Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

William Wallace Hill was born September 6, 1845 in Weston, Wood Co., Ohio and went to work by age 10 as a laborer on a nearby farm. He enlisted when he was just over 17 years of age in the Union Army on October 8, 1862 in Perrysburg, Ohio, becoming a private in Captain David Stratton's Company G, 10 th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. The regiment gathered at Camp Cleveland during the dark days of the war in late 1862, and was mustered into Federal service on January 15, 1863. The regiment was sent south to join General William S. Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland in its winter encampment near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. There the regiment became part of Rosecrans' growing cavalry corps, taking part in the Tullahoma and Chickamauga campaigns in the latter parts of 1863. The regiment served on guard and outpost duty around Chattanooga into May 1864 when it took the field in support of General William Tecumseh Sherman's drive against Atlanta.   The early 1863 image shows Serge...

The following letter, originally published in the October 16, 1862 issue of the Weekly Lancaster [Ohio] Gazette , was written by Sharpsburg resident Dr. Augustin A. Biggs, who later served as the first president and superintendent of Antietam National Cemetery. Biggs wrote this letter nearly two weeks after the Battle of Antietam to his uncle Elijah Kalb, who was then postmaster of the small Fairfield County town of Rushville, Ohio. Kalb was the younger brother of Mary Biggs, Dr. Biggs’s mother. Dr. Augustin Asbury Biggs Augustin Asbury Biggs was born to John and Mary Biggs on December 27, 1812 in Double Pipe Creek, Maryland, and attended Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia before entering the practice of medicine in Sharpsburg during the 1830s. Dr. Biggs specialized in obstetrics, and helped deliver more than three thousand infants during his fifty-three-year career. A county history described him as: of a gentle and retiring nature, but at the same time he took ...

I have a tradition on every New Year's Day of taking a walk at Oak Openings Park as a way of re-focusing myself for the year ahead. We were fortunate in that this year it was sunny and clear if a bit cool and the walk, as always, was invigorating.  On my way home, I drove along U.S. 20 in Monclova and passed by Swan Creek Cemetery. It triggered a memory from long ago back in my Civil War re-enacting days. Adjacent to the road is a small monument dedicated to the residents of Monclova Township who died during the Civil War. Driving by and seeing the eagle atop the monument it triggered the memory of helping to re-dedicate this monument back in 2000. At the time, I was a "high private in the rear rank" of the 14th Ohio/3rd Arkansas. The Monclova Historical Foundation had paid for the restoration of this nearly forgotten monument which had been erected in 1870, just five years after the war. We (our group) were invited to be part of the wreath-laying ceremony. Checking...