103rd Ohio Infantry Regiment

[1] Needing additional soldiers, President Lincoln put out the call for volunteers to serve in the Union army.

Several hundred men - mostly farmers - from the northern Ohio counties of Cuyahoga, Medina, and Lorain answered the call.

This unit was organized in Cleveland in August 1862 and became known as the 103rd Regiment of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry"[2] On July 21, 1862, William B.

Castle, as chairman of the District Military Committee in Cleveland, sent a letter to Governor David Tod, enclosing a copy of a resolution recommending that the appointment of company officers for the 103rd Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

Lyman Beecher Hannaford describes "We have now moved our encampment up on the hill in the rear of the fort", the planned Fort would overlook the city providing defense of the now Union controlled Kentucky Capital, the only Union capital to fall to the Rebels"[5] "Towards the city, there is first a stone wall and an embankment about 5 feet high and 8 feet thick.

1–inside of fort 2–shelf for infantry 3–embankment of dirt 4–cedar brush 2 feet thick and projecting over the side of the ditch about 18 inches.

June 17, 1886, at a meeting of the Cuyahoga County Soldiers' and Sailors' Union, held at Bedford, it was determined that the time had arrived to commence the undertaking, which had for many years been contemplated by that body, of erecting the Memorial that had been authorized by Legislative enactment, accordingly a vote was taken as to the character and style of the structure.

September 2018, 50+ letters written by Corporal Lyman Beecher Hannaford of the 103rd OVI during the American Civil War are transcribed with footnotes and images.