OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - HISTORY: Chapter 45 Part B (Abbott, John S. C., 1875) *************************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. *************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Kay L. Mason keziah63@yahoo.com February 10, 2000 *************************************************************************** Chapter XLV. The Toledo War and the War of the Rebellion. Part B. About two o'clock in the afternoon of July 26, Morgan found himself in the vicinity of West Point, a little village about halfway between New Lisbon and Wellesville. The rebels here realized that they were entirely surrounded. There was no possibility of escape. To fight was only death for all. Under these circumstances Morgan, with the remainder of his gang, unconditionally surrendered. The reckless chief seemed to regard his bloody raid, along whose path he had strewed the bodies of his lifeless men, merely in the light of a spirited joke. He seemed quite unconcerned and jovial, notwithstanding the death, dispersion, or captivity of his whole band of two thousand five hundred men. For several days the hills and forests around were filled with armed men, searching for and picking up the fugitives. These poor deluded victims of the rebellion seemed very much dejected. Most of them were ragged, dirty, and in the extreme of exhaustion. They were generally attired in the citizens' garments which they had stolen on their raid; but these, by hard usage, were mostly bespattered with mud and torn to shreds. General Shackleford's command had good reason to be very much exhultant over their victory. By day and by night they had followed the guerilla band. With little rest and many hardships the pursuit had continued from day to day till it was crowned, at last, with the most signal and glorious success. Morgan and his officers, by command of General Halleck, were consigned to the Ohio Penitentiary. This was in retaliation for the cruel treatment which the rebels were inflicted upon Colonel Straight and his officers, who, on a somewhat similar raid, had been captured within the limits of the Confederacy. After about three months' imprisonment, Morgan and six of his companions made their escape by cutting through the floor of their prison with table knives. They tunneled a path into the outer yard, and scaled the walls by means of ropes made from their bed clothes. An investigation led to an official announcement that the escape was facilitated by a misunderstanding between the military authorties in Columbus and the civil authorities of the penitentiary. Morgan took the night train to Cincinnati, left the cars just outside the city, made his way across the river, and soon secured a retreat within the Confederate lines. His utter discomfiture in Ohio caused him the loss of his popularity. Naturally vaini and arrogant, he was involved in continual dissention with his brother officers. Finally his inglorious life came to an end, as he was shot while fleeing through a kitchen garden, in a petty skirmish in one of the obscure villages of East Tennessee. The following statistics of Ohio, taken from the census of 1870, the intelligent reader will peruse with interest. The state then contained a population of 2.665,260. Of these 63,213 were colored, and 372,493 were of foreign birth. The state contained 11,952 schools, 10,266 teachers and 645,639 pupils. There were in the state, white and colored, 92,720 who could not read. There were expended, for educational purposes, 10,244,635 dollars annually. There were 17,790 public libraries, containing 3,687,845 volumes. In the state there were published 395 newspapers, with a aggregate yearly circulation of 98,548,814. There were 6.488 organized churches, with 6,284 church edifices, affording sittings for 2,085,586 persons. Of these church organizations there were: Baptists........... 555: Church property valued at....$2,533,000 Christian.......... 66 " " " .... 24,377 Congregational..... 193 " " " .... 1,385,585 Jewish............. 91 " " " .... 218,770 Methodist......... 2,161 " " " .... 6,540,910 Moravian........... 4 " " " .... 14,000 Regular Presbyterian,628 " " " .... 3,580,756 Other Presbyterians. 164 " " " .... 564,970 Roman Catholic..... 295 " " " .... 3,959,970 Second Advent...... 1 " " " .... 1,000 Spiritualist....... 4 " " " .... 4,100 Unitarian.......... 8 " " " .... 60,000 Universalist....... 78 " " " .... 175,950 The state contained 6,383 paupers, and there were 1,405 in the prisons. The population amounted to nearly 67 to the square mile. Massachusetts contains about 187 to the square mile. When Ohio shall be settled as densely as Massachusetts now is, her population will exceed eight million. Of the population of Ohio, 397,024 are engaged in agriculture, 168,308 are in professional services and clerks, 234,581 are engaged in trade, and 356,240 in mechanics and manufactures. The financial condition of the state, as reported in 1869, was very encouraging. The receipts that year were $6,176,955. The expenditures were $5,498,864. The public debt was reduced $782,826. There then remained an outstanding debt of a little more then eleven million dollars. This was rapidly disappearing under a sinking fund of $1,500,000 annually. The average rate of taxation throughout the State was $17.78 on each $1,000. The Auditor of the Treasury in 1865 wrote: "With the rigid adherence to economy, the proper amendment of the tax law and the steady and intelligent enforcement of a just and equal taxation, the public debt will disappear in seven years, and the state levy sink down to one mill on the dollar. Then, the state, manufactories spring up, and population and wealth augment in a ratio hitherto scarcely dreamed of." The productions of the state have assumed an aspect of grandeur. A late report gives: Bushels of Wheat...........................5,824,784 " Rye............................. 622,333 " Oats...........................21,856,564 " Corn...........................80,386,321 Potatoes...................................6,725,577 Pounds of Butter..........................36,344,608 Tobacco...................................22,188,693 Bushels of Coal mined.....................42,130,021 Pounds of Maple Sugar......................5,657,440 Gallons of Wine............................ 153,159 Bushels of Buckwheat.......................1,292,415 " Barley..........................1,353,956 Tons of Hay................................1,839,500 Bushels of Clover Seed..................... 62,200 " Flax Seed........................ 462,463 Pounds of Cheese..........................22,197,929 There were 7,631,388 sheep; and 183,993 dogs. It is worthy of notice that these dogs, in the course of the year, killed or maimed 44,303 of these sheep. There were 680,930 horses; 1,413,935 cattle; 9,930 mules, and 2,060,476 swine. The total number of miles of railroads in the state amounted to the astonishing sum of 3,892. Institutions of high order were established for the insane, for idiotic children, for the blind, and for the deaf and dumb. Such is the Ohio of the present day. What it is destined to become who can tell? I now bring this history of wild adventure and wondrous achievement to a close. There can not be found upon this globe a more attractive realm than the magnificent valley of the Beautiful River, of which Ohio forms so conspicuous a part. In salubrity of clime, transparency of skies and fertility soil, it is unsurpassed. Placed midway between the tropical and frigid zones, the summer's heat and the winter's cold are alike agreeably tempered. The State of Ohio is capable of sustaining a population of ten million souls, supplying them abundantly not only the necessities but with the luxuries of life. Three-quarters of a century ago the interminable forest waved here in all its gloom. Now a population of nearly two millions is at work, with no foe to interrupt their labors. Magnificent cities, beautiful villages, palatial mansions and lovely cottage homes are rising as by magic on all the wide and glorious expanse. There is no reason why another three-quarters of a century should not cause this majestic state in all of its peaceful valleys and over all its luxuriant plains to bloom like a garden, and to afford its favored people as happy homes as can be found beneath the skies. I have dedicated this history to the young men of Ohio. It will be read by many of you after its author has passed away to the spirit land. Will you permit me to address you a few parting words with the freedom with which a father would bid a final adieu to his sons. I am entertaining the evening of life; you are just entering upon its morning. I have seen life in all its aspects, from the wigwam of the savage to the castles of nobles and to the palaces of kings. I have seen multitudes rise from boyhood to reputation and happiness, to be a blessing to themselves, their families and the community, and I have seen multitudes, Oh, how many, sink into the abyss of shame, ruin and untimely death. The only hope of our country is to be found in obediece to the precepts of Christianity. Every candid man will admit that true piety promotes industry, and industry brings the comforts which wealth can secure. A degraded family is a pest in any community. It exhales, as it were, a poisoned atmosphere, spreading around impoverishment and ruin. One may rear ever so beautiful a house, and decorate its grounds with all the charms of shrubbery and flowers, but let hovels, where filth, and degredation and thieving do congregate, rise up around it, and the property is of little value. A few wretched families, with swarms of unwashed, profane and pilfering children, can sink the value of property for many acres around. Let a drinking saloon, with its dancing hall, where ragged and bloated inebriates reel in and out, where night is rendered hideous by the brawls of drunken men and drunken women, rise in the heart of the mose lovely village in Ohio, by the side of your happy homes, and what is that home worth? You can not live there. Who will buy it? No one but some wretch who wishes to convert it into another manufactory of crime, shame and woe. Every community must make its choice between Christianity, with its preached gospel, its quiet Sabbaths, its Sunday school, and all those institutions, intellectual and moral, which cluster around the Church,-and irreligion, with its inebriation, its gambling, its brutal ignorance, and its defiance of the laws of both God and man. The religion of Jesus Christ is the only possible remedy for the ills of this wicked world. Christianity, through the industry and frugality which it promotes, rears pleasant homes, covers them with paint, builds the tasteful fence for the front yard, decorates the garden, plants the rose-bush, buys the books which cheer the evenings, and rears sons and daughters intelligent and virtuous, who go forth, in their turn, to construct similar homes. It is thus that Christianity is the primal element in all prosperity. Examine the subject and you will see that it is the corner-stone upon which the welfate of every community must stand. Every man who has property within the sound of the bell of a Christian Church is pecuniarily interested, and that, in proportion to the value of his property, to give support to that religion which recognizes God as our common Father, and all men as brothers. And let it not be forgotten that there can be no permanent happiness, even in this life, without a well-grounded hope that we are prepared for our flight to the spirit land. Here, in this wilderness of time, in the midst of the storms by which we are driven and often shattered, no abiding repose is possible, but in the assurance that our peace is made with God. One fact is certain. There have been thousands who, on a dying bed, have mourned with anguish that they have not lived in accordance with the teachings of Christianity. But, on the other hand, there never has been an individual found who, in that dread hour, has regretted that he has tried to live the life of the Christian. Millions, more than can be numbered, have, on a dying bed, found all gloom dispelled, while peace and often rapturous joy have reigned in the soul. It is the Christian alone who can say, while fainting in death: "I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day."