History of Westwood, (Hamilton County) Ohio United States of America

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William Edmonds Davis was born, July 26th, 1831, in Hamilton county, Ohio, the son of John Allen Davis and Rachel Scull. After he had received a thorough English education in the district and high schools of Cincinnati he learned blacksmithing, the trade of his father. It is his pride that he was not behind his fellow-craftsmen at the forge. At the age of twenty-four he began and continued to read law for three years. About this time he was appointed Principal of the Ohio State Reform Farm School for Boys, at Lancaster, where he remained near three years, and then resigned. In December, 1863, he was elected Chief Clerk of the Senate of Ohio, for a term of two years. While in this position he acted as special correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette. In the spring of 1864, after the first adjournment of the Senate, he went out as special war correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette, joining Sherman's army, then at Nashville and Chattanooga. At the battle of Resaca he was captured, taken to Atlanta, housed in a loathsome prison-pen for several days, removed to Richmond, Virginia, and placed by Major Carrington in "Castle Thunder." While here his suffering for the lack of the necessities of life was beyond description. At the end of three months he was transferred to the Confederate States Penitentiary, at Saulsbury, North Carolina, while the more favored correspondent of the New York World was sent North. The malignity shown by Secretary of War Seddon, and Robert Ould, Commissioner of Exchange, in thus discriminating against the correspondent of a radical Republican newspaper was of a piece with the treatment of Junius Henri Browne and A. D. Richardson, correspondents of the New York Tribune. These latter gentlemen had been four months in the Saulsbury prison when he arrived there. The trio soon became fast friends. At this time there were not over twenty prisoners of war in the penitentiary, most of the inmates being men convicted of crimes against the statute laws, deserters from the confederate army and men under the ban of political suspicion. In October of 1864, three months after he reached there, Saulsbury was made a regular prison for Union captives. During the second week of October ten thousand prisoners of war were thrown into the Saulsbury prison, within a stockade embracing about six acres of ground. Then began starvation, privation in every form, and all the suffering incident to life in a cramped prison-pen, under rigorous regimen. He had been active in attending to the few sick in the prison prior to the coming of the ten thousand, ministering to their temporal wants as best he could, and affording spiritual consolation to the suffering and the dying. His straightforward, manly deportment won upon the post surgeon, Dr. Richard O. Curry, a Christian gentleman, who was anxious to show his appreciation of Mr. Davis' worth and services. Through the surgeon's intercession a log cabin within the enclosure was allotted to him and four of his friends, and he was made assistant to Dr. Curry after the Union prisoners arrived. He had entire charge of the arrangements for the care of the sick, being virtually superintendent of the sanitary affairs of the camp. At times he had as many as three thousand sick prisoners under his charge. With his characteristic zeal and Christian spirit he devoted himself to his labor of love and mercy, day and night going the rounds of the sick wards for two months. During that time nearly two thousand of his fellow-prisoners died, and were buried just outside of the stockade. With the aid of his messmates, and what other help he could get, he did much to alleviate suffering, and is credited with having saved the life of many a poor fellow. Mr. Richardson, of the New York Tribune, in his published account, says of him in this connection: "Mr. Davis was General Superintendent, and brought to his arduous duties good judgment, untiring industry and uniform kindness." His sensitive nature revolted at the sights which occurred with painful frequency. Prisoners (particularly colored prisoners) were shot by the guards without the shadow of provocation. He went alone to the commandant, made a touching appeal and secured a show of compassion for a short time. As an instance of his brave and self-sacrificing spirit, it is told of him that upon one occasion, when the guard was about to fire on three colored prisoners, he interposed, gave a bold order and averted the deadly delivery. At the close of the war letters poured in upon Mr. Davis, bringing the hearty thanks of friends and relatives for his kind ministrations to loved ones in the prison-pen. While at Saulsbury he became acquainted with the order of "Heroes of America," a secret organization of Southern men true to the Union. Soldiers belonging to this order had the double privilege of being cared for by any brother member they might meet, in case of escape, and being shot by the confederate authorities if known to belong to the "Heroes." Mr. Davis was initiated in one of the underground lodges of this order, afterwards inducting his companions and about one thousand other Union prisoners. Sickness and death were daily increasing. The desire to escape, great from the first, became the controlling motive. The plot was laid and the anxious prisoners awaited their opportunity. It came with the night of December 13th, 1864. Out into the cold, and rain and darkness Mr. Davis led his little company of fugitives--Captain Wolf, and Richardson and Browne of the Tribune. A tedious journey of four hundred miles, beset by peril at every step, lay before them. Travelling on foot under cover of the night, fed by the hands of slaves, sleeping now in the underbrush, now in a deserted barn, amid the snow on the mountains or drenched by the cold, chilling rain in the valleys, this stout-hearted party plodded on. Led by a man of unfaltering purpose and sagacity, with faith in God and the hope of again seeing their dear ones, they pressed on, over untold obstacles, until, at the end of thirty days' march, they entered the Union lines at Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1866, under President Lincoln's administration, Mr. Davis was appointed Pension Agent--for the payment of pensions--at Cincinnati, which important trust he held for five years, disbursing about ten millions of dollars. In 1867 he was appointed, by Governor Cox, of Ohio, one of a commission of three to locate and build an asylum for the insane in southeastern Ohio. For five years he was President of this commission, and as such had the pleasure of handing over to the State authorities the splendid institution at Athens--one of the finest of its kind in the State. Mr. Davis was one of the organizers and managers of the Cincinnati Chronicle Company, being elected President of its Board of Directors. When the Chronicle was consolidated with the Cincinnati Times he became President of the new company. During the last year of his seven years' connection with the Times he was its business manager. While thus employed, in 1873, without his solicitation, President Grant appointed him Assistant Treasurer of the United States, at Cincinnati. This position he reluctantly accepted and now holds, discharging his duties with the industry and fidelity which have through life been among his most marked characteristics. He is largely interested in public enterprises, giving much of his time not otherwise employed to narrow gauge railroading about the city of Cincinnati. He is President of the Cincinnati & Westwood Railroad Company, which is constructing one of these suburban routes. He resides at Westwood, one of the beautiful suburbs of Cincinnati, and has long been a member of the Westwood Board of Public Education, having been Chairman of the committee which constructed the fine school building in that place. The success of this project was largely owing to his personal efforts. He has for twenty-five years been a member of the Baptist Church, and is prominently connected with several secret and social organizations; notably among them the Order of Scotch Rite Masons, he having taken the thirty-two degrees of that order. August 9th, 1855, he married Mary P. Stoughton, of Cincinnati, and has three sons and one daughter.

From: The Biographical Encyclopedia of Ohio of the Nineteenth Century. Columbus, OH, USA: Galaxy Publishing Co., 1876.

History of Westwood, (Hamilton County) Ohio

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