Cincinnati in the Civil War

Powhatan Beaty, Civil War Medal of Honor

/ sandramervillehart

Born into slavery in Richmond, Virginia, on October 8, 1837, Powhatan Beaty achieved his freedom in 1849, and he moved with his family to Cincinnati. While in school, Powhatan developed an interest in acting. Though he made his living as a cabinetmaker, he continued to study acting with several coaches after leaving school.

Southern troops marched toward Cincinnati in late August, 1862, sending the city into panic. Its soldiers were off fighting the war around the country. Men left in Cincinnati either served as home guard soldiers or dug fortifications.

African American men were initially forced to serve. William Dickson was soon appointed to command the black troops and immediately improved their circumstances. He treated them fairly. Beaty served in Company 1, 3rd Regiment of this Black Brigade. Working near Kentucky’s Licking River, they dug trenches and built forts for 15 days. The Confederates left without attacking the city. The brigade disbanded on September 20, 1862.

The following June, Powhatan enlisted with a group of other black men who had been recruited for a Massachusetts regiment. Within two days, Private Beaty had been promoted to Sergeant Beaty. Expecting to be sent to Boston upon arriving in Columbus, Ohio, they learned that the Massachusetts regiment was full.

Ohio Governor David Tod requested and received permission from the Department of War to form an Ohio regiment of African Americans. The 127th Ohio Volunteer Infantry—later renamed the 5th United States Colored Troops (USCT)—had its first members when Beaty and his men joined on June 17, 1863. They trained at Camp Delaware.

On September 29, 1864, Beaty’s Company G black troops were ordered to charge Confederates at New Marker Heights in the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm. Intense fighting sent them in retreat and their color bearer fell. Facing Confederate bullets, Beaty ran back 600 yards to retrieve their flag.

Company G’s eight officers had all been killed or wounded. Beaty took command and led a second charge. This one succeeded in driving the Confederates from their position.

General Benjamin Butler commended Beaty’s heroic actions. On April 6, 1865, First Sergeant Powhatan Beaty was awarded the Medal of Honor “for extraordinary heroism on 29 September 1864.” He “took command of his company, all the officers having been killed or wounded, and gallantly led it.”

Beaty returned to Cincinnati as a cabinetmaker after the war. While raising a family, he became a well-known actor locally by the early 1870s. In 1884, a successful musical festival in Cincinnati’s Melodeon Hall led to Beaty touring with Henrietta Vinton Davis, the premier black Shakespearean actress of the time.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Geaslen, Chester F. Our Moment of Glory in the Civil War, The City of Fort Wright, Kentucky, 2007.

Momodu, Samuel. “Powhatan Beaty (1837-1916),” BlackPast, 2019/03/30 https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/beaty-powhatan-1837-1916/.

“Powhatan Beaty,” Ohio History Connection, 2019/03/29 http://www.remarkableohio.org/index.php?/category/542.

“Powhatan Beaty,” Military Times Hall of Valor, 2019/03/29 https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/2609.

“Powhatan Beaty,” Wikipedia, 2019/03/29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powhatan_Beaty.

 

 

Future President Abraham Lincoln Visits Cincinnati

/ sandramervillehart

September 17, 1859 was a warm, sultry Saturday night in Cincinnati. Drummers played. Rockets glared reddish-yellow above Fifth Street residences. A Union flag waved above the Fifth Street Market House. Youngsters fed several bonfires to light the night for a crowd of over 4,000 who gazed at a man speaking from a 2nd floor balcony.

Abraham Lincoln of Illinois spoke from a building on the north side of the street where the Federal Courthouse stands. Earnest and, at time, humorous, Lincoln spoke against the expansion of slavery.

Reverend Moncure Conway was used to political gatherings. This one was a campaign specifically for Cincinnati attorney William Dennison who was running for Governor. Yet there was something compelling about Lincoln. He said that slavery was wrong. In that border city where slavery was legal across the Ohio River into Kentucky, a few folks in the crowd hissed their disapproval.

Lincoln waited for outbursts to subside a little. Then he replied that everyone was born with two hands and a mouth to be fed and he inferred it was the job of those two hands to feed that mouth.

The Republicans didn’t ask Lincoln to be their nominee until six months later on May 23, 1860. When someone in the Cincinnati crowd asked who Lincoln recommended they vote for, he didn’t have a choice for candidate. His advice was to vote for a man who’d fight slavery’s expansion.

Front-Porch Campaigns of the era preferred that presidential candidates allow the Republican Party to give their message to citizens.

Seventeen months later on February 18, 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln, on his way to Washington, was back in Cincinnati. City buildings were decorated in red, white, and blue bunting. Wearing black with a gray shawl over his shoulders, Lincoln smiled at the train station’s enthusiastic crowd. Cannons boomed in welcome on his procession to center of the city. Young girls sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Hail Columbia.” Officials made patriotic speeches. He went to Cincinnati’s Burnet House while there but it’s not clear where these speeches were made.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Tucker, Louis Leonard. Cincinnati during the Civil War, Ohio State University Press, 1962.

Wimberg, Robert J. Cincinnati and the Civil War: Off to Battle, Ohio Book Store, 1992.

“With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition,” Library of Congress Exhibitions, 2019/04/01 https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/lincoln/the-run-for-president.html.

 

 

Civil War Women: Elizabeth Mendenhall

/ sandramervillehart

Early in the Civil War, Cincinnati resident Mrs. Elizabeth Mendenhall began to visit sick and wounded soldiers in the hospitals. Cincinnati hospitals cared for wounded soldiers from the summer of 1861 through the end of the war and the important Ohio border city became a hospital center for the Union army under General Grant early in 1862.

Elizabeth worked as a nurse. She also actively sought donations from citizens for military patients, especially around Independence Day and Thanksgiving. The United States Sanitary Commission (USSC) appreciated her work as a nurse and allowed her access to their supplies to serve her patients.

Members of the Cincinnati chapter of the USSC helped in the creations of 8 hospitals as well as a soldiers’ home in the area. They also converted 33 steamboats into hospital ships.

Elizabeth also inspired Cincinnati residents to raise money for the USSC by hosting a Sanitary Fair patterned after one held in Chicago. She led a group of ladies in planning the Great Western Sanitary Fair.

She wrote to communities in the Northwest, appealing to all professions for donations to the fair. Money raised was to benefit sick and wounded soldiers.

The Great Western Sanitary Fair opened at the Mozart Hall in Cincinnati on December 21, 1863. General William S. Rosecrans attended. The event lasted through the holidays. A Grand Soiree and Promenade in the Ladies’ Bazaar ended the fair on January 4, 1864. Railroad and steamboat companies sold tickets at half fare, according to an advertisement.

The event was an outstanding success, earning $235,406 for the USSC.

After the fair ended, Elizabeth worked at the hospitals through the end of the war when Cincinnati military hospitals were disorganized.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Cincinnati Branch, U.S. Sanitary Commission, “Great Western Sanitary Fair,” in Ohio Civil War 150 | Collections Y Exhibits, Item #1749, http://www.ohiocivilwar150.org/omeka/items/show/1749 (accessed January 4, 2019).

“The Great Western Sanitary Fair opens in Cincinnati, Ohio,” House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/41528.

Moore, Frank. Women of the War, Blue Gray Books, 1997.