Civil War Soldiers & Veterans

On November 6, 1860, Vienna residents voted for a presidential candidate whose election would alter the United States and ignite a war like no other in the young nation’s history. Abraham Lincoln’s election was followed by the secession of Southern states to form the Confederate States of America.

In the staunchly abolitionist Western Reserve of Ohio, support for the war was strong and the mobilization of men was quickly undertaken. Within weeks after the first shots of the Civil War were fired, on April 12, 1861, calls for soldiers appeared in local newspapers. The first men from Vienna Township to enlist in the volunteer regiments being raised included Hiram Patten and Merritt Emerson.

More than 90 men who were Vienna residents at the War’s start or who settled in the Township after the War served. Twelve did not return: Erastus W. Bartholomew, James M. Bennett, Merritt Emerson, Jasper Robinson Hull, William Henry McClurg, Charles Munson, Addison Perkins, Asa Elmer Scovill, Bennett [Bennet] Scoville, Albert [Hurlbert] Truesdell, Selden Sloen Truesdell, and Jonathan B. Tuttle.

Conscription and Substitutes

Some Vienna men, such as Job J. Holliday, chose not to volunteer or to serve if drafted. The federal government authorized a number of military drafts during the course of the War. Called conscription, the military draft operated much differently than what Americans experienced in the twentieth century's world wars and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts.

Until 1863, a man whose name was called did not have to serve if he found and sent a substitute or if he paid a $300 commutation fee to be excused from service for three years. This commutation fee was ended in July 1864 as the war deepened, increasing the price of substitutes.

Each Congressional district was assigned a quota of men to fill and given fifty days in which to fulfill that quota. Each township in Northeast Ohio appointed a person to clear the township of the quota obligation.  For Vienna, this person was Ichabod B. Payne.

If a given district had already met a quota through enlistees, a draft was not held. It was considered patriotic not to hold a draft, so Americans raised monies to pay bounties for men to enlist. The federal government offered a $100 enlistment bounty to be paid at the end of service. States offered bounties as well. Some men chose to enlist because they would earn these bounties as well as military pay.

It also paid to be a substitute. Not only was a substitute paid a fee by the person he replaced, he also earned the enlistment bounty (or bounties) and military pay.

Those men who chose to pay substitutes need not have been wealthy. Insurance companies offered draft insurance that covered the possibility that a policy owner's name would be called. It was not considered unpatriotic not to serve. Ohioans (and future presidents) Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley served. Grover Cleveland, of New York, paid a substitute and was still elected president--twice!

From the records of the July 1863 draft, we learn that eight Vienna men hired substitutes: Ira Church Bartholomew, Epenitus Bartholomew, William D. Griffis, Leandor [Leando] Greenwood, Comfort Mackey, Morrison Perkins, James H. Robbins, and Samuel Sigler.

Ira Church Bartholomew was the grandson of Vienna pioneers Abiel and Mary Bartholomew. Born in 1839, Bartholomew is listed as a teamster and a farmer in various records. Several Bartholomew family members had already enlisted in the Union Army. His second cousin Edward O. Bartholomew and his uncle Erastus W. Bartholomew were serving in the 105th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Erastus would be captured at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863. He died on June 15, 1863, in Georgia's infamous Andersonville Prison.

The reason why Ira Church Bartholomew chose to pay a substitute is unclear. Perhaps it was because he had only recently married Sarah Olive McMullen, on September 16, 1862. Perhaps physical disability was the reason. Men with mental disabilities were exempt. Men who were the only sons of widows, the sons of infirm parents, or widowers with dependent children were exempt. Men with certain physical disabilities were not required to enroll in the draft: the lack of front teeth and molars, the loss of more than one finger on the right hand or more than two fingers on the left hand, and imperfect vision in one eye released men from military obligation. Ira Church Bartholomew's name appears in the 1863 draft record, so he presented himself as physically fit. Yet, when he died in 1914, his physician noted that he suffered chronic bronchitis. Was it more patriotic and manly to pay a substitute rather than to seek a medical exemption?

Roll Call of Vienna's Civil War Soldiers

What follows is a list of Vienna's Civil War soldiers known to date. This list is based on research including a survey of extant grave markers and memorials in Vienna's cemeteries, Civil War draft registration records from 1863 to 1865, veterans' pension records, and other primary and secondary sources. Fully ten percent of Vienna Township's population in 1860 fought in the Civil War.

NOTE: Click on (FG) for Find a Grave memorial

Doud Cemetery:
Doud, John L.
Dray, John C.

Dunlap Cemetery:
There are no known Civil War soldiers interred here.

Vienna Township Cemetery:
Baldwin, Harrison Dwight
Bartholomew, Edward O.
Bartholomew, Erastus W.
Boyd, Edwin
Boyd, John C.
Boys, Hugh Mackey
Brannon, Thomas B.
Brister, Isaac C.
Burnett, Hiram  (FG)
Cook, Abraham M.
Combs [or Coombs], Alfred
Cox, Samuel
Culver, James
Cratsley, Frederick (FG)
Eldridge, James H.
Garrard, Daniel Warren
Hays, Robert P.
Henry, John D.
Hull, Hiram Wells
Hull, John Robinson (FG)
Hull, Robert P.
Kerr, Robert A., Dr. (FG)
Kugel, Gottlieb
Law, Richard
Leet, James Warren
McClurg, John M.
McClurg, William Henry
McCoy, Amasa A.
Moore, Ashley
Munson, Charles
Nolan, James C.
Pound, Henry E.
Pound, Jacob W.
Ralston, Samuel
Raub, Samuel K.
Rogers, Zachary [Zachariah]
Saunders, William D.
Scott, Jefferson
Scovill, Lucius H.
Scoville, Austin Warren
Scoville, Bennett [Bennet]
Sheldon, Hiram
Stewart, Robert J.
Stranahan, Robert
Taylor, John A. (FG)
Terry, E. M. ??
Tribby, Emory M.
Truesdell, Henry Shannon
Truesdell [Truesdale], James Jonathan
Tuttle, Albert P.
Vinton, Aaron G.  (FG)
Wartman [Wortman], Abraham
Whitten, Solomon Cline
Wireman [Wierman], Jesse

Crown Hill Burial Park:
James H. Duffy  (FG)

The following soldiers or veterans of the Civil War are buried outside of Vienna Township and/or burial details are unknown:

Bennett, James M.* ??
Bingham, A. J.  (FG)
Cole, Moses
Covay, John?
Cozad, William J.
Davis, John W.? (105th OVI)
Emerson, Merritt
Feather, William R.
Garrard, Charles Thomas
Gilmore, John
Hawley, Joel
Hood, Samuel?  (FG)
Hull, Jasper Robinson
Hunt, Elbert M.?
Hutchins, Horrace E.
Kingsley, Jasper P.
Leet, Rodney D.
Medley, Hiram
Merwin, Leland [Leeland] A.
Messersmith, Ransom
Miller, Charles E.
Miller, William W.
Mills, Alucius W.
Moser, Charles E.
Moser [Musser], Lemuel
Mowry, Shaffer
Overmire, William H.
Parker, Smith
Patten, Hiram
Perkins, Addison
Pound, Noah H.
Powell, Dwight W.
Pruden, Stephen
Rodgers, Joseph
Scovill, Asa Elmer
Scoville, George Washington
Scoville, Horace Bassett
Snyder, Thomas C.
Squires, Albert I.
Stewart, James A.
Stewart, William Y.?
Thomas, William?
Truesdell, Albert [Hubert/Hurlbert]
Truesdell, Allison Dural
Truesdell, Edwin Earl
Truesdell, John Hilliard
Truesdell, Selden Sloen
Tuttle, Jonathan B.
Tuttle, Osman B.
Tuttle, William S.
Woodford, Albert W.
Woodruff, Henry
Woodruff, Willis Wilcox
Woods, James