Retired well-known Dayton Daily News journalist Martin Gottlieb (not to be confused by the journalist of the same name in the New York City area) will be speaking at Sidney, Ohio’s Civil War Living History Weekend. Planning Committee Chair Mike Barhorst announced that Gottlieb would be speaking at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 21.
Gottlieb admits to growing up in mid-century in a Midwestern, middle-class apolitical family. In search of his own political views, he consumed a preposterous amount of political argument in an era that pitted William F. Buckley Jr. against – it seemed – all the other intellectuals who lived during his life.
By the time Gottlieb had celebrated his third decade on earth, Gottlieb will admit that he was well-read in only two realms: contemporary political argument and the history of baseball as written for adolescent boys. His political interest led to a career as a writer of political argument, for the Dayton (Oh.) Daily News editorial page from 1984 to 2011.
That same political interest also led to his two books, one patiently explaining to the political experts that
they didn’t know beans about politics, and one focused on political argument in the North during the Civil
War in the context of the iconic, historic Daytonian, Congressman Clement Valandigham.
For those who do not Valandigham, he was an American lawyer and politician who served as the leading
voice of the Copperhead faction of the anti-war Democrats during the Civil War. He served two terms as
Ohio’s 3 rd Congressional District Congressman. In 1863, he was ordered arrested (troops broke down
his door in the middle of the night), tried by an Army Court, found guilty of expressing opposition to the
war, and exiled to the Confederate States of America.
He made his way from the Confederacy to Canada and ran for governor of Ohio in November 1863. The
stakes in this colorful campaign were enormous, and Lincoln was highly involved. Lincoln worried that a
Vallandigham victory would be seen as a rejection of the war by voters. That could have been
devastating to the Union cause. It also would likely have made Vallandigham a presidential prospect.
Never before in history had a president banished a leading opponent, with that opponent then being
nominated by a major party for high office in a state that had supplied multiple important general officers
and more troops than just two other states.
Lincoln worried needlessly. Vallandigham received 39.39% of the vote, and did not run for public office
again.
Following the war, Valllandigham returned to his law practice in Ohio. He died in Lebanon, Ohio after
accidentally shooting himself while trying to demonstrate how his client should be found innocent of
murder.
Gottlieb is retired and living near Dayton. He admits to being utterly disgusted by the political world and
is writing – or planning, or thinking about, or thinking about planning – a book that grows out of his early
non-political interest.
Sidney, Ohio’s Civil War Living History Weekend is free and open to the public. A full schedule of events
is posted online at www.sidneycivilwar.com.
Although no Civil War battles were fought anywhere near Sidney, a considerable number of local men
served in the Union Army during the Civil War. In fact, the 1860 Census records that Shelby County had
a population of 17,493. Of that number 8960 were male, and a staggering 14% of them served in the
Union Army during the war. Of those, 25.58% (326) died in the service of their country.
