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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY 345
County veterans present, William Wermuth, Joseph Boals, John Mc-
Gookey, Judson A. Rathburn, John Ray and C. Schelb.
CIVIL WAR
As early as the year 1832 John N. Sloan, then an enterprising merchant
at Sandusky, was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the First
Light Infantry Battalion, Second Brigade and Third Division. After
this time, and while the people of the county were engaged in the arts
of peace, they Avere unconsciously, perhaps, preparing for war. Various
portions of the county had their representative companies.
In Sandusky many of the older people will remember the days of
glory of the Bay City Guards, an organization formed in 1851, and
under the command of Capt. R. R. McMeans, a physician of the city;
the Sandusky Flying Artillery, A. Silva, commandant; the Yeager
Rifle Company, L. Traub commanding, and others, perhaps, whose greatest
victories were achieved among the fair sex.
But there came a time a feAV years later when these had an opportunity
of exhibiting their valor upon the bloody fields of battle from the
first Bull Run to the Appomattox; from the State of Pennsylvania to
the Gulf of Mexico.
When on that fateful morning of April, 1861, there appeared, in
answer to Moultrie's guns, upon our political horizon the words "Civil
War,'' the sturdy men of Ohio were at once to the fore, and from that
day to the time that Lee yielded to that old hero, "Unconditional Surrender"
Grant, this state was seldom behind her quota. Let us see what
Ohio did during this four years of internecine strife.
Upon the authority of Mr. Reid it may be stated that under Mr.
Lincoln's call, on April 15, 1861, for 75,000 men, Ohio furnished 12,357;
July 22, 1861, 84,116; July 2, 1862, 58,325; August 4, 1862, (nine
months' men); June 15, 1863, 2,736 (militia); October 17, 1863, 32,837;
March 14, 1863, 29,931; April 22, 1864, 36,254 (one hundred days' service)
; July 18, 1864, 30,823; December 19, 1864, 23,275. In all Ohio
furnished under these several demands for men an aggregate of 310,654
men, Avhile her total quota amounted to 306,322 men.
The fact appears that the County of Erie Avas represented by men
in no less than thirty different regiments, although the number in each
averaged considerably less than 100. Among those AA'ere some of the
most daring fighters in the service.
To the military history of Erie County there attaches an additional
interest from the fact of Johnson's* Island having been made a national
depot for the detention of captured rebel officers. This island is not
a part of Erie County, but Sandusky seems to have been the central
and prominent point and the base of all operations on the island. From
here all prisoners were placed on boats and conveyed to the island, and
furthermore, all supplies were obtained here. The establishment of a
prisoner's depot on Johnson's Island was brought about through the
energy and exertions of a few of the leading business men of Sandusky,