Dodd's Rebellion Part 2

Yesterday's post had part one of this topic. Today we get two more accounts, each very different. What actually happened? Who knows, but that is true of many things in the past.

The account below is from The Daily Evansville Journal, Sept 12, 1863

A final account comes from a family history of the Sparling family. It is unsigned, but must have been written either by Frances or Samuel Sparling. My guess is that it was done by Samuel. The Jasper County Library has it in its digital archives.

This constant drain upon the boys of the families who were supporting the Union cause, created a serious situation in the county. I have already noted the large number of families who came from the Carolinas, Virginia and Kentucky. This created a large and powerful block of Southern sympathizers. The accepted leader of this group was George Spitler. He followed the old Virginia traditions of large land holdings and bought a large body of land, now owned by St. Joseph College. The old Spitler home was located near the site of the College Gymnasium. Grandfather's home was located about one quarter of a mile from the Spitler home. The "barn stormers" were threatening, if not active. The feeling ran so high that it became necessary to maintain a home guard. Grandfather often told me of finding notes, warning him of dire results that would follow, in case he did or did not do certain things. 

This feeling finally came to a climax in the threatened uprising known as Dodd's rebellion. In order to understand the feeling generated by the Civil War we must recall that the settlers from the south naturally carried with them the social, political, and economic ideas of their old homes. In many instances these families were large landowners. This was nothing more than the plantation idea of the south. We need only to recall the holdings of the Spitler, McKeever, Halstead, Harris, and Thompson families, who came directly from Virginia, or after a short sojourn in Kentucky and Ohio. Political opinion had much to do with the cleavage of ideas. The Republican Party had come into existence on the slavery issue. To illustrate this political feeling I cite the predicament of Uncle Abraham. As a boy he promised his uncle Bingham that he would always vote the democratic ticket. So [he] became a southern sympathizer, much to the worry of my grandmother. 

Dodd's Rebellion occurred during the second Lincoln campaign for reelection. Arms and munitions had been quietly brought into the county and distributed among the proper persons. As a boy I was often on the Spitler place, after it had been acquired by the Catholic Church, and converted into an orphanage. It was not uncommon to find bayonets that had been concealed. I shall give an account to this episode only in so far as it pertains to my family. During this political campaign the Democrats brought to Rensselaer a speaker by the name of Dodd. From all accounts his address was especially bitter. He referred to the boys at the front as "Lincoln's Dogs." As a result a committee, headed by Mr. Bedford, arrested him, and placed him in jail. This was on Friday and the next day Spitler in a speech in Newton County asserted that if Dodd was not released within twenty-four hours the "Iroquois River would run red with blood." In the meantime the friends of the South began collecting on Given's Hill, about one mile north of town. They came armed with every conceivable weapon. Grandmother told me that about 600 assembled, but this seems too large, but if correct, it indicated a sizable block of Southern sympathizers in the county 

The home guard was scattered over the county and on Sunday morning the anvils began firing, as a call for the guard to assemble at Rensselaer. On that Sunday morning seven muskets were left in grandfather's home while the boys were attending Sunday school at the Big Slough School. It was not long before martial law was declared for Rensselaer, and guards posted. The guard members were assigned to the homes of the town. And here came in an amusing family incident. I have already noted that Uncle Abraham was a friend of the South, or locally known as "Copperhead", so Grandmother taught him a patriotic lesson in reverse. She made him shoulder his deer musket and go to the defensive Rensselaer. 

The final climax to this threatened tragedy came in a dramatic fact that the home of Spitler was struck by lightning and Spitler was killed. This occurred on Sunday evening when everything was set for carnage. Grandmother had a strain of the occult in her nature, and she often remarked that the sudden death of Spitler was an active Providence because it saved a loss of many lives. With a leader gone that tense situation soon became normal. It seems strange that this incident, so far from the battlefields of war, should've found it's grim setting in Jasper County. Of course the reasons are obvious. Indiana was in fact a peninsula of the South. The Indiana legislator was so Southern in it sympathies that it refused to vote funds for the Indiana troops at the front. The governor had to go to New York City and borrow the funds on his own promise to pay. In order to complete the history of Jasper County this incident should be followed in greater detail.

According to his tombstone, George Spitler died on August 17, 1863. It is not clear from the articles the exact date of the Dodd speech, but it seems it was later than August 17.

Update: Another and completely different take on this event is here. (Search the document for Dodd.)