Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman. James Harvey Kidd
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the students did not all go. Many remained then, only to go later. The prospect of danger, hardship, privation, was the least of the deterrent forces that held them back. To go meant much in most cases. It was to give up cherished plans and ambitions; to abandon their studies and turn aside from the paths that had been marked out for their future lives. Some had just entered that year upon the prescribed course of study; others were half way through; and others still, were soon to be graduated. It seemed hard to give it all up. But even these sacrifices were slight compared to those made by older men and heads of families.
And there was no need to depopulate the University at once. The first call filled, those who were left behind began to prepare for whatever might come. The students organized into military companies. Hardee's tactics became the leading text-book. There were three companies or more. These formed a battalion and there was a major to command it. One company was styled "The Tappan Guard," after the venerable President, and it was made up of as fine a body of young men as ever formed in line. Most of them found their way into the federal army and held good positions. The captain was Isaac H. Elliott, of Illinois, the athlete, par excellence, of the University, a tall, handsome man and a senior. "Tom" Wier, a junior, was first lieutenant and the writer second lieutenant. Elliott went to the war as colonel of an Illinois regiment of infantry and was afterwards, for many years, adjutant general of that state. Wier went out in the Third Michigan cavalry and became its lieutenant colonel. At the close of the war he was given a commission as second lieutenant in the Seventh United States cavalry, Custer's regiment, was brevetted twice for gallantry, and after escaping massacre with his chief at Little Big Horn, died of disease in New York City in 1876.
CHAPTER III
RECRUITING IN MICHIGAN
Ann Arbor was not the only town where the fires of patriotism were kept burning. It was one of many. "From one learn all." The state was one vast recruiting station. There was scarcely a town of importance which had not a company forming for some one or other of the various regiments that were organizing all through the year. Before the close of the year, aside from the three months men, three regiments of cavalry, eleven regiments of infantry, and five batteries were sent out, all for three years. There was little difficulty in getting recruits to fill these organizations to their maximum standard. No bounties were paid, no draft was resorted to. And, yet, the pay for enlisted men was but thirteen dollars a month. The calls of the President, after the first one for seventy-five thousand, were generally anticipated by the governor, and the troops would be in camp before they were called for, if not before they were needed. The personnel was excellent, and at first great pains were taken to select experienced and competent officers. Alpheus S. Williams, Orlando B. Wilcox, Israel B. Richardson, John C. Robinson, Orlando M. Poe, Thornton F. Brodhead, Gordon Granger, Phillip H. Sheridan and R.H.G. Minty were some of the names that appeared early in the history of Michigan in the war. Under their able leadership, hundreds of young men were instructed in the art of war and taught the principles of tactics, so that they were qualified to take responsible positions in the regiments that were put in the field the following year.
I remember going to see a dress parade of the First Michigan cavalry at Detroit in August. It was formed on foot, horses not having yet been furnished. It was a fine body of men, and Colonel Thornton F. Brodhead impressed me greatly because of his tall, commanding figure and military bearing. He distinguished himself and was killed at Second Bull Run.
Among the other officers was a spare, frail looking man named Town. He was at that time major and succeeded to the colonelcy after the death of Brodhead. He always sought death on the battle field, but never found it, and came home to die of consumption after the war was over. He was a modern Chevalier Bayard, and led his regiment at Gettysburg in the grandest cavalry charge of the war. I have no doubt that Meade's right was saved, July 3, 1863, by the superb courage of Charles H. Town and his brave followers. History is beginning to give the cavalry tardy justice for the part it played in that, one of the few great, decisive battles.
One of the most interested spectators of the parade was the venerable statesman and Democratic leader, Lewis Cass. He was then seventy-nine years of age, and few men had occupied a more conspicuous place in State and Nation. He was not without military experience, having been prominent in the frontier war of 1811, and in the war of 1812 he served as an aid to General Harrison. Soon thereafter, he was appointed brigadier general in the United States army, and was Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President Jackson. He also served as Territorial governor of Michigan, under the administrations of Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams. The fact of his resignation from the Cabinet of James Buchanan has already been referred to. I confess that I was, for the time being, more interested in that quiet man, standing there under the shadow of a tree, looking on at the parade, than in the tactical movements of the embryotic soldiers. There was, indeed, much about him to excite the curiosity and inflame the imagination of a youngster only just turned twenty-one.
Obtaining a position near where he stood, I studied him closely. He was not an imposing figure, though of large frame, being fat and puffy, with a heavy look about the eyes, and a general appearance of senility. He wore a wig. The remarks he made have gone from my memory. They were not of such a character as to leave much of an impression, and consisted mostly of a sort of perfunctory exhortation to the troops to do their duty as patriots.
It was with something of veneration that I looked at this man (standing on the verge of the grave he appeared to be), and, yet, he outlived many of the young men who stood before him in the bloom of youth. He did not seem to belong to the present so much as to the past. Fifty years before I was born, he had been a living witness of the inauguration of George Washington as first President of the United States. He had watched the growth of the American Union from the time of the adoption of the Constitution. He had been a contemporary of Jefferson, Madison, the Adamses, Burr and Hamilton. He had sate in the Cabinets of two different Presidents, at widely separated periods. He had represented the government in the diplomatic service abroad, and had served with distinction against the enemies of his country. He had seen the beginning of political parties in the United States and had been a prominent actor through all the changes. He was a youth of twelve when the Reign of Terror in France was in full blast, and thirty-three years of age when Napoleon Bonaparte was on the Island of St. Helena. He had witnessed the downfall of Pitt and the partition of Poland. He was, indeed, a part of the dead past. His work was done, and it seemed as if a portrait by one of the great masters had stepped down from the canvas to mingle with living persons.
When the young men from the South, who were in the University felt compelled to return to their homes, to cast in their lots with their respective states, the students in a body escorted them to their trains, and bade them good-by with a sincere wish for good luck to attend them wherever they might go, even though it were into the confederate military service. The parting was rather with a feeling of melancholy regret that the fates cruelly made our paths diverge, than one of bitterness on account of their belief in the right of states to secede.
There was a humorous, as well as a pathetic side to the war. Soldiers or students, young men were quick to see this. The penchant which boys have to trifle with subjects the most grave, gave rise to a funny incident in Ypsilanti (Michigan). There were two rival schools in that town—the "State Normal" and the "Union Seminary." The young men in these two flourishing institutions were never entirely at ease except when playing practical jokes upon each other. Soon after the secession of South Carolina, some of the Seminary boys conceived the idea of compelling the Normal people to show their colors. The first-named had put up the stars and stripes, a thing that the latter had neglected to do. One morning when the citizens of the town arose and cast their eyes toward the building dedicated to the education and training of teachers, they were astonished to see, flying from the lightning rod on the highest peak of the cupola, a flag of white, whereon was painted a Palmetto tree, beneath the shade of which was represented a rattle snake in act to strike. How it came there no one could conjecture, but there it was, floating impudently in