Joseph Crawford "Kit" King of Rollersvile, Ohio

 Among the earliest pioneers of Rollersville were Jeremiah Niles King and his family who had come from Rhode Island via New York in 1834. He built the first house in the village and then constructed a gristmill where Jeremiah also made and machined tools. His son Joseph Crawford “Kit” King joined his father in the milling operation. He continued to oversee it after his father's death in a railroad accident at the Isthmus of Panama.

                                                                         

                                                  

At the outbreak of the Civil War, despite the responsibilities of the mill, Joseph Crawford King was filled with patriotism. He enlisted with his friends in the 111^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. With him King carried a special weapon which can be seen in the nearby Civil War photo. It was a double-barreled back action rifle with a telescopic sight. John Smith, Hessville gunsmith, had made the weapon for Joseph using tools machined by Joseph's father. The rifle was never far from King's sight as the regiment traveled south into Kentucky.

An intelligent, exceptionally observant diarist, King recorded daily events at the regiment's camp as well as activities around Bowling Green, Kentucky. King soon began suffering from poor health, boredom, and disillusionment with military life. News from home added to his discouragement when he learned the mill and his finances were in disarray. In March of 1863, King received a disability discharge and headed for his home in Madison Twp. Over the next few years, with the help of Brice Bartlett, King put the mill on sound financial footing.

But in 1877, when King learned of the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, he headed west. He prospected near Rapid Creek and settled at Hill City with five other miners. King managed to file more than 50 claims in an around the area, naming his stake the Buckeye Mining Company. Despite efforts at sluicing, digging, and ditching on his claims, King spent nearly as much time hunting game and building a winter shelter as he did mining.

Eventually King's partners became discouraged and left for home. But King persevered. Now alone, his rifle served as protection against raiding Sioux, claim jumpers, and thieves, When King became ill and desperate for food and clothing, he was forced to pawn his telescope, compass, gold scales, and revolver. Yet, he struggled on and eventually had some success. In early March of 1880, King stopped off at Rollersville to visit his family while enroute to New York to negotiate some of his mining claims. A few weeks later, the “Fremont Journal” reported his death from pneumonia at Hill City, South Dakota.

The gunsmithing tools made by Jeremiah King and a rifle similar to that carried by Joseph were discovered in Sheridan, California where John Smith, the gun maker, settled near his daughter. The collection is one of the finest 19^th century gunsmithing sets known to exist. They have passed through the hands of several collectors. Today, the tools (some 600 pieces) and King's diaries are part of the permanent collection at the Frazier Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. However, typed transcripts of King's diaries (prepared by a King descendant) from his time with the 111^th Ohio and in the Black Hills are part of the Hayes Manuscripts Collection.

Captain Morris Rees Remembers

Captain Morris Rees

Through the recollections of Civil War soldiers, we learn that they, like others who have served in combat, struggled with the haunting memories of their experience. One of those was Captain Morris Rees, the last surviving commissioned officer of the 72nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

Before the war, Rees lived near Rollersville, Ohio, surrounded by a large number of his Welsh relatives. He remembered that at the age of 23, he “had the war fever so bad” that he left his wife and child “and went to Woodville alone in the night for the purpose of enlisting.” So filled with patriotism was Rees, that he recruited his friends, neighbors, and relatives to join him in fighting for the Union cause.

But the Civil War was not the glorious adventure Captain Rees had envisioned. He endured some of the conflict’s most horrific battles, disease, wounds, and months of imprisonment. Rees survived, but many of those he had recruited did not. After the war, Captain Rees wrote that he had “often looked at that long list of names and thought how soon they were all used up, nearly all gone in less than a year.”

Among the many Rees recruited was his uncle Evan, who died shortly after enlisting. He left behind a widow and three sons in a fragile economic state. Perhaps most painful for Rees was the death of his younger brother John. Immediately after Captain Rees’ release from prison, he went directly to Andersonville where his brother had languished near death for more than nine months. With the war nearly at an end, Captain Rees gained his brother’s freedom by threatening the Rebel guard with his life. But John was so weak that he died before reaching home.

When the veterans of the 72nd gathered for reunions, they rarely recounted their victories and their heroic war deeds. Instead, Captain Rees and others became pre-occupied with compiling and publishing the names, death dates, and burial places of their lost comrades. As survivors, it was their way of honoring the suffering and sacrifice of their lost comrades.

Sharing their memories of death and loss was not enough. Rees and 16 Sandusky County veterans returned to the South in 1887. Rees recorded the condition of the cemeteries and the exact number of graves in each. Perhaps in some way, seeing the old battlefields and cemeteries brought a measure of healing to the captain. However, he remained deeply disturbed by the “thousands of unidentified dead.”

In time, Captain Rees and other veterans worked to erect monuments at home and on the battlefields of Shiloh, Antietam, Chickamauga, and Vicksburg. In this 150th year of commemoration, the monuments serve as vivid reminders of the suffering and sacrifice of so many who gave their “last full measure” in the defining moment of our nation’s history.

A version of this post appeared in Lifestyles 2000.