This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

Michigan Civil War Connections Unveiled

About 50 guests at the Farmington Branch Library were regaled with the stories of Michigan's Civil War troops.

Before the Civil War, Michigan’s entire military consisted of about 1,200 soldiers. By the end of the war, over 90,000 men from Michigan fought for the Union.

Then again, they weren’t all men. Sarah Emma Edmonds of Flint fooled the Army by posing as a man. Edmonds changed her name to Franklin Thompson and began dressing as a man to serve in the war effort, as a nurse and a spy.

About 50 guests at the learned the story of Edmonds and some of the other 90,000 soldiers. Invited by the Farmington Historical Society, Al Eicher presented a video called Michigan in the Civil War and told the tales of the men that prompted Abraham Lincoln to once say, “Thank God for Michigan.”

Find out what's happening in Farmington-Farmington Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In the 1830s, the state of Michigan became a safe haven for runaway slaves, including Sojourner Truth, and had many homes operating in the Underground Railroad. Truth came to Battle Creek from New York and lived there until her death in 1883. During the war, Truth brought a Thanksgiving dinner to the 102nd U.S. Black infantry regiment.  

This story about Truth was just one of many anecdotes that Eicher could tell, based on extensive research. Another was the story of General George A. Custer, who lived most of his childhood in Monroe. Custer became a general at just 23 years old.

Find out what's happening in Farmington-Farmington Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

What started out as a way to raise money to open a museum became a living for Eicher and his son, Dave. Al’s mother was trying to open the museum in Pigeon, MI.

“I said, ‘Well why don’t I do a documentary about the history of the town?’,” said Eicher, who has been in television production for 55 years. “That started us off with doing Michigan histories of towns in Michigan.”

The Eichers have since covered the history of 19 communities in 16 years, and now tour Michigan giving lectures on state history. Their production company has a YouTube account, which allows viewers to watch many of the segments from their videos.

“In most all of these towns there was information about the Civil War,” Eicher said. “So what we did is we put out 150 emails, 50 historical societies, 100 libraries and said send us information to prove what your community did.”

The video concluded with the assassination of President Lincoln, but Eicher said the story keeps going. In fact, Michigan soldiers accompanied Lincoln’s body to its burial in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, IL.  

Eicher said there was enough information about Michigan’s contributions to the Civil War to make a movie that would be hours long.

DVDs of the “Michigan in the Civil War” documentary and others by the Eichers are available at their online store

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Farmington-Farmington Hills