ight swords with
glistening scabbards, rose horses in a gallop on parade occasions
and muster days, yet knew nothing really military--certainly but
little useful in war. We knew a little of company drill and of
the handling of the old-fashioned muster.

My wife (Eliza Stout) was of the same Stout family of New Jersey
from whence came my maternal grandmother. She was born at Springfield,
Ohio, July 11, 1834, and died there March 12, 1899.

Her father, Charles Stout, and mother, Margaret (McCord) Stout,
emigrated from New Jersey, on horseback, in 1818, to Ohio, first
settling at Cadiz, then at Urbana, and about 1820 in Clark County.
The McCords were Scotch-Irish, from County Tyrone. Thus in our
children runs the Scotch-Irish blood, with the German, Dutch, Welsh,
English, and what not--all, however, Aryan in tongue, through the
barbaric, Teutonic tribes of northern Europe.

Thus situated and occupied, I was, after Sumter was fired on, and
although wholly unprepared by previous inclination, education, or
training, quickly metamorphosed into a soldier in actual war.

Five days after President Lincoln's first call for volunteers I
was in Camp Jackson, Columbus, Ohio (now Goodale Park), a private
soldier, and April 27, 1861, I was commissioned and mustered as
Major of the 3d Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and with the regiment went
forthwith to Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati, for drill and equipment.
Here real preparations for war, its duties, responsibilities, and
hardships, began. Without the hiatus of a day I was in the volunteer
service four years and two months, being mustered out, at Washington,
D. C., June 27, 1865, on which date I settled all my ordnance and
other accounts with the departments of the government, though they
covered several hundred thousand dollars.

I served and fought in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama,
Georgia, West Virginia, and Maryland, and campaigned in other
States. I was thrice slightly wounded, twice in different years,
near Winchester, Virginia, and severely wounded in the left forearm
at the battle of the Wilderness, May 5, 1864. I was off duty on
account of wounds for a short time only, though I carried my arm
in a sling, unhealed, until after the close of the war.

The story of my service in the Civil War is told elsewhere.

II
PUBLIC SERVICES SINCE THE CIVIL WAR

On my return from the war I resumed, in Springfield, Ohio, the
practice of law, and have since pursued it, br