RECRUITING IN MICHIGAN
Ann Arbor was not the only town where the fires of patriotism were kept
burning. It was one of many. "From one learn all." The state was one
vast recruiting station. There was scarcely a town of importance which
had not a company forming for some one or other of the various regiments
that were organizing all through the year. Before the close of the year,
aside from the three months men, three regiments of cavalry, eleven
regiments of infantry, and five batteries were sent out, all for three
years. There was little difficulty in getting recruits to fill these
organizations to their maximum standard. No bounties were paid, no draft
was resorted to. And, yet, the pay for enlisted men was but thirteen
dollars a month. The calls of the President, after the first one for
seventy-five thousand, were generally anticipated by the governor, and
the troops would be in camp before they were called for, if not before
they were needed. The personnel was excellent, and at first great pains
were taken to select experienced and competent officers. Alpheus S.
Williams, Orlando B. Wilcox, Israel B. Richardson, John C. Robinson,
Orlando M. Poe, Thornton F. Brodhead, Gordon Granger, Phillip H.
Sheridan and R.H.G. Minty were some of the names that appeared early in
the history of Michigan in the war. Under their able leadership,
hundreds of young men were instructed in the art of war and taught the
principles of tactics, so that they were qualified to take responsible
positions in the regiments that were put in the field the following
year.
I remember going to see a dress parade of the First Michigan cavalry at
Detroit in August. It was formed on foot, horses not having yet been
furnished. It was a fine body of men, and Colonel Thornton F. Brodhead
impressed me greatly because of his tall, commanding figure and military
bearing. He distinguished himself and was killed at Second Bull Run.
Among the other officers was a spare, frail looking man named Town. He
was at that time major and succeeded to the colonelcy after the death of
Brodhead. He always sought death on the battle field, but never found
it, and came home to die of consumption after the war was over. He was a
modern Chevalier Bayard, and led his regiment at Gettysburg in the
grandest cavalry charge of the war. I have no doubt that Meade's right
was saved, July 3, 1863, by the superb courage of Charles H. Town and
his brave followers. History is beginning to give the cavalry tardy
justice for the part it played in that, one of the few great, decisive
battles.
[Illustration: THORNTON F. BRODHEAD]
One of the most interested spectators of the parade was the venerable
statesman and Democratic leader, Lewis Cass. He was then seventy-nine
years of age, and few men had occupied a more conspicuous place in State
and Nation. He was not without military experience, having been
prominent in the frontier war of 1811, and in the war of 1812 he served
as an aid to General Harrison. Soon thereafter, he was appointed
brigadier general in the United States army, and was Secretary of War in
the Cabinet of President Jackson. He also served as Territorial governor
of Michigan, under the administrations of Madison, Monroe and John
Quincy Adams. The fact of his resignation from the Cabinet of James
Buchanan has already been referred to. I confess that I was, for the
time being, more interested in that quiet man, standing there under the
shadow of a tree, looking on at the parade, than in the tactical
movements of the embryotic soldiers. There was, indeed, much about him
to excite the curiosity and inflame the imagination of a youngster only
just turned twenty-one.
Obtaining a position near where he stood, I studied him closely. He was
not an imposing figure, though of large frame, being fat and puffy, with
a heavy look about the eyes, and a general appearance of senility. He
wore a wig. The remarks he made have gone from my memory. They were not
of such a character as to leave much of an impression, and consisted
mostly of a sort of perfunctory exhortation to the troops to do their
duty as patriots.
It was with something of veneration that I looked at this man (standing
on the verge of the grave he appeared to be), and, yet, he outlived many
of the young men who stood before him in the bloom of youth. He did not
seem to belong to the present so much as to the past. Fifty years before
I was born, he had been a living witness of the inauguration of George
Washington as first President of the United States. He had watched the
growth of the American Union from the time of the adoption of the
Constitution. He had been a contemporary of Jefferson, Madison, the
Adamses, Burr and Hamilton. He had sate in the Cabinets of two different
Presidents, at widely separated periods. He had represented the
government in the diplomatic service abroad, and had served with
distinction against the enemies of his country. He had seen the
beginning of political parties in the United States and had been a
prominent actor through all the changes. He was a youth of twelve when
the Reign of Terror in France was in full blast, and thirty-three years
of age when Napoleon Bonaparte was on the Island of St. Helena. He had
witnessed the downfall of Pitt and the partition of Poland. He was,
indeed, a part of the dead past. His work was done, and it seemed as if
a portrait by one of the great masters had stepped down from the canvas
to mingle with living persons.
When the young men from the South, who were in the University felt
compelled to return to their homes, to cast in their lots with their
respective states, the students in a body escorted them to their
trains, and bade them good-by with a sincere wish for good luck to
attend them wherever they might go, even though it were into the
confederate military service. The parting was rather with a feeling of
melancholy regret that the fates cruelly made our paths diverge, than
one of bitterness on account of their belief in the right of states to
secede.
There was a humorous, as well as a pathetic side to the war. Soldiers or
students, young men were quick to see this. The penchant which boys have
to trifle with subjects the most grave, gave rise to a funny incident in
Ypsilanti (Michigan). There were two rival schools in that town--the
"State Normal" and the "Union Seminary." The young men in these two
flourishing institutions were never entirely at ease except when playing
practical jokes upon each other. Soon after the secession of South
Carolina, some of the Seminary boys conceived the idea of compelling the
Normal people to show their colors. The first-named had put up the stars
and stripes, a thing that the latter had neglected to do. One morning
when the citizens of the town arose and cast their eyes toward the
building dedicated to the education and training of teachers, they were
astonished to see, flying from the lightning rod on the highest peak of
the cupola, a flag of white, whereon was painted a Palmetto tree,
beneath the shade of which was represented a rattle snake in act to
strike. How it came there no one could conjecture, but there it was,
floating impudently in the breeze, and how to get it down was the
question.
I believe that the authorities of the school never learned who it was
that performed this daring feat, but it will be violating no confidence,
at this late day, to say that the two heroes of this daring boyish
escapade, which was at the time a nine-days' wonder, served in the war,
one of them in what was known as the "Normal" company, and are now
gray-haired veterans, marching serenely down the western slope, toward
the sunset of their well-spent lives.