Dear Parent, Brothers and Sisters: I am wounded, mortally I think. The fight rages round me. I have done my duty. This is my consolation. I hope to meet you all again. I left not the line until all had fallen and colors gone. I am getting weak. My arms are free but below my chest all is numb. The enemy trotting over me. The numbness up to my heart. Good-bye all.
Within a year after peace was declared a plan was under way for a Memorial Building in memory of the graduates of the University who had fallen in the war. A committee appointed by the Alumni Association presented the matter to the Board of Regents, but they were unable to take any action. The project was never forgotten, however, and was brought up year after year in alumni gatherings until in 1903 a committee under the Chairmanship of Judge C.B. Grant, '59, a former Colonel of the Twentieth Michigan, was appointed. This committee was so successful in its efforts that the Memorial Building was eventually dedicated in May, 1910. A large tablet by the sculptor A.A. Weinman bearing the inscription given on the following page, was placed, in June, 1914, on the right wall just inside the entrance.
A further investigation of the war records of the graduates of the University revealed many more names than were known when the tablet was designed, so that now the total in the morocco bound volume which is conspicuously placed in the building carries the records of 2,424 who served in the three wars.
THIS HALL ERECTED ANNO DOMINI 1909-1910 UNDER DIRECTION OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BY THE ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF HER PATRIOTIC SONS WHO SERVED IN
THREE OF HER COUNTRY'S WARS NAMELY TWO IN THE MEXICAN WAR A.D. 1847 ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED FOURTEEN IN THE CIVIL WAR A.D. 1861-1865
FOUR HUNDRED TWENTY SIX IN THE SPANISH WAR A.D. 1898 A RECORD OF THEIR NAMES AND MILITARY HISTORY IS DEPOSITED IN THE ARCHIVES OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
THE WORLD WILL LITTLE NOTE NOR LONG REMEMBER WHAT WE SAY HERE BUT IT CAN NEVER FORGET WHAT THEY DID HERE-- LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG
Though the number of Michigan men in the Spanish-American War was naturally much smaller, the total mounted to very nearly four hundred, of whom eight lost their lives, including one member of the Rough Riders, Oliver B. Norton, '01_m_, killed by a shell at San Juan Hill. The contingents from at least fifteen states included Michigan graduates, but the greater number were to be found in the five Michigan volunteer regiments, particularly the 31st and 32nd, though there were a number in the 33rd and 34th that formed with the 9th Massachusetts the Brigade commanded by Brigadier-General Henry M. Duffield, '58-'59, which was one of the few volunteer units to see active service in Cuba.