William Orlando Tarvin, Co. F 53rd Kentucky Infantry

An unexpected aspect of my quest to identify as many Campbell County Civil War Soldiers and  Sailors was the discovery of more of my distant relatives who served in the war. The first one of these soldiers who I realized was related to me was William Orlando Tarvin.

Orlando, as he went by, was born on May 11, 1841 in Campbell County, probably Carthage. He was the son of Thomas Floyd and Winifred Gholson Kercheval. William’s great-grandfather was Reverend George Tarvin, my sixth-great-grandfather, making us second cousins, five times removed, a distant relationship, but still a relationship.

The 1860 census listed him as Orlando Tarvin and reported that he lived with his parents and eight siblings. He had no occupation listed at the time.

 Orlando joined company F of the 53rd Kentucky Infantry, signing up in December 1864 in Newport, along with many other Campbell County men. He joined as a private and eventually was promoted to sergeant.

 

 The 53rd Kentucky had formed late in the war and missed out on the most famous battles and campaigns but it did help guard the Kentucky Central Railroad which ran south from Covington and through Lexington. It also protected areas in Kentucky against guerilla attacks. Its most noteworthy service was as part of the Saltville Raid into southwestern Virginia in December of 1864 when it helped destroy Confederate salt  works and several of the unit's men were wounded, killed or captured. 

 

One early 1865 story in the Cincinnati Enquirer listed Orlando among a group thought to have been captured by the Confederates during that campaign, but it was a  mistaken report regarding him, though others on the list did become prisoners of war.

 

After the war ended, Orlando, who was listed as 5 feet 7 inches tall, with blue eyes, sandy hair, and a florid complexion when he enlisted, transitioned back to civilian life. In 1870 he lived with his parents and three sisters while working as a cooper. He then married Sarah Lee Nelson on November 29, 1876 in Carthage, with Reverend James Jolly officiating the ceremony.

Four years later, the 1880 census listed Orlando as a farmer living with his wife and two daughters and, according to a family history report one of his descendants assembled, became a busy citizen in Campbell County. He served multiple terms as postmaster at the Flagg Spring Post Office, from 1890 to 1895 and from January of 1900 until that office closed in 1906.

On July 19, 1897, Governor William Bradley gave Orlando another responsibility, appointing him Justice of the Peace for the Sixth Congressional District of Kentucky. 

In 1900, the census listed his name as Orlando W Tarvin, and showed that he lived with his wife, five children and his wife’s aunt, quite a large household. He was still a farmer.

On September 9, 1907, Orlando’s life came to an end. The Kentucky Post reported that Orlando, who was also a Mason, had just attended the Alexandria Fair before his wife discovered him dead in his bed that fateful morning. His funeral was “the largest ever witnessed in that section of the county” and he was buried in Grandview Cemetery in Mentor.

On of his direct descendants forwarded me some of these details and I thank her for the assistance. Before then, I knew he was on the list, but her email made me realize he was probably related to me and from that point on, I uncovered the same about his cousins - more Civil War ancestors for me!

A future post may explore the careers and lives of his brothers and their five second-cousins who served in the Civil War  

Goodbye, Ramage Museum

 

 I left my role as a board member and volunteer at the James A.Ramage Civil War Museum at the end of 2020 as I had been there since 2006 (on the board since 2008) and thought it was time for a change for both me and the museum.

In hindsight, perhaps I got out in the nick of time, as on August 25, Fort Wright’s mayor enacted an executive order  shutting down the museum and eliminating the current museum board. Not long afterwards, the city council voted to approve his action.

He did explain some reasons for his sudden (at least publicly) decision, and there was some confusing statements made in his remarks. I wonder what, if anything, went unsaid, though I have some thoughts that will remain private for now.  I also think he could have handled the situation differently, but do not really want to write about that, at least at this time. Maybe later. This decision angered me and though the anger has subsided a bit over the last few weeks, the disappointment hasn't. 

That said, what is done is done.

 

Some good news I’ve learned is that the artifacts in the museum will be handled  properly, in accordance with applicable laws and standards. The main director (or whatever her title is) at another local museum is working with the city on this task.  (I was able to retrieve my items I had left there on loan.)

I was extremely disappointed and heartbroken - though not totally surprised - to receive this news. The timing and manner in which it occurred both caught me off-guard, especially since I was not as involved with the board as I had been in the past, but the result was not. This seemed inevitable, thought the when and how remained uncertain, especially after a June city council meeting in which it was said the museum would have one year (based on the city’s fiscal year) to raise funds and the city would hire someone to prepare a master plan for the park and museum.  To have this happen just a few days after Battery Hooper Civil War Days, the museum's biggest annual event, was especially unfortunate and terrible, perhaps even insulting.

JARCWM was not the biggest museum in the world and did not print unlimited money for the city, but it sits on historic ground (Battery Hooper was a local defensive position during the Civil War) and a beautiful parcel of land in a small city full of strip malls and chain stores/restaurants. It was a cultural and historic entity in a city with nothing else like it. It did not shut down because there was too much competition, though I suppose the powers that be thought that one museum was one too may.  Sigh. 

People from many states visited each year and it provided a perspective unique to the region, with displays on Squirrel Hunters, the Black Brigade, the diary of a local soldier, and more local history that is hard to find elsewhere. Perhaps the board never fully capitalized on or fully exploited  the museum’s strengths and the stories of the Civil War in the area, but everybody there was a volunteer. We did not have museum professionals and experts leading us. We all were on our own time and did the best we could, often just trying to proceed without attracting too much of the city's time or attention, since we had come to expect little help from that area. You can't fight city hall, as they say.

 

This is probably something I could write about for thousands of words and hours and hours of time, and as time passes I will likely share more memories of the good times I had at the museum, the friends I made, the people I met, and everything I learned about the war, local history, and even myself. I doubt this blog would have ever existed had I not started volunteering at the museum. I may not have decided to  take guided tours at Perryville and Cynthiana, during which I met more good people and learned more about the war. I likely would not have created my small collection of Civil War books, artifacts, and ephemera. I may not have joined the board at the Campbell County Historical Society had I not had the experience at the Ramage Museum, and my current research project to tell the stories of local Civil War soldiers may not have started. 

 

JARCWM was good to me and my life and its closing is a sad, disappointing, event. It was a good place with good people. I hope the city does continue to preserve the site of Battery Hooper. Very few physical remnants of the Civil War exist in the area, so it is important to keep the ones that remain.

I encourage readers to support your licsl history organizations, groups, museums, and societies. Even local libraries often have historical displays. Support Dutch institutions - even if you don’t have large amounts of money to donate,  smaller amounts help, or donate your time. Even if you can only volunteer for specific events, that helps. Otherwise attend events, purchase memberships and help your friends and family know about such groups and what they do.. 

 

  

Book Review: Cincinnati in the Civil War: The Union’s Queen City

Cincinnati in the Civil War: The Union’s Queen City

David L. Mowery

Copyright 2021

The History Press

I admit my reading of books has been too slow in the past year or two, but I did just finish an enjoyable and informative book, one about a local topic.

David Mowery’s most  recent book, Cincinnati in the Civil War,seems like a fairly short book, 279 slightly undersized pages before the end-notes and index in the hardback copy I have, but is full of information and details about Cincinnati and even the northern parts of Kenton and Campbell Counties in Northern Kentucky. (Campbell County is my lifelong home.)

As I first heard of and purchased this book, I thought I had a good grasp on the basics of this subject, and though perhaps there was some accuracy to that egotistic belief, this work showed me just how basic that understanding was no how much more there is to Cincinnati’s Civil War story, far beyond the “Siege of Cincinnati” which was the subject most familiar to me. 

This book is quite readable, with a nice flow to it, and the various photographs and illustrations add more perspective to how Civil War Cincinnati appeared. The pictures of buildings long gone are especially intriguing (though perhaps additional illustrations of the forts and batteries constructed for the late 1862 panic may have contributed more to this work.)

 

The seven main chapters of the narrative do a terrific job of covering just what the title says, starting with the coming of the war, to concerns about Cincinnati's location near slave-state Kentucky, the importance of defending the city, then an apt description of the "Siege," followed by discussions of other southern support or threats north of the Ohio River and finally the ending of the war. It is not a review of the entire Civil War - it is a detailed look at one area's experiences in the war, the war's effects on that area, and, most of all, Cincinnati's impact upon the war. This book is exactly what its title says it is.

The seven chapters of the main text are followed by five separate appendices, touching on topics such as ship-building in Cincinnati, regional war-time fortifications, a very educational (at least to  me) look at the locations of Civil War sites in the area (even noting the locations of buildings, camps, etc. that no longer exist), a history of Spring Grove Cemetery and listing of notable period figures interred therein, and a table listing Civil War units in which men from Cincinnati (and its home of Hamilton County) served, noting which companies, regiments or other units were composed mostly of these men. The inclusion of so many people snd -laces in this section really adds a lot of value to the entire book. 

 

The book’s organization - the narrative description of the subject as included in the book's title, followed by the appendices, more focused on specific subjects that had contributed to the bigger story of the city's part in the war - works wonderfully.

Overall, I enjoyed this book because of the information it provides (and, perhaps selfishly, because of ideas it gives me for my project that I have discussed here.) It is, practically, a must read for those interested specifically in Cincinnati Civil War history, but is also a valuable work for other Civil War and local history enthusiasts. I certainly recommend this book.

More Rambling on my Project

I recently  posted another update on the progress on my project, but had a few other thoughts and comments to share.

This entire project has really given me a new perspective on learning about  the war. Maybe I've briefly mentioned this idea in a previous post over the past year, but here it is again, in more detail than anything I've written about it before. 

Most of the Civil War learning I have done in my life has been by reading books. I also have read magazine articles, newspaper articles, and various online stories, and have watched videos and other similar content and have visited a couple of battlefields and been on tours of those places.  I suspect this is pretty standard for most students of topics like this.

In the last couple of years, my reading of books has greatly decreased, for multiple reasons (or excuses) but starting this book project has led me to a different way of learning. Reading so many military records of individual soldiers - mostly on Fold 3, but some on ancestry. com or even civiliwardata.com - has helped me see the story of the war differently - not from the view of generals and leaders or of famous battles of thousands of soldiers, but from the individual stories of so many men. It is true that such stories do populate  many Civil War books - mentions of soldiers wounded, captured or perhaps court-martialed - but finding the stories in the files and then researching them for more details just has a completely different feel to it for me. Maybe it is because this is still somewhat new, but I feel like I'm learning more just how the war played out. No, I don't have a better understanding of any individual battle (though, for instance, I had never heard of the First Battle of Murfreesboro before finding a Union soldier captured during it) , but maybe I know more about  what the human cost was besides mere numbers and figures.

Also, I think that trying  to add some genealogical/demographic information to the military information has added to this feeling I'm trying to describe. I realize my research may not change the interpretation of any battle or famous warrior, but I do feel it can add to the history of Campbell County and perhaps bring more information about at least some of the men who fought during this bloody war that still fascinates so many people 160 years later. It adds a human touch to these (mostly) faceless names - they were born, died, and usually had wives, children, siblings, etc. Of course I knew that intellectually, but finding this information in various records lets it hit more differently than just reading it in somebody else's work.

 Perhaps someone not necessarily interested in the details of battles might find some of the genealogy information and stories from civilian lives to be interesting. One soldier I found became a local policeman after the war and then was the first officer from Newport to be killed in the line of duty. He survived years of war, but not his civilian job. I have found a future mayor and some long-time local doctors who fought in the war and other similar stores about civilian lives.  I've found several stories similarly interesting and hope to uncover more. 

One of my latest lessons was when I found a card in a soldier's file. It was dated for after the war, but concerned the solder's mustering out, which a CMSR had mentioned  had not officially occurred. I was trying to figure out when this young soldier had finally left the army, when I found the other document, which mentioned him mustering out "by way of favor." 

I wondered if the military had done a "favor" to him by letting be listed as officially mustered out, perhaps because he had  enlisted at just 14 years of age. I asked about this on a Facebook group and a  long and interesting discussion basically confirmed this was probably the case, though the discussion also mentioned that an old meaning of "favor" was "letter." 

Another post-war document in the file officially noted his discharge and the date, and could reasonably be called a "letter," so I do believe the military did not officially discharge him in 1865 after his term expired - or at least did not leave paperwork proving so - and some postwar project, perhaps at the soldier's request, found this error and the "by way of favor" remark and the "letter" in the file basically closed his case and approved his honorable discharge.

In all the files I had reviewed - probably a few hundred by now - I had never seen anything like this, but it was a fascinating find and led to an enjoyable conversation. It also showed me that not everything went as it was supposed to and that even strict military procedure and bureaucracy made and perhaps even corrected mistakes. It was just a new and weird situation to find that phrasing - "by way of favor" - on a form, something I never could have expected to find (though one of the posters in the discussion said he had seen it before. This is not the type of situation most Civil War books discuss or even mention. 

I also found a soldier whose two service cards showed him joining two separate regiments on the same day, with a comment about having transferred to one,  but a helpful soul confirmed that this soldier had just transferred  from one unit to the other without mustering out of the service, so the date he joined the army remained the same. If he  had left the service, then rejoined the second regiment, the second form would have included a new date.  Perhaps I should have realized that on my own, but now I know.

Anyway, sorry this is not the most organized  or formal post, but I wanted to share those thoughts.

Campbell County Civil War Soldiers Book Update

 Time flies, at least the last few weeks, and I did not realize it had been so long since my last book update. I am still working on a couple more genealogical posts, but wanted to put down at least a few words on my continued progress in the Campbell County Civil War Soldiers. (It will include sailors, but I just use Campbell County Civil War Soldiers to refer to it for brevity's sake.) 

I am still working on it and plowing through names, trying to find more that fit on my list. I have about 1,200 confirmed Union soldiers now (a few dozen Confederates, but I honestly haven't worked on that side much in recent months, though it is still part of the plan.)  My progress has slowed down, of course, as the most obvious sources dry up and I now look for other sources. I'm currently trying to dig through the list of the men of the 23rd Kentucky Infantry. I have about 120+ of them on my confirmed list so far, but still find a couple more each week. I probably need to do the same with the 53rd Kentucky. I think I have about 140 from that regiment, but need to get that unit on a spreadsheet like I have with the 23rd and go through it name by name, a painstaking, but I think, worthwhile, process.  A couple of local home guard units are still on my lists to search. 

I also just realized that Jim Reis, a deceased local historian whom I've mentioned before, left some of his research files at the Campbell County Historical Society and those files include folders of his Civil War research, so I need to dig through those pages too in the search of more names. A quick glance dhows some of his notes and some printouts of period newspaper articles.

I realize that I will never find every single name that meets my qualifications, but I am enjoying the search and am hopeful that if I can finish my project, maybe somebody else in the future will improve upon it and uncover more names and sources. Perhaps looking through microfilm records of more Cincinnati newspapers of the time is one area I need to pursue. The Hamilton County Library is not that far from me and they have a large microfilm collection. 

I am finding quite a few whose only ties to Campbell County were that they enlisted in Newport, usually at the Newport Barracks. I will not include these in my main project because I am not convinced that is enough of a connection to the county, but I have got 120 or so names on a list that I am trying to keep for curiosity's sake. I am sure there are many more of these men out there, though where to look for them is tough question, but if I stumble across any while doing my research I am trying to record their names (after I check to make sure I cannot find any other county ties to them.)  This information might be handy to somebody some day, maybe in telling the story of the Barracks.

I am also getting quite a few of my "stories" done. I have about 60 of them in the "almost done" category - I believe my research, note-taking, organizing and writing of then are virtually complete, though I may go back to change a style on them - I recently decided to add page numbers on each page and I am currently starting to research which fonts would be best. I also have occasionally found additional information on a soldier from an unexpected source, such as research on another soldier, so I have had a few instances where I added the new details to the story, but all-in-all, for these, the main work is done and I am happy with how they are (though I always reserve the right to nitpick them, of course.) 

I have several more of these mini-biographies that are in progress. For some, the research is done and I just need to organize the information into a readable story, while others are still in the research and note-taking phase. I also have a list of more names whose stories might be worth exploring too, but I have not started those yet.  

Some of these tales are longer than others and I have not gone back and done the  math, but I suspect the average story is about 600 words, so for 60 of these documents, that means I have written about 36,000 words, which kind of blows my mind, especially with more to go. That seems like a lot of work to me, and it is, at least compared to what I have previously done for just one project, but it has not felt like work. I guess that is because it is a personal project and I can take my time doing it, with no hard-set deadlines. It is still enjoyable to me. I know many people like to refer to soldiers as ‘heroes,” and i understand that, but these men (and 1 woman) were just normal people too, with normal families, lives, and occasionally recorded problems. There are many good stories waiting to be found and shared. 

I have also started experimenting with an idea for a website where I could upload the list of names, their military information and their genealogical data, but my web-designing knowledge is even more miniscule than I realized, even using WordPress or Wix. I'll probably keep trying this again soon, but finding the information and writing the stories are my bigger priorities right now.

My Genealogical Connection to Dr. Samuel Mudd

The most surprising find I have (I started to say recently, but maybe I should state ever)  made in my family history research, especially as it relates to the Civil War, is a distant tie to a (rightly or wrongly) infamous person of the era, Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was convicted for helping John Wilkes Booth after the actor had assassinated President Lincoln. Mudd escaped the death penalty by one vote and some of his descendants are still fighting to clear his name today, believing he was not part of the conspiracy to kill Lincoln.  

When looking back at my family tree, I found an Eleanor Mudd, from Maryland, as one of my great-grandmothers, so I decided to explore that a bit more and found the connection to the doctor.  A relationship this distant is not easy to explain, but I've tried to list it below as straight-forward as I can. "X," of course, means "times," and some of the birth dates may be approximate as different sources show different years, especially farther back in years, decades, and centuries.

From drmudd.org

Dr. Samuel Mudd, born December 20, 1833 in Charles County, Maryland.

Henry Lowe Mudd, born in 1798, was his father. 

Alexius Mudd, born in 1765 was his grandfather.

Henry Mudd, born about 1730, was Dr. Mudd's great-grandfather.

Thomas Mudd, born about 1707 was his  2x great-grandfather

Hezekiah, "Harry" or "Henry" Mudd, born about 1681-1685 was Dr. Mudd's 3x great-grandfather.

Thomas Mudd, born about 1647 was Dr. Mudd's 4x great-grandfather.

That Thomas Mudd, whom I’ve seen called “Captain” Thomas Mudd, was our common ancestor, the source of the relationship. 

His son Thomas Mudd (I'm not sure if he as a "Junior" or a "II",) born about 1679, was my 8x great-grandfather. He was the brother of Hezekiah mentioned above.

 

Eleanor Mudd, born 1709 (I've also seen 1723), my 7x great-grandmother.

 

Eleanor married George Tarvin. Their son, also George, born about 1744, was my 6x great-grandfather

George's son, Joseph Tarvin, born about1773, was my 5x great-grandfather.

 

Joseph's daughter Rachel Tarvin, born about 1800, was my 4x great-grandmother.

 

Rachel married George Painter, and their daughter Mary Ellen Painter, born about 1832, was my 3x great-grandmother.

 

Mary Ellen married Oliver Moore and their daughter Rachel Moore, born around 1857, was my 2x great-grandmother.

 

Rachel married John Diesel and their daughter Violet Diesel, born in 1894, was my great-grandmother.

Violet married Oscar McCormick and their son Orville McCormick, born in 1912, was my grandfather.  2 generations later, I came along.

Alexander McCormick, Co. B 9th MN Infantry, my 3x great-grand-uncle

My most recent genealogical find confirmed that John Fleming McCormick of Pennsylvania was my 4th great-grandfather, the son of John McCormick who had been born in 1748 in Ireland and died in Pennsylvania in 1844. The elder John, my 5th great great-grandfather, was apparently a Revolutionary War soldier. One report I saw claimed he was an ensign in the 4th company of Pennsylvania militia, Colonel Plunkett's 3rd battalion, 1776. I am not overly familiar with the Revolutionary War military, so that will have to be part of my further research on this piece of family history.

One of John Fleming's sons was William Taylor McCormick, my 3 times great-grandfather and another was Alexander McCormick, my 3 times great-grand-uncle. I surprisingly found that Alexander was a private in company B of the 9th Minnesota Infantry in the Civil War. Finding another Civil War soldier in my family tree was a fun surprise, but in Minnesota? Wow - double shock. 

Alexander was born on November 25, 1817 in Lock Haven, Clinton County, Pennsylvania.

On November 25, 1858, he married Drucilla Perkins in St. Anthony, Minnesota. The 1860 census showed that they had two daughters, though one was thirteen years old, so perhaps he had had a previous marriage. It showed his occupation as minister.

 Alexander then enlisted in the 9th Minnesota on August 20 1862 in Minneapolis. He served a three-year term and mustered out on June 7, 1865

The 9th Minnesota was not a regiment familiar to me, so I looked it up, wondering if it had been at any famous battles - maybe I had a second family member at Gettysburg or perhaps one at Vicksburg? - but I found out that its service was not like that of the regiments other of my ancestors had joined.

In its early existence, its companies spent time at various frontier posts in conflicts against Native Americans. According to one source, Alexander's Company B participated in campaigns against the Sioux in Minnesota in August and September of 1862. 

In late 1863, the regiment began being part of the war against the Confederacy, spending time in Missouri and throughout the Western Theater of the Civil War. One article describes their service, including their combat in two battles against the men of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate victory at Brice's Crossroads and then a Union success at Tupelo. 

In December of 1864 these men fought during the Union's smashing victory at Nashville. Alexander and his comrades then aided in the capture of the city of Mobile,Alabama  in early 1865 and mustered out of the service in August of that year.

Alexander passed away on January 14, 1877 in Knob Noster, Missouri, but I have not yet found where he is buried.

Update on my Campbell County Civil War Soldiers Project

 My last couple of posts here have concerned genealogy and the war, and I have a couple more of a similar nature started, but I wanted to take a few minutes to update my previously mentioned plans to write a book about Civil War Soldiers from my home of Campbell County. 

I am still working on this, and, like much of the study of history, the more information I find, the more sources to search I discover. It's like digging a bottomless pit at times.

Right now, I'm referring to this simply as "my project" because I'm starting to feel there simply is to much information to fit into a book like I had originally hoped. I have over 1,000 confirmed Union soldiers, and all of these include at least some of the following details: unit, rank, company and genealogical data like birth and death dates and places and burial places. I simply don't think it is feasible to include all of this - plus more I am certain I will find - into one reasonably sized book, especially combined with the stories I want to tell of some of these individuals. I keep finding interesting tales that I want to share - mostly military, but a few from their civilian lives as well. For instance, I looked up the file of one soldier last night and one of the first documents I found was a form stating that a company would provide him with an artificial limb, on the government account. I have also found that at least three of these soldiers testified in a famous murder trial in the county in 1896. That is the kind of information I want to find and share. 

Currently, I believe an interesting approach would be to upload the soldier names and information to a website, either an existing one or one created just for this project. This would provide plenty of space, as well as allow for future additions as I (or others) find more information and corrections of any errors that show up in this work. I could also add links to information about the various units or battles or to individual findagrave.com records. (I currently have more than 700 graves on my virtual cemetery for this project.) Or maybe I could add photos of some of the enlistment forms or other interesting documents I find in various files. That flexibility and versatility are traits a book would not provide. 

Anyway, I'm sure I will keep thinking about the end game, but I'm still finding more names and details every day. I'm currently going through the roster of the 23rd Kentucky Infantry to find more men from that unit who had Campbell County ties. I've found quite a few that did not turn up on other sources, but there are almost 1,300 names on the regimental roster, so this is quite a daunting task. Then I'll need to do the same for the 42nd Kentucky and maybe the 41st, two “enrolled militia” groups of several hundred men from Northern Kentucky. 

It is a lot of work and no end is in sight, but I'm still enjoying it and learning quite a bit. My past Civil War study has been through reading books and articles, watching documentaries, visiting Perryville and conversations with other people, including my my volunteering at the Ramage Museum, but this way of studying - by looking at the records and lives of individual soldiers - provides me a much different perspective. Instead of reading published books about injuries, captures and military discipline, I'm now uncovering those reports in the files. This is truly history from the "bottom up" and is another way this project is quite satisfying and enjoyable. The local connection and discovery of connections between soldiers (For instance, I found one doctor whose postwar life included time on the Pension Review Board and later uncovered a sailor whose file included pension forms with that doctor’s name as part of it) only make it better. 

 I'm honestly a bit surprised I've been able to gather so much information in one place so far and am more confident than ever that this endeavor will be a positive contribution both to the history of the Civil War and the history of Campbell County. I cannot wait to share it, but as I keep finding more sources, the farther away that goal seems to be, but so be it. I knew this was not a quick work when I started it and even though I may have underestimated how much information was available, I also underestimated how much I would joy this way of researching.