SANDUSKY
COUNTY—Continued
Page
530
and suite and the right flank being in
advance, first
came into action. The
colonel struck the
first blow. He
dashed in between two
savages and cut down one on the right; the other being slightly in the
rear,
made a blow with a tomahawk at his back, when, by a sudden spring of
his horse,
it fell short, and was buried deep in the cantle and pad of his saddle. Before the savage could
repeat the blow he
was shot by Corpl. Ryan. Lieut. Hedges (now Gen.
Hedges of Mansfield)
following in the rear, mounted on a small horse, pursued a big Indian,
and just
as he had come up to him his stirrup broke, and he fell head first off
his
horse, knocking the Indian down. Both
sprang to their feet, when Hedges struck the Indian across his head,
and as he
was falling buried his sword up to its hilt in his body. At this time Capt. Hopkins
was seen on the
left side in pursuit of a powerful savage, when the latter turned and
made a
blow at the captain with a tomahawk, at which the horse sprang to one
side. Cornet Hayes
then came up and the
Indian struck at him, his horse in like manner evading the blow. Serjt. Anderson now arriving, the
Indian was soon
dispatched. By this
time the skirmish
was over, the Indians, who were only 20 in number, being nearly all cut
down;
and orders were given to retreat to the main squadron.
Col. Ball dressed his men ready for a charge,
should the Indians appear in force, and moved down without further
molestation
to the fort, where they arrived at about 4 P. M.
FREMONT,
county-seat of Sandusky, about ninety-five miles north of Columbus, and
eight-three miles southwest of Cleveland, on the Sandusky river, at the
head of
navigation. Its
railroads are the L. S.
& M. S.; L. E. & W. and W. & L. E.
County
Officers, 1888: Auditor, A. V. BAUMAN; Clerk, John W. WORST;
Commissioners,
James E. WICKERT, Joseph GESHWINDT,
George F. WILT; Coroner, Edward SCHWARTZ; Infirmary
Directors, Isaac
STROHL, Nehemiah ENGLER, Andrew KLINE; Probate Judge, E. F. DICKENSON;
Prosecuting Attorney, F. R. FRONIZER; Recorder, H. J. KRAMB; Sheriff,
R. W.
SANDWISCH; Surveyor, George W. LESHER, Treasurer, William E. LANG; City
officers, 1888: Herman B. SMITH, Mayor; A. V. BAUMAN, Clerk; Henry
HUNSINGER,
Marshall; Lester WILSON, Solicitor; William E. LANG, Treasurer; Joseph
RAWSON,
Civil Engineer; M. A. FITZMAURICE, Street Commissioner; C. F. REIFF,
Chief Fire
Department. Newspapers:
News, Independent, H. E. WOODS,
editor
and publisher; Courier, German Democrat, Joseph ZIMMERMANN, editor and
publisher; Journal, Republican,
Isaac
McKEELER & Son,
editors and publishers; Scientific Weekly,
literary, J. C.
WHEELER, editor and publisher; Journal of
Dietetics, Medical, CALDWELL and GESSNER, editors. Churches: 1 Presbyterian,
2 Catholic, 1
African Methodist Episcopal, 1 Lutheran, 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1
Evangelical. Banks:
Farmers’, O. A.
ROBERTS, president, D. A RANCK, cashier; First National, James W.
WILSON,
president, A. H. MILLER, cashier; Fremont Savings, James W. WILSON,
president,
A. E. RICE, cashier.
Manufactures and Employees.—C.
W.
TSCHUMY, furniture, 7; BLUE & HALTER, sulky cultivators, 10;
LEHR Brothers,
agricultural implements, 32; EDGERTON & SHELDON, sash, doors
and blinds,
18; The CLOUS Shear Co., shears and scissors, 94; The HERBRAND Co.,
gear irons,
12; D. JUNE & Co., engines, etc., 56; KOONS Brothers, flour,
etc., 4; VAN
EPPS & COX, flour, etc., 9; McLEAN
R. R. Spike
Co., railroad spikes, 75; THOMSON-HOUSTON Carbon Co., carbon, 79;
Fremont Drop
Forge Co., carriage hardware, 20; Fremont Canning Co., canned corn,
etc., 85;
Fremont Electric Light and Power Co., electric light, 4; A. H. JACKSON,
bustles
and hose, 190.—State Report, 1888.
Population, 1880, 8,456.
School census, 1888,
1,957; W. W. ROSS, school
superintendent. Capital
invested
in industrial establishments, $715,800. Value
of annual
product, $718,300.—Ohio Labor
Statistics,
1887. Census,
1890, 7,140.
HECKEWELDER,
the missionary, in his “History of the Indian
Nations,” describes a scene he
witnessed at the Indian village at this place, near the close of the
American
Revolution, which is regarded as the best description extant of the
ordeal of Running the Gauntlet.
He precedes his special description with
these remarks:
Much
depends on
the courage and presence of mind of the prisoner.
On enter-
Page
531
ing
the village, he is shown a
painted post at the distance of from twenty to forty yards, and told to
run to it
and catch hold of it as quickly as he can.
On each side of him stand men, women and children, with
axes, sticks and
other offensive weapons, ready to strike him as he runs, in the same
manner as
is done in the European armies when soldiers, as it is called, run the
gauntlet. If he
should be so unlucky as
to fall in the way, he will probably be immediately despatched
by some person longing to avenge the death of some relation or friend
slain in
battle; but the moment he reaches the goal, he is safe and protected
from
further insult until his fate is determined.
In
the month of
April, 1782, when I was myself a prisoner at Lower Sandusky, waiting
for an
opportunity to proceed with a trader to Detroit, I witnessed a scene of
this
description which fully exemplified what I have above stated. Three American prisoners
were brought in by
fourteen warriors from the garrison at Fort McIntosh.
As
soon as they
had crossed the Sandusky river,
to which the village
lay adjacent, they were told by the captain of the party to run as hard
as they
could to a painted post which was shown to them.
The
youngest of
the three, without a moment’s hesitation, immediately started
for it, and
reached it fortunately without receiving a single blow; the second
hesitated
for a moment, but recollecting himself, he also ran as fast as he
could, and
likewise reached the post unhurt.
The
third,
frightened at seeing so many men, women and children with weapons in
their
hands, ready to strike him, kept begging the captain to spare him,
saying he
was a mason, and he would build him a fine large stone house, or do any
work
for him that he would please.
“Run
for your
life,” cried the chief to him, “and don’t
talk now of building houses!”
But the poor fellow still insisted, begging
and praying to the captain, who at last finding his exhortations vain,
and
fearing the consequences, turned his back upon him, and would not hear
him any
longer.
Our
mason now
began to run, but received many a hard blow, one of which nearly
brought him to
the ground, which, if he had fallen, would have decided his fate. He, however, reached the
goal, not without
being sadly bruised, and he was, besides, bitterly reproached and
scoffed at
all round as a vile coward, while the others were hailed as brave men,
and received
tokens of universal approbation.
TRAVELLING NOTES.
A DAY AT SPIEGEL GROVE.
On
my original
visit to Fremont, then know as Lower Sandusky, I made the acquaintance
of a
young man several years younger than myself, which has been lifelong
and I feel
mutually regardful, Mr. R. B. HAYES, a young attorney then just
beginning to
practice the law. Associated
afterward
for years in the Cincinnati Literary Club, we learned to know each
other well,
living our lives in the same great current of events and thoughts that
have
marked this century’s march in the ever-broadening,
brightening line of
humanizing intelligence and action.
Naturally
such
a visit as mine interested a young man born when Ohio was largely a
wilderness,
and living on the very spot that had signalized a great victory by its
pioneers
over British redcoats and their yelling, scalp-hunting, red-skinned confreres.
Connecticut, my State, long before had sent
out her sons, largely farmers’ sons, to perambulate the
“new countries” on
trading ventures. That
was before the
ingress of any of the youthful Isaacs and Jacobs and Abrams of Judea on
the
same ventures.
Those
Connecticut young men each bore, suspended by a wooden yoke from their
shoulders, huge square tin-boxes, containing their stock in trade, when
they
made their way from house to house among “the heathen of the
South and West,”
disposing of their varied notions, such as kerchiefs, laces, finger and
ear
rings,
Page
532
blue,
crimson, and yellow
beads, gilt-washed for necklaces; fancy-colored silks and blazoning
calicoes,
printed in what they called thunder-and-lightning colors; ribbons,
tapes,
thimbles, silver-washed and shining; hair-combs and brushes; hair-pins
and pins
not hair; needles warranted not at all and needles “warranted
not to cut in the
eye;” buckles, buttons and bodkins.
And
when there was a pressing demand, nutmegs, neatly turned in wood; hence
the
expression as of yore applied to Connecticut, “the Nutmeg
State.” These,
when used, must have been as
necklaces, after having been drilled and strung for “the
heathen”
aforesaid. Now and
then, too,
Connecticut sent out a schoolmaster in advance of a homegrown supply of
that
useful article. Such,
on their arrival
in the woodsy wilds, found no lack of material for the enforcement of
knowledge
at their very foundations, according to the precept of the ancient
sage,
Solomon.
It
was true I had come from
Connecticut, but it was on another mission the like of which had not
there been
seen. It had
touched the imagination of
the young man. In
after years he said he
felt I was a second Heroditus,
travelling
the land to gather its history. The
feeling might have had its uncomplimentary drawback, inasmuch as the
great Heroditus had
been charged with having been the most
unwholesome, prolific pater familias
known—the “Great Father of Lies.” Still,
I think not; for, since the day of publication of
“Howe’s Ohio,” he has always
had a copy within easy reach of his writing-desk, and I verily believe
in his
often reaches he has felt, as he grasped it, that he held Truth
herself, mirror
and all.
Ere
coming to Ohio a second time I was invited by Mr. Hayes to pause at
Spiegel
Grove before starting over the now largely wood-shorn steel-ribbed land. My arrival was Nov. 21,
1885, at this writing
over five years gone.
The
homestead at Spiegel Grove was built by his uncle, Sardis BIRCHARD, in
1860, to
which additions have since been made by Mr. Hayes.
The name given by Mr. BIRCHARD is peculiarly
adapted to its inhabitants—the “Grove of Good
Spirits.” It
is about half a mile inland from the town
in a level country, in the midst of a forest of some thirty acres. Around the mansion, which
is at the rear and
approached by a long, winding walk and drive,
are some
of the noblest of forest trees. The
soil
is of the richest and some of the trees immense, the growth of
centuries, and
still vigorous; others are in decay, with their trunks only standing ,
yet
interest from the clustering leaves of the vines which, planted by
loving
hands, at their base wind around their scraggly forms, and flutter in
the
passing wind like youth dancing around hoary old age, and trying to
make old
bones feel young again.
The
mansion is a spot of public interest.
To
learn how and where the family live of one who has been at the head of
this
great nation is a wise curiosity.
We are
marvelously alike, sparks from the one great benignant source, and our
conditions here but mere temporary arrangements, I verily believe, for
something higher which when attained, we indeed may feel this truly is
life;
the other was “a make believe,” but good as far as
it went.
On
another page is a general view of the home, with a ground-plan showing
the
internal arrangements of the lower story. The house is of brick,
ceilings of ample
height, and the rooms spacious. It
is
well lighted everywhere; the furniture being largely of oak and other
light-hued wood helps to render all within bright and cheery. Not the least attraction
is the long spacious
veranda, over 80 feet long, where, on summer evenings, the family and
friends
were wont to gather for social intercourse; or, on mornings after
breakfast,
for the ladies and gentlemen, arm-in-arm, to take a few turns up and
down, and
then part for the various duties of the day.
And the days were filled with them, and largely by Mr. and
Mrs. Hayes
with matters of public welfare; and so their days were days of calm and
peace.
The
chief rooms are the reception-room and the study, which both go under
the
general name of the library. In
effect
they are one room, no door separating,
only an arch
near the hall-end some 12 feet wide and 15 feet high.
The reception-room is a place of elegance;
pictures on the walls; marble busts, life-size; portraits of notables
on
easels; large, beautifully illustrated works on the tables, with here
and there
a dainty booklet that is a charm to hold, and whose leaves, as you turn
page
after page, may sparkle with gems of fancy and the heart. These, as they catch your
eye, may lift you
out, as I once heard a broad-brogued
pious Scotch
Presbyterian pronounce it, “Lift you out of a vain and desateful
wurld.”
The
general’s study is in reality the library.
All the walls to the ceiling are filled with books. He has some 11,000 under
his roof, and half
of them are there. As
illustrating his
intense regard for his country and people some 6,000 of them are upon
American
Page
533
Top
Picture
PLAN
OF HOUSE
Bottom
Picture
SPIEGEL GROVE.
Page
534
history and biography. His
study is his place of work. His
desk is at the extreme north and where
the light comes, for his writing and reading, over his left shoulder
and down
from the skylight above,
and there is nothing to
prevent the spirit of Spiegel Grove from watching and ministering to
him in his
labors.
My arrival was in the mid forenoon. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hayes
were
in. The latter was
absent in the village
but was the first to arrive and with a friendly greeting took me into
the
study, and was about to drive off a pair of greyhounds that lay
stretched on
the rug before the blazing grate-fire,
thinking they might annoy me, when I begged her not to disturb them in
their
comfort, and she did not, so when an hour later she took my arm for the
dining-room and with the others following, those animals brought up the
rear,
but where the luxurious creatures went I knew not.
No one could be in the house long
without feeling that
it was a place where love and cheerfulness reigned supreme. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hayes
seemed as an elder
brother and sister to their children,
and each to the
other were only Rutherford and Lucy.
Each possessed the same characteristics, a love of the
humorous, their
minds receptive and looking for the pleasant things that each new-born
morning
may bring on its bright white wings.
Such natures run to reminiscence
and anecdote. In
one instance, when at the social board,
Mrs. Hayes arose from her seat at its head and acted out an incident in
a sort
of pantomime to impress the point of an amusing story.
Her voice was low and musical, and her flow
of good spirits as from an exhaustless rippling reservoir. One incident she gave to
illustrate the
reputation at an early date of the lower Scioto Valley for malaria,
that when
the first railroad trains passed through Chillicothe, the conductors
were
accustomed to stop and call out to the passengers, “Twenty
minutes for
quinine.”
Mr. Hayes brought to the table one
of my books wherein
was an extract from Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables,”
which led him to say, when they first got hold of that work they were
in
Virginia idling their time in a winter camp.
Not knowing with certainty the pronounciation
of its title, some of the officers around it termed it
“LEE’S MISERABLES.”
He also read from its pages an
incident of my personal
history, the scene of which occurred when I was a young man, travelling on foot over the
State of New York in 1840 for
my book on that State. This
I repeat
here as printed:
“I was footing it with my
knapsack on my back over the
hills near the headwaters of the Susquehanna when I was overtaken by an
elderly
grave-visaged man in a
grey suit riding on
horseback. ‘Good
morning,’ said he, and
then in solemn tones added ‘are you a professor,
sir?’
“Thinks I,
‘this man sees something uncommon about me,
and I rather think his head his level—he probably imagines I
am one of the sage
Pundits of Yale or Harvard on a scientific tour of
exploration,’ and thereupon
in pleased tones I replied ‘Professor of what, sir?’ Judge
of my surprise when
he answered, ‘Professor of religion.’
”
At this unexpected finale Mrs.
Hayes gave one of her
low full-toned merry laughs.
I have said the study was a place
of work, it was also
a favorite gathering spot on evenings when the family gathered before
the grate
to talk down the hours and Mrs. Hayes was ever there joining in with
pleasing
words and merry laugh. On
the evening of
my arrival Mr. Hayes varied the entertainment, taking from a basket
varied
kinds of apples one after another, peeling and quartering each and
passing them
round to sample and obtain
judgment as to their
respective qualities. And
as the evening
progressed we talked our recollections of the old Cincinnati Club,
before the
war, and of the good times we had when at our monthly socials where we
usually
closed by some forty or more joining hands all round and singing
“Auld Lang Syne.”
The next morning after breakfast I
was standing before
the grate cogitating when Mrs. Hayes came in and said, “Mr.
Howe, I don’t know
but what I may be rather hard on you, but I want you to go out and see
my cows;
they are beauties.” So
she put on her
shawl and rubbers and picked up somewhere an ear of corn. As we stepped out of the
hall door into the
yard she sent forth a loud, trumpet-like call that went forth like the
call of
an Alpine shepherdess. Instantly
every
feathered thing about the place gave an answering cry, and it seemed to
me as
though they must have numbered hundreds, so strongly did the varied
orchestra
of mingled sounds fill the air; some from far and some from near,
almost under
our feet. The
guinea hens and pea-hens
screamed and came running up with their speckled backs, and the pigeons
and
turkeys sent forth their varied airs and clustering around her followed
to the
barn while she wrenched the corn from the ear and cast it to the right
and left
as we rapidly proceeded.
This habit of calling up the
feathered tribe was
common with her. At
times the doves came
from the cotes quite a distance away when they fluttered over her head
and
alighted upon her person. Even
the wild
birds of the grove received her attention, for she was wont to minister
to them
in their timidity by placing food in overt places where they could eat
and not
be afraid.
On our arrival at the barn, lo! The
Jerseys were
gone. They had been
taken off to nibble
awhile in the yet green pasture. Mrs.
Hayes, however, showed some snow white goats from the mountains of
Cashmere,
and what the children would call a “cunning” little
calf.
We returned to the house, and when
in the middle of
the great hall, happening to cast her eyes down she exclaimed,
“How neglectful
I have been not to have had your shoes
Page
535
blacked, please take them
off,” and then opening a closet
door brought out a pair of slippers and dropping them at my feet, bore
away my
shows for their blacking.
Some
few
minutes elapsed and I was standing alone in the study musing, when its
hall
door opened and in tripped an old aunty with a turban on her head
bearing my
shoes nicely polished. She was slender and neither black nor white; but
there
was no mistaking, she was “ole Virginny,”
all over,
and an “Aunty.”
She came tripping, a
lively old creature, a-grinning
and with a quick jerky
courtesy dropped the shoes at my feet; then started for the hall door. I called her back, and
placing a coin in her
hand, she again grinned and repeated her jerk, with a “Thank
you, sah,”
darted off, she richer by a piece of silver and I be
a nicely polished pair of shoes.
As
the door
closed I again fell to musing, thinking of the good woman whose
qualities had
just been illustrated to my experience.
The secret of her character was her ineffable spirit of
love. It went
everywhere; to the wee little flower
at her feet, the birds, the animals, and especially to human beings. She yearned to do them
good, saw brothers and
sisters in them all, wanted to fill them with the joy she felt, and
sympathized
with their wants with a spirit that was divine.
Had she been with Christ when he wept over Jerusalem she
would have wept
with him.
I
wish to
relate a little circumstance which came under my own observation more
than
twenty-four years ago, while Mr. Hayes was Governor of my native State,
Ohio. One day while
passing up State street
in Columbus, I saw a woman sitting on the curbstone,
and a dozen or more small boys were teasing her.
Old
men knew
her when she was a child in the town of Chilicothe,
when her name was spoken, smiled as with a beautiful memory and
followed with
words of praise. One
incident which I know to be true of the many of her blessing career. I here relate as written
by Mr. Henry L.
DETWILER, from El Paso, Texas, and published in the St. Louis
Globe-Democrat.
She
was very
drunk, apparently. About
the time that I
reached the spot a carriage drove up and stopped near the scene. A lady looked out of the
window, and taking
in the situation at a glance, opened the carriage door, got out, walked
up to
the drunken woman, and, speaking kindly to her, asked her to take a
drive with
her. The drunken
woman, in a maundering
way, complied, and was assisted to the carriage and driven away. After they had gone I
asked of a bystander
who the lady in the carriage was, and he told me it was the wife of
Gov.
Hayes.”
My
day at Spiegel
Grove ended. Mr.
Hayes first took me in
his buggy to show me around the town that I might see what a place of
thrift
and comfort it had become. I
could but
admire its broad streets, its neat cleanly homes, the graceful spire of
the
Catholic church, modelled
after one on the Cathedral
at Milan, 240 feet in height, the BIRCHARD library and its patriotic
relics,
the calm flowing river, with its embosoming island, etc., but all this
took
time, so that when we neared the depot the express was staring out, and
had got
some 200 feet away when he arose and signaling they paused for me, and
I was
borne on my way with new pictures to hang on
“memory’s walls.”
And more new ones came quick, for going
westerly through the Black Swamp Forest Region I could but be
astonished to see
what an Eden it had become since when in 1846 I had threaded its mazes
on the
back of “Old Pomp.”
“Into
every
heart some rainy days must fall.”—Longfellow.
June
25, 1889,
was a sad day at Spiegel Grove. The
beautiful mother and universal friend, whose living presence had been a
light
and a love was no more. The
Nation
sorrowed.
Human
annals
fail to present the record of a single other of her sex, so widely
beloved, so
widely mourned. Had
she been the mother
in an humble laborers
cabin she would have been the
same good woman alike loved of God and the angels.
Her lot was to become the first lady in the
land; all eyes rested upon her, all hearts paid her reverence. None other in such a
position had illustrated
such love and sympathy for the humble, the weak, and the suffering. She gathered the richest
of harvests, the
harvests of the heart.
Though
her
spirit has gone her memory remains, an unending benediction. Children yet to be as they
enter upon this
mysterious existence will learn of her and be blessed, and old age
hopeful as
it nears its end may look beyond and as her image arises to their
vision feel
“of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
BIOGRAPHY
RUTHERFORD
B.
HAYES, Ex-president of the United States and General in Union Army, was
born in
Delaware, O., October 4,
1822. His parents,
Rutherford and Sophia Hayes
(Sophia BIRCHARD) came to Ohio in 1817, from Windham county,
Vermont.
He
received his early education in the common schools, attended an academy
at
Norwalk, O., and in 1837 went to Isaac WEBB’s
school
at Middletown, Ct., to prepare for college.
In 1842, he graduated at Kenyon college,
valedictorian of his class. He
studied
law with Thomas SPARROW, of Columbus, O., was graduated at the Law
School of
Harvard University in 1845.
Page
536
LUCY WEBB HAYES
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES.
Page
537
On
May 10,
1845, he was admitted to the bar at Marietta, O., and began practice at
Lower
Sandusky (now Fremont), where in April, 1846, he formed a partnership
with Hon.
Ralph P. BUCKLAND.
In
1849 he
began to practice law at Cincinnati, where he soon attracted attention
through
his ability and acquirements. On
December 30, 1852, he married Lucy W. WEBB, daughter of Dr. James WEBB,
a
physician of high standing in Chillicothe.
In 1858 he was appointed city solicitor of Cincinnati, and
served until
April, 1861. On the
organization of the
Republican party, he at
once became one of its active
supporters, being attracted thereto by his strong anti-slavery
sentiments.
At
the outbreak
of the war, he was elected captain of the military company formed from
the
celebrated Cincinnati Literary club.
In
June, 1861, he was appointed major of the 23d O. V. I., and in July his
regiment was ordered to West Virginia.
Gen.
Hayes’
very gallant and meritorious military career has been overlooked in the
prominence given to his political life; an examination of his record in
the
army shows that such brave, gallant and able service has rarely been equalled, even in the annals of
the late war.
The
following
is from the Military History of Gen. Grant, by Gen BADEAU, 3d volume,
page 101.
In
all the
important battles of Sheridan’s campaign Colonel Rutherford
B. Hayes, after
wards nineteenth President of the United States,
had
borne an honorable part. Entering
the
service early in 1861, as major of the 23d Ohio Volunteers, he was
ordered at
once to West Virginia, and remained there till the summer of 1862, when
his
command was transferred to the Potomac, and participated in the battle
of South
Mountain. In this
action Hayes was
severely wounded in the arm. He
was
immediately commended for conspicuous gallantry, and in December of the
same
year received the colonelcy of his regiment, which had returned to West
Virginia. He served
under CROOK, in the
movement against the Tennessee railroad in the spring of 1864, and led
a
brigade with marked success in the battle of Cloyd’s
Mountain. Afterwards,
still in Crook’s command,
he joined HUNTER’S army in the march against Lynchburg; was
present at the
operations in front of that place, and covered the retreat in the
difficult and
dangerous passage of the Alleghanies.
He
was next
ordered to the mouth of the Shenandoah Valley, and took part in several
engagements between EARLY and SHERIDAN’S troops, prior to the
battle of
Winchester. In that
important encounter,
he had the right of Crooks’ command, and it was therefore his
troops which, in
no conjunction with the cavalry, executed the turning manoeuvre
that decided the fate of the day.
Here
he displayed higher qualities than personal gallantry.
At one point in the advance, his command came
upon a deep slough, fifty yards wide,
and stretching
across the whole front of his brigade.
Beyond was a rebel battery.
If
the brigade endeavored to move around the obstruction, it would be
exposed to a
severe enfilading fire; while it discomfited, the line of advance would
be
broken in a vital part. Hayes,
with the
instinct of a soldier, at once gave the word
“Forward,” and spurred his horse
into the swamp. Horse and rider plunged at first nearly out of sight,
but Hayes
struggled on till the beast sank hopelessly in the mire. Then dismounting, he waded
to the further
bank, climbed to the top, and beckoned with his cap to the men to
follow. In the
attempt to obey many were shot or
drowned, but a sufficient number crossed the ditch to form a nucleus
for the
brigade; and Hayes still leading, they climbed the bank and charged the
battery. The enemy
fled in great disorder, and Hayes
reformed his men and resumed the advance.
The passage of the slough was at the crisis of the fight
and the rebels
broke on every side in confusion.
At
Fisher’s
Hill Hayes led a division in the turning movement assigned to
Crook’s
command. Clambering
up the steep sides
of North Mountain, which was covered with an almost impenetrable
entanglement
of trees and underbrush, the division gained, unperceived, a position
in rear
of the enemy’s line, and then charged with so much fury that
the rebels hardly
attempted to resist, but fled in utter rout and dismay.
Hayes was at the head of his column
throughout this brilliant charge.
A
month
later, at Cedar Creek, he was again engaged.
His command was a reserve, and therefore did not share in
the disaster
of the main line at daybreak; but when the broken regiments at the
front were
swept hurriedly to the rear, Hayes division flew to arms, and changing
front,
advanced in the direction from which the enemy was coming. Successful resistance,
however, was
impossible. Hayes
had not fifteen
hundred effective men, and two divisions of the rebels were pouring
through the
woods to close around him in flank and rear.
There was no alternative but retreat or capture. He withdrew, nevertheless,
with steadiness,
and maintained his organization unbroken throughout
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538
the battle, leading his men from
hill-top to hill-top in
face of the enemy. While
riding at full
speed, his horse was shot out from under him; he was flung violently
out of the
saddle and his foot and ankle badly wrenched by the fall, Stunned and bruised, he
lay for a moment,
exposed to a storm of bullets, but soon recovering sprang to his feet,
and
limped to his command.
“For gallant and
meritorious service in the battles of
Winchester, Fisher’s Hill and Cedar Creek,” Colonel
Hayes was promoted to the
rank of Brigadier-General of Volunteers, and brevetted Major-General
for
“gallant and distinguished service during the campaign of
1864, in West
Virginia, and particularly at the battles of Fisher’s Hill
and Cedar
Creek.” He
had commanded a brigade for
more than two years, and
at the time of these
promotions was in command of the Kanawha division.
In the course of his service in the army he
was four times wounded, and had four horses shot under him.
The second volume of Gen.
Grant’s Memoirs, written
when he was in great suffering and near his end, is in some respects
more
interesting even than the first volume.
In it he gives very freely and in a most entertaining way,
his opinion
of his military friends and associates.
For example, on page 340 he says of Gen. Hayes:
“On
more than
one occasion in these engagements, Gen. R. B. Hayes, who succeeded me
as
President of the United States, bore a very honorable part. His conduct on the field
was marked by
conspicuous gallantry as well as the display of qualities of a higher
order
than that of mere personal daring.
This
might well have been expected of one who could write at the time he has
said to
have done so: ‘Any officer fit for duty who at this crisis
would abandon his
post to electioneer for a seat in Congress, ought to be
scalped.’ Having
entered the army as a major of
volunteers at the beginning of the war, Gen. Hayes attained by
meritorious
service the rank of brevet major-general before its close.”
In
August,
1864, while Gen. Hayes was in the field, he was nominated by a
Republican
district convention in Cincinnati as a candidate for Congress. He was elected by a
majority of 2,400.
Gen.
Hayes took
his seat in Congress December 4, 1865, and was appointed chairman of
the
library committee. In
1866 he was
re-elected to Congress.
In
the House of
Representatives he was prominent in the counsels of his party. In 1867 he was the
Republican candidate for
Governor of Ohio, and elected over Judge THURMAN.
In 1869 he was re-elected Governor of Ohio
over George H. PENDLETON.
In
1872,
despite his frequently expressed desire to retire from public life,
Gen. Hayes
was again nominated for Congress by the Republicans of Cincinnati, but
was
defeated.
In
1873 he
returned to Fremont, and the next year inherited the considerable
estate of his
uncle, Sardis BIRCHARD. In
1875,
notwithstanding his well known desire not to re-enter public life, he
was again
nominated for Governor of Ohio, and although he at first declined the
honor, he
was subsequently induced to accept the nomination, and after a hard
fought
canvas was elected over William ALLEN by a majority of 5,500. This contest, by reason of
the financial
issue involved, became a national one, and was watched with interest
throughout
the country, and as a result he was nominated for the Presidency on the
7th
ballot of the National Republican convention, which met at Cincinnati,
June 14,
1876.
In
accepting
this nomination Mr. Hayes pledged himself, from patriotic motives, to
the
one-term principle, and in these words:
“Believing
that
the restoration of the civil service to the system established by
Washington
and followed by the early Presidents can best be accomplished by an
Executive
who is under no temptation to use the patronage of his office to
promote his
own re-election, I desire to perform what I regard as a duty in now
stating my
inflexible purpose, if elected, not to be a candidate for election to a
second
term.
“In
furtherance
of the reform we seek, and in other important respects, a change of
great
importance, I recommend an amendment to the Constitution prescribing a
term of
six years for the Presidential office, and forbidding a
re-election.”
In
the
complications that arose as a result of the Presidential election of
1876, his
attitude was patriotic and judicious, and is outlined in a letter
addressed to
John SHERMAN from Columbus, O., dated November 27, 1876. He says:
“You
feel,
I am sure, as I do about this whole business.
A fair election
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539
would have given us about forty
electoral votes—at least
that many. But we
are not to allow our
friends to defeat one outrage and fraud by another.
There must be nothing crooked on our
part. Let Mr.
TILDEN have the place by
violence, intimidation and fraud, rather than undertake to prevent it
by means
that will not bear the severest scrutiny.”
The
canvassing
boards of Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina declared Republican
electors
chosen, and certificates of these results were sent by the Governors of
those
States to Washington. Gov.
Hayes had a
majority of one in the electoral
college. But
the Democrats charged fraud, and
certificates declaring the Democrat electors elected were sent to
Washington. The
House (Democratic) and
the Senate (Republican) then concurred in an Act providing for a
commission
composed of five representatives, five senators and five judges of the
Supreme
Court, to have final jurisdiction.
The
commission refused to go behind the certificates of the Governors, and
by a
vote of eight to seven declared in favor of the Republican electors,
and
President Hayes was inaugurated March 5, 1877.
The
administration of President Hayes, although unsatisfactory to machine
politicians, was a wise and conservative one, meeting with the approval
of the
people at large. By
the withdrawal of
Federal troops and restoration of self-government to the Southern
States, it
prepared the way for a revival of patriotism and the remarkable
material
development that has since ensued.
The
administration began during a period of business depression, but the
able
management of the finances of the government and the resumption of
specie
payments restored commercial activity.
This administration laid the foundations for a permanent
and thorough
civil service reform, notwithstanding strong and influential
opposition,
including that of a majority of the members of Congress.
Throughout,
his
administration was intelligently and consistently conducted with but
one motive
in view, the greatest good to the country, regardless of party
affiliations. That
he was eminently
successful in this, and was as wise, patriotic, progressive and
beneficial in
its effects as any the country has enjoyed, is the judgment of every
intelligent person who gives it an unbiased study.
“The
tree is
judged by its fruit.” When
Mr. Blaine
made his Presidential tour in Ohio in 1884, in several of his speeches
he spoke
of the Hayes administration as unique in this: It was one of the few
and rare
cases in our history in which the President entered upon his office
with the
country depressed and discontented and left it prosperous and happy. In which he found his
party broken, divided
and on the verge of defeat, and left it strong, united and vigorous. This, he said, was the
peculiar felicity of
Gen. Hayes public career.
On
the
expiration of his term, ex-President Hayes retired to his home in
Fremont, O. He has
been the recipient of the degree of
LL.D. from Kenyon, 1868; Harvard, 1877; Yale, 1880, and Johns Hopkins
University, 1881.
Is
commander of
the Order of Loyal Legion, was also commander of the Ohio Commandery,
was first president of
the Society of the Army of West
Virginia. He is
president of the John F.
SLATER Education Fund, and one of the trustees of the Peabody Fund
(both for
education in the South). He
is also president
of the National Prison Reform Association, and a trustee of a large
number of
charitable and educational institutions.
His
“Life,
Public Service, and Select Speeches,” by James Q. HOWARD,
were published in
Cincinnati in 1876.
It
is well
known that Gen. Hayes does not favor life senatorships
for ex-Presidents. In
the sketch of his
life in Biographical Cyclopedia of Ohio,” vol. ii.,
page 309, we find the following:
“On retiring from public
life and returning to his
home President Hayes was welcomed at Fremont in the heartiest way. In his speech in the
assemblage he said: ‘This
hearty welcome to my home is,
I assure you, very
gratifying. During
the last five or six
years I have been absent in the public service.
*
* * My
family and I have none but the
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540
friendliest words and sentiments
for the cities of our
last official residence—Columbus and Washington; but with
local attachments,
perhaps unusually strong, it is quite safe to say that never for one
moment
have any of us wavered in our desire and purpose to return and make our
permanent residence in the pleasant old place in Spiegel Grove in this
good old
town of Fremont. The
question is often
heard, ‘what is to become of the man—what is he to
do—who, having been Chief
Magistrate of the Republic retires at the end of his official term to
private
life?’
It seems to me the reply is near at
hand and
sufficient: Let him, like any other good American citizen, be willing
and
prompt to bear his part in every useful work that will promote the
welfare and
the happiness of his family, his town, his State, and his country. With this disposition
he will have work enough to do, and
that sort of work that yields more individual contentment and
gratification
than belong to the more conspicuous employments of the life from which
he has
retired.”
Years
have
elapsed since these wise words were uttered and Mr. Hayes became a
private
citizen. But his
life has been a
beautiful and a very busy one because, filled with useful work for the
“welfare
and happiness of his family, his town, his State, and his
country.”
Since
leaving the
Presidency, Mr. Hayes has been actively engaged in educational,
reformatory and
benevolent work: President of the John F. SLATER Education Fund; Member
of the
Peabody Education Fund; President of the National Prison Association;
President
of the Mohawk Conference on Negro Question; President of the Maumee
Valley
Historical and Monumental Society; Commander-in-chief of the Military
Order of
the Loyal Legion of the United States; President of the Society of the
Army of
West Virginia; President of the Society of the Twenty-third Regiment O.
V. V.
I.; Member of the Board of Trustees of Western Reserve University, Ohio
Wesleyan University and Ohio State University.
SAYINGS FROM SPEECHES AND WRITINGS
OF EX-PRESIDENT HAYES.
“We have a fair fighting
chance to win.”
“I would rather go to
war, if I knew I was to lose my
life, than to live through and after it without taking part in
it.”
To perpetuate the Union and to
abolish slavery were
the work of the war. To
educate the
uneducated is the appropriate work of peace. . . . The soldier of the
Union has
done his work, and has done it well.
The
work of the schoolmaster is now in order.”
“We must get rid of fixed
sentences against hardened
criminals. They
should remain in prison
until they are cured.”
“Whenever prisons are
managed under the spoils system
it injures the political party that does it, and the prison in which it
is
done.”
“There is no agreement
between prisons and politics.”
“It must be regarded as a
stain on any man who does
not do all he can for the welfare of the men whose labor has made his
wealth.”
Asked if he would be a candidate by
an importunate
friend, he replied, “George E. PUGH said there is no
political hereafter:
content with the past, I am not in a state of mind about the future. It is for us to act well
in the present.”
“God loves Ohio or he
would not have given her such a
galaxy of heroes to defend the nation in its hour of trial.”
“We must believe that
Cain was wrong and that we are
our brothers’ keepers.”
“Our flag should wave
over States, not over conquered
provinces.”
“Universal suffrage
should rest upon universal
education. To this
end liberal permanent
provision should be made for the support of free schools by the State
governments, and if need be, supplemented by legitimate aid from
national
authority.”
“It is my earnest purpose
to put forth my best efforts
in behalf of a civil policy which will forever wipe out in our
political
affairs the color line, and the distinction between North and South,
that we
may have not merely a united North or a united South but a united
Country.”
“We should always be
mindful of the fact that he
serves his party best who serves his country best.”
The love of flowers and the love of
animals go
together.”
“Touching temperance,
there is in this country, at
least, no half-way house between total abstinence and the wrong side of
the
question.”
“In any community crimes
increase as education,
opportunity and property decrease.
Whatever spreads ignorance and poverty spreads discontent
and causes
crime.”
“I never sought promotion
in the army. I
preferred to be one of the good colonels
rather than one of the poor generals.”
