Michigan Civil War Blog

News story on Monroe monument ceremony

The Monroe Evening News posted a story about yesterday's Civil War Fallen monument event: Dedication. Away down at the Fredericksburg NMP, some 350 folks turned out for their ceremony. Nice to see how many were in Monroe ... and that it was a total that was more than the number of names (410) on the new monument.

Congratulations to Monroe, Michigan for its dedication to Michigan Civil War history.

Remarks delivered at the Monroe County Civil War Memorial Dedication

One hundred fifty years ago today, morning dawned out East on the James Peninsula in Tidewater Virginia.  Overnight, a severe storm had turned the roads into mud and raised the Chickahominy River to flood stage.  Two great armies confronted each other.  One wore blue, like the field on our State’s flag.  So near were their camps that Michigan soldiers in the Union Army of the Potomac could hear the church bells ringing in Richmond, the Confederate capital.  The next several days might result in its capitulation.

On that same morning of May 27, 1862, Captain Russell Alger – one day to become Governor of Michigan -- arrived at headquarters for the Union’s great Western army deep in its Southern incursion.  He delivered this telegram to a supply officer:  “Captain Philip H. Sheridan, U.S. Army, is hereby appointed Captain of the Second Regiment Michigan Cavalry”.  That evening, Sheridan made his first appearance at the camp of the Michigan troopers near Farmington, Mississippi.

Back in Farmington, Michigan – and in Plymouth, my home town – and here in Monroe – day dawned this May 27th on an uncertain but hopeful future.  Many friends and neighbors in communities all across these two pleasant peninsulas had left for the front line.  Were they all nearing the triumphant end of what in a single year had become the bloodiest conflict in the young history of the American nation?

Much had been required so far of Michigan’s men in blue … and much more would be needed.

Despite the hopeful Spring, a long summer of battles and campaigns in the East and the West would ensue.  The war would stretch on into the Fall, and then into another Spring.  The 27^th of May 1863 would mark an Army of the Potomac that had suffered its most inglorious defeat, at Chancellorsville.       

The calendar would roll over into the Spring of 1864, and of 1865.  And the war would still be raging.

From initial command of that Michigan regiment, Phil Sheridan would rise to the top echelon of leadership in the United States military by the Spring of ‘65.  His fame would rank with other immortals of the Union command – Grant, Sherman, Farragut.  Sheridan’s horse Rienzi – Grand Rapids born and bred – veteran of many a battle – would come to enjoy a legacy perhaps even more revered than his rider.

What of others from Michigan?  I fear the passing years have not always been kind to their memory.  They deserve much more.

Take John A. Clark, born in 1841, who enlisted in the 7^th Michigan Infantry regiment in June 1861, from Monroe.  Promoted to lieutenant within a year, he saw action in the 1862 Peninsula campaign and led his company into action that September.  In the West Woods north of the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland, at the onset of the single bloodiest day in American history, Lieutenant Clark was shot down.  He had yet to reach his 22^nd birthday.

On that same field at Antietam, Captain Allen Zacharias of Monroe would suffer a mortal wound.  Born in April 1833, several years before Michigan became a State, he would not see his 30^th birthday.

Under the war’s first storm of shot and shell at Fort Sumter, on the Peninsula, at Antietam and Fredericksburg, and then against Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg, Colonel Norman Hall of Monroe defended the Stars and Stripes.  Born in March 1837, he would – unlike Clark and Zacharias – survive the war.  But not for long.  He, too, would be gone far too soon, in May 1867, no doubt a casualty like his brother officers.

How may we make sense of such sacrifice?

One hundred fifty years later, we are still making sense out of this great civil war, where Americans fought other Americans, and where upwards of three-quarters of a million soldiers never came back alive to their homes, their families, their friends, and their communities, like this one of Monroe.

We can say a few appropriate things about Michigan’s own.     

We can recount how they rallied in defense of a cherished banner colored in familiar red, white -- and blue.  We can talk of the values for which they laid their lives on the line.  How they fought to save our great American Union.  How they served in the cause of preserving the American democratic experiment.  How they engaged in the struggle on behalf of liberty, freedom, liberation.  How from the free soil tradition of this State they ushered in a new birth of freedom for all of their fellow Americans.

We can say, like Detroit poet Dudley Randall, that American earth is richer for their bones.  We can say, like Benzonia’s Bruce Catton, that they wrote a pledge in blood so that freedom could be reborn in every generation.    

One hundred fifty years later, we can say it is never too late to venerate such patriotism.

I am deeply honored to speak today, seeking in some way -- inadequate but heartfelt – to represent a grateful State, and a people whose indomitable character has led them time and time again to triumph despite great adversity.

May we hallow the memory of these heroic Michiganders.  May we embrace for ourselves and our posterity the great causes for which they sacrificed and died.  And in all the days yet to come, may we heed the echo of their voices whispering, “remember us,” “remember us,” “remember us.”

Remarks, book signing in Monroe

Yours truly has the honor of attempting to say some appropriate words tomorrow at the dedication in Monroe of a new monument to their Civil War Fallen. What a tribute to the soldiers who laid down their lives for their Nation, and what a testimonial to today's Michiganders who contributed to making this memorial happen during the weekend! It's a full afternoon of events.

Book signing is at the Sawyer House, with 12 noon as the official start time for events. The Sawyer House and Soldiers & Sailors Park are just a little east of downtown Monroe on East Front Street, right along the south side of the River Raisin.  

Upcoming: Michigan Day at Antietam

The Michigan Historical Commission has accepted the invitation of the National Park Service unit at Antietam National Battlefield Park to plan and host a 150th day commemoration of the role of Michigan in the Antietam campaign. The date of the event on the battlefield will be August 26, 2012, a Sunday. Events will be planned for Saturday the 25th, as well, focusing on the Lost Order and the Stonewall Regiment. Over 100 graves are extant in the Michigan section of the National Cemetery. Israel Richardson and other officers lost their lives on the battleground. The Union victory enabled President Lincoln to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation just days later.

Planning is being to proceed, with the hope of having as many Michiganders and those interested in Michigan's role in attendance. Questions and ideas are welcome.

This promises to be a 'signature' event.

History will be made!

That's the tagline for the National Hockey League's PR for many things, such as the playoffs and -- today! -- the announcement of the Winter Classic and associated events to be held in December '12 and January '13, involving the Detroit Red Wings.

The NHL came out with a dedicated website [2013WinterClassic], featuring a video in which one of the very first images is the head of this statue:
Yes, most assuredly it is the image of Victory on top of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, the Civil War valedictory sculpture commemorating the great work of Michigan's military in the American Civil War.

The press conference and press release and associated publicity featured numerous references to "a historic event" and "history being made" as well as the "historic rivalry" between the Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs who have each a "storied history". All of this history talk makes one think that all those associated with the NHL must regard history as a prime ingredient in their worldview.

Wish that were the case more broadly, here. Much work still to do.

Zachariah Chandler in the New York Times

In yesterday's issue of the NYT Disunion blog, author Rick Beard talks about "The Scapegoat of Ball's Bluff" [Disunion] and has this to say about two leaders on the War Committee, one of whom was Michigan's senior senator:

'Two of the senators, Republicans Benjamin Wade of Ohio and Zachariah Chandler of Michigan, were radicals — staunch opponents of slavery intent on using the war to end the South’s “peculiar institution” and unlikely to look kindly on efforts that stopped short of that goal.'

Their wrath descended on the 'scapegoat', General Charles Stone, at the feet of whom the Ball's Bluff debacle was laid. Stone also stated that he returned fugitive slaves to their masters because that was the law in Maryland. The gist of the column is that Stone got a raw deal, and traditionally the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War has been seen as a Star Chamber of sorts. On this federal holiday honoring a man who courageously called his nation to fulfill the unfinished civil rights legacy of the Civil War, it is well worth pausing from the mainstream interpretation to ask: wasn't Chandler on the right side of the main issue?

 

Centennial vs. Sesquicentennial

One of the major criticisms of the Centennial commemoration of the Civil War was its lack of focus on one of the most important contemporary issues of the day, to wit, the struggle over Civil Rights in the late 1950s and 1960s. Yours truly wrote an article on the Michigan commemoration for the Historical Society of Michigan a couple of years ago; a number of excellent works (David Blight's new American Oracle) make such criticism.

Our animating Sesquicentennial document in Michigan, Executive Order 2007-52, requires the commemoration to be "inclusive" and "authentic." We've worked hard on that. Our very first conference, first in the Nation, focused on John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and the fateful meeting in Detroit in March 1859 with leading Black business leaders. We started off by recognizing the great diversity of our Civil War story and will continue to do that. It's purposely reflected in Michigan and the Civil War: A Great and Bloody Sacrifice.

A reenactor group helps educate folks about the 1st Michigan Colored Infantry:

A documentary, Michigan: The Civil War Experience, recently aired on public TV here, produced by iMichigan Productions of whom two major domos are A-A.

Now comes a series of three articles in the minority-owned African-American newspaper Michigan Chronicle. The columns speak out to their readership about the depth of meaning of the Sesqui commemoration to all Michiganders: Download Chronicle1 Download Chronicle2 Download Chronicle3

It seems safe to say that a Centennial shortcoming won't be repeated during the Michigan Civil War Sesquicentennial.

A plea for (un)common sense

As an avid member of the Civil War Trust, I find battlefield preservation -- indeed, anything Civil War-preservation-related -- a compelling case. When the Trust shows a picture of the intersection of US-29 at the Sudley Springs Road on the Manassas battlefield congested with motor vehicles as one of the reasons to get behind preservation, I buy it.

I've worked with improvements in government for nearly my entire legal career. I generally find government to be a great Sphinx -- inscrutable, its inertia rolling it in whatever blind direction it is headed, without so much as a nod toward the common sense solution. I could tell tales. It is not shocking then, though deplorable, to see government, at whatever level, standing in the way of aiding in the preservation of our past and aiding in the advancement of lower level priorities. Do I like to sit in traffic jams? No! So do I give a blank check to government to bulldoze its way through and across historic places so that I can get somewhere 15 minutes faster. No. There are other cures.

If I was czar, I would close off US-29 through the Manassas NMP and make it off-limits to other than touring traffic. That doesn't seem a tall order. I would re-route interstates all across the country around Civil War battlefields in order to restore them to their historic look. That surely would be a tall order, given there are so so so many (270 at monacacy, 66 at manassas, 81 in the Shenandoah Valley, 295 around Richmond, just to name a few).

During this Sesquicentennial, with the federal government doing so little to honor our past, wouldn't it be amazing if veneration were chosen as opposed to vehicularization?

A most appropriate Sesquicentennial event

From the Plymouth Patch:

Dedication Ceremony for Civil War Veteran Albert Nelson Stevens

Wednesday, October 19, 1:00 pm

660 Plymouth Rd, Plymouth, MI, FREE

 

Nearly 100 years after he was laid to rest, Albert Nelson Stevens will receive a headstone in a dedication ceremony at Plymouth’s Riverside Cemetery on October 19. While preparing for this year’s Plymouth Characters Cemetery Walk, an annual event of the Plymouth Historical Museum, historians discovered that Stevens, a featured character and Civil War veteran from Company D, 4^th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, had no grave marker to commemorate his life. One can imagine the countless veterans that have fallen victim to this sad oversight, but Stevens will no longer suffer such anonymity. Some of Stevens’s descendants will be present for the ceremony, including a granddaughter and great-grandson.  

According to Public Law 107-103, signed on December 27, 2001, the Veterans Administration is required to furnish an appropriate government marker for the grave of a veteran buried in a private cemetery. Rick Danes, commander of the Sergeant John S. Cosbey Camp No. 427, Sons of Union Veterans (SUV) in Dearborn, submitted the application in cooperation with the Plymouth Historical Museum and the City of Plymouth Department of Municipal Services (who agreed to install the headstone at no charge). 

The dedication ceremony will be held at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, October 19, in Block B of Riverside Cemetery on Plymouth Road, near the 35^th District Court. The ceremony will be conducted by members of the Cosbey Camp SUV and the Plymouth Historical Museum’s Mike Gillett, a reenactor who portrays a Civil War Union chaplain. Other Civil War reenactors will be present to lend the ceremony the dignity and authenticity it deserves.

Fact Sheet:

Albert Nelson Stevens was born July 4, 1841, in Whitmore Lake, MI. He enlisted in Company D, 4^th Michigan Volunteer Infantry on June 20, 1861, but was discharged December 10 of that same year, because of rheumatism contracted in poor camp conditions. He reenlisted on December 5, 1864, in Company A, 30^th MI Volunteer Infantry, and was discharged June 30, 1865.

On November 12, 1865, Stevens married Kate Hill in Milford, MI; the couple had 8 children, 4 of which survived to adulthood.

Stevens’ granddaughters, Helen DeWolf, 90, and Juanita St. Charles,?88, and great-grandson, James Stevens, hope to be attending the ceremony, along with their families, and expressed great joy and gratitude that their family member would be finally be honored and remembered in such a significant way.

Juanita and James have agreed to be interviewed by reporters. If you would like to talk with them, please contact Liz Kerstens, executive director, Plymouth Historical Museum, for their contact information. Liz can be reached at 734-455-8940 or director@plymouthhistory.org.

We have not yet found a photo of Albert Stevens.

Prepared by Elizabeth K. Kerstens.

Determination

"I've been called everything from a pit bull to a firecracker, and I'm all right with that if that's what it takes to achieve our goals. I believe in this cause because it's the right thing to do, and I'm not going to give up until the job is done." So said Friends of Potter Cemetery member Sue Donovan, 58, of Gibraltar.

These Friends have spent 10 years in the courts to get access to the Monroe County burial ground, then work like they did "on a recent Friday afternoon to clear land, thin out trees, fill groundhog holes and pull weeds in an effort to bring new life to the decrepit graveyard" according to today's Freep. The 19th-Century graveyard, which hadn't been attended to since the 1940s, is the burial site of at least 84 people, six of whom are Civil War veterans.

According to the story, 'Local historian John Gibney, director of the Monroe Historical Museum applauded the group's efforts and said its members play a significant role in preserving a part of Michigan history. "A number of people who fought for liberty and freedom are buried there and it's important to make sure that they are respectfully remembered," Gibney said.'

Michiganders are commemorating the Civil War Sesquicentennial in many ways. None is more appropriate than this.