74 Spring Grove: 150 Years The Civil War at As the Civil War raged on grave capacity in a location near Spring Grove the southern and westen fronts, the charming lake Strauch had only a year into the hostilities, just created. Strauch's open lawns Cincinnatians thought first of provided a fine site for the Union Spring Grove as a place to make a graves arranged in concentric cir- fitting burial for 's casuali- cles around three shallow mounds ties, even though the Cemetery and upturned cannon. Some was not ready to accommodate Confederate dead are buried else- the magnitude of fatalities. where at Spring Grove. Convinced that the last resting The Cemetery waived the place of those who might die "in usual interment fees for the Civil the defense of our Government. . . War lots, which quickly filled. On should be in a beautiful city of June 5, 1862, the Board, reluctant the dead/7 the U. S. Sanitary to donate more premium real Commission met with Spring estate, persuaded the state legisla- Grove's trustees early in 1862 to ture to buy two similar lots for request donation of a 100-foot $1,500 each with space reserved diameter circular lot with a 300- for "Ohio Soldiers who died in the

In 1862, Spring Grove donated a circular lot near the charm- ing lake that Strauch had just 3ECTT0M created. SG LOT A-

STATE OFOHIO. crs.

\\.. The Civil War at Spring Grove 75

Military Service of the United about 339 remains came from dle of the first mound. States/' those first interred in temporary graves at Camp Frederick Jones occupies the next another military cemetery or on Dennison, most having died of circle; and General Robert battlefields within army lines. wounds in hospitals in or near McCook has the mound closest to Cemetery officials carefully . Reinterments contin- the lake. The body of General recorded the name, age, company, ued as relatives claimed some of Thomas J. Williams was added to and regiment of each of the 994 the war dead from mass graves, lot C in 1867 "in consideration of graves "that relatives, friends, and moving them elsewhere, and as his position and distinction of his strangers may know in all time to those first buried in other military family." come, that we for whom their cemeteries and battlefield trench- A number of the Civil War lives were given were not es were identified and moved dead are also buried in family lots unmindful of the sacrifice they here. One contemporary wrote at Spring Grove. Colonel William made. . . . that we properly that in the three mounds "sleep Jones died alongside General Lytle appreciate the obligations we are those who, from home and its in the battle of Chickamauga. under to them for their efforts in endearments, started at war's Colonel Frederick Jones of the aiding to secure to us and future alarm in defense of the Union . . . 24th Ohio fell in leading a charge generations the blessings of a but here their dust sleeps peace- at the battle of Murfreesboro. redeemed and regenerated coun- fully." Until 1872, these individ- Other Union Generals at Spring try." Only twenty-eight bodies ual, mounded burials had tempo- Grove are Sidney Burbank and were unknown. rary numbered wooden pegs as Thomas Tinsley Heath (both in The Ohio dead came to markers, referenced by a roster in sec. 14). Wesley Cameron, an Spring Grove from Memphis, cemetery offices. architect, built a pontoon bridge Pittsburgh Landing, Vicksburg, An officer's body lies at the across the Ohio River to transport New Orleans, and even eastern center of each mound, still com- Union soldiers south during the fields, along with bodies left along manding an army of the dead. Civil War because Cincinnati had Sherman's march to the sea. In Colonel Eisner of the 50th Ohio, no other bridges in place. Many 1866 by order of Ohio's Governor, killed in Atlanta, lies in the mid- veterans who survived the war lie

The Fighting rose to the rank of general. He McCooks had a law practice with Edwin Stanton, later Lincoln's Secretary of War. When the Confederacy seceded, Daniel enlisted at age 63 and was killed at Buffington fighting Morgan's Raiders. His son ; : Robert joined the fight. ;A -i::..-:. -t;.- General Alexander McDowell ; -.v, ; x; -./•;• Ki * ^V • McCook, Robert's brother sim- V. ilarly died. The family erected Alexander McCook a temple modeled after the

Alabama into Tennessee, Choragic Monument to McCook, who was ill and was Lysicrates in Athens. Over riding in an ambulance, was seventeen-feet tall and nine ambushed by guerrillas. feet in diameter, the circular, Fatally wounded he died domed structure designed by Robert L. McCook August 6, 1862, at age thirty- Michael Garrit of the Hinsdale four. Doyle Granite Company, has Robert L. McCook, law partner The slain hero was one of twelve Corinthian columns of the noted German lawyer the famed "fighting and panels engraved with the Judge Johann B. Stallo, distin- McCooks," a family of Scotch names of the family's twelve guished himself at the battle of Irish origin. The family came children, topped by two Mill Springs, , and from Steubenville, where memorial urns dedicated to was promoted to brigadier gen- Daniel McCook, the patriarch, the parents. Twenty graves eral. In 1862, while marching contributed eight sons to the surround the structure. CHS his brigade through northern , four of whom Daniel McCook Spring Grove: 150 Years at Spring Grove, the most notable commemorate each of the Ohio Spring Grove's Civil War sec- being Major General Joseph dead. The Commercial com- tion is now easily identified by Hooker. plained in April 1867, that three, thirty-two-pound cannons Early in 1863, Cincinnatians although the "Sentinel" was "evi- placed vertically in the middle of organized to erect a monument dence of the love and respect of a each of the mounds and then near the soldiers' section. A vol- generous people for the fallen surrounded by some rustic untary subscription raised defenders of our country, yet it is stonework, which disintegrated $15,000 in gold for a statue and not inscriptive." Critics judged it and has since been removed. The base — a cash value of $25,000. In but a "counterfeit presentment," a cannons, however, proved contro- 1864, the noted thirty-eight-year- generic image, not real commemo- versial. One visitor described old sculptor Randolph Rogers ration. Deteriorating wooden pegs them "planted . . . muzzle completed a simple statue of a marked the graves until four-inch upward, as if to shell the moon, or Union soldier on guard, titled marble squares were placed to take a crack at a shooting star, "The Sentinel" or "The Soldier of mark each then-mounded grave, reminding the beholder of the the Line." Rogers also made minimal identification and poor chimney of a low-water 'dinky' on sculptural reliefs of battle scenes commemoration. Deliberately the Ohio River." In 1870, Major for the family monument of made small and inconspicuous by General Hooker wrote Brigadier General William H. Lytle for a fee meager funding, these markers General Philip George Cooke, of $3,210. remain even more anonymous Commander of the Department of The Lytle monument and than the standard vertical stones the Lakes, about pieces of artillery Rogers's "Sentinel," ten feet tall in other Civil War cemeteries, but marking "the last resting place of not including its base, are con- they did fit into Strauch's ideal of the soldiers who had fallen in the spicuous focal points on two ends not cluttering the landscape. battle in the last rebellion." of the Civil War section,- but crit- These pieces of artillery might be ics found them inadequate to "proper monuments for the dead

Fighting Joe Hooker picked up omitting the "The Sentinel" "The Sentinel," called a hyphen. After Burnside's "galvanized hero," was cast in defeat at Fredericksburg, bronze in the famed Royal Hooker was given command Foundry of Ferdinand von of the Army of the Potomac. Miller in Munich, the same He suffered defeat from place that finished the Tyler- Robert E. Lee at Davidson Fountain a few years Chancellorsville, losing about later. The bronze was about a 17,000 men. Yet his troops third more expensive than idolized Hooker for his mili- marble, known not to weather tary skills as well as for the well in the American climate. amenities of female compan- Spring Grove's "Sentinel" was ionship he regularly provided the first of several Civil War for them; such women were monuments the sculptor sub- dubbed "hookers." On the sequently designed in a similar knoll overlooking Geyser style. It established a conven- Lake, Hooker rests beside his tional form, often copied On a hillside above the Civil wife, Olivia Augusta through the next three decades War sections lies the famous Groesbeck whom he met at a for war monuments in ceme- "Fighting Joe Hooker." who ball at the Burnet House, the teries, on town commons, and held higher rank than any of city's grand hotel; she died in courthouse squares — the other generals buried in shortly after their marriage. North and South. James G. Spring Grove. Born in Hadley, Their lot is marked by a large Batterson of Hartford, Massachusetts, Hooker stud- sarcophagus of polished Connecticut, a firm which pro- ied at West Point and became Scotch granite, (sec. 30) CHS duced many of Spring Grove's a Mexican War hero. He was monuments, made the granite dubbed "Fighting Joe Hooker" foundation. "The Sentinel" after an Associated Press dis- stands at Spring Grove "as if patch sent out during the guarding the slumbering dead .. . Seven Days' Battles described bayonet brought to a port, chal- the combat under the title lenging the intruder — but their "Fighting-Joe Hooker," a head- slumbers will not be disturbed." line which other editors CHS The Civil War at Spring Grove 77 on the field of battle" but were Warren Keifer, local G. A. R. Refreshment stands lined the "out of place entirely in a beauti- (Grand Army of the Republic) tree-shaded Spring Grove Avenue, ful cemetery" where the dead commander, led veterans "three and vendors sold flowers. should rest in peace. Strauch told hundred muskets strong," brass At Spring Grove, an estimat- Hooker that the public wanted bands, city police, and the public ed crowd of 12,000 heard patriotic the authority to remove the in parade through city streets oratory from General H. L. Burnet artillery. He offered, "If the from the armory to Plum Street and others. Reverend B. L. Government did not feel able or Depot, "a dark and dreary under- Chidlaw thanked God for "subdu- willing to put up suitable monu- ground place, really nothing more ing the rebellion." General Keifer ments" instead of the decommis- than the abandoned White Water summarized the day's spirit: "We sioned cannon, "citizens would Canal roofed in." There, marchers emerge from the war on to a high- do it by subscription." A propri- and the crowd boarded trains to er plane of civilization. Our flag is etor himself, Hooker understood Spring Grove. Two railroads the synonym of freedom every- that Cincinnatians "do not wish charged a quarter for a round-trip where. . . . We stand on a new to have [Spring Grove] disfigured for those not willing or able to career of progress and prosperi- by such uncouth looking objects." walk four miles. Getting off at ty." To end the program the On their behalf, he asked the Winton Place, bands played Ladies of the Floral Committee Government to "ornament the "Yankee Doodle" and other patri- led the crowds around the place and not disgrace it;" but fed- otic tunes, until the Cemetery's mounds of graves, strewing them eral authorities refused to have the gates where they switched to the with flowers. so-called "great evil removed." "Death March" with muffled In 1872, a sunny, balmy day To honor those who fought drums. It was a gay, festive day, greeted veterans of the Grand in the Civil War, Cincinnati the crowd composed mostly of Army of the Republic. Cemetery staged its first Decoration Day women and children, dressed in ceremonies began at noon with celebration in 1868. General J. bright colors, not mourning. the singing of "America" and "Who Shall Care for Mother Now?" before Colonel David H. William H. Lytle poem, Lytle died in battle. The only son of a distinguished Moore's oration; the Doxology family, he had never married. and Benediction ended the pro- With his death the family gram. The crowd came with hand- name ceased to exist. His death at age thirty- six pro- picked flowers to place on the duced a major demonstration graves. The Enquirer reported that of grief. So many people lined the streets for his funeral on a "human tide" flooded the October 22, 1863, that the Cemetery all afternoon, arriving funeral cortege did not reach by streetcar, carriage, and foot. Spring Grove until dusk. General Lytle's monument, Decoration Day quickly designed by the noted sculptor became the one occasion when Louis Verhagen is a severed, fluted column of Carrara mar- cemetery gates opened to the pub- ble from Italy, symbolic of life lic, giving all ready access without cut short, topped by a patriotic tickets and minimal restrictions, eagle, bowed in grief rather than in a traditional, triumphal and disruptive behavior abounded. pose. Erected in 1865, acid rain In 1871 and 1872 Spring Grove One of forty Union generals took a toll of the detail. The buried at Spring Grove, monument, which is near the posted additional policemen "to General William H. Lytle, a entrance to the Cemetery, was preserve order in and about the veteran of the Mexican War, duplicated in 1915 by G. J. grounds" and "to suppress any died when serving with the Garnhorn in granite. It also Tenth Ohio Volunteers in the commemorates Lytle's grand- attempt to sell intoxicating battle of Chicamauga on parents who died in 1821 and liquors in the immediate vicinity" September 20, 1863. Before the 1831 and other family mem- war he had written a poem, bers. CHS and in 1881 the Board complained "Anthony and Cleopatra," in that the occasion resulted in dam- which the main character was ages to proprietors' lots which the a soldier who died in battle. Like the main character in his public "wantonly injured" with Spring Grove: 150 Years

dropping upon the green mounds the fresh and fragrant flowers so emblematic of the life of man," singing songs written for the occa- sion. When Rutherford B. Hayes was Ohio Governor from 1868 to 1876, he celebrated Decoration Day at Spring Grove. Workers set out massive, twenty-five-year-old aloe plants, donated to adorn the soldiers' lot during summers, at the same time as the Cemetery banned "indiscriminate" individ- ual plantings in this area. Yet the "gala" ceremonies were criticized for their cost, when the money spent could have "shown . . . grat- itude in a more substantial and more respectable manner" by pro- Until 1872, these individual, viding for needy widows and mounded burials had wooden orphans of the war. pegs as markers, referenced by "good order being violated with a roster in cemetery offices. Although it was the one The pegs were later replaced impunity." annual occasion when the with marble markers, placed For years the ceremony Cemetery was "thrown open" flush with the turf. SG remained much the same, at to the public, attendance at times augmented with the read- Decoration Day ceremonies ing of long poems composed by declined in the 1880s, attracting local women. Sometimes, chil- crowds of about 5,000 annually, dren "went from grave to grave less than half that of the years

By the late nineteenth century Citizens lined the parade route attendance at Decoration Day east over Fifth Street to Main, ceremonies declined attracting south to Fourth, west to Elm, much smaller crowds but the north to Sixth, and west to the pomp and circumstance Plum Street Depot, where remained with participants marchers boarded special from the Grand Army of the trains of the Hamilton and Republic, veteran officers, ora- Dayton Railroad and the tors, bands, and military com- Marietta Railroad for the panies in full dress. CHS Winton Place Station and Spring Grove. CHS The Civil War at Spring Grove 79

immediately after the war and only about a third of those visit- ing the Cemetery for an outing on that day. Pomp and circumstance remained, however, with the Grand Army of the Republic, the Loyal Legion, a company of the German Battalion, the Colored Battalion, two companies from the Newport barracks, veteran officer orators, bands, and mili- tary companies in full dress and bearing arms. The Civil War had conse- quences for the Cemetery work- force as well. In 1864, the Board allocated $500 to pay a "represen- tative" or "substitute" for Strauch rather than let him be drafted into the Union army, even though he was not a citizen. In 1866, direc- tors agreed to give preference to employing veterans at the Cemetery even if disabled, "believing that a one armed sol- dier can act as Watchman equally as well as a man with both arms." In 1882, General R. N. Batchelder, Quartermaster General in charge of National Cemeteries, asked the Board to sell the federal government twen- ty acres in another corner of the grounds in which the bodies of the Union dead already buried at Spring Grove and elsewhere could be reinterred. The plan was to move the cannons and to discon- tinue the existing three mounds. In 1864, the Board allocated Although directors, hoping to $500 to pay a subtitute so recoup some of the increasingly Strauch would not be drafted even though he was not a citi- valuable lake-side land for private zen. He became a naturalized lot sales, agreed to make the citizen in 1876. CHS transaction for $3,000 per acre, Congress refused to appropriate funds, and the Civil War section remains intact.