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The young men attempted their best imitation of military posture as they stood to attention on the Allegheny College campus in Meadville, Pennsylvania, that eleventh of June 1861. One account suggests that 78 were in that array before the main college building, Bentley Hall. More likely, the group contained fewer than 66 lads but more than 50. They would be joined in the next few weeks by some 16 additional students and local men from Crawford County. This contingent, to be long known as the Allegheny College Volunteers, would fight in 19 battles of the Civil War. Youths would become men, raw recruits gruff veterans. Many would never return home; others would do so only as crippled versions of their former selves.
Feelings had been running high on campus for months as the war cauldron heated over the differences between the Northern and Southern states. Even young William McKinley, whose equanimity and skill at debate was admired by his student friends during his short sojourn at Allegheny in the spring of 1860, lost his calm on the subject. When a Southern lad proposed Jefferson Davis as the best next leader for the country, the future President retorted that he would fight before he would let that happen.
News
of the attack on the Federal base at Fort Sumter 12 April 1861 aggravated
the tension. Northern students bristled at comments made by some of their
Southern colleagues. The Union supporters called an indignation meeting and
elected a committee that demanded that those persons favoring the attack “Recant,
or leave within 24 hours for your homes.” Vainly did the President
of the College, the Reverend George Loomis, plea for conciliation. Twelve
unrepentant Southerners departed. Shortly thereafter, on Saturday, 20 April,
a congregation of students cheered as James Stubbs raised the Stars and Stripes
atop the cupola of Bentley Hall. The door to the tower was then barred to
prevent the flag from being torn down. This was, it may be estimated, the
only occasion in the history of the College when the national banner was
flown from Bentley’s tower.
That afternoon the students assembled again on the steps of the county courthouse, their hearts aflame. A call for volunteers went out, and after a rousing speech or two, the boys signed up. They proclaimed themselves the College Company, electing Ira Ayer, Jr., of Buffalo as captain. A student in the Biblical department of the College, Ayer was a sturdy man nearly six feet tall, fair complexioned with light hair and blue eyes. Twenty-six years of age, Ayer had served for five years with the Sixty-Seventh New York State militia, of which his father was colonel. The young captain, who held a good grasp of military drill and tactics, quickly started training the group. A son of the South, Sion B. Smith of Alexandria, Tennessee, became first lieutenant, German instructor Reverend Oscar Hennig, Ph.D, second lieutenant, and senior George Norris third lieutenant.1
The volunteers were not alone in their enthusiasm. Companies from every region of the Commonwealth were mustering in Harrisburg. Most men had enlisted for just three months of service, part of Mr. Lincoln’s ninety-day army. Soon enough, it was clear in both Washington and the state capitals that the crisis would not be resolved so quickly. Harrisburg legislators passed a bill creating a Reserve Volunteer Corps of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to be enlisted for three years or for the duration of the war, and to be amalgamated into the U. S. Army as requisitioned. The rubric “reserve” suggested that the men would not serve on the front lines or see the war close up. All too soon, the corps veterans were wryly commenting that the worst battles of the war were “reserved” for them.
Until the issue of duration of enlistments was resolved, Governor Andrew Curtin delayed acceptance of the College Company. The lads drilled, parading occasionally on Chestnut Street in Meadville, and chafed at the delay. Some say that special appeals were made to Senator D. A. Finney, class of 1840, to use his influence with the governor. Significant also in the matter was Professor Samuel P. Bates, a Meadville native and Deputy State Superintendent of Education, who personally carried to Harrisburg papers tendering the service of the College Volunteers and who telegraphed home that on 24 May the company was accepted for three years’ service. Before it could depart for training, however, time was required to make arrangements and to bring the company to its full size by the addition of volunteers from the county. (A Meadville short-term company that included several college students had already formed and left for training.) It was the determination of the Allegheny lads that no one should be accepted into the company unless he were a student at the time he enlisted. They sent to neighboring academies (post-grammar schools, the fore-runners of today’s high schools) for recruits and were especially successful in gaining help from the southwest area of the county, including nine youths from tiny Espyville Academy.2
