Go back

Civil War documents

Archive
Four digital images of Civil War documents belonging to local citizens who served in the conflict. Images and text were printed in the SDHS newsletter inserts pages 332-335 with text by Kit Lane.
58 Plummer records.jpg 3.3MB; Andrew Plummer, son of Elvira and Benjamin Plummer who came to Allegan County in 1834, was the first white child born in Saugatuck Township. He left for Texas in 1 860 and was, by his own description
image003.png 402kb; Above, the volunteer enlistment papers of Levi Tuttle of Heath Township, Allegan County. They show that he had blue eyes, brown hair and was 5 feet 11 inches tall. His enlistment is notarized by the man who would be his commanding officer, Benjamin D. Pritchard, an Allegan attorney. Tuttle was later one of the men picked to search for Jefferson Davis in the closing days of the war. The unit captured Davis and Tuttle was detailed as one of the guards who brought the former Confederate president to Fortress Monroe. After the war Tuttle moved to Ganges Township and then Saugatuck. image005.png 352kb; Walter Billings of Peach Belt, Ganges Township was 44 when he enlisted with the 8th Michigan Cavalry. He was captured and imprisoned for more than four months. After his return he suffered continued ill health. On this Certificate of Disability for Discharge the commanding officer and surgeon note that he is unfit to serve because of image007.png 254kb; George N. Dutcher, at the time of this Medical Certificate was 1 St Lieutenant in the 5th Michigan Cavalry. The day before the Battle of Gettysburg at Hanover, Pennsylvania, he received a gunshot wound and was sent to a hospital in Chicago to recuperate. In this paper issued August 1 the Chicago doctor notes that he is still

2023.50.101

President Abraham Lincoln in the early days of the American Civil War met with a group of officers from the Michigan cavalry units and remarked that while other states had to train soldiers those from Michigan seemed to be "born ready made." There was some truth to this. The rigors of the Michigan frontier were excellent training for the trenches. Well over half of the recruits in Allegan County were farm boys who had been riding horses all of their lives. They had grown up in the forests and fields hunting deer, rabbits and other small animals - superb training for the infantry. These farm boys were hankering for adventure, for some action that did not involve plowing or harvesting. They got plenty of it. Their history, which will be the basis of the 2005 exhibit at the museum is told in tons of paper, now in the National Archives. Here is a sample of the documents that tell their story.

SDHS NL InsertsMilitary, wars and veterans

Winthers, Sally

Digital data in CatalogIt

Plummer, Andrew Ames 1835-1917Tuttle, Levi 1829-1921Pritchard, Benjamin D. 1835-1907Billings, Walter 1818-1899Dutcher, George Newburg 1834-1090

American Civil War 1861-1865

This information was OCR text scanned from SDHS newsletter supplements. Binders of original paper copies are in the SDHC reference library.

01/06/2024

01/06/2024