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COL Samuel Russell
to remember
Godfrey, Edward Settle (MoH), BG USA(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town Kalida
Date of Passing Apr 01, 1932
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Description The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America. The Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U.S. history.
Among the 34 U.S. states in February 1861, seven Southern slave states individually declared their secession from the U.S. to form the Confederate States of America. War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U.S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to include eleven states; it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona and New Mexico (called Confederate Arizona). The Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North. The war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865.
The war had its origin in the factious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. Four years of intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers dead, a higher number than the number of American military deaths in World War I and World War II combined, and much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed (most of them by Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation). The Reconstruction Era (1863–1877) overlapped and followed the war, with the process of restoring national unity, strengthening the national government, and granting civil rights to freed slaves throughout the country.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
April / 1861
To Month/Year
December / 1861
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
People You Remember In Company D was a family connection of twelve cousins and one uncle. Seven of them were officers. And they sustained the only casualties in the only engagement the Company had, Second Lieutenant Guy Pomeroy being fatally wounded and Captain Thomas G. Allen being killed. The former expired on an Ohio River steamboat while being taken to Gallipolis, Ohio, but Sergeant J. H. Long. Captain Allen had said-- "If I am killed I want to be shot right here," placing a finger at the center of his forehead. And that was where the bullet struck. First Lieutenant Charles William Allen, a student of medicine under Dr. Charles Moore Godfrey and brother of the Captain, reenlisted and died at home of wounds received at the battle of Chickamauga in September, 1863. Those brothers lie under a double monument erected in Pomeroy Cemetery, Ottawa, Ohio, and Second Lieutenant Guy Pomeroy also lies nearby. Captain Allen had bequeathed his sword to Ottawa Lodge No. 325 F. A. M., Ottawa, Ohio. Many, many years afterward the writer of this delivered to the widow of Lawyer Guy Pomeroy letters that had been written by him to Thomas G. Allen. She instantly recognized the handwriting and expressed sweet gratitude. He was one of the committee that acted for resident voters to petition the county commissioners for incorporatio
Memories His first military experience, however, was in the so-called three months' service in the Civil War, in Company D, Twenty-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, that lasted from April 26 to August 12, 1861. That Company was mustered in at Camp Taylor, Cleveland, Ohio, May 21, 1861, and was mustered out at Columbus, Ohio, August 12 following. It was recruited in and near Ottawa by Lawyer Thomas Godfrey Allen, who became captain, and the volunteers mainly were enrolled by him at the railway station and on the street. The drilling was done on the village common, just east of the Blanchard River and just north of the Ottawa-Kalida road. The drill instructor was Jacob Wolf, a recently discharged regular army sergeant from Delphos, Ohio, who was visiting in Ottawa, was persuaded to enroll for the Company, and was made a corporal. During the last few days before entraining for Cleveland, camp was made at the large barn of Dr. Calvin T. Pomeroy just south of the village and just north of Williamstown road. Before being mustered in our young volunteer experienced two rejections before acceptance could be had. He there stood in the physical examination line three times, going immediately from the head to the foot twice. Finally and although his age was below the minimum, persistence and resourcefulness won over the examining surgeon -- Dr. Miller. And in vindication it may be noted that during that Company's sole engagement, at Scarey Creek, West Virginia, July 17, 1861, Private Godfrey while under fire carried water to the wounded. And he assisted in carrying from the field Second Lieutenant Guy Pomeroy. For a time that wounded officer was carried in a blanket, so that eventually the carriers' fingers were much pained. Arriving at a tobacco shed and finding therein a ladder, immediately there was discussion as to the right and the wrong of taking and utilizing it for litter purposes to ease the injured one and his comrades. As a result the ladder was not left.