerable portion of his troops to the Eebel lines of the South-West, the very result which Eosecrans imagined himself to be hindering.f There are no traces of complaint from Grant him- self on the subject, but his friends were not silent; and there is some reason to think that their importunity served still further to exasperate the already dis- satisfied feelings of the General-in-Chief Presently there sprang up an extraordinary state of affairs between that offlcir and General Eosecrans. The latter asked for cavalry. General Halleck replied as if he thought it a complaint. Eosecrans telegraphed the Secretary of War. In reply came fresh hints from Halleck about the tendency of his subordinate to complain of his means instead of using -them. Eosecrans begged for revolving rifles, adding almost piteously : " Do n't be weary at my impor- tunity. No economy can compare with that of furnishing revolving arms ; no mode of recruiting will so promptly and efficaciously strengthen us.J" But the Prussian war not yet having been fought, the practical General-in-Chief con- sidered such applications the extravagant whims of a dreaming theorist. The dispatches for " cavalry," " cavalry," " cavalry," continued. On 20th March General Eosecrans said : " Duty compels me to recall the attention of the War Department to the necessity of more cavalry here. Let it be clearly under- stood that the enemy have five to our one, and can, therefore, command the resources of the country and the services of the inhabitants." On 29th March again : " General Eousseau would undertake to raise eight or ten thousand mounted infantry. I think the time very propitious." On 24th April, still the same : " Cavalry horses are indispensable to our success here. This has been stated and reiterated to the Department ; but horses have not been obtained." Again, on 10th May, in reply to a letter of General Halleck, proving to him that he had cavalry enough : " We have at no time been able to turn out more than five thousand for actual duty. I am not mistaken in saying that this great army would gain more from ten thousand effective cavalry than from twenty thousand infantry." On 26th July : " I have sent General Eousseau to Wash- ington, directed to lay before you his plan for obtaining from the disciplined troops recently mustered out in the East, such a mounted force as would enable us to command the country south of us." || This last application ended the list. General Eousseau returned, telling Eosecrans that he " was satisfied his official destruction was but a question of time and opportunity ; the will to aceompliBh * Rf:p. C!om. Con. War, aeries 1865, Vol. Ill, Eosecrans's Campaigns, p. 41. t Pollard's Southern History, Vol. Ill, p. 114. tRep. Com. Con. War, ubi supra, p. 38. UlbiJ., pp. 37, 38, 39, 40, and 41. William S. Roseckans. 337 it existed, and' there was no use to hope for any assistance from the War De- partment." The Secretary of War had " even gone so far as to say that he would he damned if he wonld give Eosecrans another man."* For, meantime, the high spirit and utter lack of caution in personal mat- ters which 80 distinguished General Eosecrans had led to two other breaches with the Department. Either of them would have served to make his position as a successful General, vigorously prosecuting a triumphant campaign, suf- ficiently unpleasant. As a delaying General, furnishing excuses for not under- taking the campaign on which the Government, with all its power, was urging him, they were enough to work his ruin. Yet who can check a thtill of honest pride as he reads that an Ohio General, in such a plight, had still sturdy man- hood enough left to send a dispatch like this to the all-powerful General-in- Chief: , " MuRFREESBORo', 6th March, 1863. " General : Yours of the Ist instant, announcing the offer of a vacant Major- Generalship in the regular army to the General in the field who first wins an important and decisive victory, is at hand. As an officer and a citizen I feel degraded at such an auctioneering of honors. Have we a General who would fight for his own personal benefit when he would not for honor and his Country ? He would come by his commission basely in that case, and deserve to be despised by men of honor. But are all the brave and honorable Generals on an equality as to chances ? If not, it is unjust to those who probably deserve most. " W. 8. Eosecrans, Major-General. "To Major-General H. W. Halleok, General-in-Chief." . "Under the merited sting of this incautious but unanswerable rebuke, Gen- eral Halleok renewed his complaints, found fault with Eosecrans's reports, and iiis failures to report, and even criticised the expenses of his telegraphing ! At last Eosecrans, chafing under one^of these dispatches, with absolutely character- istic lack of prudence, was stung into saying : " That I am very careful to inform the Department of my successes, and of all captures from the enemy, is not true, as the records of our office will show ; that I have failed to inform the Government of my defeats and losses is equally untrue, both in letter and in spirit. I regard the statement of these two propositions of the War Department as ai profound, grievous, cruel, and ungenerous official and personal wrong." Was it wonderful now — human nature being, after all, only human nature — that Eosecrans's " official destruction was but a question of time and oppor- tunity?" At last, t thirteen days after every one of his corps and division Generals had in writing expressed his opposition to an eflSrt to advance, General Eose- crans began his movement. Bragg lay heavily intrenched at TuUahoma, with advance positions at Shelbyville and "Wartrace. By a series of combined move- ments which even General Halleck was forced officially to pronounce "admira- l>le," X Bragg's attention was completely taken up by Gordon Granger's dashing •Bep. Com. Con. War, ubi supra. 1 24th June, 1863. tHalleok'B Official Report. Beport Sec. War, First Sess. Thirty-Eighth CongresB. Vol. I.— 22. 338 Ohio in the Wae. advance on Sholbyville, while the bulk of the army, hastily moving far to tlie enemy's right, seized the mountain gaps which covered his flank. Bragg per- ceived, too late, the extent of his loss, and made haste to expedite his retreat. Rosecrans pushed forward for a similar flanking movement on Tullahoma, but Bragg, foreseeing that Rosecrans's success would cut off his hope of retreat, made haste to get out of Tullahoma while he could, and precipitately retired behind the Tennessee Eiver. Success had again justified General Eosecrans; but, brilliant as were these operations, they lacked the element of bloodshed which goes so far toward fixing the popular standard of appreciation. The very day on which he had begun the campaign had unfortunately proved the beginning of an unprecedented rain-storm which lasted for seventeen successive days. Through this the cam- paign was carried on; but for the delays which it compelled, Tullahoma would have been turned so speedily that Bragg would have found himself forced to battle on disadvantageous ground, and the history of the war in the South-West might have been changed. As it was, Eosecrans was fully warranted in his proud summing up: "Thus ended a nine days' campaign which drove the enemy from two fortified positions, and gave us possession of Middle Tennessee, conducted in 'one of the most extraordinary rains ever known in Tennessee at that period of the year, over a soil that became almost a quicksand. These results were far more successful than was anticipated, and could only have been obtained by a surprise as to the direction and force of our movements."* His total loss was five hundred and sixty. He took sixteen hundred and thirty-four prisoners, six pieces of artillery, and large quantities of stores. General Eosecrans at once set about repairing the railroads in his rear, and hurrying forward supplies. By 25th of July the first supply train was pushed through to the Tennessee Eiver. But already "the General-in-Chief began to manifest great impatience at the delay in the movement forward to Chatta- nooga." So Eosecrans mildly states it. The nature of these manifestations may be inferred from the correspondence. On 3d July General Halleck tele- graphed positive orders to advance at once, and report daily the movement of each corps until the Tennessee Eiver was crossed ! Eosecrans, in astonishment, replied that he was trying to prepare for crossing, and inquired if this order was intended to take away his discretion as to the time and manner of moving his troops. Halleck's response was such as was never given under similar cir- cumstances to any other General during the war: "The orders for the advance of your army, and that its progress be reported daily, are peremptory ! " The War Department has not favored us with General Eosecrans's reply to this extra- ordinary order, but we are rfT5t without the means for determining its nature. He stated his plan8,f showed the necessity of deceiving the enemy as to the intended point for crossing the Tennessee, insisted on not moving till he was ready, and requested that, in the event of the disapproval of these views, he * Rosecrans's Official Eeport Tullahoma Campaign. t Rosecrans's MS. Sketch of his Military Career, famished under orders of War Depart- ment, in files of the Adjutant-General's office. "William S. Rosecrans. 339 should be relieved from the command of the army! This seems to have freed him from further molestation; but it needed no prophetic sagacity now to see that only "time and opportunity" were waited for at the War Department. It was on 5th August that General Halleck te'legraphed his peremptory orders to move, and received in reply the tender of the command. General Eosecrans quietly waited till the dispositions along his extended line were com- pleted, till stores were accumulated, and the corn had ripened so that his horses could be made to live off the country. On the 15th he was ready. The problem now before General Rosecrans was to cross the Tennessee River and gain possession of Chattanooga, the key to the entire mountain ranges of Eastern Tennessee and Northern Georgia, in the face of an enemy of equal strength, whose business it was to oppose him. Two courses were open. Forc- ing a passage over the river above Chattanooga, he might have essayed a direct attack upon the town. If not repulsed in the dangerous preliminary move- ments, he would still have had upon his hands a siege not less formidable than that of Yicksburg, with difficulties incomparably greater in supplying his army. But, if this plan was not adopted, it then behooved him to convince the enemy that he had adopted it ; while, crossing below, he hastened southward over the ruggedest roads, to seize the mountain gaps whence he could debouch upon the enemy's line of supplies. More briefly, he could either attempt to fight the enemy out of Chattanooga, or to flank him out. He chose the latter. By the 28th the singular activity of the Ifational forces along a front of a hundred and fifty miles had blinded and bewildered Bragg as to his antago- nist's actual intentions. Pour brigades suddenly began demonstrating furiously against his lines above Chattanooga, and the plan was thought to be revealed! Eosecrans must be about attempting to force a passage there, and straightway began a concentration to oppose him. Meantime, bridges having been secretly prepared were hastily thrown across, thirty miles farther down the river at different points, and before Bragg had finished preparing to resist a crossing above, Eosecrans, handling with rare skill his various corps and divisions, had securely planted his army south of the Tennessee, and, cutting completely loose from his base of 'supplies, was already pushing southward, his flank next the enemy being admirably protected by impassable mountains. For Bragg, but one thing was left. As he had been forced out of Shelby- ville, out of Wartrace, out of Tullahoma, precisely so had the same stress been placed upon him by the same hand in his still stronger position; and in all haste he evacuated Chattanooga, leaving it to the nearest corps of Eosecrans's army to march quietly in and take possession. The very ease of this occupa- tion was to prove its strongest element of danger. - For men, seeing the objective point of the campaign in our hands, forgot the columns toiling through moun- tains away to the southward, whose presence there alone compelled the Eebel evaonation. But for them the isolated troops at Chattanooga would have been overwhelmed. Thenceforward there was need of still greater Generalship to reunite the scattered corps. They could not return by the way they had gone, for the moment they began such a movement Bragg, holding the shorter 340 Ohio in the Wae. line, and already re-enforced "by Longstreet's veteran corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, could sweep back over the route of his late retreat. Plainly they must pass through the gaps, and place themselves between Bragg and Chattanooga, before the stronghold — beyond a mere tentative possession— could be within our grasp. And so it came about that a battle — the bloody one of Chickamauga — was fought to enable our army to concentrate in the position which one of its corps had already occupied for days without firing a shot. Unfortunately the concentration was not speedy enough. Indeed, there are some plausible reasons for believing that Eosecrans was for a few days deceived by his easy success into a belief that Bragg was still in full retreat. Certainly the General-in-Chief and the "War Department did all they could to encourage such an idea; and even after Eosecrans, (every nerve tense with the struggle to concentrate his corps), was striving to prepare for the onset of the re-enforced Eebel army, General Halleck informed him of reports that Bragg's army was re-enforcing Lee, and pleasantly added that, after he had occupied Dalton it would be decided whether he should move still further southward! But now Bragg had gathered in every available re-enforcement; Longstreet from the East, Buckner from Knoxville, "Walker from the army of Jos. E. John- ston, militia from Georgia,* and, waiting near Lafayette, hoped to receive the isolated corps of Eosecrans's army as they debouched through the gaps, and annihilate them in detail. For a day or two it looked as if he would be suc- cessful ; Eebel critics insist that he might have been, and he himself seems dis- posed to blame his subordinates. One way or another, however, he failed. Eosecrans gathered together his army, repelling whatever assaults sought to hinder the concentration, yielding part of the line of the Chickamauga, and marching one of the corps all through the night before the battle. On 19th September Bragg made his onset — with certainly not less than seventy thou- sand men. Eosecrans had fifty-five thousand. Bragg's plan was to turn his antagonist's left, and thus clear the way into Chattanooga. But, most fortunately, the left was held by George H. Thomas. Shortly after the attack began, Eosecrans, divining the danger, strengthened Thomas's corps with one or two divisions. Disaster overtook us at first, artil- lery was lost, and ground yielded, but Thomas re-formed and advanced his lines, regained all that had been lost, sustained every shock of the enemy, and at night held his positions firmly. Meanwhile the contest on other parts of our line had been less severe, and had ended decidedly to our advantage. But it was seen that we were outnumbered, and as they came to think how every brigade in the whole army, two only excepted, had been drawn into the fight, the soldiers began to realize the dispiriting nature of the situation. Through the night the last of Longstreet's corps came up, led by himself, and Bragg prepai-ed for a more vigorous onset on the National left. Eosecrans trans- ferred another division (Negley's) to Thomas, and placed two more in reserve, to be hurried to Thomas's aid if needed. At daybreakf he galloped along the * Raising Bragg's force, according to Roseorans's estimate, to ninety-two thousand men. t 20th September, 1863. William S. Roseckans. 341 CHICKAMAUCA AND CHATTANOOGA. William S. Roseceans. 343 front, to find MiGook's line, as usual, ill-formed, and also to learn that JSTegley had not yet heen forwarded to Thomas. The errors were corrected as well as possible; but long before Thomas's needed re-enforcements had come, the battle was raging on his front and flank. Profoundly conscious of the danger, Eosecrans sought to render still further aid, and ordered over "Van Cleve's division from the right, directing the several division commanders and the corps General to close up the line on the left. In the heat of the battle, which by this time was broken out along the right also, one of these division commandei-s* misunderstood his orders; and, though he has subsequently stated that he knew the consequences of his action must be fatal, he chose to consider himself bound by the order to break the line of battle and march to the rear of another division. Longstreet per- ceived the gap and hurled Hood into it. The battle on the right was lost. The whole wing crumbled; the enemy poured forward, and all that was left of McGook's corps, a broken rabble, streamed back to Chattanooga. General Eosecrans himself was caught in this rout and borne along, vainly striving to stem its tide. Finally, conceiving that if the wing least pressed was thus destroyed, Thomas, upon whom he knew the main efforts of the enemy were concentrated, could not hold out beyond nightfall, he hastened to Chatta- nooga to make dispositions for the retreat and defense, which he already regarded as inevitable. Meantime his chief of staff, General Gai-field, was sent to Thomas to convey to him information of what had happened and of the plans for the future. This ended Eosecrans's connection with the battle of Chickamauga. The troops under Thomas stood their ground superbly, and their defense saved the routed right from destruction. "When they fell back, Eosecrans had perfected his dispositions at Chattanooga, and Bragg found that, beyond possession of the battle- field, his victory had gained him nothing. He confessed to a loss of two-fifths of his army ! Eosecrans's loss in killed and wounded was ten thousand nine hundred and six, somewhat less than that of Bragg, though his loss in prisoners was greater. The battle of Chickamauga was the "opportunity" for which, according to Rousseau, the "War Department had been waiting, and Eosecrans was removed from the command as soon thereafter as circumstances permitted. The Country seemed to acquiesce in this displacement of a popular favorite. Journals in the interest of the "War Department circulated atrocious calumnies concerning him, which for a time found ready believers. He was a drunkard. He was a con- firmed opium-eater. He had been on the point of surrendering his army at Chattanooga. He was worse "stampeded " during the battle than the worst of his troops. He was not under fire, or near enough the battle to have any intel- ligible idea about it. Even the Secretary of "War so far forgot himself, and out- raged all decency, as to speak of the hero of luka, Corinth, and Stone Eiver, as a coward ! In short, " The painful warrior, famoused for fight, After a thousand victories, once foiled, Is from the books of honor razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toiled."t • Thomas J. Wood of Kentucky. t Shakspeare's SonneU, XXV. 344 Ohio in the Wak. Impartial criticism can not indeed wholly acquit General Eosecrans of blame for Chickamauga. The idle clamor of the War Department about his fighting the battle at all, when he had possession of Chattanooga without it, may be passed by as the talk of those who know nothing of what they discuss. But it is not so clear that it was impossible to concentrate the army one or two days earlier in time to assume strong defensive positions. With a competent commander for his right wing — and after Stone Eiver it was criminal to retain McCook— his orders for re-enforcing Thomas on the night of the 19th might have been executed before ten o'clock of the 20th, and the dangerous closing up on the left under fire, in the midst of which the disaster occurred, might have been avoided. The fatal order to Wood might have been more explicitly worded. It was curious wrong- headedness to misconstrue it, but there- was left the possibility of misconstruction. And finally, the man who saved Stone Eiver might have done something to check the retreat of the broken right, and rally it on new positions for fresh defense, but for the error of judgment which led to the conclusion that all was lost because one wing was sacrificed. It is not always given to men to come ap to their highest capacities. / At Corinth and at Stone Eiver Eosecrans had risen superior to disasters, that, as it seemed, must overwhelm him. It must he regretfully set down that at Chickamauga he did not. Yet, what a good General in the midst of sore difficulties might do, he did. He saved the army, gained the objective point of his campaign, and held the gates through which it was fated that other leaders should conduct the swelling hosts that were soon to debouch upon Georgia and the vitals of the Confederacy. When the order relieving him came, he never uttered a murmur. Turning- over the command to his most trusted and loved General,* he dictated a touching and manly farewell; and, before his army knew that it was to lose him, he was on his way, under orders, to his home in Cincinnati. It was just a year since he had assumed command of the Department. For the next three months General Eosecrans remained quietly in Cincin- nati; serving as President of the great Sanitary Fair, and in every way striving to cast his infiuence on the side of the soldiers and of the Government. The value of this influence, particularly among the Eoman Catholic voters of Cincin- nati, was incalculable. The people of his native State had never sympathized in the hue and cry raised against him, because after so many victories he had lost a battle; and the public journals continued to demand his restoration to command, with such persistency that he was finallyf ordered to relieve General Schofleld in command of the Department of Missouri. He found that State harassed by the worst evils of civil war. The militia in the north-western counties, though nominally raised to preserve order in the community, was more than suspected of active sympathy with the rebeUion. Murders and robberies were of constant occurrence; no man knew whether to * George H. Thomas, between whom and Eosecrans the relations were always of the most cordial and confidential nature, t 28th January, 1861. William S. Roseceans. 345 trust his neighbor, and the whole country was in confusion ; while, to add to the general alarm, the secessionists were all confident that Price would speedily invade the State. His attention being attracted to the large shipments of arms into North-Western Missouri, General Eosecrans began, through his secret ser- vice, to explore the machinations of the secessionists, and was speedily convinced that they were well organized in a secret "Order of American Knights," which promised to be dangerous. The matter was thoroughly investigated, a large mass of testimony was taken, going to show a design to invade Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania simultaneously, and efforts were made to warn and arouse the Government. But Eosecrans was in no better favor at Washington ; and Grant, with whom the old aifairs at luka and Corinth were scarcely forgotten, was now Lientenant-General. When Eosecrans sent a staff-officer to Washington to rep- resent his need for more troops, the officer was arrested. When he sent the President word of his discoveries concerning the secret society, and asked leave to send on an officer to explain them, he was told to write out and send by mail whatever he might have to communicate. General Grant caused, an officer to make an inspection of affairs in the department, who reported that Eosecrans already had far more troops than he needed. And so matters drifted on till, with the State stripped of nearly all troops save her own uncertain militia, the long- expected invasion came. Price entered South-Eastern Missouri, and the guerrillas, Eebel-sympa- thizing militia, and secession outlaws over the whole State suddenly broke out into more dai'ing outrages. Securing A. J. Smith's command, which happened to he passing Cairo at the time, prevailing upon some Illinois hundred-days' men to come over to St. Louis and help defend the city, although their time of service had expired, and concentrating his troops on his main depots, General Eosecrans strove to preserve the points of importance while he developed the strength and intentions of the enemy. Then followed a curious medley of isolated engagements, attacks, pursuits, retreats, marches, and counter-marches. Price, with a mounted command, came within striking distance of St. Louis ; then beginning to comprehend the nature of the combinations against him, speedily retired. By this time Mower and Pleasanton had come to Eosecrans's relief. There was some marching at cross-purposes in attempting to come up with Price, and one or two oppor- tunities to strike him were lost, but he was severely punished at the Big Blue, at the Marais-des-Cygnes, the Little Osage, and Newtonia, and so driven, shat- tered, reduced one-half in numbers, and with the loss of nearly all his materiel, into Arkansas again. General Eosecrans estimates Price's force in this campaign at from fifteen to twenty-six thousand. He took from him ten guns, two thousand prisoners, many small arms, and most of his baggage-train. He remained himself in St. Louis, at one time the point of greatest danger, and the place from which, as it Beamed, he could best overlook the confused and desultory struggle.* The cam- *fieneral Grant in his o£Bcial report, censured Bosecrans's conduct of this campaign very 346 Ohio in the War. paign over, General Eosecrans hastened to forward such of his troops as were no longer needed, to re-enforce General Sherman at Atlanta. In the preservation of order at the State election which now ensued, and in his general management of the political interests of his department, Eose- crans so acted as to receive the general, though qualified, approval of the "Ead- icals," and to confirm the reputation he had early acquired in "West Virginia for sagacity and fair-mindedness in civil affairs. He had been appointed to the command in Missouri in opposition to the personal hostility of the General-in-Chief, and of most of those who conducted the husiness of the war— a hostility largely incurred, as we have sought to show in the preceding pages, by indiscretions and hot-tempered sayings of his own. A political necessity had dictated his restoration; the necessity was thouo-ht to be over ; the number of his enemies at the head of affairs was iwcreased by the promotion of General Grant. He was relieved of his com- mand, without explanation or warning, on 9th December, 1864, and so took his final leave of active service. He made no public complaints, and was more than ever scrupulous that his influence among the Eoman Catholics should hind them more firmly to the cause of the Government. At the close of the war, having been left by General Grant without assign- ment to duty, he applied for a year's leave of absence, during which he visited the silver mines of Nevada, and made scientific observations as to the richness of the mineral deposits in that and our other Western Territories. At the end of his leave he tendered the resignation of his high rank in the regular army, which was promptly accepted, and he was thus left, at the age of forty-eight, to begin the world anew, and almost at the bottom of the ladder again. The officer thus ungraciously suffered to retire from the service he adorned, must forever stand one of the central figures in the history of the War for the Union. He can not be placed in that small category of commanders who were always successful ; but who of our Generals can ? Few of his battles or cam- paigns are entirely free from criticism, for " whoever has committed no faults has not made war." But as a strategist he stands among the foremost, if not himself the foremost, of all our Generals. In West Virginia he outmaneuvered Lee. At Corinth he beguiled Van Dorn and Price to destruction. In his Tul- lahoma and Chattanooga campaigns his skillfully -combined movements devel- ojied the highest strategic ability, and set the model, which was afterward followed with varying success, in the famed advance on Atlanta. But responsi- bility weighed upon him and made him sometimes hesitating. For, as a great writer has said, " war is so anxious and complex a business that against every vigorous movement heaps of reasons can forever be found ; and if a man is bo cold a lover of battle as to have no stronger guide than the poor balance of the severely, saying it showed " to how little purpose a superior force might be used," and that " there was no reason why he should not have concentrated his forces and beaten Price before the latter reached Pilot Knob." He forgot that this concentration would, even if possible, have left the other portions of the State exposed to the risings to which the oath-bound Rebels of the secret societies stood pledged. • William S. Roseceans. 347 arguments and eounter-arguments, his mind will oscillate or even revolve, making no movement straightforward." Eosecrans's mind did not revolve, but more than once it oscillated painfully back and' forth, when he should have been on the verge of action. "When he did move his tactical ability shone as conspicuously as his strategy. He handled troops with rare facility and judg- ment under the stress of battle. More than all, there came upon him in the hour of conflict the inspiration of war, so that men were magnetized by his presence into heroes. Stone River under Rosecrans, and Cedar Creek under Sheridan, are the sole examples in the war of defeats converted into victories by the re-enforcement of a single man. He was singularly nervous, but in battle this quality was generally developed in a nervous exaltation which seemed to clear his faculties and intensify his vigor. Once, perhaps,* it led to an opposite result.f * At Chickamauga. t Some personal characteristics of General Kosecrans are happily described by Mr. Bickham in the following extracts from the " Campaign with the Fourteenth Army Corps : " " Industry was one of the most valuable qualities of General Bosecrans. Labor was a con- stitutional necessity with him. And^he enjoyed a fine faculty for the disposition of military business — a faculty which rapidly improved with experience. He neither spared himself nor his subordinates. He insisted upon being surrounded by active rapid workers. He liked ' sandy fellows,' because they were so 'quick and sharp.' He rarely found staff-officers who could endure with him. Ambition prompted all of them to remain steadfastly with him until nature would sustain no more. Often they confessed, with some exhibition of selfish reluctance, that he was endowed with extraordinary vital force, and a persistency which defied fatigue. Those who served upon his staff in Western Virginia or Mississippi predicted a severe future. They were not deceived. He was habitually prepared for labor in quarters at ten o'clock in the morn- ing. On Sundays and Wednesdays he rose early and attended mass. He never retired before two o'clock in the morning, very often not until four, and sometimes not until broad daylight. He often mounted in the- afternoons and rode out to inspect or review the troops. It was not extraordinary that his Aids sometimes dropped asleep in their chairs, while he was writing vehemently or glancing eagerly over his maps, which he studied almost incessantly. Sometimes he glanced at his 'youngsters ' compassionately, and pinching their ears or rubbing their heads paternally until he roused them, would send them to bed. »«*-»» " During the few days he remained at Bowling Green, he reviewed most of the divisions which had reached that vicinity. Night labors compensated for hours thus stolen from his maps, reports, and schemes for the improvement of the army. At the reviews the satisfaction of the troops with the change of commanders was manifested by their enthusiastic reception of him. The manner 6i his inspections at once engendered a cordiality toward him which prom- ised happy results. The soldiers were satisfied that their commander' took an interest in their welfare — a moralizing agency which no capable General of volunteers can safely neglect. He examined the equipments of the men with exacting scrutiny. No trifling minutiae escaped him. Everything to which the soldier was entitled was important. A private without his canteen instantly evoked a volley of searching inquiries. 'Where is your* canteen ? ' 'How did you loseit? — when? — where?' 'Why don't you get another?' To others, 'You need shoes, and 70U a knapsack.' Soldiers thus addressed were apt to reply frankly, sometimes a whole com- pany laughing at the novelty of such keen inquisition. ' Can't get shoes,' said one ; ' required a canteen and couldn't get it,' rejoined another. 'Why?' quoth the General. 'Go to your Cap- tain and demand what you need ! Go to him every day till you get it. Bore him for it 1 Bore him in his quarters ! Bore him at meal-time ! Bore him in bed ! Bore him ; bore him ; bore hini ! Do n't let him rest ! ' And to Captains, ' You bore your Colonels ; let Colonels bore their Brigadiers ; Brigadiers bore their division Generals ; division commanders bore their corps com- manders, and let them bore me. I'll see, then, if you do n't get what you w^ant. Bore, bore, Mfe ! until you get everything you are entitled to ; ' and so on through an entire division. 348 Ohio in the Wae. His fatal defect as a General was his lack of knowledge of human nature. "Whatever he himself did was well done. When he came to intrust work to others he had no faculty of seeing, as by intuition, whom to trust and whom to avoid. And sometimes, when repeated failures had taught him the worthless- ness of trusted subordinates, his kindness of heart withheld him from the action which duty demanded. It raay well be believed that thus there came upon him that excessive devotion of his own time to minute details, Which was sometimes instrumental in causing delay. Added to this was that uncontrollable spirit which, ready to sacrifice everything for the Cause, would yet refuse to brook a single slight from a superior. With his inferiors he was uniformly kind and " ' That's the talk, boys,' quoth a brawny fellow. ' He'll do,' said another ; and the soldiers returned to their camp-fires and talked about ' Rosy,' juat as those who knew him best in Missis- sippi had talked. " The confidence which such deportment inspired was pregnant with future good. And it was soon observed that he was careful to acknowledge a private's salute — a trifling act of good breeding and military etiquette, costing nothing, but too frequently neglected by officers who have much rank and little generous sympathy with soldiers who win them glory. This is a wise ' regulation,' but it reaches far deeper than mere discipline. " Shortly after head-quarters were established at Bowling Green Major-General George H. Thomas reported himself The military family of the commanding General quickly recognized the real Chief of Staff. It had been observed that General Rosecrans did not 'consult' habit- ually upon the principles and policy of the campaign -with other commanding officers. The keen eyes of those familiar with his customs, however, discovered an* unusual degree of respect and confidence exhibited toward General Thomas. Confidential interviews with him were ire- quent and protracted. It soon got to be understood in the camps that ' Pap ' Thomas was chief counsellor at head-quarters, and confidence in ' Rosy ' grew apace. " Riding along the highway, he was careful to observe the configuration of the country and its military characteristics, requiring the inscription upon the note-book of his topographical engineer of intersecting roads, as often as such roads rambled off into the forests along the line of march. Habitually cheerful in a remarkable degree, on such expeditions the mercury of his spirits rises into playfulness, which develops itself in merry familiar quips and jests with his subordinates, and none laugh more pleasantly than he. Fine scenery excites his poetic tempera- ment, and he dwells eloquently upon the picturesqueness of nature, exhibiting at once the keenest appreciation of the ' kind mother of us all,' and the niceties of landscape art. But the grandeur of nature more frequently carries his mind into the realms of religion, when he is wont to burst into adoration of his Maker, or launch into vehement and impatient rebuke of scoffers. All of nature to him is admonition of God. Such is his abhorrence of infidelity that he would banish his best-loved oflScers from his military household should any presume to intrude it upon him. He is wont to say he has no security for the morality of any man who refuses to recognize the Supreme Being. Religion is his favorite theme, and Roman Catholicism to him is infallible. In his general discussions of religion he betrays surprising acquaintance with the multifarious theologies which have vexed the world, and condemns them all as corruptions of the true doc- trines of the Mother Church. His social conversations of this character are seldom indulged with his cherished guest. Rev. Father Tracey, with whom he is always en rapport, hut he is ever ready to wage controversy with any other disputant. But argument with him on his faith had as well be ended with the beginning, save for the interest with which he invests his subject, and the ingenious skill with which he supports it. Ambling along the highway in a, day's journey, unless some single theme of business absorbs him, he will range through science, art, and litera- ture with happy freedom and ability. You do not listen long before you are persuaded that you hear one who aspires ambitiously beyond the mere soldier. The originality and shrewdness of his criticisms, the comprehensiveness of his generalizations, and his erudition, assures you that you talk with no ordinary man." William S. Rosecrans. ' 349 considerate; to those above him he was always punctilious, often testy, and at times deplorably indiscreet. Ifo such correspondence as his with General Hal- leek, which in the preceding pages we have sought to trace, can be elsewhere found throughout the history of the war. While he was in command at St. Louis he arrested a Consul,* and when ordered by Secretary Stanton to release him, peremptorily refused. He afterward said that he would have been relieved rather than obey that order. This sturdy honesty, which led him to take upon himself the weightiest responsibilities, and incur the gravest displeasure rather than do that which, in his conviction, would prove injurious to the Cause, was at once one of the most striking features of his character, and one of the potent reasons for his constant embarrassments. The enemies whom he thus made dealt him their fatal blow at the unkind- eet itioment. Eosecrans had never been more active, more enterprising, more skillful than after Chickamauga. His plans for an advance were matured, the preliminary steps were all taken, the troops for which he had so long begged had nearly reached him. In a few days more the glory of Lookout Mountain and Mission Eidge might have been his. But the fields he had sown it was left for others to reap ; from the coigne of vantage he had won it was left for others, with larger armies and the unquestioning support of the Government, to swoop down on Georgia and march to the Sea. In his enforced retirement it may be his proudest boast that no word or action of his — ^however deeply he writhed beneath his treatment — tended to injure the cause of the country; so that now, in spite of all the exceptions we have made, he must forever shine in our history as a brave, able, and devoted Soldier of the Eepublic. General Eosecrans is nearly six feet high, compact, with little waste flesh, nervous and active in all his movements, from the dictation of a dispatch to the tearing and chewing of his inseparable conipanion, his cigar. His brow is ample ; the .eyes are penetrating and restless ; the face is masked with well- trimmed beard ; but the mouth, with its curious smile, half of pleasure, half of some exquisite nervous feeling, which might be intense pain, is the feature which will linger longest in the mind of a casual visitor. He is easy of access, utterly destitute of pretense, and thoroughly democratic in his ways. "With his staff his manner was familiar and almost paternal ; with private soldiers always kindly. In the field he was capable of immense labor; he seemed never to grow weary, and never to need sleep. Few ofiicers have been more popular with their commands, or have inspired more confidence in the rank and file. *For being concerned in the Order of American Knights. '; Note. — The account of the fatal order at Chickamauga, in the preceding sketch, follows General Eosecrana's own statements. The subject has been much disputed, and General Thomas J.Wood, the division commander in question, has been permitted by the War department to file a reply to Eosecrans's official report. Since the preceding pages were stereotyped, some of Gen- eral Wood's friends have complained that they do him injustice. After a careful review of the Mbject, I can not convince myself that the words in the text require any modification. General Wood certainly did misunderstand the order. Its language was: "The General commanding directs that you close up on Eeynolds as fast as possible and support him." Now, it happened 350 Ohio in the Wak. that Brannan's division lay between Wood's and Eeynolds's — though Eosecrans had just been in- formed that it did not, and on that information wrote. To execute the order literally was impos- sible. General Wood might "support" Eeynolda, but he could not "close up upon" him without crowding Brannan out of line. When the letter of an order, therefore, was impossible, would not any fair mode of interpretation require that its spirit should be looked at? And, to a division commander in that wing — knowing the peril in whicli Thomas was placed, and the ten- dency of all the morning's effort to withdraw troops for his support and steadily close up the remaining troops on the left toward him — ought there to have been one moment's question as to the real meaning of an order to close up on somebody on the left? Here the case might rest ; but the indiscretion of General Wood's friends in their discussion of a matter for which they ought to seek a speedy forgetfulness, warrants a further step. Even if literal execution of the order had been possible, obedience to it approached crimi- nality. It is a well-settled principle of military law that a subordinate has the right to disobey an order manifestly given under a misapprehension of facts, and sure to be disastrous in its con- sequences. To do so involves a grave responsibility, and (should an error of judgment be made in the matter) a grave personal risk. But there is another and graver responsibility — the ruin of an army, the loss of a cause. Between these responsibilities, on that fateful morning. Gen- eral Wood made his choice. Whatever may be his present feelings about it, he may be sure that his children, thirty years hence, will not point with pride to the fact that, in such a case, their fatlier chose the risk for the army rather than the risk for himself. I append extracts giving the pith of the various official statements of the case.. General Halleck's annual report, in reciting the facts, says: "when, according to General Kosecrans^s order, General "Wood, overlooking the order to clofle np on Beynolds, supposed he was to support him by withdrawing from the front and passing in the rear of General Brannan." General Kosecrans's report says: "A messnge ft-om General Thomas soon followed that he was heavily pressed. Captain Kellogg, A. D. C, the bearer, informing me at the same time that General Brannan was out of line, and General Reynolds's right waa exposed. . Orders were dispatched to General Wood to close up on Reynolds, and word was sent to General Thomas that he should be supported, even if it should take the whole corps of Crittenden and McCook. . . . General Wood, over- looking the direction to ' close up' on General Reynolds, supposed be was to support him by withdrawing from the line and passing to the rear of General Brannan, who, it appears, was not out of line, but was in echelon, and slightly in re^r of Reynolds's right. By this unfortunate mistake a gap was opened in the line of battle, of which the enemy took instant advantage." General Wood's "note," filed with Eosecrans's official report, says: "A few minutes, perhaps five, hefbre eleven o'clock, A. M., on the 20th, I received the following order: " ' Head-Quabtees, D. C, September 30— 10:45. *' 'BriOadter-Geneeal Wood, Commandinff Division, etc: " ' The General commanding directs that yon close up on Reynolds as fast as possible, and support him. " ' Respectfully, etc., FRANK J. BOSD, Major and A. D. 0." '* This order was addressed as follows : "'10:45 A.M. Gallop. Brigadier-General WOOD, Commanding Division." " At the time it was received there was a division (Brannan's) in line between my division and General Reyoolds'i. I was immediately in rear of the center of my division at the time. I immediately dispatched my staff oificers to the brigade commanders, directing them to move by the left, crossing in the rear of General Brannan's division to cIoBe up and support General Reynolds ; and as the order was peremptory, I directed the movement to be made on the donble- Quick. It was commenced immediately. " As there was a division between General Reynolds's and mine, it was absolutely physically impossible for me to obey the order by any other movement than the one I made." To this it may be added that General Eosecrans afterward said substantially that he had once found General Wood giving a liberal interpretation to an order, when literal obedience would have been better ; and now a strained literal obedience, when he must have seen that it would be disastrous. The order in question was the only one from head-quarters through the battle not written by General Garfield, the Chief of Stafl'. I have preferred, also, to let the figures st.tnd a.s given in the text, setting forth the numbers of the opposing armies at Chickamauga. In justice to Eosecrans, however, I should add that his Chief of Staff says there were not over forty-two thousand five hundred men on our side in the fight. And finally, minute verbal criticism may object to the sentence which speaks of the whole right wing as crumbling, inasmuch as one division did splendidly maintain its coherence. Nerer- theless, the statement is correct as to the Wing, and besides, that division was thenoefoiward able to exert no influence on the fortunes of the day. Its course is de.scribed elsewhere, in tte sketch of its distinguished commander, General Sheridan. Ulysses S. Grant. 351 GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT. THAT the son of a Tanner, poor, unpretending, without influential friends until his performance had won them, ill-used to the world and its ways, should rise — not suddenly, in that first blind worship of helpless ignorance which made any one who understood regimental tactics illustrious in advance for what he was going to do, not at all for what he had done — -but slowly, grade by grade, through all the vicissitudes of constant service and mingled blunders and success ; till, at the end of a four years' war, he stood at the head of our armies, crowned by popular acclaim our greatest Soldier, is a satisfactory answer to criticism and a sufBcient vindication of greatness. Suc- cess succeeds. We may reason on the man's career. We may prove that at few stages has he shown personal evidences of marked ability. We may demonstrate his mis- takes. We may swell the praises of his subordinates. But after all, the career »fiands — wonderful, unique, worthy of the study we now invite to it, so long as the Nation honors her benefactors, or the State cherishes the good fame of the sons who have contributed most to do her honor. Hiram Ulysses Grant, since called, Ulysses Simpson Grant, was born on the 27th of April, 1822, in a little, one-story house on the banks of the Ohio, at the village of Point Pleasant, in Clermont County. His parents were poor, respect- able young laborers, who had been married only ten months before. His father when a boy, had been brought with the ikmily from Pennsylvania to Colum- biana County, near the Western Reserve. Five years later, then an orphan of eleven, he was apprentie> 1 to a tanner. During the war of 1812 he went with his mother to Maysville, Kentucky. At its close, in his 21st year, he returned to the Eeserve and established a tannery of his own at Ravenna. After five years' experiment he went back, still poor, to the Ohio River. Here he met with and married Miss Hannah Simpson. The mother of the future General belonged to the same walks of life with the father. She was. a native of Mont- gomery County, Pennsylvania, and had come West with her father's family only three years before.* \ * Those curiou.s in such matters have traced back the lineage of General Grant, on the fath- er's side, to Matthew Grant, one of the Scotch emigrants, by the "Mary and John," to Dorches- ter, Massachusetts, in 1630. Among the collateral branches they have also found connections of Hon, Columbus Delano and General Don Carlos Buell, the one related by blood to General 352 Ohio in the Wae. A year after the birth of their first son the young couple removed to the next county eastward, and settled at Georgetown. They continued poor— so poor that all thought of education for their boy, beyond the "quarter in winter- time" at the village school, was out of the question. The lad showed spirit and good sense, but this seems to have suggested nothing more to the struggling pair than what an excellent tanner he would .make. "Ulysses was industrious in his studies," so writes his father,* "but at that time I had little means and needed his assistance; so that, except the three winter months, he had but little chance for school after he was about eleven." Before this, indeed, the boy had begun to show the pluck and obstinacy there were in him. " I had left a three years' old colt in the stable," — it is again his father who tells usf — "and was to be gone all day. I had had the colt but a few days and it had never been worked. Ulysses, then not quite seven years old, got him out, geared, and hitched him to a sled, led and drove him to the woods, loaded up his sled with bark, chips, and such wood as he could put on, mounted the load and, with a single line, drove home." The passion for horses, which no cares or honors have been able to eradicate, seems, in fact, to have been the most prominent feature of the boy's life; for his father, striving to re- call his memories of those young days, immediately afterward]; gives us another anecdote of the same nature: "I wanted Ulysses to go about three miles and back on an errand for me one day, before I could start on a trip which was t» take the whole day. He wanted to ride a pacing horsQ I had, but as I was going to ride this myself on his return, I told him he must take the colt. 'Well,' said he, 'if I do I will break him to pace.' In about an hour back he came, and he really had the young horse in a beautiful pace." Already, with an old head on his young shoulders, the lad assumed responsi- bilities as naturally as a man. His schoolmates tell us that, though never obtrusive, he insensibly came to be the leader in their games, and to direct their schoolboy exploits. So, too, when one of these schoolmates tries to'remember what he can recall as the most striking thing about Grant's boyhood, he gives us this: II "At the age of twelve he aspired to the management of his father's draught team, and was intrusted with it for the purpose of hauling some heavy hewed logs. Several men with handspikes were to load them up for him. He came with his team and found the logs but not the men. Observing a fallen tree with a gradual upward slope he unhitched his horses, attached them to one of the hewed logs, drew it horizontally to the tree, and then drew one end of it up the inclined trunk higher than the wagon-truck, and so as to project a few Grant'8 great-grandmother, the other to his grandfather's first wife. The following they give as General Grant's direct line of descent from the Matthew Grant of the "Mary and John:" 1. Matthew and Priscilla Grant. 2. Samuel and Mary Grant; born Porter. 3. Samuel aad Grace Grant; born Miner. 4. Noah and Martha Grant; born Huntingdon. 5. Noah and Susannah Grant; born Delano. 6. Noah and Rachel Grant; born Kellery. 7. Jesse Boot and Hannah Grant; born Simpson. 8. Ulysses S. Grant. * Private letters from Jesse R. Grant, furnishing details for this sketch. tibid. tibid. II Letter of Hon. J. N. Morrig to the National Intelligencer, March 22, 1864. Ulysses S. Gtbant. 353 feet over it. So he continued to do until he had brought several to this position. Next he backed the wagon under the projecting ends; and finally, one by one, hitched and drew the logs lengthwise across the fallen trunk on to his wagon, hitched up again, and returned with his load to his astonished father."* Such glimpses we get of the sturdy, active, self-reliant boy who was now fast growing up to the life of a tanner; with some knowledge of reading and writing, a little arithmetic, and not much else in the waj^ of education, save that which came from the great school in which his most valuable lessons have been learned, the school of self-supporting experience. Jlis parents were still in very limited circumstances; children came as they come to poor families generally, there were five more mouths to feed and bodies to clothe. The eldest had now spent six years laboring with his father; he was almost arrived at man's estate. We may well believe that his good mother, a grave, matronly, judicious woman, whose character seems in many ways impressed upon her distinguished son, did not fail to encourage the boy's desire for something better. But what should he do? Colleges were out of the question ; high-schools could scarcely be thought of. It was an era of bankruptcy and general financial distress. The future seemed to offer no encouragement. Something of a politician and a worker, it was natural that Jesse Grant should think of political relief He wrote to Senator Morris concerning West Point. The Senator replied that he had no appointment, but that Hon. Thomas L. Hamer (the representative of the district, a leading Dem- crat and a noted stump orator of those days) had. Curiously enough it happened that Mr. Hamer had appointed a young man named Bailey, who failed to pass the examination for admittance.-}- The failure of Cadet Bailey made the vacancy for Ulysses Grant; and ho was appointed.^ In his eighteenth year, then, on the 1st of July, 1839, we find Grant foirly embarked at West Point He had a hundred classmates at the outset — not one, it is said, with preparation as deficient as his for the academic course. But be,- fore the four years were ended only thirty-nine were left out of the hundred to graduate ; and Grant had worked his way well up toward the middle of this smaller number in the grade of his attainments. Among these men were Wm. B. Franklin, who bore off the honors of the class; Eosewell S. Ripley, late of the Rebel army; John J. Peck, Jos. J. Eeynolds, and C. C. Augur, three well- *The following story we find in a popular Boy's Biography of Grant. His father has given ns a confirmation of it : "The absence of fear was always a characteristic of Ulysses. When two years of age, while Mr. Grant was carrying Ulysses in his arms on a public occasion through the village, a young man wished to try the effect of a pistol report on the child. Mr. Grant consented, ^dying, 'The child has never seen a pistol or gun in his life.' The baby hand was put on the lock and preiffied quietly thei-e till it snapped, and off went the charge with a loud report. Ulysses scarcely Btirred; but in a moment pushed away the pistol, saying, 'Fick it again/ fick it again/' A by- stander remarked; 'That boy will make a general; for he neither winked nor dodged.'" tTlie examination which Bailey could not pass, and which seems to have been regarded with some apprehension by Grant, included simply reading, spelling, writing, and arithmetic to deci- mal fractions. tLetter of J. N. Morris to National Intelligencer. Vol. I.— 23. 354 Ohio in the Wae. known Union Mjijor-Genorals; Franklin Gardner, who. surrendered Port Hud- son; Frederick Steele, and Eufus Ingalls. Among the thirty-nine Grant was graded the twenty-first. No one dreamed of his ever being a General. He had good sense, was quiet, industrious, rather popular with those who knew him, imd withal a little old-fashioned and peculiar, as was natural to a boy of his antecedents. A schoolmate* says of him: "I remember him as a plain, common - sense, straightforward youth; quiet, rather of the old-head-on-the-young-shoul- der order; shunning notoriety; quite contented while others were grumbling; taking to his military duties in a very business-like manner; not a prominent man in the corps, but respected by all and very popular with his friends. His souhriqvet of 'Uncle Sam'f was given him there, where every good fellow has a nickname, from these very qualities; indeed, he was a very uncle-like sort of youth. He was then and always an excellent horseman; and his picture rises before me as I write, in the old torn coat, obsolescent leather gig-top, loose rid- ing pantaloons with spurs buckled over them, going with his clanging saber to the drill-hall. He exhibited but little enthusiasm in anything; his best stand- ing was in the mathematical branches and their application to tactics and mili- tary engineering." So the uncle-like youth got on ; in quiet, jog-trot fashion, making no show, certainly indulging no sentiment, but plodding on in his own matter-of-fa^t way. And, in reality, he did plod to some purpose ; for that a boy who had lived to his eighteenth year in a tannery, with no education beyond "reading, writ- ing, and arithmetic in decimal fractions," should learn enough in four years to stand even twenty-first in a class that had traversed the West Point coui-so, was in itself much. His standing was of course too low for anything but the Infantry, and so lie was assigned as brevet Second Lieutenant to the Fourth, then stationed at Jef- ferson Barracks, St. Louis. His residence here lasted a year, in the usual dull routine of armj- life, but with one episode that was to have its influ- ence on his future career. Among his classmates had been one Frederick T. Dent, J of St. Louis, like him not standing very high in the class, and like him assigned to the Fourth Infantry. It was natural that Dent should t.ike him tc visit his family; not very natural, one would say, that Grant should fall in love. But he did. Five years later, on his return from Mexico, he married Miss Dent — the gentle woman who has since been at his side through good and through evil repute. But service in the regular army makes small allowance for the exigencies * Professor Coppee— Grant and his Campaigns, page 22. t There seems to have been some curious blundering about a name that was, one day, torste 80 high. As his father explains it, he was originally named Hiram Ulysses, the last name being a favorite with his grandmother. His Cadet warrant, however, was made out for Ulysses Sidney. He quietly took the name and bore it through West Point. Then, in honor of his mother, he finally changed Sidney to Simpson. t Still in the Fourth Infantry where he has risen to Major; also Brevet Brigadier and serv- ing on Grant's staff. Ulysses S. Grant. 355 of courtships. Within a year Grant was sent away from St. Louis, with his reo-iment, to Natchitoches, Louisiana; thence, a year later, to the Mexican frontier; then, as the war broke out, across the Eio Grande with Zachary Taj^- lor's famous army of occupation. Meantime, after two yeai-s' waiting, he had become a Second-Lieutenant and, by special permission, had been allowed to remain in the Fourth Infantry with his brother-in-law that was to be, instead of being transferred to the Seventh, for which his appointment was originally made out. With his regiment he' participated in the opening contests at Palo Alto and Eesaca de la Palma — his first sight of real war; and some months later he passed through the bloodier engagement of Monterey. The regiment was now withdrawn to General Scott's column before Vera Cruz; and presently Grant was made the regimental quartermaster. Apparently there was no thought that the man had better material in him than was needed for managing wagon-trains. But he had no idea of devoting himself to the trains when a battle was going on ; and so we find that at every engagement he joined his regiment and shared its exposure. At Molino del Eey he won praise and a brevet. At Chapultepec " he behaved with distinguished gallantry," as the official report of the commanding officer of his regiment testified; while the brigade commander added, "I must not omit to call attention to Lieutenant Grant, Fourth Infantry, who acquitted himself most nobly upon several occasions under my own observation;" and General Worth himself felt warranted in expressing his obligations to " Lieutenants Lendrum and Grant, Fourth Infantry, especially." So much of the future General-in-Chief can be seen through the nebulous atmosphere of official reports during the Mexican war — no more. Doubtless he behaved as hundreds of others did — no better — no worse. But he had still made no impression on the men who concerned themselves with the rising officers of the army; no one thought of a brilliant future for him; and he con- tinued to be the quartermaster of his regiment — first in New York, then on tho Northern frontier. At last he rose to the command of his company, and about the same time he was married. His command was kept for a season at Detroit; then at Sackett's Hafbor. Thus, in quiet garrison-duty, three years of married life went by. Then he was ordered to Oregon, where he saw a little Indian fighting. Two years passed on the Pacific coast. The idleness of army life, absence from his family, and the swarming temptations of the early €imes in California and Oregon, began to tell upon our sober-sided, uncle-like youth. Hi8 passion for horses did not, in the least, diminish. Billiards were always fasci- nating. Presently less desirable sources of exhilaration began to exert their power. The sudden reception of an order assigning him to a command far in the interior of Oregon, broke the current on which our Captain was embarked. It Beamed to indicate indefinite separation from his family; it promised no distinc- tion, and certainly no pleasure. He wisely decided that it was time to rejoin 356 Ohio in the War. his wife; resigned his commission just eleven years and one month after enter- ing the service ;* and went home to try his fortune in civil life.f He first established himself near the home of his wife's relatives in St. Louis County, Missouri, as a farmer. In this he failed. He tried to sell wood, and failed again. In his matter-of fact way he went to work with his own hands to earn bread for his family. An old comrade at West Point says: "I vis- ited St. Louis at this time, and remember with pleasure tha.t Ggant, in his farmer rig, whip in hand, came to see me at the hotel where were also Joseph J. Eey- nolds, Don Carlos Buell, and Major Chapman of the cavalry."| And it is pleas- ant to find him adding: "If Grant had ever used spirits, as is not unlikely, I distinctly remember that, upon the proposal being made to drink. Grant said: 'I will go in and look at you for I never drink anything;' and the other oflieers, who saw him frequently, afterward told me that he drank nothing but water." But proper conduct alone will not earn bread. Farming and wood- selling having proved failures he moved into the city. But in all that gi'eat, bustling center of activity whither, as to the coming metropolis of the continent, adventurous young men were thronging from every quarter of the over-crowded East to seek their fortunes, there seemed nothing at which Captain Grant could succeed. He tried auctioneering. He applied to the city authorities for a posi- tion as engineer, which they " respectfully declined." He attempted something in the real-estate agency way. He tried that mo^ unpleasant of callingB, collecting money for creditors who had no time to pursue their small debtors with personal duns. All this time he lived almost from hand to mouth. He was too poor to rent an office; but he found a fat, good-natured young lawyer, named Hillyer, whose ofiice was not overcrowded with clients, and who will- ingly gave him desk room. And so he worried through till 1859. Meantime the canny Scot nature had shown itself in his industrious father. The old gentleman had prospered bravely in tanning, and had become the owner of a harness and leather store, with means to enlarge his business if he chose. He was beginning a branch of his establishment at Galena, Illinois, in which a younger son was to be a partner. Ulysses had shown so little capacity for " getting on," and withal seemed so deprived of the energy that had been noticed in him during his boyish days by the idleness of army life, that it became necessary to do something for him. Mr. Grant thought the boy ought to know something about the leather trade, if he knew anything at all in a business way, and so he had him remove to Galena to act as a sort of assistant * On July 31, 1854. 1 1 have preferred, in the foregoing paragraph, to follow the account .sanctioned by Grant's family and friends of the way in which he came to leave the service. But I am reminded of that wise maxim of Lessing's: " It is a. duty, if one undertake to teach the truth, to teach tlie whole of it or none at all." It would be dishonest in one professing to trace the development of Grant's character and the events of his life, to suppress allusion to the dissipated habits into which, at this stage in his career, he had unfortunately fallen. The belief has been current through the West (and there are some reasons for crediting it) that his resignation was prompted by the aignificant warning which the Department, because of these habits, now fell bound to give him. X Professor Coppee — Grant and his Campaigns, page 26. Ulysses S. Grant. 357 manager in the house of Grant & Son. Citizens knew little of the elder brother at the new leather store. But the few that came to be intimate with him, in the two years that intervened before the outbreak of the war, while una- ble, as all had been before, to discern any signs of coming greatness beneath his almost stolid exterior, had not failed to observe the good judgment and strong common sense, which commended him as an eminently safe man. Who- ever knew him well, liked him. Not many thought him much of a business man ; but it was a strong point that he was not above his business. He put on no airs ; assumed nothing in consequence of his connection with that aristocratic affair, the regular army; was not disposed to boast over his exploits in Mexico. He lived modestly, and seemed to be at last getting his head above water. Such was the retired army Captain on the 12th of April, 1861. After a bard struggle he seemed to have gained a footing ; there stretched before him a quiet, unostentatious life — rising to a partnership, selling good leather for good prices, and gaining in the end a modest competence, which, in Galena, would be ample for a respected and comfortable old age. The next day all was changed. With the firing on Sumter his Destiny came to him. Up to this time Grant had been a decided Democrat. He disliked the Bepublican movement, sympathized with the South in its recital of grievances, detested the Abolitionists. But he had the soldierly instinct which was wanting to 80 many of his old comrades. When the flag he had sworn to maintain was assailed he knew no question of polities. "He laid down the paper containing the account of the bombardment" — so writes an admiring intimate in the family — "walked around the counter and drew on his coat, saying, 'I am for the war to put down this wicked Eebellion. The Government educated me for the army and, though I served faithfully through one war, I feel still a little in debt for my education, and am ready to discharge the obligation.'"* He threw himself at once into the recruiting work which swept over the North ; drilled the company first raised in Galena, and went with them to th« State capital. In that hour of sudden need men that knew how to drill com- panies, and understood the organization of a regiment, were god-sends to the officials who had so long helped the popular prejudice against musters and the "cornstalk militia." It was no sooner discovered, at Springfield, that Captain jjjraut had actually been at West Point, and had besides seen real fighting in Mex- ico, than the Governor determined to secure so valuable an aid. Forthwith he was made Adjutant-General for the State, and was set to work at mustering in troops. The confusion was intolerable; at first the rather slow Adjutant-General I made little more headway in it than had the civilians. Perhaps, after all, he was not highly fitted for office work. Once or twice it was hinted that he might take a I'cgiment, if he chose, and go into the field. But the plan of electing officers dis- gusted him. He would not command, as soldiers, men who were his constitu- ents. In June he was absent for a short time on a visit to his father at Cincin- •A lady friend of the Grants, in the Portage County Democrat, March 30, 1864. 358 Ohio in the Wab. rati. By this time regimental elections were abandoned, and, during his ab- sence, Governor Yates appointed Grant Colonel of the Twenty-First. The regiment was to serve only three months. Pleased at having an educated soldier for Colonel the men re-enlisted for three years, and speedily became noted for their drill and discipline. Presently there was an alarm about Quincy, and Colonel Grant marched liis regiment thither, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles. Then came orders to defend railroad lines in Northern Missouri, which brought him into the vicinity of other regiments. The civilian Colonels who outranked him shrank 'from giving orders to a veritable West Pointer, and so he became commander of the brigade.* *A "Staff Officer " gives cnrrency to a story of these early campaigning days. It was while Grant was leading a small column after Jeff. Thompson : " Lieutenant Wickfield, of an Indiana cavalry regiment, commanded the advance gnaid, consisting of eighty mounted men. About noon he came up to a small farm-house, from the out- ward appearance of which he judged that there might be sometWing fit to eat inside. He halted his company, dismounted, and with two Second-Lieutenants entered the dwelling. He knew thai Grant's incipient fame had already gone out through all that country, and it occurred to bim that by representing himself to be the General he might obtain the best the house afforded. So, a.ssuming a very imperative demeanor, he accosted the inmates of the house, and told them he must have something for himself and staff to eat. They desired to know who he was, and he told them that he was JJrigadier-General Grant. At the sound of that name they flew around with alarming alacrity and served up about all they had in the house, taking great pains all the wlule to make loud professions of loyalty. The Lieutenants ate as much as they could of the not o?er- sumptuoua meal, but which was, nevertheless, good for that country, and demanded what was to pay. 'Nothing.' And they went on their way rejoicing. " In the meantime General Grant, who had halted his army a few miles further back for a brief resting spell, came in sight of, and was rather favorably impressed with, the appearance of this same house. Hiding up to the fence in front of the door, he desired to know if they wobM cook him a meal. "'No,' said a female in a gruff voice; 'General Grant and his staff have just been here and eaten everything in the house except one pumpkin pie.' "'Humph,' murmured Grant; 'what is your name?' "' Selvidge,' replied the woman. "Casting a half dollar in at the door he asked if she would keep that pie till he sent an officer for it; to which she replied that she would. i "That evening, after the camping-ground had been selected, the various regiments were noti- fied that there would be a grand parade at half-past six for ordei-s. Officers would see that their men all turned out, etc. In five minutes the camp was in a perfect uproar and filled with illl sorts of rumors. Some thought the enemy were upon them, it being so unusual to have parades when on a march. At half past six the parade was formed, ton columns deep, and nearly a qufir- ter of a mile in length. After the usual routine of ceremonies tlie acting assistant Adjutant-Gen- eral read the following order: V "'Head-quakteks Army in the Fiei.d. "'Speciai Order No— . " ' Lieutenant Wickfield of the — ^ Indiana Cavalry, having on this day eaten everything in Mrs. Selvidge's house, at the crossing of the Tronton and Pociihontas and Black Kiver and Cape Girardeau Hoads, except one pumpkin pic. Lieutenant Wickfield is hereby ordered to return with an escort of one liundred cavalry and eat tliat pie klso. " 'U. S. Grant, Brigadier-General Commanding'" " Grant's orders were law, and no soldier ever attempted to evade them. At seven o'clock the Lieutenant filed out of camp with his hundred men, amid the cheers of the entire army. The escort concurred in stating that he devoured the whole of the pie, and seemed to relish it." TJlyshes S. Gbant. 35.9 Generals were needed and, since Grant was doing well as acting Briga- dier, his appointment to the grade was naturally suggested. On the 9th of August the commission was issued, though it was made to bear date from the 17th of May. True to his old middle-ground he held about the middle place in, the list pf thirty-four appointments to General rank that day made. Neither to General Seott, however, nor to any of the others who wore searching the' ranks of the old army for promising young men with whom to fill its higher places, did his name once occur. McClellan was thought of; Eosecrans, Fre- mont, McDowell, Halleck were all thought of; but no one ever suggested that Grant was worthy of more than a place among' the politicians who were carry- ing oflf the Brigadier-Generalships of Volunteers. In fact some of his old com- rades were even surprised at his attaining that measure of success. But his time was coming. The new General was ordered down to Cairo, and given command of the small district around the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, then known as the District of South-Eastern Missouri. Troops were pouring down the Illinois Central Eailroad from all parts of the State, and the General soon found himself with an ample command. Those were the days of the McClellan and Buckncr neutrality.* While the ^JlieptUiCkians were amusing McClellan, their friends were seizing Hickman, Columbus, and Bowling Green. They were just about to plant themselves at Paducah (on, the Ohio Eiver at the mouth of the Tennessee), a strongly , secession town, the possession of which would have enabled them to command the navigation of the Tennessee and the lo.wer Ohio. General Grant comprehended the position and acted promptly. The people of Paducah were hourly expecting the arrival of a Eebel force when, on the morning of the 6th of September, they awoke to find the town in possession of a brigade of Grant's troops under Chas. P. Smith. Soon after he seized Smithland, ten miles further up, at the entrance of the Cumberland, and thus held the months o.f the streams which led to the center of the extended line the Eigbels were forming. In these operations Grant showed promptness and good sense; but he gave also the first display of another quality, little suspected as yet, which was to prove one of the most important elements of his future success. He selected the right man for the;^prk. Chas. P. Smith was the beau ideal of a soldier, and men of the old army held him its ablest and most accomplished oflSoer. It was an army tradition that he had incurred the hot displeasure of General Scott, >yho never forgot nor forgave. But for this, many thought, he might have had the place to ■which young McClellan was so unexj^ectedly raised. With Smith at Paducah the Tennessee was safe. But the ways of the rigid old disciplinarian were not the ways pf the fresh volunteers, and soon a clamerotis storm against him began to .Wow about head-quarters. Jbe newspapers scolded; their columns teemed with j communications from indignant soldiers; politicians took "hold of it, and the sins of Paducah Smith were canvassed at the Capitol. But Grant knew his man, and never faltered in his support. By-and-by came Fort Donelson ; and I *iSee onfc— Life of McClellan. 360 Ohio i>^ the War. the vision of the white-haired old hero, bareheaded, leading the wild charge over the outer intrenchments, shamed into silence the grumblers and the slan- derers Price was advancing into Missouri. Jeff. Thompson was already roaming apparently at will, through the State, The Eebel garrison at Columbus was believed to be rc-enforcing Price, and it seemed probable, at any rate, that it would interfere with a small column sent out by Grant in pursuit of Thompson. Fremont, now in command of the department, accordingly ordered Grant to make a demonstration against Columbus. Grant at once sent word to Smith at Paducah, of hie intentions, and requested that a co-operating movement from that point be made against the rear of Columbus. At the same time he ordered some changes in the movement of the forces in pursuit of Jeff. Thompson, that might tend to confuse the enemy as to the real nature of the operations in band. Then, embarking a force of three thousand men* on steamboats, he proceeded down the Mississippi to a point nine miles below Cairo (not quite half way toCo- lumbus), where he rounded to, and tied up for the night on the Kentucky shore. Up to this point it would seem that General Grant had formed no decided plan for a demonstration against the enemy. News received here after midnight, he tells U8,f determined him to attack- not Columbus — but the out-lying post at Belmont, directly across the river from Columbus, and under its guns. Th news which decided this unexpected movement was brought by a "reliable Union man " to his small force at Charleston, and thence forwarded to him by special messenger. It was to the effect that the garrison at Columbus had been crossing troops into Missouri at Belmont, for the purpose of pursuing and falling upon the rear of the column which Grant had sent after Jeff. Thomp- son. It does not appear that he had any expectation of pursuing the pur- suers. He only decided to a^ttack vigor- ously whatever forces he might find at Belmont, "knowing tUat in case of re- pulse we could re- embark without diffi- culty.!" It is eiitiy enough now to see that such a movement could have but one ter- mination. The troops landed on the Mississippi shore, just as near Belmont as (he steamboats dare approach — for fear of the Columbus batteries. They * The eiact number was three thouEand one hundred and fourteen — Grant's Official Eeport, Belmont. tibid. J Ibid. BATTLE OF BELMONT. Ulysses S. Gteant. 361 mai'ched by the flank, with skirmishers well in advance, about a mile down the river, und tlicn formed in line of battle; where, presently, they encountered the enemy advanced a mile or more above his camp. The troops, to nearly all of whom it was their first battle, ~ behaved handsomely. They were opposed by three Eebcl regiments, nearly or quite equal in numbers to their own force; but they steadily advanced their line, drove the Eebels into the tangled timber iibattis in front of their camp, through which they finally charged, sweeping everything before them, and driving the Eebels (now augmented by Pillow's recently arrived re-enforcements) over the bank down to their transports. Grant, meanwhile, had freely exposed himself to all the dangers of the con- flict, his horse had been shot under him, and the soldiers, seeing him ever in advance, were inspired with confidence. But, though it was the first battle in which he had ever held a command (for he did not even have charge of his own company in any of his engagements in Mexico), he remained cool enough in the midst of the enthusiasm, to comprehend the necessity of instant retreat. Already the heavy Eebel artillery, from the opposite bank, was trained upon them. Pillow had brought over three fresh regiments only in time to be caught in the impetuous charge of the Illinoisians and lowans, but now they were re-form- ing under the bank, and General Polk himself was crossing with two regiments more. It was not evident that General Grant yet knew that three more regiments were crossing above to intercept his return to his transports; but enough was seen to convince him that not a moment must be lost in getting out of his cap- tured camp. Everj'thing was hastily fired, the Eebel artillery was dragged off, and the column started up the river for its boats. And now there suddenly rose in their path the apparition of a fresh foe. The Rebel column designed to cut them off from their transj)orts had gained its position. Four pieces of the captured artillery were abandoned; and with the others the line charged again, successfully cutting its way thronsh till it reached the steamers. One regiment, however was missing. It had gone too far from the river bank on the return, had missed the intercepting Eebels, and was now groping its way at random down to the river. Meantime the Eebels had formed again on the bank, and opened fire on the crowded jam of National Boldiers on the transports. The gunboats came to their relief, and presently their shells began to fall not only among the Eobels, but into the ranks of the missing regiment. It hastened down to the river, coming out through a little depression, below where the Eebels were engaged, and embarking there under cover of the gunboats, as soon as a transport could be dropped down to take them off. In such guise — with Eebel shot still whistling through their helpless mass, with the wounded crowded confusedly among the throng, with their dead and a hundred and twenty-five wounded left in the hands of the exultant Rebels, as well as with the loss of a hundred more taken prisoners — did Grant and his men steam slowly up the river to the point from which thej' smarted. General Grant frankly told the story of the day in his oflBcial report, but claimed that he had prevented the Columbus garrison from re-enforcing Price, or sending out an expedition to cut off the column moving against Jeff. Thomp- 362 Ohio in the War- son. An impartial judgment can not confirm tliese claims. Three hours after the battle of Belmont the Columbus garrison was as free to re-enforce Price as it had been three days before. What the Eebels knew was that a small force, making a sudden descent uijon an out-lying camp, had been able to burn the tents and blankets, and carry off a couple of guns before being driven back to its boats, and forced, in its haste, to leave its dead, wounded and prisoners behind it. Such performance was not likely to so terrify them that, under the possibility of a similar attack, they would fail to re-enforce Price if thej' chose. Whether any more important results could have been obtained from the "demonstration against Columbus," which Fremont had ordered, may be ques- tioned. But it is clear that the same results could have been secured by an operation (especially in conjunction with Smith's Paducah column) against the rear of Columbus, without the necessity of an enforced retreat under fire; with- out leaving dead and wounded in the enemy's hands; and without definitely as- suring the enemy, in advance, that nothing more than a sudden, inconsequential dash was intended, by delivering the attack on a spot that was, by no possi- bility, tenable for the attacking party.* Yet the action at Belmont, unfortunate as it seemed, and depressing as were its immediate cflcets upon the public mind, did good. It showed the raw soldiers what war was; it gave them unbounded confidence in their cajiacity to take care of themselves against anything like even numbers ; and it taught them that their General was ready to go wherever he asked them to go. To the General himself it revealed the mettle of the blade he was privileged to wield, as well as the nature of his work, thus far known only in theory. More than all, it re- vealed to those controlling the business of this war a General, cool and brave in action, and skillful enough if he led his troops into tight places to get them out again without serious loss.f Furthermore it showed to the country one General, in the midst of the' prevailing inaction, who believed that war meant fighting— not everlasting preparations and proclamations. So that, while with the un- thinking, Belmont was set down as a failure and its General as little better, and while the General himself, and the staff that surrounded him, grew restive and • " The same results could have been .secured." That is to Bay, the enemy could have been kept busy for a little while, and made to believe that there was danger of serious atlapk. Keeping him bnsy to whatever extent it might be carried, to that extent diminished the danger to the column pursuing JefT. Thompson, Or the probability of re-enforcements being salt t) Price— the professed objects of the movement. And just so far as the movement looked like a serious one did it answer tlie purposes of the demonstration Fremont desired. But no Beliel General thereabouts was fool enough to suppose that the descent upon a palpably untenable position like Belmont, could be anything more than a frivolous demonstration— a sudden dash— liaving no element of a serious movement against Columbus about it. They were simply warned to draw in tluir troops to the fortiBcation.s, and run no ri.sks of such attacks again— that was ail. 1 For, notwithstanding tlie unfavorable circumstances, Grant had the plea.sure of knowing that the enemy's lo.ss was heavier than his own. They took ninety-nine able-bodied prisoners; be carried off one hundred and seventy-five; their entire loss— killed, wounded, and missing-was six hundred and tliirly-lwo (according to Pollard) ; his was four hundred and eighty-five. They lost their tents, blankets, and I wo pieces of artillery; he none. Ulysses S. Gtkant. 363 soured with the lack of popular appreciation of their work, they had made firm li'ionds they litle dreamed of, whose friendship was to prove potential. > Through the whole siiminer, and fall, and winter of 1861, our military leaders, stupefied by Bull Run, lay idle or consumed their resources in frivolous reconnoissanccs and expeditions that came to nothing. Meanwhile the Eehels had made the best use of their opportunities. By the 1st of January, 18G2, their laboriously-strengtened line stretched from Columbus, on the Mississippi, west- ward through Missouri to the plains; eastward through strong posts on theTen- nesmee and Cumberland Eivers to Bowling Green in Kentucky, thence to Cum- berland Gap ; and so connected with the head and front of their force in Virginia. Their garrisons at the important points were considerable, their advantage of rapid communication by railroads on interior lines was well used, and their fortifications were represented to be scientific and formidable. The true vital points were tersely indicated by General Buell: "I think it is not extravagant to say that the great power of the Eebellion in the "West is arranged on a front, the flanks of which are Columbus and Bowling Green, and the center about where the railroad between those points crosses the Tennessee and Cumberland Eivers."* Unfortunately tlie system of parceling out the country by State lines, to find places for as many independent Generals as possible, still prevailed. One-half this formidable line was confronted by the left of General Halleck's forces; the rest of it by General Buell. With a single commander itmight easily have been broken almost before it was formed; with the two it was the 1st of February, 1862, before any practical effort to break it was commenced. General Buell had proposed to General Halleck an advance up the Ten- nessee and Cumberland Eivers by a combined land and naval force, with co- operative, simultaneous movements threatening Bowling Green and Columbus. f General Halleck regretted that his important operations in Southern Missouri would prevent him from giving any assistance to such a plan. But shortly afterward he gave orders, in the most inclement season of the year, for a gen- eral reeonnoissance (as it would seem) through and around South -"Wefjtcrn Ken- tucky. The roads wore very muddy, and the whole alluvial bottom-land through which the columns moved was sticky mire. General Gi-ant sent one column down the river, from Cairo, toward Columbus, which wandered about through the mud, bivouacked in the mud, and returned to fill the hospitals; having at no time gone nearer than to the distance of a mile from the defenses of Columbus. General C. F. Smith, meanwhile, with his force from Paducah, per- furmed a somewhat similar task a few miles further east. At its close, however, he undertook a reeonnoissance on his own account, the results of which were far-reaching. Encountering one of the new gunboats on the Tennessee, he went on hoard and ran up toward Fort Henry. Ho approached near enough to draw the fire of the fort, and to get a rough idea of its defensive capacitj-. He hast- ened to present his report to General Grant, in which he urged that a sudden * General Buell to Gener.al Halleck— Official dispatch, January 3, 1862. tibid. 364 Ohio in the Wae. movement upon the fort could hardly fail to result in its surrender. Granl forwarded the report to Halleck as early as the 24th of January. Hallecli r|iade no reply. Four days later Grant and Admiral Foote, commanding th« ffunboat flotilla, urged it upon his attention. The next day Grant renewed hit importunities, and on the afternoon of the next he received permission to try So much had General Halleck to do with the grand conception of breaking the enemy's center, on which his fame has subsequently rested. Don Carlos Buell was the first to make official suggestion of the plan;* Chas. F. Smith was the first to show how practical it was; and Grant richly deserves the honor of having at once comprehended the opportunity, and persisted in applications til] he finally secured leave to embrace it. On the morning of February 2d, Admiral Foote started with his gunboats, General Grant following with the divisions of McClernand and Chas. F. Smith, about fifteen thousand strong, on steam transports. ISText morning the gunboata were only a few miles below the fort. Here, however, they suffered three days to pass, partlj' waiting for the troops, partly fishing up torpedoes. At last on the 6th, everything being ready, General Grant was to invest the fort on the land side, while Admiral Foote was to open the attack. Meanwhile General Tilghman, the Eebel commander, had gained a thorough knowledge of the situation. The fort was indifferently planned and worse situ- ated ; high lands on the opposite side, on which Grant was moving a couple of brigades, completely commanded it; the high water uplifted the gunboats so that they could pour their fire almost horizontally into its midst. He had two thousand six hundred and ten men of all arms;t he knew that he was threat- ened by a large land force (which he only estimated at three thousand too many) as well as by the gunboats; and he considered successful defense impractica- ble. He determined, therefore, early in the morning to order a retreat of the main body of his troops, across the narrow neck of land between the two rivers, to Fort Donolson, retaining only the artillerists to work the heavy gans in the fort, and so to keep up a show of resistance while the retreat was being made good. And to aid this movement, in case of discover^', he ordered a small portion of the Donelson garrison to move half-way across and await events. In the light of these facts it is verj- easy to sec that Grant should have has- tened up his overwhelmingly superior numbers in time to cut off escape. But the woods were miry and the country was unknown, while ignorance of the enemj-^'s force or intentions counseled the greatest caution. Admiral Foote steamed up, opened the fight half an hour after the time agreed upon with Grant, knocked the fort to jiieces, and received the surrender of the General and his little band of artillerists in an hour and a half An hour later Grant got up, but the escaped garrison was already fiir on its way to Fort Donolson. Preparations for attacking Fort I>onel8on were at once begun. Six days after the surrender of Fort Henry, Chas. F. Smith and ilcClcrnand wore on the * Unless, indeed, the prior claim of Fremont be admitted. t General Tilghraan's Official Report, Spec. Com. Rep. on Recent Jlilitary DisaBlers at Forts Henry and Donelson, published by authority, Conf. Congress, page 184. Ulysses S. Gbant. 365 march across. Our foi-ces had, meantime, been ordered up the Cumber- hind river from Cairo, to be landed as near Donelson as circumstances would permit, and to unite with Smith and McClernand. The gunboats hastened down the Tennessee, made such slight i-cpairs of damages as were possible, and steamed up the Cumberland to within a few miles of Donelson. But Grant, conscious of having lost time before Fort Henry, and now determined not to give the navy another opportunity to snatch a victory from his grasp, began opeHitions without waiting for the gunboats, or for the re-enforcements that were to accompany them. The fort now to be assailed was the last defense to the "center of the line" which Buell had proposed to? break. It alone stood between the gunboats and Nashville. Its fall would inevitably drag down Bowling Green with it; while it would also remove the last serious obstacle to a movement for the taking of Memphis in the rear. So much was known to Grant; but beyond this it does not appear that, at head-quarters, ideas concerning the nature and importance of the work to be undertaken prevailed, more definite than the utterly vague notions which were fl.oating through the country. The whole region was an unknown land since the Eebel occupation. The chatterers who labored at tbe voluntary task of finding excuses for all delays, had founS a fresh Manassas at every earthwork between the mountains and the plain; while no words but Gibraltars of the West could serve to describe the tremendously-fortified posi- tions of Bowling Green and Columbus. The reaction from this folly may pos- sibly have carried the Generals, as it did the people, a little toward the other extreme. But we now know that, in the language of Albert Sidney Johnston, "We (the Eebels) decided that we must fight for Nashville at Fort Donelson." The Bowling Green gamson was accordingly weakened to re-enforce Donelson, while General Buell's magnificent army in Kentucky was being held back by a paltry force of ten thousand men.* Meanwhile, at Fort Donelson, had been accumulated a garrison which General Johnston supposed to number sixteen thousand; which Chief • Engineer Gilmer — apparently the only man making any report about the surrender who seemed willing to tell , the simple truth — fixed at "fifteen thousand effectives;" which General Pillow pronounces to have been less than thirteen thousand, and which General Floyd seems in- clined to rate still lower.f This gan-ison received no ve'ry large re-enforcements in the peraons of its Generals. On learning of Tilghman's surrender at Fort Henry, the Eebels hastily sent General Pillow to take command. Three days later General Buckner reported to General Pillow. A few hours afterward Gen- eral John B. Floyd arrived and assumed command. General Pillow, not a high authority on fortifications since the date of his en- gineering exploits in Mexico, considered the works strong and defensible. Nobody else, before or since, has been known to entertain 'BO high an opinion of them. Up to the night'' before the appearance of Gi-ant's troops the outer line was unfin- •Sidney Johnston's letter to Jefferson Davis, March 17, 1862. Published by Conf. Gov't, in 8ep. Com. on Snrrender of Forts Henry and Donelson. ■•■Official Beport Surrender Fort Donelson. 36G Ohio ijj the Wae. iahed. It ran, zi(!;-zag, through the medley of knolls and ravines, covered with dense forest, that lay back of the river, and followed, at great length, the line o the hills. Heights farther to the rear, however, commanded it, and the wort themselves were slight. But the water battery was strong and well-finishec and it had a splendid range down the river. The two divisions with which Grant was advancing to the attack, could iio' have numbered over fifteen thousand. With their advantage of fortifica tions and knowledge of the country, the enemy ought to have routed him ii confusion (and might even have aspired to the recapture of Fort Henry) befor the gunboats and re-enforcements could have arrived. But the panic-striekei infantry that had run away from Fort Henry without firing a gun, had infusec their own terror into the rest of the garrison. General Pillow, indeed, tells u that on his arrival (three days before the attack) he "found deep gloom hang ing over the command, and the troops greatly depressed and demoralized by thi surrender of Fort Henry."* On Wednesday morningf Grant marched from Fort Henry. By twehi o'clock his column had crossed the strip of land intervening between the tw( rivers, and was driving in the Eebcl pickets. With astounding lack of enter prise the garrison quietlj- allowed itself to be invested by an assailant n( stronger than itself. Nothing but light skirmishing interfered with the progress of the investment, and the little force bivouacked in line of battle around thf fort. Thursday morning the Ecbels opened with artillery. General Grant, il would seem, had intended no attack, owing to the absence of the gunboats and infantry reinforcements,! but under the sting of this fire, he was drawn into something more than the "extension of the investment on the flanks of the enemy" of which ho speaks in his report. An advance upon the enemy's lefl (up the river) developed into an action, which the Rebels dignify by the name of the "Battle of the Trenches," in which they claim to have repulsed theit assailants, and" wen a clear advantage. Grant's troops were really compelled to fall back from one or two positions they had taken, in some disorder, and with considerable loss. Meantime the weather changed from the balmy breezes ot spring to sleet, cold rain, and finally to snow; the troops were without blankets, without rations, and without shelter. Furthermore, they began to comprehend that thoy were fronting intrunchnients manned by a force as strong as their own; and the arrival of the gunboats came to be a matter of much anxiety, In such plight they passed the weary watches of Thursday night. By Friday morning Grant considered the situation really critical, and hastily dispatched a mossonger to General Lew. Wallace to bring up the garri- son he had left at Fort Henry. A little later, however, the gunboats came in sight. Even then Grant did not feel himself equal to the assault, and the army lay still, awaiting the result of the gunboat attack. Admiral Foote steamed gallantly up, and speedily silenced several of the enemy's guns. But his vessels had been shattered at Fort Ilonry, and the Rebel artillery practice soon began * General Pillow'a Official Report. 1 12th February, 1862. t Grant's Official Report. Ulysses S. G-kant. 3^57 to tell upon them. In ten minutes more he would havo been able to pass the fort and take it in reverse, when a shot cut the rudder-chains of one of his hoiits, his flagship had her pilot's wheel shot away, and he himself was wounded. The other two iron-clads wore, moreover, seriously damaged, and thus, with two vessels helplessly drifting, and the others injured, he was forced to give the order for retiring. To the watching young General on the bank, this came with the weight of a disaster that enforced a change of all his plans. He at once decided* to make no further direct attempts upon the fort, but to complete his investment, fortify his line, get more men to hold it,f and await the return of the gunboats. Meantime, in the Eebel councils reigned strange confusion. They believed themselves surrounded by "an immense force" — not a regiment less than fifty- two would General Pillow admit — and visions of batteries above the fort on the river that should cut off their communication with Nashville and their supplies began to float before them. Floyd dwelt upon the immense resources against ■which they were battling; beside the gunboats there was "a land force drawn from an army of two hundred thousand men, all so stationed as to be easily con- centrated on the banks of the Cuml^erland in a week ' " " With a less force than fifty thousand men Fort Donelson was untenable," and even that garrison "must be sustained l)y twenty thousand at Clarksville and twenty-five thousand at Na.shyille!"t And thus, while Grant was abandoning the idea of attack, and men- tally tracing lines of fortification that should protect him till relief had come, Floyd and Pillow, taking numbers from their imaginations, and counsels from some quality that looks strikingly like cowardice, were devising means of escape from a sti;uggle they had given up in advance. It was to Buekner, it would seem, that they owed the plan finally adopted. A sortie was to be made on the portion of the National line farthest up the river toward ISTashville, and if possible it was to be rolled back upon the center, where Buekner was then to strike it. If they should succeed in shattering the National column, well; if not, they might hope, at least, so to break the lines as to make their escape. So they have since explained their plans. A more probable explanation appears to be that, after their first emotion of unmanly terror, they were shamed by Buek- ner into the opposite extreme, and came to think that they might really break the National lines and drive Grant off. Stimulated by such hopes, they moved out, under Pillow, early on Saturday morning — while Grant was off on a gun- boat consulting with Foote — and commenced an attack. Catching our pickets napping, they pushed vigorously forward, drove two of McClernand's brigades in confusion, and started a panic, that came near spreading to the whole division. Finally new lines were formed, and the attack was temporarily cheeked. Meanwhile, Buekner had found it impossible to do anything with his * Grant's Official Report. tAIthough the large re-enforcements that followed the gunboats up the river had now' readied him. t Floyd's and Pillow's Official Reports. 368 Ohio in the Wae. timid troops; the first heavy fire they encountered drove them to cover, an their General was forced to employ "persuasions" instead of commands, in hi efforts to bring them once more to the work. At last they advanced, just s Pillow was again forcing back McCIernand's line; the two Eebel columns mel the National forces were hurled clear back from their positions on the right; mounted officer galloped among the troops scattered to the rear, shouting, "W are cut to pieces ! " In fact, the panic seemed on the point of sweeping awa; the army, when General L. "Wallace's division, not yet heavily engaged, came u; in fine order and checked the retreat. What followed was curiously confused. Pillow returned to the fort, and tel egraphed to Nashville, "on the honor of a soldier," that he had won a brillian victory. Part of his troops seem to have been retired; the rest took no advant age of the disorder into which their success had thrown the ranks of thai antagonists. At this critical moment the inspiration of Grant's impertnrhabl coolness came upon him. His right was in disorder, amounting almost to rout but Charles F. Smith's division, on his left, was unharmed. The enemy ha* palpably withdrawn their forces from that part of their line to aid in Pillow'i attack. "Then charge it!"* Leaving the soldierly Smith to his work, he rod( over to the shattered right, and ordered General Lew. Wallace to advance. B] five o'clock that officer had handsomely regained all that McClernand had lost Meantime, down the river on the left, the old soldier to whom had been com mitted the crowning trust, was marshaling his column. His skillful dispositions heroic bearing, superb presence, all inflamed the enthusiasm of his command which, as soon as the word was given, rushed up the hill with bayonets set anc the wildest cheering. In front is the color-bearer of the advance brigade; bj his side rides the General. The Eebel artillery riddles the advance, and il wavers. Smith urges it on, and leads the way; the line straightens, charges pours over the abattis, climbs the embankments, rushes into the outerwork; and almost before its defenders are out of the way, the batteries are whirled up and are opening upon the lower interior fortifications. Darkness ends the struggle, but white-haired old Charles F. Smith has insured the fall of Fort Donelson. Within the fort the position is comprehended clearly enough. General Buckner tells his superiors that, with Smith inside his intrenchments, an attack is suVe to be made, and that he can not hold out half an hour. Pillow talks oi his having at least, by his own brilliant victoiy, cut oj)en a way out of the fort, and the command is actually mustered to retreat, when, to his amazement, he learns that the National troops arc in the way, pressing even more closely tban before his victorious battle was fought. Scouts are sent out to see if they can march by the river bank, directly up along the brink of the river. They report the route open, but waist deep in miro and water. Boats are sought for, on which * "I remember nn anecdote which General Grant told me about Donelson— that at a certain period of the battle he saw that either side was ready to give way, if the other showed a bold front, and he determined to do that very thing, to advance on the enemy, wlien, as he prognosti- cated, the enemy surrendered." Slierman's Letter to the United Service Magazine on PittabuiS Landing. Ulysses S. Gjrant. 369 to cross to the other hank of the river and so escape ; but these have been sent to Nashvillfe and are not yet returned. So passes the night with Floyd, Pillow, and Buckner. The two ranking officers dread the Yankees to such extent that they declare they must be permitted, personally, to escape. Buckner reminds them that a General has no right to desert his men. But they have made up their minds that in no event will they fall into the hands of the Yankees — if they can help it. And so Buckner assumes the command, and sends a flag of truce. Floyd seizes on the steamboats, when they return about daylight, and makes otf, with such of his own brigade as he can hurriedlj' embark. Long before this the redoubtable Pillow has made Ms way across the river, "in a small hand-flat"' — let us be true to history, for has not Pillow himself recorded it for our benefit — "in a small hand-flat, about four feet wide by twelve long. Myself and staff then made our way to Clarksville by land."* General Buckner solicited an armistice, and the appointment of commis- sioners to agree upon terms of capitulation. General Grant's reply struck the key-note of popular feeling, and has become historic: "No terms, other than an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." Buckner had been at West Point with Grant. He was there a showy, chivalrous Kentuckian, Grant was the son of a tanner, poor and not graceful. That this poor schoolmate of his would be flattered by his ofl'er of "capitulation" he did not doubt. His amazement at the tmatter-of- fact response stung him into boyish folly. "Notwithstanding the brilliant success of the Confederate arms on yesterday," he was "compelled to accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous terms/' And so Grant's army marched in.f TJp to this time Grant had secured little popular recognition. The battle at Belmont had been counted a disaster. Fort Henry had been taken without him; and he hfid even failed to get up in time to intercept the runaway garri- son. But Fort Donelson was the first great, decisive success of the war. Its results were the capture of Nashville and the speedily following fall of Mem- phis. Moreover, the army of prisoners was something hitherto unknown in Wars on the Continent. The General who had accomplished these things at I?; *Pillow's Answer to Interrogatories of Conf. Sec. War. '■ .tGeneral Grant reported a capture of twelve to fifteen thousand prisoners. Tliis number Was exaggerated; but the Rebels went to the other extreme. Pollard sets down the exact number of prisoners taken as five thousand and seventy-nine. He omits, however, in his list all the wounded left on the field, and at least two regiments — known to number a thousand men. On Ihe other hand Floyd carried off between fifteen hundred and two thousand, including the strag- glers who subsequently joined him. Wounded, to the number of eleven hundred and thirty-four, nad been sent to Nashville, and the dead must have swelled this to nearly two thousand. Deduct tneee and the two thousand carried away by Floyd from the fifteen thousand originally present, md we have about eleven thousand well and wounded left for "Grant. No accurate lists are known to have been made out. . Some forty pieces of artillery were captured, with large store of muskets, horses, mules, etc. ' General Grant's estimate of his own losse's was twelve hundred killed, wounded, and missing, "nich subsequently proved to be far below the real number. YOL. I.— 24. 370 Ohio in the War. once became the popular idol. A Major-Generalship was bestowed upon hii and his command was extended. People dwelt admiringly on his curt an8W( to Buckner. His accidental initials were turned to new use, and our uncle-lil youth, whom his schoolmates had called Uncle Sam, was now denominate Unconditional Surrender Grant. The newspapers gave the new Secretary o War some credit for the victory, whereupon he announced* that ""We owe ou recent victories to the Spirit of the Lord, that moved our soldiers to dash inf battle, and filled the hearts of our enemies with terror and dismay. Wha under the blessing of Providence, I conceive to be the true organization of vie tory and military combination to end this war, was declared in few words b General Grant's message to General Buckner, 'I propose to move immediate! on your works.' " Furthermore, with these popular approvals, and this evidenc of the admiration of his oflScial chief. Grant obtained another advantage. H acquired the firm, admiring friendship of the strong-willed and influential mem ber of Congress from Galena, which was henceforth^ in more than one emei gency, to prove his protection. It was General Grant's high, good fortune to be thus at the head of movement, whose material and moral results were alike inspiring to the Nation He did his duty in it simply, courageously, andwell. But if we look for signa displays of special military ability in the operations, we shall have to read thi story over again under the spell of the enthusiasm it first aroused. There wa praiseworthy energy in the prompt movement from Fort Henry; there was higl courage in undertaking the investment with only fifteen thousand men; but, yet these were qualities which many undistinguished men are constantly exhibiting One striking circumstance brings into bold relief one of Grant's strongest men tal points. He secured Fort Donelson when, after the rout of his right wing, li( ordered Chas. F. Smith, with the left, to charge the enemy's works. He selectef the right man, and in the midst of disaster he chose the right moment. Then followed an interval of civil administration. While Grant was be coming the popular hero, he suddenly fell into disgrace at head-quarters. Aftei Donelson, he went up to Nashville with a division; taking troops out of his owi district without cause, and intruding upon the independent department of Gen eral Buell, whom, by his recent promotion, he outranked. The last was a bread of military etiquette, the other something more. General Halleck further com plained of Grant's failure to make satisfactory reports of the state of his com niand, and of a prevailing disposition, as he construed it, to act independently The result was, that after Grant had issued some orders to the people of Tennes see, forbidding the Rebel oflScers to exercise any official functions, and directing the conduct of his troops in enforcing martial law over West Tennessee, h( found himself—just when the expedition up the Tennessee Eiver came to b( organized — suddenly ordered to head-quarters at Fort Henry, and forbidden to take the field. The hero of Fort Donelson, Chas. F. Smith, a subordinate ol Grant's f\'om the outset, was assigned to tho_command of the troops, and GranI •Secretary Stanton's Letter to New York Tribune, February, 1862. Ulysses S. Grant. 371 became little better than an Adjutant-General. Stung to the quick, he sent an indignant letter to Halleck, protesting against the injustice, complaining bitterly of anonymous letters attacking him, and finally asking to be relieved of com- mand! Explanations however ensued, and ten days after the issue of the order to quit the field he -was again ordered into it. The interval however was not unfruitful. The Tennessee Eiver Expedition had been organized; great fleets of steamboats had swept up the stream, crowded with tht troops of six divisions and sixty regiments. Sherman had been sent to cut one of the railroads leading into Corinth, and had failed. Lew. Wallace Bent to cut another, had succeeded, but in a few days the damages were repaired. Then the army hiid been debarked, by an almost fatal error of judgment, at Pittsburg Landing, on the South side of the river, and within easy striking dis- tance of the enemy's concentration of forces at Corinth.* On Grant's arrival he found the army scattered through the woods about the Landing, like a huge militia encampment, preparatory to the annual mus- ter-day; or like a great Maying party, camping out for a pic-nic. Troops es- tablished themselves here and there, it would seem, almost as the spots happened to strike the fancy of the Colonels; there was no definite ft-ont; no relation of one part of the army to another, such as would go to make up a satisfactory defensive line. The several brigades of a division were not even encamped togettier. One of General Sherman's own brigades lay more than two miles from ♦Subsequent events (even if abstract military principles were not suflScient) having seemed to most men to condemn the location of the army on that side the river, while awaiting Buell's arrival, General W. T. Sherman has volunteered a defense of General Grant in the premises. Having first justified the landing on the south side and consequent exposure to an enemy believed to be largely superior, with a swollen river in the rear between the army and the one that was to re-enforce it, on the absurd ground that " it was not then a question of military skill and strat- egy, but of courage and pluck ; that it was necessary that a combat, flierce and bitter, to test the manhood of the two armies should come off, and that was as good a place as any ; " he continues, after the pattern of the famous cracked kettle defense : First, the kettle was not returned to the lender cracked. Second, it was cracked when it was borrowed. First, General Grant was not wrong in locating the troops on the enemy's side of the river. Second, he didn't locate them there at all. "The battle-field was chosen by that veteran soldier, Major-General Chas. P. Smith. If there were any error in putting that army on that side the Tennessee, exposed to the superior force of the enemy also assembling at Corinth, the mistake was not General Grant's." These statements of fact have been questioned by oflScers of equal rank and ability. General Grant has himself added nothing to the controversy, nor is he likely to do so. He has long ago outlived, (if indeed he were ever subject to) the foolish vanity of thinking it necessary to prove that he never made a mistake, in order to vindicate his title to greatness Of the general issue thus raised, however, one thing ought to be said. It is ungenerous, and likely to be unfair, after public odium has attached to a transaction, to shift it to a dead man's shoulders. Chas. F. Smith can not appear to tell us under what stress of orders he was acting, and the General of the schools, who from his head-quarters in St. Louis was then controlling the campaign, is not the man to tell for him. Furthermore, Smith, prostrated by disease incurred at Fort Donelson, was capable of giving active direction to affairs for but a few days subsequent to the arrival at Pittsburg Landing, and soon after he was stretched on his death-bed. Moreover, Grant himself, restored to command, was on the spot weeks before the battle. If he had regarded the position faulty, he was bound to rectify it. If, absorbed in the duties of the head-quarters BU miles below, he intrusted such duties in the field to the responsible General there, that Gen- eral has now no right to shield himself from criticism, just or unjust, behind a hero's corpse. 372 Ohio in the War. the rest of his troops, with two other independent divisions thrust in betwe The ground was well adapted for defensive works, yet not a rifle-pit was di nor even the simplest breastwork of rails and earth thrown together. Slai ings of timbers could have been made before every camp; yet not a hatchet ■« raised to prepare an abattis. Three miles in advance ran a stream which mig well have been used as a defensive line; yet even its crossings were notwatchi And still the enemy was known to be but a little more than a dozen miles distai and was believed to be in superior force. However the dispute ought to decided as to the responsibility for such errors at the outset, there can be : question as to the responsibility for their continuance. To his honor, be it sai General Grant has never sought to evade it. Let us gratefully add, that in i his varied career he has never repeated such blunders. The army thus confronting the enemy had been originally expected to a complish more. General Halleck's first instructions were to occupy Florence, ai destroy the railroad connections between Johnston's army, retreating from ^&s. ville, and that of Beauregard, so soon to retreat from Memphis. Corinth, Jackso and Humboldt were the railroad points he hoped to strike.* "We have seen thi the first movements in this direction under Sherman and Wallace wereabortivj Then came the surprise of finding Corinth occupied and fortified, "with tweni thousand men under Beauregard," telegraphed General Halleck; and " Smith ni strong enough to attack." Next came a determination to "land at Savanna and establish a depot. "f Then, as Johnston fell back from Murfreesboro, Ha leek, estopped before Corinth, and finding it impossible to prevent the jnnctio of Johnston and Beauregard, arranged with Buell to gain the co-operation oft! Army of the Ohio. While preparing to move in accordance with this arrangi ment, Buell signified his approval of Halleck's dispositions, thus: "The estal lishment of your force on this side of the river, as high up as possible, is ev dently judicious. "| But what must his astonishment have been on learning, week later, that the column he was already toiling overland to join, was plante on the opposite side of a swollen river, and almost under the fortifications of th concentrating foe! He refused to believe it, and telegraphed to Gen. Halleck fo information. What we have now to add would seem incredible, were not th ofiicial dispatches on file. Whether General Halleck himself knew that his arm; was thus scattered on the south bank, with the river in its rear and the foe in it front, does not certainly appear; but it does appear that if he did know, he di^ not, in reply to this dispatch, notify General Buell of it.|| That officer moved oi * "Available force gone up the Tennessee to destroy connections at Corinth, Jackson an Humboldt. ... It is of vital importance to separate them (Beauregard's troops) from Jolir aton's army. Come over to Savannah or Florence and we can do it." Halleck's dispatch to Buel ith March, 1862. t " Florence was the point originally designated, but on account of enemy's forces at Corint and Humboldt, it is deemed best to land at Savannah and establish a depot." Halleck to Buel 10th March, 1862. t Buell to Halleck, 10th March, 1862 ; reply to dispatch just quoted. II Buell's dispatch, 18th March, 1862, said, " I understand that General Grant is on the eas (north) side of the river ; is it not so? " Halleck's reply " did not inform him to the contrary. Ulysses S. G-rant. 373 as rapidly as the roads and bridgeless streams would permit, but in no special haste, ignorant of any cause for special haste; actually requested by General Halleck to halt at Waynesboro, thirty miles short of the junction with Grant till he (Halleck) could get ready to run up from St. Louis ; not even notified hy Grant of the true condition of affaire ; and finally — strangest of all — he was informed by Grant, as late as the Saturday night 'before the direful Sunday of Pittsburg Landing, that it was unnecessary to hasten his march ! * So absolute was the surprise of that fateful attack. Meantime the golden opportunity had been lost. "When the army under Chas. F. Smith began moving up the Tennessee, Corinth (next to Florence — if not before it — the great objective point) could have been seized by a handfal of troops. When the army was blindly striking at railroads, right and left, Corinth was still feebly garrisoned. Beauregard admits that it was only on the 2d of March that he began the effort to concentrate there. As late as March 6th, Gen- eral Halleck himself, repeating the news sent "down the Tennessee," placed the force at Corinth at only twenty thousand; whereas the army he had sent against it could even then muster almost double that number. But the chances were flitting fast. As early as 25th of February General Sidney Johnston had declared, in a private letter to Mr. Davis, his determination to abandon Middle Tennessee, and move toward Corinth, to co-operate or unite with Beauregard. Buell moved from Nashville on the 15th of March, to form a junction with Hal- leck's forces (iinder Grant) ; but, three days afterward, Sidney Johnston was able to write Mr. Davis again, "the passage is almost completed, and the head of my column is already with General Bragg at Corinth." He adds, with a satisfac- tion warranted by the apparent success of his grand strategy, "the movement was deemed too hazardous; by the most experienced members of my staff, but the object warranted the risk. The difllculty of effecting a junction is not wholly overcome, but it approaches completion. Day after to-morrow, unless the enemy intercepts me, my force will be with Bragg." f The "enemy" did not "intercept him." The junction was completed ; fresh re-enforcements arrived from Louisiana and other States; the rest of Beauregard's spare forces had been called in — alto- gether not less than forty thousand effective troops were mustered within less than a day's march of our scattered, undefended, unguarded camps on the Tennessee. Moreover there was an end to the management of Floyds and Pillows and Tilghmans in the Eebel army. The ablest soldier then, or ever espousing their cause, had assumed the command in the field. ' He had patiently borne the pop- ular clamor that followed his abandonment of Bowling Green; had made no * Buell to Editor U. S. Service Magazine, January 19th, 1865. Halleck proposed to leave St. Louis, April 7th. The battle began on the 6th. Buell's words about Grant's communication arc; "The day before his arrival at Savannah, General Nelson, who commanded my leading iivision, advised General Grant, by courier, of his approach, and was informed in reply, that it was unnecessary to hasten his march, as he could not, at any rate, cross the river before the following Tuesday.'' It will be seen hereafter in these pages (Life of General Ammen) that another oflBcer of Buell's army received from Grant more striking statements to the same effect. t Sidney Johnston to Jeff. Davis, March 18, 1862. (Private letter communicated to Confed- erate Congress.) 374 Ohio in the Wae. aoKwer to the storm that beat upon him when his subordinates sacrificed F Donelson. Now, at last, his army was in hand; the unsuspecting antagonist 1 before him inviting the blow; and on the third of April he announced to 1 "Soldiers of the Army of the Mississippi," that he "had put them in motion offer battle to the invaders of their country," and to "fight for all worth livi or dying for." One more opportunity was left for that torpid antagonist. The hand of G interfered to work delay. Johnston moved from Corinth by noon of April 3d; t the heavens opened and deluged the swampy country over which he had to pa Less than seventeen miles of marching would bring him upon our camps; hec not accomplish the distance till the afternoon of the 5th. One whole day was spe with an army of forty thousand men, floundering through woods within the li our pickets should have occupied. Even yet it was not too late. There, thrdu that long afternoon and evening, lay the Eebel army, almost within gunshot the camps it was to attack. If the camps were without pickets, and the arr without Generals, it would seem, at least, that the men could scarcely be wil out ears. And yet day darkened into night without alarm; the command! General quietly returned to his head-quarters in Savannah; the army sank ir slumber; the enemy in silent bivouac on its front actually listened to its drui and was guided by its "taps'" and "reveille." "The total absence of caval pickets from General Grant's army," writes an oflftcer of Beauregard's staf " was a matter of perfect amazement. There were absolutely none on Gran left, where Bi-eckinridge's division was meeting him, so that we were able come up within hearing of their drums entirely unperceived. The Southe Generals always kept cavalry pickets out for miles, even when no enemy w supposed to be within a day's march of them. The infantry pickets of Gran forces were not above three-fourths of a mile from his advance camps, and th were too few to make any resistance." And yet there had been enough to alarm any but the blindly self-confidei On Friday a reconnoissance, a few miles out from camp, had developed a Eel battery in position, and had led to a sharp skirmish. On Saturday there had be more or less picket firing; more than one Colonel had felt it incumbent up him to give emphatic warning of the signs of the enemy's presence in for which he could perceive on hie front. They were treated as alarmists, wh( freshness from civil life and ignorance of the noble art of war must excuse thi nervous apprehensions ! Saturday evening, as he passed down to his head-qui ters at Savannah, General Grant stopped at Crump's Landing to see Genei Lew. Wallace. There were some indications of possible attack, he thougl but if it were really intended, it would probably fall there, and not at Pittsbn Landing. And so we drifted into the assault. Next morning it came. By daylight the Eebel divisions were in motii The 'shots of our pickets had scarcely been noticed, till such of them as w( not captured rushed into camp. Almost simultaneously crashed the first volley ♦"An Impressed New Yorker's Thirteen Months in the Eebel Army." The author this work is Geo. M. Stevenson, son of Key. Dr. Stevenson of the American Tract Society. Ulysses S. Geant. 375 the advancing foe on Prentiss's front. A little later they struck Sherman. Each hastened to form line of battle. The latter was successful, and for some little time held his ground. Prentiss was scarcely so fortunate. Meanwhile the two divisions had no connection ; the enemy found the gap, and the flank of each was turned. Sherman's left broke in disorder ; th6 confusion was spreading to his right when the whole line fell back. Away to the left the enemy found another gap, for Prentiss had as little connection with Sherman's solitary brigade on the extreme left as he had with the other brigades of that officer on the extreme right. He was flanked there also ; three sides were enfolded ; he fell back, fight- ing bravely enough against the inevitable, and was at length compelled to sur- render such fragments of his force as still retained their coherency. The enemy rushing in on his left flank had struck the right of Sherman's isolated brigade, and it, likewise under the same stress, was hurled backward. Never was there a battle where everything had been so skillfully arranged to court such sudden disaster. The roar of the onslaught startled Grant from his peaceful Sunday morning slumbers, down the river at Savannah. He hurried up, on the first steam- boat he could obtain, to find Prentiss practically disappeared from the contest ; Sherman's division in confusion ; McClernand's, which had hastened to support it, crippled, and but Hurlbut and W. H. L. Wallace left to save the day. He strove to make the troops contest the ground more obstinately, hurried forward sup- plies of cartridges, and for a time did little more. He was facing his sujjeriors in the art of war, and, as he first felt the weight of their skillful combinations and resistless assaults, we may well believe that for a moment there came over the mind of our Infantry Captain and Galena leather-dealer — now returned to his old profession to rival his old masters — -a wish that the confidence born of Fort Donelson had not carried him so far. But he allowed no signs of distrust to escape him. There seemed little that he could do, but he could at least keep up his courage. The troops wei'e beaten back from place to place, with an ever narrowing front, and a steadily swelling stream of deserters to the rear. The blufl' was alive with them. Miles down the stream they made their hurried way in scores and hundreds. Still the army of forty thousand, surprised, broken in fragments, driven piecemeal, dwindled to scarcely more than half its number, kept up a good fight. Never did Generals strive more bravely in the field to redeem their irredeemable blunders in the council. By half-past four in the afternoon there remained for them scarcely more than half a mile of ground to stand on. Eebel shells were dropping among the Bkulkers on the Landing. A staif officer was killed, almost at Grant's side, on the bluff. The tremendous roar to the left, momentarily nearer and nearer, told of an effort to cut him off from the river and from retreat. Grant sat on his horse, quiet, thoughtful, almost stolid. Said one to him, "Does not the prosjject begin to look gloomy ?" " Not at allj" was the quiet reply. " They can't force our lines around these batteries to-night — it is too late. Delay counts everything with us. ro-morrow we shall attack them with fresh troops and drive them, of course."* *I was myself a listener to this conversation, and from it I date, in my own case at least, the beginnings of any belief in Grant's greatness. 376 Ohio in the Wae. For Buell had already arrived in person ; the advance of the Army of the Ohio was at Savannah; before daybreak almost the whole column would be up. There was no consultation between the independent commanders now on the field. Grant explained to Buell the position ; Sherman furnished him with a little map of tlie roads, and, by common consent, it was understood that Buell was to advance at daybreak with his fresh troops on the left, where his fore- most division had already done some fighting. Grant gathered together what he could of his army and prepared to advance on the right. PITTSBURG LANDING AND SURROUNDINGS. ExplanaHont : A. Positions of Mnjor-Gcneral Grant's forces on the morning of April 6th B. Positions of Gtant, with the divisions of Nelson and Crittenden, on the OTening of April 6th. C. Positions of Giant and Buell on the morning of April 7th. . D. Positions of Grant and Buell on the evening of April 7th. E. Reserve of Artillery. The next day brought success. The Army of the Ohio extended its front over three-fourths of the battle-field; Grant's shattered troops were barely able Ulysses S. Grant. 377 to keep up the line on the other fourth ; but there were enough — the day was won. The troops were too much exhausted for pursuit, and halting in the camps irom which they had been driven the day before, were content to call it a victory. Not to be outdone, Beauregard (in command since Sidney John- ston's death in the firpt day's battle) telegraphed to Eichmond that he had won a great and glorious victory; and Mr. Davis went so far as to communicate the glad tidings to the Confederate Congress in a special message. The losses were about equal. Beauregard reported his at ten thousand sis hundred and ninety-nine killed, wounded, and missing. Grant estimated his at five thousand killed and wounded, while two thousand two hundred prisoners were known to be taken with Prentiss. The incomplete reports of the subor- dinates, however, subsequently showed a loss of ten thousand six hundred killed and wounded. Altogether our loss must have been fifteen thousand, and Beau- regard's could not have fallen many hundreds below the same figure. On the first day the contending forces were about equal. On the second Beauregard was largely outnumbered. Of General Grant's conduct during this battle nothing can be said but praise; of his conduct before it little but blanie. Flushed with Donelson, and seeming to despise his antagonist, he neglected almost every precaution and violated almost every rule of his profession. Believing the enemy to be largely superior in numbers, he lay, awaiting Buell's army, in a position inherently false and dangerous.* The order of his encampments was worse even than the position. "With an enemy in front," says Montecuculli, "an army should always encamp in order of battle." It is Napoleon himself who tells us that "encampments of the same army should always be formed so as to protect each other;" and again, that "it should be laid down as a principle never to leave intervals by which the enemy can penetrate between corps." The neglect to fortify is palliated by the popular dislike then existing to the spade as a weapon. But ofllcers who had studied war and knew its requirements could scarcely have forgotten the spirit, even if they had failed to recall the words of the great Master of War, when he declared that, in the presence of an enemy, "it is necessary to intrench every night, and occupy a good defensive- position." The neglect of pickets and out-posts approached criminality. That an enemy, forty thousand strong, only eighteen miles distant at the outset, and hourly approaching, could spend three days preparing to attack and in leisurely selecting its positions, without discovery by the antagonist General, will seem to the next generation preposterous and incredible. When the storm Which he thus invited had burst, when he found how disaster was enveloping his army, and saw divisions melt- ing bodily out of his grasp. Grant rose to the height of a hero. More than that, he rose (and for the first time on that movement) to the height of a General. "For it is the first qualification of a General-in-chief," says Napoleon again, "to have a cool head." The man who amid the disasters of that day could calmly •Napoleon laid it down as a maxim of war, that "when the conquest of a country is under- Uke? by two or three armies, having separate lines until tliey arrive at a point fixed upon for f concentration, the unim, of these different corps shwild never take place near the enemy." 378 Ohio in the Wae. reason out the certainty of success to-morrow, gave proof, in spite of blunder that under most managements would have cashiered him, of his capacity t lead the hosts of Freedom in greater struggles yet to come. The battle of Pittsburg Landing added to Grant's reputation at the East and increased his already rapidly rising popularity. In the West, where it wai better understood, where the ghastly losses were felt and the causes were known it was held to be suflScient reason for his removal from command. The Gover- nors of several Western States requested his removal on the grounds of inca paeity and alleged intoxication. The fearful loss of life was charged directly tc his negligence, and exaggerated stories of his habits were widely circulated, Even the gross slander, that explained the disasters of the first day's battle by the allegation of Grant's absence for hours in a state of intoxication at Savan- nah, found ready believers. In the midst of all this, General Halleck hurried from St. Louis to take personal control, and thus illustrate to the Nation what one, who had gained such brilliant victories from his remote head-quarters, could accomplish when once his martial tread shook the actual field. One of his earliest deeds was to deprive Grant of all command. But Halleck had been lawyer quite as much as soldier ; and his explanation to the victim, of the high honor he did him in thus beheading him, was a masterpiece of lawyer -like strategy. General Grant was the second in command; therefore it was necessary that he should have no command. For, in the event, which his constant exposure made hourly immi- nent, of the General-in-chief 's being killed or disabled, it was necessary that the next in rank should be ready on the instant, and disengaged from other duties. " The General studied a long while over that stroke, and seemed mightily pleased at the shape he gave it," said an admiring staff officer. Grant tried hard to believe in the theory, but his sturdy common sense was too much for it. Indeed, there were times during that weary two months' "siege" of Corinth when those who entered his tent found him almost in tears — contemplating, once it is said, the tender of his resignation as a means of escape from a position which he felt to be humiliating. In these dark days he had a constant friend in General Sherman — a fact not without its influence in the later career of both. Halleck's summons to the East as General-in-chief, not long after tlie evacuation of Corinth, left Grant again in active command. For a time there was little to do. The campaign that, opening so bravely amid winter snows around Donelson and Henry, had swept they Eebels from Bowling Green to Corinth, from Columbus to Yicksburg, frittered itself away by early summer, in inconsequential pursuits and final stagnation. The enemy had time to recover from blows that had well-nigh proved mortal, to concentrate his scattered forces, and to resume the offensive. For this it is not plain that Grant should be held in any sense responsible. He had always advocated vigorous action, to the extent indeed of taking too little rather than too much time for preparation. Through all the amazing delays at Corinth he had urged advance, and it may Ulysses S. Gbant. 379 well be believed that his natural bent was not changed when power was at last lodged again' in his hands. The limits of his command naturally placed before him the task of opening the Mississippi. It was not till 27th of November that he was able to set about it. This interval of six months after the fall of Corinth, was spent in civil administration, and in a couple of battles directed by Grant and fought by Rosecrans. At first Grant established his head-quarters at Memphis. Presently it was discovered that the resident families of Eebel officers were constantly furnishing them news of the movements and numbers of troops. To prevent this, such families were peremptorily ordered beyond the lines. Subsequently the order was so far modified as to permit those to remain who chose to give their word of honor not to communicate with the Eebel army. An order hold- ing the communities whiclj^ sustained guerrilla bands pecuniarily liable for their outrages, struck at the root of the system. A disloyal newspaper was sum- marily suppressed. Efforts were made to keep back the swarm of unprincipled speculators who hastened South, loaded with specie, to cross the lines and trade with the Eebels. The runaway slaves who crowded his camps were organized into companies and made to earn a living by being set to work picking cotton. The army was rigorously forbidden to interfere with the natural workings of the slavery question. Slaves were neither to be enticed away from their mas- ters nor returned to them. A regiment that had been guilty of pillaging to a disgraceful extent, found itself charged with the value of its robberies when the paymaster came around. The Jews, as a class, were arraigned for "violating every regulation of trade established," and were ordered out of the department on twenty -four hours' notice, not to return under penalty of imprisonment. Some of these orders were perhaps indiscreet; the most were well-judged and had a happy effect. Grant's strong common sense was conspicuous through the various work; but the chaotic condition of civil affairs in the conquered territory, and the confusion of trade regulations under conflicting authorities rendered it impossible that the labors of any one should be satisfactory or complete. The midsummer repose was broken by the advance of the columns which the Rebels had been given time to re-assemble. Van Dorn and Price were the leaders. The designs were uncertain; but the first demonstration was an effort to break the line between Memphis and Corinth. Grant drew back his isolated garrisons before the advance, and suffered Price to take quiet possession. of luka. Then, learning that Van Dorn could not come up for four or five days, he sud- denly concentrated upon Price. Ord, with six thousand five hundred men, was to come in from the north; Eosecrans, with nine thousand, from the direction of Jacinto. Grant remained with Ord's column, which was to attack as soon as Rosecrans could get up on the opposite side. Unfortunately a strong wind was blowing directly against this advance, and the sound of Eosecrans's cannonade M'as not heard. Grant, resting on the idea that as his march was a long one, he could hardly be expected so soon, held Ord back, and thus Eosecrans was left to fight the battle alone. Next morning Price, discovering his danger, had re- 380 Ohio in the Wak. treated, and the chance of closing with a consolidated force of near sixteen thousand upon Price's twelve thousand, and crushing it, was lost. Van Dorn next advanced upon Corinth. Grant entrusted its defense to Eosecrans, and disposed his remaining forces with a view to protect other points if the movement on Corinth should prove only a feint. Eosecrans was attacked with a desperation that made Corinth one of the hardest fought battles of the war. The close of the second day saw Van Dorn with his combined forces in full flight. Grant had already forwarded fresh troops to Eosecrans for the pur-' suit; he now threw in Ord upon the flank of the beaten enemy and inflicted still further punishment. The brief little campaign was admirably managed. The pursuit might have been more energetically pushed, but there were reasons for delay that may leave Grant free from blame. The battle of Corinth was fought on the 4th of October. It was nearly two months later before Grant again advanced. The enemy was now posted on the Tallahatchie, to the south-west of Grand Junction and Corinth, where he covered Vicksburg and Jackson. Grant himself moved down on his front, while he sent a sipall force from Helena, striking eastward across the country-, to demonstrate upon his rear and cut off his supplies. So marked was the effect of this demon- stration that the enemy hastily abandoned the line of the Tallahatchie, and fell back uj)on the Yallabusha. Grant pressed steadily down into the interior, leav- ing in his trail a long train of posts to be garrisoned, the loss of any one of which would inevitably throw him back upon his base. It was a hazardous experiment, but one that promised brilliant results if successful. Whether this movement had originally been designed as one against Vicks- burg does not appear; but about this time General Halleck sent orders from Washington that a direct expedition against Vicksburg should be started. Gen- eral Sherman was at once sent back to Memphis to organize it, with orders to "proceed to the reduction of Vicksburg." The garrison, it was hoped, would be found weak ; and Grant's advance was relied on to keep the Eebel army, then on the Yallabusha, too fully occupied to relieve it. Such were the plans when a single stroke disarranged them all, and left, in place of the victory that had been hoped, a barren record of retreat for one column and a bloody repulse for the other. Grant had made Holly Springs the immediate base of supplies for his advance, and had left it under the com- mand of Colonel Murphy, with a garrison of a thousand men. Supplies and transportation had been accumulated here to the value of over four millions of dollars. The Eebel cavalry were suddenly discovered dashing past Grant's column, with evident design to cut his communication. _ In alarm for his sup- plies ho sent word to Murphy of the impending danger, and hurried four regi- ments back to re-enforce him. The regiments were delayed; Murphy proved himself an imbecile; the post was surrendered without firing a shot; Van Dorn destroyed everything in hot haste, and pushed on to other posts in quest of further work. It was the defeat of the whole movement. Grant moved back, and the enemy was left to devote his attention undisturbed to Vicksburg. Sherman, unfortunately, started the day after this disaster, and before he had Ulysses S. Gbant. 381 heard of it. He reached the northern defenses of Vicksburg, made a gallant and bloody assault, was repulsed with heavy loss, and was forced to abandon his effort. And so, by the opening of 1863, Grant found himself fairly confronted with the problem of Yicksburg. His most trusted Lieutenant had essayed it and failed. He had himself essayed a co-operative movement and failed. The Administration said: "Take Vicksburg." The people grew restive under the delay in fulfilling the order. To their minds the Great Eiver was the symbol of the Union. Till every obstruction to its peaceful flow was burst off, they could see no hopeful issue to the conflict. About this time, too, the whole horizon was dark. The partisans of McClellan waged fierce war upon the Government that had removed their favorite; his enemies shrank appalled, asby their own handi- work, from the ghastly slaughter of our bravest which his incompetent successor had wrought on the heights of Fredericksburg. The capture of New Orleans had led to none of the expected results, Operations on the sea-oofist were frivo- lous and inconseq^uential. At a great cost the old Army of the Ohio had, before Nashville, maintained its ground, without the abilitj' to advance. From the sea to the river our armies seemed paralyzed. The opponents of the war at the North, encouraged by these indications, ventured upon an opener course. Their able representatives in Congress pointed to the failures of two bloody yeai-s as proof that the seceded States could never be subdued; demanded a cessation of hostilities; declared that continuance of the struggle would insure the eternal separation of the South. Their eloquent spokesman warned the Government that, in such case, the North-West would go with the South. If war could not open the Father of Waters, the men who dwelt on its tributaries and about its Bourees would make peace to accomplish the end. " There is not one drop of rain that falls over the whole vast expanse of the. North-West," he exclaimed with threatening emphasis, and with the instant applause pf his great party, " that does not find its home in the bosom of the Gulf. We must and we will follow it, with travel and trade, not by treaty but by right; freely, peaceably, and without.restriction br tribute, under the same Government and flag."* Unmoved by the clamor that thus agitated the public mind and gave fever- ish interest to his operations ; unmoved likewise by the signs of his own growing, unpopularity, the stories about his habits, the comments on his Mississippi failure, the censures of his negligence in leaving Holly Springs with' defense so inade- quately proportioned to thg importance of the post — moved by none of these things from his equable calm, Grant, still with the fullest support of the Govern- ment, began his studybf the Vicksburg problem. It was evident that the conditions were different from those under which the other strongholds along the Mississippi had been successively secured. The naval force had in every ease proved insufficient to reduce the Eebel batteries which blocked the navigation, so long as their garrisons were free from menace •Vallandigham's Speech on Wright's Eeeolutiona, 37th Cong., 2d Ses3., Jan., 1863. 382 Ohio in the War. hy a superior land column. But the moment that an army in the interior endangered the communications of the garrison, the post had fallen. With the establishment of Grant's forces at Fort Donelaon, Columbus had been abandoned. With Pope's appearance below it, Island No. 10 had been abandoned. With the evacuation of Corinth came the evacuation of Port Pillow, and the resulting fall of Memphis. With the occupation of Jackson, which Grant had essayed, might have come Sherman's occupation of Vicksburg. But Grant had failed to keep open his communications on his march toward Jackson; and whether he might have done better again or not, he abandoned the effort, and committed himself to the radically false movement* of passing directly down the river. He was not long indeed in discovering the error ; but the steps could not well be retraced. Thenceforward his mind was wholly turned upon efforts to find some way of vaulting from the river in the front, to the hills in the rear of Vicksburg. And here it was that the peculiar difficulties of the problem were encountered. Thie city of Vicksburg is situated at the eastern end of a great bend of the Misssisippi, and on its eastern bank. Its high bluffs render direct assault from the front an impracticable thing. It is now to be seen that a movement from the east bank of the Mississippi above it, around to its rear, was likewise an impracticable thing. A few miles above Vicksburg the Yazoo river empties into the Jlississippi, on the eastern side. The hills which skirt Vicksburg extend northward, forming a good defensive line up to Haines's Bluff on the Yazoo, twelve miles from its confluence with the Mississippi. In front of these hills lay swamps, dense woods, and an old bed of the Yazoo — an uncertain region, neither land nor water, but presenting the obstacles of both, and admirably improved by the Eebel commander. The batteries at Haines's Bluff effectually closed the Yazoo to our gunboats ; the defensive line thence to Vicksburg. just described, barred an advance by the land forces. This then was the problem : How should the army be planted in the rear of Vicksburg and supplied? The route overland, via Holly Spi-ings, having been definitely abandoned, but two possible lines of supply seemed left. If the Yazoo could be used, the army might reach the rear of Vicksburg from the north side. If the Mississippi could be used, it might reach the rear from the south side. But we have seen that the Yazoo was closed by the batteries of Haines's Bluff, the Mississippi by the batteries of Vicksburg itself. Months were spent in efforts to evade first the one and then the other. All were futile; and failure after failure served at once to strengthen the opposition at the North, to embarrass the Government, and to discourage the army. * High authoritie.s will condemn tliis censure. But I find myself fortified in it, not merely by the abstract principles of war, but by the openly expressed conviction of so eminent a soldier and so distinguished a friend of Grant's as General Sherman. In his speech, July 20th, 1865, at a banquet given in his honor, at St. Louis, General Sherman, after referring to the canals and the " drowning on the levee like mnskrats," said : " All that time the true movement was the origi- nal movement, and everything approximating it came nearer the truth. But we could not make a retrograde movement. Why ? Because you people of the North were too noisy. We could not take any step backward, and for that reason we were forced to run the batteries at Vicksburg." Ulysses S. G-eant. 383 The first project was to open the Mississippi by cutting a canal (scarcely a mile in length), directly across the neck of land around which the river bends, to wash the bluffs of the threatened city. This would have opened a line of supply to VICKSBURC AND SURROUNDINGS. the southward — even if the channel had not been permanently changed — and would thus have enabled Grant to move from the south side to the rear of Vicks- hnrg. The work was energetically prosecuted, but before the canal was deep fflkongh, the rising river swept in the dam at its upper end, flooded the camps an5 drove off the workmen. Even then the undertaking might have been a BQCcess ; but the upper end of the canal had been located exactly at a powerful eddy in the river, which effectually prevented the current from entering it. Aad — as if the planners had predestinated failure — even if the canal had been 384 Ohio in the Wae. made navigable, it must have been useless, for it entered the Mississippi again, directly under heavy batteries of the enemy. The river rose none too soon to prevent further waste of time on a scheme like this. Still seeking a route down the river by which he might supply his army below, Grant next bethought him of the chain of Jakes and ponds and stagnant bayous through the swamps of Louisiana, connecting Lake Providence (lying only a mile west of the Mississippi) with the Tensas Eiver, which, through the Ked, leads again into the Mississippi far below Ifatchez. Chimerical, indeed, must have been the visions of relief from the remorseless conditions of his prob- lem that. were swarming before the mind of the puzzled General, when the project of opening and defending a line like this, through the enemy's country, was seriously entertained. But a canal from the Mississippi into Lake Provi- dence was begun, and for a time the troops were kept busy with the spade upon it. Scarcely less unpromising was another wild eifort, the last of the schemes for evading Vicksburg and still descending the "Mississippi. Near Mil liken's Bend are certain Louisiana bayous, sluggish wastes of water in that "half-made land," which, during the spring freshets, swell into navigable streams. By one tortuous connection and another, through cypress swamps innumerable, it was just possible that a shallop could be floated along these bayous, at flood time, t■ S- 2. ?- 2. aS as S, ° IB s P' f' - ? E S IK'S ^ a B S •0 m -t m so CD n c o H X in ■n r ■a. I I z I " - s o < m S m z -t CD H o -4 X PI m ■n H "a • » Ulysses S. G-eant. 409 in the amazing calm of Grant's intellect whieii enabled him to perceive that where he stood, not where the capital stood, was the vital point to be held at any sacrifice of Government favor or Northern territory. Fortunately, the Eebel commander of the column moving against Washing- ton was without enterprise, and while he stood hesitating before earthworks, manned by a corporal's guard, the re-enforcements arrived, the capital was safe, and Grant was left to pursue his policy. What ensued along the Potomac need not here be further traced, save to add that Grant displayed again his hap- piness of selection, in giving Philip H. Sheridan charge of all matters in that direction. He was a yonng man, in years and in experience, for such a place; but the campaign that followed far more than vindicated the choice. Thenceforward, through the summer and fall of 1864, Grant was left undis- turbed, to work out, with ample support of everj' kind, whatever results against the enemy's position the resources of his skill and daring might accomplish. First of all came, on the 12th of August, an effort against Eichmond, in the way of a surprise, from the north bank of the James. It reached the enemy's works, vainly assailed them, and after four days of fruitless effort to find a weak place, returned, with a loss of fifteen hundred men. But now Lee had moved considerable re-enforcements to the north side of the James, to meet this attack. Grant, therefore, judged it an opportune time to strike at one of the railroad connections of Petersburg, while the bulk of Lee 's forces were at the extreme opposite end of his extended lines. Warren's corps was accordingly launched from the left upon the Weldon Eailroad, which, after a sharp action, it succeeded in seizing. Lee made desperate efforts to re- gain it, and in one of these some blundering of the subordinate Generals led to false positions of Warren's force, and to the capture of twenty-five hundred of them. Ee-enforcements came up in time and the railroad was firmly held. After some further efforts, Lee was forced to submit to lose this important line of communication. But he had again exacted a heavj price. The losses of Warren's corps in these movements amounted to four thousand four hundred and fifty-five. Hancock, having returned from the north side of the James, was now ordered out on the left, in rear of Warren, to another point on the Weldon Eailroad, four miles further south. Here he was engaged in destroying the track, when he was heavily attacked. The assaults were repulsed until nightfall, when Han- cock withdrew, not at all satisfied at the failure to re-enforce him. This affair cost twenty -four hundred men, and accomplished only trivial results. A month's rest for the army followed, varied only by the fierce picket-fight- ing and artillery practice at such points as that much dreaded one which the soldiers, half in jest half in earnest, named Fort Hell. Late in September, act- ing on the general theory that by attacking at the extremities he should gi-eatly weaken and harass Lee's thin lines. General Grant began simultaneous move- ments north of the James, threatening Eichmond, and on the extreme left, to the Bouth of Petersburg. Butler's movements on the James were successful, and the position which he gained at Chapin's Farm proved of high value. On the 410 Ohio in the War. fiontli two corps of infantry, with a cavalry force, pushed out on the left, sus- taining pretty hoavj- resistance, but securing their positions. No considerable gains, however, resulted, and the cost was over twenty -five hundred men. Another month of preparation ensued; then another effort on the left was made — the object this time being to seize the South-Side Eailroad. The opera- tions were complicated and confused; the enemy struck between two corps, shattering the flank. of each; and finally the troops returned to the intrench- monts, having little or nothing but the losses to show for their fighting. With a few further slight movements to the left, and with some demonstrations bj- the cavalry, the active work of the army for the season ended. In this campaign the Array of the Potomac alone had lost eighty-eight thousand three hundred and eighty-seven men!* Of the Army of the James we have not as precise returns; but the aggregate losses of the two are known to have been largely above a hundred thousand — more than double the entire strength at the outset of the army they were to annihilate. The movements about Petersburg were always accompanied by heavy losses; they were invari- ably made in such a waj' that the enemy was able to strike the exi^osed flank of the moving column, and their only appreciable gain was the prolonged exten- sion of our lines, not around, but away from, the " besieged " city. Grant's oper- ations here will not compare in boldness with those happier strokes of daring by which he planted himself in the rear of Yicksburg. The terrible punishment he had received on the overland march seemed to have made him timid about cutting loose from his base; and besides he had now the capital to observe, as well as the enemy. Across the mountains, his friend and subordinate, in similar check before a fortified city, had swung far to the southward, planted his army squarely upon the connecting lines of railroad, and thus taken Atlanta. Bat Grant had grown cautious of positions and lavish of lives. The time had now come when influences from without were to reach what Grant's own continuous hammering had failed to accomplish. K the campaign to which he had given his personal attention had been less successful than he hoped and the country had a right to expect, those other movements which he had discussed in outline with his subordinates, and which he had intrusted to their execution, began to converge in their influence upon the hapless little body of bravo men in the trenches of Petersburg. Sheridan had cleared the valley, put an end to fears for the capital or the Xorth, and swept through the enemy's countrj', destroying his means of communication and his stores. The last port of the Confederacy had been closed by the capture of Fort Fisher. The power of the rebellion in the West had been annihilated before Nashville. And now, fluttering across half the continent, came the banners of the victorious army of Sherman on Lee's lino of retreat. Against this converging circle of a million soldiers stood the armies of Lee and Joseph B. Johnston, the one numbering barely fifty thousand, the other scarcely half so many. The people of the South had lost faith in the rebellion, * Grant and his Campaigns, p. 399. Ulysses S. Gbant. 41] the armies were not re-enforced, desertion depleted tbera far faster than the "continuous hammering." Their commissariat was so wretchedly managed that the few troops remaining were not half supplied; in fact, seven pounds of flour and a pound and three-quarters of meat formed the week's ration for Lee's own soldiers tlirougli the winter. The depression of the people reacted on the army, and completed the work its privations and thinned ranks bad beguij, so that the effective force of Lee's troops was less than (in the times of their old vigor) their number would have indicated. In silence, not perhaps unmingled with dread, they awaited the movements of the quiet, thoughtful soldier, who sat in his log cabin at City Point, and studied the positions of the forces. At last that soldier determined upon his course. Sherman must be left to manage Johnston, with whom it was now known that Lee was anxious to form a junction. For himself, he reserved the work he had essaj'ed on the banks of the Eapidan a year ago, that of crushing the Army of Northern Virginia. To that end he once more ordered one of the old movements on the left; this time with larger forces and'without the diversion north of the Potomac. The verge of his swinging column was formed by Sheridan's cavalry, which was to cut loose as soon as the movement was developed, and strike for the old goal, the South-Side Eailroad. While these preparations were in progress Lee, already striving under an offensive mask to prepare the way for an evacuation, attacked Grant's lines on the right. His troops failed to fight with their old spii'it; the attack, after some initial successes, was repulsed, and some two thousand prisoners were lost. Grant followed up this success by preciijitating his movement on the left. Moving with the column himself, he became more and more imjsressed with the signs of Eebel weakness, and at nightfall he dispatched to Sheridan word that ho "now felt like ending the matter, if it were possible to do so, before going back." Sheridan's orders to strike for the railroads were accordingly^ withdrawn, and he was directed to push to the right and rear of the enemy. To the sorely -beset Rebel commander the only hope was to break this encir- cling line. lie struck first at Warren, then at Sheridan. Each bore ujj against the fury of the attack; but for Sheridan, who lay isolated at Dinwiddle Court- House, the keenest apprehensions were felt. Grant made every effort to get Warren's corps moved out to him, but the unexpected lack of bridges on the road pi-evented. Next morning it was found that Sheridan's front was clear again, Lee having drawn back to Five Forks. Thither Sheridan followed, Warren now joining, and coming under his orders. The battle that ensued,, brilliantly managed by Sheridan, with happy use of cavalry to aid the opera- tions of the infantry, resulted in the breaking up of tho entire force which Lee had here massed on his right — the painful collection of all the available material lie could strip from his extended lines of works. Fragments of these troops fled westward, a few rejoined the main body, over five thousand laid down their arms, Lee was left with the thin lines stretched from Hatcher's Eun to the ', Appomattox, "the men scarcely close enough together for sentinels." To such straits was the great Army of Northern Virginia fallen. But it was not yet without sparks of its ancient fire. 412 Ohio in the Wae. The next day * indeed within a few hours after the issue of Five Forks Grant ordered an assault of the Eebel intrcnchments, preluded by a fierce bom- bardment through the whole night. The attack swept the weak lines of the enemy from the outer works, and to the eye of the experienced Eebel com- mander it was plain that the end had come. At eleven o'clock he announced to Mr. Davis his intention of evacuating Eichmond and Petersburg. But even yet he was able to maintain stout resistance, and, indeed, to make one last offensive sally. This over he drew back his few wearied, half-starved troops, and under cover of the darkness, moved away rapidlj' to the south-westward. Only twenty -five thousand were left of them; by daybreak, under his skillful man- agement, these were sixteen miles away from Petersburg. He was still hopeful; he looked to a junction with Johnston, to unlimited opportunities for falling upon Grant's detached corps far away from their supplies ; to all the myriad chances of war that may come to the General who takes heart of hope even in the gloomiest conditions. But the times of his good fortune were past, and fate now dealt him her unkindest blow. Thirty-eight miles down his road of retreat lay Amelia Court-House, whither he had ordered supplies from Danville. The blundering officials in Eichmond ordered the cars forward for their own escape; the stupid train-men never thought that they should first unload the supplies, and so the food for the retreating army was lost at Eichmond. The last hope here vanished. The army had to be delayed to forage. Grant was pushing the pursuit with a tremendous energy proportioned to the magnitude of the game he had now in hand. Sheridan soon struck the baggage trains, next he dashed in upon a train bearing painfully collected supplies for the famished troops; at last he planted himself squarely across Lee's path, hurled back his desperate effort to cut through, and was just ready to charge down upon the sorrowful remnants of the great army, when a white flag apj^earcd. Hostilities were ended. Before this, indeed. Grant had addressed Lee a note asking, to prevent tlie useless effusion of more blood, the surrender of the Eebel army. Lee had replied, doubting if he were yet forced to this, but hinting a willingness to treat for the surrender of all the troops of the Confederacy, the manifest object being to gain terms for all that could not be demanded for these poor fragments alone, ,which he was now leading. Grant declined to entertain such propositioHS, wisely perhaps, and drove on the pur^it. Then came the inevitable, and when next Lee discussed the subject of surrender, it was at a deal-table in an humble dwelling in Appomattox Court-House, with the remorseless Chieftain whose continuous hammering had at last worn him out, seated opposite, to name at pleasure what terms he would. In this supreme moment of his life Grant, cool and quiet as ever, generously sought to break the fall of the antagonist he had such weighty reason for respecting, and his conduct throughout was delicate and magnanimous. The Eebel soldiers were paroled, officers were allowed to rotiiin their side-arms and private horses, all were to return to their homes, "not to be disturbed by United States authorities so long as they observe their paroles aiul the laws in force where they reside." The last condition was .af(erwai-d to prove * Sunday morning, April 2, 1865. Ulysses S. Gtrant. 413 embarrassing to the Government, and it would have been wiser in Grant to have avoided passing beyond the strictest line of his military powers. But in the rejoicings that followed the matter was for a time almost wholly overlooked. A few days' later Grant's most trusted friend became involved in grave troubles, arising out of efforts to discharge duties never committed to his care. The Government felt outraged, a conspicuous Cabinet officer* went so far as to declare that the least punishment Sherman deservedwas dismissal from the iiriny, and there was danger that the hero of the South-West would retire from the service in disgrace with the Administration. Grant stood up stoutly for his friend, and went personally to present the Government's disapproval of his negotiations and ease his fall. Then came reviews, presentations, felicitations innumerable. Whichever way Grant turned the grateful people overwhelmed him with their honors. Visits to the leading cities he could not escape. Bach strove to out-do the other in the warmth of the reception it extended. Banquets, levees, speech-making were forced upon him. lie went to his late home at Galena, and the half-wild populace escorted hind along the " mended pavement" to his old house, so reno- vated that he could scarcely recognize it. In the city in which he had been a wood-peddler he was received with such warmth of honors as no President since Washington could have commanded. More substantial tokens of approval fol- lowed. An elegant residence in Philadelphia, and another in Washington were presented him. Finally, Congress created the grade of full General — till now unknown in our army — for his benefit; and the tanner's son stood decorated with a rank higher than that bestowed upon the Father of his Country. At this giddy height we leave him. It is for the future to show whether its glories intoxicate or its perils bewilder. We close as we began. Such a career laughs at criticism, and defies depre- ciation. Success succeeds. But when the philosophic historian comes to analyze the strange features of our great war, no anomaly will be more puzzling than Grant. He will find him guilty of errors and disasters that would have set aside any other General in disgrace. He will follow him through a tale of futile efforts and heroic deviso- ments, of inexcusable slaughter to no pur^jose, commingled with happy triumphs at little cost. He will marvel at the amazing mental equipose of the man, cast down by no disaster, elated by no success. He will admire his strong good sense, his instinctive reading of men's characters as of an ojien page, his tremendous raioonquerable will. He will find him not brilliant in conception, though sound in judgment; not fertile in expedients, but steadfast in execution; terrible in a determination that was stopped by no question of cost; stolid as to slaughter or famine or fire, so they led to his goal. Yet he will look in vain for such charac- teristics as should account for his being first in a Nation of soldiers; and will not fail to observe the comparative poverty of his intellect and his acquirements. Seeking still for the causes of his rise, he will record the firm friendships that *Uon. Hugh McCulloch, Secretary of the Treasury. 414 Ohio in the Wak. wore so helpful; will allow for the unexampled profusion in which soldiers and munitions were always furnished at his call ; will observe how willingness to fight, while others were fortifying, first gave him power; how remoteness from the Administration long preserved him from interruptions; how he came upon the broader stage only when it was made easier for his tread by the failures of his predecessors and the prestige of his own victories, and how both combined to make him absolute. But after all these considerations he will fail to find tlie veritable secret of this >vonderful success; and will at last be forced to set it down that Fortune — that happy explainer of mysteries inexplicable — did from the outset so attend him, that in spite of popular disapj^roval and protracted fail- ure, through clouds and rough weather, he was still mysteriously held up aiul borne forward, so that at the end he was able to rest in the highest professional promotion, "in peace after so maty troubles, in honor after so much obloquy." In private life, Grant's manners are as unpretending as his person. He re- ceives attentions with embarrassment, and is best pleased with simjjle ways and little ostentation. He wonld scarcely be held a good conversationalist, and yet, on topics that interest him or have come within the range of his observation, he converses clearly and well. His friendships are strong ; so also are his preju- dices, though he rarely seems to bear malice. Even after the bitter relations had sprung up between himself and General Butler, he asked Butler to a social party at his house, and seemed a little surprised at the indignant refusal of his invitation. In his military judgments he is generally generous. He is, indeed, rarely willing to acknowledge that he has started on a wrong course ; and he rarely forgives those who, in failing to execute impossible plans, have shown their impossibility. But he is singularly free from envy or jealousy. He has himself done the most toward raising those who now come nearest rivaling him in reputation. On political matters he is ignorant and careless. He has his full share of the regular army feeling, which holds it a matter of professional etiquette to despise the politicians. Before the war his sympathies were strongly Southern. The leading officers of his staff were Illinois Democrats. Since the war his feelings have been intensely loyal, but at the same time conservative. His in- fluence has been effectively given for the preservation of strong military rule at the South. With the advanced positions of the Eadical Republican party he has little sympathy. He was fervidly hostile to the French eftbrt at Imperial- ism in Mexico, and he would have hailed armed intervention in behalf of the struggling Juarists. His passion for fast horses and for billiards survives the war. Smoking he will never give up. From other stimulants he does not always abstain so rig- orously as in the days of his povertj' in St. Louis. Through the war he deserved great praise for his entire freedom from all schemes for personal advancement. Wisely or unwisely, on good plans or bad plans, he kept steadily at work for the Cause; if honors came thev were grate- fully accepted; but the idea seems never to have occurred to him to go out of Ulysses S. Gtkant. 415 the way to seek them. Since the war he has been a focus for the attention of politicians. As early as the middle of 1866, his father had written, in a letter given to, the newspapers : * "The most ultra Radicals, the worst Copperheads, the desperate Rebels, and the true Union men, all say : Give ua Grant, we want no other platform than that he has written with his Bword. You know enough about Ulysses to know that to accept the Presidency would be to him a sacrifice of feeling and personal interest. He could not well stand the trial of being a candi- date for public favor; and his present position is every way a much better one than that of Pres- ident. But if there should seem to be the same necessity for it two years hence as now, I expect he will yield." Substantially the same statement has been made by the General himself, in " reply to the inquiries of partisans. * Letter to E. A. Collins (by him published), Covington, Kentucky, 10th of July, 1866. Note. — Since these pages were stereotyped General Grant has become a very prominent candidate for the Presidency — being mainly urged by the conservative wing of the Republican party; and has been made Secretary of War, ad interim, succeeding Mr. Stanton, who was removed by the President, William T. Sheeman. 4X'; LIEUTENANT-GENERAL WM. TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 'I M~f AM gratified at your purpose to prepare a record of Ohio's contri- butions to the war. The work, however, will necessarily be so extended that my own place in it must be very brief. Whatever facts you need about me can be readily gleaned from Colonel Bowman's book." So writes — in a letter now lying before us — the man who conquered Atlanta, and marched down to the sea. "VYe do not agree with him. That would be a very ill-proportioned account of Ohio's contributions to the war which should allow him small space. Whatever may be thought of many parts of his varied career there can be no dispute as to the place to which it led. He rightfully divides with Grant the honor of pre-eminence among all the brilliant commanders whom the war educated for the country's service. Tho State that takes pride in having given birth to both, does well to reckon them foremost on the long roll of her Generals. Unlike his great associate. General Sherman comes of a family in which culture and social jjosition have been a birthright for many generations. In 1634 three Shermans, two brothers and a cousin, emigrated from Essex County, in England, to the infant colony of Massachusetts Bay. One of these, the Honorable Samuel Sherman, settled in Connecticut, where the family remained and prospered, until, in 1815, the death of the great-grandson of the emigrant, ajudge of one of tho Connecticut courts, compelled his widow to seek a cheaper living and better chances for hfer boys in the West. Here one of her sons rose in the practice of the law, till, eight years after their arrival,* he became one of the Judges of the Supreme Court. But he married young,f had a family of eleven children, and spent hiii income in their support. In 1829 ho died vory suddenly of cholera. Of two out of the eleven children thus left without support in the house of a bereaved widow at Lancaster, the world has since heard something. The eighth of them, then a lad of six or seven, was John Sherman, since Eepresen- lative and Senator in Congress, and the sixth, then nine years of age, a bright- fiyed, red-haired, play-loving urchin, was William Tecumseh Sherman. The future General was born in Lancaster, on the 8th of February, 1820. The family names had been pretty well exhausted in furnishing forth the five who had preceded him, and there was 'great perplexity in seeking a name at * That is, in 1823. t In his twenty-second year. Vol. I.— 27. 418 Ohio in the Wab. once suitable and new, for the infant. The father finally decided it. He wanted one boy trained for the army; he had himself seen and admired Tecuraseh, and among military names none was then held in such special esteem about Lancas- ter as that of this renowned Indian chieftain (slain in battle but a short time before), whose kindness had more than once, within the knowledge of the pio- neers of that vicinity, saved the shedding of innocent blood.* Up to the death of his father, Tecumseh Sherman led the pleasant life of an active, mischievous, warm-tempered boy, surrounded by affectionate brothers and sisters, and watched over by a good mother.f He was now to experience the change by which his subsequent life was moulded. The members of the bar at Lancaster knew very well that Judge Sherman had left no adequate provision for his large family, and it was agreed among them that some of the children should be educated and supported by the legal brethren of the deceased parent. In accordance with this arrangement Hon. Thomas. Ewing, then in the prime of his reputation as a great lawyer and statesman, decided to adopt one of the boys. "I must have the smartest of them," 80 the stories of the timesj tell us that Mr. Ewing said to the widow; and on the same authority we have it that, after some consultation between the mother and the eldest sister, "Cump," at that important period of his life at play in a neighboring sandbank, was selected. The next seven years passed in school-boy life in Lancaster. Young Sher- man was fairly adopted into the Ewing family, and he soon made his way to all their hearts. He was sent to the English department of the village academy, where he stood well in his classes, and came to be called a promising boy. "There was nothing specially remarkable about hira," so writes his foster-father, Mr. Ewing,|| "excepting that I never knew so young a boy who would do an errand so correctly and promptly as he did." And again: "He was transpa- rently honest, faithful, and reliable. Studious and correct in his habits, his progress in education was steady and substantial." And so the boy reached his seventeenth year. Mr. Ewing now had a vacancy at "West Point in his gift, and he bestowed it upon the child of his old friend. Young Sherman was a'dmitted to the academy in June, 1836, and, with the exception of a two-months' furlough in the summer of 1838, which he spent in a visit to his home at Lancaster,, he remained there continuously until his graduation, in June, 1840. Starting with a good preliminary education, he had maintained a fair, though not first-class, standing to the close. Mr. Ewing desired that he should graduate in the Engineer Corps. This, as he himself wrote some months before, he was unable to do, but his rank was such as to entitle him to enter the artillery. He was sixth in his class. Six forms below •This is understood to be the explanation given by Hon. Thomas Ewing. HeadleyV Slier- man, pp. 17, 18. t Miss Mary Hoyt, to whom Judge Sherman was married in 1810, ia spoken of as an intelli- gent, exemplary woman, a member of the Presbyterian Ghuroh, and an affectionate wife and mother. t Headley's Sherman, p. 24. | Ibid, p. 25. William T. Sherman. 419 Mm stood George H. Thomas; next below Thomas was E. S. Ewell; and among other nftnxes borne on the roll of that class of 1840, with which the country has since become, familiar, were Stewart Van Vliet, Bushrod K. Johnson, George "W. Getty, William Hays, and Thomas Jordan. The pleasantest glimpses we get of these four years of cadet life, are in the letters of the future Lieutenant-General to the fair companion and playmate of his Lancaster home, the dsHjghter of Mr. Bwing, for whom he had already formed a strong attachment. These letters are sprightly, vivacious, and a trifle eccentric — not at all unlike, in style, those graver epistles, which, at a later period, were to draw froifi the uncomplimentary Secretary of War the corapH- ment that " Sherman wrote as well as he fought." As might readily be sus- pected, Cadet Sherman was not much of a " society man." " We have two or three dancing parties each week," he writes in one letter, " at whidh the gray bobtail is a sufficient recommendation for an introduction to any one. You can well conceive how the cadets have always had the reputation, and have still, here in the East, of being great gallants and ladies' men. God only knows how I will sustain that reputation." The army, as he grew ready to enter it, seemed very inviting. About a year before his graduation he wrote of himself in this cliaracteristic vein : '' Bill is very much elated at the idea of getting free of West Point next June. He does not intend remaining in the army more than one year, then to resign and study law, probably. No doubt you admire his choice; but to speak plainly and candidly, I would rather be a blacksmith. Indeed, the nearer we come to that dreadful epoch, graduation-day, the higher opinion I conceive of the duties and life of an officer of the United States army, and the more confirmed Jn the wish of spending my life in the service of my country. Think of that!" Nurtured in the Presbyterian teachings of his mother till his tenth year; then kept under the influence of Mr. Ewing's Eoman Catholic family, he had grown, after such changes, a little restive under pro- tracted religious exercises : " The church bugle has just blown, and in a moment I must put on my side-arms and march to church, to listen to a two hours' sermon, with its twenty divisions and twenty-one subdivisions ; . . . . but I believe it is a general fact that what people are compelled to do they dislike." [ Then, as in later life, practical matters and details were especially to his taste : " The last encampment, taken all in all, I think was the most pleasant one I have ever spent, even to me, who did not participate in the dances and balls given every week by the different classes; besides the duties were of altogether a different nature from any of the previous ones, such as acting as officers upon guard and at artillery drills, practising at target-firing with long twenty-fours and thirty-twos, mortars, howitzers, etc., as also cavalry exercise, which has been introduced this year." He was not slow in taking to the knack of command : "As to lording it over the pleba, to which you referred, I had only one, whom I made, of course, 'tend to a pleb's duty, such as bringing water, policing the tent, cleaning my gun and accouterments, and the like, and repaid in the usual and cheap coin — advice ; and since we have commenced studying, I make him bone, and explain to him the difficult parts of Algebra and the 420 Ohio in the Wab. French Grammar, since he is a good one and fine fellow; but should he not carry himself straight, I should have him found in January, and sent off, that being the usual way in such cases, and then take his bed, table, and chair, to pay for the Christmas spree." Imagine how greedily these details of her heart's hero were devoured by the fair Miss Ellen, in whose eyes West Point, with all its advantages, could scarcely be good enough for the wonderful lad. He did not fail to show his confiding playmate that he had come to the dignity of doing his own thinking. How amusingly characteristic is it to find this unfledged stripling of "West Point rebuking, with the solemn gravity of one who had fathomed the whole case, the course of the "Whig party, of which his foster-father was then a conspicuous leader, and the confidence with which he predicts itp defeat in the famous Hari-ison campaign. " You, no doubt, are not only firmly impressed, but absolutely certain that General Harrison will be our next President. For my part, though, of course, but a ' superficial observer,' I do not think there is the least hope of such a change, since his friends have thought proper to envelop his name with log-cabins, gingerbread, hard-cider, and such humbugging, the sole object of which plainly is to deceive and mislead his ignorant and prejudiced, though honest, fellow-citizens ; whilst his qualifica- tions, his honesty, his merits, and services, are merely alluded to I " More laugh- able still is the solemn air with which the precocious youth discassee, and patronizingly, yet with due caution and reserve, approves the qualifications of the Board of Visitors at .the annual examination: " There is but little doubt of its being nearly as well selected as circumstances would admit of. Party seems to have had no influence whatever, and, for my part, I am very glad of it. I hope that our army, navy, or the Military Academy, may never be affected by the party rancor which has for some time past, and does now, so materially injure other institutions!" The grammar may be a little halting, but is it not plain that here is a youth little likely to be ever much i-etarded by any doubts as to the wisdom of his own opinions, or as to his ample facilities for forming correct judgments? Nor was he at all disposed to hide his academic standing under a bushel ; " I presume you have seen the register of cadets for the last year," he writes to Miss Ellon, " and remarked that I still maintain a good stand in my class; and if it were not for that column of demerits it would be still better, for they are combined with proficiency in study to make out the standing in general merit In fact, this year as well as the last, in studies alone, 1 have been among the stars." And here, to close these extracts, is a glimpse of the young cadet's ideas for his future, as graduation-day approached : " I fear I have a difficult part to act for the next three years, because I am almost confi- dent that your father's wishes and intentions will clash with my inclinations. In the first place, I think he wishes me to sti'ivo and graduate in the Engineer Corps. This I can't do. Next to resign and become a civil engineer. . . • Whilst I propose and intend to go into the infantry, be stationed in the Far West, out of the reach of what is termed civilization, and there remain as long as possible." * •Sherman and his Campaigns (Bowman and Irwin), pp. 11, 12, 13. William T. Sheemak 421 The assignment of the Brevet Second-Lieutenant was not quite in accord- ance with these anticipations of the Cadet. He was not, indeed, able to enter the engineers, but his standing fully warranted admission to the artillery, and the influence of his guardian was such that, in those days of slow promotion, he rose, in a little over a year, to the rank of First-Lieutenant. Until March, 1842, he served in Florida, mostly on garrison-duty, although he participated in several expeditions against the Seminoles. Even thus early he developed Borae signs of the theory of war which he has since made so famous. He would have no truces or parleys with the Indians; he would exterminate all who resisted and drive from the country all who submitted; and so would end the war in a single campaign.* He easilj' fell, for a little while, into the languid life of the region. "Writ- ing from Fort Pierce, in East Florida, in 1841, he says: "Books we have few; hut it is no use — we can not read any but the lightest trash; and even the newspapers, which you would suppose we would devour, require a greater eifort of mind to search than we possess. We attribute it to the climate, and bring up these lazy native Minorcans as examples, and are satisfied. Yet, of course, we must do something, however little. . . . The Major and I have a parcel of chickens in which we have, by competition, taken enough interest to take up a few minutes of the day; besides, I have a little fawn to play with, and crows, a crane, etc., and if you were to enter my room you would doubt whether it was the abode of man or beasts. In one corner is a hen, setting; in another some crows, roosted on bushes; the other is a little bed of bushes for the little fawn; whilst in the fourth is my bucket, wash- basin, glass, etc. So you see it is three to one." .So, again, he gives us this pleasant picture: "I've got more pets now than any bachelor in the country — innumerable chickens, tame pigeons, white rabbits, and a full-blooded Indian pony — rather small matters for a man to deal with, you doubtless think, hut it is far better to spend time in trifles, such as these, than in drinking or gambling." He still clung to his fancy for life on the Western frontier: "We hear that the new Secretary of War intends proposing to the next Congress to raise two rifle regiments for the Western service. As you are at Washington I presume you can learn whether it is so or not, for I should like to go in such a i-egiment, if stationed in the far West; not that I am in the least displeased with my present berth, but when the regiment goes North it will in all likelihood be sta- tioned in the vicinity of some city, from which God spare me." Already he prided himself on his downright way of saying things. "If you have any regard for my feelings," he exclaims in one of , his Florida letters, "don't say the word 'insinuation' again. You may abuse me as much as you please; but I'd prefer, of the two, to be accused of telling a direct falsehood than stating anything evasively or underhand; and if I have ever been guilty of such a thing it was unintentionally." The Florida life ended in March, 1842, when Lieutenant Sherman's com- *8herman and his Campaigns (Bowman and Irwin), p. 14. 422 Ohio in the Wab. pany was removed to Fort Morgan, at the entrance to Mobile Bay. In midsum- mer of the same year it was brought still nearer the detested " fashionables," being transferred to Fort Moultrie, in Charleston Harbor, where the time passed in an agreeable round of hunting, fishing, and enjoyment of the hospitalities of the aristocratic Charlestonians, to whose selectest society the uniform of the army or navy was always an open sesame. His heart, however, resisted all the fascinations to which it was here exposed; and, true to his early attach- ment, he procured, ia the fall of 1843, a four months' furlough for a visit to the family of his guardian, during which he became formally engaged to Miss Ellen Ewing. He was next assigned to duty on a board of oflScers, appointed to examine the claims of Georgia and Alabama militia for horses lost in the Seminole War. Meanwhile the restless young officer was busy studying the country, from a professional stand-point. Nothing could more strikingly exhibit the foundations of that wonderful knowledge of the topography and resources of the South which was afterward to prove so valuable, than this scrap of a letter to Phile- mon Ewing, written while on duty with the Board of Claims: ''Every day I feel more and more the need of an atlas, such as your father has at home; and as the knowledge of geography, in its minutest details, is essential to a true mili- taiy education, the idle time necessarily spent here might be properly devoted to it. I wish, therefore, you would procure for me the best geography and atlas (not school) extant.'' Presently we find him reaching out after other matters. " Since my return," he writes from Fort Moultrie, after the adjournment of the Board, " I have not been running about in the city or the island, as hereto- fore, but have endeavored to interest myself in Blackstone. I have read all four volumes, Starkie on Evidence, and other books, semi-legal and semi-histor- ical, and would be obliged if you would give me a list of such books as you were required to read, not including your local or State law. I intend to read the second and third volumes of Blackstone again ; also Kent's Commentaries, which seem, as far as I am capable of judging, to be the basis of the common law practice. This course of study I have adopted from feeling the want of it in the duties to which I was lately assigned. . . . I have no idea of making the law a profession; but as an officer of the army it is my duty and interest to be prepared for any situation that fortune or luck may offer. It is 'for this alone that I prepare, and not for professional practice."* He was indeed to prove, in his after life, that he was incapable of successful "professional prac- tice." Then followed the usual routine of army life — detached service for a little time at the Augusta Arsenal, court-martial service at Wilmington, and finally, when the Mexican war broke out, recruiting service at Pittsburg. At last his repeated requests for active service received the attention of the War Depart- ment, but it did not appear that the impression he had made upon those con- trolling the army was strong enough to secure an order to the seat of war. Ho was, however, sent around the Cape, and up the west coast of South America, • Sherman and his Campaigns, pp. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. William T. Sherman. 423 to California, where presently he became aid -de-camp to General Persifer P. Smith, and by-and-by Acting Assistant Adjutant-General to Stephen W. Kear- ney. He saw no active service whatever, but he discharged the clerical duties of his position with such promptness and accuracy as to secure the favorable notice of his superiors. In 1850 he returned to "the States," and on 1st May his long engagement was closed by his marriage to Miss Ellen Ewing, at the residence of her father, then Secretary of the Interior. Among the guests who graced the wedding were Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Zachary Taylor. He was soon sent to garrison-duty at Jefferson barracks, Missouri, and shortly afterward, with the brevet of Captain "for meritorious services in California during the war with Mexico," was made Commissary, and sent, first to St. Louis, and then to New Orleans. Captain Sherman had thus been in the army thirteen years, and in all that time had seen no fighting save some paltry Indian skirmishes in Florida. Pro- motion seemed slow; he now had a wife to support; his commissary's expe- rience had thrown him among business men, and had given them an idea of his capacity. He was offered, by a St. Louis house, a position in San Francisco, to manage a branch bank which they were about to establish there. He at once accepted the offer; on the 6th of September, 1853, resigned his commission, and before the end of the year was established in San Francisco, with the expecta- tion of making his home for life on the Pacific coast. From 1853 to 1857 our retired artillery captain remained in business in San Francisco, struggling hard to make a success out of his new way of life. He rose into some esteem among the Californians, and attained the empty dig- nity of a Major-General of the California militia.* He was not esteemed a great financier, and some of his ways of doing things exhibited more strongly the sti-aightforward bluntness of the camps than the finesse of a dextrous finan- cier. But his business integrity was unquestioned. At last, however, it became necessary to give up his banking experiment. Toward the close of 1857 he essayed a similar business in New York ; but next spring he decided that it was time to try something else. The young Ewings, his brothers-in-law, were now establishing themselves in Kansas, and Sherman was very glad to fall back on his old Tort Moultrie law -reading, and interest himself in their professional practice. For two years he strove to be a lawyerf — with indifferent success, if the reminiscences of the Leavenworth newspapers may be trusted. While the Ewings did the pleadings and the outside work, the restless, nervous, eccentric oflSce-partner did well enough. If he was not particularly valuable, he at least did no harm. Citizens knew little of him, and while his brothers-in-law rapidly rose to stand among the foremost leaders in the law and the politics of the young State, Sherman gained no influence and had no prominence. At last the *MS. Mem. Military Career, furnished by Sherman to War Dep't, and on file among rolls of Adjutant-General's ofiSce. tibid. 424 Ohio in the War. play came to an end. "It happened one day" — so a Leavenworth newspaper tells us — "that Sherman was compelled to appear before the Probate Judge, Gardner, we believe. The other partners were busy ; and so Sherman, with his authorities and his case all mapped out, proceeded to court. He returned in a lage, two hours after. Something had gone wrong. He had been pettifogged out of the case by a sharp, petty attorney opposed to him, in a way which was disgusting to his intellect and his convictions. His amour propre was hurt, and he declared that he would have nothing to do with the law in Kansas. That tilternoon the business was closed, partnership dissolved, and in a veiy short time Sherman was on his way to a more congenial clime and occupation."* Doubtless disgust with the unpleasant details of legal practice in a frontier town had much to do with the sudden abandonment of the law; but it is not improbable that his decision was hastened by a flattering offer which reached him at this opportune season. Louisiana was establishing a "State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy." The professed object of the institution was to train up the youth of the State to the knowledge of arms, so that, in the event of negro insurrections, or of trouble from the Indians on the border, an instructed body of oflScers might be ready at once to place the community in a position of defense. Sherman had been stationed at New Orleans during a part of his army life, and nearly his whole term of service had been passed in the South. His political opinions were known to be strongly Southern ; he was regarded as decidedly pro-slavery; and it was quite natural, therefore, that, in i-usting about for a Superintendent for their new institution, the authorities should think of him. He was tendered the position of Superintendent, and Professor of Engineering, Architecture, and Drawing, with an annual salary of five thou- sand dollars, fie promptly accepted, and remained at this post through the remainder of 1859 and until 18th January, 1861. A lurking epspicion of inse- curity, however, accompanied him. The air was already alive with the portents of civil strife. Strong as were Captain Sherman's sympathies with the slave- holders in their opposition to the abolition excitement, it would seem that from the outset he had foreseen the possibility of their reaching a point to which he would not accompany them. In the midst of this uncertainty he decided it best not to remove his family to Louisiana. As the excitement increased, every effort was made to win the able Super- intendent. He was found sti-ikingly eflScient in the duties to which they had called him, and his adhesion to their cause was, therefore, all the more desired. But he met all arguments in favor of armed resistance to any decision of the National authorities with the unwavering dictum, that it was the duty of a sol- dier to fight for, never against, the flag and the government to which he had sworn allegiance. • Leavenworth Conservative. On the same authority we have this : " Prior to entering upon the practice of law in Leavenworth he lived for some time at Topeka, upon a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, which we believe he still owns. His neighbors tell of his abrupt manner, reserved yet forcible speech and character." And it also tells us that "an outlying part of our city plat is marked on the maps as 'Sherman's Addition.' " William T. Shekman. 425 The progi-ess of events cut short the dehate. The South rang with prepara- tions to secede from the "Union, to the chief executive ofl3.ce of which Abrahahi Lincoln was about to he admitted. Captain Sherman's course was clear and unshrinking. No patriot — most of all, no Ohioan — can read his letter of resig- nation without a thrill of honest pride in his sturdy manhood and faithful loyalty : "To the Governor of the State of Louimuna: " Sib — ^As I occupy a (puxd military position under this State, I deem it proper to acquaint you that I accepted such a position when Louisiana was a State in the Union, and when the motto of the Seminary, inserted in marble over the main door, was : ' By the liberality of the G eneral Government of the United States ; The Union — Esto Perpetiia' "Eecent events foreshadow a great change, and it becomes all men to choose. If Louisiana withdraws from the Federal Union, I prefer to maintain my allegiance to the old Constitution as long as a fragment of it survives, and my longer stay here would be wrong in every sense of the word I beg you to take immediate steps to relieve me as Superintendent the moment the State determines to secede ; for on no earthly account will I do any act or think any thought hostile to or in defiance of the old Government of the United States." • Captain Sherman at once returned to St. Louis, and, entering into street- railroad speculations in that city, presently became President of the Fifth-street line. In this position the war found him. He was now in his forty-second year. Thus far his career in life had scarcely been what one who should reckon his original promise, and the special social and political influences that were always combined in his favor, would have expected. His thirteen years of army life had brought no distinction. McClellan, Fremont, Halleck, Hooker, Eosecrans, and a score of the other young retired officers of the army, were re- membered as brilliant soldiers, according to the standard Of those old army days. Sherman had left no name. The eight years of civil life that followed had added little to his fortune and nothing to his fame. He was a tolerable bank agent and unpractical lawyer. But the heart of the man was sound to the core; and his impulsive abandonment of his position in Louisiana did more than all his life thus far to fix him in men's minds. He was soon to enter a wider career, but the days of his success were still distant, and a severe probation yet awaited him. About the time of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration the President of the Fifth- Btreet Eailroad went to "Washington. His younger brother, Hon. John Sher- man, had just been elected to represent their native State in the "Dntted States Senate, and this, coupled with his prominence in the Speakership contest, some years before, betokened an influence that might be beneflcial. Captain Sher- man was ready for almost anything. He talked freely, drew largely on his observations in the South, assured the Eepublicans they would h'ave war, and a bloody war, went to Mr. Lincoln to try and impress him with the danger, and to volunteer his services in any capacity. " We shall not need many men like you," said the hopeful patriot; "the affair will soon blow over." But the Cap- tain's social position, as the son-in-law of so distinguished a statesman and 426 Ohio in the Wak. lawyer as Mr. Ewing, and the brother of a Senator, secured him some consider- ation. He applied for the chief clerkship in the War Departia^it. .«Bd his influence, political and military, was such aa Uiaetautft^rong backing;, but tlie pliKjewae ywiiii li ■iiwflii i Then, -wben Jos. E. Johnston resigned the Quar- termaster-Generalship to enter his career in the Eebel army, Captain Sherman sought this vacancy, but failed again.* When the call for seventy-five thousand volunteers for three months wna issued, our confident Captain at once denounced it as unwise. He was told tliat if he would go home to Ohio he could probably get the command of one of tha regiments; but he would have nothing to do with such folly. "You might an well attempt to put out the flames of a burning house with a squirt-gun." " You are sleeping on a volcano." " You want to organize the whole military power of the North at once for a desperate struggle." " You don't know any- thing about this people. Why, if we should have a reverse beyond the Po- tomac, the very women of this city would cut the throats of our wounded with case-knives." f Such were the energetic sayings with which he won, for a time, the character of an alarmist. At last, disgusted with his failure to impress his ideas upon the authorities, ok to secure a satisfactory position, he- went back to his street railroad in St. Louis. But his thoughtful brother did not neglect his interests. Presently it was decided to add eleven regiments to the regular army. Application was at once made for a position for Captain Sherman in this new force, and so vigorously and influentially was the case presented, that early in June the Senator tele- graphed him to return to Washington, and shortly after his arrival he was commissioned Colonel of the Thirteenth (new) Eegular Infantry. Officers at all instructed in the minutise of military matters were just then greatly needed to aid in reducing the shapeless masses of militia to consistency, and the nevr Colonel was ordered at once to report for duty at General Scott's head-quarters. A few days later, Scott sent him out to take command of a fort. Here he remained till McDowell's movement on Manassas was organized, when his West Point education secured him the command of a brigade. The ensuing battle of Bull Eun was Colonel Sherman's first engagement. His behavior was cooler than they would have imagined who should judge only ft'om his nervous excitability of character. Coming into the action about half- past twelve, he found the enemy retreating, and advanced for over a mile with his brigade in line of battU. Then, as the fire became severe, he protected them a little along the line of a sunken road, till ordered to move them up to the attack. One regiment after another was then put in by itself, only to be driven back in disorder. The brigade was beaten in detail, but not without considerable loss. Presently the panic began, and Sherman's command yielded to its full force. He himself reported their retreat as "disorderly in the extreme." But his own conduct had been such as to mark him out as one of * Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 24. t This last remark was made to Murat Halstead, Esq., the editor of the Cincinnati Com- mercial. WiLLIJi* «L ^HEEMAN. 427 the raw officers, essaying jf&r for the first time, ■w1m> '«i^l»t j^et come to some- thing. Such was the impTCSsion of the Ohio Congressmen ; and, at thB«M|gg«stion of his brother, they united in a request for his appointment to the rank of Brigadier-General. On the 3d of August the commission was issued.* The new General was unpopular. He had curtly and nervously told the truth about the panic in his ow;n command as well as among the rest of the runuwaj-s. Never at all bashful about expressing his opinions, the prevailing excitement gave him unusual freedom of utterance ; and he now criticised blunders with the absolutiBm of a professor and the zeal of a novice. But his political in- fluence shielded him from danger. About the middle of August General Eobert Anderson, given command of the Department of Kentucky for his defense of Fort Sumter, asked for Sher- man, Burnside, Thomas, and Buell, to serve under him; and toward the last of the month Sherman was sent. According to his testimony to the Committee on the Conduct of the War, he " expressed to General Anderson and to the Presi- dent that he did not wish to be placed in any conspicuous position, but would attempt any amount of work."f Presently, on Anderson's retiring because of ill health, Sherman rose by seniority to the control of the Department — much against his own wishes, if we may trust the same testimony ; for he tells us that he "remonstrated against being placed in chief command, and, consider- ing the President pledged not to put him in any prominent command, urged it with earnestness. "J For a course so unusual in a man so ambitious, General Sherman has assigned no reasons. We may well believe, however, that he real- ized his limited knowledge of practical war, and sagaciously dreaded becoming prominent before he had time to learn in the school of experience. " Paint me as I am," was the stern command of a historic Soldier to the artist who sketched his portrait; "put in every scar and wrinkle." The great soldier, whose career we now trace, to be truly great, should emulate the wis- dom of the Lord Protector. In that case we should have none of the disin- genuous subterfuges with which it has been sought to gloze over Sherman's utter failure in Kentucky. He was inexperienced in war. He was profoundly alive to the terrible earnestness of the South. In the fervor of his intelligent opposition to the " sixty -days " nonsense, he went, like most incautious men of high nervous oi'gan- izations, to the opposite extreme.|| To his excited vision, the South was a giant armed cap-a-pie; the North, a stolid mass, trusting to raw militia for the conduct of a gigantic war. No story of Southern resources or reckoning of Eebel armies was too gross for his belief; no depreciation of his personal command could •Like many others issued about this period, it was dated back to 17th May. t Report of 1867, Vol. I, p. 4. t Ibid. II And from this, in spite of the lessons of the war, he never recovered. As late as 25th October, 1864, after the fall of Atlanta, after Grant had pushed Lee into Petersburg, and had written that the Bebels were then robbing the cradle and the grave to keep up their armies, and ■when he Iiimself was about to launch his army through Georgia to the sea, he wrote to the Sec- retary of "War (Final Beport Com. Ck)n. War, Vol. I, p. 240) that "the contest was but fairly 428 Ohio in the War. come up to his own conviction of its unfitness to cope with, the tremendous powers of his antagonist. General Buckner had led into Kentuckya Eebel force numbering barely four thousand, had with this paltry detachment menaced Louisville, and had finally established himself in fortifications at Bowling Green. By the 15th of October he was able to increase his strength to twelve thousand. At this average it remained till months after Sherman's departure from Kentucky.* But long before this, Sherman had at Camp Nevin, facing Buckner, three brigades of four full regimenta each, besides a column of nine thousand at Camp Dick Eobinson under General Thomas, and scatterp I forces in Louisville and along the line of the railroad! Yet, with such resources, he declared Louisville itself to be in danger, burdened the telegraph with petitions for re-enforcement to save him from being driven across the Ohio, and at one time actually proposed that the troops facing Buckner should burn their bag- gage and retreat on Louisville. Excited by these visions of danger, and worn out with the labor of his Department, his nervousness increased upon him. He talked extravagantly, and made little secret of his fears. Eye-witnesses spoke of him as a man haggard with work, and yet so excited that he " scarcely knew what ho was about."f Arrangements were already in progress for raising the force in Kentucky to an army of sixty or seventy thousand strong, but Sherman's exaggerated dis- patches had caused some apprehension as to the wisdom of entrusting so great a column to such a commander. Accordingly, when the Secretary of War. in a tour of inspection westward, about this time, reached Louisville, he asked General Sherman what his views really were as to the wants of his Department. "How many men do you need?" "Two hundred thousand!" was the prompt and emphatic reply .J To ns, contemplating this strange answer in the light of Sid- * Pollard Bays: "In spite of the victory at Belmont, our situation in Kentucky was one of extreme weakness, and entirely at the mercy of the enemy, if he had not been imposed upon by false representations of the number of our forces at Bowling Green. About the middle of Sep- tember General Buckner advanced with a small force of about four thousand men, wliich was increased by 15th October to twelve thousand; and though other accessions of force were received, it continued at about the same strength till the end of November. The enemy's force was then reported to the War Department at fifty thousand." Sidney Johnston's Letter to Jeff. Davis, after the surrender of Fort Donelson, gives the same figures. tMr. F. B. Plympton, one of the editors of the Cincinnati Commercial, had an amus- ing experience with General Sherman during the height of his alarm about the Bebel strength and purpose. He waited on the General to inform him that he had come down to write what was to be told about the army. The General, who was at a small railroad station near Muldraugh's Hill, broke out into the most violent and extravagant abuse, cursing and swearing like a madman. Presently he commenced charging up and 'down the platform, his saber rattling along behind him. Every time he passed Mr. Plympton he discharged at him a volley of fresh oaths, each winding up with the renewed order to get back to Louisville on the first train if he had any regard for his personal nafety. Plympton bore the matter philosophically. Sherman continued prancing up and down the platform, gesticulating, swearing, and working himself into a very ecstasy of rage. All of a sudden he stopped opposite Plympton: "If you want to get » real good dinner, the very best that can be had anywhere about here, just step over ta that house which you see yonder!" This was said in the kindest and most friendly manner possible. Then, with a return to the old tone: "But be d d sure you take that first train back to Louisville!" t In this statement I follow the narrative of Adjutant-General Thomas, who was present at William T. Sherman. 429 ney Johnston's declaration that his force at Bowling Green numbered twelve thousand, and of his naive statement to Mr. Davis that he "magnified his forces to the enemy, but disclosed his true strength to the department,"* it is only doubtful whether Sherman's opinion should furnish cause more for amazement or for amusement. But to the Secretary of War and the Adjutant-General it was a very sober subject. Here was an untried commander, nervous, paljiablj' under high excitement, having, according to concurrent testimony, only a small force opposed to him, but declaring that he needed two hundred thousand men straightway, when the entire available force then in camps at the JSTorth did not muster half so many. Either those controlling the business of the war were grossly mistaken in their comprehension of the requirements, or General Sherman was. The result was natural. General Sherman was relieved from command and sent to Benton Barracks, Missouri, to drill raw recruits. In this . humble sphere he was kept at work until the spring of 1862 ; while the re-en- forcements that had been designed for him were confided to the leadership of his successor. A force at no time so great as two hundred thousand was sub- Bequently found, under such efiicient handling as General Sherman himself largely aided to give it, sufficient to drive the enemy to the Gulf. Meantime, with the rawness of our early essaj^s at the management of a war, Adjutant-General Thomas had rushed into print with his sensationally- written report, embracing, among many other secrets, an account of the strange demand which had preceded Sherman's sudden removal. The country was indignant. Presently a leading journal of Cincinnati,f in solemn seriousness, on authority that it believed to be unquestionable, and with a kindly desire to do justice to Sherman, by enabling the country to understand the causes of his strange action, came to the rescue with an editorial explanation of the mystery. In the light of subsequent history it becomes pleasant reading : "The painful intelligence reaches us in such form that we are not at liberty to discredit it, that General W. T. Sherman, late commander of the Departnient of the Cumberland, is insane t It appears that he was at times, when commanding in Kentucky, stark mad. We learn that he at one time telegraphed to the War Department three times in one day for permission to evac- uate Kentucky and retreat into Indiana. He also, on several occasions, frightened the leading Union men of Louisville almost out of their wits by the most astounding representations of the overwhelming force of Buckner, and the assertion that Louisville could not he defended. The retreat from Cumberland Gap was one of his mad freaks. When relieved from the command in Kentucky he was sent to Missouri and placed at the head of a brigade at Sedalia, where tlie the interview, A biography of General Sherman, prepared under his eye, has since explained that he said ; "Sixty thousand to drive the enemy out of Kentucky, two hundred thousand to finish the war in this section." But inasmuch as sixty thousand would have been a very absurd number to insist upon for driving out Buckner's twelve thousand at Bowling Green and the small force under ZoUieoffer, which Thomas's little column subsequently defeated so handsomely at Mill Springs, the explanation (which at any rate looks strikingly like an after-thought) does not greatly mend the matter. See posi, Life of Buell. "Letter of General Sidney Johnston to President Davis, 18th March, 1862 — furnished Con- federate Congress, and published in Report Spec. Com. on Causes of Disasters at Forts Henry and Donelson, pp. 171, 172. t Cincinnati Daily Commercial, December, 1861. 430 Ohio in the Wak. Allocking fact that he was a madman was developed, by orders that his subordinatee knew to be preposterous, and refused to obey. He has, of course, been relieved altogether from command. The harsh criticisms which have been lavished upon this gentleman, provoked by hi» strange conduct, will now give way to feelings of the deepest sympathy for him in his great calamity. It seems providential that the country has not to mourn the loss of an army through the loss of the mind of a General into whose hands were committed the vast responsibilities of the command in Kentucky."* The country at once accepted the explanation ; and though General Sher- man's relatives promptly contradicted it,t his 'actual insanity was doubted by few, save the army officers who surrounded him, till, in the spring of 1862, General Halleck decided to try him on more active duty than Benton Barracks afforded. "When Grant went up to Fort Donelson it was important that there should be an instructed officer at Paducah to supervise the forwarding of troops and supplies. With this task Sherman was intrusted.J All winter he had been restless and chafing; his boundless activity now found scope, and he proved so energetic and useful that Halleek, who had known him in California, and, besides, had a strong penchant for West Pointers, determined to try him further. The expedition up the Tennessee was soon on foot, and Sherman was assigned to the command of a division in it. He was boiling over with energy, and his wide theoretical acquaintance with military matters was soon found to be re-en- forced by a remarkable capacity for learning from every day's experience. In short, he so handled his troops that in a little time Chas. F. Smith, having no other West Pointer (save Hurlbut, who need scarcely be counted) among his Di- vision Generals, came to rely chiefly on Sherman, and to give him the lead. On * The facts on which this noted article was based were furnished by Mr. Henri Villard, a well-known and trustworthy journalist, connected with the Eastern press, and also with the Commercial. He considered, them of so much importance that he made a trip from Louisville to Cincinnati expressly to communicate them in person. He added that George D. Prentice, Hon. James Guthrie, Hon. James Speed, and other prominent Unionists of Louisville, liad been tele- graphing to the W.ir Department concerning the danger, before the removal of Greneral Sher- man. Mr. Halstead accepted the statement thus fortified by direct and circumstantial testimony as conclusive. It seemed to him a kindness to General Sherman that the country should be enabled to know the real secret of his strange sayings and doings, as well as the enormous dan- ger from which it has just escaped, in having so important a command controlled by a stark, niving madman. When General Sherman first saw the article he was at Lancaster, on a visit to his family. He laid down the paper, and, in his quick, nervous way, exclaimed: "Well, now, I should n't be surprised if they would fasten that on me. It 'a the hardest thing in the world for a man to pi-ove hvmadf tane, especially when many people think his ideas wild." His fiimily «nd friends, who were greatly enraged, at once attributed the statement to General McClellan. No amount of reasoning on the part of Mr. Halstead could convince them that the General then at the head of the army liad nothing to do with the origin of the Commercial's article. Some other facts (known or suspected, doubtless, by Sherman's family) will serve to show the basis for their suspicions. Colonel Thomas M. Key, the well-known Judge-Advocate and confidential ad- viser on General McClellan's staff, was actually sent to see Sherman's condition. He returned with the report that, so far as he could judge, Sherman was not suflSciently master of his judgment to be intrusted with the command of an army and a great department. It may not be improper to add that Colonel Key long continued to entertain the same opinion, and that very many gentle- men who had seen much of Sherman duri-ng his stay at Louisville agreed with him. t First contradicted by P. B. Ewing. in Cincinnati Commercial, 12th December, 186L t February 17, 1862. "William T. Sheeman. 431 Grant's arrival to take command in Smith's place, he found Sherman in the advance at the fateful encampment at Pittsburg Landing. When Grant, a raw, uninformed boy, entered West Point, Sherman was in his last year there, was woU known and highly ranked. Subsequent acquaintance had led Grant to keep up the old West Point estimate of his capacity, and so he too came to repose a large share of confidence in the ardent, energetic, hopeful Division General on the front line. The Eebels advanced, undiscovered, from Corinth on Thursday, 3d April. All day Friday they marched, or floundered, through"- the rain-storm; all day Saturday they were in motion on Sherman's front. But, though there had been a cavalry skirmish or two, the army lay down to rest on Saturday night with- out a conception of the enemy that was then lying silent in the woods at its picket-line, and listening to its tattoo. General Sherman was approached by one or two uneasy officers, who reported what they thought signs of an impend- ing attack, but he was incredulous,* and took no special precautions. On Sun- day morning the storm burst. With three of his brigades, Hildebrand's, Buckland's, and McDowell's (posted in the order we have named them, Hildebrand having the left), Sherman held the right of the irregular, ill-defined line. His remaining brigade he had suffered to remain encamped miles away, on the extreme left of the Ifational army, and with this there was no possibility of his holding any communication. At the first sound of attack Sherman was prompt in ordering out his command, sending for aid, and notifying the other division commanders that the enemy was upon him in force. The enemy, however, made that announcement before him. Sherman's left soon broke, in confusion, under the unexpected onset. Waterhouse's battery was lost. The flank was threatened, and presently the whole line fell back to a new position. It was hardly taken till another battery was lost. The flank was again exposed, and the division — now reduced to the Iragments of two brigades — again fell back, seeking a position where it could support McClernand's right. Here Sherman held his ground till ^ome time in the afternoon, when he was once more pressed back. This time he selected a line covering the Snal^e Creek bridge, by which Lew. Wallace was expected to *Much lias been written, pro and con, on the question whether or not the National army was Burprised at Pittsburg Landing. Between Lieutenant-Govei-nor Stanton, of Ohio, and General Sherman, an especially acrimonious discussion sprang up, which General Sherman's father-in- law afterward continued with all his lawyer-like ability. There is no need to add to the dispute, and General Sherman's relatives do him no kindness in keeping it up. I do not cite authorities to sustain the view given in the text, because I should as soon think of citing authorities to prove the fact that General McDowell retreated from the first Bull Eun. But, to show that General Sherman himself did not always express the views advanced by and for him in this discussion, I ra.ny mention that, after the battle, in conversation with General E. W. Johnston, of Buell's army, ifhom he was entertaining in his tent, he said : " I had no idea of being attacked — did not Wieve it was a serious attack even after the firing began, till I saw the masses of their infantry bursting out of those woods down there just in front of us." The Adjutant-General on General , Johnston's staff", Lieutenant (Eev.) W. C. Turner (of the N. S. Presbyterian Church), was present "ith his chief at this conversation, has a distinct recollection of it, and certifies to the accuracy of Ihe above statement. 432 Ohio in the Wab. arrive, and hero the shattered reranants of his division bivouacked in line of battle, while Buell's fresh army was marching in to re-form and extend the front. On the next day Sherman gathered together what fragments of his reg- iments he could, and pressed hard upon the enemy, but his force was reduced to such an extent that it no longer formed a considerable element in the contest. Throughout the battle, but specially on the first day. General Sherman ex- posed himself recklessly, and set the example — then much needed — of the closest supervision by officers of their commands in action. His conduct did much to check the unseemly panic, and his unyielding tenacity went largely to pro- vent an abandonment of the field under the shock of the first disaster, and to brace up the faltering purpose of officers and men through all the misfortunes of that gloomy day. He was slightly wounded in the hand, and before the action ended three horses had been shot under him. So much was his gallant conduct in the field considered to have aided in the final success, that General Halleck repoi'ted it to the Government as the unanimous opinion of the officers concerned, that "General Sherman saved the fortunes of the day on the 6th and contributed largely to the glorious victory of the 7th." He accordingly recommended his promotion to a Major-Generalship of Tolunteers, and the com- mission was speedily issued. For most of the blunders of Pittsburg Landing Sherman could not have been held responsible, had he not chosen to make himself so. He was only a subordinate officer, greatly trusted indeed by his chief, but at no time in com- mand of the camp. He should certainly have kept his division together; and it must over seem inconceivable to those not actual witnesses to the fact, that an officer, with military education, and professing to understand war and war's con- ditions, should have lain for weeks in the vicinity of an enemy he believed to outnumber him, without a spadeful of earth thrown up for defense, without even an obstruction of fallen timber, and, finally, without pickets a mile beyond his own tent! These, however, were matters which the commanding General should have enjoined.* But, with that disposition — ^born of the morbid vanity, "which we shall more than once observe in his future career — to accept unneces- sary responsibilities, and to deny that he has ever made a blunder, General Sher- man has since chosen to vindicate the management of affairs before the battle.f His true friends can not but regret so unwise a step ; and no degree of admira- tion for the brilliant gciiius which he subsequently d'splr.yerl, cr.n blind impar- tial observers to the criminal foolhardiness and blundering which made the first day of Pittsburg Landing a slaughter, and well-nigh an irreparable calamity. " It was necessary that a combat, fierce and bitter, to test the manhood of the two armies, should come off, and that was as good a place as any. It was not then a question of military skill and strategy, but of courage and pluck." When the military student of another generation comes to read such words from the man who took Atlanta, in apology for neglect of pickets, lack of any regu- • For a fuller statement of the amazing carelensness and neglect at Pittsburg Landing, prior to the battle, see ante, Life of Grant. t In his letter to U. B. Service Magazine on Pittsburg Landing, and in earlier pnblicstioas. William T. Shekman. 433 lar formation of line, and absence of the slightest defensive woi-ks, against a fbo supposed to be superior, he will find it as diiScult to believe that the Lieutenant- Gcneral Sherman of history wrote the excuse as that he w^,s guilty of the blunders. Under General Halleck's personal management the army now passed from the extreme of rashness and neglect to the extreme of timid overcaution. It advanced upon Corinth at a snail's pace, stopping to construct long lines of for- tifications after every trivial movement, till the whole distance between Corinth and the Landing became an interminable succession of redoubts and rifle-pits. General Sherman, fully awakened from the contempt of the enemy which can alone explain the neglect to prepare for him before the fatal Sunday morning of the attack, was now fully ready to second all the cautious devices of the new commander. Genei-al Halleck's high opinion of his conduct in the battle natu- rally led to his giving him an important position, and it so fell out that on the right, to which Sherman was thus assigned, occurred the only skirmishes of im- portance that marred the peaceful monotony of the methodical advance.* These were two in number. In each General Sherman's dispositions were excellent, and his success complete. The first was to drive the enemy from Russell's House, and the high hill on which it stood, about a mile and a quarter from the outer intrenchments at Corinth. For this purpose Sherman sent General Mor- gan L. Smith's brigade directly against the position, while, on eitljcr hand, another brigade threatened the flank. A few shots from Smith's batteries drove the enemy, and Sherman hastened to fortify the hill thus won. His entire loss was only ten killed and thirty-one wounded. Ten days later Halleck ordered another advance, to drive the Rebels from a ridge on Sherman's new front, and to demonstrate against Corinth. Sherman promptly formed a line of his own division (now reduced to three brigades) and of another brigade summoned fi'om the reserve. The troops advanced silently and with great caution. The artillery demolished a house from which the enemy's sharpshooters had given annoyance; then, at the signal of a single shot, the whole line dashed across the intervening space, carried the ground, and with trifling loss established them- selves, under cover of a dense wood, within thirteen hundred yards of the enemy's main fortifications. The Rebels presently rallied and essayed a coun- ter-attack, but they were repulsed by the picket-line — which, thanks to the lessons of Pittsburg Landing, was now amply strong and well-placed. Two days later the enemy evacuated Corinth. By seven o'clock in the morning 'Sherman was in the town with the bulk of his division. So marked was the improvement already made in the' important matter of watching the enemy ! Throughout these siege-operations, as the commanding General chose to style them. General Sherman, though in a purely subordinate position, was active, cautious and energetic, and his services were highly appreciated by *0f course the reader will understand that General Pope's battle of Farmington, on the Mtreme left, is not included in this remark. It is swelled far beyond the importance of a mere •kirmisli. Vol. I.— 28. 43i Ohio in the War. Halleck. But it is more important to observe that, although Grant was in a state of quasi disgrace, Sherman kept up hie old cordial relatipils with him, and was at pains to express his sympathy. He was not to wait long for his reward. But the rawness of our rapidly-learning General was still as apparent as the absolute confidence with which he volunteered opinions outside of his own sphere. One can scarcely read now, without a smile, the language in which he chose to announce the result. "The evacuation of Corinth," he declares, . .> . " was a clear back-down from the high and arrogant tone heretofore assumed by the Eebels. . . . It is a victory as brilliant and important as any recorded in history." This is not the language of a great General, or even of a military student — it is the bombast of a college sophomore. School-boy exaggeration, indeed, rarely makes itself so d^surd as to style such performance as that at Corinth a victory as brilliant as any recorded in histoiy. It was a victory ■without fighting, in which over a hundred thousand men spent two months in driving forty-seven thousand out of works which Sherman himself pronounced "poor and indifferent!* But it may be readily inferred that such extravagan- cies of laudation were expected to be highly gratifying to the hero of this gi-eat victory, the redoubtable General-in-Command, who was soon to rise to still higher rank, to the country's injury. Sherman was now ordered westward along the Memphis and Charleston Eailroad; and after Halleck's transfer as General-in-Chief to Washington, Grant, on resuming command, at once sent him to Memphis to take charge of the dis- trict. Here he spent (with unimportant exceptions) the remainder of 1862, engrossed in the civil duties of his command. He adopted vigorous measures of retaliation for giiorrilla outi-ages, and for firing on steamboats; kept a vigilant watch on the spies with whom Memphis swarmed, and did his best to prevent any trade beyond the lines, particularly in cotton. Most of these measui-cs originated with Grant, but Sherman threw great energy into their execution. The Government countermanded his orders about cotton, to his great chagrin. In the fall ho aided Grant's advance against the line of the Tallahatchie by-co- operative movements on flank and rear, which were well-timed and entirely successful. Then, under Grant's orders, he prepared his ^expedition "to proceed to Vicksburg and reduce it,"t while Grant himself was advancing upon the ene- my's main force via Holly Springs. Most unfortunately Sherman was not advised of the disaster at Holly Springs, which ended Grant's movement; and the very next day he started, in the full confidence that ho should find but an easy task before him at the fi-ont of Vicksburg, while Grant was thundering on its rear. His fall and winter's campaign upon the traders had greatly embittered him, and his orders, od setting out, were mainly directed against them. No citinens were, on any prc- * Sherman's Official Report Advance on Coiinth. I have followed above the Rebel officiiil statement of their strength. The estimate made by our own officers was some eighteen thousand more. t The language of Grant's order. William T. Shekman. 43S text, or for any purpose, to accompany the expedition. If any cotton was by any body put on board the transports, it was to be confiscated. If any mem bers of the press were found they were to be treated as spies. If any other citizens were found they were to be conscripted into the army, or forced to worli without pay as declt-hands on the transports.* The fretful and arbitrary tone of these orders made an unfavorable impression at the time; and after the expe- dition was over, led to the bitter taunt that as the General had directed his thoughts mainly to warfare upon our own citizens, so he was more successful in that than in his efforts against the enemy. The sneer was unjust, but he had given occasion for it. On aiTiving before Vicksbnrg, on Christmas-Eve, Sherman first proceeded to break up the Vicksburg and Texas Eailroad; then moved on transports up the old mouth of the Yazoo, and by noon of the 27th had his whole command of four divisions, and forty-two thousand men,f disembarked on its south side, near the mouth of Chickasa\y Bayou, the boggy stream permeating the swamp thence down to Vicksburg, which rendered the approach to the fiank of the enemy's works so difficult. Above its eastern bank frowned the Eebel fortifica- tions. It was his first effort at directing more than a single division in action; but Sherman's dispositions soon showed that in the last year he had been rapidly learning his business. He at first decided to move three of his divisions up the tayou by various routes, under cover of the swamp on the side farthest from the enemy, to the points where he proposed to deliver the attack, while a single division should move in the same direction on the enemy's side of the bayou. The heads of columns soon drove in the enemy's j)ickets, and found ground of ths utmost difliculty before them. Steele, who was moving on the enemy's side of .the Ijayou, presently reported that his path led along a corduroy causeway, raked by both enfilading and cross-fire from the enemy's batteries; and Sherman decided to withdraw him" to the other side. Meantime, the other three divisions had, with manjj- difficulties,* toiled through the swaimp till they had reached the points at which it was proposed to cross. In front of them was the uncertain bayou, with its boggy banks ; above that rose the high bluffs,' marked from base to summit with the enemy's rifle-pits and parapets; while along the base of the blaff ran an excellent road, by which the Rebels could rapidly concentrate at any threatened point. Their force, though considerably increased during the delay in Sherman's movements after his arrival, was still greatly inferior; but it occupied a position well-nigh impregnable. This position, however, Sherman now decided to assault. Morgan's division, re-enforced by Blair's and Thayer's brigades, was to attack on the left; while A. J. Smith, farther up the bayou, with more difficult gi-ound before him, was to secure a lodgment with two divisions on the steep bluff that here rose from the bank, and prevent the enemy from concentrating on Morgan. • Sherman and his Campaigns, pp. 80, 81. tA. J. Smith's, Morgan L. Smith's, and George W. Morgan's divisions, numbered, in the aggregate, thirty thousand and sixty-eight. Frederick Steele's numbered twelve thousand three hiudred and ten. 436 Ohio in the Wak Of Smith's assault the Kebel report briefly tells the story : " When within four hundred yards our infantry opened — the enemy coming to within one hun- dred and fifty yards of my lines. Here our fire was so terrible that they broke, but in a few minutes rallied again, sending a force to my left, to turn my left> flank. This was soon met and handsomely repulsed. The force" in my front was also repulsed. Our fire was so severe that the enemy laid down to receive it. Seeing their confusion the Twenty-Sixth Louisiana, and a part of the Sev- enteenth, were marched on the field, and under their cover, twenty-one commis- sioned officers and three hundred and eleven privates, with four colors, and five hundred stand of arms, were captured. The enemy left in great confusion, leaving their dead on the field."* Meantime, on the right, two companies had been sent over in advance t9 dig away a path in the steep bluff, so that the column could ascend. They rushed gallantly across, and, under cover of the bank, commenced digging — so close to the enemy that the Eebels above reached down their muskets, firing vertically at them from the top of the same bank. But the movement had been too much delayed; Morgan was already repulsed before this column was ready to cross, and Sherman ordered an abandonment of the effort. The brave fellows under the bayou bluff were accordingly withdrawn, at nightfall, under cover 6f the darkness. Less than an hour's fighting had settled the matter. General Sherman now realized — at the fruitless cost of nineteen hundred and twenty -nine sol- diers (against a Eebel loss of two hundred and nine) — that the position was impregnable. Unwillingj howevei-, to confess the total failure of his expedi- tion, he cast about for some further meajis of at least planting his army in a jDOsition to menace the Eebel fortifications. With this view ho proposed to Admiral Porter, commanding the accompanying gunboat fleet, to cover the landing of a force of ten thousand picked troops up. the Yazoo, at the point where the extremity of the Eebel line touched that stream. While this body should essay to turn* the line here, he would- occupy the enemy's attention at the old points. Then, the works being turned, he would hasten up with the rest of his army. The troops were sent, but on the first night Admiral Porter found the fog too dense to move; on the second he found the moonlight almost as bright as day, and, therefore, decided the effort too haeardous. Thus baffled again, there was nothing left for Sherman but to withdraw — the ground on which he was encamped being swampy, and liable to overflow afler any heavy rain, while behind him there were only niore swamps and the rising Mississippi, and in front the triumphant enemy. He accordingly decided to move up the river to Milliken's Bond. The Administration had not yet fully returned to the confidence in Sher- man which he had lost in Kentucky, and at this juncture it decided that for the effort down the Mississippi a more capable commander was required. The Pres- ident accordingly selected John A. McClernand, by whom Sherman was met as he reached the mouth of the Yazoo again. •Official Report of Kebel General S. D. Lee. William T. Sherman. 437 The failure before Vicksburg was harshly judged by the public, and Sher- man remained unpopular and distrusted. Yet it is now evident, as Grant him- self soon after cheerfully testified, that Sherman had done all that was possible. His only error — if there was error at all — consisted in making an attack on impregnable positions. Yet his orders, binding him np to the " reduction of Vicksburg," could hardly have been considered satisfied without an effort against the enemy. Gn the arrival at Milliken's Bend Sherman issued a farewell order to the army, of which McClernand now assumed command. It was nt)t difficult to see that he was chagrined. " A new commander," he said, " is now here to lead you. He is chosen by the President of the United States, who .... has the undoubted right to select his own agents.''* Sherman was now reduced to the command of two divisions. With these he accompanied the rest of the army which he had latelj' commanded, on McClernand's expedition up- the Ai-kansas Eiver to Arkansas Post. In the investment he was given the advance. He promptly passed around the rear of the fort, and rested his right on the river above it. As soon as the gunboats -opened fire Sherman opened also, and after about fifteen minutes' bombardment, to which he received no reply from the enemy, he gave the signal for assault. The troops dashed forward gallantly, but were speedily entangled in the rough ground and obstructions on the enemy's front. They maintained their position and advanced slowly, till the enemy, overpowered by the gunboat fire, raised the white flag. In this affair Sherman lost seventy-nine killed and four hundred and forty wounded. McClernand oflSeially spoke of him as "exhibiting his usual activity and enterprise." I Grant himself having now gone down the river, that remarkable series of devices was begun, by which it was sought to evade the difficulties of the Vicksburg .problem. Sherman had no special share in any of them save the effort to burst into the Yazoo by means of the Sunflower, and the bayous through which that stream has its uncertain connection with the Mississippi. In this he was ordered to accompany the gunboats, and seize some point on the Yazoo from which operations could be directed against Haines's Bluff. He set out at once with a single regiment and a detachment of pioneers, leaving the i-est of his troops to follow. They aided the gunboats to open the baj'ous, followed in transports as long as transports found the route practicable, then changed to coal-barges, and were drawn along by a little steam-tug, marched wherever the boggy roads were not completely overflowed, and finally, the gunboats, being hemmed in by fallen timber, and attacked by the enemy with infantry and artillery, made forced marches through the swamps — in one case even groping their uncertain way by candle-light through a canebrake — and finally got up jnst in time to save Admiral Porter from being surrounded. The energy with which the troops were pushed forward was admirable; and Porter chcer- flilly testified that " no other General could have done better or as well as * He went on, however, to cover up this feeling by urging cheerful obedience to McClernand, «nd saying there was glory enough in store for all. 438 Ohio in the Wak. Sherman." But the movement was abandoned when almost within siijht of the Ta^oo. Meanwhile the puzzled General who directed these various operations was at his wits' end ; and numerous were the discussions as to what could be done to plant the army in striking distance of the long-sought stronghold. In these, Admiral Porter and General. Sherman were bis most frequent and confidential counselors. Finally General Sherman submitted his written plan, a couple of weeks before Grant's final policy of running the batteries and marching up from the south was adopted. He regarded the army as already far in advance of the other grand armres, would make sundry movements in Arkansas, and then would "move the main army back to the Tallahatchie, secure and re-open the road back to Memphis," and adopt "the line of the Yallabusha as the base from which to operate against the points where the Mississippi Central crosses Big Black above Canton, and lastly where the Vicksburg and Jackson Eailroad crosses the same river. The capture of Vicksburg would result." And finally he " would leave in this vicinity (i. e., on the river in front of or near Vicks- burg) a force not to exceed ten thousand men, with only enough steamboats to transport them to any desired point.* In effect, he would have returned the army to Memphis and started over again on substantially the same route wiiich Grant had attempted before, and from which the Holly Springs disaster had thrown him back. That this was sound strategy can not be doubted ; that it was a bold proposition, coming from a General already sufficiently unpopular at the North, and to one already maturing a totally different plan, need hardly be enforced. All this while the people regarded Sherman with distrust, tempered with dislike. He was looked upon as an unlucky if not an incapable commander ; his brusque expressions of enmity to the party that controlled the Government were quoted to his disadvantage ; f his talk against anti-slavery men and meas- ures gave deep offense; and in some quarters slanderous doubts were even hinted as to his fidelity to the cause — mainly originating in his warm expres- sions of regard for old friends then in the Confederate service. His warfare with the newspaper press, into which he had himself at the outset infused a needless bitterness, raised up enemies for him where he should have had the warmest of friends, and led to the most unfavorable constructions of every- thing in which he was concerned. But the confidence and friendship of Grant were unshaken. Sherman was now assigned the left of the army in the movements by which Grant finally proposed to vault to the rear of Vicksburg. He was left behind when the rest of the army moved down t-o Bruinsburg ; and when the • Shermnn and his Campaigna, pp. 129, 130. t One of the strangest of these expre.ssiona was made during the advance on Corinth. Sherman and a brother officer of equal rank were being introduced. " I am very glad to meet you," said the other General ; " I know Senator Sherman very well, and I believe he is your brother.'" " Yes," replied Sherman, " I have a brother who is one of the d d Abolitionists that have been getting up this war." Of course the reader will understand that I print this statement only on the direct per.sonal authority of the General to whom the remark was made. William T. Shekman. 439 crossing was to be effected he was ordered to make a feint above Vicksburg (on the batteries at Haines's Bluff)/ to prevent the enemy from suspecting the real nature of the movement below or concentrating to oppose it. " I hate to ask you to do it," said Grant, " because the fervor of the Iforth will accuse you of being rebellious again."* The time, however, was at last approaching when the fervor of the North was likely to assume a different direction in Sherman's behalf. He ran up to Haines's Bluff, disembarked under cover of a heavy gun- boat fire, and so demonstrated as to keep the enemy in momentary anticipation of an attack, till there was reason to suppose that the crisis below was passed. The whole operation wds skillfully and handsomely performed. Then hastening after Grant, with his command he crossed the Mississippi below, and caught up with the army on the evening of the 8th of May, just in time to participate in the general advance already ordered. . In this, Sherman (with McClernand) hugged close the eastern bank of the Big Black, while McPherson was pushed far out to the eastward, to strike Jackson, forty-seven miles due east from Vicksbm-g. Then, as McPherson seemed likely to encounter unexpected resist- ance, Sherman and McClernand were ordered over to his aid. They moved rapidly and in concert; and, with McClernand lying in reserve in the vicinity, Sherman moved forward and attacked the enemy on the Mississippi Springs Eoad, while McPherson, further to the southward, was engaging the bulk of his forces on the road to Canton. Some sharp skirmishing resulted ; then a reg- iment, sent out to feel one of the enemy's flanks, reported the works there de- serted. The troops were at once led into Jackson by that route, and the enemy fled northward. Sherman took two hundred and fifty prisoners, eighteen guns, and much ammunition and public stores. While now McClernand and the other forces turned their faces west- ward, and had straight before them their goal, the doomed city of Vicks- burg, Sherman was left to destroy railroads, arsenals, and, other public property. A church and some private buildings were despoiled in the confusion, but without Sherman's sanction. From the field of Champion Hills Grant sent back a message for Sherman to hasten forward, but the advance swept everything before it, till the Big Black was reached. Here Sherman crossed with a pontoon train, and pushing rapidly forward on the right, interposed between the enemy's posts on the Yazoo and the defenses of Vicksburg. Prom that moment the whole operation was a success, and the fall of Vicks- burg but a question of time. The Haines's Bluff defenses were hastily evacuated, Sherman opened communications with the fleet, and the army was again supplied with rations. The next day Sherman participated in the assault. Several of his regi- ments gained the exterior slope of the enemy's works, but they were unable to advance further, and, under cover of the darkness, they were drawn back a little. Two days later another assault along the whole line was ordered. Sher- man's corps, with its storming parties mai-ching by the flank, succeeded again in planting colors at various points on the outer slope of the parapet. Word 'Sherman's speech at the St. Louis banquet in his honor. 440 Ohio in the Wak. being brought that McClernand had effected a lodgment within the workf" opposite his part of the line, Sherman ordered another assault, which only led to the planting of more colors on the outer parapets, and the burrowing beside them of more men in the earth, to protect themselves from the terrific fire of the garrison. Under cover of night they were again withdrawn — Grant hav- ing by this time reached the wise conclusion that the works were too strong for direct assault. Sherman then settled down to the prosecution of his share in the siege. By the 25th June the works were so strengthened that smaller numbers served for the investment, and Sherman was accordingly detached, with some- what increased command to watch Johnston, who had now gathered together a small force, and was maneuvering for the relief of the beleaguered city. "You must whip Johnston at least fifteen miles from hei-e," wrote Grant. Hardly had Vicksburg surrendered, when, under Grant's orders, Sherman advanced against Johnston, pushing him back toward Jackson. The weather was in- tensely hot, the roads were very dusty, and the troops were not even per- mitted before starting on their toilsome march, to enter the stronghold they had aided to conquer. " Though personal curiosity," writes Sherman to his friend, Admiral Porter, "would tempt me to go and see the frowning batte- ries and sunken pits that have defied us so long, and sent to their, silent graves so many of our early comrades in this enterprise, I feel that other tasks lie befoi-e me, and time must not be lost. Without casting anchor, and in spite of the heat and dust and the drouth, I must again into the bowels of the land, to make the conquest of Yicksburg fulfill all the conditions it should in the progress of this war." . On 9th July Sherman appeared before Jackson, and by the 12th had all his troops up and in position, and was skirmishing vigorously. His ammunition was delayed, and while he was waiting for it Johnston destroyed his stores and retreated. Our loss was about a thousand. Johnston's was about six hundred killed and wounded, and seven hundred and sixty -four prisoners. The retreat- ing force was harassed for some distance, all the railroads centering in JaokBon were broken up, and then Sherman, leaving a garrison in the town, drew back to the line of the Big Blacli. Grant fitly summed up Sherman's handsome conduct in this campaign: "His demonstration at Haines's Bluff in April, to hold the enemy about Vicks- burg, while the army was securing a foothold east of the Mississippi ; his rapid marches to join the army afterward; his management at Jackson in the first attack; his almost unequaled march from Jackson to Bridgeport and passage of the Black Eiver attest his great merit as a soldier."* The period of comparative leisure that followed enabled General Sherman to attend to some minor duties. A very pleasing evidence of his admiration for spirited behavior, and his sympathy for the friendless, was exhibited in a letter to the Secretary of War : " I take the liberty of asking that something be • Grant's Official Report, Vicksburg. William T. Shekman. 441 done for a young lad named Orion P. Howe, of Waukegan, Illinois. He is too young for West Point, but would be tlie very thing for a midshipman. When the assault at Vicksbuvg was at its height, on the 19th of May, and I was on foot, near the road which formed the line of attack, this young lad came up to me, wounded and bleeding, with a good healthy boy's cry: ' General Sherijaan, send some cartridges to Colonel Walmbourg ; the men are all out.' 'What is the matter, my boy?' 'They shot me in the leg, but I can go to the hospital; send the cartridges right away.' Even where we stood the shot fell thick, and I told him to go to the rear at once, I would attend to the cartridges ; and off he limped. Just before he disappeared over the hill, he turned and called as loud as he could :' Caliber fifty -four.' . . -. What arrested my attention then was, and what renews my memory of the fact now is, that one so young, carry- ing a musket-ball wound through his leg, should have found his way to me on that fatal spot, and delivered his message, not forgetting the very important part, even, of the caliber of the musket, which, you know, is an unusual one. I'll warrant' that the boy has in him the elements of a man, and I commend him to the Government as one worthy the fostering care of some one of its National institutions." A few days after this letter was written, General Sherman received a com- mission as Brigadier-General in the regular army. He was not mistaken in attributing his promotion to the friendly influence of Grant, to whom he wrote: "lvalue the commission far less than the fact that it will associate mj name with yours and McPherson's, in opening the Mississippi. . . I beg to assure you of my deep personal attachment, and to express the hope that the chances of war will leave me to serve near and under you till the dawn of that peace for which we are contending." It was not unnatural — most "men haVing a' good deal of human nature in them" — that such deferential language to his supe- rior officer should increase the good opinion entertained of Sherman at head- quarters. His restless mind was never satisfied with the mere details of the business pressing upon it. Through the summer he addressed the Governor of Ohio, urging a new plan of recruiting. With rare foresight he struck at the inherent vice of the existing system, in expressing his "earnest hope that the strength of our people will not again be wasted by the organization of new regiments, while we have in the field skeleton regiments, with officers, non-commissioned officers and men, who only need numbers to make a magnificent array. . . The mass of men called for should all be privates, and sent so as to make every reg- iment in the field equal to one thousand men. . . Ohio has in the field one hun- dred and -twenty -six regiments, whose officers now are qualified, and the men of which would give tone and character to the new recruits. To fill these regi- ments will require fifty thousand recruits. . . I therefore hope and pray that J'ou will use your influence against any more new regiments, and consolidation of old ones, but fill up all the old ones to a full standard." No wiser policy of recruiting was presented to the Government through the war. Fortunate 442 Ohio in the Wak. indeed would it have been for the country had this recommendation of General Sherman's belen adopted. In such discussions of the general war policy, in elaborate letters urging these views, in the miscellaneous work of the corps, and in a visit from his wife and family that was to have a very sad ending, the summer passed away. At last the Government awoke to the critical position of Eosecrans. While Grant's great army was doing nothing to engage the enemy in the West, while the army of the Potomac was equally inactive at the East, Kosecrans, with inadequate force, was penetrating to the vital and jealously -guarded strong- hold of Chattanooga. Unable to make head against Grant, Johnston's forces were at liberty to hasten against Eosecrans; not occupied in Virginia, Lee was at liberty to send Longstreet to help check the perilous advance of the venture- some "Dutch General." Finally, on the 13th of September, crdoi-s were sent to Sherman to forward all available forces to Corinth and Tuscumbia, to co-op- erate with Eosecrans. For some reason that has never been explained, Sherman did nothing.* At last, on the 22d, Grant telegraphed, requiring one division for Eosecrans's aid to be forthwith forwarded to Memphis. Two days later he was ordered to follow with his whole corps. It was not till the 27th that he waa able to procure steamboat transportation, and even then the delays were so great that the corps did not all ai-rive at Memphis until October 4th. Thence the troops were to march eastwardly along the line of the Memphis and Charleston Eailroad, which connects Memphis and Chattanooga. While supervising the preparations for this march, Sherman was bowed down by the burden of a great grief. His own touching words to the com- manding offtcer of his old regiment shall tell the sad story : " I can not sleep to-night, till I record an expression of the deep feelings of my heart to you, and to the officers and soldiers of the battalion, for their kind behavior to my poor child, .... Consistent' with a sense of duty to my profession and office, I could not leave my post, and so I sent for my family to come to me in that fatal climate, and in that sickly period of the year; and behold the result ! The child that bore my name, and in whose future I reposed with more confidence than I did in my own plans of life, now floats a mere corpse, seeking a grave in a distant land, with a weeping mother, brother, and sisters clustered about him. . . . But my poor Willy waa, or thought he was, a Sergeant of the Thirteenth. I have seen his eye brighten and his heart beat as he beheld the battalion under amis, and asked me ifthey were not real soldiers. Child as he was, he had the enthusiasm, the pure love of truth, honor, and love of country, which should animate all soldiers. God only knows why he should die thus young. . . Please convey to the battalion my heartfelt thanks, and assure each and all that if, in after years, they call on me or mine, and mention that they were of the Thirteenth Eegu- lars when poor Willy was a Sergeant, they will have a key to the affections of my family that will open all it has— that we will share with them our last blanket, our last cniBt." Unfortunately General Sherman decided to repair the Memphis and Charleston Eailroad as he advanced eastwardly along it, in the direction of Eosecrans's position. It would seem that he still had no adequate conception of the peril at Chattanooga, or that he did not conceive himself bound to *"For some reason that has never been explained." That is, unless the explanation in Gen- eral Halleck's Annual Report to the Secretary of War (Ex. Dot, Vol. V, 1863-4) be considered sufficient. He says: "The dispatches of the 13th to Grant and Sherman did not reach them William T. Sherman. 443 strenuous efforts for relief. It was the 11th of October before he left Memphis to obey the order first issued, 13th of September. At Collierville his train plunged fairly into a fight raging about the station. The Eebel General Chal- mers, with three thousand cavalry, was attacking it. Sherman's body-guard, under his own eye, rushed to the rescue, and the assailants were driven off. The next day he reached Corinth, and pushed on his advance'to luka. Building railroads instead of marching to the relief of the beleaguered army in Chatta- nooga, it was not until the 27th of October that he left luka, under orders has- tily sent by courier across the country from Grant, to drop all railroad work, and huny his army forward as fast as their legs could carry them. It was now forty-four days since the first issue of the order for the march, and the troops had yet accomplished scarcely one-third of the distance between Memphis and Chattanooga. In eighteen days more General Sherman rode into Chattanooga, and reported to Grant for orders. There had been some sharp skirmishing with the Eebel cavalry that hung upon the front and flanks, and much trouble in crossing streams from the destruction of bridges and lack of pontoons. The delays in the early part of this march have been sharply criticised in some quarters, and it must be confessed that it did not exhibit the celerity that a full appreciation of the crisis and a cordial desire to relieve Eosecrans would have dictated.* But it is to be remembered that General Sherman's whole career has sufficiently shown that lack of energy was never one of his failings; that the difficulties of the march were considerable; that it was well managed throughout, and that the latter part of it was so rapid and skillful as to merit the highest praise. General Grant had been on the point of making the attack wi.thout Sher- man — so great was his anxiety to dislodge the enemy from Mission Eidge and Lookout Mountain, and to dispatch a force to raise the siege of Knoxvillc. He no\f;^^lained his plans to Sherman, who at once sprang into a skiff, rowed him- until aome days after their dates." " Some days" ia a phrase that seems scarcely to cover a delay of nine days; nor does it seem probable that nine days could be spent in forwarding a dis- patch from Memphis (to which point Halleck had telegraphic communication) over the short river stretch; to Vieksburg. As this matter has given rise to a good deal of dispute, I subjoin Balleck's order: " Head-Quaeters op the Abmy, ■> "Washington, D. C, 13th September, 1863. i " Maj(tr-Omwai Chant, or Majof-General Shennan, Vickdmrg: \ "It is quite possible that Bragg and Johnston will move through Northern Alabama to the Tennessee Kiver, to turn General Eosecrans's I'ight, and cut off his communications. All of General Grant's available forces should be gent to Memphis, thence to Corinth and Tuscumbia, to C0;0perate with Eosecrans, should the Rebels attempt that movement. "H. W. Haxleck, General-in-Chief." •Colonel Bowman, after saying that at Memphis Sherman received Halleck's order to march, and to report to Eosecrans, adds: "He was substantially to follow the railway eastwardly, Ttpairing it as he moved, looking to his own lines for supplies." General Halleck, however, makes no mention of such orders, and the tone of his report indicates great anxiety for haste in the movement. No appreh'ension about supplies at the end of the march need have been enter- tained, for the railroad wis unobstructed aa far as Bridgeport, and, as was afterward proved, was 'O^Nkble of supplying far larger armies than were now dependent upon it. 444 Ohio in the War. self down to Bridgeport, where his columns were aiTiving, and hastened them forward. When they reached the ground the other troops were all in position, tho pontoons were ready, and the movement was at once begun. Sherman passed behind Chattanooga on the north side, having been compeUed in the haste to leave one division with Hooker, below, moved down to the riVer secretly on the night of the '23d, by daylight on the 24th had two divisions across, and rifle-pits dug to protect them, and by one o'clock was ready with his whole force for the advance. Moving up in echelon, with skirmishers well to the front, they reached the base of the ridge in safety, completely protected from the enemy's observation by the mist and fog. The heads of columns were fairly on the top before the enemy discovered the movement and opened with artillery. Nothing, however, but some exchanges of artillery-firing and skirmishing occufred through the afternoon, and daring the night the positions were for- tified. In front of Sherman now lay a crest of the Mission Eidge, wooded on the eastern side, partially cleared on the western, and occupied by the enemy. Beyond this was a higher eminence, whence the enemy's artillery played over the whole field in dispute. By daylight Sherman was out, trying to gain an idea of the position, and by sunrise he had his troops in motion. General Ooree was to attack from the center, Morgan L. Smith on the left, and Colon-el Loomis on the right. Corse met heavy resistance, and made little progress. About ten o'clock he was severely wounded and carried from the field, while Colonel Waleutt succeeded to tho command. Smith fared better on the left, and Loomis got far enough on the right to effect a serious diversion in favor of the center column of attack. But the day was clear, and across the heights long columns of the enemy could be seen streaming toward the point of tho ridge where Sherman's attack was jirogressing. Unsuspicious of the danger that lay threatening hia center and left, the enemy was concentrating on his right to overpower Sher- man. The case looked critical. Re-enforcements were thrown forward to aid "Waleutt in tho center; but tho crest where he fought was narrow, and already thronged with troops. The new arrivals wore thus crowded over to the west side of the ridge, which, as has been seen, was cleared of timber. Here they soon became exposed to a terrific fire, and were presently hurled back in much disorder. But tho key-point on the crest was held. At last the white fringe of smoke that rose from Thomas's line, told that the attack on the center had begun. Thenceforward Bragg found enough to do without further concentration on Sherman. Darkness soon closed the carnage; and after nightfall Sherman had the satisfaction of learning that, though be had not gained the objective point of his assault, and had indeed been terribly pun- ished in holding his positions, he had so weakened the enemy's lines on the center that magnificent victory had come with the setting sun. His was not the most brilliant, but it was far from being the least useful part in the great battle. He pushed forward his reserve in the pursuit, captured some stoa'cs and artillery, then turned to the eastward to make room for Hooker's column, which contin- William T. Sherman. 445 uod the pursuit, while Shermiin broke up the communications between Bragg and Longstreet. Tlien, Gvant having been dissatisfied witli the reception by another oflSccr of his order to march to Knoxville to Burnside's relief, fell back on Sherman, on whose zeal and energy he knew he could safely reckon. Wearied as the men were with the. hurried march to Chattanooga, and the bloody battle that had immediately followed,* Sherman at once put them in motion, and had them re-enforced by Grqrdon Granger's command. On the 29th of November, in intensely cold weather, the movement began. By 3d December Sherman com- municated with Burnside; by the 5th the heads of columns, after much delay from difficulty in crossing streams, met within striking distance of Knoxville. But here a messenger arrived announcing that Longstreet, warned by their advance, was already in full retreat. The column then turned southward, find in leisurely marches retm-ned to the Hiawassee Valley, Sherman himself keep- ing on the alert for possibilities of striking Longstreet, and once or twice diverting portions of his force in ineffectual attempts to cajjjure wagon-trains or detachments. The troops who had now been in constant motion from the time they left their camps on the Big Black, near Vicksburg, required rest. The indefat- igable commander, however, seemed to need none, and he at once set out for Memphis and Vicksburg, to inspect the department which had been assigned to him while he was on the march to Chattanooga. Some three weeks were given to this work, and, meanwhile, an important expedition was organizing. Of the spirit in which, through these busy weeks, tlie General issued instructions as to their civil duties, to his subordinates, this, from his letter to the commanding officer at Huntsville, must serve as an illustration: . "If the people of Huntsville think differently let them persist in war three years longer, and they will not be consulted. Three years ago, by a little reflection and patience, they could have had a hundred yearsof peace and prcsperity, but they preferred war. Very well. Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late ; all the power of earth can not restore to them their slaves any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken — for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too — and in another year they may beg in^ vain for tlieir lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain .limit ought to know the consequences. Many, many people, with less pertinacity than the South, have been wiped out of national existence." By the 3d of February Sherman was ready for his new movement. It seomod to him that the free navigation of the Mississippi Eiver could be best guarded by destroj-ing the lines of railroad by which the Rebels were able to ai^proach it at any point, at will, and then by the establishment of small posts in the interior to keep the guerrillas away from the banks. With this view, he proposed to move out with a strong column due east from *Thc losses of Sherman's corps in the battle and, brief pursuit, were two hundred and fifty- eight killed, twelve hundred and fifty-seven wounded, and two hundred and eleven missing'. 446 Ohio in the Wae, Vioksburg across the State of Mississippi to the important railroad center of Meridian, where a cavalry force, moving from Memphis out to and down the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, should meet him. General William Sooy Smith was assigned to this latter duty. Sherman himself took the field with tiic Vicksburg column, composed of two divisions from McPhersoa'e corps, and two from Hurlbut's, with Colonel Winslow's brigade of cavalry. With this fonnidfvble force he plunged into the country, and disappeared from the public eye. The novelty and mystery of the movement piqued curiosity, and great expectations were cherished as to the results at which Sherman was supposed to be aiming. When, after a month's absence, the missiog ai-my emerged again, having simply, in the words of its leader, accompliehed "a big raid," there was general disappointment. The expedition had, however, cut the enemy's communications at Meridian, destroyed long stretches of the railroads, depots, arsenals, public stores, and spread . among the people of Mississippi a general sense of danger, and of the weakness of their cause. More might, perhaps, have been accomplished but for the failure of the Mem- jihis cavalry column to join the expedition at Meridian.* Meanwhile, it was noteworthy that throughout the great march the General had handled his army with as much ease as if it were but a regiment, and had learned the art of subsisting an army in the enemy's country tvithout a base and without a supply-train. Thus far we have traced the progress of General Sherman, through many cliockered scones, to the point from which his successful career begins. Hitherto ho has been mainly in subordinate positions, and his few independent commands have not enlarged his fame. His career in Kentucky was a failure. With the same harsh judgment which the Government repeatedly visited upon others in similar plight, he would never again have been assigned to active service. If to any extent ho was responsible for the neglect before the battle of Pittsbuij- Landing, his conduct there was worse than a failure. HiB first assault on Vicks- burg failed. And his Meridian expedition was not at the time accounted a success. In subordinate positions, and mainly under the command of Grant, he had achieved great credit, and the army and the public alike recognized in him a competent corps- General. With the most, this was believed to be tho height of his capacity. It is to tho rare sagacity of General Grant in judging men that the country owes the brilliant and eventful career we have now to trace. Between these two the friendship that began almost at the outbreak of tlic war, cemented as it was in many an hour of danger and on many a hard-fonght field, had grown more intimate and confidential. When now, Grant was raised ' to tho Lieutenant-Generalship, in the fullness of hiis heart he sat down and wrote a letter to "Dear Sherman," giving him the news, and adding: "I want to ex- press ray thanks to you and MoPherson, as the men to whom, above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. How faa* your advice and * For the causes of this faihire see pott, Life of William Sooy Smith. William T. SheemajST. 447 assistance have been of help to me, you know. How far your execution of wluitever has been given j'ou to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving, you can not know as well as I." Warm, generous words, honorable alike to the writer and the one addressed ! But the reply is something more. It was graceful that General Sherman should say: "You do j-ourself injustice and us too much honor in assigning to us too large a share of the merits which have lijd to your high advancement. . . . You are now "Washington's . . stic- cessor, and occupy a j^osition of almost dangerous elevation ; but if you can continue, as heretofore, to be yourself, simple, honest, and unpretending, you will enjoy through life the respect and love of friends, and the homage of mill- ions of human beings that will award you a large share in securing to them and their descendants a government of law and stability." And it was frank to add: "My only point of doubt was in your knowledge of grand strategy and of books of science and history; but I confess your common sense seems to have supplied all these." So, too, it was natural that he should urge Grant to "come West; take to yourself the whole Mississippi Valley. Let us make it dead sure — and 1 tell you the Atlantic slopes and Paciffc shores will follow its .destiny. . . . Here lies the seat of coming empire, and from the West, when our task is done we will make short work of Charleston and Richmond, and the impoverished coast of the Atlantic." But it touched the limits of extrava- gant admiration; and was hardly free from a suspicion of flattery, to speak of Grant to his face as "Washington's legitimate successor," and to say, "I believe you are as bravo, i^atriotic, and just, as the great prototype Washington — as unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest, as a man sliould be."* Two days after this letter was sent, Sherman was appointed to the chief command between the Alleglianies and the Mississippi Eiver! He was summoned to meet Grant at ISTashville, and he traveled as far north with him as Cincinnati. In that visit the plans wore first outlined, the comple- tion of which ended the war. Later, General Grant sent liini a map, on which were traced the lines the several armies were to take. The bare possibility of some inquisitive postmaster having opened the package in which this was sent, threw Sherman's suspicious mind into a fever of apprehension. f Finally Grant wrote, under date 4th April, disclosing his complete programme. This was Sherman's share: "You I j»i"opose to move against Johnston's army, to break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy's country as far as you can, inflict- ing all the damage you can against their war resources. I do not propose to lay down for you a plan of campaign, but simply to lay down the work it is desirable to have done, and leave you free to execute in your own way. Submit to me, hovrcvcr, as early as you can, your plan of operations." Sherman responded promptly: "lam pushing stores to the front with all possible dis- patch. ... It will take us all of April to get in all our furloughed vet- * Eep. Cora. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, pp. 14, 15. t Ibid, p. 25. "I will cause inquiries to be made," writes Sherman, "lest the map has been seen by some eye intelligent enongh to read the meaning of the blue and red lines. We can not he too careful in these matters.'' 448 Ohio in the War. erans, . . and to collect provisions and cattle to the line of the Tennes- eee. . . At the signal, to be given by you, Schofield will . . drop down to Hi- awassee, and march on Johnston's right. . . Thomas will aim to have forty- five thousand men of all arms, and move straight on Johnston, wherever he may be, and fighting hira continuously, persistently, and to the best advantage. . . McPherson will have full thirty thousand of the best men in America. He will cross the Tennessee at Decatur, march toward Eome, and feel for Thomas. . . Should Johnston fall behind the Chattahoochie I would feign to the right, but pass to the left, and act on Atlanta, or on its eastern comm-unicationa, according to developed facts. This is' about as far ahead as I feel disposed to look."* Such then, was the campaign which our nervous, energetic General, now at last in independent command, and with ample force, proposed to himself. He would act first against Johnston; then against Atlanta, or its communications. For the work he had three armies, numbering, in the aggregate, a hundred thousand men.f He had, moreover, three Generals — a consideration of no less weightjr import. .If Grant could trace his success to Sherman and MePherson, Sherman might now well fortify his hopes for the campaign by remembering that he was privileged to command George H. Thomas, James B. MePherson, and J. M. Schofield, J with the long list of brave officers, educated to war in the war, comprised within the army of each. • Ibid, pp. 26, 27, 28. t The exact number w.as: Thomas's Army of the Cumberland, sixty thousand seven hundred and seventy-three J McPherson's Army of the Tennessee, twenty-four thousand four hundred.and sixty-five; Schofield's Army of the Ohio, thirteen thousand five hundred and fifty-niiie; total ninety-eight thonsand seven hundred and ninety-seven ; with the splendid artillery equipment of two hundred and fifty-four guns. The organization of these armies was as follows: AKMY OF THE CnMBEBI.AITD (THOMAS). {D. S. Stanley's division. John Newton's division. Thomas J. Woods's division. f JefT. 0. Davis's division. Fourteenth Corps — John M. Palmer, - •< R. W. Johnson's divison. (. A. Buird's division. {A. S. Williams's division. John W. Geary's division. Daniel Biitterfield's division. ARMY OP THE TENIIESSEE (MtPHEKSON). IP. J. Osterhaus's division. S'SsnuJhi'^^^i^r- Harrow's division. {T. £. 6. Ransom's division. John M. Corse's division. T. W. Sweeney's division. Seventeenth Corps-Frank P. Blair, Jr., | S'"^^^. ^- Woods's division. ' ' (. M. D. Leggett's division. ARMY OF THE OHIO ( SCHOFIELD). Twenty-Third Corps, { J^D ^Xdivi^on^'""" t The whole force had been reorganized, and from the assignment of corps commanden down, thfe President had given Sherman his choice in everything. William T. Sherman. 449 Against him stood the ablest commander remaining to the Confederacy, an accomplished and experienced soldier. But it was General Johnston's misfor- tune to be in ill favor at Richmond. He had but forty-five thousand men of all arms, with some possible recruits, in the doubtful shape of Georgia militia, with- out transportation, and cowed by the successive disasters which (under Bragg) had hurled them back from Nashville to Murfreesboro, to Tiillahoma, to Chatta- nooga, to Mission Ridge, and to Dalton. AVith this force, Mr. Davis was demanding that he should undertake an offensive campagn against the hundred thousand men that lay clustered about the fastnesses of Chattanooga. While they debated it, Sherman's last preparations were completed. Grant had first fixed the 25th of April for the simultaneous movement of the several grand armies; then, as he found the Army of the Potomac still unready, the 27th; then 1st May, and finally 5th May. On the 4th he sent the final order; on the 5th the campaign against Johnston and Atlanta opened. Sherman hoped to force Johnston to speedy and decisive battle; * Johnston, with the cautious wisdom that distinguished him, saw at once that, with his weak forces, his policy was to act on the defensive, draw Sherman away from his base, weaken his army at every step for guards for his attenuated line of sup- plies, and so finally bring on the decisive battle on something more nearly approaching equal terms. But he was nevertheless prepared to make his defensive campaign an obstinate one. His main defenses, in his present posi- tion, were along the Rocky Pace Ridge, a short distance north of Dalton; at Tunnel Hill and Buzzard's Roost Gaps. Here the heights were crowned with artillery, the approaches were obstructed with abattis, and, to complete the work, these were finally flooded by the aid of dams on the adjacent streams. Not pro- posing to sacrifice his soldiers against this impregnable position, General Sher- man made it his aim to maneuver Johnston into open ground, and then suddenly bring him to battle. To this end he sent Thomas to make a strong feint, directly against the works, while McPherson, marching from his position on the west around Johnston, should silently sieze the Snake Gap, and throw himself upon the railroad below him at Resaca, thus forcing him out of his craggy fastness to fight for his line of supplies. Thomas carried out his part of the plan admira- bly, and made so formidable a demonstration that he fairly forced himself into the gap on Johnston's front. Meantime McPherson hastened around on his western detour, only to find that Johnston had seen through the whole plan from the outset, and had effectually guarded against it. In ample time he had dis- patched troops to Resaca, and McPherson reported that he "found the place too strong to be taken by assault." And besides, so complete were Johnston's pre- parations, that he had not only fortified Resaca, but had so strengthened his tenure of the line of railway to Dalton, above, that McPherson found it impos- sible to burst in upon it anywhere. Yet more, he had cut roads through the rough country so as to be able, by a sudden march, to pounce down from Dalton ipon the flank of any adventurous force here seeking to molest his rear. Thus * "i hope the enemy will fight at Dalton," said Sherman in letter of instructions to McPher- son, 5th May.— Rep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866 Vol. I, p. 51. YoL. I.— 29. 450 Ohio in the Wab. endangered, McPherson thought it necessary for his own safety to draw back and fortify at Snake Gap; and so the first step in the campaign ended in failure. The cause will readily suggest itself to every one. The whole movement turned upon the success at Eesaca. The attack at Buzzard's Roost was only a feint. But the feint was committed to Thomas, with an army of sixty thousand; the real movement to McPherson, with an army of twenty-five thousand, which proved, in the judgment of its skillful commander, too weak to attack, or even to hold its ground and run the risk of being attacked. But Sherman, with a fertility of resource that was admirable, was ready at once for the contingency, although, as he said, "somewhat disappointed at the result." He at once pre- pared to make the attack at Eesaca with almost his entire force, .leaving only a single corps to keep up the feint at Buzzard's Eoost. So ended the first stage of the campaign. But Johnston was again to offer a skillful parry. No sooner had Sherman's movement commenced than, divining its object, his antagonist began to move to meet it. On the 13th Sherman's army began to aii-ive before Eesaca. On the 13th Johnston abandoned Dalton, and marched down to Eesaca, leaving the corps Sherman bad left keeping up the feint, to march quietly after him. Next morning when Sherman arrived, he perceived at a glance that be was foiled again. This time, however, he determined to fight; while, at the same time, he should again essay cutting Johnston's line of supplies. Frortf Eesaca southward the Oostenaula interposed its waters between Sherman and the railroad to Atlanta. Laying a pontoon bridge across this stream, a few miles below Eesaca, Sherman crossed here a single division. Behind this, and ranch further down, he sent Garrard's cavalry division to cut the railroad far to the south- ward. Then, placing Thomas in the center, McPherson on the right, and Scho- field on .the left, he made a fierce attack u]X)n the intrenchments of Eesaca. Thomas and Schofield found the obstructions too great, and gained little or nothing. McPherson fared better, and succeeded in securing ground whence his batteries swept the Eebel positions. Meantime, hearing of the pontoon bridge across the river a little way below him, and of the threat there made on hia rear, Johnston dispatched Hood to guard against this new danger. But before he could accomplish anj'thing Sherman was swinging his whole right across the bridge. This settled the matter. Johnston at once evacuated Eesaca, and retreated southward, burning the bridges behind him. Thus ended the second stage of the campaign. It cost between four and five thousand men, while the Rebel loss was proportionately far less, on account of their intrenchments, and the" result was finally obtained, not by sanguinary fighting, but by the bloodless flanking operations below the town. Sherman was again disappointed in seeking to force Johnston's fprty-five thousand to pitched battle with his hundred thousand — ho must find his battle-field yet further from his base. Pursuit was promptly begun. McPhei-son had a skirmish at Calhoun; there was a brisker little engagement at Adairsvilie; and finally Johnston was William T. Sheeman. 451 S.LOVEJOY SHE'RMAN'S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. William T. Sherman. 453 found intrenched at Cassville, a point on the railroad about midway between Chattanooga and Atlanta. The Rebel army was now re-enforced by a fresh division of Polk's corps, making it a little stronger than at the outset of the campaign; and an attack was ordered on Sherman's advancing columns. But the orders were misunderstood; nothing was done, and Sherman soon had his artillery favorably posted, and playing upon the intrenchments. Hood and Polk, at nightfall, waited upon Johnston and urged a retreat, insisting that the National artillery made their positions untenable. The Eebel commander dis- sented from their views; but the representations of his two best officers had so strong an influence upon him that, against his better judgment, he finally con- sented. Next morning Sherman found his antagonist gone. So ended one more stage in the campaign. Already far down into the enemy's country, beyond what, six months before, had seemed the utmost capacity of the Government to supply the army, Sherman did not hesitate. Thus far he had wonderfully preserved the thread of railroad by which his supplies passed through the hostile regions of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Northern Georgia, to reach him; and, emboldened by his suc- cess, and fertile in expedients, he at once resolved on yet more hazardous ven- tures. He was greatly disappointed in being unable to bring Johnston to decisive battle, and he knew full well the aim of "that astute commander,'' as he often styled him, in drawing him yet further and further from his base of supplies. But re-enforcements continued to reach him, and with bold hearts his troops once more turned their faces southward. Sherman's thorough study of the topographical features of the country led him to the belief that Johnston's next stand would be in the strong natural position of Allatoona Pass, a point he had no desire to attack. Loading his wagons, therefore, with food and powder he made a long stride away from his railroad — marching far to the south-westward of Johnston's supposed position, and hoping to sieze Dallas, toward the west and rear of Allatoona Pass. But "the astute commander" saw through Sherman's efforts to mask his real pur- pose; and when the heads of columns appeared near Dallas they found John- ston behind formidable intrenchments, ready to receive them. Here, in the vicinity of New Hope Church, Hooker, who led the advance of Thomas's army, had a fierce engagement as he came up on the 25th of May; and for the next three days there was skirmishing, Sometimes swelling into heavy fighting, all along the lines. On the 27 th Sherman ordered an assault, which cost some three thousand men, while the enemy lost only four hundred and fifty, and held his ground. The next day, however, Johnston fell upon McPherson's army, but found it already behind good breastworks, and received an equally bloody repulse. Thus, for ten days, stood the two skillful antagonists, fairly matched, facing each other with thrust and parry. But Sherman was not so to be balked. To flank again to the westward would throw him, as he thought, too far from the railroad, with which it was vital to maintain his connection. He therefore gradually extended his lines to the eastward, Johnston closely watching and followino- everv move. Throwing his cavalry out, he succeeded in siezing Alia- 454 Ohio in the Wae. toona Pass, and Acworth, on the railroad; then, establishing himself there, he began to accumulate supplies and prepare for a desperate grapple with the enemy, who, still resolutely confronting him, now lay a. little further down on the railroad at Marietta. Between the hostile armies interposed a mountain spur— henceforth as bloody and ill-omened a name in our history as Freder- icksburg— the heights of Kenesaw. They were held by the enemy. Within the next five days Sherman had the railroad repaired to his very camps, had abundant supplies, and was ready for a fresh movement. Weary of perpetual flanking, which seemed only to result in driving the enemy to stronger positions, and knowing very well what his antagonist hoped in thus drawing him on, he now determined to abandon his effort to bring on a battle on equal ground, and to attack Johnston just where Johnston had prepared for attack. Yet the results of his reconnoissances might well have given him pause. Directly in front loomed Kenesaw, bristling with batteries, scarred with in- trenchments and abattis. To the west, securely covering the flank, was Lost Mountain; thrust forward between the two was Pine Hill. But, with his quick eye for detecting the salient points of a position, Sherman saw that this, Una was too much extended for Johnston's weak force, and trusting to the chances that might result from carrying the weaker of the heights, he proceeded to attack. From the 9th of June, on which the advance was made, till the 3d of July, Sherman lay beating away his strength against those rock-bound barriers. He soon, indeed, forced Johnston oft" Lost Mountain and Pine Hill; but in so doing he only strengthened his position. Emboldened, however, by these successes, as it would seem, and doubtless remembering the scaling of Mission Eidge, at which all the world wondered, he now brpught himself, well knowing the dan- ger, to order an attack on Kcne,«;uv itself. .Ample time was given for prepara- tion. Finally, on the 27th, the batteries swept the mountain side with a fearful storm of shell; and at last two armies, Thomas's and McPherson's, rlished to the assault. They were completely and bloodily repulsed; the position was im- pregnable. "Failure it was, and for it I assume the entire responsibility," said Sherman, manfully. It would have been better for his fame if he had there rested. But, as has ah'eady been seen, it was a characteristic of this gifted commander's mind to ho unwilling ever to acknowledge an error ;='•= and so he must needs prove that the failure was advantageous: "I claim that it produced good fruits, as it demonstrated to General Johnston that I would assault, and that boldly." Xovel reason for battle — to make the cnemj^ understand his intentions! Asa mistake, the first in a brilliant and highly successful campaign.-j- it would have * So wiirni an admirer of General Sherman, and so acute a military critic as Mr. Swinton, has here been (creed to substantially the same observation : "The other alternative (from as-sault), that of flanking," he says, "would, if now adopted, suggest the query why it had not been chosen before, with saving of time and troops. Accordingly, Sherman felt authorized to wiakeone grand apsanlt." — Decisive Battles of the War, p. 403. , t Or, at most, the second, if taking the bulk of the army for a feint at Resaca he reckoned Uie first. William T. Sherman. 455 been cordially pardoned. Who ever thought the less for it of that Frederick who wrote, "I have lost a great battle, and solely by my own fault?" But as a wise movement, neither the Government nor the Country was disposed to accept it. Presently, General Sherman thought it necessary to argue the point: "The assault," he writes to the Chief of Staff at Washington, "was no mistake. I had to do it. The enemy and our own army and ofScers had settled down into the conviction that the assault of lines formed no part of my game, and the moment the enemy was found behind anything like a parapet, whj-, everybody would deploy, throw up counter-works, and take it easy, leaving it to the 'old man' to turn the position. "=!= There is more of it in this and many other letters, but this is enough. Proud as he was of his army, he was yet ready to slander it in seeking defense for his course. Under his management, forsooth, its discipline had fallen so low that it had to be slaughtered in order to fit it for fighting! And yet, a few days later, we find him apologetically explaining to General Grant that his army had "lost nothing in morale in the assault,"f — not because the assault had tended to improve the morale, as he has just been argu- ing, but because he prevented its injurious -effects by speedily following it up with other movements. Here, indeed, was his great merit. Unshaken by misfortune, he rose above it to fresh brilliancj-. Instantly recognizing, with that swift perception that had so often stood him in good stead, the utter impossibility of seeking by further efforts to driae Johnston out of Kenesaw, he once more launched out his flanking column far to the south-westward. Straightway, in the darkness of a single liight, Kenesaw fell without a blow! Johnston first halted at Smyrna Church, then, as Sherman's quick maneu- vers threw him out of this position, fell back beyond the Chattahoochie. Sher- man pushed forward, and lo! in sight rose the spir6s of Atlanta! But between him and them lay the network of defenses, drawn and held by a skillful General, whose parapets were for many weary days to keep the army at bay. Johnston now considered that the long-awaited favorable moment had come for decisive battle. He had compelled the powerful antagonist, who mus- tered more than two soldiers to his one, to spend seventj^-two daj'S in marching a hundred miles; he had lured him on to attack fortified positions, and, as he believed, had inflicted gi-eat loss. As the line lengthened, he knew that the assailant must weaken his forces at the front to j^rotect it, and he reckoned on this as a cause of still greater depletion in the hostile ranks. Meanwhile his own were strengtheneTi. Whereas he had begun the campaign with scarcelj'' forty-five thousand men, yet now, notwithstanding the natural losses of so active a series of operations, his re-enforcements had raised his strength to fifty- one thousand.! Believing, therefore, that he at last approached terms of equal- *Eep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, p. 114. tibid, p. 122. t Johnston's entire losses in the campaign, thus far, were ten thousand killed and wounded, and four thousand seven hundred from other causes. He had inflicted much greater loss upon Sherman. He estimates it at five times his own. 456 Ohio in the Wae. itv with his antagonist, he prepared such measures as seemed to promise decisive victory. Sherman, remembering his plan for demonstrating on the east side of Atlanta or its communications, as announced to Grant at the outset, had already crossed the Chattahoochie to the eastward of the railroad and city; but between him and Atlanta there still lay the swampy banks of Peachtree Creek. On the further side of this stream Johnston prepared his first works. He proposed that Sherman should be permitted to cross; that then, sallying from his works, he would fall upon the adventurous army and essay to drive it back in confusion into the stream. Failing in this, his next plan would be to draw off to the South and East, deserting these works, and leaving Sherman to march fair upon Atlanta. Then, issuing from his new positions, he would fall upon the flank of Sherman's passing column, break it if possible, and beat the fragments in detail. Such was the recej)tion preparing for our army, wheu the Eebels, them- selves dealing the weightiest blows to their own cause, came to our aid. " Such a mysterious blow to the- Confederacy," says an able military critic,* "was that by which General Johnston was removed from its Western army, when he was most needful for its salvation ; kept from its command till an intei-vening General had ruined and disintegi-ated it, and then gravely restored to the leadership of its pitiful fragments." There was left to oppose Sherman's advance. General J. B. Hood! It was a sorry contrast. The one, warlike bj' instinct, trained to military methods, and educated by long experience, was now the most brilliant soldier in the armies of his country. The other was a brave, rash, inconsiderate fighter — noth- ing more. Conscious, as it would seem, of his unfitness for the task to which the blind passions of the Confederate President had assigned him, he appealed to his late chief for assistance. Johnston explained all his plans, and Hood adopting them, at once proceeded to essay their execution. So it hapjiened that, when Sherman, advancing across the Peachtree Creek, was coming out upon the firm ground, whence he hoped to march on Atlanta, he was suddenly struck with tremendous force at an unfortunate gap be- tween Schofield and Thomas. Pushing his advantage, bravely hut not skillfully. General Hood strove to carry but Johnston's plan, and drive the disordered columns into the stream. But a part of the line had been protected by hastily- erected breastworks of rails; here the onset was handsomely resisted, the other corps rallied and were re-enforced, and, in the end, Hood was driven back to his intrenchments, with a loss, as Sherman estimated it, of well-nigh five thousand men. Sherman's own loss was but one thousand seven hundred and thirty-three. Foiled at the outset, Hood next faithfully strove to carry out Johnston's second plan. In the night he abandoned his Peachtree lines and drew down to his fortifications east of Atlanta. Next morning, Sherman was astonished to .find that the works whence had flamed forth such fierce attack, were deserted-. In the first surprise, and with his natural swiflness of reasoning, he leaped to the conclusion that Atlanta itself must be evacuated; and straightway he put * Swinton's Decisive Battles of the War, p. 405. William T. Sherman. 457 his columns in motion to occupy the city. It was nearly noon* when Hood, lying in wait, conceived the opportune moment to have come. Issuing, then, from his works, far to the rear of Sherman's advance, he fell upon his flank, where McPherson's army was marching. The attack was irresistible ; the col- umn, broken and in some disorder, was pushed back, some batteries were cap- tured, McPherson himself — weightiest loss of all — was killed. But Sherman, never long disconcerted by anything, quickly disposed his greatly superior force, hurried up Schofield, and at last, after a terrible struggle, continuing from noon till night, beat Hood back. The battle cost Sherman three thousand seven hun- dred and twenty -two men ; he estimated Hood's loss at eight thousand, which was doubtless something of an exaggeration. Hood now drew back into the works immediately around the city ; Sherman dispatched cavalry to attempt cutting the Eebel communications ; then at last,"]" convinced that there was no hope on the east side of Atlanta, swung over to the west. But Hood, discerning the movement, marched as promptly, and the next day struck the National lines in what Sherman himself called a "magnificent assault." But it was timed a little too late. Ko sooner had Sherman's troops been halted than their very first moments had been given to throwing up rapid breastworks. Behind these, therefore, they met Hood's onset. It was fiercely made, and tor four hours continued, with a final result of six hundred lost to Sherman, and, as he estimated, not less than five thousand to Hood. The desperate struggles of the army that stood savagely at bay in Atlanta here ended for a little — apparently through- sheer exhaustion. Sherman com- pleted his works, planted batteries, shelled the town (frequently setting it on fire), and gradually extended his lines around to the southward, toward the rail- road by which Hood drew the bulk of his supplies. Schofield was ordered to attempt breaking through the enemy's southern lines, but the effort failed. There followed a period of bombardments, of skirmishing along the line, of simultaneous extensions of works on either hand. It was now the middle of August. For a month Sherman had lain bafHed in sight of Atlanta. His army was reduced ; periods of enlistment were fiist expiring; new levies of enormous magnitude began to be contemplated with alarm at the North. To what end, they asked, all this waste of blood and treasure? We gain barren lines of railroad by strategic marches, but the fight- ing is against us, the Eebel army confronts us, and in the West, as at the East, the fortifications of the city we have spent a whole campaign in trj'ingto reduce still defy us. The old distrust of Sherman was not yet fully allayed, and even his warmest admirers grew uneasy. At last the great convention of the anti-war party assembled at Chicago. In the height of their opposition to_ the prosecution of hostilities, they pointed to Sherman's foiled armies before Atlanta, and proclaimed that the war for the restoration of the Union was a failure. But, on the very day before that resolution passed, there began an eventful movement, which, a month afterward, those political managers would have * On 22d July, 1864. 1 July 27th. 458 Ohio in the Wak. given untold sums to have foreseen. Genei-al Sherman had sent Kiljjatrick to make a serious break on the railroads south of Atlanta — taking advantage of the opportune absence of Hood's cavalry on a similar errand northward. But Kilpatrick was not satisfactorily successful. Meantime it would seem that Sherman himself had grown uneasy at the protracted contest, and would will- ingly have stayed his hand. He cast longing looks to Mobile and its rivers for help. He sent dispatcpes to know if Mobile were likely to fall, and said that if it were he would quietly await the event. He dwelt upon the danger to his communications, the peril of carrying his flanking operations further. Across the mountains, his great friend, the General-in-Chief, lay before another beleaguered city in similar perplexity. There no device was practiced save a steady extension of the lines. Bnt at last, having fully counted the cost, Sher- man took his resolution. Filling his wagons with supplies, and cutting loose from his base, he swung around to the south-westward with the bulk of his army. He first struck the West Point Railroad, broke and thoroughly destroyed it for many miles ; and then, while the Chicago Convention is proclaiming the war a failure, pushes straight eastward, for the only remaining railroad con- necting Atlanta with the Confederacy. He strikes it near Jonesboro', finds a considerable portion of Hood's army here, fights and repulses them, interposes between them and Atlanta, and proceeds with a vigorous destruction of the track. Hood now needs no strategist to tell him the effect of that repulse. That night* dull reverberations at the north, in the direction of Atlanta, arouse the sleepers. It is the end of the long campaign. Hood is evacuating the city, out of which he has been maneuvered. The exultation of the armj' was tempered by the remembrance of the graves that lined the railroad back to Chattanooga, and of the fi-esh perils that came with the victory. But the rejoicing of the country knew no bounds. General Grant fired a shotted salute from every battery bearing on the enemy about I'iclunond in honor of the great achievement of his friend. The Presi- dent ordered a salute of a hundred guns from each leading city and military post in the country; and in special executive order tendered to General Sher- man the thanks of the Nation for " the distinguished ability, perseverance, and courage displayed in the campaign." Bells rang, flags were hung out, bonfires were burnt in the leading cities. From the day that the capture of Atlanta was announced, the party that had resolved that the war was a failure was defeated. The Presidential contest was settled when Sherman cut loose from his base. The name and praise of Sherman were in every mouth. From positive unpopularity, or cold and questioning respect, he suddenly found him- self burdened by the heartfelt homage of an impulsive and grateful people. The popular verdict indeed made amends to Sherman for previous coldness by fervid excess of praise. Of the remarkable campaign thus happily ended, it must be said that its main object was, after all, unattained. General Sher- man had sought to bring the Eobel army to decisive battle at Dalton ; he had * September 1, 1864. The camp.iign began 5th Mav, and thus la.5ted about four months. William T. Sherman. 459 sought it at every stage of his advance ; but the army had at last escaped him, shattered, indeed, but still an effective organization, with all its trains and war materiel intact. He had neither crushed it nor signally defeated it. But, viewed simply as an operation for conquering territory, the entire campaign was mas- terly. Each feature, its tactics, its logistics, its strategy, was equallj^ admirable. Blunders there undoubtedly were. Need we recall again that wise saying of Marshal Turenne's, " "Whoever has committed no faults has not made war." But, as a whole, the campaign will long be studied as a brilliant exemplification of sound military principles skillfully put in practice. Two features in it will always attract special attention : the marvelous manner in which, by judicious accumulations of supplies at various secondary bases along the route, thoroughly protected by strong garrisons and fortifications, the army was kept constantly supplied, in spite of raids to the rear, the hostility of the inhabitants, and the inevitable exposure of so unprecodentedly long a line; and the no less marvel- ous manner in which, moving great armies over great spaces, in the face of a wary antagonist. General Sherman handled them as deftly and as. precisely as he might the pieces on a chess-board. But the fall of Atlanta, brought to General Sherman new perplexities. He had advanced beyond it a little, had found the enemy opposing a strong front in well-chosen defensive positions, and had felt unable to attack. He dared not prolong his line another score of miles; already he was sure that Hood's forces, if reasonably well-handled, were strong enough to break it and throw him back upon Chattanooga ; at the farthest he could only hope, by the vigorous use of his army, to defend the railroad which supplied him, and main- tain himself at the end of it. To what purpose? He perplexedly considered the question, as he lay listening to the thunders of Northern applause, sending home the thousands of troops whose time of service had expired, and refitting the remainder. Meantime it was easy to see how success had elated the man, and increased the natural absolutism of all his mental processes. Before Atlanta, indeed, there had thus been bred a habit of command that did not always stop within legiti- mate limits. 0pj)0sed from the outset to the enlistment of negro troops, he had chosen, in a letter to the head-quarters of the army, to denounce the law of Congress for sending recruiting-agents for them into the Eebel States as the height of folly, and to declare that he would not permit its enforcement within his command.* Even less objectionable services were barely tolerated : " The Sanitary and Christian Commissions," he declared, " are enough to eradicate all trace of Christianity from our minds, much less a set of unscrupulous State agents in search of recruits." When the agent of Massachusetts applied for a pass to the army, in accordance with the law, he gave him one instead into *'rlie exact language was: "I must e,^pre.s8 my opinion that it i.? the height of folly. I can not permit it here. I will not have a set of fellows hanging about on any such pretences." Report Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, p. 123. Tlbid. 460 Ohio in the Wab. the Eebol lines, and pleasantly advised him to open recruiting-offices in Mobile, Montgomery, Savannah, and similar Eebel posts; while to help the matter he added that "civilian agents about an army were a nuisance," — a proposition of more palpable truth than politeness, and not exactly sufficient to overturn a law of Congress* The Governor of Minnesota wished to send a military commissioner to look after the sick and wounded from his State — a species of generous care for their soldiers practiced by the Governments of most of the States throughout the war, and often attended with the happiest results. General Sherman perempto- rily refused to give him a pass, on the ground that it would be loading down the cars with passengers, and excluding provisions for the soldiers If To such lengths had his imperious temper, and his hostility to State or civilian agencies, carried him. On another point his views were more alarming. Expressing his regret that Governor Bramlette, of Kentucky, had not felt warranted by law to carry out his extraordinary recommendation for " arresting every fellow hang- ing about the towns, villages, and cross-roads, who had no honest calling," he declared that, "in our country personal liberty has been so well secured that public safety is lost sight of in our laws and constitutions; and the fact is we are thrown back a hundred j'oars in civilization, law, and everything else, and will go right straight to anarchy and the devil if somebody doesn't arrest our downward progress. We, the military, must do it, and we have right and law on our side." J This, in a letter of instructions to a military commander, as late as June, 1864, in defense of the policy of arresting by wholesale, without warrant or process, unaccused persons throughout an entire State, not openly in rebellion, because their occupations did not seem satisfactory to the petty ofiScers in command at the various posts! It will not now seem wonderful that after still other brilliant successes in the field had still further elated our General, he should carry his disposition to absorb all power into his own hands to an extent that, for a little time, proved alarming alike to the Government and to the whole country. He was not, indeed, backward at any time in traveling to the verge of hia own sphere, to volunteer opinions, advice, or protest. The promotion by the President of General Osterhaus to a Major-Generalship displeased him, and he straightway telegraphed the Department: "I wish to put on record this, my emphatic opinion, that it is an act of injustice to officers who stand by their posts in the day of danger to neglect them and advance such as General Hovey and General Osterhaus, who left us in the midst of bullets to go to the rear in ® Sherman and his Campaigns, pp. 236, 237. t Eep. Com. Con. War. Series of 186G, Vol. I, pp. 146, 147. The language is: "It seems that Dr. Luke Miller, a commissioner of your State, lias been denied a pass on the military rail- road below Nashville, for the purpose of ministering to the wants of the sick and wounded sol- diers of your State here at the front. You will be amazed when on this simple statement I must accuse you of heartless cruelty to your constituents, but such is the fact. You would take the very bread and meat out of your soldiers' mouths, . . . would load down our cars with trav- elers, and limit our ability to feed our horses, and transport the powder and ball necessary to carry on this war." t Letter of instructions to General Burbridge. Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 233. William T. Shekman. 461 Bcarcli of personal advancement." In the midst of his perplexity before Atlanta, just after his failures on the eastern side, and while he was hesitating about swinging to the south-westward, he found time to volunteer General Canby advice as to the best way of taking Mobile,* and Admiral Parragut suggestions as to the stationing of his fleet, but they do not seem to have been followed. While at bay before Dallas, he telegraphed that he thought Grant, by the move on Hanover 0. H., which he regarded specially admirable, could force Lee to attack him in position or to move away toward Gordonsville or Lynchburg,f but Lee failed to perceive the necessity. In the same temper we now find him sending messages through his lines to Governor Brown, of Georgia, and to Alexander H. Stephens, telling them on what terms they could have peace, and how Georgia might escape being ravaged by his army. The Government had little fault to find with the substance of these communications; but it was a startling symptom that a military officer, having certain specific military duties to perform, should, without authority, enter into peace negotiations with prominent civil officials of the Eebel Govern- ment; and even trustful Mr. Lincoln — a little alarmed as it would seem — pro- posed to himself a visit to General Sherman's head-quarters to look into the matter. J Yet it is noteworthy that in all this the intention seems always good. The General gradually assumed more and more authority to interfere in all sorts of matters, but a word from the Government was always sufiicient to chock him, and he generally made full and frank reports of his exceptional doings. Meanwhile he had grown to be the idol of his troops. Their faith in Sher- man was boundless; their zeal for him flaming. Like McClellan, he had skill- fully cultivated this feeling, though he displayed far more art in concealing his arts of popularity. He was always jealous of their privileges. He took great pains to keep them abundantly supplied. The whistle of the provision-train's locomotive in their works, almost before they had finished the skirmish that secured them, was a perpetual reminder of the care of their General. He was never laggard in extolling their exploits. Even when, in congratulatory orders, he said, "The crossing of the Chattahoochee was most handsomely executed by us, and will be studied as an example in the art of war,"|| the troops, overlook- ing the egotism for the sake of the praise, were in raptures over the eulogium which the fortunate "us" enabled them to share. Nor was he less careful of his officers. To the shirks he was remorselessly severe; and sometimes he took an inexplicable dislike to a good officer, as when, preferring the mediocre Howard to Hooker for the command of a force less than twenty -five thousand strong, he said of the latter that he "was not qualified for or suited to it," and that he might leave if he wanted to — he was "not indis- * "I would advise that a single gunboat lie above Pilot Cove, and prevent supplies going to Fort Morgan. To reduce Mobile, I would pass a force up the Tensas and across to Old Fort Stod- dard." Dispatch of 17th August to Canby. Kep. Com. Con.. War, iibi supra, p. 175. tlbid,p. 77. V t Eep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, p. 197. Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 612. II Order on fall of Atlanta. 462 Opiio in the War. pensable to success."* But, save in a very few such instances, he was kind and almost paternal in his regard for the welfare of the oflScers who deserved well. In mentioning to one of his army commanders, that in a division just sent him was a certain brigade, he took pains- to say that it was commanded "by Charles E. Woods, whom you will find a magnificent officer." His letter on the death of McPherson was as touching and tender as a woman's. When Palmer became involved in a question of rank with Schofield,. Sherman decided against him. Subsequently he heard that Palmer felt aggrieved and was about to resign. Writing at length to him at once he begged him to reconsider this determina- tion : "Your future is too valuable to be staked on a mistake. If you want to resign, wait a fewMays and allege some other reason — one that will stand the test of time. Do not disregard the friendly advice of such men as General Thomas and myself, for you can not misconstrue our friendly feelings toward you."f He feared that a corps general was prejudiced against one of his division commanders; and, in the midst of the fighting, he stopped to write a letter to General Logan about it. " I have noticed for some time a growing dis- satisfaction on the part of General Dodge with General Sweeney. It may be personal. See that General Dodge prefers specific charges and sjiecifications; and you, as the army commander, must be the judge of the sufficiency of the charges. . . . You can see how cruel it would be to a brave and sensitive gentleman and officer to be arrested and sent to the rear at this time. I fear that General Sweeney will feel that even I am influenced against him . . . but it is not so. "J By such kindness, care, and watchful justice, was it that personal bickerings and jealousies were wonderfully removed, so that the army with which General Sherman was now to essay undertakings not less remarka- ble than his late ones, became the most brotherly, the most soldierly, the most harmonious that ever marched on the continent. When Sherman was forecasting the hazards of the movements by which Atlanta foil, he dvvolt esjjecially on the danger of being i^ermanentlyeut offfi-om the base which he was temporarily to abandon. "If I should be," he telegraphs to the Chief-of-Staff at Washington, "look out for me about St. Marks, Florida, or Savannah, Georgia."|| To the authorities at Washington, this doubtless seemed chimerical enough, but Sherman kept revolving the idea. He was not yet, however, cut off from his base. Then came the dangers to his line, and the uncertainty about Mobile, to which, as we have seen, he had often longingly looked. Under these new impulses, before he had entered Atlanta, he had tele- graphed to Washington his plans for the next campaign : " Canby should now proceed with all energy to get Montgomery, and the reach of the Alabama Eiver above Selma ; that, when I know he can move on Columbus, Georgia, I move on La Grange and West Point, keeping to the east of the Chattahooehie; that we form a junction, repair roads to Montgomery, open up the Appalaehicola •Rep. Com. Con. War, ubi mpra, p. 142. tibid, p. 155. tRep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, pp. 139, 140. II Ibid, p. 107. Dispatch of date 13th August, 1864. William T. Shekman. 463 and Ghattalioocbie Eivors to Columbus, and move from it as a base, straight on Macon. This campaign can be made in the winter."* And, in the same dis- patch, he added, as if it were an element of this plan :""I propose to move all the inhabitants of Atlanta, sending those committed to our cause to the roar, and the Eebel families to the front, ... so that we will have the entire use of the railroad back, and also such corn and forage as maj' be reached by our troops. If th^ people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.'' This last determination he executed to the letter. A small portion of the inhabitants were sent north wai'd. Four hundred and forty-six families, embrac- ing over two thousand souls, were sent south — being permitted to take an aver- age of not three hundred and fifty pounds of personal eifects of all kinds to each person. We have told this story in few and simple words; but the sufferings it entailed could scarcely be described in a volume. The Mayor of Atlanta in one touching paragraph, gave a faint shadowing of the story: "It involves in the aggregate consequences appalling and heart-rending. Many poor women are in an advanced state of pregnancy; others now have young children, and their husbands are either in the army, prisoners, or dead. Some say, 'I have such an one sick at home; who will wait on them when I am gone?' Others say, 'What are we to do? We have no houses to go to and no means to buy, build, or rent any- — no parents, friends, or relatives to go to.' The country south of this is already crowded with refugees, and without houses to accommodate the people ; and . . many are now starving in churches and other out-buildings. This being so, how is it possible for the people here (mostly women and children) to fiud any shelter? and how can they live through the winter in the woods — no shelter nor subsistence, in the midst of strangers who know them not, and with- out the power to assist them if they were willing to do so?" General Shermaij's rej^lj' to this touching appeal was one of the happiest and most convincing specimens of the ad captandum argument that has ever been offered: "I give full credit,'' he said, "to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke n\y order, simply because my orders are not designed to mee* the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions, yea, hundreds of millions of good peoi:)le outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. . . . The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. ... I can not dis- cuss this subject with you fairly, because I can not impart to you what I propose to do, but I assert that my military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away. . . . Tou can not qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you can not refine it; and those who brought war on our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. . . . You might as well appeal against the thunder-stoi-m as against these terrible hardships of war. . . . But . . when peace comes you may call upon me * Eeport Com. Con. Wiir.- Series of 1866, Vol. I, p. 190. Dispatch qf date 4th September, from Lovejoy's, sent in cipher. ' 464 Ohio in thk War. for anything. Then will I share with you the l?iBt cracker, and watch with you to shield your home and families against danger from every quarter. Now you must go and take with you the old and feeble; feed and nurse them, and build for them in more quiet places proper habitations to shield them against the weather, until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to settle on your old homes at Atlanta." The trenchant statement, of which we have here condensed the outlines, was at once accepted as ample excuse for the sufferings inflicted on the people of Atlanta. It was accepted, indeed, for far more. The Administration party reprinted it as a campaign document, considered to condense and elucidate the heart and substance of the struggle; the Secretary of War brought himself to unaccustomed words of eulogy after its perusal ; the newspaper press reproduced it with rapturous comments, and the people considered it at once the end of argument, and the evidence of a breadth of ability they had never before sus- pected in its author. Now that the passions of the war have cooled down, we can scarcely contemplate it with the same feelings. General Sherman could not exj)lain to the Mayor of Atlanta his reasons for the measure, and therefore his declaration that his plans made it necessary was sufBcient. But we now have (in the dispatch above quoted) his own statement of what made it necessary. It was that he might "have the entire use of the railroad back, as also such corn and forage as might be reached by the troops." General Sherman was at the head of an army of a hundred thousand men. Here was a community of women and children, the "feeble folk" who could not follow or precede Hood's retreat, two thousand in number, with, as the Mayor assured him, a "respectable number" who could subsist for several months without assistance, and another " respecta- ble number '' who would not need assistance at anytime. General Sherman had already contemplated cutting loose from this base altogether ; his present plan was to unite with another force, with Mobile as a base ; and it will scarcely be thought that the selling of supplies for a month or two to such portion of these two thousand women and children as might need them, would have in- terfered with either of these plans. Furthermore, with that looseness of expression which may often be noticed in General Sherman's resort to the pen as a weapon, he committed himself to a barbarism which no officer in the army would be quicker to repel than himself The cruelty of war can be refined, and the army hold.s no greater stickler for its refinements than General Sherman. How long was it till he was declaring (substantially) that if the truce which he had made with General Johnston, though disapproved, and to be void in a few hours, should be violated by one hour by United States troops, he himself would unite with the Eebel General to punish the violators? It was presently to appear that neither Atlanta nor the railroad that sup- plied it were longer of any importance in the great game that Sherman played. Finding that Mobile was not to be counted on, he cast about for some new plan of campaign, and presently fell again upon his old idea of "turning up" "at St. Marks, Florida, or Savannah, Georgia." As early as September 20t.h he had his plans somewhat elaborated. Not yet, however, had he reached the pitch of William T. SiiEEiiAN. 465 audacious daring that the subsequent march down to the sea required. He still looked to co-operating movements for assistance. If Grant would take Wilming- ton, and then "fix a day t^b be in Savannah," he "would not hesitate to cross the State of Georgia with sixty thousand men," assured that "where a million of people find subsistence my (his) army won't starve." Till Savannah fell, he thought it would be enough for him " to keep Hood employed, and put the army in fine order for a march on Augusta, Columbus, and Charleston."* But now an unexpected counselor was to aid in the decision. This was none other than Hood himself; who, under the spur of Mr. Davis's visit to the West to inspire new life into the drooping affairs of the Confederacy, determined upon an aggressive campaign, which, cutting Sherman's line of supplies, should tlirew him back to the Tennessee, only to find his antagonist ahead of him, once more ip possession of the fertile country about Murfreesboro' and Nashville. The moment this project was fairly disclosed, Sherman's inspiration came to him. " If Hood will go to Tennessee," he exclaimed, " I will furnish him rations for the trip." He at once decided on detaching Thomas to take care of Hood, arid mai'ching through to the Atlantic with the rest of the army. He under- stood precisely what he was doing. " The movement," he writes, "is not jjurely military or strategic, but it will illustrate the vulnerability of the South." And now ensued a month of measureless activitj''. Hood threw himself upon the railroad, was repulsed, then moved off in directions for a time uncer- tain and to the highest degree mystifying. Troops wore marched hither and thither to guard against him. Sherman himself flew back and forth ; the tele- graph was burdened with messages to his Generals; couriers w'ere kept con- stantly on the run. Hood might venture to the Tennessee, so Sherman finally assured Thomas, but he did not believe he would cross it. As soon as he found tlie army sweeping southward from Atlanta, he would be compelled to turn and follow it.f But "having alternatives, I can take so eccentric a course that no General can guess at my objective."! Every preparation was accordingly hastened for marching southward as fast as Hood was going northward. Thomas was strengthened and fully in- structed; supplies were accumulated ; the army was re-organized and re-enforced till, without Thomas, it numbered sixty-six thousand; A.tlanta and the railroad back to Dalton were destroyed; last messages wore sent and instructions re- ceived; the telegraph connecting the head-quarters with the North was cut; and on the 12th of November the army, to which all eyes had so long turned, disap- peared from the Northern gaze. || The Government and the public alike resorted to the Eichmond newspapers for accounts of Sherman. The people of the North were as much puzzled as the Eebels themselves, to decide where he was going. Charleston, Mobile, *Rep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. 1, p. 200. Letter to Grant of date 20th Sep- icmber, 1864. tEep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, pp. 213, 226. t.Ibid, p. 235. II Instead of the rather stilted designation of " armies," the two organizations remaining in Vol- I.— 30. 466 Ohio in the War. Savannah, St. Marks, were all canvassed; while others, remembering the Meri- dian raid, predicted that before long he would be heard of again at Athiiita. For a time it was believed that his cavalry must be almost destroyed. Every day's issue of the Richmond papers contained fresh accounts of how Wheeler Slierman's force after the withdrawal of Thomafl were now entitled respectively the right and left wings. The following was their organization : BIGHT WING— MAJOU-GEXERAL HOWARD. Fifteenth Corps — Major-Genetal Oster haus. J Divisions of Brigadier-General Charles E. Wood. Brigadier-General William B. Hazeo. Brigadier-General Jolm E. Smith. Brigadier-General John M. Cor«e. ,„ T>i./-,,iT^if Divisions of Major-General John A. Mower. Seventeenth Corps-Major-Gen al Frank J Brig;i\iier-General M. D. Leggett. P. Blair, jr. y Brigadier-General Giles A. Smith. LEFT WING— MAJOR-GENERAL H. W. 8L0CUU. _ , _ T> ^ HI • /-I f Divisions of Brigadier-General William P. Carlin. Fourteenth Corps-Brevet Major-Gen- I Bri|adicr-General Jan.es D. Morgan, eral Jeff. C. DaviB. (^ Brigadier-General A. Baird. _ ,. ., „ Tl■J•/^ lA r Divisions of Brigadier-General Norman J. Jackson. Twentie h Corps-Brigadier-Qeneral A. I Brigadier-General John W. Geary. S. Williams. (^ Brigadier-General William T. Ward. Besides, there were two brigades of cavalry under General Kilpatrick. A popular biographer of Sherman preserves the following fugitive sketch of his appearance at the outset of the Atlanta and Savannah campaign : " While I was watching to-day the end- less line of troops shifting by, an officer with a modest escort rode up to the fence near which I was standing, and dismounted. He was rather tall and slender, and his quick movemenb denoted good muscle added to absolute leanness — not thinness. His uniform was neither new nor old, but bordering on a hazy mellowness of gloss, while the elbows and knees were a little accented from tlie continuous agitation of those joints. "The face was one I should never rest upon in a crowd, simply because, to my eye, there was nothing remarkable in it save the nose, which organ was high, thin, and planted with a curve as vehement as the curl of a Malay cutlass. The face and neck were roagh and covered with red- disli hair, the eye light in color and animated ; but, though restless and bounding like a ball from one object to another, neither piercing nor brilliant; the mouth well-closed but common, the ears large, the hands and feet long and thin, the gait a little rolling, but firm and active. Li dress and manner there was not the slightest trace of pretension. He spoke rapidly, and gen- erally with an inquisitive smile. To this ensemble I must add a hat which was the reverse of dignified or distinguished — a simple felt affair, with a round ciown and drooping brim — and you have as fair a description of General Sherman's e-^ternals as I can pen. " Seating himself on a stick of cordwood hard by tlie fence, he drew a bit of pencil from his pocket, and spreading a piece of note paper on his knee, he wrote with great rapidity. Long col- umns of troops lined the road a few yards in his front, and beyond the road, massed in a series of spreading green fields, a whole division of infantry was waiting to take up tlie line of march, the blue ranks clear cut against the verdant background. Those who were near their General looked at him curiously; for in so vast an army the soldier sees his Commander-in-Chief but seldom. Page after page was filled by the General s nimble pencil, and dispatched. "For half an hour I watched him, and, though I looked for and expected to find them, no symptoms could I detect that the mind of the great leader was taxed by the infinite cares of a terribly hazardous military coup de main. Apparently it did not lay upon his mind the weight of a feather. A mail arrived. He tore open the papers and glanced over them hastily, the" chatted with some general officers near him, then rode off with characteristic suddenness, but with fresh and smiling countenance, filing down the road beside many thousand men, whose lives were in his keeping. Wii,LiAM T. Shebman. 467 had cut Kilpatrick to pieces. But presently it Ws observed that after each annihilation, Kilpatrick kept getting into new fights on advanced positions, and the apprehensions were dispelled. Of the great bulk of the army nothing could be heard. At first, the Eebel papers predicted that it could not cross the Ocmulgee without hard fighting. Thenfor weeks they told of its being baffled at every point in attempting to cross the Oconee. Finally, they admitted that it had crossed the Oconee, but were perfectly sure that the success would be fatal, since now it was securely shut up between the Oconee and the Ogee- chee. As to its ultimate destination, their notions were vague and contradic- toiy. But their accounts were absolutely all that the country could get from the lost army, and were eagerly sought. Energetic agents were kept in the works before Eichraond to get papers through the lines; and whatever they contained about Sherman was forthwith telegraphed bodily Bast and West. In this uncertainty with which General Sherman wonderfully shrouded his movements, even from the Eebel cavalry that hung upon his flanks, and which the confusion of the Eichmond newspapers fairly represented, lay his safety; He had only sixty-five thousand men. Had they but known, or been able to form, from his course, any reasonable guess as to his destination, the Eebels might have concentrated thirty thousand to oppose him. With an enemy thirty thousand strong on his front, he could not have sjjread out his columns over a breadth of thirty miles, to gather in the supplies of the country ; and as he was forced to concentrate, he would have found it impossible to feed. The march through Georgia was possible, only because General Sherman so bewil- dered his antagonists that they were looking for him at once at Augusta, and Macon, and Milledgeville, at Charleston and Savannah ; and the force that should have been consolidated to resist his march was scattered in garrisons for each threatened town, and utterly paralyzed. And so it came about that, moving out from the smoking ruins of Atlanta, General Sherman marched over three hundred miles in twenty-four daj-s, and deployed his forces before Savannah without having had a battle by the way, or even a vigorous skirmish (save with the cavalry), with a loss (including the storming of a fort at the end of his march) of only five hundred and sixty-seven all told, of whom but sixty-three were killed and two hundred and forty-five wounded. Marching his columns first on Milledgeville, he nevertheless kept the garrison of Macon in daily expectation of attack, sending the cavalry far to his right to threaten it, and actually bringing on a cavalry fight at its outer defenses. Thus Milledgeville fell. Then, marching for Millen, where he hoped to liberate large numbers of Union prisoners, he yet kept Augusta in a panic, sending the cavalry to threaten in that direction. In this Kilpatrick had a slight misadventure, and the prisoners were removed from Millen before Sher- man could arrive. But the success of the march was now assured; the last I'iver was passed, and before the army lay the easy slope down to Savannah and the sea. To the very last, the mystification was kept up, and demonstrations at Sister's Ferry kept the Charlestonians uneasy till the troops were actually deploying before Savannah. 468 Ohio in the War. The army fared superbly. Sherman, indeed, had declared, months before, that where a million of inhabitants found subsistence, his army could not starve; but even he had no conception of the ease with which the question of supplies would adjust itself The foraging parties j^'ovided hams, chickens, turkeys, sweet-potatoes, sorghum, and the like, in abundance; and in some of the corps the rations with which the scanty wagon-trains were loaded at Atlanta were -hauled through to the sea almost unbroken. The collection of these sup- plies was not always performed without excess. Pillage and spoliation follow naturally in the path of loose impress- ments by irresponsible parties, and no effort' seems to have been made to re- jsress irregularities. But the worst did not come till the Georgia campaign was over. One other stain rests upon the fair record of the march. Thousands of negroes accompanied the column, by the express permission of General Sherman. Once or twice great crowds of these un- fortunate creatures were driven back from the bridges, when the army was crossing rivers, and, the bridges being taken up as soon as the army had cross- ed, were left to the cruelty of the Eebel cavalry and of the enraged masters whom the}' had been encouraged to de- sert. General Jeff. C. Davis seems to have been prominent in this barbarism, but it called forth no rebuke from Gen- eral Sherman himself. Throughout the march, Sherman was in constant communication, with all the corps, and with the cavalry. He gener- ally accompanied the corps engaged in destroj'ing the railroads, and he person- ally saw to it that this destruction was accomplished in the most thorough man- ner. When Savannah was reached, he SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA. sougbt instantly to open communication with the fleet. Fort McAllister stood in the way. It was nearly sunset; but a vessel was seen in the distance ; and just as she began signalling to know if McAllister had fallen, so that she could safely approach, Sherman gave the order to Hazen to storm. In loss than half an hour the flags of Hazen's com- mand were floating from the fort; and Sherman, after hasty congratulations on the gallant deed, was in a skiff, recklessly pulling over the torpedoes toward the vessel. William T. Si-ieeman. 469 He soon had Savannah almost entirely invested. One road of exit to Hardee's garrison of fifteen thousand men was left, foi- reasons never fully explained. It was considered unsafe to. isolate a force to guard it; and yet Sherman thought he "could command it." He began preparing for a siege, and about the time his heavy guns were in position Hardee evacuated, leaving all his artillery and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton ; but carrying off' his army safe. It was on the morning of 2l8t of December. Sherman himself was absent, but two days later he returned, and telegraphed to Mr. Lincoln, "I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns, and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty -five thousand bales of cotton." Once more the North rekindled its bonfires. In this steady-marching suc- cess of Confederate disasters, in this "tramp, tramp, tramp," that winter or rough weather could not delay, of the sixty thousand that had bisected the Confederacy, they read the approaching doom of the Rebel cause. Grant still lay baffled by the skill of the wise soldier who defended Richmond ; but already in imagination, "while the doomed Confederate army, compassed in fatal toils, looked southerly for an outlet of escape," the peojDle heard — to use the words of an elegant writer — "rolling across the plains of the Carolinas, beating nearer and nearer, the drums of Champion Hills and Pittsburg Landing."* Other plans for this still victorious army engrossed for a time the mind of the Lioutenant-General. He congratulated its leader most heartily, wanted his views, and subscribed himself "more than ever, if possible, Your Friend. "f But still he wanted the army transferred at once by water to Richmond. " Un- less you see objections to this plan, which I can not see," he wrote as early aa 6th December, " use every vessel going to you for the purpose of transporta- tion. "J General Sherman promptly began preparations to obey this order ; at the same time expressing some doubts as to whether it would not be better to "punish South Carolina as she deserves." "I do sincerely believe," he \'\»rote, a few days later, " that the whole United States, North and South, would rejoice to have this army turned loose on South Carolina, to devastate that State in the manner we have done in Georgia. "|| General Grant presently fell in with this view, and before transportation had been accumulated for removing the army by sea. General Sherman was ordered to march northward through the interior, all details being left to his own judgment. This decision reached him a day or two after his entrj' into Savannah. Three weeks were sfient in prepa- ration ; on 15th of January, 1865, the movement began. Meantime, the restless temper of the General on whom the caresof this still more dangerous movement might be supposed to press with sufficient weight, kept him busy with essaj's in fresh fields of responsibility. Some citizen wrote, asking his advice on the question of reorganization. He had the wis- •Swinton's Twelve Decisive Battles of the W:u-. I Grant's letter to Slierraan 18tli Dec., 1864, Kep. Com Con. War, wbi supra, p. 287. Ilbid, p. 279. Illbid, p. 284. 470 Ohio in the Wae. dom to say that he had nothing to do with it, but not the wisdom to stop with that. Instead, he went on at length to elaborate his views on a subject already engaging the full powers of the best statesmen of the country, trained to politi- cal problems, and not otherwise emploj-ed : " Georgia is not out of the Union,'' he declared with some emphasis. "My opinion is that no negotiations are necessary, nor commissioners, nor conventions, nor anything of the kind. Whenever the people of Georgia quit rebelling against their Government, and elect members of Congress and Senators, and these go and take their seats, then the State of Georgia will have icsumed her functions in the Union." Light, indeed, must the crime of the rebellion have seemed in the eyes of the man who could in such haste propose to restore Eebels to the balance of power in Congress. Abundant must have been the confidence in his own judgment, on any and all subjects, that could induce the general of u great army, on the eve of most dangerous movements, to obtrude an opinion — tossed off in a leisure half hour like a family letter — on the gravest of political problems — unfamiliar to him, but already being studied in the minutest details by the first jurists and statesmen of the nation.* He next essayed a solution of the negro problem — setting apart for the exclusive use of the negroes in the vicinity, the Sea Islands of South Carolina iind Georgia, and the rice swamps of the adjacent mainland, each family to iiave a forty-acre tract, to which a military officer was to give a possessory title ! It was the most remarkable assumption of power outside his sphere which Gen- eral Sherman had yet attempted; and the fact that the order was shown to the S'ecretary of War before its issue constitutes no excuse for the interminable difficulties to which it led,^difficulties alike for the poor blacks whom it pro- posed to befriend, and for the Government whose functions it usurped. The operations of the Treasury Department did not suit him. He thought it "ought not to bother itself with the captures of war,"t — in effect that what- ever Government property the military captured it should retain under its exclusive control. An English Consul sought to protect the cotton claims of some English subjects. The General astonished him by the notification that in no event would he "treat an English subject with ipore favor than one of our own deluded citizens," and that " it would afford him great pleasure to conduct his army to Nassau and wipe out that nest of pirates." J He reverted once more to his chronic rabies, the newspaper subject, solemnly adjudicated that two newspapers were enough for Savannah, and no more should be published; ordered that these be held to the strictest accountability "for any libellous pub- lication, mischievous matter, premature news, exaggerated statements, or any comment whatever upon the acts of the constituted authorities — even for such articles, though copied from other papers." || It is with pleasure that wo turn from these performances, in which much * This letter was shown to Secretary Stanton, who was then on a visit to Savannah. His only reply was that, like all the General's letters, it was sufficiently emphatic and not likely to be misunderstood. Sherman and his campaigns, pp. 324, 325. t Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 326. t Ibid, p. 326. || Ibid, p. 321. William T. Sherman; 471 good sense is so mingled with eccentric extravagances and ill-considered judg- ments, to the brighter story of the inarch through the Carolinas.* When, gathering in hand his various divisions from Savannah and Beaufort the Sea Islands, the ferries, and the important roads in the interior. General * A pen-picture of General Sherman at Savannah, by Rev. Mr. Alvord, has been much admired by his friends, and may prove interesting to those who would study his characteristics more in detail. The following extracts embrace its substance: "Tall, lithe, almost delicately formed. If at ease stoops slightly; when excited, erect and commanding. Face stern, savage almost; yet smiling as a boy's when p]ea.sed. Every move- ment, both of mind and body, quick and nervous. A brilliant talUer, announcing his plans, but concealing his real intention. A graceful easy rider. Wlien leading a column looking as if born only to command. Approachable at times, almost to a fault, again not to be approached at all. "I saw him in a grand review at Savannah. His position was in front of the Exchange on Bay street. The Twelfth Corps was to pass before him ; he rode rapidly to the spot, almost alone, leaped from his horse, stepped to the bit and examined it a moment, patted the animal on the cheek, then adjusted his glove, looked around with an uneasy air as if in want of some- thing to do; catching in his eye the group of officers on the balcony he bowed, and commenced a familiar conversation, quite unconscious of observation by the surrounding and excited crowds. Presently music sounded at the head of the approaching corps. Quick as thought he vaulted . to the saddle and was in position. There was peculiar grace in the gesture of arm and head which did not weary, as for an hour he returned the salutes of every grade of officers. Rev- erence was added as the regimental flags were lowered before him. The more blackened and torn and riddled with shot they were, the higher the General's hat was raised and the lower his head was bent in recognition of the honored colors. Every soldier, as he marched past, showed that he loved his commander. He evidently loved his soldiers. "I saw him in his princely head-quarters at Charles Green's on New Year's Bay. Many were congratulating him. He was easy, aflable, magnificent. Presently an officer with hurried step entered the circle and handed him a sealed packet. He tore it open instantly, but did not cease talking. Read it, still talking as he read. Commodore Porter had dispatched a steamer, announcing the defeat at Fort Fisher. "'Butler's defeated!' he exclaimed, his eye gleaming as it lifted from the paper. ' Fizzle — great jtzsHef nervously, 'knew 'twould be so." I shall have to go up there and do that job — eat 'em up as I go and take 'em back side.' Thus the fiery heart exploded, true to loyalty and country. "I entered the rear parlor and sat down at the glowing grate. He came, and leaning his elbow upon the marble mantel, said; 'My army, sir, is not demoralized — has improved on the march — Christian army I've got — .soldiers are Christians, if anybody is — noble fellows — God will take care of them — war improves character. My army, sir, is growing better all the while.' "I expressed satisfaction at having such testimony, and the group of officers who stood around could not suppi-ess a smile at the General's earnest Christian eulogium. "Such is W. T. Sherman. A genius, with greatness grim and terrible, yet simple and unaffected as a child. The thunderbolt or sunbeam, as circumstances call him out. "On the march from Atlanta his order was 'No plunder by the individual soldier;' but his daily inquiry as he rode among them would be, 'Well, boys, how do you get along? like to see soldiers enterprising; ought to live well, boys; you know I don't carry any thing in my haver- sack, so don't fail to have a chicken leg for me when I come along; must live well, boys, on such a march as this.' The boys always took the hint. The chicken leg was ready for the General, and there were very few courts-martial between Atlanta and Savannah to punish men for living as best they could. "When McAllister fell, he stood with his staff and Howard by his side, awaiting the assaulting column. 'They are repulsed,' he exclaimed, as the smoke of bursting torpedoes enveloped the troops; 'must try something else.' It was a moment of agony. The strong heart did not quail ! A distant shout was heard; Again raising his glass the colors of each of the three 472 • Ohio in the Wak. Sherman now launched his coliinans northward, the strategic problem presented to himself and to that "astute Eebel commander"* who (soon to be restored to the fragments of the army ho had been forced to leave before Atlanta), strove to withstand him, was the same. General Sherman sought to secure a junction with Grant and to prevent Jolmston's junction with Lee. General Johnston sought to secure a junction with Le? and to prevent Sherman's junction with Grant. Xeither sought decisive battle with his immediate antagonist, for the eyes of each were fixed upon what might befall after the desired junction should be secured. But the game was an unequal one, and it needed no far-seeing vis- ion to perceive the end. Sherman had sixtj' thousand. Johnston had twenty-five thousand. f Or, if we look beyond these single combatants, Lee had but fifty thousand ; and Lee and Johnston stood for the Confederacy. Against and around brigades were seen planting themselves simultaneously on the parapet. 'The fort is ours,' said he, ciilmly. He could not restrain his tears. ' it's my old division,' he added, 'I knew they'd do it.' '"How long. General,' said a Southron, 'do you think this war will last, we hear the ITorth- ern people are nearly exhausted?' 'Wrll, avcII,' said he, 'about six or seven years of this kind of war, then twenty or twenty-five of guerrilla, until you are all killed off, then we will begin anew.' " A wealthy planter appealing to his pity, ' Ye=, yes,' said he, ' w;ir is a bad thing very bad, cruel institution — very cruel; but you brought it on yourselves, and you are only getting a taste of it.' "The English ex -consul asked him for protection and a pass on the ground of his neutrality and that of his country. 'Don't talk to me,' said Sherman, 'of your neutrality, my soldiers have seen on a hundred battle-fields the shot and shell of England with your Queen's mark upon them all, and they never can forget it. Don't tell me you couldn't leave before I came; yon could send out your cotton to pay Confederate bonds and bring cannon in return — don't tell me you couldn't get away yourself.' "The consul stood abashed, and awkwardly bowed himself from his pre.sence. "Such is his treatment of Rebels. He receives no apology nor has any circumlocution. He strikes with his battalions ; he strikes with every word he uttei-s, whether from pen or lips. The secessionists of Georgia and South Carolina believe he'll do what he threatens. "Said the Rebel Colonel who had placed the torpedoes in the Savannah River when ordered to take them up, 'No! I'll be d— d if I do any such drudgery.' "' Then you'll hang to-morrow morning; leave me,' said the stern commander. Tlie torpedoes were removed. " In this way, by his words, his manner, his personal presence, his threats with their literal exccutiim, and the swift and utter destnietion in the track of his army on their late march, he has Btrucli terror to all hearts. Though thoroughly secretive, he is strangely frank. '"Give me your pass, General?' said I, 'I'll meet you again on your march.' 'You don't know where I'm going,' said he, with emphasis. ' I think I do, General, if I can catch you.' ' Where f 'At Charleston.' ' I'm not going to Charleston.' 'Then, at Wilmington.' 'I'm not going to Wilmington.' 'I'll see ycm, I think, in Richmond.' 'I'm not going to Richmond. You don't know where I'm going. Howard don't know.' But he gave me the pass; I, at least, know where he was not going." •Sherman's own phra.se in describing .Johnston. t Sherman, indeed, estimated the force oppwcd to him at a much higher figure,— at one time reckoning it at not less than "forly-five thousand cfl'eelives." (Rep. Cora. Con. War. Series of 1867. Vol. I, p. 346.) But the honesty of General Johnston's official statenienls has never been ques- tioned, and he says that he had (besides militia and other dead-weights who deserted him long before he had any chance to use them) not over twenty-five thousand efTective strength. Sec, d^o, Swinton, Hist. Army Potomac, p. 567. WiLLiAJi T. Shekman. 473 CAMPAIGN OF THE CAROLINAS William T. Sherman. 475 them rose, with fateful gle.im, the bayonets of the converging ranks of a million soldiers. At the outset of his movement, Sherman experienced no difficulty save that from the roads. The remnants of Hood's army — making their way eastward, over the route of the march from Atlanta to the sea, that region where now, as the expressive phrase of the soldiers had it, a crow could not make the jour- ney without carrying a havei'sack, — experienced fatal delays. Meantime, the other Eebel forces were scattered, guarding points supposed to be in danger. Johnston had not yet assumed command, and there was no unity of actioji. Sherman made feints toward Charleston, on his right, and Hardee lay waiting for him; and sent his cavalrj- toward Augusta, on his left, and the Georgia mili- tia stayed there. On his front were left only Wheeler's and AVade. Hampton's cavalry, — a force to be brushed aside by his army like house-flies. Presently, his columns appeared, unresisted, before Columbia. The capital fell without a blow, while the bulk of the army that should have defended it 'had been sol- emnly guarding the ruins of Charleston. Suddenlj-, Hardee discovei-ed that while he was thus lying idle at the useless sea-port, the State was being ravaged from end to end, his own flank was turned, and, unless he made haste to rescue himself from his false position, his army would l3e as effectually eliminated from the campaign as if it were thrown beyond the Alleghanies. Already, Sher- man's position barred his march toward the j)oint of danger — he was forced to retreat on a line far to the eastward. Even there he was too late to be secure, and he was soon to find the destroyer on his track, and to lose more than two Boore pieces of the artillery he had brought with infinite pains from abandoned Charleston. When Shermtm rode into Columbia, piles of cotton which Wade Hampton had fired, lay smoulderingthrou^h the streets. As the wind 'tose, locks of lint from the bales which the fire had already b«»-i3i)d oyien, drifted about in every di- rection. Soldiers extinguished the fires, as they supposed, trat-at aighttkU tkey broke out again — doubtless in one or two places from the burning cotton. But, as if by concert, there suddenly came cries of alarm from a dozen different quarters. The city was on fire in as many places. General Sherman ordered out a force to attempt checking the conflagration, but the effort wis vain. Before morning a large portion of the citj- was in ruins ; thousands of helpless women and children were suddenly' made homeless — in an hour — in'the night — ^ in the winter. It was the most monstrous barbarity of the barbarous march. There is no reason to think that General Sherman knew any thing of the pur- pose to burn the city, which had been freely talked about among the soidiei-s -through the afternoon. But there is reason to think that he knew well enough who did it, that he never rebuked it, and made no effort to punisli it. Instead, he sought indeed to show that the enemy himself had burned his own city, "not with malicious intent, but from folly and want of sense." Yet in the same par- agraph he admits everything except the original starting of the first fire: "Offi- cers and men not on duty, including the officers who had long been imprisoned there, may have assisted in spreading the fire after it had once begun, and may 470 Ohio in the War. have indulged in unconcealed joy to see the ruin of the capital of South Carolina."* Thus far, feinting eastward and -wetjtward and so keeping the enemy scat- tered, Sherman had in truth marched almost due northward, till now, with scarcely a skirmish, he stood, a hundred and thirty miles from Savannah, in the heart of South Carolina. To prolong the same course would speedily bring him to Charlotte, North Carolina. Thither went Johnston to prepare for him. There also were gathering the fragments of armies, the pitiful remnants of gar- risons, and militia, and home-guards, wherewith to cite out his column. But Sherman stood now at the dividing of ways. Straight before him, through Charlotte, stretched a road by which he might reach the James. To his right led a route, equally practicable, by which he might reach the seu-coast. And already, on leaving Savannah, he had ordered his quartermasters around the coast to " Morehead City, thereto stand ready to forward supplies to the army at Goldsboro', about the 15th of March. "f It only remained to convince John- ston that he was going to Charlotte. Moving, therefore, straight northward from Columbia, he swept up with his wide-spread columns almost half way to Charlotte — then turning sharp to the right, made all haste for Faj-ctteville and Goldsboro', while his cavalry, cover- ing his left as with an impenetrable screen, kept Johnston in doubt, and con- cealed the sudden change. There were diflSpulties in the march ; floods in the streams, quicksands, swamps. But there was nothing but marching to do ; the enemy did not even discover that Charlotte was not menaced till the army was * General Wade Hampton has made a very inconsiderate attempt to fasten the gnilt ("guilt' certainly in the eyes of every civilized being) of the burning of Columbia upon General Sher- man himself. This is idle. He did personally what he could to save the city after the confla- gration had begun — labored, indeed, with his own hands through almost the entire night, and tlie ijext day strove to mitigate the calamity of the sufferers. (Story of the Great JIarch, p. 165.) But he did not seek to ferret out and punish the offending parties. He did not make his army understand that he regarded this barbarity as a crime. He did not seek to repress their lawless course. On the contrary, they came to understand that the leader, whom they idolized, regarded their actions as a good joke, chuckled over them in secret, and winked at them in public. Here was (ieneral Hampton's true cause of complaint. Here, too, is the cause for complaint which every friend of humanity throughout the civilized world must cherish against General Sherman. But General Hampton is not the man to throw stones in this matter. His action in firing the cotton, in the heart of the city, on a windy day, was criminally reckless. or the real origin of the conflagration there can be no reasonable doubt. Whoever has seen fire flash through a lock of lint cotton can undei-stand it. Old cotton planters — particularly those who passed through the cotton-burning scenes on the Mississippi Eiver — say that a rope- bound bale of cotton, once fired, can never be extinguished. I have heard them tell of throwing such bales into the river, and hours afterward taking them out, only to find them still smoulder- ing. The soldiers thought they hud extinguished the fire in the heaps of cotton at the street corners. Toward evening some of them blazed out again. The wind was high; the ropes that bound the bales were burnt off, and tlie cotton was loose; some single lock, carried by the wind to a house-top, began the ruin of the city. That the soldiers not on duty had before this threat- ened to burn the city, seems establislied. That they rejoiced at and aided the conflagration when they found it already begun, is admitted by Sherman himself, in the extract from his official report given in the text, by the author of " The Story of the Great March,'' and by nearly every other reputable oye-witnc^s. t Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 335. William T. Sherman. 477 fairly across the Yadkin, Iwo-tliirds of the way to Fajotteville, and with an open path before it. Then, indeed, Johnston, in spite of- his limited forces, and unnumbered -embarrassments, vindicated his reputation. It was too late to stop Sherman's entry of Fayetteville and communication with the sea-coast, via the river to Wilmington; but he succeeded in giving the cavahy a sharp blow that had nearly proven disastrous, and in so planting his forces as to arouse in Sher- man^s mind the liveliest apprehensions as to the short remainder of his march. "Every day now," he wrote, "is worth a million dollars. I can whip Joe John- ston, provided he doesn't catch one of my corps in flank, and I will see that my array marches hence to Goldsboro' in compact form."* "Provided he doesn't catch one of my corps in flank." There was, indeed, the rub. A few days were spent at Fayetteville, destroying the arsenal and costly machinery. "The United States should never again confide such valuable property to a people who have betrayed a trust;" wrote the General.f The sentiment was unexceptionable — it would have been better, indeed, for Sher- man if he had called it to mind a few weeks later, when he came to sit at a lit- tle writing tabl-e with his antagoni.sts — but the delay was dangerous. It was ' now the 15th of March — the very day on which he had directed his Quarter- masters to be ready for him at Goldsboro'. Johnston was improving e"?ery hour in concentrating upon his front. Sehofield was on the other side of Golds- boro', coming up; Johnston could yet interpose between them. True, either army outnumbered him ; but in case of such overwhelming superiority (eighty- five thousand at the very least against Johnston's paltry twenty -five thousand) the exposure of isolated wings to battles, successful or unsuccessful, became butchery. On the 15th Sherman started from Faj-etteville. The very next day his left was checked at Averysboro'. The outer lines of the Rebel force was easily- driven in, but there the success stopped. All further assault only succeeded in keeping the enemy close within his main intrenchments. Seventy-seven were killed, four hundred and seventy-seven wounded, and a day lost. Next morn- ing the enemy had withdrawn. It would seem that he had accomplished his purpose. For now, while Sherman deflecting his columns to the right to move straight on Bentonville and Goldsboro', felt sure that no further interruption was in- tended, and went off to open communication with Schofield's column from the sea- coast, Johnston had improved the day's delay, had gathered his troops together, had selected with all his old skill, formidable positions of defense, and had for- tified them, as Sherman afterward ruefully confessed, "with the old sort of par- apets,'' which he "didn't like to assail."! Siiddenly the left wing, marching in all the confidence of Sherman's belief that he was now past any danger of attack, came fiiirly upon Johnston's skirmishers. A fierce assault speedily fol- lowed, driving in the Union advance, with loss of guns and provisions. Slocum * Sherman to Terry, Rep. Com. Con War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 343. tlbid, p, 344. tibid, p. 3G2. 478 Ohio in the War. hurriedly sent" word to Sherman that he was confronted by Johnston's whole army, and then hastened to make such preparations for defense as the instant emergency would permit. Johnston's entire force was probably about equal to thiB wing. Ills hope had been to crush it bj- a sudden onset, or, failing in that, to secure himself behind his fortifications. The attack was skillfully delivered, and the Union .column was clearly caught at fault; but Johnston's army was no longer the disciplined body of men that, step by step, had resisted every advance from Chattanooga to Atlanta. It was weakened by desertion, dis- pirited by an Iliad of woes, deteriorated by the infusion of raw and unwilling j-ecru^it8-. The assault placed Slocum in great peril; but after recovering from the first sudden onslaught, he lost no more ground. It was hard to persuade Sherman that anj-thing serious was going on,* but at last he got over from the other wing, brought up re-enforcements, pushed Johnston into his works, and then lay skirmishing and feeling his flanks. Meanwhile Schoficld hurried up and entered Goldsboro' almost unopposed. Johnston found one flank seriously compromised, and retreated in the night to a point midway between Goldsboro' and Raloigh.f And thus, with his army once more in communication with the sea-coast, and the enemy brushed away from his flanks, Sherman ended the Campaign of the Carolinas. In boldness of conception and skill of execution, it was scarcely less won- derful than the great campaign which preceded it and furnished its model. In neither was there anj' considerable enemy to oppose till at the veiy ending. In both, the forces which the Rebels did have were paralyzed by their uncertainty as to the points of attack. In both, great bodies of men were moved over States an'd groups of States with the accuracy and precision of mechanism. In neither was any effort to preserve discipline apparent, save only so far as was needful for keeping up the march. Here, indeed, is the single stain on the brilliant recoi-d. Before his move- ment began. General Sherman begged permission to turn his array loose in South Carolina and devastate it. J He used this permission to the full. IIo protested that he did not wage war on women and children. But, under the operation of his orders, the last morsel of food was taken from hundreds of des- titute ftimilies, that his soldiers might feast in needless and riotous abundance. Before his eyes rose, daj' after daj', the mournful clouds of smoke on every side, that told of old people and their grandchildren driven, in mid-winter, from the only roofs there were to ehclter them, by the flames which the wantonness of his soldiers had kindled. Willi his full knowledge and tacit approval, too great a * Rep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, pp. 357, 358. tThe aggregate loss in tliig battle w.is one thousnnd sis hundred and forty-si.K, of which one thousand two hundred and forty-seven csinie from Slocum's left wing; while two hundred nnd sixty-seven' Rebel dead were left on the field, and one thousand six hundred and twenty-five prisoners were taken. The Rebel loss was donbtle.'^s somewhat greater than Sherman's, since it made the assault ; but not enough to warrant his glowing statement in his official dispatch to Grant that he "had driven off Joe Johnston with fearful loss." tRep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 284. William T. Sherman. 479 portion of his advance resolved itself into bands of jewelry-thieves and plate- closet burglars.* Yet, if a single soldier was punished- for a single outrage ov theft during that entire movement, we have found no mention of it in all the voluminous records of the march. He did indeed say that he "would not pro- tect'' them in stealing "women's apparel or jewelry." f But even this, with no whisper of punishment attached, he said, not in general orders, nor in approval of the findings of some righteously-severe court-martial, but incident- ally — in a letter to one of his -officers, which never saw the light till two years after the close of the war. He rebuked no one for such outrages; the soldiers understood that they pleased him. Was not South Carolina to be pi-operly punished ? This was not war. It was not even the revenge of a wrathful soldiery, for it was pi-acticed, not upon the enemy, but upon the defenseless "feeble folk" he had left at home. Thero was indeed one excuse for it — an excuse which chivalric soldiers might be slow to plead. It injured the enemy — not by open fight, where a million would have been thought full match for less than a hun- dred thousand, but by frightening his men about the situation of their wives and children ! At last prudential considerations suggested themselves. On the borders *The fact stated above ie so notoriou.s that authorities seem needless. Yet the following nam testimony from that enthusiastic friend of General Sherman, the author of the Storj' of the Great March (p. 207j has an interest of its own: "II was not unusual to hear among the sol- diers such conversations as this: 'Where did you get that splendid meerschaum?' or 'Did you l)ring that handsome cane along with you?' 'Oh,' was the reply, 'that was presented me by a lady in Columbia for saving her house from burning.' This style of answer, which was very satisfactory, soon became the common explanation of the possession of all sorts of property. An officer taking his punch from an elegantly-chased silver cup, was saluted thus : ' Halloa, Cap- tain, that's a gem of a cup ! No mark on it ; why, where did you get it ?' ' Ye-e-es ! that cup ? Oh, that was given me by a lady in Columbia for saving her household goods from destruction.' . . . After a while this joke came to be repeated so often that it was dangerous for any one to , exhibit a gold watch, a tobacco-box, any uncommorl utensil of kitchen ware, a new pipe, a guard- chain, or a ring, without being asked if 'a lady at Columbia had presented that article to him for saving her house from burning?' This was one of the humors of the camp." Vastly humor- ous, no doubt, but ! Take from the same work (p. 112) another statement: "As rumors of the approach of our army reached the frightened inhabitants, fi'antic e2brts were made to con- ceal valuable personal effects — plate, jewelry, and other rich goods. . . . The favorite method of concealment was the burial of the treasures in the pathways and gardens adjoining the dwelling-houses. . . . With untiring zeal the soldiers hunted for concealed treasures. Wherever thf army halted, almost every inch of ground in the vicinity of the dwellings was poked by ramrods, pierced by sabers, or upturned with spades. The universal digging was good for the garden land, but its results were distressing to the Rebel owners of exhumed property, who saw it rapidly and irretrievably confiscated." Mr. Greeley, in his cautious and singularly accurate history, has been forcfed to say (Vol. II, ip. 704) : "Though a good many watches and pieces of plate which were claimed to have been 'found hidden in a swamp, a mile from any house,' were in fact drawn from less occult sources, it would have been difficult to hide a watch, or goblet where it would not have been discovered and appropriated. And the business of for- aging had been gradually assumed as a specialty by the least scrupulous of the soldiers, . . . often many miles in advance, gathering as' provisions for the army anything inviting and port- ible for themselves, . . . but fonder on the whole of rifling a house than of fighting its owner, and constantly intent on the main chance." tKep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 330. 480 Ohio in the Wak. of 'N'orth Carolina we find General Sherman writing: "It might be well to instruct your brigade commanders that we. are now out of South Carolina, am' that a little moderation may be of political consequence to us."* And he fur- thermore advised that -'they trj' to keep foragers from — insulting families!" That was all. Here, as elsewhere, the not unusual inconsistency may be observed. Now we see him suffering his soldiers to rob Southern school -girls of their finger- rings, and Southern old women of their family silver. A month hence we shall find him eager to surrender to the enemy, rather than accept their surrender to him, in order that he may soothe the excitable Southern people and promote harmony and good feeling. But this is an aspect of the pillage and license in Georgia and the Caro- linas not then familiar to the public. All rejoiced that the war was at last brought home to its authors. Thejealous officer charged his Lieutenant with breach of discipline because he was away from his command. That commander was a Rebel general in the late civil war. " For two years Sheridan was thus employed in the defense of the Southern frontier ; at one time leading a company of soldiers to a threatened settlement, and at another cautiously making explorations, not knowing where the stealthy savage would rise from ambush, or fire his weapon from its unknown seclusion. But the unfortunate displeasure of his superior officer, and the col- lisions attending, induced Sheridan to seek a different post of duty. Accordingly the War De- partment, in the spring of 1855, created him a full Lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry, then in Oregon." Philip H. Sheridan. 501 Bently the Government, fully satisfied now that here was a good man for routine and clerical duties, made him Quartermaster and Commissary for Curtis, at the outset of the Pea Eidge campaign. All this seemed rapid promotion to Captain Sheridan, and he went to woi'k heartily and earnestly to make a Quartermaster of himself. He was sixty -fourth Captain on the list — so one of the staff oflScers tells of his reasoning in those days — and with the chances of war in his favor, it needn't be a very great while before he might hope to be a Major ! "With such modest aspirations he worked away at the wagon-trains ; cut down regimental transportation, gave fewer wagons for camp furniture and more for hard bread and fixed ammunition, established secondary depots for supplies, and with all his labor found that he had not fully estimated the wants of the army.* Some orders from General * Here is Bome staff-officer's gossip about Sheridan during this portion of his opening career : "A modest, quiet little man was our Quartermaster; yet nobody could deny the vitalizing energy and masterly force of his presence when he had occasion to exert himself Neat in per- son, courteous in demeanor, exact in the transaction of business, and most accurate in all matters appei-taining to the regulations, orders, and general military customs, it was no wonder that our acting Chief Quartermaster should have been universally lilied. Especially was he in favor Bocially, for it soon became known that he was, off duty, a most genial companion, answering the most mythical requirement of that vaguest of comprehensive terms — ' a good fellow.' "The enlisted men on duty at head-quarters, or in hi.s own bureau, remember him kindly. Not a clerk or orderly but treasures some act of kindness done by Captain Sheridan. Never for- getting, or allowing others to forget, the respect due to him and his position, he was yet the most approachable officer at head-quarters. His knowledge of the regulations and customs of the array, and of all professional minutiiE, were ever at the disposal of any proper inquirer. Private soldiers are seldom allowed to carry away as pleasant and kindly a.ssociations of a superior as those with which Captain Sheridan endowed us. When the army was ready to move he gave his personal attention in seeing that all attached to head-quarters were properly equipped for service in the field, issuing the necessary stores, animals, etc., without difficulty or discussion. Many a man received information about the preparation of papers and other matters which has since been of invaluable assistance. Nor was his kindness confined to subordinates alone. It is easy for some men to be genial and kind to those under them, while it seems impossible to behave with the proper courtesy due to those whose position entitles them to consideration as gentlemen. We have served with a Major-General since then who to his soldiers was always forbearing, kindly, and humane, while to his officers, especially those on the staff, he was almost invariably rude, rough, blunt, and inconsiderate. This could not be said of Sheridan. He had that proper prideof military life which not alone demands, but accords to all, the courtesy due among gentle- men. It is fair to say that no man has risen more rapidly with less jealousy, if the feelings en- tertained by his old associates of the army of the South-west are any criterion. "Sheridan's modesty amounted to bashfulness, especially in the presence of the gentler sex. His life having been passed on the frontier among Indians, or at some solitary post, it was not at all surprising that our Quartermaster should hesitate when urged to go where ladies might be expected. If by chance he found himself in such a gathering he was sure to shrink into an obscure corner and keep silent. We remember an amusing incident of this bashfulness. \ "He became attracted toward a young lady at Springfield, where he was engaged in forward- ing supplies to the army. Desirous of showing her some attention, he was altogether too modest to venture on such a step. Finally he hit upon an expedient. He had a gay young clerk, Eddy, in his office, whom lie induced to take the young lady out riding, while he (Sheridan) furnished the carriage and horses. The modest little Captain could often be seen looking with pleasure on tbia arrangement. Courting by proxy seemed to please him much (as it certainly was less em- barrMsing) as if it had been done by himself There are but few men whose modesty would carry them 80 far. What the result was we never learnt. We think it most probable Eddy carried ol)' the prize.'' 502 Ohio in the Wab. Curtis about this time seemed to him inconsiBtent with the West Point system of managing quartermaster's matters, and he said so officially with considerable freedom of utterance. The matter was passed over for a few days, but as soon as Pea Eidge was fought General Curtis found time to attend to smaller affaii-s. The first was to dispense with the further services of his Quartefmaster, and send him back to St. Louis in arrest. But just then educated officers were too rare in Missouri to be long kept out of service on punctilios. Presently the affiiir with Curtis was adjusted, and then the Government had some fresh work for this young man of routine and business. It sent him over into Wisconsin to buy horses! The weeping philos- opher himself might have been embarrassed to refrain from laughter! ^cClel- lan was at the head of the army; Halleck had chief command in the West; men like McClernand and Banks, Crittenden, and McCook, were commanding divis- ions or corps ; and for Cavalry Sheridan the best work the Government could find was — buying horses in Wisconsin! Then came Pittsburg Landing, and Halieck's hurried departure for the field. Wishing a body of instructed regular officers about him, he thought, among others, of Curtis's old Quartermaster, and ordered him up to the arrfiy before Corinth. There followed a little staff ser- vice, and at last, in May, 1862, the future head of the Cavalry got started on his proper career. Watching wagon trains, disputing with the lawyers about doubtful contractor's claims, or with the jockeys about the worth of horses — all this seems now very unworthy of Sheridan, but it was a part of his education for the place he was to fill; and we shall see that the familiarity thus acquired with the details of supplying an army were to prove of service to one whose business was to be to command armies, and to tax the energies of those who supplied them to the utmost. The cavalry was inefficient — mostly for lack of officers who knew tlie differ- ence between a horse and a machine. The Second Michigan wanted a Colonel. Sheridan happened to be at hand and was thought of. Li a few days he was off toward Booneville on his first raid. The railroad track and depot were des- troyed, provisions captured, and a safe retreat secured. A few days later fol- lowed a reconnoissance to Donaldson's Cross Jloads, and a sharp skirmish with Forrest. Two days later a second regiment was added to Sheridan's command, and he was sent on a brief pursuit of Forrest, which he managed so well that in four days more he was formally made commander of a cavalry brigade, and sent to Booneville, twenty miles in front of the army. Here on the 1st July, 1862, General Chalmers, with a force numbering between four and five tliousa'nd men, attacked Sheridan's little band of two regiments. He retreated slowly toward his camp, where, with his back to a swamp, he kept up the unequal fight. The day, however, must in the end go against him. Sheridan saw and prepared for it. Selecting a body of picked men, scarcely a hundred in all, he sent them by a circuitous route to the rear of tho enemy. Meantime he sturdily held his ground on the front. Suddenly the assailants were startled by the crack of carbines in their rear. Volley after volley poured in from the revolv- Philip H. Sheeidan. 503 ing weapons of the little party till the roar seemed to betoken the attack of at least a bi-igade. Then charging recklessly into the rear, they penetrated almost to the heart of the command, and for a little time had possession of Chalmers himself. This was the signal for Sheridan. At the head of his two regiments he led an impetuous onset upon the confused enemy, who, thinking himself surrounded, hastily fled, leaving dead and wounded on the field.* For twenty miles Sheridan kept up with his two thousand this pursuit of five thousand. On his return he found that the gallant deed had carried him far beyond the wildest ambition of his quartermaster days. He was appointed a Brigadier-General of Volunteers, to date from July Ist, in honor of this brilliant little battle of Booneville. In the comparative independence of command which he had here enjoyed, he had displayed qualities of vigor, enterprise, and sound judgment, that might have .recommended him for similar positions in the future. But it was Sheridan's lot to be long kept back from the fields for which he was peculiarly fitted, and to be subjected to severe and unusual tests. In a modest little letter now lying before us, he shows his own appreciation of this singularity of his fortune. "It has been said," he writes, "that I was 'lucky' during the Eebellion in the success which attended me, but whether I was or not, I believe there was no general officer in the service who was subjected to harder tests. I was not only changed from one arm of the service to another, but was constantly being changed from one line of operations to another, each involving new geographi- cal and topographical study, the necessity of overcoming the local prejudices of soldiers of different armies, and the old and bitter prejudices between infantry and cavalry." So now, precisely as the General says, after he had just shown liis special fitness for dashing cavalry exploits, he was changed to another arm of the service and another line of operations, being sent to take command of a division of infantry in Kentucky. Still this was high promotion. The "little Quartermaster" who thought that, as he was only sixty -fourth Captain on the list, the chances of war might yet enable him to win a Major's commission, was now, within less than a year from the date of that modest aspiration, a Briga- dier-General, in command of three brigades and a dozen regiments. At the time of our new General's arrival in Kentucky, Bragg was moving rapidly upon Louisville, and Buell was hastening back with his army to con- front him. For a little time Louisville was thought to be in danger. Sheridan was energetic in his efforts to place the city in a position for defense. Then joining Buell's army on its arrival, he moved out with his division in that pur- suit of Bragg, which, pressed by some subordinates too incautiously, suddenly brought him savagely to bay at Pert-yville. Whatever was thought of the general conduct of this battle, or of the policy of bringing it on, there was no doubt at head-quarters of the praise to which General Sheridan's conduct in it entitled him. He kept the position to •The fighting at Booneville lasted nearly snven hours. The number of Rebel dead left on the field was reported to be sixty-five. Sheridan's entire loss was forty-one. 504 Ohio in the War. which be was assigned (the left of Gilbert's corps, protecting McCook'a right), with obstinate vigor, sustained a fierce attack, which he repelled, and directed the fire .of his batteries so as to do what ho could against the assault that was cutting McCook's command to pieces. " He held the key of our position with tenacity," said his Corps General in the official report, "and used the point to its utmost advantage. I commend him to notice as an officer of much gallantry and of high professional ability."* Thenceforward the position of the new Gen- eral was secure in the army. His soldiers believed in himf and his superiors trusted him. But the Country, as yet, heard little of him. He was the subor- dinate of subordinates, and much hard fighting was still awaiting him before he could aspire to popular fame. In the changes consequent upon Rosecrans's assumption of command, Sher- idan was transferred to McCook's right wing of the army. With the details of his new position he found himself fully occupied through the fall and early winter of 1862. At last the army moved out upon Murfreesboro'. Sheridan had only to support other divisions in advance of him through the march, until the day before the battle. Then he led the movement, had sharp skir- mishing, and finally was compelled to form line of battle and bring up his artillery to clear his front, losing some seventy-five killed and wounded in the operations. The men bivouacked in line of battle. They were to wake to great calamity and great glory in the morning. In the general plan of the battle of Stone Eiver the part assigned to the right wing was to hold the enemy, while the rest of the army swung through Mui'freesboro' upon his rear. In this right wing Sheridan held the left. Else- where along that ill-formed line were batteries, to which the horses had not been- harnessed when the fateful attack burst through the gray dawn upon them. But there was one division commander who, with or without orders thereto, might be trusted for ample vigilance in the face of an enemy. At two in Iho morning he was moving some of his regiments to strengthen a portion of his line, on which he thought the enemy was massing. At four he mustered his division under arms, and had every cannoneer at his post. For over two hoars they waited. When the onset came the ready batteries opened at once. The Rebels continued to sweep up. At fifty yards' distance the volleys of Slieridan's musketry became too murderous. The enemy, in massed regiments, hesitated, wavered, and finally broke. Sheridan instantly sent Sill's brigade to charge upon the retreating column. The movement was brilliantly executed, but the life of the gallant brigade commander went out in the charge. *Eep. of Maj-Gen. Gilbert, Reb. Rec. Vol. V, p. 513. Sheridan reported his loss in this batlle at three hundred and thirty — of whom forty-four were killed and two hundred and seT- enty-four wounded. t About this time General Buell'a army was a good deal demoralized by lack of confidence in many of the officers. Through the battle Sheridan had been riding a favorite black horse; it being shot under him, he was compelled, before the close of the action, to appear among the troops on another. They learned the cause, and rent the air with shouts for Sheridan ; while by the camp-fires at night it soon became common to hear them boasting that at last they had • fighting General, who cared more for victory than he did for bullets. Philip H. Sheridan. 505 Presently the enemy rallied and returned. Already the rest of the wing had been hurled back in confusion ; the weight of the victorious foe bore down ■upon Sheridan's exposed flank and broke it. There was now come upon Sheridan that same stress of battle under which his companion division commanders had been crushed. But, hastily drawing back the broken flank, he changed the front of his line to meet the new danger and ordered a brigade to charge ; while, under cover of this daring onset the new line was made compact. Here Sher- idan felt abundantly able to hold his ground. But his flank ? The I'outed divisions, which should have formed upon it, were still in hasty retreat. He dashed among them — threatened, begged, swore. All was in vain ; they would not re-form. Sheridan was isolated, and his right once more turned. Moving then by the left, he rapidly advanced, driving the enemy from his front, and maintaining his line unbroken till he secured a con- nection on the left with Negley. Here he was instantly and tremendously assailed. The attack was i-epulsed. Again Cheatham's Bebel division attacked, and again it was driven back. Once again the baffled enemy swept up to the onset till his batteries were planted within two hundred yards of Sheridan's lines. The men stood firm. Another of the brigade commanders fell; but the enemy was once more driven. Thus heroically did Sheridan strive to beat back the Bwiil disaster that had befallen the right. But now came the crowning misfortune. When the rest of McGook's wing had been swept out of the contest, the ammunition train had fallen into the hands of the enemy. With the overwhelming force on his front, with the bat- teries playing at short range, with the third Eebel onslaught just repulsed, and the men momentarily growing more confident of themselves and of their fiery commander, there suddenly came the startling cry that the ammunition was exhausted ! " Fix bayonets, then !" was the ringing command. Under cover of the bristling lines of steel on the front, the brigades were rapidly withdrawn. ■ Presently a couple of regiments fell upon an abandoned ammunition wagon. For a moment they swarmed around it — then back on the double-quick to the front, to aid in the retreat of the artillery. One battery was lost, the rest, with only a missing piece or two, were- brought off. Thus riddled and depleted, with fifteen hundred from the little division left dead or wounded in the dark cedars, but with compact ranks and a steady front, the heroic column came out on the Murfreesboro' Turnpike. "Here is all that is left of us," said Sheridan, riding up to Eosecrans to report. " Our cartridge-boxes are empty, and so are our muskets 1" Thus the right, on which the battle was to have hinged, had disappeared from the struggle. Already the enemy, pressing his advantage to the utmost, seemed about to break through the center; and Sheridan, supplied with ammu- nition, was ordered in to its relief He checked the Rebel advance, charged at one point, and captured guns and prisoners, held his line steady throughout, and bivouacked upon it at nightfall. This final struggle cost him his last bri- gade commander! "I knew it was infernal in there before I got in," was the rough but forcible exclamation of Eousseau, describing afterward his own 506 Ohio in the Wab. entry into those cedar thickets ; " but I was convinced of it when I saw Phil. Sheridan, with hat in one hand and sword in the other, fighting as if he were the devil incarnate, and swearing as if he had a fresh indulgence from Father Tracy every five minutes."* Whatever was required of him through the scattered fighting of the subse- quent days, Sheridan did promptly and well, but this was the substantial end of his hard work at Stone Eiver. His conduct throughout was soldierly and superb. So much should be said irrespective of the success that attended it. Disaster did not dispirit him; unlooked-for emergencies did not find him unprepared; there was in him that simple soldier's faith in fighting as a means of success that would not permit him to think of yielding his ground while a cartridge remained to be shot at the enemy, or of suffering his retreat to become a rout while bayonets could cover it. But, furthermore, it was his rare good fortune to hold the key to the field, and thus by his splendid fighting to save the army. For, while his obstinate defense covered the retreat of McCook% routed divisions and broke the force of the blow by which the enemy had almost annihilatedf one wing of the army, while Cheatham and the other Rebel commanders were, by the testimony of their own writers, "storming about the field, gnashing their teeth at the delay and at the slaughter of their braves," Rosecrans was re-form- ing his lines. Before Sheridan's ammunition was exhausted the General Com- manding had gathered up the tangled and raveled threads of battle. When the noble column emerged with its empty " cartridge-boxes and muskets," he was ready for whatever the Rebels might attempt; the disaster had been reme- died. And so, while Rosecrans must forever stand the central figure of the great battle, none can dispute the claim of Sheridan to the place next to the foremost. If Rosecrans was the master that organized the victory, Sheridan was the bulwark behind which, at the critical moment, he was enabled to deploy his lines and mass his artillery. It was Rosecrans who fashioned and handled the weapons of victory ; but among those weapons he found ■ none so efficient, at the critical hour, as Sheridan. The loss was terrible. Every one of the brigade commandei% was shot dead. Sixteen hundred and thirty men were /lead, wounded, or missing, from a division that went into battle scarcely five thousand strong.J " I trust the General Commanding is satisfied with my division," said Sheridan, modestly, in his report. He went on in this apologetic fashion: "The loss of Houghtaling's battery and of one section of Bush's battery was unavoidable, as all the horses were shot down or disabled. Had my ammunition held out I would not have fallen back." The army and the country considered that no "apology was neces- sary. No one indeed thought, even yet, of Sheridan as an independent com- •Beferring to the fact of Sheridan's being a Roman Catholic, and to his relations to the well-known priest on duty at Roaecrans's head-quarters. t So far as the purposes of that battle were concerned. t The casualties given above are from tlie Official Beport. The strength of the division is only estimated. The right wing numbered fifteen thousand nine hundred and thirty-three men, including those in hospital or on detached duty. The three divisions in it were of about ccjual strength. Philip H. Shekidan. 507 mander, but all recognized him as a trusty and skillful soldier, in the sphere in which he was placed. General Eosecrans praised him in his report ; but, with the lack of insight which often marked that distinguished officer's judgments of men, he failed to single him out as the hero of the battle. In fact, of the ten brigadiers whom he recommended for Major-Generalships, Sheridan's name was the very last on his list. The commission, however, was duly issued, to date from Stone River. Through the long delays that consumed the spring and summer of 1863, we catch occasional glimpses of Sheridan. He was growing in the confidence of the generals; the soldiers had long trusted him implicitly. Once he was sent on an expedition against small forces of the Eebel cavahy, which penetrated almost to Shelbyville. During the inaction he kept his command in splendid drill, and acquired distinction among his brother officers for superior skill in a sort of camp ten-pin game. In the Tullahoma advance he handled his division energetically. When at last the Rebels crossed ^the Tennessee, he was sent for- ward in support of Stanley's cavalry, to try and save the great bridge across the river at Bridgeport. He dashed ahead with such vigor that his infantry out- stripped the horsemen they were to support; and on their arrival, the Rebel rear -guard, which they captured, insisted that they must be the cavalry whose advance had been expected! When the railroad was repaired, Sheridan, con- ducting Thomas along it, was annoyed bj' the protracted stoppage of their train at a way-station. The conductor gave a gruif answer to inquiries about the delay, disobeyed the j)eremptory order to start, and finally, when called to account for it, began to tell that he only received his orders from the railroad superintendent, and not from generals of any rank. The sentence was not finished till Sheridan had felled him with a single blow of his fist, had kicked him off the train, and pulled the bell-rope. For the rest of the trip he served as conductor himself. The wild Irish boy of Somerset had grown dignified and discreet; but his old comrades would still have been apt to pronounce him "moighty handy wid his fists" upon occasion. At last the army crossed the Tennessee. "Little Phil," as by this tim,e he had come to be called by his admiring soldiers, was held a capital fighter, and much liked ; but his capacity for something more than the command of a division under McCook, seems not even yet to have been suspected. In this painfully subordinate capacity he moved with his corps, gaining no prominence and winning no praise, save for the uniform promptness and intelligence with which he obeyed every order. On the evening before Chickamauga he was of essential service in coming to the aid of Wood's and Davis's divisions, which were hard pressed by Longstreet. Through the night he was ordered to change his posi- tion; at daybreak fresh changes occurred ; and before the attack came, he found himself isolated on the extreme right. Here he held his lines in almost perfect quiet until eleven o'clock — the roar far to the left telling meanwhile of the terrible assault upon Thomas. Finally, the attack seemed to approach the division nearest him, and he was ordered to send one of his brigades to support it. Hardly had this been properly disposed, when a fresh order came for the L 508 Ohio in the Wak, other brigades to move with all haste to support Thomas. Abandoning his position, Sheridan started at once. But before he reached the ground where his first brigade had been sent, disaster was once more bursting upon the fated corps. Another division commander, perversely following the letter of an order to the destruction of its spirit, had broken the lines, and the enemy was pouring into the gap and crushing the flanks, right and left. As Sheridan, marching toward Thomas, came to the rear of the brigade which he had recently de- tached, he found it breaking under the terrific onset. He instantly threw in his other brigades on the double-quick. They were pressed back : ho rallied them, finally charged, and swept up to the gi'ound from which his first brigade had just been driven. But it was a triumph costly and temporary. Many of his best officers fell, foremost among them, General Lytic, commanding one of the charging brigades, and in a few moments the division was once more broken and in retreat. Eallying and re-forming his troops in the lull that followed he now had opportunity to look around him. Of all the gallant line of battle behind which he had been marching to Thomas, not a division or a brigade remained.- The right, in ii-retrievable confusion, had drifted out of the fight; he was left alone, with the victorious enemy between himself and Thomas. It was a rout which had carried back division and corps commanders, and even the General at the head of the army. But Sheridan's position on the extreme right, had kept him out of the whirl of disaster a little, and not one thought of retreat would seem to have entered his mind. He first essayed to continue his former march by the Dry Creek Valley Road, and so connect with Thomas's right. Finding that the enemy had reached this road before him, he turned once more, still keeping his division well in hand, and inarched for Thomas's left, near Rossville, carrying with him fragments of regiments and Iwigades from other commands, which, still retaining some semblance of organ- ization, gladly clung to his flanks. At Chattanooga it was first believed that he had been involved in the common disaster to the right. Then, as he failed to appear with the rest of the routed wing, he was supposed to have been cutoff and captured; and the loss of Sheridan's whole division was actually telegraphed to the North. But before the dispatches had been forwarded — indeed before some of them had been written — Sheridan was marching in on Thomas's left. He was not in time, however, to participate in the fierce struggle there, which, a little before his arrival, had driven off the enemy. Sheridan's action at Chickamauga was not so distinguished as at Stone Biver, and after the first disaster he was able to bring no great aid to the portion of the army that still kept up the struggle. But he fought his command with gal- lantry, rescued it from perilous isolation, and marched it, not like the rest, toward the rear, but in the direction of the enemy's guns. For the disasters that befell the right, he was, in no sense,' responsible; for the only exception to the sweeping rout of the right he deserves all the praise. His command nt the outset numbered four thousand bayonets. His killed and wounded numbered Philip H. Shekidan. 509 one thousand one hundred and eightj'-nine, or nearly one man for every three who went into battle* Two of his brigade commanders received severe wounds, and one of them, the lamented Lj'tle, fell dead after the third. In the changes consequent upon the removal of Eosecrans, Sheridan's com- mand was considerably enlarged. He held his part of the lines through the siege of Chattanooga; when offensive operations were resumed his position deter- mined his share in the storming of Mission Eidge. All the while Sherman and Hooker on the opposite flanks were advancing, he lay in line of battle ; when Lookout was carried he advanced his line in front of Mission Eidge; there, all the forenoon and till the sun was nearly half down the western hemisj)here, he lay watching the battle-flags of regiment after regiment marching up to re-en- force the Eebel line on his front, and awaiting the "six guns from Orchard Knob" that were to be his signal for attack. At last they came. What followed has been told by a thousand pens, and has gone into history as the most brilliant Bpeetacle of the great war. Before Sheridan and the companion divisions stretched an open space of a mile and an eighth to the enemy's first line of rifle-pits. Above this frowned a steep ascent of five hundred yards, up which it scarcely seemed likely that unresisted troops would clamber. At the summit were fresh rifle-pits. As Sher- idan rode along his front and reconnoitered the Eebel pits at the base of the ridge, it seemed to him that, even if captured, they could scarcely be tenable under the plunging fire that might then be directed from the summit. He accordinglj"- Bent back a staff-officer to inquire if the order was to take the rifle-pits or to take the ridge.f But before there was time for an answer the six guns thun- dered out their stormy signal, and the whole line rose up and leaped forward. The plain was swept by a tornado of shot and shell, but the men rushed on at the double-quick, swarmed over the rifle-pits, and flung themselves down on the face-of the mountain. Just then the answer to Sheridan's message came. It was only this first line of rifle-pits that was to be carried. Some of the men were accordingly retired to it by their brigade commander, under the heavy fire of grape, canister, and musketry. "But," said Sheridan, "believing that the attack had assumed a new phase and that I could carry the ridge, I could not order those officers and men who were so gallantly ascending the hill, step by Btep, to return." As the twelve regimental colors slowly wont up, one advanc- ing a little, the rest pushing forward, emulous to be even with it, till all were planted midway up the ascent on a partial line of rifle-pits that nearly covered Sheridan's front,! an order came from Granger : " If in your judgment the ridge can be taken, do so." An eye-witness shall tell us how he received it : " An aid rides up with the order. 'Averj', that flask,' said the General. Quietly filling the pewter cup Sheridan looks up at the battery that frowned above him, by Bragg'e liead-quartcrs, shakes his cap amid that storm of everything that kills, where you could hardly hold your hand without catching a bullet in it, and, with a ' How *He loBt three hundred and twenty-eight prisoners, besides a number of his wounded, who were captured in the field hospital. t Sheridan's Official Report Mission Ridge. J Ibid. 510 Ohio in the War. aro you?' tosses off the cup. The blue battle-flag of the Rebels fluttered a response to the cool salute, and the next instant the battery let fly its six guns, showering Sheridan with earth. The General said in his quiet way: 'I thought it ungenerous!' The recording angel will drop a tear upon the word for the part he played that day. Wheeling toward the men he cheered them to the charge, and made at the hill like a bold-riding hunter. They were out of the rifle-pits and into the tempest, and struggling up the steep before you could get breath to tell it."* Then came what the same writer has called the torrid zone of the battle. Rocks were rolled down from above on the advancing line; shells with lighted fuses were rolled down ; guns were loaded with handfuls of cartridges and fired down, but the line struggled on: still fluttered the twelve regimental flags in the advance. At last, with a leap and a rush, over they went — all twelve fluttered on the crest — the Rebels were bayoneted out of their rifle-pits — the guns were turned — the pdge was won. In this last spasm of the struggle Sheridan's horse was shot under him. He sprang upon a captured gun, to raise his short person high enough to be visible in the half-crazy throng, and or'dered a jjursuit! It harusRed the enemy for some miles, and brought back eleven guns as proofs of its vigor. Signal as had been Sheridan's previous services, he had never before been 80 brilliantly conspicuous. In other battles he bad approved himself a good officer in the eyes of his superiors ; on the deathly front of Mission Ridge he flamed out the incarnation of soldierly valor and vigor in the eyes of the whole American people. His entire losses were thirteen hundred and four, and he took seventeen hundred and sixty-two prisoners. But these figures give no adequat« idea of the conflict. It may be better understood from the simple statement that in that brief contest, in a part of a winter afternoon, he lost, one hundred and twenty-three officers from that single division — a number greater than the whole French army lost at Solferino ! Through his 'own clothes five Minie balls had passed; his horse had been shot under him; and yet he had come out without a scratch. ' ' No man could be more modest in detailing hie own exploits; but it was easy to arouse the belligerent tendencies of Sheridan's nature by seeking to appropriate the exploits of his soldiers. In his official report he could not refrain from this gruff correction : " While we were thus pushing the enemy, and forcing him to abandon his artillery, wagons, and stores, the division of General Wood remained on Mission Ridge, constructing rifle-pits, and General Hazcn and his brigade employed themselves in collecting the artillery from which my men had driven the enemy, and have claimed it their capture. Gen- eral Wood, in his report to General Thomas of artillery taken, claims many pieces which were the prizes of my division, and when told by me that the report was untruthful, replied ' that it was based upon the report of General Hazen,' who pevhaps will in turn base his on those of the regiments; but whether Wood, Hazen, regimental or company commanders are responsible, the *B. F. Taylor,. Esq., of Chicago. Philip H. Sheridan. 511 report is nntriie. Eleven of these guns were gleaned from the battle-field, and appropriated while I was pushing the enemy on to Chickamauga Station."* Then followed the rapid march for the relief of Knoxville, under Sherman, and then the long rest of the winter, not to be broken till the bugles sounded the advance for the Atlanta campaign. But the spring that unleashed his old troops for Atlanta, was to bring to Sheridan himself new duties and wider fame. It was largely to Grant that Sheridan had owed his start in the war, in his transfer from the routine duties of the staff to the command of a cavalry regi- ment. He had then worked his own way up to the command of a brigade, and in the handsome little affair at Booneville had won his star. But he was again indebted to Grant, when he had been transferred to Kentucky, for the recom- mendation which had secured his further promotion to the command of a divis- ion. At Perryville, Stone Eiver, and Chickamauga, his conduct had been that of a trusty and energetic commander; but, though he had won a Major-Gene- ralship, he had not succeeded in impressing his further capacities upon the minds of his immediate commanders. At Mission Ridge he shone ; but the eyes that from Orchard Knob then watched his brilliant conduct, had followed him from the far-off days of Booneville. Their approval brought Sheridan face'to face with his destiny. Grant soon applied for his transfer to the East; a few days later he was made Chief of Cavalry to the renowned Army of the Potomac ; in three weeks he was covering the flank of the army as it moved upon the WiMemess. The next eleven months were to Sheridan the seed-time and fruition of all his soldierly career. At their close he was able to say : " We sent to the "War Department from 5th May, 1864, to 9th April, 1865 (the day on which the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered), two hundred and five battle flags, captured in open field fighting — nearly as many as all the armies of the United States combined sent there during the rebellion. The number of field pieces (aptured in the same period was between one hundred and sixty and one hun- dred and seventy — all in open field fighting."! Of the operations of his immediate arm, the cavalry, he was able, with a proper pride in its brilliant performance, that still never overstepped the bounds of scrupulous narration, to Bay: "We led the advance of the army to the Wilderness; on the Richmond raid we marked out its line of march to the North Anna, where we found it on our return ; we again led its advance to Hanovertown, and thence to Cold Harbor; we removed the enemy's cavalry- from the south side of the Chicka- hominy by the Trevillian raid, and thereby materially assisted the army in its Bnccessful march to the James Eiver and Petersburg, where it remained until we made the campaign in the Valley ; we marched back to Petersburg, again took the advance and led the army to victory. In all these operations the per oentage of cavalry casualties was as great as that of the infantry, and the ques- tion which had existed — 'who ever saw a dead cavalrymen?' was set at rest." ] •Sheridan's OBBcial Beport, Mission Kidge. t Sheridan's Official Bcports, Gov't Edition, p. 31 512 Ohio in the Wak. How brilliantly he led the cavalry these ringing sentences of his own may suggest. But the weight of the ponderous strokes which he dealt in those closing campaigns, with cavalry and with infantry as well, must be told by other pens. We shall have to follow him through such varied service to the Army of the Potomac as his own tribute to the cavalry hints at. We shall then find him summoned in an hour of peril to the command of a great department. We shall seo him drive the last Eebel organization from its borders. We shall see how his successes added enthusiasm to the Presidential campaign, and esprit to the army; how when he was absent his army was driven; how his individual return proved better than re-enforcements, bringing victory with him in his mad gallop ; how his remorseless pursuit hung upon the great army of the rebellion in its final flight; how he planted himself across its path, tore great rents in its ranks, and at last forced it to yield ; how, from first to last, he never issued a congratulatory order to the troops that wrought such deeds, never assumed that they or he had done aught but what their duty required, and at the laet turned his back upon the dazzling pageant in which generals and privates were to see how their countrymen admired them, to hurry to fresh fields of duty and danger. How these busy eleven months were crowded may perhaps be better seen in another way. Here is the official roll of the battles he fought. There are seventy -six of them I All were fought by the troops of his command — aU but thirteen under orders from himself: Parker's Store, May 5, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. B. Mclntoeh, command- ing brigade Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and infantry advance of the Bebel army. Craig's Meetiko-House, May 5, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, com- manding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Bebel cavalry under .command of General Fitz Lee. Todd's Taverk, May 5, 1864. — ^Fought by Brigadier-General D. McM. Gregg, commanding Second Cavalry Division, vrith '^Wilson's Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Kebel cavalry corps under General J. E. B. Stuart. Furnaces, May 6, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. Merritt, commanding First Cav- alry Division, and General Fitz Lee's Bebel cavalry division. Todd's Tavern, No. 2, May 7, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, command- ing Gregg's and Merritt's cavalry divisions, and Bebel cavalry corps under General J. £. B. Stuart. Spottsylvania C. H., May 8, 1864. — ^Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, com- manding Third Cavalry Division, and Wickham's Bebel cavalry brigade and Longstreet's Bebel infantry corps. Beaver Dam, May 9 and 10, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, command- ing cavalry corps. Army of the Potomac, and the Bebel cavalry corps under GeneraFJ. £. B. Stuart. Yeixow Tavern, May 11, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, commanding cavalry corps, Army of the Potomac, and Bebel cavalry corps under General J. E. B. StuarL Meadow Bridge, or Bichmond, May 12, 1864. — Fought by Major-Greneral P. H. Sheri- dan, commanding cavalry corps. Army of the Potomac, and Bebel cavalry corps and four bri- gades of Bebel infantry. Hanovertown, May 27, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General A.- T. A. Torbert, com- manding First Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Gbneral Gordon's Bebel cavalry command, Hawe's Shop, May 28, 1864.— Fought by General P. H. Sheridan, commanding, with Philip H. Sheridais". 513 Gregg's cavalry division and Custer's brigade, First Cavalry Division, and the Bebel cavalry corps with Butler's South Carolina mounted infantry, under General Wade Hampton. Matadbqutn Cbeek, May 30, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General A. T. A. Torbert com- manding First Cavalry Division, and General Fitz Lee's Bebel cavalry division. Cold Habbob, May 31 and June 1, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, com- manding, with the First Cavalry Division (Torbert's), supported by Second Cavalry Division (Gregg's), and General Wade Hampton, with Rebel cavalry corps, supported by Hoke's Rebel infantry division, etc. •Mechtjmp's Cheek, May 31, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, command- ing Third Cavalry Division, and General W. H. F. Lee's Rebel cavalry .division. •Ashland, June 1, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, commanding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General W. H. F. Lee's division of Rebel cavalry. * Hawk's Shop No. 2, June 2, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, com- manding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General W. H. F. Lee's Rebel cavalry division. Summee's Uppee Beldge, Jun.e 2, 1864. — Fought by BrigadierrGeneral D. McM. Gregg, commanding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and the right wing of the Bebel army. •ToLOPOTOMOY, June 2, 1864. — ^Fought . by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, commanding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and the left wing of the Rebel atrmy. * Bethesda Chtjech, June 11, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General .J. B. Mcintosh, com- manding brigade, Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General W. H. F. Lee's Bebel Cavalry division. Teevillian Station, June 11, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, com- manding cavalry corps, Army of the Potomac, with the First and Second Cavalry Divisions, and Major-General Wade Hampton, commanding Rebel cavalry corps, supported by a brigade of South Carolina mounted infantry. *Long'8 Beidge, June 12, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H Wilson, command- ing Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Bebel cavalry division under General W. H. F. Lee. Malloey's Foed Ceoss-Roads, June 12, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, commanding cavalry corps, Army of the Potomac, wilh First and Second Cavalry Divisions, and Major-General Wade Hampton, with Rebel cavalry corps,' brigade of South Carolina mounted infantry, and Breckinridge's Rebel infantry division. * White Oax Swamp, June 13, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, com- manding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Rebel cavalry division under General W. H. F. Lee. * Riddel's Shop, June 13, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General G. H. Chapman, com- manding cavalry brigade, Third Division, Army of the Potomac, and the infantry advance of the Bebel army. •Smith's Stoee, near St. Mart's Chubch, June 15, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-Gen- eral J. B. Mcintosh, commanding brigade, Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General W. H. F. Lee's Rebel cavalry division. Tunstall's Station, June 21, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, command- ing cavalry corps. Army of the Potomac, with the First and Second Cavalry Divisions, and Rebel cavalry corps under General Wade Hampton. •Nottoway C. H., June 23, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, command- ing Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Rebel cavalry division under General W. H. P. Lee. St. Maey's CircBCH, June 24, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General D. McM. Gregg, com- manding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General Wade Hampton, com- manding Rebel cavalry corps. * Roanoke Station, June 25, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, com- manding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Kautz's cavalry division. Army of the James, and Rebel cavalry division and Home-Guards under General W. H. F. Lee. Vol. I.— 33. 514 Ohio in the Wae. * Stoney Cheek, June 29, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, command- ing, with Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Brigadier-General A. V. Kaatz'B cavalry division. Army of the James, and General Wade Hampton, commanding Rebel cavalry corps and General W. H. F. Lee's cavalry division. * Keam'8 Station, June 29, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, command- ing Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Eautz's cavalry division, Army of the James, and Bebel cavalry divisions of Hampton, Fitz Lee, and W. H. F. Lee, and Hoke's divis- ion of Rebel infantry. Darbytown, July 28, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, commanding, with the First (Torbert's) and Second (Gregg's) Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Potom.ic, and Long- street's corps and Wilcox's division of Hill's corps (Rebel infantry), and Hampton's Bebel cav- alry corps. Lee's Mills, July 31, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. Irvin Gregg, commanding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General Fitz Lee's Rebel cavalry division. MooBEFiBLD, August 7, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. W. Averill, commanding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and.R^bel cavalry brigades of Bradley Johnston, McCausland, and Imboden. Toll Gate, August 11, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. Merritt, commanding First Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel infantry division of General Gordon, and Rebel cavalry under Wickham. Cedarvule, August 16, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-Gteneral W. Men-itt, commanding First Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General Fitz Lee's Rebel cavalry division, and General Kershaw's Rebel infantry division. WmcHESTEB, August 17, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-Generri A. T. A. Torbert com- manding, with the Third (Wilson's) Cavalry Division, Lowell's brigade of First Cavalry Divis- ion, and Penrose's brigade, Sixth Army Corps, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry and Breckinridge's Rebel infantry corps. Summit Point, Augnst 21, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, commanding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry and infantry advance of the Bebel army. Kearneysville, Augnst 25, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-G«neral A. T. A. Torbert, commanding First and Third Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenandoah, and Breckiuiidge's Rebel infantry corps. Kabletown, August 26, 1864. — ^Fought by Brigadier-General C. B. Lowell, jr., commind- ing brigade First Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Fitz Lee's Rebel cavaliy division, supported by Kershaw's Rebel infantry division. Smithpield, August 28, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier General W. Merritt, commanding First Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Lomax's Rebel cavalry division. Smithfield Cbossino of the Opequan, August 29, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. Merritt, commanding First Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General Breck- inridge's Rebel infantry corps, and General Fitz Lee's Rebel cavalry division. Bunker Hill, September 2 and 3, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General W. W. Averill, commanding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Bebel cavalry brigades of" McCausland, Bradley Johnston, and Imboden. Abram's Cbeek, September 13, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General J. B. Mcintosh, coni- uianding brigade. Third Cavahy Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Kershaw's Rebel inftintry division, and McCausland's Rebel cavahy brigade. Opeciuan, September 19, 1864.— Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, commanding Army of the Shenandoah (cavalry and infantry) and Lientenant-General Jubal A. F.arly, com- manding Rebel Army of the Valley (cavalry and infantry). Front Royal, September 21, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, command- * These were fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, commanding Third Cavalry Division, under instructions from Major-General G. G. Meade, commanding Army of the Potomac. Philip H. Sheeidan. 515 ing Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry division under Briga- dier-General Wiekham. FisHEK'sHrLL, September 22, 1864. — Fought by "Major-Gfeneral P. H. Sheridan, commanding Army of the Shenandoah (infantry) with Devin's brigade, 'First Cavalry Division, and Averill's cavalry division, and Lieutenant-General Jubal A. Early, commanding Kebel Army of the VaUey. MlLFOBD, September 22, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, com- manding First (Merritt'sJ and Third (Wilson's) Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenandoah, and General Fitz Lee's Rebel cavalry division. LimAY, September 24, 1864. — ^Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, command- ing First (Merritt's) and Third (Wilson's) Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenandoah, and Fitz Lee's Rebel cavalry division. FoBEST HlLli, September 24, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. H. Powell, com- manding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry brigades of Jackson, Imboden, and HcCausIand. Weyer's Cave, September 26, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. H. Powell, com- manding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General Fitz Lee's Rebel cav- alry division. Bkown's Gap, September 26, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. Merritt, commanding First Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General Fitz Lee's Rebel cavalry divison, and Kershaw's Rebel infantry division. Waynesboko', September 28, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, commanding Third (Wilson's) Division, and'Lowell's brigade. First Cavalry Division, Army of the. Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry and infantry. Mt. Ceawfobd, October 2, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, commanding First (Merritt's) and Third (Custer's) Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenan- doah, and Rebel cavalry divisions of Fitz Lee and Rosser, and Pegram's Rebel infantry division. Tom's Run, October 9, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, command- ing, with cavalry divisions of Generals Merritt and Custer, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry divisions of Fitz Lee, Rosser, and Lomax. « Cedae CitEEK, October 19, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan commanding, with Army of the Shenandoah (cavalry and infantry), and Lieutenant-General Jubal A. Early, commanding Rebel Army of the Valley (cavalry and infantry). MlLFORD, No. 2. October 26, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General Powell, eommanding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General L. L. Lomax, with Rebel cavalry division. MroDLifTOWN, November 12, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan commanding, with the First and Third Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenandoah, and the Rebel Army of the Valley, under Lieutenant-General Jubal A. Early. NmEVEJi, November 12, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. H. Powell, commanding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry Division under General L. L. Lomax. Lacby's Spbino's, December 21, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General G. A. Custer, commanding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry division ander General Rosser. 'Lebeety Mills, December 22, 1864. — ^Fought "by. Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, commanding First and Second Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry division under General L. L. Lomax. GrOKDOsrsviLi^, December 23, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, commanding First and Second Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenandoah, and Lomax's Bebel cavalry division, and Pegram's division of Rebel infantry. Waymesboho' No. 2, March 2, 1865. — Fought by Brevet Major-General G. A. Custer, com- manding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Lieutenant-General Early, with Wharton's Rebel infantry division, Lilley's infantry brigade, and Rosser with part of a brigade of cavalry. 516 Ohio in the Wak. NoBTH Amna Bridges, ok Ashijjsd No. 2, March 14 and 15, 1865. — ^Fought hj Major- General P. H. Sheridan commanding, with Merritt^B two cavaliy divisions (Custer's and Devin's), Army of tlie Shenandoah, and Lieutenant-General Longstreet commanding, with Fitz Lee's Bebel cavalry division, and Picltett's and Bushrod Johnston's Bebel infantry division. DiirwiDDiE C. H., March 31, 1865. — Fought by M^jor-Creneral P. H. Sheridan commanding, with Merritt's two cavalry divisions (t. e. Custer's and Devin's), Army of the Shenandoah, and Crook's cavalry division. Army of the Potomac, and Pickett's and Bushrod Johnston's Bebel infantry divisions, with Fitz Lee's and W. H. F. Lee's cavalry divisions. FlTB Forks, April 1, 1865. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan commanding, with Merritt's two cavalry divisions (i. e. Custer's and Devin's), Army of the Shenandoah, and Crook's and McKenzie's cavalry divisions, armies operating against Bichmond, and the Fifth Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, and Lieutenant-Gteneral Anderson, commanding Pickett's and Bushrod Johnston's Bebel infaiitry divisions, and the Bebel cavalry corps, consisting of Fitz Lee's, W. H F. Lee's, Lomax's, and Bosser's Bebel cavaby divisions. Scott's Corners, April 2, 1865. — Fought by Brevet Major-General W. Merritt, commanding, with Custer's and Devin's cavalry divisions. Army of the Shenandoah, and McEenue's cavalry division. Army of the James, and infantry rear-guard of the Bebel army under Longstreet, and Bebel cavalry under Fitz Lee and W. H. F. Lee. SvnBKTHonsE Creek, April 3, 1865. — Fought by Brevet Major-General G. A. Custer, com- manding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General W. H. F. Lee, com- manding Bebel cavalry division, supported by six brigades of Bebel infantry. WiNTicoMACK Creek, April 3, 1865. — Fought by Colonel William Wells, commanding bri- gade Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General G«ary, commanding North Carolina brigade of Bebel cavalry. Ahella. C. H., April 4 and 5, 1865. — Fought by Brigadier-GeneraL B. S. McKenzie, com- manding cavalry division. Army of the James, and the advance of the Bebel army under Gen- eral Longstreet. Tabernacle Chttrch, April 4, 1865. — Fought by Brevet Major-General W. Merritt, com- manding, with Custer's and Devin's cavalry divisions. Army of the Shenandoah, and the rear- guard of the Bebel army under General Gordon. Amelia Springs, April 5, 1865. — Fought by Major-General George Crook, commanding Sec- ond Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General Fitz Lee's Bebel ciavalry division, supported by Bebel infantry. Sailor's Creek, April 6, 1865. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, commanding, with General W. Merritt's cavalry divisions (Custer's and Devin's) Army of the Shenandoah, Major-General Crook's Second Cavalry Division, and the Sixth Army Corps under Major-Gen- eral H. G. Wright, and the Bebel Army of Northern Virginia under General B. E. Lee. Fakmville, April 7, 1865. — Fought by Major-General George Crook, commanding, Sec- ond Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General Bosser's Bebel cavalry division, sup^ ported by infantry, rear-guard of the Bebel army. Appomattox Station, April 8, 1865.— Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, command- ing, with Merritt's two cavalry divisions (i. e. Custer's and Devin's), Army of the Shenandoah, and the main advance of the Bebel army. Appomattox C. H., April 9, 1865.— Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, with Mer- ritt's cavalry command (t. e. Custer's and Devin's cavalry divisions), Army of the Shenandoah, and Crook's and McKenzie's cavalry divisions, armies operating against Bichmond, supported by the Fifth Army Corps, Army of the Potoinac, and the Twenty- Fourth Army Corps, Army of the James, and Bebel Army of Northern Virginia (cavalry and infantry), (General Eobert E. Lee commanding. The history of these seventy-six battles is the history of by far the larger part of the cavalry operations of the war. Into that we can not enter. It is likewise the history of the greatest of living cavalry Generals; and this (with a quicker pen) we may continue to trace. Philip H. Sheridan. 517 Minie muskets and rifled cannon had abolished the old functions of cavalry. What its true sphere might be, under the changed conditions of war, was still an open question. Manifestly the day for grand cavalry charges, which should decide the fate of pitched battles was past, when the charge must be made for miles under a storm of rifle projectiles. So high an authority as General Sher- man had declared that he had lost faith in cavalry raids.* In effect the cavalry was reduced to the drudgery of furnishing pickets for the army. It was with- out espnf de corps ; the men were the target for alternate abuse and raillery from the fighting infantry ; and their horses, neglected by riders never taught how to care for them, were broken down. Sheridan's first movement w-as to procure the release of his cavalryfrom a large share of their picket-duty; his next to nurse the horses into some degree of fitness for active service. Meantime he' sought to impress upon the mind of the Lieutenant-Greneral his own idea of the work before the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac. He took up the theory, he tells us, that in that country of 4ense woods and numerous streams, " our cavalry ought to fight the enemy's cavalry, and our infantry the enemy's infantry. . . . But it was difficult to overcome the established custom of wasting cavalry for the protec- tion of trains, and for the establishment of cordons around a sleeping infantry force."f He had taken up another notable idea. He did " not believe war to be simply that lines should engage each other in battle, as that is but the duello part — a part which would be kept up so long as those who live at home in peace and plenty, could find the best youth of the country to enlist in their cause."J He said "the best" — he explained, "because the bravest are always the best." And with this profession of a soldier's creed, he added that, believing war to be something more than a duel, he did "not regret the system of living on the enemy's country. These men and women did not care how many were killed or maimed, 80 long as war did not come to their doors; but as soon as it did come, in the shape of loss of property, they earnestly prayed for its termina- tion." Furthermore, war being a punishment and death the maximum punish- ment, "if we can, by reducing its advocates to poverty, end it quicker, we are on the side of humanity.'' Questionable conclusions, perhaps ! But Sheridan's l^unpaigns never saw such license resulting therefrom,- as brought stains upon the bright hobor of others. He took the best out of both his principles — showed what could be done by fighting the enemy's cavalry, and what by living off the country. I For a few days after Grant's overland movement began, he was kept busy, jfcnarding the left of the army, protecting its trains, and feeling its way for it, ^ut of the Wilderness, to Spottsylvania. Then, cutting loose from the Army of the Potomac, with but a half-day's rations of forage, he started to " fight the enemy's cavalry," and — ^get supplies on the James! Making a wide detour to I avoid Lee, he next turned straight for Lee's rear and for Eichmond. The Rebel cavalry could not comprehend his'purpose, and fi-ittered away its time in incon- [^ 'Eep. Com. Cgn. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 195. tSlieridan's Official Beports, Gov't Edition, p. 18. I Ibid, p. 31. 518 Ohio in the Wak. sequential attacks upon his rear, while his advance leisurely walked across river after river, where the passage might have been strenuously resisted. At last he passed the Xorth Anna; then launching out a single division in all haste to Beaver Dam Station, he captured a rich store of supplies,* and was henpe- forth in no fear as to what might befall before he should reach his rations on the James. His horses' heads were turned into the open road to Eichmond — the Rebel cavalry following at first in bewilderment, then, as his purpose dawned upon them, bending every energy to interpose between his advancing column and their capital. They did not succeed till the guidons of the Yankee troopers were fluttering within six miles of the city. Here, at Yellow Tavern, came the first vigorous contest between the entire forces of cavalry of the contending armies. General J. B. B. Stuart, an old and distinguished cavalry commander, was Sheridan's antagonist. He committed the tactidal error of dividing his force as he was about to receive the attack, sending a large column to effect a divei-Sion in Sheridan's rear. He paid for the error with his life. Sheridan left a small body to Hake care of the rear, and charged resistlessly down upon Stu- art's position in front. The Eebel cavaliy broke ; the part in front fled toward Richmond, the column at the rear was driven northward ; and, with an open road before him, Sheridan trotted down till he was within the outer defenses of the cil3^ Then, hearing from negroes that. Butler, advancing up the Jamea, was threatening Richmond on the south, bo determined to move along the defenses in such a manner as to render Butler whatever aid might be derived from a very efiectual and convincing demonstration. Accordingly he turned eastward, the feet of his horses touching off the torpedoes as they moved, and made a night march along the passage between the outer and inner line of works; -the Rebel cavalry, meanwhile, curiously watching to see what crazy freak this new Yankee commander would next attempt. When he came to cross the Chicka- hominy, lie found his passage obstructed, and the bridge partially destroyed. He repaired it under fire, crossed a division on it, and pursued the enemy to Gaines's Mill. Meantime the rest of his force had been attacked before crossing the I'iver, and one of his divisions had been driven ; but the other was skillfully thrown in upon the surprised foe; the Rebels were routed and driven behind the inner breastworks of the city. What followed the unique official report shall tell us : " For the balance of the day we collected our wounded, buried our dead, grazed our horses, and read the Richmond papers, two small newsboys having, with commendable enterprise, entered our lines, and sold to the officers and men!" Thus far the casualties had been four hundred and twenty -five. The diffi- culties of the movement were over, for crossings on the Chickahominy were easily secured, and the column marched, comparatively uninterrupted, through White Oak Swamp to Haxall's Landing, on the James. Here for three days they rested. They were to retui-n to the Army of the Potomac; but where was it? To make sure of contingencies, Sheridan decided on marching far to the eastward, crossing the Pamunkey at White Houpe, and I •About a million and a half of rations, in all, besides medical stores, telegraph wire^ etft i Philip H. Sheridan. 519 feeling there for the missing army. The railroad bridge was supposed to be burnt, but on coming to examine it closely, Sheridan found he could make it passable if he only had plank. Mounted parties were at once sent out to scour the country; every man returned bearing a board ; and before two divisions, sent out towards Eichmond to reconnoiter and to destroy Lee's i-ailroad had returned, the bridge was ready for their passage. A few prisoners were taken ; the whereabouts of the contending armies was ascertained, andwith little more difficulty they rejoined the Army of the Potomac. They had been gone sixteen days, had destroyed and captured many stores, temporarily firoken the railroads, deepened the sense of insecurity at Eichmond, and kept the Eebel cavalry out of Grant's way. But heyond and above this, the movement had changed the mounted force of the Army of the Potomac into cavalry. Thenceforth, they had confidence in themselves and in their leader ; were animated with the cavalry spirit, and were np longer doubtful of their power to compete with equal or superior forces of the enemy. They next moved to secure for the army the crossing of the Pam'unkey. Beyond the river, and but three-quarters of a mile from the infantry line, they had a hard fight with South Carolina cavalry, whom they finally drove. Next, they maneuvered for the possession of Cold Harbor, through which Grant wished to run his new line of supplies. Finally, they fought for it — first along an adjacent creek, then at Cold Harbor itself, where they drove a strong force of cavalry and infantry out of intrenchments. "The men were now beginning," says Sheridan, "to accept nothing less than victory." They were heavily at- tacked in their new position ; but behind their slight intrenchments they held it firmly till ten o'clock next morning, when the advance of the infantry arrived to relieve them. One of the systems of co-operative movements which Grant had so well arranged on paj)er (but which bitterly failed in execution) was now in progress. Sheridan, with two divisions, was ordered to assist it. General Hunter was expected to arrive at Charlottesville. Sheridan accordingly set out to cut the Virginia Central Eailroad, and join Hunter at this point — it being further expected that his movement would draw off the Eebel cavalry from the flanks and trains of the Army of the Potomac. He carried a hundred rounds of am- munition, three days' rations, and two days' forage. For the rest he was to live off the country. As he started he received news that Breckinridge's infantry, and the whole Eebel cavalry, were moving westward on a route par- allel to his own. He encountered no difficulty till he reached Trevillian Station, where he had hard fighting. He now learned that Hunter was not at Char- lottesville but that Breckinridge, was ; that Ewell was still fui-ther westward; that Hunter, instead of marching to join him, was marching fairly away from him, in the direction of Lynchburg. He had nearly exhausted his ammunition. He had five hundred wounded, and as many prisoners. Thus burdened and isolated, he was facing, without rations or forage, in an erifemy's country, lai-gely euporior numbers, and was without powder and ball, and without prospect of joining the co-operating column. He promptly decided to return ; broke up 520 Ohio in the Wae. the railroad about Trevillian Station; used almost his last round of ammu- nition in the fighting that accompanied this work; left ninety wounded who could not be moved, and with the rest in ambulances, struck out north-eaat- wardly on his return, bearing with him two thousand escaping slaves. There was some delay in feeling for the new positions of the Army of the Potomac ; and, finally, the column came safely out at White House. A new task awaited it — to conduct the great train left there to the south side of the James, whither the army had already gone. " The train should never have been left for us," says Sheridan rather curtly — indeed he seems on several occasions ill-satisfied with General Meade's management of affairs — but his tired troopers at once undertook the work. Heavy Rebel forces hung upon his flanks; and he had to fight a stubborn battle at St. Mary's, which ended in disorderly retreat, but lasted long enough to get the train out of harm's way. And so he came out on the James. Meanwhile General Meade had contrived to get Wilson's cavalry division, which Sheridan had left behind when he started on the Trevillian raid, into trouble. It had been sent south of Petersburg to cut railroads, had not been properly supported, and had been improperly instructed as to the forces it would encounter. Just as Sheridan was arranging for its relief it worried through, though with heavy loss. At last came a little rest. The cavalry had now been fighting and marching continuously for fifty-six consecutive days. It was given from the 2d to the 26th of July to recuperate. Then followed a fresh movement to the north side of the James, to create a diversion in favor of the Burnside mine explosion. At Darbytown it came upon resistance, fought a brisk engagement, and came oflf with two hundred and fifty prisoners and two battle-flags. Then, with the supporting infantry, it drew in around the head of the bridge. At dark the floor was covered with moss and a division of the cavalry stealthily moved over to the south side. At daybreak, dismounted, and with all the pomp of flutter- ing banners and beating drums, they came marching back. By such maneuvers theencmy was led to believe a continuous and formidable movement to the north side was in progress. Then — the mine explosion having ended in miser- able failure — he once more led back his cavalry to the lines around Petersburg. It was on the 30th of July he returned. On the 1st of August he was relieved, for harder duty on a wider field. , Of the energetic and successful use made of the cavalry belonging to the Army of the Potomac during these busy months nothing can be said but praise. When Sheridan began he confronted superior forces, under the ablest cavalry leader of the rebellion. This leader* was killed in the firet battle ; his troops, under subordinates so noted as Wade Hampton and Fitz Lee, were routed at almost every encounter, and when Sheridan turned his face northward, on the Ist of August, he left behind him no Rebel cavalry worthy of the name. In all his more extended movements he had lived off the country ; but it is much to his credit that no outrages were permitted, and that, whenever they occuiTod. • General J. E. B. Stuart. Philip H. Shekidan. 521 efforts were made to bring the perpetrators to justice. He had captured dur- ing the. campaign over two thousand prisoners ; had placed Jiors de combat a force of the enemy at least equal to his own casualties, and had lost in killed and wounded over five thousand. At the period which we have now reached "Washington was just recover- ing from the alarm of an attack which, under an enterprising commander, could scarcely have failed to result in its capture. But Early had frittered away his opportunity in feeble reconnoissances ; had suddenly found himself confronted by two corps ; had hastily retreated, and had been followed, rather than vigor- ously pursued, up the Shenandoah Valley. Hitherto the troops and the terri- tory essential to the safety of the capital had been split up into four inde- pendent departments, for the convenience of the sorely beset President in find- ing places for his unemployed Major-Generals. General Grant now broke up this unmilitary arrangement. He made one department of the four, and shortly afterward placed Sheridan at the head of it. The task here was two-fold : First, and always, to protect the capital and the North from these perpetual incursions or alarms about incursions, through the open gateway of the Shenandoah Valley; and second, to defeat the Eebel army, drive it out, and prevent its return. For this work Sheridan had the Sixth and the Nineteenth Army Corps, Crook's " Army of "Western Virginia," and two divisions of cavalry from the Army of the Potomac, making up an effective force, not stated in numbers officially by the General, though it could scarcely have fallen below thirty thousand. There seems little reason to doubt that Early, at the beginning of active operations, had at least twenty thousand.* •Some controversy having subsequently sprung up as to the relative strength of the opposing armies in this campaign, it may be well at the outset to say that there seem to be no official data for arriving at Sheridan's exact strength. In his official repoi-t, describing the month's skirmish- ing before the battle of Opequan, he says his "effective line-of-battle strength was eighteen thousvid infantry and three thousand five hundred cavalry.'' But General Grant speaks (in his official report of general operations through the closing year of the war) of three brigades of cavalry sent to him, " numbering at least five thousand men and horses ;" and subsequently of sending also Torbert's and Wilson's divisions of cavalry from the Army of the Potomac. Sher- idan himself, in hie report of cavalry operations, gives the effective streifgth of the Army of the Potomac: in that arm at ten thousand. As he received two of the three divisions, the number thus added could hardly have been less than siz thousand. He had, besides these, Averill's cavalry, connected with the Army of Western Virginia, which could scarcely have been less than one thousand strong. These figures would make an aggregate of twelve thousand cavalry. The Sixth Corps had numbered nearly thirty-five thousand at the beginning of Grant's Overland Campaign ; but after its passage through that protracted slaughter there appear to be no attain- able official data to show its strength ; nor are there any to give the strength of the Nineteenth. Sheridan officially reports the casualties in his army through the entire campaign at sixteen thou- sand nine hundred and fifty-two (Gk)v't Edition, p. 48). Unless he lost over half his army in the campaign, this would involve a strength of at least thirty thousand at the outset, besides occasional re-enforcements. Swinton (History Army of the Potomac, p. 556) states Sheridan's entire effective strength at thirtynhousand infantry and ten thousand cavalry. But there is a paiwage in a cipher dispatch of Grant's to Halleck, brought out in the final Eeport Com. Con. War (Vol. 11, Sheridan's Campaigns, p. 35), stating that Early had received re-enforcements, raising 522 Ohio in the War. The reo-ion through which these rival forces were to contend was the beautiful and fertile valley of the Shenandoah — ttat loveliest portion- of Vir- ginia, lying between the AUeghanies on the west, and their outlying parallel range, the Blue Eidge on the east — rich, prosperous, abounding in food, and little harmed thus far by the war. The enemy lay at Martinsburg, on the Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad, which was the northern terminus of the great turnpike to Staunton, the leading artery of the valley. Sheridan's forces were concentrated near Harper's Ferry. The distance between the two armies was not great. Between them, however, flowed . the Opequan Creek. With the first signs of Sheridan's movement the enemy retreated up the turnpike to Winchester. Here Sheridan -meant to attack him. But Early continued his retreat, and Sheridan, striking in on the pike behind him, pressed hard after. Thjs up the valley they hastened, pursuers and pur- sued, till, near the bank of Cedar Creek — name which he was yet to make immortal — Sheridan was met by Colonel Chipman, from the Adjutant-General's ofiice, who had ridden hard through Snicker's Gap, from Washington; to bear him an ominous dispatch from Grant : " Inform General Sheridan that it is now certain two divisions of infantry have gone to Early, some cavalry, and twenty pieces of artillery. He must be cautious and act now on the defensive. Early's force, with this increase, can not exceed forty thousand men, but this is too much for General Sheridan to attack."* " At once." Sheridan tells us, " I looked over the map of the valley for a defensive line." He could find but one — that at Halltown, in front of Harper's Ferry — and he subsequently expressed his belief that no other good line for resisting the approach of a superior force existed in the valley. Thither he at once retreated — having some cavalry fighting and much maneuvering on the his strength to '' not over forty thousand — hU this it too much for Oeneral Sheridan to aitaiA." Greeley (American Conflict, Vol. II, p. 607) calls Sheridan's force "nearly thirty thousand ;" and as will be seen from the sentence in the text, I have thought this about the number to which the various scraps of evidence point as correct. The matter is of importance in estimating the value of Sheridan's service, since it has been common, both in Bebel circles and in certain quarters at the North, to speak of his campaign in the Shenandoah Valley as fought against an antagonist hav- ing little more than one soldier to his four. General Early himself, in a letter written from Havana, and published in the newspapers in December, 1865, charged Sheridan with exaggera- tion and misrepresentation as to various matters in the valley c ampaign, and said : " At the battle of Winchester, or Opequan, . . . my effective strength was about eight thousand five hundred muskets, three battalions of artillery, and less than three thousand cavalry." Unfor- tunate as he certainly was. General Early has hitherto been considered truthful; and, at any rate, an officer having regard for his own reputation, would hardly commit himself to an untrue statement in a matter of this kind, when the means for correcting it must exist in the hands of several individuals, and are pretty sure, some day or another, to come out. But Sheridan's reply shuts us up to the belief either that Early's statement here was grossly incorrect, or that he must have displayed excessively bad generalship in fighting » great battle with only a part of his forces, or that he must have been in constant receipt of re-enforcements afterward. This reply was very simple. It consisted of a receipt from the Provost-Marahal-General of the Depjurt- ment, for thirteen thousand prisoners, captured from General Early's command during the valley campaign — two thousand more than Early represent&^i as forming the entire effective strength of his army at Winchester I * Final Rep. Com. Con. War. Vol. II, Sheridan's Campaigns, pp. 34, 35. Philip H. Sheridan. 523 way. Under directions from General Grant, the wheat and hay throughout the portion of the valley thus reached, were destroyed, the order instructing "officers in charge of this delicate but necessary duty to inform the people that the object is to make this valley untenable for the raiding parties of the Eebel army."* On the 21st of August Sheridan reached his defensive line of Halltown. Three days before, on the evening of the 17th, Early had reached Winchester on his advance, and had been re-enforced by Kershaw's division of Long-street's famous corps from the Army of Northern Virginia, and by two brigades of Pitz Lee's cavalry. Still there is no reason to believe that his force by any means reached General Grant's enormous estimate of forty thousand. Subsecjuent dis- patches indeed proved so confused and contradictory that Sheridan determined to find out for himself what force Early really had, and repeated reconnoissances were accordingly ordered. Some of these swelled into considerable engagements. They resulted in convincing the General that " the difference of strength be- tween the two opposing forces was but little. "f Meanwhile he had learned that Kershaw's division was soon to be ordered back to Eichmond, and he decided to await its withdrawal. The country, he reasoned, could ill afford defeat, and no interests in the valley were injured by a little delay save those of the Baltimore and Ohio Eaih-oad — a corporation never likely to suffer long without making its wants abundantly known. J From the 21st of August, therefore, till the 3d of September, the army lay on the Halltown line, then until 19th September on positions in front of it toward Winchester. -Through all this time the cavalry was kept at work, skirmishing with the enemy, and — a matter of far greater moment — learning to attack infantry in position. The territory between the advanced lines and the bank of Opequan Creek was thus continually scoured, and behind this impenetrable veil Sheridan hoped, when the time came, to con- ceal the movements of his infantry. At last, on the night of the 15th September, came news of the awaited return of Kershaw. The plan now conceived by Sheridan was bold and sagacious. He determined to abandon his own line, throw himself upon that of the enemy, on the valley turnpike behind him, and thus leave him without retreat. But as yet his orders from the Lieutenant-General did not contemplate bringing on a decisive battle. Grant, howev-er, now came up from City Point to confer with Sheridan and decide what should be done. " He pointed out so distinctly how each army lay," says Grant in his Annual Eeport, "what he could do the moment he was authorized, and expressed such confidence of suc- cess, that I saw there were but two words of instruction necessary — go in! I asked him if he could get out his teams and supplies in time to make an attack on the ensuing Tuesday morning. His^reply was that he could before daj-light on Monday. He was off promptly to time," continues the General, "and I may here add that the result was such that I have never since deemed it neces- sary to visit General Sheridan before giving him orders." High compliment indeed — but we shall see how Sheridan won it. * Final Eep. Com. Con. War. Vol. II, Sheridan's Campaigns, pp. 34, 35. tibid, p. 37. tibid. 524 Ohio in the War. He was on the point of executing his bold movement to the enemy's rear, when word came to him that Early, keeping half his army at Winchester, had jnst sent the other half down to Martinsburg. Here then was an opportunity to beat him in detail. He would fall fii'st upon the force at Winchester, then, after crushing it, would advance northward down the Valley Pike against the Martinsburg column, which, thus cut off from its line of retreat, could have no escape. Beyond the Opequan stretched a narrow mountain gorge, through which lay the road Sheridan must take in advancing upon the Eebel positions at Winchester. Along this Wilson charged* with one division of the cavalry, sweeping out the Rebel defenders, capturing the work at the exit near Win- chester, and securing space for the deployment of the army.- But Emory's Nineteenth Corps was unfortunately delayed by its blunder in allowing the wagon-train of the Sixth to precede it, and the difficulty of the roads increased the detention, so that it was nine o'clock before the lines were ready to advance. Before this time Early had recalled the absent divisions, and concentrated his army. Moving up, therefore, to the attack with the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps, Sheridan met a heavy and obsti- nate resistance. He still held Crook in reserve, meaning, at the turning point in the battle, to throw him in on his left, and thus reach the Valley Pike, and still gain the enemy's line of retreat. But now Early, hoping by a powerful attack to break through the National front, seize the gorge, and thus plant ^imself upon its line of retreat, made a desperate onset u])on the center. The line was completely broken; toward the gorge began a rush of confused soldiery from half the regiments; the battle was almost lost. At this critical juncture Sheridan drew aside one of the brigades in the line, whiah had just missed the full force of the Bebel blow, and ordered it to reserve its fire. Early's attacking col- umn rushed on after the fleeing regiments till it had unwarily exposed its flank. Then, upspringing, the brigade poured SHERIDAN'S VALLEY CAMPAIGN. in its fire, and rushed upon the enemy's flank and rear. The diversion threw back the successful assaulting column; the corps commanders exerted themselves to re-form their lines, and bring back the ' 19th September, 1864. Philip H. Sheeidan. 525 t thousands from the rear; and before Early could prepare to renew his venture, a compact wall of infantry once more confronted him. Along the center fierce line-fighting progressed, each side lying close to cover, and firing with a deliberation and accuracy that the long ranks of corpses on the battle-field afterward attested. On the right, however, the storm increased; and Sheridan began to grow fearful that it would be turned. At last he determined to avert this danger by abandoning his original design of putting Crook in on the left, and by using him instead as a turning column on the right. His attack was vehement and successful. Just as the enemy began to flee, one looking down the Valley Pike might spe the rest of Sheridan's cavalry charging up. They had made a long detour to the right, had routed the Eebel cavalry, and were now driving a confused mass of infantry and cavalry up the pike and into Winchester. In the ojJen ground in front of the town Early made a last stand. But Wilson's cavalry was now pushing in on the left to gain the pike in his rear; Sheridan ordered a combined infantry and cavalry charge on the front; find the battle was over. It was five o'clock in the evening.* In his hasty dispatch to the War Department from the battle-field, Sheridan said: "Wo have just sent the enemy whirling through Winchester, and are after them to-morrow. This army behaved splendidly. We captured two thousand five hundred to three thousand prisoners, five pieces of artillery, nine battle-flags, and all the Eebel dead and wounded. Their wounded in Winches- ter amount to some three thousand. "f He wrote exactlyas he felt. He had been into the fight, had thrilled with the rapture of the charge, and the pride of the pursuit; and it was but putting the cavalry enthusiasm into words, when in his lively phrase he telegraphed to the listening Country, as he talked to the comrades around him, that they had sent the enemy whirling through Win- chester. How he fed on the fighting as on food a hundred stories of the battle are told to illustrate. But this bit of a picture from the pen of a regimental officer must sufllce. The general advance had just been ordered : "A mounted officer, followed by a single orderly, galloped up to us. As he reined in his horse a Rebel shell, one of the many which were now tearing through the wood, burst within a few feet of him, actually seeming to crown his head with its deadly halo of smoke and humming fragments. 'That's all right, boys,' he said, with a careless laugh. 'No matter, we can lick them.' The men laughed; then a whisper ran along the ranks that it was Sheridan! Then they burst into a spontaneous cheer. 'What regiment is this,' he asked; and dashed off toward the firing." So it was that he vvas magnetizing these troops, who a month ago had scarcely heard of him, into the confidence that a month later, was to enable *In the statements of the General's plans, in the above, and generally in the account of this campaign, where other authorities are not quoted, I follow closely Sheridan's own oiEcial reports. t Early states that he had only eleven thousand five hundred effective force in this battle. Were the statement credible it would detract greatly from the glory of the victory, for Sheridan's force engaged could scarcely have been less than twenty-five thousand. See note on this subject, ante, p. 521. 526 Ohio in the Wab. his simple presence among them to turn rout into sturdy resistance, and pres- ently into rnspiring victory. In the morning after Opequan* the whole army pushed forward, and by nightfall the advance corps had found the enemy intrenched at Fisher's Hill, and had gone into position before him. Fisher's Hill is a steep bluff overhang- ing the south bank of the little stream known as Tumbling Eiver, and is impregnable to direct attack. The Valley here contracts to a width of only three and a half miles. The enemy had intrenchments across it, and evidently con- sidered himself safe. But he was much weaker than at Winchester the day before, both by reason of his heavy losses in killed and wounded, and especially because of the dispiriting effect of the ghastly loss and the hurried retreat upon the survivors. Furthermore, he was very uneasy about his rear — protected by only a small cavalry force at a mountain gap, against one of Sheridan's splendid divisions which he knew to be assailing it. Throughout the succeeding day Sheridan maneuvered. The massing of his force on a small part of the enemy's front mystified Early; and on the morning of the 22d that commander was still further deceived by a movement of cavalry against his skirmish-line, which he took for a turning column. Meantime Crook, whose force had been carefully concealed from observation, was now hurriedly and secretly thrown westward to the extreme edge of the valley, where he moved up unperceived, and struck Early's thin flank a blow that instantly rolled it backward. He then swung in on the rear ; the line on the front rushed forward, overrunning all opposition and forming a connection with his flank ; with a single dash the rout of the enemy was complete. But Sheridan seemed forever doomed to disappointment in the efforts to plant a force across the Valley Pike in the enemy's rear. Torbert should have forced his passage as had been expected. If he had, Sheridan's sanguine expectation of capturing the whole opposing army might well have been real- ized, for, in its rout from Fisher's Hill, it scarcely preserved the semblance of even a company organization. As it was, pursuit was instantly ordered through tiie darkness. At Harrisonburg Early got together fragments of his force and took a strong position ; but presently left again in great haste, as his flank began to be threatened. The pursuit was pushed hard, and finally Early took to the mountains at Brown's Gap, where, soon, Kershaw once more came to his assistance. Sheridan continued picking up prisoners, and sending out cavalry expeditions through the length and breadth of the Valley, even penetrating to Staunton and Waynesboro'. The Valley was clear; the Eebel column had disappeared. It was now, therefore, to be decided whether the army should push after it into the mountains, and advance on Charlottesville and Gordonsville. The Department evidently expected this, and it would appear that General Grant once desired it. "I was opposed to it," says Sheridan, frankly, in his report, "for many reasons, the most important of which was that it would require the opening of the Orange and Alexandria Eailroad, and to protect this road against the numerous guerrilla » 20th September, 1864. Philip H. Sheeidan. 527 bands would have taken a corps of infantry. Besides, I would have been oblio'ed to leave a small force in the Valley to give security to the line of the Potomac. This would leave me but a small number of fighting men." And he further instances the danger of being overwhelmed in the mountains with this small force, by a sudden detachment from Lee's army, into the vicinitj' of which his march would be carrying him. He accordingly advised that the cam- paign in this direction be ended, and the bulk of the troops returned to the Army of the Potomac. Grant assented, and the march back again down the Valley began. When Sheridan assumed the command, scarcely two months before, the first orders he received were those under which his predecessor was acting : " In pushing up the Valley, it is desirable that nothing should be left to invite the enemy to return. Take all provisions, forage and stock wanted for the use of your command. Such as can not be consumed, destroy. It is not desirable that buildings should be destroyed — they should rather be protected; but the people should be informed that so long as an army can subsist among them, recurrences of these raids must be expected, and we are determined to stop them at all hazards." General Sheridan officially reports that, "fully coinciding in the views and instructions of the Lieutenant-General, that the Valley should bo made a barren waste, I stretched the cavalry across, from the Blue Eidge to the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, with directions to burn all forage and drive off all stock, etc., as they moved to the rear." But, unfortunately, he did more than "coincide." Here is his first account of the destruction in one of his dispatches from the field. "In moving back to this point, the whole country from the Blue Eidge to the North Mountain has been made untenable for a Eebel army. I have destroyed over two thousand barns filled with wheat and hay and farming implements; over seventy mills filled with flour and wheat; have driven in front of the army over four thousand head of stock, and have killed and issued to the troops not less than three ihou- sand sheep." But it is to be observed, with pleasure, that "the most positive orders were given not to burn dwellings." It would have been better if mills had been included in the exemption. To destroy these was to jnflict vengeance on the country for many years to come, and it was not required by the terms of General Grant's order. For the rest, Sheridan is not responsible. It will, how- ever, be long regretted that this cruel devastation, at best of doubtful necessity, involved innocent and guilty in a common and dread calamity; while it proved unavailing to keep out the Eobels, who, a few weeks later, were driving his surprised army in confusion from Cedar Creek. The laws of war admit such general destruction of food, in those special cases in -which "the advantage gained may seem adequate to the sufierings inflicted."* It would be hard to show wherein such advantage was realized in the Shenandoah Valley. But it is to be said that General Sheridan did all he could to j)revent riotous license from mingling with the stern destruction. In this he stands in enviable contrast with another, and not less distinguished Ohio General. " As he rode down the Mar- *TwisB,-Law of Nations, Vol. I, p. 125. L 528 Ohio in the War. tinsburg Pike in his fbur-horse wagon," writes an admiring staff officer,* " with heels on the front seat, and smoking a cigar, while behind him his cavalry was destroying the provender that could not be carried away, the inhabitants of the Valley doubtless regarded him as history regai-ds the Emperor who fiddled while Eome was burning, and would not now believe what is the simple truth, that this destruction was distasteful to him, and that he was moved by the dis- tress he was obliged to multiply upon these unfortunate people whose evil fate had left them in the ruinous track of war so long." As he retired, the Eebel cavalry, under a new leader. General Eosser, dogged his heels, and strove to prevent the destruction. Finally Sheridan halted ; ordered Torbert to attack, and notified him that the infantry would wait till he had defeated them. "I thought it best," he telegraphed, "to make this delay of one day here and settle this new cavalry General." And he goes oh to tell how Torbert charged and drove him, and pursued him " on the jump twenty-six miles." About this time he received the notice of his appointment to the Brigadier- Generalship in the Eegular Army, made vacant by the lamehted death of his old classmate, McPherson. Here, indeed, was success. "Perhaps, in the chances of war, I may win a Major's commission," he said in 1861. It was now only 1864; he had long been a Major-General of Volunteers; and now, in the inner circle of his and every West Pointer's idolatry, the regular service, he was a Brigadier, with an appointment that would last for life. But even this faintly conveyed to him the immense stride he had taken. General Grant had ordered a salute of a hundred guns "in honor of Sheridan's great victory." The War Department tendered him formal thanks, and emphasized the declara- tion that "your cavalry has become the efficient arm in this country that it has proved in other countries, and is winning by its exploits the admiration of the country and Government." The country went wild over his successes ; great political calculations were based upon his achievements, and the important State and Presidential elections of the fall were largely influenced by his ringing dispatches from the field, which, to over half the nation, soon became familiar in their mouths as household words. Sheridan's pre-eminence as a cavalry officer was admiringly conceded on all hands. Not yet, however, had the public come to recognize the real breadth and strategic ability of the General's mind. In this respect, indeed, the very brilliancy of his exploits retarded the solid growth of his fame. We have seen that the victor of the Valley and those who controlled thi; conduct of the war differed as to the policy now to be pursued. Sheridan's vig- orous representations had gained an assent to his far-seeing and sagacious views; but at Cedar Creek he was met by a dispatch from the marplot " Chief of Staff" at Washington, instructing him to " take a position far enough south to serve as a base for further operations upon Gordonsville and Charlottesville," which, furthermore, was to be " strongly fortified and provisioned." It was stated that •Colonel Newhnll. With General Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign, pp. 22, 23. Philip H. Shekidan. 529 this plan originated with Grant, but Sheridan did not hesitate to repeat his objections to it. Finally, Seoretaiy Stanton telegraphed him* that a consul- tation on several points was exceedingly desirable, and ordered him, if possi- ble, to go down to Washington. Sheridan spent a day in arranging the affairs of the army. The enemy had returned to Fisher's Hill, but was not thought likely to take the offensive. His army was placed at Cedar Creek; the cavalry was started to Front Eoyal, on its march to the Army of the Potomac. Sheridan himself accompanied it thus far; then turned off through Manassas Gap, to Piedmont, and took rail for Washington. On the way warning dispatches came to him from Wright, who was left in command. A message from Longstreet to Early had been taken off the Bebel signal-flag. It read : " Be ready to move as soon as my forces join you, and we will crush Sheridan." Wright thought the enemy's cavalry might give some trouble, but he had no fears save for his right flank. Unfortunate misconception ! Sheridan thought the Rebel dispatch might prove a ruse, but at once ordered back the cavalry, sent instructions to Wright to call in all his forces and be watchful, and promised to be back not later than Tuesday. He spent but eis hours in the consultations at Washington. Even then he was too late. On the night of the 18th, while Sheridan was approaching Winchester, on his return. Early and Longstreet were stealthily moving out from Fisher's Hill. So careful and minute were their ai-rangements for silence on the march that they even took away the canteens from their men, lest their rattle against the bayonet-sheaths or cartridge-boxes should be heai-d. Wright, as we have seen, was apprehensive about his right flank. His disposition of the entire cavalry there showed it, and the enemy at once profited by the disclosure. They moved rapidly to the opposite flank. Here the front was scarcely protected at all. The exultant army that had followed the Rebels " whirling up the valley'' was utterly incredulous as to the possibility of attack. They slept, officers and men, the deep slumber of absolute confidence. Pickets were advanced but a short distance from the camp, so short a distance that the Rebel column crept'around them, within six hundred yards of the main line ! Some pickets did report the sound of marching in the darkness on their front, and General Crook ordered men into the trenches; but this report failed. to arouse much apprehension, and they neglected to send out a reconnoissance. The front line was broken here and there by regiments sent out for picket-duty — even these gaps were unfiUed.f «13thof October, 18C4. T These statements, of course, involve culpable negligence. General Crook, commanding thig wing, proved liimself so competent and valuable an officer throughout the war, that readers will be glad to believe him not wholly respon,sible. General Wright had impressed the idea that the danger, if any existed, was on the other wing. General Crook had, however, insisted on having his flank covered by cavalry, and a division had been ordered to him, but had not yet iirrived. In a subsequent portio/i of tliis work (Vol. II, Twenty-Third Infantry) it will be seen that the belief was current, both among officers and men, that this cavalry had arrived, and that officers stai-ting out under this supposition to join it were actually captured by the enemy. Gen- eral Crook himself, however, could hardly have been lulled into security by this belief. But much. weightier responsibility attaches to General Wright. He created the impression that the Vol. I.— 34. 530 Ohio ik the War. The dawn was obscured by fog. Through this thece suddenly came burst- ing the wild charging yells of the Eebel infantry — not Early's often beaten troops alone, but the flower of the Army of Northern Virginia. The extremity of Crook's lino, taken thus by surprise in flank and rear, was doubled up in confu- sion precisely as, a few weeks before, Crook had himself doubled up Early's flank at Fisher's Hill. The enemy was iato the trenches before all the muskets of the defenders were loaded ; the movement was quick, ordered, forceful, on the part of the assailants— hesitating and bewildered on the part of the confused troops thus rudely awaked from their dreams of security. Ift fifteen minutes the struggle was pi-actically over. The Rebels, knowing perfectly their ground, and knowing, moreover, precifsely what they wanted to do, drove forward their charging columns with a rapidity that to the surprised army seemed amazing. The Nineteenth Corps next gave way ; next, only a little more slowly, the Sixth. Long before this the tide of runaways had swept down the pike as far as Winchestei-, twenty miles away. The camps were abandoned, twenty-four pieces of artillery were lost, and the whole army was in full retreat on Win- chester. Nearly five miles down the valley it began to come together, and Gen- eral Wright essayed the formation of a defensive line. He was presently inter- rupted by his Chief, who " here took the matter in baud." General Sheridan had arrived at Winchester the night before, on his way back from the consultation at Washington, to which he had been ordered. In the morning artillery firing was heard, but it was attributed to an intended reconnoissance, and nothing was thought of it. After an early breakfast, Sher- idan mounted and trotted quietlj' through Winchester, southward. A mile from the town the first fugitives from the lost field were encountered. He instantly gave orders to park the retreating trains ou either side of the road, directed the greater part of his escort to follow as best it could, then, with only twenty cavalrymen accompanj'ing him, he struck out in a swinging gallop for the scene of danger. As he dashed up the pike the crowds of stragglers grew thicker. He reproached none; only, swinging his cap, with a cheery smile for all, he shouted: "Face the other way, boj's; face the other way. We are going back to our camps. We are going to lick them out of their boots." Less classic, doubtless, than Napoleon's "My children, we will camp on the battle-field, as usual ; " but the wounded raised their hoarse voices to cheer as he pa,ssed, and the masses of fugitives turned and followed him to the front. As he rode into the forming lines, the men quickened their pace back to the ranks, and every- where glad cheers went up. " Boys, this never should have happened if I had been hero," he exclaimed to one and another regiment. "I tell yon it never should have happened. And now we arc going back' to our camps. We are going to get a twist on them ; we '11 get the tightest twist on them yet that ever you saw. We '11 have all those camps and cannon back again 1" Thus he rode danger wa.s on the other flank, failed to get the cavalry over when a.sked for, and, above all, com- pletely neglected tlie emphatic injunction sent him by Sheridan, on the first note of alaim— to call in tlie cavalry from Front Royal on the left. This cavalry was not called in, and between it and the left of the infanti-y Early and Longstreet passed for their sudden onset. Phiup H. Shekidan. 531 iilong the lines, rectified the formation, cheered and animated the soldiers. Presently there grew up across that pike as compact a body of infantry and cavulry as that which, a month before, had sent the enemy "whirling through Winchester." His men had full faith in "the twist" he was "going to get" on the victorious foe ; his presence was inspiration, his commands were victory. While the line was thus re-established, he was in momentary expectation of attack. Wright's Sixth Corps was some distance in the rear. One staff officer after another was sent after it. Finally Sheridan himself dashed down to hurry it up; then back to watch it going into position. As he thus stood, looking off from the left, he saw the enemy's columns once more moving up. Hurried warning was sent to the Nineteenth Corps on which, it was evident the attack would fall. By this time it was after three o'clock. The Nineteenth Corps, no longer taken by surprise, repulsed the enemy's onset. " Thank God for that," said Sheridan gayly. " Now tell General Emory, if they attack him again, to go after them, and to follow them up. We'll get the tightest twist on them pretty sopn they ever saw." The men heard and believed him; the demoralization of the defeat was gone. But he still waited. Word had been sent in from the cavalry of danger from a heavy body moving on his flank. He doubted it, and at last determined to run the risk. At four o'clock the orders went out: "The whole line will advance. The Nineteenth Corps will move in connection with the Sixth. The right of the Nineteenth will swing toward the left." The enemy lay behind stone fences, and where these failed, breastworks of rails eked out his line. For a little he held this position firmly. His left over- lapped Sheridan's right, and seeing this advantage, he bent it down to renew the attack in flank. At this critical moment Sheridan ordered a charge of General MoWilliams's brigade against the angle thus caused in the Rebel line. It forced its way through, and the Rebel flanking party was cut off. Custer's cavalry was sent swooping down upon it — it broke, and fled or surrendered, according to the agility of the individuals. Simultaneously the whole line charged along the front; the Rebel line was crowded back to the creek; the difficulties of the crossing embarrassed it, and as the victorious ranks swept up it broke in utter confusion. Custer charged down in the fast gathering darkness to the west of the pike: Devin to the east of it; and on either fiank of the fleeing rout thej^ flung them- selves. Nearly all the Rebel transportation was captured, the camps and artillery were regained ; up to Fisher's Hill the road was jammed with artil- lery, caissons and ambulances ; prisoners came streaming back faster than the Provost-Marshal could provide for them. It was the end of Early's army; the end of campaigning in the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah. The effect upon the Government and the country was electric. The first rumors of disaster were painful and wide-spread. On the heels of these came Sheridan's dispatch, announcing the reverse and its retrieval, and giving a faint hint of the splendid prizes — artillery for an army, transportation, ammunition, small arms in a profusion that could scarcely be estimated. General Grant 532 Ohio in the Wak. telegraphed from his position before Eichmond : " I had a salute of a hundred guns from each of the armies here fired in honor of Sheridan's last victory. Turning what bid fair to be disaster into a glorious victory, stamps Sheridan what I always thought him, one of the ablest of Generals." The Secretary of "War indorsed and published this to the world. The resignation of General McClellan soon made a vacant Major-Generalship in the regular army, and to this highest prize in his profession Sheridan was promoted. It was a giddy height to which our modest little red-faced Captain, who thought he might yet be a Major; had risen; but his head was not turned. He did not even give vent to his exultation in congratulations to his army. " Every one realized our success" — so he wrote soon after, in his oflS.cial report — "con- gratulatory orders w^ere unnecessary, and every officer and man was made to understand that when a victory was gained it was not more than their duty nor less than their country expected from her gallant sons." But the Country could at least make its own congratulations. The name of Cavalry Sheridan was in all mouths. His exploits became the favorite theme of speakers, the inspiration of poets,* the argument against all who held to the Chicago declaration that the war was a failure. Sherman had not yet fastened the gaze of the iiation by his grander operations ; Grant had still to give Richmond as proof of his title to the power with which he was vested ; and for the time Sheridan was the most popular of our generals. But even yet the public scarcely rose to the true height in their apprecia- tion of him. His campaign in the Valley justified their warmest plaudits; but they attributed it all to his " dash," when far more was due to the breadth *The noblest of the poems thus inspired, indeed, the noblest lyric of the war, has a special interest here, both by reason of its connection with Sheridan, and because of its Ohio authorship. Headers will be glad to find it given in connection with this sketch of its hero, and to have also an account of the circumstances under which it was written : "Mr. Murdoch, the tragedian, had devoted himself during the earlier years of our struggle, with a noble and self-sacrificing patriotism, to the task of raising money for the Sanitary Com- mission, and all other benevolent projects intended for the benefit of 'our boys in blue.' He had delivered lectures and recitations all over the country, the proceeds going to the objects we have named ; and at length, as the war was drawing toward its close, his numerous friends in Cincinnati proposed a magnificent ovation for Mr. Murdoch's own benefit — his finances having somewhat Huflfered from his unselfish and unsparing efforts in the cause of the soldier and the country. At breakfast on the morning of the benefit night, Mr. Murdoch, who was staying at Mr. Thomas Buchanan Bead's house (and who had been chiefly, or at least very largely, reciting Mr. Bead's noble lyrics and battle sketches during the two years preceding), remarked to his poet friend: 'I'm sorry, Bead, that you did not give me some original poem for to-nighu Something new and fresh that would arouse the audience and set the blood leaping through my own veins as I spoke. The fact is, I feel rather a dread of this occasion ; and without some stimulus of the kind can not epeak as well for myself as I did for others.' Mr. Bead suggested that it was not yet too late. If Murdoch really wished it, he would try his hand at something new. Murdoch, however, persisted that it was too late — firstly, because poets can no4 always write to order; and secondly, because he, Murdoch, *ould require some hours to study whatever Mr. Bead — even in the brief space allowed him — might find his Muse willing to ofler. 'Nevertheless,' said Bead, 'I'll try. That Bide of Sheridan's from Winchester to Cedar Creek we have just been reading about gives me a subject ; and if you stay here some few hours, I'll run up to my library and see what can be done.' In less than three hours he returned to the breakfast parlor and placed in the hands of Philip H. Sheridan. 533 of his sound strategy, and his combination of all the qualities that go to make up a successful General. His performance at Cedar Creek went far to confirm this mistake. That remarkable battle was compared — justly enough — to JJarengo. The points of similarity were striking. "Marengo began as a defeat; so did Cedar Creek. The Austrians attacked at day-break at Marengo; the Eebels did the same at Cedar Creek. Napoleon did not arrive on the field till about eleven; Sheridan's arrival was near the same hour. At the a^ipear- thetragedian, equally delighted and a.stonished, the perfect manuscript of that noblest and most fiery of all our war-songs, ' Phil. Sheridan's Ride.'" SHERIDAN'S RIDE. Up from the South at break of day, -r. Bringing t i nom Winchester fresh dismay, The affrighted air with a shudder bore. Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door, The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar, Telling the battle was on once more, And Sheridan twenty miles away. And wider still those billows of war • Thundered along the horizon's bar; And louder yet into Winchester rolled The roar of thnt red sea uncontrolled, Making the blood of the listener cold. As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray, And Sheridan twenty miles away. But there is a road from Winchester town, A good broad highway leading down ; And there, through the flush of the morning light, A steed as black as the steeds of night Was seen to pass, .as with eagle flight. As if he knew the terrible need ; Pie stretched away with his utmost speed; Hills rose and fell; but liis heart was gay, i With Sheridan fifteen miles away. Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering south, The dust, like smoke from the cannon's mouth ; Or the trail of a comet, sweeping fascer and faster, Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster. The heart of the steed and the heart of the master Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls. Impatient to be where the battle-field calls ; Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play, With Sheridan only ten miles away. Under liis spurning feet the road Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed. And the landscape sped away behind Like an ocean flying before the wind. And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire. Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire. But lo ! he is nearing his heart's desire ; He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray. With Sheridan only five miles away> 534 Ohio in the Wae. anco of their commanders, the armies — Freneli and American alike — rallied. There followed with each a period of doubtful but steadying resistance. At four Napoleon ordered the attack that cost him Dessaix, and won him the field ; at the same hour Sheridan gave his orders for attack. Napoleon swept the enemy into and through. Marengo, captured twenty pieces of artillery and eight standards ; Sheridan swept the enemy across Cedar Creek and through Strasburg, captured forty-nine pieces of artillery and ten standards. Najjo- leon's loss was eight thousand ; Sheridan's six thousand. Here, however, the paralld ends. Napoleon's victory was won by the arrival of Des.saix's Corps; Sheridan's was won by the arrival of a General. It was this that the public forgot. It was not a mere dashing fighter who re-established the lines of the routed army; who turned the enemy's flanking him into an opportunity; who skillfully combined his cavalry and infantry in his final assault, and followed up the defeated army like a bloodhound. Nor was it a mere dashing fighter who saw at the outset of the campaign that his plan was not to drive the enemy out of the Valley, but to crush and annihilate him in the Valley ; who was ready to disappoint the public expectation of his dash and vigor by delaying, for a month, at Harper's Ferry for the opportune moment to strike ; who held his army so in hand that he was ready to fight a pitched battle on twenty -four hour's notice ; who, in the full flush of hi^ intoxi- cating success, drew rein at Woodstock, and assumed the responsibility of dis- appointing the General-in-Chief, the Government, and the coun'try, by refusing to continue his movement to Charlottesville. These were strokes of military genius — worthy to bo named beside the first in the war. On these, indeed, rather than on the brilliant "dash" of the fighting must Sheridan's position in history depend. For it is not to be for- gotten that results in war lose their brilliancy in proportion to the jireponderance The first that the General saw were the groups Of .stragglers, and then the retreating troops, What was done? what to do? a glance told liim both, Then striking his spurs, with a terrible oath. He dashed down the lines, 'mid a storm of hnzzas, And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because The sight of the muster compelled it to pause. With foam and with dust the black charger was gray; By the flasli of his eye, and tlie red nostril's play, He seemed to the whole great army to say, "I have brought you Sheridan all the way From Winchester, down to suve the day!" Hurrah! hurrah for SlieridanI Hurrah ! hurrah 1 for horse and man ! And when their statues are placed on high, Under the dome of tlie Union sky, The American soldiers' Temple of Fame; There with the glorious General's name. Be it said, in letters both bold and bright, "Here is the steed that saved the day, By carrying Slieridan into the fight. From Winchester, twenty miles away!" Philip H. Sheeidan. 535 of force in the hands of the commander, and not to be denied that Sheridan's preponderance of force was great.* The casualties of the campaign were sixteen thousand nine hundred and fifty-two.f The number of prisoners taken from the enemy was thirteen thousand; of pieces of artillery, one hundred and one (besides twenty -four recaptured after being lost at Cedar Creek); of battle-flags, forty-nine. While Sherman, heading northward from Savannah, was drawing nearer and nearer, the doomed army that still held its lines before Eichmond and Petersburg, Sheridan now started southward to complete what has often not inaptly been termed the Circle of the Hunt. His instructions contemplated the destruction of the Virginia Central Eailroad and the James Eiver Canal — the great arteries that fed Eichmond from the westward. Ho was then to take Lynchburg if possible, and to return to "Winchester, or move southward to join Sherman, as circumstances should dictate. But General Sheridan had now risen to that point in the confidence of his commander and of the Government, that he could venture to form plans of his own whenever those formed for him seemed inferior. And so we shall see that his movement resulted quite other- wise from the expectations entertained by the General-in-Chief. Ac the outset he found a feeble force under Early still keeping up a show of resistance. The route to Lynchburg was oj)en, but he decided not to leave this force in his rear, and, accordingly, the head of his column was turned in this new direction. At Wa3-ne8boro' Early was found, his position was carried by the cavalry at a gallop, his men, sixteen hundred strong, threw down their arms — as Sheridan's unique report tells us — "with cheers at the suddenness with which they were captured;" and the train, eleven pieces of artillery and other valuable spoils, were taken with them. Parties were sent out to destroj' Eebel property collected at various depots through the country ; the railroad was reached at Charlottes- ville, and the destruction of the track was begun. Meantime heavy rains had deluged the land. The ijielting snow from the mountains swelled the freshets, and the spring thaw broke up the roads so that rapid- movements were impossible, and only great energy could secure move- ment at all. Furthermore, during the delay for the action with Early, and that subsequently compelled by the roads, the enemy had time to concentrate at Lynchburg a considerable force. Sheridan now, therefore, decided to abandon the effort against that city, and likewise — since every bridge across the James between Lynchburg and Eichmond was destroyed — to abandon the project of moving southward to join General Sherman. *See extended note on this point ante. t These ca,sualties were divided as follows : Kilk'd. Wotniflpd. Misfling. Total. Crook's command 301 1,947 637 2,885 Sixth Corps 578 3,965 357 4,899 Nineteenth Corps 586 3,093 1,.361 5,020 Cavalry 4.54 2,817 646 3,917 Provisional Division 19 91 121 231 Aggregate 1,938 11,893 3,121 10,952 536 Ohio in the War. There remained in his instruetions the return to Winchester. But he wag now, as he said, " ipaster of all the ooiintry north of James Eiver." He thereupon decided to assume the responsibility of abandoning General Grant's instruc- tions moving, instead, down the north bank of the James and essaying the dangerous venture of a march, by the flank, past Eichmond to the army before Petersburg. This would place his command where he knew it was wanted, and would give him further opportunities to make his destruction of the road and canal (from Eichmond westward) more complete. Till he reached the neigh- borhood of Eichmond he was safe. Then, indeed, it became him to use every precaution to protect his flank andrcar, and secure a passage over the Pamun- kcy, the Chickahominy, and the James, in the face of the watchful enemy. To fail here would bring not merely defeat, but also disgrace, since it would be held that he had invited the disaster by assuming to disobey his orders. Pushing his advance, however, boldly down the river toward Eichmond, as if none of these things troubled him, he then suddenly drew it back, almost due northward, to the point ou the Gordonsville and Eichmond Eailroad, whither the rest of his command had already hastened. He was now safely out of reach from Eichmond, without danger to his flank. But he was still far from the White House, where he hoped to find supplies and cross toward Grant; and to march directly thither would still expose his flank, while it would also disclose his intentions. He already knew that Longstreet was preparing to oppose him. He determined, therefore, to hold that oflicer on his front by assuming a bold initiative. Turuing straight toward Eichmond, his hoi-semen trotted down till they were within eleven miles of the city. Then, while a single brigade amused the gathering enemy, the rest of the command, behind its cover, made all haste north-eastwardly till the South and North Annas were crossed, and the column stood within easy distance of White House, with Longstreet still looking for it at Eichmond. These operations happily combined daring and skill. They carried the command safely through grave difficulties; and greatly aided the Lieuteuant-General, by leaving the troops in good season at the place they were wanted, instead of forcing him to wait while they made the tedious march back to Winchester, and then down to the Army of the Potomac. The move^ ment was as successful, therefore, in its ending as it had been throughout its progress. It left Eichmond without communication with the rich granaries of south-western Virginia, by roads north of the James; destroyed enormous sup- plies,* and left no organized enemy along its track. •Nothing can so well show the injury inflicted upon the enemy by this march, as the bare list of property destroyed or captured, as furnished in the official report: 46 canal locks. ■5 aqueducts. 40 canal and road bridges. 2 naval repair shops with machinery. 2 steam canal dredges. 1 machine shop. 1 forge. 9 portable forges. 1 lumber yard. 1 foundry. 21 warehouses. 6 government warehouses. 606 hogsheads tobacco. 500 kegs tobacco. 58 boxes tobacco. 8,000 pounds tobacco. 1 tobacco factory, valued at $200,000. 336 sacks salt. 500 bushels salt. 12 barrels pota.sh. 29 canal boat.s loaded with, hospital, quar- termaster, com. stores and ammunition. Philip H. Sheridan. 537 At last all e3'e8 could see the approaching end. Scarcely fifty thousand men were left within the lines of Eiohraond and Petersburg. Upon this hapless remnant of brave soldiery was fallen the defense of the Confederacy at the vital point. Looking southward, its far-seeing commander could behold but one loose-jointed organization, perhaps half as strong, to which he could turn for aid; looking in every direction, he could behold the converging bayonets of the million soldiers of the Nation, against whose overwhelming force he still kept up the hopeless struggle. lie yet might strike one blow with the old skill — then, under cover of that, escape. But other eyes saw the same one-sided conditions of the opening campaign. While Lee was maturing his attack, Grant was pre- paring for one more '■ movement by the left, toward the South-Side Eailroad." With the success of such a movement must come the end, for there was no longer any other avenue for supplies to the doomed city and army When Lee's attack failed, Grant th,rust out hia turning column. The flying ■vjerge of this was Sheridan's cavalry, nine thousand strong. Covered with the laurels of the Shenandoah, the successor in the i-egular ser- vice to the Major-Generalshij) of the first and most distinguished leader of the Army of the. Potomac, the commander of a great department, the most popular General, as we have seen, in the armies of the country, had cheerfully — ft'om the love of fight that was in him, and the enthusiasm to share in the last strug- gle for the final triumph — dropped backnnto his old position at the head of the cavalry of this single army. But he was no longer subjected to the irksome necessity of taking commands from its little-liked chief He received his orders from General Grant alone. He was to cut loose from the advancing infantry ; ( barrels flour. wagon loads grain and com. stores. I jail at Goochland, used for imprison- ment of National soldiers. 1 ambulances and w-igons. 1 wagons loaded with ammunition and stores. beef cattle. I feet bridge timber. I cotton quilts. I pounds bacon. ■ water tanks. I pounds fixed ammunition. Quantity of shell. » wall tents. I saddle trees. I cavalry saddles. I sides harness leather. : sets harness. I shelter tents. 1 pieces rifled cannon, i pieces rifled cannon with limbers. I pieces rifled cannon. I caissons. ) small arms. A quantity small arms. I carbines. 1 horses and mules. I large and deep breaches made in James Biver and Kanawha Canal. 6 flat boats loaded with com and quar- 600 terma.iter stores. 18 41 miles railroad. 1 10 railroad depots, with tanks, buildings, etc. 225 400 feet railroad trestle work. 98 4 railroad cam. 23 railroad bridges, averaging 400 feet 75 each. 100,000 6 railroad culverts. 1,500 400 cords wood. 1,000 27 miles telegi'aph. 7 3,000 pau-B pants. 3,000 2,000 shirts and drawers. 50 kegs powder. 500 500,000 rounds rifle ammunition. 500 1 barrel oil. 500 400 gross buckles and rings. 110 3 saw mills. 904 7 flour and grist mills.' 1,000 1 cloth mill filled with machinery, in full 3 operation, containing an immense am't 5 ' of Confederate gray cloth. 9 3 cotton mills with machinery. 6 1,500 pounds wool. 35 bales cotton. 1,900 1 candle manufactory. 60 1,000 pounds candles. 2,143 3 tanneries filled with hides and leather. 3 1,500 bushels wheat. 1,000 grain sacks 538 Ohio in the Wak. strike the South-Side Eailroad and destroy it; then return to the Army of the Potomac, or sweep eouthwai-d to Sherman, as circumstances might suggest.* On the 29th of March, 1865, the general movement began. Sheridan pushed forward vigorously, selecting his own roads. By nightfall he was in bivouac at Dinwiddle C. H., with the Rebel cavalry to the south of him, and forced to march around him to the westward, by a wearisome detour, hefore it could again get into position. Here came to him Grjint's famous order: "I now feel like ending the matter before going back. I do not want you, there- fore, to cut loose and go after the enemy's roads at present. In the morning push around the enemy if you can, and get on -his right rear."t At the same time came rain — first in gentle showers, then in a torrent. The wagon-traioB everywhere stuck fast, the troops went supperless to bed, and all expected the movement to end as similar movements had, the season before, in utter defeat by the elements. But at daybreak General Sheridan decided to visit Grant, and consult with him as to the details of his notable plan for "ending the matter before going back.'' The rain was still pouring down, and everything on wheels was hopelessly swamped, as the cavalry leader rode back through the shivering, cowering crowds of infantry, to the bottomless sand-field in the midst of which stood the Lieutenant-General's tent. Grant thought, if cavalry could wade over the roads, he would like to have them move up a little — it would be better than absolutely standing still. Sheridan cheerfully assented, said good- bye to his chief— "as chirpily " — a staff-officcrj tolls us, "as if the elements were smiling," and hurried off ordei-s to the cavalry to move on Five Forks. It was his last interview with Grant (save a glimpse, one morning, at Jettersville), till, ten days later, he was able to turn over to him the flag of the Army of North- ern Virginia. •Grant and his Campaigns — Orders to Sheridan, p. 433. tibid, p. 436. tCJolonel Newhall, of General Sheridan's staff. In his book "With Sheridan in Lee's last Campaign," pp. 57-59, he gives a pleasant picture of.the ride, and of this scene: " Wishing to have a perfectly clear idea of General Grant's proposed plan of ending the matter, General Sheridan, soon afler daylight on the 30th, mounted his gray pacer (captured from Breckinridge's Adjutant-General at Mission Ridge), and paced rapidly over to the head-quar^ ters of the Lieutenant-General, taking two or three staff-officers, with a dozen men for an escort. This little party raised an immense commotion on the picket-line of the army, and only after such persevering dumb-show as the friendly Frijlay made to Robinson Crusoe was it permitted to approach. Once inside, the pacer was let out again, and rein was drawn only when the horses slumped to their bellies in the quicksand-field, where General Grant had pitched his tent, from which he regarded the tempest with derision. About this time things certainly looked rather blue to a superficial observer; the troop, just out of comfortable winter-quarters, cowered under their scant shelters, or dragged themselves slowly along to their place in line, clogged with mud and weighed down with the drenching rain. In every by-way and in every field, wagons were hopelessly imbedded in the glutinous soil. Drivers and mules had given it up, and the former smoked their pipes calmly under the wagon!>, while the latter turned tail to the storm and clustered around the feed-box, where they had imt their heads together from habit, for there was nothing in the box to cat, and they must have been asses if they hoped the forage-wagons would get to the front that day. General Slieridan, water dripping from every angle of his face and clothes, was ushered into the presence and councils of the Lieutenant-General; and between t}iem they soon settled that, as it was within the limits of horse possibility for cavalry to move, they would move a little and see whatKCwne o£ it, if only Philip H. Sheridan. 539 The cavalrj"- was now at Dinwiddle C. II. Six miles north lay Five Porks, a point covering the roads west fi-om Lee's intrenehments and north to the 4bDth-Side Eailroad, and therefore a point to be jealously guarded. Dinwiddle and "Five Porks were two angles of the triangle within which occurred the maneuvers tbut -decided the fate of the army. The third angle was eastward, where the infantry advwace was pi-essing upon the end of Lee's protracted line of intrenehments. If now the reader will fix this triangle in his mind he will have the geography of the contested regicm — wpvx. at the westward end of Lee's Petersburg lines, one side leading thence* south-westward along th« Boydton Plank Eoad to Dinwiddie, thQ^other side westward from the same point along the White-Oak Eoad to Pive Forks, and the third side formed by the Ford Eoad running north and south between Dinwiddie and Five Forks. At the eastward angle Grant's infantry advance faced Lee's. At the south- ern angle lay Sheridan. The westward angle Lee must protect, to cover the South-Side Eoad from Sheridan. Yet, to do it, he must either leave Grant's infan- try advance on his flank (at the eastward angle), while he faced Sheridan at Pive Forks, or he must seek to sweep it out of the contest before going west- ward to Five Forks. He determined upon the latter course, and vehemently assailed Warren, with such success as to throw back two of his three divisions in confusion. The disaster was, indeed, speedily remedied, for Warren's corps was skillfully posted en echelon, but Lee, not waiting for this (and probably not supposing it possible) hurried westward to Pive Forks. Here Sheridan, advancing, found himself confronted by a force he could not hope to master — "Pickett's division, Wise's independent brigade, and Pitz Lee's, Eosser's, and W. H. F. Lee's cavalry commands," as he enumerated them in a subsequent rote to the Lieutenant-General. While his advance held near Pive Forks,* the enemy pushed westward around its flank, burst suddenly upon it, hurling it lo pass the time, for on a day like this the most ardent man must find employment, or he will begin to think that he is a helpless party to a fiasco, which' it must be acknowledged we all appeared to be just then. The only thing, probably, that could have amused the company on that-inauspicious morning, would have been an excited horseman straining through the treacher- ous loil, waving his hat, and crying out that Lee would surrender to Grant, one hundred miles from there, in ten days from date. That would have been extremely amusing, and the toughest veteran would have smiled grimly. "Very hopeful, but somewhat incredulous, were the veterans, and it was rather their fashion to Booff in the last year of the war. There were precedents for all sorts of campaigns except "the last," and the old troops were somewhat skeptical when that was predicted. They had something of the feeling of the man in "Used Up," who had been everywhere and seen every- thing — been up Mount Vesuvius, looked down the crater, and found nothing in it. Lee had escaped them by only so much as Tam O' Shanter's mare escaped at the bridge, and, possibly, for the reason that armies like witches are balked by streams, as the Potomac and Eappahannock would seem to testify. They had been in Burnside's "mud movement," and looking on this pic- ture and on that they discovered the counterfeit presentment of two brothers, so far as it was given to them to see; but the Lieutenant-General and General Sheridan had not been in the other mud movement, and they are not men of routine to care for precedent, so the latter got into his wet saddle again, said good morning to the Lieutenant-General as chirpily as if the elements were Bmiling, and sent off a staff-oflScer by a short-cut to find General Merrltt, on the road from Din- widdie to Five Forks, and tell him to move out a little further and stir up the animals. •3lBt of March, 1865. 540 Ohio in the Wae. back eastward, and thus cut it completely off from Sheridan's main column in front of Dinwiddle. The force thus isolated and in danger of speedy capture consisted of three cavalry brigades. But Sheridan was never so plucky or full of resources as in the most dangerous crisis. Hastily sending word (by a long detour) to the dislocated brigades to continue their retreat through the woods till they struck the lower side of the triangle (the plank road leading to Din- widdle, by which they might return to him), he waited till the pursuing enemy, in ignorance of the force it was passing, had rushed on eastward after the flying brigades, exposing its rear to his columns about Dinwiddle. Then he fell fiercely upon them. They, of course, faced by the rear i:ank to meet this new danger, and abandoned their pursuit. The isolated brigades made their way around to Dinwiddle in safety; while Sheridan, dismounting his cavalry and throwing up fragments of hasty rail-breastworks, resisted the onsets of the whole Bebel force now concentrated upon himself. OflScers were hastily dispatched to bring up Custer, who was still in the rear with the trains. The horse artillery was brought into position, and as soon as opportunity offered was used with effect. An attack of the Retel cavalry was repulsed with a single volley. At last came, with the level rays of the setting sun, a charge upon this obstinate dismounted cavalry of Sheridan's, by the whele line of the Eebel infantry, not less than twelve thousand strong. There was no better infantry anywhere. As they advanced Sheridan, cap in hand, galloped along his lines, and from end to end rose the cheers of the confident cavalry. The group of horsemen drew the first fire of the enemy; the repeating carbines of the cavalry puffed out their responses ; and till dark fierce musketry firing raged. But the enemy halted ■ soon after entering the open fields before Sheridan's lines, apparently not choos- ing to drive such vigorous fighters to extremities without more daylight for the task. They wrapped themselves in their blankets, and sank down in line of battle on the bloody ground ; the cavalry did the same; and darkness shut in assailed and assailants on the common field of Dinwiddle C. H.* But for the Cavalry General there was little rest that night. He waited •Colonel Newhall, of Sheridan'a staff, thus describes the last onset. (With Greneral Sheri- dan in Lee's Lasst Campaign, pp. 70, 72) : , " The sun was nearly down now, but one more effort of the enemy was yet to be made to get possession of Dinwiddle C. H., and win some fruits of the hard day'3"work, which, so far, had borne but barren honor. The thundering salute to their cavalry had hardly ceased to echo through the woods when the long line of their infantry slowly debouched on the plain — infantry that was hard to beat; We used to think that living wa.s such a poor life jvith them that they did not much care to continue it. They had an air of ahandon, a sort of devil-may-care swing in their long stride as they advanced over a field, that was rather disheartening to men that did not want to get shot. And these were some of their be-st — parts or all of Pickett's and Johnston's divisions of Anderson's corps. While they were still deploying, Pennington's brigade of Custer's division reached the field, and was immediately ordered to the right, to the support of Gibbea. Catching sight of the enemy, Pennington's men burst into a glorious cheer as they splashed through the miry road behind the rails, and from left to right the shout was passed along, while General Sheridan, cap in hand, galloped up the line with some of his staff and Generals Merritt and Custer, who were with him at the moment, and drew the first fire of the now advancing enemy. Mud and bullets flew, and an enthusiastic reporter of the New York Herald, who was carried away by his feelings at this juncture, was shot in the shoulder following the Greneral. Philip H. Sheridan. 641 till it seemed certain that the enemy would attack no more till morning ; then sat down in a little cabin filled with his wounded soldiers, and wrote to the Lieutenant-General what had occurred through the daj^, concluding: "This force is too strong for ns. I will hold out at Dinwiddle 0. H. until I am com- pelled to leave." Then came in the brigades that had been cut off in the morn- ing, and they were conducted to their new positions and put into line. Mean- time, by ten o'clock Grant had received Sheridan's report, and by midnight his answer had arrived. "VVarrten was ordered to Sheridan's support — " should arrive by midnight" — and a thousand more cavalry were sent. The Lieutenant- General specified the routes by which Warren was to move. One route would bring the force that took it into Sheridan's lines. The other would lead the force upon it square against the rear of the enemy's lines — an arrangement that would either bring on an engagement in the thick woods in the night or dis- close to the Eebel column in the morning that it had enemies on front and rear. Sheridan saw it and gloated over the prospect. But midnight passed, one o'clock passed, two, three — and still no word of Warren. Then Sheridan wrote, assuming that at least the division on the enemy's rear had got into position :* "I 'andei'stand that you have a division at J. Boisseau's; if so, you are in rear of the enemy's line, and almost on his flanks. I will hold on here. Possibly they may attack here at daylight. If so, attack instantly and in full force. Attack at daylight anyhow. I will make an effi'ort to get the road this side, . . and if I do, you can capture the whole of them." The hours passed away; no Bounds of attack arose, and no word came from Warren. Dawn struggled through the dense fog, and disclosed an infantry line still facing the cavalry in their rail breastworks. f It was found to be — not Warren, as had seemed possi- ble^but the Eebel force, still holding on, in spite of the danger that, since the Lieutenant-General's orders to Warren, had been menacing his rear. Before the cavalry could move out against it, it wound into the woods and disappeared. The cavalry pushed in after it, and before long the patter of musketry told that the skirmishers were engaging its rear-guard. At last Warren was hoard from. He had not thought it prudent to move down toward Dinwiddle through the Our artillery now opened, and at such short range could not fail to be destructive, and a moment later the carbines of five brigades were blazing in the twilight, the repeating Spensers puffing out their cartridges like Roman candles. The heavy fire from both sides continued for a few minutes, and, meanwhile, darkness settled down upon us. Gradually the fire from the enemy became fitful and irregular, and soon ceased altogether, for, as they advanced across the open ground, they seemed to count the cost of carrying our line, and weigh the advantages of holding the Court-HoHse by such uncertain tenure as theirs would be, separated by miles from their own army, and liable to be annihilated' before they could rejoin it. Acting on the conclusion of this sober second thought, they contented themselves with such glory as the day had brought, and, wrapping themselves up in it, lay down in their tracks to rest, as soon as the slacking of our fire permitted." * Sheridan's Ofiicial Report. tWe have another pleasant picture, from Colonel Newhall's pen. (With General Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign, pp. 89, 91), describing the uncertainty here existing: "Meanwhile before daybreak. General Sheridan and his staff might have been very indis- 542 Ohio in the War. woods on the enemy's rear, in the darkness, while uncertain about the safety of his own rear, thus exposed to any force which Lee might suddenly order out from the Eetersburg intrenchments. His troops were accordingly directed to halt and get breakfast; while — the chance at Dinwiddie being thus lost — the cavalry should push the enemy up to Five Forks, and see what better fate awaited them there. "I here determined," Sheridan tells us, "that I would drive the enemy, with cavalry, to Five Forks, press them inside their works, and make a feint to turn their right flank; and meanwhile quietly move up the Fifth Corps with a view to attacking their left flank, crush the whole force if possible, and drive westward those who might escape, thus isolating them from their army at Petersburg." It was a happy conception ; its suceeseful execution made Five Forks forever memorable — if not as the virtual close of the war, at least as the most important in the quick series of blows which secured that close. The Rebel force now drawing back to Five Forks contained Pickett's divis- ion, seven thousand strong; Bushrod Johnson's, six thousand; and two small brigades besides — in all say fifteen thousand. It had doubtless discovered that its contest was no longer with Sheridan's ten thousand cavalry, but with a for- midable infantry corps as well; and it is quite probable that through the night a considerable portion of its numbers had already been withdrawn, in fear of the tinctly seen emerging from the Dinwiddie Hotel and mounting their trusty steeds. It was a very foggy morning ; even after the hour of sunrise heavy vapors rendered only indistinctness per- ceptible, and when we reached the picket-line of Custer's division, which was in front, beyond Dinwiddie, the most straining eyes could not see many yards beyond the works, which our men had strengthened during the night, and were now fit to resist horse, foot, or dragoons. Gradu- ally the fog lifted, and Generals Sheridan, Merritt, and Custer, each with stafif and escort, pro- ceeded to make a reconnoissance, which soon developed a long line of infantry, with skirmishers to the front, and mounted officers prancing gaily about. The question then arose under which king this line was marshaled. We had heard nothing of the Fifth Corps, which was to attack at daylight, and it seemed very possible that, the enemy might have stolen away in the night, declining to be sandwiched between General Warren's command and our cavalry, and this, then,, might be the Fifth Corps confronting us. There was a great division of opinion. Field-glasses were leveled and eyes were shaded to discover whether the line was friend or foe. Some cried 'They're blue I' and some ' They're gray !' but for awhile nobody was sufficiently certain to ven- ture any nearer; already we were within easy musket range, but not a shot was fired — still the line did not advance, neither did it retire, and the anxiety for some sort of demonstration was growing painful, when one of Custer's staff discovered, through his glass, most unmistakable blue, and dashed boldly down toward a mounted officer, nrho was caracoling his horse on the neutral ground between our party and his skirmishers. We heard j, 'Halt !' a question and an answer, and then the sharp report of a pistol, and Custer's officer came galloping back through the mnddy field, and was able to report positively that the line was gray — a very gray gentleman having shot at him and called him some highly improper names. Our cavalry was at once ordered forward, and while the or^er was being carried back to the troops the stolid line fi»ced to the right and coiled itself rapidly into the woods, only giving us time to send after it our compli- ments in a couple of rifled shells, which were fired partly for the sake of the damage they might do, but principally as a signal to General Warren that we were on the move, with the enemy in front of us. But as he had hardly yet started from his last night's encampment, we might well have saved the ammunition." Philip H. Shekidan. 543 danger menaced by "Wan-en's ability to march upon its rear.* Against this fifteen thousand Sheridan was bringing the Fifth Corps, say thirteen thousand strong, and ten thousand cavalry — overbalancing the enemy's strength by a surplus of eight thousand. Under the stress of this hostile superiority, it was natural that the enemy should draw into his intrenchments without very vigor- OBB opposition to the hard-pressing cavalry. By two o'clock his, skirmish-line was driven in, and around his front the enveloping cavalry drew its cloud. Behind, Sheridan was free to develop his plan. Warren was now ordered up from the neighborhood of Dinwiddle. While his movement went on, the cavalry was to occupy the enemy's attention on the front, Warren was to advance (on the Gravelly Eun Road which carried him to the east of Five Forks,) till, reaching the northern side of the triangle, he struck the White Oak Eoad, leading out to Five Forks. Here he was to turn sharp west, with a left-wheel, and burst straight upon the flank and rear of the unsuspecting enemy, v;ho was still facing southward against the cavalry. Sheridan remained on the front with the cavalry, repeating and ve-repeat- ing to Genei'al Menntt (the immediate commander) his plans for co-operation with the infantry attack. Then leaving the cavalry to demonstrate to the westward of the enemy's line, he rode off eastward to where the infantry should now be going into position on the flank. He was disappointed in finding the corps not so far advanced as he had hoped. Warren sat on a log sending out his orders and enjoining haste. Sheridan could not bear this standing off and giving orders — he thought it was an occasion for the energizing effects of the coi"ps commander's own presence. Three or fou-r times he urged the necessity of speedy movements upon Warren with a manner sufficiently indicative of a brewing storm, and those who knpw him best watched his eyes as they began to glare in rage, and foreboded ill-luck for the officer who should fail to satisfy his demands for swift execution of orders. f Meanwhile he found a i-elief for his restlessness in providing for a new danger that threatened from the direction of Lee's fortified lines on the eastward about Petersburg. Some anxiety had begun to be felt there, it would seem, for the situation of Pickett and Johnson at Five Forks, and a small column was now nioving out to their aid. To meet this Sheridan sent Mackenzie with a thousand cavalrjf in hot haste — to hurl it back, and then return to aid in the impending conflict. At last Warren's corps was up. Wheeling westward, it had before it the flank and rear of the hapless body of fifteen thousand Rebels in Five Forks. It interposed between them and their army, stood on their line of retreat, and *In the acrimonioua discussions that have sprung out of Sheridan's act in relieving Warren at the close of the battle of Five Forks, there has been much dispute on this point. Warren's friends have maintained that the enemy retreated from Dinv/iddie during the night; Sheridan's that he retreated next morning before the cavalry. The matter does not possess the importance with which these discussions have invested it; but the probability seems to be that at daybreak nothing but a strong rear-guard was facing Sheridan at Dinwiddie. In any event it is plain that the purpose of retiring to Five Forks had been formed before tlie cavalry began their movement' on that day.— See Warren's pamphlet, " The Fifth Corps at Five Forks." T With Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign, pp. 98, 99. 644 Ohio in the Wab. was ready to drive them upon — Sheridan's cavalry ! It was four o'clock when the movement began. Sheridan cantered out before the infantry line — his head- quarters' flag fluttering in the breeze — and pushed hard up toward the skir- mishers in his eagerness. Just then Mackenzie came galloping back. He had driven the Eebel column that was coming out from the Petersburg lines, had brought back his command, and was ready for the greater fight in hand. Presently the left of the Fifth Corps struck the Eebel flank, the center and right overlapping it and enveloping its rear to the northward. They were moving through dense woods, and this gave rise to some confusion. Two or three regi- ments became unsteady and finally broke. Just then Sheridan came dashing in, and the magnetism that had turned Cedar Creek into a victory soon cheeked the untimely alarm. But he noted, with baleful look, that Warren was not on the spot at the critical moment. As the line steadied he seized his head-quar- ters' flag and with it rushed forward to head the advance. They struck the enemy's left-, doubled it up, and under orders that there should be no stopping in the whirl of victory to re-form lines, leaped forward upon his center. The opening roar of musketry was the signal to the cavahy on the front, and pres- ently the crack of their repeaters came to swell the diapason of the circling bat- tle. Meantime the center and right of Warren's line bent up around the enemy's flank, and now came in upon his rear. What men might do, these vet- erans of the army of Northern Virginia did. Pacing at once to rear and front, they made a gallant effort to keep up the unequal contest. Warren, leading his center and right, had gained the Ford Eoad leading fi*om Five Forks northward to the railroad depot, and now came down this. A short crotchet of the line here met them, and for a little the disordered assailants were thrown back. Then Warren, calling on his men to follow, dashed forward. His horse was shot within a few yards of the Eebel breastworks. But the position was carried, and the line swept down to the Foi-ks. Simultaneously, the part of his corps which with Sheridan had borne the brunt of the fighting, came up the Eebel line, fairly elbowing its defenders out of their works, and the cavalry, charging in from the south, reached over on their line of retreat. Five thousand men threw down their arms; the rest were torn from their connection with Lee's armj' and driven westward, pursued and harassed till long after dark by the insatiable cavalry. But before the pursuit began General Slieridan's displeasure with General Warren had culminated. He thought that oflScer should have exerted himself to inspire confidence among the men at the first breaking of the line; he had seen nothing of his splendid behavior subsequently (which, indeed, was not displayed at the critical point), and savagely recalling the disappointment the night before at Dinwiddie, he resolved to have his subordinates imbued with more energy and dash. He accordingly relieved Warren from the command of the corps. It was a power which had come to him unsolicited ; its exercise had been provoked by the tardiness which kept him from striking the enemy at Din- widdie, and by the aggravation of the subsequent delays. Yet one who remem- bers how prudent much of Warren's conduct really was, and how frequently Philip H. Sheridan. 545 paat experience had vindicated itfl wisdom, and who recalls the splendid gal- lantry and often-proved ability of the man, can not but regret that, as he disen- tangled himself from the horse that had been shot under him within a stone's throw of the last Eebel breastwork, he should have been met with an order that BBDt him from the field in disgrace.* General Grant, in his annual report, out of these brilliant operations, sin- gled Sheridan's conduct at Dinwiddie C. H. for spef.ial commendation. "He here displayed," said Grant, " great generalship " by fighting, " instead of retreating with his whole command on the main army to tell the story of supe- rior forces encountered." Unquestionably Sheridan's conduct at Dinwiddie was handsome, but it furnished a conspicuous exhibition of his invincible pugnacity rather than of signally brilliant generalship. It was the next day, in the per- fect plan of Five Forks, that he displayed a capacity for lai'ge movements, for ■which not even the Shenandoah campaign had given hira credit with the public. High authorities have pronounced Five Forks the most perfect battle, in its tactics, ever delivered in Virginia — Virginia, that had witnessed the efforts of well-nigh every General who rose to distinction in the Eastern service. The victory was indeed won with a considerable preponderance of forces, but this does not detract from the unsurpassed plan, and the almost equally unsurpassed execution. The battle of Five -Forks was fought on the 1st of April. On the 2d Grant broke through Lee's meager lines before Petersburg. That night Lee drew across the Appomattox and retreated westward. On the morning of the 3d Sheridan was off in pursuit. There had been some busy marching of the cav- alry on the 2d, and Sheridan regretted that he had not retained the, infantry to aid him ; but the issue was already decided along the close-locked lines before Petersburg. Sheridan was now without orders, but he never doubted for (jne mo- ment what to do. Lee was going to Danville. It was his business to head him off— not to harass his rear, or delay with his stragglers,^but head him off! So he took a line of march parallel to Lee's. The Eebel cavalry was encountered and brushed aside ; stragglers were picked up, and a little artillery was captured. But tliere was no serious opposition. The Bebel soldiers had everywhere, in their retreat, declared the failure of the Confederacy ; the inhabitants seemed anxious to stand well with the Yankees j even an old negro, in reply to Sheri- • There is no occasion to enter here into the points of this much-vexed controversy. Gen- eral Warren demanded a Court of Inquiry, which General Grant refused — so far indorsing Gen- eral Sheridan's conduct in removing hi-m. Subsequently General Grant assigned him to other responsible duty — thereby saying to the world that the reasons of his removal did not touch Warren's honor as a soldier, nor his unquestioned capacity. There can be little doubt that Gen- eral Grant's course was judicious. Sheridan's blood was up ; he had the enemy at advantage, Itnew it, and demanded from every subordinate the same ceaseless exertions and undoubting faith in the result that he himself displayed. Warren was an engineer, by nature and by profession cautious I he had been accustomed to a large share in the confidence of his superiors ; had greatly aided in forming the plans for previous movements, and on more than one occasion had not hes- itiiled to take the responsibility of changing them upon his own judgment. At a time like this Warren was no fit subordinate for Sheridan. Vol, I.— 35. 546 Ohio in the War. dan's'question where the Eebels had ^one, said, "Siftin' soaf, sah, siftin' souf." Meantime the scouts were busy; and on the morning of the 4th, from their reports and from the general indications, Sheridan had made up his mind that Lee was heading for Amelia C. H., oa the railroad to Danville. A few miles south of Amelia, on the same road, is Jettersville. Thither Sheridan turned bia column, straining every nei-ve to reach it before Lee could strike Amelia. His succes.s (if only he could hold the point) would end the retreat toward Danville. There was a little cavalry fighting through the day, and a number of wagons were snatched from the enemy, but by five the several divisions were entering Jettersville, and Sheridan was sending back a staif ofScer with orders to ride his horse down in bearing swiftly to Meade the news that he was across the enemy's path ; that Lee would doubtless attempt to break ttirongh ; that he would do all in his power to hold the ground, and that he implored the infantry to hurry up and force a surrender. All through the night Sheridan watched for attack, and sent back renewed, messages for the infantry. Day broke peacefully, the sun had moved well up the sky. and still Lee, lying quietl3'^ five miles off, failed to improrehis opportu- nity and break through the cavalry curtain that alone stood between him and the open road to Danville. If he had — but history need only record that he did not, and that he so missed his only chance for escape.* The Fifth Corps — ^' bead of which had got up the night before — was soon in position; the Second came up early in the afternoon, and Lee's retreat to Danville was an impossi- bility. Thenceforward there was no hope of junction with Jos. B. Johnston. Meanwhile Sheridan, suspicious that the quiet about Amelia might be conceal- ing an effoi-t to steal away, sent out some cavalry westward. This speedily fell upon a train and captured one hundred and eighty wagons, a thousand prisoners, and five pieces of artilleiy at a dash. The spoils were sent safely to the rear; but the. cavalry soon found that the enemy was not yet powerless. A heavy force was sent out from Amelia to cut them off, and they bad hard fighting to get in again. Next morning f Meade assumed command of the infantry. Sheridan pnsbed out his cavalry to the westward, and it was shortly discovered that the roads were filled with trains. Lee had abandoned a direct movement toward Dan- ville, and was heading south-westward. Crook, who was in the advance, dashed at the tempting prizes, but speedily recoiled. The trains belched out sulphur- ous sn\oke and death ; they were heavily guarded by the best infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia. Then Sheridan gave hib orders. Each division was in turn to try an attack on the trains, while the others pushed ahead to try in turn at new points. If anywhere in those long, ^posed lines Lee had left one unguarded point, this style of movement would find it. By noon it was found. At Sailor's Creek Custer planted himself fairly upon a section of the * In point ^f fact, he could not. He had expected rations at Amelia C. H., and had been cruelly disappointed by the blundering of suboi-dinates. He was accordingly compelled to hall and send out foraging parties to seek food for his exhausted soldiers. t Cth April. Philip H. Sheridan. 647 train. Crook and Devin came galloping up to his support, and they took six- teen pieces of artillery, besides four hundred wagons and some prisoners. Meantime Sheridan himself waited behind. Some cavalry and a battery he kept with him, and the last he set to work practicing on the passing wagon covers. Then sitting down on a stump, he took out his pocket field-book and scratched ofif a dispatch to the Lieutenant-General : " Prom present indications the retreat of the enemy is rapidly becoming a rout. We are shelling their trainsand preparing to attack their infantry. Our troops are moving on their left flank, and I think we can break and disperse them. Everything should be hurried forward with the utmost speed." With this an aid dashed off at a gallop in the direction of Amelia C. H., where the Lieutenant-General had been left. In a moment the restless Cavalryman, boiling over with energy and impatience as he watched the Eebel wagons go by, had whipped out his field- book and was writing again : " The enemy's trains and army were moving all last night, and are very short of provisions and very tired indeed. I think that now is the time to attack them with all your infantry. They are reported to have begged provisions of the people of the cotintry all along the road as they passed." With this another aid went off galloping. Then Sheridan, wait- ing still for the Sixth Corps, which had been directed to report to him, ordered his litile brigade of cavalry to fill up the time with a charge. They made it gallantly, and though the men lined the front of the enemy's position with dead horses, they came back satisfied at seeing the movement of the Eebel infantry ari*ested while their commanders should look for the meaning of this wild assault. It was a fortunate delay; for just then Crook and the rest, a conple of miles further on, were beginning their break into the lines. The head of the Sixth Corps appeared as the little brigade of cavalry came back from its charge. It at once attacked under Sheridan's personal leader- sliip, carried the road, then formed on either side of it, with Sheridan himself and his escort on the center ; and so, with hot skirinishing and the incessant crackle of musketry mingling with the rush of the regiments through tho woods, advanced for a mile or more. Then came the open ground about Sailor's Creek; across it a force of the enemy in strong position, with skirmishers obsti- nately holding the ground on the hither side ; beyond, columns of smoke blur- ring the beauties of the spring landscape. Sheridan grasped the situation instantly. His cavalry divisions in advance had planted themselves where the smoke (from the burning trains) was rising, across the road along which the force ho was pursuing retreated, and had thus cut them off. He forthwith hastened the preparations for attack. Just then a youug cavalryman, q,uiet and resolute-looking, in spite of the peril he had just defied, broke through the enemy's skirmishers and galloped up to Sheridan. He was one of Custer's men, had charged with his division, and, ahead of his comrades, had leaped his horse over the enemy's bi-eastwork. Unable to get'back, he had dashed through to the other side ; and here he was to tell General Sheridan that his cavalry had already captured guns, wagons, and prisoners, and was now on the opposite side of this Eebel force, pressing hard the attack. He rode off quietly as he 548 Ohio in the War. finished his stoiy, and doubtless thought he had done only an ordinaiy thing; but Sheridan takes care to tell us that " this gallant young soldier was private Wm. E. Eichardson, company A, Second Ohio Veteran Cavalry." At last then the remorseless energy of this pursuit had brought a portion of the flying army to a compulsory stand. Sheridan hastened his preparations to attack. Wright with the infantry (Sixth Corps) moved up on the enemy's left; the single brigade of cavalry which the General had kept back went in on the extreme right. As the infantry crossed the creek they were met with a terrific fire. Part of them fell back in disorder to the water, and the Bebels dashed up in pursuit. But here they were caught by tlie enfilading fire of the divisions which had not been repulsed ; to go back was more dangerous than to go forward, and they surrendered. The repulsed portion of the line swung up again ; just then CuBt«r and Crook and the rest came whirling through the pine woods on the other side ; for a moment the surrounded Eebels fought wildly, then their arms wore thrown down and ten thousand surrendered. At their head stood a corps commander, identified with the history of theii". soldierly army, who, since Stonewall Jackson's day, could be named second to Longstre^t alone; and besides Genei-al Ewell, there were Kershaw and Custis Lee, and half a dozen others of note. Such were the rich prizes of the quick-fdughl battle of Sailor's Creek. The cavaliy pursued the escapii^g fragment's of Ewell's force for a few miles. Sheridan dictated dispatches to the Lieutenant-General, then lay down on his back before a camp-fire and snatched an hour's sleep while supper was preparing, took Ewell and the rest to supper with him, got another hour's sleep before daybreak, and then, up with the earliest, trotted out again in the gray dawn on his westward road.* This day (April 7th_) he swung more to the •Colonel Newhall gives a life-like sketch of the scenes at head-quarteri this evening. (With Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign), pp. 187, 188: "Wlien we struck off into these digressive paths, General Sheridan was sitting by his camp- fire in the plain on top of the crest where tlie fighting had ended, and now he is on the broad of his back on a blanket, with his feet to the fire, in a condition of sleepy wakefulness which can only be attained through excessive fatigue and a sense of responsibility. Clustered about are blue uniforms and gray in equal numbers, and immediately around our camp-fire are most of the Con federate generals who have just been captured. General Eweli is the principal figure in the group, and attracts, though he seems to avoid, attention. He has plainly admitted that there ia no hope now for General Lee, and has begged General Sheridan to send him a flag of truce and demand his surrender, in order to save any further sacrifice, but the General has made no further response to this than to urge General Grant to push on faster. Ewell is sitting on the ground hugging his knees, with his face bent down between his arms, and if anything could add force to his words, tlie utter despondency of his air would do it. The others are mostly staid, middle-aged men, tired to death nearly, and in no humor for a chat; and so the party is rather a quiet one, for our fellows are about done over too, and half starved. To this sprawling party, enter Sandy Forsyth, aid-de-carap, to announce that he has established head-quarters in a lovely orchard, where tents are up and supper is cooking ; so we follow the beaming colonel down the road for a mile and find ourseWes quartered just in rear of Getty, who has gone into position for the night, Devin in front of him reporting no enemy. "We carried the Confederate generals with us aiid shared our suppers and blankets with them, as we would be done by, and after a sleep of hardly an hour, took breakfast in their eom* pany and then parted with it as we followed the general's swdlow-tailed flag down the road." Philip H. Sheridan. 549 southward to foreclose possibilities of escape, leaving to the infantrj"- the inner and shorter lines. Failing to find the enemy at Prince Edward's C. H., he then decided (for he was entirely without orders) to push columns nortk-westward toward Farmville and Prospect Station, feeling sure that here he must find the head of the fleeing column. At Farmville Crook struck them, and again at the crossing of the Appomattox. All the while Sheridan kept restlessly consulting his maps, qnestio-ning the natives as to roads and bodies of troops seen pass- ing,* sending out his orders to his various divisions, and reports to his Chief. Next morning (8th of April) he sends off a dispatch to the Lieutenant- General: "I shall move on Appomattox C, H. Should we not intercept the enemy, and he be forced into Lynchburg, surrender there is beyond question." A few hours later a scout meets him on the road, with word that four trains of cars, laden with provisions, are at Appomattox Depot, five miles south of the Court-House, awaiting General Lee. He deflects his columns a littlCj and strikes out on the keen trot for Appomattox Depot, twenty -five miles distant. Only once the column halts a little fer rest and water; by five o'clock it is near the depot, and Custer, in advance, has caught sight of the smoke from the four waiting locomotives. He circles down through the woods, comes up on the other side with a whirl, siezes the trains before the startled engineers have time to comprehend the situation, and backs them southward toward the rest of the *A good Bample of his way of dealing with refractory "natives" is told by Colonel Newhall. It occurred at Prince Edward's C. H. (With Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign, pp. 192-194): "The General dismonnted here, at the fence of a stiff old gentleman, who was sitting on his high piazza and Boowling severely as we rode up. He was the typical Southerner of fifty years; his long gray hair fell over the collar of his coat behind his ears ; he was arrayed in the swallow- tail of a by-gone mode, a buflF linen vest, cut low, and nankeen pantaloons springing far over the foot that wa» neatly incased in morocco slippers ; a bristling shirt-frill adorned his bosom, and from the embrasure of his wall-like collar he shot defiant glances at us as we clattered up the walk to his house. Prince Edward C. H. was a stranger to war, and our indignant friend was looking now for the first time on the like of us, and certainly he didn't seem to like our look. He bowed in • a dignified way to the General, who bobbed at him carelessly and sat down on a step, drew out his inevitable map, lighted a fresh cigar, and asked our host if any of Lee's troops had been seen about here to-day. 'Sir,' he answered, 'as I can truly say that none have been seen by me I will say so ; but if I had seen any, I should feel it my duty to refuse to reply to your question. I' can not give yOu any information which might work to the disadvantage of General Lee.' This neat little speech, clothed in unexceptionable diction, which no doubt had been awaiting us from the time we tied our horses at the gate, missed fire badly. It was very patriotic and all that ; but the General was not in a humor to chop patriotism just then, so he only gave a soft whistle of surprise, and returned to the attack quite unscathed. " 'How far is it to Buffalo Kiver?' "'Sir, I don't know.' '"The devil you don'tl how long have you lived here?' "'AH my life.' "'Very well, sir, it's time you did know. Captain, put this gentleman in charge of a guard, and when we move, walk him down to Buffalo Biver and show it to him.' "And so he was marched off, leaving us a savage glare at parting; and that evening tramped five miles away from home to look at a river which was as familiar to him as his own family. Doubtless, to this day he regales the neighbors with the story of this insult that was put upon bim, and still brings up his children in the faith for whose dogmas he suffered. Doubtless, too, he considers General Sheridan a perfect gentleman." 550 Ohio in the War. advancing cavalry. He stirs up a very hornet's nest in doing so, for there in the woods lie portions of Lee's famished advance, awaiting the issue of their suppers from those very trains. For a little there rages fierce firing, then the Kebels are driven north toward the Court-House, leaving twenty-five piecep of artillery behind them. Sheridan sits down in the nearept little house, dispatches the Lieutenant-General that, if he can push up, "we will perhaps finish the job in the morning;" arranges to hold his ground against any attack, and then stretches himself on the floor for a few hours' slumber. By daybreak the infantry is trotting past. The cavalry has already been pushed up almost to the Court-House. Bitter fighting breaks out; then as Sher- idan gallops to the front it slackens. He has ordered the cavalry to fall slowly back. The enemy advances, evidently resolved to break through; when lo! from out the silent woods glide the long lines of our infantry. He shrinks back in horror — it is only against brigades of flying cavalry that this once compact Army of Northern Virginia can stand. Sheridan silently draws oif his horse to charge on the right; the infantry advances ; .before them, in the valley about the Gourt-House, lie the broken fragments of the once great army. A single charge will sweep out the whole confused mass. But the uplifted hand is stayed. "Out from the enemy's lines comes a rider, 'bound on bound,' bearing a white flag of truce to ask for time to consummate surrender."* Then followed the hasty dash toward Joseph E. Johnston, to repair any mis- *8heridan's lines held fast on Lee's front till interviews between Grant and Lee were over. The narrative ends, in the text, with the close of Sheridan's active control of the move- ments that brought about the surrender. Headers will be glad, however, to have from the graphic pen of Gteneral Sheridan's staff officer, whom we have so often quoted already, an ac- count of the interviews with the Rebel commanders, and of Grant's appearance on the stage. Colonel Newhall says: "General Gordon asked for a suspension of hostilities, and.6aid that General Lee was pre- pared to surrender his army and wonld immediately send to General Grant a communication to that effect. General Sheridan replied that he was very anxious toavoid further loss of life, but the effort of the morning had n't looked like an intention to surrender, and he must have some certain assurance that this was a bona fide proposition, and not a make-shift to gain time and advantage. Both General Gordon and General Wilcox earnestly declared their entire good faith, and said Lee's case was hopeless now, and he must surrender and would. There could be no doubt of their sincerity or of the pass to which Lee had come, i»nd so General Sheridan agreed to wait for further developments, and returned to our lines, promising to meet these officers again at the Conrt-House in half an hour. "Meanwhile General Ord came up, and others began to gather from right to left; but there was no excitement at all. After the first cheer, the tired troops had stretched themselves on the ground at full length, and were calmly surveying the novel scene of a harmless enemy in front. Indians couldn't have conducted themselves with more propriety, or have observed a more serene indifference in the face of a matter of surpassing interest; and a stranger arriving on the ground would have said the halt was only a rest, that nothing unusual had occurred, and that the march would be resumed after coffee. As the generals rode up there was some hand-shaking, more smiles than are often seen in line of battle, but nobody was very demonstrative. If we believe that men of rough natures have underlying them some finer sensibilities which do not openly find expressions, let us say that all this quiet was the index of a feeling of overpowering gratitude to Heaven that on this Sabbath day they were permitted to see the sun shining on the downfall of rebellion, and gilding the hope of country restored, friends reunited, and enemies disarmed. " When the half hour was up. General Ord and General Sheridan, together with several other officers of rank, rode throngh the pickets again, 'and met the Confederate Generals at the Philip H. Shekidak 551 chief Sherman's negotiations might have wrought; and then the leisurely return to "Washington. But long before the cavalry, rejoicing in the. old name cf con- tumely, came marching up Pennsylvania Avenue in the grand review, proclaim- ing itself to all inquirers as " Sheridan's Eobbers," the chief who had redeemed it from contempt, and linked its name indissolubly with the most crowded and Court-House. General Longstreet was there this time — a grisly-looking man, disabled in one arm, and hearing all over the evidences of hard campaigns and traces of disappointment in his troubled face — and he bore a dispatch from Lee to General Grant. It was in answer to one that the Lieutenant-General had sent to him stating the terms on which he would receive his surrender. "With this dispatch General Sheridan immediately sent off a staff officer to find Gen- eral Grant, who was reported to be on his way from General Meade to Appomattox C. H. Taking a wood-road leading off in the direction from which the Lieutenant-General would come, the officer rode fast on his errand, and after galloping some five or six miles and striking the main road on which we had marched the day before, fortunately met General Grant just beyond the intersection, rapidly pacing down this road in search of General Sheridan. Turning off into the woods at a lively trot, the party was not long in reaching the Court-House (and would have gained it sooner but for stupidly missing the way and almost wandering into Lee's lines), and there it was found that the second interview had not been much longer than the first, and that all of our officers had come back inside the pickets. As General Grant rode up. Gen- erals Ord and Sheridan and the rest were strolling on foot at the end of the broad grassy street which intersects the Court-House — that is, the town. The Lieutenant-General dismounted, came forward, and said: 'How are you, Sheridan?' To which, in a pert manner, the General replied: 'First-rate, thank you; how are you?' 'Is General Lee up there?' 'Yes.' 'Well, then, we'll go up.' "This is all that was said at that time, and the conversation, in view of all the circum- stances, would illustrate a statement that we are not a very demonstrative or dramatic people. In effective groupings and treatment of remarkable occasions, tlie people of the other continent can give us heavy odds. How poor this seems by the side of the Prussian King and Bismarck hunting over the field of Sadowa for the Crown Prince, whom, when found, the King grapples to his soul, decorates his manly bosom with beautiful insignia of honor and glory; and then their feelings master them, and king and prince and Bismarck burst out crying, field and staff officers joining in. And yet our field of Appomattox C. H. was more than the field of Sadowa. What recollections had they there of years of alternate disaster and victory ; what memories of hard campaigns and well-contested fields; of friendship cemented by the trials of camp and battle; of patient watching and anxious thought; of the fierce attack and the stubborn defense; of waiting, and work, and war? If they had had any such thronging into their minds, and had met on the evening of Sadowa, as our generals met now, it is painful to contemplate what they might have done. "So Generals Grant, Ord, and Sheridan, with three or four staff officers each, went up to the Court-House, and of our staff there went three, a senior aid, the chief of staff, and the Adjutant- General. The town consists of about five houses, a tavern, and a court-house, all on one street, and that was boarded up at one end to keep the cows out. On the right hand side as we went in was the principal residence, owned by Mr. McLean, and to his house General Grant was con- ducted to meet General Lee. At the fence the whole party dismounted, and walking over a nar- row grass-plot to the. house noticed General Lee's gray horse nibbling there in charge of an orderly, who was holding his own as well. General Grant entered the house with one or two of his staff, and the rest of us sat down on the piazza and waited. Mr. McLean was out there, too, but was so much excited by his appreciation of passing events that he did n't know where his pump was, or if he had any, and if not, could n't tell us where there was a spring. In a moment Colonel Babcock came out, smiling, whirled his hat round his head once, and beckoned Generals Ord and Sheridan to come in. They walked the floor silently, as people do who have first peep at a baby, and after awhile General Lee came out and signaled to his orderly to bridle hia horse. While this was being done, he stood on the lowest step of the piazza (we had all risen respectfully as he pa.'ssed down), and looking over into the valley tow.ird his army, smote Jiis 652 Ohio ik the War. stirring campaign of the war, and with the great Peace that ensued, was turning his back on the triumphs that followed the victory. Around the young Captain who thought the chances of war might hring him a Major's commission, now rose multitudinous voices of praise. The Government, the General-in-Chief, the Public, hastened to cover him with eulogies. His^native State, through her legislative assembly, voted him unanimous thanks, and recorded her pi-ide in the unrivaled achievements pf her son. But, while the grateful crowds were showering his subordinates with boquets, as they rode in the grand pageant hands together several times in an absent sort of way, utterly unconscious of the people about him, and seeming to see nothing till his horse was led in front of him. As he stood there he appeared to be about sixty years of age, a tall, soldierly figore of a man, with a full gray beani, a new suit of gray clothes, a high gray-felt hat, with a cord, long buckskin gauntlets, high riding Ixiots, and a beautiful sword. He was all that our fancy had painted him ; and he had the gympatliy of us all as he rode away. Just as he gathered up his bridle. General Grant went down the steps, and, passing in front of his horse, touched his hat to General Lee, who made a similar salute, and then left the yard and returned to his own lines with his orderly and the single staff officer who had accompanied him to the interview, and who was said to have been Colonel Marshall, his chief of staff, a quiet-looking man, in spectacles, looking more like one of thought than of action. General Grant presented something of a contrast to General Lee in the way of uniform, not only in color, but in style and general effect. He had on n. sagar-loaf hat, almost peculiar to himself, a frock coat, unbuttoned and splashed with mud, a dark vest, dark- blue pantaloons tucked into lop-boots, muddy, also, and no sword. His countenance was n't relaxed at all, and not a, muscle of hie face told tales on his thoughts. If he was very much pleased with the surrender of Lee, nothing in his air or manner indicated it. The joyful occa- sion didn't seem to awaken in him a responsive echo, and he went and mounted his horse and rode away silently, to send off a dispatch which should electrify the North and set all the church- bells ringing jubilant vespers on this happy Sunday evening. "Meanwhile there was a great stir in General Lee's army, and they were still cheering wildly as we left McLean's house to find a camp for ourselves. Of course his intention to surrender had been noised abroad, and as he returned from his interview with General Grant he was greeted with the applause we were now hearing. Cheer after cheer marked his progress through the old ranks that had supported him so gallantly ; but what or why they were cheering seems not to be fully decided. The Southern writers of the day agreed that they applauded General Lee thns to show for him their sympathy in his misfortunes, and their devotion to him and the lost cause. The latter reason is possible, but the former is not probable ; sympathy for sorrow and calamity does not find such loud expression in ci-owds any more than it does in individuals. Nobody would give three cheers for a man who had lost his father, with the idea of soothing him. When Queen Victoria made her first public appearance in England, after the death of the Prince Con- sort, it was reported that as her carriage moved down the Strand, the thousands who bad gath- ered there to welcome her suppressed the rising cheer, and stood all silent with one consent as she passed by ; and will any body say that the army of the Confederacy was less sympathclib'lJfan an English crowd, and less keenly alive to a proper regard for misfortune ? Doubtlen jLee's army was sorry for him, because his loss was theirs, and when his hope foundered theirs went down too ; but it was not because of his loss that they cheered so long and loud. It was because he had surrendered ; because he had confessed defeat at last, though all they had known he was defeated long before ; because they saw in surrender some hope of beginning life anew to repair the blunder of the Confederacy ; and, thanking him for this, the brave fellows who stood by him to the last, and would have died rather than desert the cause, cheered him rapturonsly as he returned to tell them that they were set at liberty^ " In the evening we sent rations for the twenty thousand men into his hungry camp, and he released our hungry prisoners, who came joyfully into our lines, with Irvine Gregg at tlie head of them, serene as usual, but with a good appetite. Then we went to bed, and had • gond night's rest, and tried to appreciate tbz great blessing of peace that had suddenly descended upon us." (With Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign, pp. 214, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 223, 224.) Philip H. Sheeidan. 553 through the streets of the capital, Sheridan himself was hurrying to a remote region, where was hope neither of fame nor fighting, in cheerful and prompt obe- dience to the orders requiring him to look after the surrender in the South-West. Into the campaign which he then undertook we can not enter. As we write it is scarcely finished. But from Five Forks the blindest of prophets might have forecast the end of Appomattox C. H. So from the successes by the way in this campaign we could forecast its triumphant close. His first task was to reduce the reckless bands of the Trans- Mississippi to Lee's terms of surrender; he was next to preserve order and maintain the laws in the chaotic confosion of Louisiana and Texas, to keep the peace along the Mexican border, and finally to preside, under regulations of Congress, in the reorganization of civil government throughout the troubled limits of his great command. The Trans-Mississippi shrank into peace at the noise of his coming. To preserve order was a more difiBcult task. But the bloody riots in New Orleans, which broke out during his absence in Texas, were never repeated. Ho chafed under the necessity of tolerating the continuance in ofiice of their authors. When the President proposed that the "Attorney-General" should supersede the " Governor," and that Sheridan should aid him in the reorganiza- tion, he telegraphed an indignant protest. His commission was at the service of the Government, but he would not be disgraced by taking orders from an ex-Eebel General ! When Congress gave him the power, he turned this Rebel out of his civil office, turned out the Mayor who had brought on the riot, and finally turned out the " Governor," whose treachery and double-dealing with all parties had helped to inflame it. In Texas he was hampered again by the Executive. The Provisional-Gov- ernor had for his standard of loyalty, "Abhorrence for the Rebellion and Glory in its Defeat." In the abortive reconstruction this officer was succeeded by another, who had for his standard of loyalty, " Pride in the Rebellion ; a right- eous bnt lost cause ; overpowered but not subdued." Each of these " Governors " he was required to support. It was little wonder that he found the task embar- raaeing, or that, when the power came to him, he was hindered by few scruples in doing to Throckmorton, of Texas, even as he had done to Wells, of Louisiana. Troubles sprang up along the border ; once, in fact, United States troops crossed it for a little to check a scene of pillage and lawless bloodshed. He did not hesitate to proclaim his entire sympathy with the brave Republicans who were struggling for their imperiled independence; and to denpunce as an "Imperial Buccaneer " the Prince who was now striving to overthrow the legiti- mate Government of Mexico, and to secure armed emigration from the Rebels of tbo South. Encouraged by this sympathy, and looking upon the heavy re-enforcoments thrown into Texas as virtual allies, the Republicans took fresh courage, and the Imperial standards, under the stimulus of this moral aid, were speedily pressed back to the valley of Mexico. The poor freedmen had in him a judicious friend. He would not encourage a disposition, once or twice shown, to enforce their claims by riotous manifesta- tions ; if they did not disperse he would sweep them from the streets with gi-ape 554 Ohio in the Wab. and canister. But he upheld the hands of the Freedmon's Bureau in protecting their rights; more than once called Eebel oflScials to astern account for outrages they had concealed; and curtly reported to the General-in-Chief that* over a single white man killed by Indians on the frontier the Texans would, raise a great excitement, but over many freedmen killed in the settlements nothing would be done — that, in fact, the trial of a white man in Texas for the murder of a freedman would be a farce. He enforced the law of Congress for reconstruction fairly and honestly. When he was conditionally directed to obey the Attorney-General's explaining- away of that law, he did not hesitate to pronounce it the opening of a broad, macadamized road for fraud and perjury. He faced the President's displeasure in this straightforward and honest performance of his duty; but no one step that he took showed any disposition to provide for his own safety or advance- ment by compromising the interests committed to his care. At last the Fred- dent, with a wrathful determination to defeat the policy of Congress at any cost, removed him from the command and ordered him to duty on the frontier. GeneralGrant carried his earnest protests against this course to the very verge of subordination to the Constitutional Commander-in-Chief. The people hailed the removed Department General as a victor. And here we leave him. -We have thus far studiously avoided many words of praise. We have preferred to tell what hi did. But now, as we look back over this wonderful career, how little is there that we can not praise — how little, indeed, that does not bear with it its own eulogy ! Once more we recur to that wise saying of Marshal Turenne's : " Whoever has committed no errors has not made war." But where are Sheridan's errors?. ■ - We maj-, indeed, regret his absence from New Orleans during the riots, although he had reason to believe there would be no disturbance. We may regret his failure to bring the murderers in the guise of policemen to condign punishment, for which there seems less apology. Going further back, we may deplore the devastation of the Shenandoah — ordered, indeed, by his superioi-s, but carried to an extent for which the orders did not strictly call. We may criticise the delay at Winchester, by which the morning was lost before lino of battle was formed beyond the gorge, and Early's whole army was therefore met instead of the half of it. We may wish that, if not actually unjust, he had ' at least beep less unkind to Warren at Five Forks. We may wish that he had shown better taste, in his official reports, than to sneer at Banks and Butler as commanders "who appeared to have more ability in civil than in military matters, and left the results of that ability for" him "to settle;" at Meade about his cavalry orders ; or even at poor Early for entering Eich- mond, followed from a lost field by a single orderly, "after a campaign in which he had lost nearly the whole of his army, together with his battle-flags, nearly every piece of artillery which his troops fired upon us, and also a large pai-tof his transportation." ♦Sheridan's Eeports — "Condition of Louisiana and Texas," Gov't. Edition, p. 76. Philip H. Shekidan. 555 But what are these ? It is a career stretching from Boonville to Appomat- tox C. H., and the administration in the South-West, of which we speak — a eureer that includes the superb fighting of Stone Eiver and Mission Eidge; the bevs^ildering successes of the Shenandoah Valley; the recover^' of the lost battle iit Cedar Creek; the obstinate defense of Dinwiddle, and the handsome tactics of Five Forks ; the magnificent pursuit of Lee, and the final reception of his suiTenderi the success in civil affaii-s that followed; the remarkable exhibition of this flushed Cavalryman suddenly transforming himself into a grave political officer, and proving as sagacious and clear-sighted in questions of politics and statesmanship as he had been dashing in the attack or relentless in the pursuit. What, in a career like this, are such paltry questions of possible errors in the opening details of a victory won, or of taste in the naive ofiicial expression of opinions or prejudices honestly entertained? Were they more frequent — did they obtrude themselves so often as to appear part of the warp and woof of the man's character, they might suggest, not indeed less praise for the past, but less trust for the future. As rare instances of those lapses which no man who makes war — most of all no man who makes war vigorously, from Napoleon downward — may hope to escape, they only serve to illustrate the brightness of the fame they can not dim. It will be seen then that we judge Sheridan worthy of high rank among tho foremost of our Generals. We think, indeed, that for large and uniform suc- cess, dependent not merely upon a faithful good fortune, but upon sound military judgment, rapidity of forming correct plans at critical moments, and enormous energy of execution, no Genei-al of the war, on either of its sides, can be placed before him. Stonewall Jackson — unlike as the two were in their personal char- acteristics — furnishes, jjerhaps, his nearest military parallel. The one fought almost exclusively with infanti-y; the other either with a judicious combination of the two, or with cavalry alone ; but both carried into their campaigns the same methods of preparation and of attack. Both based their plans upon exhaustive topographical knowledge of the country in which they operated. Both acted upon the broadest and soundest application of military rules, tem- pered by an insight into the character of the opposing commander that instinct- ively told how far his neglect of the same rules might be reckoned upon. Both began their movements with distinctly defined plans ; both were ready, on the instant, to abandon them as circumstances might dictate; both had that rare genius which rises to its best inspirations at the most dangerous conjunctures, and delivers its calmest judgments amid the ebb and flow and whirl of the bat- tle. Both believed in aggressive rather than defensive campaigns ; both were resistless in attack ; both amazingly energetic in pursuit. To both came that sublime confidence in success that does more for securing it than many re-en- forcements. From both went out that personal magnetism that imbues soldiers with this same confidence, and disciplines them on the faith of success. Neither was ever worthily opposed. Against each eflB.cient commanders sometimes operated, but never with efiicient sujiport. But here the parallel ends. Stonewall Jackson won his most brilliant vie- 556 Ohio in the Wak. tories against superior numbers. Sheridan, after Booneville, rarely, in his inde- pendent commands, opposed even equal numbers. Among our own Generals, a comparison with Sherman most readily sug- gests itself. Each is warlike by nature, and each has the genius of war. Each has familiarity with the rules of military science, and each uses these as the master of them rather than the slave of them. Each has the topographical eye; each moves large forces over great spaces with wonderful ease. Each is full of restless energy; but the energy of Sheridan directed itself solely upon the enemy, while that of Sherman found time to wage war upon the sanitary com- missions and the State agents, to argue against laws of* Congress, to prepare off- hand opinions on reconstruction, and to volunteer advice on a hundred points that did not concern him. Each won great and brilliant success; but the suc- cess of Sherman was often tempered by reverses or embittered by waste of life, while Sheridan never encountered a repulse,* and rarely gave the life of a sol- dier without receiving an equivalent. Each won his victories over inferior num- bers ; but Sheridan never had such preponderance of force as had' Sherman ; and Sheridan, ia his most memorable campaign, destroyed the army of his antagonist, while Sherman, in his corresponding campaign, only outflaukeii' his opposing army, and left it with a smaller percentage of losses sustained than his own when he entered Atlanta. Each was brilliant in war, but Sheridan, in addition, was safe. But it must be remembered that he was never tried on so grand a scale as the great soldier with whom we are comparing him, that so formidable difficulties never beset him, and that he was never matched against so astute an antagonist. But whoever should undertake to rate Sheridan's capacity must remember that he has uniformly risen to every task that has yet been set him. More than once the outside public, which in spite of its admiration for his dash has never fully appreciated him, has been apprehensive that the confident friendship of Grant was assigning too weighty burdens to the young Cavalryman. Yet, whether in the Shenandoah, on the pursuit of Lee, or in the complex administra- tion of the great department of the South-West, he has proved equal to every emergency and to every command ; so that, at last, we may be almost ready to take up with the declaration attributed to his Admiring chief, that " Sheridan has the ability to command as large an army as the United States ever mus- tered, or all of her armies." Certainly it may, at the least, be said of him that he is the most uniformly successful soldier of the war, and the one on whom now the Country may rightfully base the largest hopes whenever there may bo need of soldiers in the future. In person Sheridan is short, muscular, and deep-chested — his figure indi- cating great powers of endurance. His head is disproportionately large, and' the developments back of the oars are enormous, to the great inconvenience of hw ■ hatter. His temperament is sanguine ; his hair is dark, shading oflf into the color of his full beard, which is reddish ; and his face " is flushed, not with wine, *0f course this is said of his career as an independent commander, and .upon (heTiewttlt he wns not responsible for the initial repulse at Cedar Creek. / Philip H. Sheridan. 557 but with life.''* In private circles, and especially in the genial ease of his own head -quarters when off duty, he is an unassuming, chatty companion, silent as to his own exploits, but full of admiring praise for many of his great rivals, delighted with reminiscences of the old frontier life, fond of a joke or a story, and the ideal of a college boy's expression, "A good fellow." Like Grant, he *Some personal descriptions of Sheridan by acute observers may be here appended. Mr. Shanks, in his graphic Keminiscences of Distinguighed Generals, says : " Sheridan's appearance, like that of Grant, is apt to disappoint one who had not seen him previous to his having become famous. He has none of the qualities which are popularly attributed by the imagination to heroes. ' Little Phil ' is the title of endearment given him by his soldiers in the West, and is descriptive of his personal appearance. He is shorter than Grant, but somewhat stouter built ; and being several years younger and of a different temperament, is more active and wiry. The smallness of his stature is soon forgotten when he is seen mounted. He seems then to develop physically as he does mentally after a short acquaintance. Unlike many of our heroes, Sheridan does not dwindle as one approaches him. Distance lends neither his character nor personal appearance any enchantment. He talks more frequently and more fluently than Grant does, ana his quick and slightly nervous gestures partake somewhat of the manner of Sher- man. His body is stout but wiry, and set on short, heavy, but active legs. His broad shoulders, short, stiff hair, and the features of his face betray the Milesian descent ; but no brogue can be traced in his voice. His eyes are gray, and being small, are sharp and piercing and full of fire. When maddened with excitement or passion, these glare fearfully. His age is thirty-four, but long service in the field has bronzed hjm into the appearance of forty. He heartily despises a, council of war, and never forms part of one if he can avoid it. He executes, not originates plans; or, as Eosecrans once expressed it, 'He fights — he fights!' Whatever is given Sheri- dan to do is accomplished thoroughly. He will not stop to criticise the practicability of an order in its details, but does not hesitate to vary his movements when he finds those laid down for him .are not practicable. He does not abandon the task because the mode which has been ordered is rendered impossible by any unexpected event. If the result is accomplished, Sheridan does not care whose means were employed, or on whom the credit is reflected. He grasps the result and congratulates himself, the strategist of the occasion, and the men, with equal gratification and every evidence of delight. His generous care for the reputation of his subordinates, his freedom from all petty jealousy, his honesty of purpose, and the nobleness of his ambition to serve the country and not himself, his geniality and general good-humor, and the brevity of his black storms of anger, make him, like Grant, not only a well-beloved leader, but one that the country can safely trust to guard its honor and preserve its existence. It is easy for one who knows either of the two — Grant and Sheridan — to believe it possible that, during all the period in which they have held such supreme power in our armies, not a single thought of how they might achieve greatness, power, and position, at the expense of country, has ever suggested itself to their minds. There is only one other character known in profane history of whom the same thing can be truly said. Sheridan goes into the heat of battle not from necessity merely. The first smell of powder arouses him, and he rushes to the front of the field." A staff officer once wrote of him: "Some one has called him an "emphatic human sylla- ble.' If so, nature's compositor set him up in the black face, broad letter, sometimes seen in 'jobs' and advertisements. It is 'solid' at that. Sheridan is barely five feet six inches in height. His body is stout ; his lower limbs rather short. He is what would be called 'stocky ' in horse- jockey phraseology. Deep and broad in the chest, compact and firm in muscle, active and vig- orous in motion, there was not a pound of superfluous flesh on his body at the time we write. His face and head showed his Celtic origin. Head long, well balanced in shape, and covered with a full crop of close curling dark hair. His forehead moderately high, but quite broad, per- ceptives well developed, high cheek-bones, dark beard, closely covering a square lower jaw, and firm-lined mouth, clear dark eyes, which were of a most kindly character, completed the tout memble memory gives at the call. Always neat in person, and generally dressed in uniform. Captain Sheridan looked as he was, a quiet, unassuming, but determined officer and gentleman, whose modesty would always have been a barrier to great renown had not the golden gates of 568 Ohio in the War. bears public attention uneasily ; the fire of opera-glasaes disconcerts him more than that of artillery ; and although the ladies now pronounije him charm- ing, he has not wholly escaped the old bashfulness that used to make him blush scarlet to the temples at an introduction to one. Public speaking is too much for him, but he writes with soldierly directness and frankness. Long before he opportunity been unbarred for his passage. Almost the opposite of the Lieutenant-Geneial in his intellectual traits, yet like him in many social characteristics, it would have been difficult for so great a General to have found a more vigorous subordinate, or a more daring executive of the stupendous plans be formed." Colonel Newhall, from whom we have often quoted already, says : " His face is flushed, not with wine, but with life, and his eyes twinkle like stars ; the ends of hU moustache curl up with decision, and his mmiehe hides the sharp outline of his chin; his uniform coat is buttoned to the throat, across a square deep chest, which rightly indicates his physical power, and he is very simply dressed throughout, with nothing of the gay cavalier about him. He talks slowly and very quietly, smiling now, and working his mouth crosswise. If excited on the field, he won't bluster, but may swear, and be not so careful of the elegancies of speech as are*some dileUanU people, who never have many thoughts of their own to express and never mingle in stirring events ; one of whom, ' That never set a squadron in the field Nor the divisifin of a battle knows,' might perhaps be shocked in these fiery moments, bat if he has a chance for a quiet chat yrith the General, will think him rather gentle than otherwise, and begin to doubt the terrible oaths and fierce imprecations of song and story ; will find him proud of the achievements of his vari- ous commands, but modest about his own performances, and as silent as a pyramid if a speech is to be made. Accustomed to reserve, and not having the faculty of hiding himself in words, he resorts to the unusual expedient of silence, and the public never would have known him but for the great events which called him out. With them he can grapple, but a serenading party is too much for him." Once more from the same author : " The General is short in stature — ^below the medium — with nothing superfluous about him, square-shouldered, muscular, wiry to the last degree, and as nearly insensible to hardship and fatigue as is consistent with humanity. He has a strangely- shaped head, with a large bump of something or other — combativeness probably — behind the ea,rs, which inconveniences him almost as much as it does his enemies in the field, for there being no general demand for hats that would fit him, the General never has one thjit will stay on his head. This leads him to take his hat in his hand very often ; that action probably suggesU cheering something on, and, a fight being in progress and troops needing encouragement, by a simple sequence he usually finds himself among them, where he riskg the valuable life of the commanding General, not to mention casualties to staff officers." " Being rather reserved, he does not care much for general pociety, but when comfortably^ established in head-quarters, is hospitable, lives well, and likes to have congenial guests drop in upon his mess. He seems to care most for the company of the placid and easy-going, and is fond of a quiet chat about old times on the frontier with such boon companions as General D. McM. Gregg of the cavalry, General George Crook of the Army of West Virginia, and the gallant General David Bussell of the Sixth Corps, who was killed at the battle of the Opequan, and whose death General Sheridan felt Ixtremely. ' These the tents Which he frequents,' and in such society he forgets his usual reticence, and talks by the hour about West Point life and ' larks ' on the Pacific Coast. Occasionally, when the old associations come back to the party very strongly, they lapse into ,the Indian tongue, which they air understand, and, with speech clothed in this disguise, they can safely revive recollections which, may be, if told in plain Eng- Philip H. Sheeidan. 559 was distinguished it used to be said of him that he wrote his reports and even MiindorBements on official papers precisely as he would talk in the freedom of the cavalry camp, in discussing the subject with hie intimates. This conversa- tional tone still clings to his official style, and sometimes leads to misconceptions. He has developed an unexpected studiousness of habit sometimes in the South- West ; his office work is always kept well up ; his reports to his superiors are frequent and minute ; and the remark is common among those who see the most of him that he is constantly growing and broadening in intellectual grasp. He IB still a Eoman Catholic in religion, though perhaps not so devout as the rest of the famijy. But the popular impression of him as a reckless dare-devil of a fkpBtieraman is grossly incorrect ; his manners are those of a quiet, cultivated gentleman ; he is always well dressed, wherein he differs notably from Gi-ant and Sherman ; and though he is certainly not a " Son of Temperance," or a devotee of total abstinence, his habits are unexceptionable. At the age of ,thirty-six, he is one of the= four Major-Generals of the regular army, and is still a bachelor. Before the war he was a Democrat; but he differed from most army officers in having no sympathy with Southern institutions. He was loyally devoted to the Government whose soldier he was ; he rejoiced in the principles that triumphed in the triumph of the Government ; and he resolved that so far lisb, would astonish the audience, for it is only of late that they have been obliged to sustain the dignity of Major-Generals commanding. " Though always easy of approach, the General has little to say in busy times. Set teeth and tqaick way tell when things do not go as they ought, and he has n. manner on such occasions (liat Btirs to activity all within sight, for a row seems to be brewing that nobody wants to be under when it bursts. Notwithstanding his handsome reputation for cursing, he is rather remarkably low-voiced, particularly on the field, where, as sometimes happens, almost every- body else is screaming. ' Damn you, sir, do n't yell at me,' he once said to an officer who came galloping up with some bad news, and waa roaring it out above the din of battle. In such moments the General leans forward on his horse's neck, and hunching his shoulders up to his ears, gives most softly-spoken orders in a slow, deliberate way, as if there were niches for all the words in his hearer's memory, aiid they must be measured very carefully to fit exactly, that none of them be lost in the carrying. This is a pleasing way to have orders dealt out, especially ander fire. " When h^ sees things going wrong in any part of the field, he has a trick of moving for- ward restlessly in his saddle, as if he would go and put them to rights if he could take leave of his better judgment and follow his inclination ; but a serious check or reverse afieots him pecu- liarly. To most temperaments disaster is disheartening, but it passes by General Sheridan as an •ddy glide* around a pier; his equanimity is not affected by it, and he is not depressed for a moment, for he is a man of much variety and quick resource, and to his aid comes a defiant . ipirit, which twinkles in his eye when he is called upon to retrieve disaster. Victor Hugo's brave Frenchman in the Old Guard at Waterloo had no more contempt for the enemy than he, but he shows it rather by a talent for ignoring defeat and compelling success than by permit- ting a useless sacrifice. He never would acknowledge to the most confidential recess of his own bosom that his command was past redemption, and there was nothing to do but go and die like a . demigod. But it is not because he is impassive that he can not be stampeded by reports or events, for he is keenly alive to the situation in whatever shape it presents itself. Show him an opeiiiug promising success, and he will go in and widen it while an impassive man would be thinking about it. But he is slow to confess defeat; a peculiar organization, so acute in most of its perceptions, and yet so dull in realizing failure. The prominence of this quality must be apparent to all who know anything of him in the war, where his wizard fingers snatched a great Tictory from the enemy just as they were passing it to history as theirs." 40 560' Ohio in the Wab. r ae his power went, no cunning devices of peace should steal away the frnila of the war. Beyond this soldierly resolve he can not be said to have any political position. He is an earnest friend to General Grant, to whom he traces most of his promotions. Between these two there has never passed a shadow of unkind- ncss. With Sherman, and indeed with most of the army officers, his relations are cordial. His most intimate friendships are with subordinates in the cavalry service, and with comrades in the old Indian-fighting days on the frontier. James B. MoPherson. 501 MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES B. McPHERSOK "tyO name is held in more affectionate remembrance bj' the people of Ohio \\ than that of General McPherson. He was not conspicuous as a director ■^ ' of campaigns. He was not recognized as the author of any great vic- tory. He was not ranked among the foremost of the country's generals. Jle was great in his possibilities ratlier than in his actual achievements. He was young and scarcely known in person to the public. But his soldiers knew him to be superbly gallant; and his commanders knew him to be eminently able, prudent, and skillful. Borne forward b}^ their applause, he rapidly reached almost the highest promotion that his profession offered. So loveable was the nature of the man, so simple, so sincere, so manly, that the admiration of the public was heightened in liis army into love. Then in the midst of battle, and only a little before great triumphs, he fell. Thence- forward he was a martyr, whose loss was to be deplored as a public calamity ; whose memory was to be cherished as a priceless possession of the State. No other officer from Ohio, of equal rank and command, fell throughout the four years of the war. He thus became a solitary martyr, our greatest sacrifice, our saddest loss. It is in this light only that the people of the State regard him, and in this spirit only that we can now attempt to trace his career. James Birdseye McPherson was born at Clyde, Sandusky County, Ohio, (in the northern part of the State, and but a few miles from Lake Erie), on the 14th of November, 1828. His mother, Cynthia Eussell, was a native of Massa- chusetts. His father, Wm. McPherson, was of Scotch-Irish descent. The pair were married near Canandaigua, New York; but in a short time they removed to Ohio. Here the father settled on a tract of one hundred and sixtjr acres of woodland, near where the village of Clyde now stands, built a little frame house and a blacksmith shop, worked at his trade when work offered, and employed his leisure time in clearing his farm; and here, four years later, the son was horn, who was to be so famous and so mourned. The boy grew up in the hardy, laborious, backwoods life of the time and region. He was never much employed in his father's blacksmith shop; but he was taught to pick brush, to pile wood, to drive horses, and, by-and-by, to plow and chop. Meantime the father became involved in his business affairs, and in the laborious efforts to clear the farm his health broke down. Poor and an invalid, he thus left his growing family to the struggles of his wife, with such aid as four children, the oldest of them only thirteen, could offer. But this oldest was eager to do all he could, and his character as a bright, manly Vol. I.— 36. 562 Ohio in the War. Jittle fellow, perfectly upright aud trustworthy, was so well known in the neighborhood that he easily secured employment. The postmaster aud store- keeper of the next village, that of Green Spring, wanted a store-boy. A friend of the family, who knew James' anxiety to get some employment by which he might diminish his mother's burdens, recommended him. He was at once en- gaged; and for the next six years he remained, fitst as store-boy, then as clerk in the establishment of Mr. Eobert Smith. "I can recall very well his appearance at that time," writes a member of the family.* "He had a full, round, bright face, large gray eyes, and light brown hair, with a manner that was at once frank and modest, even to bashjPul- ness." What a struggle it cost this pleasant-charactered boy to leave his toiling mother,and his little brother and sisters, we learn from the same source: "I believe it was during his last visit here, previous to going to California, that I heard him relate, with one of his hearty laughs, how terrible was the feeling of home-sickness and the sense of 'being cast out into the wide, wide world ' that came over him at parting with his mother and the younger children to come. to this village. The whole family were in tears when he bade them good-by; and taking up his little bundle, commenced his journey of five miles afoot and alone. After walking boldly forward for some distance he looked back and saw them all at the door watching him and weeping. To shut out the painful sight he clutched his bundle tighter, and ran as fast as his young feet could carry him until he reached the woods, where he sat down and wept abundantly. Then Jiie took up his bundle again and came on to Green Spring.',' Here he presently gained the confidence of his employer, and of all with whom he came in contact. Indeed, to quote from the same source again, "from the time of his first making his home here, I remember hearing him spoken of by the older people as a i-emarkable boy — remarkable for his industry, his un- varied cheerfulness, his earnest application to study, and his freedom from even the ordinary vanities and follies of youth." And then we have this pleasant picture of the sensitive blacksmith's boy, as he came to be known in his neW Bphei'e.f " I doubt if he ever spoke a profane word. I at least never heard him utter even an unkind or an ungracious one, or knew of his doing an ungracious deed. . . . He always possessed the wonderful faculty, which seems to have distinguished him in maturer years, of attracting to himself as attached friends all with whom he came in contact, high or low. . . . He was fond of all out-door sports and manly games. We had a large green yard, whic^h,, during the summer evepings, was the delightful resort of the children of the neighbor- hood. ' Touch the base ' was the favorite game, and of all who engaged in the romp, none were more eager or happy than 'Jimmy.' He often recurred to these scenes in after life. In a letter written during the war, he says: 'God grant I may live to come back and tell you how dear your friendship is, and has been to me during the many yeai-s that have rolled around since we romped in merry glee in the old yard.' ... I I'emember being in the store one even- * Private letter from Green Spring, furnishing accounts of McPherson's early life for this sketch. tibid. James B. McPhekson. 563 ing when they were nailing up some boxes. James was assisting with his usual cheerfulness. As he pushed a board to its place he said that ' it ought to come u\) closter.' 'Closter!' said one; 'why don't you speak more correctlj-, James? Why do n't you say closer?' I can see at this moment how painfully confused and disturbed the poor child was at this rebuke. I dare venture to say he never used the word closter again in all his life. . . . After the first year or two in the store he went to school each winter. It was a source of disquiet to him not to be able to attend school more regularly, for he was very ambitious for the acquisition of knowledge. . . . He was a very fast reader, which, when he read aloud, became a serious fault. He gradually improved in this as he grew older. His penmanship was, for a boy, remarkably fine, and was greatly relied on when lie feared whether his scholarship was sufiicient to enable him to pass muster at the examination for entering West Point." Thus far the pleasant gossip of the good friends with whom the boy grew up. Doubtless they have somewhat idealized their recollections of the lad, since he came to be so famous — who of us is there that would not be likely to do the same? But it is clear that he was a good, manly, hearty fellow, marked for more than usual capacity and loved for more than usual sweetness of dis- position. We have seen that he was ;inxious for a better education. While in the store he had been a faithful reader. In those days when people spent money for a book it was pretty sure to be for one that the verdict of a good many critics and years had pronounced good; and so it happened that the well-stpred book -case to which the clerk had access was mainly filled with standard authors. He pored over Plutarch's Lives, every volume- of which he devoured. Gib- bon's Decline and Fall came next in his course ; then Marshall's Life of Wash- ington, and Buffon's Natural History. Poetry came later in his way; and then Bome standard works of fiction. At last the promise of an appointment to West Point, which his fine character and the esteem it won him had secured, induced him to give up his position in the store, and enter the Norwalk Academy for a couple of sessions' preparatory study. He was now nineteen years old, and he was fearful of being rejected on account of his age. So limited had been his opportunities for study that he was likewise apprehensive of failure -at the examination for admission. But all difiicultieB wore happily jiassed ; and a few months before attaining his majoritj- the blacksmith's boy was fairly established at West Point. Among the classmates with whom he was here brought in competition, were Schofield, Terrill, Sill, and Tyler. Toward the close of his academic career there was another, one — Philij) H. Sheridan.* And among the Southern members was one in conflict with whom our young Cadet was afterward to fall— James B. Hood. Among these rivals the backwoods store-clerk, who had been afraid that his acquirements would prove so limited that he could not enter at all, at onco * Sheridan had been one cla.ss in advance, but was thrown back by his suspension for violat- ing the rules of the Academy in flogging a Cadet who had insulted him. 564 Ohio in the Wae. took rank next to the higliest. " He stood alvvays at the head of his class in Bcientifie studies," Professor Mahan tells us, " and except the first year, when ho stood second, owing to his want of facility in acquiring the French languag3, he always held the first place in general merit." And in the records of the academy we find him marked second in his class in 1850, first in 1851, first in 1852, and graduated at the head of the class in 1853. " We looked upon him," Professor Mahan goes on, " as one among the ablest men sent forth from the institntion, being remarkable for the clearness and prompt working of his mental powera. His conduct was of an unexceptionable character. These endowments he carried with him in the performance of his duties as an engineer oflBcer, winning the confidence of his superiors, as a most reliable man. His brilliant after-career in the field surprised no one who had known him intimately." Graduated at the head of his class, he was, in accordance with the common rule, assigned to the Engineers. But, so highly were his accomplishments.l'ated, that, instead of being sent out on duty, he was retained at the academy as Assistant-Professor of Practical Engineering; in which position he remained for a year. This seems to have disappointed him a little. But after a hurried visit to his mother, and the home friends, he says — the flourishing, round, "boy's hand," which the poor dead fingers traced, lies before us as we write— "I have had a good time since I came back — found a number of my old acquaintances^ here, besides three classmates. Most, however, have left, to make ready their winter- quarters, and I miss them very much. In fact I would not object very strongly to going myself. This is but the beginning of a military life — a. glorious state of uncertainty, truly. However, I do not let it trouble me any. ' Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof is my motto." * From the period we have now reached till the outbreak of the war, the story of McPherson's services might be very briefly told. He taught for a year in West Point. For three years he was engaged on engineering-duty on the Atlantic coast — in New York harbor for all but six months of the time. For three and a 'half years he was in charge of the fortifications in the harbor of San Francisco. And then came the war. Meantime the bashful clerk of the country store, and the studious cadet of West Point, had developed into an accomplished engineer, and a man of the world. Before he started for West Point his father bad died, and the younger membors of the family had grown into an ability to take care of themselves. But he was still the same aifectionate lad that had shed tears at the thought of leaving them to go five miles from home ; and while he remained on the Atlantic coast he rarely missed making a short visit every season to the family that had crowded weeping to the door to watch him as he went. With his old school- mates, and the pleasant Green Spring friends, too, he kept up the warmest friendships. He was not very faithful as a correspondent, but the letters he did write run over with expressions of delight at recalling " the good times we used to have." From them, indeed, we catch the clearest glimpses of his life at this formative period. * From collection of McPherson's private letters, furnished for this sketch. James B. MgFherson. 665 Social attractions seem at first to have largely engrossed him. Young, handsbme, genial, a regular army oflScer, with the honors of his class, he could scarcely fail to be a welcome guest anywhere. He has enough to do in New York, he says, to keep him from feeling lonely and to make a rainy day tolera- ble. "Besides, I am acquainted with a gi-eat many influential persons in the city, as well as a number of highly-accomplished and interesting ladies, whose sniile is as cheering as a ray of sunshine would be after an Arctic night,'' and, ae was natural, he was highly pleased with the change from West Point. But this was only in 1854. Two or three years later, while as much devoted to society as ever, he was less boyish in boasting of his influential and accom- plished acquaintances. In 1856 we find him giving instead a half-pleased, half- boi-ed account of his experience in making New Year's calls. The day " was everything that a person could wish. I was industriously engaged from ten o'clock in the morning till nine in the evening. . I succeeded in making seventy- five calls, and then did not get around all my acquaintances. But I concluded to Btop, as I was slightly leg-weary, though the visions of loveliness floating before my mind were more than suflScient to buoy me up." In another place he gives a page to an account of his enjoyment of New Year's Eve "with some charming young ladies," of an apparition that appeared as the mystic hour approached, and was resolved into " an indubitably honest ghost," to-wit : a bowl of egg-nog, and of the good time they had shaking hands all around, and clinking the glasses as they drank the old year out and the new year in. Again he tells of being pretty closely confined by his duties at the forts — this is over a year later — but has " managed to run out of town Saturday afternoons and back early Monday mornings." "It is perfectly elegant," he' continues, "to escape from the cares of business, the mire and dust of the city, and rest in the delights of the country — surrounded by charming friends." He has grown still more discreet, it will be observed ; but he is frank enough to add that he believes the friends rather than the country make the excursions so pleasant. At last, however, comes the confession. " I tell you, John, I have about come to the conclusion that it is not good for man to be alone. Do n't be alarmed. I am not going to desert the ranks of bachelordom yet. No ; I am still afloat — not yet having found the jiearl of great price." We have scarcely looked into one of the letters of those days without finding it full of phrases like these. In fact— to quote from the old friend and schoolmate of McPherson's, to whom we are indebted for most of the youthful correspondence before us * — " to appreciate his letters fully, one should able to recall the expression of his eye, and the joyousnoss of the laugh with which he would always refer to 'the good times we used to have calling on the girls.' " But it was a pure, manly regard for the sex to which his mother and his sisters belonged that the hearty young fellow cherished, a regard that made all mothers trustful and from 'which no pure woman shrank. What with building of forts, and purchase of materials, and calling on the young ladies, he found his time very much occupied. "There are so many * George R. Haynes, Esq., of Toledo. 666 Ohio in the War. things to do," he writes, three years after his graduation, "and so many wars to enjoy mj'self that it is with the utmost diflSculty I can settle myself down to anything like a calm, steady, and instructive course of reading or studying. However, I satisfy myself with the reflection that a knowledge of men and of business is quite as essential in this rapid, go-a-head country of ours as a knowledge of books." The cheerful, sunny-tempered boy naturally developed into a man who preferred to look on the bright side of things: "My duties have brought rae in contact with pers'ons of almost every walk of life;" he writes in 1856, "and though I find much to condemn, still there is vastly more to admire. It only requires one to be firm and decided in his principles (which must have integrity for their basis) to get along well, command the respect and confidence of the community, and render the shafts of unprincipled men perfectly harmless." Political matters seem to have attracted his attention a good deal. He could scarcely have passed through West Point in those days without absorbing the Southern notions which prevailed, and the hearty dislike which ofBcers of the regular army particularly chose to aifect toward the Abolitionists. But he avowed such prejudices — rather than opinions — with a zeal quite in contrast with the equable regard which he bestowed upon other matters outside his pro- fession. Within a month or two after leaving West Point he was writing to a friend: "Do you have much to do with politics? I hear that matters have come to a pretty bad pass in our State, and that it is really discreditable to go to the Legislature. ... I think the sooner a reform takes place, the better. I believe, if I were to meddle with politics, I would be a 'Know-Nothing.'" A year later he had come to discuss the sins of the Abolitionists with greater unc- tion and at greater length. "Not a few are highly gratified at the result of the recent elections in Massachusetts and this State, which have been such a signal rebuke to Seward and his Abolition supporters." " It is very seldom," he con- tinues in a half apologetic vein, "that military men meddle with politice, except when broad, sound, National principles are assailed, and then they feel it a duty to place themselves in the van and rally to the support of the Union. I have felt a good deal of interest in politics since I have seen the efforts which have been made to form a sectional party — a party with but one idea, and that one calculated to awake a feeling of animosity from one extreme of the Union to the other, the fatal effects of which neither you nor I can predict. When I seo men who are endowed with superior powers of mind, and occupying high stations, putting forward their utmost energies to excite dissension, and not only dissension but absolute hatred between the difl'erent sections of our country, I feel it is time they were shorn of their strength and rendered powerless to com- mit evil. Could I believe in their sincerity or patriotism, and that motives of humanity actuate them, I might be a little more charitable. But when sndi men as Salmon P. Chase, whose position gives him influence, gets up before a public assembly in Maine or any other State, and declares that there is a deep feeling of hatred between the North and the South, that 'the Allies do not hate the Eussians or the Russians the Allies, any more than the people of the North James B. McPherson. 567 hate the people of the South,' or the people of the South hate the people of the Kortli,' it is time all candid men should act to defeat the schemes and machi- nations of such demagogues. I do not hesitate to say that I am GRATiriEn at the i-esult of the elections; and I believe that every UnionWhig, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster Whig, can say the same." The italics and capitals are given above as Mr. McPherson used them to show the strength of his sage conviction. The elections over which the young man rejoiced were among the last defeats of the Eepublican party, prior to that one which made Mr. James Buchanan President of the United States. Engineering he understood; arid the regular army and society, and the prejudices of both. With these prejudices he M'as content so far as politics were concerned. A year later he had learned no more wisdom than this: "From what I can hear from Ohio, I suppose it will go for Fremont. Fillmore is my choice, and had I the casting vote he would be the man to take the Pres- idential chair on the 4th of March. jSText to Fillmore I prefer Buchanan, al- though many of his principles are of a different school from that in which I was educated." "But the time has come, John," he continues, in appeal to his friend, "when good and true men must rally round the Constitution and the Union, -and stay the tide of sectionalism and fanaticism which is spreading like wildfire throughout certain parts of the country." His rhetoric was badly involved, but his principles were clear. He stood by the Constitution and the Union. Full of his West Point training, and of the prejudices of such New York society as a handsome young West Pointer was likely to see, it was very natural that he should be mistaken as to who were the real assailants of the Constitution and the Union. But when be found ou.t, there came back the ringing sound of the pure metal. From the fortifications of Alcatras Island, in San Francisco Harbor, he writes to his mother in the ' winter of 1860-61: "My mind is perfectly made up, and I can see that I have but one duty to perform, and that is, to stand by the Union and the support of the General Government. I left home when I was quite young, was educated at the expense of the Grovernment, received my commission and have drawn my pay from the same source to the present time, and I think it would be traitorous for me, now that the Government is really in danger, to de- cline to serve and resign my commission. Not that I expect any service of mine can avail much; but such as it is it shall be wielded in behalf of the Union, whether James Buchanan or Abraham Lincoln is in the Presidential ehair." And soon after we find him writing again to his mother; "However men may have differed in politics, there is but one course now. Since the trai- tors have initiated hostilities and threatened to seize the National Capital, give them blow for blow and shot for shot, until they are effectually humbled. I do not know whether I shall be kept here or ordered East; but one thing I do know, and that is, that I am ready and willing to go where I can be of the most service in upholding the honor of the Government, and assisting in crush- ing out the rebellion ; and I have faith to believe that you will see the day wiien the glorious old flag will wave more triumphantly than ever. I wish I 568 Ohio in the War. was at home now to join the Ohio volunteers. I swung my cap more than once on reading the telegraphic message of Governor Dennison: 'What Kentucky will not furnish, Ohio will!' . . . Now that the fires are kindled, I hope they will not he permitted to die out until Jeff. Davis and his fellow conspira- tors are in Washington to be tried for treason, or, in the language of old Put nam, 'tried, condemned, and executed.'"* And with this burst of indignant loyalty we turn away from those broad- paged, handsomely-written, much-prized letters to family and friends; away from the old life to which they belong; away from building defenses for harborH and listening to conservative anti-sectional politics, and keeping up home mem- ories and calling on the girls — away from all this, and into the seething war — whence he is not to emerge save with the cross and martyr's crown. In the spring of 1861, McPherson, only a Lieutenant of Engineers yet, was still in San Francisco. He was now a little over thirty-two years of age, was still manly and handsome and sunny-tempered, and unmarried, though engaged to a lady in Baltimore. To the outside public he was unknown. In the army he was not much talked of; but he had served in !N^ew York under Majoi- Dela- field, who had spoken well of him, and in San Francisco he had conducted his engineering operations to the entire satisfaction of the Department. Altogether, ho was to be considered a good and safe engineer. Whereupon, when after personal application, he obtained orders to come East in the summer of 1861, he was assigned to engineer duty in Boston harbor, and in August 6th— afler McClellan was a Major-General in the regular army, and a score of incapables had become Major-Generals of volunteers by virtue of their knowing regimental and brigade drill, Lieutenant McPherson was — advanced to the junior Captaincy of Engineers. At last his time came. When Halleck went West he wanted a number of regular army officers around him. Among the rest, he thought of the young engineer who had been at work for a year or two in the harbor, while he had been practicing law in the city of San Francisco. Captain McPherson was accordingly promoted to a Lieutenant-Colonelcy of volunteei-s, and assigned to duty on General Halleck's staff. This was on the 12th of November, 1861. Between that date and the 22d of July, 1864, a period of less than three years, was crowded all that it remains to us to tell of McPherson. Through the winter he did some engineer duty, constructed defenses along the line of the Pacific Railroad, and helped to organize troops as they came into the department. On the 31st of January, 1862, General Grant, at Cairo, received the often- sought permission to move on Forts Henry and Donelson, with the intimation that full instructions would como by messenger. Next day the messenger pre- sented himself in the person of McPherson, made brevet Major of engineers, *Tlie entire letter from which this last extract is taken may be found iu "Hours at Home," for March, 1866. James B. McPheeson. 569 and assigned as chief engineer of the expeditionary forces. There thus began the association which was soon to prove so helpful to the young staff officer. At first there was little for him to do. Admiral Foote captured Fort Henry before Grant got up. "When the army reached Donelson, however, McPherson was kept busy enough tracing the lines along which Grant had determined to conduct a siege. The exposure through that terrible weather was a rough com- mencement for campaigning, and McPherson, unused for many years to exjDO- Bure, broke down under it. An old affection of the throat and lungs returned, and he was forced, in fear in fact of his life, to hasten back to St. Louis for medical assistance. When, in the first days of March, he was able to return to the field, he bore with him the instructions to General Grant for the movement up the Tennessee. The frightful blunder in which this expedition ended at Pittsburg Landing does not seem in any way traceable to McPherson. It was indeed specially within the scope of his engineering duties to have set forth the objections to the encampment on the wrong side of the river in the face of a superior foe, to the confased jumbling of the several divisions, and to the lack of defensive prepa- rations. But an old friend of Grant's, Colonel "Webster, was the chief engineer on the staff, and the young officer might well, under such circumstances, be chary of offering unasked advice. "When the blow fell, through all the confu- sion of the fateful Sunday of Pittsburg Landing, and the better fortune that came with the morrow, he did staff-duty efficiently and gallantlj'. So well was Grant pleased that, swiftly following after the brevet of Major in the engineers, came that of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was at the same time promoted to a full Colonelcy in his volunteer rank, and again assigned to duty on Halleck's staff, this time as chief engineer to the combined armies now concentrated against Corinth. For the amazing engineering delays that retarded the advance on Corinth to a rate of about a quarter of a mile per day, he was as little responsible as for the previous lack of such precautions. General Halleck was himself an engi- neer. "What he required of his subordinate was not advice, but work. This McPherson did, and, new as he was to such tasks, did so well that to this day the lines drawn about Corinth have scarcely been surpassed. IBut he con- demned the orders he obeyed, considered the unusual delays needless, and while he filled the woods between Corinth and the river with miles upon miles of parapets, would, if allowed to exercise his own judgment, have been marching toward the enemy's works.* "When Halleck was summoned to Washington as General-in-Chief, his staff officer i-emained behind, and presently, on the recommendation of General Grant, who now commanded the department, was promoted to a Brigadier-Generalship of volunteers, for the purpose of assuming the position (for which his engineering capacity was supposed to give him peculiar fitness) of military superintendent * This statement I make on the authority of General Hickenloopei;, subsequently chief engi- neer on General McPherson's staflF. 570 Ohio in the Wab. of railroads. He remained, however, in active duty on General Grant's staff until after the battle of luka. He had just begun his work of repairing the railroads when the battle of Corinth came on. A dispatch from Grant notified him that tel- egraphic communication with Rosecrans at Corinth was cut off, that the Rebels were probably making an attack, and libat-he was anxious to have McPherson conduct re-enforcements at once to the assailed garrison. He immediately mus- tered his engineer regiment -from the railroad, and with the other troops sent him by Grant — enough to make up a good brigade— moved rapidly down the road. As he approached Corinth the sounds of heavy firing grew plainer and plainer, till suddenly, a little after four o'clock, they ceased altogether. Mc- Pherson wart puzzled. Which side was successful? On which sjde was the enemy, and how was this single brigade to move so as surely to avoid Price and Van Dorn, and reach Rosecrans? No intelligence whatever could be secured from the battle-field. Throwing skirmishers well to the front, and moving ca.it- tiously, he advanced on the north side of the railroad. At last Rosecrans's pickets were reached ; and just as the triumphant commander was galloping over the field, congratulating the men and giving ordei-s for the pursuit in the morning, McPherson was marching into the town. " Returning from this " (the ride over the field and orders to the troops) "I found the gallant McPherson with a fresh brigade on the public square, and gave him the same notice, with orders to take the advance." This is all Rose- crans says in his oflScial report. Staff officers, however, still have vivid recol- lections of the sharp passage between McPherson and his chief which preceded his first movement upon the enemy in the actual command of troops. The order sent to McPherson after Rosecrans's verbal instructions, ran thus : " The General commanding directs that you furnish your command with three days' rations and one hundred rounds of ammunition. Let your animals be well wa- tered and supplied with forage, or turned out to graze. Be prepared to move at daylight." At daylight Rosecrans came galloping up, full of ^hat nervous excite- ment that inflamed him ou such occasions, and demanded why McPherson had not, in accordance with orders, moved out in pursuit. McPherson replied that he had received no such orders, and was awaiting them. " Yes, you have received them," said the impatient Rosecrans, sharply. McPherson deliber- ately and calmly repeated his denial, at the same time producing the written order to "be prepared" to move, and calling the General's attention to the fact that he was prepared. Rosecrans apologized and gave the order. It was a little thing, and, though exciting enough for the moment, ended very pleasantly; but it serves to show at this outset of his career, the combined promptness and caution of McPherson's character. Most men, breathing the air of pursuit that filled all Corinth that night, would have moved with the first streak of dawn on such orders as McPherson already had. Not so our prudent young engi- neer. He was ordered to be prepared to move, and prepared to move he was.* •The facta of the above passage between Bosecrans and McPherson are derived from a MS. outline of McPherson's military services, furniohed me by General Hickenlooper of his staff. James B. McPheeson. 571 A little later he gave another taste of his quality. A flag of truce came back from the rear of the hard-pressed, retreating column, and with it a large burial-party. The manifest object was to delay the pursuit ; the ostensible one to care for the wounded and bury the dead. McPherson directed it to stand aside and await orders, while with redoubled energy he pushed the pursuit, righting was going on, he said, and he did not propose to su8j)end it unless ordered to do so by the General commanding.* At the crossing of the Hatchie he struck the enemy's rear with vigor, captured a baggage-train and lai-ge quan- tities of war materiel, and scattered the retreating force in all directions. It was his first handling of troops in action. So fully was it supposed to illustrate his ability that, a few days later, another promotion came to crown the series of his fast-growing honors. A year before he had been- a Captain of Engineers. Then had come a Lieutenant-Colonelcy of Volunteers ; then, after Pittsburg Landing, a Colonelcy, — after the evacuation of Corinth a Brigadier- Generalship. iSTow, on his return from this pursuit of Price and Van Dorn, he was met with news of his appointment to a Major-Generalship! Still, he could not but feel that it was rather because of the promise of ability he had given than for actual achievements that he was thus advanced ; rather because Gi-ant believed him capable of great things than because of any great things that he had done. Meantime, with every widening of his sphere his personal popularity had widened. Now, as he gave up his control of the railroads to enter upon his duties as Major-General, he was made to see very pleasantly the attachment and regard of his railroad subordinates. They gave him a parting supper, at which Grant, Logan, and a large number of the rising officers who have since become famous, were guests, and when the party was all assembled, presented him with a horse, saddle, bridle, and sword. He sought to reply to the compli- ments of the presentation speech, but the occasion was too much for him, and he came near breaking completely down. Palpably the new Major-General was DO orator. McPherson proceeded at once to the District of Bolivar, to the command of which he had been assigned. He devoted himself to the organization and equipment of his troops ; kept a keen eye upon the movements along his front ; and succeeded in furnishing General Grant with much of the informati(5n that went to shape the campaign upon' Holly Springs and thence toward the rear of Vicksburg. Finally,f he was ordered to make a reconnoissauce in force toward Holly Springs, to develop the enemy's strength. He was to be joined, en route, by Quimby's division, from Grand Junction. Next morning he moved out. Quimby failed to join him, but he pushed on, and, about ten miles south of Old Lamar, encountered the enemy in force. He at once disposed his infantry in front, and swung the cavalry around on the enemy's right flank and rear. As the infantry advanced in front the cavalry charged iipon the rear; and the enemy, after a short resistance, broke and fled in confusion. Hoping still to hear from Quimby, McPherson now allowed the infantry to advance slowly; but * Eosecrans's Test. Com. Con. War. Series 1865, Vol. Ill, p. 22. t On 7th November, 1862. 572 Ohio in the Wae, with the cavalry he pushed on in person, sharply following the retreat, and pres- ently developing the full strength of the Eebels behind their fortified positions on the Coldwater. Then, after making a careful reconnoissance, he retired, with about a hundred prisoners as the fruits of his fighting, and such information as to the Eebel strength and positions as satisfied Grant that the time for his advance had come. This was the first considerable action in which McPherson was engaged in prominent command. His dispositions were admirable, and the promptness and vigor of his attack dispelled the fear of excessive caution which w;a8 commonly entertained at the beginning of every engineer's career in active -command. So fully was McPherson now trusted that he was given the entire right wing of the Army of the Tennessee, and assigned to the advance. In this position he led the movement down toward Jackson and the rear of Vicksbnrg, till, when his cavalry had reached Coffeeville and the route seemed clear, the whole army was suddenly thrown back by the surrender of Holly Springs, and the consequent loss of the supplies for the campaign. In the return McPherson held the rear through all the exhausting march over the flooded country — his troops living cheerfully on quarter-rations and patiently enduring the fatigues, when they saw their commander asking no sacrifice of them which he did not make himself. Day and night he kept the saddle. Whenever a difficulty or danger was encoun- tered he lingered — never leaving till the last man or the last wagon was safely over ; and through all the privations and dangers he continued so affable, so cheerful, with such kind words and pleasant looks for all, that on that march he fairly mastered the hearts of his command. Thenceforward its morale was per- fect, for it believed in its General. There now began the movement against Vicksburg by the way of the Mis- sissippi River. While Grant, with the rest of the army, hastened down, McPherson lay at Memphis reorganizing and refitting his command. On his way thither he had narrowly escaped a great danger. He occupied the rear car, while the rest of his train was filled with the sick and wounded from one of his divisions. In a cold, disagreeable winter night, as the train was passing a sharp curve, every car save the last was thrown from the track, and hurled to the bottom of the high embankment. The poor wounded men were again horribly mangled and mutilated. McPhersou did everything in his power for their comfort — then lejiving them in the charge of his Medical Director, took the locomotive (which still remained upon tKo track) and hurried' forward to send back further relief By the 22d of February his command was ready for the field ; and on the 23d its advance arrived at Lake Providence ; while he himself hurried on down to the front of Vicksburg to see General Grant, and receive his orders. Grant was now in the height of the ditch-digging campaign. The canal across the peninsula before Vicksburg was not yet a failure, and some hopes were en- tertained of the route through the bayous from Milliken's Bend. To McPher- son was assigned a less promising route. He was to try to open a passage through the sluggish wastes of water that, at flood-time,, filled the gaps and James B. McPheeson. 573 connected Lake Providence, Bayou Macon, and the Tensas and Eed Elvers. It was a project of extraordinary wilduess. We find no traces of any opinion expressed by McPherson as to its feasibility; but he went to work vigorously to attempt the execution of his oj-ders. In two weeks he had the levees cut, and the water from the Mississippi rushing at a furious rate into Lake Provi- dence. "Weeks were then spent in seeking to open the tortuous passages between and along the bayous. Meantime Grant's other projects for evading the Vicks- burg batteries had failed, and he had risen to the height of the audacious con- ception that was to bring him the most worthily-earned honor of his career. McPherson's report as to the impracticability of his route was, therefore, all the more readily accepted; and on the 16th of April his command moved down the river to unite with the rest of the army in the movement below Vicksburg upon its rear. Six days were spent in corduroying the roads across the peninsula and down the Louisiana bank of the river. Then, through swamps still almost bot- tomless, the troops began their toilsome march. McClernand had the advance; McPherson followed. On the 30th of April the column reached Hard Times Landing, and began the crossing to Bruinsburg. E"ext morning, as McPherson's command rapidly disembarked on the Vicksburg side, without knapsacks or encumbrances of any kind, the guns of McClernand's division could already be heard. The enemy's forces below Vicksburg were resisting the advance. McPherson pushed rapidly forward at the head of his troops. As he approached the scene of action. Grant met him. What followed curiously illustrates the matter of fact vfaj in which battles are apt to be fought, as contrasted with the enthusiasm and .general heroics of the poets. " Mack," said Grant, " Ostherhaus is over there on the left, pegging away, but can 't quite make the riffle. Go over and see what you can do."* In obedience to this rather vague order McPherson put in a division to support McClernand's center. With the other he moved up on the left, and speedily became severely engaged. The battle (since known as Port Gibson) lasted for several hours yet; but finally the enemy was driven, and the army pushed forward till it was stopped by Bayou Pierre. Next day the bayou was bridged, and McPherson once more took the a,dvance. He held it, bridging Bayou Pierre at another crossing as he progressed, till he followed the flying Eehels across the bridge they had not time to burn, at Hankinson's Ferry, on the Big Black. Demonstrations and feints ensued for two or three days, while Grant got tip his supplies, and was ready to push northward. Then, while Sherman and McClernand hugged the Big Black, McPherson launched out far to the eastward. By three o'clock on the afternoon of the 12th, he had encountered a force of the enemy near Eaymond. Its position gave it considerable advantage, and at the time it was thought to comprise formidable numbers; but it has been since ascertained to have consisted of Gregg's and W. II. T. Walker's Eebel brigades only. McPherson deployed his advance rapidly and began the attack. The contest raged for betw^'een two and three hours, *MS. Memorandum of General Hickenlooper. 674 Ohio in the Wae. when the Eebels retreated, Logan's division having borne the brunt of the fighting. Just as the issue of the battle began to seem clear, McPherson's Adjutant- General approached htm with a dispatch which he had prepared for General Grant, and which only awaited McPherson's signature to be sent off. It set forth that he "had met the enemy in immensely superior force, but had defeated him most disastrously, and was now in full pursuit." McPherson quietly tore it up, took the field-book of the Adjutant, and wrote instead : " "We met the enemy about three P. M. to-day ; have had a hard fight and up to this time have the advantage." When Grant received this, he straightway changed the direction of Sher- man's and McClernand's columns, so that the whole force might converge upon McPherson's objective — Jackson. For while no fears were entertained about his ability to drive the enemy he had already defeated, yet it was known that on his front, at Jackson, Eebel re-enforcements were arriving, and that John- ston was likely to essay the ofi'ensive speedily. Meantime the next day Mc- Pherson pushed on, with only light skirmishing to impede him, and before dark had struck the railroad between Vicksburg and Jackson at Canton, capturing telegraphic correspondence between Pemberton and Johnston. The latter ordered Pemberton to move out and attack Grant's rear. Pemberton promised to obey. This was immediately forwarded to Grant. Meantime the Seventh Missouri regiment was sent out along the railroad toward Vicksburg to destroy it as far as possible, with the chief engineer on the staff to supervise their labors. They worked all night, and at daybreak were back in Clinton to move with the army. McPherson's orders were now to take Jackson without delay. The march was made through an unusually heavy rain-storm, which swelled the rivulets along the road till the ammunition had to be raised from the beds of the wagons to prevent it from being destroyed. By daylight the movement had begun ; before noon it was checked by artillery firing that raked the road on whicli they wer^ advancing. A little time was given to artillery firing in reply; then the skirmish line was advanced, and presently General Johnston's position was developed — along a commanding ridge in front of the town. Then Crocker's division, which held the advance, was formed in echelon, and the line moved forward to the attack — slowly at first, gradually increasing their speed till, finally, .as they received the enemy's fire, they gave a wild cheer and dashed forward at a charge. The contest was short and bloody. The enemy broke. Crocker pushed hard after them. They did not even halt when they reached their breastworks surrounding the city, but pushing through them and aban- doning their artillery and munitions made good their escape. The retreat was doubtless hastened by the discovery that Sherman was already upon their rear. As the victorious troops marched in, Grant met his subordinates, McPher- son and Sherman, at the hotel. A brief consultation was held, as the result of which McPherson turned westward, and, facing Vicksburg, was on his march James B. McPherson. 575 before dsiylight vne next morning* He moved all day without resistance, and at night went into bivouack near Bolton's Station. The game was now in his hands. Johnston's scattered forces were hopelessly in the rear; Pemberton, confused between his desire to stand guard over the earthworks of Vieksburg, to cut Grant's suppositious .lines of communication, and to obey Johnston, who had peremptoi-ily ordered the abandonment of Yicksburg, marched hither and thither and did nothing. And before McPherson, scarcely thirty miles av^ay, lay Vieksburg. With the earliest dawn of the next morning, the 16th, Grant hurried him forward. Meantime Pemberton was at last striving to obey Johnston's orders by marching north-eastward to join him. But his tardy obedience was worse than his previous blutidering — for his line of march led him directly across McPherson's front, and he presently found himself forced in all haste to halt and form line of battle to protect hj^s flank. His line stretched from the heights of Champion Hills across a gentle slope southward, and terminated in a series of abrupt knolls and ravines. Here, by eleven o'clock, McPherson had come and was sharply skirmish- ing. Grafit wanted to bring McClernand up before the battle should begin, and sent back messenger after messenger to hasten his advance. But McPherson's troops were impetuous and full of confidence, and presently the skirmish had swelled into battfe before McClernand was ready. Hovey's division attacked the hill, and though once and again re-enforced with such brigades as could be thrown in was finally repulsed. But meantime Logan had been pushing down thpongh the ravines on the enemy's left, and presently began to threaten their rear. McPherson then sent forward again the rallying divisions which had been repulsed; and the enemy finding his position compromised, fled in a con- fasion which soon became utter rout. Seventeen pieces of artillery were cap- tured and two thousand prisoners ; but it was at a cost of over two thousand killed and wounded. McClernand now took the advance, and McPherson, following in support, encountered no resistance. At the Big Black he built two bridges, one of them. a floating pathway laid on cotton bales. Crossing on these,t he followed in Sherman's course, and rapidly deployed before the fortifications of Vieksburg. The next day he participated in the hasty assault; two days later in the more elaborate and determined one; and did his full share in each to beat back the inevitable failure. Then, when the siege began, holding the center opposite the strongest works of the enemy, he called into play all his old engineering skill. In less than ten days his batteries were inflicting severe damage; he raked the enemy's intrenched lines on both flanks, and had a reverse fire upon a large bastioned fort on Sherman's front. Meantime his sharp-shooters were pushed up so close that they soon succeeded in almost entirely silencing the artillery fire from the opposing woriiB. By the 22d June his Chief Engineer, Captain (afterward Brigadier-General) Hickenlooper, reported to him that the sap had reached the Eebel ditch ill front •15th May, 1863. tl8th May. 576 Ohio in the Wak. of Port Hill, and that he was ready to commence mining operations. Thus fai mines had not been attempted in any of the operations of the war. General McPherson pushed forward the experiment, and in two days reported to Gen- eral Grant his readiness to attempt the explosion. A main gallery had been run for some sixty feet directly under the Eebel fort, and from this smaller galleries branched off on either side. In the several galleries twenty-two hun- dred pounds of powder were deposited. The explosion was fixed for three o'clock on the afternoon of the 25th. An hour before that time, one watching the scene from Battery Hickenlooper would have been struck with the splendor and the death-like stillness of the scene. For miles to right and left could be seen the long lines of blue filing into the in- trenchments. Beyond them came hurrying detachments with supplies of artil- lery ammunition. "Near by stood the storming column of a hundred picked men, on whose set features was read the anxiety that the bravest must feel in such an hour of suspense. A little before thi-ee Sherman and Grant came into the battery to watch with McPherson the result. At precisely three the match was fired. There was a moment of suspense; then the Eebel fort confronting them rose like a huge leviathan. As it entered the air it began to break into fragments ; finally, at the height of about a hun- dred feet, it seemed to dissolve, and only the great cloud of sulphureous smoke could be seen. Through this roared thrice ten thousand muskets, and the great guns along miles of intrenchments. Through it, too, dashed ^e devoted hundred of the storming column, followed close by their supports. They plunged into the crater, fought right and left and hand to hand with the Rebels behind par- apets on either side. Between the opponents, for that whole evening and the night that followed, was only a crest of earth scarcely ten feet in width. They took twenty-four pound shells, with five-second fuses, lighted them and rolled them over. So near were they that sometimes the Eebels caught and hurled back these shells before they exploded. They raised the butts of their muskets over their heads when they sought to fire, for it was certain death to lift their heads. All the next day this state of affairs continued; then artillery was so planted as to secure the ground that had been won, and the men were with- drawn to the ditch. McPherson next had another gallery run out under the part of Fort Hill still held by the enemy. On the 1st of July this was exploded with consider- able success. Of the garrison seven were thrown within our lines, hut only one of them, a negro, lived, and, as Chief Engineer Hickenlooper said, he was bo much astonished that whatever he had known about the situation inside the enemy's lines was driven out of his head. The result of these several engineering operations was the possession of the work which constituted the key to the Eebel lines. Peraberton, who at any rate was nearly starved out, and who had finally despaired of aid from Johnston, became convinced that the damage was irreparable, and asked for on armistice to consider terms of surrender. Throughout the siege McPherson had held the center and had conducted James B. McPherson. 577 the most important operations. It was no less a natural than a deserved com- pliment, therefore, that he should be awarded the honor of occupying the captured city. In the various operations thus happily ended, General McPherson had exhibited every leading qualification of a good corps General. He had been prompt and skillful in obeying orders, judicious when left to his own resources, far-sighted and enterprising in counsel, masterly in handling his troops upon the battle-field, and in exhausting the resources of scientific engineering in the siege. He was the youngest of the corps Generals, and the least experienced. Indeed, when he marched out from Bruinsburg to take part in the battle of Port Gibson at the outset of the campaign, he was really going to the first con- siderable battle of his military life. In the great engagements of Grant's earlier career he had been only a staff officer; at Corinth he arrived after the battle was over ; in the pursuit his attack at the Hatchie amounted to little more than a skirmish, and in the movement beyond Holly Springs his only action occurred in driving back the resistance to an armed reconnoissance. Practically, he was a beginner in the art of handling troops in battle when he began the campaign from the south against Vicksburg. At its close none would' have thought of comparing him with one of his associate corps commanders, and if a comparison with the other had been suggested, it would only have been to express the doubt as to whether McPherson's lucid judgment and perfect command of all his resources, or Sherman's nervous energy and flashes of war- like inspiration were really the more desirable. In a two months' campaign he had thus risen to rank beside one who then stood second to no corps commander in the armies of the Nation. In some quarters even higher place was awarded him. Neither among his enemies nor with his own people had General Grant at that time any large recog- nition. The campaign to the rear of Vicksburg was so brilliant a contrast to all his previous career that men refused to give him credit for its authorship, and in looking for the good genius that had inspired him, they settled. North and-South, with considerable unanimity, upon his old staff officer whom he had raised to be one of his corps commanders. We can now see that there was very little justice in this ; but it serves to show what impression the abilities of Mc- Pherson had made upon those most engaged in weighing and estimating the quality of our officers, when they were ready to believe him the author of a campaign which they considered Grant unable to devise. General Grant himself was foremost in giving praise to the gifted subordi- nate whom others were thus seeking to elevate into his rival. Among the first occupations of his leisure, after the surrender, was the preparation of two letters to the authorities at Washington. One recited the services and merits of Sher- man; the other the services and merits of McPherson, and each recommended its subject for promotion to Brigadier-Generalship in the regular army. The lan- guage of Grant's letter concerning McPherson was as just as it was generous. " He has been with me," he wrote, " in every battle since the commence- ment of the rebellion, except Belmont. At Ports Henry and Donelson, Pitts- VoL. 1.-37. 578 Ohio in the Wae. burg Landing, and the siege of Corinth, as a staff officer and engineer, his serv- ices were conspicuous and highly meritorious. At the second battle of Corinth his skill as a soldier was displayed in successfully caiTying re-enforcements to the besieged garrison, when the enemy was between him and the point to be reached. "In the advance through Central Mississippi, General McPherson com- manded one wing of the army with all the ability possible to show, he having the lead in the advance, and the rear in retiring. "In the campaign and siege terminating in the fall of Vicksburg, General McPherson has filled a conspicuous part. At the battle of Port Gibson it was under his direction that the enemy was driven late in the afternoon from a posi- tion they had succeeded in holding all day against an obstinate attack. His corps, the advance, always under his immediate eye, were thj» pioneers in the movement from Port Gibson to Hankinson's Ferry. "Prom the North Fork of the Bayou Pierre to Black Eiver, it was a con- stant skirmish, the whole skillfully managed. The enemy was so closely pressed as to be unable to destroy their bridge of boats after them. Prom Hankinsoh's F«rrv to Jackson the Seventeenth Army Corps marched roads not traveled by other troops, fighting the entire battle of Eaymond alone ; and the bulk of John- ston's army was fought by this corps, entirely under the management of Gen- eral McPherson. At Champion Hills the Seventeenth Army Corps and General McPherson were conspicuous. All that could be termed a battle there was fought by General McPhcrson's corps and General Hovey's division of the Thir- teenth Corps. In the assault of the 23d of May on the fortifications of Vicks- burg, and during the entire siege, General McPherson and his command took unfading laurels. " Ho is one of the ablest engineers and most skillful Generals. I would respectfully but urgently recommend his promotion to the position of Brigadier- General in the regular army.'' The nomination thus warmly urged was promptly made. The confirma- tion, however, was for a little uncertain. During the siege no little had been said about the indecorous expression of pro-slavery sentiments by General Sher- man, Admiral Porter, and others ; and General McPherson was supposed to hold views in sympathy with theirs. There had been something said, too, of undue sympathy for Rebel prisoners — the whole culminating in a general charge of Rebel sympathies which seemed likely to be brought against him in the Senate when his nomination should come up for confirmation. " I never saw McPher- son angry before," writes a staff officer.* " I shall never forget his appearance or his rage when for the first time he heard of such a charge." It was an oflScer high in rank and one of McPherson 's preceptors at West Point who gave him information of this strange accusation. His reply was simple and manly. He had done nothing to justify the suspicion of Rebel sympathies, save what the dictates of humanity suggested and what, under similar circumstances, he should do again. He was not disposed to complain, however, if the Senate should •General Hickenlooper. James B. McPhekson. 579 refuse to confirm the high rank in the regular service to which he had been pro- moted. All he sought was that he might have the opportunity to serve the Government wherever and however his services might be valuable. In due time the matter passed quietly over, and the confirmation was easily secured. Meantime a distinction, probably more valued at the time, was conferred upon him,. It was the Gold Medal of Honor awarded by the " Board of Honor," composed of fellow-soldiers in Grant's army, in testimony of the appreciation in which he and his work were held by those who knew both the best. Shortly after the surrender of Vicksburg, General McPherson sent a brigade under General Eansom to ISTatehez, to prevent the crossing of cattle for the Eastern armies of the Confederacy, and the return of ammunition for the "West- ern. This expedition captured a number of prisoners, five thousand head of Texas cattle, and two million two hundred and sixty-eight thousand rounds of ammunition. Soon after this his troops began to be scattered ; some were sent to General Banks ; others were called for in Arkansas. The territorial limits of his department were at the same time extended from Helena, Arkansas, to the mouth of Eed River. In October he moved out toward Canton and Jackson, in the hope that a demonstration in that direction might tend a little to relieve the pressure on Eosecrans at Chattanooga. 'No important results, however, were attained. With one exception, this constituted his only important military movement after the fall of Vicksburg until the opening of the Atlanta Campaign. The winter of 1863-4 he spent in the varied duties of his department, and in the earnest efibrt to secure the re-enlistment for the war of his command. In this he was successful — thanks to the confidence the men had in him, and to the soldierly feeling he had done so much to inspire — and when he reported to the Secretary of War that the entire Seventeenth Corps had become "veterans," he was able to make such an announcement as no other corps General in the country could then equal. By the 3d of February, 1864, he was able to issue his congratulatory order : " True to yourselves and your country, and the dearest interests of humanity, you have nobly come forward and enrolled yourselves as veterans under the brightest banner that ever floated over the troops of any nation, with a firm resolve to stand by the flag of your fathers, which you have carried so triumphantly through many a, bloody battle, until an American nationality is placed beyond the reach of designing Eebels, and high above the scofis and insults of the proud- est empire of the world. " To men who have been so thoroughly tried, no appeal is necessary, but simply the announce- ment of the fact that your services are now needed. Your country calls you, and your General knows how you will respond. This expedition will be short, as your strong arms and stout hearts will demonstrate. The pledges given you will be fulfilled, and you will soon bear to your homes the accumulated honors of another campaign, glorious as that in which you earned your title, the ' Heroes of Vicksburg.' " Patient on the march, invincible in battle, let your brilliant record remain untarnished, and the Seventeenth Army Corps will thus stand proudly before the world, the pride of your General and the glory of your country." The expedition thus referred to as of sufficient importance as to warrant 580 Ohio in the War. for a little a delay in giving them the veteran furloogha which had been prom- ised, was the movement on Meridian. High things would seem to have been expected of it ; but, partly because the cavalry failed to co-operate, partly also, perhaps, because very brilliant results were not attainable, it scarcely fulfilled the expectations that had been excited. McPherson's corps, however, destroyed sixty miles of railroad track, four miles of trestle-work, six bridges, twenty-one locomotives, one hundred cars, ten depots, one thousand seven hundred car wheels, three turn-tables, five mills, one hundred and fifty wagons, one thou- sand small arms, and considerable quantities of other property valuable to the enemy. The losses in killed, wounded, and missing fell within a hundred. The troops then went home on their veteran furlough. Before they started tbey knew that their favorite General was promoted to the command of the Army of the Tennessee, preparatory to the great campaign soon to open. We are approaching the close. Between McPherson at the head of a great army, ready to sweep down toward Atlanta, and McPherson borne back dead, while his name, coupled with the call for revenge, forms the watchword of hie enraged men and leads them still to victory, there lies but a short campaign of less than a hundred days. On the 25th of April, 1864, General McPherson moved over from Yicksba^ to Huntsville, Alabama, where he established his head-quarters. He had a brief interview with Sherman at Nashville ; there followed hurried preparations for the field; and on the 3d of May he moved down to Chattanooga with the Army of the Tennessee, twenty-four thousand strong.* Two days later he was em- barked on his last campaign. We have seen, in a previous part of this work, that the plan which General Sherman had resolved upon for forcing Johnston out of his impregnable in- trenchments at Balton was to occupy him with a strong feint on his front, while a force moving by his flank on the westward should plant itself on the railroad in his rear. Then, as Johnston should march southward to drive off this new danger, the force that was to make the feint on his front should follow after him through Dalton, unite with the column that had come in on the flank, and thus deliver the decisive battle on open ground. But in the execution of this plan the feint was committed to Thomas, with sixty thousand ; the turning movement, on which every thing depended, to Mc- Pherson, with twenty-four thousand. McPherson moved promptly and rapidly, on his detour. He passed Ship's Gap undisturbed; passed through Villanow, where Kilpatrick's cavalry joined him; pushed on to Snaice Gap, below Johnston's flank, and here struck a brigade of rebel infantry. He attacked vigorously, and after two hour's fighting drove them. Before him now lay the open road to Besaca, but a few miles distant, on the enemy's railroad and line of retreat. But he here learned that the wary antagonist had prepared for such an emergency. A new road had been cut through the woods from the enemy's *The eiact strength was: Infantry. 22,437; Artillery, 1,404 ; Cavalry, 624; guns, 96. James B. McPhekson. 581 fortified position, twelve miles north, at Dalton, by which the flank or rear of any force marching on Besaca could be struck. . By another road the enemy could likewise throw re-enforcements directly into Dalton. And now the scouts came in with word that Johnston was evacuating Dalton, and moving by these roads southward upon this isolated force of twenty-four thousand. Manifestly the only safety for McPherson lay in the speed with which his movements should bo executed. In this spirit he ordered General Dodge for- ward with all haste to make the attack upon Eesaca; while with the Fifteenth Army Corps he covered the left flank of this column against the threatened attack by the roads leading down from Dalton. The movement seemed unac- countably delayed. McPherson chafed restlessly a little ; then ordered a staff officer up to hasten it. The officer found General Sweeney, commanding Dodge's advance, quietly seated on a log, upbraiding some prisoners for being in arms against their Government. The importance of instant movement was explained and General McPherson's orders were delivered. General Sweeney explained that his men were re-forming and that he would mo^e in a few minutes. A quarter of an hour passed. The staff officer again urged haste upon Sweeney and remonstrated at the vexatious delay. Still the movement lingered. Then, galloping back, he reported the facts to McPherson. In a few moments the General himself came dashing to the front. He at once started the column ; then summoned General Dodge, explained to him the urgency of the situa- tion, and ordered him to lose not a moment in the advance to Eesaca, and to assault vigorously on his arrival. He then returned to prepare the Fifteenth Corps for receiving the expected attack in flank. But he was struggling against too great odds — against not merely the in- herent weakness of the plan that had been made for him, but against the tardi- neBS of subordinates also. Dodge indeed moved forward at last, but, as a staff officer* describes it, "with little spirit, making only a weak attack, then return- ing to McPherson and reporting that the position could not be carried, that the enemy had more troops in position, outside of their works, than he had in his entire command." It was now nearly five o'clock. There was no time in the remnant of the short afternoon to make a new disposition of the forces ; where they stood they were in imminent danger, as has been seen, of attack on the flank from Dalton; and, estopped fi-om going forward by this failure before Eesaca, there was nothing left for them but to go backward. McPherson ac- cordingly ordered back the troops to the Gap, where they strengthened the position and went into bivouac, while he disjpatched word of the result to Sherman. "With the tardy wisdom that always seems so clear of ^fcsion after the event, we can now see how it was perhaps in McPherson's power, when he first carried the Gap, by a vigorous dash with all his forces to have taken Eesaca, and thus changed the whole face of the Atlanta campaign. But this would have belonged to that class of operations which, taking great risks, result either in great suc- •Gteneral Hickenlooper, of McPherson's staff, whose account of these ■ delays is followed throughout this notice of the movement on Besaca. 582 Ohio ik the Wab. cess or in great disaster; and he may well be excused for judging that at the outset of the campaign, and in view of the instructions he had received, there was no such stress laid upon him as to justify so hazardous an experiment. Moreover, trains were constantly running between Dalton and Resaca, bringing down fresh Eobel re-enforcements for the threatened point from the moment that the guns at Snake Gap had disclosed to Johnstqn the danger. Even if, when the men burst through the gap, they might, by running the risk of anni- hilation from the flank, have swept everything before them into Resaca, it by no means follows that, after Dodge's and Sweeney's delays, and Dodge's abortive trial, the same thing would still have been possible. And besides, the initial fault of the movement lay, not in McPherson's caution, but in Sherman's plan of making the feint with the bulk of his army, and committing to this small column the burden of the real attack. So he himself seems to have regarded it; for, although, as he said, "greatly disappointed," he never uttered a word in complaint of MePherson, but, remedying his own eiTor, he hastened down to McPherson's support with the greater part of the army. From the moment that MePherson was thus re-enforced Dalton fell withont a blow, and Johnston^ hastening down to Resaca, opposed a fresh front to the force thus menacingly planted upon his flank. Then followed the battle of Resaca. MePherson pushed forward against the central portion of the enemy's position, forced the line of Camp Creek (in front of Resaca), driving Polk's Rebel corps before him. He succeeded in effecting a lodgment upon the enemy's works commanding the railroad and the trestle bridge. Meantime, Thomas had formed on his left, and Schofield on Thomas's left. Both attacked vigorously, but without much success. Along a part of the line, in fact, they were driven back under a furious onset from Hood. But MePherson, holding fast all he had won, was now throwing Sweeney's division six or eight miles further down, to lay a pontoon bridge, effect a crossing (at Loy's Feny), and strike the railroad in Johnston's rear. This was successfully accomplished. Then, once more, the circumspect Rebel commander perceived his position endangered, and hastily withdrew. Skill and good fortune combined, in these operations, to make MePherson the conspicuous figure in the battle of Resaca. It was he who forced the cross- ing of Camp Creek, who hold fast on the Rebel fortifications, who controlled the railroad. And finally, after the others portions of the army had been sub- stantially checked, it was he who secured the ferry below, and, planting a force upon Johnston's line of retreat, forced an evacuation. Doubtless Thomas or Schofield might have done as well with McPherson's opportunity; but it was MePherson who did ft, and he fixirly earned the high encomiums it brought. Early discovering Johnston's reti-eat, MePherson was the first to profit by it. Ho pushed up under cover of the heavy artillery-firo he had ordered, and secured one of the bridges across the Oostenaula ; being too late to save the other. Then, drawing back, ho hastened south to his pontoon bridge at Ley's Ferry, and gaining in distance by this route, was able to strike the enemy's rear below Calhoun. He was resisted here by Hardee, and a sharp little engage- • James B, McPheeson. 583 ment sprang up, lasting long enough for the enemy to get their trains out of the way. Then, drawing off, and swinging to the right, McPherson again attacked them at a point midway between McGuire's and Kingston. Finally Johnston made his third stand ad Cassville. McPherson had mean- while halted at Kingston for supplies. As Sherman's columns approached Cass- ville, Johnston, overpersuaded by Pollj and Hood, who believed the position untenable, suddenly decided to abandon it and cross the Etowah without a strug- gle. So it came about that McPherson, moving forward after the reception of supplies, encountered no resistance till, swinging far to the westward toward Dallas, in Sherman's movement to avoid Allatoona Pass, he approached the banks of Pumpkinvine Creek. The stage in the Atlanta campaign which we have now reached is that in which Sherman, seeking to turn Allatoona Pass, found himself confronted at Dallas, at New Hope Church, or wherever along the Eebel flank he sought to penetrate, till finally he swung in again by the left on the railroad and fairly faced the difficulties of the position by confronting Johnston at Kenesaw Mount- ain. As McPherson held the right, and had, therefore, been sent furthest south in the flanking movement, he thus came to mget the enemy at Dallas, while Hooker, further northward and to the left, was fighting at New Hope Church. On 25th May, while approaching Dallas from the direction of Van Wert, MoPherson struck the enemy in some force along the Pumpkinvine Creek. While the skirmishers were exchanging shots he could hear, twelve or fifteen miles to the north-eastward, the guns of Thomas's Army of the Cumberland. It was evident that a heavy battle was in progress. Pushing forward, he drove the enemy before him for some distance; then, swinging out his cavalry on the iefib, sought to open communication with the portion of Thomas's army (Hookr er's command) whose guns he heard. But the cavalry met superior numbers, and was compelled to return. In the existing uncertainty it was of the utmost importance to communi- cate at once with the army above, and with Sherman. What the whole body of his cavalry had been unable to accomplish, McPherson now therefore deter- mined to entrust to a staff officer, escorted by a squad of four cavalrymen. To this officer he explained his designs for the next day, and instructed him in some, way or another to be sure to get through to Sherman. At dark he started ; soon after midnight he reached Sherman; and in a short time was hastening back with news of the battle of New Hope Church, and with urgent instructions to McPherson to attack the enemy at Dallas. But before this officer could return McPherson had already, on his own judgment, begun the attack. After severe fighting he drove the enemy througii Dallas; but, a mile to the eastward, was suddenly checked by a strongly intrenched position, which General Johnston's foresight had prepared, and behind which the Rebels now rallied. The next day, advancing from these works, they attacked McPherson ; but he repelled the assault, and, in turn, drove them through their intrenchments to still stronger ones in their rear. General Sherman, meeting with similar check all along the lines, now lie- 584 Ohio in the Wab. gan a gradual movement back by the left toward the railroads— Johnston warily facing him step by step, till presently they confronted each other at Kenesaw. McPherson was ordered on 28th May to begin his share in this movement, with- drawing by the left to Thomas's position, while Thomas, moving farther to the left, should approach the railroad. That evening he was about to obey the order, when the waiting columns were suddenly assailed with fury on front and right flank. So important was the action that followed considered by Gen- eral Sherman, that he reported it as "a terrible repulse'' to "a bold and daring assault." The enemy left upon the field two thousand five hundred dead and wounded, and besides, lost some thi-ee hundred prisoners. With his usual atten- tion to engineering details, McPherson had so carefully covered his front with breastworks that his own loss was comparatively trifling. The withdrawal by the left was thus delayed. On the night of the 30th, however, it was silently and skillfully accomplished ; and on the morning of the 1st of June, General McPherson relieved General Thomas, while the latter pushed still further over to the left. Here he remained till, the enemy next taking the initiative, he followed their movement in the same direction on the 4th of June. He now received two divisions of the Seventeenth Army Corps returned from veteran furlough, and one brigade of cavalry — accessions which barely made good the losses sustained by his command thus far in the campaign. Then, moving forward against Kenesaw he bore his share in the constant and sometimes severe fighting with which, until the 27th, every day was occupied. On that fatal date he shared with Thomas the bloody repulse that followed their combined assault on Kenesaw. "Failure it was," says Sherman, "and for it I accept the full responsibility." He took pains, indeed, to explain that McPher- son and Thomas had made their assaults exactly at the time and in the manner prescribed. There followed the rapid flanking movements which threw Johnston across the Chattahoochie and into Atlanta. McPherson drew out from the works before Kenesaw on the night of 2d July; pushed rapidly to the right; pres- ently, as Johnston, discovering the movement, fell back, occupied Marietta; then hastened to the Chattahoochie at the mouth of Nicojack Creek, and sough to prevent Johnston's passage. But from the time that he established himself at Dalton, that officer would seem to have contemplated and prepared for every successive step of the campaign that was to come. Even here, at the Chattahoochie, his crossing was protected by a strong tete-de-pont, against which McPherson's heavy assaults beat themselves fruitlessly away. Then, however, he skillfully attracted the enemy's attention below with bis cavalry, while moving rapidly by the left he reached the Chattahoochie at the Eoswell Factory, above ; rebuilt the bridge, and successfully planted his army on the south side. By the 17th of July he was able to move due westward through Decatur upon Atlanta. It was here that Hood, essaying to carry out the plans of the brilliant Gen- eral whom he had displaced, met the advancing army first in fi-ont of Atlanta • James B. McPherson. 585 as it emerged from the passage of the swampy ground about Peachtree Creek — then, as this failed, drawing off southward, and apparently yielding the open road to Atlanta, lay in wait to strike the army in flank as it moved up to occupy the city. Through only a part of these operations was the fated General, who had thus far so skillfully handled the Army of the Tennesse, now to oppose his weighty resistance. The assault at the crossing of the Peachtree Creek fell upon Thomas and Schofield. Meanwhile McPherson was brought up on the left from Decatur. He moved along the railroad and along blind country paths, skirmishing heavily as he ad'Tanced. On the 21st, the morning after Thomas and Schofield had carried the Peachtree Creek, he threw his army upon the Eebel line of earthworks on his front, knd carrying it, secured toward nightfall a command- ing position, overlooking the interior defenses of Atlanta. Then followed the sad end oftthe noble story. About daylight came a staff oflScer from Sherman to report a movement of the enemy which was interpreted to mean an evacuation of the city. McPher- son was suspicious. The skirmish line, however, was moved forward to the crest of the hills overlooking Atlanta. McPherson himself rode out to this crest. From the very fi-ont of the skirmishers he looked down into the interior lines of Eebel works, and through ' the streets of the beleaguered city. Some men coald be seen in the interior lines, and a few were moving about in the streets. With these exceptions no living object was visible. The enemy, as is now known, expected him to move rapidly upon Atlanta. His commander manifestly expected the same — the rest of the army, in fact, began to move. Bat the habitual caution of MePherson's nature stood his command in good stead. He doubted this sudden' evacuation — would at least look into it a little morCj before ordering his army pell-mell into Atlant-a. To that caution we owe the salvation of the forces surrounding the besieged city. He gave some general directions to the pioneer companies. Then, riding back to General Blair's head-quarters, he heard of a suspicious appearance of Eebel cavalry in the rear, threatening the hospitals. Confirmed somewhat by this in his doubts, he gave some orders for the removal of the hospitals, and then rode off rapidly to the right to General Sherman's head-quarters. Meantime Hood had passed completely around MePherson's left flank, and lay waiting for his expected movement. In front of him was the Sixteenth Army Corps, which had been ordered back for the destruction of the Augusta Bailroad, but had been delayed by MePherson's suspicions of threatening djinger. It was the reserve. In its front, overlooking Atlanta, was the Seven- teenth Army Corps. Away to the right stretched the two other armies under Sherman's command. The rear was unguarded by cavalry. It had been sent back on the Augusta Eoad by General Sherman himself. Hood was thus en- abled to approach very close to his expected prey. As McPherson stood conferring with Sherman — as Sherman, in fact, was expressing the belief that there was nothing left but to march in and occupy Atlanta — the storm broke. With the first scattering shots in the direction of 586 Ohio in the War. his rear, McPhfereou was off — riding with his soldierly instinct toward the sound of battle. He found the Sixteenth Corps in position, struggling manfully against an assault of unprecedented fierceness; the Seventeenth still holding its ground firmly; but danger threatening at the point where the distance between the position of the corps, lately in reserve and that on the front, had left a gap not yet closed in the sudden formation of a new line facing to the late flank and rear. Hither and thither his Staff were sent flying with various orders for the sudden emergency. Finally the position of the Sixteenth Army Corps seemed assured, and accompanied only by a single orderly, he galloped off toward the Seventeenth ; the troops as he passed saluting him with ringing cheers. The road he followed was almost a prolongation of the line of the Six- teenth ; it led a little behind where the gap between the two corps was, of which we have seen that he was apprised. The road itself, however, had been in our hands — troops had passed over it but a few nflnutes before. As he entered the woods, that stretched between the two corps, he was met by a staff officer with word that the left of the Seventeenth — the part of the line to which he was hastening — was being pressed back by an immensely superior force of the enemy. He stood for a moment or two closely examining the configuration of the ground, then ordered the staff officer to hurry to General Logan for a brigade to close the gap, and showed him how to dispose it on its arrival. And with this he drove the spurs into his horse and dashed on up the road toward the Seventeenth Corps. He had scarcely galloped a hundred and fifty yards into the woods when there rose before him a skirmish line in gray ! The enemj- was crowding down into the gap. "Halt ! " rang out sternly from the line, as the officer in General's uniform, accompanied by an orderly, came in sight. He stopped for an instant, raised his hat, then, with a quick wrench on the reins, dashed into the woods on his right. But the horse was a thought too slow in doing his master's bid- ding. In that instant the skirmish lino sent its crashing volley after the escap- ing officer. He seems to have clung convulsively to the saddle a moment, while the noble horse bore him further into the woods — then to have fallen, uncon- scious. The orderly was captured. In a few minutes an advancing column met a riderless horse coming out of the woods, wounded in two places, and with the marks of three bullets on the saddle and equipments. All recognized it as the horse of the much-loved Gen- eral commanding ; and the news spread electrically through the army that he was captured or killed. Then went up that wild cry, " McPherson and revenge." The tremendous assault was beateji back ; the army charged over the ground it had lost, drove the enemy at fearful cost* from his conquest8,'and rested at night- fall in the works it had held in the morning. Perhaps an hour after McPherson had disappeared in the woods, private George Eeynolds, of Fifteenth Iowa, found some of the staff and told them that be had just left the dead body. The young fellow had been wounded, and was * Sherman estimated the enemy's loss at eight thousand. His own, mainly in McPheraon's corps, was three thousand seven hundred and twenty-two. James B. McPheeson., 587 making his way through the woods toward a place of safety, when he came upon his General. Life was not yet gone, but he could not speak. His lips were parched; Eeynolds moistened them with water from his canteen, stood over him till the last feeble breath was exhaled, and then went to seek for assist- ance to recover the body. His wound was still undressed, and a heavy fire was sweeping the spot where the dead General lay, but he would not rest till the body was recovered.* It was found that a musket ball had passed through the right lung, and had shattered the spine. The lack of surgical attendance was, therefore, no loss. Nothing could have saved or relieved him. The body lay about one hundred and fifty yards from the point where he had disappeared in the woods, and about thirty yards north of the road — his horse having car- ried him so far after the Eebel skirmish line was discovered before he fell. It had not been disturbed, and had probably not been approached by the Eebels. General Sherman was moved to unwonted grief, when, half an hour later, word came to him that his favorite General, from whom he had so recently parted, was dead. Presently the body was brought and laid out in his head- quarters. He paced the floor, giving his orders for the battle, and turning now and again, with bitter tears, to look on the manly beauty of the departed, as he lay— to quote Mr. Hillard's elegant description of another^" extended in seem- ing sleep, with no touch of disfeature upon his brow; as noble an image of reposing strength as ever was seen upon earth." The next day, in words of wonsianly tenderness, General Sherman made his official announcement to the head-quarters of the army of the sad loss that had robbed it of one of its bright- est ornaments : " Head-Quabtebs MHiiTABr DrvisioN of the Mississippi, 1 "In the Field near AUanta, Georgia, July 23, 1864. ' ) "To Gbnerjx L. Thomas, Adjutant-Oeneral V. S. A.: " General — It i^my painful duty to report that Brigadier-General Jas. B. McPhereon, United States Army, Majcr-General of volunteers, and commander of the Army of the Tennessee in the field, was killed by a shot from ambuscade about noon of yesterday. " At the time of this fatal shot he was on horseback, placing his troops in position near the city of Atlanta, and was passing by a crossroad from a moving column toward the flank of troops that had already been established on the line. He had quitted me but a few moments before, and was on his way to see in person to the execution of my orders. " About the time of this sad event, the enemy had sallied from his intrenchments around Atlanta, and had, by a circuit, got to the left and rear of this very line, and had begun an attack vhich resulted in serious battle, so that General McFherson fell in battle, booted and spurred, as the gallant knight and gentleman should wish. " Not his the loss ; but the country and the army will mourn his death and cherish his mem- ory, as that of one who, though comparatively young, had risen by his merit and ability to the command of one of the best armies which the nation had called into existence to vindicate its honor and integrity "History tell us of but few who so blended the grace and gentleness of the friend with the dignity, courage, faith, and manliness of the soldier. "His publiq enemies, even the men who directed the fatal shot, ne'er spoke or wrote of him •The Gold Medal of Honor was bestowed on Keynolds for this conduct, the order confirm- ing it being read at the head of every regiment in his corps. 588 Ohio in the Wae. v without expressions of marked respect; those ^whom heeommanded loved him even to idolatry; and I, his associate and commander, fail in words adequate to express my opinion of his great worth. I feel assured that every patriot in America, on hearing this sad news, will feel a sense of personal loss, and the country generally will realize that we have lost, not only an able mili- tary leader, but a man who, had he survived, was qualified to heal the national strife which has been raised by designing and ambitious men. " His body has been sent North in charge of Major Willard,' Captains Steel and Gile, hia personal staff, " I am, with great respect, "W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General Commanding." Not less deep was the gi'ief of the Lieutenant-General, under whom Mc- Pherson's rapid promotions had occurred. The public report of it led to this touching correspondence : '•' Clyde, Ohio, Angust 3, 1864. "To Genebal Geaut: " Dear Sir — I hope you will pardon me for troubling you with the perusal of these few lines from the trembling hand of the aged grandma of our beloved General James B. McPherson, who fell in battle. When it was announced at his funeral, from the public print, that when General Grant heard of his death, he went into his tent and wept like a child, my heart went out in thanks to you for the interest you manifested in him while he was with you! I have watched his prog- ress from infancy up. In childhood he was obedient and kind ; in manhood, interesting, noble, and persevering, looking to the wants of others. Since he entered the war, others can appreciate his worth more than I can. When it was announced to us by telegraph that our loved one had fallen, our hearts were almost rent asunder; but when we heard the Commander-in-Chief coald weep with us too, we felt, sir, that you have been as h father to him, and this whole nation ii mourning his early death. I wish to inform you that his remains were conducted by a kind guard to the very parlor where he spent a cheerful evening in 1861 with his widowed mother, two brothers, an only sister, and his aged grandmother, who is now trying to write. In the morning he took his leave at six o'clock, little dreaming he should fall by a ball from the enemy. His funeral services were attended in his mother's orchard, where his youthful feet had often pressed the soil to gather the falling fruit ; and his remains are resting in the silent grave, scarce half^ a mile from the place of his birth. His grave is on an eminence but a few rods from where the funeral services were attended, and near the grave of his father. " The grave, no doubt, will be marked, so that passers by will often stop and drop a tear over the dear departed. And now, dear friend, a few lines from you would be gratefully received.' by the afflicted friends. I pray that the God of battles may be with you, and go forth with yow arms till rebellion shall cease, the Union be restored, and the old flag wave over our entire land, " With much respect, I remain your friend, « LYDIA SLOCUM, " Aged eighty-seven years and four months." " Head-Qtjakters Akmies op the United States,! " C% Point, Virginia, August 10, 1864. > "Mrs. Lydia Slootm: " My Dear Madam — Your very welcome letter of the 3d instant has reached me. I am glad to know that the relatives of the lamented M:yor-General McPherson are aware of the more than friendship existing between him and myself. A nation grieves at the loss of one so dear to our nation's cause. It is a selfish grief, because the nation had more to expect from him than from almost any one living. I join in this selfish grief, and add the grief of personal love for the departed. He formed, for some time, one of my military family. I knew him well ; to know him was to love. It may be some consolation to you, his aged grandmother, to know that every officer and every soldier who served under your grandson felt the highest reverence for his patriotism, his zeal, his great, almost unequaled ability, his amiability and all the manly vir- tues that can adorn a commander. Your bereiiTement is great, but can not exceed mine, "Yours truly, ' U, S. GEANT." James B. McPheeson. 589 The army shared to the full this regret and this admiration. He had always been regarded with affection by his troops ; they now held his memory sacred and a priceless possession. During his life he had never risen into wide personal popularity with the public. He was only a subordinate, and the popular raptures were reserved for the commanders. But he had been esteemed a skillful corps General, and a highly meritorious officer. At the South he had been appreciated even more highly. They gave him credit for the conception of Grant's campaign against the rear of Vicksburg. They attributed to his genius the success of Sherman's movements against Johnston. "If we had killed McPherson," said one of the Atlanta papers, commenting upon the battle in which he lost his life, before its results were ascertained, -"and had driven Sherman across the Chattahooohie, we f^ould have been content, without taking a gun or a prisoner." When his death was announced, the sense of loss led to a higher esteem among his own people. No place but the first, it was believed, would have held the martyr, had he lived. , History will probably fail to confirm this judgment. Eeekoning what he did, rather than what he might have done; looking to his achievements rather than to his possibilities, it will renew the old contemporary verdict which held him rightly situated as a subordinate; fitter for the second than for the first place. But it will make note of his rare capacities, of the wisdom of his saga- cious counsels, of his engineering skill, of his prudence, of his coolness, of hip soldierly valor. It will gratefully record the signal worth of his services in the two great campaigns in which he held high command. It will dwell ten- derly upon the softer and more lovable traits of his character, which endeared him to all Tyith whom he came in contact, and mingled affection with the admi- ration of his-soldiers. And we may confidently predict that, in the end, it will rank him high in that second class of Ge^nerals who, if not great organizers of victory, have greatly won it for their superiors — being the right arm of their strength, the efficient executors of their designs. General MePherson's personal appearance was eminently prepossessing. He was over six feet high, of full, manly development, with graceful carriage, and most winning ways. His features were pleasing, and his high forehead and well-balanced head gave token of the large intellect of the man. His tem- per was unusually sunny and genial, so that all loved him who knew him. He seemed perfectly free from jealousy, and the kindred vices that so often mar a military character. His sense of honor was sensitively acute. No one ever ac- cused him of seeking to profit by his country's woes ; and not one discreditable action was ever charged to him by friend or foe. Though rarely permitted to visit his family, he seemed to permit them rarely to be absent from his thoughts. The affectionate side of his nature was indeed the prominent one. His frequent letters to his mother, his grandmother, and other members of the family, give tenderest proof of it. Just before start- ing from Chattanooga, he writes to his mother to send his "love to all at home," 590 Ohio in the War, and to subscribe himself her "affectionate son, James." When the army baited at Kingston he writes again, that "each day carries me farther and farther from home; but I assure you, my dearest mother, my love and affection for it in- . crease. When this war is over I know I shall enjoy coming home and settling down in quiet for a short time, where I can feel free from care and anxiety." From Kenosaw he writes: "I pray, when the great steuggle comes, that trod will protect the right. I have not much time to write now; but when the cam- paign is over, if I do not get a chance to come home for a few days, I will write you a full account." Just a month before^ his death he writes to his mothpr again from Marietta : "I have kept well thus far, though we have had the worst weather you ever saw. My love to all at home, and I hope it may be my good fortune to get to see you sometime this summer.'' Before the summer ended he was borne home. A week after his death, a great concourse of the people who had known him from boyhood gathered about the cottage of his mother to pay the last sad honors to the memory of her soldier son. He was buried in the orchard of the old homestead. No monu- ment was, for some years, placed over his grave, but large sums were raised by private subscription, in the army, and among his friends, to erect one suitable to his memory, and worthy of the gratitude and love in which his name is held General McPherson was betrothed to a young lady of Baltimore, to whom he was tenderly attached. He was to have received a furlough in the spring of 1864, to go on and be married. But the exigencies of the campaign rendered it impossible, and Sherman himself wrote to the poor girl, explaining how impos- sible it was that her lover could then be spared from the important army he commanded. To this marriage he had long looked forward. Nothing could be more touching, now, than the few words in which, writing from San Francisco before the outbreak of the war, ho described to his mother the object of his choice, and added: "You will love her as I do, when you know her. She is in- telligent, refined, generous-hearted, and a Christian. This will suit you, as it does me, for it lies at the foundation of every pure and elevated character^" It lay, too, at the foundation of his. In boyhood he had become a member of the Methodist Church; and though not demonstratively religious, his practice through life never disgraced his early pi-ofession. Oemsby M. Mitchel. 591 MAJOR-GENERAL 0. M. MITCHEL. OEMSBY McKl^IGHT MITCHEL, the most distinguished of the ex-officers of the regular army who returned to military life at the outbreak of the war, and a General who died too soon for the good of the service, but not for his own fame, was a native of Kentucky, and from the age of four years a resident of Ohio. The family had come from Virginia. The father of the future General at one time possessed a handsome property; hut repeated j-everses impoverished him. He had a genius for mathematics, and, it is added by the biographers, had a decided turn for the astronomical studies which were to make his son so famous. His wife was attractive in per- son, cultivated and refined, and unaffectedly pious. When reverses overtook them, they decided, like so many other Virginians in similar circumstances, to emigrate to Kentucky. Near Morganfield, in Union County, they secured a tract of land and began pioneer life. Here, on the 28th of August, 1810, was born the lad of whom we wish to write. The spot which Mr. Mitchel had selected for his home proved unhealthy. He himself died, only three years after the birth of Ormsby, and other deaths in quick succession came to sadden the emigrant family. At last the widow decided to remove from a spot that seemed so fatal, and they started on horse- hack for the Ohio Eiver — Master Ormsby riding behind his elder brother. Crossing, not without danger from Indians and from storms, at the point where the city of Cincinnati now stands, they pushed on to the little village of Miami, in Clermont County, and shortly afterward to Lebanon, in Warren County, a sleepy old village, singularly prolific, in those early days, of men that were to be distinguished. Here the rest began daily labors for a livelihood. Ormsby, too young to do much for the support of the family, was allowed to devote him- self to books. With imperfect instruction, he was nevertheless reading Virgil before he was nine years old. At twelve it was thought to be time that the incipient Latinist should support himself, and he was placed in a country store as errand-boy and clerk. Here, for a couple of years, he remained, selling goods in the daytime, sweeping out the store at night, and serving in the family of his employer evenings and mornings. At last there came a rupture. Tears afterward, when the boy had become a distinguished lecturer, he told the story for the encouragement of other boys : "I was working for twenty-jive cents a week, with my hands full, but did my work faith- fully. I used to cut wood, fetch water, make fires, scrub and scour in tlie morning for the old lady before the real work of the day was commenced. My clothes were bad, and I had no means of buying shoes, so was often barefooted. One morning I got through my work early, and the 592 Ohio in the War old lady, who thought I had not done it, or was eHpecially ill-humored then, was displeased. She scolded me, and said : ' You are an idle boy. You have n't done the work.' I replied : ' I have done what I was told to do.' 'You are a liar,' was her angry reply. I felt my spirit rise indignantly against the charge; and, standing erect, I answered : 'You will jiever have the chance of applying that word to me again.' I then walked out of the house to re-enter it no more. I had not a cent in my pocket when I stepped into the world. What do you think I did then, boys? I met a countryman with a team. I boldly dnd earnestly addressed him, saying: 'I will drive the leader if you will only take me on.' He looked at me in surprise, but in a moment said : ' I do n't think you '11 be of any use to me.' ' O yes I will,' I replied ; ' I can rub down and watch your horses, and do many things for you, if you will only let me try.' ' Well, well, my lad,, get on the horse.' And so I climbed upon the leader's back, and commenced my teamster- life. The roads were deep mud, and the traveling very hard, and consequently slow. We got along at the rate of twelve miles per day. It was dull and tiresome you will believe ; but it wai my etarting-point. I had begun to push my way in the world, and went ahead after this." But " teamster-life " was not likely to prove the best fitted for a lad who read Virgil at nine, and knew something of Greek verbs in fit before he was twelve. Among the relatives of his mother was Justice McLean, of the Sapr6me Court of the United States, then a resident of Lebanon, but already enjoying large reputation and influence. To him the disturbed mother applied in her dis- tress ; and through his aid an appointment to West Point was secured. Ormsby was not quite fifteen, but such was the desire to oblige Mr. McLean that the little obstacle of the age was passed without mention, and he was allowed to enter. " We have a good many of our boys going to West Point,'' said one of his mother's friends to him, shortly before he started, ""but somehow very few of them get through." " I shall go through, sir," was the confident response of the under-age lad. A little knapsack was packed for him, and he started. Part of the way he walked ; for a part he secured horseback rides, and for a part he went on a canal- boat. At last, with his knapsack on his back and twenty-five cents in his pocket, the lonely little wanderer arrived at West Point. Before the examination he made the acquaintance of a cadet who told him what books he should be pre- pared upon. When the day came, though the youngest boy admitted, he passed as creditably as most of the larger ones. Koutine study and regular recitations were a novelty to the self-educated lad, and, precocious as he was, he had not yet acquired the self-control that could keep him always up to his best. But for this the youngest boy of the class would also have been the foremost. As it was, the I'ecords of the academy show that in the class of 1829 a nameless nobody stood firsj ; Eobert E. Lee stood second ; Joseph E. Johnston thirteenth ; O. M. Mitchel fifteenth, and B. W. Brice (Paymaster-General in the war) fortieth. In the first class above, and an inmate with Mitchel for three years in the academy, was Jefferson Davis— of whom it may be interesting to add that he stood twenty-third in his class. Davis was said to have taken a fancy to the little fellow in the class below him, and to have often made him his companion. At nineteen Mitchel kept the promise made to his mother's friends before starting. He went through. So satisfactory were his attainments and his char- acter that he was retained in the academy as Assistant-Instructor in Mathe- Obmsby M. Mitchel. 593 matics. " I like little Mitchel vastly," said one of the Professors, speaking of him at this period ; " he Is a -wondorfully ingenious lad." * His ingenuity, it seems, was shown in seeking new solutions to old problems, discovering new methods, speculating and theorizing on new phases of mathematical subjects. After a couple of years of such life, he was sent, as a Second-Lieutenant of Artil- lery, to St. Augustine, Florida, on garrison-duty. But, before this, he had won the heart of a Mrs. Trask, the widow of a young West Pointer, and the daughter of a prominent citizen of the county in which West Point is situated. His mar- riage soon led him to pine for the comforts of a home-life, and, setting the example which was In after years to have so distinguished a follower as Sher- man, he began the study of law. Finally he resigned his commission. , Only four years after his graduation, and in his twenty-third year, he removed to Cincinnati, and began the practice of law. His partner, young also then, bore a name since highly renowned in Ohio. It. was Edward D. Mansfield. Clients were few in those days, and fees were small. The young lawyers lived, but did little more.f Mitchel's restless temper chafed under the delays. Once he sought to attract attention to his capacities by delivering public lectures. He chose an astronomical subject, and had the lecture announced in the news- papers. A citizen whose attention had been arrested by the statement that a young stranger from West Point was to speak, attended. There were sixteen persons present, he tells us I But both the young lawyers gradually worked their way into recognition as men of culture. Mitchel joined Dr. Lyman Beecher's church, and became somewhat prominent for his fervid zeal in prayer-meetings. Fresh friends were thus gained. Finally, in 1834, little over a year after his arrival in the city, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Astronomy in the "College of Cincinnati," while his partner secured another of the Professor- ships. They were thus associated with Dr. McGuffey, Charles S. Telford, and others who were recognised in- those days as constituting one of the most highly cultivated circles in the city. Professor Mitchel soon became known as an admirable teacher. He thor- oughly understood what he taught; he had a great flow of lucid language for his explanations to his classes ; above all, he was an enthusiast in his favorite studios, and was capable of inspiring his pupils with the same feeling. He thus rose to rank among the foremost in his profession and to command the confi- dence of the community. Presently his influence began to be felt outside the walls of the college and of Dr. Beecher's church. An interest in railroad enterprises sprang up in Ohio, and men naturally turned to Professor Mitchel as a scientific engineer, whose opinions on such subjects would be final. It was proposed to build a railroad •ProfesRor Mansfield, the father of Hon. E. D. Mansfield. t" How much did you and Mitchel make practicing law?" the surviving partner of this notable firm was once asked. "I think about fifty dollars in all," was the reply. Vol. I.— 38. 594 Ohio in the Wab. leading out from Cincinnati up the valley of the Little Miami. The Profeeeor warmly encouraged the enterprise. It was practicable, he said; the route was indeed a good one ; it would open up a fertile region of country ; and the trade thrown into Cincinnati thereby would soon pay for the cost of its construction. Within two years after his appointment to the Professorship, when only in his twenty-sixth year, he became the engineer for the proposed ro^d. After sur- veying the route, and submitting his estimates of the cost, he next sought to aid in securing the monej^. He and Mr. George l^eff united their eiforts in attempt- ing to impress upon the City Council the importance of assisting the infant en- terprise. Finallj- they secured from the city a loan of $200,000. Presently the Little Miami Eailroad became a certainty; and through the college vacations in 1836-37 Professor Mitchel acted as its chief engineer. For three or four j-ears railroad engineering and his duties in the college kept the Professor busy. But meantime he had realized, in all his glowing dis- cussions of astronomical subjects with his students, the lack of any sufficient apparatus for making instructive observations. By and by, too, as he became more of an enthusiast in the science, the desire for the means of prosecuting his own studies and observations mingled with his concern for better instruc- tion for the college classes. At length he conceived the project of raising the funds for the erection of a complete observatory. The idea, at that time, seemed chimerical enough. New York had no observatory; Boston had none. Was it likely that a raw western town, such as Cincinnati then was, not very enter- prising, and certainly not much devoted to either science or literature, would pay out money — hard cash — for an institution of intangible benefits which the Eastern cities were unable to appreciate? But it is rarely men that do great things — generally a Man. Professor Mitchel was the Man. The community of Cincinnati was the tool with which he had to work, not, perhaps, the best then that the Continent afforded, but, in the hands of this workman of ours, sufficient. He began by striving to stir up a public interest in his favorite science. To thi^ end a series of popular lectures on Astronomy in the hall of the college was announced. This time there were more than sixteen persons present. In fact, such had now become the reputation of the young Professor, and such was the regard for him entertained by the colleagues and other associates who strove to second his plans, that general public attention was attracted, and every night the hall was filled with a crowded audience. Before this, in the class-room, in church meetings, and on chance public occasions the Professor had become accustomed to public speaking. But the oratorical graces which he now dis- played astonished those who knew him best. Warmed up by an enthusiasm characteristic of the man in whatever he undertook, and fired by his subject, he threw the spell of his own interest over his audience. He spoke without notes or manuscript; but his lectures seemed the polished result of long literary labor. It was a theme in which not one in a hundred of his hearers had felt the slightest interest; but the fervor of the speaker overcame the abstractions of the speech. The last lecture attracted special admiration, and ho was asked Ormsby M. Mitchel. 595 to repeat it in one of the leading churcfcies of the city. An audience of over two thousand gathered to hear him. At the close he developed his plan for iuilding an observatory. Briefly, it was to be by the organization of a joint- stock company — the shares to be twenty-five dollars each — the shareholders to have certain privileges of admission not accorded to the outside public. Noth- ing was to be done till three hundred shares were subscribed. The audience applauded, as audiences will. When it came to subscribing they were slower. A beginning, however, was made, and for weeks afterward Mitchel besieged the solid men of the city for subscriptions. At last the three hundred shares were taken. Then the Professor went to Europe to see what could be done in the way of securing instruments. His designs had already swelled with his success ; he was now resolved'to make this observatory the foremost in the United States. " Two resolutions were taken at outset," he afterward explained, " to which I am indebted for any success that may have attended my own personal efforts: First, to work faithfully for five yeiii'S, during all the leisure which could be spared from my regular duties; and, Becond, never to become angry under any provocation while in the prosecution of this enterprise." The words give a characteristic glimpse into the mental habits of the man. He had decided, unless his observations in Europe should determine him differently, to make the leading feature of his observatory a great equatorial- mounted, achromatic refracting telescope. There were not, at that time, in the world half a dozen such achromatic object-glasses as he sought. In London and Paris his researches were in vain. Finally, in Munich, at the establishment of M. Mertz, the successor of Frauenhofer, he- found a lens over a foot in diam- eter, which, so far as could be judged in its unfinished state, would prove the finest object-glass yet mounted in a teloscove by any maker. To finish and mount it would take ten thousand dollars and two years' time. Not so much money in all had been subscribed, when Professor Mitchel left home, for build- ing and equipping the entire observatory. But this object-glass he must have; the people of Cincinnati niust be made to subscribe more liberally. And so he closed a contract for a telescope at ten thousand dollars, when only seven thou- sand dollars were subscribed, for telescope and other instruments, and building and grounds. Then he went to Greenwich, and spent a few weeks in the Eoyal Obtervatory, aided by the friendly guidance of Professor Airey in studying the Aethods of observation there adopted. He was home in time for his duties at the fall term of the college, in 1842, having spent just a hundred d&jB in his eventful trip. A public meeting of the shareholders assembled on Professor Mitchel's re- turn to hear his report. His statement that, with the telescope for which he had contracted, but one observatory in the world would have a more powerful instrument than their own, gratified local pride, and secured a cordial in- dorsement of his action. With some difficulty — it being in the midst of the commercial depression of 1842-43 — he collected enough money from the share- holders to make a remittance of three thousand dollars to Munich. This secui-ed 596 Ohio in the Wae. the contract, and the optician at once began finishing and mounting the great object-glass. Meantime Mitchel renewed more vigorously the efforts to raise money to secure a Ipuilding for his telescope. Nicholas Longworth was finally prevailed upon to give four acres of ground on one of the high hills overlooking the city for its site. Workmen were at once set to digging foundations and preparing material. In these labors the spring and summer of 1843 were passed. On the 9th of November occurred the great incident in the history of the observatory. B Its corner-stone was laid by the venerable John Quincy Adams, who on this occasion delivered one of his last public addresses. The event gave great fame to the incipient institution, but its funds were consumed in making the final remittance to Munich, and the observatory building for a time seemed likely to ■ stop at the corner-stone. Next spring, however, labor was resumed. Some- times they had only money to hire three workmen; often only enough to add one or two more to the number. But Mitchel kept up his courage. Sometimes he secured subscriptions from laboring men, to be paid in work ; sometimes he went up the hill to the observatory grounds and joined his own labor to that of the workmen. Mr. Longworth required the building to be completed in two yeai's, under penalty of forfeiture of the site. By March, 1845, it was finished, and the great telescope was mounted. Professor Bache, of the Coast Survey, gave a transit instrument and a sidereal clock. Such other instruments as were needed there were still funds to purchase.* ' Professor Mitchel had promised to superintend the observatory for ten years, free of charge. He had, of course, relied upon his salary in the College of Cincinnati for support, and his design had been to couple the use of the observatory with his instructions to his classes. But shortly after it was fin- ished the college was burned down and abandoned. He was thus left without means of livelihood. But the man who had faced such difficulties thus far was not to be discouraged now. He at once decided to continue his labors at the observatory, and to depend upon popular lectures on Astronomy for support. He began at Boston. The hall was scarcely half-full on the evening of the first lecture. "Never mind," said the Professor to a friend, "every one that was here will bring another with him the next night." Indeed his perfect confi- dence in himself and his almost childlike way of showing it everywhere, would in a smaller man have seemed intolerable egotism. But his assurance was well-founded. Next night the hall was full, and with constantly increasing signs of public gratification, he continued and concluded the most popular series of scientific lectures that, up to that time, had ever been given in Boston. Thence he went to New York, and was equally or more successful. The prob- *The observatory thus erected is eighty feet long, thirty wide, and two stories high, with an additional story over the center for the instruments. It long remained the best equipped observ- atory in the United States ; but its great telescope is now surpassed by several others in the coun- try ; and since the outbreak of the war it has fallen Into neglect. Okmsby M. Mitchel. 597 lem of subsistence was solved, and he returned to his observations at Cin- cinnati. Through the years that followed he devoted himself to the scientific duties of the observatory, and on this work his scientific reputation chiefly rests. Admirable as an observer, he was still more remarkable for the inventive genius that brought new mechanical agencies to the service of his favorite study. By the aid of the "Declinometer" and other inventions he revolutionized the sys- tem of cataloguing the stars.* Indeed his method of determining the Eight Ascension and Declination of the heavenly bodies was recognized in Europe and in this country as constituting an era in that branch of the Science of Astron- omy. In Europe it is still spoken of as the American method, and, in the words of the eminent M. Struve, has been adopted with signal success. To this branch of Astronomy Professor Mitchel had hoped to devote the remainder of his life. "For a long time to come," he wrote in 1848, "one principal object will engage the instruments of the Cincinnati Observatory, viz., the exploration of the heavens south of the Equator, and the remeasiirement of Struve's double stars in that region." He adds somewhat sadly, " Should this work progress but slowly, let it be remembered that the Director of the observatory has no assist- ant out of his own immediate family, and must devote a large portion of his time to other duties, far more closely allied to the earth than to the stars." It was in fact back to railroad engineering that his necessities, not more perhaps than his restless energy, now carried him. ^is scientific position became such that, when the Ohio and Mississippi Eailroad was proposed, the proprietors sought to enlist the services of Professor Mitchel. He sur- veyed the route, and pronounced it practicable and eligible. Then he visited the Legislatures of the several States through which it passed and secured thei** co-operation. In all the leading towns and cities he appeared as the representative of the road, held public meetings, at which, \with his remark- *The following description of this invention of Professor Mitchel is given by the Astrono- mer, since his death, in charge of the Dudley Observatory: " To the axis of a transit telescope is attached a metallic arm of sixty inches in length ; in the lower end of this arm is screwed a cylindrical pin one-eighth of an inch in diameter, at right angles to the arm and parallel to the supporting axis of the telescope. This pin has a notch or groove (of the form which would be generated by placing the vertices of two isosceles triangles together and revolving about the perpendicular) cut in the middle. "At a distance of twenty-three inches from the pin, and in the same horizontal plane, is mounted in Y's a small telescope of six inches focal length. The supporting axis of this tele- scope is parallel to that of the transit. Underneath the center of the small telescope, and con- nected with it, is a short arm two inches in length ; and, by means of a joint, a rod is connected with the pin before mentioned. " Now when the transit telescope is moved in zenith-distance, angular motion is given to the Bmall telescope by means of the long arm and connecting rod. "The amount of this motion is read from a scale, placed at a distance of fifteen feet, and divided to single seconds of arc. It will, of course, be understood that we must have some object in the focus of the small telescope with which to compare the divisions of the scale. We Bie either a cross formed by the intersection of two spider's webs, or a single horizontal wire."~ "In case we wish to observe a zone of greater width than the extent of the scale (30'), we have a number of pins, at a distance of SC apart, mounted in the arc of a circle whose radius is equal to the length of the long arm. We readily pass from one pin to another, by lifting one 598 Ohio in the War. able skill for addressing popular audiences, he presented its claims for sub- scriptions, and excited the liveliest interest in its success. Afterward lie acted as principal agent of the Eastern Division; and three times crossed the Atlan- tic to negotiate the bonds of the road. In these financial operations he did not escape reproach. He> was accused of consulting his own interests more than those of the road, and there is no doubt that he succeeded in making his labors profitable. Much public odium thus attached to his name, and in many circles in Cincinnati he long remained very unpopular. But no spot was left upon 'ETs integrity. To his energy and capacity, at least as largely as to those of any other one man, was the completion of the road due. Yet this was but the occupation of his leisure, the recreation in which he unbent from the labors of the observatory. About the same time he began the publication of a journal devoted to Astronomical^ Science — the "Sidereal Messenger." This struggled on for a year or two, but the number of persons in the United States interested in practical astronomy was too small to sustain it. Other publications more permanent in form and popular in nature, secured a larger measure of success. His first book, the " Planetary and Stellar Worlds," attained considerable circulation, and was very favorably received in Europe. His lectures on the Astronomy of the Bible, as delivered in New York, and stenograph ically reported, were published, to the great gratification of the thousands who, there and elsewhere, had been delighted at their delivery. And, finally, in 1860, he gave to the public his " Pop- ular Astronomy," the last of his works which had the advantage of his own revision. end of a connecting rod and attaching it to a different one. The diyision on the scale can easily be read, by estimation, two-tenths of a second of arc. "The tim^ required to read the scale is much leas than that employed in reading one micro- Bcope, since at the same transit of an equatorial star we can make from ten to fifteen bisections and readings. As I have found one reading of the scale nearly equal to four microscopes, it foUowa that if we employ the same time in the observation of an object with the Declinometer that we do when we use tlie Circle, our results in the former case will be superior to the latter in a large rati(k " The Zone observations with the Declinometer have been made mostly for the investigation of the source and amount of error due to this method. From a comparison of the observatioiu with those made in the ordinary way, I find the probable error, on a single observation, falls within the limits of accuracy usually assigned to observations made with the Meridian Circle. One great advantage lies in the fact that many bisections and readings can be made at the same transit, and in this way eliminating the ordinary errors of observation. You will understand the rapidity with which work can be done by this method, when I state that more than two hundred stars have been accurately observed in one hour; and were they equally distributed, twice that number could easily have been taken. "This instrument is one of the great inventions of our late and lamented director, Professor Mitchel, and is the only one in the world. " From observations made during the last two years, and a careful discussion of the results, I have arrived at the conviction that there i» no other Imown method equal to it, for rapidHy andaeeur racy, vn cataloguing of stars.'' Another of his admirable inventions was one for making the clock of the observatory reooro by telegraph its own pendulum beats ; while by the same telegraphic process the observer conM record the instant of any phase of an astronomical phenomenon — thus adding greatly to the nicety and accuracy of the calculations. The processes by which this is afccomplislied are exceedingly delicate. Okmsby M. Mitchel. 599 The merit of these works is various, but their general characteristics are the same. Thieir aim is to catch the broad outlines of the subject, to seize the results of the science with only so much attention to the steps by which they are attained as an average audience or ordinary reader might readily follow, and to dwell mainly upon the sublime and marvelous features of the attractive subject. The "Popular Astronomy " is intended either for the general reader or for use as a text-book. Its chief peculiarity, in the estimation of its author, was its effort to trace the path of discovery, by giving first the recital of the facts and phenomena, and then following the discoverer through the conjectures and hypotheses thereupon based to the final development of the principles of the science. The same course was adopted with signal success in the lectures. The slightly declamatory style occasionally mars the value of the text-book; but in the lectures it doubtless adds to the popular interest. The discussions of the "Astronomy of the Bible" naturally provoke com- parison with the gorgeous rhetoric of the "Astronomical Discourses," by Dr. Chalmers. Professor Mitchel is sometimes more minute, and always more i)re- cise, than his famous predecessor in the same field. He is not less daring in his acceptance of theories regarded with distrust or hotly opposed by most defenders of the Bible against the supposed attacks of science, and not less adroit in adapting his interpretations of the sacred record to the march of scientific prog- ress. He adopts boldly the " Nebular Hypothesis,'' in all the extent to which La Place carried it; has no difficulty in making the Mosaic "days'' of creation mean extended periods of time of indefinite duration ; is dubious as to the record concerning Joshua's making the sun stand still, and is inclined to throw the burden of proof upon the translators. The theology which he learned from the stars, like that of Chalmei's, was Calvinistic. In his final lecture, after tracing the influence of immutable laws throughout the universe, and the results of vio- lation of those laws, he concluded: "No, my friends; the analogies of nature, applied to the moral government of God, would crush all hope in the sinful soul. There, for millions of ages, these stern laws have reigned Bupreme. There is no deviation, no modification, no yielding to the refractory or disobedient. All is harmony, because all is obedience. Close forever, if you will, this strange book claiming to be God's revelation — blot out forever ite lessons of God's creative power, God's superabound- ing providence, God's fatherhood and loving guardianship to man, His erring offspring, and then unseal the leaves of that mighty volume which the finger of God has written in the stars of heaven, and in these flashing letters of living light we read only the dread sentence, ' The soul that sinneth it shall surely die I '" On the whole, it is not an unkind criticism of these discourses to say that they seem to have been modeled upon those of Dr. Chalmers, and it is high praise to add that they are worthy to be named beside those famous produc- tions. The lectures entitled the "Planetary and Stellar Worlds" are less ambi- tious in their- aimi. No one can read them and be in doubt as to the wonderful fascination which we are told they exercise upon the audiences who first heard them. In language admirably freed from bristling technicalities, they trace the progress of mind as it grappled with the phenomena of astronomy, from the 600 Ohio in the War. theory of Copernicus and the laws of Kepler to the bewildering calculations of Le Verrier, and the amazing analyses by which Struve and Maedler built up the belief in a central sun, around which systems of stars, whole milky-ways of creation, revolve. The popular presentation of the sublime discoveries haa tasked many able pens ; but as yet no one need go further than the works of the founder of the first observatory in the United States for the most attractive embodiment of the truths and speculations of the science. As if to complete the circle of his activities, Professor Mitchel had also been for ten years commander of a volunteer company in Cincinnati, and for two years Adjutant-General of the State of Ohio. Neither of these positions gave him any official influence at the time, but they served to keep up his familiarity with military matters. In 1853 General Van Eensellaer, Mrs. Blandina Dudley, and some others, began the erection of an observatory at Albany, professedly on the plan of that at Cincinnati. Mitchel's advice was taken as to the plan of the building, the eq^uipraent, and the organization. He was recognized, in fact, as the most com- petent man in the country to direct such an institution. Unfortunately, diflS- culties sprang up among the persons whose generous gifts had made the Observ- atory, and amid their disputes its usefulness seemed likely be frittered away. Professor Mitchel was appealed to on all hands, and it really appeared that he was the only man under whose management harmony could be restored. He had been serving all this time in the Cincinnati Observatory without charge. Under these circumstances he did not feel any obligation to refuse the invita- tion to Albany ; and so, without definitely sundering his connection at Cincin- nati, he became director at Albany, and, during a few months immediately prior to the war, was spending most of his time there, striving to allay the feuds among the friends of the new institution, and to get it in good working order. Such, in the spring of 1861, had been the career of Professor Mitchel. Be- ginning as an errand-boy and store-clerk, he had risen to rank among the fore- most scientific men of the Nation. In the old army he had left behind him the reputation of a good officer, of high but not the highest professional attainments. He was esteemed a skillful railroad engineer and manager. He had been a college professor of high standing. He was reckoned among th* most brilliant of scientific lecturers in the country, and among the most effective of popular orators. He was a successful author. His reputation as an astronomer was as high in Europe as in his own country. He had measurably outlived the odium of his later railroad operations. He had passed through all the struggles of liis intensely active life with an unspotted private chai-acter. He was a fervent church member,* and a good citizen. In political matters he was somewhat conservative. The self-confidence of his nature had generated a species of egotism, not wholly unpleasant, but still so marked that men were apt to speak of Professor Mitchel's vanity as his greatest fault. He was in the fifly-firat * It has alreadj been mentioned that shortly after the beginning of his effort to praciicc law in Cincinnati lie joined Dr. Lyman Beecher's Clmroh. He remained an active membei of the Second (New School) Presbyterian Congregation of Cincinnati until hia death. Okmsby M. Mitchel. 601 year of his age, with a successful life behind him, a hopeful family growing up aboat him, and his fame secure.* Then came the Eebelliou. That a studious, scientific man, past the meridian of life, and filling posts of high usefulness, should choose to leave the active labors of the war to younger and more vigorous soldiers, would have been natural. But Professor Mitchel was not the man to claim such reasonable exemptions. At the first alarm he recalled his old indebtedness to the Government, his military education, and his West Point oath, and fiung himself unreservedly into the conflict. At the great Union meeting, in New York, after the fall of Sumter, he was, if we may judge from the rapturous reports of the newspapers of the day, the most effective speaker. In the fullness of a not ignoble pride, he could not omit longer refer- ences to his own history than a severe taste would approve ; but the audience was not critical, and he wonderfully kindled their enthusiasm. Said he : " I am infinitely indebted to you for this evidence of your kindness. I know I am a stranger among you. [Cries of ' No,' ' No.'] I have been in your State but a little while, but I am with you, heart, and soul, and mind, and strength; and all that I have and am belongs to you and our common country, and to nothing else. T have been announced to you as a citizen of Kentucky. Once I was, because I was born there. I love my native State as you love your Dative State. I love, too, my adopted State of Ohio, as you love your adopted State, if such you have j but, my friends, I am not a citizen now .of any State. I owe allegiance to no State, and never did, and, God helping me, never will. " 1 owe allegiance to the Government of the United States. A poor boy, working my way with my own hands, at the age of twelve turned out to take care of myself as best I could, and beginning by earning but four dollars a month, I worked my way onward until this glorious Gov- ernment gave me a chance at the Military Academy at West Point. There I landed with a knap- aack on my back, and, I tell you God's truth, just a quarter of a dollar in my pocket. Then I e>f ore allegiance to the Government of the United States. I did not abjure the love of my native State nor of my adopted State, but all over that rose triumphant and predominant my love for our common country. • "And now, to-day, that common country is assailed, and, alas ! alas ! that I am compelled to say it, is assailed in some sense by my own countrymen. My father and mother were from old Virginia, and my brother and sisters from old Kentucky. I love them all; I love them dearly. 1 have my brothers and friends down in the South now, united to me by the fondest ties of love and aCection. I would take them into my arms to-day with all the love that God has put into this heart; but if I found them in rebellion I would be compelled to smite them down. You have found officers of the army who have been educated by the Government, who have drawn their support from the Government for long years, who, when called upon by their country to •taad for the Constitution and the right, have basely, ignominiously and traitorously resigned their commissions, or deserted to traitors, rebels, and enemies, without resignation They are no countrymen longer when war breaks out. The rebels and traitors in the South we must set aside; they are not our friends. When they come to their senses we will receive them with open arms ; but till that time, while they are trailing our glorious banner in the dust, then we must smite. In God's name I will smite, and as long as I have strength I will do it. [En- hiuiastic applause.] •"Is Mitchel a great man?" one had asked of his intimate friend. "No," was the answer; "Mitchel is a man of genius, but he is not a great man. Daniel Webster was a great man, but he was not a man of genius." The answer seems to embody a comprehensive and accurate esti- mate of Mitchel's character, as already seen in his scientific career, and now to be illustrated in J' is milit.irv performances. 602 Ohio in the War, "O! listen to mel listen to me! I know these men. I know their courage. I have beent among them ; I have been reared with them. They are brave — do not pretend to think they are not. I tell you it is no child's play you are entering upon. They will fight with a determi. nation and a power almost irresistible. Make up your mind to it. Let every man put his life in his hand and say, 'There is the altar of my country; I am ready for the sacrifice.' "I, for one, am ready to lay down my life. It is not mine any longer. Lead me to the con- flict. Place me where I can do my duty. There I am ready to go, I care not where it leads me. . . . I trust you are all ready ; I am ready. God help me to do my duly. lam readv to fight in the ranks or out of the ranks. Having been educated in the Academy, having been in the army seven years, having served as commander of a volunteer company for ten years, and as an Adjutant-General of my State, I feel that I am ready for something. I only ask to be per- mitted to act; and in God's name give me something to do I" "The scene that followed the close of Professor Mitchel's eloquent and patriotic remarks," continues the newspaper report, "baffles all description. Men and women were melted to tears; voices from all parts of the vast multi- tude re-echoed the sentiments of the speaker; and every one seemed anxioas to answer the appeal and rush to the defense of the country." But the affair was to be over in ninety days, according to the belief on which the Government then acted ; and no call was made upon Mitchel. By midsummer Bull'Eun had come to pluck the veil from the ghastly delusion; and on the 8th of August Mitchel was appointed a Brigadier-General of Volunteers. He was assigned to the command of the Department of Ohio, with head-quar- ters at Cincinnati. Here he at once plunged into the new work with his old zeal and energy. He placed the city in a posture of defense, supervised the erection of earthworks, took charge of the gathering troops, and strove to re- duce them to discipline. He was eager to lead an expedition through Cumber- land Gap, in the fall of 1861, for the liberation of East Tennessee. His plans were all formed while Sherman was still in command in Kentucky; and when Secretary Cameron and Adjutant-General Thomas made their noteworthy visit West, shortly before Sherman's removal, he laid them before the Secretary. Mr. Cameron promptly approved them ; indeed, such was then the anxiety to relieve the suffering Unionists of East Tennessee, that Mitchel seemed likely to rise high in the favor of the Government by his proposal. The order was issued, and Mitchel would soon have started on an expedition that, prosecuted with the energy he subsequently displayed in not less critical and dangerous situations, might have changed the face of the war in the West. But mean- time the Secretary had paid his bewildering visit to Sherman at Louisville, and pi-esently Mitchel's order was countermanded. Soon afterward, among the changes consequent upon the assumption of command in Kentucky by General Buell, Mitchel was relieved of his depart- ment duties, and ordered to the command of a division in the army then or- ganising at Bacon Creek, between Louisville and Bowling Green. He at once gave himself up to the work of drilling and disciplining his soldiers. Into this he threw all the enthusiastic energy which had hitherto characterized him in ©very task of his eventful life. His command was rawer than that of either of the other division generals; but he soon had it to rank with the best. Then, restless and eager ix> be at work, he began to urge action upon the deliberate, Oemsby M. Mitchel. 603 oircumspect soldier who commanded the department. "Sir, I have done all that drill and discipline in camp can do for my men," he said; "from this time forth there is no chance for progress in my division until it is sent against the en- emy — it can only deteriorate." The nervous eagerness was such a contrast to his own phlegmatic habit as to amuse General Buell ; but he contented his fiery subordinate with the promise of speedy action. Meantime jealousy of him had spruQg up. Some of the division commanders — unknown captains or lieuten- ants before the war — conceived that the fact of their having remained a little longer in the regular service than Mitchel entitled them to superior considera- tion. He, in turn, was possibly disposed to rely a little too much upon his scientific reputation as entitling him to attention in military matters. In effect, it soon came about that at least two of these Generals strove in every way to thwart Mitchel's plans, and to bring him into contempt, as a crack-brained civilian theorist and star-gazer, at head-quarters and among the soldiers. They were presently to see new cause for jealousy. When the movement on Fort Donefeon was begun, Buell began his move- ment on Bowling Green. Mitchel's energy was such as to secure his divis- ion the Advance. Starting on the 13th of February, 1862, he* moved out ten miles ; then, the next day, made a forced march, reaching the town after dark, just as the train moved out with some Texas troops, the last of the army that had held it. The road had been obstructed by fallen timber ; but on his first march in the enemy's country, Mitchel had 'made forty miles in less than thirty hours, had hastened the evacuation of the strongest point then held by a Eebel army in the West, had captured a number of locomotives, one gun, and some fiv« thousand dollars' worth of commissary-stores. It was further- more computed that the exceeding rapidity of his advance had compelled the Rebels to destroy not less than half a million dollars' worth of stores and muni- tions. General Mitchel thus bore off the first laurels of the campaign. So hand- some, indeed, was his performance as to draw from the unenthusiastic General commanding eulogy like this : " Soldiers, who by resolution and energy, over- come great natural difficulties, have nothing to fear in battle where their energy and prowess are taxed to a far less extent. Tour command have exhibited the high qualities of resolution and energy in a degree which leaves no limit to my confidence in their future movements." In communicating this compliment from General Buell to his troops, General Mitchel betrayed the ardor of his na- ture. "You have executed," he exclaims, " a march of forty miles in twenty- eight hours and a half. The fallen timber and other obstructions opposed by the enemy to your movements have been swept from your path. The fire of your artillery and the bursting of your shells announced your arrival. Sur- prised and ignorant of the force that had thus precipitated itself upon them, they fled in iconsternation: In the night-time, over a frozen, rocky, precipitous pathway, down rude steps for fifty feet, you have passed the advance-guard, > cavalry and infantry, and before the dawn of day you have entered in triumph a position of extraordinary natural strength, by your enemy proudly denomi- 604 Ohio in the Wab. nated the Gibraltar of Kentucky. With your own hands, through deep mud, in drenching rains, up rocky pathways next to impassable, and across a foot- path of your own construction, built upon the ruins of a railway bridge, de- stroyed for their protection by a retreating and panic-stricken foe, you have transported upon your own shoulders your baggage and camp equipage." Cold criticism may hold this an extravagant tone to be adopted concerning a forced march of fortj' miles, which met with no resistance. Doubtless Mitchel never committed the fault of underestimating his own performances. But be animated his troops with his own pride and confidence; and if congratulatory orders ac- complish this great purpose, criticism is barred — they have been adapted to their end. At the outset of Buell's advance upon Bowling Green, Halleck was more and more earnestly asking for re -enforcements up the Cumberland, and Buell detached one division after another to his aid. It thus came about that Mitchel was left to push forward overland upon Nashville, while other troops were making the easier journey to the same point, by the circuit of the rivers. On the 22d of February he set out. On the evening of the 23d — so expeditious had been his march — his advance was before Nashville. Scarcely a week ago the citizens had been rejoicing over Pillow's dispatch from Donelson, announc- ing, "on the honor of a soldier," that he had won a brilliant victory. Now all was confusion and alarm. In the midst of it the Mayor, anxiously awaiting the advent of Union troops, niade haste to surrender to the advance cavalry regiment of General Mitchel's command. That same night a small squad of the troops pushed over into the city; but they subsequently returned, and the divis- ion went into camp on the opposite bank of the river, with batteries bo planted as to rake the city in case of any emergency. The next day the advance of the troops sent around by the rivers steamed up to the city wharves. Rebuilding the railroad and the bridges across the river, Mitchel now moved over and went into camp two or three miles below Nashville.* Here the envy and jealousy of the other division commanders were permitted one or two opportunities for trifling but malignant displays. One of them soon en- camped between Mitchel and the town. The next day, as Mitchel was riding in to make some report to General Buell, he was checked by a sentry and ordered to produce his pass from General Nelson I Naturally supposing it to be simply * In Headley'a popular biography of Mitchel, the following anecdote of his stay in Nash- ville is given : "General Mitchel called, in company with other officers, upon the widow of President James K. Polk, as did General Grant while there. During the interview, the dignified lady, addressing him, said: 'General, I trust this war will speedily terminate by the acknowledgment ^the Southern independence.' " The reply was prompt, courteous, and crushing: "'Madam, the man whose name you bear was once President of the United Sta.tes. He was an hone.st man and true patriot. He administered the laws of this Grovernment with equal justice to all. We know of no independence of one section of our country which does not belong to all others; and, judging by the past, if the mute lips of the honored dead who lies near us could speak, they would express the hope that the war might never cease, if that ce.«sation were pn^ chased by a dissolution of the union of the States over which he once presided.' " Oemsby M. Mitchel. 605 a mistake of the guard, he explained that he could not have such a pass, because he outranked Nelson, and himself commanded the advance division on that road — in fact, that he was General Mitchel. "Ah!" exclaimed the too free- spoken guard, "you are the very man, then, that General Nelson told me to stop unless you had a pass!" To such petty annoyances was the Astronomer and College Professor subjected in his new sphere. But he was soon to soar above the possibility of their repetition. General Buell presently moved through Tennessee to co-operate with the expedition which Halleck had sent up the river to Pittsburg Landing. The disagreeable relations existing between Mitchel and some of the other generals seem to have suggested the plan of allowing him to diverge to the left of the general line of march,.on a quasi independent command. All, save perhaps General Buell, sup- posed it to be equivalent to an arrangement for keeping Mitchel out of any chance for action or promotion. We shall see how he converted it into an open- ing for the most brilliant dash that had thus far illumined the war. The task set before General Mitchel was to gain a foothold on the great Memphis and Charleston Eailroad, the leading line of communication between the eastern and western portions of the Confederacy. It was the same purpose that had drawn Halleck's advance to Pittsburg Landing. Determination to protect the same railroad had brought Johnston and Beauregard to Corinth. The opposing hosts here confronted each other, but the whole stretch of the road east of Corinth, along the southern border of Tennessee to Chattanooga, was practically undefended. While all eyes were centered upon the great armies of Pittsburg Landing, Mitchel saw his opportunity. The nature of his instructions was such that he was enabled to act with comj)arative indepen- dence, and he used his liberty to the full.* He had been stationed below Nashville, at Murfrcesboro'. Almost due south of him, on the coveted railroad, lay the beautiful little town of Hunts- ville, in the rich champaign country of Northern Alabama. It was not a rail- road junction, and was not, therefore, guarded with the care due a supposed strategic point. But it was near the important junction of the road from Nash- ville with the great East and West line at Decatur ; it was also within striking distance of the junction with the Nashville and Chattanooga Eoad at Steven- son; and there was reason to hope that it might prove near enough for a quick blow at Chattanooga itself. To Huntsville, therefore, as a point likely to be ill-defended, and yet offer- ing him control of the great railway for more than a hundred miles of its length, Mitchel was to hasten his column. But how? He had only transpor- * Mitchel acted under instructions from General Buell, which marked the outline of the campaign. By this time Buell had been placed under Halleck's command; but his subordina- tion to that officer was never much more than nominal, and it happens that General Halleck dis- approved of the plan assigned to Mitchel. In a dispatch from St. Louis, 26th March, 1862, to General Buell, he says: "Your letter of the 14th is this moment received. It is perfectly satis- factory. We agree in every respect as to jjlan of campaign, except, perhaps, the column on the diverging line to Stevenson. I doubt its expediency. If made very strong it divides your forces too much." This, of course, refeTs to Mitchel's column. 606 Ohio in the War. tation suflScient to supply his army at a distance of two days' march from hie base, and Huntsville was quadruple that distance. A bend in the Nashville and Chattanooga Eailroad passed near Shelbyville and a little branch track ran up to the town. Shelbyville was about half way to Huntsville. Thus far, therefore, he determined to move along the railroad, repairing the bridges and track as he went. It was the first work of the kind which his soldiers had ever been called on to perform (excepting of course the repair of bridges at Bowling Green and Nashville), and it was the first serious effort made during the war to supply an army by a thread of railroad through a hostile country. The verdict of army officers was against its feasibility. But Mitchel had been a railroad man as well as an army officer, and he cared little for the verdict. There were twelve hundred feet of heavy bridging to be rebuilt. In ten days the task was accomplished, and the army moved forward to Shelbyville. It was now barely possible for the wagons of the division to haul as far aa Huntsville rations enough to keep the army from starving — no more. But that was enough for Mitchel. He at once began accumulating supplies at Shelby- ville, while he threw hjs advance perhaps twenty-five miles further forward to the little village of Fayetteville.* The enemy was still in doubt as to the intended point of attack. It might be the railroad junction at Decatur; it might be the scarcely less important one at Stevenson. And meantime the movement was at any rate supposed to be trivial, and attention was concen- trated in the direction of Pittsburg Landing. On the 10th of April Mitchpl was ready. His advance brigade, com- manded by Colonel Turchin, moved at six o'clock in the morning. By nine at * The following story of Mitchel's advance is to be found in the newspapers of the time: " General Mitchel having occasion to send into the Rebel lines two Confederate officers who had accompanied Parson Brownlow into Shelbyville, on his delivery to our forces, sent an escort of several Fourth Ohio cavalrymen with them to Fayetteville. When the party arrived at Fay- etteville, one of the Rebel officers very cooly dismissed the escort, telling them he did not wish their services any further. While standing in the streets of the town the escort was surrounded by a mob of the citizens of the place, who heaped upon them every imaginable insult. At last one, considering himself licensed by the forbearance of our men, advanced to Lieutenant John- son (in command), took hold of his beard, pulled it, and with the grinning malice of a devil ex- claimed: 'You're a specimen of the d — d Yankees they're sending down here, are you?' It ia matter of surprise that Lieutenant Johnson did not cut him down in his tracks, but he remem- bered that his mission was one of peace, and determined to go to the very verge of human for- bearance rather tlian commit any violence. The next morning the escort started back toward Shelbyville and met the advancing columns of our forces. General Mitchel was highly indig- nant when he heard of the outrages that had been committed upon the flag of truce. He rode rapidly into the town, and found a large number of the citizens assembled on the public square to witness the entrance of our army. 'People of Fayetteville,' cried the General, 'you are worse than savages 1 Even they respect a flag of truce, .which yon have not done. Yesterday, the sol- diers whom I sent to your town upon a mission of courtesy and mercy were shamefully insulted io your streets, and it was you who gave the insult. You are not worthy to look in the face of honest men. Depart to your houses every one of you, and remain there until I give yon per- mission to come forth.' " At the conclusion of this speech they scattered to their houses like frightened rats to their holes, and kept within doors until permission was given for them to come forth again." Ormsby M. Mitchel. 607 night it was within eleven miles of Hantsville. Here bivouacking for a few hours' rest, they started again at one o'clock. By six in the morning the spires of Huntsville and the groves of cedar that surround them wei'e in eight. Such remarkable energy— remarkable at any period in the history of the war, but amazing in those days of deliberate and circumspect movement — could not fail of success. The few soldiers about Huntsville seemed almost ignorant that they were in danger. The section of a battery which had hurried up, stopped some railroad trains that, on the first alarm, had sought to escape. The infantry was sent out on either hand to tear up a little of the track and prevent any further attempts at escape. Then they marched in and took undisturbed possession. The first squad that entered foiind a hundred and seventy soldie:^8 still sleeping about the cars at the depot, and incontinently captured the lot. As they explored further they found seventeen locomotives — all but one in fine running order — and about a hundred and fifty cars. Thus fairly planted upon the coveted railroad, in the heart of the enemy's country, Mitchel took in at once the importance of the position and the neces- sity of energy to secure it. Columns were instantly detached, right and left, to secure the track. Eastward a force hurried_ to Stevenson and Bridgeport, to seize the junction with the Chattanooga and Nashville Eailroad, and to burn the great bridge over the Tennessee at Bridgeport. Westward a force hurried to Decatur to seize the junction with the Nashville Eoad there, and to destroy the bridge over the Tennessee. Thus protected east and west by the destruc- tion of the bridge, the position at Huntsville would be secure from any Rebel concentration upon it by rail. I The danger from the east was considered the greater. There were appre- hensions of a diversion from the Rebel army about Richmond, or at least of the coming from that direction of re-enforcements for Beauregard at Corinth. Accordingly General Mitchel himself accompanied the expedition eastward. They ran out by rail toward Chattanooga. So complete was the surprise of their coming that no resistance to this novel mode of exploring an enemy's country was attempted. The^ took possession of the junction at Stevenson without resistance. Then their locomotive pushed on toward Chattanooga. Within six miles of Bridgeport they came to a bridge eighty feet long, the destruction of which seemed to promise as effectual a breakage in the road, for immediate purposes, as could be secured by the more hazardous attempt at Bridgeport itself It was accordingly burnt, and, perfectly unmolested, the train returned to Huntsville. Meanwhile the westward expedition had been equally fortunate. A small ilebel force stationed at Decatur began to retreat as soon as Mitchel's troops were heard of The bridge over the Tennessee they sought to fire as they started. Just then the advance of the expedition came up. It had been instructed to burn this bridge. But the moment the Colonel commanding saw that the Rebels were doing his work, he leaped to the conclusion that it ought not to be done. If they were anxious to destroy communreation, it argued his interest to pre- serve communication. He therefore ordered the troops forward in hot haste, 608 Ohio in the Wak. and the bridge was saved. In a day or two, having, by the bridge-burning be- yond Stevenson, protected his eastern flank, Mitchel came hurrying westward, along the road to Decatur. Under his eye the line was at once carried forward till from Tuscumbia he was able to communicate with our forces before Corinth. The spirited congratulations which Mitchel now addressed to his troops were more than warranted by the delight of the country at his brilliant achieve- ments. He said : " Head-Qtjabtebs, Thtrd Dmsioir, i J "Camp Taylor, HwiUgeiUe, April 16, 1882. J " SoLDiEBS : Your march apon Bowling Green won the thanks and confidence of our command- ing General. With engines and cars captured from the enemy, our advanced guard precipitated itself upon Nashville. It was now made your duty to seize and destroy the Memphis and Charles- ton Eailway, the great military road of the enemy. With a supply-train only sufficient to feed you at a distance of two days' march from your depot, you undertook the herculean task of rebuilding twelve hundred feet of heavy bridging, which, by your untiring energy, was accom- plished in ten days. Thus, by a railway of your own construction, your depot of supplies was removed from Nashville to Shelbyville, nearly siity miles in the direction of the object of your attack. The blow now became practicable. Marching with a celerity such as to outstrip any messenger who might have attempted to announce your coming, you fell upon Huntsville, taking your enemy completely by surprise, and capturing not only his great military road, but all his machine shops and rolling stock. Thus providing yourselves with ample transportation, jou have struck blow after blow with a rapidity unparalleled. Steven.ion fell, sixty miles to the east of Huntsville. Decatur and Tnscumbia have been in like manner seized, and are now occupied. In three days you have extended your front of operations more than one hundred and twenty miles, and your morning gun at Tuscumbia may now be heard by your comrades on the battle- field made glorious by the victory before Corinth. A communication of these facts to head-quar- ters has not only now the thanks of onr commanding General, but those of the Department of War, which I announce to you with proud satisfaction. Accept the thanks of your commander, and let your future deeds demonstrate that you can surpass yourselves." Thus planted in the heart of the South, and on the vital channel of com- munication between the east and west of the Confederacy, with a single divis- ion not fifteen thousand strong,* General Mitchel's position was sufllciently pre- carious. The inhabitants of the country looked upon his presence i^s a sort of dare-devil exploit, having in it no probability of permanence. They were sometimes sullen, oftener openly contemptuous or abusive. But the General presently made them understand the value of respect for the Government. Those were the days of tender concern for the property of Eebels, of returning slaves, buying supplies, and taking them only when the Eebel owner was en- tirely willing to sell and entirely satisfied about the price. But Mitchel, even at that early day, had the wisdom to see the folly of such policy, and the courage to abandon it. He adopted what was, for the time and place, perhaps the very wisest course. Lists of active Eebels and of Eebel sympathizers were made out, together with accurate statements of their possessions. Whatever was needed •General Buell ("Statement in Review of Evidence before Military Commission" on his case, p. 13) says there were about sixteen thousand men scattered through Tennessee and North- ern Alabama, mainly under Mitchel's command. And, in a review of Buell's campaigns (Phil- adelphia Age, 25th August, 1864), understood to have been revised by'him, it is said, "General Mitchel had one division of about eight thousand under his immediate command, and, contin- gently, as many more," Ormsby M. Mitchel. 609 for the support of the army was then equitably levied upon these men in pro- portion to their ability ; while, for whatever was taken, the average price of the country was paid. Several hundred bales of cotton were found, which the Rebels had used in the fortifications. This cotton was sold, and the proceeds were more than sufficient to pay for the purchased supplies. Slaves were not encouraged to enter the camps, but whenever needed, they were used, and no slave who had done a service to the army was ever suffered to be returned to his master. General Buell's order forbade any protection to any slaves within the army lines. Against this General Mitchel earnestly protested ; and it is safe to say that it was at no time very zealously obeyed. "I organized these negroes into watchful guards," he once said, "throughout the entire portion of the ter- ritory of my command. They watched the Tennessee Eiver from Chattanooga entirely down to Tuscumbia and Florence. To every negro who gave me infor- mation of the movements of the enemy, who acted as guide to me, or who piloted my troops correctly through that unknown country, I promised the protection of the Government of the United States, and that they should never be returned to their masters. I found them extremely useful. I found them. perfectly reliable, eo far as their intention was concerned ; not always accurate in detail, but always meaning to be perfectly truthful." Meantime his bearing toward the masters was at once just and severe. In this respect again we are able to give his own views of his course. "In my treatment of the people," he says, " I adopted a very simple policy at the outset. I have studied the great platform of the rebellion to the best of my ability, and made up my mind that no cause existed for the South raising its hand against the United States — ^not the slightest ; that it was a rebellion, a downright piece of treason all the way through ; and that every individual in that country who was either in arms, or who aided and abetted those in arms, was my personal eneray, and that I would never break bread or eat salt with any enemy of my country, no matter who he might bo ; and I have never done it up to this day. In the next place, I determined I would show them I was honest, and had an object in view ; and while I treated them with the most perfect justice, I determioed to make every individual feel that there was a terrible pressure of war upon him, which would finally destroy him and grind him to powder, if he did not give up his rebellion." But in the precarious position which he held, General Mitchel was at any time liable to be cut ofi'. His main attention was, therefore, given to the utmost watchfulness upon the movements of the enemy. GueiTillas became trouble- some, and against these frequent expeditions were organized, the vigor of their movements being generally ■ such as to keep the marauders at safe distance. Toward the close of April the menaces from the direction of Chattanooga be- came more frequent. General Kirby Smith was at the head of a considerable force in that region, and he had five regiments of infantry and eighteen hun- dred cavalry posted at Bridgeport. From this point incursions began upon the eastern extremity of General Mitchel's lines near Stevenson. Finally, one night, an attack was made upon a brigade at Stevenson, and Vol. I.— 39. 610 Ohio in the War. the telegraph wires between that point and Huntsville were cut. Mitchel then determined to push his line up to Bridgeport itself, and thus protect his flank by the Tennessee River. Running up on the railroad from Huntsville, he placed himself at the head of the column. At the creek near Bridgeport, where, on first entering the country, he had destroyed the bridge, he now encountered the enemy. Here a small force was brought up, and an artillery fire was opened upon the enemy's pickets. This force was to make as much noise as possible, and to create the impression that a direct attack was to be speedily made. Meantime, at the head of the main column, Mitehel now plunged into the, swamp near the creek, heading across the country in such a way as to strike an old road leading to Bridgeport. The guns were dragged along by hand. Whole regiments fell upon the rail fences by the roadside and carried them through the swamp to mend the bridges. Mitchel was everywhere encouraging the men and hastening the march. While the column was thus hurrying down upon Bridgeport, the Rebel force was still awaiting the attack at the creek bridge, where the feint had been made. A part of their strength lay there to resist the attack; the rest was in reserve in the town. Over this last part Mitchel now looked down from the crest of a wooded hill within five hundred yards of the great bridge over the Tennessee. His line of battle was formed in quiet, and the opening of artillery with grape and canister, at short range, was the first, notification to the enemy that his rear was in danger. They flew to their arms, but the apparition of Mitchel's line of battle suddenly rising over the crest, and rushing down upon them at a charge, dissipated all idea of resistance, and they broke for the bridge. When Mitchel reached the spot it was in flames. The men succeeded in saving the end next the town. A pier on the other side, however, was blown up, and that portion of the bridge was rendered impassable. By this time the Rebel force back at the destroyed creek bridge had disi covered its danger. As it came rushing in, hoping still to cross tha river on the great bridge, it was met by a volley from Mitchel's triumphant column. The men broke almost at once, scattering in all directions. Pursuit was promptly made, and some three hundred and fifty prisoners were captured, with two pieces of artillery.* The success was complete, and in justifiable pride Mitchel was able to telegraph to the War Department: "The campaign is ended, and I now occupy Huntsville in perfect security ; while all of Alabama, north of Tennes- see River, floats no flag but that of the Union." But if the campaign having as its end the successful occupation of the great line of railroad through Northern Alabama was ended, there was another one to which the General's attention was immediately bent. Thirty miles firora •An elaborate statement in the Philadelphia Age, 25th August, 1864, reviewing General Buell's operations (sanctioned by himself), says that through Mitchel's entire campaign he never captured fifty armed men, nor killed twenty. This, of course, conflicts with the statement in the text, in which I have followed the account of the engagement at Bridgeport furnished to the Cliicago Ti-Hmne by its correspondent on the spot. Rebellion Becord, Vol. IV, p. 531. General Mitchel's official report, however, makes no mention of such a number of prisoners. Ormsby M. Mitchel. 611 Bridgeport lay the veritable " Hawk's Nest,"* Chattanooga itself. Whoever licld it held the key to the whole central belt of the Confederacy. Among the first to recognize its importance, Mitchel came near being the first to secure it. Ab early as the 10th of April, when about himself to move upon Huritsville, he had sent out a small, expedition to cut the railroad between Atlanta and Chattanooga. The plan was one of singular boldness, and it very narrowly missed success.f Had the bridges been destroyed, he might have occupied Chat- tanooga within a couple of days after his entry into Huntsville, and the whole face of future campaigns in that region, as Judge Holt says, might have been changed. The attempt failed, but General Mitchel did not withdraw his eyes from Chattanooga. The action at Bridgeport was on the 30th of April. Within a couple of weeks guerrillas were giving some trouble at Eogersville, near Decatur, and one of Mitchel's Brigadiers, General Negley, had shown praiseworthy energy in routing them. This officer was now, therefore, detached toward East Tennes- see, to check the outrages of guerrillas upon Union men in one or two of the obunties north of Chattanooga, and, in the language of one of the newspaper scooonts of that day, " to call at Chattanooga, if possible, and Mitchel seldom deems anything impossible in his department." It is hard even yet to see that ■this was. Falling upon the Eebel General Adams's cavalry, General Negley routed and pursued them through Jasper to Chattanooga. There now began a strange hesitation. On 5th of June General Negley reported to General Mitchel his capture of men from Chattanooga, appearances' that it would not be defended, and a determination "to push on there to-morrow.'^ On the 7th ho was before Chattanooga, was convinced that the " enemy's force is about three thousand, with ten pieces of artillery," and was throwing shells across the river into the town. On the 8th he was -'going to make another demon- stration." Still he regarded it " almost impossible to construct sufficient pon- toons to cross the river in force." He did " not consider the capture of .Chatta- nooga very difficult or hazardous." But he was troubled about the power to hold it; and he was disposed to cast frightened glances at "the exposed condi- tion of both front and rear of our lines to Pittsburg Landing." And so he announced that the objects of the expedition were accomplished, and marched away again. He had shelled the town twice, and, as one of his subordinate brigade commanders claimed, had silenced the Eebel batteries, and driven them to evacuate the town and destroy railroad bridges behind them. As it would now seem, he might certainly have taken it. Had Mitchel been there, it is scarcely doubtful that the town would have fallen - Not long after this movement, General Mitchel was recalled from the com- mand of his division and ordered to Washington. Of the remarkable campaign which he had conducted, it may be said that •The Indian name of the place. tSee poit, close of Part II, for a fuller account, of this expedition. 612 Ohio in the Wae. it displayed dash and spirit in the midst of the prevailing caution ; skill in handling raw troops at a time when commanders, now the most noted in our army, were learning in the rude school of disaster the elements of their art; fertility of resources, before others had ventured beyond the precedents of the war with Mexico ; and a remarkable appreciation of the new conditions with which war has been surrounded by the vast extension of telegraphs and railroads. That it encountered no formidable opposition does not destroy the credit which the display of these qualities justly secured. Two years before Sherman, Mitchel showed how armies might depend on single lines of railroad through groat tracts of the enemy's country for supplies. As early as Butler, he showed how Eebels should be made to -support the war. Eighteen months before Eose- crans, he fastened upon the strategic point of the whole central half of the Southern States. Almost three years before Sherman, he showed how the shell of the Confederacy might be pierced, and how little resistance was to be ex- pected when once this shell was passed. Much of his success, doubtless, he owed to the utter surprise which his movements proved to an enemy not then accustomed to expect such energy and audacious boldness. Many of his move- ments, doubtless, at another stage of the war, or under other conditions, would have been impracticable. But it was his sagacity which perceived that to be the time for audacious movements. Of high credit, therefore, for a campaign' second in brilliancy to scarcely any in the war, no fair criticism can deprive General Mitchel.* The Grovernment in ita delight over the occupation of Huntsville, made him a Major-General. The country pronounced him among the ablest of our commanders. When he had been commissioned there were some doubts in the city where he was best known as to the success which this impulsive theorist and scientific speculator would meet with in the practical business of war. When he was recalled he was thought our fittest General for bold ventures, and great undertakings which neither energy alo&e nor skill alone could make suc- cessful. , But he was no more popular among his brother officers; and there were special causes for disagreement between himself and the chief who over- shadowed and chilled him. When it was found that General Buell and General Mitchel could not act harmoniously in the same department, that Mitchel chafed under the policy of his superior, and was finally driven to such dissatisfaction that he was on the point of resigning his commission, the War Department interposed and ordered him to Washington. General Buell behaved handsomely. He interfered em- • Headers will be interested in comparing with the above the estimate placed upon Mitchel'a campaign by his cautious, undemonstrative commander. In his " Statement in Keview of Evi- dence before the Military Commission " on his case, General Buell says (p. 18) : . . . " That force, mainly under the command of General Mitchel, has been generally awarded praise for the service it performed, and very justly; yet not more than (wo thousand men ever appeared on the field of operations to oppose it. It was not the nnmbersof the enemy that made itsservicedif- ficult and creditable ; but it was the large extent of country it occupied, the length of the lines it had to guard, and the difGculty of supplying it." Ormsby M. Mitchel. 613 pbatically to prevent Mitchel's reBiguation, and declared that if, because of their disagreement, one or the other must leave the service, he would himself resign* * Mitchel found on his arrival in Washington that the faith of the Govern- ment in his capacity was unshaken. Indeed the plan was for a little enter- tained of assigning to him the work which Fremont had once proposed, and which Halleck had been expected to accomplish — the work of sweeping down the Mississippi Valley and restoring the Great River to commerce. But it was determined to do nothing in the matter till General Halleck, now fresh on his stool as "General-in-Chief," could be consulted. Halleck, like all men of mere routine, had a profound contempt for success won in such irregular methods as Mitchel had employed and a profound distrust for the men who employed them. He considered Mitchel reckless and Quixotic — lucky perhaps, thus far, because his own warlike genius had been engaging the enemy's attention elsewhere — but utterly unsafe. His influence was for a time great enough to keep Mitchel out of any command. Meanwhile a swarm of slanders had been started by the busy enemies he had left behind him in Buell's army. Presently a newspaper attack appeared, declaring in mysterious vagueness that General Mitchel had been summoned to Washington to answer to the gravest charges. It pronounced his conduct "not •only injurious to the Government but disgraceful to humanity," declared that Lfe had "perpetrated deeds of cruelty and guilt, the bare narration of which makes the heart sick," demanded " swift justice," hoped " for the country's sake there would be no delay and no clemency," and reached its climax in pronounc- ing the foremost astronomer of the country and the hero of the North Alabama campaign " an epauletted miscreant." The organ of these slanders was a news- paper remarkable partly for decayed genius, partly for mediocre but malignant treason — the Louisville Journal. The reputation it had once enjoyed still gave it some credit ; and the very vagueness of its charges added, for a little time, to the apprehensions felt even by General Mitchel's friends, as to the possibility of his having committed some unusual indiscretion. With the most, however, they excited only amazement and incredulity. But they were taken up by the ABSociated Press and scattered broadcast over the country. Mitchel made no reply, save in a private dispatch to deny their truth, and to demand either proof or retraction. Of this demand the newspaper never took anj' notioe. Presently it appeared that the whole charge grew out of some excesses committed by Colonel Turchin's brigade of Mitchel's command, in re-occupying the town of Athen8,f whence they had been driven by a superior force of the Rebels. General Mitchel had himself sought to bring the individual offenders to justice, but had failed to secure proofs; General Buell had been subsequently attempting the same thing, and up to that time had encountered similar failure. •These statements are m^e on the authority of General Mitchel himself. He communi- cated them to the writer m Washington, in July, 1862. tTJie outrages at Athens were trifling compared with those which subsequently marked famoiiD campaigns in the South, and passed not only unrebuked but actually applauded by the commanders and by the country. Those were days, however, when the war was conducted— not 614 Ohio in the Wab. Mitchol'B enemies sought to hold him responsible, and even forwarded charges to "Washington, but no notice was taken of them. The General, however, re- mained for some months out of command, and the public was left to the con- clusion that for this, or for some other reason, he was in disgrace with the Grov- ernment. Both the Cincinnati and the Dudley Observatories were still under his directorship. He improved the leisure which he now had ta inquire into their operations, and to send instructions to the assistants in charge. He was ordered from his command in Alabama on the 2d of July, 1862. On the 12th of September he was assigned to a new department. The Govern- ment had not insisted upon the Mississippi scheme in opposition to Halleck's disapproval ; but it had never given up the belief that Mitchel would be of sig- nal service again in an independent position, commensurate in importance with the rank he had won and the military genius he had displayed. Great things had been hoped of the Department of South Carolina, *but with the brilliant achievement of Admiral Dupont in the harbor of Port Eoyal, success seemed to have ended, and one unfortunate failure after another had followed. The posi- tion was thought especially fitted for a man of Mitchel's adventurous spirit, and he was assigned to it. He set out at once for his new command. His coming infased fresh life into military affairs. Within the week of his arrival he visited all the camps, on Hilton Head, at Beaufort, and at Fort Pulaski, and addressed all the regiments. Within another week an expedition to St. John's Bluff was organized, which took a fort and several heavyguns. In the same week another «xpedition burnt the salt works, a quarter of a mile long, at Blufton. A reconnoissance up the Savannah was made. A force was sent to Pocotaligo to break the railroad con- nection between Charleston and Savannah. And amid these varied enterprises he found time to mature a plan for the relief of the crowded contraband bar- racks. The negroes were set to work building a village of comfortable cabins for themselves.* He had already gained the confidence of all ; his preliminary operations had been attended with success, and it was believed that a graver movement was in contemplation. In the midst of his plans, only five weeks after his arrival in the depart- ment, on the 26th of October, 1862, he was attacked with yellow fever. Ho lingered, with scarcely a hope of recovery, from the outset till the 30th ; when, in the full possession of his faculties, and shortly after an effort to repeat his expressions of confidence in the consolations of the religion which he had so perhaps as successfully, but — on principles more creditable to our humanity and civilization, as well as to the discipline of our armies. And, though Mitchel was not responsible for the excesses at Athens, it must be confessed that he might have been more energetic in his efforts to bring the offenders to justice. But, though not so loose in his ideas on the subject as Sherman subse- quently became, he was still disposed to look on the offense as quite venial. *The grateful negroes called their village Mitchel ville— a name which bids fair to be per- manent. Before the close of tlie war the village had a regular municipal organization, with self-elected officers. Okmsby M. Mitchel. 615 kng professed, he died. By no single stroke, thus far through the war, had so groat a sum of ability and zeal been taken from the National service. He was buried, with the honors of war, in the village cemetery at Beaufort, South Carolina, among the residences of the Barnwells and the Rhetts. Two sons, on his staff, were so low at the same time, with the same disease, that the attbndants dared not inform them of their father's death. Their mother, worn out with her apprehensions for her husband, had died suddenly, almost at his entry into the service. The military career thus too soon ended suggests in its incipiency some points of resemblance to that of a famous soldier of English history. A great writer has sketched the portrait : " His courage had all the French impetuosity and all the English steadiness. His fertility and activity of mind were almost beyond belief. They appeared in everything that he did, in his campaigns, in hi»' negotiations, in his familiar correspondence, in his lightest and most unstudied conversation. He was a kind friend, a generous enemy, and, in deport- ment, a thorough gentleman. . . . Eepose was insupportable to him. . . . Scarcely any General had ever done so much with means so small. Scarcely any General had ever displayed equal originality and boldness. . . . He was adored by the Catalonians and Valencians; but he was hated by the Prince whom he had all but made a great king, and by the Generals whose fortune and reputation were staked on the same venture with his own. The English Gov- ernment could not understand him. He was so eccentric that they gave him no credit for the judgment which he really possessed. One day he took towns with horge-soldiers ; then again he turned some hundreds of infantry into cav- alry at a minute's notice. . . . The ministers thought that it would be highly impolitic to intrust the conduct of the Spanish war to so volatile and romantic a person. They therefore gave the command to Lord Galway, an experienced veteran — a man who was in war what Moliere'S doctors were in medicine — who thought it much more honorable to fail according to rule than to succeed by innovation. . . . This great commander conducted the campain of 1707 in the most scientific manner. On the plain of Almanza he encountered the army of the Bourbons. He drew up his troops according to the methods prescribed by the best writers, and in a few hours lost eighteen thousand men, one hundred and twenty standards, all his baggage, and all his artillery." * These are the words of Lord Macaulay in describing Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Petersborough ; but in more respects than one they present a suggestive parallel to the history we have been tracing, and to the disasters that speedily followed. It will be seen, then, that we do not think the military character of General Mitchel far to seek. He had genius rather than talent. He was bold, l^jidventurous, wonderfully energetic, fertile in resources. He had a keen eye for strategic advantages. He managed the executive business of war with skill. He was penetrated with a fervid enthusiasm, which communicated itself to his floldiers, and counted more than many re-enforcements in accomplishing his * War of the Succession in Spain. Ediuburg Review, January, 1833. 616 Ohio in the War. undertakings. This enthusiasm led to an appearance of eccentricity and nerv- ous excitability that, outside the range of his personal influence, engendered a distrust of his stability and judgment. But if we seek to pass beyond these obvious characteristics, and estimate the actual breadth and depth of his military capacity, we find ourselves checked on the threshold. He was comparatively untried. A brief period of subordinate service ; a four months' carfpaign with an army of less than fifteen thousand, brilliantly managed but inadequately opposed ; and five weeks of work prepar- atory to a campaign — in these short phrases bis career in the war of the rebellion is told. Amid the stumblings of those earlier years his was a clear and vigor- ous tread. While the struggling Nation blindly sought for leaders, his was a brilliant promise. But he never fought a battle,* never confronted a respectable antagoniBt,f and never commanded a considerable army. Yet what he did had so won the confidence of the troops, and the admiration of the country, that his death was deplored as a public calamity, and he was mourned as a great General. * Of course it will be understood that the affairs at Bridgeport and elsewhere did not rise to the rank of battles. t Unless for the few weeks that he might have been said to be pitted against Beauregard. In his Northern Alabama campaign the whole force opposed to him scaicelj amounted to two thousand. QUINCY A. GrILLMOKE. 617 MAJOll;GENERAL Q. A. GILLMQRE; QTJINCY AI^rAM'S^JILLMORE, Major in the Corps of Engineers, Brevet- Ma_Uff-GeneraI in the regular army^ Major-General of volunteers, and the gre^t a^ilTerist and'engimSi^of the war, was born at Black River, Lorain County, 6hi6, on the 28th of February, 1825: Hiff parentage was of mingled Scotch-Irish and German extraction-. His father, Quartus Gillmore, was bor^jaC'. Hampshire County, Massachusetts, in 1790, on Jiit^ fa»m of two hundred 'acres>wllicli his father continued for many years tQ-lcultiyate. This farm ''was finally '^:^hanged with one '.of the Con- necticut »ecui|tors in Western B^Serve ' lands,"' for a tract of one thousand acres injLorain'County, and, at the" age of twenty-one, Quartus Gillmore thus came'lPlJS^ef'of the Reserve pioneers. He reached the township in ■v^^hicbhis father's tract of'^iid land lay, on the shore of Lake Bi-ie, in 1811, and iname- diately began ^his " clearing." He remained on it during- the war of 1812, though most of 'the other inhabitants fled to the interior, and,' before Perry's victory ,*tlie danger to the residents along the coast from British cruisers was supposed to be imminent. In 1824 he was married to Mrs. Elizabeth Smith. This lady was a native of New Jersey, whef'etshe was born in 1797. Her father, Mr. Reide, was also a native of that State, but his parents came from Germany. In 1807 the family removed to Lorain County, and at the age of eixteepi'Eliza- beth was married to Mr. Smith. He lived btit four years after the marriage; and aft^r peven years of widowhood she was "riiarried to Quartus Gillmore, he beii^'it thit lime thirty-four years of age, and she twenty-six. Neither of them had any jRdvaotages of education, save Wch as could-be obtained from the rude sobools of the time and place. Both were hardy, vigorous pioneers, and the wife was Accounted a beauty. Both have lived to see, in a hale old age, the fame and honors of their first-born. .' ' **^ . At the time of hie birth th|!ftjuntry was agilit'ed wit'ti the prolonged excite- ment of the famous President!^ jeontest of 1824;tFetween Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Crawford, and Henry Clay. Quartus Gillmtiref ll^e to his Massachusetts ancestry and teachings, belonged , tQ, the AdaW'party.''^feis favorite was finally elected by the House of Representa^es on the;'9th of .February, and the news of the election reached that remotelportionof'the frontier bu the very day on which the son was boMiT In.thelPtillness of his joy at tSe election and at the birth, the happy father declared that4^''boy should, bear the name of a Presi- dent, and forthwith named him Quincy Adams.* The lad grew up in the hearty life of the pioneers. Through the summers * Theae facta are derived from an unpublished sketch of General Gilimore's youth, by L. A. fline, Esq., of the Cincinnati Times. He gives a list of the other members of the family, as lol- 618 Ohio in the War. he assisted' on the farm, as soon as he was able, and continued at farm labor until his eighteenth year. Each winter he received what the good people of those times were wont to call " a quarter's schooling." He came to rank well, both among the farmers and in the country school-house. He was strong, active, and, as the farmers said, " a good, willing hand." In the school he soon reached the "Double Eule of Three," long the high-water mark of rustic school-teach- ers' acquirements, and began to perplex his masters by prying into the hidden mysteries of the latter half of the Arithmetic. So, by the time he was twelve or thirteen years old, it was discovered that he had gone as far as the teachers could carry him. Then came a pieca of good fortune. He was sent for a winter to the Iforwalk Academy, twenty-five miles away from home. The glimpse of the outside world which he thus caught, not less than the teachings of the Academy, served to inspire him with a longing for something beyond the life of the farm-boy. He bought all the booia he could get money to pay for, and borrowed all that the village and neighborhood afforded. In his seventeenth year his acqnirementa were so well recogniied that he was offered a situation himself as country school-teacher. For three successive winters he now taught school — studying through two of the interven- ing summers at a high school in Elyria. Some of his old schoolmates became his pupils, and there was much in his position to gratify the aspirations of the smart boy of the neighborhood. But he was ill-satisfied, and, as he said to his mother, did not believe he was made to be a school-teacher all hie life. To this feeling his success at the Elyria High School doubtless contributed. He had been noted for a remarkable aptitude for mathematical studies, had stood high in Natural Philosophy, and had been among the foremost in English Composition. In the spring of 1845 the pupils of the school gave an exhibitionj in which young Gillmore's performance waa considered by far the most promis; ing. It was a poem entitled "Erie," which attracted considerable attention among a graver class of critics than those who usually devote themselves to school exhibitions. It was published in the local newspaper, and at the time had a considerable run in the journals of the surrounding country. Strangely enough, it was to this poetical effusion that we are indebted for the services which our great artillerist was to render during the war of the re- bellion. After his success at the school exhibition, young Gillmore decided to ' seek a profession. That of medicine seemed, in his circumstances, the most attainable, and so he begap its study in the office of Dr. Samuel Strong, of Elyi'ia. Meantime Mr. B. S. Hamlin, then the Congressman of the district, waa casting about for a suitable person on whom to bestow the warrant for West Point. He had appointed a young man named Boynton, but, on examination, it proved lows: Sophia Gillmore, born in 1828; Boxana,in 1830; Edmund, in 1833; Alice, in 1835: Elii- abeth, in 1836 ; Quartus, in 1888 ; and Cornelius, in 1841. Nearly all these children still reside in the old neighborhood. Edmund became a shipwright, was injured by an accident, and has since been a hopeless cripple. Quartus manages the homestead farm. Cornelius lives with hia father and is a shipwright. Elizabeth became Mrs. James O. Sennott; Sophia, Mrs. Captain Leslie ; and Alice, Mrs. Conway-. Boxana alone waa carried far away from the family circle, having married Mr. Spooner, now a farmer in Oregon. QUINCY A. GrILLMOBE. 619 that he was some months too old to be admitted. He had then offered it to the BCD of a Mr. Baldwin, one of his influential constitnents, but be had declined. Mr. George G. Washburn, the editor of the Elyria Democrat, was then asked who would be a good person for the vacant appointment. He called Hamlin's attention to the poem from one of the high school scholars which he had lately published, and asked if a boy who, with very limited advantages, had come to write so well, would not make a creditable representative of the district at the Military Academy. Mr. Hamlin wag much interested, and at once sent to inquire if the author of " Erie " would like to go to West Point. The young man asked, a few hours to consider it ; then decided to accept. But by this time the per- sons through whom Mr. Hamlin's message was sent had left town. Not to be swerved from his purpose when once his mind was made up, Gillmore at once mounted a horse and rode off to Amherst, where they were gone ; then, by their advice, , pushed on to Charitan, where Mr. Hamlin was attending' court. He was just in time — if the nomination had been delayed a few days longer, the Representative's power to_ appoint would have lapsed, and the President would have filled the vacancy. Gillmore received the warrant, and at once set out for his father's residence. His parents. supposed him to be at Elyria, hard at work making a doctor of himself, and were not a little surprised at his appearance, with the announce- ment that, if they were willing, he meant to go to West Point. It was an abandonment of the hopes they had formed for his future. Neither was very well pleased; and the mother, in particular, was not at all disposed to forgive the friends who had been putting such ideas in her boy's head. The father was more readily won over. Then Quincy asked for some money to fit him for the journey and to carry him to. the Academy. "I will give it to you, if- you will promise to come out at the head of your class," said Mr. Gillmore. The class contained several whose names have since risen to prominence. John G. Parke, subsequently Major General commanding the Ninth Corps, stood second in it; Absalom Baird, subsequently Division General under liosecrans, was ninth; Chauncey McKeever, of the Adjutant-General's staff, was fourteenth; Eufus Saxton, subsequently Major-Generfil in charge of the negroes of the South Carolina and Georgia coast, was eighteenth ; E. W. Johnston, of Kentucky, sub- sequently Division General in the Army of the Cumberland, was thirtieth. At the end of the first year Cadet Gillmore stood fourth. The next year he did better; and when his graduation came it was found that he had kept his promise. He had "come out at the head^ of the class." But he had written no more poetry; and from that day forward, if he was ever guilty of the weakness, he was successful in' concealing it. His poetical tendencies, however, had taken another turn. Tn the year of his graduation, at the age of twenty-four, he was married to one of the fair belles of West Point, Miss Mary O'Magher,* only daughter of the Academy Treasurer of Cadets. She was two years his senior. Cadet Gillmore's position at the head of his class determined, in accordance *The family is the same from a branch of which Thomas Francis Meagher sprang. 620 Ohio in the War. with the well-known academic rule, his assignment. He was made a Brevet Second-Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, and was ordered to duty as an assistant on the fortifications at Hampton Koads. After three years' service here he was ordered back to West Point, to serve as an instructor in the depart- ment of practical military engineering. For three years he held this position, and for another he was treasurer and quartermaster of the Academy. It was during this stay at West Point, in the years 1852-56, that Lieuten- ant Gillmore, now a rising young engineer, whose talents had begun to attract .the attention of the superior officei-s of his corps, had an opportunity to study the effects of cannon projectiles on masonry forts — a study that was to yield to the country and to science such fruits as the breaching of Fort Pulaski and the destruction of Fort Sumter from distances at which they had been considered impregnable. The series of breaching experiments on masonry targets which he here conducted, gave him his first ideas as to the capabilities of rifled canoon. His views went far beyond those of the older members of his corps, and it was not till the fall of Pulaski that he convinced them. On July 1st, 1856, he was promoted to a First-Liefltenancy of Engineers, and ordered to New York City, to assume charge of the Engineer Agency there established. His duties were to superintend the purchase and shipment of ma- terial used in the construction efforts, light-houses, and other works committed to the corps. In this position he remained until the outbreak of the war. In addition to these duties, however, he was engaged upon an elaborate series of experiments with the limes and hydraulic cements of America and Europe — with special reference to their use in masonry fortifications. This resulted in the preparation of a work, which has since become the standard authority among engineers, on "Limes, Hydraulic Cements and Mortara."* During the same period, as another result of these experiments, he contributed to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at ite session in Albany, a paper on the practicability of making a cement fi'om quartz that, on hardening, would assume the original characteristics of that rock, and prove as indestructible. Some mathemjitical speculations which he published about the same time attracted the attention of the authorities of Oberlin College, and drew from them the complimentary degree of Master of Arts. He had also contributed to the Cleveland papers suggestions on the defense of the lake coast, which attracted the notice of the scientific, and received the attention of the War Department. Thus the young engineer gradually rose in his profession. He was still only a First-Lieutenant, but he was marked as one of the promising men of the corps d 'elite of the army. Ho was engrossed in its duties, was devoted to ita advancement, and was noted for the thoroughness and value of his investiga- tions. At the outbreak of the war he was in his thirty-sixth yeaj, and was once more alone in the world, having lost his accomplished wife in 1860. She left him four promising boys, the care of whose education was undertaken in his wife's old homo at West Point. *300 pp. octavo; published by Van Noatrand, New York. QUINCY A. GrlLLMOBE. 621 In August, 1861, Lieutenant Gillmore applied for active field duty. Chief- Justice Chase, then Secretary of the Treasury, warmly recommended him to Governor Dennison. The Governor at once offered him the command of one of the Ohio regiments. This he declined. Members of the Engineer Corps are wont to attach a high importance to their position, and Gillmore preferred liis place in the Engineers to a Colonelcy of volunteers. But he desired, if possi- ble, to organize a brigade of vSappers, Miners, and Pontoniers for service in the Western armies. Governor Dennison at once fell in with this idea, and urged upon the President his appointment as a Brigadier-General of volunteers. Pro- fessor Mahan of West Point, and Wm. Cullen Bryant united in the recommenda- tion. Mr. Lincoln was not unwilling, but the War Department objected. It was then organizing an expedition under T. W. Sherman to make, in conjunc- tion with Admiral Dupont, a descent upon the coast of South Carolina. Lieu- tenant Gillmore's experience in the Engineer Agency in New York peculiarly qualified him for the work of fitting out this expedition, and the Department would not sanction any promotion by which his services therein would be lost. He was accordingly promoted to a Captaincy in his corps, and made Chief En- gineer to General T. W. Sherman, then about to set out for Port Eoyal. This was on the 3d of October, 1861. A month later he was present with the staff, when, after Admiral Dupont's splendid bombardment, the troops made their descent upon Hilton Head Island. Through November and December he was engaged in fortifying the positions thus secured. Meantime the country impatiently awaited some more important results from the great coast expedition than the establishment of schools among the contrabands on Hilton Head. Finally the General commanding directed his attention to Savannah. ^ Fort Pulaski stood in the way. Situated on one of the marshy islands along the coast, neither land nor water, that yet offer to military movements the special obstacles of both, it seemed secure against land attacks. But it covered both the channels of the Savannah Eiver, and, while it stood, the way to the threatened city was closed. Late, therefo?je, in November Captain Gill- more was ordered to make a thorough reconnoissance of the locality. On the 29th he set out; on the 1st of December he made his report. The one feature of the report was this : " I deem the reduction of Fort Pulaski practicable by batteries of mortars and rifled guns, established on Tybee Island."* And five days later, in another communication, he specified the armament he would ask for the' undertaking: "Ten ten-inch sea-coast mortars, ten thirteen-inch do., eight heavy rifled guns, and eight Columbiads." Tlie assumption of the young engineer was to the older members of his corps, and to the officers of the army generally, a matter of astonishment. The site for his proposed breaching batteries was an island seventeen hundred yards distant from the fort. The limit for practicable breaching of masonry forts was supposed to be one thousand yards; and, except under peculiarly favorable cir- cumstances, no one thought such an effort advisable at a distance greater than •"Gillmore's Siege of Fort Pulaski," p. 55. 622 Ohio in the Wab. 'six hundred or seven hundred yards. Since the invention of gunpowder, in no war and by no general, had the reduction of hostile forts been attempted by means of batteries even one thousand yards distant. Here was a young Captain of Engineers, absolutely without experience in war, proposing to reduce a fort which had been recently pronounced by a competent military critic (Mr. Rus- sell, of the London Times) impregnable to land attack, by batteries located nearly three times as far away as in any successful bombardment on record. The standard authority of the army had this verdict on the possibility rf such an undertaking : "An exposed wall may be breached with certainty at dis- tances of from five hundred to seven hundred yards, even when elevated one hundred feet ^bove the breaching battery; and it is believed that, in case of ex- treme necessity, it would be justifiable to attempt to batter down- an exposed wall from any distance not exceeding one thousand yards, but then the quan- tity of artillery must be considerable, and it will require from four to seven days' firing, according to the number of guns in battery, and the perioil of daylight, to i*ender a breach practicable." Captain Gillmore proposed to go seven hundred yards beyond this extreme limit fixed by the authority then re- garded as final on all such engineering questions. Save his own experiments, however, and the theoretical views they had suggested and confirmed, he could point to • no authority to sustain him. Breaching at five hundred to seven hundred yards had been the limit to the undertakings of European armies against masonry forts. Absolutely no tan- gible progress had been made, in actual practice, since the second siege of Badajos in the Peninsular war, when an exposed and weak castle wall ■Was breached at the unheard-of distance of eight hundred yards. Some noteworthy English and Prussian experiments, however, had seemed to point to the gre.iter capacity of rifled artillery. In 1860, a condemned Martello tower on the coast of England had been battered down by Armstrong rifled guns, at a distance of one thousand and thirty-two yards. General Sir John Burgoyne, in reporting the fact to the British War Department, added: "Trials were subsequently made to bteach a similar tower from smooth-bored sixty-eight and thirty-two- pounders at the same range of one thousand and thirty-two yards, and the result may be deemed altogether a failure, both accuracy of fire and velocity of missiles being quite deficient for such a range." In the same year the Prussian Government had conducted similar experiments on certain old fortifications at Juliers, which were to be demolished. The guns used were rifled breach-load- ers. At six hundred and forty yards they had breached a brick wall three feet thick with twelve-pounders. At fifty paces they had breached the same wall with six-pounders. And, at sixty yards, they had breached a wall six and a half feet thick with twenty-four pounders ; while subsequently, with the same guns, at a distance of ninety yards, they had breached a wall twelve feet thick. Practically, this was the sum of what military science had to teach on the subject of the power of artillery against masonry forts. Beyond this Captain Gillmore had progressed a little, by reason of his own experimentB at West Point, He believed that the capacity of rifled guns had not been fully appreciated. But :: QUINCY A. GrlLLMOKE. " 623 P did not yet give them credit for tlieir enormous superiority over the clumsy CSolumbiads and other heavy smooth-bores in which the chief reliance was stiil pliced. The English Martello tower had been battered down by rifled eighty- two and forty-pounders, at one thousand and thirty-two yards. He believed the American Parrotts, and other rifles, at least equal to the famous English gun ; he was able to secure eighty -four-pounders, sixty-four pounders, forty- eight-pounders, and thirty-pounders ; and with these, relying on his belief that rifles might do more than they had ever yet been called upon to do, he was willing to undertake the reduction of Fort Pulaski from a distance more than a third greater than in the English experiments. But he asked a weight of metal in smooth-bores — Columbiads, mortars, etc. — double as great as that of his rifles. We have seen how contrary to the maxims of the books Captain Gillmore's proposition was. Some of the leading ofiScers of his own corps united in their condemnation of the wild scheme which the young engineer presented. Gen- eral Totten himself, the venera'ble head of the corps, was very decided in his disapproval. Conspicuous engineers furnished written opinions, enforcing the folly of the project. But the General commanding was of a temper that was ready to accept daring innovations. It does not appear that he was himself fully convinced of the wisdom of his engineer's proposal, but he was fully re- solved to let him try. He accordingly endorsed the plan, and forwarded it to the Department at Washington for approval. Here it was some time delayed, and even after the final consent had been obtained, the necessary artillery and ordnance stores were tardily supplied. But about the middle of January, six weeks after the scheme was first proposed, matters had progressed so far that operations began for the invest- ment of Fort Pulaski, preparatory to the establishment of the proposed bat- teries for its reduction. There were several tortuous and uncertain passages by which, at high tide, gunboats of light draft might evade Pulaski and enter the Savannah Eivcr. Through some of these it was determined to convoy the flats m which artillery was floating, for batteries above Pulaski, to cut off its inter- 3ourse with Savannah and with the coast. One cause of delay intervened after mother, till, on the 10th of February, 1862, after waiting nearly a month on the navy, it was determined to attempt transporting the guns for these block- iding batteries by land. Up the river a few miles from Fort Pulaski lies Jones's Island, the south- irn shore of which forms for several miles the northern bank of the stream. (Tear the middle of this stretch rose the trifling elevation of Venus's Point, on irhieh it was proposed to erect a battery. This would isolate Pulaski. The learest spot where the soil was sufficiently solid to permit the encampment of roops was Dafuskie Island, four miles distant. From this place there was water lommunication between New, Wright, and Mud Elvers to the shore of Jones's island opposite Venus's Point. Thence, across the oozy, shaking marsh of the Bland the artillery must be transported by hand. What was the nature of the 'outemay be inferred from Captain Gillmore's description of the island: "It is lothing but a mud marsh, covered with reeds and tall grass. The general sur- 624 • Ohio in the War. face is about on a level of ordinary high tide. There are a few spots of limited area, Venus's Point being one of them, that are submerged only by spring tides, or by ordinary tides favored by the wind; but the character of the soil is tiie same over the whole island. It is a soft unctuous mud, free of grit or sand, and incapable of supporting a heavy weight. Even in the most elevated places the partially dry crust is but three or four inches in depth, the substratum being a semi-fluid mud, which is agitated like jelly by the falling of oven small bodies upon it, like the jumping of men or ramming of earth. A pole or an oar can be forced into it with ease, to the depth of twelve or fifteen feet. In most places the resistance diminishes with increase of penetration. Men walk- ing over it are partially sustained by the roots of reeds and gi-ass, and sink in only five or six inches. When this top support gives way, they go down from two to two and a half feet, and in some places much further." Across this uncertain slinie, a wheelbarrow track of plank was laid. Poles were cut on Dafuskie Island and taken by boats into Mud River to make a wharf for the landing of the guns, and bags filled with sand were carried over by the batteries. Finally, on the 10th of February, the hope of aid from the navy being abandoned, the flats on which the guns were loaded were towed out through the sluggish rivers by row-boats, against the tide, and landed at tho wharf. At the same time another party on the opposite side of the island, at Venus's Point, was at work on the platforms for the battery. First bags of sand were laid down on the oozy soil, till the whole surface was raised five or six inches. Then over these went a flooring of thick planks, nearly but not quite in contact with each other. Across these at right angles other planks were laid, till, finally, the platform was raised some twenty inches above the natural surface. All the while this work went on, the unsuspicious Eebel gun- boats were plying up and down the Savannah River, in full view. Then at day- light the work was left, and all hands went back to Dafuskie. The next night came the hardest task. Over the twelve-feet-deep mod of Jones's Island were to be dragged, from the wharf back on Mud River to the site for the battery at Venus's Point, three thirty-pounder Parrotts, two twenty- pounders, and a great eight-inch siege howitzer: The Captain shall tell us how this seemingly impossible task was accomplished : "The work was done in the following manner: The pieces, mounted on their carriages and limbered up, were moved forward on shifting runways of planks (about fifteen feet long, one foot wide, and three inches thick), laid end to end. Lieutenant Wilson, with a party of thirty-five men, took charge of the two pieces in advance (an eight-inch siege howitzer and a thirty-pounder Parrott), and Major Beard and the Lieutenant, with a somewhat larger force, of the four pieces in the rear (two twenty and two thirty-pounder Parrotts.) Each party had one pair of planks in excess of the number required for the guns and limbers to rest upon, when closed together. This extra pair "of planks being placed in front, in prolongation of those already under the carriages, the pieces were then drawn forward with the drag-ropes, one after the other, the length of a plank, thus freeing the two planks in the rear, which, in their turn, were carried QUINCY A. GiLLMOKE. 625 to the front. This labor is of the most fatiguing kind. In most places the men Bank to their knees in the mud; in some places, much deeper. This mud being of tbe most slippery and slimj' kind, and perfectly free from grit or sand, the planks Boon became entirely smeared over with it. Many delays and much exhausting labor were occasioned by the gun-carriages slipping off the planks. "When this occurred, the wheels would suddenly sink to the hubs, and powerful levers had to be devised to raise them up again. I authorized the men to encase their feet in sandbags to keej) the mud out of their shoes. Many did this, tying the strings just below the knees. The magazines and platforms were ready for Bervice at daybreak.'' When day dawned, therefore, the Savannah river was closed. But now a fresh peril arose. The artillerists, as they stood about their newly -planted guns, presently perceived a foe creeping up, around, and upon them, against whicli their Parrotts and mortars were of no avail. The tide rose within eight inches of the surface 1 A high wind would have sent it over. And the worst was not yet, for the spring tides were approaching. Captain Gillmore met this new danger by constructing a levee entirely around the battery, suiRcient to secure it against ordinary seas. If storms should come, it must take its chances. A few days later and other batteries were j^lanted to co-operate with this one in completely investing Pulaski below, and blockading Savannah above. Then Captain Gillmore was ordered down to undertake his greater work. On the 21st of February the' first of his required artillery and ordnance stores for the siege arrived. General Sherman* now determined that his hope- ful young engineer should have all the honor of success, or bear all the burden of defeat; and he accordingly authorized him to act as a Brigadier-General (pending the appointment to that rank, which he had solicited for him from the President), and to assume command of all the troops required for the siege. Thenceforward he had matters entirely in his own hands. The point on which batteries were now to be erected was not unlike that at which General Gillmore had recently been laboring. Tybee Island, like Jones's Island above, is a mud marsh. Several ridges and hummocks of firm ground, however, are to be found upon it; and along Tybee Eoads, where the artillery was to be debarked, stretched a skirting of low sand-banks, formed by the action of wind and tides. From this place to the proposed site of the ad- vanced batteries was a distance of about two and a half miles. The last mile was in full view of Fort Pulaski, and within the range of its guns. It was, besides, a low marsh, presenting the same obstacles to the transioortation of heavy artillery that had been encountered in the work at Venus's Point. The first difficulty was met in landing the guns. The beach was open and exposed, and often a high surf was running. The guns were lowered from the vessels on which they had been sent down from the JSTorth upon lighters, over which a strong deck had been built from gunwale to gunwale. Then at high tide row-boats towed these lighters to the shore. Eopes were then attached to ■T. W. Sherman — distinguished aometimes from the present Lieutenant-General W. T Sherman, by the soubriquet, "Port Eoyal Sherman." Vol. L— 40, 626 Ohio in the Wak. them, and the men on shore careened them, thus rolling the heavy masses of iron overboard in the surf. When the tide receded they were left dry, and the troojos then seized upon them and dragged them by main ptrength up the sand- bank, out of reach of the next high tide. Then came the task of planting them in battery in the yielding marsh, inpl sight of Pulaski without being discovered. "No one," says General Gillmore, " except an eye-witness, can form any but a faint conception of the herculean labor by which mortars of eight and a half tons weight, and Columbiads, but a trifle lighter, were moved- in the dead of night, over a narrow causeway, bor- dered by swamps on either side, and liable at any moment to be overturned, and buried in the mud beyond reach. The stratum of mud is about twelve feet deep; and on several occasions the heaviest pieces, particuhii-ly the mortars, became detached from the sling-carts and were with great difiicultj-, by the use of planks and skids, kept from sinking to the bottom. Two hundred and fifty men were barely sufficient to move a single piece, on sling-carts. The men were not allowed to speak above a whisper, and were guided by the notes of a whistle." The work went on without discoverj', and apparently without even arous- ing the suspicions of the fort. Its seeming impracticability was its safeguard. The batteries nearest the fort were carefully screened from obsei-vation by grad- ual and almost imperceptible changes in the appearance of the brushwood and brushes in front of them — no sudden alteration of the outline of the landscape being permitted. Thus, in silence and in darkness, eleven batteries, mounting heavier guns than were ever before used in tlie United States service, gradually arose before the unsuspicious fort. As the dangerous part of the work was completed less care was taken about discovery, and the enemy finally learned the location of two of the less important batteries; of the very existence of the others he would seem to have had no conception. By the 1st of April a change in the command of the department had been made. The popular impatience at the lack of results under Genei-al Shermai^'s management had led to his removal. General Hunter, on taking command, found the investment of Pulkski complete, and the preparations for opening the bombardment well advanced. He inspected the work, but made no change' whatever. General Gillmore was left in command, and eight daj-s later was ready to open fire. For eight weeks the troops had been engaged, day and night, in the most exhausting labor, at an inclement season, and in the most malarious of locali- ties. They had completed eleven batteries along the coast of Tyhee Island nearest Pulaski, at a distance from the fort ranging from three thousand four hundred to one thousand six hundred and fifty yards, and had mounted thirty- six heavy guns, of which ten were rifles, as follows: Two eighty-four pounder- James, two sixty-four-pounder James, one forty-eight-pounder James, and five thirty pounder Parrots. The smooth-bores were, twelve thirteen-inch mortars, four ten-inch siege mortars, six ten-inch Columbiads, and four eight-inch Co- lumbiads, It was soon to be seen that this whole array of smooth-bores, on QUINCY A. GrlLLMOKE. 627 which throe-fourths of the time and labor had been spent, was useless. The whole length of the line formed by these batteries was two thousand five hundred atid fifty yards. In front of it, with seven and a half foot thick brick walls standing obliquely to the line of fire, on a separate little marshy island a mile or more distant, stood Pulaski, isolated from Savannah by the batteries up the river, but still able to keep up frequent communication by courier through the swamps. On the evening of April 9, 1862, General Gillraore issued his general order for the bombardment. It was remarkable for the precision with which every detail'was given. The directions for the three breaching batteries will illustrate : "Battery Sigel (five thirty-pounder Parrotts and one forty-eight-pounder James) to open, with four and throe-quarter second fuses, on the barbette guns of the fort at the second discharge from Battery Sherman. Charge for thirty- pounder, three and one-half pounds ; charge for forty-eight-pounder, five pounds, elevation four degrees for both calibers. As soon as the barbette fire of the work has been silenced, this battery will be directed, with percussion shells, upon the walls, to breach the pancoupe between the east and south-east faces, and the embrasure next to it in the south-east face ; the elevation to be varied accordingly, the charge to remain the same. Until the elevation is actually determined, each gun should fire once in six or eight minutes ; after that, every four or five minutes. " Battery McClellan (two eighty-four-pounders and two sixty-four-pounder ■Tames) to open fire immediately after Battery Scott. Charge for eighty-four- pounder, eight pounds; charge for sixty-four-pounder, six pounds; elevation for eighty-four-pounder, four and one-quarter degrees ; for sixty-four-pounder, four degrees. Each piece should fire once every five or six minutes after the ele- vation has been established ; charge to remain the same. This battery should breach the work in the pancoupe between the south and south-east faces, and the embrasure next to it in the south-east face. The steel scraper for the grooves should be used after every fifth or sixth discharge. "Battery Scott (three ten-inch and one eight-inch Columbiads) to fire solid shot, commencing immediately after the barbette fire of the work has ceased. Charge of ten-inch Columbiad, twenty -pounds ; elevation four and one-half de- grees. Charge of eight-inch Columbiad, ten pounds; elevation five degrees. This battery should breach the ^ancowpe between the south and south-east faces, and the embrasure next to it in the south east face ; the elevation to be varied accordingly, the charge to remain the same. Until the elevation is accurately determined, each gun should fire once in ten minutes ; after that, every six or eight minutes.'' These instructions, with few exceptions, were adhered to throughout. For their striking illustration of the unerring as well as pre-estimated results of applied science, engineers and artillerists will hold them not among the least remarkable features of the siege. They were addressed to ravf volunteer infantry, absolutely ignorant of artillery practice till the siege commenced, and taught what little they knew about serving the guns in the intervals of leisure 628 Ohio in the Wae. from dragging them over the beach into battery. Plainly, if the young engi- neer should succeed, it would only be because adverse circumstances could not hinder him. On the morning of the tenth General Hunter decided to delay the bombard- ment till the garrison should be summoned, in his felicitous phrase, to surren- der, and restore to the United States the fort which they held. The command- ing oflScer tersely enough replied that he was there to defend and not to sur- render it. General Hunter quietly read the response; then, stepping to the door of his head-quarters, said : " General Gillmore, you may open fire as soon as you please." In a moment a mortar from Battery Halleck flung out with a puff its great globe of metal, and the bombardment had begun. The enemy opened vigorously, but rather wildly, in reply. It soon became evident that the fire of the mortars, comprising nearly one- half of the artillery bearing upon the fort, was comparatively useless. Not one shell in ten fell within or upon the fort. The Columbiads did not seem to be particularly efficient, but the rifles soon began to indent the surface of the wall near the south-east angle. Neither the garrison nor our own soldiers saw much in the bombardment promising decisive results ; but hj one o'clock General Gill- more was convinced that the fort would be breached, mainly by the rifled pro- jectiles, which the telescope showed to be already penetrating deeply into the brick-work. It was also evident that on breaching alone, with perhaps an assault when the breach was practicable, could dependence be placed. The gar- rison could stand the mortar fire far longer than the assailants could keep it up. At dark the bombardment ceased, three mortars and a rifle, however, keep- ing up a five-minute discharge through the night, to prevent the garrison from making reijairs. Ten and a half "hours of heavy firing from the whole arma- ment of the batteries had apparently resulted only in a somewhat shattered appearance of the wall about the angle on which the firing had been directed, and in the dismounting of two barbette guns, and the silencing of three in the casemates. But, in fact, the breach was almost effected, although the garrison does not seem to have been aware of it. General Gillmore had selected the point for the breach with special reference to his knowledge of the location of the magazine. The moment his rifled balls passed through the wall of the fort they would begin to strike the roar of the raagnzine on the opposite side. On the morning of the 11th the bombardment was resumed. The damages to the wall soon became conspicuous, and the heavy shots from the Columbiads now served to shatter and shake down the masonry which the rifled projectiles had displaced. By twelve o'clock two entire casemates had been opened, and in the space between them the rifle balls were plunging through to the rear of the magazine. The danger of being blown up became imminent, and the command- ant hastened to call together a council of his officers. They voted unanimously for surrender, and just as their flag came fluttei-ing slowly down. General Gill- more was giving his directions for opening upon another embrasure. He passed over at once and received the surrender. The loss on our side was but one man killed, so perfect had been the engi- QuiNCY A. GrlLLMORE. 629 neering skill that directed the construction of the defenses along the line of bat- teries. The garrison of the fort lost several killed and wounded. Three hun- dred and sixty were surrendered.* The immediate result of these operations was the total blockade of the port of Savannah, and the reduction of the principal defense of the city against attack from the sea. But their remote consequences were far-reaching, and constituted an era in military science. General GiUmore himself has set forth some of them. " It is true, beyond question," he says, " that the minimum dis- tance, say from nine hundred to one thousand yards, at which land batteries have heretofore been considered practically harmless against exposed masonry, must be at least trebled, now that rifled guns have to be provided against."f And he confidently adds : " With heavy James or Parrott guns the practica- bility of breaching the best-congtructed brick scarp at two thousand three hun- dred to two thousand five hundred yards, with satisfactory rapidity, admits of very little doubt. Had we possessed our present knowledge of their power pre- vious to the bombardment of Fort Pulaski, the eight weeks of laborious prepa- ration for its reduction could have been curtailed to one week, as heavy mor- tars and Columbiads would have been omitted from the armament of the batte- ries, as unsuitable for breaching at long ranges." In short, he had shown the enormous power of the new heavy rifled artillery at unprecedentedly long ranges; and in those thirty-six hours' firing had unsettled the foundations of half the fortifications of Europe and America. The man that did this was a young Captain of Engineers who had never seen a gun fired in battle till on this expedition, and had never commanded the firing of one till in this siege — who had nevertheless staked his success in his profession on the soundness of his theories about artillery, and in doing so, had faced the opposition of the talent and experience of the entire brilliant corps, of which he was one of the younger and less known members. Within a fortnight after the surrender his provisional appointment as Briga- dier-General was confirmed by the President. His long exposure to the malaria of the marshes, bronght on a fever which now prostrated him, and kept him out of the field till the ensuing August. On his recovery from the malarious fever of the Georgia swamps, General Gillmore went to Albany, under the orders of the Department, to assist the Governor of New York in equipping and forwarding to the seat of war the troops then being raised in that State. After a month of such service, about the time of the invasion of Kentucky by Bragg and Kirby Smith, which threw Buell back from north Alabama to the Ohio River, General Gillmore was sud- denly ordered to Cincinnati; and on the 17th of September was assigned to the command of the advance moving down from Covington after Kirby Smith. But about this time the invasion of Kentucky was abandoned. Meanwhile our *The loeB of the garrison might be inferred to be twenty-five, since it is known to have num- bered three hundred and eighty-five, and only three hundred and sixty were' taken prisoners. tGillmore'B Siege of Fort Pulaski, p. 52. 630 Ohio in the Wab. forces had sustained a defeat in the Kanawha Valley, and the need of an ex- perienced officer to reoi'gauize the troops as they came out at Poiut Pleasant was severely felt. General Gillmore was hurried up ; then, ten days later, on the arrival of General Cox to assume command of the Department, was sent back to the troops he had lately been leading in Kentucky. On the 27th of October he was placed in command of the post of Lexington, and then, three months later, he relieved General Gordon Granger in the command of the Dis- trict of Central Kentucky. The period of General Gillmore's service in Kentucky was marked by no achievements of special importance. The main Eebel army had been pushed beyond Stone River in Tennessee ; and the quiet of Central Kentucky was only disturbed by small parties of foragers or marauders, and by the natural turbu- lence of the disloyal elements. The most formidable of the Eebel raids was that commanded by General Pegram, which was finally beaten back at the battle of Somerset. Pegram crossed the Cumberland Eiver at Stazall's Perry, in the latter part of March, with a mounted force variously estimated at from fifteen hundred to three thousand, with six pieces of artillery. He drove in the advanced posts at Somerset and Danville, and pushed boldly up toward Lexing- ton, until he reached the Kentucky Eiver. Meantime he had proclaimed that his force was only the advance of a large column under Breckinridge that was to "redeem" the State, and had issued a high-sounding manifesto, declaring that every young Kentuckian who now hesitated to join the "liberating" army must forthwith leave the State. These loud pretences seem to have imposed upon the officers commanding the posts in the line of Pegram's advance, and all fled before him. . j But when he halted at the Kentucky Eiver, it began to be suspected. that he did so because he lacked the force to go further. The mounted men in the Department were then mostly away in North-eastern Kentucky, in pursuit of another Eebel raiding party commanded by Colonel Clarke. General Gillmore however promptly cheeked the retreat of the infantry, ordered it back to the south side of the Kentucky Eiver to confront Pegram, and made haste to gather together such mounted troops as remained accessible. With these, on the 28th of March, he set out to join the infantry, and press down upon Pegram. Alto- gether he was able to advance with about twelve hundred and fifty men of all arms, while other troops rapidly followed. The force he was to encounter can not be definitely stated. The Eebcls declared it was inferior in strength.* Gillmore believed it to outnumber him two to one.f A few miles north of Somerset, on Dutton's Hill, it turned to give him battle. He had considerable infantry forces a day's march in the rear, but, rather than fall back upon them, he resolved to accept battle with the twelve hundred and fifty then up. Dismounting his cavalry, he sent the horses to the roar of the ai-tillery in the center, where they presented the appearance of a strong cavalry reserve, and deceived the enemy into the belief that there was momentary danger of a cavalry charge. The troops then advanced upon the •Pollard's Southern History of the War, p. 602. t Gillmore's Official Report. QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. 631 enemy's position, and a spirited fight of several hours' duration ensued. Finally, Gillmore perceived that his rear was about to be attacked by a strong force of cavalry, just detached from his front. Leaving the rear to take care of itself, he straightway ordered a charge of the whole command up the hill upon the body remaining to hold the enemy's position. Weakened as it was by the detachment just made for the rear attack, it was unable to resist the impet- uous onset. , The enemy was thus driven ; the Esbcl attack on the rear was easily brushed back, and the line rapidly advanced. The main body of the routed enemy escaped across the Cumberland Eiver during the night. Grill- more's loss was about fifty. He reported Pegi-am's loss at nearly five hundred, including eighteen officers. The Eebels only acknowledged a loss of one hundred and fifty; and some of our newspaper accounts doubted whether even that were not an exaggeration.* The action, however, was handsomely managed, and its success was complete. The battle of Somerset practically ended General Gillmore's career in Ken- tucky. Bumside presently arrived with the Ninth Army Corps, and Gillmore received a short leave of absence. At its close he was to be called to mor^ con- genial woj'lr, on the theater where he was to win his most brilliant and enduring fame. His operations in Kentucky did not add to his reputation. Somerset was well enough, but it was a small affair compared with the reduction of Pu- laski. The other movements were trifling, and the whole campaign — if it could be called by so imposing a name — was inconsequential. Gillmore was not at all to blame for this ; he did all he was ordered and all that his means would allow; but he gained no applause by his performance in Kentucky, and won little admiration from the raw volunteers whom he commanded. He was, how- ever, hrevetted Colonel of Engineers for his conduct at Somerset. From the outset of the war two goals had fired the ambition of the Bast. As beyond the mountains they could see no hopeful issue to the struggle till the Great Eiver, the symbol of the Union, went unvexed to the sea; so in the East, they counted the successes of the hour but little worth, while Eichmond remained the capital of the Confederacy, and the Eebel flag floated in the har- bor of Charleston. Against Eichmond great armies were, from time to time, set in array. But the j)opular impatience had not been gratified by a similar show of effort against the cradle of rebellion. One expedition, which had been expected to replace on Sumter the flag that Andersoii hauled down, stopped short on the North Carolina coast. Another, more formidable and more prom- ising, contented itself with seizing the harbor of Port Eoj^al. Another rested satisfied with sinking old hulks in the outer channel of the coveted port. These great military preparations resulted in the fall of Pulaski and the de- 'fenses of Savannah. But the defenses of Charleston, the hotbed of the treason, •Pollard, ubi sapra. Greeley's Araer. Conflict, Vol. II, p. 428. A brief Btatement of the share of one of the leading cavalry commands in the fight may be found in the sketch of the Seventh Ohio Cavalry, Vol. II, of this work, p. 798. 632 " Ohio in the Wae. the spot of| all in the limits of the rebellion most odious to the' country, stood unharmed and unthreatenbd. Finally, Admiral Dupont, with inefficient support, made a gallant but un- successful attempt with the iron-clads upon Fort Sumter. Bepulse only height- ened the popular demand for the reduction of " the spot where treason was hatched." Military men were accustomed to question the importance of Charles- ton as a strategic point in the prosecution of the war. But the people and the Government were wiser. They rightly reckoned Charleston second to no strat- egic point within the Confederacy ; for its possession would inspire the North, would discourage and demoralize the Southern people and the Southern army ; would give assurance to menacing Europe that the Government was able to open its own ports and protect its own coasts. General Gillmore had just been relieved in Kentucky when word came of Admiral Dupont's failure. He employed his leisure in submitting to the War Department his views of what might be done by a combined land and naval attack. He dwelt largely on the lessons which Fort Pulaski taught, and, basing his confidence upon the performance there, maintained that Fort Sumter could be reached and reduced without any increase to the forces on the spot. These views fell in remarkably with the wishes of the Department. Gen- eral Halleck, then General-in-Chief, protested that he could spare no more troops for a side-issue like that of Charleston. Yet popular impatience and the desire of the Government united in the demand that the undertaking against Charles- ton should not be abandoned. If then Gillmore could make this undertaking effective without any. increase of force, he was the wanting man. So, within a few weeks, he was summoned to Washington for consultation. His standing as an engineer had been vastly heightened by his reduction of Pulaski j and he found the Department ready to accept his statements on engineering questions as final authority. The Navy Department had represented its desire to undertake another movement upon Fort Sumter, but had notified the military authorities that its success required " the occupation of Morris Island, and the establishment of land batteries on that island to assist in the reduction of the fort."* To this General Gillmore's attention was particularly invited, and his opinions on all the points involved were solicited. He found the naval authorities regarding Fort Sumter as the key to the position. They affirmed their ability to remove the channel obstructions; secure control of the entire harbor, and reach the city as soon as the oflFonsive power of Sumter was destroyed. They especially dreaded, however, its barbette guns, whoso plunging fire was very dangerous to the mon- itors. f General Gillmore at once renewed the declaration of his belief in the possibility of reducing Fort Sumter with the forces then on the spot. He added that beyond the occupation of Morris Island and the reduction of Sumter, the land forces could not be expected to accomplish much, unless largely re-en- forced. ■ But, inasmuch as the navy professed its ability to do the rest, this cau- * General Halleck's Annual Report for 1862. t Gillmore's " Engineer and Artillery Operations against Charleston," p. 16. QUINOY A. GrILLMOEE. 633 tion went for little, It was speedily decided that General Gillmore should be given the command of the department, to which, not yet a year ago, he had started, a young, unknown engineer, for his first sight of actual war ; and that Bear Admiral Foote should succeed Dupont in command of the naval squadron. We now know, also,* that the following plan of operations was then agreed upon : ' "First. To make a descent upon and obtain possession of the south end of Morris Island, known to be occupied by the enemy, and then being strongly for- tified by him, ofifensively and defensively. "Second. To lay siege to and reduce Fort "Wagner, a heavily-arraed earth- work of strong plan and relief, situated near the north end of Morris Island, and distant about two thousand six hundred yards from Sumter. With Fort Wagner the work on Cummings's Point would also fall. "Third. From the position, thus secured, to demolish Fort Sumter, and, afterward, co-operate with the fleet, when it was ready to move in, by a heavy artillery fire. " Fourth. The monitors and iron-clads to enter, remove the channel ob- structions, run by the batteries on James's and Sullivan's Islands, and reach the city." Of these four distinct operations the army was to take the lead in execut- ing all but the last. That — to which all the others were preparatory — the navy professed its full ability to accomplish. We are now to see how faithfully and thoroughly Gillmore executed his portion of the programme. First, The Descent on Morris Island. — The nearest point to Fort Sumter held by the National forces, on General Gillmore's arrival, on the 12th of June, 1863, was Folly Island. This narrow sand spit borders the channel on the south side, running up toward the city. It is terminated by an inlet of the sea, communicat- ing with the creeks and lagoons through the marsh back of it, known as Light- house Inlet. Just across this begins Morris Island, another narrow sand spit on the bosom of the marsh, which runs up, almostlikeaprolongationof Follylsland, till it8 upper extremity is within one thousand three hundred and ninety yards of Fort Sumter. It was known to be held in force by the enemy ; and the fort at its upper extremity was known to be formidable, although its real strength was scarcely sus- pected. An abortive attempt to reach this point by means of the approaches on the large island (James's Island) back of it, had ended in the disastrous slaughter of Secessionville. General Gillmore wisely decided not to repeat that experi- ment. He was able to muster only about eleven thousand five hundred men. General Beauregard, defending Charleston, had a considerably larger force at his command. On open ground, then, his inferiority in numbers would reduce him to the defensive. But on the narrow sand-bank of Morris Island he could deploy a front as formidable as it would be possible for the enemy on that ground to array against him ; and he was, moreover, made entirely secure by reason of being under the guns of the navy. Yet the descent presented grave difficulties. With the ordinary hazard of an assault upon fortified positions were coupled the unusual danger of an ap- •Gillmore's " Engineer and Artillery Operations against Charleston," pp. 16, 17. 634 Ohio in the Wab. proach in full view in open boats, of disembarking under fire, forming on the beach under fire, and then advancing to the attack under the combined fire of artillery and small arms. The reduction of these hazards was sought in various ways.' With a secrecy that must always remain a marvel, forty-seven pieces jf heavy artillery, with suitable parapets, splinter-proof defenses and magazines, were planted on the extremity of Folly Island, within speaking distance of 'the enemy's pickets, without discovery or suspicion. These were to cover the cross- ing of the storming parties and to silence the works they were to assault. A considerable force was ostentatiously sent around by Stono Eiver to make a demonstration upon James's Island. This was to create the impression that in imitation of the Secession ville blunder, the main attack was to be delivered there, and thus draw off troops from the fortifications of Morris Island. Finally, a body of troops was sent up the South Bdisto to cut the railroad between Charleston and Savannah. This was to prevent the passage of re-enforccments to Charleston, if the operations about to be developed should seem to threaten its speedy fall. This last precaution failed. The others were completely suc- cessful, and largely aided in securing the greater success on Morris Island. On the morning of the 10th of July, within less than a month after Gen- eral Gillmore had assumed the command, the concealed batteries which he had erected on the upper end of Folly Island suddenly opened upon the ansaspicions enemy — across the Inlent. Believing the danger to be on James's Island the Rebel commander had transferred thither a considerable portion of his force. The rest, astonished by the sudden outburst of a danger they had believed impossible (for none had dreamt that heavy batteries could thus be secretly established under the very eyes of their pickets), made an inadequate resist- ance. The storjning party which, after a couple of hours of the bombardment, pulled up in small boats to the beach of Morris Island, landed with little diffi- culty, and speedily swept up and into the nearest fortification. The Eebels fell back, but maintained a sharp i-esistance at each successive earthwork. Out of each in turn they were driven by the flushed and eager troops. By nine o'clock they had carried three-fourths of the island, and their skirmishers were within musket range of Fort Wagner, the strong work at the upper end, while on this the heavy guns of the navy were pouring a severe artillery fire. The heat being intense, and the troops being exhausted. General Gillmore now thought it well to suspend further operations for the day.* It was probably an unfortunate delay. It is possible that the exhaustion of the troops might have made the attempt to bring them to an immediate assault of Fort Wagner hazardous. But it is certain that, when they were repulsed, they found, next morning, that the surprised enemy had profited by the delay as well as themselves. The troops then made a gallant assault, but from the very summit of the parajiet which they had gained they were hurled back in bloody disorder. Still, so great was the strength of this unimposing sand-heap subso- * Eleven pieces of heavy ordnance were captured in these operations. The loss was tne hundred and fifty killed, wounded, and missing; and the enemy's loss was estimated at two hundred. QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. 635 quently found, that it will never be held more than a bare possibility that by a continuance of the attack on the morning of the descent upon the island, Wagner might have been carried. The failure to carry it then enforced slower operations, and thus brought General Gillmore to the second feature of the plan he bad concerted with the navy before his departure from "Washington. Secmd, The Siege of Fort Wagner. — The position in which General Gillmore now found himself was this: He was planted upon the enemy's late position on Morris Island. He held three-fourths of the four hundred acres comprised in the Island; on the other fourth the enemy maintained a foothold by means of a formidable work — externally nothing but a sand-bank heaped up in the form of a fortification — internally a powerful work, with subterranean bomb-proof shelters for its entire garrison. He found the island narrowing from the width of a thousand yards at the points where he landed to scarcely twenty-five yards in front of Port "Wagner — a space that seemed too contracted for any possibil- ity of siege approaches by means of the regular parrallels and zigzag saps. Every foot of ground which he held was under the constant and searching fire of the enemy's guns from Fort "Wagner, Cummings's Point, James's Island, Sul- livan's Island, and Fort Sumter. Parts of the ground that he occupied were but two feet above ordinary high water, and any unusually high tide, accompa- nied by wind,' dashed over; the greatest ridge on the island of which he could avail himself was only thirty-four feet higher. The surface of the island was a fine, almost white, quartz sand, on which the fiery sun of those latitudes beat with furnace heat. It proved to be the most valuable material for fortifications overused; while, flying in clouds over the'muzzles of the guns and filling the barrels, it became a most serious difficulty in the way of satisfactory artillery practice. » '' Eight days after the descent upon the island General Gillmore was pre- pared to make another attempt upon Fort Wagner. Heavy rain-storms, which flooded the batteries and destroyed the powder, had prevented an earlier move- ment. About noon all the batteries which had been planted on the lower end of the island, opened upon "Wagner. The navy then moved up alongside, joined in the bombardment. At first the fort returned a sharp and severe fire ; but it presently ceased altogether. Supposing the fort to be effectually silenced, an assault was now ordered. The mistake was soon discovered. The moment the head of the storming column debouched from the first parallel, about sunset, it was met by a heavy fire from the fort. An instant afterward, from every quar- ter, there poured upon the devoted column a storm of shot. Sumter opened ; Gregg opened ; the batteries on James's Island to the left, and on Sullivan's Island across the channel to the right, opened. Through it all the troops gal- lantly advanced — Colonel Shaw, with the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts, leading the way. At last they approached so near the work that the fire from ouf bat- teries and from the navy on the fort had to bo suspended, for fear of hitting our own men. Then suddenly uprose along all the parapet a cloud of musketry. Through the bombardment the garrison of Wagner had been quietly and safely ensconced in the bomb-proof beneath — only enough men being left out to serve 636 Ohio in the War. the guns. The moment the bombardment ceased, they swarmed np into the fort fresh and unaffected by the terrible fire, and opened with murderous vol- leys upon the advancing column now within close range. Through even this it swept on. It reached the wet ditch, plunged through it, clambered up the par- apet, fought hand to hand with the garrison in the quickly-descending darkness, made good its position on the south-east bastion. But the darkness and the perfect knowledge of the interior arrangements of the fort possessed by the garrison gave them a great advantage. After a three hours' struggle the assail- ants felt compelled to relinquish their hold upon the bastion they occupied and fall back to their parallels. Two-fold failure thus rested upon the efforts to possess the upper end of Morris Is'land. To most oflScers this would have suggested abandonment of the effort, or a call for re-enforcements.* To General Gillmore it suggested that, if he were delayed in capturing the upper end of Morris Island, from which to reduce Fort Sumter, he might, perhaps, reduce Fort Sumter Without it. He thus advanced to the simultaneous execution of the third feature of the plan concerted at "Washington, while still engaged upon the unfinished work of the second. Third, The Reduction of Fort Sumter. — The defensive line on the island, now hold by General Gillmore, was between four and five thousand -yards distant from Fort Sumter. We have seen that before Pulaski, one thousand yards was believed to be the extreme limit at which breaching operations against masonry ibrts should be attempted, and then only under a combination of the most favora- ble circumstances and the most absolute necessity. At Pulaski General Gill- more had enlarged this distance to seventeen hundred yards, and in his report he expressed his belief that breaching might even be attempted, with the best of the new artillery, at two thousand to twenty-five hundred j-ards. So rapidly had he progressed that he was now about to attempt it at double this maximum distance laid down by himself, over the heads of the enemy in an intervening earthwork, against whom the resources of his artillery and of two successive assaults had thus far proved ineffectual. Meantime he proposed to push his regular approaches against Wagner. Should he succeed in reducing Sumter by firing over Wagner, then the great obstacle to the entrance of the navy into the harbor would be removed. But, should the navy hesitate, the ultimate posses- sion of Wagner would enable him to draw a shorter line across the entrance to the harbor, and make the blockade of the fort hermetical. On the night, therefore, of the failure of the second assault on Wagner, the energetic commander gave orders for the conversion of the batteries employed during the day into a strong defensive line, capable of resisting any sortie the enemy might make. Behind this, and next the marsh on the left, the first bat- tery for use against Sumter was erected — at a distance from that work of four thousand two hundred yards, or over two and one-third miles. In five days this work was completed; and on the succeeding night, by •Throughout the operations in Charleston harbor General Gillmore never asked for any re- enforcements, except to replace those lost by disease and exposure. QUINCY A. GiLLMOKE. 637 means of the "flying sap," a second parallel was established six hundred yards further up the island. Oh the left it ran across to the creek, which here sepa- rates the island from the adjacent marsh, and across which two booms of floating timber were constructed, to keep off Eebel sorties in boats. On the right it ran down to the sea, and was extended clear out to low-water mark, wh^ere by means of crib-work of stone a battery was established, that for half the time was cut off by the rising sea from the rest of the line, and was completely sur- rnunded by the breakers of the surf. In three days this work was accomplished. Behind the new line other batteries of heavy rifled cannon were then erected for breaching Fort Sumter — in full view of moi-e than one Eebel parapet, and Tinder constant fire from Wagner and from James's Island. The accomplished officer of engineers to whom the General assigned this work, expressed the decided belief that it was impracticable, but he was soon enabled to prove his predictions erroneous by his own performance. The batteries here erected against Sumter were at a mean distance from it of three thousand five hundred and twenty-five yards — a few feet over two miles. Daring the same period still other breaching batteries had been ordered further down the island, a consider- able distance below even the first parallel. In these, at a distance of not quite two and a half miles, were placed some of the heaviest guns used against Sum- ter, one three hundred -pounder Parrott, two two hundred-pounders, and four one hundred-pounders. By the 9th of August the work on these various undertakings had pro- grossed so far that General Gillmore was able to take another step toward Wag- ner. On that night, therefore, the third parallel was established, with the flying Bap, about three hundred and thirty j'ards in advance of the second. The enemy now began to take a more serious view of the position. Thus far his defense had proceeded upon the theory that he would be able, by means of the , powerful works of Wagner,, stretching clear across the upper end of the island from the sea to the marsh, to maintain his hold and protect the flank of Sumter; and on this theory no defense of the lower part of the island had been made at all commensurate with its importance. It was now seen that the steady advance of Gillmore's parallels and zigzag approaches had become menacing. A terrific fire was thereupon kept up from Wagner, Gregg, and Sumter. On the first day, after the establishment of the third parallel, this fire became so severe that the advance was entirely checked; and grave apprehensions began to be entertained as to the possibility of pushing the approaches much farther under such formi- dable opposition. But by this time General Gillmoi-e was ready to suspend the approaches against Wagner; for he was now nearly prepared to fire over Wagner and ro- rluce Snmter. Some diflSculties about powder delayed him a day or two. 1 Finally, on the 16th of August, he issued his orders to the several batteries for I opening the bombardment in the morning. The navy was relied upon for as- sifitance in keeping down the fire of Wagner upon the guns that were now so audaciously to pass over its ineffectual obstruction, and poiu- their bolts upon the fort it was meant to secure. f • 638 Ohio in the Wae. At daybreak the work began. Eighteen heavy I'ifles, throwing balls rang- ing from three hundred pounds weight down to eighty, opened upon the doomed fort. It kept up a gallant response ; while from Wagner, Gregg, Sullivan's Is- land, and James's Island came a converging fire df fearful severity, intended to destroy the breaching batteries. The navy moved up and did its share in striving to silence the fire of Wagner. Fromthel7thtothe 23d the bombardment went steadily on. Sometimes the batteries in the second parallel were com- pelled to turn upon the pertinacious garrison of Wagner, whose fire indeed came very near dismounting several of the most valuable guns. Once or twice these batteries were for a time completely silenced. But none were seriously injured, and by the 21st the result was already plain. Great gaps were rent in the wall of the haughty fortress that had played so conspicuous a part in the war; the barbette guns were mainly dismounted ; casements were shattered, and the ex- posed faces of the fort began to present the appearance of shapeless ruins. At this juncture General Gillmore felt warranted in calling upon General Beauregard for a surrender of Sumter and the whole of Morris Island. -'The present condition of Fort Sumter," he said, "and the rapid and progressive destruction which it is undergoing from my batteries, seem to render its com- plete demolition within a few hours a matter of certainty." He added the start- ling warning that if compliance with this demand were refused, or indeed if no reply was made within four hours, he should open fire on the city of Charleston from batteries already established within easy and effective range of the heart of the city! General Beauregard, it would seem, considered this an idle boast. At any rate, taking advantage of the fact that in the haste of preparation, in the midst of the bombardment. General Gillmore had forgotten to affix his sig- nature to the fair copy of his letter which the clerk had made out for trans- , mission, he chose — notwithstanding the date of the letter at Gillmore's head- quarters, and its official delivery under flag of truce by an officer of his staff- to consider it an informal and irresponsible communication, and to return it. True to the promise, a little after midnight the citizens of Charleston were startled by the explosion of a heavy incendiary shell in the lower portion of the city adjacent to the battery, among the residences of the wealthiest and most aristocratic class. Another and another followed in quick succession, and the terror of the city presently rose to a frantic height. Hitherto she had watched the contest in her harbor from afar. Now, at last, at the most unexpected mo- ment, ?^.nd from an uttei-ly mysterious. quarter, came the shells of the Avenger, bursting in her streets and shattering heT costly habitations. But whence came they? General Gillmore was away beyond Fort Sumter, his heavy batteries nearly two and a half miles from that work, and scarcely less than eight from the city. The navy ventured no nearer. The Confederate line of defenses stretched beyond Sumter. Whence came those ill-omened mes- sengers, bursting through a line that for eighteen months had held armies and great fleets at bay? General Beauregard did not know, when he scornfully returned General Gillmore's warning, that through all the energy of the engineering and ai-tillery QUINCY A. GiLLMOEE. 639 combat on Morris Island, the latter had been carrying on a distinct experiment fur off to his left, in the oozy marsh, abandoned as impracticable by the troops of either side. As early as the 15th of July, reconnoissances had been made to ascertain whether there was any possibility of making this semi-fluid mud, over which men could not march, sustain a gun of ten tons weight, within shelling distance of Charleston. The mud was found even deeper and more treachei-ous than had been expected. It was so soft that the weight of the iron sounding- rod would carry it down half the depth by its own weight, and it varied in depth from eighteen to twenty-three feet. A plank thrown down on its surface would shake it for hundreds of square yards around as if it had been jelly. On this surface experiments were conducted to discover its sustaining power. For it was an essential element of the plan that the gun must be mounted without any use of obvious expedients like the common pile-driver; since these would inevitably disclose the attempt and bring down the enemy. Finally, a bed of round logs was laid down directly on the surface of the mud. Across these, at right angles, was placed another layer of logs, bolted down to those below. The interstices were filled with sand. On this foundation was built up a mass- ive parapet of sand-bags. The platform for the gun was given a totally sepa- rate foundation. Through both laj-ers of logs a rectangular opening had been left of the proper size for the platform. This was now shut in by a circumfer- ence of sheathing piles forced down, by the exertions of the soldiers themselves, to the bottom of the mud. Within the space thus inclosed the mud was covered with layers of the long, coarse grass which grew over the marsh. When this was thoroughly trampled down, two thicknesses of heavy tarpaulins were spread over it. Upon these in turn was placed a layer of sand, well rammed down, and fifteen inches thick. In this was laid a flooring of three-inch pine plank. Across these two more layers of similar flooring were placed, and on the last was built tho platform for the gun. Thus the parapet and the gun were independent. If the jar of the gun's recoil should cause its foundation to sink, the parapet would stand. Through all manner of practical difficulties these arrangements were completed, and when Beauregard chose to laugh at the threat to bombard Charleston, the shaking marsh over which his soldiers had not thought it worth while to venture, suddenly cast forth fire.* •General Beauregard complained of this bombardment of Charleston as without sufficient notice and unprecedented, saying to Gillmore that it would " give him a bad eminence in his- tory, even in the history of this war," and dwelling on the fact that lie was absent from his head- quarters wjien Gillmore's note was received. This, Gillmore responded, might "be regarded as an unfortunate circumstance for the city of Charleston," but he insisted tliat it was one for which lie was not responsible. He called Beauregard's attention to the well-established principle that " the commander of a place attacked but not invested, having its avenues of escape open and practicable, has no right to expect any notice of an intended bombardment, other than that which is given by the threatening attitude of his adversary. If, under the circumstances, the life of a single non-combatant is exposed to peril by the bombardment of the city, the responsibility rests with those who have first failed to remove the non-combatants or secure the safety of the city, after having held control of all its approaches for a period of nearly two years and a half, in the presence of a tlireatening force, and who afterward refused to accept the terms upon which the bombardment might have been postponed." Only thirty-six shots, however, were tired from thifi 640 Ohio in the War. It was on the 21st that this marsh battery opened. The bombardment of Sumter over the heads of the garrison in Wagner continued till, on the 24th, General Gillmore was able to report as the result of the seven days' work "the practical demolition of Fort Sumter." The barbette fire of the fort, which the navy had specially dreaded, was completely destroyed. Not a mounted gun was left in serviceable condition. The walls were battered into ruins ; the inte- rior of the fort was half filled up with the shattered brick ; the casemates were battered ; and but a single serviceable gun i-omained in the fort. It owed its safety to the fact that it was on the city side and pointed, not down but up the chan- nel. And this had been done from a distance of over two miles, in the face of the dictum of the books that breaching efforts must be limited to about two- thirds of a mile, and in defiance of the intervening and powerful Eebel earth- works, over which the fire was delivered. And now comes the gloomy ending of the story — ^the frittering away of great opportunities. We have seen that at the outset the navy held Fort Sumter to be the key of Charleston harbor. With it reduced, they would have no fear of their ability to remove the channel obstructions and lay their ships alongside the wharves of the city. Fort Sumter was now practically reduced. Its offen- sive power was destroyed ; it could not bring a gun to bear upon the iron- clads as they should steam up ; it was solely an infantry outpost. But at this auspicious moment there sprung up an ill-omened series of excuses for pro- tracted delays. On the night of the 21st Admiral Dahlgren proposed to attack. In the morning he signalled Gillmore that the attack was unavoidably postponed, but that he would go up the next night. Gillmore replied, assuring him that, even in daylight, the fort could not fire a gun at him. The Admiral replied that his fear was no longer of Sumter but of Moultrie ! That night he would attack if the weather would permit. Next morning it was reported that the weather had been so foggy that little could be done. Then, on the evening of the 23d Gen- eral Gillmore gave the navy formal notice that the offensive power of Sumter was destroyed. Till the 26th the navy would seem to have remained torpid. Then the Admiral proposed to "operate on the obstructions," and asked for the renewal of Gillmore's fire on Sumter. He did not fear heavy guns from the fort, he said, but wanted "to keep down the fire of small guns." But, alas! next morning came the notice, "My attempt to pass the forts last night was frustrated by the bad weather, but chiefly by the setting in ^ of a strong flood tide." And then, the next afternoon, "Not being able to complete my arrange- ments, I shall not move up to-night." And the next afternoon, "My chief pilot informs mo a gale is coming on, and I am coming into the creek." The next afternoon — after six days and nights of time thus lost, came the announcement, "I shall-move up again with the monitora to-night." But, five hours later, at nine in the overling, there came a change: "It has just been reported that Sum- battery, or " Swamp Angel," as the soldiers loved to call it, when the gun burst. Firing oh Charleston was nof resumed till after the fall of Wagner and Gregg. QUINCY A. GrILLMORE. 641 ter has fired several shots to-day, and operations were based on the supposition that Sumter was silenced. My movement is postponed." To this Gillmore responded: "Sumter has not fired a shot to-day. My look-out, who has been on the watch all day, is positive on this point." Then, again, an hour J'ater, "The officer commanding the trenches kept several men on the look-out all day, in order to warn his men to cover whenever a gun is fired. He says Sumter has not fired to-day." But the doubting Admiral was of little faith : " Your look-out may be correct, but if he is in error, it would be fatal to my plans. My chief pilot, who was up the harbor to-day, reports that he saw guns mounted on Sumter, and that they were fired." Wiiereupon Gen- eral Gillmore, still maintaining that no guns had even yet been remounted there, promised, nevertheless, to open a heavy fire on the'ruins in the morning. The Admiral was rejoiced : "All your fire on Sumter materially lessens the great risk I incur." But. he still took good care not to incur it. After the day's bombardment for which he had asked, we find him at eight forty-five in the evening, reaching this conclusion : "It is so rough that I shall not move up with the monitors to-night." And then, the next morning: "I understand from my chief pilot that you will be able, day after to-morrow, to open and sustain a heavy fire on Sumter. I shall, therefore, postpone, at least for to-night, an in- tended movement." Eight days of precious time had now been consumed in half-hearted prepa- rations to move, abandoned each night almost as soon as formed, in fright at the ghost of artillery firing from the ruined fort. Meantime the gallant little gar^ risen that still clung to the ruins had improved its opportunity by remounting four or five small guns on the heaps of shattered brick and mortar where once had been the parapet. On September 1st General Gillmore opened once more, and by noon was able to report that three of these guns were disabled, and the remaining one or two soon would be. The Admiral was overjoyed: "I now intend to be in action to-night if nothing prevents." And so at last he went up. On his return General Gillmore eagerlj- sought to know if Sumter had offered any resistance — to the extent, even of firing a single gun — to this naval attack that, with Sumter silenced, was to sweep up to the city wharves. The Admiral was too much exhausted with his labors to reply, but his signal officer answered, "Not to my knowledge."* Ten days had now passed since Sumter had been effectively silenced. The golden moments were flitting fast. In all his official or private statements on the subject General Gillmore has cautiously avoided censure; but it is evident enough that he had now despaired of the navy.f With Sumter out of the way •Corresiiondence between General Gillmore and Admiral Dahlgren ; Eng. and Art. Opera- tions against Charleston, pp. 322 to 332. t In his report General Gillmore says ; " The period during which the weakness of the ene- ■ny's interior defenses was most palpably apparent was during the ten or fifteen days subsequent to the 23d of August ; and that w.is the time when success could have been most easily achieved ky the fleet. The concurrent testimony of prisoners, refugees, and deserters represented the obstacles in the way as by no means insurmountable." And in a foot-note to these sentences he comments on any implication involved in Admiral Dahlgren's report to the effect that Fort Vol. I.— 41. 642 Ohio in the Wak. it was to have entered the harbor and laid the city under its guns. It had utterly failed ; and, of course, the garrison in Sumter, which ensconced itself far below the exposed portions of the fort during fire, was. ready enough to mount fresh guns at every opportunity. General Gillmore therefore resolved to push his operations against Wagner, complete the occupation of Morris Island, and so cover the channel with his guns in such manner that, with or without Sumter, the blockade would be perfect, and the navy could have the protection of the guns on the extreme point for whatever less hazardous undertaking it might still have spirit enough to adventure. And so we return to The Conclusion of the Siege of Fort Wagner. — As an operation against Charles- ton, or against Sumter as preparatory to Charleston, it has now lost its impor- tance ; but it still possesses a scientific interest of its own, and in spite of the short-comings of the navy, it may still bo made valuable. During the bombardment of Sumter the approaches to Wagner had been steadily pushed, till the third and fourth parallels were opened. This brought the works up, to a point where the island had narrowed to a width of only a hundred and sixty yards, while beyond it grew rapidly narrower still. One hundred yards in front ran a little ridge across the island, where in the earlier days of the siege the sharp-shooters from Wagner had been accustomed to post themselves. Here Gillmore determined to establish his fifth parallel. The position was carried at the point of the bayonet on the 26th of August. Two hundred and fortj' yards in front stood Fort Wagner. The strip of the island yet to be crossed narrowed to a width of only twenty-five yards, over which in rough weather the sea swept into the swamp on the left. The sand was so shallow that it was with the utmost difficulty that the works could be constructed. The whole front was covered by the fort (many times wider than the island on the approach to it), which, subtending an angle of ninety degrees, fairly enveloped the head of the approaches with its fire. From James's Island on the left a flank fire was poured in, which grew more accurate and destruc- tive the nearer the works approached. To push forward the sap on that nar- row strip of shifting sand in the daytime proved impossible. In the night a brilliant harvest-moon made the difficulties almost as great. The men grew dis- couraged, and even to the most hopeful the prospect seemed gloomy. But the mind of the commanding officer was of a temper that difficulties could not break. He was encountering a problem new to engineering science — Wagner had slill been in the way of the projected naval operations. He says: "The fleet in entering Charleston Harbor need not necessarily go within effective range of Wagner at all." And again: "Some days elapsed (aher the silencing of Sumter) before any of its guns were mounted by the enemy at other points in the harbor. These were the deci.sive days, when the enemy was comparatively weak and unprepared, for he had no idea that an attempt would be made, or that if made, it would be successful, to demolish Sumter at the distance of two miles, and he was in no condition to meet such a result. The failure oi the fleet to enter immediately after the 23d of August, whether unavoidable or otherwise, gave the enemy an opportunity, doubtless much needed, to improve their interior defenses." And he adds, somewhat maliciously: "Of the actual strength of these improvements we had no reliable information, as they were never tested or encountered by the iron-clads." Report (N. Y. Edition), pp. 65, 66. QUINCY A. GiLLMOEE. 643 to conduct siege approaches over a terrain too narrow to admit of parallels. As he had believed that artillery could be made to do more than the books allowed, BO now he conceived approaches possible without the conditions which the books required. Moreover, he found the ground on his front mined and seamed with an ingenious system of torpedoes. The discovery which alarmed the soldiers quieted his own alarm. Over ground thus filled the enemy would not dare to make sorties ; and thus the only vital danger against which he could aot now protect himself was averted. Now, therefore, he determined to devote the whole power of his enormous artillery strength on two objects. With a curved fire from siege and Ooehorn mortars he would so search with exploding shells the interior of the fort before him as to silence its guns, and drive its garrison to the bomb-proof for shelter. With his powerful rifles he would strive to breach the bomb-proof itself The conditions for a successful assault would then, beyond question, be secured. On the morning of September 5th these final operations were inaugurated. For the forty-two hours next following there was presented a spectacle of such sublimity in war as had never before been witnessed on the continent. Seven- teen mortars unceasingly puffed out, on their curved tracks, the great globes of metal that, falling and bursting within the fort, scattered destruction throughout its limits. Thirteen of the heaviest rifles — three hundred-pounders, two hundred- pounders, one hundred-pounders — none less — sent their whirling bolts into the Band that covered the bomb-proof Besides the track of the rifle balls beneath the curve of the mortar shells, the pioneers pushed on the sap, and the guards manned the zigzag trenches, to which, in lieu of parallels, they were now reduced. From the sea the Ironsides sent skimming in overthe water in grace- ful ricochet, an incessant stream of eleven-inch shells that slowly took their last bound over the parapet of the fort, and exploded above the heads of its defenders. When the beleaguered garrison looked to nightfall for relief, pow- erful calcium lights from the parallels turned night into day ; and amid a brill- iancy that left the assailants in gloom, and illuminated the'minutest details of the fort, the terrific bombardment went on. In a few hours the fort became absolutely silent. The sappers now pushed on their work like men delirious with a sudden freedom from great danger. The reliefs off duty exposed themselves fearlessly to view on the very glacis of the fort, climbed their parapets to watch the progress, explored the ground on their front to fish out torpedoes, approached the ditch and took a deliberate view of the fort and its surroundings. The sap was pushed by the south face of the fort, and it finally masked all the guns of the work save those of one flank. The Eebel batteries on James's Island and elsewhere were compelled to suspend their annoying flank fire; they could no longer trust the accuracy of their aim for the narrow limit that divided friend and foe. Then selecting the hour when low tide would give a broad beach on which to debouch the column, General Gillmore ordered an assault. But Wagner was not to be so taken. It had twice repelled gallant assaults with sad slaughter. It was now to fall without assault and without a blow. The movement was 644 Ohio in the Wak. ordered for nine o'clock on the morning of 7th September. But in the night deserters came in with the report that the Eebels were evacuating. When, at daybreak, the troops moved forward, they marched into Wagner unopposed.* The whole north end of the island was immediately occupied ; the batteries were directed across that channel toward Sumter, and lastly toward the doomed city itself With this brilliant success General Gillmore's operations practically ended. He sought, indeed, to take possession of Sumter by a storming party sent over in boats, but Admiral Dahlgren had, without his knowledge, determined upon the same eiFort for the same night, and was unwilling that the two parties should co-operate under whatever officer present, naval or military, might have the highest rank. General Gillmore's party was accordingly withdrawn. The Ad- miral's failed. Then, when the little garrison improved its opportunities by mounting more guns, General Gillmore once more dismounted them for the navy. Finally, he even proposed to take up the harbor obstructions in boats with his land forces, if only then the Admiral could be induced to take in his iron-clads, when thus the open pathway for them was prepared. But by this time the dread of torpedoes in the channel, of fire from Moultrie and Johnson, of unknown and mysterious obstructions, had grown upon the naval com- mander, and nothing could be done. By and by the rifled guns were trained on Charleston, and the artillerists kept themselves in practice by shelling its aristo- cratic mansions. The army had accomplished its part of the programme," and all that lay within its power, and it rested. To the brilliancy of the engineering and artillery exploits of General Gill- more in Charleston harbor, the whole world testifies. The General-in-Chief thought them worthy of such commendation as this in his Annual Eeport: " General Gillmore's operations have been characterized by great professional skill and boldness. He has overcome difficulties almost unknown in modern sieges. Indeed, his operations on Morris Island constitute a new era in the sci- ence of engineering and gunnery." The Department indorsed this praise by raising him to the rank of Major-General of volunteers. Not less emphatic was the admiring testimony of Professor Mahan, the General's old instructor in engi- neering at West Point, and a critic of siege operations not surpassed by any living military authority : " The siege of Fort Wagner forms a memorable epoch in the engineer's art, and presents a lesson fruitful in results In spite of these obstacles ; in spite of the shifting sand under him, over which the tide swept more than once during his advances ; in spite of the succor and relief of the garrison from Charleston, with which their communications were free, Gen- eral Gillmore addressed himself to his task with that preparedness for every eventuality, and that tenacity which are striking traits of his character This remarkable exhibition of skill and industry, the true and always success- ful tools with which the engineer works, is a triumph of American science of which the nation may well bo proud ; and General Gillmore, in the reduction of Fort Pulaski, the demolition of Sumter, and the capture of Wagner, has fairly * ThirtyHsii pieces of artillery were found, most of them large. QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. 645 earned the title of PoUorcetes."* British and French military critics united in similar applause; while the estimate of the masses of his fellow countrymen maj' he fitly represented in this concluding paragraph from a leading editorial of the New York Tribune on the subject: "Pulaski, Somerset, the landing at Morris Island, the demolition of Sumter — Wagnee: 'The greatest is behind!' Whatever may be thought of the many deeds which may illuminate the sad story of* this Great Eobellion, the capture of "Wagner by General Gillmore will be regarded as the greatest triumph of engineering that history has yet recorded." In all this praise there was justice. General' Gillmore had accomplished brilliant results in the face of difficulties which military science had pronounced insuperable. In demolishing Sumter he had revolutionized all previous ideas as to the capacity of rifled artillery against masonry forts — obtaining a power at long ranges of which even Pulaski had not given a conception. In carrying his parallels up to Wagner on a front only one-eighth as wide as the front of the fort itself, under flank and reverse fire, he had at least greatly modified all previou-8 ideas as to the conditions under which siege approaches are jjossible. He was pitted throughout against a skillful antagonist; for whatever was thought of General Beauregard's ability in the field, the Confederate authorities seemed to unite in regarding him as their ablest engineer. But the achievements in Chai'leston harbor lacked the crown of final success. The harbor was not occupied ; the city, on the capture and humiliation of which the Country had set its heart, was not taken. These circumstances are unim- portant, as regards the verdict of the scientific world on the brilliancy of the actual performance. But they are of vital con.sequence as regards any proper estimate of the worth of that performance as a means to the accomplishment of what was sought to be done. Did General Gillmore so reduce the ohstacles in the way that the navy could have entered the harbor and laid the treasona- ble city under its guns ? The naval authorities say he did not. General Gill- more thinks he did. ^ It is his good fortune, however, since the close of the war, to be able to give a definite settlement to the question, by the testimony of the only competent witnesses. When at last the city against which so many efi'orts had failed, fell without a blow. General Gillmore was once more in command of the Department of the South. Ho moved directly up the channel^ — himself a passenger on the second vessel that adventured upon the path which the naval officers thought so stud- ded with horrors. Without encountering any accident or obstruction of nOte tlie vessel was laid alongside the wharves. What then had stood in the way of the navy from the 23d of August, 1863, when the destruction of the offensive power of Sumter was complete ? Admiral Dahlgren said, not specially Forts Moultrie and Johnson, against which, at *The good Professor is au unsui-passed judge of engineering, but he might have left out his musty classics. The somewhat alarming title which he bestows upon General Gillmore means simply " thje taker of cities." It was known in Greek literature as the surname of Demetrius, the sou of Cassander, a fact which the Professor doubtless acquired from the Academy Plutarch. 646 Ohio in the War. least in the earlier stages of the campaign, he professed entire readiness to con- duct his iron-clads. The channel obstructions he pronounced the real danger. But the channel obstructions seemed mythical, when Gillmore, sailing directly over thoir alleged locations, anchored before the city. When had they been re- moved ? An interesting correspondence sprang up between General Gillmore and General Ripley, whom Beauregard had in command of Charleston. General Gillmore asked this question: "Was there anything except the shore batteries to prevent the passage of our fleet up to the city and above it (at the time of the demolition of Sumter) by the channel left open for and used by the blockade- runners at night?" General Ripley answered, "No." General Gillmore then asked: "What were the relative condition and efSciency of such obstructions and torpedoes as were used in Charleston harbor in the autumn of 1863, as com- pared with their condition in February, 1865, when the city came into our pos- session?" General Ripley answered: "The efficiency of the obstructions and torpedoes in the harbor was as great in January, 1865, as in the autumn of 1863. The torpedoes were more efficient just previous to the evacuation ; " and he went on to say that the ideas prevailing in the fleet as to the dangerous nature of these obstructions were due to exaggerated reports purposely circulated by the defenders of the city. The correspondence from which we havequoted is of some length, but it all goes to show that, in the estimation of the enemy themselves, the channel was practically free from any obstructions or torpedoes that ought to have delayed the passage of a fleet.* Yet on these obstructions Admiral Dahlgren seems to- rest the greater part of his delay — finally resulting in the abandonment of offensive operations. We think, therefore, that the navy is clearl}' responsible for the failure; that Gen- eral Gillmore handsomely kept the promise made in Washington, and silenced the only opposition which the Navy Department then professed to dread; that the engineer and artillery operations on Morris Island opened the way for the navy to Charleston ; and that only unsailor-like timidity prevented the squadron from entering it. f After the surrender of Fort Wagnei*, on the 7th of September. 1863, Gen- eral Gillmore did little before Charleston, beyond the renewed fire on Sumter, which the navy requested, and the shelling of the city. But in February, 1864, having an available force of five thousand to six thousand, which could be spared from the works in the harbor, he forwarded * To this emphatic testimony should be added the statement of General Elliott, who was in command of Sumter from the 4th of September. He said to General Gillmore, after the close of the war, that there were no mounted guns in the fort from the 23d of August until the eaiuing October. This would seem to rebut Admiral Dahlgren's complaints about the fire from Sumter as emphatically as General Ripley's statement does his complaint about the channel obstructions. tOf course there is no design in the above sentences to reflect on the many gallant officers in the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. On. Admiral Dahlgren rests the full responsibility of the delay. Nor is there any disposition to question the skill or courage of that officer. But he lacked the warlike disposition that was required in the post he filled; and would have been better employed at his old work — casting great iron smooth-bores at the Washington Navy Yard. QuiNcy A. GiLLMOEE. 647 them to Florida, to occupy a portion of the interior of the State. A double motive prompted the disastrous little campaign thus inaugurated. A large sup- ply of beef cattle found its way, over roads which General Gillmore now pro- posed to cut, from the interior of Florida to the commissariat of the Confederate armies. And a large tract of country seemed open to occupation, over which Mr. Lincoln was very anxious to establish the National authority, with refer- ence to the approaching Presidential election. General Gillmore's plan was to occupy Jacksonville, push up to Baldwin, the junction of the two railroads of Florida, and fortify and hold it. He accompanied the column until Baldwin was occupied. Then, giving directions for the fortification of both places, he returned to South Carolina. Thereupon General Seymour decided upon an advance toward some impor- tant roads beyond Olustee, to the Suwanee Eiver — a movement directly across the ' peninsula, in a country where the enemy could concentrate two to his one. He encountered General Finnegan, of the Eebel army, with a force not quite equal to his own, near Olustee.* But he was in marching order — only the head of his column was up — and he was disastrously defeated. General Gillmore, in reporting the matter, simj)ly quoted the written orders he had given. The movement was in direct violation of them. No vindication, however, was needed. Nothing could be more unlike his habitual caution and careful style of movements than the ill-advised advance, and the public indignation was never directed toward him. Mr. Lincoln him- self, one of whose private Secretaries accompanied the march, with instructions looking to the registry and reorganization, was severely censured — with an in- temperance which most of the journals concerned soon afterward saw reason to regret. It was now evident that the navy would make no adequate eifort to enter Charleston Harbor, and that, by consequence, operations there were practically ended. Chafing at the enforced idleness in which he was thus compelled to be a mere spectator of the great campaigns, which, under the stimulus of Grant's recent appointment to the Lieutenant-Generalship, were then being organized, General Gillmore applied to be ordered, with the Tenth Corps (then a part of the force in his Department), to some other theater of war. He thus volunta- rily gave up his position as an independent Department Commander; and, as it soon turned out, exchanged it for a subordinate place under one of Grant's im-_ mediate subordinates, in which he was speedily to encounter a dangei'ous hos- tility. He was ordered to Fortress Monroe, to report to General Butler, then * Finnegan had about the same number of infantry as Seymour; but he had only four pieces of artillery, while Seymour had sixteen. Gillmore's order to Seymour said: "I want your command at and beyond Baldwin concen- trated at Baldwin without delay.'' After the receipt of this, Seymour wrote to Gillmore that he proposed to move clear across the peninsula to the Suwanee River. Gillmore at once sent per- emptory orders forbidding such madness, but before the messenger sent post-haste witli the orders could reach him, he had fought and lost Olustee — losing two thousand out of his five thousand men. The battle displayed conspicuously his personal bravery and his amazing incapacity. 648 Ohio in the Wab. about to move up the James against Eichmond and Petersburg, in co-operation with Grant's advance through the Wilderness. On the 4th of May General Gilimore reported with the Tenth Army Corps at Portress Monroe. The next day he moved up the James, in rear of General W. F. Smith's corps, and on the night of the 5th both corps landed at Bermuda Hundred. On the 6th they advanced to the line stretching from the James to the Appomattox, and established themselves across the neck of the peninsula inclosed within the bends of the two rivers. No enemy had thus far been en- countered. Before them, within easy striking distance, lay Petersburg. But the next day was spent in an unimportant reconnoissance; the next seems to to have passed inactively, and it was not until the evening of the 8th that Gen- eral Butler ordered the troops oat to the railroad between Petei-sburg and Eich- mond. Already, however, there would seem to have sprung up an asperity of manner in the intercourse between the commander and his distinguished sub- ordinate. In ordering the movement upon the railroad. General Butler chose to use this language : " The enemy are in fi-ont with cavalry (five thousand men), and it is a disgrace that we are cooped up here. This movement will commence at daylight to-morrow morning, and is impei-ative. Answer if you have received this order, and will be ready to move." The order was promptly obeyed. The enemy was now met, for the first time, but in sjiite of his resistance, the road was torn up, and the advance was pushed forward to Swift Creek, a short distance in front of Petersburg. Here the line of the creek was found to be held by the enemy in some force, and there appeared to be no available crossing. Under these circumstances. Generals Gilimore and Smith, supposing the object of the movement to be an advance upon Petersburg, united in a note to General Butler, advising that the army draw back from Swift Creek, cross the Appomattox, swing around to the south of Petersburg, cut all the railroads, and enter the city. They submitted that all this could be accomplished in one day, that the route was easy, and that there was no probability of severe losses. General Butler's i*eply was — to say the least — tart : " While I regret an infirmity of purpose which did not permit you to state to me, when I was personally present, the suggestion which you make in your written note, ... 1 shall yield to the written suggestions, which imply a change of plan, made within thirty minutes after I left you. Military affairs can not be carried on, in my judgment, with this sort of vac- illation." From this point we must date the open appearance of the personal hostility which subsequently led to General Gillmoi-e's leaving the Department. It must be confessed that the documents embraced in the official reports exhibit no suf- ficient justification for the tone General Butler had chosen to adopt. He had not explained his plans to his Corps Commanders. They imagined that he was seeking to isolate Petersburg. Having cut the connection with Eichmond, and having then encountered a formidable line of defense, they thought it wiser to draw away from this, swing southward and cut the other connections. General Butler doubtless somewhat influenced by the natural jealousy between a vol- QUINCY A. GrILLMOEE. 649 unteer commander and regular army subordinates, preferred to regard this sug- gestion as offensive. He rebuked it in a manner which necessarily limited futare intercourse with his Corps G-enerals to the dryest official forms, and which effectually cut him off from- any probability of receiving further advice from these experienced officers in the conduct of the campaign. The evils that resulted are not far to seek. When General Butler landed at Bermuda Hundred he could have marched into Petersburg almost without firing a gun. When, three days later, he ad- vanced, the capture of Petersburg was still within his power — possibly by the approach over Swift Creek, which he seemed to wish — certainly and easily by the movement which Generals Gillmore and Smith suggested. But he was mis- led, as he states, by his information from General Grant, into the belief that his demonstration ought to be toward Eichmond, rather than Petersburg. And in the same way he was led to believe that General Kautz's cavalry had already cut the railroads below Petersburg.* So, after his tart note to his Generals, he ordered the troops back from Swift Creek, for a demonstration on Eichmond. But he conducted this so slowly that, beginning on the morning of the 10th, he only had his troops back in their in- fl trenchments at Bermuda Hundred the next morning. There, for the whole day, they lay inactive ; and it was not till the evening of the 12th that they moved out toward Eichmond and confronted the fast-gathering Eebel force under Beauregard f at Proctor's Creek. Meantime, in the withdrawal, a portion of G-eneral Gillmore's command had fallen into a sharp little engagement. Colonel Voris of the Sixty-Seventh Ohio, commanding a detachment from Terry's divis- ion, had been suddenly attacked and almost overpowered. Ee-enforcements were speedily sent in, and the enemy was driven back with an acknowledged loss of nearly three hundred. They had talsen two pieces of artillery from Colonel Voris, which were recaptured. The action had a horrible ending. The shells fired the woods, and a large number of the enemy's dead and wounded were consumed in the flames. But now, on the evening of the 12th, Beauregard stood across the path of the proposed demonstration on Eichmond at Proctor's Creek. General Butler's orders here were judicious. He directed Gillmore to move off to the left (west- ward) and turn the flank of ^Beauregard's intrenched line. This flank was found on the commanding eminence of Wooldridge's Hill, half a mile west of the Petersburg and Eichmond Eailroad. Gillmore left a detachment on the railroad to assault tbe line then in front, so soon as the sound of his guns should give notice of his attack on the flank. These dispositions made the enemy ap- prehensive. Th^ storming party sent against the hill was repulsed, but before another could be s^nt up it was seen that the enemy was rapidly evacuating. * General Butler's reply to joint note of Generals Gillmore and Smith, dated Head-quarters Dept. of Va. and N. C, Bermuda Hundred, May 9, 1864. tThe Bcbels were taken by surprise by Gillmore's departure from Qharleston; and, even with the advantage of railroads, had not begun to detach their surplus troops thence until after bis landing at Bermuda Hundred. But the inconsequential movements that followed gave Beau-» regard the needed time, and now he was up with the bulk of his command. 650 Ohio in the War. Gillmore thereupon moved into the deserted intrenchmente, and following them down (eastward) toward the James Eiver, had 'occupied over a mile of the Eebel works when the night fell. Next morning he moved still further toward Drury's Bluff, whither the enemy's concentration tended, occupying a mile and a half more of the intrenchments, and forming a junction. with the rest of But- ler's army, which had been moving up on the front. The line then moved for- ward, the enemy gradually falling back to his main line in front of Drury's Bluff. Thus the 14th and even the 15th were spent, with no more vigorous efforts than skirmishing. General Butler had proposed to assault on the 15tli, but he had so disposed his line that the requisite force was not at hand, and the assault was postponed till the 16th. By that time Beauregard was ready to take .matters out of his hands. The morning of 16th May was damp and foggy. Before daylight there came bursting through the fog a fierce fire of artillery and musketry upon the long thin line of General W. F. Smith's corps. Between the end of this line and the James Eiver lay a stretch of over a mile of open country, covered only by a picket of one hundred and fifty cavalry. Through this also Beauregard sought to break; while another assault was shortly after delivered upon one of Gillmore's divisions, far to the left. At the first alarm, General Butler awoke to the perils of his thin, ill-pro- tected line. He hastily sent orders to Gillmore to assault on his front, and thus relieve the attack that was bursting with such fury on Smith's front and flank. With the characteristic deliberation of the engineer, Gillmore replied that he would as soon as the troops were ready. Meantime the attack, already men- tioned, on one of his own divisions, had just been received and repulsed. "While the troops were — not very rapidly as Geseral Butler thought — ^getting ready for the assault he had ordeVed, this division had received two more attacks, and Gillmore was become apprehensive. An hour had elapsed since Butler had hastily sent his order to assault instantly; and we now find Gillmore writing: "The assaults on General Terry's front (in his corps) were in force. If I move to the assault and meet with a repulse, our loss would be fearful." Half an hour later he writes again : "I have just heard the report that General Brooks's right (of Smith's coi'ps) is turned, and a twenty-pounder battery taken. I am ready to assault, but shall wait until I hear from you, as I may have to support Smith. Please answer soon." Presently the note came back with this indorsement: " No truth in report. Send reply, and use discretion as to assault. B. P. B." He used the discretion by still delaying. Then came orders to move by the right flank — the object being to shorten the line, and concentrate upon the point where Smith was so heavily assailed. By thirty-five minutes past eight o'clock Gillmore was able to send word that his whole command was in motion as directed — but not until renewed and anxious orders to that end had been received. He now decided, in the exercise of the discretion which General Butler's note had gi-anted him, to make an attack upon the enemy's flank and rear with Terry's and Turner's divisions. But while the troops were beginning the en- QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. 651 gagement, word came from Butler of Smith's having to fall back, and of the danger about the line of retveat,.unles8 Gillmore hastened to cover it. Presentlj' the anxiety about the road back to the intrenchments became greater. " If you don't reach the pike at once," wrote Butler, " we must lose it. Press strongly. This is peremptory. We will lose turnpike unless you hurry." Two hours after the issue of this final order 'Gillmore reached the turnpike. The army at once retired to tha intrenchments of Bermuda Hundred. On the 20th Gillmore's pickets were driven in, and a part of his rifle-pits taken. The men rallied, however, and the enemy was finally driven out with considerable loss.* On June 9th General Gillmore was ordered, with the inadequate force of four thousand men, to make a reconnoissance of Petersburg and burn the bridge there over the Appomattox. He found the enemy in strong force in front of the bridge, behind earthworks. On the other side were strong works, with artillery sweeping the approaches. Doubting his ability to carry the works in front, and believing that, evtn if they were carried, it would still be impossible to burn the bridge under the fire from the other side, General Gillmore retired without attack. On his return he was relieved from the command of his corps, and ordered to report at Fortress Monroe. General Grant, hearing of this, and doubting whether Gillmore had been justly treated, ordered him out of Butler's command altogether. The justice of these measures has since been the subject of acrimonious/dis- pute between the friends of the respective Generals. We do not propose to add much to the discussion. It is plain that, whatever may have been General But- ler's dislike of General Gillmore's military performance, his feelings against him were much aggTavated by the publication of a letter from Chaplain Hud- son, of Gillmore's command, wherein Butler's indefensible conduct of the un- lucky battle of Drury's Bluff was severely criticised. Butler accused Gillmore with having inspired the letter. Gillmore averred that he knew nothing what- ever of it until he saw it in print, f Aside from this, Butler's complaints against Gillmore were of general slow- ness and apparent unwillingness in the execution of orders, and particularly of the return from Petersburg without firing a gun in any attempt to execute his orders. Now these complaints touch upon a general truth, which should have been remembered by the authorities that assigned two such officers of engineers as Gillmore and Smith to command under a volunteer officer like Butler. The business of engineers is to devise means for making war safely. When in command of troops they rarely abandon the ideas of their old profession. They accustom themselves to look critically upon the orders even of officers *The losses in this affair were seven hundred and two; in the previous fighting on the lines about Druiy's Bluff, three thousand three hundred and eighty-seven. tThe Chaplain was known to literary men as the editor of a popular edition of Shakspeare. Butler kept him imprisoned for some months.' The Chaplain charged that he was treated with gross cruelty. The matter was finally carried to Grant, and was thought to have something to do with Butler's i-emoval. » 652 Ohio in the Wak. whom, by the West Point standards, they conclude to be skillful; and it rarely happens that they do not act as a check rather than a spur upon the prosecu- tion of an aggressive campaign. Under officers of whose capacity to conduct war scientifically they have doubts, their honest hesitation to execute orders which seem to them to offer only a wanton waste of life, often appears to their commanders to approach the verge of insubordination. It was so with Warren at Five Forks. In a less marked degree, and without complaint from his com- mander, it was so with McPherson at the outset of the Atlanta campaign. It was so with "Weitzel (with reference to Grant's orders) at Fort Fisher. And it was so with Gillmore and Smith in the operations we have been tracing. At the outset they were cautious. Accustomed to reason upon large opera- tions, they concluded that Butler's intention must be to take Petersburg, and they took the responsibility of telling him what they thought the easiest and safest way to do it. General Butler apparently looked upon this as unwarrant- able interference, administered a sharp rebuke, and thus insured his deprivation of assistance from their sound judgments and skilled comprehension of topo- graphical difficulties again. They considered his line before the enemy, near Drury's Bluff, as too long, ill-supported, and without reserves; and General Gillmore took the liberty of protesting against it. General Butler neglected the warning, and regarded the author of it with an evil eye. In the ensuing battle General Gillmore was undoubtedly slow in obeying orders — the slower possibly because he could not fail to see the little wisdom that controlled some of them. His subsequent hesitation before the bridge at Petersburg was amply vindicated by the events of the campaign that followed. On the whole we may conclude that General Gillmore was harshly judged, because of the course which his engineering bias had led him to adopt from the outset; and that if he committed any errors, they were the natural errors of the engineer, who is unwilling to sacrifice lives, if he sees any way by which he can accomplish the end without such sacrifice. Soon after General Grant had rescued Gillmore from the enforced idleness to Fortress Monroe, to which General Butler ordered him, and had sent him at Washington, Early made his advance through Maryland upon the capital. Gillmore was at once seized upon, and placed in comman'd of two divisions of the Nineteenth Corps the moment they arrived. While leading these in pur- suit of Early, three days after assuming the command, he was severely injured by the fall of his horse, and was necessarily relieved. He remained on leave of absence from 16th July to 21st August, 1864. When he was able to i-eport for duty again, Mr. Lincoln was sorely harassed by the disputes and quarrels of the manufacturers of great guns with each other and with the authorities of the War and Navy Departments. Mr. Horatio Ames had constructed a wrought-iron rifled gun which neither Department was willing to adppt. He defied thorn to burst it, and claimed for it far greater durability and longer range than could be attained with any gun in the service. •Mr. Lincoln finally thought that General Gillmore's great experience with rifled QUINCY A. GrILLMOEE. 653 guns, made him the highest authority on the subject in the army, and ordered him to act as President of a Board for testing it. In this capacity he acted through the months of September, October, and November. The experiments were, careful and severe. One of them was to load an imperfect fifty-pounder gun with sixteen pounds of powder and a three hun- dred-pound bolt, .with the view of bursting it. This charge failed to injure it. Then twenty pounds of powder were used, and a four hundred and fifty-pound bolt. This caused the gun to recoil thirty feet, and sent the bolt through two mounds of earth ten and twelve feet thick respectively, and then eighty rods beyond. Finally, the gun was loaded with twenty pounds of powder and a two hundred-pound bolt, so inserted that the end of the bolt projected an inch beyond the muzzle of the gun. Against this projecting end was firmly placed a block of east-iron weighing two thousand eight hundred pounds. The gun recoiled sixty feet. The cast iron block, 36 inches X 20 X 20, went through a bank of earth twelve feet thick, and flew forty feet beyond it. The gun seemed absolutely uninjured, and the attempts to burst it were abandoned. The process of manufacturing this remarkable gun is simple. It is built up of disks and rings of wrought-iron, separately- heated and welded together. Two disks are first welded for the breech. Against these other disks are welded, until, a sufiicieht length of breech is obtained. Then rings are welded on wide enough to give the requisite size of bore, one after another being added until the desired length is attained. The gun is then bored out and rifled, the vent is drilled, aod trunnions are screwed into the sides for mounting it. General Gillmore's report, finally made, was favorable, but the great expense of the gun has hitherto been urged as a sufficient reason for refusing to adopt them in the service. At the close of this work, Gillmore was appointed Acting Inspector-Gen- eral of Fortifications for the Military Division of the West Mississippi. The months of December, 1864, and January, 1865, were spent in a tour of inspec- tion, which extended from Cairo, Illinois, to Pensacola, Florida. At last the Government decided to return General Gillmore to the depart- ment in which his fame had been won, and in which his administration had been more satisfactory than that of any predecessor or successor. On the 30th of January the appointment was made ; on the 9th of Febru- ary he assumed command. Nine days later, leaving the navy afar off at the " outer bar to watch his adventurous course, he steamed up in a transport, over the obstructions they had found so formidable, entered the harbor, and, anchor- ing at the half-rotten wharves, occupied without opposition the city so long the object of so much hate and so many attacks. He had mad'e its capture possible eighteen months before; it was fitting now that he should be privileged first to enter and take possession. He continued in the command of his large department, uninstructed as to the changes which the sudden coming of peace upon the land might involve,* 654 Ohio in the Wab. until the reorganization of the military departments. Meantime he reduced the entire region to order. He established provost courts in every town in Georgia and South Carolina, associating the local magistrates with his officers in the dis- charge of judicial duties. After thus giving an efficient government for imme- diate purposes, to the country under his command, he addressed an elaborate letter to the authorities at Washington, recommending the poiicy of establish- ing for some time a military government over the seceded States After the re-assignment of departments, he was given the command of South Carolina. His rule here was judicious and acceptable. He had little taste, however, for such military duties in time of peace. At his own request, he was mustered out of the volunteer service, and assigned to the old familiar work in the Corps of Engineers. He bore back with him to his grade in this brilliant corps the clustering honors of the four highest brevets in the regular army, in reward for his achievements during the war. Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, United States Army, " For gallant and merito- rious conduct at the capture of Fort Pulaski, April 11, 1862." Brevet Colonel, United States Army, " For gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Somerset, Kentucky, March 31, 1863." Brevet Brigadier-General, United States Army, " For gallant and meritori- ous services in the assault on Morris Island, July 10, 1863." Brevet Major-General, United States Army, " For gallant and meritorious conduct in the capture of Forts Wagner and Gregg, and the demolition of Fort Sumter." General Gillmore's military standing is clearly defined by his career dur- ing the war. He never displayed remarkable merits as a leader of troops in the open field. He was a good, but not a brilliant, corps General. If he committed no grave faults, on the other hand he never shone conspicuous above those that surrounded him. He was prudent, judicious, circumspect, not dash- ing, scarcely enterprising. It is only fair to add that he was never tried on a large scale or under favorable circumstances. But in his proper province as an engineer and artillerist, he was as bold as in the field he was cautious. He ignored the limitations of the books. He ac- cepted theories that revolutionized the science, and staked his professional stand- ing on great operations based upon them. He made himself the first artillerist of the war. If not also the foremost engineer, he was second to none; and in the boldness and origipality of his operations against Wagner, he surpassed any similar achievements, not only in this war, but in any war ; so that now, not- withstanding the more varied professional operations around Richmond, and Atlanta, and Vicksburg, when men speak of great living engineci'S, they think as naturally of Gillmore in the New World as of Todleben in the Old, General Gillmore is among the handsomest officers of the army. He is above the medium height, heavily and compactly built, with a broad chest and genei-al air of physical solidity. His features (shaded, not concealed, by his full fceard) are regular and expressive. The face would be called a good-humored QUINCY A. GrILLMORE. 655 one, the head is shapely, and the forehead broad and high.* He speaks with nervous quickness, the more noticeable because of a slight peculiarity in the enunciation that gives a suggestion of his having sometimes lisped or stam- mered. He is an excellent talker, and is familiar with a wide range of subjects outside of his profession. In social life he appoa-rs as an elegant and accompMshed gentleman. He was often remarked during the war for his apparent indiffer- ence to physical danger. His head-quarters on Morris Island were pitched under fire, and his soldiers used to tell of him that during the slow siege ap- proaches he often whiled away the tedium by reading novels or magazines while the enemy's shells were bursting in inconvenient proximity. His personal affiliations at Washington have been mostly with Republicans, but he inclines a little to conservatism in his political views. He was never very emphatic in his approval of the policy of negro recruiting; and his rela- tions with Colonel Higginson, of Massachusetts, who commanded a negro regi- ment in his department, were scarcely kind. He sustained General Saxton in all his efforts for the good of the refugees on the Sea Islands, but it was known that he did not fully agree with that earnest and humane officer in his belief in the enlarged capacities of the negro race. Long after the close of the war, General 'Gillmore was still a widower. His four boys were at "West Point, under the care of their maternal grand- parents. He had bought the old farm on which he was born, and had converted it into a vineyard, which he still found time to visit on his occasional leaves of absence. •Elsewhere I have described the General's personal appearance thus: " Fancy afine whole- some-looking, solid six-footer, with big head, broad, good-humored face, and a high forehead, faintly elongated by a suspicion of baldness, curly brown hair and beard, and a frank, open face, and you have him. A quick-speaking, quiclc-moving, soldierly man he is.". After the War, ' p. 131. 656 Ohio in the Wab. MAJOR-GENERAL IRVIN McDOWELL. IEVIN McDowell, Brigadier and Brevet Major-General in the regn, lar army, Major-General of volunteers, the earliest to occupy high com. mand in the field at the East after the outbreak of the war, one of the befit military scholars in the army, and one of the most unsuccessful of its oflS- cers, was born in the village of Pranklinton, near Columbus, Ohio, on the 15th of October, 1818. The McDowell's were of Scotch-Irish descent. They had been driven out of Scotland by the religious persecutions. Finding an asylum in the north of Ireland they remained there until shortly after the siege of Londonderry (in which they took part), and then emigrated to the United States, settling first in the valley of Virginia. Some of them, including the branch from which the future General sprang, removed thence to Kentucky. Abram McDowell served through the war of 1812 in his uncle's regiment of Kentucky volunteers. At its close he removed to Ohio, and settled near Columbus. His wife, Eliza Lord, was a member of the Starling family, one of the most influential in that county. Mr. McDowell is still spoken of by old citizens of Columbus as a perfect speci- men of the type of Kentucky gentlemen of the old school. But he was a victim to the convivial habits of those early times, and though he was always highly respected his last days were not happy. One other quality of his is described by those who remember him, which doubtless had much to do in shaping the character and history of his noted son. He was an intense aristocrat, priding himself on his culture, his social position, his refinement, and keeping haughtily aloof from the lai-ge mass whom he held to be beneath him. But he was never wealthy, and at one time was very much reduced in circumstances. His son, Irvin McDowell, grew up a warm-hearted, affectionate, outspoken boy. But little by little, home influence and educational advantages began to change these characteristics. He was at first sent to the Columbus schools, where his old playmates remember him as being such a lad as we have de- scribed above. Then a French teacher, who had spent some time in Columbus, prevailed on Mr. McDowell to send his boy abroad for an education, and finally succeeded in taking young Irvin with him to Paris. The boy remained in a French school for a year or more. When he returned to his native country his father had procured for him a warrant for "West Point, where he was accoi-d- ingly admitted in 1834. On his return from Prance his playmates had obsei'ved the beginning of a change in his free, warm-hearted ways. At West Point the repressing influence «eem8 to have continued. Socially he stood among the first in the Academy; Irvin McDowell. 657 but in hie classes he did not rank so high. P. G. T. Beauregard was graduated second in that class; Irvin McDowell was as low down as the twenty -third. But between these noted names was but one which the country now recognizes — that of Wm. F. Barry, the able Chief of Artillery to the Army of the Potomac ; while three places below McDowell was Wm. J. Hardee, and two below him was R. S. Granger. Fellow-students in the Academy with McDowell were Braxton Bragg, Jubal Early, E. D. Townsend, B. H. Hill, Wm. H. French, John Sedg- wick, John 0. Pemberton, Joseph Hooker, and Wm. H. T. Walker, of the class above; and Henry W. Halleck, B. O. 0. Ord, B. E. S. Canby, Wm. T. Sherman, George H. Thomas, E. S. Ewell, and H. G. Wright of those below him. Among these are some of the most noted leaders on both sides in the war of the re- beUion. On his graduation young McDowell was at once assigned to the Artillery, and ordered on duty on the Niagara frontier, where the " patriot difficulties " were then exciting apprehensions. These settled, he was next ordered to the north-eastern boundary, during tlje progress of the controversy with Great Britain as to the disputed territory. A short interval of recruiting duty fol- lowed; then he was again on the Maine frontier; finally, in 1841, he was sent back to West Point as Assistant Instructor in Infantry Tactics. Here he re- mained for the next four years — one year teaching Infantry Tactics, and the other three serving as Adjutant of the Academy. Through this-time he had grown to be a man of the world, reserved, formal, and polished. He had also devoted himself to the study of his profession, and had more than made up any of his deficiencies when a cadet. Such was the favorable impression which he now made upon the leading officers of the army, that he was selected as an Aid-de-Camp on the personal staff of General Wool — one of tho positions then reserved for the most promis- ing and presentable of the younger officers. There thus began a long career of staff-duty (continued with few interruptions till the outbreak of the war of the rebellion) that gradually shaped the whole character of the man. Under its influence he became almost a martinet, rigid, precise, devoted to the routine methods, intolerant of innovations, little capable of accommodating himself to outside ideas. But he became at the same time thoroughly familiar with the whole theory of the art of war, and with the literature of his profession; while Bocially ho was held to be one of the most polished and charming of men. From October 6th, 1845, to May 13th, 1847, he was Aid-de-Gamp to General Wool. At Buena Tista he behaved handsomely; and for "gallant and meritori- ous conduct" there he was brcvetted Captain. On. May 13th, 1847, he became Assistant Adjutant-General, first for General Wool's division ; then, on Decem- ber 9th, 1847, for the Army of Occupation, which last position he continued to hold till the end of the Mexican war. In June and July, 1848, he was engaged in mustering out the volunteers as they returned from Mexico ; then for a year he was kept on duty in the War Department. By this time General Scott had fixed upon him for one of his staff. He was now thirtj' years of agje; and his mental habits began to be Vol. I.— 42. 658 Ohio in the Wab. settled. Under the immediate Bupervieion of General Scott, they wei'e not likely to change. He remained on etaff-duty with the Genoral-in-Ghief of the army (with brief intervale of staff service with Albert Sidney Johnston and General Twiggs) until the outbreak of the war.* He was given, however, leave of absence for a year, which he spent in traveling in Europe. Through oil this time he very rarely visited his old home. It was thought by his former asso- ciates that the shadow on the home circle had something to do with his absence, and that he had thus grown colder and more reserved. It had certainly shaped his own habits in an important particular ; he was known among his comrades as the most faultlessly pure and temperate man in all thing."? in the army. He never played cards; never joined the drinking bouts of his comrades; never tasted even wine with them, and abstained so rigorously from all stimnlants that he never drank even tea or (ioffee. When the war came, McDowell, now a Brevet Major, was on duty in the War Department. Secretary Chase, whose residence at Columbus while Gov- ernor of Ohio, had made him acquainted with his histoiy, at once sought out the young Ohio oflS.cer. To every member of the Government military matters were a mystery. Yet a military system was a thing of instant demand. On Mr. Chase, far more than would have been expected from the nature of his ofSce, fell ihe burden of organization. He has since repeatedly declared that he owed more to the clear head and admirable executive faculties of Major McDowell than to any other source. The Major was consulted about almost everything — about the calls for troops, the assignment of regular officers, the number of Generals needed for the new troops, the organization, pay — in a word, about the multifarious details of a complex military organism, into the midst of which the perplexed and bewildered authorities found themselves sud- denly plunged. On Lieutenant-General Scott, as the nominal head of the army, everything depended. But the veteran was -oid and bowed down with infirmi-. ties; and he gladly left much to the vigorous and accomplished young officer who had been in his military family so long, and in whose professional knowl- edge he had learned to place confidence. Thus trusted by the General at the bead of the army, and consulted by the lead- ing civil officers of the Government as authority on all matters concerning the war, McDowell had for the time, perhaps, the most potent influence exercised by any of our military men. He was found on all hands prompt, judicious, singularlj' clear-headed, and earnestly desirous to do whatever might aid the cause. • For those who may deoire an exact statement of his service, it may be added that from June, 1849, to January, 1851, he was with General Scott; from January to May, 1851, with Gen- eral Clarke ; from June, 1851, to March, 1853, with General Twiggs; from May, 1853, to Novem- ber, 1856, with General Scott; from December, 1856, to May, 1857, with Albert Sidney Johnston in Texas; from June, 1857, to November, 1858, with General Scott; from November, 1858, to November, 1859, on leave of absence in Europe; from November, 1859, to January, 1860, with General Scott; from February to April, 1860, with Sidney Johnston; then as Inspector-General in Minnesota, MiBSOuri, and Kansas, from September, 1860, to February, 1861; and, finally, sent by Scott, and practically under him to the War Department, whence he was taken in 1861 for the command of the army to invade Virginia. Irvin McDowell. 659 Meanwhile at his old home diverse interests were busy with his fortunes. The Governor of Ohio was his relative by marriage, and was disposed to look on him, as they did at "Washington, as among the best of our active soldiers. Governor Dennison at first — and indeed before he knew what rank such com- mander would require — proposed to appoint- McDowell to the command of the Ohio contingent. He went so far as to inform him of this purpose. But about this time prominent gentlemen in Cincinnati began to urge upon him a Captain McClellan, whom he had once met in a railroad convention, and of whom army officers spoke highly. At first he hesitated; then, as the pressure from Cincin- nati increased, and he was told more and more of Captain McClellan's standing in the army, he began to think his prestige greater than that of McDowell ; and his appointment therefore likely to have a better efi'ect upon the gathering forces. Furthermore McDowell seemed likely to be kept busy and provided for at "Washington, while McClellan was not in the service at all, and his friends on the ground were earnest in urging that he be set to work. Under such influ- ences McClellan was appointed, and the Governor wrote to McDowell, explain- ing his action and motives. Just then, by McDowell's aid and generally in accordance with his sug- gestions, the War Department had issued its " General Order No. 15," prescrib- ing certain features of the organization of volunteer troops. One of its pro- visions was that, save in the three months' service, the Governors of States should have no power to appoint ofiieers above Colonels of regiments. In his reply to Governor Dennison he alluded to this regulation as one under which he was likely to be promoted, and generously recited the praises of the ofiicer who had been preferred before him : "I congratulate you on the credit which justly attaches to you for your appointment of Mc- Clellan to the chief command. Among all our graduates yet in the vigor of youth, he is of the first order. I say it in all sincerity, that though he has the place to which I aspired, the com- mand of the troops of my native State (of which I am still a citizen), you have done better for the State, and better for the Country, than if you had adhered to your first intention of ap- pointing me. Don't, therefore, take the trouble to say anything more about it. I know how you were placed, and can imagine your position, as well as if I had been present." It was a generous spirit which McDowell thus displayed, and of which he was soon to give further evidence. It would have been fortunate, indeed, if he had been himself dealt with as unselfishly when McClellan came to exercise command near the Capital. Within a few hours after this letter to Governor Dennison was written, General McClellan was, partly on McDowell's own recommendation, appointed to a Major-Generalship in the regular army. General Scott had consulted with his old staff officer as to the young men in the army best suited for large pro- motion. McDowell named McClellan and Buell. Scott praised both. But he was doubtful about McClellan's youth. Others in the Government, greatly pleased by this time with the accomplished, willing, and very serviceable young officer, suggested that perhaps McDowell himself would do better for one of the Major-Generalships. From this he modestly shrank. 660 Ohio in the Wab. Ho was soon to find, indeed, that even less rapid promotion was to work him and the country great injury. Mi-. Chase and Mr. Cameron were both so highly pleilsed with the ability and zeal shown by McDowell in all thjB coi>- sultations and military arrangements into which they were plunged that they resolved on having him advanced, to a position of higher influence. Accord- ingly the same order that announced McClellan's promotion told, that Brevet- Major Irvin McDow^ell had been made si Brigadier-General, in the regular M-ray. But the honor was attended with an ill omen. Xt excited the displeasure of the old and petulant General-in-Chief, and the army was full of traditions to the effect that uo man in it could ever prosper who had once, by any accident, aroused the hostility of "Winfield Scott.* It was understood that the promotion was secured by the Cabinet, with reference to a commaud in the field, under the eye of his old chief, Por General Scott had already been forced to abandon his opposition to hostile operations in Virginia, and his plan for sweeping down the Mississippi with a powerful force to the Gulf. That the old strategist gave way with regret, may wellj be be- lieved. But the popular demand for action was not to b^ resisted ; tlije seces- sion of Virginia was no longer doubtful, and the bead and £ron|i of .the Confed- erate strength was there arraying itself. Thither it was already decided to send General McDowell. In a letter that day written we catch some glimpses of the temper in which he contemplated his task ; " I have intimations that I am to have an active command in Virginia^^ . . . If I am placed in any responsible position here I wish you would write to your friend the Postmaster-Gen^eral — whom I know but slightlyT:-of the friendship you bear me, that I may also look to him for the support any one leading a body of raw men into a hostile State, with an excited country, expect- ing some positive and immediate success, must daily Beed."f These words are suggestive. Plainly the new General had his full share of the regular army feeling against the volunteers. Plainly he had his full share of the regular army feeling against any interference by the people in the war they were to support, and especially against any popular demafid for speedy movements. But something more may be seen here than mere army opinions or prejudices. It is evident that at the very outset the General was placed in the false position of having to look to civil officers, rather than to his military superior, for support. For General Scott, hostile originally to McDowell's pi-omotion, was now found to be hostile to his assignment to duty in Virginia, and, indeed, to any movement in Virginia, beyond the mere fortification of Arlington. At first he proppsed to leave the occupation of the Virginia side to a volunteer officer,! • General Scott had opposed my somewhat rapid promotion because he thought it was doing a hurt to General Mansfield ; and when I was promoted, he insisted that General M. should also be promoted, to date back a week before my own promotion. McDowell's Testimony before Com. on Con. War ; Keport Series of 1863, Vol. II, p. 37. t Letter Of McDowell to Gtovernor Dennison, under date, Washington, 14th May, 1861. t General Sandford, of the New York militia. Irvin McDowell. 661 whom he wanted to get out of "Washington. The Department told him he must Bend over a regular — either Mansfield or McDowell. Then, wishing to keep Mansfield in the city, he named McDowell, but made secret efTorts to thwart the wishes of the Department by inducing him to prefer a personal request not to be sent across the Potomac. Twice he sent his Aid -de-Camp and military sec- rctaiy to McDowell, urging him to make this request. The yOung General was not blind to the consequences of again arousing the displeasure of his chief, but he recoiled with some natural feeling from the proposition. "Just appointed a general officer," he says, "it was not for me to make a personal request not to be required to take the command which I had been ordered upon. I could not stand upon it. I had no reputation as he had, and I refused to make any such application." The baleful effects of the anger thus aroused were destined long to oppress the country. In three or four ways Greneral Scott had been overruled and dis- appointed. He had wanted his old staff officer promoted I'bss rapidly; he had wanted him reserved to lead the advance of his proposed grand expedition^ down the Mississippi ; he had opposed any movement into Virginia beyond Ar- lington ; and he had striven in any event to keep McDowell out of it. He yielded, indeed, to the authority of the Cabinet, which settled every one of these questSons over his head ; but he yielded with a bad grace, and petulantly threw obstacles in the way of operations he could not forbid. On the night of the 23d of May, 1861, within a few hours after the close of the polls at which Virginia had been voted out of tlie Union, the order for crossing the Potomac was given. By daylight General McDowell found him- self in possession of the heights of Arlington and the little stretch of country down to Alexandria, with an army of about ten thousand men. The country hoped for a speedy advance. Ignorant of war and war's re- quirements, it could see no obstacle in the lack of transportation, of supplies, of officers, of discipline. There may have been an element of wisdom in this haste. Quite probably the Eebel force then confronting McDowell was as ill oif as his Own, or even worse. And it was by no means impossible that, if the column which on the 24th of May occupied Arlington, had been pushed out into the country, it might have taken Manassas with comparatively slight resistance. But General Scott wanted no advance, and for weeks he took effectual means to prevent it. "I got everything with great difficulty," says the unfor- tunate object of his displeasure. "I was there a long while without anything. No additions were made to the force at all. With difficulty could I get any Officers. . . . General Scott was cool for a great while."* Meanwhile, in the discussions of the Government, Scott protested against going any further in Virginia, and renewed his old suggestions. He would ac- cumulate a large army at Washington solely to make the Capital safe. The summer should be spent in drill. With the first frosts of autumn another great •Rep. Com. Con. War, M aupra. 662 Ohio in the Wab. army should be concentrated at St. I/ouis and sent down the Mississippi Tallej to the Gulf. General McDowell's views were asked on this project by the Cabinet officers who had previously learned to rely upon his military judgment. He was not prudent, perhaps ; and yet as General Scott had proposed giving him the ad- vance of this great expedition, he could not well refuse to express his opinion about it to the Government when called upon. " I did not think well of that plan, and was obliged to speak against it in the Cabinet," he tells us.* "I felt that it was beyond expression a hazardous thing for our paper steamboats to try to go down the river on such an expedition. ... I thought the plan wm full of most serious and vital objections. I would rather go to New Orleans the way that Packenham attempted to go there." After this we may well believe that the angry Lieutenant-General would take still less pains to help along this presumptuous staff officer of his. Week after week went by, and still the commander of the column that was daily ex- pected to move uj)on the enemy could get nothing that he wanted. His force was without organization, without commissariat, without transportation, with- out organized artillery. He was even himself without a competeDt staff. "I see McDowell do things of detail," wrote gruff old Count Gurowski in his diary,f "which in any even half-way organized army belong to the specialty of a Chief of Staff." " He receives his troops in the most chaotic state. Almost with his own hands he organizes, or rather puts together, the artillery. Brigades are scarcely formed ; the commanders of brigades do not know their commands, and the soldiers do not know their Generals." "There were only four small tents," writes Mr. "Wm. H. Bassell| in an account of a visit to McDowell, when he was striving to beat his army into shape for work, "foT the whole of the head-quarters of the ' Grand Army of the Potomac,' and in ft'ont of one wo found General McDowell, examining some plans and maps. His personal staff, so far as I could judge, consisted of Mr. Clarence Brown and three other offi- cers. ... I made some remark on the subject to the General, who replied that there was great jealousy on the part of civilians respecting the least ap- pearance of display, and that as ho was only a Brigadier, though he was in command of such a largo army, he was obliged to be content with a Brigadier's staff." In the midst of such difficulties, of which it knew nothing, the country saw week after week go by, till the time of the troops had nearly expired, and almost two months had been spent in Yirginia without an advance of as many miles. Then there rose in men's minds all over the land a demand for action. One skillful in reading the popular will caught this demand and embodied it in the pregnant motto, " On to Eichmond." The Confederate Congress was soon to meet there ; it would be a shame, it was said, if, with the great army gather- ing on the south bank of the Potomac, the stars and stripes should not once more wave over Eichmond before the day for that assembly ai'rived. *Eep. Com. Con. War, vbi supra. fPor 1861-2, p. 61. tMy Diary North and South, Am. Ed. p. 395. Ibtin McDowell. 663 Thus beaet by the popular will, as well as urged forward by its own desires, the AdminiBtration demanded a plan of movement from its General in the field. He promptly responded. The Confederate force was scattered, partly near Fortress Monroe, south of him, partly near Harper's Terry, north of himr, and partly near Manassas, in front of him. He believed he could drive the force in his front, if he could only be protected from a junction of the others against him. That secured, he would move out directly against Manassas ; would feign on his front, while passing the bulk of his force by the left around the enemy's flank, to fall upon the railroad in his rear. The plan was based upon sound military principles ; it was explained to the Administration with all that suave, plausible address which makes McDowell the best man in the army to present a ease to a Congressional committee, or plead a professional cause before any tri- bunal; and it was promptly accepted by the Cabinet. The 9th of July was named as the day for beginning its execution. But now arose fresh difficulties. General Scott had indeed yielded, but he was no more disposed than before to lend any aid for smoothing the path of his subordinate. General Mansfield, iufcommand in Washington, still had the most of the troops, and he was ill-pleased at seeing his force divided, and his troops given to his junior to lead into action. And besides, there was still an actual want of many things essential to a moving army. So it came about that on every hand poor McDowell found himself hampered and thwarted and delayed. Some of his embarrassments he subsequently recited in his manly statement to the Committee on the Conduct of the "War: " Some of my regiments came over very late ; some of them not till the very day I was to move the army. I had diffionlty in getting transportation. In fact I started ont with no baggage train ; with nothing at all for the tents; simply transportation fot the sick and wounded, and the munitions. The supplies were to go afterward. I expected the men to carry rations for three days in their haversacks. If I went to General Mansfield for troops, he said, 'I have no trans- portation.' I went to General Meigs, and he said he had transportation, bat General Mansfield did not want any to be given out until the troops should move. I said, ' I agree to that, but between you two I get nothing.' " The Quartermaster tegged of me not to move, because he was not ready. I said, ' We must move on Tuesday,' which was one week after the time General Scott had fixed. All my force had not come over by the time he fixed. A large part came over on Sunday, and some on the very Tuesday I moved. I told the General I was not ready to go. Said I to him, ' So far as transportation is concerned, I must look to you, behind me, to send it forward.' " I hadmo opportunity to test my machinery ; to move it around and see whether it would work smoothly or not. In fact, such was the feeling that when I had one body of eight regiments of troops reviewed together, the General censured me for it, as if I was trying to make ^me show. I did not think so. Tliere was not a man there who had ever maneuvered troops in large bodies. There was not one in the army — I did not believe there was one in the whole country — at least I knew there was no one there who had ever handled thirty thousand troops. I had seen them handled abroad, in reviews and marches, but I had never handled that number, and no one here had. " I wanted very much a little time ; all of us wanted it. We did not have a bit of it. The answer was, 'You are green, it is true ; but they are green also ;■ you are all green alike.'" To put the whole story in a single sentence : General Scott having delayed and opposed the movement till the last moment, tbon hurried it forward with- 664 Ohio in the Wae. out giving time for the needful preparations, and without even doing what he might to remove the obstaclen in McDowell's way. It is quite possible that the young General, in the strength of his convic- tion that this conduct was unwise, held^ back a little more than was judicious. It is certain that he did not have very flattering opinions of the material with which he had to work, and that he did not succeed in gaining the confidence of the volunteers.* He had, indeed, offended the most of them by his efforts to restrain them from pillage, and from the disgraceful wanton destruction of proper.ty which began with their entry into Virginia. At the very time that, a few miles distant. General Beauregard was issuing an inflammatory appeal to the Southern army and people to resist the Vandal invaders who approached with fire and sword, nnder the banner of Beauty and Booty, General McDowell was rebuking his subordinates for the too. lax enforcement of the following order, three days before issued : " Hkad-Quabtebs Department op Nohth-East ViaonnA,') " Arlington, June 2, 1861. / "General Order No. 4: "Statements of the amount, kind, and value of all private property taken and used for Government purposes, and of the damage done in any way to private property, by reason of the occupation of this section of the country by the United States troops, will, as soon as practicable, be made out and transmitted to department head-qnarters of brigades by the commanders of brigades, and officers in charge of the several fortifications. These statements will exhibit : " 1. The quantity of land taken poasession of for the several field-works, and the kind and value of the crops growing thereon, if any. " 2. The quantity of land used for the several encampments, and the kind and value of the growing crop.s, if any. i " 3. The number, size, and character of the buildings appropriated to public purposes. " 4. The quantity and value of trees cut down. "5. The kind and extent of fencing, etc., {destroyed. " These statements will, as far as possible, give the value of the property taken, or of the damage sustained, and the name or names of the owners thereof Citizens who have sustained any damage or loss as above will make their claims upon the cqmmanding officers of the troops by whom it was done, or, in cases where these troops have moved away, upon the commander nearest th^m. * Mr. Wm. H. Bussell gives a description of McDowell as he appeared and talked about that time, which is, in some of its details, quite suggestive. My Dairy, North and South, Am. Ed., p. 389. " He is a man about forty years of age, square and powerfully built, but with rather a stout and clumsy figure and limbs, a good bead, covered with close-cut, thick, dark hair, small, light- blue eyes, short nose, large cheeks and jaw, relieved by an iron-gray tuft, somewhat of the French style, and affecting in dress the style of our gallant allies. His manner is frank, simple, and agreeable, and he did not hesitate to speak with great openness of the difficulties he had to con- tend with, and the imperfection of all the arrangements of the army. " As an officer of the regular army, he has a thorough contempt for what he calls 'political Generals,' the men who use their influence with Pr&sident and Ciongress to obtain military rank. . . . Nor is General McDowell enamored of volunteers, for he served in Mexico, and has, from what he saw there, formed rather an unfavorable opinion of their capabilities in the field. He is inclined, however, to hold the Southern troops in too little respect ; and he told me that the volunteers from the slave States, who entered the field full of exultation and boastings, did not make good their words, and that they suffered especially from eigkness and disease, in oon- quence of their disorderly habits and' dissipation." Ievin McDowell. 665 " These claims will accompany the statement above called for. The commanders of brigades will require the aesistance of the commanders of regiments or detached companies, and will make tliis order known to the inhabitants in their vicinity, to the end that all loss or damage may, a.s nearly as possible, be ascertained while the troops are now here, and by whom, or on whose account, it has been occasioned, that justice may be done alike to the citizen and to the Government, The name of the oflScer or officers, in case the brigade commanders shall insti- tute a board to fix the amount of loss or damage, shall be given in each case. " By order of Brigadier-General McDOWELL. " James B. Fby, Assistant Adjutant-General." Against such measures the volunteers, with loose ideas of discipline, or of the rights of non-combatants, but with a vague desire to see Virginia punished and humbled by the sufferings of war, revolted ; and fresh orders were soon needed to enforce obedience to the fii-st. Meantime, with infinite confusion, McDowell had got together some of the elements of ,an army. The pressure of the Administration for movement, pow- erful enough before, now began to be intensified by another motive. The force in Virginia was mostly made up of three months' troops, whose term of service was now near its expiration. Unless an advance was made speedily it could not be made at all for months to come. This fact, which might have suggested the difficulty of maintaining the offensive, even if it were once assumed, the rather operated to press on the ill -prepared movemeat. A single battle, it was still quite generally believed, would practically end the matter, and the contin- gency of an unfavorable result seems to have been scarcely considered at all. Furthermore, there ha^ been two unfortunate little affairs — those of Vienna and Big Bethel — the results of which had greatly mortified the people, and had deepened the desire for a sudden victory that should wipe out their memory. So, at last, on the afternoon of 16th July, the army moved. It was found within an hour or two that a new difficulty had arisen. The maps of Virginia were grossly imperfect. Tlie topographical features of the country had never been studied with reference to militarj^ operations, before the war ; and now our officers found that they were moving out into a region of whose characteristics they had only vague information, and that what they had was often incorrect. This, and the childish delusion about " masked batteries," into which the folly of the newspapers and the talk about Vienna and Big Bethel had led the army, combined to make the advance slow. Another fact tended still more strongly to the same result; the men were utterly unaccustomed to marching, and but little under the control of their officers. The loose-jointed, ill-adjusted machine thus moved off awkwardly and cumbrously enough. The next afternoon (17th July) the army reached Fairfax C. H. General McDowell strove to push on to Centr'eville that night, but was unable to accom- plish it, and did not get there till the next day. Meanwhile he had himself been compelled to go off on staff duty of all sorts — actually returning once (on the evening of the first day) to hunt up a couple of batteries which were ex- pected by rail and had not yet arrived.* *"0n arriving at the Washington platform, the first person I saw was General McDowell, alone, looking anxiously into the cars. He asked where I came from, and when he heard from 666 Ohio in the Wak. Prom Centreville he was now forced to pnsh oat reconnoissances in the direction of his proposed turning movement by the left, to ascertain the nature of the country, for which he found that he could no longer rely upon his maps. Here one more piece of ill-luck befell this hapless commander. The officer in charge of one of these reconnoissances, a division General, whose rank, at least, might have been supposed to bespeak, some discretion,* came out upon a little stream, scarcely known then, but soon to be made memorable forever. He had reached Bull Eun. Now this officer was thirsting for military glory, and, withal, little knew how to attain it. He was impressed with the conviction that " the great man of this war would be the man that first got to Manassas," and so, on finding scarcely any opposition thus far, he avowed his determina- tion to go on that night. He was not unmindful of the positive ordsT'of Gen- eral McDowell not to bring on an engagement; but in the height of his excite- ment over the prospect which he fancied to be opening before him, he ordered up his artillery and opened on a Eebel battery on the opposite shore. Pres- ently he brought up his infantry also, and began a musketry fasilade. Some officers of the staff, who were present, now reminded the division commander that this was contrary to General McDowell's ordei-s. While they talked, the enemj- crossed below, presently fell upon the flank of the reconnoitering col- umn, and sent back the General who was going through to Manassas that night with his command in considerable confusion. This affair (subsequently known as the skirmish at Blackburn's Ford) had a dispiriting effect upon the army, which, starting out 09 the idea that nothing could stand before it, found one of its divisions retreating in the first skirmish. But it had a worse effect in disclosing the nature of our movements to the enemy, and in drawing his attention specially to the flank which McDowell had proposed to turn. This and the difficult nature of the country combined to induce the aban- donment of the plan which the Cabinet had approved, and for which the move- ment had been made. Qn the night of the 18th of July, therefore, in addition to all his other embarrassments with his new force and his own inexperience, General McDowell found himself forced to devise some new plan of operatLona. Two days were spent by the engineers in seeking some spot along the line of Ball Enn where a comparatively unopposed ci-ossing could be secured. At last, about noon on the 20th, they reported that far up on the right — on the opposite flank from that by which McDowell had proposed to move — there was a practicable ford, at Sudley Springs, very carelessly guarded. From the present positions of the army there was no road to it, but the intervening woods were comparatively open. Annapolis, inquired eagerly if I had seen two batteries of artillery — Barry's and another — which he had ordered up, but which had gone astray. I was surprised to find the General engaged on finch duly, and took leave to say so. 'Well, it is quite true, Mr. Russell, but I am obliged to look after them myself, as I have so small a staff, and they are all engaged, ont with my head- quarters. You are aware I have advanced?' " My Diary North and South, pp. 423, 424. •General Daniel Tyler. Ikvin McDowell. 667 Within an hour or two aftei- the reception of this report, General McDowell issued his orders for tattle. He had four divisions (numbering in all nearly thirty-five thousand), commanded by General Tyler, General Hunter, General Heintzelman, and Colonel Miles. Tlie last was to remain in reserye, near Cen- treville, and was to feign on Blackburn's Ford, on the left, whither the foolish skirmish had already attracted the attention of the enemy. "With the other three the attack was to be made — those of Hunter and Heintzelman moving far up to the right, through the woods, to the ford at Sudley Springs, while the remaining one, under Tylei-, moved straight forward to the crossing of Bull Eun a't the Stone Bridge. Here the enemy's attention was to be held, while the turning column crossed above, struck the enemy in flank and rear, and doubled up his line. Then Tyler was to cross at the Stone Bridge and join the turning column as it came down the enemy's flank; and the three divisions, thus re- united, were to push straight for Manassas. After all the flood of criticism poured upon this battle, the plan stands approved as displaying good general- ship — as based on sound principles, well-adapted to the situation, and under any ordinary circumstances reasonably sure of success. Bat there was a blunder in the execution at the outset. McDowell's orders required the troops to move at six o'clock that evening, and to march most of the distance before going into bivouac. Then in the morning they would rise ready for the battle. But Colonel (since General) Burnside and others thought it would be easier to make the march before going into battle in the morning.- To them nine and a half miles seemed a small distance to move, and they judged it best to let the men quietly sleep where they were, and start in time to make the march before daylight. McDowell unwisely assented. While these final orders were being issued, the fate of the coming battle was already settled beyond the little stream that lay between the contending armies. The Eebel column was rapidly receiving re-enforcements from the army of Joseph B. Johnston near Harper's Ferry. General McDowell had ex- pressed the greatest uneasiness lest he should find this army joined to Beaure- gard's when he moved to the attack; but General Scott had assured him that Patterson should keep it busy in the valley. If it did escape, "it should have Patterson on its heels."* Now at last, however, Scott had grown sanguine. He believed that success was so sure, that when on the 20th he received a dispatch from Patterson an- nouncing that Johnston had escaped him and was moving to a junction with Beauregai-d, he did not think it worth while to damp the spirits of the young General who was about, under discouragements and difficulties innumerable, to fight his first battle, by telling him of it. Frequent trains of cars were heard arriving at Manassas, and rumors passed from mouth to mouth, till they reached McDowell, that Johnston was coming; but he received no information that seemed authentic; and by two o'clock on the morning of the 21st the troops vvere roused for the battle that was thus decided against them in advance. What followed may now be briefly told. •Kep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1863, Vol II, p. 36. 668 ' Ohio in the War. Waked in the night, the troops, unaccustomed to orderly marching even in daylight, were long in getting fkirly started. Then General Tyler, moving too slowly with his division which had the advance, blocked up the way. It was half-past five before the divisions of Hunter and Heintzleman, which formed the turning column, could get fairly upon their march. Then they would strag- gle. Hundreds wandered off into the bushes to pick a few blackberries. When- ever they came to "water they would stop, empty their canteens, and fill them afresh. McDowell struggled against delays; ordered and ordered again; but it was half-past nine before they reached the Sudiey Ford, where he had hoped to cross by six. Here, as he despairingly adds, every regiment, as it came up, stopped all behind it, while fil« by file the men leisurely took a fresh drink, and again filled their canteens. Looking toward Manassas, he saw large clouds of dust rising, and began to apprehend that Beauregard, divining his movement, was about to fall upon his turning column before he could disentangle it from this confusion. At last, bowevcr, the force crossed and marched down upon the Confederate flank. Even now, after this four hours' delay, success might still have attended the excellent Generalship which had thus planted the bulk of the army in so fkvor- able a position for attacking the enemy in reverse. But the divisioa- Generals, en first confronting the enemy, delivered feeble fnsilades from their heads of columns, and then halted. At last, after an hour's needless delay, the line was formed, and the turning column fairly pushed forward. Meanwhile Beauregard had been, as we now know from the Confederate reports, awaiting for hours an attack which he had ordered by way of Black- burn's Ford, upon McDowell's other flank. His orders for this proved to hare miscarried, and he saw to his amazement that his own left was rapidly crum- bling. In fact, by twelve o'clock the turning column had doubled up this flank so far that it was now able to make- a junction with Tyler's division at the Stone Bridge, where that officer had been all morning confronting the Eebol center. Thus far then:— save for the delay in the execution — McDowell's plan of battle was a perfect success. He had safely crossed the line of Ball Enn ; had turned the enemy's left flank and broken it; and had reunited his army. He was now ready to press upon the oonftised foe toward Manassas. But here be- gan a fatal hesitation. The troops confronted the enemy on the elevated pla- teau beyond Bull Run, near the Stone Bridge. They were pushed forward in detail, and handled slowly and unsatisfactorily. Still they gained substantial advantages. The line was pushed around on the right to envelop the enemy's left flank, and was carried forward in front till it cleared the Warrenton Turn- pike. Once or twice the Rebels surged back over the ground thus carried. But at half-past three o'clock it was in McDowell's possession, the tide of succosb had been generally in our favor, the enemy was evidently disheartened, and our officers were already beginning to rejoice over a victory won. Just then came the apparition that drove the victors and ended the battle. Early's brigade, the last of Johnston's army to reach the ground, marched up, Ibvin McDowell. 669 UMMASBDRG MUKTERST, '" " —• SfURG (' ~ // t-^v.' ^Si'»KV3-aaf NAUGH- «?anches'\te'r" feRIDGEt'Og: (iTAjffEirrOV^N UlilON-" MARTI «iBBlfeafe0Vv. ^#«*'^l»H'»'?^J!!|feT^'"''^i » BEHRyvr|Vt iW!.iTypQ| (fFAflMWELLS^ THE BULL RUN, RAPPAHANNOCK, ANTIETAM, AND CETTYSBURO CAMPAIONS. Ievin McDowell. 671 striking the end of McDowell's right, which, as we have seen, he had been pushing around to envelop the enemy's flank. The onset was unexpected, and the line instantly crumbled as Early swept forward ; and Beauregard, seeing the advantage gained, renewed his efforts to bring up again his retreating troops, the disorder increased. The men, who had thus far fought spiritedly, broke almost in an instant. Eunning from regiment to regiment, and brigade to brigade, there seemed to pass a conviction that ovewhelming re-enforcements had reached their antagonists, that the disaster to the right was fatal, that the battle was lost, that they must retreat, that they must fly. What had been a successful armj' pressing its antagonist and seemingly on the very verge of glo- rious victory, was in ten minutes in fall retreat, in ten minutes more in utter rout. McDowell did his best to rally the men, but they lacked discipline, and with the first reverse their confidence in themselves and their respect for authority were gone. The farther they' went from the field, the more demoralized they became, and at last, recognizing the utter disaster, the General gave orders for the reserve division at Centreville, and for Schenck's brigade of Tyler's divis- ion, which remained in good order, to cover the retreat. These protected the rear, and showed so formidable an ai^pearance that no jiursuit was attempted. The rest of the army streamed back to "Washington a panic-stricken mob. The loss was over two thousand; that of the Rebel army was one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, of whom only two hundred and sixty-nine were killed.* Such was the battle of Bull Run. Looking at it now in the light of a great war's experience, we find little cause for wonder, save that it was no worse. Like Cato, the General, if he could not win success, had at least deserved it. His plan was excellent, and though there were innumerable faults of execution, they arose more because of the materials with which he had to work than because of his own inexperience or lack of judgment. After all the display of ability which the war has called out, we would be puzzled to-day if called upon to name any officer who, if then put in McDowell's place, would have done better. "We may doubt indeed if there are any who, on the whole, would have done so well. For McDowell was not only correct in his plans and sound in judgment on the varying phases of the movement, but he bore with unusual amiability and philosophy the hinder- ances and embarrasments which vexed his whole course. No man knew better the dangers to which his lack of organization exposed him, and the myriad chances which, under such circumstances, might intervene to overturn his best- * Their ofEcial reports give the entire Rebel less as one thousand four hundred and thirty- eight wounded and two hundred and sixty-nine liilled. General McDowell reported his killed at four hundred and eighty-one, and his wounded at one thousand and eleven. Many of these last had but slight injuries, and soon returned to the ranks, so that he estimated the actual loss at about one thousand. But he failed to make any mention of his loss of prisoners ; of whom, well and wounded, Beauregard reports that he took one th_ousand four hundred and sixty. Mc- Dowell crossed Bull Run for the attack with about eighteen thousand men of all arms. Count- ing the last re-enforcements (Early's brigade, which did not arrive till between three and four) Johnston and Beauregard had ibout twenty-seven thousand. 672 Ohio in the War. laid plane. But the Government represented that a battle was necessary. He honestly stated the difficulties in the way, and then, without a murmur, accepting the rislss and preparing to sacrifice his opening career if need be, headdressed himself to fight it. Eightly considered, then, we look upon the battle of Bull Eun as constitu- ting a title for Greneral McDowell to the consideration and regard. of the coun- try — the more deserved now, because of the misunderstanding and torrents of obloquy to which he was necessarily exposed at the time. Here we might leave the subject. But, as we have justified and praised McDowell, we may perhaps be rightly expected to say who or what, then, caused the disaster. The answer is complicated: (1.) General Scott paved the way for the disaster by his ill-tempered ob-- structions and delays, which hindered McI)owell from collecting or equipping the army with which he was to undertake this weighty venture, prevented him fi'om drilling or disciplining it, kept it even unorganized to the last moment, and then precipitated it in a confused mass upon the enemy. With hearty co- operation on the part of all the authorities, that army might have been in satisfac- tory condition to move three weeks earlier, when it could have carried Manas- sas with half the skill and courage wasted at Bull Bun, could have damped the rising enthusiasm of the insurgents, and ended the war within the twelve- month. But General Scott wasted the time in which, the army might have been drilled and organized, in opposing any movement- into his native State, in hoping for compromises, and in urging his Mississippi Valley project. Then he demanded unreasonable haste, and moved the army unprepared. (2.) In spite of these obstacles, the event shows very clearly that McDowell would have forced success had the promise of the General-in-Chief, to keep Johnston away, been fulfilled. Without entering into the vexed question whether Patterson was criminal in suffering Johnston to escape him, or Scott in failing to inform McDowell of the escape on the day before the battle, it is enough to say that for the false arrangement of the Union troops in three columns* on exterior lines, by which they could not possibly concentrate as fast as the respective opposing columns of the enemy could concentrate against any one of them, General Scott is clearly responsible. This fault was vital ; and it was in violation of one of the best established rules of military science.. (3.) The event shows still further that McDowell would have forced success in spite of Johnston's! re-enforcement, but for the greenness of troops and com- manders, which first prolonged the march to Centreville, while they deranged his plans by the skirmish at Blackburn's Ford, and so wrought the delay which enabled Johnston to get up ; and which finally wasted four precious hours in ill-ordered and exhausting marches that should have been spent in action. Wo have seen that the battle was substantially won when Johnston's last brigade that of Early, marching up to the field, was able to strike McDowell's thin right _ flank "in air." But that brigade did not arrive till half-past three o'clock in •At FortreBS Monroe, under Butler; Arlington^ under McBowell; and Harper's Ferry, un- der Patterson, Ievin McDowell. 673 the afternoon. If the iirior events of the battle had been shifted forward by the four hours lost in the morning, it would have been won three hours before Early's arrival.* On such slight circumstances do great events in war, the fate of campaigns, and the extension of hostilities over vast regions ultimately turn. (4.) And finally, General McDowell's own skill in handling troops in ac- tion — a thing to be acquired only by practice — was not equal to the commend- able ability he had thus far displayed. He might probably have prevented the loss of time after crossing Sudloy's Pord, in the first onset of the turning col- ui](in; and he might certainly have handled the army better when he united all his divisions beyond the Stone Bridge, and was ready to storm the plateau. But this was a minor fault; the battle was lost without it. The disaster fell at first with bewildering and stunning effect ujjon the con- fident and eager country. Then, sobered by reverse, it began steadily to or- ganize for victory. But, in the meantime, a victim was wanted. General Scott, the real culprit, was saved by the popular regard for his long and valuable ser- vices, and by his protest that he had all along been opposed to the movement in Virginia.f The Administration could not well be assailed by patriots ; for it must continue in the conduct of the war. It was not popular to say that the soldiers were in any respect to blame, to admit that their discipline fell short of perfection, or that by any possibility they could have run away without more than abundant cause. But the General that commanded them — was he not one of those shoulder-strapped gentry who had contrived to rise to sudden great- ness in the midst of his country's calamities? Had he ever commanded such an army before, in spite of all his pretenses of demanding discipline? Had he not shown that he had too much regard for Eebels bj'' wanting to take care of their property, and carry on a kid-gloved warfare against them, whilst he sent his own troops out to battle, with a march of ten miles before them, with no wat«r on the route, in intensely hot weather, and without a supply-train to ac- company them? In short, was there not reason to suspect him of treason, and •Innumerable scraps of evidence point to this conclusion. Our own troops were animated with the conviction, and it is of accord that our staff officers were already exchangifig congratu- lations over the victory. On the other hand, the enemy wag greatly discouraged and demoral- ized. General Beauregard's chief of staff testifies (Swinton's Hist. Cam. Potomac, p. 58) that while he was escorting Mr. Jefferson Davis up to the front, just before the Union lines gave way, the road was so crowded with stragglers and skulkers that Mr. Davis supposed Beauregard to be completely beaten. " Battles are not woji," he exclaimed, "when several unhurt men are seen carrying off one wounded soldier." General Jos. E. Johnston has, since the close of the. war, openly stated that he was almost as much disorganized by the victory as McDowell by the defeat. The condition of his army, he declares, was such that pursuit was not to be thought of. The Richmond Dispatch (August 1, 1861), in its account of the battle, says that between two and three o'clock the matter looked very gloomy to their side, and that victory hung trembling in the balance. The Louisville Courier (letter from Manassas, dated 22d July, 1861) had it that "the fortunes of the day were evidently against ns. McDowell had nearly outflanked us, and was just in the act of possessing himself of the railroad to Richmond. Then all would have been lost." tAs fully set forth by Governor Raymond, in the New York Times, in a report of a conver- eation at General Scott's dinner-table. Vol. I.— 43. 674 Ohio in the Wae. abundant evidence to convict him of incapacity ? Presently it was reported that the commander of the reserve division was drunk on the field. The peo- ple accepted it for truth, and leaped to the conclusion that the commanding General must also have been drunk. And so McDowell, who " never drank any- thing stronger than a water-melon," who was absolutely and in perfect strict- ness a "total abstinent," came to be popularly regarded as a drunkard. But these were only the clamors of the ignorant populace, who must needs have a victim. Mr. Lincoln took occasion to say, the first time he met McDow^l, " I have not lost a particle of confidence in you." The General replied, in all sin- cerity, " I don't see why, Mr. President, yon should." But in less than a week he was superseded, and the young Captain whom he had joined in recommending for a Major-Generalship in the regular army, was brought on to supersede him. • Under this climax of his misfortunes General McDowell was not only phi- losophic, but absolutely amiable. He quietly accepted the command of a divis- ion in the ..army of which he had been the leader, and proceeded, with great gladness, to the much-needed work of drill and discipline.* By and by, however, in the midst of this congenial work, he was once more disturbed by his evil genius. As he had before been led into disgrace because the Cabinet had called upon him to express an opinion about the plans of Gen- eral Scott, so now he experienced a similar misfortune by reason of the confi- dence entertained in his judgment by members of the Cabinet, which presently led to a call upon him for his opinion about the plans of General McClellan. This officer had fallen sick. The President was in great distress. The whole fall had gone by, the whole winter was going by, and still the magnifi- cent army on the banks of the Potomac was idle, and the capital was under • Nothing can better illustrate the admirable temper in which General McDowell met big trials, than some passages in the Diai-y of Mr. Kussell, of the London Times. Under date of July 21st he writes: (My Diary North and South, Am. Ed., p. 475.) "Cast down from bis high estate, placed as a subordinate to his junior, coveiied with obloquy and abuse, the American General di.t was in the dire!ction of General McClellan's plan. I snid that I had acted entirely in the dark. Gen- eral Meigs spoke of his agency in having us called in by the President. The President then asked what and when anything could be done, again going over somewhat the same ground he had done with General Fmaklin and myself. General McClellan said the case was so clear a blind man could see it, and then spoke of the difficulty of ascertaining what force he could eonnt upon ; that he did not know whether be could let General Butler go to Ship Island, or whether he could re-enforce Burnside. Much conversation ensued, of rather » general character, as to the discrepancy between the number of men paid for and the number effective. The Secretary of the Treasury then put a direct question to General McClellan to the efiect as to what he in- tended doing with his army, and when he intended doing it? Altera long silence, General McClellan answered that the movement in Kentucky was to precede any one from this place, and that that movement might now be /orced/ that he had directed General Buell, if he conld not hire wagons for his transportation, that he must take them. After another pause he said he must say he was very unwilling to develop his plans, always believing that in military matters the fewer persons who were knowing to them the better ; that he would tell them if he was ordered to do so. The President then asked him if he counted upon any particular time; he did not ask what that time was, but had he in his own ntind any particular time fixed when a movement conld be commenced. He replied he had. Then, rejoined the President, I will adjonrn this meeting." It is easy to eee what effect these consultations of his subordinates with the President had upon the mind of General McClellan. We need not pause to dis- cuss the question whether the plan proposed by McDowell (substantially that he had himself first contemplated for reaching Manassas), was better or worse than the one upon which General McClellan had set his heart. It is enough that the President, and in general, the leading members of the Administration, were in favor of it; and that his military chief was not only opposed to it, hut was disposed to look upon it as the ambitious efi"ort of a subordinate to surpass him. Finally the President called a council of the leading Generals to consider McClellan's project of going to the peninsula. Out of the twelve McDowell found only three to agree with him in opposing it. The other eight were unan- imous for the peninsular route. By this time a vigorous McClellan party assumed to control everything at the capital. To this partj-^ McDowell of course became odious and through its influence the country was aided in still remembering his drunkenness, his ques- tionable loyalt}"^, and his incompetence. The President presently took the Irvin McDowell. 679 delaying organization of the army into his own hands, and completed it by appointing four Corps Generals. Foremost among them was McDowell, who, a few days later, was promoted to a Major-Greneralship of volunteers. The cool- ness heretofore existing between the unlucky General, to whom even promo- tion still proved ill-fortune, and his commander was thus increased. And jfinally, when General McOlellan was at last ready to take the field, fresh questions arose between him and the Administration as to the number of troops that should be left on the Potomac to insure the safety of the capital, and 80 once more General McDowell being called upon for his views, was compelled to give to the Government an opinion disagreeable to his chief. He thought the forts should be fully garrisoned on the right bank, and occupied on the loft, and that then a covering force of twenty-five thousand men should be re- tained. "With this simple expression of opinion his whole connection with the dispute as to the protection of the capital ended. But it was long believed by the McClcllan party, and openly charged through nearly all the newspapers of the country, that McDowell secretly strove to excite the apprehensions of Pres- ident and Cabinet as to the safety of Washington and thus to thwart the wishes of McClellan, for the sake of securing an independent command for himself. Circumstances soon seemed to confirm this suspicion. General McDowell supposed that his corps was to be embarked for the peninsula before that of Gen- eral Sumner. McOlellan set out without giving him any other information ; General Sumner's corps was taken and he was still left. Then, to his own astonishment no less than that of McClellan, his corpis, forty thousand strong, was detached from the Army of the Potomac, and he was ordered to report to the Secretary of War. It was a step honestly taken for the proteetiSn of the capital, which Mr. Lincoln believed McClellan had left in danger; but it was the beginning of a long series of fresh misfortunes, in the midst of which the active career of McDowell in the war of the rebellion was to close. He was ordered down to the vicinity of Fredericksburg, and was specially instructed that he was "to consider the capital under his protection, and was to make no movement throwing his force out of position for the discharge of this primary duty."* There straightway arose against him a storm of clamor that surpassed even the defamation that followed Bull Eun. General McClellan regarded the with- drawal of this corps as fatal to his plans. He subsequently acquitted McDowell of all responsibility for it,t but at the time he attributed the whole matter to his subordinate's ambition for an independent command. His partizans were louder and less scrupulous. They made the array and the press of the country ring with their denunciations of McDowell. He was a drunkard. He was a gambler. He was disloyal. He had near relatives in high places in the Eebel army. He cared nothing for the country, everything for his own advancement. And now wo come to notice the strangest element in all the complex com- bination of the man's misfortunes. We have spoken of his coldness and habit *McDowell's statement in review of the evidence before the Court of Inquiry in his case, p. 6, tibid, p. 9. 680 Ohio in the Wak. of reserve. The volunteers could not understand it. They knew well enough that he had small respect for their military worth at the outset. They saw iiim shunning, even scorning, all the ordinary ways adopted by oflScers who wished the good will of their men. He had no charity for small breaches of order; he was a rigid disciplinarian, exacting in his requirements, and unforgiving to of- fenders. Then be was particularly strenuous in the repression of their favorite sin, the destruction or spoliation of the property of wealthy Eebels. Other things they might forgive, but as for this — why it was flat treachery to the cause. They were already disposed to judge him harshly by reason of his rigid and unpopular ways ; the general devotion of his troops to McClellan led them to look upon him as almost criminal, because of their detachment from McClel- lan's command ; and now, when, in addition, he began to punish loyal soldiers for tearing up Eebel fences for camp-fires, he had filled the measure of his un- popularity and had become actually odious. So it came about that (as he afterward said in a recital that, but for its manly tone, would be piteous) men who agreed about nothing else agreed in denouncing him. The McClellan party abused him for not going to the penin- sula, and the whole army, including his own command, thus became intensely hostile to him. The Eadical party abused him for protecting Bobel property, using loyal soldiers to guard Rebel fence rails instead of marching on the enemy, waging a kid-glove war, taking care not to hurt either the feelings or the property of his friends, the Eebels. "There is hardly a form of reproach," he said to the Court of Inquiry, "that was not ased toward me. Every possible way my feelings could be hurt seemed to be taken, not only by those who opposed the Government, under whose very eye I was serving, but by the friends and sup- porters of the Government as well. ... It was said of me that I was idling away the time, doing nothing, on the banks of the Rappahannock ;. flitting back and forth between Fredericks- burg and Washington for mere personal purposes ; fearing to cross the river when there was op- posed to me not more than a fourth of my force ; clamoring for re-enforcements to guard against imaginary dangers ; protecting Bebcl property for the sake of the Kebels ; instead of using my troops to go against the enemy, employing them only to guard the enemy's houses, fences, and, fields ; and then, when in hearing of the sound of the cannon of General McClellan at Han- over C. H., making no sign, but on the contrary leaving Fredericksburg to go to the Shenandoah to avoid moving on Kichmond and coming under General McClellan. This and much more was said of me, week after week, and month alter month. The army seldom saw my name that it was not coupled with some disparaging remark, ... if, iuded, not with .some denunciation or discreditable charge. . . . These things were covered up or allowed, it was said, throagh . the influence of two members of the Cabinet who were my brothers-in-law. . . . Whatever check or disaster the Army of the Potomac incurred ou the peninsula, was attributed to my failure to re-enforce that army when I could do so, and to my having broken it up, as soon as its commander was out of sight of the capital. I think I have rather uuderraled the case than otherwise." A sorrowful narration, indeed, concerning a General at the head of troops whose confidence he was expected to retain, and under the control of a Govern- ment daily growing more impatient of men who could not achieve success. Yet, as he says, it rather understates than exaggerates the facts. I We have seen that the army, tliB press, and indeed the whole country, teemed with such charges. Finally ho jvas denounced in the Senate by a die- Irvin McDowell. 681 tingaished Senator from his own State. Mr. Wade was shown an order which he had issued, in which, with some emphasis, he commanded a subordinate to atop the destruction of fences on a certain plantation. This the Senator read, and thereupon proceeded to hold its author ujj to the condemnation of the coun- try. Next a resolution was passed in the House of Eeprescntatives ordering the Committee on the Conduct of the War to investigate his action. As a prominent gentleman about this time said to him, he was become the most odious man in the nation. We can now see that there was scarcely a particle of foundation for all this clamor, and that it only shows with what cruel and wicked injustice a Eepublic can treat its best servants in times of great popular excitement. It has already been shown that General McClellan subsequently (on oath) exculpated McDowell fi-om all responsibility for the order withdrawing his corps. Ho was as little responsible for his delay before Fredericksburg. Three several times he telegraphed for permission to cross over into the citj', and finally he sent his Inspector-General to plead personally for it.* And as to the protection of Rebel property, we now have it, on the oath of so lamented a sol- dier and so earnest a Radical as General James S. Wadsworth, of New York,f that he foraged on the country so far as was practicable, that he paid only loyal citizens for articles taken, and that all the protection given Rebel property con- sisted in the stern su^ipression of disorderly pillage and marauding — a policy which, after the experience of the war, the most ignorant know to be absolutely essential to the preservation of discipline. On this subject he simply published to his command the army regulations issued by the War Department, and re- quired their enforcement. His own views he subsequently laid down : "There are some who think that to live off the enemy's country means to live at free quarters, and for every one to take whatever "he needs or desires. This is simply pillage, and no army can exist where it is allowed. The only safe rule is to lay it down as a law that no one shall interfere with the rights of property save he who represents the Government; that the Government only has the right to take private property for public purposes; that until the Government, through its proper agent, seizes private property, it is to be protected, and those taking it without authority are to be considered as much guilty of theft or rob- bery as if they had done the same thing in their own State; that all supplies seized by proper authority become the propertj' of the Government, and are to be accounted for as regularly as if purchased with Government funds." These are the views of an unbending disciplinarian; but they are unques- tionably to be commended. His conduct was entirely within them; and but for the clamor that made him odious to his troops, it would have borne valuable fruits in their discipline. But while all this reproach was being heaped upon McDowell, McClellan was getting slowly up the peninsula, was attributing his delaj-s to lack of troops, and was repeating perpetually his calls for McDowell's corps. At last, on the 17th of May, orders were issued from the War Department * Dispatches given in statement before Court of Inquiry, pp. 6, 7. tibid, pp. 20, 21. 682 Ohio in the War. that, on being joined by General Shields's division, he should move on Eich- mond. This division arrived on the 22d — shoeless, ill-clad, and without ammu- nition. On the 23d it was refitted; on the 24th it was ready to move. But this was Sunday, and in defei-ence to the general opinion as to his movement at Bull Eun on Sunday, as well as because of the wish of Mr. Lincoln himself, who was there, the march was postponed until Monday. That night Stonewall Jackson was bursting upon the scattered forces in the vallej-, and before the Sunday was half gone came orders to move at once for the Shenandoah ! Here, then, practically terminates General McDowell's connection with Mc- Clellan's movements against Eichmond, in any of the stages in which those movements took shape. The facts certainly show sufficient promptness on hie part in endeavoring to join the army before- the Eebel capital ; and the order calling him away drew from him an argument against its wisdom, and exprem- ions of the keenest regret.* But he continued to be denounced for having abandoned McClellan to hie fate. The forebodings with which McDowell received this ill-coniaidered orderto go off after Stonewall Jackson f were soon realized. The operations in the valley were in the nature of an ill-concerted and inharmonious combined move- ment. Banks, who had the Shenandoah for his department, lay beyond Stras- burg, threatening Staunton. Fremont, who had West Virginia and the mount- ains for a department, was marching down by the old West Virginia route through Chpat Mountain Gap and Monterey upon Staunton. Jackson liad been sent north by Lee to fall upon either Banks or McDowell, as circumstances might seem to suggest. He saw at once that, scattered as the Union forces were, he could beat them in detail before they could possibly concentrate. Fremont's advance, as the nearest to Staunton, first invited his attention. On this he fell at the Bull Pasture Mountain, near McDowell, and hurled it north- ward toward Franklin and MoorefieldJ Then he turned upon Banks. That officer had fallen back to Strasburg, and had a small outpost at Front Royal. * On the same day, 24th May, General McDowell wrote to the President : "I obeyed your order immediately, for it was positive and urgent; and perhaps, as a subor- dinate, there I ought to stop; but I trust I may be allowed to say something in relation to the subject, especially in view of your remark that everything depends upon the celerity and vigor of my movements. I beg to say that co-operation between General Fremont and myself, to cut off Jackson and Ewell, is not to be counted upon, even if it is not a practical impossibility; next, that I am entirely beyond helping distance of General Banks, and no celerity or vigor will be available, so far as he is concerned ; next, that by a glance at the map it wiU'be seen lluit the line of retreat of the enemy's forces up the valley is shorter than mine to go against him. It will take a week or ten days for the force to get to the valley by the route which will give it food and forage, and by that time the enemy will have retreated. I shall gain nothing for you there and lose much for you here. It is therefore not only on personal grounds that I have a heavy heart in the matter, but I feel that it throws us all back, and from Richmond north we shall have all our large mass paralyzed, and shall have to repeat what we have just accomplished." tSee his letter to the President, quoted in above note. t Not without a hard fight, under the leadership of General Schenck, in which he was held at bay till nightfall. Schenck then retreated under cover of tlie darkness, and though JacKSon the next day pursued, he did not see fit to attack. Ikvin McDowell. 683 On this Jackson suddenly fell and destroyed it. Then pushing straight for Winchester, he strove to get upon Banks's rear and cut him off. It was on the night of the 23d that Banks discovered his danger. He immediately began a hasty retreat. On the 24th McDowell — just ready to start to Eichmond' — was ordered to strike the Shenandoah Yalley behind Jackson — connecting with Fremont, who was to come over into it from the other side. Eegretting the order and predicting the failure, he nevertheless started at once. When he reached the neighborhood of the valley he found that Jackson was retreating up it; that Fremont, before crossing into it from the other side, had marched northward instead of southward, and so had entered it just as Jackson had passed back. Hastily sending his cavalry to join Fremont in the pursuit, he then, yielding to the judgment of his division commander. General Shields, who had previously campaigned through that country, sent him south- ward to strive to plant himself in front of Jackson and across his path. The movements met with the usual fate of combined operations carried on under independent commanders. Each force was beaten in detail. Jackson turned suddenly upon Fremont's pursuing column, fought it all day at' Cross Keys, and so gained time for his advance and trains to cross the river. Then, dashing across and burning the bridge behind him, he struck Shields's advance (sent up by McDowell) at Port Eepublic, and, after an obstinate little fight, drove it. Thus freed from all his pursuers, he leisurelj- turned south through the valley, leaving Fremont, and Banks, and McDowell to count their bruises. McDowell's sad prediction at the outset had been more than verified, and for the very reason which he assigned: The distance for the co-operating troops to march was greater than that over which Jackson had to retreat. They could not possibly combine until his Opportunity came to turn first upon the one and then upon the other. McDowell instantlj^ recognized the failure, and begged for permission to resume forthwith the abandoned movement to Eichmond. More than that ; with a keenness of foresight quite new in the war, he warned the Administration of the terrible peril next in store: " I fear precious time is being lost so far as 1 am concerned, by my having to wait for General Banks, and that I am delaying the re-enforcements for Eichmond, where they will be needed more than ever, if, as lam led to think may be the case, Jackson has gone to re-enforce Lee."^ Prophetic warning ! But it fell upon inattentive cars, alike with the Administration at Washington, and with the delaying General astride the Chickahominy. It was as early as the 14th of June that it was given. Ten days before this McDowell had begun his efforts to get out of the val- ley and back to Fredericksburg on his way to Eichmond. On the 14th he tele- graphed General Banks, also, begging him to relieve the troops from Fredericks- burn- still kept in the valley. On the 15th he sent an earnest dispatch to the President renewing his petitions to be allowed to draw out of the valley and start to McClellan's aid. On the same day he telegraphed in similar terms, but more at leno-th, to the President. Day by day he continued his efforts. At last * McDowell's Statement to Court of Inquiry, p. 15. 684 Ohio in the Wak. he got leave to withdraw his troopa from Front Royal. On the 20th they started. By the 23d they began to reach Fredericksburg. Already General McDowell had written to McClellan, expressing great pleasure at the prospect of being at last able to join him and fixing the 20th for his start. As we have seen, he had been delayed. On the 26th came the President's order, abolishing McDowell's Department of the Rappahannock, and assigning him to command under Gen- eral Pope, in the new, "Army of Virginia."* With this ended General McDowell's career as an independent commander. Its leading features may be briefly recapitulated : He had fought Bull Run. Then, on again receiving independent command, he had entered Fredericksburg, and had begged permission to join McGlollan. Then, just as he was ready for this, he had been directed to the Shenandoah Valley to aid in co-operative movements for the capture of Stonewall Jackson, which, through no fault of his, utterly failed. And, finally, he had striven to get his troops out of the valley, again to march on Richmond ; when, as he was nearly ready, came new arrangements, assigning him to another army and a sflbordinate command. Throughout his plans had been good, his execution quite equal to that of any of his compeers, and his earnest desire to serve wherever his services might be effectual, conspicuous. Throughout he had been overwhelmed by outside causes, and forever attended by a persistent ill-fortune. When, alarmed by Stonewall Jackson's- easy triumphs in the valley; by the inharmonious operations of the three prominent Generals,t to each of whose independent commands was attached the duty of defending the capital and the northern frontier; and by the ominous delays before Richmond, Mr. Lincoln decided first to concentrate the several columns before Washington under one commander, and then, in the swiftly rushing current of events, to use this com- mander for an attack upon Lee, under cover of which McClellan might escape from the peninsula, it was decided that to nreither of the three independent Generals lately striving in vain to co-operate, could the new trust be confided. A fresh commander, with the prestige of success was sought ; and iho West sent forward the hero of Island No. 10. Thus General McDowell once more came under the command of a junior whom, a year ago, he had left but of sight in the race for promotion — an officer of less repute in the old army than himself, and unquestionably of inferior professional acquirements. He submitted to his hard fate, not only without a murmur, but with perfect good grace and cordiality. But the circumstances under which he now took the field for the severe campaign that was speedily inaugurated were, if possible, even less auspicious than at any previous time in his ill-starred career. Before the late operations toward the Shenandoah, his troops, for the various reasons already enumerated, had come to regard him with almost as much hostility as the enemy. Now their temper was still worse. They had been subjected to severe forced marches, ♦McDowell's Statement to Court of Inquiry, pp. 17, 18. t Fremont, Banks, and McDowell. Irvin McDc/well. 685 to exposure without tents and with lialf rations, on a movement that had re- sulted in nothing. Those, were, it is true, but the incidents of an honest obedi- ence to the orders he had received, but, as we have already seen, it was the fate of this commander to be forever held responsible for the requirements which others chose to lay upon him. So now there was fierce complaint among his soldiers. They were worn down, they said, tramping back and forth on fools' errands on which McDowell had sent them. Their transportation was cut down to seven or eight wagons to a regiment, because McDowell didn't want to see bis men comfortable.* They were often treated like felons, because McDowell would have them arrested for straggling, or for appropriating the enemy's prop- erty without orders. In such temper the unlucky General had to lead his troops into an active campaign. "When General Pope assumed the command of the department he expected to be able to lead his whole army down to co-operate with McClellan. But on that very day Lee's onset on McClellan's right began. The foreboding of Mc- Dowell that Stonewall Jackson would next appear at Eichmond, had been veri- fied. Then Pope sought at least to effect a diversiop which might aid McClellan after his "change of base." To this end he concentrated his armj', and moved downto Culpepper. But by this time Stonewall Jackson's mission at Eichmond had been accomplished, and ho was again detached northward ; so that now his pickets and those of Pope began exchanging shots along the Eapidan. Banks was then pushed up to Cedar Mountain, with orders to hold his ground, and to attack if the enemy advanced upon him. Stung, however, by the recollections of his late retreat, and, j)erhaps, also by the needless earnestness with which General Pope's Chief of Staff volunteered to urge upon him that "there must be no backing out this time," General Banks, instead of awaiting the enemy's advance, himself precipitated the attack, on unfavorable ground and with terri- ble odds against him. His own conduct and that of his troops was superbly gallant, but no bravery on the field could avert the consequences of his blunder. Pope had ordered Sigel up in support, but that oflScer was culpably tardy in obeying. Banks was left to struggle alone with his single corps, not eight thousand strong, against Stonewall Jackson, with three divisions numbering .twenty-five thousand men, in strong; defensive positions; and the result was a sad swift slaughter. McDowell, in prompt obedience to Pope's orders through the day, disposed his divisions at points near Culpepper, awaiting developments. Up to five o'clock in the afternoon Pope had no idea that Banks was bringing on a severe engagement. Then he ordered McDowell up, in time to prevent the enemy from attempting to profit by Banks's repulse, but too late to have much share in the brief and bloody fighting. Within a few days captured dispatches now revealed the plans of the wary '■'Very great discontent was aroused by the.s(! efforts to mobilize the army — measures wise and neee-ssary — objections to which only showed the greenness as soldiers of the men who made them. In this, as in so many other things, it was simply McDowell's misfortune to be ahead of his timof , 686 Ohio in the War. General-in-Chief of the Eebel forces. McClellan was considered out of the way. Leaving a small force to garrison Eichmond, Lee meant to concentrate suddenly on Pope and overwhelm him. Thus fully advised of his danger, Pope still held his advanced positions till the last, hoping thereby to relieve McClellan, and give time for his return and junction, which the Government had now ordered. Meantime he represented his danger, and began praying for re-enforcements- in reply to which the Administration begged him to hold out a little longer, and promised speedy re-enforcements from the Army of the Potomac. He felt constrained to fall back from the Rapidan to the Rappahannock ; but here, near Warrenton, he stood. Finally, Stuart, with the Rebel Cavalry, crossing above his right, circled about his rear, captured his head-quarters baggage-train, and gained an accurate knowledge of his positions. Still Pope held his ground facing westward, to oppose the threats from the direction of his right flank, and concentrating his armj' ; while he ordered forces from about Manassas oif westward to observe the gaps in the mountains, behind which it was feared that Lee (who had now arrived) might be trying to turn his right and fall upon his rear. . The precaution was too Jate. Lee's advance, under Stonewall Jackson, was already behind the mountains. On the 26th of August it rapidly debouched through Thoroughfare Gap, fell upon Pope's rear (at Bristoe Station), and cap- tured trains and supplies. Thence, without delay, Jacksoa pushed on to Ma- nassas Junction, carried the post, captured large quantities of supplies, with guns and prisoners. Then, as General Scamraon and others, with fragments of hastily collected forces pushed out from near Washington against him, he routed them in detail, and drove forward, with flying bands of his cavalry, past Cen- troville, and even up to Fairfax C. H. Jind Burke's Station, within striking dis- tance of the capital itself. Meantime Pope, with his whole army, had been cut oif. Jackson stood between him and Washington. In this crisis his action was judicious. He gave such orders to his several corps as to effect a rapid concentration — ^not at Ma- nassas Junction, where the enemy was, but at Gainesville, to the west of it — thus hoping to cut off the possibility of Jackson's retreat, and to interpose be- tween him and the rest of Lee's army, advancing through the gap. McDowell, holding the left, was to push straight ibr Gainesville, and Sigel, who was next him, was to come under his orders. Now it happened that among McDowell's particular aversions were the Captains and Majors from European .armies, who, by virtue of their supposed experience abroad, w.ore made Brigadier and Major-Generals in our service. Thus far the conduct of General Sigel had done little to create a more favorable impression in his case.* But, on the night of the 27th, McDowell arrived at Gainesville with both corps in as good order as could be expected. Here McDowell proposed to hold Sigel's corps^ while a division was to bo sent to Hay market, just this side of Thoroughfare Gap, to resist and at least •Siegel had been ordered to Banke's relief at Cedar Mountain, before McDowell, but had Bcnt back to know what road he shoiiUl take, there being but one rgad ! Ievin McDowell. 687 delay the passage of tne rest of Leo's army to Jackson's relief With the rest of his command he would march at daylight toward Jackson's supposed posi- tion at Manassas, to co-oporato with the rest of Pope's forces. The substance of these dispositions was, in fact, embodied in an order, written about midnight. But within an hour a confident dispatch was received from Pope. The enemy was between Manassas and Gainesville. McDowell was to move at day- light toward Manassas with his whole force. If he did so, they were "to bag the whole crowd." A new order was therefore issued, prescribing the movements of the sev- eral divisions in accordance with these directions. Eealizing, however, the danger from Thoroughfare Gap, McDowell still, on his own responsibility, made it the special duty of one of the divisions to keep watch in that direction — away from which the command was to march — and to turn and resist any force that might be discovered coming through it. General Pope afterward expressed his regret at this step, but subsequent events, as well as sound military precau- tions, abundantly sanction its wisdom. On the morning, then, of the eventful 28th, McDowell's command was by Pope's order to march south-east to Manassas Junction. It was the first dan- gerous error. For, by every step taken in this direction, the army was carrying itself oflf the direct line between Jackson and the rest of the army in whose coming now lay his only safety — was moving out of position to prevent the junc- tion. Jackson adroitly moved northward from Manassas Junction toward Groveton. Then, between him and the approaching troops of Lee stretched an open road. f Meantime, partly perhaps because of the secret antagonism of feeling be- tween the two, but more because of direct misconduct on the part of Sigel, that officer had failed to obey promptly McDowell's order for movement at two o'clock toward Manassas Junction. At daylight he was still in camp ; by noon he was only two miles from Gainesville, where he had spent the night. Even then ho persisted in" going south of the railroad, after rei^eated orders sent over by McDowell to move along the north side of it. The line of advance was thus carried awaj' from the direction in which Jackson was moving to evade the threatened blow. The delay had also hindered the advance of the other corps ; and so the division commander charged to watch Thoroughfare Gap construed it to be his duty, while the rear of the army was thus exposed, to take post in that direction. So it came about that when Pope, haying about noon discovered that Jack- son had escaped from Manassas northward, sent orders to. McDowell to change his route northward also, and take the direct road to Centreville, that officer, out of his two corps, had but one division so in hand that he could promptly turn it. Before the rest could get up this division, late in the afternoon, was approaching Jackson's position just north of the old Bull Eun battle-field at Groveton. Jackson instantly fell upon it, and a fierce conflict ensued. The troops maintained themselves, as Jackson oflScially reported, with obstinate de- termination, but they were effectually checked ; and their commander, being 688 Ohio in the War. alarmed by his apparently isolated position, fell back after nightfall toward Manassas again. McDowell himself was absent trying to find Pope. While this fight was going on, the division ordered by McDowell to watch Thoroughfare Gap was in sorer straits. Longstreet's corps of Lee's army com- ing'up through the gap to Jackson's relief attacked it. The ground was obsti- nately contested, but Longstreet sent flanking forces along bridle-paths in the mountains ; and, in effect, the passage was forced, and the rest of Lee's army was long before nightfall hastening due east along the open road past Gainesville to Jackson. For Pope's grave error in turning McDowell south-eastward to- ward Manassas Junction had taken him off the road by which Lee advanced. The last obstruction was thus removed to the junction of the rest of the Eebel army to Jackson's previously isolated wing. What follows is a pitiful story. Pope had been moving not only McDow- ell's two corps, but all the rest of the army, including the re-enforcements from the Army of the Potomac, by converging routes on Manassas Junction, where he had hoped to surround Jackson. When now, on the morning of the 29th, he discovered that Jackson had eluded him, his columns were all out of place with reference to a speedy onset at Groveton. The parts of the army were all dis- located. But he collected them as he could; sent Sigel to open the attack, while McDowell, relieved of his unwilling subordinate, by coming again under the direct orders of the General commanding the army, was to 'take one division along with Porter's corps back again to Gainesville to keep off Lee — thus returning directly over the advance of the day before. Some time was spent io issuing rations to the troops, who were worn out and disgusted with this con- fused marching and counter-marching. Then McDowell started toward Gaines- ville. Presently he found Porter halted. That officer believed that Longstreet was already joining Jackson on his front. McDowell says he ordered him to attack. Porter says the order was to remain where he was. At any rate, taking his own troops, McDowell once more turned back toward Groveton, where he did not arrive till late in the afternoon. These contradictory orders and marches, it is plain, frittered away the chance that still remained on the morning of the 29th for overpowering Jack- son. . By noon, according to the reports of the Confederates themselves. Ijong- street had effected the junction.* But it does not appear that McDowell is to blame for this. It ia not, indeed, clear that he was distinct in his own ideas as to the true policy; but he obeyed his orders. The battle of the 29th was indecisive. But Lee's whole army was now up, and was flushed with this great success in effecting the junction iu the face of Pope's efforts. Pope's army, on the other hand, was exhausted, scattered, and •This is a point much disputed. Pope maintains that no considerable part of the army reached Jackson till the evening of the 29th, and the question of Fitz John Porter's action turns largely upon the correctness or error of this view. General D. E. Jones, who commanded the rear division of Longstreet's corps, siiy.s in his report: "Arriving on the grbund about noon, my command was stationed," etc. Tliis would seem to settle the matter, since no conceivable motive ciin be assigned for his making a misrepresentation on such a point. Ikvin McDoavell. 689 bewildered with the confused movements. It had begun to lose faith in all its commanders; and, as a whole, it did not fight as well as it should. The opening of the battle on the 30th was signalized by another mistake. Lee was propos- ing to attack Pope's left, just as Pope began an attack upon Lee's left. Naturally this flank was found a little retired — troops having been drawn off to the other wing for the attack Lee was preparing. Thereupon Pojje leaped to the con- clusion that it was a retreat, that Lee "was fleeing to the mountains," and so ordered a "pursuit," which McDowell was to conduct. The pursuit was met by the outbursting of fierce fire from an enemy suddenly seen swarming over posi- tions he was thought to have abandoned. At the same time Lee's attack on Pope's left was delivered. Seeing this, McDowell instantly detached a division to hold Bald Hill, back on the old Bull Eun battle-field, whither the attack seemed to be driving the whole left wing. This step was wise, in that it pro- tected the only road by which the array could retreat; but it weakened the offensive force on the right. This was of the less consequence, as the enemy's position here, in an old railroad cut, was not to be carried. Eepeated assaults ended in bloody repulse. Finally Longstreet established an enfilading fire along McDowell's line, and he was compelled to fall back. Jackson instantly advanced, the rest of the Eebel line followed, and the second battle of Bull Eun wa3 over. McDowell's fortunate disposition of troops on the hills covering the road secured the passage across the stream. Palpably the campaign was over. The next day Pope began retiring to the defenses of Washington — an operation not completed without the indecisive but costly battle of Chantilly, by the way, with the addition of Kearney and Ste- vens to the ghastly list of our slain. And thus, as at the outset of McDowell's career in the war, a cruel fortune had sent him drifting back on the capital from the lost field of Bull Eun, with a mob for an army — so now it was fated that his career should end, as from the self-same field, in similar confusion, he drifted back with the remnants of two greater armies. On the 6th of September he was relieved of command. General Pope professed himself, not only satisfied, but highly pleased with McDowell's conduct through this brief but crowded campaign.* General Hal- leck declared that McDowell had rendered signal service and deserved national gratitude. The President and Cabinet said he had done nothing deserving of blame. But all this was of no avail. The hatred of his soldiers and the hostility of the McClellan party could not pass for nothing. A storm of obloquy burst upon him, compared with which the storm after the first Bull Eun was but a summer breeze. ■ The soldiers everywhere denounced him as a drunkard and a traitor. The newspapers poured upon him an incessant stream of abuse — many * Subsequently, in his official report, Pope said: "General McDowell led his corps through the whole of the campaign with ability and vigor ; and I am greatly indebted to him for zealous and distinguished service, both in the battle of the 29th and 30th August, and in the operations which preceded and succeeded those battles." YOL. I.— 44. 690 Ohio in the Wae. of those from his own State taking the lead in this calumnious work. _ Every day the poltroon's threat was heard from some of those who jrofessed to have served under him, that thej' meant to shoot him in the very next action in which they should be engaged. Finally all this calumny took tangible shape in the publication of a lettfer written by Colonel Thornton F. Broadhead, of the First Michigan Cavalry, of McDowell's command, after he had received a mortal wound; "Dear Brother and Sister: — I am passing now from earth, but send you love from my dying couch. For all your love and kindncsH you will be rewarded. "I have fought manfully and now die fearlessly. I am one of the victims of Pope's imbe- cility and McDowell's treason. " Tell the President would he save the country he must not give our hallowed flag to sach hands. But the old flag will triumph yet. The soldiers will regild its folds, polluted by imbe- cility and treason. ' " John, you owe a duty to your country. Write — show up Pope's imbecility and McDowell's infamy, and force them from places where they can send brave men to assured destruction. "I had hoped to live longer, but I die midst the ring and clangor of battle, as I could wish, "Farewell I To you and to the noble officers of my regiment I confide wife and children. " THOENTON." Nothing can well be conceived more distressing to an innocent commander than charges like these, honestly put forward by a dying subordinate. Yet we may well believe that, agonizing as they we're, McDowell was rejoiced at their publication. For now, at last, thougji no superior had one word of complaint against him, he was able to treat this letter of a dying man in the light of charges formally preferred, and to demand thereon a trial before a properly- organized court. This, in language properly chosen, and in a temper every way honorable to him as a patriotic soldier, he instantly did, as follows : " Washington, September 6, 1862. " To Hit Excellency the Preiident: " I have been informed by a Senator that he has seen a note in pencil, written by a Colonel of cavalry mortally wounded in the recent battles, stating, among other causes, that he was dying a victim to McDowell's treachery, and that fcis Isst request was that this note be shown to yon. That the Colonel believed this charge, and felt that his last act on earth was a great public serv- ice, there can be no question. This solemn accusation from the grave of a gallant ofiBcer, who died for his country, is entitled to great consideration, and I feel called upon to meet it as well as sp general a charge from one now no longer able to support it can be met. I therefore beg you to please cause a court to be instituted for its in vestigation ; ' and in the absence of any knowledge whatever of the particular act or acts, time or place, or general conduct, the deceased may have had in view, I have to ask that the inquiry be without limitation, and be upon any point and every subject which may in any way supposed to have led to this belief; that it may be directed to my whole conduct as a general officer, either under another or whilst in a separate command; to my co.rrespondence with any one of the enemy's commandei-s, or with any one within tlie enemy's lines; to my conduct or the policy pursued by me toward the inhabitants of the country occupied by our troops, with reference to themselves or their property ; and further, to any indi- cations of indirect treachery, or disloyalty to the nation, or any individual having, like myself, an important trust ; whether I have or have not been faithful as a subordinate to those placed over me — given them a hearty and, to the best of tny capacity, all the support in my power; and whether I have or have not failed, through unworthy or personal motives, to go to the aid of, or send re-enforcements to ray brother commanders. " That this subject of my alleged treachery or disloyalty will be fully inquired into, I b«g Irvin McDowell. 691 that all officers, soldiers, or civilians who know, or think they know, of any act of mine liable to the charge in question, be invited and allowed to make it known to the court. " I also beg that the proceedings of the court may be open and free to the press from day to day. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, "IRVIN McDowell, " Commanding Third Army Corps Army of Virginia.'' The request was granted, an atle court was appointed, and many weeks were spent in the protracted investigation. General Pope was examined ; Gen- eral McClellan, General Wadsworth, General Sigel, and scores of less important officers were examined ; every one who hated McDowell, or who professed to know aught against him Was reqjuestedto come and testify to it.' The results of this patient and tedious search may be briefly stated. (1.) It was proved that, instead of being a drunkard, no living mortal had ever seen him taste liquors or wines; and his associates, those who had known him from boyhood, and those who had seen his daily life in the army, declared him to be a rigid and absolute " total abstinent." (2.) It was proved that, instead of intriguing to withdraw his corps from McClellan, he was utterly ignorant of such intention on the part of any one till the withdrawal was ordered ; that instead of seeking to retain his independent command at Fredericksburg, he was constantly striving for permission to march toMcClellan's relief; and that, instead of suggesting the foolish diversion to the Shenandoah after Stonewall Jackson, he had foreseen and earnestly pointed out its impracticability. ' (3.) It was proved that, instead of refusing to employ the resources of the enemy's country, he had issued orders to forage liberally upon the enemy, but had insisted with the rigor of a severe disciplinarian, that this should be done in an orderly manner, and that marauding and pillage should be sternly pun- ished ; whereuijon the marauders and pillagers denounced him, and the excited country espoused their cause. (4.) It was proved that, instead of carrying on frequent and friendly cor- respondence with the Eebel commanders, almost his only corresjiondence was concerning the wanton murder of a noted loyal Virginian, Robert B. Scott, whose admission to the Cabinet had been contemplated. He deplored the act, and earnestly strove to further the personal wishes of the bereaved widow. • (5.) It was proved that, instead of devoting his army to the protection of Rebel citizens, he had only devoted himself to the protection of his army. Ut- ter demoralization must have resulted from the permission, which he refused, to commit acts of license upon the inhabitants. (6.) And, finally, it was proved that, throughout the campaign from Cedar Creek to the defenses of Washington, be had obeyed everj' order promptly and skillfully; and that when left to his own judgment he had acted, not perhaps always for the best, but certainly as always seemed for the best. General Sigel undertook to make strictures upon an alleged want of promptness and co-ope- ration at certain stages, which resulted in the conclusive proof of General Sigel's own disobedience of orders at the stages referred to, and of other serious mis- 692 Ohio in the War. conduct. And General Milroy made strictures upon his alleged refusal to fur- nish him re-enforcements near the close of the battle of the second Bull Ran, which led to the proof of Milroy's not having a command of even a company on the field at that time to re-enforce; of his attempting to interfere with the commands of others ; and of his being in a frenzy of excitement, which left him scarcely responsible for his actions. And so the investigation ended. At its close General McDowell submitted a singularly calm statement in review of the evidence, which he concluded as follows : "It is now more than five months since, upon an intimation from the highest authority, I asked for this investigation. It has been held near where all the alleged acts of commission or omission took place. It has been open. All persons have been invited,' in the most pablic way, to disclose to the court whatever they knew which would tend to show criminality in my conduct as an officer or as a man ; and the court have asked witnesses not only what they knew, but what they knew others knew. Those who do not wish me well have been asked every question likely to develop anything to my prejudice. I feel now, after this tedious and patient investigation, which this court has so faithfully made, that as to"the past, on all matters concerning my loyalty or sobriety, I may be spared the charj^es that have been so freely made against me. " Nearly two years ago I was here, organizing the small beginnings of the grand Army of the Potomac. When I commenced, we had here in Washington Cooper, now the senior Gen- eral in the secession array ; Lee, commanding at Fredericksburg ; Johnston, the commander of the Rebel Army of the Mississippi ; Magruder, the commander of the enemy's forces in Texas ; Femberton, the commander at Vicksburg ; Jones and Fields, prominent on the other side, besides many others of less rank. Alexandria was mostly, if not wholly, secession; Georgetown and Washington were very Inuch so. I organized the first hundred, the first thousand, and the first brigade of the loyal citizens of the place, and this in opposition to all the bad influences brought to bear against us. And when the troops from the North came down, and the capital had been saved and the opposite shore taken, I organized the army of which the present one is but an extension — a great one, it is true. "I have been in constant active service. No doubt of my loyalty has been entertained by the authorities or my superiors, and no evidence questioning it has been brought before this conrt And yet I have had to leave my command and undergo the humiliation of an investigation on a chtrge, in my case, as baseless as it is senseless ; and this in as intelligent a country as ours claims to be. The charge of treason is a fit pendant to the one of drunkenness, and quite as true, seeing that to this day I have never drank anything but water. " Is it not a bad symptom in the nation when such things can take place? Can its officers sustain themselves under such a system, and render that service which the country needs in its present critical state, and must have as a condition of its salvation?" The appeal was in vain. The court completely vindicated McDowell, but the country was not then in a mood to do justice to those against whom it had prejudices, and the troops were as violent as ever in their hostility. It was thus impossible to assign him to the command of forces in the field. He was made President of a court for investigating alleged cotton frauds, and in this capacity he served, mostly in the South-west, through the months of May, June, and July, 1863. He was made President of a Board, at Wilmington, Delaware, for retir- ing disabled oflScers of the army ; and in this service he continued from July, 1863, to May, 1864. Then, in July, 1864, he was sent to the Pacific coast, in command of that department. When, at the close of the war, in the redistri- bution of commands to the Major-Generals in the regular army, it became nec- essary to assign Halleck to the military district composed of the Pacific slope, Irvin McDowell. , 693 McDowell was given (June, 1865) the most desirable of its departments, that of California. Here he long continued, serving in the rank of Brigadier-General and Brevet Major-General* in the regular army, in honor after so much detrac- tion, but cheated of the large career and brilliant fame to which his fine capa- cities, his early start, and his continued devotion entitled him to aspire. And now, what shall we say in attempting to estimate the military charac- ter of an officer with such a career? Pursued, as he was, by misfortunes, for- ever the victim of circumstances, forever on the point of accomplishing brilliant results, and forever toppling backward instead into an abyss of disasters, doomed to see his wisest preparations frustrated by outside causes, his most earnest devotion doubted, his most careful discipline begetting insubordination, and his most exposed service procuring the charge of treachery, — in what light can we fairly consider him but as the jest and plaything of malevolent Fates? Yet we shall not judge him aright if we trace the sources of his persistent , ill-fortune exclusively to outside causes. Faults inherent in the character of the man helped to swell the bias against him. His aristocratic ideas leM to an imprudent scorn of popular opinion. His dislike for adventurers led to an ill- concealed contempt for the suddenly-advanced officers of foreign services. His prejudices against the unquestioned irregularities of volunteers led to an unwise harshness of bearing and of discipline. Sadly ill-fitted to the management of the troops of a democratic Republic, he was not free from the current talk of the West Pointers against the politicians who had made them. His intellectual conservatism led to a revulsion against the abolition current which was the life- blood of the war. His somewhat torpid habit of perceptions caused him some- times to persist in a wrong course, where men of quicker and shallower thoughts would have seen its tendencies, to be blind to the injurious workings of his dis- cipline, to be incredulous of evil reports. His pride was so great that, knowing himself odious, he would resort to none of the common modes for acquiring or regaining popularity. These habits of thought and of action helped the failure which they were not sufficient to create ; and it is for this reason that the career of McDowell becomes a notable warning and example to younger officers. His faults were not vices — they were simply the excess of qualities commendable enough in themselves. At the outset he seemed to have before him the most brilliant opportunities of any officer in the army. He had seen the war in Mexico from the best of positions — the staif of a commanding General. He had enlarged upon the knowledge thus acquired by copious study. He had seen the organizations and movements of European armies. He had long enjoyed the personal instraction of Winfield Scott. Profiting by all these advantages, he had become probably the best military scholar, the best theoretical soldier in the service. He enjoyed the favor of the Gcneral-in -Chief. He was likewise in high favor with the Ad- * The Brevet Major-Generalehip in the regular army was not conferred until March 13, 1865, long after the calumnies against hitn were refuted. It was "for gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Cedar Mountain, Virginia." 694 /• Ohio in the Wae. ministration, and was peculiarly esteemed by the member of the Cabinet then the most influential. With 'such brilliant auguries he entered the war. Within little over a year he was retired from active service, the most odious officer in the army. His active career embraced two great lost battles, a movement on Fredericksburg, an inconsequential race after Stonewall Jackson, and the minor operations at the head of his coi-ps in Pope's Virginia campaign. In the battle in which he exercised independent command his conduct was skillful and able. In that in which he was subordinate, he so boro himself as to receive the highest praises of his chief. His military conduct throughout, if not brilliant, was at least in a high degree judicious and well-conceived. But he displayed an utter incapacity for acquiring the Confidence of volunteers. In a somewhat sad letter of McDowell's, which we have lately seen, he speaks mournfully enough of his record in the war of the rebellion as being a disagreeable subject : " I feel," he says, "that I am one of the ' miffht-have-beens' rather than one of those who have been and are. I was ranch struck by a report of General Sherman's speech in Columbus,* which, in enumerating the Ohio Generals, omits my name altogether!" He should dismiss this feeling. Eepublics may not always be grateful; and it often happens that in the heat of exciting events they are grossly unjust. But honest services, conspicuously rendered, can not be always misrepresented, nor can they every pass out of men's memories. History, he may be sure, will plead successfully with Oblivion for his name. His place, in the sure judgment of coming times, is secure. He will not be reckoned brilliant or great. But his ability and his devotion will be recog- nized. His manifold misfortunes, the amiability with which he encountered per- sonal reverses, the fortitude with which he endured calumny, will be recounted. Men will do justice to the services he rendered us in our darkest hours; and he will leave an enduring and an honorable fame. General McDowell is a man of. large, well-developed frame, of excellent presence and consummate address. His head is large, and the face is strong and heavy. Among his friends, and in the freedom of the social circle, no man can be more winning. In his general intercourse he is reserved and cold. Po- litically, he is understood to be a Conservative Eepublican. He has long been married, and a promising family grows up about him. Army life has become a habit with him, and there is little likelihood now of his ever leaving the senr- ice. He enjoys the respect and confidence of his superiors — as he did through the whole season of his troubles ; and officers generally still look upon him as one of the niost accomplished soldiers in the army. ♦Sherman's appointment to a Colonelcy in the regular army at the outbreak of the war, when opposed by some of the authorities was warmly indorsed and seconded by McDowell, who was then powerful. It is little wonder, then, that he should be struck by Shermfin's complete for- getfulness of him. Don Caelos Buell. 695 MAJOR-GENERAL DON CARLOS BUEI/L. DON CAELOS BUELL, one of the most accomplished military schol- ars of the old army, and one of the most unpopular Generals of vol- unteers during the war of the rebellion — an oflBcer who oftener deserved success than won it — who was, perhaps, the best organizer of an army that the contest developed, and who was certainly the hero of the greatest of the early battles of the war, was born near Marietta, in Washington County, Ohio, on the 23d of March, 1818. Captain Timothy Buell, one of the early settlers of Cincinnati, was the General's grandfather on the maternal side, and Salmon Buell on the paternal side. Captain Buell is said to have built the first brick house erected in Cin- cinnati. He did not remain there long, however, but yielded to the wishes of some other members of his family and removed to "Washington County, where they were then settled. Shortly afterward the war with the Indians broke out, and the Captain, raising a company, and taking with him his nephew, Salmon D. Buell, went into the field. They served till the close of the war. Shortly after their return young Salmon married Eliza, the daughter of his uncle and Captain. Of this marriage, the first son was Don Carlos Buell. Before the lad, that was afterward to hold so prominewt positions, had com- pleted his seventh year his father died. The mother, after some time, married Mr. Dunlevy, who was then clerk of the Washington County Court, and con- tinued in that office until his death. Young Don Carlos, however, was soon taken by his uncle, George P. Buell, to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where his boy- hood was passed. Among the men of that place verging on the fifties are many who remember him as playmate and school-fellow. They unite in describing the future General as a reserved and taciturn lad, having few intimate asso- ciates, but regarded by them as a " most genial and companionable fellow." He excelled in the boyish sports of the time, was a fearless hunter, and noted as the best skater in all that region. Usually undemonstrative and quiet in demeanor, he nevertheless gave proof enough that, when roused, he was not only a brave but almost a savage fighter. Shortly alter his arrival, the "town bully" among the lads of the time, one Joseph Danagh, determined to see what stuif the " new boy " was made of They met at the town pump one morning, a ring was formed, and the new boy proved his mettle by beating the bully. From that time his position was secure. Until his sixteenth year young Don Carlos attended school at Lawrence- 696 Ohio in the War. burg, making fair progress, and being regarded as a promising boy, of excel- lent moral habits, and remarkable for his sturdiness of purpose. At sixteen he entered the dry -goods store of John P. Dunn & Co., in Lawrencebiirg, as a clerk. Here he remained until, a year later, Hon. Amos Lane, then the Eepre- sentative in Congress from that district, gave him an appointment as cadet at "West Point. Cadet Buell graduated in the class of 1841, standing thirty -second' in gen- eral merit. Above him were Horatio G. Wright, who stood second; Amiel "W. Whipple, fifth ; Nathantel Lyon, eleventh ; Schuyler Hamilton, twenty- fourth ; James Totten, twenty-fifth, and John P. Eeynolds, twenty-sixth. Be- low him were such men as Alfred Sully, thirty-fifth, and Wm. F. H. Brooks, forty-sixth. In the Academy at the same time, though in other classes, were many who have since been regarded as among the ablest men of the army: Sherman, George H. Thomas, and E. S. Ewell one year ahead of him; Halleck, Stevens, Eicketts, Ord, and Canby two years ahead ; Beauregard, Irvin McDow- ell, and Hardee three years ahead ; Eustis (Professor in Harvard), Newton, Eosecrans, Pope, McLaws, Earl Van Dorn, and Longstreet one year behind him;* Wm. B. Franklin, John J. Peck, Jos. J. Eeynolds, U. S. Grant, and Eu- fus Ingalls two years behind ; Alfred Pleasanton, S. B. Buckner, and W. S. HancoCk three years behind him. On graduation General Buell was assigned to duty as Brevet Second-Lieu- tenant in the Third Infantry. Thenceforward he led the monotonous and com- paratively obscure life of a subordinate officer of regulars, bearing his share in the Mexican war, rising by slow gradation, till, in 1861, we find him in the Ad- jutant-General's office at Washington, regarded by the few who concerned themselves with the afiiiirs of the army as one of its best administrative officers, and ranking as Lieutenant-Colonel in the Adjutant-General's Department. In the autumn of 1861 Kentucky had already enjoyed the services of three Department Commanders. Under the first (General McClellan), nothing of consequence had been done, save the agreement upon an ill-understood and afterward disputed compact recognizing the neutrality of this sovereign State.f Under the second (General Eobert Anderson), the volunteering of Kentuckians in the Union army had gone rapidly forward ; but he was enfeebled by disease and the shock of Sumter, and under his nerveless grasp of the State the Eebel armies had carried on recruiting within its limits quite as successfully, and almost as openly. Under the third (General W. T. Sherman), the reign of panic had been begun. The advance toward East Tennessee had been con- verted into a hurried race toward the Ohio for no sufficient cause; the invasion by Buckner had created alarm for the safety of Louisville ; troops had been * Among the scores of illustrations which the Army Begister offers of the worthlessness of academy standing as an indication of military ability, may be mentioned the fact that in this last class the ablest of the Bebel corps commaudets (after Stonewall Jackson's death), James Longstreet, stood fifiy-fourti,. t See ante Life of McClellan. Don Caelos Buell. 697 ordered to destroy railroads, burn baggage, and make hasty retreats northward; the abandonment of Louisville and concentration of the army on the north side of the Ohio, at New Albany, had been seriously contemplated ; the Secretary of War and the Adjutant- General of the army had been gravely assured that the instant wants of the service in Kentucky demanded two hundred thousand men !* The Administration was now thoroughly alarmed, not so much at its dan- ger from the enemy as at the condition of its own commander, and on the return of the Secretary to Washington there was a hasty consultation as to the best man to be forthwith sent to Kentucky. With both General Scott and Gen- eral McClellan, as well as with all familiar with army matters at Washington, the cautious and correct Adjutant-General stood high. He was presently selected, without any previous knowledge that such promotion was awaiting him, and on the 9th of I^ovember, 1861, the States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Tennessee, and that portion of Kentucky east of the Cumberland Eiver were constituted " the Department of the Ohio," to be commanded by Brigadier-Gen- eral Buell. The same order sent Halleck to St. Louis to succeed Fremont. Kentucky was thought to be in a critical condition. A provisional govern- ment had been inaugurated by the Eebels at Russellville, near the south-westeim border, and nearly one-half the State acknowledged its authority. It was sup- posed, as General Buell subsequently said,f that " the Union element was confined, for the most part, to the old men ; that the mass of the young men were on the eve of joining the Rebel cause, and that nothing but extraordinary exertion and judicious management could secure the State from the vortex toward which the excitement of revolution was carrying her." On this theory his opening policy in the administration of affairs in his Department would seem to have been based. He soon succeeded in securing the perfect confidence of the Union men of the State. The same species of admiration for his execu- tive ability that was already turning the head of the Young Napoleon to the Eastward, sprang up with reference to the new commander of the Department of the Ohio. His decisions were accepted as infallible ; his calls for troops *In preceding pages of this work (Life of Sherman) I have mentioned the fact that an aiitliorized- biographer of General Sherman has since explained that he said, " Sixty thousand to drive the enemy out of Kentucky ; two hundred thousand to finish the war in this section ; " and have discredited the explanation, as bearing signs of being an after-thought. Since those pages were stereotyped, I have been authorized by the gentleman then acting as Private Secretary to Adjutant-General Thomas (Mr. Samuel Wilkeson, of New York), who was the only other person present at the interview on the part of the Washington authorities, to pronounce the explanation utterly without warrant in fact. His recollections and those of the Secretary and Adjutant-Gen- eral are concurrent and clear. They unite in saying that General Sherman had been explaining the immense preponderance of Rebel forces in Kentucky, his great and imminent danger, and the pressing demand for re-enforcements ; that Mr. Cameron asked, " How many men do you need, General ?" and that Sherman promptly and with great emphasis answered, " Two htfndred thou- sand, sir." They describe his manner and appearance as those of a man terribly excited and alarmed, using the wildest language, and, as they thought, scarcely conscious of the purport of his words. t Buell's statement in Beview of Evidence before Military Commission in his case. 698 Ohio in the War. were held to result from a wise understanding of the wants of the service ; in all ways men sought to hold up his hands and exalt his authority. Meantime his dignified bearing, and his manifest desire to conciliate the prejudices of Kentucky Unionists, had combined to make him personally popular. The newspapers praised him ; he was eulogized at public meetings ; steamboats were named after him ; special delight was taken in the fact that though he was a Unionist he was not an 4-bolitionist. The new General found about twenty-seven thousand effective troops in his Department, besides forty or more Kentucky regiments, complete and incom- plete, which were still scattered through the State, some without arms or organ- ization, and nearly all without discipline. There was no transportation for a campaign, supplies had not been accumulated, and a large part of the force was still a heterogeneous mass. Meanwhile the Government, embittered at the untoward result of the former movement, was urging a new advance toward East Tennessee. To this, therefore, his first thoughts were directed. Looking southward from Louisville he saw on his immediate front an army which he esti- mated at thirty-five thousand men,* with railroad connections to Kashville and Columbus that would enable a rapid concentration of all the !Rebel force in the West. Away to the eastward of this formidable army stretched the route, through East Tennessee, two hundred miles from the end of railroad transpor- tation, a rough and comparatively barren country. Over this supplies must be carried in wagon trains, and through the whole extent of the route these must be carefully guarded. On this estimate of the conditions of his problem. General Buell formed his plans, and within two weeks after assuming command of the Bepartment, communicated them in elaborate letters to the General-in-Chief. For the East Tennessee movement he would require a column of twenty thousand men, with ten thousand more to act as reserve, and guard the line of supplies. For the movements against the enemy in front, which he seems to have regarded as more important, he had a notable proposition to make. He would leave the Rebels to hold their intrenchments at Bowling Green, would march rapidly to the eastward around their flank, through Glasgow and Gallatin, and fall upon Nashville in midwinter. Meantime he would rely upon a force from Missouri to ascend the Cumberland under protection of the gunboats, bearing up am- ple supplies on transports, and meeting him at Nashville. It was the origin of the first great campaign of the West that cut the Rebel line and thi-ew back their armies to Northern Mississippi.f Of the plan thus outlined nothing can bo said but praise. Its stolen laurels raised another General to the head of the army for a time, till his proved incompetency fairly drove him out. A prominent share in its execution started • Buell's statement in Review of Evidence before Military Commission in his, case, p. 2. tBuell's letters to McClellan, 27th and 30th November, 1861; letter to New York "World, in review of Sherman's speech at Planter House banquet, September 5, 1865 ; statement in review of evidence before Military Commission, p. 4. Don Carlos Buell. 699 another on the career which led to the Lieutenant-Generalship, and to the cre- ation for him of a grade higher than that which a grateful Congress thought sufficient reward for George Washington. Of the estimates for troops for the work less can be said. Pi-ecisely what was General Buell's belief at the time as to the strength of the opposing force we can not tell. But as late as May, 1863, he committed himself officially to the declaration that Sidney Johnston had at Bowling Green twenty-five thousand men, and that, including the out- posts north of the Cumberland, his strength was about thirty-five thousand.* There are not wanting evidences that to a much later period General Buell con- tinued to maintain that the force which held him back from ZSTashville, through the winter of 1861-62, was fairly stated in these figures. Now it so happens that there is at hand evidence on this subject of the Eebel strength at Bowling Green, which dispassionate judges will not hesitate to accept. In March, 1862, the Confederate Congress appointed a committee to investigate the surrender of Fort Donelson, and the evacuation of Nashville, whereof Henry S. Foote was chairman. Appended to the report of this com- mittcef is an unofficial letter from Sidney Johnston to Jefi'erson Davis, which seems to have been given to the committee after the death of Johnston at Pitts- burg Landing had removed the bar of secrecy. In this letter the Eebel strength with which Bowling Gi-een was first occujjied is fixed at four thousand. By the 15th of October Johnston says it was raised to twelve thousand ; and at that strength it remained till the end of November. Meantime, he naively says : "I magnified my forces to the enemy, but made known my true strength to the Department and the Governors of States." He then explains that he decided to fight for Nashville at Donelson, and gave the better jiart of his army to do it, retaining only fourteen thousand to cover his front, and giving sixteen thousand to defend Donelson. And he adds that while the reports led him to believe that he had fourteen thousand at Bowling Green, yet when this column reached Nashville it was found to number less than ten thousand. J An average force, therefore, of twelve thousand at Bowling Green may be fairly said to have held back the twenty-three thousand effectives whom Buell found awaiting him on his arrival, and the re-enforcements which more than doubled his strength before ho moved. To leave the burden of censure for this wholly upon General Buell would be unjust. For he had to deal with the marplot at St. Louis, who was after- ward to harass the whole Nation for a time from the post of General-in-Chief at Washington; and, as we are soon to see, he found co-operation with Halleck a thing not to be attained. Nor is it clear that if he had been given permission to carry out his own plan with his own forces alone, he would not have attempted it. But there had now sprung up about the General a clique of super-service- able defenders, who filled the newspapers, and even the councils of men influenc- ing the business of the war, with silly stories concerning the fortifications at * Buell's statement in Eeview of Evidence before Military Commission in his ease, p. 2. tEichmond Official Edition, pp. ]71, 175. t This is explained by the violent attacks of camp mea.sles, which had so enfeebled the men that four thousand of them were unable to endure the fatigue of the retreat to Nashville. 700 Ohio in the War. Bowling Green — the Manassas, as they chose to style them, of the West — the Gibraltar of the country between the mountains and the Great Eiver. These tremendous fortifications, it was declared, were fully manned with a force as complete as that which at Bull Eun had shattered McDowell; and whoever reduced the statement of the Rebel strength to a reasonable limit, was set down as one of the fanatical agitators who were bent on ruining the cause by starting a new " On to Eichmond " crusade, with as little preparation, and on a more dangerous field. General Buell was too cautious and too reticent a man to say these things ; but they were freely said about his head-quarters, and not always, it may well be believed, without his tacit approval. While the discussion of plans went on, the organization and discipline of the army were vigorously pushed. Much as General. Buell afterwaird did to merit grateful remembrance, this was the most valuable service he rendered to the Nation. He took the Army of the Cumberland a disjointed, undrilled, unsoldierly militia mob — not without excellent troops, but with a vast pre- ponderance of men who bore no resemblance to real soldiers save in their uni- form. He left it the best drilled, best disciplined, most thoroughly trustworthy of the great armies that through the four years' fighting upheld and advanced the banner of the Republic* Under General McClellan there had been no army in Kentucky to . General Halleck and yourself were informed from time to time of the progress of my movement, and the obstacles which retarded it. "7, I was in communication with yon by couriers, and with General Halleck by telegraph ; and neither you nor ho informed me of ) our actual position, though 1 telegraphed him distinctly on that point ; far lees did yon advise me that you considered yourself in pui;il. On the contrary, ou the 4th uf April, you sent a dispatch to General Nelsoo, who commanded the advance of my column, telling bim not to hasten hit march, as he could not at any rate com- mence crossing the river until the fallowing Tuesday, three days after the timevbich I had appointed for him to arrive at tiavanitah." Don Caelos Buell. 71] « to ask that transports be at once sent down for Crittenden's division, then arriving at Savannah. He recounoitered the field a little, then returned to has- ten the movements of his troops. We need not repeat the sad story of that first day's disaster, which, in other pages, has been fully traced. Before Nelson could get up -with, his advance division, Grant was sending back earnestly for assistance, and representing the force with which he was engaged at a hundred thousand.* The advance of Nelson's division, after waiting for some time op'posite the Landing for means of crossing, reached the field just as the Eebels were making their last advance. It rapidly took post, under General Buell's direction, and opened with musketry and artillery. No more ground was yielded, and the troops encamped in line of battle. There was no conference between the commanders. One of Grant's sub- ordinates furnished Buell with a rough map of the ground, and there was a common understanding that operations must be renewed at dajdight. Through the night Crittenden's division of Buell's army arrived, and was moved out upon JSTelson's right. McCook's, which arrived in time to get into action only a little later than the others, was used for further prolongation to the right. And now was seen — even more conspicuously than in the steady march- ing — the results of the fine discipline which Buell had been enforcing. At daybreak Nelson, moving in line of battle, drove in the enemj^'s pickets and engaged his artillery. The other divisions were then brought up, and with varying fortune the whole line advanced. It stretched over thi-ee-fonrths of the battle-field. The remainder was left to the surviving fragments of Grant's army. There was no straggling from that line ; no confused breaking and fleeing to the rear, on the first onset of the enemy. Many of the trooj)8 had * In the public letter from Buell to Grant quoted from in the last note, Buell gives this curious document : " PiTTSflDEG, April 6, lS6a. " Commanding Officbe Advance Forcei, near Pitlshuro, Tennessee: "Gknkral; The attack on my forces has been very spirited from early this morning. The appearance of fresh troops on the field now would have a powerful effect, both by inspiring our men and disheartening the enemy. If you will get upon the field, leaving all your baggage on the east bank of the river, it will be a move to our advantage, and possibly save the day to tis. " The Bebel force is estimated at over one hundred thousand men. "My head-quarters will be in the log building on top of the hill, where you will be furnished a staff oflRcer to guide yon to your place on the field. Respectfully, etc., U. S. GEAMT, Major-General." After producing this dispatch, Buell adds some pungent comments with reference to the charge, which he alleges to have been encouraged at Grant's head-quarters, that, but for the delay in the arrival of Buell's army, Grant would have advanced to attack the enemy at Corinth before the date of this battle: " This letter was sent by a steamer, and was delivered to mo probably between twelve and one o'clock, as I was on my way to the scene of action. Of course the estimate which it gives could not have been based on the mere noise of battle ; it must have been formed upon information previously obtained. It is true, I believe, that during the -vv ar youdidnotin any instance move to attack an enemy with less than double his strength— unless the battle of Inki, fought by General Rosecrans, may be an exception. Now, our combined armies would have amounted to some eighty- seven thousand men. Is it supposable that you would have moved with eighty-seven thousand men to attack, in a fortified position, an enemy whose strength you estimated at over one hundred thousand men? \Yould it have been wise? Would it have been in accordance with your invariable practice before and since ? You had not the transpor- tation for such a movement, if you had the disposition. Moreover, General Halleck evidently supposed the roads were not practicable for it. I do not say that he derived his information from you, but it is certain that, being himself in St. Louis, five hundred miles distant, you, who were on the ground and in command of the troops, were the person to whom he should have looked for information on such a point. If you gave it to him, no one will question that you believud it, and I have no doubt that it was very nearly if not entirely true. The fact that as late as the 4th and 5th of April General Sidney Johnston moved forty-three thousand men over those roads to attack you, is no proof to the contrary." 712 Ohio in the Wae. never before been under fire ; and they were commanded by a man who before that eventful day had never handled so large a force as a single regiment in action. But he was a Soldier, and he was maneuyering men of whom he had made soldiers. An effort was made to turn his rigbt flank — he promptly threw in McCook's division to check it. An effort was made against his left flank — ^ho- parried it, then brought up the reserves at that point, hurled the whole force against Beauregard's right, drove it, and so flanked the rest of the Eebel line, which speedily fell back. Then again the whole line advanced. At no time did the force thus wielded lose its cohesion. Yet there were moments when the prospect looked gloomy. A battery was driven, with its supports, and a caisson was lost. Another battery was driven, and several guns were lost. But the line speedily rallied, and they were recaptured. Then again it pressed forward. Tor hours still the struggle continued, through the alternate strips of woodland and little intervals of &rmland, over which, the day before, Grant's army had retreated. McCook's division had the honor of ending the struggle, and its last charge carried it into the camps from which Sherman had been driven. The disaster was retrieved — at a cost to Buell's army of two thousand one hundred and sixty -seven killed, wounded, and missing. An equal or greater loss had been inflicted ; and twenty pieces of Bebel artillery had been captured. It was General Buell's singular fortune that his first battle should be his greatest, and the only one in which he should exercise personal command on the field. His conduct here certainly warranted the expectations then generally cherished of a brilliant future for him. His strategic ability had been pre- viously displayed in the plans for the campaign that began at Fort Henry. His tactical skill in the management of troops in. action was now exhibited in a favorable light. At a time when men who could handle troops under fire were rare, and the best of our Generals were only learners, he did not make a single mistake; and the soldiers who saw what he did and obeyed his orders, were his warmest eulogists. He came into the action when, without him, all was lost. He redeemed the fortunes of the field, and justly won the title of the hero of Pittsburg Landing.* General Halleck now took the field in person; and the solemn siege of * There is no need to enter upon the dispute between the two armies concerned in this mem- orable engagement. In the Life of Grant, I have sought to exhibit the nature of the disaster, as the documents in the case, as well as personal observation, convinced me that the facts should be presented. If now, any one, objecting to the slight mention of Grant's army in this second day's fighting, should complain that undue prominence has been given to General Buell's performance, I need only point to the significant fact which that o£Bcer has himself brought to public atten- tion. Buell's army fought in a compact, continuous line of battle, 'which stretched from the left of the field up to the point where it found coherent fragments of Grant's army to join. Yet General Lew. Wallace, commanding the extreme right of Grant's army, acknowledges, in his official report, the assistance received I'rom Colonel Willich, commanding a regiment on Buell's right. The inference is obvious and irresistible. Between his own extreme right and Bnell, Grant had no troops forming a line of battle sufficiently compact to prevent the necessity titat this regiment should extend its line for Wallace's relief. Don Carlos Buell. 713 Corinth followed. General Buell kept his army up with the foremost in the tedious advance, held the center, and did whatever Halleck required. That there was no further opportunity for distinction before Corinth was not his fault. His troops claim the honor of being the first to discover the evacuation, and to enter the abandoned stronghold.* There was now opened before General Buell that campaign to which, from the first, his attention had been directed — the occupation of East Tennessee. He was to enter upon it as a subordinate; and when he again attained inde- pendent command it was to find himself hampered by restraints at Washington. On the 10th of June (1862) General Halleck advised him as to the work of liberating East Tennessee, which he was now to undertake — directing an advance on Chattanooga through North Alabama. General Buell urged a more northerly route, leading through Middle Tennessee and McMinnville, but having for its end the occupation of the same points, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Dal- ton. To this Halleck consented. On the 12th he withdrew this consent, and required the advance along the line of the Memphis and Charleston Eailroad, with Corinth as the secondary base — the railroad to be repaired as he advanced. And now began the unfortunate portion of General Buell's career. He had about twenty-five thousand men, and there were subject to his orders in Mitch- el's column in North Alabama, about sixteen thousand more. With this force he was to undertake a campaign in midsummer against the strongest point in the chain of positions then held by the Confederate armies, to guard his own line of supplies, and to locate this line, not directly south from Nashville, but around bj' Paducah, up the Tennessee, thence to Corinth, and thence eastward along a ruined railroad — describing three sides of a quadrangle, through an enemy's country, to accomplish the distance measured by the remaining side. "It was my error to believe at the time," General Buell has since frankly 8aid,t "tliat the thing was practicable, and I did not represent it otherwise when I was assigned to the execution of it; but I must say also, in extenuation, that I did not anticipate that the enemy was to be left so unemployed at other points, that he could devote his greatest effort against my enterprise. Besides, I regarded it as in the highest degree important^ and I supposed that no larger force could be spared for it." For it must be remembered that, while Buell was left to undertake this perilous campaign against a point where the enemy, driven from Corinth, was now concentrating the bulk of his resources, the rest of the great forces in the South-west were practically doing nothiag. It was not until at luka, Price and Van Dorn themselves chose to bring on active operations in Grant's department, in the last days of August, that active opera- tions there began. General Buell, indeed, saw from the outset that Nashville, and not Corinth, must be his true base ; and, with this view, he gave orders that the two rail- roads leading south from Nashville (one to Decatur and the other to. Steven- * Biiell'a official report of the advance on Corinth says Nelson's division was the first to enter. t Statement before Military Committee, p. 14. 714 Ohio in the War. son) should be promptly repaired. But the task proved a greater one than he had supposed, and it is probable that he did not impress with sufficient earnest- ness upon his subordinates the necessity for vigor; and, besides, he Avas delayed, under Halleck's orders,, to repair the road from Corinth to Decatur — a work, ua it afterwai'd proved, utterly useless. By the 1st of July his divisions began to. arrive at Huntsville, and by the 6th began to cross the Tennessee at Decatur, where means of crossing had been, with no little difficulty, provided. By this time came ominous warnings: "The President is not satisfied with your progress." True to his calm and methodical ways, he contented himself with explaining the causes of the delays, and proceeded as before.* To concentrate his army at the farthest point accessible on the route Jie was to take would have seemed to the impatient country like progress; but to the enem^'^ it would have clearly revealed the whole plan. General. Buell wisely, therefore, avoided crowding them forward while the railroads were undergoing repairs. They were scattered at convenient points for supplies, em- ployed in building stockades along the lines, or transfierred to Battle Creek and other points where some dalnger seemed to threaten. "While these movements went deliberately on, John Morgan was bursting into Kentucky and spreading alarm along the Ohio. The ease with which Buell's lines of supply could be cut was thus revealed to the enemy. Long be- fore this, our cautious General had himself ,pei"ceived the danger. As early as the 12th of May he had begun his appeals to the Secretary of War for more * The following are the dispatches. Thej are not accessible in any published form, but they may be found on the files of the War Department : " CoBixTH, July 8, latt. ** Majob-Gbmehal Bokll, HunUviUe : The President telegraphs tliat your process is not BntiBfactoir, «Dd that yon should move more rapidly. The long time taken by yon to reach Chattnnoosa uill ennble tbe enemy to nutidpate you by concentrating a larger force to meet you. I communicate his views, hoping that your movement!} hcreaftvr will be 80 rapid as to remove all causes of compluiut, whether well fonndt-d or not. H. W. HALLECK.** " HEAD-QtTAHTEBS, HUNTSVILLB, Jnly II, 1S68. " Majob-Gknebal H. W. Halleck: I appreciate the importance of moving promptly, though H is idlH to sop- poBo that the enemy, with his railroad communications complete, and our lines difficult and broken, will not alwnyi bo nble to anticipate us at any important point. I regret that It is necessary to explain the circumstances which must mnkc my prugi'ess seem slow, though, perbapa, it is not to be expected that they should otherwise be understood. I understand what you have given me to do, and. If permitted, I expect to accomplish it without any niineccssnry delay, and in such a manner as to neither jeopnrdize my army or its honor, nor trifle with loyal citisem, batruyed to the vengeance of their enemies by a promised protection and a harri^'d ab:tndoment. The ndvance on Chattanooga must be made with the means of acting fn force ; otherwise It will eithei- fail or prove a profitless and transient priie. The railroad communications as far as Stevenson must be securely established. From Uiat point th^ transportation must at first be by wagons (br twenty-flvo miles. The river must be crossed by a pontoon bridge, which I am now prepar- ing. It Is not possible to establish tbe roQuislte means of communication by any means of ferryins: which we can pro- vide. These arrangements are being pushed forward as industriously as possible. The troops are moviue furwnrd to the toi luiDUB of the railroad without any unnccessaiy diday, nnd on^ division has already arrived there. It ought to be borne in miud that they have had a march uf about two hundred miles to make, with a large train, in hot weather, crossing a Mide river by a ferry. The report of General MItchet led me to expect that the Chiittanouga i oad would b» completed by tbe first of this month. I do not censure him for being mistaken. I have since nearly doubled the force on It, and it cnn not be finished before Monday next. The gap of twenty-two miles on tho Decatur Road, the one we are dependent upon for supplies, has, from the character of the road, made it more expeditious to take another loute, forty miles lung; and it requires every wagon that can possibly be spared to keep the troops "ft'om starving, and at that wo are living from day to day. We consume, of pvovislnns alone, about one hundred thousand pounds daily, A^lucb, witli our animals in their present condition^ it requires about sixty wa;;ons to carry. The trips can not be made, going and coming, in less than fiv? days. Three hundred and fifty wiigons are, therefore, required to haul provisions alone over this gap. To haul forage over the same distance, even at hnlf rations would reuuii'e seven hundred wagons more. We are running about five hundred wagons, managing, with great difficulty, to subsist cur animals mainly in tho country already nearly exhausted uf supplies. It will thus be seen that we cnn nut advance licyond Ste- venson until the rond is completed so as to release tho wagons now absolutely required iu rear. Three mills mo get- ting out lumber for boats, which will be finished as soon as possible. Theeo are matters of fact, which can nut be gut rid of by sophistry or fair promises, however gratifying. The dissatisfaction of the President pains me cxrecdinsly. I request that this dispatch may he communicated to bim. D. C. BUSLL." Don Caelos Buell. 715 cavalry.* From time to time he continued the appeals. Presently came fresh incursions to re-enfore his arguments. He was holding a front of from, three hundred to four hundred miles through the enemy's country, with a cavalry force which the subsequent experience of his successor in the same field, as well as bis own reasonings and the teachings of the whole war, were to show to bo inadequate. Through one part of the line Morgan had worked his way. Next came Forrest before Murfreesboro', swooping down upon the garrison, and cut- ting the railroad connections of Buell's army with Nashville. Brigade after brigade was necessarily detached from the front to strengthen these exposed points at the rear; the army that was to sweep forward upon Chattanooga was undergoing a process of disintegration, into bridge-guards and guerrilla-hunt- ers, and the continued ajjpeals for cavalry went unanswered.f It is now the jtime to observe that other causes had combined with the dissatisfaction at Buell's slow progress, to bring him into disfavor at Washing- ton. It was the season of intense hostility to McClellan in Administration cir- cles, and Buell was known as McClellan's friend. The spirit of the public press, and the tone of public feeling, called for harsh treatment of the conquered territory, and Buell insisted upon the laws of war. Most of all, the people were not disposed to censure soldiers too harshly for excesses committed in the Eebel country, provided they exhibited (or possessed) a willingness to fight the Eebel armies. Yet Buell had devoted much time, while awaiting the bridge- building and railroad repairs, in striving to enforce discipline, and to reduce the somewhat loose habits of Mitchel's command to the armj^ standard. Courts- martial were constant, their verdicts in those days appeared severe, and Buell seemed rarely to find fault with them, save for undue lenity. The case of Colonel Turchin attracted jjarticular attention. He was found guilty of per- mitting gross excesses, and was dismissed from the service; but the city of Chicago accorded him a public reception on his return, and the President pres- ently signified (as it would seem) his approval of the conduct Buell had pun- ished by appointing him Brigadier-General. Thus, while the delays dragged on from the 12th of June to the second week in August, the delaying General was steadily losing the confidence of the Government and of the country.J He was next and suddenly to lose that of the army. * Statement before Military Commission, p. 16. tOf numerous dispatches with which Buell now burdened the wires, this one may be taken as a sample : " Head-Quartehs, HuntsTUle, July 23, 18G2. "General Halleck or General Thomas, Waehington, D. C: I can not err in repeating to j'on the nrgent importance of a larger cavaliy force in this district. The enemy is throwing an ioimense cavalry force on the four hundred miles of railroad communication upon which this army is dependent for its supplies. I am building stockades to hold from thirty to one hundred men at all bridges, but such guards, at best, only give security to certain points aud asainst a small force. There can be no safety without cavalry enough to pursue the enemy in large bodies. Twice already our roads have been broken up by these formidable raids, causing great delays and embarrassment, so that W(. are barely able to subsist from day to day. I am concentrating all the cavalry I can spare, to operate actively in force. I don't pretend to know whether you have cavalry that you can spare elsewhere, but if bo, it can find abun- Uaat and very important service here. I*. 0. BUELL." t So grave had this loss of confidence become that the President seriously considered the 716 Ohio in the Wak. We have seen that, on the 12th of June, General Bu«ll had received his final orders for the campaign against Chattanooga. On the 7th of August he notified General Halleck that Bragg had concentrated against him ac Chatta- nooga a force at least sixty thousand strong. He was then at Huntsville, with divisions of his army occupying Stevenson, Battle Creek, Decherd, and McMinn- ville. A few days' marching would bring him to Chattanooga ; and he may still have hoped, by falling on isolated wings of the enemy, to beat him in detail and attain the end of his campaign. Within a week this was impossible; within a fortnight he was laboring to concentrate his own forces, lest the enemy should beat him in detail. For a little there were plans of concentration at McMinnville, or at Alta- mont; marches and counter-marches that led to nothing. Meanwhile Kirby Smith had marched through East Tennessee into Kentucky; the railroad con- nections seemed hopelessly cut ; the army was reduced to fifteen, and finally to ten days' supplies, and the country was too poor to support it. At first, as they subsequently testified, some of his higher officers favored an efibrt to give bat- tle at some more advanced point. But even Geo. H. Thomas soon acquiesced in the decision which the cautious commander had already i-eached ; * and the army that had been expected to capture Cbattanoga and liberate Bast Tennes- see was presently marching Ijack in all haste to concentrate at Murfreesboro', « little south of Nashville. The field was thus loft open. Kirby Smith was already in Kentucky ; Brafifg now made a bold march to join him ; and nothing less than the capture of Louisville and the permanent occupation of the State were th« objects to- which the Rebel commander directed his aim. So now, while Buell was at Murfreesboro' and at Nashville, Bragg, passing to the eastward, was marching for the exposed post of Munfordsville, in Ken- tucky. The army saw the enemy it had proposed to drive southward from Chat- queetion of removing General Buell. The General's response to an intimation of this nature was manly and patriotic. The dispatches (on file in the War Department) are as follows: " Washingtos, August IS, IMS!. ** Majob-Genbral Bukll, Hunttntle : So ^eat is the disBatiefaction here at the apparent wast of ene;^ and uctioa In your district, that I was this morning notified to have you removed. I got the matter delcyed till we conid hear ftirther of your moTemeuU. H. W. HALI>IiaSL,€Seneral-iD-CUet." ** Head-Quabtkbs, HuntsTillo Angilst IB, IMI. **6knkbal Hallxok, Washinffton^ D. C : My movements have been euch as the circumstances seemed to me to reqnlre. I beg that you will not Interpose in my behalf; on the contrary, if the dissatisfaction can not cease on grounds which, 1 think might be supposed, if not apparent, X reffj^clfiiHy requentthat t may 1m relieved; my posi- tion is far too important to be oooupied by any oflBcer on sufferance. I have no desire to stand in the way of what may be deemed necessary for the public good. In any event, what 1 would earnestly recommend is, that a caralr)' force be Bent here sufBcient to cope with the enemy^a cavalry, and keep open the four hundred miles of railroad, on m hich Chts army is dependent for subsistence. Lacking the cavalry, I have endeavored -to diminish the heavy drain on the body of the army to protect its communications by building stockades which would make small guards secure. This, and the work of rebuilding roads, has had to be done under the protection of heavy detachments, and has been tedious. I Ap- prehend that those heavy detachments will have to be repeated. We are occupying lines of great depth. They are swarming with the enemy's cavalry, and can only be protected by cavalry. It is impossible to overmte the impor- tance of this matter. Three months ago I represented to the department the necessity for eight more regiments of cavalry In Tenuesaee and Kentucky. D. 6. BUEIjL." * General Thomas testified before the Military Commission that, in his judgment, Bragg might have been attaclted at Sparta, and that he had urged a concentration there. General Bu- ell, however, shows satisfactorily,, by the productioa of the dispatch&i, that at least as to the latter point. General Thomas had unwittingly made a mistake. Don Caelos Buell. 717 tanooga passing by it as an object unworthy of notice, and roaming almost unopposed through the country north of it. Dissatisfaction was general, and it was speedily heightened by the false reports that were assiduously circulated, to the effect that General Bucll was on the point of abandoning ISTashville itself, and that only the remonstrances of Provisional -Governor Andrew John- son prevented the sacrifice.* On the 15th of September the last of the army that had started south-east- ward against Chattanooga marched back out of Nashville toward the Ohio Eiver. But by this time Bragg had thrown himself upon the garrison at Mun- fordsville, had carried the position, paroled the garrison, and made ready for his connection with Kirby Smith. There was now nt last an opportunity for decisive battle. Before Bragg got away from Munfordsville Buell was up. He was behind the invader and across his line of retreat. To Bragg, defeat would have been destruction. The soldiers perceived the opportunity, and the desire to attack would seem to have been general. But Buell, unmoved by the critical aspect of affairs, and as calm amid the hurry of his return as if laying out a campaign in the quiet of winter head -quarters, looked farther ahead. "An attack," he says, "would not have been judicious under the circumstances. ... I deemed it all-important to force him farther into the State, instead of allowing him to fall back upon Bowling Green and Nashville; and I determined to attack then rather than allow him that course. I believed the condition of his supplies would compel him to abandon his position ; and I was very well content when that proved to be the case."f And so the rear-guard of Bragg drew out, and the advance-guard of Buell, skirmishing a little, marched in. The impatient soldiers grew more and more indignant as they saw the Eebel army moving off to its concentration with Kirby Smith; and the denunciations of their commander, which the severe dis- cipline in Northern Alabama had at first stimulated, now became open, bitter, * These reports were long kept up, and were supposed to originate with Mr. Johnson him- self. General Buell finally thought it worth while, in closing his review of the evidence before the Military Commission, to give them this emphatic contradiction : " Some months ago a statement appeared in the newspapers, on the reported authority of Governor Andrew John- son, tliat I had only been prevented, by his resolute expostulations, from abandoning Nashville when I moved north with my iirniy iu September Itiat. He has since made the same a8scrti.jn in a deposition. Whenever I have spoken on this subject 1 have denounced this statement as false, and I now repeat that denunciation. I am very willing to bear the responsibility of my own acts or intentions; and it gives me sincere pleasure at all times to aclinowli-dge any assistance I may receive from others, either in council or action. If I had determined to abandon Nashville it would have been upon my best judgment, and I should cheerfully have submitted to a verdict on tlie wistlum of my course. I assert that I never intimated to Governor Johnson an intention or wish to leave Nashville w ithout a gaii isou ; tliat there was no discussion between us, pro and con, on the subject, and that the determi nation to hold the place was my own, uninfluenced by him in any manner. 1 had not that confidence in his judgment or that distrust of my own which weald have induced mo to seelc his counsel. On account of his official position I called ^on him first to infoim him what I meant to do, and last to tell him what garrison I had concluded to leave. On both occasions, as far as my plans were concerned, I was the speaker and he the listener. My officers were far more likely to know my views than hi', and they have stated that I said always that the political importance of the occupation far outweighed any purely military bearing of the question, and that I should hold the city. T>. C. BUELL, Major-Gener.tl." tStatement in Review of Evidence before Military Commission in his case, p. 35. Buell also says, in the same connection, that no officers of high rank in the army were desirous to attack there, and that the advantage of location, which was with the enemy, as well as the exhausted condition of the supplies, and the danger of fighting a decisive battle while in such a a position with reference to his base, formed conclusive reasons for not seeking battle. '718 Ohio in the War. and almost, universal. The faces of the army were once more turned north- •v^ard — General ifeuell holding it of the first importance to reach Louisville, and incorporate the heavy re-enforcements of raw troops there assembled into his veteran army. On the 29th of September the last of his divisions entered Louisville; on the 30th the consolidation and reorganization had been com- pleted, and the army was marching out against the Kebel force that now had undisputed possession of three-fourths of Kentucky. But before this Genwal Buell had been ordered by the indignant Administration to turn over his com- mand to General Geo. H. Thomas, and, at the special request of that officer; had been reinstated.* , It has been common to speak of the army that thus ended its march against Chattanooga at Louisville as being in a demoralized condition. Undonbtediyit was much dissatisfied, full of unsoldierly clamor, noisy in denunciation of its commander. Yet General Buell said he never doubted his ability to direct and control it as he would ; and those who remember its exhausted and disorganized condition when it reached ■the Ohio, and the magic transformation -vvhieh it underwent, when, within a day after the arrival of its rear-guard, the advance moved out with compact ranks, and hopes as high as ever, against the foe it had, over three States, been vainly hoping to encounter, will not fail to award the General, who wrought this change, the high praise he rightfully deserves for an achievement almost as wonderful as that which led the defeated army from the field of the second Bull Eun to the heights of Antietam. Spreading ovA his reorganized army into five columns. General Buell swept the country from Louisville and Frankfort in converging lines upon Bardstown, where he knew Bragg to be rapidly concentrating. Near this point there was some skirmishing, but Bragg's rear-guard moved away eight honra before the advance of Buell entered. A stand next seemed probable at Danville,' and thither the three corps were directed once more on converging roads, the cen- tral one leading through Perryvillo. Then, as news came that Bragg was con- centrating at Perryville itself, the directions of the wiijgs were changed to correspond with the new movement thus required. Thus it happened that on the afternoon of the 7th of October the central corps was driving the enemy's pickets three miles north-west of Perryville, and * The following are eome of the dispatches: [Becoived Washington September 29, 1SI>2.] *' L0UI8VILLS, Kentdcilt. September 29, 186^2.30 P. H. *' Major-General Halleck, Oeneral-im-Ctii^: I have receired your oi^ecB of the 24th instant requiring dm to turn ov<.-v my command to Blnjor-Geueral G. H. Thomas. I liave accordingly tamed over the command to bim, and, in fui'tlier obedience to your Instractions, I shall repair to Indianapolis and await further orders. " D. G. BUELIi, Major-Genetal." *' Washinqton, September 29, 1861. ** Uajoh-General BVEtT., Louiaville: General orders changing the command of the Department of Tenneueeand the troops at Louisrille, and my Instructions baaod on tho« orders, are, by authority of tlie President, (uspuulcd, and Gont'ial Buell will act on my telegram of a later date. B. W. U ALLECK, Oeneral-tn-CUs&* [Becelred Washington September SO.) " Louisville, September SO, 1!«2— 1 P. M. "General Ualleck: I received last evening your dispatch suspending my removal fi'om command. Out of • sense of public duty I shall coAtlaue to discbarge the duties of my command to the best of my ability until otherviis ordered. "D. C. BUELL, Hijor-Oenenl." Don Carlos Buell. 719 Bkirmishing sharply for the possession of some pools of water in the dry bed of a tributary to Chaplin Eiver. Meanwhile orders were sent in all haste to Mc- Oook's and Crittenden's corps to hasten up and take positions on the right and left respectively of the central corps. Their commanders were then to report in person, and dispositions were made for a combined attack on the enemy. General McCook did not receive the order till half past two in the morning, and he marched at five instead of three, as had been directed. General Crittenden did not receive it till some hours later, owing to his having been compelled to move off the route assigned him to secure water.* To the General command- ing, whose habitual movements were deliberate, and with whom thorough ])rep- aration was held an absolute essential preliminary, these delays seemed sufficient cause for postponing the decisive attack until the next daj^ Meantime he had been apprehensive of being attacked himself, while having only one corps up ; but when the morning passed in light skirmishing, and McCook's corps began to come in, he considered the danger passed, and devoted himself to his arrange- ments for the battle he intended to deliver on the morrow. Not until four o'clock did the General know of any change in the circum- stances on which this action was based. Artillery firing he heard, and sounds au of skirmishing, but these had been going on all morning; and he rested on his order to the corps commanders to report in person on their arrival. f Then, however, came the startling message, borne by an aid of McCook's, that a Bovere battle had been going on for several hours, that the flanks were giving way, and that, unless speedily re-enforced, he would not be able to maintain his * There had been a long drought, and a great scarcity of water embarrassed the movements and brought much suffering on tlie troops. The order sent to McCook was intended to get his corps into position by seven or eight o'clock. The delays above spoken of were such that the head of the column did not begin arriving till between ten and eleven o'clock. The following is the text of the order: " October 7, 1S62— 8 P. M. *' Geseral : The Third Corps (Gilbert's) is within three and a half miles of PerryviUe — the cavalry being nearer — probably within two and a half miles. From all the infurniation gained to-day, it seems probable that Ihe enemy will resist our advance into the town. They are said to have a strong force in and near the place. There is no water here, and we will get bnt little, if any, until we get it at PerryviUe. We expect to attack and carry the place to-morrow. ifarch atthree o^tlockpreciself/ lo-morrotv morninff, without fail, and move up till the head of your column gets to witliiu about three or three and a half miles of PerryviUe : that is to say, until you are abreast of the Third Corps. The left of this cdrpa rests near Bottom's place. Perhaps Captain Williams, Jackson's cavalry, will know where it is. From the point of the road Gilbert is now on, across direct to your road, is about two and a half or three miles. When the head of your column gets to the vicinity designated (three or three and a half miles from town), bait and form in order of battle, and let the rear close well up ; then let the men rest in position and bo made as comfortable as possible, but do uot permit them to scatter. Have the country on your front examined, a recounoissance made, and collect all the in- formation possible in regard to the enemy, and the country and roads in your vicinity, and then repoW (m person, as quickly as practicable, to these head-quartei-s. If your men have an opportunity to get water of any kind, tliey must flu their canteens, and the officers must caution them particularly to use it in the most sparing manner. Send to the rear every wagon and animal which is not required with your column. All the usual precautions must be taken, and preparations made for action. Keep all teams back except ammunition and ambulances. Nothiog has been heard frODi yon to-day. Send orderlies by bearer to learn the locality of these head-quarters. The General desires to see Onptaiu Williams, Jackson's cavalry, by seven o'clock in the morning at these head-quarters. "Bespectfully, etc., JAMES B. FRY, Colonel and Chief of StafF." tit was also sworn by large numbers of witnesses before the Military Commission, tliat, owing to the dli-ection of the wind and the conformation of the ground, there were no sounds lieaid at the head-quarters, to indicate more than sharp skirmishing. General Grant was once subjected to the same misfortune at the battle of luka. See account of that action in Lives of Rosecrans and Grant. 72P Ohio in the War. ground. The news seemed so incredible that Buell could scarcely believe ii But he gave orders for rapid re-enforcements. Before they could arrive night had ended the ill-judged and sanguinary struggle. The next morning Bragg was retreating, and so severe was the punishment he had inflicted, (hat he was left to retreat unobstructed. The effective force under Buell's control at Perryville, was fifty-four thou- sand men before, fifty thousand after the battle, ^ragg had si^ty thousand available at Harrodsburg, though he brought, like Buell, only a portion of hig troops into the action. What the result of a battle between forces thus bal- anced ought to have been, may not be safely asserted in a business so uncertain as war. That Perryville might have been a victory, however. General Buell him- self seems to believe. It was a less decisive engagement than it should have been, he says, "partly because of unavoidable difiSeulties, which prevented the troops, marching upon different roads, from getting on the ground simultaneously, but chiefly because I was not apprised early enough of the condition of affaii-s on my left." He adds, "I can find no fault with the former, nor am I disposed at this time to censure the latter, though it must be admitted to have been a grave error. I ascribe it to the too great confidence of the General com- manding the left corps (Major- General McCook), which made him believe that he could manage the difficulty without the aid or control of his com- mander."* The story of the' campaign, and of General Buellfl career, may be briefly ended. The General believed that Bragg's strength was a full match for his own, and that all the Rebel troops were veterans. He believed that the invasion had for its object the permanent occupation of Kentucky, He regarded, therefore, another and greater battle — ^probably in the vicinity of Harrodsborg — as almost certain. Somewhat stunned, perhaps, for the moment, by the rude blow at Perryville, he was certainly indisposed to bring on this new battle which he expected to be decisive, without perfect preparation and the complete concen- 'tration of his army. When Bragg moved to Camp Dick Bobinson he still believed him to be maneuvering only for faTorable ground for battle. And he philosophically adds, in explanation of the deliberate course which he there- fore chose to pursue,! "My studies have taught me that battles are only to be fouglit for some important object; thai success must be rendered reasonably certain if possible — the more certain the better; that if the result is reasonably uncertain, battle is only to be sought when very serious disadvantage must result from a failure to fight, or when the advantages of a possible victory far outweigh the consequences of a probable defeat. These rules suppose that war has a higher object than that of mere bloodshed; ^nd military history points for study and commendation to campaigns which have been conducted over a * Statement in Eeview of Evidence before Military Cojnmiasion,,Official Report, Veaj' Tille, p. 66. t Statement in Review of Evidence before Military CommiaBion, p. 38. Don Carlos Buell. 721 large field of operations with important results, and without a single general engagement. In my judgment the commander merits condemnation who, from ambition or ignorance, or a weak submission to the dictation of popular clamor, and without necessity or profit, has squandered the lives of his soldiers.'' Thus reasoning, General Buell proceeded with his deliberate and strictly correct preparations for battle, till he discovered that Bragg was making off from the State with his plunder. Then he made vigorous but by no means vehe- ment pursuit, till he had dogged the rear-guard into the mountains. Meantime the Administration, delighted with what was called, in the fool- ish language of those self-deceiving days, the victory of Perryville, was ■elate with the vision of the army rushing pell-mell after the fragments of the Eebel rout through the mountains, and relieving East Tennessee. Nothing less than the speedy occupation of Knoxville and Chattanooga was confidently expected. To the President and Cabinet, thus sanguine and jubilant, came a calm letter from the unmoved commander of the army in Kentucky. He regarded further pursuit, he said, as of little use ; he proposed, therefore, speedily to turn the heads of his columns, toward Nashville again ; and for the rest, he had to remind the Government that the present was, probably, as convenient a time as was likely to be found for making the change, which it had seemed to think needful, in the command of this army I He then explained O^nd subsequent events were soon to vindicate his sagacity in this respect) that he had no doubt Bragg would soon be found near Nashville; so that, whether for the immediate protection of that city and the re-opening of the severed lines of communica- tion, or for offensive operations against Bragg, the movement on Nashville was the correct one for the army to make.* * The dispatches (not hitherto accessible in any published form) may be found on the files of the War Department. They are as follows : [Keccived at Washington October 17th.] [cypher.] " Head-Quaiitbrs Army ov the Ohio, October le, 1862. "Major-general Halleck, General-in~Chie/: You are aware that between Crab Orchard and Cumberland Gap the conutry ia almost a deei^rt. '* The limited supply of forage which the country affords is consumed by the enemy as he passes. In the day and a half that wc have been in this sterile region our animals have suffered exceedingly. The enemy has been driven into ■ the heart of this desert, and must go on, for ho can not exist in it. For the same reason, we can not pursue in it with any hope of overtaking him ; fur, while he is moving back on his supplies, and, as he goes, consuming what the coun- try affords, we must bring ours forward. There is but one road, and that a bad one. / The route abounds in difficult defiles, in which a small foico can retard the progress of a large one for a considerable time, and in that lime the enemy could gain material advantage in a move upon other points. For these rc-aROiis, which I do not think it neces- sary to elaborate, I deem it useless and inexpedient to continue the pursuit, but propose to direct the nisin force niuler my command rapidly upon Nashville, which General Neglcy reported to me as already being invested by a con- siderable force, and toward which, I have no doubt, Bragg will move the main part of his army. The railroads are 'being rapidly repaired, and will soon be available for our supplies. In the meantime I shall throw myself on my w'ngoii transportation, which, foitunately, is ample. While I shall proceed with these dispositions, deeming them to by proper for the public interest, it is but meet that I should say that the present time is, perhaps, as convenient as any ft^r making any change that may be thought proper in the command of this army. " It has not accomplished all that I had hoped, or all that faction might demand ; yet, composed as it is— one-half of perfectly new troops— it has defeated a* powerful and thoroughly-disciplined army in one battle, and has driven it ftM'riy, baffled and dispirited at least, and as much demoralized as an army can be under such discipline as Bragg mnintains over all troops that he commands. "I will telegraph you more In detail in regard to the disposition of troops in Kentucky, and other matters, to-morrow D. C. BUELL, Major-General." [CTPHEE.] •' HEAn-QuARTERS Armt ov THE OHIO, Camp near Mount Vernon, Kentucky, October 17, 1862. "Major-Qeseral H. W. Halleck, Qeneral-in-ChitJ : My advance has continued to follow up the retreat of the enemy, but the progress has been slow, owing more to the obstruction placed in the road yesterday and to-day by fell- Vol. I.— 46. 722 Ohio in the War. The astonished President remonstrated, and finally peremptorily forbade. He seemed quite willing to overlook Buell's suggestion as to the propriety of relieving him ; but he wanted to know why the troops could not march as the enemy marched, live as the enemy lived, and fight as the enemy fought. And he added : "Your array must enter East Tennessee this fall." General Buell replied courteously, diplomatically, but with an unan- swerable array of arguments in favor of bis own plan. His letter was written on the 20th of October. On the 24th, under the direction of the President, an order was issued, relieving him from the command. On the 30th General ing trees, than to the oppoeitioD, though more or less BUirmishing has betn kept up. The absence of forage has com- pulled me to keep back the greater part of the cavalry and artillery, and depend mainly on infantry. It is po^ible that we may be able to strike the enemy's trains and rear-gnard coming in on the Kicbmond road, hut not much more; and if he gets beyond London without that, it will be uselesB to continue the pursuit; and, as I advised yon last night, I shall direct my main force by the most direct route upon Nashville, where its presence will certainly be requirod, whether for offensive or defensive objects. I propose to take the old divieione which I brought out of Ten- nespee, to each brigade of which I have added a new regiment, and one other (Sheridan's), composed about two-fhirds of new regiments. Kentucky should not be loft with less than thirty thousand men to guard communications and repel raids. I propose, for the present, to place one brigade at Lebanon, one at MunfordsviUe, one divlaiou at Bowl- ing Green, besides the necessary bridsc-guarda at various points. General Wright has, I believe, moved one division to Lexington. That force should be kept there, or, better still, as long as the roads are in condition so that it can be supplied, should be thrown forward to London. There should be two regiments of cavalry at Lexington, two at Bowling Green, and two at Lebanon. They should be employed actively against guerrilla bands, and concentrate rapidly against more formidable cavalry raids. There can, however, be no perfect security for Kentucky until East Tennessee is occupied. There has been no time hitherto when that coulfl be done with any prospect of permanency with the force that wa» available. We should havo marched into the very heart of the enemy's resources and away from our own, just as Bragg did in invading Kentucky ; and, with any means that we have hitherto had, the result must have been similar. The enemy wiU regard the invasion of East Tennessee as the most dangerous blow at the rebellion, and will, it seems to roe, turn his greatest eflbrts against it, limiting his operations in Virginia, if neces- sary, to the defense of Kicbmond. From this an estimate can be formed of the force with which it should be under- taken, or at least followed up. D. 0. BUELL, Major-General." " Washington, October IS, 1862—3.50 A. M. " Gf-Nehal Bl'eli., Crab Orchard: The rapid march of your army from Louisville, and your victory at Perryville, has given great satisfaction to the Govejnraent. The great object to be attained is to drive the enemy from Kentucky and East Tennessee. If we can not do it now we need never hope for it. If the co\intry is such that yon can not follow the enemy, in there not some other practicable road that will lead to the snme result— that is, compel them to leave the coiintiy? By keeping between him and Na'^hville can you not cover that place, and at the same time compel him to fill back into the Valley uf Virginia, or inti Georgia? If we can occupy Knoxville or Chattanooga we can keep the enemy out of Tennessee and Kentucky. To fall back on Nashville is to give np East Tennessee to be plundered, moreover yon are now much nearer to Knoxville, and oa near to Chattanooga as to Nashville. If yon go to the latter place and bear to East Tenne8See_you move over two sides of an eqnilatorial triangle, while the enemy hold the third. Again, may he not in the meantime make another raid into Kentucky ? If Nashville is really in danger it must be re-enforced. Mor- gan's forces have btien sent to Eastern Virginia, but we probably can very soon send some troops up the Cumberland. Those inteuiled for that purpose have been drawn off by the urgent appeals of Grant and Curtis. Can not some of the forces at Louisville bo sent to Nashville ? H. W. HALLECK." " Washingtom. October 19, 1S62-1.30 P. ^l. " General Buell, Mount Vernon: Your telegram of the ITth received this morning, and has been laid before the President, who concurs in the views expressed in my telegram to yon yesterday. The capture of East Tennesseeshould be the main object of your campaign. You say it is the heart of Ihe enemy's resources, make it the heart of yoara. Your ai my oan live there if the enemy can. You must in a great measure live upon the country, paying foryonr sup- plies when proper, and levying contributions when necessary. I am directeil by the President to say to you that your army must enter East Tennessee this fall, and that it ought to move there while the roads are passable. Once between the enemy and Nnshville there will bo no serious difficulty in re-opcning your communications with that place. He does not understand why wo can not march as the enemy raarches, live as he lives, and fight as he fights, unless we admit the inferiority of our troops and of our Generals. Once hold the valley of the Upper Tennessee, and the oper- ations of guerrillas in that State and in Kentucky will soon cease. H. W. II.\LLECK.'* ^ [cypher.] " HEAD-QuARTRns Army OP THE Ohio, DanviUe, Kentucky, October 20, 18ti2 -1 A, M. " Major-GkneealHalleck, Ceneial-m-Chir/ : 1 am veiy grateful for the-approbatidn expressed in your dispatch of the 17th. 1 have also received your dispatcli of yesterday, conveying orders for moving into East Tennessee. Undoubt- edly the present is in many respects a favorable opportunity for the movement. Far from making objections, the object of my dispatch was to call attention to its importance, but, at the s:inie tinw, 1 pujrgeated the difficulties so that (he requisite means conld be provided if possible. In speakiny; of East Tennessee as being near the heart of the enemy's resourcoa, I meant that he could concentrute his troops there rapidly. I havo no doubt you realize that tUe occnpa- tlon of East Tennessee with a suitable force is an undertaking of very considerable magnitude, and that if under- taken unadvisedly it will fail. I venture to give yon my views. "If the enumy puts himself on the defensive in East Tennessee, it will require an available force of eighty thousand men to take and hold it. If our army can subsist on tho country so much the better, but it will not do to rely seWIy on that source. If you can obtain forago and one-half of our brcadstuffs, that for tho present is probably as much as we can do. Everything else must bo hauled, Nashville is essential as a dopot, afterward McMinnville. Gaincsboro' Don Caklos Buell. 723 Eoeecrans preseTited the order, and General Buell gracefully presented his suc- cessor and took his leave of the army he had organized so well and led throui^h such checkered scenes. General Buell's career here practically ends. It may be best considered in its three main epochs. The first was marked by the organization of the Army of the Ohio, which afterward came to be known as the Army of the Cumberland. Of that work it would be difficult to speak in terms of too high praise. The second was marked by the origination of the great Western campaign of 1862, and the rescue of the imperiled army at Pittsburg Landing. In that General Buell has his sure title — after some years be past — to the regard and gratitude of the country. The third was marked by the campaign which began with the object of liberating East Tennessee, and ended with the expulsion of an invader from Kentucky. Of that we may now say that it was fatally correct. General Buell followed, throughout it, 'the maxims of the science of war, but he fol- lowed them after his calm, deliberate fashion, with such lack of vigor and such excess of prudence as to lose the rich rewards which a more reckless com- mander might have won. Nevertheless, if his conduct here was not great, it was safe ; and it must not be forgotten that he was pursued by the same ma- lignity of official ignorance which harassed his successor through half the maybe an important point for us as soon as the navigation of the Cumberland opens, which may not be for two DiontbG. Wu can procure aU of our foruge and breadstuETB, and some meat, from Middle Tennessee, but NashviUe and (he vicinity must ba I'id of the enemy in any considerable force; we can uat otherwise coUect suppUes, The enemy has repaired and is now using the Chattanooga Rtiilroad to Murfreesboro\ and is threateuing NashviUe somewhat seri- ously, as appears from a dispatch received to-day from General Negle.\ , whieli I send you. This danger has no refer- ence to Bragg's movements. If the enemy should not be there iu heavy force, it would not be necessary or desirable togo tn Kashville in full force. We could cross the Cumberland at varions points above, aud go in by Jamestown, Montgomery, Clinton, or Kingston, and tiiere is no shorter way ; that by Cumberland Gap being out of the question. "The railroad to Nashville must be opened and rendered secure, because, until navigation opens, that is the only channel for supplies. A part of the route to East Tennessee is mountainous, and destitute of supplies of every sort. As 4VG advance,- depots of forage to be supplied from the productive region must be established to carry our trains across the uterilo region— say at McMinnville and Cooksville— but that will not delay the advance of the army. "From th-'se data I make this estimate : "Tiikiriff matters as they stand, twenty thousand men, distributed pretty much as indicated in my previous dis- patch, should be kept in Kentucky ; twenty thousand in Middle Tennessee aud on the line of communication to East Teiiiiessee; and eighty thousand should be available in any tield in East Tennessee. Bragg's force in Kentucky has not falk-n much, if any, short of sixty tliousand men. It will not be difficult for him to increase it to eighty thousand men on the line of the East Tennessee Railroad. 1 could in an hour's conversation give yon my views, and explain the routes and cliaracter of the country, better than I can in a dispatch, and perhaps satisfactorily; and if you think it worth while, I can see you in M'asbington without deferring my movements, provided you concur in the expediency of mo\in2 first in the direction of Nashville. In fact we must of necessity move so as to turn Jamestown and fllont- gomei-y. It will aUo help to^couceal our plans. I can give good reasons why we can not do all that the enemy has attempted to do, such as operating without a base, etc., without ascribing the difference to the inferiority of our Gen- erals, though that may be true. The spirit of the rebellion enlbrcos a subordination to privations and want which public tsentiment rinders absolutely impossible among our troops. To make matters worse on our side, the death penalty, for any offense whatever, is put bej ond tha power of the commanders of armies, where it is placerl in every other army in the world. The sooner this is remedied the better for the country. It is absolutely certain that from ^ these causes, and from these alone, the discipline of the Rebel army is superior to ours. Again, instead of imitating the enemy's plan of campaign, I should rather say that his failure had been in a measure due to his peculiar method. No army can operate effectively upon less than this has done in the last two months. A considerable part of the time. It has been on half rations. It is now moving without tents, m ith only such cooking utensils as the men can carry and with ono baggage wagon to each regiment, but it can not continue to do this during the cold wet weather which must soon be expected, without being disabled by sickness. » D. C. BUELL, Major-General." '*Head-Quartees of the Army, Washington, D. C, October 24, lSfJ2. "Majoii-GeseealI). C, Buell, Commanding, etc.: "GKNAttAL : The President directs that on the presentation of this order you will turn over your command to Major-General W. S. Rosecrans, and repair to Indianapolis, Indiana, reporting from that place to the Adjutant-Gan. era! of the army for further orders. '* Very respectfully, your obedient servant, H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief." 724 Ohio in the War. ensuing season ; and that his objections to such an advance into Bast Tennnessoe, as was urged ujion him, were more than vindicated by subsequent sad expe- rience. A military commission was appointed, after some time, by the War Depart- ment, to investigate General Buell's conduct with reference to the invasion of Kentucky. It sat in Cincinnati with closed doors, took volumes of testimony, and made a rej)ort which, years after the close of the war, the Government was still carefully keeping from the public. That its conclusions did not touch Gen- eral Buell's honor as a Soldier, or his fidelity to the cause of the Country, may be inferred from the fact that he was subsequently offered commands — Jnco under General Sherman, his junior (and his professional if not personal enemy), and once under General Canby, also his junior. Both of these he de- clined. He was some time afterward mustered out of his rank in the volunteer service as Major-Goneral, and he thereupon resigned the Colonel's commission, which he now held in the Adjutant-General's Corps of the regular army, and retired to private life. He became connected with the late Robert Alexander, of Kentucky, in mining operations at Airdrie, near Paradise, in the south-west- ern part of that State, and to these he devoted himself for some years. He long remained very unpopular with the great mass of the people who supported the war'. He was accused of undue lenity to the Eebels, of too much sympathy with them, and, indeed, of disloyalty to the cause. This last slander he himself did something to encourage, by the publication of a letter, obviously designed to aid the Democratic opposition to the war, in which he gave, as one of his reasons for leaving the army, his disapproval of the means whereby and the manner in which the war was conducted. Personally, General Buell retains the character described by his playmates as distinguishing him in his boyhood. He is cultivated, polished, and reticent; disposed to have but few warm friendships; exclusive and somewhat haughty in his bearing. No one can study his career without being impressed by his ability. He is one of the most forcible and pungent writers among the officers who rose to distinction during the war. He has studiously avoided much de- fense of himself against the attacks with which,, for a time, the press of tlie country was burdened ; but he has on two occasions felt called to notice certain statements of General Sherman's, and once to address a public letter to General Grant. The result of these performances was to convince all that, whatever might be said of the military advantages of those o£Scers, they were no match for him with thei pen. Politically, General Buell is a strong Conservative — having, perhaps, liis nearest afSliations with what was once known as the Kentucky Unionist party. Robert C. Schenck. 725 MAJOR-GENERAL ROBERT C. SCHENCK. EOBBET GUMMING SCHENCK, Congressman and Foreign Minis- tei- before the war, Chairman of one of the Congressional Committees on Military Affairs since the war, Major-General of volunteers, a soldier of great zeal and gallantry, and one of the ablest and most successful of Our Department Commanders, was born in the town of Franklin, "Warren County, Ohio, on the 4th of October, 1809. His father. General "William C. Schenck, an early settler in the Miami "Valley, was an efficient officer in the ISTorth-western Army under General Har- rison, and afterward was a member of the General Assembly of the State. He died at Columbus in January, 1821, while attending a session of the Assembly. After his father's death Robert was placed under the guardianship of Gen- eral James Findley, of Cincinnati, but he continued to reside with his mother,, at Praaklin, until his fifteenth year, when he entered the Sophomore Class at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, in November, 1824. He graduated in Septem- ber, 1827, but remained at Oxford reviewing and extending his studies, and employing part of his time as tutor of French and Latin, until 1830, when he received his Master's Degree. In November of that year he entered Thomas Corwin's law-office at Leba- non, and in the following January was admitted to the bar as Attorney and Counsellor at Law, and Solicitor in Chancery. Eemoving to Dayton he com- menced the practice of his profession with Joseph H. Crane, and three years later he formed a partnership with Peter Odlin, which continued until the com- mencement of his active political and public life. He was very successful in his practice ; his legal acquirements, tact, and ability as an advocate being in ready demand. In 1838, young Schenck, now twenty-eight years of age, was induced to become a candidate for Representative in the State Legislature for Montgomery County, oil the Whig ticket. The Democrats, however, were in the ascendancy, and his competitor led him. by a small majority. Three years later, not having been a candidate for any office in the mean time, he was elected to the lower branch of the Legislature. Having acquired considerable reputation as a pub- lic speaker in the celebrated political campaign of 1840, io which but one man in Ohio, the great orator who had been his teacher in the law, was popularly held his superior, he was at once acknowledged as a leader in opposing tho schemes of the Democratic majority in that body, and at an extra session in 726 Ohio in the War. the ensuing summer, he, by his energy and ability, defeated an attempt (which by the aid of the Democratic Speaker seemed almost sure of success) to force through without consideration aix obnoxious apportionment bill, by which, in the slang phrase of the day, the Congressional Districts were to be " Gerry- mandered " in the Democratic interest. His action drew upon him the bitter denunciation of the Democratic leaders, among whom was the late Governor Brough. Twenty years afterward, Mr. Schenck, Governor Brongh, and Eufus P. Spalding (the presiding oflScer whom Schenck arrested in an attempt to put the motion) acted in harmony for the weal of the nation, independent of any party except that of the Union. Mr. Schenck was re-elected by an increased majority, and he rendered val- uable services to his constituents by advocating measures for internal improve- ments in the State, and for economy in its finances. In 1843 he had risen so rapidly in the estimation of his party as to be ac- cepted almost by common consent as the candidate for Congress. He curried the usually close district by more than the full majority of his party, and was re-elected for each succeeding term until 1850, when he declined a nominatioo, and at the close of his term in 1851 was appointed, by President Fillmoro, Minister to Brazil. During his Congressional career, Mr. Schenck ranked among the first as an efficient and practical statesman. It was evident that he understood every sub- ject upon which he spoke, and when occasion required, he was quick at repar- tee, keen, pungent, and satirical. He was soon recognized as one of the Whig leaders in the House, and his reputation became National. He came to be known as an anti-slavery Whig — in fact, almost a free-soil Whig. But he was nevertheless — as judged by the standard of these times — a Conservative. He agreed mainly with his great teacher and friend, Governor Corwin. The in- tensity of his nature and the profoundly earnest character of his convictions, led to a peculiar bitterness in his attacks upon his opponents, which continued to characterize him through life, and the results of which were long to be traced in the temper of both friends and foes in his district. His popularity depended solely upon his abilities. He was too proud to solicit votes, to yield. to preju- dices, or ^o adopt the ordinary arts of the politician. While Minister to Brazil he received, without solicitation on his part, special instructions from the Secretary of State to proceed on a diplomatic mis- sion to Buenos Ayrcs and to Montevideo in the Republic of Uragnay. At the same time he was empowered to negotiate with any one who might be author- ized to represent the Republic of Paraguay. Several treaties ^ere effected with these governments, by which the United States would have gained advantages never accorded to any European nation, but from neglect or inadvertence they failed to be ratified by the Senate. Mr. Schenck returned from Brazil in 1854, and for some years took no act- ive part in politics. He was understood to sympathize with what might be called the conservative wing of the Republican party. But he personally disliked and distrusted General Premont-a feeling, doubtless, aggravated by his sympathy ROBEET C. SCHENCK. 727 with the views of his brother, Commodore Sehenck, who, having been on duty on the Pacific Coast at the time, regarded treneral Fremont's claim to be con- sidered the conqueror of California as a dishonest pretense, defrauding himself and his friends of their just fame. Political feeling and personal distrust thus combined to keep Mr. Sehenck out of the Eepublican contest for Fremont and Dayton in 1856 ; and he held aloof from politics through almost the whole of Mr. Buchanan's term of ofSce. He was engaged occasionally in important law cases, priucipally in managing, as President, a line of railroad from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to the Mississippi Eiver. In September, 1859, he addressed a meeting of his fellow-citizens in Dayton on the political issues of that period. This was on the evening of the day on which Abraham Lincoln had made a speech at the same place. Allusion being made to the subject of the next Presidency, Mr. Sehenck suggested that if an honest, sensible man was wanted, it would be well to nominate the distin- guished gentleman from Illinois who had addressed them that day. Mr. Lin- coln always spoke of this as the first suggestion of his name for that oflSce be- fore any large assembly, or on any public occasion. Subsequently, when his name did come up at the Chicago Convention, Mr. Sehenck was among his warmest supporters. When the attack was made on Fort Sumter, Mr. Sehenck at once tendered his services to President Lincoln, and was commissioned Brigadier-General of volunteers. The appqintment was vigorously denounced as a political one by those who held that the volunteer army should be officered mainly by regulars. It was claimed that young Lieutenants who had spent their time in Indian fights on the frontier were better fitted to command armies, bj' reason of their knowledge of the manual of arms and the ordinary regimental drill, than were men of vastly superior intellectual force, who had never studied tactics as school-boys at West Point. One leading newspaper denounced Schenck's ap- pointment as an outrage upon the soldiers, and demanded that he should be turned over to some Orderly Sergeant of the regular army and "made to drill like the devil for a month." The same coarse abuse long continued to follow every act of the new Brigadier-General of volunteers, whose great misfortune now seemed to be that before the war he had been distinguished. On the 17th of June, 1861, General Sehenck was ordered to take possession of the Loudon and Hampshire Railroad, as far as Vienna. Under instructions from General Scott this road had been reconnoitered the day before by General Daniel Tyler, who, with four hundred men upon cars, ran beyond Vienna some distance, and, returning, reported no enemy. The General commanding wish- ing to secure the road, ordered General Sehenck to send the same cars used by General Tyler with a regiment of his brigade, and to establish guards at certain points designated along the road. These instructions were in writing, and were obeyed implicitly, General Sehenck himself accompanying the expedition. When approaching Vienna with two remaining companies, the train was fired upon by what was known in the alarmist phraseology of those days as a masked 728 Ohio in the Wab. battery. Three cars were disabled, ten men were killed and two wounded. The locomotive being in the rear, the engineer, in a cowardly and treacherous man- ner, uncoupled and returned to Alexandria, leaving the General with his little band in the presence of a largely superior force , supported by artillery and cavalry. General Schenck with great coolness rallied his few men, and behaved with so much courage that the Rebels were impressed with the belief that a heavy force must be in reserve, and accordingly they withdrew. The Bebeig numbered about eight hundred, mainly South Carolinians, and were commanded by Colonel — since General — Gregg.. Distorted representations of this aifair wei-e given to the greedy press by parties who found it their interest to maintain that none but "V^est Pointers were fit to hold ofQce in the army. Some of General Schenck's own subordinates were among the readiest in this defamation, ancl for a long time they succeeded in convincing the public that there had been vffl-y gross "volunteer" mismanagement at Vienna. The General's political opponents then took it up; and to the end of his natural life it is quite probable that he will continue to see himself sneered at in the newspapers of the. oppo- site party as the "hero of Vienna." His conduct, however, was gallant and every way commendable; he acted strictly in obedience to General Scott's orders, and the veteran Lieutenant-General subsequently stated that he was not to be blamed, but rather to be praised for his conduct. At the battle of Bull Eun, July 21, 1861, General Schenck commanded a brigade in General Tyler's division, embracing the First and Second Ohio, the Second New York, and a battery of six-pounders. He was stationed upon the Warrenton Eoad near the Stone Bridge. About four o'clock P. M., being left in command by General Tyler, he determined to clear the abattis from the bridge and to march to the relief of some of the National forces that were severely pressed. For this purpose he moved forward two twelve-pounders and a company of pioneers, and the obstructions were soon removed. At this mo- ment the order came to retreat, and General Schenck, forming his brigade, brought off the only portion of that great army that was not ''resolved into its original elements of mob." General Beauregard in his official report gives as one of the reasons why pursuit was not made, that he was satisfied large re-en- forcements held the Warrenton Soad. He had no evidence of this other than General Schenck's gallant demonstration and orderly retreat; but for which, it may be claimed, the disaster would have been far greater. General Schenck's orders from General McDowell contemplated a halt near Centerville. He accordingly halted his brigade and began to make his dispo- sitions for holding the point. Thei-e now occurred one of the most extraor- dinary features of the retreat. The commanding officers of the several organi- zations in the brigade, headed hy a consequential young Lieutenant of infantry in the regular army, who subsequently rose to enlarged opportunities for mis- conduct tlwough a Major-General's commission, waited, upon General Schenck. and protested against the halt. So panic-stricken was this professed soldier who headed them, that he declared it certain destruction to remain there another hour. General Schenck replied that he did not believe the danger so great as Robert C. Schenck. 729 their lively imaginations painted it ; but that, at any rate, he was acting under pos- itive orders. The mass of the army.was in confusion. Between it and the enemy he was ordered to stand ; and, no matter what the danger, it was his duty to obey. The Colonels renewed their protests. General Schenck remained inflexible. Finally, under the lead of one of these uneasy Colonels, in the fullness of their contempt for the volunteer General, and their alarm lest the fearful "Black- llorae Cavalry " should swoop down upon them, they declared their intention to retreat in spite of their commander's orders. General Schenck expostulated ; [jointed out the danger to which they might be exposing the disorganized mass behind them ; dwelt upon the solemn duty of a soldier to obey his orders. Finally, he warned them that he should bring them before a court-martial to answer for this gross insubordination. Whether it was that their terror overcame their judgment, or that they knew so little of military matters as to suppose insub- ordination a thing of little moment, or that they conceived the danger to be so instant and appalling as to wan-ant any breach of military discipline — in any event, this is what they did: Placing themselves at the heads of their com- mands, they turned their backs uj)on the enemy, deserted their outraged Gen- eral, and started straight for Washington !. General Schenck was absolutely left upon the spot he was ordered to hold with only a single orderly and his staff. We now know that this point might have been held ; that its abandonment was the fatal mistake which, drawing in its train an expanding series of evils, entailed upon the country the gloom, and upon the army the delay, that make Bull Run so fatal a name in our annals. General Schenck fully intended to bring the guilty parties before a court-martial, and, had he done so, at least three grave disasters in the West that subsequently befell our armies might have had a different history. But, shortly after his eloping regiments began their retreat, an order came to the solitary General from McDowell to continue the movement toward Washington. As the insubordinate officers had only anticipated this Command, he unwisely spared them. It soon came about that at least one of them made this very battle, which should have disgraced him, the occasion for fresh promotion. General Schenck was next assigned to the command of a brigade in West Virginia, under General Eosecrans, and was actively engaged in the several campaigns on the Kanawha and New Eivers. In the operations for the cap- ture of Floyd at the mouth of the Gauley, he was efficient and prompt. Had General Eosecrans been as well served by all his other subordinates, the combina- tion would not have ended in failure. He was ordered to Cumberland, Mary- land, on the death of General Lander, and, upon arriving, found everything in a distressina: state of confusion. The town was crowded with sick and wounded Boldiers, and the troops in the neighborhood were very much disorganized. The administrative abilities of the General soon restored order, and his Zealand justice will long be remembered both by citizens and soldiers. From Cumberland General Schenck, with a little army, was ordered to move up the South Branch of the Potomac, and he successfully occupied and 730 Ohio in the War. held Moorefield, Petersburg, Franklin, and other important points oa that line of operations. He was then ordered ty push ou to the relief of General Milroj', who was at McDowell with about four thousand men. To make this connection it was necessary to cross the South Branch of the Potomac. The only available ford was three feet deep at the shallowest place; the current was rapid, and the bed rocky and uneven ; but after almost a day's pernevering labor, the river was forded with little loss. When beyond Franklin, and aboni twenty-two miles from McDowell, a dispatch was received from General Milroy, Htating that the enemy was at least fourteen thousand strong, and would un- doubtedly attack the next morning. General Schenck pushed onward with about fifteen hundred infantry, one battalion of cavalry, and De Beck's Ohio Battery. The march was continued all night, and daylight found the column within ten miles of McDowell. On entering the town, a consultation was held with General Milroy, and General Schenck was satisfied that with their small force and lack of stores they could not occupy the place, but instead of await- ing an attack, or commencing a retreat, a feint of strength was made, and hard fighting continued until dark. Meantime baggage was sent off in wagon trains, and General Milroy's army was brought back to Franklin with slight loss, con- sidering the odds against which it contende^. The commander of the depart- ment pronoun'ced the march to the relief of Milroy, the battle that ensued, and the subsequent retreat, one of the most brilliant achievements that had thus iar marked the campaigns in that region. At the battle of Cross Keys General Schenck was assigned to the right of the line, and the Rebels in heavy force immediately attempted to flank his posi- tion. The attempt was met promptly, and was repulsed, the enemy falling back in confusion under a well-directed artillery fire. Until about three o'clock P. M. the right continued to press the enemy, in no instance giving back or losing any part of the field assigned it. After the left gave way. General Fremont ordered Generals Schenck, Milroy, and Cluseret to fall back to the strong posi- tion first occupied in the morning. This was done slowly and in good, order. General Fremont, upon being relieved of his command, turned it over to Gen- eral Schenck, and during the necessary absence of General Sigel, he had com- mand of the First Corps of the Army of Virginia. From that time until the second battle of Bull Run, the General was act- ively engaged in all the fatiguing marches along the Rappahannock, and upon his division • fell much of the labor of watching, marching, and fighting upon tlie most exposed flank of the position. General Pope abandoned tlie Rappa- hannock, and on the 28th of August, 1862, General Schenck's division arrived at Gainesville, and was at once ordered toward Manassas Junction. General Schenck represented to General Sigel that at Bull Run good water could be found for the suffering troops, and that they would be in better position to meet the enemy than at Manassas, and upon this suggestion General Pope directed the army to Bull Run instead of Manassas. In the two days' fight which ensued, Schenck's division took an active pari. His orders were given with great promptness and judgment, and he himself was Robert C. Schenck. 731 active in seeing them executed. General Pope, in his report, speaks of his con- duct in terras highly complimentary. On the second day of the battle, in the thickest of the fight, urging his men forward, he was severely wounded, and was carried from the field. Soldiers of the army still enjoy telling of the Gen- eral's rage and fearful imprecations at the loss of his swol'd. It had been in his hand at the moment the ball struck his wrist, and it was thrown some distance from him. The position was very exposed, and the staff wanted to carry him instantly off. He refused to go till his sword should be found. Those about him insisted, but he was peremptory, and the missing sword was brought to him before he would suffer himself to be taken to the hospital. He was conveyed to "Washington, and the day following his arrival the President and other distinguished persons in civil and military life gathered around him with cordial expressions of sympathy and praise. Shortly after- ward he received his appointment as Majoi'-General of volunteers, and accom- panying it a letter from Secretary Stanton, in which he stated that no official act of his was ever performed with more pleasure than the forwarding of the enclosed appointment. For some time his condition was critical, and he recov- ered very slowly. The right arm proved to be permanently injured, and he has never been able to write with it since. General Schenck's services in the field closed with the second battle of Bull Eun. Over six months elapsed before he was again fit for field duty. Mean- time his great reputation and experience in civil affairs had suggested him as the fit commander for the troublesome Middle Department, embracing the tur- bulent Rebels of Maryland. It had once tasked the energies of Butler. It was now to prove the signal capacity of Schenck. He was assigned by the Presi- dent to the command of the Middle Department, Eighth Army Corps, with head-quarters at Baltimore, before his recovery from his wound, on the 11th of December, 1862. He assumed command on the 22d of the month, and on that day, in a general order, announced, bi'iefly, the rule by which he would regulate his oflScial conduct toward the citizens. After stating that in the contest aris- ing oat of the rebellion there could be but two sides, with no middle ground, ho proceeded to show the difference between the loyal and the disloyal, including in the latter class all aiders of, and sympathizers with, the rebellion; and he de- clared plainly that " any public or open demonstrations, or declarations of sym- patlij- with treason would provoke a strict and needful observation of the con- duct of the party offending, and lead even to punishment or restraint, if accom- panied by acts of complicity, or anything tending to danger or disorder." The rule was clear; its enforcement was relentless. General Schenck's administration in the Middle Department was what might have been expected from one of his known executive ability, firmness, and determination. In some instances persons were arrested whose "expressions of sympathy" and "accompanying acts of complicity" brought them under the rule so plainly laid down in the General Order above quoted. One case, that of a newspaper publisher in Philadelphia, caused some excitement, and efforts 732 Ohio in the WAii. were made, apparently for political effect, to bring about a conflict between the judicial authorities of the State of Pennsylvania and the General Government; but the disavowal by the arrested party of all knowledge of the article which led to his arrest, his utter condemnation of its character, and his pledge that nothing of a similar nature should again appear in his paper, procured his re- lease, and the excitement subsided. Another case was that of a Baltimure clergj'man, who tore down and trampled upon the American Flag in a public hall, where his congregation was in the habit of worshiping. In this instance, also, the arrested party, having made proper acknowledgments, and having given pledges for his future conduct, was promptly set at liberty.* During the march of Lee into the southern border of Pennsylvania, in July, 1863, General Schenck rendei-ed valuable aid to the Union cause. The armed force in his department was numerically small, and was stationed in detachments at various points away from his immediate command. It was feai-ed, too, that Baltimore itself would be subjected to an attack in case the Eebel army had any success north of the Potomac. After sending against Lee every man that could be spared, the General at once set about the defense of Baltimore, by calling out the citizens, by barricading the approaches, and by throwing, with great rapidity, a defensive line of works around the city. The autumn elections in Maryland for members of Congress excited much interest. It was apprehended, upon good grounds, that violence would bo offered in some districts to Union men if they attempted to vote; and that men, notorious for their disloyalty, would not only vote, but would seek to take pos- session of the polls, and to control the elections. "General Order Fifty -Three," so obnoxious to all secession sympathizers, was thereupon issued. This order provided that Provost Marshals and other military ofiScers should prevent violence at the polls, should support the judges of election in requiring an oath of allegiance from any one' whose vote might be challenged on the ground of disloyalty, and that they should report to head- quarters any judge of election who refused to require the oath from a voter so •A volume might be filled with instances of Gieneral Schenck's treatment of treasonable practices, and of the sagacity and adroitness with which he enforced hia rule. A single example may be given, showing how he encountered what commanders in disloyal districts came to designate as "the woman difficulty." Men dared not insult the soldiers; women could and did with impunity, relying on their sex to protect them. In Baltimore they were particularly virulent. Finally they came to wearing the Rebel colors, flauntingly displayed, taking care to promenade the streets in great numbers on any occasion when such a display might be particularly annoying. For another phase of this difficulty Greneral Butler brought down upon himself unmeasured odium by his mal-adroit "Woman of the Town" order. Gen- eral Schenck made a more skillful use of the same means. A number of the most noted women of the town were selected. Each was instructed to array herself as elegantly as possible, to wear tlje Rebel colors conspicuously displayed upon her bosom, and to spend her time promenading' the most fashionable streets of the city. Whenever she met any one of the ladies of Baltimore wearing the same badges, she was to salute her affectionately as a "Sister in the Holy Cause;" and for these services she was to be liberally paid. The elfiect was marvelous. In less than a week not a respectable woman in Baltimq|-e dared to show herself in public ornamented by any badge of the rebellion. From that time to the end of Schenck's administration the "woman difficulty " was settled. ROBEKT C. SCHENCK. 733 challenged. A letter from the Governor of Maryland to President Lincoln waa thus elicited. The Governor complained that this military proclamation inter- fered with his functions as Chief Magistrate of the State. In reply the Presi- dent changed the first section of the order, not, as he said, because it was wrong in principle, but because it was liable to abuse, and then sustained the remainder, remarking characteristically that General Schenck permitted a Eebel to vote if ho recanted upon oath, and that was "cheap enough." A similar course was pursued in the election subsequently held in Delaware, with the hearty co-opera- tion of the Governor of that State. On the 5th of December, 1863, General Schenck resigned his commission to take a seat in the lower house of Congress, to which he had been elected from the Third Ohio Congressional District in 1862, defeating Clement L. Val- landigham by a handsome majority, while suffering from the wound he received at the Second Battle of Bull Eun. His administration of affairs in Maryland and Delaware received the unqualified approval of Union men within the De- partment, and he had been presented with highly-flattering testimonials from City Councils, County Conventions, and "Union Leagues. He had also been warmly praised and indorsed by the War Department and the President. Upon resuming his seat in Congress, a dozen years after he had vacated it, General Schenck was appointed by the Speaker Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. This was a position of much responsibility, and involved con- tinuous and exhausting labor. ISTevertheless the General participated freely in matters of legislation, and was one of the most active_debaters in the House. • A history of his course in the Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth, and Fortieth Congresses (for he was renominated by his party without opposition at each election), would be a complete history of the military legislation of the country through the most eventful years of the war and after its close, and a compre- hensive account of the whole course of public affairs in Congress during that period Into that we can not enter. It is enough to say that in militar}' matters he was laborious and vigilant ; the fii'm friend of the volunteer as against what he thought the encroachments and assumj)tions of the regulars ; the remorse- less enemy of deserters; a vigorous advocate of the draft, and the author of the disfranchisement of those who ran away from it; the champion of the pri- vate soldiers and subordinate ofiicers. He opposed for a time the Licutenant- General Bill, on the ground that the high reward it offered should be reserved till the end of the war, to be then bestowed upon hira whom the events of the war should show to have, deserved most of the Republic. He not unfrequently opposed the wishes of the War Department and of the Senate Committee, believing them to be sometimes too much influenced by the schemes of the West Point circle. He proved himself utterly fearless as to loss of personal popularity, and championed measures which were generally felt to bo needful, but from which most of his colleagues shrank back through fear of the prejudices of their constituents. He was often in a minority at the outset 734 Ohio in th,e Wae. on favorite measures, but he adhered to them with InriW^iJjtenacity ; fought for them at every stage, against the House, against the Senate, in committees of con- foi-cnce, and was never finally defeated on any leading feature of hia afci^itaiy propositions. In general politics he resumed his old place as one of the leaders of his party. We have seen that as a Whig he was antislavery. The war made him more radical. No man in Congress seemed so much actuated, not merely by the general ideas of Eadical Eepublicans, but especially and conspicuously by a vehement, fervid hatred of Eebels and the rebellion. He soon learned to dis- trust President Johnson, and throughout the contest with the Executive he was a leader in the claims for the power and policy of Congress. He carried much of his old political bitterness into the House. This and the recollection of his rule in Maryland made him especially odious to the oppo- sition. No man on the Eepublican side was so much hated by the Democratic members. Many of his characteristics, as displayed in his speeches and general con- duct in the House, are happily exemplified in the fairly ferocious onslaught which ho made upon Mr. Ferna'ndo Wood, in the spring of 1864, in the course of the debate upon the resolution for the expulsion of Mr. Alexander Tjong. Mr. Wood had just closed a defense of Mr. Long, which, on several accounts, had been peculiarly obnoxious to the Eepublicans. General Schenck rose to reply, speaking, as always, without notes : " A student in natural history would have much to learn on this floor. Some q>ecimenB of the snake family are so slippery that it seems impossible to classify them, or to hold them to any position. "I find myself at a great loss to understand what ground is occupied by the member from Jfew York, who has just taken his seat. He avows that he disagrees with the position taken by the member from Maryland (Mr. Harris), who was on Saturday visited with the censure of the House; he dissents from the arguments and propositions of my colleague (Mr. Long), whose case we are now considering; and yet he says to his fellow-copperheads^ — those, if. any there are, who crawl with him — that there is no such thing ns a War Democrat, for a creation of that kind is anomalous ! I may be pardoned, therefore, if I have difficulty in comprehending his own nature. " But, at the close of his remarks, the member from New York seemed in some small degree to develop his peculiar views and purposes. . . . Being neither against the war nor for the war, he would send commissioners to Richmond to treat with those arrayed in arms against the noun- try, to offer them terms of peace. . . . How many others on his side of the House may agree with him I know not. "But I do know this: Whenever any snch propositions of Northern Democrats have ap- peared in print, their oflers or snggestions of peace have invariably been received by the EebeU at Richmond with scoffing, and repelled with scorn. . . . "The member and his friends, then, are willing and propose to crawl on their bellies to the feet of Rebels and insurgents in arms, and, looking up piteously, to say, 'O, our Masters, not- withstanding all your scoffing and scorn, though you may spurn us from your presence, we im- plore you to say whether you will not graciously agree to make some terms with us.' I can not comprehend this abasement in any other way. "Thank God I I belong to no such party as that I For the sake of manhood and humanity^ I would not trust too far those who do. I never will make peace with armed Rebels. I am fee concluding no treaties, holding no conferences with insurgent States claiming to be an independ- ent and separate nationality. I believe that the only safety for' this country consists in fighting Robert C. Schenck. 735 this war to tlie end ; in suppressing this rebellion so effectually that its hydra head will never again be raised in the land. . . . " Upon this middle ground, upon which we have agreed no patriot or true man can stand, the member from New York selects his uncertain footing. It is the dark, oozy, unwholesome soil between the solid earth on either hand, over which unclassified copperheads do creep and mark theii' slimy and doubtful track. . . . " Wlien our difiBculties with the South were ripening into war, when hostilities were actually commenced, when it was not known how far disaffection might extend throughout the several States of the Union, there was a Mayor of New York who proposed that the city should secede from the Government, and set up for itself as a free city.'' Mr. Fernando Wood : " Mr. Speaker "— Jlr. Schenck : "I can not be interrupted, sir, but will continue, as the member insisted upon doing just now, when others sought to interrupt him. "Not that alone, sir; the same Mayor of New York, after rebellion was rampant, when boxes filled with arms were stopped by the loyal city authorities on the wharves of New York, and not permitted to go South that weapons might be put into the hands of those who were seek- ing to overthrow the Government of the country, that same Mayor regretted that he had no power over the matter, or he would gladly prevent any interference with such transmission of these munitions of war." . Mr. Fernando Wood : " Mr. Speaker '' — Jlr. Schenck: "Yes, I know that this has been denied here, recently, by that member, on this floor, and without hearing him now, I give hira the benefit of that denial ; but ho shall also have the benefit of the positive proof, produced and published widely in the papers of New York, a few days afterward, nailing upon him the falsity of the denial which he presented to this House." Mr. Fernando Wood : "Mr. Speaker "— Mr. Schenck : " I am not to be interrupted by that member." Mr. Fernando Wood : " The gentleman states " — Mr. Schenck : " 0, I have met Rebels before, when they had something more than tongues with which to contend ; and I am not to be interrupted and put down by the member from New York." General Schenck then went on to cite the proofs of nis charges. He next recalled Mr. Wood's appearance as a War Democrat at the great Union meet- ing at Cooper Institute, after the fall of Sumter, and continued : "I say, therefore, that I do not know what hind of a War Democrat he may be hereafter; whether he will be against his own people and the Government of the United State.1, as he is now, or against the insurgents, as he was then. His present profession is to be neither, but to crawl along the border between the two. . . "He would propose terms of peace, and that peace he would offer to those who scorn him. But still he will press upon them his good office.-i. He sings the siren song of peace, for the effect it may have at home. For that he is willing to crawl prostrate to the feet of insurgents in arms and say to them ; 'Do with us as you will; tear from the flag of our glorious Union half its gleaming stripes; blot out as many of those .stars as you can reach and extinguisli ; only join us again, that you muy help us to save the Democratic party, so that we may riereafter, as here- tofore, enjoy power and the oflices together. For these we will so humble ourselves as none of God's creatures ever humbled themselves before.' , . . . " I can understand how in the Revolution, when these States, then colonies, broke away from the mother country, many a man who was attached to monarchical institutions, fearful of rushing upon tlie untried experiment of a new form of government, to be reached through the horrors of war, might have shrunk back and been a tory of that day. But how, after tlie better part of a century has gone by, and tliis great Government, under the constitution adopted at the close of that Revolution, has gone on prospering and to prosper, when it has made its mark high on the roll of nations, and the hopes of a world have clustered around it, how any one with tliis history of this triumph, can to-day doubt, or distrust, or bargain away his country's nationality, is more 736 Ohio in the Wak. than I can comprehend. Sir, I declare that in my opinion the worst tory of the Revolution waj a patriot and gentleman compared with the copperheads of 1864. "Mr. Speaker, we are in the presence of the enemy. Every man in this Union is, in a legal sense, a citizen-soldier. Our people are either in the lines of the Union army in front facing and fighting the foe, or they are in the rear, striving by every means possible to strengthen and ad- vance the common cause. Now, if a soldier marching with the array toward the enemy, or hold- ing his place in the line of battle, . . . should turn to his comrades about him, saying to one, 'We can not beat the enemy;' to another, 'We had better lay down our arms;' to another, 'Our cause is wrong and we can never conquer;' to another, 'Let us demand of our commanding officers to stop shedding blood and have a truce between the two armies' — if a soldier at such a time should talk thus in the ranks, what would you do with him? You would shoot him on the spot. " And is a citizen-soldier, who undertakes to breed distraction in the country, who claims that we can not put down the rebellion, who insists that the rebellion is altogether right and jns- tifiable, who would temporize, who would compromise, who would have his Government debased to the condition of begging from the insurgents — is he less deserving execration and punishment? We may not execute such a m.in, perhaps, on his appropriate gallows, erected for criminals, yet, thank God 1 there is a gibbet of public opinion, on which we can hang him as high as Haman, and hold him there, to the scorn of all the nations of the world." An eye-witness of the remarkable scenes attending the delirery of this im- passioned invective, writes in one of the newspapers' of the day: "Standing there, square, compact, and muscular, his shattered right hand hanging idle at his side, or thrust nervously into the breast of his closely-buttoned coat, after a forgetful attempt to use it in gesticulation, the sharply-cut sentences rattling like quick, well-delivered volleys, one can not help thinting of him as one of those old knights, fresh from honorable fields, who were used, with all their armor on, to enter the old councils, and bring something of the sharp clang of war to the stern debate." The speech, however, was not all invective. Toward the close, the orator came to consider the charges of violating the Constitution, which were con- stantly urged by the enemies of the Union, against those who were waging war to save it: "Sir, I desire to say in conclusion, in relation to this whole mutter of the war and our country's trials, that— believing in strong remedies for desperate disease.^, and considering that constitutional power may sometimes have been strained, but that it has not been exceeded— I fail to see anything^ so terrible in the figure which gentlemen use when they speak with such horror of the possibility of overleaping the Constitution in order to save the country. "What is the Constitution? It is the form and frame-work of our system, under and through which the people may carry on their government. It is, after all, the form only and not the life itself. " Mark this difference. The builders of this, our frame-work, have provided in itself the mode of its own amendment and renewal. But no such change was ever contemplated for the Nation. The Constitution may undergo alteration ; but the nationality for which it was made, must be one and eternal ! To those, then, who talk idly of permitting this Nation to be destroyed rather than see any provision in the Constitution in the least exceedefl, I say that, under the pre- tense of saving the Constitution, they are making war or encouraging those who do make war upon the very existence of the Nation, while we, who stand by the Government, would try all the powers of that Constitution, and strain them to the utmost, that the Nation itself might live!" In the winter pi-eceding the outbreak of the war, General Schenck became ROEEET C. SCHENCK. 737 a candidate for the office of United States Senator, to succeed Mr. Chase, who had just resigned to enter Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet. His oi^ponents were Mr. John Sherman, then Chairman of the "Ways and Means Committee in the House, and Mr. Dennison, then Governor of the State. The facts that he had been out of politics for years, and that he had not been cordial in co-operating with the Eepublican party in its first National canvass, operated against Mr. Schenck. Had the Western Eeserve members known how radical he really was, they would have elected hini, almost on the first ballot. As it was, the contest dragged on for weeks. Finally, by a curious illustration of the blindness that often shrouds the vision of the keenest-sighted in political affairs, Garfield, Cox, and Monroe, the Eadical triumvirate of the State Senate, threw their influence in favor of the Conservative John Sherman as against the Eadieal Schenck, and decided the contest. Mr. Schenck has been kej)t in Congress by the people of his district since his return in 1863, without solicitation or effort on his part. He seems sure of a life representation of the district, if he should want it. When Mr. Sherman's first term in the United States Senate was about to expire, Mr. Schenck became again a candidate against him. The influence of the Senator actually in power was, however, too great to be overcome; and in the course of the heated contest Mr. Schenck's own management of his interests was probably unwise. The two causes insured his defeat. Another may have increased the vote for Sherman. There was a general feeling that Sherman was in his place in the Finance Committee of the Senate, and Schenck in his as Chairman of the Military Committee of the House; and that neither could well be spared from the position he occupied. Our brief narrative of the events in General Schenck's career seems suffi- ciently to portray his character. In military and in civil life he has been the same bold, bitter, fearless fighter. He practices no concealments, displays little strategy, never shrinks from a course because it will increase the number of his enemies, strikes with a broadsword rather than thrust with a rapier, hews his way through difficulties, rather than take the trouble to turn into an equally good path that may carry him around them. He lias all the combative energy of his American birth, and all the tenacity of his Dutch ancestry. When he has friends, they are warm friends ; when he has enemies, they never forgive him. As an efl'ective, forcible, hard-hitting orator he has few superiors in the nation. He is very careless, however, as to his productions, never revises the reports even of his most important speeches, and takes his satisfaction in cursing the reporters for apprehending his meaning so imperfectly! As a political leader his judgment is excellent, and his counsels are always sagacious ; but his conduct is sometimes imprudent, and is always sure to lash his antagonists into the display of their utmost energy. His enemies, and even those who bear him no personal hostility, generally speak of him as selfish ; his friends call him "whole-souled," "generous," "big-hearted," "hospitable." His general Vol I.— 47. 738 Ohio in the Wak. habits are exclusive ; people Bometimes complain of him as being "aristocratical," and he utterly scorns the ordinary practices of demagogues, or even of manj reputable politicians in conducting their campaigns. He is a man of wide cul- ture and varied accomplishments — a good lawyer, thoroughly well read in polit ical history, an admirable French and Spanish scholar, familiar with the wholo range of modern literature. In military matters he approved himself a good Corps Commander. On a larger scale he was never tried. But there are no blots on his military record. History will confirm the verdict of General Scott, that he deserved praise rather than blame for his conduct at Vienna. It will award him credit for aiding to protect the routed army at Bull Eun and to prevent that great defeat from be- coming also a fat^ disaster. It will record his unvaried gallantry on every field, and regret the wound which, at the Second Battle of Bull Eun, too soon removed him from active service. Of his administration of the mixed civil and military affairs of the Middle Department, there will be diversity of views. Bat those who believe in the triumph of loyalty and the punishment of treason, will never fail to hold his services in Baltimore in grateful remembrance. Winter Davis and the other Union leaders of Maryland were accustomed to speak of him as the savior of the State. General Schenck is of about the middle height, square, compact, and broad- chested. His rugged features fairly indicate his strong passions and inflexible will. He has been for many years a widower, and of late has not kept up an establishment in Dayton, residing for the greater part of the year with his three daughters in Washington. In his railroad and other operations he had once accumulated a handsome fortune. Too great willingness to oblige his friends and particularly his old teacher, 'Governor Thomas Corwin, led to the loss of a large part of it, though he still possesses a competence. He has several times refused to be the candidate of his party for Governor of Ohio, and seems now to have no other ambition than to continue in the service of his native State in Washington. James A. G-arfield 739 MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES A. GARFIELD. JAMES A. GAEFIBLD, Major-General of volunteers, Eepresentative in Congress, and the moat able and prominent of the young politicians who entered the army at the outbreak of the war, and after an honor- able career returned to higher stations in the civil service of the Government, was born in the village of Orange, Cuyahoga County, Ohio (twelve. or fifteen miles from Cleveland), on the 19th of November, 1831, the youngest of four children, who were orphaned by the death of their father within two years after the birth of this last of them. Both his parents were of l^ew England extraction. The father, Abraham Garfield, though born in Otsego County, New York, was of a family that had resided in Massachusetts for several generations. The mother, Eliza Ballou (niece of Eev. Hosea Ballou, the noted Universalist clergyman), was born in Cheshire County, New Hampshire. The death of Abraham Garfield, in 1833, left the widow and her four young children, without fortune, in the backwoods. But there was a little farm, and on this they worked, the youngest by and by coming to be able to bear a share of the burden: In the winters there was a village school, with such small store of books as the neighborhood afforded for private reading. So the winters and the summers passed till the familj^ had grown up, and the youngest, now sixteen years of age, had learned a little of the carpenter's trade. But this did not prove very remunerative. So, in his seventeenth year, young Garfield secured employment on the Ohio Canal, and from driver on the tow-path rose, after a time, to be boatman. The irregular life disagreed with him, and the fall of 1848 found him back under his mother's roof, slowly recovering fronr a three months' siege of the fever and ague. Up to this time he would seem to have cherished little ambition for any- thing beyond the prospects offered by the laborious life he had entered. But it happened that this winter the district school was taught by a promising young man named Samuel D. Bates.* He had attended a high school in an adjacent township, known as the " Geauga Seminary," and with the proselyting spirit common among young men in the backwoods, who were beginning to taste the pleasures of education, he was very anxious to take back several new students with him. Garfield listened and was tempted. He had intended to become a a sailor on the lakes, but he was yet too ill to carry out this plan ; and so he finally resolved to attend the high school one term, and postpone sailing till * Since an esteemed minister of the Gospel at Marion, Ohio. 740 Ohio in the Wae. the next fall. That resolution made a scholar, a Major-General, and a Congress- man out of him, instead of a sailor before the mast on a Lake Erie schooner. Early in March, 1849, young Garfield reached Chester (the site of the "Ge- auga Academy "), in company with a cousin and another young man from his native village. They carried with them frying-pans and dishes, as well as their few school books. Being too poor to pay for boarding, they were to "board themselves." They rented a room in an old, nnpainted frame house near the academy, and went to work. Garfield bought the second Algebra he had ever seen, and began it. English Grammar, Natural Philosophy, and Arithmetic made up the list of h!s studies. His mother had scraped together a little sum of money to aid him at the start, which she gave him with her blessing when he left her. After that he never had a dollar in his life that he did not earn. As soon as he began to feel at home in his classes, he sought among the carpen- ters of the village for employment at his trade. He worked mornings, evenings, and Saturdays, and thus earned enough to pay his way. When the summer vacation came he had a longer interval for work ; and so, when the fall term opened he had money enough laid up to pay his tuition and give him a start again. By the end of this fall term young Garfield had made such progress that the lad of eighteen thought he was able to teach a district school. Then his future seemed easy to him. The fruits of the winter's teaching were enough, with his economical management, to pay his expenses for the spring and fall terms at the academj'. Whatever he could make in addition, by his mornings' and evenings' work at the carpenter's trade, would go to swell another fund, the need of which he had begun to feel. For the backwoods lad, village carpenter, tow-path canal hand, would-be sailor, had now resolved to enter college. " It is a great point gained," he wrote years afterward, when, in our hurrying times, "a young man makes up his mind to devote several years to the accomplishment of a definite work." It was so now in his own case. With a definite purpose before him, he began to save all his money and to shape all his exertions to the one end. Through the summer vacation of 1850 he worked at his trade, helping to roof and weather- board houses within a stone's throw of the academy benches on which he had re- cently been construing Latin. At the opening of the next session he was able to rise a little in the world ; he could now abandon boarding himself. But he was thereby indulging in no extravagance. He found boarding, lodging, and wash- ing, at some miraculously cheap house, for one dollar and six cents per week. The next winter he taught again ; then, in the spring, removed to Hiram, and attended the " Institute," over which he was iafterward to preside. So he continued, teaching a term each winter, attending school through spring and fall, and keejjing up with his classes by private study during the time he was absent. Before he left the Hiram Institute he was the finest Latin and Greek scholar that school had ever seen. At lasf, by the summer of 1854, our carpenter and tow-path boy had gone as far as the high schools and academies of his native region could carry him. James A. G-arfield. 741 He was now nearly twenty-three years old. The struggling, hard-working boy had developed into a self-reliant ma-n. He was the neighborhood wonder for scholarship, and a general favorite for the hearty, genial ways that have never deserted him. He had been brought up in the Church of the Disciples, as it loved to call itself, of which Alexander Campbell was the great light. At an early age he had followed the example of his parents in connecting himself with this church. His life corresponded with his profession. Everybody believed in and trusted him. He had saved from his school-teaching and carpenter work about half enough money to carry him through the two years in which he thought he could finish the ordinary college course. He was growing old, and he deter- mined that he must go that fall. How to procure the rest of the needed money was a mystery ; but at last his good character and the good will this brought him solved the question. He was in vigorous, lusty health, and a life- insurance policy was easily obtained. This he assigned to a gentleman who thereupon loaned him what money was needed, knowing that if he lived he would pay it, and that if he died the policy would secure it. Pecuniaj-y difficulties thus disposed of, he was ready to start. -But where ? He had originally intended to attend Bethany College, the institution sustained by the church of which he was a member, and presided over by Alexander Camp- bell, the man above all others whom he had been taught to admire and revere. But as study and experience had enlarged his vision, he had come to see that there were better institutions outside the limits of his peculiar sect. A familiar let- ter of his, wrftten about that time, from which a fortunate accident enables us to quote, shall tell us how he reasoned and acted : "There are three reasons why I have decided not to go to Bethany: 1st. The course of study is not so extensive or thorough as in Eastern colleges. 2d. Bethany leans too heavily toward slavery. 3d. I am the son of Disciple parents, am one myself, and have had but little acquaintance with peopler of other views ; and, having always lived in the West, I think it will make me more liberal, both in my religious and general views and sentiments, to go into a new circle, where I shall be under new influences. These considerations led me to conclude to go to some New England college. I therefore wrote to the Presidents of Brown University, Yale, and Williams, setting forth the amount of study I had done, and asking how long it would take me to finish their course. "These answers are now before me. All tell me I can graduate in two years. They are all brief, business notes, but President Hopkins concludes with this sentence: 'If you come here we shall be glad to do what we can for you.' Other things being so nearly equal, this sentence, which seems to be a kind 'of friendly grasp of the hand, has settled the question for me. I shall start for Williams next week.' Some points in this letter of a young man about to start away from home to college will strike the reader as remarkable. Nothing could show more ma- ture judgment about the matter in hand than the wise anxiety to get out from the Disciples' influence, and see something of other men and other opinions. It was notable that one trained to look upon Alexander Campbell as the master intellect of the churches of the day should revolt against studying in his college, because it leaned too strongly to slavery. And in the final turning of the decis- 742 Ohio in the War. ion upon the little friendly commonplace that closed one of the letters, we catch a glimpse of the warm, sympathetic nature of the man, which much and wide experience of the world iu after years has never hardened. So, ih the fall of 1854 the pupil of the Geauga Seminary and of the Hiram Institute applied for admission at the venerable doors of Williams College. He knew no graduate of the college, and no student attending it; and of the Pres- ident he only knew that he had published a volume of lectures which he liked,* and that he had said a kindly word to him when he spoke of coming. The Western carpenter and village school-teacher received many a shock in the new sphere he had now entered. On every hand he was made to feel the social superiority of his fellOw-atudents. Their ways were free from the little awkward habits of the untrained laboring youth. Their speech was free from the uncouth phrases of the provincial circles in which he had moved. Their toilets made the handiwork of his village tailor look sadly shabby. Their free- banded expenditures contrasted strikingly with his enforced parsimony. To some tough-fibered hearts these would have been only petty annoyances. To the warm, social, generous mind of young Garfield they eeem, from more than one indication of his college life that we can gather, to have been a source of positive anguish. But he bore bravely up, maintained the advance standing in the Junior Class to which he had been admitted on his arrival; and at the end of his two years' course (in 1854) bore ofif the Metaphysical honor of his class- reckoned at Williams among the highest within the gift of the institution to her graduating members. He was four hundred and fifty dollars in debt, and he had only his clothes, his books, and his diploma. But now on his return to his home, the young man who had gone so far East as to old Williams, and had come back decorated with her honors, was thought good enough for anything. He was straightway made teacher of Latin and Greek in the Hiram Eclectic Institute, in which only two years before he had been a pupil ; and so he began to work for money to pay his debts. So high a position did he take, and so populate did he become, that the next year he was made President of the Institute — a position which he continued to hold until liis entrance into political life, but a little before the outbreak of the war. Two years of teaching (during which time he married) left him even with the world. Through the school year of 1858-59 he even began to save a little money. At the same time he commenced the study of law. Meantime he had begun to attract attention through wider circles than a mere Academy teacher would have been expected to reach. He had the tem- perament of an orator— the warm feelings, the fervid imagination, the intensity of purpose. He was gifted with a copious flow of language, to which his thorough study of the Greek and Latin classics had given strength and purity. lie was still a student, biit he was already a comprehensive scholar, versed in • It was the reading of this Volume of lectures that made young Garfield think of writing to Williams, wlien he was applying to the Yale and Brown, both of which were far better known in the West than Williams. James A. G-aefield. 743 an unusually wide range of subjects. His capacities and his acquirements thus combined to make a public speaker of him. As the President of the Institute it was natural that he should appear on the platform on every public occasion. The Church of the Disciples, like the Society of Friends, is accustomed to ac- cord large privileges of speaking to its laity ; and so it came to be expected that President Garfield should address his pupils on Sundays — briefly even when ministers of the Gospel were to preach — more at length when no one else was present to conduct the services. The remarks of the young President were always forcible, sometimes even eloquent; and the community presently began to regard him as its foremost public speaker, to be put forward on every occa- sion, to be heard with attention on every subject.* His pupils also helped to swell his reputation and the admiration for his talents. It was thus quite natural that in 1859 he should be thought of by the strong anti -slavery people of Portage and Summit counties as a suitable cham- pion to represent them in the State Senate. He was elected by a large major- ity; and the speeches which he had made throughout the district during the canvass — warm, fresh, and impassioned — had greatly added to his popularity. Senator Garfield at once took high rank in the Legislature as a man well-in- formed on the subjects of legislation, and effective and powerful in debate. He seemed alwaj-s prepared to speak; he always spoke fluently and to the point; and his genial, warm-hearted nature served to increase the -kindness with which both political friends and opponents regarded him. Three "Western Eeserve Senators formed the Bfidical triumvirate in that able and patriotic Legislature, which was to place Ohio in line for the war. One was a highly-rated Professor of Oberlin College; another, a lawyer already noted for force and learning, the son-in-law of the President of Oberlin ; the third was our village carpenter and village teacher from Hiram. He was the youngest of the three, but he speedily be- came the first. The trials of the next six years were to confirm the verdict of the little group about the State Capitol that soon placed Garfield before both Cox and Monroe. The College Professor was abundantly satisfied with the suc- cess in life which made him a Consul at a South American port. The adroit, polished, able lawyer became a painstaking General, who, perhaps, oftener de- served success than won it, and who at last, profiting by the gratitude of the people to their soldiers, rose to be Governor of the State, but there (for the time at least) ended. The village carpenter started lower in the race of the war and rose higher, became one of the leaders in our National Councils, and confessedly one of the ablest among the younger of our statesmen. When the secession of the Southern States began, National considerations came to occupy a large share of the attention of the Senate. Mr. Garfield's * The frequency of Mr. Garfield's appearance in the pulpit of the Institute in the absence of the regular minister, and in accordance with the liberal usages of the Disciples, finally led the outside public to think of him as actually a minister of the Gospel, a position which his unblem- ished character seemed to befit, as much as his unusual abilities did to adorn. But he had never entertained any idea of becoming a minister, and, as we have seen, was already at work — just as soon as he got relief from the debts with which his stay at college had burdened him — preparin" for the practice of the law, to which profession he had long been looking forward. L 744 Ohio ik the War. course was manly and outspoken. He was foremost in the very small number (only six voting with him) who thought the spring of 1861 a bad time for adopting the Corwin Constitutional Amendment, forbidding Congress from ever legislating on the subject of slavery in the States. He was among the foremost in maintaining the right of the National Government to coerce seceded States. " Would you give up the forts and other government property in those States, or would you fight to maintain your right to them?" was his adroit way of put- ting the question to a Conservative Eepublican who deplored his incendiary views. He took the lead in revising the old statute about treason, with a view of adapting it to the instant exigencies. When the "Million War Bill," as it was popularly known at the time, came up, he was the most conspicuous of its defenders. Judge Key, of Hamilton County (subsequently a noted member of McClellan's staff), preluded his vote for it with a protest against the policy of the Administration in entering upon the war. It was left to Garfield to make the reply. The newspapers of that day all make mention of his effort in terms of the highest admiration. ' He regretted that Senator Key should have turned from honoring his country to pay his highest tribute of praise, at a time like this, to party., The Senator approved a defense of national property; but de- nounced any effort to retake it if only it were once captured. Did he mean that if Washington were taken by the Eebels he would oppose attempts to re- gain possession of the National Capital? Where was this doctrine of non-resist- ance to stop? He had hoped that the Senator would not, in this hour. of the Nation's peril, open the books of party to re-read records that ought, now at least, to be forgotten. But since the Senator had thought this a fitting time to declare his distrust of the President and of the Cabinet, and particularly of Ohio's honored representative in that Cabinet, he had only this to say in reply: that it would be well for that Senator, amid his partisan recollections, to remem- ber whose Cabinet it was that embraced traitors among its most distinguished members, and sent them forth from its most secret sessions to betray their knowledge to their country's ruin !' When the time came for aiDpointing the officers for the Ohio ti-oops, the Legislature was still in session. Garfield at once avowed his intention of enter- ing the service. But he displayed at the outset his signal want of tact and of skill in advancing his own interests. Of the three leading Radical Senators Garfield had the most personal popularity. Cox was at that time, perhaps, a more compact and pointed speaker — he had matured earlier, as (to change the figure) ho was to culminate sooner. But he had never aroused the warm regard which Garfield's whole-hearted, generous disposition always excited. Yet Cox had the sagacity to see how his interests were to be advanced. He abandoned the Senate-chamber ; installed himself as an assistant in the Governor's office, made his skill felt in the rush of business, and soon convinced the appointing power of his special aptitude for military affairs. In natural sequence he was presently appointed a Brigadier-General. Garfield was sent off on a mission to some Western States to see about arms for the Ohio volunteers, and on his re- James A. G-aefield. 745 turn he was orfered the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of one of the Eeserve regiments. But his making haste slowly was not to injure his future career. On the 14th of August, 1861, some months after the adjournment of the Legislature, and after the successful close of McCIellan's West Virginia cam- paign, the ox-Senator was finally appointed by Governor Dennison Lieutenant- Colonel of the Forty-Second Ohio — a regiment not yet organized, a company for which had been recruited among the pupils of the "Hiram Eclectic Insti- stitute." It was understood that, if he had cared to push the matter, Garfield might have been Colonel; but with a modesty quite unusual in those early days of the war, he preferred to start low, and rise as he learned. Five weeks were spent in diligently drilling the regiment, and finally, about the time its organi- zation was complete, the Lieutenant-Colonel was, without his own solicitation, promoted to the Colonelcy. It was not until the 14th of December that orders for the field were re- ceived. The regiment was then sent to Catlettsburg, Kentucky; and the Colonel was directed to report in person to General Buell. That astute officer, though as opposite as the poles to Garfield in his political convictions, soon perceived the military worth of the young Colonel. On the 17th of December he assigned Colonel Garfield to the command of the Seventeenth Brigade, and ordered him to drive the Eebel forces under Humphrey Marshall out of the Sandy Valley, in Eastern Kentucky. IJj) to this date no active operations had been attempted in the great De- partment that lay south of the Ohio Eiver. The spell of Bull Eun still hung over our armies. Save the campaigns in Western Virginia, and the unfortunate attack by General Grant at Belmont, not a single engagement had occurred over all the region between the AUeghanies and the Mississippi. General Buell was preparing to advance upon the Eebel position at Bowling Green, when he suddenly found himself hampered by two co-operating forces skillfully planted within striking distance of his flank. General Zollicoffer was advancing from Cumberland Gap toward Mill Spring; and Humphrey Marshall, moving down the Sandy Valley, was threatening to overrun Eastern Kentucky. Till these could be driven back, an advance upon Bowling Green would be perilous, if not actually impossible. To General George H. Thomas, then just raised from his Colonelcy of regulars to a Brigadier-Generalship of volunteers, was com- mitted the task of repulsing Zollicoffer; to the untried Colonel of the raw Forty-Second Ohio, the task of repulsing Humphrey Marshall. And on their success the whole army of the Department waited. Colonel Garfield thus found himself, before he had ever seen a gun fired in action, in command of four regiments of infantry, and some eight companies of cavalry,* charged with the work of driving out Qf his native State the officer reputed the ablest of those, not educated to war, whom Kentucky had given to the rebellion. Marshall had under his command nearly five thousand men, •The brigade was composed of the Fortieth and Forty-Second Ohio, the Fourteenth and Twenty-Second Kentucky Infantry, six companies of the First Kentucky Cavalry, and two com- panies of McLaughlin's (Ohio) Cavalry. 746 Ohio' in the War. stationed at the village of Paintville, sixty miles up the Sandy Valley. He was expected by the Eebel authorities to advance toward Lexington, unite with ZoIlico£fer, and establish the authority of the Provisional Government at the State Oapital. These hopes were fed by the recollection of his great intellectual abilities, and the soldierly refutation he had borne ever since he led the famous charge of the Kentucky volunteers at Buena Yista. Colonel Garfield joined the bulk of his brigade at the mouth of the Big Sandy, and moved with it directly up the valley. Meantime he ordered the small 'force at Paris to march overland and effect a junction with him a little below Paintville. The force with which he was able to move numbered about twenty-two hundred. Marshall heard of the advance, through the sympathizing citizens, and fell back to Prestonburg, leaving a small force of cavalry near his old position, to act as an outpost and to protect his trains. As Garfield approached* he ascer- tained the position of this cavalry, and sent some of his own mounted forces to attack it, while, with the rest of his column, he passed around to the westward, to make a reconnoissance in force of the positions which he still supposed Mar- shall's main body to occupy. He speedily discovered Marshall's retreat; then hastily sent word back to his cavalry not to attack the enemy's cavalry until he had time to plant his force on its line of retreat. Unfortunately the circuit- ous route delayed the courier, and before Garfield's orders could be delivered the attaclc had been made, and Marshall's cavalry had been driven back in con- siderable confusion. When, pushing on with the main column, he reached the road on which he had hoped to intercept their retreat, he found it strewh with overcoats, blankets, and cavalry equipments— proofs that they had already passed in their rout. Colonel Garfield pushed the pursuit with his cavalry till the infantry outposts were i-eached ; then, drawing back, encamped with his whole force at Paintville. Here, next morning, he was joined by the troops that had marched from Paris, so that his effective force was now raised to about thirty-four hundred men. After waiting a day for rations, which were taken through with the utmost difficulty, on the 9th of January Garfield advanced upon Marshall's new posi- tion near Prestonburg, Before nightfall he had driven in the enemy's pickets, and had sent orders back to Paintville to forward the few troops — less than one thousand in all — who had not been supplied witi\ rations in time to move with the rest of the column. The men slept on their arms, under a soaking rain. By four o'clock in the morning f they were in motion. Marshall was believed to be stationed on Abbott's Creek. Garfield's plan, therefore, was to get over upon Middle Creek, and so plant himself on the enemy's rear. But in fact Marshall's force was upon the height's of Middle Creek itself, only two, miles west of Prestonburg. So, when Garfield, advancing cautiously westward up the creek, had consumed some hours in these move- ments, he came upon a semi-circular hill, scarcely one thousand yards in front of which was Marshall's position, between the forks of the creek. The expected •January 7, 1862. t January 10, 1862. James A. G-akfield. 747 re-enforcements from Paintville had not yet arrived ; and, conscious of his com- parative weakness, Colonel Garfield determined first to develop the enemy's position more carefully. A small body of picked men, sent dashing up the road, drew a fii-e both from the head of the gorge through which the road led and from the heights on its left. Two columns were then moved forwai'd, one on either side of the creek, and the Eebels speedily opened upon them with musketry and artillery. The fight became somewhat severe at times, but was, on the whole, desultory. Garfield re-enforced both his columns, but the action soon developed itself mainly on the left, where Marshall speedily concentrated his whole force. Meantime Garfield's reserve was now also under fire from the commanding position held by the enemy's artillery. He was entirely without artillery to reply ; but the men stationed themselves behind trees and rocks, and kept up a brisk though irregular fusilade. At last, about four o'clock in the afternoon, the re-enforcements from Paintville arrived. As we now know, these still left Marshall's strength supe- rior to that of his young assailant; but the troops looked upon their opportune arrival as settling the contest. Unbounded enthusiasm was aroused, and the approaching column was received with prolonged cheering. Garfield now promptly formed his whole reserve for attacking the enemy's right and carry- ing his guns. The troops were moving rapidly up in the fast-gathering dafk- ness, when Marshall hastily abandoned his position, fired his camp equipage and stores, and began a retreat which was not ended till he had reached Abing- don, Virginia. Night checked the pursuit. Next day it was continued for some distance, and some prisoners were taken ; but a further advance in that direction was quite impossible without more transportation, and indeed would have been foreign to the purpose for which General Buell had ordered the expedition.* A fresh peril, however, now beset the little force. An unusually violent rain-storm broke out, the mountain gorges were all flooded, and the Sandy rose to such a height that steambcatmen pronounced it impossible to ascend the stream with supplies. The troops were almost out of rations, and the rough, mountainous country was incapable of supporting them. Colonel Garfield had gone down the river to its mouth. He ordered the " Sandy Valley," a small steamer, which had been in the quartermasters' service, to take on a load of supplies and start up. The Captain declared it was impossible. Efforts were made to get other vessels, but without success. Finally Colonel Garfield ordered the Captain and crew on board, stationed a competent army oflicer on deck to see that the Captain did his duty, and him- self took the wheel. The Captain still protested that no boat could possibly stem the raging current, but Garfield turned her head up the stream and began the perilous trip. The water in the usually shallow river was sixty feet deep, * Speaking of these movements on tfie Sandy, after he had gained more experience of war, Garfield said: "It was a very rash and imprudent affair on my part. If I had been anofficer of more experience I probably should not have made the attack. As it was, having gone into . the army with the notion that fighting was our business, I did n't know any better." 748 Ohio in the Wak. and the tree-tops along the banks were almost submerged. The little vessel trembled from stem to stern at every motion of the engines; the waters whirled her about as if she were a skiff; and the utmost speed that steam could give her was three miles an hour. When night fell the Captain of the boat begged per- mission to tie up. To attempt ascending that flood in the dark he declared was madness. But Colonel Garfield kept his place at the wheel. Finally, in one of the sudden bends of the river, they drove, with a full head of steam, into the quicksand of the bank. Every effort to back off was in vain. Mat- tocks were procured and excavations were made around the imbedded bow. Still she stuck. Garfield at last ordered a boat to be lowered to take a line across to the opposite bank. The crew protested against venturing out in the flood. The Colonel leaped into the boat himself and steered it over. The force of the current carried them far below the point they sought to reach ; but they finally succeeeded in making fast to a tree and rigging a windlass with rails snfiiciently powerful to draw the vessel off and get her once more a'float. It was on Saturday that the boat left the mouth of the Sandy. All night, all day Sunday, and all through Sunday night they kept up their struggle with the cun-ent, Garfield leaving the wheel only eight hours out of the whole time, and that during the day. By nine o'clock Monday morning they reached the camp, and were received with tumultuous cheering. Garfield himself could scarcely escape being borne to head-quarters on the shoulders of the de- lighted men. Through the months of January, February, and March, several small en- counters with guerrillas in the mountains occurred, generally favorable to the Union arms, and finally resulting in the expulsion of the bands of marauders from the State. Just on the border, however, at the rough pass across the mountains, known as Pound Gap, eighty miles north of Cumberland Gap, Hum- phrey Marshall still kept up a post of observation, held by a force of about five hundred men. On the 14th of March Garfield started with five hundi-ed infantry and a couple of hundred cavalry against this detachment. The distance was forty miles, and the roads were at their worst, but by the evening of the next day he had reached the foot of the mountain, two miles north of the Gap. Next morning he sent the cavalry directly up the Gap Eoad, to attract the enemy's attention, while he led the infantry along an unfrequented foot-path up the side of the mountain. A heavy snow-storm helped to conceal the move- ments. While the enemy watched the cavalry, Garfield had led the infantry, undiscovered, to within a quarter of a mile of their carap. Then he ordered an attack. The enemy were taken by surprise, and a few volleys dispersed them. They retreated in confusion down the eastern slope of the mountain, followed for several miles into Virginia by the cavalry. Considerable quantities of stores were captured. The troops rested for the night in the sixty comfortable log huts which the enemy had built, and the next morning burnt them down, to- gether with everything else left by the enemy which they could not carry away. Six d&jB afterward an order was received to leave a small garrison at Pike ton, and to transfer the rest of the command rapidly to Louisville. James A. G-arfield. 749 These operations in the Sandy Valley had been conducted with such energy and skill as to receive the special commendation of the commanding General lind of the Governmept. General Buell had been moved to words of unwonted praise.* The War Department had conferred the grade of Brigadier-General, the commission bearing the date of the battle on Middle Creek. And the country,without understanding very well the details of the campaign (of which, indeed, no satisfactory account was published at the timef), fully appreciated the tangible result. The discomfiture of Humphrey Marshall was a source of special chagrin to the Eebel sympathizers of Kentucky, and of amusement and admiration throughout the loyal "West, and Garfield took rank in the public estimation among the most promising of the younger volunteer Generals. Later criticism will confirm the general verdict then passed upon the Sandy Valley campaign. It was the first of the brilliant series of successes that made the spring of 1862 so memorable. Mill Springs, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Nashville, Island No. 10, Memphis, followed in quick succession; but it was Garfield's honor that he opened this season of victories. His plans, as we have seen, were" based on sound military principles; the energy which he threw into their execution was thoroughly admirable, and his management of the raw volun- teers was such that they acquired the fullest confidence in their commander, and endured the hardships .of the campaign with a fortitude not often shown in the first field service of new troops. But the operations were on a small scale, and their chief significance lay in the capacity they developed, rather than in their intrinsic importance. On his arrival from the Sandy Valley at Louisville, General Garfield found that the Army of the Ohio was already beyond Nashville, on its march to Grant's aid At Pittsburg Landing. He hastened after it, reported to General Buell about thirty miles south of Columbia, and, under his orders, at once assumed command of the Twentieth Brigade, then a part of the division under General Thomas J. Wood. He reached the field of Pittsburg Landing about one o'clock on the second day of the battle, and participated in its closing scenes. The next day he moved with Sherman's advance, and had a sharp encoun- •The following is the text of Greneral Buell's congratulatory order: "Heau-Quaktebs Department op the Ohio,') " Louisville, Kentucky, January 20, 1862. ) "GEifERAL Orders No. 40. "The General commanding takes occasion to thank General Garfield and his troops for their successful campaign against the Bebel force under General Marshall on the Big Sandy, and their gallant conduct in battle. They have overcome formidable difficulties in the character of country, the condition of the loads, and the inclftnency of the season ; and, without artillery, have, in several engagements, terminating in the battle on Middle Creek on the 10th inst., driven the enemy from his intrenched positions, and forced him back into the mountains with the loss of a large amount of baggage and stores, and many of his men killed or captured. "These services have called into action the highcKt qualities of a soldiei' — fortitude, perse- Terance, courage." t Aside from the official reports, the most comple account of the Middle Creek battle that I have seen is in Harper's Pictorial History of the Rebellion, Vol. I, pp. 221-22-23. 760 Ohio in the Wae. ter with the enemy's rear-guard, a few miles beyond the battle-field. His brig- ade bore its full share in the tedious siege operations before Corinth, and was among the earliest in entering the abandoned town after General Beauregard's evacuation. Then when General Buell, turning eastward, sought to prepare for a new aggressive campaign with his inadequate forces, General .Garfield was assigned to the task of rebuilding the bridges and re-opening the Memphis and Charles- ton Eailroad eastward from Corinth to Decatur. Crossing the Tennessee here, he advanced to Huntsville, where he remained during the rest of his ser- vice in that campaign. He was presently put at the head of the court-martial for the trial of General Turchin, whose conduct at Athens had been the occa- sion of a parting howl against General Mitchel, and had been one of the earliest subjects forced upon the attention of General Buell on his arrival* His mani- fest capacity for such work led to his subsequent detail on several other courts- martial. The old tendency to fever and ague, contracted in the days of his tow-path service on the Ohio Canal, was now aggravated in the malarious climate of the South, and General Garfield was finally sent home on sick-leave about the first of August. JS"ear the same time the Secretary of War, who seems at this early day to have formed the high estimate of Garfield which he continued to enter- tain throughout the war, sent orders to him to proceed to Cumberland Gap and relieve General George W. Morgan of his command. But when they were re- ceived he was too ill to leave his bed. A month later the Secretary ordered him to report in person at Washington, as soon as his health would permit. On his arrival it was found that the estimate placed upon his knowledge of law, his judgment, and his loyalty, had led to his selection as one of the first members of the court-martial for the noted trial of Fitz John Porter. In the duties connected with this detail most of the autumn was consumed. General Garfield was understood to be one of the clearest and firmest in the conviction that General Porter had wilfully permitted Pope's defeat at the second Bull Kun, and that no less punishment than dismissal from the service would be at all adequate to his offense. The intimacy that sprang up during this trial between General Garfield and General Hunter, the President of the court-martial, led to an application for him for service in South Carolina, whither Hunter was about to start. Gar- field's strong antislavery views had been gi-eatly strengthened by his experience thus far during the war, and the South Carolina appointment, under a com- * This case attracted great attention at the time, and General Turchin was vehemently cham- pioned by the newspapers, particularly those of Chicago. The charges against him were neglect of duty, to the prejudice of good order and discipline, in permitting the wanton and disgraceful pillage of the town of Athens, Alabama; conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, in failing to pay a hotel bill in the town ; and insubordination in disobeying the orders against the molestation of peaceful citizens in persons and property. Some of the specifications particular- ized very shameful conduct. The court found him guilty (e.x;cept as to the hotel-bill story), and sentenced him to dismissal from the army. Six of its members recommended him to clem- ency on account of mitigating circumstances, but the sentence was executed. James A. G-akfield. 75,1 mander so radical as Hunter, was on this account peculiarly gratifying. But in the midst of his plans and prepai'ations, the old army in which he had served plunged into the battle of Stone Eiver. A part of the bitter cost of the victory that followed was the loss of Garesche, the lamented chief of staff to the com- manding General. Garfield was at once selected to take his place; the appoint- meat to South Carolina was revoked ; and early in January he was ordei-ed out to General Eosecrans.' The Chief of Staff should bear the same relation to his General that a Min- ister of State does to his sovereign. "What this last relation is the most bril- liant of recent historians shall tell us : " The differedce between a servant and a Minister of State lies in this: that the servant obeys the orders given him, without troubling himself concerning the question whether his master is right or wrong; while a Minister of State declines to be the instrument for giving effect to measures which he deems to be hurtful to his country. The Chancellor of the Eussian Empire was sagacious and politic. . . . That the Czar was wrong in these transactions against Turkey no man knew better. . . . But, unhappily for the Czar and for his Empire, the Minister did not enjoy so com- manding a station as to be able to put restraint upon his sovereign, nor even, perhaps, to offer him counsel in his angry mood." * We are now to see that in some respects our Chief of Staff came to a similar experience. From the day of his appointment, General Garfield became the intimate Issooiate and confidential adviser of his chief But he did not occupy so com- h manding a station as to be able to put restraint upon him. The time of General Garfield's arrival marks the beginning of that period of quarrels with the War Department, in which General Eosecrans frittered away his influence and paved the road for his removal. We have seen, in tracing the career of that great strategist and' gallant soldier, how unwise he always was in caring for his own interests, and how imprudent was the most of his intercourse with his superiors. Tet he was nearly always right in his de- mands. General Garfield earnestly sympathized with his appeals for more cav- alryj- and for revolving arms. But he did all that lay in his power to soften the tone of asperity which his chief adopted in his dispatches to Washington. J Sometimes he took the responsibility of totally suppressing an angry message. Oftener he ventured to soften the phraseology. But in all this there was a limit beyond which he could not go ; and when Eosecrans had pronounced cer- tain statements of the Department " a profound, grievous, cruel, and ungener- ous official and personal wrong," the good ofla.ces of the Chief of Staff were no longer efficacious — the breach was irreparable. Thenceforward he could only Strive to make victories in the field atone for errors in council. He regarded the organization of the army as vitally defective. We have »KiDglake's Crim. War, Vol. I, Chap. XVI. t A demand which General Buell had made, quite as emphatically as his successor, and with Ml accurate prediction of the evils that would flow from its absence. t For a full illustration of the nature of this correspondence, see ante, Life of Eosecrans, 752 Ohio in the War. already pointed out, in tracing the actions of its chief, the great mistake of retaining as commanders of the wings such incapables as A. M. McCook and T. L. Crittenden. Almost the first recommendation made by General Garfield was for their displacement. It is gratifying now to know that he was so little moved by popular prejudice, and so well able to perceive real ability beneath concealing misfortunes, that he urged upon Eosecrans to replace them by Irvin McDowell and Don Carlos Buell. With George H. Thomas already in com- mand, with men like these as his associates, and with the energy and genius of Eosecrans to lead them, the Army of the Cumberland would have been the best oflScered army in the service of the Nation. But Eosecrans was unwilling to adopt the suggestion — for a reason creditable to his kindness of heart, but not to his military character. Crittenden and McCook ought to be removed — of that he had no doubt, but — " he hated to injure two such good fellows." And 80 the " two good fellows " went on until Chickamauga.* From 4th January to 24th June General Eosecrans lay at Murfreesboro'. Through five months of this delay General Garfield was with him. The War Department demanded an advance, and, when the spring opened, urged it with unusual vehemence. General Eosecrans delayed, waiting for cavalry, for re-enforcements, for Grant's movements before Vicksburg, for the movements of the enemy, for the opinions of his Generals. The Chief of Staff at first ap- proved the delays, till the army should be strengthened and massed ; but long before the delaying officers were ready he was urging movement with all his power. He had established a secret-service system, then perhaps the most per- fect in any of the Union armies. From the intelligence it furnished he felt sure that Bragg's force had been considerably reduced, and was now greatly infe- rior to that of Eosecrans. As he subsequently said, he refused to believe that this army, which defeated a superior foe at Stone Eiver, could not now move upon an inferior one with reasonable prospects of success. Finally General Eosecrans formally asked his corps, division, and cavalry Generals as to the propriety of a movement. With singular unanimity, though for diverse reasons, they opposed it. Out of seventeen Generals, not one was in favor of an immediate advance, and not one was even willing to put himself upon the record as in favor of an early advance. General Garfield collated the seventeen letters sent in from the Generals in reply to the questions of their commander, and fairly reported their substance, coupled with a cogent argument against them and in favor of an immediate movement. This report we venture to pronounce the ablest military document known to have been submitted by a Chief of Staff to his superior during the • To the above statement it should be added that General Garfield made the recommenda- tion for the removal of Crittenden and McCook in the course of a discussion of the battle of Stone Biver, in which Bosecrans explicitly said that these officers had shown themselves incom- petent in that engagement. Garfield did not take the ground that Buell and McDowell had approved themselves equal to the high commands they had formerly held ; but, without dis- cussing this, he argued at length their miuterly qualifications for important subordinate positions, as well as the fact that this offer of an opportunity to come out from the cloud under which they rested would insure their gratitude and incite them to their very best efforts. James A. Garfield. 753 war. General Garfield stood abeolately alone, every General commanding troops having, as we have seen, either openly opposed or failed to approve an advance. But his statements were so clear and his arguments so forcible that he carried conviction. As an interesting feature in the history of a notable campaign, we give this remarkable paper in fiill : Head-Quaeteks, Department of the Cumbebi/Ant),") Murfreesboro' , June 12, 1863. / General: In your confidential letter of the 8th inst. to the corps and division commanderR and Generals of cavalry of this army, there were substantially five questions propounded for their consideration and answer, viz.: 1. Has the enemy in our front been materially weakened by detachments to Johnston, or elsewhere?. 2. Can this army advance on him at this time with strong reasonable chances of fighting a great and successful battle? 3. Do you think an advance of our army at .present likely to prevent additional re-enforce- ments being sent against General Grant by the enemy in our front? 4. Do you think an immediate advance of this army advisable ? 5. Do you think an eaWy advance advisable? Many of the answers to these questions are not categorical, and can not be clearly set dowii either as affirmative or negative. Especially in answer to the first question there is much indefi- niteness, resulting from the difference of judgment as to how great a detachment could be con- sidered a " material reduction" of Bragg's strength. For example: One officer thinks it has been radaced ten thousand, but not "materially weakened." The answers to the second question are modified in some instances by the opinion that the Rebels will fall back behind the Tennessee Biver, and thus no battle can be fought either success- ful or unsuccessful. 8o far as these opinions can be stated in tabular form, they will stand thus : Yes. No. Answer to first question 6 11 Answer to second question 2 11 Answer to third question 4 10 Answer to fourth question 15 Answer to fifth question 2 , On the fifth question three gave it as their opinion that this army ought to advance as soon as Y>9lDBbnrg falls, should that event happen. The following is a summary of the reasons assigned why we should not, at this time, advance upon the enemy : 1. With Hooker's army defeated, and Grant's bending all its energies in a yet undecided strug- gle, it is bad policy to risk our only reserve army to the chances of a general engagement. A failure here would have most disastrous effects on our lines of communication, and on politics in the loyal States. 2. We should be compelled to fight the enemy on his own ground, or follow him in a fruit- less stern chase; or if we attempted to outflank him and turn his position, we should expose our line of communication and run the risk of being pushed back into a rough country well-known to the enemy and little to ourselves. 3. In case the enemy should fall back without accepting battle he could make our advance very riow, and with a comparatively small force posted in the gaps of the mountains could hold us back while he crossed the Tennessee Biver, where he would be measurely secure and free to nend reicnforcements to Johnston. His forces in East Tennessee could seriously harass our left flank, and constantly disturb our communications. 4. The withdrawal of Burnslde's Ninth Army Corps deprives us of an important reserve end flank protection, thus increasing the difficulty of an advance. Vol. I.— 48. 754 Onio IN THE Wak. 6. General Hurlbut hog sent tbe mo3t of his forces awajr to General ■ Grant, thns^ leaving West Tennessee uncovered, and laying our right flank and rear open to raids of tbe enemy. The following incidental opinions are expressed : 1. One officer thinks it probable that the enemy has been strengthened rather than weakened, and that he (the enemy) would have a reasonable prospect of victory in a general battle. 2. One officer believes tbe result of a general battle would be doubtful, a victory barren, and a defeat most disastrous. 3. Three officers believe that an advance would bring on a general engagement. Three others believe it would not. 4. Two officers express tbe opinion that the chances of success in a general battle are nearly equal. 6. One officer expresses the belief that our army has reached its maximum stren^^th and efficiency, and that inactivity will seriously impair its effectiveness. 6. Two officei-s say that an increase of our cavalry by about six thousand men would mate- rially change the aspect of our affairs and give us a decided advantage. In addition to the above summary, I have the honor to submit an estimate of the strength t>f Bragg's army, gathered from all the data I have been able to obtain, including the estimate of the General commanding in his official report of the battle of Stone River and facts gathered from prisoners, deserters, and refugees, and from Rebel newspapers. After the battle Bragg con- solidated many of his decimated regiments and irregular organizations, and at the time of his «endtng re-enforcements to Johnston his army had reached itn greatest effective strength. It con- sisted of five divisions of infantry, composed of ninety-four r^inienUi and two independent bat- talions of sharp-shooters ; say ninety-five regiments. By a law of the Confederate Congress, regiments are consolidated when their effective strength falls below two hundred and fifty men. Even the regiments formed by such consolidation (which may reasonably be r^arded as, the fullest) must fall below five hundred. I am satisfied that four hundred is a large estimate of the average strength. The force then would be : Infantry, 95 Regiments, 400 each 33,000 Cavalry, 35 " say 500 " 17,600 Artillery, 26 Batteries, say 100 " 2,600 Total 58,600 This force has been reduced by detachments to Johnston. It is as well known as we can ever expect to ascertain such facts, that three brigades have gone from McCown's division, and two or three from Breckinridge's; say two. It is clear that there are now but four infantry divisiuiis in Bragg's army, the fourth being composed of fragments of McCown's and Brcckinridges's divis- ions, and muxt be much smaller than the average. Deducting the five brigades, and supposing them composed of only four regiments each, which is below the general average, it gives an in- fantry reduction of twenty regiments, four hundred each : eight thousand, leaving a remainder of thirty thousand. It is clearly ascertained that at least two brigade)) of cavalry have been sent from Van Dom's command to Mississippi, and it is asserted in the Chattanooga Rebel of June 11th, that General Morgan's command bus been permanently detached and sent to Eastern Kentucky. It is not certainly known how large his division is, but it is known to contain at least two brigades. Taking this minimum as the fact, we have a cavalry reduction of four brigades. Taking the lowest estimate, four regiments to the brigade, we have a reduction by detach- ment of sixteen regiments, five hundred each, leaving his present effe<^ive cavalry force nine tliou'sand five luindred. With the nine brigades of the two arms thus detached it will be safe to say there have gone 6 Batteries, 80 men each .480 Leaving him 20 Batteries 2,120 Making a total reduction of. 16,480 Leaving of the three arms :.... 41,680 James A. Gtarfield. 766 In this eatimate of Bragg'g present strength I have placed all doubts in his favor, and I huTC no qaestion that my estimate is considerably beyond the truth. General Sheridan, who has taken great pains to collect evidence on this point, places it considerably below Chese figures. But ussuniing these to be correct, and granting what is still more improbable, that Bragg would abandon all his rear posts, and entirely neglect his communications and could bring his last man into battle, I next ask, What have we with which to oppose him? The last official report of effective strength, now on file in the office of the Assistant Adju- tant-General, is dated June 11th, and shows that we have in this Department, omitting all officers and enlisted men attached to Department, Corps, Division, and Brigade Head-quarters: 1. Infantry — One hundred and seventy-three regiments ; ten battalions sharp-shooters ; four battalions pioneers, and one regiment engineers and mechanics, with a total effective strength of seventy thousand nine hundred and eighteen. 2. Cavalry — Twenty-seven regiments and one unattached company, eleven thousand eight handred and thirteen. 3. Artillery — Forty-seven and a. half batteries field artillery, consisting of two hundred and ninety-two guns and five hundred and sixty-nine men, making a general total of eighty- Kven thousand eight hundred. Leaving out all commissioned officers, this army represents eighty-two thousand seven hun- dred and sixty-seven bayonets and sabers. This report does not include the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, six hundred strong, lately armed ; nor the First Wisconsin Cavalry; nor Coburn'g brigade of infantry, now arriving; nor the tT(0 thousand three hundred and ninety-four convalescents now on light duty in " Fortress Rosecraos." There are detached from this force as follows: At Gallatin 969 At Carthage ^ 1,149 At Fort Donelson 1,485 At Clarksville , 1,138 At Nashville 7,292 At Franklin 900 AtLavergne. '• 2,117 Total 15,130 With these posts as they are, and leaving two thousand five hundred efficient men in addi- tion lo the two thousand three hundred and ninety-four convalescents to hold the works at this pliice, there will be left sixty -five thousand one hundred and thirty-seven b.iyonets and sabers to throw against Bragg's forty-one thousand six hundred and eighty. I beg leave, also, to submit the following considerations : 1. Bragg's army is now weaker than it h:is been since the battle of Stone River, or is likely to be again for the present, while our array has reached its maximum strength, and we have no right to expect re-enforcements for several months, if at all. 2. Whatever be the result at Vicksburg, the determination of its fate will give large re-en- forcements to Bragg. If Grant is successful, his army will require many weeks to recover from the shock and strain of his late campaign, while Johnston will send back to Bragg a force spffi- cient to insure the safety of Tennessee. If Grant fails, the same result will inevitably follow, so far us Bragg's army is concerned. 3. No man can predict with _certainty the result of any battle, however great the disparity in numbers. Such resulte are in the hand of God. But, viewing the question in the light of human calctilation, I refuse to entertain a doubt that this army, which in January last defeated Bragg's superior numbers, ovn not overwhelm his present greatly inferior forces. 4. The most unfavorable course for us that Bragg could take would be to fall back without giving us battle but this would be very disastrous to him. Besides the loss of materid of war, and the abandonment of the rich and abundant harvest now nearly ripe in Central Tennessee, he would lose heavily by desertion. It is well known that a wide-spread dissatisfaction exists among his Kentucky and Tennessee troops. They are already deserting in large numbers. A retreat would greatly increase both the desire and the opportunity for desertion, and would very 766 Ohio ik the War. materially reduce his physical and moral strength. While it would lengthen onr commnnica- tions, it would give ub possession of McMinnville, and enable us to threaten Chattanooga and East Tennessee ; and it would not be unreasonable to expect an early occupation of the for- mer place. 5. But the chances are more than even that a sudden and rapid movement would compel a general engagement, and the defeat of Bragg would be in the highest degree disastrous to the rebellion. 6. The turbulent aspect of politics in the loyal States renders a decisive blow againat the enemy •t this lime of the highest importance to the success of the Government at the polls, and in the enforcement of the Conscription Act. 7. The Government and the War Department believe that this army ought to move upon the enemy. The army desires it, and the country is anxiously hoping for it. 8. Our true objective point is the Rebel army, whose last reserves are substantially in the field, and an effective blow will crush the shell, and soon be followed by the collapse of the Rebel government. 9. You have, in my judgment, wisely delayed a general movement hitherto, till yonr army could be massed, and your cavalry could be mounted. Yonr mobile force can now be concen- trated in twenty-four hours, and your cavalry, if not equal in numerical strength to that of the enemy, is greatly superior in efficiency and morale. For these reasons I believe an immediate advance of all our available forces is advisable, •nd, under the providence of God, will be successful. ' Very respectfully, your obedient servant, [Signed] J. A. GARFIELD, Brigadier-General, Chief of Staff. Major-General Rosecrans, Commanding Department Cumberland. Twelve days after the reception of this report the army moved — to the great dissatisfaction of its leading Generals. One of the three corps command- ers, Major-General Thomas L. Crittenden, approached the Chief of Staff at the head-quarters on the mormng of the advance : " It is undei'stood, sir," he said, "by the general officers of the army, that this movement is yonr work. I wish you to understand that it is a rash and fatal move, for which you will be held responsible." This rash and fatal move was the Tallahoma campaign^-^a campaign perfect in its conception,^ excellent in its general execution, and only hindered from resulting in the complete destruction of the opposing army by the delays which had too long postponed its commencement. It might even yet have destroyed Bragg but for the terrible season of rains which set in on the morning of the advance, and continued uninterruptedly for the greater part of a month. With a week's earlier start it would have ended the career of Bragg's army in the war. There now sprang up renewed differences between General Eosecrans and the War Department. In the general policy that controlled the movements of the army Garfield heartily sympathized ; he had, in fact, aided to give shape to that policy. But he deplored his chief's testy manner of conducting his defense to the complaints of the War Department, and did his best to soften the asperi- ties of the correspondence. At last came the battle of Chickamauga. Such had by this time come to be Garfield's influence, that he was nearly always consulted and often followed. He wrote every order issued that day — one only excepted. This he did rarely u an amanuensis, bat rather on the suggestions of his own judgment, afterward submitting what he had prepared to Kosecrans for approval or change. The James A. Gtakfield. 757 one order which he did not write was the fatal order to "Wood which lost the battle. The meaning was correct; the words, however, did not clearly repre- sent what Eosecrans meant, and the division commander in question so inter- preted them as to destroy the right wing. The General commanding and his Chief of Staff were caught in the tide of the disaster and borne back toward Chattanooga. The Chief of Staff was sent to communicate with Thomas, while the General proceeded to prepare for the reception of the routed army. Such at least were the statements of the reports, and, in a technical sense, they were true. It should never be forgotten, however, in Garfield's praise, that it was on his own earnest representations that he was sent — that, in fact, he ratiier procured permission to go to Thomas, and so back into the battle, than received orders to do so. He refused to believe that Thomas was routed or the battle lost. He found the road environed with dangers; some of his escort were killed, and they all narrowly escaped death or capture. But he bore to Thomas the first news that officer had received of the disaster on the right, and gave the information on which he was able to extricate his command. At seven o'clock that evening, under the personal supervision of General Gordon Granger and himself, a shotted salute from a battery of six Napoleon guns was fired into the woods after the last of the retreating assailants. They were the last shots of the battle of .Chicamauga, and what was left of the Union army was master of the field. F(5r the time the enemy evidently regarded himself as repulsed; and Garfield said that night, and has always since maintained, that there was no necessity for the immediate retreat on Eossville. Practically this was the close of General Garfield's military career. A year before, while he was absent in the army, and without any solicitation on his part, he had been elected to Congress from the old Giddings district, in which he resided. He was now, after a few weeks further service with Eosecrans at Chat- tanooga, sent on- to Washington as the bearer of dispatches. He there learned of his promotion to a Major-Generalship of volunteers, "for gallant and meri- torious conduct at the battle of Chickamauga." He might have retained this position in the army; and the military capacity he had displayed, the high favor in which he was held by the Government, and the certainty of his assignment to important commands, seemed to augur a brilliant future. He was a poor man, too, and the Major-General's salary was more than double that of the Con- gressman. But on mature reflection he decided that the circumstances under , which the people had elected him to Congress bound him up to an effort to obey their wishes. He was furthermore urged to enter Congress by the ofliccrs of the armj', who looked to him for aid in procuring such military legislation as the countrj' and the army required. Under the belief that the path of useful- ness to the countr}' lay in the direction in which his constituents pointed, he sacrificed what seemed to be his personal interests, and on the 5th of December, 1863, resigned his commission, after nearly three years' service. In Cono-ress General Garfield at once took high rank. He was made a 758 Ohio in the Wak. member of the Committee on Military Affairs, whore, by his activitj', industry, and entire familiarity with the wants of the army, he did as signal service as in the field. He also acted as chairman of the select committee of seven ap- pointed to investigate alleged frauds in the money -printing bureau of the Treas- ury Department. He soon became known as a powerful 8j)eaker, remarkably ready, and always effective in debate. One of his early performances gave him high rank from the outset. Mr. Alexander Long delivered an exceedingly ultra Peace-Democratic speech, proposing the recognition of the Southern Con- federacy, which attracted to an unusual degree the attention of the House. ]Jy common consent it was left to the young member who had so recently left the army to reply. The moment Long took his seat Garfield rose. His first sen- tences struck the thrilling fibers of the House. In a moment he was surrounded by a crowd of members from the remoter seats; and, in the midst of great ex- citement and the general applause of his side, he poured out an invective rarely surpassed in that body for power or elegance: " Mk. CnAiHMAN : I am reminded by the occurrences of this afternoon of two characters in the war of the Eevoludon, as compared with two others in the war of to-day. "The first was Lord Fairfax, who dwelt near the Potomac, a few miles from us. When the great contest was opened between the mother country and the colonies, Lord Fairfax, after a pro- tracted struggle with his own heart, decided that he must go with tlie mother country. He gath- ered his mantle about him and went over grandly and solemnly. " There was another man who cast in his lot with tlie struggling colonists, and continued with them till the war was well-nigh ended. In an hour of darkness that just preceded the glory of the morning, he hatched the treason to surrender forever all that had been gained to the enemies of his country. Benedict Arnold was that man I " Fairfax and Arnold find tlieir parallel in the struggle of to-day. " When this war began many good men stood hesitating and doubting what they ought to do. Kobert E. Lee sat in his house across the river here, doubting and delaying, and going off at last almost tearfully to join the army of his State. He reminds one in some respects of Lord Fail-fax, the stately royalist of the Revolution. " But now, when tens of thousands of brave souls have gone up to God under the shadow of the flag ; when thousands more, maimed and shattered in the contest, are sadly awaiting the deliverance of death ; now, when three years of terrific warfare have raged over us ; when our armies have pushed the rebellion back over mountains and rivers, and crowded it into narrow limits, until a wall of fire girds it; now', when the uplifted hand of a majestic people is about to hurl the bolts of its conquering power upon the rebellion; now, in the quiet of this hall, hatched in the lowest depths of a similar dark treason, there rises a Benedict Arnold and proposes to surrender all up, body and spirit, the Nation and the Flag, its genius and its honor, now and forever, to the accursed traitors to our country I And that proposition comes — God forgive and pity my beloved State — it comes from a citizen of the time honored and loyal Commonwealth of Ohio 1 " I implore you, brethren, in this House, to believe that not many births ever gave pangs to my mother State such as she sutlered when that traitor was born I I beg you not to believe that on the soil of that State another such growth has ever deformed the face of nature and darkened the light of God's day." The speech continued in the same sustained strain of polished and power- ful invective. Its delivery on the spur of the moment, in immediate reply to an elaborate effort, which had taken him as well as the rest of the House by Burjjriso, stamped Garfield at once as one of the readiest and most forcible James A. Gakfield 759 Bpeakers in Congress. This etandlug he never lost. It was, however, to prove in some respects injurious to his rising fame. He spoke so readily that mem- bers were constantly asking his services in behalf of favorite measures; and in the impulsive eagerness of a young man and a young member, lie often con- eicnted. Ho thus came to be too frequent a speaker; and by and by the Hoi,ise wearied a little of his polished periods, and began to think him too fond of talking. After a time thjs little reaction in the general feeling of the House toward him wore off. Meantime in the committees he had proved himself an invaluable worker. He was renominated bj^ acclamaiion by the convention of the party in his dis- trict for the Thirty-Ninth Congress, and re-elected by a majority of over twelve thousand. So highly was he now ranked in the House that he was given a le.iding place on its leading committee, that on " Ways and Means."* Here he soon rose to great influence. He studied the whole range of financial questions with the assiduity of his old college days, and was spoken of by the Secretary of the Treasury (who had particularly requested his appointment) as one of the best-informed men on suCh topics then in public life. Meantime he continued to be a frequent debater, and maintained his old standard. This account of his Congressional career may fitly close with some further extracts from some of his most notable speeches. Beginning a brief speech in favor of the Constitutional Amendment, pro- hibiting slavery anywhei-e within the limits of the United States, he said; "Me. Speakek: We shall never know why slavery dies so hard in this Republic and in this hall till we know why sin is long-lived and Satan is immortal. With marvelous tenacity of ex- istence, it has outlived the expectations of its friends and the hopes of its enemies. It has been declared here and elsewhere to be in all the several stages of mortality, wounded, moribund, dead. The question was raised by my colleague (Mr. Cox) yesterday whether it was indeed dead, or only in a troubled sleep. I know of no better illustration of its condition than is found in Sallust's admirable' history of the great conspirator, Cataiine, who, when his final battle was fought and lost, his army broken and scattered, was found far in advance of his own troops, lying among the dead enemies of Kome, yet breathing a little, but exhibiting in his countenance all that ferocity of spirit which had characterized his life. So, sir, this body of slavery lies before us among the dead enemies of the Republic, mortally wounded, impotent in its fiendish wicked- ness, but with its old ferocity of look, bearing the unmistakable marks of its infernal origin. "Wlio does not remember that thirty years ago — a short period in the life of a nation — but little could be said with impunity in tliese halls on the subject of slavery? How well do gen- tlemen here remember the history of that distinguished predecessor of mine, Joshua R. Gidding.s, lately gone to his rest, who, with his forlorn hope of faithful men, took his life in his liand, and in the name of justice protested against the great crime, and who stood bravely in his place until his white locks, like the plume of Henry of Navarre, marked where the battle for freedom raged fiercest ! "We can hardly realize that this is the same people, and these the same halls, where now frarcely a man can be found who will venture to do more than falter out an apology for slavery, protesting in the same breath that he has no love for the dying tyrant. None, I believe, but that man of more than supernal boldness, from the city of New York (Mr. Fernando Wood), has ventured, this session, to raise his voice in favor of slavery for its own sake. He still sees in its features the reflection of beauty and divinity, and only he. ' How art thou fallen from heaven, *The committee which matures the financial legislation of Congress and provides the means of raising the revenue. 760 Ohio in the War. O, Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations 1' Many mighty men have been slain by thee; many proud ones have humbled them- selves at thy feet ! All along the coast of our political sea these victims of slavery lie like stranded wrecks, broken on the headlands of freedom. How lately did its advocates, with impious boldness, maintain it as God's own, to be venerated and cherished as divine. It was another and higher form of civilization. It was the holy evangel of America dispensing its mercies to a be- nighted race, and destined to bear countless blessings to the wilderne.ss of the "West. In its mad arrogance it lifted its hand to strike down the fabric of the Union, and since that fatal day it has been a ' fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth.' Like the spirit that Jesus cast out, it has, since then, 'been seeking rest and finding none.' "It has sought in all the corners of the Eepublic to find some hiding place in which to shelter itself from the death it so richly deserves. "It sought an asylum in the untrodden territories of the West, but, with a whip of scorpions, indignant freeman drove it thence. I do not believe that a loyal man can now be found who would consent that it>should again enter them. It has no hopes of harbor there. It found no protec- tion or favor in the hearts or consciences of the freemen of the Kepublic, and has fled for its last hope of safety behind the shield of the Constitution. We propose to follow it there, and drive it thence as Satan was exiled from heaven." On the question of reconstruction and the proper treatment of the negroes, ho said, in one of his speeches: " We should do nothing inconsistent with the spirit and genius of our institotions. We ehoald do nothing for revenge, but everything for security; nothing for the passt, everything for the present and the future. Indemnity for the past we can never obtain. The four hundred thousand graves in which sleep our fathers and brothers, murdered by rebellion, will keep their sacred trust till the angel of the resurrection bids the dead come forth. The teals, the sorrow, the unutterable anguish of broken hearts can never be atoned for. We turn from that sad but glorious past, and demand such securities for the future as can never be destroyed. " We must recognize in all our action the stupendous facts of the war. In the very crisis of our fate, Gcid brought us face to face with the alarming truth that we must lose our own freedom or grant it to the slave. In the extremity of our distress we called upon the black man to help us save the Republic, and amid the very thunder of battle we made a covenant with him, sealed both with his blood and ours, and witnessed by Jehovah, that when the nation was redeemed he should be free and share with us the glories and blessing of freedom. In the solemn words of the great Proclamation of Emancipation, we not only declared the slaves forever free, but we pledged the faith of the nation 'to maintain their freedom' — mark the words, 'lo maintain their freedom.' The Omniscient witness will appear in judgment against us if we do not fulfill that covenant. Have we done it? Have we given freedom to the black man? What is freedom? Is it a mere negation; the bare privilege of not being chained, bought and sold, branded and scourged? If this be all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion, and it may well be questioned whether slavery were not better. " But liberty is no negation. It is a substantive, tangible reality. It is the realization of those imperishable truths of the Declaration 'that all men are created equal,' that the sanction of all just government is ' the consent of the governed.' Can these truths be realized until each man has a right to be heard on all matters relating to himself? . . . We have passed the Red Sea of slaughter; our garments are yet wet with its crimson spray. We have crossed the fearful wilderness of war, and have left our four hundred thousand heroes to sleep beside the dead enemies of the Republic. We have heard the voice of God, amid the thundei-s of battle, commanding us to wash our hands of iniquity, to 'proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.' When we spurned His counsels we were defeated, and the gulfs of of ruin yawned before us. When we obeyed His voice. He gave us victory. And now, at last, we have reached the confines of the wilderness. Before us is the land of promise, the land of hope, the land of peace, filled with possibilities of greatness and glory too vast for the grasp of the imagination. Are we worthy to enter it? On what condition may it be ours to enjoy and transmit to our children's children? Let us pause and make deliberate and solemn preparation. James A. Gtakfield. 761 Let us, as Representatives of the people, whose servants we are, bear in advance the sacred ark of republican liberty, with its tables of the law inscribed with the ' irreversible guarantees ' of liberty. Let us here build a monument on which shall be written not only the curses of the law against treason, disloyalty, and oppression, but also an everlasting covenant of peace and bless- ing with loyalty, liberty, and obedience ; and all the people will say. Amen." In the course of a speech on confiscation, he gave this leaf from his army experience : " I would have no man there, like one from my own State, who came to the army before the great struggle in Georgia, and gave us his views of peace. He came as the friend of Vallandig- ham, the man for whom the gentleman on the other side of the House from my State worked and voted. We were on the eve of the great battle. I said to him, ' You wish to make Mr. Vallandig- ham Governor of Ohio. Why?' 'Because, in the first place,' using the language of the gentle- man from New York (Mr. Fernando Wood), 'you can not subjugate the South, and we propose to withdraw without trying it longer. In the next place, we will have nothing to do with this abolition war, nor will we give another man or another dollar for its support.' (Kemember, gen- tlemen, what occurred in regard to the conscription bill this morning.) ' To-morrow,' I contin- ued, ' we may be engaged in a death-struggle with the Rebel army that confronts us, and is daily increasing. Where is the sympathy of your party ? Do you want us beaten, or Bragg beaten?' He answered that they had no interest in fighting, that they did not believe in fighting. " Mr. Koble : A question right here. " Mr. Garfield: I can not yield; I have no time. You can hear his name, if you wish. He was the agent sent by the copperhead Secretary of State to distribute election blanks to the atmy of the Cumberland. His name was Grifiiths. " Mr. Noble : A single question. " Mr. Garfield : I have no time to spare. " Mr. Noble : I want to ask the gentleman if he know.s that Mr. Griffiths has made a ques- tion of veracity with him by a positive denial of the alleged conversation, published in the Cin- cinnati Enquirer. "Mr. Garfield: No virtuous denials in the Cincinnati Enquirer can alter the facts of this conversation, which was heard by a dozen officers. "I asked him further, 'How would it aflect your party if we should crush the Rebels in this battle, and utterly destroy them?' ' We would probably lose votes by it.' 'How would it aflect your party if we should be beaten?' ' It would probably help us in votes.' '• That, gentlemen, is the kind of support the army is receiving in what should be the house of its friends. That, gentlemen, is the .kind of support these men are inclined to give this coun- try and its army in this terrible struggle. I hasten to make honorable exception.-!. I know there are honorable gentlemen on the other side who do not belong to that category, and I am proud to acknowledge them as my friends. I am sure they do not sympathize with these efforts, whose tendency is to pull down the fabric of our Government, by aiding their friends over the border to do it. Their friends, I say, for when the Ohio election was about coming off' in the army at Chat- tanooga, there was more anxiety in the Rebel camp than in our own. The pickets had talked face to face, and made daily inquiries how the election in Ohio was going. And at midnight of the 13th of October, when the telegraphic news was flashed down to us, and it was announced to the army that the Union had sixty thousand majority in Ohio, there arose a shout from every tent along the line on that rainy midnight, which rent the skies with jubilees, and sent despair to the hearts of those who were "waiting and watching across the border.' It told them that their col- league."!, their sympathizers, their friends^, I had almost said their emissaries at the North, had failed to sustain themselves in turning the tide against the Union and its army. And irom that hour, but not till that hour, the army felt safe from the enemy behind it. " Thanks to the 13th of October. It told thirteen of my colleagues that they had no con- stituencies 1 " Beginning with another bit of personal experience, he traced the slow- progress of legislation and practice regarding the uegro : 762 Ohio in the Wak. " I can not forget that less than five years ago I received an order from my superior officer in the army, commanding me to search my camp for a fugitive slave, and, if found, to deliver him up to a Kentucky Captain, who claimed liim as liis property; and I had the honor to be, perhaps, the first officer in the army wlio peremptorily refused to obey sucli an order. We were then trying to save tlie Union without liurting slavery. I remember, sir, that wlien we under- took to agitate in the army the question of putting arms into the hands of the slaves, it was said, 'Such a step will be fatal; it will alienate half our army, and lose us Kentucky.' By and by, when our necessities were imperious, we ventured to let the negroes dig in the trenches, but it would not do to put muskets into their hands. We ventured to let a negro drive a mule team, but it would not do to have a white man or a mulatto Justin front of him or behind him; all must be negroes in that train ; you must not disgrace a while soldier by putting him in such company, 'By and by,' some one said, 'Rebel guerrillas may capture the mules; so, for the sake of the mules, let us put a few muskets in the wagons and let the negroes shoot the guerrillas if they come.' So for the sake of the mules we enlarged the limits of liberty a little. [Laughter.] By and by we allowed the negroes to build fortifications, and armed them to save the earthworks they had made — not to do justice to the negro, but to protect the earth he had thrown up. By and by we said in this hall that we would arm the negroes, but they must not be called soldiers, nor wear the national uniform, for that would degrade white soldiers. By and by we said, 'Let them wear the uniform, but they must not receive the pay of soldiers.' For six months we did not pay them enough to feed and clothe them; and their shattered regiments came home from South Carolina in debt to the Government for the clothes they wore. It took us two years to reach a point where we were willing to do the most meager justice to the black man, and to recognize the truth that, ' A man 's a man for a' that.' " On another occasion ho arrested the passage of a resolution of thanks to General Thomas for the battle of Chickainauga; and in a few pregnant words protested against the unjust slur thereby sought to be cast upon General Eose- crans, and eulogized his old chief. In the course of the debate on the proposition to override the Il^ew Jei-sey grant of a railroad monopoly between New York and Philadelphia to the Cam- den and Amboy Company, by giving United States sanction to another road, he disposed of the " State Sovereignty " pretense with arguments which have since become so familiar that few know to whom to assign their credit: " Mr. Coleridge somewhere says that abstract definitions have done more harm in the world than plague and famine and war. I believe it. I believe that no man will ever be able to chronicle all the evils that have resulted to this nation from the abuse of the words 'sovereign' and 'sovereignty.' What is this thing called 'State sovereignty?' Nothing more false was ever uttered in the halls of legislation than that any State of this Union is sovereign. Consult the elementary text-books of law, and refresh your recollection of the definition of 'sovereignty.' Speaking of the sovereignty of nations, Blackstone says: "'However they began, by what right soever they subsist, there is and must be in all of them a supreme, irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled authority in which the jura summi imperii or rights of sovereignty reside.' "Do these elements belong to any State of this Eepublic? Sovereignty has the right to de- clare war. Can Kew Jersey declare war? It has the right to conclude peace. Can New Jersey conclude peace? Sovereignty has the right to coin money. If the Legislature of New Jersey should authorize and command one of its citizens to coin a half-dollar, that man, if he made it, though it should be of solid silver, would be locked up in a felon's cell for the crime of counter- feiting the coin of the real sovereign. A sovereign has the right to make treaties with foreign nations. Has New Jersey the right to make treaties? Sovereignty is clothed with the right to regulate commerce with foreign states. New Jersey has no such right. Sovereignty htis the right to put ships in commission upon the high seas. Should a ship set sail under the authority of New Jersey it would be seized as a smuggler, forfeited and sold. Sovereignty has a flag. James A. G-akfield. 763 But, tliank God, New Jersey has no flag; Ohio has no flag. No loyal State fights under the 'lone star,' the 'rattlesnake,' or the 'palmetto tree.' No loyal State of this Union has any flag but 'the banner of beauty and of glory,' the flag of the Union. These are the indispensable elements of sovereignty. New Jersey has not one of them. The term can not be applied to the separate States, save in a very limited and restricted sense, referring mainly to municipal and police reg- ulations. The rigllts of the States should be jealously guarded and defended. But to claim that sovereignty in its full sense and meaning belongs to the States is nothing better than ranlcest treason. Look again at this document of the Governor of New Jersey. Pie tells you that the States entered into the 'national compact/' National compact! I had supposed that no Gover- nor of a loyal State would parade this dogma of nullification and secession which was killed and buried by Webster on the 16th of February, 1833. "There was no such thing as a sovereign State making a compact called a Constitution. The very language of the Constitution is decisive: 'We, the people of the United States, do or- dain and establish this Constitution.' The States did not make a compact to be broken when any one pleased, but the people ordained and established the Constitution pf a sovereign Eepublic ; and woe be to any corporation or State that raises its hand against the majesty and power of this great nation." We might prolong Kuch extracts indefinitely; but we have given enough to show what fruitage the life of the village eavperiter and rural school-teacher is hearing. In August, 1866, he was renominated by acclamation, and his major- ity at the fall election again ranged above ten thousand. Through the contests of the Fortieth Congress with the President, he was firmly on the Radical side. His health had become seriously impaired by his laborious discharge of public duties, and about the close of the summer session of 1867, he accepted his phy- sician's advice and sailed for Europe. General Garfield's military career was not of a nature to subject him to trials on a large scale. He approved himself a good independent commander in the small operations in the Sandy Valley. His campaign there opened our series of successes in the West; and, though fought against superior forces, began with us the habit of victory. After that he was only a subordinate. But he always enjoyed the confidence of his. immeditite superiors, and of the Depart- ment. As a Chief of Staff he was unrivalled. There, as elsewhere, he was ready to accept the-gravest responsibilities in following his convictions. The bent of his mind was aggressive; his judgment of purely military matters was good; his papers on the Tullahoma campaign will stand a monument of his courage and his far-reaching, soldierly sagacitj'; and his conduct at Ghickamauga will never bo forgotten by a nation of bravo men. In political life he is bold, manly, and outspoken. He seems to care far more for the abstract justice of propositions, than for any prejudices his con- stituents may happen to entertain regarding them; and he has on several occa- sions been willing to espouse very unpopular measures, and act with very small minorities. He once recorded his vote, solitary and alone, against that of every other voting member of the House, on a call of the yeas and nays. But ho is not factious; and, without ever surrendering his independence of judgment, ho is still reckoned among the most trusty of the Eadical majority. Personally he is generous, warm-hearted, and genial. No man keeps up more cordial relations with his political antagonists — a tr^it of character in 764 Ohio in the War. which he is the exact opposite of his intimate friend, General Schenck — and no man has warmer or more numerous personal attachments. He retains the stu- dious habits of his early life; and probably makes more exhaustive examina- tion of subjects before the House than almost any other of its leading members. In comprehensive and critical scholarship no man of his age now in public life in the country can be compared with him; and, beyond Senator Sumner, he is probably without superiors. While in the armj' he used to carry the pocket editions of the Greek and Latin classics, for leisure reading, as other men would the latest novels. He is still poor ; though he has probably been able to lay up a little out of his salary, and has made a little by some fortunate oil specula- tions, suggested by what he saw while in the army on the West Virginia bor- der. He married in Hiram where he had taught school, and he still maintains his residence there. In person Garfield is nearly or quite six feet high, with a broad chest, and somewhat heavily-moulded figm-e. His head is unusually large; and his round, German-looking face, seems the very mirror of good nature. Note.— At the first regular session of the Fortieth Congress General Garfield was transferred from the Ways and Means Committee back to that on Military Affairs, being made its Chairman in place of General Scheuck, who was made Chairman of Ways and Means. William B. Hazen. 765 MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM B. HAZEN. WILLIAM BABCOOK HAZEN was born at West Hartford, Wind- sor County, Vermont, on the 27th day of September, 1830. His father, Stillman Hazen, and his mother, Ferone Fenno, were of steady New England ^tock. Their ancestors resided at Litchfield, Connecticut, were present at Lexington and Bunker Hill, and served throughout the Eevo- lution, Joseph Hazen attaining the rank of Colonel, and Moses Hazen that of Brigadier-General. In 1833 Stillman Hazen removed to Huron, Portage County, Ohio, and set- tled upon the farm he now occupies, where he reared a family of six children, three sons and three daughters, the General being next to the youngest. All the children received a good common-school education. When nearly twenty-one years of age, William sought and obtained the appointment of Cadet at the Mili- tary Academy of West Point. He graduated in June, 1855, and was apjjointed Brevet Second -Lieutenant in the Fourth United States Infantry. In September of the same year he sailed for his regiment, then serving on the Pacific Coast. Joinirig his company at Fort Reading, in the North Sacramento Valley, he moved in command of it one week afterward to the Eanger Eiver country, in Southern Oregon, where the Indian war of that year was being waged with considerable energy. He served through that war; and during the year 1856 built Fort Yamhill. Having been appointed a Second-Lieutenant in the Eighth Infantry in the spring of 1856, he came East, and in the fall proceeded to Texas, finding his company at Fort Davis. During the two following years Lieutenant Hazen was engaged almost constantly on the plains of Western Texas and New Mexico, in punishing the marauding Indians, and was four times complimented in general orders, from the head-quarters of the army, for bravery and good conduct. On the 3d of November, 1859, while in a hand-to-hand combat with a Camanche Indian, during an engagement with a party of these warriors, he received a severe wound through the left hand and right side, the bullet still remaining in the muscles of the back. This occurred about eighty miles north west of Fort Inge, and it was eight days before he reached that post, or received any medical attention. On the Ist of February, 1860, having so far recovered from his wounds as to be able to travel, he left Texas, and, on his departure, was presented with a sword by the people of that State, accompanied with the most sincere expressions of gratitude for the services he had rendered on the frontier. In July, 1860, Lieutenant Hazen was brevetted a First-Lieutenant for gallant conduct in Texas, and on the 1st of April, 1861, was promoted to a 766 Ohio in the War. fail First-Lieutenancy in his regiment. On the 14th of May following ho received the appointment of Captain in the Seventeenth Infantry, which he declined, in yonseqiience of receiving a promotion to the same grade in his old regiment. In February, 1861, which was as soon as he was able to perform anj- duty, he was assigned as Assistant-Professor of Infantry Tactics at West Point. After the first call for volunteer troops for suppressing the rebellion, Captain Hazen made constant elTorts to enter upon active service. He was requested to assume command of several volunteer regiments, but could not obtain permis- sion from the Adjutant-General of the Army to accept. In September Captain Hazen received " leave of absence," with authority to take command of the Forty-First Eegiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry. During the early part of November Colonel Hazen was posted at Gallipolis, Ohio, to observcthe move- ments of Jenkins, who was then threatening to cross the Ohio River. Ho hero organized a plan to defeat and clear the country of these marauding bands, but authority to execute it was not granted. On the 20th of November he reported to General Bnell at Louisville, Ken- tucky, was assigned to General Nelson's division, and, on the 6th of January, 1862, was appointed to command the Nineteenth Brigade of the Army of the Ohio. In February he marched with his division to West Point, and, embark- ing, proceeded to Nashville. He moved with General Buell's armj- to Pitts- burg Landing, crossed the river, and confronted the enemy on the 6th of April, and opened the fight on the succeeding morning. He was hotly engaged, and about eleven o'clock A. M. led his brigade in a charge, capturing two batteries, a large number of prisoners, and driving the enemy in his front far to the rear. He moved with the army to the siege of Corinth, and afterward served in Northern Alabama until ordered to assume command of the post of ^lurfrees- boro'. When that section of the country was abandoned, in September, lie marched to Louisville, and from there to Perryville, where only his skirmish- line was engaged. He led the pursuit of the retreating Rebels, constanlly skirmishing with and six times sharply engaging the rear of Bi'agg's army, until, reaching London, the column was deflected to Nashville. On the 26th of December, 1862, General Rosecrans's armj- moved toward Murfreesboro', and on the 31st engaged the enemy at Stone River. Colonel Hazen's brigade was posted across the pike and railroad, forming the extreme left of the army. Here it received and repulsed four well-conducted assaults, and held the position, behind which the entire army re-formed, refusing the right wing. No ground was yielded here, and the brigade never wilhdi-ew from the front of the fight. During the entire day this portion of the lino was exclusively controlled by Colonel Hazen, and the value of the service which ho rendered can not be fully estimated. Both General Polk, in his official report, and General Bragg, in his oflScial dispatches, acknowledged their inability to dislodge the left of the National lines. On the 2d of Janu- ary, when Bi'eckinridge assailed and routed the division posted on the north of Slono River, Colonel Hazen was sent across the stream, where he drove William B. Hazen. 767 tlio enem}- from the field. In Maj', 1862, Colonel Hiizen had been appointed Biigadier-Goneral, but the appointment had n»t been confirmed by the Senate. Allei' tills lialtle ho was re-iippointcd, and was confirmed, to rank from Novem- ber 29, 1862. On the 8th of Januarj', 1863, General Hazen was posted at Ecadj-ville, ■H-licre he skirmished almost daily Avitb the enemy until the army moved on Tuiluhoma. After participating in that campaign he moved with his command, in August, to the Tennessee Valley, above Chattanooga, where three more bri- gades ivere added to his command; and, demonstrating on that part of the river, he led the enemy to believe that the entire army was concentrating there, while in realiij- the main portion crossed the river thirty miles below the city. Mov- ing across to Graylon, on the 9th of September, he tiiere rejoined his division, and participated in the operation which resulted in the battle of Chickamauga. On the first daj- of that battle his brigade formed the advance of Palmer's division, and attacked the forces of the enemy while crossing Chickamauga Creek, and thi-ew them into disorder. At five o'clock P. M. of that day, when Van Cleve's division had been forced across the Lafaj'ette Eoad, the enemy gaining possession of it, he placed four field batteries in position, enfilading the Eebel lines, and, firing canister, drove them back and regained the road to Gor- don's Mills, On the second da}- General Hazen occupied a position on the left center, wheits the assaults were the fiercest, but were alwaj's repulsed. At three o'clock P. M. he moved across to the right, where General Thomas in per- son directed the bijttle, and was engaged siiarply there until the combat closed. Hazen's brigade was the last oi'ganized command to leave the field. It arrived atEossvillo iit eleven o'clock P. M. At two o'clock A. M. on the 27th of October thirteen hundred picked men, under General Hazen, embarked, noiselessly, at Chattanooga in fifty-two boats, floated past Lookout Mountain, along seven miles of the Eebel picket-line, landed at Brown's Ferry at about five o'clock A. M.; surprised a Eebel picket- post, and seized a ridge of hills about one thousand yards long. Slight defenses were thrown up and an abattis cut before the Eobel brigade, posted just under the hill, could prepare to contest its occupation; and after a slight skirmish, in which the Eebels lost about one hundred men, they withdrew, and the siege of Chattanooga was virtually raised. Two days after General Hooker, moving up the valley with his columns, completed the work, and the army in Chattanooga had not only the river, but a short line of railroad, to its supplies at Bridgeport. The Eichmond Press, referring to this affair, said: "By the admirably executed ,co%ip on the morning of the 27th of October, at Brown's Ferry, the Confederacy loses the fruits of the battle of Chickamauga. The occupation of Chattanooga by the Fcdei-al arinj- is no longer problematical." General Hazen moved out on the right of the division on the 23d of March, and made a demonstration on Orchard Knob. This position was car- ried at the point of the bayonet, and the Twenty-Eighth Alabama Infantry, with its colors, was captured. The brigade was among the first to reach the crest of Mission Eidge, and captured eighteen pieces of artillery, with their 768 Ohio in the Wae. appendages, and several hundred prisoners. On reaching the summit of the ridge General Hazen, in person, gathered four or five hundred men from the fragments of several regiments, and moving to the right, cleared the crest of the masses of the enemy gathered about Bragg's head-quarters. On the 28th of November the Fourth Corps moved to the relief of Knox- ville, arriving there December 7th. Hazen 'b brigade at once joined in the pur- .suit of Longstreet, and until the 15th of March, 1864, wa,s engaged in marching and counter-marching and skirmishing in Eastern Tennessee. Hazen's brigade moved on the Atlanta campaign May Ist, and was warmly engaged at Eocky Face Eidge, and again at the battle of Eesaca, where it held a line so near the enemy as to be able to silence three batteries. At Pickett's Mills, on the 27th of May, the brigade formed the advance of a column of six brigades and moved against what was thought to be the right flank of the enemy. It was resisted by a Eebel division and a severe battle ensued, in which the brigade lost five hundred men. General Hazen was daily engaged until the 17th of August, when he was transferred to the Army of the Ten- nessee, and placed in command of the Second Division of the Fifteenth Army Corps. On the 30th of the same month the division formed the advance in a movement from Fairborne to Jonesboro'. It seized and fortified a commandiBg position, which proved to be the key of the battle-field, and upon which Har- dee's corps charged and was repulsed with considerable loss. The division marched in pursuit of Hood, and when near Gadsen, Alabama, engaged Wheeler's cavalry. It afterward returned to Atlanta, moved on the Georgia campaign, and was engaged with the enemy at Statsboro', on the Oconee Eivef, and again at the Cannouchee Eiver. General Sherman's army arrived before Savannah on the 10th of December, with its supplies exhausted. An abundance of provision had been shipped to meet the army at the coast, and to obtain this was all that was necessary to enable General Sherman to com- plete the campaign successfully. All the inlets of the sea about Savannah were commanded by forts, well armed and manned; one of these. Fort McAllister, situated on the right bank of the Ogeeche, at the junction of the sea-marsh and high ground, completely commanded the river, which was the inlet so much needed for the supply of the army. On the morning of the 13th of December General Hazen, with his division, was sent to capture this fort. Nine regi- ments were deployed in line five hundred yards from the fort, and at the sound of the bugle they advanced to the charge. In five minutes the fort was carried, and the entire garrison, twenty-four pieces of ordnance, and a complete arma- ment for the fort, were captured. General Hazen embarked his division at Thunderbolt Bay for Beaufort, South Carolina, on the 14th of January, 1865, and on the 30th crossed Port Eoyal Ferry on the South Carolina campaign. At the Salkahatchie, South and North Edisto, Congaree Creek, and Broad Eiver, his troops were sharply engaged. At Bentonvillc General Hazen's division was moved to the support of General Slocum, and afterward engaged the enemy on the left of the Fif- tftenth Corps. General Hazen moved through Goldsboro' to Ealeigh, then to William B. Hazen. 769 Washington Citj', and afterward at Louisville, Kentucky. General Hazen was appointed and confirmed Major-General, to date from the capt^lre of Fort Mc- Allister, and on the 19th of May, 1865, was appointed by the President to com- mand the Fifteenth Army Corps. General Hazen is of medium height, and is Saxon in hair and complexion. Ho carries himself erect, witly a dignified bearing, which is so well in keeping with his profession, and which so plainly stamps him a soldier. As a discipli- narian he was severe, but not harsh ; and though never familiar with his men ; yet, upon proper occasions and under proper circumstances, no man was more approachable. In the organization of his regiment he drew around him, as officers, mostly young men, and by instructing them thoroughly, as a necessary consequence, made soldiers of them. The regiment's efiSciency, and the position and reputation of many of its officers are flattering evidences of the ability of its instructor. He entered into the war with enlarged ideas of his duties as a soldier. He expected a desperate struggle on the part of the South, but, in view of the prac- tically inexhaustible resources of the North, he foresaw what the end must be. But he saw more ; he saw that the difficulties in regard to slavery, which peace- ful measures had failed to settle, must now be settled by the sword. These views, as occasion offered and circumstances demanded, the General did not hesitate to express. In the field his record is enviable. Others have risen more rapidly, but none more worthily. Others have achieved more brilliant successes, but none have made fewer mistakes. If he thought at times that his advancement was slow, he remembered that he was educated a soldier, endured lijs disa23point- ment without murmuring, and set to work again with greater determination, until, at last, the honors came for which he had so long fought, and for which he had so long waited ; and the measure of his cup of greatness was filled when he rode down Pennsylvania Avenue at the head of the Fifteenth Corps on the day of the great review. So long as Stone Eiver, Chickamauga, Brown's Ferry, Orchard Knob, Mis- sion Eidge, Atlanta, and Fort McAllister, are remembered — and can they ever be forgotten? — the riiemory of General Hazen will be preserved and cherished. Vol. I.— 49 770 Ohio in the War. MAJOR-GENERAL JACOB D. COX. JACOB DOLSON COX was born on the 27th of October, 1828. His parsnts were -both natives of the United States, his mother being a lineal descendant of Elder William Brewster, of the Mayflower. His father was a master-builder in the city of New York, but being engaged in superintending the roof-framing and carpenter-work on the church of ]!fotre Dame in M ontreal, Lower Canada, he removed his family temporarily to that place, and it was during the sojourn there that General Cox was born. His father returned to New York in the following year, and his childhood and youth were spent in that city. He removed to Ohio in 1846, graduated at OberUn College in 1851, and began the practice of law at Warren in 1852. He was elected to the Ohio Senate from the Trumbull and Mahoning District in 1859, by the Eepublican party, and he held that position at the outbreak of the. war. He had for some time held a commission as General officer in the State militia, and during the latter part of the session of the Legislature he was active in endeavoring to prepare the State for the coming storm. Throughout that important and, at times, stormy Legislature he and James A. Garfield were universally recognized as the Eadical leaders in the Senate, and both took high rank, from the ability they displayed. Senator Cox was supposed to be pecu- liarlj' bound over to Radicalism, not merely by his general record, and his coming from the Eeserve, but still more by his marriage with the daughter of the President of Oberlin College. Upon receiving the news of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, and the President's call for troops, Senator Cox abandoned all other duties to assist in organizing the Ohio contingent, and on the 23d of April, 1861, he was commis- sioned by Governor Deunison a Brigadier-General of Ohio Volunteers, in the three months' service. All the officers under that call were appointed by the Governors of the several States. General McClellan was at the same time ajipointed Major-General of Ohio Volunteers, and Generals Joshua Bates and Newton Schleich wore appointed Brigadiers. The first military duty devolving upon General Cox was to assist General McClellan in an inspection of the State Arsenal, and in making estimates for arming and equipping ten thousand men. The arsenal was found to contain little that was serviceable — not even enough to put into the field a battalion of infantry or a battery of artillery. The First and Second Ohio Infantry wore organized, and dispatched to the defense of Jacob D. Cox. 771 Washington, unarmed and unequipped; their arms and equipments being drawn from the United States arsenals and issued to them at Harrisburg, Penn- sylvania. Camp Jackson was established for the reception of volunteers at Columbus, and General Cox was placed in command. However, a larger camp for the organization and instruction of recruits was evidently needed, and Camp Den- nison was selected. On the 30th of April General Cox, with the Eleventh and part of the Third Ohio Infantry, took train from Columbus and landed at the new camp. The color-line was formed on the west of the railroad, and General Rosecrans, at that time a civil engineer, laid out the camp and staked off the company streets. Lumber was soon on the ground, and before night barracks were nearly completed. An old barn, subsequently used for a hospital, became the Quartermaster's and Commissary's depot; camp-kettles and mess-pans were issued, and Ohio soldiers began their first experience in real camp-life — cooked rations having been issued in all previous places of rendezvous. The two regi- ments were quickly followed by the Fourth, Seventh, Eighth, Twelfth, and Thirteenth; and a few weeks later General Bates brought his brigade from Camp Harrison, consisting of the Fifth, Sixth, JSTinth, and Tenth regiments. These completed the contingent for Ohio, assembled at Camp Dennison under the first call; and until the latter part of June the time was employed indus- triously in fitting them for the field. The organization of troops for three years having begun, all of the original regiments re-enlisted, and General Cox was appointed by the President Briga- dier-General of "Volunteers, to rank from the 15th of May, 1861. On the 6th of July he was ordered by General McClellan to take a brigade, consisting of the Eleventh and Twelfth Ohio, and the First and Second Kentucky, to the mouth of the Great Kanawha, in West Virginia, where he would be joined by the Twenty-First Ohio, Cotter's Ohio Battery, and Pfau's Cincinnati Troop of Horse. The Valley of the Great Kanawha was formed into the District of the Kanawha. General Cox was assigned to the command, and upon arriving at Point Pleasant, opposite Gallipolis, he received orders to advance toward Charleston and Gauley Bridge. The nature of the valley is such that opera- tions were necessarily confined to the immediate vicinity of the river, and the gorges through which the roads pass afforded great advantages to the enemy's force, which held the valley defensively, under General Henry A. Wise. On the 17th of July a brisk engagement took place at Scary Creek, between the Twelfth, with a detachment of the Twenty-First Ohio, and the Eebels. Having resulted in a repulse it was styled a reconnoissance. It established .the fact that the Eebel position was too strong to attack in front, and as it commanded the river, wagon transportation would be needed before the principal column could advance, as was originally intended, along the north bank. Supplies had hitherto been carried on small steamers, which had accompanied the march of the troops along the stream. A week later, wagons and animals having arrived, the advance was resumed. General Cox crossed the Pocotaligo, and making a detour to the left, 772 Ohio in the War. turned the position at Scary Creek, as well as another at Tyler Mountain, seven miles below Charleston, on the north bank of the Kanawha. The enemy, finding the latter position threatened in flank and rear, hastily abandoned it, and all positions below Charleston. On the following day General Cox advanced, and Wise evacuated Charleston, hurtling the suspension bridge over Elk Eiver. A bridge of boats was built by the engineer company of the Eleventh Ohio, under Captain P. P. Lane, of Cincinnati, and the chase was resumed. Upon reaching the Gauley General Cox was ordered by General McClellan to halt and fortify, the little column having advanced as far as was deemed prudent or necessary. In this pursuit of Wise General Cox captured one piece of artilleiy, about fifteen hundred stand of small arms, and a large number of prisoners. Floyd, having joined Wise, assumed command and ordered a new advance; and during the month of August General Cox's little command waged an unequal conflict with nearly four times its numbers. The various defiles leading out from the Gauley were the scenes of almost daily combats and skirmishes; but although the Rebels several times penetrated to the Kanawha, below the post occupied by General Cox, they did not succeed in obtaining a permanent foothold, or in stop- ping communication with the Ohio. Immediately after the retreat of Floyd from Carnifex Ferry General Cox advanced against Wise, who retreated to Dogwood Gap, and then to Sewell Mountain. General Cox had been joined by Eobert L. McCook's brigade, and with his whole force he followed the enemy to Sewell Mountain, where General Rosecrans directed a halt until the army could con- centrate, which it soon did under that officer in person. General R. E. Lee arrived with re-enforcements for Floyd, and assumed command of the Rebels. The weather, however, had become very unfavorable for active operations, and but little was done until the latter part of JSTovember, when a jjortion of the troops were ordered to Kentucky, and the remainder were concentrated in winter-quarters, from Gauley Bridge to Charleston. General Rosecrans removed his head-quarters to Wheeling, leaving General Cox in command of the Ka- nawha District, as before. During the winter of 1861-2 General Fremont assumed command in West Virginia, and projected a plan for the spring campaign, in which one column, under his immediate command, was to advance from Beverly, and other points in North -Western Virginia, toward Lynchburg, simultaneously with an advance of General Cox's column up the Kanawha and New River Valleys toward Newbern. The troops in the Kanawha Disti-ict had been increased to four brigades; one, under Colonel Lightburn, held the lower valley; one, under Colonel Croek, advanced toward Lewisburg from Gauley Bridge; and the remaining two, commanded by Colonel Scammon and Colonel Moor, advanced, under the immediate command of General Cox, from Gauley Bridge by Fayette- ville and Raleigh toward Parisburg. The campaign opened early in May by a concerted movement of the columns. Colonel Crook routed a Rebel brigade under General Heth, and drove it from Lewisburg. The column on the south side of New River, commanded by General Cox in person, had also made rapid progress. The Rebels had been driven from Raleigh and Princeton, and the Jacob D. Cox. 773 advance-guard of Oeneral Cox's force had entered Parisburg, when the move- ment was brought to a stand-still by the National reverses in the Shenandoah Valley. General Fremont was called off from his march on Lynchburg to attack Jackson, and General Cox received information that the concerted move- ment was abandoned, and that he must use his own discretion in protecting his command against the force in that part of Virginia, which was now left free to concentrate upon him. At once the enemy assumed the aggressive; a superior Ecbel force, under Generals Humphrey Marshall and Wheeler, passed through the East Elver Mountains, moved straight on Princeton, and drove out General Cox's rear-guard. General Cox at once removed back to Princeton, drove out the enemy, and re-established communications with the rear. It was deter- mined to retire to Flat Top, a strong mountain range between Princeton and Raleigh, and there intrench, and await the result of Fremont's movement in the Shenandoah Valley. Accordingly, on the 21st of May, General Cox went into position on Flat Top Mountain, and Crook's brigade took up a strong deffensible position at Meadow's Bluff, a few miles west of Lewisburg. Near the middle of August Genei-al Cox received orders to send about one- half of his command to the Army of Virginia, then operating near Culpepper C. H. At his own request the order was modified so as to permit him to accom- pany the portion of the command thus detached. The division was known as the Kanawha Division, comprising Crook's and Scammon's brigades, consisting of the Eleventh, Twelfth, Twenty-Third, Twenty-Eighth, Thirtieth, and Thirty;- Sixth Ohio, Mullins's and Simmonds's batteries, and Pfau's troop of horse. They marched to the head of navigation on the Kanawha, a distance of ninety miles, in three days and a half, and thence were transported by steamers to Parkers- burg, where they took the cars for Washington. Two regiments of Crook's Wgade reaching Washington first were sent forward to General Pope, then at Warrenton Junction, and retreating. A break in the railroad at Long Bridge prevented the remainder of the command from following, and General Cox was ordered to rendezvous at Alexandria, and. to report to General McClellan, who was then landing his troops from the Peninsula. General Cox was ordered by General McClellan to occupy Forts Ramsey and Buffalo, on Upton Hill, near Fall's Church, regarded as the key-point to the whole line of fortifications about Washington. He remained here until General Pope's army retired within the line of the defenses after the second battle of Bull Run, when he was rejoined by the two regiments from Crook's brigade, and the whole division was once more together. In September the Kanawha Division was assigned to the Ninth Corps, and held the advance in the movement of the right wing of the Army of the Poto- mac to South Mountain. It drove the Rebels from Monocacy Bridge, and out of Frederick City, and was the first of the National army to enter, amidst the most enthusiastic rejoicings of the citizens. On the 14th of September General Cox's division again had the advance in the attack upon South Mountain. It carried the ridge by storm in the morning, and the remainder of the battle con- sisted of fruitless attempts on the part of the Rebels to retake the position 774 Ohio in the War. carried by the Kanawha Division. General Eeno was killed soon after he came upon the field, and the command of the corps devolved upon General Cox, who was highly complimented for his successful efforts both by General Burnside and General McClellan. General Cox continued in command of the Jfinth Corps through the battle of Antietam. His troops carried the enemy's position at the famous Stone Bridge, on the ^N^ational left, and penetrated to the suburbs of Sharpsburg, when they were drawn off to meet the attack of Jackson and Hill, who advanced in rear of the National left. For services in this campaign, and on the earnest recommendation of Gen- erals Burnside and McClellan, General Cox was promoted to the rank of Major- General, to date from October 7th, 1862. He was soon- after ordered back to West Virginia, to take command of the whole new State, from which the Na- tional troops had recently been driven. In a brief but active campaign, the Eebels were forced back, the lines were re-established along the Alleghany and Flat Top Mountain ranges, and many of the troops were again withdrawn to be Used in other departments. West Virginia remained quiet during the winter of 1862-3, and was never after seriously disturbed. The list of promotions sent in to the Senate at that session of Congi-ess was held to be in excess of the num- ber allowed by law, and the whole list was returned to the President, with the request that he reduce it about one- half, to bring it within the limit fixed by statute. General Cox, with many others, lost his grade at that time, by no demerit of his own, but solely owing to a misunderstanding between the Presi- dent and Senate as to the number the former was authorized to appoint. A new organization of departments was made in the spring of 1863, and General Cox was ordered to report to General Burnside, by whom he was assigned to the command of the District of Ohio, with head-quarters at Cincin- nati. In December, at his own requ^est, he was ordered into the field in East Tennessee, arriving at Knoxville immediately after the siege of that place. He was assigned to the Twenty-Third Corps, and, being the senior oflBcer present, was in command of the corps during the winter campaign. When General Schoficld was assigned to the Department, General Cox acted for a few weeks as Chief of Staff, and then assumed command of the Third Division, Twenty- Third Corps. The winter and spring of 1864 was a period of constant activity, but no important engagement occurred. Early in May the Twenty-Third Corps crossed the Georgia line, and, through the long series of engagements which made the Atlanta campaign an almost constant battle, at Rocky Face, Resaca, New Hope Church, Lost Mountain, Kenesaw, Chattahoochie, Atlanta, Jones- boro, and Lovejoy, General Cox led his division with uniform good fortune and success. After the fall of Atlanta, and during the active campaign in October, in chase of Hood's army thrpugh Northeim Georgia and Alabama, General Cox was in command of the Twenty-Third Corps, General Schofield being tempo- rarily absent. On Sherman's advance from Atlanta to Savannah, the Twenty- Third Corps, under General Cox, was ordered into Tennessee. At Columbia he interposed by his advance between Hood's army and the National cavalry, and Jacob D. Cox. 775 prevented the Eebel General from occupying that town and cutting off the retreat of the National forces from Pulaski. When Columbia was evacuated, with one division General Cox held back Lee's corps, which was ordered to force a crossing of Duck Eiver and to unite with the rest of Hood's army, which was operating upon the rear of the National army at Spring Hill. After a warm engagement, lasting through most of the day of the 29th of November, General Cox marched at seven o'clock in the evening, passed the rest of the National forces on the road, and entered Franklin before daybreak of the 30th, having marched twenty-five miles during the night. Here the corps was ordered to intrench and to cover the retreat of the army across the Harpeth ; and here, too, it bore the brunt of Hood's attack in the desperate battle of the 30th of November. On reaching Nashville General Thomas assumed command of the entire force ; General Schofield returned to the corps, and General Cox resumed command of his Third Division. In the battle of Nashville it bore its full part, carrying a Eebel position by a determined charge, and capturing eight pieces of artillery. After the fall of Atlanta, Generals Sherman and Schofield united in urging the promotion of General Cox, and he was a second time appointed Major-Gen- eral, to rank from December 7th, 1864. The Nashville campaign having resulted in the almost total destruction of the Eebel army in the Gulf States, the Twenty-Third Corps was ordered to the Bast in January, 1865, and arrived in Washington toward the end of that month. On the 4th of February, Gen- eral Cox's division sailed from Alexandria, and on the 9th landed at Fort Fisher. In the advance upon Wilmington, General Cox's troops constituted the land force, on the south side, which captured Fort Anderson, routed and cap- tured most of Haygood's Eebel brigade at Town Creek, and by a rapid advance opposite to Wilmington, compelled the evacuation of that place. On the 26th of February General Cox was ordered to Newborn to take command of a provisional corps of three divisions, for the purpose of advanc- ing on Kingston and rebuilding the railroad, with a view to furnishing means of Bupijlying Sherman's army when it iieached Goldsboro'. He arrived at New- bern on the 2d of March; the next day was given to the organization of the command, and on the 4th the movement began. The lack of wagon transpor- tation made it necessary to regulate the movement of the troops by the rebuild- ing of the railroad. On the 8th, near Kingston, General Cox was attacked by Bragg, and although the advance was driven back in some confusion and with considerable loss in prisoners, the principal line easily repulsed the enemy. On the 10th Bragg renewed the attack, his force consisting of the remains of Hood's army and Hoke's division, in all sixteen thousand rtien. The Eebels were repulsed with great loss, and during the night they retreated precipitately beyond the Neuse Eiver. The next day General Cox was joined by the Twenty-Third Corps, and Kingston was occupied without further opposition. Goldsboro' was occupied on the 22d of March, and there the troops under Gen- eral Schofield joined Sherman's grand army. On the 27th, by order of the War Department, General Cox was placed ^. 776 Ohio in the Wae. permanently in command of the Twenty-Third Corps, and was with the corps in the movement to Ealeigh. Upon the surrender of General Johnston, he was placed in command of the westera half of North Carolina, where he superin- tended the parole of Johnston's troops at Greensboro'. In July he was ordered to the command of the District of the Ohio, with head-quarters at Columbus, and was in charge of the mustering out and discharge of Ohio soldiers, till the close of the year, when, having been elected Governor of the State, he resigned, to enter upon the duties of his new office. The military character of General Cox may be read in the barrenest record of his career. He was not a great General. He was not even a great corps commander. He never seemed brilliant, but he was generally safe. He never displayed the inspiration of war, but he generally followed sound rules of war. He was too cold to be loved by his troops, but when they had been sometime under his command, they never failed' to respect him. " He was too tame and methodical to be admired by his commanders, but when they came to kAow him well they never failed to trust and to advance him. And it can be truly said of him — so correct and prudent was he — that on the day of his muster-out he stood higher in the esteem of the Government and the country, than he had on any previous day throughout his military career. To this last remark, perhaps an exception must be made. Before his mus- cer-out he had been chosen Governor of Ohio. But he had greatly embarrassed the party which nominated him, and the old friends whose faith in him had caused all his previous political advancement, by an unexpected blow in behalf of Conservatism. Some Oberlin friends addressed certain inquiries to him touching his views of the negro problem, and particularly of negro suifrage. His reply was skillful, polished, and scholarly; but it greatly disappointed them. He had been misled by a phase of feeling which he had found among his ' friends in the army, into the belief that the men whose fighting saved the Country had prejudices against the blacks so strong that they would not tole- rate the acknowledgment of their political rights. At the end of the war he had leai-ned no more than those who, at its outbreak, deluded themselves into the belief that the wisest settlement of the negro question would be that form of National self-abuse to be found in the forcible deportation of three million native-born laborers. The publication of this letter discouraged his party, reduced its majority, and caused his own vote to fall considerably behind that cast for the rest of the ticket. The coolness thus engendered was increased by his subsequent course. After some of the most objectionable and extraordinary of President Johnson's performances, he espoused his cause as against the Eepublican majority in Congress, and strove in an elaborate letter to the mem- bers of that party in the House and Senate from Ohio, to bring them over to his views. Mr. Johnson, indeed, soon went to extremes to which Govei'nor Cox found it impossible to follow, but he remained strongly conservative, in opposition to his antecedents and to the expectations of those who had elected him. Jacob D. Cox. 777 It was, perhaps, in consequence of this feeling that, as the close of his term approached, no general movement appeared for his re-nomination. Doubtless, seeing this (although he assigned private business as his motive), he declined in advance becoming again a candidate. The convention of his party nominated General Eutherford B. Hayes, of Cincinnati, as his successor, but passed the customai'y resolution of compliment to the administration of the retiring Governor. In personar appearance General Cox is trim, compact, and elegant. His accomplishments correspond to the ideas which his appearance suggests. With- out a spark of genius, he was still, perhaps, the most many-sided man in the army. He was a well-read lawyer. He was versed in belles-lettres. He read French fluently, and was as familiar with French novels as with French works of tactics. He was learned in military literature — was, indeed, before the out- break of the war, something of a military scholar. He was well read in remoter channels — in history and the philosophy of politics. He wrote with nervous grace and force. His style in extemporaneous debate was a model of condensed power and skill. On the freer arena of ''the stump," he acquitted himself creditably. He was a good horseman. He had a still rarer accomplishment: he fenced well. Yet this young "Admirable Crichton" of our hurrying, modern times, rarely excited more than admiration. He was too cold for friendship or popularity. In war, his soldiers had no enthusiasm for him; in politics, his party regarded him as a dead-weight. But he never ceased to command re- spect, and his military services, beginning with the first troops enlisted in Ohio and continuing till the last were discharged, will never cease to deserve gratitude. 778 Ohio in the War. MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER. GEOEGB A. CrSTER was born at New Eumley, Harrison County, Ohio, on the 5th of December, 1839. He obtained a good English edu- cation, and then engaged in teaching. Through the influence of the Honorable John A. Bingham, he received the appointment of cadet at West Point. He entered the Military Academy in June, 1857, graduated in June, 1861, and was .appointed Second,-Lieutenant, company G, Second United States Cavalry, formerly commanded by Eobert E. Lee. Leaving the Military Academy on the 18th of July, 1861, he reported to Lieutenant-General "Winfield Scott on the 20th, the day preceding the battle of Bull Run. The Commander-in-Chief gave Lieutenant Custer the choice of a position on his staff or of joining his company, then under General McDowell, near Centreville. Longing to see active field-service, he chose the latter, and after riding all night alone, he reached General McDowell's head-quarters about three o'clock on the morning of the 21st. Already preparations for the battle had begun, and after deliveringMispatches from General Scott, and partaking of a hasty breakfast, he joined his company. This company was among the last to leave the field, which it did in good order, bringing oflF General Heintzleman, who had been wounded. He continued to serve with his company near Wash- ington until the lamented Phil. Kearney was appointed Brigadier-General of volunteers, when that distinguished officer seli'ctcd Lieutenant Custer on his staff. He continued in this position until an order was issued by the War De- partment, prohibiting officers of the regular army from serving on the staff of Generals of volunteer*. He then returned to his company, but not before his services on the staff were acknowledged in a flattering manner. With his company he moved with that part of the Army of the Potomac which marched to Manassas upon the evacuation ol' that point by the Rebels. The cavalry was in the advance, under Genettil Stoneman, and encountered the enemy's cavalry for the first time near Catlett's Station. A call was made for volunteers to charge the enemy's advanced post. Lieutenant Custer volunteered, and in command of his company made his first cbargo, driving the Rebels across Muddy Creek, wounding a few, and having one of his own men wounded ; and thus drawing the first blood in the campaign under MLC'lellan. He accompa- nied the Army of the Potomac to the peninsula, remaining with his company until the army settled down before Yorktown, when he was detailed as assistant engineer of the left wing under Sumner. Li this capacity he planned and erected the earthwork nearest to the enemy's lines. In the pursuit of the T'=.WLLstatli Pv BalfbniL,Niwfbrk & CmcLDnati GrEORGE A. CuSTEE. 779 enemy from Yorktown he accompanied the advance under General Hancock. At the battle of Williamsburg he acted as Aid-de-Camp to that General, and ciiptured the first battle-flag ever captured by the Army of the Potomac. When the army reached the Chickahominy he was the first person to cross the river, which he did, in the face of the enemy's pickets, by wading up to his armpits. For this act he was promoted by General McClellan to Captain, and was made a personal aid. He remained with the General during the entire peninsula cam- paign, participating in all the engagements, including the seven days' battle. In this capacity he marked out the position occupied by the Union forces in the battle of Gaines's Mills, and he also participated in the campaign ending with the battles of South Mountain and Antietam. When General McClellan was relieved of the command of the Army of the /Potomac, Captain Custer accompanied him on his retirement, and so vras off active service in the field until the battle of Chancellorsville, where he served as First -Lieutenant, company M, Fifth Cavalry, having been mustered out aj Captain and additional Aid-de-Camp. Immediately after the battle General Pleasanton, then commanding a division of cavalry, made Lieutenant Custer a personal aid. In this capacity he participated in numerous cavalry engage- ments, including those at Beverly Ford, Upperville, and Barbour's Cross Roads. When General Pleasanton was made a Major-General and assigned to a cavalry corps, he requested the appointment of four Brigadiers to command under him. Upon his recommendation, indorsed by Generals Hooker and Meade, Lieu- tenant Custer was promoted to Brigadier-General. He was immediately as- signed to a brigade composed of the First, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Michigan cavalry. At the battle of Gettysburg he held the right of the line, and opposed his force to Hampton's division of cavalry, utterly routing him and preventing him from reaching the train of the Union army, for which he was striking. In this battle General Custer had two horses shot under him. Immediately after the battle he was sent to attack the enemy's train, then making its way to the Potomac. His command destroyed upward of four hun- dred wagons (Ewell's entire train) and captured eighteen hundred prisoners be- tween Gettysburg and the Potomac. At Hagerstown, Maryland, a severe en- gagement took place, and General Custer again had his horse shot under him ; and when the enemy finally crossed the South Brandi of the Potomac his com- mand wasthe only one that molested the crossing. This was at Falling Waters, where, with his brigade, he attacked the entire Eebel rear-guard. General Pet- tigrew, who commanded it, was killed, and his command was routed, with a loss of thirteen hundred prisoners, four battle-flags, and two pieces of cannon. During the fall he was engaged constantly in skirmishing with the onemj-, and during the winter in picketing the Eapidan between the two armies. In the spring of 1864 he participated in the opening battle of the Wilderness, and on the 9th of May set out under General Sheridan on the raid toward Richmond. His brigade, leading the column, captured Beaver Dam, burned the station and "a train of cars loaded with supplies, and released four hundred Union prisoners. He rejoined Grant's axmy on tho Pamunkey, and participated in several engage- 780 Ohio in the War. ments, in one of which another horse was shot under him. At the battle of Trevillian station he was sent to surprise the enemy's rear. He executed the movement promptly, but Torbert, who was to attack in front, delayed, and the enemy was thus enabled to devote his entire attention to Oyster. Five brigades surrounded his one, and against such odds the battle was waged for three hours. One of his guns was' captured twice, and each time retaken.-- His color-bearer was killed, and the battle flag was only saved from capture by General Custer himself tearing it from the standard and concealing it around his body. The arrival of Torbert's force enabled him to extricate his command witK compara- tively little loss. At the first battle in the Shenandoah Valley, near Shepherdstown, his bri- gade M'as opposed to Breckinridge's corps, and was surrounded ; but it succeeded in effecting its escape. At Winchester the brigade was engaged from before daylight until after dark, and was the first to break through the enemy's lines. ^n this battle Custer captured nine battle-flags, and a greater number of pris- oners than he had men engaged. Again, at the battle of Fisher's Hill, his com- mand rendered most important service. "When General Averill was relieved, General Custer was assigned to the command of the Second Division of Cavalry, Army of the Shenandoah ; but a few days after, when General Wilson was re- lieved from the command of the Third Division, to which General Custer for- merly belonged, he was assigned to that division, and remained in command of it until after Lee's surrender. At the battle of Cedar Creek the division was on the right, and was not engaged in the rout of the morning. When Sheridan arrived on the field, after his famous ride, he found one command ready for action ; and his immediate orders were, " Go in, Custer." Ciister- went in, and did not turn back until the enemy was driven several miles beyond the battle-ground, The division captured several hundred prisoners, including a Major-General, and also forty -five pieces of artillery of the forty-eight captured by the entire army. For his conduct in this battle General Custer was brevetted Major-Gcneral of volun- teers, and as a further mark of approval. General Sheridan detailed him to bear the report of the battle and the- captured flags to Washington. On the 9th of October a brisk engagement occurred between Genei-al Cus- ter and General Rosser, in which the latter was entirely routed, with a loss of six pieces of artillery, two battle-flags, his entire train, and many prisoners. For his conduct on this occasion he received thanks and congratula-tious in a special order from the War Department. The fall and winter was spent in con- stant skirmishing, and in February, 1865, Sheridan's cavahy started up the valley. At Waj'nesboro' a portion of Custer's division, about one thousand strong, with two pieces of artiller}', became engaged with the remnant of Jubal Early's army, numbering about two thousand. Early commanded in person, and his force was well posted and well intrenched. The Second Ohio Cavalry, with two other regiments, turned the enemy's flank, and a vigorous charge in front completed liis discomfiture. A vigorous pursuit resulted in the capture of eighteen hundred prisoners, eleven battle-flags, fourteen pieces of artillery, and two hundred wagons, including General Early's private baggage. He himself George A. Custer. 781 only escaped capture by jumpiug upon a locomotive already steamed up and in waiting. General Custer lost one man killed and four wounded. After this he moved to Petersburg, preparatory to the final campaign aroand Richmond. At the battle of Dinwiddie C. H. Custer's division reached the field when the Union forces were gradually yielding ground. According to his common custom, he ordered the band to strike up a National air, and to the tune of Hail Columbia, he threw his entire force against the advancing column, and not only checked it but drove it backward over the lost ground. At Five Forks the division occupied the left of the line, and was the first to cross the enemy's works. It drove the enemy in utter confusion until darkness had set in, and only ceased when ordered to do so by Sheridan's Chief-of-Staff. At Sailor's Creek, the First and Second Cavalry Divisions, commanded respectively by Generals Merritt and Crook, were ordered to break the enemy's line, and to delay his retreat until the arrival of the infantry. After gallant but inefi'ectual attempts by both these divisions, Sheridan exclaimed: "I wish to God* old Cus- ter was here; he would have been into the enemy's train before this time." Accordingly "old Custer's" division was ordered into the fight. The men charged gallantly, and actually leaped their horses over the breastworks. Lieutenant T. W. Custer, the General's brother and Aid, was among the first to enter the works ; which he did in the manner described. He snatched a Eebel standard from its bearer, and received a Minie ball through his cheek and neck; he however retained his trophy, and shot down his ojjponent with a pistol. The division destroyed a large number of wagons, captured sixteen pieces of artillery, thirty-one battle-flags, and five thousand prisoners, including seven general ofiicers; among them, Custis Lee, a son of Robert E. Lee, Semmes, brother of pirate Semmes, and Ewell. After the battle Custer was riding up to General Sheridan, who was surrounded by his staff and other ofiicers of rank, when the latter and all his staff, with caps waving, proposed three cheers for Custer, which were given with a will. When the Rebels fell back to Appomattox General Custer had the advance of Sheridan's command, when it succeeded in planting itself on Lee's line of retreat. The fight at Appomattox Station, which resulted in victory, lasted, in a desultory way, from about an hour before sunset until one o'clock at night, and the enemy was driven back to Appomattox C. H.f The infantry came up * General Custer is by ten years the junior of General Sheridan. t Custer's share in this action is graphically sketched in the entertaining account of a Staff Officer "With Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign," pp. 200, 201: " When tlie sun was only an hour high in the west, energetic Custer, in advance, spied the depot and four heavy trains of freight cars lying there innocently, with the white smoke of the locomotives curling over the trees; he quickly ordered his leading regiments to circle out to the left through the woods, and then, as they gained the railroad beyond the station and galloped down upon the astonished engineers and collared them before they could mount their iron horses, he led the rest of his division pell-mell down the road, and enveloped the trains as quick as winking. Custer might not well conduct a, siege of regular approaches ; but for a sudden dash, Custer against the world. Many another might have pricked hi.s fingers badly with meddling gently with this nettle, but he took it in his hand boldly and crushed it ; for it was a nettle, and 782 Ohio in the Wae. during the night, and the next day the surrender took place. General Caster being on the advance, was the first to receive the white flag 'sent in by General Lee. He took possession of this trophy and still retains it. After the terms of surrender had been signed by Generals Grant and Lee, General Sheridan purchased from Mr. McLean, in whose house the negotiations had been eon- ducted, the table upon which the important and historic document was signed, and presented it to Mrs. Custer, with the following autograph letter: "Appomattox C. H., Va., April 9, 1865. "My Deab Madam: Permit me to present to you the table upon which were signed the terms of surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, under General Robert E. Lee; and, in conclusion, let me add, that I know of no person more instrumental in bringing about this most desirable event, than your own most gallant husband. " I am, madam, most truly your friend, "PHILIP H. SHEEIDAN, Maj. Gek., U. S. A." "Mks. Gen. G. A. Custer." For his conduct in these closing battles. General Custer was appointed Major-General of volunteers ; and after the review at Washington he accom- panied General Sheridan to the Military Division of the Gulf, where he was assigned to an important command in Texas, with head-quarters at Austin. His administration of civil affairs in that State received the approval of Generals Grant and Sheridan ; and when he left Governor Hamilton expressed by letter regret at his departure. He was relieved from command on the 15th of Feb- ruar}', 1866, by muster-out, when he returned to service in the regular army. At the time of his appointment as Brigadier and Major-General, General Custer was the youngest officer of his rank in the army. He never lost a gun or a color; he captured more guns, flags, and prisoners, than any other General not an army commander; these guns and flags were all taken in action and field service, not in arsenals and deserted forts; and his services throughout were brilliant. A good idea of the " boy Cavalry General's " appearance may be derived a very keen one, as appeared in a moment when there opened on his slap-dash party a banging of batteries going off like a bunch of fire-crackers. Custer was a good deal struck aback but not upset. He kept his wits about him enough to man the trains, and start them off toward Farm- ville for safe-keeping, and they were puffing up the road as General Sheridan, in the midst of Custer's galloping division, reached the station. Then he turned his attention to the guns, and dashed into the woods to see who was firing so wildly, and to see if it could n't be stopped. Gen- eral Sheridan rode rapidly to the right to look at the ground, and sent word to Merritt to bring Devin up there at a trot, and put him to work in the enemy's rear, and then returned to Custer, who, concluding that there was more sound than force in the woods, was going in to silence the one and bag the other. Devin, under Merritt's directions, took a wood-path to the right, and soon found a fine open field, dipping gently to a broad valley, and rising again beyond to the ridge of a commanding hill, from whose top the last gleams of sunset were just ricochetting into the air. Dismounting his men as they came into line, he moved down into the valley, where a marsh bothered him some, and then bearing to his left, went into the woods on the hillside. He was a little slow for the crisis, but no harm came of it, for Custer had meanwhile scoured about in his random way, recklessly riding down all opposers, and, the force with the guns proving more noisy than numerous, he had captured nearly all of both before Devin opened his fire. Then they pushed on together, mounted and dismounted, driving before them, toward Appomat- tox C. H., the surprised and demoralized enemy." GrEOEGE A. CuSTEE. 783 from this bit of a pictare In Colonel Newhall's "With Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign ; " " The cavalry on the right trotted out in advance of the infantry line, and made ready to take the enemy in flank if he should stand to fight, or dash at his trains, which were now in full view beyond Appomattox C. H. At the head of the horsemen rode Custer, of the golden looks, lu8 broad sombrero turned up from his hard, bronzed face, the ends of his crimson cravat floating over his shoulders, gold galore spangling his jacket sleeves, a pistol in his boot, jangling spurs on his heels, and a ponderous claymore swinging at his side, a wild, dare-devil of a General, and 11 prince of advance-guards, quick to see and act. Seeing him pass by, a, stranger might smile and say ' Who's that ? ' as he noticed his motley wear, his curls, and his quick, impetuous way, but would wonder to see him in the thick of a fight ; for Custer loves fighting, and hated his enemies then. "As he is about to strike a final blow for the good cause, his hand is stayed and his great sword drops back again into the scabbard, for out from the enemy's lines comes a rider, ' bound on bound,' bearing a white ^flag of truce, to ask for time to consummate surrender. General Sheridan is just behind, and word is sent to him at once, though the wild cheers of the men have passed the good news back on the wind, and he meets the messenger half way. The General notifies General Ord, and the whole line is halted on the crest overlooking Appomattox C. H. and the valley beyond, in which lies broken the Army of Northern Virginia." The last words in the first of the above paragraphs — " hated his enemies then" — refer to the fact that after the rupture between Mr. Johnson and Congress, General Custer made himself more conspicuous than his old chief General Sheridan, and many others of his judicious friends approved, in his indorsement of Mr. Johnson's policy. He even accompanied the President on the tour to the Douglas monument dedication, which the apt wit of a popular caricature has embalmed as the "Swinging round the Circle," and was, on one or two occasions, but particularly when passing through his native county, made to feel somewhat keenly the dissatisfaction of a portion of his old friends. In pursuance of the same policy he also took a conspicuous part in the Philadelphia Union Convention of 1866, and in the subsequent Soldier's Convention at Cleve- land. It was currently believed that he hoped thus to secure high grade in the reorganization of the regular army. In this he must have been disappointed. He was only made Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventh Cavalry, which, with a brevet as Major-General in the regular service, was his rank at the close of the year 1867. General Custer's career was active, highly energetic, and honorable; but he gave no evidences of great generalship. As a subordinate, to a leader lil^e Sheridan, he was in his proper sphere. In such a capacity, for quick, dashes and vigorous spurts of fighting, he had no superiors, and scarcely an equal. His career was exceptionally fortunate ; but it is to hiS credit that attention was first attracted to him, and his sudden and high promotion was secured by the fact that he was found always ready for fight and eager to be among the fore- most. 784 Ohio in the Wae, MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES B. STEEDMAN. JAMES B. STBEDMAN, a noted Democratic politician, and during the war an oflScer of volunteers, always distinguished for energy and gal- lantry, and at times for signally valuable services, was born in ly'orth- umberland County, Pennsylvania, on the 30th of July, 1818. His parents were not in good circumstances, and, in the absence of a good common school sys- tem, ho grew up with only an indifferent education; but, at the age of fifteen, he was sent to a school better even than those which the beneficent system of most of the States now sets open before the poorest of their children. He was apprenticed to learn Ibe printing business in a newspaper office. The newspaper was the Lewisburg (Pennsylvania) Hemocx-at, then edited by Judge George E. Barrett. Here the apprentice learned at once .Democracj', rudimentary branches of education, and business. So well did he improve his opportunities that in a couple of years he had come to be regarded as fit for u man's work and responsibilities. About this time an opportunity was offered him to leave that pi-inting office and taiie charge of a gang of hands engaged on one of the public works. He succeeded so well that he was emboldened to undertake similar contracts on his own account. Eemoving to Ohio, he estab- lished himself at Napoleon, in Henrj' Countj-, and, while awaiting some open- ing in public works, which he had reason to expect, he purchased a printing office at Defiance and published the Xorth-western Democrat. Meanwhile, being not yet quite twenty-one years of age, and a country printer with an office to pay for, he married. His bride was a young lady in the village. Miss Miranda Stiles, who had removed thither from New Jersey. In a short time the contracts were let on the "Wabash and Erie Canal. Young Steedraan secured one of them, and presently had a gang of three hundred men at work upon it. He managed the business so well as to make the contract quite profit- able. Then, with his head faii-ly above water, he entered upon a series of sim- ihir undertakings. In company with General E. H. Giison, he contracted for and built fifty miles of the Toledo, Wabash, and Western Eailroad between Defi- ance and Fort Wayne. This, and other similar operations, placed him in com- paratively easy circumstances. All this time he had kept ujj his Democracy and his newspaper • He now became one of the local leaders of his party, was elected for two successive James B. Steedman. 785 terms to the lower branch of the State Legislature, and was presently recog- nized as one of the powers of the party in the State. He was next made a member of the Board of Public Works — an office for which his experience gave him special fitness. He remained in the Board for four years, during three of which he served as its President. In 1857, after a vigorous and protracted contest, he was elected public printer at Washington, There had been charges of corruption against other candidates, and his election was heralded by leading organs of the Democratic party as a "great moral triumph." The defeated party chose to regard this in a jocose light, and for a long time they were accustomed to speak of the pub- lic printer as "Moral Triumph Steedman." He took a very active part for Douglas, and was selected as a delegate to the Charleston Convention, in which he adhered to his candidate until the nomination was made at Baltimore. On his return from the convention he was nominated as the Douglas candidate for Congi-ess, and canvassed the district with his opponent, Mr. Ashley, who was elected. In 1861, Mr. Steedman, having disposed of his interests in the public print- ing at Washington, was at his home, which he had now removed to Toledo. Among the earliest of the patriotic Democrats who forgot party, when the country was in peril, he telegi-aphed to Governor Denuison, offering a regiment for the service, within a day or two after the call for volunteers. .Within three days after his appointment as Colonel, he had the regiment ready for the field, and nine days after the firing on Sumter, he took it from Toledo to Cainp Tay- lor, near Cleveland, where it was drilled and fully organized. What followed in the history of this Fourteenth Ohio Eegiment we need not here repeat.* With its energetic Colonel always at its head it was among the foremost of the State troops to tread the soil of Virginia; it opened up tlie Parkersburg Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad, fell upon Porterfield' at Philippi, and in that little skirmish opened the war; led in pressing upon the enemy at Laurel Hill ; led in the hot pursuit, and fought, almost alone, the sharp little action of Carrick's Ford, in which the Eebel General commanding was killed; was recognized everj'vvhere as among the trustiest and best of the Ohio regiments. Ee-enlisting for three years, it entered into Kentucky-, took part in the affair at Wild Cat; was the first to enter the Eebel works at Mill Springs. By this time the merits of Colonel Steedman as an officer were so well recog- nized that he was withdrawn from his regiment and placed in command of a brigade. In the advance of Buell's army he had no further opportunity for fighting, but he so well handled his command that there was a general feeling of approval in the army when, on the 17th of July, 1862, he was appointed a Brigadier-General of volunteers. His first important action was at Perryville. Here he had a large brigade (numbering forty-one hundred muskets) supporting McCook, and preventing the enemy from turning his right. He came into the battle at an opportune * See history regiment, Volume II. Vol. 1.— 50. 786 Ohio in the War. moment, saving Loomis's battery, of which the enemy was just taking posses- sion. His conduct received the commendation of so cautious a critic as Gen- eral Buell, who complimented him for his energy and gallantry. General Steedman next marched with the army as far as Tunnel Hill, when, with his brigade, hfe was halted to clear and repair two tunnels — half a mile each in length — which had been partially destroyed by John Morgan. After putting the tunnels in thorough repair, he again joined the army, and skirmished with the enemy's cavalry during the battle of Stone Eiver, but was not heavily engaged during any part of that action. Shortly after the battle of Stone Eiver General Steednian was assigned to the command of a division of infantry. For the next three months he held an indejjendent position on the Nolinsville Turnpike, twenty-five miles south of Nashville, and fifteen miles away from the main army — skirmishing with the enemy almost every day. General Thomas, with whom Steedman was always a great favorite, now complimented him for the energy and caiJacity he dis- played in these affairs, and when obliged to supersede him on account of rank, exjpressed, in written form, his regret that "rank and the fortunes of war" should deprive General Steednian of a command in which he had^given so much satisfaction to his commanding officer. In the campaign from Murfreesboro', which forced Bragg's array out of Tullahoma, General Steedman was in command of a brigade which occupied the Old Tullahoma Road, and after heavy fighting with the Eebels, who were posted to hold that approach, was the first to enter the enemy's works at Tulla- homa. When the Army of the Cumberland was concentrated at Winchester, Tennessee, in July, 1863, Steedman was assigned to the command of the First iJivi-sion of the Eeserve Corp.s. He marched his division from Murfreesboro' to Chickamauga. Here ho took a distinguished part. He was stationed al "Eed House Bridge," over the Chickamauga Eiver, and was ordered to "hold it at all hazard." In front of it there was no enemy. He knew that Thomas was sore pressed, and that his troops were needed; and he took the responsibility of disobeying the orders requiring him to hold his position. In going to General Thomas, having no knowledge of the country, or the position of either army, he marched to the "sound of the cannon." He had severe skirmishing with the enemy's cavalry on the way; but he arrived just in the nick of time. He was hotly engaged with the enemj' in thirty minutes after reporting to General Thomas. In this battle General Steedman 's conduct was the subject of general admi- ration — the officers and soldiers of the army being his warmest eulogists. He was shortly after, "for distinguished and gallant services on the field," made Major-Geiieral of volunteers. He took an active part in the campaign of General Sherman which resulted in the fall of Atlanta; having command of the "District of the Etowah," extending from Bridgeport, Alabama, to the Ailatoona Mountains, protecting the railroad communications which supplied General Sherman's armv. During James B. Steedman. 787 thia t'me Steedman's command had frequent fights and skirmishes with the enemj', but one of these actions deserves special mention. In June, 1864, the Eebel General Wheeler, with about six thousand cavalry, passed around the flank of General Sherman's army, to cut the railroad, and attacked a little garrison of four hundred of our troops stationed at Dalton, Georgia, commanded by a brave German Colonel — Liebald, of St. Louis. Wheeler drove Liebald into a small earthwork and demanded his surrender. The telegraph not being cut Liebald refused to surrender, and telegraphed Steedman at Chattanooga. Steedman immediately started by rail with twelve hundred men — six hundred colored and six hundred white — to relieve the garrison at Dalton. Within three miles of the enemy he took his troops oif the cars. After resting them for an hour or two, at break of day he fell upon Wheeler with his twelve hundred men, routing the six thousand cavalry in thirty minutes, and saving the garri- son and the railroad. When General Sherman started on his " march to the sea " he left General Steedman in command of the "District of the Etowah," to tear up the railroad, burn the bridges south of Dalton, and support General Thomas, if Hood attacked Nashville. Hood crossed the Tennessee River at Florence, Alabama, and moved on Nashville. Steedman, with ten thousand men and three batteries of artil- lery, loaded on fourteen trains of cars, moved from Chattanooga by rail to sup- port General Thomas, reaching Nashville with his command just as the enemy were investing the place. In the battle of Nashville General Steedman commanded the left wing of the army, and brought on the engagement, attacking the enemy's right and carrying his first line of works early in the first day's fight. On the second day it was his command, with that of General Wood, that stormed Overton Hill, the enemy's center. It was in this battle, and in successfully assaulting the enemy's center, that the colored troops, under the command of General Steedman, did the brilliant fighting for which they were complimented by most of the officers of the Army of the Cumberland, and especially by its honored commander, General George H. Thomas. At the close of the war General Steedman was assigned to the command of the State of Georgia, which he held until he asked to be relieved from it. The service in time of peace had become irksome and distasteful ; and, pre- ferring private life, he resigned, and his resignation was accepted July 19, 1866. Before this time he had been required, as a last act, to make a tour of inspec- tion through the South, to examine the workings of the Freed men's Bureau, and report to President Johnson. His report was tinged by his political views. He was now offered one or two civil offices, which he declined; but he finally accepted the Collectorship of Internal Eevenue at New Orleans. He has been often spoken of by the President in connection with the portfolio of the War Department. General Steedman's career during the war was highly honorable ; and it 788 Ohio in xhe Wab. can scarcely be said that any Ohio General, not in command of a large army, rendered more valuable or distinguished service. He was a bold, energetic fighter, and his voice was always for fight. He never belonged to the school of delaying Generals. His troops had unbounded confidence in and admiration for him. Personally he is warm-hearted and generous, careless as to appear- ances, and often neglectful of his own interests ; hearty in his ways, with the free-and-easy manners of the people among whom he grew up. He never betrays a friend. Politically he is shrewd, and, according to the verdict of his antagonists, unscrupulous. His own party has great faith in him, and he is still looked upon us one likely to rise higher in its favors. GrODFEEY WeITZEL. 789 MAJOR-GENERAL GODFREY WEITZEL. SECOND to none among the younger members of the Engineer Corps, in the value of the services rendered during the rebellion, or in general military capacity, stands Major-General Godfrey Weitzel. He was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, November 1, 1835. He received his early education in the public schools of that city, and was a member of the first class in the old Cen- • tral High School. Upon the recommendation of the Honorable David T. Disney he was ap- pointed a cadet at West Point in 1851. He graduated in 1855, standing second in a class of thirty-three. He was appointed Brevet Second-Lieutenant of En- gineers July 1, 1855, was promoted to Second-Lieutenant August, 1856, to First- Lieutenant July 1, 1860, and to Captain March 3, 1863. On the 1st of November, 1855, he reported to Captain and Brevet Major P. G. T. Beauregard for duty as assistant in the construction and repairs of the forti- fications in Louisiana. In August, 1859, he was relieved and ordered to the MiUtary Academy as Acting Assistant Professor of Civil and Military Engi- neering. In January, 1861, he was ordered to report to First-Lieutenant J. C. Duane, commanding company A, engineers, and with this company he pro- ceeded to Washington City. On the 4th of March it was the body-guard of His Excellency, the President, during the inauguration ceremonies. In April, Lieutenant Weitzel accompanied his command to Fort Pickens, Florida. While at this post he twice crossed the bay and peneti-ated the enemy's lines to recon- noiter, under confidential orders from Colonel Brown. He returned to West Point on the 1st of October, 1861, and soon after was ordered to report to Gen- eral Mitchel, commanding the District of Ohio, as chief engineer, and also to recruit for company D, engineers. On the 10th of December, 1861, he was ordered to report with the engineer battalion in the Army of the Potomac, and upon arriving was placed in command of company C, engineers. In addition, he was assigned to the special duty of placing together some of the pontoon trains for the Army of the Potomac. All this while his reputation as an engineer had been gradually rising in the army, so that now, when General Butler's expeditign to New Orleans was undertaken, young Weitzel was selected as its engineer, and was ordered to report to General Butler accordingly, for duty on his staif. We have seen that four years of his army life had been sj)ent under Beau- regard in the repair and construction of fortifications in Louisiana. .His inti- mate knowledge of the country below and about New Orleans, thus acquired, now became of signal service. 790 Ohio in the Wae. General McClellan had doubted the feasibility of any undertaking against New Orleans with a force of less than fifty thousand. But the entire force available for the expedition proved to be but thirteen thousand seven hundred. These rendezvoused on Ship Island, one of the inconsiderable sand-bars lying in the Gulf of Mexico, between the mouths of the Mississippi and Mobile. Lieu- tenant Weitzel was at once taken into the consultation between Captain (since Admiral) Farragut and General Butler. He described the forts on the Missis- sippi to be passed before reaching New Orleans, and gave the commanders an accurate idea of the nature of the surrounding country. He held Fort St. Philip, on the east bank of the Mississippi, the more vulnerable to attack by the land forces, and advised that it should be either assaulted or turned by means of the shallow water approaches to Bird Island and points in its rear and above it. Before this should be attempted, it was decided to see what could be done by bombarding the forts. ^ 'J L r n r'^^L DEFENSES OF NEW ORLEANS. Captain Farragut atcordingly moved up with his fleet. For three days the bombardment went on. Then a fresh council of officers was called, at which the determination was reached to run past the forts. First, however, the great chain, stretched across the river and supported by hulks anchored at regular dis- tances in line across the stream, must be cut. This was doae at night, not with- out serious damage to the gunboats which undertook it. A further delay of two days gave time to make the necessary repairs, and meantime the bombard- GrODFEEY WeITZEL. 791 ment was kept up. Then, on the night of the fifth day after the appearance of the fleet before the forts, they steamed up. A fierce conflict ensued ; several of the vessels were seriously damaged or quite disabled ; some failed to get through the gap cut in the chain across the stream ; othtrs had trouble avoiding the fire- ships sent down from above, and the half-finished gunboats which the Eebels employed; but Captain Parragut finally found himself with an effective squad- ron above the forts, with an almost open road to New Orleans. He had been greatly aided by the suggestions of Lieutenant Weitzel as to the nature of the fire from the forts, and the best way of inducing the Eebel gunners to overshoot. The moment the fleet passed the forts General Butler started to put his troops in motion. Lieutenant "Weitzel conducted them to Bird Island ; then, in small boats, through intricate bayous and channels not known to another man in that army, to the Quarantine Station on the Mississippi, five miles above the forts. The works which Farragut had passed, Butler and Weitzel had now com- pletely turned and cut off from the citj' they were meant to defend. They soon surrendered, and the troops, with the full control of the river behind them to the Grulf, were ready to move up to ISTew Orleans. Within a few days Lieutenant Weitzel, in consequence of his intimate knowledge of the city, country, and people, not more, we may well believe, than because of the sound judgment he had displayed in the previous operations, was appointed Assistant Military Commander and Acting Mayor of jSTew Orleans. He was also placed in charge of the organization of troops in Louisiana, and under his supervision the First and Second Louisiana Infantry, and companies A, B, 0, and D of the First Louisiana Cavalry wore organized. After the battle of Baton Eouge, he was ordered to report there for temporary duty, and while at that post he laid out the intrenchments which have since served as the basis for the fortifications at that point. On the 16th of September, 1862, our young Lieutenant was appointed Brigadier-General of volunteers, a promotion due to the esteem he had inspired by his services thus far, and particularly to the warm friendship of General Butler. He was immediately placed in command of a brigade, consisting of five regiments of infantry, four companies of cavalry, and two batteries. Of this entire command only one battery had ever been under fire; one regiment of infantry and three companies of cavalry had just been organized; and the bat- teries were so reduced by disease, that each could only man one section. Before the brigade was in a condition anything like satisfactory to General Weitzel, he was ordered by General Butler, in connection with four light gun- boats, operating by way of Berwick's Bay, to clear the La Fourehe District of Eebels. Accordingly he left CarroUton on the 24th of October, and proceeding up the Mississippi, landed at Minor's plantation six miles below Donaldsonville. He advanced against the town, and occupied it after a slight skirmish. After collecting a sufficient number of transports, he moved down Bayou La Fourehe, and on the 27th encountered the enemy at Georgia Landing, about a mile and half above the village of Labadierville. He immediately assaulted the position, and after a short resistance the enemj- fled, with a loss of twenty-five killed. 792 Ohio in the Wak. forty wounded, and two hundred and sixty captured ; also three pieces of artil- lery and a large number of small arms. The Kational loss was thirty killed, seventy wounded, and three captured. The march was i-osumed toward Thibodeaux, and about a mile and a half below the town the Rebels mudo another stand ; but they fell back without waiting for an attack. This precipitate retreat was occasioned by the appear- ance of the gunboats off Berwick's Bay. A northerly gale prevented the boats from entering the bay and cutting off the retreat. With the exception of a few skirmishes with the enemy's pickets at Plaquemine and Brashear City, General Weitzel held undisputed possession of his district until the following April, and it was as safe for an officer or soldier to go through the country alone as it was to walk the streets of T>^ew Orleans. This was the only important military oper- ation undertaken by C4enoral Butler during his command of the Department. In April, 1863, Weitzels brigade, with other troops, moved across the coun- try to Port Hudson, destroying the Rebel navy in the streams and bayous which they crossed, capturing fifteen hundred prisoners and large quantities of arms, ammunition, and supplies. During the siege of Port Hudson the General com- manded sometimes a division and sometimes a brigade. For forty days his troops wore under fire, hard at work, without tents, and with short rations. After the surrender, ho was placed in command of the Pirst Division, Nineteenth Corps, and was ordered to Donaldsonville. Prom there he pro- ceeded to New Orleans, and served on a board, of which General Pranklin was President, convened to prepare a general system of defense for the Department. After the board was dissolved he was detained as a witness before a court-mar- tial until August, when he returned to the command of his division. He left Baton Eouge on the 2d of September with the expedition to Sabine Pass, Texas. He was in personal command of five hundred picked men on board the transport General Banks. His orders were to lollow the gunboats closely, and at a certain time to land and attack the enemy's works. However, the two best gunboats were disabled and the other two did nothing; and Gen- eral Franklin ordered him back without an attempt to land. The two disabled boats struck to the enemj', and with them went one hundred and five men of Weitzel's division, detailed on them as sharp-shooters. He next moved with his division on the Western Louisiana campaign, the operations apparently being only a feint to enable General Banks to land troops on the coast of Texas, which was aceompliahed. Ho was ordered to Ohio on recruiting service in December, 1863, and upon returning, preferring service under the chief with whom he had first risen to prominence, he applied to the War Department to be relieved from dul}' in Louisiana. Until the result of his ap- plication could be known, he was assigned to duty in the defenses of New Orleans. The request was granted, and in April, 1864, he reported to General Butler in Virginia, and was assigned to duty in two capacities, as Chief Engineer of the Department, and in command of the Second Division, Eighteenth Corps. He participated in several skirmishes near Petersburg and Eichmond, indud- GrODFKEY WeITZEL, 793 ing the action of Swift Creek. In the dissensions between General Butler and the two noted engineers who were his Corps Generals, Weitzel sided with Butler. As Chief Engineer of the Department, he constructed the various lines of defense, works, and bridges on the James and Appomattox Eivers, including the approaches and piers for the famous pontoon bridge by which the Army of the Potomac crossed the James. In September he was sent on a reconnois- sance to the blockading fleet at the mouth of Cape Fear Eiver, expecting to command an expedition against Fort Fisher during the succeeding three weeks. This expedition was postponed, chiefly because the enemy received information of it, and because troops could not be spared. Upon returning he was assigned to the command of the Eighteenth Corps, numbering only five thousand and one hundred effective men. He was attacked on the 30th of September by two Rebel divisions, assisted by the entire fleet in the James. The assault was re- pulsed handsomely, the Eebels losing over six hundred killed and wounded, over two hundred captured, and eight battle flags. General Weitzel lost only fifteen killed and seventy-nine wounded. On the 29th of October he com- manded the corps in a division on the Williamsburg and Nine Mile Eoads, to favor a movement to the left of the Army of the Potomac. In this affair his loss was nine hundred, mostly prisoners. In December, 1864, he was assigned to the command of the Twenty-Fifth Corps, colored. He held the position until the corps was disbanded, and he was mustered out of service. During this month, December, he accompanied the first expedition to Fort Fisher as second in command, and conducted a recon- noissance of the work, ordered bj' General Butler, to ascertain to what extent the fire of Admiral Porter's fleet had damaged it. The expedition was a fail- ure, through want of co-operation between the army and navy. General Weit- zel's verdict was against the proposition to assault. He found comparatively little damage done by Admiral Porter's fire, the sand embankments very well resisting a bombardment; and, with the customary caution of the engineer, he was unwilling to advise an attack of great hazard and extremely doubtful pros- pects of success. The fort was subsequently carried by assault, but under cir- cumstances which prevent the fact from constituting any reflection upon the wisdom of General Weitzel's counsel. He was engaged in the final operations around Eichmond, and was in com- mand of all that portion of the army north of the Appomattox and James Rivers. It was his rare good fortune to clutch the prize for which for four years the armies of the Bast had struggled. He entered Eichmond unopposed, with about nine thousand men, on the 3d of April, 1865. He took up his head-quar- ters at the residence of Mr. Jeff. Davis, abandoned by him only the evening be- fore. Here he received President Lincoln on the occasion of his memorable visit to the fallen Eebel capital ; and here occurred the interviews with Judge Campbell and others, in which the crafty Eebel functionaries sought to secure from Mr. Lincoln the recognition of their Ftate government. Under his direc- tion. General Weitzel gave public notice to the State Legislature that they would 794 Ohio in the War. be permitted to assemble. A day or two later, under similar direction, he pub- lished his orders withdrawing this permission. On the 12th of April he proceeded to concentrate his corps at City Point, for removal to Texas, where he remained on duty, under General Sheridan, un- til February, 1866, when he was mustered out as Major-General of volunteers, and returned to his grade in the engineer corps of the regular army. During his service in Texas he was, for a large part of the time, on duty along the Mexican frontier. Here he cast his influence, in accordance with his own wishes, as well as those of General Sheridan and the Government, in favor of Juarez against Maximilian and the Imperialists. The notorious General Mejia having captured some Juarist prisoners, was about, under Maximilian's orders, to execute them. General "Weitzel, on hearing of it, immediately addressed this protest to the Imperialist commander: " Head-Quaktebs, Distsict or the Bio Gkande,) " SroumsviUe, Texas, January 2, 1866. J " Major-General Thomas >Iejia, Commanding line of the Eio Grande : "Oeneral: I understand that you have taken seventeen prisoners from the Liberal forces, and that you intend to execute them. " In the name of the entire civilized world, I protest against such a horrible act of barbar- ity. I believe it will stamp the power which you represent with infamy forever. "To execute Mexicans fighting in their own country, and for the freedom of their country, against foreign power, is an act which, at this age, will meet with universal execration. "I can not permit this to be done under the eye of my Government without, on its behalf, entering this solemn protest. " I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, "G. WEITZEL, " Major-General Commanding.'' The following reply was received on the same day • "Impekial Army, Mexico, Division Mejia,) "Head- Quartei-s, Matamoras, January 2. J " General: I aelinowledge the receipt of your communication dated this day. "I find myself under the necessity of repelling energetically the participation which you pretend to take in the internal concerns of this country. " The business to which the protest in your note refers ha.s now been brought before compe- tent tribunals, :ind no one has a right to suspend the proceeding.s. " For your individual cognition I will add, that the persons in question are accused of hav- ing taken by force of arms thirteen wagons, twenty-six mules and horses, and robbed thirteen persons. " It would be very strange. General, if, in the middle of this nineteenth century, the bandits and fighting robbers were to receive help and protection from the civilized world. ■' By the same occasion I see myself obligated to remind you of the contents of the letter which I had the honor to address you on the 21st of last December. I shall return without answer all communications of the character and couched in the language of the one now before me. " Accept, General, my esteem and consideration, "THOMAS MEJIA, " General Commanding Line of the Rio Grande. " To Major-General Wbitzel, " Commanding Western Div'sion of Texas, Brownsville." GrODFREY WeITZEL. 795 After being mustered out of the volunteer service, General Weitzel was as- signed to duty in the engineer corps ; his most important work being the com- pletion of surveys and estimates for the consideration of Congress for a canal around the Falls of the Ohio, on the Indiana side, opposite Louisville. He was engaged on this during a great part of the year 1867. General "Weitzel will always be honored for his share in the 8upj)ression of the great rebellion. His skill as an engineer commanded the confidence of his corps and of the army. He succeeded better than most engineers in the com- mand of troops in the field ; and his reputation as a good corps General was undisputed. He was also free from many of the prejudices of the regular army, particularly with reference to the capacity of negro troops. He is still young, and should have a brilliant future in the army. His appearance and bearing denote his German descent. He was married, shortly before the close of war, to the daughter of Mr. Bogen, a prominent manufacturer of Catawba wines, in Cincinnati. 796 Ohio in the Wae. MAJOR-GENERAL DAVID S. STANLEY. DAVID S. STANLEY was born in Wayne County, Ohio, on the 1st of June, 1828. His father was a farmer. In 1848 he was appointed a cadet at West Point; and in 1852 he graduated, with a standing suffi- ciently high to warrant his assignment as Second-Lieutenant to the Second Dra- goons, now the Second Cavahy. The next j-car he was emjiloyed as assistant on the survey of the Pacific Railroad route, under Lieutenant, since General Whip- ple, and in this service he remained for two years. In 1855 he was transferred to the First Cavalry, a new regiment of which Sumner was Colonel, Joe John- ston Lieutenant-Colonel, and Sedgwick Major. McClellan and many others who subsequently held important positions, were subordinates in this regiment. He was engaged in maintaining the peace in Kansas until the spring of 1857, and during the summer of that year he accompanied Colonel Sumner on an expedi- tion against the Cheyenne Indians. He was engaged in a sharp fight on Solo- mon's Fork of the Kansas, in which the Indians were defeated and compelled to beg for peace. In 1858 ho was engaged in the Utah expedition, and in the same year he crossed the plains to the northern boundary of Texas. In March, 1858, he had a successful fight with the Camanche Indians, for which he received the complimentary orders of Lieutenant-General Scott. He was stationed at Fort Smith, Arkansas, at the opening of the rebellion. He was appointed Captain in the Fourth United States Cavalry in March, 1861, and soon after that the troojjs at Fort Smith and neighboring posts were com- pelled to evacuate. They united in one column and marched through the buf- falo country to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. On the 8th of May they captured and paroled a force of Eebels sent in pursuit of them. Kansas City was occu- pied June 15th, and on the same day Captain Stanley was fired upon by Rebels, near Independence, Missouri, while canying a flag of truce. He moved on the expedition to Springfield; and joined General Lyon at Grand River. Spring- field was occupied July 12th. He was engaged in the capture of Forsythe; in the defeat of the Rebels at Dry Spring ; and in guarding the train at the battle of Wilson's Creek. On the retreat to Rolla he was in charge of the rear-guard. He participated in a skirmish, in which the Rebels were defeated, near Salem, Missouri, and in September, commanding his regiment, he joined General Fre- mont, at St. Louis. He marched in pursuit of Price, from Syracuse, and in November moved against Springfield. Captain Stanley was appointed Brigadier-General of volunteers in Novem- ber, 1861. He was ordered to St. Louis, and during the winter of 1861-2 was David S. Stanley. 797 a member of a Military commission. He moved with Pope's army down the Mississippi, March, 1862, and commanded the Second Division of that army at New Madrid and Island No. 10. He participated in the Fort Pillow expedition, and on the 22d of April joined General Halleck's army before Corinth. He was engaged in a skirmish at Monterey, in the battle of Farmington, and in the repulse of the Eebels before Corinth, May 28th. The Eebels evacuated Corinth on the 29th, and General Stanley was engaged in the pursuit to Booneville. During the months of June, July, and August he was in command of the troops on the Memphis and Charleston Eailroad. In the battle of luka he commanded one of Eosecrans's two divisions, and was specially commended in the official report. In the battle of Corinth, October 4th, his division lost many valuable officers and men. It sustained the terrible attack of the enemy on batteries Williams and Eobinett. General Stanley joined the Army of the Tennessee, under General Grant, at Grand Junction, in October; but in November he was relieved from duty there, and was ordered to report to General Eosecrans, commanding the Army of the Cumberland, who assigned him to the command of the cavalry of that army. On the 21st of November he was made Major-General of volunteers. On the 15th of December he skirmished with and defeated the Eebels at Frank- lin, Tennessee. He skirmished again at Nolinsville, and commanded the cav- alry in the battle of Stone Eiver. In this engagement the duty of the cavalry was very arduous. From the 26th of December until the 4th of January, 1863, the saddles were only removed to groom the horses, and then they were imme- diately replaced. The cavalry pursued the Eebels and skirmished with the rear- guard. General Stanley's command was again engaged at Bradyville, March 1st; at Snow Hill, April 2d; at Franklin, April 10th; and at Middleton, May 21st. In the Tullahoma campaign General Stanley was engaged at Shelbyville and Elk Eiver. He moved on an expedition to Huntsville in July. He crossed the Tennessee Eiver, in command of all the cavalry, on an exjJedition into Georgia, and on the 9th of September he skirmished at Alpine. General Stanley was absent on sick-leave, after the battle of Chickamauga, for two months; and upon returning he was assigned to the command of the First Division, Fourth Army Corps. He was stationed at Bridgeport, Alabama, until December, 1863, and then at Blue Springs, East Tennessee, until May, 1864. General Stanley was on the Atlanta campaign, under Sherman, from May 2d until August 25th, and was engaged at Eocky Face Eidge, Eesaca, New Hope Church, Kenesaw, Jonesboro', and Lovejoy Station. He commanded the Fourth Corps, by appointment of the President, from July, 1864, until the close of the war; and during Hood's raid upon Sherman's communications, in Octo- ber, he commanded two corps of the Army of the Cumberland. On the 27th of October he separated from Sherman's army, and camped in Coosa Valley, Ala- bama. He marched the Fourth Corps to Chattanooga, and thence to Pulaski, confronting Hood's army, which was then threatening Nashville and Middle Tennessee. He fell back through Columbia, and at Sjiring Hill was engaged with two corps of Hood's army. At the battle of Franklin, General Stanley 798 Ohio in the Wak. came ujjon the field just as a portion of the National line was captured by the Rebels. His timely arrival averted disaster ; and placing himself at the head of a brigade, he led a charge, which re-established the line. The soldiers fol- lowed him with enthusiasm, calling out, " Come on, men ; we can go wherever the General can." Just after retaking the line, and while passing toward the left, the General's horse was killed ; and no sooner did the General regain his feet, than he was struck bj' a musket-ball in the back of the neck. But he still remained on the field. This wound disabled him from further service until Jan- uary 24, 1865, when he was placed on duty in East Tennessee. In July lie moved with the Fourth Corps to Texas. He commanded the corps, and -the Middle District of Texas until mustered out, February 1, 1866. General Stanley enjoyed to the fullest extent the confidence of his superior officers, and General Thomas, in recommending him for promotion, says: "A more cool and brave commander would be a difficult task to find, and thouc;h he has been a participant in many of the most sanguinary engagements of the war, his conduct has, on all occasions, been so gallant and marked that it would almost be an injustice to him to refer to any isolated battle-field. I refer, there- foi-e, only to the battle of Franklin, Tennessee, Xoveinber 30, 1864, because it is the more recent, and one in which his gallantry was so marked as to merit the admiration of all who saw him. It was here that his personal bravery was more decidedly brought out, perhaps, than on any other field ; and the terrible destruction and defeat which disheartened and checked the fierce assaults of the enemy, is due more to his heroism and gallantry than to that of any other offi- cer on the field."* Generals Sherman and Grant most cordially indorse General Thomas's recommendation, and General Sheridan also adds his testimony, in favor of General Stanley. - The authorities at "Washington acted upon these tes- timonials, and rewarded General Stanley's gallantry with the Colonelcy of the Twenty-Second United States Infantry, and a Brevet Major-Generalship in the United States army. * Extract from a letter addre.'sed to the Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, dated Head-Quarters Military Division of Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee, September 14, 1865, and signed George H. Thomas, ilajor-General United States Army, commanding. GrEOKGE CkOOK. 799 MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE CROOK. /N BOEGE CEOOK wiis born in Montgomery County, near Dayton, Ohio, I -p September 8, 1828. He entered West Point in 1848, and graduated ^-" July 1, 1852. He was appointed Brevet Second-Lieutenant, and was assigned to the Fourth United States Infantry, then serving in California. He was engaged in many scouts and skirmishes in the Indian country, and was once severely wounded. He was promoted to Second-Lieutenant in 1853 ; to First- Lieutenant March 11, 1856, and tOyCaptain May 4, 1861. He left San Francisco for New York in August, 1861, and upon arriving was tendered the Colonelcy of the Thirty-Sixth Ohio Infantry. Ho accepted the position, and applied him- self to the work of thoroughly disciplining his regiment. Early in the spring of 1862 Colonel Crook was placed in command of the Tl(ird Brigade of the Army of West Virginia, and with this brigade, on the 24th of May, he defeated the Eebel General Heath, capturing all his artillery and many of his men. In July Colonel Crook was transferred to the Army of the Potomac, and with his command he took a prominent part in Pope's retreat, and in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam. For his services in those campaigns he was made Brigadier-General of volunteers, and was placed in command of the Kanawha Division, composed almost entirely of Ohio troops. He was again transferred to West Virginia, but he remained only a few weeks, during which time, under his direction, a Eebel camp was completely surprised and captured by Major Powell's command. In January, 1863, at the request of General Eosecrans, General Crook was transferred to the Army of the Cumberland, and upon the advance of that army he was assigned to the command of the Second Cavalry Division. He led this division throughout the ensuing campaign, and in the battle of Chickamauga. Immediately after that battle General Wheeler, with a force of cavalry, crossed the Tennessee Eiver with the intention of cutting communications northward from Chattanooga. General Crook was ordered by General Eosecrans "to pursue and destroy him." With twenty-five hundred* men he drove General Wheeler before bim, and in three battles routed and defeated him, capturing all his-artillery, and finally, after ten days' pursuit, driving him broken and disor- ganized across the Tennessee and Muscle Shoals. In these battles the use of the saber was first introduced into the cavalry of that army, and General Crook was thanked, in orders and privately, both by General Eosecrans and General Thomas, and was also recommended for promotion. General Crook was detached from the Department of the Cumberland in 800 Ohio in the Wak. . February, 1864, and was assigned to the command of the Third Division, Department of "West Virginia, then lying in the Kanawha Yalley. The column was increased by a cavalry force under General Averill, and by four regiments of inftxntry, drawn from the troops stationed along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The cavalry, under General Averill, commenced their movements from Camp Piatt on tl!(e 30th of April, and on the 2d of May the infantry comprising three brigades, under General Crook, marched from Payetteville, and on the morning of the 9th met the enemy in strong force at Cloyd Mountain, under command of General Jenkins. The position was well chosen on the crest of a hill, skirted by a small creek, difficult to cross on account of its muddy bottom. Directly in front was an open field about a quarter of a mile wide, every portion of which was swept by the enemy's artillery. In addition to all its natural advantages General Jenkins had greatly strengthened his position by fortifying. General Crook determined to attack, and directed Colonel White to move his brigade over the mountain, to turn the enemy's right and to charge his flank. The movement was successful, and as soon as White's guns were heard, the other two brigades moved to the attack in front. The Eebels lost two pieces of artillery, and nearly one thousand men killed, wounded and captured; among them General Jenkins, who was mortally wounded. The National loss was about seven hundred. General Crook continued his march, and encountered the Eebels again at New Eiver. After a light engagement the enemy was driven from his position, and two pieces of artillery and a large amount of ammunition were captured. General Crook moved on to Blackburg, and there learned that the cavalry had failed to execute its part of the campaign. Inter- cepted dispatches from General Lee reported that Grant had been repulsed in the Wilderness, and that Lee's victory was complete. Eations were exhausted, and the ambulances were loaded down with the wounded. General Crook decided to place himself in communication with the National lines, and the march of the column was directed toward Meadow Bluffs. Greenbrier Eiver was found to be too deep for fording, and by forty-eight hours of continuous and exhaustive labor the command was crossed on a single flatboat. Upon reaching Meadow Blufls information was received that General Hunter had been assigned to the command of the department, and General Crook's force was ordered to Staunton. The infantry reached Staunton on the 8th of June, after a march which had been one continuous skirmish, the Eebels con- testing every inch of the ground. The cavalry started two days after the infantry, and arrived on the 9th, its march being unobstructed. General Crook's division led the advance in General Hunter's movement upon Lynchburg, and covered the rear upon the retreat. At Craig Valley information was received that the enemy was moving on a jmrallel road, to strike the column at New- castle; and General Crook was ordered, with his division, to take the advance to guard the threatened point. The enemy, however, did not attack, and the retreat was continued uninterrupted up the Kanawha Valley. General Crook's command had been on foot almost constantly for two months; it had marched nearly nine hundred miles; it had crossed different ranges of the Alleghany Geoege Crook. 801 and Blue Eidge sixteen times; it had been continually on sliort rations, fre- quently . without any; it had fought and defeated the enemy in five severe engagements; it had participated in innumerable skirmislies; it had killed, wounded, and made prisoners, nearly two thousand Eebels; and it had captured ten pieces of artillery. It had not lost one man captured ; and neither a gun nor a wagon had fallen into the hands of the enemy; but nearly one-third of its number had been left dead on the field of battle, or had been carried away wounded. The Kanawha Division never'lost the right to be called the best in an army where all were good. General Crook was assigned to command the District of the Kanawha, embracing that section of country south of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from Grafton to Parkersburg. But the troops had hardly settled in camp when Early 8 raid across the Potomac made it necessary for them to move to repel the invasion. General Crook arrived at Harper's Ferry on the 15th of July, and was directed to assume command of the troops then lying near Hillsboro'. Upon the arrival of General Wright he, by virtue of seniority, assumed com- mand, and directed General Crook to move his troops across the Shenandoah at Snicker's Ferry. It was supposed then that the main body of Bai-ly's army had retired, leaving only the cavalry to guard the ford. General Crook forced a passage about two miles below the ferry, and occupied a strong position; hut soon discovei-ed that instead of Early having withdrawn his troops he was massing them, and evidently with the intention of making an attack. General Crook notified General Wright of his situation, but was directed to hold his position, and was promised re-enforceraents. Early pressed the line closely, but General Crook's men fought gallantly, being encouraged by the arrival. of the Sixth Corps on the opposite bank of the river. General Crook urged the commander of the Sixth Corps to cross the river immediately; but for some inexplicable reason "that officer declined to advance, and General Crook was compelled to choose between having his command cut to pieces and crossing the river under fire. He chose the latter, and the troops recrossed in good order, but suffered severely, losing nearly six hundred men killed, wounded, and captured. On the 20th of July General Crook was brevetted Major-General "for dis- tinguished gallantry and efficient services in the preceding campaign;" and being assigned to duty by the President in accordance with his brevet rank, he was placed in command of the forces of the Department of West Virginia, in the field, and was ordered to pursue Early up the Shenandoah Vallej', and to destroy everything that could be of service to the enemy. So complete was to be this destruction that, to quote from the order received, "a crow passing over the country would be obliged to carry his rations -vrith him." General Crook remonstrated against this plan, stating that his command was much too small to execute successfully these orders. The Army of West Virginia, as General Crook's command was styled, had a numerical strength of little more than ten thousand men. It consisted of two cavalry divisions, each comprising two small brigades; and of three infantry divisions, each bomprising two brigades. The Vol. 1.— 51. 802 Ohio in the War. cavalry, much disorganized, worn out by long marches, poorly equipped, wretchedly mounted, and armed with inferior weapons, was almost worthless. Exception, however, should be made to Colonel Powell's brigade of Averill's division, but this brigade owed its efficiency solely to the skill, energy, and courage of its commander. A portion of the infantry was made up of the debris of camp and rendezvous; and one provisional regiment of eleven hundred men was composed of detachments from fifty-one different regiments. In addition to this it would probably have been impossible to have found a single soldier completely equipped; many were almost naked, and fully one-third were bare- foot. It was in vain to hope for success under such circumstances; but General Crook's orders were peremptory. On the 23d of July there was some skirmish- ing, and on the 24th the enemy appeared in force. General Crook's command made a stand, but the enemy was greatly superior in numbers. The trains were moved out, and slowly and deliberately the troops fell back to Harper's Ferry. General Sheridan was now transferred to the Shenandoah Valley, and under him the Army of the Shenandoah was organized. The Army of West Virginia was placed on the extreme left, and moved with Sheridan's forces to Cedar Creek, and after several days' skirmishing, fell back, with the entire army, to Halltown. Several reconnoissances were made by General Crook's command while the army lay at Halltown. These were attended with considerable loss, but were uniformly successful. On the Ist of September the Army of the Shenandoah again moved forward, and after the fight at Berryville went into camp for two weeks near Summit Point. General Crook had been assigned, meantime, to the command of the Department of West Virginia, and he exerted hiniself to the utmost in making the Army of West Virginia efficient. The much-needed supplies were issued, recruits were brought up from hospitals, and the work of drilling and disciplining went on rapidly. On the 19th of Septem- ber the Army of the Shenandoah moved from its lines, with the Army of West Virginia on the right. At the battle of Opequan the Army of West Virginia was at first placed in reserve, but it was soon ordered forward, and by a vigor- ous charge turned the enemy's flank, and insured victory. In this battle Gen- eral Crook's command lost nine hundred men killed and wounded. At the battle of Fisher's Hill the Army of West Virginia executed a skillful flank movement, and, coming down upon the enemy's left and rear, carried everything before it. Eighteen pieces of artillery and many prisoners were captured. General Crook's entire loss was less than three hundred men. For gallant con- duct at the battles of Opequan and Fisher's Hill General Crook was recom- mended by General Sheridan, after the dose of the war, for the rank of Brevet Major-General United States Army. The march was continued up the Valley, and the cavalry advanced as far as Staunton. On the 6th of October the army commenced its return march, and on the 11th it went into camp near Middletown. At Cedar Creek General Crook's command occupied the portion of the line between the Winchester Pike and the river, on the left of the army. General Sheridan went to Washington, leaving General Wright in command of the army; and General Crook was George Crook 803 engaged in strengthening his line, particularly his left and rear, which he eon- Bidered most exposed. General Crook called General Wright's attention to the fact that the fords of the Shenandoah, below the left of the army, were not guarded. It was agreed that they should be strongly picketed by cavalry, but on the night of the 18th of October a force of Eebels crossed at the fords men- tioned, about two miles below the extreme left of the infantry picket-line, and before daybreak on the 19th made a furious attack on the National lines, strik- ing an advanced division before the men were awake, and capturing a battery before a shot could be fired. The left was driven back in confusion ; but a single brigade of Hayes's division checked the enemy for a moment, and gave the troops on the right time to form. About nine o'clock the Eebel advance was checked, and about eleven o'clock an attack was repulsed. Preparations were made for an attack in return, when General Sheridan arrived on the field. His presence did much to restore confidence, and about four o'clock P. M. his lines charged the enemy, and drove him in confusion through Middletown, and over Cedar Creek. Many prisoners, forty-nine pieces of artillery, and a large number of wagons were captured ; and twenty -four pieces of artillery, lost in the morn- ing, were retaken. General Crook's command lost over one thousand men ; more than half of these were captured. General Ci-ook was promoted to full Major-General, and about the Ist of January, 1865, his army of West Virginia went into winter-quarters along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The General established his head-quarters at Cumberland, Maryland, and was engaged in the duties incident to a department commander. About half-past two o'clock on the morning of the 21st of February a band of seventy picked men, under Lieutenant McNeil, of guerrilla notoriety, crossed the Potomac three or four miles above Cumberland. The advance-guard of this party, clothed in United States uniform, came upon the cavalry picket about two miles from town, and being challenged, promptly answered, "Friends;" representing themselves as a party of National cavalry returning from a scout. While this explanation was being made the main force came up and instantly captured the entire picket-line. The infantry pickets, a mile nearer town, were disposed of in the same manner. The party rode into town, and a portion of them went to General Crook's head-quarters. The sentry challenged; they replied, "Eelief; " and one man advanced as if to receive instructions, but instead, presented his revolver, and the sentry surrendered. The negro watchman was compelled to conduct the party to the General's room. He was captured, placed on a horse, and then the party set out on its return, having been in the town less than ten minutes. So rapidly and so quietly was the capture effected, that, had not one of the staff, four of whom occupied a room on the opposite side of the hall from General Crook, been awake, the affair would probably not have been discovered for several hours. This officer, hearing a slight movement in the General's room, and thinking he might be unwell, crossed the hall and found the room vacant. His suspicions were aroused, and throwing up the window he heard the clatter of hoofs, and saw the party disappearing down the street. The alarm was instantly given, and parties were started in pursuit, but they 804 Ohio in the Wak. were unable to recapture the prisoners. General Crook was exchanged on the 20th of March, and he again assumed command of the Department of West Virginia. On the next day, however, he was directed to report to General Grant, and was assigned to the command of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, with orders to report to General Sheridan. General Crook participated in all the movements of Sheridan's cavalry nntil the close of the war, and in the eleven days preceding General Lee's sur- render, his division lost one-third of its number in killed and wounded alone. When General Sheridan was assigned to a command in the South-West, General Crook was placed in command of the Cavalry Corps, which he retained until relieved, at his own request, about the 1st of July. In August General Crook was ordered to report to General Schofield, in the Department of North Caro- lina. He was assigned to the command of the District of Wilmington, and ho remained in that position until honorably mustered out of the volunteer service on the 15th of January, 1866. MAJOR-GENERAL WAGER SWAYNE. WAGER SWATITB, eldest son of the Hon. K H. Swayne, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was born at Co- lumbus, Ohio, about the year 1835. At the age of seventeen he entered Yale College, where he graduated with credit, after considerable interruption on account of ill health ; and from that time until the breaking out of the war, he devoted himself to the study and practice of law in his native city. In the summer of 1861 Governor Dennison offered him the position of Major in the Forty-Third Ohio Infantry. He assisted in organizing the regi- ment at Mount Vernon, and accompanied it to the field in February, 1862. The principal part of the first summer was spent at Bear Creek and Clear Creek, in the vicinity of Corinth. The regiment was engaged in the battles of luka and Corinth, and in the latter the Colonel of the regiment was killed. Major Swayne had, in the meantime, been promoted to the Lieutenant-Colonelcy, and he now succeeded to the Colonelcy. In December, the regiment went into camp at Bolivar, Tennessee, where the winter was spent. After a brief raid into- Northern Alabama, under General Dodge, the Forty-Third was stationed at Memphis. Here, for nine months. Colonel Swayne held the ofSce of Provost- Marshal, and discharged the duties to the satisfaction of all loyal citizens. After the removal of the i-egiment to Prospect, in Middle Tennessee, the order in regard to veteran furloughs was received, and Colonel Swayne's command was not slow in re-enlisting. Wager Swayne. 805 Soon aftei" retui-ning to the field, the regiment moved on the Atlanta cam- paign, and during all the marches and battles, Colonel Swayne conducted him- self like a true soldier. At Eesaca he led his men across a bridge, fully exposed to Eebel sharp-shooters, and stationed them in an advanced position, with but one or two casualties; and on all occasions he cheerfully shared the dangers and privations of the private soldier. During the interval of rest after the capture of Atlanta, he commanded a brigade, but upon the march to the sea he accom- panied his regiment. He moved on the campaign of the Carolinas, and at the Salkahatchie was wounded severely in the right leg. The limb was ampu- tated, and for some time Colonel Swayne was disabled for duty. He was pro- moted to Brigadier- General, and subsequently to Major-General, and in July, 1865, he reported for duty at Montgomery, Alabama, as Assistant Commissioner of Eefugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Here, through the manifold troubles of the reorganization, General Swayne continued to bear himself no less honorably than in the field. Eecognizing clearly for what he had fought, and fully resolved that no act of his should help to cheat the nation out of the fruits of its victory, he steadily cast his infiuence in favor of impartial justice and equality before the law for all. The efforts of the party which sought to give these principles practical recognition in the re- organization, found in him a firm supporter. He was prominent in their public meetings, and soon became a civil as well as a military power in Alabama. 806 Ohio in the Wab. MAJOR-GENERAL ALEXANDER M. McCOOK. ALBXANDBE M. McCOOK was born in Columbiana County, Ohio, on the 22d of April, 1831. He removed with his parents to Carroll County, in 1832, and at the age of sixteen was appointed a cadet at West Point. He graduated July 1, 1852, with a standing which entitled him to appointment as Brevet Second-Lieutenant in the Third Infantry. He reported for duty at Newport Barracks, September 30th, and on the 14th of May, 1853, was ordered to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. He joined company E, of the Third Infantry, in August, 1853, and in June, July, and August of the following year, he was engaged in the campaign against the Apaches. He was pi'omoted to Second -Lieutenant on the 30th of June, 1854, and in the follo:wing September he reported for duty at Fort Union, New Mexico. In February, 1855, Lieuten- ant McCook was appointed Commissary in a campaign against the Utah Indians and other tribes. He served in this campaign until September, participating in the actions at Sawatchie Pass and the head-waters of the Arkansas. On the 30th of September he reported for duty at Cantonment Buryuni, New Mexico. In March, 1856, he was appointed chief guide of an expedition against the Indians of Arizona, and he also served as the Adjutant-General of the command. He participated in the battle of Gila Eivcr, and in all the skirmishes of the cam- paign until October, when he again reported at Cantonment Buryuni. He was in command of that post from July to October, 1857, and in December of the same year he received sixty days' leave. He reported at the Military Academy as Instructor of Infanti-y Tactics, January 14, 1858, and remained there until April 22, 1861, when he was ordered to Columbus, Ohio, as mustering and disbursing officer. He was here appointed Colonel of the First Ohio Infantry, a three-months' regiment, and on the 29th of April he assumed command of the Ohio Camp at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In May he marched with his regiment to the defense of Washington City. Colonel McCook was promoted to Captain in the Third United States Infantry, May 14, 1861. He participated in the affair at Vienna, Virginia, June 17th, and he commanded the First Ohio in the battle of Bull Eun, July 21, 1861, receiving commendation for the handsome manner in which he handled his regiment. In August Colonel McCook was again appointed Colonel of the First Ohio, now a three-years' regiment, and in December he was commissioned Brigadier-General of volunteers. He reported for duty at Louisville, and on the 14th of October assumed command of the advance of the army at Nolin Eiver, Kentucky. He organized, equipped, and instructed the Second Division, Army of the Ohio, and in February, Alexander M. McCook. 807 1862, led that division in Buell's advance against Nashville. With the rest of Buell's army he next marched across Tennessee toward Savannah, and on the 7th of April General McCook commanded his division in the last day's action at the hattle of Pittsburg Landing, again handling his trooj)s so as to receive the approval of his superiors. He commanded the reserve of the Army of the Ohio ic the advance upon and siege of Corinth. His division, however, was engaged at Bridge's Creek and at Seratt's Hill. In June General McCook marched with his division into East Tennessee. On the 17th of July he was appointed Major- General of volunteers. On the withdrawal of the army to Louisville, General McCook' commanded a column, composed of the Second Division, Army of the Ohio, and General E. B. Mitehel's division. Army of the Mississippi. In the advance from Louisville he commanded the First Corps of the Army of the Ohio, consisting of Rousseau's and Jackson's divisions. With these he brought on the battle of Perryville, contrary to the spirit of his instructions, and before the army was prepared to sustain him. The commanding General, in his official report, censured him for having thus undertaken a task beyond his strength, but left him in command of this corps during the pursuit of Bragg to Crab Orchard, Kentucky. Under General Eosecrans, who now assumed command of the army, General McCook led his troops to Nashville in the latter part of October. On the 26th of December he moved with the army against the Rebels at Murfreesboro', and in the battle of Stone Eiver he commanded the right wing, which was so suddenly routed and crushed by Bragg's onset. General Eosecrans here censured the formation of his lines. He displayed, as he always did, fine personal bravery, but few after this battle believed in his capacity to handle so large a command. General Eosecrans, however, retained him, and in December, 1863, in the reorganization of his forces, assigned General McCook to the Twentieth Corps, Army of the Cumberland, which he led through the TuUahoma campaign, par- ticipating in the action of Liberty Gap, and at skirmishes at Tullahoma, Elk Elver, and Winchester. General McCook continued to command the corps in the Chattanooga campaign, and in the battle of Chickamauga, where again his lines were broken, crushed, and driven in wild retreat toward Chattanooga.* He was now relieved from command, October 6, 1863. This disaster, added to the others which had occurred under his management, led to much public and official censure. To relieve himself. General McCook asked for a Court of In- quiry. The request was granted, and Generals Hunter, Cadwallader, and Wads- worth, and Colonel Schriver were detailed for the Court. The following is an extract from the findings and opinions in General McCook's case : "It appears from the investigation that Major-General McCook's command, on the 19th of September, 1863, the first day of the battle of Chickamauga, consisted of Sheridan's and Davia'a divisions, and of Negley's temporarily, .Johnson's having been detached to Thomas's command. The evidence shows that General McCook did his whole duty on that day with activity and intel- ligence. Early on the 20th of September General McCook had under his command the divisions of Sheridan and Davis, the latter only thirteen lo fourteen hundred strong. . . . The posting *For the details of this, which relieve General McCook from a large share of the blame, see ante. Life of Eosecrans. 808 Ohio 12,- tiih Wak. of these troops was not satisfactory to the commanding General, who, in person, directed several changes between eight and ten A. M. . . . The Court deem it unnecessary to express an opinion as to the relative merits of the position taken by General McCook, and that subsequently ordered to be taken by the commanding General ; but it is apparent from the testimony that Gen- eral McCook was not responsible for the delay in forming the new line on that occasion. It fur- ther appears that General McCook was impressed with the vital importance of keeping well closed to the left, and maintaining a compact center, but he was ordered to hold the Dry Valley Eoad; this caused the line to be attenuated, as stated in the testimony of the commanding General, who says that its length was greater than he thought when first assumed. It is shown, too, that the cavalry did not obey General McCook's orders. The above facts, and the additional one, that the small force at General McCook's disposal was inadequate to defend again.st greatly superior numbers the long line ha.-itily taken, under instructions, relieve General McCook entirely from the responsibility for the reverse which ensued. It is fully established that General McCook did everything he could to rally and hold his troops after the line was broken." The design of this report, which so carefully evaded the point on which the whole question turned (in failing to inquire whether, in this formation of the line which the commanding General disapproved the moment he saw it, General McCook had displayed the capacity necessary in one holding such a position), was very apparent. But it failed to accomplish its purpose, either with the War Department or the people. None questioned the General's bravery or his desire to do all he knew how to repair disasters, but he was never again trusted in any position of high responsibility. In November, 1864, he was assigned to some (mostly) unimportant duties in the Middle Division, and on the 12th of February, 1865, he was placed in command of the Eastern District of Arkansas. On the 6th of the following May he was ordered to represent the War Department in the investigation of Indian affairs, with a committee from both Houses of Congress, in the State of Kansas and in the Territories of New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. On the 21st of October, 1865, he was mustered out as Major-General of volunteers, retaining his rank in the regular service, in which he soon rose, by regular gradations, to a Lieutenant-Colonelcy.* He has received the following brevet commissions in the regular army: Brevet Major, for "gallant and meritorious services" at the battle of Bull Eun, July 21, 1861; Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, for "gallant and meritorious services" in the capture of Nashville, March 3, 1862; Brevet Colonel, for "gallant and meritorious services" at the battle of Pittsburg Landing, April 7, 1862; Brevet * General McConk's political views before the w.-ir were Southern and Democratic. Much complaint once existed concerning his nnplea.'ound General Fearing, now at the age of twenty-seven years, was mustered out of the service, having, as a private, taken part in the first, and as com- mander of a brigade, in the last important battle of the war. 942 Ohio in the War. BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL HEMY F. DEVOL HENET P. DBVOL was born near Waterford, Washington County, Ohio, in 1831. At the age of nineteen he began to speculate in the South, and was in New Orleans in May, 1861. With much difiSculty be reached the North. Soon after arriving he commenced recruiting a company, and in August he was mustered into the service as Captain of Company A, Thirty- Sixth Ohio Infantry. He entered the field in West Virginia, and was engaged at Carnifex Ferry, and in the following spring at Lewisburg, when Crook's brigade routed the Eebels under Heath. In August, 1862, the regiment joined the Army of the Potomac at Warrenton Junction, and Captain Devol was engaged in the battle which soon ensued. He was present at South Mountain and Antietam, and in September he accompanied the regiment to Clarksburg, where he was promoted to Major, and soon after to Lieutenant-Colonel. He was transferred, with the regiment, to the West, joining the Army of the Cumberland at Carthage, Ten- nessee. At Chickamauga he was in Turchin's brigade, Eeynold's division. Four- teenth Corps, and was warmly engaged. For gallantry in this battle he was made Colonel. He participated in a reconnoissance in front of Chattanooga in which he was slightly wounded ; and was also in the affair at Brown's Ferry. He was again transferred to West Virginia with his command, and after an ex- pedition against the encm3-'s communications by the Virginia and Tennessee Eailroad, in which he was engaged at Cloj'd's Mountain, he joined General Hunter on the Lynchburg raid. Then followed a series of battles with Early's force at Snicker's Ford and Kearnstown. In the campaign of the valley Colo- nel Devol was engaged at Berryville and Opequan, where he was given a bri- gade, which he commanded during subsequent operations, including the battle of Cedar Creek. This was the end of his active field service. He was mustered out at Wheeling on the 31st of July, 1865, and soon after was brevetted Briga- dier-General, "for gallant and meritorious services during the war." During four years he had but twenty-five days' leave of absence, and never missed a march, scout, skirmish, or battle in which the regiment was engaged. Israel Gaerabd. 943 BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL ISRAEL GARRARD. ISEAEL GAEEARD was born in Cincinnati, and is the eldest son of Jeptha D. Garrard and Sarah Bella Ludlow, his wife. He is a descend- ant on the paternal side of James Garrard, one of the earliest settlers and Governors of Kentucky; and on the maternal side of Israel Ludlow, one of the original proprietors of the town site of Cincinnati. He was a pupil of Ormsby M. Mitchel; afterward was student at Cary's Academy and at Bethanj'- College in West Vy-ginia. He read law with Judge Swayne at Columbus, and graduated in the Law School at Cambridge. Being fond of an adventurous life, he sought pleasure and occupation in the West, and spent much time in Missouri, Texas, and Minnesota. In May, 1856, he married the eldest daughter of George Wood, a distinguished lawyer in New York. The war found him deeply engaged in property interests in Minnesota. During the siege of Cincinnati he served on the staff of Major McDowell, commanding the organization of the city and State forces. On the 18th of Sep- tember he was appointed Colonel of the Seventh Ohio Cavalry, and from that time until the close of the war he was absent from the field but eight days, and then his command was in camp recruiting. He commanded a brigade much of the time, and after the capture of Stoneman on the Macon raid before Atlanta, he commanded a division. He was promoted to Brigadier-General by brevet on the 21st of June, 1865, and on the 4th of Julj^ of the same year he was mus- tered out. On taking leave of his regiment he was presented with a cavalry standard, on which was embroidered the following epitome of his service : Carter Eaid, Button Hill, Monticello, West's Gap, BuflHngton Island, Cumberland Gap, Blue Springs, Blountsville, Eogersville, Morristown, Cheek's Cross Eoads, Bean's Sta- tion, Dandridge, Massy Creek, Fair Garden, Cynthiana, Atlanta, Duck Eiver, Nashville, Plantersville, Selma, and Columbus. On a plate on the staff is an inscription, expressing the regiment's confidence in him as a leader and its re- spect for him as a patriot and a gentleman. General Garrard is now enjoying the quiet retirement of agricultural life . at Frontenac, on Lake Pepin, Minnesota. 944 Ohio ik the Wae. BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL DANIEL McCOY. DANIEL McCOY was born at Eainsboro', Highland County, Ohio, of humble parentage. He received bnt little more than an ordinary common-school education, and on the Ist of June, 1861, he was sworn into the service as a private soldier. The company was assigned to the Twenty- Fourth Ohio Infantry. Private McCoy was appointed Third-Sergeant, and in that capacity he participated in the battles of Greenbriar and Cheat Mountain. The regiment was transferred to the West, and Sergeant McCoy was promoted to First-Sergeant. In the battle of Stone Eiver his company officers were dis- abled, and he commanded the company flirough the principal part of the battle. Sergeant McCoj' was struck in the knee, but he immediately struggled to his feet, and remained on the iield until the close of the battle. For gallantry upon this occasion he was promoted to Second-Lieutenant. He was soon promoted to First-Lieutenant, and he continued in command of the company until after the battle of Chickamauga. In that engage- ment, he received nine bullet holes through hi^ clothing, and at last he was struck in the leg by a minnie ball, which brought him down. He received a short leave, and soon started again, crutch in hand, for his command. By order of General Sherman, he was placed in charge of the exchange barracks at Nash- ville, where he remained until June 24, 1864, being promoted in the mean time to the rank of Captain. He was mustered out at the expiration of his term of service, but he immedi- ately commenced organizing the One Hundred and Seventj'-Fifth Ohio Infantry, and on the 10th of October, 1864, he returned to the field in command of the reg- iment, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The regiment went on dutj' at Columbia, Tennessee, and Lieutenant-Colonel MeCoj- was placed in command of the post. Here he remained until the advance of Hood's army; and upon the retreat of the LTnion army, Lieutenant-Colonel McCoj- was charged with the duty of covering the withdrawal of the troops. This he did with skill, and by rare good management ho was able to rejoin his command. In the battle of Fi-anklin, Lieutenant-Colonel McCoj' held the regiment finlilj' to its placo, and put it tlirough the manual of arms under fire. He received three severe wounds, and was borne from the field insensible. After the battle of Nashville Lieutenant- Colonel McCoj- received a leave, and spent a short time in Ohio recuperating his health. He was recommended for promotion to the rank of Brevet Brigadier-General by General George H. Thomas and by General Rousseau. The Tennessee Legislature made a similar recommendation, which was approved and forwarded by Governor Brownlow, W. p. RiCHAKDSON. 945 and accordingly Lieutenant-Colonel McCoy was appointed Brigadier-General of volunteers by brevet, "for gallant and meritorious services during the war, par- ticularly in the battles before JSTashville, Tennesse." General McCoy was now but twenty-four years of age, being one of the youngest oflScers of his rank in the army. He was assigned to the command of the forces at Columbia, Tennessee, where he remained until July 8, 1865, when he was honorably mustered out of service, having passed through twenty- seven battles, having been wounded severely five times, and having been struck in hiis clothes and person fourteen times. After muster-out he went into busi- ness at Wheaton, Du Page County, Illinois. BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL W. P. RIGHARDSOK WP. EICHAEDSON was born in Washington County, Pennsylva- nia, May 25, 1824, and was educated at Washington College, in that * county. In 1846 he enlisted as a private in the Third Ohio In- fantry, and served out the term of his enlistment in the Mexican Wilr. He was admitted to the bar of Cadiz, Ohio, in August, 1852, and in 1853 he commenced the practice of the law at Woodsfield, Monroe County, Ohio. In 1855 he was elected prosecuting attorney, and he continued to hold that office until he en- tered the service in 1861. He was also, at the breaking out of the rebellion, a Brigadier- General in the Ohio Militia. Immediately after the attack on Fort Sumter, ho raised two companies, but Ohio's quota was filled before he could get them accepted. They, however,, changed the term of their enlistment fiwm three months to three years, and were assigned to the Twenty-Fifth Ohio Infantry, of which regiment W. P. Eichardson was appointed Major. On the 10th of June, 1861, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and with that rank ho went to the field. On the 10th of May, 1862, he was promoted to the Colonelcy of his regiment. On the 2d of May, 1863, he was wounded severely through the right shoulder at the battle of Chancellorsville. This wound deprived Colonel Eichardson of the use of his right arm, which he has never fully recovered. He was not on duty again until Januarj'^, 1864, when he was detailed as president, of a court-martial at Camp Chase. On the 11th of February he was placed in command of that post, where he remained until the last of August, 1865. In the fall of 1864, Colonel Eichardson was elected Attorney-General of the State of Ohio, and it was his intention to retire from the army; but upon the representations and solicitations of Governor Brough ho remained in the service, and in December, 1864, he was brevetted Brigadier-General. In September, Vol. L— 60. 946 Ohio in the War. 1865, General Eichardson joined his command in South Carolina, and was placed over a sub-district, with head-quarters at Columbia. He was afterward placed in command of the District of East South Carolina, with head-quarters at Darlington. As a commanding officer General Eichardson possessed the confidence and esteem of his men. His service in detached positions has been frequently com- mended, and during his five years service no charges or complaint of any kind has ever been made against him. BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL G. F. WILES. GF. "WILES entered the service on the 26th of October, 1861, as First-Lieutenant in the Seventy-Eighth Ohio Infantry. He soon be- • came the best drill ofBcer in the regiment, and in May, 1862, was ap- pointed regimental drill-master. He was promoted to Captain in May, 1862, and soon after was detailed by General John A. Logan to command the division engineer corps. The long marches and tedious sieges in which the army was engaged made his position very arduous, but he displayed spirit and ability, and won the confidence and applause of all. On the morning of the 16th of May, 1863, he received his commission as Lieutenant-Colonel. He immediately took command of the regiment, and an hour later he was in the thickest of the fight at Champion Hills. His coolness, skill, and bravery in that engagement were particularlj- noticed by his com- manding officer. He was present at the siege of Vicksburg, and contributed his share to the capture of the city. He accompanied General Sherman to Jackson, but the communications being threatened, he was ordered to Clinton to hold the place against any force that might come against him. He had barely posted his command when he was attacked by superior numbers, but the enemy was repulsed. He was promoted to Colonel, September 1, 1863, and was in command of the regiment from that time until July 22, 1864, when he took charge of a bri- gade, which he continued to lead most of the time until, the close of the war. He was brevetted Brigadier-General for meritorious conduct. He has participated in the following battles : Pittsburg Landing, Corinth, Bolivar, luka, Thompson's Hill, Eaymond, Jackson, Chainpion Hills, Bushy Mountain, Kenesaw Mountain, Atlanta July 2l8t, 22d, and 28th, Jonesboro', Savannah, and Pocotaligo. He was mustered out July 15, 1865. General Wiles possesses a stentorian voice, and is of pleasing personal ap- pearance; being over six feet tall, well proportioned, erect, and eminently mili- tary in form and feature. Thomas M. Vikcent. 947 BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL THOMAS M. VINCENT. THOMAS M. VINCENT was born in Green Township, near Cadiz, Harrison County, Ohio, November 15, 1832. At the age of sixteen he entered West Point, and in 1853 graduated eleventh, in a class of fifty- five. While at the Militar}'' Academy he passed through the grades of private, corporal, sergeant. Lieutenant, and Captain of Cadet Infantry Battalion, and during the academic year 1852-53 he was Chief Cadet Officer of Cavalry. Among his classmates from Ohio were James B. McPherson, Joshua W. Sill, William S. Smith, William McE. Dye, Philip H. Sheridan, Elmer Otis, and Eobert F. Hunter. His first service was against the Indians in Florida, sometimes with hie regiment, and sometimes on the staff, as Assistant Adjutant-General, Assistant Quartermaster, and Assistant Commissary. He was stationed at Port Hamil- ton and Plattsburg, New York, from December, 1856, until August, 1859, when he was detached as Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology at West Point. In 1861 he served against the rebellion in the Army of North -Eastern Vir- ginia as Assistant Adjutant-General, and was engaged in the battle of BullEun, July 21, 1861. He was in the War Department, Adjutant-General's oflSce, in charge of the recruiting service for the regular army until June, 1862, and after that was in charge of the organization, recruiting, and miscellaneous business of the volunteer armies of the United States. The following is the record of his promotion: Second-Lieutenant, Second Artillery, October 8, 1853. First-Lieutenant, Second Artillery, October 20, 1855. Captain, Eighteenth Infantry, May 14, 1861 (declined). ■Regimental Quartermaster, Second Artillery, June 1, 1861. Brevet Captain, Btaff (Assistant Adjutant-General), July 3, 1861. Captain, staff (As-sistant Adjutant-General), August 3, 1861. Major, staff Assistant-Adjutant-General), July 17, 1862." Captain, Second Artillery, July 25, 1863 ; vacated regimental commission, by resignation, June 11, 1864. Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, United States Army, for " faithful and meritorious services during the war," September 24, 1864. Brevet Colonel, United States Army, for " faithful and meritorious services during the war," September 24, 1864. Krevel Brigadier-General, United States Army, for " faithful and meritorious services during the war," March 13, 1865. 948 Ohio in the Wae. BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL J. S. JONES. JOHN S. JONES waa born in Champaign County, Ohio, February 12, 1836. Ho was educated at the Ohio Weslej-an University, and after gradu- ating studied law with Judge Powell of Delaware, and was admitted to the bar in June, 1857. He was elected prosecuting attorney in 1860, but in 1861 he resigned his office and enlisted as a private in the Fourth Ohio Infantry. He was soon appointed First-Lieutenant, to rank from April 16, 1861. Upon the reorganization of the regiment for the three years' service, Lieu- tenant Jones retained his position, and with his regiment entered the field in West Virginia. He was at Eich Mountain and at Eomney. At the latter place he j)articipated in a charge made by the infantry through the bridge, and upon a batterj- posted on the opposite side. In March, 1862, he was detailed upon the Staff of General Shields, and was by the General's side when he was wounded at Winchester. At Mount Jackson he received the special thanks of General Shields for leading a cavalry charge against Ashby. He participated in the en- gagements at Front Eoyal and Port Ecpublio, and finally joined his regiment at Harrison's Landing, on the 22d of July, 1862. He was promoted to Captain on the 5th of September, 1862, and was next engaged in the battle of Fredericks- burg. At Chancellorsville he acted as Major of the regiment, and was specially mentioned in brigade orders. He was engaged at Gettysburg, at Bristow Station, and at Mine Eun, where he was wounded. On the 22d of January, 1864, he was detailed for recruiting service, but he rfejoined the regiment in May, and was present at the North Anna Eiver, at Prospect Hill, and at Cold Harbor. He was mustered out with the regiment on the 21st of June, 1864. He was nominated by the Union Convention for the Legislature, but he declined the nomination, and was mustered into the service as Colonel of the One Hundred and Seventy-Fourth Ohio Infantry, on the 21st of September, 1864. The regiment entered the field in the South-west, and was engaged at Overall's Creek near Murfreesboro', and in the battle of Wilkison's Pike. In this latter engagement it was complimented by General Eosseau in 8j)ecial orders. Colonel Jones was transferred with his command to the East, and after par- ticipating in the battle of Kingston, joined General Sherman at Goldsboro'. Ho remained with Sherman's army until after the surrender of Johnston, when ho was ordered to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was President of an Ex- amining Board for a time, and then was in command of the post, and then of a brigade. He was brevetted Brigadier-General on the 27th of June, 1865, for gallant and meritorious conduct during the war, and discharged at ColurabuB, July 7, 1865. Stephen B. Yeoman. 949 BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL STEPHEN B. YEOMAN. THIS officer is a native of Washington, Payette County, Ohio. His gi-eat- gi-andfather served with credit as .Captain in the Eevolution, and his grandfather as First-Lieutenant in the War of 1812. At the age of fifteen Stephen B. Yeoman shipped as a sailor. He visited New Zealand, and different points in South America, Asia, and Africa. After enjoying many adventures and undergoing many hardships, he finally returned to the United States. At the outbreak of the rebellion he volunteered as a private in Company F, Twenty-Second Ohio Infantry. He was appointed First-Sergeant of his com- pany, and with this rank he made a three months' campaign under Eosecrans in West Virginia. At the expiration of his term of service he immediately commenced recruiting, and he returned to the field in September, 1861, as Cap- tain of Company A, Fifty-Fourth Ohio Infantry. Captain Yeoman was slightly wounded fn the breast and left leg at the battle of Pittsburg Landing; at Eus- eel's House he was again wounded in the left leg; on the picket-line he was wounded in the arm and abdomen; and in the battle of Arkansas Post his right arm was struck by a shell, and amputation became necessary. For distinguished services he was promoted to Major, but his wound prevented him from return- ing to the field, and accordingly he declined promotion and resigned. He was appointed Captain in the Veteran Eeserve Corps, and in May, 1864, he was made Colonel of the Forty-Third United States Colored Infanti-y. He was detailed at Camp Casey as Superintendent of Eecruiting Service, and Chief Mustering Officer of the l^orth-Bast District of Virginia. He joined his regi- ment November 29, 1864, on the Bermuda Front, and led it in all subsequent engagements until the capture of Eichmond. During a portion of the time he commanded the Third Brigade, First Division, Twenty-Fifth Corps. He was brevetted Brigadier-General "for gallant and meritorious services during the war." General Yeoman has participated in the following engagements : Pittsburg Landing, Eussel's House, Basel's House, Corinth, July, 1862, Holly Springs, July, 1862, Chickasaw Bayou, Arkansas Post, Siege of Vicksburg, and capture of Eichmond ■ and in at least fifteen skirmishes. He possesses by nature many of the qualities necessary for a soldier, and among them his personal bravery is W no means the least. His empty sleeve will ever be touching evidence of his loyalty and courage, and his sure title to the regard of his fellow-citizens. 950 Ohio in the Wab. BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL F. W. MOORE. AT the first call for volunteers in April, 1861, the subject of the present sketch assisted in organizing company G of the Fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was chosen Second-Lieutenant of the same company. With the Fifth Ohio Infantry he went to, Western Virginia, and subsequently to the Army of the Potomac — in the meantime being promoted to First -Lieu- tenant and Captain. In the spring of 1862, with his regiment, he took part in the campaign of Banks and Shields in the Valley of Virginia. For his conduct in the battle of Port Ecpublic, the G-overnor appointed him Colonel of the Eighty-Third Infantry. At that time (July, 1862), he was about the youngest officer of the grade of Colonel in the army, having just attained the age of twenty -one. In September following he led his regiment into Kentucky to resist the Eebel forces of Kirby Smith. In November his regiment became part of General Sherman's army operating against Vicksburg; and took part in the first assault of the works in December, 1862; and subsequently in the siege and final assault of that place. His conduct throughout the whole was such as to elicit the commendation of the General ofiicers in command. The record of his career, from the fall of Vicksburg to the end of the year 1864, shows him to have been engaged in all the campaigns of the Department of the Gulf, and in the Red River expedition under General Banks. Part of the time he commanded the Fourth Division, Thirteenth Army Corps. Earlj" in the spring of 1865 Colonel Moore was placed in command of the Third Brigade, Second Division, Thirteenth Army Corps — a new organization which composed a part of the army under General Canby, operating against the defenses of the City of Mobile. In that campaign General C. C. Andrews speaks of him in a voluntary recommendation to the War Department as follows : "In the campaign of Mobile — involving severe marches, the siege of the works at Blakely, Alabama, and final taking of them by assault — he, as a brigade com- mander, was equal to all his duties. He was always punctual, reliable, ener- getic; never cast down or despondent on account of obstacles, but addressed himself to critical and difficult duties with the alacrity of a true soldier; and in the triumphant assault of the enemy's works on the 9th instant, his personal conduct was gallant and praiseworthy." He was made Brevet Brigadier-General, and sent with his brigade to Gal- veston, Texas; where ho remained in command of the post till mustered out in August, 1865. He subsequently studied and entered upon the practice of law. Thomas F. Wildes. 951 BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL THOMAS F. WILDES. THOMAS F. WILDES was born at Racine, Canada West, June 1, 1834. His parents, who were natives of Ii-elantl, emigrated tp America in 1832. His grandfather, Thomas Wildes, was an ardent revolutionist, and for tliis offense suffered confiscation of iiis goods and hud to flee to France to save his life. Young Wildes came with his father to Portage County, Ohio, in 1839, whore he remained on a farm until he was seventeen years of age. At this time lie left home with an education limited to reading and writing. For some years he worked during the summers for farmers near llavenna, and went to school in the winter time. He was also aided in efforts for an education by a daughter of one of his employers. Miss Eliziibeth M. Robinson, to whom he was afterward (1860) married. He attended the Twiiiaburg Academy and also an academy at Marlboro', Stark County, Ohio. He afterward (1857-58;) spent two years at Wittenburg College, Springfield. He became the Superintendent of the Wooster Graded School during the years 1859 and 1S60. On the 1st of January, 1861,, he purchased from Nelson H. Van Yorhes, the "Athens Messen- ger," at Athens, Ohio, which jDaper he edited until August, 1862, when he en- tered the service as Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hundred and Sixteenth Ohio Infantry. With this command he served in Virginia at Moorefield, Eomney, in the Shenandoah Valley under Sigel, participating in the battles of Piedmont, Snicker's Gap, Berryville, Opequan, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek. During all this time Colonel Wildes was with his regiment in every march, skirmish, and battle, in which it was engaged. At the battle of Piedmont he was injured by concussion from a shell, and at Winchester he was seriously hurt by being thrown from his horse. During a portion of the Shenandoah campaign, including the battle of Cedar Creek and other minor engagements, he commanded the First Brigade, First Division, of the Army of West Virginia. He retained this command until February, 1865, when he was promoted to Colonel of the One Hundred and Ei"-htv-Sixth Ohio. With this regiment he went to Nashville and afterward to Cleveland, TennesseCj where he received his commission as Brevet Brigadier- General "for gallant conduct at Cedar Creek, Virginia, October 19, 1864," to date from March 11, 1865. He was appointed to the command of a brigade at Chattanooo-a which he retained until his muster out in September, 1865. General Wildes entered the Law School at Cincinnati, and graduated in 1866 after which he entered upon the practice of his profession at Athens. 952 Ohio in the War. BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL C. H. GROSVENOR. CHAELES H. GEOSVENOE was born in Pomfret, Connecticut, Sep- tember 20, 1833, and five years after was brought with his father's family to Athens County, Ohio. His grandfather, Colonel Thomas Gros- vcnor, was an ofBcer in the Eevolutionary War, serving first as a Lieutenant under Putnam, then on the staff of General Warren (he was wounded at Bunker Hill), then as Colonel of the Second Connecticut Eegiment of the Line, and finally as a member of the staff of General George Washington. Major Peter Grosvenor, the father of Charles H. Grosvenor, served as a private soldier in the war of 1812. His title as Major was from militia service. General Grosvenor entered the service July 30, 1861, as Major of the Eighteenth Ohio Infantry; was promoted to Lieutenant- Colonel March 16, 1863, and to Colonel April 8, 1865. He served first under General Mitchel until he was relieved, then in the campaign to Nashville and Huntsvillo. He was not in the battle of Stone Eiver with his regiment, being then in Ohio to obtain recruits. At the beginning of the Atlantic Campaign, his regiment being in garri- son at Chattanooga, General Grosvenor obtained p^ermission to accompany the armj', and was assigned to duty on the staff of General Turchin of Baird's divis- ion in the Fourteenth Corps. He remained with the army until in June, when he returned to Chattanooga, and participated with General Steedman in his cam- paign in East Tennessee, and afterward was engaged against Forrest at Pulaski, Tennessee. At the battle of Nashville, in December, 1864, he was in command of a brigade and made an assault in which he lost two hundred and twenty-eight men in fifteen minutes. He was for some time commander of the post at Chattanooga. When Gen- eral Steedman was assigned to the command of the Department of Georgia, General Grosvenor was detailed as Provost-Marshal General on his staff, in which position he remained until mustered out October 28, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. He was in the service from the beginning to the end, and throughout the war proved himself worthy of the fighting stock from which he came. Isaac R. Sherwood. 953 BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL ISAAC R. SHERWOOD. ISAAC E. SHERWOOD entered the army on the 18th of April, 1861, and served as a private for four months in West Virginia, participating in skirmishes at Laurel Mountain and Cheat Eiver, and in the fight at Carrick's Ford. He received a commission as FirsL-Lieutenant in the One Hundred and Eleventh Ohio Infantry, was appointed Adjutant, and served in that position through the Buell campaign in Kentucky. On the 1st of February, 1863, at the unanimous request of the field and line officers, he was promoted from Ad- jutant to Major. He participated in Morgan's campaign, and in the East Ten- nessee campaign. He commanded the skirmishers of Burnside's army on the retreat from Huff's Ferry to Lenox, and commanded the regiment at Huff's Ferry, Siege of Knoxville, Campbell's Station, Blair's Cross-Eoads, Dandridge, Strawberry Plains, Mossy Creek, and Loudon. He was promoted to Lieuten- ant-Colonel on the 12th of February, 1864, and from that time until the close of the war was constantly in command of the regiment. He was engaged at Eocky Face, Eesaca, Burnt Hickory, Dallas, Pine Mount- ain, Lost Mountain, Kenesajv Mountain, Chattahoochie, Decatur, Peachtree Creek, Utoy Creek, Atlanta, Lovejo}', Columbia, Duck Eiver, and Franklin. For gallantrj'' in the latter engagement he was made a Brevet Brigadier- General. He' was transferred to the East, and was through the North Carolina campaign. At Saulsbury he went before a board of officers and was recom- mended for promotion and retention in the service. Accordingly he was made Colonel of the One Hundred and Eighty-Third Ohio Infantry, and was ordered by the War Department to report to Major-General Saxton for duty, according to brevet rank, as Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau for the State of Florida. The General, however, immediately tendered his resignation and left the service. 9o4 Ohio in the War. BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL R. K ADAMS. nr\OBERT N. ADAMS was born in Fayette County, Ohio, near Green- nC field, in 1835. He is a descendiint of the Douglas family, coming from the Scottish Presbyterian stock, whose ti-aditional firmness of purpose and uprightness of character he inherits. His earlj' life vcub spent ou tlie farm, and in preparing himself for college at the Greenfield school. In 1858 he entered Miami University, where he remained until near the close of his junior year, when the rebellion broke out, and he joined the "University liifles," a company organized at Oxford, in which he served as a private in the Twentieth Ohio through the three months' service. In August, 1861, he organ- ized a company at Greenfield, of which he was made Captain. It joined the Eighty-First Ohio Infantry. On May 7, 1862, he was promoted to Lieutenant- Colonel, and August 8, 1864, to Colonel of the regiment. In these different grades he served with his regiment, first in Missouri, under Fremont, and afterward with the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Corps, of the the Army of the Tennessee. During the latter portion of the Atlanta campaign, and through the march to Savannah, and to Washington, he commanded a brigade. His appointment as Brevet Brigadier-General was made in May, 1865, to date from March 13, 1865. In July, 1865, he was mustered out with his regiment. He participated in the battles of Pittsburg Landing, Corinth, Town Creek, Resaca, Dallas, Kene- saw Mountain, Nicojack Creek, Atlanta, July 22d and 28th; Jonesboro' (at which place he was slightly wounded), and Hobkirk's Hill. After the war he entered upon the study of theology, a design which ho had cherished for years. B. B. Eggleston. 955 BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL MOSES B. WALKER. MOSES B. WALKER was born in Fairfield County, Ohio, July 16, 1819. He was educated at Yale College, and after graduating studied and practiced law in Montgomery County for twenty years. At the opening of the war he was appointed Captain in the Twelfth United States Infantry. On the 4th of August, 1861, he was commissioned Colonel of the Thirty-First Ohio Infantry, and in September he led the regi- ment to Camp Dick Eobinson, Kentucky. In the spring of 1862 he was placed in command of the First Brigade, First Division, Fourteenth Corps, which he continued to command until after the fall of Atlanta. He was then at home for twenty days on leave, and upon returning to the field served as President of the Military Commission of the Department of the Cumberland for seven months. He was brevetted Brigadier-General of volunteers, and also Major and Lieutenant-Colonel in the regular army, " for gallant and meritorious service during the war." He was wounded by a shell at the battle of Chickamauga, by which his spine and left shoulder were injured permanently ; and in conse- quence of this he has been retired from active duty in the regular army, and is now at his home in Findlay, Ohio. BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL B. B. EGGLESTON. TH E subject of this sketch was born in Corinth Township, Saratoga County, New York. He entered the army as private at Circlevilie, Ohio, in the First Ohio Cavalry, on the 8th of August, 1861, and was promoted to Cap- tain on the Ist of September. On the 25th of July, 1862, he was captured, and upon rejoining his regiment was promoted to Major, and soon after to Colonel. After the re-enlistment of his regiment as veterans. Colonel Eggleston was placed in command of a brigade, which ho continued to command at intervals until after the Atlanta campaign. He participated in the cavalry campaign under General Wilson, and by order of that officer received the surrender of the post of Atlanta. He then proceeded to Orangeburg, South Carolina, and was appointed by General Gillmore Chief of Staff for the Department, which position he held until mustered out, September 13, 1865. He was brevetted Brigadier-General on the 6th of March, 1865. 956 ■ Ohio in the War. BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL ISAAC MINOR KIRBY. ISAAC MINOE KIEBY was born at Columbus in 1834. He enlisted April 18, 1861 ; was elected Captain and mustered into the Fifteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He served with that regiment in Western Virginia, and then in Buell's Army of the Ohio. He marched with it to Pittsburg Land- ing and participated in the battle there, assisting Major Wallace in commanding the regiment. He resigned in May, 1862, and in July raised another company for the One Hundred and First Ohio, in which he was again commissioned Captain. He joined Buell's array at Louisville, and in October, 1863, was pro- moted Major. Colouel Stem and Lieutenant-Colonel Wooster fell early in the morning of the first day's fight at Stone River. Major Kirby thus succeeded to the com- mand of the regiment during the remainder of that battle. Immediately after- ward he was promoted to Colonel. He continued in command of the regiment until the early part of the movement on Atlanta, when he was given command of the First Brigade, First Division, Fourth Army Corps, which he led through- out the campaign. Colonel Kirby was now recommended by superiors in official reports for promotion. He commanded the brigade during the retreat of Thomas's army before Hood to Nashville, and through the battles of Franklin and Nashville. lu the latter he led the first assault on the enemy's main line of works. He was now again recommended for promotion, and he finally re- ceived a commission as Brevet Brigadier-General. General Kirby continued in command of the First Brigade, First Division, Fourth Army Corps, until the close. He was mustered out of the service ai Nashville in June, 1865, having been constantly in the field from the commence- ment till the end of the war. Askew— Baldwin. 957 BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERALS; MOSTLT OF LATE APPOINTMEliTS, AND WOT EXERCISIIVQ COMMAITDS IN ACOOKDANCE -WITH THEIR BREVET RANK. Franklin Askew was born at St. Clairsville, Ohio, January 9, 1837. He graduated at Michigan University in 1859, and then began the study of the law. When the war broke out he entered the Seventeenth Ohio Infantry — three months' regiment — in whioh he served as Second-Lieutenant and First-Lieu- tenant. He then organized a company for three years, and entered the Fif- teenth Ohio as Captain, September 13, 1861. He was promoted to Lieutenant- Colonel October 24, 1862, and to Colonel July 22, 1864. Ho participated in every battle and skirmish in which his regiment was engaged. At Stone River he was severely wounded, and he received a slight wound at the battle of Nashville. He accompanied his regiment to Texas, and for a short time was in command of the post of San Antonio. His appointment as Brevet Brigadier-General dates from July 14, 1865. William H. Baldwin was born at New Sharon, Maine, in 1832. His father was once a member of the State Legislature, and at various times held several other offices of trust in the State. His grandfather, Nabura Baldwin, was a soldier throughout the Eevolutionary War. He graduated at Union College, New York, in 1855, and in the Law Depart- ment of Harvard University in 1858. Soon after he commenced the practice of law in Cincinnati, but in 1860 he went to Europe, and was with the army of Garibaldi in most of its important movements. ^ He returned home upon hearing of the war of the rebellion, and was com- missioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Eighty-Third Ohio Inftiutry in September, 1862. He served with this regiment in tiio expedition down the Mississippi; was engaged at Chickasaw Bluffs, Arkansas Post, Vicksburg, and Jackson. Ho also participated intheEed Eiver expedition, and in the severe service which tlio Eightj'-Third Ohio performed in Louisiana in 1864. In 1865 he was with [lis regiment in the operations about Mobile, arriving in the vicinity of Blakely on the 2d of April. The storming of the enemy's works at this place was attended with peculiar difficulties. The approach was protected with heavy abattis and with rifle-pits, in addition to which the enemy Ifad planted torpe- does in the way. Colonel Baldwin asked permission to take his regiment into the works in 958 Ohio in the War. his front, as the advanced line, which was granted. Ho sent for axes and gave one to each compan}-, putting them in the hands of musicians to cut through abattis. Giving orders to form in single rank and to align by the colors, he ordered the color-bearers to follow him. At the appointed signal the order of advance was given and the regiment sprang forward, led by their commander. The Confederate rifle-pits were soon reached, but there was no delay to take prisoners. The guns of those who were captured were broken, and the men were left to be taken up bj' those following. On the line went, preserving its alignment as well as could be until the abattis was reached.. The axes were used, and then the line moved on, and in a short time reached redoubt No. 4. In an instant the works were scaled and Colonel Baldwin cried out, "Surren- der ! " "To whom?" asked the Confederate commander. "To the Eighty- Third Ohio," was the reply. " I believe we did that once before," said he, which was true, as this was Cocker! ll's .Mi-isoiiri brigade, which had stacked arms in front of the Eighty-Third Ohio at Vicksburg. Colonel Baldwin placed Captain Garry, vvho was the first officer inside the works, in charge of the prisoners, and hastened in pursuit of the Rebels who wei-e attempting to escape. Seven hundred and ninetj^-nine prisoners were captured by the regiment, besides a quantity of artillorj- and small arms. The loss of the Eighty-Third in this ass;iult was sovon killed and twenty-one wounded. Both flag-staffs were shot off and the flags riddled with balls. The rest of the brigade came up afterward, losing but four killed and seventeen wounded out of four regiments I For his gallantry at this place he was brevetted Colonel, and subsequently Brigadier General. The latter commission was "for gallant services in the charge against the Rebel works at Blakely, Alabama," and bore date from August 22, 1865. After the fall of Mobile he served at Sclma and Mobile, Alabama, and Gal- veston, Texas, until mustered out in August, 1865. General Baldwin resumed the practice of law in Cincinnati in partnership with his brother. W. H. Ball was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Twenty- Second Ohio October 8, 1862. He resigned February 3, 1865. His regiment served in the Army of the Potomac with Butler at Bermuda Hundred; in New York at the time of the riots; and in the Shenandoah Valley with Sheridan. His commission as Brevet Brigadier-General dates from October 19, 1S04. Gershom M. Barber was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hun- dred and Ninety-Seventh Ohio, April 12, 1865 (having previously served as Captain in the fifth company of independent sharp-shooters), and was mustered out with the rogimont on the Slst of July following. The date of his appoint- ment as Brevet Brigadier-General is March 13, 1865. James Barnett was a resident of Cleveland engaged in successful business pursuits when the war broke out. He had taken great interest in the organi- Biggs— Bo YNTON. 959 7;ation of the militia under Governor Chase's administration, and had been the Colonel of what was called a regiment of light artillery, though it really com- prised only guns and men for one battery. He entered the service at the first call. One of his guns fired the first cannon shot in the war in the West in the affair at Philippi, West Virginia. He re-organized his command for the three years' service and remained at its head throughout. Its varied and always hon- orable service is elsewhere (Vol. II) traced in detail. Colonel Barnett was besides employed on a great variety of detached and staff service, mostly relat- ing to artillerj-, and was always ranked as a cool, efficient, and very valuable officer. He was mustered out October 20, 1864. His rank as Brevet Brigadier- General dates from March 13, 1865. Egbert H. Bentley was born at Mansfield, Ohio, August 8, 1835. His grandfather, Robert Bentley, was one of the earliest settlers in Eichland County, Ohio; was an officer in the war of 1812, and subsequently a Major- General of Ohio militia, and a member of the State Senate. General Bentley went into the service April 16, 1861, as a private in Cap- tain Wm. McLaughlin's company of the First Ohio Infantry. He came out of the three months' service a second sergeant, and was soon after appointed Reg- imental Quartermaster of the Thirty-Second Ohio Infantry. After the capture at Harper's Ferry the regiment was reorganized, and he was made Lieutenant- Colonel. With this regiment he went through the Vicksburg campaign, and in the battles which preceded the capture of that city won the special commenda- tion of General Logan, his division commander. After the capture of Vicksburg he resigned his position in the Thirty- Second Infantry, and was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twelfth Ohio Cavalry, and remained with the regiment to the close of the war. In the raid upon the Virginia Salt-Works, and in the great Stoneman raid through Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas, he was in command of the regiment, and for services thus rendered was brevetted a Brigadier-General of volunteers. In Jul}', 1865, he resigned his commission, and since that time has been in business at Washington City as an attorney for the prosecution of claims. J. Biggs, Brevet Colonel of the One Hundred and Twentj'-Third Ohio, was appointed Brevet Brigadier-General, to date from March 13, 1865. John R. Bond was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Elev- enth Ohio, August 28, 1862; honorably discharged, October 18, 1864; appointed Brevet Brigadier-General to date from March 13, 1864. Henry Van Ness Boynton was born in Berkshire Countj', Massachusetts, July 22, 1835. He removed with his father's family to Cincinnati in 1S46. He graduated at the Kentuckj' Military Institute in 1858, and was Pi'ofessor of Mechanics and Astronomy at this institution during the years 1859-60. He was commissioned Major of the Thirty-Fifth Ohio Infantry, July 29, 1861 ; and promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, July 13, 1863. He commanded the 960 Ohio in the Wak. regiment at Chickamauga, Mission Eidge, and Buzzard's Eoost. At the storm- ing of Mission Eidge he was severely wounded. He was brevetted Brigadier-General, March 13, 1865, "for good conduct at the battles of Chickamauga and Mission Eidge." He resigned at Chattanooga, Tennessee, September 8, 186-4, on account of disability arising from wounds, and returned from the field with the first detachment of the regiment mustered out immediately after the capture of Atlanta. General Boynton was in many respects a model officer — faithful to his men, devoted to the cause for which he fought, always at his post, thoroughly versed in his duties, gallant in action, and judicious in handling his troops. He was a man of singular sincerity of purpose, and intense in his hostility to slavery and hatred of Eebcls. At the request of the author of this work the General was appointed his successor, as chief Washington Correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette, and of the Western Eepublican Press Association. Into this new field he carried the same ideas, for which he had fought and struggled for their tri- umph, with the same fervid zeal. He also displayed fine literary powers, and took high rank in the journalistic profession. He is a son of Eev. Dr. C. B. Boj'nton, Chaplain of the House of Eepresentatives at Washington, and Pro- fessor in the Naval School at Annapolis. EosLiFP Brinkerhoff was born in Cajniga County, New York, June 28, 1828. He belongs to one of the old Dutch families of that State, which date back for their origin in America to the earliest times in the New Netherlands. His ancestor on his mother's side (Louis Bouviel-) was one of that noble band of Huguenot refugees, who fled from their native France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and sought safety from religious persecution among the tolerant and sj'nipathizing Hollanders of the New World. In 1850 he removed to Ohio, and completed a course of law studies with his kinsman, the Hon. Jacob Brinkerhoff, of Mansfield. In 1852 he was admitted to the bar, and continued the practice of his profession at Mansfield until the opening of the war. During this period, however, he varied the monotony of legal life by three or four ycMrs' experience as editor and propri- etor of the Mansfield Herald, in which capacity he won a State reputation as a writer and orator in the preliminary political contests which preceded the great rebellion. In September, 1861, he entered the military service as First-Lieutenant, and Eegi mental Quartermaster of the Sixty-Fourth Ohio Volunteers. In No- vember of the same year he was promoted to the pobition of Captain and Assistant Quartermaster, and during the winter was on duty at Bardstown, Kentucky. After the capture of Niishvilio he was placed in charge of trans- portation, land and river, in that city. After the battle of Pittsburg Landing he was ordered to the front, and placed in charge of the field transportation of the Army of the Ohio. After the capture of Corinth he went homo on sick furlough, and was thence ordered to Maine as Chief Quartermaster in that State. Subsequently Brown— BuENETT. 961 he was transferred to Washington City as Post Quartermaster, and remained on that duty until June, 1865, when lie was made Colonel and Inspector of tlie Quartermaster's Department. He was then retained on duty at the War Office, by Secretary Stanton until November, when he was ordered to Cincinnati as Chief Quartermaster of that department. In September, 1866, he was brevetted a Brigadier-General of volunteers. Shortly after this he resigned his commission, and was mustered out of service on the 1st of October, having completed five years of continuous service in the army. General Brinkerhoff deservedlj' ranks as one of the most competent officers of the staff corps of the army, having won every grade of his department below its chief, by meritorious and efficient service. General Brinkerhoff is the author of the book entitled "The Volunteer Quartermaster," which is still the standard guide for the officers and employees of the Quartermaster's Department. After his retirement from the army he returned to the practice of his profession at Mansfield. Charles B. Brown was borA in Cincinnati, July 4, 1834. At the age of sixteen he entered Miami University, and graduated in 1854. He studied law, and commenced the practice of his profession in Louisiana ; but in 1859 he returned to Ohio, and oj)ened an office in Chillicothe. On the 23d of October, 1861, he was commissioned a Captain, and was assigned to the Sixty-Third Ohio Infantry. He was under General Pope in Missouri, and participated in the movements which resulted in the capture of New Madrid and Island Kumber Ten. He was in the siege of Corinth, and was engaged at luka, and at Corinth, October 3 and 4, 1862. For gallant and sol- dierly conduct in these engagements Captain Brown was particularly mentioned in the official reports. At Corinth he was the only officer in the left wing of the regiment who was unhurt. He was promoted to Major for meritorious conduct, March 20, 1863, and to Lieutenant-Colonel, May 17, 1863. He commanded the regiment in the Atlanta campaign, and was engaged at Snake Creek Gap, Eesaca, Dallas, and Kenesaw Mountain. On the 22d of July, in front of Atlanta, he lost his left leg, and while recovering from his wound served as Provost-Marshal of the Eighteenth Ohio District. He was promoted to Colonel, June 6, 1865, and was subsequently brevetted Brigadier-General, to date from March 13, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious conduct in the campaign before Atlanta, Georgia." He resumed the practice of law at Chillicothe. Jefferson Brumbaok was commissioned Major of the Nintey-Fifth Ohio, August 10, 1862 ; promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, October 4th ; mustered out Auo-ust 14, 1865. His appointment as Brevet Brigadier-General dated from March 13, 1865. Henry L. Burnett was appointed Judge Advocate, August 10, 1803, under the act of July 17, 1862. He conducted the famous treason trials at Indianap- YoL. I.— 61. 962 Ohio in the Wae. olis, and was also associated with Hon. John A. Bingham, in the trial of the assassination conspirators at Washington. His appointment as Brevet Briga- dier-General was "for. meritorious service in the Bureau of Military Justice," to date from March 13, 1865. After leaving the army he resumed the practice of law in Cincinnati, in partnership with Hon. T. W. Bartley, late of the Supreme Court of Ohio. Joseph W. Burke entered the service as Major of the Tenth Ohio Three Months' Regiment. He continued in the same rank in the three years' organi- zation ; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, January 9, 1862, and to Colonel, January 20, 1863. He was mustered out June 17, 1864; but he afterwai'd entered the Invalid Corps. His rank as Brevet Brigadier-General was from March 13, 1865. He was a gallant fighting officer, and was more than once severely wounded. He had great influence among his fellow Irishmen of Cin- cinnati, and used it well and wisely. John Allen Campbell was born in Salem, Ohio, October 8, 1835. He entered the service as Second-Lieutenant of the Nineteenth Ohio in April, 1861, and served in that capacity until the following August, when he was mustei-ed out. He then entered the First Ohio Infantry as First-Lieutenant. He served as Ordnance officer on the staff of General A. M. McCook until after the evac- uation of Corinth, in 1862, then as Acting Assistant Adjutant-General until November 26, 1862, when he was promoted to Major and Assistant Adjutant- General. In March, 1863, he was transferred to the staff of General Schofield, where he served till the end of the war. He was promoted to Lieutenant- Colonel in January, 1865, and was brevetted Colonel and Brigadier-General March 13, 1865, "for courage in the field and marked ability and fidelity." He participated in the battles of Eich Mountain, Pittsburg Landing, Perry- ville. Stone Eiver, all the battles of the Atlanta campaign, Franklin, Nashville, and Wilmington. After being mustered out as a volunteer officer, he was appointed Second-Lieutenant of the Fifth United States Artillery. He is an earnest member of the Eepubliean party. Charles Candy was commissioned Colonel of the Sixtj^-Sixth Ohio Novem- ber 25, 1861, and was honorably discharged December 16, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. John S. Casement entered the three months' service May 7, 1861, as Major of the Seventh Ohio Infantry. When the regiment was reorganized for the three years' service he held the same rank; resigned May 25, 1862. In August, 1862, ho was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Third Ohio Infantry; resigned April 30, 1865. His brevet rank dates from January 25, 1865. Mendal Churchill entered the Twenty-Seventh Ohio as Captain, August 6, 1861; was promoted to Major November 2, 1862; to Lieutenant-Colonel March 19, 1864; to Colonel June 27, 1864; he resigned Septem'ber 15,1864. His brevet rank dated from March 13, 1865. Henry M. Cist was born in Cincinnati, and is a son of Charles Cist, Esq., COATES-COWEN. 963 (well-known as an early journalist, and compiler of "Cincinnati in 1841," and "Cincinnati in 1851.") He entered the Seventy -Fourth Ohio as First-Lieuten- ant October 22, 1861. May 22, 1864, he was appointed Captain and Assistant Adjutant-G-eneral of volunteers, and afterward promoted to Major. He was brevetted Brigadier-General "for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Stone Eiver, and in the campaign under Gen'eral Rosecrans. terminating in the battle of Chickamauga, and for meritorious services generally throughout the war," to date from March 13, 1865. Benjamin F. Coates was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ninety- First Ohio, August 10, 1862; was promoted to Colonel December 9, 1864, and was mustered out with his regiment, June 30, 1865. His brevet rank was from March 13, 1865. James M. Comlt was born in Perry County, Ohio, March 6, 1832. He entered the United States service in June, 1861, and on the 12th of August was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Forty-Third Ohio Infantry. After some time spent at Camp Chase, he gave up the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the Forty- Third, for the appointment of Major of the Twenty-Third Ohio Infantry, then in the field, for the sake of getting more speedily into active service. He was mustered as Major on the 31st of October, 1861, and he commanded the regi- ment in every action in which it was subsequently engaged, except for a short time in the morning at the battle of South Mountain. He was eventually made Colonel of the regiment, and Brevet Brigadier- General (to date from March 13, 1865), the latter position having been earned by gallant and faithful service in the field. General Comly, after the war, became editor of the Ohio State Journal, at Columbus, where he displayed marked- ability as a writer and poli- tician, and came to exert large influence. His history in the field may be best read in the history of the regiment he commanded so long, and led to so much honor. During the war he was married to a daughter of Surgeon-General Smith, of Columbus. Henry S. Commager was commissioned Captain of the Sixty-Seventh Ohio Infantry, Ifovember 10, 1861; promoted to the rank of Major July 29, 1862; to Lieutenant-Colonel August 28, 1862 ; Colonel of the One Hundred and Eighty-Fourth Ohio February 22, 1865. Brevet rank dates from February 27, 1865. H. C. CoRBiN was appointed Second-Lieutenant in the Seventj^-lSTinth Ohio November 12, 1862; promoted to First-Lieutenant in 1863; he resigned November 15 1863, and afterward became Colonel of the Fourteenth United States Colored Infantry. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Benjamin Eush Cowen was born August 15, 1831, in the village of Moore- field Harrison County, Ohio, to which place his parents had emigrated in 1825, from Washington County, New York. His mother was a daughter of Judge Wood, of the latter county. His father, Judge B. S. Cowen, gave up the prac- tice of medicine for that of law, and has, since 1832, resided at St. Clairsville, 964 Ohio in the Wab. Ohio. An uncle, Hon. Esek Cowen, was Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals, and was the author of "Cowen's Treatise,'' Cowen's Eeports," and other legal works. General Cowen received an English and classical education at "Brooks's Institute," and another school of like character in St. Clairsville. This was supplemented by a practical printer's education in the office of the Belmont Chronicle. He became local editor of that paper at the age of seventeen, and four years later became sole editor and proprietor. During this time he also studied medicine with Dr. John Alexander, but he never practiced in that pro- fession. In September, 1854, he married Miss Ellen Thoburn, of Belmont County. Three years afterward he disposed of the Chronicle, and removed to Bellair. There he was in mercantile business until 1860, having, in the mean- time, served as member of the Legislature, and Clerk of the House of Eepre- sentatives. His first military appointment was that of Engineer-in-Chief, with the rank of Colonel, on Governor Dennison's staff'. This post he resigned upon the fall of Fort Sumter, and enlisted as a private in Captain Wallace's comj^any, in the Fifteenth Ohio. He did not, however, sever his connection with the Legis- lature, which was then in session, until its adjournment, when he joined his regiment at Zanesville. He was commissioned First-Lieutenant May 24th, and assigned to duty as Assistant-Commissary of Subsistence. In the summer of 1861 he received the appointment as Additional Paymaster, dating from June 1. He served at Washington and in West Virginia in this capacity. He also served at the same time as Paj- Agent for Ohio, in forwarding soldiers' pay to their friends at home. In December, 1863, he was ordered to Now Orleans, as chief paymaster of the Department of the Gulf; but before leaving for that post he was tendered the position of Adjutant-General of Ohio, by Governor Brough. He accepted this, and having obtained leave of absence, with suspension of pay and allow- ances, he entered upon his new duties in January, 1864. In this position there was the greatest need of a man thoroughlj- systematic and prompt, as well as untiringly energetic, to accomplish its manifold duties. To General Cowen's intelligent labors in this department is due much of the efficiency of the mili- tary force of Ohio. Perhaps the most striking instance of his ability was dis- played in his management of the calling out and equipment of the "National Guard;" where, in twelve days, thirty -five thousand nine hundred and eighty- two men wei'e organized, mustered, clothed, equipped, and turned over to the LT^nited States military authorities. It was "for meritorious services while acting as Adjutant-General of the State of Ohio in organizing, equij)ping, and forwarding to the field, the troops known as the Ohio National Guards," that he received the successive appointments of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel, Brevet Colonel, and Brevet Brigadier-General, to date from March 13, 1865. Gen- eral Cox retained General Cowen in the same position. In politics General Cowen was originallj' a AVhig, having advocated the election of General Taylor in 1848, and having voted for General Scott in 1852. Cummins— Eaton. 965 Upon the dissolution of the "Whig party he became a Eepublican. He was Sec- retary of the anti-Nebraska Convention which assembled in Columbus in 1854, and in 1856 was a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention which nominated General Fremont for President. He has since that time acted with the Eepub- lican party. John E. Cummins was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ninety- Ninth Ohio August 9, 1862. He was afterward transferred to the Fiftieth Ohio, and was promoted to Colonel of the One Hundred and Eighty-Fifth Ohio February 15, 1865. His brevet rank dates from November 4, 1865. J. E. CocKERiLL was commissioned Colonel of the Seventieth Ohio, to rank from October 2, 1861. He resigned April 13, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Andrew E. Z. Dawson entered the Fifteenth Ohio Infantry as Captain September 11, 1861 (having served as First-Lieutenant in the same regiment in the three months' service'). He was pi-omoted to Major July 22, 1864, and was mustered out at the expiration of his term of service. On March 2, 1865, he was commissioned Colonel of the One I^undred and Eighty-Seventh Ohio, and was mustered out with his regiment in January, 1866. His brevet rank dates from November 21, 1865. AZARIAH N. DoANE entered the Twelfth Ohio in the three months' service, and on the 12th of June, 1861, was promoted to Captain. He resigned October 18, 1861. He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventy-Ninth Ohio August 19, 1862, and promoted to Colonel June 8, 1865, but was mustered out as Lieutenant-Colonel. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Francis Darr entered the Tenth Ohio as Second-Lieutenant June 3, 1861, and on the 3d of August following, he received the appointment of Commissary of Subsistence, with the rank of Captain. He was promoted to Lieutenant- Colonel January 1, 1863, and afterward to Brevet Colonel. He served with Gen- eral Eosecrans in West Virginia; then with General Buell in Kentucky, subse- quently with Eosecrans again in Kentucky, and afterward on the Atlantic coast, alwaj^s ranking aS^an efficient and very capable offlcei-. His appointment as Brevet Brigadier-General was "for meritorious conduct in the Subsistence and Provost-Marshal-General's Departments," to date from March 13, 1865. Charles G. Baton entered the Seventy -Second Ohio as Captain November 30, 1861; was promoted to Major April 6, 1862; to Lieutenant-Colonel Novem- ber 29, 1862, and to Colonel April 9, 1864. He was mustered out with his regi- ment in September, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. John Eaton, Jr., entered the service August 15, 1861, as Chaplain of the Twenty-Seventh Ohio. He was appointed Colonel of the Sixty-Third United States Colored troops October 10, 1863. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865 After the war he settled in Tennessee, became editor of a new Eadical Eepublican journal called the Memphis Post, and rose to be one of the leaders 966 Ohio in the Wae. of the dominant Eadical party of Tennessee. He was elected Superintendent of Public Education in 1866, on the State Eadical ticket. John J. Elwell was born in Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio, June 22, 1820. In the year 1846 he graduated as a Doctor of Medicine, and soon after removed to Orwell, Ashtabula County, Ohio, where he practiced for about nine years. In 1855 he was admitted to the bar, and removed to Cleveland, where he established "The Western Law Monthly." He also wrote a work on Medi- cal Jurisprudence. He was appointed Assistant- Quartermaster August 3, 1861, and began his duties at Cleveland, in equipping several cavalry regiments with horses. In the summer of 1862 he was appointed a Division-Quartermaster in the Depart- ment of the South. Immediately after the battle of Secessionville he was ele- vated to the post of Chief-Quartermaster of that department, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Besides attending to his regular duties in this department he acted at the battle of Secessionville as volunteer aid-de-camp to General Benham, and at the assault on Fort Wagner he aided in rallying the men. In the spring of 1864, being reduced in health, he was transferred to Elmira, New York, where he had charge, as Quartermaster, of the great "draft rendezvous," and of the prison camp, and was, besides, connected with the Cavalry Bureau, in which connection he purchased and forwarded to Washing- ton seventeen thousand horses. In the early part of 1866 he resigned his commission, and returned to Cleveland. His rank as Brevet Brigadier-General dates from March, 1865. J. M. Frizell organized the Ninety-Fourth Ohio, and was commissioned Colonel August 14, 1862. He resigned February 22, 1863. He had previously served as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Eleventh Ohio from April 29, 1861, to De- cember 21, 1861. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Joseph S. Fullerton, a native of Eoss County, Ohio, and a graduate of Miami University, was a resident of St. Louis at the outbreak of the war. He was appointed Assistant Adjutant-General with the rank of Major March 11, 1863. He served on the staff of General O. O. Howard in the Atlanta cam- paign. His brevet rank was conferred "for gallant and meritorious conduct during the Atlanta campaign," to date from March 13, 1865. His last military service was in a tour of inspection of the Freedmen's Bureau, ordered by Pres- ident Johnston, in which he assisted Major-General Steedman. Edward P. Fyffe was appointed Colonel of the Twenty-Sixth Ohio Regi- ment June 10, 1861. He was honorably discharged December 18, 1863, and afterward appointed in the Veteran Reserve Corps. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Horatio G. Gibson was appointed Colonel of the Second Ohio Heavy Artil- lery August 15, 1863. He was mustered out with his regiment, August 23, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. . GriBSON— Hamilton. 967 Wm. H. Gibson was appointed Colonel of the Forty -Mntli Ohio August 31, 1861. He was mustered out on expiration of his term of service, September 5, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. His career was active and honorable, and he was highly esteemed by his superior officers. He entered the service under a cloud, having been Treasurer of the State of Ohio, and been ejected from his office by Governor Chase for a defalcation of nearly three-quar- ters of a million dollars. His fault was not in taking the money, but in concealing the fact that it had been taken, before his entry into office, by his predecessor and relative, Mr. Breslin. General sympathy was felt for him, and it was felt that his entry into the military service was a manly effort to wipe out the stigma which weakness rather than intentional guilt had placed u23on him. His career did this, and gave himi an honored name among the soldiers of the State. Samuel A. Gilbert was appointed Colonel of the Forty-Fourth Ohio Octo- ber 14, 1861. He resigned April 20, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. JosiAH Given entered the service; June 3, 1861, as Captain of the Twenty- Fourth Ohio. He was transferred to the Eighteenth Ohio, and promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel August 17, 1861 ; was transferred to the Seventy-Fourth Ohio, and promoted to Colonel May 16,. 1863. He resigned September 29, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. William Given was appointed Colonel of the One Hundred and Second Ohio August 18, 1862, and was mustered out with his regiment, June 30, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. ^ James H. Godman entered the service as Major of the Fourth Ohio April 26, 1861. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel January 9, 1862, and to Colo- nel November 29, 1862. He was honorably discharged (after receiving severe wounds) July 28, 1863. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. He was elected Auditor of Ohio on the Eadical Eepublican ticket in 1863, and re-elected at the elections in 1865 and 1867. As a State official he fully sustained the high character which his conduct in the field had won him. Henet H. Giest entered the Forty-Sixth Ohio as Captain, December 26, 1861, and was promoted to Major September 16, 1862. He was killed May 28, 1864, at Dallas, Georgia; and "for gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Dallas " he was given the brevet rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, and Brigadier-General, to date from May 28, 1864. William Douglas Hamilton was born in Scotland May 24, 1832. He emigrated to this country in 1838, and settled in Muskingum County, near Zanesville. He was educated at the Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, and subsequently studied law in the Cincinnati Law School, graduating in the class of 1859. At the opening of the rebellion he was practicing law in Zanesville, but he 968 Ohio in the War . abandoned his profession and raised the first three years' company in that part of the State. He was assigned to the Thirty-Second Ohio Infantry, and served through the "West Virginia and Shenandoah campaigns, but, fortunately, was at home on recruiting service when his regiment was surrendered at Harper's Ferry. In December, 1862, Captain Hamilton was directed by Governor Tod to recruit the Ninth Ohio Cavalry, and of this regiment he was appointed Colonel. He served in the Atlanta campaign, on the march to the sea, and in the campaign of the Carolinas. His military services extend over a period of four years ; one with infantry and three with cavalry. He was made Brevet Brigadier-General " for gallant and meritorious services rendered during the campaign ending in the surrender of the insurgent armies of Johnston and Lee." Andrew L. Harris was Captain in the three months' organization of the Twentieth Ohio. He was commissioned Captain in the Seventy-Fifth Ohio November 9, 1861 ; was promoted to Major January 12, 1863; to Colonel May 3, 1863 ; and was mustered out January 15, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. James H. Hart was commissioned First-Lieutenant of the Seventy-First Ohio October 7, 18C1 ; promoted to Captain ; to Major April 6, 1862; to Lieutenant-Colonel April 2, 186J: ; and to Colonel November 29, 1865. His bre- vet rank dates from March 13, 1865. ErssELL Hastings was commissioned Second-Lieutenant in the Twenty- Tliird Ohio Infantry June 1, 1861 ; promoted to First-Lieutenant March 23, 18C2; to Captain August ^, 1863; and to Lieutenant-Colonel March 8, 1865. He was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 14, 1865, and was given "for gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Opequan, Virginia." Thomas T. Heath was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifth Ohio Cavaliy August 26, 1861 ; promoted to Colonel August 11, 1863 ; and mustered out with the regiment October 30, 1865. His brevet rank dates from December 15, 1864. George W. Hoge was born in Belmont County, Ohio, on the 22d of Feb- ruary, 1832. During the earlj- part of the war he was chief clerk to the Secre- tary of the State of Ohio, but in August, 1862, he gave up his position and accepted an appointment as First-Lieutenant in the One Hundred and Twenty- Sixth Ohio Infantry. In Juno of the next year he was promoted to Captain. With his regiment he participated in the following battles: Wilderness, Spott- sylvania, Cold Harbor, Monocacy, Winchester, Opequan, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek. During the whole or a portion of six of these engagements Captain Hoge commanded the regiment. He was struck five times by the enemj-'s balls, and several times was mentioned i'avorably in oflScial reports. On the 17th of November, 1864, he was appointed Colonel of the One Hun- dred and Eighty-Third Ohio Infantry. He at once assumed command of the HoLLOWAY— Jones. 969 regiment, and twelve days later was engaged at Spring Hill and Franklin. He was again engaged in the battle of Nashville, and after that was transferred to the East, joining General Sherman's armj^ at Goldsboro', North Carolina. He was mustered out in July, 1865. His brevet rank bears date from March 13, 1865. B. S. HoLLOWAY was commissioned First-Lieutenant in the Forty-First Ohio October 10, 1861 ; promoted to Captain September 8, 1862 ; to Major No- vember 26, 1864; to Lieutenant-Colonel March 18, 1865, and to Colonel May 31, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Marcellus J. W. HoLTON was commissioned First-Lieutenant in the Fifty- Ninth Ohio September 27, 1861 ; was promoted to Captain May 9, 1861 ; mus- tered out October 29, 1864. He entered the One Hundred and Ninety-Fifth Ohio as Lieutenant-Colonel March 16, 1865, and was afterward appointed Bre- vet Colonel. His rank as Brevet Bi'Jgadier-General dates from March 13; 1865. Horace N. Howland was commissioned Captain in the Third Ohio Cav- alry j\iigust 15, 1861 ; promoted to Major January 5, 1863; to Lieutenant-Colo- nel November 23, 1863, and to Colonel April 8, 1865. He was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Lewis C. Hunt was commissioned Captain in the Sixty-Seventh Ohio Eeg- inient September 1, 1862 ; promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel March 18; 1865, and was mustered out September 1, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Samuel H. Hurst was commissioned CajDtain in the Seventy-Third Ohio Infantry November 1, 1861 ; was promoted to Major June 21, 1862 ; to Lieuten- ant-Colonel February 17, 1864, and to Colonel July 13, 1864. He was mustered out with his regiment July 20, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. E. P. HuTCHiNS was commissioned Captain of the Ninety-Fourth Ohio July 22, 1862; was i^romoted to Major February 22, 1863, and to Lieutenant-Colonel October 8,1863. He was mustered out with his regiment June 6, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Walter P. Herrick was commissioned Major of the Forty-Third Ohio January 21, 1862; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel October 12, 1862, and afterward to Brevet Colonel. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. John S. Jones entered the service April 16, 1861, as First-Lieutenant of the Fourth Ohio Infantry in the three months' service. "When the regiment was reorganized for the three years' service, he went into the new organization, and was promoted to Captain June 25, 1862. He was mustered out with the regi- ment in 1864. In September of the same year he was appointed Colonel of the One Hundred and Seventy-Fourth Ohio, a regiment organized for one year's service. He was mustered out with the regiment June 28, 1865. His brevet rank dates from June 27, 1865. 970 Ohio in the Was. Theodore Jones was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Thirtieth Ohio Infantry August 2, 1861 ; was promoted to Colonel November 29, 1862, in which rank he was mustered out with his regiment, August 13, 1865. His bre- vet rank dates fi-om March 13, 1865. Wells S. Jones entered the service as Captain in the Fifty-Third Ohio In- fantry October 4, 1861, and was promoted to Colonel April 18, 1862. He was mustered out with his regiment August 11, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. John H. Kelly was appointed Major of the One Hundred and Fourteenth Ohio, August 22, 1862 ; promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel February 6, 1863, and to Colonel September 20, 1863, in which rank he was mustered out with his reg- iment in July, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious services during the camj)aigu of Mobile and for faithful serv- ices during the war." E. P. Kennedy was at college in Connecticut at the commencement of the re- bellion. He hastened to his home in Ohio and joined the Twenty-Third Ohio as Second-Lieutenant, June 1, 1861. On February 9, 1862, he was promoted to First- Lieutenant, and served as Assistant Adjutant-General on General Scammon's staff at the battles of Cub Euu, South Mountain, and Antietam. On October 7, 1862, he was appointed Assistant Adjutant-General of United States volunteers, with the rank of Captain, and assigned to duty on General Crook's staff. He served in this cajjacitj" during the campaign of the Army of the Cumberland, from immediately alter the battle of Stone Eiver until after the battle of Mis- sion Eidge, in Xovcmber, 1863. Captain Kennedy served on General Keuner Garrard's staff through the At- lanta Campaign, and at the close of it was ordered by General Gi-ant to the De- partment of "West Virginia, and was made Adjutant-General of that department. On November 17, 1864, he was promoted to Major and Assistant Adjutant- General of volunteers, and Lieutenant-Colonel by brevet. He served in this capacity on the staff of General Crook, commanding the dejjartment, until March, 1865, when, for gallant services, he was made Colonel of the One Hun- dred and Ninety-Sixth Eegiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He was mustered out September 10, 1865, after which he began the practice of law at Washing- ton, Fayette County, Ohio. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Egbert L. Kimberly was commissioned Second-Lieutenant in the Fortj'- First Ohio Infantry ; was promoted to First-LieuLeuant January 21,1862; to Captain, March 17, 1862 ; to Major, November 20, 1862 ; to Lieutenant-Colonel, January 1, 1865 ; to Colonel of the One Hundred and Ninety-First Ohio, March 9, 1865. His brevet rank dates March 13, 1865. Henry D. Kingsbury entered the three months service April 27, 1861, as First-Lieutenant in the Fourteenth Ohio Infantry. When the regiment was re- organized for the three years' service he was promoted to Captain, August 17, 1861 ; to Major, July 17, 1862; to Lieutenant-Colonel, December 21, 1862; mus- Lane— Langdon. 971 tered out November 7, 1864. He was commissioned Colonel of the One Hun- dred and Eighty-Ninth Eegiment March 7, 1865. Brevet rank dates from March 10, 1862. John Q. Lane was appointed Colonel of the Ninety-Seventh Ohio, Septem- ber 2, 1862, and was mustered out with the regiment June 12, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. E. Bassett Langdon was born February 27, 1827, near Linwood, a station on the Little Miami Eailroad, about three miles from the corporation line of Cincinnati. His father, Eev. Oliver Langdon, died in September of the follow- ing j'car. Bassett Langdon spent his boyhood on the farm where he was born, but he displayed such a fondness for intellectual pursuits that his mother often said of him: "Bassett was never intended for a farmer.'' He attended the pub- lic school in the neighborhood for a short time, and then was sent to Woodward College, in Cincinnati, where he passed three years. After this he entered Mi- ami TJnivei-^ity, where he remained two years, but did not graduate. He then returned to the farm, and, notwithstanding his mother's prediction, he remained in charge of it until he was twentj'-five years of age, when he was placed on the Democratic ticket for member of the Legislature, and was elected. He was twice re-elected to the same office, and afterward he served one term as Senator from Hamilton County. During the leisure hours of liis legislative career, he pursued the study of the law, and at its close was prepared by Hon. William S. Groesbeck for ^.dmission to the bar. He entered upon the practice of his pro- fession, in which he was engaged at the time of the breaking out of the rebellion. Upon the organization of the First Ohio Infantry for the three-years' serv- ice, he was commissioned its Major. In this capacity he served in all the move- ments of the regiment until after the evacuation of Corinth, in 1862, when, at the urgent request of General A. M. McCook, he accepted the position of Inspector- General on McCook's staff. After the battles of Perrj^ville and Stone Eiver, upon the promotion of Colonel Parrott to the conimand of a brigade, Lieuten- ant-Colonel Langdon (he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel June 2, 1862). returned to the command of his regiment. He retained this command through the battles of Chickamauga, Mission Eidge, and Lookout Mountain. He was mustered out with his regiment, and was afterward brevef.ted Brigadier-Gen- eral "for gallant and meritorious services at the battles of Pittsburg Landing, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and Mission Eidge," to date from March 13, 1865. After the war he received the appointment of Assessor of Internal Eevenue in the First District of Ohio. His nomination was opposed, and it was not until the third effort that it was confirmed by the Senate. This opposition embit- tered the last days of his life. He held the office at the time of his death. May 30, 1867. This is a brief record of his life of forty years. Of his character no word of reproach was ever spoken. It is related of him that no act of unkindness or of disobedience ever pained the heart of his widowed mother. That he p^os- sessed a tender and thoughtful regard for the members of his household, and that he was actuated by the highest motives in entering the service of his coun- 972 Ohio in the War. try, maybe seen,bythisextract from aprivate letter written to his sister, but sent to his brother, with directions to give it to her only in case he was killed in the war. It is dated at Camp Wood, near Munfordsville, Kentucky, December 18, 1861 : "But the realities of war are around me, and I am not insensible to its dangers, and have thought over the whole subject again and again. If I felt sure that death would be the only portion I should reap from this war, I should not the less be satisfied, and even glad that I had taken up arms in defense of my country in the hour of her extreme need. I could not feel that I had per- formed my duty to that country, which, in peaceful times, has honored and trusted me, nor to the parents who gave me birth — to you who live now, nor to those who are to come after all of us shall have passed the dread trial that comes but once, but must come to all, if I had done otherwise than I have in this matter." As a soldier-General Langdon was conspicuous for his bravery. At Pittsburg Landing his commanding form made him a mark for the enemy's sharp-shooters. One of their balls tore his hat from his head and knocked him from his horse. At Perryville and at Stone Eiver, while acting as a staff-officer for General McCook, his horse was shot under him, and he was specially men- tioned for gallant conduct by both Rosecrans and McCook. Elsewhere in this ^ work is recorded the story of his gallant conduct at Mission Ridge; where, not- withstanding he received an almost mortal wound, he still kept with his men, and was among the first within the enemy's works. Prom this wound he never fully recovered. The shock to his system induced an affection of the heart. His death, though not unexpected, was sudden. On the morning of May 30, 1867, he rose early ; his breakfast was brought to him by his devoted sisters, but it was not touched. N^ear dinner-time one of them brought him some mulled wine as a reviving drink. On rising up to receive it his head fell forward, and when it was lifted by his sister's hand life had passed awaj'. To the number of brave men who yielded their lives at Mission Ridge was added one more, in the person of E. Bassett Langdon, who as truly died for his country as if he had fallen in that historic charge. John C. Lee was residing at Tiffin, Ohio, at the beginning of the rebellion, engaged in successful practice of the law. On the 25th of November, 1861, he was commissioned Colonel of the Fifty-Fifth Ohio Infantrj-, and soon after was ordered to West Virginia. He served for a short time as president of a court- martial convened by order of General Rosecrans at Charleston, and then joined his regiment at Romney. Being the senior officer he was placed in command of the district of the South Potomac by order of General Schenck. He marched under command of Schenck to the relief of Milroy at McDowell, in May, 1862. He also participated in the Shenandoah campaign which culminated in the battle of Cross Keys. He was in the battles of Freeman's Ford, White Sulphur Springs, Warrenton, Bristow's Station, New Baltimore, New Market, Thorough- fare Gap, Gainesville, Chantillj', and the Second Bull Run, in all which he re- ceived the special commendation of his superior officers. At Chancellorsvillo, in 1863, he was on the right when the enemy made such a furious assault on the Eleventh Corps, and by his determined efforts, aided by Orland Smith of the LisTEE— McCleaey. 973 Seventy-Third Ohio and McGroarty of the Sixty-Pirst, did mucli to stay the tide of Eebel success. On account of severe illness in his family General Leo unwillingly tendered his resignation, which was received May 18, 1863. "When the National Guard was called out he was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Sixty-Fourth Ohio, which did service around the fortifications of Washington. He was mustered out August 27, 1864, and brevotted Brigadier- General March, 1865. He was placed by the Executive Committee on the Eepublican ticket for Lieutenant-Governor, on the declination by Hon. Samuel Galloway of the nomination of the convention to that office, and he was elected in October, 1867. Frederick W. Lister was commissioned Major of the Thirty-First Ohio September 28, 1861 ; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel February 28, 1862 ; to Colonel of the Fortieth United States Colored Troops April 29, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 1,3, 1865. Charles F. Manderson entered the Nineteenth Ohio Three Months' Eegi- ment May 30, 1861. He was commissioned Captain in the three years' organiza- tion of the same regiment September 1, 1861 ; was promoted to Major April 7, 1862; to Lieutenant-Colonel January 19, 1863, and to Colonel March 15, 1863. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. William H. Martin was a conductor on the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton Eailroad. He organized a company and was commissioned" Captain in the Kinety-Third Ohio; was promoted to Major February 2, 1863, and to Lieu- tenant-Colonel March 1, 1863. He was honorably discharged on account of wounds, December 2, 1863. His brevet rank dates from June 8, 1865. Edwin C. Mason served as Captain in the Second Ohio Three Months' Eeg- iment. He was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth Ohio September 21, 1864, with which he served until mustered out' June 18, 1865. His brevet rank dates from June 3, 1865. 0. C. Maxwell was commissioned Captain in the Second Ohio Infantry August 31, 1861; was promoted to Major December 24, 1862; to Lieutenant- Colonel December 31, 1862. He was honorably discharged on account of wounds Februarj' 1, 1864. He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hundred and Ninety-Fourth Ohio March 14, 1865 ; was promoted to Colonel October 22, 1865, and was mustered out with the regiment October 24, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. He afterward received a lucrative appointment from President Johnson in the Internal Eevenue service. He i-esides at Lebanon. James McCleary entered the Forty-First Ohio as Second-Lieutenant, August 20, 1861 ; was promoted to First-Lieutenant, January 9, 1862 ; to Cap- tain, September 16, 1862, and to Major, November 23, 1865. Ho received the appointment of Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, to date from March 13, 1865, "for o-allant and meritorious services at the battles of Pittsburg Landing and Stone Eiver Tennessee " and of Brevet Colonel from the same dale, " for gallant and 974 Ohio in the Wak. distinguished services in the battles of Stone River, Cliickamauga, and Mission Ridge, East Tennessee, and for marked faithfulness during the war." His rank as Brevet Brigadier-General dates from the same time, " for gallant and meri- torious services at the battles of Pittsburg Landing, Stone River, Chiekamauga, and Mission Ridge, Bast Tennessee, and for faithful services during the war." Henry K. McConnell was commissioned Captain in the Seventy-First Ohio, November 13, 1861, and was promoted to Colonel, May 30, 1863. He was mustered out with his regiment in January, 1866. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Anson G. McCook was born at Steubenville, Ohio, October 10, 1835. He is a nephew of the lamented General Robert L. McCook, and of the other brothers, George W. and Alexander M. McCook. He received his education in the common schools of Jefferson County ; and, at the age of fourteen, he was forced to rely upon his own efforts for a living. In 1854 he crossed the plains to California, and remained there until 1860, when he returned to Ohio. Upon the call for troops, in the spring of 1861, he raised the first company in Eastern Ohio, and was mustered into the three-months' service as Captain in the Second Ohio Infantry. He thus served through the campaign with the first troops in the field from Ohio, and was present at the first battle of Bull Run. When the regiment was reorganized for the three-years' service he was commissioned as Major, and was promoted successivelj^ to Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel. He served with the Army of the Cumberland, and was engaged always with credit, and sometimes with distinction, at Stone River, Chieka- mauga, Mission Ridge, and in the numerous hard-fought battles of the Atlanta campaign. He was mustered out with the regiment, October 10, 1864. In March, 1865, the Governor of Ohio tendered him the Colonelcy of the One Hundred and Ninety-Fourth Ohio Infantry. He accepted the position, and took the regiment to the Valley of Virginia, where it performed valuable guard-duty -until the close of the war. In the summer of 1865 Colonel McCook was made Brevet Brigadier-General "for meritorious services," in the language of the order announcing the promotion, to date from March .13, 1865. In No- vember of the same year he was discharged, to accept the office of Assessor of Internal Revenue for the Seventeenth Ohio District. J. E. McGowAN served as Second-Lieutenant in the Twenty-First Ohio Three Months' Regiment, from the 27th of April, 1861. He entered the One Hundred and Eleventh Ohio, August 6, 1862, as Captain. He was mustered out, March 24, 1864, and was appointed Colonel of the First United States Heavy Artillery (colored troops). His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. \ Stephen J. McGroarty was a member of the bar of Hamilton County. Ho was commissioned Captain of the Tenth Ohio Three Months' Reo'iment, April 18, 1861; promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel of the Sixty-First Regiment, April 23, 1862 ; to Colonel, September 23, 1862 ; transferred to the Eighty Sec- ond Ohio,.March, 1865, when the Sixty-First and Eighty-Second were consol- Meyee— MussEY. 975 idated. He lost an arm in the service. His brevet rank dates from May 1, 1865. He was a conspicuously gallant and eflScient officer; and, by reason of his birth, had great influence in securing the support of the war by the masses of Irish citizens in Cincinnati. Edward S. Meyee was commissioned Captain of the One Hundred and Seventh Ohio, November 11, 1862, and was promoted to Major, November 3, 1864. He resigned, January 1, 1865. He afterward entered the Fifth Eegi- ment of the First Army Corps, in which he received the appointments of Bre- vet Lieutenant-Colonel and Brevet Colonel. His brevet rank as Brigadier- General dates from March 13, 1865. Granville Moody was a noted minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of fervid patriotism, and with a gift of inspiring enthusiasm among those with whom he came in contact. He was commissioned Colonel of the Seventy -Fourth, Ohio, December 10, 1861 ; and, after having command of Camp Chase for a time, took the field with his regiment. He won the title of " fight- ing parson " by his gallantry at Stone liiver. He resigned. May 16, 1863. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. More particular mention of some of his services may be found in other parts of this work. John C. Moore served as Captain in the Eighty-Fifth Ohio, a three months' regiment, partially organized in June, 1862. On the 24th of Septem- ber, 1862, he was commissioned Captain in the Eighty-Eighth Ohio, from which he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hundred and Eighteenth United States Colored Troops. He was afterward promoted to Colonel. His brevet rank dates from November 21, 1865. August Moor, an officer of German birth and Cincinnati residence, was commissioned Colonel of the Twenty-Eighth Ohio, June 10, 1861. He was mustered out with his regiment, July 23, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, " for gallantry at the battles of Droop Mountain and Pied- mont, Virginia." Marshall F. Mooee was appointed Colonel of the Sixty-Ninth Ohio, De- cember 31, 1862, and was honorably discharged, November 7, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious services during the war, and especially at the battle of Jonesboro', Georgia." Samuel E. Mott was commissioned Captain in the Fifty-Seventh Ohio, October 20, 1861 ; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, April 16, 1863, and Colonel, August 10, 1865. He was mustered out with his regiment. His bre- vet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Eeuben Delavan Mussey is the son of E. D. Mussey, the well-known sur- geon who in his day stood at the head of his profession in America. He was born May 30, 1833, at Hanover, New Hampshire. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1854, after which he became a teacher for a short time. He went to Cincinnati in 1856, and was connected with the Cincinnati Gazette. He 976 Ohio ik the Wae. returned to New England in the autumn of the same year and became con- nected with the Boston Courier and Bee. In the spring of 1858 he again took a position on the Cincinnati Gazette. During the political campaign of 1860 he took an active part as a public speaker, and was also commandant of the "Wide Awake " organization in Cincinnati. In the spring of 1861, being on a visit to Washington City, he aided in the organization of the " Clay Guards" for the defense of the Capital after the fall of Sumter and until the arrival of troops from New York. He at once received an appointment as Captain in the Nine- teenth United States Infantry, and was ordered on recruiting duty until Octo- ber, 1861, when he went into the field in Kentucky with companies A and B of his regiment. He served in the Department of the Ohio until November, 1862, when he was ordered on recruiting duty in Cleveland. In the following spring he rejoined the army at Murfreesboro', and was appointed Commissary of Mus- ters of the Twenty-First Army Corps. In September, 1863, he was sent from Chattanooga to Nashville to assist in the organization of negro troops ; first as mustering officer under Major George L. Stearns, and afterward as the officer in charge of the whole matter of the organization of colored troops in East and Middle Tennessee, which command he retained until March 1, 1865. In June, 1864, he was appointed Colonel of the One Hundredth Eegiment of colored troops, which was the first regiment of that class openly enlisted in Eentucky. During his command he organized about ten thousand troops. During his stay at Nashville he wrote the following letter to the Mayor of that city, in response to an invitation to take part in a Fourth of July celebration. His troops were not invited, but the commanders of white troops were requested to parade with their commands. " Head-Quaeters Commanding Organization U. S. Coeored Troops, 1 " Nashville, July 3, 1864. I "Mr. W. S. Cheatham, Chairman Commiitee, etc.: "Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge an invitation for 'the pleasure of my company at the celebration of our National anniversary on the ensuing Fourth of July at Fort Gillene, on Jef- ferson Street extended.' "The invitation was dated June 30th. I answer it at this late moment because T have been disposed to give you all possible opportunity to invite also the trotipa with whose organization I liave been connected, and who to-day form the largest portion numerically of the forces at Nash- ville. Your committee has seen fit to omit them from its invitation to parade. With that omit- ted portion you know I am connected ; the title by which you addressed me comes from my con- nection with thera. As these troops are orderly, present a good appearance, and are, considering their opportunities, well drilled, your conduct in omitting them and inviting me, who am nothing but by virtue of my connection with them, either is studiedly insulting or betrays a lamentably limited experience of honorable sensibilities. I can not, sir, accept any invitation to a military display where other Colonels march their troops, while mine are excluded. "The Declaration of Independence, whose formal adoption makes the Fourth of July sacred, affirms as an axiom, that all men are created equal, and until you, sir, and your committee learn this fundamental truth, till you can invite all the defenders of their country to participate in your celebration, be they black or be they white, your ' celebrations of our National anniversary ' are mocking farces, insults to the illustrious dead, and blasphemy to Him who hath made ' of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.' I do not think my presence would be ' pleasurable ' to you ; I know yours would not be to me, so long as you make distinc- tions between the defenders of their country, which are alike discreditable to your humanity, your patriotism, and your Christianity ; distinctions which show that you do not know the letter Neff— Nettleton. 977 nor comprehend the spirit of the document whose ratification you propose to celebrate ; or, that knowing and comprehending both letter and spirit, you designedly ignore the one and violate the other. I am,'Bir, your obedient servant, R. D. MUSSEY, "Colonel 100th U. S. Colored Inf t., Comd'g Org. U. S. C. T." At the time of the assassination of President Lincoln he was in Washinsr- ton, making arrangements with the Secretary of War for the relief of the wants of the freedmen in Tennessee. At the request of Mr. Johnson he remained as his confidential secretary until the following November, when he resigned, partly to settle some unfinished military business in Tennessee, and partly because of dissatisfaction with the tendencies of Mr. Johnson's policy. In De- cember of the same year he i-esigned his position in the army, at which time he was holding the rank of Captain and Brevet Colonel United States army, and Colonel and Brevet Brigadier-General qf volunteers. He afterward settled in Washington, and went into the practice of the law. G-eneral Mussey is said by Adjutant-General Lorenzo Thomas to have been the first regular officer who asked permission to raise negro troops. lie submitted *o the War Department, in the winter of 1862-63, a jDlan therefor, the essential feature of which — raising them, not as State, but as United States troops — was adopted by the Govern- ment. George W. Neff was born in Cincinnati January 5, 1833. He was the youngest son of George W. Neff, who settled in Cincinnati in 1824. He received his education in the old Cincinnati and Woodward colleges, and, after the death of his father in 1850, he became a partner with his brother in > business. He was one of the original members of the "Eover Guards," a much-admired mili- tary company, which was among the first to volunteer under the call of the President. In April, 1861, after a few days' service as commandant of Camp Harrison, near Cincinnati, he organized the Second Kentucky Infantry (com- posed almost exclusively of Ohio troops), and was commissioned Lieutenant- Colonel. With this regiment he served in West Virginia but a few days, until he was captured at the battle of Scarry Creek July 17, 1861. From this cap- tivity he was not released until in August of the following year, having, in the meantime, suffered terrible hardships in bad treatment and starvation at Eich- mond, Charleston, South Carolina (where Colonels NefP, Wilcox, Corcoran, Woodruff, and Major Potter, were thrust into cells in the county jail, four feet square, as hostages for the pirates captm-ed by our navy); Columbia, Eieh- mond again, Salisbury, North Carolina; and Belle Isle. Soon after being exchanged," and while at home in Cincinnati on leave of absence, Kirby Smith's raid was made, and Colonel Neff volunteered his services to General Wallace and served on his staff. He was afterward assigned to the command of Camp Dennison, where he had the opportunity of defending the place against John Morgan. He was commissioned Colonel of the Eighty-Eighth Ohio Infantry July 29, 1863, and was mustered out with his regiment July 3, 1865. His bre- vet rank dates from March 13, 1865. A B. Nettleton entered the Second Ohio Cavalry as Captain May 10, Vol. I.— 62. 978 Ohio in the War. 1862; was projnoted to Major June 25, 1863; to Lieutenant-Colonel November 4, 1864, and to Colonel April 22, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Edward Follensbee Noyes was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, October 3, 1832. His parents having both died in his infancy, at the age of thirteen years he was apprenticed by hisgtiardian as a printer-boy in the office of the Morning Star, a religious newspaper published at Dover, New Hampshire. In this position he remained four and a half years, and then began preparing for college, at Kingston Academy, Rockingham County, New Hampshire. Ho entered Dartmouth College in 1853, and four years aftei* he graduated, ranking fourth in a class numbering fifty-seven. He immediately removed to Cincinnati, and studied law with M. E. Curwen, Esq., graduating in the Cincinnati Law School in 1858. The same year he began the practice of law, and was in the successful prosecution of his profession at the breaking out of the rebellioH. On the 8th of July, 1861, his law office was changed to recruiting head -quarters, and in less than one month a full regiment was raised and ready for the field. Of this regiment (the Thirty-Ninth Ohio Infantry) he was commissioned Major, to rank from July 27, 1861. In this rank he continued' with the command during all its marches in Missouri, and under General Pope during the advance upon and final capture of New Madrid and Island No 10. Still under Pope's command, he took part in all the skirmishes and engagements of General Hal- leck's left wing in front of Corinth, and on the heights of Farmington. Upon the resignation of Colonel Groesbeck, and the promotion of Lieutenant-Colonel Gilbert, ho was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel July 8, 1862, and in this rank took part under General Eoseci'ans in the battle of luka September 19, 1862, and in the bloody engagements at Corinth October 3d and 4th. On the 1st of October, 1862, ho was commissioned Colonel, vice Gilbert resigned, and in De- cember following he commanded the regiment in the battle of Parker's Cross Roads, where the Rebel forces under General Forrest were defeated with great loss. From this time until the beginning of the Atlanta campaign, he com- manded his regiment in its various movements and its garrison-duty at Cor- inth, Memphis, and its bridge building on the railroad in Middle Tennessee. While engaged in this latter dutj- at Prospect, Tennessee, the subject of veteran re-enlistment began to engage the attention of tlie troops. Colonel Noyes, with a quick perception of its necessity, threw the whole weight of his influence into the work of re-enlisting his regiment. He was so caf-iK'st in the matter, and so industriously advocated it that he fully aroused the spirit of his excellent regiment, and as a result the Thirty-Ninth Ohio gave to the country n much larger number of veterans than any other Ohio regiment. His zeal had its effect also on other officers in the command, and was doubtless instrumental in rendering the veteran movement so popular in General Dodge's district. In the Atlanta campaign ho took part until July 4, 1864, being in the engage- ments at Eesaca, May 9th, 14th, 15th, and 16th ; at Dallas, and at Kenesaw Mount- ain. On the 4th of July, while in command of an assault on the enemy's works O'Dowd-Paeky. 979 near Euff's Mills, on Nicojack Creek, he received a wound which resulted in the loss of a leg. This compelled him to relinquish for the first time his active 'connection with his command. After having partially recovered from two ani- putations, and while yet on crutches, he reported for duty to General Hooker, and was by him assigned to the command of Camjj Dennison, where he remained until April 22, 1865, when he resigned to accept the position of attorney (city solicitor) for the city of Cincinnati, an office to which he had been elected while absent in the army. In October, 1866, he was elected Probate Judge of Hamil- ton County on the Eepublican ticket. Colonel Noyes was with his regiment on every march, and in every battle and skirmish in which the command was engaged from the time of entering the service, in July, 1861, until he lost a leg in battle, July 4, 1864. That he had the love and respect of his men is evident from the fact already stated that he induced so many of them to re-enlist. He enjoyed the confidence of his superior officers, as is shown by the warm recom- mendations he received for promotion from Generals John Pope, "W. S. Eose- crans, D. S. Stanley, G. M. Dodge, and W. T. Sherman. The latter says: "I was close by when Colonel Noyes was shot. We were pressing Johnston's army back from Marietta when he made a stand at Smyrna camp ground, and I ordered his position to be attacked. It was done successfullj' at some loss, and Colonel Noyes lost his leg. He fully merits this honorable title." Colonel Noyes was a strict disciplinarian, and it was said of him that he in some way managed to have a greater number of men "present for duty" than any other equal regiment in the command. Yet he was impartial and uniformly kind to all who were disposed to do their duty. While he insisted upon being implicitly obeyed by his subordinates, he was always ready to obey without questioning the commands of his superiors, and he had the satisfaction of knowing, when the war was over, that his regiment never turned their backs to the enemy in any battle or skirmish from first to last. Having been recommended for promotion to the full rank of Brigadier- General before he was wounded, he received, after he was disabled for active service, a commission as Brevet Brigadier-General, to date from March 13, 1865. John O'Dowd entered the Tenth Ohio as Captain April 19, 1861. He remained in the regiment until July 13, 1862, when he resigned. In Octo'ber, 1864, he aided in organizing the One Hundred and Eighty-First Ohio, and was appointed Colonel October 15, 1864. He was honorably discharged May 27, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for gallant conduct in the defense of Murfreesboro', Tennessee, at the attack of General Hood's forces dur- ing the siege of Nashville, and for highly meritorious services during the war." Augustus C. Pakry was of English parentage, but was born at Trenton, New Jersey, in 1828. He removed with his parents to Cincinnati when quite young, and soon after was left an orphan. He was apprenticed by his guardian, Dr. Emmert, to learn the trade of a tinner, and afterward established himself in that business, in which he was engaged when the war began. He entered the service April 16, 1861, as. Major of the Second Ohio Infantry, and was at once 980 Ohio in the Wak. ordered to "Washington City. At the battle of Bull Eun he was placed in com- mand of his regiment early in the action, and on the retreat of the army he repelled the attacks of the enemy's cavalry. On the 30th of July, 1861, he returned to Ohio, and on reaching Cincinnati in command of his troops, i-eceived such a welcome as the overflowing patriotism of the people prompted. It was estimated that one hundred thousand people took part in the reception exer- cises. On August 23, 1861, he was commissioned Major of the Forty-Seventh Ohio Infantry, and before the close of the month he again entered the field in West Virginia, joining the command of General Eosecrans. He participated in the battle of Carnifex Ferry, and afterward, in the fall and winter of 1861-62, was engaged in a number of minor engagements and reconnoissances in the vicinityof Cotton and Sewall Mountains. In August, 1862, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel. In September following he was sent to dislodge the enemj' from Cotton Mountain, and to relieve the garrison at Fa3'ette C. H., which was successfully done. The troops at Fayette C. H. were enabled to join the main body in the retreat down the Kanawha. During this retreat Colonel Parry had charge of the rear-guard nearly all the time, and successfully cliecked the advance of the enemy until the stores were all secured or burned. At Charleston he maintained his position in the front line for six hours against a superior force. In January, 1863, he was promoted to Colonel. The regiment was then transferred to Vicksburg, where Colonel Parry's practical abilities were of much benefit to the command. At one time, having been called on by General Stuart for a plan of a bridge across a break in a levee, he submitted one, according to which he built a bridge in fourteen hours, on which the troops crossed. During the advance via Port Gibson to the rear of Vicksburg he was temporarily in command of a brigade in the absence of Genei-al Bwing. In the assaults on the works at Vicksburg on the 19th and 22d of May. Colonel Parry took a prominent part, being in the advance line. In the fall of 1863 he marched with his command to Chattanooga, where he took part in the battle of Mission Eidge and in the pursuit of Bragg. He also moved to Knoxville to the relief of the forces there, and subsequently returned to Larkinsville, Alabama, where the regiment went into winter-quarters. At this place Colonel Parry took com- mand of the brigade, and subsequently was appointed temporarily to the com- mand of the Second Division, Fifteenth Army Corps. He went with his regiment in the Atlanta Campaign, in 1864, through the battles of Eesaca, Dallas, and Tienesaw Mountain. At the latter place he was severely wounded, but recovered in time to go on the march to the sea. He was the first field oflS- cer who entered the enemy's works at the storming ot Fort McAllister bj' Gen- eral Hazen's division. He was brcveited Brigadier-General, to date from March 13, 1865. In the fall of 1865 he was elected Treasurer of Hamilton County, on the Eepublican ticket, and had been engaged but a few days in the duties of his oflfice, when he died, December, 1866, of consumption. Pardee— Raynoe. 981 Don a. Pardee was commissioned Major of the Forty-Second Ohio, Sep- tember 5, 1861 ; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel March 14, 1862, and was mustered out October 26, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Oliver H. Payne was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Twenty-Fourth Ohio January 1, 1863. He was wounded at the battle of Chick- amauga, and resigned November 1, 1864. His, brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. John S. Pearce was commissioned Major of the Ninety-Eighth Ohio, August 13, 1862 ; was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel October 7, 1862, and to Colonel November 5, 1863. He was mustered out with his regiment June 3, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. William S. Pierson was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Ohio, August 25, 1863. This regiment was en- gaged in guard-duty at Johnson's Island, Ohio. Colonel Pierson resigned July 15, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Orlando M. Poe, a native of Ohio, and then a j'oung Lieutenant of Engi- neers, six years out of West Point, was the first regular officer from Ohio to offer his services to Governor Dennison. He was sent to make some examina- tions as to the defensibility of sundry exposed points along the Ohio Eiver, and was then assigned to engineer duty on General McClellan's staff. After some West Virginia and Eastern service, he \yas sent to the Western 'armies in the same capacity, and by the close of the Atlanta Camjoaign he had risen to be the Chief Engineer to General Sherman. He was repeatedly offered a Brigadier- General's command, but he preferred his engineer's position, and remained in it to the end, maintaining a high place in the confidence of Sherman, the Engineer Corps, and the Government. He was made a Brevet Brigadier-General in the regular army, and a Brigadier-General of volunteers. He rose, by the close of the war, to be next to the ranking Captain of his corps, standing just below. Godfrey M. Weitzel. Eugene Powell was commissioned Major of the Sixty-Sixth Ohio, October 22, 1861, having previously served in the Fourth Ohio; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, May 24, 1862. He was discharged to accept the Colonelcy of the One Hundred and Ninety-Third Ohio, his commission being dated April 25, 1865. He was mustered out with his regiment August 4, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. E. W. Eatliff was commissioned Colonel of the Twelfth Ohio Cavalry November 24, 1863 ; was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious services under Generals Burbridge and Stoneman in South-west Virginia." W. H. Eaynor was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifty-Sixth Ohio September 28, 1861; was promoted to Colonel April 2, 1863. He was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 982 Ohio in the War. Americtts v. Eice entered the service April 27, 1861, as Captain of the Twenty-First Oliio Infantry in the three-months' service, was mustered out Au- gust 12, 1861, by reason of expiration of term of service. September 2,. 1861, commissioned Captain of the Fifty -Seventh Ohio Infantry, it having just began its organization. February 8, 1862, was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and April 16, 1863, to Colonel of the ]-eginient. His brevet rank dates from May 31, 1865. Orlando C. Eisdon was commissioned First-Lieutenant of the Forty-Sec- ond Ohio, October 7, 1861, but was afterward appointed Colonel of the Fifty- Third United States Colored Infantry. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, fof "gallant and meritorious services in the battles of Eich Mountain, Middle Creek, Tazeville, Arkansas Post, Chickasaw, Port Gibson, Champion Hills, Big Black Bridge, and the siege of Vicksbnrg." Thomas "W. Sanderson was appointed Major of the Tenth Ohio Cavalry, January 15, 1863; was promoted to LieutenanI -Colonel April 20, 1864, and to Colonel January 30, 1865, and was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Fraxklin Sawyer entered the Eighth Ohio Infantry as Captain, April 20, 1861 ; he was promoted to Miijor July 8, 1861 ; to Lieutenant-Colonel Novem- ber 25, 1861, and was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Lionel A. Sheldon was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Forty-Second Ohio, September 6, 1861; was promoted to Colonel March 14, 1862, and mus- tered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Thomas C. H. Smith entered the service August 23, 1861, as Lieutenant- Colonel of the First Ohio Cavalry. Was promoted to Colonel December 31, 1862. This promotion was revoked, as he had been appointed Brigadier-Gen- eral by the President, November 29, 1862. He served on the staff of Major- General John Pope, sharing the varied fortunes of that oflScer till sometime after the close of the war, when he was mustered out of the service. G. W. Shurtlifp entered the Seventh Ohio Three Months' Eegiment as Captain, April 22, 1861, and resigned March 18, 1863. He was afterward ap- pointed Colonel of the Fifth Eegiment United States Colored Troops. His bre- vet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Patrick Slevin was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hun- dredth Ohio, August 8, 1862 ; was promoted to Colonel, May 13, 1863, and was honorably discharged, November 30, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Benjamin F. Smith was appointed Colonel of the One Hundred and Twenty-Sixth Ohio, September 10, 1862, having previously served as Colonel of the First Ohio; was mustered out with his regiment, Juno 25, 1865. He was an officer of the regular army, and a fine disciplinarian. Slocum— Steadman. 983 WiLLARD Slocum entered tbe Twenty-Third Ohio Juno 1, 1861, as Cap- tain, and resigned July 17 following. He was appointed First-Lieutenant of the One Hundred and Twentieth Ohio August 25, 1862; promoted to Major February 18, 1863, and to Lieutenant-Colonel September 8, 1863. He was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Orland Smith was appointed Colonel of the Seventy-Third Ohio October 3, 1861. Ho resigned, February 17, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. He was, both befoi-e and since his military service, connected with the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad. OaLow Smith entered the service as a Captain of the Sixty-Fifth Ohio November 25, 1861 ; was promoted to Major September 23, 1863 ; to Lieu- tenant-Colonel October 10, 1865, and to Colonel November 24, 1865. He was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. JoAB A. Stafford served in the First Ohio Infantry from the beginning of its organization as a three months' regiment, and was mustered out as Major in 1864. He was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Seventy- Eighth Ohio Sejjtember 26, 1864. He was mu.stered out after the discharge of the regiment in June, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Anson Stager served as additional aid-de-carap, reaching the rank of Colonel. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. He is the Superintend- ent of the Great Western Union Telegraph Company, and through the war was the superintendent of military telegraphs. His relations were necessarily of the most confidential nature with the President, the Secretary of War, and the General-in-Chief His thorough knowledge of telegraphing, his earnest- ness, prudence, and devotion, made hi,3 services in this capaeitj' invaluable ; and his brevet rank is due to the high estimate placed upon them by the leading officers of the Administration. He w-as in the war from the very first, having accompanied General McClellan to the field in the first West Virginia cam- paign. He resides in Cleveland. Timothy 1?,. Stanley was Colonel of the Eighteenth Ohio in the three months' service, his commission bearing date May 29, 1861. He was re-com- missioned Colonel of the same regiment in the three years' service, August 6, 1861. He was mustered out November 9, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13 1865. He is an influential politician of the Eepublican party in his district, and has represented it in the State Senate. William Steadman was commissioned Major of the Sixth Ohio Cavalry October 21 1861; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel August 3, 1863; to Colonel January 1, 1864; mustered out October 6, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. General Steadman is one of the Western Eeserve Radicals and has been repeatedly required by bis fellow-citizens to serve them in the State Legislature. 984 Ohio in the War. "William Stough was commissioned Cnptain in the Ninth Ohio Cavalry; was promoted to Major September 8, 1864, and to Lieutenant-CoJonel October 1, 1864. He was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, " for gallant and meritorious services in the battle of Fayette- ville, North Carolina." Silas A. Strickland was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fiftieth Ohio August 17, 1862, and was promoted to Colonel October 16 following. He was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from May 27, 1865. Edgar Sowers was commissioned Captain in the One Hundred and Eigh- teenth Ojiio August 13, 1862; was promoted to Major October 12, 1864; to Lieutenant-Colonel January 6, 1865, and to Colonel June 20, 1865. He was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Peter J. Sullivan was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Forty- Eighth Ohio November 23, 1861, and was promoted to Colonel January 23, 1862. He resigned August 7, 1863. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Jacob E. Taylor was commissioned Captain of the Thirtieth Ohio Au- gust 22, 1861 ; was promoted to Major of the Fortieth Ohio October 29, 1861 ; then to Lieutenant-Colonel; and, on February 5, 1863, to Colonel, and was mus- tered out October 7, 1864. On the 4th of March, 1865, he was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Eighty -Eighth Ohio, with which he served till September, 1865, when he was mustered out. His brevet rank dates from Marcli 13, 1865. Thomas T. Taylor was commissioned Captain of the Forty-Seventh Ohio August 28, 1861; was promoted to Major December 30, 1862; to Lieutenant- Colonel June 15, 1865, and to Colonel August 10, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. David Thojipson was commissioned Captain in the Eight3'-Second Ohio November 14, 1861; was promoted to Major April 9. 1862; to Lieutenant-Col- onel August 29, 1862. He was afterward appointed Brevet Colonel, and was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank a?. Brigadier-General dates from March 13, 1865. John A. Turley, of Portsmouth, Ohio, was commissioned Lieutenant- Colonel of the Twenty-Second Ohio April 23, 1861. Ho served with this regi- ment till the close of the three montlis' servio. He was appointed Lieutenant- Colonel of the Eighty-First Ohio August 19, 1861, but resigned December let of the same year. He was appointed Colonel of the Ninety-First Ohio August 22, 1802, with which regiment he served until November 4, 1864, when he was discharged on account of wounds received in action near Lynchburg, June 17, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for gallant and faithful Services at the battle of Cloyd's Mountain, Virginia." Lewis Von Blessingh served as Captain in the Fourteenth Ohio in the Von Schbaedee— Waed. 985 three months' service. He was commissioned Captain in the Thirty-Seventh Ohio September 6, 1861 ; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel October 2, 1861, and was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Alexander Von Schraeder was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventy-Fourth Ohio December 10, 1861. He was appointed Colonel May 16, 1863, but he declined promotion. He resigned Api-il 8, 1865. He was appointed Major and Assistant Adjutant-General February 1, 1865, which position he held until after the close of the war. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battles of Stone River, Chicka- mauga, during the Atlanta campaign, and particularly for the battle of Jones- boro'." He was a German of military education, soldierly disposition, and noble birth. In this country, however, he had been reduced to great poverty, and had for some time before the outbreak of the war earned his livelihood as the conductor of a car on one of the street-railroads of Cincinnati. He died some time after the close of the war. DuRBiN Ward was born at Augusta, Kentucky, February 11, 1819. His father served in the war of 1812, and was under the flag which furnished the occasion for Key's jjoem, " The Star-Spangled Banner." His grandfather (his mother's father) also served in the same war, with the Kentucky troops who fought in the JSTorth-west. In 1823 his his father removed to Fayette County, Indiana, where Durbin received a limited common school education. He after- ward spent two years at Miami University, supported by his own exertions, but left the institution without graduating. He then took up the study of the law at Lebanon, Ohio, first with Judge Smith, and afterward with Governor Corwin, with whom he formed a partnership in 1843. In 1845 he was elected Proseeu- ting-Attorney of Warren County, an office to which he was re-elected succes- sively for six years. He was a member of the Legislature in 1851-52. In 1855 he gave up his ancient Whig faith, and united with the Democratic party. He was a bitter opponent of "Know-Nothingism." In 1856 he was defeated as a candidate for Congress, and in 1858 he was again defeated as a candidate for the office of Attorney-General of the State on the Democratic ticket. At the Charleston and Baltimore Conventions, of which he was a member, he was a firm adherent to Douglas, whose doctrine of popular sovereignty Mr. Ward sup- ported in a pamphlet published in the fall of 1860. Durbin Ward claims to have been the first volunteer in his district, having begun to raise a company before President Lincoln's proclamation, in the belief that war would ensue upon the attack on Fort Sumter. He served through the three months' service as a private in the Twelfth Ohio, though during a portion of the time he was detailed as a member of the staif of General Schleich. At the end of his three months' term he was appointed Major of the Seventeenth Ohio with which, in October, 1861, he took the field in Southern Kentucky. He participated in the battles of Wild Cat, Mill Springs, Corinth, Perryville, Stone River, Hoover's Gap, Tullahoma, Chickamauga, and throughout the 986 Ohio tn thk War. Atlanta campaign, during which he commanded his regiment with his left arm iti a sling, from the effect of the very severe wound he received at the battle of Cliickiimauga. Having accidentally injured this arm at the close of that cam- paign and fearing the effect upon it of Sherman's march to the sea, he resigned November 8, 1864. Nevertheless he remained at Nashville when Hood threat- ened ot, and acted as volunteer aid on the staff of General Schofield. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in February, 1863, and to Colonel the following November. His brevet rank dates from October 18, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Chickamauga." After the war he opened an office in Washington City for the prosecution of claims. Being a supporter of the policy of President Johnson he took part in the National Union Convention at Philadelphia, and the Soldiers' Convention at Cleveland in 1866. He was placed in nomination for Conguess in the Third Ohio District against General Schenck, but was defeated. On October 18, 1866, he received the appointment of District-Attorncj' for the Southern District of Ohio. He was married November 27th of the same year to Miss Elizabeth Probasco. Throughout his militarj' career he was a bold, zealous, fighting officer, having the full confidence of his men. In political action he then sym- pathized with the Union party; and some of the most fervid and effective addresses from the army to the voters at home came from his pen. His belief in the intellectual inferiority of the negro race, and his hostility to negro suf- frage, had much to do with his return to the Democratic party after the close of the war. Daeiu&B. Warner was commissioned Major of the One Hundred and Thir- teenth Ohio September 8, 1862; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel April 29, 1863, and to Colonel February 23, 1865. Ho resigned June 6, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Kenesaw Mountain." George E. Welles was commissioned First-Lieutenant of the Sixty-Eighth Ohio October 29, 1861; was promoted to Major July 5, 1862; to Lieutenant- Colonel May 16, 1863, and to Colonel January 16, 1865. He was mustered out with the regiment July 10, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Henry E. West entered the service October 3, 1861, as Second-Lieutenant in the Sixty-Second Ohio Infantry. He was promoted to First-Lieutenant De- cember 18, 1861; to Captain September 18, 1862; to Lieutenant-Colonel October 16, 1864; to Colonel April, 1865, and finally to Brevet Brigadier-General. He has participated in the following engagements: Winchester, March 23, 1862; Port Republic, Fort Wagner, Port Waltham Junction, Deep Run, Deep Bottom, New Market Eoad, Darbytown Eoad, and Petersburg. He received three wounds — one at Fort Wagner, one at Deep Run, and one at Rice's Station. He was mustered out of the service on the 15th of December, 1865. Horatio N. Wiiitbeck was commissioned Captain of the Sixty-Fifth Ohio November 2, 1861 ; was promoted to Major October 7, 1862 ; and to Lieuten- White— Wood. 987 ant-Coloiiol March 22, 1863. He resigned August 16, 18C5. His brevet rauk dates from March 13, 1865. Garb B. White was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twelfth Ohio June 28, 1861, and was promoted to Colonel September 10th following. He was mustered out July 11, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for gallant and faithful services at the battle of Cloyd's Mountain, Virginia." James A. Wilcox was born at Columbus, September 23, 1828. He is the son of P. B. Wilcox, Esq., for many years a distinguished lawyer in Ohio. He graduated at Yale College and commenced the practice of law at Columbus in 1852. In September, 1862, he was appointed Colonel of the One Hundred and Thirteenth Ohio Inftmtry. In the following December he took the regiment to Kentucky, and for some time was engaged in guarding the bridges over Big Eun and Sulphur Fork, on the Louisville and Nashville Eailroad. In February, 1863, the regiment moved to Nashville, and thence to Franklin, where it con- stituted a part of the reserve of the Arraj' of the Cumberland. In April, 1863, Colonel Wilcox, on account of domestic affliction and impaired health, was com- pelled to resign and return home. In May, 1863, he was appointed Provost- Marshal of the Seventh District of Ohio; in which capacity he served until September 3, 1864, when he was made, by the War Department, Acting Assist- ant Provost-Marshal General, Chief Mustering OflBcer, and Superintendent of Recruiting for Ohio, and, when General Cox took his seat as Governor of the State, he wr.s assigned to the command of the District of Ohio. On the 19th of October, 1865, Colonel Wilcox was brevetted Brigadier-General "for meritorious services in the recruitment of the armies of the United States." Aquila Wiley was a Captain in the Sixteenth Ohio in the three months' service; was commissioned Captain of the Forty-First Ohio September 19, 1861; he was promoted to Major March 1, 1862 ; to Lieutenant-Colonel November 20, 1862, and to Colonel November 29 following. He was honorably discharged June 7, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865 "ibr gallant and meri- torious services at the battles of Mission Eidge, Stone Eiver, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga, and faithful services during the war.'' William T. Wilson was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifteenth Ohio August 6, 1861, and resigned August 11, 1862. On the 26th of September, 1862, he was appointed Colonel of the One Hundred and Twcntj'-Third Ohio, with which regiment he served until it was mustered out June 12, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. Oliver Wood served during the three months' service as First-Lieutenant in the Twenlj'-Second Ohio; entered the same regiment in the three years' service as Captain August 21, 1861; was promoted to Major May 9, 1862, and to Colonel September 22, 1862. After the expiration of the term of service of the resriment he served as Colonel of the Fourth United States Veteran Volunteers. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 988 Ohio in the Wae. Thomas L. Young was born on the 14th of December, 1832, near Belfast, in north of Ireland. He came to this country when very young, received a com- mon school education, and was graduated at the law school of the Cincinnati College. When not quite sixteen years of age he entered the United States regular army during the last year of the Mexican War. During his ten years service in the army — five years of which time he was Orderly Sergeant of com- pany "A," Third Eegiment of Artillery, commanded most of that period by Captain and Brevet Major John F. Eeynolds (afterward Major-General com- manding the First and Second Corps, and killed at Gettysburg) — he was con- nected with an exploring expedition through the Western Territories of Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, Utah, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona, and served several years on the frontiers among the Indians. Becoming tired of the aimless life of a soldier in time of peace, he returned to Pennsylvania and engaged in mercan- tile pursuits until 1859, when he removed to Cincinnati, and was soon afterward appointed Assistant Superintendent of the House of Eefuge Eeform School, which position he held until the breaking out of the late rebellion. Mr. Young claims to have been the first volunteer from Hamilton County, as on the 18th of March, 1861, twenty-five days before the Eebels fired on Fort Sumter, foreseeing the inevitable result of the state of feeling between the people of the North and the leaders of the South, he wrote a letter volunteering his military services as an assistant to help organize the volunteer forces, to Lieu- tenant-General Winfield Scott, to whom he was personally known; and to which letter he received the following reply, in the handwriting of the old chieftain : "Head-Quaeters op the Army, •> "Washington, March 22, 1861./ "Dear Sir: I have received your friendly patriotic note of the 18th inst. I appreciate the sentiments of your communication which are worthy of a faithful old soldier, but I sincerely trust that no occasion may arise to require your military services. Peace is the interest of all our countrymen, and it is my prayer that peace may be preserved. "I remain your friend and fellow-citizen, "Thomas L. Young, Esq., Cincinnati, Ohio. WINFIELD SCOTT." On the 18th of April Mr. Young assisted in the organization of a volunteer companj' of Home-Guards, and drilled it, but as a company it never went into service. In August, 1861, he received the appointment of Captain in Fremont's Body-Guard, and served in it until about the 1st of January, 1862, when the organization was disbanded by Gcnciul Halleck. Returning from Missouri, in- censed at the Administration for removing General Fremont in whose honesty of purpose and military genius Mr. Young had at that time great confidence, he became the editor of a Democratic paper at Sidney, Ohio, and while he opposed many of the acts of the Administration, and condemned the weak-kneed policy then pursued toward the Eebels, he never swerved nor faltered in advocating a vigorous prosecution of the war. He had been identified with the Democratic party from the time he was old enough to have political opinions until the fall of 1862, when he considered that the Democracy ignored their principles, and took a stand against the country, ho then united with the Union party. In August, 1862, he again volunteered and was appointed Captain to recruit Zahm— Zeiglee. 989 a companj' for the One Hundred and Eighteenth Eegiment, and in the organi- zation of the regiment he was its first Major. While liolding this rank he was detached to act as provost-marshal at several points in Kentucky, where his name was held in fear and detestation by the Eebels and their sympathizers. In February, 1863, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel. The Colonel of his regiment being in command of a brigade, Lieutenant-Colonel Young commanded the regiment through the whole campaign in East Tennessee. In April, 1864, his Colonel having resigned, he was commissioned Colonel and served as such until the 14th of September following, when he was honorably discharged for disability caused by disease contracted during the Atlanta campaign. At the battle of Eesaca Colonel Young led the first charge on the center of the enemy's works, where his regiment was repulsed with great slaughter, losing one hundred and sixteen men out of two hundred and seventy in a few minutes. For this and other acts of gallantry the President, on the 13th of March, 1865, brevetted him Brigadier-General of volunteers. After the close of the war he was elected from Hamilton County to the State Legislature, where he took an important part especially in military legislation. In October, 1867, he was elected Eecorder of Hamilton County. Lewis Zahm was commissioned Colonel of the Third Ohio Cavalry August 6, 1861, and was honorably discharged January 5, 1863. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. GEORaE M. Zeigler was commissioned Second-Lieutenant of the Forty- Seventh Ohio Infantry August 28, 1861; was promoted to First-Lieutenant De- cember 6, 1861; to Captain December 28, 1862; and to Colonel of Fifty-Second Eegiment United States Colored Troops December 22, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. OUR HEROIC DEAD. COLONEL MINOR MILLIKIN. THUS far references to personal knowledge by the author of his sub- jects has been in the main avoided; but I can not bring mj'self to write impersonally of Minor Millikin. He was my long-time friend — his death was the cruellest personal bereavement which the war brought to me. If I write of him, therefore, with a disproportionate warmth, I must beg that the excuse be therein found. Colonel Millikin was the eldest son of Major John M. Millikin, formerly a lawyer of Hamilton, and long known as the President of the State Board of Agriculture, and one of the foremost among that body of retired professional men of wealth and culture who adorn the vocation of Ohio farmers. Minor was born on the 9th of Julj', 1834. His early education was acquired in the high schools of Hamilton, and under the watchful eyes of his parents. In 1860 he was sent to Hanover College, Indiana, where he passed through the course of study of the Freshman and Sophomore classes. In 1852 he went to Miami Uni- versity, and there completed his collegiate education. He ranked foremost among all the students then in that honored old insti- tution. He was not known as a remarkable scholar, nor was he ever popular. But there was about him an individuality so intense and so striking that wherever he was placed he was the center of attention. Nothing could exceed his personal independence, his uniform regard for the rights and feelin'-'s of others, his peremptory requirement that under all circumstances, in all places, from all persons a similar regard should be extended to his own. Professor or President might infringe upon them, but never without an instant and indig- nant protipst, which proceeded upon the simple basis that he was a gentleman, and no college official could be more. Colleges not yet being perfection, it was quite natural that ftU tbis should involve him in difficulties. He was repeatedly brought before the Faculty, and more than once threatened -with suspension or worse, but he never failed to maintain his position and carry his points. He was known as the athlete of the institution — the best jumper, foot-ball player, boxer, fencer, rider. He was the most nervous and original writer, and alto- (990) Minor Millikin. 991 gcther the most striking debater in his society. Withal he was a ladies' man, but after an independent fashion of his own that brought down upon him the wrath of the respectable Doctor of Divinity at the head of the Female College. Students of Miami, of those days, still recall with amusement the revenge of the young Senior. He was the "honor orator" of his society at the winter exhi- bition then about to be given. The President of the Female College was in attendance with large numbers of his fair pupils. Thereupon the orator aban- doned his announced speech, took prevailing systems of female education for his subject, and made perfectly courteous, but all the more delicious, fun of the good doctor's methods for an hour before his pupils. To these traits of Young Milli- kin's college life it should be added that he was an unaffectedly devout Chris- tian ; and that in the delicate refinement of his language and habits, and even in the faultless elegance of his toilet, he was more like a lady than the muscular champion of his class. He was graduated with high, though not distinguished, standing in 1854. He went immediately to the Harvard Law School. Here he came to be best known by his prominence in the exciting discussions of the slavery questions of the time in the Law School Moot Congress. An attempt was made by the Southern students to adopt the bullj-ing tone then prevalent at "Washington, and to break up the debates. Two young men led the firm and successful opposi- tion to this attempt. One was Geo. W. Smalley (son-in-law to Wendell Phillips), the oth'er. Minor Millikin. The next year he returned to Cincinnati and entered the law office of his father's friend, Thomas Corwin. A j-ear later he married Miss Mollj'neaux, of Oxford, to whom he had been engaged while at college, and started to Europe on a bridal tour, which was prolonged for a twelvemonth. On his return he purchased the Hamilton Intelligencer, the Eepublican organ of his native county, and for the next two years edited it. He had never intended to practice his profession, but he improved the opportunities of leisure now afforded him to review and extend his studies. Then, disposing of his newspaper, he retired to his farm, near that of his father, in the vicinity of Hamilton, and was engaged in imj^roving it, and building, when the war broke out. He was a j-oung husband and a father; he was comparatively wealthy; was engaged in the pursuits most to his taste; was less exposed to the allure- ments which the chances for advancement in the army offered than the most. But from the day on which the war was begun ho gave himself up to it. His tastes and his superb horsemanship naturally inclined him to the cav- alry service. There was great difficulty at first in getting cavalry companies accepted, and recruiting was consequently discouraged. But he enlisted him- self as a private, and soon had the nucleus of a company. The Government could not be induced to furnish horses in time, and, to get the company off for the West Virginia campaign, he advanced the funds to purchase twenty-four out of his own pocket. His recruits were united to Captain Burdsall's Cincinnati com- pany and Millikin presently became sergeant, and then Lieutenant. He re- turned from the three months' campaign in West Virginia with the confidence 992 Ohio in the Wae.. of his men, and the indorsement of his commanders as the best of the cavalry officers on duty in that department. Thus recommended he was soon ap- f pointed a Major in the first regiment ot Ohio cavalry raised for the three years' service. Here Major Millikin's old habits of personal independence and frank ex- pression of opinions, coupled with his unconcealed distaste of the coarse habits of some of his associates, bred ti-oubles from which he escaped only a little be- fore his death. Of the way in which these troubles arose, this unique letter to his Colonel may aiford a suggestion : "Colonel O. P. Kansom — Dear Sir: It is with extreme reluctance I bring myself to write this letter. In the beginning I beg you to believe tliat nothing but the strong sense of duty, too long smothered by a desire to avoid even a suspicion of fault-finding or disaffection, now moves me to its compositon. At last thoroughly convinced of the necessity of my acting on the convic- tions I have for weeks entertained, I shall no longer try to avoid any pain these convictions may bring. "Your habits. Colonel Eansom, your intemperate excesses, are of such a character as entirely to negative my faith in, and respect for your other good qualities. Since in command of this regiment they have oftener than twice or thrice brought all your ability into contempt, all your nobleness into humiliation, all your dignity into ridicule. Even while commandant of this post, you, my Colonel, have been so beneath and unlike yourself as to share alike the sneers of your inferiors and the blushes of your friends. For while your enemy has had no absolute rule over you, it has incapacitated you from advance and crippled all your energies. The genuine admi- ration which your many bfilliant and attractive qualities have drawn from the oflScers under you (amounting in my own case to something like affection), has been by your unfortunate conduct first checked and latterly changed into misgivings and distrust. Even the privates make you an excuse for conduct you would be the first to condemn, while officers of other regiments and citi- zens make such comments, suggest such sneers, and often ask such questions as your subalterns dare not answer with truth, or pass unnoticed with self-respect. Over all, I have the terrible re- flection (gathered from your easy yielding to temptation in camp, which I know will be a hun- dred-fold increased in the field), that when my reliance on your invariable self-command ought to be greatest, my mistrust of my superior officer will be most painful and pernicious. " Under the circumstances I do not consider it my duty to serve under you. I believe it would be unjust to you, unjust to my own character, unjust to those who love my life, unjust to the many lives under ua, unjust to the great cause for which we fight. Either my Colonel or my Colonel's habits must be changed. I have only, then, to say that on any recurrence of your un- fortunate habit I, with other officers of the regiment, will prefer charges against you in such a manner as will be effectual. "I do not fear. Colonel Kansom, that you will find any touch of unkindness or disrespect in this. You are too generous for tliat. Though far your junior in years, I have seen too much of life to be very self-righteous — far top much, dear sir, to feel any otherwise than charitable and for- giving toward your misfortune. God has been too good to me that I should put in a single shade of conceit or severity toward my fellows. Besides you have all my past conduct since with you as the best interpreter of my present words. Neither will you suspect me of any selfish or sinis- ter designs. I was put here without solicitation, without even knowing of my promotion, until it was made, and I certainly have nothing to gain or lose by anything which may happen you. "Your conduct toward me has always been of the kindest. I recognize in you the bearing of a genuine gentleman. I have not one single objection to make here to your management of the regiment as Colonel, and if I have, I have too much respect for strict discipline even to allow it expression. You must always have seen in me, sir, a strong desire to please you. I am glad to say here that I shall always be proud to deserve your good opinion — both as an o6Rcer and a man. I hope the uniform pleasant relations between us will always continue, and I par- ticularly hope our military relations will remain unchanged, when I consider the utter incompe- tency of your Lieutenant. But, Colonel, in this matter all other considerations are merged in one — the defect is fatal; my duty imperative. "Minor Millikin. 993 "With many misgivings, but with a firm faith in my own honesty and your magnanimity, I Bubscribe myself, very faithfully your friend, MINOR MILLIKIN." If more manly and touching words were addressed bj' any subordinate to his superior during the war, I have failed to see them. After a time the Colonel of the regiment resigned. Minor MilHkin, the junior Major of the regiment, was promoted to the vacant Colonelcy. The promotion was based upon his acknowledged merits, but it wrought him great harm. One of the officers over whose heads he was thus lifted was brother to the Governor of the State, another had such influential friends as presently to secure a Brig- adier-General's commission, all were older than himself. Dissatisfaction of course arose, all manner of complaints were made, oflScers threatened to resign by wholesale, and finally the charge was made that Colonel Millikin was too young and too ignorant of cavahy tactics to lead Ohio's first cavaly regiment. The result was that he was ordered before a board of regular officers for exam- ination. Some delays ensued, but when at last the examination was held, he passed it triumphantly, and received the warmest compliments of the examiners. While the matter was pending, Colonel Millikin served on the staff of Gen- eral George H. Thomas, who was, throughout, his warm personal friend. When at last his regiment was returned to him he found it much demoralized by bickerings among tbe officers, and the general uncertainty as to its control. What he did with it may be elsewhere read. But he was not long to lead the disciplined organization he had created. In the battle of Stone Eiver he was sent to repel attacks of Rebel cavalry on the rear of the army. Seeking to protect a valuable train he ordered a charge, and himself lead it. The force of the enemy at that point was superior, and he presently found himself, with a small part of his regiment, cut off. He refused to surrender, and encouraged his men to cut their way out. A hand-to-hand encounter followed. Colonel Millikin's fine swordsmanship enabled him to pro- tect himself with his saber. After a contest for some minutes with several assailants, one of them, enraged at his obstinate resistance, shot him with a revolver, while he was engaged in parrying the strokes of another. The regi- ment charged again a few minutes later and recovered the body, but not before it had been stripped of sword, watch, and purse. Let me show something more of the character of the young hero thus cruelly cut off, by this sad fragment that was found among his papers. Some of its phrases would seem to indicate that he intended it for circulation among the men of his command: THE SOLDIER'S CREED. "I have enlisted in the service of ray country for tlie term of three years, and have sworn faithfully to discharge my duty, uphold the Constitution, and obey the officers over me. "Let me see what motives I must have had when I did tliis thing. It was not pleasant to leave my friends and my home, and, relinquishing my liberty and pleasures, bind myself to hard- ships and obedience for three years by a solemn oath. Why did I do it? "1 I did it because I loved my country. I thouglit she was surrounded by traitors and Btruck by cowardly plunderers. I thought that, having beeu a good Government to me and my Vol. 1.— 63. 994 Ohio in the Wae. fathers before me, I owed it to her to defend her from all harm; so when I heard of the insults offered her, I rose up as if some one had struck my mother, and as a lover of my country agreed to fight for her. "2. Though I am no great reader I have heard the taunts and insults sent us working-men from the proud aristocrats of the South. My blood has grown hot when I heard them say labor was the business of slaves and 'mudsills;' that they were a noble-blooded and we a mean-spirited people; that they had ruled the country by their better pluck, and if we did not submit they would whip us by their better courage So I thought the time had come to show these inso- lent fellows that Northern institutions had the best men, and I enlisted to flog them into good manners and obedience to their betters. "3. I said, too, that this war would disturb the whole country and all its business. The South meant 'rule or ruin.' It has Jeff. Davis and the Southern notion of Government; we our old Constitution and our old liberties. I couldn't see any peace or quiet until we had whipped them, and so I enlisted to bring back peace in the quickest way. "I had other reasons but these were the main ones. I enlisted and gave up home and com- fort and took to the tent and its hardships. I have suffered a great deal — been abused some- times — had my patience tried severely — been blamed wrongly by my ofiBcers — stood the carelessness and dishonesty of some of my comrades, and had all the trials of a volunteer soldier; but I never gave up, nor rebelled, nor grumbled, nor lost my temper, and I'll tell you why: " 1. I considered I had enlisted in a holy cause with good motives, and that I was doing my duty. I believe men who are doing their duty in the face of difficulties are watched over by God. "2. I felt that I was a servant of the Government, and that as such I was too proud to quar- rel and complain. "3. I know if with such motives and such a cause I could not be faithful, that I could never think of myself as much of a man afterward. "And so I drew up a set of resolutions like this: "1. As my health and strength had been devoted to the Government, I would take as good care of them as possible — that I would be cleanly in my person and temperate in all my habits. I felt that to enlist for the Government and then by carelessness or drunkenness make myself unfit for service, would be too mean an act for me. "2. As the character I have assumed is a noble one, I will not disgrace it by childish quar- reling, by loud and foolisli talking, by profane swearing, and indecent language. It struck me that these were the accomplishments of the ignorant and depraved on the other side, and I, for one, did not think them becoming a Union soldier. "3. As my usefulness in a great measure depends on my discipline, I am determined to keep my arms in good order — to keep my clothing mended and brushed, to attend all the drills, and do my best to master all my duties as a soldier, and make myself perfectly acquainted with all the evolutions and exercises, and thus feel always ready to fight — it seems to me stupid for a man to apprentice himself to as serious a trade as war, and then try by lying and deception to avoid learning anything." Tills was bis own creed. How well he lived up to it let that best tj-pe of an American soldier, George H, Thomas, tell. After Colonel Millikin's death General Thomas addressed a letter to the bereaved father, in which are these words: "It affords me the most sincere pleasure to express to you and to Mrs. Millikin my utmost confidence in him, both as a friend, and as a brave, accom- plished, and loyal officer- — one on whose judgment and discretion I placed the greatest reliance. By his judicious, forbearing, and yet firm course of conduct, he was enabled to overcome all prejudice against him in his regiment, and his death is sincerely regretted by all. While mourning his loss, you have the con- solation of knowing that he fell a Christian and patriot, gallantly defending the honor of his country." LoEiN Andeeavs. 995 I must not prolong this sketch. And yet I can not feel that I have done justice to the memory of laj dead friend, without adding the conviction that by no single blow during the -war did the Country lose, among her younger oflScers, one braver, more devoted, more unselfish, more cultured, purer in char- acter, or loftier in honorable ambition. No one on the sad lists of the ISTation's slain seems more nearly to resemble him than Theodore "Winthrop. Like that lamented officer he was in some respects of too sensitive and peculiar an organ- ization for the rough ways of common life. But in the fire of our great strug- gle his true character shone out; and ia the halo from Stone River tliat now surrounds the name, none, even of his enemies, fail to do tender justice to his worth, or to cherish as a sacred possession the memory of Minor Millikin. COLONEL LOMN ANDREWS. LOEIN ANDEEWS was one of the earliest and costliest offerings of Ohio to the war. He was not permitted to develop fully his military ability, but there was no reason to doubt, from his known character, and his zeal in the distinguished positions he had filled, that as a soldier he would have reached as high a rank as he had already won in civil life. He was born in Ashland County, Ohio, April 1, 1819. His early life was passed on his father's farm, and in obtaining a good common school education. He afterward took a collegiate course, and spent some time in common school teachino-. He became an efficient and intelligent laborer in the cause of common schools in Ohio, and was prominent as a leader of the movement for inaugu- rating many of the present excellent features of our common school system. He was the agent and "missionary'' of the Ohio Teachers' Association in 1851-52. In 1853 he was its choice for State School Commissioner, and in 1854 he was its President. At the height of his reputation and influence in the cause of general edu- cation, he was chosen to the Presidency of Kenyon College. Bishop Mcllvaine, in his funeral sermon, said of this appointment: "The condition of the college demanded just the qualities for which he was so distinguished— the talent for administration, a very sound judgment, a prompt and firm decision, united with a special drawing of heart toward young men in the course of their education. AH the highest expectations of his administration were more than fulfilled." Of his entrance into the military service, the Bishop says: "When the first 996 Ohio in the War. call of the President of the United States for quotas of volunteer troops from the several States was made, he was the first man in Ohio, whose name Gover- nor Dennison received. He did it for an example. . . . He sought no mili- tary distinction. He led to the camp a company of his neighbors, expecting only to be allowed to lead them in the war. But his talents and character were appreciated, and he was placed in command of the regiment — the order and discipline of which soon became conspicuous, as also did his devotedness to the interests and comfort of his men." He was commissioned Colonel of the three months' organization of the Fourth Ohio Infantry. When, in June, the organization was changed to a three years' regiment, he was retained in the same command. His faithfulness in whatever position he was placed, united with his ability to master whatever he chose to learn, made him very soon an able and efficient commander and disciplinarian. He went with his command to Western Vir- ginia, where he soon fell a victim to the exposure incident to camp life. In the beginning of his sickness he could not be prevailed on to leave the camp, say- ing, "My place is with my men ;" but as he grew worse, he was at last removed to Gambier, Ohio, where, amid the scenes of his labors in the best years of his life and among his weeping friends, ho breathed his last, September 18, 1861. Fbed C. Jones. 997 COLONEL FRED C. JONES. FEED C. JONES was born at Parrott's Grove, Green County, Pennsyl- vania, December 16, 1834. He was of Welch and German descent, and his maternal grandfather was a soldier in the Eevolution. In 1846 his father removed to Cincinnati, and the son entered the public schools. In 1848 he was admitted to the Central High School, and in 1851 he was transferred to the "Woodward. Fred Jones was always an acknowledged leader among the boys in the debating club, in the school-room, and on the play-ground. During his school days a military epidemic seized Old "Woodward. All other games were neglected, and the entire grounds were covered with incipient soldiers, marching and counter-marching. Fred Jones was elected Captain of a com- pany. The one company increased to four, and Captain Jones was chosen Colo- nel of the battalion. Ten years later, and the play -ground was exchanged for the battle-field, and the boy -battalion furnished three Colonels, eight Captains, and twelve Lieutenants to the National army. After graduating, Fred Jones went to Illinois, whither his father had re- moved some time previous. During the summer he was occupied on the farm, and during the winter in teaching school. In 1855 he returned to Cincinnati, and was employed by Thomas Spooner, Esq., in the county clerk's oflSce. Here his duties familiarized him with law forms, and brought him into contact with some of the most prominent lawyei-s of the city and State. His evenings were spent in select reading, and he attended a course of lectures in the law school. After performing faithfully the duties of an office clerk for several years, he entered the law office of Messrs. King & Thompson, where he continued his studies until admitted to the bar. He was soon elected by a large majority to the office of prosecuting attorney of the police court. At the opening of the war nothing but the fairest j)rospects in civil life lay before Fred Jones; but "the call of the country was to him as the voice of God." In a letter to his parents dated April 28th, 1861, he said, "I feel a great desire to go to this fight, because I think it the duty of every man, without the cares of a family, to serve his country wherever and whenever she may need his services." The only struggle seemed to be between patriotism and filial af- fection, for a few weeks later he writes, " I am gratified that my proceedings so far have met with the approval of yourself and mother. I am willing to leave the enjoyments of this place for the service of my country, when assured that I go with the permission of my father and mother. I have learned from your early instruction that be is wh,olly unworthy of home and friends who would 998 Ohio in the Wak. not defend and protect them. My country is my home, and her people are my friends." He was appointed Aid to General Bates, with the rank of Captain, and was very serviceable in the organization of raw troops at Camp Dennison. After several months General Bates resigned and Captain Jones resumed the practice of law. A few days after^ while he was busy at court, he received a dispatch containing his appointment as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Thirty-Pirst Ohio Infantry, with orders to report immediately to Colonel Walker, and one hour later he was leading his new regiment toward the enemy. In March, 1862, Lieutenant-Colonel Jones was transferred to the Twenty- Fourth Ohio Infantry, and such was the attachment of the officers of the old brigade and division for him that they, headed by Generals Schcepf and Thomas, united in a petition to have him returned to his former regiment, but the exigencies of the service compelled him to remain with the Twenty-Fourth. He was frequently engaged in skirmishes, but his first great battle was Pittsburg Landing. The regiment was in the advance brigade of General Buell's army, and was about ten miles from the field when the battle began. It hastened for- ward, and arrived in time to assist in checking the enemy on the first day. On the next day the Twenty-Fourth, commanded bj^ Lieutenant-Colonel Jones, re- ceived the attack of an entire brigade, and finally drove it back. Lieutenant- Colonel Jones was commended for coolness and bravery, and soon after he was promoted to Colonel for gallantry on the field of battle. In October, 1862, while at Wild Cat, Kentucky, the command of the Tenth brigade devolved upon Colonel Jones. The march from Wild Cat to Nashville was almost one continuous skirmish, and for his able leadership Colonel Jones received the thanks of his superior ofiicer, and of every field-officer in the bri- gade. On the first day of the battle of Stone River the Twenty-Fourth was on the front and left of the line. In the afternoon, when the enemy assaulted the left fiercely. Colonel Jones ordered the regiment to lie down and hold fire. When the enemy was within point-blank range the regiment raised at the com- mand of the Colonel, poured in a deadly volley, and rushed forward in a charge. In this charge, almost an entire Eebel regiment was captured, and Colonel Jones was killed. The fatal ball struck him in the right side, and passed en- tirely through the body. He was borne to the rear, two of the bearers being shot while in discharge of the task, and some of the best surgeons in the divis- ion were soon in attendance. He received the intelligence that his wound was mortal with apparently no surprise, replying, "I know it; I am dying now. Pay no attention to me, but look after my wounded men." Tea hours after re- ceiving his wound ho died. His body was brought to Cincinnati, and was buried at Spring Grove with military and civic honors. Thousands of sad hearts joined in the mournful pageant, and his deeds and virtues were embalmed in the memory of a host of friends. William G. Jones. 999 COLONEL WILLIAM G. JONES. WILLIAM G. JONES was born in Cincinnati, February 23, 1837. He was the son of John D. Jones, and the maternal grandson of Col- onel John Johnston, who was widely known as an Indian Agent and an enthusiastic pioneer. In 1855 he entered West Point, and upon graduating he was appointed Brevet Second-Lieutenant in the Eighth United States Infantry. He was at once ordered to Arizona, where he arrived in December, 1860. In February, 1861, General Twiggs surrendered the troops under his command to the State authorities in Texas. Lieutenant Jones was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, and he moved with the troops to the coast, ostensibly for the purpose of embarking for the North; but upon arriving at Adam's Hill, near San Antonio, they were compelled to surrender to Barl Van Dorn. During his prison-life Lieutenant Jones received many favors from Charles Anderson, late Acting Governor of Ohio, but at that time a resident of San Antonio. He was exchanged in February, 1862, and he immediately hastened to Washington, and declining a leave, joined the Army of the Potomac in the first advance upon Eichmond. He served on the staff of Brigadier-General An- drew Porter, Provost-Marshal General of the Army, and shared in all the excite- ments and privations of the Peninsular campaign. On the 24th of June, 1862, he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the First California, or Seventy-First Pennsylvania Infantry; and with his regiment he participated in the battles of Fair Oaks, Peach Orchard, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, and Malvern Hills. After this he resigned and accepted the position of Aid-de-Camp on the staff of Major-General Sumner; and in that capacity he served through the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg. Upon the death of the General he was appointed Colonel of the Thirty-Sixth Ohio Infantry, and was thus trans- ferred to Tennessee. His ambition now seemed satisfied; for he had always expressed a desire to command a regiment from his native State. In June, 1863, he moved upon the campaign which closed with the battle of Chickamauga. The Thirty-Sixth Ohio formed part of Turchin's brigade of the Fourteenth Corps, commanded by General Thomas. At twelve o'clock, September 19th, Colonel Jones wrote in his pocket-diary: "Off to the left; merciful Father have mercy on me and my regiment, and protect us from in- jury and death !" At five P. M. he received the fatal wound, and expired at eleven o'clock that night on the battle-field. His remains fell into the hands of the Rebels, but in December, 1863, the body was exhumed, conveyed to Cincin- 1000 Ohio in the Wak. nati, and laid finally to rest in Spring Grove Cemetery. The officers on duty in Cincinnati, and the Seventh Ohio National Guard, commanded by Colonel Harris, formed the escort at the funeral. "The brave die in battle," is the sadly appropriate epitaph to mark the graves of such self-sacrificing patriots. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BARTON S. KYLE. BARTON S. KYLE was born in Miami County, Ohio, April 7, 1825. He was the son of Elder Samnel Kyle, who was favorably known for twenty-five or thirty years as a minister of the Gospel in Ohio and Indiana. Barton S. Kyle obtained a good English education, and at an early age studied law. Having acquired a competent knowledge of his profession, he was appointed chief clerk in the auditor's office, where he remained some six years; and in 1848, under the Taylor-Fillmore administration, he was appointed Deputy United States Marshal for Miami Cuunty. He also held various im- portant positions in the Masonic Fraternity, and in 1849 he was appointed by the Grand Lodge of Ohio to visit and to lecture before the various lodges in the State. In 1856 he was a member of the National Convention which met at Philadelphia, and during the Presidential campaign he was untiring in his sup- port of John C. Fremont. He was President of the Union School Board in Troy, and his zeal and energy made that school one of the best in the State. The Seventy-First Ohio Infantry owes its existence mainly to the patriotic exertions of Barton S. Kyle. He organized, the regiment in August, 1861, but feeling himself inexperienced in military affairs, he declined the Colonelcy and was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel. He reported with the regiment at Paducah in February, 1862, and soon after he moved up to Pittsburg Landing. Here he was appointed president of a court martial, which position he held at the time of his death. On Sunday morning, April 6, 1862, Lieutenant-Colonel Kyle accompanied his regiment in the battle of Pittsburg Landing. The regiment made an obstinate resistance, but was forced back by overwhelming numbers from one position to another. While Lieutenant-Colonel Kyle was at the post of duty encouraging the men, he received a bullet in his right breast, and fell mortally wounded. He was conveyed to a hospital boat, where, after about five hours, he died as calmly as though falling asleep. A writer who was on the field of battle, and who was well acquainted with the man and the circumstances of his death, said: "Ohio lost no truer, braver man that day than Lieutenant- Colonel Kyle." John H, Patbick. 1001 COLONEL JOHN H. PATRICK. JOHIiT HALLIDAY PATRICK was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, March 11th, 1820. He learned and followed the trade of a tailor, and in 1848 emigrated to this country, arriving in Cincinnati on the 19th of June. Having a liking for military tactics, he became a member of a volun- teer organization called the Highland Guards. At the first call for men upon the opening of the war, the Guards reorgan- ized for the field. John H. Patrick was chosen Captain, and the company was the first to occupy Camp Harrison. The Guards were attached to several differ- ent regiments, but finally was ordered to Camp Dennison, and incorporated with the Fifth Ohio Infantry. The regiment went to the field in West Yirginia, and in July, 1861, Captain Patrick was made Lieutenant-Colonel, and in Sep- tember, 1862, Colonel. He led the regiment at Cedar Mountain, Chancellors- ville, and Gettysburg, and upon being transferred to the West, he had the honor of opening the battle of Lookout Mountain. In the Atlanta campaign, Colonel Patrick, with his regiment, was actively engaged until May 25, 1864, when, at Dallias, while charging a masked battery, he was struck in the bowels by a canister shot, and a half an hour after he expired. During the war he was the recipient of many marks of regard, both from his regiment and from friends at home. At one time, while on a visit to Cincin- nati, he was tendered a banquet at the Burnet House, which he accepted. It was largely attended, and during the festivities he was presented with a beauti- ful gold modal, on which was engraved, among other things, the following list of battles : " Winchester, Port Eepublic, Cedar Mountain, Antiebam, Dumfries, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Lookout Mountain." Colonel Patrick's manly deeds will long live in the grateful recollections of hie soldiers and his fellow- citizens. 1002 Ohio in the War. COLONEL JOHN T. TOLAND. JOHN T. TOLAND was a native of Ireland, but he came to this country at an early age. He struggled for a time with poverty and obscurity, laboring on a farm for days' wages. By the aid of friends, as well as by the force of his own character, he eventually succeeded in establish- ing himself in the business of selling dental goods in Cincinnati, in which he was engaged when the war broke out. In connection with A. S. Piatt he assisted in organizing and equipping the Thirty-Fourth Ohio regiment, some- times called "Piatt Zouaves." He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel August 2, 1861, and Colonel, May 14, 1862. His regiment went into Western Virginia, where it performed a series of raids and marches. In September, 1862, at Fayetteville, Virginia, while on the skir- mish line. Colonel Toland had three horses shot under him, but was himself uninjured. From this time it is said he had a feeling that ho bore a charmed life which Rebel bullets could not reach. After the retreat from the Kanawha Valley Colonel Toland was assigned to the command of a brigade in General Q. A. Gillmore's division, and took an active part in the movements which resulted in driving the Rebels from the Valley, leading the advance. But the spell which this brave man fancied would protect his life was soon broken. In July, 1863, he was placed in command of a mounted brigade, in- cluding hie own regiment, and was directed to attempt the destruction of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. By forced marches he reached the railroad at "Wythevjlle, Virginia, on the afternoon of the 18th of July. "With his usual bravery he pushed into the town with his regiment, determined to drive the enemy out. Taking advantage of shelter in houses, the Rebels were enabled to pour a murderous fire into the National troops. Colonel Toland was at the head of his command on horseback, as he always was on such occasions, and presented a fair mark to the concealed sharp-shooters. One of these, after several efforts, succeeded in sending a bullet with fatal certainty. Colonel* Toland fell forward on the neck of his horse, but was caught by the tender hands of his faithful orderly. As he was lifted to the ground he could only gasj) — " Mj' horse and my sword to my mother ! " So, with the word on hi8 lips which is the synonym of all gentleness, fell one, who, in his military career, had shown himself to be a man without fear. "A man of strong, fierce will," writes one of his oflicers about him, "he did the best he knew for his regiment, though not well versed in much pertaining to military matters, save the feature of hard fighting." During the first year of his service the men of his regiment hated him. Finally they almost forgot his violent temper in their admiration of his braveiy. He was rrmember of the Roman Catholic Church. George P. Webster. 1003 COLONEL GEORGE P. WEBSTER. aBORGE PENNY WEBSTEE was born near Middletown, Butler County, Ohio, December 24, 182't, and was the son of John Webster, Esq. His early education was such as the common schools at that time afforded. At the age of sixteen he went to Hamilton, and for two years was deputy clerk in the office of the clerk of court. At that time he commenced the study of law with Thomas Milliken, Esq. He was a diligent student, and in the early part of 1846 he was admitted to the Butler County bar. At the breaking out of the Mexican war he enlisted as a private in Captain, recently Brevet Brigadier-General, Ferd. Van Derveer's company of the First Ohio Infantry. He was promoted to Sergeant-Major, and served with credit throughout the war, being wounded in the right shoulder at the storming of Monterey in September, 1846. > Upon the declaration of peace he returned to Ohio, married a daughter of John McAdams, of Warrenton, Jefferson County, Ohio, and a year later re- moved to Steubenville and commenced the practice of law. Two years after he was elected clerk of the court. He held the office for six years, when he re- sumed the practice of his profession in partnership with Martin Andrews, and quickly rose to rank among the foremost lawyers of the city. Though a strong Democrat, yet when the. rebellion opened he was the first man in the city to take a stand for the Government, and when the call for seventy-five thousand men was issued, he was instrumental in raising and forwarding two companies. Under the three years' call he offered his services to Governor Dennison, and was appointed Major of the Twenty-Fifth Ohio Infantry. He joined the regi- ment at Camp Chase, and shortly afterward was sent into "West Virginia. /In May, 1862, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and in July was offered the Colonelcy of the Ninety-Eighth Ohio. He accepted it, and came home to or- ganize the regiment. While in Virginia he commanded four expeditions, all of which were successful, and fought in five battles, gaining the name of " the fighting Major." The Ninety -Eighth left Steubenville for Covington, Kentucky, August 23d. From there it marched to Lexington, and thence to Louisville. Here Colonel Webster was placed in command of the Thirty-Fourth Brigade, Jackson's division McCook's corps. In the battle of Perryville he fell from his horse mortally wounded, and died on the field of battle. A man of high social posi- tion and of rare and genial qualities, his place was not easily filled. His personal appearance was imposing. He was six feet two inches high, and weighed two hundred pounds. 1004 Ohio in the War. COLONEL LEANDER STEM. LEANDBE STEM was born in Carroll County, Maryland, in August, . 1825. He emigrated to TiflSn, Ohio, with his father in 1829, and con- tinued to reside there until his decease. At an early age he was sent to a University in Maryland, and after completing his collegiate course, he com- menced the study of law under the direction of an elder brother. In due time be entered upon the practice of his profession, and was regarded as a rising member of the bar. At the opening of the rebellion he accompanied a body of the first volun- teers to Columbus, intending to enter the service, but he was suddenly sum- moned to the bedside of a dying daughter, and it was not until the summer of 1862 that he entered the field. He was apjjointed Colonel of the One Hundred and First Ohio Infantry, and the regiment was mustered into the service August 30, 1862. On the 1st of September it was ordered to the defense of Cincinnati against Kirby Smith. When the Eebel army withdrew the regiment went to Louisville and was assigned to the Thirty-First Brigade, Ninth Division, Twenty-First Army Corps. The battle of Perry vi lie soon followed, in which Colonel Stem, by courage and coolness under fire, won for himself and his regiment the admiration of the division commander, General Mitchel. His friends entertained the highest anticipations of his success; but he seemed to have premonitions of a different sort; and, on the evening before the advance of the army on Murfreesboro', in conversation with one of his most intimate friends he said: "I am a doomed man ; and will not survive my first regular engagement." On the afternoon of December 26th, an engagement occurred at Knob Gap, in which Colonel Stem with his regiment charged and captured a Eebel battery and several prisoners. The army closed around Murfreesboro', and on the evening of the 30th the One Hundred and First was engaged in a demonstra- tion against the enemy, in order to develop his position. During this move- ment the Colonel took out his pipe, lighted it, and commenced to smoke, when a shell came crashing through the timber, exploded near him, and covered him with dirt. He never moved a muscle, but smoked on, apparently as un- concerned as if sitting in his office. The next morning the battle of Stone Eiver began in earnest, and almost immediately it was evident that the right of the Union line would be forced back. "When Colonel Stem's regiment began to waver under a severe cross-fire, he called out, "Stand by the flag now, for the good old State of Ohiol" and instantly fell, mortally wounded. Jonas D. Elliott. 1005 He was captured and conveyed to Murf'reesboro', -where he died on the morning of January 5th, 1863, just as the advance of the Union army entered the place. The intelligence of his death created a profound regret among a wide circle of friends. He was buried with military and Masonic honors, and the funeral will long be remembered as the most sorrowful event in the history of that community. The regiment, upon being mustered out of service appro- priated a handsome sum for the erection of a monument, which now stands over the Colonel's grave, bearing touching inscriptions of love and admiration. LIEUTENMT-COLONEL JOMS D. ELLIOTT. JONAS D. ELLIOTT was born in Milton, Wayne County, Ohio, July 2, 1840. When about ten years of age he was sent to Canaan Academy, where he remained two or three years, and then went to Hayesville, Ashland County, Ohio, and fitted himself for college. He was engaged for some time in teaching at Memphis, Missouri, but the death of his father left him dependent upon his own resources, and he returned to Ohio and commenced the study of law. On the 23d of July, 1862, he was commissioned a Captain in the One Hun- dred and Second Ohio Infantry; and just before leaving for the field he was married to a daughter of Zenas Crane. He went into camp at Mansfield, Ohio, but was soon ordered into Kentucky. He was promoted to Major in May, 1863, and a year later was made Lieutenant-Colonel. In the summer of 1864 he commanded the left wing of the regiment at Dodsonville, Alabama, while the right wing was at Bellefonte under Colonelf Given. In September the entire regiment was sent in pursuit of Wheeler; but it was soon ordered into camp at Decatur. On the evening of the 23d of Sep- tember, all the available men at that place were ordered to re-enforce the garri- son at Athens against an anticipated attack by General Forrest. Lieutenant- Colonel Elliott was placed in command of three hundred men— all that could be spared-— and when within three miles of Athens he was met by General Forrest with a greatly superior force. His little band fought and drove back many times its own number, and would have entered the fort had it not been surrendered before their arrival. When within a quarter of a mile of it the guns were turned upon Colonel Elliott, and he was met by a fresh brigade of Eebels under General Warren. His ammunition was gone and he was completely surrounded. At this juncture General Warren commanded his orderly to shoot that officer, pointing to Colonel Elliott; and a moment later he fell, mortally wounded in the head. He lingered for nineteen days, but the ball could not be extracted. Most of the time he was wildly delirious, talking almost constantly of wife and 1006 Ohio in the Wak. home; but during his lucid intervals he gave good evidence that he was con- Bcious of his approaching death, and that he was "sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust." He was a member of the Presbyterian Church, having made a profession of his faith in February, 1862. Colonel Elliott died on the 13th of October, in the twenty-fifth year of his age. He was buried in the cemetery at Athens, Alabama. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JAMES W. SHANE. JAMES W. SHANE was born in Jefferson County, Ohio, January 18th, 1830. By teaching and studying at the same time he became a thor- ough scholar, and when twenty-four years old was admitted to the bar. He wa.s diligent in his profession, was a safe counsellor and an able advocate; and for several years was prosecuting attorney of the county. When the war first opened, he was prevented by private reasons from en- tering the army, but in July, 1862, he recruited a company and was assigned to the Ninety-Eighth Ohio Infantry. He first saw service in Kentucky, being present on the retreat from Lexington to Louisville, and in the battle of Perry- ville. In this battle he was conspicuous for his intrepid bravery, and was soon after promoted to Major, and in June, 1863, to Lieutenant-Colonel ; and from that time until his death he was almost constant!}- in command of the regiment. While on a brief leave of absence in May, 1864, he heard that the great Campaign under Sherman had commenced, and at once hastened to the field. The campaign w'as almost a continuous action ; and in every danger Lieutenant- Colonel Shane bore his full share. On the 27th of June he fell, mortally wounded, in an assault on the enemy's works at Kenesaw, living only forty minutes. When told that death was inevitable, he exclaimed, "Mj- poor wife! were it not for her — but, Lord, thy will, not mine, be done." He said to those around him, "Turn my face to the foe, boys;" and then to the Surgeon, "Doctor, write to her, and tell her I die happy and will meet her in heaven." Thus the spirit parted, bearing aspirations for home and counti-y with it to the Throne of the Great Infinite. Among the many beautiful traits in Lieutenant-Colonel Shane's character was his consistent Christian deportment. He united with the Presb3-terian Church in May, 1855, and' from that day until the hour of his death, religion with him was a matter of earnest dut3^ There are many who can testify that throughout his entire army career, ho wore the "breastplate of righteousness" and carried the "shield of faith." Joseph L. Kirby Smith. 1007 COLONEL JOSEPH L. KIRBY SMITH. JOSEPH L. KIEBY SMITH was of New England origin. His grand- father, Joseph L. Smith, was a lawyer in LitchjSeld, Connecticut, who was a Major in 1812, and served during the Canada war, being promoted to Colonel, He was afterward United States Judge in Florida Territory, where he died. His son, Ephraim K. Smith, the father of Joseph L. Kirby Smith, was a Captain in the United States army, and was killed at the battle of Molino del Eay, in Mexico. Another son, Edmund K. Smith, was the Kirby Smith of the Confederate army. The subject of this sketch was born in 1836. He entered the military school at West Point by appointment from New York. In 1857 he graduated with the highest honors, and was appointed Lieutenant of Topographical Engi- neers. In 1860 he accompanied the Utah expedition as Aid-de-Camp to General Patterson. Upon the organization of the Forty -Third Ohio Eegimeiit, applica- tion was made for a trained commander, and he was ajjpointed its Colonel. He went with the regiment to the tield. At Island No. 10, the first military operations of any importance in which his regiment was engaged, his engineer- ing abilities proved to be of great service. He was afterward with Pope's army during the advance on Corinth, and was engaged in the advance through Mis- sissippi, which was interrupted by the surrender at Holly Springs. In October, 1862, his regiment being a part of General Stanley's division under Eosecrans, he participated in the battle of Corinth. During the first day of the battle, October 3d, this division was not engaged, but on the second dai the Ohio Brigade of that division was placed in support of Battery Eobinett, the point where one of the most determined assaults of the Eebels was made. The Forty-Third Ohio was in the hottest of this attack, and in its height the beloved Smith was mortally wounded. He died eight days after, October 12, 1862. General Stanley in his report of the battle says of him : " Soon in the battle of the 4th Colonel J. L. K. Smith fell with a mortal wound. I have not words to describe the qualities of this model soldier, or to express the loss we have sustained in his death. The best testimony I can give to his memory is — the spectacle witnessed by myself in the very moment of battle, of stern, brave men weeping as children as the word passed: 'Kirby Smith is killed.' By his side fell his constant companion and Adjutant, accomplished young Heyl." The name Kirby which seemed to be prized by the family, came from the wife of the grandfather, whose maiden name was Kirby. Her father was the author of the once famous Kirby Eeports of Connecticut. 1008 Ohio in the Wae. COLONEL AUGUSTUS H. COLEMM.* THIS officer was born in Troy, Miami County, Ohio, on the 29th of October, 1829. He was the son of Dr. Asa Coleman, an early settler and promi- nent citizen of that county. His elementary education was acquired in the schools of Troy. In June, 1847, he entered the Military Academy at West Point as a Cadet. At the close of his course he returned to Troy and engaged in agricultural pursuits. Upon the breaking out of the rebellion he enlisted as a private soldier, and recruited a company (company D, Eleventh Ohio Yolunteer Infantry) of over one hundred men within forty-eight hours. With these he proceeded to Colum- bus on Monday, April 26, 1861. He was unanimously chosen Captain of the company, and on the organization of the Eleventh regiment was chosen Major of it. In January, 1862, he was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel, vice Frizell, resigned, and on the arrest ot Colonel De Villiers, was made Colonel of the reg- iment. Colonel Coleman was an efficient drill-master, and he brought his regiment up to a high standard of drill and discipline. Always cool, self-possessed, and thoroughly understanding the minutiae of battalion drill, he maneuvered bodies of men with great ease. It was frequently remarked of him that he could maneuver a regiment in less space than most officers required for company drill. He was sometimes thought too rigid in discipline, but all his measures proved of benefit to the men, and were by them duly appreciated. In times of danger Colonel Coleman was especially vigilant, and took every precaution against sur- prise, always visiting his picket-linos in person, and remaining near the most exposed point. At South Mountain he displayed the ability of a successful commander. In actions prior to this he had acted well and gallantly, but was not in positions where his services were so marked as in that of South Mountain. He was in the first charge on the bridge across Antietam Creek, and while in the charging column fell, pierced bj^ a Rebel bullet, which passed through his arm into his side. Although in great pain he was in possession of his mental faculties during the few hours he lived. His last words were inquiries as to the fate of his men. *The facts for this sketch are gleaned from a History of the Eleventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, compiled by Horton and Tlverbaugh, members of that regiment. ^^ Bimoic D^^^ ►fij.ne, WilsFaoli JS,, BaldvdtL, NewYuik John W. Lowe. 1009 COLONEL JOHN. W. LOWE. JOHN WILLIAMSON LOWE was born at Nevx Brunswick, New Jersey, November 15, 1809. He removed with his" parents to Eahway, New Jersey, in 1817, and there he began to earn his daily bread by work- ing in Cohen's woolen factory. In 1820 he removed to New York, where he found employment in the Bible House, and learned the trade of a printer. In the meantime his father died, and upon him devolved the care of hia step- mother and five children. With patience and self-denial this trust was faithfully executed. When about fourteen years old he joined the New York Cadets, and during the remainder of his life military tactics became one of his chief studies. In 1833 he settled at Batavia, Clermont County, Ohio. Hei-e he made the ac- quaintance of Judge Fishback, and under his tutelage commenced the study of law, at the same time working at his trade in order to sustain himself In due tinle he was admitted to the bar, and soon after he married Judge Fishback's daughter. In politics he was a strong Whig, and though seldom a candidate for office, he was always a prominent party orator. He opposed the Mexican war until he saw that opposition was useless ; and then, contrary to his personal feelings and the interests of his family, he accepted the command of a company, joined the Second Ohio, and served with it until it was disbanded in 1848. He re- turned from Mexico with a shattered constitution. Disease, chronic and incur- able, had taken hold of his sj'stem, and he was ever after unable to endure ex- treme bodily fatigue. One of the most beautiful traits of his character was his sympathj' with suffering ; and there are many who will remember that when the Asiatic cholera first appeared in Batavia, in. 1849, John Lowe and his wife seemed utterly regardless of themselves. Wherever suffering and death were most terrific, there were they, administering to the dying, burying the dead, and consoling the bereaved. In 1854 he removed to Dayton, and a year later to Xenia, where he con- tinued to reside and practice his profession up to the breaking out of the rebell- ion. He was chosen Captain of the first company raised in Greene Countj^ and on the 19th of April, 18G1, he rc])ortcd with it at Cohirnbus. The company was assigned to the Twelfth Ohio, and John W. Lowe was elected Colonel of the regiment. In June Colonel Lowe re-organized his regiment for the three years' service, and soon after he joined General Cox's brigade on the Kanawha. On the 17th of July Colonel Lowe was ordered by General Cox to take his own reo-iment, a detachment of the Twentj'-First Ohio, two pieces of artillery, and a few cavalry, and to explore the country about the mouth of Scary Creek, to Vol. I.— 64. 1010 Ohio in the War. ascertain the enemy's position, and, if possible, to carry it. The enemy was found, strongly posted, on the brow of a precipitous hill on the ojiposite bank of Scaroy Ci'eck. Preparations were at once made for the attack. Tl)e troops forded the creek, advanced boldly, and without doubt would soon have been within the enemy's works, but at the critical moment the Eebels received reen- forcemcnt.s, which were at once thrown into action. Colonel Lowe's entire com- mand was now engaged, and had exhausted its ammunition. The prospect of success was hopeless, and accordinglj' he withdrew his forces in good order, bring- ing off all the wounded. The enem3''s ibrce was originally fifteen hundred strong, and the rc-enforcements raised it to at least two thousand. He was at first censured for the withdrawal, in some quarters ; but on a fuller knowledge of the facts his course wa.s justified. In the latter part of August the Twelfth Ohio joined General Eosecrans, then at Clarksburg. As soon as a sufficient force was collected to open com- munications with General Cox, by way of Gauley Bridge, the march southward began. The Colonel's health was delicate, but his will was indomitable; and though cautioned and advised to retire from the service, the hardships of which he was no longer able to endure, he still felt that his jilace was at the head of his regiment. lie looked forward to the battle in which he fell as the probable end of his military career; for, in a letter to his wife only four days before, ho says : " I find myself hoping, and it is now about my only hope, that I will soon be at home, a wounded soldier, to receive j-our care for a little time, and then to lay me down to my long rest. "Wait a little longer, dearest, a week, a daj' may relieve our suspense and bring my fate upon me. God rules over all things, and disposes of us as He thinks best.'' On the 18th of September the Twelfth Ohio was ordered up to the support of the Tenth in the battle of Carnifex Cerrj'. The underbrush was thick, and in order to handle his men satisfaetoiily. Colonel Lowe dismounted and ad- vanced on foot at the head of his regiment. Soon he was in front of a Eebel battei-y in the thickest of the fight, and a moment later, as he cheered his men forward, a rifle ball pierced his forehead, and he fell dead, the first field-officer from Ohio killed in battle in the War for the Union. His corpse was tenderly cared for by the Chaplain of his regiment, care- fullj' forwarded to his late home, and lollowcd to its final resting-place by a great and tearful congregation of stricken mourners. Moses F. Wooster. lOll LIEUTENANT-COLONEL MOSES F. WOOSTER. MOSES FAIRCHILD WOOSTER was born in Alfred, ■Berkshire County, Massachiisetts, September 3d, 1825. He removed to Ohio in 1832, and finally settled at Korwalk, Huron County, in 1848, and en- gaged in the drug trade. Upon the breaking out of the war he was one of two Second-Lieutenants in the Norwalk Light Guards, and when the company was called into service it was decided bj^ lot who should be retained. Lieutenant Wooster lost ; but he immediately commenced raising another company, of which he was made First- Lieutenant. The company was assigned to the Twenty-Fourth Ohio, and he become Adjutant. He was engaged at Cheat Mountain, Greenbrier, Pittsburg Landing, and Corinth ; and was made a Captain for gallantry. Upon the or- ganization of the One Hundred and First Ohio Infantry he was made Major of that regiment, and soon after he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel. He was engaged at Pcrryville, and was conspicuous for his bravery and the ability with -which he handled his men. He fell, mortally wounded, on the 31st of Decem- ber, 1862, while actively and courageously doing all in his power to stem the tide of defeat at Stone Eiver. He died on the 1st of January, 1863. 1012 Ohio in the War. STAFF OFFICERS, ETC, WE have already given names, rank, and leading features in the his- tory of officers born in or appointed from Ohio, who rose to the grade of Brevet Brigadier General, or above it. The regimental rosters, in the succeeding volume, give the official history of Ohio officers below that grade. There is another class, however, that can not be presented in either of these con- nections — the class employed as Aides, Adjutant-Generals, Paymasters, Quarter- masters, etc., in various phases of the work loosely known as Staff duty. Of these, such a list as the Eegular and Tolunleer Eegisters of the army exhibit, is presented below. As they were all ajjpointed from Ohio, it is only thought needful to give the State of their birth: ASSISTANT ADJTTTANT-GENEBALS. COM. 188UKD. EEMABKS. MH,ior TiUciiiB v. IJierco John A. OiinipUell C. S. Ohiiilot Jam*'s W. Forsyth Williinn R. Prico John W. Stoehi GHti'8 P. ThruHttin Alex. Von Schrftcdcr ., CKPtiiin Win. 1*. AntkTson..., (Instiive M. B.taeom.... jVlarcuH P. Bestow Janirs L. Uuitdford Ilcnry M. (Jist Wni. H. (Jlapp Ezra W. Clarko, jr CalvL'rt W. Cowan Theodore Cox Mnrrny Davis Edward C. Denig diaries \V. Dietrich... John 0. Doiic;la.sd Arcliie C. Fisk John Green Jani^s A. Grover , Jasper K. Herbert Daniel Hebird Koel L. Jeffries , diaries 0. Jollne , Andrew C. Kemper .... John M. Kcndriek KoboitP. Kennedy.... Gordon Lotianil Ciiarli'H Kingbbiiry Eddy D, Mason , Leopold Uarkbreit Oscar .M i iier Seth 1!. Jtoo , Jaiiies il. Odlin diarh'S A. Partridge . Donn Piutt Win. L. Porter Elliott S. tjliay , Henry O. Kanney , Will. A. SiilUerhind.... David G. 8waiin John G, Telford Henry Thrall ;..., Will. C. Turner, James B. Walker j)eniiis H. M'illiains.... James S. Wilson... May Get. All)?. July Aug. Oct. April Feb. fiept. Aug. Dec. Oct. April 20, Mav Feb. June July Aug. Dec. Oct. une 23. 17, 2.1, 23, March II, II, Nov. 2S, Feb. 3, March 2l>, April H, Sept. 1, Feb. m, Oct. Oonnecticut . Ohio Ohio Oliio Ohio Vermont lSii3 Ohio Germany Ohio Ohio Ohio uhio Ohio Ohio Ohio Vir::inia New York .... Ohio laa lsii2 ll>! 181.2 ism It|02 ISM itir>3 18m 1S«2 ifses April 23, Sept. Dee. 23, .\ui!. 21), June 3|0hi6 \M I 1863 Ohio, Mustered out November II, ISe,*!. Brevet Colonel and Brigadier-General. .Mustered out Jnly I'l, 1866; Brevet Lt. ColoBel. Commis.ion vacated to accept Brigadier-GeneraL Brevet Colonel and Brigadier-General. Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. Mnst'd ont Dec. ly. 18i« ; Bvt. Lt. Col. & Brig.Gen. Lt. Col. Seventy-Fourth Ohio; Bvt. Brig.Gen. Resigned Slarch l,*;, 18ri4. [1866. Bvt. Col. Prom, to M;u. Jnly 10, )S62; mustered ont July I, Pi-onioted to Slajor June 26, 1865; Brevet Colonel. Ret.igned February 2.'». l:5i»5. Clustered ont January 4, 1866; Bvt. Bri?. Gcnoral. Mustered out Decenibr-r .1, 1865 ; Brevet Major. Mustered out October 30, 1865 ; Brevet Major. Mustered out November 22, 1865; Brevet Colonel. Promoted to Miyor February 15, 18lt5; Bvt. Col, Uesigncd December 12, 1864. Mustered out September 19, 1865; Bvt. Lt. Col. Uesiun-.l .Tune 7. IS6.'» ; Brevet Major. KesiKn-'-l February 11. 1866. Died ,.t N »■ York City August 7, 1862. App. Unl. y, B. Corps. Brevet Brigadier-General. , 1&(>2. ResiEnoil NovomborS, Itesigiitid July I'.i, \^>^ llcsUu.-M St-pteinlj.M- 3ii. 1862. [Brig. Gon. Prom. M,ij. Nov. II. 'n.>. Rcs'd April 8, '()2. Resigned Jvly 2, M. Urevt't Miijor. Prom. Mai. Feb. 7, 1865; Bvt. Lt. Col. and Col. .Must«red out July 10, le66. Resiened Pecowibor 21, 18fi2. Honorably ilischargcd April 14, 1S65. MuatiM-ed out June 15, 1865 ; Brevet Major. Staff Officers. Etc. 1013 ADDITIONAL AIDS-DB-CAMP. NAUE. COM. ISSUKD. BOJIN, REHABES. Sept. 23, 1861 Aug. 19, " May 1, 1^62 June Su, " March 31, " Feh. 2ji, " July 16, " March 31, " April 7, " June 9, " April 3, " .luue 5, " Miiy 23, *' IG, '* 19, " Afarch 18, " July 11, '* Apiil 2(i, " Com. vacated by app. as Brig. Gon. Sept. 15, 1862. Mcf.lellati's staff. Discharged March 31, IS63, under act ot August 5, 1861. Com. VHcateti by anp. to Brig. Gen. Aug. 27, 1862. Died at St. Louie, Missouri, January 20. 1866. Mustered out May 31, 1S66. Brevet B riga J ier- General. Brevet Colonel. " Thomas M. Key " James B. McPherson Ohio " Christopher A. Morgan Oliiu Lt. Col. John B. Frothingham Major Richaril M. Coi-winc Ma.-iBacliusettd . Brevet Lientenant-Colonel, Col., and Brie. Gen. Eeeiani-d July 2, 1665. Brevet Major. Discharged March 31, 1863. Since Maj. Gen. Vole* Resigned February 1, 1865. Ohio Ohio " Anilrew S. Burt Ohio Ohio Ohio " Jumea P. Drouillard *' John H Piatt Connrcticut Pennsylvania.... Brevet Major. Resigned August 4, 1862. AIDS-DE-CAMP APPOINTED XTNDEB ACT OP JULY 17. 1862. NAME. COM, ISSUED. BORK. RiiHARKS. March 11. 1863 11, " June 30, 1862 Nov. 6, 1863 March 11, " March 11,1863 Aug. 16, 1.S64 March 11, 1863 Aug. 10, 1861 July 4, '* March 11, 1863 Dec. 27, 1864 Nov, 17. 1863 Ohio Resigned November 22, 1865, Resigned April 1, 1865. Served on statt' of Major-General Pope. Com. vacated by app. of M:ij. and A. A, G., tShermau'e staff, Jan. 12, 1865; Brevet Lieut Staff of General Sherman. ReKigned Apiil 28, 1864. Mustered out July 11, 1865. Mustered out Januaiy 12, 1866. Resigned January .5, I&65. lieaigned May 1, 1865. Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. IVIustered out June 20, 1865. " Wm M Este Ohio New York Ohio G^n. Ohio Col. Ohio Ohio Ohio *' Dickinson P. Thniston " Lewis Weitzel .>.... Ohio HOSPITAL CHAPiAINS. NAME, COM. ISSUED. BORN. REUARKB. April July Feb, June Dec. July June 17, 1863 14, 1862 29, 1864 23, 1862 9, " 29, " 6, " Mustered out July 12, lg65. Ohio Pennsylvania.... Mustered out August 21, 1865. Mustered out November 20, 1865. Mustered out August 4, 1865. North Uaroliua. Mustered out August 4, 1865. JUDGE ADVOCATES. Miuor John A. Bingham.. " Henry L. Burnett... •' Theophilus Gaines.. " James V. MclSlroy.. " Ralston Skinuer cou. ISSUED. Aua. 10, 1863 Nov. 1, 1*2 Sept. 26, 1864 Nov. 19, 1862 Ohio.. Ohio Newyorli., Mustered out August 3, IS64. Must'd out Dec. 1, 1865; Bvt. Col. and Brig. Gen, Mustered out May 31, IS66. Mustered out March I, 1866; Bvt. Lt. Colonel. Resigned March 20, 1865. 1014 Ohio in the War. SIGITAIj cokps. NAME. COU. ISSUED. BOEN. 1I2UABKS. Captain Sam iit-I BuchtoU ... . Mn»'«h a ISti-l Ohio Mnstpred out June 20, 1866 ; Brevet Major. 1st Lieut. Joliri D. Holopetev M liit'iif. John Q. AUaiU3 3, '• 3, *' 3, " Ohio N''w 'York Mustered out SeptenibT 1, lri65. " Juli.-n It Fitch " '1' B Ki-lly Ohio Ohio Muateveri unt November 25. 1SR5; Brevet Captain. Mustered out Septeiucer I, lsC5. Ohio Musterec out August 12, \66i. New York ADDITIONAL PAYMASTEKS. NAUE. COM. ISSUED. BoaN. BEUABCS. Major Richard P L Baber Sept. Aug. Nov. June Feb. June Feb. June Au-. Fell. Nov. Feb. .-^ept. July Feb. Nov. Juno Nov. &ept. Feb. Juno Foh. June Feb. June Nov. !»ept. Feb. June April Nov. Fob. Oct. March Juno Nuv. Aug. June Feb. 31 arch June 12, 1861 17, lSfi3 2li, 1862 1, 1661 19, I.-i^ 1, 1861 19, iSM 19, '* 30, ISfi2 1, 1861 1. ** 1. " 14, I.S63 23, 1*^ 26, l.Sti2 24, " 21, " 23, \6M 19, 18'^ 2J, *' 23, ^r.4 26. Ixili 1, J, -61 26, 1^1 :• 5,1861 23. lS6t 19, 1.^63 23, 1864 1, 18t>l 23, 1864 I, 1861 ly. I83 t, l.^rtl 30, IN.I' 27, 18(i;; 13, '• 30, 1864 Honorably mustered out Nov. 15,*65; Bvt. Lieut. Col Ohio Honorably mustered out July 1, 1866. Ohio Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. [Feb. 2, 1S66. " Jiicob A. Ciinip Honorably muatered out November 1, 1S65. Kcsignod June 14, 1865. " John L Cock" Ohiu New York Resigned March 29, 1865. [General. Honorably mustered out Jan. 16, 18C5; Brevet. Brig. Ohio New York *' AVarrt-n C. Eiuiueisuii New Hampshire Ohio ■ Resigned Febinary 23, I&65. New York Ohin Honorably mustered out April 30, 1866. Ohio Ohio Honorably mustered out Nov. 1, *65; Bvt. Lieut. Col. Honorably mustered out July 2(i,'6rt; Brevet Colonel. " Uriel 11 Uutchins Ohio Ohio Honorably mustered out Dec. 19,'65; Bvt. Lieut. Col. " John W. Itiug Dliio New York Honorably mustered out Nov. 15,'65; Bvt. Lieut. CoU Honorably mustered out April 30, 18(16; Bvt. Lt. Col. Pennsylvania.... Sew York Honorably mustered out November 1, 1865. Resigned February 25, 1865. Honorably mustered out April 30, 1S66. Honorably mustered out Dec. 15, Vi5; Bvt. Lieut. Col. Honorably mustered out Nov. 15,'e5 ; Bvt. Lieut. Col. ** Kugeiif II. t.>al»orn *' Joseph Poole " J. K. I'ricp „.. (-ihio »»hio •' Henry B He->i- " Uudlev \V. Uluides Ohio Honorably mustered out November 15, 1665. Pennsylvania. .. *' Albert P. thieve \V. P. Muma Honorably mustered out Dec. 1, 1865 ; Bvt. Lieut. Col. '• David Tavlor Ohio Houorably mustered out November 1, 1865. *' Ueorye B. NVay *• E'iTH Wt'lib Discharged December IT, 1862. " J.isppu-ird S. Webb " Harlan P. Waicott " Honry L. Williams Honorably mustered out November 15, 1865. ASSISTANT QUARTERMASTERS. NAME. COH. ISSUED, BOBN. BXH.IKKS. Ciipt; i>i n.'or^'" S. Atkinson Aug. 3, 1S64 IB, " Ohio Re^iRned March 25, 1865. .lii « II. Bull UuHJguttil January 9, 1865. ('. n. K^.irh *' C. K. Blivi-ii Snmiiol N KunSiill. b.t. Nov. Ap,i 23, 1864 2i;, 1662 14, " Ni-«- Yoik iihio Honornbly mustered out May 31, 1866 ; Breret Major. Died at Onllatiii Tenn July 19 1865. ti Honurably niustcrt-d out March 25. "66; Bvt. Major. «t Kilwiinl U. Bi»vil llliio • i Nov. .May July J, W.l 6, I8I'2 14, " Bri'vct Brigadier-GenprHl. Appotntnu'Ut cancullpd May 6, 1862. .1 lU'iiiy L. Brown Kaymoiid iiui-r " NuwYuik Bn-vt-t Colonel March IS, 1865. Staff Officeks, Etc. 1015 ASSISTANT QUAKTERMASTERS-Continued. COM. ISSTJEl). Captain Hiram S. Chivmberbiin.... " Kdward D. (Miapmait *' G. a. Clemens " Joseph C. Clements. " Aldeu H. Comstock ** Alexaiuler Conn " RobL-rt T. Covtrdale " Thoiuas J. Cox '* Juhri K. Cruig , " IJavid H. Danglt^r , " X>. W. il. iJiiy " John P. Dreanaii " S. H. Diiiiau " Thoiuption T. Eckert '* John J. Elwell " Franklin Ernst " Thomits 1>. Fitch " Wm. G. Fnllei- " BobtTt S. Gardner " A. M. Giroutte " Wni. Gaatei- '* Emanuel Givsy " Chartus Guodman " C. N. Go^ilding " Emanuel liude " JeoB;^ Healy " Grove L. lleaton " GiiOfse B. HiUbaid ** L. H. Hulab.rd " \/m. Holden " Wni. Huopor " Woodbury S. How '* Wm. A. Hunter " Francis W. Uurtt '* Gi'orso W. Jithnes " Ht'nty N. Johnson *' Augustus Xi. Kflli-r " Thomas J. Ki-rr ** AIonzoKin^.-bury '* Ezia li. Jvirk '* John G. Khujk " Kob'irt S. Lac -y " Ht-nry H-. Liid'y " John V. Lewii^ *' M. D. \V. Looniis " Fiiilding Lowry " .lolin A. Lynch *' Stiiiloid S. Lynch " David VV. fllct^lum: *' Beub 'U A. HicUormick " E. W. Mifchel : , *' John Muiris , " Charles W. Moulcuu '* Loiynzo D. Myt-i-s " Keestt 51. Newport . •* EliiiB Ninh ** Thoniaa Palmjr '* Simon I'cikins, jr '* H. W. Persing " Abncr J. PheipH , •* Ralph PUimb " Hautione Uasin *' E. C llt'ich^-nbach " Jiimi-B iM. XUmio " W'iiri'en Kiia-ieil " A. W. cieniple " Holly Siiinnor " Chiirlits i*L. Sinitli, ji* " Horntio it. !?inith " Bazil L. apan:,ljr ** Anson Sia-;rr " Joauph B. Stubbs *' 1). \v. Swi^'art '* Theodjire Vo-'es " Kiindall P. Wade " Octavius WiitcrB " Jlalph C. Wfbst-r " H-nry B. Wh-ts.l '* Leonard Whitnt-y •* iKaac P. Williams " Uharhs T. Wing '* Joseph K. Wing " Gtorgo W. Woudbridge..., May Aug. l*\*b. Nov. Sept. April riept. I una Nov. April Feb. July Aug. June March Oct. June April Dec. May Sept. feb. Nov. Keb. Nov. Ft'b. J una May Keb. Oct. July Aug. July Aug. April Uec. Aug. June Sept. Nov. Aug. June Nov. Oct. Fob. June May June Nov. .\ug. July Feb. July March Oct. June Ian. Sept. Nov. Keb. Dec. May Dkc. July Nov. Oct. April July Feb. Sept. Dec. Nov. Oct. May IS, 1864 3, liJfil 29, \SM 13, IAG2 27, 1863 ly, isii4 11, i6{\'2 2r>, " 3, 7, \SU 29, 27, ISfiC 17, K-;f.2 3, 1.S6I 9, lat>2 24, 27, 1863 is ■' 30; 1864 14, li>63 S, 12, 14, IS61 29, ISiia 2(>, \!i&2 29, 161)4 II, lNi2 19, \&^^ II, I8i ■ U, * 23, 186-1 19, 18iir 31. 1861 18, 18(i2 26, 1864 30, " 5, 1853 7, 1.S64 5, 181)3 3, 1^61 30, l^fi4 16, 1812 26, 1S6V 5, 1S61 28, " 26, lf;62 27, 181)3 19, 186.' 29, \Mi 9, 186:i 23, 1S63 2n, 18'>1 9, 1862 26, ■' 5, 1861 t^, 1863 3, 18i>2 3. ISiW 20, ■ 31, IS6I 17, 1863 1 19, 1864 26, 1862 19, 1863 Ohio Cannecticnt Connecticut Ohio Ohio , Pennsylvania.... England Ohio Indiana Pennsylvania..., Ohio , Ohio , Pennsylvania.... Ohio Ohio Vermunf Miissachusetts.. Ohio Pennsylvania.. Ohio Connecticut .... New- York Pennsylvania.. \ew Y.irk New York Pennsylvania.. New York.' Ohio Maine Ohio Ohio Ohio Ohio Ohio Ohio Ohio Ohio New York Ohio Ohio Ohio Mussacliusetts.. Ohio Nt'wYork.. Ohio Ohio 12; 1862 5, 1863 8, " 11, 1861 6, 1862 31, 18'>1 2:t, 1863 17, : 19, 1863 30, 18f"il 5, 1863 26, 1S62 2(i, 31. 1861 l:J, 1862 12, " New York Dliio Penns\ Ivaiiia... nnsylvaula... Ohio Ohio Ohio New York New York Now Yoik Missouri Switzerland Penn:*ylvauia... Pennsylvania. .. New York. Ohio Massac liusetts.. Ohio New York IVnnsylvaniH... Pt-nnsylviniiii... Ohio Vermont.. Honorably mustered out October 26. 1865; Honorably mustered out March 30, \)6 ; Bvt. Major Honorably mustered out January I, 18ii6. Honorably mustered out Feb. 8, 1866; Brevet Major. Honorably mustered out May 31, IsirfV; Bvt. Lt. Col. Honorably mustered out July 13, 1S66; Brevet Major, Honorably niu.stt*red out Maicli 13, 1866. Honorably mustered out Aug. 1, 1866; Bvt. Colonel. Honorably mustered out Oct. 7, 1865; Brevet Major, FTonorahlv mustered out Feb. 2, 1866; Bvt. Lt. Col. Honorably mustered out November 22, 1865. Besigned February 20, 1863. [Bvt. Brig. Gen. Honorably mustered out March 13, 1866; Bvt. Col., Honorably mustered out July 19, I8'>5. Honorably mustered out Oct. 2.1, 1.^65; Bvt. Lt. Col. Honorably mustered out Ans. 25, 186.'); Bvt. Lt. Col. Honorably mustered out March 13, I860; Bvt. Major, niamissc'd August .31, 1864. R,'8igned July 6, 181)5. Honorably mustered out October 19, 1865. Itesign-d September 16, 1864. Honorably mustered out December 13, 1865. Honorably mustered out July 28, 1865. Honorably mustered out Jan. 27, 1866; IJvt. Major. Honorably mustered out Jan. 8, li>66; Brsvet Major. Iie."iigiied March 15, la65. Honorably mustered out April 20, 1866. Appointment cancelled. Honorably mustered out June 10, 1866; Bvt. Major. Cashiered May 1, 18*55. Omnii-isud June 17, 1864. Honorably musteied out Sept. 20, 1865; Bvt. Major. Ue^igned January 14, 1865. Honorably mustered out August 4, 1865. Honorably mustered out Feb. 8, 186fi ; Brevet Col. Honorably mustered out June 26, 1865. Brevet Lieut. Col. August J9, 1865. Ifonoiably mustered out July 28, 1865. Honorably mustered out July I, 1866. Honorably mustered out Dec. 6, ls6j; Bvt. Major. Resigned March 25, 1865. Died at Fairfax C. H., Virginia, October 24, 1862. llesigned June :^, 18i)5. Hunoiably mustered ont September 20, 18f>5. Honorably mustered out May 31, I8'"'6; Bvt. Lt. Col. Honoiably mustered out Nov. 8, 1865; Bvt. Major. Honorably mustered out March 13, 1865. llesigncd Defiember 6, 1862. [M., U. S. A. Com. vacated March 13, '63, to accept app t. oi A. y. llesigned December 2. 1X64. Uesigned Feb. 7, 1816; Bvt. Col , Bvt. Brig. Gen. Com. vacated March l.;,'n3, app't. A. Q. M., f, H. A. Honorably mustered out April 30, 1866. llesigned July 12, 18-i4. Honorably mustered out March 13, 18*ifi. Honorably mustered out September 20, 1S6.\ Honorably mustered out Nov. il, 1S65; Bvt. Lt. OoL Honorably nuiatcred out Oct. 23, 1865; Bvt. Major, lloiiurably mustered out July 13, 18t)6; Bvt. Major. Honoiably mustered out September 20, ls65. Discliarged March 12, 18.4. Itesigned AprU 11, 1864. Urevet Lieutenant-Colonel. Brevet M ijor. Honorably mustered out March l.*^, 1.^66; Bvt. Major Honorably mustered out June 26, 1865. App't. Colonel and Aid-de-Gamp; Bvt. Brig. Gen. IJrcvet Lieutenant-Colonel. Resigned October 28, iaiyi. Resigned February 1, 1864. Brevet Lieut. Col. (conduct at battle of Shiloh." Hon. must'd. out May 13, '66; Bvt. Mnj. "for gallaut Honorably mustered out May 31, 1866. Honorably musteied out June 6, 1865. Honorably muHtorod out Jan. 27, 1866; Bvt. Colonel. Honorably mustered out Aug. ly, 18t»5; Jivt. Lt. Col. Appointment cancelled. 1016 Ohio in the War. COMMISSARIES OF SUBSISTENCB. Captain Clmrlef) AU(*lt •' Gfoi-KO W. Bnker " JitnieH Barnaliy " Au;fuitu8 y. Barringi'V .. " .Indfpl) C Brand •• K. V. BrookfloW " Lcnnard P. Bureau •• 'I'hoiuas A. P. Charnplin '* Kilwiiril S. Convera " .luhn \V. Coruyn " Fraiicia Darr " William nar«t " .lanu'B W. Delay '* William H. 0uU)(iaB '* Fratieirf Erliniaii " GeorgB Evans " Jamee B. Kitcli " charlM ». Garfield " Saiiiui*! C. Glover " Wm. M. Green " Joseph T, Ha&koll " Heui-y V. Uawkes " Jacob Hi-aloii " •Siiinuul D. McnilBraun " Myron C. Hilla " Kit F, Jeniiinffe •' Charlel C. Kelloug " Dennia Keiinev.jr *' (.tacar U. Ki-rlin " Matthew M. Laughlin... " (Iharlea If. Leihy " W. L. Mallory • HuEh L. iMc Kee " \V. U. JlcLiuiaii " Rohert HrUuilkin " Aaron II. Mir.'ditli '* Piiineiirt It. Miner •■ Wni. II. Naah " John M. Palmer '..... ** Sauiui'i S. Patleraun '* Janien It. Paul •lohn B. Pearce ,I.t'. KaniHey , " Kdward P. Ranaoiu ■■ .Poicph Rudolph •• Willnim D. SlicphoiU ** .Toaepli J. SI icum *' Lyuian Y. Stewart " A E. Strickle " W'ui. H. Stciwart " Jamea SiilUvau " Jeaae Tliorntun " lii. haul B. Treat •■ Vf. M. Voaliaon " Arehibald C. Voria , ■' Stephen H. Webb " Win. U. Wea.on... " AaionM.Wilroi •' Joahiia li . Willis " Gilbert K. Wintera ecu. ISSUED. Peb. Nov. Aug. Sept. April Blay April July April ■*.ug. Alarch Oct. Aug. Sept. luuH Nov. July June Aug. Feb. Nov. Aus, Feb. Oct. .lune Feb. Nov. April Nov. Feb. Sept. May Oct. May June Nov. Feb. Hay Oct. June May Sept. May Feb. Sept. Hay Nov. July Maruh Ang. Oct. July Aug. July April ay March 19, IttSt 20, I6n2 ai, •• .1, IlKil 7, IBM 20, " I», " 14, lae: 16, •• 23, IIJK3 3, ISTil 6, 1*12 24, 1«M t>, INil a. 1,'*2 II. 2li, 2«, leM :. i.3 211, 1*.2 17, IBb3 a;, iNi2 19, lUi^I 9. I.s>l 4, l.-lij b. I'«2 28, 1S>>4 11, I-*z 30, 1S>.I 26. lMi2 19, '• 18, lani 31, I-itl 2, l-t.3 i:', IN)L'; ii, " 28, ieA4 1», •' 19, 1862 II), " 2, •■ 26, '• 21, ■' 6, " 2l>, " R, " 16, " 5, IKill 16. 1*.2 20, 1861 23, 1862 II, 1863 Ohio Ohio Penuaylvunia.. New York Kentucky New York Lniiiaiana Connecticut.... Ohio Ohio Ohio Ohio Ohii Pennsylvaam.... Ohio New York New York Ohio Ohio Ohio MaHaachuseCta.. IllinoiB Ohio New York Maaaachoaetts.. Ohio New Y'ork Ohio Maryland Ohio lllinoia (.Ibio New York Ohio Ohio Ohio Ohio New Yoik New York Olilo Ohio Ohio Ohio Ohio New Brunswick NcM York Connecticut Ohio Ohio Ohio Ohio Ohio New Yoik Ohio New York Ohio New York.... Vermont Honorably muatered out Jan. IS, 1866; Rvt. Major, Died at Salem, Ohio, March 4, 1864. Reiigned May 19, 166.5. Honorably mustered oat June 26. 1865: Bvt. Major. Honorably muatered out Oct. 9, lafiS; Brevet Major. Honorably mustered out Jan. 10, 1866; Bvt. Major. Reaigued October 22, 1864. HoDorably mustered out Oct. 0, 1865; Bvt. Major. Hon. niust'd out July 14, '65 ; Bvt. Maj. fBrig. Gen. Prom. Lt. Col. Jan. 1,'63; resigu'd. July 31, '64; Bvt. Discharged February 14, 1863. Honorably mustered out July 11, 1865; Brevet Major. Honorably muatered out June 24, 1865; Brevet Major, Honorably muatered out July 15, 1865; Brevet Major. Honorably mustered out July 15, 1865 ; Brevet Major. Honorably mnstaredout Jan. 18, 1866; Brevet Major. Honorably ni uatered out Jan. 27, 1866 ; Brevet Blaior. Honorably muatered out Jan. 18, 1866; Brevet Major. Honorably mustered oat Nov. 27, I86j ; Brevet Major, Brevet Colonel Nuvcinber 26, 18116. Honorably muatered out Dec. 8, 1865; Brevet Major. Itealgned May 26, 1.S64. Honorably mustered out Aug. 22, 1865; Bvt. Lt. Col. Beaigned Api-il II, 1865. Keaigued April II, 186.'). Honorably muatered out Ang. 10, 1865; Bvt. Lt. Col. Honorably mustered out July II. 1865; Brevet Major, Honorably mustered out Slay 31, 1866; Brevet Major. Honurabiy mustered out May 31, 1866; Brevet Major. Honorably mustered out Jan. 4, 1866; Brevet Major. Keaimied Nov. II, 1864. HeaUnefl J line 39, 186.5. Honorably mustered ontAug. 22, 1865; Brevet Major. K44i.ii(ned June 3. It^fifi. Honorably mastered out Oct. 9, 1865; Brevet 5Iajor. Honorably mustered out Oct. 9. Ie65; Brevet Major. App t. Com. of Subsistence U. S. A., So\, 17, l?i.3. Discliamekl .March 28, loas. Honorably mustered out October 18, 1865. Prom. Lt. Col. Jan. I, l:?63: resigned Jau. 19, KM15. Honorably muatered out July 14, 1865; Brevet Major. Itesighed November 15, 1864. Honorably muateredont Jan. 31, 1866; Brevet Miuor. Hoiiiirubh niustereflout Jan. 18, I.S66; Brevet Major. Honorably mustered out Oct. 9, 1665; Brevet Major. Honorably mustered out July 7, Isi-fi; Brevet Major. Honorably' muatered out June 16, 1865 ; Bvt. Major. Died at Ciuciuuati July 9, 1863. Resigned May 10, 1865. Honorably muat^-red out July 8, 1865; Brevet Major Honorably mii.iteredont Sept. 23, I8i>5; Brevet Major. Honorably mustered out Feb. 21, l.''6o; Bvt. Ll. Col. Itealgned May II, 1^65; Brevet Lieuteiiant-Colouel. Honorably discliarged September 6, 1864. Iteaigm-d December 15, 1864. Honorably muatfrred oat Oct. 9, 1865 ; Brevet Major. Resiifiied lictober 10. 1862. Uouorubly mustared out Ang. IS, l.'<65 ; Brevet Major. THE WAR GOVERNORS, ETC. EX-GOVERNOR WILLIAM DENNISON. WILLIAM DEiSriiriSOlSr, the first of the War Governors of Ohio, was born at Cincinnati on the 23d of November, 1815. On his mother's side he is of New England ancestrj'. His father, a native of New Jersej% was long and widely known in the Miami Valley as a success- ful business man. In the year 1835 Mr. Dennison was graduated at Miami University. At college he took from his teachers commendations for respectable scholarship, and for special excellence in political science, history, and belle-lettres. He pursued the study of the law at Cincinnati, in the office of one of tlie gifted men of Ohio, Nathaniel G. Pendleton, father of George H. Pendleton. In 1840 he was admitted to the bar, and soon afterward was married, his bride being the eldest daughter of William Neil, of Columbus, whose name is indis- solubly and honorably' connected with mail conti-acta and stage transportation, wlien railroads were unknown in the Valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi. About the time of his marriage Mr. Dennison removed to Columbus, where he practiced his profession assiduously until 1848, when the Whigs of the Senato- rial district composed of the counties of Franklin and Delaware elected him to the Ohio Senate. He entered public life at a hotly-contested period of Ohio politics. Between the Whigs and Democrats the lines were closely drawn, and a third party (the Free Soil) made the result of both local and general elections very doubtful. So closely were the Senators and Representatives divided that the General Assembly, which met in December of that year, was unorganized for more than two weeks, during which period, in both branches, there was a strugo-lc for mastery; and so heated was the contest that scenes of violence were feared, in which it was expected that excited partisans, who thronged the lobbies, would take part. In the contest for Speaker of the Senate Mv. Den- nison was made the repi-esentative of his fellow Whigs, but they could not con- trol quite votes enough to elect him. This mark of regard gave him promi- nence however, as a member of the Senate, and his position was maintained 1017 1018 Ohio in the War. with skill and tact, that secured for him personal and political consideration, and contributed largely, in after years, to designate him as a man worthy of public trusts. His record as a Senator associates him with the repeal of the law denying black or mulatto persons the privilege of residence, and forbidding them to testify in courts, which, from 1804 to 1849," disgraced Ohio statute- books; with a demand for the application of the Ordinance of 1787 to all Terri- tories of the United States, and for the abolition of the slave-trade in the Dis- trict of Columbia. In opposition to the aggressive demand of pro-slavery poli- ticians, Mr. Dennison early took a decided stand. His first public speech, delivered in the j'car 1844, was against the slavery-extension scheme involved in the proposal to take Texas into the Union. At the close of his Senatorial term, in the spring of 1850, lie resumed the practice of his profession, declining all political offices. In 1852, however, he w:is one of the Senatorial Electors in Ohio, and east his vote in the electoral college for General Scott. About this time Mr. Dennison accepted the Presi- dency' of the Exchange Bank of Columbus, and began to turn his attentian to the railroad enterprises then attracting capital and business energy in all parts of Ohio. He was chosen President of the Columbus and Xcnia Eailroad, and has since been actively engaged as director with the chief railway lines center- ing at Columbus. In February, 1856, Mr. Dennison was a delegate to the Pittsburg conven- tion, at which the Eepublican part}- was inaugurated ; was n member of the Committee on Eesolutions, which prepared the platform of principles; and, in June of the same year, was the acting chairman of the Ohio delegation at the Philadelphia Convention, and took an influential part in the committee and convention proceedings which resulted in the nomination of John C. Fremont for the Presidency. In 1859 Mr. Dennison was nominated by acclamation as the Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio. His opponent, the candidate of the Demo- cratic party, Rufus P. Eanney, was a man of high character, who had been a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1852, and who had served with distinction as one of the Supreme Judges of the State. The candidates debated the issues of the campaign at a series of mass meetings held in different parts of the State. Earnest interest was manifested on both sides concerning these debates, and it was generally considered that Mr. Dennison's success contrib- uted largely to the liberal majority by which ho was elected. In his inaugui'al the new Governor affirmed that Ohio was unmistakably opposed to the exten- sion of slaver}-, and bade his constituents bear him witness that the object of these aggressions was permanent pro-slavery dominion in the Govei-nment or a dissolution of the Union ; peaccablj", if convenient ; if not, forcibly, if pos- sible, lor the establishment of a slavoholding confederacy. The first event of note in which the Governor took part was on the occasion of an official visit from the Legislatures of Kentucky and Tennessee to the State capital, in Jan- uary', 1860, upon an invitation from the General Assembly of Ohio. Happen- ing at a time when the National House of Ecpresentativcs was unable to organ- William Dennison. 1019 ize, and when discussions of danger to the Union wore upon every tongue, the event was regarded as one of much significance. Governor Dennison's first message was delivered to the Fifty-Fourth Gen- eral Assembly January 7, 1861. It reported an abstract of the census returns of 1860, Avith suggestions respecting legislation required by develo])menLs of mining, manufacturing, and agricultural resources; gave a comprehensive review of the State finances, recommended a continuance of the State banking system, and strongly urged an effective military system. Discussing at con- siderable length questions pertaining to a dismemberment of the Union then agitated, the Governor declared the judgment of Ohio in 1860 to be precisely what it was in 1832, when its Legislature resolved: "That the Federal Union exists in a solemn compact, entered into by the voluntary consent of the people of the United States, and of each and every State, and that, therefore, no State can claim the right to secede from, or violate that compact; and however grievous may be the supposed or real burdens of a State, the only legitimate remedy is in the wise and faithful exercise of the elective franchise, and a sol- emn responsibility of the public agents." In accordance with this judgment he concluded his message with an emphatic declaration that, loyal as Ohio has alwaj-s been to the Constitution, she would maintain her loyalty come what might. These are the common sentiments and common words of patriots, but at the time, and under the circumstances in which they were uttered on behalf of the State of Ohio, they possessed peculiar force and weight. Of the war administration of Governor Dennison we have already spoken at length. It only remains to say that he continued to give time and labor freclj- to the Union cause thi-ough the war; that he was made President of the great anti-Vallandighani State Convention, and of the National Convention at Baltimore that re-nominated Mr. Lincoln; that, when Mr. Montgomery Blair retired from the Postmaster-Generalship in Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, Governor Dennison was chosen to succeed him; that he was retained by Mr. Johnson, and that he resigned his portfolio when the new President began to assail the Union partj'-. Since then Governor Dennison has resumed his residence at Columbus, and devoted himself to his private business, in which he has accu- mulated a handsome fortune. 1020 Ohio in the Wak. EX-GOVERNOR DAVID TOD. HOJSr. DAVID TOD, the second of the War Governors, was born at Youngstown, Mahoning County, Ohio, on the 21st of February, 1805. His father, the Hon. George Tod, settled in Ohio in 1800, having left his native State, Connecticut, with many other of the early pioneers who settled the Western Eeserve. Ohio was then a Territory, and the same year of his coming into it Mr. Tod was called upon by Governor St. Clair to act as Secretary of the Territory. In 1802, when Ohio was admitted into the Union, he was elected Judge of the Supreme Court, holding that office for seven years in suc- cession ; he was afterward re-elected to the same position, but on the breaking out of the second war with Great Britain, resigned his seat on the bench, and tendering his services to the Government, was commissioned a Major, and after- ward promoted to the Colonelcy of the Nineteenth Eegiment of the array. During the struggle Colonel Tod won laurels by his coolness, bravery, courage, and heroism, especially at Sackett's Harbor and Fort Meigs. After the war, resigning his commission, he returned to Trumbull County, where, after a short time, he was elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, having for his cir- cuit the whole northern part of Ohio. Judge Tod remained upon the bench for fourteen years, retiring in 1829, and for the remainder of his life pursuing his profession of the law, dying, universally regretted, at the age of sixty-seven, in 184:1. At the death of his father, in 1841, David Tod was practicing law, hav- ing been admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-two, in 1827, and having opened an office at "Warren, where he followed his pi-ofession for fifteen years. As a lawyer none were more successful. Commencing life without a penny, under even what would be embarrassing circumstances to a majority of young men, he overcame every obstacle and won fortune by the talents and industiy he brought to the practice of his profession. As a criminal lawj'er he wou rep- utation through the West. From his youth he had a strong love of politics, was an ardent admirer of Jackson, and in consequence of the Democratic party, for whose success he cast his tirst vote. In 1838 he was elected to the State Senate over his Whig com- petitor. In 1840, having previously become personally acquainted with Gen- eral Jackson and Mai-tin Van Buren, he took the stump for the latter, and won a reputation as a speaker which at once gave him prominence among the ora- tors of the State. David Tod. 1021 Such waa his popularity with liis own parly that in 1844 he was brought out as their candidate for Governor, receiving a unanimous nomination, and in that struggle his opponent's (Bartley's) majority was onlj"- about one thousand, while Claj-'s the following month, over Polk, was six thousand. About this time he retired from his profession to his farm at Brier Hill, and for the next three years devoted himself to agricultural pursuits. In 1847 President Polk, unsolicited, tendered him the appointment of Min- ister to the Court of Brazil. From 1847 to the summer of 1852, a pei-iod of nearlj' five years, Mr. Tod represented the United States Government, nego- tiating several treaties; among the rest. Government claims of over thirty vears previous standing. On his return, and during the Presidential canvass, he did effective service in the campaign which secured the election of Mr. Pierce. He also participated in the canvass of 1856, but sought no office from either. In 1860, being a delegate to the Charleston Convention, and a strong Doug- las man, he was chosen first Vice-President of that body, and when at Baltimore nearly the entire Southern wing of the party withdrew, followed by Caleb Gushing, of Massachusetts, the President of the Convention, Mr. Tod became the presiding officer. The executive and business talents of Mr. Tod were conspicuously evidenced as the President of the Cleveland and Mahoning Eailroad, the construction of which he was one of the first to advocate, and with whose success he became identified. To Mr. Tod, more than any other man, belongs the honor of inau- gurating the steps which led to the development of the vast coal. mines of the Mahoning Valley. Before and after the meeting of the Peace Congress at Washington, in Feb- ruary, Mr. Tod warmlj' advocated the peace measures, and the exhausting of every honorable means, rather than the Southern Fire-eaters shonld inaugurate civil war. But from the moment the flag was shot down at Sumter, he threw off all party trammels, and was among the first public men in the State who took the stump advocating the vigorous prosecution of the war till everj-^ Eebel was cut off or surrendered. From that moment, with voice and material aid, he contributed his support to the National Government. Besides subscribing immediately one thousand dollars to the war fund of his township, he furnished company B, Captain Hollingsworth, Nineteenth Eegiment, Youngstown, Avith their first uniforms. The circumstances of the Governor's nomination to succeed Governor Den- nison, and of his administration, have already been given.* Since the close of his term of service he has devoted himself to his business interests. Ho resides on his farm known as " Brier Hill," in Mahoning County, which formerly belonged to his father, and which he repurchased, after he began to accumulate propertj-, from those who had come into possession of it. With a brief desciiption of this place as given by a correspondent of the Ohio State Journal, we may close this sketch : * Part I. 1022 Ohio in the War. "The home farm — or ' Brier Hill Farm,' as it is called — contains about six hundred acres of well-improved, highly-cultivated land. Everything about the farm is in perfect order. The barns, stables, out-houses, sheds, and fences are all in the right place, and indicate the clear head and practical good sense of the proprietor. The house is just as the Governor describes it : ' Ad- ditions with a house to them.' The original structure is no longer to be seen. In the midst of a large park, filled with native forest trees, evergreens, shrubbery, and flowers, all in perfect order, stands the mansion, whicli has grown into ample dimensions, as time, an increasing family, enlarged business, and tlie demands of taste and comfort required. Between the house and the railroad stands a noble old forest, covered with a rich foliage, just tinged with autumnal colors. Two avenues have been cut through, to give a view of three of the Governor's iron foundries, whose smoke and flames indicate at a glance to the proprietor their working oonditiou." EX-GOVERNOR JOHN BROUGH. JOHN BEOUGH was born at Marietta on the 17th of September, ISll. His father, John Broiigh, an Englishman by birth, came to this coun- tvy in 1806, in the same ship with Blennerhassett, with whom lie after- ward remained on the most friendly relations until his unfortunate connection with the Burr conspiracj"^. Mr. Brongh's mother was a native of Pennsj'lvania, and was a woman of great force of character, and it was from her that John inherited the strong mental characteristics for which he was so remarkable, lie was the oldest of three sons, but second in a family of five children. He received a good common school education, but his father died in 1822, leaving him, as well as the other members of the family, to depend upon their own exertions for support. John went into the printing office of Royal Prentiss, of Marietta, setting type a few months. He then entered the Ohio Univcrsitj', at Athens, where he pursued a scientific course, with the addition of Latin. While here he woiked nights and mornings at his trade, and attended to his studies during the day. During this time he is said to have put up as much type every week as a hand constantly employed, and kept at the head of every department of study in the college. He studied law in the same manner. Ho was fleet of foot and the best ball player at college. In 1832 he went to Parkersburg, Virginia, Avhere for several months he edited the Gazette of that place. He then removed to Marietta, where he pub- lished and edited the Washington County Republican, a Democratic paper. In 1833 ho removed to Lancaster, and purchased the Ohio Eagle, which he con- tinued to edit with marked ability until 1838, spending almost every winter in Columbus, during which time he acted as Clerk to the Upper House of the General Assembly. It was during this time that ho began to exhibit capacity for financial aifairs, and he was taken into the confidence of the old leaders of both political parties. He saw through the corruption of tho Auditor's ofiSce, , John Brough. 1023 and the tendency of the dominant party toward repudiation, securing the information whieli enabled him to denounce the whole system so eifectually when a member of the House of Eeprcsentativcs in 1838-39. Tiiis bold course made him State Auditor in 1839, although fiercely opposed and threatened by Medary and Allen. The best and purest members of the Legis- lature of the Whig partj- voted for John Brough, and he was elected. Ever after- ward Medarj' and Allen were his bitter and uncompromising enemies. Brough continued to act as Auditor for six years, in that time perfectly revolutionizing the manner of doing business in that office, and building up an enviable reputa- tion for executive abilitj- and probity of character. The annual reports of Au- ditor Brough are among the most intei-esting historical papers of the State. They disclose the confusion and irresponsibilitj'^ of the business transactions of the departments, and the mismanagement, if not corruption, of the finances. Soon after taking possession of his office, Brough set to work to correct the general system of plunder, practiced in several counties of the State by dishonest and inefficient officials, which was encouraged by the system of special legislation then in vogue. He soon had three hundred thousand acres of canal lands, which had been dodging taxation, replaced on the duplicate, and recommended to the Legislature that the owners be required to pay the taxes for the j-ears they had eluded the officers of the law. He recommended the resurvey of tho Virginia military lands, showing that in a single instance in one countj-, that a resurvey of a warrant of five thousand acres had produced nearly lifteen thousand acres. He showed that in the counties of Highland and Fayette alone, not less than fifty thousand acres of land were not upon the du])licatos, which of right should be there. He denounced the loose character of legisla- tion upon the subject of school and ministerial leased lands. The whole body of laws relating to our financial operations had become involved in such eon- fuson, and the frequent patching of the system had given it so many forms, that a correct administration of the public finances was a matter of irapossi- bilitj'. There were no less than three financial departments: The Canal Fund Commissioners, the Board of Public Works, and the State officers, and ail act- ing in independence of each other. ' From all the information and records of the Auditor's office, it was not pos- sible to arrive with accuracy at the indebtedness of the State, and the disburse- ment of the most important and extepsive portion of its funds. The Fund Commissioners were authorized to loan money; they did so, and reported tho fact and o-ross amount to the Auditor; but those funds, instead of passing through the Auditor's office into the public treasury, were deposited in tho bankrand agencies; and in place of being disbursed upon the drafts of tho Auditor, passing through his books, where a perfect system of accountability could be kept up, they were paid out on the checks of the Fund Commissioners, and no trace of them, save tho fact of their loan, as reported by the Commis- sioners, was to be found upon the fiscal records of the State. Again, while this branch was thus independent of the fiscal officers of the State, the Board of Public Works was independent of both. Their requisitions for public funds 1024 Ohio in the War. were made upon the Fund Commissioners; the amounts were furnished and placed in the banks, subject to the unrestricted checks of the Acting Commis- sioners. The voucliers for their expenditures were returned to themselves, in their aggregate capacity of a Board; and the accounts of one member were audited and settled by his colleagues, when he in turn became a judge in settling theirs; the Auditor having nothing to do but record these settlements as final! This, to the citizens of Ohio participating in political affairs twenty-eight years ago, is nothing new, but to the younger class it will show how slowly a safe system of finances is formed; and comparing the recommendations of the Au- ditor then with the admirable financial system we now have, they will under- stand better what the people of Ohio owe to John Brough. He earnestly devoted his energies to reform ; and, by unremittingly press- ing his theories, from year to j'ear, upon the General Assembly, and laying them before the people, he effected it. The management of the finances was changed; a system of accountability between the departments of govern- ment was adopted ; new revenue laws were passed and put into operation, and the county officers held to a rigid accountabilitj' for their execution, so that, even as early as 1841, one million and twenty thousand aci-es of land were added to the taxable list; ine.fficiency in the discharge of public duties, corrup- tion and defalcation on the part of subordinates, which had been frequent before, wore prevented or corrected ; economy in the administration of govern- ment and expenditures for public improvements was observed; those political mountebanks, whilom freest in squandering the public revenue, who broached the policy of repudiating the public debt, were defeated and politically buried; the State was relieved from financial embarrassments and her credit gradually restored. The heavy amount of the public debt, and its rapidly-increasing character, was a source of great anxiety to Mr. Brough, and he addressed himself to the task of reducing it and adopting tlie means for its final redemption. He dis- cussed in public the financial question in all its bearings. He referred to the theory of an English statesman, that a " national debt Was a national blessing," for the reason that the interest and identity which it cre:ited between its citi- zens, the wealthj- and powerful, and the government, was the safest guarantee against the revolution that involved encroachment or destruction. Mr. Brough held that " the remark will hold directly an inverse position when applied to the form of government which we enjoj-, and is enforced in that position by the very reversed circumstances that surround our public debt." Subsequently, in a communication to the General Asseniblj', he reaffirmed this doctrine, and protested against any resort, on the part of the State of Ohio, to "doubtful expedients" to meet her increasing indebtedness. He held that "the faith of the State, where it has been legally and honestlj' pledged, should he preserved inviolate;" but, to do this in the future, "the sovereign authority should set rigid bounds to the debt, which, under the pledge of that faith, is so rapidly accumulating." Taxation and retrenchment was his theory. There was great inequalitj' in the taxation of lands, town, and chattel property, which led toa John Beough. 1025 misunderstanding, confusion, and wrong. Mr. Brough urged a remedy — the appraisement of all taxable property at its real cash value. It was true that this would swell the duplicate to a very large amount, but the larger the aggre- gate of taxable property the smaller the rate of taxation. "While Mr. Brough was still Auditor of State he bought the Phoenix, in Cincinnati, of Moses Dawson, changed its name to the Enquirer, and put his brother Charles Brough as editor. After the close of his official term he prac- ticed law in Cincinnati, and also wrote editorials for his paper. There is some evidence that Mr. Brough had an ambition to represent the State in the United States Senate, for which position his broad and comprehensive views of public policy and his great ability as a speaker admirably fitted him; but in 1848, be- coming disgusted with the proslavery inclinations of some of the leaders of the Democratic party, he resolved to have nothing more to do with politics, save as an elector, and sold one-half of the Enquirer to H. H. Eobinson. President Polk had offered him the Secretaryship of the Treasury, with- out consultation with the part of the Democratic leaders to whom Mr. Brough's course as Auditor had been distasteful. His financial turn of mind made the offer peculiarly grateful, but it was subsequently withdrawn without explana- tion. Afterward he was tendered, in succession, several important diplomatic positions, but he refused all ; and, abandoning all political aspirations, em- barked in railroad business. He was made President of the Madison and In- dianapolis Railroad Company, making Madison his place of residence. He continued as President of this road until 1853, and was remarkably successful in its management; so much so that it may be said that he thereby laid the foundation of the present railroad system which centers at Indianapolis.. In July, 1853, he became connected with the Bellefontaine line. This active busi- ness life suited him, and it was with apparent reluctance that, after fifteen years of retirement, he obeyed the call of the people of his native State to be- come their standard-bearer against treason, in 1863. Of his ensuing career, and of his death in the midst of his labors, previous chapters of this work have spoken in detail. Brough was a statesman. His views of public policy were broad and cath- olic, and his course -v^as governed by what seemed to be the best interests of the people, without regard to party expediency or personal advancement. He was honest and incorruptible, rigidly just and plain, even to bluntness. He had not a particle of dissimulation. .People thought him ill-natured, rude, and hard-hearted. He was not; he was simply a plain, honest, straightforward man, devoted to business. He had not the suaviter in modo. This was, perhaps, unfortunate for himself, but the public interests suffered nothing thereby. He was moreover, a kind-hearted man, easily affected by the sufferings of others, and ready to relieve suffering when he found the genuine article. He, perhaps, inistrusted more than some men, but when he was convinced he did not measure his gifts. He was a good judge of character. He looked a man through and through at first sight. Hence no one hated a rogue more than he; and, on the Vol. 1.— 65. 1026 Ohio in the War. other hand, no one had a warmer appreciation of a man of good principles. He was a devoted friend. As a public speaker Brough has had few superiors. His style was clear, fluent, and logical, while at times he was impassioned and eloquent. When the famous joint campaign was being made between Corwin and Shannon, for Gov- ernor, the Democratic leaders found it expedient to withdi-aw Shannon and sub- stitute Brough, in order that they might not utterly fail in the canvass. Corwin and Brough were warm friends, and none of Brough's partisans ever had a higher admiration for his genius than had Corwin. In 1832 Mr. Brough married Miss Achsah P. Pruden, of Athens, Ohio. She died September 8, 1838, in the twenty-fifth year of her age. In 1843 he married, at Lewiston, Pennsylvania, Miss Caroline A. Nelson, of Columbus, Ohio, by whom he had two sons and two daughters. Both of the sons have died. So soon as Governor Brough became aware of the dangerous nature of his disease he made his will, and talked freely to his wife, children, and friends. He sought full preparation for death. Though not a member of a church, nor during the last ten years of his life, an active attendant at any place of worship, he stated very calmly, yet with deep feeling, that he was, and always had been, a firm believer in the doctrines of Christianitj- ; that he had full faith and hope in Jesus Christ, and through Him hoped for eternal life. He remarked that he had never been a demonstrative man, but his faith had, nevertheless, been firmlj' and deeply grounded. Edwin M. Stanton. 1027 SECRETARY EDWIN M. STANTON. ONE of the most distinguished and popular of war ministers was William Pitt. Yet when a historian of England, not unfriendly to Mr. Pitt's party (Lord Macaulay), came to pass judgment upon him, he pronounced him superlatively extravagant and incompetent. It is possible that when future historians apply their microscopes to the management of our War Department during the trying years of the long struggle, they may echo the first part, at least, of this censure. But they can no more separate the name of Edwin M. Stanton from the great triumphs won under his management than they can obliterate the fame of the younger Pitt. To give a satisfactory life of Mr. Stanton would be to write with great full- ness of detail the inner history of the conduct of the war bj' our Government, and of the efforts at re-organization that followed the peace. The occasion is not convenient, nor, even if all the facts could properly be made accessible, has the time come 'for that. We must rest satisfied, therefore, with a few bare facts and dates. Mr. Stanton is of Quaker descent. His ancestors migrated from Ehode Island to North Carolina about the middle of the eighteenth century. His grandparents were Benjamin and Abigail Stanton, who resided near Beaufort, in North Carolina. The maiden name of the latter was Abigail Macy, and she was a descendant of that Thomas Macy, who was perhaps the earliest white settler of Nantucket, and whose flight thither, upon pursuit forgiving shelter to a hunted-down Quaker, is the subject of one of Whittier's poems. Benja- min Stanton, the Secretary's grandfather, in his will expressed the " will and desire that all the poor black people that ever belonged to me be entirely free whenever the laws of the land will allow it; until which time my executors I leave as guardians to protect them and see that they be not deprived of their right or any way misused." In the year 1800 his widow, with a large family of children, removed to Ohio. One of her children was Dr. David Stanton, who married Lucy Norman, a native of Culpepper County, Virginia, daughter of Thomas Norman, Esq. Her father was a Virginia planter, who resided near Stevensburg, and was owner of the farm on which was fought, in 1862, the bat- tle of Cedar Mountain. Dr. David Stanton was an eminent and highly respected physician in Steubenville, Ohio. His eldest child was Edwin M. Stanton, who was born at Steubenville, Ohio, in December, 1815. At the age of thirteen he became a clerk in the bookstore 1028 Ohio in the War. of James Turnbull, of Steubenville. After three years spent here, in the year 1831, he became a student of Kenyon College, where he remained until some time in the year 1833. After leaving college he was again employed as a clerk in the bookstore of James Tarnbull, at Columbus. He subsequently studied law in the office of his guardian, Daniel L. Collier, Esq., at Steubenville, and at the age of twenty-one (in 183fi) was' admitted to the bar. He immediately com- menced to practice his profession at Cadiz, Harrison County, Ohio, and was elected i^rosecnting attorney of the county. Shortly afterward, having acquired a large circuit practice, he removed to his native town of Steubenville, and in 1842 was elected by the General Assembly of Ohio reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court. He prepared and published volumes eleven, twelve, and thirteen of the Ohio State Eeports. Though Mr. Stanton's attention was chiefly given to his profession, ybt, even at this time, he took a somewhat active part in the politics of his county and State as a member of the Democratic party. In 1847 he began to practice law in Pittsburg, as a partner of the Hon. Charles Shaler, and though still retaining an ofBce at Steubenville, his attention was chiefly given to cases before the courts of Pennsylvania and the United States District, Circuit, and Supreme Courts. Among the important causes in which he was engaged were those known as the "Erie v/ar" cases, in which he was counsel for the railroad company; and the Wheeling Bridge case, which he conducted as counsel for the State of Pennsylvania. In the latter part of 1856 he removed to "Washington City to attend to his practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, in which be had acquired a leading and lucrative practice. In 1858 he went to California as special counsel for the Government in certain land cases, involving public inter- ests of great magnitude, and for his management of these cases he received fees almost unexampled. In December, 1860, while engaged before the United States Circuit Court at Cincinnati, in a suit arising out of the conflicting interests of the Manney and McCormick reaping machine (it was at an earlier stage of tRis litigation, in 1859, and at the same place, that he first met Mr. Lincoln, who was of counsel on the same side), he was nominated to the office of Attorney-General by Pres- dent Buchanan, whose old Cabinet was then falling to pieces around him. Mr. Stanton's attitude thi-oughout the remainder of Mr. Buchanan's administra- tion was that of determined opposition to the traitors in the Cabinet, and reso- lute maintenance of the National honor. At the expiration of Mr. Buchanan's term he resumed his profession, but did not relax his interest or eiforts in behalf of the National cause. On the 20th of January, 1862, 'he was appointed by Mr. Lincoln Secretary of "War. He continued a member of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, enjoying the most cordial friendship and confidence of the President through- out the rest of his first term, and during his second term up to the time of Mr. Lincoln's assassination. On the 5th of August, 1867, Mr. Johnson requested his resignation, upon the alleged ground of public considerations of a high character, to which Secretary Stanton replied that "public considerations of a high character, which alone had induced him to remain at the head of this Edwin M. Stanton. 1029 Department, constrained him not to resign before the next meeting of Congress." ^ On the 12th of August Mr. Johnson notified him of his suspension from the ' oflSce of Secretary of War. During his service as Secretaryof War after Mr. Johnson's accession, Mr. Stanton supported the following measures passed by Congress against the Pres- ident's opposition : 1. Freedmen's Bureau bill. 2. The Civil Eights bill. 3. The bill giving suffrage without regard to color in the District of Columbia. 4. The bill admitting Colorado as a State. 5. The several acts known as the Keconstruction Acts, providing for the establishment of governments in the Rebel States. With this -we must content ourselves. Mr. Stanton's relations to General McClellan and the peninsular campaign ; his relations to the Eebel incursions in the Shenandoah Yalley and the defense of the Capital ; his relations to the changes of armies and commanders, the building up and pulling down of mili- tary reputations, the plans of campaigns, the recruiting of the army, the policy of the Government on the question of slavei-y, and a score of other matters almost equally important, would furnish the material for volumes. He was, throughout Mr. Lincoln's administration, all-powerful. It was with reference to some strong-willed action of Mr. Stanton's, in opposition to his own wishes, that Mr. Lincoln, in reply to a personal appeal for aid, made the jocose remark, so often quoted, that he (Lincoln) had very little influence with this Administration. That the Secretary always used his power wisely or justly can not be affirmed. His expenditures were^ enormous, and occasion- ally ill-guarded. He was quick, decided, impatient of opposition, regardless of personal feelings, relentless in his purpose, almost vindictive, sometimes, in his punishments. His manners to ofiicers of the army were often utterly indefens- ible. Yet it was mostly to men of high rank that he was rough or insulting ; to the poor and defenseless he was often gentle and tender as a woman. These things will long continue to exert great influence on the contempo- rary judgment of the displaced Secretary. But they can not greatly affect his permanent place in the history of the war. To call him the organizer of vic- tory is to use a phrase that has become cant, and to award a compliment which he has himself expressly and conspicuously disclaimed. Yet it is the title to which his service and his success fairly point. Mr. Stanton was credited to Pennsylvania in the record of Cabinet appoint- ments, by reason of his having for a little time kept a law office at Pittsburg; but he has always regarded Steubenville, Ohio/ as his home. He now resides in Washington. Before entering the Cabinet he had amassed a considerable for- tune in the practice of his profession, in which he stood among the foremost lawyers at the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. He has for a year or two been afilicted with an asthma which seems to have become chronic, and threatens to impair his future activity. 1030 Ohio in the Wak. EX-SECRETARY SALMON P. CHASE. ^TlIIE testimony of a conspicuoua Eebel leader that the rebellion was con- I quered by our Treasury Department rather than by our Generalship, has already been quoted. In a work devoted to the military aspect of the great struggle, we can not with propriety enter at any satisfactory length into an account of the troubles and labors with which the financial system, that carried the Nation through, was built up. Yet Ohio may be indulged, evea here, in the pardonable pride of an allusion to the fact that in this phase of the contest, as well as in the others, she " led throughout the war." To take a bankrupt treasury, sustain the credit of the Government, feed, equip, arm, pay, and transport an arraj- of a million men, aijd pay all the expenses of a war on such a scale for four years — this was the work accomplished by Salmon P. Chase. He has many and high titles to the liation's gratitude; he was recog- nized as one of its most illustrious Statesmen before this task came upon him; he has been called, since he finished it, to the most exalted oflSce in the Govern- ment; but, in all the round of his worthily-won honors, there is none more sub- stantial and enduring. Unlike many of those of whom, in these later pages, we have spoken, Mr. Chase's career ia a part of the history of the Nation — known and read of all men. It may, therefore, be here the more briefly dismissed. He was born in Cornish, New Hampshire, on the 13th of January, 1808. His father, Itliaman Chase, was a type of the old-fashioned New Englanders, and his ancestors were from Cornish, EngUind. His mother was of Scotch de- scent. Ithaman Chase was a prosperous farmer, who, during the operation of the "non-intercourse act," had invested his means in a glass factory, which for a time proved quite lucrative. The close of the war with Great Britain, how- ever, ruined the business and impoverished him. Not long afterward he died suddenly of apoplexy, and the family were left in straitened circumstances. The future Cabinet Minister and Chief Justice was sent to school for a little time at Windsor, Yormont; then — an opportunity offering for him to go West with an elder brother and Henry R. Schoolcraft, who were starting to join Gen- eral Cass's expedition to the Upper Mississippi — he was sent, at the age of twelve, to his uncle, the venerable Bishop Chase, of the diocese of Ohio (Protest- ant Episcopal Church), to bo educated. He remained at Cleveland for some weeks, awaiting a chance to be sent to his uncle at Worthington, and meantime earning money to pay his board bills by plying an improvised ferryboat in the shape of a canoo, across the Cuyahoga. At Worthington he labored on the Salmon P. Chase. 1031 Bishop's farm, and attended the academy. Then, when the Bishop removed to Cincinnati to take charge of the college, the nephew accompanied him, and re- ' mained in his charge until, in 1823, he gave up the presidency of the Cincinnati College and started to Europe to secure funds for the establishment of Kenyon College. At the age of fifteen young Salmon was returned to his mother's fam- ily in New Hampshire. He attempted to teach school, and succeeded well enough till he was forced into whipping a boy bigger than himself, who was the son of one of the school directors. Then his engagement as a teacher was sud- denly ended. He attended the academy at Eoyalton, Vermont, for a short time, and then, in 1824, entered the junior class at Dartmouth College. He was graduated, two years later, the eighth in his class. After a few months' stay with his family the young graduate, with little enough money in his pocket, started to Washington to seek an opening as a teacher. His uncle, Dudley Chase, then a member of the United States Senate, from Yermont, helped him to references, but they brought no pupils, though he diligently advertised in the National Intelligencer his intention to teach a "se- lect classical school." At last, in despair, he applied to his uncle, the Senator, to procure for him a place in the Treasury Department: The plain-spoken, wise old New Englander replied that he had once procured an appointment for a nephew, and it had ruined him. "If you want half a dollar to buy a spade and go out and dig for a living," he consolingly added, "I'll give it to you, but I will not help you to a place under the •Government." Finally, when he seemed to have an excellent prospect for either starving or having to call on his uncle for the half dollar to buy a spade, he was asked suddenly to take charge of the school of a Mr. Plumby, who wished to give it up. Thenceforward his career was less difficult. He entered, after a time, the office of William Wirt, and under the instruction of that eminent advocate, studied law. In 1830 he re- moved once more to Cincinnati, to begin the practice of his profession. Of his subsequent career as the opponent of the fugitive-slave law, the counsel of negroes in the courts of Cincinnati, the leader of the great anti-slav- ery movement in the West, and finally its representative as United States Sen- ator and Governor of the State, we have in preceding pages * made brief men- tion. In 1861 he resigned his place in the United States Senate, to which he had just received a second election, to accept the place of Secretary of the Treas- ury in the Cabinet of Mr. Lincoln. He had been a prominent candidate for the presidency before the convention which finally nominated Mr. Lincoln, and in 1864 he was again, for a time, a candidate. Bowing, however, to the over- whelming public sentiment in favor of keeping Mr. Lincoln in office till the rebellion" should be suppressed, he wrote a graceful letter of withdrawal from the contest. He retired from the Cabinet in consequence of interference with his appointments of important fiscal agents— but not until he had successfully fought the financial battle, and left a perfected system on which his successors could work. Mr. Lincoln soon afterward appointed him Chief Justice of the * Part I, Chapter II. 1032 Ohio in the Wak. United States, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Chief Justice Taney. The first conspicuous public act he was called on to perform in this exalted place was to swear Mr. Lincoln into oflSce, on the occasion of his second inauguration. A little later he had the sad task of swearing in Mr. Lincoln's successor. Mr. Chase has long displayed, in the various high ofl&ces he has held, con- spicuous executive ability, and it is well known that it is in this direction that his inclinations lead him. He has resided, since the outbreak of the war, in Washington, though his legal residence is still in Cincinnati. Before entering upon the duties of Secretary of the Treasury he was worth about a hundred thou- sand dollars, the fruits of his long and successful professional labors. He went out of office, after controlling the vast pecuniary business of the Nation for nearly four years, poorer than when he went in. In person, Mr. Chase presents the most imposing appearance of any man in public life in the country. He is over six feet high, portly, with handsome features, and massive head. His manners are dignified and gracious, but not always cordial ; he is incapable of the ordinary arts of the demagogue, and his great reputation is due entirely to his abilities and service — not at all to per- sonal popularity. Benjamin F, Wade. 1033 U. S. SENATOR BENJAMIN F. WADE, ONE of the Ohio Senators, stood at the head of the Committee on the Conduct of the "War throughout its duration. In many ways his services have been of National importance; not the least of them will be reckoned to be the influence thus exerted upon the vigorous prosecution of the war, and the unflinching demand for its continuance to the end. Benjamin P. Wade was born in Feeding Hills Parish, Massachusetts, on the 27th of October, 1800. His parents were poor, and he received but a limited education; he had enough, however, to secure a district school, which he taught for a little. Not above work, he next supported himself as a farm hand, and afterward as a laborer on the excavations for the Brie Canal. About the age of twenty-one he removed to Ohio. He had now accumulated a little money. The first use he made of it was to review his old studies, and then to enter the oflSce of a lawyer in the Eeserve. In 1828, after some further struggles with poverty and the hard times of the backwoods settlements, he was admitted to the bar. Mr. Wade soon took prominent rank among the lawyers of Ohio as a hard- working, plain-spoken practitioner, remarkable for "horse-sense," as the phrase of those days had it, and for a good deal of success in his cases. He settled in the town in which Joshua E. Giddings resided, and, after being for a time a fervid Whig, came to sympathize to a great extent with the political views of that champion of abolitionism. Before being admitted to the bar the people of Ashtabula County had made him a justice of the peace. After his admission they elected him prosecuting attorney. He was next elected to the State Senate. Finally he was made President of a Judicial Circuit. His reputation now extended thi-ough the State; and his standing in the dominant party was high. Through the hearty support mainly of the Eeserve, he was pressed upon the Legislature in 1851 for election to the United States Senate and his canvass was finally successful. Here he soon became known for his indomitable pluck, the strength of his anti-slavery convictions, and his nlain -spoken, and sometimes vehement defense of his views against the domi- nant Southern party. He kept up with the advance of the anti-slavery move- ment and was always one of its conspicuous champions on the floor of the Senate and before the people of the State. He has been successively re-elected at each expiration of his term of office up to the present. His term now expires in 1869 and as his party has lost the control of the Legislature, his long Sena- torial career seems likely then to end. 1034 Ohio in the War. Of the value of his services in the Committee on the Conduct of the "War, many pages of this work bear ample evidence. His reports are the best reper- tory of material for the history of the times accessible, the best crucible in •which to try reputations, the best mirror of the curious, changing phases of the struggle as they presented themselves to the Administration. But they can give no adequate idea of the energy with which he helped to inspire the Gov-, ernment, of the zeal, the courage, the faith, which he strove to infuse. Mr. Wade is a forcfble, direct speaker, little given to polish, and much given to hard-hitting. His manners are plain and hearty, his tastes are simple in spite of his long public service, and his industry is as marked as in the days of his digging on the Erie Canal. He is far from wealthy, but he has saved enough during his active life to provide for old age. He was elected President of the Senate, and consequently became acting Vice-President of the United States, shortly after Mr. Johnson's accession to the Presidency; and in the event of the impeachment of that officer, he would have become the President. He has often been spoken of as a probable nominee of the Eepublican party for this office. He resides at Ashtabula, where a correspondent of the Cincinnati Com- mercial lately visited him, from whose letter about the old Radical chief we may exti-act these closing sentences: " Mr. Wade lives in a plain white frame house, hid away among the trees and surrounded hy ample grounds. Everything about him is like the man, plain, but substantial. In the lot near the hou.'ie stands his office or 'den,' as the family familiarly term it, and here, for more than thirty years, when not in Congress, Mr. Wade has pa.ssed most of his time. Entering it with the Senator, we found two rooms, the floors lined from floor to ceiling with book-coses, filled with books. This library contains nothing but public documents, maps and charts, and is the most complete in the country, embracing all information concerning the Government, from its founda- tion to the present day. 'Nile's Eegister,' 'Madison's Notes,' 'Knox's Reports,' and many other books long since out of print, can be found there. A carpet, lounge, an old-fashioned arm chair, a few common chairs, a table, and some maps on the wall completed the furniture of the rooms, which seemed dreary and lonely enough in their isolated solitude. He is a self-made man, an original thinker, and perhaps the best informed man now in public life in this country. His parents were among the poorest people in Massachusetts, and he never had but seven days' schooling; yet, at the age of twenty-one, he had read a vast number of books, mastered the Euclid, and was well versed in philosophy and science. He read the Bible through in a single winter by the light of pine torches in his wood-chopping cabin. He read much and reflected on all he read. His grandfather on his mother's side was a minister, and had a small but well- selected library, and to this he was indebted in his early youth for much valuable information.'' John Sherman. 1035 U. S. SENATOR JOHN SHERMAN. JOHlSr SHEEMAK, a leading member of the Finance Committee of the Senate through the •svhole war, and for some time its Chairman, the efficient ally of the Secretary of the Treasury in shaping the financial policy by which, rather than by fighting, the Nation at last triumphed, was born at Lancaster, Ohio, on the 10th of May, 1823. He was the eighth child of Judge Sherman, and was born some years after his distinguished brother, Lieutenant-General William Tecumseh Sherman.* For some years after completing his education Mr. Sherman was engaged in the successful practice of law. He was elected a Eepresentative to the Thirty-Fourth Congress by the "Whig party of his distinct, and was assigned to the Committee on Naval Affairs. At the time of 'the Kansas excitement he was sent out to the disturbed Territory as a member of the Congressional Investi- gation Committee, and his conduct here was so handsome and manly as to bring him at once into prominence as one of the leading members of the House. He thus came to be chosen as the candidate of the Eepublican party for the Speak- ership. A recommendation which he had given to the "Helper Book" was made the pretext by Southern members for a violent opposition to his election, and a scene of turbulent excitement ensued, which lasted for some weeks. Mr. Sherman's explanation of his indorsement of the obnoxious book was not quite satisfactory to some of bis supporters; but his bearing through the trying con- test ardiused general admiration. When it became necessary to withdraw him in order to secure an organization, he was at once indorsed by being appointed to the most important position in the House, the Chairmanship of the Commit- tee of Ways and Means. Here he served industriously, and with credit, until his election, in the winter of 1860-61, to the United States Senatorship, made vacant by the resignation of Mr. Chase, on entering Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet. This Senatorial contest was also protracted and exciting. Eobert C. Schenck and Governor William Dennison were the other candidates, and for a long time the streno-th of the three seemed about equally balanced. The scale was finally turned by some members from the Eeserve, who believed the contest to lie, finally between Schenck and Sherman, and regarded Sherman as the more radical of the two. At the expiration of his term Mr. Sherman was re-elected, havin"- this time, a considerable majority over General Schenck. * In the life of that officer may be found some further account of the family lineage. 1036 Ohio iif the War. Mr. vSherman's prominence in Ifational affairs is mainly due to his labors on financial questions. He was soon recognized as the actual leader of the Senate on all this class of subjects, and his position was advanced to the nominal, as well as actual leadership, when Mr. Pessenden left the Senate to enter the Treasury Department as Mr. Chase's successor. In general politics Mr. Sherman has followed rather than led in the Eadi- cal movement. His habits of mind are cautious and conservative, and he never commits himself rashly. He has generally, however, been in line with his party, and has always enjoyed a large share of its confidence. He is in many respects almost the opposite of his brother, the General. He has much talent and no genius; he is cautious, correct, unexeitable, never likely to be carried away by an impulse, never liable to extravagancies of expression or demeanor. He is polite to all, though he has few intimate friends. In political management he has proved himself exceptionably skillful; and for his services in supporting the financial jjolicy of the country through its darkest hours, he will always be held in honor. He has acquired a handsome fortune by his own exertions, and is likely to devote himself for many years to political matters. Jay Cooke. 1037 JAY COOKE, JAY COOKE, who, as financial agent of the Government furnished the money with which the army was paid, was born at" Portland, Huron County, Ohio (now Sandusky), August 10, 1821. His parents were Eleutheros Cooke* and Martha Cooke, the latter of whom is still living. These were born in Middle Granville, New York. Eleutheros Cooke received a collegiate education, studied law and practiced for a few years in the region surround- ing White Hall, and Saratoga ; then in company with a few neighbors removed to Ohio in 1817. He was among the prominent lawyers of his day. He was prominent in the Masonic brother- hood, and was the first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ohio. In political life, in which for years he actively participated in connection witli the Whig party, he was repeatedly honored with stations of trust, elected for successive terms to the State Legislature, and in 1831 to Con- gress. There he assumed prominence ; represented the House as prosecuting counsel in the ex- citing case of Stansberry vs. Samuel Huston, and was a leader in a great Congressional temperance movement. During one of his legislative campaigns he found his beautiful Greek name Eleutheros — signifying peace — a serious disadvantage. Its orthography puzzled the unlettered Germans of Seneca County, and the election was decided by judges of adverse political faith against Mr. Cooke, by the rejection of a thousand ballots which were deposited for him in good faith, but in which his Christian name was fearfully contorted. This determined him never to entail upon his sons, if any were born to him, any other than the simplest names. Accordingly when his first son was born in 1819, he called him Pitt, after the Earl of Chatham, whose defense of the American Colonies was still green in the memories of the people of the new republic. Two years later Jay Cooke was born, and named after Chief-Justice Jay of New York. Other sons were born, one of whom, Henry D. Cooke, is the resident partner of the house of Jay Cooke & Co., Washington. Mr. Cooke trained his children with especial care. In those primitive days of western civil- ization educational privileges were few and obtainable only at great cost, but the sons of the pioneer were afibrded every accessible advantage, and on his return from his legal excursions he brought with him plentiful supplies of well-selected books, charts, maps, writing materials, and whatever would conduce to the progress of the lads.- He died December 28, 1864. Jay Cooke's inclinations were always for a business life. At an early age lie was engaged in a store in Sandusky, and next in a leading house in St. Louis. In the spring of 1838 he went to Philadelphia and after some minor engagements entered the banking house of E. W. Clark & ♦The Cooke family are lineally deacended from Francis Cooko who landed from the Mayflower. He built the third 1 e in Plymouth. One branch of his family romoTed to Connecticut, and another settled in Northern New York. From this latter branch descended Jay Cooke. 1038 Ohio in the Wak. Co. When twenty-one years of age he became a partner, after having been previously entrusted with full powers of attorney to use the name of the firm. This house, which had its branches in Boston, New York, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Burlington, Iowa, was the largest domestic ex- change house then in the country. During the succeeding twenty years the management of the business of the firm devolved almost entirely upon Mr. Cooke. In 1840 he wrotethe first money article that appeared in Philadelphia, and for a year continued to edit the financial column of the Daily Chronicle. The after life of the banker attests how valuable was the training of this financial and editorial labor. At that time the importance of money articles was recognized by but three journals in the country, the New York Herald, Philadelphia Chronicle, and Na.shville Whig. With James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald the column originated. During Mr. Cooke's connection with the house of E. W. Clark & Co., several loans were oflfered by the Government, in the subscription to which this firm largely participated. In 1858 he retired from the partnership, carrying into effect a resolution • previously announced, but de- layed for two years by the illness and ultimate deatii of the senior partner. The firm had been prosperous, and a moderate but satisfactory fortune was the result of the long years of labor then performed by Mr. Cooke. Until the commencement of 1861 Mr. Cooke was engaged in private business, and in nego- tiating large loans for railroads and other corporations. Then, for the purpose of providing business openings for their sons, he entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, Wm. 6. Jloorhead, and commenced banking again, under the title of Jay Cooke & Co. Mr. Moorhead was one of the railroad pioneers of Pennsylvania, whose foresight provided for the extension of transportation from the Delaware to the prairies of the West. He was one of the earliest presi- dents of the Philadelphia and Erie Eallroad Company. In the spring of 1861 the Government, in need of means, called for subscription loans, and the firm of Jay Cooke & Co. at once organized and carried into operation the machinery to obtain ' and forward to Washington large lists of subscribers. This was done without compensation. The State of Pennsylvania then required a war loan of several millions. Its negotiation, in a large measure, fell into the hands of Jay Cooke & Co., and they disposed of it at par during that period of universal business depression and distrust. Through these successful negotiations Mr. Cooke was first made acquainted with the Secre- tary of the Treasury. Shortly afterward, and after Mr. Chase had failed to obtain further satis- factory aid from the associated banks, he determined to try the experiment of a popular loan, and to this end appointed four hundred especial agents, selecting generally the presidents and cashiers of the most prominent banking institutions in difierent parts of the country. In Phila- delphia preference was given to Jay Cooke & Co., and they immediately inaugurated a system which resulted in the effectual popularization of the loan, and secured the co-operation of the masses in the subscription to the loan. Of the entire sum secured by the four hundred agents, amounting to but twenty-five or thirty millions, Jay Cooke & Co. returned about one-third. This plan not filling the treasury rapidly enough, Mr. Chase, after full consultation with prominent financiei's, decided to place the negotiation of the five hundred million five-twenty loan of 1862 in the hands of an especial agent. Congress had just authorized the loan and the employment of an agent, and having found the most efficient aid and greatest results from the eflforts of Jay Cooke, Mr. Chase appointed him. In connection with his partners and assistants Mr. Cooke organized liis plan of proceedure, the result of which is now history. Jay Cooke. 1039 In this great transaction between Mr. Cooke and the Government the Government assumed no risk. The risks of the undertaking were all assumed by the agent. If sales were made, the treasury agreed to pay a commission amounting to three-eighths of one per cent, to cover the immense expenditures connected with an enterprise which at best was but an experiment. If the loan failed, the agent was to receive nothing, and with the full success of the negotiations there could accrue but a meager remuneration, not one-twentieth of the amount which European hankers are accustomed to receive from a foreign power, in addition to absolute security from loss. The public do not know how closely Mr. Chase managed the expenditures of the Depart- ment, and how meager were his disbursements compared to the sums paid for similar service in other countries. Neither are they aware that the enormous negotiations of the great war loans of the United States were taken by the subscription agent, with the possible prospect of receiving no benefit therefrom, and the chance of ruining his own fortune and those of his partners. This immense experiment was handsomely carried out. The loan was sold, but even its remarkable success did not save Mr. Chase and Mr. Cooke from the detractions and accusations of the political enemies of the Secretary, who sought to damage his Presidential aspirations by charges of favoritism. So closely, however, did Mr. Chase guard the expenses of his Depart- ment that commission on the five-twenty loan was paid to Mr. Cooke on only three hundred and sixty-three millions of dollars. A part of the agent's plan for the sale of the loan was to have the notes distributed from the sub-treasuries, and all his advertisements and sub-agents so instructed the people. One hundred and fifty-one millions of dollars of the loan was sold at these desig- nated oflBoes, and on these Mr. Cooke received no commission. He performed the labor and induced the purchase of the bonds, but received no compensation for the sale of this portion of the loan. The clamor of the opponents of Mr. Chase increased, and finally succeeded. The treasury attempted to negotiate its own loans and it failed. The consequence was that the rebellion, which might have been suppressed in the latter part of 1864, was defiant when the first of January, 1865, came. The force of financial success would have defeated the Eichmond conspirators, but familiar with the condition of National finances, the Rebels waited confidently for the relapse of the Union efibrt to subdue them. The prospect was dark and dreary. The treasury was in debt for vouchers for the quartermaster's department, the armies were unpaid and heavy arrearages due, and a debt of three hundred millions of dollars stared the new Secretary in the face, while the financial burden steadily accumulated at the rate of four millions of dollars a day. This was the condition of afiairs when Mr. Fessenden was at the head of the Treasury Bureau. The Government could only pay in vouchers, and these were selling in every part of the country at a discount of twenty-five to thirty per cent., and gravitating rapidly downward. This was known to the Confederate authorities and excited the hopes of the Kebel armies at home and their sympathizers abroad. Had this condition continued, gold would have reached a much higher premium, the vouchers of the Government become unsaleable, and ruin resulted. The Government then tried to obtain money without the aid of a special agent. The endeavor was made backed by the powerful assistance of the National banks, but proved entirely abortive. With all this powerful machinery the receipts to the treasury averaged but seven hundred thou- sand per day one-sixth of the regular expenditure. Mr. Chase and the leading friends of the Government earnestly advised Mr. Fessenden to employ Mr. Cooke as the special agent of the Treasury Department, and the Secretary sent for the banker. 1040 Ohio in the Wae. The intervievy was successful. Mr. Cooke asked the amount of daily sales which would meet the urgent demands upon the Treasury. The reply was, "Two million five hundred thou- sand dollars ; can you raise the money?" "I can," was the ready reply. " When Will you com- mence?" "On the first of February!" and the conference ended. This was on the 24th of Jan- uary. His commission was sent to Mr. Cooke; he organized his stafi" of agents, and by the first of February was in full operation. Innumerable assistants were appointed. Special and trav- eling agents were set at work ; advertising was ordered by hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in a few days money began to flow into the depleted treasury, and cash instead of vouchers paid the purchases for the maintenance of the Government and the subsistence of the army. From the first organization of Mr. Cooke's machinery for popularizing the loan, the daily sales averaged from two to three millions of dollars, and steadily increased, until at the close of the loan the receipts avaraged five millions of dollars per day. In five months the last note was sold, fifteen or sixteen millions of dollars being sold occasionally in one day, and once forty-two millions. The result of these grand successes was the speedy collapse of the hopes of the Bebels. The vouchers of the Government were paid off, and new purchases were paid for promptly at a saving of from thirty to fifty per cent, on fornrer prices. Since the close of the war Mr. Cooke has continued to act for the Government, in connection with other parties, in many important matters. He was also the most efficient assistant in the establishment of the National banking system. It should be added that Mr. Cooke's profits from the percentage allowed by the Government were far less than has been generally supposed. There are on file in tlie Treasury Department letters from him making repeated offers to give up the percentage and do the work for nothing, if the Government would release him from his liabilities for loss through any of his thousands of agents — a risk which constantly threatened him with ruin. The Department always refused this ofier. THE END. INDEX. Adams, Brevet Brigadiei-General R. N., Pa- rentii;.'e, sutuiuary of b Tvicp, 9-")l. Aids-de-Camp from Oliio, 1013. Aid Societies, 251 ; General work of, 264. American Knights, Order of, 202, 345. Ammen, Brigadier-General. Tacob, Early life, is Jippointi-d Culoin^l of Tweiity-Foiir-th Ohio, 'selves in West Vir;:inia, 'JOI ; conduct of at IMttsUurg Lunding, y02 ; cliaracter, 903. Andrews, Colonel Lorin, Early life, edncational laLiors, 9y.'»; I'resident Keiijoii College, enlists iu the innks, 2-'), liis Bcivice in the army, 9Hli. Andrews, Geo. W., Action of in the Legisla- tul-e oil the appi-opi-i-iti-'ii bill, 22, 2.'1. Andrews, G. W. D., Snperintendent of Sol- diers' Home, 20.5. Antietam, Battle of, 305; Map of, 669. Arkansas Post, Battle of, 437. Armed Resistance to the Authorities, 12.i. Askew, Brevet Brigadier-General Frank, Sum- mary of service, 9")7. Assistant Adjutant-Generals from Ohio, 1III2. Atlanta, Battle of, 457, 585, 826 ; Campaign of, m; map of, 4'd. AvERYSBOEo', Battle of, 477. B Bacon Creek Bridge, Burning of, 83, note. Baird, General, Commends Colonel Van Dei*- vc-er, ?;yi, MI2 ; commeiuls Colonel Este, S'Jii. Baldwin, Brevet Brigadier-General Wm. H., Kariy lifo. eiituis tlit- ainiy, L'alliintrv at Jfobil", y')7. Ball, Brevet Brigadier-General W. H., Siini- iimry of service, 9."»S. Banning, Brevet Major-General Henry B., Pa- reutaj^c, carh' life, enti-vB army, cniKhirt in West Vir- fiiiia, !B Appointed Cohmol One Hiimired and Twent>'- ii'jt Ohio, his coiidiirt Jit PerryviMe and CliJekainaupa, t!-'.*; his conduct in the Atlanta ranipaisii, summary of chara<;rc'r, s:wi. Barber, Brevet Briija ; participaCs in Kuox- vin.c'amrnisri'. n-eiirurt, ^;ummary of (diariut.-r. 92.1. Beatty Brevet Major-General Samuel, Is made Cidonel Jjineteeiith Oliio. is "nrnised at Rich :\ronntain, Pitrsbnrir LiiniliDg, Stone River. l.hirKamauir;!, m .At- huit.i campaign, ami with Aiiny of CutnbLilaud against Belmont, Battle and map of, 360. Vol- I,— C6. Bennett, James Gordon, Originates a financial column m nfwsp.-iprrs, 103.S. Bentley, Brevet Brigadier-General Robert H.. Summary of ^tivic, 9.'»y. Bentonville, Battle of, 477. Big Black, Battle of, 389. Biggs, Brevet Brigadier-General J., Summary of Bervicc, mv. ^ Blackburn's Ford, Skirmish at, %m. Bond, Brevet Brigadier-General John R., Sura- mfiry of w.-rvice, fi.'iy. Bond, Colonel J. R., Refuses to muster Sergeant \\ ooflr*illon LommJSBJon issued by Governor Brough 226 BooNEviLLE, Battle of, 502, Boynton, Brevet Brigadier-General H. V. N. Summary of service and cliaiatter. 9r)9. ' ' Bragg, General, Force of at Chickamauga, 340. Brannan, General, Commends Colonel Van Dervei'r, S'll. Brayton, Miss Mary Clark, Extract from lier history of the Cleveland Biauch Sanitary Commiesion 2.J8, i64. ' Brelsford, Dr., Services of, 250. Brice, Brevet Major-General, Summary of service, iuk. Brinkerhoff, Brevet Brigadier-General Ros- lilf. Parentage, early life, summarv of Berviees, yiiO. Broadhead, Colonel Thornton F., First Mich- igan cav.. accuses Genei-al Mcliowidl of ireaKon, fiyit. Brooks, Brigadier-General Wm. T. H., Sum- mary iif si-rvice, 922. Brough, Governor John, Is nominated for Gov- ernor, 1(W; he accepts the nomination, 16.S ; he is el-cted, It't'.l ; opening of his aduiinistration, his care tor the sol- diers ami the strifes to wliiidi it l^^-d, lyi: he urges a heavy tax fur tlie aid ot suMiers' families, 183; he urges the people of Ohio not to resist the draft, 2ll2: write;; to Tile S< rretaiy of War, urginga dr.ift, 10.> ; wiitestoHon, Jl. C, Siheuck against ihe bounty bystem, 'mb\ tlianlcH the 2sational Uuard, 1\2\ seeks to liav« ihu National Guard e.\''mp(c.I IVoni draft, 21.'); uiak-s an appeal lor the iamilies of ihe National Guard, 217; his tiouble wiih otticers, his lailun^ to be renominated, 221; issues Gen- eral Onlir No. ;j, 222 ; defends J\lajor Skiles 224 ; defends C)rder No. h, 22ti : addressis letter lo the military agent at Chattani«3ga on the Rond case, 22)i ; issues an address to the people of (.Hiio in regard to his re-election, 23(1; close olhifi ailmiuistiufion, 231 ; strives to softm asperities between Lincoln and Chase, 2.31 ; writes to Theodore Tii- toii, pidtests against llic appointment of an otHcer from Kew llauip-;|iire a.s Pro\ohtt-MarKha] of Ohio, 23:i ; writt-s to General John E. Hunt refusing his inflneuee lor the parole of a Rebel General, writes to lawyers in regard to Koldieifi' claims, writes to Samuel Pike in regard toa' special exchange foj- his son, 234 ; his message lo Ihe Lig- i.f'7 ; is ProtVs'^or in Kenyiii College, becnmee Adjutant-General of Ohio, Ih made BrirrjiJiei- Geii-ial, and selves in the War Department, tita ; re- siHii", f*9. BuCKLAND, Brigadier-General Ralph P., Early life, entei's army, conduct at Pittsburg Landing, 9u7; his rttnduct iu the Vicksburir campaign, commands at Memphis, is clectijd to Congress, summary of character, 1041 1042 Index. BucKNER. Inspector-General of Kentuclfy, Ne- gotiates witl] Gi'ncriil McClclIan on tli« suUicct of Ken- tucky nentnility, 279, 24iO, uoto; bin conduct at Fort JJoii- elsoii, 367, ?M. BUELL, Major-General Don Carlos, Drives the R<'ljfls into 'Alabama, 13; his oprTations in Kentucky, 3'i3; pan-nfairi'. boyliitoil. (iyj ; enters West Point, class- iiiart'«, furly nrmv hf(;,H9i'i ; is phiccd inconiniaiul of Ken- tnckv, ii97, liiH Hork in the Army of tlin Cuniliprlnnd, 7fH), and note ; iscom- ptlli'il to fall back, 7Iti; dcnicB Audi-e\v John-'on's stiitc- nient in rceard to the jilinridnnmi-nt of NaMhvill'", 717, note; loses the fonfidonceof tiie af'my, 717; reaciiri Lcu- isville, condition of liis army, 7I« ; hi^ conduct a' Perrv- ville, 719; Hsks to bu relieveil, 721 and note; he protestH Riiaiust entering East Tennr-Bsp" and is relieved, 722 and note ; aumuiary of charactiT, 7'^3, BuFFiNGTON Island, Battle of, 146. Bullock, Judge, States the position of Ken- tucky before the citizens of Cincinnati, 40. Bull Run, Battle of, 667; map of, 669; effect of dtsastfT at on th'^ cr.untrv, 673; second hutth'Of, (i.^s. BuRKE, Brevet Brigadier-General Joseph W., iSununary of service, (162. Burnett, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry L., Suiumarv nf Hcrvice, 961. ^ Burns, Brigadier-General Win. W., Early mil- itar\' life, seives under Mct'bdlun, lesiiinK as Brigadier, and returns to his rank in thf revnlar arniv, 9:'7. BuRNSiDE, General A. E., Issues General Or- der No. :is, HM), Butler, General, Operntes against Richmond aloiiK the .Iain"3, 4113; gains posit iuji at Chapine Farm, 409; dilbcuUics between hiiu and Oiliniore, CiiS; bis con- duct at Driiry's Blutf, 600; his expedition against >!e» Orleans, 790. ' _ Buttles, Lucien, Aid to Comunssary-General of Ohio, 26. C Cadwell, ^[rs., JIatron of Sanitary Commis- sion llespital, '2'<^ and not'-. Campbell, Brevet Bri§radier-General John Allen, ^uniniarv of service, 'Ji)2. Camps in Ohio, 59. Candy, Brevet Brigadier-General Charles, Sum- mary of seivice, 9ii2. Carnifex Ferry, Battle of, General Rose- crannV part in, 314. Carolinas, Campaign of, 471; map of, 473. Carrington, Brigadier-General Henry B., Sug- fesfs a plan for the defense uf Ohio against hostile action rora Virittnia, M ; orders Ohio troops to the i.)bio fron- tier, -19; c-fti ly life, is appointed Adjntant-lieneral uf Ohio, is appointi'd Brisadier-Oenurat, sirvesin Imliar.ft, liis etiorts ai-ainst the Knislits of the GoliU'u Cirtle, 931. Carroll, Brigadier-General S. S., Summary of Bwrvicc, 9311. Casement, Brevet Brigadier-General Jolin S., Summitry of seivici-. 9i>2 Casey, General, la assigned to duty of brigad- ing neu troops, 2^3. Cedar Orkuk, Battle of, 529, 803. Champion Hills, Battle of, 389, 575. Chaplins' Hospital, From Ohio, 1013 CHAfRLESTON, Operations against, 631. Chase, lion. S. B., Secretary of the Treasury, 14; hiri political views at the outi'reak of the war, 17, i.>, 19; parentage, early lif- iiCU; his public life, 1l3I ; his operations «itli Jay Cook-' & C'o.. 103ri. Chattanooga and Vicinity, Map of, 341 ; campaign of, 3:i9. Chickamauga, Battle of, 340, 507. Chickasaw Bayou, Battle of, 435. Christian Commission, Cincinnati Branch, 27(i; condensed ruport, 271. Christy, Robert, Ordered to desist in attempts to raise a reuiment for d'f nso of the Statu only, ^l. CiiuBCiiEs IN Ohio at the Outbreak of the U Alt, 17. Churchill, Brevet Brigadier-General Mendal, liiummary of service, 962. Cincinnati, Citizens of, pass resolutions against the shipment of arms or rrnvisinns to the Rebels, 40; siege of, ><3; cnmlition of during Mor-an raid, 141 ; San- itaiy Fair, 2rt.'>; city niini.-.ters adopt a deliverance on iho state of the country, 270. Cincinnati Gazette, Editorial from, 170. Cist, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry JVI., Sum- UMiry of service 9tj;f. Clendenin, Dr. Wm., Services of, 249. Cleveland Plain Dealer, Denounces the nppiiinlniinC of tfchl'ich as ]!r,i;a l;er-(jein;ial. 3t. Cloyd Mountain, Buttle of, 800. CoATES, Brevet Brigadier-General Benjamin J<*., JSuniUiary of service, yivi. CoCKERiLL, Brevet Brigadier-General J. R., tSumujaiy ot seivii-e, 9iV.'i. Cold Harbor, Battle of, 403. Coleman, Colonel Atigustus H., Early life, summary of service. IWa. Colonels of Ohio Regiments, Promotions among, .^.s, .W. Colored Troops raised in Ohio, 176. Columbia, Burning of, 475. COMLY, Brevet Brigvidier General James M., .''uniniary of service, yi3. Commager, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry S., Summary ai' nervir**, <(ta. Commissary General of Ohio, His labors in Dennison s adminirilratifn. Ml. Commissaries of iSuri^isTExt, e from Ohio, luhi. CoNNELL, Colonel John M., Introduces bill in Lceislatiire cbaoLing iirme of Voinutetr Ohio t^taM ^Militia to National Ubaid, 242 CooKE, Jay, Parentage, early life, 1037; Lis bankiuif operations, hi* conm-clion with beuretary Chase, lO'iS; with Secretary I'eBpenden, Utry CoRBiN, Brevet Brigadier-General H, C, Sum- ma i ) of 8 rvii:e, 9t»3. Corinth, Battle of, 324, 825* CoAVEN, Brevet Brigadier General B. R., Adju- taiit-lii ueiiil of Ohio, ;iin; paientaire, yi>3; cail> lift- , . n- li-ts a- priv.ttf, is appi>inied AiJ.|utaur-General of tho ::ttat'.', seivic'ts in that cupacity, his politics, 9l34. Cox, Miijor-General Jacob D., Is appointed IJii^'^ailier-Oeneral of Ohio troops. 34 ; calls on (.iuvcrnor It /aiison for aid in holdins We^t Virginia, ft Virifinia, is placed in command of the District id" (duo* isord<-ied tu the field in East TenmescM:', j>hi ncinjites iu the Atlanta campaign, 774 ; bis conduct at ficnkl n .iriU ^1^411% , lb-, IS appointed itlajOr-Geueial, is urdend ii^itst, his com I net at Kingstun, joins SherniHuVarn.y at Golds- boro', 77.'>; eonimaiids District of Ohio, is eleclL-d Uover- nor. sununaiy ul character, 77i>. Crittenden, General, At the battle of Stone River, .fey. Crittenden, Thomas L., asks Governor Den- nison'.s iQliUeiice to secure a truce between the General Govt-rnnc nt and the suueded Stales, 36, note. Crook, Major-General Geo., Early military life, 1^; niiidi- Cidi.Ui 1 ut th<- 'Ibirry-bixth Ohio, serves iu \Ve^t Vitg n a, i.-. appuinl<-d a Brigadier, is tran^firreil to ibe Army of the Cuuib.rlaiid, dthats Wheeler, 7!>y; is tiaus- ferred to \Vest \ irginia, bis coiuluct at th-jd M^nnta u, Mew River, and on tin.- Lynchburg rmd, mn); coBiinands District ot Kiiuawba, his conduct at .-nickers Ferr\, cnmniands Dep.irtmeut of Wei^t Virginia, sul ; his con- duct at Opeiiu.ui and Kisher s Hill, t^W, his cnmluct at Cedar Creek, :"»vy ^nd nwte. Hi'*- is captured at Cnniber- Iftiid, WW ; is assigned to a cavalry command in the Aiuiy of the I''>tunnic, oW. Cumberland, Army of, Soldiers of address Union Conveniion, Hi7: condition uf under Uuell, 7oi). CuRTiN, Governor, Offers McClellan the com- niiind of the PennsylvaniH troops, :13. Custer, Major-General George A., Early life, HlteiMis niiliiary academy, his conduct at Bull Run, porves iiu General Keaiury's staR, his conduct iu the Peninsula canipuiMH. 77s ; \i\» condnct at ^\ illiamsbuig and at the Chicl. Dawson, Brevet Brigadier-General Andrew K. Z., Siinimary of Berviue, 91)5. Dayton Kjipire, Article from on the arrest of VuliiinligliJini, lul. Dayton Journal, Office destroyed by mob, 103. De HaaSj Colonel, Absent from liis command, 225. ■Democrats of Ohio present an address to Mr. Liin-ulii a-kiiig the letuni of ValliiuiliahsLm, l.Vi, iii^^ Dennison, Governor, His, war iidministration, open nr acrs. 25; liis chaiact;T, 26; asks tlie dftail of Li!Ut'n;iiits Poe ami Hazen, 31; i'('2; appoints Jioard of Miviiial Exainin rs. 245; pannrag", eai ly tif-', iiis politico, 1017; his budlnci-e operations, is eleited Gov(_rnur, lOlii; his policy as VIov^Tuor, subsequent liie, lOl'.l. Devol, Brevet Brigadier-General, Early life, i-uuimary nt M<.'r\ii'r, tn2. Pevore, Mr., Action of in the Legislature on tlie A). .^lrup^iation Uill, 'S2. Dewey, Brigadier-General Joel A., Summary of servic", .-97. DiNWiDDiE C. II., Baltieof, 540- DOANE, Brevet Brigadier-General Azariah jS"., Snmni.irv of s;.-rvire, Hii.'>. Dodge, General, Conduct of at Resaca, 581. DoNELSON, Fort, Siege of, 365. Drury's Bluff, Battle of, 650. Duke, Basil W., Defeated by Home Guards at Augusta, or. E Eakly, General, Force of in Slienandoali Val- le\ , 521, Ii'it'". 1 ,- , r^ Eaton, Bre%'et Brigadier-General Charles G., SuiniirnT of s .rvic''. (I6\ , x i CI Katon, Brevet Brigadier-General John, buni- iiiiiry di' B-rvic. 9ii.i. i t> -n Egoleston, Brevet Brigadier-Genejal li. li., >U'inn.U'y of sorvicf.', !l.=».5. -nv t^ i Elliott, Lieutenant-Colonel Jonas D., Early life, Mlliiivinr) of tl,.u:v.tcr llllj-.. El WELL, Brevet Brigadier-General J. J., bum- mnry of s'-rvi'i', '.".6. tj -n' i !•<• ESTE, Briuadier-General George P., Early life, ciitci~ Ihe'iivmv, 89/'. ^. . ,- o * r no Evening Times, Cincinnati, Suppression of, 93. EwELL, General, Captured by Slieridan, 548 nud nolo. , , . ^ 1 TT 1 r> i. EwiNG Brevet IMajor-General Hnsli, Parent- F Fakmeks, Number of in Ohio at the outbreak of the wnv, lli. Faeragut, Admiral, Bombards forts below New Oi-k-ans. "itil. Fearing, Brevet Brigadier-General B. D., Pa- rentage, eiirly life, enlists Jis private, is pronntted, 910; his eoiidiict !it nttsburti LandinK, (Jhiekaniaiiiza, in the Athmta campaign, jind jvt Avi-rj sburo', 911. Fessenden, Secretary, His connection with Jay Cooke it Uii., 10:19. First Ohio Infantry, Organized, 27. Fisher's Hill, Battle of, 520. Five Forks, Battle of, 411, 542. Flagg, Will. J., Action of, in Legislature on ttie Apprnpriation Bil!,2;i; introilneee bill in Legislature authorizing ii cnntribntion from the conlingcnt luudlor Sanitary Commissi'm, 2;i9. Fletcher, Dr. Robert, Services of, 249. Floyd, General, at Fort Donelson, 367, 369. FoOTB, Admiral, At Fort Henry, 364; at fort I>(nielson, Sliii Force, Brevet Major-General j\Liniiing F., Earh' life, enters the army, 827; his conduct at I'ittsburtf Landing, in the Vicksburg campaign, in the Atlanta canipaiKn, on thi- inarcli to Savannah, and in the raint pai'jii of the Oarolinas, 82s. Forsyth, Brigadier-General J. W., Summary of service, 9llfi. Fbizell, Brevet Brigadier-General J. M., Sum- mary of service, 9(i6. Fuller, Brevet Major-General John W., Pa- renta'ie, -arlv life, enters the army. 823; Is appninred Colonel Tweiitv-Seventh Ohio, his inntinct at Kew Mad- rid and Island No. 10, 824; his conduct at liika and Cor- inth, s2.'); his coiHJuct in the Atlanta campaign, on the march to the sea, and in the campaign of the Carolinas, M6. FuLLERTON, Brevet Brigadier-General Jos. S., Rnlniuary ef service, 9>ii. Fyffe, Brevet Brigadier-General Edward P., tiummary of service, ytjli. EwiNG, Brevet Majo . ■ „ „..iiiie-il life enters the army, Ills services in the Wes^^lar his co>.dnct at Pilot Knub." 83.. EwiNG, ilon. Thos., Adopts \V. T. Sherman, G Garfield, Major-General James A., Supports a bill delinin': a'n.l pnividing puNishminit fur tna-on aeaiiist the Stale of Ohio, 2.3; pmcnres arms irom Illi- nois for Ohio 'J loops,. ■!.•>; pareiitai:e, b")hcod,7;i9; enieis Geauea Acad"niv, 740 ; his religion, goes to colleae, 741; becomes a iciicle r in the Hirain In'titnte. 742; is elected te the State S'-nafe, his iioli Ileal cnuise, 74:^; is appointed L 'en ten ant-Colonel. 7l.'»; lii- camp ligii against Rial shall, 7(I',74.t; piluts a boat up Ihe Sandy, 717; Ins e.vperlitnin a aiuft Pound Gap, 74S; participates in l.atile ef I'ltts- hiirg Lamling, 749; servesoii court-martial, T.'itl; is made cliiel' of slafl' to iiosecraiis, 7al ; lecomiiiends tlie reiiio- val of McCt ok an'l Crittenden, iirjies an advance of the arpie 7"'2; his part in the TuHahoma canipai-n and hiit- tle'of Chi kamaiua, 7.'ili ; goes to Congress, 757; Ills speech against Ale.v. Lonrr. 768; extracts Irom other speeelies, i.")9; summary of cliaracter, 7i 3. Garrakd, Brevet Brigadier-General Israel, Eai ly life, summary of service, ti4:i. Garrard, Brevet Major-General Kenner, Pa- rentage lite in regular aiiiiv, .-erves in the Army id' the I'ot()n"iac. eiindiiet in the Atlanta eainpaign and in the Miibile canipai!iii,«.'i2. Gay, Dr. Morman, Services of, 249. Gettysburg, Map of, 669. Gibson, Brevet Brigadier-General Horatio G., Sulnmar^ of s.-ivice, 9i»i. Gibson, Brevet Bngadier-Gcneral VVm. H., Snmniare of ai-rviee,»7. GlESY, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry, bum- marv of service, 9ti7. Gilbert, Brevet Brigadier-General Samuel A., Summarv ol srvic", 9117. , ~ . ti i ■ Gillmore, Majiir-General Q. A., Eevolulion- ines gunnery, 13;'parentag", $17 ; boyhood, lil8; is ap- pointed cadet at West Point, his classmates, M9; early liiililaiy life, 620; his services at the commencemetif ef the rebellion, his operations against yort Pulaski, |<2I ; is made a Biigadier and ordered West, e29; l1l^ cendnct at Soni'-rset, I'-Sil; his plans and opeiatnnis against Charhsion, fi.12; his Florida campaign. M7; inss to Furl- ress Monroe and moves up Ihe .lames, Ms ; h s i ontln Is with Butler, MS, aiil ; his conduct at Drury s Biult. Bon; is president of board for testing artilleiy, returns to Charleston, fi53, summary of cliaracter, 6J4. 1044 Index. Given, Brevet Brigadier-General Joslali, Snm- in!ir.\ of ecrvii-e, yii7. Given, Brevet Brigadier-General ^Vm., Sura- m:irv of B(.Tvici', 9i')7. GoDMAN, Brevet Brigadier-General James II., Siiiiiiniiiy of sLTvii-o, ;ih7. GOODALE PIousE, Soldicrfl qnarterc-d in, 28. GnANT, General U. S., In command of United Khiti-8 aniiy lit clu.se or wiir, 13 ; is mcii.-ifil uf ilrunk'-ii- Il^■^.^ lit PittsliiiiL' Ijjiiirliris. fi"t, imt- ; pari'iii!i2i'. :'.rt\ ami imti-; iiuitlt-iit-j nf Hwrly life, 3.'>2; enters \Vest l*oiiir, his r!;i-sin!it(>-'. 'A^'r, i arly ai my life, :i'>4 : liia coinliii-f i't lir-- Biifji ili' ill r.iliua, Piilo Alto, Moiitei-ey, Moliiio d 1 ll"v, (Jlijipu t pre, 3'>">; lerfiffri--, 365 and mui- ; liis c'\'\\\ lifi',3'i(i: ii'-rnit'is tlic iirniy, .".'.7 ; i'^ pine rl in cniiinnid -.itCiiro. 3'.M : liiH coiiilnct at Ilflmnnl, .".li i ; hi- nperiiti >iis in Ki-n- liirl.i , ;ii>3; li H I nrt at V-'Vt llrnrv, 'til ; ,it i-'ort Dou -1- poii,.'i(i7; lii« cnnllict with lijill.-rk, MU: hU (■..ndiicr iit I'ithsl.ii-L' l,;inJi.|L'. .-JTI ; i^ linijiili;il .1 l.\ Ilall-ck, ".7^ ; (saMi^li'S In'inl-ijiiai tcrs nt 3leiiii)hii, hi-* coiiiluct at TnkH. :5:'i; fn ''Mimtli mirl in Mip- T.dliili-itchin fMnipitien, V_'<\\ in thf \'icli3l)ni3 mnipaign, ."i-*! ; injurcil Viv acic-id lit in New OrI(-;iiis, ;'.'il' ; t'" > tn i'h n.:n,:vj:i; is liiaile J, I uten.iiH-fiiiH.T;!] and ROea to W ;i.sliini;ii)ii, 3'JJ ; in tiiB ^Vil(|ullll'Rs, Hij; at S|,.,ti3\ Iva'ii.L (.'. II.. luj; at Cold I.'iu-hor, 4 3; nmvi-s in tin- ~nnlli of !h ■ Jaiii' ■<, -If)! ; at y. trrsl'ina, ■!"■"'; at ilie surrendiT ( f L'-r-, 41;^. ">.'il, Tiote; ennirnarv of cliar.icter, 413 ; hi.-t t'S iinatent MiPiiers.in, 577; writes to Lydia Skicnm, p:raudniotliCT of tJeiiiTal BlcPli'isou, 'isi. Greenwood, Mile^, Fnrnislies the Greenwood liile. i)ii. GiiiFFiN, Brevet ^lajor-Oeneral Gha.«., Enrly nrniy UN', lii «■ Si'ivicf a';iiii7.'.. _ GiiosvRNOR, liu'vet Urigadier-General C. PI., r.inntup', .siinnnary of s-rvict'. y.l,'. G UNCKLE, iSeniitor, Introduces bill ennbllnrj gohiit'iH to vote, L'3.s; iutroduccs bill for ciie relief of sul- diet'd' families, 2il. H IIallei'Tv, OeriPral, Cniijrntnlrttes Eosecrans nil' r stMii.- Rhrr, ;'.■;:■. ; lii^ opciatiMi- in Iv ii n-ky,.1ii.t: |."i i: -tioii "illi l...ilk' nf iMf-l.iir^' L.miling, .ITL'; liiH cniidncr tnwiirii Griiiir :it't t I'ltt-lnUL: L.tiiliiig, 3rs ; Ilia trciitniPiit of IJciMTiii I'.ii il ni , Tin, Tn". Hamer, Hon. Tlios. h., Secures aiipointment «, ( iiili I fur U. S. Gram, :'. ..1. Hamilton, liievet Urigadier-General Wm. D., Siinini II \ III' -eivi.p, '.'67. 1Ja.:.:i.in, E. S., Appoints Q. A. GiUmoie ca- .1-1 at W ■.! I'n 111, iil.^. lI\KKri!, I^i !L,M(lier-Keiienil Chas. G., Karlv li . . ,r 1 ii.i'i, M 1 \i!-. 1 ini'l'i. 1 lit Sloil" ItiviT. .■Mi^^i,."|| l;h! - ■, .111 . li 3.ic,i, is inoi'tiiUy wiiuu.el .it Ku-ui-saw, MlIlllll.lM n I lltlFiirtcr, '.) 7. liAUEls, IJiMi Bii^'adier-fieneial Amlrew L., ..-iiiiiiiiiifi' uf eer% ii .■. iti.s ]!\UT, Brevet Brinailiei-Geoeial James H., .'^HlMllllir3 III HiTVi. |.. i,'l.'. Hatch, Mavor of Cincinnati, Receives delcs:a- liiiii III' fill/, iis f (111. LiMiisviU.., 311. Hayes, Brevet Major-lieiieral Eiitlierroi-d B., liiily lit'.., eiit IS tlif uiiiiy, Hcivirr's in Wi-.tt Yiririiiiii. M' . Iiis r.iii !m t at \\ iiicliL-sIer, is i-l TtoJ tu CiH.gicss, is I 1 rtitl li.ni-riiiir, .-4'.). JIazex, iMiiJor-Geticral AVni. B., I'nrrntaiio, (Ml 1\ iiiil.tiii V Iili', Tii-"i ; ip nppoiiit.-il Ciili'ii.l Flirty- !■ ir-t (i:ii.i, lii- diiilii-' lit I'itt-lini-; Liiu.li.i! mill St, .11.. Itivei', 7iv. ; Ills 1(111. ill. t tit Ci'i.Icirnmnpn, Iti-owir? V n v. haul iCniill, ami Jlirt-Kill Iti.lL'i-, 767; IllH colniii.t in t'l All lutn ciiinpaiirn, ill tli(> Gcnnriii canipiiiirn, at l-'oi-t 7.1. Mill 1 , mill on tlu* (')inipiii;;o of tliu Cin'oliuas, 7ll^; hiuuniiiry . f cliarai u-v. 7i '.' Heath, Brevet Brisiailier-General Thonuis T., Siiiiiiiiary of siTvicc, (n'.(. HEiNT/.tjEM.\.N, (ieiicrnl, Teslininny of before Ciiiiiiiiilic (111 t iiii'lnct 111 \\'iii , ."Id! uiiU note. Henry, Fort, Siei^e 111', :!iil. Hi.'.RKrcK, Bi-evct ]'>iii;adier-Gcneral Walter 1.' , Siiiiiiniiry of si'ivic ', 'ii.ii. IIirKKNi.DorKR, Brevet Brif;adicr-rienera1, li.nh it,.., .iil'i .1 armi . (■..iiilnct iit ['inslmf;.' Lan.lin^, B 111 ^ ..11 111 lil.■l.-..n■.^.^llllV, (■(in.lnct in \ lololini i; (-(1111- piiii^ii. vitr ; 11 ii'ioiiimin it'll hy i\Ioi'li..| s. t'ivis 111' il.il, ...'I v-s in ,\tliintH timiipaisn, is vr.^ riiiii'il liy pi'i .iMl i: n rill ottir.'rs for promotion, \tM. EiT.i,, B.revet Brigadier-General Charles W., I'uii'iit.iij'o, early liJ'u, uut'-'ru uriny, Bitrvicu in West Vir- ginia, sll ; in appoint(»fi Ar|lntant-G"ncral of Oiiio, .=t-l ; orsani'/ps tlie National Guaid, I.Tl, nU; ib appointed Co- lon. -I One llun(ired and Twenty-Eightli Oliio, is miig- tcred out, .Sl.i. Hitchcock, Jlr., Introduces bill in Senate au- tliorizins pay iigeiits, '£i\t. Hoge, BreVet Brigadier-General George Vi., Snnililary of service, '.IGS. HoLLOWAY, Brevet Brigadier-General E. S., .Sunimary of Bervic", 9'^0. Holly Spkings, Surrender of, 380. Holmes County', Resistance to draft in, 127. Holmes, Dr. W. W., Services of, 249. HoLTny, Brevet Brigadier-General llarcellus .J. \\',, Snniiiiary of service, iitiy. Hooker, Genenil, At Williamsburg, 291; at Antii tani, Sa^; at Lookout Mountain, ^'J7, Howaed, General, Pays a tribute to General llarlicr, tll'S. IToWBERT, Rev. E. A., Employed by Governor Tod to visit woiiii.leil Oliio soldiers, 17«. Howe, Orion P., Gallantry of, at Vicksburg, 441. HowL.iNi), Brevet Briijadier-General Horace N.* Sn.nnian "f i"i\ii.-". if 'i. lIuxDREi) Days' Men, 20S; offered to the Pr-sl lent l.y ill ' Covriiors, 209; called out, 211. Hunt, lirevet Brioadier-General Lewis C, Siliiimniy of 8 . vi ■('. 'II. 'I. Hunt, Brevet Majur-General Henry J., Sum- ni.ii> "f s rvK..', .^74. Hurst, Brevet Brigadier-General Samuel H., Stiiiiiiiary of s.rvc", fiV.i. HcTGHisoN, Mr., .\ction of, in Legislature on 111.' .\ppropi'i.itioii Hill. 22. HuTciiiNGS, Brevet Brigadier-General R. P., tiniuuiary of service, a69. IxiTTAii War Legislation, 20. Irvine, Colonel Sixteenth Ohio, Occnpies Wlieeiins an-l skirmish at Pliilippi, 41. luK A, Battle of. General Eusecrans's part in, 3£2. .Iackson, Battle of, 440, ,i74. Jackson, Stonewall, Comparison between and Slieriilftii. y>j. .T.\MES, Dr., Services of, 2-50. Jessup, Mr., Action of, in Legislature on the appropriiiMon loll, 22. Johnson, Governor Aiiilrc\y, Asserts that he prcvi'iit'il the iiliilnil..iiiii('iil i.f Na^livill'-, 7t7an'l note. Johnston, General .Ins. E., .^iieiiu'lli of his army ;n Hi-'oh". !-iii. 2 ". , lii- ini'iii t ii. Vieksbuig cninp,ii.ii;, .".s,, ;'S- ; ...in .'h'l.-r to Sliei Jiiiill, l.-O. JoNESBORo', Battle of, 4.5S. Jones, B.evot Brigadier-General J. S., E;!rly life, ('l:li^tsas private, sunimaiy of service, ills. (icy. Jones, Brevet Brigadier-General Theodore, Suinniiry of s n le ■, ii:ii. .1 ONES, Brevet Brisndier-General Wells S., Sum- mary of service, ""II. Jones, Colonel Fred. C. P.treittnste, early life, niotivi'S lor ent-i iiii: tli'-nriny, Wi7 , Ii'> (oiolnct at Titis- Iiuig La 11.1 ill IT. lit s ..II.' Uiver, liis 'liatli, l^s. Jones, Cn'.imel W. G., Parentage, entera regu- niiir iirniy. s-rves agniii^t the reliellioii, (.911. JuDAH, General, fails to check Morgan at the Cnniherlmi'l, l.TI. Judge Advocates from Ohio, 1013. K Kax'TZ, Brevet jMnjor-General August V initrm'', Mir;> hhi, sci\ icff in Mcxico.entiTs West Bi'r\ ii-i's ill recnl:ir mniv, Mt ; joins the Anuy of t torn ac on tli-- peinn^iila lumpiiign, ii appointod C SoLOud Ohio cav., .^i.'> ; pai-ticipntes in siege "f Kno comnmnds cavnlry tif tju' Ai lliv of the .lames, S'lG mantis I'irst Division, Tweuty-Fifth Corps, S47 uiary, ti-iti. ,Pa- Toiiit, h- Po- ol one! xviHi', com - sum- Index. 1045 Keifeb, Brevet Major-General Joseph W., btudi™ law, enters theaiimr, conduct in Wpst Virginiii \v- *i," Hntitsville campaign, (<6S; his condnct at vvinitiostiT, Joins the Army of the Potomac, RW ; his D Vi ,? J ' I'!'"!" of the Wilderness, Opciiuau, Fisher's Uili, ted:ir Oi-eck, and Sailor's Creek, 800. Kelly, Brevet Brigadier-General Jolin H., Snmmary of st-rvire, 970. Kenesaw Mountain, Battle of, 454. Kennedy, Brevet Brigadier-General E. P., Summary of service, 970. Key, Judge Tliomas M., votes for appropri- ation hill in Ohio Senate. 21 ; visits Governor Magof- lin, of Kentucky, as aseut from Governor Deuuison, and makes report, 37, Z6. KiMBERLY, Brevet Brigadier-General Robert L., Summary of s>'rvice, 970. King, Colonel First Ohio militia, 19. King, Knfus, States position of Ohio with ref- erence to Kentucky to Louisville delegjition, 39. KiNGSBUEY, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry D., Summary of service, 970. Kkum, Mr., introduces bill in Legislature to provide for the payment of bounties, 24(1. Kyle, Lieutenant-Colonel Barton S., Parent- age, early life, enters the army, is killed at nttsburg Luudiu^, 1000. Ladies' Aid Societies, Organized, 253. Lancaster Guards, First company to report for duty at the outbreak of the war, 27. Lane, Brevet Brigadier-General John Q., Sum- mary of service, 971. Langdon, Brevet Brigadier-General E. Bas- sett, Early life, summary of service and character, 971. Lang, Mr., Moves to amend title of bill estab- lishing National Guard, 2-12. Leavitt, Judge, Gives his opinion on the ha- bfon cnrpus in the case of Vallandigliam, 1 IS. Lee, Brevet Brigadier-General John C, Sum- mary of service, 972. Lee, General Robert E., As.«umea command of the Rebel army at Richmond, 297 ; sends Early against Washington, ^0f) : surrenders to Grant, 412. Leggett, Major-General M. D., Early life, en- ters the army, liis conduct at Pittsburg Landing and Corinth, 809; his condnct at Bolivar, Champion Hills, Vicksburg, and in the Atlanta campaign, summary, KIO. Lincoln, President, Replies to Democratic committee from Ohio asking release of Yallaniligham, 161 ; acknowledges the services of the Ohio National Guard, 219; his iJeas of McUlellan, 2^7, 291: coimratu- lates Kosecrans after Stone River, 3.14 : his fricnrlship tor Grant, 3^5; congratulates Grant alter fall of Vicksluirg, 39! ; his confidence in McDowell, 074 ; is first suggested for the Presid-ncy by Robert C. Schenck, 727 ; compli- ments General Tyler, f-3i. Lister, Brevet Brigadier-General Fred. W., Sumrftary of service, 973. Long, Alexander, Speech against by Garfield, lo6. Long, Brevet Major-General Eli, Early serv- ice, conduct at Stone River, Chiekamauga, McMinnvilie, anil Farmington, 801 ; moves with Slieiman lo Knox- villtt, his conduct iu the Atlanta campaigu audat Belma, 802. Lookout Mountain, Battle of, 397. Louisville Journal, Charges Mitchel with cruelty, 013. .,,.,,, ,.. ,. . Lowe, Colonel John W., Early life, politics, conduct at Scary Creek, 1009; at Carnifex Ferry, 1010. Lucy Colonel J. A., One Hundred and Fif- teeen'th Ohio holds indignation meeting iu his regiment about promotions, 2-'.1._ I T, n -n- i Ludlow, Brevet Brigadier-General B. C, Early life, enlei s the army, s.-i ves in Blissoun, 934 ; serves with the Armv ol the Potomac, his work on the Dutch Gap the A. my ^J,^^,^^,,,,^,.,, „,■ character, 936. &2"''l'une'ral"houors", s'umniary of chaiact.r, M Magoffin, Governor of Kentucky, Issues a ntutrality proclamation, 37. Manderson, Brevet Brigadier-General Chas. F., BUinniary of servkc, 973. Mansfield, Hon. E. D., Commissioner of Sta- tistics, lal. Manufacturers in Ohio at the outbreak of the war, Ifi. March to the Sea, 465; map of, 468. Martin, Brevet Brigadier-General Wm. H., Summary of service, 973. Mason, Brigadier-General Jolin S., Parentage, standmi: ami cla.ssmateB at AVest Point, serves in Mexico and in [he West, y:i6; summary of service against tho rebellion, 929. Mason, Brevet Brigadier-General Edwin C, Summary of service, 973. Maxwell, Brevet Brigadier-General O. C., Summary of service, 973. Mayer, Captain, His commiBsion as Colonel withheld by liuvfruur Brough, 225. McAllister, Fort, Capture of, 468, 768. McCleary, Brevet Brigadier-General James, Summary of service, 973. McClellan, Major-General Geo. B., Assumes command ut' C'niti'n Slates forces after battle of Bull Run, 13 ; is reconmieiided by Ciucinnatians for the rank of UcniTal of Ohio trnops, H2; declines the 'command uf Pennsylvania tmope, 38 ; liis ingratitude toward Gover- nor Uennison, 43 ; liis reply to (Tovernor Dennison's let- ter urfiiug him to occupy I'arkersburg, ])i.s plan for tak- ing Kichmoiid, ^s; his part in the battle of Laurel Hill, 51); his classmates at West Point, ;i7ri; his conduct at Vera Cruz, Cert o Gordo, Puebla, Mexicalcinao, Contre- ras, City of 3Iexi(0, 277 ; is directed to visit Europe dur- ing the Crimean War, resigns his commiesion and goes to railroaiJiiig, marries Bliss Ellen fliarcy, 278; is ap- pointed Miijoi -General, 33, 279; commanils at Camp Dennihon, 279; negotiates with General Buckner on the bubject of Kentucky neutrality, 279, 28(1, note; his instiuctions to General Morris, and proclamation to West Virginians, takes the field, strength of his army, his plans, 2.S1 ; he laiis in execution, 282: assumes com- mand of the Army of the Potomac and reorganizes it, 2.^3: his plans fur other departments, his lesponsibility for the Ball's Blufl allair, 285; his reasons fur inaction, 26(1; his pbuis for the Army of the Potomac, 287; temper of the Administration toward him, 266; his conduct at Yorktown, 2£.y ; he is hampered by the Governjuent, 290; his conduct on the pursuitof the Rebels from Yorktown, 291; his exaggeiatiou ol the enemy's strength, 293; his dispositions on the Chickaliominy, 29-1 ; his part in the battle of Seven Pines, 297; he procrastinates, 298; liis strength compared witli Lee's in front of Kichmond, 299; his conduct at Gniue&'s Mill, 300; he falls bHck on the James, 30! ; his condnct at Wew Market Cros& Roads and Blalvern Hill, 302; he is ordered to Mitlnlraw to Wa&h- ington, 303; his ability as an organizer, his conduct at South Mountain, 304 ; his conduct at Antietam, :j05 ; hie torce compared with Lee's at Antii'tani, 3Ui> ; sumnwiry of character. 307 ; his idea of an expedition against New Orleans, 790. McCoNNELL, Brevet Brigadier-General Henrv K., Summaiy of service, 97-1 ; as Colonel Seventy-First Ohio, corresponds with Governor Brough, 223. McCooK, Brigadier-General Daniel, While Col- onel of the Fifty-becuiid (.Ihio corresponds with Governor Biongh, 223 ; parentage, early life, enters the army, 904 ; his conduct at Peiryville, Stone Hiver, Chickiimauga, fll ission Ridge, and in the Atlanta campaign, his death, 905. McCooK, Brigadier-General Kobert L., Family connections, early life, ntndies law, H75 ; bocomes Colonel .Ninth Ohio, his siTvices in West Virginia, 87(i; is ap- pointed Brigadier and joins Buells army, is tnlten sitk, ^77; is murdered, 878 ami note; summary of character, .S79. McCoOK, Brevet Brigadier-General Anson G., Sunnn;iiy of service, 974. McCooK Family, Services of, 875 and note. McCooK, George AV., Is placed in command of the First ami Secmd Ohio, .30. McCoOK, Major-General Alexander M., Early military life, is appointed Colonel First Ohio, his conduct at BuU Run, is made a Brigadier, 80ii ; hif- condu'^t at Pittsburg Laiidiiig, 807; at Perryville 719, 807; nt Stone River, 329, .'■07; at Chiekamauga, 3-lR, 807; demands a Court of Inquiry, findings, 807 ; is assigned to unimport- ant dutii-S, liis brevet commissions, his political muws, 808 and note. McCooK, Major Daniel, Killed at Buifington Island, 147 and note. 1046 Index. McCoy, Brevet Brigadier-General Daniel, Early- life, enlists JIB private, conduct at Stone River, Chicka- niiuiu.i, and Fiaiiklin, 944 ; siimmai y, 915, McDermott, Dr. Clarke, Services of, 249. McDowell's Cokps, Dispute concerning its diKposition, 2t)3. McDowell, Major-General Irvin, Parentage, boyUmnl. ciittTH West Point, 65fi; his classmates, early military lifL', eonducL in Mexicu, 657; hiB po'-ititm fit the openiiiu of the war, (i.'iS: is made a Brigadier, WjO; liis difficultirs wUh Geneial Scott, liliO, fiiil, tiliS ; iw ordered acroflB the Polomac, i'y papers aiid otlieiwise. I'iSd, G6'-J; liis c;imp;iij,Mi against Jarkson. fi(S2; is a-signed to a comin;ind in the Army of Vifgini,i, 6M ; liis conduct at the seeoiul U.ittle of Bull Run, (ifiii ; demands a Court of Inrjnirj , (■'.III; reBult of, 691 ; subsequent services, Oyj ; pumniary of character, M.i. McGowAN, Brevet Brigadier-General J, E., Sumniarv o( service, 974. McGroarty, Brevet Brifi^adier- General Ste- phen J., Buninmry of service, 974. McIlvaine, Bishop, Expresses himself in re- gard to BUHtaining tlie Government, 270; extract from Bermnn on Colnnel Andrews, 99.>. McLean, Brigadier-General N. C, Early life, enters th'- army, servos in Virginia, 92i ; Mfrves with the Army of the Potomac, and in the Atlanta campaign, commands district in Kentucky, is ordered to North Carolin.i, rt'simis, V'sl. McMiLLEN, ^Viliiam L., Surgeon-General of Oliio, 2ifi. McNeil, Guerrilla, Captures General Crook, 603. McPhersox, Major-Genei'al James B., Parent- agi', Th-i ; bri Miiiijn a clerk, 5'<2; goes to W.-st Point, his asj; hi.s politici. 566; is iih-iguel lo lint \ nil lliiliei k's stall, .^.s; his conduct at Fuit Don l^'Hl, Piti-bnig Lauding. S6y; around Oitr- inth, Tih'i, aiu; hi-- < unllut with Rii-ei;rans. 570; is made a M;tj'ir-<-;riMT;il. Ila^ .i lit^iit nc.ir Ol.l l^aiii.ir, .'>71 ; his Con- din t 111 iUr Vukwbui gi_;uiip.iign, .'iT2 ; at I'ort Gibson ami Kaviiioini, .'>7 '. ; .1 1 .1.11 kacii, 674 ; at Cliatnpion Hills. 575 ; uriderniines Rebel works at Vicksbuig, .'iTii; his cnm- mand in tlii* Meridian expedition, .VsO; enters on the At- lanta campaign, ^v^li ; his C'lidiict at Rcsaca :'ili\,oS2; at Dallas, Ci5. MisciiLER, Captain AVendell, Co. B, Fortieth lt;itiiiliri^;nlier-tjonor;il John G., Early litr. 'iitijh llic aimy, aei vcr. in West Virginia, and on ^Milrlud's AI:ilMin.i caiiii'iiii^n. Iiis conduet tit Cliicka- ni:ui^M,9U, Ins i ondui 1 un ilu' Atlania campiiign, at N,i,s|ivi!lr, ;mhI Hnitoinilti-, ivm-ii^, 91-'. MiTCHi^L, JMajdi-Ciuneral O. M., In the Do- p.iri iii'-nl III" till' Snutli. i;t ; piin-iilase and bo\ hooil 591 ; enlcis West INiitit, liiM i hihsniat-N, .'J92 ; eailv military »iidii\il lih'. "I'.Ci ; kits to Kiiiup ■, ;"iii.'i ; huperiiitends the ('iiirinn.itl Obsiirvaloiy, :>\\i-< \ imciits the doidinonieter, ri',(7 iinil mill' , pulili".lies sevi'i al wnrlin, y.iS ; Ills Bcicniific and rrligiciiis opiiiiuiis, 5',i'i ; liis f.'cling-; at tho opening. of till' war. iiUl ; is appuiiitrd BrigailnT-(;enuraI, 603 ; crtt>- turen Buwliiig tiireii. iiu:s ; Nashville siur.mders to his comumud, (.ullti uu theuidowuf Jaiaus K. Polk,Juul- onsv of other officers toward him, 604 ; his advance on Huntsville, 60.i; his treatment of Rebels. 64IS; bis con- duct at Bridgeport, 61(i; demonfitrates againpt Chatta- nooga, f)l 1 ; is ordered to Washington City, 612 ; is charged with cruelty, 613; is assigned to the Department of South Carolina, is seized by yellow fever and dies, 614; sum- mary of character, 615. Moody, Brevet Brigadier-General Granville, Summary of service, 97-i. Moor, Brevet Brigadier-General August, Sum- mary of service, y7.'t. Moore, Brevet Brigadier-General F. W-, Sum- mary of service, 9^)0. Moore, Brevet Brigadier-General John C, Sum- mary of service, 97"), Moore, Brevet Brigadier-General Marshall F., Summary of service. 97ft. MocRE, Colonel, Defends the crossing of Green River against Morgan. 136. MooRE, Senator, Votes for appropriation bill in the Ohio Senate, 21. Morgan, Brigadier-General Geo. W., Parent- aKi', si'i \ i(. I's in Tex^is and Mexico, civil life, re-enters (III- ill iii\ . I ondiict at Cum bei land Gap, 923. Morgan, John, Sketch of, 84; surrender of^ 1-19 ; death of, ].';0. Morgan Raid through Ohio, 134; plundering and excit ■m''Ut, 144 ; expenses of the raid, I.^l ; abstract of cUiims fur property de>tn»ved, 152. Morgan's Kentucky Cavalry, Exploits of, KK, 86. Morris, General Thos. A., Conduct of at Lau- rel IliU, 51); his conduct in McClellan's West Virginia Campaign. 2^1. Morris Island, Descent on, 633. MoTT, Brevet Brigadier-General Samuel E., Snmrnary of servic*. '*7.'>. Murdoch, Tra^^edian, Suggests the writing of Sheridan's Ride, .')32, note. Murphy, Colonel, Surrenders Holly Springs, 380. Muscroft, Dr. C. S., services of, 250. Mussey, Brevet Brigadier-General Reuben D., Parent.) £11', early life, 97j ; enters the army, assitits in or- ganiziuii cidori-d troops, his letter to the Mayor of Nash- ville in regard to a Fourth of .)uly celebration, 976 ; is secretary to Presirb-nt Johnson, resigns, 977. Mussey, Dr. AVm. H., Meml)er of Board of Medical Inspector^, 24c>; services of, 249. N National Guard, Organization of, 130; serv- ices of, 219. Neff, Brevet Brigadier-General George W., Summarv of sirvico, 977. Negley, General, Demonstrates against Chat- t iniHiffji. idl. Ni^tlsox, Major W. G., Twenty-Seventh U. S. I '. I'Tfd Tro'ips, correip<«nd.s vvitli Cuvernur B rough, 22-i. N klson. General, Is jealous of Geneial Mitchel, 6114. Ni:ttleton, Brevet Brigadier-General A. B., Summary of service, 97>. Newhall, Colonel, Describes Sheridan*s last iuti-rview «ftli Grant bel'uie Lee's surrcndt-r, 5.t^, nuti- ; deserihes tight at Dinwiddle C. II., 5;o, noie ; subse-iut nt unei-rtnintj in resard to position of Rebel Hnn\,.i^l, Hute; desciibes General J-Iwell after his capiure at iSail- or's Creek, .118, note; relat'^s 'ncidfiit between Shi-ridan and citizen, .M9. nuti ; dcs.rilies Lt-e's surreuiler, .Voiial appi-arnnce, b^tri, note; dosciib-'B I'listL-r's pi-rsoniil appearance, 7^3. New Hope Church, Battle of, 453. Newman, Senator, Votes against appropriation bill in Ohio Sruato jind afterward chauui-s hi-, vote, 22 nud note ; lii< constituents denounce his In st vi-te, 22. New Orleans, Defenses of, map of, 790. Newspapers in Ohio at the outbreak of the Noble County, Speck of war in, 1*25. NoYES, Brevet Brigadier-General Edward F., Summary of service, 978. Odlin, Peter, Introduces bill in Legislature ena- bling soldiers to vote, 238, 241 ; introduces bill for defense of the State against invasion, 241. Index. 1047 O'DowD, Brevet Brigadier-General John, Sum- mary of service, 979. O'DowD, Captain, Attempts to raise an Irish Catholic regiment, 73. Ohio at the outbreak of the war, 16. Ohio Churches and Clergy in the war, 269. Ohio Legislature, Thanks General Thomas, Cojonels Giirfield mid MoOook, General Grant, and Fhig Oliicer loute. General Unrnside and Commander Gold^- lioro", GeneralB Curtis and Sigel, and Colonids Astioth, Davis, and Carr, 2.19; thanks General Shields and oflicers and men of his couimand. General Rosecraiib and nfticeis and men of his command. General Eeni. F. IJnflcr, F.jghty-Third, Nineiy-.Si.'cth, ami Seventy-yixth Oliio Regiments, and Seventeenth Ohio Batterv, the Sqnirrel Hunters, General Lew. Wallace and Captain AliTier Keed, authorizes lithoKraphic di-icharges for the Sqniirel Hunters, 240; authorizes the Governor to contriltute money for the burial of soldi'.rs in Green Lawn Ome- tery, 241 ; authorizes a commission to examine claims growing out of the Morgan r.Tid, a bureau of military Btati8ti<;B, the relief of debtors in the military service, a bureau of soldiers' claims, 242 ; authorizes a Soldiers Home, 243; authorizes tlie appropriation of money for monument to General McPhersun, 241. Ohio Militia rescues West Virginia, 45. Ohio Regiments in Kentucky in the fall of lS(jl,52; in Viiginiainthe fall of 1861, 53. Ohio Relief Association at Washington, 262; org.iiiization of, 263. Ohio's Place in the war for the Union, 13. Olds, Dr. Edson B., Opposes enlistments and is arrested, an, M ; he arrests Governor Tod, 1^0, Opdyckb, Brevet Major-General Emerson, En- lists as private, his conduct at Pittsburg Lauding, is appointed Colonel One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Ohio, his conduct at Chickamauga, at Mission Uidge, and in the Atl-iiita campaign, 837 ; bis conduct at Franklin, 838 ; personal habits, 839. Orchard Knob, Capture of, 396. Orr, Senator, Votes for appropriation bill in Ohio Senate, 21. Pardee, Brevet Brigadier-General Don A., Snininary of service. 9.-'l. Parrott, Edward A., Commandant of First Ohio, 27. Parry, Brevet Brigadier-General Augustus C, Summary of service, 979. Patrick, Colonel John H., Early life, Suin- niiiiy of service, 1001. Paymasters from Ohio 1014. Peachtreb Creek, Battle of, 456. Pearce, Brevet Brigadier-General John S., Summary of sej-vice, 981. Pemberton, General, Conduct of, in the Vicks- burg canipiiiiiU. ;'i.<8. Pendleton, Hon. Geo. IT., Acts as counsel for Vallandingham. 104. Perrin, Dr. Glover, Services of, 249. Perry, Aaron F., Replies to Pngli's argument tor a luihms corptu in the case of VallMlidighani, 112. Perryville, Battle of, 503, 719. Petersburg, Siege of, 405. Phelps, Dr. A.. J., Services of, 249. Piatt, Brigadier-General A. Sanders, Early life, enters tlie army, serves in West Virginia, 913 ; his conduct at the second battle of Bull Run, 914 ; his con- dnct at Freilericksburg, resigns, 9ir>. Pierson, Brevet Brigadier-General Wm. S., Su;nmary of service, 981. Pillow, General, At Fort Donelson, 367, 368. Pittsburg Landing, Effect of battle at in Ohio, 66 ; battle of, 374, 4.11 ; map nf, 376. _ Plympton Editor of Cincinnati Commercial, Has' an inteiviow with Sherman, 428, note Poe Brevet Brigadier-General Orlando M., Sun'imary of service, 981; as Lieutenant, sentto examine exposed points on the Ohio River, 47. ,, , „ Political Parties in Oluo at the outbreak of Pope Captain fnow Major-General), Recom- mends the lortifying of Walnut Hills, near Cincinnati .32. Porter General, Conduct of at Gaines s Mill, 301. Port Gibson, Battle of, 387, 573. Potts, Brigadier-General B. F., Early life, en- ters the armv, serves in West Virginia, 898 ; his conduct in the Vieksburg campaign and on the Meridian expeiii- tion, 899; bis cotiduct at Atlanta, personal appearance, 9tH), Powell, Brigadier-General Wm. H., Early life, enters the army, serves in West Virginia, is cap- tured, 909 ; summary of his engagements, he resigns, 9!0. Powell, Brevet Brigadier -General Eugene, Summary of service, 9>*I. Powell, Colonel, His ability as a commander, 802. Prentice, George D., Pays a tribute to Daniel McCook, 905. Prentiss, General, Conduct of at Pittsburg Landing 375. Price, Rebel General, Conduct of at Corinth, 325; invades Missouri, 345. Pugh, Hon. Geo. E., Acts as counsel for Val- l.indigham, 101 ; makes application for a writ of habean corpus in the case of Vatlaiidincham, 107 ; his argument for it, lo'.l ; makes a speech before the Democratic nom- inating convention, 154. Pulaski, Fort, Operations against, 621. PuRCELL, Archbishop, Raises the flag over the Cincinnati Cathedral, 270. Q Quartermasters from Ohio, 1014. R Rappahannock, map of, 669. RATiiiFF, Brevet Brigadier-General R. "W., Siiiiiiiiary of service, 981. Raymond, Battle of, 573. Eaynor, Brevet Brigadier-General W. H,, Sumnijuv of scrvic(^, 9Sl. Read, Tliomas Buchanan, Writes "Slieridan's Kiilf," .'>.12, note. Recruiting, The lasf, its progress and perils, 2U0. Reedy, Mr., Introduces bill in Ohio Legisla- ture fur the relief of eoldiers' fjiiiiilies, 23S. Ee-enlistments among Ohio troops, 175. Reilly, Brigadier-General J. W., Early life, enters the iiriuy, participates in sicjje of Kno.willu, Sis; P'lrticipates in thu battlu of Frankliu, resigue, yiy. Relief Work, 25], Resaca, Battle of, 450, 582. Reynolds, Private Geo., Fifteenth Iowa, at- tends oil MePliorson at liis death, .WT. Rice, Brevet Brigadier-General Americus V., Summary of ser\ic ■, 9--2. RicnARDSON, Brevet Brigadier-General W. P.,, Ea'ly life, ent'-rs the ;irniy, cmiduct at CliancellurbVille, 945; Humniary of elinraetrT, '.Mii. Richardson, Private Wm. R., Second Ohio Cavalry, callaiitry of at Saih-rs CreeU, '»l«. Richmond, Map of routes to, and battle-fields iirounil, V'.i.">. Rich Mountain, ' Battle of, Rosecrans's part in. 31.'). RiSDON, Brevet Brigadier-General Orlando C, .Summary of service, ^,•'2 Ritchie, General Thos., Secures appointment for Slierhlaii at ^Vest Pi.iut, 499. Robinson, Brevet Major-General Jas. S., Is en- entiG'X ill the Kich Mountain c:inipiii:.Mi, in the Sheiiiuiduiili ^';ll|['y omipiiigiij HI tile second bailie ot IJiill Hun, in the (JluiiicellMrsvilie canip;ii^'ii, in the Uetty^biirg cam- paign, in the Atlanta campaign, in the Geoigia campaign, and in the campaign of the Carolinas, summary of pro- motiona, t^57. RoSECRANS, Major-General Wm. S., Assumes cnmmand in ihe uiouutains. i:t; calls on Governor Den- iiison for aid in holdina West Virginia, o2\ his comliict lit McClellaire Weet Virginia eampaifin, 2^2; pareiitHge, 311 ; enters West Point, early niifitary life, 3Ili; his civil life, 31.1; re-enters tlic service. 314; hin woik in "West Virginia, 31.">: his conduiT at Kich Mountain. 50, 3i:); his conduct at Cainifex Ferry, 3IS; his cnnduct at and nronnd Corinth, 3l'1, 323, 380; fights the battle of Inka, 322,379; his conliicts with Gmnt, 323. 32';, il-'Ih. ?Ai> and note; he i-ulieves Buell, 327; hib conllict \\ith JJalleck, 1048 Index. 327, s:!."), ?,^'\ .ns ; his conduct at Stono River, 329; his ca- r.'cr afnT -St'ine River, :i:J."); huihIs Ito-tBi-iin to Wa.shinff- toii to ol)tnin c:LVjilry, 33S; hlB coiiHictH with the Socre- tiiry of Will-, his Tiillnhnma campaign, .T17 ; his Chatta- nooga carnpalLMi, 339; hlscomiu't at Chickaiuatiga, his foqcecoiiip.ir.jd with BiU-'gH, .".lit; turns over hid coin- iniiTul to I'lioinas, is piosidcnt of tin* Oin[iiin;itI Sanitary Piiir, cumniitndu D-p-irtint-nt of Miaaouri, 3(4; liis eii- gaircmr'nts with Prico. 3i5; la i'cIit'Vnd ofacornmand and i't'siLTiis, fiiiniMuiry of service and character, 34'; hi« plans for t hi! fliia-tron Ridge caiiip;iign. ;;9i, 'i9'i and note; Inn citnMiL't with JVlcPherson, /tTOj coniplininnts P'lilIcr'B bri- (jaln at C'orriitli. (^lirj ; cninplinients (ti-m Till Tlioniaa H. I'JMing fnr toiidtict at Pilot Knob, H3.'i, 83fi. KoussEAU, General, Is sent by Rosecrans to Wiisiliinut.iM to obtain cavalry, 33R. KuNKLE, Brevet Majoi--General Ben. P., Early life, entei-8 tlie army, conduct nt Pitt-iburpr Landing, Mill: cnniniati'la Ohio militia in the Morgan raid. isdiBcliaracu oil acconnf of wnnnds, is app_oint3; its services at Fort Donelson, 2&4 ; i.st.ili!i-!ic> a Soldieis' Home, purchase lots in Spring Gro\i- (IiiiiL'tery, 2ij j ; statement of its receipts, disbursf- nieiits, and MupplicH, 25i; Cleveland Branch, 2.^7; entab- Ii.sliij8 a Siildiers' Home, holds a fair, 26; Columbus Branch, 251i, mite. Savannah, Siege of, 469. Sawyer, Brevet Brigadier-General Franklin, Summary of service, '.t-2. Sayler, Milton, of Hamilton County, Intro- ducrs bill in Lcgislalure enabling suldii-r^i to \ote, 2.'>. ScAMMON, Brigadier-GeTieral Eliakim P., Pa- l-entiLiTf', Ptiindiiiu and cbi^smatcs at Wist I'oint, eiulv inilitary liie, U16; liis civil life, serves against the le- ]> i:ii. '.iii; eulii r'nr rlu liis rondnr Vii SCHKNCK, MMJor-Oeneral Robert C, Early life, irt elcctnl tn tlic Lc-ishitu-e, 72,"); in el:'Ct< d lo Cuncn-s.^, isappoiur.il imii'-t-r to Brazil, 72H ; !-n::g"9ts Mr. l2. Sueridan, Major-General Phil. H., The First Cavalry G"u; incidents of cariv hie, -I'M ; b|-cume« a.leik, 4!W ; eiitiTH West Point, cbiss- — ates. c.ulv amn' lil-, 4lt<) ; his serxicf at the opening of *^Mi t'l'ma^ter in the Pea Ridg-- cam- ide Ciilonel of cavalry and figlila the Lat- '^"■* ■ hi^ conduct at Penyvdlp, 503; at -. I'lKcoui net in theTnllahoma cam- paign, UnockB down a rnhoad condnetor, his conduct at Ohickamanga, .ODT; al iMi^Mon Ridge, 5ii9 ; his relatione with UraiU, his ser\iccs in the East, 511 ; hia battles 012; inak,s,i raid around Uuhmnnd, ,')17; IlKhts (ho battle ol \clluw Tavern, .-ils; raid on VirL-inia Central liail- road, Oiy; creates a divMrsion in lUvur of Bnrn-^ide .Vn- goes tu bhenaudoah Valley, strength of hi3 command' idv tlio war, .■')i)ii paign, .'itil ; n tie of B Mini'ville, f>3»j, note ;*rcsuniea command of eavahy, army of the Potomac, !)37 ; Ills last interview « ith Grant before the surrender, 53^* and note; his conduct at Dinwiddle C. H., .'i4ii ; at Five Forkw, 411, 642; his final oper.ttions against Lee, r^.^; his conduct at Lee's surrender, .WO, note; goes to the South-west, hia adniinistraiion of aflAirs, 553^ is urdered to the frontier, summary of character, 554 ; his conduct at Sailur'e Creek, 7ftl ; pri'sents the table on wliicii the teims of Lee's sur- render were signed to Mrs. Ceitpral Custer, 7s2. Sherman, Major-General W. T., Defends Grant for locatinir the aimyat Pittf-burg Landing, 371, note; his critiiism on Grant's Vicksborg campaign, .3i?2, note, and .3Sfi and note ; jiarentage, -til ; is adopted by Hon. 'J', Ewing, eiitcis West Point. 418; liis cbisamates and life at the academy, 419; enters the army, liis Ul'e in Florida, 4J1 ; isniairicd, resigns, entcis on the practice of law, 423; accepts protessorship in the Louisiana Militai y Academy, 424; renjgns, attenjpla to re-enter the army, 425; U appuiuted Colunel, his conduct at Bull Run, 42ii; is appoiiitL-d Brigadier-General, goes to Kentucky, 127; is lepoitcd insane, 14, 429, 430 and note; his conduct at Pittsburg Landing, ;i7J, 431; advance to Corimh, 433; gui s tu Slemphis. 434; attempts to reduce Vicksburg, ; 1^(1, 434 ; Ills cuiiduct at ChicUasaw Bayou, 435; at Ar- k.iiit.a3 P(iMt,437; his condoct in au expedition against IJam-s's Blutt, 437; his plan fur taking Vick^buig his part ill tlie Vicksburg cimpaign 4Z.^; his conduct at .Jai kooii, 440; recumuiends Ouon P. ilowe for gallantry at Vickshnitr, is made a Biigadier in the regular army 441 ; hts relatiuiis luwards Grant, 441, 44i> ; is ordered to co-.tpenite with R.-secrans, 442 ; bis conduct at Miesiou Iiid_'i-, ;;yi-, 444 ; moves to reiiei oi Buriibide at Knoxvilb' 415; hi- Meriiiian expedition, 44ii ; his plans for the At- liint.i campaign, 4 17 ; enters un the campaign, 449; hia care ol bis iroup-j, (HI ; orders the inhabitants out of At- lanta, U\i; ciiiiuiencc.-s his march to ihe sea, 4n5; invests havaniiah, 469; gives bis \iews on i-econstruction 470- niuveson ih- earnlina campaign. 471 ; bis responsibility fur the burning of Lolunibia, 475; his laxity of discipline on the march. 478; forces Juhnston to surrender, 4.'0; teriiis agreed on, 4i?2; Government refuses to sanction terms, -i&3;his niortificatiun and auger, 4t>5; refuses to shake hands with tiecretary Stanton on review day 486- summary of bis ability, 4-7; his conduct on hearing of the deajh ot McPheraun, 5.S7 ; his estimate of General (Miarles R. Woods, S43 ; . Shcrtliff, Brevet Brigadier-General G. "W., Sumnmrv of service, 982. SiGEL, General, conduct of, at second Bull Run, f.'-T. Signal Officers from Ohio, 1014. Sill, Bri;^adier-Oeneral Joshua \V., conduct of lit Mune i;i\.*i . :^ii ; eaily military life, 919; civil life. serve- il-;iillf.l the r, IirllioU, 91:0. SiNNET, Mr-, iiitroduvos bill in Legislature ap- p.intiiig militaiycla in agents, 2J0 ; introduces bill to organize and discjpiiiu- i he militia, il Sixty-Sixth Ohio Infantry, The first regi- ment tu return to the State after re-enlistment 174 Slevin, Brevet Brigudier-General Patrick, ^unlnlaly of service, \t»^. Slocum, Brevet Brigadier General "VVillard, t>umiiiary of ser\ice, Ht-S. Slocum, Lydia, Grandmother of General Mc- Ph-isnii, v\ iHcs to 'i.neral Giiint .%■<-; Slough, Brigadier-General Julm P., Early life. summary of service, y.J3. Smith, Brigadier-General Willi.im Sooy, Pa- reiit>iae, early life, enteis W est Puint, his classmates and standing. resiL^i.s, .ivil life, re-li; IS attac.ied by rheumatism and i Mgus .s^7 Smith, Btigndier-General Thomas Kilby, Pa- rentage. Mimmaiy of 6er\ii c, v.l'.i. Smith, Biwet Brigadier-General Benjamin F., Summaiy nf service, vi>:;. Smith, Brevet Brigadier-General Orlando, vSummarv ot service, •i-;s. Smith, Brevet Brigadier-General Orlow, Sum- mary of si'ivice, 9S3. Smith, Brevet Brigadier-General T. C. PI., Snnimaiy nf M'rvice, \ki2. Smith, Colonel Joseph L. Kirby, Parentao-e Suiiimary vl' .service, IUU7, Index. 1049 Smith, Dr. Samuel M., Visits the battle-fields of I'ltteljiirg Landing and Antietam, 67, iB Surgouti-G™- tral ot Oluo, ■>i7. Smith, General Charles F., Character, 359; his opi'faliuns iu Kentucky, 303 i his cuuduct at l''ort Donelsoji. ;jii8. Smith, General Giles H., Commends Colonel I'otrs, '.f;l"l. Smith, General W. F., At Petersburg, 404. Smith, Kirby, Advances into Kentucky, 8S. Smith, lldbert, Engages James B. McPlierson as cleik. '>-'J. Snicker's Ferry, Battle of, 801. Soldiers' Home Established, 235. Somerset, Battle of, 630. Sowers, Brevet Brigadier-General Edgar, Sum- mary ui service, ys-1. Spottsylvania C. H., Battle of, 402. Spbague, Brevet Major-Generai Jolm W., En- ters tli'' army, is captured, ,siif; is appointed Colonel Sixty-'lhird Ohio, his conduct at Corinth and in the Arlaiita lanipaieu, yi'5; is appointed toniuiiasioiier I'ur Freednien in Missouri, summary of character, Sijii. SciuiRKEL-HuNTEas in Cincinnati, 94; number ot discliaryrs i;iven, ISO. Staff-Officers from Ohio, 1012. Stafford, Brevet Brigadier-General Joab A., Summary oC service, 9-3. Stager, Brevet Brigadier-General Anson, Sum- uniry ot service, yt5. Stanley, Brevet Brigadier-General Timothy It,, Suuinuiry ot service, 9.-3 Stanley, IVLi.jor-General David S., Early mili- tary lite, liis Borvices iu the West at the openina; of tire var, is appointed Urit'ailier, 7%; liis services under I'npe, his conduct at luka, Corinth. .Stone liiver, and in tlie Atlanta campaiijn, 71)7 ; at Franklin, 7y;i. Stanton, Hon. E. M., vSecretary of War., 14; Biepati hes to Governor Brougli in regard to tlie Nation. il Guard, 214; presents objections to sliertntin's ha>iti of peace, -tiSi his parentage, 10i7; early life,. Ids law prac- tice, enters Buelian;tn's Cabinet, is Secretary of War to Mr. Lincoln, liisdiflicnlty with President Johnson, H)2.S ; Btinimary of chiiracter, 10-9. State Agencies for tlie assistance of soldiers established, li7. StbadMan, Brevet Brigadier-General William, Buiuinary of service, 9S3. Stbbdman, Major-General James B., As Col- onel of Fourti'entli Ohio, occupies Pavkerfiburg, 49; action of his command at Carrick's Ford, 51); early lite becomes a printer and a Democrat, removes to Ohio ana engagee in canal and railioad contracts, 7.'<4; his public life, enters Ih'! army, conduct at Perry vill-, 7^5; ]H complimented by General Thomas, his conduct at Oliickanianya and in the 'Atljinta c.impaign. 7,-iii ; has a tiitbt witli V\lieeler, his conduct at Nashville, resigns, summary of character, 787. Stem, Lieutenant-Colonel Leander, Early life, conduct at Pin \ ville and Stone l!iver,HI()'J. Stevenson, Mr., Introduces bill in Legislature aiitlMirizinii ta.v for the payuo-nt of bounties, 2il. Stiver, Mr., introdnces bill in Legislature for- bolilillK tr.ilhc "irh Rebels, 239. Stone River, Battle of, 329, 504 ; map of bat- ilcat, .va. Storer, Judge, States position of Ohio with let rcnce to Kentucky to Louisvilledcl'-jat i.-ii. Ol. Stougii, Brevet Brigadier-General William, Sumnniry of s rvice, 934. Strickland, Brevet Brigadier-General biias a., SuuiniiUV of .service, 9.SI. . ^, . Struggle and Surrender of Party in Ohio, 20 Stuakt, General J. E. B., Killed at Yellow Ttiv. rn. ."-Ks. , t^ , -r Sullivan, Brevet Brigadier-General Peter J., Suiurn iry of service, 9.S4. Sumner, (ieneral. Conduct at Antietam, 305. Sumter, Fort, Keduclion of, 636. Surgeons from Oliio in tte war, 245; sum- marv of fippoiuted, rcsigneil. promoted, and deceased duri'n" thi' rebellion, 2Jli, note; deaths aiuouir, 2J0. Surgeons of volunteers from Ohio, 248. _ Swayne Hon. Noah H., and other citizens, rendei ini'|>oi t:int aid to th. St:ile, .36, n.do. S WAYNE, Miijor-General Uager, Early life, en- ters the army, is prOTOst-marshal at 'i^Temphis, R04 ; his conduct on the Atlanta campaign, on the march to the sea. and on the campaign of the Carolinas, is appointed assistant commissioner of freedmcn iu Alabama, 80r». Sweeney, Genei-al, conduct of at Resaca, 581. Swinton's Army of the Potomac, Extracts from, 1575. T Tabulak Statement of enrolled militia in t'ath county In Ohio, 133, Tabular Statement of militia in the Mor- fiiin mill. 100, Tabular Statement of number of recruits furuislitii] to oil] i-o.^iiniLMits in l.sB2, 79. Tabular Statement of number of troops raised in each county iimlcr the first two Cfills, nfi, note. Tabular Statement of number of troops rsiised in each coiintv up to Octobt-r 1. l.S(i2. 77 Talbot, Mr., Hires Philip H. Sheridan as Taylor, Brevet Brigtidier-General Jacob E., Nummary of scrvire, PS-i. Taylor, Brevet Brig:idier-General Tliomas T., 8nniniary of HcrN ice, ti.'^-l. Thirty -Ninth Ohio Infantry furni-sbes Iiirgest number of veti'raiia, \7r>. Thomas, General Geo. H., His part in the biittlc <.f Stoni'Iiivcr, 329; his pni tin the biittlo otCbick- aniHUija, 340; capturt-s Oicharu Knob, 3%; rcfiiMes to ac- cept pn-Miit "f Ji house, 4yfi, unti.' ; ilclenrs Zollicofler, 702; conipiiniftntsytei'dinau, 7Wi; cnnivlirneTits coh)re(l troops at Ni'.slivjlle, "■'7; rcconimendg Stanley for promotion, 7its ; rrcnniinciuls Opclycke, b3s; pays a tribute to Colonel Minor Millikin, 9«>4. Thompson, Brevet Brigadier-General David, Snniuiiiry of service, 9M. Tidball, Major-General J. C, Early military lifi", his cniidnct in tin- ivninsuhi campaign, f>lii ; hi.s con- diu-t at Guinea's lUill, Miihern liili, and Aniit tuni, S17 ; his conduct on the tStuncnuin ruiil and in the Ctriy&biujj cam pillion, is appoint t'd Colnnfl Jfimrlh Mew YorU lluavy Artilleiy. his (ondnct iii the biittli-' of tlie ^Vlldl■^ness, 8\6; bis conduct at Spottsylvania C. H ., at tlie North Anna, is anpointi-d conmiaiulauf of cadets at West I'oint, his di-licuUv witli the tf.^.Tcrary of War, is brev-tted Brisadi'T-G"ni'r.iI, .Sl!i; his conduct at Furt Steedman, his final operatiuns, f>L'0. TiLGHMAN, General, Conduct of at Eort Henry, ;!li4. Tod, Governor David, General features of the tirst yi-Jir of his administiation, early political life, fi'i ; oiganizatinn of his stail", t>4, notp ; ennimHry of events in [he lirst yi-ar of bis administration. 05 ; his care for Ohio t-oblii.rs, 6S ; Jiis etlorfs at recruiting, 6t); bis policy in the appointment of otlicera, 8U ; his conduct in the sie^e of Ciincinnati, 92; issues proclamation to lusuracnts in Holnu-s (Jounty, 12,^; calls out the militia to repel Mor- ean, 139; closifig features of his ailniini>tration, 172; hia tare lor the wouudid, 177 ; his i-ysteinof ptumotifais 17!'; parentage, early life, his politics, 1020; hispuhlic life, 1021 ; bis home, 1022. Toland, Colonel John T., Early life, Sum- mary of service, 1UI)2. Tripler, Surgeon C, S. Medical Director at at Cincinnati, currrsponds with Governor Brougli, 194. Tullahoma Campaign, 337. TuRCHiN, Colonel, Disniipsed from service and ve-in-.tated. 71.'); clmiKcs ajiainst hiiu, 75IL not'-. Turley, Brevet Brigadier-General John A., t^nmniary id' scivice, HS4. Twenty-Third Ohio Infantry, First regi- Eieiit in w liich re-enliBtnicn(s began, 17.'i. Tyler, Brevet Major-General Eiastus B,, Early lif", enters the annv, serves in M'est VirL'inin, 631 : his coiiiinct in the Kanawha Valley, at Winolieeler, I'ort llepuldic, and Antietam, assumes command in and nera- Baltimore, his part in .tjie Moiiocacy battle, f32 ; sum- mar)' of character, ^:'^>. Tyler, General Daniel, Conduct of at Black- burn's I'"ord, (5(3t5. U Union Convention at Columbus, 167.] Vai.t-.\ndigha:m, Hon. C. L., Kcmonstrate,'? vilb Democrats lor Bauctioniug tbu war, 23 ; his arrest Index. 1050 and trial, 99; iHSU»fl an nddrcBS to the Pcmocrftcy of (Jliio, cliaigen prt-ferred agitiiint him hi'foie a military coiiuuis.-'loii, l(i.'i; protcstrt against being tri'd by mili- tary nmiiiiission, H)o ; Campaign for Governor, l.)3; ac- (■ pts til • Humiliation for Governor, 164; spycch against th" war. :wi. Van Deviser, Brigadier-General Ferdinand, Si'L-veB in :\lixuo, conduct ut Mnntorev, is appointt'd Colon 1 Thiiiv-Fifih Ohio, condnct ;tt Mill Springs, S9;) ; lii.4 i;uii luce ;u (Ihiijkam.iujia, SUl, 892; at Mi-sinu Kidge and I'l t.ii' Atlanta campaign, syi ; summary of charac- ter, 892. Van Doen, General, Conduct of at Corinth, 325. ViCK.siiURG Campaign, 381, 438. Vienna, Disaster at, 727. Vincent, Brevet Brigadier-General Thomas M., Standi!!!; and cla-BmatcB at West Voint, early military liic, st-rves againtit the ryljelUoii, summary of piomotiuns, Von BLESSiNGir, Brevet Brigadier -General linwis. Summary of servico, 9M. Von Schraeder, Brevet Brigadier -General Alcxandur, Summary of BL-rviue, 983. W AVade, Brigadier-General Melanctlion S., Pa- rputiige, BiMHiiiary of wt^rvice, 932. Wade, Hon. Benjamin F., Chairmiin of Com- mittfe on Conduct of the War, 14 ; early life, public lite, Iil.i;t; charact'T. life at hom^, IftJl. Wagner Fort, Siege of, 635, 642. Walcutt, Brevet Major-General Cliarles C, Early lifi.', enters rhearmy, couiluct at Pittslnirg Land- iiiiTiin.l UlisBion Kidge, >00 ; conilnctin the Atlanta cam- paign and on the man-li to the se;i, Kil. Walker, Brevet Brigadier-General Moses B., Early life. BUniniary of 8 rviee. 955. Wallace, General Lewis, Assumes command in Cineinnati duriiiij sitgL, yi); hia staff, 9rf; his conduct at Fort D.. nelson, 3'W. Ward, Brevet Brigadier-General Durbin, PoU- lii-. -iiimmary of a.-rvici', iKi. Warner, Brevet Brigadier-General Darius B., Siiiiniiury of service, i'.Sh. Warneii, Brevet M;ijor-General Willard, Early lire, enters the army, rs i-nt;aged at Donelson, rttt-^'iiuv l^iiirtiiiii, Coriutli, Vitk-liutg, Lookout Mountain. Mis- sion llilge, anl ItitiLr-uid, nV.i ; his conduct in the Athinta campaign, his -.er\ices in tln' East, Ml). War HEN, General, Conduct of at Five Forks, Wasson, Rev. D. A., Gives account of ilc- <'l-lhin's promnlinii m Biwtdii Coinniouwealth. :J4, note. Webkr, G. 0. K., Surgeon-General of Ohio, 217. Webster, Colonel George P., Early life, serves in Mexico, politics, summary of service against the re- hellioii, lUU'l. Weitzel, Major-General Godfrey, Early life, enter< Wt'Bt Pniut. early military life, reports io Gen- eral Itnthr, 7-y; advises an attack on Fort >f. Philip, 7'Ki; ( itmiiuts the trunps to the Quarantine Station, is appoinr.ii a-sistant military commander and acting ^Inynr uf New Orleans, is made a Brigadier and operates in t/ie l,iL Foiirclie district, 791 : his cimduct at I'ort Huilsuu, on the expedition to Sabine Pacs, and on the Went IjouiManii cainpainii, is ouiered to rui)ort tuGen- er.il Itiitler iti Vir.'i iii.i. 7.'.' : is in.ide chie .engineer of the department, etuninan Is Eiiilitn'nth Guipsi cniiunands Twenty-Fifth Gor|ts, ifidnipaiiii's ttrst expedltiou to Fort Fisher, eiitriw UiehMiiuni, T'.i'; goes to'texas, his corrcspuudenee with ilie Inii'-nal General Mejia, 794; pummarv of ehuriirtrr, 7'.i.'). Wells, Brevet Brlgudier-Gcneral George E., Summar\' of service, 9!>(i. West, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry R., Summary of survice, 9t)li. West Virginia rescued by Ohio militia under State pav. -I'". WiiiTBECK, Brevet Brigadier-General Horatio N., Summary of service, 9,s(i. White, Brevet Brigadier-General Carr B., Summary of service, 1'87. WiCKFiELD, Lieutenant, Ordered by Grant to eat a pie, .'J'tS. uote. WiLCOX, Brevet Brigadier-General James A., Summary .of sisrvice, 9e7. Wilderness, Battle of, 400. Wildes, Brevet Brigadier-General Thos. F., Parentage, early life, summary of service, 9.71. Wiles, Brevet Brigadier-General G. F., Sum- mary of servic", 946, Wiley, Brevet Brigadier-General Aquila, Sunim:iry of service, 9s7. WiLLlCH, Brevet M^ljor-General Au'^aist, Pa- rcntase, early life, removes to th'- Unit-il Safes, cntei a the ai-niv, Shs ; i-^ entr.iired at Muii.'nr.l-vire, h 3 coudui-t at Pittsbnrg ]>aiidiiii:. Stunt. Jlv:, Lilt ri v Gap, iin.l Chickainauga, N'.'.i : Ins Loodnct at Mi-^,on Uiilire, in the Atlanta lainpaign. commands th'- Di'mc; of Cincin- nati, is eleeted auditor of ll)iniilti.>n Counts , ,-7ii. Wilson, Brevet Brigadier-General Wm. T., Summary of service, y.s7. Wilson, Lewis, Commandant Second Ohio In- fant rv, 2S. ** Winchester, Battle of, 524. WoLCOTT, Judge Advocate-General, Acts as Governor Dennison's agent in New York lor the pnr- ehase of arms, 3^. Woman's Central Association of New York, ?.'>7, Wood, Brevet Brigadier-General Oliver, Sum- mary of service, Hs7. Wood, Fernando, Replied to in Congress by Robert C. Sch«nck. ""Vi. Wood, General Thos. J., Conduct of at Chick- amang.'i, 313. Woodruff, Sergeant John M., Promoted by Governor Brongh, promotion not recognized hy Colonel B..nd, 22H. Woods, Brevet Major-General Chas. II., Early si-rvices, his condmt ■.\t F'ot Doncl-on iin I I'irt.-bmg Landing, MI; ai Aik.msas l'o>i. iu Vu.iislnirs c.im- pamn, and at Lookmit MMiintaiii, M2 , iiis -■'■{ \l<. s in the Atlanta and G -tirjn i.ainp:iii:n-, and in tli' LMUiiJ.ii^ti of the C.irolinas, hi> l-irth^, sunnnarv of cli,ir.ictir s4^. WoODS^ Brevet Major-General Win. B., His ac- tion Ml til' Le^trrenraje, earlv life, enli-is as private, conduct at IMtt-burg Landing, Russell House, auil Arkansvs Post, serves around Richmond, stimma'-y of euff:ig"inents, 9ty. Young. Brevet Brigadier-General Tlios, L., E.irlv lif ■, M rves in resniar army, civil life, volunteeis a^^ainst the rebellion, 96^. Zahn, Brevet Brigadier-General Lewis, Sum- ihary of Beivice, 989. Zeigler, Brevet Brigadier-General Geo. M., Summary of service, yS'J. l! ; r tUtitmt ft-