|
"Our country is calling, go
forth! go forth!
To danger and glory, ye heroes;
In danger your manhood must prove its worth,
There hearts are weighed in the balance;
And he who would win his life at last
Must throw it all on the battle's east." |
THE first gun pf the war of the
rebellion was fired on Fort Sumter, on the 12th day of
April, 1861, and the smoke still hung over the battered
walls
when the first call was made for volunteers. On Monday
morning, the 14th day of April, 1861, the President issued
the following proclamation:
WHEREAS, the laws of the United States are now and have
been opposed in several States By combinations too powerful
to he suppressed in the ordinary way; 1 therefore call
forth the militia of the several States of the Union, to the
aggregate number of 75,000, to suppress said combinations
and execute the law.
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The first service assigned the forces will probably he
to repossess the forts, places and property seized from the
Union.
On Tuesday, the 15th day of April, 1861, the Governor
of Ohio issued a
proclamation calling for thirteen regiments, and on Friday,
three days thereafter, two regiments, numbering 1,700 men,
were on their way to Washington.
Union County, with all the loyal North, was awakened to
the danger of the hour. The rattling drum and the
tread of marching soldiers were heard in every town
and village in the county. When we recall the days of
1861, we can again hear the stirring music of life and drum,
and again we see the boys of Union County as they marched
through the streets with banners proudly waving, and were
off for the war.
"Proudly and firmly marched off the men;
Who had a sweetheart thought of her then;
Tears were coming, hut brave lips smiled when
The soldiers followed the drum,
The drum,
The echoing, echoing drum."
And again we see them returning,
after four years of war, with their old tattered flags faded
by the Southern sun and blackened with the smoke of battle.
Their ranks were broken; their old, faded blouses and
jackets had borne the storms of many battles, but they came
crowned as heroes. They were welcomed home by a
grateful people, who vied with each other in doing honor and
homage to their sons who had fought the battles of a war
that cost " four hundred thousand loyal lives, that made
three hundred thousand union soldier cripples for life, and
left more than one million widows and orphans to mourn for
their loved ones who did not return."
Union County, with a population in 1860 of 16,507, sent
into the service upward of three thousand soldiers, of all
arms of the service—infantry, cavalry, artillery and
navy—representing more than one hundred regiments, batteries
and independent companies. The total roster of
soldiers published in this history numbers 3,538; this
includes soldiers now living in the county, who went into
the service from other counties, and many of them from other
States. These rolls have all been carefully examined
by soldiers of every regiment represented, and those known
to have entered the service from other counties have been
cheeked, and this leaves the number from this county 3,200.
Add to this the veterans that
Pg. 20 -
re-enlisted, 348, and we have a grand total of 3,548
enlistments. This includes about 200 represented in
two different regiments or companies; deducting these and
the veteran enlistments leaves upward of 3,000 soldiers from
the county.
Of the full companies sent from this county, there was
one for the first three months' service in the Thirteenth
Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and thirty-two men for the
Seventeenth Regiment, aggregating one hundred and twenty-six
men; six companies for the three years' service under the
first call, three companies under the three years' call in
1862, one company under the three mouths' call in 1862, one
company for the six months' service in 1863, three companies
of "One Hundred Days men" in 1864, three companies of
one year's service in 1864, and two companies of "Squirrel
Hunters" in 1862 - in all twenty companies.
Three hundred and forty-eight re-enlisted as veterans
under the call of the President in December, 1803.
These were men who, after having served more than two years
in one organization, re-enlisted in the same organization
for "three years more, or during the war." Of these
veterans re-enlisting from Union County, the following
regiments of Ohio Volunteer Infantry were represented:
Thirteenth, Twenty-sixth, Thirtieth, Thirty-first,
Thirty-second, Fortieth, Forty-sixth, Fifty-fourth,
Sixty-sixth, Seventy-sixth. Eighty-second, Fifteenth,
Seventeenth, Twentieth, Twenty-second, Twenty-third,
Twenty-seventh, Thirty-third, Thirty-eighth, Forty-second,
Forty-third, Forty-fourth, Fifty-third, Fifty-eighth,
Sixty-third, Sixty-fifth, Seventy-fourth, and First Ohio
Volunteer Cavalry.
Besides the full companies raised in the county,
companies were largely recruited for the Fortieth and
Fifty-fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry and the First Ohio
Volunteer Cavalry; a company of sharp-shooters, and quite a
number of colored troops for the Fifth and Twenty-seventh
United States Colored Troops. Many others entered the
regular army, mostly in the Eighteenth Regiment United
States Army, and many enlisted and were credited to other
counties of whom we
have no record.
Union County's contribution to the war was equal to the
total number of male adults in the county at that time, as a
large number of the soldiers were boys under age. From
the first call for soldiers in 1861, until peace in 1865,
Union County filled her quota for every call. Of the
commissioned officers, two attained the rank of Colonel, two
of Lieutenant Colonel, three of Major, four of Surgeon,
fifty of Captain, and seventy of Lieutenant—in all one
hundred and thirty
commissioned officers.
We did not furnish a brilliant array of officers of
high rank—Brigadier and .Major Generals manufactured to
order at home by political influence and newspapers,
fighting battles at long range; but we did furnish our quota
to the rank and file of the army—the soldiers who carried
the musket, the carbine and saber, the cartridge-box, the
canteen, the knap-sack, the haversack with their rations,
and marched through rain and mud, and slept in the "dog tent
;" the soldiers who stood picket, lay in the rifle-pits,
made the breastworks, did the dangerous scouting and
raiding, laid the pontoons, carried the ammunition and
fought the battles of the rebellion.
Such was Union County's contribution to the war—the real
heroes who served without hope of reward, save that of a
nation preserved. They have no costly monuments to
proclaim to the world their valiant deeds; but monuments
will crumble and fall to the ground while the people will
keep given in their heart of hearts the heroic deeds of the
rank and file of the army, nameless and pageless in in
history though they be-
" They were the builders whose work is
immortal,
Crowned with the dome that is over us all.''
The soldiers of Union County
fought upon every field of the thirty-one principal
battle-fields of the war, from Bull Run to Appomattox.
The first of her soldiers wounded was at Bull Run. They were
at Carnifex Ferry, where the first
Pg. 21 -
soldier from the county was killed; and again we find them
led by Garfield marching on to victory in Eastern
Kentucky, then following Thomas triumphantly at Mill
Springs, in January, 1802, and in February we find them at
Fort Donelson, both with the land and naval forces.
They fought at Shiloh, Corinth and Perryville; again
struggled amid the cedars of Stone River; then poured out
their best blood at Chickamauga. They were at Island
No. 10, Champion Hills, Jackson, Big Black River, Grand
Gulf, Arkansas Post and Spanish Fort. They were with
the victorious columns of Thomas at Mission Ridge,
and fought under Sherman, at Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw
and Atlanta; marched with "Sherman to the sea."
and were with "Old Pap Thomas" in one of the best
planned battles and most brilliant victories of the war, at
Nashville. And again at Ports Wagner, Fisher and
McAllister, at Port Republic, Cedar Mountain, South Mountain
and Chancellorsville; at Antietam, Gettysburg, the
Wilderness, Fredericksburg and Cold Harbor. They were
at Winchester, and swept down the Shenandoah Valley under "Little
Phil," and were on every field of Virginia. They were
at Cumberland Gap, Knoxville, Vicksburg, Murfreesboro and
Kingston. They were at Charleston and Bentonville.
They participated in the most brilliant cavalry raids of the
war, and carried death and destruction into the heart of the
Confederacy, under the leadership of those dashing cavalry
chieftains, Kilpatrick, Custer and Sheridan.
Many of them were at Appomattox, and finally, it was the
fortune of Union County's cavalrymen to be present at and
participants in the capture of the President of the
Confederate States. The blood of Union County soldiers
was poured out upon all these sanguinary battle-fields, and
many of them are sleeping in nameless graves on tin; fields
where they fell.
And what was Union County's sacrifice in the war?
133 of her soldiers were killed in battle; 400 died of
wounds or disease, or wasted in the prison pens; 360 were
wounded, and 143 were prisoners of war, making a total loss
of killed, died, wounded and prisoners, of 1,035; 200 sleep
in the graveyards and cemeteries of the county, and 321 arc
buried in the South and in unknown and unlettered graves,
there awaiting the assembly of the grand army above, where
Heaven's " Recording angel will call the roll" on that
great day. What a sacrifice for one little county! but
what a grand army will muster on that other shore.
In addition to these, there are buried in the
cemeteries of the county ten soldiers of the war of the
Revolution, 109 of the war of 1812, and 7 of the war with
Mexico, making a total of 655 soldiers, residents of the
county, mustered out of
life's service.
The first three soldiers who enlisted in the county, as
shown by published records, were John Newlove,
C. S. Irwin and James Chapman.
They were too impatient to waif for a company to be
recruited in the county, and Irwin went to
Springfield and joined a company that was assigned to the
Sixteenth Ohio Regiment in the three months' service. Newlove
and Chapman joined a company from Urbana, of the
Second Ohio Regiment, and were in the first battle of Hull
Run. Both Newlove and Irwin were
afterward enlisted and served over four years in the First
Ohio Cavalry.
The first Union County soldier who died in the service
was C. C. Hurly, of Company D, Thirteenth Regiment;
the first one wounded was James Chapman, of the
Second Regiment, who was wounded at Bull Run, and the first
one killed was Ransom Reed, Company F, Thirteenth Regiment,
who was killed at Carnifex Ferry, September 10, 1862.
The first company to enlist and enter the service, in
response; to the first call for 75,000 volunteers for three
months, was a company recruited at Marysville by J. O.
Hawkins and M. C. Lawrence. The first war
meeting was held in the old court house on the evening of
April 15, 1861, and ten days later the, company was
organized and started for camp at Columbus, Ohio. A
company was organized at plain City, by Thomas J. Haynes, at
about the same date, in which many Union County boys
enlisted. A company was also organized at New
California,
Pg. 22 -
about the 25tli of April, of which James Cutler
was elected Captain, W. L. Carry, First Lieutenant,
and D. R. Cone, Second Lieutenant. About sixty
men enlisted, but before the company was recruited to the
required number to enter the service the three years' call
was issued, and many of the men becoming impatient, enlisted
in other companies, and this company never entered the
service.
The following companies were organized in the county
under the first call for three years' service; Company F,
Thirteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry; Company B, Thirty-second
Ohio Volunteer Infantry; Company E, Thirtieth Ohio Volunteer
Infantry; about fifty men for Companies D and K, of the
First Ohio Cavalry; Company F, Thirty-first Ohio Volunteer
Infantry; a large number for Company K, Fifty-fourth Ohio
Volunteer Infantry; a detachment for Company D, Fortieth
Ohio Volunteer Infantry; Company F, Sixty-sixth Ohio
Volunteer Infantry, and Company H, Eighty-second Ohio
Volunteer Infantry. Detachments were also recruited for many
other Ohio regiments, and for the Seventh, Seventeenth and
Eighteenth United States Infantry. These companies
were organized during the summer and fall and were all in
the field by early winter.
On the 27th day of September, 1801, an order was issued
by the Adjutant General of Ohio, appointing military
committees in every county in the State, and they were
empowered to appoint recruiting officers and were to
superintend the recruiting service in their respective
counties and have general supervision of military affairs.
The first committee appointed in Union County was composed
of P. B. Cole, J. W. Robinson, C. Rathburn, A. F.
Wilkins and G. L. Sellers. John
Cassil was the first recruiting officer appointed by the
committee, and he recruited a company for the Sixty-sixth
Ohio Volunteer Infantry. J. A. Henderson, Joseph
Newlove and James R. Smith Were afterward
appointed members of this committee. The military
committee was kept in service until the close of the war,
and did good and efficient work in this county in the
management of military matters.
In the month of October, 1861, in response to the call
of the Governor, the citizens of the county sent large
donations of clothing and blankets to the soldiers in the
field, this being the first well-directed movement for the
relief of suffering soldiers in the field and prior to the
organization of any regular "aid societies." Soon
after this, however, "aid societies" were organized all over
the county, not only for the relief of soldiers in the
field, but for the relief of the families of soldiers in the
county.
The first of these of which any record can be found was
organized in Union Township, November 29, 1861, James
Fullington, A. A. Woodworth and John
Reed being the prime movers in the matter.
These societies collected and distributed from this
county thousands of dollars in money, clothing and sanitary
stores, and hundreds of sick soldiers in the hospitals and
on the field were ministered to and made comfortable by the
donations from the patriotic ladies and citizens of Union
County.
Thousands of dollars were paid to the soldiers of the
county as bounties during the war, and it may be truly said
that her citizens never failed to respond to every call made
for either money, sanitary donations or soldiers.
The companies organized in the county during 1861 were
assigned with their regiments to the different departments
of the army as follows:
The Thirteenth Regiment entered the field in West
Virginia, fought at Carnifex Ferry September 10, where
Ransom Reed fell, the first of Union County's
soldiers killed on the field of battle; from Virginia to
Tennessee, marched with Gen. Buell's columns to
Pittsburg Landing and lost heavily in that hard-fought
battle.
The Thirtieth Regiment was ordered to Virginia, was at
Carnifex, and had many skirmishes during the fall and
winter; spent, the winter at Fayetteville, working a part of
the time on the fortification, and in April, 1862, we find
it at
Raleigh.
Pg. 23 -
The Thirty-first Regiment was assigned to the
Department of Kentucky, and marched in December to the
relief of Gen. Thomas at Mill Springs; wintered in
Kentucky; then marched with the army of the Ohio to
Pittsburg Landing and took part in the siege of Corinth.
The Thirty-second Regiment left Camp Dennison for West
Virginia in September, 1861; was soon on Cheat Mountain, and
under Gen. Milroy took part in the advance on Camp
Alleghany. During a greater part of the winter, the
regiment remained at Beverly, drilling, and on the 1st of
May, 1862, advanced on Buffalo Gap.
The Fortieth Regiment left Camp Chase in December,
1861, for Eastern Kentucky, and in January, 1862,
participated in the battle of Middle Creek, defeating
Humphrey Marshall. The Fortieth spent the rest of
the winter at Piketon on outpost duty, and until June, 1862.
The Fifty-fourth Regiment organized at Camp Dennison;
left for Paducah, Ky., in February, 1862, where it was
assigned to Gen. Sherman's Division, and engaged in
the battle of Pittsburgh Landing, losing in this, its first
fight, nearly 200 men.
The Sixty-sixth Regiment struck tents at Camp McArthur,
near Urbana, in January, 1862, and was off for West
Virginia, where it was assigned to the command of Gen.
Lander at New Creek and immediately commenced active
service. During the first winter, the regiment was
constantly on the move scouting and skirmishing, and in
June, 1862, we find it marching with the army of Gen.
Shields up the Shenandoah to Port Republic.
The Eighty-second Regiment, organized at Kenton, was
ordered to Virginia, in January, 1862, and spent the winter
at Fetterman, drilling and in camp duty. In the early
spring, it was on scouting service under command of Gen.
Schenck, and in May marched under Gen. Fremont
toward Branch Mountain.
The First Ohio Cavalry, organized at Camp Chase,
received marching orders for Kentucky, and on the 9th day of
December, 1861, struck tents, and on the 11th of the same
month arrived at Louisville, being the first regiment of
caalry to enter that department. The regiment remained
at Louisville, drilling, until January, 1862, when it was
ordered to join Gen. Thomas, at Mill Springs, but did
not arrive in time to take pat in that battle. The
regiment was on scouting duty in Kentucky, during the
winter, and had its first encounter with the command of
John Morgan on Green River. Late in March, they
led the advance of Gen. Buell's columns to Pittsburg
Landing, and participated in the siege of Corinth.
Such was the disposition of Union County companies that
enlisted under the first three years' call, in the spring of
1862, at the close of the first year of the war.
On the 26th of May, 1862, Gov. Tod, in
compliance with a all from the War Department for troops to
protect the National Capital, then threatened by
Stonewall Jackson published a proclamation calling for
volunteers for three months. The day before, he had
sent telegrams to every county in the State announcing the
need of troops and assigning the number expected from each
county, urging the need of troops and assigning the number
expected from each county, urging that all who were willing
to volunteer should hasten to Camp Chase. Within two
days 5,000 volunteers had responded to the call, and within
ten days the first of the new regiments - the Eighty-fourth,
was on its way to the field. The Eighty-sixth and
Eighty-eighth soon followed, while the Eighty-fifth and
Eighty-seventh were organized for the Eighty-sixth Regiment
in Union County, and served three months in Western
Virginia.
Under the calls of the President in June, 1862, for
troops for three years' service, Ohio's quota was 74,000,
one-half of which was liable to draft.* "Men were
universally averse to the idea of a draft, and the people of
Ohio were especially anxious that it might be said that the
soldiers form this State were volunteers. In
compliance with popular demand, Gov. Tod made an
effort to dis-
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*Reid's History
Pg. 24 -
tribute the new quota impartially among the different
counties, and to obtain the proper number of volunteers from
each; the draft was only to be used as a lat resort."
The regiments having been localized, each community
took particular interest in raising the required number of
troops, and in "getting clear of the draft." In this
assignment, the Ninety-sixty was allotted to Union and its
neighboring counties. It was under these calls that
the Seventy-ninth, the Eighty-third, the Eighty-ninth, the
Ninetieth, the Ninety-first, the Ninety-second, the
Ninety-third, the Ninety-fourth, the Ninety-fifth, the
Ninety-Sixth, the Ninety-seventh, the Ninety-eighty, the
Ninety-ninth, the One Hundredth, the One Hundred and First,
the One Hundred and Second, the One Hundred and Third, the
One Hundred and Fourth and the One Hundred and Fifth
Regiments were raised in the various counties of Ohio.
In response to this call, one company was recruited in this
county in August, and was assigned as Company K, of the
Ninety-sixth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
Under the call of July 1, for 300,000 troops, two
companies were recruited for three years' service, and left
Marysville about the 1st of September, for Camp Delaware;
they were assigned as Companies A and I, of the One Hundred
and Twenty-first Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
At this period Union County was in a blaze of
excitement; the rattling drums of the recruiting officers
were heard in every town and at every cross road. It
seemed as if the whole country had been converted into a
recruiting rendezvous.
We now had in the field ten companies, and many
detachments in various other organizations. Many of
the soldiers who had enlisted at the first call had been
killed or wounded, and many others had died of disease and
had been brought home and buried by their friends.
"Mourners were going about the streets," and the weeds of
mourning were to be seen in many families.
Ramsom Reed, the first to fall, had been brought
home and buried with the honors of war, amid a large
concourse of people, on the 6th October, 1861. The
funeral services of four soldiers - Cyrus Thompson,
Delmore Robinson and two brothers, sons of Henry
Crist - were held in the Presbyterian Church at
Marysville, on the same day, July 23, 1862.
The people now began to see and realize some of the
results of the war, for now there were broken hearts, bitter
tears of sorrow and desolate homes. Many of the
soldiers who enlisted in the last companies had left
families. The citizens realized the necessity of the
hour, and relief societies began to work with renewed
energy. The military committee was active, and in July
appointed committees in each township to take subscriptions
for the relief of soldiers' families, and fair hands were
busy making clothing and preparing sanitary stores for the
hospitals.
At this time, Gen. Buell's army was falling back
rapidly toward Louisville, and one column of Gen. Bragg's
army was advancing by forced marches on Cincinnati.
Gov. Tod issued a proclamation in September,
1862, calling upon the citizens of Ohio to rally to the
defense of Cincinnati. He said: "Our Southern
border is threatened with invasion. I therefore
recommend that all loyal men form themselves into military
companies to beat back the enemy at all points he may
attempt to invade the State." In response to this
call, two companies went from Union County, aggregating
about one hundred men in all, many of them old and
gray-headed, prominent among whom was the Rev. B. D.
Evans, a very intelligent old Welshman and Presbyterian
minister of Jerome Township. They went with their
shot-guns, rifles, powder horns and shot pouches; "they
responded gloriously to the call for the defense of
Cincinnati, and you should acknowledge publicly this gallant
conduct," said Gov. Tod in a dispatch to the
Secretary of War. These men were denominated "Squirrel
Hunters," and were, by act of Legislature, given honorable
discharges.
Pg. 25 -
During the winter of 1862-63, a law was passed by the
Ohio Legislature, organizing the militia so as to drill the
entire militia force of the State, including every
able-bodied man between the age of eighteen and forty-five,
to be armed, uniformed and equipped so as to be instantly
available in ease of invasion. This was the nucleus of
the "National Guards of Ohio," the next year to be thrown
into the field on two days' notice, 35,000 one hundred days'
men. Under this law, 3.631 militia were enrolled in
this county; below we give the election of officers in these
companies, so far as can be learned:
Paris Township, Fast District.— Captain, L. Sellers;
First Lieutenant, Leonard Geer; Second Lieutenant,
G. A. Fox. West District. - Captain, W. H. Doll;
First Lieutenant, W. P. Welsh; Second Lieutenant,
Robert Snodgrass.
Leesburg Township, Southern District.—Captain, A. E.
Rosencranz; First Lieutenant, P. Hildreth; Second
Lieutenant, A. Konkle.
Jerome Township.—Captain, J. Ewing; First
Lieutenant. T. Killberry; Second Lieutenant, D. G.
Robinson.
Darby Township.—Captain, George Starr;
First Lieutenant, J. G. Homesker; Second Lieutenant,
D. Marquis.
Dover Township.—Captain, Samuel McAllister;
First Lieutenant. James Briggs; Second Lieutenant,
W. B. Harriott,
Jackson Township.—Captain, J. M. Baldwin; First
Lieutenant, C. W. Burgoon; Second Lieutenant, G.
S. Robinson.
Washington Township.—Captain, Jehn Grey;
First Lieutenant, H. Toby;
Second Lieutenant, Daniel Miller.
Taylor Township.—Captain, William Folk; First
Lieutenant, S. Graham; Second Lieutenant, H.
Thompson.
Claibourne Township.— Captain, Joseph Swartz;
First Lieutenant, T. M. Bethard; Second Lieutenant,
V. Collier.
The large number of men recruited during the summer and
fall of 1862, were immediately thrown into the held, without
any experience in camp life or drill, and these men suffered
very much during the severe winter. At no other period
dining the war did so many soldiers of Union County die of
disease and exposure in the same length of time. Among
the heaviest sufferers were the soldiers of the Ninety-sixth
and the One Hundred and Twenty-first Regiments.
Under the call in June, 1863, for six months'
regiments, this county sent one company, which was assigned
to the Eighty-sixth Regiment. It entered the field in
August, took part in the campaign after John
Morgan, and was then ordered to Cumberland Cap, Ky.,
where it operated until the expiration of its term of
service.
Many recruits were sent from the county during the
summer of 1863 to the old regiments, but no other full
companies were raised that year.
The next enlistments in which the county figured
prominently was that in which the citizens at home had but
little to do; this was the veteran enlistment
of the old regiments in the field that had gone out under
the first call in 1861. "Their terms of enlistment
were expiring long before the great campaign to which they
were looking forward should be ended." Their ranks
were thinned by service on the held of battle, in the camp
and in the hospitals. These soldiers knew what war
was, with all its horrors; yet they, with a patriotism never
before or afterward equaled during the war, stood by the
flag and again enlisted for " three years or during the
war." This gave a new inspiration to the recruiting
service. More than 20.000 veterans re-enlisted, and
when they came home on their thirty days' furlough, their
decimated ranks were rapidly filled up by new recruits, and
a thrill of patriotism swept over all the land. The
first regiment to re-enlist was the Sixty sixth, which was
soon followed by the Thirteenth, Thirtieth, Thirty first,
Thirty-second, Fifty-fourth and Eighty-second and the First
Ohio Cavalry.
During the winter of 1863 64, these veterans were
honored, feasted and toasted by almost every family in the
county, and they had never felt until then
Pg. 26 -
how "warm was the gratitude of these loyal men, women and
children at home for the boys who were fighting the battles
of the great war." Many men enlisted from the county
in these old regiments, which returned to the field in the
early spring with full companies and with renewed devotion
to the cause of the Union.
In the spring of 1864, it seemed that the critical
point in the war was approaching. Great armies were in
the field, all preparing for a forward movement. The
Army of the Potomac, under Grant, was preparing for
the campaign of the Wilderness; the Army of the West was
active, and Sherman, with his grand army in Georgia
was about to attack the well guarded works of the rebel army
in the center; that was to prove a bloody summer's campaign.
It was at this critical period that the National Guard,
or "Hundred Days' Men," were called out to man the forts,
that all the veterans might march to the front for the great
struggle of the bloody battle summer of 1864; 30,000 of
Ohio's Guard went into camp in one day in response to the
call of the Governor. Union County contributed to this
number three full companies that were assigned to the One
Hundred and Thirty-six Regiment Ohio National Guards, and
several detachments for other regiments. Quoting from
a newspaper of that date:
"Fortunate was it for the country that the Governor of
Ohio held in his hand this reserved thunderbolt of war.
The crisis of the rebellion was upon us. The rebel foe
was insolent and sanguine. They were gathering their
whole military power and preparing to hurl it upon the Union
columns in one deadly and decisive conflict. The
hearts of all brave men throbbed in unwonted anxiety as they
looked upon the formidable array of rebel hosts. They
saw that the impending conflict must speedily occur.
They knew that failure to our arms would be an inexpressible
disaster to the National cause; and all wanted the assurance
of our success made doubly sure by giving additional
strength to our armies in the field. To render that
strength effective, it must be added at once. The exigency
permitted of no delay. The re-enforcements must come
then, or their coming would be useless for the critical
moment of the campaign. It was at this moment of
public anxiety - a moment pregnant with the Nation's future
- that Gov. Brough sent forth the reserved power of
thirty-five thousand brave and gallant National Guards.
At the very moment when most needed, the Ohio army stepped
into the place of veterans and thereby enabled the
Government to send that many veterans forward to sustain
Gen. Grant's advancing columns. Our State militia
organization was made the means for meeting the emergency;
and most nobly and gallantly did the members of that
organization respond to the call of the Governor."
In response to the call in July, 1853, for one year
regiments, two companies were organized in the county, and
were assigned as Companies B and C, for the One Hundred and
Seventy-fourth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry; and under
the last call, in December, 1864, for 26,000 men to fill the
last quota of Ohio, one company was recruited for the one
year service, which was assigned as Company B of the One
Hundred and Eighty-seventh Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
This was the last company recruited in the county, and
it entered the field in February, 1865.
Many of these soldiers were lads thirteen or fourteen
years of age when the war began, but now they had grown to
manhood, and went forth to take the places of their fathers
and brothes who had fallen upon the field of battle or died
of wounds and disease. Thus Union County responded to
every call, from the first gun at Fort Sumter to the
sounding of the re-call at Appomattox Court House in 1865.
Every quota was filled, and at the end of the war Union
County stood eleven ahead of her quota on the last call, as
shown by the records in the Adjutant General's office.
Her loyal citizens at home stood by the soldiers in the
field, by contributing money by thousands of dollars for the
relief of soldiers' families and by relief societies to give
aid and comfort to the wounded, sick and suffering soldiers
in the field.
Pg. 27 -
Ah, the history of this work of love and devotion of
the mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts never can be
written! We can only get a glimpse of it; for who can
tell of their anxiety or of the many weary and wakeful
nights as they watched and prayed for their loved ones, many
of whom were never to return. The tender, sad memories
of the war, speak to all more eloquently than can be written
on the page of history, as they sweetly and pathetically
remind us how the mothers and women of the land, touched by
the fires of patriotism, bade their sons gird on the armor
of their country; how, through the long and bitter years of
the war, their faith was unbroken and their loyalty was
firm; and how, when their dear ones were borne home cold and
lifeless, they, like the Spartan mothers, "thanked God that
their boys had died that their country might live."
"The wife who girds her husband's sword,
'Mid little ones who weep or wonder,
And bravely speaks the cheering word -
What though her heart be rent asunder?
Doom'd nightly in her dreams to hear
The bolts of death around him rattle,
Hath shed as sacred blood as e'er
Was pour'd upon a field of battle!
"The mother who conceals her grief
While to her breast her son she presses,
Then breathes a few brave words and brief,
Kissing the patriot brow she blesses,
With no one but her secret God
To know the pain that weighs upon her
Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod
Received on Freedom's field of honor!" |
The record of
the war is not complete without the history is written
of the part borne by our loyal women. How much we
owe to their love, care and encouragement for all we
have achieved; and how we strive in all the laudable
ambitions of life to win their smiles of approval.
In these few pages, the services of the soldiers of
Union County have been but briefly sketched, and may we
not, in this brief retrospect of a few of the great
results of the war, justly congratulate ourselves as
soldiers that we have borne a part, however humble our
position, in the accomplishment of that "great and
mighty drama of a nation preserved?" And it is not
taking to our selves any unmerited honors, either for
our patriotism or for our services; but we can say
truly, without the charge of egotism, that the soldiers
of this county did their duty, honestly, faithfully and
patriotically, in the day of our Nation's peril.
Almost twenty years have passed away since the close of
the war, and when peace spread her mantle over the land,
the ranks of the army melted away like the smoke of
battle. The soldiers laid aside their uniforms as
quickly as they had donned them when the first drum-beat
sounded "to arms!" and soon took their places in the
busy marts of industry and the peaceful avocations of
life.
A million soldiers laying down their arms after four
years of sanguinary war, and quietly taking their places
in the civil walks of life without any unusual
commotion, was a sublime spectacle upon which all
civilized nations looked with wonder and admiration.
These were the volunteer soldiers of a free country.
The soldiers of Union County were no exception to this
rule, and the boys of twenty years ago have become the
good and substantial citizens of to-day. The "good
soldier is the good citizen," and in all the positions
of life they bear themselves as becomes brave and
gallant soldiers of the Republic. They are found
as farmers, merchants, in the counting-room, in the
halls of legislation and in places of honor and trust
all over the land.
From died contracted and from wounds received
during their service, the soldiers are falling rapidly,
one by one - falling by the wayside, comrades of all
ranks passing away.
Pg. 28 -
"A chosen corps they are marching on
In a wider field than ours;
We shall meet, and greet with closing ranks
In time's declining scenes,
When the bugles of Cod shall sound recall
And the battle of life is won." |
And as one by one our comrades
are mustered out of life's service, let us cherish more
warmly each succeeding year the memory of their services,
and as our heads are bowed and sprinkled with the frosts of
many winters, let us be bound more closely by that
friendship formed during our service on the march and in the
camp, and "welded in the lire of battle;" and let us not
forget the widows and orphans of our late comrades.
They are the wards of the nation; let us "guard them with a
jealous eye," and keep them in our fostering care, for no
man can give better proof of devotion to friend or country
than that he will " lay down his life for them."
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