The 4th Michigan Infantry in the Civil War

We Will Strive to Do Our Duty as American Soldiers

1 c h apter 1 We Will Strive to Do Our Duty as American Soldiers He was only a small-town hotel proprietor and an officer in the local militia, but even before the Civil War’s first shots were fired, Dwight Woodbury was ready to serve his country. “[We] tender to the Governor of the state and to the government of the United States, our services in case of any contingency which may require such service,” he wrote in January 1861. From the south-central Michigan town of Adrian, Woodbury sent those words in a letter to his state’s new governor, Austin Blair, writing not only for himself but also on behalf of the officers who served under him in the state’s 3rd Militia Regiment.1 Across the South the secession movement roiled, its proponents convinced that the election of Abraham Lincoln meant the abolition of slavery in the United States. The nation was lurching toward war with itself as those states broke away. While many dreaded the breakup of the country and some welcomed it, Woodbury would stand by the U.S. government. He was 36 years old, a businessman, husband, and father, well liked in his community. He stood at about average in height and build, with dark hair and beard, and had the habit of biting his lower lip, which a friend said indicated Woodbury’s “earnestness of purpose.” Politically he was a Jacksonian Democrat, a stripe that would soon be called “War Democrat.” These Northern Democrats agreed with Lincoln and Republicans that military force should be used to stop the Southern === c hapter 1 === 2 states from seceding, though they didn’t believe the abolition of slavery should be a primary goal of the federal government. Woodbury had been born in upstate New York and come of age in Michigan and Ohio. Like many young men, he followed the Gold Rush to California to try to win his fortune. When he returned, he worked as a conductor on the Michigan Southern Railroad and married a businessman ’s daughter; he ran the Brackett House, a hotel in Adrian. More significantly, he had long been involved with the state militia and was colonel of volunteers from Michigan’s Lenawee, Washtenaw, and Jackson counties.While many militia officers proved to be less than professional soldiers, Woodbury would prove to the commanders of the Union army that he was an effective military man—one who understood orders and could be counted on to do his duty.2 Only six months before his letter to the governor, in July 1860, Woodbury and his militiamen played host to a dashing young fellow named Elmer Ellsworth, a New Yorker who was a friend of then–presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln. Ellsworth had been touring with his Zouaves, an exotically uniformed, precision march-and-drill outfit that thrilled audiences with their performances, and it was said that Woodbury and Ellsworth became friends. Soon both men led regiments from their states into the Civil War. Colonel Ellsworth would become a national martyr after May 24, 1861, shot by an angry secessionist innkeeper after cutting down a Confederate flag flying from the man’s roof in Alexandria, Virginia.3 That was still some months off as Woodbury wrote to Governor Blair early in 1861. While historians have tended to believe that the Michigan militia was not a competent military force, Woodbury was confident that his was the only organized militia regiment in Michigan ready in the event the federal government called for soldiers. The U.S. government, still under President James Buchanan, was making no such move that January. But when news of the Rebel attack on Fort Sumter reached Michigan in mid-April, Woodbury quickly reminded Blair that he and his men had volunteered months earlier. “Now that the honor of our flag has been assailed, the law set at defiance and civil war inaugurated, the third regiment renews its offer,” he wrote.4 Like many other would-be military commanders, Woodbury hoped he would be asked to lead the first group of Michigan volunteers to fight for the United States, since Lincoln’s administration now asked the governors of the Northern states to raise troops. Though Woodbury wouldn’t get the command of the new 1st Michigan Infantry Regiment, he was on the governor’s short list for a state command. He was quickly authorized to open a recruiting office in Adrian.5...