My Great-Great Grandpa and Michigan Engineers Moved the Union Army

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FIRST PERSON | The mighty 1st Michigan Engineers and Mechanics, those clever builders and craftsman, could truly be called some of "the movers and shakers" of the American Civil War. My great-great grandfather, 18-year-old Andrew Kinney, of Company C, was one.

To say "army marches on its stomach" makes the point metaphorically that a well-fed army operates more effectively. Literally, however, an army marches on its feet. In order for the infantry to march, and the cavalry to ride and the artillery to move huge cannonades, the engineers need to mobilize them.

And that's just what 1st Michigan Engineers and Mechanics did. Several Grand Rapids, Mich., men -- Wright L. Coffinberry, Baker Borden, Perrin V. Fox and James L. Sligh (West Michiganders will recognize some of those names) -- asked if an Engineers regiment (like Col. Wilson's Chicago regiment) was wanted. It was.

The War Department mustered 1st Michigan Engineers and Mechanics on Oct. 29, 1861, in Marshall, Mich. 1st Michigan Engineers and Mechanics raised ten companies, A-J, each with 100 men. My great-great grandfather, Andrew, enlisted in this regiment, Company C. The Kinney family had only just come over from County Mayo, Ireland about a decade previously.

I must say I'm rather proud of great-great grandfather: only 18 years old and accepted into a skilled trades regiment. My step-father, who was an engineer in Vietnam, jokes that "engineer" is just a fancy word for "ditch-digger." "We dug the latrines," he says. He always pooh-poohs his own contributions.

When I told him about my great-great grandfather being a fellow engineer (albeit different war), he smiled. "Now the boys in the war between the states, they had it rough. No heavy equipment. Only a few cantankerous old mules. Why everyone knows a mule'll kick you like as look at you."

According to research done at the State of Michigan Newberry Library, he's right. Those first Michigan Engineers were some kind of geniuses. Under Col. William P. Innes, they were able to take local brush and plants and configure them into bridges, ramps, pontoon boats, forts, flotillas, pontoon boats, sawmills and blockhouses. They were the movers and shakers, keeping such generals as William Tecumseh Sherman moving forward on his "March to the Sea."