Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Harrison Gray Otis, U.S.V.

Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Harrison Gray Otis is the son of Stephen and Sarah Otis, who were pioneer citizens of Ohio, and was born near Marietta, February 10, 1837. In the year 1800 his father, at the age of sixteen, emigrated to the far West from Vermont, and settled in the " Ohio Company's Purchase" at Marietta, then just emerging from the condition of a frontier " blockhouse" post. His mother was a native of Nova Scotia, and emigrated with her parents from Boston early in the century, settling in the Muskingum Valley. His paternal grandfather was a patriot soldier in the Revolutionary War, and a pensioner.

The Otis stock has produced James Otis, famous as a Revolutionary patriot and orator, and Harrison Gray Otis, once a senator of the United States from Massachusetts.

The subject of this sketch received only a "log-schoolhouse" education up to the age of fourteen, when he became a printer's apprentice. He worked at this trade in various places, and at the commencement of the war of the Rebellion was a compositor in the office of the Louisville journal, under the noted editor, George D. Prentice. While here he was elected a delegate from Kentucky to the Republican National Convention of 1860, which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency.

Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, young Otis returned to Ohio, enrolled himself for the war as a private in the Twelfth Regiment of Ohio Volunteers (Colonel John W. Lowe), at Camp Dennison, June 25, 1861. He was mustered June 29, 1861, and took the field with his regiment July 6, 1861, under Brigadier-General J. D. Cox, on the Western Virginia campaign. He was promoted to first sergeant March 1, 1862; to second lieutenant November 12, 1862; to first lieutenant May 30, 1863, and to captain July 1, 1864. He was transferred on the latter date to the Twenty-third Ohio Veteran Volunteers (Colonel R. B. Hayes), and assigned to Company H. In 1865 he was brevetted major and lieutenant-colonel, upon the unsolicited recommendation of his commanding officer, "for gallant and meritorious services during the war;" he having participated in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, and 1865 in the campaigns, respectively, of the Kanawha Division, Eighth Army Corps; the Army of West Virginia, Mountain Department; the Ninth Corps, Army of the Potomac, and the Army of the Shenandoah, and taken part in the following actions: Scarey Creek, Virginia, July 17, 1861; Carnifex Ferry, September 10, 1861; Bull Run bridge, August 27, 1862; Frederick, September 12, 1862; South Mountain, September 14, 1862; Antietam, September 17, 1862 (wounded); Blue Sulphur Springs, September, 1862; Boyer's Ferry, November, 1863; Meadow Bluff, December 14, 1863; Princeton, May, 1864; Cloyd's Mountain, May 9, 1864; New River Bridge, May 10, 1864; Quaker Church (Lynchburg), June 17-18, 1864; Cabelltown, July 20, 1864; Kernstown, July 24, 1864 (severely wounded). He served in 1864-65 on several courts-martial and military commissions. In the winter of 1864-65 he was assigned, as senior captain present for duty, to the command of his regiment at Cumberland, Maryland. He was mustered out July 26, 1865, and honorably discharged at Cleveland, Ohio, August 1, 1865. Pensioned. Length of service, forty-nine months.

Source: Officers of the Volunteer Army and Navy who served in the Civil War, published by L.R. Hamersly & Co., 1893, 419 pgs.

Related Links:

• Civil War Records
• Civil War Microfilm at the National Archives
• Otis Surname