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BULLETINof the

Historical and Philosophical Society of OhioCINCINNATI

July, 1961 CINCINNATI Vol. 19 No. 3

Camp Dennison, 1861 -1865by STEPHEN Z. STARR

On Sunday, April 14, 1861, Major Robert Anderson and hisartillerymen marched out of Fort Sumter with colors flying anddrums beating. On the same day, the Cabinet in Washingtonagreed upon a presidential proclamation to be issued on themorrow. In stately language the proclamation recited that theexecution of the laws of the United States had been obstructedin seven seceded states "by combinations too powerful to besuppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings"wherefore "I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and thelaws . . . hereby do call forth the militia of the several Statesof the Union to the aggregate number of 75,000, in order tosuppress said combinations and to cause the laws to be dulyexecuted." By a law of 1795 the president had authority to callstate militia into the federal service for only three months, andit was for this brief period that the 75,000 militia were called out.There were not many in the North who doubted that ninety dayswould be ample to put down the rebellion.

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In the Northern states, the President's proclamation broughtto an abrupt end the long period of depression and uncertaintywhich began with the secession of South Carolina on December20, 1860. It was now made plain to all that the Union was to bevindicated and the authority of the national government reas-serted. The Chicago Tribune spoke for the entire North when itdeclared: 'The gates of Janus are open; the storm is upon us.Let the cry be, The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon!"1

The presidential proclamation was to be followed by a WarDepartment directive to the governors of the states which hadnot seceded, establishing the quota of each such state. ButGovernor William Dennison of Ohio, a native of Cincinnati,2 didnot wait for orders from the War Department. He wired thePresident direct: "What portion of the 75,000 militia . . . do yougive Ohio? We will furnish the largest number you will re-ceive. . . ."3 Governor Beriah Magoffin replied to the call forKentucky's quota of militiamen with the defiant message:"I say emphatically Kentucky will furnish no troops for thewicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States."When Dennison learned of Magoffin's response, he sent offanother telegram to Washington: "If Kentucky will not fillher quota, Ohio will f 11 it for her."4 This was not an idleboast. While Fort Sumter was still under attack, and beforeit was known what the reaction of the national governmentwould be, twenty militia companies from all parts of Ohiooffered themselves to the Governor for immediate service.Within days of the announcement that Ohio's quota was13,000 men, more than 30,000 were enrolled.5 In every cornerof the state, companies and regiments were being formed.By April 18, the First and Second Regiments of OhioVolunteer Infantry had been organized from the first twentymilitia companies to be called to Columbus, and were about to

Quoted in Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln — The War Years, 4 vols.(New York, 1936-1939), I, 215.2His father was the owner of the Dennison House, considered to be the besthotel in Cincinnati in the 1830's.3Kenneth P. Williams, Lincoln Finds a General, 5 vols. (New York, 1949-1956), I, 61.4Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War: Her Statesmen, Her Generals, and Soldiers,2 vols. (Cincinnati, 1868), I, 42.5Charles B. Galbreath, History of Ohio, 5 vols. (Chicago, 1925), I, 595. Ohio'squota was exceeded only by the 17 regiments to t>e furnished by New York andthe 16 regiments from Pennsylvania.

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depart for Washington. The Second Regiment contained threecompanies from Cincinnati: the Rover Guards, Zouave Guardsand Lafayette Guards.

it was apparent from the very beginning that Ohio had menenough and to spare. But how were these thousands of enlisteesto be armed, clothed, fed, housed, organized and trained? Thisquestion, with its many ramifications, was to plague the nationaland the state government during the first eighteen months of thewar, and never more so than at the very beginning. The North wastotally unprepared for war. After years of profound and appar-ently perpetual peace, the government not only had no materielbeyond the modest needs of its peacetime army of 16,000, but ithad neither the skill nor the personnel to mobilize rapidly thealready formidable industrial potential of the North.6 Henceeverything had to be improvised and much reliance had to beplaced upon the ingenuity and energy of the state governors.

Governor Dennison did not lack energy, but he was badlyhampered by his lack of familiarity with military problems.However, help was at hand. When the crisis came, GeorgeBrinton McClellan, one of the ablest of the younger officers in thearmy at the time of his resignation in 1856, was living in Cincin-nati. He was president of the Eastern Division of the Ohio andMississippi Railroad with the then magnificent salary of $10,000per annum. We may note incidentally that he and his young wifewere charmed with Cincinnati; Mrs. McClellan wrote that theyhad "met some pleasant people — They are really quite Easternand quite civilized... ,"7 When the call for 75,000 troops came,McClellan was offered command of the Pennsylvania militia,and he left Cincinnati on April 23 with the intention of acceptingGovernor Curtin's offer. He stopped in Columbus on his way toHarrisburg to inform Governor Dennison about the condition ofaffairs in Cincinnati. Dennison offered him command of the Ohiomilitia with the rank of major-general, and McClellan at onceaccepted.8 For the harassed governor, overburdened with a thou-sand novel problems, this was a most fortunate appointment;

6 At the start of the war, the total civilian staff of the War Department inWashington consisted of 93 clerks. Cf. Alexander H. Meneely, The War Depart-ment, {861: A Study in Mobilization and Administration (New York, 1928).

7William Starr Myers, General George Brinton McClellan (New York, 1934),156.

8George B. McClellan, McClellan's Own Story (New York, 1887), 40-41.

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in McClellan, he acquired professional ability and organizingtalent of a high order.

— From a colored lithograph in the SocietyMAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN

To call McClellan's task formidable is greatly to understatethe case. His job was, quite literally, to create an army out ofnothing. The magnitude of his task was made clear to him when,

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on the morning after his appointment, he visited the State Arsenalin the company with newly-appointed Brigadier-General JacobD. Cox in search of arms and materiel. He found only "a few boxesof smooth-bore muskets which had once been issued to militiacompanies and had been returned rusted and damaged. No belts,cartridge boxes or other accoutrements were with them. . . . In aheap in one corner lay a confused pile of mildewed harness whichhad once been used for artillery horses, but was now not worthcarrying away."9

In the meantime, the drums were beating in every town andvillage and the thousands of men for whom there were neitherarms, equipment nor uniforms were gathering throughout thestate. In Cincinnati, the pre-war militia companies, bearing suchpicturesque names as Lytle Grays, Guthrie Grays and StorerRifles, lost no time in responding to the presidential call. Manynew units were also organized, most notably the Burnet Riflescomposed of 33 members of The Literary Club with future Major-General John Pope as Drillmaster and future President RutherfordB. Hayes as moving spirit and one of the volunteers. Beforedaybreak on April 18, some old and some new companies weremarching to camps hastily established on the outskirts of thecity and named Camp Colerain, Camp McLean and CampHarrison. On the same morning, the Rover Guards, LafayetteGuards and Zouave Guards departed for Columbus, after partak-ing of a bounteous breakfast at the Gibson House at the invitationof the patriotic proprietor, Colonel Geoffrey.

On the evening of the eventful 17th of April, a mass meetingof German-Americans was held in the Turner Hall on WalnutStreet to plan the formation of an exclusively German infantryregiment. The lead in this project was taken by Robert L.McCook, an attorney associated in the practice of law withJudge Johann Bernhard Stallo, a leader of the German community.The hall was filled to overflowing and in short order the plan toform a German regiment was enthusiastically adopted. In lessthan twenty-four hours, the muster-roll of the regiment had beensigned by 500 men in excess of the 1,014 who could be accepted.Three hundred members of the regiment were Turners, and of the1,035 officers and men who eventually comprised the regiment,

9Robert U. Johnson and Clarence C. Buel (Eds.), Battles and Leaders of theCivil War, 4 vols. (New York, 1884-1887), I, 90.

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all but one were Germans, the sole exception being McCook him-self, who was elected Colonel and who was later to refer to him-self as "only a clerk for a thousand Dutchmen."10 The regimentwas designated the 9th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, but to itsmembers and their families and friends, and to the CincinnatiGerman community, it was known only as ''Die Neuner." TheAdjutant and Drillmaster of the regiment was August vonWillich.11 A drill area was at once established on the "OrphanageGrounds" at Fourteenth and Elm, where the Music Hall nowstands, and there the regiment marched and countermarched,learning the Prussian system of drill, the only system von Willichknew. For the convenience of everyone concerned — with thepossible exception of Colonel McCook — German was used as thelanguage of command.

Within three days of its formation "Die Neuner" had its firstparade, led by the Turner Band, and on April 24 the regimentmarched to Camp Harrison, located on the Trotting Park betweenSpring Grove and Carthage, on the outskirts of Cumminsville.There the men constructed frame shacks to serve as living quartersuntil tents could be procured, and divided their time and energybetween drill and vigorous criticism of the many shortages thatbeset them, shortages of blankets, cooking utensils, shoes, andeven of straw to sleep on. The food was naturally at the head ofthe long list of complaints and probably with just cause, for the

10Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, I, 97. Robert McCook was a memberof the family that became known as the "Fighting McCooks." Major DanielMcCook and his eight sons (of whom Robert was the fourth) and the five sonsof Major Daniel's brother, all served in the war. Robert McCook and three ofhis brothers became brigadier-generals; one brother became a major-general,another a colonel, and two brothers became majors. The Ninth was distinctivein another respect. Contrary to the usual practice of giving enlistees a verycursory physical examination or none at all, every member of the Ninth wasexamined thoroughly before the muster-in. About 300 men were rejected, buttheir places were promptly taken by new recruits.

nElla Lonn, Foreigners in the Union Army and Navy (Baton Rouge, La.,1951), 189-191; for the formation and early history of the regiment see "DieNeuner" — Eine Schilderung der Kriegsjahre^ des 9ten Regiments Ohio Vol.Infanterie (Cincinnati, 1897). August von Willich was one of the most admirableofficers in the Union Army. He left "Die Neuner" in the summer of 1861 tobecome colonel of an Indiana regiment, and subsequently rose to the rank ofmajor-general. His greatest admirers were the American-born officers whoserved under him. The son of an East Prussian noble family, von Willich becamean officer in the Prussian army, but resigned in 1846 because he could no longerreconcile army service with his liberal convictions. He then earned his living as acarpenter, but had to flee Germany after taking part in the unsuccessful revolu-tion in Baden in 1848. For a time after coming to the United States, he worked asa carpenter in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and later moved to Cincinnati. In 1861,he was living in Evansville, Ind., and editing Der Deutscher Republikaner.

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food was supplied to the men by an enterprising firm of builderswho contracted to feed the entire camp for what was thought tobe the unconscionable price of sixty cents per day per man. Not-withstanding the high price charged to the State, the men receivedfood that they considered insufficient in quantity and inferior inquality. Nevertheless, with plenty of goodwill and good humor,the regiment made a start in learning the trade of soldiering, aprocess that was facilitated by the presence in the regiment of aleavening of men who had acquired military experience in theFatherland.12

The Ninth was not the only Cincinnati regiment to be formedat this time. As might be expected with a war in prospect, thelarge Irish colony of Cincinnati bestirred itself, and in two days'time an Irish regiment came into being. Commanded by ColonelWilliam H. Lytle, it was known to the War Department as the10th Ohio Volunteer Infantry — and to its members as "TheBloody Tinth."13 This regiment joined the Ninth and the otherunits already at Camp Harrison. Of course, all the towns andcounties around Cincinnati were also recruiting companies andregiments, and it was the same story throughout the State. Onlysixteen days after the President's proclamation, Adjutant-GeneralCarrington of the Ohio Militia proudly announced that the troopsalready raised or in the process of organization in the BuckeyeState were sufficient in number to fill the quota of 75,000 assignedto the entire country.14

The newly-raised troops were scattered over the length andbreadth of the state. Every town of any size, and many a hamlet,had its primitive, improvised "camp" housing one or two regi-ments, or part of a regiment, or no more than a single company in

12Carl Wittke, "The Ninth Ohio Volunteers," Ohio Arckeological and Histori-cal Society Publications (Columbus, O., 1927), XXXV, 408-413. A letter to theeditor of the Cincinnati Daily Gazette protested with considerable heat againstthe payment of sixty cents per man per day for food. That price was claimed tobe "higher than first class hotel boarding." Twelve cents per man per day wasthe price paid by the State to feed the volunteers at Camp Jackson inColumbus.

13It is a great pity that the history of this very interesting regiment was neverwritten. The Tenth is always referred to as an "Irish Regiment," but the factmust be noted that there was a very considerable sprinkling of Korfs, Reidlingers,Muellers and Wedemeyers among the many Coyles, O'Briens, Currans andDonohoes in the regiment. At the same time that the Tenth was being organ-ized, the Italian and French residents of Cincinnati were forming an Italian and aFrench company, respectively.14Reid, Ohio in the War, I, 42. Before the end of the war, Ohio had furnished313,180 men to the Union Armies. Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register andDictionary of the United States Army, 2 vols. (Washington, 1903), II, 285.

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process of formation. Life in these camps had its pleasant aspects.For example, Camp Harvey in the little town of Lynchburg, inHighland County, housed part of a company just being formed.To raise additional members, this group made regular recruitingtrips to the neighboring towns and villages, "where rousing warmeetings were held, and sumptuous meals spread before the youngsoldiers, which generally resulted in getting new recruits."15

Even in 1861, something more than this was needed to form anarmy; it was obviously of the first importance to bring together allthe widely-scattered, small bodies of troops into a few camps forproper organization and training. The word "training" should notbe misunderstood. At no time during the war did the Armyprescribe any definite pattern or duration of training, and whatinstruction any given organization received depended almostwholly on the whim and keenness of the commanding officer andthe needs of the moment for additional troops.16 Particularly atthe beginning of the war, the training of infantry recruits didnot usually progress beyond the manual of arms, the loadingof rifles "by the numbers," a few elementary evolutions andguard-mount. Even if there had been the time or the desireto train the volunteer regiments to Regular Army standards, thelack of trained drillmasters would have made such a goal impos-sible of attainment. The great majority of volunteer officersmade the change from civilian life to uniform at the same time astheir men and knew no more of tactics than they did; the officersthemselves had to learn at the same time that they endeavoredto teach their men. Nevertheless, a modicum of organization anddrill was essential, and, from the standpoint of administration also,a few large camps were greatly preferable to the many small onesthen in existence.

The problem of establishing suitable camps engagedMcClellan's attention immediately upon his appointment, pri-marily because conditions in Columbus were becoming intolerable.Companies and regiments were pouring into that small city of19,000 at the rate of nearly 2,000 men daily. As early as April 23,

15John A. Bering, History of the Forty-Eighth Ohio Vet. Vol. Inf. (Hillsboro, O.,1880), 3.16Fred A. Shannon, The Organization and Administration of the Union Army,1861-1865, 2 vols. (Cleveland, 1928), I, 152. There were many regiments whichreceived no training whatever; at several critical periods in the course of the war,newly-raised regiments were rushed into active service as fast as they could bearmed and equipped; they "learned by doing."

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Camp Jackson was so badly overcrowded that hundreds ofsoldiers had to be lodged at the Lunatic Asylum and in theState House; the contractors who had undertaken to feed the mencould not expand their operations fast enough to keep pace withthe growth of their clientele, and hundreds of men had to taketheir meals at the local hotels. The rest complained bitterly aboutthe poor quality and the irregularity of their rations. Theseconditions had to be remedied promptly.

McClellan met the situation admirably. He decided toestablish a large "transient camp of instruction" in a suitablelocation on the outskirts of Cincinnati. There he could bringtogether troops from the many small camps in the central andand southern parts of the state and provide for the overflow fromCamp Jackson. At the same time, he would concentrate arelatively large force at a point near enough to Cincinnati toafford protection to the metropolis in the not improbable eventthat Kentucky joined the Confederacy. On April 24 or 25, Captain(later Major-General) William S. Rosecrans chose a site for thecamp on the large, level tract of ground between the Little MiamiRiver and the line of hills to the west immediately below Miami-ville.17 The tract chosen had many advantages. It was largeenough to house 12,000 - 15,000 men, with space in addition fordrill and parade grounds of ample size, and all of it was level. TheLittle Miami Railroad ran through the area, providing good com-munications with Cincinnati as well as Columbus. The river fur-nished an ample supply of water, and Cincinnati was near enoughfor all essential purposes, including a quick march into Kentucky,should that ever become necessary, yet not so near as to create un-due disciplinary problems with the men. On April 26, ManagerClement of the Little Miami Railroad visited the area and askedthe landowners to meet with him the next day to set rental priceson their holdings. On the 27th, A. E. Ferguson of the CincinnatiBar and Colonel Geo. W. Holmes leased the necessary land on be-half of the State of Ohio for ten months at from $12 to $20 peracre.18 There was little, if any, effort made to obtain the land at

17For most of its course along Camp Dennison, the Little Miami River flowsfrom north to south.

18Mary R. Sloan, History of Camp Dennison, 1796-1956 (Cincinnati, 1956),29-30. During the first few months of its existence, Camp Dennison was underthe jurisdiction of the State of Ohio. It was later taken over by the United StatesGovernment.

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minimum rentals, and in a few months there was to be much ad-verse comment about the high prices paid. However disadvanta-geous the bargain may have been, the land was acquired andMcClellan promptly named the new camp "Camp Dennison" ina well-deserved tribute to the Governor.

On April 29, Brigadier-General Jacob Cox was ordered to leaveCamp Jackson the next day to "activate" the new camp. April 30was a fair spring day. At noon, the train from Columbus stoppedin the midst of spacious fields planted with wheat and corn, anddeposited the 1,500 men General Cox brought with him. Theywere met by Captain Rosecrans, who had arrived on the site with atrainload of lumber from Cincinnati. Aided by a small detail ofsoldiers, Rosecrans proceeded to lay out the lines of the encamp-ment with his compass and chain. The barracks were to beplaced along the southern edge of the camp area, the parade anddrill grounds being located along the railroad. While Rosecransran his lines, Cox's men unloaded the lumber and carried therough pine boards to the barracks area. After an afternoonof vigorous but none too skilful work with saw and hammer,there was shelter of sorts by nightfall for 1,500 men. The "bar-racks" were unfloored frame shanties, about 12 feet by18 feet, large enough to house a dozen men. Each company had itsown street, 25 feet wide, running east and west, with three orfour shanties on each side; each street was open to the parade anddrill ground, and on the end toward the hills to the west, it wasclosed off by a hut for the company officers and usually a cook-shack behind that. This pattern was adhered to as additionaltroops came to the camp.

It was well that General Cox's command had its huts built bynightfall, for in the evening the sky clouded over, the temperaturedropped, and a chill rain began to fall. By the following morning,the plowed fields had turned into a veritable swamp and the mudwas knee-deep. The Eleventh Infantry, the next regiment to betransferred from Camp Jackson, had the misfortune to reachcamp at nightfall on May 1; the rain was coming down in torrents,deep mud was everywhere, and there was no shelter available.There were pine boards in plenty along the railroad track. Themen carried them through the mud to the area assigned to theregiment, and did what they could in the rain and darkness tobuild their shanties. Years later, the historian of this regiment

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wrote that the "first night spent in Camp Dennison will never beforgotten by any who had the misfortune to be there. . . . Huddledtogether under their partially completed quarters, the rain comingdown in torrents, with a steady drip, drip, drip through the manycrevices in the boards, mud beneath and all around them, butfew closed their eyes that night. . . ."19

The men of the Eighth Infantry had much the same experiencewhen they arrived from Cleveland late on the 3rd of May withouttents or camp equipment of any kind, and in the midst of a cold,dreary rain. One wonders if during the first two weeks of May 1861the rain ever stopped falling, for it is on record that the FourthInfantry under Colonel Lorin Andrews, who had just exchangedthe presidency of Kenyon College for his shoulderstraps, alsoarrived just as a rainstorm was starting, and spent a miserablefirst night in camp under lean-tos made by leaning the top edgesof boards against rail fences. General Cox, who saw these mencrawl out from under their shelters the following morning, hadample reason to call them a "queer-looking lot."20 The SeventhInfantry, another Cleveland regiment, acted with foresight. Theychose ten men from each of the ten companies and sent them onahead to construct shanties for the entire regiment. The arrivalof the advance detachment was greeted by "rain . . . falling as inthe days of Noah," but the seventy-odd shelters required werebuilt, and when the rest of the regiment arrived on May 6—•naturally "in the midst of heavy rain and a sea of mud, making theentry into this new camp singularly dreary and forbidding" —their barracks were waiting for them.21

In time, however, the rain stopped, the warm sun came out andthe soggy fields began to dry. Other units arrived one by one untilthere were eleven infantry regiments in camp, among them ourGerman and Irish friends of the 9th and 10th Regiments. Theelements no longer presented a major problem, but almosteverything else did. All of the elementary, day-to-day housekeep-ing of the new camp had to be organized. Above all, 11,000ruggedly individualistic citizens of the Republic had to be turnedinto soldiers and equipped for the field. This process might have

19Joshua H. Horton, A History of the Eleventh Regiment (Ohio Volunteer In-fantry) (Dayton, O., 1866), 21.

20Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, I, 95.21Lawrence Wilson, Itinerary of the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry (New

York, 1907), 33-35.

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From P. F. Mottelay, ed., Soldier in Our Civil War, I, 244

WORK DAY AT CAMP DENNISON

gone faster and more smoothly if McClellan had carried out hisintention of personally taking command of the camp, but hethought it best to establish his headquarters in Cincinnati andspent very little time in Camp Dennison.

The first and most obvious task was to take care of thephysical needs of the men. The crude shanties described earlierprovided passable shelter. When the weather became warmer, themen spent much leisure time in embellishing and improving theirhuts in ways neither provided for nor encouraged by the regula-tions. Many shanties were transformed into country cottages bymeans of lattice-work porches, elaborate scroll-work cornices andclimbing vines; some even had pigeon-lofts added to them. Nameswere invented, suitably inscribed on boards and affixed to hutswhich thereby became the Astor House, Burnett House, Eagle'sNest, Charter Oak and the like. For bedding, there were amplesupplies of straw, and not only did most men now have blankets,but a great many had quilts from home, and even down puffswere not unknown.

Uniforms were not available for the men until the end of May,and for some regiments not until June. Meanwhile, everyone madedo with what he had, usually the civilian clothes he wore when he

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enlisted. The rough life in camp was hard on clothing and someregiments were literally in rags; one regiment refused to turnout for drill because the men were ashamed to appear in public.A few companies wore their militia uniforms. Since the costumesof the pre-war militia were limited as to pattern and colors onlyby the exuberant imaginations of the members of each company,the owners of these uniforms must have seemed like veritablebirds of paradise amid the general drabness. However, it is safeto assume that these fancy uniforms, more suitable for paradesthan camps, lost their pristine freshness in short order. The Italianpatriot Garibaldi was a popular hero of the time, and pendingthe arrival of army uniforms a number of companies clothedthemselves in the very practical "Garibaldi dress" of black trou-sers and red flannel shirts.

Feeding the men was a problem from the start and so it remain-ed, not because there was a shortage of food, but because thearrangements for preparing it never advanced beyond the primi-tive. The men had to learn to cook the provisions provided forthem — mostly rice, potatoes, bacon and coffee — eat them rawor go without.22 Each company had to find by a process of trialand error the member or members with some aptitude for cooking,and during this process many an unpalatable meal had to be eaten.Some companies solved this problem by hiring negro cooks.At first, even the mechanics of requisitioning rations in accordancewith the regulations had to be painfully learned. Lieutenant JamesSterling, Co. B, 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was ordered onemorning to draw rations for the company. Locating the commis-sary, which was established in a barn, he demanded food for ahundred men. "Where is your requisition?" asked the commis-sary. "What's that? I never heard of it. I want rations for acompany of hungry men." "Well, you can't have them until youfurnish a proper requisition." "And how am I to get one?""Out of the book." "I know several. Never saw a requisition inany of them." "The Blue Book; didn't you ever hear of that?"The Lieutenant found a Blue Book, borrowed a sheet ofpaper and laboriously copied out a requisition which he presentedto the commissary, thinking that he had thus complied with the

22After being rebuffed in his efforts to obtain a post on General McClellan'sstaff in Cincinnati, U. S. Grant considered "trying to get a contract to supplybread for the Ohio volunteers who were assembling at Camp Dennison . . . ."Lloyd Lewis, Captain Sam Grant (Boston, 1950), 426.

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formalities. But no. Said the commissary: "It must be approved.The commandant of the camp must approve all requisitions."The commandant's quarters were a mile away; the Lieutenantwaded there through the mud and had his requisition approved.Having made the return journey, he handed the approved requi-sition to the commissary with a proud flourish. Thirty yearslater, Sterling still remembered the look the commissary gave him— as well as his own feelings — as the latter said: "I can't giveyou anything on that. You have made a requisition for com-missary supplies on a quartermaster's blank."23 However, not-withstanding all difficulties, some comic and some serious, all themen in camp were fed somehow.

In 1861, it was a major undertaking to provide an adequatesupply of water for a community as large as Camp Dennison,which in a matter of two weeks became the sixth largest "city" inOhio. The need was met by negotiating a contract with aneccentric, elderly West Point graduate, Thomas Worthington, tohaul water in barrels from the river to the barracks area.24 Worth-ington promptly got into trouble with the soldiers because hisemployees filled their water-barrels at a point just opposite thecamp, only a short distance downstream from a slaughterhousewhich dumped its effluvia into the river. The soldiers naturallyobjected, but Worthington insisted that the distance between theslaughterhouse and the camp was sufficient for the water to purifyitself. The soldiers were not convinced and settled the controversyto their own satisfaction by overturning Worthington's water-carts and emptying his barrels. They persisted in this practiceuntil the unhappy contractor was forced to give in, whereupon heconstructed a large, brick-lined reservoir on top of the steep hillacross the road from the Waldsmith house. A steam pump forcedwater from the river below the camp into the reservoir, whencewooden pipes carried it by gravity to the cantonments. Whetherthis water was any more pure than the water the men had object-

23J. T. Sterling, "Personal Experiences of the Early Days of 1861" War PaperNo. 18, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Michigan Com-mandery (Detroit, 1892), 4-5.

24Worthington graduated from West Point in 1827. After his Camp Dennisontribulations, he became an active officer in the Union army, notwithstanding hisadvanced age, and reached the rank of colonel. His father, Thomas Worthington,Sr., had served two terms as governor of Ohio, from 1814 to 1818.

Camp Dennison, 1861-1865 181

ed to, the records do not disclose; the complaints, however,ceased.25

For every man in the Union Army who was killed in battleor died of wounds during the Civil War, there were two who died ofdisease.26 The incidence of disease and the mortality rate werenever worse than during the first few months of the war, and CampDennison was no exception in these respects. Within a short timeafter the arrival of troops at the camp, overcrowding, exposure andthe coarse diet began to take their toll. Every regiment had itsregimental surgeon, but infirmaries and hospitals were not estab-lished until the number of men reporting sick reached alarmingproportions. Except for an outbreak of measles — the most com-mon camp disease at the beginning of the war — the illnesses wereseldom serious, or would not have been had there been properhospital care available. But the hospitals, when they were set up,were either in the same kind of shacks in which the men lived orin some convenient barn. The principal remedies were calomel,quinine and whiskey, and there was neither a proper diet norany nursing care for the sick.

Word of these conditions soon reached the city, and the womenof Cincinnati promptly responded. Numbers of them went to thecamp daily to nurse the sick, taking with them delicacies whichwere a more appropriate diet for sick men than the customaryhospital fare of sidemeat and hardtack. In the forefront of thiswork were the Sisters of Charity, led by Sister Anthony 0 ' Connell.She and six other nuns, one of them a German interpreter, tendedthe sick and cooked for them. The nuns visited each of theregimental hospitals daily, a walk of two or three miles "in mudand water over their shoetops." To avoid the expense and lossof time of a daily journey to the camp, they moved to CampDennison and took up their abode in a small wooden church.Dorothea Dix, Superintendent of United States Nurses, had astrong prejudice against the nursing orders, and tried to replacethe Sisters of Charity with volunteer nurses. However, the menas well as the surgeons preferred the relatively well-trained nuns,

25Jacob D. Cox, Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, 2 vols. (New York,1900), I, 26. Worthington was nearly ruined by the cost of his elaborate waterworks. The government refused to pay, on the ground that the project had notbeen authorized. Eventually, Worthington was paid about half the cost of theinstallation.

26Heitman, Historical Register, II, 286; 110,070 men were killed or died ofwounds; 224,586 died as a result of illness.

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a preference that can also be explained by the fact that to meetMiss Dix's specifications for volunteer nurses, a woman had to beover thirty, plain, and dressed in brown or black, with no bows,curls, jewelry or hoopskirts; at any rate, the Sisters stayed on.The Cincinnati Branch of the United States Sanitary Commissionalso played a part in ameliorating the situation, and by mid-sum-mer great improvements were effected. By the end of Novembersuitable hospitals had been built and equipped. From that timeon, the facilities for taking care of the sick at Camp Dennison werethe equal of any in the United States.27

DIVINE SERVICE AT CAMP DENNISON, OHIO—S

There is little to be said about provisions for the spiritualwelfare of the men, for relatively little was done in that respect.Most regiments had a chaplain, but with honorable exceptionschaplains, as a group, were poorly equipped for their tasks and

27For the medical history of Camp Dennison in 1861, see Joshua H. Bates,"Ohio's Preparations for the War," Papers Read Before the Ohio^ Commandery ofthe Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (Cincinnati, 1881),I, 134; Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, I, 96; Bering, History of theForty-Eighth, 9; Mary McCann, The History of Mother Seton's Daughters —The Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, 2 vols. (New York, 1917), II, 215-217;Helen E. Marshall, Dorothea Dix (Chapel Hill, N. C , 1937), 203-219; FranklinSawyer, A Military History of the Eighth Regiment of Ohio Vol. Inf'y. (Cleveland,1881), 13.

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their efforts were correspondingly slight and ineffectual. Theirshortcomings were made good to some extent by members ofthe ministerial body in Cincinnati who held services at the campon Sundays. Near the end of May, the ministers of nearbyvillages asked McClellan's permission to erect a church in thecamp for the use of the soldiers. They offered to supply the laborand the lumber if the Army would supply the nails. ThereuponMcClellan sent a dispatch to the Secretary of War himself, askingfor authority to furnish nails for this purpose. Secretary Cameron,greatly amused by the spectacle of the Major-General commandingthe Department of the Ohio making such a request, sent theclassic reply: "God's will be done" — and then saw to it thatthe exchange of telegrams was widely circulated.28

As soon as a regiment was settled in camp, it began to drill.Drill meant mainly the practice of evolutions of the squad, com-pany, battalion and regiment. These rigidly formalized evolu-tions were called "Tactics." The great majority of the commis-sioned and noncommissioned officers were just as ignorant oftactics as the men they had to teach, so that the first order ofbusiness was to establish schools in every regiment for the field,staff and company officers. What the officers learned in the eve-ning, they could teach their men the next day. The first two orthree regiments bought up the small available supply of the au-thorized textbook, Hardee's Tactics,11 and the later arrivals wouldhave been in a sorry state had not the enterprising Thomas Wor-thington, whom we have already met in his capacity of water-contractor, been equal to the emergency. Within a very fewdays, he prepared an abridgement of Hardee, had it printed,and was offering it for sale.

The other important training activity was guard mount. Thegroup of barracks occupied by each regiment was treated as aseparate camp, and the men were taught the duties of a sentry,while the officers were schooled in the duties of officer of the dayand officer of the guard. At sunset each day, the entire garrison,organized into three brigades, turned out for the traditional andimpressive rite of the evening parade. When the weather was fair,the ceremony was performed under the admiring eyes of hundreds

28Myers, McClellan, 38.29The infantry drill-book most widely used in the Union army had beenwritten by William J. Hardee, who became a lieutenant-general in the Con-federate army.

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of civilian visitors, among whom members of what was then calledthe fair sex were exceedingly well represented. The dress paradesbecame wonderful spectacles indeed after uniforms had beenissued to all the men and the officers especially were a brave sight,bedecked with scarlet sash and sword and wearing "wonderfulKossuth hats, made by 'Dodd the Hatter' with the ostrich plumesfloating proudly on top."30

On Sunday mornings, each company was inspected by itsCaptain, after which the First Sergeant read the Articles of Warand chilled the blood of his very imperfectly militarized audiencewith the phrase, reiterated at the end of almost every section ofthe Articles, that "Any violator of said section shall suffer death,or such other punishment as by a court martial shall be inflicted."The men were then marched to the Colonel's quarters to hear asermon by the regimental chaplain or a visiting minister. Therest of the Sabbath was given over to reunions with visitingfamilies and relatives, who came to the camp in droves andinvariably with well-filled hampers, to the writing of letters anddiaries, or to less edifying pursuits away from camp until theevening dress parade closed the day's activities.

A welcome break in the camp routine, and a great event in thehistory of every regiment, was the day set apart for the presenta-tion of the regimental flag. Usually, the flag was the handiwork ofthe women of the city whence the regiment came. It could be ofany color and pattern, and could carry any device the ladiesmight consider suitable. For example, the flag presented to "DieNeuner" was of beautiful blue silk, with the name of the regimentand thirteen gold stars embroidered upon it. Fastened to thestaff were two streamers, one carrying the legend, "Dem erstendeutsches Regiment Cincinnatis," and the other, "Kampfetbrav fur Freiheit und Recht." On the day of the presentation, theregiment and its band of twenty-four musicians were drawn up ina hollow square, officers to the front. The flag was brought for-ward by a large deputation of ladies and presented to the regi-ment on their behalf in a ringing patriotic spech. After a speechof acceptance from Colonel McCook, a handsome sword of honorwas presented to Major von Willich, who in two short monthshad become the "beloved father" of the regiment. The playing of

30William E. Smith and Ophia D. Smith (Eds.), Colonel A. W. Gilbert (Cin-cinnati, 1934), 51.

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"Hail Columbia," the "Marseillaise" and the "Star SpangledBanner" followed, after which there was a parade of the regiment.Then every man was given a pass for the remainder of the dayand the "sublime festivity" came to a fitting close in Wagner'sFelsenkeller in Milford, where the men "enjoyed themselvesin real German style with music, song, speeches and barley-juice."31

By about the middle of May, in the amazingly short time oftwo or three weeks, the birth pangs of the new camp were reced-ing into the past. There were still many rough edges and muchground for justified complaint, but considerable progress had beenmade. The "awkward salute, and the equally awkward response,the complaints of the soldiers, the criticism of the officers, the oddmistakes, the blundering commands" were being replaced by agrowing competence.32 Everyone was learning his job, and waseven becoming bored with the artificial routine of camp. Therewere occasional fiareups of serious trouble. Cne of the regiments,which had been promised modern guns, was given instead oldsmooth-bore muskets "modernized" at the Miles GreenwoodFoundry on Vine Street.33 The men flatly refused to acceptthese guns, and it required all the considerable oratorical skill ofMajor Edward F. Noyes to bring them to a more reasonable stateof mind.34 Other incidents had an amusing side, as did the ill-feeling which almost erupted into a Civil War in miniaturebetween the "Bloody Tinth" and "Die Neuner," the formerclaiming that the sentries belonging to the latter took a more thanprofessional delight in filling the guardhouse with members ofthe Tenth who returned to camp of an evening in a somewhatunsteady condition.

Much more troublesome problems arose from the peculiarityin the Army Regulations, subsequently modified, which forbadethe mustering-in of any part of a regiment until the entire regiment

n"Die Neuner, 31-32; Lonn, Foreigners in the Union Army, 357; Wittke, "TheNinth Ohio Volunteers," 414.

32Sawyer, A Military History of the Eighth Regiment, 12.33During the first few months of the war, Greenwood rifled more than 25,000smooth-bore muskets for the State at a price of $1.25 per gun; the "Greenwoodrifle" eventually became quite popular with the men, who thought it equal tothe Enfield in accuracy and range; Reid, Ohio in the War, I, 60.34Smith and Smith, Colonel A. W. Gilbert, 51. Noyes was one of the leadersof the Cincinnati Bar. Later in the war he became colonel of the 39_th 0. V. I.,and while serving as commandant of Camp Dennison, was elected city solicitorof Cincinnati. After the war, he became successively governor of Ohio, U. S.senator from Ohio, and minister to France.

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was ready for muster. If it required several weeks to fill the ranksof a regiment, as was usually the case after the first wave of enlist-ments, the first few companies to reach camp had to remain therewithout pay, uniforms or equipment, and with no one exercisingany authority over them until all the rest of the regiment arrivedand was mustered in. During this period of waiting, the nationalgovernment did not even furnish subsistence to the men, anddisciplinary problems, always present in a volunteer army, wereat their worst.

The most serious troubles arose in mid-May, as a result ofPresident Lincoln's call for 42,000 volunteers to serve for threeyears. The War Department decided to secure the greater partof this number by persuading three-month volunteers already inservice to re-enlist for three years; the eminently sensible motivebehind this decision was to preserve for the army the benefit ofthe training and organization these men already had. At CampDennison, this policy was put into effect by General McClellan'sSpecial Order No. 246, which contained the provision that "Acompany, when full, will nominate its officers by ballot for theapproval of the (Governor)."*5 This was a clear invasion of theimmemorial and inalienable right of volunteers to elect their ownofficers. At once, the camp was thrown into turmoil, and whatdiscipline thirty days' service had brought into being promptlydisappeared. Not all of the 11,000 men then in camp were pre-pared to enlist for three years, especially not under officers whomight not be men of their own choosing. Night after night,meetings were held by companies and by regiments to debatethe question of re-enlistment. Acrimony and oratory flourished,and the confusion was compounded by the persuasive arts ofofficers who wanted to retain their rank and of others who hopedto become officers in the forthcoming elections. Nor did theelectioneering for shoulder-straps stop at mere oratory. FuturePresident James Garfield was beaten for election as Colonel ofthe Seventh Infantry "by bargains and brandy." Most regimentswere exposed to the arts of a political campaign and not a littlechicanery.36

In the meantime, the men who had decided not to enlist forthree years, but still had nearly two months of their original term

^.Bates, "Ohio's Preparations for the War," 136-137 (Italics ours).36Theodore C. Smith, The Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, 2 vols.

(New Haven, 1925), Vol. I, 162-165.

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of enlistment left to serve, remained in camp, although hundredsof new three-year men were being brought in by the recruitingparties that had been sent out by every regiment and by mostcompanies to find replacements for the men who would dropout. The result was overcrowding and nearly total chaos. Thesituation threatened to get completely out of hand until GeneralsBates and Cox thought of the expedient of sending home onwhat would now be called terminal leave all the three-month menwho had chosen not to enlist for three years. With these men outof the way, the process of reorganization made rapid headway, andone by one the eleven regiments reported themselves ready formuster-in for three years. Once again "Die Neuner" led the way,re-enlisting almost to a man. Great was the pride of the regimentwhen it was announced that, by being the first Ohio regiment toenlist for three years, the Ninth had won an oversize bass drum,the gift of a patriotic lady of Columbus.

By the beginning of June, the excitement caused by thethree-year problem had largely subsided, and once again the campsettled into its normal routine. The men were even becomingrestless, many fearing that the Rebellion would be put down beforethey had had a chance to see action; but McClellan's campaignin western Virginia was about to begin, and one by one the regi-ments which had helped to create Camp Dennison took theirdeparture for the field. Their places were taken by more recentlyraised regiments which passed through the camp in a steadystream so long as the war lasted, staying for shorter or longerperiods of training on their way to war. The 15th Infantry Regi-ment came, and the 17th, the 38th, 39th, 48th, 50th, 83rd, 113th,and many others; in due course, each of them left Camp Dennisonwith full ranks and with shiny new equipment and uniforms. InNovember 1861, arrangements were at last made to providedecent housing. All the men then in camp were moved into tents;a host of carpenters tore down the shanties constructed with somuch labor in April and May, and replaced them with large andcommodious barracks 100 feet long by 22 feet wide, with 3 tiersof bunks running the full length of the building on each side.Each building provided accommodations for a full company, andeach company had its own spacious kitchen and a separatebuilding for the commissioned officers. A touch of what themembers of the 7th, 9th or 10th Regiments would have undoubted-

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ly regarded as Sybaritic luxury was added by the installation oftwo large stoves in every barracks building.

In November also, the first of the several cavalry regimentsto train at Camp Dennison arrived. This was the Fifth OhioCavalry, followed shortly by the Fourth Ohio Cavalry underColonel John Kennett, a regiment recruited almost entirely inCincinnati and Hamilton County. The Twelfth Cavalry alsocame, with its fine regimental band mounted on snow-white horses.Now the many civilian visitors to the camp had the novel oppor-tunity of observing cavalry in training. Batteries of artillery camealso, the 5th, 8th, 10th and 14th Independent Batteries of OhioLight Artillery, and many others. They practiced their evolutionson fields packed hard by the tramp of infantrymen and, as localtradition has it, fired their guns at the steep hill on which CampFriedlander is now located.

Camp commandants came and went, eighteen of them in theperiod from November 1861 to September 1865, holding the postfor periods varying from one day to six months. Except forfrequent changes of commanding officers, the placid and orderlyroutine of the camp was disturbed only twice. The first occasioncame after the Battle of Shiloh, fought on April 6 and 7, 1862. Inthis battle, one of the bloodiest of the entire war, more than13,000 Northern soldiers became casualties, 8,403 being wounded.37

On the afternoon of April 9, news of the battle reached Cincinnati,the casualties being reported as from eighteen to twenty thousand.At once the Sanitary Commission, the City of Cincinnati and theState of Ohio chartered boats, loaded them with hospital suppliesand stores, staffed them with physicians and nurses, and dis-patched them to Shiloh to succor the wounded.38 When the boatsarrived at Pittsburg Landing, the Ohio wounded were collectedfrom the field hospitals, placed on board ship, and brought backto Cincinnati to be cared for in the hospitals in the city and atCamp Dennison. Thereafter, to the end of the war, CampDennison functioned as a base hospital without ceasing to be atraining camp, and during the next three years, thousands ofUnion wounded and sick passed through the camp hospitals.

"Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, I, 538.38The boat chartered by the city carried not only physicians and nurses, butalso fifty members of the Police Department, headed by the Chief of Police,Colonel Dudley.

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The second incident was one in which the camp played a notvery glorious part. It occurred on July 14,1863. The celebrationsof the twin victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg were hardlyover when Rebel General John Morgan came riding towardCincinnati on a raid which, however harebrained it may have beenfrom a military point of view, was full of menace for the anxiouscitizens of Ohio and Indiana during those dry summer days of1863. Morgan learned from his spies on the afternoon of July 13that Cincinnati was strongly held by Union troops. He thereforedecided to make a wide circuit around the city by marchingnorthward from Harrison and then east through Glendale. Onthe afternoon of July 14, after a march of more than ninety milesin 35 hours, during which he lost 500 men through sheer ex-haustion, he was at last forced to halt for food and a brief rest,and did so just above and within sight of Camp Dennison.39 Aftera short, undisturbed halt, Morgan and his 2,000 troopers departedeastward with nothing but a light picket skirmish to delay them.It is reported that near Miamiville, the raiders stopped and burneda train made up of a locomotive and three coaches, carrying amilitary band from Columbus to Camp Dennison. The musicianswere allowed to depart unharmed, but their instruments wereburned. Whether this act of destruction represented a seriousloss to the Northern war effort, our records do not tell us. It is,however, a fact that Morgan's march through the area was in noway impeded by the garrison of Camp Dennison.

There is little left to tell of the history of the camp duringthe next two years. Its activities were now a smoothly-runningsystem. New regiments, individual recruits and draftees, and thewounded and sick came and went as before. Then, in May 1864,there came a change. The flow of troops was reversed, as thethree-year terms of enlistment of the earliest regiments began toexpire, and those of the men who chose not to re-enlist as VeteranVolunteers came back to Camp Dennison to be mustered out.Later still, after the war ended in the spring of 1865, many moreregiments came home from the South, the Southwest and theEast, their ranks sadly thinned by the absence of the hundredsin each regiment who were gone: the dead, the missing, the pris-oners, the men discharged earlier because of wounds or illness.

39Basil W. Duke, History of Morgan's Cavalry (Cincinnati, 1867), 440-445;Cecil F. Holland, Morgan and His Raiders (New York, 1942), 241-244.

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But the men who were left came back to make up the final regi-mental muster roll, turn in their equipment, receive their dis-charges and last pay, and to form ranks for the last time beforedeparting for their homes. At last, even this stream ceased toflow. In September 1865, the camp was deactivated. The barrackswere dismantled, the long-fallow fields were turned back to theowners and again put under the plow. In a very few years, therewas nothing left to mark the site of Camp Dennison except thememories of the thousands who had passed through it.