Washtenaw In War

WASHTENAW IN WAR

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Eloquent Memorial Address of Gen. B. M. Cutcheon.

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A LONG ROLL OF HEROES

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Who Went to the Font from This County.

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The Awful carnage In the Brave Twentieth Michigan Which Was Largely Raised in the County of Washtenaw.

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A fair sized audience assembled at University hall Tuesday evening to listen to the Memorial program arranged for 8 o'clock. At the hour the Columbian organ, at which was seated Prof. L. Renwick gave forth music which filled the hall and resounded over the campus. At the close of this opening music, James K. Sage sang with pleasing effect "Hail to the Flag.", Miss Davis acting as pianist. Rev. Henry Tatlock read a portion of Scripture beginning with, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth. ' ' Rev. J. Mills Gelston then offered prayer. The "Sword of Bunker Hill" was then sung by Gerald Brown. It was rendered with great appreciation and effect. Master Brown has a fine voice and he sang the old familiar song so that the words could be distinctly heard and he captured the audience completely. Commander Wm. A Clark then gave the. G. A. R. introductory to Memorial Day Services after which Wm. K. Childs recited Lincoln's Gettysburg speech in a very effective manner. A quartette composed of Miss Campbell, Mr. Low, Mrs. Dayton and Mr. Allmendinger then sang "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground," Mr. Low taking the solo part. It was feelingly rendered. "The Last Salute," by Mrs. Thos. C. Trueblood, was given in her usual faultless style. Miss Elizabeth Campbell then sang the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," with audience joining in the chorus. The address of the evening was given by Gen. B. M. Cutcheon, of Grand Rapids, on "Some Washtenaw Men and Companies of the War. " He said in part that it was 34 years, the average life of a generation of men, since the armies of the confederacy furled their flags. Then the boys in line came marching home again, and once more the Grand Army took its place in the ranks of peace and did its full share in rebuilding the prosperity of the nation which four years of war had prostrated. But there was a vast number who never returned. Their graves marked the march of our armies from Bull Run to Appomattox. As the years roll away their memory does not fade but with each returning spring new wreathes are placed on their graves and once more we recall the faces and forms of the dear comrades who stood by our side in the awful days from 1861 to 1865. He apologized to the veterans of other organizations and from other states for confining his address chiefly to the men who went out from Washtenaw county. When the first call for troops came two of the companies which made up the First Infantry (three months men) came from Washtenaw county. The "Stuben Guards" from Ann Arbor and the "Ypsilanti Light Guards. " These companies rendered good service until after the battle of Bull Run when they returned home. Washtenaw also sent two companies into the fourth regiment the "Bary Guard" of Ann Arbor, which became Company D, and the "Union Guard," of Dexter, which became Company K. In the latter company went an old school mate of mine, Lieut. Harrison H. Jeffords. Although he went out is a subaltern in the 10th company, his merit and gallantry secured bis promotion in the spring of 1862 to the colonelcy of his regiment. He was an officer of unquestioned bravery, "who dared to lead where any dared to follow. " On the memorable 2nd of July, 1863, in the terrific hand to hand struggle in the wheat field at Gettysburg, Col. Jeffords fell, pierced with a bayonet wound while attempting to rescue the flag of bis regiment. In the Sixth Infantry Regiment went the "Saline Sharpshooters" as Co. F. Of this company I am unable to speak in detail, as distinct from the regiment, but we know that it rendered good service in the distant "department of the Gulf. " Among the regimen ts organized in the summer or 1861 was "Stockton's Independent Regiment," recruited under the immediate orders of the secretary of war. It was not until after the first 15 infantry regiments had been raised that it was recognized as a state regiment, and received the designation of the "Sixteenth Michigan." In this regiment when it went to the front, in September 1861, went Major Norval E. Welch, a son of Ann Arbor, and a graduate of the law department of this university, and whose name your Grand Army Post bear When Col. Stockton was captured at the battle of Gaines' Mill, in front of Richmond, June 27, 1863, Major Welch took charge of the regiment and commanded it through the remainder of that campaign, until after the battle of Malvern Hill, when he was ordered home to recruit the decimated regiment. And sadly did it need it. In the fight at Gaines' Mill it lost three officers and 46 men killed on the field, and eight officers and 163 men wounded and missing making a total of 220 officers and men. On the muster out of Col. Stockton in May 1863, Major Welch became colonel of the regiment. I knew Col. Welch well, though not intimately. He was a handsome, knightly and chivalric young officer, at that time but 25 years old. Many are the times I have met him as a student, upon this campus, and at the last it was my sad fortune to see his body borne from the field at Poplar Springs Church, below Petersburg, Va., Sept. 30, 1864. It was while I was engaged in organizing my Company B, for the 20th Michigan, at Ypsilanti, in July 1862, that I heard him make a most thrilling and patriotic speech, in the court house grounds in this city, in which he described the battle of Gaines Mill and Malvern Hill. On the evening of the 29th of September, 1864, I visited him and dined with him in his tent near the Welden Railroad. We talked of the university, and of the men we knew there, and of the university men who had made their record in the war. He was then the colonel commanding the 16th and I had then for nearly a year been colonel commanding the 20th. We little dreamed that i t was the last time we were to meet alive. As I mounted my horse, and grasped the colonel's hand at parting, he said, "Colonel, the next fight I get into I am going for a star or six feet of ground. " It was a little past noon of the next day, as I rode at the head of my command into the"Peeble's farm," I meet our men bearing the body of Col. Welch in a blanket. He had fallen gloriously at the head of his regiment, leading them with rash intrepidity in a charge upon the enemy's redoubt. So went out in premature eclipse a life of great promise of brilliancy. The next distinctively Washtenaw county company was the "Normal School Company," under Captain Gabriel Campbell, of the 17 th. Michigan. The regiment was under the command of Col. Wm. H. Withington, of Jackson, a most gallant and intrepid officer. The 17th left the state on the 27th day of August, 1862, and within 20 days thereafter was engaged in two great battles, in which they won imperishable honor and renown. At the battle of South Mountain, fought on the 24th of Sept., the 17th lost 27 killed and 114 wounded, a total of 141 ; and in the battle of Antietam, three days later, it lost 18 killed and 87 wounded, a total of 105, making an aggregate loss of 246. In this early baptism of blood the '"Normal School Company" E, bore its full and honorable share. It was my good fortune to see much of the 17th from the time we went to the front in the same week, until the end of the war, as we always served in the same division, (Wilcox's, ) and most of the time in ;he same brigade. I saw them in the bloody fight at Campbell's Station and Knoxville, Tenn., and at the Wilderness and Spottsylvania. In the latter battle they were nearly annihilated.and thereafter the remnant served at division headquarters, as provost guard. It is probable that no Michigan regiment gained greater celebrity in a single battle than did the 17th by its charge at South Mountain. Thereafter it was known as "The Stonewall Regiment. " But now I come to speak of the regiment most intimately connected with this county, city and this university, I mean, of course, the 20th Michigan Infantry. On the morning of the 15th day of July, 1862, Governor Austin Blair issued his proclamation calling for Michigan's quota of the "300,000 More, " called for by President Lincoln. It was proposed to raise one regiment from each of the six congressional districts, and also one, (the 24th,) from the county of Wayne. That same morning, as soon as the office of the adjutant general was open, I was sworn into the service of the United States as a second lieutenant, with authority to recruit a company for the 20th Michigan, (to be raised in the third congressional district,) being the first man mustered in under that call. Almost one-half of that regiment was recruited from Washtenaw county. My Company B, from Ypsilanti and vicinity, Companies D and H from Ann Arbor and neighborhood, Company K, from Chelsea and about one half of Co. F, which was organized at Grass Lake, was recruited from the western part of Washtenaw county. Every officer of the two Ann Arbor companies was a university man. Of Co. D the captain was C. B. Grant, now chief justice of the supreme court. His lieutenants were Roswell P. Carpenter, class of '62, and David E. Ainsworth, class of '63 Captain Carpenter, then of Co. K, and Lieutenant Ainsworth, then commanding his company, were both killed in the battle of Spottsylvania, May 12, 1864, with in a few minutes of each other. The officers of Company H were Wendell D Wiltsie, captain, a graduate of the law department First Lieutenant Edward P. Pitkin, a graduate of both the classical course and the law department and Waltor MaCallum, a

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well beloved classmate of my own in the class of '61 McCallum fell side by side with Carpenter and Ainsworth in the battle of Spottsylvania, also then a captain commanding a company. So, in the same honor, these three heroic and devoted young men gave up their lives in the flower of their manhood.for the cause of their country. Of the officers of Co. B, I hardly need say that its captain.  (who now addresses you,) a graduate in the class of '61, and its second captain, Charles T. Allen, now D. D. , were both severely wounded on the same bloody field. Captain Wiltsie, of Co, H, fell close by my side during the siege of Knoxville, Tenn., Nov. 25, 1863. Of all the university men, who went out with the 20th Michigan, and remained with it through its really severe campaigns, I believe every man was killed or wounded (except Lieut. E. P. Pitkin. of Co. H, who was discharged in the autumn of 1863). Of these four - or four and a half - Washtenaw county companies it may be fairly said that they were the backbone of the 20th regiment. Their history is the history of the regiment. The Captains of Co. 's B and D, held successively the commissions of captain, major, Lieut. colonel and colonel, and the former for six months commanded the brigade of which the regiment was a part. No companies were more gallantly led or more ably commanded than the Washtenaw companies, and none suffered as heavily in killed and wounded, especially in officers. The companies from Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti were largely enlisted out of the schools, and I can testify from having commanded them as colonel, from Nov. 16, 1863, to Oct. 16, 1864. and from the latter date to March. 1865, at brigade commander, that there was is the ranks of those companies abundant material to have furnished commissioned officers for an entire regiment - field, staff' and line. The total membership of this regiment from beginning to end was only 1157. It entered the campaign of the Wilderness May 1864, with about 330 men for duty. During that about 50 recruits joined, and probably 150 men joined from hospital and from absent on furlough or from duty. The losses of the regiment are stated in "Michigan in the War," page 409, as follows: "During the year of the commissioned officers of the regiment 11 were killed in action or died of wounds, 10 were wounded and two were taken prisoners. Of the enlisted men 526 were killed, wounded or captured making an aggregate loss of 548. The year referred to is the twelve months from Nov. 1, 1863, to Nov. 1, 1864, and I believe it includes those who died from disease. During the campaign of 1864 there were few men in the regiment who did not go upon the casualty list once, and some were on that list twice and even three times. Of its commanding officers Lieut. Col. W. Huntington Smith and Lieut. Col. George C. Barnes were killed in battle. The Adjutant, Jacob E. Sibert and five captains, Wiltsie McCollum, Carpenter, Dewey and Glood, one-half, and all but one from this county, were killed in battle, together with Lieutenants Ainsworth, Gould and Hicks, a remarkable years' record. On the 4th day of May it entered the campaign with 380 men. Between that day and July 31, it lost in killed, wounded and missing in action, 333 officers and men. A large proportion of the missing, were wounded. Three times during that campaign ,it lost almost 50 per cent of all the men engaged viz. Spottsylvania, May 12; Petersburg, June 18; and the assault on the Crater, July 30, 1864. After the later engagement the regiment had less than 80 men and 4 line officers left for duty. It is not my purpose to follow the history of his gallant regiment through its career. I only claim for it that it did its duty, as all Michigan regiments did. It took active and honorable part in the campaign of Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 1862. The campaign in Kentucky, April and May 1863, the siege and capture of Vicksburg, under Grant, June and July, 1863; the campaign against Jackson, Miss., July and Aug. , 1863; the Bast Tennessee and Knoxville campaigns, in the autumn of 1863; the campaigns of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania, May 1864; Cold Harbor and Petersburg, June and July. 1864; the campaign of the Welden railroad and Hatchers Run, Sept. and Oct. 1864, and the defense of Port Steadman, March 1865, and the capture of Petersburg, April 1865. I have spoken of this regiment in detail because it was emphatically the Washtenaw county regiment and more intimately identified with this university than any other. Taking into consideration the number of its officers, the numbers of men carried on its rolls, and the length of service, the 20th Michigan suffered by far a greater loss of officers, killed in action and died of wounds than any other regiment which went from the state of Michigan. The only infantry regiment which approached it was the 5th which in our years with 1,950 men, lost 10 officers killed and six died of wounds. The 20th in less than three years service lost 10 officers killed and three died of wounds, out of 1,157. The only cavalry regiment which, approached it was the 1st, which with 2 companies and 3,244 men in our years lost 10 officers killed and five died of wounds. I do not undertake to joint out the signiflcance of these facts. simply point them out and make record of them. But I now beg your indulgence while speak more particularly and personally of some of the university men who went from Ann Arbor. It is a tribute due from me to them. Captain Wendell D. Wiltsie, of Ann Arbor, was a graduate of the law department in the class of '62. He was both lawyer and editor. He left wife and children to enlist. In the camp he was an excellent disciplinarian, in action brave as a lion, always cool, he was never reckless of the lives of his men, nor unduly careful of his own. When he lay dying of his mortal wound at Knoxville, he said. : "I have never regretted for a moment that I enlisted in the cause of my country. I only regret that I have but one life to offer in her defense. Give my sword to my boy and charge him to use it, if another generation of traitors shall rise up to assail his country." Walter McCallum, captain of Co. H, the other Ann Arbor company, was at once one of the youngest and one of the most brilliant members of the class of 1861. He was one of the men of whom we were justly proud. He had hardly reached his majority when he entered the service. On the afternoon of the bloody 12th of May, 1864, at Spottsylvania, the regiment had advanced against a rebel battery, beyond its supports, and unable to go forward. and determined not to go back, was lying flat upon the ground, while a storm of bullets and shrapnel flew like a hail storm above it. McCallum noticing some sign of wavering, rose up in this pitiless hail of lead and iron, shouting, "Boys well never go back," and in an instant fell back dead, with the words upon his Ups. So died one of the brightest young heroes the university has given the world. Only a few yards away, while in like manner encouraging his men, fell Captain Roswell P. Carpenter, one of the most knightly soldiers it was my fortune to know. There were others, I do not doubt, just as brave, just as noble, just as devoted as these I have mentioned. But I mention these because of their relation to this university, and because they were my dear personal friends. Is it any wonder that I was proud to command such a regiment, and to be associated with such gallant officers. I desire to mention one other son of the university, a member of the class of '60, and also my personal friend, Captain Allen H. Zacharias, who went out with the 7th Michigan ínfantry. Captain Zacharias was mortally wonuded in the battle of Antietam, Sept. .17, 1863, and as the numbness of death came stealing over him with his ebbing strength he wrote as in his own life's blood his dying message to his dear ones at home, and this is what he wrote: "Dear Parent, Brothers and Sisters. I am wounded, mortally I think. The fight rages around me. I have done my duty. This is my consolation. I hope to meet you all again. I left not the line until nearly all had fallen and colors gone. I am getting weak. My arms are free but below my chest all is numb. The enemy, trotting over me, the numbness up to my heart. Good-bye all. Your son, Allen." This message was found clasped in his hand after the battle. Captain Zacharias, in May, 1861, had resigned the principalship of the State Military Institute at Brandon, Miss., to come north and enlist as a private soldier; but he did not long remain such but was in June promoted to be a lieutenant and in March, '62, to be captain of his company. The class of '61 graduated a little more than 60 days after the firing on Fort Sumpter. It was the "War Class." Of its 53 members who graduated, 24 entered the service, beside eight non-graduates, making 32 in all. They ranged all the way from private soldiers in the ranks to brigade commanders. Three of them attained the rank of brigadier general by brevet. Major Fred Arn was the first to fall, at Shiloh. Lieut. Sidney G. Morse was killed in a cavalry charge at the second battle of Bull Run ; McCallum at Spottsyivania while Godwin S. Beaver died in hospital. How many were wounded I do not know but if the usual proportion to the killed it must have been the greater number of those who remained. I have not thus spoken of the record of these particular organizations or of the class of '61 because they were extraordinary or because their services were more striking than were those of many others. They were not. Equal devotion, equal patriotism, and equal heroism were exhibited in a thousand localities, and in almost every college in the northern states. The speaker also gave a considerable list of other men who went into their country 's service from the university but as space will only permit the giving what was said relative to Washtenaw county soldiers they are omitted. By and by, said the speaker, when Memorial hall shall have been erecte upon this campus, as I hope and trust it sometime may be, I doubt not that the names of those who fought the good fight and kept the faith of patriotism to the end, may find a fitting tablet somewhere in its walls, to tell the story of duty done, of hardships endured, of sacrifices made, and of heroic services rendered to succeeding generations of students who shall gather here and who shall take pride in the patriotic and heroic story. In my judgment, said Gen.Cutcheon, the most valuable services the Grand Army can render the country is in cultivating and keeping alive a spirit of reverence for the men "who gave the last full measure of devotion" that the nation might live. It is in this spirit hat we are assembled here tonight. It is not so much to render honor to individuals however worthy, as it is to recognize the spirit of patriotism, devotion and self sacrifice which animated all our soldiers, and through them made the war for the preservation of the union one of the great epochs of the worlds history. Time has fully vindicated and justified the war for the union. The nation; has been held intact. Those who were enemies have become friends. Those who were disloyal have become loyal. The sons of the men who marched under the stars and bars have lived to shed their blood for the nation their fathers tried to destroy, and now march shoulder to shoulder with the men of the north under the stars and stripes. The divided 31,000,000 have become the united 75,000,000. The ( heroic head of north and south alike, fallen under a common flag, have recently been interred without discrimination in the Arlington National cemetery, in the presence of the president and his cabinet representing the people of the United States. The time has now fully come when we may and ought to banish the last remnant of bitterness, of the civil war, thanking God that in his Providence we are at last a united, prosperous and happy people.