The film The Road to Andersonville would not have been possible without the help of both associate producers Kookoosh Roger Williams Kchinodin and historian Chris Czopek. They came to me with the idea for the project and they are the ones who saw it through. To them go my primary thanks.

Historian and author Chris Czopek, Kokoosh Roger Williams Kchinodin, and David Schock at the Historical Society of Michigan Awards ceremony, Sept 29, 2013, in Kalamazoo. (Photo courtesy Chris Czopek and snapped by Kendall Wingrove.)

And it is Chris Czopek’s book, Who was Who in Company K that I turned to time and again for details. This is an essential resource for anyone who wants to know more about the company…its members and their service…even to the knowledge of their last resting places.

You, too, can come by this resource by contacting Chris at historydetective@aol.com. The price of the book is $80.

The earlier published and foundational work is These Men Have Seen Hard Service; The First Michigan Sharpshooters in the Civil War by historian Ray Herek. This also meticulous account relates the history of the entire First Michigan Sharpshooters’ regiment, of which Company was a tenth (a thousand men in a regiment, a hundred in a company). Chris Czopek has said that he almost always suggests people who want to know more start with Ray’s book.

Seekers of knowledge can obtain Ray’s book from the publisher, Wayne State University Press. The price is $32.95

As well, for those who want to know more about the life of Payson Wolfe and other Native Americans who were of the transitional generation between the old ways and the white man’s ways, there is a fascinating account in the diaries of Arvilla and the Reverend George Nelson Smith. The Smiths shepherded a flock of Odawa from Holland, MI, to Northport, MI, after they were forced out by the Dutch immigrants. The departing Native Americans even dug up their dead and took them north. The book, Old Wing Mission; Cultural Interchange as Chronicled by George and Arvilla Smith in Their Work with Chief Wakazoo’s Ottawa Band on the West Michigan Frontier, is edited by Dr. Robert Swierenga and William Van Appledorn, and is available through Eerdmans Publishing. The price is $49.