[from Timbertown Log (Saginaw Co. Genealogy Soc.) 1994]



                       A Tale of Two Regiments:

    Saginaw Men and Captain Scofield's Independent Company



										By

										David T. Hardy



	In early 1864, nearly a hundred men from the Saginaw region left

their homes to join "Lincoln's Army," only to find themselves shuffled

between regiments in an extraordinary personnel swap. The exchange

of enlisted men for officers' commissions led to such confusion that

that later even the War Department could not account for the

disposition of the men involved.

	The motivation for the personnel exchange arose from the

differing needs of two Michigan regiments. The Second Michigan

Infantry was an old regiment, mustered in 1861, and drawn largely

from the extreme southern part of the State: Calhoun, Jackson, and

Hillsdale Counties figure heavily in its original muster. Few units

equalled its record for non-stop combat; it was one of the handful of

Union regiments who held firm at First Manassas, and its survivors

stood at Appomatox Court House four years later. While the rest of the

eastern armies rested in the 1863-64 winter encampment, the Second

spent the winter in the West repelling Longstreet's invasion of

Tennessee. The mountain fighting  was brutal: at Campbell's Station,  the

Second joined with two other Michigan regiments (the 17th and 20th) in

a delaying action that left all three regimental commanders dead;

reinforced by two other regiments, the tiny force held an entire division

at bay as the rest of the army escaped Longstreet's trap. The army

withdrew to Knoxville where, nearly cut off from supplies, it defended

the city through a bitter and starving winter. (An illustration of their

trials: the climax of the siege came when the Confederates attempted

to storm Fort Saunders, the key to Knoxville. The Second Michigan held

the fort with a novel defense: the men poured water down the

battlements, and the attackers were unable to scale the flawless

sheets of ice.  Yet in that bitter winter one audit of 185 members of the

Second Michigan showed that 63 lacked shoes, 99 lacked socks, and 42

had no overcoats). By the end of the campaign, the Lieutenant Colonel,

Major, and Adjutant were dead.

	On paper, a volunteer regiment comprised 1,000 men and 34

officers. By early 1864, the Second Michigan had barely three hundred

men present for duty; of four field officers, three were dead. A further

crisis loomed. In a few months the regiment's three-year enlistments

would run out. The stalwart character of the regiment was proved

when, in the midst of the starving winter, a majority of survivors did

re-up, which ensured that the regiment would continue. But a majority

in this case was tiny; only 198 men, a fifth of a regiment's nominal size.

During the furlough the officers attempted to recruit, but the results

were dismal.

	At this point the Second Michigan was doomed. Civil War volunteer

regiments were each responsible for their own recruiting, and faced a

penalty for failure. Regiments whose numbers declined too far--and

198 men in place of a thousand was certainly too far--were

"consolidated" with another depleted regiment. The junior regiment

lost its title, flag, commander, and identity; half the officers of each

regiment were dismissed.

	The solution to the Second's problem was found in another

Michigan regiment serving in the same five-regiment brigade. The 27th

Michigan had mustered in September, 1863, being formed out of two

intended regiments gathering at Port Huron and Ypsilanti. Some of its

recruiters had obviously ranged northward: Saginaw, Midland, and

Shiawassee Counties figure heavily on the musters for its company H,

while Tuscola and Gratiot County men were prominent in company K. As

a relatively new regiment, the 27th had not suffered much depletion.

Moreover, it had managed to augment its strength in an imaginative

manner. Although a volunteer regiment was supposed to have ten

companies, the regimental books of the 27th show that it had received

permission to add two special "sharpshooter" companies. As a result, by

early 1864 it still had over 960 men on the books--nearly its full paper

strength.

	Still not satisfied, the 27th had detached several lieutenants for

recruiting duty. There was a standard reward for success: if a

lieutenant recruited a hundred-man company, he would be promoted to

captain it. One of the captains-to-be, Lt. Thomas Scofield, made a

beeline for Saginaw. For good measure he took along George Davison,

who was a Saginaw native. Davison's contacts were useful: his

signature appears on many of the Saginaw enlistment contracts.

	The various recruiters had a field day, enlisting a total of 552 men;

Scofield contributed nearly a hundred Bay area men to the total. The

27th's cup was now running over--it would soon have hundreds more

men than any regiment was authorized to enroll! The new men moved

to join their regiment at the port town of Annapolis, Maryland. (both

Michigan regiments were part of the IX Corps, under Gen. Burnside. The

Army of the Potomac was then in winter camp in Virginia, but Grant's

overland campaign was about to begin. Grant hoped to keep Lee off-

guard by placing IX Corps about a hundred miles northeast at the port

of Annapolis, where it could either join the main army by railroad, or

take ship for an amphibious operation on the Virginia coast).

	One regiment desperately needed men; the other had too many.

Col. Doremus Fox of the 27th and Col. William Humphrey of the 2d had

both been businessmen before the war, and they reached a businesslike

solution. The 2d Michigan would obtain rights to the 27th's new recruits,

in exchange for which the 2d would take on some of the 27th's officers

as its own, and at promoted rank--including positions as its Lt. Colonel

and Major. The officers of the 2d probably did not care for newcomers

being promoted over their heads--but it would be better than

consolidation. The recruits probably liked it no better. They had enlisted

in the 27th, with prospects of serving alongside neighbors and

relatives; they were now assigned to the 2nd, composed mostly of

strangers from southern counties.

	Today, of course, an exchange of enlisted men for officers'

positions would give those responsible a long stay in military prison. In

1864, when the nation was still forming its first large armies, matters

were less formal. In the correspondence files of the Second Michigan

(Nat'l Archives, Mil. Research Branch, Box 1956) I found a letter from

Col. Humphrey to Col. Fox:



	Headquarters, 2nd Mich Inftry

	Mount Clemens March 31 64

	Sir:

	Yours of yesterday was rec'd last evening and contents noted.

Your proposition in regard to filling up my regiment I understand to be

as follows:

	Capt E.L. March is to be Lieut. Colonel

	Capt P. Perrine to be Major

	Then four (4) full companies are to come into my regiment--fully

officered except the captaincies of two of them to be assigned to your

Regt and the vacancies to be filled by two of my Captains.

	Further you propose to bring in with the unassigned men a number

of second lieutenants. In consideration of the above you guarantee to

me five hundred (500) recruits with strong prospects of six hundred

(600). That is, you turn over to my regt all the men that have been

recruited in the state under your supervision with the exception of

those already assigned to your reg't. With the above understanding of

your proposition I accept it.

	I shall have however to consolidate my own regiment into 6

companies. When this is done there will be three (3) vacant second

lieutenancies. .... Please write to me at Annapolis on the receipt of this

that I may make the necessary arrangements.... 



On April 10, Col. Fox, then in Lyons,  responded. Fox indicated that "I

have five hundred good men besides the detachment for my own Reg't.

I think I shall have more, I hope to fill you to the maximum." Fox added

that he would be coming with the men on the 20th. He also relayed bad

news: the Army's Adjutant General had rejected Humphrey's plan to

consolidate his veterans into six companies and put the new men in

their own new companies: "This probably will not please them quite as

well--but is really better for the discipline and efficiency of your Reg't

as you will have veterans in all the companies."

	On April 15, 1864, 98 Bay area men mustered at St. John's. As their

regimental status was still up in the air they were designated as

"Captain Scofield's Independent Company," assigned to IX Corps rather

than a regiment. (Other "Independent Companies" then formed are

described in regimental records as "Ricaby's Company," "Ingalls

Company" and "Whitmer's Company.") Shortly thereafter, IX Corps left

Annapolis and travelled to the Army of the Potomac's winter camp, a

few miles above the Rapidan River in Virginia. In early May, the Army

marched off to begin the 1864 campaign--a bloody trail that led to

Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, the North Anna River, Cold

Harbor and finally Petersburg. IX Corps initially marched as the rear

guard, then swung down to hold the Union center at Wilderness, later

holding the left at Spottsylvania Court House, then the center again at

the North Anna River.

	Where the independent companies joined the Army cannot be

determined. They may have been with the Army, if not any regiment,

when it marched to the Wilderness on May 5. Col. Fox had written that

he would leave with the recruits "on the 20th" of April. Scofield

received his promised Captain's commission in Washington on May 1,

probably as IX Corps passed through on way to the winter camp, and it

seems doubtful that he would have left his new men far away. The first

strong indication of their presence with the Army comes, however, in a

much later memo from headquarters, 2d Michigan, to the Adjutant

General, dated May 20, 1864 "near Spottsylvania C.H." In it Captain

Young, commanding the regiment, notes the enclosure of a list of 552

men "subject to assignment to the 2d Michigan Vol. Inf. by order of

General Burnside." In July, IX Corps Special Order 99 recognized that the

men in question were assigned to the 2d, "This order to date from May

20, 1864, at which time these were assigned verbally."

	A few days later, IX Corps marched with the Army in the advance

which drove farther toward Richmond before being stopped at the

North Anna River. On May 24, Battalion Order No. 39 commanded: "the

new companies assigned to this reg't are hereby broken up and

distributed among the different companies of the regiment...." The 2d

Michigan was then with its division of IX Corps, holding semicircular

entrenchments on the north bank of the North Anna. [They survive to

this day, in now-wooded land north of modern Rt. 689, a half-mile west

of Rt. 1].

	The Second Michigan, as thus reconstituted, was virtually a new

regiment. The 198 men who had re-enlisted had been depleted by

Wilderness and Spottsylvania: 4 dead,  45 wounded. The remaining

veterans were barely enough to fill the non-commissioned slots; the

rank and file was almost entirely comprised of men who had been in

uniform barely a month.

	The new men had a brief respite from fighting, but none from

marching. On May 28, the Army made a brutal twenty-mile summer

march to swing around to Richmond from the east. Medical officers who

made the march indicated that the men moved in an enormous cloud of

dust, and that ambulances followed each division to pick up those who

collapsed. The 2d crossed the Pamunkey River, near the modern hamlet

of Hanovertown, around midnight; the men camped, or more likely

collapsed, on the high ground just beyond. There the new men suffered

their first loss:  Orrin Putnam's musket fired while he was on sentry

duty, shattering his foot. (He died of the resulting infection three weeks

later). Disease (the greatest killer of all) claimed some of the new men

as well: George Fox was evacuated, sick, but died on the hospital ship.

(He is buried at Arlington, under a headstone mistakenly identifying him

as of the 3d Michigan Cavalry).

	In the first few days of June the Army first moved westward, to

close on Richmond, then southward, to try to roll around Lee's flank. The

Second saw some skirmishing when the Confederates jabbed Union lines

near Bethesda Church: on June 2 Pvt. Henry Reeves was captured. Then

Grant's southern movement ran onto the swamps of the Chickahominy:

simultaneously, his cavalry found a weak spot and gained a foothold at

the Cold Harbor crossroads. If the foothold could be exploited, it would

be possible to drive directly west into Ricmond.  Grant stopped flanking

to the South and launched a massive assault on Lee's lines. But Lee had

had time to entrench, and the result was sheer butchery. On the

morning of June 3, 8,000 men fell in a matter of minutes.

	The Second was at that point on the extreme north of the Union

line, in what are now suburbs two miles north of Cold Harbor Battlefield

Park. Its brigade was ordered to push diagonally to the northwest in an

attempt to roll back Early's Corps and turn Lee's left flank--or, at the

very least, to keep him from stripping troops from that area to

reinforce his middle. Early had a forward line of "rifle pits" (trenches)

south of Beaver Dam Creek, a tiny stream with marshy borders, with his

main lines two hundred yards farther on. [The location is now a field in

Richmond's northeastern suburbs, north of modern Rt. 360, west of Rt.

615. the forward Confederate lines were on the south edge of a small

road just south of Beaver Cam Creek; the main line parallelled the

modern Rt. 627.]

	The brigade deployed with three regiments in the front line and

two in the rear; the 27th and 2d were on the extreme right of the first

and second lines, respectively. The brigade drove across the open fields

and overran the outermost confederate lines; in the process the 27th

lost Major Moody, commanding. (Moody was a Great Lakes sailor,

famed for giving his troops nautical orders such as "bear to port!" He

fell with a shattered arm and died later of the infection). The brigade

could not, however, take the main confederate lines 200 yards beyond

and was pinned down under heavy fire from ahead and from its left.

Civil War infantry did not carry shovels; the men in desperation dug in

as best they could.The brigade commander's report states: "To procure

cover, in default of better entrenchments, the men used their bayonets,

tincups and plates to pile the soil into earthworks and thus partially

protected themselves." Under the converging musket fire, the Second

lost J. Burns and Thomas Glenny, killed, and Patrick Cullen of Saginaw,

mortally wounded. (Cullen's pension file at Archives shows he was shot

in the left lung and attended by William Clark; his last record shows him

being placed on the hospital ship for General Hospital in Washington. On

June 6, an unknown with his height and hair color was sent to Arlington.

He rests there somewhere in plot 27, near George Fox.)

	The new men's introduction to battle had only begun. On June 12

the Army broke contact, withdrew a few miles, and crossed the

Chickahominy River to swing toward Petersburg, well below Richmond.

The 2d Michigan and its brigade were left with the dangerous duty of

bluffing Lee into believing the entire Army was still in its

entrenchments. They performed perfectly, escaped, and caught up with

Grant's force just in time to be launched into the first assaults on

Petersburg. It lost men on June 17 and more on June 18, when unclear

directions given in predawn darkness left the brigade advancing

diagonally through the Confederate fire. The assaults carried the outer

lines, but Lee managed to bring his army southward in time to hold the

main entrenchments. Nonetheless, he was now pinned into

fortifications, and the end was inevitable. Grant's men began to dig in

and extend their lines southward and then westward around the city.

The Second paid its dues at Petersburg. In early July, Captain Young,

commanding, filed a report on casualties for May and June. The

regiment had lost 37 dead and 272 wounded--nearly half its

reconstituted strength. The wounded included the colonel, the

lieutenant colonel, and the adjutant. Of ten company commanders, one

was dead and five wounded.

	In late July, another attempt was made to storm Petersburg.

Miners drove a tunnel underneath the Confederate lines and detonated

tons of powder. Union attempts to exploit the explosion--the fabled

"Battle of the Crater"--were to no avail. The Second went in on the left

side of the crater itself, captured entrenchments, and held out: long

after the rest of the Army withdrew, three flags were seen waving

above the Confederate trenches: one was that of the Second Michigan.

The men fought their way out, taking 57 casualties. (Captain Young,

commanding the regiment, was killed while directing men to dig out a

cannon buried by the crater explosion). Its flag fell into enemy hands

despite the gallantry of the color bearer, who as he was captured

hurled it like a javelin toward the Union lines.

	The Second continued in the Petersburg fighting, losing another 19

men at Poplar Spring Church, and 14 fighting to take the Boydton Plank

Road. Withdrawn from the front line due to its losses, it still

distinguished itself when Lee's men overran Fort Steadman, a bastion of

the Union siege lines. The divisional commander's report of that action

noted that the Second held their trenches "in the most spirited

manner," then, when the enemy attack faltered, several companies

sallied out and "poured such a fire on the flank of the enemy that over

300 threw down their arms." The fighting qualities of the reconstituted

regiment were recognized when Petersburg finally fell. General Grant

extended to the Second Michigan the honor of being the first regiment

to bear the Union colors into the city, and to raise them over the

recaptured federal building.

	By the end of the war, the men of Captain Scofield's Independent

Company had been in uniform less than a year. Two-fifths of their

number had died in that short time away from their homes. The

survivors returned to Washington, marched in the Grand Parade, and

were mustered out on July 28. They arrived back in Michigan four days

later.

	Reconstructing the membership of "Captain Scofield's Independent

Company" is difficult. Formal musters were taken at two-month

intervals, and the company began and ended its existence between two

of these. By the next muster in mid-July, 1864, many of its members--

and the officers who enrolled them and assigned them to units--were

dead or disabled. As early as August, 1864, the Army itself was having

trouble: Capt. Knight of its Mustering and Disbursing Office informed the

Assistant Adjutant General that "The companies referred to are

independent companies raised for the Mich. Reg't's in the 9th A.C. [Army

Corps]. I called at the Office of the Adjutant General of the State and

inquired as to what regiments they had been assigned--he was unable

to state as this matter, he informed me, was left entirely to Maj. Gen.

Burnside and no report has been received as to which Regiments they

have been assigned." By December, the Army threw up its hands: the

troops "were raised in Michigan and left to Maj. Gen. Burnside, from

whom no report has been received." By then, reconstruction was all but

impossible. Capt. Young, who commanded the regiment in May, died at

Petersburg, where his replacement, Lt. Col. March, was severely

wounded. Captain Scofield was disabled by wounds. General Burnside

had been relieved after the Battle of the Crater. Most of the witnesses

were dead or wounded, and paperwork had been neglected in the midst

of the fighting.

	To reconstruct the record a century later is a herculean task.

Careful comparison of musters, State records, and the regimental

listings of all 552 men makes it possible to identify at least half of the

men recruited by Captain Scofield from the Saginaw region. Where

specific residence, fate, or survivor, is known, it is set forth; even these

partial records vividly suggest the ordeal the Saginaw men underwent

in summer, 1864, when they were but two months in uniform.



Henry Barker (WIA June 17, 1864; sent to Gen'l Hospital)

Lafayette Benedict

Alfred or Alford Bond, Bangor 

Robert Bosca (WIA June 18, MIA Sept. 30, 1864)

Henry M. Barker

Alexander Bartwine

Ward Berry (KIA June 18, 1864)

Cornelius Bigalow 

Charles Britt (Buena Vista and Centreville, Tuscola Co.) (d. of wounds

June 30, 1864) (Widow Margaret Britt of Centreville)

Silas Carter, Ingham Co. (KIA June 17, 1864)

Thomas Casey

George Caton or Canton (WIA June 3, 1864)

Orren C. Chapman (d. of wounds July 22, 1864)

William H. Clark, Bay City (Residence not on enlistment papers, but 1860

census shows him residing in Bay City  with wife Elizabeth. May have

been in-law  to Cullen. Later res. Ann Arbor. Not to be confused with

Wm. H. Clark of Three Rivers who enlisted 61 and. of disease Jan. 13'

64.)

Daniel Converse

Lorenzo L. Cornell

Thomas Councilor or Counsellor, Gratiot Co.  (KIA June 18 1864)

William Cox (d. disease Sept. 21, 1864)

Patrick Cullen, Bay City (WIA & missing June 3, 1864; prob. died June 6,

1864; b. Arlington) (Widow Margaret nee  Clark, of Bay City; children

James, John, Mary Anne, Margaret. Great-grandaughters include Dr.

Yolanda Cullen Edler of Tucson, AZ and Sarah Jane Servinski of Midland.)

Jacob Davidson

Theodore G. Dowd, Gratiot Co. (KIA July 30, 1864)

William English, Frankenmuth (POW July 30, 1864, exchanged Feb. 22,

1865)

Francis Esteps

Martin Fettig, Gratiot Co., (KIA June 18, 1864)

George Fishnell (WIA June 3, 1864)

George Fisher

Perry Fleming (disability disch. April 1865)

Joseph Frazier (d. of wounds Aug. 3, 1864)

Oren C. Fry (WIA June 3 1864)

Jacob Garber (d. of disease July 30, 1864)

William D. Green (WIA June 17, 1864)

Aaron Hagerman (June muster shows absent sick, in Gen'l Hospital)

Richard M. Hiller, Tuscola Co. (d. of disease Aug. 19, 1864)

Charles Holley, Gratiot Co. (KIA June 18, 1864)

Clear Hulce (d. wounds June 20, 1864)

John Hull

Lucien Hunt (POW June 17,  1864; d. in Andersonville Aug. 29)

Sydney L. Johnson (WIA June 17, 1864)

Peter Lampman (d. disease Dec. 14, 1864)

Sgt. Colin McDougal, Bangor

Theodore L. Miller, Ingham Co. (WIA June 18, d. of wounds July 27, 1864)

William W. Miller (June 64 muster shows absent sick, in Gen'l Hospital)

John Mull

John Petrie

Sgt. Orrin D. Putnam (d. of accidental wound June 21, 1864)

Sgt. Major Alexander Richards, St. John's

Reuben Ripple, Pine Run

William Roger or Rogers (WIA June 17, 1864)

Charles Schweiker, Saginaw (KIA June 17, 1864)

Albert G. Shiffler, Gratiot Co., (d. of wounds, June 29, 1864) 

Morris Sharpy  (disability disch. Oct. 1864)

Asa Tillottson (d. of wounds Aug. 1, 1864)

Leonard Wishlein, Saginaw Co., (d. of disease July 30, 1864)

Henry Wright (disability disch. Oct. 1864)

While it mainly recruited to the south, the original Second Michigan did

have several members tied to the Saginaw region. These included:

	Sgt. John C. Boughton of Detroit, who eventually was brevetted a

Major in Regular Army for courage in action, d. 1894, buried Bay City;

	George W. Coutre of Saginaw, who enlisted in 1861 and survived

the war;

	Frederick Ohland, who enlisted in 1861 and was discharged for

disability in May, 1864.

	Emil Flatua and William Lange of Saginaw, who enlisted in 61 and

deserted a year later;

	George Richardson, of Saginaw, who was killed in action at Fair

Oaks, May 31, 1862);

	Nicholas Therry, Saginaw: POW Nov. 1863; discharged at expiration

of enlistment 1865;

	Ebenezer Paine of Saginaw, who enlisted 61, re-enlisted 64, but d.

of disease Sept. 27, 1864)

	William Blomberg and Edward Culter of Saginaw, who were killed

in action in November, 1863, and LaRue North of Saginaw, who died the

same month of disease.