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155:’s Peninsular Brigade. This expedition exposed the first cracks in the 6th Michigan’s discipline as the soldiers foraged liberally and harbored escaped slaves against orders. The Michiganders went so far as to openly taunt General Lockwood after he confronted the entire regiment in an attempt to apprehend a soldier who had stolen a turkey from a local farmer.
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General Butler, spooked by the near loss of an irreplaceable brigade, reeled in his department's troops to bar the approaches to New
Orleans. The 6th Michigan guarded Metairie Ridge and suffered severely from disease in a swampy setting. In October alone, 22 men died and 73 were discharged. November
222:
After
Curtenius resigned due to illness, leaving Thomas S. Clark in command of the regiment, Williams again expelled the disobedient regiment from its quarters. The unit's four ranking officers refused to order the unit to move. They were arrested and sent to New Orleans, leaving the regiment bereft
315:
triggered the climax of bitter disputes between the 6th
Michigan's ranking officers, Thomas Clark and Edward Bacon. Clark's persistent involvement in profiteering and plundering enraged Bacon, whose difficulties in accepting military subordination triggered incessant conflicts with his superiors.
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The
Michiganders’ discipline continued to erode. They had bristled under regular army discipline ever since Ship Island, taunting and defying General Williams at every opportunity—just as they had done with General Lockwood. This clash culminated with Colonel Curtenius's refusal to expel escaped
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engagement came in a night assault on June 29, in which 35 Michiganders were ordered to storm the
Citadel, one of the strongest fortifications at Port Hudson. Nine men were killed and eight wounded. Assistant Surgeon Milton Chase called the assault—ordered by habitually drunk division commander
234:
assaulted
Williams's brigade—which Williams declined to fortify, and scattered around the edges of town—with two divisions. Many sick Michiganders snuck out of their hospital beds to join the fight. Williams, desperate to bolster the center of his line, divided the already thin ranks of the 6th
335:
and suffered 118 casualties in the ill-fated frontal assault of May 27. Bacon returned to the regiment just in time for Banks's ill-advised second attack on June 14. This time, the
Michiganders’ loss was limited to eight wounded, due only to Captain Corden's refusal to press a suicidal attack.
251:
with the help of one section of guns detached from the 21st
Indiana, saving the Union right flank. Corden's men, still grossly outnumbered, counterattacked in a bold bayonet charge, capturing the colors of the 9th Louisiana Battalion. The 6th Michigan's entire loss in the battle amounted to 19
339:
Clark's regiment spent the balance of the siege in trench warfare, sickening under poor living conditions and enduring constant sharpshooting. Bacon was arrested again, this time for openly speaking ill of the army's leadership and prospects at Port Hudson. The 6th
Michigan Infantry's final
219:. Plantations were emptied of cotton and slaves, and some plantation buildings were burned to the ground. Cotton was shipped and sold under mysterious circumstances, to the financial benefit of men ranging from company officers all the way to the highest echelons of the military department.
347:
Port Hudson surrendered on July 9, and the 6th
Michigan was converted into the 6th Michigan Heavy Artillery soon after. New recruits quickly outnumbered the few remaining veterans, and the character of the unit's service was transformed into inactive garrison duty.
138:
appointed Kalamazoo resident Frederick W. Curtenius as colonel. Curtenius, in turn, selected Thomas Scott Clark and Edward Savage Bacon as lieutenant colonel and major, respectively. On June 19 the regiment's officers (commissioned and noncommissioned) assembled at
304:. The ship ran aground at the mouth of the Amite River and had to be abandoned and destroyed under pressure from a small force of Confederate cavalry. Five days later, ten Michiganders set off in small boats to pursue a Rebel ship that salvaged one gun from the
252:
killed, 40 wounded, and 6 missing, or about 17 percent of the force engaged. General Williams was shot dead toward the end of the battle. Despite all the former animosity, he and the Michiganders had been mutually impressed with each other's bravery under fire.
282:. The Federals brushed aside modest resistance from Mississippi troops (20th Mississippi), and burned two railroad bridges north of town. Ponchatoula itself was sacked after an unsuccessful guerrilla attack enraged the Federals. Confederate reinforcements (
356:
The regiment had 2 officers and 76 enlisted men killed in action or mortally wounded. 6 officers and 498 enlisted men died of disease, for a total of 582 fatalities. This exceeds the loss of any other regiment from the Great Lakes State in the Civil War.
150:
Despite pronounced secessionist sentiment in Baltimore, the regiment's stay there was mostly pleasant and uneventful. Major Bacon led the regiment on a bloodless foray down Virginia's Eastern Shore in December as part of Brigadier General
147:—as part of Michigan's Camp of Instruction. Upon completion of that initial training, the full regiment assembled at Kalamazoo in mid-August and was deployed out of state, bound for Baltimore, at the end of the month.
246:
On the Union right, the 6th Michigan's other battalion was reduced by picket detachments to just three companies totaling about 130 men under Captain John Corden. Yet they routed the entire Confederate brigade of
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saw only a modest improvement, and as of December 6, the regiment, which had departed Michigan fifteen months prior with 996 men and officers, now reported a mere 191 men present for duty.
177:. The Michiganders participated in the successful New Orleans campaign, again without bloodshed. The unit disembarked in the Crescent City at the beginning of May, quartered briefly in the
344:(and remembered as the “whiskey charge”)—“a wicked loss of life.” The 6th Michigan, ravaged by battle losses and disease, mustered just 160 men and officers present for duty as of July 4.
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near Frenier Station in conjunction with the 4th Wisconsin. Proceeding upriver, they sickened shipboard amid logistical shortages and sweltering heat during an abortive move against
271:
to prevent her capture. Weitzel let his troops loose on the march home, and foraging soon evolved into outright pillaging, including the burning of five plantation homes.
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for several days, exposing the already sick soldiers to debilitating rains, heat, and humidity. Nearly half the regiment was hospitalized, and men were dying daily.
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After guarding New Orleans again until March, the regiment was ordered in conjunction with fragments of other commands to destroy railroad bridges north of
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long enough to keep the Union center intact. Captain Harrison Soule's Company I, with just 44 men and officers, stymied a flanking movement by the
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Michigan into two shorthanded battalions. One battalion, under abolitionist Captain Chauncey Bassett, fended off an entire Confederate brigade at
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223:
of field officers and under the command of its fourth ranking captain, Charles Edward Clarke, on the eve of the unit's first general engagement.
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294:) arrived the next morning, and Clark's expedition was driven all the way back to Pass Manchac, where they constructed Fort Stevens.
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196:, with the loss of one man killed and one wounded. They and the Wisconsin troops disembarked and sacked that town in retaliation.
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Clark had Bacon court-martialed, and although Bacon was exonerated, his arrest would again cause him to miss a major battle.
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Throughout it all, the unit was engaged in and around Baton Rouge in the profiteering and plundering rampant throughout
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243:, buying critical time for artillery to engage. Soule and his company paid the steep price of nearly 60% casualties.
204:. Williams retaliated by arresting Curtenius briefly and turning the regiment out of its comfortable quarters at the
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The regiment quartered in a cotton press in New Orleans and recovered sufficiently by January 1863 to join
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263:’s operation to capture or destroy the troublesome, partially ironclad Confederate gunboat
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The regiment recruited across southern Michigan between April and August 1861. Governor
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amid a hostile population, and resumed their trek up the Mississippi River soon after.
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On April 7, 1863, Clark led a handful of men on a raid aboard the partially ironclad
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For all its disciplinary woes, the sickly 6th Michigan fought tenaciously at the
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wreck. Clark's men stumbled into an ambush, and all but one were captured.
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Curtenius’s troops waded through a cypress swamp overnight and severed the
674:
The 6th Michigan Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War: A History and Roster
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100:
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143:, near Detroit, for training under regular army officers—most notably
278:, as a feint in support of a larger advance by Butler's successor,
162:, off the coast of Mississippi, where they were brigaded with the
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The Civil War Archive website after Dyer, Frederick Henry.
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A Union infantry regiment from the American Civil War
710:
Military units and formations disestablished in 1863
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Units and formations of the Union Army from Michigan
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http://www.civilwararchive.com/Unreghst/unmiinf1.htm
319:The 6th Michigan, brigaded under Neal Dow with the
267:. After some light skirmishing, the Rebels torched
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705:Military units and formations established in 1861
186:New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad
158:In February 1862 the 6th Regiment deployed for
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647:. 3 vols. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959.
645:A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion
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18:
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202:Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves
397:Michigan in the American Civil War
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676:. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2020.
392:List of Michigan Civil War Units
122:before being converted into the
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700:1861 establishments in Michigan
97:6th Michigan Infantry Regiment
22:6th Michigan Infantry Regiment
1:
352:Total strength and casualties
200:slaves from camp, citing the
42:August 20, 1861, to July 1863
124:6th Michigan Heavy Artillery
366:Frederick William Curtenius
726:
292:14th Mississippi Infantry
26:
145:Alpheus Starkey Williams
288:1st Mississippi Cavalry
194:Grand Gulf, Mississippi
527:, 108, 110-12, 115-16.
276:Ponchatoula, Louisiana
217:Department of the Gulf
168:4th Wisconsin Infantry
680:The Civil War Archive
375:Charles Edward Clarke
284:1st Choctaw Battalion
241:6th Kentucky Infantry
228:Battle of Baton Rouge
164:21st Indiana Infantry
114:. The unit fought at
81:Battle of Baton Rouge
333:Siege of Port Hudson
331:, joined in Banks's
232:John C. Breckinridge
153:Henry Hayes Lockwood
85:Siege of Port Hudson
372:Edward Savage Bacon
249:Henry Watkins Allen
230:on August 5, 1862.
106:that served in the
33:Michigan state flag
402:Daniel de Marbelle
369:Thomas Scott Clark
325:15th New Hampshire
280:Nathaniel P. Banks
112:American Civil War
540:, 117-18, 121-24.
237:Magnolia Cemetery
206:Pentagon Barracks
172:Brigadier General
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179:New Orleans Mint
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321:128th New York
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126:in July 1863.
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658:6th Michigan
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629:6th Michigan
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616:6th Michigan
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603:6th Michigan
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590:6th Michigan
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577:6th Michigan
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564:6th Michigan
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551:6th Michigan
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538:6th Michigan
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525:6th Michigan
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512:6th Michigan
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486:6th Michigan
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136:Austin Blair
133:
96:
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378:John Corden
306:Barataria’s
265:J.A. Cotton
160:Ship Island
120:Port Hudson
116:Baton Rouge
110:during the
77:Engagements
689:Categories
667:References
501:, 100-103.
361:Commanders
141:Fort Wayne
108:Union Army
57:Allegiance
631:, 169-71.
618:, 165-68.
605:, 154-65.
592:, 149-50.
579:, 144-46.
553:, 127-34.
514:, 104-10.
313:Barataria
301:Barataria
190:Vicksburg
488:, 89-90.
475:, 73-93.
462:, 73-86.
449:, 56-73.
436:, 27-43.
386:See also
166:and the
104:regiment
101:infantry
71:Infantry
656:Faust,
627:Faust,
614:Faust,
601:Faust,
588:Faust,
575:Faust,
562:Faust,
549:Faust,
536:Faust,
523:Faust,
510:Faust,
497:Faust,
484:Faust,
471:Faust,
458:Faust,
445:Faust,
432:Faust,
423:, 3-26.
419:Faust,
130:Service
99:was an
47:Country
660:, 177.
327:, and
269:Cotton
170:under
67:Branch
39:Active
408:Notes
61:Union
311:The
299:USS
118:and
95:The
215:’s
691::
323:,
290:,
286:,
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