The Niles Star

Majerek’s welcomes author, Civil War enthusiast

By JESSICA SIEFF
Niles Daily Star

Continuing in the effort to bring local authors to the Niles area, Majerek’s Readers World will host another book signing this Saturday featuring Michiana author Michael Downs.

Downs spent nine years researching the historical journals for “The Civil War Diary,” a compilation of entries written by Colonel Alfred B. Wade.

“It’s a fascinating story to me,” Downs said.

Wade, who hailed from South Bend, fought as a Union soldier with the 73rd Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment beginning in 1862. He kept a detailed account of his days in the infantry. As the diary’s publisher, The James Keir Baughman Collection describes the book: “journal of hundreds of days allows us to share one of the most detailed accounts of daily life in Civil War years ever to appear in American literature. His description of daily events, military and civilian, breathe life again exactly as it was nearly 150 years ago.”

Downs, who recently retired from teaching for 30 years, said he has “always been interested in the Civil War.”

Having taken some students to Notre Dame as a sponsor for a history club, Downs began doing a little research when he stumbled upon Wade’s story.

“Being from this area there’s not a great deal about what these soldiers did and I thought it would help supplement that history.”

During his time on the front lines, Wade fought in battles at Perrysville and in the Battle of Stone’s River at Murfreesboro, Tenn., battles taking place in the western theater, something Downs said often goes unknown by many when it comes to mainstream studying of the Civil War.

“They have no idea,” he said.

The western theater has been referred to as the region of the country stretching east of the Mississippi River and west of the Appalachian Mountains.

At Stone’s River, especially, Downs said, there casualties into the double digit thousands on both sides of the line.

“Wade was right in the thick of it,” he said.

The veteran’s history is particularly interesting to Downs in looking closer at his rise through the ranks, serving in two regiments, one for a three month term and one for three years, according to the book.
“He starts out as a private and ends up a colonel,” Downs said.

“He was a protege of Schuyler Colfax,” he added. Colfax served as the Speaker of the House and former vice president of the United States to President Ulysses S. Grant.

“He sort of took care of Wade,” Downs said.

Through his research of the young Civil War soldier, the author made another startling discovery, finding a great, great uncle he didn’t even know he had – who fought alongside of Wade.

Pouring over two thick journals, “two huge volumes of his handwritten work,” Downs has tried to compile a conclusive all encompassing look at Wade’s life.

“You stop and think,” he said. “(About) 35 percent of men in Indiana went off to fight in the war. And the numbers are equally the same in Michigan and Ohio.”

Many of those men, Downs said, “bled to death” in a vast space of war that might be somewhat unknown.

Downs will be at Majerek’s Readers World on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

To learn more about his book, visit www.baughmanliterary.com.