The contemporaries of Dr. Tappan are unanimous in their judgment of his extraordinary ability as a speaker, to which a majestic figure and magnificent voice no less than his logic and apt illustrations contributed. But on this day he made the effort of his career. From that time the University was whole-heartedly for the Union and the war.
The Captains of the Three Student Companies in 1861
Charles Kendall Adams, '61. Captain of the University Guards Isaac H. Elliott, '61. Captain of the Chancellor Greys Albert Nye, '62. Captain of the Ellsworth Zouaves
Student companies were organized at once; and the Tappan Guards under Charles Kendall Adams, '61, the Chancellor Greys, under Isaac H. Elliot, '62, and the Ellsworth Zouaves, under Albert Nye, '62, who died at Murfreesboro in 1862, formed a University Battalion which enrolled practically every student in the University. This was not the first effort of the sort, however, for five years before Professor W.P. Trowbridge, a graduate of West Point, had organized the first University Battalion, with uniforms and arms furnished by the Government, and had managed to have a small building erected as an armory, which was later to become the first gymnasium. This experiment was short-lived and came to an end when Professor Trowbridge resigned the following year. With the organization of the new battalion the duty of drill master fell upon Joseph H. Vance, the steward of the University, who was also assistant librarian. The President set apart a room at the south end of the south College, and there the students, in sections of fifty, drilled for an hour each day. The old muskets had been called in by the Government some time before, and sticks were perforce the ordinary armament. This drill continued for the rest of the year and for most of 1862. The men who thus received their preliminary training were to be found later in practically every corps and division of the Union Army.
These military efforts, however, did not satisfy the more restless spirits and many left the University immediately, few of whom ever returned to finish their course. Of the fifty-four who graduated with the "war class" of '61, twenty-four entered the service, in addition to eight who did not stay to finish their work, in all thirty-two out of sixty-two. The students in the two professional departments were no less eager for service, as is shown by the remarkable record of the medical class of '61, thirty of whose forty-four graduates saw active service. Among the Michigan men in the Civil War at least twelve, eight of whom held degrees, rose to the rank of brigadier-general, three of them from the class of '61. Of this number apparently only one, Elon Farnsworth, '55-'58, actually commanded a brigade in battle. He was killed while bravely leading a hopeless charge at Gettysburg.
Michigan's war records are full of stories of brave deeds, but few surpass the heroism of William Longshaw, '59m, an assistant surgeon in the Navy, who undertook to carry a line from his ship, the Nahant, to the Lehigh, which had run aground in the attack on Fort Moultrie. Twice he was successful but the intense fire directed on his little boat by the batteries on shore cut the line each time. By this time Longshaw found the wounded needing his attention and he gave over the task to another who made a third and successful trip. For this exploit Longshaw was cited in general orders read from every quarter-deck in the fleet. He was killed while attending a wounded marine under equally heroic circumstances during the attack on Fort Fisher.
While Michigan men entered service from every Union State, the largest number, naturally, were in the Michigan regiments, particularly the Twentieth Michigan Infantry, in which a large number of officers, including every one in the two Ann Arbor companies, were University men. In one year, November, 1863, to November, 1864, 537 of the Regiment's total enrolment of 1,157 were killed, wounded, or prisoners, while three times it lost almost fifty percent of all the men engaged, at Spottsylvania, at Petersburg, and finally at the assault on the Crater, after which there were only eighty men and four officers left for duty. In another Michigan regiment, the Seventh, was Capt. Allan H. Zacharias of the class of '60 whose last letter, written on an old envelope and clutched in his dead hand, forms an imperishable portion of Michigan's annals:
Dear Parent, Brothers and Sisters: I am wounded, mortally I think. The fight rages round me. I have done my duty. This is my consolation. I hope to meet you all again. I left not the line until all had fallen and colors gone. I am getting weak. My arms are free but below my chest all is numb. The enemy trotting over me. The numbness up to my heart. Good-bye all.
Your son
Allen.