rvice.
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, '59_m_, 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.

Within a year after peace was declared a plan was under way for a
Memorial Building in memory of the