Coshocton County, Ohio - Chapter 33: War of 1812, 1881

Companies Raised in Cosliocton county - Hull's Surrender- Muster Roll of Johnston's Riflemen - Marcli of Colonel Williams' Command - Their Services on the Frontier - Defense - of Fort Meigs - Rev. H. Calhoun's Communication.

AFTER the declaration of war against Great Britain, in June, 1812, Return J. Meigs, at that time Governor of Ohio, raised several regiments, among the commanders of which was Colonel Lewis Cass of Muskingum county. Col. Cass in raising his regiment, enlisted an entire company from Coshocton county, chiefly from the south and west parts. Early in June, this company, with its regiment, marched to Urbana, where they were joined by the full force under the command of General William Hull, about the middle of June. The entire army numbered twenty-five hundred men, and began its northern march from this point ; and by the end of June had reached the Maumee. General Hull's campaign ended in disaster; the surrender of all his forces and effects to the British ; and the Coshocton company returned home on parole.

The surrender of Hull's forces, August 16, 1812, was a great shock to the people, who had up "to that time complete confidence in the army tor their defense. They had not built block-houses or engaged the militia to any great extent. Governor Meigs, on the receipt of the news of Hull's surrender, made a requisition for volunteers; and in response thereto, Judge Isaac Evans raised a company in Coshocton county, immediately marched to Franklinton (across Scio|;o from Columbus) ; was mustered into service and furnished with uniforms and United States muskets.

General, Harrison was appointed and took command of the army, about the time of Hull's surrender and upon receipt of that news, came immediately to Ohio ; reaching Cincinnati on the 27th of August, and the army at Dayton, or thereabouts, on the 31st of the month. The company of Captain Evans joined General Harrison's forces at Piqua about September 3. A regular campaign; was laid out for the recapture of Jiichigan, but for the time being the troops were employed in keeping open the communications between the upper Miami and the Maumee. General Winchester was given command of the troops at the Michigan frontier, and established himself in winter quarters by January, 1813, on the northern hanks of the Maumee river. While here an arrangement was made to defend the inhabitants of Frenchtown from threatened British and Indian invasion, but for want of due precaution, the defense was a lamentable failure, resulting in the defeat and surrender of the entire force, including General Winchester. The result of this defeat, added to that of Hull's surrender, was a general alarm of the country ; blockhouses were built all along, from the front to the interior of Ohio. Demands were made for all able-bodied men, and several companies were raised in Coshocton county, that were engaged at the Mansfield frdntier outside of General Harrison's regular army.

One of these companies was raised by Captain Isaac Meredith, in the northwestern section of the county, of which company one James Oglevie of Keene township is still living. Captain Tanner is also reported to have raised a company m the southern part of the county; and mention is made of one Captain Beard having raised a part of a company. These companies, with a rifle company commanded by Captain Adam Johnston, and one or two other companies, all being armed and equipped by themselves, were placed under the command of Colonel Charles Williams, and ordered by Governor Meigs to the frontier.

M. Miller; Third Sergeant, Frederick Morkley; Fourth Sergeant, Robert Culbertson ; First Corporal, John H. Miller ; Second Corporal, Zebedee Baker; Third Corporal, John M.Bartman; Fourth Corporal, John D. Moore; Privates: Samuel Morrison, Edward Miller, Isaac M. Miller, Michael Miller, Isaac Hoagland, George Arnold, James Buckalew, John Baker, Majithew Bonar, Joseph Neft, Allen Moore, Benjamin Workman, James Winders, John McKean, Windle Miller, John G. Miller, Isaac G. Miller, George McCullough, Daniel Miller, Joseph McFarland, Andrew Lyberger, Henry Carr, Nathan Williams and John Steirman. To these names may be added the following names of citizens of Coshocton county, who were engaged in the war of 1812, but with what companies is not on record, viz.: Joseph Severns (who is still living in New Castle township), Peter Moore, Charles Miller, John G. Pigman, Thomas Johnson, Richard Johnson, Andrew McLain, Samuel Elson, Francis Smith, W. R. Cloud, James Williams, Levi Magness, George Magness, Richard Fowler, Rezin Baker, Richard Hawk, Isaac Shambaugh, James Oglesby, James Wiley, Elijah Newcum, James Butler, Robert Corbet and Thomas Butler. The various companies under Colonel Charles Williams reached Mansfield the latter part of August, and erected a block-house on the public square. Here they were at the time of the massacre of the Zimmers, Martin Ruffner and James Copus. The particulars of the Zimmer and Copus massacre develop the fact that the massacre, in both instances, was the result of the removal of the Greentown Indians, who were part Delawares and part Mohawks, and were so called because of their camp having been located at Greentown, on Black Fork.

The Indians were thrown into a violent state of excitement upon the apperance of the soldiers for their removal. Mr. James Copus was consulted in regard to allaying this excitement. He was a man much respected by the Greentown Indians, who had learned to believe in his honesty and fidelity and to trust him. Mr. Copus was opposed to the removal of the Indians, believing it to be unjust, but finding orders for removal to be peremptory, finally made the effort to persuade the Indians to consent. Upon representations that their property should be safe and their lives respected, they departed with the soldiers, who, in violation of their pledges, immediately burnt the cabins and property of the Indians. The smoke and flames of their burning homes were seen by the departing savages, and they vowed a fearful vengeance. Two weeks after the removal of the Greentown Ind,ians Martin RufFner and the Zimmer family, were murdered; they were living about five miles north of the burned village. After this massacre of the Zimmer family, Mr. James Copus and family went to the block house at Beam's mill, and remained there five days; after which they returned home, believing the Indians would not molest them because of friendly relations that hitherto existed between them. Nine soldiers, from Adam Johnson's rifle company, of Coshocton county, were detailed to accompany Mr. Copus to his home. They took quarters in the barn while the family remained in the house. In the morning the soldiers went a short distance to a spring, leaving their guns behind. They were immediately attacked by the Indians, and five of the soldiers and Mr. Copus were killed in a short time. The remainder of the soldiers kept up the fight from daylight until ten o'clock, and finally repulsed the savages. This engagement was the only one in which Coshocton men are known to have lost their lives in the struggle of 1812. Some of the powder used in this war was made from saltpeter collected a few miles south of Roscoe.

While these events were transpiring at the Mansfield frontier, the company of Captain Evans was engaged with the forces of General Harrison, who were constructing Port Meigs. On the 28th of February, 1813, a large force of British and Indians under command of Proctor, Tecumseh, Walk-in-the-water, and other Indian chiefs, appeared on the Maumee in boats, and prepared for the attack. The effort to capture the fort, from the determined character of the defense, developed into a seige; which was prolonged ten weeks, and resulted in the final defeat of the British. The continued campaign in this section consisted in like attacks upon the various forts that had been erected along the frontier, with a result in all cases of victory for the forces of General Harrison. The naval victories for Americans on the lakes and one or two victories on land, finally terminated the struggle, and the- Ohio troops returned to their homes; in which triumphant return Coshocton county had hersljare of rejoicings.

During the war, when our forces were defeatedat the Michigan frontier, it was rumored that the- Indians were coming to this section of country to massacre and burn. Word was sent all alongthe line of the Walhonding and Muskingum rivers to the homes of the scattered settlers ,- most of whom were left unprotected, the husbands and sons being at the frontier.

The alarm thus sounded caused great consternation and there was a hasty gathering of friends and families into the various block-houses that were scattered through the country, awaiting theapproach of the enemy. The feeling that prevailed at that time, and the sensations of terror experienced, are better portrayed in the languageof one of the ministers of that day, whose mission it was to comfort and console the terror-stricken in the day of trouble, than by the pen of the historian of to-day. Rev. H. Calhoun writes of that period in a short historical sketch as follows:

The war of 1812 was severely felt upon our border settlements in the west. Small and feeble villages were deprived of nearly all their maleinhabitants, and thus a few trembling wives and daughters and helpless boys, with here and theresome decrepid and infirm old man, incapable of enduring the hardshipa of the camp, were exposed to all the cruelties of the merciless savages, maddened by British bounties and presents. In this. situation, with many others, was Coshocton. At the cry of danger nearly every man, capable of bearing arms, volunteered for the army, badefarewell to home and hurried away to the northwest, the scene of the greatest danger and exposure. There was, however, no general engagement m which the soldiers' valor could be tested..

As they lay encamped and inactive, perhaps dreaming of the dear ones left at home, and little knowing what might betide them, a scene occurred of no little interest at this place, which weshall try to describe :

People left in such a defenseless state in a timeof general danger, are alive to every alarm and susceptible of a thousand fears. Mothers start at every strange sound which disturbs their slumbers and hug their children closely in their embraces, and many a familiar object, at twilight,- by an excited imagination, is transformed intothe dark outline of a murderous savage, waiting to spring upon his unsuspecting victim. In the- midst of this prevalent state of suspense, the village was one day thrown into consternation by the arrival of a messenger, with terror marked in his countenance, and impatient to communicate the intelligence that the wilderness to the northwest, between the Tuscarawas and Walhonding, was infested with Indians, whose murderous design could be nothing better than to pillage and burn. In turning attention to another part- of this scene, enter a cabin and observe what is passing there. It stands far back from the river, among the thick hazel bushes which covered the most of what is now the town. There might be seen the young mother, with her babe, born and bred amid the comforts of an Eastern , home, now the lonely occupant of a rude cabin, her husband in a distant town, and no one to cheer her lonely hours but a poor invalid, the son of a clergyman in an eastern city, with a broken-down constitution, and he himself now suffering with the prevailing sickness of the country. Amid the general confusion and consternation they were forgotten, and neither heard the alarm, nor assembled with the rest at Colonel Charles Williams' at night, but slept as sweetly and safely as though nothing had occurred. The next day they heard what had been done, but thinking their own cabin as safe as any other, spent the second night as they had the first.

The day following the first alarm which we have endeavored to describe, in the afternoon, a traveler, on horseback, faint and weary, might have been seen, a little to the east of where Newark now stands, making his way, in a road little better than an Indian trail, to Coshocton. He looked now at the declining sun, and now into the thick gloom of the forest before him, and seemed anxious to reach some fixed point ere nightfall. The time flew by, the way seemed long and the companion of his journey weary. It was late when he passed the place where Irville now stands, but he still pressed on, as though his point of destination was yet before him. Night came on and he felt he could go no farther, and alighted at a solitary cabin, in the midst of the wilderness. As he went in, a stranger, there for the night, recognized hini and asked if he was not from Coshocton ? He replied that he was; upon which he told him the startling news; the alarms of Indians; the momentary expectation of an attack, and that troops had been sent for, to Zanesville. The emotions of our traveler are better imagined than told. He thought no more of his own fatigue, or that of his horse; ordered him fed and, with as little delay as possible, was again on his way. It could not be expected that a father and a husband would sleep there, while his family were in such peril. No ordinary feelings agitated his heart, as he rode on through the dark, dense forest, and thought of his wife i(nd

A bright moon rode the heavens above him and enabled him to discern his way. Suddenly he emerged from the wood into a small clearing, which had been deserted by some unfortunate settler, and to his utter consternation, as he supposed, found himself in- the midst of Indians encamped for the night. By the uncertain light of the moon, he could see one and another scattered thick over the clearing, startled from slumber by his unexpected appearance among them. In a moment, for there was no time to lose, he resolved not to return, but press his way through them and trust to the fleetness of his horse to make good his escape. To go back or forward seemed alike dangerous. Judge now of his surprise and joy, as he dashed into their midst, to find what his excited imagination had worked up into an encampment and the figures of dark and murderous savages, was only a herd of peaceful cattle that had been grazing in the woods, and had come out into the opening, as is their custom, to sleep at night. Recovering gradually from his fright, he now rode along, only taking the precaution to provide himself with a good hickory club, his only means of defense in case of emergency. As he thought over his own alarm and the ease with which in the excited state of the public mind false alarms might be raised, he could not but hope that the Indians who had been reported as threatening ruin to his own home, might prove as harmless as those he had just encountered.

By noon of night, he arrived at a well-known place of entertainment, on the banks of the Muskingum some five miles above where Dresden now stands. Here he found his hopes more than realized. The kind host informed him that the alarm had all proved false; the troops had returned to Zanesville after committing various depredations upon the poultry and cattle by the way, and the inhabitants had returned to their homes. He accordingly, having fought his own battle with his imaginary foes, and feeling disposed to let the women and children defend themselves from theirs, for the rest of the night at least, retired for the night.

The settlers of Coshocton county mainly congregated, during this scare, in the house of Charles Williams, except those in the far northwestern section of the county, who generally flocked to a large block house that had been built during the war at what is now the village of New Castle in New Castle township.

A small portion of the citizens of Coshocton county, among others, Levi and George Magness, were with the American army, on the Canadian aide of the line, under Generals Scott and Brown.