Civil War Executions
of William
Francis Corbin and Thomas Jefferson McGraw
By Jim Reis, Kentucky Post Reporter, March 7, 1983
The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 15 April 1863, page 3
NEWPORT NEWS
RUMORED CAPTURE OF CALDWELL AND HIS ENTIRE GANG-We conversed with a couple of gentlemen, from the upper part of Campbell County, yesterday, who informed us that a detachment from the 118th Ohio Regiment had succeeded in overtaking the notorious Captain Jim Caldwell, at Brookville, Bracken County, and captured him and all his men, numbering seventeen. The names of those of his men who were taken last week, near Morris' Mills, are Wm F Corbin, T J McGraw and Samuel T Reardon.
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William Francis Corbin and Thomas Jefferson McGraw were bound securely and pushed into a wagon. To the sounds of a Union Army band, the wagon rumbled down the road of the prison installation. It was 1:20 pm, May 15, 1863, and Corbin and McGraw were more than 200 miles from their homes in Campbell County.
Corbin was 30,an elder in the Christian Church at California. His arrest shocked the small community on the Ohio River. Corbin was among 60 young men form the California area who had joined the state home guard in 1860. According to John Caldwell Demoss, who organized the unit, the purpose was to defend Kentucky's neutrality from an invasion by either Union or Confederate armies.
Demoss, who in 1897 wrote a book about Corbin's wartime experiences, said that neutrality was soon broken as armies from both the North and the South invaded Kentucky. Corbin cast his lot with the Confederates. He was commissioned a captain and stationed during the winter of 1862-63 in Virginia. That following spring Corbin was back in Campbell County recruiting soldiers.
That activity landed Corbin at the home of Garrett Daniel near Rouse's Mill on the Campbell and Pendleton County line. Corbin was there on April 8 to meet with Jefferson McGraw another Southern recruiter. McGraw, however was followed to the Daniel home by a contingent of Union soldiers. The Union soldiers had been in the Gubser's Mill area of southern Campbell County looking for another Confederate recruiter, James Caldwell.
Corbin and McGraw were captured and tried in Cincinnati under a Union army order prohibiting Confederate recruitment in the area. Corbin and McGraw were found guilty despite the fact that the order prohibiting the recruitment wasn't issued until five days after their arrest. Corbin's sister, Melissa, went to Washington to ask President Abraham Lincoln to commute her brother's sentence. She pleaded that her brother was a good Christian man who should be treated like other prisoners of war.
Lincoln had granted a number such requests, but he rejected Miss Corbin's plea. It was now 1:40 pm May 15, 1863. McGraw and Corbin were unloaded from the wagon and marched onto the beach on Johnson's Island in Lake Erie, where they were being held. They were blindfolded and positioned in front of two large boxes.
Twelve Union soldiers were marched out. One of the soldiers fainted and had to be carried away. The order was given (by) and the shots rang out. McGraw and Corbin were knocked off their feet, landing in the coffins that had been placed behind them. McGraw gave one gasp and died. Corbin died silently. The bodies of both men were carried by steamboat back to California, where a memorial service was held at the Corbin home.
Corbin was buried in the Corbin Family Cemetery, which is located on Washington Trace Road, near its intersection with California Cross-roads. McGraw was buried nearby in the Flagg Springs Baptist Church Cemetery on Kentucky 10. A monument, honoring McGraw was erected near his grave in 1914 by the Daughters of the Confederacy.
On the morning of his execution, Corbin had held a prayer service at his prison. He said life was just as sweet to him as to any man, but if he had to die, he was ready. Corbin said he had done nothing to be ashamed of "in the sight of God and man, and in the view of death which", awaited him. He believed he was right. And feeling this, he had "nothing to fear in the future."
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Cincinnati Enquirer, 4 August 1914, page 14
Newport
WILL HONOR MCGRAW'S MEMORY-The United Daughters of the Confederacy will next Saturday afternoon at Beech Grove, in the southern part of Campbell County, unveil a monument to the memory of Jefferson McGraw, a resident of Campbell County, who ws condemned as a Confederate spy and shot by order of a Union court-martial on May 15, 1863, together with Captain William Francis Corbin, of the Confederate Army, at Johnson's Island, Ohio. McGraw's remains are buried at Flagg Springs, near Beech Grove.
McGraw and Captain Corbin were captured at the house of a man named Garrett Daniel, near Rouse's Mill, in Pendleton County, Kentucky, on the night of April 8, 1863. The charge being that they secured recruits for the Confederate Army within the lines of the Union Army, which was prohibited by an order of General Burnside and made punishable by death.
Until about a year ago McGraw's last resting
place was entirely neglected. A short time ago members of Basil Duke
Chapter, UDC, started a movement to raise a fund for a monument to McGraw's
memory and the ceremony will mark the successful completion of their work.
A very interesting program has been arranged for the occasion, consisting of
vocal and instrumental numbers, together with a number of recitations and
historical sketches.