Buckeye Boys

By Sam Bailey

Buckeye Boys is about the 110th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment and its participation in multiple battles in the Civil War from October 1862 to April 9, 1865, when the army of Northern Virginia surrendered. Much detail is derived from a two-volume work by the 110th commander Joseph Warren Keifer entitled Slavery and Four Years of War and the official records of the Union and Confederate armies. Much of John Wesley Warrington’s experiences are attributed to family lore. At age sixteen, when he enlisted, he was the youngest Buckeye in the 110th regiment. Of equal interest are the amazing careers that many Buckeyes experienced as civilians after the war, particularly considering the wounds they had suffered.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781098087852

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Buckeye Boys

Sam Bailey

ISBN 978-1-0980-8784-5 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-0980-8786-9 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-0980-8785-2 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Sam Bailey

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Early Years

Chapter 2

Ohio, 1850–1860

Chapter 3

Why Off to War?

Chapter 4

Camp Piqua

Chapter 5

Off to War

Chapter 6

Winchester

Chapter 7

The Second Battle of Winchester

Chapter 8

New York City Draft Riots

Chapter 9

Back to War—Bristoe, Brandy Station, and Rappahannock Station

Chapter 10

Battle of Mine Run or Orange Grove

Chapter 11

Winter Quarters 1864

Chapter 12

General Grant Takes Command

Chapter 13

Battle of the Wilderness

Chapter 14

Battle of Spotsylvania

Chapter 15

Battle of Cold Harbor

Chapter 16

Battle of Monocacy

Chapter 17

The Battle of Opequon

Chapter 18

Battle of Fisher's Hill

Chapter 19

Destruction of the Shenandoah

Chapter 20

Battle of Cedar Creek

Chapter 21

Sheridan's Ride

Chapter 22

Sheridan's Victory

Chapter 23

Siege of Petersburg and Richmond

Chapter 24

Battle of Jones's Farm

Chapter 25

The Final Breakthrough

Chapter 26

End of the War

Chapter 27

Lee's Surrender

Appendix

Civilian Life

About the Author

To Janet G. Bailey, John Warrington Bailey, Libby Warrington Ott

Introduction

John Warrington is my great-grandfather. He fought in the Civil War, joining the 110 th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment at age sixteen in August of 1862, enlisting for three years. Ohio raised 32,000 soldiers, the third most after New York and Pennsylvania. Ohio soldiers, known as Buckeye Boys, participated in every major battle. Nearly 35,475 men were casualties, and almost 7,000 were killed in action. The 110 th Ohio fought in twenty-four major battles and many more skirmishes.

I became interested in the Civil War while growing up in Cincinnati. My mother and uncle told me stories about their grandfather whose military service this book is about. They took me up to the family farm in South Charleston, Ohio, several times where I saw pictures and memorabilia about the war. Many of the stories in this book are derived from family lore.

I found it hard to believe that my great-grandfather never suffered a scratch during twenty-three major battles until one week before the end of the war, he made a stupid mistake by which he suffered a serious wound that sent him to hospitals for several months and caused him to miss General Lee's surrender.

During the entire war, the 110th Ohio, led by Colonel Warren Keifer, was mostly affiliated with the 6th Corps of the Army of the Potomac, one of the Union's most outstanding corps. In this story, you will meet several of the Union's most outstanding generals, including Grant, Sheridan, Sedgwick, Wright, Custer, Lew Wallace, and Keifer—plus Abraham Lincoln, who my great-grandfather met and talked with at the end.

Chapter 1

Early Years

My name is John Warrington. I was born in South Charleston, Ohio, on July 22, 1846, the second child of Mary Davisson Warrington and Charles Wesley Warrington. My father was a traveling Methodist preacher who rode his horse on circuit from town to town, holding religious services to spread the word of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Our family lived in South Charleston in my early years when my father was not traveling; but my mother, sister, and first brother moved to the Davisson family farm one mile east of town when our father was away on circuit. The Davisson property was a land-grant farm as a result of patenting to my mother's grandfather, Isaac Davisson Sr., for service as an orderly sergeant and scout in Virginia during the Revolutionary War. After the war, he brought his family to South Charleston from Virginia. Isaac Davisson Jr., my mother's father, purchased forty-seven acres of the farmland from his father in 1818.

Our house, log cabin, and barn are set back a quarter mile from the Columbus–Cincinnati Pike on gentle rolling land. The fields and pastures are tree-lined with a gurgling brook winding from the southeast to the southwest. North of our new red brick house, which was being built when I was born, on a knoll lays the family graveyard enclosed with a zigzag post and rail fence. A few years before my birth, a railroad line connecting Columbus and Cincinnati was constructed along the southern boundary of our farm.

My father died when I was four years old, and my mother was widowed with my older sister, Martha, me, and my younger brother Billy. Mom was pregnant with my youngest brother, Charlie. We moved to the farm with our mother and grandmother where they would live for the rest of their lives. They would have to take care of all of us, and we would all run the farm.

I became ready to help at about six years old. The farm was primarily a pig farm; but we also raised cows, chickens, and horses and grew hay, wheat, oats, corn, and vegetables. By the time I was ten, I was helping mow grass and grain with a sickle and then a scythe. At the end of the day, I loved to walk out to our horse pasture, jump on my horse Taffy, ride him bareback to the barn, and feed him his oats and hay. The older I got, the more numerous the chores as I became stronger. I could now plow, plant, reap, mend fences, milk cows, and feed pigs among other common chores. We had a buckboard, which I used to ride to Springfield with my mother on Saturdays during the summer to take our crops to the farmer's market. As I got older, I could do this by myself and would often take my sister with me.

Though it may appear haphazard by modern standards, schooling was thorough not only in reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic but also in American history, politics, and the classics. Our family read the Springfield Republican and occasionally the Cincinnati Gazette and discussed local and national politics regularly. Trips to Springfield were frequent, and occasionally, the family would travel to Cincinnati or Columbus.

Chapter 2

Ohio, 1850–1860

By the 1850s, Ohio was a well-developed state having joined the Union in 1803 as part of the Northwest Territory. Ohio was the seventeenth state but was third in population behind New York and Pennsylvania. In 1860, most of Ohio was still rural. Only few of the residents were native-born Americans, and most were immigrants from other states. The northern part of the state was populated with immigrants from New England and Virginia, while southern Ohio immigrants came from Kentucky and other Southern states and many from Germany and Ireland.

My education began at home with disciplined schoolwork beginning at four years of age. Six Methodist families in the neighborhood held church services every Sunday and formal school classes every four weeks in our log cabin. My sister was in class with me in the early years. My father's brother, Uncle George, and my Aunt Sally had three daughters when we moved to the farm; and one named Carrie, who was born when I was five. By the time I was twelve, she had a pony of her own, and we often rode together. My other favorite pastimes were fishing and hunting with my Uncle George. I became quite skilled in hunting for game with a flintlock musket. This was most difficult because of its weight and the delay between pulling the trigger and the percussion of the gun. My early practice loading the gun with the ramrod while lying on the ground proved of great advantage to me in the ensuing war.

This would have an impact on the political outlook for the war. When the Whig Party was in disarray and the new Republican Party emerged in 1856, I became exposed to the arguments for and against slavery and abolition, states rights and the Union. We had no Negroes in Clark County or in the surrounding areas. The only blacks I even saw growing up were in Cincinnati.

As early as the election of 1856, I listened to speeches in Springfield in favor of Fremont and Buchanan. Political excitement was high, and crowds often mobbed and egged the speakers. Enthusiasm was so strong for democracy and the right to vote. Virtually all Ohio's eligible voters went to the poles in 1856. In the 1850s, Ohio politicians wanted to conciliate the South by redressing its grievances, especially over the Fugitive Slave law, but not at the expense of