1948 : Orlando LeValley Dies, Last Native-Born Michigan Civil War Veteran

When:
April 20, 2023 all-day
2023-04-20T00:00:00-04:00
2023-04-21T00:00:00-04:00
On April 20, 1948, Orlando LeValley, Michigan’s last living native-born Civil War veteran, died just  short of 100 on his family farm in Caro.   Michigan Governor Sigler flew to this Thumb farming center to speak at LeValley’s funeral — the largest ever held in Caro, a city of 4000.  Several hundred military officials joined with family and friends to see the last Michigan Commander of the Great Army of the Republic off.   Loud speakers broadcast the ceremony outside the United Mathodist Church to the overflowing crowd.  Numerous children were perched in the trees.  A local high school student played taps.
Orlando LeValley was born on a pioneer farm in Lapeer County in 1848.  He wasn’t quite 13 when the Civil War started… He applied at a recruiting office and was turned away.
“Go home and grow up a little, Bub” they told him.  “The war will wait for you.”
“It did wait and on October 3, 1864 when he was a few days past 16 Orlando LeValley was mustered in…  He was assigned to Co. E 23rd Michigan Infantry and joined the regiment at Johnsonville, Tennessee.   He was just in time to get a baptism of fire in the battles of Franklin and Nashville.   He was discharged at Raleigh, N.C. October 14, 1865.
LeValley went home and with his bounty money bought and 80-acre farm near Caro in Tuscola  County.   In due time he married and aired six children.
The years slipped by.  It was 1948, and April   A very old man felt the warm winds awaken the fields and bring the buds back…  He recalled another April when the land awoke from its winter sleep to the rattle of drums and the tramp of a marching host.
“But that was so long ago, and now there was little reason to make the effort to remember.   He was ninety-nine years old and somewhere in the distance, faintly, he heard the roll being called.
As a good soldier, he answered to his name.  “He was tired and lonesome”, they said of him.
Sources:
Norman Kenyon, “State Buries its last GAR Veteran”, Detroit Free Press, April 23, 1948, p.25
Jack Manning, “This Civil War Book (Father Abraham’s Children) is Different”, Detroit Free Press, April 9, 1961, p. 17.
Father Abraham’s children : Michigan episodes in the Civil War / Frank B. Woodford ; new foreword by Arthur M. Woodford.   Detroit : Wayne State University Press, [1999]   Also available online.

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