The 4th Michigan Infantry in the Civil War

I Am Well but Don’t Know How Long

207 c hapter 13 I Am Well but Don’t Know How Long General George Meade halted two of four Union army corps in the Wilderness on the night of May 4, expecting that Gen. Robert E. Lee would keep his forces in defensive positions nearby. The Fifth Corps, of which the 4th Michigan was part, bivouacked in the woods off of the Orange Turnpike, west of the Wilderness Tavern. But Lee anticipated the advance of the Union army would stop when his forces attacked through the woods, giving his outnumbered men the chance to whittle down the Yankees’ numerical advantage. As elements of the Fifth Corps marched south from the turnpike the next morning, they saw Confederate troops from Gen. Richard S. Ewell’s corps coming up the road. Reports quickly reached the Union command and, as Lee had hoped, the advance of two other corps stopped, at least for the moment. Soon some of the 4th Michigan’s comrades—other soldiers from Gen. Charles Griffin’s First Division—were skirmishing with the Rebels. Later that morning, Union commanders were ordered to attack.1 The fighting in the woods intensified but the 4th Michigan didn’t become exposed to Rebel fire until the afternoon when the brigade was given the order to go in. The diaries of Sgt. John Hewitt and Henry Seage and Seage’s later history indicate that the regiment assembled early that morning for the intended march south, but instead was quickly put to work erecting works and === c hapter 13 === 208 digging entrenchments as the fighting began. “Rose at 3 a.m., at daylight advanced down into the woods and formed line,” Seage wrote. “Built breastworks of logs and dirt.” As the battle widened south of their location, the 4th Michigan’s Second Brigade and others from their division were supposed to attack the Rebels in their front at noon. But their generals were reluctant to send them in without knowing what danger might await them on their flanks on either side of the turnpike, so skirmishing and probing continued into the early afternoon. At last the regiments in the advance, from the First and Third brigades, left the woods, marching west toward a hilly, open piece of ground called Saunders Field (sometimes given as Sanders Field) that stretched along either side of the Orange Turnpike. As their commanders feared, Rebels flanked Griffin’s men. Some Union officers later wrote that their line of battle broke up in the thick tangle of brush, trees, and brambles and that different units didn’t connect as the generals planned. Scores of Union soldiers were shot down in confused fighting. Although the 4th Michigan and the other regiments of the Second Brigade weren’t in the front line of this advance, they too, suffered casualties. “Our division moved to the front and at 2 [p.m.] engaged the Rebels,” Seage wrote in his diary. “Many killed and wounded.” Seage had a dangerous job, for he was the color sergeant, a post for which he was probably chosen by officers, months earlier. Lt. Robert H. Campbell in a postwar reminiscence wrote this was the “baptism of fire” for the flag he said he’d gotten to replace the U.S. banner lost in the Wheatfield. “[A] shot smashed the head of one of the color guards and threw his blood and brains upon the flag and into the face of the color-bearer,” Campbell wrote. That unfortunate member of the color guard was James Terwilliger. “Terwilligers brains were spattered in my face and coat,” Seage wrote in his diary. He would later add in his history that gore also struck the flag. About the same moment Terwilliger was killed, Col. George W. Lumbard was fatally wounded. Another of Seage’s comrades, 26-year-old James Tarsney from Hillsdale, of Company E, was killed and at least five other members of his company were wounded. Corporal William Tolford of Company F, who had written home to Hudson to tell of the severe cross fire that hit the regiment at Gettysburg, was among those killed. So was Enoch Davis of Company B, the dark-haired, gray-eyed farmer who had left Ohio to join the Indiana men back in Angola in May 1861; he was about 28. Many more of the 4th Michigan’s men were wounded. The gunfire was even worse for those soldiers in the first two lines of the...