Company D History

COMPANY D HISTORY

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A Fighting Company of the

Fifth Cavalry.

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FORTY-NINE YET LIVING

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Of the Original 93 Who 

Enlisted in '62

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A Paper read by comrade James K. Lowden at Whitmore Lake, Thursday, August 3, at a Reunion of Company D.

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The historical part of the paper read by Comrade James K. Lowden at the reunion of Co. D. , 5th Michigan Cavalry at Whitmore Lake was as follows:

Thirty seven years ago the 14th day of August, a company was organized for service in the volunteer army for the maintenance of the supremacy of our nation in the village of Northville, consisting of four commissioned officers and 93 enlisted men who took the field. Of these 15 were killed or died of wounds, three died of disease while in the service, six died in prison and one after parole from prison, leaving 72 alive at the close of the war. Of those left, 19 had been taken prisoners and remained in prison from 6 to 17 months, three were discharged for wounds, and 20 had been less severely wounded and returned for duty. Twenty-three have died since the war, leaving 49 yet alive at last accounts, 37 years since enlistment, a record that has few if any equals in history. Some of these men stood through 50 engagements and saw as hard service as any troops on record. Notably on the Pennsylvania campaign in 1863 when for the space of 30 days from the 24th day of June to the 24th day of July every day in the saddle and five nights during that time were either in the saddle or engaged on foot for 24 hours at a time continuously having been under fire 15 times again in 1864 from the 5th to the 24th day of May, every day engaged under fire, and in the saddle every day to the 3rd day of July without any day of rest and during this time had been in some the hardest fought engagements of the war. In the autumn of 1863 from the 12 day of September until the 27th day of November it was a continuous campaign of fight and picket and the notable engagements were the battles of Brandy Station, Culpepper, Racoon Ford, Summerville Ford, White's Ford, Morton's Ford, James City, Culpepper and Brandy Station again, Pony Mountain, Culpepper and Stevensburg with Stringfellows Ford 13 engagements, and with the usual attendant losses, more or less severe. The campaign of 1864 in the Shenandoah Valley where four of the company were killed and one died of wounds. From the valley campaign this company and regiment went into the spring campaign of 1865 and were in the wind up at the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, and are fully entitled to says from before Gettysburg to Appomattox. Just one thing more. In general reports made by General "Wesley Merritt, the regiment was favorably spoken of 14 times, a thing unheard of elsewhere that a U. S. army officer holding the rank of general in command of a division anywhere gave individual credit to any other volunteer regiment. It always was spoken of as the brigade, entitled to the credit, but in these cases it was given to the 5th Michigan Cavalry, and in some other cases the praise was bestowed as Col. Alger's regiment. When south a few years ago I met Gen. Fitzhugh Lee at Culpepper and incidentally he spoke of a number of the battles of the '60s. He said there was the Michigan brigade of cavalry that we so often met that caused them trouble, and one regiment in particular that seemed to be always ready for a scrap that was commanded by a tall, slight built, dark complexioned colonel, that never left the grounds without a fight, and very often they fought dismounted, and when they found us on the skirmish line we always had more than we wanted and more than we could displace by any where near equal force. I went over the fields of Culpepper and Brandy Station with some of the old confederate officers and they were as willing to give the credit to us when we were entitled to it as they were to exact it when it was due them, and spent two as pleasant days visiting them as though it had been among my own old comrades.