Sandusky County's 72nd Ohio at the Battle of Shiloh

 

72nd OVI Monument at Shiloh

Sandusky County, Ohio, like other northern communities, eagerly sent their sons to war with high expectations of courage and patriotic conduct.  In 1861, the county's population was approximately 22,000. It possessed 4,300 men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. By war's end, seventy percent of those of military age saw service in the Civil War.  In all, Sandusky Countians served in 120 regiments of infantry, seven regiments of cavalry, four of national guard, and several artillery batteries.  In the Navy, they served in the Mississippi Gulf Squadron, the North and South Atlantic blockade squadrons, and in the gunboat service on southern rivers. The single largest contribution to the war effort was the 72nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Just over one thousand Sandusky Countians served under the command of Fremont, Ohio native General Ralph P. Buckland.

Ralph P. Buckland

Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Portrait File

Sandusky County's contribution exceeded that of the state.  Sixty percent of Ohio's men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five served in the Union forces.  Ohio supplied 319,000 men to the armies, leading all northern states in proportion to its population.  Eleven percent never returned.

72nd Officers Civil War

Rutherford B. Hayes Library and Museums, Portrait File

After a patriotic send off on a cold January day in 1862, Buckland's green recruits, numbering eight hundred eighty, boarded a train for Columbus, Ohio. A short time later, the 72nd Ohio Volunteer Regiment clamored aboard the Baltic ultimately headed for Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River.  Their average age was 25 years.  Like other regiments, the 72nd included a large percentage of men in their early twenties and late teens.  While on board, each received his small pox vaccination given by regimental surgeon, Dr. John B. Rice.

The 72nd was led by one of Sandusky County's most respected citizens, the forty-nine year-old attorney and Ohio Congressman , Ralph P. Buckland. With him were a host of prominent young men who had seen action in the war's eastern theater. Dr. John B. Rice and Leroy Crockett had enlisted in the war during its opening months, leaving their school days far behind. Learning of the 72nd's formation, they resigned their commissions and joined their fellow townsmen. Buckland also brought his two nephews.  Twenty-one year-old Henry Buckland was joined by his younger brother Chester Buckland who had finally gained his parents' approval to leave Western Reserve College and enlist as a private in his brother's company.

Eight weeks later, Buckland's raw recruits received their baptism by fire at the Battle of Shiloh,  the first great bloody battle of the Civil War.  As part of General William T. Sherman's division,  Colonel Buckland took command of a brigade.  General Sherman located Buckland's Brigade at a strategic point.  Encamped near the Shiloh Church,  the 72nd represented a portion of the frontline. However, for the 72nd, the action began two days prior to the battle. On April 4th, Companies B and H returned fire of Rebel skirmishers near their camp.  Overwhelmed by ten-to-one odds, the companies sustained 24 casualties, including Gustavus Gessner, the regimental color bearer and son of a Sandusky County physician.

    

Shiloh Camps

Courtesy West Point

Anticipating the Confederate attack, Buckland ordered his brigade to sleep on its arms. The early morning assault of the front lines came directly at Buckland's Brigade.  Buckland held his troops in action for more than two hours despite the terror and ferocious attack.  Following victory on the 2nd day the 72nd surveyed its dead, wounded, and missing.  The Battle of Shiloh claimed more than 23,000 casualties, more than the combined total of all America's previous wars. The majority of the 72nd had fought courageously during its first and possibly it greatest test of warfare.  Sherman reserved high praise for Buckland as the only commander in his division to maintain regimental cohesion.

Assistant Surgeon William Caldwell attempted to describe the experience of battlefield slaughter, but words failed him.  

"It all seems like a shadowy vision.  To see hundreds of the dead lying around you with the groans of the wounded calling for water and for surgical attendance which was limited.  The road to the spot where the wounded were brought was crowded and half could not be brought in on the same day that they were wounded and some lay two days in the rain in the woods before they were found...Our Regt. lost in killed and wounded about hundred including the skirmish of Friday.  Dr. Rice is making out a list of the killed and wounded and you will probably see it as soon as this.  Mr. Buffington and Emanual Fink were severely wounded...I put them on the steamboat and saw them comfortably situated.  They will probably be sent to Cincinnati or Paducah all the wounded will be sent from here to some large cities.  The 72nd occupying the centre had been cut to pieces by the storm of iron and leaden hail that showered upon them by the dense columns of the Rebel host...."

 

Assistant Surgeon William Caldwell

Union soldiers fit for duty began the grisly task of burying the dead.  Unprepared for the magnitude of death, burial units could only gather the corpses together in rows.  Decomposition, hastened by the warm spring weather, had already begun to obliterate the identities of the dead. Moreover, the rotting corpses threatened to increase the staggering numbers of men suffering from dysentery and typhoid.  Lacking coffins and reserving blankets for the wounded and sick, soldiers buried Confederates and Federals in similar but separate trenches. Over 700 corpses were stacked seven deep in five Confederate trenches.  Morris E. Tyler of the 72nd reported seeing some 900 Confederates buried. They were placed in trenches fifteen to one hundred and fifty at a time. Two thirds of the Union dead were unidentified.  Captain Michael Wegstein of the 72nd was buried on the field. His body was found stripped of his sword and sidearm.  The dehumanizing aspects of mass burial trenches, hastily-dug graves,  and the stripping of rotting corpses stood in direct contrast to 19th century burial practices that focused on human identity and dignity.     

Confederate Trench at Shiloh, 2026

Courtesy Shiloh National Battlefield Park