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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY |
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CHAPTER XXI. |
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SOME "PERRY COUNTY BOYS." |
General Philip H. Sheridan, born and brought up at Somerset,
Ohio, was sent to West Point, graduated, and subsequently became,
as General Grant once said, as great a soldier and General as any of
ancient or modern times, capable of managing or maneuvering the largest
armies. It is not expected that any thing here said can add or detract
from the fame of General Sheridan, yet it is quite certain that he has
not, in many respects, received the credit and honor that is justly due
him. It has been frequently said that he saw the backs of more rebels
than any other Federal General; this is doubtless true, and, of itself,
expresses as well as implies a good deal. It is known that he was
about equally skillful in the command of artillery, cavalry and infantry.
He commanded in the East as well as in the West, and was popular
and successful with both armies. He changed the cavalry arm of the
service from an inefficient, unreliable force, into a well diciplined,
invincible, victorious army. He brought his division---all there was left
of it---intact out of the deadly struggle in the tall cedars at Stone River.
Though badly cut up with General McCook's Corps at Chickamauga,
Sheridan rallied the remnant of his division and proceeded to march in
the direction of the sound of General Thomas' guns. It was Sheridan
who changed the valley of the Shenendoah from a valley of humiliation
into a land of triumph. After the Shenendoah was cleared of the enemy,
he was called back to the main army in front of Richmond.
Grant's whole operations, during the summer of 1864 and the early
part of the year 1865, had been little less than a series of bloody disasters,
and, as offensive movements, were certainly not successful. Eventually,
Grant decided to make a last desperate attempt to break the rebel lines,
and General Sheridan was selected to lead the momentous expedition.
About three o'clock one morning Grant called Sheridan from his bed,
and told him what was to be done. "I want you to break the rebel
lines, "says General Grant, "and if you fail, go and join Sherman."
"I'll make the attempt," replies Sheridan, "but I'll not go to Sherman;
I propose to end it right here." Right there, in the breast of little Phil
Sheridan, was the crack of doom for the Southern Confederacy.
Sheridan's command charged at Five Forks, the hitherto invincible lines
of General Lee were broken, and Richmond doomed. Lee's army was
routed, retreated in great confusion, and the Confederate Administration
hastily deserted the rebel Capital, as rats desert a sinking ship. It
was a great victory for the Army of the Potomac; but few dreamed
---not even General Grant---that the war was virtually over. It was
Sheridan who, with his accustomed habit of following closely upon the
backs of the defeated rebels, at once discovered the true condition of
things, and dispatched back to Grant: "Hurry up the troops; Lee
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must surrender if closely pressed. I am sure of it." Meanwhile Sheridan had a sharp engagement at or near Hanover Court House, the last stand Lee's ragged and brave veterans ever made. Grant "Hurried up the troops," and Appomattox was the result. Sheridan is a Major General in the Regular Army, with headquarters at Chicago. His aged mother still resides at Somerset, in this county. Janarius A. McGahan was born and brought up in the neighborhood of New Lexington, Perry county, Ohio; afterward attended school at Notre Dame, Indiana, and before he was twenty-one was a reporter and correspondent of the daily press at Saint Louis. In a year or two he went East and secured a position on the New York Herald, where he suddenly arose to the front rank among newspaper men. In a short time he was sent to Europe as a war correspondent of the Herald. He also made a similar engagement with the London News. As a correspondent of these journals, McGahan was in all the wars of Europe for eight or ten years previous to his death, including the great French- Prussian war. McGahan was in Paris during the reign of the Commune, and gave vivid but faithful pictures of that exciting and eventful period. He was arrested and imprisoned by the Commune, and would have been summarily executed but for the intervention of powerful and influential friends. McGahan was with one expedition of the Czar of Russia into the heart of Asia, and at another time he accompanied an exploring party to the Arctic ocean in search of the North Pole-all in his capacity of newspaper correspondent for two of the greatest journals of the world. It was McGahan who penned the faithful descriptions of the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, and he then told the suffering people that he would be back there in a year with the army of the Czar; and, sure enough, he was. McGahan is known over the civilized world as the deliverer of Bulgaria, and the Bulgarians so regarded him; and when he was there the second time the people---men, women, and children---crowded around him, kissing his bridle, spurs, and even the horse that he rode. McGahan was no common man. He was a statesman and philanthropist, as well as newspaper correspondent. He had the ability to be first writer on any newspaper on either side of the Atlantic. He fell in love with and married a Russian lady of rank, though no man was more democratic in his notions than he. McGahan died about four years since at Constantinople from a malignant fever, which he contracted while nursing a friend who was afflicted with the disease. McGahan died at the age of about thirty-three years, and his mortal remains were consigned to their mother earth near the bank of the Bosphorus, hard by the ancient city of Constantinople. His widow and baby boy, not long since, visited the boyhood home of the lamented husband and father. James M. Comly was born and brought up at New Lexington, Ohio. He went to Columbus to learn the trade of a printer, and was successively "devil," "jour," foreman, local editor, and finally editor and proprietor of the Ohio State Journal. He was Colonel, then General in the army, postmaster of Columbus, and was subsequently appointed by President Hayes as Minister to the Sandwich Islands, from which country he has recently returned to his home in Columbus. J. M. Rusk was brought up in Bearfield township, Perry county, 167 |
Ohio; worked as a day laborer on the old C. W.& Z. R. R. at McLuney in 1853; went to Wisconsin, became a General in the Union army, subsequently served three terms in Congress, and is the present Governor of the State of Wisconsin. Jacob Strawn, one of the early settlers of Thorn township, remained a citizen of the same until he had accumulated considerable property, sold out and left, with the stereotyped remark that he would be the first in his State or nothing. He did become the largest land owner in the State of Illinois, to which he went, and was at the time of his death the greatest cattle owner in the world. John W. Iliff, born and lived to man's estate in Harrison township, near McLuney, went to the Far-west at the age of about twenty-one; went into the cattle business on the Plains; raised, sold, and speculated in cattle until he became very wealthy; and at the time of his death, which occurred a few years ago in Denver, Colorado, was the largest cattle owner in the world, and was known far and wide as the "Cattle King." His estate is estimated to be worth about two million dollars. Thomas C. Iliff, a cousin of John Wesley Iliff, the Cattle King, born and brought up in Harrison township, near McLuney, served in the war while in his teens; went to school and graduated at Athens University; subsequently became a minister in the Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, then was sent to Helena, Montana, and finally to Salt Lake, where he is now in charge. Though only a Presiding Elder in rank, Iliff is practically a Bishop throughout all Utah Territory. One of the Bishops, in presenting Iliff, in a late session of the Ohio Conference, announced that he would now introduce to them "The successor of Brigham Young." Iliff is an able and eloquent preacher, as well as organizer and explorer. He visited the Old World, not long since; spent a year in Palestine, and rode all over the Holy Land on horseback. Walter C. Hood, born and brought up at Somerset, Ohio, clerked in his father's store, learned the trade of a printer, taught school, became editor of the Perry County True Democrat, Ironton Times, Portsmouth Times, Marietta Times, and was one of the best political writers in the State, and, in some respects, had no peer. He was said to be a walking library and dictionary, and scarcely ever made a misstatement of anything. He was a nephew of the celebrated Charles Hammond, a distinguished old-time editor of the Cincinnati Gazette. Mr. Hood was appointed State Librarian by Governor Allen, a position for which he was eminently qualified, and he died in the city of Columbus, while holding that office. Rezen Debolt, son of Rev. George Debolt, brought up in Thorn township, learned the trade of a tanner, afterward studied law, went West, and subsequently became a District Judge and member of Congress for the State of Missouri. Stephen D. Elkins, a native of Thorn township, has, for several terms, been a delegate in Congress from the Territory of New Mexico, and would have been one of the United States Senators, had New Mexico been admitted as a State. Mr. Elkins is married to a daughter of Senator Davis, of West Virginia. Fifteen or sixteen members of the Ohio Conference of the Methodist 168 |
Episcopal Church hail from Perry county. Of these, Isaac Crook,
James F. Gardner, Wellington Harvey, and several others, are very
distinguished. Crook has now been transferred to a Michigan Conference.
Harvey served quite a number of years as Presiding Elder.
Joseph Carper, of Reading township, Jesse Stoneman, of Thorn,
and Samuel Harvey and Samuel Hamilton, of Madison township, were
all, in their lifetime, itinerants in the Ohio Conference. Jesse Stonemon,
with James Quinn as a colleague, was appointed by the Baltimore
Conference, in 1800, to what was then called the Muskingum and
Hocking circuit, embracing Marietta, Zanesville, Coshocton, Mount
Vernon, Lancaster, Athens, and all the country lying between; and
they rode this extensive wilderness circuit in 1801, as the Church record
shows. The mortal remains of Rev. Stoneman repose in the Methodist
Episcopal Cemetery at Thornville.
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