My back quite well. Not much going on during the day. In the
evening the boys mostly went out to town and mobbed the “Crisis” and then went to the “Statesman” but did no
damage. Medary and the press were in Cincinnati. The boys carried off all the books,
etc., they could find.
_______________
Note — The episode briefly referred to under date of
March 5, 1863, was of this nature: At that time Samuel Medary, formerly a state
official of considerable prominence, was conducting a weekly newspaper called "The
Crisis" at Columbus. This periodical was perhaps the most bitter and
dangerous and disloyal "Copperhead" sheet published in the North. Its
utterances distinctly encouraged the Rebellion, instigated desertions of Union
soldiers and thus promoted disunion, prolonged the war and increased the slaughter
of Union troops. On the night of March 5th, a considerable number of Second
Ohio boys mysteriously got through the guard line of the Camp Chase encampment,
went quietly down town, threw out pickets for protection from the police,
entered "The Crisis" office and thoroughly gutted it, throwing the type,
presses, paper, etc., out of the back windows into the Scioto River. Then as
quietly as they came they returned to camp, still unobserved by the sentinels
on guard at camp, and went to bed. As mentioned in the subsequent entries in the
diary, it proved impracticable to identify any of the participants and nobody was
punished. The then Colonel of the Regiment, August V. Kautz of the Regular
Army, and a son-in-law of then Governor Tod, was naturally greatly wrought up
over the circumstance. — A. B. N.
SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman
Harris Tenney, p. 58-9
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