A tribute to Mike Winey by Mark Dunkelman
| Michael J. Winey was born in Middleburg PA on June 7th 1941. After basic schooling he joined the Army serving three years as a turret artillery repairman. After serving in Germany he was honorably discharged and went on to attend Millersville State College. He chose to major in history and received an M. A. in history museum training from the Cooperstown Graduate Programs. He worked as a curator for the New York State Museum in Albany, N.Y. He also worked at the William Penn Museum in Harrisburg, Pa. and then for the U.S. Army Military History Institute at the Carlisle Barracks from which he retired |
| It was while doing research at the N.Y State Historical Association in Cooperstown that Winey discovered records of the 154th which spurred his interest and led him to write his master’s thesis on the unit. Winey discovered that the 154th was a regiment whose history was left mostly unrecorded with no official historical record of them or their accomplishments. He found this to be an injustice to the unit when they took an active role in such critical campaigns and battles of the civil war such as Gettysburg, Chancellorsville and Sherman’s March to the Sea. This thesis was later discovered by Mark Dunkelman who shortly after reading it contacted Winey and the two agreed to combine their respective research on the 154th and write a book together. Thus Winey continues his research on the 154th with Dunkelman who, as a descendant of one of the regiment’s members, had his own reasons for providing them with recognition. | |
| After his first book with Dunkelman, Winey went on to write two more books, one on the uniforms of Union soldiers during the Gettysburg campaign and one on Confederate uniforms of the same campaign. He is noted for staying active with the annual reunions of the 154th regiment’s descendants along with Dunkelman. Thanks to Mike Winey and Mark Dunkelman’s contributions the history of the 154th regiment has been preserved and their accomplishments remembered. |  |
| Portrait from The Hardtack Regiment, 1981 |
| After Winey’s death (Jan. 28, 2012) his family donated his collection to the St. Bonaventure University’s Friedsam Library. The collection includes 9.5 cubic feet of documents, photographs, and framed items. The documents include records, correspondence, newspaper clippings, and various maps of areas the unit was active in. The photographs include portraits of many of the regiment’s members during and after the war. There are also photographs of army memorabilia, reunions, and the two main monuments to the regiment in Gettysburg and Chancellorsville. |
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