Into the Tornado of War: A History of the Twenty-First Michigan Infantry in the Civil War

By James Genco

In the summer of 1862, a group of volunteer soldiers joined the Twenty-First Michigan Volunteer Infantry in western Michigan. For the next two and a half years, these men saw extensive combat against the Confederacy in Americas most brutal and bloody war.

Drawn from hundreds of letters, diaries, and memoirs, Into the Tornado of War is the complete history of this Union regiment as seen through the soldiers eyes. James Genco traces their movements from their first major battle at Perryville, Kentucky, through Tennessee, Georgia, and finally, the Carolinas.

In addition to Perryville, the regiment was severely tested in the landmark battles of Stones River, Chickamauga, and Bentonville, and participated in Union General William T. Shermans March to the Sea in November and December of 1864. As the war wound down in 1865, the regiment was part of the Union Army that cut its way through the Carolinas, ultimately finding itself in the forefront of one of the last major battles of the war.

In a valuable contribution to the scholarship on the American Civil War, Into the Tornado of War paints a picture of the realities of the war through the words of real soldiers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Feb 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781458201805

James Genco

James Genco served with the Department of Justice as an assistant US attorney in Michigan and Connecticut. An avid historian, he now researches and writes on topics ranging from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War and World War II. Genco and his wife, Carol, live in Avon, Connecticut.

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Copyright © 2012 James Genco

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ISBN: 978-1-4582-0181-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0182-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0180-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012900276

Abbott Press rev. date: 12/4/2012

Contents

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Prologue: Civilians in Blue: The Battle of Perryville

1.   Dawning Of The Regiment Braver Men Never Took Up Arms

2.   Rush To The Front

3.   Joining The Army Of The Ohio

4.   Perryville: The Battle For Kentucky

5.   Regrouping At Nashville

6.   Rosecrans Forges His Army

7.   Stones River: Courage And Fearlessness In Danger

8.   Respite At Murfreesboro

9.   The Tullahoma Campaign

10.   The Road To Chickamauga

11.   The Battle Of Chickamauga: They Never Saw The Equal

12.   Colonel Mccreery’s Ordeal

13.   The Battle For Chattanooga

14.   Engineer Duty: Lumberjacks & Carpenters

15.   Back Into The Fray

16.   The March To The Sea And Savannah

17.   Punishing The Instigators Of Rebellion

18.   Sloshing Across North Carolina

19.   The Battle Of Bentonville

20.   The Wildest Celebration Ever Indulged

Endnotes

Bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When I began this project almost thirty years ago, I lived in Michigan and made numerous research visits to the Archives of Michigan in Lansing. Without exception, the staff members who assisted me were very helpful and professional. I especially wish to acknowledge the support given by Leroy Barnett.

Another key source of information was the Bentley Historical Collection at the University of Michigan under the direction of Francis Blouin. This exemplary research facility provided access to valuable resources, and here too the excellent staff unfailingly rendered expert assistance. The third major collection I was privileged to use was the Burton Collection at the Detroit Public Library, and again I greatly appreciated the staff’s help.

Other institutions whose collections I consulted included the National Archives in Washington, DC; the U.S. Army Military History Institute, Historical Reference Branch, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; the Rare Books Collection, Library of Michigan, Lansing, Michigan; and the Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Connecticut.

Among those individuals I would like to recognize for their support and assistance are:

Nancy Robertson, Curator and Rare Books Librarian, State Library of Michigan, who generously made available to me a key manuscript;

Gary Boynton, of Boynton Photography in Lansing, Michigan for his assistance with photographs in the State’s possession in Lansing;

Dave Taylor of Sylvania, Ohio, a Civil War artifacts collector and dealer and a long-time friend, who shared his Twenty-first Michigan photographs with me.

Bob and Peg Angelovich of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, dedicated researchers who helped me retrieve materials from the U.S. Army Military History Institute.

In the final stages of review I was greatly aided by three park historians who reviewed the chapters relating to their respective parks and offered valuable insights and corrections. These included:

Kurt Holman, Manager, Perryville Battlefield, Kentucky State Historic Site

Jim Lewis, Park Ranger, Stones River National Battlefield

Donny Taylor, Historic Site Manager, Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site, Bentonville, North Carolina.

I would like to give special recognition to Mark Loomis of Portland, Oregon. Mark is the great-great grandson of Alvin C. Loomis, who served in Company H of the Twenty-first Michigan Infantry. When he learned that I was writing this history of the Twenty-first, he generously shared his own research on the regiment. Furthermore, his offer to review the manuscript was gratefully accepted, and he helped me create a clearer and more readable account.

Finally, and certainly not least, I would like to thank my wife Carol for her unwavering support throughout this project.

DEDICATION

To my mother, Frances Ann Genco,

father, Leonard F. Genco,

and dear wife, Carol.

PROLOGUE

Civilians in Blue:

The Battle of Perryville

October 8, 1862

Baptized in Battle

They had been soldiers for just one month. These western Michigan men who had been molded into a new regiment designated the Twenty-first Michigan Volunteer Infantry, were as green and inexperienced as troops could be. They had left the state with minimal training and conditioning and only the most rudimentary understanding of military life. So deficient was their training that they had little opportunity to fire their new rifles.

They had been rushed to Kentucky because a crisis had burst upon the Federal government when Confederate armies invaded that neutral border state. Not only would the loss of Kentucky be a severe blow to the Union, but the Confederate forces also threatened the staunchly loyal states of Ohio and Indiana as they pressed northward through Kentucky. Thus, the Twenty-first Michigan had been thrown into the tornado of war, completely ill prepared for the ordeal.¹

The entire first week of October 1862 had been spent marching across northern Kentucky with little sleep or water. A severe drought that summer had left the land parched and the roads layered with dust. Having started their march in Louisville, within a few days the men were exhausted, hungry and painfully thirsty. Just after midnight on October 8, they were roused from their sleep. Stumbling in the dark, they formed in marching order on the Springfield Pike, a major road that ran between Springfield and Perryville, Kentucky. Many could barely move, with muscles spent and feet sore, blistered and bloody.

During the prior six days, scores of their comrades had fallen out of line on the roads, unable to continue and left behind. Many were now back in hospitals in Louisville; some were simply missing and unaccounted for. A few had deserted and stolen off in the night to head back home, but most of the missing were too weak or sick to move and had to be cared for in temporary field hospitals. Still others had died without ever seeing a Confederate soldier or firing a shot in battle. In short, an accurate report on the fate of many of these men was simply impossible to attain.

During the pre-dawn hours of that fall morning, the men of the Twenty-first Michigan Infantry marched slowly down the dark and dusty pike with only moonlight to guide them. Years later, members who had almost miraculously remained with the regiment throughout its entire term of service, recalled that it was their hardest march of the war.

Dawn brought only further misery. The heat returned, making their thirst unbearable. By midmorning, the sun was exceedingly hot. The men sweltered, dressed in their new dark-blue wool uniforms and laden with rifles, bayonets, cartridge boxes, canteens, knapsacks and haversacks. From daybreak onward, they did not have a drop of water or a morsel of food. John C. Taylor, the studious orderly sergeant (and later captain) of Company K, wrote many years later:

Being in our exhausted condition without sleep or provender, it seemed almost a miracle that any man survived to reach the battlefield.²

Marcus Bates, a corporal in Company B, later recalled their vain efforts to alleviate the unbearable thirst.

I remember the day before the battle of Perryville holding my cup for what seemed to me an hour, catching water from a trickling spring drop by drop to quench my thirst, and when my was half full the silt in the bottom of the cup was thicker than my knife blade. ³

A couple of times when the column stopped, the men were permitted to break ranks and rest along the road. In some ways, these brief respites only served to accentuate their misery. Taylor recalled that after one such break he awoke to find [his] tongue cleaving to the roof of [his] mouth and fevered in every vein.⁴

On one occasion that morning however, a short break brought some genuine relief. As soldiers stopped and moved off the road, some, including Sergeant Taylor, had no place to go but into a pond bed which had become a basin of mud. Countless men, horses, mules and wagons from the front of their column had already passed through this basin as they advanced. Taylor observed that every mule had left some mementos behind and the corpse of one poor animal protruded from the mushy end at one corner.⁵

Since no one wanted to sit in the mud, the men crouched uncomfortably, awaiting the order to re-form. As they lingered, one member of the regiment idly removed the metal ramrod from his rifle and punched it into a gravel bed that formed the bank of the pond next to the road. Taylor recalled that when he withdrew the ramrod:

 . . . pure water rushed in, filtered by the earth. With joyful haste hundreds of ramrods were thrust down, and probably no drink in this world will ever taste so good as that which gushed forth to quench the fevered thirst of this band of sick, weary and dirty warriors who were just beginning to taste the glory of dying for one’s country.⁶

Considerably refreshed, the regiment was again in a column and marching toward Perryville a few minutes later. Although hot and dry, it was a beautiful day with a cloudless sky and a gentle breeze. As they approached the town from the west, they could hear sporadic gunfire as the lead elements of the army clashed with the Confederates. While some were undoubtedly alarmed by the sound, at the same time they were faced with their first glimpse of the pitiful fruits of war. A seemingly endless line of ambulances, laden with wounded soldiers and intermingled with the walking wounded moving slowly toward the rear, probably brought their first feelings of vulnerability.

An even more disturbing sight soon presented itself when they passed a hastily improvised field hospital in a nearby farmyard. The doors had been removed from the house and placed on barrels to serve as operating tables where surgeons were frantically trying to save men’s lives. Many with severely wounded limbs were undergoing amputations. Taylor recalled there were piles of dismembered legs and arms rising like gory monuments to the surgeon’s faithful attention to duty.⁷ While flinching in their resolve, the Michigan men pushed forward until they arrived on the western edge of the battlefield around 11:00 a.m. when they were ordered to halt.

The lead elements of their division had arrived almost four hours before and established a battle line across the Chaplin Hills, a key point being Peters Hill. Along the front, heavy fighting was already underway. However, because of the hills and unusual acoustics, they had heard relatively little of the sounds of battle and did not know the magnitude of the fight. The men stood uneasily, not knowing what to expect.

While awaiting further orders, their commanding officer, Colonel Ambrose A. Stevens, directed them to fall out into an adjoining field and rest. Stevens, a leader mature beyond his thirty-three years, was one of a handful of men in the regiment with prior military experience, having spent the first year of the war serving as the lieutenant colonel of the Third Michigan Volunteer Infantry. He knew his men were exhausted and wanted to give them a chance to catch their breath before moving into battle. The degree of their fatigue must have surprised him for within minutes, many had fallen asleep.

A short time later, officers arrived from the staff of Colonel Nicholas Greusel, commander of the Thirty-seventh Brigade, to which the Twenty-first Michigan was assigned, and they instructed Stevens to prepare to advance the regiment. The Eleventh Division, of which the Thirty-seventh Brigade was a part, had battled with Confederates during the early hours of the morning and driven them from Peters Hill, securing both the high ground and control of the meager water pools in Doctors Creek. The creek was almost dry, but had standing pools of water critically needed by both armies. In fact, it was this creek that was the cause of the initial fighting as the two sides vied for control of the precious resource.

After a lull in the fighting, the armies renewed the contest. As Greusel’s staff officers rode up to deliver their orders to Colonel Stevens, they were surprised to find the Michigan men stretched out and sleeping in the field. Many looked as peaceful as if they were dozing at a picnic. However, the orders to join the fight abruptly ended this respite, and the regiment was jolted back into action. Moments later an aide to General Philip Sheridan, their division commander, rode up and directed Stevens to move the regiment up Peter’s Hill, which rose to their left, to support an artillery battery. With the rumble of battle intensifying, the exhausted men struggled up the hill as rapidly as possible and assumed their assigned position.

A half hour later, General Sheridan arrived to confer with Stevens. Following a brief meeting, Sheridan ordered the Twenty-first forward to form in line of battle at the brow of the hill. With Sheridan personally leading them, Stevens turned to his staff and gave the order for the regiment to follow him at the double-quick.

Within minutes the men found themselves aligned near the brow of the hill, next to Captain Henry Hescock’s Battery G, First Missouri Artillery, which was comprised of four Napoleon 12 -pounder cannons and two 2.9-inch Parrott Rifles. The Eighty-eighth Illinois, a sister regiment from their brigade, was to their immediate front. Around them other regiments were also moving into battle formation.

It was shortly after noon, and the fighting was intense. Artillery firing had commenced with deafening booms, shaking the earth. Muskets and rifles were cracking. Smoke from gunpowder shrouded sections of the battlefield. All the normal sounds of life had been extinguished. No training could have adequately prepared these men from rural western Michigan for the shock of this experience.

Amidst the din of battle, they strained to hear their orders as the officers attempted to align them in formation. From their new position, they watched as the Eighty-eighth Illinois Infantry hotly engaged a large body of gray-, brown-, and butternut-clad Rebels who were pressing upon them. It was a scene to test the steadiest of nerves.

Their new position brought them under enemy fire for the first time. Here and there men began to fall. Rebel projectiles, both artillery rounds and random small arms fire, began to find their mark. Colonel Stevens, in front of the regiment, was one of the first to be hit when struck in the leg by a bullet. Fortunately, the wound was slight and he continued to direct and guide his men. Soon others in the ranks were struck by bullets or artillery fragments. Second Lieutenant Eli E. Burritt of Company K also received a minor wound but continued in his place.

Private Nelson Doty of Company A had the unfortunate distinction of being the first man to be mortally wounded when a Confederate cannon shell exploded and a small piece struck him in the forehead. The twenty-one year-old Doty from Orleans, Michigan would die six days later from the wound.⁸

Although they would see scores of others killed and wounded before their fighting days ended, the soldiers found it chilling to witness the first of their comrades fall in battle. Years later Corporal Bates recalled seeing the man in front of him hit by a bullet and topple to the ground:

I well remember the fall of the man in my immediate front as he was struck with a bullet and the first shudder of battle passed over me. ⁹

Colonel Stevens, ignoring his pain, moved among the men, offering encouraging words as his green troops saw the elephant for the first time.¹⁰ Under this sporadic but lethal fire, twenty-five men suffered wounds in less than an hour. Private Doty’s was the only one to prove fatal.¹¹

While the Michigan men were being struck, they could only endure their losses in frustration since they were not able to return fire. With the Eighty-eighth Illinois to their front, there was no way to fire at the Confederate attackers. Instead, they were forced to remain spectators as their comrades continued their slugfest with the Rebel infantry which repeatedly surged across a cornfield and up the slope of the hill.

Colonel Greusel, a solid soldier from Illinois with Michigan roots, was in his glory. Highly visible to the entire brigade, he stalked up and down the battle line behind his men, munching a piece of corn and yelling for the Illinois men to give them hell. Impressed, a Michigan soldier noted that Greusel was a born fighter, adding he was to me that day the personification of the God of War.¹² The determined Union resistance carried the hour and the Confederates fell back.

After driving the attackers back, Sheridan wanted to shift to the offensive and ordered Greusel to advance the brigade, including the Twenty-first Michigan, down from Peter’s Hill into the cornfield to prepare to attack. The Twenty-first was to align beside the Thirty-sixth Illinois, another regiment in its brigade. Once the Brigade was in position, they were to advance to a woods on the far side of the cornfield and charge a Confederate battery which had been firing on them.

With rifles shouldered, they moved at a trot through the cornfield littered with the bodies of dead and wounded Confederates who had fallen while attempting to take Peter’s Hill. Colonel Stevens obediently and calmly directed the Michiganders into formation and then waited. The stillness of the dead was eerie, but the writhing and moans of the wounded were unnerving. As they stood in their ranks, it was all too obvious that in a few moments when their turn came to charge the Rebel cannons, many of them would undoubtedly join the dead and wounded on this Kentucky field.

Long minutes passed as they stood tensed for the order to attack. Rifles were loaded and primed and bayonets fixed. The Confederate battery, protected by infantry, silently waited for them ahead in the woods. When Greusel finally ordered the advance, all stepped forward without wavering. However, they had scarcely covered a few yards when the advance was brought to an abrupt halt by a superseding order from Third Corps commander General Charles C. Gilbert, directing them back to a defensive position on Peters Hill. Gilbert, who had been recently promoted to high command, felt that his aggressive subordinate’s division was getting too far ahead of the other divisions, and he directed Sheridan to return to Peter’s Hill. Thus, undoubtedly with mixed emotions of relief and disappointment, they retraced their steps back up the hill to their original position.

In the movement down and back, several members of the regiment became separated from their comrades and were ultimately reported as missing in battle. Private John Little, Jr., 24, of Company A, disappeared but found his way back to the regiment a couple of days later. Where he had been in the interim was not recorded. Private Benjamin L. Francisco, eighteen, of Company C was either seriously wounded or ill, but in any event was unable to continue and was discharged a month later. Private William Hill, twenty-five, of Company A, disappeared during the battle and was later found to have deserted, while Edmond Snow, twenty-seven, of Company A, deserted at some point during the early morning hours prior to the fight.

By the time the regiment re-formed on the crest of the hill, unbeknownst to them, their participation in the battle was over. The remainder of the day passed with the heavy fighting occurring to the north and in their front, but the Confederates never again closed within striking distance of their brigade that day.

While the darkness ended the fighting, it brought little relief from the agonizing thirst. Throughout the night the men dozed in line of battle, while pickets kept vigilant watch against a possible night attack. At one point, the regiment was startled to its feet when an artillery shot rang out from the Confederate line. It was feared that this was a signal shot for an attack. But the alarm proved unfounded and, after standing in line of battle for an hour, the men were permitted to lie down again and sleep. The rest of the night passed without incident. In the morning they learned that the Confederate army had withdrawn from the field.

Thus ended their first taste of battle. Their role in the fighting had been minor, but it was the harbinger of severe tests to come. Having seen the elephant, they were no longer green troops. As succinctly summarized in the Michigan’s official history of the war, they had become early engaged in the realities of war.¹³

Although they had escaped severe combat that day, they had performed better under fire than could have been expected. They stood bravely against the enemy and took casualties in battle, while unable to return fire. One member had been mortally wounded, twenty-four had sustained less serious wounds, and three were missing.¹⁴ They came within a whisker of charging a strong Rebel position of cannons and small arms, but that would wait for another day.

In less than three months, they would be thrown into a far more horrendous fight along Stones River near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In less than a year they would be caught in the middle of one of the most titanic battles of the war along the Chickamauga Creek in northern Georgia; other battles would follow. But for now, they must have felt dazed and incredulous as they realized how far they had come, both physically and emotionally, in one short month.

MAP OF THE ROUTE OF THE TWENTY-FIRST MICHIGAN

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CHAPTER 1

Dawning of the Regiment

Braver Men Never Took Up Arms15

July to September 12, 1862

The Yankee Volunteer of 1862

Twelve weeks prior to the Battle of Perryville, the Twenty-first Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment did not exist. It was the second summer of the Civil War, and all visions of a swift resolution of the conflict had vanished. For the Federal government, these were some of the darkest hours of the war. Despite Union victories west of the Appalachian Mountains, repeated setbacks for the Federals in the east led many to believe the Confederacy could force a peace that recognized its independence. The Confederate armies, fighting on their home ground, had proven themselves tenacious, and there was a sober recognition that a long bloody struggle loomed ahead.

The Union volunteers of this second summer were very different from those who rushed to war in the spring of 1861. Unlike their impassioned comrades who had flocked to the colors with bravado and unrealistic expectations following the Rebels’ firing on Fort Sumter, the volunteers who enlisted in the summer of 1862 did so with eyes wide open. No longer was there any expectation of a short war.

While many of the volunteers of 1861 were members of prewar militia companies, most of the volunteers of 1862 had little military experience or inclination. The volunteer of ’62 had learned from newspaper accounts and returning veterans about the harsh reality of the war they were entering, and they knew it would be a long, deadly struggle. Disabled veterans returning home were harbingers of the tragedy of combat, and they were frightening embodiments of the very real danger to which the new volunteers would soon be exposed.

The staggering number of casualties published in the newspapers after each battle, and the reports of the even greater numbers of deaths from camp diseases, left no doubt that there were substantial odds that many a recruit would not survive his three-year enlistment. Consequently, while this second wave of volunteers was no less patriotic, the men enlisted with a sober perspective, fully appreciating the potential consequences of their commitment.

The Call to Arms: Summer 1862

The genesis of the call for volunteers in the summer of 1862 was a telegram sent by the Governors of the eighteen Union states, including Michigan’s Austin Blair, to President Abraham Lincoln. In their June 30, 1862 communiqué, the Governors reiterated their commitment to preserving the Union and their willingness to follow with action by furnishing all the reinforcements necessary to see the war through to its conclusion. To this end, they proposed sending 500,000 more men. On July 2, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln accepted the offer, but requested only 300,000, since the Administration recognized it could not arm, equip and train a larger force at that time.

With this Presidential Executive Order, the machinery for organizing new regiments sprang into action. Each state was given a quota of men to supply and was authorized to pay each recruit a bounty of $25 to $100. Michigan was to send 11,686 men, and the State Legislature promptly authorized the formation of six new regiments of infantry, specifying that one was to be supplied by each state congressional district. On July 8, 1862 Michigan Adjutant General John Robertson issued Order Number 15 authorizing the creation of Michigan’s new regiments. In addition to the Twenty-first, the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth, Twenty-second, Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth regiments of infantry were to be formed at this time.

The First Recruits

While recruiting could not officially begin prior to issuance of Order Number 15, on July 2, upon hearing of Lincoln’s call, four enthusiastic men from the vicinity of Hastings, Michigan immediately began forming the nucleus of a company. Despite the fact they had no way of knowing to which regiment they would be assigned, or even if they would be accepted by the State, they nonetheless set about getting commitments from friends to join as a group. Their leader was Leonard O. Fitzgerald, a thirty-one year-old native of Eaton County, Michigan who had moved to Hastings around 1860. A merchant who ran his own meat market, Fitzgerald was a quiet straight-forward man [who] . . . inspired so much confidence among his acquaintances that when the war opened a number of them said they would enlist for service if he would go as their leader.¹⁶

First to sign with Fitzgerald’s prospective company were John Spencer of Baltimore, Michigan and Horatio Sackett of Woodland, Michigan. Spencer, a hardy thirty-three year-old, went on to serve with the regiment throughout its entire term of service, while Hackett, thirty-four, was one of the regiment’s first losses, dying on November 3, 1862 from an unknown disease in Louisville, Kentucky. Prior to receiving State authorization to raise a company, Fitzgerald had recruited fourteen men from the villages of Baltimore, Hastings and Woodland.

This group subsequently became the first volunteers of the Twenty-first Michigan. The list included two sets of brothers, the Roushs (Thomas, twenty-three; Allen, twenty-two; and Michael, twenty-one) and the Osborns (John, twenty-eight, and Joseph, twenty-three). On July 18, 1862 Fitzgerald was rewarded for his initiative when he was appointed captain, and his men became the nucleus of Company C, Twenty-first Michigan Volunteer Infantry. A few days later, Fitzgerald and his men proceeded by wagons to Ionia to unite with the fledgling regiment.

Unfortunately, Captain Fitzgerald’s story had a sad ending. Five months later when the regiment engaged in the hard-fought Battle of Stones River in Tennessee, he was mortally wounded. Faithful to his friends whom he had led to war, on his deathbed the young captain’s principal regret was that he could not bring his ‘boys’ back home."¹⁷

Camp Sigel

The Twenty-first Michigan Infantry was raised in the Fourth Congressional District in the western part of the state. This region of the state was sparsely populated, with the greatest number of people residing in the counties along the Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad, which had been completed in 1858. This rail link had finally connected this rich farm region of rolling hills to the more populous southeast corner of the state. Grand Rapids, in Kent County, had a population of more than 8,000, while the village of Ionia, founded in 1833 and the seat of government for Ionia County, had less than 2,000 inhabitants.¹⁸ Despite their disparate sizes, when the regiment was full, the county of Ionia had raised four companies; Kent, three, and Montcalm, Muskegon and Ottawa Counties, one each.

The camp of rendezvous for the regiment was established on the eastern outskirts of the village of Ionia, a short distance north of the Grand River. The Michigan Gazetteer described the village as:

. . . an important and flourishing post village… situated on the north bank of the Grand River [and] . . . pleasantly located in a beautiful valley, backed by high and rolling land, which is, for miles under a high state of cultivation.¹⁹

The camp was ideally situated, with ample cleared, level land and an abundance of fresh water from the Prairie River, a tributary to the Grand River. Probably as an allurement to the numerous Germanic immigrants in the region, the camp was christened Camp Sigel, in honor of Franz Sigel, a popular German immigrant who was a General in the Union Army.

John H. Welch, a prominent local resident and businessman, was appointed Camp Commandant. Welch, who ran a meat market on Main Street in Ionia, proved to be an efficient administrator. In his role as Camp Commandant, he oversaw the daily operations and needs of the camp until a colonel was appointed and the regiment was mustered into the service of the United States.

Civil War Unit Organization

The regiment was the basic fighting unit for infantry of the Union Army in the Civil War. On paper, Michigan regiments consisted of ten companies, each consisting of 100 men, for a total of 1,000 men, plus staff officers. In reality, after a few months in the field, the numbers were closer to thirty to forty men per company, and 300 to 400 men per regiment.

The regiment was commanded by a colonel, who was assisted by a staff consisting of a lieutenant colonel, major, adjutant, quartermaster, chaplain, and chief surgeon. The lieutenant colonel was second in command and assumed command in the colonel’s absence or in case of his incapacitation. The major was third in line of command, performed numerous tasks as a direct assistant to the colonel and commanded the regiment if the colonel and lieutenant colonel were unable.

The quartermaster was responsible for requisitioning, purchasing, and issuing the regiment’s essential supplies and equipment, including food and clothing. The adjutant was responsible for preparing written orders and correspondence and keeping the regiment’s records. As their titles indicate, the chaplain was the regiment’s spiritual and moral leader while the chief surgeon was responsible for the men’s health and the treatment and care of the wounded.

On the company level, a captain was in command, with the assistance of a first lieutenant and second lieutenant. Below the officers, the company typically had four grades of sergeants and four corporals to assist in executing the orders, keeping formation in battle, and leading small details of men for various tasks. The top noncommissioned officer was the first sergeant, also known as the orderly sergeant, or covering sergeant.

When the company formed in line of battle, it would usually align in two ranks with the captain standing on the right side of the first rank, and the first sergeant standing behind him in the second. The second sergeant, also called the left guiding sergeant, stood in the second rank on the left side of the line. The remaining noncommissioned officers and two lieutenants stood at intervals behind the two ranks to keep men in line and serve as file closers.

Noncommissioned officers were of critical importance to the regiment’s survival because not only were they tasked with maintaining proper lines and discipline in battle, but it was implicit that they would lead by example and assume command if the officers were incapacitated or killed.

Formation of the Twenty-first

Most of the men authorized to raise companies for the Twenty-first Michigan ultimately received commissions as captains. On July 16, James Cavanaugh, twenty-nine, of Grand Rapids, became the first commissioned officer of the regiment. Two days later, Fitzgerald received his commission, along with Elijah H. Crowell of Greenville. Before the end of July, captains had been commissioned for eight of the ten companies. The final two appointments were made in August. When mustered, the following officers commanded the ten companies:

Company A: Captain Francis P. Minier, Ionia

Company B: Captain James Cavanaugh, Grand Rapids

Company C: Captain Leonard O. Fitzgerald, Hastings

Company D: Captain Jacob Ferris, Ionia

Company E: Captain Alford B. Turner, Grand Rapids

Company F: Captain Elijah H. Crowell, Greenville

Company G: Captain Harry C. Albee, Grand Haven

Company H: Captain Seymour Chase, Cannonsburg

Company I: Captain John A. Ellsworth, Saranac

Company K: Captain Herman Baroth, Ionia

Obviously, the single most important appointment for any regiment was its colonel. In the first year of the war, the qualifications and abilities of colonels varied greatly. Some were excellent leaders with prior military experience, while others were political cronies unfit to lead men in war. By the summer of 1862, the folly of appointing political figures to lead regiments was apparent, and a pool of experienced, battle tested officers existed from which to select officers for new regiments. Accordingly, those selected during that summer were usually well qualified; many were drawn from regiments already in the field.

On August 16, 1862, tapping this pool of talent, Governor Blair selected Ambrose A. Stevens, then second in command of the Third Michigan Volunteer Infantry, to command the new Twenty-first Michigan. The thirty-three year-old Stevens from Saranac, Michigan had joined the Third Michigan at the outbreak of the war and distinguished himself in battle. His appointment as Colonel of the Twenty-first was approvingly reported in the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, which noted that he was a fine soldier who was always in the hottest of the fight.²⁰

Stevens proved himself to be an exceptional leader. Four months earlier, during the Peninsula Campaign, he had been chosen by General Philip Kearny to lead a reconnaissance mission. Selecting sixty-five men from the Third Michigan, he guided them through the outer perimeter of Confederate defenses, observing the location and strength of the defenders. Upon nearing the second line of fortifications, his small force surprised and scattered an outpost unit reportedly five times its size. After seizing a substantial quantity of supplies, the Michigan men returned to camp triumphantly. A correspondent reporting on this feat exclaimed that there was no braver man [than Colonel Stevens] on Virginia soil.²¹

Stevens was still in Virginia with the Third when news of his promotion to command of the Twenty-first reached him. He promptly returned to Michigan and following a brief visit with his family, joined the Twenty-first at Camp Sigel around August 19. Official Army paperwork seldom kept pace with changes, and Stevens’ discharge from the Third was not official until September 6. However, his commission with the Twenty-first was dated effective July 25, so that he would have seniority over officers of similar rank receiving commissions as the new regiments were created. Reporting on Colonel Stevens’ arrival, the Ionia Gazette observed:

His whole heart and soul seems enlisted in the work of training soldiers for duty and efficiency in the coming struggle with the rebel legions. We predict that he will make a popular commander.²²

The selection of another experienced officer to serve as the Twenty-first’s second-in-command was made around the same time. For lieutenant colonel, General Robertson appointed William L. Whipple, of Detroit, then a captain in the Second Michigan Infantry. A veteran of the Mexican War, the thirty-six year-old Whipple had the distinction of being the most experienced officer in the regiment. The Ionia Gazette reported that he was highly spoken of as a brave, patriotic and efficient military officer.²³ In fact, he may have been too much of a strict military man to suit the volunteer mentality for he was never popular with the enlisted men.

Even before Stevens’ and Whipple’s appointments, several other staff officers had received commissions. On July 29, Martin P. Follett of Fair Plains was appointed first lieutenant and quartermaster; Morris B. Wells of Ionia was appointed first lieutenant and adjutant, and Dr. William B. Thomas of Ionia was appointed chief surgeon. On August 21, the staff was completed with the appointment of Isaac Hunting of Grand Haven as major and the Reverend Theodore L. Pillsbury²⁴ as chaplain. In addition, two more physicians, Dr. John Avery of Otisco, and Dr. Charles R. Perry of Lowell, were appointed first assistant surgeon and second assistant surgeon, respectively.

Meanwhile, the regiment continued to grow, as the recruiters had little difficulty filling the ranks with qualified men. From war rallies to church sermons, men were reminded of their duty to defend the Union. Illustrative of the individual response to this sober yet patriotic climate, was John Clark Taylor, a young editor for the weekly Republican newspaper, the Ionia Gazette.²⁵ Taylor was an intelligent twenty-two year-old who was the local news editor. Although slight of build and lacking the physical strength of many of the men who were farmers or laborers, he was nonetheless a gutsy, determined young man.

Anxious to serve in what had become a crisis, Taylor, like many men, chose a unit based on close friendships. Captain Herman Baroth, a thirty-six year-old German immigrant, who was