He Kept The Colors: The True Story of The General, the Old Man and the Flag - Softcover

Johnson, Lois

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1425990886 ISBN 13: 9781425990886

Publisher: AuthorHouse, 2007

Synopsis

Back in the beginning days of America's Civil War, the women of the small town of Marlette, Michigan, in the very heart of the Thumb wanted to show their support of President Lincoln and the Union forces in some small way. They collectively designed and sewed a huge Union flag of 34 stars, four rows of eight with an extra star at the end in between each two rows. This precious flag was then given to a gentleman they knew who lived just to the south who was leaving for the war. Color Sergeant Thomas Henry Sheppard's story, along with that of the Battle Flag of Company E, First Michigan Cavalry, is one of the most incredible true stories to ever come out of the Civil War. The Detroit Free Press back in the 1880's called it "an episode of the Civil War which has a strong coloring of Romance", as the Press told of how the colors of the First Michigan Cavalry were protected as the red, white and blue bunting became more and more tattered and sun-faded and bullet-ridden, and still the flag "assumed a dignity and interest even beyond that which the colors have of their own right to every loyal man". Thomas' account intersects with the lives of two of the War's most famous Generals and is written by a close relative of the third. The Color Sergeant took the colors and with his regiment carried them to the front lines where they saw hot service, and from which many did not return. In his words, the 1st Michigan "fought through the Shenandoah, on Banks' advance and retreat, in the campaigns of Pope and Burnside, and did yeoman service at the Battle of Gettysburg. They were under fire twice at Winchester, at Middletown, Strasburg, Harrisonburg, Occoquan and Thoroughfare Gap." Sheppard and his flag survived 13 major battles, over 100 skirmishes and 16 months of war. Thomas, following right behind his flamboyant new General Custer, led the First Michigan Cavalry into the most famous cavalry charge of the entire war as they stopped the Confederacy short of their

About this title

About the Author

The author was born in Detroit, Michigan, in October of 1949, the third of four children of Harold and Marjorie Johnson. Harold was from Albion, New York, where his great-grandfather had come in on the opening of the Erie Canal and settled at a place called The Bridges, New York. Harold came to Michigan to work in the automobile plants during the Depression, where he met and married Marjorie Dawson, who was in the city attending Beauty School. In 1957 they returned to her hometown in Marlette in the Thumb of Michigan and bought the family farm started by Grandfather William Dawson in 1882. Lois graduated from Marlette High School in 1967, Salutatorian and Class Treasurer. She pursued her college education at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education in 1971. Although she was offered the newly-formed position of Director of Alumni at OU, it was only a half-time position then, and she instead went to work for Warren Consolidated Schools as a Math/Science teacher at Grissom Junior High on 14 Mile and Ryan, beginning her first real job walking the picket line, on strike. Pink-slipped at the end of her first year teaching, Lois returned to the Thumb and spend the next 27 years teaching Math, then Social Studies and Reading, to 6th graders, taking Early Retirement in 1998. She earned a Master's Degree from Central Michigan University, and 18 hours towards her Specialist's. In the early 1970's she purchased 50 acres of the family Centennial Farm, turning it into a Michigan Non-Profit Wildlife Sanctuary, where she now raises beautiful free-ranging peacocks on one of the most lovely spots on earth. In 1985, Lois happened to visit a stunning old Victorian House in town, where she was amazed to learn that it had been built by her mother's Great-Uncle, Thomas Usher Dawson, Marlette's leading businessman in the 1890's. That started her on a quest for family information that ultimately led to the town's newspape

Edition details

• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1425990886
• ISBN 13: 9781425990886
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 100