OHIO STATEWIDE FILES  OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List
***********************************************************************
USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any
format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons.
Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain
the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative
of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof
of this consent.  The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb 
Archives to store the file permanently for free access.
***********************************************************************

OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest                    Volume 99 : Issue 398

Today's Topics:
  #1 HAMILTON COUNTY - PART 17            [AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M RE]
  #2 JOHN W. LEEK - HAMILTON COUNTY       [AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M RE]

------------------------------

X-Message: #1
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 10:43:57, -0500
From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER)
Subject: HAMILTON COUNTY - PART 17


                        HAMILTON COUNTY - part 17

                THE CINCINNATI NEWSPAPERS IN THE WAR TIMES.
        The press of the city sprang into an importance never before
experienced. Extras were being continually issued, and the newsboys
persistent everywhere filled the air with their cries, "all about the
battle." Not only in the city, but the carriers penetrated to the armies in
front to sell their wares. Colonel Crafts Wright, in writing a description
for the Gazette of the battle of Fort Donaldson, said: "Sunday morning we
were ordered to advance on the trenches of the enemy. While standing there
a new cry was heard -a carrier came along crying, "Cincinnati Commercial,
Gazette and Times," and as I sat upon my horse, bought them and read the
news from home, and this too within an hour after the fort had surrendered.
        The colonel had been a room-mate and class-mate with Jefferson
Davis, and through life remained a personal friend, though not agreeing in
politics; this was not to be expected from one of the proprietors of the
Cincinnati Gazette.
        The press had correspondents everywhere, and these were untiring in
gathering the news from the "front." In the early stages of the war every
skirmish was published and magnified, and little minor matters detailed
that later on were not noticed, as anecdotes of individual heroism,
descriptions of the appearance of the dead and wounded, illustrating the
savagery of war.
        The city being so close upon the border found its business in
diverting its industries to prosecution of the war. After a short period of
stagnation there were but few idle people, and when it was seen that the
war had come to stay, there was no scarcity of money and the entire
community were prospering. Among the peculiar industries of the time was
the putting up of stationery in large envelopes called "paper packages."
The amount of letter-writing between the soldiers and their friends at home
was enormous. These packages were peddled everywhere, alike in town,
country and camps, at a cost of about a dime each, and consisted of
envelopes, paper, pencil, pens, holder and ink; most of the stationer was
miserable. Soldiers' letters went postage free.
        The city was often alive with troops through the war period.
Regiments came from every State. At first they were looked upon with
interest and pride. Familiarity changed this. Then came sad scenes. One was
the bringing in of the wounded from the battle-fields. After Donalson and
Shiloh the physicians and nurses, notably the Sisters of Charity, went down
from the city and large numbers were here by boat and taken to the
hospitals in ambulances. Just at the edge of a winter's evening we saw a
line of ambulances filled with the sufferers. They had stopped before an
improvised hospital, that had been a business building on Fourth street,
near Main, and were being carried in on stretchers or in the arms of
others. Among them were some wounded prisoners, who received equally good
treatment with the others. On the bloody field of Moskwa, Napoleon, as he
stooped over the Russian wounded and ordered relief, said, "After we are no
longer enemies."
        We ask one of the medical men, a personal friend, Dr. George
Mendenhall, President of the Sanitary Commission, who had come up the river
with them from Donaldson, if he had, while ministering to their wounds,
talked with them. "No," said that good man, "I felt so indignant when I
reflected what a miserable business they had been engaged in that I had no
stomach for social intercourse." Personally, we think it instructive to get
at the bottom thought of all sorts of people in religion, business,
politics and war -and even in wedlock, which, alas, often results in the
same. It often teaches charity for what is wrong-doing. In a deserted rebel
camp, Laurel Hill, Western Virginia, was found "a love letter" in which was
expressed the bottom thought of at least one poor secessionist: "I sa agen,
dear Melindy, weer fitin for our libertis to do gest as we pleas, and we
will fit for them so long as DODDLEMITY gives us breth."
        The hospitals were sacred places to the ladies of the city who were
alive in ministering to the wants of the soldier boys; and to the latter
they seemed angelic. One very great occupation was writing letters at the
dictation of the suffering and often dying soldiers to their loved ones at
home. A melancholy duty but purifying and ennobling, as they often found
among the most humble of these men the choicest of spirits, the most noble
of natures, and could but feel as they saw them sinking away into their
last sleep, it would be to awake again in ethereal brightness to be
appreciated in the higher immortality.
        A SOLDIER'S FUNERAL awakens different emotions from that of any
other. If he be an officer high in rank no pageant can be so affecting as
the funeral procession. Cincinnati had several such. One was that of
General Wm. H. Lytle, the poet soldier killed at Chickamauga, and was most
imposing. The entire city seemed anxious to pay their last tribute to the
illustrious dead. The houses were draped in mourning, the bells tolled, and
the flags hung at half-mast. The procession passed through Fourth street, a
long line of military with reversed arms moved slowly and solemnly along,
the band playing a dirge. The horse of the General, according to military
custom, was led by a military servant with a pair of cavalry boots hanging
from the empty saddle. On each side of the sarcophagus marched a guard of
honor, officers high in rank and attired in their full parade uniforms;
tall, showy, splendid-looking men. It was evening ere they reached Spring
Grove, the moon silvering that repository of the dead as they entered its
imposing gateway.
        REGIMENTS RETURNING from service in the field often looked war-worn
and in ragged condition. After the Union defeated at Richmond we saw two
Indiana regiments which had surrendered and the men then paroled, marching
through Third street, en route for Indianapolis. They had left that city
only a few weeks before, newly formed troops, and had passed through ours
for Kentucky, in high spirits and excellent condition. On their return they
were in a deplorable state, ragged, dirty with dust of the roads, and many
of them bare-footed. The enemy must have largely robbed them of their
clothing and shoes. The city at the time was destitute of troops; but few
persons were on the street to look upon this sad, forlorn,
woe-begone-looking body of young men. Kirby Smith has taken out their
starch. We felt they ought to have been receive with open arms, but no one
was around to help brighten their spirits. The few who saw them gazed in
staring silence. Another dilapidated-looking body we saw, and in 1864, was
the Fifth Ohio. After three years of bloody and heroic service they had
been reduced to little more than a company and were drawn up in line on
Third street before the Quarter-master's department to draw new clothing.
It was quite a contrast to the same regiment as we saw it just after the
fall of Sumter marching down Sycamore street 1,000 strong, attired in
red-flannel shirts and aglow with patriotic ardor. Their brave Colonel,
J.H. Patrick had been killed only a few weeks before down in Dalton,
Georgia, while gallantly leading a charge. The heroic band were home on
furlough.
        THE SIXTH, OR GUTHRIE GRAY REGIMENT, marched away in gray and came
back in the army blue after an absence of three years, when they were
mustered out of service, about 500 strong. They were received in a sort of
ovation by the citizens as they marched through the city. Their Colonel,
N.L. Anderson, brought back "the boys," largely from the elite of the city,
in splendid physical condition. They had an entirely different appearance
from the ordinary returning regiments, being very neat and cleanly in their
appearance. Some thoughtful friends had supplied them, as they neared the
city, with due quantity of fresh paper collars - as we were told - which
were quite striking in contrast with their bronzed war-hardened
countenances. It was a proud moment for the young men to be welcomed after
their long absence by their lady friends from the streets, doors, and
windows, with smiles and the waving of handkerchiefs. Eleven of their
number subsequently received commissions in the regular army.
        To have lived anywhere in our country during the long four years of
the rebellion was to have had a variety of experience and emotion;
especially was this true of Cincinnati. They were grand and awful times.
What was to be the outcome no one could divine. Our first men could not
tell us anything. They seemed insignificant in view of the stupendous,
appalling events. At the beginning all dissenting voices were hushed in one
general outburst of indignation. Later on what were termed the
"copperheads" raised their hissing heads. One mode of striking their fangs
into the Union cause was by trying to weaken respect for those at the head
of affairs. Mr. Lincoln seemed an especial object for their abuse. The most
obscene anecdotes were coined and circulated as coming from him, to arouse
disgust and destroy all respect and confidence in him. One of their public
prints described him "as an ape, a hyena, a grinning satyr, and the White
House at Washington but a den where the baboon of Illinois and his
satellites held their disgusting orgies." Going through our lower market
one morning during the war, our ears were greeted with an expression that
was new to us. We turned to see the speaker and there stood before us an
immense, fat, blowsy-faced market woman, evidently from the Kentucky side
of the Ohio, half a mile distant. It was she that had just belched forth in
bitter contemptuous tones the epithet, "Old Link."
                During the gloomy period when news of defeat was received,
the faces of some of those around us would light up with exultation; then
they would say; "O, I told you so; they are better fighters than our
soldiers, more warlike, and in earnest. We can never conquer them. The old
Union is dead. We shall probably have three confederacies. The New England
States and the East; the West; and the South, its geographical situation in
connection with the Mississippi making it a necessity." Such was the talk
to which those who loved the Union were compelled to listen in those times.
It added to their distresses, while it excited their indignation and
loathing. Not to record it would be a rank injustice to those who
sacrificed for their country and a falsification of the truth of history by
its concealment.
        In such a time as we had in Cincinnati there are very many isolated
scenes and incidents that each in itself is perhaps of no especial
consequence, but if itemized and given in bulk are instructive,
illustrating like there in the time of the rebellion. We give some within
our personal experience.

        -continued in part 18

------------------------------

X-Message: #2
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 22:09:40, -0500
From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER)
Subject: JOHN W. LEEK - HAMILTON COUNTY


HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
The American Historical Society, 1922
Volume IV, page 300

        JOHN W. LEEK.  In a thriving manufacturing community, where many
interests meet and clash, and supremacy at the best of times is maintained
only through the exercise of unusual business ability, importance attaches
to those whose foresight and good judgment, supplemented by experienced
trade knowledge, enable them to guide large enterprises safely through the
shoals when there are unsettled commercial conditions of unusual gravity.
By no means all of the business ventures entered into at Cynthiana some
twenty-three years ago can be located at the present time, although many
started with far better prospects than did John W. Leek, a manufacturer of
buggy and motor hearse bodies, but his modest beginning was carefully
nurtured and substantially developed and has become one of the city's
business enterprises of solidity and permanence.
        Mr. Leek was born at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 17, 1851, a son
of William and Anna (Darby) Leek, natives of England. The parents were
educated, reared and married in their native land, where William Leek
engaged in a small way in the manufacture of shoes. On coming to the United
States the father engaged in the same line of business, but did not live
long enough to acquire a competence, dying in 1857, when his son was but
six years of age, at which time the business was sold out of the family.
Mr. Leek was a democrat in politics, was fraternally affiliated with the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and was a member of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. He and his wife were the parents of three children: John
W.; Sarah, who died when young; and Mary, who is unmarried and makes her
home at Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
        John W. Leek passed his boyhood at Pittsburgh, where he secured his
education in the public schools. At the age of fourteen years he ran away
from home and finally arrived at Cincinnati, Ohio. There he secured
employment in a drug store, but subsequently returned to Pittsburgh and
worked in the carriage business, in which he spent three years. At the end
of that period he went to Ravenna, Ohio, where he became a hearse body
builder in the carriage business and remained there two years, his next
stop being Cincinnati, where he spent some time. Mr. Leek next went to
Indianapolis, Indiana, where he found a demand for this services and where
he spent three years at his trade, and in 1899 came to Cynthiana, which has
since been his home and the scene of his business success. His start here
was not a particularly auspicious one, as his capital was comparatively
small, but from a modest beginning he has built up a large and profitable
enterprise. He has displayed excellent management in the handling of his
affairs and the same kind of self-reliance that caused him to become the
master of his own destinies as a lad of fourteen. In the building up of his
success his methods have been honorable, and since coming to Cynthiana he
has established an enviable business standing. Politically a republican, he
has found no time for participation in political matters save as a good
citizen, but has been a supporter of public-spirited movements that have
impressed him with their worthy character. He is a Mason and belongs to
Cincinnati Commandery No. 3, K.T., in which he has numerous friends. His
religious faith is that of the Church of England, in which he was reared.
        Mr. Leek was married to Miss Harriet Romer, of Cincinnati, Ohio,
who died February 5, 1916, leaving three children: Gertrude, the widow of
Dr. W.K. Johnson, of Atlanta, Georgia, where Mrs. Johnson is now engaged in
teaching music; William R., a graduate of the Cincinnati High School,
engaged in business as a partner of his father; and E.M. of Decatur,
Illinois, who is also a partner in the motor hearse business at Cynthiana.

--------------------------------

End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V99 Issue #398
*******************************************