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PostPosted: Thu Sep 02, 2021 9:49 am 
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Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2009 9:33 pm
Posts: 329
Location: Old Northwest (Michigan)
Fellow Sharpshooters

Dan Masters July 7, 2021, Civil War Chronicles blog is entitled: The Great Skedaddle: With Berdan’s Sharpshooters during the Seven Days; features an excellent summary of the Hillsdale County (Michigan) recruits who served Co. C 1st Regt USSS.

Drawing on letters published in the Hillsdale Standard newspaper, Masters introduces us to the eleven men from the area who served with the Sharp Shooters by cleverly using the results of the July 30, 1861, shooting trials, and the successful candidates who ‘made the string’ after shooting at targets 200- and 100-yards distance. The trials were superintended by Hillsdale Deputy Sherrif Benjamin Duesler, soon elected the first captain of Company ‘C’ 1st USSS (Duesler would resign after run-ins with Hiram Berdan).

Recruit-(String)-Comments
Cyrus Wilcox-(33 1/2)-Only Sharpshooter from Hillsdale Squad to serve entire 3 years
Charles Button-(39 ¾)-discharged disabled
Ben Duesler-(42 5/8)-Elected Captain-resigned October 1861
Frank Whipple-(42 5/8)-Reg. Commissary Sgt. Resigned-2nd Lt. Co. B 1st Michigan SS
Wm. Buchanan-(42 5/8)-discharged disabled, Feb 1863
Jacob Doty-(45 5/8)-discharged disabled, March 1863
Travis Doty-(49 5/8)-KIA Locust Grove/Payne Farm, VA. Nov 1863

The other recruits; discharged disabled-Eugene Rowlson-June 1862; Archibald Storms- December 1861. Disease would claim George Zimmerman (heart)-Dec 1861; William Doyle- March 1862.

By June 1862, only Whipple, Wilcox, Buchanan and the Doty brothers were still present with the Regiment. The trials of the Seven Days campaign is described in detail by Whipple in a letter to a former member of the company (presumably Duesler). The letter was published in the July 29, 1862 edition of the Hillsdale Standard. Hard marching and fighting would test the men of Company C & G (Wisconsin) under the command of Captain Edward Drew. Masters added a letter written by USSS Adjutant Ira Smith Brown, whose letters also were featured in R.L. Murray’s book Letters from Berdans Sharpshooters, describing the fighting at Glendale and the dangerous and confusing situation during the night when Sharp Shooters and rebels were intermixed and trying to find safety.

Mr. Masters has done an excellent job giving us a ‘real time’ peak at the lives of a small band of Michigan boys during one of the most trying campaigns of the War.


Here is the link: https://dan-masters-civil-war.blogspot. ... .html#more

Bill Skillman
Hudson Squad Mess


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