CHAPTER XI. THE CIVIL WAR. CINCINNATI'S RELATION TO THE SOUTH-RESOLUTIONS DRAWN UP BY RUTHERFORD B. HAYES INDORSING THE WAR ENTHUSIASTICALLY PASSED AT THE FIRST GREAT MEETING-MEN OF CINCINNATI ATTAIN HIGH RANK IN MILITARY CIRCLES- -GEORGE B. M'CLELLAN, RUTHERFORD B. HAYES, JOHN POPE, THOMAS EWING AND A WHOLE GALAXY OF OTHERS-ATTITUDE OF KENTUCKY-JOHN MORGAN-KIRBY SMITH-CLEMENT L. VALLANDINGHAM-MAJOR ANDERSON OF FT. SUMTER FAME THE FIGHTING M'COOKS-GENERAL WILLIAM H. LYTLE— T. BUCHANAN READ-JAMES E. MURDOCH. We cannot blink the fact that the history of our city must be plain, even to dulness, save to those minds which are sensitive to the sacredness of the commonplace. That sort of charm which cities like Troy, Jerusalem and Rome possess, whose gates have been battered with rams; whose walls have been scaled by besiegers and whose streets have run red with the blood of patriots, we must be content to do without. The fate of empires has not been settled in our midst. The daring deeds of our ancestors have not been told in songs or woven into romance. We have acknowledged this again and yet again. But we ought not to forget that a great military organization which conquered the northwest for civilization was organized here; that a considerable part of the army which won a great victory in the War of 1812 was mobilized amongst us and commanded by one of our citizens while it was at the time largely financed by another; that Cincinnati was a strategic center in the War of the Rebellion; nor, that if it was not actually the scene of a battle, it at least suffered the terrible apprehension of an assault at arms. But the emotions with which the historian attempts to record the shining events of the years from 1861 to 1865 have always been a mixture of gravity and amusement. No other Union city except Washington and St. Louis was so close to the danger zone; no other was so torn asunder by opposing interests; no other came so near the tragedy of capture and no other suffered deeper emotional experience. And yet the story of the defense of the city when threatened by the legions of Morgan and Smith is so full of comedy that it is hard, at this distance of time, to take it with a proper sense of seriousness. Let us do our best to set forth these serio-comic elements in a just proportion. Cincinnati's Relation to the South. The first great fact that seems to put in its own true light the real significance of this era is that of the close relationship of Cincinnati with the South, Being the natural gateway into the slave states, her commercial interests in that region were vast and vital. Drawing so much of her wealth from the territory which eventually seceded, it was inevitable that the sundering of the ties of business should appear to be an intolerable calamity. As a rule, our human sympathies follow the leadings of our purse strings, and there was reason to apprehend that when the tocsin of war should sound, the city might go with the South or at least be hopelessly divided. That the event proved otherwise must ever remain the strongest reason for our confidence in the ultimate soundness of the brain and heart of our home city. The true measure of virtue is, in the last analysis, the willingness to make sacrifice for principle and the citizens of Cincinnati in remaining loyal to the Union laid wealth and comfort on the altar. Deep as the excitement over the campaign of 1860 was, the actual apprehension of war had been but slight. When Mr. Lincoln passed through the city on his way to Washington, February 12, 1861, he was welcomed enthusiastically by all classes. The crowd about the depot and in the streets was enormous. The procession was long, the reception brilliant, the address eloquent, the sentiment of loyalty widely diffused, if not universal. In the municipal election held on April 1, 1861, there came, however, an intimation of a divided opinion for a democratic mayor, George Hatch, representing the extreme sentiment of deference and concession to the South was elected. On April 5th another ominous event occurred, when the authorities permitted some cannon (consigned from Baltimore, Md., to Jackson, Miss., for the use of the Southern Confederacy) to pass through the city. And only the day before, a slave had been remanded to his master by the United States Commissioner. These events produced uneasiness but could not open the eyes of people unfamiliar with the ominous symptoms of war. But the sentiments of the people were suddenly clarified and crystallized by the attack upon Fort Sumter. The shiver which the first cannon shot sent over the land brought millions to their first clear realization of the frightful responsibilities of citizenship and their first clear consciousness of the significance of love of native land. The news of the assault on the fort reached Cincinnati in the evening of the 17th of April, 1861, and the line of cleavage almost instantaneously shot through the population, leaving a poor minority of timid souls on the side of the South. The great bulk of our citizens, when the line was drawn, stepped resolutely over to the right side and stood there loyally until the last gun was fired. Few of them, except the German refugees from the Revolution of 1848, had actually foreseen the disaster. These Petrels of that great storm knew all the symptoms of war and recognized the meaning of the rising cloud, although no bigger than a human hand. There was also one other man whose spirits, like the sensitive plant, vibrated to agitations imperceptible to duller souls. In the previous fall Captain John Pope had read before the Literary Club a paper on our national fortifications, in which his prognostications of the coming disasters were so clear as to subject him to a court martial, whose adverse findings were only side tracked by the utmost efforts of Postmaster General Holt. But the masses of the people were incapable of comprehending a situation so complex and treated it lightly, until the crisis fell. If the great shock produced mental clarification and crystallization, it also liberated gigantic energies and set in operation stupendous mechanisms for the preservation of the Union. Events of the greatest importance occurred with |