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strong support of the recent, controversial

Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court,

which rejected the notion of citizenship for

African Americans. “The black Republi-

can party,” warned Lytle, would eventu-

ally drive patriotic Southerners out of the

Union, since “their self respect will not per-

mit them to remain.” The abolitionists, he

advised, “should keep cool and not tear

their linen.” Three years later, after failing

to win the Democratic nomination for

Congress, Lytle campaigned vigorously for

party presidential nominee Stephen Dou-

glas in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent

the election of Abraham Lincoln and the

very departure from the Union by out-

raged Southerners that Lytle and others

long had foreseen.

Lytle had remained active in military

affairs, rising to the position of major gen-

eral of the 1st Division, Ohio Volunteer

Militia. One month after the Confederate

firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861, he

resigned his militia post to accept a com-

mission as colonel of the 10th Ohio

Infantry, a regiment recruited largely from

Cincinnati’s sizable Irish community. His

previous experience helped him whip the

rowdy, hard-drinking regiment into shape

at Camp Harrison, a training facility

located seven miles outside the city. In

appreciation of his untiring work and dili-

gence, his colleagues in the Cincinnati Bar

Association presented Lytle with a hand-

some ceremonial sword; other friends

made him the gift of a spirited black

charger with the Gaelic name Faugh-a-Bal-

laugh, or Clear the Way. In June 1861, the

young colonel accepted a stand of regi-

mental colors sewn by the patriotic women

of Cincinnati and promised to return the

flag “to the Queen City of the West, with-

out spot or blemish.” He rode away to the

war shouting, “Faugh-a-Ballaugh!”

From the start Lytle showed a troubling

propensity for injury. On the march from

Bulltown to Buckhannon, in western Vir-

ginia, he “came very near shooting off my

toes,” as he told his Uncle Ezekial, when

his pistol exploded in its holster and a ball

grazed his boot. A few nights later his

horse stumbled over a large tree in the dark

and went down hard, with Lytle somehow

managing to avoid being crushed,

although Faugh-a-Ballaugh did fall on one

of his legs and “came near rolling down a

steep precipice.” During the advance to

Bulltown, Confederate skirmishers fired

dozens of shots at Lytle and his men, but

with little effect. His sister Lily, who

recently had married prominent local

attorney Samuel Broadwell, suffered ner-

vous prostration worrying about her

brother and lost 20 pounds in two months.

She professed herself “almost heart-bro-

ken” at her brother’s departure.

Once at the front, Lytle and the 10th were

not long in making a name for themselves.

On September 10, 1861, while serving

under fellow Cincinnatian Brig. Gen.

William S. Rosecrans, the regiment was

ordered to attack a fortified Confederate

position in the woods opposite Carnifex

Ferry on the Gauley River. Crying “Follow,

Tenth!” the white-gloved Lytle led his men

across a ravine and up a steep hillside into

the mouth of 12 enemy cannons. The “most

unequal contest,” reported Lytle, resulted

in both of the regiment’s color-bearers being

shot down, and Lytle himself suffered a

dangerous wound when a Minie bullet

struck him in the calf of his left leg, scrap-

ing the bone and barely missing two major

arteries. The same bullet, passing through

Lytle, killed Faugh-a-Ballaugh, who ran

Federal troops assault Confederate breastworks at the

Battle of Carnifex Ferry, Virginia, in September 1861.

Leading his troops forward, Lytle was wounded in the

leg by a Minie bullet that day—the first of several

wounds the ill-starred Lytle would suffer.

West Virginia Dept. of Culture and History

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