(RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE) 100 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. February 2d, Mr. John C. Avery, one of the earlier sheriffs of the county, died at his home in Cincinnati. May 3d, the well known hotel keepers, Messrs. Coleman & Reilly, having become lessees of the new Burnet house, gave a grand ball by way of house-warming. June 18th, officer Peter Davison, of the police force, was murdered by John C. Walker. On the first of September the house of refuge was opened for the reception of inmates. The Little Miami railroad depot, at the corner of Front and Kilgour streets, was erected this year. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE. The American Association for the Advancement of Science, then an infant in years, but a strong and vigorous one, met in the Queen City this year. At the close of the session, in seconding a resolution of thanks to the good people of the place for their hospitalities and courtesies, Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute, very handsomely said : He had heard much of the Great West, much of the Queen City, and had come to put his anticipations to the test. He expected to see a boundless, magnificent forest world, with the scattered clearings, and log cabins, and energetic New-England-descended inhabitants ; he thought to find Cincinnati a thriving frontier town, exhibiting views of neat wood houses, with white fronts, " green doors, and brass knockers ;" but instead of this, he found himself in a city of- palaces, reared as if by magic, and rivaling in appearance any city of the Eastern States or of Europe. But it was not things of mere stone, brick, and mortar, which pleased him most in the Queen of the West. Imperial Rome had her palaces and noble structures, but in her proudest days she boasted not of a Mechanics' Institute, an Academy of Natural Sciences, a Mercantile Library Association, or a Young Mens' Lyceum of Natural History. These are the pride of Cincinnati, these her noblest works. Grateful as we ought to be, and are, for the kindness and courtesy shown us as members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, we are more thankful to the Cincinnatians for having founded her literary and scientific associations, and for liberally opening her treasuries of knowledge to the world. Among the Many visits to the city in 1851, was that of Lord Morpeth, the Right Honorable the Earl of Carlisle, whose tour through this country made a great stir in social, political, and other circles. In the lectures pronounced and printed after his return home, he said the following of the Queen City: I again turned my face to the west, and passed Cincinnati, which, together with all that I saw of the State of Ohio, seemed to me the part of the Union where, if obliged to make the choice, I should like best to fix my abode. It has a great share of the civilization and appliances of the old-settled States of the east, with the richer soil, the softer climate, the fresher spring of life, which distinguish the west. It had, besides, to me the great attraction of being the first free State which I reached on my return from the region of slavery ; and the contrast in the appearance of prosperity and progress is just what a friend of freedom would always wish it to be. One of my visitors at Cincinnati told me he remembered when the town only contained a few log cabins ; when I was there it had fifty thousand [!] inhabitants. I shall not easily forget an evening view from a neighboring hill, over loamy cornfields, woody knolls, and even some vineyards, just where the Miami river discharges its gentle stream into the ample Ohio. The city this year had a population of one hundred and thirty-two thousand three hundred thirty-three, an increase of nearly seventeen thousand upon the census of the year before. May 23d, Horatio Wells, of the Cincinnati type foundry, was accidentally shot. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO. The population of the city had now mounted to one hundred and forty-five thousand five hundred and sixty-three, an increase of thirteen thousand two hundred and thirty-three, or nearly twelve per cent. upon that of the previous year. May 4th, the eighteenth anniversary of the Young Men's Mercantile Library association was observed with much eclat. A poem was recited by Thomas Buchanan Read, and the Hon. J. T. Morehead delivered an address upon the Growth of Commerce in the West. The same day was characterized by a widely different transaction—the murder of William Church by Henry Le Count, for which the assassin suffered the extreme penalty of the law on the twenty-sixth of the ensuing December. This was the first private execution under the statute requiring privacy, and was in the jail-yard, about which surged an immense multitude, while there were many on-lookers from the windows which commanded a view of the scene. This was the year of Kossuth's tour in the United States, in the course of which he visited Cincinnati. Francis Pulszky, his compatriot and fellow-traveller, makes the following notes of the visit, in the book of Sketches of American Society published by himself when the tour was over. Says Pulszky: I preceded Kossuth thither, in order to deprecate on his part all costly processions, pageantry and banquets; and as he was exhausted already by speeches, I wished to arrange matters so that he should only once address the multitude, and once those who had formed themselves into associations of friends of Hungary. But as soon as I was introduced to the committee of arrangements, I saw that my diplomacy must fail. Thirty gentlemen belonged to that body, and the great question was just under discussion whether, besides the mayor of the city, it should be the chairman of the city council, or the chairman of the committee of arrangements, who was to occupy the carriage with the ' city's guest' at the festive entry. I do not remember how this grave concern was settled; but, of course, it was impossible under such circumstances to carry the proposal that no procession should be held. Besides, every coterie claimed a separate speech; and the result was that Kossuth had to address 'the Big people' of Cincinnati at a banquet, and others again at 'Nixon's hall,' and then the ladies and the Northern Germans, and the Southern Germans, and the fashionable public at large, and the lower classes at large, and likewise the inhabitants of Covington, the suburbs of Cincinnati on the Kentucky side. But this was not the only consequence of the want of homogeneity in the population of Cincinnati. Kossuth several times requested the members of the committee to allow that he should himself bear his own expenses, and that the appropriation made for his entertainment by the city council, which had invited him, should be given to the Hungarian fund, The committeemen declined to comply with his desire; it seemed to them mean to do it. We left Cincinnati; and Mr. Coleman, the lessee of the Burnet Honse—the splendid hotel in which we had been accommodated—presented his bill to the city council. Some other remarks of Pulszky's are in better temper : American grandiloquence is too well-known. We can scarcely suppress a smile, when every westerner whom we meet, assures us in the first moment of our acquaintance, that America is a great country. But when we see Cincinnati, with its one hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants, its extensive commerce and navigation; the canal connecting the Gh with Lake Erie; the railways radiating in every direction from this common centre; its schools and colleges; its astronomical observatory; its ninety-two churches and chapels; its ten daily papers, and its numerous beneficent institutions; and when we remember that in 1788 this city was laid out in the wilderness, we must excuse the boast of the American. He has full right to pride himself on his nation and on its energies. After the difficulties he has surmounted, and with HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 101 the self-confidence They have inspired in him, he does not know the limit which could stop his progress. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE. Estimated population, one hundred and sixty-five thousand; other figures report it more specifically at one hundred and sixty-one thousand one hundred and eighty-six —a large increase in either case. The city building, between Plum and Central avenue, on Eighth street, was erected this year, two hundred and five feet long and fifty-two feet wide. The ground and park in front cost sixty thousand dollars, the building about twenty-seven thousand dollars. It is still occupied by the city offices, though long since insufficient and unfit for their, purposes. The park comprises about one and a quarter acres. On the ninth of December a remarkable criminal trial, known in the bar traditions as the "Kissane forgery case," came up for hearing and determination. Cincinnati had at least one distinguished visitor this year, in William Chambers, the renowned Edinburgh author and publisher. In the inevitable book that followed he remarked of Cincinnati, among other things: Public education being enjoined and liberally provided for by the laws of Ohio, the stranger who takes any interest in such matters will find in Cincinnati numerous schools worthy of his notice, in which instruction of the best quality is imparted without charge to all pupils indiscriminately. Where free education exists in England, it is a charity ; here it is a right. The natural fruit of a system so exceedingly bounteous is an educated population, possessing tastes and aspirations which seek a solacement in literature from the materialities of every-day life. I do not know that I ever saw a town of its size so well provided as Cincinnati with publishers, libraries and reading-rooms. The Young Men's Mercantile Library association has a most imposing suite of apartments fitted up as a library and reading-room—the number of books amounting to fourteen thousand volumes, and the reading room showing a display of desks, on which are placed nearly a hundred newspapers. Cincinnati is, I believe, also favorably known for its cultivation of the fine arts; and its exhibition of pictures, at any rate, shows that its inhabitants do not employ all their time in mere money-making. In the cathedral of St. Peter there are some valuable paintings by European artists; one, by Murillo, having been a gift from Cardinal Fesch. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR. May 5th, the new superior court was organized, with Bellamy Storer, Oliver M. Spencer, and W. Y. Gholson, as judges. May 26th a citizen named Arrison was murdered by means of an infernal machine. July 27th is the date of a notable event in the organization of the fire department of the city—the public trial of the steam fire engine Citizen's Gift, built in Cincinnati and paid for by a popular subscription. The population is set down this year at one hundred and seventy thousand and fifty seven. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE. Population one hundred and seventy-two thousand three hundred and seventy. Growth is slower, and the rate of increase now falls off year by year. On Washington's birthday a grand "dramatic festival" or performance is given at the National theatre, on Sycamore street, for the benefit of the poor. A number of well known citizens take part as amateurs; among them Charles Anderson, Judge Flinn, William H. Lytle, Wil- Liam B. Cassily, and Martin B. Coombs. Four thousand dollars are realized from the receipts. April 5th there is a sharp fight "over the Rhine" between the Know Nothings and the Germans. On the tenth—city election day—there is a mob in the Eleventh ward, which destroys a ballot-box and scatters the contents. June 14th, an accident occurs in the course of excavation of the Walnut Hills railway tunnel, which kills five men. August 28th, occurs the opening of the Cincinnati, Wilmington & Zanesville railroad. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SIX. The estimate of population for this year, which is also continued for the next, is one hundred and seventy-four thousand. If this statement be correct, or approximate correctness, the town was virtually at a stand-still for one year. February 2d, a vote was given by the citizens, authorizing the loan of the city's credit to the amount of six hundred thousand dollars, to the Ohio & Mississippi railroad. April 4th, Police Lieutenant Parker loses his life at the hands of an assassin. May 20th, the Daily Times publishes the names of fifteen residents of Cincinnati, then still surviving, who had lived in the city fifty years or more, and were all more than seventy years old; thirteen others had lived here thirty to fifty years; forty-three were sixty to seventy years old, and had lived here over thirty years; and thirty-four more, not so old, had lived in Cincinnati more than that period. The pioneers were largely of hardy, long-lived stock. A number of additional names were sent in by a correspondent the next day. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SEVEN. May 29th, the city council passes an ordinance prohibitory of the sale of liquor on Sunday, by a vote of twenty-six to seven. On the twenty-eighth, Jacob W. Piatt dies. On the thirtieth, there is great excitement over a fugitive slave case, in the course of which the United States marshal is stabbed, but not killed. June 24th, grand railroad excursions start for St. Louis, New York, and Boston, to celebrate the opening of the Ohio & Mississippi and the Marietta & Cincinnati railroads. July 2, a very destructive fire occurs, laying in ashes Resor's stave factory, Johnston & Meader's furniture factory, and other establishments, with a total loss of two hundred thousand dollars. On the twenty-second occurs the Loefner murder and suicide, in which Nicholas T. Horton also loses his life by the hand of violence. A great coal famine prevailed at one time this year; and fuel of no other kind being available in sufficient quantity to afford relief, the price of coal rose to seventy-five and eighty cents a bushel. All classes, except the coal dealers, were much embarrassed by it, and the poor suffered terribly, in some cases actually burning furniture, partitions, fences, and whatever else was at hand that was combustible. In this exigency considerable pres- 102 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. sure was brought to bear upon the city council to vote relief—a measure headed by Hon. Benjamin Eggleston, then chairman of the finance committee of the council. After much opposition a vote of one hundred thousand dollars was obtained, not as a gift, but as a fund for use in lifting the blockade. A meeting of presidents of the railways leading into Cincinnati was held and arrangements consummated for the exclusive use of their freight trains for a few days in the transportation of coal. This soon afforded relief. Deliveries at first were limited to three bushels, at twenty-five cents per bushel, which represented actual cost; and were increased as larger supplies were received. When accounts were finally adjusted the balance against the city was very small, while a vast amount of good had been done. A similar event occurred in 1863; but in this case an absolute grant of one hundred thousand dollars was made, which was paid out weekly to the needy in small sums, chiefly to the families of soldiers in the army. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-EIGHT. An official census, taken this year, gives the city an enumeration of one hundred and seventy-five thousand nine hundred and sixty-eight. The original Pike's Opera House is erected, to the great delight of the citizens. The report of the Superintendent of the Merchant's Exchange says : "The most splendid opera house in the whole country has been built. Whole squares have been so changed by replacing the old buildings by new as not to be recognized, new streets have been opened, and the city rapidly extended over the available space on the west." February 29th, Captain J. B. Summons, a prominent citizen, exchanges time for eternity. April 13th, John Mitchell's chair factory is burned, and William Gaither accidentally killed. On the twenty-second, Pryor P. Lee, engineer at the Cincinnati Type Foundry, was badly hurt by the explosion of an infernal machine. A gas explosion also occurred this year in the basement of the Radical Methodist Church on Sixth street, and a number were severely injured. May 9th, Gregory is murdered by Kendall. October 21st, Augustus Ward murders John Mortimer. The city had a visit this year from the famous English poet, Charles Mackay. He devoted to Cincinnati a pleasant letter of some length, but it is hardly so interesting to read as some of the older accounts of travelers. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-NINE. The last of Mr. Cist's valuable volumes was published this year, under the title of Cincinnati in 1859. We obtain from it much of the information which follows. He estimates the local population at two hundred and twenty-five thousand, which must have included all the suburbs, since an enumeration before us, purporting to be official, places the number of inhabitants at only one hundred and seventy-eight thousand three hundred and fifteen. The colored population had been reduced from a ratio in 1840 of one in twenty to one in thirty-seven. The centre of population in the United States had approached nearer to Cincinnati, the exact centre being a little below Marietta. The city now had a river front of about six miles, with an average depth to the north corporation line of one and one-fifth miles. Its area was four thousand five hundred and twenty-one acres, of which about one-quarter, or one thousand one hundred and twenty-six acres in the north part, was not subdivided into city lots. This, however, was more than made good by the suburbs on the east, west, and north, which were almost as compactly built as the city itself. The number of brick buildings, but twenty-two per cent. of the whole in 1815, was now eighty per cent. It was thought that there was no city in the world, equal or greater in population, in which there was so large a share of resident property-holders. A marked improvement in the style of public buildings was noted. Among the more recently built were Pike's Opera House, then considered the finest public building built by private resources in the world, the Central Presbyterian church, and the Masonic temple. 1 he Carlisle building and Shillito's former store are also mentioned in terms of praise; also the comparatively new post office and custom house at the corner of Vine and Fourth streets, and the Marine hospital on the corner of Lock and Sixth. The vine culture had been greatly extended within twenty miles of the city, two thousand acres being covered with vineyards, and four hundred thousand gallons of wine made per year. Cincinnati had become, probably, the most extensive manufacturing city in the country. The capital and yearly expenses invested in manufactures and mechanical operations were estimated at ninety million dollars, with a profit of thirty-three and one-third per cent., or thirty million dollars. Forty-five thousand persons were engaged in this department of industry, while five thousand six hundred were in trade and commerce, handling values of eighty million dollars, upon which ten millions .were realized, or a profit of twelve and one-half per cent. The value of manufactured products for the year was one hundred and twelve million, two hundred and fifty-four thousand four hundred dollars, against fifty-four million, five hundred and fifty thousand one hundred and thirty-four dollars in 1851, and seventeen million, seven hundred and eighty thousand and thirty-three dollars ten years, before. The average value of raw materials was but fifty per cent. of the entire. product. The imports of the year were expected to reach eighty-five millions, and exports ninety millions, giving a "balance of trade" in favor of Cincinnati of five millions. The railway lines running into the city now were the Little Miami, the Marietta & Cincinnati, the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, the Cincinnati & Indiana, and the Ohio & Mississippi. The place was in full connection with three thousand two hundred and thirty-two miles of railroad, and four thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine miles of connecting lines were under way. Near Cincinnati the Dayton & State Line and the Cincinnati & Indiana Junction were in preparation. The city had two banks, one savings bank, eight private banks, and one emigrant and remittance office. Insurance had been largely developed, and there were sixteen local companies and forty-three foreign compa- HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 103 nies represented. The higher interests of the community had kept pace with the material in their march. In journalism, there were nine daily newspapers, twenty-two weeklies, six semi-monthlies, thirteen monthlies, and two annuals—a very fine exhibit for nearly a quarter of a century ago. Much had been done for science, literature, and art. The Ohio Mechanics' institute had nine hundred and fifty members, and was handsomely lodged in its building on the corner of Vine and Sixth. The Cincinnati Horticultural society's fairs, then held every spring and fall, were very popular, and the society was doing a good work in its province. A great deal of excellent work in astronomy was being done by Professor Mitchel and his pupils at the observatory. The Young Men's Mercantile Library association had three thousand and seventy members, and a collection of nearly twenty thousand volumes, with an annual circulation of forty-five thousand. The feeling toward fine art had been improved; and Mr. William Wiswell, at No. 7o West Fourth street, was devoting the whole lower floor of his building to a free art gallery, which had become a familiar resort, especiallyof evenings. Education was also far advanced. The public schools employed two hundred and seventy-eight teachers, which was twice as many as in 185o, and four times as many as in 184o. There was sixteen fine school buildings, holding about nine hundred pupils apiece; and instruction was also given at public expense in the city infirmary and the orphan asylum. The Woodward high school had six teachers and one hundred and seventy-six pupils; the Hughes high school as many teachers and one hundred and fifty-nine pupils. The lower schools included twenty district, four intermediate, and six night district schools. There was also one night high school and one normal school. The expense of all for 1858 was one hundred and thirty-eight thousand six hundred and five dollars. The Roman Catholic parochial schools had seventy-eight teachers and seven hundred and seventy-five pupils; private schools and academies over one hundred and fifty teachers and four thousand students. The most prominent of these were the Wesleyan Female college, the Cincinnati Female seminary, the Mount Auburn Young Ladies' institute, Herron's seminary for boys, the English and Classical school, the Law school in Cincinnati college, St. Xavier's college, six medical colleges, and Bartlett's Commercial college. May 6th, the local bar loses one of its prominent members, W. R. Morris, esq., by death. May 16th, Johnson & Meader's furniture factory burns again, with ten other buildings. August 20th, the Dayton and Michigan railroad is opened, giving Cincinnati new connections with Toledo and Detroit. September 29th, the "Little Giant" from Illinois, Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, then in training for a nomination to the Presidency the next year, visits the city and is warmly received by his friends and admirers. CHAPTER XV. CINCINNATI'S EIGHTH DECADE. THE former half of this was filled with the prologue, the acts, and the epilogue of the great drama of civil war. The events of every one of its years, in Cincinnati and Hamilton county, that are worthy of public record, relate almost solely to this and we have but a meagre record besides for this decade. Special chapters will be given, directly after these brief notes, to the part which Cincinnati played in the enactment of the mighty tragedy. EIGHTEEN 'HUNDRED AND SIXTY. The United States census enumerated the total population of the city as one hundred and sixty-one thousand and forty-four. The population by wards, as in other year's, will-be found in a table below. This was the year of the visit of the Prince of Wales and his illustrious party to Cincinnati, in the course of their tour through the United States. They came on the special invitation of Mayor Bishop, and were of course elegantly entertained while here. In January came to the Queen City the excursion of the legislatures of Kentucky and Tennessee, upon the occasion of the completion of the Louisville & Nashville railroad, which soon afterwards was to prove so serviceable to the cause of the Union, in the transportation of men and the material of war. The Solons went on to Columbus, by way of Xenia, returned to this city by way of Dayton, and thence to their homes. On the third of March a lamentable accident occurred at the new St. Xavier's church, on Sycamore street, in the falling of an extensive wall, burying no less than sixteen persons in its ruins—a degree of fatality almost, if not quite, unequaled in the history of similar accidents. April 18th, the Young Men's Mercantile Library association completed its twenty-fifth year, and celebrated a "Silver Festival" in consequence. May 2d, a great hurricane sweeps over and through Cincinnati, unroofing buildings and inflicting many other but mostly petty losses. On the twenty-fourth of that month, the street railroads were relieved by the council of the per capita tax which had theretofore been imposed. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-ONE. Three hundred and thirty-six new buildings were put up this year three hundred and nine of brick and stone, and twenty-seven of wood. January 9th, officers Long and Hallam, of the police force, were killed by the Lohrers, father and son. On the twenty-fifth Patrick McHugh was hanged for the murder of his wife. In February President-elect Lincoln passed through Cincinnati on his way to. Washington to be inaugurated. Mayor Bishop made a reception speech, to which Mr. Lincoln replied in terms suited to the momentous crisis then impending. April 13th, comes the news of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, awakening intense indignation and the desire for speedy and adequate punishment of the South for 104 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. its aggressions. Camp Harrison is soon opened for the reception of volunteers, on the race-ground near Cumminsville. On the eighteenth, the conflict having fully opened, the city council votes two hundred thousand dollars to the war fund. May 1st, a committee of public safety for the city was appointed. On the seventeenth, General Robert Anderson, returning from his luckless post at Sumter, was given an enthusiastic public reception for his meritorious conduct there. June 20th, the Indiana regiments passing through Cincinnati were fed at the Fifth street-market house. August 2d, occurred the first reception to the returning volunteers of the three months regiments. There was less joy and enthusiasm on the twenty-ninth, when the body of Major General Lyon, killed in the battle of Wilson's creek, near Springfield, Missouri, was received with military honors. September 2 7 th, an uneasy feeling having prevailed for some time in regard to possible danger from the direction of Kentucky, measures were taken, but not carried to completion, to fortify the city. October 1st, came the first sad sight of the arrival of wounded soldiers from the front of battle. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-TWO. January 24th marked the greatest height of another tremendous freshet in the Ohio, which reached within a few feet of the high-water mark of 1832. February 17th, was celebrated the glorious victory of Fort Donelson. March 10th, death of the well known poet, one of the most notable ever resident in Cincinnati, W. W. Fosdick. On the loth a soldiers' home is opened in the Trollopean Bazaar. On the 25th a disturbance occurs at Pike's opera house, in consequence of a lecture there on public affairs by Mr. Wendell Phillips. July 18th, a state of alarm prevails in the city in consequence of rebel movements in Kentucky. A raid by John Morgan upon the city is expected, and preparations are made for defence. On the second a great war meeting had occurred at the Fifth street market place. August 11th, citizens and soldiers attend in large numbers the funeral of Colonel Robert L. McCook, murdered by guerrillas while riding sick in an ambulance in advance of his troops, in southern Tennessee. A bust of heroic size was afterwards set up to his memory in Washington park. September 2d, genuine and well-based alarm again prevails in consequence of the apparent advance on Cincinnati of a rebel force in Kentucky, under Generals Kirby Smith and Heath. On the fourth martial law is proclaimed in the city, and before the next day has gone the city is full of volunteers. Ample preparations are made here and back of Covington for resistance. The famous "squirrel hunters" campaign follows. By the fourteenth the alarm is mainly over, and the militia are ordered home by the Governor. An enumeration of population this year, founded upon the school census, the Directory, or some other basis of estimates, yields a total of one hundred and eighty-four thousand five hundred and seventeen. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-THREE. Population this year, by official estimate, one hundred and eighty-six thousand three hundred and twenty-nine. New Year's Day the great sanitary fair, for the benefit of sick and wounded soldiers, was opened, and culminated in a magnificent success. Its operations will be detailed at some length in the next chapter. In January died Mrs. Mary Barr, who had been a resident of the city since 1809—fifty-four years. April 4th, the order for the re-organization of the State militia, under the name of the Ohio National Guard, was received. May 5th, the place of amusement known as the Palace Varieties was burned. On the fifteenth of the same month, the operations of the first draft for the army began in Cincinnati. The John Morgan raid through Hamilton county and southern Ohio generally, occurs in early July, and creates great excitement in Cincinnati. .It is made the subject of a chapter in part I of this work. The Plum street railway depot—four hundred feet by sixty-four was erected this year. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FOUR. This year the present Cincinnati, Hamilton, & Dayton depot—four hundred by sixty—was put up at the corner of Fifth and Hoadly streets, reaching through to Sixth. Very little of stirring interest happened this year, apart from the events of the war. The principal scenes of conflict were now far away—in northern Georgia and by the rivers of Virginia—and it was a comparatively quiet year for Cincinnati. The estimate of population for the year is one hundred and ninety-three thousand, seven hundred and nineteen. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE. The estimate is increased this year to a round two hundred thousand—probably too great, as all the estimates and professed enumerations thereafter, until the official census of 187o, which shows the incorrectness of the figures for a number of previous years. A liberal system of public improvements was devised and entered upon by the city authorities after the close of the war, to remedy defects and neglects which were inevitable during the continuance of the great struggle. It included the present magnificent and costly structures occupied by the Cincinnati Hospital, the Workhouse, and the House of. Refuge. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SIX. Estimate of population, two hundred and ten thousand, eight hundred and sixty-six. January 27th, the police and fire alarm telegraph, for which a persistent pressure had been kept up for years, was completed and successfully put in operation. March 22d, the superb opera-house erected by Samuel N. Pike was destroyed by fire. It had two thousand sittings, and on the occasion of Christine Nilsson's first HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 105 appearance in the city, had held three thousand and three hundred people. Its destruction recalled the lines of Mr. T. Buchanan Read, the poet-artist, to Mr. Pike: Who builds a noble temple unto Art, And rears it grandly from the head and heart, Hath done a noble service, and his name Shall live upon the golden roll of Fame. April 3d, deceased Mr. M. D. Potter, the senior proprietor of the Commercial. June 8th, a successful swindle was perpetrated upon the Third National bank, whereby it lost the sum of four thousand five hundred dollars. July 11th, another calamity happens to the music and amusement-loving people of Cincinnati, in the burning of the Academy of Music building. The cholera visits the city again this year, and with terribly destructive effect. The total number of deaths from this cause here was two thousand and twenty-eight —one in every ninety-five and seventy-four hundredths population, or ten and forty-four hundredths in every thousand. On the thirteenth of August there are eighty-six deaths by cholera. August 21st, the splendid Jewish temple, K. K. Benai Jeshurun, at the corner of Eighth and Plum streets, was dedicated. December 1st the great Suspension Bridge is at last opened to foot travel. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN. New Year's day had a very satisfactory celebration for the people of Cincinnati and the Kentucky suburbs, in the full opening of the suspension bridge to all kinds of carriage as well as foot travel. April 4th, three criminals, George Goetz, Alexander Aulgus, and Samuel Carr, are hanged for the murder of James Hughes. Estimate of. population for the year, two hundred and twenty thousand five hundred. This, and the two estimates which follow in this decade, are greater than the official footings of 187o. The new buildings of the year counted up one thousand three hundred and seventy-two. EIGHTEEN. HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHT. Estimate of the population, two hundred and thirty-five thousand. The bonded debt of the city was now four million five hundred and seven thousand dollars, having increased one million forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars within a year, during about which time had been erected the workhouse and the hospital, the greater part of the Eggleston Avenue sewer had been laid, and a material increase in the facilities afforded by the water-works had been made. The hospital alone, which was occupied this year, cost seven hundred and -fifty thousand dollars. 'The aggregate estimated value of property in the city was eleven million three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. June 18th, a great thunder-storm occurred, during which several houses in the city were struck by lightning, and one burned. On the ninth of July the Varieties theatre was the victim of the fire-fiend. November 4th, a public building, devoted to a very different purpose, the Widows' Home, was also burned. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINE. The estimated population for this year was put in round numbers at a quarter of a million—too great, probably, by nearly forty thousand. The city now, according to Mr. George E. Stevens's book on Cincinnati, from which we condense the following statements, was the largest and wealthiest inland city in America. Although but eighty years old, it had reached a population as great as Philadelphia had after one hundred and sixty years' settlement, and as New York had in 1833. It was "moving steadily and compactly forward to a magnificent future." It "is destined to become the focus and mart for the grandest circle of manufacturing thrift on this continent, . . . . . . the Edinburgh of a new Scotland, the Boston of a new New England, the Paris of a new France." Mill creek was still the western boundary, but the river front was nearly ten miles long, and the north line of the city was more than two miles from low-water mark. The front margin of the lower plateau, originally a steep bank, had been wholly graded down to a gentle declivity, and much of the surface drainage of the city passed directly into the river. The wholesale business was chiefly on Main, Walnut, Vine, Second, and Pearl streets; the retail trade on Fourth, Fifth, and Central avenue. The great staples of the Cincinnati markets—iron, cotton, tobacco, sugar, etc.—were mainly on Front, Water, and Second streets. Pearl street was largely occupied by dry goods, notions, clothing, and boot and shoe stores. Third was then, as now, the Wall street of Cincinnati, containing many of the banks, insurance and law offices, etc. The city had four magnificent retail shopping establishments. Some superb new buildings had gone up, including those we have named, and also the St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal church, at the corner of Seventh and Smith streets. There were in all one hundred and nineteen churches. The Tyler-Davidson fountain was in progress.. The Garden of Eden park had been surveyed, and a force was occupied 'in grading it. Large part of the work on the great reservoir in the park for the water-works, had been done. A satisfactory increase had been observed in the numerous branches of productive industry followed in the city. The total estimated value of products for the year was fifty million dollars. About twenty-five thousand children were in the public schools, and twelve thousand mote in private and parochial schools and seminaries of learning, among which were now two theological seminaries. The death rate per year was only eighteen and five one-hundredths in one thousand of population; and from the single cause of consumption only nine and forty-eight one-hundredths per cent. of the deaths occurred, against fourteen and two one-hundredths in New York city, and fifteen and thirty-eight one-hundredths in Philadelphia. The fire department was regarded in efficiency as above any other on the face of the earth, and the previous year there had been a remarkable exemption from destructive fires in Cincinnati, 14 106 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. The first seven months of 1869 were comparatively devoid of interesting events. August was characterized by several, however. On the third was opened, in the new Sinton building, near the Burnet House, the Exposition of Textile Fabrics, which pioneered the magnificent series of industrial expositions that have since followed. A pretty full history of this notable success, and the annual fairs succeeding, will be found in another chapter. On the thirty-first of the month, a party of fifty-three Cincinnatians, about one-third of them ladies, and including Mr. and Mrs. Robert Buchanan and many other prominent residents, started on an excursion to California, by way of the Indianapolis, Cincinnati & Lafayette, Toledo, Wabash & Western, Hannibal & St. Joseph, St. Joseph & Council Bluffs, Union Pacific, and Central Pacific railroads. The project was started among the members of the Chamber of Commerce, the number going limited to sixty, and the expense of round-trip tickets to three hundred dollars each. Most of the party returned in a body October 8th, after an extremely agreeable tour. A neat little book was afterwards made of the letters contributed by a correspondent with the party to the Cincinnati Commercial. On the twentieth of October the College building, on Walnut street, was again desolated by fire. The Mercantile Library suffered much by the flames, water, and hasty removal, and other institutions in the structure sustained serious loss. This year occurred the celebrated struggle over the Bible reading practised in the public schools. It began at a regular meeting of the School Board September 6th, in a proposition for the union of the Roman Catholic schools with the public schools, and an amendment offered to prohibit the oral reading of religious books, including the Bible, before the pupils of the schools. The subsequent transactions are detailed in our special chapter on Education. CHAPTER XVI. CINCINNATI IN THE WAR. THE Queen City found herself, with all her great advantages of situation for commercial and other purposes, peculiarly and quite unhappily placed at the outset of the great war of the Rebellion. Her growth had been largely the result of Southern trade; her business connections with the South, by river and rail, were extensive and valuable; while her social connections, through the large immigration from some of the slave States to Cincinnati, in all periods of her history, through the intermarriage of many Cincinnatians with Southern families, and through interchanges of visits and courtesies, were exceedingly numerous and powerful. Mr: Parton says, in his little article in the Atlantic Monthly (February, 1863), on the "Siege of Cincinnati," that many leading families in the city were in sympathy with the Rebellion, and that there were few which did not have at least one member in its armies. But, he adds, "the great mass of the people knew not a moment of hesitation, and a tide of patriotic feeling set in which silenced, expelled, or converted the adherents of the Rebellion." The old business relations with the South were speedily broken up, and the city soon began to reap a great pecuniary harvest by the supply of gunboats and military stores in immense quantity, and by the various labors incident to the establishment and maintenance of camps and the movement of troops. Cincinnati, by her local situation, had also much cause for fear. It was by far the largest and richest city of a northern State upon the border of a slave State. By its wealth, and the value of the contents of its banks, its warehouses, and manufactures, to the Confederacy, as well as by its steadfast and abounding loyalty, its zeal and activity in support of the Union cause, the vengeance to be wreaked and the prestige to be gained by its fall, it offered a standing and very great temptation to the Confederate arms for capture and plunder. The most notable facts of its war history are the menace delivered from the southward by the rebel generals in the summer of 1862, and that from the westward and northward by John Morgan a year later. Happily, it was delivered from all its dangers to the end; but the peril was none the less real and palpable during nearly every year, and in many months of the war. It was keenly felt at the dread beginning; and when, in April, 1861, at the recommendation of Captain George B. McClellan, then the young president of the Ohio & Mississippi railroad, his friend and former comrade, Captain Nathaniel Pope, of the regular army, proceeded to Columbus to give military advice to Governor Dennison, he had little to suggest except the purchase of some big columbiads for the defence of Cincinnati, to be mounted upon the hills on the Ohio side, since nothing of the kind could be done in Kentucky, which was then assuming a position of armed neutrality. The Governor, with some reasonable doubts, signed the order for the guns, and they were bought; but history is silent as to the further part they played in the suppression of the Rebellion. The position of Kentucky was of eminent importance to the safety of Cincinnati, and for some time excited great uneasiness, which was measurably relieved by the assurance of Judge Thomas M. Key, of the Ohio State Senate, who had been sent to interview Governor Magoffin, that the Kentucky executive dwelt particularly upon "his firm purpose to permit nothing to be done that could be viewed as menacing the city of Cincinnati." The people of the city, however, were by no means disposed, in consequence of this assurance, to grant any concessions to treason. Mr. Reid says, in his "Ohio in the War": The first note of war from the east threw Cincinnati into a spasm of alarm. Her great warehouses, her foundries and machine shops, her rich moneyed institutions, were all a tempting prize to the confederates, to whom Kentucky was believed to be drifting. Should Kentucky go, only the Ohio river would remain between the great city and the needy enemy, and there were absolutely no provisions for defense. The first alarm expended itself, as has already been seen, in the pur- HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 107 chase of huge columbiads, with which it was probably intended that Walnut Hills should be fortified. There next sprang up a feverish spirit of active patriotism that soon led to complications. For the citizens, not being accustomed to draw nice distinctions or in a temper to permit anything whereby their danger might be increased, could see little difference between the neutral treason of Kentucky to the Government and the more open treason of the seceded States. They accordingly insisted that shipments of produce, and especially shipments of arms, ammunition, or other articles contraband of war, to Kentucky should instantly cease. The citizens of Louisville, taking alarm at this threatened blow at their very existence, sent up a large delegation to protest against the stoppage of shipments from Ohio. They were received in the council chamber of the city ball, on the morning of April 23d. The city mayor, Mr. Hatch, announced the object of their meeting, and called upon Mr. Rufus King to state the position of the city and State authorities. Mr. King dwelt upon the friendship of Ohio for Kentucky in the old strain, and closed by reading a letter which the mayor had procured from Governor Dennison, of which the essential part was as follows : "My views of the subject suggested in your message are these: So long as any State remains in the Union, with professions of attachment to it, we cannot discriminate between that State and our own. In the contest we must be clearly in the right in every act, and I think it better that we should risk something than that we should, in the slightest degree, be chargeable with anything tending to create a rupture with any State which has not declared itself already out of the Union. To seize arms going to a State which has not actually seceded, could give a pretext for the assertion that we had inaugurated hostile conduct, and might be used to create a popular feeling in favor of secession where it would not exist, and end in border warfare, which all good citizens must deprecate. Until there is such circumstantial evidence as to create a moral certainty of an immediate intention to use arms against us, I would not be willing to order their seizure; much less would I be willing to interfere with the transportation of provisions." "Now," said Mr. King, " this is a text to which every citizen of Ohio must subscribe, coming as it does from the head of the State. I do not feel the least hesitation in saying that it expresses the feeling of the people of Ohio." But the people of Ohio did not subscribe to it. Even in the meeting Judge Bellamy Storer, though very guarded in his expressions, intimated, in the course of his stirring speech, the dissatisfaction with the attitude of Kentucky. " This is no time," he said, "for soft words. We feel, as you have a right to feel, that you have a governor who cannot be depended upon in this crisis. But it is on the men of Kentucky that we rely. All we want to know is whether you are for the Union, without reservation. Brethren of Kentucky! The men of the North have been your friends, and they still desire to be. But I will speak plainly. There have been idle taunts thrown out that they are cowardly and timid. The North submits; the North obeys; but beware! There is a point which cannot be passed. While we rejoice in your friendship, while we glory in your bravery, we would have you understand that we are your equals as well as your friends." To all this the only response of the Kentuckians, through their spokesman, Judge Bullock, was "that Kentucky wished to take no part in the unhappy struggle; that she wished to be a mediator, and meant to retain friendly relations with all her sister States. But he was greatly gratified with Governor Dennison's letter." The citizens of Cincinnati were not. Four days later, when their indignation had come to take shape, they held a large meeting, whereat excited speeches were made and resolutions passed deprecating the letter, calling upon the governor to retract it, declaring that it was too late to draw nice distinctions between open rebellion and armed neutrality against the Union, and that armed neutrality was rebellion to the Government. At the close an additional resolution was offered, which passed amid a whirlwind of applause : "Resolved, That any men, or set of men, in Cincinnati or elsewhere, who knowingly sell or ship one ounce of flour or pound of provisions, or any arms or articles which are contraband of war, to any person or any State which has not declared its firm determination to sustain the Government in the present crisis, is a traitor, and deserves the doom of a traitor." So clear and unshrinking was the first voice from the great conservative city of the southern border, whose prosperity was supposed to depend on the southern trade. They had reckoned idly, it seemed, who had counted on hesitation here. From the first day that the war was opened, the people of Cincinnati were as vehement in their determina tion that it should be relentlessly prosecuted to victory, as the people of Boston. They immediately began the organization of home guards, armed and drilled vigorously, took oaths to serve the Government when they were called upon, and devoted themselves to the suppression of any contraband trade with the southern States. The steamboats were watched; the railroad depots were searched; and, wherever a suspicious box or bale was discovered, it was ordered back to the warehouses. After a time the general government undertook to prevent any shipments into Kentucky, save such as should be required by the normal demands of her own population. A system of shipment-permits was established under the supervision of the collector of the port, and passengers on the ferry-boats into Covington were even searched to see if they were carrying over pistols or other articles contraband of war; but, in spite of all efforts, Kentucky long continued to be the convenient source and medium for supplies to the Southwestern Seceded States. The day after the Cincinnati meeting denouncing his course relative to Kentucky, Governor Dennison, stimulated perhaps by this censure, but in accordance with a policy already formed, issued orders to the presidents of all railroads in Ohio to have everything passing over their roads in the direction of Virginia or any other seceded State, whether as ordinary freight or express matter, examined, and if contraband of war, immediately stopped and reported to him. The order may not have had legal sanction; but in the excited state of the public mind it was accepted by all concerned as ample authority. The next day similar instructions were sent to all express companies. On the other hand, Cincinnati began active efforts to supply the northern armies—not only with competent officers and brave men, but with clothing, food and munitions of war. Some of the earliest contracts for uniforms for the State regiments were taken in the city, and Miles Greenwood very soon began at his foundries the manufacture of field-guns for twelve batteries ordered by the State, as also the rifling of old muskets, converting them into what became known as "the Greenwood rifle," and was in time highly esteemed by the troops. At once upon the sounding of the tocsin at Sumter, Cincinnati began her generous offers to and sacrifices for the Union. The Guthrie Grays and the Rover Guards were among the first militia companies of the State whose services were tendered to the governor. The latter, with the Zouave Guards and the Lafayette Guards, both also of Cincinnati, became, respectively, companies A, D and E, in the original organization of the Second Ohio infantry ; and the former was made the nucleus of the Sixth regiment of volunteer infantry. Colonel Lewis Wilson, who had promptly resigned the high office of chief of police in Cincinnati, to offer his services to the government, was made commandant of the Second. General Thomas L. Young, since governor of the State and member of congress, foreseeing the trouble that was coming, offered his aid to General Scott in organizing the volunteer forces, twenty-five days before the 'rebels fired on Sumter; and is thus claimed to have been the first volunteer from Hamilton county, and very likely from the State, unless the lamented President Andrews, of Kenyon college, is to be excepted. Other early offers from patriotic men in various public and private stations, were made by thousands; and the entire demand made by the Federal government upon the State of Ohio, in the first call for troops (two regiments), could have been answered in this city alone, as it was by the State at large, within twenty-four hours. Enlistments in Cincinnati were hearty and general from all classes. The contingent of many thousands furnished to the Federal 108 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. armies by Hamilton county was almost wholly Cincinnati's contingent. The earlier Kentucky regiments, furnished in pursuance of Governor Dennison's noble utterance after the insolent and treasonable refusal of Governor Magoffin, "If Kentucky will not fill her quota, Ohio will fill it for her," were largely filled by Cincinnati men. One of the local regiments, the Thirty-ninth, furnished the largest number of re-enlisted "veterans," five hundred and thirty-four, of any Ohio regiment or other command of any arm of the service. The first Major General of the Ohio militia (McClellan), and one (Joshua H. Bates) of the three brigadiers appointed by the governor at once after the outbreak of the rebellion, were of the Queen City. A remarkable number of the most distinguished of the Union generals were from Cincinnati—Major Generals McClellan, Rosecrans, Mitchel and Godfrey Weitzel;* Brevet Major Generals R. B. Hayes, August Willich, Henry B. Banning, Manning F. Force and Kenner Garrard; Brigadier Generals Robert L. McCook, William H. Lytle,* A. Sanders Piatt,* Eliakim P. Scammon, Nathaniel McLean, Melancthon S. Wade and John P. Slough; and Brevet Brigadier Generals Andrew Hickenlooper, Benjamin C. Ludlow, Israel Garrard,* William H. Baldwin, Henry V. N. Boynton, Charles E. Brown,* Henry L. Burnet, Henry M. Cist,* Stephen J. McGroarty, Granville Moody, August Moor, Reuben D. Mussey, George W. Neff, Edward F. Noyes, Augustus C. Parry, Durbin Ward and Thomas L. Young. A number of the more eminent commanders of Ohio regiments, of the lamented dead of the war, were also Cincinnatiansas the young Colonel Minor Milliken, Colonels John F. Patrick, Frederick C. Jones, William G. Jones and John T. Toland. The first governor of Ohio during the rebellion, William Dennison, is a native of Cincinnati; and another of the war governors, the redoubtable John Brough, was fora time a lawyer and editor in the city. Hon. Salmon P. Chase, the great secretary of the treasury, whose administration of the National finances during the long struggle was so efficient that a leader of the rebellion said at its close: "It was not your generals that defeated us; it was your treasury"—was long a resident of Cincinnati, and went to Washington from this city. A host of other Cincinnatians, in various civil and military capacities, served with usefulness and honor in the terrible crisis. Especially useful to the government were the medical men of Cincinnati: The first surgeon-general of the State appointed by Governor Dennison at the outbreak of the war, on the recommendation of McClellan, was Dr. George H. Shumard, of the city, though long absent from it, engaged in geological surveys and otherwise. One of the State board of examiners, before whom all candidates for appointment as surgeon or assistant surgeon in Ohio commands were compelled to pass, was Dr. John A. Murphy, of Cincinnati. More than half the entire number of " United States Volunteer Surgeons," who entered the service independently of special commands, and whose addresses are given in "Ohio in the War," were Cincinnati men. One of these, Dr. William H. Mussey, ultimately became one of the board of medical * Natives of Cincinnati. inspectors—small in number, but important and influential in their duties—who stood next to the surgeon-general and his assistant as the ranking medical officers of the army. Another, Dr. William Clendenin, became assistant medical director of the army of the Cumberland. Another, Dr. Robert Fletcher, won much distinction as medical purveyor at Nashville for the great armies operating in Tennessee and Georgia. Some of the regimental surgeons became scarcely less distinguished; as Dr. James, of the Fourth Ohio cavalry, who rose to be the chief medical officer of the entire cavalry of the army. Within a time astonishingly short, after the outbreak of the war, Camp Harrison was established, upon the trotting park in the outskirts of Cumminsville, and troops began pouring in thither. General William H. Lytle, by whom it was selected, was appointed commander of the Camp. The Guthrie Grey regiment, ready by the afternoon of April 20th, and several other companies, were the first to rendezvous there. Colonel Geffroy, of the Gibson House, set to work in town among the ladies of the East End, and soon enlisted a large number of them in the patriotic work of collecting materials and making up underwear for the soldiers in the parlors of his hotel, while the ladies of the West End were soon engaged in similar work at a private residence. The Cincinnati Aid association was organized by the citizens at large, to help support the families of soldiers in the field; and the Daughters of Temperance also organized an aid society of their own. A general meeting of Irish citizens was held at Mozart's hall April 20th, at which many volunteered, and a resolution was passed to raise an Irish regiment, several wealthy men present offering to give a thousand dollars each for the purpose. It was raised, and became the Tenth Ohio infantry. Ex-Mayor R. M. Moore raised one company of it. McCook's German regiment was raised with great promptitude, elected its field officers on the night of the twenty-third, and went to camp the next day, after a triumphal march through the city. The Storer Rifles were the first company to get arms. It was splendidly equipped with Sharp's rifles, the private property of the men. Many home companies were recruited for drill and organization, one or two in every ward; and by the nineteenth of April it was estimated that at least ten thousand were preparing for military service. On that day the news of the attack at Baltimore on Federal troops was received, and the Germans recruiting for Cook's regiment paraded the streets amid great enthusiasm. Len Harris, afterwards a colonel and mayor of the city, recruited ninety men the first day after the war opened. The printers of the city raised a company among themselves. The Lafayette Guards, ordered to Columbus, took upon the cars two hundred and seven men, although eighty-seven men was then the maximum of a company. The loyal enthusiasm for enlistment and preparation for war was unbounded. The city authorities voted a quarter of a million dollars from the sinking fund for the purposes of the opening conflict, and the HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 109 people saw to it that the American flag was hung from every flagstaff and window where it ought to be floating, at one time compelling the officer in charge at the Custom louse to fling it to the breeze, and several times obliging masters of steamers to raise aloft the banner of of beauty and of glory. After one or two vessels from above had gone by without landing, evidently with arms and munitions of war for the South, a committee of safety was appointed to see that no more such articles passed the city. Messrs. Rufus King, Miles Greenwood, William Cameron, Joseph Torrence, J. C. Butler, and Henry Handy composed the committee. Their efforts were cordially, though always judiciously, seconded by an excited populace, which was sometimes on the point of mobbing suspected steamers or recusant captains. Another committee—Colonel A. E. Jones, C. F. Wilstach, and Frederick Meyer—was also appointed to act in conjunction with the city authorities in stopping the shipment of supplies to the rebels; and still another committee of safety, consisting of one person from each ward and neighboring township, to act as occasion might demand in concert with the military and municipal authorities. Joint meetings of Cincinnati, Newport, and Covington patriots were held—the first of them April 18th; and no pains or cost was spared to get ready for the coming conflict. The sanitary condition of the troops sent to the field, and compelled to live under conditions widely different from those to which they had been accustomed, early attracted the attention of philanthropic and patriotic Cincinnatians, and called for organized effort. The "Cincinnati Branch of the United States Sanitary Commission,', one of the most efficient societies of the kind formed in the north, was the first of their deliberations. Its story has been simply and pleasantly told in brief in a volume narrating the "History of the Great Western Sanitary Fair," published in Cincinnati after the culmination of that success. Soon after the surrender of Fort Sumter, the President and the Secretary of War were induced by certain gentlemen to issue an order authorizing them and their associates to co-operate with the Government in the relief of sick and wounded soldiers, and to prosecute such inquiries of a sanitary character as might further the same end. Under this authority these parties organized the United States Sanitary Commission, and have since elected to that body a few others not originally acting with them. They also construed their powers as enabling them to create a class of associate members, several hundred in number, residing respectively in almost every loyal State and territory. The duties of these associates, and the extent to which they share the power committed to the original members have never been precisely defined. Appointments were made as early as May, 1861, of several such associate members, resident in Cincinnati; but no organization of a branch commission was effected until the succeeding fall. Through the instrumentality of Dr. W. H. Mussey, the use of the United States marine hospital, an unfurnished building originally intended for western boatmen, was procured from Secretary Chase, a board of ladies and gentlemen organized for its management, and the house furnished by the donations of citizens, and opened for the reception of sick and wounded soldiers in May, 1861. This institution was carried on without cost to the Government, all necessary services of surgeons and nurses, and all supplies, having been supplied gratuitously until August, 1861, when the success of the enterprise induced the Government to adopt it, and it was taken charge of by the Medical Director of the Department.* * Mrs. Cadwell became its matron. Her name is a sacred one with thousands of soldiers throughout the west. The western secretary of the Sanitary Commission having given notice to the associate members resident in Cincinnati of their appointments, the Cincinnati branch was formally organized, at a meeting at the residence of Dr. W. H. Mussey, November 27, t861. Robert W. Burnet was elected president, George Hoadly, vice-president, Charles R. Fosdick, corresponding secretary, and Henry Pierce, treasurer. The body thus created was left almost wholly without instruction or specification of powers. It had no other charge than to do the best it could with what it could get. It was permitted to work out its own fate by the light of the patriotism and intelligence of its members. If any authority was claimed over it, or power to direct or limit its action, it was not known to the members for nearly two years from the date of its organization. The steps actually taken, however, were from time to time communicated to the United States Sanitary Commission at Washington, and by them approved. Delegates more than once attended the sessions of that body, and were allowed to participate in its action. The Branch were requested to print, as one of the series (No. 44) of the publications of the Commission, their report of their doings to date of March r, 1862 ; and two thousand five hundred copies of the edition were sent to Washington for distribution from that point. Previous to the organization of this Branch, an address had been issued by the United States Sanitary Commission to the loyal women of America, in which the name of Dr. Mussey was mentioned as a proper party to whom supplies might be sent. A small stock had been received by him, which was transferred to the Branch, and circulars were at once prepared and issued appealing to the means of such useful action as might seem open. A Central Ladies' Aid Society in Cincinnati, for Cincinnati and vicinity, was organized,* and the co-operation of more than forty societies of ladies in Hamilton county thus secured. This society, it is proper to add, continued its beneficial connection with the Branch in vigorous activity, furnishing large quantities of supplies of every description, for nearly two years, and until the dispiriting effect of the change hereafter to be noticed, in the relations of the branch to the work of distribution, paralyzed its efforts, and resulted finally in a practical transfer of the labors of the ladies to other fields of no less patriotic service. The camps and hospitals near Cincinnati were subjected to inspection, and all necessary relief was furnished. Concert of action was established with the Volunteer Aid Committee, appointed at a public meeting of citizens in October, 186r, of whom Messrs. C. F. Wilstach, E. C. Baldwin, and M. E, Reeves, were elected members of the Branch. Their rooms, kindly furnished free of expense by the School Board, became its office and depot ; and finally, in the spring of 1862, a complete transfer was made of all the stock in the hands of that committee to the Cincinnati Branch, and the former body was merged in this. Under the stimulus of constant appeals to the public, and by wise use of the means received, the confidence of the community having been gained, large quantities of hospital and camp supplies, and some money, were received, and the members entered with zeal upon the duty of distribution. The force which the United States Sanitary Commission then had in the West, consisted of the Western Secretary and a few inspectors, who were engaged in travelling from camp to camp, without any fixed quarters. The body was not prepared, and did not profess to to undertake this duty. A serious question soon presented itself to the mind of every active member of the Branch whether to prosecute the work of distribution mainly through paid agents, or by means of voluntary service. At times there had been differences of opinion upon the subject, and some of the members have had occasion, with enlarged experience, to revise their views. The result of this experience is to confirm the judgment that the use of paid agents by such an organization, in such crises, is, except to a limited extent, inexpedient. It has been clearly proved that voluntary service can be had to a sufficient extent; and such service connects the army and the people by a constantly renewing chain of gratuitous, valuable, and tender labors, which many who cannot serve in the field esteem it a privilege to be permitted to perform in the sick room and the hospital. The members of this Branch felt at liberty to pledge publicly, in their appeals for contributions, that the work of distribution should be done under their personal supervision, subject of course to the control of the proper medical officers of the army; and, until late in the autumn of 1862, they faithfully kept this pledge, and were able to effect, as they all believed, a maximum of benefit with a minimum of complaint. Fault-finding never ceases while the seasons change; but the * Of which Mrs. George Carlisle was president, and Mrs. Judge Hoadly secretary. All its members were devoted workers. 110 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. finding of fault with the gratuitous services of men well known in a community have no power to injure. While their labors were prosecuted under this plan, nearly every member of the branch was brought into personal contact with the work of distribution. They were present on the battle-field of Shiloh. They were first at Perryville and Fort Donelson, at which place they inaugurated the system of hospital steamers. They called to their aid successfully the services of the most eminent surgeons and physicians, and the first citizens of Cincinnati. They gained the confidence of the legislature of Ohio, which made them an appropriation of three thousand dollars; and of the city council of Cincinnati, who paid them in like manner the sum of two thousand dollars; and of the secretary of war and the quartermaster general, who placed at their control, at Government expense, a steamer, which for months navigated the western waters in the transportation of supplies and the sick and wounded. They fitted out, in whole or in part, thirty-two such steamers, some running under their own management, others under that of the governor of Ohio, the mayor of Cincinnati, the United States sanitary commission and the war department. The relief furnished at Fort Donelson by this Branch constituted a marked and at the same time a novel instance of their mode of management, which may properly receive more specific mention here, as it elicited high praise from the Western Secretary, and the compliment of a vote of encouragement from the United States Sanitary Commission. In this case a handsome sum was at once raised by subscription among the citizens, and the steamer Allen Collier was chartered, loaded with hospital supplies and medicines, placed under the charge of five members of the Branch, with ten volunteer surgeons and thirty-six nurses, and dispatched to the Cumberland River. At Louisville the Western Sanitary accepted an invitation to join the party. It was also found practicable to accommodate on board one delegate from the Columbus and another from the Indianapolis Branch Commission, with a farther stock of supplies from the latter. The steamer reached Donelson in advance of any other relief agency. Great destitution was found to exist—on the field no chloroform at all, and hut little morphia, and on the floating hospital Fanny Bullitt, occupied by three hundred wounded, only two ounces of cerate, no meat for soup, no wood for cooking, and the only bread hard bread—not a spoon or a candlestick. Sufferings corresponded. Happily the Collier bore an ample stock, and, with other parties on a like errand, who soon arrived, the surgeons' task was speedily made lighter, and his patients gained in comfort. The Collier returned after a short delay, bringing a load of wounded to occupy hospitals at Cincinnati, which this Branch had meanwhile, under the authority of General Halleck and with the aid of that efficient and noble officer, Dr. John Moore, then Post Surgeon at Cincinnati, procured and furnished. This was but the beginning of very arduous and extensive services, personally and gratuitously rendered by members of this Branch. They traveled thousands of miles on hospital steamers, on their errands of mercy, and spent weeks and months in laborious service on battle-fields and in camps and hospitals. They aided the Government in the establishment of eight hospitals in Cincinnati and Covington, and suggested and assisted the work of preparing Camp Dennison, seventeen miles distant, as a general hospital for the reception of thousands of patients. They bought furniture, became responsible for rent and the pay of nurses, provided material for the supply-table, hired physicians, and in numberless ways secured that full and careful attention to the care and comfort of the soldiers which, from inexperience, want of means, or the fear of responsibility, would otherwise, during the first and second years of the war, have been wanting. During the period to which allusion has been made, the United States Sanitary Commission had few resources, and those mostly employed in proper service at the East, where the members principally reside. This Branch was called on to aid that body, and, to the extent of its means, responded. At one time (early in 1862) it was supposed impossible to sustain that organization, except by a monthly contribution from each of the several branches, continued for six months; and this Branch was assessed to pay to that end the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars per month for the time specified, which call was met by an advance of the entire sum required, viz.: two thousand three hundred and seventy-five dollars. This sum, small as it now seems in comparison with the enormous contributions of a later date, was then considered no mean subsidy by either of the parties to it. In May, 1862, the Soldiers' Home of the Branch was established, an institution which, since its opening, has entertained with a degree of comfort scarcely surpassed by the best hotels in the city, over eighty thousand soldiers, furnishing them three hundred and seventy-two thou sand meals. It has recently been furnished with one hundred new iron bedsteads, at a cost of five hundred dollars. The establishment and maintenance of the home the members of the Cincinnati branch look upon as one .of their most valuable works, second in importance only to the relief furnished by the " sanitary steamers" dispatched promptly to the battlefields, with surgeons, nurses and stores, and with beds to bring away the wounded and the sick; and they may, perhaps, be permitted with some pride to point to these two important systems of relief inaugurated by them. The necessity for the last mentioned method of relief has nearly passed away; we hope it may soon pass away entirely, never to return. The home long stood, under the efficient superintendence of G. W. D. Andrews, offering food and. rest to the hungry and wayworn soldier, and reminding us of the kind hearts and loyal hands whose patriotic contributions and patient toil, supplementing the aid furnished by the Government through the quartermaster and commissary departments of the army, enabled them to establish it. To this aid of a generous and benign government, dispensed with kindness and alacrity by the officers who have been at the heads of these departments in this city, this institution is indebted, in great measure, for its existence and usefulness. The importance of perpetuating the names of all soldiers whose lives had been or might be sacrificed in the defense of our Government, being an anxious concern of many of the members of our commission, and regarded by them as of so much importance, they early resolved that, so far as they could control the matter, not only should this be done, but that their last resting place should be in a beautiful city of the dead, Spring Grove cemetery. An early interview was had with the trustees, who promptly responded to the wishes of the commission, and gratuitously donated for that purpose a conspicuous lot, near the charming lake, of a circular shape, and in size sufficient to contain three hundred bodies. In addition thereto, this generous association have interred, free of expense for interment, all the soldiers buried there. This lot having become occupied, the commission arranged for another of similar size and shape nearly, for the sum of one thousand five hundred dollars. The subject of the payment of the same having been presented to the legislature of Ohio, the members unanimously agreed that, as a large proportion of those who were to occupy this ground as their last home were the sons of Ohio, it was the proper duty of the State to contribute thereto. In accordance therewith, an appropriation of three thousand dollars was made for the purpose, subject to the approval of His Excellency, Governor Tod. A third circle, of the same size and shape, adjacent to the others, was therefore secured at the same price. The propriety of this expenditure was approved of by the governor, after careful examination of the ground and its value. Two of these lots have been filled, and the third is in readiness for occupancy, should it become necessary. A record is carefully made on the books of the cemetery of the name, age, company and regiment, of each soldier interred there, that relatives, friends and strangers may know, in all time to come, that we for whom their lives were given were not unmindful of the sacrifice they had made, and that we properly appreciate the obligations we are under to them, for their efforts in aiding to secure to us and future generations the blessings of a redeemed and regenerated country. In view of the work of this branch from the commencement, we can not but express our heartfelt gratitude to that kind Providence which has so signally blessed its efforts, and made the commission instrumental in the distribution of the large amount of donations which have been poured into their hands by full and free hearts for the benefit of sufferers who are bravely defending our country and our homes. It will be seen that one and a half per cent. of the cash receipts from the commencement will cover all expenses for clerk-hire, labor, freight, drayage, and other incidental matters; and this comparatively small expense is, in great measure, owing to the extreme liberality—which should here be gratefully acknowledged—of the free use of the telegraph wires, and the free carriage of hundreds of tons of stores by the several express companies, railroads and steamboats. With all this liberality, our supplies would long since have been exhausted by the constantly increasing requirements of our soldiers, had not the sagacity and enterprise of a number of energetic and patriotic gentlemen suggested the idea of and inaugurated the great western sanitary fair of this city, the wonderful result of which realized to the commission over a quarter of a million of dollars. A very large amount of money and sanitary stores was handled by this branch of the commission. From the date of its organization to August 11, 1864 -,long before its final work was done—a total of three hundred and thirteen thousand, nine hundred and twenty-six dollars and thirty cents had come into its treasury, of which there was still on HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 111 hand, in government securities and cash in the bank, the handsome remainder of one hundred and twenty-two thousand, nine hundred and five dollars and fifteen cents. Nearly three hundred different articles had been purchased or received as donations—some of them in great quantity—and used in the soldiers' home or local hospitals, or forwarded to the troops. Among these "sanitary stores" were checkerboards, solitaire boards, puzzles, "pretzels," and some other things, of which people would hardly think in this connection, but which were undoubtedly found useful in aiding the prevention or cure of disease. The total value of the sanitary supplies distributed by the branch to the close of 1863—about the middle of the war—was not far from a million of dollars. The Great Western Sanitary Fair, to which reference is made in the foregoing sketch, had its origin in an impulse received from the success of a similar fair held in Chicago in October, 1863. As a result of consultations between gentlemen of the Sanitary Commission and the National Union association, of some agitation through the newspapers, and several meetings, a very extensive and efficient scheme for such an exposition was set on foot. Mr. Reid says: Presently the whole city was alive with the enthusiasm of a common generous effort. Those who best know the usually staid and undemonstrative Queen City unite in the testimony that she was never before so stirred through all the strata of her society, never before so warm and glowing, for any cause or on any occasion. Churches, citizens' associations, business, men, mechanics, took hold of the work. Committees were appointed, embracing the leading men and the best workers in every walk of life throughout the city; meetings of ladies were held; circulars were distributed; public appeals filled the newspapers." General Rosecrans, who had been temporarily retired from service in the field, but had lost none of his popularity at home, was secured as president of the fair; and his appointment and active efforts contributed largely to its success. The fair was opened by an address from him on the morning of December 21st, and continued through the holidays. So extensive were the preparations that five different halls and buildings—two of them expressly erected for the purpose, in the Fifth and Sixth street market spaces—were needed. Mozart and Greenwood halls, and the Palace Garden, were the permanent buildings occupied. It was a splendid exhibit and bazaar, and led, with the public readings, lectures, and other entertainments gratuitously at the Mozart hall in aid of the movement, to "such a lavish expenditure of money as the city had never before dreamed of." The cash receipts of the enterprise were about ,two hundred and sixty thousand dollars, of which only eight and one-fifth per cent. was absorbed in expenses, and the magnificent sum of two hundred and thirty-five thousand four hundred and six dollars and sixty-two cents was poured into the treasury of the Branch. This was a larger sum, in proportion to population, than was realized from any other fair of the kind, except in Pittsburgh and St. Louis, which came late? and had superior advantages. Mr. Reid says of the operations of this Branch: The largest and most noted organization in Ohio for the relief of soldiers was, of course, the "Cincinnati Branch of the United States Sanitary Commission." This body, throughout its history, pursued a policy little calculated to advance its own fame—admirably adapted to advance the interests of the soldiers for whom it labored. It had but one salaried officer, and it gave him but a meagre support for the devotion of his whole time. It spent no large funds in preserving statistics and multiplying reports of its good works. It entered into no elaborate scientific investigations concerning the best sanitary conditions for large armies. It left no bulky volumes of tracts, discussions, statistics, eulogies, and defences—indeed, it scarcely left a report that might satisfactorily exhibit the barest outline of its work. But it collected and used great sums of money and supplies for the soldiers. First of any considerable bodies in the United States, it sent relief to battle-fields on a scale commensurate with the wants of the wounded. It was the first to equip hospital boats, and it led in the faithful, patient work among the armies, particularly in the west, throughout the war. Its guardianship of the funds committed to its care was held a sacred trust for the relief of needy soldiers. The incidental expenses were -kept down to the lowest possible figure, and were all defrayed out of the interest of moneys in its hands before they were needed in the field—so that every dollar that was committed to it went, at some time or other, directly to a soldier in some needed form. In short, it was business skill and Christian integrity in charge of the people's contributions for their men in the ranks. . . . The Cincinnati Branch of the Sanitary Commission continued to devote its moneys sacredly to the precise purpose for which they were contributed. At the close of the war many thousand. dollars were in the treasury. These it kept invested in United States bonds, using the interest and drawing on the principal from time to time, as it was needed for the relief of destitute soldiers, and specially for their transportation to their homes, in cases where other provision was not made for 'them. Three years after the close of the war, it still had a- remnant of the sacred sum, and was still charging itself as carefully as ever with its disbursement. Another most efficient organization, for which Cincinnati became distinguished during the war, was the local branch of the United States 'Christian commission. The religious elements in the city had been stirred profoundly, and excited to the most ardent patriotism, by the outbreak of the war. Some of the earliest volunteers for military service had been of the city clergy, of whom at least one, the Rev. Granville Moody, achieved great distinction and a brigadier's commission, and most of the Cincinnati pulpits gave forth no uncertain sound in aid of the Union cause. On the third of June, in the first year of the war, the association of Evangelical ministers in the city adopted the following energetic and wholehearted deliverance: Deeply grateful to Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, for his past mercies to this nation, and particularly noting at this time His gracious goodness in leading our fathers to establish and preserve for us a Constitutional Government unequalled among the Governments of the earth in guarding the rights and promoting the entire welfare of a great people—we, the Evangelical ministry of Cincinnati, have been led by a constrained sense of accountability to Him, the author of all our good, and by unfeigned love for our country, to adopt the following. statement : We are compelled to regard the Rebellion which now afflicts our land and jeopardizes some of the most precious hopes of mankind, as the result of a long-contemplated and widespread conspiracy against the principles of liberty, justice, mercy, and righteousness proclaimed in the word of God, sustained by our constitutional Government, and lying at the, foundation of all public and private welfare. In the present conflict, therefore, our Government stands before us as representing the cause of God and man against a rebellion threatening the nation with ruin, in order to perpetuate and speed a system of unrighteous oppression. In this emergency, as ministers of God, we cannot hesitate to support, by every legitimate method, the Government in maintaining its authority unimpaired throughout the whole country and over this whole people. Among other demonstrations of loyalty, Archbishop Purcell had the flag of the Union raised over St. Peter's cathedral in Cincinnati and the churches elsewhere in his diocese, and throughout the war cast his immense influence among his people steadily for the Federal cause. After a time the Cincinnati branch of the United States Christian commission was organized, and did a noble work. It received and disbursed the sum (including eight thousand one hundred and forty-four dollars from the Cleveland branch) of one hundred and seventeen 112 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. thousand and thirty-three dollars, besides stores to the value of two hundred and eighty-nine thousand six hundred and two dollars, and publications worth three thousand and twenty-four dollars. The final statement of the operations of the branch says: "From the opening of the office at No. 57 Vine street, until it closed, an uninterrupted stream of money and stores poured in upon us from the patriotic men and women of the west, and especially of the State of Ohio. Soldiers' aid societies, and ladies' Christian commissions by scores and hundreds, kept us supplied with the means to minister largely to the comfort and temporal wants of our noble boys in blue." Mr. A. E. Chamberlain, of the firm of A. E. Chamberlain & Co., served continuously and faithfully as president of the branch, and gave office and store room without charge. Mr. H. Thane Miller was vice-president; Rev. J. F, Marlay, secretary; Rev. B. W. Chidlaw, general agent; and the committee included some of the best-known Christian workers and residents of the city. The chief events of the war, as most closely related to Cincinnati—the siege of the city and the Morgan raid—are narrated in other chapters. We give here only that portion of the orders issued by General Cox, under direction of General Burnside, during the raid of Morgan, which more particularly concerned the city: HEADQUARTERS, DISTRICT OF OHIO, CINCINNATI, July 13, 1863. I. For the more perfect organization of militia of rhe city of Cincinnati, the city is divided into four districts, as follows : Firsr district, consisting of the First, Third, Fourth, and Seventeenth wards, under command of Brigadier General S. D. Sturgis ; headquarters, Broadway hotel. Second district, consisting of Second, Fifrh, Sixth, and Fourteenth wards, under command of Major Malcolm McDowell ; headquarters, Burnet house. Third district, consisring of Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh wards, under command of Brigadier General Jacob Ammen ; headquarters, orphan asylum. Fourth district, consisting of the Eighth, Twelfth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth wards, under command of Colonel Granville Moody ; headquarters, Finley Methodist Episcopal chapel, on Clinton, near Cutter street. II. The independent volunteer companies will report to Colonel Stanley Matthews ; headquarters at Walnut street house. By command of Brigadier General J. D. Cox. G. M. BASCOM, Assistant Adjutant General. CHAPTER XVII. THE SIEGE OF CINCINNATI.* In the early days of 1862, a new name was growing at once into popular favor and popular fear among the prudent rebels of the Kentucky border. It was first heard of in the achievement of carrying off the artillery belonging to the Lexington company of the Kentucky State guard into the confederate service. Gradually it came to be coupled with daring scouts by little squads of the rebel cavalry, within our contemplative picket lines * From Reid's " Ohio in the War," volume I, chapter 8, by permission, with unimportant omissions and slight changes. along Green river; with sudden dashes, like the burning of the Bacon creek bridge, which the lack of enterprise, or even of ordinary vigilance, on the part of some of our commanders, permitted; with unexpected swoops upon isolated supply-trains or droves of army cattle; with saucy messages about an intention to burn the Yankees of Woodsonville the next week, and the like. Then came dashes within our lines about Nashville, night attacks, audacious captures of whole squads of guards within sight of the camps and within a half a mile of division headquarters; the seizure of Gallatin; adroit expeditions upon telegraph operators, which secured whatever news about the National armies was passing over the wires. Then, after Mitchel had swept down into northern Alabama, followed incursions upon his rear, cotton-burning exploits under the very noses of his guards, open pillage of citizens who had been encouraged by the advance of the National armies to express their loyalty. These acts covered a wide range of country, and followed each other in quick succession; but they were all traced to John Morgan's Kentucky cavalry, and such were their frequency and daring that, by midsummer of 1862, Morgan and his men occupied almost as much of the popular attention in Kentucky and along the borders as Beauregard or Lee. The leader of this band was a native of Huntsville, Alabama, but from early boyhood a resident of Kentucky. He had grown up to the free and easy life of a slave-holding farmer's son, in the heart of the Blue Grass country near Lexington; had become a volunteer for the Mexican war at the age of nineteen, and had risen to a first lieutenantcy; had passed through his share of encounters and "affairs of honor" about Lexington—not without wounds—and had finally married and settled down as a manufacturer and speculator. He had lived freely, gambled freely, shared in all the dissipations of the time and place, and still had retained the early vigor of a powerful constitution and a strong hold upon the confidence of the hot-blooded young men of Lexington. These followed Lim to the war; they were horsemen by instinct, accustomed to a dare-devil life, capable of doing their own thinking in emergencies, without waiting for orders, and in all respects the best material for an independent band of partisan rangers the country has produced. They were allied by family connections with many of the people of the Blue Grass region, and it could but result that, when they appeared in Kentucky—whatever army might be near—they found themselves among friends. The people of Ohio had hardly recovered from the spasmodic efforts to raise regiments in a day for the second defence of the capital, into' which they had been thrown by the call of the Government, in its alarm at Stonewall Jackson's rush through the valley. They were now rather languidly turning to the effort of filling out the new and unexpected call for seventy-four thousand three-years' men. Few had as yet been raised. Here and there through the State were the nuclei of forming regiments, and there were a few arms; but there was no adequate protection for the border, and none dreamed that any was necessary. Beauregard had evacuated Cor- HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 113 inth; Memphis had fallen; Buell was moving eastward toward Chattanooga; the troops lately commanded by Mitchel held Tennessee and northern Alabama ; Kentucky was mainly in the hands of her home guards, and, under the provisions of a State military board, was raising volunteers for the National army. Suddenly, while the newspapers were trying to explain McClellan's change of base and clamoring against Buell's slow advance on Chattanooga, without a word of warning or explanation, came the startling news that John Morgan was in Kentucky! The dispatches of Friday afternoon, the eleventh of July, announced that he had fallen upon the little post of Tompkinsville and killed or captured the entire garrison. By evening it was known that the prisoners were paroled; that Morgan had advanced, unopposed, to Glasgow; that he had issued a proclamation calling upon the Kentuckians to rise; that the authorities deemed it unsafe to attempt sending through trains from Louisville to Nashville. By Saturday afternoon he was reported marching on Lexington, and General Boyle, the commandant in Kentucky, was telegraphing vigorously to Mayor Hatch at Cincinnati, for militia to be sent in that direction. A public meeting was at once called, and by nine o'clock that evening a concourse of several thousand citizens had gathered in the Fifth street market-space. Meantime more and more urgency for aid had been expressed in successive dispatches from General Boyle. In one he fixed Morgan's force at two thousand, eight hundred; in another he said that Morgan, with fifteen hundred men, had burned Perryville, and was marching on Danville; again, that the forces at his command were needed to defend Louisville, and that Cincinnati must defend Lexington! Some of these dispatches were read at the public meeting, and speeches were made by the mayor, Judge Saffin, and others. Finally, a committee was appointed, consisting of Mayor Hatch, Hon. George E. Pugh, Joshua Bates, Thomas J. Gallagher, Miles Greenwood, J. W. Hartwell, Peter Gibson, and J. B. Stallo, to take such measures for organized effort as might be possible or necessary. Before the committee could organize came word that Governor Tod had ordered down such convalescent soldiers as could be gathered at Camp Dennison and Camp Chase, and had sent a thousand stand of arms. A little after midnight two hundred men, belonging to the Fifty-second Ohio, arrived. On Sunday morning the city was thoroughly alarmed. The streets were thronged at an early hour, and by nine o'clock another large meeting had gathered in the Fifth-street market-space. Speeches were made by ex-Senator Pugh, Thomas J. Gallagher, and Benjamin Eggleston. It was announced that a battalion made up of the police force would be sent to Lexington in the evening. Arrangements were made to organize volunteer companies. Charles F. Wilstach and Eli C. Baldwin were authorized to procure rations for volunteers. The city council met, resolved that it would pay any bills incurred by the committees appointed at the public meeting, and appropriated five thousand dollars for immediate wants. Eleven hundred men—parts of the Eighty-fifth and Eighty-sixth Ohio, from Camp Chase—arrived in the afternoon and went directly on to Lexington. The police force, under Colonel Dudley, their chief, and an artillery company with a single piece, under Captain William Glass, of the city fire department, also took the special train for Lexington in the evening. Similar scenes were witnessed across the river at Covington during the same period. While the troops. were mustering, and the excited people were volunteering, it was discovered that a brother of John Morgan was a guest at one of the principal hotels. He made no concealment of his relationship or of his sympathy with the rebel cause, but produced a pass from General Boyle. He was detained. Monday brought no further news of Morgan, and the alarm began to abate. Kentuckians expressed the belief that he only meant to attract attention by feints on Lexington and Frankfort, while he should make his way to Bourbon county and destroy the long Townsend viaduct near Paris, which might cripple the railroad for weeks. The Secretary of War gave permission to use some cannon which Miles Greenwood had been casting for the Government, and Governor Morton, of Indiana, furnished ammunition for them, the Columbus authorities having declined to supply it, except on the requisition of a United States officer commanding a post. The tone of the press may be inferred from the advice of the Gazette that "the bands sent out to pursue Morgan" should take few prisoners—"the fewer the better." "They are not worthy of being treated as soldiers," it continued; "they are freebooters, thieves, and murderers, and should be dealt with accordingly." For a day or two there followed a state of uncertainty as to Morgan's whereabouts or the real nature of the danger. In answer to an application for artillery, the Secretary of War telegraphed that Morgan was retreating. Presently came dispatches from Kentucky that he was still advancing. Governor Dennison visited Cincinnati at the request of Governor Tod, consulted with the "committee of public safety," and passed on to Frankfort to look after the squads of Ohio troops that had been hastily forwarded to the points of danger. The disorderly elements of the city took advantage of the absence of so large a portion of the police force at Lexington. Troubles broke out between the Irish and negroes, in which the former were the aggressors; houses were fired, and for a little time there were apprehensions of a serious riot. Several hundred leading property holders met in alarm at the Merchants' Exchange, and took measures for organizing a force of one thousand citizens for special service the ensuing night. For a day or two the excitement was kept up, but there were few additional outbreaks. While Cincinnati was thus in confusion, and troops were hurrying to the defense of the threatened points, John Morgan was losing no time in idle debates. He had left Knoxville, East Tennessee, on the morning of the fourth of July; on the morning of the ninth he had fallen upon the garrison at Tompkinsville; before one o'clock the next morning he had possession of Glasgow; 15 114 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. by the eleventh he had possession of Lebanon. On the Sunday (thirteenth) on which Cincinnati had been so thoroughly aroused, he entered Harrodsburgh. Then, feigning on Frankfort, he made haste toward Lexington, striving to delay reinforcements by sending out parties to burn bridges, and hoping to find the town an easy capture. Monday morning he was within fifteen miles of Frankfort; before nightfall he was at Versailles, having marched between three and four hundred miles in eight days. Moving thence to Midway, between Frankfort and Lexington, he surprised the telegraph operator, secured his office in good order, took off the dispatches that were flying back and forth; possessed himself of the plans and preparations of the Union officers at Frankfort, Lexington, Louisville and Cincinnati; and audaciously sent dispatches in the name of the Midway operator, assuring the Lexington authorities that Morgan was then driving in the pickets at Frankfort. Then he hastened to Georgetown, twelve miles from Lexington, eighteen from Frankfort, and within easy striking distance of any point in the Blue Grass region. Here, with the union commanders completely mystified as to his whereabouts and purposes, he coolly halted for a couple of days and rested his horses. Then, giving up all thought of attacking Lexington, as he found how strongly it was garrisoned, he decided—as Colonel Duke, his second in command, naively tells us in his History of Morgan's Cavalry—"to make a dash at Cynthiana, on the Kentucky Central railroad, hoping to induce the impression that he was aiming at Cincinnati, and at the same time thoroughly bewilder the officers in command at Lexington regarding his real intentions." Thither, therefore, he went; and to some purpose. The town was garrisoned by a few hundred Kentucky cavalry and some home guards, with Captain Glass' firemen-artillery company from Cincinnati, in all perhaps five hundred men. These were routed after some sharp fighting at the bridge and in the streets; the gun was captured, and four hundred and twenty prisoners were taken, besides abundance of stores, arms, and two or three hundred horses. At one o'clock he was off for Paris, which sent out a deputation of citizens to meet him and surrender. By this time the forces that had been gathering at Lexington had moved against him, under General Green Clay Smith, with nearly double his strength; but the next morning he left Paris unmolested, and marching through Winchester, Richmond, Crab Orchard, and Somerset, crossed the Cumberland again at his leisure. He started with nine hundred men, and returned with one thousand two hundred, having captured and paroled nearly as many, and having destroyed all the Government arms and stores in seventeen towns. Meantime the partially lulled excitement in Cincinnati had risen again. A great meeting had been held in Court street market-space, at which Judge Hugh J. Jewett, who had been the Democratic candidate for governor, made an earnest appeal for rapid enlistments, to redeem the pledge of the government to assist Kentucky, and to prevent Morgan from recruiting a large army in that State. Quartermaster-General Wright had followed in a similar strain. The City Council, to silence doubts on the part of some, had taken the oath of allegiance in a body. The Chamber of Commerce had memorialized the council to make an appropriation for bounties to volunteers; Colonel Burbank had been appointed military governor of the city, in response to a dispatch requesting it, from Mayor Hatch and others; and there had been rumors of martial law and a provost marshal. The popular ferment largely took the shape of clamor for bounties as a means of stimulating volunteers. The newspapers called on the governor to "take the responsibility," and offer twenty-five dollars bounty for every recruit. Public-spirited citizens made contributions for such a purpose—Mr. J. Cleves Short, one thousand dollars, Messrs. Tyler Davidson & Co., one thousand two hundred dollars, Mr. Kugler, two thousand five hundred dollars, Mr. Jacob Elsas, five hundred dollars. Two regiments for service in emergencies were hastily formed, which were known as the Cincinnati Reserves. Yet, withal, the alarm never reached the height of the excitement on Sunday, the thirteenth of July, when Morgan was first reported marching on Lexington. The papers said they should not be surprised any morning to see his cavalry on the hills opposite Cincinnati; but the people seemed to entertain less apprehension. They were soon to have greater occasion for fear. For the invasion of Morgan was only a forerunner. It had served to illustrate to the rebel commanders the ease with which their armies could be planted in Kentucky, and had set before them a tempting vision of the rich supplies of the "Blue Grass." July and August passed in comparative gloom. McClellan was recalled, from the Peninsula. Pope was driven back from the Rapidan, and after a bewildering series of confused and bloody engagements, was forced to seek refuge under the defences at Washington. On the southwest our armies seemed torpid, and the enemy was advancing. In the department in which Ohio was specially interested, there were grave delays in the long-awaited movement on Chattanooga, and finally it appeared that Bragg had arrived there before Buell. Presently vague rumors of a new invasion began to be whispered, and at last, while Bragg and Buell warily watched each the other's maneuvers, Kirby Smith, who had been posted at Knoxville, broke camp and marched straight for the heart of Kentucky, with twelve thousand men and thirty or forty pieces of artillery. With the first rumors of danger, Indiana and Ohio had both made strenuous exertions to throw forward the new levies, and Indiana in particular had hastily put in the field in Kentucky a large number of perfectly raw troops, just from the camps at which they had been recruited. Through Big Creek and Roger's Gap Kirby Smith moved without molestation; passed the National forces at Cumberland Gap without waiting to attempt a reduction of the place ; and absolutely pushed on into Kentucky unopposed, till, within fifteen miles of Richmond and less than three times that distance from Lexington HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 115 itself, he fell upon a Kentucky regiment of cavalry under Colonel Metcalf and scattered it in a single charge. The routed cavalrymen bore back to Richmond and Lexington the first authentic news of the rebel advance. The new troops were hastily pushed forward in utter ignorance of the strength of the enemy, and apparently without any well-defined plans, and so, as the victorious invaders came up toward Richmond, they found this force opposing them. Smith seems scarcely to have halted, even to concentrate his command; but, precipitating the advance of his column upon the raw line that confronted him, scattered it again at a charge (August 29th). General Manson, who commanded the National troops, had been caught before getting his men well in hand. A little farther back he essayed the formation of another line, and the check of the rout; but, while the broken line was steadying, Smith again came charging up, and the disorderly retreat was speedily renewed. A third and more determined stand was made, almost in the suburbs of the town, and some hard fighting ensued ; but the undisciplined and ill-handled troops were no match for their enthusiastic assailants, and when they were this time driven, the rout became complete. The cavalry fell upon the fugitives; whole regiments were captured, and instantly paroled; those who escaped fled through fields and byways and soon poured into Lexington with the story of the disaster. Thither now went hurrying General H. G. Wright, the commander of the department. A glance at the condition of such troops as this battle of Richmond had left him, showed that an effort to hold Lexington would be hopeless. Before Kirby Smith could get up he evacuated the place, and was falling back in all haste on Louisville, while the railroad company was hurrying its stock toward the Cincinnati end of the road ; the banks were sending off their specie; Union men were fleeing, and the predominant rebel element was throwing off all disguise. On the first of September General Kirby Smith entered Lexington in triumph. Two days later he dispatched Heath with five or six thousand men against Covington and Cincinnati ; the next day he was joined by John Morgan, who had moved through Glasgow and Danville; and the overjoyed people of the city thronged the streets and shouted from every door and window their welcome to the invaders. Pollard, the Confederate historian, says the bells of the city were rung, and every possible manifestation of joy was made. A few days later Buell was at Nashville, Bragg was moving into Kentucky, and the "race for Louisville," as it has sometimes been called, was begun. So swift was the rebel rush upon Kentucky and the Ohio border; so sudden the revolution in the aspect of the war in the Southwest. We have told the simple story of the rebel progress. It would need more vivid colors to give an adequate picture of the state into which Cincinnati and the surrounding country were thereby thrown. News of the disaster at Richmond was not received in Cincinnati until a late hour Saturday night, August 30th. It produced great excitement, but the full extent of its consequences was not realized. There were soldiers in plenty to drive back the invaders, it was argued; only a few experienced officers were needed. The sanitary commission hastened its shipments of stores towards the battle-field, and the State authorities began preparations for sending relief to the wounded; while the newspapers gave vent to the general dissatisfaction in severe criticisms on the management of the battle, and in wonders as to what Buell could be doing. Thus Sunday passed. Monday afternoon rumors began to fly about that the troops were in no condition to make any sufficient opposition, that Lexington and Frankfort might have to be abandoned. Great crowds flocked about the newspaper offices and army headquarters to ask the particulars; but all still thought that in any event there were plenty of troops between the invaders and themselves. By dusk it was known that, instead of falling back upon Cincinnati, the troops were retreating through Frankfort to Louisville—that between Kirby Smith's flushed regiments and the banks and warehouses of the Queen City stood no obstacle more formidable than a few unmanned siege guns back of Covington, and the easily crossed Ohio river. The shock was profound. But none thought of anything, save to seek what might be the most efficient means of defence. The city council at once met in extra session, pledged the faith of the city to meet any expenses the military authorities might require in the emergency; authorized the mayor to suspend all business and summon every man, alien or citizen, who lived under the protection of the Government, to unite in military organizations for its defence; assured the general commanding the department (General Wright) of their entire confidence, and requested him to call for men and means to any extent desired, no limit being proposed save the entire capacity of the community. While the municipal authorities were thus tendering the whole resources of the city of a quarter of a million people, the commander of the department was sending them a general. Lewis Wallace was a dashing young officer of volunteers, who had been among the first from Indiana to enter the field at the outbreak of the war, and had risen to the highest promotion then attainable in the army. He was notably quick to take responsibilities, full of energy and enthusiasm, abundantly confident in his own resources, capable of bold plans. When the first indications of danger appeared he had waived his rank and led one of the raw regiments from his State into the field. Then, after being for a short time in charge of the troops about Lexington, he had, on being relieved by General Nelson, returned to Cincinnati. Here the commander of the department seized upon him for service in the sudden emergency, summoning him first to Lexington for consultation; then, when himself hastening to Louisville, ordered Wallace back to Cincinnati, to assume command and defend the town, with its Kentucky suburbs. He arrived at nine o'clock in the evening. The mayor waited upon him at once with notice of the action of the city council. The mayors of Newport and Covington soon came hurrying over. The few army officers on 116 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. duty in the three towns also reported; and a few hours were spent in consultation. Then, at 2 A. M., the decisive step was taken, a proclamation of martial law was sent to the newspapers. Next morning the citizens read at their breakfast tables—before yet any one knew that the rebels were advancing on Cincinnati, two days in fact before the advance began—that all business must be suspended at nine o'clock; that they must assemble within an hour thereafter and await orders for work; that the ferry-boats should cease plying, save under military direction; that for the present the city police should enforce martial law that in all this the principle to be adopted was: "Citizens for labor, soldiers for battle." It was the boldest and most vigorous order in the history of Cincinnati or of the war along the border.* "If the enemy should not come after all this fuss," said one of the general's friends, "you will be ruined." "Very well," was the reply ; "but they will come, or, if they do not, it will be because this same fuss has caused them to think better of it." The city took courage from the bold course of its general; instead of a panic there was universal congratulation. "From the appearance of our streets," said one of the newspapers the next day, in describing the operations of martial law, "a stranger would imagine that some popular holiday was being celebrated. Indeed, were the millenium suddenly inaugurated, the populace could hardly seem better pleased." All cheerfully obeyed the order, though there was not military force enough present to have enforced it along a single street. Every business house was closed; in the unexpectedly scrupulous obedience to the letter of the proclamation, even the streetcars stopped running, and the teachers, closing their schools, reported for duty. But few hacks or wagons were to be seen, save those on Government service. Working parties of citizens had been ordered to report to Colonel J. V. Guthrie; companies of citizen soldiers to Major Malcolm McDowell. Meetings assembled in every ward; great numbers of military organizations were * The following is the text of this remarkable order, which practically saved Cincinnati: PROCLAMATION. The undersigned, by order of Major-Gel-lb-al Wright, assumes command of Cincinnati, Covington, and Newport. It is but fair to inform the citizens that an active, daring, and powerful enemy threatens them with every consequence of war; yet the cities must be defended, and their inhabitants must assist in preparations. Patriotism, duty, honor, self-preservation, call them to the labor, and it must be performed equally by all citizens. First. All business must be suspended. At nine o'clock to-day every business house must be closed. Second. Under the direction of the Mayor, the citizens must, within an hour after the suspension of business (ten o'clock A. m.), assemble in convenient public places ready for orders. As soon as possible they will then be assigned to their work. This labor ought to be that of love, and the undersigned trusts and believes it will be so. Anyhow, it must be done. The willing shall be properly credited, the unwilling promptly visited. The principle adopted is, citizens for the labor, soldiers for the battle. Third. The ferry-boats will cease plying the river after four o'clock A. M., until further orders. Martial law is hereby proclaimed in the three cities; but until they can be relieved by the military, the injunctions of this proclamation will be executed by the police. LEWIS WALLACE, Major General Commanding. formed; by noon thousands of citizens in fully organized companies were industriously drilling. Meanwhile, back of Newport and Covington, breastworks, rifle-pits, and redoubts had been hastily traced, guns had been mounted, pickets thrown out. Toward evening a sound of hammers and saws arose from the landing; by daybreak a pontoon bridge stretched from Cincinnati to Covington, and wagons loaded with lumber for barracks and material for fortifications were passing over. In such spirit did Cincinnati herself confront the sudden danger. Not less vigorous was the action of the governor. While Wallace was writing his proclamation of martial law, and ordering the suspension of business, Tod was hurrying down to the scene of danger for consultation. Presently he was telegraphing from Cincinnati to his adjutant-general to send whatever troops were accessible without a moment's delay. " Do not wait," he added, "to have them mustered or paid—that can be done here—they should be armed and furnished ammunition." To his quartermaster he telegraphed: "Send five thousand stand of arms for the militia of the city, with fifty rounds of ammunition. Send also forty rounds for fifteen hundred guns (sixty-nine calibre)." To the people along the border, through the press and the military committees, he said : Our southern border is threatened with invasion. I have therefore to recommend that all the loyal men of your counties at once form themselves into military companies and regiments to beat back the enemy at any and all points he may attempt to invade our State. Gather up all the arms in the county, and furnish yourselves with ammunition for the same. The service will be of but few days' duration. The soil of Ohio must not be invaded by the enemies of our glorious Government. To Secretary Stanton he telegraphed that he had no doubt a large rebel force was moving against Cincinnati, but it would be successfully met. The commander at Camp Dennison he directed to guard the track of the Little Miami railroad against apprehended dangers, as far up as Xenia. The rural districts were meanwhile hastening to the rescue. Early in the day—within an hour or two after the arrival of the Cincinnati papers with news of the danger—Preble and Butler counties telegraphed offers of large numbers of men. Warren, Greene, Franklin, and half a score of others, rapidly followed. Before night the governor had sent a general answer in this proclamation : CINCINNATI, September 2, 1862. In response to several communications tendering companies and squads of men for the protection of Cincinnati, I announce that all such bodies of men who are armed will be received. They will repair at once to Cincinnati, and report to General Lew Wallace, who will complete their further organization. None but armed men will be received, and such only until the fifth instant. Railroad companies will pass all such bodies of men at the expense of the State. It is not desired that any troops residing in any of the river counties leave their counties. All such are requested to organize and remain for the protection of their own counties. DAVID TOD, Governor. Before daybreak the advance of the men that were thenceforward to be known in the history of the State as the "Squirrel Hunters," were filing through the streets. Next morning, throughout the interior, church and fire-bells rang; mounted men galloped through neighborhoods to spread the alarm; there was a hasty cleaning of HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 117 rifles and moulding of bullets and filling of powder-horns and mustering at the villages; and every city-bound train ran burdened with the gathering host. While these preparations were in progress, perhaps Cincinnati might have been taken by a vigorous dash of Kirby Smith's entire force, and held long enough for pillage. But the inaction for a day or two at Lexington was fatal to such hopes. Within two days after the proclamation of martial law the city was safe beyond peradventure. Then, as men saw the vast preparations for an enemy that had not come, they began, not unnaturally, to wonder if the need for such measures had been imperative. A few business men complained. Some Germans began tearing up a street-railroad track, in revenge for the invidious distinction which, in spite of the danger, had adjudged the street-cars indispensable, but not the lager-beer shops. The schools had unintentionally been closed by the operation of the first sweeping proclamation, and fresh orders had to be issued to open them; bake-shops had been closed, and the people seemed in danger of getting no bread; the drug-stores had been closed, and the sick could get no medicines. Such oversights were speedily corrected, but they left irritation.* The Evening Times newspaper, giving voice to a sentiment that undoubtedly began to find expression among some classes, published a communication which pro. nounced the whole movement "a big scare," and ridiculed the efforts to place the city in a posture of defense. t To at least a slight extent the commander of the Department would seem to have entertained the same opinion. After two days of martial law and mustering for the defense of the city, he directed, on his return from Louisville, a relaxation of the stringency of the first orders, and notified Governor Tod that no more men from the interior were wanted. The next day he relieved General Wallace of the command in Cincinnati and sent him across the river to take charge of the defences; permitted the resumption of all business save liquor selling, only requiring that it should be suspended each afternoon at *The following order, issued by the mayor, with the sanction of General Wallace, obviated the difficulties involved in the literal suspension of all business in a great city : First. The banks and bankers of this city will be permitted to open their offices from one to two P. M. Second. Bakers are allowed to pursue their business. Third. Physicians are allowed to attend their patients. Fourth. Employes of newspapers are allowed to pursue their business. Fifth. Funerals are permitted, but only mourners are allowed to leave the city. Sixth. All coffee-houses and places where intoxicating liquors are sold, are to be closed and kept closed. Seventh. Eating and drinking-houses are to close and keep closed. Eighth. All places of amusement are to close and keep closed. Ninth. All drug-stores and apothecaries are permitted to keep open and do their ordinary business. GEORGE HATCH, Mayor of Cincinnati. + Within an hour or two after this publication, General Wallace suppressed the Times; for this article, as was generally supposed, although it was subsequently stated that the offensive matter was an editorial reviewing the military management on the Potomac. The zealous loyalty of the paper had always been so marked that General Wallace was soon made to feel the popular conviction of his having made a grave mistake, and the next day the Times was permitted to appear again as usual. four o'clock, and that the evenings should be spent in drill; systematized the drain upon the city for labor on the fortifications, by directing that requisitions be made each evening for the number to be employed the next day, and that these be equitably apportioned among the several wards.* The day before the issue of this order had witnessed the most picturesque and inspiring sight ever seen in Cincinnati. From morning till night the streets resounded with the tramp of armed men marching to the defence of the city. From every quarter of the State they came, in every form of organization, with every species of arms. The "Squirrel Hunters," in their homespun, with powder-horn and buckskin pouch; half-organized regiments, some in uniform and some without it, some having waited long enough to draw their equipments and some having marched without them; cavalry and infantry ;—all poured out from the railroad depots and down toward the pontoon bridge. The ladies of the city furnished provisions by the wagon-load; the Fifth-street market-house was converted into a vast free eating saloon for the Squirrel Hunters; halls and warehouses were used as barracks. On the fourth of September Governor Tod was able to telegraph General Wright : "I have now sent you for Kentucky twenty regiments. I have twenty-one more in process of organization, two of which L will send you this week, five or six next week, and the rest the week after. I have no means of knowing what number of gallant men responded to my call (on the militia) for the protection of Cincinnati; but presume they now count by thousands." And the next day he was forced to check the movement: COLUMBUS, September 5, 1862. To the Press: The response to my proclamation asking volunteers for the protection of Cincinnati was most noble and generous. All may feel proud of the gallantry of the people of Ohio. No more volunteers are required for the protection of Cincinnati. Those now there may be expected home in a few days. I advise that the military organizations throughout the State, formed within the past few days, be kept up, and that the members meet at least once a week for drill. Recruiting for the old regiments is progressing quite satisfactorily, and with continued effort there is reason to believe that the requisite number may be obtained by the fifteenth instant. For the want of proper accommodations at this point, recruiting officers are directed .to report their men at the camp nearest their locality, where they will remain until provision can be made for their removal. Commanding officers of the several camps will see that every facility is given necessary for the comfort of these recruits. DAVID TOD, Governor. *This order, which was hailed by the business community as sensible and timely, and which certainly gave great mitigation to the embarrassments caused by the suspension of business, was as follows: "HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO, } "CINCINNATI, September 6, 1862. "General Order No. 11. "The resumption of all lawful business in the city of Cincinnati, except the sale of liquor, is hereby authorized until the hour of four o'clock P. M., daily. "All druggists, manufacturers of breadstuffs, provision dealers, railroad, express and transfer companies, persons connected with the public press, and all persons doing business for the Government, will be allowed to pursue their vocations without interruption. "By command of Major General Wright. "N. H. McLEAN, "Assistant Adjutant General and Chief of Staff." 118 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. The exertions at Cincinnati, however, were not abated. Judge Dickson, a well-known lawyer of the city, of radical Republican politics, organized a negro brigade for labor on the fortifications, which did excellent and zealous service. Full details of white citizens, three thousand per day—judges, lawyers and clerks, merchant-prince and day-laborer, artist and artisan, side by side—were also kept at work with the spade, and to all payment of a dollar per day was promised. The militia organizations were kept up; "regiments of the reserve" were formed; and drilling went on vigorously. The Squirrel Hunters were entertained in rough but hearty fashion, and the ladies continued to furnish bountiful supplies of provisions. Across the river regular engineers had done their best to give shape to the hasty fortifications. The trenches were manned every night, and after an imperfect fashion a little scouting went on in the front. General Wallace was vigilant and active, and there was no longer a possibility that the force under Kirby Smith could take the city. At last the rebel detachment which had marched northward under General Heath began to move up as if actually intending attack. One or two little skirmishes occurred; and the commander of the department, deceived into believing that now was the hour of his greatest peril, appealed hastily to Governor Tod for more militia. The governor's response was prompt: COLUMBUS, September to, 5862. [To the Press of Cleveland.] To the several Military Committees of Northern Ohio: By telegram from Major-General Wright, commander-in-chief of western forces, received at two o'clock this morning, I am directed to send all armed men that can be raised immediately to Cincinnati. You will at once exert yourselves to execute this order. The men should be armed, each furnished with a blanket, and at least two days' rations. Railroad companies are requested to furnish transportation of troops to the exclusion of all other business. DAVID TOD, Governor. The excitement in the city once more sprang up. Every disposition was made for defence, and the attack was hourly expected. The newspapers of September nth announced that before they were distributed the sound of artillery might be heard on the heights of Covington; assured readers of the safety of the city, and exhorted all to "keep cool." Business was again suspended, and the militia companies were under arms. The intrenchments back of Covington were filled; and, lest a sudden concentration might break through the lines at some spot and leave the city at the mercy of the assailants, the roads leading to it were guarded, and only those provided with passes could travel to or fro, while the river was filled with gunboats, improvised from the steamers at the wharves. But the expected attack did not come. As we now know, Kirby Smith had never been ordered to attack, but only to demonstrate; and about this very time the advance of Buell seemed to Bragg so menacing that he made haste to order Smith back to his support. General Wallace gradually pushed out his advance a little, and the rebel pickets fell back. By the eleventh all felt that the danger was over. On the twelfth Smith's hasty retreat was discovered. On the thirteenth Governor Tod checked the movement of the Squirrel Hunters, an nounced the safety of Cincinnati, and expressed his congratulations. On this bright Saturday afternoon the "regiments of the reserve" came marching across the pontoon bridge, with their dashing commander at the head of the column. Joyfully these young professional and business men traced their way through Front, Broadway, and Fourth streets to the points where they were relieved from the restraints of military service, and permitted to seek the pleasures and rest of home. An examination of the dockets and daybooks of that eventful fortnight will show that the citizens of Cincinnati were absent from their usual vocations; but Monday, the fifteenth, brought again to the counting-rooms and workshops the busy hum of labor. General Wallace took his leave of the city he had so efficiently served in a graceful and manly address: To the people of Cincinnati, Newport, and Covington: For the present, at least, the enemy has fallen back, and your cities are safe. It is the time for acknowledgments: I beg leave to make you mine. When I assumed command, there was nothing to defend you with, except a few half-finished works and some dismounted guns; yet I was confident. The energies of a great city are boundless; they have only to be aroused, united and directed. You were appealed to. The answer will never be forgotten. Paris may have seen something like it in her revolutionary days, but the cities of America never did. Be proud that you have given them an example so splendid. The most commercial of people, you submitted to a total suspension of business, and without a murmur adopted my principle, "citizens for labor, soldiers for battle." In coming time strangers, viewing the works on the hills of Newport and Covington, will ask, "Who built these intrenchments?" You can answer, "We built them." If they ask, "Who guarded them?" you can reply, " We helped in thousands." If they inquire the result, your answer will be, "The enemy came and looked at them, and stole away in the night." You have won much honor. Keep your organizations ready to win more. Hereafter be always prepared to defend yourselves. LEWIS WALLACE, Major General Commanding. He had done some things not wholly wise, and had brought upon the people much inconvenience not wholly necessary. But these were the inevitable necessities of the haste, lack of preparation, and the pressure of the emergency. He took grave responsibilities, adopted a vigorous and needful policy, was prompt and peremptory when these qualities were the only salvation of the city. He will be held in grateful remembrance so long as Cincinnati continues to cherish the memory of those who do her service. As the regiments from the city were relieved from duty, so the Squirrel Hunters were disbanded and sought the routes of travel homeward, carrying with them the thanks of a grateful populace. While the attack was expected, there were many in Cincinnati who thought that the enemy might really be amusing the force on the front while preparing to cross the river at Maysville, above, and so swoop down on the city on the undefended side. To the extent of making a raid into Ohio at least, such an action was actually entertained, and was subsequently undertaken by Colonel Basil W. Duke, of John Morgan's command, who was left to occupy the forces near Cincinnati as long as possible after Kirby Smith's withdrawal. He went so far as HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 119 to enter Augusta, on the river above Cincinnati, where he was encountered by a determined party of home guards, and given so bloody a reception that after a desperate little street-fight he was glad to abandon his movement and fall back in haste to Falmouth, and thence, soon after, toward the rest of the retreating forces. Work on the fortifications was prudently continued, and some little time passed before the city lapsed into its accustomed ways; but the "siege of Cincinnati" was over. The enemy was before it about eight days—at no time twelve thousand strong. As most of those who were in charge of the operations during the siege were Cincinnatians, a list of the whole is subjoined: On the staff of Governor Wallace —Chief of Staff, Colonel J. C. Elston, jr.; Chief of Artillery, Major C. M. Willard; Aid-de-camps, Captains James M. Rose, A. J. Ware, jr., James F. Troth, A. G. Sloo, G. P. Edgar, E. T. Wallace; Volunteer Aid-de-camps, Colonel J. V. Guthrie, Lieutenant Colonel G. W. Neff, Majors Malcolm McDowell, E. B. Dennison, Captains James Thompson, A. S. Burt, Thomas Buchanan Read, S. C. Erwin, J. J. Henderson, J. C. Belman. Negro Brigade, Camp Shaler.—Commander, Judge Dickson; Commissary, Hugh McBirney; Quartermaster, J. S. Hill. Fatigue Forces,—In charge, Colonel J. V. Guthrie; Commissary, Captain Williamson; Quartermaster, Captain George B. Cassilly. Camp Mitchell.—Under Captain Titus. Camp Anderson.—Under Captain Storms. Camp Shaler, back of Newport.—Under Major Winters. River Defence.—In charge, R. M. Corwine; Aid, William Wiswell, jr. Men in Mill Creek, Green, Storrs, Delhi, Whitewater, Miami, Columbia, Spencer, and Anderson townships subject to orders of above. Collection of Provisions.— Committee appointed by General Wallace: William Chidsey, T. F. Rogers, T. Horton, T. F. Shaw,-and A. D. Rogers. In command of Cincinnati.—Military Commander, Lieutenant Colonel S. Burbank, U. S. A.; Aid, John B. Caldwell; Provost Marshal, A. E. Jones. Employment of Laborers for Fortifications.—Hon. A. F. Perry, assisted by Hon. Benjamin Eggleston, Charles Thomas, and Thomas Gilpin. CHAPTER XVIII. CINCINNATI'S NINTH DECADE-1880. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY. January was the eventful month of this year. On the fifteenth a stone wall at the corner of Third and Elm streets fell with destructive effect, crushing buildings and burying one or two persons in the ruins. On the seventeenth a remarkably curious storm of thunder and lightning occurred. On the thirtieth Colonel John Riddle, of the old Cincinnati family, departed this life, followed May 2d by Mr. Adam N. Riddle. February 19, the Kentucky legislature was given a banquet in Cincinnati, to prepossess the members in favor of legislation in behalf of the Southern railroad. On the twentieth Cavagna's dairy, with valuable blooded stock, was burned. April 8th, Policeman Sears lost his life by violence, at the hands of George Lynch. July 9th, George Jaques was killed by a fall from the spire of the new St. Paul's Methodist church. June 16, the new Sxngerfest hall was opened, and-in the same, September 6th, the first great, industrial exposition was formally opened. The census of the year developed a population of two hundred and sixteen thousand two hundred and thirty-nine. Families, forty-four thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven; average number in each family, five and four-hundredths persons; dwellings, twenty-four thousand five hundred and fifty; persons in each dwelling, average, eight and eighty-one hundredths; new structures in the county, one thousand and thirty-four; valuation of them, two million four hundred thousand five hundred and ninety dollars; churches in the county, two hundred and twenty-five; church buildings, two hundred and fourteen; valuation, five million one hundred and eight thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine. The vast majority of new structures and churches, of course, belonged to the city. The annexations of the year to the corporation of Cincinnati aggregated twelve and three-fourths square miles. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-ONE. Down to and including this year, we have been indebted for many items in these annals to the enterprise of the Cincinnati Daily Commercial, which, in its issue of January r, 1872, comprised several columns of notes of events in the city, from the beginnings to that date. For our annals of the decade we acknowledge indebtedness almost exclusively to such of the local papers as have published, at the close of a year or the beginning of the next, chronological statements of the leading events of the twelve-month. This year was constructed the fine Odd Fellows' hall, on Fourth street, at the northeast corner of Home, built at a cost of seventy thousand dollars, exclusive of the ground on which it stands. Cincinnati was declared a port of entry. January 6th, died Dr. Wesley Smead, a leading founder of the widows' home and one of the old bankers of the city. On the twenty-second the Central Christian church, on Ninth street, is dedicated. On the thirtieth, the Cincinnati Firemen's Relief society is organized. February 4th, there was a grand jubilee of the Germans throughout the city, over the unification of the Fatherland; fifth, the Evangelical Lutheran church, on Race street, is dedicated} twenty-first, fire at the Bethel —damage fifteen thousand dollars. March 17th, death of Colonel William Schillinger, an old resident, aged eighty-nine. April 3th, the new bicameral city council holds its first meeting, with a board of aldermen and a board of councilmen. May 3d, the United States Distillers' association meets at the Burnet house; fifth, fire in Blymyer, Norton & Company's factory—loss forty thousand dollars; fifteenth, great fire on Sycamore street; Mills, Johnson & Company's whiskey establishment burned out—loss two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, insurance one hundred and twenty-one thousand five hundred dollars. June 5th, the extensive picnic riot at Parlor Grove; 120 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. twenty-fifth, demonstration by the Catholics, in celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Pius Ninth's pontificate. July 2d, rededication of St. John's Methodist Episcopal church, corner Longworth and Park streets; during the month generally, and for some time before and after, much agitation on both sides about the observance of Sunday.; August 8th, corner stone of new Odd Fellows' hall, corner of Fourth and Home streets, laid with imposing ceremonies. September 6th, opening of the Second Industrial exposition with great eclat; eighteenth, President Grant visits the city; twenty-second, purchase of the Markley farm, for water works purposes, voted by the board of aldermen; twenty-fourth, laying of corner stone of Church of the Atonement (Catholic), on Third street; thirtieth, one death from yellow fever. October 5th, dedication of the Tyler-Davidson fountain; ninth, contribution of one hundred thousand dollars by the city, and fifty-five thousand one hundred and eighty-five by citizens, for relief of sufferers by the Chicago fire; twenty-fourth, the board of councilmen ratify the purchase of the Markley farm. November 26th, dedication of McLean chapel, on Ninth street, near Freeman. December 23d, first meeting of the "Reunion and Reform" organization, in the college building; twenty-sixth, the park commissioners recommend the purchase of Burnet woods for a park. The city has a notable visitor this year in Sir James Macaulay, M. A., M. D., of Edinburgh, the editor of the Leisure Hour. He gives two interesting and frank, but agreeable chapters to Cincinnati, in his book of travels, Across the Ferry, subsequently published. We make only the following extracts: To a traveler going westward, Cincinnati may appear a half-grown, half-settled, recent city ; but, coming back upon it as I did from Chicago, it had a staid, compact, and almost venerable look. Smoke has helped to impart this aspect of premature antiquity. It is one of the smokiest and "Auld Reekie" like cities in America. The brick-built streets have a sombre appearance in the older districts. Forty years ago, when Chicago was beginning its existence, Cincinnati had its court house, gaol, college, medical school, museum, public library, five classical schools, forty-seven common schools, and twenty-five churches, and was a place of great trade and extensive manufactures. I consider Cincinnati at the present time one of the most " representative" and fairly average of the great 'cities of the States. It is equally removed from the condition of the older cities of the east and the south, and of the newer cities of the west, such as Chicago or San Francisco. Boston and Philadelphia, Charleston and New Orleans, date from old . British times, and, with Republican institutions, retain the continuity of social life and historical tradition from before the War of Independence. Cincinnati has sprung up since American nationality began, but has existed long enough to acquire all the distinctive features of American life and character, both soeial and political. The foreign or immigrant element, both Irish and continental, in its population, is larger, and influences the affairs of the city in the same ways, and much in the same proportion, as they do the whole Union. The difficulties which American statesmen have to encounter, in political and social life, from diversities of nationality and of religion, here present themselves in a marked manner. Observing this, I saw that in Cincinnati I could study the present position and future prospects of the American republic better than sin most other cities, and therefore prolonged my stay beyond the proportion of time required for mere sight-seeing ; in which, indeed, there is not much to attract the traveler. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-TWO. The total mortality of the city this year was singularly large, being five thousand two hundred and nineteen, or one in every forty-one and thirty-five hundredths of the population. This was due largely, however, to the terrible devastations of small-pox, which swept off one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine of the inhabitants. Robinson's opera house was built this year, at the northwest corner of Ninth and Plum streets, by John Robinson, the veteran circus manager. The extensive cellar underneath was constructed for the purpose mainly of wintering his menagerie, February 1st, the national convention for the amendment of the constitution so as to recognize Christianity, met in Cincinnati; on the eleventh, the Christian church on Ninth street was dedicated; on the twentieth, the Merrell drug mill, on Third street, was burned, with a loss of fifty thousand dollars. March 3d, the board of trade rooms, at No. 122 Vine street, were opened; on the sixth, six steamers burned at the public landing—loss two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; on the eighteenth, terrible boiler explosion at Woods & Conahan's soap-factory, on Central avenue, killing two men and three children, and injuring others. April 7th, deaths of George Shillito and Colonel Henry W. Burdsal; ninth, a sixteen-foot rise in the Ohio in twenty-four hours—heavy loss of coal in barges; fourteenth, funeral services at Wesley chapel of Rev. M. P. Gaddis, and consecration services at St. Peter's of the Catholic bishops Dwenger and Gilmour; seventeenth, strike and riotous demonstrations of coal shovelers and cart drivers; twenty-second, coal exchange organized; twenty-sixth, new Odd Fellows' temple on Fourth street dedicated. In May the National Liberal Convention meets at Exposition hall, and on the third nominates Horace Greeley for President and B. Gratz Brown for Vice President; nineteenth, robbery and riot at the East End; twenty-second, terrible tornado in the eastern suburbs. June 4th, reception of the musical composer, Franz Abt. July l0th, meeting of the National Society of stove manufacturers at College hall; fourth, death of Mr. William Smith, ex-superintendent of the Chamber of Commerce, and editor of the Price Current. August 16th, first prosecutions in the city under the Adair liquor law, creating great sensation among the liquor dealers. September 2d, death of Mr. Henry J. Miller, ex-president of the Cincinnati Gas and Coke company, at Niagara Falls; fourth, opening of the Third Industrial Exposition; eighth, organization of the Newsboys' and Bootblacks' association; twentieth, visit of Horace Greeley to the city, and enthusiastic reception. October 5th and 7th, attacks on political processions and small riots; eighteenth, Burnet Woods leased by the city. November 8th, the epizootic appears among the horses, and thirteenth and fourteenth, the citizens organize to drag the fire-engines. HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 121 December 9th, the Bethel fair opened in Exposition Hall ; four men killed and others injured by the fall of a scaffold at the water works ; twentieth and twenty-second, intensely cold weather—a drunken man freezes to death, and several kitchen-range pipes explode, with serious results; twenty-eighth, one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars voted to aid the construction of the Chesapeake & Cincinnati railroad. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE. The annexations of suburban tracts to the city were substantially completed this year by the admission of Columbia February r, 1873, of Cumminsville March 18th, and Woodburn June 9th, all together amounting to four and one-fourth square miles, and increasing the area of the city to fifteen thousand, two hundred and sixty acres, or twenty-four square miles. In 187o it had but seven square miles, or four thousand, four hundred and eighty acres, on which dwelt over two hundred thousand people, making Cincinnati the most densely-crowded city in America, and almost in the world. The new Ohio & Mississippi railroad depot, on the corner of Mill and Front streets, was erected this year. This was the year of the great financial panic following the suspension of the banking-house of Jay Cooke & Company, at Philadelphia, in September. Cincinnati, met the storm bravely, although much suffering was expected, especially during the winter, among the families of operatives and others thrown out of employment. But Mayor Johnston, in his next succeeding message, was enabled to present this encouraging view: There was a stagnation of business; a large number of public and private improvements were suspended. Laborers were thrown out of employment, and that expressive term called "hard times" was everywhere in vogue. From this state of things, Cincinnati was a sufferer, hut probably in a less degree than almost any other city. The panic, in fact, brought into strong relief the solid capital and comparatively small liabilities of our citizens, and we were thus enabled better to weather the storm, which was so destructive to other communities that were not in our favorable condition. Not only was our wealth tried and vindicated, but there was a similar triumphant result on the side of charity and humanity. While many of our wealthy citizens were contributing to relieve, so far as they could, the unfortunate, the municipal authorities also took prompt and energetic action. Soup and lodging houses were established and placed in charge of a committee of Council, and thereby a large amount of suffering and destitution was relieved or prevented. It was also properly deemed advisable that such public works as were of an indispensable character should be pushed vigorously forward, in order to afford the largest amount of employment to our laboring population. By these means the winter, which providentially was a very mild one, was passed without bringing with it that misery which was so generally feared and anticipated. With the opening of spring there is no disagreeable change. Not in several years have there been so many building permits applied for as at the present time ; and this is one of the best signs of returning prosperity. The future has a more promising appearance than was deemed possible a few months ago, and I think the indications are not to be mistaken that the progress of Cincinnati, in the increase of its wealth and in its general prosperity, will be more marked in the decade now nearly half through than at any previous period of its history. Epidemic or Asiatic cholera also came this year, to add another scourge to the calamities of 1873. The first death from this source was reported on the fourteenth of June; the last fatal case terminated October 18th. Meanwhile two hundred and seven persons died of it in the city, being one in every one thousand one hundred and ninety-three of population, besides some deaths probably of this disease, but reported as caused by cholera infanturn, cholera morbus, and acute diarrhoea. These, it was noted, were greater in number than the average from such reported causes in other years. The Board of Health was active and efficient in sanitary precautions for the city, in exhortations to citizens and otherwise; but all their efforts were unable completely to avert the scourge. An interesting and elaborate special report upon Cholera in Cincinnati in 1873 was subsequently made by Dr. J. T. Quinn, health officer, and is embodied in the annual reports of the city for this year. Some deaths from the disease also occurred at Carthage, seven miles from the city. This year was comparatively uneventful. January 9th four fires occurred in the city within twenty-four hours. February 4th the Globe rolling mill was burned, with a loss of seventy-five thousand dollars; ninth, the new rooms of the McMicken School of Design were formally opened; twentieth, the County Infirmary, at Carthage, was opened. March 12th, the ordinance for the annexation of Cumminsville was adopted by the people; fifteenth, Judge Humphrey Leavitt, formerly of the United States District Court for Southern Ohio, died. May 6th, the Musical Festival was hopefully opened; ninth, the funeral of Bishop Mcllvaine, who died March 14th, at Florence, Italy, was attended; sixteenth, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Animals began active operations. June 8th, a great fire occurred in coal-oil stores, destroying one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars' Worth of property, and turning thirty families out of doors; thirteenth, second coal-oil fire, costing thirty-five thousand dollars; sixteenth, the cholera appeared in the city. July 1st, five of the street-railway companies consolidated; twenty-fifth, death of Stephen Molitor, a prominent German editor; twenty-eighth, the corner-stone of the Second Presbyterian church is laid. August 14th, Probate Judge William Tilden died at Sandusky; seventeenth, death of Major Daniel Gano, for many years clerk of the county, from paralysis; twenty-eighth, the corner-stone of Mt. Lookout Observatory is laid. September 2d, the Cincinnati stock-yards are opened, and the Fourth Industrial Exposition. October 13th, the City Council appropriates fifteen thousand dollars for the relief of the sufferers from yellow fever at Memphis, and there is general resumption of payments by the banks. November 7th, 'death of Platt Evans, sr.; one hundred thousand dollars city bonds voted for park improvements. December 12th, the first contract on the Southern railroad is awarded, and the amount allowed by the courts to owners of the site of the government building is fixed at six hundred and ninety-five thousand one hundred and thirty-three dollars and sixty-three cents; fifteenth and sixteenth, workingmen's troubles—a committee wait upon the mayor to demand relief, and issues a manifesto; second and twenty-third, the adjourned 122 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. session of the State Constitutional Convention meets in the Spencer House; twenty-sixth, general strike of engineers and firemen on the Panhandle railroad. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FOUR. January 5th the Zoological Society was organized. On the sixth and seventh there were thirty hours of continuous snowfall, and telegraphic and railway communications were mostly suspended. On the nineteenth ten thousand dollars' worth of diamond rings was stolen from Duhme's jewelry store. On the twentieth the ladies' temperance crusade began to awaken general attention. On the twenty-ninth the Strobel picture-frame factory was destroyed, with a loss of sixty-five thousand dollars. In February, a notable religious revival occurred in some of the city churches. On the thirteenth the structures on the site of the new government building were sold. On the twenty-fifth the Public Library building was formally dedicated; oration by the Hon. George H. Pendleton. March 5th occurred the first mass meeting of the temperance crusaders, in Wesley chapel; seventh, the gift by Mr. Joseph Longworth of fifty thousand dollars to the School of Design ; twelfth and sixteenth, visitation of saloons by temperance ladies, and twenty-seventh, wild excitement in Fourth street over a temperance prayer-meeting; twenty-eighth, great mass-meeting at Exposition Hall in favor of liquor license. April 9th, large anti-license meeting at Pike's Opera House; r4th to r 6th, session of the Cincinnati Presbytery, which approves the women's crusade ; r6th, mass meeting at Pike's to promote municipal reform, committee of safety appointed ; 26th, grand State convention at Wesley Chapel, in opposition to liquor licenses,, with enthusiastic meetings in various churches. May 4th, a praying band at a saloon is wet down with a hose; r rth, one hundred thousand dollars is given to the Bethel by David Sinton; 12th, Lanning's planing-mill, on Plum street, is burned-loss sixty thousand dollars; 14th, excitement and mobs occur in the West End over the temperance prayer-meetings, and there is a riot on Freeman street from this cause the next day ; r 7th, forty-three female crusaders are arrested, and have a prayer-meeting in the station house ; 20th, they are dismissed, with an admonition by the Police Judge; 2 8th, another municipal-reform mass meeting, at Wesley Chapel. June 1st, new building of the Y. M. C. A. dedicated; June 4th, reunion of the Pioneers of the Miami Valley. July 27th, great flood in Licking river; heavy loss of barges and coal. August 13th, mass meeting in behalf of temperance at Pike's, and another on the 27th to celebrate the defeat of the license clause in the new State Constitution; 2 6th, Burnet Woods Park opened to the public. September 2d, the Fifth Industrial Exposition opens with great eclat; 7th, the Grand Opera House opens ; 14th, the Grand Hotel opens ; 24th, Exposition regatta. October 26th, new Mozart Hall opened ; 3oth, Dumont & Company's machine and boiler works burned-loss seventy-five thousand dollars. November 1st, temperance crusade temporarily revived ; 6th, Werk's soap and candle factory burns-loss two hundred thousand dollars ; 9th, Mr. David Sinton gives thirty-three thousand dollars to the Y. M. C. A., and the Cincinnati Orchestra gives its first concert ; 2oth, deaths of S. B. W. McLean, formerly of the Daily Enquirer, and of Peter Ehrgott, a prominent German resident. December 2d, death of Rev. Charles B. Davidson, D.D.; r rth, Griffith's planing-mill burned-loss seventy-five thousand dollars; 22d, general raid of the police upon the gamblers ; 29th, the Secretary of the Treasury visits Cincinnati ; 3oth, death of Judges J. Bryant Walker and Jonathan Cilley. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE. Some of the events of this year were peculiarly notable. September was rich in public events-particularly openings. On the 7th of that month the Fifth Industrial Exposition was opened ; on the 9th the Cincinnati Base-ball Park ; on the 18th, the Zoological Garden ; and on the 27th, the Chester Driving Park, with races. October 3d the Hebrew Union College was opened, with exercises in the synagogue of Rabbi Wise. January 3d, the Second Presbyterian church, on Elm street, was dedicated. On the r3th of the same month the Queen City Club selected the site for its club-house. March 29th, ground was broken on the Kentucky side for the Cincinnati Southern Railway bridge. April r ith, Mr. W. S. Groesbeck made his gift of fifty thousand dollars for free concerts in Burnet Woods Park, and May 17th Mr. R. R. Springer his of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars for the Music Hall. November 28th, the fund for the hall necessary to secure Mr. Springer's gift was raised. At the Zoo a unique event occurred March 24th, in the combat of an escaped lioness and a donkey, in which the former was ingloriously defeated. Both have since died, and their stuffed skins are fitly mounted in the Carnivora House, at the Garden. April 17th, an infernal machine was exploded in St. Xavier's Catholic church building, in course of erection, but without doing serious injury. June 18th, a slight shock of earthquake was felt at Cincinnati. In May, a remarkably successful Musical Festival was held. The greatest fire was that in John Holland's gold-pen manufactory, which was damaged to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars, January 9th. An unusual number of noteworthy deaths occurred this year, including those of Hon. S. S. L'Hommedieu; Father William Taylor, believed by many to have been the first male child born in Cincinnati ; Dr. Thomas E. Thomas, Professor of Biblical Literature in Lane Seminary ; Rev. C. H. Taylor, D.D., pastor of the Third Presbyterian church ; Rev. Erwin House, another well-known clergyman ; Judge Bellamy Storer, one of the most famous jurists in Ohio ; Judge Robert Moore, formerly of the court of common pleas ; Benjamin Pine, an old pioneer, and Charles Avery, a centenarian ; Robert A. McFarland, financial editor of the Daily Enquirer; Mr. George Dominick, a prominent business man ; General McKee, and many others. A fresh visitation of small-pox added again to the HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 123 customary mortality, some weeks furnishing at least one-third of the deaths. The Board of Health exhibited great energy and skill in checking and preventing it. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIX. The centennial year was not signalized by events of commanding importance in the Queen City. On the fifth of February a panic occurred at Robinson's new opera house, through a false alarm of fire, by which several persons were killed, and the whole city put for a time in fear. Washington's Birthday was celebrated by an important social event, the Continental Costume Reception. The twenty-eighth of February, Mardi Gras, was devoted to a ridiculous street-parade and other mummeries, during which Mrs. Mary A. Thornton, one of the earliest and oldest residents of the city, was killed by falling from a platform while viewing the procession. March 14 a further loan of the city's credit to the Southern railroad, to the amount of six million dollars, was voted by the citizens. May 15 Dom Pedro, emperor of Brazil, visited the city. On the twenty-first the Catholic societies had a parade, through pouring rain, in honor of Archbishop Purcell, whose fiftieth anniversary of accession to the priesthood was celebrated two days thereafter. On the twenty-sixth a fire occurred at Melodeon hall, destroying, with other things, Dubufe's famous painting of the prodigal son; loss said to be one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. April 4 the College Hill Narrow-guage, and June 6 the Westwood Narrow-guage railroads were opened to the public. June 14 the National Republican convention met in Cincinnati, and on the sixteenth nominated Rutherford B. Hayes, a former Cincinnatian, President, and William A. Wheeler, of New York, for Vice-President. July 4, the Centennial anniversary of National Independence was enthusiastically celebrated. The First regiment Ohio national guard went into camp the same day at Oakley, and remained three days. The remainder of the year was comparatively uneventful. The necrology of 1876 includes the names of Judge William B. Caldwell, deceased March 21, and Judge David K. Este, April r, at the advanced age of ninety-one. Mr. John Gerke, an ex-treasurer of Hamilton county, also died this year, and Dr. Stephen Bonner, a well-known philanthropist of the city. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SEVEN. This was an average, but not an extraordinary year, for the number and importance of its local events. On the twelfth of January two steamers, the Calumet and the Andes, were sunk in front of the city by the breaking up of ice in the Ohio and its tributaries. March 25th ex-President Grant reached the city, and on the twenty-ninth was honored with a reception by the Queen City club, which opened its superb club-house at the corner of Seventh and Elm streets with a reception on the twentieth of December. April 4th, a banquet was given to A. T. Goshorn, in token of his successful and eminent labors as director-general of the Centennial exhibition. On the twentieth the first passenger train passed over the entire length of the Cincinnati Southern railroad. Four days afterwards, the corner-stone of the new government building was laid with due ceremony. A vigorous temperance movement, under the lead of Francis Murphy, began May 22. The Cincinnati & Eastern railroad (narrow guage) was opened to travel June 3. July 23d the corner-stone of the new structure for the Children's home was laid, and on the corresponding day of August the McCook monument in Washington park was unveiled. President Hayes visited the city September 15th, and was received with great acclamation. On the fourth of the same month the Ohio Archaeological association met in Cincinnati, and on the next day the National Anthropological association. On the twenty-sixth of September the Ohio College association opened a three-days' session in the hall of the old college building. The Caledonian society celebrated its fiftieth anniversary November 3oth. The greatest fire of the year occurred December Loth, in the burning of the Meader furniture factory, with a loss of one hundred thousand dollars. Among the dead of 1877 were Mr. and Mrs. Vachel Worthington, who died July 7th and September 9th, respectively; and Mrs. Deborah Sayre, of one of the pioneer families, December 29th. There were some labor-strikes this year, and at times a great and dangerous excitement prevailed, threatening the peace of the city. One extensive strike lasted ten days ; but no life was lost nor any property destroyed. The citizens made up a contribution and bought a Gatling gun, which was presented to the police force for use in case of an emergency; and one hundred of them were sworn into service as special policemen, and were on duty for ten days. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-EIGHT. A yellow-fever year in Cincinnati. The first case was that of a merchant from New Orleans, named Hines, at the Grand hotel; the last October 9th. A quarantine was ordered August 17th, against all steamers arriving from the South, which were to remain five hundred feet below Keck's Landing until visited, inspected, and officially permitted to land. In all thirty-five cases occurred, of which but two were those of residents, the others coming from abroad. Seventeen of them were fatal. The fever also appeared this year at Gallipolis and other points on the river. The notable events of this year, as summarized by the daily papers at its close, were as follows, in chronological order : January 12th, death of Mrs. Angela Podesta An-eta, a native of Italy, aged one hundred and nine years; January 22d, organization of the Builders' Exchange; January 23d, David Sinton gives ten thousand dollars to the Bethel; February 17th, assignment of the Catholic institute, liabilities one hundred and ninety-six thousand dollars; February 17th, death of Hon. Larz Anderson, an old, esteemed, and wealthy citizen; March 4th, the 124 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. Miami Valley Savings bank suspended with a deficiency of eighteen thousand dollars; March 14th, formal opening of the Builders' Exchange; April 8th, Music hall opened to the public; April 26th, death of Mrs. May A. Slough, of a pioneer family, aged seventy-four years; May 2d, proposal to grant two million dollars more bonds to the Southern railroad defeated, on popular vote, by a majority of two hundred and nineteen; May 6th, opening of the Women's Loan exhibition; May 17th, American Social Science association meets at Cincinnati; opening address by the Hon. W. S. Groesbeck; June 5th, the Music hall is pronounced a success by the experts; June tath, the Republican State convention is held at the Music hall; June 15th, death of Dr. 0. M. Lang-don, Ex-Superintendent of the Longview asylum; June r6th, burning of the Co-operative foundry, loss forty thousand dollars; June loth, first commencement exercises of Cincinnati university; July r6th, death of Mrs. Nancy W. Miller, a pioneer, aged eighty-two years; July I7th, National Narrow-guage Railroad convention at the Highland House; July 22d, death of Mrs. Elizabeth Yeatman, aged seventy-one years; August 1st, yellow fever in the city, two cases, one fatal; September 2d, opening of the new store of John Shillito & Company; October 14th, opening of the College of music; October 16th, Fifth annual congress of the Protestant Episcopal church, at Pike's Opera House; October 24th, the Woodward statue unveiled; November 3oth, death of Professor Arthur Forbriger, Superintendent of drawing in the Cincinnati Public schools; December. 5th, formal opening of the Children's home; December 16th, Bodmann tobacco factory burned, loss seventy-five thousand dollars, insurance full; December 22d1 funeral at Sedamsville of Mr. Thonias H. Yeatman, of the well-known pioneer family; December 29th, completion of one hundred thousand dollars subscription for Exposition buildings. In the autumn months diphtheria and scarlet fever extensively prevailed, with a fatality from the former of fifty-eight, and one hundred and eighty-one from the latter. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-NINE. The Fire Underwriters of the State met in convention at Cincinnati February 12th. On the fifteenth Henrietta Wood, a colored woman kidnapped twenty-six years before by Zebulon Ward, opposite Cincinnati, was awarded two thousand five hundred dollars damages against Ward by the United States court sitting in this city. April 19th a blackguard journalist named Lester A. Rose was soundly beaten in the streets by a son of the Hon. Alphonso Taft, in punishment for a scurrilous publication reflecting upon Judge Taft's domestic relations. May 10th a lecture by Henry Ward Beecher in the city was made the occasion of a "bread-and-water banquet" by the Cincinnati Socialists,_ in memory of a remark attributed to him. National conventions of A. 0. H. and Railroad Master Mechanics meet in Cincinnati. June 1st John King, a crippled newsboy, achieved greatness by presenting his library, a valuable collection of twenty-five hundred volumes, to the public library. July 1st the national convention of music teachers met in Cincinnati. On the twenty-first the city issued quarantine edicts against arrivals from Memphis. On the fifteenth of September the seventh industrial exposition was opened with great eclat; many distinguished persons, including the President and several governors present, and an immense multitude. November 7th General Joseph Hooker was buried with solemn and imposing obsequies at Cincinnati. December 7th a temporary closing of the Sunday theatres in the city was effected; on the ninth the last rail on the Cincinnati Southern railroad was laid. On the eighth of the same month Gaff's stockyards, with nine hundred and fifty head of cattle, were destroyed by fire. For ninety-two years the annals of Cincinnati, as Cincinnati, come down—nine decades, and two years, in part, to spare. As an appendix, therefore, to the story of the Ninth Decade, we supply the historic notes of EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY. January 8th, a freshet submerges the northwestern part of the city. The next day the treasurer of the produce exchange defaults in the amount of thirty-one thousand five hundred dollars. On the fifteenth a reception in honor of ex-Governor Richard M. Bishop, then just retired from the executive office, was given at Lytle Hall; sixteenth, Bishop Elder was appointed coadjutor to Archbishop Purcell; eighteenth, the superior court decides in favor of the validity of the street railroad ordinance, passed by the city council; twenty-first, the National Association of Distillers meets at the Burnet house, and the semi-centennial reunion of the First Congregational church occurs. February 6th, the city council passes an ordinance fixing the price of gas at one dollar and seventy cents per thousand feet; nineteenth, the net profit of the Seventh Industrial Exposition is announced as twenty thousand and forty-two dollars and twenty cents; thirteenth, the Cincinnati railroad company receives the right to operate the whole Southern railroad; twentieth, the Irish agitator, Parnell, arrives in the city, and a great meeting is held by his countrymen in Music Hall; twenty-third, e x-Mayor Robert M. Moore dies; twenty-sixth, the first cotton reaches the city over the Southern railroad ; twenty-ninth, Colonel Enoch T. Carson is appointed chief of police, and the public schools celebrate Longfellow's birthday. March 1st, the free kindergarten for poor children is opened in the old Spencer house; third, the trouble in the college of music develops, resulting afterwards in the resignation of Theodore Thomas, musical director; sixth, the Hamilton county Republican club opens its doors, with Judge Taft as president; eighth, the first through passenger train from Cincinnati to Chattanooga departs; seventeenth, the grand reception and banquet in honor of the opening of the Southern railroad is given to three thousand Southerners; twenty-second, a formidable strike of cigar makers ends; twenty-ninth, the fair for the benefit of the Widows' Home opens. April 5th, the fortieth anniversary of the Union Bethel