30
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
HOLMES COUNTY REBELLION--FORT
FIZZLE
J. R. VANCE
I was born in a log cabin situated in
Knox Town-
ship, Holmes County, Ohio, almost
three-quarters of a
century ago and have lived here on the
farm ever since.
My information in regard to the events
I am about to
narrate comes from various sources. I
heard my father
and mother discuss events as they had
happened. As I
grew older I began to ponder on these
discussions and
to ask questions. Many times I had them
live over
again those stirring times, and
breathlessly I listened
and wondered.
My recollections of those troublous
times began
early in '63. The wives of soldiers at
the front used to
come to our cabin to sit by the old
fireplace and seek
sympathy from my mother. I have seen
them crying
as if their hearts would break, and
heard them say, "We
will never see our husbands
again." I had other sources
of information besides that of my
parents. I had the
story of Isaac Tipton, deputy-provost
marshal, when he
and Provost Marshal Colonel James L.
Drake were dis-
armed at Napoleon (now called Glenmont)
and given
so many minutes to leave. Other people
have told me
what they saw and heard.
But I have not depended solely on the
testimony of
others. I was at "Fort
Fizzle" after its capture. The
soldiers were still there. I will tell
more about that later
in my account. I have the story of two
eye-witnesses,
two boys who followed the troops,
carried the guns of
two foot-sore boys in blue, and kept in
sight during the
fight with the rebels.
Fort Fizzle 31
The story of the Holmes County
Rebellion became
nation-wide. I have traveled in many
states of the
Union and many, many times when I was
introduced as
a resident of Holmes County, I have
been asked, "What
do you know about Fort Fizzle?"
Recently I was travel-
ing in Kansas. The train had stopped at
Hutchinson
for breakfast, An old soldier came into
the car and sat
beside me. After we had exchanged
commonplaces, he
asked me where I was from. I told him I
was from
Nashville, Holmes County, Ohio, and he
put the ques-
tion to me. He was a veteran of the
11th Michigan.
I saw the cannon that the rebels
thought they could
work wonders with. It was called the
"Baby Waker."
My sources of information are
authentic. Some people
have argued that there wasn't any
Holmes County Re-
bellion; that there wasn't any
organization of the
"Knights of the Golden
Circle." But facts are stubborn
things and cannot be set aside. Howe's Historical
Col-
lections of Ohio, copyrighted in 1888, has this to say:
"It was a time of intense
excitement, just at the open-
ing of the Vallandigham campaign. The
air was full
of rumors and it was nearly impossible
even at that time
to obtain correct details. What we
possess is so con-
tradictory that any further
investigation would yield no
satisfaction." Those who had taken
part in the rebel-
lion were trying to banish into
oblivion all the tragic
events they had passed through. They
were ashamed
to be called "Knights." They
wanted to forget it;
hence they would not give any
information that would
line them up with the organization.
Several foreigners
belonged. Their leader was a Frenchman.
After the
rebels were routed, he left the
country. Several people
from Holmes County belonged. Some were coerced
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Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
into joining; others joined to resist
the draft. But most
of the people of the County were loyal
to the Union;
and according to the population Holmes
sent more men
to the war than any other county in the
state. Other
counties were to join with Holmes in
putting over the
program of the "Knights of the
Golden Circle." Joshua
Crawford in his history of Nashville
and western
Holmes County, which was published in
1904, has this
to say: "It is my opinion that had
certain agitators
from Millersburg, and others from
Wayne, Coshocton
and Knox Counties been kept away, the
west end of
Holmes County would not have to bear
the stigma of
the so-called Holmes County
Rebellion. If these
cowardly counsellors had been as wise
before it occurred
as they were afterwards, much trouble
would have been
avoided."
This question has been asked many
times: What was
the origin of the "Knights of the
Golden Circle" and
what were they seeking to accomplish?
Lossing's His-
tory of the United States has this to say: "The Golden
Circle had a radius of sixteen degrees
of latitude and
longitude, with its center at Havana,
Cuba. That circle
included the Slave-Labor states of our
Republic. It
reached north into Pennsylvania and
Ohio, and south-
ward to the Isthmus of Darien. It
embraced the West
India Islands and those of the
Caribbean Sea, with a
greater part of Mexico and Central
America." The
plan of Messrs. Buchanan, Mason and
Soule was the
purchase of Cuba if possible. If not,
the acquisition of
it by force. These men were ambassadors
at London,
Paris and Madrid. They were the authors
of the
famous "Ostend Circular."
Some there were who felt
Fort Fizzle 33
that they must have Cuba and the other
islands of that
tropical region, with Mexico and
Central America, and
then sever the Slave-Labor and
Free-Labor states of the
Republic, making the former a part of a
great empire,
whose corner-stone was to be human
slavery. A secret
association known as the "Order of
the Lone Star," and
another subsequently organized as its
successor, whose
members were called "Knights of
the Golden Circle,"
were formed for the purpose of
corrupting the people
and carrying out the iniquitous design
of the Order. The
latter played a conspicuous part in the
Civil War which
broke out in 1861, as the secret
friends and efficient al-
lies of the conspirators, who were
making open war on
the Republic.
Rumors were plenty in Ohio. There were
many
southern sympathizers all about us. The
"Copperheads"
began to loom on the horizon. They were
to organize
and strike silently, deadly, swiftly.
They hated the
"Black Abolitionists" with a
bitter hatred. Then came
the organization of the "Castle of
the Knights of the
Golden Circle" in Holmes County.
Times were very
uncertain. The South was looking
towards Washing-
ton.
Southern troops were planning to invade the
North. They were jubilant. Their cause
seemed to be
on the ascendency. Gettysburg hadn't been fought.
Vicksburg had not surrendered. April
13, 1863, Gen.
Burnside had issued his famous Order
No. 38 forbid-
ding seditionary speeches. Vallandigham
had made his
inflammatory speech at Mt. Vernon, O.,
June 10th. The
Draft had been called. All these added
more fuel to
the flame which burned more brightly
every day.
Vol. XL--3.
34
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
Such were the conditions in the spring
of '63. My
father was a Democrat, but not a
"Copperhead." He
was past forty-five, so was not
eligible to enlistment.
One evening a neighbor came and called
him out and
said to him (this was told me
afterwards): "Vance,
have you heard of the 'Knights of the
Golden Circle'?"
"I have heard vague rumors,"
said my father, "but did
not give them much thought. What about
it?" "We
feel that the South is going to win,
and it is our duty to
help them in every possible way. This
is our plan. We
have organized here in Holmes County
and are going
to receive help from Wayne, Knox and
Coshocton
counties, and at a preconcerted signal
to interfere with
supplies for the Union army, encourage
soldiers to
desert, spread distrust of the
Government, refuse to re-
ceive greenbacks as legal tender for
debts, and incite
resistance to such draft as the
President may be com-
pelled to lay. And lastly at a given
signal, arise in our
might and burn the buildings of every
'Black Abolition-
ist' and hang him to the nearest tree.
We want you to
join and help us, because if you don't
you will be one of
the first to dangle from a tree."
My father was "slow to anger and
plenteous in
mercy," but that night he rose in
his wrath and told his
neighbor(?) to go to the place where
the devil and his
angels hold forth, and if he ever
approached him again
and mentioned that subject, he would
shoot him so full
of holes that he wouldn't make a good
pepper-box. And
to be able to carry out the threat he
purchased a pepper-
box revolver. (We find that kind of a
revolver in the
curio shops now.) He was a "Black
Abolitionist" after
that.
Fort Fizzle 35 The Rebels established headquarters about a mile and a half south of Napoleon, (now called Glenmont) in Richland township, in the southwestern corner of Holmes County. Knox township joins it on the north. They had an old stone house (see picture taken in 1928) for their headquarters, for which this old stone house |
|
was admirably adapted. There was a spring of spar- kling water in the cellar and an underground passage leading out into the orchard, also one leading to the barn. Just south of the house was the old stone fence, capped with rails, and now partly torn down. Between the house and fence are large rocks, mak- ing fine hiding-places. Solomon Tipton and a neighbor of his crept up to an old stone school-house one night and looked through a crack in the wall and saw and heard several would-be knights sworn in. They heard |
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Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
them take the oath to stand by the
Confederacy and to
carry out in full all orders coming
from headquarters
and if they failed to do so, they were
to be quartered and
scattered to the four points of the
compass.
Later Dave Tipton crept under the same
school-
house and through a hole in the floor
heard the con-
spirators plotting and planning to
carry out the purpose
for which they were organized, and
particularly that
part of the diabolical plan to burn out
the "Black
Abolitionists" and hang them to
the nearest trees. This
was to be done as soon as there were
enough Knights to
carry it out. Tipton crept away with
his heart burning
with revenge, for his father was one of
the doomed
men. He lost no time in hunting up his
brother, Isaac
Tipton, deputy provost-marshal and
telling him all he
had heard.
Isaac Tipton immediately notified
Colonel James L.
Drake, provost-marshal of this
district, and then things
began to happen. My uncle, Judson L.
Hughes, was en-
rolling officer for Holmes County. The
Knights caught
him, took his enrolling papers and
destroyed them and
treated him roughly. The two marshals,
Drake and
Tipton, went to Napoleon to arrest some
deserters and
stirred up a hornet's nest. Napoleon is
not like Rome
sitting on her "Seven Hills"
but lies in a valley with the
hills surrounding it. At the top of the
highest hill, to
the south, was where the rebels had
headquarters. Let
me say at this point that Glenmont is
the name of the
village now, and it lies in a beautiful
and romantic spot.
Its citizens are as fine a class of
people as you will find
anywhere, -- none better. The neighbors
are the same.
Glenmont means glens and mountains, and
the village
Fort Fizzle 37 sits like a sparkling gem surrounded by the everlasting hills. Looking at it from the hilltop one could hardly realize that grim tragedy stalked abroad and that men were ready to fly at each other with the hangman's noose and with fire. A few days before the provost-marshal and his as- sistant went to Napoleon to arrest deserters, Major R. |
|
W. Liggett went down one evening to where the rebels were holding forth and tried to get them not to resist the draft, to give up their deserters, disband and go home. The Major estimated the number of men gathered there were about three hundred. They re- fused his request. Then Drake and Tipton appeared on the scene and arrested five deserters, hustled them into a wagon and got ready to start on the journey to |
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Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
Wooster. But they didn't start. Just
then from the
hillsides and ravines a lot of men came
rushing towards
them, surrounded them, cocked their
guns, pointed them
at the officers and demanded the
release of the prisoners.
Drake refused and told them they were
disloyal to the
Union and would suffer the penalty, and
demanded that
they let them go with their prisoners.
"Never!" they
shouted. "We'll see you in hell
first. Drop your guns,
unload your prisoners and get out of
here. We will give
you just two minutes to get going and
if you come again
you are dead men."
They dropped their guns, lashed their
horses into a
run and vowed that when they did come
back they would
be the winners. The troops were called
and the word
was secretly passed around to the
"Abolitionists" and
all loyal to the Union to stand firm
and not be afraid
for the rebellion would be quelled.
This account of the
arrest of the deserters was given to me
by Isaac Tipton
who has long since gone to his eternal
reward. In a day
or two the word went round that the
troops were com-
ing. My father started to go to Mt.
Holly (now called
Brink Haven) to mill and had to pass near
the rebels'
rendezvous. A friend of his, who had
been unwillingly
persuaded to join the
"Castle" stopped him and wanted
to know where he was going. My father
told him and
he said, "Vance, you and I have
been friends a long time
and I hate to see you punished for your
loyalty to the
government. They thought you would join
with them,
but I knew better. I would advise you
to turn around
and go home and stay there and keep
quiet, for you are
a marked man and you will be one of the
first to swing.
Men from Wayne, Coshocton, and Knox
counties are
Fort Fizzle 39
coming to help with this hellish
work." My father's
reply to this neighbor was this: "
'Tis true that we are
friends and as such I am going to give
you this advice.
Keep out of this. Let it alone, for a
handful of men,
even if they number two thousand or
more cannot defy
the Union and get away with it. In a
few days the
troops will be here and great will be
your defeat." My
father went on to mill and was not
molested.
The troops came in a few days. (See
official ac-
count.) My father hauled a wagon-load
of them from
Lake Station to Nashville. T. G.
Beatty, a citizen who
knew the country, having been raised in
the neighbor-
hood, was called on to pilot them to
the Fort. Two
boys, Joseph Harris, and Delno
Remington, both living,
were sitting on the fence at the old
Cross school-house
which is about half way between
Nashville and Glen-
mont, and as the troops passed they
called to these boys
and asked them to go with them and carry
a gun apiece.
They fell in with the soldiers,
shouldered a gun apiece
and marched valiantly along in the
rear. When they
neared the place where the rebels were
supposed to be,
they were relieved of the guns and were
ordered to stay
back out of range; but boylike, they
got close enough to
see the fight. When the troops opened
fire on the in-
surgents, they ran like a lot of ants,
or seemed to fly
like a flock of quail when flushed.
Harris and Reming-
ton camped with the soldiers that night
in the grove by
the old Workman house (see picture) and
helped eat
the hardtack and bacon.
Daniel J. Ryan in his History of
Ohio, Century,
1912, in Vol. 4, page 226, has this to
say:
40 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
Open and organized violence toward the
Government draft,
and the protection of deserters from the Union Army,
again oc-
curred in Ohio in June, 1863, in Holmes County. In this
in-
stance the resistance was far more
serious and formidable than
in Noble County. It took the form of a
fortified camp, occupied
by nearly a thousand armed men with four
small howitzers. Gov.
Tod on the 16th issued a proclamation
urging the resistants to
disperse and render the obedience that
all good citizens owed to
the laws of their country, but this was
unheeded, and it took a
detachment of the military, under
Colonel Wallace of the Fif-
teenth Ohio, to suppress the miniature
rebellion. After some
skirmishing and firing on both sides in
which two of the resist-
ants were wounded, the band dispersed.
On June 18th prominent
Peace Democrats visited the camp and
urged a cessation of their
foolish resistance. The ringleaders were
arrested but nothing
was done to them. They were all from the
region in which Val-
landigham's famous speech was made, and
it seemed folly to
punish severely the misguided followers
of his eloquent advice.
But it only emphasizes the truth of
President Lincoln's reason
for removing the "wily
agitator" who encouraged such action.
Ryan says there were nearly a thousand
armed men.
Liggett and Drake said about three
hundred. The of-
ficial request for troops says the
number was 700 to 900
collected together. A lot of them had
got cold feet and
deserted when they found the troops
were coming.
"Their leader, he got panic struck,
And said he'd been mistaken,
And told them, 'Run with all your might
And try to save your bacon'."
After the defeat, a number of scouting
parties were
sent out and when they would capture a
rebel, he was
made to get down on his knees, put his
hand over his
heart and take the oath of allegiance
to the state and na-
tional government, after which he was
allowed to travel.
Early in the morning of the 18th of
June, a neighbor
Knight came rushing into our cabin, all
out of breath,
Fort Fizzle 41
with face ghastly pale, and wanted my
mother to hide
him. He had come thinking my father
could help him
to evade arrest and punishment. He said
the soldiers
were after him and he was in dire
straits. My mother
put him behind a door that was near the
corner of the
kitchen so that when pushed back, it
struck the opposite
wall and left room for a man to squeeze
in. She was
mixing bread and put the dough-tray in
front of the
door and steadily kneaded away. I could
hear his teeth
chatter like castanets. I went out to
the front gate
where I could see up the road, and sure
enough, there
came the soldiers, four of them, with
knapsacks on their
backs, haversacks by their side and
guns on their
shoulders. As they came by the gate
where I stood, I
expected to see them turn in. But they
paid no atten-
tion to me, the gate or the cabin, but
swung on towards
Nashville. They hadn't seen the rebel,
but he had seen
them. By and by he slunk off home.
After the bread
was baked my father hitched to the
spring wagon,
loaded up with provisions, and took me
along to Fort
Fizzle. From henceforth that was to be
its name. We
got there and found the soldiers camped
on the Work-
man place. Col. Wallace had established
headquarters
in the Workman house shown in the
picture. It still
stands and is used for a storehouse
now. It is but a
short distance from the "Old Stone
House." We stayed
that day, picnicked with the
"boys" and saw some
prisoners brought in.
My story is told. I have not
exaggerated but have
written what I have heard and seen.
Nothing was set
down in malice. I have not mentioned
names of the
insurgents. "Let the dead past
bury its dead" and the
42 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications past with its mistakes be forgotten. The facts will al- ways remain. We know the sins of the fathers did not descend to their children, for their sons and daughters have made good. And Holmes County, named after Major Holmes, a gallant young officer of the war of 1812, who was killed at the battle of Mackinac, has re- deemed herself, and her people are loyal citizens of the greatest Republic on earth. |
|
The following poem was written in 1897 by a dear old lady friend of mine who is too modest to allow her name to be used. They lived near Fort Fizzle and she told me one of the scouting soldiers took dinner with them. After dinner he said, "You have given me a fine dinner for which I am thankful. Now I am going to give you some grub I carry in my haversack," and he brought forth a handful of the much abused hardtack. Rumor said the soldiers abused the citizens. No loyal |
Fort Fizzle 43
citizen was abused. Arresting a man for
treason was
abuse.
FORT FIZZLE
From whence the name Fort Fizzle
I will tell you if you like,
Some poor men would not be drafted,
And determined on a strike,
And they struck, for sure they did;
Lincoln's soldiers came to see them
And Fort Fizzle ran and hid.
How they ran--the brave three hundred--
How they vanished from all sight--
Over stone walls--through the mill-dam--
Through the woods, with all their might,
Few were captured, such their fleetness,
Some to France returned in haste,
And their camp was all deserted,
And their rations went to waste.
(The cellar of the stone house had a
plenty.)
When Lincoln's soldiers reached the
stronghold,
Much rejoicing did ensue,
Amongst the people who were loyal
And who always had been true.
When they came with bulging baskets,
Filled with good things nice to eat
And thus besieged the soldiers,
Till they were driven to retreat.
Soon they all went to Columbus
To the camp from which they came,
And all was quiet on the "Black
Creek"
Dear old Holmes had earned her name.
Art is long and time is fleeting
But "Fort Fizzle" ne'er will
fade
From the maps, nor from our memories,
While remain sunshine and shade.
30
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
HOLMES COUNTY REBELLION--FORT
FIZZLE
J. R. VANCE
I was born in a log cabin situated in
Knox Town-
ship, Holmes County, Ohio, almost
three-quarters of a
century ago and have lived here on the
farm ever since.
My information in regard to the events
I am about to
narrate comes from various sources. I
heard my father
and mother discuss events as they had
happened. As I
grew older I began to ponder on these
discussions and
to ask questions. Many times I had them
live over
again those stirring times, and
breathlessly I listened
and wondered.
My recollections of those troublous
times began
early in '63. The wives of soldiers at
the front used to
come to our cabin to sit by the old
fireplace and seek
sympathy from my mother. I have seen
them crying
as if their hearts would break, and
heard them say, "We
will never see our husbands
again." I had other sources
of information besides that of my
parents. I had the
story of Isaac Tipton, deputy-provost
marshal, when he
and Provost Marshal Colonel James L.
Drake were dis-
armed at Napoleon (now called Glenmont)
and given
so many minutes to leave. Other people
have told me
what they saw and heard.
But I have not depended solely on the
testimony of
others. I was at "Fort
Fizzle" after its capture. The
soldiers were still there. I will tell
more about that later
in my account. I have the story of two
eye-witnesses,
two boys who followed the troops,
carried the guns of
two foot-sore boys in blue, and kept in
sight during the
fight with the rebels.