By Paul Hobe
Often when one imagines a small town in the late 19th and early 20th century in popular culture a shady park or town square with a gazebo or band stand comes to mind. It is estimated that there were ten thousand bands in 1889, a significant number were community based. Area local media mention at least a dozen such bands. They could be family bands (Haines), military (GAR and Marine), ethnic (Italian), and bands supported by major businesses (Morgan Engineering). Audiences would enjoy marches by Sousa, Gilmore, Goldman, and locally King and Rinkendorf. This era also spawned the school band movement.
Civil War units of both Union and Confederate armies were accompanied by brass bands. They led regiments on the march, entertained in camp and communities through which they passed and served as medical assistants during battle. They could be professional musicians or trained in the field. They were financed by their government or by officers of the units.
Now let’s see how the Alliance area was involved in Civil War music. We have already considered how the Haines Silver Cornet Band was involved with the Underground Railroad and Lincoln’s short visit to Alliance.
In September 1861, the Three-Year 19th Ohio Regiment was being organized in Alliance at Camp Ford, recently Rockhill Park. The federal government provided funds for a band for each regiment being mustered which consisted of one-thousand men. The Roster of Ohio Soldiers shows that on October 10, 1861, twenty men, most likely from around Stark County, on the roles as “musicians” with Thomas Woodford and George D. Myers as leaders. The only names of note to the reader are John C. (Columbus, “Tump”) Haynes, Augustus Vignos, and Dwight Kimmel. Kimmel is buried in the southeast area of Alliance City Cemetery and has a specific reference to his membership in the 19th Ohio Regimental Band on his grave monument.
Thirteen band members in band uniforms are posed in a photo available. Haines can be seen as the tallest musician in the back row standing. Vignos of Louisville has a moustache and his right arm is leaning on the person to his right. (He has his own interesting story.) In the summer 1862 the federal government considered regimental bands too expensive and sent most of them back home. The Ohio Roster shows them as mustered out September 4, 1862.
In March 1864 John Columbus Haines brought his musical talents back to the war when he joined the 104th Regiment Band. A picture of the 104th Band shows Haines as the fifth person from the left. The dog at the left is the noted “Harvey, the War Dog.” A letter from Haines is on display at the Haines House in Alliance, Ohio. It was written in the summer of 1864 during the siege of Atlanta.
A 1918 Review article tells that the Band (known as “Silver Cornet Band”) was organized by twelve men, mostly soldiers who had returned home with honorable discharges from the ranks of the Union Army. These men were Columbus Haines (director), Foster Haines, Charles Haines, Charles Hester, Thomas Hester, Martin Seacrist, Sly Seacrist, Morgan Anderson, Holland Vick, John Sharer and Mark M. Southworth. Three were still living when the article was published.
Haines had a family band that was popular in the 1880s. He moved his family to Detroit in 1893 where he passed away in 1942 at the age of 100 being the oldest Civil War veteran in the Detroit area.
More information and experiences of the 19th Ohio and the 104th Ohio, and Augustus Vignos can be found in And Other National Airs, Some Stories About Stark County . . . and Dixie Odyssey, the Trail and Tales of the Nineteenth Ohio Regiment by Paul Hobe.