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Forsyth G. A. R. Post No. 15
(From History of the City of Toledo by Clark Waggoner)
The first local organization of the
Grand Army [of the Republic] established in this section of Ohio, was Forsyth
Post, which was instituted November 19, 1866. For this purpose a number of
resident ex-Soldiers met at the office of Colonel John A. Chase, at which
Captain Henry E. Howe, yet a resident of Toledo, presented the nature and
advantages of such an organization, and the Post was instituted. It took its
distinctive name from George Duncan Forsyth, a son of Mrs. Charlotte T. Forsyth,
still a resident of Toledo, and a brother of General James A. Forsyth of
the United States Army. Lieutenant Forsyth first enlisted as a private in the
14th O. V. I. April 19, 1861, three days after the first call for troops was
issued. At the close of three months' service he returned to Napoleon, Ohio,
where he engaged in business; but when the call for three years' troops came he
again responded. He enlisted at Napoleon in the 100th O. V. I. He was
commissioned Second Lieutenant in Company B of that Regiment July 11, 1862, and
promoted to First Lieutenant January 8, 1863. He was captured at Limestone
Station, Tennessee, September 8, 1863, and taken to Libby Prison, where he
remained until his death at the hands of one of the prison guards, April
13, 1864. Whether or not the shooting was accidental, will probably never be
definitely known, although the preponderance of proof favors the belief
that he was not intentionally killed. Lieutenant Forsyth was violating no order
of the prison at the time of his death. His remains were brought home and now
lie buried in the family lot in Forest Cemetery, Toledo. He was a graduate of
the Toledo High School.
The Forsyth Post had members from the Colton
area, Washington Township, Henry County: Ed Matthews, Rev. Poling, Mr. Earheart,
Jim Slater, Thomas Barlow, J. Bechstein, Mr. Schultz, Bill Jackson, Bill Hyter,
Frank Weirich, Sam Overmire, Peter Greiner, Mr. Shatzer, Simon Wagoner, and at
least two others whose names are unknown.
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