In the News / Honors

Robinson's Battery strives hard to promote interest in the American Civil War and our American history.  On occasion, specific activities receive special notice.  We are pleased to display those honors here.

Library of Congress Archives - March 2010

On February 25, 2010, we received the following email:

To Whom It May Concern:

The United States Library of Congress has selected your Web site for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials. The Library's traditional functions, acquiring, cataloging, preserving and serving collection materials of historical importance to the Congress and to the American people to foster education and scholarship, extend to digital materials, including Web sites. We request your permission to collect your web site and add it to the Library's research collections. The following URL has been selected:

robinsonsbattery.org/1701.html

With your permission, the Library of Congress or its agent will engage in the collection of content from your Web site at regular intervals over time and make this collection available to researchers both onsite at Library facilities and though the Library's public Web site http://www.loc.gov/webarchiving/.

Our Web Archives are important because they contribute to the historical record, capturing information that could otherwise be lost. With the growing role of the Web as an influential medium, records of historic events could be considered incomplete without materials that were "born digital" and never printed on paper.

Web Archiving Team
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C. 20540

Permission was granted and these materials should be available there and may serve others long into the future.

The Essex Free Press - December 2009

Battery member, Kirk Walstedt, at an appraisal event on December 6, 2009.

Kirk also made front page news in the Voice of December 10, 2009.

Civil War News - December 2009

Page 42

Traverse City Record Eagle Cheers - October 2009

Traverse City Record Eagle Editorial:  October 26, 2009

Cheers -- To two Civil War enthusiast groups who gave Civil War veteran John P. Sinclair a headstone and burial service 95 years after he was buried in an unmarked grave at Oakwood Cemetery. Sinclair, an Ohio native and Union Army sergeant, died near Long Lake in 1913. Robinson's Battery of Battle Creek tracked down his cemetery plot. The area Robert Finch Camp No. 14 Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, dressed in Union Army uniforms, conducted a full Grand Army of the Republic graveside service. The federal Department of Veterans paid for a reproduction Civil War-era headstone.

Traverse City Record Eagle - October 2009

Front Page

Full text below

Full text below

Vet in unmarked grave given burial service
BY ART BUKOWSKI

TRAVERSE CITY -- John P. Sinclair lay in an unmarked grave for 95 years, his plot tucked between other local Civil War veterans under a stand of gnarled old trees in historic Oakwood Cemetery.

Sinclair, an Ohio native and sergeant with the Union Army, died near the shores of Long Lake in 1913 and was buried in the cemetery along Eighth Street the next year. It's believed his grave never had a headstone, possibly because no family could be located to pay for one.

But Sinclair received a brand new marble headstone and burial service Saturday after a group of Civil War enthusiasts tracked him down. The group, Battle Creek-based Robinson's Battery, is in the process of finding the final resting place of all the members of Sinclair's unit.

"It's sort of a labor of love, trying to get all of them present and accounted for," said Deb Gosselin, Robinson's historian.

Gosselin used a series of records and a 1914 Record-Eagle article to determine Sinclair was in the cemetery. Records indicate the names of the soldiers he's buried between, so the group was able to find his burial plot.

Robinson's battery contacted the Robert Finch Camp of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, a local civil war group. The enthusiasts joined forces to re-enact a full Grand Army of the Republic burial service, and the federal Department of Veterans Affairs paid for a reproduction Civil War-era headstone.

"It's one of the things (we) do to keep alive the memory of those who fought ... It's important to society that these people be remembered and the Civil War be remembered," said Neal Breaugh, Robert Finch Camp secretary.

Among those gathered for the ceremony was Traverse City resident Chris Campbell, 62, Sinclair's cousin four times removed. Campbell learned of the service last week through a news story in the Record-Eagle and contacted the Robert Finch Camp to inform the group he's related to Sinclair.

"This is really cool. As my brother said, now we don't have to do it," he joked.

Campbell believes his ancestor would be honored by the formal funeral service and headstone. "How surprised he would be, I think, that anyone would remember him 100 years later," he said.

Honoring the memory of Sinclair and his fellow soldiers is what drives Robinson's Battery, which so far has tracked down about 110 of the 130 members of Sinclair's unit. "This was just a group of people. There were good guys and there were bad guys, people that went on to fame and fortune and people who died like (Sinclair)," Gosselin said. "It does make you feel good to restore this person to the place in history that he deserves."

For more information, visit www.robinsonsbattery.org.

Front Page News - July 2009

Front page article in the Crawford County Gazette - July 16, 2009.  The Battery's cannon is featured in the lower photograph.

Cover of the October 2008 Camp Chase Gazette

Robinson's Battery members and the cannon were featured on the cover of the October 2008 issue of the Camp Chase Gazette.  This and its sister publication, Citizen's Companion, are highly recommended. 

See Links for the url.

2008 Grayling Smoothbore Trophy

The plaque reads: 1st Place - Robinson's Battery, Mich Lt Arty Smoothbore Field Artillery, Long Range Matches   Camp Grayling, 2008.

We are so honored and proud of this accomplishment!

SUV Certificate of Appreciation - October 2008

This certificate of appreciation was given to John Hughes for his participation in the dedication of Pvt. Solomon Ostrander's grave October 2008.