The Civil War Sesquicentennial
The 150th anniversary of the American Civil War is upon us. The Civil War sesquicentennial (2011-2015) provides a fresh opportunity for a new generation to rediscover the many ways in which Ohioans played a key role in the war and in which the war – “this mighty scourge,” as Lincoln described it – changed life in Ohio. The Civil War story in Ohio touches almost every community in the state, and this website is a place for those interested in its vast and fascinating history to come together around the anniversary of that time period.
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Mr. E. 2003
Manifest Lesson
Jane Wilson Shaw & John Patterson Graham (1866)
My own maternal ancestor, John Patterson Graham, enlisted and served in the 14th Regiment of Pennsylvania Cavalry. He was a farrier or blacksmith. He served for four years. His first wife, Sara Robb, died while John was away at war. When he returned home to Cedar Mills, Ohio, it is said that he laid on his wife’s grave. The following year, John P. Graham married Jane Wilson Shaw. Together they had seven children. Their oldest child, Mary Ann Graham, married David Stephen Tolle on January 3, 1888. This couple became my great-grandparents (my mother’s grandparents). This personal heritage provides an opportunity to share how my Ohio ancestors played a role in the American Civil War – “this mighty scourge,” as Lincoln described it.
Mary Ann & David Stephen Tolle
“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
–as quoted in THE RIVER OF WINGED DREAMS”
― Abraham Lincoln
…the better angels of our nature.
Mr. E. 2003 