Notes

After a full first reference in the endnotes, abbreviations are used for the names of the following references and sources.

 

MOLLUS	Michigan Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, a collection of post–Civil War articles written by veterans who belonged to this organization. The papers are at the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library.
OR	United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. 70 volumes in 128 parts. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901.
USAMHI	United States Army Military History Institute, an archive at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, where papers of Michael Vreeland and Jairus Hall are filed.

 

Chapter 1. We Will Strive to Do Our Duty as American Soldiers

1. Woodbury to Blair, January 10, 1861, Austin Blair Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

2. Adrian Watchtower, July 5, 1860; Adrian Expositor, February 6, 1866, and June 20, 1901.

3. Adrian Watchtower, July 5, 1860; Adrian Expositor, February 6, 1866.

4. Woodbury to Blair, April 16, 1861, Blair Papers.

5. Charles Monroe Cleveland diary, April 16 and 17, 1861, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Cleveland was an Adrian merchant.

6. C. Luce to Gen. Robertson, April 25, 1861, 4th Michigan records, Box 59-14, Military Establishment, State Archives of Michigan, Lansing; Yates and Custer: Annie Gibson Roberts Yates, “Colonel George W. Yates,” Research & Review (Little Big Horn Association), vol. 15, 1989, p. 16; and Brian Pohanka, “George Yates, Captain of the Band Box Troop,” Greasy Grass (Custer Battlefield, Historical & Museum Association), vol. 8, May 1992, pp. 11–12.

7. Steuben (County, Angola, Ind.) Republican, April 27, 1861; Adrian Expositor, May 11, 1861. Arguments about Meech's offense and his rescue from the sheriff appeared in the Republican, June 1, 1861. The editor wrote in Meech's defense that he was “a good steady young man,” the charge against him a misdemeanor.

8. D. Knipple to E. Starr, May 10, 1861; Starr to Bro. Hank, no date (May?) 1861; Starr to Brother Hank, May 16, 1861, Bentley Library. Knipple was killed by an accidental gunshot wound later that summer.

9. Barry resignation, Randolph election: Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus, May 15, 1861, Detroit Free Press, May 17, 1861; Barry Guard training: Michigan State (Ann Arbor) News, May 9, 1861.

10. Phelps to his brother, May 23, 1861 (transcript), courtesy of Jeff Phelps. On June 28, Charles Phelps wrote his brother, “I enlisted in the 4th Reg. a week ago.”

11. Lumbard to Robertson, April 29, 1861, 4th Michigan records, State Archives; Jonesville Independent, May 2, 1861; Detroit Free Press, May 11, 1861.

12. Moses Luce autobiographical sketch, provided by his grandson, Edgar A. Luce Jr.

13. Hudson Gazette, April 20 and April 23, 1861; DeGolyer to J. Robertson, April 29, 1861, Blair Papers.

14. Adrian Expositor, May 21, 1861; Harrison Daniels reminiscence, provided by Craig and Ann Emery and Hal Flynn. Daniels noted in his text that he was nearly 76 when he composed it, mainly from memory.

15. Detroit Free Press, May 8, 1861; William Vreeland statement, Vreeland pension record, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

16. Taylor to dear Mother, May 7, 1861 and Taylor to dear Sister, May 8, 1861, Edward H. C. Taylor Civil War letters, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, N.Y. Taylor's background is from letters written in 1860 on into the spring of 1861.

17. Crane to Robertson, April 25, 1861, and Crane to Robertson, April 28, 1861, 4th Michigan records, State Archives; Detroit Free Press, May 23, 1861; Adrian Expositor, May 24, 1861; Franklin Ellis, History of Livingston County, Michigan (Philadelphia: Everts & Abbot, 1880), p. 62; Michigan State (Ann Arbor) News, photocopy of undated clipping in the authors' possession (June 1861), a resolution of thanks to the ladies of Dexter from Company K, dated June 14, 1861.

18. Will and Testament of Harrison H. Jeffords, May 22, 1861, Jeffords pension file, National Archives. A history of Lenawee County containing biographies of Jeffords's family gives for him a birth date of Aug. 21, 1834, in Monroe County, N.Y., but this year was apparently a typographical error. The Michigan 1850 and 1860 censuses show his ages for those years as 14 and 23 respectively, which makes the year of his birth 1836 or 1837. This is confirmed by mustering papers in his service record showing him to be 24 in 1861, 25 in 1862, and 26 in 1863.

19. DeGolyer to Robinson [Robertson], April 20, 1861, photocopy in Hudson Museum, Hudson.

20. Tecumseh Herald, May 11, 1861.

21. E. Starr to Bro. Hank, May 16, 1861, Bentley Library.

22. Ibid.; Starr to unknown, undated (May 17 or 18, 1861); Starr to Bro. Hank, May 19, 1861, Bentley Library.

23. Adrian Expositor, May 1, 6, 9, 11, 17, 1861; Jonesville Independent, May 1, 1861; Detroit Free Press, May 4, 9, 1861; John Robertson, Michigan in the War (Lansing: W. S. George, 1882), p. 220.

24. Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 6, 1861; Jonathan Childs's background: William A. Ellis, Norwich University, 1819–1911: Her History, Her Graduates, Her Roll of Honor, vol. 2 (Montpelier: Capital City Press, 1911), p. 615; Hudson Gazette, June 19, 1896 (a reminiscence by Dr. Chamberlain).

25. J. Fountain to Woodbury, May 20, 1861, Dwight Woodbury Papers, Bentley Library; Adrian Expositor, May 23, 24, 28, 1861.

26. Bancroft diary-scrapbook, May 29, 1861, RG 95, Special Collections & Archives, Auburn University Library, Auburn, Alabama. Bancroft turned his Civil War diaries into a scrapbook of his time in the Union army, adding to it various orders, letters, pictures, and newspaper clippings about his regiment's postwar reunions. A typed transcript of the diary is also on file at the Bentley Library, University of Michigan. Bancroft sometimes wrote to Detroit newspapers and to his friend Theodore Hinchman of Detroit; the letters to Hinchman are in the Detroit Public Library's Burton Collection.

27. Adrian Expositor, May 28, 29, 1861; Monroe Commercial, June 6, 1861.

28. Hillsdale Standard, May 28, 1861. One of the young men who decided on the spot to go with the company that day, a James Smith, was never mustered into service. He may have just wanted to go along with them to Adrian.

29. Tecumseh Herald, May 30, 1861; Hudson Gazette, June 1, 1861.

30. Jonesville Independent, May 30 and Aug. 22, 1861.

31. Miranda Goheen diary (Tecumseh area), May 28, 1861, Bob Coch Collection; Albert H. Boies, “War Memories,” one of a series of articles based on Boies's diary published in the Adrian Daily Times, the first of which ran on March 20, 1886.

32. Boies, “War Memories,” Adrian Daily Times, March 20, 1886. The performance of Boies, Carleton, and the cadets was also remembered in the Hudson Gazette, Aug. 13, 1897.

33. Barlow to Friend Charley, June 4, 1861, Charles Bates Papers, Bentley Library; Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus, May 29, 1861.

34. Bancroft diary, May 30, 1861; DePuy letter, June 6, 1861, in the Ann Arbor Journal, May 29, 1861; Richardson to parents, May 31, 1861, Bentley Library; Hillsdale Standard, June 4, 1861.

35. Starr to Brother Hank, June 4, 1861, Bentley Library.

36. Richardson to parents, May 31, 1861, Bentley Library; Bancroft diary, June 5, 1861; James Gilmore Tuttle memoir (described as having been written by Tuttle in 1900 and early 1901), Bentley Library.

37. Taylor to sister, June 31, 1861, Taylor Collection; Robertson, Michigan in the War, p. 837.

38. Jonesville Independent, May 30, 1861; Hillsdale Standard, June 4, 1861; Adrian Expositor, June 7, 17 1861; Hudson Gazette, June 8, 1861; Brawl over food: Adrian Expositor, June 12, 1861; Detroit Free Press, June 15, 1861; Examination of enlistees: Barlow to Friend Charley, June 4, 1861, Bates Papers; William Vreeland statement, Vreeland pension file, National Archives; Wirts to friend Bill (transcript), June 9, 1861, William Carleton Papers, Hillsdale College Archives.

39. Richardson to parents, May 31, 1861; and Cleveland diary, June 5, 1861; Bancroft diary, June 1–3, 5, 7, 1861.

40. Monteith to parents, June 19, 1861, Bentley Library.

41. Detroit Free Press, June 15, 1861; Richardson to his brother, June 16, 1861, Bentley Library.

42. Woodbury to friends at home, June 16, 1861, Burton Collection; Detroit Daily Tribune, June 13 and 19, 1861.

43. Cleveland Herald, June 5, 1861; Adrian Expositor, June 7, 1861; Hillsdale Standard, June 11, 1861; Detroit Tribune, June 19, 1861.

44. Fountain to Woodbury, June 13, 1861, Woodbury Papers; Peninsular (Ann Arbor) Courier, June 25, 1861. Minié muskets were old-model smooth-bore weapons fitted with rifled barrels for better accuracy.

45. Detroit Daily Tribune, June 22, 1861; Steuben Republican, June 22 and June 30, 1861; Monteith to parents, June 19, 1861, Bentley Library.

46. Cameron to Blair, June 20, 1861 (telegram), Woodbury Papers; Robertson, Michigan in the War, p. 223; Adrian Expositor, June 20, 1861.

47. Adrian Expositor, June 22, 1861; Detroit Free Press, June 23, 1861.

48. Adrian Expositor, June 22, 1861; Detroit Free Press, June 18 and 23, 1861; Hudson Gazette, June 15, 1861; Bancroft diary, June 21, 1861.

49. Adrian Expositor, June 22, 1861. While some have questioned whether the regiment also had a flag bearing the state seal on a blue field—a typical regimental banner—John Bancroft's diary and news accounts of this ceremony refer only to this customized “stars and stripes” presented by Mrs. Wilcox. A historical sketch of the first several months of the regiment, undated but written by Chaplain Henry Strong, in the regiment's records in the State Archives of Michigan, also described the presentation of “a regimental flag”—that is, a single banner—by the Adrian women. This U.S. flag, known as the “Defend It” flag, is in the possession of the State of Michigan, in a secure, climate-controlled room with other state battle flags in the building housing the state library, museum, and archives.

50. Detroit Free Press, June 23, 1861; Bancroft diary, June 22, 1861. Bar fight: Adrian Expositor, June 22, 1861. Woodbury's stated policy about minors: Jonesville Independent, May 30, 1861; Adrian Expositor, June 27, 1861; William Vreeland statement, Vreeland pension file, National Archives. Bill Vreeland eventually joined the second incarnation of the 4th Michigan, the “reorganized” regiment in 1864.

51. Michigan Military Dept. to Woodbury, June 22, 1861 (telegram), Woodbury Papers; Bancroft diary, June 22, 24, 1861; Adrian Expositor, June 23, 1861.

52. Hudson Gazette, June 29, 1861; Bancroft diary, June 25, 1861.

53. Hudson Gazette, June 29, 1861; Whitney to John Robertson, Nov. 28, 1881, 4th Michigan records, State Archives. Whitney said kept his promise to Woodbury, returning his body from Virginia to Michigan in 1866, with the people of Adrian covering the expense.

54. Hudson Gazette, June 29, 1861; Adrian Expositor, June 25, 1861.

55. Bancroft diary, June 25, 1861.

Chapter 2. The Loss Is Great, the Confusion Greater

1. Toledo Blade, June 25, 1861; Hudson Gazette, June 29, 1861; Hillsdale Standard, July 9, 1861; Eli Starr to his father, June 27, 1861, Bentley Historical Library; and Bancroft diary, June 25 (26), 1861, RG 95, Special Collections & Archives, Auburn University Library; Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 25, 1861.

2. Orvey S. Barrett, The Old Fourth Michigan Infantry (Detroit: W. S. Ostler, 1888), p. 4. Hardtack was often spelled by soldiers as two words, “hard tack.” Cleveland Herald, June 26, 1861; Detroit Free Press, June 28, 1861; Steuben Journal, July 6, 1861.

3. Bancroft diary, June 25 (26), 1861; Detroit Free Press, June 28, 1861; Warren's injury: Adrian Expositor, June 27, 1861, and Jonesville Independent, July 4, 1861. The Dunkirk Union story about the injured soldier appeared in the Detroit Free Press; this article about the woman who aided the soldier didn't give his name, but the account matches reports on Warren's accident in the Adrian and Jonesville newspapers.

4. Hudson Gazette, July 6, 1861; Detroit Free Press, June 28, 1861; Hillsdale Standard, June 29, 1861; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, p. 4; Detroit Advertiser, July 2, 1861. In a speech at a regimental reunion decades later, Cole indicated the men made the racket in cattle cars at a point after they left Cleveland but before they reached Harrisburg (Adrian Daily Times & Expositor, June 20, 1901) and appears to have occurred as they left Elmira. The injured Rouse was discharged later that summer.

5. Starr to his father, June 27, 1861, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan; Bancroft diary, June 26 (27), 1861.

6. Bancroft diary, June 26 (27), 1861; Richardson to parents, June 28, 1861, Bentley Library; Hudson Gazette, June 26, 1861.

7. Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, p. 4; James Gilmore Tuttle memoir, pp. 1, 2, Bentley Library; Detroit Free Press, July 2, 3, 6, 1861; Detroit Tribune, July 5, 1861; Detroit Advertiser, June 3, 1861; Bancroft diary, July 1, 1861. “Buck and ball” muskets fired a lead ball or bullet and buckshot.

8. Tom Jones to friend Pete, June 28, 1861, in the Steuben Journal, July 6, 1861; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, pp. 4, 5; Detroit Free Press, July 6 and 9, 1861; Starr to his mother, July 4–5, 1861, Bentley Library.

9. Detroit Free Press, July 6, 9, 1861; Tuttle memoir, pp. 2, 3; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, p. 5.

10. Detroit Free Press, July 9, 1861; DePuy's letter appeared in the Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus, July 7, 1861; Starr to mother, July 4–5, 1861, and Spence to J. P. Cook, July 10, 1861, Bentley Library.

11. Bancroft diary, July 4, 1861; Allen to brother and sister (transcript) July 5, 1861, courtesy of Nancy Findley; Harrison Daniels reminiscence, Craig and Ann Emery and Hal Flynn; Barlow to Friend Charley, July 6, 1861, Charles Bates Papers, Bentley Library.

12. Spence to Cook, July 10, 1861, Bentley Library; Hudson Gazette, July 13, 1861.

13. Steuben Republican, July 13, 1861; Hudson Gazette, July 20, 1861.

14. United States War Department, The War of Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 70 vols. in 128 parts (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901), series 1, vol. 2, p. 315.

15. Jonesville Independent, July 25, 1861; Starr to mother, July 20, 1861, Bentley Library; Steuben Republican, July 27, 1861; Hudson Gazette, July 27, 1861, and Feb. 14, 1863.

16. Robert Garth Scott, Forgotten Valor: The Memoirs, Journals, & Civil War Letters of Orlando B. Willcox (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1999), p. 188; Richardson to his mother, July 20, 1861, Bentley Library; Monteith to dear parents, July 18, 1861, Bentley Library; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, pp. 5–6; Steuben Republican, July 27, 1861.

17. Tuttle memoir, pp. 3, 4.

18. Bancroft diary, July 16, 21, 1861; Barlow to Bates, Aug. 3, 1861, Bates Papers; William Limbarker diary, July 21, 1861, Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University. This soldier's name has also been variously spelled and interpreted as “Lembocker” and other variations, but the authors believe that Limbarker is correct.

19. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 3, 1861; extracts of McConnell's letters to his parents, Jonesville Independent, Aug. 8, 1861; Bush to wife, July 20 (21, 23), 1861, Bentley Library.

20. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 3 and 10, 1861; Robinson to Father & Mother, July 25, 1861, Bentley Library. Accounts show that the 1st South Carolina Infantry wasn't at the battle of Bull Run, but other troops from the state were there that day.

21. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 3 and 10, 1861; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, p. 7.

22. Taylor to Marie, Sept. 3, 1861, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

23. Bush to wife, July 23, 1861 (transcript), Bentley Library; Barlow to Bates, Aug. 3, 1861, Bates Papers; Hudson Gazette, Aug. 3, 1861; Steuben Republican, Aug. 3, 1861; Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus, July 25, 1861; Limbarker diary, July 21 (22), 1861.

24. Robinson to parents, July 25, 1861, and Monteith to parents, July 26, 1861, Bentley Library; Bancroft diary, July 22, 1861; Steuben Republican, Aug. 3, 1861.

25. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 10, 1861.

26. Tuttle memoir, p. 4; Monteith to parents, July 31, 1861, Bentley Library; Taylor to mother, brother, and sisters, Aug. 2, 1861, Taylor Collection.

27. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 3, 1861.

28. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 10, 1861, and June 19, 1896.

29. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 10, 1861; Scott, Forgotten Valor, p. 188; Woodbury to Robertson (telegram), Aug. 1, 1861, 4th Michigan regimental records, State Archives of Michigan.

30. Michael Vreeland's Aug. 7, 1861, letter to a friend, quoted in an article by Carl Vreeland, his grandson, in the Oregon (Portland) Journal, June 24, 1964, p. 8J. This was first of a three-part series titled “Letter from Civil War Battlefields” that ran on successive days on the paper's features page. Wirts to friend William, Aug. 5, 1861, Carleton Papers, Hillsdale College Archives; Limbarker diary, July 30, 1861; Bancroft diary, Aug. 11, 16, 29–31, 1861; Detroit Advertiser, Aug. 24, 1861; Steuben Republican, Aug. 24, 1861.

31. Monteith to parents, Aug. 10, 1861, Bentley Library; Jonesville Independent, Aug. 22, 1861.

32. Steuben Republican, Aug. 31, 1861; Redfield's Aug. 13 letter in the Batavia, N.Y. Republican Advocate, Aug. 24, 1861; Detroit Advertiser, Aug. 24, 1861 (signed J.M.B., the letter was probably written by Bancroft; on Oct. 5, 1861, Bancroft noted in his diary, “I occasionally write my friend, Col. Scripps of the Detroit Advertiser”).

33. Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, pp. 7–8.

34. Richardson to parents, Aug. 17, 1861, Bentley Library; Jonesville Independent, Aug. 22, 1861; Childs to Uncle, Aug. 15, 1861 (transcript), Hudson Museum.

35. Childs to Uncle, Aug. 15, 1861, Hudson Museum; Hudson Gazette, Aug. 10, 1861, and June 19, 1896; Monteith to parents (transcript), Aug. 20, 1861, Bentley Library.

36. Childs to Dear Uncle, Aug. 15, 1861, Hudson Museum; Taylor to Maria, Aug. 27, 1861, Taylor Collection.

37. Childs to Dear Uncle, Aug. 15, 1861, Hudson Museum; Taylor to Maria, Aug. 27, 1861, Taylor Collection; and Richardson to parents, Aug. 17, 1861, Bentley Library.

38. Tuttle memoir, pp. 9–10.

Chapter 3. McClellan Moves Slow but Sure

1. Jonesville Independent, Aug. 22, 1861.

2. This passage, taken from a Civil War–era newspaper, was quoted in a history of DeGolyer's community by Verdie Yager, Reflections on the Bean: History of the Hudson Area in Prose and Picture (Brooklyn, Mich.: Exponent Press, 1983), pp. 21–22.

3. An account of the escape appeared in Washington Star, Aug. 24, 1861, and was published in the Hudson Gazette on Aug. 31, 1861; Yager, Reflections on the Bean, pp. 21–22.

4. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 31, 1861; Yager, Reflections on the Bean, pp. 21–22.

5. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 31 and Sept. 7, 1861; Yager, Reflections on the Bean, pp. 21–22.

6. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 31 and Sept. 7, 1861; Yager, Reflections on the Bean, pp. 21–22; United States Naval War Records Office, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, 30 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1894–1922), series 1, vol. 4, p. 768.

7. Yager, Reflections on the Bean, p. 22.

8. Tuttle memoir, pp. 6–7, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Scott, Forgotten Valor, pp. 307, 309, n., 314, n. Various histories that discuss the issue of the status of prisoners held as criminals center on Union and Confederate officers, not enlisted men. The names of Union officers who faced retaliatory execution were published, but Tuttle, who was not an officer, is not listed among them.

9. Tuttle memoir, pp. 13–15. The Withington diary was cited in a Michigan newspaper article, “Diary Tells the Story of Confederate Jail,” by Philip Mason, historian and Wayne State University professor, dated January 29, 1961. This article was part of a Civil War centennial series written for the Associated Press.

10. Tuttle memoir, pp. 16–18; Scott, Forgotten Valor, p. 313.

11. Tuttle memoir, pp. 21–23.

12. Ibid., pp. 24–27.

13. Ibid., pp. 28–29.

14. Ibid., pp. 30–34.

15. Chamberlain's opinion on Dr. Clark: Hudson Gazette, June 19, 1896; Lumbard's illness: Jonesville Independent, Sept. 19, 1861.

16. Woodbury to Blair, Aug. 29, 1861, Austin Blair Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library; Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus, Sept. 27, 1861; Vreeland to Dear Sister, Sept. 19, 1861, quoted in Carl Vreeland, “Letters from Civil War Battlefields,” pt. 1, in the Oregon (Portland) Journal, June 24, 1964.

17. Hudson Gazette, Sept. 7, 14, 21, 1861; Jonesville Independent, Sept. 19, 1861; Sturgis Journal, Sept. 12, 1861; Michigan Adjutant General, Records of Service of Michigan Volunteers in the Civil War, vol. 4 (Kalamazoo: Ihling Bros & Everard, 1905), p. 10; Hudson Gazette, Sept. 21, 1861; Richardson to parents and brother, Sept. 13, 1861, Bentley Library. Levi Courtright's name is given as Cortright in news accounts and some records.

18. Richardson to parents and brother, Sept. 13, 1861; and Monteith to parents, Sept. 12, 1861, both in the Bentley Library.

19. Taylor to mother, Sept. 22, 1861, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

20. Jeffords to friends, Sept. 20, 1861, Jeffords pension file, National Archives.

21. Richardson to parents and brother, Sept. 21, 1861, Bentley Library; Jeffords to Dear Friends, Sept. 20, 1861, Jeffords pension file, National Archives; Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus, Sept. 27, 1861.

22. Richardson to——, Sept. 30, 1861, Bentley Library.

23. Blair to Robertson, Sept. 25, 1861, 4th Michigan regimental records, State Archives of Michigan; Albert H. Boies, “War Memories No. 2,” Adrian Daily Times, March 27, 1886; Hudson Gazette, Sept. 7, 14, Oct. 18, 1861.

24. Woodbury to Blair, Oct. 10, 1861, Blair Papers.

25. Woodbury to Blair, Oct. 10, 1861, Blair Papers. A resident of Hudson wrote to the Detroit Free Press saying that DeGolyer had been a Democrat who favored Stephen Douglas in the 1860 presidential election, but that his experience as a prisoner of the Confederates made him into an “out and out abolitionist.” DeGolyer gave a speech about this conversion when he got back to Michigan in the fall of 1861, and Governor Blair approved of his change of heart. “This speech won for him the promotion to Major,” claimed the writer, who signed his letter “Junius.” Detroit Free Press, April 2, 1862.

26. Jeffords to friends, Oct. 12 [1861], Jeffords pension file, National Archives; Taylor to Dear Maria, Aug. 16, 1861, Taylor Collection; Taylor to (Michigan) Adjutant General, Sept. 24, 1861, 4th Michigan records, State Archives of Michigan; Allen to sisters, Oct. 2, 1861 (transcript), continuation of a letter begun on Sept. 28, 1862, courtesy of Nancy Findley.

27. OR, series 1, vol. 5, p. 219.

28. Phelps to brother (transcript), Oct. 5, 1861, Jeff Phelps.

29. Hudson Gazette (excerpt of Woodbury's correction to the New York Times), Oct. 19, 1861

30. Hudson Gazette, Oct. 19, 1861; Moses Luce memoir, Edgar A Luce Jr.; OR, series 1, vol. 5, p. 217.

31. Bancroft diary, Sept. 30, Oct. 1, 1861, RG 95 Special Collections & Archives, Auburn University; and Richardson to——, Oct. 5, 1861, Bentley Library.

32. Hillsdale Standard, Oct. 22, 1861; Hudson Gazette, Oct. 26, 1861; Jonesville Independent, Oct. 30, 1861.

33. Robinson to father & mother, Oct. 27, 1861, Bentley Library; Hudson Gazette, Nov. 2, 1861; New York World dispatch printed in Detroit Free Press, Oct. 26, 1861.

34. Hudson Gazette, Nov. 2, 9, 16, and Dec. 7, 1861; Seage diary, Oct. 18, 1861, Steve Roberts. Captain DePuy explained James Murphy's sentence in a Feb. 19, 1862, letter published in the Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus, Feb. 28, 1862. Limbarker's court-martial record, Feb. 20, 1862, National Archives.

35. Jeffords to friends, (date illegible, but probably Nov. 24, 1861), Jeffords pension file, National Archives; Richardson to Dear Parents & Brother, Nov. 23, 1861, and Robinson to Dear Father, Nov. 24, 1861, Bentley Library. The dateline of Jeffords's letter from Minor's Hill and the description of the review indicate it occurred on Nov. 20, 1861.

36. Hillsdale Standard, Oct. 29, 1861; Richardson to parents & brother, Oct. 5, 13, and 27, 1861, Bentley Library; J. Barnes to Dear Ma & Father, Oct. 27, 1861, Roger Walcott Collection, Archives and Regional History Collections, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo.

37. Westgate to Dear Brother, Nov. 2, 1861 (copy and transcript), provided by Kenneth D. Andrews. The “town where Uncle Silas was from” may be Westgate's reference to Tecumseh, where Company G was formed. Harrison Daniels, who served in the company and wrote a brief memoir of his Civil War experience for his family, made no mention of women in the company or regiment.

38. Limbarker diary, Aug. 29, 1861; Bancroft diary, Oct. 31, 1861; Hudson Gazette, Dec. 7, 1861.

39. Taylor to Lottie, Nov. 25, 1861, Taylor Collection.

40. Hudson Gazette, Dec. 7, 1861.

41. Richardson to Dear Parents & Brother, Dec. 14, 1861, Bentley Library.

42. McCarty to friend William, Dec. 7, 1861, Will Carleton Papers, Hillsdale College Archives; Seage diary Nov. 2, 10, 12, 1861; Monroe Monitor, probably December, n.d., 1861; Ann Arbor Journal, Jan. 1, 1862; Hillsdale Standard, n.d., probably Feb. 1862; Hudson Gazette, Dec. 21, 1861.

43. Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, pp. 30–33; Richardson to Parents and Brother, Dec. 22, 1861, Bentley Library; Hudson Gazette, Dec. 21, 1861.

Chapter 4. We Shall Go into the Storm of Battle with Brave Hearts

1. Sadler to Father and Mother, Jan. 4, 1862, from a private collector (copies of Sadler's letters are in the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan); Richardson to Dear Parents & Brother, Dec. 22 and 29, 1861, Bentley Library; Henry Seage diary, Dec. 25, 1861, Steve Roberts; McCarty to Friend Will (transcript), Jan. 2, 1862, Will Carleton Papers, Hillsdale College Archive; Hudson Gazette, Jan. 18 and Feb. 22, 1862; Limbarker's second diary, Dec. 25, 1861, Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University; Hillsdale Standard, February 4, 1862; Monteith to My dear mother, Jan. 2, 1862, Bentley Library.

2. Limbarker diary, Dec. 23, 1861. A letter in the Detroit Free Press, April 3, 1862 by “Junius” stated DeGolyer was given a new commission by Blair after he got in this trouble and resigned from the 4th Michigan. He was made captain of the 1st Michigan Light Artillery, Battery H. DeGolyer was fatally wounded near Vicksburg, Mississippi, on May 28, 1863.

3. Limbarker diary, Dec. 15 and 23, 1861, and Jan. 22, 1862; Blair to Robertson (for Cole's commission to major), Jan. 4, 1862, 4th Michigan records, State Archives of Michigan, Lansing; the story about Preston's return in Feb. 1862 was reprinted 75 years later in the Hudson Post Gazette, Feb. 11, 1937; Lumbard to Col. Backus, Feb. 5, 1862, regimental records, State Archives; Charles Doolittle diary, Jan. 11 and 14, 1862, private collector; Enoch Davis diary, Jan. 6–31, 1862, Fulton County Historical Museum, Wauseon, Ohio.

4. Starr to Dear Father, Jan. 9, 1862, Bentley Library. Akers, Starr's friend, joined the regiment after having a scrape with the law—an incident in which Akers stole 50 cents from a man. Starr wrote this was Akers's first offense and that it was better for him to be allowed to join the army than be prosecuted.

5. Starr to Dear Father, Jan. 9, 1862; Richardson to Dear Parents & Brother, Jan. 12, 1862, and Clark to Em, Jan. 19, 1862, all from Bentley Library; Irvin Miner diary, Jan. 13 and 17, 1862, Robert Walkowiak; Silas Sadler diary, Jan. 23, 1862, private collector.

6. Limbarker diary, Jan. 17, 1862. A two-page document from the records of the Adjutant General in the National Archives, dated Feb. 20, 1862, at Hall's Hill, Va., and marked “Special Orders No. 80,” shows the charges and specifications against Limbarker, as well as the record of his acquittal. Boies, “War Memories No. 2”; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, pp. 33–34.

7. For example, Regan noted on February 27, while skirmishing with Confederates over possession of a barn, that some of his comrades built their own “cannon” using a stovepipe, wagon wheels, and a pole, causing Rebel cavalrymen second thoughts about attacking. When pickets from the 4th Michigan came to relieve Regan's comrades, they turned this field piece over to the Michigan soldiers. Timothy J. Regan, The Lost Civil War Diaries (Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing, 2003), p. 38.

8. Blowers letter, March 3, 1862 in Hudson Gazette, March 15, 1862.

9. Hillsdale Standard, March 25, 1862; Jeffry D. Wert, The Sword of Lincoln: The Army of the Potomac (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), pp. 62–63; Albert H. Boies, “War Memories No. 3,” Adrian Daily Times, April 3, 1886; Hudson Gazette, March 29, 1862; George Millens diary, March 9, 10, 11, 1862, Glen McQueen.

10. Taylor to dear Mother, April 2, 1862, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Robinson to Dear Father & Mother, April 28, 1862, Bentley Library; Millens diary, March 12, 1862; Hillsdale Standard, March 25, 1862.

11. Millens diary, March 15, 16, 22, 23, 1862; Cressey to Dear Brother, March 17, 1862, Lynn Bryant; Seage diary, March 18, 1862; Sadler diary, March 20, 1862; Doolittle diary, March 21, 1862; Phelps to Dear Brother, March 31, 1862, Jeff Phelps; Monteith to dear Mother (transcript) March 24, 1862, Bentley Library.

12. Seage diary, March 22 and 23, 1862; Monteith to dear Mother, March 24, 1862, Bentley Library; Phelps to Dear Brother, March 31, 1862, Jeff Phelps; Webster to Dear Mother (transcript), March 25, 1862, Steve Bucher and Rose Miller; Hudson Gazette, May 10, 1862; Richardson's letter published in the Ann Arbor Journal, April 9, 1862.

13. Millens diary, March 23–28, 1862; Davis diary, March 23–28, 1862; Daniels reminiscence, Craig and Ann Emery, Hal Flynn; Henry Seage, History of Co. E, 4^th Mich. Infantry, 1861–1864 (Lansing: Thompson & Van Buren, 1897), p.10.

14. Taylor to Dear Mother, April 2, 1862, Taylor Collection; OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, pp. 298–99.

15. Boies's story: “War Memories No. 4,” Adrian Daily Times, April 10, 1886. Boies wrote that the incident occurred on April 3 near Big Bethel, but other accounts place it on April 4 near Cocklestown: Seage diary, April 4, 1862.

16. Hudson Gazette, April 13, 1862; Taylor to dear Sister Lottie, April 14, 1862, Taylor Collection; Detroit Free Press, April 12, 1862; Hillsdale Standard, April 23, 1862.

17. Millens diary, April 5 and 6, 1862; Doolittle diary, April 5, 1862; Thomskins (probably Thompkins) pension record, National Archives; Hudson Gazette, April 13, 1862; Monroe Commercial, May 1, 1862.

18. OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, pp. 299–300; Wert, The Sword of Lincoln, p. 72; Miner diary, April 6–9, 1862.

19. Miner diary, April 7, 1862; Davis diary, April 8, 1862; Doolittle diary, April 8, 1862; Millens diary, April 9, 1862; Seage, History of Co. E, pp. 11–12; Hudson Gazette, May 10, 1862; Heintzelman's compliment: Supplement to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Wilmington, N.C.: Broadfoot Publishing, 1996), vol. 2, p. 31.

20. Sturgis Journal, April 17, 1862; Miner diary, April 8–18, 1862; Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus, April 23, 1862; Millens diary, April 10–18, 1862. Chamberlain's story about Carver in an 1884 publication called The Veteran, printed semimonthly and then weekly between 1883 and 1885, first in Lansing and then in Detroit. A copy of this clipping in the authors' possession quotes Chamberlain's tale. Carver survived the war, became a druggist in Angola, and served in various public positions, including postmaster and state senator; Jesse H. Carpenter, The War for the Union, 1861–1865: A Record of its Defenders Living and Dead from Steuben County, Indiana (Angola, Ind.: R. H. Carpenter, 1888–89), p. 8.

21. Davis diary, April 17, 1862; Alfred Davenport, Camp and Field Life of the Fifth New York Volunteer Infantry (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1879), p. 160; Doolittle diary, April 18, 1862; Hudson Gazette, May 16, 1862; Monroe Commercial, May 1, 1862; Earle (4th Michigan adjutant) to John Robertson, April 26, 1862, Bentley Library; death of the Reverend Strong's children: April 7, 1862, telegram to Woodbury; and Strong to Woodbury, April 11, 1862 (application for leave), both in military pension records of Strong, National Archives.

22. William Clark to Blair, April 22 and June 30, 1862, and Joseph Clark to Blair, June 21, 1862, all in Austin Blair Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library; Boies, “War Memories No. 2” and “War Memories No. 3.”

23. Millens diary, April 29, 1862; Taylor to Sister Lottie, April 14 (15), 1862, Taylor Collection; Sadler to Father and Mother, April 22, 1862, private collector.

24. Woodbury to Blair, May 2, 1862, Blair Papers.

25. Miner diary, May 2–4, 1862; Seage diary, May 2–4; Richardson to Dear Parents & Brother, May 4 (5), 1862, Bentley Library; Hudson Gazette, May 24 and 31, 1862; Phelps to Dear Brother, May 17, 1862, Jeff Phelps.

26. Davis diary, May 12, 1862; Hudson Gazette, May 24 and May 31, 1862; Monroe Commercial, May 29, 1862; Ann Arbor Journal, May 12, 1862; Seage diary, May 13, 1862; Millens diary, May 13, 1862; Doolittle diary, May 13, 1862.

27. Bancroft, Miner, Millen, and Seage diaries, May 14–19, 1862; Monroe Commercial, May 29, 1862.

28. Davis diary, May 20–23, 1862; Seage diary, May 20–23, 1862; Millens diary, May 21–23, 1862; Miner diary, May 20–23, 1862; Sadler diary, May 22, 23, 1862; Edward Taylor to sister Lottie, May 21, 1862, Taylor Collection; Monroe Commercial, May 29, 1862.

29. Fisher court-martial: Davis diary, May 23, 1862; Carpenter, War for the Union, p. 7; Letter by “Volunteer,” a pen name attributed to Woodbury, in Williams County (Bryan, Ohio) Leader, June 5, 1862. While printers dated the letter May 25, it was probably written on May 23, given that it says nothing of the New Bridge skirmish that took place on May 24 and gained national attention for Woodbury's regiment. Biographical materials about Woodbury state he lived in Ohio before making Adrian his home. This is one of three letters to the Bryan paper attributed by archivists to Woodbury in the Bowling Green State University's Center for Archival Collections, Newspaper Collection, Bowling Green, Ohio.

30. OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, pp. 652–54; a story about this day from the New York Herald, datelined Cold Harbor, March 24, 1862, was printed in the Hillsdale Standard of June 3, 1862; Detroit Free Press, May 29, 1862.

31. OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, p. 665; Monroe Commercial, June 12, 1861; James (Jay) Monaghan, Custer: The Life of General George Armstrong Custer (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971), p. 81; Richardson's May 25 letter in the Ann Arbor Journal, June 4, 1862.

32. OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, p. 665; Ann Arbor Journal, June 4, 1862; Steuben Republican, June 7, 1862. Robinson to Dear Father & Mother, May 5 (June 5), 1862, Bentley Library. Robinson clearly described the May 24 skirmish at New Bridge in this letter, which he wrongly dated May rather than June; Orvey S. Barrett would write in his book, The Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, that he saw Custer cross the river four times that day, p. 13.

33. Millens diary, May 24 and 25, 1862; Ann Arbor Journal, June 4, 1862; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, p. 13; Sturgis Journal, June 8, 1862; Miner diary, May 24, 1862; Phelps to Dear Brother, May 30, 1862, Jeff Phelps; OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, pp. 654, 665.

34. Spalding story: his obituary, Monroe News Courier, September, 1915; Fisher: Carpenter, War for the Union, p. 7. As noted previously, Fisher's court-martial on May 23 was recorded by diarist Enoch Davis, also in Company B.

35. OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, pp. 652, 654; Steuben Republican, June 7, 1862; Phelps to Dear Brother, May 30, 1862, Jeff Phelps; Monaghan, Custer, p. 82; OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, pp. 652, 654.

36. OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, pp. 652, 654; Robertson, Michigan in the War, p. 224; New York Herald, June 3, 1862; Hudson Gazette, June 7, 1862; Steuben Republican, June 19, 1862; “Volunteer” (Woodbury) to Editor Leader, May 26, 1862, in the Williams County Leader, June 12, 1862, Bowling Green University Newspaper Collection.

37. Joseph B. Clark to Blair, June 21, 1862, Blair Papers; Robinson to parents, May (June) 5, 1862, Bentley Library.

38. OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, pp. 651, 654; Seage diary, May 24, 1862.

Chapter 5. A Whirlwind of Bullets, Yells, and Shrieks

1. George Millens diary, May 25 and 26, 1862, Glen McQueen; Henry Seage diary, May 25, 1862, Steve Roberts; Charles Doolittle diary, Mary 25 and 26, 1862, private collector; Sturgis Journal, June 8, 1862; Irvin Miner diary, May 26, 1862, Robert Walkowiak.

2. Millens diary, May 27, 1862; OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, pp. 33, 717.

3. OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, p. 34; Millens diary, May 27, 1862.

4. Millens diary, May 27, 1862; Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus, June 6, 1862; OR, vol. 11, pt. 1, p. 718; Robinson to Dear Father, May 28, 1862, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan; Miner diary, May 27, 1862.

5. Millens diary, May 28, 1862; Phelps to Dear Brother, May 30, 1862, Jeff Phelps; Miner diary, May 28, 1862; Ann Arbor Journal, June 11, 1862; Robinson to Dear Father, May 28, 1862, Bentley Library; Hudson Gazette, Aug. 26, 1862.

6. Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, pp. 16, 17; Albert H. Boies, “War Memories No. 6,” Adrian Daily Times, April 24, 1886. Boies later thought that this incident happened on the regiment's march back with its brigade after the fighting at Mechanicsville on June 26, but Barrett placed the incident on the return from Hanover Court House, a month earlier on the same road.

7. Millens diary, May 30, 31, 1862; Silas Sadler diary, May 30, 1862, private collector; Wert, The Sword of Lincoln, pp. 84–89; Ann Arbor Journal, June 11, 1862; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, p. 14; Hudson Gazette, Aug. 26, 1862; Miner diary, June 1, 1862.

8. Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus, July 4 and 11, 1862; Richardson to parents, June 8, 1862, Bentley Library.

9. Richardson to parents, June 8, 1862, Bentley Library; Phelps to Dear Brother, June 14, 1862, Jeff Phelps.

10. Boies, “War Memories No. 5,” Adrian Daily Times, April 17, 1886.

11. Taylor to Dear Sister, July 14, 1862, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith Colleges. In this letter, Taylor estimated that Cole had gone crazy from sunstroke “some six weeks” earlier; Doolittle diary, June 3, 1862; Cole to Blair, June 24, 1862, Austin Blair Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library; McCarty to Friend Will, June 22, 1862 (transcript), Will Carleton Papers, Hillsdale College Archives.

12. Clark to Blair, June 12, 1862, Blair Papers.

13. Taylor to dear Mother, Bro. & Sisters, May 28, 1862; Taylor to dear friends at home, June 9, 1862; and Taylor to Sister Lottie, June 18, 1862; and Taylor to dear Sister Anna, June 21, 1862, all from Taylor Collection.

14. Bancroft diary, June 7, 8, 1862, RG 95, Special Collections & Archives, Auburn University Library; Davenport, Camp and Field Life, fn. p. 203; Miner diary, June 18, 1862; Enoch Davis diary, June 14, 1862, Fulton County (Ohio) Historical Museum; Seage diary, June 12, 1862; Millens diary, June 8, 15, 1862.

15. Starr note to——, June 8, 1862, Bentley Library; Bancroft diary, June 15, 1862.

16. Millens diary, June 20, 22, 23, 1862; Miner diary, June 25, 1862; Bancroft diary, June 25, 26, 1862.

17. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 16, 1862.

18. Chapin to Dear Thad, July 4, 1862, Marshall W. Chapin Papers, Burton Collection; Hudson Gazette, Aug. 16, 1862; OR, vol. 11, pt. 2, pp. 227, 271, 272, 312, 384, 386, 399.

19. Chapin to Dear Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers; Davis diary, June 26, 1862; Doolittle diary, June 26, 1862; Hudson Gazette, Aug. 16, 1862; OR, vol. 11, pt. 2, pp. 313, 399.

20. Wert, The Sword of Lincoln, pp. 102–3.

21. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 16, 1862; Chapin to Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers; Randolph to Robertson, July 5, 1862, 4th Michigan records, State Archives of Michigan; Doolittle diary, June 27, 1862; Bancroft diary, June 27, 1862.

22. OR, vol. 11, pt. 2, pp 272, 273, 313; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, pp. 16–17; Chapin to Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers; A. H. Boies, “Brave Old Woodbury,” National Tribune, March 19, 1896; Randolph to Robertson, July 5, 1862, 4th Michigan records, State Archives.

23. OR, vol. 11, pt. 2, pp. 273, 313, 420; Millens diary, June 27, 1862; Chapin to Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers.

24. Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative (New York: Random House, 1958), pp. 485–89; OR, vol. 11, pt. 2, p. 273; Chapin to Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers.

25. Robertson, Michigan in the War, p. 226; OR, vol. 11, pt. 2, p. 313; Randolph to Robertson, July 5, 1862, regimental records, Archives of Michigan; Chapin to Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers. Randolph's report stated that Childs was wounded, as do casualty sheets filed in Childs's pension papers, National Archives. Yet some subsequent newspaper reports in the summer of 1862 list him as sick and removed from the front to recover. Years afterward his wife would say a bullet had struck a tobacco box in his pocket.

26. Chapin to Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers.

27. Chapin to Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers; Converse's description of DePuy's death: Barry to E. B. Pond, July 13, 1862, in the Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus.

28. Millens's diary, June 27, 1862; Barlow's account: transcript of a letter, Barlow to DuPont, March 1, 1885, Archive and Regional History Collection, Western Michigan University. A copy of this letter is also in the Bentley Historical Library. Boies, “War Memories, No. 6” and “Brave Old Woodbury”; Chapin to Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers; Seage diary, June 27, 1862.

29. Chapin to Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers; Seage diary, June 27, 1862; Millens diary, June 27, 1862.

30. Millens diary, June 27, 1862; Barlow to DuPont, March 1, 1885, Western Michigan University.

31. Bancroft diary, June 27, 1862; Chapin to Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers; Hudson Gazette, Aug. 30, 1862; William F. Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War (Albany: Albany Publishing, 1889), p. 383; Michigan Adjutant General, Records of Service, pp. 8, 23, 31, 49; Loveland report, July 28, 1862, 4th Michigan records, State Archives; Miner diary, June 27, 1862.

32. The story is in War Anecdotes and Incidents of Army Life: Reminiscences from Both Sides of the Conflict between North and South by Albert Lawson (Cincinnati: E. H. Beasley, 1888), pp. 23–24. Some regimental records give Sanders's name as Saunders. Magruder was brevetted lieutenant colonel for his actions during the Mexican War.

Chapter 6. At It We Went Tooth and Nail

1. Henry Seage diary, June 28, 1862, Steve Roberts; Hudson Gazette, Aug. 30, 1862; Michigan Adjutant General, Records of Service, p. 66.

2. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 30, 1862; Chapin to Dear Thad, July 4, 1862, Marshall W. Chapin Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library; George Millens diary, June 29, 30, 1862, Glen McQueen; John Bancroft diary, June 29, 1862, RG 95, Special Collections and Archives, Auburn University Library.

3. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 30, 1862; Millens diary, June 30, 1862; OR, vol. 11, pt. 2, p. 274.

4. Hudson Gazette, Aug. 30, 1862; Hillsdale Standard, July 22, 1862; Millens diary, June 30, 1862; Jeffords to Friend Tip, July 7, 1862, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

5. Joseph Clark to Blair, June 21, 1862, and Dr. Clark to Blair, June 30, 1862, Austin Blair Papers, Burton Collection. Clark's controversial service with the 19th Michigan is in William M. Anderson's They Died to Make Men Free: A History of the 19th Michigan Infantry in the Civil War (Dayton: Morningside Books, 1994). Years later Chamberlain claimed Governor Blair made Clark the 4th Michigan's surgeon, rather than promoting him from assistant surgeon, as a slap. Chamberlain said he considered resigning over this insult, but officers and men of the regiment asked him to stay. After this affair created hard feelings among some voters back home, Chamberlain wrote, Governor Blair did make him the regiment's surgeon after moving Clark to another regiment. Hudson Gazette, June 19, 1896.

6. Bancroft diary, July 1, 1862; Millens diary, July 1, 1862; Chapin to Dear Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers; Lumbard's account, Hillsdale Standard, July 22, 1862; Phelps to Dear Brother (transcript), July 4, 1862, Jeff Phelps; Hudson Gazette, Sept. 20, 1862; OR, vol. 11, pt. 2, pp. 274, 275, 279, 314.

7. Hillsdale Standard, July 22, 1862; Bancroft diary, July 1, 1862; Millens diary, July 1, 1862; OR, vol. 11, pt. 2, pp. 275, 276; Randolph to Robertson, July 5, 1862, regimental records, State Archives of Michigan. Sgt. James Vesey, in a letter to a local newspaper in Michigan after the battle, wrote that Childs was “very sick” but said nothing about him being wounded; other news reports listed him as sick, though Randolph reported him as wounded.

8. Millens diary, July 1, 1862; Chapin to Dear Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers.

9. Phelps to Dear Brother (transcript), July 4, 1862, Jeff Phelps; Chapin to Dear Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers; Millens diary, July 1, 1862; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, p. 17; Boies, “Malvern Hill,” National Tribune, Feb. 13, 1896; Hillsdale Standard, July 22, 1862; Regan, Lost Civil War Diaries, p. 63; J. F. Gilmore, “With the 4th Mich.,” National Tribune, July 7, 1910.

10. Chapin to Dear Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers; Hillsdale Standard, July 17 (including information from the Adams letter, dated July 7) and July 22, 1862; Jackson Eagle, Aug. 2, 1862, quoting Chamberlain in the Adrian Watchtower; Randolph to Robertson, July 5, 1862, Bentley Library; Monroe Monitor, July 9, 1862.

11. Randolph to Robertson, July 5, 1862, regimental records, State Archives; Hillsdale Standard, July 22, 1862

12. Hillsdale Standard, July 22, 1862; Hudson Gazette, Feb. 22, 1924; Boies told in three different postwar accounts of the bullet tearing through his diary: “War Memories No. 4,” “War Memories No. 6,” and “Malvern Hill.” Forncrook: Moses Luce, “A Brave Cook,” National Tribune, March 23, 1915; McCarty pension file, National Archives. McCarty lost rank as a result of his actions that day.

13. OR, vol. 11, pt. 2, p. 314; Taylor to Dear Mother, July 4, 1862, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Hillsdale Standard, July 17 and 22, 1862.

14. OR, vol. 11, pt. 2, p. 279; Chapin to Dear Thad, July 4, 1862, Chapin Papers; Woodbury's body: Hudson Gazette, July 26, 1862; Randolph to Robertson, July 5, 1862, State Archives.

15. Fox, Regimental Losses, p. 383; OR, vol. 11, pt. 2, p. 314; Hillsdale Standard, July 22, 1862.

16. Bancroft diary, July 1, 1862; Vesey's July 12 letter published in Sturgis Journal, undated clipping in the files of the authors, late July or Aug. 1862; Charles Doolittle diary, July 1, 1862, private collector; Enoch Davis diary, July 1, 1862, Fulton County Historical Museum.

17. Boies, “Malvern Hill,” and Hudson Post Gazette, Feb. 22, 1924; Doolittle diary, July 2, 1862; Seage diary, July 14–15, 1862; Monroe Commercial, July 31, 1862; Webster to Dear Mother, July 5, 1862, Steve Bucher and Rose Miller; Hudson Gazette, July 26 and Sept. 20, 1862. Woodbury's body was recovered in 1866 and taken back to Adrian for burial.

18. Millens diary, July 3, 6, 7, and 8, 1862; Phelps to Dear Brother, Aug. 9, 1862, Jeff Phelps; Moses Luce memoir, p. 9, Edgar A. Luce Jr.; Bancroft diary, July 3–7, 1862; Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 11, 1862.

19. Jeffords to Friend Tip, July 7, 1862, Bentley Library. The promotions within the regiment are from Griffin to Locke, July 12, 1862, 4th Michigan regimental records, State Archives of Michigan; Fifth Corps' Special Order No. 75, July 14, 1862, reported in the Hillsdale Standard; and a letter, J. Webster Childs to Blair, July 15, 1862, Blair Papers. In this letter, Colonel Child's father wrote that his son wanted Lumbard commissioned lieutenant colonel. The July 15, 1862, diary entry of Capt. Charles Doolittle also noted the promotions of Childs, Lumbard, and Randolph by Porter. Strong's resignation: Special Order No. 84, July 20, 1862, Fifth Army Corps, National Archives; Harrison Daniels reminiscence, Craig and Ann Emery and Hal Flynn.

20. Taylor to dear Sister, July 14, 1862, Taylor Collection; Seage diary, July 14 and Aug. 2, 1862; Millens diary, July 18, 20, 23, Aug. 1, 2, 1862; Hudson Gazette, July 26, 1862; Monroe Commercial, July 3 and Aug. 7, 1862; Bancroft diary, Aug. 1 and 2, 1862.

21. Vesey's July 12, 1862, letter to the Sturgis Journal; Bancroft diary, Aug. 5, 1862.

22. Davenport, Camp and Field Life, pp. 121–22.

23. The recording of the muster-out of the 4th Michigan's band on Aug. 10, 1864: Supplement to Official Records, pt. 2, vol. 30, p. 606. The order for the mustering out of regimental bands: OR, series 3, vol. 2, p. 336.

24. The summation of Miner's experiences as a prisoner to his release: Various entries in his diary, June 28–Aug. 6, 1862. Tim Regan of the 9th Massachusetts was among the prisoners released with Miner. Regan said that on Aug. 5, when the marching column of prisoners was halted in the town of Manchester, a drunken Rebel soldier challenged “some Yankee to fight him,” and that “a man from the 4th Michigan accommodated him,” giving the Reb “a good whipping” before any Confederate officers could stop it; Regan, Lost Civil War Diaries, p. 76.

25. Bancroft diary, Millens diary, Miner diary, and Seage diary, Aug. 10–16, 1862.

26. Diaries of Bancroft, Millens, Miner, and Seage, Aug. 17–27, 1862.

27. Diaries of Bancroft, Millens, Miner, and Seage, Aug. 28–29, 1862. The background regarding Pope and Porter is from Otto Eisenschiml, The Celebrated Case of Fitz John Porter (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950). Dr. William F. Breakey of the 16th Michigan also witnessed soldiers foraging from the old woman's cabin and property: “Recollections and Incidents of Medical Military Service,” Michigan Military Order of the Loyal Legion, War Papers, vol. 2 (Detroit: James H. Stone, 1898), pp. 126–27.

28. Bancroft diary, Aug. 29, 30, 1862; Seage diary, Aug. 29, 30, 1862; Millens diary, Aug. 30, 1862.

29. Bancroft diary, Aug 31, 1862; Taylor to My dear Sister Lottie, Sept. 20, 1862, Taylor Collection; Phelps to Dear Brother, September (n.d.), 1862, Jeff Phelps. The saga of Porter's court-martial and quest for justice is in Eisenschiml, Celebrated Case.

30. James Henry's wound while marching with the 11th Massachusetts: Henry pension record, National Archives; Chamberlain told the story of the controversies involving Blair, Clark, and himself in the Hudson Gazette, Jan. 19, 1896. A letter supporting Chamberlain for regimental surgeon was sent to Blair by a member of the Boies family in Hudson, July 30, 1862, Blair Papers.

31. Bancroft and Seage diaries, Sept. 1–3, 1862; Hudson Gazette, Sept. 20, 1862, and April 19, 1895.

Chapter 7. The Sight Was Horrible and One I Hope I Never See Again

1. John Bancroft, Henry Seage, George Millens, Charles Doolittle, Silas Sadler, and Irvin Miner diaries, various dates Sept. 3–12, 1862, respectively from the Special Collections and Archives, Auburn University; Steve Roberts; Glen McQueen, a private collector (Doolittle and Sadler), and Robert Walkowiak; Doolittle resignation, Sept. 4, 1862, 4th Michigan records, State Archives of Michigan.

2. Bancroft, Seage, Millens, Sadler, and Miner diaries, Sept. 13–16; Phelps to Dear Brother, September (no date), 1862, courtesy of Jeff Phelps; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 17.

3. Bancroft, Seage, and Miner diaries, Sept. 17, 1862; Phelps to Dear Brother, September (no date), 1862, Jeff Phelps; Chamberlain to Hinchman, Oct. 13, 1862, Theodore Hinchman Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library; Hudson Gazette, Oct. 11, 1862.

4. OR, vol. 19, pt. 1, p. 349; OR, vol. 19, pt. 1, p. 345; Seage diary, Sept. 18, 1862; Miner diary, Sept. 18, 1862; Millens diary, Sept. 18, 1862.

5. Seage and Bancroft diaries, Sept. 19, 1862; Sturgis Journal, Oct. 9, 1862; Phelps to Dear Brother, Sept. 1862, Jeff Phelps; Hudson Gazette, Oct. 11, 1862. Campbell, “Service with the Old 4th Michigan Infantry,” a handwritten paper for the Michigan Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS), Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

6. Sturgis Journal, Oct. 9, 1862; Taylor to dear Sister Lottie, Sept. 20, 1862, and Taylor to dear Sister Marie, Oct. 11, 1862, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Hudson Gazette, Oct. 11, 1862.

7. Sturgis Journal, Oct. 9, 1862; Bancroft and Miner diaries, Sept. 19, 1862; William H. Powell, The Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1896), p. 301; Sadler to Dear Father and Mother (transcript), Sept. 26, 1862, a private collector; Hillsdale Standard, Nov. 15, 1862.

8. The account of General Porter urging a medal of honor be given to Colonel Childs is from an unidentified fragment, possibly from the Monroe Commercial, in group of post–Civil War newspaper clippings dating from the late 19th century to the 1960s. These are in the Heckert Papers, Monroe County Historical Museum, Monroe, Michigan.

9. Bancroft diary, Sept. 19, 1862; Miner diary, Sept. 19, 1862; Taylor to dear Sister Lottie, Sept. 20, 1862, Taylor Collection; Sadler to Dear Father and Mother, Sept. 26, 1862, a private collector; Phelps to brother, Sept. 1862, Jeff Phelps.

10. Hudson Gazette, Oct. 11, 1862; Bancroft diary, Sept. 28; Seage diary, Sept. 25 and 27, 1862; “Descendants of John Seage,” a genealogy by John DeVinney; Harrison Daniels reminiscence, Craig and Ann Emery and Hal Flynn.

11. Miner diary, Oct. 3; Millens diary, Oct. 3, 12, 1862; Moses Luce memoir, pp. 11–12, Edgar A. Luce Jr.; Taylor to Sister Marie, Oct. 11, 1862, Taylor Collection; Jeffords to Dear Friends, Oct. 19, 1862, Jeffords pension file, National Archives.

12. Diaries of Millens, Bancroft, Seage, and Miner, Oct. 16, 1862; Sadler diary, Oct. 17, 1862; Jeffords to Dear Friends, Oct. 19, 1862, Jeffords pension file, National Archives.

13. Phelps to dear Brother, Oct. 26, 1862, Jeff Phelps; Childs to Blair, Oct. 22, 1862, 4th Michigan records, State Archives. The list of recommended promotions is not attached to Child's letter.

14. Diaries of Millens, Bancroft, Seage, and Miner, Oct. 30–Nov. 9, 1862.

15. Millens diary, Nov. 10, 13, 1862; Bancroft diary, Nov. 11, 1862; Miner diary, Nov. 10, 11,12; Taylor to My dear Sister (undated, but written Nov. 10, 1862), Taylor Collection.

16. Robinson to Dear Father, Nov. 14, 1862, Bentley Library.

17. Childs's resignation, Nov. 2, 1862, Childs's service and pension records, National Archives; Childs to Blair, Nov. 10, 1862, Austin Blair Papers, Burton Collection; Jerome Allen's notes are part of a form in Childs's pension record.

18. Seage diary, Nov. 14, 15, 1862; Bancroft diary, Nov. 16, 17, 1862; Miner diary, Nov. 12, 18, 1862; Hudson Gazette, Dec. 13, 1862.

19. Seage, Bancroft, Miner, and Millens diaries, Nov. 19–23, 1862.

20. Bancroft, Miner, and Millens diaries, Nov. 24–29, 1862; Sadler diary, Nov. 28, 1862; Robinson to Dear Father, Nov. 14, 1862, Bentley Library; Taylor to My dear Mother, Feb. 20, 1863, Taylor Collection.

21. Watts's statement and the findings of Assistant Secretary Webster Davis in the matter of Childs's pension are part of his pension file, National Archives. Several other statements about his poor health and apparent kidney and bladder problems are in this file. Millens diary, Nov. 29, 1862.

22. Hudson Gazette, Dec. 13, 1862.

23. Miner, Phelps, Bancroft, and Millens diaries, Dec. 1–10, 1862.

24. Wert, The Sword of Lincoln, p. 190.

25. Adrian Watchtower, Jan. 5, 1863; OR, vol. 21, pp. 404, 410.

26. OR, vol. 21, p. 410; Millens diary, Dec. 12, 1862; Seage diary, Dec. 12, 1862; Bancroft diary, Dec. 12, 1862; Miner diary, Dec. 12, 1862.

27. Bancroft, Millens, Seage, and Miner diaries, Dec. 13, 1862; Adrian Watchtower, Jan. 5, 1863.

28. Adrian Watchtower, Jan. 5, 1863; Taylor to dear Mother, Dec. 13, 1862, Taylor Collection.

29. Henry S. Seage, “War Reminiscences of the Battle of Fredericksburg” (typescript), papers of Michigan Military Order of the Loyal Legion Commander, Bentley Library; Hudson Gazette, Jan. 3, 1863; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 20 (entry for Dec. 13, 1862).

30. Seage diary, Dec. 13, 1862; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 20.

31. Seage; “War Reminiscences”; Adrian Watchtower, Jan. 5, 1863; OR, vol. 21, p. 405; Hudson Gazette, Jan. 3, 1863.

32. Adrian Watchtower, Jan. 5, 1863; OR, vol. 21, p. 405; Hudson Gazette, Jan. 3, 1863.

33. Seage; “War Reminiscences”; Robinson to Dear Father, Dec. 18, 1862, Bentley Library.

34. Adrian Watchtower, Jan. 5, 1863; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 20 (Dec. 13, 1862).

35. Seage, History of Co. E, p. 20 (Dec. 13, 1862); Seage; “War Reminiscences”; Adrian Watchtower, Jan. 5, 1863; Lumbard to (Michigan) Adjutant General (photocopy), Dec. 17, 1862, report of casualties, Heckert Papers.

36. Adrian Watchtower, Dec. 26, 1862. The paper carried a letter from Taylor to White's father, dated Dec. 17, 1862, informing him of the death of his son; Phelps to Dear Brother, Dec. 20, 1862, Jeff Phelps; Yates wounded: House of Representatives' Committee on Pensions, April 13, 1888, Report on H.R. 7708, pension of Annie Gibson Yates, from a private collector; Carl Vreeland, “Letters from Civil War Battlefields,” pt. 1, Oregon (Portland) Journal, June 24, 1964.

37. Lumbard to (Michigan) Adjutant General (photocopy), Dec. 17, 1862, report of casualties, Heckert Papers; Seage, “War Reminiscences”; Fox, Regimental Losses, p. 383; Bancroft diary, Dec. 13, 1862; Wert, The Sword of Lincoln, p. 202; Millens diary, Dec. 14, 1862.

38. Robinson to Dear Father, Dec. 18, 1862, Bentley Library; Phelps to Dear Brother, Dec. 20, 1862, Jeff Phelps; Seage diary, Dec. 13, 1862; Bancroft diary, Dec. 14, 1862.

39. Adrian Watchtower, Jan. 5, 1863; Bancroft, Seage, and Millens diaries, Dec. 14, 1862.

Chapter 8. Three Cheers for Colonel Jeffords

1. Phelps to dear Brother, Dec. 20, 1862, Jeff Phelps; Taylor to Sister Lottie, Jan. 15, 1863, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

2. John Bancroft diary, Dec. 15 and 16, 1862, RG 95, Special Collections & Archives, Auburn University; Irvin Miner diary, Dec. 15 and 16, 1862, Robert Walkowiak; Henry Seage diary, Dec. 15 and 16, 1862, Steve Roberts; George Millens diary, Dec. 15 and 16, 1862, Glen McQueen; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 21.

3. Bancroft, Miner, and Millens diaries, Dec. 17–25, 1862; Seage diary, Dec. 20, 1862; Michigan Adjutant General, Records of Service, p. 27; Hudson Gazette, Jan. 3, 1863.

4. Miner diary, Dec. 30 and 31, 1862; Seage diary, Dec. 30 and 31; Bancroft diary, Dec. 30 and 31; Millens diary, Dec. 30 and 31, 1862; and OR, vol. 21, p. 743.

5. Miner diary, Jan 1, 1863; Seage diary, Jan. 1, 1863; Taylor to Sister Lottie, Jan. 15, 1863, Taylor Collection; Wert, The Sword of Lincoln, pp. 211–12; Barnes to Affectionate Brother, Jan. 11, 1863, Roger Walcott Collection, Archives and Regional History Collections, Western Michigan University.

6. Barnes to Affectionate Brother, Jan. 11, 1863, Walcott Collection.

7. Fund-raising for new colors: Adrian Watchtower, Jan. 21, 27, 29, 1863. New flag: Robert H. Campbell, “Pioneer Memories of the War Days 1861–65,” in Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, vol. 30 (Lansing: Van Koop, Hallenbeck Crawford, 1906), p. 567, and “Service with the Old 4th Mich. Infantry,” MOLLUS; also Seage diary, March 24, 1863; and Seage, History of Co. E, p. 22. In his paper written after the war and in a 1902 speech to the Washtenaw County Pioneer Society, Campbell specified that he requisitioned a U.S. flag in Washington and that it was hailed and saluted by passersby as he carried it to his regiment. Henry Seage noted in his diary for March 24, 1863, that the quartermaster brought “a new flag” for the regiment, but in his later History of Co. E he wrote that this was a blue flag with a gold eagle.

8. Millens diary, Jan. 8, 1863; Taylor to Sister Lottie, Jan. 15, 1863, and Taylor to dear Mother, Feb. 20, 1863, Taylor Collection; Barnes to Affectionate Brother, Jan. 11, 1863, Walcott Collection.

9. Millens diary, Jan. 15, 1863; Miner diary, Jan. 16, 1863; Bancroft diary, Jan. 20, 1863.

10. Millens, Seage, and Miner diaries, Jan. 21–22, 1863; John W. Hewitt diary, Jan. 21, 1863, Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University; Bancroft diary, Jan. 22, 1863; Taylor to Dear “Bill,” Jan. 25, 1863, Taylor Collection; Vreeland to Dear Mother, Jan. 25, 1863, Michael Vreeland Papers (photocopy), U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pa. (USAMHI).

11. Bancroft diary, Jan. 22, 1863; Miner diary, Jan. 23–26, 1863; Millens diary, Jan. 24–26, 1863; Vreeland to Dear Mother, Jan. 25, 1863, Vreeland Papers.

12. Childs biography: Ellis, Norwich University, p. 616; Charles Doolittle diary (transcript), Dec. 9, 1862, and Jeffords to the assistant adjutant general, Center Grand Division, Feb. 1, 1863, from a private collector; Lumbard to Blair, Feb. 7, 1863, 4th Michigan records, State Archives. As an example of soldiers assuming that a senior officer would typically be promoted as vacancies occurred, Charles W. Phelps wrote his brother on Dec. 2, 1862, that “Col. Childs of our reg't has resigned and gone home, Lt. Col. Lombard [sic] will be Colonel I think” (Jeff Phelps).

13. Miner diary, March 10, 1863; Bancroft to Hinchman, Feb. 8, 1863, and March 16, 1863, Hinchman Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library; Blair to Robertson, Feb. 12, 1863, 4th Michigan regimental files, State Archives; Detroit Free Press, Feb. 14, 1863.

14. Miner diary, Feb. 16–17 1863; L. Barnes to Dear Mother, March 7, 1863, Walcott Collection; Bancroft to Hinchman, Feb. 8, 1863, Hinchman Papers; Phelps to Dear Brother, March 16, 1863, Jeff Phelps.

15. Miner, Seage, and Hewitt diaries, from Feb. 1 to March 16, 1863; Campbell, “Service with the Old 4th Michigan Infantry,” pp. 12–13, MOLLUS, and “Pioneer Memories,” p. 567; Taylor to sister Lottie, May 21, 1863, Taylor Collection.

16. Miner diary, March 17, 1863; Hudson Gazette, April 4, 1863.

17. Taylor to Sister Lottie, April 1, 1863, Taylor Collection.

18. The charges against Jeffords, dated March 20, 1863, appear on p. 5 of General Orders No. 13, “proceedings of a general Court Martial…1st Division, 5th Army Corps, February 28, 1863,” National Archives.

19. Jeffords to Smith, March 18, 1863, Jeffords service record, National Archives.

20. Jeffords Court-Martial, National Archives.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.; Griffin's General Orders No. 20, April 18, 1863, is part of this record in the National Archives.

26. Maltz to Hinchman, April 5, 1863, and Bancroft to Hinchman, April 10, 1863, both Hinchman Papers.

27. Jeffords's letter in the Michigan State (Ann Arbor) News, May 5, 1863; Jeffords to Dear Friends, April 17, 1863, private collector.

28. Miner diary, March 22, April 5, 1863; Chamberlain's Jan. 1863 leave: Hudson Gazette, Jan. 31, 1863; Bancroft to Hinchman, April 10, 1863, Hinchman Papers; French: Jeffords to Blair, March 13, 1863, 4th Michigan records, State Archives.

29. Taylor to sister Lottie, April 1, 1863, Taylor Collection.

30. Miner's letter in the Hudson Gazette, April 4, 1863.

31. Richardson letter in the Ann Arbor Journal, May 7, 1863.

32. Seage diary, March 23, 24, 26, April 6, 7, 8, 1863. New flag: Campbell, “Service with the Old 4th Michigan Infantry,” p. 13, MOLLUS; Bancroft to Hinchman, April 10, 1863, Hinchman Papers; Vreeland to Dear Brother Alpheus, April 1, 1863, Vreeland Papers.

33. Miner diary, April 10 and 12, 1863; Seage diary, April 12, 14, 1863; Phelps to Dear Brother, April 14, 1863, Jeff Phelps; Richardson letter, Peninsular (Ann Arbor) Courier, May 7, 1863.

Chapter 9. Christ How the Canister Flew

1. Henry Seage diary, April 19, Steve Roberts. A typed transcription called “the Houghton Journal,” a short, partial daily record of some his experiences with an incomplete narrative written after the war, is in the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

2. John W. Hewitt diary, April 23, 26, 27, 1863, Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University; Seage diary, April 26, 27, 1863; Irvin Miner diary, April 25–27, 1863, Robert Walkowiak; John Bancroft diary, April 27, 1863, RG 95, Special Collections and Archives, Auburn University Library; Edgar Noble diary, April 27, 1863, Thomas Spain. For a detailed history and examination of this campaign, see Chancellorsville by Stephen W. Sears (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996).

3. Bancroft diary, April 28–29, 1863; Hewitt diary, April 28–29, 1863; Miner diary, April 28–29, 1863; Noble diary, April 29, 1863.

4. Bancroft, Hewitt, Miner, and Noble diaries, April 30, 1863; OR, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 517.

5. Seage diary, May 1, 1863; OR, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 517; Jeffords to Dear Friends (transcript), May 7, 1863, used by permission of a private collector; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 23; Bancroft diary, May 1, 1863.

6. Seage diary, May 1, 1863; Houghton journal; Miner diary, May 1, 1863; Hewitt diary, May 1, 1863; Maltz to Hinchman, May 12, 1863, Hinchman Papers, Burton Collection, Detroit Public Library; Phelps to Dear Brother, May 5, 1863, Jeff Phelps; Jeffords to Dear Friends, May 11, 1863, private collector; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 23; Noble diary, May 1, 1863.

7. Houghton journal; Miner diary, May 2, 1863; Bancroft diary, May 2, 1863; Maltz to Hinchman, May 12, 1863, Hinchman Papers; Taylor to Sister Lottie, May 7, 1863, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

8. Seage, History of Co. E, p. 24; Seage diary, May 3, 1863.

9. Adrian Watchtower, May 13, 1863; Phelps to Dear Brother, May 5, 1863, Jeff Phelps; Campbell, “Service with the Old 4th Mich. Infantry,” MOLLUS.

10. OR, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 517; Salter's May 4 letter in Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, May 14, 1863. When the story was retold over the years by Michigan men, Gen. George Meade replaced Gen. Joseph Hooker

11. Bancroft diary, May 3, 1863; Houghton journal; Salter letter, Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, May 14, 1863; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 24; Seage diary, May 3, 1863.

12. Monroe Monitor, May 14, 1863; Houghton journal; Bancroft diary, May 3, 1863.

13. OR, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 518; Sears, Chancellorsville, p. 406; Maltz to Hinchman, May 12, 1863, Hinchman Papers; Bancroft diary, May 4, 1863; Houghton journal and John S. Conant to Dear Parents Brothers and Sisters, May 4–5, 1863, Bentley Library; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, p. 20; Miner diary, May 4, 1863; Phelps to Dear Brother, May 5, 1863, Jeff Phelps.

14. Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, p. 20; Phelps to Dear Brother, May 5, 1863, Jeff Phelps; Miner diary, May 4, 1863; Seage diary, May 4, 1863; Hudson Gazette, May 23, 1863; Maltz to Hinchman, May 12, 1863, Hinchman Papers; OR, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 518.

15. Harrison Daniels reminiscence, Hal Flynn and Craig and Ann Emery.

16. Hewitt diary, May 5–6, 1863; Seage diary, May 5–6, 1863; Jeffords to Dear Friends, May 7, 1863, private collector; Bancroft diary, May 5–6, 1863; Houghton journal; Phelps to Dear Brother, May 23, 1863, Jeff Phelps.

17. Fox, Regimental Losses, p. 383, stated eight men from the 4th Michigan were killed or mortally wounded at Chancellorsville, but it is not clear whether this includes Austin Miner or the other man missing. Miner was later determined to have been killed. A contemporaneous army tabulation for the regiment—OR, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 180—indicated six men killed and 12 wounded, but infection and complications usually caused the deaths of a number of wounded men weeks and months after a battle.

18. Taylor to Sister Lottie, May 7, 1863, and May 12, 1863, Taylor Collection; Jeffords to Dear Friends, May 7, 1863, private collector.

19. Maltz to Hinchman, May 12, 1863, Hinchman Papers; Vreeland to Dear Mother, May 18, 1863, Vreeland Papers, USAMHI.

20. Jeffords to Dear Friends, May 7, 1863, and May 13, 1863, private collector; Henry Seage and Irvin Miner both used the term “splendid horse” in describing the animal, and John Hewitt also commented that it was a “beautiful war horse”; Bancroft diary, May 13 and 16, 1863. Lt. George Maltz wrote, specifically, that it was “the enlisted men” who gave Jeffords this gift: Maltz to Hinchman, May 12, 1863, Hinchman Papers; McQuade to Blair, May 10, 1863, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Ill.

21. Maltz to Hinchman, May 12, 1863, Hinchman Papers.

22. Hewitt diary, May 25–26, 1863; Houghton journal, May 25–26, 1863; Bancroft to Hinchman, May 28–29, 1863, Hinchman Papers; Jeffords to Blair, May 28, 1863, 4th Michigan regimental records, State Archives of Michigan; Phelps to Dear Brother, May 23, 1863, Jeff Phelps. Phelps's reference to the date, May 16, reflected the incorrect belief by many men that their enlistments in the spring of 1861 dated from the appointment of Dwight Woodbury to raise and lead the 4th Michigan. In fact, their enlistments dated from their muster into federal service in June 1861.

23. Bancroft to Hinchman, May 28–29, 1863, Hinchman Papers; Miner diary, May 27, 1863.

24. Bancroft to Hinchman, May 28–29, 1863, Hinchman Papers; Bancroft diary, June 1–2, 1863; Daniels reminiscence; Monroe Monitor, June 10, 1863; Hewitt diary, June 4, 1863; Houghton journal, June 4, 1863; Miner diary, June 5, 1863; Phelps to Dear Brother, June 10, 1863, Jeff Phelps.

25. John Seage wrote two different letters recounting this incident: J. Seage to Gov. Blair, Dec. 23, 1863, and J. Seage to Robertson, June 1, 1866, 4th Michigan regimental records, State Archives; Campbell, “Service with the Old 4th Michigan, p. 18, MOLLUS; Jeffords to Dear Friends, May 13, 1863, private collector.

26. J. Seage to Robertson, June 1, 1866, and Seage to Blair, Dec. 23, 1863, regimental records, State Archives; Seage diary, June 8, 9, 15–24, 1863.

27. Taylor to Sister Lottie, June 12, 1863, Taylor Collection; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, pp. 37–39.

28. Miner diary, June 9–10, 1863; Houghton journal, June 11–12, 1863; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, p. 21. Barrett claimed that the regimental “smart aleck” who asked the question was later shot and killed while on picket, but the regiment's contemporaneous records, letters to hometown newspapers, and diary keepers don't mention a fatality along the river at that time.

29. Taylor to dear Sister Lottie, June 12, 1863, Taylor Collection; Bancroft, Miner, Hewitt, and Seage diaries, June 12–20, 1863; Houghton journal; Bancroft to Hinchman, June 23, 1863, Hinchman Papers.

30. Miner, Bancroft, Seage, and Hewitt diaries, June 21–26, 1863; Houghton journal; Hillsdale Standard, June 30, 1863. The fact Luke Barnes fell out and was captured is in a subsequent letter by his brother, Joel Barnes to Dear Brother Judge, Aug. 21, 1863, Roger Walcott Collection, Archives and Regional Historical Collections, Western Michigan University, and also in his service record, National Archives.

31. Miner diary, June 26–30, 1863; Hewitt diary, June 26–30, 1863; Seage diary, June 26–30; and Bancroft diary, June 26–30, 1863; Houghton journal.

Chapter 10. They Were Soon on All Sides of Us

1. Campbell, “Service with the Old 4th Michigan Infantry,” MOLLUS.

2. James Houghton journal, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan; John Bancroft diary, July 1, 1863, Special Collections and Archives, Auburn University; Bancroft Gettysburg narrative and letter to the state adjutant general, June 17, 1889, Record Group 59-14, 4th Michigan Infantry records, Box 97, State Archives of Michigan, Lansing; John W. Hewitt diary, July 1, 1863, Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University; Irvin Miner diary, July 1, 1863, Robert Walkowiak; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, pp. 21–22.

3. Henry Seage diary, July 2, 1863, Steve Roberts; Bancroft Gettysburg narrative; OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 610.

4. Houghton journal; Bancroft diary, July 2, 1863; Bancroft Gettysburg narrative.

5. Houghton journal. For accounts of the Fifth Corps's movement onto the battlefield at Gettysburg, see Harry P. Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), p. 208, and Edwin P. Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign (Dayton: Morningside Books, 1979), p. 389. Oliver Norton, bugler for the commander of the Third Brigade of the First Division, recalled they marched on what must have been the School House Road, turned south on Taneytown Road, and then went across country.

6. Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign, p. 389.

7. OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 610; Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign, p. 400; Bancroft to Adjutant General of Michigan, June 17, 1889, 4th Michigan records, State Archives; Houghton journal; Pfanz, Gettysburg, pp. 242–45.

8. Houghton journal; OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 611; Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863, “an extract of a private letter from an officer of the Fourth Infantry, dated Warrenton, July 29th, giving an account of how it happened the regiment suffered so at Gettysburg.” The description of the changes in the 4th Michigan's position also in Bancroft diary, July 2, 1863, and the Bancroft Gettysburg narrative.

9. Pfanz, Gettysburg, pp. 252–53, 256–59; Jay Jorgensen, Gettysburg's Bloody Wheatfield (Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Books, 2001), pp. 79–82; Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863; Supplement to Official Records, vol. 5, p. 192; OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 611.

10. For accounts of Caldwell's attack, see Pfanz, Gettysburg, pp. 267–87, and Stephen W. Sears, Gettysburg (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), pp. 301–4.

11. OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 611; Sweitzer wrote another version of his report that appears in the Supplement to Official Records, vol. 5, pp. 189–95; his meeting with Caldwell and subsequent brigade march is on pp. 192–93, as is his description of the low ground where the 4th Michigan moved; Bancroft Gettysburg narrative; Houghton journal.

12. Houghton journal; Sears, Gettysburg, pp. 302–3; Bancroft Gettysburg narrative.

13. Pfanz, Gettysburg, p. 287.

14. OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 611; Supplement to Official Records, vol. 5, p. 193; Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863; Bancroft diary, July 2, 1863; Bancroft Gettysburg narrative; Houghton journal.

15. Hillyer's account, “The Battle of Gettysburg: Address Before the Walton County, Georgia, Confederate Veterans,” Aug. 2, 1904, Walton Tribune, is quoted in Pfanz, Gettysburg, p. 295. The 4th Michigan's U.S. flag, selected in late March, had been in camp except for the march to Chancellorsville, where the regiment was involved in skirmishing. Since regimental flags weren't usually carried on skirmish lines, this flag was still in good shape.

16. Houghton journal; Perine account: Battle Creek Enquirer & News, n.d. (late January), 1935, provided by Sharon Mershon; Supplement to Official Records, vol. 5, p. 193; Francis J. Parker, The Story of the Thirty-second Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (Boston: C. W. Calkins, 1880), p. 169.

17. Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863; Carl Vreeland, “Letters from Civil War Battlefields,” Oregon (Portland) Journal, June 25, 1964; Bancroft to the Michigan Adjutant General, June 17, 1889, 4th Michigan records, State Archives, and enclosed Bancroft Gettysburg narrative. In the letter, Bancroft cited his comrade, State Treasurer (former Lieutenant) George Maltz, about burying Kydd and Jackson after the battle; also Detroit Free Press, July 13, 1863.

18. Vreeland statement on Company I's lost arms and accoutrements, copy provided by Cecile Vreeland; Laird's wounding: Gregory A. Coco, Killed in Action: Eyewitness Accounts of the Last Moments of 100 Union Soldiers Who Died at Gettysburg (Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 1996), pp. 46–47; Bancroft diary, July 2, 1863.

19. Sweitzer's reports: OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, pp. 611–12 (in which Sweitzer quotes Martin); and Supplement to Official Records, vol. 5, pp. 193–95; John Coxe, “The Battle of Gettysburg,” Confederate Veteran, vol. 21, no. 9, September 1913, p. 435.

20. Houghton journal; Perine account: Battle Creek Enquirer & News, n.d. (late Jan.), 1935; Bancroft diary, July 2, 1863; and Bancroft Gettysburg narrative.

21. OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 612; Supplement to Official Records, vol. 5, p. 193; Pfanz, Gettysburg, p. 293; Houghton journal.

22. Bancroft diary, July 2, 1863; Bancroft Gettysburg narrative. Bancroft wrote that his account was “taken from notes I made at that time and a letter written a few days after the battle.” Bancroft to Adjutant General, June 17, 1889, 4th Michigan file, State Archives. Seage to Bachelder, Sept. 23, 1884, in Dale A. Ladd and Audrey J. Ladd, eds., The Bachelder Papers: Gettysburg in their Own Words, 3 vols. (Dayton: Morningside, 1994–95), vol. 2, pp. 1070–72; Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863.

23. Conant to Dear Parents Brothers and sisters, July 5, 1863, Bentley Library; Coxe, “The Battle of Gettysburg,” p. 435; Parker, Thirty-second Regiment, p. 170.

24. Tolford's letter, Hudson Gazette, July 11, 1863; Houghton journal; Pfanz, Gettysburg, p. 295; OR, vol. 27. pt. 2, pp. 399–400

25. OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 612; Supplement to Official Records, vol. 5, p. 193; Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863.

26. Gilbert to J. E. Phelps, Aug. 16, 1863, Jeff Phelps; Harrison Daniels reminiscence, Hal Flynn and Craig and Ann Emery; Tripp remembered at a regimental reunion, the Coffee Cooler (monthly veterans newspaper, published at Sturgis, Michigan), Aug. 1892.

27. Seage to Bachelder, Sept. 23, 1884, in Ladd and Ladd, The Bachelder Papers, vol. 2, pp. 1070–72. Tom Tarsney, one of three Tarsney brothers in the regiment, was reduced in rank to private four months later, according to Henry Seage's diary, Nov. 16, 1863. John Tarsney: Michigan Adjutant General, Records of Service, p. 107. John Tarsney's military record shows he was captured, but other biographical materials say he was also wounded.

28. Seage to Bachelder, Sept. 23, 1884, Ladd and Ladd, Bachelder Papers, vol. 2, p. 1071; Carl Vreeland, “Letters from Civil War Battlefields,” Oregon (Portland) Journal, June 25, 1964. There is no statement or reference in Vreeland's voluminous pension file that he was involved in the struggle for the flag. His own statement to the army about the loss of his company's rifles was that they were “surrounded” on the regiment's right. Henry Seage's statement that Vreeland was part of the fight for the flag was made nearly nine years after Vreeland died.

29. Seage to Bachelder, Sept. 23, 1884, Ladd and Ladd, Bachelder Papers, vol. 2, p. 1071; Seage diary, July 3, 1863; Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863; John Seage to Blair, Dec. 23, 1863, 4th Michigan records, State Archives; R. W. Seage medical examinations in his pension file, National Archives.

30. H. Seage to Bachelder, Sept. 23, 1884, Ladd and Ladd, Bachelder Papers, vol. 2, p. 1071. Henry Seage recorded in his diary on July 3 that Jeffords died from his wounds, but he thought this took place on July 2. Col. Lumbard stated the circumstances of Jeffords's wounding in battle and subsequent death the next day in his year-end report, Lumbard to Robertson, Dec. 1863, 4th Michigan records, State Archives; Sweitzer's supplemental report, Supplement to Official Records, vol. 5, p. 194; Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, prepared under the direction of Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes, United States Army, 3 vols. in 6 parts (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1870–88), pt. 1, vol. 2, p. 468. The diaries of John Bancroft and John Hewitt, the letter by William Tolford, and the reminiscence of Robert Campbell state that Jeffords survived for a time after he was bayoneted; so do official reports, such as the casualty statement on Jeffords authorized by Gen. James Barnes; that statement is part of Jeffords's service record, National Archives.

31. Conant to Dear Parents Brothers and sisters, July 5, 1863, Bentley Library; Houghton journal; Carl Vreeland, “Letters from Civil War Battlefields,” Oregon (Portland) Journal, June 25, 1964; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, pp. 22–23; John Seage to Blair, Dec. 23, 1863, regimental records, State Archives. Richard W. Seage was likely removed from the field in the early morning hours of July 3.

32. Seage diary, July 2, 1863; Houghton journal; Sears, Gettysburg, p. 304.

33. Houghton journal; Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1983; Bancroft diary, July 2, 1863; Sears, Gettysburg, pp. 321–22; Pfanz, Gettysburg, p. 428.

34. Bancroft diary, July 2, 1863; Houghton journal.

35. Bancroft diary, July 2, 1863; Seage diary, July 2 and 3, 1863; Hewitt diary, July 2, 1863; Conant to Dear Parents Brothers and sisters, July 5, 1863, Bentley Library; OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 604; Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863.

36. List of 4th Michigan casualties at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863, G. Lumbard, 4th Michigan records, State Archives. The regiment's killed, mortally wounded, and missing and presumed dead: John W. Busey, These Honored Dead: The Union Casualties at Gettysburg (Hightstown, N.J.: Longstreet House, 1996), pp. 70–72; Boies, “The Spirit of Comradeship,” Confederate Veteran, vol. 23, September 1915, p. 424; OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 613. A tabulation of the regiment's prisoners who died in Rebel prisons by the late William Heckert is in the Heckert Papers, Monroe County Historical Museum.

37. Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, p. 23; Seage diary, July 3, 1863; Carl Vreeland, “Letters from Civil War Battlefields,” Oregon (Portland) Journal, June 25, 1964; unidentified newspaper clipping about Vreeland, marked “Adrian Paper, June 8, 1865,” Vreeland file, USAMHI.

38. Pfanz, Gettysburg, pp. 428, 432; Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign, p. 442; Wert, The Sword of Lincoln, p. 295; Frank Clark is in Gregory A. Coco, A Vast Sea of Misery (Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 1988), pp. 151–52; Mark Taylor: Michigan (Sturgis) Democrat, June 26, 1890; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, p. 23; Vreeland removed from battlefield: clipping identified as “Adrian paper, June 8, 1865,” Vreeland Papers, USAMHI; Hewitt diary, July 3, 1863.

39. In a patriotic reunion speech, Lester H. Salsbury said that members of the regiment were victorious in a hand-to-hand fight for the colors and were able to “bring off the flag and the body of our lion-hearted colonel.” Hudson Post, June 29, 1876. Salsbury was seriously wounded at Gettysburg with bullets striking him in the thigh, hand, and lung and was almost certainly carried off the field himself.

40. Seage diary, July 3, 1863.

41. Seage diary, July 3, 1863; Bates report, OR, vol. 27, pt. 1, p. 597; Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863. The authors were not able to find any Civil War account, letter, report, or diary of the 4th Michigan that unequivocally stated the men of the regiment carried their wounded colonel off the battlefield during the retreat.

42. Sweitzer report, Supplement to Official Records, vol. 5, p. 194; Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863; Campbell, “Service with the Old 4th Michigan Infantry,” MOLLUS. This was Campbell's handwritten reminiscence; a shorter version of Campbell's paper, a speech given after 1900 called “Pioneer Memories of the War Days of 1861–65,” edited and with punctuation and quotation marks added, was published in the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collection, vol. 30; the anecdote about Jeffords's death appears on p. 570. The surgeon who attended Jeffords was not named.

43. Casualty sheet authorized by General Barnes, Jeffords service record, National Archives; Lumbard to Robertson, Dec. 1863, 4th Michigan records, State Archives. A transcription of this letter is in Robertson, Michigan in the War, pp. 229–30. Several casualty statements are in Jeffords's records, some that are correct and some wrongly stating that he was killed in action. Letter of “Lieutenant,” a former member of the 4th Michigan, in the Hudson Gazette, July 21, 1871.

44. New York Herald, July 6, 1863.

45. Detroit Free Press, July 8 and 22, 1863; Monroe Commercial, July 16, 1863. Another version of this brief report appeared in the Hudson Gazette, July 18, 1863, in which the spelling of Jeffords's name was corrected; his name was also corrected when the report was reprinted in the Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus. The anecdote about William F. Robinson was reprinted in the Jonesville Independent, July 23, 1863. The Hudson paper didn't include the statement that Jeffords shot a Confederate, possibly because it had learned from someone in the regiment that this wasn't correct. Crounses's report of the charge of the brigades of Caldwell and Sweitzer: New York Times, July 4, 1863.

46. Bancroft to Hinchman, July 21, 1863, Theodore Hinchman Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. Bancroft wasn't the only soldier who was critical of the news reports about battles and skirmishes. In September 1861, Luke Barnes warned his brother at home, “you must not believe the papers for they do not tell the truth.” After the Seven Days battle in 1862, Lt. Charles Salter of the 16th Michigan wrote a friend in Detroit: “I can assure you no matter how grand it may be for people up North to read accounts of splendid victories, it is not very pleasant for those engaged in it.” Less than a year after Gettysburg, Robert Carter of the 22nd Massachusetts wrote about reporting on the Fifth Corps near Spotsylvania Court House: “I observe that the newspapers report very erroneously, and the reports are deficient as a general thing, in the true facts of this campaign; they are full of the most exaggerated blunders, and many absurd stories are circulated…. Even Hendricks, our Fifth Corps correspondent, as been strangely misled…they dare not come to the front for reliable information, but derive their knowledge from those at the rear.” See L. Barnes to Dear Brother, Sept. 10, 1861, Roger Walcott Collection, Archives and Regional History Collections, Western Michigan University; Salter to I. Duffield, July 12, 1862, Duffield Papers, Burton Collection; Robert G. Carter, Four Brothers in Blue (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,1999), p. 403.

47. Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863. Bancroft and Lt. George Maltz both wrote to Hinchman, and their letters are in the Detroit Public Library's Burton Collection. Of course, there is no letter dated July 29, 1863, in Hinchman's papers. We think it likely that Bancroft wrote this letter, following up his brief but harsh criticism of the Herald's account in his July 21 letter with specifics on July 29, when he was in camp; and that Hinchman took this letter to the Free Press for publication.

Hinchman was a businessman active in Detroit civic affairs, and during the war was a supporter of the “Union” party (a coalition of Republicans and “War Democrats”). At times, Bancroft had asked Hinchman to pass word of officers' opinions on matters such as promotions to Governor Blair. George Maltz and Dr. Chamberlain also wrote to him. Why was there no name attached to this July 29 letter when it was printed? Because it was common practice; Detroit's Civil War newspapers regularly published information contained in private letters sent by soldiers to friends and family who shared the contents with editors. Even when soldiers sent letters directly to the editors, their full names were usually not given. A Guide to the Material in the Detroit Newspapers 1861–1866 by Helen Ellis (Lansing: Michigan Civil War Centennial Observance Commission, 1965) shows that it was routine for as many as 400 or more officers and soldiers writing hundreds of letters directly to Detroit newspapers not to be identified by name, but by initials and pseudonyms. Small weekly papers also often used initials and pen names for correspondents serving in the army.

48. Seage to Bachelder, Sept. 23, 1884, Ladd and Ladd, Bachelder Papers, vol. 2, p. 1071; Pfanz, Gettysburg, p. 294; Sears, Gettysburg, p. 304. Pfanz specifically cited Seage's letter to Bachelder as the source for the recapture of the 4th Michigan flag. Sears cited Colonel Sweitzer's reports, which state Jeffords was wounded fighting for his colors but make no claim that he saved the flag; and Houghton's narrative, which stated Jeffords “regained the flag” before he was bayoneted.

49. Hewitt diary, July 2, 1863; Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863.

50. Salter to My Dear Friend, July 12, 1863, Duffield Papers, Burton Collection; David L. Poremba, ed., If I Am Found Dead (Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor Media Group, 2006), p. 126; Regan, Lost Civil War Diaries, p. 144. A fatal bayonet stab wound was rare and undoubtedly shocking news. George W. Adams's study of Union army medicine notes that less than 0.4 percent of all reported Civil War wounds were inflicted with sword or bayonet, and that chest wounds “made by cutting weapons had a mortality rate of 9 percent, but were few in number.” Doctors in Blue (Dayton: Morningside Books, 1985), pp. 113, 136.

51. Monroe Monitor, July 22, 1863. A number of men from Monroe served in the 7th Infantry Regiment, also in the Army of the Potomac. The soldier who wrote to the paper may have been from this outfit, since he was not a member of the 4th Michigan.

52. Campbell, “Pioneer Memories,” pp. 567, 571. Campbell claimed this blue post-Gettysburg flag went through the spring campaign of 1864 and that it was returned to Michigan, where it was on display in a military museum after the turn of the century. Yet the curator in charge of Michigan's Civil War flags, Kerry Chartkoff, in an interview with the authors in 2008, said evidence indicates the remaining part of a blue regimental flag (with the state seal painted on one side, a federal coat of arms on the other) was an expensive presentation flag given to the reorganized 4th Michigan regiment, formed in the late summer of 1864. This couldn't have been the flag Campbell “procured” in the summer of 1863. Parker, Thirty-second Regiment, p. 172; Henry B. James, Memories of the Civil War (New Bedford, Mass.: F. E. James, 1898), p. 39.

53. Email discussions between the authors and Kurt D. Graham, coauthor with Richard M. Coffman of To Honor These Men: A History of the Phillips Georgia Legion Infantry Battalion (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2008), and Gregory C. White, This Most Bloody & Cruel Drama—A History of the 31st Georgia Volunteer Infantry (Baltimore: Butternut & Blue, 1997); Richmond Enquirer, Aug. 5, 1863.

54. Coffman and Graham, To Honor These Men, pp. 168–69. Some interpret the words about the colors “supposed to be in the hands of some other regiment” to mean that a Union regiment must have rescued that flag. But because of the contemporaneous accounts that the 4th Michigan's flag was lost, and the fact that the Union soldiers were driven off the field, we believe Wofford was saying that the flag was taken by Confederates who were not part of his brigade. Rebel units were mixed up in their advance across the Wheatfield.

Three of the soldiers mentioned in Wofford's description of this fight for a Yankee flag—privates Thomas B. Jolly, who was thought killed, Michael McGovern, and J. A. Blanton—were named in a Confederate “Roll of Honor” issued later that summer. See OR, ser. 1, vol. 27, pt. 2, p. 775.

55. Coffman and Graham, To Honor These Men, pp. 168, 171; Houghton journal.

56. Monroe Commercial, July 16, 1863; Houghton journal.

57. “Mismanagement” by Barnes, letter by a “former Hudson boy” who served in the 4th Michigan in Hudson Gazette, July 21, 1871; Seage to Bachelder, Sept. 23, 1884, Ladd and Ladd, Bachelder Papers, vol. 2, p. 1072. The debate about who was ultimately responsible for sending Barnes's division into that dangerous position in the woods south and west of the Wheatfield raged on for decades in newspapers. Orvey Barrett gave his opinion, holding George Meade responsible, in a letter to the National Tribune, Sept. 23, 1886.

Chapter 11. We Have Seen a Pretty Hard Campaign

1. Salter to My Dear Friend, July 29, 1863, Duffield Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. The letter is also in Poremba, If I Am Found Dead, p. 129.

2. James Houghton journal, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

3. The George Weikert farm, east of Trostle's Woods and just north of the Wheatfield Road, should not be confused with the Jacob Weikert farm on the Taneytown Road and site of a temporary hospital set up by surgeons of the Third and Fifth corps. Monroe Commercial, July 16, 1863 (July 5 letter of William Gibson); Hudson Gazette, July 11, 1863 (July 5 letter of William B. Tolford); Taylor to Dear Mother, July 4, 1863, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith Colleges; John Bancroft diary, July 2–3, 1863, RG 95, Special Collections & Archives, Auburn University Library. Death of Millens: summary of his service record with his diary transcription, Glen McQueen, and service record documents, National Archives. A War Department filing in Millens's record states he died at Augusta, Georgia, on February 28, 1864. Exchange of A. Day: Carpenter, War for the Union, p. 8.

4. The experiences of Sgt. Oliver Smith and David Webster are from Webster family letters and letter transcriptions, Steve Bucher and Rose Miller: Clark to S. M. Webster, Oct. 19, 1863; D. Webster to Dear Father, Jan. 15 (1864), from Pemberton Castle Crew Prison; Webster to Dear Mother, Jan. 27, 1864; and Webster to Dear Mother, May 11, 1864, from Andersonville. Also Michigan Adjutant General, Records of Service, pp. 66, 77.

5. Service and pension records for Hamlin and Crawford, National Archives; Robinson to his parents, July 22, 1863, Bentley Library.

6. Hudson Gazette, July 11, 1863; Coco, Vast Sea of Misery, p. 152; Houghton journal. Vesey's Aug. 20 letter appeared in the Sturgis Journal, Sept. 10, 1863; Henry Seage diary, July 3, 1863, Steve Roberts; Jeffords's funeral: Detroit Free Press, July 12, 1863.

An Aug. 20, 1863 letter sent to the Army by H. B. Wescott of Dexter on behalf of Jeffords's family, part of Jeffords's record in the National Archives, states that a man named “E.R. Snyder of Littleton” (Littlestown, Pennsylvania), took Jeffords's body to Hanover where a Union Army doctor embalmed it for $50. The body was taken to Baltimore and sent to Michigan by rail at a cost of $50. Other correspondence by officers and doctors shows the man who embalmed the body, Dr. P. Gardner of the 1st Virginia (Union) Cavalry, was investigated to see if his embalming business was improper. Authorities ruled the doctor, though showing “indiscretion and imprudence,” violated no regulation.

7. Bancroft diary, July 3, 1863; Barrett, Old Fourth Michigan Infantry, pp. 23–24.

8. Bancroft diary, July 4, 1863; John W. Hewitt diary, July 4, 1863, Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University; Houghton journal. Houghton, apparently writing his reminiscence years later, included the story of Major Hall shooting the Confederate sergeant who had stabbed Jeffords—something the New York Herald reported, but which the unnamed officer from the regiment wrote did not happen in a letter extract in the Detroit Free Press, Aug. 4, 1863.

9. Campbell, “Pioneer Memories,” p. 571; Bancroft diary, July 5, 1863; Harrison Daniels reminiscence, Hal Flynn and Craig Emery and Ann Emery. Other accounts say men of the regiment went out to pick up wounded on the night of July 2, yet Daniels placed his retrieval of Plummer on the night of July 3; Hillsdale Independent, July 14, 1863; Hudson Gazette, July 11, 1863; Seage diary, July 5–Sept. 23, 1863.

10. Bancroft diary, July 6–14, 1863; Houghton journal; Conant to Dear Parents Brothers and sisters, July 17, 1863, Bentley Library.

11. Bancroft diary, July 15–21, 1863; Bancroft to Hinchman, July 21, 1863, Hinchman Papers, Burton Collection.

12. Sturgis Journal, Sept. 10, 1863; Bancroft diary, July 22–Aug. 9, 1863; Hewitt diary, July 28, 1863.

13. Hewitt diary, July 5–Aug. 9, 1863.

14. Regan, Lost Civil War Diaries (Aug. 29, 1863), p. 158.

15. Bliss to Mrs. Hacker, Aug. 10, 1863, Hacker Brothers Papers, Schoff Civil War Collection, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.

16. Sturgis Journal, Sept. 10, 1863; Conant to Dear Parents Brothers and Sisters, March 13, 1863, and Lamson to Robinson, Aug. 20, 1863, Bentley Library.

17. Lamson to Robinson, Aug. 20, 1863, Bentley Library.

18. Gilbert to J. E. Phelps, Aug. 1 and 16, 1863, Jeff Phelps.

19. A. Purdy to Bancroft, July 27, 1863, and S. Wilson to Bancroft, Aug. 25, 1863 (transcriptions), enclosed with the Bancroft diary transcript by Peter Bancroft, Bentley Library. The original letters are part of the Bancroft diary-scrapbook at Auburn University.

20. Handwritten copy of Lamson's statement regarding lost gear, Aug. 28, 1863, with addendum dated Dec. 13, 1863, Bentley Library.

21. J. Barnes to Judge William Barnes, Aug. 21, 1863, Roger Walcott Collections, Archives and Regional Historical Collections, Western Michigan University. It may be that Luke Barnes just wasn't cut out to be a soldier. Letters show that after he accidentally shot Captain Wood in 1861, he was caught asleep while on duty and was disrespectful to an officer; he had other run-ins with soldiers. Joel Barnes wrote that Luke was “kind of strange” and “inclind to be fieble minded.” Lieutenant Col. Lumbard invented a word on Aug. 21, 1863, when he reported Luke was “indiscipline-able.” Records show Luke later applied for an invalid pension, but the government rejected it.

22. Taylor to My dear sister, Aug. 20, 1863, Taylor Collection; Hewitt diary, Aug. 29, 1863; Houghton journal.

23. Cunningham to Dear Mother, Aug. 30 or 31, 1863, Cunningham pension file, National Archives.

24. Hewitt diary, Aug. 30, Sept. 2–12, 1863; Campbell, “Pioneer Memories,” p. 571. Campbell wrote around the turn of the century that this blue flag was eventually placed in Michigan's “military museum” in Lansing, but no 4th Michigan flag of that description is in the state's possession. What does survive is part of a blue, two-sided “presentation” flag, identified as a banner of the reorganized 4th Michigan Infantry Regiment, which formed in the late summer and fall of 1864.

25. Bancroft diary, Sept. 13–30, 1863; Hewitt diary, Sept. 13–30, 1863; Seage diary, Sept. 23, 1863; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 27.

26. Hall to Blair, Sept. 22, 1863, Blair Papers, Burton Collection; Taylor to My dear Lottie, Sept. 29, 1863, Taylor Collection; Bancroft diary, Oct. 1, 1863; Hewitt diary, Sept. 28, 30, Oct. 1, 1863.

27. Coco, Killed in Action, pp. 46–47; Hudson Gazette, Oct. 5, 19, 1863. Coco and the state's Record of Service volume for the 4th Michigan give a hometown of Adrian for Ladd, but contemporaneous news articles and records show he had lived with his parents in Pittsford Township, Hillsdale County.

28. Bancroft diary, Oct. 5, 10, 11, 1863; Hewitt diary, Oct. 10, 11, 1863; Seage diary, Oct. 10, 11, 1863.

29. Seage, Bancroft, and Hewitt diaries, Oct. 12–14, 1863; Bancroft to Hinchman, Nov. 5, 1863, Hinchman Papers.

30. Seage, Bancroft and Hewitt diaries, Oct. 15–19, 1863.

31. Seage, Bancroft, and Hewitt diaries, Oct. 20–Nov. 2, 1863; Bancroft to Lt. Col. Fred Locke, Oct. 22, 1863, in the Bancroft diary, with responses on back; Bancroft to Hinchman, Nov. 5, 1863, Hinchman Papers.

32. Bancroft diary, Nov. 7–8 1863; Seage diary, Nov. 7–8, 1863.

33. Bancroft, Seage, and Hewitt diaries, Nov. 9–24, 1863; Hudson Gazette, Dec. 19, 1863.

34. Bancroft, Seage, and Hewitt diaries, Nov. 25–27, 1863; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 31; OR, series 1, vol. 29, pt. 1, pp. 689–90, 904.

35. Seage, History of Co. E, p. 32; Bancroft diary, Nov. 29, 1863; Hewitt diary, Nov. 9, 1863; Hudson Gazette, Dec. 19, 1863.

36. Hudson Gazette, Dec. 19, 1863; Bancroft and Seage diaries, Nov. 30, 1863.

37. Bancroft, Seage, and Hewitt diaries, Dec. 1, 1863.

Chapter 12. They Say Let the War Go On

1. Hudson Gazette, Dec. 19, 1863; John W. Hewitt diary, Dec. 2–9, 1863, Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University; Henry Seage diary, Dec. 2–14, 1863, Steve Roberts; John Bancroft diary, Dec. 2, 1863, and a letter dated January 27, 1864, describing the building of winter camp, RG 95, Special Collections and Archives, Auburn University Library.

2. Robinson statement regarding lost stores, Dec. 22, 1863, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan; Brownell: Hudson Gazette, Nov. 28, 1863.

3. Lumbard to Blair, Dec. 8, 1863, Austin Blair Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

4. Hewitt diary, Dec. 11–17, 20, 26, 1863; Seage diary, Dec. 20, 24, 26, 1863; Robinson to Lt. Col. J. R. Smith, Dec. 26, 1863, Bentley Library.

5. Hewitt and Seage diaries, Dec. 29, 1863; Taylor to Dear Will, Jan. 11, 1864, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Sadler to Dear Father and Mother (no date, but at a point after Feb. 28, 1864, most likely March 1864), from a private collector. Sadler did, however, enlist in the 30th Michigan Infantry late in 1864.

6. Monroe Commercial, April 28, 1864. Figures about the reenlistment are from John Robertson, Michigan in the War, p. 231.

7. Richardson to Dear Brother, Dec. 24, 1863, Bentley Library.

8. Richardson to Dear Brother, Dec. 28, 1863, Bentley Library.

9. Lumbard to Robertson, December (no date) 1863, Bentley Library; Hewitt and Seage diaries, Dec. 31, 1863; Bancroft diary, Jan. 1, 2, 23, 1864; Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, Jan. 16, 1864; Taylor to Dear Lottie, Jan. 31, 1864, Taylor Collection; Hillsdale Standard, Jan. 26, 1864.

10. Church donation: Tecumseh Herald, Jan. 21, 1864; Recruitment of new soldiers: Hudson Gazette, Jan. 9 and March 20, 1864; Hillsdale Standard, Feb. 15, 1864; Blair to Michigan Adjutant General (commissioning Goodrich), Feb. 24, 1864, Blair Papers; Order No. 48, Office of the Superintendent of Volunteer Recruiting Service, Lt. Col. B. H. Hill, March 30, 1864, 4th Michigan records, State Archives of Michigan.

11. Seage diary, Jan. 14, 17, 21, 23, 29, 31, 1864; Hewitt diary, Jan. 6, 13, 14, 16, 25, 28, 29, 1864.

12. Taylor to Dear Lottie, Jan. 31, 1864, Taylor Collection; Seage diary, Feb. 6, 10, 1864; Michigan Adjutant General, Records of Service, p. 43; Watts et al. (15 officers and 166 men), to Blair, Feb. 15, 1864, Blair Papers; Hewitt diary, Feb. 4, 14, 19, 20.

13. Detroit Free Press, March 1, 1864; Hillsdale Standard, Jan. 26 and March 8, 1864; Hudson Gazette, March 12, 1864; Monroe Commercial, March 2 and April 28, 1864.

14. Steuben County Republican, March 11, 1864.

15. Hudson Gazette, March 21, 1864; Hillsdale Standard, March 21, 1864; Blair to Robertson, March 21, 1864, Blair Papers.

16. Seage diary, Feb. 25, March 4, 8, 17, 1864; Hewitt diary, March 3, 9, 17, 21, 1864.

17. Seage diary, March 12, 18, 1864.

18. Taylor to Dear Will, March 27, 1864, Taylor Collection.

19. Ibid.

20. Seage diary, March 11, 22, 31, April 1, 2, 5, 1864; Hewitt diary, April 1–4, 1864; Blair to Robertson (Lumbard commission), March 21, 1864, Blair Papers.

21. Bancroft diary, March 28, 30, April 12, 15, 25, 29, 30, 1864; Seage diary, April 7, 12, 13, 1864; Richardson to Dear Brother, March 3, 1864, and Richardson to Dear Brother, April 3, 1864, Bentley Library.

22. Richardson to Dear Brother, April 3, 1864, Bentley Library. Notes from a family genealogy filed with Richardson's letters state that he died on April 15, 1864.

23. Hawk's death: McLean to Robertson, April 10, 1864, and Special Orders (discharges) for Lamson, McLean, and E. French, 4th Michigan records, State Archives; Seage diary, April 16, 1864; Hudson Gazette, April 23 and May 7, 1864.

24. Seage diary, April 13 and 15, 1864; Henry Seage's third diary, April 20, 1864, John DeVinney collection; Hewitt diary, April 14, 15, 20, 1864; the Hartson-Tarsney letter to the Hillsdale Standard was reprinted in the Hudson Gazette, May 7, 1864.

25. Monroe Commercial, April 28, 1864; Hudson Gazette, May 7, 1864; Seage, History of Co. E (April 29, 1864), p. 33; Hewitt diary, April 27, 29, 1864.

26. Moses Luce memoir, p. 20, Edgar Luce Jr.; Hewitt diary, April 30–May 4, 1864; Seage diary, April 30–May 4, 1864, John DeVinney; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 33. Other accounts indicate the 4th Michigan had significantly less manpower than this 260 soldiers and officers. This may reflect only the number of men present and not those detached to serve in other duties at the direction of their brigade, division, and corps commanders. An unsigned account of regimental casualties dated May 27, 1864, seemingly by an officer, stated the 4th Michigan went into the Wilderness campaign with “190 guns.” Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, May 27, 1864.

Chapter 13. I Am Well but Don't Know How Long

1. Wert, The Sword of Lincoln, pp. 334, 335.

2. John W. Hewitt diary, May 5, 1864, Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University; Henry Seage diary, May 5, 1864, John DeVinney; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 34; Robert H. Campbell, “Service with the Old 4th Michigan,” pp. 32–33, MOLLUS; Hudson Gazette, May 28, 1864; Sturgis Journal, June 16, 1864; Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, May 27, 1864. Letters indicate that Jairus Hall was in Jackson at a camp for the rendezvous of men drafted into the Union army in the spring of 1864.

3. Detroit Advertiser, May 16, 1864; Campbell, “Service with the Old 4th Michigan,” pp. 32–33, MOLLUS; Hewitt diary, May, 5, 1864; Jones's account of Lumbard's death: Hillsdale Standard, June 27, 1893, a report on a postwar 4th Michigan reunion.

4. Moses Luce memoir, pp. 23, 24, Edgar A. Luce Jr. The effort to find Lumbard's grave and remove his remains for reburial in Michigan is related in chapter 16.

5. Seage, History of Co. E (May 6, 1864), p. 34; Hewitt diary, May 6, 1864.

6. Seage, History of Co. E (May 7, 1864), p. 34; Seage diary, May 7, 1864; Monroe Commercial, June 23, 1864; Fox, Regimental Losses, p. 383.

7. Historians and men who were there pointed out that “Laurel Hill” was actually the name of a farm located a mile north of the high ground where the battle took place. The battlefield actually spanned the Spindle Farm and the Perry Farm properties. This ridge where the fighting occurred was about two miles northwest of Spotsylvania Court House. Seage, History of Co. E (May 8, 1864), pp. 34–35; Gregory A. Mertz, “General Gouverneur K. Warren and the Fighting at Laurel Hill,” Blue & Gray magazine, vol. 21, issue 4, summer 2004, p. 20.

8. Seage diary, May 7, 1864; Seage, History of Co. E (May 8, 1864), p. 35; Mertz, “Gen. Warren,” p. 21.

9. Powell, Fifth Corps, pp. 634–35; Hudson Post, March (n.d.), 1915, Hudson Museum.

10. Monroe Commercial, June 23, 1864; Hewitt diary, May 8, 1864. 4th Michigan strength: Vesey letter in the Sturgis Journal, June 16, 1864; and Seage, History of Co. E (May 8, 1864), pp. 34–35.

11. Taylor to Dear Mother, May 16, 1864, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith Colleges; discharges of Robinson and Barrett, War Department orders regarding officers from the regiment, 4th Michigan regimental records, Box 59-14, State Archives of Michigan, Lansing.

12. Monroe Commercial, June 23. 1864; Seage diary, May 9, 1864; Strugis Journal, June 16, 1864; Hewitt diary, May 9, 1864.

13. Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, pp. 395, 398, 404; John L. Parker, History of the 22nd Massachusetts Infantry (1887; Baltimore: Butternut and Blue, 1997), p. 435; Powell, Fifth Corps, p. 664; Maltz to Robertson, June 30, 1864, regimental records, State Archives.

14. Luce memoir, p. 26; Walter F. Beyer and Oscar F. Keydel, Deeds of Valor: How America's Heroes Won the Medal of Honor, vol. 1 (Detroit: Perrien-Keydel, 1907), pp. 327–28; LaFleur deposition quoted in Minnie Dubbs Millbrook, A Study in Valor—Michigan Medal of Honor Winners in the Civil War (Lansing: Michigan Civil War Centennial Observance Commission, 1966), p. 98.

15. Seage diary, May 10, 1864; Hewitt diary May 10, 1864.

16. Hewitt diary, May 11, 12, 1864; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 35; Seage diary, May 12, 1864, p. 35; Poyer's death was mentioned in a letter by Heman Smith (whose real name according to census records was Heman Evans), in Smith to Dear Friend, May 20, 1864, miscellaneous file, Charles Bates Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Poyer's burial in the entrenchment was related in a statement by a comrade, William Gould, part of a pension application by Poyer's family, Poyer pension file, National Archives. Accounts of the skirmishes and attacks by regiments in the same division as the 4th Michigan during this time are in Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, pp. 404–5; and Parker, 22nd Massachusetts Infantry, p. 439.

17. Seage, History of Co. E (May 13, 14, 1864), p. 35; Hewitt diary, May 13–20, 1864; Fox, Regimental Losses, p. 383; Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, p. 400.

18. 4th Michigan strength: Vesey letter in the Sturgis Journal, June 16, 1864.

19. Sturgis Journal, June 16, 1864; Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, May 27, 1864; Detroit Free Press, June 27, 1864; Seage, History of Co. E (May 15, 1864), p. 35; John Bancroft diary, May 15, 1864, Special Collections and Archives, Auburn University Library. Van Valer's company is referred to in the state's regimental records for the 4th Michigan as “the Independent Company.”

20. Bancroft diary, May 16, 1864; Seage diary, May 16, 1864.

21. Bancroft and Seage diaries, May 17–21, 1864; Parker, 22nd Massachusetts Infantry, p. 444; H. Smith (Evans) to Dear Friend, May 20, 1864, Bates Papers.

22. Seage diary, May 22, 1864.

23. Bancroft diary, May 22–23, 1864; Seage, History of Co. E (May 23, 1864), p. 36.

24. Bancroft diary, May 23, 1864; Seage diary, May 23, 1864; Michigan Record of Service vol. 4, p. 70; Fox, Regimental Losses, p. 383; Parker, 22nd Massachusetts Infantry, p. 448; Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, p. 429; Monroe Commercial, June 23, 1864

A letter critical of Lt. William H. Sherman of the new company, written by soldier Henry S. Wells and printed in Hillsdale, set off angry charges and countercharges involving personnel of the 4th Michigan. The controversy raged for months in papers of the towns from where the men hailed. Before it ended, Sherman, accused of cowardice by Wells, resigned and ran for the state legislature as a Democrat that fall. He lost. One veteran sergeant called the dispute “foolish” and noted that many soldiers had been separated from the regiment during this fighting. Wells, he said, shouldn't have been so critical.

25. Bancroft diary, May 24–27, 1864; Seage diary, May 24–27, 1864; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 37.

26. Sturgis Journal, June 16, 1864; Bancroft diary, May 28–30, 1864; Seage diary, May 28–29, 1864; Monroe Commercial, June 23, 1864; Seage, History of Co. E (May 30, 1864), pp. 37–38; Four Brothers in Blue, p. 417; Powell, Fifth Corps, p. 666.

27. Bancroft diary, May 31–June 2, 1864; Seage diary, May 31–June 2, 1964; J. Barnes to Friend Harriet, June 2, 1864, Archive and Regional History Collection, Western Michigan University; Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, p. 417; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 38.

28. Bancroft and Seage diaries, June 3, 1864; William H. Smith to Dear Sister (transcription), June 12, 1864, copy provided by William P. Watson; Parker, 22nd Massachusetts, p. 460; Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, pp. 424–25, 437; Maltz to Robertson, June 30, 1864, regimental records, State Archives.

29. Seage diary, June 4–5, 1863; Bancroft diary, June 4, 1864; Monroe Commercial, June 23, 1864; Taylor to Dear Mother, June 8, 1864, Taylor Collection.

30. Bancroft diary, June 5, 1864; Monroe Commercial, June 23, 1864; Taylor to Dear Mother, June 8, 1864, Taylor Collection; William Smith to sister (transcription), June 12, 1864, William P. Watson.

Chapter 14. The Regiment Is in a Bad Situation at Present

1. Henry Seage diary, June 5–12, 1864, John DeVinney; Seage, History of Co. E, pp. 38–39; John Bancroft diary, June 4–11, 1864, Special Collections and Archives, Auburn University Library; Detroit Free Press, June 23, 1864.

2. Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, p. 420.

3. Bancroft and Seage diaries, June 12–16; OR, vol. 40, pt. 1, p. 455; Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, p. 437.

4. Bancroft diary, June 17, 1864.

5. Bancroft diary, June 18, 1864; Moses Luce memoir, Edgar A. Luce Jr.; Harrison Daniels reminiscence, Craig and Ann Emery and Hal Flynn.

6. Bancroft diary, June 18, 1864; Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, p. 440.

7. Bancroft diary, June 18 and 19, 1864; Luce memoir; Daniels reminiscence.

8. Daniels reminiscence; Luce memoir; Michigan Adjutant General, Records of Service, pp. 32 and 54; Hudson Gazette, March 7, 1915; Bancroft diary; Seage, History of Co. E, (June 19, 1864), p. 40.

9. Daniels reminiscence; Maltz to Robertson, June 30, 1864, regimental records, State Archives of Michigan; Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, June 24, 1864 (evening edition, June 20 letter of Bancroft); Roberstson, Michigan in the War, p. 232; Fox, Regimental Losses, p. 383; Seage, History of Co. E, p. 40. While Seage didn't muster out with the “old men,” his company history accurately described the major events of these days.

10. Daniels reminiscence; Detroit Free Press, June 28, 1864; Hillsdale Standard, June 28, 1864. Henry Seage's History of Co. E, p. 40, states that the men of the 4th Michigan arrived in Detroit on June 26, and it appears to have been early in the morning.

11. Monroe Monitor, June 29, 1864.

12. Luce memoir; Hillsdale Standard, June 28 and July 5, 1864, quoting the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune; Hudson Gazette, July 2, 1864, also quoting the Detroit Advertiser; Monroe Monitor, July 4, 1864, quoting the Lansing State Journal.

13. Hillsdale Standard, July 6, 1864; Luce memoir.

14. Reports on the ceremony of the returning flag at Adrian: Hudson Gazette, July 2 and 9, 1864; Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, July 9, 1864; Detroit Free Press, July 2, 1864; Hillsdale Standard, July 12, 1864; Charles Cleveland diary, July 4, 1864, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

Was the flag presented to Mrs. Wilcox that day the original flag? Ned Taylor had written to his sister on May 21, 1863 that the original flag was sent home; Quartermaster Lt. Robert Campbell, speaking years later, agreed. By the time Taylor wrote his letter, the original colors had already been replaced with a new flag, brought by Campbell from Washington, as indicated in Henry Seage's diary entry for March 24, 1863, and as Campbell would maintain in his later accounts. Campbell wrote that this second banner was a U.S. flag, though Seage later wrote in his company history that it was a blue flag with a gold eagle. Of course, the historical evidence indicates it was a U.S. flag that was lost at Gettysburg, just as Campbell maintained.

Harrison Jeffords had described the poor condition of the regiment's original “Defend It” U.S. flag in a late April letter to the Michigan (Ann Arbor) Argus, published on May 4, 1863. Letters printed in the Adrian Watchtower early in 1863 made clear that the officers of the 4th Michigan intended for Mrs. Wilcox to have this flag. Perhaps the “Defend It” flag was already back in Michigan when these men returned, and they simply brought it with them for the July 4th ceremony.

Writing and speaking about regimental flags decades later, Robert Campbell said that the flag he got to replace the one captured at Gettysburg (the regiment's second U.S. flag) was blue with an American eagle and white stars. He said this was the regiment's third flag, and claimed in 1902 that both “our first and third flag may be seen at the military museum in the State capitol in Lansing.” For years, Civil War banners carried by Michigan regiments were on display in the state capitol.

Yet the surviving evidence, in the form of the flags themselves, doesn't support Campbell about the blue flag. According to Kerry Chartkoff, head of Michigan's Civil War flags preservation effort, the State of Michigan has five flags associated with the 4th Michigan: First, a small “Dexter Union Guard” militia flag, which didn't go to war; second, the original U.S. “Defend It” flag presented by the women of Adrian in June 1861; and two other “fragmentary” U.S. flags—one that is truly a ragged fraction of its original size, about which nothing is known—and a second Stars and Stripes flag, parts of which were apparently cut away for souvenirs and which was turned over to the state in a large ceremony in Detroit on July 4, 1866.

The fifth flag associated with the 4th Michigan in the state's possession is a portion of a blue regimental banner with a finely painted Michigan coat-of-arms on one side and a federal eagle on the other. Mrs. Chartkoff describes this as “an expensive presentation flag” that has on its staff the inscription “New Organization,” referring to the reorganized 4th Michigan. This flag also bears a motto, “Be As Brave.” This blue, partial flag was also turned over to the state with numerous other Civil War flags in the 1866 ceremony and was recorded as having belonged to the reorganized 4th Michigan. Given that it is an expensive presentation flag for the reorganized 4th Michigan, it couldn't have been “procured” by Lieutenant Campbell to replace the U.S. flag lost at Gettysburg.

15. Hudson Gazette, July 9, 1864; Hillsdale Standard, July 9, 1864; Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, July 9, 1864; Cleveland diary, July 2, 1864.

16. Van Valer to Austin Blair, June 29, 1864, Austin Blair Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library; William H. Smith letter, June 12, 1864 (transcription), William P. Watson; Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, July 4, 1864; Fifth Corps “special orders No. 146,” OR, vol. 40, pt. 2, p. 217; Detroit Free Press, July 8, 1864.

17. Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, Aug. 14 and 16, 1864; Hall to Robertson, Aug. 1, 1864, 4th Michigan regimental records, State Archives of Michigan, Lansing; R. W. Seage pension application, National Archives; Hall to Capt. Knight (of the reorganized 4th Michigan at Adrian) authorizing Vreeland to recruit, Aug. 1, 1864, National Archives.

Hall's spending March–June 1864 in Michigan is mentioned in a summary of his military record in a letter sent “To the President of the U. States,” dated Aug. 1866, signed by Col. Michael Shoemaker of the 13th Michigan and six other individuals. Though Andrew Johnson was then president, the letter is from the files of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. A letter by Hall, dated May 23, 1864, and written on stationery labeled “Headquarters Draft Rendezvous, Jackson, Mich.,” also shows him assigned to duty away from the regiment. Hall signed this letter as major of the 4th Michigan, though records reflect his commission as lieutenant colonel dated from July 13, 1863. Heckert Papers, Monroe County Historical Museum.

18. Fifth Corps “special orders No. 146,” OR, vol. 40, pt. 2, p. 217. The fact that men of the old 4th Michigan signed a petition to be attached to the reorganized 4th Michigan is reflected in War Department letter, Thomas Vincent, Adjt. General's Office, to George G. Meade, July 1864, Heckert Papers.

19. Boies to the Adjutant General, State of Michigan, May 25, 1888, Hudson Museum, Hudson, Michigan; Robertson, Michigan in the War, p. 234; Cleveland diary, Aug. 14, 16, 27, Sept. 25, Oct. 14, 18, 22, 1864; Charles Lanman, The Red Book of Michigan; a Civil, Military and Biographical History (Detroit: E. B. Smith, 1871), containing John Robertson's History of Michigan During the Rebellion, p. 180.

Chapter 15. We Have Broke the Backbone of the Rebellion

1. OR, vol. 39, pt. 1, pp. 453, 702, 703; Robertson, Michigan in the War, p. 234; Fox to Dear Father, Oct. 28 and 30, 1864, private collector; W. Warner to Dear Sister and also Dear Brother, Nov. 6, 1864, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. A man who signed his letter “Chaplain,” published Jan. 9, 1865, in the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, said the reorganized 4th Michigan arrived in Nashville on Oct. 29 and reached Decatur on Nov. 2, but this doesn't correspond with the earlier date given by Captain Fox and official reports. If “Chaplain” really was the regiment's chaplain—at this time, the Reverend John Seage—it seems he was traveling separately from the rest of the regiment, perhaps helping to care for the sick or carrying out other duties.

2. OR, vol. 45, pt. 1, pp. 612, 636–37; an unidentified newspaper clipping, probably from a Michigan paper in Nov. 1864, quoting the Cincinnati Gazette, Nov. 23, 1864; clippings (photocopied pages), Heckert Papers, Monroe County Historical Museum, marked as coming from the “Jarius W. Hall, 4th Michigan Papers, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pa.”; telegraph message (copy), Gen. Thomas to Col. Snow, Nov. 21, 1864, 4th Michigan records, State Archives of Michigan; Lyon to Hall, Nov. 22, 1864, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Ill.; Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, Jan. 9, 1865.

3. Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, Jan. 9, 1865.

4. The story of the fight between men of the 4th Michigan and the regulars appears in The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union by Bell I. Wiley (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1951), pp. 324–25. That account, in turn, is largely based on the Nashville Dispatch, Nov. 27, 1864.

5. Griswold to My Dear Sister, Feb. 22, 1865, and Dec. 20, 1864, Bentley Library; Hampton: “A Saga of Secession Days in the Southern States, Personal recollection of Mrs. C. C. Hampton, wife of Dr. Carlos D. Hampton, and mother of Will E. Hampton as told to him and taken down in short hand, and later printed in his paper, the Charlevoix Courier,” Bentley Library.

6. Hall to Robertson, Dec. 29, 1864, 4th Michigan files, State Archives.

7. Miner was listed in a roster of Company B, reorganized 4th Michigan, in the Hudson Gazette, Jan. 28, 1865; Vreeland, “Letters from Civil War Battlefields,” pt. 3, by Carl Vreeland, Oregon (Portland) Journal, June 28, 1964, and Adrian Watchtower, June 8, 1865; Lowery to Dear Mother, Jan. 1, 1865, Mrs. Glen (Lucy) Rutan Collection, Samuel McLain Letters, Archives and Regional History Collections, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo.

8. Lowery to Dear Mother Jan. 1, 1865; and McLain to Dear Mother, Feb. 12, 1865, both in the Archives and Regional History Collections, Western Michigan University; Detroit Free Press, March 3, 1865; the Jan. 29 letter from Sgt. Roof is on a clipping that appears to be from the Adrian Watchtower, Feb. 9, 1865, in Heckert Papers, marked as coming from the “Jarius W. Hall, 4th Michigan Papers, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.”; OR, vol. 49, pt. 1, pp. 19–20; Griswold to My Dear Hattie, Jan. 22, 1865.

9. OR, vol. 49, pt. 1, pp. 21–23, 917; report to Michigan Adjutant General from Maj. S.S. Parker, Jan. 21, 1866 (regarding the movement of the reorganized 4th Michigan throughout 1865), 4th Michigan files, State Archives.

10. Detroit Free Press, March 3, and May 16, 1865; Griswold to Hattie, Jan. 22, 1865; Jan. 28, 1865; Feb. 6, 1865; March 1, 1865, and March 9, 1865, all Bentley Library; Army of the Cumberland, May 11, 1865, extract of letter by Capt. R. S. Walker, inspector, Third Brigade, Third Division, Fourth Corps, 4th Michigan files, State Archives; Monroe Commercial, June 15, 1865.

11. June report to Michigan Adjutant General from Maj. S. S. Parker, Jan. 21, 1866 (regarding the movement of the reorganized 4th Michigan throughout 1865), 4th Michigan files, State Archives.

12. Boies to the Adjt. General, State of Michigan, May 25, 1888, Hudson Museum, Hudson, Michigan.

13. Detroit Free Press, July 13, 1863; Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, Aug. 14, 1864.

14. C. W. Owen, The First Michigan Infantry—Three Months and Three Years (Quincy, Mich.: Quincy Herald Print, no date), pp. 23. 38, 52.

15. Perine biographical clippings and statement, Sharon Mershon.

16. J. Barnes to Dear Brother Judge, July 20, 1864, Roger Walcott Collection, Archives and Regional History Collections, Western Michigan University.

17. Detroit Free Press, July 27, 1864; Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, Aug. 14, 1864; Amos Judson, History of the 83rd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers (Erie, Pa.: B.F.H. Lynn, 1865), p. 232; OR, vol. 42, pt. 2, p. 999.

18. Robertson, Michigan in the War, p. 234.

19. Smith to Dear Friends, April 9, 1865, University of Washington Digital Collection, http://content.lib.washington.edu/. The library's collection is searchable. A transcription of the letter is also in the Schoff Civil War Collection, Clements Library, University of Michigan.

20. Ibid.

21. Piper to Dear Parents, April 14, 1865, Lewis Leigh collection, USAMHI.

22. Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, July 7, 1865; Monroe Commercial, July 13, 1865.

23. William L. Richter, The Army in Texas during Reconstruction, 1865–1870 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1987), pp. 17–18; Monroe Commercial, July 13, 1865.

24. Detroit Free Press, Aug. 17 and Oct. 22, 1865; Hudson Gazette, Sept. 2, 1865.

25. Richter, Army in Texas, p. 18; Griswold to Hattie, Sept. 11, Oct. 17, Oct. 19, Nov. 19, Nov. 30, Dec. 11, 1865; Bentley Library; Major S. Parker to Robertson (report), Jan. 21, 1866, Heckert Papers.

26. Griswold to Hattie, Dec. 26 and 31, 1865, and Jan. 15 and 24 and Feb. 26, 1866, Bentley Library.

27. General Orders No. 1, regarding Hall as commander of the San Antonio subdistrict, Lincoln Presidential Library; Bradley to Robertson, report of Jan. 21, 1866, and March 11, 1866, 4th Michigan files, State Archives; Detroit Free Press, April 4, 1866.

28. The New York paper's accusatory report is in an unidentified newspaper clipping from 1865 or 1866, originally from the Jairus Hall file, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection, USAMHI. A photocopy of this and other newspaper clippings is in Heckert Papers.

29. OR, vol. 48, pt. 2, p. 1223; Robertson, Michigan in the War, pp. 234–35; Detroit Free Press, April 22 and May 16, 1866.

30. Detroit Free Press, June 12, 1866.

Chapter 16. I Saw Passing a Great Army

1. The Hillsdale Standard, June 22, 1875, suggests yearly reunions began for the 4th Michigan in 1873, but other reports on reunions indicate the first was held in 1872. Community planning for the reunions: Hudson Post, May 19, 25 and June 15, 1876, and June 16 and 23, 1916; Hudson Gazette, May 20, 1876, May 15, 1896, and May 18, 1916.

Women's role in the reunions: The Hudson Gazette credited the 1875 reunion dinner to ‘the ladies of Hillsdale,” while an undated clipping from the Hillsdale Standard in 1878 said “the ladies of Tecumseh” handled that year's reunion dinner. The local Women's Relief Committee preparing dinner is in the Adrian Weekly Times and Expositor of June 28, 1889. The WRC is also credited in reports on 4th Michigan reunions in the Coffee Cooler, Aug. 1892 (the Cooler was a monthly newspaper for veterans published in Sturgis); also Hillsdale Standard, June 27, 1893; Adrian Times, June 20, 1911; and Hudson Gazette, June 15, 1916, to cite just a few examples. Women from the local Methodist Church making dinner, Hudson Post, June 23, 1916. Participation of ex-rebel “Burkley” or Barkley: Hudson Post, June 27, 1884; Hudson Gazette, June 27, 1884; Adrian Times, June 19, 1911.

2. Magee's emotional speech: unidentified Hudson newspaper clipping about the reunion in Hillsdale, June 1875, Hudson Museum; host communities decorated in patriotic fashion: Hudson Post, June 22, 1876; Hudson Gazette, June 26, 1896; Jackson Citizen Press, June 18, 1913; Hudson Gazette, June 23, 1916.

Coverage in the Hudson paper of the 1875 reunion in Hillsdale reflects the veterans marching to greet the flag at the railroad depot, and citizens marching with them; this is also in the Hudson Post, June 25, 1876, and June 27, 1884, and many others. Clippings about the regimental reunions routinely showed the presence of the regiment's first flag at the events year after year.

3. For example, at the 1890 reunion, Lumbard's widow made badges featuring a picture of Little Round Top, the Gettysburg landmark, Michigan (Sturgis) Democrat, June 26, 1890. She also made badges for the 1893 reunion in Hillsdale, according to an unidentified clipping in the Hudson Museum; the Steuben County Republican, June 25, 1902, reported she sent 75 “beautiful button-hole bouquets” for that year's reunion. Mrs. Wilcox made silk badges for the survivors' 1889 reunion in Adrian, from an unidentified clipping from a Jackson newspaper; the Adrian Weekly Times and Expositor, June 28, 1889, reported the men received flowers that were pinned to their lapels when they arrived in town for the reunion.

4. Dinner speeches and toasts are reflected in most accounts of the reunions, sometimes in detail. A sampling of articles that mentioned or covered them are Hudson Post, June 29, 1876 and June 27, 1884; Hudson Gazette, June 25, 1876; Adrian Times & Expositor, June 28, 1889; Monroe Commercial, July 2, 1897. Declining numbers: unidentified news clipping on the North Adams reunion in 1898, Hudson Museum, and Jonesville Independent, June 28, 1917.

5. Memorandum by Henry Seage, then president of the 4th Michigan association about the plan to memorialize Jeffords at Gettysburg, dated Jan. 5, 1886, is in the Hudson Museum. Gruner's paintings for fund-raising: Malvern Hill picture, in Hillsdale Standard, June 22, 1875, and Hudson Post, June 22, 1876. Gettysburg painting: a clipping about a reunion in Eaton Rapids, likely the Eaton Rapids Journal of late June 1886, in John Bancroft's diary-scrapbook, Special Collections and Archives, Auburn University Library. Huff traveling to Gettysburg to identify his regiment's place: a copy of an unidentified clipping in the authors' possession, apparently from a Hillsdale newspaper on which the date “Sept. 29 84” was written. Huff was from the Hillsdale area and lived there after the war.

6. Members of the 4th Michigan association voting to locate Lumbard's remains and pay for a monument, Hillsdale Standard, July 3, 1888, Bancroft diary; men unable to locate Lumbard's grave: Adrian Weekly Times & Expositor, June 28, 1889; authors' discussion by email with Donald Pfanz, staff historian, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.

7. Seage's History of Co. E adopted by the members of the regiment: Monroe Commercial, July 2, 1897.

8. Dean's participation is in the Michigan (Sturgis) Democrat, June 26, 1890, and Hudson Gazette, June 23, 1896.

9. Miner and Boies meet, Hudson Gazette, June 22 and 29, 1916.

10. Paul Leake, History of Detroit—a Chronicle of its Progress, its Industries, its Institutions, and the People of the Fair City of the Straits (Chicago: Lewis Publication Co., 1912), pp. 966–67. The story about Dickerson and Janes was repeated in other various published biographical sketches of the men.

11. Many clippings about Company F's reunions survive in Hudson's local museum, including Hudson Gazette, Feb. and 23, 1910, and March 18, 1915, and Hudson Post, May 19 and 26, 1916. The report of Westfall's death in the Hudson Post-Gazette is datelined July 20, 1925. Westfall had been wounded in the right hand at Gettysburg.

12. The visiting veterans took rides in automobiles in Jackson: Jackson Citizen Press, June 21, 1913; “falling like leaves”: Hudson Post, June 23, 1916.

13. Jeffords's sword: Hillsdale Daily News, June 20, 1922. Concern about the keeping of the regiment's first flag was expressed in a vote by the veterans at their 1898 reunion in North Adams; they planned to place it in “the war office in Lansing”: unidentified (June) 1898 clipping in the files of the Hudson Museum.

An article in the Reading (Mich.) Telephone, June 28, 1899, noted the flag was then being kept in “Comrade Salsbury's back office.” An unidentified clipping, dated June 28, 1900, in the Hudson Museum about the regiment's 1900 reunion in Palmyra, and Adrian Times & Expositor, n.d., June 1901, also mentioned the original regimental flag and that it was to be turned over to the state of Michigan. It was.

14. “One hundred now living”: Hudson Post-Gazette, May 8, 1923; the last reunion: Hillsdale Daily News, June 21, 1928, and Hudson Post-Gazette, July 3, 1929.

15. Partridge's state of mind, wounds, and suicide: Affidavits in his pension record, National Archives.

16. Leake, History of Detroit, pp. 965–67.

17. James M. Guinn, Historical and Biographical Record of Southern California (Chicago: Chapman Publishing Co., 1902), pp. 483–84; “Alumni Spotlight—Luce…Among 25 Who Shaped ‘America's Finest City,” Hillsdale (College) Magazine, Winter 1987, pp. 8–9; Moses Luce biographical materials and information provided by Edgar Luce Jr.

18. The story of John Tarsney's escape by switching identities with the dead man is from Kansas City: Its Resources and their Development…A Souvenir of the Kansas City Times (Kansas City, 1890); Hudson Post-Gazette, Sept. 14, 1920. Tom Tarsney's death certificate is part of his pension record, National Archives.

19. Duffield biographical information: S. D. Bingham, Michigan Biography (Lansing: Thorp & Godfrey, 1888), pp. 238–39; Spalding biography: Monroe Courier News, Sept. (n.d.), 1915.

20. Childs's biography in Ellis, Norwich University, p. 616; letters regarding Childs's pension and disability applications are in his pension file, National Archives.

21. Pohanka, “George Yates,” 13–19.

22. Death of Robinson: Henry Lovejoy Amber, History of Dentistry in Cleveland (Cleveland, 1911), pp. 85–86; unidentified news clipping, marked “1867,” on his death, Robinson Family Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

23. Hudson Post Gazette, Feb. 22, 1924, and Dec. 23, 1930.

24. Colorado (Georgetown) Weekly Miner, Feb. 22, 1872; “Col. Hall's Big Bear Fight,” Chicago Sunday Times-Herald, Dec. 22, 1895; photocopy of Hall's 1903 death certificate, General Register Office, Lambeth District, County of London; Omaha (Neb.)World-Herald, Dec. 16, 1903.

25. Hudson Gazette, December, n.d., 1909, Hudson Museum.

26. Harrison Daniels reminiscence and newspaper obituary clipping, Craig and Ann Emery and Hal Flynn.

27. Perine clippings, Jan. (n.d.), 1934, 1935, 1936, 1940, Battle Creek Enquirer & News, and biographical statement, all provided by Sharon Mershon.

28. Taylor biographical data, introduction to Taylor letters, G. Taylor Collection, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Hobart and William Smith College Archives.

29. Barrett to Bachelder, July, 8, 1889, in Ladd and Ladd, Bachelder Papers, vol. 2, p. 1606.

30. John Seage pension file, National Archives; “Descendants of John Seage,” a genealogy by John DeVinney.

31. Henry Seage pension file and Richard W. Seage pension file, National Archives; Ladd and Ladd, Bachelder Papers, vol. 2, pp. 1071–72; “Descendants of John Seage,” by John DeVinney.

32. Bancroft pension file, National Archives.

33. Vreeland pension file, National Archives; Carl Vreeland, “Letters from Civil War Battlefields,” pt. 3, Oregon Journal, June 26, 1964; copies of letters about commissions for Vreeland for brevet colonel and brigadier general are in Vreeland Papers, USAMHI, and in the National Archives, Records of the Adjutant General's Office, Letters Received by the Commission Branch, file V173CB1866.

34. Hudson Gazette, July 5, 1895; Reading Telephone, June 28, 1899; clippings about the 1900 reunion in Palmyra, Hudson Museum; Chamberlain obituaries (clippings from unidentified 1900 newspapers), the Toledo Public Library and Hudson Museum.

35. Hudson Post, June 14 and June 21, 1889; Campbell, “Pioneer Memories,” p. 572.

36. Luce's Memorial Day speech was printed in the Evening (San Diego) Tribune in 1903. The clipping is undated, from materials from his family's history files courtesy of Edgar Luce Jr. and the San Diego Library.