On the Front
This collection of Civil War memorabilia - a drum, a bugle, and battle flags - came from the 16th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, one of the regiments that included volunteers from Wayne County.
James D. Robison of Wooster, who performed the first documented amputation of the Civil War.
General David S. Stanley received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery in battle. Before the war, Stanley had fought in a military expedition against Native Americans in the Southwest. Interestingly, he records in his memoirs how, during one skirmish, his life was saved by none other than his future foe, Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart.3
The volunteers that enlisted from Wayne County were divided among various Ohio infantry regiments and took part in some of the war’s most famous moments. Woosterites in the 16th Ohio Volunteer Infantry fought in the first organized land battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Philippi in West Virginia. During this battle, the brigade surgeon, James D. Robison, a Wooster native, performed the first amputation of the war, saving the life of a Confederate soldier whose leg had been shattered by a cannonball. This wounded soldier, James E. Hanger, went on to design prosthetic limbs for other wounded Confederate soldiers and developed one of the largest prosthetic-producing industries in America, Hanger Inc.1
Soldiers from Wooster in the 4th Ohio Volunteer Infantry were present at the Battle of Gettysburg. Stationed on Cemetery Ridge, they were instrumental in repelling the continuous assaults from advancing Confederate troops. These soldiers were then sent north to put down the 1863 draft riots in New York. Several of the Ohio regiments participated in Sherman’s campaign against Atlanta. Other major battles in which Wooster soldiers were present include Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor, Vicksburg, Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge.
A number of Wooster residents rose to positions of leadership during the war. The highest ranking soldier from Wayne County was Brigadier General David Sloane Stanley. A West Point graduate, he served in the U.S. cavalry during the war. He quickly rose to the rank of Major General and was placed in command of the IV Corps during Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign. During the 1864 Battle of Franklin in Tennessee, Stanley rallied his troops by leading a cavalry charge at a key moment in the engagement, and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery.2
1 Commemorative Biographical Record of Wayne County, Ohio (Chicago: J.H. Beers & Co., 1889), 47-48; “The J.E. Hanger Story,” Hanger, Inc., accessed May 27, 2014, http://www.hanger.com/history/Pages/The-J.E.-Hanger-Story.aspx.
2 Ben Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio (Indianapolis: Robert Douglass, 1878), 862-63.
3 David S. Stanley, Personal Memoirs of Major-General D.S. Stanley, U.S.A. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917), 44-45.