Wooster in the American Civil War

by Jacob Kowall, revised by Glenna Van Dyke

From 1861 to 1865, the United States was in one of the most bitter conflicts in its history: The American Civil War. Ohio was a critical factor in the victory of the Union, providing leadership, supplies, and soldiers. Wayne County helped to make Ohio’s robust war effort possible, sending thousands of soldiers who would witness some of the darkest and most decisive moments in the nation’s history. Though Wooster benefited from the post war economic boom, the conflict left irreversible mental and physical scars on some of its citizens.  

Portrait of David S. Stanley
General David S. Stanley received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery in battle.  Before the war, Stanley had fought in a military expedition against Native Americans in the Southwest.  Interestingly, he records in his memoirs how, during one skirmish, his life was saved by none other than his future foe, Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart.3   

Wooster’s Call to Arms  

When citizens of Wooster heard about the shots fired on Fort Sumpter in 1861, patriotic fervor surged and many rushed to be recruited by the U.S. army. Immediately, recruitment efforts began, led by Wooster’s judge, William Given. On April 16, 1861, the very first day of recruiting, a “wildly patriotic crowd” gathered in the courthouse and over 100 men signed up to fight. On the 21st, these men set off for Columbus to begin their journey to the battle lines, as thousands of citizens sent them off with flags and jubilation. By the end of the war, Wayne County sent 3,200 volunteers and many more conscripted soldiers.  

Civil War reenactor stands at attention, holding a rifle and wearing a military uniform.
Just as many Ohioans in 1861 felt a patriotic calling to enlist in the Union Army, Civil War enthusiasts of today have a desire to reenact the exploits of their forefathers.
A statue of a civil war soldier.
This Civil War monument in the Wooster Cemetery is dedicated to the “Heroes of Wayne County” such as those first volunteers who joined the Union Army in 1861.
Painting of William Given.
Honorable William Given headed the recruitment efforts in the city and held meetings to encourage volunteers to enlist in Wooster’s courthouse.  He later joined the fight, serving as the colonel of the 102nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

However, the patriotic mood of those early days would soon give way to frustration and mourning as the conflict raged on. In 1863, Congress passed the Enrolment Act, which was the first nationwide draft in U.S. history. Southern sympathizers in Wayne County, including a group called the Ohio Copperheads, were outraged and spoke out against the war and the Union. Draft riots even broke out in neighboring Ash and Holmes counties, but Wayne County was able to avoid the violence. 2 

1 Ben Douglass, “History of Wayne County, Ohio” (Indianapolis: Robert Douglass, 1878), 749. 
2 “Battle of Fort Fizzle,” Ohio History Central, Ohio Historical Society, accessed June 11, 2014, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Battle_of_Fort_Fizzle?rec=474; “Work of Ashland Copperheads,” The Wooster Republican, July 30, 1863. 

Wooster’s Homefront and Wartime Women

 Support for the war ran high in Wooster and letters from the soldiers were often published in the local papers. Even the Wooster Democrat, who had been opposed to the war decided to put their soldiers first. When praising the deeds of two returning officers, the paper guessed that they “must have felt proud of men of both parties welcoming them home and doing honor to them as soldiers of the Republic.  More unity of this kind…would work miracles in the cause of the country…where the prosperity of all the people is contingent upon the unity of the country.”1 Political tension between Democrats and Republicans however did arise when the draft was instated and when Lincoln was reelected in 1864.  

Frontal view of the home of Emeline Stibbs, which is a two-story brick house with a front porch.
The home of Emeline Stibbs on East Bowman Street (now part of the Wayne County Historical Society) acted as a meeting place for women of the Soldiers Aid Society during the war.
An excerpt on an article that says "The Ladies' Aid Festival. The solders' aid festival help by the Ladies in Arcadome Hall on Tuesday evening, was entirely successful. The gross receipts amounted to about $200, and we were informed $50 will cover all expenses. The attendance was not as large as it should have been, still the Hall was well filled, and the ladies did their part in handsome style, as they always do on such occasions."
Articles like this one describing a festival held by the Soldiers Aid Society were a common sight in Wooster’s Civil War era papers, as women in Wooster worked to support the war effort on the homefront. 

Women also did their part to support the men fighting on the front lines. Emeline Stibbs created the Soldier Aid Society and her home on East Bowman Street became a center for military aid in the community. Local women banded together to send supplies and warm uniforms for the winter to soldiers. For Emeline, it was personal, as she had four sons fighting in the war, one of whom, Joseph, she would lose to battle injuries in 1866. One of her other sons, John, was eventually promoted to Brigader General of the 12th Iowa Infantry. He also served on the Andersonville Commission, which tried and hanged the captain of the Andersonville Prison for war crimes.2  

 “But my dear son, I would rather you both be where you are, yes, I would rather your lifeless bodies be left on the battlefield fallen in defense of your country than to have you at home talking treason, and sympathizing with these southern traitors. My blood boils when I think that there should even be one man, willing to see our country divided, and her flag, torn, and trampled in the dust.”  

-Emeline Stibbs to her son John.  February 23, 1863. 

1 “Reception of Capts. McClure and Van Dorn,” Wayne County Democrat, April 30, 1863.  
2 Paul Locher, “Re-enactors Relish in ‘Living the Experience’ of the Blue and Gray,” The Daily Record, May 8, 2011. 

On the Battlefront   

Volunteers from Wooster were part of many infantry regiments that witnessed some of the most historic moments in the Civil War. The 16th Ohio infantry fought in the Battle of Phillippi in West Virginia, the first land battle of the war. A Wooster doctor, James D. Robinson even performed the first amputation on a confederate soldier and saved the first life of many over the course of the war. This soldier, James E. Hanger would later develop prosthetic limbs for the wounded and Hanger Inc. would become the largest prosthetic producer in the U.S. 

Two tattered flags leaned against a drum a trumpet in front of it.
This collection of Civil War memorabilia – a drum, a bugle, and battle flags – came from the 16th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, one of the regiments that included volunteers from Wayne County.

Many Wooster soldiers were also on the battlefield to witness the most infamous battle in American History, the Battle of Gettysburg. At Gettysburg, were instrumental in defending Cemetery Ridge from continuous Confederate assault. More soldiers still were sent to New York to put down draft riots that broke out in 1863. Wooster citizens in the Ohio infantry helped in Sherman’s campaign in Atlanta, and participated in the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor, Vicksburg, Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge.  

Portrait of James D. Robinson.
James D. Robison of Wooster, who performed the first documented amputation of the Civil War.

Many Wooster residents also became leaders in the war. The highest-ranking soldier from Wayne County was Brigadier General David Sloane Stanley. A West Point graduate and a cavalry soldier during the war, he quickly rose to the rank of Major General and was placed in command of the IV Corps during Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign. During the 1864 Battle of Franklin in Tennessee, Stanley rallied his troops by leading a cavalry charge at a key moment in the engagement and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery.2   

1 Commemorative Biographical Record of Wayne County, Ohio (Chicago: J.H. Beers & Co., 1889), 47-48; “The J.E. Hanger Story,” Hanger, Inc., accessed May 27, 2014, http://www.hanger.com/history/Pages/The-J.E.-Hanger-Story.aspx. 
2 Ben Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio (Indianapolis: Robert Douglass, 1878), 862-63. 
3 David S. Stanley, Personal Memoirs of Major-General D.S. Stanley, U.S.A. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917), 44-45.  

Disaster on the SS Sultana 

Wayne County residents in the 102nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry were captured in Alabama on September 24, 1864 and were taken to a Confederate prison in Cahaba, Alabama. However, being sent to a P.O.W. camp wasn’t the worst thing to happen to these Ohioan soldiers. At the end of the war, the 2,000 soldiers were finally able to go home and were loaded onto the SS Sultana, which only had a capacity of about 376. Then, in the early morning on April 27, 1865, one of the boat’s boilers exploded, destroying the vessel and sending men and hot coal flying into the water.  

An engraving of a burning ship with distressed people floating in the water, with the caption "Explosion of the steamer 'Sultana', April 18, 1865."
This engraving from Harper’s Weekly depicts the destruction of the steamship Sultana, which to this day remains the deadliest maritime disaster in U.S. history.

The Wooster Republican reported the destruction: “Hundreds of people were blown into the air, and descending into the water, some dead, some with broken limbs, some scalded, were borne under by the resistless current of the great river, never to rise again.” Only a few hundred of the soldiers survived, while the other 1,800 met a horrid demise. Three of these survivors, Otto Bardon, William Christine, and Philip Horn, were from Wooster, and wrote accounts of their experience, which can be read here. 

1 “Shocking Steamboat Disaster – Explosion of the Steamer Sultana,” Wooster Republican, March 4, 1865.

Victory, Recovery, and the Aftermath of the Civil War in Wooster  

Portrait of Thomas Eckert.
Thomas Eckert, Wooster’s telegraph operator, continued to work in the telegraph industry after the war, eventually serving as president of Western Union.
An excerpt of a newspaper that says, "Peace through victory! Liberty and Union! Hang out your banners! Shout for victory! Lee's whole army surrendered! The rebellion crushed! The last ditch in sight!" with a picture of an eagle and a banner that says. "now and forever, one and inseperable."
The announcement of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender in the Wooster Republican on April 13, 1865.
Portrait of Colonel Aquilla Wiley in a military uniform.
Colonel Aquila Wiley, of the 41st Ohio Volunteer Infantry.  He lost his leg leading a charge during the Battle of Missionary Ridge, becoming a visible reminder of the horrors of the war.

As the Civil War ended, soldiers began to return home to Wayne County to celebrations of victory and thankful citizens. This patriotic joy wouldn’t last for long though, as news of Lincoln’s assassination sent the nation into a state of shock and mourning. Wooster was no exception, and when townspeople heard the news they closed their businesses and gathered in emotional memorial services. Some even travelled to Cleveland to see Lincoln’s funeral train. 1    

The soldiers who returned home were widely regarded as heroes, and some would go on to hold positions of public importance. Aquila Wiley, Wooster native and colonel of the 41st Ohio Volunteer Infantry, received a Democratic nomination for Congress but was defeated future president William McKinley. Thomas Eckert, who worked in Wooster as the city’s telegraph operator during the 1850s, was made chief telegraph operator of the War Department in Washington during the war.  He later served as the president of the Western Union telegraph company.2 

Statue of a man in a military uniform, holding a rifle.
Jacob Frick’s monument to the veterans of the Civil War stands in Wooster’s public square.
A crowd gathers in front of the courthouse around a canon.
After the war, soldiers from the Union army formed the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization for veterans of the Union army.  Wooster members of the G.A.R. pledge allegiance next to the Frick monument in this 1912 photograph.
A group photograph in a large hall.
Veterans of the 120th Ohio reunite and catch up on old times at the home of Joseph P. Van Nest in Wooster.

The darker sides of the war however continued to haunt some. Citizens lost loved ones and soldiers sustained great injury and trauma throughout their time on the battlefield and POW camps. William Given, who resigned as a Wayne County judge to lead the 102nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, served for the entirety of the war and died only a year after returning to Wooster, at the age of 47.3  Others in the community acted as visible reminders of the brutality of the conflict.  John F. Barrett was the first soldier from Wayne County to be shot during the war and suffered from his wound until his death in 1913.  Colonel Aquila Wiley had lost a leg while leading a charge at the Battle of Missionary Ridge.4 

Wayne County’s historian Ben Douglass asserted in 1878 that, “Wayne County has reason to be proud of its record in the Civil War.  Her soldiers participated in every great battle, and her dead lie in every Southern State.”5 This sentiment held true in the years following the war. In 1892, Jacob Frick, the President of the Wayne County National Bank was moved to fund the construction of a memorial for Wayne County’s fallen soldiers.  

Pain and anguish were experienced by everyone in the community, but especially by those who lost loved ones on the battlefields. To the people of Wooster, the Civil War was filled with personal meaning.  

1 Wooster Ohio Sesquicentennial Celebration (Wooster: Wooster Sesquicentennial Committee, 1958), 37.
2 Paul Locher, “When Wayne was a Whippersnapper: Gen. Aquila Wiley,” October 31, 2012; “Gen. Thomas T. Eckert Dead,” The New York Times, October 21, 1910.
3 Ben Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio (Indianapolis: Robert Douglass, 1878), 432-33.
4 Edward Harry Hauenstein, A History of Wayne County in the World Wars and in the Wars of the Past (Wooster: Wayne County History Co., 1919), 50, 55.
5  Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio, 759.

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