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Source:
HISTORY of JEROME TOWNSHIP, UNION COUNTY,
OHIO
Curry, W. L. : Columbus, Ohio: Press of the E. T. Miller
Co.
1913
OUR HEROINES
Soon after
the first war meeting was held in the Seceder Church,
April 24th, 1861, the company was organized and
commenced drilling under Dr. James Cutler,
afterward a Captain in the First Ohio Cavalry, the
mothers, wifes and sisters said: "We can and
will help." Busy hands were plying the needles,
and in a few days uniforms consistent of red flannel
blouses and black caps were ready to don. Flags
were not so plentiful in those early days of the war,
and the sisters and sweethearts were not content to
purchase an ordinary bunting flag, but one stitched by
their own hands should be carried by the boys as they
marched to the wild music of the war-drums. A
messenger was dispatched to Columbus, silk was
purchased, and a beautiful flag was manufactured by
these patriotic girls.
Then came the call for 500,000 three-year volunteers,
and as a number of companies were organized in the
county, they were all called to assemble at Milford
Center July 4th for regiment drill. A wagon was
equipped with a great platform decorated with bunging
and was drawn by four white horses driven by
Moderwell Robinson. In this wagon
were seated thirty-one girls, dressed in white with
red, white and blue sashes, representing all the
States in the Union. The wagon was driven to the
square in New California, and with appropriate
ceremonies and great enthusiasm, the flat was
presented to the company. Preceded by this wagon
with the bevy of girls singing patriotic songs a
procession was formed, some in wagons, buggies or
carriages, and many on horseback, proceeded to
Milford, where the regimental drill was held, vied by
thousands of patriotic citizens.
The flag was not taken to the field during the war, but
he enthusiasm of that flag presentation by the loyal
young ladies of this community - our own sisters and
sweethearts - was an inspiration that followed the
soldiers to the front and cheered them on battle
lines.
During our Civil War the loyal women of our county did
not have the inspiraiton of the war-drums - no hop of
fame for heroic deeds amid the clash of arms - no hope
of reward but that of a nation saved. But her
courage was equal to that of the soldier who carried
the sword or the musket - when she sent father,
husband, brother or sweetheart with prayers and
blessings.
The names of many of these girls are recalled and
herewith published as our heroines - many of whom have
passed to the other shore:
| LIZZIE GOWANS |
ABI SHAFFER |
| JEANNETTE GOWANS |
MAGGIE NUNEMAKER |
| AMANDA MCCAMPBELL |
MARTHA JANE FLECK |
| LOVINA LIGGITT |
SUSIE RUEHLEN |
| MARY MCCAMPBELL |
SARAH MARY
LIGGETT |
| SUSANNAH ROBINSON |
ELVIRA ROBINSON |
| LOU ROBINSON |
BELLE BUCK |
| OLLIE CURRY |
LIZZIE LAUGHEAD |
| MARY CURRY |
EMMA ROBINSON |
| PHEBE CURRY |
SARAH WOODBURN |
| MARTHA J.
ROBINSON |
ELIZA HILL |
| GEORGIANA
ROBINSON |
FIDELIA ROBINSON |
| JENNIE TAYLOR |
BELINDA KETCH |
| SALLIE BAIN |
NAN BAIN |
| ESTELLE
MCCAMPBELL |
HESTER MITCHELL |
| NAN BEARD |
LOU CONE |
| SARAH GILL |
HANNAH BEARD |
| FLORENCE WOODBURN |
MARY ANN DODGE |
| LOUISA KETCH |
SALLIE RUEHLEN |
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I recall vividly a scene on the battlefield of Shiloh
which can never be effaced from my memory. The
next day after the battle, fought April 6th and 7th,
1862, along the banks of the Tennessee River, I saw
upon that terrible field of carnage a woman of my own
kin. Her maiden name was Nancy Snodgrass,
and when a girl she resided in Jerome Township.
Her father William Snodgrass, a cousin of my mother,
one of the early pioneers of Union County, Ohio, had
emigrated to Iowa in the early fifties when the
daughter was a girl in her teens.
Just at the beginning of the war she was married to a
young man by the name of Vastine, who enlisted in the
Iowa regiment. He was stricken with fever, and
she came from her prairie home in Iowa to nurse him in
the hospital at Fort Donelson. When he was
restored to health he was detailed as a nurse and his
young wife remained as a nurse in the hospital
She was on the field during the two days' battle,
fought amid the forests and along the ravines, without
breastworks or protection of any kind, where the loss
in teh two armies was upwards of 24,000. The only
woman on the field for many days after the battle,
there she moved about among the dead and wounded, an
angel of mercy, ministering to the wants of the
suffering soldiers of both the blue and the gray;
the brave-hearted, sympathetic country girl, as true
as the soldier who fell upon the field with sword or
musket in hand. Any picture I could draw would
give but the faintest idea of the reality. The rain
had been pouring in torrents, the little streams and
ravines flowing toward the Tennessee were at high
flood, while ambulances with sick and wounded, supply
and ammunition wagons, were plunging through the mud
and miring everywhere, as they wound their slow way
back and forth from the field to the landing, where
the hospital boats were floating in the river waiting
to receive their loads of mangled bodies. Then
there were the details burying the dead in shallow
graves, or long narrow trenches, with not even a
blanket to cover their faces or bodies. There
had been a victory, and cheers went up from the camps
of the living, and night was coming on. It was a
weird scene, as plain to me as if but a few months
ago. Yet more than half a century has passed
since that bloody war tragedy on the battlefield of
Shiloh.
The groans of the suffering and dying carried in on the
litters or in the ambulances; the broken neigh of some
warhorse in ravine or tangled brush, shot through body
or limb, vainly trying to struggle to his feet, and
with a look of despair almost human as he raises his
head in the throes of death; a few camp-fires
glimmering here and there, with a white tent which had
not been disturbed by shot or shell in the terrible
struggle just ended. A dim light of candle or
lantern in some headquarters of the commander gleams
through the mist. The splash of a horse's hoofs
in the mud is heard as a weary staff officer or
courier dashes off on the gallop to some distant part
of the line with orders for the movements and pursuit
of the defeated foe at early dawn on the morrow.
Many a soldier, with the dead piled thick around him,
in his agonizing pains was thinking of the loved ones
at home in the far-off Northland as he gazed at the
starless sky- of mother, sister, or wife - when the
flutter of a woman's garments was seen and he spoke
softly, "A sister of mercy." Yes, a sister of
mercy caring for the wounded that dark night. It
was Nancy Vastine, the brave country girl, the
only woman on that awful field of carnage, April 7th,
1862. A drop of cordial, a cool bandage, a cup
of hot broth, are trifles for a man-of-arms to long
for, but the getting of them from a woman thrills the
faltering heart with warrior blood, and many a life
was saved on the field because a woman was around.
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