With the firing on Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, the war that many feared erupted. While many rejoiced in the opening of hostilities, this internecine conflict would ultimately take the lives of more Americans than all other American wars combined.WEGW 33.2

The outbreak of war found the Union under the leadership of President Abraham Lincoln, newly inaugurated leader of the sectional Republican Party of Free-Soilers, antislavery advocates, and former Whigs. As constitutional commander in chief, Lincoln captained a regular army totaling a scant 16,000 officers and men. That number would shortly be sharply reduced by the resignation of nearly one third of its ranking officers—not the least of whom would be Robert E. Lee. Thus the army available to Lincoln for immediate duty was, as one authority notes, “at least adequate in size for the policing of New York City.”WEGW 33.3

It was obvious to President Lincoln that it would be necessary to call out the organized militia of the individual states, as he was permitted to do by the Constitution. The states, then, would provide the vast majority of the soldiers (“civilian” soldiers—both in the enlisted ranks and as commissioned officers) for the Union war effort. Lincoln acted immediately, on April 15, 1861 (the day following the fall of Fort Sumter), calling for 75,000 volunteers to aid in suppressing the rebellion and preserving the Union. Based on its population, each state was assigned a quota of volunteers to serve in the Union Army. The quota for the state of Michigan, with a total population of 750,000, was one regiment of volunteer infantry, 800 to 1,000 men, “fully armed, clothed, and equipped.”WEGW 33.4

If we look briefly at the history of the state for some years before Sumter and note the origins and attitudes of its citizens, the response of Michigan to Lincoln’s call for volunteers may be more easily understood. Admitted to the Union as the twenty-sixth state in 1837, Michigan was still in many respects a frontier community. Despite well-established Detroit and its surrounding areas, where in 1860 one fifth of the state’s population resided, the section of the state north of the newly established capital of Lansing was essentially wilderness.WEGW 34.1

The Michiganders in the three tiers of counties from Lansing south, stretching across the state from Lake Erie on the east to Lake Michigan on the west, were predominantly and thoroughly New England-New York in their origins. The Eastern origins of these southern Michiganders has given rise to the term “Third New England.” Large numbers of the settlers in southern Michigan had moved westward upon the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825—a nearly all-water route from the East that was significantly easier and cheaper than the overland route. Many of these folk were descendants of earlier generations of pioneers who had trekked westward from New England.WEGW 34.2

This “Yankee-Yorker” influx into Michigan was such that by 1840 the state had a larger population of New England-New York stock than any other Western state. As late as 1860 New York was the birthplace of more than 25 percent of Michigan’s inhabitants, while at the same time only 33 percent had been born in the state. The names of such Michigan towns as Rochester, Utica, Albion, Bangor, Hartford, and others betray the origins of their founders and settlers.WEGW 34.3

These transplanted Yankees were a “thrifty, enterprising, plucky people,” as one writer termed them, with their high ideals, religion, morality, and plans for public education. Not only did these early pioneers bring their New England concepts of local government and judicial processes; they also brought their strong Free-Soil and antislavery views. One further indication of this continuing Eastern background was the fact that of the 18 governors and senators from Michigan from 1835 to 1860, all but three were of this Yankee-Yorker stock.WEGW 34.4

This Northeastern imprint on the views and attitudes of Michiganders is even more evident in Calhoun County, the area including Battle Creek and Marshall. According to the census figures of 1850, more than 50 percent of the residents of Battle Creek gave New York as their birthplace—the largest group in the city. Although this percentage would decline to 40 in 1860 and eventually to 30 in 1870, it was not until near the end of the century that the percentage of Michigan-born exceeded that of New York. It is understandable, then, that residents of Battle Creek exhibited many of the characteristics and held many of the views of their New England-New York forebears.WEGW 35.1

Concurrent with these prevailing views and attitudes was the founding of and rapid growing support of Michigan for the newly formed Republican Party. With one brief exception, from 1839 to 1841, when the Whigs captured the governor’s chair, the Democrats won every state election from 1837 to 1854. When the Republican Party was formed in Jackson in 1854, however, former Free-Soil, Whig, and antislavery partisans in Michigan joined under the new party banner in 1856 and gave the Republican Party presidential candidate Fremont a state majority. The year 1854 proved to be a watershed year in Michigan politics, inasmuch as from that date until 1932 the state proved to be “persistently and overwhelmingly Republican.”WEGW 35.2

Considering the New York heritage of such a large percentage of Michigan’s residents, it is not surprising, then, that the reform spirit so evident in the “burned-over district” of New York would also grip Michigan in the 1840s and 1850s. Utopianism and temperance, as well as the antislavery crusade (the latter destined to dwarf all the rest)—movements that were strong and vigorous in the East—had their counterparts in Michigan.WEGW 35.3

Among the staunchest of the antislavery advocates in the state were the Quakers, who from their beginnings opposed slavery, and in Michigan participated in the operation of the underground railroad. One section of this escape line passed through Battle Creek on its way to Canada. One of the city’s citizens, Erastus Hussey, a prominent business, political, and religious figure—as well as a Quaker—was one of the best known of the “conductors” on the railroad.WEGW 35.4

Along with these strong antislavery and Republican sentiments there existed in Michigan an equally strong devotion to the political entity, the Union, which was threatened to relegation on the trash heap of political history by the secession of South Carolina in 1860.WEGW 36.1

Austin Blair, newly elected Republican governor of Michigan and one of the founders of the party in Jackson six years earlier, held high the torch of Unionism passed to him by the outgoing governor, Moses Wisner. In his inaugural address of January 2, 1861, Blair stressed the honor of being citizens of Michigan, but he reminded those same citizens that they possessed a still prouder title—citizens of the United States. This, he claimed, was threatened by secession, the legitimacy of which he could not admit. “Secession is revolution, and revolution ... is treason, and must be treated as such,” warned Blair. He urged the people of the state to inform their representatives in Washington that “Michigan ... [was] loyal to the Union, the Constitution and its laws, and ... [would] defend them to the uttermost.” Michigan was willing, Blair said, to offer to the president “the whole military power of the state for that purpose.” Such strong statements are rather striking when one remembers that this was less than two weeks after the secession of South Carolina and before any other Southern states went out of the Union.WEGW 36.2

Michigan lawmakers, recognizing and accepting their responsibility in the crisis, passed an act on March 15, 1861, that gave the governor broad powers in the event of “actual or threatened war ... against ... the state, or ... against the United States.” Governor Blair was authorized to order out or accept by voluntary enlistment or draft as many of the militia as needed. The next day, the legislature authorized the governor to accept and muster into service of the state two regiments (up to 2,000 men) for no less than three months nor more than three years. The act noted that secession was open rebellion, and “a state of war actually exists.” Thus did Michigan and its lawmakers prepare for the exigency of armed conflict that they sensed must surely come.WEGW 36.3

In the meantime, newspaper editorials in Battle Creek and Marshall, the two leading cities in Calhoun County, voiced their support for the Union in outspoken terms. The Battle Creek Journal, a thoroughly Republican newspaper, expressed the opinion in late February 1861 that there must be no concessions or no compromise with the seceding states. The equally strongly Republican paper in Marshall, the Marshall Statesman, expressed a similar view when it noted that the North had no peace to make with the South. Rather, it was the South that had taken hostile action that the Statesman asserted required the immediate deployment of the “entire force of the government ... to subdue rebellion, and to stamp underfoot treason.” When the conflict broke out in Charleston harbor, the Journal announced that with war under way a determined policy of punishment of the rebels must be undertaken. “Every man ... now understands his duty.” There could be no temporizing in war: “A man is either a patriot or a traitor—if the latter, he had better keep it to himself.”WEGW 36.4

Many “war meetings” were held throughout the county, which provided a forum in which citizens could express their Union sentiments and support for the national government. “Let every township contribute its mite. Our country calls! We must obey!” declared the Journal. At one such war meeting in Marshall called by the mayor (who was a Democrat), a resolution was unanimously adopted that offered the assistance of the city “in all ways to preserve the Union.” Even the Marshall Democratic Expounder, an ardently Democratic newssheet, expressed Democratic support for the Union. There was no alternative but war now. This was no time to look back and find fault with the past—no time for “compromise, armistice, apologies, or delays.” What was necessary now was “union—energy—work,” a sentiment that actuated all men in the community, said the Expounder.WEGW 37.1

Michigan’s swift response to Lincoln’s initial call for troops was evidence that the vocal support of the Union by its officials and its citizens was not hollow verbiage. Adjutant General Robertson was inundated with requests from prominent citizens and the common people for permission to recruit units for military service. Some were doubtless impelled by the desire for rank and recognition, but many offered to serve “in any position,” regardless of rank. These requests and offers, which at times bordered on demands, continued to pour into Robertson’s office, despite Governor Blair’s announcement on April 16, 1861, that the regiments were to be recruited from the uniformed volunteer militia.WEGW 37.2

That the adjutant general was heartened by the initial response of the citizens of his state was evident in one of his early letters:WEGW 37.3

“The unanimity with which our citizens are coming up to sustain the government in this trying hour is for me one of the best proofs of the stability of our Republican institutions. Of the final result of this contest, there cannot be a shadow of a doubt—this Constitution and the Union must and shall be preserved.” The sturdy folk of Michigan would not disappoint him.WEGW 38.1

The response of the people of Calhoun County was a microcosm of the response of the state. Sumter, to most Calhounites, proved to be the “match that set the whole country in blaze of patriotism and indignation.” The deep concern regarding the evils of slavery that Calhoun residents had harbored for years was now translated into a “move for action.” “Prompt, patriotic, and decisive” was how one writer described the initial response of the people of Calhoun County.WEGW 38.2

This prompt response was explained by one Battle Creek soldier: “We had no other opinion about the call than that it meant us.... Our only thought on the matter was that we were going down to Washington to carry out Mr. Lincoln’s idea, and that we were going to whip the South for shooting down that flag.”WEGW 38.3

These men, from lowliest enlisted man up through the commissioned officer ranks, may not always have divined all the political and constitutional questions producing the war, but they instinctively understood that this was the crisis of the Union, and—inextricably intertwined—a matter of the abolition of slavery. One Battle Creek man explained his own motivation by noting that he had been “largely guided by the things my mother had told me all through my boyhood about this slavery matter—how it would have to be settled some day and how I would have to be ready to settle it.”WEGW 38.4

Unlike many of the other counties, Calhoun was represented in the first two Michigan regiments that were organized and sent to the field—the First Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment, mustered in for three months, and the Second Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment, a three-year unit. Both of these units would bring credit to their state. The First was the first Western regiment to arrive in Washington, and was well uniformed and equipped with state material. The First also served at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861 (as did the Second), and its dead were found nearest the enemy position after the Union defeat.WEGW 38.5

Although the First disbanded at the end of its three-month term of enlistment, many men joined the reorganized First (three years), which left for the front in September of 1861. This reorganized regiment served with distinction throughout the rest of the war, being finally mustered out of United States service in July 1865. Similarly, the Second Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment, mustered into service May 25, 1861, served in both the eastern and western theaters, acquitting itself in an exceptional manner in a long list of skirmishes and battles, being finally mustered out of service on July 19, 1865.WEGW 39.1

The response of the people of Calhoun County was no mere flash in the pan. Not only did her soldiers fight in the First Battle of Bull Run, but they were also among the military units that captured Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, in Georgia May 10, 1865.WEGW 39.2

However, both civilians and soldiers appear initially to have viewed the conflict in terms of a brief but glorious rush to the flag—a Union military flourish culminating in a quick Northern victory. A soldier from Battle Creek noted that all his neighbors thought the war would soon be over: “Certainly we had not the comprehension that it would be of the kind and character that it finally became.”WEGW 39.3

This attitude prevailed despite Governor Blair’s warning to the special session of the state legislature on May 7, 1861, that “mere outbursts of patriotic fervor” would be inadequate to suppress the rebellion—this was to be no “six weeks campaign.” With a prescience granted to few at that time, Blair predicted that the “sudden and splendid outburst of popular enthusiasm ... will shortly ... disappear, and must be replaced by calm determination and resolute vigor.” He foresaw a “fierce and bloody” conflict that would bring unanticipated calamities and disasters to the nation. National resources would be “rapidly consumed,” he warned. The economy would be disrupted, and some who went forth to battle “joyously singing the national anthem” would be brought home in a “bloody shroud.”WEGW 39.4

Despite this ominous prophecy, Blair remained confident that the rebellion would not succeed—our “revered form of government,” although “tried in the fierce furnace of revolution ... [would] prove itself equal to every occasion.”WEGW 39.5

The grim reality of war was soon recognized by soldiers and civilians alike, as the fearful results of the battlefields were reported to the home folk by the newspapers and the soldiers’ correspondence. Perry Mayo, a young Calhoun man and a member of the Michigan Second, wrote his parents that he had escaped from the First Battle of Bull Run with nothing more than a sprained ankle and some bullet holes in his clothing. But he described the scene as a “terrible battlefield.”WEGW 40.1

Another Michigan Second man painted a vivid picture of the wagonloads of dead and wounded moving to the rear. Many of the latter, he observed, were mangled in every possible manner, with arms and legs broken, torn off, or dangling by shreds of flesh as the men hobbled or crawled along.WEGW 40.2

As such reports filtered back to the folk at home and as local newspapers published information and statistics from the battlefields, some Calhounites saw the hand of Providence at work. The battle at Bull Run would serve as a costly lesson to arouse the North to a “proper appreciation of the magnitude of the contest and the inestimable value of the interest at stake,” observed the Battle Creek Journal. The North must accept this military result as a “chastisement dictated by a wise, overruling Providence,” the Journal concluded.WEGW 40.3

A conference of Calhoun Methodists meeting in Battle Creek placed Union policy on an equally high moral plane. With “freedom and ... Christian civilization ... behind our breastworks,” the conferees said, the battle will be won. Inasmuch as the Lord through His “right arm will bring ... victory.”WEGW 40.4

Others viewed the scene from less lofty moral heights, but claimed that participation in the conflict was a patriotic duty that, once undertaken, must be completed. It would require more than mere “summer patriotism,” the Marshall Statesman pointed out in the discouraging summer of 1862. It would have to be patriotism that would not suffocate or faint in hot weather, or congeal in the storm and ice of winter, for “true patriotism knows no climate, no reverses, no disasters, but [is] above and superior to them all.” Thus, grim determination that no reverse could shake “must now characterize the Union soldiers.”WEGW 40.5

A youngster of Burlington (a small town south of Battle Creek), involved in the organization of a “juvenile” military company in the early days of the war, exemplified this indomitable Calhoun spirit. Observing a man daguerreotyping the village, the boy inquired as to the work. He was “taking” Burlington, replied the photographer. “You may take Burlington,” retorted the boy, “but she’ll never surrender.”WEGW 40.6

When Lincoln issued his first call for 75,000 men, no one could have foretold that before the conflict was over, no less than 2,778,304 men would be furnished to the Union cause. Reduced to an aggregate based on a three-year enlistment, this total represented 2.3 million men. These totals appear astronomical when we realize that the total population of the North in 1861 was approximately 22 million.WEGW 41.1

The men were furnished to the Union by a state quota assigned by the federal government, according to the population totals in the federal census of 1860. Michigan’s aggregate quota during the war was 95,007 men, of which the state furnished more than 90,000, or roughly 94 percent. Long-term enlistments (three years) were the general rule in Michigan, subsequent to the organization of the first three-months volunteer infantry regiment. Thus the total number of volunteers officially credited to the state was 90,048. Reduced to a three-year standard, that was 80,865, or nearly 90 percent. The latter was a percentage exceeded by only three other states.WEGW 41.2

One motivation to volunteer for military service was the threat of a draft if the states’ quotas were not reached under any call for troops. The draft appeared to be a stigma that most localities wanted to avoid. One authority notes that the “draft seemed to most citizens as a sort of disgrace.” That this was true of Calhoun residents is evident from the editorials in the local papers constantly urging enlistments so as to “avoid the draft.” For whatever reasons, the draftees included in Calhoun County’s 3,878 men in military service (nearly 60 percent of the available military-age men in the county) numbered less than 200, or approximately 5 percent.WEGW 41.3

A further “carrot” to induce men to volunteer was the bounty system, instituted in Calhoun County in mid-1862. A bounty was a bonus of cash to be granted to men who volunteered under a certain quota. As the calls increased in 1863 and 1864, bounties were offered at not only the local, but also the county, state, and federal levels. By the latter months of 1864, in some areas, if a man “veteranized” or reenlisted when his three-year term expired, by combining all of these bounties he might receive a bonus of from $600 to $800. Even Adjutant General Robertson complained that by 1865—with all the irregularities attending the bounty system—enlistments had become a matter of bargain, money “almost entirely ruling the action.” This carrot policy cost the state of Michigan nearly $2 million; the total for Calhoun County alone was more than $350,000.WEGW 41.4

This attitude of firm support for the Union by the people of the county also manifested itself in the innumerable “war meetings.” These meetings were called for such varied purposes as raising bounty funds; passing resolutions indicating support for the administration; or in times of crisis or calls for volunteers, to encourage larger contributions of men and money. The meetings also appear to have been useful in encouraging the people in difficult times, or in clarifying questions the public had concerning quotas, exemptions from the draft, or the progress of the war. They also provided information and publicity concerning the activities of the local folk in their efforts to support the war.WEGW 42.1

There were also constant appeals to the patriotism of Calhounites by speeches, sermons, and communications from both civilians and soldiers printed in the local newspapers. Annual gatherings such as county and state agricultural fairs provided an opportunity for much patriotic expression. Such an eminent Southern speaker for the Union cause as “Parson” Brownlow, of Knoxville, Tennessee, was featured at both the Calhoun County Fair in Marshall in 1862, and the Michigan State Agricultural Fair in Detroit in the same year. This constant stream of patriotic “propaganda” must have been some help in bolstering sagging morale or in arousing the apathetic and indifferent, as well as in maintaining the spirits of the active and vigorous. The spirit of faithful support for the war was also reflected by the fact that many men in the Michigan volunteer regiments reenlisted when their three-year terms expired in 1864. When more than one half of a regiment’s members reenlisted it was designated a “veteran” regiment; Michigan had 15 such units in 1864.WEGW 42.2

One area of support that Michiganders could not possibly have anticipated at the outbreak of war was the amount of aid or relief that would be paid to the families that soldiers left behind. Governor Blair recognized that there would be such a need to assist the families of soldiers in the field, and suggested to the state legislature in May 1861 that such provision must be made. The legislature quickly passed a measure providing for such assistance, through loans to the counties. Blair signed the measure into law on May 10, 1861.WEGW 42.3

The approach appears to have worked rather successfully, for of the $14.5 million spent by Michigan at all levels of state government for its part in conducting the war, less than $3 million was spent by the state itself. No less than $11.5 million was generated by taxes at the county and local levels. Of this total, nearly one third ($3.6 million) was levied and spent by the localities entirely on assistance to soldiers’ families.WEGW 43.1

The Michigan Family Relief Law went into effect on June 1, 1861, and the Calhoun County board of supervisors took action at their June 10, 1861, meeting. Each supervisor was to ascertain the need in his district and report to the entire board. An initial fund of $1,500 was established, to be raised by a property tax in the county. This initial fund would prove to be minuscule when compared with the final total of approximately $200,000 provided by the county before the program was terminated. Half of that total was provided during the war years, while the other $100,000 was given to assist families through 1866.WEGW 43.2

Initially, funds to assist families were doled out in one-dollar amounts. That would shortly change as requests began to pour in and the Calhoun board of supervisors had to occasionally meet in special sessions to provide ways and means of handling the burgeoning task. By the latter years of the war, the board was obliged to devote approximately 50 percent of the entire county budget to the maintenance of such funds, and on occasion more than 50 percent. That it was a burden that Calhoun taxpayers shouldered willingly seems evident from the lack of complaints in the newspapers, supervisors’ reports, and tax records for the county.WEGW 43.3

Still another way by which the homefolk in Calhoun County demonstrated their patriotism and steadfastness was through their support of what was known as Soldiers’ Relief—aid to soldiers in the field. These societies, generally titled Soldiers’ Aid societies, were active in numerous Calhoun County townships throughout the war. Not only did they collect such medical supplies as bandages, cotton lint, sheets, pillows, and even mattresses to send off to the hospitals near the battlefields, but also all types of clothing, underwear, socks, sweaters, and gloves. Cash was also distributed to the soldiers in their own state units, inasmuch as some units were not paid for months at a time and many volunteers were nearly destitute. One exceedingly important contribution, especially during the long winter months, were the antiscorbutics, or antiscurvy foods sent to the soldiers in the field. Barrels of onions, potatoes, and cabbage (as sauerkraut) provided a little of the vitamin C necessary for the soldiers’ diet. Considering the salt pork, coffee, and hardtack diet that most soldiers subsisted on, such food shipments from home provided much-needed variety and a supplement to the meager army ration.WEGW 43.4

Through the devices of donations and proceeds from “socials,” where gifts of food were sold at public affairs termed “sanitary fairs,” great sums of money were raised and much material shipped to the front. One sanitary fair in Kalamazoo raised $12,000 in September of 1863, but this was an exception. Nevertheless, over the war years, the money, food, and material sent off to the Calhoun soldiers amounted to thousands of dollars. Newspaper reports make it evident that these local ladies Soldiers’ Aid societies (and it was exclusively the work of the women of the community) sent off to the battlefields literally mountains of sanitary supplies.WEGW 44.1

Despite the unceasing and insistent requisitions from the Union government for men and more men, as well as constant calls from the local community for help to assist the soldiers in the field and their families back home, in some ways life flowed on for most Calhounites much as it had before war erupted. Rising prices for such products as wheat, corn, oats, beef, pork, and wool benefited local growers. Flour and feed milling operations expanded as well. The elementary school system in the county, exemplary in its organization, staffing, and financing at the outbreak of war, continued its services and even expanded—despite rising costs—during the war years. Social life continued with such entertainments as traveling circuses, musical presentations, comedy acts, and even fledgling touring baseball teams were regularly scheduled. Traveling lyceum speakers, including such well-known Eastern intellectuals as Ralph Waldo Emerson, continued throughout the war years. Annual state and county agricultural fairs maintained an uninterrupted schedule each year.WEGW 44.2

Even politics—state and local—were not suspended during the war. Indeed, local and state political contests were as spirited and partisan as in prewar years. The Democrats, however, found themselves in an uncomfortable position as they attempted to develop a viable opposition platform to the Republicans while not appearing disloyal to the war effort.WEGW 45.1

The people of Michigan, including those of Battle Creek and Marshall, demonstrated both through military service and support on the home front their steadfast support of the Union with their lives and their substance. To these granite-like folk, the possibility of the failure of the great democratic experiment begun by their forebears was simply unacceptable. They determined to “see it through,” as so many expressed it, and their continuing contributions of men, money, and materiel throughout the war demonstrated that determination. Their “valor” and “power of endurance” carried them through to victory.WEGW 45.2

Bibliographical Note