HAYES 



2729 



HAYES 



preparation at private academies he entered 

 Kenyon College in 1838, and was graduated 

 four years later at the head of his class. The 

 studies in which he excelled furnish a key to 

 his character, already strongly marked; they 

 were logic, mental and moral philosophy and 

 mathematics. 



He then spent nearly two years studying in 

 the office of a Columbus (Ohio) lawyer, and 

 completed his law studies in the Harvard Law 

 School, from which he was graduated in 1845. 

 Until the War of Secession he practiced law in 

 Ohio, first at Marietta, later at Fremont, and 

 finally at Cincinnati. In the earlier years of his 

 practice, when cases were few, he systematically 

 continued his studies not only in law but in lit- 

 erature, and in Cincinnati he was chosen a 

 member of the famous literary club of which 

 Salmon P. Chase, later Chief Justice of the 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES 



Lawyer, major-general in the army, member of 

 Congress, governor of Ohio and President of the 

 United States. 



United States, was then a leading member. 

 Hayes' practice increased steadily; he attracted 

 public notice as attorney in several criminal 

 trials, and from 1858 to 1861 he was city so- 

 licitor of Cincinnati. 



In the Army. When the news of the bom- 

 bardment of Fort Sumter reached Cincinnati, a 

 great mass meeting was held in that city to ex- 

 press the sentiments of the people loyal to the 

 Union, and Hayes was chairman of the commit- 

 tee which drew up the resolutions. The. lit- 

 erary club of which Hayes was a member 



formed a military company, and Hayes was 

 elected its captain. Before the end of 1861 he 

 had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant- 

 colonel, had seen service in West Virginia, and 

 been judge advocate of the Department of 

 Ohio. In August, 1862, Hayes was offered the 

 colonelcy of the Seventy-ninth Ohio regiment, 

 but he preferred to remain as lieutenant-colonel 

 of his old regiment, the Twenty-third Ohio, 

 which was then a part of the Army of the Po- 

 tomac. At the battle of South Mountain the 

 Twenty-third Ohio lost nearly half of its men. 

 Hayes himself was wounded, but led his men 

 until he had to be carried from the battlefield. 



On his recovery from his wound he was ap- 

 pointed colonel of his regiment, and thereafter 

 was conspicuous in several important expedi- 

 tions, notably one which he led into Ohio to 

 cut off the retreat of General John Morgan and 

 his raiders. In the spring of 1864, in the expe- 

 dition" which cut the lines of communication on 

 the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad between 

 Richmond and the southwest, Hayes com- 

 manded a brigade; he led the principal charge 

 on. the enemy's works with conspicuous bold- 

 ness. In the Shenandoah campaign his brigade 

 was a part of General Sheridan's army, and he 

 himself won praise. 



At the second battle of Winchester, on Sep- 

 tember 19, 1864, he performed a daring feat. 

 He was leading an assault against a battery 

 standing on a slight rise of ground, when he ran 

 into a swamp about 150 feet wide. His horse 

 was caught in the mire, but Hayes dismounted 

 and waded on alone. When he reached dry 

 land he turned and called to his men to follow 

 him. About forty of them crossed the bog and 

 seized the battery after a hand-to-hand fight. 

 A week later, at Fisher's Hill, he routed the 

 enemy by a brilliant flank attack under great 

 difficulties, and at Cedar Creek his bravery was 

 so outstanding that General Crook, his com- 

 mander, approached him after the battle and 

 said, "Colonel, from this day you will be a 

 brigadier-general." On March 13, 1865, he was 

 further rewarded by the rank of brevet major- 

 general. Grant, in his Personal Memoirs, writ- 

 ten twenty years later, said of Hayes that "his 

 conduct on the field was marked by conspicu- 

 ous gallantry, as well as the display of qualities 

 of a higher order than mere personal daring." 



Representative in Congress and Governor of 

 Ohio. Hayes does not rank as one of the great 

 commanders in the War of Secession ; as a mili- 

 tary strategist he is not to be compared with 

 Grant, Lee or Sherman. He was, however, a 



