Vallandigham was a highly controversial
character. From the beginning of the war, he was an outspoken pacifist. To the Republicans
in Congress, he defiantly stated: "Money you have expended without limits, and
blood poured out like water. Defeat, debt, taxation, and sepulchers--these are your only
trophies." While running for the Democratic nomination for governor of Ohio, he
urged soldiers to desert the army. As a result of his statements, he was tried and
convicted by a military tribunal of treason in the spring of 1863. His sentence: delivery
through enemy lines into the hands of the Confederates. Vallandigham later disappeared,
and surfaced in Canada, reminding one of the travel plans of a 1960s Vietnam War
protester. Vallandigham was back in Ohio by the summer of 1864. People had not
forgotten. Lincoln said, in reference to him: "Must I shoot a simple-minded
soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of the wily agitator who induces
him to desert?" One can only imagine the degree to which Vallandigham was hated
by the Union soldiers. The presidential campaign of 1864 shaped up to a major test of
Lincoln's policy on the war. The Democrats nominated George McClellan for president and
George H. Pendleton, a close friend of Vallandigham, for vice-president.
Amid this highly charged atmosphere, plans were laid by local Democrats for Pendleton
and Vallandigham to speak in Sidney on September 24, 1864. A crowd of several thousand
people turned out for the event. That same day, by coincidence, a regiment of Union
soldiers from Michigan was in Sidney, having stopped here to change trains. The regiment
had been discharged from service in Kentucky.
The 11th Michigan Volunteer Infantry had seen plenty of action during the war, and had
survived heavy fighting at Stones River,
Mission Ridge, Chicamauga and Atlanta. The boys were ready to return to
their homes. All that separated them from their families was the next train.
Col. Melvin Mudge was the surviving senior officer of the 11th Michigan during the war
years. Unfortunately for Vallandigham, the event in Sidney was not the first time the
troops of the 11th had encountered him. The battle of Stones River was one of the fiercest
battles in the western theater of the war. Just after the battle, the 11th Michigan was
assigned to guard duty, with Mudge in charge. He received a secret order at 2 o'clock in
the morning for his men to transport Vallandigham, who had just been convicted of treason,
across enemy lines to live with the Rebels.
Many years later, Mudge recalled: "None of my detail knew who they were
guarding until the next day... The feeling was so bitter against him... I remember the
next morning, when the army was informed by the morning papers, the murmur and indignation
of the troops that he had been permitted to pass through our lines." That is the
reason, Mudge remarked later, "...why the 11th Michigan, above all others, should
not have been at Sidney..."