A Zouave Summer in Cleveland

“They have paraded and drilled and in so doing have astonished and delighted beyond measure thousands of spectators”.[1]

And now they were coming to Cleveland, Ohio.

In 1860, Cleveland had a population of 43,417, making it the nineteenth largest city in the United States. It was a bustling commercial city. With its Port of Cleveland on Lake Erie and goods transported via the Cuyahoga River and the Ohio & Erie Canal, in addition to its train connections with New York, Chicago, and the South, commerce was booming. It became an important city not only in Ohio, but in the nation.[2]

Now the renowned United States Zouave Cadets from Chicago, led by twenty-three year old Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, was coming to Cleveland. They arrived on Friday afternoon, July 6, 1860. They had traveled eight hours by train from Detroit, Michigan. Cleveland was their third stop on a twenty city tour through Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and New York.[3]

The train, bedecked with patriotic decorations, pulled into Cleveland’s Water Street station at 3:05 p.m. They were greeted by a booming salute from the cannon of the Cleveland Light Guards (Cleveland Grays). Lining the platform at attention were the rest of the Light Guards under the command of Captain Alfred S. Sanford. Behind them throngs of citizens lined the streets and cheered their arrival.[4]

“How an entire town could be so excited about a military drill team,” historian Meg Groeling wondered, “is challenging to understand in the twenty-first century.” But back then, like the announcement of a traveling circus or a famous evangelist’s revival meeting, the novelty was almost magical and the anticipation caused much excitement in Cleveland. “No important public occasion in the nineteenth century was complete without a glorious exhibition drill from the local militia, coupled with rousing patriotic music from an accompanying military band.”[5]

The United States Zouave Cadets of Chicago were supposed to be the best drill- team in the country. After all, they had been awarded that title at the Seventh Annual United States Agricultural Fair. Other militia units and drill teams, however, took exception. Only two teams had competed at the Fair. The naysayers claimed they did not represent the whole country and challenged the legitimacy of their title. Young Colonel Ellsworth took the challenge personally and set out to prove their right to the claim. He took the Zouaves on a barnstorming trip to demonstrate their skill and to take on all challengers.

“The Chicago Zouaves,” proclaimed the Cleveland Morning Leader, “whose fame has gone throughout our country accompanied with terms of the highest commendation for soldierly bearing and personal integrity, have at length arrived in our city….and today they will appear in our streets and afford the opportunity for our citizens to witness their astonishing perfection of drill.”[6]

Eighty men of the Zouave Cadets detrained at the station and came to attention on the platform. They were all tall and muscular and seemingly athletic. They wore their colorful exotic dress uniforms of blue pants and blue sack coat with buff trimmings and red kepi inspired by the French colonial forces from Algeria. The Cleveland paper called it, “the gayest and most picturesque.”[7] They boasted the highest standards of behavior. Each of the eighty had taken a pledge – the “Golden Resolution” – that they would not drink, gamble, play billiards or frequent houses of ill repute.

Captain Sanford welcomed Colonel Ellsworth and the two units and battery, preceded by the Zouave Cadet marching band, marched through Cleveland’s streets to the Gray’s Armory. They were accompanied by the cheers from the citizens lining the streets. Outside the armory they formed. Captain Sanford formally welcomed Ellsworth and the Zouaves.  “Ellsworth delivered a brief speech of thanks followed by the distinctive Zouave cheer – doffing their kepis and jerking them up and down in unison…as they counted in unison from one to seven and ended with a shouted ‘Tiger! Zouaves!’” to the delight of the throng.[8]

Once inside the armory, they stacked their muskets, doffed their knapsacks, and changed into their fatigue uniforms. As a unit, they marched to the Weddell House for dinner. Following dinner, the Zouave Cadet Band played from the balcony to the crowd below before they all marched back to the armory where they rolled their blankets on the floor to sleep.[9]

On Saturday morning the Zouaves awoke and donned their colorful drill uniforms. By 10 a.m. they formed with the Grays in front of the armory to march to the city fairgrounds for their drill exhibition. Along with them formed the local Hecker band, the batteries, and the other Cleveland militia unit, the Hiberian Guards. The Cleveland band and units would lead the parade, followed by Ellsworth, the Cadet band, and the Zouaves. The procession marched along streets lined with cheering spectators. They marched from the armory towards Public Square only to circle around coming through the Square from a different direction. After taking Euclid Avenue and turning south on Erie Street (E. 9th St.), they marched to Prospect Avenue where they then proceeded east. Great crowds lined the sidewalks. They peered out open windows of houses and from rooftops of buildings. Some even perched in trees as they passed by. The Zouaves then marched to Perry Street (E.22nd St.) turned south to Woodland Avenue. Turning east onto Woodland Avenue, the column turned north on Hudson Street then east to Scoville Avenue where the entrance to the city fair grounds stood.[10]

“The Fairgrounds afforded an excellent space for the drill, the ring inside the trotting course being kept entirely clear for use of the military….there was an immense throng in carriages and on foot. The spacious seats upon the west side of the track were crowded with ladies, their variegated robes giving that portion of the grounds a very brilliant appearance. There were at the least calculation seven thousand people upon the grounds,” as the tickets were free. “A space in the center of the stands was reserved for the Cadet Band, invited guests and their ladies and the representatives of the press. Detachments of the two Cleveland militia units along with the local police were posted about the track to prevent intrusions by the throng.”[11]

It was a little after 11 a.m. and the July heat was already beginning to rise as Colonel Ellsworth had his Zouaves formed ranks at attention facing the stands. As the crowd quieted, Ellsworth began the drill. The paper described the Colonel as “a mere boy in size but if ever there was a man who was every bit a soldier, he is one . . . . He has a voice that rings out the word of command like a report of a pistol.”[12]

Under Ellsworth’s shouted commands, and with the Cadet Band accompanying their movements with patriotic tunes, the Zouaves marched and formed different shapes and maneuverers – crosses, parallelograms, circles, squares – without a man out of step and “all springing back to their respective places with the agility of a deer.” They moved in slow time and quick time carrying their muskets and knapsacks. They moved with a “precision that made the action of the whole company seem as one man.”[13]

At a command, the 80 Zouaves took the full length of the parade ground in skirmish order. They went through the motions of loading and firing their weapons from standing, kneeling and prone positions. They displayed expertise in the bayonet drills and at a command formed a square in the middle of the field with “bristling bayonets pointing to every side.”[14]

They drilled in the heat for about an hour and a half. “During the drill Captain Sanford, overcome by the heat and his exertion, was obliged to be carried from the field.”[15] Maybe he was reluctant to have his Cleveland Grays’ drill compared to Ellsworth’s and this was his method for bowing out of the competition and saving face.

For their finale, the Zouaves formed for a “grand charge of bayonets” and on command “came rushing down toward the grandstand like a whirlwind” screaming at the top of their lungs. When they rushed to within a few feet of the spectators with their pointed bayonets, Ellsworth barked a command and they “stopped as suddenly as if struck by lightning….Cheers and applause from all sides exploded.”[16]

The militia units formed and marched back to Gray’s Armory. Captain Sanford, having miraculously recovered, took his place at the head of the Grays. At 4 o’clock the Zouaves and Grays sat down to dinner at the Weddell House along “with members of the city council and other invited guests.” There were speeches and toasts and best wishes to Ellsworth and his men. The young Colonel stood and said that, “this hearty hospitality by the Grays and the City of Cleveland was beyond anything that they could have looked for.” That “They would remember their visit with pleasure and invited the Light Guards [Grays] to be their guests in Chicago.” With that the Zouaves stood as a whole and gave their Zouave cheer, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, Tiger! Zouaves!”[17]

After dinner two omnibuses appeared at the front door into which the cadets piled and were taken on a brief tour of the city before they were returned to the hotel. At 8 o’clock that evening, with the sun already set, Ellsworth and his Zouaves readied to depart. They formed one last time in front of the Weddell House. Again they were cheered by crowds this time bearing torches to light the way. As “the Cadet Band played, Ellsworth put the company through a bayonet exercise in the street in front of the hotel” as a final salute to the citizens of Cleveland. [18]

Word was given and the Cleveland Grays escorted the Zouaves to the train station. The procession was led by horsemen carrying torches. They marched down Bank Street to Ontario and through Public Square to Water Street. The whole route was illuminated by a file of torch bearers on each side of the street. As the column passed, Roman candles were set off. Ellsworth would later write to his fiancée: “We left on Saturday Evening escorted by an escort of horsemen bearing torches and loaded with fireworks with which they kept the street blazing along the line of march. By the time we reached the Depot, at least half our men had boquets.[sic].”[19]

At the depot, after shaking hands with their hosts and to the cheers of the crowd, the Zouave Cadets climbed aboard the train to Buffalo. Once on board, with a whistle and a clang of the bell, the train moved slowly off into the darkness.

The Cleveland Morning Leader’s review of the Zouave visit in the July 9, 1860 edition ended as follows:

“We heartily bid the Zouaves God-speed …and if these two columns do not convince our readers that we go for the Zouaves…then let them call on us and ask us what we think of the United States Zouave Cadets of Chicago. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, Tiger! Zouave!”[20]

 

Endnotes:

[1] Cleveland Morning Leader, July 7, 1860

[2] Keating, Dennis W., Cleveland and the Civil War, Charleston, South Carolina, The History Press, 2022. p19. In population it was the 19th largest city in the United States in 1860. https://www.Ohiohisorycentral.org./

[3] Groeling, Meg, First Fallen: The Life of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, the North’s First Civil War Hero, California, Savas Beatie, LLC, 2021. Pp. 76-85.

[4] Cleveland Morning Leader, July 7 1860. Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/clevelandgrays/  Alfred S. Sanford (or Sandford) was the 55 year old antebellum captain of the Cleveland Grays and the city’s one time fire chief. The Cleveland Light Guards was an earlier name for the unit but due to their distinctive gray coats soon were renamed the Cleveland Grays. They were also known earlier as the Cleveland Civil Guards. Vourlojiianis/Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. The Gray’s artillery unit, Cleveland Light Artillery was organized 6 July, 1839 and was commanded by Captain Louis Heckman. It would later become Battery A, 1^st Regiment of Light Artillery,

[5] Groeling, First Fallen, p.82

[6] Cleveland Morning Leader, July 7, 1860

[7] Ibid. The Zouaves travelled with and wore three distinct uniforms: a dress uniforms of a short, dark blue coat, blue pantaloons with buff trimmings and red kepi, the drill uniform short scarlet trousers, high gaiters with leggings, a short blue jacket and red kepi, and fatigue or “chasseur” uniform of trimmed red pants and a blue sack coat with the red kepi. Groeling, First Fallen, p. 84.

[8] Cleveland Morning Leader, July 9, 1860. Groeling, First Fallen, p.85

[9] https://case.edu/ech/articles/w/weddell-house/  The Weddell House was a five story brick and sandstone building was located on Superior Avenue and Bank Street (W.6th St.). It had two large dining rooms, 200 rooms with indoor plumbing in common areas, offices and stores and was opened in 1847 by Paul M. Waddell. It was enlarged in 1853and was the premier hotel in Cleveland at the time. It was razed in 1904 and replaced by the Rockefeller Building.

[10] Cleveland Morning Leader, July 9, 1860. https://case.edu/ech/article/h/hiberian-guards/  The exact order of the procession was the Hecker Band, followed by the Light Guards (Grays), the artillery batteries of the city, Co. A, Captain Simmons, Co. B, Captain Pelton and Co. E. Captain Heckman, followed by the Hiberian Guards, the Zouave Cadet Band and finally Ellsworth and his Zouaves. The Hiberian Guards were led by Captain William Kinney. They were an independent company of Irish-American volunteers. Their armory was located on Oregon Street which is modern Rockwell Avenue. There is no record that there would be a drill competition between the units. There is some confusion on the writer’s part where the fairgrounds and trotting track was located. The Cleveland Morning Leader states that it had entrances at Hudson Street where another source said that the track was on Woodland Avenue between E. 14th St. and Perry Street (E. 22nd St.) https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/cleveland/chapter/xiii-euclid-avenue/

[11] Cleveland Morning Leader, July 9, 1860.

[12] Ibid. July 7, 1860.

[13] Ibid. July 9, 1860. To see a modern Zouave drill go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcZeGuIynbc/    American Legion Zouaves, Jackson, Michigan as seen on the Ed Sullivan TV show.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid,

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid. Mr. Russell saying that they [the Zouaves] were always welcomed and complimented their drill and the enjoyment of the Cleveland citizens. Mr. H. S. Stevens toasted to, “The health of Col. Ellsworth, [and] a pleasant journey and prosperous return to him and his corps.”

[18] Ibid. July 9, 1860.

[19] Ibid. Elmer Ellsworth to Carrie Spafford, July 8, 1860, Kenosha Civil War Museum/ Lake Forest Academy Collection.

[20] Groeling, First Fallen. p.86. Editorial, Cleveland Morning Leader, July 9, 1860, online version: https://chronicalingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83035143/1860-07-09/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1860&index=0&rows=20&words-1860+9+JULY+july&searchType=basic&sequences=0&state=Ohio&date2=1860&protext=July+9%2C+1860&y=6&x=15&dateFilterType-yearRanger&page=1/