Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

The 100th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was raised throughout northwestern Ohio, with companies from Defiance, Fulton, Lucas, Henry, Ottawa, Paulding, Sandusky, Williams, and Wood Counties making up its ranks. Shortly after mustering in, the regiment was sent (sans any training) to Cincinnati to help defend the city against the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. They spent the fall of 1862 and winter of 1863 moving from post to post in eastern Kentucky and while busily engaged in "bushwhacking," never had an opportunity to take part in a major engagement. That changed in the late summer of 1863. Quoting Whitelaw Reid, "On the 13th of August, the regiment went into camp at Danville preparatory for the march to East Tennessee. Upon arriving at Knoxville, a portion of the regiment was sent up to the Virginia State Line to guard the railroad. The detachment, 240 strong, was captured by the enemy and sent to Richmond, Virginia." The engagement mentioned occurred at Limestone ...

Private Harry Comer of the 1 st Ohio Volunteer Infantry gained a reputation for wielding a spicy pen, but after three months of occupation duty in and around Knoxville, he was fit to be tied. “Of all the places I have ever seen, this Knoxville certainly the most uncouth and vile,” he began his regular missive to the Lancaster Gazette on April 4, 1864 “The majority of the people here are camp followers, knucks, cracksmen, shoulder hitters, confidence men, etc., who, blended together with the army play offs who possumed sick when their commands left for the front constitute one of the most God-forsaken, law-defying, conglomerated masses of vice and immorality that Heaven in its mercy ever permitted to exist.”           Southern cities occupied during the Civil War became playgrounds for criminal activity and hubs of illicit trade. Knoxville was no different in this regard. The city had been bitterly divided over the question of secessio...

Samuel Sheldon Pettit was a well-traveled man before he enlisted in the 15th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in 1861. The 28 year old harness maker had been born in New Jersey in 1833, moved to Knoxville, Illinois in 1851, and with his wife moved to California in 1854. By 1858, he had returned east and settled in Wyandot County, Ohio. He helped raise Company D of the 15th Ohio in the summer of 1861 and was appointed First Sergeant upon the mustering in of the regiment in September 1861. His exemplary conduct at the battle of Shiloh gained notice and recommendations from his company and regimental commanders and Pettit was soon commissioned as second lieutenant of Co. D. It was in this capacity that he led Co. D at the Battle of Stones River on December 31, 1862.  Captain Samuel Sheldon Pettit, Co. D, 15th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (Photo courtesy of Jon-Erik Gilot) The following account focuses on the crucial first day of the Battle of Stones River, and Pettit provides an exceptional a...

With so many of us now “sheltering in place” due to the COVID-19 crisis, it made me think of another time when Americans were under confinement, in this case the experience of our Civil War veterans who became prisoners of war. One of those men, Colonel William Tecumseh Wilson of the 123 rd Ohio Infantry, penned the following letter to his wife Louisa (“Lou”) back home in Upper Sandusky, Ohio in November 1863. Writing from Libby Prison in the heart of the Confederate capital, Wilson had been a "resident" at Libby for nearly four months after being captured during the Second Battle of Winchester. Colonel Wilson was finally paroled on March 18, 1864 and was formally exchanged May 28, 1864. He rejoined the regiment for the Lynchburg raid but soon suffered from an attack of inflammatory rheumatism and saw little action for the rest of the war. He was appointed a brevet brigadier general in 1866 and later served as Comptroller of the State Treasury of Ohio and mayor of Uppe...

The 23 rd Ohio was among the most notable regiments that served from the state in part because it was the “birthplace” of so many generals and Presidents. Its first commander was William S. Rosecrans who went on to become a major general and led the Army of the Cumberland; its next commander, Eliakim P. Scammon, became a brigadier general as did its third commander Rutherford B. Hayes. Stanley Matthews left the regiment as lieutenant colonel to head the 51 st Ohio and was later a brigade commander. Two members of the regiment served as President of the United States: Rutherford B. Hayes from 1877-1881, and William McKinley from 1897-1901. This post features a campaign letter from one of the privates in the ranks of the 23 rd Ohio. Wilson B. Patterson was born May 24, 1841 in Morgan County, Ohio to Leander and Nancy Patterson. The 1860 census shows him living at home with his parents and working as an apprentice. He enlisted in Co. H of the 23 rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry for th...

Private Henry M. Davidson of Battery A, 1st Ohio Volunteer Light Artillery furnished this account of the Battle of Chickamauga for the 1890 book Prisoners of War and Military Prisons of which he and two other veterans were co-authors. The entire book can be viewed here .  To put a bit more context around his account, this battery was part of Richard Johnson's Second Division of Alexander McCook's 20th Corps. Davidson was captured when the Snodgrass House hospital was overrun by the Confederates on the evening of September 20, 1863. 

Allen B. White was born in Ohio in 1835 but by 1861 had moved west and settled in Rich Valley, McLeod County, Minnesota. He mustered in as a Sergeant of Co. K of the 2 nd Minnesota Infantry in August 1861, re-enlisted in December 1863 and gained promotion to Second Lieutenant April 1, 1865. He mustered out with the regiment July 11, 1865. White was cited for gallantry at the storming of Missionary Ridge in November 1863. Private Henry Augustus Moore served in Co. F of the 15th Mississippi and faced the 2nd Minnesota at the Battle of Mill Springs, or Fishing Creek as it was called by the Confederates. Moore died August 14, 1863 from wounds sustained during the Vicksburg campaign. (Library of Congress) This letter describing the Battle of Mill Springs was written to his parents in Summit Co., Ohio and was published in the February 13, 1862 issue of the Summit County Beacon . Zollicoffer's Camp, Mill Springs, Kentucky January 20, 1862 Dear Parents,    ...