cleveland – Page 24 – The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable

Cleveland Fights the Civil War

By Dick Crews
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2008, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in the winter of 2002.

Cleveland and Cuyahoga County contributed a large percentage of its manpower to the American Civil War. The federal census of 1860 showed Cleveland’s population to be 43,838. The total Cuyahoga County population was approximately 50,000. The records on the walls of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Public Square, the official record of the county, contain the names of 10,000 residents of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County who fought in the Civil War.

Three Ohio Civil War Veterans Who Became President

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2007, All Rights Reserved

Introduction

Five Ohio-born Civil War veterans later became President of the United States. William Tecumseh Sherman might have been a sixth, but he famously refused to be nominated. The first was Ulysses S. Grant, the victorious hero and general in chief who captured three Confederate armies and who served two terms as the 18th President succeeding Andrew Johnson, the assassinated Abraham Lincoln’s second Vice President. Grant, of course, deserves separate treatment by himself and also began his Civil War career in Illinois, not Ohio.

Ohio’s Civil War Generals: Some Lesser Known

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2013, All Rights Reserved

During the Civil War, 134 Ohioans (either born or living in Ohio at the war’s outbreak) were generals in the Union army. Three comprised the triumvirate of the Union’s pantheon of military heroes: U.S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Phil Sheridan. Four became U.S. presidents: James Garfield, Grant, Benjamin Harrison, and Rutherford B. Hayes. Sherman famously declined to be a presidential candidate. Other notable Ohio Union generals (both good and bad) included Don Carlos Buell, George Crook, George Armstrong Custer, Joe Hooker, George McClellan, the seven Fighting McCooks (Alexander, Anson, Daniel, Edward, Edwin, George, and Robert), Irvin McDowell, James McPherson, John Pope, and William Rosecrans.

The 8th Ohio Volunteer Infantry

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2012, All Rights Reserved

During the 2009 Cleveland Civil War Roundtable field trip to Gettysburg, our group laid a wreath at the monument honoring the 8th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI). This Ohio regiment, known as “The Fighting Fools,” is perhaps best known for its role in helping to repel the Pickett-Pettigrew charge on July 3, 1863. The 8th OVI was part of the “Gibraltar” brigade of Alexander Hays’s division, in Winfield Hancock’s II Corps of the Army of the Potomac.

Peter Diemer & Curtis Phillips: The Last Civil War Veterans From Cuyahoga County

By Paul Siedel
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2016, All Rights Reserved

Not too long ago while visiting the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in downtown Cleveland, Ohio I overheard a docent telling someone that the last Civil War veteran from Cuyahoga County died in 1943. His name was Peter Diemer.

A Monument to Service: The Cuyahoga County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument

By Tim Daley and Richard T. Prasse
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2015, All Rights Reserved

The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument commemorates in stone, bronze and glass the service of those enlisted and appointed from Cuyahoga County during the Civil War. Their names are captured in marble inside the Monument’s Memorial Tablet Room, etched alongside those with whom they served during the national struggle. The story of the Monument’s creation was also a struggle. The idea to erect a monument was first proposed by William Gleason in October 1879 to the Soldiers and Sailors Society in Cleveland. Gleason with two others were charged to test the idea the following week at a reunion of Union Veterans. The project was approved with a committee appointed to seek funding support from the State of Ohio. Their advocacy resulted in eight different legislative acts by 1894 in support of the construction of the Monument.

Base Ball on Johnson’s Island

By William F.B. Vodrey
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2014, All Rights Reserved

On August 27, 1864, Confederate prisoners played a base ball (as it used to be spelled) game on Johnson’s Island near Sandusky, Ohio, on the grounds of the U.S. Army prison camp there. The Confederate and the Southern base ball clubs took to the field, and when all was said and done, the Southern team won by a score of 19-11.

“Beyond the Battlefield”: An Ohio History Connection Symposium

By William F.B. Vodrey
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2014, All Rights Reserved

The Ohio History Connection (the newly rebranded Ohio Historical Society) on November 8 hosted a symposium on Ohio’s home front during the Civil War. Nine historians, professional and amateur, explored various topics in three panel discussions.

U.S. Grant Boyhood Home Rededicated

By William F.B. Vodrey
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2013, All Rights Reserved

On April 6, Mel Maurer, Chris Fortunato, and I went to Georgetown, Ohio to attend the ceremonial rededication of U.S. Grant’s boyhood home. Georgetown is just east of Cincinnati, about four and a half hours’ drive from Cleveland.

Ulysses S. Grant in Georgetown, Ohio – The Indispensable Man’s Boyhood Home

By Daniel J. Ursu
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2017, All Rights Reserved

If you believe, as I and many others do, that the Civil War would not have been won by the North but for U.S. Grant, then a visit to his boyhood home in our own State of Ohio at Georgetown, about ten miles north of the Ohio River and 40 miles east of Cincinnati, will be inspiring, informative and worthwhile.