Soldiers Visit Melrose Caverns

Soldiers Visit Melrose Caverns. "Strange and Fantastic Forms". , We came to a hole in the ground that looked much like a large well," wrote reporter visiting Harrison's Cave with Union troops on May 5, 1862. "We lit our candles and commenced the descent.", Directly up the hill is the soldier's entrance to Melrose Caverns, known Harrison's Cave' during the Civil War. Hundreds of Union and Confederate soldiers explored the caverns. Many inscribed-their names, figures, and symbols on the stone walls and columns, writing with charcoal or carving into the rock with a knife or bayonet. The inscriptions include names from Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland. Others took target practice, leaving scars such as a "bullet-marked stalagmite in the center of one of the large chambers of the cave.", The greatest number of visitors came from Union Gen. Nathaniel Banks's command, who were camped nearby in late April, early May 1862. Among them was the 4th Ohio Volunteer Infantry regiment, who explored the caves on May 5, 1862, accompanied by a reporter from the Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph. The reporter described "a large apartment, the roof and walls [of] solid rock, hung with stalactites, many of strange and fantastic forms … land] long colonnades, grotto and niches, halls, galleries, and passages innumerable.", (captions) , Reuben Moore (Center) owned the cave during the Civil War. His brother David Moore is also pictured. At a November 2, 1874 reunion, they signed their names on the cave's large room wall. Courtesy Melrose Caverns, Confederate Capt. George Koontz was one of the Confederates who left their names in the caverns. The older Koontz is pictured here visit his son, Lester Koontz, a member of the 42nd/Rainbow Division during the First World War. Courtesy Cenantua's Blog, Signature of Pvt. Jacob Hollabaugh, 4th Ohio