COLDWATER IN THE CIVIL WAR



Copyright © 1997 by Judith Weeks Ancell. This copy contributed for use in 
the USGenWeb Archives.  

 

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GREATER COLDWATER CENTENNIAL, Souvenir Historical Program
 Greater Coldwater Centennial 1961

Pages 80-81:

COLDWATER IN THE CIVIL WAR

	Only a few months after the village became a city, Coldwater men were
answering President Lincoln's call for volunteers.  Two days after the 
President's Proclamation, a meeting was held at the Court House.  Enthusiasm 
was at a peak, for the few then realized that four bloody years lay ahead.  
Attorney John G. Parkhurst wrote in his diary:  "So much war excitement a 
man could do no business…  There was a large crowd in town today all 
excited."
	Branch County answered the call with 2,776 men in the years from 
1861 to 1865.  The book "Michigan in The Civil War" contains page after page 
upon which are noted exploits of Coldwater soldiers, who saw service in many 
different regiments.  The majority of them were members of the following: 
The First, Seventh and Seventeenth Infantry Regiments, which served from 
Fair Oaks to Petersburg.  The First Infantry had a longer service than any 
other Michigan Regiment, going from Bull Run to Appomattox Courthouse.
	The Ninth, Eleventh and Nineteenth Infantry regiments, and 
Batteries A(Loomis Battery) and D (Capt. Josiah Church) served with Thomas' 
Fourteenth Army corps in the Army of the Cumberland, fighting through the 
bloody actions at Resaca, Stone River, Lookout Mountain and Chickamauga.
	The number of Branch County men who gave their lives totaled 335.  
This figure was given to us by Charles Hughes, age 11, who spent one whole 
afternoon pouring over regimental lists and tallying all who fell in action 
or died in service.  These men he termed "The Sacrificed".  In memory of all 
these we show the picture of Henry C. Gilbert, Col. Commanding 19th Michigan
Infantry, who died of wounds May 24, 1864 following the Battle of Resaca.










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