Charles O. Brown, photographed here by W.A. Smith in
Plymouth, Ohio, was the youngest member of the regiment.
From the Larry M. Strayer collection, History of the Third Ohio Cavalry.

From Michigan to Ohio

Charles Oliver Brown was born in Battle Creek, MI but moved to Toledo, OH at the age of 4.  At the age of 11, he drove a team on the canal from Toledo to Cincinnati.  He attended the Toledo Grammar School.

The "Boy Bugler" of Sherman's Army

After the outbreak of war in 1861, Brown's father was involved in organizing Company C of the 3rd Ohio Cavalry.  Brown went off to war with his father as a bugler at the age of 13 and saw action in 25 battles.  He was wounded in action and earned the nickname, "The Boy Bugler" of Sherman's Army.  At age 16 he was made chief of the regiment's 26 buglers, the youngest chief bugler in the Union forces at that time.

He blew the cavalry charge that sent 3,000 men into battle at Lovejoy Station during Sherman's sweep on Atlanta.  At the battle of Selma he carried a message through the thick of fire, and for that act of bravery, Congress in later years voted him a pension increase.  The young bugler was a member of the historic expedition which captured the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis.

Brown Becomes a Minister

Brown enrolled in Olivet College in 1871.  In his Junior year he was listed as an Instructor in Penmanship and Book-keeping.  In his Senior year he was listed as an Instructor in Greek and Teacher of Penmanship and Book-keeping.  He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in June of 1875.   

At the time of General Sherman's speech at the Michigan Military Academy, Dr. Brown was the pastor of the Congregational church of Rochester, MI.   From 1880 - 1885 he served at the Congregational Church of Galesburg, MI, taught at Olivet College in Olivet, MI, and served as pastor of the First Congregational Church of Kalamazoo, MI.

If Nominated I will Not Run

"A lifelong Republican, Dr. Brown came very nearly being elected United States senator from Iowa during his stay in Dubuque.  In those days the state legislature elected the senators.  Friends asked him to run for the post.   'I have a job now for which some people think I'm well fitted,' he replied, and made no effort to gain election.  Despite his indifference he was nominated and lost the election by only three votes.

Charles O. Brown, taken while he was serving at the
First Congregational Church of San Francisco.  From the collection
at the Galesburg Congregational Church, Galesburg, MI.

"From Dubuque Dr. Brown went to Tacoma, Wash., to assume a pastorate, and subsequently received a call to San Francisco, to become pastor of the largest Congregational church on the Pacific coast.  He accepted the call and tendered his resignation to the Tacoma church.  Meantime his friends in Tacoma had been preparing for his nomination by the Republican state convention as a candidate for governor of the state.  Although informed that his nomination and election were virtually assured, he refused to withdraw his resignation from the Tacoma church, and went to San Francisco."  So Dr. Brown can be linked to Sherman by another of the General's famous quotes: "If nominated, I will not run.  If elected, I will not serve."

History of the 3rd Ohio Cavalry

Brown served on a committee which authored and published The History of The Third Ohio Cavalry.  The book is an excellent accounting of a typical Civil War cavalry regiment.  The text includes several poems written by members of the Regiment.   The following lines are included in Brown's poem, My Bugle:

Reveille in early morning,
Say at four o'clock or three,
That was not the same exactly,
For you comrades, or for me.

Oft' I saw you coatless, hatless,
Sometimes pantless tumble out,
When the orderly was shouting,
"Roust about, men; roust about!"

And the bugler, like an umpire
Of a modern baseball game,
Sometimes had to dodge the missiles,
And keep sounding just the same.

"War is Hell" Controversy

Dr. Brown figured in the controversy during the early 1930's as to whether General Sherman actually made the remark, "War is Hell."  Brown was very clear that he heard the remark at the MMA on June 19, 1879.  In support of Brown's memory, the Oak Park periodical, Oak Leaves noted in 1940, "When Oak Leaves editors are in need of accurate information about obscure bits of history or literature, Dr. Brown can be depended upon to throw light on the subject when other sources fail."

Author

At one time he was vice president of La Salle Extension university, which he helped organize.  He is the author of two books, one on the "Evidences of Christianity" first delivered in short talks to audiences of his young people.   The second is on "Labor and Its Troubles."

Gone With the Wind

Brown and his wife May attended the 75th Gettysburg anniversary where President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the Peace Memorial.  In 1940, one year before he died, Dr. Brown was one of a squad of Civil War veterans invited to the Chicago showing of the movie, Gone With the Wind.  Very few Civil War veterans fought in the war and saw the movie.

Excerpts from the historical files of Olivet College, the Michigan Congregational churches at Rochester, Galesburg, and Kalamazoo as well as The Kalamazoo Gazette, September 5, 1935, the Oak Leaves, 7/28/38, 4/11/40, and 3/20/41, and the archives of the Oak Park, Illinois Historical Society.