Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1866-01-03
From the Ohio State Journal.
Death of Thomas COrWin
Vivid Description of the Scene and It's
Incidents.

great and historic lives induced me to
write down what do here.
1t was never my lot before to be thrill
ed by seeing brought together in startling
proximity Life and Death, mirth and
mourning, fame and frailty, as I saw them
brought together in the circumstances at
tending the last conscious moments Of
Thomas Corwin. How strange it seems to
me now! At a collection of men of Ohio
in which Mr.. Chase, and Wade, and Sher-
man, and Schenck, and Bingham, and
Swayne, and fifty others of the public men
of the State, Gov. Corwin was present.
Upon his entering the room, he of course,
became what he for years has been every
where, where his presence was, the
centre of interest and of admiration. In
ten minutes after he entered the room 1
saw from some distance (for I did not
soon go to him) men collected and CON-
pacted around him in eager, excited, and
in some cases, ridiculous attitudes. Chief
Justice and Associate Justice of the Su-
preme Court of the United States, mem
bers of the Cabinet, Major Generals of the
armies of the United States, Senators in
Congress, and members of the House OF
Representatives were in the circle. Some
were seated by him; some stood erect
about his chair, some leaned and pressed
eagerly forward between the more inner
circles of listeners, and pushed their ears
forward to hear the words and whispers
which came from the centre figure of the
circle. Some sat, some stood, some kneel
ed, and all leaned forward to listen.
l watched occasionally the effect, upon
this little company Of men of what was
drawing them to that centre. The
strange magician had taken up once more,
and the last time, his wand to try It's
spell upon little company of his subjects
1t was the same one with which so
often before in the mere wantonness and
sport of his power, he had toyed and play
ed with the storms of human passions
which it conjured up, controlled and al
layed at will.
His youth, with its inimitable charms
and graces, seemed for a moment to have
come back to him again. There were
once more the flow of humor, the sparkle
of merriment, the glow of enthusiasm
the sparkle of wit, the charms of anec
dote and illustration; and there was the
wondrous play of features that made
him CORWIN. Men came repeatedly
out from his presence at that seat, thai
night, exclaiming ''there is but one Cor
winw For a moment, men who, thou
sand times before, had bowed before the
spell of genius, or had been swept off by
its irresistible force, and then when the
spell was gone, wondered at their frail
ties, here again became its victims.
When at last the press about him less
ened, 1 sat down by his side. What he
happened first to say to me furnishes one
of those strange condolences which helI
to invest our lives with a tinge of the
mysterious and awful; and which make:
US superstitious. One of his first utter
ances to me was a startling description oi
what Tom Corwin was to be in twenty
five minutes after its utterance. 1t wa:
this: He said, ''you are more bald thar
when saw you last the day before 1 sailed
for Mexico" ] said Eyes," He said with
the solemn, semi-comical face which has
become historical, But then, Julius
Ceesar was bald" l said, "but Caesar
had fits" Then he assumed a more seri-
our manner, and said Twenty years ago
saw man fall in apparently unconscious
paralysis, when in the midst of excited
discourse. He was carried out by his
friends in this condition, and his first act
of consciousness was to utter the words
you have just said:
Caesar had ftsp"
In twenty-five minutes after, assisted
in carrying Corwin out in the precise con-
dition he had so strangely described. He
then went into a more genial conversa-
ton with those about him; asked after
old friends of Ohio; alluded to his late
law partner, Judge johnson, Of Cincinna-
Ii, in terms of great kindness and as one
of the most powerful advocates and best
intellects he ever knew, but as one which
Hamilton county would not adOrn her.
self by sending even TO the Legislature.
He asked us what Congress would do with
the States that were lying around loose,
and in connection told a story of tight
man in search of milk ''lying around
loose" He said he told the men who
sWarmed the Capitol in search of pardon
that he had thought they ought all to be
hung, but had changed his mind and now
thought none ought to be, because they
were all consummate fools; that of the
ten thousand who came, every one told
the same story, that they were dragged
into rebellion; but he never was so fortu-
nate as to see one who was a dragger.-
He told me how hard he worked. How
hard it was for him to go up the long
stairway of the Treasury building. How
the stories Of his making large fees here
were eexaggerations. II ow he had lost one
fee due him in Mississippi of one hundred
and five thousand dollars, &c.
Then he was invited to repair to the re-
freshment room. He arose and asked
me to accompany him, which did; Sen
ator Wade joining US at the foot of the
stairs. i urged him to be seated in a
sofa at the table, which he expressed re-
luctance in taking, owing to the presence
of ladies standing. On this sofa his last
words were uttered few moments after.
The scene have alluded to as occurring
above was here speedily repeated. Eager
men pressed about him and leaned for
ward, and held their breath to catch his
last utterance. Once or twice they shout
ed with laughter and clapped their hands
in boisterous merriment; and every eye
and ear in in the brilliant assmblage was
directed to the seat where Tom COrwin
was playing with skilled fingers, upon
that mystic harp whose chords are hu-
man passion, sympathy and emotion, with
all the wizard skill and power which was
his of old. In a moment afterwards his
voice suddenly sunk to whispers, and
then he raised suddenly from his seat,
reached forward his hands, and asked for
fresh air, and fell into the arms of sur
rounding friends; and l helped carry him,
speechless, from the chamber where his
last auditory just hung in love and adj
upon his lips, and stopped for
ward to get his last whispers. And we
carried him into the death chamber
a soul more eloquent than Pat
rick Henry's, more beautiful than Sheri-
dams, more graceful than Cicero's, went
back to God who made it.
When we laid him down he soon said
to us, by significant act, what he could
not say by speech, zone side of me is
dead" That he did by raising up one
arm, grasping tightly his hand, and shak-
ing his clenched fist. This he did twice,
looking, at the same time, earnestly and
rather wildly into the face of immediate
bystanders. When he did this with his
left hand his right was lying dead at his
side This act was instantly read by all
as saying to Us zone side is powerless but
the other is not" This was the last COM
TO his fellow men ever made
bv him. unless subsequent grasps of re-