Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1864-03-06
COLONEL WILLIAM N. GIBSON.
Shall he be Relieved from tho Crim-
VOL inal Indictment.

The Columbus correspondent of the Gin
cinnah Enquirer, has the following in rela-
tion to this individual:
1 William H. Gibson, formerly Treasurer
q the State of Ohio, now Colonel of the
Forty-ninth Ohio Infantry, Is here, his regi-
ment having re-enlisted for the war, and is
now preparing to return to the front. Col.
Gibson has served, from the beginning of
the war, in many bloody and memorable
battles, and becoming distinguished for his
bravery and desperation in action, and his
total indifference to danger. In considera-
,tion OF this conduct and his good behavior
generally as military man, his friends in
the Legislature are endeavoring to relieve
him from the incubus of an Indictment for
aeialeatlon, fraud and embeZZlement, while
Treasurer of this State, which hangs over
MIN and initiates against the promotion to
which his services in the field probably en-
title him, and compels him to endure the
modification of seeing inferior officers re-
ceiving credit and promotion over him for
services that he alone performed. This
movement for the relief of Colonel Gibson
has some claims to the sympathy of men,
but 1t is q general opinion that it would be
an outrage to thus nullify the laws of the
land and the solemn decision of at least one
Court and Jury for the benefit Of q man
whose bravery is the result of desperation,
and whose desire to meet an nhonorabledeatlI
arises more from the circumstance that he
Is ruined man, than from any genuine con-
tempt OF death. Colonel Gibson, during his
furlough, has made some of the most bitter,
unjust, fanatical, furious, false and SANDER
GUS speeches against the Democracy OF Ohio
and the two hundred thousand members
thereofthatwere ever uttered on the stump,
and 1t is impudent in him or his friends to
ask the Representatives of those people to re-
lieve him OF a criminal Indictment by
special resolution. Upon the most credible
authority Colonel Gibson is reported to have
said, in one of his speeches in the northwest
that he had two Vallandigham voters in his
regiment "who were brave men and seeming
ly invulnerable to bullets, for he had tried to
get them killed in every battle, but they invari-
ably came out of the fiery ordeal of battle
unharmed, unscathed" That Col. Gibson
said this, or something to the same effect
there is no ground to doubt, and it is not
even denied by his friends. He may have
uttered the thought to gain little transient
applause from blind and reckless audience
of fanatics, whose perceptions of right and
honor and justice were blunted by excite
ment but 1t is quite certain that man who
can entertain sentiments so atrocious, or
express q thought so diabolical as that in
dicated in this speech, is not entitled to the
merciful consideration or the generous
clemency of the Legislature or the people,
To relieve him from the dishonor of an in
dictment would not only be an act to over
ride the courts of justice and the law, but
legislative sanction of a conspiracy of an
officer against the lives of men who were
periling their lives for their country.