Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Southwest Ohio
Timothy M. Burke
2
Contents
Chapter page
Preface 3
I Beginnings 8
II Camp Dennison 32
IV April 6th 54
V The Warriors 66
Afterward 130
Bibliography 148
Appendix: 151
3
Preface
On February 6, 1862, 22-year-old John Sebastian Fries mustered into the ranks of the
Fifth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. The illiterate son of German immigrants, he followed his
brother into the rapidly expanding Union army. Tall by the standards of the day at 5’10”
with sandy colored hair, gray eyes and a light complexion, he came from a family that
farmed the hills and valleys of a small rural community on the outskirts of Cincinnati
called Petersburg. A few weeks later his regiment steamed down the Ohio and would be
among the first to arrive at an isolated spot on the Tennessee River known as Pittsburgh
Landing. It was the beginning of a journey for young Fries and the other members his
regiment that would last three long years. John Fries, my great-great grandfather was the
starting point in the creation of this book. Fries like many other enlisted men was
illiterate, meaning the only evidence of his service were sketchy military records
providing his physical description and monthly roll call reports. Nothing else about his
personal war experiences exists. But an overpowering desire to know more about his
experiences propelled me on an academic odyssey of sorts that sent me deep into the
stacks of several libraries, into the archives of the Ohio Historical Society, and to hike the
Shiloh battlefield where he fought more than 140 years ago. While I found out virtually
nothing about him I discovered the fascinating story of the men whom he accompanied to
war, the Fifth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. Largely recruited from the counties surrounding
Cincinnati, his regiment was assembled by two Hamilton County residents, Colonel
William Henry Harrison Taylor and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Tinsley Heath. Taylor,
the son-in-law and nephew of former President William Henry Harrison was born and
raised in the old South. His executive officer, Heath, was a young attorney who went on
to a stellar career in law. The history of the regiment they recruited in the summer of
1861 has been assembled here for the first time from letters, records, newspaper accounts
and other primary sources. But, my telling of the Fifth Ohio’s story goes beyond the
typical regimental history. It also attempts to demonstrate my belief that the Fifth Ohio
was a reflection of the attitudes and beliefs of the communities from which it was created.
4
5
The Fifth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry spent endless days and nights in the saddle wearing
out both men and mounts. A few violent battles like Shiloh, Corinth and Davis’ Mill,
punctuated the mostly dull service that sent them on a wearisome journey from the banks
of the mighty Mississippi across the South to the Carolinas. Their story did not include
climatic battles that accounted for a dramatic loss of life like Pickett’s Charge or the
stone wall at Fredericksburg, yet of the almost 1,000 enlistees 155 never returned home
and 232 received early discharges for some disability. Countless others spent time in field
hospitals suffering from dysentery, typhus and other deadly diseases or recovering from
traumatic wounds. These numbers pale when compared to the casualty rate of other
regiments and so never drew attention beyond the towns and farm country from which
they were drawn. As the last old men of the regiment died in the early 1900’s and
members of their immediate families followed them to their graves, the Fifth Ohio
Volunteer Cavalry faded away into the mists of the past.
The Fifth Ohio’s story was the story of dozens of other regiments, groups of men with
little or no military experience transformed into regiments of professional soldiers. The
early chapters of this book examine the regiment’s formation and training as it was sent
into the field in 1862 unprepared, ill armed, and poorly led for a campaign in the
Tennessee River Valley that included one of bloodiest affairs of the war, the Battle of
Shiloh.
In the chapters that follow it becomes a story of the internal political strife that
divided the regiment, sometimes compromising its effectiveness. Partly a power struggle
for command of the Fifth Ohio this divisive tension also was an ideological dispute over
the slavery issue with party overtones. Some members of the regiment supported the
abolitionism of an activist Republican Party while others tolerated slavery, identifying
with the Democratic Party and its emphasis on an agrarian economy and narrow
interpretation of the Constitution. The Democrats believed the Constitution left slavery
under state jurisdiction and criticized President Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation policy.
This difference in ideals among the regiment’s leadership was exposed when it entered
the South in the winter of 1862 causing tensions that peaked in the spring of 1863. The
same divisions also affected the communities from which the men had been drawn
creating a political climate fraught with distrust and anger. In effect the Fifth Ohio as a
6
regiment of citizen soldiers was reflective of the attitudes and political tensions that both
united and divided their home communities throughout the war.
Even in the face of these shortcomings the Fifth Ohio managed to survive and become
a well-armed veteran unit skilled in the art of war. By the summer of 1863 the year and a
half spent in the field had hardened them into experienced horse soldiers. With better
arms, more experienced leaders, and with unit politics no longer a distraction a new
chapter in the regiment’s story opened as it joined Sherman’s thrust into the heart of the
Confederacy. Though dwindling in numbers the Fifth Ohio Cavalry became an effective
hard riding cavalry regiment regularly leading one of Sherman’s “flying columns”
knifing through Georgia and the Carolinas. By the war’s end this collection of farmers,
shop keepers and skilled artisans had even won the honor of escorting their victorious
general in the surrender of the last major Confederate army in the field.
7
On Friday April 12, 1861 telegraph lines hummed with news of the firing on Ft.
Sumter. The next day, stunned people across the North read that the long tense standoff
in Charleston’s harbor had exploded into war. In Cincinnati the earliest dispatches
describing the attack were contradictory, and soon dismissed as excited exaggeration. By
the following day however, the Cincinnati Gazette reported the news dailies had
“convinced all the first blow had been struck”. Throughout the day crowds congregated
on the city’s streets in front of newspaper offices, restlessly awaiting the posting of
updates on bulletin boards before the next editions rolled off the presses. “The
newspaper offices were thronged as we never seen them thronged”, noted the Gazette.1
Early in the day, a premature report of Ft. Sumter’s surrender caused a cloud of
gloom to descend upon the city, but when it was discovered that Major Robert Anderson,
the commander of Ft. Sumter, had refused to surrender, the Times a paper that leaned
heavily toward the Republican Party reported that cheering erupted from the crowd in
front of its offices, but not from Democrats gathered outside the Cincinnati Enquirer. By
evening, the “Star Spangled Banner” reverberated through downtown streets, and flags
appeared draped from windows as impromptu demonstrations of patriotism broke out on
street corners. The cloud of gloom dissolved, and the streets echoed with the words “its
war” spoken gravely but not without excitement as war fever spread across the city and
nation.2
The surrender of Ft. Sumter two days later on Sunday April 14, and a call for
volunteers by the newly elected President Abraham Lincoln, prompted Ohio’s Governor
William Dennison to alert the citizens of his state. “Your patriotism points to you the path
of duty in this crisis. You need no appeal from me to testify your loyalty to the General
Government (Federal Government). The Constitution must be maintained, the Union
must be preserved, and the laws must be enforced.” The response was spectacular.
Overnight it seemed the ranks of existing militia units filled and new companies and even
entire regiments were created.3
8
I
Beginnings
The Fifth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry was formed by men united in their desire to end an
“unlawful rebellion”. Beyond this point there was little uniformity of opinion about the
war or its aims. Drawn from Cincinnati and the small towns and rural areas surrounding
it, those who led and filled its ranks were a diverse lot. Though most were farmers almost
every segment of society was represented- attorneys, shopkeepers, urban laborers, rich
and poor, both immigrant and native born. Their opinions ranged from long time
abolitionists like Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Tinsley Heath and Major Elbridge Ricker to
those who saw abolitionism as a threat to the nation like Captain William Jessup. For all,
the shots fired at Ft. Sumter rung out like the proverbial fire bell in the night Thomas
Jefferson had predicted decades before.
The news of Ft. Sumter had a startling effect on Thomas Heath. The 27 year old
attorney’s wedding was only months away but he closed his law practice in downtown
Cincinnati and announced he intended to go to war, despite having no military training.
He was of average height at best and wore his hair in a typical style of the day—parted to
one side, long in the back but off his ears. His hair, along with a bushy beard that was
almost wiry and a long drooping mustache framed a rather plain looking face. But over
the course of the next four years he would distinguish himself as a capable soldier and
leader—eventually reaching the rank of Brigadier General.4
Heath, not surprisingly came from a family with deep roots in America with both
maternal and paternal ancestors having fought for independence during the Revolution.
His father known throughout the state of Ohio as an ardent abolitionist, held a set of
beliefs that would have an important impact on young Thomas’ life. The Reverend Uriah
and Anne Heath raised Thomas in Xenia, Ohio. During his childhood he developed a
love of the outdoors, reveling and excelling in swimming, hunting, and riding. In his
early years Thomas’ experimentation with carpentry, blacksmithing and harness making
was typical of the curiosity and willingness to take on challenges he displayed later in
life. 5
9
The Heaths placed a high value on learning and taught Thomas to read the Bible
before age five. He proved to be an outstanding student throughout his school years. The
Reverend Heath saw to it that his son received an excellent education and sent him to
Ohio Wesleyan College. There he studied Hebrew, Latin and Greek and developed a
keen interest in the study of law. His father had hoped he would become a man of the
cloth but Thomas settled upon law instead and enrolled at the Cincinnati Law College
from which he graduated in 1858. He spent the next year in Europe studying and
observing the courts of London, Paris, Edinburgh and Dublin before returning to
Cincinnati where he became a law partner of Thomas Ware.6
By the time the crisis came, Heath was moving in a circle of prominent Cincinnatians.
Though young and not a native of the city he had ties to Ware, the newly elected city
solicitor, and Bellamy Storer one of the city’s oldest and most respected judges for whom
he clerked as a law student. Consequently, he was made part of a committee sent to
Washington D.C. to represent Cincinnati. The committee’s task was to win the
acceptance of three Cincinnati regiments into the swelling ranks of the federal army.7
By May Lincoln realized that he had seriously underestimated the manpower needed
to put down the rebellion in calling out only 75,000 volunteers for a 90-day term of
service. On May 3rd the President expanded the size of the Regular Army by 42,000 and
called for 3 years of service from the state volunteers.
By the end of May Heath had sought the help of William Henry Harrison Taylor in
creating a volunteer cavalry regiment. He wanted Taylor’s experience as a cavalry
officer in the Virginia militia, even though it was minimal. Taylor was a Virginian by
birth but had lived in Ohio since 1836 and was prominent enough in the Cincinnati area
to attract recruits at a time when there was intense competition among the newly forming
regiments in the recruitment of volunteers. William Henry Harrison Taylor was a
member of one of America’s most storied political families among who was a signer of
the Declaration of Independence and two Presidents of the United States. He looked the
part, with a lean aristocratic build often associated with one in command. He had a square
jaw, a meticulously trimmed mustache which he squared at the corners of his mouth and
hair which was still thick for someone near fifty which he wore half way over his ear.
Now at age 48, Taylor, a farmer and the former Postmaster of Cincinnati, faced the
11
daunting task of raising and training a regiment of volunteer cavalry destined to become
the Fifth Ohio. 8
Like most of the other newly minted colonels in the rapidly expanding Union Army
he was not a professional soldier. His only military experience had come with the
peacetime militia of the antebellum period known more for drilling on the parade field
than for true martial skills. There is little doubt that many believed his greatest
qualification was kinship to General William Henry Harrison, the hero of Tippecanoe and
later President of the United States.9
Taylor was born to Lucy Harrison Singleton III, Harrison’s niece, and Thomas Taylor
on November 28, 1813 the second oldest of four children with his sister Lucy being the
oldest and brother’s George and Richard ten and thirteen years his junior. He was raised
in Virginia at Berkley, the sprawling ancestral plantation of generations of the Harrison
family. On June 16, 1836 he married General Harrison’s daughter, Anna Tuthill Harrison
in North Bend, Ohio, a small village located about 15 miles west of Cincinnati. It had
served as the General’s home since 1814. The young couple initially resided at Berkley
but when Taylor was recruited to become a substitute Clerk of Courts in Cincinnati for
General Harrison, who decided to run for the Presidency in 1836, they too settled in
North Bend. The General’s defeat in the November election marked the beginning of his
second campaign ultimately leading to his victory in 1840 and the appointment of the 27-
year-old Taylor to the position of Postmaster of Cincinnati.10
Harrison’s death only 31 days after his inauguration brought important changes for
Taylor, though he would remain postmaster until June of 1845 when the newly elected
James K. Polk replaced him with one of his own Democratic supporters. He and Anna
moved into the General Harrison’s residence at North Bend to help care for Mrs.
Harrison who was often ill, and unable to supervise the work on the family’s large land
holdings. The spacious Harrison homestead was a clapboard building that stood 300
yards back from the Ohio River on a large hill occupying a bend with a sweeping view of
the river. While the 16-room home could not be called stately it was comfortable enough
with its wainscoted walls, cavernous kitchen and living room to mark it as the residence
of a gentleman.
12
Colonel William Henry Harrison Taylor Courtesy of the U.S. Military History Institute
13
This could be misleading because even though General Harrison had been a prominent
figure in the area for more than three decades he had been cash strapped in the later years
of his life as the result of family circumstances. By 1844 Taylor had proven himself as a
successful farmer and was selected to address the Hamilton County Agricultural Society,
an organization his father-in-law had helped found. In 1858 disaster struck when the
house burned to the ground leaving William Taylor and his family, which had grown to
10 children as well as the General’s widow, homeless, but for the kindness of Anna
Taylor’s brother-in-law who took them into his home.
11
On the heels of this family crisis came the news of a national crisis at Ft. Sumter and
what must have been a crisis of conscience. He was faced with a decision which would
be agonizing for a father of 10 children who also heard the call of duty as the great-
grandson of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Harrison III, and the
nephew and son-in-law of a former President. The difficulty of the decision must have
been compounded by the fact he was a son of the old South. Born to an old Virginia
family he lived among the plantation aristocracy for the first 23 years of his life and now
he faced going to war against that very society. It was a decision made even more
anguishing by the fact his younger brothers George and Richard committed to defending
that society and would become members of the 14th Virginia Infantry.
Under the circumstances, everything about William Henry Harrison Taylor, his
heritage, his successful leadership skills, and his experience in the militia, limited as it
was, marked him as a gentleman expected to lead troops whether he lived on either side
of the Mason-Dixon Line at a time when both armies were growing beyond imagination
and in desperate need of leaders.
The partnership Heath and Taylor forged to recruit a cavalry regiment was a gamble.
Neither Governor Dennison of Ohio nor the War Department had authorized the regiment
so there was no guarantee it would be accepted into federal service. Ohio in fact, had
been called upon by the War Department to provide 10,153 troops and responded by
providing almost 13,000, forcing officials to turn away thousands of others since the
federal government would not financially compensate the states for the excess troops.12
14
The Lincoln Administration used a system employed in all previous American wars.
Regiments would be organized and identified with the states from which they came and
received a numeral based on the order of creation. Hence the First Ohio Volunteer
Cavalry was the first cavalry regiment authorized from Ohio. Most regiments arose
entirely from one locality. The governor had the authority to appoint at least the highest-
ranking officers, the colonels and lieutenant–colonels, but often the men of the regiment
had elected these officers first, after which the governor awarded the official commission.
At other times it was the prominent men who organized and recruited the regiments who
were rewarded for their efforts with command. More often than not political
considerations affected authorization to organize regiments.
Heath like Governor Dennison was a member of the Republican Party. However, the
state of Ohio and the Department of War rejected Heath’s and Taylor’s overtures not
once or twice but three times. Heath angrily wrote to Major General Catharinus P.
Buckingham, the Adjutant General of Ohio, explaining that after spending more than
$1000 of their own money they did “not feel inclined to indulge [their] military
proclivities any further,” adding should their “humble services be needed” in the future
they would “draw [their] swords,” in defense of the Republic.13
The rejection was related to the type of regiment Heath and Taylor was organizing not
their political ties. The War Department had decided to rely on the cavalry component of
the Regular Army, a meager six regiments of less then 6,000 men, and a handful of
volunteer regiments that had been forced into the army by political circumstances. Chief
among the reasons the War Department did want to accept volunteer cavalry was the
belief the war would be over long before horsemen could be properly trained for service.
Across both the North and South many believed the war would be of very short duration.
The federal army traditionally expected to spend a minimum of one to three years of
training to create a proficient cavalry trooper. This position on training was the result of
the Army’s adoption of the European cavalry tradition. Cavalry had not been an
important part of the American military until operations began against Native Americans
on the wide-open plains of the West in the 1840s. In 1841 Philip Kearny and a group of
colleagues were sent to the French Royal School of Cavalry and later adopted the French
Cavalry manual with some variations, as that of the United States.14
15
Other factors contributed to the War Department’s coolness toward cavalry. General
Winfield Scott, the ranking officer in the United States Army in early 1861, expected the
war to focus on Virginia. He incorrectly believed the geography of his home state was
simply too cut up with fences and other obstacles to make operations with large bodies of
cavalry practical. Equipping a cavalry regiment for the field was also expensive with a
cost of an estimated $500,000 to $600,000, and a higher payroll for such specialized
personnel as blacksmiths and saddlers. Quite simply it was far cheaper to put an infantry
regiment into the field.15
The rejection of Heath’s and Taylor’s regiment at that point in the war typified the
experience of many Northerners desiring to lead cavalry. After the third rejection they
wrote General Buckingham of their disgust, which Governor Dennison answered with a
telegram requesting they come to Columbus with their muster rolls to “consult” with him.
Taylor and Heath wrote General Buckingham “we only wished a promise from him
(Dennison) that, if ready in 10 days, we should be accepted.” 16 The regiment, Heath
noted, had already lost a number of men to “other organizations” presumably infantry
regiments that had been or would be shortly accepted. While Governor Dennison seemed
interested, he would only imply their services would someday be needed. Heath pressed
Buckingham that if they truly would be needed, “why not let us fill a regiment.” He left
little doubt about how desperate they were to serve, writing “We are willing out of our
own pockets to furnish funds for recruiting.” But, he made it clear they would not pay for
the transportation and subsistence of their regiment, a practice not unheard of in the early
months of the war. Still no acceptance came, and it seemed their dream of glory on the
battlefield was at an end, until events unfolding in the East changed everything.17
A few days after the exchange of letters between Heath and the Governor 35,000
troops, a mix of regulars and volunteers under the command of Major General Irvin
McDowell, departed their camps outside of Washington D.C. Largely untrained and
commanded by inexperienced officers, they were taking part in the first attempt at
capturing Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy. Many in the North were
anxious to end the rebellion as quickly as possible and few anticipated the result.
By the 21st of July this Union force, the largest army ever assembled on American soil
clashed with Confederate forces bent on shielding Richmond. During the days prior to
16
this battle McDowell’s troops had moved sluggishly toward the Confederate capital,
more a result of inexperience than cautious and conscientious planning. On the day of
the battle, their pace had been made even slower by sightseers, including members of
Congress who had come out to watch the spectacle of battle unfold. Some had gone as far
as packing picnic lunches to pass and enjoy the afternoon while watching the fighting.
The American public had little experience with war, the last occurring more than a
decade earlier on Mexican soil, involving relatively few Americans. On the whole the
nation was unprepared for the bloodletting that would take place at Bull Run and
supporters of the Union were exceedingly confident in the size and ability of the army to
decisively defeat the Confederacy quickly and easily. Northerners were shocked when
McDowell’s army was sent reeling in retreat back to Washington. For some it was hard
to imagine the nation’s capital in potential peril. The defeat sent a shockwave through the
North affecting not only public opinion but also attitudes of the President, War
Department and Congress, resulting in a quick reevaluation of the measures needed to
crush the rebellion. The next day Lincoln asked the states for 500,000 volunteers.
After months of working to win the Governor’s approval and failing, Heath and
Taylor decided on another approach. They took their case to Major General John C.
Freemont, the commander of the Western Department headquartered in St. Louis.
Freemont also had the authority to grant commissions and to authorize regiments. At the
end of August Taylor made the journey to his headquarters and met with success. The
disaster at Bull Run opened up the floodgates as regiment after regiment was authorized
and mustered into service. It was to that debacle the 5th Ohio owed its existence. The
Cincinnati Enquirer reported in the August 25th edition, “We are glad to learn that the
organization of this dashing regiment is rapidly progressing,” under its newly appointed
Colonel, W.H.H. Taylor. Taylor, the Enquirer noted had cabled Captain J.G. Curtis from
St. Louis, “The Camp is located in Cincinnati. Go on with recruiting as fast as
possible.”18
By the end of 1861 the 5th Ohio was one of eighty-two cavalry regiments that had
been authorized and mustered into federal service. Competition for men and resources
among the new regiments was intense. Charles Hayes was one of the first men mustered
into the 5th Ohio Cavalry, and he appeared every inch the cavalry trooper. He was large in
17
a sturdy sense, square shouldered, with a thick neatly trimmed mustache that extended
into a full beard, looking like someone Hollywood would cast to lead a cavalry column.
The 30-year-old Hayes was held in high regard by his neighbor and future commander
William Henry Harrison Taylor who offered him the rank of captain almost immediately
after the regiment was authorized19
Taylor knew Hayes as a farmer from near-by Elizabethtown on the Ohio-Indiana
border making the two practically neighbors. Born on March 5, 1831 he grew up on an
Elizabethtown farm where he developed a reputation as a man of intelligence and solid
character, the resourceful sort of person society would have characterized as very capable
and the kind of man one might consider following into battle. He had no military
experience and did not appear very worldly neither of which was a concern to the farmers
of Western Hamilton County who were to largely make up his command.
In September of 1861 he departed his home on a beautiful white horse for Camp Dick
Corwin just east of Cincinnati, leaving behind Josephine his wife of three years and their
young son, Charles. His recruiting and that of the rest of the officers must have continued
at a harried pace as they also faced the pressures of training and equipping more than a
1000 men, all volunteers and all new to the military life, and none who knew or could
imagine what lay ahead. The new troops continued to arrive first at Camp Corwin and
later Camp Dennison right up to the day they departed for the field at the end of February
1862. Assigned to command Company D, he primarily recruited from neighboring
villages and townships on the western side of Hamilton County. These were men who
largely knew him as a friend, neighbor or relative. Relying upon the willingness of citizen
soldiers to follow men from their community whom they respected and held in high
esteem was a system the nation has relied upon since its inception. Now it was a pattern
being repeated across Hamilton County and the entire country, both the North and
South.20
18
Men like John Sebastian Fries, were typical of those filling the ranks of the 5th Ohio.
While he did not leave anything behind clearly indicating why he volunteered, we can
certainly speculate why he went to war based on the attitudes of the city’s German
community. German immigrants had started to arrive in Cincinnati at the beginning of the
19th century and constituted 28% of the city’s population by 1840. By the late 1840’s a
new wave of German immigrants were coming to the area fleeing the instability and
violence of a revolution that rocked the Austrian Empire in 1848. They deeply
appreciated the stability and freedom of their new nation and were very disturbed by the
increasing tensions between North and South now threatening to shatter the tranquility
and prosperity of Cincinnati. At the same time they generally despised slavery and when
war finally did come, they answered Lincoln’s call to arms in surprisingly large numbers.
Their motive has been largely described as an act of gratitude or loyalty to their adopted
nation but they had no difficulty striking a blow against the hated institution of slavery
which they had accepted as a fact of life in America, that is, until 1861. Within a week of
the attack on Ft. Sumter more than 1,000 German immigrants had volunteered their
services for what would become known as the Ninth Ohio Infantry Regiment with
thousands of others volunteering for other newly forming military companies and
regiments.21
Other members of the Fifth Ohio made their reasons for volunteering quite clear, like
William Jessup, a student at Miami University who joined the regiment on the 26th of
August 1861. At age 20, Jessup left his family’s farm in Harrison Township to fight in
the Union army for the next 3 and one half years. In a series of letters to his family,
Jessup implied he volunteered out of a sense of duty to the nation, not, he indicated to
abolish slavery, a factor that became important later in the war. 22
Others were more pragmatic about their reasons for serving such as Thomas W.
Fanning. Fanning wrote of himself “doing a confectionary business here in Cincinnati I
found, would not be as productive in the winter as was necessary to a person of family,
and being anxious to do something for my country, I was induced to join the 5th Ohio
Cavalry”. T.W. Fanning as he styled himself, penned this in a little known book about his
experiences with the 5th Ohio, The Adventures of a Volunteer, by a Non-Commissioned
Officer. The book, though poorly written, sheds some light on the attitudes and
20
experiences of enlisted men during the year and a half he was with the regiment from
September 1861 through December of 1863 when he was discharged on a surgeon’s
certificate.23
In most cases, the average enlisted man left little or nothing behind in writing about
their wartime experiences. Whatever their thoughts were about the great conflict were
taken to the grave or faded away with each successive generation of their family. What
remains are scraps of information found in records, often meaningless and dry when
viewed as isolated details. These discreet facts collected in dusty leather bound volumes
are of little interest to most people. But when these scraps are artfully blended together
and given context, much the way a painting is matted and framed, what emerges is a
compelling story to which the eye is drawn. Men like private Henry Runck, age 18 of
Delhi Township, Company L and William Rybolt, age 23 of Green Township, Company
B are colorless. But when you consider that both the townships in which these young men
resided, were rural farming communities, and that half of the Union troops were the sons
of farmers who were on average 25 years old, and again on average stood 5’8” inches tall
weighing in at a whopping 143 pounds they suddenly become more interesting. Add the
insights of T. W. Fanning, the musing of William Jessup from his letters home, to the
thoughts of Charles Hayes and a host of others, officers and enlisted alike, and now you
have an interesting story.24
With communities like Cincinnati and the surrounding rural areas rallying to the
Union cause as they did, it was not unusual for regiments to contain multiple members of
the same family; brothers, cousins, uncles, father-son combinations like Colonel Taylor
and Lieutenant John T. Taylor, his son though the younger Taylor who would later leave
the regiment to serve as aid to on the staff of General William Tecumseh Sherman. But
the most notable example of a family’s service in the Fifth Cavalry was that of the
sprawling Hayes family that spilled across Whitewater and Harrison Townships and over
the state border into Indiana. Ten members of the extended Hayes family were on the
muster rolls of the regiment, not to mention numerous relatives of different sur names
like the Guards and Millers. The Hayes family had come to the western side of the county
in the 1790’s and by the time of the Civil War could be found farming rich bottomlands
along the Ohio and Great Miami Rivers. By the time the War began in early 1861 more
21
than 60 years had passed and several generations of the family were born since their
arrival in Hamilton County. The 10 Hayes who served in the regiment ranged from 39 to
18 years of age though the younger members did not join the regiment until 1865. Their
lives were tied to countless others in the regiment by marriage or friendship like Isaac
Scott. The 19-year-old Scott enlisted with friends Silas and Joseph Hayes, also 19, on
September 11 and served with them until their enlistments were up in late 1864,
regularly writing home to another friend, 15 year old Van Hayes.25
Their lives were not only bound by family but in all the ways communities are bound
together. The man that treated their maladies and delivered their children, Dr. Charles
Thorton, now would tend to their wounds on the battlefield as the regimental surgeon.
Sam Wamsley, shoed their horses and made their farm implements as their blacksmith
back at home, now he would lead them as a second lieutenant in company D, commanded
by Charles Hayes, a neighbor. Sam Cooper and Christopher Riehle sold them groceries,
now they would ride side by side with their customers into some of the most decisive
battles of the Civil War. This was the American way of making war. A community of its
own free will was making the ultimate commitment in support of a cause by pledging
their very lives in support of it.26
They worshipped in the same Presbyterian and evangelical congregations that dotted
the landscape on the western side of the county. Many were probably baptized or married
by men like the Rev. Christopher Flinchpaugh who traveled a circuit on horseback, that
was almost 400 miles in length and which required him to preach thirty two times every
four weeks. He baptized them in the waters of the Great Miami River and the numerous
creeks that cut through the area like Rapid Run, Muddy and Taylor Creeks, and shaped
their ideas about right and wrong and the moral dilemmas of the day. Sermons were
preached in both English and German, an indication of the heavy German influence
present throughout the Greater Cincinnati area. There also was a growing Catholic
presence due to the influx of German and Irish immigrants though it tended to be
concentrated within the city itself. Those Catholics that lived in the outlying townships
like Delhi were served by missionaries until 1841 by priests like the Rev. John Martin
Henni from the Over-the-Rhine, a thriving German neighborhood in Cincinnati, who
ministered to the 150 mostly German Catholics who would constitute the parish of Our
22
Lady of Victory. With each passing decade more of these German immigrants pushed
out of Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine and migrate to the county’s rural areas.27
Just as the members of a unit went to war united by common experiences and
relationships at home, they also brought with them political and social animosities that
could prove to be divisive during the war. By the mid 1840’s religion, immigration and
the slavery had become the sources of growing political tensions in the country. The
growing number of Catholic immigrants was enough to enflame old prejudices and fears
among native-born Protestants against the new arrivals. The fear being, that Catholics
would have greater loyalty to their church hierarchy than to their new nation. The specter
of papal power led to the formation of secret clubs along the Eastern seaboard popularly
called the Know-Nothings, who claimed Catholic votes were controlled by their priests.
In an unconnected set of circumstances, the Whig Party one of the two major political
organizations in the nation, was beginning to unravel over the expansion of slavery and
by the middle of the 1850’s disintegrated after the party’s informal division into a
northern and southern wing. The void was filled by the Know-Nothings who formally
organized as the American Party which was more closely tied to anti-immigrant feelings
and less so to anti-Catholic rhetoric. The Greater Cincinnati area was not immune to
“know-nothingism” causing tension that finally erupted into a riot on the day city
elections were held in November 1855. The German population of the city barricaded
themselves into the Over-the–Rhine district and returned fire on the armed, torched lit
crowd of Know-Nothings that came to “clean out little Germany”. The morning after the
riot the barricades were gone and the influence of “know-nothingism” began to fade
away, with the riot as the high water mark of the local movement. Nationally the
influence of the American Party was also beginning to wane though it had never been
recognized as a major party, meaning a near equal of the rival Democrats.28
Nationally in the mean time, another political party was born in 1854 around the issue
of opposing slavery’s expansion into the western territories, the Republican Party.
Slavery was the issue that caused the most serious division in and around Cincinnati for
decades, making the nativism of the Know-Nothings appear as a mere distraction. It had
been explosive enough to destroy one political party, the Whigs, powerful enough to
create another, the Republicans, and poisonous enough to eventually divide the
23
Democratic Party into northern and southern wings. It also caused political fissures in
some northern communities like Hamilton County, fissures that did not grow into the
deadly fault the Mason-Dixon Line became, but fissures that did not just disappear with
the coming of the war. Nationally, the election of 1860 made the growing chasm between
North and South unbridgeable.
From the time of his election in November of 1860 through the opening days of
hostilities in April of 1861 Lincoln made clear his position on slavery. In his inaugural
address he vowed not to interfere with the institution of slavery in States where it existed.
“I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so,” he declared.
He also questioned the political will of the states remaining in the Union to carry on a
war to destroy the “peculiar institution”. Lincoln understood he might potentially drive
the four remaining slave states that had not seceded, directly into the Confederacy.
Essentially he believed that if the war was made a crusade to end slavery, it would
undermine any mandate he had from the Northern public to forcibly end the rebellion.
First and foremost in the weeks and months after the attack on Ft. Sumter, Lincoln
made it solely a war to preserve the Union, thereby assuring widespread support.
Abolitionists of course were disappointed and continued to push the Lincoln
Administration on the issue. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, a Cincinnatian,
did so within the cabinet. Locally men like Elbridge G. Ricker had been committed to
ending slavery for years.
Ricker was almost Lincolnesqe in appearance, with a long angular face that was thin
-almost raw-boned. His hair was dark and he wore a short beard that extended from his
sideburns in the style of the Amish with no mustache. His uniform seemed to hang on his
slender frame. As the newly appointed commander of the 3rd Battalion of the Fifth Ohio
Cavalry he wore the rank of major on his shoulder boards. At 43 he was one of the older
members of the regiment having been promoted early on from the rank of captain,
commanding Company A which he had helped recruit from Clermont County just east of
Cincinnati. In fact he had helped recruit and organize a sizable contingent from Clermont
County making up much of companies A, L and M.29
24
Like other senior officers in the regiment he had been a successful farmer who had
gained prominence in local politics having been elected to the state legislature in 1855 as
the Republican candidate. Ricker had long been involved with the abolitionist movement
as well as the local temperance effort and the township board of education. As many
leading abolitionists of the day he was of old New England stock and could trace his
lineage back to the Mayflower. In 1814 his grandparents left Maine and settled in
Clermont County and it was there that he was born in 1828. His parents sent him to the
“best schools in Southern Ohio” but he made farming his career establishing a
noteworthy reputation for growing grapes and berries.30
His active involvement in the Methodist Episcopal Church since 1833 and his
commitment to several important social reform movements marked him as a very serious
and intensely upright figure among his neighbors. It was however, his desire to see
slavery abolished that seemed the most significant of his interests. When the Republican
Party was founded in Rippon, Wisconsin in 1854 around opposing the expansion of
slavery, Elbridge Ricker was one of the founding figures of the Party in Ohio. Not all
would be pleased with his commitment to abolitionism at home in Clermont County or
within the ranks of the Fifth Ohio.31
Up and down the Ohio River slavery divided many communities from which the Fifth
Ohio was drawn. In Cincinnati slavery had been a volcanic issue throughout the
Antebellum Period. The city had a well-deserved reputation as an important stop on the
Underground Railroad but also as a flash point when abolitionists made their opinions too
public. The city had prospered as crossroads for Northern and Southern commerce and
there were too many associated with commerce that would not abide by public behavior
that might mar the city’s reputation in the South. By 1836 the public discussion of
abolitionism in and around Cincinnati had become a sensitive issue. In the spring of that
year an abolitionist newspaper, the Philanthropist, went into print in Cincinnati. In a
matter of months the pressroom was ransacked and the editor James G. Birney, a former
Alabama slave holder turned abolitionist, threatened. A week later a mob destroyed his
office throwing the press into the street. Fortunately Birney, who would later run for
presidency on the Liberty Party ticket, was not home when the mob came to his
residence. Lest one thinks this indicates there just was not any support for abolitionism at
26
the time, it was reported the Philanthropist had 1,700 subscribers. At one point in 1842
another newspaper, Anti-Abolitionist, was printing a list of those in the Cincinnati area
known to be abolitionist, and urging Southerners and those who were supporters of
slavery to avoid business with them. Among those on the list were attorneys, ministers,
grocers, printers, shoemakers, tanners, and the famous like Salmon P. Chase, and many
who time would forget.32
On the outskirts of Cincinnati in the tiny village of Cleves that bordered North Bend,
the home of Colonel Taylor, abolition was just as divisive. In the spring of 1843 the
Liberty Party of Hamilton County, a nationally organized though small abolition party,
called for a meeting to freely discuss abolition at the village’s Presbyterian church.
Thomas Morris, Samuel Lewis and Jonathan Blanchard, all distinguished members of the
abolitionist movement in Southern Ohio were to come from Cincinnati to address the
meeting. To ensure this would not offend the congregation they had sought and received
permission to have the meeting from the trustees and elders of the church, after which the
planned meeting became public knowledge.33
On March 7, the day the convention was scheduled, Mr. Lewis, Blanchard and Morris
accompanied by students from Lane Seminary, an institution with strong anti-slavery
leanings, arrived in Cleves only to be confronted by a mob. At the front of the crowd
were relatives of the late President William Henry Harrison; his Son-in-laws Judge Short,
Dr. McHugh Thorton, as well as John Scott Harrison, the son of the former President and
a prosperous farmer. (W.H.H. Taylor the youngest of President Harrison’s son-in-laws
and later the commanding officer of the Fifth Ohio was not present) John Scott Harrison
explained that he was there on “behalf of a committee appointed by a meeting of citizens
of Miami Township,” which encompassed both Cleves and North Bend. He made it clear
they “took umbrage at the project of an anti-slavery meeting so near their homes and
expressed in the strongest terms against the sitting of the convention.” After threats by
less prominent members of the mob, a debate ensued between Harrison and Samuel
Lewis who had developed a reputation for being such a fierce critic of slavery that he had
been kicked out of the Democratic Party.34
The debate might best be described as over free speech more so than slavery. Harrison
insisted that only 1 out of every 7 citizens in Miami Township favored “their incendiary
27
doctrines” and on those grounds “did not wish their peace disturbed.” He inferred that he
could not be responsible for the crowd’s actions if the planned church meeting were to
take place. Lewis answered that threats of physical violence made no difference and
lamented that an open discussion could not take place in America just because he and his
companions apparently held unpopular opinions. With tensions high at this point,
Reverend Jonathan Blanchard, a Presbyterian minister, proposed a simple vote of all
those present to determine whether the meeting would take place. Those in support of the
meeting were requested to step to the right and those against to the left. To the chagrin of
Harrison more stepped to the right at which point he left remarking he had done his duty
leaving behind in the words of Lewis a rather “forlorn looking set” armed mostly with
clubs and an old rusty musket. Lewis noted that an elderly woman who had sided with
the abolitionists remarked, she “heard tell of the separation of the sheep from the goats,
but [I] never expected to live to see it.” His description of those who had shown up to
disrupt the meeting was less than complimentary calling them mostly boys and half men,
and inferring they were from a less admirable class of people than Harrison.35
To prevent violence the Presbyterian minister of a church in Berea invited the
speakers to hold the convention in his church, about a mile from Cleves and for the next
two days the abolitionists met at the Berea church. Later under the cover of darkness a
pro-slavery mob smashed the windows of the church, and not being satisfied with that
“mobbed the house of the pastor, and threw his buggy in the canal.”36
The discord over slavery in Southwest Ohio was inevitable, a consequence of
geography, patterns of migration and the arrival of overseas immigrants. In the early days
of Ohio’s settlement many of the first residents had crossed the Ohio River from
Kentucky and Virginia both slave states, giving the Southwest corner of the state a
decidedly pro-slavery perspective though the Northwest Ordinance banned slavery itself.
By the mid 1800’s Cincinnati had accumulated a considerable German population and
was the recipient of an appreciable migration of families from the Northeast, neither of
which was particularly friendly toward slavery. The result was a complicated mix of
attitudes with respect to the “peculiar institution” in which the simple labels of pro-
slavery and abolitionists were not adequate. It would be easy to assume John Scott
Harrison was pro-slavery based on the incident in Cleves but he was not. Harrison served
28
two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1853-1857 where he became widely
respected for his anti-slavery views, opposing all measures that would have permitted the
extension of slavery while denouncing the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in his only speech on
the floor of the House. His behavior in the two decades before the Civil War was
representative of the ambiguity and complexity of attitudes found throughout Hamilton
County with respect to slavery.
Further up river to the east of Cincinnati in Clermont and Brown counties, near the
home of Major Ricker, an even more volatile situation existed. In the small Ohio River
towns like Ripley, Ohio, very active and at times aggressive Underground Railroad
networks developed led by men like the Reverend John Rankin. By the mid 1830’s the
situation in Brown county was described as “nothing less than a war” replete with mob
violence, arson, posses, lawsuits and stories of great escapes.37
By 1847 Levi Coffin had moved to Cincinnati and become so effective in helping
African-Americans escape slavery he was renowned as the President of the Underground
Railroad making Cincinnati even more important to the abolitionists movement. He was
among the many well known abolitionists facing physical and economic peril as a result
of their beliefs. Many others worked with complete anonymity, especially African –
Americans who faced particularly grave risks helping others to escape.
With the area so divided on slavery many who actively involved in the Underground
Railroad kept their activities secret for legal, economic and safety reasons. A successful
operator on the Railroad was in part one who succeeded in keeping their activities secret,
especially in areas where anti-abolitionist sentiments were high making of documenting
involvement difficult, if not impossible in some cases. This might explain the dearth of
identified Underground Railroad sites along the Ohio River in the western half of
Hamilton County if indeed only 1 out of 7 people in the area were in favor of
abolitionism as Harrison insisted. While local lore and circumstantial evidence suggests
the involvement of various individuals and sites such as the Warder family, it has not
been proven. Ann Warder and her husband Dr. John Aston Warder lived a few miles east
of the Cleves Presbyterian Church on a North Bend farm overlooking the Ohio River.
The location of their home on a substantial farm above the river, the fact Warders were
Quakers and that Ann Warder made frequent carriage trips between Springfield and
29
Richmond, Indiana, both known as active stations on the railroad certainly creates a
strong circumstantial case for their involvement. Another possibility worth noting was the
existence of a Shaker community to the northwest of Cleves known as Whitewater
Village. The Shakers were a religious group that had splintered from Quaker orthodoxy
over theological issues. They like the Quakers often worked to end the moral injustice of
slavery. The Whitewater community totaled almost 150 in number by 1850 and was
economically successful, but because their ideas were viewed as too radical they were
disliked by neighboring farmers and at times faced outright persecution. The size of the
community, its social isolation and the fact they were already viewed unfavorably again
creates a circumstantial case for involvement with the Underground Railroad.38
The diversity of attitudes with regard to slavery and abolition that had developed up
and down the river to either side of Cincinnati during the antebellum period did not
disappear with the outbreak of war. Men like Major Ricker and Lieutenant Colonel Heath
found themselves bound by the common ideals of the Republican Party. Both men had
been tied to the abolitionist movement long before the birth of the Party and believed the
struggle should transcend the battle to end slavery to also include winning better
treatment and rights for African Americans. Heath’s commitment to the cause of ending
slavery is clearly spelled out in an eloquent letter sent to John Brown, the most radical
abolitionists of the day, wounded and imprisoned awaiting trial and ultimately execution
in the Charlestown, Virginia jail in November of 1859. Brown had led a failed assault on
the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry with the intent of triggering a slave rebellion that
would spread across the South. Heath practicing law in Cincinnati at the time wrote:
Honored Sir,-- I have never met you – yet community of interest in freedom’s cause makes us fellow
soldiers – and the ties of humanity constitute us brethren… My senior friend you have fought the good
fight – kept the faith – probably soon will have finished your course – and will in that day receive the
crown from the Lord, The righteous Judge—Keep your Heart Right.!
Sire, the sword you have unsheathed – that flaming blade shall flash and turn every way until the end! In
Heaven you will experience much joy over the deeds done in the flesh – over victory
In spirit only we know each other – but this all—everything—then with the devoutest prayer that if not to
meet here, we shall meet in the great throng who have gone up through great tribulation, Let me remain
30
The attack killed six civilians and wounded nine more in addition to the death of one
marine, part of the makeshift force led by Colonel Robert E. Lee sent to dislodge Brown
and his followers, 10 of who were killed. Brown’s actions were roundly condemned by
newspapers across the country including the North reflecting the attitudes of most
American citizens about the incident. Thomas Heath’s views on Brown and abolition in
1859 were radical even by northern standards. In time it would become apparent that not
everyone in the regiment approved of Heath’s and Ricker’s positions on abolition and
that some were openly offended by it. Among those who had no sympathy for
abolitionism was young Lieutenant William Jessup who was not alone in his dislike for
abolitionist. Many in the Fifth Ohio and Union army in general blamed the war on
them.39
Jessup and many others did not have any affection for slavery. In the years before the
war they did not approve of the institution but at the same time they disapproved of
efforts to destroy it. They saw abolitionists as malcontents -- troublemakers bent on
creating disorder and chaos. They viewed their writings and conventions as dangerous
inflammatory actions that were tearing the nation apart and dividing communities. And
when war finally came, they blamed the abolitionist as well as the pro-slavery firebrands
of the South whom they believed had been baited into secession. Now they bitterly
believed, it was up to them to clean up the mess the irresponsible abolitionist and
Southern fire-eaters had created by restoring the Union. In this they supported Lincoln, a
fact that was not lost upon the President, and they eagerly volunteered out of loyalty to
that Union to fight to restore it. Men like Jessup fought valiantly for 4 years to achieve
that goal, but they did it while cursing their Republican leaders. Within the Fifth Ohio
these sentiments were not limited to Jessup.40
Men like Ricker and Heath were committed to saving the Union but also to the higher
purpose of destroying a moral blight that had plagued their nation since its inception. At
the same time Jessup and other Democrats in the Fifth Ohio were committed to Union
and nothing else and while they vehemently disagreed with Lincoln they did as good
31
soldiers are expected. They took their orders from the duly elected government of the
people and fought with distinction to the end of the war, for they realized what the
common soldier on the victorious side has known from time immemorial, the surest way
home was victory. So as the members of the Fifth Ohio arrived at Camp Dennison united
in their resolve to restore the Union, they also brought attitudes reflective of the ideals
that divided their communities.
32
At the beginning of 1861 the United States Army consisted of less than 16,000 men
deployed across the entire nation. Of its 1,108 officers, 387 resigned or were dismissed
because of their loyalties to the Southern cause leaving the nation’s officer corps
decimated.
By the War’s end 2.8 million men had worn the blue uniform of the United States
Army, requiring astronomical growth beginning the day Ft. Sumter was attacked.
Lincoln’s first plea for 75,000 volunteers was followed by successively larger calls
throughout the war and finally by a controversial draft during the final two years of the
war.
With the burden of recruiting, training and equipping these troops initially falling on
the states, Ohio like most, struggled not with finding volunteers but with providing them
the necessities to fight a war. Things like arms, saddles, and tents were in short supply, as
were the leadership skills to train and lead men in battle.
II
Camp Dennison
The road to war for the men and officers of the regiment was a long and challenging
march. Though anxious to see battle, it was fully six months before they departed
Cincinnati for operations in the South.
The difficulties Colonels Taylor and Heath faced did not end with the regiment’s
acceptance into federal ranks. Shortly after Major General John Fremont agreed to accept
the Ohioans into federal service they were informed the unit’s designation had to be
changed. Originally identified by Fremont as the Second Ohio Volunteer Cavalry it was
now the Fifth Ohio. Governor Dennison it seems had without warning accepted three
other cavalry regiments into federal service after Taylor and Heath had given up hope of
33
winning his approval and gone to Fremont. This was just a minor bump in the road to
preparing more than 1000 raw recruits for action.41
The organization and training of the regiment began at Camp Dick Corwin located just
to the east of Cincinnati along the Ohio River on October 23, 1861, and it proved to be no
simple task. The overwhelming number of men had no military experience with the
exception of a few older volunteers some of whom had only drilled with the peacetime
militia. Even that experience was of little importance since the militia system had fallen
into disuse by the 1840’s. Dr. Reese Kendall, a physician living in Western Hamilton
County, wrote in his 1905 Pioneer Annals of Greene Township that he remembered the
last muster day in the western part of Hamilton County as occurring in a large field
owned by Isaac Carson in 1843, almost 18 years before the war. He commented that
when he was a boy the militia troops “ never looked very martial or ferocious, for nearly
all carried sticks or cornstalks” instead of muskets, a practice so common place that the
Western states were often described contemptuously as having the cornstalk militias.42
Among the troops, as in most regiments, were a relative handful of men who did have
significant military experiences, like William D. Goforth. Goforth of Green Township
had been offered the rank and pay of major because of prior military service. He was also
one of the few with who had seen combat. Serving under General Winfield Scott in the
war with Mexico from 1846-1848 he is strangely reported as having held the rank of
ensign, a naval rank that is the equivalent of a lieutenant in the army. He may have served
with a naval artillery unit assigned to guns used in breaching the walls of Mexico City
where he was also reported as having planted the national colors. Goforth inexplicably
turned down the rank and instead opted to serve as a noncommissioned officer.
Another veteran of the War with Mexico was Captain John Crawford. The 42-year-old
Crawford had seen service in Mexico as part of a unit known as Captain Duncan’s
Independent Company, a small cavalry unit recruited and mustered into service in
Cincinnati. He was instrumental in recruiting much of Company H of the Fifth Ohio
according to T. W. Fanning who was recruited by Crawford and became a devotee of the
man. When Crawford was not given command of the new company, Fanning and 45
others followed him to Lexington Kentucky where they tried to join another regiment
with their “former Captain”. Colonel Taylor however, insisted they return, which they did
34
a few days later after being “ordered to do so by some prominent persons in Frankfort
[Ky.],” Fanning noted. After returning they were placed under the command of Captain
Chester Poor, a Cincinnati merchant, who remained in command of Company H for a
short time before resigning in late February.43
Fanning offers no explanation of why Crawford was “displaced” but it could be
presumed he had not been elected captain of the newly organized company. Typically
volunteer regiments early in the war permitted their companies to elect their own captains
and lieutenants. Occasionally these elections were contested and so it could not always be
expected that the man who originally recruited the company would win, particularly if the
unit was a composite of several groups recruited by different people. This made a
regiment or company susceptible to “electioneering” which was not a desirable situation,
but it was the tradition of a nation that relied on an army of citizen soldiers. It was a time
when men expected to follow leaders they knew and trusted though it often resulted in
incompetent officers. Good politicians did not always make competent military leaders.
Americans of this era were an independent lot with most being farmers who answered
only to Mother Nature. The government and law were far less intrusive in people’s lives
and many of society’s institutions that required conformity were relatively new like
public schools and corporations. All of this meant the rigid structure and discipline of the
military was sharply foreign to the volunteers of the Fifth Ohio and the Union army in
general. It was made even more difficult by the fact those giving the orders were not
professional soldiers and were quite likely one’s own neighbor. The behavior displayed
by the members of Company H was not unusual in the early days of the war. They saw
no problem with exercising the God given right possessed by every American to come
and go as they pleased. After all they believed, they were only volunteers, and could
follow whom ever they chose.
On November 5, the Regiment was ordered to move from Camp Corwin to Camp
Dennison about 15 miles to the east of Cincinnati on the banks of the Little Miami River.
The newly established Dennison consisted of more than 500 acres of land along the Little
Miami Railroad, allowing quick access to Cincinnati. Over the next four years more than
75,000 men would pass through it making it one of the most important training facilities
in the North. Built to accommodate up to 12 regiments it teemed with activity as new
35
regiments trained and prepared to be sent south while the wounded and ill were treated in
its 2300 bed hospital, one of the best and largest in the Union.
36
The Fifth Ohio’s men were initially placed in tents but in a matter of weeks were
housed in small shanties built by camp carpenters just in time for the unpredictable
Cincinnati winter. They lived a comfortable existence compared to the conditions many
troops in the Union and Confederate armies would be facing later in the war, including
themselves. There was according to Fanning “plenty to eat, drink and wear” but there
were several things he elusively points out, that Camp Dennison lacked causing “French
furloughs” to be taken to the city, sometimes without permission and with the result
being a trip to the guard-house upon return. A readily available supply of liquor and
women was something the army always frowned upon. He pointed out however, the
transgressors “were shortly unloosed by the Colonel (Taylor) who was very kind to his
men, and hated very much to see them remain any length of time inside prison doors.”44
While at Camp Dennison much of the discipline “devolved” to Lieutenant- Colonel
Heath, and Heath it seemed could be quite the disciplinarian. Drinking was one of the
typical problems he faced. In a monograph written long after the war ended, he told story
of the “Bully Butcher Boy”, a young Irish soldier, who continually broke out of camp and
returned “with a load[s] of whiskey from the distillery at Milford” and proceeded to make
trouble. After several incidents of this type, Lieutenant Colonel Heath had the Bully
Butcher Boy “initiated into the mysteries of the Buck and Gag”. This consisted of the
offender being placed in a sitting position with their knees pulled to their chin and arms
wrapped around their shins and lashed tightly together with a rope along with a gag being
placed in the mouth. The period of time an offending party was left in this position varied
according to the disciplining officer and the nature of the offense. Another common
punishment for drunks was lashing them to a wooden horse eight to nine feet of the
ground with their mouths gagged for several hours at a time while being exposed to the
elements and the derision of the regiment. Other favorite punishments of the cavalry and
artillery were burying dead horses or cleaning up around the picket ropes where hundreds
of animals might be tied.45
Much of the instruction and training fell upon the shoulders of Heath, and Major
Freidrich Scherrer. Fanning referred to Scherrer as their “expert in all things military,” a
claim not unfounded as the Major was listed in an 1860 Cincinnati business directory as
37
“I take my pen in hand to write you a few lines. I am well, and hope that these few lines will find you
enjoying the same health. The boys are well and fat. This evening the news came that we would start in the
38
morning for Louisville. We went to work and cooked 2 days rations and stripped our blankets on the
saddles. About 8 o’clock the order was countermanded…
We have not got paid yet nor got our arms. There is 2 or 3 companies that said they will not go ‘til they get
their pay. There are a few in our company [that] says [they will] stay out but I guess that they will all have
to go as soon as the order comes. There was double guards put on and pickets outside with loaded guns.
The doubling and arming of the guards was not done out of fear of a Confederate raid but
to prevent desertion. On the 9th of December, Colonel Taylor sent out a party after the
regiment’s first deserters. This was not a problem unique to the Fifth Ohio Cavalry. By
the end of the war more than 268,000 men had deserted the Union army.48
In early December a letter sent to the Eaton Register, a small town newspaper serving
Preble County, took aim at the regiment’s officers.
…It is earnestly hoped by the men that Gov. Dennison will do at least one righteous act and examine the
qualifications of the officers in the Reg. Both military and moral, as many now holding positions are totally
incompetent to command on account of the want of military knowledge as well as their profane and
dissipated habits… The noble horses presented to Capt. Smith’s Co. by the people of Preble [ County ] are
exposed to the inclemency of the weather and I believe half of these animals will die if we remain situated
long as we are now. The men generally are treated by the incompetent and dissipated officers of the 5th
Reg. more like brutes than men and no sympathy is shown by them for either horses or men. We who were
equals with them at home are now tyrannized over and treated with contempt, whilst many of these gold
lace gentlemen occupy their time in gratifying their beastly and ungentlemanly habits, instead of
contributing to the wants and comforts of the men. I must however state that Capt. J.C. Smith and Lts.
Swerer and Marker are honorable exceptions. I am sure that they will make their mark if they ever have an
opportunity and that they will return home beloved and respected by their men.
The letter published anonymously on December 5th was answered just two days later by a
committee of the regiment’s officers consisting of Lieutenant Colonel Heath, Captains
Joseph Smith and Phineas Minor, both of whom commanded companies consisting of
men from Preble County. Clearly unhappy with the anonymous allegations, they
addressed each charge and demanded to know the identity of their accuser.
…Knowing Darke and Preble Counties have given 200 of their best sons to the regiment we feel that we
can appreciate the fear and anxiety such charges unrefuted will carry. As to the charge of incompetency
39
from want of military knowledge, we say that we have as many if not more officers who have seen service
in the cavalry than any other regiment. The senior Major, Maj. Scherrer, is a veteran of 26 years of
experience as an accomplished soldier. Major Ricker, the 2nd major Is also a well drilled cavalry officer
while the Colonel and the rest of the staff officers are now well schooled in tactics. Several of the field
officers have seen service in cavalry or infantry. It is not yet six weeks since we received our saddles and
the weather in that time has been inclement, we have had but little opportunity to drill, yet feel our regiment
will compare favorably.
As to the immorality charge of profane and dissipated habits… we freely testify that we have never known
a more upright and gentlemanly set of men. What individual idiosyncrasies they possess, that some of them
use profane language and some of them are now teetotalers, have never , to our knowledge affected their
standing as men; and we have never seen an individual case of drunkenness in any officer; nor has any
charge of that kind been officially laid.
As to the third charge, if there has been any case of brutality on the part of an officer in the treatment of his
men, it has never been known to the regiment and no official complaint has been preferred. The chairman
of this meeting has not been absent from camp more than 16 days since he entered camp on Sept. 19 and
has served on nearly all court martials in camp. The Articles of War are read to every man and the Colonel
is always approachable. That the regiment has moved from a comfortable camp to this place is no fault of
the officers. The ground first selected for camp was found to be too low and we were moved through the
exertions of our regimental officers. Our tents are infinitely better adapted to live in, floored as they are,
than the shanties built when camp was first laid out. The lumber we had at Camp Dick Corwin was
insufficient to build stables for our horses and no order had been issued by General Buell to build stables
for us. Therefore our horses have had to stand on pickets exposed to weather and the ground has become
very muddy underneath them. Through the exertions of our Colonel and without legal permission, we
have lumber to floor our tents and sheds to cook in; and having Sibley stoves for our tents when it is not
stormy weather. We are living as well as a soldier can live. We desire and demand you to furnish us with
the original letter and correct name of the author.
Friction within regiments over the quality of leadership was typical during the early years
of the war. Often the complaints made against officers were warranted though in these
earlier years the grumbling was just as often a consequence of the unrealistic expectations
of novice soldiers experiencing military life for the first time.49
The securing of arms was a problem that Whitelaw Reid in his authoritative Ohio In
The War attributed to the resignation of General Fremont. It was Fremont who had
authorized the regiment when Governor Dennison would not, after which the General had
repeatedly run afoul of the Lincoln Administration and had been forced to resign. The
40
result was confusion over whether the state or federal government was responsible for
procuring arms for the new unit. Regimental Adjutant John Harrison though, persisted in
trying to acquire weapons from the Ohio Adjutant General, prompting a shipping clerk in
the Adjutant General’s office to admiringly call Harrison “one of the most persistent
beggars [he] ever experienced.” When arms finally did arrive they proved to be less than
adequate in every sense—in numbers, durability and reliability. The 1,164 men of the
regiment were provided 900 sabers, 419 Joslyn revolvers and 120 “second hand” Sharp’s
carbines. The minimum armament of a cavalry trooper in the early years of the war was a
saber and a pistol. By the end of the war it was standard for each Union cavalry trooper to
also have a carbine of some type meaning the Fifth was dangerously under armed. There
also were problems with quality of their weaponry. An inspection conducted by Major
Ricker found 221 of the sabers as unfit primarily due to the quality of the steel blades.
Once in the field the poor reputation of the Joslyn revolver was confirmed by Fanning
who claimed that he and others found the pistols, were “nearly all worthless.” On New
Year’s Eve 1861 a frustrated Corporal Scott wrote a friend back at home in
Elizabethtown, “We have not got all our arms yet. The 2nd regiment has got their arms.”
This was more than four months after the regiment was authorized and recruited.50
The shortages went beyond weapons. Uniforms seemed to be a particularly vexing
problem, requiring Major Ricker to travel more than 100 miles to the state capital of
Columbus to acquire pantaloons. When uniforms finally arrived at the end of December,
Colonel Taylor was so unhappy with exorbitant cost he refused to sign for the items.51
During this time Lieutenant-Colonel Heath and Major Hayes traveled to Chicago to
inquire about the possibility of being included in an expedition planned for the
Southwest. It was an operation that never materialized and the two returned to Cincinnati
still hoping for an assignment. The boredom of camp life was beginning to take a toll on
discipline leading Colonel Taylor to order the officers “to see that the men behave
properly at all times”. While Taylor seemed to be cracking down on loose discipline there
apparently were those who felt he was not providing the necessary leadership by
example, prompting him to write “ Insinuations have been thrown out that I issue an
order one day and violate it myself the next. I advise you to look to the orders which have
41
been issued and live up to them. They will be enforced hereafter and all infractions
noticed and punished.”52
By the middle of January the men seemed as bored as ever. Corporal Scott wrote
……We have got our sabers, but not our carbines. We expect them soon . There is two companies ordered
to Warsaw Kentucky. If they go, we will be one of them. Our winter quarters is finished but what do you
think? The 77th Regiment was in them before the carpenters got out, but however, if we go we will not need
them. The 2nd Regiment is under orders to Ft. Leavenworth under loan. It was supposed that we would go
too, but it is hard to believe everything. We have made up our minds not to believe that until we start. The
boys are all well and full of fun. Sergeant Bowles bought a pair of boots with long legs to them, which
someone used for a thunder mug. He suspicioned Ragio, or Squires. The weather has been very
disagreeable for a few days. The mud is about 10” deep here on an average. There was a court martial held
here a few days ago for writing a letter to a newspaper about the regiment. The sentence was 6 days on hard
labor with a ball and chain to his leg. I liked to forget the best of all. The paymaster is to be here soon. No
more at present. So goodbye………53
Heath in his typical fashion took the initiative and wrote directly to the Secretary of
War Edwin Stanton seeking an assignment for the Fifth Ohio. Stanton apparently was so
impressed by the appeal he read it aloud to a full room and directed that orders be issued
to the anxious regiment. From its earliest origins Heath had been the driving force
behind the unit. Though only the executive officer his importance to the regiment was
already evident. On October 31st, 1861 Colonel Taylor wrote Governor Dennison
“Colonel Heath will confer with you on all our matters and whatever he may do will meet
with my approval.” This meant Taylor either had tremendous confidence in his younger
subordinate or was simply happy to be relieved of the responsibility. Either way he was
carrying on official communications with the Governor, which was no lowly task, and it
was now solely his responsibility. In the coming months he would find himself
shouldering even more responsibility-- not just for training and discipline but command
responsibility.54
Colonel Taylor had been given command of the Fifth Ohio in lieu of Heath because
the older man had military experience, a decision that the authors of at least one respected
biographical encyclopedia published in 1877 questioned. Heath they suggested was
“clearly entitled to the command”. The authors seemed to insinuate Taylor’s experience
42
was exaggerated commenting he was reported to have once “set a squadron in the field”
in the days that are known as’ “before the war”. While over the next six months he
remained popular with the troops he was eclipsed in importance by Heath and remained
commander of the regiment only in name.
At the beginning of February preparations for a departure South began in earnest as
the carbines were issued, only 12 per company, and target practice began. Taylor also
ordered his company commanders to supervise the sharpening of sabers and to take a
count of those still without weapons or horses. By the 19th of February the regiment was
preparing to accept 16 wagons, surely a sign they would be ordered into the field soon.55
On February 26, 1862 a dispatch was read to the men at a regimental dress parade that
sent a wave of excitement through the ranks. Rousing Cheers rose from the field,
probably accompanied by backslapping and self-congratulation. The day had finally
come. The War Department had ordered the regiment to Paducah Kentucky to join
General Halleck’s command. Now they would have their chance, a chance to test their
mettle against Johnny Reb.
43
For the Union the War in the East was not going well. The initial thrust at Richmond
ended in the embarrassment that became known as Bull Run and subsequently there was
little good news. The Union forces around Washington were growing quickly as they
were trained and organized into what became known as the Army of the Potomac led by a
new commander, Major General George McClellan. But powerful people in Washington
were growing impatient with McClellan’s failure to use this enormous new army.
In the West efforts were being made to assure Kentucky stayed within the Union fold,
and to take control of the Mississippi River thereby cleaving the Confederacy in half and
allowing the use of the mighty river’s tributaries like the Tennessee as natural highways
into the heart of Dixie. Major General Ulysses S. Grant, unknown at the beginning of the
war, was developing a reputation as an aggressive leader. He successfully captured the
strategically important Ft. Donelson and Ft. Henry and now was moving down the
Tennessee River Valley with his Army of the Tennessee soon to be joined by Major
General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio
Confederate General Albert Sydney Johnston was convinced the Union objective was
Corinth, Mississippi known as “the crossroads of the Confederacy” with two critical
railroads intersecting there, the Memphis & Charleston running east to west and the
Mobile & Ohio running North and South. He had begun to mass 45,000 troops there to
shield the town and the critical railroads from the coming Yankee invasion. His best hope
was to strike first before Buell’s Army of the Ohio could link up with Grant’s troops.
Grant’s 50,000 men landed and camped at two places on the Tennessee River as they
waited for the arrival of Buell’s army, Crump’s Landing and Pittsburg Landing, the
second being a mere 21 miles northwest of Corinth to which it was conveniently
connected by road.
44
III
Goin’ South
_____________________________________________________________
On the 28th of February the friends and families of the regiment gathered at
Cincinnati’s bustling public landing as horses and equipment were loaded on to seven
steamers that would take them down the Ohio. They were there to bid farewell to their
men for an unknown period of time though many were naïve enough to think the war
would be of short duration. Thomas W. Fanning, now wearing sergeant’s stripes,
optimistically believed it would end “at farthest in a month or two”.56
The small fleet carried them first to Paducah, Kentucky where they joined Brigadier
General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Fifth Division. Sherman, a cigar chomping West
Point graduate with a penchant for sarcasm, had left the Army in 1853. The 41-year-old
Sherman had offered his services to the Secretary of War shortly after the attack on Ft.
Sumter and was immediately offered a colonelcy. In August of 1861 he was promoted to
Brigadier General and later given command of the Fifth Division made up primarily of
Ohio troops stationed at Paducah. Sherman had no false illusions about what it would
take to win the war, which created a public stir after commenting it would require some
200,000 troops alone to subdue Kentucky. Many hearing of Sherman’s comment
dismissed it as outlandish, confidently believing the Confederacy would meet a quick
end. Starting on March 6th his troops began departing on 17 steamers to join Ulysses S.
Grant at the newly captured Ft. Henry on the Tennessee River, thus beginning a long
association with the Fifth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. The fleet made a two-day stop over at
45
Ft. Henry where they moved baggage and horses to other boats before steaming on to
Danville. There the horses were exercised before sailing deeper into the heart of Dixie.57
The 12 days spent on the boats were largely uneventful and likely anti-climatic after
their long anticipated departure. They busied themselves molding bullets and making
cartridges after being unable to draw either from supplies at Ft. Henry for their “patently
worthless pistols.” Outside of breaks to load supplies and exercise their animals they
had only stopped to burn a rail trestle that crossed the Tennessee River near Danville,
which they discovered, had already been destroyed by Union gunboats. This venture also
led to the arrest of a doctor that lived nearby whom Fanning believed was guilty of
treason. He happily explained “they imprisoned him on board a gunboat until they could
send him off to some U.S. prison”, noting that “one rebel capture,” made him feel good
enough to write an account of it to the Cincinnati Times. The only other excitement was
the appearance of Confederate scouts tracking their progress from shore. Following
Sherman’s division was the rest of Grant’s army, on some 60 ships strung out on the
Tennessee River between Ft. Henry and Savannah, Tennessee. Robert Major, a 27 year
old sergeant in Company F, wrote in his journal, “It was a grand looking sight to see the
river covered with boats as far as you could see.”58
On March 10th the Third Battalion was detached from the rest of the regiment at
Savannah, while the First and Second Battalions continued up the river. In these early
years of the war the cavalry rarely operated as large independent units. More often than
not a regiment was parceled out by companies or battalions and attached to infantry
brigades or divisions for a variety of purposes. Sometimes the detached cavalrymen were
utilized as pickets or scouts and sometimes as escorts for division and brigade
commanders. Over the next month the Third Battalion found itself attached to General
Lew Wallace’s division carrying out one set of operations, while the First and Second
Battalions remained attached to Sherman’s division carrying out similar assignments.
Colonel Taylor’s regiment, now split between two commands, found itself playing a
central role in General Halleck’s push up the Tennessee River, spearheading two separate
raids to cut the major east-west and north-south rail lines on which Confederate forces
depended.
46
After the departure of the Third Battalion, the First and Second consisting of
approximately 400 men, continued south up the Tennessee River with Sherman to an area
near Eastport, Mississippi where on March 14th they disembarked under the command of
Major Elbridge Ricker. They had been dispatched in a pouring rain to burn a Memphis &
Charleston railroad bridge estimated to be 19 miles away and to disperse a rebel force
thought to be occupying nearby Burnsville. The Fifth Ohio was to be followed by the rest
of Sherman’s Division making this no small affair. Their dismal ride starting at 11:30
P.M. was carried out in the dead of night through an unfamiliar landscape and heavy
rains. Ricker reported, “the incessant rains had so swollen the creeks on our line of march
that we were compelled to make a circuit of some miles to evade the high water.” Yet
they pushed on determined to reach their objective. Finally at 4 A.M. after narrowly
escaping the drowning of several men and the loss of all their axes and picks while
swimming one of the creeks, Ricker and his officers determined proceeding any further
would be foolish. Returning some 13 hours after the ordeal began, they rendezvoused
with Sherman back at the steamers, who quickly loaded Ricker’s men and steamed back
down the river59
The First and Second Battalions were taken back north to Pittsburgh Landing where
several divisions now collectively known as the Army of the Tennessee were assembling
for an eventual thrust toward Corinth. Located in Hardin County, Tennessee, Pittsburgh
Landing was one of the few spots troops could be disembarked and was thought to be the
perfect location for Grant’s troops to await General Buell’s Army of the Ohio rushing to
join them. Hardin County was a heavily wooded, isolated place covered by small family
farms on which corn was the primary crop meaning few slaves and plenty of Union
sympathy.60
Frustrated by the failure of his first attempt at severing the Memphis & Charleston line,
Sherman planned a second raid. On the clear frosty night of March 17th, the First and
Second Battalions were sent to the west under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Heath
to determine whether the rest of the division could make a surprise dash at the rail line,
and if possible to continue on and strike at the Memphis & Charleston line by themselves.
47
48
After riding approximately 5 miles, near the Shiloh Chapel, a small Methodist meeting
house near Pittsburgh Landing, they clashed with the Second Alabama Cavalry under the
command of Colonel James Clanton. After pushing the pickets of the Second Alabama
back and taking several prisoners, Heath ordered a withdrawal to prevent a general
engagement that Sherman wanted to avoid. Any hope of surprise was thwarted and the
raid was abandoned. 61
The Third Battalion was engaged in similar operations from Crump’s Landing, 8 miles
north of Grant’s troops, under the command of Major Charles Hayes. Hayes was given
the task of destroying a rail bridge on the Mobile & Ohio line. Early on March 13th the
Third Battalion departed for the trestle located to the west of their camp at Crump’s
Landing on a 10 hour ride that took them just north of Purdy. After finding the trestle,
his men proceeded to destroy the 150 foot span so thoroughly, he believed that the entire
structure would have to be taken down and completely rebuilt. His men also tore up track
to either side of the span, bent the rails and tossed them in the creek, convinced the
Mobile & Ohio would be shut down for sometime. Hayes’ assessment though, was overly
optimistic. Confederate General Braxton Bragg reported the damage repaired and the line
open the next day.62
The following day General Lew Wallace, the division commander, ordered Hayes to
scout the location of a large enemy encampment rumored to be uncomfortably close. It
was thought to be somewhere in the vicinity of the bridge the Ohioans had destroyed the
previous day. While they found the camp, it was unoccupied, but a civilian reported that
between 5,000 and 8,000 Confederate infantry and cavalry had fallen back in the
direction of Purdy.63
At this point though, the real threat to the thousands of Union troops concentrated
around Pittsburgh and Crump’s Landings was disease. As early as March 17th, Sergeant
Fanning was reporting that living conditions on the steamers had become unhealthy
enough to force General Wallace’s troops to pitch tents along the shore, but it was the
drinking water that became the most serious problem. “A great many of our soldiers have
taken the diarrhea which was at first seemingly of a mild type, but has become fatal in
some instances,” he noted, a condition he wryly called “Tennessee looseness.” It wasn’t
long before these conditions became costly for the regiment. On March 21st, 21 year old
49
The men here continue to suffer from diarrhea and fever, and are dying quite fast---poor fellows. We have
not a sufficient force of doctors to attend them and no regular hospitals. Stores for the sick are likewise
very scarce. If all the army is similarly fixed then our wonder will cease at so many fatal terminations to
diseases, which under ordinary circumstances are of easy cure. We should be supplied by every loyal State
with a corps of nurses and such other necessaries as the sick require. It will be a sad hour to many a poor
fellow who falls wounded on the field, unless we are supplied with these desirable articles.
Before the war was over disease would kill more men in both the Union and Confederate
armies than battle.64
The three weeks of service in Tennessee was taking its toll. In addition to the poor
sanitary conditions, fatigue and unpredictable springtime weather were also affecting the
health of many troopers. The men were worn out having participated in no fewer than 10
missions in addition to a day’s normal duties. William Jessup wrote home:
We are busy all the time. I know all the country between here , Corinth and for many a mile either side. We
just returned from a scout on the Corinth Road. We captured 3 rebels. We started last night about 12
o’clock. I will give you an example of how they use the cavalry in Southern Tennessee. On the last day of
March we reconnoitered to prepare for a three day tramp which we accordingly did, and went as far as the
Tennessee River. That evening we slept on the ground and in the morning we went on board a steamboat,
started up the river and landed at a place called Chickasaw which had been fortified, returned the next
morning, and went on brigade review which took the principle part of the next day. Went on a scout at 12
o’clock that night, returned a few minutes ago at twelve [this afternoon]. This is very near the way we have
to go all the time. I expect we will have a hard fight at Corinth within a few days.
Fanning expressed similar sentiments writing “Our boys are on picket duty every night,
and are pretty severely tasked having camp duty to perform,” beginning at 5 a.m. this
typically consisted of caring for their horses, cleaning equipment and endless hours of
tedious drilling to which most novice soldiers were subjected.65
50
During much of this period Colonel Taylor was ill and often unable to take the field
with his troops leaving Heath as de facto commander, though he too would fall ill. Major
Ricker had also been laid low by a combination of fatigue and chronic diarrhea but
stubbornly continued to lead scouting parties all through the Shiloh campaign. Even the
chronicler of these events, Fanning himself, was temporarily relieved from duty because
of illness. He began his April 4th journal entry “On account of illness my journal skips
over the intervening week, nothing worthy of record has transpired, except a few slight
skirmishes in which we have been partially engaged.” The next line in his journal could
not have been more prophetic. He wrote, “The recent boldness of the enemy seems to
predict a warm future for us, and a strong determination on the part of the foe to contest
our further advances into the interior.”66
From March 30th until April 5th the First and Second Battalions serving as a
screening and reconnaissance element for General Sherman’s Division consistently made
contact with Confederate troops . One historian has judged Sherman as “negligent” in
light of valuable intelligence provided by the 5th Ohio, and lucky not to lose his
command.67 On March 30, Major Ricker and his 2nd Battalion were dispatched by
Colonel Taylor to Monterey, approximately 7 to 8 miles to the southwest of their
encampment. Their mission to raid a home occupied by Confederate scouts proved
unsuccessful yet yielded information that 200 to 300 enemy riders had been in Monterey.
An attempted pursuit ended in failure but it became clear considerable activity had taken
place between their camp and Monterey. It was evidence that could have been of great
significance had Sherman and other generals chosen to pay it heed, with Monterey lying
between Pittsburgh Landing and Corinth, where Johnston was known to be assembling
his forces.68
On March 31st Lieutenant Charles Murray leading a patrol of Company I troopers ran
into Confederate cavalry. With most of his men armed with nothing but sabers, Murray
successfully conducted a fighting retreat which resulted in the death of 40 year old
Private William Ledwell, as well as the capture of 21 year old Private John Pelley and 20
year old Sergeant. Ebenezer T. Cook. Lieutenant Murray saw the outcome of the
skirmish as a result of his company’s poor armament writing in his report, “every
engagement of our cavalry with theirs, under our present poorly armed condition must
51
prove disastrous. Our men are brave. They ask for good arms; they deserve them. They
say, ‘Give us good weapons and we will fight to the death.”69
On April 2 Colonel Taylor along with elements of the Fifty Fourth Ohio Infantry
chased Confederate pickets from their posts only six miles south of the new federal
camps around the Shiloh Church. The next day on April 3rd, Taylor led another column
out to chase off pickets near where the previous day’s operation had taken place. Upon
his return to camp the Colonel reported back to General Sherman that he had “learned
that at Monterey the rebels have three regiments of infantry, one of cavalry and a battery
of artillery.” His report went on, “They are also in force with cavalry on the other side of
Lick Creek.” Curiously the report of such large bodies of troops only six to seven miles
from his encampment did not seem to disturb Sherman.70
At approximately 2:30 P.M. on the 4th, Major Ricker led the Second Battalion down
the Monterey Road toward Corinth as he had a dozen times before, this time to
investigate the disappearance of pickets from the Seventh Ohio Infantry from their
station. They had run into Confederate pickets on that road in the past, so Ricker
anticipating that possibility had sent two platoons from companies A and L to scout
ahead. Shortly thereafter the crack of gunfire confirmed his caution. Two companies of
infantry from the Seventy Second Ohio Infantry who also had been dispatched to search
for the missing pickets were being attacked by the First Alabama Cavalry. When Ricker
arrived on the scene he discovered the men of the Seventy Second in a stand of fallen
timber holding their ground against the Confederate cavalry. Ricker formed his line to
either side of the road and sent skirmishers some 40 yards to the front with orders to
“crowd the Johnnies”. When the Confederate patrol did not withdraw the Major ordered
his men to draw sabers and prepare to charge. When the bugle sounded, the 300 men
drawn from companies A, L, and M, surged forward almost a half mile to a bluff
overlooking a stream. Here, they discovered, about 100 yards down the slope, a
Confederate line-of-battle that brought them to a sudden halt. There the Confederates
taunted them “to come out and fight.” Ed Aultman, a private in Company L, described
what followed;
52
One of our skirmishers, a Dutchman, charged down the slope, saber in hand, hallooing, “Surrender, you
damn rebels!”
The Johnnies appeared amused and in good humor. He was permitted to ride through their line-of-
battle, over the creek, and up the west slope, facing north and east , covered with Johnnies as far as the eyes
could see. There was artillery parked, ambulances, officers’ tents, arms stacked, men making fires,
lounging around, ….. none paying attention to the 300 Yanks than if we had not been there.
The Dutchman was in among their fires, guns and coffee, we looking to see him killed. We never heard
from him again.
We stayed there and looked for not less than 10 minutes. Not a gun was fired on either side. No one
appeared scared particularly. All seemed entranced by the vision of the Confederate army. Finally away to
our left we began to hear the carbines crack. The Major had seen more than he wanted, and for fear they
would cut off our retreat on the road, the bugle sounded the rally. Our senses returned and we were as keen
to get out as we were to go in. The Johnnies did not crowd us on our return, so we went back at leisure. 71
During their orderly retreat the Federals managed to take 9 prisoners. About a mile
southwest of the Shiloh Chapel they met Sherman leading two infantry regiments
marching toward the crack of musketry. When Ricker and other officers consulted with
Sherman, he dismissed the presence of the enemy in such large numbers as nothing more
than a reconnaissance in force and seemed to ridicule the suggestion they posed a
significant danger to Grant’s army. Aultman claimed Sherman told the major “not to
report such worn out granny tales,” which angered the men in the battalion who believed
Sherman had made them out to be “cowards and liars.”72
The next day the Fifth Ohio was transferred from Sherman’s division to General
Hurlbut’s division near the rear. Sherman justified the decision because of the regiment’s
lack of arms, indicating they should not go into action with only sabers and unreliable
revolvers. In an analysis of the Fifth Ohio’s activities writer Jay Jorgensen saw this as a
fatal mistake. The Fourth Illinois Cavalry was brought forward to replace the Fifth but
they were unfamiliar with the roads and terrain that the Ohioans had patrolled for more
than three weeks. Mr. Jorgensen notes further, the timing of the move on April the 5th left
no cavalry out in front of Sherman’s division as Confederate forces moved forward from
Corinth to position themselves for the assault. Would the Fifth’s presence in Sherman’s
front have made a difference the next day? Possibly it would have, but not if Generals
53
Sherman and Grant, both with West Point training, failed to appropriately evaluate the
intelligence brought to them.73
On Saturday April 5,1862, Sergeant Robert Major noted in his journal, that they
“received orders to strike tents and leave Sherman’s Division. We were to take the road
back to Pittsburgh Landing and report to General J.A. Hurlbut, which displeased us but
turned out to be one of the most gracious blessings of Providence.”74
By 7 P. M. Corporal Fanning was writing in his journal, “Some of our scouts report the
enemy approaching our lines in force; but it is generally disbelieved and security prevails
In our whole army. The tattoo beats the hour of retiring to rest, and we will all seek
repose of home and happiness.”75
Even in light of their poor armament and the wave of illness which struck soon after
their arrival, the Fifth Ohio had performed quite ably as the eyes and ears of both
Sherman’s and Wallace’s divisions. Not bad for a regiment who’s leadership consisted
of a former postmaster, an attorney and several farmers, and who’s ranks were filled by
men who less than 8 months before had no notion of war or the ways of the military.
54
By early April Grant had amassed 45,000 troops around Pittsburg Landing along
with General Lew Wallace’s Division a few miles to the north at Crump’s Landing. He
had been ordered to wait at Pittsburg Landing for General Buell’s 37,000 troops, then
making their way from newly captured Nashville. The sprawling Federal camp spread
over a fairly flat 9 square miles of high ground that rose from the river to the east,
bounded by Lick Creek to the south and Owl and Snake Creeks to the north. Both Grant
and Sherman were pleased with the location and felt secure enough to dispense with
building fortifications. Neither believed the Army of the Tennessee to be in imminent
danger.
To the southwest Johnston now had almost 45,000 Confederate troops concentrated in
and around Corinth in what became known as the Army of the Mississippi. Aware of
Buell’s movement toward the Tennessee River Valley he intended to strike at Pittsburg
Landing before the two Union forces could unite and gain the advantage. Surprise would
be critical.
IV
April 6th
“The sun never rose on a more beautiful morning than that of Sunday, April sixth,”
wrote Whitelaw Reid, a war correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette at Crump’s Landing.
He continued, “By sunrise I was roused by the cry ‘They’re fighting above.’ Volleys of
musketry could sure enough be distinguished, and occasionally the sullen boom of
artillery came echoing down stream. Momentarily the volume of sound increased, till it
became evident it was no skirmish that was in progress, and that a considerable portion of
55
the army must already be engaged.” Reid wasted no time in getting to Pittsburgh
Landing, jumping on board a steamer bound for the site of the fighting.76
The Third Battalion of the Fifth Ohio Cavalry was also at Crump’s Landing. At
7 A.M. Sergeant Fanning noted in his journal:
The scouts were right for the enemy have approached this morning, and have attacked our right or center at
Pittsburgh Landing five miles above here. We see the smoke of battle, and have heard the roar of artillery
and the crack of musketry almost continuous for the last hour. Our boys here are urged to a hasty breakfast
as the order to advance may be heard at any moment. There is great excitement and strong anxiety to take
part in the fight, manifested by the troops, who will move on with alacrity the moment the command is
given to do so. May they win honor to themselves and glory to the country---we solemnly pray the Ruler of
all things. The firing is now warmer than ever, [with] report following report in rapid succession, and the
fight seems gradually tending toward us here. 77
Grant’s five divisions were camped in two rough lines surrounding Pittsburgh Landing
on the River’s west bank. The outermost line of camps consisted of Major General John
A. McClernand’s division to the north with General Sherman’s division to McClernand’s
southeast near the Shiloh Church and Brigadier General Benjamin M. Prentiss’ division
headquartered slightly to the southeast of the church. General William H. L. Wallace
was encamped at Pittsburg Landing with General Hurlbut to whom the First and Second
Battalions of the Fifth Ohio was now attached headquarter in an open field to the south of
the landing. It was the outer ring of camps that first felt the fury of the rolling surprise
attack.
With the regiment laggered at Wicker Field, a pasture near General Hurlbut’s
headquarters, they were three and half miles from the initial Confederate onslaught
slamming into Sherman’s camps, a fate they also would have suffered had they still been
attached to Sherman’s Division. Like most Union troops at Pittsburgh Landing the Fifth
Ohio was drowsily easing into the routine of a Sunday morning. Some like Corporal
Isaac Scott were eating breakfast when they heard firing in the distance, but were
unconcerned. He wrote “We thought that it was only a little skirmish”.78
56
57
Heath however took the initiative of ordering Major Scherer’s First Battalion to saddle up
and not awaiting orders reported to division headquarters. General Hurlbut was
concerned enough to send a detachment from the Fifth Ohio to investigate what was
happening to the southeast of his camps and it wasn’t long before requests for help
arrived from both Sherman and Prentiss.79
Hurlbut moved quickly marching his men from their camps southward down the
Hamburg-Savannah road to a large empty cotton field bounded to the north by a small
peach orchard and a split rail fence that stretched its width. He moved his troops across
the field and deployed them along its southern edge, which was fronted by another road
running east to west across from which was a hardwood forest of deciduous trees barely
coated in the green of spring’s small emerging leaves. As Hurlbut deployed his men a
steady stream of refugees from Prentiss’s shredded division passed through the ranks of
his regiments.
About 9 a.m. the gray clad Mississippi and Alabaman regiments of General Braxton
Bragg’s Second Division emerged from the woods with covering canon fire in support.
However they did not press forward with an assault on Hurlbut’s newly formed line
delayed by a shortage of ammunition and concern they might accidentally fire on the
friendly troops advancing from both the right and left of their position. There also was
some concern from the Confederate command that Hurlbut’s troops were in fact, massing
for a counter assault. About 10 a.m. Hurlbut took advantage of this pause to withdraw
his men from their forward position to a more secure site across the cotton field and
behind the split rail fence that ran along the field’s northern edge. There, Hurlbut placed
Heath with the Fifth Ohio’s First Battalion directly behind the infantry of the First
Brigade. Positioned on the far left of this line, Heath was instructed to observe Colonel
James Clanton’s Second Alabama Cavalry, clearly visible to their front.80
Early in the afternoon Colonel Taylor brought up the Second Battalion and assumed
command of the regiment, which had been taking artillery fire but nonetheless stood firm.
Corporal Scott recalled, “The shells and balls flew thick around our heads. I couldn’t
think what it put me in mind of, Captain Wamsley said that it put him in mind of a swarm
of bees flying around his head.”81
58
Not all the Union troops displayed such coolness under fire. The Thirteenth Ohio
Battery deserted their guns as the first Confederate artillery rounds fell around them. The
forward position of the deserted field pieces placed them at risk of capture leading Major
Ricker to order Lieutenant Elijah Penn and 12 men from Company L to accompany him
in a wild dash to disable them. The small party rode almost 300 yards through heavy fire
to the guns, before finding they had already been spiked in an equally gallant ride made
earlier by a neighboring battery.82
By 2 p.m. Hurlbut’s position was untenable. His men had been under fire for almost
five hours under a hot midday sun, staving off one infantry charge after another. Though
Hurlbut’s men had fought heroically; the continuous assaults were taking their toll. Now
a determined assault by almost 5000 men of General John C. Breckinridge‘s command,
made up mostly of Tennesseans and Mississippians, began across the cotton field some
300 hundred yards away. With bayonets mounted the Confederate troops surged toward
the Union battle line at the double quick intent on sweeping around the Union left flank.
The Thirty Second Illinois followed by the Third Iowa loosened two devastating volleys,
stopping the assault. At this point the Fifth Ohio just to the rear of the Iowans was given
the order to charge. With Heath leading the left, Major Scherer the center and Colonel
Taylor the right, the regiment tore across the field helping turn the Confederate offensive
into a headlong retreat. Lieutenant Jessup of Company D described what followed:
“we charged around a battery and doing so saved the 3rd Regiment’s Infantry [3rd Iowa], for the Rebels
were pressing upon the Infantry, four regiments deep and would undoubtedly have soon destroyed them
had it not been for our timely arrival. When we were in sight they delivered their fire and fell back under
cover of the timber which gave the infantry time to rally and the artillery time to be moved from its perilous
position to a more safe and effective one.”
It was a charge it should be noted, in which the troopers were armed only with sabers and
their “worthless” Joslyn pistols. Private John W. Christman writing home confirmed
Jessup’s observation noting that the First and Second Battalions had “saved 2 regiments
of infantry from being cut to pieces.” If the flank of Hurlbut’s retreating infantry had
been turned, the result might have been disastrous for his division and perhaps the
entirety of the Union line.83
59
“The firing has never slackened since we heard it first this morning, and it is now as I write one continuous
roar without cessation or interval approaching here slowly and surely…Gen. Grant passed up to the scene
of conflict half an hour since on his flagship Tigress. Wonder where he has been during the hours of battle
this morning? We thought previously that a commanding General’s place was with his own troops, or so
close to them that, in ease of even a picket fight taking place he could in a few moments know the whole
particulars and determine accordingly.
By 11 a.m. some Union troops who had fled the battle had made it as far as Crump’s
Landing. Fanning noted that “these men who fled from the battle are mostly bareheaded,
barefooted, and without arms of any kind; they having lost them in swimming Snake
Creek, which is between here and where they escaped from—near Shiloh Church.”
By 2 p.m., about the time the First and Second Battalions had made their charge, things
appeared to be almost hopeless to those down river at Crump’s Landing. According to
Corporal Fanning:
…these fleeing cowards…positively assert that all our troops are nearly cut to pieces, and therefore
incapable of much longer withstanding the terrific assaults of so large a force of the enemy. Some of them
assure us that they are the last and only living members of their regiments which were so well filled lately;
60
and all positively declare themselves completely taken by surprise while engaged at breakfast, and only
escaping capture by flying when their ammunition was all expended.
At 4 p.m. Fanning observed that the fight seemed to have shifted to the river:
Now our two gunboats the Tyler and Lexington seem also to have become engaged: they have been firing
for one hour. So the rebels must have driven us from our camps towards them and the River at Pittsburgh
Landing. Can it be possible that they have done so nearly whipped us? …The wounded are now coming in
here in quantities.85
Back at Pittsburgh Landing, Hurlbut’s division had been pulled into a new defensive
line patched together by Grant stretching from Owl Creek to the River. Heath had been
ordered by Hurlbut to take his First and Second Battalions to the rear. The General
believed cavalry to be of no use at this point in the battle. However, this did not end the
Fifth Ohio’s service for the day as General Hurlbut would later report. Dismissed by
Hurlbut, they were put to use by Grant, who was probably delighted to discover two
unused cavalry battalions that were familiar with the terrain. The General used them for a
variety of challenging and dangerous tasks that continuously brought them under fire
until late into the evening. Grant in fact, had used a detachment from the 5th Ohio as his
personal escort throughout the entire day. That force included the 65-year-old father of
Captain Andrew Hickenlooper who commanded a battery of artillery from Cincinnati.
Hoping to be near his son the elder Hickenlooper enlisted as a private in the Fifth Ohio
without his son’s knowledge until a chance meeting on the battlefield that day.86
As darkness fell and a heavy rain began to pelt his troops, General Pierre Gustav
Beauregard, the commander of Confederate forces after General Johnston had died on the
battlefield, ordered the offensive halted, believing his exhausted troops could easily
achieve victory the next day. About midnight the men of the First and Second Battalions
of the Fifth Ohio wearily stood by their horses and devoured a meal of hardtack and raw
ham in a drenching rain pondering what the next day would bring.87
Before dawn the First and Second Battalions were once again in the saddle and
directly at the service of Grant. They spent the most of the day held in reserve near
Pittsburgh Landing while Buell’s army, which had begun arriving early the previous
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evening along with General Lew Wallace’s division, launched a morning offensive while
Major Hayes and the Third Battalion protected wagons bringing forward provisions.
Fighting raged throughout the day over ground still scared and littered with bodies from
the opening of the battle on Sunday. Exhausted Confederate troops fought hard but the
addition of thousands of fresh Union soldiers simply overwhelmed them.88
About 4 p.m. the regiment was ordered forward, and near the Shiloh Chapel it charged
the enemy’s rear near where the preceding day’s fighting had begun. Corporal Scott later
wrote home that, “We drove them back further than they drove us on Sunday.”
Scornfully, he added that Confederate troops “hollered ‘Bull Run’ at us,” and held a
drunken dance in the Fifth Ohio’s abandoned camp the previous night. At about 11 p.m.
the regiment unsaddled “to lay down hungry and wet [and] without blankets,” Sergeant
Major wrote, almost 40 hours after the great battle opened.89
On Tuesday morning Grant sent Sherman to pursue the Confederates with all the
cavalry in the command and a large body of infantry. After marching almost eight miles
one of Sherman’s columns led by the Seventy Seventh Ohio Infantry, walked into an
ambush set by Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest, described by some as the South’s
greatest horse soldier. A vicious volley sent the surprised infantrymen into a headlong
retreat that collided with the Fourth Illinois Cavalry as it arrived on the scene, which too
was sent reeling in retreat, but not before loosening a volley into the confusing melee to
their front. The commander of the Seventy Seventh Ohio later complained the Illinoisans,
carelessly had fired and killed many federals, something he believed the Fifth Ohio
Cavalry would not have done. Following the Fourth Illinois, the Fifth Ohio and Eleventh
Illinois Cavalry arrived in time to charge Forrest’s cavalry, sending them on a six-mile
retreat and allowing for the capture numerous prisoners including a field hospital.
Sergeant Fanning reported they were unsuccessful in actually engaging the rebel cavalry
with their pursuit stopped by a burning bridge. “We went far beyond where we were
ordered to go, much against the will of the Commander of the Eleventh Illinois [Cavalry],
which was with us,” he wrote, continuing, “but Major Hayes of ours [battalion] was
determined on a fight, and promotion if possible; and so all had to go and do as he
thought best. We liked it well enough, although we unexpectedly returned without
battle.”90
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The next day, Wednesday April 9th, Fanning rode across the battlefield and described
the carnage of the previous three days:
The battlefield is some four or five miles in length and in many parts beyond a mile in width. This is nearly
all covered with dead, the Rebels being as much as five to one. There are articles of many kinds such as
carbines, guns, ammunition, horse, wagons and artillery laying all around the field, some of which have
been picked up by many of our own men of small regiments, and taken by various quartermasters. The
unfaltering heroism of a great many of our Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Iowa and Michigan boys was
very great yesterday, and their losses very severe for which we trust their country will do them honor; and
remember that they fought the same ground over several times, against majorities of the enemy, who
enthusiastic as they often are, were finally compelled to retreat (as large dogs do from small ones
frequently,) and left everything they were possessed of in the hands of their foes. The field was well
covered with bodies lying dead all over it. In digging graves there was frequently over one hundred bodies
placed in one hole, principally rebels; their dead being at least three to one of ours. There was scarcely a
place upon the whole field upon which many dead were not lying and our men digging their graves; in one
which nearly two hundred bodies were placed ere it was covered up. Near this, on the limb of a large tree
was a portion of the leg of an artillerist which was taken down by ropes and placed in the cover so
necessary for it. This was close to the place General Grant sat upon his horse about 4 o’clock P.M. on
Sunday evening, and where Captain Carson our scout, was killed, and several others wounded; and to the
left of where Sherman, had his head not been lowered, would also have received a fatal wound. There was
scarcely a tree about here which had not from one to twenty shot holes placed in it, mostly canon balls and
largely of shot.
The nation was stunned. Few in either North or South had expected bloodshed on the
scale of April 6th and 7th and none certainly had ever seen it. Almost 20,000 men had
fallen on the blood-drenched fields around the small Methodist meetinghouse known as
Shiloh.
Lieutenant Colonel Heath also walked the field of battle, surveying the aftermath. He
was drawn to the body of a smiling Union soldier whom he did not know. Upon
examining the young man’s jacket he discovered a Bible inscribed with the soldier’s
name and letters bearing an address in Minnesota. Later he wrote the parent’s of the dead
soldier:
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You have doubtless wept over your dead boy. No human sympathy could assuage your grief. Yet He
who guides and governs the universe of man and matter, I doubt not, has thrown around you, ever lasting
arms, and supported your faint bereft, and bleeding hearts.
After awhile when time shall have healed the wounds that war has inflicted, it will be a heritage of glory
for you to reflect that your boy died in the cause of human rights and to save the life of a great nation; and
you can with righteous pride boast that he fell in the thickest fighting, with dead rebels all around him, his
face to the foe, and in the very forefront of the battle,
He died a young hero and martyr in the holy cause of freedom, and Elijah riding up the heavens in a
chariot of fire had not a prouder entrance to the Celestial City than your boy. Let your hearts rejoice that
there is one more waiting to welcome you to the “shining shores”.91
Relative to the losses experienced by other regiments at Shiloh, the losses of the Fifth
Ohio were light with only two dead and five wounded. Quite simply it was not a cavalry
battle but one fought primarily by infantry regiments and artillery batteries drawn up in
heavy battle lines. The thickly forested terrain was not very suitable for maneuvering
companies or regiments of horse. Contrary to most histories, the Fifth Ohio did play an
important role in the battle though never acting as an intact regiment with its battalions,
companies, and detachments spread across the battlefield fulfilling multiple missions.
Shortly after the battle, Lieutenant Colonel Heath received a visit from a member of
the regiment he called the “Bully Butcher Boy”. While being punished for his
transgressions back at Camp Dennison with the “Buck and Gag”, the young Irishman had
in a drunken rage and with much accompanying profanity, threatened kill the Colonel.
Heath wrote of his post battle meeting with the young man:
“Pat” saluted me, asked if he could have a few words, and on being told to speak on, he said ‘Little
Colonel, you remember when you bucked and gagged me in the guard house at Camp Dennison, and I
threatened to empty your saddle in the first battle?’ ‘Yes I remember it.’ ‘Well, I intended to do it; I was
mad at your strict discipline. I came now to tell you that on Sunday and Monday I saw that without
obedience to orders, we would have been killed or captured. I saw that you were right, and I was all wrong;
and I came to ask your pardon for my language and violations of orders, and to pledge my life that you will
never have any more trouble with me. I will obey every order, be a good soldier, and give neither you or
my company officers any cause of complaint. Try me.’ “I could but reply”, ‘I will.’
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Heath found that he could rely on “Pat” throughout the remainder of the war. Heath’s
discipline probably also helps to explain the Fifth’s low casualty rate at Shiloh.92
Though the casualty rate was low, illness compounded by exhaustion and the poor
state of medical care resulted in nine deaths during April. The effects these deaths had on
morale cannot be underestimated. They were not strangers after all, who had been drafted
and thrown together by the circumstances of war. The succession of deaths left behind
neighbors and relatives in the unit like Arthur Wansbrough who enlisted on the same day
and served in the same company as his deceased brother George. Disease and infection
was every bit as dangerous as the Confederate army.
The death rate, wounds, and injuries drained the Fifth’s manpower. Recruiting trips
back to Ohio by the regiment’s officers became a necessity ensuring a stream of recruits
from the same counties the Fifth Ohio was originally drawn. While the regiment never
reached its original size, its strength remained stable.
Word of the great battle along the banks of the Tennessee River reached home just a
few days after its end. Papers like the Cincinnati Gazette carried headline’s that screamed
“The Terrible Battle in Tennessee”. With no fewer than six regiments from Greater
Cincinnati present at Shiloh, the reports of casualties in unprecedented proportions set off
panic and a frenzy of activity. General Halleck wired Grant that preparations were being
made in Cincinnati for 10,000 sick and wounded. When it became clear the army was
woefully unprepared to handle the number of wounded and ill, the entire city quickly
mobilized to help.93
There were calls for doctors and nurses, collections of supplies and money, and the
leasing of steamers. The Western Sanitary Commission and the Honorable Mayor George
Hatch of Cincinnati became central in the effort. The Lincoln Administration set up the
Sanitary Commission in the early days of the war, with a Cincinnati branch organized in
the fall of 1861. The authority of the organization was somewhat vague but it became
involved in the purchase and distribution of supplies collected from as many as 40 ladies
aid societies spread throughout Hamilton County. It also provided treatment through
volunteer nurses and doctors on vessels that plied the western waterways and was
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Large crowds descended upon Cincinnati by train hoping for passage to the battlefield
on the departing hospital ships. Driven by desperation they hoped to search the war torn
ground and field hospitals themselves for their fathers, sons or brothers but were
forbidden to board the steamers. On the 15th of April, ships full of wounded began
arriving in the city and when the Gazette and other papers began printing lists of the
injured, crowds of women and children gathered at the public landing to await their
arrival. Less than a week after the battle Cincinnati was flooded with the sick and
wounded from the Tennessee River Valley as steamer after steamer arrived from
Pittsburgh Landing. On April 17th the War Eagle arrived at Cincinnati’s Public Landing
with 325 sick and wounded followed by the Lancaster, Magnolia and Tycoon with 700
more men. On the 21st the Superior disembarked 300 sick and wounded with the
Marengo bringing 160 on the 24th and the Louisiana with 271 on the 25th. On the 29th the
Glendale arrived with an additional 250 the City of Memphis arrived on May 2nd with
250 sick and wounded and the Tycoon on the 3rd with 210. The D.A. January arrived on
May 6th with 310 more sick and wounded followed by the three vessels making a second
trip to Cincinnati, the Glendale with 300, and the Silver Moon with 206 and Superior
with 400. Ships were still arriving as late May 14th when another 220 men were
disembarked from the Lancaster No.4.95
The hard lessons of war had been learned in the spring of 1862. Any grand illusions of
glory had been shattered. War was a deadly business that left many friends, neighbors,
and relatives dead or disabled. It was clear the Confederates were fighting a war with
deadly earnest and it would not be a six-month affair, a lesson of which the entire nation
was becoming aware.
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The painfully slow advance on Corinth in the months after Shiloh began on May 4,
1862. General Halleck, temporarily in command of all the troops in Tennessee, ever
mindful of the surprise at Shiloh moved with a deliberate caution toward the strategic
rail center with intention of isolating and then destroying the Confederate forces
collecting there. Cavalry operations to cut the rail links that supplied Corinth were
conducted throughout the following month while other troops moved into position to lay
siege to the embattled city.
By June of 1862 the fall of Memphis had shifted the Union’s attention to Vicksburg as
the key to controlling the Mississippi River. With Ulysses S. Grant once again
commanding an army in the field, operations were increasingly directed at isolating and
taking the city perched high on the bluffs above the river.
The Warriors
The battlefield experiences of 1862 hardened the bodies and the hearts of farm boys
and old men alike into those of warriors. From the day they landed on the banks of the
Tennessee through autumn of 1863 when they departed the river valley on Sherman’s
long march east they were regularly engaged in battle, whether the great killing fields of
Shiloh or the nameless skirmishes that occurred on at least a weekly basis. It was these
experiences that changed them individually and transformed them collectively from
volunteers into a professional army.
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It was raids like one described by Sgt. Fanning, carried out shortly after Shiloh that
toughed them in body and spirit. Launched from their camp at Pittsburgh Landing, the
First and Second Battalions rode for Purdy to destroy a railroad bridge in rains that fell in
furious torrents. Many of the men were without overcoats or blankets, yet rode as
Fanning described through “impenetrable blackness until we could not discern an object
three feet ahead of us.” “Consider,” he continues, “two thousand men galloping along a
narrow road, now wading through a black swamp, and once or twice almost swimming a
swiftly running creek, and all in the darkest night that any of the two thousand men ever
saw.” Their party had left camp at 2 P. M. with elements of the Fourth Illinois Cavalry
and after almost 10 hours of riding halted about midnight to feed their horses in the
driving rain, and to rest in the mud. Finally about 5 A.M. they were given the order to
advance on Purdy. The Confederate force occupying the town, to the disappointment of
the Fifth Ohio, had fled just before their arrival. Yet the raid was a success with the
bridge linking Purdy and Corinth destroyed. Actions like this were typical of their
service. Not much glory, little attention, and incredibly grueling but very necessary as the
great concentration of Union forces around Pittsburg Landing collectively moved toward
Corinth.96
A few days after Shiloh, Corporal Scott wrote home that the First and Second
Battalions, still attached to Hurlbut’s division, along with the Tenth Infantry and a battery
of artillery had been “ordered out” with three days rations. “The troops are moving out
on every road toward Corinth,” he noted. Scott predicted that before his letter reached
home they would “hear of a big battle in this vicinity.” But he explained rumors were
rampant, “you can hear anything you want in camp.” Then taking a stab at humor
recalled one of the boys hearing “that if there was a big dew, that they were going to take
gunboats across to Corinth.”97
Meanwhile the Third Battalion was detached from Lew Wallace’s division and placed
in the rear with General Jefferson Davis. This according to Sergeant Fanning was to
allow for their proper arming. For the most part the Regiment was still armed with
nothing but sabers and a handful of carbines per each company. This was the second time
an element of the Fifth Ohio was moved due to deficiency in arms. Fanning saw the first
step toward rectifying the situation as an order to turn in their defective Joslyn pistols to
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the quartermaster, which he interpreted as meaning new Colt revolvers that he believed to
be “the best weapon of the kind for army use.”98
Now encamped about a mile and a half from Pittsburg Landing the Third Battalion
heard rumor of the enemy evacuating Corinth and falling back on Jackson; Still only
rumor Fanning wondered why they were not closely pursuing them. The plain and simple
fact was the Army of the Tennessee had been hurt badly and was still recovering. This
combined with cautious nature of General Halleck, now in overall command, would
explain why it took a month to move the army the 25 miles to the outskirts of Corinth.
About this time a familiar face showed up in camp, the affable Captain John
Crawford. Other disgruntled officers had forced Crawford, the former commanding
officer of Company H, out of the Regiment back at Camp Dennison. Now he had arrived
by steamer on the banks of the Tennessee River, “determined to serve his country as a
volunteer and sharpshooter for as long as possible,” wrote Fanning. Warmly accepted by
friends and commended by Fanning for “his kindness and gentlemanly qualities.” It
seems his only offense was his popularity with the men of Company H, which apparently
was seen as a threatening by some officers. Nonetheless, Crawford proved himself a very
capable soldier. He was in fact so capable as a scout and sharpshooter that General
Sherman offered him a position on his staff. Crawford though, respectfully turned him
down according to Fanning, because he did not want to leave the Fifth.99
Continuing his correspondence with the Cincinnati Times Fanning described their
situation further.
Messrs. Editors:
….We have just endured a four days of almost continuous rain, and are nearly drowned out. The God of
battle intending to wash out the stain of human blood from the bosom of the earth, has sent upon us for our
sins; and so taking it, we weathered the “pelting of the pitiless storm” like Frazans: “Shine out, bright sun.
We, the third battalion, expect to rejoin the other two battalions after receiving our new arms, which will be
very gratifying to the whole regiment; as in that case we will be under the eye of Colonel Taylor, and be
battling in the van once more. Major Hayes our battalion commander, is much liked by his men, and sees to
their comfort as much as possible; he is very anxious to be again on duty, and leading his men against the
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foe. There is no discount on Major Hayes. The boys are all well again, or as Pat Dinigan says, “They could
ait a cart-horse and pull his load.” They join me in sending their best respects to the Times [Cincinnati].100
Illness had not only thinned the enlisted rank, it had also taken a serious toll on the
regiment’s leadership. Unknown to Fanning, Colonel Taylor who had been ill virtually
throughout the entire campaign had now been certified as “unfit for duty,” by the
assistant regimental surgeon who noted Taylor would “not be fit for duty for at least
another 20 days.” Major Hayes and Major Ricker had also fallen ill in the days after
Shiloh but none appeared to be as sick as Lieutenant Colonel Heath. Heath’s condition
was so bad he was ordered home on medical leave by the Division Surgeon, followed a
few days later by Colonel Taylor. It was a situation that ultimately would lead to
dissention within the regiment.101
On the 30th of April the Third Battalion departed for Corinth. To their great
disappointment they left without new Colt revolvers. The old Joslyns had been returned
with no explanation of when they might be adequately armed. Fanning noted that,
“General Davis has ordered our Major to send an account of our arms and ammunition to
him immediately, as we are to move on very soon.” He added sarcastically, “The Major
reports fifteen rounds of cartridges for each saber, we not having firearms to shoot
cartridges from. Bully for the sabers.”102
They moved cautiously toward Corinth stopping at Bethel some ten miles from
Shiloh, slowed partially by the bad weather that continued to vex Union forces in West
Tennessee. Sergeant Fanning noted the roads were “horrid” as the result of two days of
rain. “There is great destruction of U.S. property along the route, of wagons, harness,
mules and horse,” he wrote “and horrid smells from half buried bodies of dead animals.
The putrefying bodies of horses still remain above ground and bring many cases of
fever.” 103
Outside of Corinth the Confederates forces had been “formed in double lines of battle”
prepared to repel the growing Union force. On the 5th of May the Third Battalion moved
forward to take up a position along the growing line of entrenchments. It was here that
Captain Crawford reinforced his reputation with the men. Third Battalion watched him
on one occasion play a game of cat and mouse with a red shirted rebel sniper who made a
dangerous nuisance of himself with what Fanning described as “a sort of mule cannon
70
which discharged shots of about one pound.” About 1700 yards from the Confederate
works the sniper had halted the battalion’s progress from a position inside a farmhouse.
Crawford made two attempts to move on him but was seen each time and fired upon.
Crawford’s third attempt to move was successful allowing the Captain to “tree” the
sniper who stepped out from cover to fire once again and was “belled” and in Fanning’s
words, “rolled and tumbled along the ground like a circus performer.” Crawford’s
actions also caught the attention of General Davis who commanded the division to which
the battalion was now attached. Davis used the Captain as a scout for the placement of
the division’s guns to rake Corinth’s defenses.104
Outside of Corinth, the First and Second Battalions joined the Union forces on the
siege lines. On May 24th the First and Second Battalions received their long awaited Colt
revolvers with Third Battalion issued theirs a short time later. This still left the entire
regiment at a critical disadvantage with only a few carbines, necessary for engaging an
enemy at longer ranges. This was especially important in scenarios that put the
cavalrymen in fixed positions facing enemy infantrymen, armed with muskets or
carbines, as now was the case outside of Corinth. 105
On the night of May 29th, Fanning reported they heard a tremendous amount of noise
“on the railroad…. as though the enemy was moving off in large numbers.” At six
o’clock the next morning Fanning heard explosions and saw a large plum of smoke rising
above the city. Amazingly, the large Confederate force defending Corinth slipped off
under the cover of darkness before an assault was launched. It was an opportunity missed,
with General Beauregard’s entire army escaping to fight another day. It caused quite a
stir among the men of the Fifth Ohio with the troopers debating the question of which
was the bigger surprise, the attack at Shiloh or the escape from Corinth, both
embarrassments in the eyes of the Fifth Ohio’s privates. The First and Second Battalions
still attached to Hurlbut’s division immediately departed in pursuit of the escaping
Confederate forces while the Third Battalion remained in Corinth.106
Once again Captain Crawford distinguished himself as something more than the
average soldier saving a bridge over the Tuscumbia River after the retreating Confederate
forces attempted to burn it. “He was shot at several times by guerillas who failed to hit
him,” and later took “six of the scamps,” prisoner according to Fanning. Crawford then
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used a long pole tied to a bucket to dip water out of the river “to save the already blazing
bridge.” Nevertheless this courageous and resourceful officer fell victim to the petty
jealousies of other officers and was finally asked to leave the camp, as he held no official
commission in the regiment. The Fifth’s loss however, proved to be the Army of the
Tennessee’s gain when Major General Halleck himself made Crawford the Captain of
Scouting Parties for the entire Fourth Division. The regiment also lost an original
member, Thomas Fanning, a chronicler of many of these events. Fanning fell seriously
ill and was given a furlough to recover at home in Cincinnati, a furlough that ultimately
would result in his discharge.107
After the fall of Corinth, the Union turned its attention to Memphis in its ongoing
campaign to control the Mississippi River .The First and Second Battalions were turned
in a new direction and given a new objective. Ahead were long days of hard riding,
serving as the advance guard for the Forth Division bound for Memphis. The march to
Memphis was anything but direct, with diversions to Grand Junction, Bolivar, Holly
Springs and La Grange resulting in countless skirmishes, some of which consisted of no
more than a few carelessly aimed shots. The city of Memphis in fact was taken on the 6th
of June, long before their arrival. The Union forces in the West still under the command
of the cautious Major General Halleck were put to work consolidating their gains over the
next several months. Undertaking no major offensive operations they rebuilt rail lines
established supply depots and attempted to eliminate the threat of the irregular
Confederate forces operating in West Tennessee and Northern Mississippi.108
Back in Ohio Thomas Heath prepared to return to the regiment. He had spent several
weeks at home bed ridden, apparently so ill he was unable to even sit up. On June 18,
1862 sufficiently well, he departed for Tennessee. Heath wrote that he finally caught up
with the regiment on July 6 and “instantly took command” as the Division marched from
LaGrange, Tennessee to Memphis. It was there that he was handed a copy of Special
Field Order 157 mustering him out of the service. The basis of the action he wrote was
“on my being absent without leave by my regimental commander.” A stunned Heath
angrily wrote, “I have been deprived of command and disgraced to some extent without
investigation or trial on the report of a regimental commander, who was present when I
was ordered home, and who earnestly advised it.” He was not about to passively accept
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the consequences of Special Field Order 157 and in characteristic fashion flew into action
to fight it.109
Long smoldering tensions were ignited by these circumstances. In a letter he fired off
to Secretary of War William Stanton Heath explained his illness had been so serious that
Major Denby, the Fourth Division Surgeon had ordered him sent “immediately to Ohio,”
adding he would forward “the leave of absence afterward in a few days,” a decision
Heath claimed was supported by Colonel Taylor. In his letter to the Secretary of War,
Heath related that after his arrival in Ohio “my application for leave came back not
granted,” prompting his departure for Tennessee.110
By the end of July he had gathered documentation from the involved parties with the
intention of proving he had been ordered home, and departed to lay the evidence before
Major General Halleck. Governor David Tod of Ohio, who was also sent copies of the
evidence, attempted to salvage the situation by offering Heath the command of a newly
Ohio cavalry regiment but the Lieutenant Colonel turned down this compromise
threatening to press his case with legal council if necessary.111
It was clear that Heath blamed Colonel Taylor for his current circumstances, though he
never used Taylor’s name but referred to him only as his “regimental commander” with
the quotation marks clearly present each time as a mark of disdain. It would seem this
was not a simple bureaucratic paper work snafu, but a political trap created by
circumstances of which Colonel Taylor seemingly took advantage. From the beginning
the two men were bound together by a common objective, the desire to organize a cavalry
regiment and little else, something neither could do on their own in the spring and
summer of 1861. It was a simple relationship of convenience.
During the early months of the regiment’s existence, Fanning felt compelled to praise
Colonel Taylor’s concern for his troops. It would seem the Colonel was popular with his
men but these references were made before their arrival on the banks of the Tennessee
River. Once the Fifth landed and operations began, Taylor was seldom mentioned by
Fanning except to note he was not in the field due to illness. Heath on the other hand
never elicited much attention from Fanning and was treated rather impartially when
mentioned. Lieutenant Jessup though clearly did not like Heath, referring to him at one
point as a “brainless jackass” in a letter to his parents after Heath prevented him from
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departing on a leave that had previously been granted. While Jessup never offered an
opinion of Colonel Taylor in any of his letters, he always referred to the Colonel, whom
he had known from home, in a respectful manner.112
The animosity that developed between the two men and the two factions that
developed around them appears to have grown at least somewhat, over differing views on
the purpose of the war. One faction it seems was committed to the cause of abolitionism,
while the other was openly opposed to it, considering the war an effort strictly to save the
Union. When it appeared in July of 1862 the regiment would need a new commanding
officer with Taylor again on an extended leave and Heath apparently cashiered because
of the colonel’s political maneuverings, Lieutenant Jessup wrote his parents; “We will
have an avowed abolition major over us as soon as there are any promotions and then you
can look for me at home because I will not serve under an abolitionist.” Jessup was
anticipating the promotion of Elbridge Ricker, long committed to the cause of
abolitionism, to the rank of lieutenant colonel and possibly being given command of the
Fifth Ohio Cavalry.113
In field many in the regiment were growing frustrated with what appeared to be
meaningless marches and countermarches across the West Tennessee countryside,
prompting Captain Jessup to write home:
We have been in this place about two weeks. It is a very desolate looking place. The place and all that is in
it, is not worth five hundred dollars. I can see no use in holding such little worthless places. We should try
and get the armies together. Until we do this we will accomplish nothing. We had a terrible march in
getting to this place. We camped almost every night in a swamp or a cane brake. It made me sick and I
have not been fit for duty since our arrival. I am getting almost discouraged with the way things are going
on and I think it is enough to dishearten the most hopeful, but it is useless to “kick against the pricks.” All
we have to do is obey orders and keep our mouths shut. There is some talk of our being ordered to
Kentucky. But I am afraid it is all talk, and no order. We would like to hear from Colonel Taylor. We have
not heard from him since he left. We heard that he has four hundred recruits for our regiment but we know
nothing. Lieutenant Penny will probably be home before long. He is disabled and will get discharged
without doubt. You need say nothing of this as I do not know that he wishes it known. I hope you will write
soon for I have heard nothing from home for a month and am very anxious. I think some of you might write
me once a week whether you get a letter from me that often or not. Be sure I will write as often as
convenient. Tell Dan to write me often. It will improve his writing and do me an infinite amount of good.
We have been menaced by Villepignes’s army while we have been here but he has not had the courage to
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attack us. We went out once to fight him but he skedaddled and we were cheated out of a fight. We don’t
hear so much about guerillas as we did I believe they have all gone home or joined some regular
organization. I hear that Jeff Davis has ordered them all into the army. I saw eight yesterday going to their
homes. They say they are tired of war. We still continue to be the poorest armed cavalry in the service and
every effort on the part of our officers to get us arms seems to no avail. We have nothing but pistols and
sabers and not near all have them. It is a disgrace on the State of Ohio. We have done more service poorly
armed as we are than any other cavalry in this branch of the army and are entitled to good arms. If promises
would arm us we would have had arms six months ago. We will believe nothing until we see the arms in
our possession. The other cavalry when they pass our boys ask—where are your arms? We tell them we
have none. They say they would be damned if they would go out and do duty where others do.114
The log book of Company F makes it clear just how grueling the ride to Memphis had
been with a partial listing of 264 miles traveled during the months of July and August,
not including several skirmishes and scouting missions which conservatively increase the
distances ridden to over 300 miles, under conditions that left the men discouraged and
their mounts worn out.
Their arrival in Memphis, now in Union hands, meant much needed rest and new
Burnside carbines, the firearms for which they had waited for almost a year. Dependent
on revolvers, swords and on less than ten carbines per company since their departure
from Camp Dennison they were for the first time properly armed. Colonel Lyle T. Dickey
of the Seventh Illinois Cavalry noted the Fifth Ohio “until very lately [had] been illy
armed, have proven themselves with good arms in their hands as effective in the face of
the enemy as their most noted companions in the field.” The delivery of these new arms
couldn’t have come at a better time with all three battalions at one time or another
engaging in heavy fighting during the months that followed, the type of fighting in which
the carbines made all the difference. Company F would spend two weeks in Memphis
before riding 140 miles back in the direction they had come.115
In early August Corporal Scott wrote home to friend Mose Hayes about rumors that
Colonel Taylor had resigned. “He is here yet,” Scott wrote, and “with the Lieutenant
Colonel thrown out for staying home over his time,” Scott surmised Major Hayes would
be promoted. In September Colonel Taylor informed the regiment of his plan to resign
and forwarded his resignation to General Halleck. Now the command situation was more
in question than ever. Ricker and Hayes both claimed to be the most senior officer in the
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Fifth Ohio with the executive officers slot open and the command slot soon to be vacant.
Lieutenant Chester Hanson a close friend of Colonel Taylor’s wrote Major Hayes who
was in Corinth, “the Colonel positively demands that you come immediately.” Hanson
explained:
We had some trouble with Ricker who claims the colonecy as Captain Wamsley and a
few other officers discovered to him that you were his senior having the oldest
commission as captain. He swears he will not stand for anyone overstepping him, [and]
that your commission as captain, as well as some others were improperly obtained. He
tried brow beating the Colonel and played hell generally. Now for God’s sake come at
once. I still hold a first lieutenant’s commission but I am going home if Ricker is
promoted. If you come I am at your service. They [the Second Battalion] have left
[companies] A, L and C under Ricker for Holley Springs. [Companies]B, D, and M are
escorting him to Memphis. [The] Colonel, Doc Thorton, Dick and myself are living in
good style when we met General Grant. We expect you by the Wednesday train. The
Colonel’s decision to resign after extended absences resulting from illness and injury may
also have been caused by the declining health of Anna Taylor his wife, who still had
several young daughters at home with her.
Jessup believed there would be a “great row” in the regiment because of Colonel
Taylor’s resignation. “We will have to have a new Colonel and the majority are in favor
of Major Hayes but Major Ricker contends he outranks Major Hayes,” he wrote. Jessup
contended that Ricker’s claim had no basis as both men were commissioned as majors on
the same date. “Major Hayes is the man entitled to the position and if he don’t get it we
will know the reason.”116
While the unit suffered through political turmoil, troops in West Tennessee could not
help but wonder what was happening at home. A rumor was circulating that Cincinnati
had fallen to Braxton Bragg who came crashing through northern Tennessee into central
Kentucky throwing the entire state into turmoil including neighboring Cincinnati.117
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Back Home
While the capture of Cincinnati was only rumor, the area faced the very real threat of
a Confederate offensive. The 45,000 man army that had escaped from Corinth now under
the command of Braxton Bragg had made its way to Tupelo, Mississippi. Left with little
maneuver opportunities in west Tennessee or Mississippi and facing combined Union
forces of more than 128,000 troops, Bragg moved east to Chattanooga. A smaller
Confederate force operating in eastern Tennessee of about 14,000 troops under Major-
General Edmund Kirby-Smith already occupied Knoxville to the northeast of
Chattanooga creating an open line of march into the critical border state of Kentucky.
The two generals conferred and agreed on a joint movement led by Kirby-Smith
strengthened with reinforcements from Bragg. With few Union troops in the way, Kirby-
Smith moved rapidly into central Kentucky. The cities of Richmond and Lexington fell
followed by Kentucky’s capital, Frankfurt. With Lexington a mere 100 miles south of
Cincinnati, the city hurriedly prepared to defend itself. General Lew Wallace, under
whom the Fifth Ohio’s Third Battalion had once served, was given responsibility for the
city’s defenses. Wallace’s performance at Shiloh ultimately led to the loss of his
command in Tennessee and a transfer northward. With very few troops in the immediate
vicinity, men were rushed from wherever they could be spared; inexperienced regiments
at Camp Dennison not yet armed, a brigade from as far away as Corinth, Tennessee,
independent companies and battalions from all over Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, and
thousands of volunteers from the city and surrounding area that armed and organized
themselves into companies that collectively became known as the Squirrel Hunters.
Wallace placed the city under martial law, which included closing all commercial
business and the drafting of able-bodied men. With almost 72,000 men placed in
fortifications in and around the city also encompassing both Covington and Newport,
Kentucky directly across the river, Cincinnati braced itself for what appeared to be
inevitable attack by troops under Kirby-Smith now headquartered in Lexington,
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Kentucky. By September 10, skirmishes were taking place at Camp Mitchell just South
of Covington, the outer edge of the area’s defenses, but on the 11th Kirby-Smith ordered
the troops to fall back. It was decided not to press on against Cincinnati in the face of
what appeared to be a tremendous disparity in numbers until Bragg with the balance of
his troops could take Louisville. For the next several weeks General Kirby-Smith
withdrew his forces back toward Lexington and the threat to Cincinnati receded but fears
of a thrust aimed at Louisville grew. 118
By the fall of 1862 cracks had begun to appear in the substantial political unity that
had characterized the North in the early days of the war. After nearly a year and a half of
fighting it was clear there had been very little progress. Democrats who had formerly
remained silent or even had been supporters of Lincoln’s administration were beginning
to speak out against it. For some it was plain and simple war weariness while others
were growing unhappy with a number of policies traditionally opposed by Democrats.
There were also those for whom the war was creating economic hardships. The Annual
Statement of the Commerce of Cincinnati for the commercial year ending August 31,
1862, declared that the war “deranged and crippled our commerce sadly, and seriously
injured many departments of the industry of our city.”119
As the fall elections loomed a number of Democratic candidates were beginning to
openly express an antiwar bias with some demanding an immediate cessation of
hostilities. In Ohio this disenchantment was reflected in the election of 14 Democrats to
the state’s 19 congressional seats in the U.S. House, among them Alexander K. Long.
Long had been elected to represent the Second Congressional District that included much
of Cincinnati and the western half of Hamilton County.120
Long was born in Greenville, Pennsylvania in 1816 but moved to Hamilton County in
1837. He settled in rural Green Township the just to the west of Cincinnati, where he
taught school and studied law. The red haired Long described by contemporaries as
“comely” married Miss Cynthia Sammons, another Green Township resident in 1842, the
same year he was admitted to the bar and began practicing law in local “justice of the
peace courts.” In 1848, the 36-year old Long was elected to the Ohio General Assembly
where he served one term as a Democrat ending in 1850. By 1860 he had moved to
Cincinnati and made an unsuccessful run at the Second Congressional seat in the U.S.
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House and then returned to the practice of law. There is little doubt men in the Fifth Ohio
and their families knew Long. His public life as a teacher, attorney and politician more
than likely made him an acquaintance or friend of many including Colonel Taylor, Major
Hayes and Captain Jessup, all of whom lived in the vicinity of Long’s residence.121
In the aftermath of Long’s 1860 congressional loss to Republican John Gurley, the
secession and resulting war, he gravitated to the states’ rights doctrine that had been used
to justify secession by the Southern states. Long believed that any federal attempt to
abolish slavery was a direct attack on the state’s responsibility to protect private property.
Consequently he came out strongly against abolition, fearing other property rights and
eventually civil liberties would also come under assault by the growing power of the
federal government. On the 22nd of September the tensions inside of the Union over
slavery reached new heights. On that date Lincoln threatened to free all slaves in those
areas still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, some three months in the future. It was a
powerful threat and likely a contributing factor in the election of Long. On the heels of
this came the initiation of a draft to meet Ohio’s quota for troops affecting some of the
rural townships comprising the Second Congressional District. The Gazette reported in its
October 2nd edition that 15 men were drafted from Crosby Township, 42 from Colerain
and 24 from Delhi Township the next day. The election of Long aided by these
controversial policies and the support of prominent local citizens like John Scott
Harrison, a Brother-in-law of Colonel Taylor, were representative of the growing
unhappiness with the war at home. Known collectively as the Peace Democrats or as the
Copperheads, a term that became more common as the war went on, though they were
not all of one mind as to why the war should be ended. For some it was a convenient
political issue used to run against Republicans in places like Southwestern Ohio, Indiana
and Illinois. For others it was an abiding dislike of abolitionism or a commitment to a
states’ rights philosophy, and for some it was the awful and unexpected toll of war. Their
political fate would wax and wane with the fortunes of war, a war that would continue to
go badly for the Union through the remainder of 1862 and well into1863.122
Back in West Tennessee, Confederate forces under Generals Earl Van Doren and
Sterling Price had been given the task of confronting Grant’s forces while Bragg and
Kirby-Smith carried out operations in Kentucky. Van Doren and Price remained
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interested in Corinth because of its importance as a strategic rail junction and a Union
supply depot. The Third Battalion now under the command of Captain Joseph Smith
found itself on the flanks of that city’s formidable earthworks when Van Doren’s 22,000
troops assaulted its defenses on the 3rd of October. 123
The 28 year old Smith, the commanding officer of Company E, had taken over the
battalion when Major Hayes was summoned north to Memphis to temporarily assume
command of the regiment, this do to the absence of both Heath and Taylor. He continued
in this role for most of the next year though not formally promoted to the rank of major
until March of 1863.124
In the morning hours of Friday, October 3rd one portion of his command, Company
I, was detailed to serve as an escort for Brigadier-General Thomas Davies. The remainder
of the Battalion, consisting of Companies E, H and K, was sent down the Purdy-Corinth
Road to “scout all approaches from the enemy’s left flank” and to protect
communications with Bethel. In the darkness of the early morning hours the Third
Battalion began scouting the enemy’s movements before fighting began at daybreak.
Captain Smith reported they remained in position for the balance of the day “without
molestation” making frequent reports to division commander Colonel John Mizner.
Overall however, Union fortunes had not fared so well. By nightfall the Confederate
assault had taken the first ring of the city’s defenses and threatened to push inside Corinth
itself. Fighting was renewed at daybreak the next morning and continued into the early
afternoon as the unusually warm temperatures sapped the already exhausted combatants.
By 9 o’clock the Third Battalion found itself in a dangerous situation cut off from Union
lines. Over the next several hours the battalion fought two skirmishes as Smith
desperately maneuvered his command back toward the city. Finally at 2 p.m. after
repeated assaults had been blunted in part with fresh troops sent from General Hurlbut in
Bolivar, the Confederate commander Van Doren, realizing the hopelessness of their
situation, broke off contact, and prepared to withdraw. Two hours later Captain Smith
managed to reach Corinth with 3 prisoners in tow. His tired troopers were ordered to
“prepare 5 days rations” and given a short night’s rest with orders to report for duty at 5
a.m. the next morning.125
80
Before dawn the Third Battalion was again mounted and on the move leading General
John McPherson’s column in pursuit of Van Doren’s beleaguered troops. At Chewalla
they clashed in a sharp exchange with the enemy’s rear guard leaving Captain Norris R.
Norton of Company K wounded so severely he was given a medical discharge a few
weeks later. After taking three prisoners the battalion was forced to retire after engaging
two field guns, thus ending the first night of pursuit on the banks of the Tuscumbia River.
For the next two days they remained the lead element of McPherson’s column,
skirmishing repeatedly with the enemy’s rear guard. On the fourth day of the pursuit they
were placed at the rear of the column to rest their exhausted mounts where they remained
until returning to Corinth on the 12th of October.126
When it became obvious Van Doren and Price were moving jointly against Corinth,
General Hurlbut marched south from Bolivar in time to take part in the pursuit. As they
approached the Hatchie River Hurlbut’s column was lead by the First and Second
Battalions of the Fifth Ohio under acting commander, Major Charles Hayes. Hayes wrote
his brother about what followed.
We are again back here in our old camp after an absence of four days in which we had a hard march and a
sharp fight, repulsing and driving the enemy from the field with great slaughter. Our loss was heavy, some
six hundred killed and wounded in an engagement of seven hours. The losses of the rebs was equal or
greater than ours. The 5th OVC did her duty nobly opening the fight in the morning and closed it in the
afternoon. Lost 5 men mortally wounded, since died, and 3 severely and slightly wounded. We got off very
cheap considering that we really were engaged for two days with superior numbers. We encountered the
advance guard of the enemy’s cavalry on Saturday at about Eleven o’clock and skirmished with them and
drove them before us all the rest of the day. They took advantage of every swamp and thicket to ambush
and fight us under cover but they was unable to stand the bold tempetuosity of our boys and was forced to
skedaddle every time. On Sunday morning they held a strong position on the heights at Mattamora
protected by a ditch 2 miles long and 10 feet wide, by 4 [feet] deep, with an embankment on our side with
earth from the ditch, which by the way was not made by them but was a plantation drain though none the
easier to cross on that account. And we did not propose to accommodate them by closing it under their fire
but made a detour to their flank and after a brisk skirmish of an hour drove them, which was soon after
accomplished by our artillery. Then followed one of the grandest scenes it was ever my fortune to witness,
the enemy advancing in their lines of battle in solid columns with colors flying and drums beating while
our batteries poured shell and grape into them. At less than six hundred yards their solid shot [was] flying
harmlessly over our heads. They did little damage on this side of the creek, though we took one of their
81
batteries at the point of the bayonet. But after that they were driven from the bridge and took positions of
the heights commanding the bridge and road leading to it, over which we had to pass. They moved us
terribly for a while, but the boys went forward with a yell and a rush and we soon had the key to the
position in [our] possession and soon after won, the rebs in full retreat with 5th OVC in hot pursuit. We
followed them about three miles fighting their rear guard all the way. From the quantity of stuff thrown
along the road they must have thrown away everything but their arms and a great many of them [also] as
we picked up two or three thousand Enfield French rifles on the road.
You can tell everyone that I came through without a scratch and am all right…
For the regiment the Battle of the Hatchie near the Davis’ Bridge proved to be the most
costly battle of the war thus far, with five dead and three wounded.127
Third Battalion remained on detached duty as it had been since early fall, and
continued to do so for most of the next year, functioning as an independent command,
very capably led by Joseph Smith. After its action at Corinth the Third Battalion was sent
to Glendale where it was assigned to protect the Mobile and Ohio rail line. In early
December it was made part of an expedition sent up the Tennessee River under the
Command of Colonel Thomas C. Sweeney in pursuit of Confederate cavalry reported to
be operating along the Memphis and Charleston line and to take any hogsheads of cotton
it might find. Outside of Cherokee Station, Alabama the battalion took part in a running
battle that ended near Tuscumbia resulting in the capture of 70 enlisted men and 3
officers.128
The rest of the Regiment remained dispersed across the Mississippi and Tennessee
countryside in places like Bolivar, Glendale, on the banks of the Tallahatchie River, at
Camp Davis near Corinth, and in La Grange. Once again they were assigned to protect
the bridges, depots and miles and miles of rail lines critical to Grant’s ongoing operations
that increasingly were focused on the city of Vicksburg. It was not an easy assignment
with the lingering threat of bushwhacking guerrillas and of the regular Confederate forces
led by Generals Van Dorn and Price. October of 1862 brought unusually cold weather
and the concern of an attack, according to Corporal Scott, who wrote home from Bolivar
Tennessee:
82
We have had snow here one inch deep, and several frosts. We have been expecting attack for some time.
Old Price was to eat dinner with us last Sunday but I guess he thought it was too cold for butternuts to lay
out of doors without tents or blankets. If he had come, he would have found it warm as well as cold. There
is a heap of talk here about the war soon coming to an end. Last week there was several offering bets 2 to 1
that it can’t last till New Year’s and there was several bets made. I don’t think there is any chance of it
being over more than there was a year ago, but you can’t tell what Old Abe’s Abolition Proclamation is
going to do.
While the Union had made some progress in the western theater, the war in the East was
still going badly. The belief the war was coming to an end was completely unwarranted
and could only be attributed to the kind of naiveté that made some believe the war would
be a 90 day struggle at its outset.129
General Van Doren’s army remained a significant danger to the troops garrisoning
those places through the winter and spring of 1862, capturing to the great embarrassment
of Grant, his major supply depot at Holly Springs without a fight on December 20th. Its
commander, Colonel Robert C. Murphy was relieved of his command and sent north in
disgrace. The following day, Fifth Ohio troopers from companies B and M found
themselves in a desperate fight with Van Doren’s troops at Davis’s Mill. A force of only
250 men under the command of Colonel William H. Morgan including members of the
Twenty Fifth Indiana Infantry faced Van Doren’s force of 3500. Morgan ingeniously
fortified an old sawmill with bales of cotton layered with old railroad crossties which he
linked into other nearby strong points including an adjacent Indian mound. Colonel
Morgan also took advantage of the fact his position to the south was bounded by a swamp
almost a half-mile wide. The only way across this soft ground was a corduroy road on
which he trained a single cannon, an ancient six ponder he loaded with grape shot. Along
his makeshift parapets to either side of the road he stationed sharpshooters who could lay
down effective fire along the entire approach. As the assaulting troops began to file down
the approach they came under a withering hail of fire that filled “the swamp on both sides
of the road with dead men and horses.” Colonel Morgan’s sharpshooters also proved
particularly effective in emptying the saddles of Confederate officers, throwing the
assault into chaos. Remarkably at the end of the two hour battle, Van Doren’s men were
driven off leaving behind 22 dead, 30 wounded and another 20 as prisoners. Reportedly
83
the fighting was so intense some of the cavalry troopers fired over 200 rounds “without
changing positions,” an impressive feat winning the praise of Grant and promotion for
Colonel Morgan to Brigadier General in the days after the battle. It would also have been
a nearly impossible without the still relatively new carbines they had received in
Memphis. 130
Other parts of the Regiment were not as lucky. On the 18th of December a disaster of
major proportions befell the Fifth Ohio near Lexington, Tennessee. General Nathan
Bedford Forrest was reported to be moving toward the Tennessee River near Jackson.
The Forty Third and Sixty Third Illinois Infantry Regiments, under Colonel Adolph
Engelmann, were ordered out to intercept him. Engelmann additionally was ordered to
“take command of all the United States Cavalry that [he] might find.” In the early
morning hours of the 18th about three and a half miles outside of Jackson, Engelmann
came across “parts of the Eleventh Illinois, Fifth Ohio, and one company of the Second
West Tennessee” cavalry regiments under the command of Colonel Robert Ingersoll. The
Fifth Ohio contingent consisted of 200 troops that “were raw recruits, never having been
under fire and never drilled,” noted Colonel Ingersoll. They were troops recently
recruited in Southwestern Ohio to fill out the declining rolls of the Fifth Cavalry. These
troops were placed under the command of Engelmann who proceeded to send out his
newly acquired cavalry in the search for Forrest. Shortly after dawn a battalion of the
Eleventh Illinois Cavalry made contact with enemy pickets whom they succeeded in
driving back to the main body, which appeared to be in regimental strength. Ingersoll,
commanding the cavalry, reported his men “fell slowly back, fighting all the way,” in
what he described as “fine order, and holding at bay a much superior force.” After
repositioning his troops Colonel Ingersoll realized “the enemy was pouring in on all
directions,” and made two desperate charges to prevent a sizable portion of his command
from being flanked by an enemy in regimental strength on both his right and left. He
reported, “Twice the enemy was repulsed, but coming in overpowering numbers the third
attempt proved successful.” 131
When Major Hayes and Colonel Taylor both at LaGrange, received word their new
recruits had been sent out as part of the expedition searching for Forrest, they
immediately boarded a train bound for Jackson to join them. Hayes wrote to his brother
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they had “arrived in time to learn of the disaster but too late to ward it off.” They
discovered 124 of Ingersoll’s command had been captured including 51 troopers of the
Fifth Ohio, among them the most senior officer present, 29 year Adjutant James C.
Harrison, who had sent the message to Hayes and Taylor. Hayes angrily wrote, “This
adds another to the long list of disasters brought by officers in high places who have
nothing to recommend them but influential friends.” He was none to happy with Ingersoll
who in his words “led them headlong into a nest of the enemy and surrendered himself
and left the boys to their fate.”132
The inexperienced recruits stood no chance and should never have been order to take
part in the expedition, a situation made worse by the presence of Nathan Bedford Forrest,
the most capable of the Confederate cavalrymen. So ended 1862; a year of hard lessons,
lessons that transformed them from a loosely disciplined body of civilians raised in a
society that highly valued independence and equality into a cavalry regiment of
professionals, hardened by the rigors of campaigning in a hostile land. They had seen and
experienced the kind bloody carnage at Shiloh that few Americans of any generation had
seen. They had ridden past the point of exhaustion, slept and eaten in the rain and snow
and ungodly Southern heat, and experienced the personal anguish of losing friends,
family and neighbors. They were also becoming the lean tough veteran troopers who
would bring the Union victory.
85
On January 1, 1863 with the war going badly in the East and having only moderate
success in the West Lincoln followed through with the threat made the previous
September and legally ended slavery in areas under Confederate control. Now in
addition to being a war to save the Union, it was a war to end slavery. While this won the
support of abolitionists across the North and contributed to keeping Great Britain out of
the war, it added to the growing antiwar sentiment, especially among narrow
constitutionalists like Clement Vallandigham and Alexander Long. Additionally
casualties continued to mount with bloody defeats at places like Fredericksburg, Virginia
in December of 1862. While the manpower shortage was addressed with the federally
mandated draft of all able-bodied males between the ages of 20 and 45, provisions
allowing the hiring of a replacement created resentment among the poor who resented
the rich man’s exemption and their forced service.
VI
_____________________________________________________________________
Winston Churchill once remarked, “Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as
dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.” The Civil
War was the ultimate blend of both, creating a kind of high drama that could at the same
time thrill and evoke disgust at the blatant pursuit of power. In the White House, in the
ranks of Lincoln’s generals and all the way down to the company level, political
squabbling was often the norm. The Union army was made up of citizen soldiers, a
curious blend of neighbors, family members, native born and immigrant, Democrat and
Republican, led by politicians with a leavening of professional soldiers all of whom
brought their friendships, jealousies and political baggage, which sometimes made for an
explosive state of affairs. The Fifth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry was no exception.
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Since the spring of 1862, the Fifth Ohio experienced a power struggle among its
leadership, which was also reflective of growing social and political divisions at home
and across the North. The regiment’s experience was not unique but emblematic of
struggles going on within Lincoln’s army throughout the war.
The volatile relations that developed among its officers can, in part, be traced to
mechanisms used for selecting and promoting its leaders, decisions that ultimately were
in the hands of politicians back in Ohio. Signs that serious problems were on the horizon
began appearing as early as the regiment’s days at Camp Dennison but these were
problems of the common garden variety that could be solved by the unit’s own
leadership. It’s no coincidence that the serious problems began to appear as the Fifth took
to the field for the first time in the spring of 1862. This is when relations degenerated
from cases of petty jealousies into a full-blown power struggle for control of the
regiment. It was a situation aggravated by mounting frustration in the North over the
military stalemate and growing dissatisfaction with Lincoln’s Administration. The
stresses of combat now made decision-making and therefore leadership a question of life
and death. What followed was the slow division of the regiment into factions that hurled
accusations and planted insinuations of incompetence, political favoritism, and
ideological betrayal, all while facing a deadly enemy on the battlefield.
During the long months when the regiment’s top leadership was absent, a noticeable
decline in discipline and morale took place. This leadership vacuum was extended when
Colonel Taylor was detached from the regiment to preside over a court martial taking
place in Memphis upon his return from medical leave. The Fifth Ohio was without a
colonel for almost four months, while the regiment was spread across the Tennessee
countryside with little semblance of unified authority. Temporarily Major Hayes held
command of the regiment but neither he nor Major Ricker was promoted in rank creating
tension between the two men and the factions forming around them. Taylor’s attempt at
securing a surgeon’s certificate while on court martial duty which would allow a
permanent return to civilian life failed. During this time the Fifth Ohio’s companies and
battalions continued in their scouting and picket roles protecting bridges, supply depots
and rail lines critical to Grant’s Mississippi campaign. Clearly it was not a desirable
situation regardless of who had command authority. 133
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It appeared some harmony would be restored when Heath was finally called back to
duty in mid-January. His dismissal from the army was reversed after an investigation of
his allegations, putting an end to the competing claims for command. But serious damage
had already been done to the Fifth Ohio’s morale and discipline. Lieutenant Colonel
Heath returned to a regiment whose efficiency had been seriously compromised, and now
faced the challenge of fixing the damage. His prescription was described as imposing
“rigorous discipline, weeding out incompetent officers and educating the
noncommissioned officers and men”. But while the Fifth Ohio was whipped back into
fighting shape, the discord within the Regiment did not disappear. Colonel Taylor’s
future appeared to be addressed when he was appointed the Chief of Cavalry for
Thirteenth Corps at the end of 1862. But it also created a wave of vacancies in the chain
of command meaning promotions and more conflict.134
Only 11 days after Heath’s return to the Regiment he was charged with conduct
unbecoming of an officer. On the 31st of January Captain Irving Halsey, Company C
presented his resignation to Heath on the grounds that severe rheumatism prevented him
from performing his duties on horseback and sought to resign for this medical reasons.
Heath responded.
Captain Halsey has permitted a large company to run down so that he reports only ten men for duty. He has
lost all command over his men. They have no respect for him and he is incapable of enforcing it to bring
our Regiment to the proper state of discipline and for the general good of the service I earnestly
recommend the acceptance of his resignation. His place can be readily filled by a competent and valorous
officer.
Heath’s blunt endorsement of the resignation led to a charge that his statements were
false and that the Lieutenant Colonel knew the allegations were “wholly false, malicious
and slanderous.”135
The Court Martial proceedings began on the 26th of February, 1863 and continued for
the next week and half, during which the division among the regiment’s officers was
clearly evident as was the poor state of discipline and morale. The prosecution’s strategy
was to use Major Hayes and Lieutenant Jessup as witnesses in proving that Company C
was capable of producing more than 10 troopers for duty, and to bear witness to Captain
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Halsey’s competence as an officer. When the Judge Advocate, the person who presides
over a court martial, asked whether Halsey was a good disciplinarian, Hayes responded,
“Yes sir, I regard him as a good officer in that particularism.” In response to a similar
question, Hayes answered, “I have never heard of his character assailed by any officer of
this regiment.” When pressed to explain why so few men were often available for duty
from Company C, the Major answered, “Well there was no one good reason for it. One
was the scarcity of horses, another was that Company C always had a greater number of
men detailed as orderlies than any other company.”136
Lieutenant Colonel Heath, an accomplished attorney before the war, took the unusual
step of representing himself during the court martial. He set out to prove his statements
about Halsey and Company C were true by demonstrating Halsey was incompetent and,
that the condition of Company C deteriorated as a consequence of that incompetence.
Heath went about the task methodically, first questioning Hayes about the actual number
of troops Halsey made available during the 20 day period in January after he took
command of the regiment. When the Major could not give definitive answers Heath made
sure the court martial board understood Major Hayes commanded the Third Battalion, not
the Second Battalion to which Company C belonged, the implication being Hayes was
could not be considered the authoritative source on Company C’s condition or Halsey’s
performance. The questioning of Lieutenant Jessup, the next prosecution witness
proceeded in the same manner. Both Jessup and Hayes were part of the anti-Heath faction
particularly taking a dislike to the Lieutenant Colonel’s views on abolition.137
Heath called on Major Ricker and Captain John Henry as witnesses for the defense.
Both were critical of Halsey. Ricker, the commander of the Second Battalion, clearly felt
the Company C should have had more men available for duty and firmly affixed blame
for that problem on Captain Halsey. Ricker believed Halsey had not ensured the
company’s horses were cared for properly, a prime responsibility of any cavalry officer,
making it impossible to mount perfectly healthy troopers who were available for duty.
Ricker added that he had spoken to Halsey several times about the care of the company’s
horses testifying, “My contention for a good company commander is one that keeps his
company in the best condition and the largest number of men mounted for duty. Captain
Halsey has failed in this respect.” He went on to testify that Halsey had not always
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“promptly carried out orders” and most disturbingly that he had completely disappeared
for eight days on a road march from December 20 through the 28th of 1862, feeling his
presence on the expedition wasn’t necessary, since the Company C was fielding only six
men.
Ricker had in fact recommended that Halsey’s resignation be accepted when
Lieutenant Colonel Heath had sought the Major’s input on the matter shortly after the
resignation was submitted. Ricker had responded that; “The most troublesome in his case
is that his company have lost confidence in him on the battlefield; that after having
observed him frequently under fire, I am satisfied that his men had a right to come to
such a conclusion.”138
Captain John Henry of Company M the other defense witness testified that he often
found his company encamped next to Halsey’s Company C. This Heath tried to prove,
gave Captain Henry insight on the daily interactions of Halsey with his men. Heath asked
if he had witnessed “evidence of disrespect for Captain Halsey as a company
commander,” to which Captain Henry replied he had. Henry went on to describe what
happened on the night of January 6, 1863 as the Second Battalion prepared to make a
march from Moscow to Collinsville. Henry noted only five or possibly six men turned
out for the march and that Halsey’s response was to go “from tent to tent where his men
were sleeping or resting. The manner in ordering them out was as near as I can recollect
[was] ‘Well boys can’t you come out tonight.’ The answer to which was in one instance,
‘No I’ll be God damned if I’ll go.’ In that style he went from tent to tent and was
answered in a somewhat similar manner.” Captain Henry soon to become a major
concluded his testimony by answering that he believed Captain Halsey had forfeited the
respect of the enlisted men in his command and with that assertion Lieutenant Colonel
Heath closed his defense and the court adjourned for deliberations.139
The next day February 7, 1863 the Court was called into session and the Judge
Advocate General read the verdict of not guilty on all counts. Heath’s defense painted a
picture of a company, if not an entire regiment, in disarray, a picture that at least the
nine officers on the court martial detail deemed accurate. It was a regiment in which a
company commander missing for eight days, essentially absent without leave, faced no
repercussions. Equally as damning was testimony that seemed to indicate how little
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regard the men of Company C had for their commanding officer. The wide dispersal of
the regiment, the power vacuum and the resulting political infighting of the previous ten
months had created a mess.
Even after the trial concluded there were still questions about who commanded the
Fifth Ohio though Heath had been reinstated as the regiment’s Lieutenant Colonel.
Colonel Taylor, still on detached duty, did not believe Heath had the authority he now
assumed and tried to block a series of promotions recommended by the Lieutenant
Colonel. Less than a week after the trial, Taylor still in Memphis, sent orders to Heath.
You are hereby ordered to read the enclosed “Roster” at the head of the Regiment, and
notify all officials who refuse to be governed by it, that they will be held responsible for
disobedience of orders, and any officer or soldier who assumes any authority not vested
in him by this roster will be held responsible and dealt with accordingly. And you are
hereby notified that all communications to the Governor of Ohio must be sent through my
hand for approval or otherwise.
Twice Heath refused to read Taylor’s enclosed roster (January 1, 1863 and February 2nd).
He responded to Taylor’s demands stating that the regimental organization “had been
neglected” and that he had “reduced the regiment from chaos to good order” with the
promotion nominations he sent to the Governor of Ohio. Taylor was clearly unhappy with
the contact Heath had initiated with Governor David Tod regarding the appointment of
officers to the regiment. Many personnel matters were the responsibility of the state,
falling within the venue of the Governor’s office, thus giving Governor Tod the final
word on all appointments. Heath had appealed his removal from the Fifth Ohio back in
August directly to the Governor, and now was directly cabling Governor Tod about new
appointments, signing each communication Thomas T. Heath, Lieutenant Colonel
commanding Fifth O.V.C. Much to the dismay of Taylor’s faction, the appointments
ultimately were made as Heath suggested.140
The retribution was swift. Heath was charged with refusing to obey orders, using
disrespectful language and acting outside of proper channels. A court martial began in
Memphis on February 16, 1863. Taylor testified that he still commanded the regiment
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though he was absent on detached duty with Heath as acting commander. The court
disagreed with this point and found Heath not guilty on all the charges.141
By March of 1863 in a letter to Major Ricker, who was at home recovering from
illness, Heath let it be known that while his faction had the upper hand, the rift inside of
the regiment was deeper than ever, writing “We are floating along annoyed in every
possible way, often disgusted, but still triumphant in every case thus far, and now are
simply waiting to hear from Governor Tod.” Both sides were waiting to hear about
promotions awaiting the Governor’s approval, and both sides were trying to influence the
outcome. Tod, a dedicated Democrat before the War, had been elected as a Unionist in
the election of 1861. Though a strong supporter of the Union he was not enthralled with
emancipation, the official policy as of January 1, 1863. He also had alienated some
supporters by handing out appointments to many Republicans. Lieutenant William
Dempster, formerly of Company D, but now a member of General Hurlbut’s staff, had
gone to see the Governor on behalf of Taylor’s faction. Heath wrote to Ricker “they crow
a good deal that when he [Dempester] comes back they will settle our hash ---but”, he
wrote, “we suppose you have seen Governor Tod and do not expect Dempster nor
anybody else to prejudice our case,” an assumption made with Ricker back at home in
Ohio. Heath wrote that, “General [James] Veatch without my asking, put a quietus on
Taylor, who threatened to come out here to quarter, and I am running the thing along as
best I can. All his clique are bitter as hell”. He concluded his letter: “I do not know what
new trap they may spring on us, but we will try to keep our end up, and when I send for
you, you must come, for I am determined to break up this unwholesome state of
things.”142
The same letter also mentioned the resignation of Captain Philip Trounstine, whose
family operated a tailor shop producing fine men’s clothing in Cincinnati. Commanding
Company B largely made up men from Cincinnati proper, Trounstine had resigned March
3, 1863 in protest over an order issued by General Grant expelling Jews “as a class” from
the Department covering West Tennessee and Northern Mississippi. In a letter written to
Major Hayes who was temporarily in command, the Captain made clear his feelings:
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… the sense of Religious duty, I owe to the religion of my Forefathers, were both deeply hurt and wounded
in consequence of the late order of General Grant … I can no longer, bear the taunts and malice, of those to
whom my religious opinions are known , brought on by the effect that, that order has instilled into their
minds. I herewith respectfully tender you my immediate and unconditional resignation. 143
Eventually Major Ricker’s illness also brought his resignation. Heath and supporters
inside the Regiment sent the Cincinnati Commercial a resolution recognizing Ricker’s
contributions.
Resolved, that in the resignation of Major Ricker, we have lost an estimable companion, a true and
devoted friend, and a gallant soldier, and as such, his resignation is a serious loss to his brother officers…
while we lament the loss of Major Ricker as an amiable companion, we testify to his constancy in duty
while in camp, and his courage on the field of battle, where he was ever among the foremost, and when in
the face of the enemy always met their dire with undaunted heroism… our sincere desire and prayer is that
Major Ricker may soon be where he long ago ought to have been, at the head of a Regiment of gallant men,
where we feel assured he will strike a heavy blow for freedoms cause, and for which he is fully qualified by
all that constitutes the Soldier, Gentleman and Christian.144
By April of 1863 there had been drastic turnover in the Regiment’s leadership and
tensions were so great that Charles Hayes wrote that “So many changes have taken place
and some difficulties have occurred which makes my presence absolutely necessary here
at present and for sometimes to come…Many of the old officers in the Regiment swear
they will resign and leave the service forever and beg me to go with them. They justly
claim that we are personally insulted by the recent course of the Governor in
commissioning many men that have been promoted to higher positions in our Regiment.
But I don’t propose to throw the Regiment away in that way.”145
By the end of March the First and Second Battalions had been assembled from across
Western Tennessee and sent to Memphis. From there they mounted scouting and raiding
expeditions like one that departed on April 18 with 265 men primarily from the First
Battalion led by Hayes. On April 19th they linked up with several regiments under the
command of Colonel George Bryant of the Twelfth Wisconsin Infantry Regiment bound
for Coldwater, Mississippi. On the second day out, the men of Major Hayes’ command,
acting as the advanced guard, came into contact with the enemy on the banks of the
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Coldwater River at Perry’s Ferry and drove them across the stream. Further down the
road the main body found itself under attack from the rear, though it proved to be of little
consequence. Meanwhile Colonel Bryant received an urgent message from Hayes
requesting help. Major Hayes communicated that he was badly wounded and feared that
his men would soon be out of ammunition. Bryant immediately dispatched a battery and
two infantry regiments to aid the Fifth’s troopers some four miles up the road. When they
arrived they found the Ohioans still holding the Ferry and immediately swung two field
guns into action, sending shells screaming into a thicket on the opposite side of the river.
The covering fire allowed Major’s men to withdraw to the ammunition wagon. These
were opening shots in a series of fights spread over the next two days. While Colonel
Bryant reported the expedition a success resulting in the capture of 80 prisoners, a large
number of good cavalry horses and a substantial number of arms, Major Hayes had been
mortally wounded. He had successfully pushed the Confederates across the river and was
rallying his men when he was struck in the pelvis and thigh by a minnie ball. Colonel
Bryant reported “all was done for him that was possible, but the wound was of such a
nature that anything but smoothing his passage to the grave was useless.” “He is entitled
to all the praise that an able, dashing and brave officer can receive from his companions,
his loss was a severe one to the service,” wrote Colonel Bryant, and so it was, especially
to the Fifth Ohio volunteer Cavalry.146
Back Home
The body of Charles Hayes was sent home to Elizabethtown where an outdoor funeral
was held at the home of his brother Moses. More than a thousand people followed the
hearse and the Major’s white horse draped with the American flag bearing his “empty
saddle, guns and sword”. A memorial written by Colonel Taylor praised Hayes as a
cavalry officer “quick to decide and prompt to execute,” an attribute that was often
missing in the inexperienced Union officer corps in the early years of the war. Taylor
added that, “he made some of the most brilliant charges of the whole war. Always ready
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to seek the enemy, he was generally successful. Reckless of his own person, he was
careful of his men, and possessed the confidence and respect of those under him as well
as those above him.” Such high praise was well deserved having been recognized for
gallant action by such high ranking officers as Major Generals Hurlbut and Charles Smith
on more than one occasion.147
Disaffection with the war at home in the Southwestern corner of Ohio continued to
grow. War critics were becoming bolder like Clement Vallandigham who had openly
criticized Lincoln since the beginning of the war. Vallandigham was a long time
Democrat who often has been inaccurately labeled a pro-southern traitor. He had been
elected to represent Ohio’s Third Congressional District which covered Montgomery,
Butler and Preble Counties located to the north of Cincinnati in 1858 and 1860 but lost in
his bid for re-election in 1862. By 1863 his public stance on the war resulted in
punishment by a military tribunal that amounted to exile from the Union. He had been
described more accurately as a “constitutionalist and a conservative” who insisted the
federal government did not have the constitutional authority to take action against
slavery, including limiting its expansion. He considered himself devoted to the interests
of the West and agriculture, not to the South. But his strict constructionist views on the
interpretation of the Constitution wed him to state’s rights and therefore as an involuntary
ally of the South. This being said, Vallandigham also hated abolition. He believed it
destroyed the delicate relationship that existed between the various sections of the
country but at the same time felt slavery wrong, and in his own words “a moral, social
and political evil,” though the Constitution gave it “tacit approval”. He like many other
whites, including abolitionists, was a racist that believed African-Americans should not
be given political or social equality.
Vallandigham’s views appealed to a segment of the Democratic Party in the North,
particularly to those that became known as the “Butternut Democracy” or Copperheads
many of whom had roots originally in the South. Vallandigham blamed the war on the
abolitionists and pushed for an end to hostilities and a return to the prewar Union. As the
war continued Lincoln’s Administration increasingly drew fire from common folk like
William Jessup Sr., Captain Jessup’s father. Squire Jessup, as he was known, was a
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C.L. Vallandigham was arrested at his residence in Dayton, Oh, freed by a court martial and sent beyond
the lines of our army in Tennessee. There appears to be much feeling expressed all over the whole North
against the arbitrary arrest and banishment of Mr. V. What will it result in I can’t say. I hope for a
peaceable and legal termination of the affair. There appears to be much feeling and hatred between the
Democratic Party and Abolition party here. What it will end in I cannot tell, no doubt it would end as all
party strife and excitement has heretofore…….The full true policy of this chartered or constitutional
government is full free and courteous discussion upon all measures proposed or adopted, if meritorious
they will stand, if not they will fall like all fallacies fall. Distrust arises from concealment and abridgement
of discussion. The great forbearance of the people under misrule and oppression is evidence of patriotism
and devotion to government but no evidence of the abandonment of principle, but when to far pressed like
the volcano they will sweep every fountain of corruption and purge every avenue. Let the oppressors
beware lest they are overwhelmed in the vortex.148
Vallandigham was well known in the area, with his old congressional district lying just to
the north of the Squire’s home. More people were war weary by 1863 than when
Alexander Long was elected in 1862, and more were willing to criticize the actions of
Lincoln’s Administration as unconstitutional. “I shall go to Columbus on the 11th” Squire
Jessup declared in a letter to his son “to our Great Democratic Convention and mass
meeting. It promises to be a great outpouring of old true patriots…I think there is nothing
contraband of war or peace in it. “
While representing only a faction of the Democratic Party the Peace Democrats as
they called themselves, advocated a peace at any price stance, a position taken by
Vallandigham who was making a run at the governorship of Ohio in abstentia. In late
July Jessup senior wrote his son.
…Vallandigham has issued an address to the people of Ohio excepting the nomination and defining his
position. He adheres rigidly to the Constitution and strict obedience to the laws, both state and national, if
bad repeal them, or render them null by the courts. He believes the true national policy of the government is
to adjust all great national differences by just and equitable compromises and in good faith. He also
maintains the sovereignty of all the states with their rights unimpaired by acts of the general government.
He advocates economy in our war expense with a vigorous position promotion of officers for meritorious
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conduct, while he is opposed to the system of military (trials for) civilians for criticism upon the policy of
the government or war from speakers or the press, also the suppression of the writ of habeas corpus when
war does not exist. Finally he holds the same time honored doctrine of Jefferson, Madison and Jackson and
he will be elected by the people of the state by a great majority and if the majority is not overcome by the
vote of the soldier he will be the next Governor of Ohio.149
The old Squire was not alone. Captain Jessup and others in the regiment seemed to reflect
his thinking. “ Unfortunately”, the Captain wrote of their 4th of July celebration,
“someone reported that a large force of Rebs were advancing on this place and we were
in consequence thereof was [not] allowed to leave camp except the scouting parties sent
out on all roads leading from this place. And we spent the day in camp drinking
lemonades with sticks in them. Before night some of us were very enthusiastic and you
may bet there was some electioneering done. You would have been surprised and amused
to hear me spout for old Val.” One can only imagine the level of political tension in camp
that Fourth of July with a fervent Republican and abolitionist in command. “He
[Vallandigham] will most certainly get a larger majority in this regiment,” Jessup
continued in the letter to his brother, “I hope to hear of his having been recalled from his
exile to his native state. We will give him as a big a lift as possible…My company is
O.K. on the question.” But many others in the regiment were not.150
Down south, Squire Jessup’s son and the rest of the Fifth Ohio were still patrolling
and making raids in Northern Mississippi and West Tennessee. In mid June Captain
Jessup was part of column of three hundred men bound for Commerce, Mississippi.
Made up of detachments from the Fifth Ohio, First Missouri and Second Illinois, it was
led by the newly promoted Major John Henry of the of the Fifth Ohio Cavalry.
Shortly after departing camp on the morning of the June 19th William Jessup noted,
“We had not gone more than half a mile when the enemy opened upon us with artillery.”
Major Henry immediately turned the column to the left, and moved about a quarter of a
mile before entering a field. The detachment from the First Missouri was posted at the
entrance to the field while the rest of the column was formed up for battle. While this was
happening they came under fire from the timberline on their right that instantly killed one
man and wounded another. “We were ordered not to fire,” Jessup noted, “as the fog was
so dense that it was impossible to tell whether the firing was from the enemy or our own
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men.” To avoid the fire they moved to the northern end of the field and formed two lines
fronting in that direction while Jessup was ordered to take a detachment and move a short
distance west to secure their flank. They remained in position until the fog burned off
allowing them to actually locate the enemy. At this point Major Henry again repositioned
his men shifting the Illinois and Missouri cavalry into a line of battle facing east with the
Fifth Ohio formed into a second line also facing east about 600 yards to the rear in a
dense thicket. Jessup reported he had “scarcely formed the second line when the enemy
charged the front line with overwhelming numbers and drove them directly through my
line breaking it almost entirely.” In the ensuing chaos Captain Jessup managed to form a
new makeshift line with what remained of the Fifth Ohio troopers, about 50 in number
and opened fire. This held for a short time before it too was overwhelmed. Confederate
cavalry moved all around them as they conducted a fighting retreat over a few miles to a
wheat field where the command rallied. This time they charged and drove the oncoming
Confederate cavalry about a mile before they ran into the enemy’s main body. Jessup
wrote his younger brother that “they called us bad names and asked us to surrender but
we could not see that it that way.” He recalled, “I was surrounded six times but got out
without a scratch although at this time I thought every minute would be my last. One
longhaired, gaunt hungry, vicious looking specimen more valorous than his comrades
rushed into our column and reining his horse against mine demanded me to surrender in
the following style, ‘surrender you damned blue bellied Yankee son of a bitch.’ I soon
saw his pistol was empty and conclude I would not be taken by such a brigand”. Jessup
then clubbed his opponent with the butt of his pistol and knocked him to the ground. In
the intense and confused close combat, Jessup recalled firing at dozen rounds, “not one of
them from more than twelve yards, and most of them less. I saw quite a number bite the
dust but I could not tell whether I shot them or someone else,” he remembered. Once
more they succeeded in shooting their way out of the confused melee retreating to a
bridge over Hurricane Creek. As the remainder of the command rode across the bridge it
collapsed forcing those who were willing to swim the creek while others, including Major
John Henry, were trapped and forced to surrender. The Fifth Ohio lost some 50 men in
the encounter. Major Henry would spend the next 15 months in Libby Prison. Jessup with
about one hundred remaining men continued riding until they came across another large
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Union column. The commanding officer, a colonel, ordered Jessup and the others to
return to camp ending the battle.151
Later Jessup under a flag of truce was sent to confer with the Confederates about
prisoners and the wounded. He wrote of the encounter, “I…had the opportunity of
conversing with the rebs on an equal footing. They seem to be all assured that they are
able to vindicate themselves as a free and separate government. I was well treated by
them.”152
In July the Third Battalion rejoined the rest of the regiment after almost 18 months
of detached service. Since its first expedition up the Tennessee River back in December,
the battalion been part of two more similar expeditions aimed at guerrilla bands and
Confederate cavalry raiders. Its last action as a detached element, the Third Battalion
joined the Ninth Illinois Mounted Infantry on a scouting expedition bound for Pontotoc,
Mississippi on the 17th of June. The Ninth Illinois was transported by train with the Third
Battalion escorting on horseback. Just outside of Ripley on the 19th they twice
encountered and skirmished with small enemy patrols. They pushed on through the night
riding through densely vegetated bayous that slowed their progress. Early on the morning
of the 20th they were attacked by a force estimated at 600 by Major Joseph Smith, the
battalion commander. The rear guard commanded by Lieutenant Joseph Overturf
succeeded in holding back the assault, giving Major Smith time to form up the entire
Battalion and come to the support of Overturf’s rear guard. Smith was unable to mount a
charge because of the thick foliage that gave their dismounted enemy a further advantage.
Even in face of these disadvantages Smith’s men succeeded in pushing back the forward
elements of the attack. Meanwhile the Ninth Illinois Infantry was able to dismount from
the train and form a line to which Smith’s men fell back. Twice more the Confederates
launched an assault causing the Union line to fall back and establish new positions before
the attack was broken off for good after almost two hours of fighting. Nine members of
the Third Battalion were wounded including Major Smith.
When the Third Battalion’s history as an independent command came to an end it had
“engaged in 47 skirmishes and actions, great and small,” capturing in excess of 300
prisoners and an equal number of horses while arduously riding more than 1500 miles. Its
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______________________________________________________
Back Home
A shock was delivered to Squire Jessup and all the residents of Southern Ohio in the
form of John Hunt Morgan. In one of the most daring raids of the war Morgan dashed
across the Ohio River from Northern Kentucky into Southern Indiana and then into
Southwestern Ohio on July 13, 1863. Morgan’s sudden thrust into Ohio and Indiana was
designed to draw away potential threats to General Braxton Bragg’s army retreating to
Chattanooga, Tennessee from Tullahoma, an event which prompted a long letter from the
Squire to his son.
… I was at Harrison when Morgan entered the town. First about eight pickets came up Main Street from
near Goldys upon a slow walk until they came within fifty rods of the town when they put their horses into
a full gallop and reached the center of the town and halted old Dick Simmons and his lady, half a block of
Minors Hotel. As they met him he was driving a fine horse in a spring wagon. One of the pickets ordered
the old gentleman to get out of the wagon and strip his horse. The surprise and consternation of the old
man deprived him of utterance and he stood for a few moments looking like a paralyzed man, but
recovering, he said he was away from home, and the old lady was almost frightened to death, he wished
them to let him go with his team. After some reflections by the soldiers, they told the old man to get his
wagon and go. The old man drove up the street to near the foot of the hill when he was met by horse scouts
and without ceremony the horse was taken from the wagon and the old folks left to trudge home. They
immediately after entering the town placed pickets on all roads leading from town letting no one go out but
letting all who chose to come. They then proceeded to regale themselves and forage in houses as best they
could. They took charge of the post office, placed a sentinel at the door, and sent a messenger for Post
master Clark for his key. The post master did not come but his key did. As I was in town for a letter and
approached the door and called for the contents of box no. 17 which made some amusement for the proxy
post master. Another delegation visited N. Leonard’s and Simmon’s stores and helped themselves to boots
hats, clothing and goods both fancy and common. Mr. Leonard says to the amount of at least six thousand
dollars, and cash to the amount of $ 4,200 and they visited Davidson’s with the same success in goods but
no money. All the clothing shops were stripped of their wares. The saloons and whiskey shops were
guarded to keep soldiers from drinking too much. The shoe makers disgorged, and the dear ladies fried
their delicate fingers in preparing food and drink for the free booters with their most gracious smiles an
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eulogies for their intrepidity and heroic courage, the gents with military courtesy with hat in hand
responded to the eager inquiries for places and distances with unmistakable accuracy and dispatch the call
for maps of Ohio were brought at the bidding without a murmur and every facility rendered to make their
departure as sudden as their entrance, all of which Morgan and his men embraced with a will.
They then with escort passed Calvin’s on their way to N. Baltimore. They fed some of their horses at the
Baptist meeting house at dusk they then crossed the [Great] Miami River near N. Baltimore and burned the
bridge, as I will send you a file of papers that will furnish his whole route, I will confine myself to some
details here.
By a law organizing the militia of the state, about the Fourth of July there were a number of military
companies formed and a cavalry co. [was] formed at Elizabeth Town. They were mostly unarmed but
hearing that Morgan had left Harrison formed company and marched into Harrison. They arrived about the
time the advance pickets of General Hobson’s army arrived at the burned bridge over the Whitewater. They
were mistaken for stragglers from Morgan’s forces while hunting the ford.
This valiant company of home guards , I believed commanded by Peter Higgins ( P. Guard) concluded
they would go near the river and reconnoiter and ascertain whether they were really Morgan’s men or
Hobson’s. Away they galloped toward the burned bridge. Hancock (Cilly) Higgins (Guard) and Logans
heading the company. When they came within proper range of Hobson’s forces they were mistaken for
Morgan’s rear and before they knew what they were about, received heavy fire from Hobson’s forces.
There were none killed or visibly wounded but such horse racing on their old plugs you never saw, some on
our side of the canal and some on the other screaming for dear life that fifteen thousand more of Morgan’s
men were coming to Harrison, and they had been fired upon and each men believed all were killed but
himself and he had several balls shot through his hat and clothes, some felt the warm blood flowing and
coagulating about their person. Their speed was continued until pursuit by the hindmost was known not to
be. When the next morning, it was found that they had been only fired over by Hobson’s command, then
without a white flag gathered wounded and missing and upon careful examination by their surgeon ( who
by the way was the worst wounded) and found that soap and warm rain water was the best prescription and
half a score of washer women with tubs and suds were detailed for the purpose, and by noon the
companies were in as good condition as ever, and each eager for the fight and all demoralization had left
with Morgan’s departure. There were many too ridiculous things that are facts in the neighborhood to put
on paper during this great event. I was with Morgan’s army from the time it entered Harrison until they
left, and until Hobson’s forces came in. As one picket left the others came in with the precision as though
the whole were under command of one general, this may be the strategy but I can not see it, so with my
limited military experience and knowledge. Now for the farce some seven or eight days after the departure
of the armies, the neighbors began to look for their horse[s]. There was as many left generally as taken, but
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they were crippled, sore backed and etc. with all manner of infirmity. General Burnside issued an order as
among other things loyal men who Morgan had taken horses from and left horses in their place, might keep
them by receipting to the grand government against any demand for horses Morgan took. A Lieutenant
Nash with ten or fifteen privates were detailed to collect the horses. I had one horse taken by Morgan and
one by Hobson’s forces an one left by each. I took the horse the Union forces left and surrendered him to
the Lieutenant and not wishing to have any bother about my horse concluded I would keep the one Morgan
left. I told the Lieutenant I would keep the horse and receipt. He told me to call the next morning and he
would attend to my case. I prepared affidavits, after pronouncing them correct he asked me what kind of
Democrat I was, to which I replied that I was in favor of the Constitution of the United States, the laws and
the union as it was. After a short pause, he inquired if I endorsed Vallandigham. I replied I did. He then
said you can not make any exchange of horses. Agreeable to my convictions I asked him if politics entered
into this arrangement. He made no answer but said the government considered Mr. Vallandigham disloyal
and of course all who endorsed him was so considered. I left the contemptible pup and will lose my horses
and win my head, but will never disavow a principle. I think right that perhaps this is too lengthy it is
mainly literally true and not colored (You will please substitute other names for those of the E town
guards). We are all well and have had good rain and thank God ask no favors of those who are not willing
to give them. It will take the bayonet to those who prevent the election of Vallandigham and with that
resort, God save the just, no stone will be left unturned, keep the faith steady, and be quiet, we will win and
save the country.154
On the 26th of July John Morgan’s raid came to an end with his capture along with the
remainder of his force, about 400 in number, near West Point in Columbiana County,
Ohio. His ride into Indiana and Ohio threw the region into a panic that did not subside for
some months and most importantly tied up General Ambrose Burnside’s Army of the
Ohio, slowing its march into East Tennessee.
Further west the surrender of Vicksburg on July 3, 1863 insured that the Union had
complete control of the Mississippi River cutting the Confederacy in half. While the War
was no longer a stalemate it was far from over. With the coming of autumn the regiment
was preparing to build winter quarters at Camp Davis, Mississippi about 8 miles from
Corinth. Reunited for the first time in months wholesale changes in the regiment’s
leadership had taken place. Major Scherer (First Battalion) and Major Ricker ( Second
Battalion) had resigned, Colonel Taylor had moved on to a new position, and Major
Hayes( Third Battalion ) had died in action .That left only Heath. A young, enthusiastic
idealist, Heath had prevailed in the power struggle for control of the regiment, a tribute to
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his political skills, connections, and the passion with which he seemed to attack every
endeavor. Colonel Taylor on the other hand, one who had dabbled in politics long before
the war, lost. At 50 years of age and in failing health he resigned in July of 1863 with a
medical certificate that cited rheumatism of the spinal cord and kidney problems so
severe he had no hope of carrying out his duties. With new leadership, better arms, and a
year and a half of combat experience the Fifth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry was about to
embark on a new odyssey as a military crisis unfolded in Chattanooga.155
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VII
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In September of 1863 Captain Jessup wrote to his father about his growing unease
with the military scenario unfolding further east in southern Tennessee and his disgust
over the state of political affairs within the Regiment.
... We have orders to build winter quarters which seem to favor our staying here all winter, although there is
a rumor in camp that we are going to reinforce Rosecrans with a force now being organized at Memphis.
The last report from the army is very discouraging. I hope it is not as bad as reported. It is now too late for
anything more to be done in the way of electioneering [Ohio Governors race]. All that can be done has
been done. I am in hopes that our side will have a majority in this Regiment. From all appearances I can say
that we will get half anyhow. If our papers had the circulation that the abolitionists forced theirs to have, we
would have beaten them badly. But we have not had a fair chance. Every branch of the politic business is in
the hands of the opposition and they allow just what pleases them to come here. I have been disgusted with
the weakness and duplicity exhibited by some men in this army, men who when they first came out were
good sound Democrats and loudest in their protestations against the abolitionists and are now just as much
on the other side. I have no faith in such men but they are fit satellites for the renegade Brough. I am afraid
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that our cause is hopeless for the present but there will be time when men will see the baleful effect of their
passive submission to the unconstitutional edicts of those in power.
... I just learned from the Adjutant that we were about to leave this place, destination unknown. I have
orders to draw shelter tents for the men and a large quantity of ammunition. I believe a raid is premeditated
though what region I cannot tell.
Thos. T. Heath has received his commission as Colonel of the Reg., with a very flattering letter from
Governor Tod asking him to send on his appointments for Lt. Colonel and Majors. Who will be the
successful candidates is unable for me to determine but his political friends no doubt will be the chosen
ones, without regard [for] military knowledge. I will write again as soon as I learn where we are going…
Clearly disappointed with fellow Democrats, he was not optimistic about the upcoming
gubernatorial elections. The rumor about the regiment’s imminent departure for
Chattanooga proved to be true. On October 17, 1863 the Fifth Ohio broke camp and
boarded trains bound for the city as part of Brigadier General Joseph Osterhaus’ division
leading Sherman’s Fifteenth Corps. 156
Three days into the new campaign pickets from the Fifth Ohio riding ahead of the
division’s column clashed with rebel scouts near Dickson’s Station on the Memphis &
Charleston line. The pickets from Captain Benjamin W. Thompson’s Company H
successfully pushed the enemy back several miles to some “open fields at Barton’s
Station” where they met a larger body of more than 400 cavalry troopers formed up into
battle lines commanded by Nathan Bedford Forrest. The two companies making up the
regiment’s advance guard charged with sabers drawn in a direct frontal assault later
described by Osterhaus as “brilliant” though unsuccessful in forcing the Confederates to
yield a “very strong position”. Osterhaus next ordered the rest of the Fifth Ohio, the
Third U.S. Cavalry, and a section of artillery to the front of the column. With artillery in
support, the new attack drove “the rebels from every inch of the first and second positions
they had fallen back on,” the General reported. Captain Jessup wrote to his father.
... We heard the firing and came up on the gallop. When we had come up almost to the scene of action, the
first and third Battalions filed off into the fields and left the road clear for the Old Second. The command to
draw sabers was given and immediately a hundred and fifty glittering blades leaped from their scabbards
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(Co. D). The charge was sounded, and the next instant we were dashing on the stubborn enemy, but they
could not withstand the shock, and, delivering an irregular volley at us, they fled in confusion. We overtook
some of the hindmost and compelled them to surrender, not however until some of them received some
ugly saber wounds.
I did not stop for those that surrendered but kept on in pursuit of those that still resisted. One fellow in
particular I was anxious to take: he had several times turned in his saddle and fired his pistol at me and
some of the balls had whistled uncomfortably close. My horse was so much encumbered with my blankets
that he could not make as good a time as I could have wished. The consequence was that the race proved to
be a long one. Before I was aware of my danger I was upon a line of the enemy about two hundred strong,
their guns at a “ready”. I looked around to see what backing I had and saw but six men in sight. I
immediately made a retrograde movement, not however until they had delivered their fire. They did not
hurt any of us, but hit several horses and shot a hole through my Orderly Sergeant’s (James Miller) canteen.
I never before was in such danger as on this occasion.
They had succeeded in “scattering the enemy completely” but at the cost of one dead and
three wounded. The regiment also won the praises of General Sherman, who used words
like “gloriously” and “handsomely” to describe their performance.157
As dusk fell the tired regiment encamped near Caney Creek without bothering to
unsaddle their horses. They grew suspicious however, of an unusual amount of
movement being made under the cover of darkness and posted an extraordinarily large
perimeter guard. Early in the evening their suspicions were confirmed when they were
hit by a series of sharp deadly attacks killing privates John Green (Company H) , George
Lutz (Company A), and corporal Charles W. Robinson . General Osterhaus responded by
sending Colonel Heath both infantry and artillery and ordering the Fifth Ohio to fall back
from its advanced position to the safety of the division’s perimeter near Cherokee
Station.158
At daybreak the first of several new heavier assaults began against the division. The
Fifth Ohio and the Third U.S. Cavalry were placed on the right flank of a line with three
infantry regiments and the First Missouri Horse Artillery. When the guns of the First
Missouri opened, a rebel line of several thousand was forced to retreat not once but twice,
the second time closely pursued by Union infantry. The infantry’s pursuit in conjunction
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with a flanking movement on the right by the cavalry began an exhausting five-mile
chase finally brought to an end with the onset of darkness.159
Over the next four days the Confederate army was reinforced as it reoccupied Barton
Station. Under orders from Sherman to move quickly and lightly, Osterhaus broke camp
at 3 a.m. on October 26th with the Fifth Ohio again in the lead. An hour and a half later
they arrived on the outskirts of the station and easily drove off the enemy pickets. The
Confederate forces had established themselves on a steep ridge above the rail line
partially hidden by a cemetery and masked by timber. Osterhaus estimated that between
800 and 1,000 yards separated the opposing lines. He placed his cavalry, the Fifth Ohio
and Third U.S. on both flanks of his First Infantry Brigade, while holding the Second
Infantry Brigade in reserve. As the first rays of light fell on Barton Station artillery
rounds began to rain down on the Union forces signaling an attack. The General
responded by ordering Heath to check an advance being made on their right by “a large
column of cavalry” using the Fifth Ohio and two infantry battalions. Colonel Heath was
further instructed to attempt to flank his opponent’s line if the opportunity presented
itself. Heavier guns, 20 pound Parrots, were brought up to the center of the Union line to
support the Colonel’s mission. As the Fifth Ohio began to push the Confederate cavalry
on the right it was closely followed by lighter 12 pound howitzers of the First Missouri
Artillery whose guns had not been able to reach the Confederates on the high ridge
almost 1000 yards from the original Union position. The Confederate guns now came
under an intense cross fire from the 12 pounders on the right, advancing behind the Fifth
Ohio, and the 20 pound Parrots in the center forcing a hasty retreat.160
Fighting as they withdrew, the Confederate retreat continued toward the town of
Tuscumbia. Approximately 200 Confederate cavalry acting as the rear guard slowed the
advancing Fifth Ohio. Four miles from Tuscumbia the Confederate force crossed Little
Bear Creek under covering fire from a high plateau on the opposite bank of the creek.161
As Osterhaus following closely behind the Fifth deployed his forces to ford the creek,
the intense Confederate artillery fire continued to shower down upon them. With his
advance stymied by the Confederate guns Osterhaus also found his left flank under a
brigade-sized assault led by Nathan Bedford Forrest, but a furious fusillade from the
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Third Missouri and accompanying barrage of artillery quickly ended Forrest’s effort. By
this point darkness had fallen and both sides broke off contact for the night.162
On the morning of the 27th the Second Division of the Fifteenth Corps crossed Little
Bear Creek further up stream with the intention of launching a coordinated attack along
with Osterhaus on the enemy’s left. Brisk firing to the General’s right announced the
arrival of the Second Division and he ordered the 20 pound Parrott guns into action.
When the Confederate left began to crumble, General Osterhaus sent the Fifth Ohio to
drive them from their position. By 11 a.m. the Regiment with the support of 6 pound field
pieces had pushed into Tuscumbia achieving the division’s objective.163
On the 29th the Regiment returned to Cherokee, and for the next three days pushed on
toward Chickasaw Landing on the Tennessee River “over exceedingly bad roads,” with
Confederate cavalry constantly shadowing them. The column however, was not molested,
which General Osterhaus attributed to the work of the Fifth Ohio. Robert Major now a
Lieutenant in Company F wrote home of the experience:
It was the intention of General Sherman to open the Memphis and Charleston Road [rail] all way to
Decatur where it crosses the Tennessee River, but they had it so completely destroyed from Cherokee to
beyond Tuscumbia that it was improbable to have it repaired in any kind of time. They had the ties burned
and the iron so bent up that [their] the whole mounted force was engaged in destroying and burning up the
road. Here we abandoned the railroad and came across to Chickasaw on the Tennessee River 15 miles from
Cherokee and crossed on a boat, and we made a land march of it. Altogether we drove in all the stock in the
country as we went along; cattle, sheep and hogs, and slaughtered them at night so we had plenty of fresh
meat on the march. But salt was the scarcest article. We also took all the horses and mules we could find in
the country. When the old planters heard we were coming they took all their goods, horses and mules and
hid them, but we got most of them. They had some hid in curious places.164
Undoubtedly the past two and a half weeks left the men and horses worn out.
November continued much as October ended with the Fifth Ohio often leading the
Fifteenth Corps as they continued to push on toward Chattanooga. Lieutenant Major
wrote;
We passed through Pulaski, Fayetteville, Florence and Stephenson, coming here [Bridgeport] and to several
other small towns. It was a hard march on the horses but we had pretty weather, and it was a good thing
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fore we have no tents along with us, and we have to take it as it comes every night at the root of a tree. We
have been in the saddle every day for the last 5 weeks and sometimes the greater part of the night165
The condition of horses in fact was a major concern and had been for all the Union
commands in the West since mid 1862. Stephen Starr in his authoritative study, The
Union Cavalry in the Civil War, noted that cavalry regiments formed in the early months
of the war generally were given decent mounts. But as the war continued the quality and
quantity of the horses available was always questionable. The Fifth Ohio certainly was
not immune to the problem. As early as December of 1862 Company C was reporting its
troopers were in good health but could only mount half the company due to a shortage of
healthy horses. This remained a problem as the regiment marched eastward pushing
horses beyond exhaustion with inadequate forage or grain and too often proper care. The
remedy, though inadequate, was the seizure of horses from nearby farms. While this
action was officially approved, the troopers were urged not to take the animals of “good
Union men” and to leave families with at least one horse. It certainly was not a means of
winning the hearts and minds of Southerners who also suffered the seizure of food and
livestock for which they were supposed to be compensated. By the end of December
1863 the regiment had lost a staggering 700 horses since the new campaign had begun in
October.166
By the 23rd of November the regiment was on the outskirts of Chattanooga. The city
had been under siege since mid September when troops under Major General Braxton
Bragg occupied the high ground east of the city on Missionary Ridge and south of it on
Lookout Mountain. Bragg’s arrival was made possible in part by Morgan’s raid through
Ohio and Indiana. Bragg’s troops were able to control access to the city cutting off
supplies to its Union defenders. In response to this dire situation Lincoln ordered
reinforcements to be sent from the east in the form of 20,000 men under the command of
General Joe Hooker along with Sherman’s troops marching in from the west, among who
was the Fifth Ohio, marching from western Tennessee and northern Mississippi. In
addition Grant was placed in overall command not just of this region but the entire
Western Theater.
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By the 27th of October Grant had succeeded in opening up a supply line for the city but
still was awaiting the arrival of reinforcements to permanently break Bragg’s
stranglehold on Chattanooga.
On November 20th the regiment moved back across the Tennessee River at Bridgeport
as Sherman’s forces began to arrive on the outskirts of Chattanooga and maneuver into
position for an assault on Missionary Ridge. On the 23rd General George Thomas
initiated the offensive with an assault on Orchard Knob just to the west of Missionary
Ridge with Hooker’s assault beginning on Lookout Mountain the next day, followed by
Sherman’s attack on Missionary Ridge on the 25th from a position just to the north of
their objective. During the three days of battle the Fifth Ohio performed a number of
support roles. Various detachments were used as couriers and escorts while large portions
of the command guarded supply trains as the great battles unfolded. During the afternoon
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hours of the 25th Bragg’s army was amazingly routed from seemingly impregnable
position high above Chattanooga opening the door to Northern Georgia.
A few days later on November 28, the Fifth Ohio was given a new assignment; to join
General Sherman who had been dispatched to relieve the Union forces under siege in
Knoxville. This meant a grueling ride to catch Sherman had who departed two days
earlier. When they finally caught up with him the Third Battalion still under the
command of Major Joseph Smith was detached to a cavalry brigade and ordered to ride
ahead and “cut its way through to Knoxville.” The rest of the regiment was given the
unenviable task of foraging corn for the troops and finding mills to grind it.167
Major Smith and the Third Battalion were attached to Colonel Eli Long’s Brigade.
Long had been instructed by one of Sherman’s aides “to select the best material of his
command” and to “push into Knoxville at whatever cost of life and horse flesh” letting
General Ambrose Burnside, presently in control of the city, know that help was on the
way. Covering approximately 40 miles over treacherous roads in less than 24 hours they
reached Burnside on the morning of December 4. Their daring ride however, proved to be
unnecessary. The Confederate commander, Major General James Longstreet, realizing
Union forces were converging on Knoxville from several directions called off the siege
and retreated toward Virginia. 168
Colonel Long stayed in Knoxville only two days. Departing on December the 6th
Third Battalion was part of an expedition sent to intercept trains carrying Longstreet’s
troops. It meant a demanding ride across the Tellico Plains from December 6th to the11th
that ultimately ended in failure with the expedition missing the trains. Colonel Heath
who had followed with the rest of the regiment reached Knoxville a few days later before
being ordered to Athens which they reached on December 28, 1863. The preceding two
months of campaigning covering almost 700 miles of riding again took a severe toll on
their horses with “many abandoned as unserviceable”.169
Cut off from news early in the campaign, Jessup wrote his father from Bridgeport,
Alabama.
We are on detached service and cannot get our mail, and I do not get any letters… The news from the front
is very good. I think our campaigning in this Department is [done] for this winter. I heard the cannonading
very distinctly yesterday. I have heard no particulars. The commissary has orders to process 36,000 rations
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for prisoners. From this I would infer that we have a large number of prisoners. Five hundred passed
through here yesterday. They were captured on Lookout Mountain. They say that Bragg will not stand
quiet. They did not learn until within a few days that Grant was at Chattanooga. They are afraid of him.170
…I still have charge of the men at this post. We are getting on finely, but little duty to perform and plenty
to eat. I would not care if we should remain the balance of our time at this place providing we prosper as
well as we do now. I have plenty of company from morning until night. Citizens are coming in asking
questions, advice, favors etc. I am busy all the time. I have done more talking since I came to this place
than I have done in a year before. I talk on all subjects and most [about] labor, peace and war. All wish to
see the war end as speedily as possible. There are a great many of good Union men in this neighborhood,
and a few fire eating Rebs that wish for peace without a separation.
Quite a number of the wealthiest planters have deserted their plantations, as is the case with the one we
now occupy. They have left some of their stock and negroes here. I have given some of the corn so
abandoned to the poor who were so molested that they were unable to raise any last year. I have supplied
about 12 families in this way. In regard to veterans none in my company have as yet reenlisted but I think
the majority will. Officers do not reenlist. I expect another will feel much relieved by this information. I
have not seen a paper since the 15th. I do not know what is going on. It seems impossible for me to keep
posted. I hear only one side of the question, and do not believe that.
…. I had word that I would be attacked tonight by a large force but the one shot fired on the picket did not
amount to anything. I am prepared for them if they do come…
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The bored troopers busied themselves trying to keep warm and suitably fed using
foraging to augment their meager rations. Though foraging was not encouraged, it was
permitted with the approval of their officers.172
Not all agreed with Major’s sentiments about finishing the war to its bitter end, especially
at home in Southwestern Ohio.173
_____________________________________________________________
Back Home
John Brough was elected the Governor of Ohio with 60% of the vote, to Clement
Vallandigham’s 39.4%. The twin victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July of 1863
clearly turned the war in favor of the Union hurting Vallandigham who was running on a
peace platform. Captain Jessup had miscalculated the support for Vallandigham in the
ranks of the Union Army. While he may not have expected his candidate to win, he
surely believed Clement Vallandigham would have faired better with the troops with
Brough taking 19 out of 20 votes cast by Ohio soldiers, a total of some 41,467 votes to
Vallandigham’s 2,288.174
Back in the Southwest corner of Ohio the race was much closer. Vallandigham won
57% of the vote in Butler County and 50% of the vote in Montgomery County, areas he
had formerly represented in Congress. In the more heavily populated Hamilton County he
took just over 40% of the vote. The collapse of the region’s economy followed by
unexpected defeats and the endless stream of broken bodies returning up river over the
previous two and a half years had cooled enthusiasm for the war. The Lincoln
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Administration surely breathed a sigh of relief with one of its most populous states now
securely under the leadership of a governor who strongly backed the war effort. John
Brough was a Democratic, but a Democratic in 1863 that chose to take a strong stand
against the growing peace movement within his party. In the 1864 presidential election he
again demonstrated his commitment to the Union by backing Lincoln against his own
party’s candidate, George McClellan, who was running on a peace platform. 175
With little to do while at the Sledge Plantation from February through April of 1864,
William Jessup like many others lived for news from home to fill the long, dark winter
months, news which his Father dutifully supplied. “We are well,” Squire Jessup wrote his
son, immediately turning to politics and the state of the economy. Farm labor it seemed,
was in short supply, a consequence no doubt of the war and with spring in the offing, the
elder Jessup worried there was little that would remedy the situation, even “high wages”
he complained, though the same war time demands that pushed labor costs higher also
made the produce they were growing more valuable. Corn, oats, barley, wheat all were
bringing prices so high that there appeared to be a “revolution in all our business
transactions,” he wrote .The Squire reminded his son that April elections were not far off
and that the Republican Party was already “actively organizing for the fight,” referring to
the November Presidential Election. He bitterly wrote “you see how easy it is for a party
to perpetuate themselves in power if they have no scruples in violating the Constitution
and election laws.” Jessup senior, predicted a bleak future for the nation’s economy,
believing a mounting debt would have ominous consequences. There would be taxes “so
heavy….that it will be impossible for the great mass of people to support themselves and
families and pay it.” Ultimately he believed this would lead to a repudiation of the
national debt and the beginning “of a new era in the history of our government.” His
father closed with news of various neighbors including the death of Mrs. Harrison, the
widow of the President and the mother-in-law of their old colonel, W.H.H. Taylor.
Still stationed at the Sledge Plantation another letter arrived for Captain Jessup from
his father at the end of April. Squire Jessup repeated a rumor that Confederate generals
Foust, Buckner and Breckinridge would “march a heavy force into Kentucky and attack
Louisville and Cincinnati. This rumor caused some stir with the state authorities,” he
wrote. “The Governors of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania have been in
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consultation with the President upon the defense of these points.” Their concern
prompted widespread discussion about the necessity for raising a significant number of
six month volunteers, as many as 200,000 for defensive purposes. Jessup felt such
considerations were impossible. “The war has assumed such magnitude as to baffle even
the skill, enterprise and resources of the North,” he wrote, while also recounting the fate
of Alexander Long, their Congressman.
Long, the former teacher and attorney elected to represent the Second Congressional
District had addressed the House in early April of 1864. The Cincinnati Gazette
described “a great, portly, resolute looking figure, with ultra-florid face and good natured
features, and a profusion of curly hair,” taking the floor of the House on April 8, 1864.
…I speak today for the preservation of the Government, and although for the first time within these walls,
I propose to indulge in that freedom of speech…so freely exercised by other gentlemen for the past four
months, and which is admissible under the rules in the present condition of the House: but for what I may
say…I alone will be responsible…I intend to proclaim in the deliberate convictions of my judgment in this
fearful hour of the country’s peril.
Long went on to accuse the Lincoln administration of provoking the war with the attempt
to deliver badly needed supplies to Ft. Sumter in the spring of 1861. Lincoln, he charged,
knew fighting would result, which he believed was the President’s intention. It was a
choice “to coerce the states back into the Union”. This clearly clashed with Long’s belief
in the States’ Rights Doctrine which viewed the Constitution as a compact from which
the states could voluntarily withdraw. Later in the speech Long’s intentions became clear.
“Can the Union be restored by war? I answer most unhesitatingly and deliberately, No,
never; war is final, eternal separation.” He called the war “unconstitutional” which he
noted could “only be carried out in an unconstitutional manner.” His lengthy speech
advocated an immediate peace and acceptance of the Confederacy’s separation, which
sent the House into convulsions.176
On the House floor, future President James A. Garfield, who had recently led troops in
the field, “compared him to Benedict Arnold”. The next day in a resolution proposing his
expulsion from Congress he was accused of giving “aid, countenance, and
encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility to the United States”. For the next
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two weeks in newspapers and in floor debate Alexander Long was demonized, or
defended for freely and bravely speaking his mind.
When the resolution to expel Long failed, a new resolution to censure him was
proposed and passed. Long received support from Democrats and Republicans alike, not
for his sentiments about the constitutionality of the war but his right to freely express his
political beliefs or in Squire Jessup words, “for offensive opinions expressed in cautious
and proper language,” about the war. It was an episode the older Jessup labeled “one
week of abolitionist ventilation,” though it should be understood he equated abolitionism
with anyone belonging to the Republican Party. “The whole country [is] condemning
their action as foolish and tyrannical,” he wrote. The Squire summed up what he believed
about the war and the future of the country in the final paragraph of his letter.
Upon what base the government will hereafter be organized is a question of time and foreign interventions.
Should the war cease and friendly relations between the two sections be manifested? The organization of
the North might be upon democratic principles and constitutional government but should the South be
subjugated, their property confiscated and the province held and the laws enforced by military power, then
farewell to republican government on the continent of America for all times to come and [ in ] its place
first anarchy and military despotism. The tenth of history will hold good in this as in the downfall of
republics, God save us from this awful calamity. The greatest evil that could befall the North would be the
subjugation of the South to hold as a conquered province. [It] would entail a strong central military power
and a military dictator, fixing stamp acts, excise laws and income taxes, labor [will] be oppressed and
degraded, and capital protected…
The senior Jessup’s sentiments paralleled the views of Alexander Long given in defense
of his purportedly treasonous statement. Jessup was personally familiar with the
Congressman, living a relatively short distance from where Long had been a country
teacher and a loyal member of the Democratic Party. Even in light of his political views
Squire Jessup in closing his letter counseled, “Be careful of your health, do your duty.”
In May Sherman began his four month campaign to take Atlanta, which had become
an important manufacturing center for the Confederacy. Initially the cavalry was used to
protect the vital rail lines that linked his armies to supplies coming from Nashville some
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136 miles to the west. In addition to these duties Sherman used his cavalry in their
traditional role as flankers and scouts for infantry columns. Though regularly engaged in
skirmishes, much to their dismay, they were used sparingly in heavy fighting during the
early stages of the campaign, and given in historian Stephen Starr’s words “a purely
auxiliary role”.177
On the 22nd of June 1864 the Fifth Ohio took up its position as the lead element of the
Third Division on a three week road march that took it to Cartersville, Georgia. The
remaining days of July and August were spent scouting and protecting rail lines around
Cartersville from constant attacks by Confederate cavalry resulting in almost 650 miles of
riding. The riding and forage conditions had again been so bad that many horses were
rendered useless. With remounts unavailable several hundred Fifth Ohio troopers
suddenly became infantrymen while others were mounted on substandard mules. The
regiment remained in Cartersville through October during which time the three year
enlistments of many of its original members came to an end.178
While the rest of the regiment remained in Cartersville engaged in the daily drudgery
of patrolling a subdued though hostile land, Companies D and C under the command of
Captain Jessup were detached to serve as the bodyguard of Major General John Logan,
the new commander of the Fifteenth Corps. Logan and his Fifteenth Corps along with the
Seventeenth Corps were sent south around Atlanta to sever the city’s one remaining
lifeline, the Macon & Western Railroad, by striking at Jonesboro. On August 31, 1864,
24,000 Confederate troops were suddenly thrown at the two Union Corps in a battle that
ultimately determined the fate of the big city.
As General Logan’s bodyguard, the men of Company’s D and C ranged across the
battlefield watching the fighting unfold over a two day period in the Flint River Valley.
Dug in behind breastworks and gun emplacement that were literally thrown up over
night, Union troops stubbornly repulsed repeated Confederate assaults. Sergeant Jacob
Gilberg of Company D, recalled hearing General Peter Osterhaus confidently tell Logan
during breakfast in a thick German accent “Youst Ggift me time to drink my Goffee und I
will mak’em hell schmell.” Not more than an hour later the first shell screamed over the
Union position plunging harmlessly into the river signaling the first round of assaults.
Volley after volley echoed across the valley as the first charge exploded from the
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… When out of the hail of bullets I would gasp of relief, thankful to have escaped that trip. I would have a
few moments of respite in the river bottom; could get a cool drink of water that was so priceless to a thirsty
man, linger around for a few moments,” and “then nerve myself for another ride into the storm of shot. As I
would near the battle line I would pull down the rim of my hat as though to shield my face from bullets.”
179
Gilberg’s assignment for that day allowed him the relatively unique experience of
seeing the deadly and chaotic fighting as he traveled across a great deal of the battlefield.
He described ammunition wagons stopped from making their critical deliveries as their
teams were mowed down and watching large numbers of wounded brought to field
hospitals. “I saw piles of arms and legs outside of the field tent and heard the cries,
groans, prayers and even their cursings,” he wrote.180
The next day perched in a tree on a hill overlooking the valley, he watched the
Fourteenth Corps join the Fifteenth and Seventeenth as they now switched to the
offensive. The Fourteenth joined the line of battle materializing “from the shelter of the
woods, flags flying, guns gleaming in the sun light,” he wrote. He continued, “The crack
of guns became audible and soon grew into a continual crash. In a short time they were
enveloped in smoke [so] that all we could see was a flash now and then. The fighting was
stubborn for some time but the enemy had to give back, and the battle rolled on and soon
the woods hid the lines from view.” In time he described hearing “long hearty cheers” as
the enemy retreated and he was back again “in the saddle.”181
While the battle was fought Confederate commander General John Bell Hood
evacuated Atlanta, which Sherman occupied the next day, September 2nd. In Atlanta
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Sherman planned the next phase of the war while his exhausted army rested and prepared
for the march to the sea.
Back in Cartersville many in the Fifth Ohio were eagerly anticipating their return
home. The three year men who had enlisted in the late summer and fall of 1861 were now
faced with a decision, re-enlist for what could be the final stages of the war or happily
depart the regiment after three long years of service. Their service was a much longer
period than most had anticipated would be necessary, so through the fall of 1864 what
started as trickle of men deciding to return home, turned into a flood with several hundred
mustering out at Columbus, Ohio on the 29th of November 1864. By the end of the year,
449 of the original 1,064 men that had departed Cincinnati for Tennessee in the winter of
1862 had mustered out. This combined with the more than 240 men granted surgeon’s
certificates before 1865 for wounds, ailments or injuries, represented a substantial
turnover in the makeup of the Fifth Ohio. Those leaving included men of every rank
including Lieutenant Colonel John Henry, two battalion commanders, six company
commanders holding the rank of captain, along with dozens of men that held a rank no
higher than private through all three years. But many longtime members decided to stay
including Colonel Heath and Corporal Isaac Scott who reenlisted, along with Sergeant
Gilberg another original member of company D.182
Captain Jessup still on detached duty with General Logan received a letter from Heath
who remained with the rest of the regiment at Cartersville.
I acknowledge your note sent just as you left Joneseboro and though late I congratulate you on your part in
a brilliant campaign. We are worked to death and have done almost the entire work of a division. We are
marched in long quarters and do everything within the last four days. I have hauled in about two hundred
thousand dollars worth of cotton.
Eager to get home? I am informed we will all be kept until the 1st [ of] November. I have done all I could to
get the date fixed as early as that but do not know that it has any effect. Will you be prevailed upon to
remain in the service another term? I think you would do well to do so and would be glad if you would.
Please drop me a line.
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The authorities at Columbus have addressed me in complimentary terms urging me to try to prevail on the
officers to remain. And I lay the case before you feeling that your intelligence and patriotism will direct
you alright.
Come up and visit us when you can. I have long since lost all hope of ever getting near you, or of doing
anything with command but the hardest work, the drudgery, and that too with apparently less credit than
other cavalry get, who have not done one tenth the service this regiment has, but we have not hitherto
complained, and it is too late to begin now. Present my kind regards to your officers and men.
The tone is surprisingly cordial for a professional association that could best be
described as tense. Heath seemed desperate to keep Jessup whom he must have held in
high regard as an experienced and professional officer with three years in the field. The
colonel was in a very difficult position with more than half his company commanders
having fulfilled their terms of service. Hence the letter must have been one among many
sent to out to his most experienced men.183
On November 7th the Fifth Ohio departed Cartersville without those who would be
mustering out in Columbus on the 29th of the month. It was very nearly a new regiment
with many fresh recruits filling its ranks like 18 year old Van Hayes, a brother and cousin
to the other members of the Hayes family that had been part of the Fifth Ohio since its
inception. In other cases veterans who had previously mustered out rejoined, like 42 year
old John Probst who had left the army on November 9, 1864. In February of 1865 he
rejoined for one more year of service. The regiment however, was officered by men who
were long time members, with six new captains promoted from first lieutenants, new
majors who had been captains and a new lieutenant colonel. Even with massive
reorganization the leadership was far more experienced and prepared for the rigors of war
than the Fifth Ohio was at its birth in 1861.184
Upon its arrival in Atlanta the regiment was made part of General Judson Kilpatrick’s
Third Cavalry Division .The egotistical Kilpatrick was known as an aggressive
cavalryman with a reputation for recklessness having seen extensive service in the East
with the Army of the Potomac. By the time they reached Atlanta it was “little better than
a smoking ruin”, much of the city that had been burned to the ground as would many
Southern towns and cities in the coming months. After spending only a day there,
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Heath’s command began the infamous march to the sea as part of Sherman’s army. Made
up of more than 60,000 troops, Sherman’s force cut a swath of destruction up to sixty
miles wide from Atlanta to the city of Savannah on the east coast. They tore up rail lines,
burned crops, destroyed bridges and towns and anything else that might be of use to the
Confederacy in waging war. It was the kind of total warfare North America had never
known. On November the 24th the Fifth Ohio departed Atlanta riding to the northeast
toward Augusta often acting as Kilpatrick’s advanced guard.185
Late on the evening of November 27th Kilpatrick’s command was the target of a
surprise attack on their camp near Buck Head Creek by Major General Joe Wheeler. The
First Brigade buckled and was put to flight with the Fifth Ohio ordered to the rear to
prepare positions for the brigade to pass through during the withdrawal. Barricades of old
rails were hastily thrown up near a bridge crossing the creek and a section of howitzers
attached to the regiment were setup to cover the retreat. The howitzers firing canister kept
Wheeler’s men at bay until the entire Union force had crossed. Captain Jessup in
command of 20 Company D troopers then “daringly burned and completely destroyed the
bridge,” while under intense fire. After nearly two hours the regiment still covering the
First Brigade’s retreat, was forced to withdrawal from its position when it was almost
flanked by Wheeler’s forces fording the creek further upstream. Major General Joseph
Wheeler would continue to be a more than worthy opponent through the remainder of the
war. A West Point graduate, he became one of the youngest generals in the Confederate
Army at age 26 in 1861 and in the view of Robert E. Lee one of the best cavalrymen in
the South, reaching the rank of Lieutenant General by the war’s end.
They withdrew some two and a half miles down the road while Companies E and C
under Captain Alexander Rossman, “skillfully and gallantly” kept the enemy in check.
Engaged in a running fight the Fifth Ohio made its way to new barricades thrown up on
the grounds of the Reynold’s plantation and took up positions to repel Wheeler’s
pursuing troops. Sergeant Gilberg recalled “they came at a trot and then at a gallop,” until
the artillery drove them back. He noted, “not a shot was fired from our carbines. All we
did was witness the demoralizing work of the shells and cheer.”186
Four days later [Dec. 2nd] General Kilpatrick’s column came into contact with a force
of almost 1000 Confederates near Rocky Creek Church. Colonel Heath was given the
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assignment of clearing the General’s left flank. With a single battalion of the Fifth Ohio
supported by the six companies of the Third Kentucky Cavalry, Heath charged the
enemy’s position allowing the advance to continue.
On December 4 they had reached the outskirts of Waynesboro where General
Kilpatrick hurled his division at Confederate troops in prepared positions, once again
under the command of Wheeler. While the first assault failed, the second breached the
barricades pushing back the Confederate infantry who found themselves in serious peril.
At this critical moment with the outcome of the battle hanging in the balance, Wheeler
counterattacked with his cavalry to save his dismounted force. Kilpatrick and Colonel
Heath along with the Fifth Ohio held in reserve watched with growing alarm from a bluff
above the action realizing it was now the Union force that was in serious trouble.
Kilpatrick ordered the Fifth to move forward. In a column of fours it trotted down the
hill meeting only token resistance. After breaching a fence, Heath put the regiment in a
line of battle and took the initiative to charge the exposed flank of the Confederate
horsemen. As several hundred Union cavalrymen crashed into the Confederate
counteroffensive, its momentum was broken and Wheeler ordered a general withdrawal.
Heath’s split second decision had saved the day leaving Waynesboro in Union hands. As
Heath pressed the attack, artillery fire seemed to be growing in intensity and when one of
the shot fell near him he understood what was happening. “Wheeling his horse he rode up
the hill [toward the 10th Wisconsin Battery], waving his sword and shouting; elevate
those guns. Your shots are falling among my men.” The Colonel felt his regiment had
been denied the opportunity to take a “good list of prisoners” by friendly artillery fire that
diverted their close pursuit of the fleeing enemy. General Kilpatrick, it was reported,
observing the day’s events was “sitting on his horse [was] in high glee.” Pointing toward
the rapidly retreating enemy he said, “Well, Joe Wheeler has got a good licking this time.
I always could lick him. I whipped him at West Point, have licked him here and could do
it again.” As a young cadet Kilpatrick’s political views as a passionate Unionist and
abolitionist were known to have precipitated several fights with fellow Southern cadets at
West Point. Heath’s actions were later rewarded with a promotion to Brevet Brigadier
General, winning the praise of Kilpatrick and Sherman for his action.187
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Later that day the regiment was order out to destroy a railroad trestle about five miles
outside of Waynesboro. Colonel Heath reported it was “accomplished in a thorough
manner” tearing up 79 iron rails which were heated and bent making them permanently
unusable. As the march across Georgia continued the regiment spent 15 consecutive
hours on picket duty covering the crossing of a swamp near the Ebenezer Chapel on the
8th of December. About midnight they were “shelled furiously”, but stubbornly refused to
retire until ordered to withdraw.188
On December 11th as the Fifth Ohio neared the Atlantic and took up a position near
Silk Hope, Colonel Heath received orders from Kilpatrick to “accompany him on an
expedition to open communications with the fleet.” The next day they moved south and
after riding and walking their horses all night the column noticed water to their right.
They rode to “a fine plantation” on St. Catherine’s Sound about 10 o’clock and
established a camp where Heath ordered two howitzers set up. A number of shots were
fired and after short period of time a boat appeared filled with sailors sent from Admiral
David Porter. The Colonel and two officers from Major-General Oliver Howard’s staff
[the Corps commander] were rowed some twelve to fifteen miles in a gum-tree canoe to
the bark Fernandina where they were provided a cutter and crew to take them to Admiral
Porter’s flagship with dispatches from General Howard.189
Late in the afternoon Colonel Heath returned and the cavalry troopers began anxiously
waiting for boats bearing rations to arrive. Sergeant Gilberg recalled that for days they
had little to eat except rice, which he noted was in abundance in coastal Georgia. They
had survived by foraging since departing Atlanta almost a month earlier and now would
be supplied by the fleet. 190
On December the 10th the offensive reached Savannah and the city fell 11 days later.
There the Fifth Ohio rested and refitted for next the three weeks while more veterans
mustered out, including Captain William Jessup, who now after more than three long
years returned home to Harrison, Ohio. While in Savannah, a critical choice was made by
Grant and Sherman about the next move to be made by Sherman’s army. Rather than take
the army by sea to join Grant in Virginia it was decided they would march northward
through the Carolinas to join him. This had been the position advocated by Sherman who
explained, “We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make
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old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war,” and make them feel the hard
hand of war they did.191
The Fifth, still part of Kilpatrick’s Division, departed on their final campaign of the
war but without Colonel Heath, now holding the rank of brigadier general. The new
general was sent with dispatches to Washington D.C. on board the steamer North Star.
Major George H. Rader, one of the original members of the regiment assumed
command.192
On January 28th the regiment broke camp and marched north covering 90 miles in just
four days. As the march continued through Robertsville, Allendale, and Blackville it
proved to be uneventful until they reached Williston, South Carolina. Called out in
support of the other cavalry regiments in their brigade, the Fifth Kentucky and First
Alabama, pursuing a large Confederate force, two battalions of the Fifth Ohio were
ordered to slowly move forward while a third was assigned to protect the baggage train
and caissons. Their excitement proved to be short lived when it became clear the enemy
had slipped away. After the brief but sharp confrontation the Confederate cavalry brigade
making the attack had been thoroughly routed leaving the ground littered with guns and
haversacks.193
The Fifth Ohio was now part of a force assigned to make a feint toward Augusta,
Georgia to draw attention away from Columbia, South Carolina, Sherman’s real
objective. They spent the next two days, the 9th and 10th of February, destroying sections
of the Augusta and Charleston Railroads and on the 11th were assigned the task of
securing the extreme right of their column while the Second Brigade went out to
reconnoiter in the direction of Augusta. Subsequently when the Second Brigade met
resistance and began a withdrawal the Fifth threw up barricades and prepared to assist in
covering its retreat. The Fifth Ohio along with the rest of the Third Cavalry Brigade
remained in their positions for another day but no attack came. When the march resumed
northward, Sherman’s success became visible to all about midnight on the 17th when the
nighttime sky was lit up by the burning city of Columbia some 14 miles to the east. It
seemed now there was nothing that would stop them. Their worst enemy however, was
the horrendous weather that slowed them, turning roads into a sea of mud and widening
creeks into rivers. 194
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By March they were part of an offensive pushing for Fayetteville, North Carolina,
also the destination they discovered, of Confederate General Wade Hampton, whose
cavalry force had opposed Sherman since Atlanta. An over confident General Kilpatrick
now foolishly decided to try and intercept Hampton by sending each of the three cavalry
brigades making up his division down “three widely separated roads”. He accompanied
the Third Brigade to which the Fifth Ohio was assigned, gambling his risky maneuver
would allow him to intercept Hampton whom he did not regard as a serious threat. On the
evening of March 3rd, the regiment was briefly surprised by a small force from the
command of their old nemesis Joe Wheeler. After the initial shock the men recovered and
easily drove off the attack. This assault was of little consequence when compared with
what lay ahead.195
Hampton was well aware of the disposition of Kilpatrick’s troops, and chose to strike
first. With a force slightly larger than Kilpatrick’s Third Brigade, he struck on the
morning of March 10th just as morning reveille was blowing. Hampton’s men swept
through the camp at Monroe’s Cross-Roads overrunning much of it. Those not cut down
or captured by the surprise charge escaped into a nearby swamp including the
beleaguered Kilpatrick who, Stephen Starr reported, was wearing a nothing but a
nightshirt. The brigade and division headquarters, along with the wagons and artillery
were all immediately captured. With nearly two-thirds of the camp in Confederate hands
a Lieutenant Stetson stealthily creped to his section of artillery unlimbered one of his
guns and successfully got off canister rounds into the attackers, beginning a makeshift
counteroffensive. Fighting desperately from behind trees they won back ground in the
words of Major Rader, “inch by inch”. A small group of company grade officers rallied
their men around Stetson’s gun laying down such an intense fire they fought off three
successive charges to capture the field piece which was spewing both grape shot and
canister. The enemy was finally forced to retire after the “most terrific hand –to-hand
encounters I ever witnessed,” noted Rader in his report. Among those whom he singled
out for praise was Captain Joseph Overturf of the Fifth Ohio, Captain Hinds of the 1st
Alabama and Captain Glore of the Fifth Kentucky, who’s efforts prevented the probable
destruction of the entire command (Third Brigade). He also gave special mention to
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Corporal Mahlon Hayes (Fifth Ohio) who “shot a rebel color bearer, tore the colors from
the standard, and presented them” to the Major Rader.196
The engagement had been costly and embarrassing for both sides. Kilpatrick’s force
counted only 18 dead and 70 wounded but listed 170 men missing, presumably captured,
a number it would seem, at odds with the claims by Hampton that his forces had taken
almost 500 Federals prisoner. It was a particularly costly for the Fifth Ohio, which
counted only 3 dead and 14 wounded, but 50 missing, presumed to be captured. That dark
bloody day at Monroe’s Cross Roads was just one more of the hundreds of the dark
bloody days that faded into the past to be forgotten, a battle not large or important enough
to be memorialized but certainly more than an inconsequential skirmish.197
After a brief rest and burying the dead, the brigade continued the march into North
Carolina capturing Fayetteville on the 15th as they pushed on toward Raleigh, the state
capital. On March 16th near Averasborough between Cape Fear and the Black River,
Kilpatrick’s cavalry fought in their last serious action of the war. A large Confederate
force under the command of General Hardee attempted to slow the offensive that would
take them through Bentonville, Goldsboro, and into Raleigh. The Fifth Ohio was placed
on the extreme left of the line of battle with the 5th Kentucky and 1st Alabama to the rear
in support, and the Third Battalion under Captain Overturf thrown out in advance of the
battle line as skirmishers. Overturf succeeded in pushing the enemy skirmishers into their
breastworks with heavy fire as they advanced to within 200 yards of the Confederate
lines. Before the assault began the entire cavalry brigade was replaced with infantry from
the Twentieth Army Corps who had just arrived on the battlefield. Kept in reserve
through the remainder of the battle the Fifth Ohio did not see any more action as
Hardee’s troops were forced to retreat.198
At Bentonville, Confederate General Joe Johnston made a last ditch effort to stop
Sherman’s offensive with a force cobbled together from a half dozen small commands in
the region. What unfolded was a savage battle that played out between the 19th and 21st of
March. Held in reserve, the Fifth Ohio’s participation was limited to watching tenacious
Confederate attacks on the Federal lines that stubbornly held. On the third day of battle
however, mounting Federal numbers and a successful surprise assault on Johnston’s rear,
forced a withdrawal from the battlefield. Any chance of saving Raleigh was now gone.199
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Three days after the battle ended the Fifth Ohio along with the rest of the brigade went
into camp for two weeks of rest and recovery time. After a campaign that lasted fifty-five
days covering more than 700 miles they were given a sorely needed rest. It was not just
the distance and time of the campaign that made it exhausting, but also the conditions
under which the march had been taken. They had crossed seven major rivers and “an
innumerable number of smaller streams and swamps that under ordinary circumstances
would be considered impassable,” according to their brigade commander. They also had
drawn only five days of rations from the commissary requiring them to live off the
countryside to meet the needs of men and animals.”200
On April 7th they were ordered to move on Raleigh and on the 10th the march began
with the Fifth Ohio in the lead. Over the next several days skirmishing took place on the
outskirts of the city but no serious resistance was encountered as the regiment led Union
forces into Raleigh itself. Sergeant Gilberg of Company D recalled the regiment’s entry
into Raleigh:
I was the No. 1 of the first four of Company D, 5th Ohio Cavalry and that morning we were in the lead of
the column. We had expected to jump General Wheeler’s command, but mile after mile was passed, and we
got no sight of man nor horse. Finally as we topped a slight elevation, the city of Raleigh lay before us
about a mile off.
We rode forward with carbines held ready. As we came near a movement was seen in a street on the
outskirts of the capital. For a few moments we thought it was the advance of the johnnies. Upon getting
nearer we saw vehicles approaching with a white flag in the foremost buggy.
I was about a quarter of a mile from them, when a bugle in our rear sounded, “Column, halt!”
Gen. Kilpatrick and staff, followed by his 40 scouts---we boys called them the “Forty Thieves”—came
galloping by us on our right flank. The flag of truce had halted, and Kilpatrick rode up to the truce party
and stopped.
Now I wish to quote a few words of the conversation as given me after by Lieutenant Jim Miller of my
company, who was on staff duty with Gen. Kilpatrick that day. When asked by the General what was
wanted, the reply came from the Mayor of the city; “We wish to surrender the city and ask protection from
vandalism.” They had in mind the burning of Columbia, S.C.
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They stated further that they had to beg General Wheeler almost on their knees not to give battle near the
city. “We told the Generals Johnston and Wheeler’, continued the mayor, “that to fight here will cause
destruction of our city. You have had all of South Carolina and this far in our own state to oppose and stop
the Yankee advance and could not now in justice to us, move outside our city and give us a chance to save
our property.” This they finally had done.
General Kilpatrick accepted their offer of surrender and promised to place guards at every house until a
proper provost guard could be established.
We the entered the city and took possession. There was no haste or rush---the column moved at a walk. The
orders were for every Captain to detail men to the right and left at every house.
I rode in the fenced yard of the first house dismounted, and led my horse to the back yard, where I
watered him at the well and fastened him. Then I returned to the front and stood guard till late afternoon,
when I was relieved by infantry.
When the 5th Ohio Cavalry had been installed, the 5th Kentucky Cavalry and 1st Alabama Cavalry took the
detail, until the entire city was under guard. This left the 13th Pennsylvania Cav. and accordingly they were
ordered by Gen. Kilpatrick to go thru the city and reconnoiter the enemy.
They didn’t have to go far---a volley of shots greeted them and a scrap was soon on. The 13th Pennsylvania
was not strong enough to drive them off, so Kilpatrick ordered the 8th Indiana Cavalry. They came on at a
gallop by fours and, deployed right and left, and we went after them on a rush sending the Johnny cavalry
back at a full run. This was about the last exchange of shots between Johnston’s and Sherman’s armies.201
On the day Raleigh fell, one event symbolically brought the long war to an end for the
homesick men of the Fifth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. A lone member of the regiment
scaled the statehouse dome and cut away the Confederate battle flag from its lightening
rod, and raised the Stars and Stripes in its place. On the 9th of April Robert E. Lee
formally surrendered his forces at Appomattox. Joe Johnston’s surrender was only a
matter of time. A few weeks later at Durham Station, North Carolina Johnston reached
terms with Sherman who was escorted by Brigadier General Thomas Tinsley Heath and
men from the Fifth Ohio.202
Though the war had ended, the Fifth Ohio remained in North Carolina as part of the
Third Brigade commanded by Heath. General Heath was responsible for enforcing the
law and “starting the civil machinery of government” including the appointment of
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justices of the peace and paroling Confederate soldiers. It was an assignment for which
Heath was well suited because of his experience as an attorney and long standing
commitment to abolitionism. From his Raleigh brigade headquarters Heath ordered: “The
soldiery will not inflame the minds of the citizens by either word or act but…and [will
be] protecting both white and black.” Concerned about relations between his men and
the civilian population of North Carolina, he barred foraging, adding that homes could
only be entered with an officer present, but he also directed that guerrillas firing on
federals would be executed upon capture.203
On May 2nd the regiment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Pummill
was assigned to occupation duty in Franklinton, North Carolina. Pummill an original
member of Fifth Ohio began his service in Company G as a first sergeant and steadily
rose through the ranks to lieutenant colonel. While under his command the regiment’s
area of operation was expanded to include Franklin, Warren, and Nash counties within
each Heath ordered the creation of a police force of 30 to 80 men. In addition to keeping
law and order, Colonel Pummill faced other challenges like ensuring the fair treatment of
the freedmen while also maintaining military discipline and efficiency within the ranks of
the regiment.
A continuing problem for Pummill was the behavior of his men. Soldiers were
accused of things like selling military property including horses and stealing corn from
local residents. Drinking also became a problem resulting in fights, charges of
insubordination and absences without leave. The case of William Gaines was typical. He
was sentenced to three days of confinement with hard labor and a public reprimand for
intoxication, disobedience, disrespectful language to a superior and being out of camp
without a pass. Colonel Pummill responded by requiring each company to take two roll
calls a day and perform two hours of drill daily. He also began classes for commissioned
officers and insisted they sleep in camp with their men. But by the end of September theft
had become such a serious problem that Heath gave civilians the right to use firearms to
arrest soldiers.204
The plight of the freedmen required special attention. The end of slavery changed the
lives of thousands of African-Americans living in the counties under the Fifth Ohio’s
supervision. While the army was not responsible for taking care of the freedmen it did
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have to protect them and keep the peace. Heath directed his officers to urge the freedmen
to stay at or near their current homes while also encouraging landowners to hire them at
fair wages. He wanted it made clear to the freedmen they should avoid traveling to
garrison towns for federal aid. None-the-less problems still occurred as in the case of
Fenton Johnson. He came to Franklinton, North Carolina where his wife lived and was
ordered to leave by Captain John Bowls of Company D. Bowl’s based his demand on the
belief that other freedmen would also come to town, and would steal rather than work.
Johnson’s refusal to leave led to his arrest and Bowls placing him on a diet of crackers
and water. The local Freedmen’s Bureau agent whose responsibility was to look out for
the freedmen expressed concern over Johnson’s treatment. The next day Pummill
appointed Captain Joseph Overturf as a military judge to hear cases involving disputes
between and black and white citizens.205
Throughout the occupation the army was drawing down. As men fulfilled their terms
of service and were mustered out, units were consolidated and dissolved. On June 24,
1865 Heath ordered men whose enlistment terms expired to come to Raleigh. From there
they would be mustered out in small groups. By the beginning of August Company C was
so small that Colonel Pummill ordered that the remaining members should be distributed
across the other companies. Simultaneously an independent squadron known as
McLaughlin’s Ohio Cavalry Squadron was integrated into the 5th Ohio and made into the
new Company C.206
In September the regiment was ordered into the mountainous western region around
Morganton, North Carolina where it remained until October 30th, when the entire
regiment was mustered out, and in the words of Whitelaw Reid “after a protracted and
meritorious term of gallant service, its members gladly resumed their citizenship.”207
130
Afterward
Thomas W. Fanning--- After being sent to Camp Dennison to recover from a serious
illness, the 33-year-old Fanning was hit by a train and released from the Army. In
September of 1863 he rejoined and was given a commission as a lieutenant in the newly
organized 9th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. Earlier in the same year P.C. Browne Printing
published Fanning’s work titled The Adventures of a Volunteer, by a Non-Commissioned
Officer, which covered his experiences and observations with the 5th Ohio Volunteer
Cavalry. In 1865 he published another book, which consisted of his first work in addition
to further observations while an officer with the 9th Ohio Volunteer titled (Take a breath!)
The Hairbreadth Escapes and Humorous Adventures of a Volunteer in the Cavalry
Service. By one of Them, Who Has Been Under Generals Grant, Lew Wallace, Sherman,
Halleck, Rousseau, Thomas and Kilpatrick. Later he worked as a chiropodist, a type of
19th century podiatrist, in Cincinnati.208
John Thomas Taylor joined the Fifth Ohio but later was made a member of General
Sherman’s staff at the rank of lieutenant.211
Elbridge Ricker--- Ricker returned to his Pleasant Hill home in Clermont County after his
medical discharge where he remained active in a number of civic capacities. He died on
March 10, 1876 leaving behind his wife Margaret and four adult children. Two of his six
children also served in the Union Army though oddly neither served in their Father’s
regiment. Benjamin the oldest reached the rank of major in Thirty Fourth Ohio Volunteer
Infantry and was severely wounded at the Battle of Fayetteville in Sept. of 1862. A
younger son Thomas lost a leg at the Battle of Atlanta in August of 1864. Never fully
recovering Thomas proceeded father in death on May 1, 1874.212
Thomas Tinsley Heath--- The General returned home to practice law and to a wife whom
he had seen only three times after the regiment made its initial departure for the
Tennessee River Valley. He married Mary Elizabeth Bagley in September of 1862 after
postponing the nuptials when he volunteered to form the Fifth Ohio in the spring and
summer of 1861.213 They moved to Loveland after the war and built a beautiful home he
named Miamanon. For the General however, the domestic bliss was shattered when his
wife died in October of 1872. Four years later General Heath married Mary Louise Slack
whom bore him seven children, though two died of diphtheria in 1889. He developed a
lucrative law practice but devoted almost ten years of work to the development of two
inventions for the printing industry, the “Typography” and “Justifier” from which he also
derived a considerable income.214 He was approached several times to run for political
office because of his success and reputation for generosity but never accepted, though he
remained a devoted member of the Republican Party. General Heath died in 1925 at the
215
age of 91.
William Jessup---After his resignation in 1865 Captain Jessup returned home to Harrison,
married, and became a farmer like his Father, the “Old” Squire”. His marriage to Helen
Mae Cooper of Cleves produced nine children two of whom preceded him in death. He
remained dedicated to the Democratic Party throughout his life playing an active role in
132
state and local politics. Jessup was to be elected to the Ohio General Assembly several
times the first occurring in 1877 and later holding the same office from 1904-1908, when
he was the Assembly’s oldest member at 64. In 1908 he returned to local politics and was
elected the Hamilton County Treasurer. On December 2, 1914 Captain William Jessup
passed away at the age of 73.216
Whitelaw Reid--- Reid’s success as a war journalist took him from Cincinnati to
Washington D.C. where he developed strong ties with the Republican Party. At the War’s
conclusion he toured the South and wrote, After the War, a volume of his collected
writings about the post war South in 1866. In 1867 he tried his hand at growing cotton
and failed and turned to writing again publishing Ohio and the War in 1868. The book
detailed the history of the Buckeye’s State’s regiments and leaders in the war and again
put him in the limelight. In the same year he went to work as a journalist for the New
York Tribune and several years later with the help of financier Jay Gould purchased the
paper. For the next two decades he increased the Tribune’s circulation and improved the
quality of its product while becoming close to many of the nation’s top Republican
leaders. His political ties led to a number of high level appointments including
membership on the commission charged with working out the terms of peace with Spain
after the Spanish American War and an appointment as The U.S. ambassador to Great
Britain in 1905. In 1912 at the age 90 the accomplished journalist and publisher passed
away while visiting London.
The letter below is a fitting means of concluding this book on the service of citizen
soldiers during the Civil War. It was written by Colonel Taylor to memorialize Major
Charles S. Hayes.
Charles S. Hayes was born near Elizabethtown, Hamilton County, Ohio in March 1832, where he spent
his early part of his life in agricultural pursuits. When the toxin of war resounded throughout this broad
land summoning to arms the patriotic and brave to the defense of the republic, he unhesitatingly abandoned
the quiet avocations of rural life to take part and finally to die in the great struggle involving the
preservation or destruction of American nationality. He counted not the toil, danger, sacrifices and
privations incumbent to the life of a soldier; considered not the alluring enjoyments of home with its
myriad of hallowed associations; he heard only the voice of his imperiled country rallying her hardy sons
around the starry emblem of freedom, to protect it from the ungrateful hands seeking its dishonor. Colonel
William H.H. Taylor received authority to raise a regiment of cavalry in Ohio in August 1861, and being
familiar with the character of Major Hayes, immediately tendered him a captain’s commission, which he
promptly accepted, and at once entered upon the work of filling up his company. This was soon
accomplished and upon the organization of the regiment in the following October he was promoted to the
rank of major and placed in command of the entire third battalion, 5th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry.
With the brave men of this regiment his whole future was to be identified at their head, he finally poured
out his blood; as pure a libation as was ever offered upon the altar of country, at the shrine of liberty. The
regiment was ordered to the field in the latter part of February 1862. The nation had been electrified by the
invincible marches and achievements of our armies in the West. The Tennessee River had been cleared,
and our victorious legions were already on the way to invest Corinth, the great rebel stronghold in the
Southwest. To this point Colonel Taylor’s regiment was conveyed in transports, disembarking at Savannah,
Tennessee. Major Hayes’ battalion was here detached and made a part of Maj. General C.F. Smith’s Corps.
One of the first duties assigned to Major Hayes, was the hazardous undertaking of cutting the enemy’s
communications with Columbus, Kentucky. Arrangements being completed on the thirteenth of March at
midnight the brave men under Major Hayes started for the bridge on the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, near
Purdy, which they reached and destroyed. So significant was the service this deemed, so prompt, efficient
and thorough the execution of the work that the following complimentary order was issued the next day.
The Major General commanding tenders his thanks to Major Hayes, 5th Ohio Cavalry, and the officer and
men of the battalion of that regiment under his command, for the activity, skill and courage with which the
recent movement in the direction of Purdy was so successfully accomplished by them.
By Order of
Major General Chas. F. Smith
134
This brought Major Hayes prominently before the army and the country; henceforth he had a military
reputation to sustain, and right nobly did he sustain it. During the memorable siege of Corinth the duties
devolved upon his battalion were of the arduous nature and were invaluably performed with cheerfulness,
energy and skill. In the Battle of Shiloh which was fought on Monday April 7th, Major Hayes distinguished
himself by gallantry and meritorious conduct and shared in the glories of the day. Soon after he marched
with the army into the fortifications at Corinth, which the enemy had been compelled ignominiously to
vacate. On the 18th of August, Major Hayes was ordered to Memphis to take command of the First and
Second Battalions then stationed at that post. In connection with Major Ricker, he commanded these two
battalions during the whole of the last summer and winter, till the latter officer retired from the service,
when he assumed command of both. In the sanguinary conflict on the Hatchie (River), resulting in the
complete triumph of our arms, he took a conspicuous and honorable part, adding fresh, unfading laurels to
the bright chaplet already encircling his brow. From this time he was constantly engaged in the
performance of valuable services in connection with the army at Memphis, enjoying the fullest confidence
of his superiors in rank. On Saturday April 18th at the head of his two brave battalions, he met and fought a
considerable force of the enemy near Hernando, Mississippi. The conflict was not decisive. On Sunday the
fighting was renewed and during the day Major Hayes made a dashing charge, driving the enemy into
Hernando, and actually capturing more prisoners than the whole number of men under his immediate
command. While cheering his men, and after victory had perched upon their standard, the fatal messenger
of death came, swift but sure to summon him to join that innumerable caravan, whose white tents are
pitched in the valley of eternity. He received a mortal wound, which terminated his life on the following
day
While we mingle our tears of sorrow and affliction with those of his bereaved family, friends and
companions, let us seek to emulate his extraordinary heroism and his faithful, unbounded devotion to his
country. Let his comrades and his countrymen consecrate their lives to the triumph of the sacred cause in
which he surrendered his life.
The death of Charles S. Hayes will leave an aching void in the hearts of all who knew him well. Kind
hearted generous to a fault, naturally of a cheerful temperament he possessed the happy faculty of
imparting to those around him, his own buoyancy of spirit.
His love for mankind flowed in the purest current and his friendship caught a glow from the intensity of
his feelings.
Though firm and unwavering in his belief that the cause for which he fought was the holiest ever
committed to the ointment of battle, yet he seldom spoke harshly of its foes, attributing their conduct rather
to a fatal delusion than to criminality of purpose. No man cherished less sectional animosity and home
more earnestly desired that our dissention should buried deep in the bosom of oblivion, and that we should
live together peacefully and harmonious and happy, as one people.
135
We believed that in no other way could we achieve a destiny as great, glorious and imperishable. With
these lofty principles and aspirations he gave his sword and at last his life, the greatest sacrifice a patriot
can make to his country, and what even may his fate, and the immortality of his history.
As a cavalry officer Major Hayes was quick to decide and prompt to execute. He made some of the most
brilliant charges of the whole war. Always ready to meet the enemy he was generally successful. Reckless
of his own person, he was careful of his men, and possessed the confidence and respect of those under him
as well as those above him.
This brief notice is offered as a faint, rude memorial only, of the services and virtues of a man with
whom the writer was intimately associated for many years.
When the American nation, redeemed, regenerated and reestablished, shall such a monument of marble
to commemorate the heroes of this war, justice will demand that high up, upon its polished front shall be
engraved the name of
Major Charles S. Hayes
And the night dew that falls though in silence it weeps, shall brighten with verdure the grave where he
sleeps. And the tear that we shed though in secret, it rolls shall long keep his memorial green in our souls.
The conclusion of the War did not bring an end to the comradeship that developed
between the members of the Fifth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. In Cleves in 1881 as in many
communities across America, a Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) Post was founded.
G.A.R. Post 224 was named after the highly esteemed Charles S. Hayes, killed in battle
on the banks of the Coldwater River. G.A.R. Post 224 was just one of 24 chapters
established in Hamilton County with dozens of others in the surrounding counties from
which the Fifth Ohio was recruited.
The national G.A.R. was initially established for camaraderie but in time became
powerful political force that lobbied for pension legislation, and relief work that often
benefited veterans that had fallen on hard times. By 1890 its national membership peaked
at over 400,000 and was considered one of the most important special interest groups in
the nation. It had grown so powerful that it was thought impossible to become the
136
Republican nominee for the Presidency without the endorsement of the G.A.R. and
eventually five members of the organization were elected to the nation’s highest office.
With posts established locally, it was typical to have a membership that consisted of
men from numerous regiments that now lived in that community. But often regiments
initially raised in that community were heavily represented as in the case of the 5th Ohio
at Charles S.Hayes Post 224. Eventually a Fifth Ohio Cavalry Association was created
based at the Post which included men from across the nation. The Association held the
first of numerous annual reunions in 1888 with the last recorded reunion taking place in
1913 though several more probably followed. The 1911 reunion as the 50th anniversary of
the beginning of the War was a large affair, held at Memorial Hall in downtown
Cincinnati.1 It was well attended by 200 members of the Regiment most of whom would
have been in their late 60’s and early 70’s. The 1913 reunion, the 25th held by the
Association, was a much smaller affair held in the home of one of the local members.
137
End Notes
1
Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 15, 1861.
2
Robert Wimberg, Cincinnati And The Civil War (Cincinnati: Ohio Bookstore, 1992), 4-5.
3
Cincinnati Daily Commercial, April 15, 1861.
4
History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County; Their Past and Present (Cincinnati: S.B. Nelson and
Company, 1894), 1039; Jay Jorgenson, “Scouting For Grant,” Civil War Regiments: A Journal of the
American Civil War 4, no. 1 (1994): 57.
5
History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, 1039.
6
History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, 1039.
7
History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, 1039 – 1040.
8
History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, 1039 – 1040.
9
History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, 1040.
10
Pauline Pearce Warner, Harrison of Berkley: Walter Cocke of Surry (P.P. Warner); National
Archives, William Henry Harrison Personnel Records; Freeman Cleaves, Old Tippecanoe: William Henry
Harrison and His Times (Newton, Ct.: American Political Biography Press, 1904), 304.
1
Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio (Cincinnati: Henry Howe, 1847), 229; Proceedings of the
Hamilton County Agricultural Society (Hamilton County Agricultural Society, 1844); Marjorie Byrnside
Burress, History of the Cincinnati Post Office (Cincinnati, M. B. Burress, 1982); Cleaves, 335.
12
Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War: Her Statesmen, Her Generals, and Soldiers, 2 vols. (Moore,
Wilstach and Baldwin, 1868), 2: 3-5.
13
Thomas Heath, letter to State Adjutant General Buckingham, July 11, 1861, Ohio Historical Society,
Series 147
14
Stephen Z. Starr, The Union Cavalry in the Civil War, 3 vols. (Louisiana State University P), 1:59;
1:50
15
Starr, 66-67.
16
Thomas Heath letter to State Adjutant General Buckingham, July 13, 1861, Ohio Historical Society,
Series 147
17
Heath, July 13, 1861.
18
Cincinnati Enquirer, August 25, 1861.
19
Starr, 113; Royal Hayes, The Hayes Genealogy (Cincinnati, Royal Hayes, 1927), 239-242.
138
20
Hayes, 239; Reid, 777.
21
Alvin Harlow, The Serene Cincinnatian (New York, Dutton, 1950), 50; Henry Howe, Historical
Collections of Ohio (Cincinnati, C.J. Krehbiel And Company, 1888), 768.
22
James K Mercer, Representative Men of Ohio (Columbus, Press of F.J. Herr, 1908) William Jessup
Letter to family July 12, 1862
23
Thomas W. Fanning, The Adventures Of A Volunteer (Cincinnati, P.C. Browne, 1863), 3; Ohio
Adjutant General, Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion 1861-
1865, 12 vols. (Akron: Werner PTG> and Litho. Co., 1891), 9:281.
24
Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, Volume XI, 249-295;
Geoffrey Ward, Ken Burns and Rick Burns, The Civil War (New York; Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1990), 122-
123.
25
John T. Taylor, Reminiscences of Services as an Aide-de-camp with General William Tecumseh
Sherman. War Talks in Kansas: A series of papers read before Kansas Commandery of the Military Order
of the Loyal Legion of the United States (Kansas City: Franklin Hudson Publishing Co., 1906), 128-135;
Official Roster Of The Soldiers, 241 –301; Henry A. and Kate B. Ford, History of Hamilton County
(Cleveland: L.A. Williams Co., 1881), 326;Official Roster Of The Soldiers, 264.
26
Official Roster Of The Soldiers, 241; Official Roster Of The Soldiers, 261; Official Roster Of The
Soldiers, 263-265.
27
Ford, 324; Ford, Biographical page; Shirley Altoff and Peg Scmidt, The New Pioneers: The People of
Delhi 1830-1890 (Cincinnati: Delhi Historical Society), 55-56.
28
Harlow, 51-52.
29
Byron Williams, History of Clermont and Brown Counties (Cincinnati: S. Rosenthal and Co., 1896),
232-233.
30
Williams, 127; Williams, 440-441.
31
Williams, 440.
32
Ford, 39; Levi Coffin, The Reminiscences of Levi Coffin (Cincinnati: Western Tract Society, 1876),
525; Charles Greve, A Centennial History of Cincinnati and Representative Citizens (Chicago:
Biographical Publishing Company, 1904), 752-753.
33
William G. Lewis, Biography of Samuel Lewis: first superintendent of common schools for the state
of Ohio (Cincinnati: Methodist Book Concern, 1857), 319.
34
Lewis, 319-320.
35
Lewis, 320.
36
Lewis, 320.
37
Ann Hagedorn, Beyond The River; The Untold Story Of The Underground Railroad (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 2002), 54.
139
38
Marjorie Burress, The Mouth of the Great Miami; Along History’s Path (Marjorie Byrnside Burress,
2000), 79; Ford, History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, 1889.
39
Thomas T. Heath, letter to John Brown, November 26, 1859, The Virginia Magazine of History And
Biography (Virginia Historical Society, Volume X, Number 1, 1902), 167.
40
William Jessup letter to father, July 5, 1863, Marjorie Burress Collection.
41
Reid, 777.
42
Reese Kendall, Pioneer Annals of Greene Township, (George F. Degelman, 1905), 53-54.
43
Official Roster, Volume XII, 449; Fanning, 3.
44
Fanning, 3 - 4.
45
Ford, 1040; Thomas Tinsley Heath, Straws, a paper read before the Ohio Commandery of The Loyal
Legion, 1909, 7; John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, 1960,150 –151
1stedition 1887.
46
Fanning, 7, 75.
47
Starr, Vol. III , 9-10.
48
Isaac Scott Letter to Moses Hayes, Dec.5, 1861, Dennis Collins collection; Regimental Order Book,
Special Order 13, Record Group 94,, December 12, 1861.
49
Eaton Register, December 5, 1861; Eaton Register, December 9, 1861.
50
Reid, 777; B. Lorup to John Harrison, 5th Ohio Cavalry Regimental Order Book, Record Group 94,
January 25, 1862; Elbridge Ricker, Regimental Order Book, Record Group 94, January 1, 1862;Fanning,
74; Isaac Scott to Moses Hayes, Dec. 31, 1861, Dennis Collins collection.
Reid, 777; B. Lorup to John Harrison, 5th Ohio Cavalry Regimental Order Book, Record Group 94,
January 25, 1862; Elbridge Ricker, Regimental Order Book, Record Group 94, January 1, 1862;Fanning,
74; Isaac Scott to Moses Hayes, Dec. 31, 1861, Dennis Collins collection.
51
Colonel Taylor letter to G.D. Dart, Regimental Order Book, Record group 94, , December 28, 1861.
52
Regimental Company and Order and Letter Book, 5th Ohio Cavalry, Record Group 94 National
Archives, Special Order 16, February 11, 1862; Regimental and Company Order and Letter Book, 5th Ohio
Volunteer Cavalry, Record Group 94, National Archives, Special Order 15, February 11, 1862.
53
Isaac Scott to Moses Hayes, January 12, 1862, Dennis Collins collection.
54
History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, 1040; W. H. H. Taylor to Governor Dennison, Oct.31,
1861, Ohio Historical Society series.
55
Special Order 9 to Company Commanders, Regimental Order Book, Record Group 94, February 7,
1862; Special Order 11 to company commanders, Regimental Order Book, Record Group 94, February 10,
1862:Special Order 21 to company commanders, Regimental Order Book, Record Group 94, February 19,
1862.
140
56
Robert Major Diary, 1862, United States Military History Institute; Fanning, 7-8.
57
Whitelaw Reid, Ohio In The War, p.777-778.
58
Fanning, 8, 43; Major , Diary, 1862.
59
Reid, 778: Major Elbridge Ricker report of March 15, 1862,Official Record of the Civil War, series I,
Vol. X, p. 29.
60
Larry Daniel, Shiloh, The Battle That Changed the Civil War (New York, Touchstone Books, 1997),
77-78.
61
Brig. General W.T. Sherman report of March 17, 1862, Official Record of the Civil War, Part I, Vol.
X, p.25; Reid ,.778: Brig. General W.T. Sherman report of March 17, 1862, Official Record of the Civil
War, Part I, Vol. X. p.27.
62
Major Charles Hayes report of March 14, 1862,Official Record of the Civil War, Part I ,Vol. X, 10;
Major –General Braxton Bragg report of March 14, 1862, Official Record of the Civil War, Part I, Vol. X,
11.
63
Major Charles Hayes report of March 14, 1862, Official Record of the Civil War, Part 1, Vol. X, 11.
64
Fanning, 17; Official Roster, Volume 11, 771-775; Fanning, 31.
65
William Jessup letter to Squire Jessup, April 3, 1862, Marjorie Burriss collection ;Thomas W.
Fanning, The Adventures of a Volunteer,1863, p.28.
66
Jay Jorgenson, Scouting For Grant: The 5th Ohio Cavalry in the Shiloh Campaign, Civil War
Regiments, p.56; Thomas W. Fanning, The Adventures of a Volunteer, 1863, p. 28.
67
Jay Jorgensen, Scouting For Grant; The 5th Ohio in the Shiloh Campaign, Civil War Regiments, p.66.
68
Colonel W. H.H. Taylor to Major Elbridge Ricker. March 30, 1863, Regimental Order Book One.;
Jay Jorgensen, Scouting For Grant: The 5th Ohio in the Shiloh Campaign, Civil War Regiments, 62.
69
Lt. Charles Murray report of March 31, 1862, Official Record of the Civil War, Part I, Volume X,
pg.78-79; Official Roster of The Soldiers Of The State Of Ohio In The War Of The Rebellion 1861-1866,
1891Volume 11, .285-288; Lt. Charles Murray report of March 31,1862, Official Record of the Civil War,
Part 1,Volume X pg.79.
70
Official Roster of The Soldiers Of The State Of Ohio In The War Of The Rebellion 1861-1866, 1891
Volum11, .285-288.
71
Major Elbridge Ricker report of April 4, 1862,Official, Record of the Civil War, Part I Vol. 10, p. 92;
Edward Aultman, The National Tribune , Saw an army But Uncle Billy Would Not Believe, 1896.
72
Edward Aultman, The National Tribune, Saw an army But Uncle Billy Would Not Believe, 1896.
73
Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War, 1863, p.779; Jay Jorgensen, Scouting For Grant: The 5th Ohio in the
Shiloh Campaign, Civil War Regiments, p.65.
74
Robert Major Diary, 1862, United States Military History Institute.
141
75
Thomas W. Fanning, The Adventures of a Volunteer,1863, p.38
76
Whitelaw Reid, Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 9, 1862.
77
Fanning, 32.
78
Isaac Scott letter to Mose Hayes, April 14, 1862.
79
Whitelaw Reid, Ohio In The War: Her Statesmen, Her Generals, and Soldiers 2 vols. (Moore,
Wilstach and Baldwin,1868),2: 779.
80
Official Record, Vol. X, 203, 536, 537 ; Reid, 779; Daniel, 192.
81
Isaac Scott letter to Mose Hayes, April 14, 1862
82
Reid, p.779; Jay Jorgensen, Scouting For Grant: The 5th Ohio Cavalry in the Shiloh Campaign, Civil
War Regiment,(Civil War Regiments: A Journal of the American Civil War,1994)4: 73.
83
Reid, 779; William Jessup , letter May 3, 1862, Marjorie Burress Collection; J.W. Christman letter to
Jesse Christman, Eaton Register, April 12,1862 (Preble County, Ohio, and the Civil War, Audrey Gilbert,
2000).
84
Reid ,779.
85
Fanning, 40-41.
86
Official Record, Vol. X, 203; Reid,779; Wiley Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, (Morrow, New York,
1974), 250-251.
87
Reid, 779.
88
Reid, 779.
89
Isaac Scott letter to Mose Hayes, April 14, 1862; Reid, 779; Robert Major Diary, 1862 United States
Military History Institute.; Isaac Scott letter to Mose Hayes, April 14, 1862.
90
William Jessup letter home, May 3, 1862, Marjorie Burress Collection; Reid, 779; Fanning, 59.
91
Thomas Tinsley Heath, Straws, (Paper read before the Ohio Commandery of MOLLUS, April 7,
1909), 5-6.
92
Heath, 8.
93
Official Record,Vol. X, p.99.
94
Henry and Kate Ford, History Of Cincinnati Ohio, (L.A. Williams, Cleveland, 1881), 109-110;
Robert J. Wimberg, Cincinnati and The Civil War, Ohio Book Store, Cincinnati, 1994), 27.
95
Wimberg, 28; Wimberg, 29-37.
96
Fanning, Adventures of a Volunteer”, 1863, pg. 72-73.
97
Isaac Scott Letter to Mose Hayes, April 29, 1862.
142
98
Fanning, p.66-68.
99
Fanning, p.75-78.
100
Fanning, p.66-68.
101
Official communication by George Sprague, Personnel Records Colonel W.H.H. Taylor, May 2,
1862
102
Fanning, p.76.
103
Fanning, p.76.
104
Fanning, Ibid. p. 79-84.
105
Fanning, p. 84.
106
Fanning, p.85-90.
107
Fanning, p. 87, 78, 94.
108
Reid, Whitelaw. Ohio In the War, pg. 780; Marszalek, John. Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion For
Order, p.188.
109
Heath, Thomas. Straws, 1909, p.5; Heath letter to Secretary of War Stanton, August 27, 1862, Ohio
Military Records-Series 77.
110
Heath letter to Secretary of War Stanton, August 27, 1862, Ohio Military Records-Series 77.
111
Heath letter to Secretary of War Stanton, August 27, 1862, Ohio Military Records-Series 77.
112
Jessup letter to Charles Miller, February 7, 1863, Marjorie Burress Collection.
113
Jessup letter to parents, July 12, 1862, Marjorie Burress Collection.
114
William Jessup letter to parents
115
Reid, p.780: Starr, The Union Cavalry in the Civil War,Vol. II, 1985, p.51.
116
Isaac Scott letter to Moses Hayes, August 6, 1862; William Jessup letter to Charles Miller. February
7, 1863, Marjorie Burress Collection.
117
Wimberg, Robert. Cincinnati and The Civil War; Cincinnati Under Attack, 1999, p.112.
118
Wimberg, p.82-94, 128.
119
Wimberg, Robert. Cincinnati And The Civil War: Under Attack, 1999, p.79.
120
Perzel. Edward, Alexander Long: A Political Study Of A Copperhead congressman, 1961, p.59
121
Perzel, p. 1; Resse, Kendall, Pioneer Annals of Greene Township, 1905, p.49.
143
122
Perzel, p.57; Wimberg, p.164-165, p.59.
123
Wimberg, p.59.
124
Roster of Ohio Soldiers: War Of The Rebellion, Volume XI, 1891, p.241.
125
OR, Series I, Volume XVII, p.246.
126
OR, Series I, Volume XVII, p.247.
127
Charles S. Hayes to his brother, October 10, 1862.
128
Reid, Whitelaw, Ohio In The War, p. 781.
129
OR, Company Logs; Isaac Scott letter to Mose Hayes, October, 1862.
130
Shelby Foote, The Beleaguered City; The Vicksburg Campaign, 1995, p.23; Silvanus Cadwallader,
Three Years With Grant: As Recalled by War Correspondent Sylvanus; Whitelaw Reid, Ohio In the War,
pg. 780.
131
Robert Ingersoll, official report, OR, Series I, Vol. XVII, p.555.
132
Charles S. Hayes letter to his brother Mose, December 30, 1862...
133
Ohio Biographical Encyclopedia, p. 1546
134
Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War, 780; W.H .H. Taylor Compiled Service Record, National Archives.
135
Thomas Heath, Case LL-492—LL-515, Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General, Court
Martial Case Files 1809-1894, Record Group 153, National Archives. Thomas Heath, Case LL-492—LL-
515.
136
Thomas Heath, Case LL-492—LL-515.
137
Thomas Heath, Case LL-492—LL-515.
138
Thomas Heath, Case LL-492—LL-515.
139
Thomas Heath, Case LL-492—LL-515.
140
Thomas T. Heath letter to Governor John Todd, February 8, 1863; W.W.H. Taylor order to Lt.
Colonel Thomas T. Heath, February 13, 1863.; Heath, Compiled Service Record, National Archives;
Thomas T. Heath letter to Governor John Todd, February 8, 1863.
141
Heath, Compiled Service Record.
142
Letter from Thomas T. Heath to Elbridge Ricker, March 30, 1863. Cincinnati Historical Society
Archives.
143
Trounstine letter to Major Hayes, March 3, 1863.
144
Thomas Heath letter to Cincinnati Commercial.
145
Charles Hayes letter to Mose Hayes, April 1, 1863.
144
146
Colonel Taylor memorial letter; OR, Series I, Vol. XXIV, p.558.
147
Royal S. Hayes, The Hayes Family Genealogy, 1927, p.239; Colonel Taylor, Memorial letter, p.7.
148
William Jessup Sr. letter to his son, May 30, 1863, Marjorie Burress Collection
149
William Jessup Sr. letter to his son, July 13, 1863, Marjorie Burress Collection.
150
William Jessup letter to his brother, July 5, 1863, Marjorie Burress Collection.
151
William Jessup to Colonel W.H.H. Taylor; Jessup, William, letter, July 5, 1863; Scott, Isaac. letter
July 1, 1863.
152
Jessup, letter, July 1, 1863.
153
OR, Series I, Volume XXIV, p.479-480; Reid, Whitelaw, Ohio In The War, p.782.
154
William Jessup Sr. letter to his son July 26, 1863, Marjorie Burress Collection.
155
Personnel Records W.H.H. Taylor, July 23, 1863.
156
William Jessup Letter to Squire Jessup
157
OR, Volume XXXI, p.16-17; Reid, Whitelaw, Ohio In the War, p.784; William Jessup letter to Squire
Jessup, Oct. 25, 1863; OR, Volume XXXI, p.17.
158
OR, Volume XXXI, p.16-17; Roster of the Ohio Soldiers: War Of The Rebellion, p.771-775.
159
Roster of the Ohio Soldiers: War Of The Rebellion, p.771-775.
160
OR, Volume XXXI, p. 19, 20.
161
OR, Volume XXXI, p 20.
162
OR, Volume XXXI, p. 20-21.
163
OR, Volume XXXI, p. 21.
164
OR, Volume XXXI, p.22; Robert Major Diary, November 21, 1863.
165
OR, Supplement- Records of Events, Volume 49, Company I, p. 770. Robert Major , Diary, November
21, 1863.
166
Stephen Z. Starr, The Union Cavalry in the Civil War, p.53; Starr, p.52; OR, Supplement- Records of
Events, Volume 49, Company C, p.748; Starr, p.53; Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War, p.785.
167
Reid, p.784.
168
Starr, The Union Cavalry in the Civil War, Volume III, p.342-343.
169
OR, Supplement-Records of Events, Volume 49, Company H, p.765, 770.
145
170
William Jessup letter to Squire Jessup, November 28, 1863.
171
Robert Major, Diary, November 1863.
172
Reid, p.784; OR, Supplement-Records of Events, Volume 49, p.732-778; William Jessup letter to
home, January 30, 1864.
173
Major, January 1864.
174
History of The Republican Party in Ohio, Vol. 1, Lewis Publishing, p.161, 1898.
175
History of The Republican Party in Ohio, p.161.
176
Perzel, Edward, Alexander Long, p.70.
177
Starr, p.448.455.
178
Starr, p.448.
179
J.A. Gilberg, The Battle of Jonesboro; A Day’s History by one of Gen. J.A. Logan’s Bodyguard,
National Tribune, May 6, 1909.
180
J.A. Gilberg.
181
J.A. Gilberg.
182
Roster of the Ohio Soldiers: War of the Rebellion 1861-1866, Vol. XI, p.241-308.
183
Thomas T. Heath letter to William Jessup,
184
Roster of Ohio Soldiers: War of the Rebellion 1861-1866, Vol.XI, p. 263
185
Reid, Ohio In the War.
186
J.A. Gilberg, With the Cavalry, Kilpatrick Tilting with Wheeler Down in Georgia, National Tribune,
August 20, 1903
187
J.A. Gilberg, With the Cavalry, Kilpatrick Tilting with Wheeler Down in Georgia, National Tribune,
August 20, 1903
188
OR, report of Colonel Thomas Heath, December, 23, 1864.
189
OR, report of Colonel Thomas Heath, December, 23, 1864; J.A. Gilberg, National Tribune, The 5th
Ohio Cav. At King’s Bridge; OR, report of Colonel Thomas Heath, December 23, 1864.
190
J.A. Gilberg, National Tribune, The 5th Ohio Cav. At King’s Bridge.
191
Sherman, Memoirs, Vol. II, p.227.
192
History of Cincinnati And Hamilton County, p.1040.
193
OR, report of Colonel George E. Spencer, March 30, 1865.
146
194
OR, report of Major George Rader, March 31, 1865.
195
Starr, p.583.
196
OR, the report of Colonel George E. Spencer, March 30, 1865; OR, report of Major George Rader,
March 30, 1865.
197
Starr, 583-584; Reid, Ohio in the War, p.787.
198
Starr, 586; OR, report of Major Rader, March 31, 1865.
199
OR, report of Colonel George E. Spencer.
200
OR, report of Colonel George E. Spencer.
201
JA. Gilberg, National Tribune.
202
Ohio Biographical Cyclopedia and Portrait Gallery, 1876, p.1544.
203
Cincinnati Enquirer, Recollections of Life in Cincinnati in the Strenuous Days of the Civil War,
March 2, 1914; Thomas Heat, General Order 17, March 15,1861; Heath, Special Order 237, May 5,1865,
National Archives.
204
John Pummill, Special Order 34, June 22, 1865; Heath, Special Order 23, May 23, 1865;Heat,
General Order 14, September 27,1865, National Archives; Heath , General Order 13, September, 21, 1865,
National Archives; Pummill, Special Order 35, June 16, 1865, National Archives; Pummill, Special Order
38, June, 21, 1865, National Archives.
205
Heath, Special Order 237, May 9, 1865, National Archives; John Bowls to Pummill, June 5, 1865,
National Archives Pummill, Special Order June 6, 1865, National Archives.
206
Heath, Special Order 53, June 24, 1865, National Archives; Pummill, Special Order 65, August 2,
1865, National Archives.
207
Reid, p.785.
208
Fanning, Thomas W., The Hairbreadth Escape and Humorous Adventures of a Volunteer in the Cavalry
Service, 1865, p.2-3; Cincinnati Illustrated Business Directory, 1886, p. 367.
209
Cincinnati Daily Gazette, November 10, 1879.
210
Minnesota Historical Collections, 1912, Vol.14, pg. 770-771,
211
Notes courtesy of Marjorie Burress
212
History of Clermont County,p.440
213
Cincinnati Enquirer, Recollections of Life in Cincinnati in the Strenuous Days of the Civil War, March
2, 1924
214
Ibid.
147
215
Cincinnati Enquirer,1925,
216
Mercer, James K., Representative Men of Ohio,1908,
148
Bibliography
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Biographical Cyclopedia and Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Men, With an Historical
Sketch, of the State of Ohio, Cincinnati, 1879.
Cadwallader, Three Years With Grant, as recalled by war correspondent Sylvanus
Cadwallader, New York, Knopf, 1955.
Cleaves, Freeman. Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His Time. Newton, Ct.
American Political Biography Press, 1904.
Daniel, Larry. Shiloh: The Battle That Changed the Civil War. New York, Touchstone
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Emery, Joseph. Thirty Five Years Among the Poor: and The Public Institutions of
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Fanning, Thomas W. The Adventures of a Volunteer by a Non-Commissioned Officer
Cincinnati, P.C. Browne, 1863.
Foote, Shelby. The Beleaguered City: The Vicksburg Campaign, New York, Modern
Library Publishing ed., 1995.
Ford, Henry. History of Cincinnati. Cleveland, L.A. Williams Co. 1881
Greve, Charles T. Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Chicago
Biographical Publishing company, 1904.
Hagedorn, Anne. Beyond The River: The Untold Story of The Underground Railroad.
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Harlow, Alvin. The Serene Cincinnatians. New York, Dutton, 1958.
Hayes, Royal. The Hayes Family Genealogy. Cincinnati , 1927
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McDonough, James L. Shiloh: In Hell Before Night. Knoxville, University of
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History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County; Their Past and Present.
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Phisterer, Fredrick. Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States, Edison, N.J.,
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Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion 1861-
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Smart, James G. A Radical View: The Agate dispatches of Whitelaw Reid 1861-1865.
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Smith, Donnal V. Ohio Historical Collections: Chase and Civil War Politics. Columbus,
F.J. Heer Printing Co., 1931.
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Publishing Company, 1898.
Starr, Stephen. The Union Cavalry in the Civil War: The War in the West, Baton Rouge
Louisiana State University Press, 1985.
Sword, Wiley. Shiloh: Bloody April, New York, Morrow, 1974.
The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Armies, 1861-1865. 128 vols. Washington D.C., 1880-1901.(Abbreviated
OR.)
Williams, Byron. History of Clermont and Brown Counties. Cincinnati, S. Rosenthal and
Co., 1896.
Wimberg, Robert. Cincinnati and The Civil War. Cincinnati, Ohio Book Store, 1994.
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Personnel Records of John Sebastian Fries
Personnel Records of William Henry Harrison Taylor
Records of the Office of Judge Advocate General Court Martial Case Files 1809-1894,
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Dissertations
Appendix
Regimental Roster
This alphabetized regimental roster was compiled from the Official Roster of the Soldiers
of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion 1861- 1865. The decision to alphabetize
the roster was made to allow for easier searches of the 2,700 individual names contained
in thirteen company and miscellaneous rosters of the Fifth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry
Regiment in the Official Record. Several additional points should also be noted. When
the remarks column is left empty it reflects a lack of information in the Official Record
on an individual trooper . There are double entries for some troopers. The first entry
indicates the intial assignment to the Fifth Ohio while a second entry indicates a transfer
to a new company within the regiment usually as a consequence of a promotion in rank.
In rare cases a trooper left the regiment as a consequence of an injury or fulfilling their
enlistment and rejoined the Fifth Ohio at a later date. Sometimes while it appears there is
a double entry the second appearance of a name is actually a son , nephew, cousin or
uncle. Check out the age column to help clarify whether this might be the case. Initially
each cavalry regiment was authorized a band but in the early months of the conflict the
Department of War changed the table of organization and the bands were dissolved
releasing the men from their commitments though many rejoined in another capacity.
Finally the McLaughlin Squadron is mentioned regularly in the remarks column because
in the closing months of the Fifth Ohio’s existence in 1865 the McLaughlin Squadron
was integrated into the regiment’s ranks as part of Company C.
152
Ag Date of
Last Name Rank e Entrance Company Remarks
mustered out with company
Adams, Urias Pvt. 18 2/28/1865 Co. I 10/30/1865
Abercrombie,
William Pvt. 31 10/3/1861 Co. M
Abgar, Robert Pvt. 20 9/16/1862 Co. M
mustered out with company
Abraham, John Pvt. 20 3/7/1865 Co. H 10/30/1865
mustered out 9/30/1864 at
Acerman, Columbus, Oh., by order of War
Nicholas Pvt. 21 11/4/1862 Co. M Dept.
promoted to Reg. Veterinary
Surgeon 11/1/1861; no further
Achey, Jeremiah farrier 36 9/12/1861 Co. F record found
transferred from Co. B
McLaughlin Squadron
Achinson, 11/27/186 7/28/1865; mustered out
Thomas Pvt. 17 3 Co. C 10/30/1865
appointed7/15/1865; mustered
Adams, Andrew corporal 28 2/15/1865 Co. B out 10/30/1865
appointed 5/8/1862; captured
6/9/1863 near Corinth, Miss. ,
exchanged__; died 8/18/1864
Adams, Charles of wounds received same day
F. corporal 19 9/13/1861 Co. H in action near Canton, Ga.
appointed corporal1/21/1863;
captured 6/19/1863 in action
near Coldwater, Miss.;
mustered out with company
Adams, Joseph A. Q.M.S. 20 9/12/1861 Co. F 10/30/1865; veteran
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Columbus, Oh., by order of War
Affleck, William Pvt. 48 9/23/1861 Co. C Dept.
10/25/186
Agen, John Pvt. 21 3 Co. L mustered out 10/30/1865
10/21/186 discharged 9/9/1862 on
Aker, James W. Pvt. 18 1 Co. E surgeon's certificate
Albers, Henry Pvt. 28 3/4/1865 Co. L mustered out 10/30/1865
Alcorn, William Pvt. 23 10/9/1861 Co. M
Alden, Samuel C. Pvt. 19 10/3/1861 Co. B mustered out 11/29/1864
reduced from 1st sgt.1/21/1864
at his own request; mustered
out 10/30/1865 at Columbus,
Oh. ,on expiration of term of
Alexander, Robert Pvt. 29 9/9/1861 Co. E service
discharged 9/7/1862 on
Allen, George Pvt. 21 9/4/1861 Co. K surgeon's certificate
died 8/25/1863 at camp Davis,
Allen, Jerome B. Pvt. 20 9/20/1861 Co. M Miss.
153
discharged 7/23/1862 on
Barnes, Henry Pvt. 42 8/30/1861 Co. G surgeon's certificate
transferred from Co. A
McLaughlin Squadron
Barnes, Simeon 10/22/186 7/28/1865; no further record;
B. Pvt. 26 1 Co. C veteran
mustered 7/7/1865 at
Washington D.C. by order of
Barnes, Uriah Pvt. 26 2/8/1865 Co. K War dept.
Barnett, Edward mustered out with company
P. Pvt. 18 2/22/1865 Co. E 10/30/1865
Barnhardt, mustered out with company
George Pvt. 22 3/9/1865 Co. E 10/30/1865
Barnhill, William
C. Pvt. 21 2/6/1865 Co. L mustered out 10/30/1865
appointed_____; mustered out
6/9/1865 at Camp, Chase, Oh.,
Barr, David M. Sgt. 31 8/30/1861 Co. G by order of War Dept.
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Raleigh, N.C., by order of War
Bartels, Harmon Pvt. 25 9/20/1862 Co. I Dept.
appointed 7/1/1865; mustered
Bartgos, Daniel A. corporal 19 3/17/1865 Co. I out with company 10/30/1865
Bartilmus, appointed7/18/1865; mustered
Ferdinand corporal 49 2/6/1865 Co. F out with company 10/30/1865
captured 12/18/1862 at
Lexington,
Tenn.,:exchanged____;dischar
ged 1/10/1865 at Camp
Bartlesman, Dennison, on surgeon's
William Pvt. 21 9/30/1862 Co. H certificate
mustered out 1/6/1865 at
Savannah, Ga., on expiration of
Bartley, Michael Pvt. 20 1/6/1862 Co. F term of service
Basler, John Pvt. 28 9/15/1862 Co. G
transferred from Co. B
McLaughlin Squadron
11/11/186 7/28/1865; mustered out
Batdorf, George Sgt. 19 1 Co. C 10/30/1865; veteran
mustered out 7/24/1865 at
Bauchard, Edwin Philadelphia, Pa., by order of
H. Pvt. 30 9/8/1862 Co. M War Dept.
captured 6/19/1863 in action
near Coldwater, Miss.
;exchanged 9/1/1863; mustered
out 6/26/1865 at Raleigh, N.C.
Bauman,George Pvt. 17 9/23/1862 Co. F by order of War Dept.
transferred from Co. B
McLaughlin Squadron
7/28/1865; mustered out
11/27/186 12/11/1865 by order of War
Baxter, Samuel Pvt. 17 3 Co. C Dept.
Beagle, James Pvt. 9/16/1861 Co. M no further record found
157
appointed____; promoted to
2nd Lieutenant 10/30, but not
Chaddock, Louis 11/11/186 mustered/1865; mustered out
B. Sgt. 18 3 Co. K with company 10/30/1865
Chalmers, James Pvt. 18 9/7/1861 Co. B mustered out 11/29/1864
prisoner of war; mustered out
12/30/186 8/28/1865 at Cumberland , Md.,
Chalpan, John Pvt. 18 3 Co. K by order of War Dept.
died 5/1/1862 at Camp
Chamber, Daniel Pvt. 38 11/8/1861 Co. B Dennison
mustered out with company
Chambers, David Pvt. 24 2/23/1865 Co. K 10/30/1865
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Raleigh, N.C., by order of War
Childers, John W. Pvt. 20 8/27/1864 Co. I Dept.
appointed corporal 10/31/1863;
Sgt.___; mustered out with
Christman, Allen Sgt. 18 10/8/1861 Co. F company 10/30/1865; veteran
died 10/5/1862 of wounds
Christman, John received 10/5/1862in battle of
D. Pvt. 20 9/12/1861 Co. F Metamora, Miss.
appointed___; promoted to 2nd
Lieutenant 3rd Reg. U.S.
Colored Heavy Artillery
Christman, John 21/21/1863 from which
W. Sgt. 36 9/12/1861 Co. F resigned 1/16/1865
Christman, John died 9/12/1863 in Preble
W. Jr. Pvt. 24 9/12/1861 Co. F County, Oh.
captured 6/19/1863 in action
Christopher, near Coldwater, Miss.;mustered
Gustav Pvt. 26 9/20/1861 Co. B out 11/29/1864
mustered
out
11/29/186
4 by order
Church, Bayard 9/10/1861 of War
M. far 26 Co. A Dep. Church, Bayard M.
Church, George discharged 5/10/1864 on
W. Pvt. 23 9/10/1861 Co. A surgeon's certificate
mustered out 11/29/1864 by
Church, James F. Pvt. 24 9/10/1861 Co. A order of War Dep.
mustered out 11/29/1864 by
Church, Jonathan Pvt. 24 9/10/1861 Co. A order of War Dep.
Church, Leonidas mustered out 11/29/1864 by
M. Pvt. 21 9/10/1861 Co. A order of War Dep.
transferred from Co. I;
mustered out with company
Claason, Henry Pvt. 25 9/10/1861 Co. G 10/30/1865; veteran
Claason, Henry Pvt. 25 9/10/1861 Co. I transferred to Co. G; veteran
appointed 7/1/1865; mustered
Clapper, John corporal 19 2/20/1865 Co. I out with company 10/30/1865
169
Clockenbrink,
Charles Pvt. 24 9/30/1862 Co. H transferred to Co. F 10/30/1865
Clouse, Jacob H. Pvt. 21 9/24/1861 Co. D
discharged 2/18/1862 by civil
Clouse, Peter M. Pvt. 18 9/24/1861 Co. D authority
10/22/186
Clovin, John Pvt. 32 1 Co. D
mustered out 10/7/1865 by
Clum, David Pvt. 18 2/17/1865 Co. A order of War Dep.
transferred from Co. A
McLaughlin Squadron
7/28/1865 as 1st Lieutenant;
Coates, Erastus 10/12/186 promoted to Captain 9/4/1865;
P. Captain 22 1 Co. C mustered out 10/30/1865
appointed_____; mustered out
Coates, Frank M. Sgt. 28 2/28/1865 Co. K with company 10/30/1865.
transferred from Co. B
McLaughlin Squadron
Cochran, James 7/28/1865; mustered out with
M. Pvt. 18 3/2/1864 Co. C company 10/30/1865;
mustered out with company
Coffin, Joseph Pvt. 18 1/28/1865 Co. L 10/30/1865
promoted to Reg. Veterinary
Surgeon 11/1/1861; returned to
company; discharged
9/24/1862 on surgeon's
Cohen, John G. farrier 35 9/25/1861 Co. F certificate
Vet. from Farrier 11/1/1861;
Cohen, John G. Surg. 35 9/25/1861 Staff transferred to Company F
mustered out 3/14/1865 at
Fayetteville, N.C., on expiration
Colby, Isaiah Pvt. 21 2/8/1862 Co. K of term of service
absent on furlough 10/30/1865;
Cole, William Pvt. 29 2/10/1865 Co. H no further record found
mustered out 6/14/1862 by
Coleman, John Pvt. 20 8/29/1862 Co. A order of War Dep.
Coleman, mustered out 5/24/1865 by
Nathaniel Pvt. 44 9/28/1862 Co. A order of War Dep.
prisoner of war; mustered out
6/9/1865 at Camp Chase, Oh.,
Collins, Edward Pvt. 21 2/8/1862 Co. K by order of War Dept.
died 8/14/1864 at Cartersville,
Collins, James Pvt. 28 9/18/1861 Co. B Ga.
mustered out with company
Collins, James Pvt. 39 3/2/1865 Co. I 10/30/1865
Collins, Matthew Pvt. 32 1/28/1865 Co. C transferred to Co. G 7/28/1865
transferred from Co. C
7/28/1865; mustered out with
Collins, Matthew Pvt. 34 1/28/1865 Co. G company 10/30/1865
Collins, Samuel Pvt. 22 9/27/1861 Co. B mustered out 11/29/1864
171
discharged 5/24/1862 on
Cook, Sidney Pvt. 20 9/10/1861 Co. A surgeon's certificate
mustered out 6/20/1865 at
Raleigh, N.C., by order of War
Cook, Thomas Pvt. 25 10/1/1864 Co. G Dept.
discharged 3/27/1862, on
Coombs, Tunis corporal 27 9/19/1861 Co. L surgeon's certificate
Cooper, Charles Captain to Major 3/1/1864;
B. Major 28 9/12/1861 Staff Resigned 9/21/1864
Cooper, Charles promoted from 1st Lieutenant
B. Captain 28 9/12/1861 Co. F 12/19/1862; to major 3/1/1864
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Raleigh, N.C by order of War
Cooper, Elijah Pvt. 19 8/28/1862 Co. D Dept.
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Cooper, Samuel Raleigh, N.C by order of War
W/ Pvt. 18 9/14/1864 Co. D Dept.
Cooper, Thomas discharged 2/14/1862 on
P. Pvt. 25 9/12/1861 Co. F surgeon's certificate
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Raleigh, N.C., by order of War
Corbett, Michael Pvt. 21 9/24/1862 Co. F Dept.
discharged 3/5/181863 on
Corto, Francis Pvt. 32 9/18/1861 Co. B surgeon's certificate of disability
mustered out with company
Costello, Michael Pvt. 22 3/10/1865 Co. H 10/30/1865
10/24/186 mustered out with company
Cotman, Henry Pvt. 20 1 Co. H 10/30/1865
discharged 6/12/1862 at Yellow
Springs, Oh., on surgeon's
Couran, Oran A. Q. M.S. 19 9/15/1861 Co. C certificate of disability
Courey, Stephen Com. from Sergeant 2/19/1864;
C. Ser. 29 10/9/1861 Staff mustered out 11/9/1864
Courtney, 12/18/186 discharged 4/10/1863 on
Cornelius Pvt. 1 Co. M surgeon's certificate
Left at La Grange, Tn., no
Covert, John Pvt. 30 9/17/1861 Co. L further record found
mustered out with company
Covert, John Pvt. 19 2/14/1865 Co. M 10/30/1865
Cowan, Edward 12/17/186 mustered out 5/4/1865 by order
C. Pvt. 1 Co. G of War Dept.
transferred from Co. A
McLaughlin Squadron
7/28/1865; mustered out with
Cowan, Willard Pvt. 18 3/7/1864 Co. C company 10/30/1865
transferred from Co. A
McLaughlin Squadron
2nd 7/28/1865; mustered out
Cowen, Ross R. Lieut. 22 9/19/1861 Co. C 10/30/1865
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Raleigh, N.C., by order of War
Cox, Francis Pvt. 9/24/1862 Co. F Dept.
173
discharged 9/5/1862 on
Cuert, Samuel Pvt. 36 9/12/1861 Co. F surgeon's certificate
Cullins, Thomas died 5/10/1862 on hospital boat
H. Pvt. 21 9/18/1861 Co. E near St. Louis, Mo.
transferred to Veteran Reserve
Cullum, Squire L. Pvt. 34 9/30/1861 Co. F Corps 5/1/1864
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Columbus , Oh., on expiration
Culluns, William Pvt. 24 9/26/1861 Co. E of term of service
appointed Q.M. Sgt. 11/6/1861;
promoted to 1st Lieutenant
2/1/1862; to captain 5/9/1864;
mustered out 11/1/1864 on
Culver, David Captain 39 9/10/1861 Co. F expiration of term of service
transferred from Co. G
Cummings, John 10/18/186 8/26/1862; discharged---; by
R. Pvt. 21 1 Co. D order of War Dept.
transferred from Co. D
8/18/1862; discharged
Cummings, John 10/18/186 9/12/1863 by order of War
R. Pvt. 21 1 Co. G Dept.
teamste mustered out 10/27/1864 on
Cundiff, John r 31 9/10/1861 Co. L expiration of term of service
transferred from Co.C ;
Cunningham, 12/14/186 mustered out with Company
Frank Sgt. 19 1 Co. A 10/30/1865
Cunningham, 12/14/186 appointed 1/1/1864; transferred
Frank Sgt. 19 1 Co. C to Co. A; veteran
Cunningham,
Israel D. Pvt. 19 2/22/1865 Co. B mustered out 10/30/1865
Cunningham, captured 6/19/1863 in action
Peter Pvt. 29 9/20/1862 Co. F near Coldwater, Miss.
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Columbus, Oh., on expiration of
Curry, Michael Pvt. 21 9/21/1861 Co. I term of service
died 1/12/1864 at Memphis,
Curtis, John G. Captain 39 8/10/1861 Co. G Tenn.
discharged 8/2/1865 at Camp
Curwood, James Cleveland on surgeon's
M. Pvt. 24 3/29/1865 Co. B certificate of disability
Cushing, Gilbert discharged 6/25/1862, on
W. Bugler 34 10/5/1861 Co. H surgeon's certificate
prisoner of war; mustered out
Dagler, George 6/14/1865, at Camp Chase,
W. Pvt. 28 2/14/1864 Co. G Oh., by order of War Dept.
mustered out with company
Dailey, Patrick Pvt. 29 2/23/1865 Co. E 10/30/1865
discharged 8/13/1863 on
Dale, Thomas Pvt. 31 9/18/1861 Co. B surgeon's certificate
Captain to Major
11/19/186 9/4/1865;mustered out
Dalzell, John Major 38 1 Staff 10/30/1865
176
appointed 11/14/1861;
captured 12/1/1863, near
Marysville, Tenn.; exchanged;
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Goshorn, Columbus, Oh., on expiration of
Christopher W Sgt. 25 10/1/1861 Co. K term of service
10/28/186 appointed 10/31/1861;
Gould, Levi D. corporal 28 1 Co. B mustered out 11/29/1864
Gourney, George Pvt. 37 9/12/1861 Co. B mustered out 10/30/1865
promoted from 1st Lieutenant
Gowdy, Joseph Co. M 3/1/1864; mustered out
W. Captain 18 10/3/1861 Co. C 1/28/1865
promoted to 1st Lt. from 1st
Gowdy, Joseph 1st Sgt. 2/1/1864; to Captain
W. Lieut. 18 10/8/1861 Co. M Company C 3/1/1864
mustered out with company
Grace, John G. Pvt. 33 2/2/1865 Co. D 10/30/1865
appointed 7/15//1865;
mustered out with company
Grafton, William corporal 20 2/15/1865 Co. H 10/30/1865
discharged 6/11/1864 at
Graham, James 10/24/186 Cincinnati, Oh., on surgeon's
F. Pvt. 18 4 Co. E certificate
mustered out 5/24/1865 at
12/19/186 Camp Dennison, Oh., by order
Grant, David Pvt. 18 4 Co. M of War Dept.
mustered out with company
Grashall, John Pvt. 19 3/13/1865 Co. D 10/30/1865
discharged 10/30/1862 on
Gray, Aaron S. Pvt. 29 9/27/1861 Co. L surgeon's certificate
10/12/186 died 4/16/1862 at Pittsburgh
Gray, Benjamin Pvt. 1 Co. F Landing
Gray, George
M.C. Pvt. 1/13/1862 Co. F
discharged 5/25/1863 at
Corinth, Miss. By order of War
Gray, Peter Pvt. 19 8/27/1862 Co. E Dept.
Gray, William A. mustered out 12/26/1864 at
B. Pvt. 35 9/10/1865 Co. A Savannah by order of War Dep.
discharged 3/6/1863 on
Green, George Pvt. 30 9/23/1861 Co. D surgeon's certificate
killed 10/20/1863 in skirmish
Green, John Pvt. 30 9/28/1861 Co. H near Cherokee, Ala.
discharged to date 10/30/1865
at Detroit, Michigan by order of
Green, John Pvt. 29 3/1/1865 Co. I War Dept.
mustered out with company
Green, Lafayette Pvt. 18 1/27/1865 Co. L 10/30/1865
Greener,
Frederick Pvt. 22 9/11/1861 Co. B mustered out 11/29/1864
12/14/186 absent 10/30/1865 in hospital;
Greiner, George Pvt. 44 3 Co. I no further record
191
discharged on surgeon's
Hapner, Henry Pvt. 22 9/13/1861 Co. E certificate; date unknown
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Columbus, Oh., on expiration of
Hapner, Hiram Pvt. 23 9/13/1861 Co. E term of service
died 6/12/1862 at Cincinnati,
Hapner, Jesse Pvt. 1/3/1862 Co. F Oh.
mustered out 11/2/1864 at
Chattanooga, Tenn, on
Harbach, Charles Pvt. 26 9/12/1861 Co. F expiration of term of service
mustered 10/7/1865 by order of
Harbaugh, David Pvt. 21 2/22/1865 Co. L War Dept.
mustered out 11/29/1864 on
Harding, Samuel Pvt. 20 9/20/1861 Co. C expiration date of service
appointed from corporal
3/1/1865; mustered out
Harding, William 6/26/1865 at Raleigh, N.C., by
H. Q.M.S. 21 8/20/1862 Co. K order of War Dept.
appointed Corporal 11/2/1861;
to 2nd Lieutenant 2/1/1863; to
1st Lieutenant 6/1/1863;
1st mustered out 2/6/1865 by order
Hare, Thomas W. Lieut. 24 9/10/1861 Co. A of War Dep.
discharged 5/26/1862 near
Harmon, Corinth, Miss., on surgeon's
Lawrence Pvt. 42 10/2/1861 Co. I certificate
appointed; mustered out
11/29/1865 by order of War
Harner, James Sgt. 21 9/6/1861 Co. C Dep.
appointed___; mustered out
Harper, Hugh H. Q.M.S. 25 2/2/1865 Co. D with company 10/30/1865
captured 3/10/1864 in action
near Fayetteville, N.C.;
mustered out 6/9/1865 at Camp
Chase, Oh., by order of War
Harper, John Pvt. 19 9/23/1862 Co. H Dept.
wounded 9/11862 in action
near Corinth, Miss.; mustered
Harraman, William out 11/29/1864 on expiration of
B. Pvt. 20 9/10/1861 Co. E term of service
discharged 8/22/1862 at
Harraman, William Columbus,Oh. on surgeon's
S. Q.M.S. 45 9/10/1861 Co. E certificate.
discharged 7/8/1862 at
Harraman,Moses Columbus, Oh. On surgeon's
T. Pvt. 58 10/1/1861 Co. E certificate
194
appointed corporal1/1/1863;
Sgt 5/19/1863; co. Sgt.
11/19/1864; captured
4/10/1865 near Fayetteville,
Ga.; promoted to 1st Lieu.
4/8/1865; mustered out
1st 6/9/1865 at Camp Chase, Oh.
Harrell, Martin D. Lieut. 30 8/28/1862 Co. D By order of War Dept.
discharged 2/4/1864 for
wounds received 10/5/1862 in
Harris, Garland Pvt. 22 9/12/1861 Co. F battle of Metamora, Miss.
appointed corporal; discharged
4/8/1863 at Memphis on
Harris, James M. Sgt. 21 9/20/1861 Co. C surgeon's certificate
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Raleigh, N.C. by order of War
Harrison, Henry farrier 21 8/27/1861 Co. K Dept..
captured and paroled
Harrison, James 12/18/1862 at Battle of
C. Adjutant 29 8/11/1861 Staff Lexington
Harrison, Joseph Pvt. 21 2/12/1862 Co. K died 4/25/1862 at St. Louis
mustered out with company
Harrop, Richard Pvt. 23 2/16/1865 Co. K 10/30/1865
Hart, Charles mustered out with company
F.W. Pvt. 30 2/10/1865 Co. M 10/30/1865
appointed___; mustered out
11/29/1864 at Columbus, Oh.,
Hart, David farrier 35 9/10/1861 Co. E on expiration of term of service
12/28/186 transferred from McLaughlin
Harter, James Pvt. 19 3 Co. C Squadron 6/28/1865;
transferred from Co. B
McLaughlin Squadron
7/28/1865; no further
Harter, Joseph Pvt. 23 11/1/1861 Co. C record;veteran
captured 12/18/1862, at
Hartzell, Phillip Pvt. 24 9/15/1862 Co. G Lexington Tennessee
appointed from sgt. 1/21/1864;
mustered out 11/29/1864, at
Haseltine, Columbus Oh. on expiration of
Adelbert E. 1st Sgt. 24 9/18/1861 Co. E term of service
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Hashhager, Raleigh, N.C by order of War
Dietrich Pvt. 20 10/1/1864 Co. D Dept.
Haunegan, James promoted to 2nd Lieutenant
D. corporal 23 9/29/1861 Co. D and Adjutant 5/2/1863
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Raleigh, N.C., on surgeon's
Havens, Homer Pvt. 30 8/23/1864 Co. I certificate
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Columbus, Oh., by order of War
Hawke, John W. Pvt. 22 10/3/1861 Co. C Dept.
11/11/186
Hayden, Henry Pvt. 40 1 Co. M no further record found
195
discharged 7/16/1862 at
10/10/186 Cincinnati, Oh. By order of War
Helmick, John C. Pvt. 22 1 Co. D Dept.
transferred from Co. G 7th
12/25/186 Cav. 6/22/1865; mustered out
Hemphill, John Farrier 28 3 Co. A 10/30/1865 by War Dep.
mustered out 12/27/1864 on
Hencher, Julius Pvt. 24 11/1/1861 Co. M expiration of term of service
Henderson, Martin
V. Pvt. 20 9/10/1865 Co. A died 5/25/1862 at Corinth, Miss.
appointed____; mustered out
Henderson, 11/29/1864 at Columbus, Oh.,
Samuel C. Sgt. 37 9/25/1861 Co. I on expiration of term of service
appointed 2/1/1864; mustered
out 11/29/1864 at Columbus,
Oh., on expiration of term of
Henley, Joseph corporal 18 9/28/1861 Co. K service
mustered out 11/29/1864 on
Henry, Francis corporal 21 9/9/1861 Co. G expiration of term of service
Henry, James Pvt. 22 9/3/1861 Co. C transferred to Co. H 7/28/1865
transferred from Co. C
7/23/1865; mustered out with
Henry, James T. Pvt. 22 9/3/1861 Co. H company 10/30/1865
Captain to Major 2/1/1863; to
Lt. Lt. Colonel 3/1/1864; mustered
Henry, John Colonel 38 10/8/1861 Staff out 10/18/1864
appointed10/12/1865;
mustered out with company
Henry, William M. corporal 18 2/8/1865 Co. K 10/30/1865
Henry,John Captain 33 10/8/1861 Co. M promoted to Major 2/1/1863
Hensler, William mustered out with company
J. Pvt. 19 4/1/1865 Co. F 10/30/1865
Henwood, Moses Pvt. 21 3/30/1865 Co. B mustered out 7/18/1865
discharged 10/25/1862 on
Her, Leander Pvt. 29 9/17/1861 Co. L surgeon's certificate
mustered out with company
Herman, Christian Pvt. 34 2/17/1865 Co. K 10/30/1865
appointed____; mustered out
Herrider, John corporal 27 2/27/1865 Co. K with company 10/30/1865
appointed 11/14/1861;
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Columbus, Oh., on expiration of
Hess, Deidliff J. corporal 27 9/19/1861 Co. K term of service
mustered out with company
Hess, William Pvt. 18 2/24/1865 Co. L 10/30/1865
Hettesheimer, transferred to Navy by order of
Adam Pvt. 18 9/11/1861 Co. D War Dept.
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Hettesheimer, Raleigh N.C. by order of War
Andrew Pvt. 23 9/25/1861 Co. D Dept.
Hettesheimer, mustered out with company
Peter Pvt. 26 2/15/1865 Co. D 10/30/1865
198
appointed_____; discharged
7/23/1862 on surgeon's
Jones, John corporal 28 9/6/1861 Co. G certificate
mustered out 11/29/1864, on
Jones, John H. corporal 20 9/17/1861 Co. H expiration of term of service
discharged 10/1/1862 on
Jones, John J. Pvt. 20 10/8/1861 Co. H surgeon's certificate
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Raleigh N.C. by order of War
Jones, Morris S. Pvt. 29 8/30/1862 Co. H Dept.
Jones, Ralph Pvt. 44 9/26/1864 Co. G
appointed 10/6/1862; mustered
Jones, Sylvanus corporal 22 9/4/1861 Co. B out 11/29/1864
died 2/22/1863 at Germantown,
Jones, Thomas Pvt. 22 9/4/1861 Co. G Tenn.
Jones, Thomas Pvt. 22 3/3/1865 Co. K mustered 10/30/1865
12/14/186 mustered out 11/29/1864 on
Jordan, John Pvt. 1 Co. C expiration date of service
Jordan, John B. Pvt. 18 3/11/1865 Co. A mustered out 10/30/1865
discharged 7/12/1862 on
Judy, John W. Pvt. 19 2/13/1865 Co. E surgeon's certificate
Justus, Andrew Pvt. 25 2/17/1865 Co. A mustered out 10/30/1865
Kaeggy, died 6/3/1862 at Pittsburgh
Alexander farrier 38 9/25/1861 Co. E Landing, Tennessee
mustered out 11/291864 at
Columbus, oh., on expiration of
Kail, Adam Pvt. 21 10/5/1861 Co. K term of service
Kammyer, Henry Pvt. 42 3/27/1865 Co. B mustered out 10/30/1865
Kane, Luke S. Pvt. 3/10/1863 Co. E
transferred from Co. E, 1st
O.V.C. returned to same
Karen, John Pvt. 20 9/12/1861 Co. E 7/26/1864
mustered out with company
Karmen, Andrew Pvt. 39 2/10/1865 Co. M 10/30/1865
mustered out 7/18/1865 at
12/10/186 camp Dennison by order of War
Karner, Charles Pvt. 25 3 Co. I Dept.
Karnes, George
W. Pvt. 1/1/1862 Co. F died 6/11/1862 at Bethel, Tenn.
discharged 3/18/1863 at on
Karnes, James Pvt. 1/1/1862 Co. F surgeon's certificate.
appointed___; mustered out
with company 10/30/1865;
Karreth, John Sgt. 20 1/1/1862 Co. D veteran
Kartiss, William Pvt. 22 2/17/1865 Co. D
mustered out 11/29/1864 on
Kask, Simeon corporal 21 9/12/1861 Co. G expiration of term of service
mustered out with company
Katzel, Charles Pvt. 22 2/16/1865 Co. M 10/30/1865
mustered out with company
Katzel, John Pvt. 19 2/16/1865 Co. M 10/30/1865
207
appointed 11/14/1861;
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Columbus, Oh., on expiration of
Little, Edwin C. Sgt. 34 9/20/1861 Co. K term of service
12/26/186 mustered out with company
Little, Samuel Pvt. 38 3 Co. M 10/30/1865
appointed 7/1/1865 mustered
Llewellyn, William Sgt. 32 1/31/1865 Co. I out with company 10/30/1865
transferred from Co. B
McLaughlin Squadron
10/21/186 7/28/1865; mustered out with
Lloyd, Abner Pvt. 24 1 Co. C company 10/30/1865; veteran
mustered out 11/29/1864 on
Loe, Isaac Pvt. 20 9/18/1861 Co. C expiration date of service
prisoner of war; mustered out
11/12/186 6/9/1865 at Camp Chase, Oh.,
Logan, John Pvt. 1 Co. G by order of War Dept.
discharged 16/17/1862 on
Lomax, Robert Pvt. 3/22/1862 Co. H surgeon's certificate
Lombard, Levi Pvt. 18 2/10/1865 Co. F
Long, David Pvt. 1/1/1862 Co. F
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Columbus, Oh. , on expiration
Long, Eli Pvt. 19 9/13/1861 Co. I of term of service
10/15/186
Long, Isaac Pvt. 32 1 Co. G
promoted to chief Bugler
11/1/1861; no further record
Long, James Bugler 23 9/21/1861 Co. F found
transferred from Co. B
McLaughlin Squadron
7/28/1865; mustered out with
Long, Miner S. Pvt. 18 2/20/1864 Co. C company 10/30/1865;
appointed 1st Sgt. From
corporal____;promoted to 2nd
Lieut. 2/25/1863; to 1st Lieut.
5/9/1864 but not mustered;
2nd mustered out 12/3/1864 on
Long, Nathan Lieut. 21 9/11/1861 Co. D expiration of term of service
Musicia discharged 6/6/1862 by order
Long, Thomas n 27 9/23/1861 Band of War Dept.
Longaworth, mustered 6/26/1865 at Raleigh,
Cornelius Pvt. 29 8/28/1862 Co. K N.C. by order of War Dept.
Longhouse,
Andrew Pvt. 17 9/17/1861 Co. L no final record
mustered out with company
Lotz, John Pvt. 18 3/8/1865 Co. L 10/30/1865
absent 8/31/1864; orderly to
General Logan; no further
Louk, Adam Pvt. 20 9/12/1861 Co. F record found
appointed___; died 9/9/1862
Louk, John H. corporal 18 9/14/1861 Co. F Eldorado, Oh.
216
Hos.St'
Mead, Jarvis d 23 11/1/1861 Staff mustered out 11/9/1864
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Meander, Henry Columbus, Oh., on expiration of
C. Pvt. 18 10/5/1861 Co. K term of service
transferred from Co. H
10/31/1863; mustered out
Mearhoff, 6/26/1865 at Raleigh, N.C., by
Christian Sgt. 25 9/30/1862 Co. F order of War Dept.
Mearhoff,
Christian Pvt. 25 9/30/1862 Co. H transferred to Co. F 10/31/1863
discharged 3/16/1863 at
Kookuk, Iowa on surgeon's
Mee, James Pvt. 20 9/26/1861 Co. H certificate
wounded 10/4/1862 at Battle of
Corinth, Miss.; discharged
10/22/186 11/21/1862 at Mound City Ill.,
Mee, Michael Pvt. 22 1 Co. H on surgeon's certificate
Meeker, Arthur J. Pvt. 21 9/26/1861 Co. I
mustered out 10/27/1864 on
Meeker, Leonidas Pvt. 21 9/10/1861 Co. L expiration of term of service
mustered out 6/7/1865 at
Meenach, Robert 12/26/186 Washington D.C. by order of
B. Pvt. 44 3 Co. C War Dept.
Meguire, Isaac Pvt. 17 10/8/1861 Co. M
discharged 5/4/1863 on
Meguire, William 10/14/186 account of wounds received
H.H. Pvt. 18 1 Co. M 4/7/1862 in Battle of Shiloh, Tn.
Meil, Herman Pvt. 32 9/4/1861 Co. M
mustered as pvt. ; appointed
Mendenhall, from sgt. 10/12/1865; mustered
Edward G. 1st Sgt. 18 9/17/1861 Co. K out with company 10/30/1865
Merchant, John
W. Pvt. 18 3/17/1865 Co. A mustered out 10/30/1865
appointed 2/1//1865; mustered
out 6/26/1865 at Raleigh, N.C.,
Mering, David Q.M.S. 26 9/2/1862 Co. H by order of War Dept.
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Raleigh N.C. by order of War
Merrill, Israel Pvt. 20 8/23/1864 Co. I Dept.
discharged 6/22/1863 on
Mertz, John F. Pvt. 1/26/1862 Co. F surgeon's certificate
transferred from Co. B
McLaughlin Squadron
7/28/1865; mustered out with
Messenger, Asa Pvt. 18 11/4/1861 Co. C company 10/30/1865; veteran
appointed from corporal
11/1/1864; mustered out
5/24/1865 t Columbus, Oh., by
Messick, George Sgt. 41 2/1/1864 Co. M order of War Dept.
Messner, 10/21/186
Christian Pvt. 22 2 Co. I
225
captured 3/10/1865 at
Soloman's Grove, N.C.;
mustered out 6/30/1865 at
Camp Chase , Oh. By order of
Nelson, John W. Pvt. 19 9/8/1861 Co. C War Dept.
Nermire, Philip Pvt. 39 3/27/1865 Co. B mustered out 10/30/1865
captured 7/23/1864 in action
near Cartersville, Ga.,
mustered out 5/30/1865 at
Newberry, 10/10/186 Columbus , Oh., on expiration
Reason T. Pvt. 24 1 Co. L of term of service
prisoner of war; mustered out
11/29/186 6/14/1865, at Camp Chase,
Newell, John W. Pvt. 18 3 Co. K Oh., by order of War Dept.
captured 7/23/1864 in action
near Cartersville, Ga.,
mustered out 6/21/1865 at
Annapolis, Md., by order of War
Newell, William Pvt. 18 12/6/1863 Co. L Dept.
mustered out 6/9/1865 at Camp
Newkirk, William Chase, Oh., by order of War
H. saddler 27 9/8/1862 Co. K Dept.
discharged 1/20/1863 for
Newman, Charles wounds received 10/5/1862 in
A. Pvt. 1/26/1862 Co. F battle Metamora, Miss.
transferred from Co. A
McLaughlin Squadron
7/28/1865; mustered out with
Newman, Levi M. Pvt. 18 3/9/1864 Co. C company 10/30/1865;
mustered out with company
Newman, William Pvt. 21 2/4/1865 Co. I 10/30/1865
appointed 4/1/1865; mustered
10/16/186 out 6/26/1865 at Raleigh, N.C.,
Nicholas, Richard Sgt. 23 1 Co. H by order
appointed 1/1/1862; mustered
out 11/29/1864 on expiration of
Nichols, David G. corporal 20 10/7/1861 Co. M term of service
discharged 12/1/1861 on
Nichols, John P. Pvt. 17 10/7/1861 Co. M surgeon's certificate
appointed 10/31/1862;
mustered out 11/29/1864 on
Nichols, Robert H. 1st Sgt. 24 10/3/1861 Co. M expiration of term of service
mustered out 11/29/1864 on
Nichols, W.H.H. Pvt. 19 10/8/1861 Co. M expiration of term of service
to 1st Lieutenant 11/2/1861
from Q.M. Sergeant 11/2/1861;
Nichols, William 1st mustered out 6/1/1862 by order
E. Lieut. 24 9/16/1861 Co. A of War Dep.
prisoner of war; mustered out
Niehaus, Henry Pvt. 22 9/6/1861 Co. B 6/9/1865 by order of War Dep.
Ninskern, discharged 11/6/1861 by civil
Nicholas Jr. Pvt. 18 9/8/1861 Co. C authority
232
Patterson, William
M. Pvt. 31 9/10/1861 Co. A mustered out 10/30/1865
Patton, Alexander mustered out 1/11/1865 on
J. Pvt. 1/2/1862 Co. G expiration of term of service
mustered out 11/29/1864 on
Patton, John G. Pvt. 22 11/9/1861 Co. C expiration date of service
1st
Patton, Joseph P. Lieut. 22 9/23/1861 Co. C promoted from Sgt. 4/13/1863
appointed from corporal
3/15/1864; mustered out
Pauline, William 11/29/1864 at Columbus, Oh.,
H. 1st Sgt. 22 9/13/1861 Co. I on expiration of term of service
wounded 12/6/1862 in action in
action at Bear Creek Ala.; died
3/8/1864 of wounds received
6/20/1863 in action at Mud
Paxson, Elisha Pvt. 18 10/1/1861 Co. E Creek, Mississippi
mustered out with company
Pealy, Frederick Pvt. 18 3/18/1865 Co. M 10/30/1865
discharged 11/4/1861 at
Cincinnati, Oh., by civil
Pearce, Albert R. Pvt. 18 9/23/1861 Co. L authority
Sad. 11/16/186
Pearce, Henry Ser. 35 1 Staff transferred to Company G
transferred from Regt. Saddler
11/16/186 Sgt. ___: died 10/26/1862 at
Pearce, Henry Sgt. 35 1 Co. G Bolivar, Tenn.
discharged 3/17/1862 on
Pearson, Mahlon corporal 30 9/16/1861 Co. L surgeon's certificate
prisoner of war; mustered out
Pearson, William Pvt. 23 8/28/1862 Co. A 6/9/1865 by order of War Dep.
promoted to hospital steward
Peddie, William Pvt. 20 3/29/1865 Co. M 10/12/1865
Hos.St' from Private 10/12/1865;
Peddie,William d 20 3/29/1865 Staff mustered out 10/30/1865
Pegan, Francis Pvt. 20 9/30/1861 Co. B mustered out 11/29/1864
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Columbus, Oh., on expiration
Pelley, John Pvt. 21 9/24/1861 Co. I of term of service.
Pendry, Alexander Pvt. 19 9/16/1861 Co. G
mustered out with company
Pendry, Joseph Pvt. 19 4/8/1865 Co. M 10/30/1865
resigned 7/20/1862 but
1st remained with command until
Penn, Elijah G. Lieut. 26 10/3/1861 Co. L 10/20/1862
Musicia discharged 6/6/1862 by order
Penny, John H. n 20 10/9/1861 Band of War Dept.
10/11/186 transferred to regimental band
Penny, John H. Bugler 20 1 Co. D 11/1/1861
2nd promoted from Sgt 11/4/1861;
Penny, John W. Lieut. 21 9/28/1861 Co. D resigned 10/4/1862
Penny, Joshua Pvt. 21 9/10/1861 Co. A mustered out 11/29/1864
236
discharged 6/16/1862 on
Penny, Richard Pvt. 36 9/10/1861 Co. A surgeon's certifcate
discharged 3/19/1863 on
Penny, Richard Pvt. 18 10/9/1861 Co. D surgeon's certificate
appointed; captured 6/19/1863
near Coldwater ,
Mississippi;mustered out
Penny, Thomas 11/29/1864 by order of War
M. corporal 24 9/10/1861 Co. A Dep.
Penny, William Pvt. 24 9/10/1861 Co. A mustered out 11/29/1864
Pepper, Franklin 2nd
B. Lieut. 22 9/10/1861 Co. A resigned 10/29/1862
captured 6/19/1863 near
Coldwater , Mississippi;
Pepper, Samuel discharged 11/29/1864 by
G. Pvt. 24 9/10/1861 Co. A order of War Dep.
mustered out 2/2/1865 at Twin
Sisters Ferry, Ga., on expiration
Pepper, William Pvt. 20 2/1/1862 Co. I of term of services
mustered out with company
Peppest, James Pvt. 20 9/16/1862 Co. G 10/30/1865
Perkermyer, 10/16/186 discharged 1/14/1863 on
Martin Pvt. 40 1 Co. M surgeon's certificate
mustered out with company
Perkins, Philip R. Pvt. 20 2/9/1865 Co. M 10/30/1865
absent on furlough since
4/30/1862 on account of
Perrine, Thomas sickness; no further record
M. Pvt. 23 9/17/1861 Co. L found
died 5/9/1863 at Memphis,
Perry, David Sgt. 28 8/27/1861 Co. G Tenn.
mustered out 6/26/1865 at
Raleigh, N. C., by order of War
Perry, Mortimer Pvt. 20 9/16/1862 Co. E Dept.
promoted from Q.M. Sgt. Co. H
1/13/1865; to Captain 4/8/1865
2nd but not mustered; mustered out
Peters, Martin H. Lieut. 23 2/8/1862 Co. C 5/13/1865 by order of War Dep.
appointed corporal 5/8/1862;
Q.M. Sgt. 2/1/1863; promoted
to 2nd Lieutenant Co. C
Peters, Martin H. Q.M.S. 25 2/7/1862 Co. H 1/13/1865; veteran
Peterson, John Pvt. 9/6/1861 Co. H
discharged 9/25/1861 at
Cincinnati, Oh. On surgeon's
Pettibone, John Pvt. 35 9/10/1861 Co. C certificate of disability
appointed 7/1/1865; mustered
Pettiboue, Edward Sgt. 21 2/18/1865 Co. I out with company 10/30/1865
Pfeifer, John Pvt. 21 2/23/1865 Co. B mustered out 10/30/1865
mustered out 11/29/1864 by
Philips, Granville Bugler 21 9/10/1861 Co. A order of War Dep.
Phillips, Frederick Pvt. 19 3/23/1865 Co. C transferred to Co. G 7/28/1865
237
Robinson, Alfred
N. R.Q.M. 2/15/1863 Staff resigned 12/31/1862
Robinson, Charles died 10/20/1863 near Benton
W. corporal 28 9/10/1861 Co.A Station, Alabama
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Robinson, George Columbus, Oh., on expiration of
W. Pvt. 23 10/3/1861 Co. K term of service
Robinson, John H. Pvt. 22 9/10/1861 Co. F
appointed 11/9/1861;
Robinson, John discharged 11/24/1862 on
M. Bugler 23 9/11/1861 Co. D surgeon's certificate
Robinson, John mustered out 9/2/1864 on
M. corporal 27 8/31/1861 Co. G expiration of term of service
Robinson, Joseph
H. Pvt. 12/4/1861 Co. B mustered out 12/24/1864
Rockey, George 10/14/186
W. corporal 32 1 Co. G appointed____
Rockwell,
Frederick Pvt. 24 2/4/865 Co. A
discharged 11/26/1862 at
Columbus, Oh., on surgeon's
Roder, Charles Pvt. 37 9/2/1862 Co. E certificate
mustered out with company
Rodgers, Reuben Pvt. 19 2/24/1865 Co. H 10/30/1865
appointed7/1/1865; mustered
Roland, George corporal 27 3/14/1865 Co. I out with company 10/30/1865
Romanoweitz,
Joseph Pvt. 20 9/25/1861 Co. B mustered out 11/29/1864
appointed from Corporal ;
captured 6/19/1865 near
Romanowitz, Coldwater, Mississippi;
Lucas Sgt. 28 9/25/1861 Co. B mustered out 11/29/1864
discharged 9/8/1862 at
10/27/186 Columbus, Oh., on surgeon's
Root, Samuel Pvt. 39 1 Co. I certificate
appointed from Sgt. 6/2/1862;
captured 6/19/1863 in action
near Coldwater, Miss.;
Rope, Jacob A. 1st Sgt. 23 9/6/1861 Co. C mustered out 11/20/1865
died 6/18.1865 at Miamisburg,
Rose, Augustus Pvt. 33 9/10/1861 Co. G Oh., veteran
captured 4/6/1865 at Faison's
12/27/186 Depot, N.C.; no further record;
Rosenthal, Peter Pvt. 1 Co. G veteran
transferred to Gunboat Service
Ross, Albert G. Pvt. 23 10/3/1861 Co. M 1/31/1862
mustered out with company
Ross, Benjamin Pvt. 41 2/20/1865 Co. H 10/30/1865
Ross, James M. Pvt. 18 2/25/1865 Co. A mustered out 10/30/1865
245
appointed 10/31/1861;
discharged 8/23/1862 at
Stewart, Memphis, Tn. On surgeon's
Alexander corporal 29 9/2/1861 Co. B certificate
appointed 6/1/1862; mustered
out 10/6/1864 at Columbus,
Oh., on expiration of term of
Stewart, Daniel D. corporal 22 9/2/1861 Co. M service
discharged 3/13/1864 on
Stewart, Fielding Pvt. 21 9/30/1862 Co. K surgeon's certificate
Chaplai
Stewart, John n 3/22/1862 Staff resigned 6/10/1862
Stewart, John W. Pvt. 23 3/4/1865 Co. L
Stewart, Roland mustered out with company
C. corporal 27 2/24/1865 Co. L 10/30/1865
Stewart, William
P. Pvt. 40 3/2/1865 Co. B mustered out 10/30/1865
Hos.St' from Private 11/1/1861;
Stiles , Thomas D. d 50 8/31/1861 Staff returned to Company G
discharged 7/18/1862 on
Stiles, Thomas D. Pvt. 50 8/31/1861 Co. G surgeon's certificate
discharged 1/15/1863 at
Stilzinger, Jackson, Tenn., on surgeon's
Frederick Pvt. 28 9/26/1861 Co. I certificate
Stitzlein, John T. Pvt. 18 2/28/1865 Co. A mustered out 10/30/1865
discharged 8/16/1863 at
Memphis on surgeon's
Stiver, Henry Pvt. 9/12/1862 Co. B certificate of disability
mustered out with company
Stock, Conrad Pvt. 21 3/11/1865 Co. I 10/30/1865
Stone, Alexander corporal 38 1/12/1864 Co. F appointed 7/1/1865
mustered out with company
Stone, Harmon J. Pvt. 38 3/19/1865 Co. F 10/30/1865
prisoner of war; mustered out
Stonebreaker, 6/9/1865 at Camp Chase, Oh.,
James D Pvt. 18 1/1/1864 Co. K by order of War Dept.
Stordgel, Rufus Pvt. 23 3/4/1865 Co. L
mustered out with company
Stotler, Jacob Pvt. 19 2/4/1865 Co. L 10/30/1865
Stotts, William H. Pvt. 25 4/6/1865 Co. F
transferred to Co. G 7th
Regiment Veteran Reserve
Corps; discharged 12/9/1864 at
Washington D.C., on surgeon's
Stoughton, Eli Pvt. 9/4/1862 Co. L certificate
transferred from Co. B
McLaughlin Squadron
11/11/186 7/28/1865; mustered out with
Stout, Daniel Pvt. 22 1 Co. C company10/30/1865; veteran
258
discharged 3/16/1863 at
Winders, Germantown, Tn., on surgeon's
Alexander P. Pvt. 8/9/1862 Co. M certificate
Winders, Daniel
P. Pvt. 8/29/1862 Co. M no further record found
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Columbus, Oh. By order of War
Wingert, Lewis Pvt. 18 9/11/1861 Co. D Dept.
mustered out with company
Winkleman, Isaac Pvt. 19 2/16/1865 Co. L 10/30/1865
Winning, George 10/28/186
W. Pvt. 21 1 Co. E died 6/19/1862 at Paducah, Ky.
mustered out 6/1/1865 at Camp
Dennison, Oh. By order of War
Winters, August Pvt. 20 9/17/1861 Co. D Dept.; veteran
_________________________
Winters, John Pvt. 18 1/26/1864 Co. C __
mustered out with company
Wirtland, John M. Pvt. 31 2/15/1865 Co. D 10/30/1865
appointed___; mustered out
with company 10/30/1865;
Wirtz, Adam corporal 25 9/10/1861 Co. E veteran
discharged 9/29/1865 on
Wise, John Pvt. 20 4/1/1865 Co. M surgeon's certificate
discharged 6/30/1862 at Camp
12/14/186 Dennison, Oh. On surgeon's
Wissinger, John Pvt. ___ 1 Co. C certificate
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Columbus, Oh., on expiration of
Wolf, Joseph Pvt. 18 10/3/1861 Co. E term of service.
mustered out 11/29/1864 at
Columbus, Oh., on expiration of
term of service; re-enlisted
3/3/1865 for one year;
Wolf, Michael corporal 23 9/30/1861 Co. I mustered out 10/30/1865;
mustered out 11/29/1864 on
Wolf, Simeon Pvt. 21 9/8/1861 Co. C expiration date of service
Wolfram, Charles Pvt. 38 2/15/1865 Co. H
Wollard, Robert appointed 11/1/1861; died
M. corporal 22 9/10/1861 Co. E 6/1/1862 at Monterey, Tenn.
transferred from Co. B
McLaughlin Squadron
11/14/186 7/28/1865; mustered out with
Wollet, Moses Pvt. 26 1 Co. C company10/30/1865; veteran
11/12/186 mustered out 11/20/1864 on
Wood, John R. Pvt. 20 1 Co. L expiration of term of service
transferred from Co. A
McLaughlin Squadron
7/28/1865; mustered out with
company 10/30/1865;absent
with leave since 10/2/1865; no
Wood, Naman Pvt. 20 4/4/1864 Co. C further record
274
1st
Wood, Thomas G. Lieut. 34 10/8/1861 Co. M
Wooden, Charles
W. Pvt. 19 9/18/1861 Co. K
Woolbaugh,
William H. Pvt. 18 2/22/1865 Co. E mustered out 10/30/1865
mustered out 5/24/1865by
Woolfick, Edward Pvt. 19 9/30/1864 Co. B order of War Dep.
Woolfick, William mustered out 6/26/1865 by
F. Pvt. 21 9/29/1864 Co. B order of War Dep.
Woolflayer, 10/27/186 discharged 7/9/1862 at Corinth,
Joseph Pvt. 39 1 Co. I Miss., on surgeon's certificate.
Worcester, Ldr. discharged 6/6/1862 by order
Leonard Band 25 9/2/1861 Band of War Dept.
Wright, Benjamin mustered out with company
F. Pvt. 18 2/15/1865 Co. I 10/30/1865
mustered out with company
Wright, David Pvt. 21 2/21/1865 Co. M 10/30/1865
mustered out with company
Wright, James E. Pvt. 19 2/13/1865 Co. K 10/30/1865
mustered out with company
Wright, John L. Pvt. 18 9/11/1861 Co. D 10/30/1865; veteran
discharged 5/12/1862 on
Wright, Luther S. Pvt. 24 10/1/1861 Co. K surgeon's certificate
mustered out with company
Wunder, George Pvt. 22 2/22/1865 Co. K 10/30/1865
captured 12/18/1862 at Battle
of Lexington, Tenn.; exchanged
9/1/1863; mustered out
6/26/1865 at Raleigh, N.C., by
Yager, Joseph Pvt. 41 9/10/1862 Co. F order of War Dept.
mustered out with company
Yagle, George W. Pvt. 25 1/30/1865 Co. D 10/30/1865
mustered out 6/21/1865 at
Camp Chase, Oh. By order of
Yancey, Joseph Pvt. 23 9/17/1864 Co. C War Dept.
appointed 7/4/1865; mustered
Yazel, John Q. Sgt. 23 2/28/1865 Co. H out with company 10/30/1865
appointed from corporal
9/1/1865; mustered out with
Yeatts, William Sgt. 24 2/15/1865 Co. M company 10/30/1865
also carried on the rolls as
Henry L. Castleton; from private
to Adjutant 9/4/1865; mustered
Yocum, John M. Adjutant 36 2/7/1865 Staff out 10/30/1865
Borne on rolls as Henry L.
Castleton; promoted to 1st Lt.
Yocum, John M. Pvt. 36 2/7/1865 Co. M and Adj. 9/4/1865
mustered out 11/29/1864 on
Yohler, Martin Pvt. 20 9/17/1861 Co. H expiration of term of service
mustered out with company
Young, David Pvt. 27 2/7/1865 Co. L 10/30/1865
275