American Indian Sharpshooters at the Battle of the Crater

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A similar oration given by Ottawa Chief Paw-baw-me on July 4, 1863, at the reservation in Oceana County caused 25 men to join the colors. Almost the entire tribe turned out to see them depart by steamer from the dock at Pentwater for mustering at Detroit. Among them was 23-year-old Antoine Scott, who was to be recommended for the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Crater. More recruits came from Bear River, Little Traverse, Charlevoix and La Croix. Some Ottawa-Ojibwas came from the Isabella Reser­vation on the Lower Peninsula near Saginaw. One of the first to sign up was Thomas Ke-chi-ti-go, a tall, muscular man known as “Big Tom.” He had been refused enlistment in 1861 but became a sergeant in Company K.

Second Lieutenant Garrett A. Graveraet led one of the most successful recruiting drives. His father was a Franco-Ottawa merchant-fur trader, and his mother, Sophie Bailey, was recorded as “Chippewayan.” Only 23, Graveraet was well known, well educated and spoke fluent Chippewa. He even signed up his own father, 55-year old Henry, who claimed to be only 45. The elder Graveraet became a sergeant in Company K and its only non-Indian enlisted man.

Along with Captain Edwin V. Andress and 1st Lt. William Driggs, Graveraet drilled the new recruits of Company K while Colonel DeLand and part of the regiment chased Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and his raiders through southern Indiana. When DeLand returned, he found 80 well-drilled men whom Lt. Col. John R. Smith, the mustering officer, characterized as “the stuff, no doubt, of which good sharpshooters can easily be made.” In all, about 150 American Indians served in Company K during the war.

Colonel DeLand had made it clear to his recruiters that “great care will be taken in enlisting Indians to give them all necessary and correct information upon all subjects….” They were to receive the same benefits as white soldiers. This included a $50 state bounty, $25 federal bounty and $13 per month in pay. In comparison, when African Americans first enlisted in USCT regiments, they received only $10 per month until a July 1864 act of Congress mandated equal pay.

But like their black brethren, the men of Company K began their Civil War service far from the front lines, protecting arsenals and guarding prisoners of war. In August 1863, seven companies of the 1st Michigan were ordered to Camp Douglas outside Chicago to guard Confederate prisoners. The routine of camp life quickly descended into boredom and its handmaidens: desertion and disease. There were few amenities or diversions for the men, and Charles Bibbins of Company E recalled after the war that the Indians “never associated with the other soldiers, always keeping strictly to themselves from the time they joined the regiment until the time they were mustered out.” Nevertheless, the warriors of Company K were a popular curiosity with the civilians of Chicago, who came out in droves to see them.

Orders finally came through on March 8, 1864, for the regiment to report to Annapolis, Md., the rendezvous point for units joining Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s IX Corps of the Army of the Potomac. The men of Company K arrived just as Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant began his Overland campaign, and they remained in the thick of the fighting for more than a year until General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House.

Company K’s first encounter with the enemy came in the confused fighting known as the Battle of the Wilderness on May 6, 1864, north of the Chewing farm almost halfway between Parker’s Store and Wilderness Tavern. Skilled at skirmishing as well as sharpshooting, the Indians first rolled in the brush and mud to camouflage their blue uniforms. The rest of the regiment soon adopted the practice before every engagement.

Sergeant Charles Allen was severely wounded in the fighting that followed and died a week later in Fredericksburg. He was the first from Company K to die in battle. But on the afternoon of May 12 in the tangled woods and swamps around Spotsylvania Court House, the company faced an attack by Brig. Gen. James H. Lane’s North Carolinians, and the toll was much higher. Eight men, including Sergeant Graveraet, were killed, and two more died later from their wounds.

Tags: American Civil War, Civil War Times, Historical Conflicts

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