 The 24th Michigan Infantry was organized at Detroit, Michigan and mustered into Federal service on August 15, 1862.It was assigned to the famous Iron Brigade in the Army of the Potomac.The brigade's commander General John Gibbon had requested a new regiment be added to his command because its four original regiments (the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin and the 19th Indiana) had been severely depleted by combat action and numbered less than 1000 men total by October 1862.