The 24th Michigan

With the coming of the Martian Invasion of the United States, a Patriotic fervor swept the country.  When the call for volunteers to join the Army was placed, men of all ages and backgrounds rushed to join and fight the Martian Invader.  In the early 1900s America was still a mostly rural Nation; but the enlistment centers were located in the cities.  Not everyone who wanted to join up could afford the trip “to the Big City” so States began to recruit for local Militias.  These Militias were designed to get men organized and trained and to supplement the formal Army units when the fight came to the State.

Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula were no exceptions.  The Lumbermen and Miners there joined the Michigan State Militia and received their Military training at Camp Grayling.  Because of the distances involved and the crush of volunteers to the regular Army, there were not enough of the 1906 pattern uniforms to go around.  To get the men outfitted quickly the uniforms issued to this Militia were of the 1880 pattern last worn at Fort Mackinaw.  When first publicly seen, the Michigan Militia became known (rather disparagingly) as “The Mothball Militia”.

 

Hopping the rails and heading south, the unit found itself outside Detroit.  Near the rail yards a number of Baldwin Mark II tanks were found awaiting scrapping.  Using the ingenuity and skills gleaned through their hard mining and timber jobs, the men soon repaired and repainted these tanks and they traveled with the Infantrymen to the front lines.

 Seeing hard fighting near the Ohio-Michigan border the unit took part in “The Frenchtown Campaign”.  Because of their determined resistance to the Martian attack on the town of Monroe the unit was officially renamed the “24^th Michigan”, a name that brought back memories of the famous State Civil War Regiment.

 

 

 

During “The Battle of the Temperance Crossroads” the 24^th Michigan not only held the line when regular Army units fled, but mounted a counter-attack on the Martians, destroying one of their Power Nodes.  It was after this performance the 24^th shed the name “Mothball Militia” and began to be called by a name once earned by their Fathers and Grandfathers in battle during the Civil War. 

They became “The Iron Brigade”.