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January 10, 1864, and on the twenty-second of January, the men were mustered as veterans and furloughed for thirty days. Colonel Mason, Captain McCormick, Captain Morris and Lieutenant Fisher, were appointed recruiting officers, and when the regiment reached Camp Dennison, the rendezvous, to start for the field, it had about two hundred recruits in its ranks.

Reaching its rendezvous February 26th, the regiment left, March 1st, for Little Rock, where it arrived on the seventeenth. It was ordered to march with General Steele's expedition, and left on the twenty-third for Shreveport, Louisiana, to cooperate with Banks' Red River expedition. At Spoonville, April d, a skirmish took place, but the regiment lost no men. At Okalona, on the third, it was again under fire, having a prominent position and bearing itself creditably while aiding Colonel Goetz to drive a battery from its position. At Elkin's Ford, on the sixth, it next met and assisted in driving the foe, as it did again at Prairie de Ann on the thirteenth. The army was attacked at Moscow on the thirteenth, but there was not much fighting. Arriving at Camden on the sixteenth, and driving out the enemy, it was learned from telegrams captured that General Banks' Red River expedition had been defeated. Our troops had started from Little Rock with only half rations of hard bread and quarter rations of pork, and had been long out of meat, subsisting partly on the country. General Clayton had started a supply train from Pine Bluffs to meet Steele's forces at Camden, but it did not arrive on time, and there was much suffering for food. After its arrival, General Steele ordered the thoroughly effective men of the brigade, except the guards at headquarters and at two mills that were grinding corn and the pickets of the division (which consisted of portions of the Seventy-seventh Ohio, Forty-third Indiana, and Thirty-sixth Iowa), to escort the empty wagon train back to Pine Bluffs, and on the twenty-third it crossed the Washita river on pontoon bridges and left Camden. Colonel Drake, of the Thirty-sixth Iowa, commanded the brigade, and Captain McCormick was elected by Colonel W. B. Mason as the senior officer present to command that portion of the Seventy-seventh that was detailed. About two hundred of the First Indiana and Seventh Missouri cavalry and a section of the Second Missouri battery accompanied the train. On the twenty-fifth of April this little force, guarding about two hundred and fifty wagons, found in battle array over six thousand mounted rebels at Marks' Mills, forty-five miles from Camden and about the same distance from Pine Bluffs. The enemy had taken another route from Camden and struck on our flank at this junction. The train was passing from Bayou Mom through woodlands over a narrow road, so it was stretched out some five miles long. In this condition it was not difficult for the enemy to divide the regiments at the cross-roads and attack them in detail. This was done, and their heavy force surrounded and captured the two other regiments, after a sharp fight Hearing the battle open several miles ahead, while they were guarding the rear of the train, the commander of the detailed portion of the Seventy-seventh moved his command forward on the double-quick, passing wagons and pieces of artillery mired in the swampy Moro bottoms. Moving as rapidly as possible the entire distance, and coming up almost breathless to Marks' Mills, the detachment of the Seventy-seventh arrived only in time to find that their comrades had been captured, and that they must fight the battle alone. The entire force of the enemy, except a few hundreds left guarding the prisoners, now confronted the gallant Ohio boys. Quickly throwing out skirmishers to protect the flanks, Captain McCormick at once formed his command in line of battle, in a good position, and endeavored to protect the remaining half of the train. For more than an hour longer was the enemy held at bay by this little band of about three hundred men, amidst a hotly contested conflict of arms. Twice was General Cabell's brigade in front of our noble boys driven back, causing the brigade commander to ask them if they were "going to let that little handful whip them." Meantime, Adjutant Flemming and Quartermaster Fisher, who had been sent out to the crossroads to see if there was any danger of being flanked, reported that there was a heavy body of troops on the right, and another to the left and rear, threatening to surround the little Union band. These proved to be the brigades of General Dockery and General Shelby. Notwithstanding these fearful odds, the Seventy-seventh boys and their commander were unwilling to give up the conflict, but continued to pour well directed shots into the heavy lines of the enemy, defying the leaden hail which stormed around them. After keeping up this unequal contest for about two hours, the brave boys found their ammunition exhausted and themselves entirely surrounded and prisoners of war. The Union losses in this battle were two hundred and fifty killed and wounded, and about one thousand prisoners, the wagons also falling into the hands of the enemy. The enemy's losses in killed and wounded were much heavier, owing to the fact that the battle was in a piece of woodland, where they were unable to see how small a force they were fighting. Believing General Steele had reenforced the train guard, they were unwilling to make a dash to surround them at once, lest they should meet with a decided repulse; and advancing slowly in heavy lines, they formed a good target for the Ohio boys, who caused them to remark (when they found how few of our men they had been fighting), that they were "a dear lot of prisoners."

The enemy's loss was estimated at a thousand, killed and wounded. Three hundred and eighteen members of the Seventy-seventh, including eleven officers, became prisoners of war. They were marched, without stopping to eat or sleep, and almost without drink, sixty miles to the Washita river, before they were allowed an hour's rest. The commander of the guard apologized for this, and showed one of our officers the order of General Fagan, requiring him to cross the Washita before resting, lest General Steele should rescue the prisoners.

Captain McCormick was given the rank of brevet lieutenant colonel "for gallantry in the battle of Marks, Mills," and their commander says Captain McKitrick and Lieutenants Fulton, Scott, Marlow, Flemming, Mc-

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Intire, David A. Henry, R. E. Smithson, Province, and N. B. Smith, also deserve well of this country for their part in the battle. They were all captured, as well as Lieutenants Atkinson, J. M. Mitchell, John Smith, Dye, Lund, Day and Black, afterwards commissioned, all of whom fought bravely.

General Steele, finding that the Banks expedition had met with disastrous defeat, was compelled to abandon Camden. Leaving the place in the night, by a pontoon bridge and a new road he had made, the enemy (which now far outnumbered his force) did not learn of his movements so as to overtake him till he reached the Saline river, at Jenkins' Ferry. Here, on the thirtieth of April, those of the Seventy-seventh who had not been at Marks' Mills (having been left at Camden because they were on picket and other guard duty), or not thoroughly equipped, or not fit for duty), were, with the rest of Steele's forces, engaged in a bloody battle. Fortunately the enemy was repulsed, and with heavy loss. In this encounter the Seventy-seventh lost, in killed and wounded, about half the number engaged, and a few were made prisoners. Part of the time they fought in water knee deep, the river being out of its banks.. Those captured by the enemy at Marks' Mills, and at Jenkins' Ferry, were soon after marched about two hundred miles south, and confined for ten months in a military prison at Camp Ford, near Tyler, Texas, where thirty-eight of them died from starvation, exposure, and disease, and one, John Calvert, was shot dead, in a brutal manner, by a rebel. guard, for getting too close "the dead line" when going for water.

Captain McCormick and Lieutenants Flemming, Scott, and Smithson, of the Seventy-seventh, and three men not of the regiment, escaped from the military prison one dark evening about the last of August, and started north, travelling by night with only the stars for a guide. Scott and Smithson travelled about a hundred miles and were retaken near Red river. The others marched about sixty miles towards the Union lines, but unfortunately the watch-dogs on a plantation got scent of them, and next morning two packs of blood-hounds, with squads of rebel cavalry, were on there track. Afler a tiresome chase through the tangled woods they were run down by the blood-hounds, and brought to bay. As orders were posted at the prison before they left that all prisoners who might escape should be shot if overtaken, the situation was considered one of peril. However, the enemy evidently took care to count the cost of such a course, as assurances were given by the cavalry that no harm should be done them if they would surrender. Being taken to Gilmore, a squad of fierce rebels, who probably never saw an army Union soldier, plied them with numerous insulting questions, which were answered in plain language without much care for the feelings of the doughty questioners. So they charged Captain McCormick with "treason to the State of Texas," and threatened to hang him for his pointed replies. The real soldiers of the guard seemed to relish the answers made to those who would insult an unarmed and defenceless prisoner, and they were restrained and advised to cease questioning if they could not endure the responses. The prisoners were returned to Camp Ford a few days after, where they awaited another opportunity to escape, finally made unnecessary by the arrival of the paroling officers so long and anxiously looked for in vain. On being paroled the survivors marched to Shreveport, Louisiana, about one hundred miles, where they were placed on transports and conveyed to the mouth of Red river, and there delivered into the Union lines February 25, 1865, except Lieutenants Flemming, Fulton, and Atkinson, who were held in Texas till the end of the war for attempting to escape.

After being clothed and paid, and given a thirty days' furlough, these exchanged prisoners returned to the regiment in April.

On the expiration of the term of service, of the few original member who did not become veterans, and of those enlisted in 1862, and therefore could not reenlist, they were mustered out in 1864.

This left the command too small to maintain its organization as a regiment, and it was consolidated into a battalion of six companies, commanded by Colonel Stevens.

On the fifth of February, 1865, the battalion left Little Rock with General Steele for the Gulf department, and was at Fort Morgan, Alabama, when the paroled prisoners were released, and were near Mobile when they joined it. It was engaged in operations around Mobile, Fort Spanish, Blakely, McIntosh Bluffs, and other points in Alabama, in which Colonel Stevens and the boys won golden opinions, until June I, 1865, when it took transports across the Gulf of Mexico for the Rio Grande, and remained on duty at Brazos and Clarksville, and then, from August z, 1865, till March 8, 1866, at Brownsville, Texas, where it was mustered out and started for Columbus, Ohio, where the men were finally paid off and disbanded, March 26, z866.

Only one of all Ohio's regiments remained longer in the service, and none served the country more faithfully, or suffered more for the cause of the Union.

NINETY-SECOND OHIO VOLUNTEER INFANTRY.

REGIMENTAL OFFICERS.

Colonel Nelson H. Van Vorhes, mustered August 15, 1862, resigned March 22, 1863; Colonel Benjamin D. Fearing, March 22, 1863, mustered out May 19, 1865, on account of wounds; Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin D. Fearing, August 15, 1862, promoted to colonel; Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Putnam, jr., March 22, 1863, honorably discharged April 11, 1864; Lieutenant Colonel John C. Morrow, April 28, 1864, mustered out with regiment; Major Dioclesian A. Smith, August 10, 1862, resigned February 1, 1863; Major Douglas Putnam, jr., February 1, 1863, promoted to rieutenant colonel; Major Elmer Golden, March 22, 1863, resigned December 8, 1863; Major John C. Morrow, December 8, 1863, promoted to lieutenant colonel; Surgeon Josiah D. Cotton, August 19, 1862, mustered out with regiment; Assistant Surgeon N. B. Sisson, August 16, 1862, resigned August 15, 1864; Assistant Surgeon J. D. Howell, August so, 1862, resigned April 29, 1863; Assistant Surgeon A. M. Beers, August 26, 1864o mustered out with regiment; Chaplain Washington M. Grimes, December 1, 1862, resigned September 9, 1863.

COMPANY OFFICERS FROM WASHINGTON COUNTY.

Captain William Thorniley, mustered July 29, 1862, resigned Aprir 9 1863; Captain Francis H. Loring, July 30, 1862, mustered out with Tee iment ; Captain Alexander Higgins, July 30, 1862, resigned May 9, 1863; Captain William Beale Whittlesey, June 1, 1863, killed at Mission

224 - HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO.

Ridge November 25, 1863; Captain Hamilton Middleswart, July 20, 1863, mustered out with regiment; Captain James W. Merrill, October 2, 1863, honorably discharged May 24, 1864; Captain Joseph Stephenson, November 15, 1863, mustered out with regiment; Captain Bradley B. Stone, November 18, 1864, mustered out with regiment; First Lieutenant Hamilton Middleswart, July 23, 1862, promoted to captain; First Lieutenant Douglas Putnam, jr., July 25, 1862, promoted to major; First Lieutenant James W. Merrill, July 28, 1862, promoted to captain; First Lieutenant Joseph Stephenson, July 18, 1862, promoted to captain; First Lieutenant David E. Putnam, February 1, 1863, honorably discharged November 24, 1863; First Lieutenant George B. Turner, June 1, 1862, died of wounds December 1, 1863; First Leutenant Bradley B. Stone, July 20, 1863, promoted to captain; First Lieutenant Reason A. Bull, October 29, 1863, mustered out with regiment; First Lieutenant Charles A. Brown, June 14, 1864, mustered out with regiment; Second Lieutenant William Beale Whittlesey, July 23, 1862, promoted to first lieutenant; Second Lieutenant Thomas Day, July 26, 1862, resigned February 17, 1863; Second Lieutenant Bradley B. Stone, February 17, 1863, promoted to first lieutenant; Second Lieutenant

George B. Turner, May 9, 1863, promoted to first lieutenunt.

The Ninety-second Ohio was organized at Marietta, Ohio, during the months of August and September, 1862. It rendezvoused at Camp Marietta, then in command of Colonel William R. Putnam. Nelson H. Van Vorhes, the colonel, reported and assumed command on the first of October, 1862. As an officer of volunteers he had been on active duty at the front since April, 1861, and while the regiment was organizing he was still on duty with General Mitchell in Alabama. Benjamin D. Fearing, the lieutenant colonel, had seen service; was at Manassas as a private, had served on the staff of Generals Slemmer and Crook in Virginia, while serving as adjutant in the Thirty-sixth Ohio volunteer infantry, and evinced soldiership at Shiloh in command of one of the regiments of General Sherman's division. All the officers were gentlemen of experience and courage.

The men were the pick of the district-young, active, quick to learn, eager to do their best at all times, and proud of the good name and character of their regiment. The first service performed was before the colonel, lieutenant colonel or major had reported or the regiment had been mustered. Adjutant Putnam, with companies A, B and D, was ordered to move to Gallipolis, Ohio, and garrison that post at the time the rebels were driving Lightburn out of the Kanawha valley. While there they made two expeditions into Virginia. These companies soon after rejoined, when the regiment, numbering nine hundred and forty-nine, rank and file, was mustered into the United States service, uniformed, and armed with Austrian rifled muskets.

On October 7, 1862, the regiment was ordered to Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and made a part of the brigade of Colonel Gilbert. It took part in the expeditions up the Kanawha under General Cox, before whom the rebels retreated and were finally, after some skirmishing, driven beyond the mountains.

At Gauley Bridge it was transferred to brigade commanded by General Hugh Ewing and went into winter quarters, building log huts at Loupe creek, a few miles below Kanawha Falls. They were permitted to enjoy these comforts but a short time, when they were ordered to join the brigade of General George Crook and were stationed at Tompkins' farm on New river, which was at that time the outpost of the army of the Kanawha valley.

After the dark days of December, 1862, when the country struggled under the discouragements of Fredericksburgh and the seemingly indecisive battle of Murfreesborough, General Crook's brigade was hurriedly taken by transports to Nashville, Tennessee. The trip occupied over fourteen days and was attended with many hardships on account of the crowded condition of the boats. Remaining at Nashville about three weeks the regiment was ordered to proceed to Carthage, Tennessee. The trip occupied a week, and in no way was it more comfortable than our journey to Nashville. Many of the men were compelled to sleep in the hold, full of foul air, and became impregnated with disease which soon developed itself.

Those two months spent at Carthage will never be forgotten. Daily, for weeks, one or more burial parties fired the last salute over the grave of a comrade as he was committed to mother earth, in a town where no one sympathized with them, and where each grave was counted as taking away one more of their enemies. In less than two months over ninety men were buried.

The colonel, N. H. Van Vorhes was here compelled to resign on account of sickness, and Lieutenant Colonel Fearing was promoted to colonel. Major Smith having resigned, adjutant Putnam, by request of the officers, was made major, and after promotion of Colonel Fearing, was made lieutenant colonel.

Health once restored, the regiment was ordered south of the Cumberland and joined with the brigade the army of the Cumberland at Murfreesborough. The brigade, which was still under the command of General Crooks, was assigned to General Reynolds' division, Fourteenth army corps.

The regiment moved from Murfreesborough on the twenty-fourth of June, 1863, supporting Wilder's mounted infantry-one of the brigades of Reynold's division at Hoover's gap. The enemy were met and driven back, as they were pressing Wilder and attempting to recover the ground he had taken.

The march over the table lands of Tennessee, through a continuous rain-rains twenty-one days in succession- bivouacking nightly in mud so deep and soft as to make it necessary to cut boughs to lie on. Mouldy crackers and musty coffee, wet sugar and some bacon, are pleasant themes for the survivors to dwell upon now.

On Elk river the news of Gettysburgh and Vicksburgh was announced in the evening of July 4th and was hailed by a salute from the combined artillery of the army. Despondent hearts took courage; and with better weather and better supplies and full of hope, the regiment camped at Big Springs, Tennesse, resting and enjoying the change as only tired soldiers can.

While here General John B. Turchin, the old Hungarian soldier, assumed command. His vigorous efforts to secure green corn, blackberries, and fresh vegetables, speedily eradicated all traces of scurvy and disease contracted at Carthage, and put the regiment in good condition, mentally and physically, for active work. They bivouacked by the springs at University Place and foraged in the valleys, moving over the mountains and through

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Sweden Cowen, stopping long enough to gather the green corn and ripe peaches.

On the second of September the regiment crossed the Tennessee river, at Shell Mound, in flatboats. On the third it led the advance over Sand Mountain, and on the next day moved to Trenton, Georgia. From here the brigade crossed the Lookout ranges, overcoming the seemingly impossible obstacles in so doing, and descending the Coopers gap into McLemoes cove, passed up the valley into Catlett's gap.

While here quite a sharp skirmish occurred, and the regiment held the head of the gap. Skirmishing continued here for parts of two days, and the Ninety-second was busily engaged.

On September 18th a night march was made (one that will never be forgotten by those participating in it) to Chickamauga. The regiment engaged the enemy on that bloody field, under Turchin, on the nineteenth and twentieth, and formed a part of the rear guard that saved the army. On the nineteenth, early in the day, Colonel Fearing was wounded and carried from the field, the command devolving upon Lieutenant Colonel Putnam. Lieutenant Merrill was wounded severely, captured and sent to our lines under a flag of truce.

On Sunday afternoon Turchin's brigade made the charge necessary to open connection with Granger, coming to reenforce General Thomas, who gave the command in person to the Ninety-second to lead the charge, which was made left in front. This charge is described by Van Horn, in his "Army of the Cumberland:"

The charge was made with great vigor, and the enemy was completely routed. Turchin's brigade drove this daring force entirely beyond Baird's left, capturing more than two hundred prisoners. This brigade was posted by General Thomas, on the road leading through the ridge to the Dry Valley roads, to hold the ground, while the troops from the right and left passed by.

In this battle Lieutenant David E. Putnam, adjutant, was wounded and discharged on account of wounds, and George B. Turner, orderly sergeant of company F, was promoted to first lieutenant and made adjutant. Captain John Brown was mortally wounded, and soon after the battle died; also, Lieutenant G. T. Okdy received a dangerous shell wound. W. B. Whittlesey, second lieutenant of company F, was promoted to first lieutenant, and on resignation of Captain Thorniley, of the same company, was promoted to captain in June, 1863; hence was in command of his company in this battle.

The regiment returned to Chattanooga, living in dog tents, with cold, wet weather, insufficient rations, etc., yet bore all with patience and fortitude. They made several reconnoissances and were ready for duty on a moment's notice. They formed a part, with Hazen's brigade, of the forlorn hope sent to open connection with General Hooker's arming corps, who were coming to the relief of the beleaguered and nearly starved army. As General Turchins described it: "Chattanooga was surrounded by two lines of fortifications, one built by brave men and one composed of dead mules, starved to death for their country's cause."

A part of the regiment floated past Lookout Mountain in scow boats, and the rest marched across Moccasin Point, and were ferried over as the boats came down. The movement was so carefully planned, and executed with so much skill, that the enemy was taken completely by surprise, and perfect success crowned the effort. The army was revictualled and reenforced.

About November 20th the preliminary movement for the capture of Mission Ridge commenced. The Ninety-second, with Turchins' brigade, had been for some time expecting orders to assault, being in position for several days. On the afternoon of November 25th, the final assault was made. Captain Middlesworth, of company F, in connection with the skirmishers of the Thirty-sixth and Eleventh Ohio, cleared the rifle pits at the foot of the ridge. The brigade was ordered forward at double quick, and swept every obstacle before it. This charge has often been described. General John C. Breckenridge, who commanded the enemy's lines in front of this brigade, told the wriler that the audacity of the attack— the sight of the steadily moving lines, silent but terrible in its advance—so demoralized his men that they became unmanageable, and, at last, gave way, not until there was almost a hand-to-hand encounter near the summit.

About half way up the Hill * the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Putnam, fell wounded. Soon thereafter Captain Whittlesey was shot through the heart, but said to his men "Go on, I'm killed," and breathed his last. The men went on, sweeping over the top, in company with the Thirty-sixth, while the enemy retreated down the side.

The summit once gained, no rest was found by the breathless and worn column, as a force of the enemy came hastily from the left to reenforce their fleeing comrades. Here, while rallying the men for this assault, Adjutant Turner received his death-wound, being struck in the head by a large minnie ball. He lived for some days, however, but sank away.

By the death of these two young men, Washington county offered up her choicest material, and their funerals (on the same day) will ever be remembered. Both were brave and faithful officers. Lieutenant Townsend, of Athens county, was also killed, who was an excellent officer. The loss of the regiment was, in this assault, thirty-three per cent. of the officers and ten per cent. of the men. They took many prisoners and two guns.

The next day the regiment, under command of Captain Wheeler, started in pursuit of the enemy and returned soon to Chattanooga. Remaining here until February, 1864, when, under command of Captain I. C. Morrow, Major Golden having resigned, Fearing and Putnam both absent from wounds, they started south towards Dallas. They were engaged at Rocky Face Gap, losing heavily, some of the wounded being buried in the woods. From. here they moved to Ringgold Gap, doing out-post duty. Here Captain Morrow was promoted to lieutenant colonel vice Putnam mustered out on account of wounds. Colonel Fearing returned in March, and Lieutenant B. B. Stone of company G, who was promoted from orderly sergeant, was made adjutant. The regiment took an active part in that campaign through Dallas. On the twenty-seventh of July, they were in line of Atlanta.

226 - HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO.

During August and September the regiment was in the neighborhood of Atlanta, taking parts in the charge at Jonesborough, Georgia. On the fourth of October, they broke camp and joined in pursuit of Hood, crossing the Chattahoochie.

At Kingston preparations were made for the march to the sea under Sherman, the sick provided for in hospitals, baggage sent to rear or destroyed, etc. On the sixteenth, they started. This march has been fully described, and no attempt to do so is needed here. They met the enemy at Bentonville, North Carolina, March 21st. Here Colonel Fearing, who was in command of a brigade, having been brevetted brigade general, was severely wounded in the hand, necessitating the amputation of a portion of it. Passing through Goldborough, Durham Station, and Raleigh, North Carolina, they moved onward through Virginia, reaching Washington on May 19th and taking part in the ever memorable grand review of the Twenty-fourth. Having orders to be mustered out of service, it was transported to Columbus, Ohio, and on the nineteenth of June, 1865, the Ninety-second Ohio volunteer infantry ceased to exist.

Their first colors were literally worn and shot into shreds, the second set now in the flag room at Columbus are mute witnesses of their regiment's history as they bear on their folds in letters of gold these names: Hoovers Gap, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, Rocky Face Atlanta, The March to the Sea, Savannah, and the Carolinas.

THE SILVER GRAYS.

Among the many military organizations of Washington county for home defence, none was more self-sacrificing and patriotrc than the one we have now to consider. The Silver Grays were among the very first to step forward and form in martial array at the beginning, and their moral influence in the community was great. Their appearance on parade, marching and going through the manual of arms was inspiring, and if a man had any of the martial spirit in him, the sight of these venerable men keeping step to the music of the Union was sure to

arouse it.

Two of the members, William Warren and Junia Jennings, prepared the following account of the company in 1866, and we give it substantially as we find it:

Monday forenoon, April as, 1861, was the time of the departure of the first company of volunteers from Marietta to aid in putting down the Rebellion, the Union Blues,—over one hundred men—under command of Captain Frank Buell. It was an effecting occasion, such as was never before known in Washington county, and may never be again. Strong men's nerves gave way, and the patriotic tear and firm resolve were seen upon every face. There was a brief speech by George P. Buell, esq., and amid cheers, the firing of cannon, and tne waving of flags, the volunteers embarked upon the Muskingum packet from the common in front of the Congregational church, thousands of people being assembled.

The citizens then repaired to the court house and organized a meeting to take into consideration the state of public affairs. Hon. William A. Whittlesey, the mayor of Marietta, being called to the chair, secretaries and committees were appointed. Colonel William West, then in his sixty-sixth year, arose and said:

"Mr. chairman, I hold in my hand a resolution which I wish to offer for the consideration of this meeting. Such is the excitement of the occasion that I am not in the situation to either do justice to myself or the subject I wish to present; therefore, without comment, with the indulgence of the house, I will submit the resolution."

Silence reigned throughout the crowded house, and the colonel, with a voice tremulous with the deep feeling that pervaded all present, read:

"Resolved, That we, the citizens of Washington county, whose ages are sixty years and upwards, for the protection of our homes, our firesides, and our country's liberties, form ourselves into a military organization, to be called and known as the Silver Grays, of Washington county."

A hundred earnest voices seconded the motion for its adoption, and it was carried with a unanimous shout, and cheers for the Silver Grays.

A rush was made to be the first to enroll their names. James Dutton, being a little lame, had started first and had his name first down, followed by William Warren, second; Colonel West, third; Thomas Porter, fourth; Junia Jennings, fifth; and so on. Subsequently, men of forty-five years and upwards were enrolled.

It was resolved that each member of the company should supply himself with ammunition. The commissioned officers had red sashee, the rank and file, blue. A uniform was agreed upon, but circumstances did not favor its procurement. They were armed at once. George W. Barker, William Warren, and F. Wheeler were appointed a commrttee to ask the county commissioners to procure a flag to be raised on the court house.

Through the exciting days of 1862, especially when the rebels pressed upon the border everywhere throughout the whole line, in August and September, the Silver Grays were out in full force and vigor. In the spring of 1863 their guns were taken by authority for use by a company of younger men, and that ended the Silver Grays, who, it is justice to say, did all the duties they were called upon to perform, and did them well. That they would have done excellent duty in repelling invasion, had it ever occurred, there is no doubt. Several of the members were deaf, and these were compelled to watch their comrades' motions to know what order the captain gave. Several used canes.

Their motto as set forth in the first article of their cm stitution was: "The Union, the Constitution, and the Flag of our Country, for the sustaining of which we pledge out lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

ARTICLE 4. The company shall meet for exercise or other duty at such time and place as shall be determined on by the company on Saturday of each week at 2 P. M., provided that the captain or any other commissioned otficer of our company is hereby empowered and required in cases of danger or emergency to cause a fire bell to be rung, which shall be a signal for the company to aseemble at the court house at a minute's warning.

Colonel William West was first elected captain, but declined; Major George W. Barker was then elected, but his time of service was short. For a time they met every evening, at five o'clock, for drill.

May 11, 1861, three weeks after the first organization, otficers were elected by ballot, who continued to the end, as follows:

COMMISSIONED OFFICERS.

Captain Daniel P. Bosworth, First Lieutenant Charles J. Sheppard, Second lieutenant Rufus E. Marie.

NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS.

First Sergeant Junia Jennings, Second Sergeant Thomas Porter, Third Sergeant Frederick Buck, Fourth Sergeant Hugh Brenan.

PRIVATES.

James Dutton, William Warren, Colonel William West, Isaac C, Fuller. Daniel Proteman, E. W. T. Clark, Lemuel Grimes, Montgomery Sayre, John Skipton, Jacob Middleswart, Joet Deming. Willram A. Whittlesey, James Brown, John M. Slocomb, Theodore Scott, G. W. Barker, Isaac Maxon, John Goodman, Levi Bartlett, Joseph E. Hall, Robert T. Miller, J. W. L Brown, L. J. P. Putnam, Henry Armstrong, W. C. McCarty, John Mills, Joeeph Jones, J. L. Reckard, T. P. Harshberger, D. R. Sniffen, T. J. Westgate, Isaac Kidd, John Test, James McLeod, D. Stevens, F. A. Wheeler, H. H. Wheatley, John Miles, Lewis Leonhart, John Eaton, James H. Dyeo George Payne, L. M. Parker, Merritt Judd, John Armstrong, J. J. Parker, Hugh Hill *, Austin Edgerton, John Marshall, Hugh Clancey, Matthew Wylie, J. J. Preston, Barker Devol, James Dunn, George Greenwood, J. H. Nye, Owen Franks, Philo Doan, A. M. Shanklin, Calvin Hildreth, William Scott, R. D. Hollister, Elisha Allen, Graydon Medlicott, Robert Johnson, George Stanley, James B. Matthews, Stephen Alcock, John Richards, J. J. Hollister, A. L. Guitteau, B. F. Stone, D. Atkinson, David Wright, John R. Tucker, J. M. Eels, Lucius Brigham, S. P. Hildreth, J. B. Dyar, James Ferguson, William P. Skinner, Rosswill Tumey, Charles Sullivan, A. Woodruff, Warren Wilcox, John

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Stricker, John Lehnhart, Joseph H. Steward, Wyllys Hall, Shadrach Wood, Silas Slocomb, Jacob Snyder, E. Eveleigh, J. Pfeiffer, William Wylie, Colonel Augustus Stone, Nathaniel Holden, Jacob Lauder, David Cline, Austin Berkley, Amos Dye. Total, one hundred and seven.

THE "PONY SECTION."

During the war Marietta was prolific in fifers and drummers. The first to enter the service were those who joined the Eighteenth Ohio volunteer militia, in the three months' service.

Ebenezer Corey and Louis Fourgeres were the musicians of company B, the old Union Blues.

After the Eighteenth entered Virginia they were distributed along the Baltimore & Ohio railroad as guards. Ebenezer Corey was appointed drum major of the Eighteenth June 6, 1861, and soon went to Marietta to recruit a martial band.

This resulted in the enlistment of nine young men, most of whom knew nothing of the use of fife or drum, but who became quick learners. On June 17, 1861, they started for Virginia, learning the notes on the way. They were-Charles Holden, George K. Jenvey, William Jenvey, John Tenney, Henry Langley, Frank R. Brenan, Fred Regnier, James Judd, and Henry Corey, and others, among whom were Manly Warren, Louis Fourgeres, and Stephen Mass, from Washington county; they made the " Pony Section," so called from their size and age.

At Bridgeport they ,drilled and practiced-result a few tunes and sunburnt ears. They then went to Clarksburgh, still training for the war, when they, with the whole regiment, were transferred to Oakland, and made a fruitless march over the mountains under General Hill *, after General Garnett's rebel forces. As the time of the regiment had expired, one hot July day they came back to Marietta and awaited patiently their discharge, with hardly a taste of hard service.

Their martial strains awoke many responsive chords in the hearts of the patriotic people, and the band was invited to take a trip up the Muskingum to Zanesville. Every courtesy was shown them along the route, and they awakened the valley by their ringing music. At Zanesville and Beverly they were treated with especial favor.

On their discharge five enlisted in Buell's battery; three with the major in the Thirty-sixth Ohio volunteer infantry, in a fine band, which timed the steps of many brave ones in their march to duty and victory; one went into Huntington's battery, and one in the Second West Virginia cavalry. All did brave duly through the war. One of whom died in the service-Charles A. Holden. Such was the "Pony Section."

ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-EIGHTH OHIO NATIONAL GUARDS.

REGIMENTAL OFFICERS.

Colonel Thomas W. Moore, mustered May 18, 1864, Washington county; Lieutenant Colonel Isaac B. Kinkead, May 18, 1864, Washington county; Major William L. Edmiston, May 18, 1864, Vinton county; Adjutant Thomas Day, May 18, 1864, Washinton county; Quartermaster Allen R. Darrow, May 18, 1864 Washington county; Surgeon William Beebe, May 18, 1864, Washington county; Assistant Surgeon Benjamin F. Culver, May 18, 1864, Washington County; Drum Major Darius Towsley, May 18, 1864; Washington county.

COMPANY OFFICERS.

Captain Samuel S. Knowles, company A, mustered May 17, 1864, Washington county; Captain John P. Sanford, B, May 17, 1864, Washington county; Captain Joseph J. McDowell, C, May 17, 1864, Vinton county; Captain William F. Dawson, D, May 17, 1864, Washington county; Captain Isaiah H. McCormick, E, May 17, 1864 Vinton county; Captain George B. Turner, F, May 18, 1864, Washington county; Captain Joseph M. Mclihinney, G, May 18, 1864, Washington county; Captain John Mitchell, H, May 17, 1864, Washington county; Captain David J. Richards, I, May 17, 1864, Washington county; First Lieutenant Wallace Wolcott, K, May 57, 1864, Washington county; First Lieutenant Charles B. Gates, A, May 17, 1864 died May 31, 1864, at Harper's Ferry, Maryland; First Lieutenant William W. West, B, May 17,1864, Washington county; First Lieutenant Harson P. Ambrose, C, May 17, 1864, Vinton county; First Lieutenant John Randolph, D, May 17, 1864, Washington county; First Lieutenant Nathaniel Murphy, E, May 17, 1864, Vinton county; First Lieutenant Leonidas P. Pond, F, May 17, 1864, Washington county; First Lieutenant Augustus Leonard, G, May 18, 1864, Washington county; First Lieutenant Austin L. Curtis, H, May 18, 1864, Washington county; First Lieutenant W. L. Woodford, I, May 17, 1864, Washington county; First Lieutenant A. S. Bailey, K, May 17, 1864, Washington county; Second Lieutenant Smith J. Dutton, A, May 17, 1864, Washington county; Second Lieutenant William H. Jennings, B, May 17, 1864, Washington county; Second Lieutenant Robert S. BarnHill *, C, May 17, 1864, Vinton county; Second Lieutenant Benjamin Arnold, D, May 17, 1864, Washington county; Second Lieutenant Samuel G. Scott, E, May 17, 1864, Vinton county, died at Bermuda Hundred; Second Lieutenant Benjamin F. Robinson, F, May 17, 1864, Washington county; Second Lieutenant John C. Wood, G, May 18, 1864, Washington county; Second Lieutenant Alexander H. Browning, H, May 17, 1864 Washington county; Second Lieutenant Robert Alexander, K, May 17, 1864, Washington county.

ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-EIGHTH OHIO VOLUNTEER INFANTRY, OHIO NATIONAL GUARDS.

In response to the call of Governor Brough the Forty- sixth regiment, Ohio National guards, numbering six hundred and fifty-four men of Washington county, reported for duty at Marietta on the second day of May, 1864. Subsequently the Ninety-sixth battalion, of Vinton county, was consolidated with the Forty-sixth regiment, forming the One Hundred and Forty-eighth regiment, Ohio volunteer infantry. The regiment was mustered into the service on the seventeenth and eighteenth of May. The officers were all Washington county men, except Major Edmiston and Captains McDowell and McCormick. The colonel had been a captain in the Thirty-sixth Ohio; the lieutenant colonel had been a lieutenant in the Seventy-seventh Ohio; and the major had been a captain in the Eighteenth Ohio. Several of the line officers, also, had been in the service, and nearly the whole regiment had been tried, briefly but laboriously, during the Morgan raid of the previous year. Company A, in particular, had been called out repeatedly, and on two or three occasions had been sent to Virginia, when the border was threatened. An unusual proportion of the men in this company were students of Marietta college and merchants, and it is worthy of remark that during one hundred and thirty-six days' service it was the only company in the regiment that did not lose a man by sickness.

On the twenty-third of May the regiment left Marietta for the field. Scarcely had the train passed out of sight of the town when an accident occurred to it, on the Union branch of the Marietta & Cincinnati railroad, by which Jeremiah Stuckey, of company A, was killed. John H. McKimm, of Athens county, and Alexander S.

228 - HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO.

Nugent, of Franklin, Pennsylvania, students in the preparatory department of Marietta college, who were accompanying their friends in the regiment to Parkersburgh, were killed. William Hildebrand, William Flemming, and First Lieutenant Gates were seriously injured. Lieutenant Gates went forward with the regiment, but he had received such internal injuries that, coupled with pneumonia, it resulted in his death on the thirty-first, six days after the regiment had arrived at Harper's Ferry. This accident, together with the subsequent death of Lieutenant Gates, cast a gloom over the regiment and throughout the community from which its members had been gathered. Although the youngest officer, and one of the youngest men in the regiment, no one was more generally known and more universally beloved than Charles Beman Gates. The various testimonials of affection and regret from the college societies with which he was connected, and from the officers of his regiment, are evidences of the high esteem in which this youthful, Christian patriot was held by his associates.

After remaining about two days at Harper's Ferry, the regiment moved to Washington, and on the ninth of June left that city for White House, on the Pamunkey. On the eleventh it left White House, arrived at Bermuda Hundred on the twelfth, and on the thirteenth went into General Butler's intrenchments at the front. On the sixteenth seven companies, under command of Lieutenant Colonel Kinkead, left Bermuda Hundred for City Point. On the ninth of August, by the explosion of an ordnance boat at City Point, three men of the regiment were killed—S. E. Graham, of company. H, Joseph H. Smith, of company D, and Joseph D. Clarke, of company A. Young Clarke was only about seventeen years old, was a member of the preparatory department in Marietta college, and was the oldest son of Colonel Melvin Clarke, of the Thirty-sixth Ohio, who was instantly killed while gallantly leading his regiment at the battle of Antietam, September, 1862. Sire and son, both instantly killed in their country's service, are buried side by side in the Marietta Mound cemetery. The total loss of the regiment by death was forty. On the twenty-ninth of August the One Hundred and Forty-eighth Ohio left City Point, and arrived at Marietta on the fifth of September. On the thirteenth a public dinner was given to the regiment by the citizens of the county, and on the fourteenth it was mustered out of the service.*

THE WAR EDITORS.

Any account of the eventful period of the war for the Union would be incomplete without some notice of the war editors of Washington county, the men who stood by the administration of Abraham Lincoln and encouraged the people at home and the soldiers in the field with brave words and patriotic sentiments.

T. L Andrews was editor of the Marietta Intelligencer during the first year, and did much towards sustaining a healthy public policy. A. W. McCormick was the editor of the Marietta Republican at the beginning and so continued up to late in the fall of 1861, when he raised a

* From Ohio in the War.

company and went into the Seventy-seventh regiment. E. Winchester edited the Home News, and his local column was always a mine of interest both to soldiers and citizens. In June, 1862, R. M. Stimson purchased and combined the Home News and Intelligence and christened the new paper the Marietta Register.

All these editors did good work for the cause of the Union. Although Mr. McCormick differed in politics from the administration, yet he stood by the Union, and soon threw down the pen and took up the sword for his country. To Mr. Stimson, however, we are indebted for steady, unflinching support, and for work that told in the county. His proprietorship of the Marietta Register spanned the halcyon days of the Republican party in Washington county, which service the people have shown their appreciation of by twice sending him to the State senate.

BIOGRAPHIES OF OFFICERS OF THE WAR OF

THE REBELLION.

DON CARLOS BUELL,

major-general and commander of one of the principal Union armies in the War of the Rebellion, son of Salmon D. and Eliza Buell, was born March 23, 1818, on a farm owned by his grandfather, Judge Salmon Buell, which has since become the site of the town of Lowell, on the Muskingum river twelve miles above Marietta. He was named after an uncle, Don Carlos Buell, a young lawyer of Ithica, New York, who entered the volunteer service as a captain of artillery, and died in the Canada frontier, in the War of 1812. The lines of his progenitors on both sides come together again in the sixth preceding generation in the person of Samuel Buell born at Windsor, Connecticut, September 2, 1641. Judge Salmon Buell, on the grandfather's side, a lawyer by profession, was born in New York in 1764, served at the age of sixteen in the Revolutionary war, and became a senator and judge of the court of appeals of New York. He moved to Marietta about the year 1816, and in 1824 to Hamilton county, where he died in 1828. Captain Timothy Buell, the grandfather on the mother's side, was born in Connecticut in 1768, moved to Marietta in 1789, and died on his farm three miles above that place in 1837. He served in the War of 1812, represented Washington county in the legislature, and was sheriff of the county several years.

Soon after the death of his father, which occurred in August, 1823, the subject of this sketch was taken under the care of his uncle, George P. Buell, esq., of Lawrenceburgh, Indiana; and with an intermission of about five years passed in Marietta under the roof of his stepfather, George W. Dunley, esq., he remained with his relations at Lawrenceburgh until 1837, when he was appointed to a cadetship at West Point. He was graduated and commissioned in the army in 1841, and served in the Florida war and in the west until the Mexican war. He served through that war from the beginning to the end; par-

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO - 229

ticipating in the battles of Ralo Alto, Resacca de la Ralma, Monterey, the siege of Vera Cruz, and the battles of Contreras and Cherubusco, and received the brevet of captain and major. He was severely wounded in the battle of Cherubusco. The following record of his grades up to 185o is taken from Gardner's Military Dictionary, published in that year:

Don Carlos Buell, cadet in 1837; second lieutenant Third infantry first of July, 1841; first lieutenant June, 1846; brevet captain for gallant and meritorious conduct in the several conflicts at Monterey, Mexico, twenty-third of September, 1846; distinguished in battle of Cerro Gordo; brevet major for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battles of Contreras and Cherubusco, twentieth August, 1847, and severely wounded in the latter; assistant adjutant general, January, 1848.

He was on duty in Washington in 1848, and subsequently, up to the war of the Rebellion, served as assistant adjutant general at various department headquarters, in the east, west, south, and on the Pacific, and in the war department at Washington. In December, 186o, he was sent by Mr. Floyd, Secrelary of War, to Charleston, South Carolina, with verbal instructions for Major Robert Anderson, who was in command of the Government troops in the harbor, under the critical circumstances which the movement of secession had already created. After inspecting the forts, and making some suggestions with reference to their preparation for defence, he communicated verbally to Major Anderson the instructions he had received, and then a written memorandum of them, foreseeing the responsibility which coming events were likely to throw upon that officer. This memorandum, which is published in the Robinson record, has a historical interest, since it contains the authority upon which Major Anderson took the decisive step of abandoning Fort Moultrie, and concentrating his command in Fort Sumter.

Memorandum of verbal instructions to Major Anderson, First artillery, commanding Fort Moultrie, South Carolina:

FORT MOULTRIE, SOUTH CAROLINA,

December 11, 1860.

You are aware of the great anxiety of the Secretary of War that a collision of the troops with the people of this State shall be avoided, and of his studied determination to pursue a course with reference to the military force and forts in this harbor which shall guard against such a collision. He has, therefore, carefully abstained from increasing the force at this point, or taking any measures which might add to the present excited state of the public mind, or which would throw any doubt on the confidence he feels that South Carolina will not attempt, by violence, to obtain possession of the public works, or interfere with their occupancy.

But as the counsel and acts of rash and impulsive persons may possibly disappoint these expectations of the Government, he deems it proper that you should be prepared with instructions to meet so unhappy a contingency. He has, therefore, directed me, verbally, to give you such instructions.

You are carefully to avoid every act which would needlessly tend to provoke aggression; and for that reason you are not, without evident and imminent necessity, to take up any position which could be construed into the assumption of a hostile attitude. But you are to hold possession of the forts in this harbor, and if attacked you are to defend youself to the last extremity.

The smallness of your force will not permit you, perhaps, to occupy more than one of the three forts, but an attack on, or attempt to take posseseion of, any one of them, will be regarded as an act of hostility, and you may then put you command into either of them which you may deem most proper to increase its power of resistance.

You are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act.

D. C. BUELL,

Assistant Adjutant General.

The commencement of the civil war found General Buell a lieutenant colonel, and a little later colonel, and the third officer in rank in the adjutant general's department of the regular army. He was under orders for duty on the Pacific coast in April, 1861, and sailed for San Francisco a few days after the firing on Fort Sumter. He was commissioned a brigadier general and recalled to Washington in August. In September and October he organized and disciplined a division in the army of the Potomac, and, on the twelfth of November was assigned to the command of the "Department of the Ohio, composed of the States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, that portion of Kentucky east of the Cumberland river, and the State of Tennessee, with headquarters at Louisville, Kentucky." Next to the department of the Potomac this was regarded the most important command in the contest which was then opening. The condition of affairs in Kentucky was thought to be extremely critical. One-third of the State was in the possession of the rebel forces, under whose protection a provisional government was inaugurated at Russellville; while further invasion was threatened from East Tennessee by Zollicoffer through Cumberland Gap, and by Humphrey Marshall from Virginia through Pound Gap. It was affirmed that the Union element was confined in a great part to the old men, and that the mass of the young men were on the eve of joining the rebel ranks; and many persons believed that a strong and prudent hand was required to preserve the State from a condition of practical, if not avowed revolt. The Government had in the State a new and imperfectly organized force of about twenty-five thousand men, while General Sherman, who had recently relieved General Anderson in the command, reported to the war department that the occasion demanded two hundred thousand men. Under these circumstances General Buell assumed command at Louisville on the fifteenth of November, relieving General Sherman, and entered upon the task before him. That task was to gather in the raw regiments that were forming in the different States of his department; organize, equip, and discipline an army; maintain the supremacy of the Union; control the secession element, and give confidence to the loyal citizens of Kentucky; expel from its borders the armed forces of the Confederacy, and carry the arms and authority of the Government into the States in rebellion. Those who fail to keep in mind the general state of confusion and excitement which pervaded the country at that time, the passion and energy of the insurrection, the magnitude of the physical obstacles to be overcome, the total lack of military training and experience among the people, and the scarcity of available officers for the various staff functions, will not appreciate the difficulty of the work to be performed, or do justice to the services of that early period of the war, in comparison with those of a later date, when the military arm of the Government had by practice grown strong and skilful, and the power and confi-

230 - HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO.

dence of the confederacy had received its first fatal shock. The army which General Buell then formed and put into the field, called the army of the Ohio, afterwards the army of the Cumberland, was the largest of the original army organizations except the army of the Potomac, and it assumed from the first an efficiency and esprit de corps which gave it a marked prominence in the subsequent events of the war.

While the work of organization was going on, the aggressive attitude of the enemy had to be counteracted, and, as is usual under such circumstances, lhe temper of the southern people and the enthusiasm of revolution gave to their troops a sort of efficiency which had to be offset by the steadier methods of discipline in the northern armies. The main Confederate line at Bowling Green under Albert Sidney Johnson, menaced Louisville, and its partisan cavalry, rendered exceptionally efficient for such service by the personal qualities of the material, and operating in a hot, unfriendly population, produced resulls which were altogether out of proportion to its numerical strength. To repel an invasion in northeastern Kentucky under General Humphrey Marshall, a brigade was organized and placed under the command of General Garfield, then colonel of the Forty-second Ohio infantry, who defeated Marshall in several engagements, and drove him out of the State.

The following are the instructions under which General Garfield acted, and the general orders commending his success:

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,

LOUISVILLE, December 17, 1862.

Colonel James A. Garfield, Forty-second Ohio Regiment, Commanding Brigade,

SIR: The brigade organized under your command is intended to operate against the rebel force threatening, and indeed actually committing, depredations in Kentucky, through the valley of the BigSandy. The actual force of the enemy, from the best information I can . gather, does not probably exceed two thousand or two thousand and five hundred, though rumor places it as high as seven thousand. You can better ascertain the true state of the case when you get on the ground.

You are apprised of the position of the troops placed under your command. Go first to Lexington and Paris, and place the Fortieth Ohio regiment in such position as will best give a moral support to the people in the counties on the route to Prestonburgh and Piketon, and oppose any further advance of the enemy on that route. Then proceed with the least possible delay to the mouth of the Big Sandy and move with the force in that vicinity up That river and drive the enemy back, or cut him off. Having done that, Piketon will probably be the best position for you to occupy to guard against further incursions. Artillery will be of but little if any service to you in that country. If the enemy have any it will encumber and weaken them rather than strengthen them.

Your supplies must mainly be taken up the river ; and it ought to be done as soon as possible, while the navigation is open. Purchase what you can in the country through which you operate. Send your requisitions to these headquarters for funds and ordnance stores, and to the quartermaster and commissary at Cincinnati for other supplies.

The conversations I have had with you will suggest more details than can be grven here. Report frequently and fully upon all matters concerning your command.

Very respectfully your obedient servant.

D. C. BUELL,

Brigadier General Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, Jauuary 20, 1862. General Orders No. 4a.]

The general commanding takes occasion to thank Colonel Garfield and his troops for their succeseful campaign against the rebel force under General Marshall on the Big Sandy, and their gallant conduct in battle. They have overcome formidable difficulties in the character of the country, the condition of the roads, and the inclemency of the season ; and, without artillery, have in several engagements, terminating with the battle on Middle Creek on the eleventh inset., driven the enemy from his entrenched positione, 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 highest qualities of a soldier--fortitude, perseverance, courage.

By command of GENERAL BUELL.

JAMES B. FRY, A. A. G., Chief of Staff'.

In December, the confederate general, George B. Crittenden, recently assigned to the command of General Zollicoffer's column, crossed the Cumberland river nearly opposite Somerset, fortified himself at Mill Spring, and threatened central Kentucky. On the thirty-first of December General George H. Thomas was sent with his division, to attack him. The battle of Mill Spring, with a signal victory to the Union arms, was the result of this expedition. Various olher expeditions and operations of minor importance, were also executed.

The following are the principal instructions and orders relating to this expedition:

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, December 29, 1861.

General:

I send you a sketch of the country about Somerset, which shows more of the roads than your maps. We conversed about the advance on Zollicoffer through Columbia, and if you remember my idea it is hardly necessary to add anything on the subject. It is for you to move against his left and endeavor to cut him off from his bridge, while Schoepf, with whom of course you will communicate, attacke in front. The maps will indicate the proper moves for that object. The result should be at least a severe blow to him, or a hasty flight across the river. But to expect the former, the movement should be made rapidly and secretly, and the blow should be vigorous and decided. There should be no deray after your arrival. It would be better not to have undertaken it if it should result in confining an additional force merely to watching the enemy.

Take such portion of the cavalry from Columbia as you think necessary. Draw all the supplies you can from the country, and move as light as possible.

Having accomplished the object, be ready to move promptly in any direction, but wait until you hear from me, unless circumstances should require you to move without delay, as I may want you to proceed from there to the other matter about which we have conversed.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

D. C. BUELL.

GEORGE H. THOMAS,

Brigadier general commanding First division, Lebanon.

HEADQUARTERS FIRST DIVISION DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,

CAMP NEAR WEBB'S CROSS ROADS, KENTUCKY,

January 13, 1862.

Brigadier General D. C. Buell, commanding department of the Ohio, *Louisville, Kentucky.

GENERAL: After two days of the hardest work I have reached this place, sixteen miles from Columbia, with the advance brigade of my division. The provision and ammunition train with a portion of one brigade is still in the rear, and will probably not reach here to-night. The road which has been represented as good, is the worst I ever saw, and the recent rains have made it one continuous quagmire from Coplumbia to this prace. We are still seventeen miles from the position of the enemy by the shortest road, viz: that across the headwaters of Wolf creek, leaving Harrison to the left. This road is represented by my scouts as much worse than the roads the command has already passed over. It is next to impossible to procure either forage or subsistence in the country, and entirely impracticable to haul over this road at this season of the year. It is therefore necessary to do one of two things, either to go to Jamestown and eventually down the river to Burkesville, thereby cutting off all communication between Mill Spring and Nashville by the river, or work our way by this road to Somerset and join General Shoepf. We can never get supplies in any other

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO - 231

way. Should my division proceed on to Somerset, it would be impossible to get down the river by the road on this side during the winter, and as Shoepf s force is sufficient to keep the enemy in check, I would respectfully suggest that the troops now with me proceed at once to Jamestown and eventually to Burkesville, from which point their services can be made available in any operations in the direction of Bowling Green.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

GEORGE H. THOMAS,

Brigadier General U. S. V., commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,

LOUISVILLE, January 57, 1862.

Brigadier General G. H. Thomas, commanding First Division.

GENERAL: I have received your letter of the thirteenth, from Webb's Cross Roads. You will, before this time, have received my letter of the same date, sent with your messenger. I hope that letter will have determined your action. It ie not sufficient to hold Zollicoffer in check. He must be captured or dispersed. I think the situation offers the opportunity of affecting the former. If you consider your force insufficient, telegraph me from Somerset. The lines have been extended to that place. It wilt not be desirable to march your command to Somerset, but rather take a position in front of the enemy, so as to draw your supplies from Somerset, and be in convenient position to move down upon him. I am assured that you can get an abundance of forage from the country in the direction of Liberty. If you can buy meal, don't haur ftour. It is not necessary to subsist your command, but it is not necessary that the established rations shall be exactly followed.

I am aware that the roads are in a horrible condition. They must be improved. The only way to do that effectually, when trains are to pass Over them several times, is to corduroy or puncheon them, sixteen feet wide. I have given orders for this to be done on the Danville and Somerset roade. General Schoepf sends a regiment on that duty from Somerset, and General Wood, with three regiments, is to do the same from Danville. See that it is pushed forward energetically from Somerset It ought to be completed in a few days.

Take some means of informing yourself constantly of the movements of the enemy, and apprise me daily by telegraph.

You could not march to Burkesville, and it is not desirable that you should be there.

Very, respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

D. C. BUELL,

Brigadier General Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF OHIO,

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, January 23, 1862.

General Orders No. 4b

The general commanding has the gratification of announcing the achievement of an important victory, on the nineteenth inst., at Mill Spring, by the troops under General Thomas, over the rebel forces, some twelve thousand strong, under Generat George B. Crittenden and General Zollicoffer.

The defeat of the enemy was thorough and complete, and his loss in killed and wounded was great. Night alone, under cover of which his troops crossed the river from their intrenched camp and dispersed, prevented the capture of his entire force. Fourteen or more pieces of artillery, some fifteen hundred horses and mules, his entire camp equipage, together with wagons, arms, ammunition, and other stores to a large amounl, fell into our hands.

The general hae been charged by the general in chief to convey his thanks to General Thomas and his troops for their brilliant victory. No task could be more grateful to him, seconded as it is by his own cordial approbation of their conduct.

By command of BRIGADIER GENERAL BUELL.

JAMES B. FRY. A. A. G., Chief of Staff.

The subject of a general plan of campaign to be executed as soon as the necessary force was prepared, received the early attention of the new commander, and in a letter, written twelve days after his arrival in Louisville, he submitted to the general-in-chief, General McClellan, his views on that subject. The same plan was, a little later, proposed to General Halleck, who commanded the adjoining department—Missouri. The main confederate force in the west, under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston, with headquarters at Bowling Green, Kentucky, occupied Bowling Green, fortified behind Barren river. Fort Donelson, on the Cumberlandi Fort Henry, on the Tennessee, and Columbus, on the Mississippi. General Buell's plans proposed that Halleck, with a land and naval force, should attack the centre of this line on the Cumberland and Tennessee, while we attacked or turned Bowling Green and moved directly on Nashville. This plan, substantially, was at length executed, though without the concert which, would perhaps, have given better results. General Halleck was not prepared to cooperate when invited, and finally moved without concert, having no idea of furthur progress than the capture of Fort Henry. But the prompt reenforcements, amounting first and last to twenty-four regiments, with artillery, sent by Buell to the river expedition, and his movement upon Bowling Green and Nashville, brought about a more complete and extended success than Halleck contemplated.

The authorship of the general plan of these operations has been the subject of considerable discussion, though it is difficult to see how there should be any doubt about the matter. It has been claimed by General Grant for himself, and General Sherman claimed it for General Halleck; the letter on which Grant's claim is based was dated the twenty-ninth of January, and only proposed to capture Forts Henry and Donelson, and the official records show that the subject was not broached by Halleck before the twentieth of January. The following are the letters in which the plan was proposed to Generals McClellan and Halleck, by General Buell, on the twenty- seventh of November and third of January respectively:

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, November 27, 1861.

MY DEAR GENERAL:—I have not written you very frequently because I could not write definitely, and because such, perhaps exagerated, importance do I attach to secrecy in these matters, that I have hesitated to put my own thoughts to paper, and I now ask you to keep them to yourself. It is certainly possible that in the end you may have to observe how far the consummation will have fallen short of my plans. I hope you have not supposed that the introduction of the reenforcements through this point has had any reference to a defence of Louisville. That has not entered my mind at all. I assume that to be safe in any event. I do not place high estimate on Buckner's force at Bowling Green, and I have no such thought as that he will attempt to advance. His position is purely defensive, and he will be quite content if he can maintain that. I have, therefore, thought of no such thing as fortifying Louisville. Sherman threw up a little work at the mouth of Salt river. It may have been judicious when he did it. I have not seen the necessity of it since, though it does no harm.

If you will look carefully at the map you will see that Louisville affords the best base that can be taken for rand operations from the north upon any part of Tennessee. The railroad to Lebanon curves around to the northeast behind Salt river, giving, besides the Nashville railroad, three good pike roads, which converge to a point of easy communication for three columns about Glassgow—one by the mouth of Salt river, coming into the railroad at Elizabethtown, one by Bardstown and New Haven, and coming into the direct pike road to Gallatin and Nashville, and one by Lebanon, Shepherdsville, and Greensburgh into the same road, while Lebanon junction, New Haven, and Lebanon form convenient points for the departure of, as many columns. Lebanon also affords a point of departure for a column on East Tennessee as short as any route; for wagon transportation as short as the route from Cincinnati by Lexington, and shorter and less attended with delay by railroad. Nothing could be more convenient. This point has the further advantage of bringing everything under my eye. I could know nothing of what would be done from a base at Cincinnati. These advantages will not fail to impress themselves upon you without going more into detail.

And now for a plan of campaign. Up to the organization of columns

232 - HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO.

behind Salt river, all the plans I have in view at present concur. Beyond that they diverge, and may be stated briefly thus: First, to establish a sufficient force before Bowling Green to hold Buckner there, while a column moves into East Tennessee by Somerset, and the route we had in view; second, to hold him in check while a column moves rapidly past him on Nashville by the turnpike via Gallatin; and third, holding him in check at Bowling Green and throwing in columns on both the Somerset and Nashville routes. The choice of these must depend on circumstances, which may vary in the meantime, or which may not now he clearly perceived. In conjunction with either of these should be the movement of the flotilla columns up the Tennessee and Cumberland, so as at least to rand and winter near the State line, and cut off communication between Bowling Green and Columbus, and, perhaps run directly into Nashville. A strong demonstration should, at the same time, be made on Columbus by the Mississippi. The details of all this, such as the destruction of railroads, so as to cut off communication, and a thousand other details, I do not go into, nor is it necessary. You can imagine them all.

All this, I hope, you will at least say looks plausible; more than that, I hope it is reasonable, and believe it is practicable though I would not like you to forget that circumstances not fully foreseen may mar it in parl. For the water movements, means are necessary which I have not the control of; that is, gunboats and transports. The troops which you promise from Missouri could be used for the purpose, and ought to move at my signal. I should take the troops from Paducah for one of them, and replace them by those which probably would not be as well disciplined and equipped.

Thus far I have studiously avoided any movements which to the enemy would have the appearance of activity or method. The points occupied are pretty much the same as when I arrived, except that a regiment has now and then been moved into position, and Thomas has gradually been closing in upon Lebanon. I shall in a couple of days, at most, complete the matter of organizing brigades and divisions as the troops come in, and begin to get them into position. We are now "lying around somewhat loose," and I shall not care much if some of our fragments have to look sharply after themselves. We are at the mouth of Salt river, Elizabethtown, Nolin, Columbia, Campbellsville, at the points on the Lebanon railroad, Somerset, London, Crab Orchard, and Dick Robinson, and on the lower Green river. The latter force is composed mostly of Kentucky regiments, half organized. I shall probably keep them to make a demonstration on Russellville and Hopkinsville at the proper time. We have occasional stampedes at the outposts, but I do not allow myself to be much troubled about them. Such an one we have now on the lower Green river, where Breckenridge is said to be advancing with eight thousand men. He may have two thousand five hundred or three thousand. Another at Somerset, where Zollicoffer is said to be crossing with ten thousand. He may have four or five thousand, and he may cross a regiment or two.

As the troops come they go into camp five miles from the city, under Mitchell, who is attentive and subordinate, and where they replenish their worn out clothes and outfit and go to drilling. Nelson has been in :amp a day, and, I am informed, has already got into a ditficulty with Mitchell; and, if I am rightly informed, has behaved very absurdly. As he is a veteran, some allowance must be made for him.

There are at Indianapolis seven regiments ready for service, but demoralized by the proximity of friends and the want of discipline and instruction. I propose to form them into a reserve and camp of instruction at Bardstown, which is a convenient place in many respects. I can make no use of them in an advance. The Kentucky regiments are only partially organized, and can be but little used at present.

If I were to go into my affairs, I should have the appearance of complaining over difficulties. I am greatly in need of general and staff officers. My own staff force is entirely insufficient, but I have no means of augmenting it with advantage. As for myself I should pay a very high compliment, if I hoped to come up to the expectations which you first formed. I am afraid I shall have to ask a little patience.

Very truly, yours,

D. C. BUELL.

MAJOR GENERAL GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN,

Commanding United States army.

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, December 10, 1861.

MY DEAR GENERAL:—As I informed you by telegraph, I received your letters on the third and fifth. I have by no means been unmindful of your wishes in regard to East Tennessee, and I think I can both appreciate and write in your sympathy for a people who have shown so much constancy. That constancy will still sustain them until the hour of deliverance. I have no fear of their being crushed. The allegiance of such people to hated rulers, even if it could be enforced for the moment, will only make them the more determined and ready to resist when the hour of rescue comes.

The organization of the division at Lebanon has been with special reference to the object which you have so much at heart, though, fortunately, it is one which suits any contingencies that can arise. I shall hasten its preparation with all the energy and industry I can bring to bear. The prans which I have in view embrace that fully; but the details and the final determination—while there is yet time to watch the progress of circumstances which might affect our plans vitally—I think I should lack that ordinary discretion by which I hope to retain your confidence, if I did not reserve. When the preparation of that division is complete, which I hope will be very soon, if I then see reasons why it should be merged into the general line of operations, I will give you the reasons and you shall be the judge of them; and, if you do not see force in them, I assure you I will pursue your views with as much zeal and hopefulness, and, perhaps, more energy than if I entirely concurred in them. You do not know me well yet if you think I cannot do this. And now for the other side of the field. I feel more anxiety about it than any other, because I have less control over the means that ought to bear on it, and have less knowledge of their details if I had the contror. I do not know well—scarcely at all--the description and capacity of the gunboats and transports that are to be used, and I do not know anything about the quality of the troops and officers. I have not seen Smith for seven years, and am afraid to judge him. I have never rated him as highly as some men. The expedition requires nothing more, as matters now stand, than ordinary nerve and good judgment, and ability to command men. The troops ought, of course, to be the best we can command. The object is not to fight great battles and storm impregnable fortifications, but, by demonstrations and maneuvering, to prevent the enemy from concentrating his scattered forces. In doing this, it must be expected there will be some fighting; it may be pretty good fighting. I suppose that ten thousand men, with two batteries, would not be too great an estimate for each of the rivers, if the enemy should do all that he probably can do. The precise manner of conducting expeditions depends so much on local knowledge that I can hardly venture on its details; hut, at least, the expeditions should go as rapidly as possible to the nearest point where the road crosses the peninsula: that is, to Dover and Fort Henry. And the first thing then to be done is to destroy the bridges and ferries; then act momentarily on the defencive, unless the weakness of the enemy or a trepidation in his force should give a good opportunity to attack. I think the first serious opposition will be found at Fort Henry, and at an island battery four or five miles below Dover; but my information is not very complete as to the strength of theee works. It would be probably necessary to stop there. Fort Henry is said by civilians to be strong. I cannot learn yet the number of guns. There have been some seven thousand troops there. We will probably find that number there. It is about six miles below the railroad bridge. I should riot expect to meet any considerable force at Dover, but, perhaps, seven or eight thousand at Clarksville, where they are fortifying. If they succeed in getting out of Bowling Green, which, I believe, they will try to do as soon as they see us advancing, unless their force and armament are increased, of course the number at Clarksville may be expected to be greater.

The demonstration on Columbus and the Mississippi should, at least, be on such a scale that it can be converted into a real attack if they detach anything; better still, if it can attack in any event.

You must be patient if you find my letter vague and unsatisfactory. I have had to satisfy a deputation acting under a joint resolution of the legislature, that it was hardly necessary or expedient at this time to appoint a certain person "provost marshal, with all proper power, and giving to him such military force as he may deem essential fora prompt and proper enforcement and execution of the laws, and a suppression rof all lawless and marauding excursions into northeastern Kentucky." I believe I succeeded pretty well, and perhaps after that I ought not to have attempted a coherent letter. Your own judgment will satisfy its deficiencies. Please have Rosecrans take care of his revolted subjects along the Big Sandy. We are established at Mumfordsville. Truly yours, D. C. BUELL.

MAJOR GENERAL GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN,

Commanding United States army.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,

LOUISVILLE, January 3, 1862.

GENERAL: I received your dispatch, and, with more delay than I meant, proceed to the subject of it in compliance with your request, and, I may add, also at the wish of the President.

I do not underrate the difficulties in Missouri, and I think it is not extravagant to say that the great power of the rebellion in the west is

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO - 233

arrayed on a front the planks of which are Columbus and Bowling Green, and the centre about where the railroad between these points crosses the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Including Nashville and the fortified points below, it is, I have no doubt, within bounds to estimate their force on that line at eighty thousand men ; including a column about Somerset, Kentucky, in rear of their right frank, it is more. Of this force, forty thousand may be set down as at Bowling Green ; twenty thousand at Columbus, though you doubtless have more information on that point than I have; and twenty thousand at the centre. Considering the railroad facilities which enable the enemy to concentrate in a few hours on any single point of this front, you will at once see the importance of a combined attack on its centre and flanks, or at least of demonstrations which may be converted into real attacks, and fully occupy the enemy on the whole front. 1.t is probable that you may have given the subject, as far as Columbus and the Centre are concerned, more attention than I have. With reference to the former, at least, I can make no more than the general suggestion already expressed, that it should be fully occupied.

The attack upon the centre should be made by two gunboat expeditions, with, I should say, twenty thousand men on the two rivers. They should, of course, be organized with reference to the depth of the water in the rivers; and whether they should be of equal or unequal strength, would depend upon that and other considerations, and can hardly be determined until the moment of departure. The mode of attack must depend upon the strength of the enemy at the several points and the features of the localities. It will be of the first importance to break the railroad communication, and, if possible, that should be done by columns moving rapidly to the bridges over the Cumberland and the Tennessee. The former, probably, would not be reached as first, being some thirty-one miles above the first principal battery that I know of at Dover. The other is eighteen miles above Fort Henry—the first I know of on the Tennessee. If the expedition should not be strong enough to do the work alone, they should establish themselves firmly at the nearest possible point, and remain at least until they ascertained that reenforcements from my column or some other source would not reach them. By uniting they could establish themselves permanently under the protection of the gunboats.

I say this much rather to lay the subject before you, than to propose any definite plan for your side. Whatever is done should be done speedily, within a few days. The work will become more difficult every day. Please let me hear from you at once.

Very truly, yours,

D. C. BUELL, Brigadier General Commanding.

GENERAL H. W. HALLECK,

Commanding Department of the Missouri.

The events happened in this order: The gunboats under Commodore Foot, supported by a land force under General Grant, captured Fort Henry, February 6th; Grant and the navy, with the reenforcements which Buell had sent, appeared before Fort Donelson February 12th and 14th; Buell's force appeared before Bowling Green, commenced crossing and demonstrating towards Nashville, February 14th, Johnston having, on his approach, burnt the bridges and retired to Nashville. Fort Donelson surrendered to Grant, February 16th, and on the approach of Buell, Johnston burnt the bridges over the Cumberland, and retired south from Nashville, which Buell occupied February 25.

The following order, issued on this occasion, Is not so interesting for the announcement of the mere fact of occupation, as for the policy which it avowed in the prosecution of the war:

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, February 26, 1862.

General Order No. 13a]

The General Commanding congratulates his troops that it has been their privilege to restore the national banner to the capital of Tennessee. He believes that thousands of hearts in every part of the State will swell with joy to see that honored flag reinstated in a position from which it was removed in the excitement and folly of an evil hour; that the voice of her own people will soon proclaim its welcome, and that their manhood and patriotism will protect and perpetuate it.

The general does not deem it necessary, though the occasion is a fit one, to remind his troops of the rule of conduct they have hitherto observed and are still to pursue. We are in arms, not for the purpose of invading the rights of our fellow countrymen anywhere, but to maintain the integrity of the Union, and protect the constitution under which its people have been prosperous and happy. We cannot, therefore, took with indifference on any conduct which is designed to give aid and comfort to those who are endeavoring to defeat these objects; but the action to be taken in such cases rests with certain authorized persons, and is not to be assumed by individual officers or soldiers. Peaceable citizens are not to be molested in their persons or property. Any wrongs to either are to be promptly corrected and the offenders brought to punishment. To thie end all persons are desired to make complaint to the immediate commander of officers or soldiers so offending, and if justice be not done promptly, then to the next commander, and so on until the wrong is redressed. If the necessities of the public service should require the use of private property for public purposes, fair compensation is to be allowed. No such appropriation of private property is to be made except by the authority of the highest commander present, and any other officer or soldier who shalt presume to exercise such privilege shall be brought to trial. Soldiers are forbidden to enter the residences or grounds of citizens on any plea without authority.

No arrests are to be made without the authority of the commanding general, except in case of actual offence against the authority of 'the Government; and in all such cases the fact and circumstances will immediately be reported in writing to headquarters through the intermediate commanders.

The general reminds his officers that the most frequent depredatione are those which are committed by worthless characters who straggle from the ranks on the plea of being unable to march; and where the inability really existe, it will be found in most instances that the sotdier has overloaded himself with useless and unauthorized articles. The orders already published on this subject must be enforced.

The condition and behavior of a corps are sure indications of the efficiency and fitness of its officers. If any regiment shall be found to disregard that propriety of conduct which belongs to soldiers as well as citizens, they must not expect to occupy the posts of honor, but may rest assured that they will be placed in positions where they cannot bring shame on their comrades and the cause they are engaged in. The Government supplies with liberality all the wants of the soldier. The occasional deprivations and hardships incident to rapid marches must be borne with patience and fortitude. Any officer who neglects to provide properly for his troops, or separates himself from them to seek his own comfort, will be held to a rigid accountability.

By command of General Buell.

JAMES B. FRY, A. A. G., Chief of Staff.

The confederate forces concentrated south of the Tennessee river, under the command of Albert Sidney Johnston, after the evacuation of Nashville, and Buell's command, for military operations, was, on the twelfth of March, merged into that of Halleck. After sending a division under General 0. M. Mitchel to occupy north Alabama, organizing a division under General G. W. Morgan to operate from Kentucky against Cumberland Gap, and leaving a suitable force at Nashville and other places on his lines of communication, Buell marched in the latter part of March with five divisions, about thirty-seven thousand men, to form a junction with the forces of Halleck on the Tennessee river. He arrived at Savannah, the place appointed for the junction, with his leading division the evening before the battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburgh Landing. When the battle opened the following morning, he ordered forward the division (Nelson's) already arrived, sent instructions to the rear divisions to press on by forced march, and in person went to the river on a steamer to the field of battle. The head of his column, under Nelson, arrived in time to repel an

234 - HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO.

attack which the confederates made immediately at the landing, to which the troops of Grant had been driven back at the close of the first day. Three of his divisions came up that night, a fourth the following day, and at daylight on the seventh the enemy was attacked, and by four o'clock in the evening, driven from the field. General Lew Wallace's fresh division, and such other fragments of Grant's army as retained any organization from the disaster of the previous day, took part in the battle of the seventh. The confederates fell back to Corinth, which they fortified, and from which they were forced to retire May 3oth, by the combined armies under Halleck. The army of the Ohio, under Buell, occupied the centre in this advance.

After the retreat of the confederates from Corinth, Buell with his army was again detailed to operate against East Tennessee. He moved into north Alabama with four divisions (twenty-five thousand men), making (June 31st) his headquarters temporarily at Huntsville, while repairing the railroads to his base of supplies at Louisville, three hundred miles distant. His remaining division, under General Thomas, arrived July 31st. The movement from the first was delayed by the orders of Halleck, requiring him to repair and guard the Memphis & Charleston railroad east of Corinth.

In the meantime the confederate forces in East Tennessee were reenforced by General Bragg, with the bulk of the Corinth army, making an aggregate force of not less than sixty thousand men, which by the twenty-eighth of July was available for prompt concentration at Chattanooga or elsewhere in East Tennessee. Its superior cavalry force operated with great effect upon the long lines of the Union army, breaking up the railroads and cutting off its supplies.

The effort to defeat these partisan operations by combining light infantry with the totally insufficient Union cavalry, and by local guards, was unsuccessful, and on the tenth of August the confederate cavalry under Forrest and Morgan, effectually severed the line of supplies of the Union army by an extensive destruction of the railroad north of Nashville.

About the same time the whole confederate force in East Tennessee assumed the offensive. General Kirby Smith, starting from Knoxville, passed the mountains to the left of Cumberland Gap, which the division under General G. W. Morgan had occupied and fortified in time.

Upon hearing of Smith's movement Buell dispatched General Nelson with a few experienced officers and two batteries of artillery to organize such troops as could be got together in Kentucky to repel Smith's invasion. Smith encountered Nelson's force, composed of raw troops, at Richmond, defeated it (August 3oth) and advanced into central Kentucky, threatening Louisville and Cincinnati.

Simultaneously with Smith's advance Bragg crossed the Tennessee river at and near Chattanooga with the bulk of his army, threatening middle Tennessee and Nashville. The Union army, which occupied various points for repairing the roads and with a view to the forward movement for which it had been preparing, was immediately put in readiness for concentration.

McCook, with his own and Crittenden's divisions, was ordered from the mouth of Battle creek up the Sequatchy valley to watch and oppose the enemy's advance, and when pressed, to fall back for concentration on the road to McMinnville. . He advanced a short distance and returned, supposing that the enemy had already anticipated him on the McMinnville road. This supposition proved to be incorrect, and it threw the army out of position for efficient observation, gave an erroneous impression of the rate of the enemy's progress, and kept the army a week about McMinnville awaiting his approach, of which at the end of that time there was yet no intelligence. The army was now reduced to ten days' supplies, and assuming Nashville to be the enemy's first objective point, it was necessary to put the army in a position which would enable it best to oppose that design and at the same time reopen its communication with Louisville. Orders were therefore given on the thirtieth of August for concentrating at Murfreesborough on the fifth of September. Pending this movement the head of Bragg's column crossed the mountain and appeared at Sparta on the second of September, and instead of turning towards Nashville, moved towards the Cumberland river, which it crossed at Carlhage and Gainsborough. This change in the anticipated route of the enemy caused the movement of the Union, army upon Nashville, and the sending of a division for the protection of Bowling Green, where some supplies had been gathered; and on learning that the bulk of the confederate army was marching in the same direction, Buell started with the army of the Ohio in pursuit, after leaving a suitable force to hold Nashville, which he had previously commenced to fortify. The enemy halted involuntarily at Glasgow, but continued his march to Mumfordsville, where a Federal force of about four thousand men, with artillery, strongly fortified, but heedlessly exposed to such a danger by the authority at Louisville, not then under Buell's command, surrendered to Bragg on the seventeenth without resislance. There was skirmishing between the two armies and preparations for battle at Mumfordsville, but on the twenty-first the confederate army, followed closely by the Union army, moved towards Louisville until near Elizabethtown, when it turned off toward Bardstown. That deflection indicated a speedy junction of Bragg and Kirby Smith, and perhaps an attack on Louisville, where a force of raw troops was gathering. Instead, therefore, of turning off to continue the pursuit, Buell marched directly on to Louisville, where his rear division arrived on the night of the twenty-ninth.

The new regiments were immediately incorporated into the old organizations, and on the first of October the army moved against the enemy, who then occupied Bardstown and Frankfort. The news of this advance brought to a hurried conclusion the ceremonies of inaugurating a State governor at Frankfort, in which Bragg was at the moment engaged. Sharp skirmishing occurred in both lines, the confederates retiring for concentration until the Bardstown column reached Perryville, where, October 8th, a severe but indecisive battle, lasting until night, was fought between portions of the

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO - 235

two armies. The Union army moved forward at six o'clock next morning to renew the battle, but the confederates had withdrawn. There was further concentration on both sides and manoeuvring for battle, but on the twelfth Bragg commenced to retreat on Cumberland Gap. He was followed, and his rear guard engaged at various points as far as London, when seeing no prospect of further advantage, Buell, October 17th, discontinued the pursuit, and directed his army by way of Glasgow and Bowling Green upon Murfreesbordugh, in anticipation of Bragg's movement against middle Tennessee and Nashville. Pending this movement, October 3oth, the army being then in the vicinity of Glasgow and Bowling Green, he turned over the command to General Rosecrans, in obedience to news from Washington. Previously, September 29th, while at Louisville, he had been ordered to relinquish the command to General Thomas, but the order was countermanded at the request of Thomas and others.

In reporting, October x6th, the movement he had determined upon, he added:

While I shall proceed with these dispositione, deeming them to be proper for the public interest, it is meet that I ehould say that the present time is, perhaps, as convenient as any for making any change that may be thought desirable in the command of this army.

He was thanked by the department for the service rendered, but there immediately arose some disagreement between him and the department as to the plan of further operations. He, however, adhered to his views, and continued the movement which he had announced, and, as stated, surrendered his command pending its execution.

In November a court of inquiry was ordered to investigate his operations during the summer and fall. The court was in session more than five months, and much oral and documentary evidence was taken; but the proceedings were never published, and when called for some years afterwards by Congress, the voluminous record was found to have disappeared from the archives of the War department. Twice after the inquiry General Buell was offered commands under his juniors, Sherman and Camby, but declined, He was then mustered out of the volunteer service May 23, 1864, and on the first of June resigned his commission in the, regular army. In 1865 he took part in coal and iron interest in Kentucky, where he now (1881) resides.

In this sketch nothing has been attempted but a brief outline of the more prominent facts, omitting many important' details, and all discussion of the actual or relative value of General Buell's services as„a commander during the Rebellion. The fact is not to be ignored that perhaps no high officer in the war was the subject of so much party criticism as he during the last six months of his command. Though in his own mind repelling the injustice of this criticism, he has not seen proper to make much public protest against it, and it does not come within the scope of this sketch to analyze facts for the purpose of pointing out how much of the harsh judgment was bestowed without discernment or justice, how much was due to a state of the public mind, which, it must be confessed, was often disposed to regard passionate, or at least practical partisanship, as an element of patriotic duty, and how much to the machinations of hostile ambitions and personal resentment. It does not appear that the War department shared fully in the disapprobation to which a portion of the public press gave loud expression, but it yielded to a popular clamor, or rather to the dictation of political and personal influences which first shaped the popular prejudice, and then derived strength and reward from its support. It may, however, be proper to say in the direction of impartial criticism, that in reviewing the operations of the army under General Buell in the summer and fall of 1862, and comparing them with similar operations of other dates and other commanders on the same and other fields, it is impossible not to be ithpressed by the contrast in the popular feeling with reference to the different periods. These contrasts indicate, perhaps, a more politic conformity of the later commanders to the popular idea of the war, and fortunately, also to a more patient appreciation by the popular judgment of the obstacles to be overcome.

The following is the order with which General Buell relinguished the command of the army :

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE OHIO,

LOUISVILLE, KY., October 3o, 1862. General Orders, No. 150.]

In obedience to orders from the headquarters of the army, Major-General Buell relinquishes the command of the district and Army of the Ohio to Major-General W. S. Rosecrans.

It is impossible for the general without feelings of regard and a warm interest in their future success, to part with troops whom he has been the instrument of converting for the most part from raw levies into a powerful army, honored by common consent for its discipline and efficient organization, for its esprit de corps, and for victories unqualified by a single reverse; and whose fortunes he has followed for a twelve month over a field of operations embracing considerable portions of our States, through difficulties and dangers which its fortitude and courage have mastered without accident or failure. It has recently, by a rapid march of some five hundred miles with limited subsistence, often with an inadequate supply of water, returned to Kentucky and driven from her borders a powerful army; and having reestablished its communications is now well on its way to meet the enemy at other points. The occasion is not convenient for recounting its services during 'the past twelve months, but the army may safely recur to them with pride. If anything has not been accomplished which was practicable within the sphere of its duty, the general cheerfully holds himself reeponsible for the failure.

The general reflects with pride that the army under bis command has for the most part been free from petty jealousies and intrigues—that it has neither indulged in vain boasting, nor tarnished its high character by bickerings and low criminations. It will enhance his gratification if it shall carry to its new commander—who already has earned its confidence and respect by distinguished service—the same noble qualities which have chalacterized it since its organization. He will pray that it may be the instrument of speedily restoring the Union to its integrity; ar.d there is no individual in ite rank in whose honor and welfare he will not feel a special interest.

By command of Major-General Buell.

JAMES B. FRY, colonel and chief of staff.

GENERAL H. F. DEVOL

Among the regiments in the late Rebellion to which Washington county contributed her "bravest and best," the gallant Thirty-sixth stands prominent. The history of this regiment is sketched at another place in this vol-

236 - HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO.

urn; but an outline of the life of its worthy colonel will be of interest, both to his military friends and the public.

H. F. Devol, the youngest son of Stephen Devol, jr., was born in Waterford township August 6, 1831. His boyhood was spent in the country school and on his father's farm. At the age of sixteen, a courageous spirit, and a desire for more extended educational advantages led him to seek independence from parental dictation. He then attended Beverly academy for a short time, and two years later made his first trip south in the produce trade. From this time till the opening of the Rebellion Mr. Devol devoted his summers to farming and his winters to flatboating and trade.

He married, May 15, 1856, Adelaide A. Dyer, of Muskingum township, by whom he had two children— Hattie A., and Carroll, who is a graduate of Pennsylvania Military institute, and was, in 1879, appointed by President Hayes lieutenant in the regular army. Mrs. Devol flied July 1o, 1860.

In the winter of 1860 Mr. Devol witnessed the first overt acts of the important drama in which he became an actor. Being south with a cargo of produce he experienced some of the inconveniences of that disturbed period. The spirit of secession was aroused, and northern merchants became objects of hatred. Their boats were not permitted to land at many places, while at others obstructions were thrown in the way of sales and collections. Mr. Devol, however, did not suffer serious financial loss, but his experience aroused him to action on returning home. He had been a witness of secession. It was in store for him to take a part in the bloodiest acts of the tragedy then opening, and eventually to stand in the line of triumphant soldiery with a full share of military glory.

When the first call for volunteers for the three years' service was made, Mr. Devol set to work to enlisting a company, from Waterford, Adams and Muskingum townships. It was the intention to enroll this company in the Thirtieth Ohio volunteer infantry, then being formed at Cincinnati. Mr. Devol had acted without a commission and without direction, and borne all the expenses out of his own pocket When the company met at Lowell for organization, Colonel Melvin Clarke appeared with a commission to organize a new regiment, and informed Captain Devol that Colonel Groesbeck's regiment (Thirtieth Ohio volunteer infantry) was full. Captain Devol enlisted his men in the new regiment, and when the quota was full they were properly enrolled as "company A."

The company was reported August 1, Mr, and Mr. Devol was commissioned captain August 13th. From the time of being mustered in until peace illuminated their blood-stained bayonets, the Thirty-sixth was in active, efficient, and dangerous service, and during all that period Mr. Devol was with his men—with them both in camp and battlefield. He was promoted to the rank of major, September 7, 1862; to lieutenant colonel September 16, 1862, and to the colonelcy, for valuable and valiant conduct on the field of Chickamauga, October 13, 1862. In this battle Colonel Devol took a conspicuous and important part. When the battle opened Colonel

Jones was in command of the regiment and General Turchin of the brigade. In the afternoon the brigade was thrown in front of the enemy's centre. At a critical moment the advance line was driven back and Turchin's brigade, consisting of the Thirty-sixth and Ninety-second Ohio and Fourteenth Kentucky, was brought in face of a hot fire. To retreat would be disastrous. Brave boys were falling fast, and Lieutenant Colonel Devol, impatient for an order, grasped the situation, assumed command, and ordered a charge. A moment later positions were changed. The rebel ranks were broken and the brave brigade, encouraged by the bold movement of their temporary commander, followed close in pursuit for a distance of more than three hundred yards, when a retreat was ordered. They passed back through the gap in the enemy's line which this bold charge had brought to a halt, and given the Union troops time to reorganize on that day. Colonel Devol proved his soldierly instincts. Colonel Jones had been mortally wounded, and the brigade commander was not at his post. It was left for a lieutenant colonel to give the command which materially effected the fortunes of that celebrated battle. General Thomas and General Reynolds heartily complimented his soldierly conduct.

At Berryville an incident occurred which exemplifies his bravery. The brigade was ordered by General Hayes, then in command, to lie down to escape a destructive fire of the enemy. But in disobedience to the protestations of their soldiers, General Hayes and Colonel Devol remained standing at their posts where they could watch changing movements.

Colonel Devol was always found with his regiment and, indeed, was in one more engagement than his regiment His rank during the greater period of the war was that of colonel, but on several occasions he was thrown in command of a brigade. This was the case at Cedar Creek, when General Hayes' brigade was under his command. At this battle the army of West Virginia, under command of General Crook, to which this brigade belonged, was held as a flanking column. But General Devol, in the excitement of progressing battle, lost his place, and was not a little surprised to find himself urging on with characteristic energy a strange command, engaged in the thickest of the fight. This is an episode of the war which General Hayes delights to tell. Few officers can claim the honor of having been in as many fights as their command, but Cedar Creek places the colonel of the Thirty- sixth one ahead of his regiment. Colonel Devol was brevetted brigadier general July 20, 1865.

During the gar he had the singular good fortune to escape with only two slight wounds, and his robust body suffered but little from disease. He enjoyed the friendship and cordial respect of his associates in office and his men. He was always jealous of the fame of his regiment and always ready to protect its standing.

When the time for which the Thirty-sixth enlisted had expired General Devol was found ready to reengage in the service of the Union, and the regiment cheerfully went with him.

At the conclusion of hostilities in 1865 the rank and file

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of our volunteer soldiery felt that they had accomplished that for which they suffered the pains and dangers of war, and were anxious to return to their families and farms. High salaried officers were accused of selfishly detaining the troops; but General Devol was entirely free from any accusation in this regard. Through his management and influence the regiment with which he went into the service and in which he had a warm interest was one of the first Ohio regiments mustered out of the service.

The war over, he returned to Waterford, and in 1866 he purchased the mercantile establishment of Charles Bowen, where he has since devoted himself closely to business. He has never had an ambition for political preferment, but is by no means indifferent to the duties of citizenship. His political creed was enunciated in his farewell address to the Thirty-sixth, when he said:

Comrades, you can go to your homes with the happy consciousness that you have done your duty to your country and yourselves; and when you again resume the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship, be as unflinching in defending the sacred Temple of Liberty with the ballot as you have been with the bullet, and all will be well.

He was appointed by General Hayes, while governor of Ohio, one of the trustees of Athens asylum for the insane. The relations between the President and himself have been the most cordial since their acquaintance in the Rebellion.

General Devol is a leading member of the Beverly Presbyterian church, is superintendent of the Sunday- school, and a valuable supporter of religious and moral movements in the community. He has acquired a handsome competence, and uses it liberally both in public improvements and in answering the prayers of mulliplied charilies. General Devol married, April 3, 1867, Harriet E. Bowen, by whom he had four children, George H., Mary B., Florence W., and Ermine B.

GENERAL RUFUS R. DAWES.

The year 1861 found Rufus R. Dawes in Jeneau county, Wisconsin. He had graduated with the class of 186o at Marietta college, and like many young men who strike out from home at that period, had gone to the west which offered newer and broader fields of advancement. Born July 4, 1838, he was then in his twenty- third yeah Upon the beginning of hostilities, he at once raised a company. This was in April, 1861. He was chosen captain and commissioned May 3, 1861. The company was composed principally of lumbermen and farmers, and was known as "The Lemonwier Minute Men." The company became "K," of the Sixth Wisconsin volunteer infantry.

They were mustered into the United States service at Madison, Wisconsin, July 16, 1861, for three years, and went at once to Washington, D. C. They were kept in camp of instructions during the winter of 1861-2. In the spring of 1862 they were with General McDowell, attached to the "pendulum division oscillating between Fredericksburgh and Catlett's Station, while General McClellan was enacting the tragedy of the Peninsula campaign. On July 1, 1862, Captain Dawes was promoted to major of the regiment.

On the morning of August 21, 1865, commenced the battle of the Rappahannock. Major Dawes' regiment was engaged three days supporting artillery and skirmishing at the fords. Captain Frank Buell was killed a short distance to their right at Freeman's Ford.

The battle of Gainsville was fought on the evening of August 28th. His brigade and a New York and Pennsylvania regiment engaged, at short musket range, Ewell's division of Stonewall Jackson's army. These six regiments suffered a loss of twelve hundred killed and wounded in forty-five minutes firing. Our troops held their ground. This was conceded to have been one of the, most desperate struggles against large odds that occurred during the war.

In the second battle of Bull Run his regiment was hotly engaged, and suffered a severe loss. They left the field in-perfect line before the enemy and the regiment formed the basis of two new alignements of the corps to check the advancing enemy. They left the field at to o'clock, P. M., covering the retreat of the entire army.

At the battle of South Mountain, Major Dawes commanded the left wing of his regiment which formed part of the assaulting column. They lost ninety killed and wounded out of four hundred engaged. General McClellan pronounced the brigade, for their admirable conduct on this occasion, equal to the best troops of any army in the world.

In the battle of Antietam he commanded the regiment during most of the battle, and took two hundred and eighty-six officers and men into action, of whom one hundred and fifty-two were killed or wounded. The flag staff of the regiment was struck while in Major Dawes, hands—all of the color guards having been disabled, it became necessary for him to carry the colors to maintain his organization.

At the battle of Fredericksburgh his regiment was engaged on the left of the line of General Franklin's grand division. Loss not severe. In Burnside's mud march his regiment took part, suffering severely from cold, rain, mud and hunger. Major Dawes was promoted to lieutenant colonel, March 24, 1863.

At the battle of Fitzhugh's Crossing, April 29, 1863, the Sixth Wisconsin and Twenty-fourth Mich