Corporal Orlando M. Cole of the 18th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, was mustered in at Hillsdale on August 26, 1862. The Michigan 18th was first sent to Kentucky and later Tennessee and Alabama. It was in 1864, with a fore badly outnumbered, that Cole was captured and sent to Cahaba prison camp in Alabama. My grandma and great uncle would tell me, "Gramp Cole" told of surviving on rotten squash and pumpkins. Survive he did, only to board the ill-fated steamship Sultana that exploded on the Mississippi River in 1865. My great great grandfather could not swim. He clung to a floating plank, was rescued and eventually returned to his home in Michigan. He lived to be 90 years old.

-Scott Warren and Family