5th. 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.
