Copied in the order found, at the Clarke Historical Library, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, in July 2024, from the Quita V. Shier collection.
"Indian agent DeWitt C. Leach had signed up five Native Americans in Michigan's Upper Penisula. Leach had accompanied the new enlistees to Detroit where he told a reporter from the Advertiser and Tribune that the men--John Battice, 19; Amos Crane, 28; William Jackson, 26; George Ka-ba-ya-ce-ga, 30; and Robert Valentine, 23--"are all intelligent, and speack the English language." From These Men Have Seen Hard Service, The First Michigan Sharpshooters in the Civil War, by Raymond J. Herek; page 250
"There was at least one other American Indian at Andersonville. Joh Ransom repeatedly mentions Battese, an "Indian." Battese was from Minnesota, so he may have been Ojibwe. While in prison, he saved Ransom's life more than once. In combating the Raiders, Ransom wrote, "Battese has called his Indian friends all together, and probably a hundred of us are banded together for self protection." Battese's frineds were the soldiers of Company K." From Deadly Aim, The Civil War Story of Michigan's Anishinaabe Sharpshooters, by Sally M. Walker, page 180. Source for page 180 Ransom Chadwick's Andersonville Prison Diary, vol. 1, pages 98-99.
"Battese is a large, full-blooded six-foot Minnesota Indian, has quarters near us, and is a noble fellow. He and other Indians have been in our hundred for some weeks. They are quiet, attend to their own business, and won't stand much nonsense." Ransom Chadwick's Andersonville Prison Diary, page 67
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