Published: February 22, 2009 10:38 am      

The Numbers

Northwest Lower Michigan in the Civil War from 1861-65*:

Units

Infantry: 168
Sharpshooters: 105
Cavalry: 93
Light Artillery: 5
Total: 371

Enlistments

Antrim: 36
Emmet: 59
Charlevoix: 3
Grand Traverse : 69
Leelanau: 80
Mackinac: 13:
Pentwater**: 47
Total: 307

Area population 1860

Antrim: 179
Emmet: 1,155
Grand Trav.: 1,286
Leelanau: 2,158
Manistee: 975
Manitou: 1,043
Total: 6,796
Oceana: 1,816

Sources: www.michiganinthewar.org, Don Harvey; Grand Traverse Herald; "These Men Have Seen Hard Service: The First Michigan Sharpshooters in the Civil War", Raymond Herek; "Michigan In the War," Adjutant General, 1882; "Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State," Third Revised Edition, Willis F. Dunbar & George S. May.

*Totals may not be exact. Parts of Northwestern Michigan were still being organized into counties when the Civil War started in 1861.

**The Pentwater number only represents men who served in the 26th Infantry, Company A and 1st Michigan Sharpshooters, Company K, both largely made up of men from the Northwestern counties identified in this chart.