USA > Michigan > Calhoun County > History of Calhoun county, Michigan, With Illustrations descriptive of its scenery > Part 14
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39
HISTORY OF CALHOUN COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
Thomas Chisholm and George Ketchum, in the winter of 1832, went to Prairie Ronde for potatoes, getting as far as the St. Joseph river the first night, where they stayed without food or covering for themselves or horses. They managed to get a fire in an old whitewood tree, and stood around it till near daylight, when they got their ponies off of the ice into the river and out again and upon the other side ; and when they arrived at Kookush prairie, they found a cabin where the woman pounded up buckwheat with an iron wedge and baked them cakes, which, with meat, answered them for supper, breakfast, and dinner. On the trip, they stayed one night at Mr. Hanchett's, and during the night they heard a noise in the hen- roost, and all got up to see what was the matter, supposing it to be an owl or skunk. Mrs. Hanchett stood at the door while her husband went for his gun, and when he came back with a light the depredator was discovered, and proved to be a large wolf, which was speedily killed. Newman Enos tells of a trip of " land-looking," wherein he and a companion got lost one dark, rainy night, and provided them- selves with a fire by firing their rifles into a fallen tree, by which they stood all night while the wolves were howling on all sides, and the lightning occasionally revealed their gaunt forms in rather too affectionate proximity. He says he was married in 1837, and endured many trials on his wife's account previous to their marriage, as she was on one side of the river and he the other, and the only cross- ing was by logs and poles ; and it frequently occurred that he had to make his Sunday afternoon call after having tumbled off the bridge into the water and given his Sunday best a soaking, but did not think it made any difference in the warmth of her reception of him. They began housekeeping in December of that year, with furniture he manufactured with his axe and an auger. The bedstead was made of poles, and the bark he peeled from them he wove into a bed-cord like a chair-bottom ; stools made of slabs answered for chairs, and their cooking- utensils were kettles and spiders, and a Dutch chimney served for a stove. J. C. Patterson, one " to the manor born" in Michigan, tells of a time when one wagon, one wheel (spinning), one oven, and one fanning-mill did duty for a whole neigh- borhood, and the neighborhood joined in the grists for milling, and lived on short rations till they were returned.
CHAPTER XV.
THE PATRIOTISM OF CALHOUN : FIRST VOLUNTEERS OF MICHIGAN-BLACK HAWK WAR-TOLEDO WAR-MILITIA-MEXICAN WAR-THE REBELLION.
AMONG the many glories of the Republic, none shine more brightly than that reflected upon it by its citizen soldiery. Its army, a mere nucleus in time of peace, when necessity demands is swelled to hundreds of thousands, aye, millions, by volunteers from the field, the workshop, the store, and the counting-room, whose bayonets are fixed by patriotism, and whose hearts are as devoid of fear as they are of mercenary motives. With minds capable of reasoning, they are no machines to obey mechanically the will of their superiors, but with perceptions quickened by the love of country and the endearments of home, the movements required are executed with celerity and intelligence, and with a will to do and dare that is irresistible. The conflict once ended, they relapse into their former condition of domesticity with readiness, and resume the humdrum routine of daily life as gracefully as they relinquish it patriotically to go out into the carnage of battle.
Michigan has ever been foremost in the demands made upon her for her quotas to the armies of the nation, and her first volunteers were those of the gallant Major Antoine de Quindre, who led a company of Frenchmen from Detroit to the aid of the United States troops in the war of 1812 against the British and their Indian confederates, at the battle of Monguagon, or Brownstown. These volunteers charged with such impetuosity upon the Indian lines that the savages broke, and falling back upon the British reserves, threw them into confusion, and the Amer- ican troops, charging, drove the enemy from the field. The gallant action of Major De Quindre and his company received the well-merited thanks of the Michigan legislature in after-years.
Calhoun has not been a whit behind any of her sisters in maintaining the honor of the State in its military renown, and her record of war, which began to be written ere her settlement was one year advanced from its incipiency, has been a proud and glorious one.
The first demand made upon her patriotism was in the alarm of 1832, when the news of Black Hawk's intended march of desolation and blood came to the handful of pioneers at Marshall. They were surrounded by men of the same race as those whose warriors were already on the war-path, and who, for aught they
knew, were just as implacable, and as ready as they to apply the torch and use the scalping-knife upon their own property and families ; but, notwithstanding, the little colony sent out an advance guard to aid their brethren in Illinois and Wisconsin, trusting that the invader would be stayed ere he came to their own borders. This company were Sidney Ketchum, Dr. A. L. Hays, George Ket- chum, and, in fact, nearly all of the able-bodied men in the colony, who went as far as Schoolcraft, where they learned the Sac chief had not crossed the Missis- sippi, and consequently there was no immediate necessity for their presence in the west, and they returned home, except Mr. Ketchum and Dr. Hays, who utilized their journey thus far by proceeding to White Pigeon and entering several fine tracts of land in Calhoun. The next messenger brought the news of Black Hawk's capture, and quietness again reigned.
The next call that came to inflame their ardor was the demand of Governor Stevens for troops for the " Toledo" war, to drive back the ferocious Buckeyes of Ohio from the disputed territory along the boundary of that State and Michigan. No one went to this war, however, from Calhoun, but the excitement over the boundary led to the organization of the militia of the State quite effectively.
The Calhoun militia were first enrolled in October, 1836, Judge Dickey being the first person to receive a commission (captain) in the county. Afterwards other commissions, as captains, were issued to Colonel Fonda, Colonel Ansley at Marengo, Captain James Winters, who raised an independent company in Athens, and Captain Allen Denning at Homer. When the militia were brigaded Judge Dickey was promoted to the colonelcy of the thirteenth regiment, Dr. A. S. Hays was made general of the second brigade, and Isaac E. Crary was made major- general of the third division, and Charles T. Gorham was made inspector-general. The lieutenants were all made captains, and the captains colonels, before the sys- tem fell into disuse, and a great deal of display and pleasure was got out of the musters and trainings, and for a time the interest was maintained without flagging. But at last it grew irksome to drill for a preparation against an enemy that might never come against them ; the commutation clause was struck out of the militia law, the glory departed from the " pomp and circumstance" of the tented field, court-martials were powerless to execute their decrees, and the militia " folded its tents and silently stole away."
The next demand on their patriotism was more earnest and more costly, and came in 1847, when the President issued his call on Michigan for a regiment of volunteers for service in Mexico. A company was recruited in Calhoun by Captain John Van Arman, with Lieutenants J. D. S. Pierce, Duel, and fifty privates. John T. Vernon aided largely in raising the company, but did not go to the field.
Duel was the first lieutenant and Pierce the second, the latter receiving his commission on the day he was eighteen years old. The company left Detroit January, 1848, arriving at Vera Cruz shortly afterwards, and, with the Michigan regiment, in command of Colonels Stockton and Williams, were ordered to Cor- dova, which place the regiment captured and held during the war. Lieutenant Pierce was sent home on furlough during the summer of 1848, having been sick with the measles, and having also contracted a disease incident to the Gulf coast, from which he died in the November following.
Calhoun in the war for the Union during the great rebellion was prompt, patri- otic, and decisive. Her citizens were in the first fire upon the traitors at Bull Run, and at the inglorious capture of the captain of the so-called Confederacy. They were with Mcclellan on the Peninsula and with Banks at Baton Rouge and Port Hudson, and Butler at New Orleans. They fought with Hooker above the clouds, sat down before Vicksburg with Grant, and with Sherman "marched down to the sea." Their blood stained all the way from the Rapidan to Appo- mattox, through the Wilderness, as Grant hammered the hosts of Lee day after day, gaining, slowly and surely, but at dreadful cost, the key to the situation, which finally forced the submission of the armies of the Confederates. At Chan- tilly, Fredericksburg, down the Shenandoah with the intrepid Custer, at Fair Oaks, Malvern, and the seven days' battles before Richmond; at Gettysburg and Antietam ; at Resaca, Kenesaw, Lookout Mountain ; before Atlanta; at Nash- ville, Shiloh, and Cumberland Gap; in the Carolinas and Virginia ; in Missouri, in hot pursuit of Van Dorn and Price; and wherever else a glorious record was made, there Calhoun had brave men, who wore her crest in their hearts and bore her honor upon their bayonets. Her colors were born aloft through gloom and defeat as well as in the flush and tumult of victory. They trailed not in dis- grace, nor were they borne by panic-stricken soldiers, fleeing from the enemy. Mason, Barns, Dickey, Woodruff, Comstock, Darrow, Byington, Hicks, Barney, Davis, and Rhines paid the penalty demanded of gallant officers who lead where brave men dare to follow. Calhoun's dead lie in almost every battle-field strewn with the sons of the republic, who died that it might live and be indeed " the land of the free," as it ever has been " the home of the brave." They suffered and died in the noisome trench and in the infected hospital; they starved in
40
HISTORY OF CALHOUN COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
Andersonville until they became almost driveling lunatics under the brutality of a Wirz; they chafed in Libby, Belle Isle, Salisbury, and Columbia, and in the chain-gang stood under the fire of the "swamp angel" of Charleston harbor ; they fell in the skirmish, on the picket line, and in the charge, amid the roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry. Whatever form of sacrifice was demanded by the bloody Moloch of war, Calhoun had a victim who was offered to the insatiable monster. The flowers of the sunny south bloom over their ashes, and the breezes, redolent with the fragrance of the orange and magnolia, sing their requiem. They fell in the defense of a common country assailed by its own parricidal children. They maintained its honor and integrity against those who sought madly to de- stroy both. They paid the sacrifice of their lives ; but their works have followed and shall follow them to the end of recorded time, or while memory shall retain its seat. Calhoun's honor was their honor, and nobly and well did they guard it, and living or dead, maimed or scathless, all honor to the soldiers for the Union of old Calhoun.
" By fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung. There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; And Freedom shall awhile repair To dwell, a weeping hermit, there."
THE WOMEN'S WORK.
It would be unjust, not to say ungallant, to pass by the heroic women of Cal- houn without pausing to pay them the tribute of praise and gratitude so justly their due for their labors of love and mercy during the terrible years of 1861- 65. Their hands wrought while their eyes streamed with pitying tears; and their hearts were lifted up in prayer to the God of the universe for the safety of loved ones and the success of the armies of the Union. Aid societies sprang up all over the county, wherein noble and self-sacrificing women banded together and prepared comforts for the well, dainties for the sick, necessaries for the wounded, and cheer and blessings for all. Fair hands, scraping lint, knitting socks, making towels, preparing jellies and cordials, were busy throughout the whole dreadful struggle. Dinners were prepared for recruits, and entertainments given and refreshments sold to swell the funds for supplies. Boxes of goods of all needful descriptions were forwarded to the soldiers, whose bosoms swelled with gratitude, and whose eyes welled over with tears of joy, at their reception. Early and late, in season and out of season, these angels of mercy toiled and gathered and for- warded, that their brothers, sons, husbands, lovers, might want for no comfort in their power to bestow while they were upholding the old flag against traitors in arms. Too much cannot be said of the efforts of the women of the North to sustain and cheer the armies of the nation while engaged in the work of saving the republic from its enemies within its own precincts; and the women of Calhoun were of the foremost in all of their good words and works.
INCIDENTS.
Sergeant Henry Bostock, of Company E, Sixth Michigan Infantry, was the leader of a forlorn hope in a night attack on the batteries of Port Hudson, and was the only one killed in the engagement in his party. He was shot in the neck, by reason of his being made conspicuous by a sabre-bayonet affixed to a musket which he borrowed of an Indiana soldier, which, being bright, gleamed in the moonlight, thus affording a target which was quickly made use of by a rebel marksman.
Calvin Colegrove was the first Michigan man killed in the war. He was orderly sergeant of Company I, of the First Infantry, three months' men, and was made color-bearer of the regiment at the first battle of Bull Run, in July, 1861, and was shot dead in the first of the fight.
Lieutenant Gilbert H. Dickey, in command of Company K, Twenty-fourth Infantry, was killed with sixteen of his men at Gettysburg, all of whom lay within a few feet of each other when they fell. He held his company in their position when his supports had all fallen back. Lieutenant Wm. S. Woodruff was wounded in the face, the ball entering his mouth and passing out through his cheek, at Gettysburg, and within ten minutes afterwards he saw his brother George A., in command of the celebrated Ricketts battery of the Mexican war, shot through the head and instantly killed. It is said the rebel general Magruder, who commanded the battery during the Mexican war, recognized at the battle of Fair Oaks his old battery, and made several attempts to capture it; but failing to do so, relieved his vexation at his non-success by asserting that " all h-1 could not take the old battery." Lieutenant Woodruff was afterwards on the Richmond campaign, while sitting in a breastwork or other fortification, struck in the side by a spent ball and so injured that he died. Another brother, Lieutenant Frank Woodruff, while attached to the Twelfth U. S. Corps d' Afrique, died in New
Orleans. These were sons of Judge George Woodruff, of Marshall. The wife of Judge Woodruff died in a very short time after the death of her boys.
Captain Devillo Hubbard, while with his company in the First Regiment of three months' men at Alexandria, knocked down a secessionist who expressed satisfaction at the death of Major Ellsworth, and made him swear on his bended knees to support the Constitution of the United States, and of the State of Michigan. The citizens of Marshall, in token of appreciation of his conduct, sent him a fine revolver, which he received just in time to use in the battle of Bull Run.
In the defense of Knoxville, Major Byington led an assault on the enemy's works in front of Fort Saunders, and in the charge, at the head of two hundred and thirty-four men, fell mortally wounded. The enemy were ten times the num- ber of his command, but so impetuous was the charge the Second gained the breastworks, and for a moment was the master of the situation ; but the enemy rallied, and by sheer force of numbers drove the little band back slowly over the ground to their own intrenchments. They hesitated a moment to take up their brave commander, but the gallant officer, though mortally hurt, still commanded them : " Leave me; I am badly hurt. The enemy will take care of me; save the regiment, if possible ;" and then back through the hell of flame and ball the brave and devoted band went, staggering under the murderous fire of musketry and cannon that opened great gaps in their lines and covered the ground with their slain.
Captain James B. Mason, of Company H, Merrill Horse, at the engagement near Memphis, Tennessee, July 18, 1862, illustrated his tenderness towards his men, though his heart knew no fear in front of an enemy. " As the ambulance arrived at the temporary hospital provided for the wounded men, Mason insisted upon taking them one by one in his own stalwart arms and laying them upon their couches, from which many of them never again rose. No one could lift them so tenderly, and when the merciful office was fulfilled his garments were wet with their streaming blood." Captain Mason was afterwards the lieutenant- colonel of the Eleventh Michigan Cavalry, and was mortally wounded while lead- ing his regiment in the battle of Clinch Mountain, Virginia ; he died in the hands of the enemy, and was buried by them at the foot of the mountain.
On the 2d of June, 1864, in the Richmond campaign, at North Anna, the Twentieth Regiment charged a line of rebel breastworks which it had formerly occupied, and in the charge Lieutenant Bidwell, of Battle Creek, fell with his knee crushed by a musket-ball. The works were taken and held, but so incessant was the fire of the enemy that even a hand raised above the level of the works was liable to be struck. All day long the men were obliged to stay there, beneath the scorching rays of the sun, which converted the ditch in which they were con- fined into a sort of human bake-oven. In the meantime, Bidwell, who was lying in an open plowed field directly in line of the enemy's fire, was suffering in the extremest tortures. So severe were his wounds that he could not move from where he had fallen. Knights and Knowles volunteered to bring him off the field. To stand erect was to court immediate death, and dead men could render little assistance to a comrade in distress ; hence, it was found necessary to crawl as close to mother earth as ever the serpent did that tempted Eve. Arriving, finally, by this painful method, to where poor Bidwell lay, he was with some difficulty placed upon his blanket ; then, by placing themselves in proper position, and grasping the edge of the blanket. between their toes, his rescuers were able to draw him forward as far as the bend of their knees would permit. By repeated efforts of this sort he was drawn the entire forty rods to the shelter of the breast- works, but died of his wounds soon after. Lieutenant Jerome B. Warner, of the Eighth Cavalry, and Captain Charles C. Dodge, of Company I, Twentieth Infantry, were taken prisoners, and, during the bombardment of Charleston by the " swamp angel," were put into the chain-gang and placed under the Union fire by the military commandant of Charleston.
Clement Loundsbury, of Marengo, enlisted in the first company of three months' men, was taken prisoner at Bull Run, and lay in Libby and Salisbury thirteen months, and on his exchange re-enlisted in the Twentieth Infantry, and rose from the ranks to the colonelcy of the regiment, being in the war from May, 1861, to May 30, 1865.
Charles H. Potter, of Homer, enlisted in Company M of the Second Cavalry as a private, and December 18, 1863, was commissioned as second lieutenant of the Fourteenth Battery, Michigan Light Artillery ; but, on the 24th of the same month, before his commission was received, he was taken prisoner in a severe engagement with the enemy near Dunbridge, East Tennessee, and, after suffering the tortures of Libby and Andersonville, he was taken to Savannah, Georgia, where he died. Of the fifty-two members of his regiment taken prisoners at the same time, but one came through the terrible ordeal of captivity alive,-a German, John Kunn, who formerly lived in Marshall, but who now resides in Detroit.
Captain E. O. Crittenton was in command of Companies H and K of the
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HISTORY OF CALHOUN COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
" Engineers and Mechanics" engaged in building bridges in General (Professor) O. M. Mitchell's division, and was untiring, energetic, steady-minded, and could stand the test of any trial imposed upon him. General Mitchell intimated to him on one occasion his expectation that a certain bridge would be built in three days' time, but the captain would offer no encouragement that it would be completed in six or eight days. The general spoke of putting the infantry at the job, and sending the engineers and mechanics home. "As you please, general," replied Captain Crittenton ; " but if I should promise to build in three days what I knew would require six, it would soon be said of me by yourself and others I don't un- derstand my business." " You are right," responded the general, and the bridge was ready on time.
Mud creek bridge was built by Captain Crittenton and his command in seven days ; the bridge over Crow creek (three hundred feet) in five days ; and another near Stevenson, Alabama, two hundred and twenty-five feet long, in five days more. Widow creek bridge was built in four and a half days.
Colonel Loundsbury was with the Custer expedition, and wrote up the New York Herald's report of the battle of the Little Big Horn, and he is now a resident of the proposed new Territory of Pembina.
The following history of the regiments and batteries in which one organized company, or more, were incorporated we have compiled from the exhaustive reports of the adjutant-general, General John Robertson, and also from the " Red Book" of Michigan, which condensed those reports very ably and judiciously. We are also under obligations to Captain Almon E. Preston, of the " Merrill Horse," for clippings from his able and interesting address delivered at Battle Creek, on Decoration Day, 1876, and to Colonel N. J. Frink, of the Twenty- eighth Infantry, and to Seth Lewis, Esq., for files of the Statesman during the whole period of the war, wherein was published voluminous correspondeuce from several of the men of the Calhoun companies in the field. Also to Colonel Graves, Surgeon O'Donoghue, Captain Freeman, and others of the soldiers of Calhoun.
FIRST MICHIGAN INFANTRY.
The First Michigan,-the regiment which, under Colonel Wilcox, led the ad- vance of Michigan troops to the front,-although hurriedly organized and hastily equipped, left the State a pattern regiment in every respect, none better having preceded it to the national capital from any State. Arriving there at a crit- ical time, when that place was in great and immediate danger of being attacked and captured by the rebels, whose troops then picketed the Potomac, its pres- ence aided much in establishing confidence, among those in authority, that the capital was safe; and its appearance in Pennsylvania avenue was hailed with the cheers of loyal thousands. As it passed in review before the lamented Lincoln it received his highest praise, and through them he thanked the State for their prompt appearance in Washington. The regiment was assigned to Heintzelman's division, and, under Colonel Wilcox, led the advance of the Union army across the Long Bridge into Virginia on the 24th day of May, driving in the rebel pickets, and entering Alexandria, via the road, simultane- ously with the regiment of Ellsworth's Zouaves, who entered it by steamer. The First Michigan took the railroad depot, capturing near there a troop of rebel cav- alry, numbering one hundred, with their horses and equipments. At the battle of Bull Run the regiment belonged to the brigade commanded by Colonel Wilcox, and was in the hottest of the fight, eagerly pressing forward on the enemy, losing heavily, but fighting stubbornly and gallantly. The Fire Zouaves, after charging bravely, but in vain, upon one of the heaviest of the rebel batteries, fell back when the Michigan First, then commanded by Major Bidwell, which had been constantly associated with the Zouaves ever since Ellsworth fell at Alexandria, moved promptly and rapidly forward and took their places. They charged in double-quick upon the battery once and again in splendid style, and yet it was not taken. They pushed forward to the attempt a third time, and were again driven back before the deadly fire of the enemy. But the attack was not abandoned. The brave fellows rallied for a fourth time to the deadly work, but it was all in vain. The battery could not be taken. On that dis- astrous field the First established the highest standard for Michigan troops, so uniformly and so remarkably maintained throughout the entire war. Its dead were found nearest the enemy's works. In the engagement the loss of the regi- ment was heavy. Among the number were Captain Butterworth, Lieutenants Mauch and Casey, wounded and taken prisoners, and who afterwards died of their wounds, in rebel custody. Colonel Wilcox was wounded, and, falling into the hands of the enemy, was held as a prisoner at Richmond for about fifteen months. The regiment, on the expiration of its three months' term of service, returned to the State, and was mustered out August 7, 1861. It was soon after reorganized as a three years' regiment, and left for the Army of the Potomac, August 16, 1861, commanded by Colonel John C. Robinson, then captain in the United States Army, who continued to command it until April 28, 1862, when he was appointed
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