Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An Ohio Civil War Veteran’s Volunteer Medal awarded to Sergeant W. S. Welling, 80th Ohio Infantry Regiment, who served between December 1861 and August 1865, during which period the regiment saw considerable service in the western theatre

State of Ohio Veteran Civil War Medal, bronze (Wy. S. Welling, Co. F 80th. Regt. Inft.) good very fine £240-£280

Wesley S. Welling enlisted in Company F, 80th Ohio Volunteers, as a private soldier, aged 18 on 7 December 1861, for 3 years. He was promoted Corporal in the same company and later Sergeant to rank from 20 December 1864. He re-enlisted as a veteran volunteer and was mustered out with the company at Little Rock, Ark., on 13 August 1865.

The 80th Regiment was organised at Canal Dover, Ohio, between October 1861 and January 1862, and left the state on 10 February 1862 for active duty. During the course of the ensuing three years it served in Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Principle events in the career of the 80th included the Siege of Corinth, the Battles of Corinth and Iuka, the Vicksburg Campaign (including the Battles of Port Gibson, Raymond, Champion’s Hill and the Siege of Vicksburg), Missionary Ridge, Sherman’s March to the Sea, the Siege of Savannah, and the Carolinas Campaign, including the Battle of Bentonville and the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston’s army. It then took part in the Grand Review of the western armies in Washington on 25 May 1865, before moving to Little Rock, Ark., where it was mustered out in August.

The State of Ohio Civil War Medal
The State of Ohio authorised Tiffany & Company of New York to provide 20,000 medals to recognise those soldiers from Ohio who re-enlisted from the State under War Department General Orders, No. 191, which called for “Veteran Volunteers”. These were soldiers who completed their three-year tour of duty and then signed up for further duty as a Veteran Volunteer. The medals were distributed in the summer of 1866 and are officially engraved with the name and unit to the reverse field of the medal. Based on the British Crimea medal, the suspension was attractively but poorly designed, resulting more often than not in only the disc surviving. Approximately 319,000 men from this State fought for the Union, with less 6.5% being awarded this medal.

Of the States that fought for the Union, only West Virginia, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut issued officially named or numbered medals to its servicemen in significant numbers. Even then, bar to soldiers in West Virginian service, this was to a small number of men that actually served in each State during the War and a fraction of the over two million servicemen who fought for the Union.

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