Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

REQUISITION FOR OHIO TROOPS. 19
tributions for the support of the families of those whose
poverty would otherwise have prevented their enlistment.
It was determined by the War Department to call into immediate service but twenty thousand of the fifty thousand men
which the President was authorized to employ. Most of these
troops were furnished by the Western States,-Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee-as indeed was the largest
portion of those subsequently raised. These five States sent
twenty-six regiments of volunteers to the field, besides a very
considerable number of recruits for both the old and new regiments of the regular army. A requisition for thirty companies (three regiments) was the first made upon Ohio; and
Governor Bartley, on the 20th of May, issued a proclamation
appealing to the courage and patriotism of the State to render
promptly the required aid. Soon afterwards, Samuel R. Curtis, Adjutant General of the State, established a general rendezvous at Camp Washington, near Cincinnati, to which
companies were ordered to'repair as soon as organized. In
less than two weeks after the requisition of the War Department was received in Ohio, three thousand of her people,
having gladly responded to their country's call, were marching towards the rendezvous; and before the middle of June,
the tents of forty companies were pitched at Camp Washington. I recall with pleasure, and record with pride, the zeal
and enthusiasm with which the "' young giant of the West 9
rushed to the conflict, standing, as it does, in favorable contrast with the conduct of other States, whose chivalry and
patriotism it is the fashion to applaud.
During the month of June, companies were assembled at