Seventeenth Michigan Infantry
Page 514-517

This noted regiment was organized at Detroit in the spring and early summer of 1862. Its first colonel was the late William H. Withington of Jackson, one of the best officers Michigan gave to the army. In this regiment was Captain Julius C. Burrows, for nearly thirty years a member of the house or senate in the Congress of the United States. The regiment under command of Colonel Withington left Detroit on the 27th day of August, 1862, for Washington, D. C. It was assigned to the celebrated Ninth Army Corps, so long and so well commanded by Major General Burnside. On the 14th of September, or a little more than two weeks after leaving the state, the regiment was hotly engaged at South Mountain, Maryland. Out of the 500 officers and men who went into the fight on that day, 141 were killed or wounded. This was more than many regiments suffered during the entire war. Three days later, viz.: on September 17, the regiment was again in the thick of the fight at Antietam, where it sustained a further loss of eighteen killed and eighty-seven wounded. So it came to pass that in less than three weeks from the time the young men of this regiment left their camp and friends in Michigan, 246 of their number had been killed or wounded on the field of battle.

Their splendid valor reflected luster on the state that sent them and glory on the country for which they died. General Wilcox, their division commander, says in his official report that "The Seventeenth Michigan performed a feat that may vie with any recorded in the annals of war and set an example to the oldest troops." General McClellan, commanding the army, said "The Seventeenth Michigan, a regiment which had been organized scarcely a month, charged the enemy's flanks in a manner worthy of veteran troops."

The correspondent of the New York Press wrote to his paper that "The impetuous charges of some of our regiments, particularly that of the Seventeenth Michigan, but two weeks from home, carried everything before it and the dead bodies of the enemy on that mountain crest lay thick enough for stepping stones." From the Army of the Potomac the Corps with which the Seventeenth Michigan served, was transferred to Kentucky in the late spring of 1863 and in June to the army under Grant then besieging Vicksburg. After the surrender of that stronghold it returned to Kentucky and entered East Tennessee where it did effective service until the spring of 1864, when it was transferred back to Virginia, where it again became a part of the Army of the Potomac and participated in the battles that resulted in the fall of Richmond, the evacuation of Petersburg and the surrender at Appomattox. In all this the Seventeenth fully sustained its reputation gained in the early days of its service. It lost heavily at Campbell's Station in East Tennessee. It fought splendidly in defense of Fort Saunders at Knoxville and on the 12th of May, 1864, in Grant's campaign in the Wilderness it went into action with 225 officers and men, and lost twenty-three killed, seventy-three wounded and ninety-seven prisoners, leaving on the evening of that day but thirty-six together about the colors. Perhaps no regiment that went from Michigan had a wider range of service or did harder fighting than this, whose Company K was recruited so largely from Marshall, Albion, Battle Creek, Bedford, Sheridan, Marengo and Homer in the order named. Captain Thayer was wounded at South Mountain on September 14, 1862, and resigned May 15, 1863, on account of disabilities incurred. Thomas W. Wells of Marshall, became successively sergeant, sergeant major and lieutenant in Company K, and then resigned and later entered the Eighth Regiment of Cavalry.

The 17th, after the surrender of Lee's army, returned to Washington, where on May 23, 1865, it participated with the Army of the Potomac in the great review and where on the 3rd of June following, it was mustered out of service and returned to Detroit on the 7th to be paid off and disbanded.

The total enrollment, 1,224. The total killed in action, 84. The total died of wounds, 48. The total died in Confederate prisons, 54. The total died of disease, 84. The total discharged for disability, wounds and disease, 249.