Beschreibung:

Arthur Latham Conger was born on February 19, 1838 in Boston, Summit County, Ohio. He spent his childhood years on a farm that was owned by his parents and received a meager education in rural schools in his county. While he was still a boy, he started supporting himself by working in a brick yard earning ten cents per day. He also worked on canal boats. Arthur was a boy who craved education, and since he was depraved of proper education facilities, he made up for this small setback by being persistent and studied at home during moments of leisure. These early years of hard work prepared him for his future military and business career, a bright future in which Conger would significantly establish himself. When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted as a private in the 115th Ohio Volunteer Infantry on July 24, 1862. By this point, he was 24 years-old with the civilian occupation of school teacher, which was fitting for Conger, who had a passion for education. His position as a teacher qualified him as an eligible bachelor and for a quick promotion to First Lieutenant as of August 21, 1862. He was mustered into Company G, 115th Ohio, on September 18, 1862 and then detached for staff duty as Acting Assistant Adjutant to General Ammen on November 20, 1862 and served largely in the Army and Department of Ohio and Cumberland, paralleling the service of the regiment. Records show him as assigned as Provost Marshal in Newport, Kentucky on June 11, 1863, and by late 1864 he is posted in Nashville as Acting Inspector of Railroad Defenses for the Department of the Cumberland. Near Chattanooga much of the regiment was mounted and sent into the countryside to combat guerrillas then infesting the landscape between Nashville and Tullahoma, while the remainder was stationed in the extremely dangerous but vitally important service of defending the blockhouses along the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. The blockhouses, designed for siege warfare were constantly under attack from Confederate forces led by Generals Joe Wheeler and Nathan Bedford Forrest. By December 1864, the 115th Ohio had suffered many casualties, including men killed, wounded, and over 200 men captured. Like the regiment, Conger seems to have been dealing with manning blockhouses, repairing tracks, and fighting off Confederate cavalry and raiders along the line of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad throughout 1864 and to the end of the war. Conger’s knowledge and experience in siege warfare and material distribution drew the attention of General George H. Thomas better known as “The Rock of Chickamauga”, during the latter phase of the war thus earning him the position of Assistant Inspector of Railroad Defenses under the renowned engineer Captain James R. Willett. The final piece of wartime history for the 115th Ohio occurred after Lee had surrendered at Appomattox. On April 27, 1865, the regiment’s eighty surviving prisoners from Andersonville were placed on the steamer Sultana, which exploded on the Mississippi River, killing everyone on board. On a more positive note, Conger had married in 1864, mustered out of the Army June 22, 1865 at Murfreesboro, where he briefly returned to farming back in Ohio, and moved to Akron by 1868. After the war, Conger’s career skyrocketed. His administrative abilities excelled as he worked his way up in a manufacturing company from salesman to president, holding interests in several businesses. In 1866, he was elected as Treasurer of Summit County. He was then appointed Director of Whiteman and Barnes Manufacturing Company, organized the Diamond Plate Glass Company, organized the Plate Glass Trust, built the Zanesville Street Railroad, was one of the organizers of the American Harvesting Machine Company, was the primary promoter of the Pittsburg and Akron Railroad, was the director of the Cleveland, Akron and Columbus Railroad, was the founder of the S.S. Still College of Osteopathy, became the editor for the magazine of the Cosmopolita