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3. Camp Giddings: Early Promise, Fall 1861
- Ohio University Press
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3 Camp Giddings E a r l y P r omis e , F a l l 1 8 6 1 First Steps Although every outfit stepping forward now was sure of a chance to fight, fresh memories of being left behind in the ninety-day war nagged the founders in Jefferson, and to increase their anxiety, recruiters for other regiments were already beginning to appear in their neighborhood. The project was too important to wait on any man, even Buckley. The Giddings men would do what they could to get the regiment building off to a quick start, but they were politicians and attorneys and someone was needed immediately to take charge of the military end of things, experienced in turning farm boys and mill hands into proper soldiers. Fortunately, there was a man available who had had experience in turning recruits into proper soldiers, and he could come at once. The founders appointed thirty-nine-year-old Thomas Clark of Cleveland as major and acting commander of the Giddings Regiment.1 Like Buckley, he came with the highest of recommendations.2 Clark’s most important qualification for high office in the regiment was the same enjoyed by Buckley—the recently returned veterans of the Nineteenth Regiment wanted him to lead them.3 He was a big man, taller than most by a head, with thick dark hair and bushy eyebrows. He had been born out in the mountain country of New Hampshire.4 He had attended the region’s military academy, Norwich University, but dropped out short of graduation and turned to school teaching and running a village mercantile.5 His first child, Ellen Louisa, lived barely two years. After that, Clark and his wife packed up and headed west for a fresh start. He landed in Cleveland, where he was working as a commission merchant when the war broke. Clark volunteered his services to the governor and was appointed state drillmaster for the several regiments doing their hurry-up training at Camp Taylor.6 It was at Cleveland that he first met Lewis P. Buckley, and he was deeply impressed by Buckley’s military aplomb. Clark had been offered the adjutancy of the Nineteenth Regiment but he declined the post because he found its commander too indolent and intemperate for his liking. He had his eye on appointment as commandant of Camp Taylor. He had seen firsthand the gross inefficiency of the troop training practiced by incompetent men and was confident he could institute a better system, founded on discipline and proper military instruction. The Camp Taylor job did not materialize.7 When the Nineteenth Ohio was ordered forward to western Virginia, he volunteered to accompany them in an ex officio capacity.8 Volunteers were notoriously resistant to discipline, but even they admitted that Clark was a capable instructor of green troops. The ability to stand and face enemy fire was not something that could be 30 Camp Giddings taught, but Clark knew the mechanics of the thing. Other regiments were forming for the three years’ service in Cleveland just then, and Clark’s service would have been prized by any of them.9 Upon leaving Cleveland for the war, Clark had been presented with a fancy sword by his fellow members in the Sons of Temperance. He had taken the pledge to avoid strong drink, but he was not humorless, nor was he a crusader.10 He was forceful enough to give orders, and have them obeyed by independent-minded volunteers, but he was also approachable and forgiving. In their first winter in the war, many boys in the regiment felt marooned and forgotten, and every soldier was impoverished. Clark used his own money to buy tobacco for the men, distributing it personally to them, and shared his own small supply of “waterproof biscuit” with the enlisted men.11 The soldiers referred to him as a “good-natured old son,” which was high praise from the ranks.12 The regiment’s historian reported that Clark’s first task upon setting down in Jefferson was to scout locations for their camp.13 Actually, the question as to where the camp should be placed had been made by the regiment’s promoters in the week following the news of Bull Run.14 It had not been a difficult decision. Of course, it had to be in or near Jefferson, because that was where the founders made their homes. Even the dullest of businessmen could see that a town might...