By Rosanna Hoberg

James B. Swing’s memoir of his experiences during the American Civil War, related in 1916, conclude here.

“That evening, about dark or a little after dark, a regiment of soldiers, infantry from Camp Dennison, reached Batavia quite unexpectedly. Some report had been heard at Camp Dennison to the effect that there was likely to be a battle between Morgan’s men and Hobson’s men and the regiment had been sent up to reinforce Hobson.

“They had marched the 14 or more miles from Camp Dennison to Batavia on a hot, dusty day and were tired and hungry. They camped for the night in a field just across the creek from the village. The people had very little left to cook, but with such provisions as they had, the devoted women went to work again to provide something for the men to eat and drink. The next morning the regiment returned to Camp Dennison.

“In the year 1863, Judge Peter F. Swing, my wife’s brother, then 18 years of age, raised a cavalry company in Clermont County, one hundred men, and they were mustered into the service at Camp Dennison and became a part of the Ninth Ohio Cavalry. The company wanted to make him Captain, but he declined because of his youth, and was made First Lieutenant. He afterward became Captain of the Company.

“He wanted to enlist in the service before he became 18 years of age, the required age, but, as my wife told me, he promised his mother to wait until he reached that age. He was exceedingly capable and courageous. He served through the last two weeks of the war under General Sherman. Soldiers of his company have often told me how capable and perfectly calm and fearless he was under all circumstances.

“At the close of the war, he was offered a commission by General Grant in the regular army, but declined it. He was made Provost Marshall in South Carolina and served with distinction in that position for a considerable time, the position being a responsible one, because of the troubled conditions in the State of South Carolina at that time. The Rev. E.S. Burdsall, who was a member of the company, has told me that he was very much impressed by Peter’s soldierly appearance the first time he saw him appear on horseback before the company to command it. Rev. Burdsall said that he looked long at Peter as he sat there on his horse, giving orders, and he felt that here was an ideal soldier. He said, ‘I can see him now, just as he appeared at that time. The picture has been in my mind ever since.’

“During the war, the children and good-sized boys and girls of the village were full of the spirit of the time. Children played in the sands along the creek beds, making sand forts and bombarding them. Older boys organized play-companies of soldiers, and camped out and fought battles, one side often routing and chasing another and taking prisoners. Sometimes one side would be in a position in a ravine, the other side at the top of the hill or ridge, and one side or the other would charge up or down the hill, as the case might be, and there would be quite a struggle.

“The fathers of many of the boys were in the wars. I played with the son of one soldier, Mr. Charles Grant, who died at Andersonville, heroically refusing an offer of release on condition that he would not again enter the service of his country. In fearful condition though he was, he spurned the offer. There is a fine story about that.

“In one way the boys made themselves useful to the wives and families of the men who had gone to the war. Many of the families were poor, often in need. Men would give to the family of a soldier a wagonload of firewood. The boys would then go together in the evening, with their sawbucks and saws, which they all knew how to use, and saw up the wood, cutting it for stove use. We would saw up a big load of wood in a little while — so many of us and so full of the spirit. Then always we would be invited into the house and given pie and cakes in abundance. The ‘wood sawings’ were frequent and popular. We felt that we were helping a little.

“These are just little simple memories of the child life of the village as it was influenced by the war.

“I must mention the effect of the news of victory or defeat upon the minds and spirits of the people.

“When news of a disastrous defeat of our army came, deep was the sorrow and gloom. On the other hand, when we heard of a Union victory, there was great rejoicing; the houses were decorated with flags and bunting, and in the evening, if it was a great victory, the houses of all the people would be, as they said. ‘illuminated,’ which simply meant that lights, lamplights, and candlelights were placed in all front windows and in the darkness of the night — for we had not seen street lights — the ‘illumination’ was thought the very best expression of the rejoicing of the people. It may all seem small and poor to one who reads of it. But it was not so to our minds in those days.

“The greatest time of all was when the news came of the surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomattox. The old village was never so gorgeously decorated and so brilliantly ‘illuminated’ as it was in celebration of that long-fought-for and glorious event.

“In the midst of the rejoicing, I went out on the morning of a peasant day, with some of the boys to the woods, and upon our return to the village, we were amazed to see the change that had come over everybody and everything while we were gone. They had received the news of the assassination, the death of Lincoln. The flags and the bunting were all draped in mourning, and faces of the people filled with an expression of depression, of grief and consternation that cannot be expressed by any written account.

“Of course it was so all over the North. But nowhere could that awful tragedy and calamity have been more profoundly felt than it was by the good people of that dear old village. Most of those fine, earnest, patriotic men and women have gone out of this world. Some are still spared to us. The boys and the girls, the children of the wonderful years of the war, are getting to be old men and women now, and they are scattered far and wide in our country, some of them beyond the water. May God bless them all, the living and the dead — forever.”

Excerpted from History of Batavia, Ohio, 1814–1965, by Rosanna Hoberg.

Batavia is celebrating its bicentennial this year, and The Clermont Sun is publishing a series of historic vignettes. The late Rosanna Hoberg, author, was a columnist and reporter for The Clermont Sun. This column was written in 1964.