On Memorial Day: Remembering Elias Sweet and more than 1 million others
by Ben Fidler
Elias strung together his sack filled with boots and woolen socks, maybe fresh bread from his mother Eunice. His father, Lamech, may have hugged him so tightly it held back their tears. Behind the family, at the Sweet Farm in Waterloo Twp., the dairy cows bellowed. Elias turned one last time to his family, then readied himself for what was to come.
He mustered in Jackson on August 15, 1862, and by the first of September, Company K of the Michigan Infantry, 20th Regiment was on the March to Washington D.C. Within weeks they were in service, first at Sharpsburg, then Fredericksburg, then winding through Virginia and Kentucky, then back again to Vicksburg. In early May 1864, Elias was engaged in the battle of the Wilderness, and days later, fighting in Spotsylvania in a battle that would last 20 hours. He charged with Grant’s advance on May 12, bayonet in hand, one last time. It might have been, as the National Park Service states, “the most ferociously sustained combat of the Civil War.”
Elias made the ultimate sacrifice from wounds he sustained that day or within months of that battle (the records are unclear). He was not fighting a foreign adversary, but his own countrymen in a war, hopefully, we will never see the likes of again. But regardless of his foe, his sacrifice was for the ultimate goals of freedom, security, and ironically, peace.
It’s easy to write this off as old news, stale history. The Civil War raged over a hundred and fifty years ago. Any veteran who survived has long since passed. Their children too. But the battles and wars we fight around the world haven’t. It’s probably fair to say almost no one wants war. But when it comes, many men and women are still motivated to serve, even if that means giving the ultimate sacrifice.
The Sweet Farm still stands. I’ve driven by it, but I’ve never thought about Elias. I’ve never thought about his march from Jackson to Washington, the horrors he must have witnessed at the Battle of the Wilderness, the courage he must have felt in his final charge. I didn’t know about Elias until I sat to write this. But now I do. And on this upcoming Memorial Day weekend, I will be thinking about him.
Near the end of this month, we will sink into a long weekend. We will shed our jobs framing houses or driving trucks, answering phones or writing memos. If the weather holds, we will unfold into summer. Drive to the beach, flip burgers on grills—char a few, out of practice from the long winter. We will spend time with friends and family. There will be stories. Lots of stories.
Hopefully you make time to sacrifice a bit of your long weekend, at a cemetery or in quiet prayer, remembering someone who has paid the ultimate price for our country. And as you pass a barn on your way to a picnic, know there very well might have once been an Elias in there, carrying a lantern as he made his rounds one last time, willing to give it all up for you.
Remember to make time over your long Memorial Day weekend to remember those who, like Elias Sweet of Waterloo Twp., made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Photo source: ancestors.familysearch.org
