Ohio History Journal

MARVIN FLETCHER

War in the Streets of Athens

On an August evening in 1904 terror struck the citizens of the small

southeastern Ohio town of Athens. Thousands of Ohio National Guard

and regular army troops were on joint maneuvers in the area. On the

evening of August 19 some of the regulars marched into town with

the aim of freeing one of their comrades who had been arrested by

some national guardsmen and locked in the county jail. When the mil-

itary police tried to stop them, the regulars fired their pistols. After

the smoke cleared, no regulars were visible, but four bodies lay upon

the street. Beside them lay an army hat with the red band of the field

artillery and the number fourteen on it. For many soldiers mock war-

fare had become all too real.

This incident took place at a time of transition and tension in the

relationship between the regular army and the national guard. Influ-

enced by the ideas of Emory Upton, an American military theorist

who sought to model the U.S. Army along Prussian lines, most pro-

fessional officers of the regular army considered the volunteer militia

units of the national guard poorly trained and militarily useless. Sup-

porters of the guard, organized into the politically influential National

Guard Association, held that the concept of the citizen soldier was an

intrinsic part of American democracy. Moreover they argued that

guard units had proved their military efficiency almost equal to that of

the regular army during the recent Spanish-American War.1

This debate was never fully resolved, but a compromise of sorts

was worked out when army-guard relations were reorganized in the

years immediately following the Spanish-American War. One of the

strongest and most influential supporters of the guard was Ohio

Congressman Charles W. Dick, himself a major general in the state

Marvin Fletcher, Associate Professor of History at Ohio University, wishes to thank

John Keifer, J.D., for help in unraveling the legal complexities of the cases which

grew out of the Athens riot.

1. Russel F. Weigley, History of the United States Army (New York, 1967), 275-78.

406                                                    OHIO HISTORY

militia.² Working closely with Secretary of War Elihu Root, the Na-

tional Guard Association and the congressional military committees,

Dick shaped a militia reform bill in 1903 which forced upon the

regular army greater recognition of state guard units. Under the new

law, popularly known as the Dick Act, the guard was to be considered

not merely a manpower reserve for the regular army but a real second

line of defense. The federal government issued arms and equipment to

the guard without charge, and in return guard units had to hold at

least twenty-four drills or target practice periods a year, plus a sum-

mer encampment of not less than five days in the field. Additional

funds were specified for those state troops that trained at regular

army camps. The Dick Act forced guard and army to work together,

but this mandatory cooperation did not lessen the historic antagonism

of the two groups.

Given the impetus of the 1903 legislation and the role of Major Gen-

eral Dick, the Ohio guard tried hard to improve its skills. In 1904 the

governor asked the War Department to allow the guard to join a regu-

lar army training camp, as a small group had done the previous year

during maneuvers at West Point, Kentucky. When his request was

denied, the national guard pursued an alternate course. For the first

time the whole state guard went on maneuvers and invited a few reg-

ular army troops to join them. In late August field exercises were

held in the hills of southeastern Ohio and the troops were housed in

three camps near Athens. Camp Armitage, named after a nearby

railroad station, was located about three miles from town and was

close to the Hocking River. The First Brigade, which included the

First, Second, Third, and Sixth regiments of the guard, as well as

the Ninth Battalion, a black unit, was stationed there under the com-

mand of General William V. McMakin. These guardsmen were joined

by the regular army First Battalion, Twenty-Seventh Infantry; Troop

L, Fourth Cavalry; and the Fourteenth Battery, Field Artillery.

Nearby was Camp Herrick, the headquarters of the guard during the

maneuvers. Governor Myron T. Herrick, after whom the camp was

named, as well as General Dick, stayed there during the war games.

Furthest away from Athens was Camp Beaumont, where the Fourth,

2. Charles Dick was born in 1858 and served in the Spanish-American War. He

was a member of the House of Representatives from 1898 to 1904, when he was ap-

pointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Marcus Hanna. He re-

mained in the Senate until 1911.

3. Jim Dan Hill, The Minute Man in Peace and War: A History of The National

Guard (Harrisburg, 1964), 184-89; Louis Cantor, "Elihu Root and the National Guard:

Friend or Foe?" Military Affairs, XXXIII (December 1969), 361-73; U.S., Congress,

Report of the Secretary of War, 1904, 58th Congress, 3rd session, 1904, 28-30.

Incident in Athens                                               407

Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth infantries were posted. They were joined

by three regular army detachments of the same size as those regulars

stationed at Camp Armitage. Camp Beaumont was under the com-

mand of General John C. Speaks. Altogether there were about 7,000

national guardsmen and regular army troops encamped near Athens.⁴

For many Athens area residents the maneuvers were like a large

carnival. The Athens' railroads ran excursion trains out to the camps

many times during the day. It cost ten cents to ride to Camp Herrick

and fifteen cents to travel to Camp Beaumont. Others used their car-

riages and rode out to view the soldiers whose firing of blank ammu-

nition during the maneuvers gave them a realistic flavor. A review

of all the troops on Sunday highlighted the war games for civilian

onlookers.⁵

No one foresaw any problem controlling the soldiers during their

off-duty time. General Dick felt that because of the distance of the

camps from the city and the arduous nature of the maneuvers, the

men would want to remain in their camps in the evening. To be safe,

however, precautions were taken. Officers searched the men and

confiscated any unauthorized weapons and live ammunition. This

reduced the potential for shooting incidents at the camps, but there

remained the problem of soldiers disrupting nearby Athens. On Au-

gust 16 the national guard set up a military police, or provost guard,

to patrol in the town. Passes were issued "only in cases of absolute

and urgent necessity," and anyone without one was arrested.⁶

Despite these precautions, some soldiers did slip into town. These

visits to Athens led to fraternization and friction between guardsmen

and regulars. The regulars felt themselves militarily superior to the

Ohioans and resented orders given them by the guardsmen, especially

those on provost guard duty. Friction increased during the first few

days of the exercises, and small incidents grew in significance. In one

incident a drunken regular lost his side arms and accused the provost

guard of taking them. On another occasion fifty regulars tried to run

the guard lines; it was not until the provost guard fixed their bay-

onets that the regulars retreated. One reporter commented that the

4. Ohio, Annual Report of the Adjutant General to the Governor of the State of Ohio

for the Fiscal Year Ending November 15, 1903, 5; Ohio, Annual Report of the Adju-

tant General to the Governor of the State of Ohio for the Fiscal Year Ending November

15, 1904, 6-7, 25 (hereafter cited as 1904 Report); Athens Messenger, August 18, 1904.

5. Athens Journal, August 18, 1904; Messenger, August 18, 1904.

6. Orders, Ohio National Guard, August 15, August 16, 1904, contained in Records

of the Adjutant General's Office, Record Group 94, National Archives (hereafter cited

as AGO).

408                                                       OHIO HISTORY

feeling between the regulars and the guardsmen "can hardly be classed

as cordial."⁷ In this situation, it took only a small spark to set offa major

conflagration.

That spark was supplied with the arrest of a member of the Four-

teenth Battery, Field Artillery, Private Charles Kelly, on the afternoon

of August 19. Kelly resisted arrest, firing his pistol at the provost

guard. The fact that Kelly had some illegal ammunition, despite the

many searches, should have alerted the officers that trouble was pos-

sible. The provost guard bound him hand and foot and put him in the

county jail. Quickly the rumor reached Kelly's regular army com-

rades at Camp Armitage that the guard had clubbed him into insensi-

bility.⁸ That afternoon he was visited by one of his comrades, Edward

Plumb. About eight o'clock that evening a group of eighty to one hun-

dred soldiers crossed the Hocking River on the railroad bridge,

brushing aside the small guard there. They marched into the city,

down Court Street and turned right onto Washington Street.

Near the jail the mob of regulars came face to face with the eight

national guardsmen who constituted that evening's provost guard.

The military policemen, all from the Fifth Infantry, blocked the street.

After hesitating an instant, the regulars began firing. Their shots

killed one man and wounded three others. Charles Clark, a twenty-

four-year-old guardsman from Warren, Ohio, due to be married in

two weeks, was killed by one bullet, which went through both lungs

and cut the artery above the heart. The rioters wounded Watson Ohls,

a salesman in civilian life, William Blessing, a plumber, and Albert

Heald, a drayman.⁹ The only visible piece of evidence was the hat of a

field artilleryman found on Washington Street after the riot. 10 The in-

cident revealed that old enmities had not been dissipated by the Dick

Act. Whether the culprits could, or would, be brought to justice now

became the pressing issue.

Immediately after the shootings, Athens Sheriff Andrew Murphy

telephoned the news to General Dick's headquarters. Fearing more

trouble, he ordered the provost guard reinforced with part of the First

Infantry. The provost guard worked with the sheriff to clear the streets

and to close the saloons."

7. Journal, August 25, 1904; Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 18, 1904.

8. Messenger, August 25, 1904.

9. Ibid.; Certificate of Post-mortem Examination on Charles Clark, August 25,

1904, Document File #914805, Records of the Adjutant General's Office, Record Group

94, National Archives (all the legal documents about this incident are in this file;

hereafter cited as AGO, Legal).

10. 1904 Report, 138.

11. Messenger, August 25, 1904; Plain Dealer, August 21, 1904.

410                                                      OHIO HISTORY

the incident threatened the fragile working relationship between the

guard and the regular army. While supporters of Emory Upton would

not have been sorry to see the new relationship to the guard come to

an end, the incident was also embarrassing because it was regular

army troops, not raw guardsmen, who were apparently guilty of whole-

sale indiscipline. In this situation the army temporized. They did not

launch their own investigation, but they gave some help to that con-

ducted by the Athens civilian-authorities. Adjutant General Fred C.

Ainsworth immediately telegraphed Governor Herrick that the officers

at Athens were instructed "to cooperate in fullest measure with civil

authorities."¹³

The shooting incident was not soon forgotten. Though the man-

euvers resumed, the mimic war seemed to take a back seat to the

real one. Several days after the fight, some men from the First Infan-

try were bathing in the Hocking when they found the body of a soldier

drifting in the water. The man was identified as Corporal Malcolm

Nelson, a member of the Fourteenth Battery, Field Artillery.14 The

time and place of Nelson's death seemed to indicate that he was in-

volved in the disturbance in Athens. A great deal more was revealed

at the coroners inquest. Frank Hendley, a physician, testified that the

cause of death was "heart failure produced by the cold water striking

him when heated" and County Coroner J. J. Lane ruled that Nelson

died by drowning. The cartridges and pistol found on the body were

the kind issued to artillerymen and it was subsequently learned that

the hat found in town after the shootings belonged to Nelson.¹⁵ The

evidence suggested strongly that Nelson had been involved in the riot

and had died while trying to swim the Hocking and get back to camp.

Leading the subsequent search for the guilty soldiers was Israel

M. Foster, an ambitious, liberal-minded young lawyer in his first term

as Prosecuting Attorney for Athens.l⁶ Foster and Lane went to both

Camp Armitage and Camp Beaumont the Monday after the shooting.

Gathering evidence through a close questioning of a number of men,

the investigators came to the conclusion that soldiers from a number

13. Plain Dealer, August 21, 1904; Fred C. Ainsworth to Myron Herrick, August

22, 1904, AGO, Brownsville.

14. Messenger, August 25, 1904; W. C. Mabry to Commanding Officer, Camp Armi-

tage, August 22, 1904, AGO, Legal.

15. Testimony Taken at Coroner's Inquest Over the Remains of Corporal Nelson,

Deceased, Athens, Ohio, August 22, 1904, AGO, Legal; 1904 Report, 138.

16. Israel Foster was born in Athens in 1873. He received a bachelor's degree from

Ohio University in 1895 and a law degree from Ohio State University in 1898. After

eight years as prosecuting attorney, Foster served six years in Congress, from 1919 to

1925. He was a strong advocate of child labor legislation.

Incident in Athens                                             411

of units, both national guard and regular, were involved in the shoot-

ing. Since most soldiers denied any knowledge of the affair, their prob-

lem became how to place any particular soldier at the riot scene.l7 At

the coroner's inquest into the death of Charles Clark, Foster got a

break. John Baydos, a member of the Fourteenth Battery, admitted

going into town and taking part in the riot. He named four others

from the Fourteenth Battery who were present at the riot: John Lott,

Harvey Snyder (a sergeant), Fred Thuler, and William H. Raymond. But

he refused to name any others he had seen, saying "The others that

went down don't want to tell they were there."¹⁸

When the inquest reconvened two days later, some of the witnesses

changed their earlier testimony and now admitted their presence at

the riot scene. As the result of the urging of Lieutenant John W.

Corey, one of the Fourteenth Battery's officer's, Fred C. Thuler and

William Caligan now asserted that they too had been in town and

had seen a number of their fellow artillerymen in the mob. With this

evidence, Foster arrested James Duffy, William Raymond, and the

three admitted rioters, Gaydos, Thuler and Caligan. Bond was set at

$2,500 and they remained in jail until the preliminary hearing in mid-

September.¹⁹ Raymond and Plumb were veteran soldiers, the rest more

recent enlistees.²⁰

Foster continued to feel that there were more involved than the

five he had arrested. Within the week he had new evidence, but un-

fortunately it did not bring him any closer to his goal. He received a

letter from the commander of the First Infantry, Charles Hake, Jr.,

informing him that one of his soldiers had heard Trumpeter Edward

Plumb encourage the men to leave camp: "He (Plumb) addressed the

assembled men to force their way past the guard at the bridge." Hake

also reported that a number of his men told him that the mob leaders

said, "we are going to clean out the officers of the guard."21

Foster now redoubled his efforts to get more evidence out of his

soldier prisoners. He wrote General John C. Bates, commander of

the army's Department of the Lakes, that those in custody were

afraid to talk because they feared that their comrades would murder

them. Foster asked for the cooperation of the army in getting the

regulars to tell all they knew. He suggested that maybe a promise of a

transfer out of the battery would induce the soldiers to talk. Appar-

17. Foster to W. Duggan, August 23, 1904, AGO; Messenger, August 25, 1904.

18. Testimony Taken at the Coroner's Inquest over the Remains of Charles Clark,

Deceased, Athens, Ohio, August 20, 22, 23, 1904. AGO, Legal.

19. Messenger, August 25, 1904.

20. Service Records, William Raymond, Edward Plumb, AGO.

21. Charles Hake, Jr., to Israel Foster, August 24, 1904, AGO, Legal.

Incident in Athens                                          413

to him Lott, Snyder, Barnett, Johnston, Plumb, Pearson, and George

Davison.²³ Six of these men had been named in the affidavits, men-

tioned in the evidence obtained from Captain Hake, or testified about

at the Clark inquest. The army confined these men at Fort Sheridan

but did not immediately send them on to Athens for trial.

Foster also asked the help of the Ohio National Guard in his at-

tempt to gather more evidence. Guard officers were requested to for-

ward "any evidence that they may have heard of in their various com-

mands concerning the trouble in Athens,"²⁴ and Foster began to

receive new information quickly. A number of men in the Sixth Infan-

try made written statements about events at the beginning of the riot.

For example, John Lang was one of the three members of the provost

guard on the railroad bridge near Camp Armitage on that Friday

night. He stated that about dusk a group of fifty to sixty men ap-

proached the bridge. When challenged, two of the men came forward

and asked the guards to let them through. Refusing, the guards de-

manded to see their passes. The group then advanced and pushed the

three men out of the way. Unfortunately for Foster, Lang could not

identify any of the men he saw that night. Sergeant Clyde Shively was

in town that Friday night and saw the mob as it marched up Court

Street. Quartermaster Sergeant Charles E. Huddleston, First Infantry,

was in a saloon on Court Street and heard several men of the Four-

teenth Battery drinking and planning trouble. One man was loading

his revolver, while another said, "Let's go now." The third man re-

plied, "No, let's wait until the other men come, they'll be here soon.^"25

While the national guard seemed to cooperate with Foster, the

army was less accommodating. Reluctant to send the seven suspects

to Athens, the army ordered Major Blanton Winship, Judge Advocate,

to first interview the suspects who were confined at Fort Sheridan

and then to proceed to Athens and investigate the situation. Winship

reported that the three prisoners in Athens had made statements

implicating the other seven. He also noted that there was a great

deal of hostility against the soldier prisoners and that they needed to

be represented by "good counsel" when they came to trial.²⁶

Winship's recommendations were promptly carried out. The army

ordered him back to Athens to observe the trial and defense of the

23. Affidavits of John Gaydos, Fred Thuler, and William Caligan, August 30, 1904,

AGO, Legal.

24. Foster to Critchfield, August 26, 1904, AGO, Legal.

25. Statements of John Lang, Clyde Shively, Calvin Snyder, Charles Huddleston,

AGO, Legal.

26. W. Duggan to Military Secretary, September 1, 1904, AGO, Brownsville.

414                                                     OHIO HISTORY

accused soldiers. This decision greatly upset both Foster and Con-

gressman Charles H. Grosvenor, a conservative Republican congress-

man and power in Athens politics.²⁷ Foster thought that the army was

giving him "a great deal of trouble," while Grosvenor claimed that

the appointment of Winship was part of a government attempt to

"prevent an ascertainment of who the murders were." He argued

that Winship had first come to Athens in the guise of an observer and

had been shown all of the prosecution's evidence. Now, claimed Gros-

venor, he was coming back as a defense attorney, already armed with

the ammunition of the other side. In defense of the action, Secretary

of War William Howard Taft later wrote Grosvenor that "an enlisted

man is more or less a ward of the Government, and if the Government

steps in merely to see that he is tried according to law, it seems to me

that it is an exercise of a discretion which the Government has."²⁸

Despite the controversy, Winship was present in Athens on Monday,

September 19, 1904, when Mayor Henry Logan convened a prelim-

inary hearing in the case. Grosvenor joined Foster in prosecuting the

soldiers while the defense was handled by two local attorneys, James

P. Wood and Leonidas M. Jewett. Caligan, who had turned state's evi-

dence, again described the riot and named Plumb, Snyder, and John-

ston, Lott, Raymond, Barnett, Duffy, and Davison as members of the

mob.²⁹ Gaydos, another prosecution witness, added Pearson's name to

the list of those members of the Fourteenth Battery who were in the

mob. Thuler corroborated Caligan's testimony. Mayor Logan, con-

vinced by the prosecution's case, ordered the eight men held for the

November grand jury and set bond at $3000 for each soldier.³⁰

The November grand jury returned two sets of indictments as the

result of the evidence presented. The eight soldiers (Snyder, Lott,

Davison, Barnett, Johnston, Pearson, Plumb, Raymond, and Duffy)

were charged with riot and conspiracy to plan a riot. In addition, John

Lott was charged with assault with intent to kill Warren Ohls. The

Athens Journal, upset that no one was indicted for killing Charles

Clark, reported "Life seems cheap in Athens, when one man can be

27. Charles H. Grosvenor was a conservative Republican and an ally of Joseph

Foraker who served in Congress almost continuously from 1885 to 1907.

28. Foster to Florence Vangorder, September 8, 1904, AGO, Legal; Grosvenor to

Taft, September 30, 1904, AGO, Brownsville; Moorfield Storey quoting Taft to

Grosvenor in "Athens and Brownsville" (extract from a speech before the Second

National Negro Conference), The Crisis, I(1910), 13.

29. Testimony Taken at the Preliminary Hearing Before Mayor Logan in the Case

of the State of Ohio versus James Duffy, et al., Athens, Ohio, September 19, 1904,

AGO, Legal.

30. Ibid., Journal, September 22, 1904.

416                                                    OHIO HISTORY

was in camp during the shooting and that Corporal Nelson had clubbed

Ohls.³³ The jury deliberated for three hours on the case and decided

that Lott was guilty of assaulting Ohls and "of deliberate and pre-

meditated malice to kill." He was sentenced to one year of hard labor

in the state penitentiary and fined the costs of the prosecution,

$1227.07.³⁴

Foster and Wood reached an out-of-court agreement before the

start of the next trial. The jury would be dispensed with; the trial

would be held before a judge; the charges against Pearson and Davi-

son would be dropped; the defense agreed not to contest the charges

against the remaining defendants. As a result of this agreement the

trial moved along rapidly, in spite of the prosecution's difficulty in

proving a charge of conspiracy. Defense Attorney Wood noted that

the main prosecution witnesses, Caligan and Thuler, gave "so con-

fusing" testimony that they would not really help the state or hurt the

defense case.³⁵

The six defendants were convicted of causing a riot, but acquitted

on the charge of conspiracy. They were given the maximum sentence

for their crime-one month in jail and a $500 fine. The jail terms were

served in the Columbus Work House in January 1905.36 The convic-

tions did not have an adverse effect on the military careers of the de-

fendants. Lott was honorably discharged from the army before the

trial. The others returned to the army after their one month sentence

was over and served varying periods in the Fourteenth Field Artillery

and other units. Snyder became a Regimental Quartermaster Ser-

geant in 1910 and during World War I was promoted to captain in

the Quartermaster Corps. Thuler was honorably discharged while in

jail waiting to testify. Finally, after many months of discussion the

chief prosecution witnesses, Gaydos and Caligan, were transferred

to another battery in the field artillery.

For Representative Grosvenor and other Athenians, the outcome

of the trial proved immensely frustrating. No one was brought to trial

for the murder of Charles Clark, while those convicted of lesser

crimes served light sentences. Still bitter about the affair two years

33. Testimony in the Case of the State of Ohio vs. John L. Lott, AGO, Legal.

34. Ibid.

37. J. P. Wood to Taft, phone conversation, December 14, 1906, AGO, Brownsville;

Journal, January 5, 1905; Testimony at Trial of Harvey M. Snyder, et al., in the Court of

Common Pleas of Athens County, Ohio, Indictedfor Riot, AGO, Legal.

36. Sentence in the Case of State of Ohio vs. Harvey M. Snyder, et al., in the Court

of Common Pleas, Athens County, Ohio, AGO, Legal.

Incident in Athens                                                 417

later, Grosvenor commented that "the whole encampment was filled

with factions and bitterness and troubles of that character, growing

up almost necessarily between the regular Army soldiers and the men

of the Ohio State Guard." He was disillusioned because guardsmen

had been killed and the guilty parties had not been found.³⁷

The tensions involved in the guard-army dispute virtually mandated

this unsatisfying outcome. The army's inaction following the incident

is remarkable and can only be understood in the context of the devel-

oping relationship with the national guard. Interested parties here

were quite numerous. Old-line army officers still felt it absurd to train

the guard to be like the regular army, although others felt the Dick

Act had begun a process of integration between the two which must

continue. In addition Congressman Dick himself, a champion of the

guard, took a great deal of interest in the case, as did Congressman

Grosvenor from an opposite point of view. Given the complex situa-

tion, almost any positive action the army took would antagonize

some group.

As a result the Army remained essentially passive. Its officers did not

conduct any investigation into the facts of the case. The War Depart-

ment merely turned the soldiers over to the civilian prosecutor, sent

Major Winship to Athens as an observer, and did little else. Upon

completion of their sentences, the convicted soldiers returned to their

assignments. One of them eventually became an officer. In the final

analysis, the army was cooperative but certainly not helpful. A com-

parison between the army's reactions here and those after the Browns-

ville Affair two years later is instructive. There, with no National Guard

or Congressmen to worry about, the army inspector general's office

launched an inquiry which lasted several weeks and interviewed

more than one hundred soldiers in its search for the black soldiers who

the local citizenry claimed had shot up the town and killed a police-

man. Ultimately 159 soldiers were dismissed from the army.38

Throughout the Athens disturbance, the problem of improving re-

lations between the regular army and the national guard provides the

key to understanding a puzzling affair. The army's old hostility to-

ward the guard had made necessary the Dick Act, which enforced coop-

37. U.S., Congress, House of Representatives, Congressional Record, 59th Congress,

2nd session, January 9, 1907, 843-44.

38. Marvin E. Fletcher, The Black Soldier and Officer in the United States Army,

1891-1917 (Columbia, MO, 1974), 123-26. The N.A.A.C.P. later used the army's deci-

sion to defend the accused white soldiers at Athens as evidence that racism motivated

the wholesale dismissal of the black infantrymen at Brownsville. See The Crisis, I

(1910).

418                                                  OHIO HISTORY

eration between the two, but the joint maneuvers of 1904 were still

filled with tensions between the parties. Regulars disdained guards-

men and would not tolerate having them as military police. Trouble

was inevitable, though the shooting was not. After the riot, the same

need to improve relations impelled both sides to avoid a diligent

search for the guilty parties. Neither branch of the military was eager

for a wide ranging, potentially disruptive investigation. Despite Israel

Foster's best efforts, the origins and solution to "the war in the streets

of Athens" lay far beyond the small Ohio town.