became active or retired from the firm and is one of the oldest law firms in Ohio. Public service Upon attaining his majority in 1847, Gunckel joined the Whig party. At its dissolution, he refused to join in the Know-Nothing movement, but upon the organization of the Republican party he at once transferred his allegiance to it, being one of the first local members. He presided and spoke at the first Montgomery county Republican meeting and was a delegate to the first Republican National Convention, which nominated John C. Frémont. In 1864, he was a Republican presidential elector and canvassed Ohio for Abraham Lincoln. In 1862 he was elected to the Ohio Senate and for four years was one of its leaders as chairman of the judiciary committee. A stalwart Union man during the Civil War, he was a supporter of the policies of Lincoln. He led enactment of measures to aid prosecution of the war and to protect the families of soldiers. When his bill for soldiers' families relief was assailed — its constitutionality questioned and a plea of economy urged — Gunckel replied: We can economize elsewhere, retrench everywhere, and save enough to the state in its local and general expenses to make up the entire sum; but if not, we should bear it cheerfully, heroically. We must fight or pay; we ought to do both. He authored the bill granting to Ohio soldiers in the field the right to vote—a right which many thousands of them exercised. He introduced a bill that established a State of Ohio soldiers' home for returning veterans and after his senate service was appointed by the Governor as its manager. The gradual disappearance of state hospitals and soldiers' retreats resulted in the creation of more substantial national homes. An act of Congress was approved March 31, 1865, appointing a Board of Managers of the National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. The board elected General Benjamin F. Butler President, and Lewis B. Gunckel Secretary. The act authorized the Board to establish one or more homes, and under it four Homes were created. Gunckel was influential in the measures taken to establish the National Soldiers' Home (Central Home) in Dayton. The organization of the Central Home as an institution dates from March 26, 1867, at which date Gunckel, Resident Manager, took formal charge of the disabled soldiers then at the Home, a role he