Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1898-10-29
DIED IN WAR, DIED I'm PEACE.
One Who Tried Both-In the First, q
Hero; in the Second,
Politician.

eff I go to the war, if there is one,
1 want either to be killed or come home
after it is all over. 1 don't want any
rumors about my death. If / go, and
you hear that 1 have been killed don't
you believe it until you get 1t straight
from somebody who knows me-"
The man who made this request of
one of his friends in public place up
town told this in connection with the
request:
I'm the town where 1 lived, at the
beginning of the civil war, one who en-
listed was young man named Bob
Bradshaw. He was u model physically.
He was blacksmith, but beyond the
fact that he was industrious there was
nothing. People knew him as Bob
Bradshaw, the blacksmith and that
was all.
81 don't remember how long his
company had been away before we
heard of it. But one day the news came
of the storming of a rebel redoubt-
The dispatch told that Bob Bradshaw,
the blacksmith, seized the colors and
rallied his company, and that he went
down to a glorious death, ETC., within
the enemy's lines. That sort of dis
patches got to be quite common be-
fore the trouble was settled, if you
know anything about it. But in the
first stages of the conflict such a dis
patch, received in the town where the
hero enlisted, stirred the people might
lily. The next day after the receipt of
the news there was a meeting and a
lot of sympathy and admiration was
uncorked, and resolutions passed, and a
committee was appointed to go to the
front and, if possible, secure the body
of the gallant Bradshaw and return it
to the soil of the home which 'honored
him. and so on and so on.
''Some of the men on that committee
would not have known Bob Bradshaw
if he had walked into the meeting at
that moment. But there is always q
lot of folderol in war times as there is
in peace, and il was all right then.
When the committee went to the train
hundreds of persons followed to fur
nish the send-off. l think the commit
tee took an expensive coffin along. 1t
either did that or arranged for one to
EG SCuI
''Then a few days afterward we got
the news that Bob Bradshaw was not
dead. lie had scaled the redoubt, as
was first reported, but he was picked up
! on the other side somewhat jolted and,
believe, he was shot somewhere. He
was brave fellow, there is no question
about that. He came home to recuper-
ate, and was the recipient of blowout,
| perhaps not so numerously ATTENDED as
would have been the case if he had
come back dead.
AT the next election Bob was the
nominee for some Office. l have for
| gotten what. One of the committee
that went after his dead body was the
opposing candidate. The bravery of
Bradshaw was mildly conceded by the
opposition press, but the inability OF
Bob Bradshaw to hold the office to
which he aspired and some antebel-
| lum incidents were magnified. / think
Bob was elected, but by scratch, and
much of his heroism had been splashed
with campaign mud. He trained in pol
itics forever afterward. but was unsuc-
cessful. | went away from that place
after the war, but l have been told
that when Bradshaw died for good, as
they put it, his family had to pay for
the f1lnara1 notioe IN V SIM