3rd Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment
| 3rd Regiment Michigan Volunteer Infantry | |
|---|---|
Michigan state flag
|
|
| Active | May 21, 1861 to June 10, 1864 |
| Country | United States |
| Allegiance | Union |
| Branch | Infantry |
| Engagements |
First Battle of Bull Run Peninsular Campaign Second Battle of Bull Run Battle of Chantilly Battle of Fredericksburg Battle of Chancellorsville Battle of Gettysburg Battle of the Wilderness Battle of Cold Harbor |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders |
Colonel Daniel McConnell Colonel Stephen Gardner Champlin Colonel Byron Pierce |
The 3rd Regiment Michigan Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
At 8:30 on the morning of Thursday, June 13, 1861, ten companies of the Third Michigan infantry, led by its regimental band and the field and staff officers, left their quarters at Cantonment Anderson on the site of the Kent county agricultural fairgrounds, about two and a half miles south of the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The Third Michigan marched north up the Kalamazoo Plank road (present-day Division street) into the city, turned down Monroe street to Canal street and headed north to the Detroit & Milwaukee railroad depot, near what is today the corner of Plainfield and Leonard streets.
Upon reaching the train station, the men boarded two special trains heading east, passing through Ada, St. Johns, Owosso, Pontiac and terminated in Detroit, where the Third Michigan was feted by the citizens. The Regiment then boarded two boats for a night cruise to Cleveland, Ohio.From Cleveland they went by rail to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and then on to Harrisburg, Baltimore, Maryland, and finally arrived in Washington, DC, on Sunday June 16.
They were tired, hungry and weary when they marched to Chain Bridge just above Georgetown on the Potomac river, where they set up their first wartime encampment on the bluffs overlooking the river. The camp was first called Camp McConnell (after the colonel of the regiment) but then quickly changed to Camp Blair (after Austin Blair, then governor of the state of Michigan).
The bands, the crowds, the patriotic fervor of late April soon give way to war's harshest reality: death. The first man to die was William Choates of C company, who died on July 1, 1861, not amidst the glories of battle but in the throes of fever. He was buried near Camp Blair, and is presumably buried there still.
The regiment's baptism into war came less than three weeks later in the action at Blackburn's Ford on July 18, 1861, a prelude to the first battle of Bull Run on July 21. The Third suffered its first wartime casualty early on Saturday morning, July 20, 1861, when Homer Morgan of Company B allegedly took his own life.
The Third Michigan infantry covered the retreat of the federal troops from Bull Run on July 21, and subsequently went into a succession of camps around Washington throughout the fall and winter of 1861-62. The regiment participated in McClellan's Peninsular campaign of 1862 and suffered its worst casualties to date at the Battle of Seven Pines, Virginia on May 31, 1862 and at Groveton (or Second Bull Run) on August 29, 1862.
...
Wikipedia