Elias Nigh
Born and reared in Ohio and a scion of one of the honored pioneer families of this favored commonwealth, it was given to Colonel Nigh to confer distinction upon his native state, which shall ever owe to his memory a debt of special honor. As a lawyer, soldier and legislator he wielded large and benignant influence, and his life was guided and governed by the loftiest principles of integrity, the while he had a deep sense of personal responsibility and so ordered his life as to make it a veritable beatitude. Colonel Nigh died at his home in Ironton, Lawrence County, on the 24th of February, 1899, and his memory is revered by all who came within the compass of his strong and noble influence, so that this publication would impair its consistency were there failure to enter a proper memorial tribute.
Colonel Nigh was born in Fairfield County, Ohio, on the 16th of February, 1815, and thus his death occurred about one week after he had celebrated the eighty-fourth anniversary of his birth. His father, Samuel Nigh, was a native of Maryland and came to Fairfield County, Ohio, in 1802, before the admission of the state to the Union. This worthy pioneer lived up to the full tension of responsibilities and vicissitudes incidental to the formative period of Ohio history, was influential in his community, and passed the closing period of his life in Wyandotte County, where he died in 1877, at the age of eighty-three years. From a previously published memoir are taken, with slight paraphrase, the following statements concerning Colonel Nigh:
"As a youth he was employed in business by General Reese, brother-in-law of Senator Sherman, and he passed several years in the home of Mrs. Sherman after the death of her distinguished husband. While thus engaged he diligently employed his time in reading and study. For two years after attaining to his legal majority Colonel Nigh was engaged in business for himself, and he then began the study of law under the preceptorship of Hon. Hocking H. Hunter, of Lancaster, the judicial center of Fairfield County. In the same county he pursued also a classical course in Greenfield Academy, an institution conducted by Professor John Williams, a very accomplished scholar. In the spring of 1843 Colonel Nigh was admitted to the Ohio bar, at Lebanon, Warren County, and in the autumn of this year he located at Burlington, Lawrence County, whence, in 1852, he removed to Ironton, the county seat. He was made colonel in the State militia; he was thrice elected representative in the Ohio legislature—in 1847, 1859, and 1876. In 1877, as chairman of the standing committee on mines and mining, he introduced a bill to establish a chair of mining and mining engineering in the Ohio Agricultural College; also a bill to consolidate land titles in Ohio. He also prepared, and presented in the house, joint resolutions for the amendment of the state constitution in such manner as to make provision for the organization of its judiciary.
"In 1861, at the inception of the Civil war, Colonel Nigh was tendered the rank of major in the First Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and also that of assistant quartermaster of volunteers with the rank of captain. He accepted the latter overture and received his commission in August, 1861, with assignment to General Thomas' division, at Camp Dick Robinson, Kentucky. In the spring of 1862 he was placed on the staff of General Buell, as the chief quartermaster of the Army of the Ohio, and remained until General Buell was relieved from the command, in the following autumn. He was then assigned to duty as depot quartermaster at Louisville, Kentucky, and about this time he was tendered to office of colonel of a new Ohio regiment. He forwarded his resignation as quartermaster, but the government recognized the value of his services in the latter capacity and refused to accept his resignation, with the result that he was soon afterward made chief quartermaster of the Sixteenth Army Corps, with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
"In April, 1863, as a further reward for his meritorious services. Colonel Nigh was commissioned assistant quartermaster in the regular army, with the rank of captain. In June, 1864, he was given the additional duty of acting as disbursing officer of the entire Mississippi valley, from Cairo to Natchez. Early in the following month, after having rendered very valuable and distinguished service to his country, Colonel Nigh resigned his office."
Testimonials of appreciation of his services as quartermaster were given in many letters from official and representative sources, and there can be no impropriety in perpetuating in this review certain extracts from some of these letters. Lieut. Col. J. D. Bingham, chief quartermaster of the Department of the Tennessee, under date of June 13, 1864, wrote to Colonel Nigh, relative to the latter 's retirement from the post of chief quartermaster of the Sixteenth Army Corps, in the following words: "I regret exceedingly that you are compelled to resign. You have rendered me such valuable assistance and performed your duties in such a satisfactory manner that I fear your place can not be filled in this department."
Gen. S. A. Hurlbut, major general of volunteers, wrote as follows: "Dear Colonel: I can not permit you to go off the military stage without some testimonial from me of my appreciation of your qualities as a man and an officer. I have no hesitation in saying that your duties as a chief quartermaster of the corps were discharged with a punctual fidelity and intelligent foresight and integrity that I have never known equalled. You retire, my dear Colonel, with unblemished honor, with the highest reputation for efficiency and integrity, and with the most complete condense and regard from your commanding general."
In his final settlement with the government, Colonel Nigh's accounts footed up more than six million dollars.
On the 1st of July, 1862, to meet a special exigency, Colonel Nigh ordered a detail of thirty negroes to be enrolled from among the camp followers to man a supply train, the detail of Union soldiers previously ordered for that purpose arriving too late for the train. This was the first instance in which negroes were similarly employed, and Colonel Nigh thus had the distinction of being the man who introduced negro labor into the Union service. This example was immediately followed by other officers, the innovation being made known to and approved by the government authorities at Washington. Soon large bodies of negroes were actively engaged in doing much of post and other labor which had theretofore been performed by details from the volunteer Union ranks.
For several years Colonel Nigh served as a member of the Ironton City Council, being called to the presidency of this municipal body, and also having been chairman of the committee on the construction of the Ironton waterworks. Further evidence of his strong hold upon popular confidence and esteem in his home city was shown in his election to the office of mayor of Ironton.
In 1869 Colonel Nigh was appointed assessor of internal revenue for the Eleventh Ohio district, and he retained this position until the office was abolished, in 1872. All the positions which Colonel Nigh was thus called upon to fill were conferred upon him entirely without his seeking. Shortly after the close of the war he organized the Sheridan Coal Company of which he was president. After the war he brought from the South a number of those pitiable and helpless waifs of humanity, the negroes who had been slaves and had been made homeless and desolate by the Emancipation Proclamation,—a class thus suddenly compelled to depend on their own resources, while previously they had been care-free and without responsibility. Colonel Nigh brought them to Ironton, Ohio, helped them to find homes in a quarter of the town set apart for their exclusive use, and he became at once their guide and counselor, with the result that he became deeply loved and revered by them.
During the flood of 1884 Colonel Nigh devoted all his time and energies to the alleviation of suffering and the saving of property through out the devastated district. In this connection he collected through personal effort large sums of money for the benefit of the sufferers.
In politics, it is scarcely necessary to state, Colonel Nigh was a stalwart republican, and in a fraternal way he manifested his deep and abiding interests in his old comrades of the Civil war by retaining affiliation with the Grand Army of the Republic. Of him the following consistent estimate has been written: "A leader in all good public works, a lawyer of marked ability, he was privately modest, retiring and unostentatious. The fundamental principles of his religion were honesty, uprightness and absolute justice, with charity to all men. I know of no more fitting words with which to close a brief sketch of this honorable, Christian life than those used by his life long friend and admirer, General Sherman, in a toast made to Colonel Nigh during a meeting of the Army of the Cumberland, at Washington, some years ago: 'A man who devoted four years of his life to his country in its greatest need, and saved for it millions of dollars; who may not leave to his children great wealth, but will leave to them that which is a far more precious inheritance, an absolutely honest name.' "
On the 5th of March, 1848, was solemnized the marriage of Colonel Nigh to Miss Alice Henshaw, of Lawrence County, who survived him by several years. They became the parents af eight children: Reese, Samuel Henshaw, Jennie, Julia, Mary, Elizabeth W., Alice Henshaw, and William Henshaw. Reese is deceased, as are also Jennie and Julia, the latter of whom was the wife of Charles B. Taylor. Mary is the wife of E. Stanley Lee, and Alice H. is the wife of John Henry Queal. Samuel H. and William II. are associated in the conducting of an important lumbering business in Ironton and in the State of Kentucky, as will be noted by referring to the sketch of the career of William H. Nigh, on other pages of this work.
From "A Standing History of the Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio" by Eugene B. Willard, Daniel W. Williams, George O. Newman and Charles B. Taylor. Published by Lewis Publishing Company, 1916
Colonel Elias NIgh was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, in 1815. His father, Samuel Nigh, was a native of Maryland, and settled in Ohio in 1802, and died in 1877. The subject of this sketch has experienced all the vicissitudes common to young men desirous of becoming worthy the confidence and respect of their fellow-men, and to battle for the same single-handed, and whatever station in life he has adorned has been won by true merit and an indomitable will. As a lawyer, soldier or legislator, all trust has been faithfully and satisfactorily maintained, from the simple clerkship in a country store to a temple of justice, legislative hall or battle-field, the one verdict--worthy—is the universal sentiment of those who knew him. Colonel Nigh was the first officer in the union army who introduced slave labor as a relief to the soldier, as will be seen by the following reminiscence, and for that act he deserves credit. Colonel Nigh was chief quartermaster of Buell’s army, and, after the battle at Pittsburg Landing, Buell’s army moved to Northern Alabama, with headquarters at Huntsville. Colonel Nigh arrived there on the evening of the 29th of June, and the next morning he was notified by Captain Slocum, General Mitchell’s quartermaster, that General Sill’s command, at Battle Creek, on the Memphis & Charleston railroad, was suffering for the want of forage. Sill’s brigade was a part of Mitchell’s division, which was detached from the main army at Nashville and ordered to take possession of Huntsville, while the main army was on its march to Pittsburg Landing, and was in command of Huntsville, when the main army under Buell, arrived there the last of June. The country was full of corn, and Colonel Nigh at once directed Captain Slocum to send out his division, teams to bring in corn, and he would have a railroad train there in the evening to take the corn out to Sill’s brigade during the night. Captain Slocum informed Colonel Nigh that that was impossible, as General Mitchell had ordered all his teams out early in the morning to bring in cotton for the New York company, which was composed of a Mr. Hoop, General Mitchell’s son-in-law, Compstock and others, of Columbus and Cleveland. Colonel Nigh at once telegraphed to the quartermaster of Garfield’s and Waggoner’s brigades, at Mooresville, a station eighteen miles west of Huntsville, to send out all the teams to bring in corn and he would have a train there to receive it. Colonel Nigh then reported to General Buell and asked a detail of thirty men to go with the train to load the corn; a detail was ordered from General Lyttle’s brigade, two miles away. The camps were full of slaves, who had collected about the armies; the detail did not arrive in time and Colonel Nigh directed the officer in charge of the train to enroll thirty negroes, furnish him with a copy of the roll to take the place of the detail of soldiers, which order was executed in less than ten minutes, and the train started. Colonel Nigh immediately reported what he had done to General Buell; he approved it, and requested him to substitute negroes in place of detailed soldiers at all the posts along the line of the railroads. The army was then guarding about 400 miles of road.
Colonel Nigh immediately telegraphed to the quartermasters at all the posts and directed them to enroll negroes to do the post work, and the details of soldiers were relieved before night. Over 1,000 men were thus relieved from the quartermaster’s department and added to the efficient force of the army. General Buell also directed Colonel Innes, commanding a regiment of engineers and mechanics, who were rebuilding railroad bridges destroyed by the rebels, to make a similar substitution for detailed soldiers who were doing the rough work; he had about 2,000 soldiers so employed; so that within a day or two over 3,000 muskets were added to the effective force of the army. General Buell at once reported what was done to the secretary of war, who approved it and issued an order directing the employment of negroes to do all the rough work throughout the army where it was practicable, and from that on the negroes became an effective aid in the prosecution of the war. This matter is written out full to substantiate the claim we have heretofore made that Colonel Nigh was the first to introduce the services of the negro in the armies in an organized form. When General Buell was relieved from his command the records of the army were sent to Washington, and there lost or suppressed, so that this matter never got into history. For a more extended biographical history of Colonel Nigh see Biographical Cyclopedia, “Portrait Gallery of Ohio.”
History of Lawrence Co., Ohio by Hardesty (1882)