Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

                                                                           Ohio Colonels in the Civil War D uring the Civil War, the state of Ohio furnished some of the highest ranking officers of the Union army. The names of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and McClellan are familiar with most Civil War buffs, but while these men were born in Ohio, they started their climb into the upper echelons of the high command through their prior services in the Regular Army.       Ohio had over 200 regimental-sized organizations during the war, and its a fair question to ask which of those regimental commanders most distinguished themselves during the Civil War?  One measure of a soldier's value to his country is entrusting higher levels command responsibilities beyond just a singular regiment, with brigade, divisions, corps, even armies. So I'm going to rank these colonels based on who went into the upper echelons of command, i.e. which of Ohio's colonels rose highest in the ranks? We'

Ohio Colonels in the Civil War "They weren't all heroes."      It stands to reason that somewhere in the over 200 regimental-sized organizations that Ohio fielded during the war, a bad apple or two would end up in command. Today's article tackles this admittedly sensitive subject with a top 11 list of Buckeye colonels  who exited the service under less than honorable circumstances during the Civil War. It's a list of cowards, drunks, incompetents, and outright scoundrels whose record adds color (or rather off color) to Ohio's history in the Civil War and is "history that deserves to be remembered."       They are presented in the rough chronological order of their exit from the service. 

Stones River Letters Series T he fortunes of General William S. Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland appeared to be on the wane as the sun set on Friday afternoon January 2, 1863. A determined attack by General John C. Breckinridge’s division upon Colonel Samuel Beatty’s division, arrayed on the east side of Stones River, had crumpled the Union line and was surging towards Stones River. Second Lieutenant Robert S. Dilworth of the 21 st Ohio recorded the chaotic scene from the west side of the river. “On swept the tide of battle. Pell-mell, hurry-scurry, came our troops, hotly pursued by the advancing Rebel columns,” Dilworth stated. “The 99 th Ohio broke across the river and came near running over us. When they had finally passed through our ranks, Colonel [James] Neibling in his sonorous voice cried out, “Attention!” The whole regiment sprang to their feet in an instant with their arms gripped, ready for the oncoming assault of the Rebel forces and the coming struggle. The Rebels cha

Q uartermaster Sergeant Robert F. Wolfkill of the 13 th Ohio missed out on the combat that nearly destroyed his regiment at Stones River, but his letter, written in Nashville as the guns went silent, was the first word his home community of Urbana, Ohio learned of the battle. Writing his mother after helping to bring a load of 800 wounded men to Nashville, Robert wrote his mother in the wee hours of the morning of Sunday, January 4, 1863. “The old 13 th Ohio is completely cut to pieces,” he reported. “They went into the battle the first day 500 strong and yesterday 150 men were all that could be got together, the balance all killed, wounded, or prisoners. Co. C has six men left for duty. In Co. A, out of 80 men has only 12 left; 30 men fell at the first fire in Co. A. The reason our regiment suffered so much is this: the two regiments on the left of our regiment gave way and the Rebels flanked and got our regiment and the 44 th Indiana between two fires. The consequence is that ou

G eneral Edmund Kirby Smith’s invasion of Kentucky began on August 13, 1862, and was spearheaded by the two regiments of his cavalry command, the 1 st Louisiana and the 1 st Georgia. Starting out for Kentucky, “joy seemed to pervade the very souls of the entire command,” one Georgian recalled. “They moved with cheerfulness and alacrity, anticipating a stirring time.” Ten days later, the cavalrymen had a stirring time when they learned that a Federal wagon train bound for Cumberland Gap near Big Hill a few miles southeast of Richmond, Kentucky. Taking position atop the hill, the Georgians soon got into a fight with the rookie 7 th Kentucky Cavalry (US) under Colonel Leonidas Metcalfe and a portion of the 3rd Tennessee (US) under Lieutenant Colonel John C. Chiles.  After pushing the Kentuckians off Big Hill, the Confederate cavalry pursued the fleeing bluecoats before running into the 3rd Tennessee at the Merritt Jones tavern at the foot of the hill. “The Yankees had a very strong p

I n May 1860, William Tecumseh Wilson, editor of the Wyandot Pioneer of Upper Sandusky, traveled to Chicago to take part in the Republican Party’s national convention in which Abraham Lincoln gained the nomination which resulted in his election as 16 th President of the United States.     " We had the good fortune to be present at the national convention held at Chicago last week, and we think we are safe in averring that no national convention ever assembled in this country where such a complete state of harmony, unanimity, and good feeling generally, was manifested," Wilson reported through the pages of his newspaper. "Delegates as well as the thousands of outsiders, upon consultation, all expressed a willingness to lay aside personal prejudice and unite upon whoever was thought to be the winning man and it was soon discovered that that man was honest old Abe Lincoln of Illinois, the man who, but his own unaided industry, has fought his way up from the position of a h

T his past Tuesday, I finally visited my uncle Fred in Kalkaska, Michigan. Now we’ve never formally met, as you see Uncle Fred died in 1905, more than 70 years before I arrived here during the country’s bicentennial. And I would wager our meeting Tuesday was rather one sided, as I did the talking and his gravestone listened patiently.           He was born Frederick McLargin on June 2, 1835, in the wilds of the Black Swamp of Wood County, Ohio to James and Barbary McLargin, his father from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and Barbary variously reported as being from Pennsylvania or Germany. Fred didn’t come into the world alone- if family records are to be believed, his twin sister Sarah arrived either shortly before or shortly after Frederick’s first cries greeted his mother’s ears. Frederick and Sarah would be the fifth and sixth children of the growing McLargin family, and my great-great-great-great grandmother Isabelle Jane was the oldest.           The McLargin’s were hacking a

W riting in her journal on Sunday, January 4, 1863, McMinnville resident Lucy Virginia French recalled the ghastly toll the Battle of Stones River levied upon her local community. It was the evening of New Year’s day when the body of Captain Drury C. Spurlock of the 16 th Tennessee was brought into McMinnville by Spurlock’s father. “We went into the parlor at John’s to see poor Cap as soon as he was laid out,” she recorded. “His uniform was very bloody and it had to be cut off of him. They dressed him in a fine suit of black cloth such as he used to wear before the war began. How noble and handsome he looked and how natural! You could not notice the small place where the ball entered as it was completely concealed by his mustache and his face was so serene and calm. His mouth had a faint smile upon it.” They buried him the following day as the thunderous sounds of Breckinridge’s assault echoed in the distance. “The artillery firing at Murfreesboro was tremendous that evening, heav