By John Hildebrandt Special to the Register It is late March
1863. Nearly two years have passed since the April 12
bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. As history, the
Civil War is fast approaching its midpoint, but of course the
people living along the shore of Sandusky Bay in 1863 do not
know that. It will be two more years before Palm Sunday, April
9, 1865, when Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse
in Virginia and the Civil War effectively ends. No one in Erie
County or elsewhere has expected the war to last as long as it
has. Most thought it would have been over in a matter of months,
hardly years. There is much war weariness in the North.
Militarily, a year that had started out very promising has ended
with disappointment in both the eastern and western theaters. In
the east, 1862 concludes with the defeat of the Army of the
Potomac at Fredericksburg. In the west, Stones River, outside
Nashville, is a bloody draw, and Sherman is checked at Chickasaw
Bluffs outside Vicksburg. The E