Halbert B. Case
Hon. Halbert B. Case, attorney at law, of Chattanooga, was born May 3,
1838, in Mecca, Trumbull Co., Ohio. His father was Joseph L. Case, and his
mother's maiden name was Eliza P. Bidwell. The former was born and reared in
Simsbury, the latter in Canton, Conn., and both came from early Puritan stock.
They moved to Trumbull County, Ohio, about 1832, and settled in the dense
forests upon the farm upon which the subject of this sketch was born, and where,
with the exception of about four years during which he resided in the State of
New York, he was reared to manhood. As a boy and young man he was both
industrious and studious. He made the best use of the common schools of his
neighborhood until he was nine years old, after which, during the spring, summer
and autumn, his services were required in the management of his father's farm,
upon which he was always faithful and efficient. Notwithstanding the long hours
of severe toil upon the farm, he found recreation during the early hours of the
night in the pursuit of useful knowledge, his reading being usually of an
historical character, and the winter months were well improved, first in the
common and then in the select or high schools, then so numerous on the Western
Reserve. By the time he arrived at the age of fourteen he had well mastered the
branches of study peculiar to the common school, and then entered upon higher
grades of study. When sixteen years old he entered the Western Reserve Seminary
at Farmington, with a view to preparing for college. Being without wealth he
earned the money with which to pay for his own education. In his eighteenth year
he had his first experience as a teacher, and thereafter until the close of his
literary studies, he taught in various localities part of the year, and devoted
the rest of the time to study. After nearly two years in the seminary he began a
course in Oberlin College, where he continued to study until shortly before the
breaking out of the war of the Rebellion. Believing that the institution of
slavery was a national curse, a curse to the slaveholder as well as to the
slave, and believing that the war was caused by that institution, and was to be
carried on in its interest by the one side, and hence that the war must
necessarily result in its destruction, or in the overthrow of the Government, he
deemed it his duty to abandon his studies in the midst of his course and respond
to the call of his country. Accordingly he was one of the first to volunteer
from his native county, enlisting as a private soldier on the 18th of April,
1861, in Company H, Seventh Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry. In the
organization of the company he was elected orderly sergeant. The company went at
once to Camp Taylor, in Cleveland, Ohio, where the regiment was made up and sent
thence to Camp Dennison. In the reorganization of the regiment for the three
years' service, young Case was elected second lieutenant, and about six months
afterward was promoted to first lieutenant. In these various positions he served
through the arduous campaigns in West Virginia, participating in nearly all the
engagements, until the spring of 1862, when he resigned and raised a company of
which he became captain-Company C, of the Eighty-fourth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer
Infantry. This was a four months' regiment, but it served a little over five
months at Cumberland, Md. Capt. Case was appointed provost-marshal and
commandant of the post which included a territory some twelve miles square, and
in which was located a hospital, occupied by from 10,000 to 15,000 sick and
convalescent soldiers. All the troops of the little department thus fell under
his command, and it included officers ranking him in grade, as high as colonels,
but so well did he perform his duties that Gov. David Todd, having sent ex-Gov.
Dennison to Cumberland to ascertain who was a proper person to recruit the
Eighty-fourth Regiment for the three years' service, upon the mustering out of
the regiment from the four months' service, handed Capt. Case a commission as
colonel to recruit the regiment for the three years' service. This appointment
was wholly unsolicited and unexpected. Col. Case entered upon the work with
ardor and enthusiasm, continuing some two and a half months, when, upon the
order of the Governor, his regiment and the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth were
consolidated, he ordered to assume command and to report at once to Cincinnati.
But at the solicitation of Col. Oliver Payne, an arrangement was made by which
the latter took command and led the now regiment to the field, and Col. Case
ordered to continue recruiting the Eighty-fourth Regiment. However, being
somewhat tired of the service, he obtained consent to retire, and at once
entered upon a law course at the University of Michigan, from which he graduated
March 29, 1864, taking the degree of LL. B. On the 23d of June, 1863, be married
Miss Caroline E. Kibbee, taking her with him to Ann Arbor during his last year
in the University. The vacation was largely spent in a course of analytical
chemistry in the laboratory of the University. After graduation he spent some
time in special work in the army in the South, but did not re-enter active
service. He began the practice of his profession at Youngstown, Ohio, where he
lived until March, 1869, when he removed to Des Moines, Iowa, where he led an
active life as vice-president of the State Insurance Company, which, under his
energetic management, met with phenomenal success. But here came to him dark
days and full of trouble, the most trying ordeal of his life. His young wife, a
son of seven years and a son of four months, all apparently in the vigor of
health, were suddenly stricken with disease, and all died within the short space
of five days, and all lay dead in his house April 28, 1872. The effect of this
blow was so great that, after struggling for twenty months to recover from it,
he deemed it necessary to change the scene of his labors, and removed to
Chattanooga about May 1, 1874. Here he married Janie M. Spooner, a friend of
long standing, with whom he has since lived in most happy relations. In
Chattanooga he has earnestly pursued his chosen profession, and he is
universally recognized as an able lawyer and useful citizen. In his adopted city
he held the office of city attorney from November, 1876, to November, 1878, to
the satisfaction of the authorities and the people. He was the candidate for
Congress on the Republican ticket in the Third Congressional District, in 1880,
and received nearly 10,000 votes, the largest vote given a Republican in the
district up to that time, the result of the most brilliant canvass ever made by
any candidate in the district. In 1882 he was elected to the Lower House of the
State Legislature, and in 1884 he was elected to the State Senate and declined a
re-nomination in 1886, on the plea that politics made him poor. In all of his
official positions he has been active, attentive and faithful in the discharge
of his duties, and his record is exceedingly creditable to him. Open and frank
in disposition, he shirks no duty, and is untiring in its pursuit and
unsatisfied until it is performed. He is a deliberate, argumentative and
convincing speaker, and has the moral courage to express his convictions without
fear or favor. Once convinced that a measure is right he stands by it on
principle, if need be, against the world. Earnestly believing in universal
education and in universal civil and political rights, be boldly proclaims his
views, oftentimes in defiance of popular sentiment, and yet with due regard to
the right of others to entertain contrary convictions. By his first wife Col.
Case has one son living, Frank Luther Case. He was born in Youngstown, Ohio,
December 10, 1866. He went through the graded schools in Chattanooga, and
graduated in the high school in June, 1883. He then spent two years in the Grant
Memorial University, Athens, Tenn., and since then has been two years in Oberlin
College, Ohio. He will enter the senior class in that institution in June, 1887.
As a sophomore he was elected one of nine in a class of eighty-five to represent
the class in the junior oratorical exercises which occurred about May 15, 1887,
in which he acquitted himself with credit. He has also been elected one of six
of his class for the senior oratorical contest to occur in June, 1888. He is a
fine musician and a fine German and classical scholar.
Goodspeed's
"History of East Tennessee" 1887