With vivid battlefield accounts based on extensive primary research, award-winning author Jack Dempsey's masterful biography tells the amazing story of an unsung hero. Detroit's Alpheus Starkey Williams never tired in service to his city or his country. A veteran of the Mexican-American War, he was a preeminent military figure in Michigan before the Civil War. He was key to the Lost Order, the Battle of Gettysburg, the March to the Sea and the Carolinas Campaign. His generalship at Antietam made possible the Emancipation Proclamation, and Meade and Sherman relied on his unshakable leadership. A steady hand in wartime and in peacetime, Williams was a Yale graduate, lawyer, judge, editor, municipal official, militia officer, diplomat and congressman who stood on principle over party.

As much as the Civil War was a battle over the survival of the United States, for the men of Company K of the First Michigan Sharpshooters, it was also one battle in a longer struggle for the survival of Anishinaabewaki, the homelands of the Anishinaabeg—Ojibwe, Odawa, and Boodewaadamii peoples . The men who served in what was often called ‘the Indian Company’ chose to enlist in the Union army to contribute to their peoples’ ongoing struggle with the state and federal governments over status, rights, resources, and land in the Great Lakes. This meticulously researched history begins in 1763 with Pontiac’s War, a key moment in Anishinaabe history. It then explores the multiple strategies the Anishinaabeg deployed to remain in Michigan despite federal pressure to leave. Anishinaabe men claimed the rights and responsibilities associated with male citizenship—voting, owning land, and serving in the army—while actively preserving their status as ‘Indians’ and Anishinaabe peoples. Indigenous expectations of the federal government, as well as religious and social networks, shaped individuals’ decisions to join the U.S. military. The stories of Company K men also broaden our understanding of the complex experiences of Civil War soldiers. In their fight against removal, dispossession, political marginalization, and loss of resources in the Great Lakes, the Anishinaabeg participated in state and national debates over citizenship, allegiance, military service, and the government’s responsibilities to veterans and their families.

When America faced its greatest internal crisis, Michigan answered the call with over ninety thousand troops. The story of that sacrifice is preserved in the state's rich collection of Civil War monuments, markers, forts, cemeteries, reenactments, museums and exhibits. Discover how General George A. Custer and the famed Michigan Cavalry Brigade "saved the Union." Visit the chair that President Lincoln was assassinated in at Ford's Theatre, and view the grave of the last African American Union veteran. With a foreword by Civil War historian Jack Dempsey, this work is the first of its kind to chronicle the many Civil War landmarks in the Wolverine State.

Based on nearly five decades of research, this magisterial work is a biographical register and analysis of the people who most directly influenced the course of the Civil War, its high commanders. Numbering 3,396, they include the presidents and their cabinet members, state governors, general officers of the Union and Confederate armies (regular, provisional, volunteers, and militia), and admirals and commodores of the two navies. Civil War High Commands will become a cornerstone reference work on these personalities and the meaning of their commands, and on the Civil War itself. Errors of fact and interpretation concerning the high commanders are legion in the Civil War literature, in reference works as well as in narrative accounts. The present work brings together for the first time in one volume the most reliable facts available, drawn from more than 1,000 sources and including the most recent research. The biographical entries include complete names, birthplaces, important relatives, education, vocations, publications, military grades, wartime assignments, wounds, captures, exchanges, paroles, honors, and place of death and interment. In addition to its main component, the biographies, the volume also includes a number of essays, tables, and synopses designed to clarify previously obscure matters such as the definition of grades and ranks; the difference between commissions in regular, provisional, volunteer, and militia services; the chronology of military laws and executive decisions before, during, and after the war; and the geographical breakdown of command structures. The book is illustrated with 84 new diagrams of all the insignias used throughout the war and with 129 portraits of the most important high commanders.

Few 19th-century Americans were as adventurous as Henry Baxter. Best known for his Civil War exploits--from leading the 7th Michigan Volunteer Infantry across the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg in the first daylight amphibious assault in American history, to his defense of the Union line on day one of Gettysburg--he accomplished these despite having no prewar military training. His heroism and leadership propelled him from officer of volunteers to major general in the Army of the Potomac. A New York emigrant from a prominent family, Baxter was involved in developing Michigan's political, business and educational foundations. He excelled at enterprise, leading a group of adventurers to California during the Gold Rush, co-founding what would become the Republican Party and eventually becoming President Grant's diplomat to Honduras during one of the most dynamic periods of Central American history.

More than 3,000 Kalamazoo County men served in the Union forces during the Civil War. They fought in the most horrific battles from Blackburn's Ford to Appomattox, and 396 did not return home. The war tested the area not just on the battlefield but in its collective back yard and, at times, its front yard. A peace rally held by local Democrats was interrupted by Lincoln supporters who viewed the Democrats as traitors. Residents reacted jubilantly to the capture of Richmond, the Confederate capital, and mourned the assassination of Lincoln, who had visited the village of Kalamazoo before the war. As veterans, the former combatants left behind indelible reminders of their sacrifice. Local historian Gary L. Gibson uncovers long-lost stories, many never before told, of Kalamazoo County during and after America's bloodiest conflict.

When it came to the Civil War, Michiganians never spoke with one voice. At the beginning of the conflict, family farms defined the southern Lower Peninsula, while a sparsely settled frontier characterized the state’s north. Although differing strategies for economic development initially divided Michigan’s settlers, by the 1850s Michiganians’ attention increasingly focused on slavery, race, and the future of the national union. They exchanged charges of treason and political opportunism while wrestling with the meanings of secession, the national union, emancipation, citizenship, race, and their changing economy. Their actions launched transformations in their communities, their state, and their nation in ways that Americans still struggle to understand. Building upon the current scholarship of the Civil War, the Midwest, and Michigan’s role in the national experience, Michigan’s War is a documentary history of the Civil War era as told by the state’s residents and observers in private letters, reminiscences, newspapers, and other contemporary sources. Clear annotations and thoughtful editing allow teachers and students to delve into the political, social, and military context of the war, making it ideal for classroom use.

Guide to using the resources in the National Archives for conducting geneological research.

Unlike most books about the Civil War, which address individual battles or the war at the national level, States at War: A Reference Guide for Michigan in the Civil War chronicles the actions of an individual state government and its citizenry coping with the War and its ramifications, from transformed race relations and gender roles, to the suspension of habeas corpus, to the deaths of over 10,000 Michigan fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers who had been in action. The book compiles primary source material—including official reports, legislative journals, executive speeches, special orders, and regional newspapers—to provide an exhaustive record of the important roles Michigan and Michiganders had in the War. Though not burdened by marching armies or military occupation like some states to the southeast, Michigan nevertheless had a fascinating Civil War experience that was filled with acute economic anxieties, intense political divisions, and vital contributions on the battlefield. This comprehensive volume will be the essential starting point for all future research into Michigan’s Civil War-era history.