Counties

Below is a complete listing of all Ohio Historical Markers. To find a detailed marker listing including text, photographs, and locations, click on a county below. Our listing is updated by the markers program as new markers are installed and older markers are reported damaged or missing.

3-38 Holmes County Draft Riots

Side A: On French Ridge in Richland Township, on June 5, 1863, local citizens in defiance of conscription attacked Elias Robinson, an enrolling officer of the Union Army. When Captain James Drake, the provost marshal, imprisoned the ringleaders, armed locals released them. Colonel William Wallace of the 15th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was sent to the scene with a force of 420 soldiers from Camp Chase in Columbus. On June 17, the soldiers approached the fortified camp of nearly one thousand malcontents. After firing upon the soldiers, the “rebels” scattered with only a few captured or wounded. The next morning, local Peace Democrats, led by politician Daniel P. Leadbetter, negotiated a surrender of the ringleaders. More than forty people were indicted for involvement in the rebellion, but only Lorenzo Blanchard, owner of the farm where the camp was located, was found guilty. Once this riot at “Fort Fizzle” ended, resistance to the draft in Holmes County subsided.
Side B: Same
Sponsors: Ohio Bicentennial Commission, The Scotts Company-Founded by a Civil War Veteran, and The Ohio Historical Society
Address: 12943 County Road 6, 
Killbuck, 
OH, 
44637
Latitude: 40.4921720
Longitude: -82.0934220