Heroes of the Western Theater: 33rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry

By Lois Lambert

Presentation to CCWRT on 18 March 2010, Summarized by Mike Rhein

Photography by Dan Reigle

©Cincinnati CWRT, 2010

The 33rd Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment burnished its battlefield reputation to a permanent luster with heroism and sacrifice for four years. Men from Ross, Pike, Adams, Scioto, Gallia and Meigs Counties distinguished themselves in battles at Rich Mountain (W. VA), Ivy Mountain and Perryville (KY), Stones River (TN), Chickamauga (GA) and the Atlanta Campaign, ending their service at the surrender of the Confederate Army of Tennessee in North Carolina. Marching in the Grand Review in Washington City, May 24, 1865, capped the military life of the vaunted 33rd Ohio.

Mrs. Lois Lambert, a CCWRT member and former high school educator, delivered her first presentation to the CCWRT on the 33rd Ohio, based on her published work, Heroes of the Western Theater: Thirty-third Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry (2008). With an effective power-point format, she provided much detail on the inception and development of one of the more storied regiments, initially led by Colonel Joshua Sill, in the annals of Buckeye units in the Civil War. A native of Pike County, the speaker concentrated a good portion of the program on the human element, personalizing the 33rd Ohio regiment by drawing from accounts in several letter collections and diaries.

According to Mrs. Lambert, the 33rd Ohio was first formed by Joseph Robinson and Oscar Moore in response to President Lincoln’s first call for volunteers (75,000) in April, 1861 after the Confederate firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. By July 28 of that year, Ohio Governor William Dennison was informed by letter from Lt. Colonel Moore that the 33rd Ohio was ready with seven companies, the speaker said. She stated that the training ground for the regiment was located at Camp Morrow in Portsmouth, Scioto County.

By June, 1861, the 33rd was training at Camp Dennison (OH), with Joshua Sill, a native of Chillicothe, taking over as colonel on July 29. Her assiduous research showed that the regimental roster tally originally contained 880 officers and men in the first year of the war. In 1862-64, there were 183 three-year volunteers, including 133 conscripts in ’64. Substitutes-wise, 56 were of this designation. In the course of the war, the 33rd sustained heavy casualties. An example of the horrific cost was on the second day of the Chickamauga battle, Sept. 20, 1863, when they lost 196 men (15 killed, 93 wounded, 88 captured), Mrs. Lambert noted. She added that there is a monument to this regiment at Chickamauga as a testament to their heroic stand against Confederate General James Longstreet’s powerful assault that smashed the center of the Army of the Cumberland’s line.

Mrs. Lambert said that Colonel Benjamin Scribner, of the First Brigade of Gen. Absalom Baird’s First Division, 14th Army Corps, praised the 33rd in his official report, stating that it “obstinately held their ground…” She referred to accounts on that disastrous day of Sept. 20, i.e., Sergeant McClain Montgomery, Company A, writing to his wife, said, “the dead and wounded lay in piles…” and Private Alva Mouk, Co. K, in his diary, described the fierce musketry: “The fire was tremendous, heavy and almost unbroken till after dark.” The speaker added that 49 of the 88 who were captured that day were eventually sent to the infamous Andersonville prison camp.

Sill, who had advanced to brigadier general in Phillip Sheridan’s division in 1862, had won respect by the 33rd he initially commanded through his leadership skill and strong character. He lost his life at Stones River Dec. 31, ’62, leading his brigade in defense of a furious rebel assault. When Sheridan, an 1853 classmate of Sill’s at West Point was informed of his death, he replied, “Is that true? Is he dead? My God, so good and so pure a man.” After the war, Sheridan named a new fort in Oklahoma in 1869 in his honor, which to this day is called Ft. Sill, according to Mrs. Lambert.

By the close of the war, the 33rd had lost 168 to disability, 135 to disease and 119 to battle deaths, the speaker noted. On May 24, 1865, the stalwart 33rd Ohio proudly marched in the Grand Review in Washington City. There they saw a banner during the march, Mrs. Lambert said, which read, “Welcome, Welcome, Welcome-You Heroes of the West,” hence the title for her book.

The 33rd, as a sterling example of many regiments who incurred substantial losses throughout the War Between the States, was composed of ordinary citizen-soldiers who as a unit performed extraordinary deeds of bravery and sacrifice, bestowing honor to themselves as well as to Ohio and the nation. Mrs. Lambert’s well-researched presentation reminded us again how much our national heritage is illuminated by the light of Americans such as the 33rd Ohio who paid the ultimate price on battlefield after battlefield.