Company Unknown
Rank unknown
Civil War Veterans of Muskegon County, MI by Sharon Miller, Volume 3 L - Z Those Who Lived and/or Died
Seites, Henry F, b 13 March 1850 Philadelphia, PA, son of Valentine Seites and Margaret Krysler GE, d 24 Nove 1947 Muskegon, age 97-8-12 widowed (MDR 8-1136), bu Oakwood cem gr 1-19-13 (CR). Md second Emma Prush at Mt. Clemens, dau of John Prush, b 1868 MI, who d 22 Jan 1906 Muskegon. Ch - Albert and Alvin Seites of Muskegon and Mitchell Seites of Detroit. (MC Nov 24, 2947 with picture)
Seites was only 12 years old when he accompanied the 16th Indiana Infantry to the front during the war of the rebellion. He was close at hand when Jefferson Davis was captured and saw President Abraham Lincoln before he was assassinated. These two incidents would remain cherished memories for the old soldier all his life.
Seites came to Michigan after the war and worked in several cities before coming to Muskegon from Edmore in 1896. He was a lumber worker and worked for the Loescher Tannery and the Central Paper Company. He retired when he was 72 years old. The old soldier spent 57 years working for the Salvation Army. (MC)
THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS
By
Julian G. Dickinson, Late Adjutant 4th Michigan Cavalry and Brevet Captain, USV
. In December, 1864, the regiment joined 'The Cavalry Corps, Military Division of the Mississippi'
16th Regiment Indiana Infantry(Mounted November 1863)
Unattached Cavalry Division, Dept. of the Gulf, to November, 1863.
1st Brigade, Cavalry Division, Dept. of the Gulf, to June, 1864. 4th Brigade, Cavalry Division, Dept. of the Gulf, to August, 1864. District of LaFourche, Dept. of the Gulf, to June, 1865
Irwinville Georgia was then a place of a half dozen dwellings - a sort of four corners in the wilderness
'Adjutant, there goes a man dressed in woman's clothes.'
The person indicated was quite apparent, and I rode at once toward the party, ordering them to halt, repeating the order rapidly, they seeming not to hear, or not inclined to obey, until I rode directly across their pathway, when they halted. At that moment Corporal Munger, of Company C, came riding up from the thicket, and taking a stand in the rear of the party brought his carbine to a position for firing upon the man dressed in woman's clothes, at the same time applying to him an appellation that was in vogue among the troopers as a designation of 'Jeff. Davis.' I ordered the corporal not to fire, there being no perceptible resistance.
The person in disguise was Jefferson Davis, and his companions were Mrs. Davis and her colored waiting maid. The scene thus presented was rendered pathetic by the cries of Davis' family at the tents and by the heroic conduct of Mrs. Davis, who placed her arms around the drooping head of her husband, as if to protect him from threatened peril; she mad no other appeal to us.
Davis had on for disguise a black shawl drawn closely around his head and shoulders, through the folds of which I could see his gray hairs. He wore on his person a woman's long, black dress, which completely concealed his figure, excepting his spurred boot heels. The dress was undoubtedly Mrs. Davis' traveling dress, which she afterwards wore on her return march to Macon. At the time of the capture she was attired in her morning gown and a black shawl covering her head and stately form, while her waiting maid was completely attired in black