Lieutenant-Colonel Barton S. Kyle was born in Elizabeth township, Miami county, April 7, 1825. In I803 two brothers, Samuel and Thomas B. Kyle, came to Miami county, Ohio, from Kentucky, each one bringing with him a Bible and an ax. They were backwoods preachers and pioneer farmers. In one of the first records of the Miami court of common pleas, held in Staunton, on the 4th day of July, I807, in which Hon. Francis Dunlavy was presiding, the judge recites: "There was produced in open court a certificate certifying that, Thomas B. Kyle was a regularly ordained minister, and on application a license was duly granted to said Thomas B. Kyle to solemnize marriages according to the law." This Thomas B. Kyle was an uncle of Colonel Kyle, and Rev. Samuel Kyle was his father. Colonel Barton S. Kyle had the usual experience of a boy raised on a farm in Miami county at that early day, but he managed to procure a good education, for he was for a number of years county school examiner, serving on the board of examiners with Prof. William Edwards, whose name is yet a sacred memory with many of the leading citizens of Miami county. Colonel Kyle was a man of fine appearance, large and portly, and possessed a generous, genial disposition, and was very popular in this county. He was a very bright Mason and recognized in southern Ohio as one of the leading members of that ancient order. He was a man of much more than ordinary ability. For six years he was chief clerk in the auditor's office of Miami county, and at the early age of twenty-three years he was appointed deputy United States marshal for the southern district of Ohio. In 1859 he was elected as clerk of the common-pleas court, and served in that office until he entered the army. He was president of the board of education in Troy. In 1856 he was a member of the national convention that nominated Gen. John C. Fremont for president. In the summer and fall of 1861 he was active in recruiting a regiment for the Union army, with headquarters at Troy, Ohio. In October,1861, the Seventy-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry was organized and on the 2nd of October, 1861, he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of that regiment. It was due to his patriotism, energy and untiring zeal that the Seventy-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry was enlisted, organized and sent to the front. He declined the colonelcy of the regiment, and was appointed lieutenant- colonel. He reported with his regiment at Paducah, Kentucky, in February, 1862, and soon afterward that regiment was ordered to Pittsburg Landing. He was a vigilant and popular officer, beloved by his men. In the bloody battle of Shiloh, on the 6th day of April, 1862, while at his post of duty, he was mortally wounded with a minnie ball in his breast. He was warned by one of his officers, when the bullets were falling thick and fast, that he was right in the range of the enemy's fire, but he would not leave his place. Soon after he received the fatal shot. He was conveyed to a hospital boat and died in a few hours. He died as a hero dies; his death lamented by every man in his regiment. His military service was brief, but in that short time he won the love and confidence of his men. Whitelaw Reid said of him, on that fatal day: "Ohio lost no truer, braver man that day than Lieutenant-Colonel Kyle."