A Big Decision

Imagine if you will - It is 1862 and the Civil War has already been raging for about one year. You have been living in a city, Cincinnati Ohio, for the last couple years with your wife and now 2 year old daughter. Before that you were living in Detroit for a few years, where you were married. You have no family here in Ohio, and but a few friends and business associates. What is your first thought? What do you do? If it was me, I would want to try to get home, to my real home where I have family and friends to help protect my family if I would be called to serve the country. 

Well, that is just what my 2nd great grandfather, John Mervyn Reilly, his wife Matilda, and daughter Elizabeth did. But home to him was Brooklyn, New York, a very long journey from Cincinnati in 1862. You see, after coming to this country from Ireland in 1852, John Reilly, his parents and siblings first settled in Brooklyn, New York. I am sure this decision to try to get home to Brooklyn was a very big one indeed.

Map showing where Cincinnati borders southern states 

In this era, travel between Cincinnati and Brooklyn would have been by train, and would have taken them 2 to 3 days at least, as they would need to make many connections along the way. The last leg of their journey would have been on a ferry, as the Brooklyn Bridge had yet to be built. The trip would have been almost 700 miles.

Complicating this travel was that Union military troops and supplies transportation took priority over civilian travel. And by September 1862, travel in and out of Cincinnati was strictly regulated, as the city was placed under martial law to defend against a threatening Confederate invasion. I hope the Reilly family most likely left town before this. 

Back to the story in a moment. But first something for my Civil War buffs:

While I was researching this time and place, I ran across a fascinating story in regards to the Civil War in Cincinnati in 1862. Have you ever hear of the Ohio “Minute Men?” They were called the Ohio Squirrel Hunters, and there were a lot of them -15,000 ! They were said to be farm boys “who never had to shoot the same squirrel twice.” Please Google "Squirrel Hunters of 1862” - there is a lot of information available. 

The Squirrel Hunters of Cincinnati

        Transcription follows:

The American Civil War was in its second year, and Confederate forces were advancing in the east and in the west. Confederates led by General Edward Kirby Smith had defeated a Union Force at Richmond, Kentucky on August 30, 1862. Word was received that they were advancing on Cincinnati. Ohio Governor David Tod issued a proclamation to all Ohioans: “Our Southern border is threatened with invasion. I therefore recommend that all the loyal men of your Counties at once form themselves into military companies. Gather up all the arms in the county and furnish yourselves with ammunition for the same. The service will be but for a few days. The soil of Ohio must not be invaded by the enemies of our glorious government.

 And the Squirrel Hunters were successful, I might add.

Now back to our Reilly saga:

Well, as you might have guessed, John, Matilda and little Elizabeth Reilly (my great grandmother) did make it back to Brooklyn. In September of 1863 they added a son, Robert Mervyn Reilly to their family. John served the Union forces as a quartermaster. I have yet to determine if he served in the Army or was a civilian hired as a clerk for the quartermaster division. And the Reillys also added to their family another daughter, Matilda Emma. Birth dates are not clear if she was born before or after Robert.  Records show Robert 3 and little Matilda 2 in 1865.

So ..... they made it back safely to Brooklyn, but after a few years there they moved on to Philadelphia, where they then remained. They added another child that was born in Philly - George Washington Reilly, born 1869. Their story does not end there though. So stay tuned, as they say.

To conclude this episode, I do not know for a fact that it was the Civil War that caused them to leave Cincinnati to return to Brooklyn. It could have been job related, or something entirely different.  But it seems the most likely to me, and we will probably never know. 

My sweet great grandmother Lizzie Reilly Koetzle. She was about 2 when her family moved from Cincinnati to Brooklyn, NY around 1862.