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150 Years of Echoes and Remembrance – the Civil War and Licking County
TAND HE CIVIL WAR LICKING COUNTY 150 Years of Echoes and Remembrance Just as the American Civil War left its mark on the United States, you can find traces of that vast conflict all across the landscape of Licking County. No battles between armies were fought on our soil, but there were many encounters that took place right here. Some of the key leaders grew up here, like Generals William Rosecrans and Charles Griffin, both of whom have Ohio Historical Markers in this county. The Newark Earthworks’ Great Circle, just beyond the doors of the CVB’s visitor’s center off OH Route 79 in Heath, was Camp John Sherman in 1862. This 2,000 year old monumental enclosure was put to work as a training encampment for the 76th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, one of the state’s most decorated regiments on the Western Theater of the Civil War. Standing in the Grand Gateway there, while looking across this immense creation by the hands of Native Americans so long ago, you can also recall that some 900 young men spent weeks learning the arts of war inside the Great Circle. They marched out, down to the railroad, and through Cincinnati onto riverboats, and on to the banks of the Mississippi – when their fighting ended three years later, more than half of them were casualties of war, and only some 350 of them returned to this spot to be mustered out at war’s end. But it was also here in 1878 that one of the largest reunions of Civil War veterans was held, thousands crowding into the area to listen to Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and William Tecumseh Sherman, reflecting on the sacrifices made and the
work still to be done in making freedom a reality for all citizens. A frightening but memorable moment came when the speaker’s platform collapsed, the dignitaries jumping clear of the wreckage as many were injured, and one man died. Gen. Sherman noted later that “one drunken carpenter” almost succeeded in killing him, where hundreds of thousands of Confederate sharpshooters had failed! You can find an even quieter point of connection with those returned veterans in Newark’s Cedar Hill Cemetery, where the Grand Army of the Republic, or GAR section stands near one gate with a watchful cannon and row upon row of headstones. Elsewhere on the grounds are the markers for many other veterans of the Civil War who survived the conflict, and whose stories continued on into the next century, but never forgot the years from 1861 to 1865. Corporal Leonidas Inscho is buried not far away, recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery in an action immediately preceding the battle of Antietam, pressing through a Confederate strongpoint on South Mountain, Maryland. He went on to be promoted into the officer corps, and served in the GAR after the war. John Shellenberger also received the Medal of Honor as a corporal, and is buried in the Welsh Hills Cemetery near Granville. His peaceful grave is exemplary of many such markers found in almost every community of Licking County, where the full story of heroism and sacrifice takes a little effort on our part to stand near, and look, and learn. Some 4,000 young men (and likely a few hardy, unsung WWW.ESCAPETOLICKINGCOUNTY.COM ✦ DISCOVER
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