Fallen heroes tree recalls large sacrifice of small, anti-slavery Ohio community

(Robbins Hunter Museum)

The village of Granville, in central Ohio, never saw a military draft during the Civil War because it exceeded its quota of troop contributions, says a local historian.

There’s at least one reason cited for the high number of volunteers.

“Licking County has always been conservative, but there were many who voted for (John) Breckinridge,” says Kevin Bennett, referring to the Kentucky Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for president in 1860 against Abraham Lincoln and would later fight for the Confederacy.

“Granville did not. It was termed by a local county newspaper as an abolitionist hellhole.”

And so the bucolic village of about 800 residents and its surrounding township rushed its sons to don blue uniforms and fight to preserve the union. Of the 2,900 residents in the area, about 300 served, including students at Denison University (formerly called Granville College), says Bennett.

Three of the six Rose brothers and cousins died

Four men that either were from the area or went to school in Granville – a center of education and culture -- became generals. Dozens would succumb to combat wounds or disease at campaign camps and prisons across the South.

The Robbins Hunter Museum at the Avery-Downer House, a striking example of Greek Revival architecture, this holiday season has a fallen heroes tree memorializing the lives of 53 local men who died during the war.

Each red, white and blue shield has a name, age and regiment.

The museum’s tree collection this year features other themes: pre-1870 ornaments and one paying homage to the 1950s, with bubble lights and shiny, bright ornaments.

Previously, also during the Civil War sesquicentennial, the museum featured a replica wooden crate and items that would be of the type sent to soldiers for Christmas (above).

“We are now saying goodbye to the Civil War after this,” museum Executive Director Ann Lowder says of this year’s tree.

Bennett, a retired army lieutenant colonel, told the Picket that he grew up in northern Ohio and became interested in the Civil War during its centennial.

He felt the village’s role in the four-year conflict deserved more research, which led to the publication by the Granville Historical Society of his book, “The Civil War & Granville: An Ohio Community’s Outsized Contribution.”

Among those died were three Hill brothers – Ezra, Benjamin and Caton – and three of six Rose siblings and cousins.

Daniel Rose, a member of the 113^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, died at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, a Sergeant Cressey would write. “It was terrible,” Cressey wrote of the numerous casualties. Lewis Rose was wounded in both legs and would later pass away.

Eight Granville men died and 11 were wounded at Chickamauga, says Bennett.

Local residents joined many units, such as the 3^rd, 17^th, 76^th and the 88^th regiments. Many joined two companies of the 100-day 135^th OVI in spring 1864.

“They didn’t get the quiet, safe duty they thought they were going to get,” says Bennett.

While on guard duty at North Mountain Depot near Martinsburg, W.Va., “they were totally overwhelmed and surrendered.” Of 168 members of the 135th captured, only 65 returned home, most dying at Andersonville, Camp Lawton and other Confederate camps or after they were paroled, says Bennett. Eleven Granville soldiers were among the dead.

Lowder says the Licking County Genealogicial Society did intensive research of the 53 fallen, one of whom was a 17-year-old telegraph operator.

Bennett says he counts 64 war dead from the village, township and university.

He also researched two generals: Charles Griffin and Erastus Tyler.

Tyler, who attended Granville College, was brave and capable often incurred the ire of superiors, says Bennett. He fought at Port Republic, Monocacy and Antietam, among other battles.

Charles Griffin

Native son Griffin rose to the rank of major general and commanded a division and, later, the entire V Corps, which fought at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Five Forks and Appomattox Court House. Griffin’s brother, William, had moved south and fought for the Confederacy.

Founded in 1805 by Welsh settlers and anti-slavery settlers from Granville, Mass., and Connecticut, Granville had farmers, middle-class shopkeepers and faculty members.

Because the railroad arrived late and the township had limited industrial success, the community became better known for its education, with five schools, including the Granville Female Seminary, by the 1830s.

“We know there were girls who came up from the South to be educated,” says Lowder.

Today, Granville -- its village center built in a New England style reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting -- retains its identity while serving as a bedroom community a 25-minute drive from Ohio’s capital, Columbus.

War seems a great distance away.

But Granville, a planned community disrupted by the disorder of the Civil War, remembers the sacrifice of its son, husbands and fathers.

The Robbins Hunter Museum, 221 E. Broadway in Granville, is open Wednesday through Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m., through Dec. 20. Admission is free.

Working to bring American chestnut back to glory it had during the Civil War

A chestnut burr at breeding farm (American Chestnut Foundation)

It may be fitting that the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, the man remembered for rising from humble beginnings to great heights, will be the planting ground for 20 saplings that are part of a broad effort to bring the American chestnut back to its former glory.

Volunteers at Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Hodgenville, Ky., on Saturday will plant year-old American chestnuts in the park’s picnic area.

Officials hope the young chestnuts, part of the American Chestnut Foundation’s breeding and testing program, will grow to be resistant to the blight that wiped out hundreds of millions of their ancestors early in the 20^th century.

This will be the second such planting at the site in the past seven years.

Symbolic birthplace cabin in Kentucky (NPS)

Several buildings there are made of chestnut, as is at least part of the “Symbolic Cabin” that represents the tiny abode where the future 16^th president and commander in chief was born to Thomas and Nancy Lincoln in 1809.

During the Civil War, chestnuts made up about one in four hardwoods in the Appalachian region that stretches from Maine to Alabama.

"Families in rural America, including the Lincoln family, once depended heavily upon the American chestnut for both food and shelter. The trees grew straight and tall and were rot-resistant, making the wood desirable for construction. The small nuts were sweet and fed entire families, as well as livestock and many species of wildlife," says park Superintendent Bill Justice.

Straight-grained chestnut timber was ideal for furniture, telephone poles, railroad ties and plywood. Lighter than oak, chestnut logs were used for river rafts.

(Lynn Garrison)

But the blight’s fungus and another malady, root rot, conspired against the fast-growing American chestnut.

Stacy Humphreys, chief of interpretation and resource management at the federal site, says about 200,000 people come annually to Sinking Spring Farm, the birthplace, and Knob Creek, where the family moved when Lincoln was about 2. They moved to Indiana when he was 7.

Many visitors are surprised the actual birth cabin no longer exists. That was confirmed when a test in 2004 showed the structure placed in a stone memorial hall was actually from the 1840s. “We have to disappoint a lot of people.”

Still, visitors, through a film and exhibits, gain insight into the early days of Lincoln, who later became famous as the “Rail Splitter” by splitting wood for rail fences.

Humphreys said that the planting and mulching will begin at about 10 a.m. Saturday. Wire cages will be placed around the 2- to 3-feet-tall saplings (above) “so the deer don’t eat them. We have a very robust deer population.”

The blight-resistant trees, known as Restoration Chestnuts 1.0, aren’t guaranteed to not become diseased, but continued breeding and testing will increase the variety’s chances in the coming years.

A study last spring on Restoration 1.0 found 16% are highly resistant and 50% moderately resistant, says Mila Kirkland, director of communications for the American Chestnut Foundation, based in Asheville, N.C.

Giant chestnuts in the Great Smoky Mountains (ACF)

“Now and the coming years we are going to hone in on that 16 percent and continue to breed with those trees,” she says.

The foundation’s effort involves crossing the American chestnut with the Chinese chestnut, which is resistant to the devastating blight. Many of the resulting trees are grown at the organization’s farms in Meadowview, Va.

The foundation is doing “test” plantings all over the country. Patience is required because the blight can take a while to develop, says Kirkland, and the Restoration 1.0 program only began in 2005.

After an American and Chinese chestnut are crossed, the resulting tree is crossed back with the American, resulting eventually in a product that is 15/16^th American.

The Chinese chestnut is shorter, with spreading branches. “The wood is not the beautiful chestnut colored wood of our native trees. It is much more inferior as a forest tree because it is an orchard tree,” says Kirkland.

Restoration 1.0 seeds (ACF)

While the American chestnut can be found in commercial nurseries, the hybrids developed by the foundation and other groups are the best chance to develop characteristics that will help the tree rebound in the coming generations.

The native range is in the Appalachians. “They prefer slopes and well-drained soils. They don’t like water and soggy bottom land,” says Kirkland.

She, too, emphasizes the importance of the tree to man and wildlife during the mid-19^th century. “They were definitely prevalent at Lincoln birthplace.” Animals and humans prized the nut as a food source.

“(Settlers) would take these wagons full of chestnuts into cities and sell them as a cash crop or trade for things they needed.”

The American chestnut isn’t the only tree that has been ravaged by disease. A canker devastated the butternut, a hardwood tree. During the Civil War, the color of Confederate uniforms was created using butternut husks as a source of dye. 

The chestnut foundation’s 16 state chapters, from Alabama to Maine, do the ground work of breeding regionally adapted chestnuts. “A tree that is native to Georgia is not going to work so well in Maine, for many reasons,” says Kirkland.

Lynn Garrison, president of the Kentucky chapter, says he has high hopes for trees being planted Saturday, but acknowledges it is still part of a larger test.

“You can’t tell when it shows up,” he says of the blight. “It varies somewhat.”

He says his chapter’s goal is to cross trees that can work in all 20 eco-regions in Kentucky

  

The American chestnut is a fast grower (ACF)

“We will have trees …. that will be mostly Kentucky genotypes. We want to preserve as much genetic information as possible.”

The best hope against the blight is through the breeding program, rather than fungicides and other chemicals, says Garrison. “They tried to cut every chestnut tree and they thought it would stop migration of the blight, but it didn’t.”

“We think the answer is in developing a resistance,” he says. And while the foundation is moving forward with caution, it is hopeful about restoration.

“We think it won’t be long before we are ready to start restoring them in the forest.”

The Kentucky chapter has planted about 1,000 trees in controlled settings over the past year.

The planting at the Lincoln birthplace can help educate generations that were born long after the blight virtually wiped out the American chestnut population. The effort has both historic and ecological lessons, Garrison says.

In their heyday, chestnuts could live up to 300 years. Some reached 120 feet and they were opportunistic mainstays in the forest canopy.

Of course, there will be setbacks along the way, as some chestnuts succumb to the blight. But the breeding program will produce thousands of hardy trees that will thrive.

Kirkland says the hope is that 50 years from now, the American chestnut will be restored to the forest – “that it is a common tree people talk about, interact with and use in their daily lives.”

Bullets discovered in Gettysburg tree

For years, visitors and staff at the Gettysburg battlefield would occasionally come across bullets and pieces of artillery shells lodged in trees.

But as time passed, and the number of "Witness Trees" declined, such discoveries plummeted.

Last Thursday, maintenance workers at Gettysburg National Military Park came across at least two bullets when their saw cut through a fallen tree on Culp's Hill, Superintendent Bob Kirby announced Tuesday.

"It's part of the story," park historian John Heiser told the Picket. "There are still relics of this battle surviving on the field."

Two sections of the trunk where the bullets were discovered have been moved to the park’s museum collections storage facility. The sections will be treated to remove insects and mold and then added to the museum collections.

One of the bullets is believed to be a minie ball, said park spokesperson Katie Lawhon.

The bullets were in an oak tree that fell several years ago and was lying on a boulder, said Lawhon. Due to the steepness of the rocky slope, the remainder of the tree will remain in place, officials said.

Lawhon said the bullets struck about 13 feet up the oak, which was likely 100 years old at the time of the July 1-3, 1863, battle in southern Pennsylvania. Culp's Hill was a critical part of the Union defensive line, the right flank of what is described as the "fish-hook" line.

"The tree may have twisted and rolled when it fell so we may never know which side of the tree the bullets hit: the downhill or the uphill side," the park says in its blog. "That clue might have helped us know whether they came from Union guns or Confederate."

The tree almost touches a small monument to Maj. Joshua G. Palmer. Palmer, a dentist from Urbana, Ohio, was leading elements of the 66th Ohio Infantry Regiment when he was mortally wounded July 3, 1863, on the eastern slope of Culp's Hill.

Early that morning, the 66th Ohio was sent in to clear Confederates below the main summit and earthworks, Heiser said. "It was an effort to sweep the front of the hill."

Heiser estimates the bullets struck the tree the evening of July 2 or the morning of July 3. That part of the Culp's Hill was held by the Union 12th Corps and New Yorkers under Brig. Gen. George S. Greene.

Although there has never been a inventory conducted of witness trees (those in existence in 1863), "there are a lot more ... than anybody knew about," Lawhon told the Picket.

Some, like ones near Hancock Avenue and Gen. Daniel Sickles' headquarters, are near public routes. Others are less accessible.

In the late 1980s, wind pushed down several trees on Culp's Hill, yielding bullets, Heiser said.

Fewer than 100 witness trees remain at Gettysburg, with several dying in the past couple decades, Heiser said.

"Time marches on," he said.

Tree and bullet photos by the National Park Service. Photo of Palmer monument by Craig Swain, HMdb.org