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Sixth Independent Battery Ohio Volunteer Light Artillery
John C. Weber tells how he joined the Sixth, at the Mt. Vernon Reunion of 1897.
When Lieutenant Baldwin was recruiting in Akron for the battery I wasn't quite seventeen ; but I took the war fever and had it bad. I was a runt of a boy, but I made up my mind I was going in that battery. I couldn't see just how I was going to make the riffle, for my father, who kept a hotel in Akron, was dead against it. He wouldn't listen to it for a single minute.But I kept getting warmer and warmer till finally I couldn't stand it any longer. On the 21st of October I walked into the recruiting office and told Baldwin I wanted to list. He asked me how old I was and I said "Eighteen last August.".
I guess Baldwin thought I was lying, but he went through all the red tape, told me to sign my name, and swore me in as a recruit. Of course I never let on at home, and nobody there knew anything about it till the lieutenant started with his men for Mansfield.This was two or three weeks after I enlisted. I thought if I could only give father the slip and get to camp it would be all right At the time for the company to start I sneaked away from home and joined it at the depot Before I could get aboard the train I felt somebody take hold of my ear. It was father, and he didn't let go till he had got me home.
I lay low and kept quiet for a week, and father thought I had given it up. Lieutenant Sanders had raised a squad of men for the Sixty-fourth. When he started for Camp Buckingham, I stole away from home, got on the train and went with him.I joined the battery and then I thought everything was lovely. But after I had been in camp about a week I got a telegram from a friend in Akron, telling that father was going to start the next day to take me home. This made me sick. I went to Lieutenant Baldwin and we both went to Captain Bradley to talk it over.
I told them that I would go and stay in the woods while they coaxed father to let up. They advised me not to run away from him, but to go down and meet him at the depot, and I did. I wanted him to go right out to camp, but he made me go with him to a hotel and stay all night. The next day we went out to camp and had a big talk. The officers tried to have him consent to my going but he still refused, and Captain Bradley told me I had better go home with him.
I don't believe I ever felt so bad in my life, but of course I couldn't help myself. So I went back and stayed about ten days. In some way or other I managed to raise twenty - five dollars and one night I jumped on a train and returned to camp. Father saw that I was bound to go. and he wrote me that he would not oppose me any longer if I would come home and say good-by. I would have gone but I didn't get a chance, for the next day we got orders to start for Louisville. That's the way I got into the battery.
History of Summit County Ohio.
When he was three months old his parents moved to Akron. He attended the public and parochial schools connected with the Catholic Church until prepared for St. John's College at Cleveland, Ohio, where he spent two yeai-s. Then he was a student in the Christian Brothers' College at Dayton for one year. In 1860 he became a clerk in the general store of P. D. Hall at Akron, where he remained until October, 1861. He then enlisted in the Sixth Ohio Independent Light Battery, which became a part of General Sherman's brigade, and saw his first active service at the battle of Shiloh. His battery was sent all through Mississippi, Alabama and Kentucky and its next serious engagement was at Perryville in the latter state.
Mr. Weber participated in the battle of Stone River, and in the fol- lowing .June started with his comrades on the Chattanooga campaign, in which they took part in the battles of Hoover's Gap, Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge. Thence they went to East Tennessee to take part in the At^ lanta campaign. The Sixth battery participated in all the hard battles of this memorable period, Rocky Face Hill, Buzzards' Roost, Dalton, Resaca, Adamsville, Calhoun, Pumpkinvine Creek, New Hope Church, Pick- ett's Mills, Lost Mountain, Pine Top, Kenesaw Mountain, Chatahoochee River, Vining Sta- tion, Atlanta, Jonesboro and Lovejoy Station. From Atlanta his command was attached to the army under General Thomas at Galesville, Alabama, where Mr. Weber's term of enlistment expired. During the Atlanta cam paign he had served as an orderly for the chief of artillery on the staff of General Wood.
After a visit home, Mr. Weber returned to Nashville, Tennessee, where he remained un- til the close of the war. He wa« then engaged for two years in a grocery business at Akron, after which he went to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama. He spent some three years visiting the different states of the West, before returning to Akron. He tiaen became iis.sociated as traveling salesman with the wholesale drug house of George Weimer, with which he remained connected for three years. In 1875 he superintended the erection of the Weber Block on Howard Street, Akron, a fine two-story business structure 60 by 100 feet in dimensions.
In 1876 Mr. Weber went to Cleveland, where he became associated with the C. E. Gehring Brewery Company, where he continued in busine.ss until 1885, then re- turning to Akron. He purchased the inter- est of William Gray in the tinware and house furnishing goods firm of Jahant & Gray, and for fourteen years confined a large part of his attention to this enterprise. He also built the plant of the Akron Foundry Company, of which he was president, but disposed of his interest in 1899.
In 1874 Mr. Weber was married to Emeline Oberholtz, and they liave five chil- dren, namely: Eva, who is the wife of E. W. Donahue, residing at Akron: C. Irene, Susie M. and Bertha T., residing at home; aiid Florenz, who is a.ssistant superintendent of the Columbia Gas and Electric Light Company, of Cincinnati. Mr. Weber and familv belong to St. Bernard's Catholic Church. He is a Knight of St. John, a Knight of Columbus, a member of the Catholic Knights of Ohio, and of the Catholic Knights of America.
He belongs to Buckley Post, G. A. R., and is a member of the Lincoln Farm Associa- tion. He is also connected with the Commercial Travelers' Association, of Cleveland.
Mr. Weber has always enjoyed the recrea- tion of travel and has seen almost all sections of his native land. Several years since, after retiring from the environments of business, he took a tour through Europe, accompanied by his son. He has never taken any active part in politics and would never consider any of- fice of a political nature, but he accepted a position on the Humane Association when proffered him by the Humane Society of Akron.
Death: October 23, 1920.
Burial: Saint Bernards Cemetery, Akron, Summit County, Ohio.
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