FRANKLIN COUNTY OHIO - BIO: DENNISON, William (published 1880)
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Historical Collections of Ohio
By Henry Howe LL.D.

WILLIAM DENNISON,

the first of Ohio's trio of war governors,  was born at Cincinnati,
Nov. 23, 1815.  His father was the proprietor of the highly popular and
widely known "Dennison House" in that city,  and a grand specimen of the
old style of Western landlords.  He graduated from Miami University,
and entered upon the study of law in Cincinnati in the office of
Nathaniel G. Pendleton and Stephen Fales.  In 1840,  he was admitted to
the bar;  shortly afterward he married a daughter of William Neil, of
Columbus,  the famous stage proprietor in the days of stages,  and
removed to that city.

He practiced law until 1848,  when he was elected to the Ohio Senate by
the Whig party.  About this time he became interested in banking and
railroads,  was made president of the Exchange Bank and also of the
Columbus and Xenia Railroad Company.  In 1865 he was a delegate to the
convention which inaugurated the Republican party,  and the same year
took a prominent part in the convention which nominated John C. Fremont
for the Presidency.  In 1860 he was elected Governor of Ohio by the
Republicans.  He was elected chairman of the Republican convention at
Baltimore which in 1864 renominated President Lincoln,  and was by him
appointed Postmaster General,  holding that position until 1866,  when
President Johnson began to assail the Union party and he resigned his
portfolio.  In 1880 he was the leader of the friends of Senator John
Sherman in the effort to secure his nomination in the National
Republican Convention of that year.  Governor Dennison accumulated a
handsome fortune in his private business and contributed largely to
Dennison college at Granville, Ohio.  He died at his home in Columbus,
June 15,  1882.

Governor Dennison was  a man of fine social connections,  tall,
courtly,  and elegant in manner,  with a foresight and ability
unsuspected by those not intimately associated with him,  but which was
fully demonstrated during his administration as Governor of Ohio,
during which the true,  pure metal of the man rang out with a resonance
that should have left no doubt as to its composition.  Notwithstanding
that in his political debates he had given evidence of ability and
unexpected reserve power,  the general public with singular pertinacity
held to the opinion that he was superficial and of mediocre ability,
and even after he had clearly shown by the valuable results of his
measures that he had been misunderstood and his ability underestimated
the Ohio public were slow to acknowledge his merits and give him due
credit for his valuable services to the State and nation.

In the confusion and excitement at the outbreak of the war almost every
citizen felt that he knew just what ought to be done.  Troops should be
raised and sent to the front at once.  Such matters as equipment,
organization,  etc.,  did not enter into their calculations,  and
because this was not done by the saying of it the governor must be
inefficient.  The critics,  having prejudged Governor Dennison,  said
so,  and it seemed as though each citizen had received a special
commission to join the critics and malign him.  Every step he took
brought down senseless abuse from every quarter.  Dennison bore it
nobly,  not a word of reproach escaped him,  an when for some months the
newspapers of the State were abusing him for mismanagement at Camp
Dennison he uttered no complaint,  but generously kept silence,  when in
truth he had at that time no more to do with the management of camp
Dennison than any private citizen of the State,  it being under the
control of the national Government.  A word from the officer in command
at camp Dennison would have shown the injustice of this abuse.  Whitelaw
Reid,  in his comprehensive and valuable work on "Ohio in the War,"
says in reference to this unjust criticism:  "To a man of his sensitive
temper and desire for the good opinion of others the unjust and
measureless abuse to which his earnest efforts had subjected him was
agonizing.  But he suffered no sign to escape him,  and with a single
hearted devotion and an ability for which the State had not credited him
he proceeded to the measures most necessary in the crisis."

He succeeded in favorably placing the loan authorized by the Million War
bill.  Having secured money,  the "sinews of war,"  he then looked
around for arms,  of which Ohio had a very meager supply,  and learning
that Illinois had a considerable number,  he secured five thousand
muskets from thence and proposed a measure for uniting all the troops of
the Mississippi valley under one major-general.

It was through Gov. Dennison that West Virginia was saved to the Union.
He assured the Unionists of that State that if they would break off from
old Virginia and adhere to the Union,  Ohio would send the necessary
military force to protect them.  And when afterward it became necessary
to redeem this pledge Gov. Dennison sent Ohio militia (not mustered into
the United States service at all),  who,  uniting with the loyal
citizens,  drove the rebels out of West Virginia.

His course in dealing with Kentucky at the commencement of the war,
although afterward proven to be a mistaken one,  was the same as that
adopted by the general government.

One action of Gov. Dennison's during his administration as governor
shows him to have been a man courageous enough to meet almost any
emergency.  When the general government was about to refund to Ohio
money used for military purposes the State auditor,  and the attorney
general decided that this money could not legally be used again for
military purposes.  Dennison therefore,  by means of his personal
agents,  caused it to be collected from the United States government and
used it for military purposes instead of turning it into the Ohio State
Treasury. It was again refunded to Ohio,  his agents again collected
it,  and it was thus used over and over again,  so that he intercepted
in all $1,077,600.  The measure was a high handed one,  but thoroughly
justifiable upon the ground of public necessity.  For every dollar he
presented satisfactory accounts and vouchers to the Legislature,  and
not a shadow was ever cast upon the integrity of the governor or his
officers through whom it was disbursed.

Reid's "Ohio in the War'" sums up his administrations as follows:
Without practical knowledge of war,  without arms for a regiment,  or
rations for a company,  or uniforms for a corporals guard at the
outset,  and without the means or the needful preparations for purchase
or manufacture,  the administration had,  in less than a month,
raised,  organized and sent to the field or to the camps of the
government an army larger than that of the whole United States three
months before.  Within the State this wonderful achievement was saluted
with complaints about extravagance in rations,  defects in uniforms,
about everything which the authorities did,  and about everything which
they left undone.  Without the State the noise of this clamor was not
heard,  and men saw only the splendid results.  The general government
was therefore lavish in its praise.  The governor under whom these
things were done grew to be the most influential of all the State
executives at Washington at the very time when at home he was the most
unpopular of all who had within the memory of a generation been elevated
to that office.

It was his misfortune that the first rush of the wars responsibilities
fell upon him.  Those who came after were enabled to walk by the light
of his painful experience.  If he had been as well known to the State
and as highly esteemed two years before the outbreak of the war as he
was two years afterward,  his burdens would have been greatly
lightened.  But he was not credited with the ability he really
possessed,  and in their distrust,  men found it very easy to assure
themselves that he was to blame for everything.

He met the first shock of the contest,  and in the midst of difficulties
which now seem scarcely credible organized twenty three regiments for
the three months service and eighty two for three years,  nearly one
half the entire number of organizations sent to the field by the State
during the war.  He left the State credited with 20,752 soldiers above
and beyond all calls made by the President upon her.  He handled large
sums of money beyond the authority of law and without the safeguard of
bonded agents,  and his accounts were honorably closed."

His fate was indeed a singular one.  The honest,  patriotic discharge of
his duty made him odious to an intensely patriotic people.  With the end
of his service he began to be appreciated.  He was the most trusted
counsellor and efficient aid to his successor.  Though no more than a
private citizen,  he came to be recognized in and out of the State as
her best spokesman in the departments at Washington.  Those who followed
him on the public stage,  though with the light of his experience to
guide them,  did not (as in the case of most military men similarly
situated) leave him in obscurity.  Gradually he even became popular.
The State began to reckon him among her leading public men,  the party
selected him as president of the great National Convention at Baltimore
and Mr. Lincoln called him to his cabinet.


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