Ohio in the American Civil War

Much of southern Ohio's economy depended upon trade with the South across the Ohio River, which had served for years as passage and a link with the slave states of Virginia and Kentucky. The culture of southern Ohio was closer to those states than it was to northern parts of the state, owing to many settlers coming from the South and being formerly territory of the state of Virginia as part of the Virginia Military District. Most of the state's population was solidly against secession. During the 1860 Presidential Election, Ohio voted in favor of Abraham Lincoln (231,709 votes or 52.3% of the ballots cast) over Stephen Douglas (187,421; 42.3%), John C. Breckinridge (11,406; 2.6%), and John Bell (12,194; 2.8%).[8]

A number of men with Ohio ties would serve important roles in Lincoln's Cabinet and administration, including Steubenville's Edwin M. Stanton as Attorney General and then Secretary of War, and former Ohio U.S. Senator and Governor Salmon P. Chase as Secretary of the Treasury. Prominent Ohio politicians in Congress included Senators John Sherman and Benjamin F. Wade.[9]

During the war, three men would serve as Governor of Ohio– William Dennison, David Tod and John Brough. Without being asked by the War Department, Dennison sent Ohio troops into western Virginia, where they guarded the Wheeling Convention. The convention led to the admission of West Virginia as a free state. Tod became known as "the soldier's friend," for his determined efforts to help equip and sustain Ohio's troops. He was noted for his quick response in calling out the state militia to battle Confederate raiders. Brough strongly supported the Lincoln Administration's war efforts and was key to persuading other Midwestern governors to raise 100-day regiments, such as the 131st Ohio Infantry in early 1864, to release more seasoned troops for duty in Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's spring campaign.[10]

Through the middle of the war, the Copperhead movement had appeal in Ohio, driven in part by noted states rights advocate, Congressman Clement Vallandigham, a leading Peace Democrat. After General Ambrose E. Burnside issued General Order Number 38 in early 1863, warning that the "habit of declaring sympathies for the enemy" would not be tolerated in the Military District of Ohio, Vallandigham gave a major speech charging the war was being fought not to save the Union, but to free blacks and enslave whites.[11]

Burnside ordered his arrest and took Vallandigham to Cincinnati for trial. At the trial, Vallandigham was found guilty. The court sentenced him to prison for the duration of the war. President Lincoln attempted to quiet the situation by writing the Birchard Letter, which offered to release Vallandigham if several Ohio congressmen agreed to support certain policies of the Administration. To try to prevent political backlash and preserve authority of Gen. Burnside, Abraham Lincoln changed Vallandigham's sentence to banishment to the South. The threat was imprisonment if Vallandigham returned to northern soil. The South allowed Vallandigham to migrate to Canada, from where he ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor against Brough in 1863. Vallandigham's campaign bitterly divided much of Ohio, Vallandigham's votes were especially heavy in central and northwestern Ohio. He lost his home county of Montgomery (Dayton) but by a narrow margin.[12][13]

Public sentiment shifted more in favor of the Lincoln Administration, particularly as Ohio generals rose in prominence, with military successes in the Atlanta Campaign, the Siege of Petersburg, and Sheridan's Valley Campaigns. In the 1864 Presidential Election, Ohio strongly supported Lincoln's reelection. The state gave the president 265,674 votes (56.4% of the total) versus 205,609 votes (43.6%) for General George McClellan.[14]

En route to Washington, D.C. for his inauguration, President Lincoln passed through Ohio by train, with brief stops in numerous cities. His first formal speech given after his election was in Hudson, Ohio, a stop he made en route to Cleveland. Although Lincoln had visited the state several times before the war, he would not return during the Civil War. In 1865 his funeral train carried his body through the state, bound for Springfield, Illinois.

Newspapers engaged in very lively discussion of war issues, from the Republican, War Democrat and Copperhead perspectives.[15]

Camp Dennison near Cincinnati, Ohio, set up to train and drill Ohio soldiers.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, in response to a call to arms by President Lincoln, Ohio raised 23 volunteer infantry regiments for three months' service, 10 more regiments than the state's quota. When it became evident that the war would not end quickly, Ohio began raising regiments for three-year terms of enlistment. At first the majority were stocked with eager volunteers and recruits. Before the war's end, they would be joined by 8,750 draftees.[16]

319,189 Ohioans served in the Union army, more than any other northern state except New York and Pennsylvania.[17] Of these, 5,092 were free blacks. Ohio had the highest percentage of population enlisted in the military of any state. Sixty percent of all the men between the ages of 18 and 45 were in the service. Ohio mustered 230 regiments of infantry and cavalry, as well as 26 light artillery batteries and 5 independent companies of sharpshooters. Total casualties among these units numbered 35,475 men, more than 10% of all the Buckeyes in uniform during the war. There were 6,835 men killed in action, including 402 officers.[18]

Dozens of small camps were established across the state to train and drill the new regiments. Two large military posts were created: Camp Chase in Columbus and Camp Dennison near Cincinnati. The 1st Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI) would eventually be joined on the muster rolls by more than 100 additional infantry regiments.[19]

1st Ohio Infantry in action, June 1861.

Ohioans first had military action at the Battle of Philippi Races in June 1861, where the 14th and 16th Ohio Infantry participated in the Union victory. Ohioans comprised one-fifth of the Union army at the April 1862 Battle of Shiloh, where 1,676 Buckeyes suffered casualties. Ohio would suffer its highest casualty count at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, with 3,591 killed or wounded. Another 1,351 men were taken prisoner of war by the Confederates. Among these prisoners, 36 men from the 2nd Ohio Infantry would perish in the infamous Andersonville prison, as did hundreds more Buckeye soldiers there.[20]

Several Buckeye regiments played critical roles in other important battles. The 8th OVI was instrumental in helping repulse Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. At the same battle, the 66th OVI flanked repeated Confederate assaults and helped secure the crest of Culp's Hill. George Nixon, great-grandfather of President Richard Nixon, died at Gettysburg in the 73rd OVI.[21]

John Clem, celebrated as "Johnny Shiloh" and "The Drummer Boy of Chickamauga," became the youngest person to become a noncommissioned officer in United States Army history. More than 100 soldiers from Ohio units earned the Medal of Honor during the conflict. Several were awarded it for the ill-fated Great Locomotive Chase.

President Lincoln had a habit on the eve of a battle of asking how many Ohio men would participate. When someone inquired why, Lincoln remarked, "Because I know that if there are many Ohio soldiers to be engaged, it is probable we will win the battle, for they can be relied upon in such an emergency."[22]

Small-scale riots broke out in ethnic German and Irish districts, and in areas along the Ohio River with many Copperheads. Holmes County, Ohio was an isolated localistic areas dominated by Pennsylvania Dutch and some recent German immigrants. It was a Democratic stronghold and few men dared speak out in favor of conscription. Local politicians denounced Lincoln and Congress as despotic, seeing the draft law as a violation of their local autonomy. In June 1863, small scale disturbance broke out; but ended when the Army sent in armed units.[23]

John A. Gillis, a corporal from the 64th Ohio Infantry, gave his reasons for fighting for the Union in the war, stating in his diary that "We are now fighting to destroy the cause of these dangerous diseases, which is slavery and the slave power."[24]

Unlike its neighbors West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, Ohio was spared from serious military encounters. In September 1862, Confederate forces under Brig. Gen. Henry Heth marched through northern Kentucky and threatened Cincinnati (see Defense of Cincinnati). They turned away after encountering strong Union fortifications south of the Ohio River. Not long afterwards, Brig. Gen. Albert G. Jenkins briefly passed through the extreme southern tip of Ohio during a raid.

It was not until the summer of 1863 that Confederates arrived in force, when John Hunt Morgan's cavalry division traversed southern and eastern Ohio during Morgan's Raid. His activities culminated in Morgan's capture in Columbiana County at the Battle of Salineville. The Battle of Buffington Island was the largest fought in Ohio during the Civil War.[25]

Camp Chase Prison was a Union Army prison in Columbus. There was a plan among prisoners to revolt and escape in 1863. The prisoners expected support from Copperheads and Vallandigham, but never did revolt.[37]

• Fritsch, James T. The Untried Life: The Twenty-Ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War. Ohio University Press, 2012, also known as the Giddings Regiment or the Abolition Regiment, after its founder, radical abolitionist Congressman JR Giddings.
• Bissland, James, Blood, Tears, and Glory: How Ohioans Won the Civil War. Wilmington, Ohio: Orange Frazer Press, 2007. ISBN 1-933197-05-6.
• Dyer, Frederick Henry, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. New York: T. Yoseloff, 1908. 3 vol.
• Ivy Jr, Major Jack Morris. Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio, 1861–1865: A Study Of The Union's Treatment Of Confederate Prisoners (Pickle Partners Publishing, 2014).
• Leeke, Jim, editor. A Hundred Days to Richmond: Ohio's "Hundred Days" Men in the Civil War. (Indiana University Press, 1999).
• Pickenpaugh, Roger. Camp Chase and the Evolution of Union Prison Policy (University of Alabama Press, 2007).
• Quinlin, Bradley and Joshua Haugh. Duty Well Performed: The Twenty-First Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War (2011).
• Staats, Richard J. History of the 6th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry 1861–1865: A Journal of Patriotism, Duty and Bravery (2006).
• Stephens, Gail. "'This City Must Not Be Taken,'" Traces of Indiana & Midwestern History, Spring 2010, 22#2 pp 4–17, on the defense of Cincinnati by Gen. Wallace in 1862.
• Tafel, Gustav. "The Cincinnati Germans in the Civil War." Translated and edited with Supplements on Germans from Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana in the Civil War by Don Heinrich Tolzmann. Milford, Ohio: Little Miami Publishing Co., 2010.
• Tucker, Louis Leonard, Cincinnati during the Civil War. Columbus: Ohio State University Press for the Ohio Historical Society, 1962.
• Waits, Bert K.; Linder, J. D.; Miller, Pat; Nevel, Bonnie. "John Henry Waite and Daniel Linder, 96th OVI, in the Vicksburg Campaign," Ohio Civil War Genealogy Journal (Dec 2012), 16#4 pp 171–190.

• George, Harold A. Civil War monuments of Ohio (2006), 87pp
• Miller, Richard F. States at War, Volume 5: A Reference Guide for Ohio in the Civil War (2015). excerpt
• Riesenberg, Michael. "Cincinnati's Civil War Resources: Preparing for the Sesquicentennial Anniversary of the Civil War." Ohio Valley History 10#4 (2010): 46–65.

• Brown, Curt. Leaving Home in Dark Blue: Chronicling Ohio's Civil War Experience through Primary Sources and Literature (University of Akron Press, 2012).
• Dee, Christine, ed. Ohio's war: the Civil War in documents (2006)
• Dornbusch, C. E., Regimental Publications & Personal Narratives of the Civil War., Vol I Northern States, Part V Indiana and Ohio. New York: The New York Public Library, 1962.
• Engs, Robert Francis, and Corey M. Brooks, eds. Their Patriotic Duty: The Civil War Letters of the Evans Family of Brown County, Ohio (Fordham Univ Press, 2007).
• Ohio Roster Commission. Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War on the Rebellion, 1861–1865, compiles under the direction of the Roster commission. 12 vol. Akron: Werner Co., 1886–95.