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OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest                    Volume 99 : Issue 400

Today's Topics:
  #1 HAMILTON COUNTY - PART 18            [AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M RE]

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X-Message: #1
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 22:09:28, -0500
From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER)
Subject: HAMILTON COUNTY - PART 18


                        HAMILTON COUNTY - part 18

        THE FIRST FUNERAL. -When our volunteers left for Western Virginia
it was generally thought the trouble would soon be over. Never was there a
greater hallucination. In a few weeks came tidings of skirmishes, and
deaths among those who had but just left us. At this juncture one day I was
brought to a realizing sense of what war was. By chance I saw on Broadway,
just above Fifth street, a group of servant-girls and children, with
others, standing before a small brick house, evidently the home of humble
people. A hearse and a few carriages were in front. The group looked on
with sad, curious eyes. On inquiry I learned it was the funeral of a young
man who had been killed in a skirmish in Western Virginia. In a little
while an old man with his wife leaning on his arm, parents of the deceased,
came out, bowed and heart-broken, followed by sorrowing brothers and
sisters; they got into the carriages, which then slowly moved away. And
this was what war meant. Tears and heart-breaks and lives of sorrow and
suffering to the innocent and helpless.
        THE GAWKY OFFICER. -There was, ordinarily, very little pride of
military show among those engaged in so serious a business as war. The
officers, when not on duty, generally appeared in undress. Our streets at
times were thick with such. It was near the beginning when there passed,
walking on Fourth street by Pike's Opera House, a very tall, gawky officer,
over six feet in stature. He was in full parade dress, with spreading
epaulettes, and his stride was that which showed he had passed his days in
plowed fields straddling from furrow to furrow. He evidently felt he was
creating a sensation in the big city -and he was. Every one turned and
looked at this specimen of pomp, fuss and feathers, with comical emotion.
        FALLING IN BATTLE. -We asked a young man, a captain who had come
home on furlough, by the name of Emerson, whom we well knew, if he had ever
seen any one fall in battle. He laughed as though the thought was new and
replied, "No, I don't know that I ever did," and then turning to a
companion said, "Tom, did you?" The latter replied the same. Being always
in front they had their eyes only to watch the enemy before them. Both had
seen plenty after they were down, but never one in the act of falling. A
few months passed. Emerson had gone to the front. He had command of a small
fort down in Tennessee, built to protect a railroad bridge. The enemy made
an attack and were repelled. One man only had they killed. It was its
commander, Emerson, his head carried away by a cannon ball. He was a
handsome fellow, black eyes and rosy cheeks. His character was of the best.
His pastor, Rev. Dr. Henry M. Storrs, said in speaking of his sacrifice:
"So pure and noble was he that his very presence on our streets was a
continued fragrance. That laughing, pleasant face is now before me, just as
though it was yesterday that he said, "Tom, did you?"
        CONTRABAND SOLDIERS. -Ordinarily, men in uniform are so transformed
that it was rarely that we could tell, on seeing a regiment marching
through the streets, whether it was Irish, German or American. In regard to
one class of Union soldiers there could be no mistake -the negro. On Fifth
street, close to Main, on the large space in front of the president
Government Building, was reared a huge, shed-like structure, one story
high, for barracks. Late in the war it was occupied briefly by a regiment
or more of plantation blacks, clad in the Union uniform. They were a very
different-looking people from our Northern blacks, many of whom possess
bright, interesting faces. These were stolid-appearing, their faces with
but little more expression than those of animals. When I saw them they had
finished their suppers and were engaged in whiling away their time singing
plantation melodies in the gathering shadows of the evening. The voices of
this immense multitude went up in a grand orchestra of sound. The tunes
were plaintive, weirdlike, and the whole exhibition one that could not but
affect the thoughtful mind. It was singularly appealing to one's best
instincts to look upon these poor children of nature, who were acting their
humble part in the midst of events so momentous.
        At times our city was alive with troops, and then it was that the
theatres and places of amusement -and places of wickedness -as in Paris
during the Reign of Terror, were extraordinarily prosperous. At other times
only a few people were seen on the streets, so many of the men having gone
to the war. After the fall of Richmond it was felt that the great bulk of
the fighting was over; but it was largely feared that the South would for
years continue a scene of guerilla warfare and keep society in a state of
chaos. The assassination of Mr. Lincoln came -a terrible blow in the midst
of rejoicings at peace. Strong men could only speak of it with swelling
throats and choked utterance. The nation writhed in agony. Then came the
return of the regiments to their varied homes; but everywhere, amid the
general rejoicings were the stricken families to be reminded only the more
vividly of the terrible loss of fathers, sons and brothers, who had died
that the nation might live.

                        CINCINNATI IN 1877.
        In 1877, after a residence in Cincinnati of thirty years, we
returned to our native city, New Haven, when we gave, in a publication
there, the annexed description of Cincinnati as it then was. The article is
now historical, and hence proper here for permanent record; beside, we wish
to preserve it as a heartfelt tribute to a city where, and a people among
whom, our children were born, and where we had so much enjoyment of life.
The caption of the article was "Cincinnati on the Hills."
        Recently and Eastern gentleman, a divine of national reputation, at
one time like the writer a resident of Cincinnati -a gentleman of broad
experience of travel and association in this and other lands -remarked to
us: "Cincinnati is the exceptional city of the world, for the social
character of its people and the wise generosity and the public spirit of
its wealthy men and citizens generally." We had long felt this, and were
pleased to see it so emphasized by one with such opportunities for a
correct opinion.
        In April, 1832, Catherine Beecher first arrived at Walnut Hills,
then largely in the primeval forest, and before her sister Harriet had come
to eventually marry Calvin Stowe, and fill up for the writing of "Uncle
Tom." To her Catherine wrote: "I never saw a place so capable of being
rendered a paradise by the improvements of taste as the environs of this
city." Thirty years later the improvements were well started when out came
Theodore Woolsey, president of Yale College, to Walnut Hills for a visit,
and, alike enthused, said: "No other city on the globe has such beautiful
suburbs."
        PREVALENCE OF PUBLIC SPIRIT -While other of our great cities may
each point to one or two living citizens who have contributed in single
gifts tens of thousand to objects promotive of the public welfare,
Cincinnati can point to five gentlemen of this class now walking her
streets, pleasant to meet, as seeing them recalls their beneficence. They
are Reuben Springer, who gave $175,000 toward a music hall, and later
regretted that he had not given its full cost, $300,000; Joseph Longworth,
$50,000 for a Free Art School; Henry Probasco, $105,000 for a public
fountain; David Sinton, $33,000 for a Christian association building, and
also $100,000 for the Bethel Sunday-School, where every Sabbath from 2,500
to 3,000 children of the poor are gathered under one roof; and William S.
Groesbeck, $50,000 for music in the parks. Beside these are scores of
others equally liberal, according to their means, often dispensing hundred
and sometimes thousands in their gifts.
        CINCINNATI'S BLESSINGS. -The people are so social, come together so
 much for social objects, that everybody worth knowing is generally known.
Pride in themselves, in their city and in their public spirit is a manifest
and righteous characteristic. They stand on tiptoe when their city is
named, and feel a foot taller.
        The city is near the centre of population, in the very heart of the
Union. It is said to be more familiarly known on the continent of Europe,
more noticed in the public prints, especially in Germany, from its peculiar
bright points, than any other of our large cities. Among these is its
zoological garden, established by an association of gentlemen simply as a
matter of public beneficence. It occupies a half-mile square of undulating
picturesque ground on the summit of the hills, and is the only one in
country with a single exception. Within the inclosure are numerous
buildings containing a great variety of animals, beside those in the park
outside the buildings, where is a town of prairie dogs and dens with white
and grizzly bears.
        Within the city is a public fountain, a free gift, the finest in
the Union; a free public library of over 80,000 volumes, in a magnificent
library building, where nearly a score of assistants stand ready to loan
out the choicest books to the humblest citizens without money and without
price; a free art school, where one can learn, without cost, to draw and
paint, carve and mould, and listen to attractive lectures from Benn Pitman
on art; and a music hall and organ, both the largest on the continent, and
costing unitedly nearly a third of a million, also a free gift. The steam
fire engine is a Cincinnati invention, and the city the first to adopt it,
which it did through a severe conflict, largely through the indomitable
pluck and will-power of Miles Greenwood, one of the city's strongest
citizens, literally an iron man.

        -continued in part 19

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End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V99 Issue #400
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