…Her Patriot Sons Will Peril All.” So it read on the first of at least four battle flags of the Second Michigan Infantry Regiment.

Recruited within ten days after the 1861 fall of Fort Sumter, from Adrian, Battle Creek, Flint, Kalamazoo, Niles and Saginaw, the Second’s patriot sons helped defend Fort Sanders’ northwest bastion on the morning of Nov. 29, 1863.

Wrapping up the Rebel attack, in a charge down the ditch on the fort’s north wall, they lost a 14-year-old drummer boy, shot through the lungs—the youngest casualty of the battle.