The Union Convention met at Columbus on the 17th of June, 1863. The committee which called the convention invited "all loyal citizens who are in favor of the maintainance of the Government and the prosecution of the war now being carried on for the suppression of the rebellion against it." Governor Tod was not deemed popular enough for re-nomination, and the convention nominated John Brough. The nominee was an old line Democrat, who had served as Auditor of State from 1839 to 1845, but had not been prominent in politics for many years. He was a loyal and effective supporter of the war, a good stumper, and a man of great popularity.

Since the days of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," there has been no such canvass as the Vallandigham campaign of 1863. It was viewed with anxiety by the forces in the field, on both sides, and by the entire country at home. The Confederacy saw plainly, and realized its full import, that the contest in Ohio was between its friends and enemies. They knew, and expressed it, that the election of Mr. Vallandigham would be a rebuke to Mr. Lincoln and his administration, would array Ohio against the war and would give vantage-ground generally to the rebel position. All this was felt by the loyal people of Ohio, and they expressed themselves unmistakably at the polls. Mr. Vallandigham, who had arrived home June 15th, participated personally in the canvass and rallied with all his powers his supporters to a man. But there was no mistaking Ohio's loyalty; by one hundred thousand majority she elected John Brough her Governor.

Brough was the greatest of Ohio's "War Gover

nors."

His wonderful executive ability, his faculty for devising ways and means for execution and his power to grasp situations and results made him at the time he entered office a most valuable man in such a crisis. His first measure was to call a meeting of the Governors of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. This historic convention of the "War Governors" of those loyal States sent a thrill through the nation. On April 21st, 1864, they notified Mr. Lincoln that they could furnish him for one hundred days with 85,000 men, without a dollar of bounty or a single draft. Ohio's share of this splendid array was 30,000 men. It was a terrible drain to make upon Ohio, but it was nobly met. Under the management of Governor Brough's Adjutant General, B. R. Cowen-a man of strong character and excellent judgment—the entire quota assumed was filled by the day of rendezvous. Then General Cowen proudly telegraphed the Secretary of War: "More than thirty thousand National Guards are now in camp and ready to muster." In this way did Brough open his administration. The same forcible style characterized it throughout. At times he seemed harsh and tyrannical, but beneath his rough and blunt exterior could be seen the methods of incorruptible honesty and pure patriotism. He declined a renomination, and died during his term of office.

The record of Ohio through the trying period of the war shows the undaunted patriotism of her brave sons in the field, and the loyalty of her citizens at home. In addition, the women of Ohio played a part that cannot be forgotten. The Ladies' Aid Societies did a work that had quite as much to do towards

cheering the boys on the battlefield and around the campfire as the loyal ballots of the men. It is matter worthy of remembrance that the first regular organization in the country for the relief of soldiers was organized at Cleveland on the 20th of April, 1861. The echoes of the guns of Sumpter had scarcely died away before Ohio's daughters were thinking of ameliorating the hardships of the Ohio boys who so promptly marched to war. This organization alone, the "Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio,” distributed a million dollars worth of food and clothing, and up to November 27th, 1867, it disbursed in cash $162,956. A similar organization in Cincinnati collected and disbursed $313,926. Both of these heroic societies became branches of the United States Sanitary Commission. A popular method of raising funds for their purpose was through fairs attended and managed largely by the women. In the fall of 1863 the Cleveland Society cleared $78,000, and the great Cincinnati Fair in the winter of the same year reaped a net amount of $235,406, all of which went to the soldiers and their families. Similar organizations and efforts were maintained and directed in almost every city in the State. Every church and Sunday-school was a willing channel through which gifts from the loyal people of Ohio found their way to the front.

When the war closed no state in the Union had reaped such laurels of patriotism and valor as Ohio. She had furnished to suppress the rebellion three hundred and seventeen thousand of her citizensfar more than asked of her by the general government. She gave to the country Grant, Sherman,

Sheridan, McClellan, Rosecrans, McPherson, Buell, Gilmore, McDowell, Mitchell, McCook and a dozen other heroes of the war. She furnished to the cabinet the head of the War Department in the person of Edwin M. Stanton, the greatest executive the world ever saw. One of her Governors-S. P. Chase -became the Minister of Finance when finance was almost one of the arts of war. In the Senate two of

her sons, Benjamin F. Wade and John Sherman, were the respective chairmen of the Committee on Conduct of the War and the Committee on Finance. In the House Robert C. Schenck was placed at the head of the Military Committee. Wherever wisdom, valor, conviction, patriotism were needed, there Ohio men were to be found.

When peace came, the great State, which had sent into the field an army of her sons equal to the war footing of Great Britain, received them within her borders as civilians to become again workers in the shops, the mines, the counting-rooms and on the farms. With peace and return to civil life came prosperity unbounded, and with pride in her past and hope in her resources Ohio marched forward to a quiet and uneventful future.