682 Wisconsin in the Civil War by Robert Wells

Wisconsin in the Civil War by Robert W Wells of the Milwaukee Journal. This is a very nice documentation of Wisconsin in the Civil War. This PDF was created so that it could be searched for names of import to local researchers. At least a Burgess has been noted. There may be other local names.

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682 Wisconsin in the Civil War by Robert Wells.pdf

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Wisconsin

History

Midwest

Kenosha County, Wisconsin

PDF

Valentine
SNIPPETS of SALEM

682 - Wisconsin in the
Civil War
by
Robert W Wells
of the
Milwaukee Journal
Contents:
This is a very nice documentation of Wisconsin in the Civil War.
This PDF was created so that it could be searched for names of
import to local researchers.
At least a Burgess has been noted.
There may be other local names.

0-102 pages
Note:
The original documents have been copied to create this PDF.
This material is from the WKCHS collection and resides with the WKCHS.
NOTE:
The materials herein were contributed by those of the area who wished that the history they have
experienced be saved for the future generations. These may represent private documents as well
as previously published articles and obituaries and images from their saved collections ..
Researchers should also refer to the Valentine Digital archives at the SALEM COMMUNITY
LIBRARY (and perhaps other websites) for more images in this collection or digital images of
items photocopied in this booklet or related to the topic.

Compiled 11/2014 by L S Valentine Copyright©Valentine2014

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Contents
CHAPTER I . . . . .
First Battle
CHAPTER II.....

CHAPTER XXI .................... PAGES 55-5
Lee whips superior force at Chancellorsvill·
Battle of Gettysburg begins.

. ......... PAGES 3-6
. ............. PAGES 6-9
to and shortly after the start
ruiting.

CHAPTER XXII ................... PAGES 57-5
Northern victory at Gettysburg.

PAGES 9-11
Financial troubles during

CHAPTER XXIII .................. PAGES 60-6
Battle of Chickamauga. Siege of Chattanoog;
Surprise victory at Missionary ridge .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGES 12-14
CHAPTER IV
Early history of first regiments recruited in
Wisconsin.

CHAPTER XXIV .................. PAGES 62-6
Bailey's dam saves Union fleet in Red River carr
paign. Wisconsin troops at Jenkins Ferry and i
Texas.

CHAPTER V ....................... PAGES 14-17
First victories in the west. Battle of the Monitor
and Merrimac.
CHAPTER VI .. . .. .. . ..
. ......
Wisconsin men fight at Shiloh.

CHAPTER XXV ................... PAGES 64-6
Veterans re-enlist to finish the war. Wisconsi
soldiers occupy Manhattan. 100 day troops.

PAGES 17-20

CHAPTER XXVI .................. PAGES 66-6
Grant heads south in Virginia. Battles of th
Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Col
Harbor. Siege of Petersburg begins.

PAGES 20-22
CHAPTER VII .....
McClellan's Peninsula campaign. Early history
of the Iron Brigade. Battle of Cedar mountain.

CHAPTER XXVII ................. PAGES 69-7
After Meridian raid, Sherman moves sou t
toward Atlanta. Battles of Resaca, Dallas.

.. PAGES 23-25
CHAPTER VIII ...
Iron Brigade's heroism at Gainesville. Second
battle of Bull Run.
...... PAGES 26-28
CHAPTER IX
Lee invades North. Battles of South Mountain
and Antietam.

CHAPTER XXVIII ................ PAGES 71-7
With Washington's defenses stripped, J u b a
Early almost captures it. William Cushing sink
the Albemarle .

. . . . . . PAGES 29-30
CHAPTER X
Soldiers' most deadly enemy is disease. Their
attitude toward the Negro. Politics causes disunity.

CHAPTER XXIX .................. PAGES 74-7
Inconclusive fighting around Petersburg. Di~
unity in the North.

PAGES 31-32
CHAPTER XI
Wisconsin draft riots. Controversy over freeing
slaves.

CHAPTER XXX ................... PAGES 75-7
Sherman beaten at Kennesaw mountain, bu
forces Confederates back to Atlanta, captures i
after severe fighting.

PAGES 33-35
CHAPTER XII
Battles of Corinth, Perryville, Chickasaw Bluffs.
Wisconsin colonel surrenders Grant's supply
base, ending first Vicksburg campaign.

CHAPTER XXXI .................. PAGES 78-8
Hood defeated by smaller Union force at Frank
lin, then whipped again at Nashville.
CHAPTER XXXII . . ............. . PAGES 80-8
Wisconsin men in Confederate prisons. Sherman'
men wreck Atlanta, begin march to the sea.

PAGES 36-38
CHAPTER XIII
New Orleans captured. Milwaukeean's role in
saving Baton Rouge. Union defeat at Fredricksburg.

CHAPTER XXXIII ................ PAGES 82-8
Sherman's' march, as recorded by Wisconsi:
soldiers. Savannah captured.

CHAPTER XIV .
.. PAGES 38-40
Vice, gambling, drinking, homesickness among
troops. Daughters of the regiments.

CHAPTER XXXIV ................ PAGES 84-8
Columbia burned. Sherman's march through th
Carolinas.

CHAPTER XV
PAGES 41-43
Wisconsin troops encounter guerrillas, Indians.

CHAPTER XXXV ................. PAGES 86-8.
Changes in Wisconsin during war. Speculator
head south. Hardships of soldiers' families.

CHAPTER XVI ......... .
The 1861 and 1862 Indian scares in Wiscon
Soldiers' experiences in far west.

CHAPTER XXXVI ................ PAGES 88-8'
Mobile captured. Problem of deserters.

CHAPTER XVII
Wisconsin woman persuades Lincoln to establish
northern hospitals. Medical care and lack of it.

CHAPTER XXXVII ............... PAGES 90-9:
Last desperate efforts of Confederates at Peters
burg. Lee surrenders.

CHAPTER XVIII . . . . . . . . . . . . .... PAGES 49-50
Battle of Murfreesboro. The T u I I ahoma
campaign.

CHAPTER XXXVIII ............. PAG.ES 92-9·
Wisconsin cavalrymen lose race to capture J ef
ferson Davis. Details of state's losses in the war

CHAPTER XVIX
....... PAGES 51-52
Fighting around Vicksburg and Port Gibson, as
Grant moves to open Mississippi.

CHAPTER XXXIX ............... PAGES 94-9t
Wisconsin soldiers join victory parades in Wash
ington, with Sherman's midwesterners stealini
the show.

CHAPTER XX
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGES 53-55
Vicksburg and Port Hudson captured.

1

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-Painting by Einar V. Quist, a Journal Art

Battle of Bull Run
IN ITS first taste of the bitterness of war-

account of themselves, charging up almost
to the top of the hill twice before being beaten back by Gen. Stonewall Jackson's troops.

fare, the 2nd Wisconsin volunteer infantry regiment stormed up Henry House hill
at the first battle of Bull Run, in July, 1861.
The men marched proudly from Camp Randall in Madison, wearing fine gray uniforms
supplied by the state of Wisconsin. Those
uniforms were too much like the ones worn
by the Rebels, however, and before the battle was over the unfortunate Wisconsin volunteers were shot at by both sides. Inexperienced as they were, they gave a good

In the retreat, which soon afterward turned
into a rout, the Wisconsin troops and others
under Gen. William Sherman withdrew in
good order and fought rear guard actions.
The 2nd Wisconsin was to know more defeats, but also to taste victory, while losing a
greater percentage of its men in battle than
any other Union regiment in the Civil war.

3

The Civil War·'"' 1.
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State Lost 11,000 Young Men on Battlefields;
Conflict Brought Econom,t~q(l~d Political Stfects
Chapter I
There were then
sin regiments-about
-in the east, but only
Wisconsin volunteer
participated in the
a time, it was shot at by
sides.

COMMEMORATING the centennial of a tragedy which
I Ncost
more American lives than any other three wars com-

bined, Wisconsin is at a geographical disadvantage.
Twenty million tourists are expected to visit the battlefields during each of the four years of the Civil war's IOOth
anniversary. States where battles were fought are cashing inand if there was no real battle,
In the north, it is a matter of Failed to Act
a skirmish will do to impress
be
pride to have had a grandfather
the visitors.
Another
Wisconsin
unit,
comchariee
to
Wisconsin has no battle- who fought in the war. In the posed of 90 day men nearly They had no need to fret.
south,
it
is
more
than
pride.
It
fields where families can stroll
ready to go home and talk about regiment in. the next fotit
is a social necessity.
among the graves or picnic betheir adventures, was part of a would lose a greater perc~ntal!e ·
Only in the weeks prior to the force whose failure to act lost of its men in battle than
side the stacked cannon balls,
some of which may have be- first battle of Bull Run did the the battle for the Union.
other unit in the Union armies.
men who volunteered to whip
headed a Confederate or the
The 2nd Wisconsin, part of·
The
1,051
men
of
the
2nd
WisConfederates consider
plowed a furrow through a themselves full time heroes. consin did not consider them- Sherman's brigade, marched
Union soldier's abdomen.
After the war began in earnest,
But the war affected Wis- there was less time for heroics,
consin, sharply altering the except now and then in letters
course of its history. It caused to the girls waiting in small
economic and political changes Wisconsin towns.
in the 13 year old state. It killed
11,000 of its young men. It dis- Battle ol Civilians
rupted the 1 i v e s of perhaps
It is symbolic of the rift the
65,000 others who put on uniforms, not to mention those war dramatized that, 100 years
who fled to avoid having to later, the battle of July 21, 1861,
is called one thing in the north,
fight.
another in the south. First Manassas the Confederates called
Heroes and Cowards
From the Rappahannock to it, and their descendants have
the Rio Grande, Wisconsin sol· seen no reason to back down.
The fight was between armed
jiers served in every battle
theater. Some died in obscure civilians, led largely by politi·
!)laces - Binnacker's Ridge, cians in uniform. William Te:;;. C., or Scatterville, Ark. Oth- cumseh Sherman, then an ob~rs fell in battles that became scure colonel, commanded the
'amous-Gettysburg, Antietam, only Wisconsin men there. In
his memoirs, he summed up the
:)hiloh and the rest.
kind
of army the Union sent to
Some behaved heroically.
3ome were cowards. Most of Bull Run. His description would
:hem simply did a necessary do equally well for the southern
ob, wishing it were over-and troops.
;vishing sometimes that they'd
"We had good organization,
1ad sense enough to do what good men; but no cohesion, no
>ther Wisconsin men did: real discipline, no respect for
Jodge the recruiting officer and authority, no real knowledge of
;tay home to make money from war."
On the eve of battle, Sher.he war.
In the last century, more has man wrote his wife, Ellen, that
>een written about the conflict he had no fear of the Confeder-Associated Press
-including m ore high flown ates but wouldn't be surprised
Gen.
William
T.
Sherman's
Wisconsin
and
New
York regi10nsense-than about any other if his awkward Wisconsin and
ments concentrated on the Henry House hill in their part
>hase of the nation's history. New York soldiers shot him by
rhe men who participated are accident. An irascible profesof the battle of Bull Run. The map shows the general sitriewed as a special breed.
sional, Sherman predicted that
uation and the line of Sherman's operation.
4

into Virginia with Gen. Irvin
McDowell's 35,000 men- a
mighty force that was expected
to crush the rebellion before
summer ended.
Half of the 2nd
soldiers were too
voted for
the year
away
ever fir~"
dangerous
had no use for army discipline
and paid little heed to their officers, most of whom knew
nothing of military matters.
Some of the men served in
local militia companies, whose
prewar activities had been confined to marching in Fourth of
July parades in Oshkosh, Janesville or Fox Lake. The time had
been too short since they joined
the army to permit extensive
training. McDowell, knowing
this, would have preferred to
w a i t, but President Lincoln
wanted to get some use of his
90 day regiments before they
left for home.
The Confederate s o 1 d i e r s
were no better prepared. It has
been estimated that only one of
every 8,000 bullets fired in the
first battle of Bull Run hit anybody.
Politics was the usual basis
for military promotion-a method that continued to a large extent throughout the war. S.
Park Coon, the 2nd's first colonel, had been picked because
he was a prominent Milwaukee
Democrat. The red b e a r d e d
Sherman considered him an
amiable fellow who "knew no
more of the military art than a
child" and had removed him
from command.

Accused of Running
In his place, Sherman put Lt.
Col. Henry Peck, a Green county man who had attended West
Point. Maj. Duncan McDonald,
a Milwaukee businessman, was
second in command.
Before many weeks, Coon,
Peck and McDonald would have
resigned their commissions, although Peck later returned to
the war as a captain of the 1st
Wisconsin heavy artillery, serving in occupied New Orleans.
Coon, attached to Sherman's
staff, behaved well enough in
the battle but Peck and McDonald were accused of having run.
The war was more than three
months old, but little fighting
had been done. There had been
small scale actions in Missouri
and what was to become West
Virginia. The 1st Wisconsin part of the 18,000 man army of
Gen. Robert Patterson, a venerable warrior and merchanthad on July 2 helped drive back
the Confederates in a skirmish
with Stonewall Jackson at Porterfield's farm near Falling Wa-

House hill be silenced. The men
from Oshkosh and Janesville,
from the mining country of
southwestern Wisconsin and the
farms near Portage were in the
valley, along the turnpike.

ters, Va., in the Shenandoah valley.
The first Wisconsin volunteer
die in a Civil war action fell
there. He was George C. Drake,
18, of Milwaukee. An only son,
he had promised his mother as
he left Camp Scott in his home
town 23 days before that nothing stronger than tea would ever
be carried in his canteen. As
far as the records show, he kept
his word.

Received Severe Fire

Sherman described what happened: "I ordered it (the 2nd
Wisconsin) to leave the roadway by the left flank .... This
regiment ascended to the brow
of the hill steadily, received the
severe f i r e of the enemy, returned it with spirit, and advanced delivering its fire."
These were, remember, civilians in uniform. It was the custom to advance at double quick
time in a long line, with regimental flags flying. It was not
then considered honorable for
the defending side to hide behind rocks or trees, but under
fire such notions were usually
abandoned and the defensive
team had the advantage.
By the time the 2nd reached
the hilltop, its line had been
thinned. Some men had fled.
Some had fallen. Some had
stopped to aid injured companions. The outmoded Belgian 2nd Left Hill
At any rate, the 2nd left the
hill a second time. One of Sherman's New York regiments-it
was composed of Scots, a few of
them wearing kilts-fared no
better. Neither did his New
York Irish regiment, which
knelt for a priest's blessing before following their green regimental flag up the hill. Jackson
was "standing like a stone wall"
and winning himself a nickname.
The 2nd spent about an hour
in the vicinity, shooting and
being shot. It was there that it
lost most of the 23 Wisconsin
.men who were killed that day.
Marion F. Humes of Janesville
was the first to die. He was 18
and had left Milton academy to
enlist.
-Milwaukee County Historical Society
Meanwhile, the 1st Wisconsin, with Patterson in the ShenGeorge C. Drake, the first
andoah valley, was expecting to
Wisconsin man killed in acbe ordered into battle to keep
tion in the Civil war.
the Rebels busy. But the order
rifles with which the Wisconsin didn't come. Southern soldiers
men were equipped were slow under Gen. Kirby Smith climbed
to load, inaccurate to shoot. The aboard railroad cars and headed
Rebel artillery was firing at east toward the fighting.
At 2 p.m., McDowell seemed
them from close range.
The 2nd Wisconsin wavered. to have the Rebels on the ropes.
The men milled about in con- Johnston said later he regarded
fusion, then started back down the Confederate situation as
"critical." The Union had all but
the hill.
won.

Walked Toward Battle
As the 2nd Wisconsin walked
toward the battlefield before
dawn on July 21, the situation
was this:
To the west, in the Shenandoah, Patterson was supposed
to keep 12,000 men under Gen.
Joseph T. Johnston occupied,
preventing reinforcement of the
army of Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard, massed near the junction of the Manassas gap and
the Orange and Alexandria railroads at Manassas. Much of the
Civil war was fought for control
of railroads. This battle was no
exception.
Johnston left his cavalrymen
to confuse Patterson and arrived
with part of his forces to join
Beauregard before the fighting
began, making the odds fairly
equal. Johnston, ranked by some
as one of the two best Confederate generals, assumed command.
McDowell ordered part of his
army, including the Wisconsin
troops, to feint an attack across
a stone bridge over Bull Run, a
creek about the size of the Menomonee river. The main part
of the Union f o r c e sneaked
across a mile farther north.
They advanced on the Confederate flank, pushing it back.

Poured In Reinforcements
As the southerners retreated
toward the Warrenton turnpike
in front of the bridge, both sides
poured in reinforcements. About
II a.m., the 2nd Wisconsin was
ordered across the stream. The
farm and s m a 11 town youths
moved forward readily enough.
They dislodged the rebels from
a woods and sent them scurrying to the top of Henry House
hill, where the southerners under Stonewall Jackson made a
stand.
With green men on both sides,
the battle was even more confused than such affairs usually
are. About two hours after the
2nd arrived on the firing line, a
Federal battery allowed a regiment of Virginians to co m e
within 20 feet before the artillerymen realized that the approaching faces weren't friendly. The battery was put out of
action.
That made it vital that Confederate c a n n on s on Henry

With bullets flying toward
them from Confederates on the
hill and Federals in the valley,
the Wisconsin soldiers started
yelling, swearing and waving
their muskets. By the time the
confusion had been straightened
out, the regiment was back
where it had started.
Sherman, puffing angrily on
his cigar, wasn't satisfied. He ordered the Wisconsin men up the
hill again. It was not an order
that they greeted with enthusiasm. Some of those who had
joined the first charge now
started drifting by twos and
threes to the rear. But most of
them stayed.
The line was re-formed. The
hill was retaken. What happened next is in dispute. Sherman said simply that, having
regained the hilltop, the regiment was "again repulsed in disorder." Some Wisconsin men
who fought there claimed that
the second retreat came because
of a misunderstanding of orders,
caused by the absence of officers who had discovered pressing business elsewhere.

Wore Gray Uniforms

Wisconsin and some other
northern states had provided
gray uniforms for their soldiers,
· instead of blue ones. Other
Union troops, seeing gray clad
Wisconsin men running do w n
the hill, assumed they were
Rebels.

5

Draw Sightseers
An hour later, the situation
was changed. S m i t h and his
commuters from the Shenandoah valley jumped off their
train and moved into action. The
weary northern soldiers retreated. The extent of the Union rout

has been overemphasized-some
regiments, including the 2nd
Wisconsin, appear to have departed in fairly orderly fashion
-but many soldiers threw down
their guns and ran.
A Confederate shell overturned a wagon on a bridge over
Cub run on the retreat route,
causing a traffic jam that contribt~ted to the growing panic.
Mules, horses, ambulances, supply wagons, musicians, servants
and the buggies of sightseers
who had journeyed out from
Washington with picnic baskets
jammed the road.
Sherman still had his command in hand. When it was attacked by Confederate cavalry
the men formed a hollow square
ringed with bayonets and kept
the horsemen at bay. The brigade moved back to Centerville
and camped there.

Its top officers were not to
be found, so Capt. David McKee, a Lancaster lawyer, was
appointed to take temporary
charge of the 2nd Wisconsin.
During the war, Grant county
was said to have sent a higher
percentage of its men into uniform than any other Wisconsin
county and McKee was a worthy representative.
Before leaving Lancaster, he
told the citizens: "If we ever
desert our flag, if ever we prove
recreant to the glorious cause,
then teach your children to lisp
their curses upon our names!"
McKee later became lieutenant colonel of the 15th Wisconsin, an Irishman among that
regiment's Norwegians, and was
shot in the forehead and killed
at the battle of Stones river in
Tennessee.

Didn't Linger Long
At their camp at Centerville,
. Sherman's
men fell into an exhausted sleep but were soon ordered up again. They reached
Fort Corcoran by noon of July
22, the day after the battle.
This camp was 25 miles from
Bull Run, so the men from Wisconsin must not have lingered
on the way. In later years, the
2nd regiment claimed to have
been the last to leave the field.
Part of McDowell's proud
army was now a disorganized
rabble. Most were content to
stop at Washington, but some
soldiers reportedly didn't slow
down until they reached New
York city.
The Confederates, nearly as
confused as the Union soldiers,
did not follow up their victory.
They were lulled into the belief
that one Rebel could whip five

Federals. In the north, there
was the morning after realization that oratory and threatening gestures would not be quite
enough.
Bl1t first, it was necessary to
coun~theJosses. The south had
1,989'c'a~uaities to 1,584 for the
north. But there were 1,312
Federal soldiers missing, compared to only l3t~n:federates.
The 2nd Wisconsin's 23 killed
and 65 wounded gave the regiment the fourth highest number of casualties on the Union
side. There were also 63 Wisconsin men missing.
Some of these had been captured. Some had decided Virginia's climate was not nearly
so healthy as they had supposed. They were on their way
to Canada or California or some
other place where targets didn't
shoot back.

Disunited North Girds for Battle
Attitudes on Negroes and State Rights Were Varied, but Enthusiasm
for War Soon Replaced Early Complacency and Overconfidence
In theory, most Wisconsinites bitterly that they had not gone
opposed slavery. But many had to war to free the Negroes, but
misgivings about what would to save the Union. They hated
happen if the institution were abolitionists as devoutly as they
did Confederates.
James H. Leonard, who enlisted in the 5th Wisconsin when
he was 18 and after the war became superintendent of schools
at Green Bay, wrote from Virginia to Mary Sheldon in Manitowoc to reassure her that freed
Negroes would not come north.
"I think there is very little
danger of that. The southern climate is better suited to them
and if they can live there as free
people and get paid for their labor, they will stay there in preference to coming up north.

Chapter II
ambiguous attitude of Wisconsin residents toward the
T HE
Negro in the Civil war era is illustrated by the actions of
two Milwaukee mobs. Each broke into jail seeking a Negro
prisoner. But there the similarity ends.
One mob was composed of abolitionists. It smashed down
the door, brushed aside Sheriff Samuel Conover and rescued a
slave being held for return to his St. Louis owner. The Negro,
Joshua Glover, was paraded through Milwaukee streets on a
wagon, shouting "Glory Hallelujah," then put on a schooner lived in small towns or on farms.
Milwaukee had fewer than 50,for Canada.
000 people. No other city had
The second mob was com- more than 8,000. The northern
)Osed of I r i s h immigrants half of the state was mostly un'rom Milwaukee's "B I o o d y broken forest, with a scattering
of loggers, trappers and Indians.
fhird" ward. Two Negroes
1ad been thrown in jail in the Few Negroes in State
'all of 1861 after a fight with
When the war began, the av:wo Irishmen in which one of erage Wisconsin resident had
:he whites was killed. The never seen a Negro. A few
nob dragged them out. One slaves had been brought here by
their owners-the first territorial
~egro escape d. The other,
governors had owned some-but
JVer the protests of Sheriff slavery had never been an im:::harlcs Larkin, was lynched. portant factor in the state. The
Wisconsin was then 13 years underground railroad, w h i c h
>ld. Of the 23 states remaining smuggled Negroes north, was
n the Union, only eight were less active here than in many
nore populous. Nearly all of northern states, mainly for geoN"isconsin's 800,000 residents graphical reasons.

Ill Will Toward East
Gov. Alexander Randall
abolished. Immigrants - Germans, Irish and Norwegians,
with small numbers of other nationalities - were particularly
concerned. They feared the competition of cheap labor if the
south's 3,500,000 slaves were
turned loose.
In their letters and diaries,
some Wisconsin soldiers wrote

6.

"For my part, I want to see
the whole lot of them out of the
country altogether. The idea is
preached by the Copperheads up
north that we are now fighting
to free the slaves. The exact reverse is true. We free the slaves
to stop the fighting."
There was also a large reservoir of ill will toward the eastern states. The suggestion,
whispered throughout the war,

F

.hat the "northwest"-now the
niddle west-secede and form
ts own government was ..not re~arded as nearly as fantastic
hen as it seems now.
The right of a state to
:he Union was not a
,
nvention. At
llew England
!red breaking
>f the natien,.
t became a
1ad angrily announced its intenion of withdrawing.
While a territory, Wisconsin
:ent a note to Washington
hreatening to leave the Union
>ecause Illinois and Michigan
1ad been given parts of it. No
me paid much attention to the
hreat. It was put in a pigeontole and forgotten by everyone
>Ut the writers of historical foottotes. Congress was so little
:oncerned that it went blithely
thead and gave another chunk
>f Wisconsin to Minnesota.
~ites

State Rights

86,110 to 65,021 margin. But
Wisconsin's largest city remained an anti-Lincoln strongthroughout the war, as did
Ozaukee and Washingcounties.
Although the state was split
over the questions of both slavery and secession, on the surface
there was unity in the months
just before and just after the
war began. Congressman John
F. Potter of Wisconsin was a
hero for standing up to a Virginia secessionist, Roger A.
Pryor.
Offended by Potter's blunt
language, Pryor challenged him
to a duel. Potter said he'd be
glad to oblige as long as he
could choose the weaponsbowie knives. Pryor backed
down. The Wisconsin congressman became known as Bowie
Knife Potter.
In his inaugural address, Gov.
Alexander Randall of Waukesha
declared that any attempt at national disunion should be "rewarded with a halter." As the
nation stumbled toward a war
that would cost it more than
600,000 lives, there was indignation in the state over the action of a former resident.
Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Twiggs,
who had been commandant of
Forts Howard and Winnebago,
surrendered $1,250,000 worth of
federal property to the Rebels
in Texas on Feb. 18, 1861-nearly two months before the firing
on Fort Sumter. Twiggs soon
was an officer in the Confederate army.

In the lengthy prewar legal
naneuvering that resulted from
he freeing of the slave Glover,
he Wisconsin supreme court inisted on state rights. It ruled
t federal law, the fugitive slave
.ct, unconstitutional. It advised
Jncle Sam to keep his nose out
,f the sovereign state of Wis:onsin.
The case at issue involved an
.bolitionist, Sherman W. Booth,
ditor of the Wisconsin Free
Proud Wisconsin citizens nicknamed the 2nd Wisconsin
>emocrat, who galloped around
infantry regiment the "Bloody 2nd" after the first battle
t1ilwaukee when Glover was arof
Bull Run in which 23 of its men were killed in action.
ested shouting: "Freemen to
Others were wounded or missing and the state was deterhe rescue! Slave catchers in our
:1idst." The state court was ul- Davis Served in State
mined to bring the regiment back to full strength, while
Wisconsin also reluatantly
imately overruled by the United
alSO recruiting new regimentS. -Milwaukee County Historical Society
:tates supreme court and, after cIa i me d President Jefferson
scaping and being recaptured,
looth finally spent a short time
11 prison before President Buhanan pardoned him.
The sides that were taken in
he Booth case were ironically
imilar to those that resulted
rom the desegregation fight in
outhern states a century later.
Wisconsin stood on s t a t e
ights, contending that federal
:tw could not be applied withut its consent. Washington relied that the national statutes
1ere paramount. The chief diference between the situation
hen and now is that the federal
overnment was on the opposite
ide of the Negro question.
In 1860, three of each five Millaukee voters ignored a jolly
~epublican song, "Doug, Doug
; a Used Up Bug," and voted
lr the northern Democratic
andidate, Stephen A. Douglas,
rho felt that slavery would
-state Historical Society (Right)
radually go away if nobody
Men who had newsworthy roles in the war
Walworth county who made a laughing
:>eked the boat.
days included (from left) John C. Starkstock of a southern congressman who had
weather of Milwaukee, who commanded
:plit Over Slavery
challenged him to a duel, and Sherman
the 1st Wisconsin regiment as a colonel
Booth of Milwaukee, editor and abolitionThe Republican party had
and later became a brigadier general; John
een born in Ripon and its canist who was a cause of trouble between
idate carried the state by an
Fox Potter, a member of congress from
Wisconsin and the federal courts.

)~~~·

/

7

-Milwaukee County Historical Society

question. The man on horseback is Sherman Booth, fiery
Milwaukee editor of the Free Democrat. He roused the
people to free Joshua Glover, Negro who had been imprisoned preliminary to being returned to slavery.

Milwaukeeans rioted against the "slave catchers" prior to
the Civil war. The action, depicted in this painting by
Clarence B. Monegar, was a symbol of the tense relations
that existed between the north and south on the slave
Davis of the Confederacy as a
former r e s i d e n t. Davis had
served under Twiggs as a young
lieutenant at Fort Crawford,
Prairie du Chien.
If the war had begun 10 years
before-perhaps even five-Wisconsin might have been more reluctant to support it. Until the
railroads inched out from Milwaukee to the western part of
the state, farmers had depended
on the Mississippi river to transport wheat, then the state's principal product.
But shortly before the war began, the railroads crossed the
state and ended the north-south
orientation of its economy.
When the Confederates closed
the river, it no longer mattered
so much to Wisconsin farmers,
who had .already started shipping their produce east by rail.
After Fort Sumter fell, in
April, 1861, there was a great
outpouring of sentiment in favor of the Union all over the
north, Wisconsin included. Randall, like most other northern
governors, was soon pleading
with Lincoln to be allowed to
send more troops than Washington had requested.

cers remained with the north,
but southerners had held most
of the top military positions.
When they left, vacancies appeared that were not adequately
filled until the war was half
over.
The south was to fight mainly
a defensive war on its own soil.
As invaders, the northern armies
faced c i vi 1 i an hostility and
lengthening lines of communication. And the ambiguity in the
northerners' own a t t i t u d e s
toward slavery and secession,
hidden at first by patriotic oratory, would prove a formidable
handicap to victory.
The Confederate army at the
start of the war included 36,000
volunteers and state militiamen.
Recruiting was begun Mar. 6 to
bring the force to 100,000.

He was deluged by volunteers. Some had to be turned
down. The time would soon
come when the north would
wish it had taken every volunteer it could get, but no one yet
realized what a bloody business
lay ahead.

Reason lor Complacency
If the north was complacent,
it had reason. The 23 northern
and border states had a population of 23 million, compared
with six million whites in the
11 states which seceded. The
north had most of the factories.
Its farmers turned out edible
crops, rather than cotton. On
paper, the Union had 90 navy
vessels, the south none. The
Union army, except for 286 officers who resigned and headed
south, remained loyal.
But the odds were not as one
sided as they looked. Of the
navy's 90 ships, only a few were
ready for b a t t 1e. The army
totaled only 16,367 officers and
men, most of them busy fighting
Indians or guarding the Canadian border. More than twothirds of the commissioned offi-

Part of First Force

90 day regiments, it accom·
plished little. Fortunately, Gov.
Randall r e f u s e d to listen to
Washington's requests to stop
recruiting and went right ahead
with organization of the 2nd
Wisconsin infantry.
By May, second and soberer
thoughts had occurred to the
Lincoln administration. Another
43,034 volunteers were called
for; not for three months but
for three years. Some Wisconsin militiamen, who had been
eager for a 90 day southern holiday, didn't like the three year
proviso. They went back home.
Others took their places and the
2nd and 3rd Wisconsin regiments were quickly filled.
Then, on July 4, 1861, Lincoln asked for 500,000 more men
and for the rest of the four year
war the army was willing to
take as many soldiers as it could
get.

Lincoln's first call for troops
on Apr. 15, 1861, asked for only Boy CarTied a Drum
75,000 volunteers, to be musMedical examinations were
tered out after 90 days. The 1st
Wisconsin, which marched off sketchy enough so a few women
to the railroad station escorted enlisted, posing as men. Theoby the Madison Turnverein, was retically, the age limits were 18
part of this force. Like other to 45, but Rufus Brockway, a

8

veteran of the War of 1812,
served eight months with the
17th Wisconsin, although he
was 73.
If a boy was too small to
carry a rifle he could carry a
drum. A Racine lad of 12 cwith
the spirited name of Johnnie
Walker was a drummer boy with
the 22nd Wisconsin. His mother
made him a uniform just like the
Jfficers wore.
Now and then a father would
hurry to court for a writ of
ilabeas corpus to force a regiment to give up his underage
mn. But usually the enlistments
were allowed to stand, even
vvhen the soldier was 15 or even
{ounger.
Enthusiasm for the war was
;atching. In the c h u r c h e s,
>reachers s a v e d their most
:hunderous rhetoric to whip up
:he congregations. A Wauwa. o s a Congregational minister
;aid that God was "g r e a t 1y
>leased to see the grand uprising
1f the country to sustain its govlrnment." The Rev. J. C. Roblins of Spring Street Methodist
hurch, Milwaukee, likened slavlry to Jonah, who was thrown
1verboard to save the ship. The
~ev. N.D. Graves of Beloit prelicted that "bolts heated with
musual wrath will smite the
vretches."
The women met to roll bandges and to prepare lint by

scraping cloth into its fibers, distant points as Sun Prairie,
used in place of absorbent cot- riding in wagons with waving
banners. The women brought
ton.
chickens, lambs, ham, vegeWar Books Popular
tables, butter, cream, eggs, cake,
War books were sold as fast jelly, pies.
as stores could stock them.
School yards were converted Cheers lor the Ladies
into miniature camp grounds.
Before the meal, the regiProminent citizens vied with ments gave three rousing cheers
each other in making speeches for the ladies, as well they
about their own patriotism- might. After the food was gone,
Harrison C. Hobart of Graves- there was dancing on the parade
ville, Calumet county, to cite grounds, with 6,000 civilians on
one example out of hundreds, hand.
proclaimed: "I would rather fill
Gaiety was not universal,
a soldier's grave than stay at however. One girl, afraid of
home a coward." He then what the future held, declared:
marched off to war, a lieutenant "I feel as though I were going
colonel.
to dance on their graves.''
Enlistment rallies were held
The women busied themselves
in many Wisconsin small towns. making quilts. Some of these
At one, a girl pledged that un- had the names and addresses of
less her escort, John, enlisted the donors sewn on, in case a
she would never kiss him again. handsome soldier might like to
John was a man who thought write. Other quilts contained
for himself. He still refused embroidered verses, such as this
to go.
one:
A Waushara county woman,
overcome by patriotism, de- "If rebels attack you,
Do run with the quilt
clared she was glad her husband
And safe to some
had enlisted, "and if I had another husband, I'd send him,
fortress convey it.
too.''
For o'er the gaunt body
Nothing was too good for the
Of some old Secesh
soldiers. In July, 1861, Madison
We do not intend to
held a party for the men of the
display it."
4th and 5th Wisconsin regiSoldiers were provided with
ments, then at Camp Randall.
Farm families came from such a comfort bag, also called a

housewife or "hussy." It contained needles, thread, buttons,
yarn, pins, a darning needle,
sometimes such home remedies
as cayenne pepper.
The Wisconsin volunteers
were promised $13 a month,
plus a $52 clothing allowance.
The state also pledged $5 a
month to soldiers' wives and $2
a month for each child. Local
c om m u n i t i e s, counties or
wealthy citizens often promised
additional help. The soldiers
soon found their pay came only
occasionally, and the allotments
to dependents were even more
uncertain.
Wisconsin met its first year's
quota of 20,000. Some of these
men would fight better than others, and, as with other states,
there were hundreds of deserters from Wisconsin to counterbalance those who did their duty
well.
But Gen. W. T. Sherman, a
crusty fellow who did not give
praise lightly, was well pleased
with those northwestemers who
served under him. Wisconsin, he
wrote after the war, kept her
regiments filled with recruits,
instead of organizing new ones.
"And the result was," Sherman said, "that we estimated a
Wisconsin regiment equal to an
ordinary brigade."

Soldiers' First Foe: Bank Rioters
Vildcat Bankers' Practice of Issuing Nearly Worthless Money Caused
Financial Panics, Militant Marches by Disgruntled Workmen
actually worth no more than the
paper and ink that made them.
The bank that issued a dollar
was supposed to be willing to
replace it with real money if
the holder came to the bank in
person and started waving his
arms around. But the wildcatters made sure such demands
for payment would be few.

Chapter III
VJHILE the early recruiting for the Civil war was proceed-

W ing in Wisconsin and its first soldiers were heading south,
1e state found itself in the most serious financial panic in its
istory.
Before the crisis was over, some newly inducted soldiers
3.d to fix bayonets and prevent rioting on Milwaukee's
:reets. The trouble stemmed from an amazingly casual attitde toward the issuance of money. Almost anyone with $25,)0 to buy state bonds could
.
;tablish himself as a bank only one purpose: To prmt
1d start printing dollars.
money as rapidly as possible.
Dollars from such "wildcat"
If the bank backed i~s cur~ncy with something besides banks were often accepted only
ry optimism, t h i s system at a discount-but what matter?
orked well enough. But nu- The banker knew the dollars for
.erous banks grew up with which he could get 50c were

Used Children's Names
Some had their nominal headq u. a r t e r s in the middle of
swamps and forests. To throw
searchers off the scent, one La
Crosse banker stamped "Bank
of Green Bay" on his notes.
Fictitious names or the names
of children were signed to some
of the currency. Communities
9

in which certain banks were
supposedly 1 o c a t e d did not
exist.
The small, isolated lumber
town of Eau Claire was a favorite location of the wildcatters,
on the theory that few of those
who held the dollars would
travel that far to redeem them.
A few months before the war,
Eau Claire banks had $534,764
in circulation. The relatively
strong banks in Milwaukee had
a mere $86,521.
Notes from 10,000 American
and Canadian banks were in circulation, as well as numerous
counterfeits. A merchant who
was offered such m o n e y drawn, let's say, on a bank in
Oswego, N Y., or Putney, Vt.-

had no way of knowing what Wisconsin monetary structure fusing to honor currency from
the dollar bill was worth, if any- collapsed.
20 of the discredited 40.
thing. Publications were issued
About a week before the fir"
listing banks and what percent- ing on Fort Sumter, Chicago Payment Suspended
age of a d o 11 a r their dollars
Dollars from these banks
were really worth, but this was
went begging at 50c. A million
only a partial solution.
dollars of paper money had
been all but wiped out, a stagBanks Faced With Ruin
gering blow in an era when $5
Even without the war, the
a week was enough to raise a
system would have doubtless
family.
collapsed. But when the southThe state legislature suspendern states began to leave the
ed specie payments. T h i s did
Union, Wisconsin banks were
more harm than good - there
faced with sudden ruin.
was then no way to tell for sure
By state law, even t h o s e
what a bank dollar was worth.
bankers who were honest had
Milwaukee merchants closed
been required to back their curtheir doors to avoid taking in
rency with bonds issued by
money. People rushed about
states paying a high rate of inseeking to pay up old debts.
terest. The most solvent states
Those they owed pleaded - in
-New York, especially, and
fact, insisted - that they didn't
New England states-didn't need
want to be repaid just yet.
to pay 6% or more on their borThe Wisconsin Bankers' assorowings. But Missouri, Virginia,
ciation
threw 41 of the least solTennessee, North Carolina and
-Milwaukee County Historical Society
vent
banks
to the wolves, hopLouisiana-close to bankruptcy
ing
to
save
the other 70, It
Banker
Alexander
Mitchell
even before the war-paid high
underwrote
more
than two milinterest rates. These states was the target of rocks when lion dollars in currency
issued
accounted for 75% of the Wishe tried to calm crowds.
70
banks.
Actually,
by
these
consin banks' bond holdings.
this money was backed by
Four of the five joined the bankers announced they would bonds worth less than 50c on
Confederacy. Missouri became no longer accept notes from 40 the dollar. But the citizens,
a battleground, with both sides of the 111 Wisconsin banks. thoroughly confused, assumed
fighting to hold it. At once, the Milwaukee bankers, on the fol- the bankers knew what they
bonds supporting the s h a k y lowing day, compromised by re- were doing and accepted the

guarantee. The panic temporarily subsided.
Then 10 of the 70 banks
closed, and eight others considered doing so. The Milwaukee banks, deluged by worthless paper from these institutions, decided it was a cheice
between going back on their
pledged word or bankruptcy.

Delay Enrages Workmen
On June 21, 1861, the bankers
decided not to accept any more
currency from the 10 defunct
banks. But they waited until
after the close of business on
June 22, a Saturday, to announce the deeision.
This delay enraged workmen
who had accepted their wages
in good faith that Saturday in
money that was now nearly
worthless. G e r m a n s on the
northwest side of Milwaukee
were especially disturbed.
All day Sunday, they met in
their homes and on street corners to discuss the situation and
curse the bankers roundly in
two languages. On Monday, a
crowd assembled on the north
side. Led by a band, with drums
banging and horns blaring, it
marched to the office of the
Wisconsin Marine and Fire In-

-Milwaukee County Historical Society

Mobs wrecked Milwaukee banks on June 24, 1861, after
the financial institutions refused to accept paper money
from defunct banks. The wages of thousands of men were
suddenly worthless, and the situation became ugly. It took
determined men like these cannoneers, with their field

pieces aimed down the streets, to quiet the citizens. Soldiers in training at Milwaukee and Racine faced down
their fellow citizens before turning their guns on the southern foe. This artillery unit, posing in a rare picture at a
Milwaukee camp, is unidentified.

10

surance Co., predecessor of the
Marine National Exchange bank.
Alexander Mitchell, the leading figure at the bank and in
Milwaukee railroading, c a m e
outside to try to calm the mob.
He was hooted down. Noting
that the outnumbered police
seemed to prefer to remain out
of action, he fled after a rock
narrowly missed his head.
The crowd surged into Mitchell's bank and adjoining ones,
smashing furniture, tossing papers about and enjoying a full
scale riot. Furnishings were
dragged out on the sidewalk and
set afire. There was talk of
stringing up a few bankers or,
at the very least, giving them a
free ride to Wauwatosa on a
rail.

Trouble Wasn't Over
When armed soldiers then in
training in Milwauket arrived,
the mob dispersed. But the
trouble wasn't over. Durin& the
next week, there were rumors
that near-by farmers had organized posses to invade Milwaukee's banking district and
complete the wreckage.
Several c a n n o n were stationed on strategic corners. On
July 1, a procession of 500
farmers and laborers, led by a
German riding a horse and waving a sword, converged on the
banks. But when they saw the
cannon and noted that 400 men
of the 4th Wisconsin were prepared to do battle, the invaders
lost their enthusiasm and went
home.
Mitchell and other leading
bankers finally worked out a
method to restore the currency.
The banks agreed to purchase
most of the $1,250,000 in bonds
which Wisconsin had been unsuccessfully trying to sell to pay
its war costs. Eastern financial
interests would have nothing to
do with the bonds because of
Wisconsin's poor reputation for
repaying d e b t s - a reflection
largely of some complicated prewar troubles over railroad financing.
By buying the state bonds, the
bankers gave their currency a
more stable base a n d at the
same time enabled the state
to finance its troops. Being
good bankers, Mitchell and his
friends demanded a high rate
of interest for their trouble, but
the arrangement restored faith
in the currency.

-Milwaukee County Historical Society

Milwaukee was a fast growing city of some
45,000 persons when the Civil war broke
out. It was proud of its progress and it
saw a great future ahead. Crowds of citizens had turned out, and the fire depart-

Money Later Redeemed
The money issued by the 10
discredited banks was eventually redeemed-although by then
the farmers and laborers had
generally sold it for a few cents
on the dollar to "rag speculators."
In November, another wave
of excitement was caused by an
unfounded rumor that the 10
banks were to be repudiated
again. The rumor was reportedly started by money speculators
and was given currency by the
Chicago Tribune under a headline, "More Trouble With Wisconsin Stumptail."
But the banks .survived this
new trouble. Not until 1865,
when state money was being replaced by national bank notes,
did the speculators make another killing.
In Wisconsin's lead and zinc
region, where mining received a
new lease on life from the war,

11

ment had its gleaming steam water pumpers on display, when the new Broadway
bridge over the Milwaukee river was dedicated in 1860. The bridge swung parallel
with the river to let ships through.

gold was the only acceptable
currency during these years. All
over the state, problems arose
from the lack of metal coins,
which were hoarded on the sensible assumption that they were
worth more than paper.
Merchants, forced to find a
way to make change, issued
their o w n money - "shinplasters" in denominations of 5, 10,
25 or 50c. Most of these were
secured by not h in g but the
merchant's signature and his
promise to accept them at face
value.

Stamps Legal Tender
Where merchants were reputable and solvent, this worked
out all right. But the temptation
to issue their own mor.ey was
too great to be ignored by numerous other Wisconsinites.
"One horse a u c t i o n e e r s,
butchers, saloon keepers, bootblacks, loafers and everyone
who is without money goes into

this business extensively," a
contemporary a c co u n t said.
"Some are too lazy to let us
know who they are and merely
sign the initials of their names."
As the war continued, congress made postage stamps legal
tender. But the stamps tended
or blow away on windy ones.
finally, Washington issued
"postal currency" for denominations under a dollar, making
them in the shape of miniature
bank notes.
These drove out the "shinplasters," which had by then become illegal. And federal greenbacks, a handy way to finance
t:he war, gradually replaced the
locally issued money.
With Milwaukee once more at
peace after the 1861 rioting, the
soldiers who had enlisted to
fight Confederates were free to
go south to where the Union
was gathering its forces. The
cannons which had been put in
place to defend the banks were
taken away for other uses.

State Troops Jailed Lawmakers
Southern Sympathizers Foiled in Their Attempt
to Vote Maryland Into the Confederacy
the Dane County Guards. Wives
of some of the officers traveled
with the regiment.

Chapter IV
sympathizers among the Maryland legislators
SOUTHERN
met secretly at Frederick on Sept. 17, 1861, to vote their
border state out of the Union.
In marched soldiers of the 3rd Wisconsin infantry, carrying
loaded muskets, accompanied by detectives. Soon the lawmakers were imprisoned at Fort McHenry, and Maryland
remained a somewhat relucout number" came to "welcome
tant part of the United States us and wait upon our needs,"
throughout the Civil war.
one of the volunteers noted enThe battle of the legislative thusiastically in his diary.
At Hagerstown, Md., the regihalls was a bloodless prelude
ment
was issued old Springfield
to the 3rd Wisconsin's career.
m u s k e t s. Originally smooth
The regiment was to fight 15
major battles, including Antietam, Gettysburg and Atlanta.
Unlike many of the newly organized units, the 3rd was led
WA"T~D,
by men who knew one end of a
...
A 14 •
rifle from the other• Its colonel ' State
'00 Flym~
abl~ bodied me" wanted to fill Up the Badge•
Art1llery, ~signed
tbf' Wis. hrt
Charles s. Hamilton, was a Reg't (CoL Stackweathe.-.)
l'he batterv will consist o!
West Pointer, as was Lt. Col.
6 GUNS.
Thomas H. Ruger. Hamilton,
155 MEN.
Ruger and seven of the regi110 HORSES.
ment's 10 Original Captains
Wtwtt•d, 2 Bugler., 2 Harness Makers, 2 Wagou
were veterans of the Mexican Makeco, 2 ~i~m~tsQ~J..~;';.Rs
Un Mn.in St. North of Wisconsiu, at the la.W Ta.nglf'
war.
M<'Crftcken'F< Oyeter shanty,

f1YIN& ARTILLERY!

VOLUNTEERS

t,o

Included 10 Companies
As was true of other Wisconsin infantry regiments, the 3rd
was composed of 10 companies
of about 100 men each. Anumber of these had been local militia companies. Many of the men
had originally signed up for
t h r e e months' service, but
stayed when the term was extended to three years.
Lumbermen, farmers and miners made up the bulk of the regiment. In mid-June, they went
into camp about a mile from
Fond du Lac. Before being mustered into the Federal forces,
the state gave the soldiers light
gray uniforms. But these were
of such poor quality that within 10 days it was necessary to
issue the regiment blue overalls.
On July 11, 1861, the 3rd Wisconsin b o a r d e d 24 railroad
coaches and headed east. At
Buffalo, N. Y., hundreds of residents turned out to get a look at
the "wild woodsmen of the
northwest." At Williamsport,
Pa., tables filled with food were
set up along the sidewalk to
feed the men. "Fair ladies with-

R. R. GRIFFITH. Captain.
"d',h,·o.ull~

W\s. !l.usr. :?9th, 1861.

-Milwaukee County IDstorical Society

After the Ist Wisconsin (three
month) regiment was disbanded, a new regiment was organized for three years' service.
This poster sought men for a
fast moving light artillery battery. Note the varied skills
needed to make it a success.
bores, these muzzle loaders had
been rifled to permit use of ammunition named for Capt. Minie
of the French army-an elongated bullet made of soft lead,
about an inch long, pointed at
one end and hollowed out at the
base.
Such muskets were typical of
those available along with British Enfields a nd outmoded
weapons so 1 d to the United
States by Belgium, Austria and
other European nations. They
could be loaded and fired twice
a minute. The maximum range
was 1,000 yards. The accuracy,
even in the hands of an expert,
was uncertain.
The companies bore s u c h
names as the Watertown Rifles,
the Green County Volunteers,

12

the Southerners left, six Wiscon·
sin men were killed.
Hamilton was soon promoted
to brigadier general and Ruger
Went to Harper's Ferry
took command of the regiment.
It was not until October, It spent the late fall and early
1861, that the 3rd Wisconsin w i n t e r guarding Frederick,
got regulation blue uniforms. where the girls were friendly
Some regiments, even a f t e r and the duty pleasant.
they were issued the Federal
clothing, preferred to wear the Recruited Cavalry Units
gray s u i t s supplied by the
In the early weeks of the war,
states, in spite of the danger of when recruits flocked to the
being mistaken for Confeder- colors, Washington discouraged
ates. Much of the clothing wholesale volunteering. But by
was of shoddy material. But the midsummer of 1861, the tune
3rd, having long since worn had changed. Recruits were
holes in the poor quality cloth now welcome, but the enthusiprovided in Fond du Lac, ac- asm for putting on a uniform
cepted the new uniforms thank- was diminishing with the realifully.
zation that the war would not
The regiment missed the first end by fall.
battle of Bull Run, although it
Even so, Gov. Alexander W.
was near by in northern Vir- Randall was able to write Presiginia. In October, 1861, a por- dent Lincoln that Wisconsin had
tion of the 3rd saw action. six regiments of infantrymen
About 200 Wisconsin men, with organized by July 1 and that the
others from Massachusetts and 7th and 8th Wisconsin would
Pennsylvania, went to Harper's be mustered in after the fall
Ferry to keep a store of wheat harvest. Randall told Lincoln he
out of enemy hands.
would prefer not to take these
Rebel soldiers appeared, post- men away from the fields just
ing themselves on B o 1i v a r yet, unless the emergency was
heights, where their guns over- urgent.
The Wisconsin soldiers were
looked the Union supply route.
The Union soldiers moved for- equipped, except for arms. As
ward to drive them out. Before for these, the governor ex-

-state Historical Society (right)

A West Point graduate, Lt. Col. Thomas H. Ruger (left), of
Janesville, was second in command of the 3rd Wisconsin
when it was formed in 1861. He later became a general.
Charles J. Robinson of Milwaukee was a second lieutenant in company G, 1st Wisconsin regiment.

plained, the prices were too
high for Wisconsin to afford
them. Randall told the president
he would be obliged if I,500 or
2,000 muskets could be given to
the state. These were needed
to take care of such internal
matters as the recent Milwaukee bank riots.
Recruiting was going forward
for cavalry units as well as infantry. A Milwaukeean, Gustav
von Deutsch, found 84 other
residents who could stay on a
horse and rode off to Missouri
to fight ·bushwhackers. The
group became part of the 5th
Missouri cavalry. Other Wisconsin men joined artillery units.
The recruiting for what became company G of Col. Hiram
Berdan's sharpshooters w a s
more specialized. Berdan, a New
Yorker, could put five successive shots within a IO inch circle at I,SOO feet. He set out to
organize a regiment of other
marksmen.
Four of the companies came
from New York, three from
Michigan, one each from New
Hampshire, Vermont and Wisconsin. W. P. Alexander of Be-

loit, a good shot himself, toured
the state holding rifle contests.
To be accepted, a man had to hit
a five inch circle IO consecutive
times from 200 yards.

Had Special Uniforms
The Wisconsin company of
I 07 men was issued the sharpshooters' special uniform- a
dark green coat and cap with
light blue trousers. The soldiers
were given special knapsacks
made of calf hide with the hair
left on, and later received
breechloading rifles.
With a similar regiment organized later, the sharpshooters
were used as skirmishers and
in guarding the "pioneers"soldiers or, later, freed slaves
who built bridges, cleared roads
and performed similar chores.
Berdan's riflemen also were useful in picking off enemy artillery
soldiers.
Camps were established for
the recruits in Milwaukee and
most other cities, but Camp
Randall on the old fairgrounds
in Madison was the principal
one. Facilities were not ideal.

Berdan's sharpshooters, an elite regiment detailed for spe-

The food was poor. Barracks
were former cattle barns. The
8th regiment came close to mutiny when told it would have to
do its own cooking in camp.
Some of the men relieved the
monotony by getting in trouble
in town. The route to downtown
Madison was lined with saloons.
Whisky sold for as little as
40c a quart. When the money
ran out, the men sometimes
ganged up on the proprietor and
helped themselves.
The Madison jail was full of
uniformed celebrants most of
the time. Officers were inexperienced. Their orders were
frequently ignored by the soldiers.

Colonels Were Politicians
The men were accustomed to
the free and easy life of rural
Wisconsin, where one man was
as good as another. They had
no intention of letting so m e
"pumpkin rind" second lieutenant tell them what to do.
The colonels had generally
been important figures in prewar Wisconsin politics. Amasa
Cobb, commander of the 5th

Wisconsin, for instance, h a d
been speaker of the assembly.
Before the war ended, he would
be elected to congress.
As a legislator, Cobb was offered a $IO,OOO bribe in connection with a land grant for the
La Crosse and Milwaukee railroad. Such bribes were commonplace, but Cobb took offense. He said the price was too
low.
"Tell Byron Kilbourn," Cobb
informed the lobbyist, "that if
he'll raise the offer to $10,000,000 and then have himself,
Moses Strong an d Alexander
Mitchell black their faces and
work as my servants the rest of
their lives, I might consider the
proposition."
From then on, Amasa was
known as "Honest" Cobb.

1sf Is Reorganized
The I s t Wisconsin, having
marched off to war as a 90 day
regiment, marched back again
when its time was up and di&banded. It was then reorganized under its same colonel,
John C. Starkweather of Milwaukee, whose luxuriant mus-

.ment put on a demonstration in September, 1861, for Gen.
George McClellan, Union commander, and leading citizens of Washington. This drawing by Arthur Lumley,
special artist for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper,
-New York Public Llbraey
showed the demonstration.

cial combat duties, was composed of one Wisconsin com-

pany, three from Michigan, four from New York and one
each from New Hampshire and Vermont. Formed early in
the war of men who passed marksmanship tests, the regi13

tache merged with his side
whiskers. The regiment moved
to Kentucky, which Washington was trying hard to keep in
the Union.
By the time the armies went
into winter camp in 1861 to
await more favorable fighting
weather, Wisconsin had sent 11
infantry regiments out of the
state.
The 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th
infantry were near Washington.
the 1st and lOth were in Kentucky, the 8th and 11th in Missouri, the 9th in Kansas. The
3rd was at Frederick, Md.
Five other infantry regiments
were being organized. Seven
light artillery batteries were at
Camp Utley, Racine. The 1st
Wisconsin cavalry was at Camp
Harvey, Kenosha.
The first year of the war was
a comparatively quiet prelude
to a conflict that cost the nation
- North and South - 622,511
Hves. American deaths in both
world wars and the Korean conflict totaled 576,161, although
the 1940 population was five
times as large as the 1860 figure.

expedition captured Forts Hatteras and Clark at Hatteras inlet
in North Carolina. In November,
an amphibious landing w 0 n
Port Royal in South Carolina
for the Union.
But in northern Virginia, the
period after the first battle of
Bull Run was devoted mainly to
skirmishing, jockeying for posit i o n and especially training.
Leaders on both sides were trying to convert their armed civilians into soldiers.
This was not always easy. The
5th, which had originally been
in a brigade commanded by
Brig. Gen. Rufus King of Milwaukee, was reassigned to the
command of Brig. Gen. Winfield
Scott Hancock, a crusty soldier
with a voice that could carry
half a mile when the wind was
right.
He would bark out his orders: "On first division, third
battalion, deploy column, quick
march!" and the men would do
their best. So would their colonel. But "Honest" Cobb, although an important fellow in
Madison, often got confused by
Fightin.IJ in Missouri
military matters. Gen. Hancock
There was fighting in Mis- would then bellow: "Col. Cobb,
souri the summer and fall of where the damnation are you
1861. In August, an army-navy going with that battalion?"

Hide in the Willows
Men of the 6th Wisconsin,
watching the troubles of their
fellows in the 5th, were vastly
amused. When the drill was finally over and Cobb was left
to nurse his dignity, men from
the 6th would hide in the willows near the 5th's camp. Then
one of them would shout in imitation of the general: "Col.
Cobb, where the damnation are
you going with that battalion?"
The 6th enjoyed such horseplay. The 5th was less enthusiastic. The men of the 6th called
the daily performance "Hancock
whispering to his brigade."
The 2nd, 6th and 7th Wisconsin we r e among the troops
which passed in review before
Lincoln and Gen. George B. McClellan on Nov. 20, 1861, at
Bailey's Cross Roads, five miles
from Washington. It was the biggest such exercise yet held.
Capt. Rufus R. Dawes of the
6th described how proudly Drum
Major William Whaley of his
regiment marched along, with
the band playing behind him.
McClellan, Dawes testified, was
so overcome by Whaley's "lofty
pomposity" that the general
doffed his hat. At that, Whaley
was startled and dropped h i s
baton.

"It is enough to make one sac
to see the stately Whaley lead
ing that execrable brass band or
dress parade, eternally playin~
the 'Village Quickstep,'" Dawe1
wrote. "But when his own drurr.
c o r p s is behind him . . . hE
snuffs the air and paws t h E
ground like a war horse."

Review Cut Short
The review was cut short be·
cause of a reported movemen1
of Confederate troops. As thE
men of the 6th W i s c o n s i n
marched back toward camp, Sgt
John Ticknor, who had a fine
t e n o r voice, began singing
"John Brown's Body," with thE
verse that began, "Hang J e f f
Davis on a sour apple tree."
The entire regiment joined in
the chorus of "Glory, glory, hallelujah, as we go marching on."
Julia Ward Howe, riding back
to Washington after watching
the parade, heard them. She decided to set new words to the
old tune.
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" resulted. It was never
as popular with the troops, however, as the versions about John
Brown and Jeff Davis. Some of
these had verses that would
have shoc~ed gentle Julia to the
core.

State Soldiers Went Far Afield
Fought Well in the Army of the Potomac; Others
Served in Georgia, Some Even in Texas
Chapter V
CASUAL student of the Civil war is apt to think of it in
A terms
of northern Virginia, where each side spent nearly
four years trying to capture its opponent's capital. But a good
argument can be made for the theory that the war was won
elsewhere and that the western battles were the decisive ones.
The eastern fightin.g got most of the attention. It was handier for newspaper correspondents from the urban east to
cover the part of the war closest to home. Besides, Gen. William T. Sherman, the principal commander in the west in the
latter part of the war, hated newspapermen and did his formidable best to discourage them. Some of them had once written that he was insane and the
Being the closest to the politired haired general resented it.
cians, it was the worst manThe contemporary emphasis aged, at least on the Union
on the eastern battles has car- side.
ried over to some extent to the
history books. But northern Wisconsin Represented
Virginia was only one of three
Wisconsin had capable repreprincipal theaters of conflict. sentation in the Army of the

Potomac, but most of its soldiers fought elsewhere-in the
Mississippi valley, in the Tennessee mountains, in Kentucky,
Missouri, Arkansas; I ate r, in
Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas
and even Texas.
The Union's first victories in
1862 came in the western theater. A brigadier general named
Ulysses S. Grant was in charge.
He was an unimpressive looking fellow given to slovenly
dress, with a taste for whisky
that was exaggerated by his
enemies. When war came, he
sent a note to Washington suggesting that since he had attended West Point he ought to
be recalled to duty, perhaps as
a colonel.
The message was filed and
forgotten. When Grant became

14

president, in 1868, he had it
tracked down and dusted off to
add to his papers.
Grant also applied to Gen.
George B. McClellan for a position on his staff. McClellan did
not have time to see him. Finally, Illinois gave him a commission with its troops and the
man who was to lead the Union
to victory went quietly off to
serve as colonel of the 21st Illinois volunteers.

Promotion Was Political
His promotion to brigadier
general came through politics.
Grant had voted Democratic in
1854, but he was a friend of
Republican Congressman Elihu
B. Washburne of Illinois. Washburne decided the West Pointer
and veteran of the war with

Mexico was not only a capable
military man but, even more im·
portant, a Republican at heart.
When Washburne arranged
for the promotion, Grant was
guarding railroads in Mi~souri.
But then the flambo~!Ui' Gen.
John C. Fremont, the mllr'Grant
had voted against in 1854, took
a liking to him and gave him
command of the military district of southeastern Missouri,
with headquarters at Cairo, Dl.
Two more dissimilar generals
than Grant and Fremont would
be hard to find and Fremont's
choice of the Galena man is
somewhat surprising. Fremont
had been warned against Grant
by West Pointers, who knew he
had been forced to resign his
captain's commission in 1854
because of whisky.
At any rate, by the time Maj.
Gen. Henry W. (Old Brains)
Halleck replaced Fremont in the
west, Grant had gained a reputation as a man who knew his
business. Early in 1862, Halleck permitted him to move
!lgainst Forts Henry and Donel;on.
The former controlled the
fennessee rtver. Fort Donelson
::ontrolled the Cumber Ian d.
fheir capture would break the
;outhern hold on these two im·
portant waterways.
Halleck was no great shakes
1s a field general, but he was
1 smart fellow. He could see the
:mportance of controlling avelUes of communication - t h e
ovaterways and the railroads.
fie allotted Grant 15,000 men.
They were put aboard trans>orts, accompanied by seven
1avy gunboats. On Feb. 6, Fort
ienry surrendered after a bom>ardment. Although G r ant's
·ole in this was secondary-it
1'/as a naval victory-he was the
nan in charge.
The custom among Union
~enerals, when they won a bat:le, was to loll for a while on
:heir laurels, making plans to
·un for office or obtain a promoion. But Grant didn't cash in
hat way on his triumph. With>Ut waiting for further ordersbus offending Halleck back at
1eadquarters - he landed his
.roops, marched overland and,
.0 days I ate r, captured Fort
Jonelson.
The victory cost the Union
~.800 casualties, compared with
~.ooo killed and wounded on the
:::onfederate side. But 11,500
ebels were made prisoners.
~elebrated

but not at Halleck's headquar·
ters.
He was relieved of command
and threatened with military arrest. He had not sent back the
proper reports and had made an
unauthorized side trip, Halleck
complained.
Grant later was quietly restored to his subsidiary command.
Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell,
with 20,000 Union troops, including the reorganized 1st Wisconsin, occupied Nashville.
Grant's army, with Sherman
serving under him, was reinforced to bring its strength to
40,000. Among the new arrivals
camping with Grant along the
Tennessee r i v e r at Pittsburg
Landing was the 16th Wisconsin regiment.

'Old Abe' Went Along
Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. John
Pope occupied New Madrid,
Mo., near a Confederate strongpoint called Island No. 10, one
of several fortifications that
c I o s e d the Mississippi to the
Union. With P o p e were two
Wisconsin regiments - the 8th
and 15th- and four Wisconsin
light artillery batteries.
The 8th Wisconsin, because
of its eagle mascot, Old Abe,
became one of the best known
regiments in the war. The bird
had been captured by an Indian,
Chief Sky, near the headwaters
of the Flambeau river, then
traded to Daniel McCann for a
bushel of com. McCann, in tum,
sold the young eagle for $2.50
to S. M. Jeffers of Eau Claire,

"This is "Old Abe," the most famous mascot any United
States regiment ever had. The eagle was brought to Camp
Randall by Eau Claire's company C of the 8th Wisconsin.
It was adopted by the regiment and carried into battle.
who presented it to company C
of the 8th Wisconsin.
The regiment brought Abe to
Camp Randall, where he attracted so much attention the
men decided to take him south.
An eagle bearer was appointed
-James Maginnis was the first
one. A perch was fastened to a
five foot pole. A leather ring
was placed around Abe's leg
and attached by a cord to the
perch. The eagle bearer was
relieved of fatigue and guard
duty, which made the post a desirable one ex c e p t in battle,
when the mascot made a conspicuous target.

Plenty of Oles
The 15th Wisconsin had no
Abes, but it had plenty of Oles.
Commanded by Col. Hans Christian Heg, former state prison
commissioner, it was composed
mainly of Norwegians, with
lesser numbers of Swedes and
Danes, plus a few non-Scandinavian strangers.
It is recorded that there were
115 men named Ole in the regiment. There were four Ole 01sons in company F alone and
three Ole Andersons in company B. Anyone who walked into
the midst of the 15th Wisconsin
and yelled for "Ole" was likely
to get crushed in the rush.
· Some soldiers of the 15th
were only a few months away
from Norway-Bersven Nelson,
for example, had hardly had

in Milwaukee

This was one of the few batles where no Wisconsin reginent was present, but the good
tews prompted celebrations in
11:ilwaukee and Madison. Grant
vas a hero in the middle west,

-Journal Sketch

Col. Hans C. Heg, commander
of the 15th Wisconsin, became
the hero of the state's Scandinavian population.

15

time to learn his way around La
Crosse before he enlisted. Norwegians from Minnesota, Iowa
and Illinois joined their Wisconsin compatriots, partly to prove
the Norse were just as good as
the Germans and the Irish, who
also had regiments of their own.
The regimental flag, presented to the 15th by Chicago Scandinavians, had the American colors with gilt stars on one side,
the American and Norwegian
colors on ihe other.
After the Rebels evacuated
New Madrid and Pope's men
moved in, it was decided to cut
a canal across a horseshoe bend
of the river, bypassing Island
No. 10 and permitting Union
gun b o at s and transports to
move by. This involved constructing a canal 12 miles long,
much of it through heavy woods.

Sneak Past Rebels
Trees were sawed off four
feet below the anticipated water
line. The canal, 50 feet wide and
54 inches deep, was nearly finished when it occurred to Pope
that it would not hold enough
water for the gunboats.
So the warships sneaked past
the Rebel batteries at night,
while the transports sailed
around by way of the canal. On
Apr. 8, 1862, the island fortress
surrendered. It was nearly a
bloodless victory, but an important one. The Wisconsin men

Some of the officers of the 8th Wisconsin, the "eagle
regiment," gathered for their picture. The date they were
helped chase the Confederates
through the near-by swamps.
The Union sent 1,156 of the
captured Confederates to Camp
Randall.

Died in Prison
Many of the Rebels, who had
been fighting in trenches with
water up to their knees, were ill.
It is generally conceded that
they were treated kindly in Madison-feelings were not yet as
bitter as they would be later in
the war. But in the three months
the prisoners stayed in Wisconsin, 140 of them died.
The North's enthusiasm that
spring over its western successes was dampened by word
of a new and startling naval vessel the Confederates had developed. In evacuating the Norfolk navy yard in the spring of
1861 the Union sailors had
burned and scuttled a steam
f r i g a t e, the USS Merrimac,
which could not be removed because of defective engines.
The Confederates raised the
hulk, cut down its superstructure, added 20 inch oak walls

photographed is uncertain, but the informality of the pose
suggest that it was shortly after mustering out.

with four inches of iron plating
and renamed the ship the Virginia. Early in March the
s t ran g e looking craft came
steaming into Hampton Roads,
at the mouth of the James river.
to cause consternation in the
wooden navy-and in Washington.
Northern gunners fired broadsides at the unwieldy warship
at point blank range, only to
see the missiles b o u n c e off
harmlessly. Two Northern warships were sunk. Another was
driven aground. It seemed quite
possible that the Virginia could
steam up the Potomac and destroy Washington at her leisure.

Panic Swept Capital
Actually, the former Merrimac drew too much water to
move up the Potomac and was
too unseaworthy to venture into
the open ocean. But Washington
didn't know this. Panic swept
the city.
By an unlikely coincidence,
the Union navy had just developed an ironclad of its own.

Within 24 hours of the appearance of the Virginia in Hampton
Roads, the Monitor arrived to do
battle. It was an even stranger
craft than its foe-a flat, pointed
raft with only the pilothouse, a
single smokestack and a revolving turret showing above deck.
In the battle that resulted, the
men aboard the USS Minnesota had a ringside seat. The
Minnesota had been shot up by
the Virginia the day before, but
remained afloat, stuck on a mud
bank, ready to do battle. Ben
Sellon, a gun captain from Boston, sat down a few days later
to describe the fight. His nephew, Raymond N. Sellon, 4120
N. Woodburn st., Shorewood,
still has the letter.
"As soon as the Virginia
came within a mile of us," the
uncle wrote, "she opened from
an Armstrong gun, which planted a shot under our counter. A
signal from our ship directed
the Monitor to engage the enemy. . . . The Monitor r u s h e d
down upon the 'Monster.' We
stood upon the poop deck and

16

watched ... with excited astonishment.

'Wart on Its Back'
"As she receded in the distance, she appeared like a long
black water moccasin gliding
o'er the surface of the placid
bay, with a pillbox shaped wart
upon his back. The monster
Virginia looked upon her with
apparent amazement and did
not fire a gun.
"The little snake pointed her
head for the amidships section
of the Virginia and when she
rounded to, within 50 yards of
her, the comparative size of the
batteries was as the moccasin
to the alligator. . . . Suddenly
we saw a column of smoke rise
from the tower of the Monitor
and saw the shot strike the Virginia before the report reached
us.
"Then the other opened with
his whole broadside and every
shot flew over the little battery.
. .. The 'Monster' had a mighty
advantage over her tiny antagonist in number of guns; but the
little one could tum on her heel

1ree times to her once and de- ship section, and down she ran
berately she planted her solid for us. When within a mile she
1ot right into the big one, with . . . opened with an Armstrong
1e most telling effect, I am shell, which passed through us
and struck a knee upon our staronvinced.
"Very soon they commenced board side, when it burst, and
taneuvering-backing, go i n g tore four rooms into one.
head, crossing each other's
"We had opened our fire with
ows, quarters and stern and, all our port guns - spar deck,
s we thought, searching for gun deck and pivot. All at one
)me weak spot into which to time belched forth the lightning,
lunge their shot.
fire and flame, and showered
the heaviest solid shot-a 100
~own She Ran for Us'
pounder and upward each-into
" ... About 11 a.m. the Vir- the sneaking Rebel. . . . I am
inia had her bow pointed fair convinced that some of our shot
>r our ship, just abaft the mid- passed through her open ports.

"After a struggle, she backed
off and then, with the Monitor,
went fighting down the roads.
Just before 12, we saw the
Monitor standing down toward
the Rip Raps (a Union prison
near Fort Monroe) and felt convinced that her ammunition
must have been expended.
"She had come from New
York down here on an extended
trial trip and had not more than
a quarter of the peculiar kind
of shot that she uses in her
guns, and she expended them
all upon the uncouth alligator,
and that was the cause of her

running down to FGrtress Monroe. The Virginia did not chase
her off. . . .
"Our little friend, the Monitor, is still on hand at this anchorage, with an abundance of
wrought iron solid shot in her
locker . . . ready to pay her respects to the chivalry on board
the Virginia as soon as they are
ready to call upon her, and if
she does not call on her in the
course of a week the little battery will run to Norfolk and pay
her compliments to the Rebels
there."

Green Troops Veterans at Shiloh
Three State Regiments Were in the Thick of Battle; They
Left Many Dead and Won Gen. Grant's Respect
Chapter VI
:f'XCEPT for an accident of geography, the battle of Shiloh
..1 on Apr. 6 and 7, 1862, might have been a Union disaster
ke the first battle of Bull Run. But this time, the green
·oops were caught between advancing Confederates and the
ennessee river. There was no place to run.
Some did their best to get away. A quarter of Grant's forces
rere soon huddled along the river bank, having decided when
1e first bullets flew that war was not for them. But the retainder fought well despite their inexperience, goaded by a
tixture of courage, desperation and the sensible conviction
1at there really wasn't much
federates under Gens. Albert
1oice.
Sidney Johnston and Pierre
With 24,000 casualties, the
Beauregard.
attle of Shiloh (or Pittsburg
Gen. Sherman, who comanding) was the bloodiest
manded
one Northern division,
mght on American soil up to
1at date. There would be sometimes said admiringly of
tore costly battles before the Grant that he never worried
ivil war ended-Antietam, about what the Rebels were doettysburg, Chickamauga and ing when they were out of sight.
few others. But by then, the This was once w h en Grant
should have been worrying.
~mies had learned their trade.
The Union forces were ent Shiloh, as at first Bull Run,
camped
in a place that offered
le men on both sides were
natural defensive advantages.
>ldiers only in name.
The river-although it also cut
off retreat-protected the rear.
hould Have Worried
On one side was a meandering
Ulysses S. Grant had his army stream called Owl creek, which
tmped along the Tennessee flowed into Snake creek shortly
ver near a place where boats before the latter stream met the
>Uld dock, Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. On the Union's other
enn. He was waiting for Gen. flank was another small stream,
on Carlos Buell to join him Lick creek. Union gunboats
1 their combined armies could were in the Tennessee. Reintarch on Memphis, 90 miles forcements were near by.
le west. A few miles south, at
If this had been later in the
orinth, Miss., were 44,000 Con- war, when generals and privates

17

had learned their lessons, the
area in front of the Union army
would have been thick with
makeshift fortifications - log
breastworks, trenches, f e 11 e d
trees, emplacements for snipers
and artillery.
But Grant and his subordinate generals felt that it would
be poor psychology to entrench.
Once inside a fortification, they
reasoned, the green t r o o p s
would be reluctant to take the
offensive. Grant was planning
to be the attacker, not the defender.

Paid No Attention
Johnston and Beauregard had
other ideas. Knowing Buell's
20,000 men were on the way to
join Grant's 45,000, they decided to sneak up to Shiloh and
pounce on Grant before Buell
arrived.
The Confederates started to
move, with the officers warning
the troops to maintain silence
so the Federals would be surprised. The Southern soldiers
paid no attention. They shot off
their muskets to make sure the
guns worked and made so much
noise that Beauregard, certain
any chance for a surprise attack
had been lost, advocated a return to Corinth.
Johnston said no. He would,
h~ declared, water his horse in
the Tennessee before nightfall.
Three Wisconsin regiments
were among Grant's forces. The
14th Wisconsin, including the

Messmore Guards, the Calumet
and Manitowoc Invincibles and
the Black River Rangers, was
near by at Savannah, Tenn. The
16th Wisconsin, including the
Oconomowoc Rifles and the
Darlington Light Infantry, was
part of a division at Pittsburg
Landing commanded by Gen.
Benjamin Prentiss.

Blooms Cover Dead
The day before the battle, the
18th Wisconsin arrived to join
Prentiss, who was a veteran of
the Mexican war. The 18th was
to go into battle only a week
after the men had marched from
Camp Sigel to the Milwaukee
station, escorted by the Milwaukee Light Infantry an d the
American Cornet band playing
"Hail Columbia."
Thu 16th and 18th Wisconsin
regiments and the rest of Prentiss' command were at the left
of the Union line. Behind them
was a peach orchard in bloom.
Near by was a peaceful waterin.:; place for cattle and horses.
The peach blooms would soon
drift down to cover the dead
and the watering place would
go down in history as "bloody
pond."
Apr. 6 was a Sunday. It had
rained the night before, but now
the sky was clear. The men from
Wisconsin crawled out of their
tents and started to fix breakfast. They could hear occasional
musket shots, but this was not
unusual. Perhaps skirmishers
were firing at skulking cavalry-

Severely wounded in the battle of Shiloh was Lt. Col. Cassius Fairchild (left), of Madison, whose brother Lucius
lost an arm at Gettysburg and later became governor. A
Wisconsin man who lost' his life in the battle was Capt.
Edward Saxe, for whom Saxeville, Wis., was named.
men. Probably the shots merely
meant some of the boys were
testing their rifles to make sure
the rain hadn't dampened the
powder.
Johnston's plan of attack was
simple. He intended to throw
his main force against Prentiss'
wing of the Union army, break
through, then swing rapidly
around behind the Federal encampment, cutting Grant's
force off from its base of supplies at the landing. The men
from Wisconsin didn't know it
yet, but they were to help bear
the brunt of the initial attack.

Union Pushed Back
Prentiss sent three companies
of the 25th Missouri to reconnoiter. Shortly before 5 a.m.,
they stumbled onto a large force
of Confederates. The Missourians started shooting, then fell
back. Four companies of t h e
16th Wisconsin hurried up to
help them. As other Union men
arrived, the Confederate attack
was slowed.
By 8 a.m., the advance Union
force was pushed back to t h e
main body of the division, lined
up in front of their tents and
cooking fires. To the northwest,
the troops of G e n. Sherman,
c a m p e d near a Methodist
church 11amed Shiloh, were also
under at t a c k. Confederates
were moving toward the Union's right wing which was
commanded by an Illinois politician, Gen. John A. McClernand.
Attacked on three sides, Prentiss' division broke. The men retreated in confusion, some of
them running for the river. But
the general and 1,000 soldiers
rallied to form the center of a
new defense line in a wooded

a r e a along a sunken country
road.
The Confederates now had
the Union campgrounds. Some
stopped to eat breakfasts the
Wisconsin men had been preparing before the fighting began.
But others kept pressing f o rward. The Union soldiers, inexperienced though they were,
could see their position was desperate. One soldier yelled a final
request to his captain:
"If I'm killed, don't bury me
with a Republican."
Another Union man, wounded, was told to go to the rear
and get his injury attended to
by a surgeon. He started off, but
soon returned.
"Cap, give me a gun," he said.
"This blamed fight ain't got any
rear."
A 16th Wisconsin private
found himself near a colonel,
who had picked up a musket
and was firing methodically.
The private asked how many
Rebels he'd shot. The officer
said he'd fired 37 cartridges so
he should have hit 37 men, "but
I don't feel certain of six."

bring his division from Crump's
Landing to reinforce the Union
troops.
Wallace, who was to write
"Ben Hur" some years later, set
off. But he and his men
marched west instead of south
and didn't reach the battle until the first day's fighting was
over.
Grant ordered Prentiss to
hold fast. Prentiss and his men
did their best. Their stubborn
resistance spoiled Johnston's
plan to sweep behind the Union
army and drive it into the
swamps around Owl and Snake
creeks. So the Confederates began frontal attacks an along the
line.
About noon, Johnston decided to lead the drive on the Union left himself. His men drove
the Federals back, but Johnston
was mortally wounded.
W i t h Beauregard now in
charge, 62 pieces of Confederate artillery-every cannon they
had-were concentrated on the
Hornet's Nest.
The remnants of Prentiss'
command and part of the division of Gen. W. H. L. Wallace
(not to be confused with Lew,
who was still lost), were isolated
when Union troops on both
sides of them gave way under
the shelling. The Union mensome of the 16th Wisconsin
were there and a considerable

number from the 18th Wisco
sin - were surrounded but ke]
on shooting.
Some Escape Trap
Wallace decided to lead pa:
of the men to the rear. Two <
his regiments escaped the tra
but Wallace was killed in
r a v i n e with the picturesqt
name of Hell's Hollow.
Prentiss continued to figl
until 5:30 p.m., about 12 hom
after the battle had begun. The
he surrendered with 2,200 met
Bruce Catton, the historiat
said of them: "They were pri:
oners, but they kept the Unio
army from being destroyed."
Many of the 174 men of th
18th Wisconsin who were cai
tured in the battle were part c
this surrendered force, a 1o n
with some from the 16th. Th
Wisconsin governor, Louis I
Harvey, pointed out that man
men of the 18th were so ur
trained that they "heard the 01
der to load and fire for the fir~
time in their lives in the pre!
ence of the enemy." Beside
the 174 captured, the regimen
lost 24 killed and 82 woundec
The regiment's chaplain, th
Rev. James Delany, later co
lected h i s thoughts and hi
rhetoric and t o I d how th
"hoarse voice of the Secessio1
Moloch" was heard on t h a
beautiful Sabbath demanding ;

Repulse Charges
Portions of two Wisconsin
regiments and others of Prentiss' men near the sunken road
were firing rapidly and well. A
Confederate later remarked that
if he'd held a bushel basket
aloft it would have been filled
with bullets in no time.
Eleven Confederate charges
were repulsed at the road. It
became known to the Rebel
army as the Hornet's Nest.
Grant arrived from Savannah
after the battle began. He sent
word to Buell to hurry up. He
ordered Gen. Lew Wallace to
18

Wisconsin Gov. Louis P. Harvey of Shopiere was a Civil
war casualty, in a sense. He visited state soldiers at the
front while seeing to it personally that some extra supplies reached them. On his way home, he fell in the Tennessee river and drowned.

battery three times and was thrown back each
time, then took it the fourth time for good. This
lithograph was made from an eyewitness sketch.

The 14th Wisconsin infantry regiment won special
praise from Gen. Grant for a charge which captured a New Orleans battery in the battle of Shiloh
in April, 1862. The regiment captured the Rebel

-Library of Congress

;acrifice of treasure, blood and army appeared on the east bank
cecious life."
of the river and was ferried
Grant would not have de- across.
:ribed the sounds of battle in
Among the fresh troops who
Ich terms. But whether the arrived was the 14th Wisconsin,
•e was an ancient Ammonite which got there about midnight,
ety w h o demanded human just in time to stand the rest
tcrifice or only a Creole named of the night in mud and rain,
eauregard, no one disputed ready for a renewal of the fighttat the Confederates were ing. Near the newly arrived
inning.
Wisconsin soldiers were the
w o u n d e d and the unburied
:rant Not Whipped
de a d. Edgar P. Houghton of
By night, the Union troops Alma later told what it was like
e r e backed up in a wedge to stand there, waiting:
taped line anchored on the riv"It is the first time we have
·, where the cannon of two seen a battlefield. We clench
~deral gunboats began lobbing
our teeth and our faces assume
tells at the Rebels. The Con- the ashy pallor of death as we
derates held considerable real grasp the old Belgian rifles and
:tate formerly occupied by move forward .... The thought
~derals. But Grant was not
uppermost in our minds was
1ite whipped.
During the night of Apr. 6, that we, too, might be numinforcements arrived. N o w bered with the slain before the
.at the fighting had died down, setting of the sun."
In the morning, the 14th was
'allace finally found the bat~field. The vanguard of Buell's ordered to lie low in a wet ra-

vine for a while. Then it was
told to assault a Rebel battery.
Across the ravine the men ran,
over a brook, through a thicket,
past a narrow road.

Praise State Fighters

it left camp, Stockwell drove his
father's ox team into Black River Falls with a load of charcoal,
left the team on the street,
walked to Sparta, took a train
to Fond du Lac and joined the
company.
He was wounded twice at Shiloh. Afterward, he said he was
disappointed that so many Rebels got away-he had supposed
that in a battle everybody kept
firing until all the men on one
side or the other were killed.
One of the guns, spiked by Lt.
George Staley of the Messmore
Guards on the regiment's first
charge, was sent home to Madison as a souvenir. The cost to
the 14th regiment: 14 killed, 79
wounded or missing.

They captured the New Orleans battery, were driven back,
captured it twice more, w e r e
driven back again, finally captured it for good the f o u r t h
time. Grant singled out the regiment for special praise and it
was permitted to call itself the
Wisconsin Regulars.
The 14th included a 15 year
old soldier, Elisha Stockwell,
jr., who almost missed going
along. He wrote his name on
the regimental 1i s t at a war
meeting at Alma's log school- Col. Fairchild Wounded
house, but when he got home
The 16th Wisconsin fared
his father told him he was too
young to go .
worse, with 245 casualties in the
The regiment went to Fond two days of fighting, more than
du Lac without Elisha. Before 25% of the men who had left

19

Madison less than a month before.
Among those severely wounded at Shiloh was Lt. Col. Cassius Fairchild, whose brother
would later become governor
after losing an arm in the war.
Among those who died were
Col. David E. Wood, commander of the 14th, and Col. J. S. Alban, former judge of the Portage county circuit court, who
commanded the 18th. Capt. Edward Saxe, for whom Saxeville,
Wis., was named, was killed in
the first moments of battle.
After the second day, the Confederates drew back to Corinth.
Both sides claimed a victory.
Now that 100 years have passed,
it is generally agreed north of
Cairo, Ill., that Grant won.
Four of the Confederate prisoners were allowed to enlist in
the 14th Wisconsin. One was
soon discharged and two deserted. But C h a r 1e s Stahl stayed
with the regiment his full three
years, was wounded at Vicksburg, returned to duty and was
mustered out after the war, a
veteran of both armies.
He went back to work in the
same New Orleans tailor shop

he'd left to enlist with Beauregard, ready to reminisce with
customers about whichever side
of the war they preferred to discuss.

few days too late for the battle.
A considerable portion of the
regiment immediately a d d e d
their names to the sick list.
Gov. Harvey headed an expedition to b r i n g supplies to
Wisconsin men wounded in the
battle or ill at near-by hospitals.
He gathered 90 boxes and headed south, stopping to see ailing
constituents along his route.
At Pittsburg Landing, less
than two weeks after the battle,
the 41 year old governor visited
200 of Wisconsin's wounded in
the camps, then went t() Savannah to take passage back to Cairo. On Apr. 19, while preparing
to transfer from the Dunleith to
the Minnehaha, his foot slipped.
He fell between the two river
boats.

Balked Over Pay
The 17th Wisconsin infantry,
known as the Irish regiment,
might have arrived in time to
fight at Shiloh except that the
men refused to leave Madison
until they were paid. Col. John
L. Doran, a Milwaukee lawyer,
called on his persuasive powers,
but the men declined to fight
with empty pockets.
Instead of boarding a train for
St. Louis, many of them formed
into squads, grabbed rifles and
began roving Madison, stopping
frequently at saloons to ward
off the March chill. Civilians
worried, b u t nothing serious
happened.
The next day, some of those
whose hangovers were manageable climbed aboard the cars and
departed. But it took several
more days before the rest - still
unpaid - left Madison. They arrived at Pittsburg Landing a

Jumped Into Water
Dr. Reuben Wilson of Sharon,
Wis., reached down a cane. Harvey pulled it from his hands. A
Racine physician jumped into
the water, holding onto the
Minnehaha, and tried to grab
Harvey. He missed.
The body was found 65 miles
down river by a group of Ten-

nessee children, who called
slave to pull it out, extracted tl
valuables from the pockets, th1
pushed it back into the rivE
Later, Harvey's body was 1
turned to Wisconsin, where l
elaborate funeral was held in tl
assembly chamber. Edward Sl
omon, of Manitowoc, who
brother was colonel of the 9
Wisconsin, became governor.
Another visitor to Pittsbu;
Landing a short time after tJ
fighting ended was Capt. Osc;
F. Pinney of the 5th Wiscons
light artillery battery, stationE
with Pope's forces in Mississi
pi. He wrote to his wife, Eliz
in M o n r o e, Wis., describir
what he'd seen:
"The stench is horrible. TI
dead soldiers-. Some of the
heads were sticking out of tl
ground a n d others' legs ar.
arms, so shallow were they b·
ried."
His trip to the battlefield le
Capt. Pinney with long and set
ous thoughts.
"If alive, I will write," t
promised Eliza. "If not, educal
the children."

Union Muffed Bid for Victory
Series of Blunders by Northern Political and Military
Leaders Allowed Opportunities to Slip Away
Chapter VII
of 1862, it seemed to Wisconsin residents that
I NtheTHECivilspring
war would be over by fall. Following the victories
by Gens. Pope and Grant in the west, Memphis fell, New
Orleans was captured and most of the Mississippi valley was
in Union hands.
In the east, Gen. George B. McClellan and the Army of the
Potomac were moving toward Richmond on the peninsula
between the James and York rivers. If the Confederate capital fell, it seemed likely the rebellion would end.
The war might well have
ended that year. But a series was a Confederate. force ?f perof blunders by northern politi- haps 50,000 at Connth, Mtss.
Th.
cal and military leaders al- Spread For
lowed the opportunities to slip
ces rn
But Halleck, a cautious man,
away.
believed that Gen. Beauregard
Gen. Henry W. (Old Brains) had 100,000 men or more. So
Halleck was along the Tennes- he in c h e d toward Corinth,
see river with the combined throwing up trenches and fortiarmies of Pope, Buell and Grant fications as he went. Beaure-a total of 120,000 men, some gard, who knew the odds
of them battle tested. The only against him, waited patiently
thing standing between Halleck for the Union troops to apand a sweep through the south proach, then left. Halleck pro-

ceded to spread his force thin,
occupying territory instead of
pursuing the Confederate army,
and one major chance was lost.
Not to be outdone, McClellan
was managing to botch things
up on the peninsula. When his
army first landed, he might
have marched to Richmond with
minor opposition. But like Halleck in the west, McClellan was
woefully misinformed on the
Rebel strength.
He accepted as gospel the reports of Allan Pinkerton, the
Chicago detective, who was
chief of military intelligence.
Pinkerton may have been a
successful chaser of burglars,
but he was completely inadequate as the Union's spy chief.
He kept telling McClellan that
Gen. Joseph Johnston's army
greatly outnumbered the Union
forces.
This was the exact opposite
of the truth, but McClellan accepted Pinkerton's evaluation,
brushing aside more realistic

ones. When the Union arm
first reached the Southern fort'
fications at Yorktown, Va., i
was opposed by only 15,001
men, who kept marching ant
countermarching to fool the Fee
eral observers into thinking th1
Confederates were numerou.
enough to stand off McClellan':
60,000 soldiers.

Urged an Attack
One of those who wasn't mis
led was Brig. Gen. Charles Ham
ilton, former commander of th1
3rd Wisconsin, now in charge o:
a 10,000 man division. He urgec
that an attack be made befor«
the defenses were reinforced.
All his suggestion earned birr
was McClellan's dislike. Afte1
some subsequent bickering ove1
the role assigned to his divi
sion, Hamilton was removec
from command. He soon head
ed west to join the Union force!
at Corinth.
Despite his superiority ir.
numbers, McClellan determine(
on a siege of Yorktown. Hi~

20

----

--------··---~-~-----

men dug in. The big guns were
brought up.· By the time Little
Mac was ready to fight, the Confederates had their reinforcements in place. Johnston moved
his army back up the peninsula
to make a stand elsewhere.
Wisconsin's representatives
in the peninsula campaign consisted of the 5th Wisconsin infantry, under Col. "Honest"
Cobb, and company G of Col.
Hiram Berdan's sharpshooters.
With the rest of the Union
army, they joined in the pursuit
of the retreating Rebels, who
stopped to fight near Williamsburg.
It was here that the 5th Wisconsin participated in a bayonet
charge ordered by Gen. Hancock
-the same Hancock whose bellowing on the drill field had
caused Cobb so much anguish.
Now Hancock was more polite.
With the Confederate troops 40
The 2nd Wisconsin set up this camp near Fredericksburg,
Va. The sketch was donated by Mrs. Howard Steele of
Warrens, Wis., who said that the tradition in her family
was that her grandfather brought it home from the war
to show one phase of his camp life.
-state Historical society
way toward Richmond. By May
20, 1862, his men could see the

-state Historical Society

Edward S. Bragg of Fond du
Lac worked his way up from
captain of a company he had
recruited, to colonel in command of the 6th Wisconsin, to
brigadier general in command
of the Iron Brigade.
yards away, he turned to his
men and ordered: "Gentlemen,
charge."

Responded Gallantly
It was the first time since
they'd left Wisconsin that the
soldiers had been called gentlemen. They responded gallantly.
With several other regiments,
they hurried forward, bayonets
fixed to the ends of their long
muskets.
The Rebels ran. Union reinforcements arrived. A minor victory was won. McClellan later
described the bayonet attack as
"brilliant" and gave the 5th
Wisconsin and two other regiments credit for the Union suc~ess.

Still certain he was outnumbered, McClellan worried his

church spires of the Confederate
capital. Part of the Federal
troops were on the south side
of the Chickahominy river; the
others, including the 5th Wisconsin, on the north side.
Johnston saw his chance. He
attacked the smaller portion of
McClellan's army south of the
Chickahominy just after a heavy
rain had changed it from a sluggish stream into a ·torrent.
For two days, the battle continued around a farm at Seven
Pines and a railroad station
called Fair Oaks. The bridges
across the Chickahominy held
-the sturdiest one had been
built by the Wisconsin frontiersmen-so McClellan was able to
bring some of his northerly wing
to the rescue. The 5th Wisconsin was held out of the fighting.
The battle was a draw, but
McClellan's already snail-like
advance was s t o p p e d. Gen.
Johnston was injured. He was
replaced by a Virginia patrician
named Gen. Robert E. Lee as
commander of the Army of
Northern Virginia.

Took Daring Gamble

Union general's Peninsula campaign was a costly failure.
A Wisconsin soldier reported
that members of the 5th regiment averaged two hours sleep
a night during the seven days'
battles. They participated in
much of the fighting, including
the final Rebel attack at Malvern hill, when for once the
Union men were in a favorable
defensive position on a wooded
height.
But after Lee's men had been
driven off in one direction, McClellan retreated in the other.
The men from Wisconsin
slogged along with their companions, with "mud knee deep,
men without rations, blankets
or tents, and completely used up
and disgusted," according to the
5th's historian.
Gen. Rufus King's division,
which included a brigade composed of the 2nd, 6th and 7th
Wisconsin and the 19th Indiana,
had expected to join the Peninsula campaign, but at the last
minute was ordered to help
guard Washington. With other
forces under Gen. McDowell,
the brigade, under Brig. Gen.
John Gibbon, later advanced to
Falmouth, across f r o m Fredericksburg on the Rappahannock river north of Richmond.
The Confederates had just left
town. When the Wisconsin men
moved in they reportedly found
"nearly every white woman crying."

Late in June, Lee took a daring gamble, moving most of his
men north of the Chickahominy,
leaving the way open to Richmond. But the cautious McClellan failed to act. He was
entrapped into a series of defensive b a t t 1e s and after a
week's fighting, ending July 1, Admired the Women
fell back to the James river and
In early May, the Union
naval support. With 16,000 llf troops occupied Fredericksburg,
his men dead or wounded, the which a lonesome Wisconsin

21

soldier said had "the finest looking women I ever seen." The
northwesterners were
impressed by the countryside,
too, but found the inhabitants
astonishingly ignorant. Some of
t h e m, the soldiers dutifully
noted in their diaries, had never
heard of Wisconsin.
Prices were h i g h in Fredericksburg. Tea sold for $7 a
pound. Storekeepers refused to
accept Union money on the theory-a correct one, as it turned
out-that Lee's troops would
soon be b a c k. The merchants
demanded Confederate dollars.
Happy to oblige, some of the
Wisconsin visitors acquired a
printing press. They s t a r t e d
turning out vast amounts of the
Southern money, selling it to
their companions at the bargain
price of IOc for $1,000 worth.
Business in the Fredericksburg
stores boomed, but the Union
generals finally o r d e r e d the
counterfeiting stopped.
King, a Milwaukee newspaperman and politician, had commanded what later w o u I d be
called the Iron Brigade before
his promotion to lead the division. The brigade's new leader,
Gibbon, was less easy going.
A southerner who stayed in
the Union army, he had been an
artilleryman when the war began. He believed in plenty of
drill. This caused grumbling
among the men of the 2nd, 6th
and 7th Wisconsin. Later, they
would be thankful that t h e
tough training had welded them
into one of the U n i o n's best
fighting units.
Gibbon understood soldiers'
m o r a 1e. He equipped his men
with a new and distinctive uni-

-state Historical Society

Gen. John Gibbon was a North
Carolinian who remained loyal
to the Union. A regular artilleryman, he trained the 2nd,
6th and 7th Wisconsin, and
the 19th Indiana, into the
toughness that brought them
the name of Iron Brigade in
the Civil war's early battles.

-Library of Congress

its proper length along a protected shore, then swinging it
into position across the current.

The art of building pontoon bridges was quickly learned
by green troops of both sides. Engineers often worked on
such bridges under sniper fire, completing the bridge to

form. It included a dark b 1u e
frock coat with a light blue collar, white leggings, light blue
trousers, white dress gloves
and a black felt hat with a jaunty black feather.

Pursue Gen. Jackson

Dawes won the spirited campaign by a vote of 14 to 13.
By now, four Union armies
were ineffectively trying to deal
with Jackson. One of them was
commanded by a Massachusetts
Republican politician, Nathaniel P. Banks. He had qualified
as a military leader by serving
as speaker of the house of representatives. Among his troops
was the 3rd Wisconsin, erstwhile victors over the Maryland
secessionist legislators.

It seems an unlikely costume
for war, but it was similar to
the regular army's dress unif o r m. The hats in particular
were to become the Iron Brigade's trademark a m o n g the
volunteer regiments.
The Wisconsin r e g i m e n t s Tangles With Fremont
took the lead when McDowell's
About the time McClellan
army started s o u t h. But after was cautiously m o v i n g west
eight miles, they t1,1rned back to from Yorktown, Jackson tanjoin in the pursuit of the elusive gled with an army led by Gen.
Gen. Stonewall Jackson, who John C. Fremont in the West
was tarryhooting up and down Virginia mountains, throwing
the Shenandoah valley.
the 1856 Republican presidenJackson's force was small but tial candidate off balance. Then
it caused the Federals plenty of Stonewall marched back and
trouble. As the 6th Wisconsin attacked Banks, falling upon a
went tramping along through part of the Union force at Winthe mud, trying to find Jackson, chester.
it captured a Rebel deserter. He
The 3rd Wisconsin was with
took a shrewd look at the this outnumbered rear guard. It
Union's lumbering supply train fought well enough, but a reand came up with an analysis treat was ordered and Banks
of why McDowell wasn't catch- and his men hurried north of the
ing Stonewall:
Potomac. Exaggerated reports
"You uns is pack mules. We of Jackson's victory caused conuns is race horses."
sternation in Washington and
The brigade moved back to the reinforcements that McClelFalmouth, Va., where Edward S. lan had been seeking for his
Bragg of Fond du Lac replaced slow motion march on RichB. J. Sweet of Chilton as lieu- mond were kept close to the
tenant colonel, Sweet having city.
Wearied by the lack of suctaken command of the 21st Wisconsin. That left the post of ma- cess of his eastern generals, Linjor open. Two officers, Rufus coln looked west for new leadDawes and Frank A. Haskell, ers. Grant was in the west and
promptly began electioneering Sherman, b u t the president
among their fellows and calling i n s t e a d chose Gen. Halleck,
for political support back home. whose influence on the western

victories had been mainly negative, and Gen. John Pope, who
had captured Island No. 10. The
3rd Wisconsin became part of
Pope's forces.
Pope, assigned to weld scattered Union forces into a powerful army, let the eastern troops
know that things would be different now that a western soldier was in charge. No more retreats, Attack, that was the
motto. He would be a fighting
general.
"My headquarters," he announced, "will be in the saddle."

McClellan Retreating
It was an unfortunate choice
of words. Wisconsin soldiers repeated a wry jest that traveled
through Pope's army. The general, it was suggested, planned
to have his headquarters where
his hindquarters ought to be.
With McClellan retreating
back down the peninsula to
ships which would ferry his
troops back to the Potomac, Lee
sent Jackson to attack the
north's new wonder boy, Pope.
Banks' old army, including the
3rd Wisconsin, encountered the
Rebels at Cedar Mountain, Va.
Although Pope's total force
was much larger than Jackson's,
the part of it that participated
in the battle was heavily outnumbered. Banks' troops put up
a good fight, however.
Cedar Mountain is not a battle that springs to mind in discussions of the decisive actions
of the Civil war. But it was a
name t h a t often came up in
reminiscences among survivors
of the 3rd Wisconsin. The regiment lost 25 killed, 65 wounded
and 18 captured.

22

A m o n g the wounded was
Capt. Moses O'Brien, who had
marched off with the Green
County Volunteers when the 3rd
regiment left Fond du Lac. Early
in the fighting at Cedar Mountain, he was shot in the leg. He
whipped out a handkerchief,
bound up his wound and went
back to his men.

Truce Is Called
He was shot a second time,
the bullet passing tLrough his
arm into his side. As the regiment retreated, he found himself lying between the opposing
lines-still alive, but unable to
drag himself back to his friends.
Night came. The cannon kept
firing, although t h e infantry
fighting had stopped. The next
day was a Sunday. In tho s e
early days of the war, it was
sometimes the custom to quit
fighting on the Sabbath. The
opposing armies c o n t e n t e d
themselves with holding their
positions.
O'Brien an d many others,
wounded or dead, were on the
field. It was not until the following day that a truce was
agreed to, permitting both sides
to gather up the injured and
bury the slain.
O'Brien was still alive. But
the next day, worn out from his
wound and the waiting, he died.
Pope finally managed to bring
up the rest of his army. Jackson
moved away. But it had been a
pretty good campaign for Stonewall. In 39 days, he had marched
16,000 men more than 600 miles,
fought five major battles and defeated four separate a r m i e s
totaling 63,000 soldiers.

State Troops "Wouldn't Retreat
Although Badly Outnumbered and Lacking in Experience,
They Stood in Line of Battle and Blazed Away
Chapter VIII
WAS Sept. 2, 1862. William H. Church, member of the
I TPortage
City Guards, 2nd Wisconsin infantry, was in a
Washington (D. C.) hospital. He wrote to his parents in Columbia county to tell them how he was:
"They shot me three times through the leg, tore a piece of
bark from my left hand and cut off my shoulder strap near
the cartridge box. But they wasted all that powder and lead
for they didn't do me any injury."
Church was glad just to be one of the Union brigades right
alive. Of the 52 men in his into Jackson's clutches.
c om p a n y who fought at
Brig. Gen. J o h n Gibbon's
Gainesville and the sub s e- command-the moment when it
quent second battle of Bull would be dubbed the Iron BriRun, only 10 were still alive gade was still ahead of it-was
out of sight of another brigade
and unhurt. Of the 500 men
fit for duty from his regiment
when the fighting started, 298
were dead, wounded or missing.
"But we he I d the field,"
Church wrote. It was something
to tell the folks back home.
It all began, as so many things
did in 1862, with Stonewall
Jackson. The taciturn Presbyterian, with 25,000 hungry soldiers, captured the Union supply
depot at Manassas, Va.
His men ate as much as they
could hold, burned the rest and
left. Gen. John Pope angrily ordered his army to find Jackson
and whip him before he could be
joined by reinforcements from
Robert E. Lee.
But finding Jackson was never easy. A report came that
-state Historical Society
Stonewall and his troops were
Col.
Lysander
Cutler, the 6th
at Centerville, Va. Pope started
Wisconsin's
commander,
was
his men in motion toward that
a strong minded leader who
community.
had no qualms about "telling
off" the secretary of war when
Jackson Was Hiding
Actually, Jackson wasn't the latter was rude to him.
there. He was hiding in a woods
near the old battlefield of Bull marching ahead and those of
Run, hoping to stay out of sight Kings' troops who were marchuntil Gen. James Longstreet's ing behind it.
The three Wisconsin regimen arrived to reinforce him.
Among the units marching ments and the 19th Indiana had
been together for a year, b u t
toward Centerville was a divi- only
the 2nd Wisconsin had
sion led by Milwaukee's G en. been in a major battle. The men
Rufus King. Its 10,000 men, in- of the 2nd planned to point out
cluding the 2nd, 6th and 7th the scene of their moment of
Wisconsin, were strung o u t valor on Henry hill as the brialong the turnpike for miles, gade marched past the old Bull
taking only routine precautions. Run battlefield.
King was confident that the
Jackson, fro m his hiding
Rebels were nowhere near. But place in the woods overlooking
his division's route would take the road, saw Gibbon's brigade

-M!Iwaukee County Historical Society

Gen. Rufus King, a Milwauke~ editor and politician, was
the first commander of the famed Iron Brigade, which included three Wisconsin and one Indiana regiments. He resigned after the second battle of Bull Run when he was
accused of errors in handling the brigade. Rufus King high
school is named after the general. The inscription at the
bottom of the photograph was written by a member of
King's family.
approaching. He had intended
to lie low, but the temptation
was too great. He turned h i s
horse toward his officers.
"Bring out your men, gentlemen."
The Rebel soldiers formed in
1i n e of battle, still concealed
from the Wisconsin soldiers.
Jackson's artillery opened up.
Battery B, attached to the brigade, galloped into position to
fire back.

.Federals in Trouble
At the same time, Gibbon ordered the 2nd Wisconsin to
move against the Confederate
cannon. Then Jacksons' infan-

23

try came marching over a ridge
and Gibbon saw he was in trouble.
Jackson had 6,400 men in the
immediate vicinity, Gibbon's
brigade totaled less than a third
of this number. He sent messengers riding for help, but only
600 other Union soldiers from
the rest of Rufus King's division
got there before the fighting
ended.
It was late afternoon. Gibbon's only chance was to hold
off Jackson until nightfall. A
few days before, he had called
his men "green troops." Now
he would discover whether they
would fight.

The two hour battle near
Gainesville occurred on a farm
owned by a family named Brawner. In many Civil war actions,
one side and sometimes both
were entrenched or were able to
fire from behind stone fences or
log breastworks. But this was a
fight in which both armies
stood in line of battle in the
open and blazed away.
The Southerners had 3 to 1
numerical superiority. They
were m.>re experienced soldiers.
But Gibbon's brigade held fast.
Rebel Gen. William B. Taliaferro, who was there, told h o w
both sides fought:
"Out in the sunlight, in the
dying day light ... they stood;
and although they could not advance, they would not retreat.
There was some discipline in
this, but there was much more
of true valor.''

Displayed Courage
With benefit of a century's
hindsight, it is plain that not
every Ci-vil war soldier from
Wisconsin was as brave as his
grandchildren think he was. But
there is no question that the

courage displayed that day by
Gibbon's men was unusual.
Jackson's men fought with
equal bravery. Neither side
would retreat. It was 9 p.m.
when, according to Lt. William
Noble of the 2nd Wisconsin,
"the firing ceased, as if by mutual consent, each party holding
his own line of battle." Most of
the dead and wounded lay in
two parallel rows, 75 yards
apart.
Jackson's casualties totaled
2,200-more than the number of
men in Gibbon's brigade when
the fight began. By nightfall,
the effective strength of the
four Union regiments had been
cut to 1,250.
Lt. Col. Lucius Fairchild, later
to ~ecome Wisconsin's governor, was the only field officer of
the 2nd regiment unhurt. More
than half of its men were dead
or wounded. As the survivors
lined up, Fairchild turned to one
of the injured officers.
"Where is the regiment?" he
demanded. "Have they scattered?"
"Colonel, this is all t h a t ' s
left."

Union soldiers -at least the one who modeled for this
army montage-had elaborate uniforms. Shown from left
are the full dress uniforms of an artillery private, a cavalry

Col. Edgar O'Connor, a Beloit
I a w y e r who commanded the
2nd, was dead. So were 132
o t h e r s in Gibbon's btigade.
Many of the 539 wounded would
not recover.

Some Injured Abandoned
Some of the injured men had
to be abandoned as the brigade
moved away from the battlefield. There were horse drawn
ambulances for a few. Others
left under their own power, or
supported by uninjured companions. Pvt. Hugh Lewis of the
2nd Wisconsin marched off with
his regiment although his arm
was injured so seriously that it
was soon amputated. Pvt. E. S.
Williams of the same regiment
hobbled along on his one good
leg to reach a place where a
surgeon could cut off the other
one.
A little distance from the
Brawner farm, officers of King's
division held a council of war.
Gibbon complained bitterly that
none of the other commanders
except Gen. Abner Doubleday
had sent his outnumbered brigade any help.

Gen. King then made a decision that would haunt him the
rest of his life. Instead of holding fast where he was and seeking reinforcements from other
units of Gen. Pope's army, he decided to march away to Manassas Junction.
Thus the Milwaukeean broke
off contact with Jackson, for
whom the Union forces had been
searching for two days. He left
a position where he might have
kept Jackson separated from
the additional troops Lee was
sending.
Gen. King soon resigned his
command, pleading ill health.
He was sharply criticized for the
decision he made at the camp
fire near Brawner's farm. Pope
claimed he'd told him to stay
there and wait for reinforcements. King denied getting the
order.

McDowell Gets Blame
A subsequent court of inquiry put most of the blame on
the ill starred Gen. Irvin McDowell, who should have been
in the vicinity but wasn't, having managed to get lost in a
woods. It was felt that if Me-

sergeant and the marching fatigues of an infantry private.
The pictures are from a new booklet issued by the Smithsonian Institution.
24

Dowell had been on hand, the
nixup wouldn't have happened.
But there was plenty of blame to
~o around, and Rufus King of
Milwaukee was allotted a share
Jf it.
Charles King, who turned to
writing after a distinguished
:~.rmy career, maintained that
1is father was not at fault. He
~i ted a letter from Pope to King
>aying, "I am perfectly satisfied
fOU did the very best you could
mder the circumstances." But
che criticism Rufus King re:eived "ruined his health and
Jroke his heart," his son wrote.
The heroics at Gainesville
>roved only a prelude to Pope's
:lefeat at the second battle of
:lull Run. Maj. Rufus Dawes of
:he 6th Wisconsin said later
:hat the action at Brawner's
:arm "eradicated our yearning
'or a fight," but the remnants
>f Gibbon's brigade, having
imped off to Manassas, came
>ack in time to get into the last
1alf of the larger battle.
Maj. Gen. Pope, sitting on a
:racker box in his field headIUarters on the battle's second
lay, thought Jackson was re:reating. He ordered McDow!ll's men to pursue. Stonewall,
lll'ho had merely been maneuverng to improve his position,
urned to fight.
The W i s co n s i n regiments
·o u n d themselves advancing
hrough a woods so thick that
:he officers had to climb off
heir horses and walk. They
:arne into the open near a 12
oot railroad embankment lined
vith Rebels.

Jrigade Driven Back
Another Union brigade was
!riven back. Its men began to
lee faster than Gen. Gibbon felt
vas proper. He ordered his Wis:onsin and Indiana soldiers to
hoot any man who didn't stop
unning.

The rout was halted, but a
more orderly retreat became
general. Only the 6th Wisconsin, with Gibbon in command,
kept advancing. Soon it found
itself three-quarters of a mile
ahead of the rest of the Federal
army, with thousands of Confederate rifles pointed its way.
Gibbon ordered his men to
about-face. They marched back
to the new Union lines at double
quick time, moving in order
across an open field with most
of Pope's army cheering them
on, and a considerable portion
of Jackson's army shooting at
them.
Now it was the Confederate
t u r n to advance. The Southern
soldiers poured over the railroad embankment. The situation
was confused enough by this
time so that the ordinarily cool
Gibbon thought the advancing
Rebels were retreating Union
troops. He rode past the Union
batteries, ordering the gunners
not to fire. A German soldier
from New York knew better.
"Gott im himmel, general,"
he yelled, "why you say no
shoot?"
Gibbon realized his mistake.
The 36 cannon fired. Rebels
went down. The Wisconsin and
Indian a regiments attacked,
pushing back a portion of the
Confederate line. But elsewhere,
Pope's army was losing. A
Union rereat was ordered.

Fired From Treetops
During the closing hours of
the battle, Rebel riflemen were
posted in the tops of pine trees,
where they could pick off Union
artillerymen and officers. Col.
Hiram Berdan's Sharpshooters
were assigned to dislodge them.
The men, including the Wisconsinites of company G, ran
into the grove of trees and took
cover. They hid, popped up to
shoot, then hid again. Pvt. A. C.
Stannard of Milton, one of Col.

Berdan's marksmen, got a bullet
in his heel.
Stannard was told to go to
the rear. He flatly refused. "Not
until I get me the Reb that done
it.''
Waiting his chance, he drew
a bead on the Confederate in a
near-by pine tree, squeezed the
trigger, waited until the body
hit the ground, then ambled off
to the surgeon's tent.
Toward evening, reinforcements came hurrying up, among
them the 5th Wisconsin, which
arrived "just in time ·to be too
late." Other Union forces were
near by. The 3rd Wisconsin was
among them, spending Aug. 30
a little southeast of the battlefield, listening to ·the cannon
and waiting for an order to join
the fight. The order was not
given.

Bull Run Costly
This second battle of Bull Run
was a costly Union defeat, but
it was not quite a rout. The soldiers were no longer the armed
civilians who had marched out
from Washington to fight on the
same field in July of 1861. Some
regiments-the 2nd Wisconsin,
for one-were veterans of both
the battles. The men knew their
business better now.
The Union army left its campfires burning to delude the Rebels into thinking it was staying
put. Then, with Gibbon's battered brigade forming the rear
guard, it went back to Washington.
Pope was relieved of his command. He would soon be in
Milwaukee, . preparing to fight
Indians. Gen. McClellan, although he was under criticism
for his unsuccessful campaign
in the peninsula east of Richmond, was put in charge of the
eastern armies again.
It was a discouraging time
for the Union. Farther west, a

25

Reb e 1 victory in Kentucky
threatened Louisville and even
Cincinnati. The Confederates
had regained control of most of
Tennessee. The Union had only
a slippery toehold in northern
Virginia. Lee was rumored planning an invasion of the north.

Cutler Visits Stanton
It was at this point that Col.
Lysander Cutler decided to pay
his respects to Secretary of War
Edwin M. Stanton. The commander of the 6th Wisconsin
had bee!l wounded in the bitter
fighting at Brawner's farm. He
arrived at the secretary's office
in a spotless uniform, leaning
on two canes.
"What in the hell and damnation are you doing in Washington?" the irascible Stanton demanded. "Why don't you go to
your regiment, where you are
needed?"
Cutler was not a man to talk
to in that fashion. Then 54 years
old, he had commanded Maine
militiamen in the Aroostook Indian wars of 1838-'39, had lost
one fortune in the east, then
made another in prewar Milwaukee's grain trade.
"If I had not been shot and a
fool," he said, "I would never
have come here. Good day, Mr.
Secretary."
Stanton's potential enmity
could not be taken lightly by an
officer hoping for promotion.
But he apparently took no permanent offense. Cutler later became a brigadier general and
was put in command of a division, until wounded once more.
As Gibbon's brigade nursed
its injuries within sight of the
c a p i t a I, a Wisconsin soldier
wrote home of. his disappointment at the way the war was
going. By September of 1862,
he said, he had hoped to be mailing his letters from Richmond.

North Lacked Bold Leadership
McClellan Relieved of Command After Missing Opportunity
at Antietam; State Troops Proved Their Mettle
Chapter IX
for Douglas MacArthur, the United States never
EXCEPT
produced a military man who aroused stronger feelings
than George B. McClellan.
Historians, who have the ultimate word about such things,
do not credit him with being much of a general. He was too
cautious, too inclined to overestimate the difficulties, too reluctant to grasp his opportunities. More vigorous action by
McClellan and other Union generals cut from his pattern
might have ended the Civil war in a year or so and prevented
the worst of the tragedy that
cost the nation more than 600,-' they had enEsted only for a defensive war.
000 lives.
By an amazing piece of good
But in September of 1862, luck, on Sept. 13 McUellan rewhen the Confederacy came ceived a copy of Lee's plans. A
closest to winning, McClellan Union soldier found t h e m
was again the man to whom wrapped around three cigars,
President Lincoln turned. And left behind at an abandoned
for once, Little Mac c a m e campsite.
t h r o u g h. As the dispirited
The plans revealed that Lee
troops returned to Washing- had divided his army into four
ton from their humiliation at
Second Bull Run, many of
them ready to call it quits and
go home, McClellan cantered out
to meet them on his black horse,
a yellow sash around his waist.
He looked capable of whipping the South singlehanded.
When the tired soldiers had quit
cheering and throwing their hats
in the air, they went into camp
where McClellan proceeded to
put the beaten army into fighting trim, ready to counter the
first large scale invasion of the
North.
Robert E. Lee and his Army
of Northern Virginia crossed the
Potomac into western Maryland. It was partly a political
move. If the South could carry
the war into Union territory, it
might win help from Englandthe dream that persisted in Rich-National Archives
mond all during the fighting.
Egotistical as a great organizer, yet too cautious for victory
Excuse lor Caution
in a crucial battle, Gen. George
McClellan moved in slow pur- B. McClellan aroused strong
suit. As usual, he thought Lee's feelings everywhere. When he
forces were much larger than was top Union commmander
was actually the case. He be- his men idolized him.
lieved Allan Pinkerton's report
that the Confederate army had parts. Stonewall Jackson was on
120,000 men, compared to 70,- his way to capture Harper's
000 for the Union, so he had a Ferry with two groups of Lee's
good excuse for caution.
forces. Lee and Longstreet were
Lee really had only 40,000 in- moving t ow a r d Hagerstown,
fantrymen. Thousands of his Md. Gen. D. H. Hill was at
exhausted soldiers ·had stayed Boonsboro Gap, not far from
behind. Others had refused to Frederick, Md., where the Union
cross t h e Potomac, declaring army was now located.

Even with this opportunity in Anyone who has driven through
his grasp, McClellan waited 16 the mountains west of Frederick
hours to move. By then, Lee on route 40 will understand how
knew an attack was coming and difficult it would !.le to dislodge
determined defenders there.
reinforced his defenses at South
Mountain between Frederick Resorted to Bayonets
and Hagerstown.
The Confederate rear guard
Among McClellan's troops
hoped
to delay McClellan until
were five Wisconsin regiments
-the 2nd, 6th and 7th in Gib- Jackson and Lee could reunite
bon's brigade; the 5th and the their armies. Jackson had cap3rd. When they left home, these tured Harper's Ferry and was on
units had contained more than his way to m e e t Lee. If the
5,000 men. By now they had Union troops arrived first, they
been whittled away by disease, would be able to wipe out half
battle aud desertion to fewer the invaders, then concentrate
on Jackson.
than half that number.
The Iron brigade fought its
way toward the top of the
Weed Out Incompetents
1aountain. At one point, the men
But those who were left were of the 6th Wisconsin had been
experienced soldiers, capable of firing so furiously that their
fighting hard, marching long dis- muskets were too hot to be loadtances in a hurry, 1i vi n g on ed. They resorted to their bayonwhatever they could scrounge. ets or used their muskets as
The incompetents among their clubs.
officers had been weeded out.
By midnight, the Union troops
The ones who were left may occupied most of the mountainhave won their appointments
Fresh regiments were asthrough politics. But they had side.
signed
to relieve the 2nd and the
been educated in battle, with 7th Wisconsin.
the 2nd New
Lee and Jackson helping in the York, which wasBut
supposed
to retutoring.
place the 6th Wisconsin, refused
Again, Gibbcn's brigade-the to venture into the woods until
2nd, 6th and 7th Wisconsin and daylight and the weary 6th had
the 19th Indiana-had an impor- to remain in place until dawn.
tant role to play. It was at the
By then, the Rebels had
battle of South Mountrin, a pre- slipped
away to join Lee. The
liminary to the bloody f:ghting brigade had
318 casualties. The
along Antietam creek, that the 7th
Wisconsin, which had paid
four regiments won their des- heavily in an attack on Southern
ignation as the Iron brigade.
troops behind a stone wall, proSome said it was McClellan, vided 147 of these.
with his instinc<; for the draIt was now Sept. 15, 1862.
matic phrase, who watched the The
soidiers started to cook
midwesterners clawing up the breakfast-they
had not eaten
hillside against the Rebel rear for 24 hours. But before they
guard and remarked that they could finish they were ordered
fought like men made of iron. toward Sharpsburg, Md. It was
Others gave lien. Joseph Hook- noon when they finally had their
er the credit. In any case, the morning coffee. By then they
name stuck and the soldiers were close enough to hear canwere proud of it.
non firing along Antietam creek.
To get at Lee's main army,
McClellan's soldiers had to push Lee Reunited Army
past entrenched Confederate
The artillery dueled that day.
forces at Turner's Gap on South
Mountain and at Crampton's Lee was on the west side of the
gap, a few miles to the south. stream and McClellan-with a 4
Gibbon's men arrived at the for- to I numerical superiority-on
mer place, marching along the the other. But it was not until
National road, some hours after late the following afternoon that
the fighting had begun. The the cautious McClellan ordered
brigade was ordered to attack
his men across the creek. By the
the center of the Rebels' line.
The Union had more men, but time the battle began in earnest
the southern soldiers were dug on Sept. 17, Lee had his army rein on the mountainside, hidden united and the odds favoring the
by fallen trees, u n d e r b r u s h, Union were down to less than
stone fences and the terrain. 2 to I.

26

The 5th Wisconsin was in the
neighborhood. assigned to guard
artillery, so was only nominally
in the battle of Antietam. That
left the 3rd regiment, which had
watched the battle of South
Mountain from a distance, and
the three Wisconsin units in
Gibbon's Iron brigade to represent the s t a t e in one of the
war's most important battles.
At dawn on the 17th, the Iron
brigade moved forward toward
a cornfield, where Rebel bayonets glinted among green leaves.
The Wisconsin farm boys were
familiar enough with fields of
g r a i n, but this one would be
etched in the minds of the survivors as long as they lived.
The 2nd and 6th Wisconsin
moved into the rows of corn,
w h i 1 e the 7th Wisconsin and
19th Indiana advanced through
a woods. Capt. W. V. Batchelli
of the 6th had his pet Newfoundland dog with him. The captain
soon fell. His dog, bewildered at
the noise and confusion, stood

near him until Confederate bullets cut it down.

Rebels Pushed Back
The Rebels were pushed back
across the field to the vicinity
of a small Dunker church, erected by German pacifists who had
come to Maryland to escape
from Europe's wars. There, the
Confederates rallied and shoved
the midwesterners back into the
corn again.
With help from reinforcements, the Wisconsin men
forced Stonewall Jackson's soldiers back a second time. Maj.
Rufus Dawes of the 6th remembered how his companions were
"loading and firing with demonical fury and shouting and
laughing hysterically" as they
fought.
This phase of the battle was
nearly won. Then two fresh brigades of Lee's troops hurried
out of the w o o d s. The battle
surged back across the cornfield
again, with the Rebels advancing until they came under fire

A Dunker church (white building in the background) was
one of the objectives of both the Union and Rebel armies
at the battle of Antietam. After the fighting was over,

from the 7th Wisconsin and the
19th Indiana.
A third time the Union men
pushed across the field. Agarn
the Rebels rallied and shoved
them back to the woods. By this
time, 343 of the 800 men Gibbon
led into the battle were dead or
wounded. He pulled b a c k his
force to give other Union troops
their turn.
Among these was the 3rd Wisconsin. By a coincidence, it
fought in the same area of the
battle, but now the cornfield
bore a crop of dead men. Julian
W. Hinkley, of Waupun, then a
lieutenant with the 3rd, told
how the Confederates came
toward his regiment, advancing
across the field toward a rail
fence, not firing a shot as the
Union artillery tore holes in the
gray ranks.

Returned Fire for Fire
"A portion of these stern
fighters reached the fence,''
Hinkley said. "None came farther. There they stopped and

opened fire on our lines. From
our higher ground, we could see
the steady stream of their
wounded being helped to the
rear.
"Still they held on, returning
fire for fire; and we, too, were
suffering terribly. At length, the
Confederates having been reduced to a mere handful ... they
fell back to the woods."
Another Rebel attack came
and was beaten back. Then Joseph Hooker rode up, waving
his sword. He ordered the 3rd
Wisconsin and the 27th Indiana
to fix bayonets and pursue the
enemy. Hooker led the charge,
forgetting for a moment that he
was a general, not a captain.
The two regiments passed
into the corpse strewn cornfield,
a few hundred men marching
against several thousand. The
Wisconsin regiment's co 1or s
made a good target. The color
bearer was shot down. Members
of the color guard were all killed
or wounded. Pvt. Joseph E. Collins grabbed the standard and

thousands of bodies lay strewn over the fields. Acclaimed
as a Union victory, the battle gave impetus to issuance of
the Emancipation Proclamation.
-Li!)racy ot <;:ongress

27

carried the regimental f 1a g
through the rest of the battle.
The brave but foolish attack
led by Hooker stopped short in
the cornfield when a staff officer rode up and ordered the Wisconsin and Indiana regiments
to make way for a division led
by Gen. Edwin "Bull" Sumner,
then nearly 70 years old, and by
Gen. John Sedgwick.

Slept on Battlefield
"This was all that prevented
us from assaulting a position
with about 150 men which a few
minutes later Sedgwick's division, with five or six thousand, failed to carry," Lt. Hinkley said.
The 3rd Wisconsin, with nearly two-thirds of the men who
began the battle killed or
wounded, moved back out of the
fighting. The men broke out
their rations of hardtack-a
thick cracker-and made coffee.
They slept that night on the bat"
tlefield. The next morning, they
threw away their old muskets
and armed themselves with newer Springfields that the dead
owners no longer needed.
The battle had gone in favor
of the North, but McClellan's
caution kept him from clinching
the victory. Sharpsburg was full
of Confederate wounded. Maj.
Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside had
partly crumpled the right of the
Confederate line. But McClellan
declined to commit his reserves.
The two armies had 27,000
casualties after the bloodiest 12
hours of fighting in American
history. On the night of the
ber, 1862. Staff officers posed with the
A short, cocky man with boots, Gen.
18th, Lee was allowed to escape
president and general after the battle of
George B. McClellan faced Abraham Linback south across the Potomac.
McClellan spent the next five
coln as the president inspected headquarAntietam. A few weeks later, Lincoln reand a half weeks arguing by
placed McClellan.
-Library of congress
ters of the Army of the Potomac in Octotelegraph with President Lincoln about why he had not pursued Lee's army. Then, his paLt. Col. Edward S. Bragg of
Lincoln's opponent for the presitience gone, Lincoln replaced the 6th Wisconsin was among Lacked Bold Leaders
dency
in 1864. In the army,
him with Burnside.
Antietam, in one sense, was
the wounded. By mistake, he
thousands
of soldiers were sorry
was listed as slain. Back home another in a long list of missed to see him go. If he hadn't
Bodies Piled High
in Fond du Lac, his wife re- Union opportunities. But it had chased Lee, he had beaten him,
After the battle of Antietam, ceived a brusque wire:
ended the invasion of the North
Wisconsin soldiers w a t c he d
and had proved that despite hadn't he? Perhaps Little Mac
"Your husband was shot yeswagonloads of arms and legs
such battles as Bull Run, the had his reasons.
moving back from the field hos- terday. I will send him home Northern soldiers had been
pitals to a place of burial. Maj. by express."
Besides, there was the memwelded into a capable fighting
Dawes told later of riding his
While Mrs. Bragg was wait- machine.
ory
of the jaunty general with
horse a I o n g the Hagerstown ing sorrowfully for the body,
The ingredient still missing the sash about his waist, riding
turnpike "through a n a r r o w the colonel-he would later be
lane made by piling the bodies a brigadier general and a power was bold leadership. In Wash- out to rally the beaten regialong the turnpike fences."
in politics-was recuperating. It ington, Lincoln hoped he had ments. Survivors of the Army
The Iron brigade's casualties was some time before the error found it in Burnside, a balding, of the Potomac, when they were
were 42% of its strength-secstubborn man with ferocious
ond highest among the Union was straightened out and Mrs. side whiskers merging into a old men sitting about the small
brigades. At one point, after his Bragg learned she was not a formidable mustache. As it t o w n s of Wisconsin looking
men were pulled back from the widow. Gen. Gibbon, not a man
wistfully at the past, still were
fighting, Gen. Gibbon saw other ordinarily given to humor, wrote t u r n e d out, Burnside would certain there had never been a
command the eastern forces for
soldiers retreating and reached her a reassuring letter.
leader quite like McClellan, no
for his sword, planning to wave
"Never believe your husband less than three months.
it aloft to rally them. The hilt is dead," he advised her, "until
McClellan was through, al- matter what the history books
had been shot away.
he himself writes you it is so." though he would be back as said.

28

Most Dreaded Enemy in Conflict
Was Disease and Not the Bullet
morning from the effects of
drinking too much whisky," Pvt.
Barnes informed the folks in
Spring Prairie, writing from Columbus, Ky. Two years later, in
1864, Barnes reported from
Pine Bluff, Ark.:
"Jerry Sullivan died from the
fever caused by drinking too
much whisky. The doctor gave
him 50 grains of quinine but it
had no effect on him whatever.
So much for.the fever whisky."
The headquarters of Fighting
Joe Hooker, who commanded
the Union's eastern army for a
while, was once described as a
"combination of barroom an d
brothel." This was an exaggeration, but it is certain that some
generals as well as privates
were fast men with the bottle.
Gambling was also a favorite
pastime. Pvt. John W. McCann,
serving in Missouri with the 2nd
A leading Madison physician, Wisconsin cavalry, wrote:
"It is a common thing to see
Chandler Chapman, was surfour
officers sitting around an
geon of the famed Iron briold
greasy
board with a deck of
gade. In common with other
cards and three or four hunmedical men of the day, he dred dollars on the board . . .
found it difficult to hold down. They keep the game agoing all
the high loss of soldiers strick- day and all night. When one
en with a great variety of dis- gets tired there is always more
to take his place.
-state Historical Society
eases.

Chapter X
yN THE hundred years that have passed since the Civil war,
legends have enveloped it in a rose colored mist, with
armies of bearded giants moving bravely through it.
The North has not clung to its illusions with quite the same
tenacity as the South. But in both sections, the cult of the
Civil war has taken hold, with men meeting to chew over old
campaigns and to argue the trajectory of the first Minie ball
fired at Snicker's Gap or Nickbut disease-particularly an ailajack creek.
ment few could spell but which
A style of writing has grown they wrote about with great
up a. b o u t the conflict, with feeling in their letters and dih u s h e d adjectives wheeling aries:
into place and s e n t en c e s
"Well, I ain't dead yet," Henmarching across the page with ry D. Barnes of the 28th Wisbanners flying. Not even the consin admitted in a letter
old west has been wrapped so home, "but have been quite sick
lovingly in myth. The war is with Diaherra and fever. . . .
to American hi s tory what Let a man get sick and go five
"Hamlet" is to literature-the days without eating anything
if he don't think of home
classic tragedy, complete with and
then, I'll treat."
ghosts that walk and the solil"If we are lucky in this battle,
oquies of heroes.
we shall all be home this fall, I
This attitude is not new. Even think," Capt. Oscar F. Pinney
while the war was going on wrote to his wife in Monroe in
there was a lively sense of the May, 1862, "should the Diarea
theatrical in accounts of it. not kill us all."
Whenever a bullet hit a soldier,
Isaac Poe of the 29th Wisconaccording to regimental hissin
wrote, "I have had the Dietories and newspaper accounts,
he immediately struck an atti- rah for more than six weeks,"
tude and composed a few fare- adding that he hoped to see his
wife and seven children in Jefwell remarks.
ferson county again, but f e 1t
"Mother!" was the favorite doubtful. His doubts were justiamong dying enlisted men. If fied. He died at Helena, Ark.,
the man was an officer, of having failed to obtain in time
course, he was required to make the $100 needed to bribe his way
a short but stirring address to out of the army.
his men before he died, urging
"I have the Dierree," Pvt.
them to fight on, keep the old
flag flying and perhaps some Alonzo Miller of the 12th Wisday return to shed a manly tear consin informed his sister, addfor their old captain who had ing to reassure her: "I am drinkdied happy in the certainty that ing blackberry root tea."
the Union (or the Confederacy)
Fought lor Patch
would be preserved.
Blackberries were considered
a specific for most of the ailDisease Also Killed
ments that beset the men, inIn the light of such admirable cluding
the one they gave the
sentiments, it is difficult to descriptive name of the Tennespoint out that this was a war see (or Kentucky or Virginia)
not only of glory - and glory Quickstep.
was t h ere, hiding behind the
Sharp skirmishes were fought
adjectives - but of something and men died for possession of
close to American concentration a blackberry patch. Sometimes
camps, of political arrests, big- soldiers of both sides sensibly
otry, grasping speculators and called an informal truce
some of the most savage poli- while the berries were ripe and
ticking ever seen on the conti- went out to pick them together.
nent.
Whisky was another favorite
To the men in uniform, it was remedy, although its use was by
also a war where the most no means confined to medicinal
dreaded enemy was not a bullet purposes. It was sometimes is-

sued to the troops and was often available from the Civil war
version of the PX, the sutler's
wagon.
"The second lieutenant of
company F died last Monday

29

Attitude Toward Negro
••. . . The female inhabitants
of this ill begotten region have
perfect command over the officers of this regiment. They can
have a guard to make their nig~

Gambling and drinking were favorite pastimes of soldiers
of the Civil war, who often found the days dragging by
in boring routine. This artist's sketch, adapted from an
old photograph, shows both servicemen and civilians "in
action" around a card table.
-1ouma1 Sketch

gers work for them and all the
officers do is gamble, drink
whisky and visit.
"Maybe the privates would
do so too - if t h e y had a
chance ..."
The attitude of the Wisconsin soldiers toward the Negro
emerges from the letters and
diaries they wrote by the light
of the southern campfires. It
varied considerably.
Some soldiers changed their
views when they met the hordes
of "contrabands" who c a m e
hurrying off the plantations to
meet their northern liberators.
The changes were in both directions.
Some who had been abolitionists when they left home decided that the slaves weren't
worth freeing. Others, who had
been bitterly anti-Negro when
they began the war, felt the
stirrings of pity and sometimes
-although rarely-of respect ..
The average soldier's sentiments merely reflected the attitude back home. E. G. Ryan, a
Milwaukee lawyer and leading
Democrat, spoke for a considerable segment of the Wisconsin population when he declared
in 1863:
"We hold this country to be
the possession of the white race
and this government to be instituted by white men for white
men ... Nature has made social
equality impossible without fatally sinning against her laws,
and without social equality,
political equality is impossible.

Petitioned Legislature
"Nature never placed the
races together; when brought together, the servitude of the inferior is the best condition for
both races; a necessary evil resulting from the violation of
natural law m bringing them
together . . ."
The 1863 Wisconsin legislature got no less than 40 petitions urging passage of a law
barring Negroes from immigrating to the state. Two y e a r s
later, when a measure to allow
Negroes to vote was submitted
to Wisconsin citizens, t h e y
turned it down by 10,000 votes.
As it turned out, the 1865
balloting was not binding. The
state supreme court ruled that
an 1849 law permitting Negro
suffrage took precedence. But
the vote was a reflection of the
state's sentiment.
As the Wisconsin t r o o p s
moved south, many officers and
some enlisted men obtained
Negro servants to do their cooking and washing. In return, they
gave the Negroes food.
Some soldiers acquired Negro
mistresses. T h e s e alliances
were usually brief. But occa-

sionally, an officer would keep
his woman with him in camp
and even on a march, thinly disguised as a servant. The girls
were not generally mentioned
in letters home. When they
were, they were almost invaria b 1y described as octoroons
(one-eighth Negro).

Suffered in Prisons
The places where prisoners
of war were kept are not generally thought of as concentration camps, but some of them
justified the name. The suffering that occurred in even the
worst of them was more the
result of callous indifference
than of deliberate, calculated inhumanity. But the conditions at
Andersonville, Ga., for instance,
make it difficult to accept the
modern contention that this
was the last of the "gentlemen's wars," although it is true
that there were gentlemen who
fought in it.
There were sharp cleavages
among the troops along religious lines. Immigrants w e r e
looked down on by the native
born, and returned the attitude
with interest. The "westerners"
from Wisconsin had little use
for the easterners, and v i c e
versa.
A leader of Wisconsin free thinkers, Carl Schurz, of WaAll of these distinctions tendtertown, urged German immigrants in the state to vote
ed to break down on the battlefor Lincoln. He later received a political appointment as
field, but even after the war
a general.
was over it was found necessary to put the Potomac between the eastern and western crime seems to have been an the immigrants and less well to
celebrants to avoid further bar- untoward z e a I in competing do were apt to be Democrats;
room mayhem in Washington. with Republicans came close to the "Yankees" and the employers, Republicans. There was a
being hanged.
As is often the case in Amer- strain of anti-Catholicism in the
Truce Broken Off
ican
politics, both major parties latter party, inherited from the
After the first few months of
were
split-the Republicans be- Know Nothing movement. Cathwar, the political truce between
olics had reason to distrust it.
Republicans and Northern Dem- tween the radicals and the moderates;
their
Northern
opponents
Free thinkers among Wisconocrats broke wide open. Excesses were committed by both between the prowar Democrats sin Germans, led by Carl Schurz,
sides. The bitter split helped and the peace Democrats. The who ran for lieutenant governor
keep Southern hopes of victory latter came to be known as Cop- and later became a major genalive. Under the stress of war, perheads. The word became an eral, were o f t e n Republicans.
Northern men on both sides of epithet that helped keep Demo- But "G e r m an Catholics and
the political fence did foolish crats out of the presidency until Irish Catholics, almost without
exception, v o t e d the straight
1884.
things.
Democratic ticket and joined in
Some generals and Northern First GOP President
the Copperhead movement," acofficials in the months before
cording to the Marquette univerWhen
Lincoln
took
office
in
the fall election of 1862 intersity historian, Frank L. Klement.
preted any criticism of the Lin- 1861, it was the first national
The political arrests before
success
for
the
new
Republican
coln administration as disloyalthe
election backfired on the ReSome
of
its
leaders
took
party.
ty. Newspapers were sometimes
suppressed. What can only be advantage of wartime emotions publicans in the fall of 1862.
described as political arrests to insure continued controL Democrats outpolled RepubliTheir activities sometimes went cans in Ohio and won a majority
were made.
With the writ of habeas cor- far beyond the line of legitimate of the congressional seats in Inpus suspended, it was possible politics- just as some Demo- diana and Illinois. In Wisconsin,
to I o d g e an opponent in jail cratic leaders allowed political the two parties broke even, with
without bringing a formal prejudice to blind them to the three congressmen each.
There was, to sum it up, concharge against him. Some were necessity for stern measures to
siderable disunity in the Union.
released when friends brought restore the Union.
The national cleavage was re- And the war that the North had
pressure to bear, but others sat
out the war in prison. In Indi- flected in Wisconsin. Here, as expected to win in a few months
ana, several men whose chief elsewhere in the middle west, dragged on for four years.

30

Soldiers Guard Highways
to Discourage Draft Dodgers
Chapter XI
troopship nosed into Port Ulao, on the Lake Michigan
T HE
shore four miles below Port Washington. It was midnight.
A battalion of the 28th Wisconsin infantry, bayonets fixed to
their loaded muskets, marched ashore.
The steamer pulled out again and headed north, carrying
the rest of the regiment. The recruits from Waukesha and
Walworth counties were ready
ing the attack on the bottled
for action.
supplies w e r e captured. The
So were several hundred cit- town was retaken without a
izens in Port Washington. Ear- shot being fired.
lier in the day, they had flung
About 120 of the rioters were
William A. Pors down the hustled off to Camp Randall in
courthouse steps, then pur- Madison, where two companies
sued h i m to the post office, of the 30th Wisconsin were aswhere he hid in the cellar until signed to guard them. Pvt. D. S.
they got tired of banging on Chambers, one of the guards,
wrote to his wife that he would
the door.
Having won a skirmish but obey orders and shoot anyone
lost the campaign to string up who tried to escape, but he had
t h e draft commissioner, the misgivings.
Shooting a Rebel would be his
makeshift army of Ozaukee
county civilians held a council duty to God and country, Chamof war. It was decided that no bers said, but "shooting a Dutchone should fight on an empty man would only be fulfilling the
stomach, so the supplies of whis- law of the land." It was a fine
ky were replenished.
distinction. Once they'd sobered
After the bottles had been up, the prisoners did not choose
passed around, the mob set out
to wreck Pors' house. Pors crept to test their guards.
The state draft in November,
out of the post office, leaped
aboard a horse and buggy and 1862, had been postponed in
set off at a gallop toward Mil· Wisconsin until after the election. The levy was confined to
waukee for reinforcements.
After t h e commissioner's counties which had not met their
household g o o d s had been quotas f o r volunteers. Such
smashed and his windows broken, the Ozaukee mob damaged
the homes of four other residents identified with the hated
Civil war draft.

Sample More Bottles
Then, after more bottles had
been sampled, the four pounder
used in 4th of July celebrations
was loaded with the only cannon ball in Port Washington. A
defensive line was established
on the water front, where the
rioters prepared to take on the
United States army.
And the army was on its way.
The men who had landed at Ulao
made the four mile hike to surround the village from the land
side. The rest of the 28th regiment surged ashore when the
steamer docked next to the Port
Washington fishing fleet.
The cannon was abandoned.
Those rioters still able to run
fled. Those who had been lead-

areas were mainly those settled called Luxemburgers-n o t an
by immigrants, whose distaste Irishman was to be seen in the
for uniforms stemmed partly crowd."
Part of the opposition to this
from experiences in Europe.
first draft in United States history was based on politics. DemNot One Irishman
ocrats felt, with some justice,
The Port Washington mob, that Republicans were getting
according to a contemporary all the good jobs in the army.
account, "appeared to belong to It became increasingly hard as
a class of Germans or Belgians the war continued for even a
prowar Democrat to become a
colonel.
In Ozaukee county, some residents were convinced there had
been anti-Catholic bias in naming an army chaplain. There was
also a suspicion that quotas
assigned to that county and
Washington county w ere too
high.
The state's original draft
quota was 11,904, but enough
volunteers joined b e f ore the
deadline so that only 4,537 were
actually drafted. Of these 19
deserted and 1,662 failed to
report.
The legislature paid Pors $3,000 to repair his house and made
lesser appropnations for other
victims of the mob-$2,000 to
H. H. Hunt, $1,400 to H. W.
Stillman, $1,200 to A. M. Blair
and $800 to J. C. Loomis.
·
-State Historical Society
While the vest pocket insurGov. Edward Salomon issued rection in Port Washington was
a warning to Milwaukee resi- the most spectacular, some residents in other localities also did
dents against trying to beat their
best to avoid serving.
the Civil war draft by force.
In West Bend, farmers from
He had soldiers to back him up. the towns of Trenton and Polk
roughed up Draft Commissioner
E. H. Gilson after names had
been drawn by 13 year old
Luretta Young. Six companies
of the 30th Wisconsin were dis~(;~~~
patched to avoid further trouble.
r·l110

~
'•IY/,'?1/\

I;'

<·t-~

~\
0

~~

(

\\ \

JJ
-Journal Sketch

Rioters in Port Washington tossed a draft commissioner
down the courthouse stairs.
31

Use Fictitious Names
In Milwaukee county, the opposition was more subtle. The
sheriff submitted a long list of
volunteers, claiming that this
great outpouring of r e c r u i t s
made the draft unnecessary. It
turned out t h a t most of the
names were fictitious.
The Milwaukee d r a f t was,
however, postponed for nine
days. Careful preparations were
made. Col. John C. Starkweather of the 1st Wisconsin infantry
was put in charge. Gov. Salomon issued a stern warning to
Milwaukee county residents:
". . . If bloodshed should occur, the responsibility must fall
upon the heads of those who re-

sist the laws. My duty is to see
them enforced. The disgraceful
scenes that recently occurred in
a neighboring county shall not
be re-enacted in your community."
Just to make sure, Starkweather posted armed soldiers
at every road leading out of the
city to discourage any sudden
enthusiasm for vacation jaunts
to the north woods or Canada.
Squads of other soldiers were
stationed in each ward. The
original draft commissioner had
resigned, preferring not to go
through the same experience as
Pors had encountered. William
J. Whaling agreed to take his
place, the draft proceeded and
the troops did not have to use
their rifles.

substitutes, 6,285 were discharged for physical or other
reasons, 5,081 paid $300 each
in commutation fees, excusing
them from service. And 2,689
simply didn't show up.
In some states, federal troops
had to be called out to enforce
the 1863 draft, but Wisconsin
had learned its lesson at Port
Washington so the 28th regiment's Lake Michigan campaign
didn't have to be repeated.
Things w e r e not precisely

Draft Is Unproductive
One company of t he 30th
Wisconsin spent several weeks
in Green Bay, guarding the draft
commissioner t h ere. Soldiers
were required in several other
localities. The men of the 28th
and 30th infantry, who had
joined up to fight Confederates,
spent much of 1863 chasing
down draft evaders in Wisconsin.
Civilians were also employed
in this task, including a Menomonie agent with the impressive
name of William Wrigley
Witherbotham, who specialized
in deserters and bounty jumpers
as well as draft dodgers.
It hardly seems to have been
worth all the trouble. With one
thing and another, only 1,739 of
the draft e e s were actually
mustered into service, many of
them to serve only nine months.
It kept that many other men
from the front to round them up.
The initial draft was administered by the state. On Mar. 3,
1863, congress passed a federal
conscription act under which
121,202 Wisconsin men aged 20
to 45 were registered. This federal draft, it turned out, was
even less productive than the
earlier one.
In each community, names of
eligible draftees were written
on squares of cardboard. These
were mix e d together, then
drawn one at a time by a blind
resident or someone who had
been blindfolded.
A total of 14,955 men were
drafted. Only 628 actually
served. Of the others, 252 hired

-state Historical Society

Wisconsin's m o s t prominent
Democrat of the Civil war period was Edward G. Ryan of
Milwaukee, who got the state
supreme court to declare Lincoln's suspension of the writ
of habeas corpus unconstitutional. The decision put the
Lincoln administration in hot
water.

mation the previous fall, warning that the slaves would be
freed, was generally deplored by
Democrats and was unpopular
with m a n y moderates in the
president's own party.
The majority of the northern
Democrats believed in the slogan: "The Constitution as it is,
the Union as it was." Like most
political slogans, this one could
be interpreted in various ways.
But the feeling among its adherents seemed to be that the
clock should somehow be turned
back to 1860, with secessionists
and their slaves returning to the
prewar status quo.
The Milwaukee See-Bote, the
German language newspaper,
termed Lincoln's proclamation a
"ridiculous and unsavory piece
of writing." It was generally
agreed that its issuance helped
explain the Democratic successes in the fall elections,
which took place even though
soldiers from many states, including Wisconsin, voted in public, under the watchful eyes of
their Republican colonels.
Some Wisconsin soldiers confided bitterly to their diaries
that they had enlisted to save
the Union, not to free slaves
who might come hurrying north
to drive down wages and compete for jobs.
"All the support the war has
ever received from the Democrats was originally obtained by

a base c he a t, an infamous
swindle, a damnable deception,"
wrote Flavius J. Mills in the
Sheboygan Journal.

Rioters Are Freed
After the Ozaukee county arrests, the state's most prominent
Democrat volunteered to defend
the rioters. Atty. Edward G.
Ryan of Milwaukee told the
state supreme court that the
suspension of the writ of habeas
corpus by President Lincoln was
unconstitutional.
T h e W i s c o n s in justices
agreed. The rioters were freed.
The decision rocked the Lincoln
administration.
Edward Bates, the federal attorney general, advised against
an appeal to the United States
supreme court. The Wisconsin
decision, he feared, might be
upheld. The rioters' case was
allowed to die.
The arguments over the draft
and the emancipation of slaves
split Wisconsin. Old friends quit
speaking to each other. Fathers
quarreled with sons and brothers with brothers.
Less than t w o years had
passed since the shelling of Fort
Sumter. Then, while the war
was young, it had seemed that
all of Wisconsin was united.
Now, as the casualty lists
lengthened and political cleavages widened, the ringing oratory of April, 1861, seemed like
an echo from a vanished time.

peaceful, however. In Do d g e
county, the enrolling officer was
killed. No one was ever arrested
for the crime. In Milwaukee, a
d e p u t y registering potential
draftees was manhandled.

Deplore Lincoln's Order
D e m o c r a t s were blamed.
Leading Copperheads urged
peaceful compliance. The ballot
box, not rioting, was the method
to use in changing the law, they
declared.
In the midst of all the hard
feelings caused by the draft
came the Jan. 1, 1863, deadline
for freeing slaves. Issuance of
Lincoln's Emancipation Procla-

32

Drafts were instituted in Wisconsin counties which failed
to meet quotas by volunteers. The November, 1862, draft
was postponed until after the election. Then posters such
as this One Were nailed Up.
-Milwaukee County Historical Society

Soldiers on Both Sides Died
to Protect Regimental Flags
erates temporarily had a slight regiment's colonel, John L. Doran, flourishing his sword on
numerical advantage.
Besides the 8th with its eagle, high, the 17th charged a brigade
ISCONSIN newspapers of October, 1862, reported ex- the Wisconsin units we r e the of M i s s i s s i p p i a n s, crying
"Faugh a hallah," and waving
citedly that Old Abe, the 8th Wisconsin regiment's eagle,
14th, 16th, 17th and 18th. One not one flag but three-the Wishad helped whip the Rebels near Corinth, Miss. The bird, so member of the 14th, Sgt. Dennis
consin, the United States a n d
the reports ran, soared over the competing armies, screaming J. F. Murphy, an Irishman who the Irish colors.
had enlisted at Green Bay, was
defiance of Jeff Davis.
Previously unaware that they
wounded three times but h e I d were at war with Ireland, the
There was even a rumor
Promotions or medals were
that Abe had grabbed a rock sometimes given for grabbing fast to the regimental c o I o r s Mississippi lads left hurriedly.
One Union general called it the
in each claw and bombed the an enemy flag. Pvt. Horace El- throughout the battle. He won "most glorious c h a r g e of the
the
congressional
m
e
d
a
I
of
Confederates from the air. It lis, of Chippewa Falls, in the 7th
campaign."
honor.
The other Wisconsin units
made a fine story. It is too Wisconsin, won the congressional medal of honor for capwere also in the thick of things.
bad that, like many of the turing the flag of the 16th Mis- Colonel Flourished Sword
So was Brig. Gen. Charles S.
Civil war newspaper reports, sissippi regiment in Virginia.
Murphy's compatriots in the Hamilton of Fond du Lac, who
Pvt. Richard H. Cosgriff of 17th did well, too. With the had been Grant's classmate at
it wasn't true.
The tale of Abe's prowess Hudson, who served with the
may have originated with a 4th Iowa cavalry, got a similar
wounded officer, Capt. William medal for obtaining a Rebel flag
J. Dawes, who saw his regi- in Georgia.
It is hard to imagine 20th
ment's eagle flying over him as
he lay on the ground and as- century soldiers VYing for the
sumed Abe was making a recon- honor of carrying a flag into
battle or of risking their lives
naissance of the enemy.
to
snatch one from an enemy.
What actually happened, acis even harder to picture a
cording to David McLain, was It
that a bullet cut the cord that World War II marine storming
held the bird to the perch and a beach on Saipan burdened
a 14 pound eagle on a
another bullet k n o c ked out with
perch.
three of Abe's feathers.

Chapter XII

W

The indignant eagle flew off
about 50 feet. McLain, assigned
as the regiment's eagle bearer,
scrambled after him, retied the
cord and put Abe back on the
portable perch.
Bullets went through McLain's blouse and the right leg
of his pants, but neither drew
blood. The habit the Rebels had
of shooting at the eagle made
the post of bearer a dangerous
one. After the battle, McLain
decided he w o u 1d forgo the
honor, especially as the bird
was getting heavier and was a
nuisance on the march.
Other regiments had no eagle
but all carried flags into battle.
These had a useful function. In
the confusion of the fighting,
they provided a convenient rallying place for the regiment.
But the flags were a symbol
as well. Now that the war was
18 months old, everyone knew it
was a grim business. But in
some ways, despite the mounting casualties, it was s t i 11 a
game. The loss of a regimental
flag was considered a disgrace.
Men died protecting these pieces
of bunting. The soldiers were
prouder of capturing a Confederate banner than of winning a
skirmish.

Foes Traded Fibs
But this was a different kind
of war. It was a war where

pickets sometimes met to trade
Yankee coffee for southern tobacco or merely to swap lies.
Whenever two opposing armies
were in the same area for any
length of time, such meetings
occurred. Informal rules grew
up. It was not considered honorable to start shooting again after such a momentary armistice
without shouting a warning to
the foe.
The Wisconsin soldiers sometimes felt they had more in
common with the privates in the
Rebel ranks than they did with
their own officers or the civilians ·back home.· Between battles, sometimes the r e was an
uneasy realization that the opposition was made up of Americans not very different from
themselves.
The battle of Corinth was
fought on Oct. 3 and 4, 1862,
with five Wisconsin regiments
and two Wisconsin artillery batteries among the 22,000 men
commanded there by Gen. William S. Rosecrans. Gen. Grant
had sent many of his t r o o p s
from Mississippi to Kentucky to
help Gen. Buell, so the Confed33

Flags were symbols of all of the principles for which both
sides fought, and it was the highest honor to be able to
protect's one's own flag at the risk of life and limb. Capturing an enemy flag was considered a great feat of gallantry,
and many men won medals by doing so. These were among
the flags taken in battle by Wisconsin troops. Rebel flags
varied greatly in design.
-state Historical SocietoY

West Point and now commanded one wing of Rosecrans' Army
of the Mississippi.
Hamilton and his men had
won a victory on Sept. 19 at
Iuka, where the general's horse
was killed under him and the
hilt of his sword shot away. At
Corinth, theW is cons in man
sent his soldiers on a flank attack that helped win the two
day battle.
Hamilton s o o n succeeded
Rosecrans, who was transferred
to command the Army of the
Cumberland. Later in the year,
Hamilton's Army of the Mississippi was merged into the Army
of the Tennesse and Hamilton
was shuffled off to command
the Memphis district. When his
m a j o r general's commission
came through, Hamilton sought
to return to Grant's army as a
corps commander, but Grant
could offer him only a division.

Protested to Washington .
Hamilton protested to Washington, offering to resign unless given his due. The resignation was accepted, and the general went home to Fond du Lac.
After Corinth, the Union's
western army had a victory to
put beside the eastern army's
success at Antietam. Now it was
the turn of the men in the central war theater.
Gen. Don Carlos Buell was in
charge of an army cautiously
moving toward Perryville, Ky.,

a small community h e I d by a
Confederate force under Braxton Bragg. One of the Confederate general's relatives, Edward S. Bragg, who began the
war as captain of a Fond du
Lac rifle company, later was
colonel of the 6th Wisconsin
and ended the war a brigadier
general.
Braxton Bragg had headed
north through Kentucky to join
a smaller Confederate army under Gen. Kirby Smith, perhaps
to invade Ohio. Buell's troops,
including the 1st, lOth, 15th,
21st and 24th Wisconsin infantry regiments and three Wisconsin light artillery batteries,
were assigned to get in his way.
On Oct. 8, 1862, the opposing
armies blundered into a battle
neither was quite ready for. It
occurred along Chaplin creek,
near Perryville, Ky., with the
fighting beginning in bright
moonlight and lasting until the
following evening.

100 Prisoners Taken
Some troops on the Union
side were comparative veterans,
but these were the first Rebels
the 21st Wisconsin had encountered. The regiment had been in
service only 34 days and was
not yet supplied with regimental
colors, which left its men feeling
a little naked.
The untried regiment found
itself in a cornfield a little in advance of the rest of the Union

line. When the fighting began, it
seemed to the men that they
were being shot at from both
front and rear. They left quickly
for a safer spot, but not fast
enough to avoid 179 casualties,
including 42 killed.
The Scandinavians of the 15th
Wisconsin were more fortunate.
They captured 100 prisoners and
13 ammunition wagons, but had
not a single man hurt in the
day's work. In the two hours
this regiment was in the fighting, the Rebels nearest them
were mostly concerned with
getting away.
At other points in the battle,
however, the fighting was severe. The 1st Wisconsin-a three
year regiment now, not the
three month outfit that had
marched off to avenge Fort
Sumter - went into the battle
with 407 men. It lost 180 of
them b e f o r e the day was
through, including 56 killed.
One of those fatally wounded
was a Milwaukee printer named
Charles G. Lyon, who had rejoined the 1st Wisconsin after
the three month regiment was
disbanded. When the news
reached his home town of Ripon, his only brother, Martin
Luther Lyon, enlisted. Martin
was to die in a New Orleans hospital after service at Vicksburg.
Sgt. John S. Durham of the
1st was standing near by when
the color sergeant was killed.
Durham, who came from St.

Croix Falls, grabbed the flag and
started advancing toward the
Rebel line. He got about halfway when his commander yelled
for him to stop. The sergeant
won a medal of honor.

'Buried My Dead'
Capt. Oscar F. Pinney of the
5th Wisconsin battery, writing
before the battle to his wife,
Eliza, had grumbled about his
men complaining to their relatives back in Monroe, saying he
was too severe with them. The
day after the fighting, in which
his battery lost one killed and
one wounded, he sat down to
write Eliza again:
"The dead are not yet buried
nor all the wounded taken up.
... It is an awful sight to . . .
see the legs and arms, and men
with no heads on them .... They
charged on me in the night. I
gave them aU the canister they
wanted.
"I buried my own dead and
brought the wounded away with
me, and all my guns, and that is
what many of them cannot say.
Ask some of those knowing
damn fools in Monroe what they
think now about making their
sons mind. . . . If I have no
friends in Monroe, I have them
here and those men in my company know who their friend is
now."
Pinney didn't mention it to
Eliza, but Gen. Alexander McCook had publicly thanked the

-Chicago Historical Society

Many of the troops captured by Wisconsin regiments in
the western theater were sent to Camp Douglas, a large
camp near Chicago used for both training and confinement

of prisoners. The crowds of men above were Confederate
prisoners at Camp Douglas, apparently housed and cared
for in better fashion than most Civil war prisoners.
34

Wisconsin men for their bravery
in repulsing three attempts to
take the battery. Their action,
the general said, "saved the division from disgraceful defeat."
After the fighting died down,
the Union troops slept with their
guns handy. In the morning,
Bragg's men were 1 imp in g
south. Buell pursued with his
customary caution. The Rebels
had a long train of supplies with
them, including several thousand cattle and 1,000 sheep, but
Buell made no real attempt to
catch them. Hans Christian Heg,
colonel of the 15th Wisconsin,
pushed his men within sound of
the Confederate supply wagons,
but his suggestion for an attack
was ignored.

Buellls Replaced
Lincoln an d Gen. Hallel'k
were also urging Buell to get
into action, with as little success. Before long he was replaced by Rosecrans, whose victory at Corinth had brought him
to the attention of Washington.
The administration was still
looking for a general with a
taste for fighting.
Despite the Union's failure to
follow up its victories at Antietam, Perryville and Corinth, a
three pronged threat had been
ended and the initiative was no
longer in Confederate hands.
"From the tim!d defense, we
were at once (after Corinth) enabled to assume the bold offensive," was the way Gen. Sherman put it.
The Union objective in the
west was to reopen the Mississippi. There were a number of
reasons for this, not all of them
strictly military. For one thing,
restoration of river commerce
would please the midwestern
farmers, who would no longer
be entirely dependent on railroads to market their wheat.
Rail rates had gone up and
the farmers were unhappy.
Whispered suggestions in some
quarters that the "northwest"
ought to make its own peace
with the Confederacy, perhaps
even secede from the east, were
not discounted entirely in Washington.
The fortified r i v e r town of
Vicksburg, Miss., was the principal obstacle to reopening the
Mississippi. With Bragg's threat
to Ohio and Kentucky ended,
Gen. Grant was now free to
move against it.

State Regiment Lucky
Between them, Grant a n d
Sherman worked out what
seemed like a clever plan. Grant
would move overland toward
Vicksburg, keeping the Confederates busy. At the same time,
Sherman would take another

If one Wisconsin man was
the goat, another was the hero
of the disaster at Holly Springs.
Capt. L. S. Van Vliet of Caledonia was assistant quartermaster of Grant's supply trains.
When the base was captured,
he was there with a hoard of
public money in his charge.
As Van Dorn's men stormed
into town, Van Vliet resorted to
what was later described proudly as a Yankee trick. He quickly
dressed his aides as civilians,
telling them to pose as 1 a w
clerks in the office of Walter &
Scriggs, these gentlemen being
absent with the Confederate
army. Van Vliet then jumped
into a bed in a back room of the
upstairs law office and an-state Historical Society
nounced he. had smallpox.
Union soldiers posed for the photographer in different
A Rebel officer came trampuniforms. From left were a noncommissioned officer,
ing up the stairs, demanding
probably in the cavalry; an infantryman
whisky. The "clerks" pointed
out that their boss had the pox.
and an artilleryman.
The Rebel left. Other Confederates came wandering by from
army by steamer to the point brigade in the summer of 1862. time to time, only to find the
where the Yazoo river empties In September, however, when he captain in bed and his men iminto the Mississippi, s t o r m abandoned Iuka, Miss., in the mersed in their law books.
ashore, s e i z e the defenses on face of a Confederate attack, the
Chickasaw Bluffs a n d grab colonel was put under arrest.
Union Scheme Worked
Vicksburg before the Rebels
Murphy was able to persuade
It was getting hard to breathe
knew what was up.
his superiors that his decision to
now.
The windows had been
Sherman set off confidently, retreat had been necessary. Not
his troop ships escorted by Ad- long afterward he was restored broken when t h e Union ordmiral David D. Porter's gun- to his command. In fact, Grant nance building was blown up
boats. Among the units with him gave him the important task of and the smoke of burning cotwere the 23rd Wisconsin infan- guarding the large Union supply ton came drifting in. If any of
try and the 1st Wisconsin light base at Holly Springs, Miss., as the Confederates who stopped
artillery battery. On the way, on the army moved down a railroad by had been cold sober it would
Christmas day of 1862, Sherman line toward Vicksburg to co-op- doubtless have occurred to them
dropped off the 23rd Wisconsin erate with Sherman's expedi- that it was strange to see men
so immersed in their studies
and other regiments at Milli- tion.
while the town was burning. But
ken's Bend to wreck the railfortunately for Van Vliet's
road from Vicksburg to Shreve- Surrendered the Base
scheme, the whisky supply was
port, La., helping cut ConfederNine days before the assault ample and VanDorn's men were
ate communications.
on Chickasaw Bluffs, Gen. Earl thirsty.
As it turned out, t h e 23rd Van Doni struck at the Union
At night, the captain and his
was lucky to be at Milliken's force guarding Holly Springs.
men gathered up the pay roll
B en d instead of Chickasaw
After token resistance, Mur- money and departed. The way
Bluffs. Sherman ran into a buzz phy surrendered the base. The they'd fooled the Rebs made a
saw. Instead of being lightly Confederates burned a million ' fine story to tell around t h e
manned, the defenses behind dollars' w o r t h of supplies. campfires. Grant would have
Chickasaw bayou and atop the Grant's army found itself on a preferred to have the supplies
heights were bristling with Reb- diet of parched corn. The Vicks- at Holly Springs rather than the
els. And Grant, to Sherman's burg attack and Sherman's ex- money.
surprise, was nowhere in the vi- pedition were doomed before
Gen. Van Dorn, as it hapcinity.
they began.
pened, lived less than a year to
Sherman's men were beaten
"Traitor" was a word used celebrate his triumph. A husoff, with 1,700 casualties. The freely by Wisconsin soldiers in band, irate over the attentions
attempt to capture Vicksburg their letters home to describe the general paid his wife, shot
was a costly failure. As Sher- Col. Murphy, but his action ap- him dead.
man made plans to renew the pears to have been the result
One important thing was salhopeless assault on the cliffs, he of timidity or poor judgment vaged from the Union debacle.
finally got word that Grant rather t h a n anything worse. Forced into it by t h e supply
wasn't coming.
Grant angrily dismissed him shortage, Grant ordered his men
The man given most of the from the army.
to live off the country. They
blame for Grant's failure was
Murphy claimed he had only proved such enthusiastic confisCol. Robert C. Murphy of the 820 men and the Rebels had 10,- cators of Confederate edibles
8th Wisconsin. The colonel had 000. Grant countered that the that they soon were eating betbeen in command of the regi- odds were not nearly that great, ter than they had before.
ment when it left for the south and anyway he could h a v e
Later, when he'd had time to
in the fall of 1861 and his ca- called for help and got it. The think about it, Grant would see
reer had already had its ups and St. Croix man appealed directly from this that an army could
downs.
to Lincoln, who suggested the get along without an unwieldy
He apparently i m p r e s s e d . order of dismissal be rescinded, train of covered wagons. It was
Grant as competent enough, for but the war department took a realization that would help
he was put in command of a no action.
the North win the war.

35

Federals Spared Baton Rouge
Stubborn Milwaukee Colonel Refused to Follow Orders,
Prevented Louisiana Capital From Being Burned
Chapter XIII
tourist driving through the handsome capiA WISCONSIN
tal of Louisiana ought to pause long enough to doff his
new straw hat to the memory of Halbert E. Paine, who believed an army officer should obey orders, provided he agreed
with them. Paine's stubborn streak was all that saved Baton
Rouge from being burned.
Paine, a Milwaukee lawyer, went to war in the summer of
1861 as colonel of the 4th Wisconsin infantry. The Milwaukee bank rioters were the first enemy he faced. After these
irate citizens had calmed down, the regiment got on a train
and headed east to war. EveiY.f:hing went well until the Wisconsin m e n got to Coming,
cuts for their unendurable
N. Y., where they were to saber
impudence and some arrests
change trains for Elmira. Be- were made."
cause two railroads were feuding, the passenger agent in- Butler Was Hated
formed Paine that his regiment
Having successful engagewould not be accepted aboard ments with Milwaukee and New
Orleans mobs to its credit, the
the Elmira train.
regiment
moved up the river
The Wisconsin men had enand occupied Baton Rouge. Fulisted to fight Confederates, but gitive slaves came into camp.
they had already dealt with riot- An order a r r i v e d requiring
ers and were willing to take on Paine to return the Negroes to
railroaders. The regiment had their owners.
no muskets. At Paine's order the
Paine refused. He was placed
soldiers armed themselves with under arrest. The colonel counpick handles. Two companies- tered by a "respectful and manthe Oconto River Drivers and ly letter" declaring the 4th Wisthe Calumet Rifles-were sent consin had not come south to
return slaves to Rebels. Paine
)Ut to capture a locomotive.
was
temporarily restored to
They seized the first one that duty to
lead his men on an un;bowed up. Volunteers who had successful expedition toward
lperated trains in Wisconsin re- Vicksburg, but put back under
Jlaced the crew. Soldiers lined arrest when he returned. He
:he platform to prevent railroad was ordered to report to Butler.
!mployes from uncoupling the
That cross eyed general in
:ars. After the last Wisconsin civilian life had been a Massanan had jumped aboard, the chusetts lawyer and politician.
He is generally regarded as one
rain puffed off to Elmira.
of the least competent of the
war's political generals, which
!Job on Every Side
is saying quite a bit. He was to
The next spring, the 4th Wis- become one of the most hated
:onsin found itself in New Or- men the Union cause produced,
eans, which had fallen to a na- known to generations of south·al expedition under Admiral erners as "Beast" Butler.
>avid G. Farragut and an army
By the time Paine arrived in
ed by Gen. Benjamin Butler. New Orleans, the garrison at Ba'he regiment stationed itself ton Rouge had driven off a Conround the St. Charles hotel-a federate attack. Butler told the
avorite place for future Wis- colonel to forget about his arrest, go back, assume command
onsin tourists-and its band and burn the city to the ground
layed patriotic songs while before abandoning it.
:utler met with city officials.
When Paine returned, the Reb"The mad mob surged on el force had retreated. Operatvery side," according to one ac- ing on the unmilitary theory
ount, and was kept from vio- that a colonel sometimes knows
mce only "by the cold steel more than a general, he had his
1at glittered in their faces. A Negro contrabands dig trenches
!W of the most violent received and prepared to hold the town.

......-......

,-~---,-

-~-~-·-··""

.....

~.-

-Racine County mstorical Society (left) and State mstorlcal Society

Wisconsin had strong minded colonels, at times. William
L. Utley (left) refused to give up a slave to its owner in
Kentucky, a vital border state, and was threatened with
prosecution, but he won out. Halbert E. Paine was arrested after refusing to return slaves to their owners in Louisiana, and he got involved with his superiors in other arguments-and won.
When the attack came, river
gunboats helped drive it off.
Paine sent a messenger to Butler urging that the order to burn
Baton Rouge be rescinded. The
colonel won the argument. Butler said he hadn't changed his
mind, but he was willing to go
along with Paine's wishes and
spare Baton Rouge.
When the colonel evacuated
the capital by steamer, he took
along a boatload of Negroessome of them the fugitives he
had risked arrest to save. At the
regiment's camp north of New
Orleans, he promptly seized a
carload of unripe oranges from
a Rebel owner - his soldiers
were ill of scurvy and needed
the fruit.
The attitude toward Confederate property changed gradually as the war wore on. In
the early months, confiscation
of Rebel holdings, including
slaves, was regarded as thievery. Union generals threatened
to shoot men caught stealing
from enemy civilians.
The policy was impossible to
enforce, particularly when the
men were hungry. Lt. Col. Edward S. Bragg of the 6th Wise o n s i n, when supplies were
short in Virginia, pointed out

36

some farmhouses and told his
men:
"I don't want to see or hear
of you doing any foraging over
there - and now I'm going to
take a nap."

Soldiers Ignored Order
He soon joined them in a feast
of Virginia ham and eggs, but
only after inquiring sternly
where they got the food. The soldiers assured him that kindly
farmers had insisted on giving
it to them. Bragg professed to be
much relieved at the news.
"I was afraid you had stolen
them,'' he said.
A soldier of the 12th Wisconsin, Ed Levings, wrote home
from occupied Tennessee in
August, 1862, that Gen. Grant
had ordered any man taking apples or vegetables from civilians
to be shot. But the colonel, after
reading the order, added: "Boys,
I don't want you to eat more
than a peck of apples a day.''
Sometimes the men paid fines
for such foraging activities. It
was the custom in the Iron brigade to fine a man $4 for "killing a rabbit.'' The rabbit usually
looked a lot like a sheep.
While the 22nd Wisconsin infantry under Col. William L.

Utley was in Kentucky-a border state that remained in the
Union, although sentiment was
divided-a slave owner came to
the regimental camp to get back
a Negro who had taken refuge
there.
Col. Utley refused to give up
the Negro. The regiment backed
him. Legal proceedings w e r e
undertaken. A sheriff was ordered to arrest the colonel, but
wisely decided not to try it.
The 23rd Wisconsin, while
guarding a railroad in Kentucky,
was ordered to "clear all camps
of Negroes and camp followers." The officers indignantly
declared they would obey no
such order and ignored it.
Such refusals to return slaves
to their owners stemmed partly
from abolitionist sentiment, but
mostly from a realization that
this was not a war merely between rival armies. Southern
civilians were supporting troops
that were shooting at Federal
soldiers. The privates and company officers seem to have realized sooner than their generals
that anything that decreased
Confederate resources was a
step toward victory.
The slaves were a Southern
resource. Every contraband who
hung around a Union camp was
one less pair of hands to raise
corn or cotton.

Lived Off the Land
The time would come when
the North would have Negro
regiments-244 Wisconsin Negroes enlisted-but in 1862 the

slaves were regarded simply as
spoils of war.
Gradually, Union commanders came to recognize that it
was possible for their armies to
live off the country. This not
only cut down on the necessity
for long lines of supply but
made it more difficult for civilians to supply C o n f e d e r a t e
troops.
The Union soldiers took to
this new supply system gleefully. Some of them stole whatever
wasn't nailed down and burned
the rest. Others tempered their
larceny with mercy, but horses,
mules and anything edible were
looked upon as fair game.
Because most of the war was
fought in the south, this policy
left a residue of bitterness that
still persists there a century later. Southern troops also confiscated property, in the south as
well as during their invasions
of the north. But most of the
resentment was directed at the
Union forces.

Traveling Was Education
The looting frequently got out
of hand. White women apparently were seldom molested.
Some of the foragers permitted
wives and children of absent
Rebels to keep enough food to
prevent starvation. But much of
the war's hardship in the south
resulted from the policy in the
later stages of the war of living
off the country.
Outlaws owing no real allegiance to either side took ad-

Winter quarters of the Iron brigade in the 1862-'63 season
were near the junction of the Potomac river and Potomac
creek. The log huts had canvas roofs, and life was as easy
as any military life could be at the time. Some officers

vantage of the situation, following the armies and robbing t h e
citizenry without much fear of
being called to account.
To the Union soldiers, many
of whom had never been away
frolT' home before, the traveling
they were doing in uniform was
an education. Wisconsin farmers, marching along through
Mississippi or Tennessee, looked
thoughtfully at the land, thinking how it would be to run a
plow across it. Some of the local customs struck the men as
ludicrous.
Pvt. Ed Levings of River
Falls w r o t e wonderingly to
his m o t h e r from Tennessee
about the habit among some
women of using snuff:
"They have a little stick,
splintered at one end, which after putting it into the mouth they
roll around in the snuff, filling it
full. Then they replace it in the
mouth and chomp it as a horse
does his bit."
As 1862 drew toward a close,
Wisconsin troops were scattered
from Kansas, where the 2nd and
3rd cavalry regiments were
chasing guerrillas, to Virginia.
In the latter state, one more big
battle was fought before the
year ended.
The Union was still trying for
Richmond. Maj. Gen. Ambrose
Burnside was in command. He
sent his army across the Rappahannock, occupied Fredericksburg in mid-December and then
ordered an attack on strongly
held heights west and south of
the town.

The Federal troops in t h e
neighborhood totaled 116,000.
The Confederates had 72,000,
but were dug in strongly. Five
Wisconsin infantry regimentsthe 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7thwere there.

One Soldier Was 70
Since Antietam, the Iron brigade had been reinforced by the
24th Michigan, which included
a 70 year old soldier and a 13
year old drummer boy. The men
of the 19th Indiana and the 2nd,
6th and 7th Wisconsin regarded
the newcomers as hardly better than civilians and the Michigan men were eager to get into
action to prove their worth.
Gen. Gibbon, who had made
the brigade into a famous fighting unit, had been promoted to
command the 2nd division, taking his aide, Lt. Frank A. Haskell of the 6th Wisconsin, with
him. Haskell would later be
killed at Cold Harbor as colonel of the 36th Wisconsin.
Col. Henry A. Morrow of the
24th Michigan, a Detroit judge,
commanded the brigade briefly,
although Gibbon would have
preferred Lucius Fairchild of the
2nd Wisconsin. When Col. Solomon (Long Sol) Meredith of the
19th Indiana was promoted to
brigadier, he became commander of the brigade-also over Gibbon's opposition, as Gibbon felt
the promotion had been strictly
political.
Gen. Meredith, when the Federal attack near Fredericksburg

brought their wives to camp, others had clubs, and there
were dress parades at times. But bloody times were ahead
and many state soldiers would not return home.
-Library ot Congress

37

began, allowed the new Michigan regiment to take the lead.
The men moved forward into
a woods against part of J. E. B.
Stuart's cavalry, taking a few
prisoners. But then a cannon
ball beheaded a soldier and the
men lost their nerve.
Col. Morrow called a halt.
There in the woods, with the
enemy firing at them, he put the
Michigan boys through the manual of arms. They executed the
drill smartly, then moved ahead
and drove back the enemy
sharpshooters.

Brigade Held Its Own
With the Wisconsin and Indiana veterans backing up the
recruits, the brigade held its
own. But to the right of them,
other r e g i m e n t s had been
slaughtered in a futile attack on
Marye's hill.
No Wisconsin units participated in this part of the battle,
The 3rd Wisconsin was in the
neighborhood. The 5th Wisconsin was under fire in the center
of the Union line. One member
of the 2nd Wisconsin, Pvt. John
Johnson, a Norwegian who had
been working on a farm near
Janesville before he enlisted,
won a congressional medal of
honor for bravery in the fighting. He was seriously wounded,
but survived.
Burnside had lost the battle,
but he kept his army south of
the Rappahannock the next day.
The Confederates waited be-

hind their entrenchments. The
two armies eyed each other.
The 2nd Wisconsin veterans
arranged a truce with the Rebels
in front of them so both sides
could snatch some sleep. But
when the 2nd was relieved by
the 24th Michigan, no one remembered to explain the arrangement to the newcomers.
The Michigan men o p e n e d
fire, killing a number of Southerners.
"This irritated the Confederates," one of the soldiers wrote,
and t h e Rebs began shooting
back.
Men of the 6th Wisconsin
also had their own ideas of how
a war should be run. They arranged a cease fire in their sector. A Confederate shouted a
challenge to a Wisconsin man to
a fist fight. The latter accepted.

Formed Cheering Sections
Soldiers of both sides formed
cheering s e c t i o n s for their
champions and made bets as the
two youths fought to a draw on
Bowling Green road. Then Yankees and Rebs traded-coffee and
tobacco and agreed not to shoot
each other until one side began
an advance.
But Burnside had retreat in
mind. He kept the 19th Indiana
in position ahead of the Union
battle line as a decoy, then quietly began to withdraw his force
across the Rappahannock. The
19th was to be sacrificed to save
the army.
Col. Lysander Cutler of the
6th Wisconsin protested t h e

order. He persuaded his superiors to allow the Indianans to
try to save themselves after the
other troops h a d crossed the
river.
Berdan's Sharpshooters, including its Wisconsin company,
helped guard t h e bridges as
Burnside's men marched quietly
to the north bank during the
night. The pontoons were cut
away before the 19th Indiana
arrived at the river. But the
men climbed into skiffs, paddled
mightily and got away.
Of 13,000 Union casualties at
Fredericksburg, only 65 were
Iron brigade men. Half of these
were from the Michigan unit,
which was now recognized as a
worthy addition by the four veteran regiments.

Encountered Bad Weather
Except for what b e c a m e
known as the "mud march" in
January, when a Union advance
was stopped dead by some of
the worst weather t h e troops
ever encountered, the activity
in the east was over for the
winter and the men could relax
in camp.
The four day "mud march"
in freezing rain was nearly as
bad as a battle, however. It led
to a new parody on the southern
song, "Dixie," sung by the Wisconsin troops:
"On Dixie land we'd like to
stand
If it was not mud instead of
land ... "

In the Iron brigade's winter
quarters near t h e junction of
Potomac creek and the Potomac
river, I o g shelters were built,
with canvas roofs. Beds were
made from poles covered with
pine or cedar boughs. Bayonets,
stuck in the g r o u n d, held
candles to light the huts.
Officers sent for their wives.
That necessity of military life,
the officers' club, was constructed by the enlisted men. There
was a revival of interest in religion among some of the soldiers, but Col. W. W. Robinson
of the 7th Wisconsin noted that
chuck-a-luck attracted more customers on Sundays than the
church services.
This did not seem fair, the
colonel said, because the church
"runs only once a week but the
game goes on daily."
Dress parades were held-at
one such affair, Lincoln showed
up riding a bay horse, while his
wife and son, Tad, rode in a
carriage. On such special occasions, t h e names of the two
cleanest and two dirtiest men in
the brigade were read to the
troops.
There were plenty of contestants for the latter honor. As an
indication of the soldiers' attitude toward cleanliness, there
is the entry in the diary of one
man from t h e 7th Wisconsin,
dated Feb. 14, 1863:
"This day ... C. Ford changed
his shirt. G r e a t rejoicing in
camp."

Vice Found Federal Troops
As the Union Army Pushed South, Camp Followers
Went Along; Drinking, Gambling Part of Life
In some cases, friendships between Union men and southern
girls ended in marriage-"Now
HE women of northern Mississippi, wrote one Yankee sol- who says the war was a failure,
when it ended by making lovers
dier after Grant's army moved into the area, had a few
small faults. "They are sharp nosed, tobacco chewing, snuff of enemies?" a 12th Wisconsin
private wrote. "A different turn
rubbing, flax headed, hatchet faced, yellow eyed, sallow
of the wheel of fortune some of
skinned, cotton dressed, flat breasted, bareheaded, long the northern girls may think,
waisted, hump shouldered,
and what do you suppose they
stoop necked, big footed, southern womanhood, though will say?"
straddle toed, sharp shinned, hardly typical, reflected the
But generally, the hospitality
thin lipped, pale faced, Ian- mutual resentment between Federal soldiers found in the octern jawed, silly looking dam- invading s o 1 d i e r s and the cupied south was chilly. Henry
sels." This attitude toward women in occupied territory. D. Barnes of the 28th Wisconsin

Chapter XIV

T

38

told of a soidier from his regiment who bought four eggs from
an Alabama woman, who gave
him four biscuits free.
"He went back and cooked
an egg and commenced eating
his biscuits. He fell back, struggled a few minutes and died.
One of his comrades who tasted
the biscuit came very near dying also.
"The doctor examined the biscuits and found there was poison enough in each one to kill
20 men. The man died so quick

that he could not tell where he mans tried beer as an economy the amount of profanity they
got them and so the fiend es- measure and learned to like it. heard in camp. But before long,
capes the justice due her."
H e a v y drinking was some- many were acquiring new votimes a problem. Col. Hans cabularies or chanting such parHeg, while taking his 15th Wis- odies as this:
Thought About Girls
consin
Scandinavians through
Ordinarily, the contacts be"Our father who art in
tween the invaders and south- Chicago, lost three men to the
Washington;
em women resulted in some- saloons there and wrote later
Uncle Abraham be his name.
that
a
number
of
others
got
thing less drastic than marriage
Thy will be done in the south
or death. Like every other man "awful drunk."
as in the north.
Whisky
was
used
as
a
mediwho has ever put on a uniform,
Give us this day our daily
the Civil war soldier spent a lot cine and an anesthetic. Capt.
rations
of time thinking about girls and Edward S. Redington of the
Of crackers, salt horse and
28th Wisconsin had a bottle of
looking for opportunities.
pork.
Sometimes tt.ese were scarce. "pain killer" in his medicine
Forgive us our shortcomings,
Solomon Canright of Wauke- chest, along with a bottle of
As we forgive our quartersha, serving in the spring of that other universal palliative,
master.
1363 with the 28th Wisconsin in quinine. In one campaign, both
the s w amp s near Vicksburg, bottles got broken, with the two
For thine is the power, the
noted bitterly: "A white woman remedies miXing together in the
soldiers and the niggers
down here is about as much a chest.
For the space of three years.
Redington drained off the
curiosity ... as a good dinner."
Amen."
This was a time when good mixture into another bottle and
There
were p e r i o d i c camgirls were put on pedestals, and filled it up with whisky.
paigns
to
improve the soldiers'
when bad girls were an accept"A more villainous compound language. At one point, the 6th
ed part of life.
never passed a man's lips," he Wisconsin had a rule that any
As the Union armies pushed wrote. "I have given several of sick or wounded man caught
south, the camp followers went the boys out of the same bottle using profanity would be kicked
along. In occupied Nashville, ami it has always cured them out of the hospital.
they became so numerous that
Little attempt was made to
150 of the girls were loaded on without fail. I think I shall apa river steamer and sent to ply for a patent on it as a cure provide organized recreation,
for all the ills the flesh is heir but the men arranged their own.
Louisville.
In camp, the soldiers sometimes
Louisville authorities refused to, from colic to cholera."
played baseball - a grounder
to let them land. Cincinnati
also declined the shipment and Shocked by Profanity
caught on the first bounce was
the women sailed back to NashSome Wisconsin youths, hav- out.
ville.
Mass snowball fights were
ing c o me from devoutly reIn a medical check of 468,275
held,
with regiments marching
ligious
homes,
were
shocked
at
Union soldiers, 182,779 cases of
venereal disease were found.
References to organized vice
/PY
are rare, naturally, in diaries
.o-...... A.... ""'-4- ,.t_u._
and letters of Wisconsin volun.. ~~7 ~4. .
11---'!-_. A.-.t"j , ••.
teers, but some diarists were
frank enough about the amount
of drinking and gambling that
went on. Poker - often called
"bluff" - was a favorite game,
Jn•ost Dars~al's etfift,.
along with Llackjack, euchre,
_/.;#~ ~ y.-.tt~ L--- - .. ~'
faro and "old sledge" or seven
up. erap shooting was less pop-·--~.J...:.. mf.l.
ular then than in later wars,
with the dice used instead for
chuck-a-luck or "sweat."

.....

*t

.

Head Butting a Sport
Cockfighting was an accepted sport in camp, along with
horse racing. Wisconsin boys
stationed in the south sometimes made bets on conf:ests
teld between two Negroes, in
which the contrabands would
butt heads until one gave up.
The availability of commissary whisky-known as "nock'um stiff" or "tanglefoot"-varied. Gin, rum and brandy were
also sometimes available. Hard
cider was stocked by some sutlers.
Germans among the Union
troops drank beer when they
co1:1ld get it. This was scorned
as almost a temperance drink
by the other troops. But when
a wartime tax raised the cost of
whisky above its prewar price
of 40c a quart, some non-Ger-

Sa a:
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lt-plly dralleol in lie 1enice or 1M UDilecl Illata for the periocl of .~-;7-<~.. in
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A dreaded draft notice was received by a man named
Owen West, of Raymond (Racine county), late in 1863.
He was ordered to report for service in the army at Milwaukee. Thousands of men received such draft notices,
but only a few hundred actually went into service from
Wisconsin as a result of drafting. -Racine county Historical society

39

out with banners waving and
bugles sounding to do battle
with a rival u::tit.

Songs Were Sung
In the tents or around the
campfire, songs were sung.
Sometimes these were sentimental ballads-"Weeping Sad
and Lonely," or "When the
Cruel War Is Over" was a favorite. Often they were parodies on "John Brown's Body"
or "DiXie." For example:
"A way down south in the land
of traitors,
Rebel hearts and Union
haters,
Look away, look away, look
away
To the traitor's land."

There was c o n stan t drill,
which was often resented more
by the soldiers than the long
marches while in the field. There
were camp chores and guard
duty.
Even in camp, the food was
sometimes bad. Hardtack, the
basic staple in the soldier's diet,
was frequently full of bugs or
weevils.
"The crackers are so hard that
we s o a ked them in water,"
Frank Wittenberger of Richfield, serving with the 14th Wisconsin, noted in his diary. "Then
the worms float on top and we
can skim them off. Then we fry
the crackers with the pork, making them taste better."
Even when the fighting had
temporarily ceased, the deaths
went on. All during the war, disease was a more deadly foe than
the enemy.
"A man from our company
was buried," Wittenberger noted on one occasion. "He died of
homesickness. He I i v e d near
Green Bay. He had a wife and
four children."
E. C. Dwight, a fifer with the
8th Wisconsin, wrote in his
diary in 1862: "I was quite sorry
for a man who came from Janesville to see his son and when he
got here he found him dead and
buried."

Longed lor Home
Many of the soldiers were
still boys. Their letters reveal
their longing for home. Chaun·
cey H. Cooke, who enlisted at
16 in the 25th Wisconsin, wrote
to his family in the town of Do·
ver, Buffalo county, from a hospital where he had been "fearfully sick" of the measles:
"For these nearly three weeks
on my back, I have thought of
you all more than a hundred
times. What a nice thing is a
good home. Don't think I am
homesick, mother. You know I
can say all these things and still
not be homesick. When a fellow
is sick and all broke up he can't
help saying soft things . . •

-Libl'BlY of Congress

Lined up in parade ground formation, the 1st
Wisconsin light artillery looked good at its
camp in Baton Rouge, La. The spick and span
appearance of ~oth troops and camp showed
"I love to think of that best
of beds under those long oak
shingles, warped and twisted,
that let in the rain and snow in
my face. I would give all this
world if I owned it, if I could
sleep there tonight. Did the com
get ripe? Has father broke the
colts? Has brother W. broke the
steers so they can haul things?
. . You must get some apple
trees • . • and get a stand of
bees. You ought to raise your
own honey."
And later, after he was well:
"Lots of the boys are blue as
whetstones. They say if they
were only out of it, the Union
might go to blazes.••• I can see
you all gathered about the kitchen stove••.. And I can see myself cuddled up under the blankets just as mother used to
leave me after saying good
night, under the open shakes
with the snow drifting in on
me."
Later still, while traveling on
a guerrilla hunting expedition
along the Mississippi river:
"Soon as we got fairly into
the current the boys made a
rush for the boiler deck (of the
river steamer) to get a drink of
the water that came from the
lakes and springs of Wisconsin
and Minnesota. It was dirty and
muddy and we saw dead mules
and cattle floating by • • • but
we drank and drank until it ran
out of our noses just because it
came from the glorious north."

that the time was late in the war and that action had been limited for some time. The unit
was still fated for action in Louisiana, however, and would suffer more casualties.

ness. "Tell Myra Amidon,"
Chauncey wrote, "I owe her a
grudge for beating me at that
foot race through the cornfield
to the house. My heavens, how
that girl can run! Myra has the
nicest blue eyes I ever saw •••"
Lt. Hollon Richardson of the
7th Wisconsin managed to find
romance right in camp. His colonel, W. W. Robinson of Sparta,
like many Union officers, had
his family with him. The lieutenant became friendly with
Robinson's daughter, Leonora.
The colonel called him in.
"I forbid you to court my
daughter."
"Yes, sir," said the lieutenant,
snapping a brisk salute.
Richardson and Leonora obediently stopped courting and
eloped to Washington. The colonel and the lieutenant patched
up their differences. After the
honeymoon, Richardson continued to serve under his father-inlaw.
Early in the war, some Wisconsin units were accompanied
by young women as "daughters
of the regiment." These were
respectable girls, whose duties
included leading the, regiment
on parade and helping take care
of the sick or wounded.
Hannah Ewbank, a schoolmarm from Marquette, joined
the 7th Wisconsin, dressed in a
Zouave jacket of blue merino,
trimmed with military buttons
and gold lace. Her skirt was of
Some Found Romance
scarlet merino, trimmed with
The girls back in Wisconsin blue and gold. She wore Batwere mixed into the homesick- moral boots and a blue velvet

hat trimmed with white and masquerade was detected by her
gold lace and yellow plumes.
"unmasculine manner of putting
on her shoes and stockings."
She was tearfully sent home.
Paid Own Expenses
"A more jaunty or bewitching
little daughter of the regiment Negroes Flocked to Camps
As the Union troops moved
never handled the canteen," one
admiring soldier wrote.
south, Negroes flocked to their
The 5th Wisconsin was ac- camps, including a considerable
companied by Eliza Wilson of number of girls and women .
Menomonie, daughter of a well Chauncey Cooke, a stanch aboto do family. She had her own litionist, had his suspicions content and servant and paid her firmed about what went on unown expenses.
der slavery.
Her costume followed the
"A real pretty yellow girl
Turkish fashion. It included a about 18 was delivering some
bright brown dress that stopped washing to the boys yesterday,"
halfway between knees and an- he wrote in the spring of 1863.
kles, with pantalettes of the "She said her mother came (to
same color, wide but gathered Kentucky) with her. One of the
around the ankles. She had a boys asked her why her father
black hat with black feather did not come with her.
and Morocco boots.
"She said, 'My father hain't
"Were it not for her," a mem- no colored man; he's a white
ber of the regiment testified, man.' When the boys began to
"when a woman would appear, laugh, she picked up her two
we would be running after her bushel basket of clothes, balas children do after an organ anced it on her head and went
grinder and a monkey."
her way... .''
In qui t e another category
And from Marietta, Ga., in the
were those women who man- fall of 1864, Cooke noted:
aged to enlist, posing as men.
"A colored woman came to
Belle Peterson, a young country
the
tent with my clothes she has
girl who lived near Ellenboro,
Wis., was one of these. There been washing.... She was a yelwere rumors she served as a low woman and the mother of
six children. The three oldest ...
Union spy.
Sarah Collins or Lake Mills had been sold to a cotton planter
also tried to be a soldier. When in Alabama. She said her chilher brother, Mason, enlisted she dren were nearly as white as we
decided to go along. She cut her and that three of them had a
hair short and put on men's white father.
clothes. She passed the hasty
"To think that these slavemedical inspection but when the holders buy and sell each other's
company rendezvoused, her bastard children is horrible... .''

40

State Soldiers Fought Quantrill
Bushwhacker Leader in Missouri and Kansas Kept Union
Forces Occupied in Chasing His Guerrilla Band
Chapter XV
in 1862, while the 12th Wisconsin infantry was staEARLY
tioned in Missouri, company A held a lyceum discussion
on the topic: "Resolved, that love is a greater incentive to
action than fear." The argument was lively but at the end
love was declared to have triumphed. Fear, however, was a
more familiar emotion in the
to the numbers involved
area at the time, regardless of portion
and occupied the attention of
what the 1y c e u m decided. several thousand Wisconsin solEven before the Civil war be- diers at one time or another.
The situation on the border
gan, there had been bloodshed
was
complicated by moves of
in the border states between
both sides to arm Indians, infactions favoring and opposed cluding
the far western variety
to slavery. Now, sentiment who owed allegiance to no white
was so evenly divided that man. Soldiers from the quasi-inb roth e r sometimes shot at dependent Cherokee nat i on
for both sides, generally
brother. Missouri remained fought
under white officers such as Lt.
rather reluctantly in the
Union, thanks largely to the
German-Americans around St.
Louis. Early in the war, the
Milwaukee Turners had sent a
company to "fight mit Sigel"Gen. Franz Sigel, that was, a
veteran of campaigns in Germany, who led his Missouri
compatriots into the fray on the
Union side. The 83 horsemen
recruited among Milwaukee
Germans by Capt. Gustav von
Deutsch also arrived ear 1y,
eventually being absorbed in the
Missouri cavalry.

Feared QuantriU
In Missouri, Arkansas and
Kansas, some considerable battles were fought, but much of
the action was of the guerrilla
variety. Men whose names are
-Milwaukee Count7 Historical Society
still familiar were there. Wild
Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Gen. Franz Sigel was a hero to
Cody were in the Union ranks. Milwaukee Germans as he
Jesse James and his older broth- fought to save Missouri for the
er, Frank, fought for the Soath. Union. Milwaukee Turners and
One of the most feared of the other compatriots sent men to
bushwhackers, owing nominal volunteer for action with his
allegiance to the Confederacy, forces.
was Charles Quantrill (or Quantrell), who had been a prewar E. H. Ely, formerly of the 3rd
gambler with western wagon Wisconsin cavalry.
trains and now turned to the
Col. Cadwallader C. Wash·
adventurous a n d sometimes
profitable business of guerrilla burn, w .h o organized the 2nd
Wisconsin cavalry, was a forwarfare.
mer
Wisconsin congressman
Quantrill and similar desperados were considered little bet- who rose to be a major general
ter than highwaymen by the and commanded all the Union
Union troops and some South- cavalry in Arkansas. His origierners. Their little bands of hard nal second in command was Lt.
riding men gave the Federal Col. Thomas Stephens of Dodgeforces trouble quite out of pro- ville, who had served for two
41

Frederick Salomon (left) and Cadwallader Washburn,
members of prominent Wisconsin families, were strong
figures in a number of western incidents in the Civil war.
Salomon was accused of leading a mutiny when he tried
to force a superior officer into action, but he won approval of his actions and later became a general. Washburn
organized the 2nd Wisconsin cavalry, and later, as a major
general, commanded all Union cavalry in Arkansas action.
years as a bodyguard to Queen
Victoria before migrating to
Wisconsin .and was an accomplished swordsman.

Rebels Withdrew

Cane Hill, in the Ozarks, the
same two regiments helped defeat a Rebel army that had
planned to winter there. Col.
Frederick Salomon, brother of
the wartime Wisconsin governor, took a prominent part in
that battle.
Salomon, a Prussian who had
migrated to Manitowoc, was a
leading figure in another episode that caused considerable
talk at the time. As colonel of
the 9th Wisconsin, he was second in command when an expedition of Creek, Cherokee and
white soldiers headed south under a Kansan, Col. William
Weer, to attack a force of Confederate Indians.
The Union troops captured
Tahlequah, the Cherokee capital
in what is now Oklahoma. But
then, as the sumD'I.er of 1862
wore on, Col. Weer's Indians
wearied of soldiering and went
hunting. The Kansan, as bored
as his men,_ spent most of his
time drink i n g commissary
whisky.

At one of the principal frontier engagements, the battle of
Prairie Grove, Ark., five Wisconsin regiments were present.
The ali-day fight was inconclusive, but the Rebels withdrew
and the Union claimed the victory. The 20th Wisconsin had
more than 200 casualties in 20
minutes during a charge up a
hill.
Earlier in 1862, the 20th won
a bloodless engagement with the
7th Missouri cavalry, which was
part of the Union force. About
20 of the cavalrymen refused to
cross the Missouri border into
Arkansas, maintaining they had
not enlisted to invade a neighbor state. But when 400 men of
the 20th Wisconsin started toward them with rifles and bayonets, the Missollfians changed
their minds.
. At Newtonia, Mo., the 9th
Wisconsin-composed largely of Preferred Charges
Germans-and the 3rd WisconFinally, Salomon and other ofsin cavalry were part of a Union ficers decided to act. They
force that was driven off. At marched to Weer's tent, put him

under arrest, named Salomon as
their new commander and headed back to Missouri. At Fort
Scott, Kas., the indignant and
now sober Weer preferred
charges of mutiny against Salomon, but the accusation was dismissed and Saloman later became a brevet (honorary) major
general.
Negro as well as Indian troops
were among Union forces on the
border in 1862-the first Negroes to bear arms in the war.
T h e guerrillas s o m e t i m e s
gunned them down mercilessly,
refusing to accept their surrender.
The Texas Rangers, whose
name would later become a synonym for law and order to generations of small boys, were
guilty of one such massacre of
Negroes, if the testimony of Lt.
John A. Owen of the 1st Wisconsin cavalry is to be believed.
On a scouting expedition in
Arkansas, 130 cavalrymen were
attacked by Rangers on Aug 3,
1862, at Hodges' Ferry on the
L'Anguille river. With them
were several Negro cooks, who
were preparing breakfast. The
Wisconsin men had a single
scout in the direction f r o m
which the Texans came.
"He was overpowered in an
instant and with a number of
Rebel guns leveled at him was
threatened with instant death
if he fired a shot," Lt. Owen reported. "The brave man felt that
the salvation of the company depended on him and ... he fired.

Rebels Seized Camp
"That single shot we disregarded. Our first alarm was the
frightened shrieks of the Negroes and the yells of the Rebels.... For 20 minutes the unequal contest raged, till 50 of
our men were killed and wounded and an equal number of Rebels lay dead and dying on the
ground; when, by a bold attack
upon the Rebel line on the north,
about 20 of our number escaped.
"The Rebels, now that resistance had ceased, took possession of our camp, and with the
most fiendish barbarity murdered many Negroes, both men
and women, plundered and
burned the train and then, with
47 prisoners besides Negroes,
returned as rapidly as they came
toward Little Rock...."
Owen, one of the 20 who ran,
does not explain how he knew
what happened back in camp
after the battle was over and
his report may have been based
on mere rumor. It is certain,
however, that Negroes were
sometimes refused the option of
surrendering in the border fighting.
Lt. Owen and six others lost
their way, wandered among the

-State Historical Society

Members of the 1st Wisconsin cavalry did
not look especially neat when they sat for
their pictures, but they'd had a rough time
in combat and they apparently didn't care
tangled cane b rake s, waded
through bayous and got so hungry they ate raw fish and two
toads. They finally found a log
hut occupied by Union sympathizers, who guided them to a
river where they obtained a
skiff and floated 40 miles to
the Union lines.
The first three regiments of
Wisconsin cavalry all saw service in the border fighting. (The
only other Wisconsin cavalry
regiment, the 4th, was originally an infantry unit.) A portion
of the 3rd cavalry was part of
the Union army that route<I the
Rebels at Honey Springs, in
Indian territory, and later
helped defeat a force of Confederate Choctaws.

to look like garrison soldiers. This is a composite picture, put together by the photographer. The men, most from Menomonie,
Wis., sat at Nashville, Tenn.

Musicians Slain
One company of the 3rd was
attacked in Cherokee territory
by Rebels led by Quantrill. As
was customary, the bushwhackers were wearing Federal uniforms, which contributed to the
confusion. Some of the Wisconsin men held their ground until
Quantrill's men were within 20
feet of them, then turned to follow their fleeing companions.
The "fiendish pursuers rushed
upon them and slew them without mercy," according to one account, killed 22, left four of the
wounded for dead and captured
the rest. Some of the men reportedly were killed while they
were prisoners and the regi-

42

mental band, which was unarmed, was also gunned down.
The musicians' bodies were then
thrown into a wagon and
burned.
It was a merciless war fought
on the plains, with excesses on
both sides. Some of the guerrillas would later become outlaws
and frontier gunmen, and the
war they fought was more for
plunder than for the Confederacy. With loyalties divided, it
was difficult to know whom to
trust.
At one point, when Capt.
Julius Giesler and 40 of the 3rd
Wisconsin cavalrymen were
sent to capture a nest of bushwhackers, they took along a
civilian who had promised to

lead them to the Rebels. But
when they got near, the guide
shouted an alarm and jumped
into a thicket.
The guerrilla band, which had
been waiting, loosed a volley
that killed Giesler and one of his
men and wounded three others.
The cavalrymen, outnumbered,
spurred their horses back toward Little Rock, but 11 of them
were captured.
On a n o the r occasion, Lt.
James B. Pond, who had been
running a newspaper at Markesan before he enlisted, was leading two companies of the 3rd
cavalry when they were attacked by guerrillas at Baxter
Springs, Kas.
The soldiers were driven out
of their fortifications. But the
lieutenant rallied them and they
pushed the guerrillas back. Pond
ran to a howitzer and started firing it at the attackers, who fled.
The lieutenant got a congressional medal of honor.

Rescued Prisoners
So did his b r o t h e r, Pvt.
George F. Pond, who came from
Fond du Lac county and served
in the same cavalry regiment.
Pvt. Pond was at Drywood,
Kas., with two companions
when they saw a party of guerrillas making off with several
Union prisoners.
Although outnumbered, Pond
and the two other soldiers rode
to the attack, rescued the prisoners and put the bushwhackers
to flight.
A third medal of honor winner in the regiment was Sgt.
William Ellis, an Englishman
who had moved to Watertown
before the war. At Dardanelles,
Ark., during a skirmish, he re-

there before being sent east of
the Mississippi. The 9th and
12th infantry also h a d their
taste of border warfare, as did
the 13th Wisconsin.
The 12th, which included numerous French-Canadians, and
the 13th regiments were rivals
on a week long march from Fort
Scott to Lawrence, Kas., with
the men of the 13th discarding
their tents along the way so the
other W i s c o n s i n regiment
wouldn't pass them on the road.
At Fort Riley, Kas., the Wisconsin soldiers discovered they
could buy buffalo meat for 2c
a pound. At Leavenworth, Kas.,
some of the men from the 12th
broke into a brewery, filled their
canteens, drank all they could
hold, then opened the tanks and
allowed 1,800 gallons of the
frantic brewer's product to run
out on the floor.
Ed L e v in g s from R i v e r
Falls reported in a letter back
home from Topeka that "we are
the first Wisconsin soldiers that
have ever set foot in these parts
and the people pronounce us the
finest regiment they have ever
seen - particularly the girls, of
course.''

mained at his post after being
wounded three times. Even after
a fourth bullet hit him, he refused to leave until his captain
insisted. He survived-in fact he
lived for 70 years after the war.
Men of the lst Wisconsin cavalry had adventures, too. In Missouri, the Rebels had captured
20 infantrymen, who had been
out gathering corn, and 400 Wisconsin and Illinois cavalrymen
were sent to rescue them.
After a hard ride of 16 miles,
the Union horsemen came upon
the Rebel rear guard, which
fled. Sergeants named Phelps
and Hubbs went dashing ahead
of the other cavalrymen. They
came upon 400 Confederates
drawn up in battle array.
Turning to encourage their
men, the sergeants discovered
to their horror that the others
were nowhere in sight. The sergeants reined in their horses
and left hurriedly. By the time
the main body of cavalry had
arrived, the Rebels were in a
gorge where the Union horses
couldn't maneuver and t h e
Southern infantrymen escaped
with their prisoners.

Infantry Took Part

Wisconsin Scddiers Tall

It should not be supposed that
all of Wisconsin's participation
in b o r d e r warfare involved
horsemen. The lith infantry,
for example, participated in the
battle of Cotton Plant, Ark. The
29th infantry chased b u s hwhackers in Arkansas, but captured mostly mules, which were
mustered into the Union army
despite their Rebel antecedents.
The 8th Wisconsin, with its
eagle, spent some weeks in Missouri and fought its first battle

While in Kansas, the men of
the 12th practiced firing their
muskets in the Zouave fashion.
According to Levings, this consisted of "falling forward on
the ground, raising on the left
elbow, turning over on the back
and charging the piece, the muzzle being elevated a little and
the butt of the gun between the
feet, after which the sGldier resumes the.position on the elbow,
primes and then fires."

More than 10% of the 1st
Wisconsin cavalry were 6 footers-a fact that was surprising
in the 1860's, for Americans
were shorter and lighter then
and a man who was above 5
foot 8 was considered tall.
The regiment included Sgt.
W. W. La Grange, who was 6
foot 4. During a skirmish along
the L'Anguille river, he reportedly swam back and forth 13
times, towing a skiff loaded
with wounded comrades. La
Grange later became a captain.
He was killed in a cavalry skirmish.
The 30th Wisconsin infantry,
which spent its early days chasing draft dodgers in Wisconsin,
arrived in the border area in
time to supply a picked force of
men under Capt. L. 0. Marshall
who captured a guerrilla named
Munday and several companions.
Munday wounded four of the
soldiers, but was collared and
hauled off to Louisville, where
a military commission including
two Wisconsin officers sentenced him to hang. Four days
later, he was strung up.
Quantrill survived the war.
After Lee's surrender, he led his
band east, planning to assassinate President Lincoln. When
word came that John Wilkes
Booth had beaten them to it,
Quantrill and his boys went on
a spree, toasted Lincoln's death,
then headed for Kentucky.
Within a few weeks, Quantrill was fatally wounded by
Federal soldiers. One of his girl
friends, Kate Clarke, inherited
his property-$500 in gold. She
used the loot to establish herself as a St. Louis madam.

Rumor of State Indian Uprising
Scared Whites and Redmen Alike
Chapter XVI
LATE August of 1862, Wisconsin was weary of bad news
By-the
draft, casualty lists, Union reverses, the death of
Gov. Louis P. Harvey. It was a time of tension that cried out
for comic relief. Without for a moment intending to, several
thousand Wisconsin residents banded together to provide it.
The Indian scare of 1862 began with exaggerated reports
of a massacre in Minnesota. The restive Sioux, hoping to reg a i n their hunting grounds sota settlers were killed. Others
while the soldiers were away fled for their lives.
Wisconsin residents concludfighting rebels, went on the war- ed that they were next. There
path there. About 200 Minne- were more than 800,000 whites

in Wisconsin and only 9,000
Indians, which even a Union
general would have considered
pretty good odds. The Chippewas, Menominees and other
tribes in the state had no intention of starting anything.
But somehow word spread that
Wisconsin was full of scalping
parties. Gov. Salomon sent an
army captain to St. Croix Falls
. to investigate. He r e p o r t e d
panic in Dunn, Pepin, Pierce
and St. Croix counties.
At Hudson, one observer said,
Indians and whites were "striv·

43

ing to outdo e a c h other in
conceding territory- while the
whites are running in one direction, the Indians are running
in another.''
At Superior, the local defenders demanded a battery of artillery and reported there were
enough empty houses to accommodate several infantry regiments, the owners having fled.

Short on Weapons
Every male in Superior between the ages of 18 and 60 was
required to join the home guard,

-state Hlstorlcal Society

leading Indians back on the warpath. The Indian scares
were highly exaggerated, but many soldiers were immobolized to provide, a "defense line" against the redmen.

This is a drawing of a stockade that was built at Superior
in the Indian scare days of 1862. Wiscensin :residents
feared that their preoccupation with the Civil war was
which undertook to patrol the
streets between 9 p.m. and 5
a.m. All families were ordered
to move into the central part of
the city and to sleep within an
area bounded by St. John and
Thompson avs., 4th st. and Superior bay.
R e s i d en t s of neighboring
towns were urged to congregate
at Superior, ready for a desperate stand. An inventory of weapons was t a k en. The worried
residents learned they had only
60 shotguns, rifles and pistols
to stand off the nonexistent
hordes.
Capt. Maurice M. Samuels,
the governor's emissary, made
a tour of Chippewa residences
with Chief A-que-en-zee and
found the Indians staying close
to home, hoping the whites
wouldn't come and shoot them
as a preventive measure. Samuels arrested several whisky
sellers, on the theory that it
would be better if everybody
stayed sober for a while.
The draft was postponed in
Douglas and La Pointe (Bayfield) counties to keep able
bodied men on hand. Company
B of the 18th Wisconsin, which
had been captured at Shiloh and
paroled on condition that the

men refrain from shooting Confederates, was dispatched to
Superior to replace the Douglas
county home guards.
By Sept. 3, whole settlements
had been evacuated. Householders piled their possessions in
wagons and struck off for the
nearest city. One man near Menomonie gave all his goods to a
neighbor and left for Pennsylvania, where he hoped the Indians couldn't get him.
N e w s p a p e r s generally
ridiculed the matter. The La
Crosse Democrat suggested that
those who spread false rumors
should be tarred, feathered and
hanged to teach them a lesson.
But still the. panic persisted.

Prepared lor Fight
At Wautoma, four wandering
Menominees arrived on a begging expedition. By the time the
report reached Fond du Lac, the
four had grown to 400 warriors
and W au to m a was reported
burned and all its inhabitants
butchered.
Indians kept t e ll i n g any
whites who would stand still
long enough to listen that they
were peaceable. B u t to the
frightened Wisconsinites, every

44

bush concealed a painted brave
and to linger was to be lost.
Virtually the entire population of New Holstein journeyed
to Fond du Lac to make a stand
against the redmen. The inhabitants of Brillion and Rantoul
fled to Chilton. There were reports that Manitowoc was in
ashes and Sheboygan burning.
At Flagg's tavern, 12 miles
north of Plymouth, Julius Wolf
armed himself with gun, sword,
bayonet and pistols and put on
his old Prussian uniform, ready
for anything. He was impressive
enough, a disenchanted woman
remarked later, to "cure dyspepsia in its worst form."
One man, who had a barrel
of wine in his cellar, did the
patriotic thing. He called his
neighbors in to help him drink
it up. No Indians would get
drunk through any fault of his
after they'd captured his home
and scalped him.
An estimated 4,000 refugees
were in Sheboygan. There would
have been more except that the
river drawbridge was pulled up
to keep the Indians out.
In Milwaukee, word arrived
that C e d a r b u r g had been
burned. A company of militia
bravely took the field and went
tramping around Ozaukee coun-

ty looking for Indians. They
didn't find any.

State Realized Its Folly
The newly organized 30th
Wisconsin infantry was sent to
the state's northwestern area to
keep the Indians at bay. Arms
were rushed to residents there.
The soldiers found everything
peaceful.
Finally, almost overnight, the
state realized its folly. Residents
went shamefacedly back to their
homes. Those who hadn't been
caught up in the contagion of
panic had some hearty laughs.
"The human family is at times
ridiculous or frightened or desperate or foolish or cowardly,"
one historian wrote. "But never
until the Indian scare of 1862
were the dwellers of Milwaukee
and Wisconsin possessed of all
five of these attributes at once."
While the excitement in August and September, 1862, was
more widespread, it followed
the pattern already established
in Washington ami Dodge counties the year before.
On Aug. 26, 1861, a breathless
messenger arrived at Horicon
with the report that Indians had
burned 14 houses at Kekoskee
and killed some of the inhabit-

ants, and 800 braves were now
on their way to bum Horicon.
School was dismissed. Farmers came to. the village by the
wagonload, armed with clubs
and pitchforks. A message was
sent to Milwaukee for help and
some residents set off for that
city in search of safety.

Spears Were Sharpened
Hustisford sent a relief expedition to Horicon. Beaver Dam,
which had heard that 1,500 Indians were on the warpath, also
dispatched reinforcements. Fox
Lake provided 200 armed men.
Com knives and fish spears
were sh~rpened. Bullets were
made from I e a d confiscated
from a print shop.
West Bend was also in a
turmoil, with women crying,
children hiding under beds and
pale faced palefaces preparing
to defend their homes. One bedridden woman was trundled into
town in a wheelbarrow.
Finally, when no Indians appeared, a wagonload of stalwart
men headed for Kekoskee to
reconnoiter. They discovered a
couple of dozen frightened Indians camped in the neighborhood, with their leaders declaring loudly that aU they wanted
was peace.
Finally an investigating committee got to the root of the
matter. A German settler named
Dagen had quarreled with a
drunken Indian, who believed
Dagen had s h o t one of his
ponies. The Indian chased Dagen around a stump but, being
full of firewater, didn't catch
him. Dagen then remarked to a
neighbor that he was afraid the
Indian's friends might bum his
haystacks.
That remark, magnified with
each telling, started the rumors.
The committee's report suggested grumpily that hereafter the
whites shouldn't sell whisky to
Indians or insult their women.
The only real war the Wisconsin Indians fought in the 1860's
was the one with the Confederacy. About 125 Menominees
served in Union regiments, the
Oneidas furnished Ill soldiers,
the Stockbridge a n d Munsee
tribes provided 43. All in all,
p e r h a p s 500 of Wisconsin's
Union soldiers we r e Indians,
serving mainly in the 3rd, 7th
and 37th regiments.

one occasion, it is recorded,
some of them were assigned to
bum a southern town. Donning
war paint and giving a few war
whoops, the braves went about
the task so enthusiastically that
the Union commander soon sent
them back to their tents and had
other Wisconsin soldiers finish
the job.
The Indian war in Wisconsin
proved merely rumor, but for
some of the men who volunteered to fight Confederates
trouble with rebellious braves
was real enough. Gen. John
Pope, after his defeat at second
Bull Run, was shuffled off to
Milwaukee to take charge of the
border war with the tribesmen.
He and a considerable number
of other soldiers spent the rest
of the Civil war fighting Indians
instead of Confederates.
Little Crow's Sioux followers
were subdued in Minnesota. But
Rebel agents were busy stirring
up the plains tribes and Union
troops had to be sent west instead of south.
The 9th Wisconsin artillery
battery, for instance, marched
700 miles overland to Denver
with its six guns, which had
been captured from the Confederates at Fort Donelson. Part
of the battery was then assigned
to Fort Union, N. M., and the
rest to Fort Lamed, Kas.
The latter g r o up guarded
settlers from both Indians and
what were described as "mountain marauders." These included
deserters or draft dodgers from
both North and South, who preferred a life of lawlessness to
dodging bullets in the war.

Stmck Out on Foot

Capt. James H. Dodge of this
battery, while traveling between
two western forts, was aboard
a mail coach when it ran into
a severe storm. The exhausted
horses struggled along, but 76
miles from Fort Lamed could
go no farther.
The Wisconsin man struck
out on foot. He was found by
other soldiers two miles from
the fort, still trudging along. A
relief party was sent to rescue
his companions.
The 9th battery spent much
of t h e war escorting wagon
trains and mail coaches on the
Santa Fe trail. It was estimated
that in three years, its members
walked 15,000 miles. Of 296
Donned War Paint
men, it lost six by death, six by
Some of the more western desertion.
tribes had their own regiments,
The 25th Wisconsin was
but the Wisconsin Indians were among the regiments assigned
mixed in with the whites. On to Gen. Pope to punish the

45

When part of the 25th Wisconsin and a Minnesota regiment brought 1,700 Indians into
camp, Cooke described them as
a "broken hearted, ragged, dejected looking lot" and told
what it was like to look inside
their tepees.
"Every time I looked in I met
the gaze of angry eyes. Nearly
all of them were alike. Mothers
with babies at their breasts,
grandmothers a L. d grandsires
sat about smoldering fires in the
center of the tepee, smoking
their long stemmed pipes and
muttering their plaints in the
soft, guttural tones of the Sioux.
"I often think of what father
said of justice in the world . . .
that it is the winning party, the
lions of the earth, that write
its history."
One company of the 30th Wisconsin spent two years at Fort
Union, Dakota territory. Three
other companies of the regiment were part of an expedition
that hiked to the junction of the
Cannonball and Missouri rivers,
Many Indians Suffered
800 miles above Sioux City,
" ... I don't deny that I sometimes t hi n k of Owena, the Iowa.
chief's daughter t hat father
plagued me about and wonder Emigrants Held Out
Lt. Samuel W. Smith and men
where she is . . . I can never
forget what Chief One Eye told from the 30th, while guarding
me in his wigwam on the Three an em i g r a n t train, were atMile creek, that the white chief tacked near the boundary of
at Washington was a liar be- Dakota and Montana territories.
cause they never got their an- While the others dug in, Smith
nuity and their (government and 14 soldiers rode to Fort Rice
supplied) beef was tough and for help, traveling 200 miles in
60 hours.
unfit to eat."
Col. Daniel J. Dill, regimental
commander, headed a 1,100 man
force that set off to the rescue.
After a nine day march they
reached t he emigrants, who
were still holding out. The Indians left.
The regiment also saw service
i.n Kentucky, but its only man
killed in action during the Civil
war was Sgt. 0. C. Hall, shot
down by Indians in Dakota territory. Another m a n died of
wounds after returning to Wisconsin.
The 48th Wisconsin never
saw a Confederate. Its members
spent their time in the west,
protecting m a i 1 and wagon
trains. It was tiresome work and
the regiment lost 67 of its 832
men by desertion.
The skirmishes with the Indians had been going on long
-State Historical Society
before the Civil war and would
Col. Daniel J. DiU, commander continue for decades after it
of the 30th Wisconsin infantry ended. Even while the nation's
regiment, led an attack which bloodiest conflict was raging,
rescued an emigrant train that families were still pushing west.
had been besieged by Indians The tribesmen were doing their
best to resist the inevitable.
in Dakota territory.
Sioux. The general, in revenge
for the Minnesota massacres,
planned to execute several hundred Indians, but President Lincoln reduced the number to 38.
Many of the soldiers considered the expedition against the
outnumbered Sioux a lark, but
some had their doubts. Wisconsin farm boys were familiar
enough with Indians. Chauncey
H. Cooke, whose letters help
picture the life led by men of
the 25th, was one of those who
felt the redmen were not entirely in the wrong.
"It must be I ain't a good
soldier," the 16 year old wrote
home to Buffalo county, "but
I am all the time thinking of
One Eye and his son and wife
that came to our house so many
times to get flour and coffee,
and the times I played with their
boys and sat on their buffalo
robes and ate elk steak and
venison steak by their wigwam
fires.

State Soldiers Feared Treatment
in Inadequate Federal Hospitals
courting southern g i r 1s and
speculating in cotton. She became convinced ·that military
hospitals should be opened in
Wisconsin and other northern
states away from the battle
front.
U n i o n generals disagreed.
War was not supposed to be
pleasant. Hardships of hospitalized men were part of the

Chapter XVII
~~wE

MAKE it a prime object to take care of our health
and keep out of the hospital, for there they are bound
to make one sick and kili him if possible," a 12th Wisconsin
infantry private wrote home in 1862.
This attitude was fairly general among Civil war soldiers.
It was based on unpleasant truths. Some physicians who traveled with the regiments were incompetents who had been
unable to make a living at home or country practitioners with
little formal training.
camp near Nashville early in the
The skills of even the best war, typhoid fever killed sevsurgeons were limited, judged eral. Others were ill of a vaby modern standards. Compe:. riety of things, including rheutent help was rare at military matism and "lingering consumption." A member of the regihospitals. It often consisted of ment
reported:
shirkers or "beats" - a word
"I often weep wlien I pass
in use even then to describe a through the company streets on
man who wouldn't pull his guard, the rain pouring down,
weight.
and the only requiem with the
Ill and wounded men who pattering of the large drops on
managed to stay in camp often the tents being the hollow, sefared better than those who pulchral cough of the soldiers."
went to a hospital. Such selfMore than twice as many
prescribed remedies as Jaynes Wisconsin soldiers died of disExpecto-rant a n d Brandeth's ease as of battle wounds, alpills may not have helped much. though the ratio was even highBut in camp there were friends er-about 4 to l-in the Union
to lend a hand and there was army as a whole. Of 11,000
less danger of infection.
deaths among the state's miliSurgeons chopped off legs tary men during the war, 7,500
and arms at a great rate after were the result of illness. A cona battle, without sterilizing siderable percentage of the battheir instruments between am- tle deaths must be blamed on
putations. It was commonplace i n a d e q u a t e c a r e for the
-hardly worthy of passing com- wounded.
ment-to see discarded arms
and legs piled like cord wood Mrs. Harvey Helped
outside the surgeon's tent.
Women nurses were looked
on with suspicion, but some inGangrene Was Common
sisted on serving and helped reOften men pleaded to keep duce the suffering.
their injured legs, but gangrene
It was Mrs. Cordelia Harvey,
was so common that the physi- widow of the governor who
cians were usually adamant. An d r o w n e d after Shiloh, who
exception was the case of a Wis- emerged from the war as the
consin officer, Col. Thomas best known Wisconsin heroine.
Reynolds of Madison, who had
Mrs. Harvey was a deteremigrated from Ireland. He ar- mined and energetic woman. In
gued that his leg was too val- the fall of 1862, after her husuable to lose, having been im- band's death, she got herself
ported at considerable expense. appointed an agent of the state,
The surgeon laughed and put empowered to visit military hosaway his saw. The Irishman, pitals in the western departboth legs intact, recovered.
ment. She set off down the
Illness was more common Mississippi to see how the
when the troops stayed at one wounded and ill from Wisconplace than it was during a cam- sin were faring.
paign. While the 4th Wisconsin
What she saw made her inbattery was doing garrison
dignant.
Men were dying for
duty at Yorktown, Va., for example, 140 of Its 144 men were lack of adequate food and care.
sick at the same time.
Some medical officers we r e
When the reorganized 1st doing their best, but others were
Wisconsin infantry went into spending their time drinking,

Energetic and persistent in
helping the sick and wounded
soldiers, Mrs. Cordelia Harvey
of Shopiere, widow of a Wisconsin governor, emerged as
the state's outstanding heroine
of the Civil war.
fighting. Besides, they reasoned,
if the ill and wounded were sent
to their home states it would
be too easy for them to desert as
soon as they were well again.

Hard to Dissuade
That was what had happened
in the early days of the war,
when ill and wounded men had
been furloughed home to recu·
perate. The recuperations often
lasted indefinitely. Then the
policy was changed so that even
a man who would obviously
never again be fit for active
duty had great difficulty in
getting home.
The problem of desertions was
a formidable one, now that the
early glow of enthusiasm for the
war had worn off. Even Abraham Lincoln, whose heart was
as easily touched as any man's,
was convinced that it would be

46

folly to move the casualties to
places where the army could no
longer keep a close watch on
them.
But Cordelia Harvey was not
an easy woman to dissuade. She
pestered the brass along the
Mississippi and then, after she
had gone home to recover from
an illness of her own, went to
Washington to beard the president himself.
Lincoln does not appear to
have been eager to see her-he
was weary of importunate women-but she had political influence back in Wisconsin and he
was a man who understood the
necessities of politics. Besides,
from what he'd been told by his
generals, he knew Mrs. Harvey
would give him no peace until
he'd dealt with her request, one
way or another.
He was not particularly cordial, however. He told her he'd
heard a lot of talk about establishing northern hospitals and
he had assumed the matter had
been settled once and for all.
Cordelia said it hadn't been settled as far as she was concerned.
"But if they go north, they
will desert," Lincoln told her.
"Dead men cannot fight-and
they may not desert," she said.
"A fine way to decimate an
army. We should never get a
man back-not one, not one."
"I believe you are mistaken.
Loyalty is among the common
soldiers and they are the chief
sufferers."

Lincoln Passed Buck
"That is your opinion. Mrs.
Harvey, how many men of the
Army of the Potomac do you
suppose the government was
paying at the battle of the Antietam? And how many men do
you suppose could be got for
active service at the time? Now
you give a guess-how many?"
"Indeed sir, I cannot."
"The war might have been
ended if every man had been in
his place who was able to be
there. But out of 170,000 men,
only 83,000 could be obtained
for action at Antietam."
"But the delinquents were
not in northern hospitals, for
we had none. So your argument
is not against them."
Unable to think of a good answer to this example of feminine logic, Lincoln passed the

This was a hospital tent of the Civil war,
as seen by a combat artist, William Mcilvaine, jr. Wisconsin soldiers, in common
with many others, wrote that they would
rather take their chances without treatouck to Secretary of War Stanton, who told Mrs. Harvey that
nothing could be done until the
surgeon general returned from
an inspection trip of the Mississippi valley hospitals. Cordelia
wasn't buying any such excuse.
Back she went to the president.
"I regret to add a feather's
weight to your already overwhelming care and responsibility," she said. "I would rather
have stayed at home."
For once, Lincoln agreed with
her. "I wish you had," he said.
T h e discussion continued,
with Mrs. Harvey pleading for
her hospitals and Lincoln accusing her of claiming to know
more than the surgeons or the
president of the United States.
She agreed-she did know more
than he did about this matter,
she said.
"I come to you from no casual tour of inspection, having
passed rapidly through the general hospitals with a cigar in my
mouth and a ratan in my hand,
talking to the surgeon in charge
of the price of cotton and abusing our generals in the army for
not knowing and performing
their duty better, and finally
coming into the open air with
a long drawn breath as though
I had just escaped suffocation
and complacently saying to the
surgeon: 'A very fine hospital

ment than submit themselves to the experimental remedies for sickness which were
used by the surgeon or hospital orderlies.
More state soldiers died of disease than
bullets.
--National Archives

you have here, sir. The boys
seem to be doing very well. A
little more attention to ventilation is desirable, perhaps.'
". . . I come to you from the
cots of men who have died-and
who might have lived if you had
permitted it. This is hard to
say, but it is true.''

North Gets Hospitals

Before she left Washington,
Lincoln told Mrs. Harvey that
she reminded him of his wife,
an ambiguous remark that Cordelia took as a compliment.
Moving the hospitalized soldiers n o r t h doubtless helped
their recovery, if only because
it made it easier for their families to make sure they got better
food. That it also increased the
number of malingerers and deserters, as Lincoln and the generals feared, is also likely.
As the war went drearily on,
some men were willing to do
almost anything to get out of
service. The number of trigger
fingers which were shot off, supposedly by accident, was considerable. Bribes were offered,
and sometimes accepted.
A man who schemed his way
out of uniform was looked upon
as a coward by his companions
and some of the f o 1k s back
home. But opposition to the war
had grown to such an extent
that some civilians were ready
to approve even desertion and
accept the man back into the
community.

All of this conversation is the
way Mrs. Harvey recorded it
some time after the fact. Lincoln, if he had bothered to write
down his side, might have given
himself better lines.
But whether he r language
was as eloquent as she remembered it or not, Lincoln held a
c a b i n e t meeting, t h e n announced to his persistent caller
that a hospital would be opened
in Wisconsin. The 8,000 voters'
signatures which Mrs. Harvey
and another Wisconsin woman,
Mrs. Eliza Porter, sent to Washington may have helped, too.
In fact, Wisconsin got not
one military hospital but three.
One was o p e n e d in the octagonal Madison mansion formerly owned by Gov. Leonard J.
Farwell, who had been ruined Hospitals Improved
in the financial crash of 1857.
Some of the medical incomAn o t h e r was established at
Prairie du Chien and a third, petents were weeded out and
reserved f o r officers, in Mil- the hospital facilities improved
waukee.
as the war progressed, but sol47

diers continued to tell of unnecessary tragedies. Lt. Charles W.
Clinton, one of three Brodhead
brothers in service, died in Tennessee from "disease produced
by vaccination with impure matter." Pvt. Marcus A. Pease, ill
after a retreat fro m Texas
Rangers in the southwest, was
refused medical help, his companions claimed, because the
surgeon was drunk. Pease, the
19 year old son of a Milwaukee
preacher, died.
On the average, each Union
soldier was ill 2.5 times a year.
Malaria, often called the ague,
was common. It was thought to
be caused by poisonous swamp
vapors. Some soldiers kept their
tents tightly closed to w a r d
these off-a method that did
some good, as it discouraged
the real villains, mosquitoes.
Measles epidemics were common, especially among n e w l y
formed regiments, and s o m et i m e s led to pneumonia and
other fatal complications. Camp
fevers - typhoid and others were blamed for a fourth of the
deaths from illness.
But dysentery and other forms
of what was called "the flux"
caused the most deaths. This
complaint was no respecter of
persons. Even the dignified Robert E. Lee r e p o r t e d 1y was
plagued by the "Pennsylvania
Quickstep" at a critical point
in his career, the battle of Gettysburg.
The physicians advised wearing flannel bandages or stomach
b e It s to cure such ailments.
They also prescribed whisky,
opium, salts, strychnine, turpentine, laudanum, chalk and castor
oil, which helps explain the reluctance of men to apply for
treatment.
Wisconsin women formed aid
societies to provide supplies for
· the sick and wounded, channeling their s h i p m e n t s of food,
bandages and medicines through
the Chicago office of the United
States sanitary commission.
This latter group, originally
opposed by Lincoln as a "fifth
wheel to the coach," put trained
n u r s e s into hospitals, established soup d e p o t s, invented
hospital c a r s, distributed supplies to the battlefields and hospitals.
At one point, so well had the
women organized that 100 boxes
a day were dispatched to the
Chicago office from Wisconsin.
When an appeal came for vegetables to prevent scurvy in the
western armies, the women set
out in wagons, begging f r o m
house to house.
Up from the Wisconsin cellars came supplies from the previous fall. Cabbage pits were
opened, horseradish was d u g,
countless jars of pickles an d
barrels of sauerkraut donated.

The farmers of Windsor, Bristol and Spring Prairie alone sent
228 bushels of food. Soon the
women could boast that a "line
of vegetables" r a n unbroken
from Chicago to Vicksburg, as
well as a river of blackberry
juice. At the end of the war,
Wisconsin was second among
the northwestern states in the
amount of food donated to the
soldiers.
The f r i e n d s h i p s formed
among the soldiers themselves
were often an ill man's best asset. One Wisconsin soldier told
how he and his men took turns
going to the hospital tents to
cheer up their companions there
and to "brush away the flies."
Two or more soldiers generally tented together. Pvt. Alonzo
Miller of the 12th Wisconsin, for
example, spent part of his career tenting with a youth nicknamed Jap. Miller described him
as "quite a baby," who left all
the cooking and other work to
Alonzo.

companions determined to get
him to a hospital.
They knew, however, that if
they merely threw him into one·
of the jolting horse drawn ambulances he would never make
it. A blanket was suggested, but
it was agreed this would not be
soft enough. Then a lieutenant named O'Connor said he
thought he knew where he could
get something better.
O'Connor had done considerable scouting behind the Rebel

lines in Virginia and knew a girl
who lived on a plantation there.
He had spent pleasant evenings
before her fireplace discussing
poetry and this and that. Their
friendship had reached the point
where he sometimes s t a y e d
overnight.
While willing to entertain a
handsome young Union officer,
the girl remained a Confederate.
O'Connor knew that if he asked
her to help Ryan she would feel
required to refuse.

So he paid her a social call.
When the opportunity arose, he
tossed her feather bed out an
upstairs window, followed it out
and carried it back to where
Ryan was waiting.
The wounded man, borne on
the feathers to the hospital,
lived. O'Connor never dared go
back to the plantation. His
willingness to break up such a
pleasant association for a friend
was regarded as heroic by the
men of the 7th infantry.

Soldiers Had Lice
"He eats like 60 and does not
have courage to stir or exercise
it off," Miller complained.
Still, when Jap left to go to
the hospital, Miller w a s concerned about him.
"He does not take care of
himself as he ought. When he
left me, he was lousy."
It is surprising that Miller
bothered to mention this last
attribute. Most soldiers on both
sides spent much of the war
accompanied by lice. They sometimes called them graybacks, a
term also used for Confederates
:n their gray uniforms.
How much a soldier was wiling to give up for a wounded
'riend is shown by an incident
nvolving William W. Ryan of
:he 7th Wisconsin. He was shot
:hrough the lungs and at first
.vas believed to be dead. But
;igns of life were detected. His

-National Archives

President Lincoln was badgered by Mrs.
Cordelia Harvey, widow of a Wisconsin
governor, into opening this army general
hospital in Madison. Others were built in

48

Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien. Lincoln
was afraid that sending the soldiers back
home to recuperate would increase the desertion rate-and it did in many cases.

State Troops Forced to Retreat
Confederates Scored First in Fighting in Tennessee,
but Bragg, After Cracking Union Line, Halted
Chapter XVIII

((I WONDER," Sanford B. Williams of the 24th Wisconsin
wrote on Jan. 1, 1863, "if they know at home how we
are spending New Year's day."
Williams was lying in a log house near Murfreesboro,
Tenn., an overcoat strap buckled about his wounded leg to
stop the bleeding. The sounds of battle could still be heard
along Stones river, where five Wisconsin regiments and four
of the state's artillery batteries were helping fight one of the
bitterest battles of the war. An army of 43,000 men under
Gen. William S. Rosecrans had been preparing to attack an
equal f o r c e of Confederates
under B r a x t o n Bragg, but wait for death or a surgeon,
whichever arrived first, while
Bragg moved first. He shoved the battle raged around them.
back the Union's right, with
"The r o a r of the artillery
the two leading brigades givmakes
the ground shake," Wiling way.
liams wrote, "and the moans of
That left it up to reserve
units, including the Scandina- the wounded mix with the othvian 15th Wisconsin. They put er sounds. It is awful, and they
up a good fight for a while, but die fast. The bodies are carried
were outflanked and forced to out, and the wounded brought
retreat. Lt. Col. David McKee, in and take their places. Hunan Irishman who had been lead- dreds lie outside and have no
ing the Norwegians, was killed. shelter."
The 5th Wisconsin battery
opened up and checked the advance for a time-Capt. Oscar F.
Pinney was s t i II making his
Monroe boys mind. But the captain was mortally wounded. The
battery was forced to pull back.
A newly appointed brigadier,
Phil Sheridan, was in charge of
a division that included the 24th
Wisconsin. His reputation was
still to be made-he would be
one of the three principal Union
heroes of the war-but his men
put up a stout fight until their
ammunition ran low. Then they
pulled back through the cedars.
The 24th's colonel, Charles H.
Larrabee, was ill. Its lieutenant
colonel, Edwin L. Buttrick, had
resigned. So Maj. Elisha C. Hibbard was in command, aided by
his adjutant, a youth named Arthur MacArthur, jr., w h o s e
name would later become familiar.

The Union's right wing had
been beaten, but its center held.
Gen. George H. Thomas was in
charge there. He had his men on
high ground and they kept up
such a steady fire, it was
claimed, that advancing Confederates paused to snatch bolls of
cotton from the fields and stuff
them in their ears.

Failed to Follow Up
Col. John C. Starkweather of
the 1st Wisconsin was in charge
of a brigade, including the 21st
Wisconsin as well as his own
regiment. The 1Oth Wisconsin,
which had spent the previous
summer guarding railroads, also
served with Thomas, who was
as good a defensive general as
the Civil war produced.
Beaten Union regiments returned to fight with Thomas and
by the end of the day the Federals had withdrawn to a semicircular line to prepare for renewal of the battle on New
Year's day.
The night was cold enough to
freeze the mud churned up in

Wounded Filled Cabin
Pvt. Williams was hit in the
early fighting and was left in the
log house, which rapidly filled
with Union wounded. George
Rockwell's right leg was nearly
severed. The Milwaukee youth
died in the makeshift hospital,
after exchanging some f i n a l
words with Williams.
The floor was covered with
blood from the u n tend e d
wounds. The men could only

-state Historical Society

These men were typical of the young horsemen who made
up the 1st Wisconsin cavalry regiment, which was called
from the guerrilla fighting in Missouri to reinforce the
Army of the Cumberland in its Tennessee operations in
1863. Charles Sandon (left) and Heinrich Lohmann posed
before their company left Wisconsin for the west.

49

the f i g h t i n g. Many of the
wounded still lay where they
had fallen. Those in the log
house with Williams were not
much better off. The Confederates had captured them, but
had no doctors to spare to treat
their injuries.
Bragg's men had won the initial victory, but for reasons still
hard to explain they failed to follow it up. Fighting on Jan. 1 was
confined to skirmishing. By the
next day, Union artillery had regrouped and when the Rebels
surged forward t h e cannon
helped break the attack.
"Jan. 2-Clear and warm,"
Williams wrote. "No surgical
care yet. Nothing to eat. I suffer badly with my wound today.
At noon, a little flour and water
is mixed up and given us, partly
cooked; it tastes very good....
All paroled this eve. Can still
hear the r o a r of battle in
front."
That night, Bragg ordered a
retreat. The Federals, who had
supposed they'd been whipped,
could hardly believe the news.
Skirmishing continued as t h e
Confederates began to pull back
and the men in the log house
could hear the firing.
"Jan. 3-Windy and rainy all
day. No surgeon yet; must lay
and bear it, though it is terrible.
Wounded are dying fast. Can
still hear the roar of battle, near
all day, but can't learn how it is
,going. The Rebels say they are
whipping us. The dead blood on
the floor begins to smell bad.
Horrid, indeed."
Jan. 4 was a Sunday. The
rain stopped. The sun came up,
thawing the frozen ground. Williams was still waiting.
"The birds sang like June at
home. No surgeons yet. I suffer
a good deal today. At daylight,
the Rebs are skedaddling back
over the field fast .... They are
whipped. We see those glorious
old Stars and Stripes again; we
are once more, thank God, under its folds .... "
Williams and other wounded
men who still survived were
loaded on wagons and hauled
to Nashville, 27 miles away, rattling over a rough road. It was
Jan. 6 before the surgeons got
around to chopping off Williams' injured leg.

Union Claimed Victory
Each side had about 12,000
casualties at Stones river. The

24th Wisconsin lost 173 of its infantry regiments and batteries State Infantry Helped
400 men and the 15th had 119 that had been with him at
The cavalry came upon Rebels
casualties. The other Wiscon- Stones river. When he finally
near
and called ·Jn
sin units had smaller losses.
got them moving, Lt. Barnett · the lstUnionville
Wisconsin infantry, "the
By standing fast while Bragg said he had never seen a more bushwhacker
r e g i m en t," for
retreated, Rosecrans could claim splendid sight "than our army help. Confederate
a r t i 11 e r y
the victory. But both sides were as it debouched upon the Triune drove them back. The
fight was
hurt and it was months before plain."
broken off. The m a r c h coneither was ready to take the oftinued, with sporadic fighting in
Filed Out ol Hills
fensive again.
the hills and woods.
"Regiment a f t e r regiment
Tennessee was a prize both
The cavalry swung toward
sides hoped to win. The state's filed out from the hi ll s and Shelbyville, chased off an insentiment was divided. Resi- woods in every direction toward fantry regiment and charged the
dents in the mountainous east- the Murfreesboro and Shelby- defenses at a gallop.
ern part had never been slave- ville junction until the valley
"The rout of the enemy was
holders; many of t h em were was literally filled by the solid so complete and sudden that
sympathetic to the Union. column of infantry and cavalry, they hardly had time to ffre a
Washington kept trying to "res- the numerous batteries of artil- gun at us," Barnett recalleJ,
cue" them from the Confedera- lery with an accompanying ord- "but threw them down in the
cy, but without much success, nance train of several hundred road with knapsacks, blankets
wagons and with their blue and and everything that would imuntil the war was half over.
Rosecrans kept calling for re- red uniforms drawn up in pede their flight.
"The road was li t e r a II y
inforcements. Among those sent squares of geometrical precistrewn with these articles and
him was the 1st Wisconsin cav- sion.
"Hills and ravines that I had lined with dead and wounded
alry, which came by steamer
before
thought unoccupiec.l re- horses and wounded soldiers,
from Missouri, where it had
with the din of prepara- who were taken prisoners.
b e e n fighting guerrillas. The sounded
tion,
the
clatter of arms, and
". . . With l e s s t h an an
men found Nashville surround-·
shouts of officers and men. hour's fighting, the Rebels sured by rifle pits, with streets bar- the"At
last the column divided rendered a line of the best conricaded at night with sandbags. and filed
off upon their respecSoon after it arrived, the regi- tive roads, the infantry first, structed rifle pits and earthment rode toward Murfreesboro, their bright arms almost blind- works, more than 10 miles in
passing through the area where ing us with the reflected rays of extent, which they had been
the battle of Stones river had the sun. Before the artillery and erecting ever since their retreat
been fought. Among its mem- ordnance train got in motion, from Murfreesboro, and which
bers was a young Fond du Lac we were off on the Shelbyville we were taught to believe alman, Lt. James R. Barnett, later pike, our column of cavalry ex- most impregnable.
". . . As a last resort, they
a Neenah physician.
tending for more than two miles. planted their only battery of
"The ground was strewn with
"A large column of cavalry
broken wagons, gun carriages, moving in sections of four or artillery directly at the extremcaissons, and with fragments of eight over a straight road pre- ity of the main street of the
shell, grape and shot," Barnett sents a splendid appearance.... city and swept it the whole
noted in his journal. "The road At a distance, it looks like a length as our column moved
was literally lined with the skel- solid mass of blue, its top a per- forward, but our charge was so
impetuous that the battery was
etons of mules and horses."
fect parallelogram. Standing to
Rosecrans had his headquar- the rear of one file, an exactly captured with part of the pieces
loaded.
ters at Triune, Tenn., which is straight row of hats can be seen still
"They were filled nearly to
now a sleepy place with one the whole length.
the muzzle with railroad spikes.
general store and a gas station,
"On the left side is a row of What havoc they would have
but was then filled with Union shining saber hilts; on the right, produced if discharged in our
soldiers.
of shining carbine butts. Every ranks."
Rosecrans commanded 60,000 article of a soldier's equipment
The Union horsemen captured
men, including the Wisconsin is seen in the column in lines of considerable quantities of supcavalry unit and the Wisconsin almost mathematical regularity." plies at Shelbyville, as well as

Wisconsin men were among these soldiers gathered at
Camp Douglas, near Chicago, while their units were
awaiting orders. Most state regiments were funneled

numerous prisoners. Some of
the Tennessee soldiers said they
were ready to quit-they hadn't
been enthusiastic about the war,
they told their captors, and felt
that Bragg had lost the state.

Welcomed by Residents
"The reception we received
from the inhabitants of the town
was surprising," Barnett said.
"As we passed through the
streets the Stars and Stripes
were displayed at nearly every
house. As the flags must have
been concealed during Secesh
rule, it showed pretty conclusively that the inhabitants remained true to the Union."
How much of the flag waving
in Shelbyville was sincere and
how much due to a desire to
keep the invaders from looting
the houses is questionable. Inhabitants of towns where action
was expected sometimes kept
both the United States and Confederate flags, displaying the
one that was appropriate.
At the moment, Bragg was on
the run and it was politic to display the national banner. The
lst cavalry and other Rosecrans'
soldiers pushed into northern
Alabama. Temporarily, Tennessee was more or less in Union
hands.
The campaign that took the
name of Tullahoma, Tenn., was
a resounding success. S t i ll,
Rosecrans and his men got only
moderate credit for it.
Except for t h e stand-off at
Stones river, they had pushed
Bragg out of Tennessee without
a major battle. But the North's
attention was focused on
Grant's soldiers in the west and
the Army of the Potomac in the
east.
The Army of the Cumberland
considered this attitude unfair.
The moment when its men
would do something about it
was still months in the future.

through Chicago on their way to war. Camp Douglas, not
to be confused with Camp Douglas in Wisconsin, was also
used as a prison camp for Confederates. -state Historical society
50

Union Soldiers Looted Town
Chapter XIX

AS THE Civil war moved into its third year in April of 1863,
the Union held all of Missouri, Kentucky and the new
state of West Virginia, parts of Arkansas, Tennessee and
northern Virginia, a coastal section of North Carolina and
all of the Mississippi valley except for the portion between
Port Hudson and Vicksburg, Miss.
Capture of these two Mississippi valley strongholds would
open up the river and cut off the western portion of the Confederacy. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had been making inconclusive moves toward Vicksburg for months-the North was getting increasingly impatient with him-but now he was ready
to drive toward it in earnest. The Confederacy, its area contracting and its supplies of
So Grant decided to move
men and material diminishing,
down the west side of the river
was faced with the choice of below Vicksburg, hoping that
reinforcing its troops in the Admiral David P o r t e r could
west or in the east, where the bring his gunboats and transarmies were still stalemated. ports past the Confederate batteries to f e r r y the soldiers
Gen. Robert E. Lee, a Virgini- across.
an, chose the east and would
On Apr. 16, 1863, Porter ran
soon head north into Pennsyl- the gantlet with seven ironvania.
clads, three transports and variThat left Lt. Gen. John Pem- ous smaller craft. The Vicksberton at Vicksburg with 32,000 burg guns opened up with everymen, facing double their num- thing they had, but all the Union
ber of Union ·troops. Gen. Jo- ships stayed afloat except one
seph E. Johnston, now the over- transport.
all commander of Confederate
Then half a dozen more transforces in the west, had another ports, operated by army volunsmall army. Between them, teers, made the run with supPemberton and Johnston hoped plies for Grant, his army was
to hold Grant at bay while Lee ferried to the east bank at
made his move.
Bruinsburg, Miss., and he was
Included in Grant's f o r c e ready to move against Vickswere 13 infantry regiments, one burg from the south.
cavalry regiment and three arWhile all this was going on,
tillery batteries from Wiscon- Gen. Sherman, with a force that
sin. If these units had been up included the 8th Wisconsin and
to original strength, they would its eagle, kept the Rebels occuhave totaled perhaps 15,000 pied. He feigned an attack on
men, but the number of dfec- Haines' Bluff, north of Vickstives at this stage of the war b u r g. Pemberton, thoroughly
was closer to half this figure.
confused, kept his eye on Sherman and allowed Grant to cross
Lee Ready to Gamble
the river unopposed.
While Lee was preparing for
A m o n g the regiments that
his biggest gamble in the east, landed at B r u i n s b u r g with
Grant was planning to wager Grant were the 11th, 14th, 17th,
his army in the west on what 18th, 23rd and 29th Wisconsin
seemed like a long shot. The infantry and the 6th and 12th
western soldiers had spent the batteries. His purpose accomw i n t e r of 1862-'63 slogging plished, Sherman brought his
around in the swamps, digging army down to join Grant's.
canals that might make it possible to bypass Vicksburg, but Lived OH the Land
now these projects were abanHaving won one g a m b I e,
doned.
Grant
determined on another.
Grant had his army on the
west side of the river, north of He cut himself off from his base
the fortified town. He could of supplies, moved inland and
have taken his men back to told his men to live off the counMemphis by s t e a m e r, then try. It was a method of war he
marched down into the same had been contemplating ever
area he had left after the loss of since he'd seen how well his solhis supplies at Holly Springs. diers could scavenge after the ·
But this would have looked like capture of Holly Springs.
a retreat and would have been
The Union force moved
poor politics.
toward Jackson, 60 miles east

of Bruinsburg. As it marched,
men fanned out into the countryside for supplies. The days
when the soldiers would have
to declare they shot pigs or
geese only in self-defense were
gone. Mississippi farmers were
required to supply the food the
men needed, ex c e p t for salt,
sugar and coffee.
Pemberton tried to stop the
advance by cutting Grant's line
of communications, only to find
he had none. Gen. Johnston did
the best he could with his 6,000
men, but the Federal forces
brushed them aside and captured the Mississippi capital.
The 8th Wisconsin was one of
the first to enter Jackson, Lt.
Col. John W. Jefferson of that
regiment was appointed provost
marshal.
Leaving Sh&rman behind long
enough to wreck Jackson - it
had already been thoroughly
looted by Union soldiers and
lawless civilians-Grant turned
again toward Vicksburg. Pemberton moved out to r.1eet him.
On May 16, just a month after
Porter's gunboats had headed
south, the two armies clashed
midway between Jackson and
Vicksburg at a place called
Champion's Hills.
Only part of Grant's forces
were engaged. The 18th, 23rd
and 26th Wisconsin were active
in the fighting, with the 26th
losing 19 killed, 95 wounded
and one missing, mainly in a
bayonet charge up a thickly
timbered hill. The Confederates
were forced to pull back. They
fought another rear guard action at Big Black river, where
the 11th Wisconsin led a charge
which captured a line of makeshift fortifications.

Looked Like Wisconsin
Then Pemberton retreated
into his prepared lines at Vicksburg, hoping to hold out there
until Gen. Johnston could recruit a force to relieve him.
Happy to be out of the
swamps at last, the men from
Wisconsin looked around the
countryside as they marched
in pursuit. Chauncey H. Cooke
of the 25th, still thinking about
home, wrote that the hills reminded him of Buffalo county.
The area around Vicksburg
was suited to a last ditch defense. Between the hills were
sharp ravines. Chains of rifle
pits connected artillery emplacements on the heights.
While Grant's men had been
digging u s e 1e s s canals, Pemberton's engineers had been

51

given plenty of time to prepare
for an assault. But the Union
generals felt that the Confederates were demoralized by
their recent defeats and might
be beaten if an attack came
quickly.
The day after his troops
m o v e d into place outside
Vicksburg, Grant gave the
order. The men advanced. They
ran into a hail of bullets. The
attack ended quickly. The Federal soldiers went to work digging trenches and rifle pits of
their own.
The generals were still not
convinced. Another attack was
ordered for May 22. The 12th
Wisconsin was not one of the
units chosen for the assault
and one of its members, Pvt. Edwin Levings of River Falls, was
pretty sore about it.

Wanted to Fight
"Why is it our regiment is
cat-hauled and rammed all over
Dixie and the Rebels are in the
way now and we can't get a
chance at them?" he demanded
in a letter dated May 21.
Men of the 12th had seen little fighting yet. Soldiers who'd
had more experience with entrenched Confederates w e r e
less eager. As the night of May
21 wore away, some of them
couldn't sleep but watched and
listened as Ad mira 1 Porter's
gunboats bombarded the fortress town and the Rebel river
batteries answered s t o u t 1y
back.
The attack of May 22 cost thE:
· Union army more than 3,00C
casualties and gained almost
nothing. The 14th Wisconsin
which had fought at Shiloh, wa~
especially hard hit.
The regiment had only 256 of
its original 859 men ready fm
duty. They charged on a Rebel
strong point, were pinned down
by heavy enemy fire, finally
withdrew after dark. Of the 256.
the regiment lost 107 in killed
wounded or missing.
Patrik Heffran of the 14th
who lost a finger of his lef1
hand in the charge, wrote to a
friend back in Omro: "Thai
Shiloh fight was nothing com
pared to this."
Other Wisconsin units werE
busy that day. The 8th reachec
outer portions of the Confeder
ate defense lines, but had tc
withdraw. In the assault, Ec
Homeston, who had replacec
David McLain as eagle bearer
fell over a log while carryin!
Old Abe. He was momentaril)

stunned, but both he and the
bird escaped unhurt.

Picked Off Rebels
The 11th Wisconsin was assigned to cross two parallel
gullies under fire. The men
pushed across one, but could
go no farther. Some of the regiment's wounded lay on the field
for three days after the battle.
The Irish 17th had held a
position within 75 yards of the
main Confederate defense line
in the earlier attack and this
time the regiment was kept in
reserve. Men of the 18th served
as sharpshooters, picking off
Rebels who stuck their heads
above the trenches. The 23rd
joined in the assault, as did the
29th Wisconsin, while the lst,
6th and 12th Wisconsin batteries helped provide artillery support.
Convinced at last that Vicksburg could not be taken by assault, Grant dug in for a siege.
His men constructed a line of
trenches and strong points that
ran for 13 miles, in a great half
circle terminating at the river.
Back in the interior, Gen.
Johnston was frantically gathering troops, some of them from
as far away as Tennessee. But
Grant was bringing up more
men, too, including the 20th
Wisconsin, which had come to
Mississippi a f t e r fighting in
Arkansas.
The 25th Wisconsin, composed mainly of men from the
Mississippi river counties, also
arrived. It had served under
Gen. Pope in his demonstrations
against the Minnesota Sioux
before heading south.
The 27th Wisconsin was stationed near by, at Snyder's
Bluff. The 33rd, recruited late
in 1862 from the southern tier
of counties, had seen a little
fighting in Tennessee before arriving at Vicksburg three days
after the May 22 attack.
Completing the r o s t e r of
9,075 Wisconsin troops in the

area was the 2nd cavalry, which
spent most of its time scouting,
keeping a careful watch for
Johnston's anticipated relief expedition. Both the regiment and
its former colonel-now a general - Cadwallader Washburn
had been ordered to Memphis
after the Arkansas fighting died
down and the general had been
given command of all cavalry in
that area.

Get Plenty of Action
Pvt. Levings, who had been
so disturbed over missing the
May 22 assault, soon had plenty
of action to write home about.
The men of the 12th Wisconsin
were assigned to rifle pits 800
yards from the Rebel breastworks, he said in a June 18 letter, and "we are now used to
the bullets whistling and the
bursting shells and have recovered from our first panic at being in the fight."
The rifle pits were circular
ditches with the dirt thrown up
in front. Each man served 24
hours in them, s I e e pi n g in
snatches, then had 24 hours to
rest at a more comfortable distance from the enemy.
"It does give one an odd feeling to be shooting at human
beings," young Levings wrote,
"and the only consoling fact is
that I know they are enemies."
Meanwhile, to the south in
the Mississippi valley, a Union
army of 14,000 men under Gen.
Nathaniel P. Banks had 7,000
Confederates bottled up in Port
Hudson. The 4th Wisconsin-a
cavalry regiment now, having
seized enough Louisiana horses
so the men co u 1 d ride-was
there with Banks.
Its former commander, Brig.
Gen. Halbert E. Paine, who had
outargued Ben Butler about the
burning of Baton Rouge, commanded one of four Union divisions. Two Negro regiments
were among those serving under
him, but were soon transferred

52

to another portion of the line. wounded New York private, Pa
Paine and Banks testified later trick H. Cohen, tossed him ~
that the former slaves fought canteen cut from the body of ~
bravely in the series of attacks dead soldier.
that were ordered.
That night, a Massachusett~
regiment rescued him. Paine
Paine Lost a Leg
was sent to New Orleans, where
The pattern of Vicksburg was the surgeons chopped off a leg,
repeated on a smaller scale, ex- as was their custom. Then he
cept that here the men advanced went home to Wisconsin to re·
through heavily wooded land in- cuperate.
Sydney A. Bean, a former
stead of against entrenched hillsides. At one point, the 4th Carroll college mathematics proW i s c o n s i n and the 8th New fessor, who had succeeded Paine
Hampshire captured a part of as commander of the 4th regithe Confederates' o u t e r de- ment, was killed in the fighting.
Before the battle, he wrote a
note requesting that his body
be sent back to Waukesha if he
failed to survive. As he was a
colonel, this was done.
Bean was one of three brothers who served in the Union
army. Lt. Walker L. Bean of
the 28th Wisconsin died of illness in Kentucky. Only Capt.
Irving M. Bean of the 5th Wisconsin survived the war.
Another member of the 4th
Wisconsin, Corp. I. N. Earl, was
captured in the Port Hudson
fighting, but escaped his guard,
jumped into a creek and swam
toward the Union lines. He was
wounded twice by shots fired at
him, but not seriously. He was
soon given a spot promotion to
second lieutenant.
Earl, it might be noted, became something of a specialist
Col. Sydney A. Bean, a Carroll at escapes. Later in the war he
college mathematics professor, was caught after his horse had
went to war with the 4th Wis- been shot. He was placed in
consin and became regimental irons, but patiently constructed
commander before he was a crude saw from his case knife,
killed in Louisiana. His body cut through the irons and dug
was brought back to Wauke- his way out of his cell.
With the help of bloodhounds,
sha for burial.
he was captured again. Still not
discouraged, he w a i ted his
fenses, but were forced back, chance, grabbed an ax while his
leaving their wounded behind. · captors were relaxing at a campAmong these was Gen. Paine. fire, killed one man, wounded a
The Milwaukee man lay in the s e c o n d and headed into the
sun all one day, suffering from swamps. He eventually found a
thirst. He testified later that Union gunboat and returned to
he survived only b e c a u s e a his regiment.

Grant Paroled 31,000 Rebels
both sides for fraternizing. A
I itt I e sheepishly, the soldiers
went back to their respective
HE story of the American Civil war has one outstanding
trenches. Soon the men who had
picked berries together w ere
flaw. It reached its climax two years too soon. A script
trying
to kill each other with
writer would have saved the events of the first week of July,
professional efficiency.
1863, for April, 1865, when they could have been followed
At night, the river gunboats
immediately by the tableau at Appomattox. As it was, the
kept up their bombardment of
nearly simultaneous Union victories at Vicksburg, Miss., and
the city.
Gettysburg, Pa., were twin turning points of a war that had
"I lay with the flap of my
tent back, watching the shells
almost two more years to run. There was plenty of dying
from a hundred mortars making
left to do, but after that date
works-but it was less bloody a fiery h a 1f circle as, rising
much of the suspense was than the clash of open battle.
gone. It was no longer a quesThere were daily casualties
tion of whether the North on both sides. "It looked hard,"
could win, but of whether it a 12th Wisconsin soldier wrote,
wanted to enough to keep "to see six or eight poor fellows
piled into an ambulance about
fighting.
the size of Jones' meat wagon
As though even the oppos- and hustled over the rough
ing armies themselves recog- roads (to the hospital) as fast as
nized the faulty timing of the the mules could trot."
But when Grant lost a man,
drama, the rival fighting matwo
more arrived to take his
chines began to d e c I i n e in
place. When a defender fell, it
quality soon after the high was one less soldier to serve
point had been reached.
in the redoubts. The only conOn both sides, many of the solation was, it was also one
best men were dead. As the war less mouth to feed.
moved past the tall landmarks
There were civilians as well
of Vicksburg and Gettysburg as soldiers in Vicksburg. With
their places were taken by sol- supplies cut off, mule steak bediers of lesser breed.
came a delicacy. Starvation was
The quality of the recruits the principal foe now, but still
sent to the f r o n t deteriorated the Confederates held out, while
-Racine County Historical Society
steadily in the war's final two the Federal soldiers burrowed The 33rd Wisconsin volunteer
years. There w e r e exceptions, their trenches closer and closer
infantry regim&nt was one of
but in general those who came to the defenses.
those which fought at Vickslate were motivated more by
burg. Capt. Joseph Linsley of
the threat of the draft or the Bond Between Foes
increasing s i z e of enlistment
Racine, who commanded comThe men on both sides were pany H, was killed in action.
bounties than by patriotism.
But in July, 1863, as the ar- veterans; professional soldiers
mies maneuvered toward two who did what was necessary like a flaming r o c k e t, they
movements of decision, half a but felt a nagging bond of sym- circled and fell into the city,"
continent apart, this deteriora·· pathy with the men on the other Pvt. Chauncey Cooke of Buftion was still in the f u t u r e. side. At one point, in an ex- falo county wrote. "Then folTrained in combat until both ample of the strange, unplanned lowed the explosion. How can
privates and generals knew and temporary truces that were these people sleep? There has
their business, the military ma- an oddity of this war between not been an hour the t h r e e
Americans, Confederates in
chines were at their peak.
front of a trench held by men weeks past but shells have been
of the 11th Wisconsin climbed bursting in every part of the
Lee Moved North
into the open and stood looking city."
In the east, Gen. Robert E. across at the Union lines.
Lee moved on his second invaThe Federal soldiers, answer- Death Became Common
sion of the North. The Union ing the pull of the same dimly
Death had become so common
army, first under Joseph Hook- understood bond, held the i r now t h a t, unless it struck a
er, then under George Meade, fire and c li m b e d out of the close friend, it had lost much
shifted ponderously to i n t e r- trenches, too. Then · one Wis- of its horror.
cept him. In the w e s t, Gen. consin private announced: "I'm
"I thought no more of riding
Ulysses S. Grant heard of the going down into the ravine and
d a n g e r in Pennsylvania, but shake hands with them Rebs." over a dead man than if he had
been a dog," Lt. Daniel Webpaid it little mind. He had his
Soon men of both sides were ster of the 1st Wisconsin bathands full at Vicksburg.
mingling in the area along a tery, wrote to his girl, Gertrude,
After the first two futile as- little creek that separated the back in Milwaukee, trying to
saults in May, the Union troops opponents, picking blackberries, describe for her war's brutality.
settled down to starve out the t a I k i n g of home, comparing
Despite the casualties, life
Vicksburg defenders. There was
was often monotonous. Grant
the
battle.
notes
on
almost constant fighting-by ar·himself grew bored and impaThe session was broken up tient. Years later, a former Miltillery, by sharpshooters, by infantrymen in trenches shooting by the appearence of a Con- waukee newspaperman with the
at infantrymen behind breast- federate officer, w h o scolded impressive byline of Sylvanus

Chapter :XX

T

53

~

,,

~$.

...

Cadwallader, reported that the
general went on a drinking
spree aboard a river boat while
waiting for Vicksburg to fall
and was saved from the consequences only because Cadwallader was there.
The story is discounted by
many historians. All its details
do not gibe with known facts.
But for so m e reason, after
Vicksburg, Cadwallader w a s
given spec i a 1 privileges in
Grant's headquarters. He served
first as correspondent of the
Chicago Times, then the New
York Herald, after having been
editor of the Kenosha Democrat
and a reporter on the Milwaukee Daily News.
There was considerable sickness in both a r m i e s. Col.
Charles R. Gill, a Watertown
1a w y e r who commanded the
29th Wisconsin, resigned because of ill health and went
home to Wisconsin. Two years
later he was elected state attorney general.
The 29th, it might be mentioned, was quite a cosmopolitan regiment. Of its original882
men, 576 were foreign born,
coming from 16 countries. Only
28 members had been born in
Wisconsin. Before the unit left
for the front, it was supplied
with Testaments printed in English, German, Norwegian and
French.

Grant Was Generous
Inside Vicksburg, the long
wait for Johnston to come riding
to the rescue was nearly over.
Pemberton and his officers debated whether to surrender or
'try to cut their way through the
Union lines. On July 3, a truce
party came out from the fortress.
Capt. Joseph Greene of the
23rd Wisconsin escorted the
Confederates to G r a n t, who
agreed to meet Pemberton under an oak tree. The commanders, who had served together in
Mexico, talked the matter over.
Grant said at first that only unconditional surrender would do.
Then he changed his mind.
He agreed to terms so generous that Gen. Halleck, running
the war back in Washington,
was indignant when he heard
about them. The 31,000 men tttill
alive among the defenders were
to be permitted to go back
home, merely giving their word
that they would not fight again.
Grant felt it would be too
much trouble to ship so many
prisoners north -he preferred
to get on with the fighting without becoming bogged down in

from a drawing by Theodore H. Davis, one of the most
widely known of the Civil war's combat artists. The basketwork kept the earth walls from collapsing as sappers
drove near to Confederate fortifications.
-Harpers Weekly

Wisconsin troops spent long, weary and dangerous weeks
in the trenches before Vicksburg as Gen. U. S. Grant slowly starved the Rebel defenders of the Mississippi bastion
into surrender. The trench action above was engraved
such details. Besides, he was
sure that m o s t of the half
starved Confederates were now
so tired of the conflict that they
would fan the war weariness of
the folks back home.
A few hundred of the captured garrison refused to sign
paroles. They preferred to be
treated as prisoners. If they
went h o m e, they explained,
someone might insist they go
back to fighting again, and
they'd had their fill of it.
The soldiers of both sides had
a lively sense of history. They
needed no one to tell them that
the fall of Vicksburg was not
merely the end of one more inconclusive battle. In the Union
army, now that the battle had
been won, there was recognition
that the foe had been a worthy
one.

"If you have any gloomy,
restless thoughts, put them
away at once and rejoice with
those that rejoice. Victory, victory, victory! . . . The Rebels'
stronghold is in our possession."
At 10 a.m., he reported, white
flags blossomed on all the Confederate fortifications and soon
the Southern soldiers marched
out, stacked their arms and
went into camp.
"Most are fine looking fellows, but dirty and starved practically to death. They came outside to eat blackberries, make
trades, etc., with us. The utmost good humor and pleasant
feelings prevailed - glad they
are to be once more free from
the authority of their officers
and to get something to eat. We
gave them all we had with usour hard bread, meat and coffee.
White Flags Blossomed
". . . They realize as well as
The next day, Edwin Levings we how strange it is to be firof the 12th Wisconsin, put his ing away at each other, to kill
observations on paper for the day after day, then finally meet
family back home:
in friendship as we have today."

The coincidence that the surrender occurred on the anniversary of the nation's birth 87
years before was not lost on the
soldiers. Within 20 minutes after the Confederates had stacked
their arms, Capt. William Warner of the 33rd W i s c o n s i n
mounted a portion of the Union
breastworks and read the Declaration of Independence.
Hundreds of soldiers from
both sides listened silently. It
brought back memories of other times, in little towns in Georgia or Mississippi as well as in
Wisconsin or Massachusetts,
when someone had stood in the
4th of July sun and read the
document t h at started the
American experiment in selfgovernment.

State Soldiers Lead

54

As the historian of the 33rd
Wisconsin pointed out, the men
listening to Capt. Warner had
but a short time ago been
"watching to take each other's
lives" in a dispute over breaking up the Unipn that the declaration had called into being.

Grant was not a man to spend
time on ceremonies. As part of
his army marched in to take
over the town, with the battered
14th Wisconsin leading in the
place of honor, other Union
troops under Sherman were
heading back toward Jackson,
Miss., hoping to catch Gen.
Johnston.
The lith, 12th, 29th and 33rd
Wisconsin were part of this
force. Some regiments that had
been in the trenches outside
Vicksburg never got a chance
to set foot in the place.
The night of July 4, soldiers
who had learned to ignore the
bombardments of the last six
weeks lay wide awake. Mortar
shells no longer traced fiery patterns against the stars. The guns
had stopped. The silence was so
startling, the men told each other uneasily, that it was impossible to sleep.
Grant's victory at Vicksburg
got second billing in the newspapers to the triumph at Gettysburg-whether justifiably or not
is a question for argument. For

once, the North had almost
nothing but good news-always
excepting the casualty lists.
Gen. William S. Rosecrans was
at last moving against Gen.
Braxton Bragg in Tennessee and
was about to capture Chattanooga, with Bragg fleeing. Gen.
Ambrose Burnside, in command
of a force small by comparison
to his Potomac days, was ready
to occupy Nashville.

Rebels Driven Back
At Helena, Ark., on the day
Vicksburg surrendered, a superior force of Confederate
troops attacked the garrison un-

der Brig. Gen. Frederick Salomon, former colonel of the 9th
Wisconsin, brother of the wartime governor. Salomon had
prepared his defenses well. His
men, including the ~8th Wisconsin infantry, were able to drive
back the Rebels, inflicting considerable damage on them.
And south of Vicksburg at
Port Hudson, when the Confederates were finally convinced
that Pemberton had surrendered, the last Rebel strong
point on the Mississippi gave in.
As President Lincoln put it, "the
father of waters rolls unvexed
to the sea," and it was again

possible to sail from Wisconsin
to the Gulf of Mexico.
But as had happened so often
before, the Union failed to take
full advantage of its successes.
Grant wanted to strike out at
once for Mobile, Ala. "Old
Brains" Halleck, back at his
desk in Washington, said no.
The army that had conquered
Vicksburg and felt itself able to
march at will through the south
was dispersed-part to Missouri, part to Arkansas, a portion to
prepare for adventures in Texas, the remainder assigned to
occupy territory instead of seeking out enemy armies to fight.

Red h a i red Gen. Sherma
was growing impatient. He wa
inclined to blame Southern leac
ers for failing to understan
they were whipped.
The victories at Vicksbur.
and Gettysburg "should hav
ended the war," he wrote in hi
memoirs. "But the Rebel leader
were mad, and seemed detenr.
ined that their people shoule
drink of the very lowest dregs o
the cup of war."
"I would . . . make them se
sick of war," he wrote to Hal
leek, "that generations woule
pass away before they woult
again appeal to it."

Lee Forced Federals to Retreat
Chapter XXI
Lincoln, Gen. Robert E. Lee emerged from
LIKEthe Abraham
Civil war a mystical national hero. Lincoln's assassination, followed by a long and cynical propaganda campaign
to make political capital of his death, helped convert him from
one of the war's most controversial personalities to a homespun demigod. Ironically, many of those who loved Lincoln
most after he was dead had liked him least when he was living.
Even after a century, it is still difficult for Americans to
regard the Civil war president as simply a human being, with
faults as well as virtues. This is equally true of Lee, who has
come to symbolize the lost hopes of a doomed cause. The
cause i t s e If has b e en so
entwined with magnolia bios- of L~e's ability. and his opposoms that it is hard to remem- nents shortcommgs.
ber it was based in considerable part on an ugly foundation: The enslavement of one
race of humans by another.
Anyone who dares suggest
that even Gen. Lee sometimes
goofed runs the risk of having
ground glass mixed with his
grits the next time he journeys
southward. Lee hi m s e 1f, of
course, ran no such hazard. He
manfully admitted a monumental mistake at Gettysburg, the
biggest battle of the war, and
offered to resign his command.
Lee was too much the Virginia gentleman to suggest that
his own military genius shone
the brighter because of the long
succession of uniformed incompetents who led the Union's
eastern armies, but the thought
must have occ,~rred to him. The
four day battle of Chancellorsville, a sort of preview of Gettysburg, is a classic illustration

State Well Represented
The same six Wisconsin regiments fought in both these battles. They were the 2nd, 6th
and 7th infantry, part of the
Iron brigade; the 3rd and 5th
Wisconsin, which had been in
the east since the war's early
days, and one rookie regiment,
the predominantly German 26th
infantry.
The 26th was later to prove
its cour&ge the hard way-only
four other Union regiments had
a higher percentage of deaths in
battle. But this time, along with
some fleet footed New Jersey
Germans, its men were referred
to derisively by their companions as "the flying Dutchmen."
During the May 1-4, 1863,
fighting around Chancellorsville the 26th and another inexperienced unit, the 119th New.
York, found themselves on a
hilltop. What seemed like half
the Rebels in Virginia were
shooting at them.

55

The men from Wisconsin and
New York left in a hurry. Gen.
Carl Schurz of Watertown and
the regimental officers claimed
the position had been untenable.
Other observers disagreed. The
argument went on for years,
whenever veterans of Chancellorsville met.
If the 26th Wisconsin was one
of the goats, the 5th Wisconsin
was one of the battle's heroes.
With regiments from Pennsylvania, Maine and two from New
York, the veterans of Antietam
and the second Bull Run were
assigned to take Marye's hill
near Fredericksburg.
Gen. Ambrose Burnside's men
had tried to capture this same
strongpoint the previous De-.
cember and had suffered one
of the bloodiest defeats of the
war, with 9,000 men killee or
wounded. Marye's hill had won
a reputation as a fine place to
stay away from.

Colonel Made Speech
When he learned his men
were now assigned to take it,
Col. Thomas S. Allen, former
Mineral Point printer and future
Wisconsin secretary of state,
made them a little speech:
"When the order 'forward' is
given, you will start at double
quick. You will not fire a gun
You will not stop until you get
the order to halt." The colonel
paused, then shot home the
punch line. "You will not get
that order."
The men had been waiting in
the hot sun for three hours.
Some had dropped to the ground
to sleep - there had been no
chance the night before.

Many now went around shali
ing hands with friends, biddin1
them farewell. Some wrote thei
names on slips of f)aper, pinnin1
the identification tags to th
baeks of their uniforms.
Others threw away well wor1
packs of cards. If they diec
the men didn't want evidence o
their sins found on them. If the
lived, they could always buy ar
other deck.
The heights were held by .
large force of Confederates, we
dug in, with an advance guar'
entrenched behind a stone fenc
at the base of the rise. Burr
side's men had never eve:
reached the fence.
There were Confederate ba1
teries on near-by Lee's hill an'
Stanberry hill, where they coul'
s h o o t down at the Federll
flanks. There were other Unio:
soldiers in the area, but the mai
assault was to be made by th
light division - called that bE
cause it traveled with pac:
mules instead of wagons.

5th Wisconsin Led
The right wing of the 5th Wi!
consin was assigned to the leac
but when the men started fm
ward the soldiers in the regi
ment's left wing hurried up t1
join their fellows. Gen. Joh1
Sedgwick had ordered that th
percussion caps of the men's ri
fles be rem o v e d so the:
wouldn't stop to fire befor'
reaching the wall, but Allen re
fused. His men could be trusted
he said.
Across the open space the sol
diers of the 5th Wisconsin ran

while the artillery shot at them
and the Confederate riflemen
opened up. Some fell, but the
survivors ran on. They leaped
over the stone fence, clubbed or
bayoneted the defenders, scrambled up the fortified heights and
sent the Rebels flying.
In the years after the war, Allen used to tell about the charge,
which he estimated took three
minutes - "a terrible but glorious three minutes," in which, he
said, the 5th lost 44 killed and
123 wounded and the Union casualties totaled more than 500
men.
Actually, according to an observer on a near-by hill who had
more leisure to look at his
watch, the charge required six
minutes, and some other estimates of the 5th's losses total
137 instead of the 167 reported
by Allen.
But such details do not detract from the valor displayed
by these Wisconsin soldiers. A
correspondent of the London
Times declared that their bravery equalled anything seen at
Waterloo. Coming from a Britisher, that was the ultimate in
compliments.
The heroism turned out to be
fruitless. The 5th Wisconsin was
part of a 40,000 man army under
Gen. Sedgwick. Near by was
Gen. Joseph Hooker with 80,000
more Union soldiers, many of
them veterans. Boxed in between were a mere 45,000 Con:ederates.
~ee

Attacked Hooker

But these 45,000, plus a cou)}e of generals named Lee and
)tonewall Jackson, proved more
:han a match for the 120,000
<'ederal troops. Leaving a few
·egiments to keep Sedgwick
msy, Lee turned and attacked
looker, who kept his army on
:he defensive. Then, gambling
mce more, Lee split his already
mtnumbered force, dispatching
rackson on a flanking movenent. Stonewall's men pounced
m the forces of the thoroughly
:onfused Hooker, sending them
eeling back.
Lee then turned on Sedgwick,
vho was forced to retreat belind the Rappahannock. Hook,r, abandoning strong defensive
»ositions, also soon recrossed
he river. Lee had once more
1roved how unfortunate for the
Jnion had been his decision to
urn down the command of the
lorthern armies.
The Iron brigade, before the
,attle started in earnest, crossed
he Rappahannock under fire
nd drove off Rebel sharpshootrs. But during the main part
f the fighting, it took a minor
ole.
Those riflemen who had been
ecruited in Wisconsin for com-

pany G of Col. Berdan's sharpshooters helped capture 365
Georgians, cornered in a railroad cut.

Stonewall Jackson Killed
During the night of May 2,
while the battle was still in
doubt, the 3rd Wisconsin was
dug in near a woods. By mistake, men of the 13th New Jersey started firing at the Wisconsin men, who fired angrily
back until the e r r o r was
straightened out.

.

Col. Rufus Dawes shared the
same bed. Neither bothered to
remove his spurs and in the
· morning Dawes complained that
the colonel had wounded him.
As the disgruntled Union
for~es prepared their defenses
agam north of the Rappahannock, it was plain that Hooker
had been badly beaten. Lee, atthough outnumbered, was ready
to carry the war to the North.
The reinforced Confederate
army now totaled 75,000. Its
objectives were multiple. Lee
wanted to cut the Pennsylvania
railroad by wrecking a bridge
near Harrisburg, Pa. In bringing his army to northern soil,
he hoped to augment the war
weariness there. He sought to
capture food and supplies. And
there still seemed a forlorn
chance that a demonstration in
enemy territory might impress
the English so they would provide more than mere sympathy
to the Southern cause.

Meade Replaced Hooker

Capt. William H. Kees of Berlin, Wis., fought in the 5th
Wisconsin, which became famous for hand to hand combat after long charges. The
regiment captured Marye's
Heights at Fredericksburg, Va.
The captain's granddaughter,
Mrs. Arnold Johnson, lives at
5905 W. Main st., Milwaukee.
Capt. Julian W. Hinkley from
Portage county reported later
that Stonewall Jackson had
been struck by a bullet while
in the woods into which the 3rd
Wisconsin was firing during
their altercation with the Jerseyites.
"It has been presumed that
Jackson was hit by his own
men," Hinkley said, "but there
is a possibility that the bullet
came from the 3rd Wisconsin."
Historians generally believe
Jackson's fatal wound came
from nervous South Carolina
pickets, firing in the darkness.
But whoever sent the bullet
winging Stonewall's way cost
the Confederates a leader who
had given the North more trouble than any general except Lee
himself.
Before withdrawing north of
the river, the Iron brigade
camped for the night of May 3.
Col. Edward S. Bragg and Lt.

The invasion of Pennsylvania,
instead of widening the gap
among Northerners in their attitude toward the war, served to
close it. Surprisingly, in view
of Chancellorsville, Fighting Joe
Hooker was stm in charge of
the eastern forces. He and 90,000 men started out in pursuit.
Before the chase was many days
old, however, Lincoln replaced
Hooker with Gen. George
Meade.
Lee, as in the earlier invasion
that culminated at Antietam,
split his forces. One portion
took Chambersburg. Another
captured Carlisle. A third passed
through the sleepy village of
Gettysburg-a name that still
meant nothing to Americans
outside its immediate vicinityand moved on York.
The three fingers were to converge on Harrisburg, cutting one
of the main supply lines from
the west. But on the night of
June 28, Lee learned that
Meade's men were drawing
close. He decided it would be
necessary to smash the pursuing army before cutting the
Pennsylvania railroad.
Lee was handicapped by the
absence rf his cavalry, under J.
E. B. Stuart, who was off adventuring in eastern Maryland. He
decided to concentrate his divergent forces at Cashtown pass,
eight miles from Gettysburg,
and let Meade attack him on his
chosen ground.

Rebels Needed Shoes
Meade, on the other hand,
planned h do battle at Pipe
creek, near Taneytown, Md. He
wanted Lee to attack him. Both
generals were preparing to assume the defensive. The two
armies might still be sitting
there, hoping the opposition

56

would make the first move, if
the Confederate soldiers had
been more adequately shod.
As it was, the Rebels needed
shoes. Someone heard a supply
was available at Gettysburg. A
foraging party was sent to confiscate the footwear. It ran into
Union cavalrymen. A skirmish
developed. Each side began to
bring up men. The fighting
spread. Soon, without anyone
really planning it that way, the
war's biggest battle was in full
swing.
The Iron brigade, part of a
force of 9,400 men under Maj.
Gen. John F. Reynolds, arrived
early. The men from Wisconsin,
M:chigan and Indiana had been
marching briskly along while
the band played "The Campbells
Are Coming." Now they unlimbered their rifles and prepared
to hold McPherson ridge, northwest of the village.
Reynolds climbed into the
cupola of a Lutheran seminary
just behind the brigade. He decided that even though he was
outnumbered he could hold the
hill named McPherson and the
longer stretch of high ground
known as Seminary ridge.
If there was a single regiment
that could be considered the
leader among the 53 infantry
units Wisconsin recruited during the war, it was the 2nd.
Since the first major battle
fought at Bull Run nearly two
years before, the 2nd had been
in nearly every important eastern engagement. Now its remnants were once more in the
forefront.

Ready lor Anything
Many of those Wisconsin soldiers who had charged up Henry
hill against Stonewall Jackson's
equally inexperienced men at
first Bull Run were dead now or
out of action because of
wounds. Recruits had taken the
p I a c e s of some, but most of
those who stood on McPherson
ridge on July l, 1863, were now
hard bitten veterans, ready for
anything. The fighting at Gettysbu~·g, however, was to prove
worse than even these professionals had bargained for.
Regiments from Tennessee
and Alabama were firing at
them from 40 yards away. Col.
Lucius Fairchild's left elbow
was shattered, a development
that would later prove a political asset but was now viewed
as a definite liability.
Gen. Reynolds was dead-one
of the first Confederate volleys
caught him. Gen. Abner Doubleday, later to be given undeserved credit as the originator
of baseball, was temporarily in
command.
When Doubleday rode up, he
f o u n d that the 2nd and 7th
Wisconsin had driven the Con-

federates back, sending them
over Willoughby's run and part
way up a hill called Herr
heights. He decided the brigade
had advanced too far in front
of the rest of the Union army.
He ordered it to fall back to its
previous position.

Sent Rebels Flying
Meanwhile, the 6th Wisconsin
moved into action, led by Lt.
Col. Dawes in the absence of
Col. Edward Bragg, who had
been kicked by a horse. With a
portion of the Union line outflanked, the 6th regiment joined
the 14th Brooklyn and the 95th
New York in what Doubleday
later described as a gallant
charge that sent two Rebel regiments flying.
The Confederates took refuge
in a cut of the Western Maryland railroad, 150 yards away.
The 6th continued the pursuit,

seven Mississippi officers. An- The Confederates also were badother 225 Confederates also ly mauled. There was a two hour
lull as both sides awaited reingave up.
forcements.
As the Iron brigade rested, a
Union Losses Heavy
veteran
of the war of 1812, John
While the 7th Wisconsin was
warily watching for the fight- Burns, came ambling out from
ing to resume, a Rebel color Gettysburg wearing a hi g h
bearer came between the lines, black silk hat and a swallowtail
trying to encourage an attack. coat with brass buttons, carryDozens of rifles fired at him and ing his long rifle.
Burns announced that the
he fell.
Confederates
had milked his
Sgt. Solon Richards ran out
to get the flag, but couldn't find cows, so he was going to fight
it- the bearer apparently had with "them Wisconsin fellers."
crawled off. Richards did find a They told him he was too old.
Although v e t e r a n s, these
couple of Rebels bugging the
ground for safety, prodded them "Wisconsin fellers" were still
up with his rifle and got them mostly teen agers and young
back to the Union 1in e s, al- men.
though a bullet clipped off the
But when he settled d o w n
comfortably to wait for resumpheel of his shoe.
With the initial phase of the tion of the battle, the Wisconfirst day's battle over, the Union sin soldiers let him stay. This
losses were considerable. The was a day when any man will2nd Wisconsin alone had lost ing to shoot Rebels was wel116 of its 302 remaining men. come.

losing 160 men in crossing the
150 yards but trapping the
Southerners.
A Federal corporal grabbed
the colors of a Mississippi regiment and was shot down. A
Union private swung his musket, splitting the skull of the
Rebel who had killed his friend.
Corp. Francis A. Waller of De
Soto, Wis., then snatched the
Mississippi f I a g and hung
onto it.
Pvt. Patrick Maloney of the
2nd Wisconsin, who had joined
his friends from the 6th, got
something more important than
a piece of bunting-a Rebel brigadier general named J. J. Archer. The general would have preferred to hand his sword to
someone with more rank, but
Pvt. Maloney was insistent.
Dawes had enough swords to
start a collection, however, having accepted the surrenders of

'A Forest of Sloping Steel'
Chapter XXII
THE Civil war, a good defense was often the best offense.
I NThe
side which could remain behind fortifications, even
makeshift ones, generally won the battle. Each opposing
general at Gettysburg had hoped to tempt his opponent into
an attack against a prepared position. As it turned out, the
Confederates were the ones
who advanced. On the first Rebels came pouring across the
fields toward the ridges where
day's battle, the Rebels had a
the Iron brigade and other
numerical advantage. They troops had repulsed the Confedhoped to wipe out the advance erates earlier in the day.
Union troops before the rest
Outnumbered and outflanked,
of Gen. George Meade's army the Union forces began to fall
could be brought into position. back through the town. Some
After a noontime lull in the regiments retreated in good
fighting on July 1, 1863, while order, stopping now and then
the Federal soldiers dug in on to keep the Confederates from
McPherson ridge and Seminary pressing too closely. Others
ridge northwest of the village, simply ran.
the Southern forces were reinforced to the point where an- W ou.nded Left Behind
other attack seemed feasible.
Wounded men were left beThe newly arrived 11th corps hind. Lt. Col. John B. Callis,
was placed to the north of who had joined the 7th WisconGettysburg to oppose the Con- sin at Lancaster, was among
federates hurrying in from that them. He lay for 43 hours on
direction. It was commanded McPherson ridge before anyby Gen. Carl Schurz, a Watertown (Wis.) resident who had one checked to see whether he
helped attract German Ameri- was alive. Surprisingly, he still
can voters to Lincoln's standard was.
and was a more effective orator
Sgt. Jefferson Coates, 19, who
than a general.
fought so courageously he later
The 11th corps' right flank was given the congressional
gave way. On its left, more medal of honor, lost both eyes

in the fighting. But he survived
to go back to Grant county.
Cpl. Francis Asbury Waller
of the 6th Wisconsin also won
the medal of honor. The corporal, carrying a captured Mississippi flag, made his way into
Gettysburg, where he was hidden by two young women. The
Rebels later captured Waller
but missed the flag, which the
girls had thoughtfully stuffed
under a mattress.
The 7th Wisconsin was the
last regiment to leave Seminary
ridge, retreating only when its
ammunition was nearly gone.
The Iron brigade stopped six
times to fight as it moved back
toward the village.
Under Lt. Col. Rufus Dawes'
orders, the 6th Wisconsin faced
to the rear and marched in line
of battle toward the northern
outskirts of Gettysburg, turning
now and then to fire at the pursuing Rebels.
As the men retreated through
Gettysburg, Col. Lucius Fa i rchild, his left arm amputated
after the wound received in the
day's early fighting, sat Ol'l a
porch and waved jauntily at
them. When the Rebels arrived,
they took him prisoner; later,
after the battle, they turned him
· loose again. He returned home
and ran for office.
Except for the 6th Wisconsin,
the Iron brigade reassembled on

57

Culp's hill, southeast of Gettysburg. John Burns, who had volunteered to help the Wisconsin
soldiers, had already received
the first of three wounds he
would get; but he stayed with
his new found friends and survived the battle.

Grabbed Regimental Flag
Col. Dawes found his way
·through Gettysburg blocked by
Rebel sharpshooters. Gralibing
the regimental flag, he slipped
through an opening in a board
fence; the rest of the 6th fol·
lowed. An old man waited there,
carrying a bucket of water, and
the exhausted soldiers stopped
to drink before reaching Cemetery hill. Later, the 6th rejoined
the brigade in its new position.
The 26th Wisconsin, still
s m a r t i n g from the "flying
Dutchmen" episode at Chancellorsville, got to the field with
Schurz's command in time to
join the Union retreat. It took a
position behind a stone wall at
Cemetery hill, a little west of
Culp's hill.
A brigade commanded by
Brig. Gen. Lysander Cutler of
Milwaukee, former colonel of
the 6 t h Wisconsin, was s t ationed on the right of the Union
line. Cutler had lost two-thirds

of his men in the first day's
fighting.

Held Peach Orchard
The 3rd Wisconsin had been
preparing dinner at Two Taverns, eight miles south, when the
battle began. It arrived too late
to join the first day's fighting.
It busied itself that night putting
up rude breastworks of rails and
earth along Rock creek, which
flowed just to the east of the
Union position on Culp's hill and
Spangler's spring.
The 5th Wisconsin, m e a nwhile, was marching as fast as
the men could walk toward the
battle. It covered 32 miles in 17
hours, but did not reach the field
until the battle's second day.
By then, the Union line was in
the shape of a fishhook, with the
shank pointing south. The entrenchments w e r e strung out
along the rugged terrain of Cemetery ridge and its adjacent hills,
south of the village.
A second and more advanced
Union position also was held in
a peach orchard and a rocky
area known as Devil's den, midway between the parallel Seminary and Cemetery ridges.
It was not until noon of July 2
that both armies were ready for
full scale fighting. By then, the
Iron brigade hardly existed. Of
the 1,883 men it had when the
battle began on July 1, all but
671 were killed, wounded or
captured at Gettysburg-a total
of 65% casualties, the highest
percentage of any brigade in the
battle.
By comparison, t h e British
Light brigade, which charged
"half a league onward" at Balaklava, lost 37% of its men.
At Gettysburg, the 6th Wisconsin lost 48%, the 7th Wisconsin 52%, the 2nd Wisconsin
77%. The brigade's youngest
regiment, the 24th Michigan,
fared even worse. Its casualties
a m o u n t e d to 80% of its
strength.
Some of the companies, which
had numbered 100 or more
when they left Wisconsin, Indiana or Michigan, had only three
men left when they arrived at
Culp's hill. The Iron brigade's
remnants played a minor role in
the last two days of the battle.
Most of its casualties occurred
on the first day, when the brigade helped buy time for the
rest of Meade's army to wheel
into place and occupy strong defensive positions. The brigade
had served its purpose well. The
Union's ability to fight on favorable ground was the decisive
factor in the battle.

-Alexander Gardner (National Archives)

A young Wisconsin artillery officer, Maj.
Alonzo Cushing (upper left, next to post),
posed with the rest of the staff of Gen.
E. V. Sumner several months before be-

killed and 11 wounded in the
two days it was on the field. The
5th, arriving the afternoon of
July 2, was assigned to protect
the Union's left flank and saw
no serious action.
The 26th Wisconsin, with just
one previous battle under its
belt, got into little of the fighting as a unit. It did, however,
furnish numerous men for picket duty - a task that involved
skirmishing in advanced positions. It lost 41 men killed, 137
wounded, 26 prisoners and six
missing.
Berdan's sharpshooters, including the Wisconsin company
G, were in the thick of things.
On the battle's second day, the
Wisconsin unit and a New York
company were concealed behind
a fence in advance of the Union
lines when Confederates advanced out of a near-by woods.
Now the skills of these crack
shots paid off. Taking careful
aim, the men sighted ever the
fence and sniped away at the
Protected Union's Flank
Rebels so effectively that the atOther Wisconsin regiments tack was broken before it had
took minor roles at Gettysburg. advanced far. The sharpshootThe 3rd Wisconsin lost two men ers stayed behind their fence

coming a hero at the battle of Gettysburg.
He was killed opposing Pickett's charge.
The farm where he was born is now Cushing Memorial state park, near Delafield.

until they ran out of ammunition, then withdrew.
The second day saw Lee's
army scoring some successes.
Confederates pushed back the
advance Union line, capturing
the peach orchard, Devil's den,
a portion of Big Round Top.
But a desperate Rebel attack on
East Cemetery hill was repulsed
after dark in hand to hand fighting and the Union troops still
held fast elsewhere on the high
ground.

Agreed to Hold Fast

58

At midnight Meade called a
council of war. His officers
agreed they should hold fast.
Meade turned to Gen. John Gibbon, the man who had whipped
the Iron brigade into shape, now
commander of an army corps
assigned to hold the center of
the line.
"Gibbon, if Lee attacks me tomorrow," Meade told him, "it
will be on your front."
It was a logical conclusion.
On July 2 the Confederates had
advanced principally on the
right and the left. Now, as Lee
pondered his plans between at-

tacks of "the flux," he decided
to try the center. If he could
break through there, Meade's
army would be split and could
be disposed of piecemeal.
Lee knew that frontal attacks
against strong defensive positions seldom succeeded but he
had 15,000 comparatively fresh
troops. A third of them were
Virginians under Gen. George
E. Pickett. Lee had special confidence in Virginia soldiers.
Gen. James Longstreet, who
had been urging the Confederates to go on the defensive, was
still convinced Lee ought to
withdraw to more favorable
ground and make Meade come
to him. He argued against the
frontal attack but Lee, having
won so many previous gambles
with the odds against him, decided otherwise.
First, on the morning of July
3, he tried another attack on
Culp's hill. The Union slapped
it down, with the 6th Wisconsin
playing a prominent role.
Then, as Meade brought up
reinforcements of men and artillery to the center, the Confederates concentrated 138 field-

pieces to soften up the place weeks later to his brother, H.
where Pickett and Gens. Joseph M. Haskell of Portage, he dePettigrew and Isaac Trimble scribed how the Rebels looked
would lead the frontal attack.
from the crest of Cemetery
ridge:
leb Stuart Arrived
"More than half a mile their
Meanwhile, Jeb Stuart, whose front extends; more than a
absence had handicapped the thousand yards the dull gray
Confederates in the early fight- masses deploy, man touching
ing, finally arrived in the vicini- man, rank pressing rank, and
ty with his cavalrymen. Lee told line supporting line. The red
him to swing around to the east. flags wave; their horsemen galWhen the Union army was lop up and down.
"The arms of 18,000 men,
forced into confused retreat, the
barrel and bayonet, gleam in
horsemen could cut it down.
At 1 p.m., after a lull in which the sun, a sloping forest of
men on both sides snatched the flashing steel. Right on they
chance to eat hardtack and pre- move, as with one soul, in perpare for what wa.:::; ahead, the fect order, without impediment
mas sed Confederate cannon of ditch or wall or stream, over
opened up. Union artillery re- ridge and slope, through orplied. For nearly two hours the chard and meadow and cornfield, magnificent, grim, irresistlong range duel continued.
Then the Federal fire slack- ible...."
ened. The Union gunners needGibbon ordered his men to
ed time for their weapons to hold their fire until the Confedcool. Pickett rode over to Long- erates came closer, "then aim
street and suggested it was the low and steadily." Muzzles of
moment to move. Longstreet, Parrott guns and Napoleons on
having lost his argument with the crest swung around to bear
Lee, nodded grimly.
on the Confederates and began
Maneuvering as on a parade to fire as rapidly as the artilground, the 15,000 obliqued lerymen could load them. The
northeastward into an open canister c u t swaths through
field, then swung east toward the approaching ranks, but the
the Union lines. Banners were Southerners came on.
flying. The Virginians led. Men
from Mississippi, Tennessee and Gen. Gibbon W ou.nded
the Carolinas followed. The
Then the Union riflemen,
Union lines were a mile away.
Capt. Julian W. Hinkley of partly concealed behind a stone
the 3rd Wisconsin remembered fence, opened up. Gen. Gibbon
later how he could hear the Reb- was wounded by now and Gen.
el yells echoing across the field Winfield Scott Hancock, who
before they were drowned out had given "Honest" Cobb so
by the roar of Union artinery. much grief in the early days of
The 3rd, too far away to get into drilling, had been carried to a
this fight, could only wait to hospital tent. But the veterans
needed no generals to tell them
see what would happen.
what to do.
At a distance estimated by Lt.
Horseman Rallied Troops
Haskell as 100 yards from the
Confederate soldiers w h o Union lines, the Confederates
were there would tell later of finally paused to return the fire.
a lone horseman, riding in front
"As if our bullets were the
of the Union troops, rallying fire coals that touched off their
them to repel the attack. This muskets," Haskell to l d his
was Lt. Frank A. Haskell of the brother, "the enemy in front
6th Wisconsin, a Madison law- halts, and his countless level
yer who was aide to Gen. Gib- barrels blaze back at us .... The
bon. In a letter written a few volleys blaze and roll; as thick

59

the sound as when a summer
hailstorm pelts the city roofs;
as thick the fire as when the
incessant lightning fringes a
summer cloud ..."
Then the Confederates-only
a portion of them, for many
were dead or wounded and others had come as close as they
cared to march-moved ahead
again. Haskell, slightly wounded and riding a horse that had
been struck three times by bullets, turned to rally part of a
Union brigade that was pulling
back from the stone fence.
Flailing about him with the
flat of his sword to restore their
patriotism, he got the men back
in action. Then he galloped over
to plead for reinforcements for
a vulnerable point where the
rock wall made a right angle,
following the contour of the
hill.

W ou.nded, Kept Fighting
Brevet Maj. Alonzo H. Cushing, who had lived at Delafield,
Wis., as a baby, was in charge
of an artillery battery stationed
near the point of Pickett's
charge. He was one of three
brothers who saw action with
the Union. One, William, would
later become a national hero.
Maj. C u s hi n g had been
wounded in both legs, but remained to direct his artillerymen. Now, with the Rebels less
than 300 feet away, a bullet
struck him in the head, killing
him. He was then 22 years old,
a baby faced veteran of first
Bull Run, Fredericksburg and
Chanaellorsville.
Haskell was assuming a lot of
authority for a mere lieutenant,
but he had a horse and sword
so no one was questioning his
right. At his urging, additional
soldiers hurried to the fence angle. The t o u g h veterans of
Berdan's sharpshooters were
among them.
Confederate Gen. Lewis Armistead put his cap on the point
of his sword, waved it high and

shouted for his men to follow
him across the barrier.
About 150 of them did. The
general fell. His men were surrounded. Back of them, the
remnants of the 15,000 (Haskell
had overestimated t h e force
somewhat) were retreating
across the field. The battle was
over.
"See the graybacks run,"
H a s k e 11 shouted. Later he
would admit that the Rebels
had shown "a determination
and valor worthy of a better
cause," adding: "Their conduct
in this battle even makes me
proud of them as Americans."

Lee Took the Blame
"All this has been my fault,"
Gen. Lee admitted, as his broken regiments limped back to
Seminary ridge. It was not
quite that simple, but it was
true that the Virginian had been
maneuvered into a position
where the opposition had the
advantage. The Confederates
absorbed 28,000 casualties, to
23,000 for the slightly larger
Union force.
On July 4, both exhausted
armies held fast, watching each
other warily. Then Lee headed
back toward Virginia. Stuart,
whose horsemen had been beaten off by Union cavalry while
Pickett's doomed men were
charging, covered the retreat.
Meade pursued, but cautiously. On July 12, Lee slipped
across the Potomac. The war
was back on Southern soil.
Pennsylvania was no longer a
battle theater.
Capt. Hinkley of the 3rd Wisconsin, for one, was a little sorry. He wrote home to say he
wished the Rebels had spent
another month punishing Pennsylvania, where farmers had
been charging Union soldiers $1
·for a loaf of bread and the outrageous price of 25c for a quart
of milk.
"I cannot appreciate that disposition which will swindle a
friend to compensate for what
an enemy has stolen from you,"
Hinkley grumbled.

State Soldiers Forced to Flee
Chapter XXIII
THE battle that made Ulysses S. Grant a hero and prompted
Abraham Lincoln to appoint him commander of all the
Union armies was fought east of Chattanooga, Tenn., at Missionary ridge. Ironically, it was the one victory Grant was
associated with where he deserved the least credit. After his
early triumphs at Forts Henry
'd
. d
.h
Burnsr e, arnve wrt 8, 000
and Donelson, Grant was tern- other Confederates.
porari~y re~oved f~om .comRosecrans, s t i ll assuming
mand m a dispute With higher Bragg was too weak to fight,
authority. After his victory at was pushing blithely ahead, his
Shiloh, he was widely criti- men stru~g out along sever~I
cized for not having put his roads, wrth steep mountam
.
.
country between them. Bragg
men m trenches. Even hts sue- recognized his opportunity. He
cess at Vicksburg, opening the started issuing brisk orders to
Mississippi, was clouded by attack. But his subordinate comthe coincidence that it oc- manders, bent on proving that
curred when the nation's at- · the Union brass had no monoptention was focused on Gettys- oly on bull~eaded i~competence,
kept argumg until Rosecrans
burg.
. .
.
awoke to his danger ap.d began
But after M1sswnary ndge, concentrating his forces.
~ran.t was recognized as t~e
By dawn of Sept. 19, 1863,
ftghtmg general for whom ~m- when the opposing armies ficoln so long had been se~king. nally groped their way into conIt was only later that the. rrony tact near the Chickamauga river
became apparent-that thts was .
.
.
a battle won because a few m northeast Georgra, each stde
thousand privates and lower had about 60,000 men. Roseranking o f f i c e r s disobeyed
Grant's instructions.
After Vicksburg in the west
and Gettysburg in the east, the
war's spotlight focused for a
change on the central theater.
There had been fighting in that
area from the beginning, but
much of the action had been
skirmishing for railroad lines or
the unpleas.1nt activity associated with guerrilla warfare in hostile country.
Now, needing a victory to bolster its waning fortunes, the
:::onfederacy shifted reinforcenents to Gen. Braxton Bragg.
He had been pushed back below
::::hattanooga by a former West
Point instructor who had made
lis reputation at Corinth-Gen.
William S. Rosecrans, whose
iesignation, "Old Rosy," was a
:ribute both to his name and to
:he color of his manly nose.

crans' forces included five infantry regiments from Wisconsin-the 1st, lOth, 15th, 21st and
24th-as well as the 1st Wisconsin cavalry and the 3rd, 5th and
8th Wisconsin light artillery
batteries.
The first day's fighting was
sharp but inconclusive. The next
day, however, a Union blunder
left a gap in the Federal lines
through w h i c h the Rebels
poured, forcing many of the
Northern troops to flee in disorder toward Chattanooga, 15
miles away.
Others u n d e r George H.
Thomas held fast on Snodgrass
hill, among them a brigade commanded by Brig. Gen. John C.
Starkweather, the Milwaukee
lawyer who had once led the 1st
Wisconsin.

Chattanooga Under Seige
The soldiers won Gen. Thomas a high sounding newspaper
nickname, "The Rock of Chickamauga," although his men continued to refer to him as "Pap."
Thomas finally withdrew to

3attle Odds Shilted
With the arrival of James
:..Ongstreet and 15,000 veterans
>f Gettysburg to reinforce
kagg, the odds shifted. Long;treet's men took a 900 mile,
·oundabout railroad ride to get
here. From Mississippi, Gen.
roseph E. Johnston dispatched
.1 ,500 men, many of them the
:oldiers Grant had turned loose
tt Vicksburg. And Gen. Simon
Jolivar Buckner, abandoning
~astern Tennessee to a small
Jnion army under Ambrose

C hat tan o o g a, which was
promptly placed under siege.
Among those troops who fled
early was the 1Oth Wisconsin,
which had done well at Perryville, where it lost 145 men.
This time the regiment gave
way after it was flanked by
Confederates.
Capt. C. H. Ford, a Fox Lake
farmer, later jotted down in his
diary an adventure that demonstrated how, in this curious war,
an accommodating enemy could
sometimt>s be found.
"Nearly all our forces had
fallen back . . . and we followed them," Ford wrote. "I
could not keep up with the company and I told them to go on
and I would follow them.
"After resting a moment, I
went on. It was now dark and
I had gJne but a short <!istance
when I heard Rebels in front of
me. I turned in another direction and found a friendly Rebel
who told me where they were
and how to get out."
Following the directions he
had been given, Ford made his
way back to the Union lines.
By the next day, he reported,
he f'ould find only 50 members
of his regiment who had escaped. Others came straggling
in later, but the unit had lost 18
killed, 56 wounded and 132 captured.
Wisconsin's 15th regiment of
Scandinavians had its troubles,
too. It was in a brigade commanded by its old colonel, Hans
Christian Heg. After retreating
on the 19th, it made a stand in
support of an Illinois regiment,
but the latter outfit pulled back,
hurrying past the men of the
15th, who were lying down.
Other Union troops, thinking
the Illinois regiment was the
last Federal force between them
and the Conft;derates, opened
fire. With Minie balls flying at
them from both directions, the
Wisconsin soldiers fled in confusion. Svme of them joined
other units to continue the fight,
but the regiment did not get
back together again until the
next day.

Surrounded by Rebels

Officers looked out over the mountainous territory over
which the battle of Chickamauga in Tennessee was fought.
Wisconsin had five infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment and three light artillery batteries in the engagement,
and all but the cavalry suffered heavy losses in the
resounding defeat.
-New York Public Library

60

Once more it ran into difficulties. Surrounded by Confedm·at~s. the 15th fled again. The
men ran for a mile or so, despite
efforts of the officers to rally
them. When the day was over,
only 75 members of the regiment could be found for duty.
Col. Heg was not among
them. When the battle was
nearly over, a sharpshoutel got
the 34 year old ~uskego man
in his sights. He was carried

not to mention 33 horses and
26 men.
The Confederate side had 18,454 casualties and the Union
16,170, amounting to 28% of
the forces engaged. Dr. E. B.
Wolcott of Milwaukee, Wisconsin surgeon general, and s i x
other Wisconsin physicians arrived in Nashville in time to
care for the wounded who had
reached that point.
Leaving the other six doctors
there, Wolcott made his way to
Chattanooga, travelint the last
33 miles over the mountains on
foot, guided by a friendly Georgian. His luggage went by wagon train and was captured by
the Rebels.
Trapped in Chattanooga, with
the Confederates dug in on nearby mountains, Rosecrans began
sending f r a n t i c requests for
help.
Gen. Grant arrived to take
command. Gen. William T. Sherman and 17,000 veterans of
Vicksburg, including the 18th
Wisconsin, followed. Gen. Joseph Hooker, with 20,000 men
and 3,000 horses and mules,
took a 1,157 mile trip by rail,
traveling from Washington to
Chattanooga by way of Indianapolis. The 26th Wisconsin, veteran of Chancellorsville a n d
Gettysburg, was with Hooker.
Harrison C. Hobart
Thomas was given command
Tunneled out of Confederate of Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland. With portions of the
prison.
Army of the Potomac under
Hooker and of the Army of the
itself sur.-ounded. Lt. Col. Har- Tennessee under S herman,
rison C. Hobart and 70 of his Grant had a force that was
men were captured.
ready to go back on the offenThe colonel and some other sive.
men later tunneled out of Libby
prison in Richmond. Hobart Bragg Made Mistake
eventually made his way back
The supply line had now been
to Wisconsin.
reopened, so the men were no
His spee<.:hes about prison life longer living on h a If rations.
were much in demand, and, as Thomas' soldiers had to endure
was customary, he went back the jibes of the eastern and
into politics.
western armies, who claimed
The chapbin of the 1st Wis- that only their arrival had preconsin, the Rev. John McNa- vented the central army from
mara, told of how much trouble being overwhelmed.
his companions underwent to
The Army of the Cumberland
save their regimental colors. bided its time, its men hoping
The color sergeant was killed. for a chance to show they were
Another man grasped the flag as good as those troops who'd
and soon was wounded in three captured Vicksburg or smashed
places.
Lee's attacks at Cemetery ridge.
At that point, according to
As Grant made ready, Gen.
Mr. McNamara, Lt. H. 0. Mon- Bragg made a mistake. He sent
tague grabbed the colors and part of his force under Gen.
handed them to John Bradly, Longstreet to besiege Burnside
cook of company E, who at Knoxville. It was suggested
"swung his coffeepot in one later that Bragg must have felt
hand, the colors in the other, his position on the rocky heights
exclaiming under a murderous of Missionary ridge was impregfire: 'Rally 'round the flag, nable, even with fewer men to
boys.'"
defend it, and Grant, not bothering to remove his cigar stub,
Artillery Kept Busy
agreed.
At Chickamauga, the 1st Wis"It was impregnable," he said.
consin cavalry confined its acGrant knew it and Bragg.
tivities to skirmishing. The knew it, but the soldiers in the
artillery wus ~usier. The 3rd Army of the Cumberland didn't
Wisconsin battery, for instance, know it. After Hooker's eastern
lost all but one of its six guns, army had taken Lookout moun-

back to a hospital, where he
died. His body was buried in the
church yard back home among
his fellow Norwegians. Somewhat later, P. stdue of the colonel was erected on the state capitol's grounds.
The 24th Wisconsin, after being driven fre the field, returned to join Thomas and did
not retreat again until ordered
to c>n Sept. 22. The 21st Wisconsin dso stayed longer than
most, but late in the battle found

tain at the lightly held left of
the Confederate line and Sherman's westerners had been
stalled on the right, Grant told
Thomas to have his men capture
the line of trenches at the base
of Missionary ridge.
Sherman had been fuming
over the number of Confederates his men were fighting. If
Thomas could divert some of
the Rebels, it would ease the
pressure. It was not much of an
assignment, but it was all Grant
had in mind for the Army of the
Cumberland.

of a son, Douglas, who also became well known in military
circles.
More than a quarter of a century after the day he grabbed
the colors, Arthur MacArthur
was awarded the congressional

Even Grant Surprised
It was midafternoon of Nov.
25. Thomas' soldiers had been
waiting for hours. Some were
kept in reserve-the 1st, lOth
and 21st Wisconsin among
them. The 24th Wisconsin, made
up mainly of Milwaukeeans, and
the 15th's Scandinavians were
among the 18,000 men who
surged toward the Confederate
position at the base of the 500
foot ridge.
They took the first 1i n e of
trenches easily enough. The
Rebels who had manned the position began clambering up the
ridge.
It was then that the Army of
the Cumberland took the strategy into its own hands. As
Thomas and Grant watched in
astonishment from a near-by
hill, the men leaped out of the
newly captured trenches and
started up the hei6hts.
Grant, puffing angrily on his
cigar, demanded to know who
had ordered them to keep going. Thomas said he hadn't.
Gen. Gordon Granger also disclaimed responsibility, but added: "When those fellows get
s t art e d, all hell can't stop
them.''
The men kept climbing. Fortyfour cannons were shoo tin g
down at them. There we r e
ditches to cross, log barricades
to clamber over. The surprised
Confederates on the ridge emptied their rifles, the n started
rolling large rocks d o w n the
steep hillside.
But the clusters of men behind the regimental flags kept
going, ignoring the bullets, competing with each otl:ler to be
first at the top. Arthur MacArthur, jr., the 18 year old son
of a Milwaukee judge, grabbed
the colors of the 24th Wisconsin from an exhausted bearer
and led the regiment toward the
crest.

Lt. Col. Arthur MacArthur, jr.
Set record for son, Douglas,
to shoot at.

medal of honor for his heroism
at Missionary ridge.
Lt. Robert J. Chivas, who had
come to Milwaukee from Scotland when he was 16 and enlisted in the 24th Wisconsin
three years later, was part way
up the hill when a bullet struck
a man near him. Chi vas stopped
to bind up the w o u n d, then
started climbing again, waving
his sword and shouting encour·
agement to the others.
The gesture caught the eye of
a rifleman on the crest. Chivas
fell, a minie ball in his chest.
The other soldiers stepped over
his body and continued up thE
ridge.
Within a short time, the "im
pregnable" position had beeiJ
taken. Bragg had a two mil{
wide hole in his lines and wa~
fleeing south. Grant was bein~
hailed as a master strategist and
a possible Democratic candidatE
for president. And the Army ol
the Cumberland had a victor.)
to put beside Vicksburg anc
Gettysburg.
Surprisingly, the Union losse!
were modest. The 24th Wiscon
sin, for example, had only fivt
killed and 30 wounded; the 15th
merely six wounded.
Defeated in the west, the eas1
and now the central theater, th1
Promoted to Major
Confederacy was never agair
MacArthur was then regimen- able to mount a major offensive
tal adjutant. For his climb up There were 16 months of wa1
the hill, he was promoted to left. But from the m o m en·
major. Later, he would be the Thomas' soldiers reached the
"boy colonel" of the regiment- top of Missionary r i d g e, thi
actually, the boy lieutenant col- Union's fight to end the south
onel-and later still, the father ern rebellion was all downhill

61

Ships Proceeded One by One
Chapter XXIV
ADMIRAL DAVID DIXON PORTER'S situation in
REAR
the spring of 1864 was a sailor's nightmare. He had a two
million dollar Union fleet in his commanel, and too little water
to float it to safety.
It was Porter's fate to spend much of his Civil war career
working with the army, so it was no surprise to his fellow
naval officers that he kept getting in trouble. At one point,
in the days before Vicksburg,
There was also some thought
h~ was smashing his ironclads
of ebtaining cotton for the New
through the underbrush in a England textile m i ll s. Banks
river hard I y fit for canoes was from Massachusetts.
when the Confederates felled
trees fore and aft and boxed Captured Paper Collars
him in.
As part of his 10,000 man
William Tecumseh Sherman army, Banks had the 8th, 14th,
~ot him out of that scrape and 23rd, 29th and 33rd Wisconsin
Porter went on to play an im- ·infantry and the 4th Wisconsin,
:>ortant r o 1e in Grant's re- now a cavalry regiment. Lt. Col.
Joseph E. Bailey, a lumberman
>pening of the Mississippi. But from Kilbourn City, Wis., had
)herman wasn't handy now. been detached from the 4th to
:>orter had been tagging along serve as an engineering officer.
.vith one of the Union's political As it turned out, Bailey's pres~enerals, N. P. (Nothing Posi- ence was the only piece of good
.ive) Banks, and here he was in luck Banks and Porter were to
he middle of Louisiana with no have on the expedition.
Banks believed in going to
>vay to get back to deep water.
war
in comfort. Besides the
The expedition had sailed up
troop transports and gunboats,
he Red river, a tributary of the he had a large supply train, inv.lississippi, planning to capture cluding two wagonloads of pa)hreveport, and perhaps move per collars for his officers. Gen.
m into Texas. Abraham Lin- Dick Taylor, son of former Presoln, looking ahead to the end ident Zachary Taylor, swooped
•f the war, h o p e d to bring down on part of the train with
his Confederate t r o o p s and
.ouisiana back into the Union bushwhackers.
ight away. Banks' assignment
Among the loot they captured
vas connected with this goal. were two collar wagons. Taylor

This is a version of how the Red river dam looked after it
was built by Wisconsin lumberjacks under the direction of
a Wisconsin lumberman, Lt. Col. Joseph E. Bailey. The

soon sent them back to Banks
with an explanatory note:
"We have baked, boiled and
fried them and find they cannot
be eaten."
Porter got his fleet to Springfield landing, where he found
passage upstream blocked by a
large steamer the Confederates
had sunk. The army, meanwhile,
had run into a Confederate
force, with the Union soldiers
spread out over 30 miles. The
ones in front fled, the roads
became clogged with wagons,
and after the rout was finally
halted both Porter and Banks
headed back toward Alexandria.
A little above that community, the admiral discovered the
river had fallen considerably
since h i s upstream passage.
There was no 1o n g e r water
enough to float his fleet over
the shallows. Porter fumed and
cursed the army and cudgeled
his brains for a way out, but it
appeared there was no choice
but to abandon the ships and
slink back to New Orleans on
foot-the ultimate disgrace for
a sailor.
Col. Bailey, however, came
forward with a plan. Up north
in Wisconsin, he told Porter,
rivers were used to float logs
to the mills. When the rivers
wouldn't co-operate, the pinery
boys had some tricks to make
them behave. With the admir-

al's permission, he would like
to build a dam.

Picked His Own Men
It sounded like nonsense to
Porter, but he was in no position to quibble. G e n. Banks
didn't know much about dams
but he said Bailey could go
ahead, provided he took no
longer than 12 days and didn't
spend a dime of government
money.
The colonel said he'd need
3,000 men and would like to
pick them himself. He called for
lumberjacks from the 23rd and
29th Wisconsin a n d a Maine
regiment. Then, while the sailors lined the rails and cracked
jokes about the hare brained
scheme, Bailey and his men
went to work.
They floated two 170 foot
coal barges lengthwise in the
river, anchoring them 66 feet
apart. The soldiers hammered
new s i d e s and ends on the
barges to extend them to the
proper height, then filled the
scows with rocks until they
sank to the bottom. More rocks
were added and the barges were
now part of the dam.
Meanwhile, axmen were felling trees. These were dragged
to the river and placed with
their spreading tops upstream,
between the sunken barges and
the banks. T h e butts of the
trees were fastened together
with cross timbers. Then stones
were poured in on top of the
trees.

dam backed up the shallow river in Louisiana until there
was enough water to wash Federal gunboats over the rapids which had trapped them upstream.
-Harper's weekly
62

By now, the water was beginning to rise and Porter was
no longer as skeptical as he
had been. Working around the
clock, with torches lighting the
scene at night, the pinery boys
added brush, small stones and
finally earth to the dam. Wing
dams were built upstream to
force the river into a narrower
channel.

ed, with no fear of death; for
we all were already half dead
from hunger and exposure."
When they got to Little Rock,
Ruegger reported, t h e fort's
artillery gave them a 33 gun
salute. The garrison troops lined
up and "we marched through
the whole city between presented arms."

been assigned 5,000 men, ineluding the 9th and 27th Wisconsin, to move south and cooperate with Gen. Banks. By
the time they realized Banks
was in no condition to co-oper-

'Looked Like Bandits'

Soldiers Cheered Feat
Then, when the water had
been raised seven feet, Bailey
gave the word to the admiral,
who started his vessels one by
one through an opening in the
temporary dam. The soldiers
lined the banks, cheering as
each ship got through.
Part of the dam gave way
after some of the vessels had
reached deeper water. Bailey
and his lumberjacks went back
to work. Finally, 11 days after
the project had begun, the entire fleet was downstream.
B a i 1 e y admitted he hadn't
quite lived up to his instructions
from Banks. The project had
cost Uncle Sam the price of 50
axes, lost in the river. But Abraham Lincoln, when he saw the
glowing r e p o r t s from Gen.
Banks and Admiral Po r t e r,
didn't charge Bailey for the lost
property. Instead, he made him
a brevet brigadier general.
On the way back, when the
marching troops needed to get
across the Atchafalaya river,
Bailey made a bridge by lining
up 22 river steamers, which
Banks s a i d was perhaps the
first such structure ever built.
Later in the war, the brevet
designation was dropped from
Bailey's rank after he commanded forces that captured
Fort Morgan near Mobile, Ala.,
making him a full scale brigadier. But his moment of greatest
glory came when the dam held
and the fleet sailed through.
While Banks was retreating
in Louisiana, Gen. Frederick
Salomon was having his
troubles to the north in Arkansas. He was one of three military brothers of Gov. Salomon.
Frederick became a brevet major general, Eberhardt Salomon
a brigadier general and Herman
Salomon a private. With two
generals and a governor in the
family, Pvt. Herman was rather outclassed at family reunions.

"But how we did look! Some
did not have any hats, others no
shoes, others no coats, others
torn pants-in short, we looked
like a corps of bandits. But one
thing all of us still possessedour weapons."
Henry Barnes of t h e 28th
Wisconsin, stationed at Pine
Bluff, Ark., saw 50 wagon loads
of wounded from Steele's army,
with some of them reporting
they hadn't eaten for several
days. He summed up the situation:
"The great Arkansas expedition is a total failure. Banks is
whipped, Steele is whipped and
if we hold the line on the Arkansas expedition, we shall do
well."
Actually, after Vicksburg,
nothing that happened west of
the Mississippi mattered very
much any more. But that did
not prevent the Union from
using its soldiers there. Washington was keeping an eye on
Napoleon, who was back in
power again and had installed
35,000 soldiers and his puppet
emperor, Maximilian, in Mexico.
It was feared that the French
had designs on Texas.

-Watertown Historical Society

Capt. John Weber of Watertown helped organize company E of the 20th Wisconsin
infantry. He was killed in action in 1862.

ate with anyone, they were deep
in unfriendly country, with 20,000 Confederates under Steele's
brother-in-law, Gen. Kirby
Smith, on their heels.
Steele and Salomon headed
toward Little Rock, their men
out of supplies and unable to
linger long enough to confiscate
any. On the Sabine river, with
Kirby Smith drawing close, Salomon and Steele decided to
fight.
The Union soldiers were badly outnumbered at J en k i n s
Ferry, Ark., but their flanks
were protected on one side by
a bayou and on the other by a
swamp, so the Confederates had
to charge them from the front.
Three successive attacks were
beaten off. Then the half
starved Union men made their
way to Little Rock.
Capt. Edward Ruegger of the
German 9th Wisconsin told how
the regiment's so 1die r s held
their fire until the Rebels came
within 100 yards, then aimed at
their knees.
Ran Out of Supplies
"Nobody ever saw soldiers
Gen. Frederick Salomon and more valiant than our small
Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele had troop," he wrote. "Cold blood-

Routed by Confederates
At the moment, Texans were
fighting for the Confederacy,
but once the war was won the
Union did not w a n t to find
French or Mexican soldiers in
the southwestern states. Even
before the ill fated Red river
expedition, the Union had made
several gestures in that direction.
Cadwallader C. Washburn of
Wisconsin was the general in
charge of one of these in the
summer of 1863. He sent 6,000
men and several gunboats by
way of the Gulf of Mexico, ordering them to land at Sabine
pass, march i n I a n d, capture
Houston, then swoop down on
Galveston from the rear. Gen.
Washburn was planning to follow later.

63

But the 6,000 and their gunboats were routed by a Confederate force of only 42 men,
who manned a fort at Sabine
pass. Two of the boats went
aground and were captured. The
other ships turned tail. On the
way back to New Orleans, the
expedition got into a fight at
Carrion Crow bayou and had to
be rescued by Gen. Washburn.
The Wisconsin cavalry general, with a force including the
lith, 20th, 23rd and 29th Wisconsin, then moved up the coast
and captured F o r t Esperanza
after a brisk fight.
Early in 1864, the 20th Wisconsin and t h e 94th Illinois
joined in a brief invasion of
Mexico, which h a d a minor
league civil war of its own
going on.

Played 'Yankee Doodle'
The regiments had been stationed along the Rio Grande to
prevent smuggling of English
goods from Maramoras, Mexico.
The United States consul, fearing that he would be a victim
of the skirmishing between the
Mexican factions, asked for protection and the two Union regiments forded the river.
A battle was going on in the
streets. Col. Henry Bertram of
the Wisconsin regiment, under
orders to keep hands off Mexico's war, ordered his musicians
to strike up "Yankee Doodle"
as the soldiers marched along.
Thus protected, the Americans avoided being drawn into
the fighting, although both sides
tried to enlist their help. The
troops escorted the consul and
three wagon loads of gold and
silver to Brownsville, Tex.
The Wisconsin visitors didn't
think much of either Texas or
its inhabitants. A Texan was
described as "an outlaw who
had fled fro m civilization to
save his head."
"Deerskin jackets, hats with
enormous brims, belts with concealed knives and red sashes
constituted some of the articles
of clothing seen on the streets
of Brownsville," a contemporary account reported.
The 20th Wisconsin stayed
there eight months and tried to
civilize the place. It built an icehouse and cleaned the streets,
which were not considered up
to Wisconsin hygienic standards.

Many State Soldiers Re-enlisted
erans refused to sign up. Siding
with the majority was one of
the regiment's youngest members, Edwin Edwards of Sheboygan, who had carried the colors
at Chickamauga. Now he decided to go home and finish gram·
mar school.
"You appear to be afraid that
I will re-enlist," Henry D.
Barnes of the 28th Wisconsin
wrote home to Spring Prairie,
"but all the money you could
pile onto a 10 acre lot would be
no inducement at all."
Barnes still had more than 12
months left of his three years
when he wrote the letter.
Among those veterans who had
to make the decision at once,
many spent a night or two lying in their tents, staring at
the canvas. Then they wrote
home to tell the civilians to be
brave, and put their names on
lists that meant they would
stay for the war's duration.
The letters from Pvt. Edwin
Levings a farm boy from
River Falls serving in the 12th
Wisconsin, are revealing. Edwin was 20 when he enlisted in
1861. His brother, Homer, who
joined the same regiment, was
then 17. On Christmas eve of
1863, when Edwin wrote a letter home from Natchez, Miss.,
the brothers were veterans of
Vicksburg and of thousands of
miles of marching.

Chapter XXV
mightiest military force yet seen in America had been
T HE
hammered together by the Union. By late 1863, it had
shoved the Confederates deep into their own territory, except
in northern Virginia. It had opened the Mississippi. It had cut
off the southwest from the rest of the Confederacy.
Victory seemed merely a matter of time-unless the mighty
army melted away. Its best regiments had been recruited in
1861, when the war was young. In signing up, the men had
contracted for specific periods
ton shrewdly added one more:
of time-two years in the case If 75% of its veterans re-enlistof some eastern units, three ed, a regiment could go home
years for the Wisconsin regi- in a body on an early furlough.
The thought of a holiday back
ments.
Washington would have liked home, with plenty of money and
to repudiate these contracts, but good companions, was an almost overwhelming temptation.
it did not dare. The politicians· If a veteran declined to sign up,
had whittled away at civil liber· he would have to stay behind in
ties among the civilians and had camp or at the front while his
played ball w i t h speculators companions went to Wisconsin.
who saw the war as a fine op- True, he would be able to go
portunity to m a k e a profit. home for good in a few months
Abraham Lincoln had dared to when his term was up. But
split the North by freeing the meanwhile he would be missing
all the fun.
slaves.
This was one of the few times
But no one in Washington in history when men who had
quite dared to tear up the agree- survived nearly three years of
ments with the soldiers. For one war were given a free choice
thing, they had rifles. For an- of staying or becoming civilians
other, repudiation of the enlist- again. No one could call memment contracts would offer a bers of these veteran fighting
fine excuse for mass desertions. units cowards if they chose to
go back to Wisconsin and let
Election Was Approaching someone else finish the job.
These were not the same inStill another thought m a y experienced youths who had
have occurred to someone in signed up gaily in 1861, expectWashington: A national elec- ing a brief and bloodless war.
tion was in the offing. Even Some were still not old enough
with the soldiers' v o t e s, it to vote, b u t the years had
looked as though the Republi- changed most of them into batcans might be defeated. With- tle wise soldiers. They knew
out the overwhelming support that men who put their names
of the military ballots, the Lin- on the re-enlistment rolls might
coln administration did not ap- be signing their death warrants.
pear to have a chance of winAnd even if they survived,
ning.
staying in the army meant adSo nothing must be done to ditional miles of marching
offend the soldiers. But the vet- through mud or dust, more
erans had to be persuaded to
stay. Faced with this dilemma, months of poor food, danger
the government showed a mas- and military discipline.
tery of soldier psychology.
Since the historical beginIt offered the men four incen- nings of war, the thing the avertives. Patriotism was one. l'lon- age citizen soldier has wanted
ey-a $402 re-enlistment boun- most has been to get out of the
ty, plus various sums added by army. For nearly three years,
the home states-was another. the men had been dreaming of
The honor of the regiment was
a third - a unit which had less the moment when they could go
than three-fourths of its vet- home for good. Now that the
erans re-enlist would go out of time was approaching, t h e y
existence; a f t e r nearly three were being cajoled to stay
years of sharing its tribulations longer.
and triumphs, the regiment was
viewed with fierce loyalty by Some Refused to Sign
most of its members.
Some chose to let their enlistBut perhaps none of these ments lapse. In the 1st Wisconwould be enough. So Washing- sin, for example, all but 15 vet-

Brothers Re-enlisted

10 or 12 days . . . so look out
the window about the 15th of
next month for two veteran
volunteers."
Homer added a patriotic postscript, declaring that it was
their duty to "see Uncle Sam
safely out of this scrap." Besides, he added, the regiment
had been promised a 60 day furlough and another two months
on duty in Wisconsin. Then
Homer added the clincher. He
would hate to be left in Mississippi, he said, while those
who had re-enlisted went home.
More than three-fourths of
the 12th Wisconsin veterans reenlisted. In all, 5,784 Wisconsin veterans chose to stay in
uniform. Consider the three
Wisconsin regiments of the Iron
brigade, for example.
There weren't many original
members of the 2nd, 6th and
7th Wisconsin left after Gettysburg. The majority were dead,
wounded or invalided home. If
any soldiers could be expected
to be weary of war it was these
veterans of Antietam, Gainesville, Bull Run and Chancellorsville.

Stopped Draft Riots
But of the 290 remaining in
the 6th Wisconsin, 227 re-enlisted. Of the 249 in the 7th,
all but 38 signed up. Only the
2nd failed to meet the threefourths requirement. It had
fought longer than any other
Wisconsin regiment and its effective strength was now less
than 150 men-compared with
the 1,000 who had gone to war.
But even this battered regiment supplied 78 men who were
willing to stay for the duration.
With the 2nd's recruits, they
were formed for a time into an
independent battalion. Later,
the remnants of the vanished
2nd were absorbed in the 6th
Wisconsin.
The 3rd Wisconsin, after its
participation at Gettysburg, had
a chance to see what life was
like among the dissident civilians. In mid-August, 1863, it
was sent to New York to put
down draft riots.
New York city had been a
center of antiwar sentiment
from the first. In fact, after
some southern states had seceded but before the fighting
began, the mayor of New York,
Fernando Wood, suggested that
the city pull out of the Union.
,
•

"Re-enlisting has commenced
in the regiment," he said. "A
few in our company have reenlisted, but the larger and better part of it are disposed to
keep out of it .... The captain
will think we are not very patriotic, but there is a thing or
two that we know-we never
will serve under company A's
commissioned officers again; we
absolutely refuse."
But then, on Dec. 7, 1864,
Edwin wrote again:
"We have both re-enlisted,
as veterans .... We concluded
it was better for us and yourselves and our country to reenter the service and stay till
this rebellion is crushed.
" . . . We had but 10 more
months to serve and did not
like to desert the field when so
many were going to remain,
and when the rebellion is so
near to an end. I cannot see
how the rebellion could last
two more years .... I think the
fighting will be over before tne Camped m Czty Park
close of 1864.
It should, he said, become a
" . . . Now we are coming free city, doing business with
home-start for Wisconsin in both sides. This would not only

64

be profitable, Wood believed,
but would finally get the metropolis out from under the
thumb of upstate legislators,
with whom the city was feuding even then.
Nothing came of the suggestion. But when the New York
militia was sent to Washington
at the time of Lee's invasion of
Pennsylvania, so m e residents
saw their chance to demonstrate against the war and the
·
hated d.ro.ft.
Mobs rioted. The authorities
called for soldiers. Eight regiments, including the 3rd Wisconsin, were dispatched. Their
commander was Gen. Thomas
H. Ruger, who had been lieutenant colonel of the Wisconsin regiment at the start of the
war. A veteran of the Mexican
war, where he had served under
Pierre Beauregard, Ruger had
risen to command of a division
at Gettysburg. Neither he nor
his . combat veterans were in
any mood to coddle civilian
rioters.
Capt. Julian W. Hinkley of
the 3rd wrote that the regiment
camped in city hall park in
downtown Manhattan. The inhabitants caused no disturbances, he admitted, but the Wisconsin men managed to stir up
some excitement.
The regiment's "bold fellows"

would meet in saloons known
as gather.ing places of the antidraft faction. Then they would
start a row, on some pretext or
another, which gave them an
excuse to "pitch bartenders and
b u m m e r s out of doors and
s m a s h everything breakable
about the place."
The 5th Wisconsin, another
unit assigned to enforce the
draft, was stationed for a time
at Goshen, N. Y. James H.
Leonard of Manitowoc, later to
become the Green Bay superintendent of schools, wrote from
there that everything was quiet,
but that without the soldiers
there would have been serious
trouble.

By Christmas, 1863, all but
two of its officers had agreed
to stay. So had 240 of its 300
enlisted veterans. The next
month, the regiment was back
in Wisconsin. The weather
seemed especially cold to men
accustomed to wintering farther south, but Capt. Hinkley
testified that the festivities were
practically continuous.
"Some of the croakers
thought it too gay for people
who were engaged in a death
struggle for the life of the nation," he added. "Those of us,
however, who had been at the
front were disposed to be merry
while we could, and leave the
future to care for itself."

Home on Furlough

State Supplied 41,775 Men

"The Copperheads are largely in the majority in the city,"
he informed M a r y Sheldon
back home in Wisconsin, "and
in addition there is a large number of Irish employed on the
Erie railroad which runs through
here and they would all have
joined in the affair, especially if
they once got a little whisky in
them."
The Wisconsin troops were
soon heading toward the front
again. The 3rd claimed to be
the first regiment in the army to
meet its three-fourths requirement for veteran re-enlistments.

While they were h o m e, the
regiment's veterans took time
out from the celebrating to talk
brothers, cousins and friends
into joining up. When the 3rd
headed south again, it had 300
recruits along.
By the end of 1863, according
to a report by Gov. James T.
Lewis, Wisconsin had supplied
41,775 men, divided into 37 regiments of infantry and cavalry
and 15 artillery batteries. A
man was counted a second time
when he re-enlisted and it is
likely that Lewis' estimate was
somewhat high.

But whatever the exact figure
may have been, the men who
joined comparatively early in
the war were the ones who bore·
the brunt of the fighting. Some
of the later regiments were
thrown quickly into combat and
their members - those who survived-learned to be good sol·
diers. But others were soldiers
only by a liberal definition of

the term.
In the spring of 1864, the governors of Wisconsin, Indiana,
Illinois and Iowa proposed that
they raise a force of 100 day
volunteers who could garrison
towns at the rear of the army,
freeing experienced troops to
fight.
President Lincoln approved.
Wisconsin's co:1tributions to
this force were the 39th, 40th
and 41st regiments. A few of
these men got into combat, more
or less accidentally.
Three men of the 39th were
killed at Memphis in a Confederate cavalry raid. The 40th participated in the same skirmish,
at a cost of four wounded. The
41st was in the neighborhood,
but remained out of action. After the 100 days were up, the
units disbanded.
Another Wisconsin regiment
with quite modest claims to
glory was the 34th infantry, or-

=J ___ IU _ _

-Harpers Weekly

Under the command of a Wisconsin soldier, Gen. Thomas
H. Ruger, Federal troops were sent to New York city in
August, 1863, to put down draft riots. Eight regiments, in-

eluding the 3rd Wisconsin, brought peace to the metropolis. Before that it was at the mercy of murderous mobs
like that above which attacked a newspaper office.

65

ganized in 1862 under the com
mand of Col. Fritz Anneke. Its
961 members were draftees.

Short Termers Deserted
The 34th was stationed at Columbus, Ky. Although it never
saw action and the men were
required to serve only nine
months, some grew impatient.
In fact, of the regiment's 961
draftees, 283 deserted. The oth·

ers helped organize the first
Sabbath school for freedmen
ever seen in Columbus, Ky. .
Soldiers in the three year
regiments },ad I itt I e patience
with the short term patriots.
"It tickles us boys to read the
letters of the 100 day men," Pvt.
Barnes wrote from Pine Bluff,
Ark. "What an awful thing it is
to lay outdoors without a tent
and then, what is worse, to have

their dinner fires put out by a
rainstorm before they had time
to get their dinner.
"How I pity the poor fellows
that have got to s e r v e their
country for 100 days. They have
had to sacrifice so much. And
then, such eloquent and piteous
appeals for sanitary stores in
the shape of butter, wine,
canned fruits and other delicacies before they had been out

from under their m a m m 'j
apron strings a month....
"I wonder if it would not s'
them thinking if they could s~
between 500 and 1,000 men sic
out of a command of only a li
tie over 3,000 and not a partie
of medicine nor butter and wir
and canned fruits, and f r o :
6 to 16 soldiers buried eve1
day."

State Troops March With Grant
Chapter XXVI
of 1864, with the Civil war three years old,
I NLt.THEGen.spring
Uly:;ses S. Grant took command of· all Union
armies. A simple man, he felt the way to win was to fight
and keep on fighting. Given the North's preponderance of
men and resources, it was a sensible notion, but one that had
previously been followed only weeks later, the !67th's men
now and then. Leaving his old claimed their enlistments were
friend, William Sherman, to up. They refused to march.
manage things in the western
theater, Grant joined Gen. Easterners Sent Home
George Meade's Army of the
The 6th Wisconsin, bayonets
Potomac and pointed his cigar fixed and rifles loaded, was asstub south. With the 119,000 signed to herd them along like
Union troops who crossed the cattle. The Pennsylvanians were
Rapidan river that spring were soon sent home. Their places
the remnants of four battered were taken by the first battalion
Wisconsin regiments, the 2nd, of New Yo r k Sharpshooters.
These experienced soldiers were
5th, 6th and 7th infantry.
felt to be a considerable imAt Bull Run, Antietam, Chan- provement by the veterans, even
cellorsville, Gettysburg and a though they came from the east
series of smaller battles, these and were not entirely acceptunits had been whittled away. able.
The brigade's re-enlisted vetOnly a few hundred of the original members of each regiment erans went home on furlough
were still able to shoulder rifles. early in 1864. The reception for
Some of the casualties had been the 6th Wisconsin was typical.
replaced by recruits and draft- A parade was held in downtown
Milwaukee, with the 30th Wisees, but the regiments remained consin and the Milwaukee Light
far under authorized strength.
Infantry acting as escorts. As
It still retained the name, h~1t the veterans marched into the
the Iron brigade had a I m o s t Chamber of Commerce buildceased to exist. Only 600 of the ing, C h r i s t i a n Bach's band
5,000 men who originally en- struck up "The Year of Jubilee."
The men had to listen to
listed in its five midwestern
regiments were on their feet speeches by the mayor, former
Gov. Salomon and Brig. Gen.
after Gettysburg.
Lucius Fairchild, once of the 2nd
With the brigade nearly wiped Wisconsin, now secretary of
out, the I 67th Pennsylvania was state, soon to be governor. Then
added, its 800 men more than they were allowed to disperse
doubling the unit's strength. But to spend their bounty money.
Rufus Dawes went to his old
these were nine months' men
and draftees, greeted sullenly by home town, Marietta, Ohio, and
got married, bringing his bride
the old-timers from Wisconsin, to Milwaukee for a honeymoon.
Indiana and Michigan. A few By what the colonel viewed as

66

"a great piece of good fortune,"
his horse fell on the ice, injuring
Dawes' ankle so he had to remain in town an extra month
with his wife before returning
to Virginia.
He got back in time to participate in a review of Meade's
army by the new commander in
chief. Dawes, second in command of the 6th, was in charge
of that regiment when the men
lined up. As Grant and his staff
rode slowly past the massed
troops in the rain, each regiment
gave the customary cheer as he
approached.
But Dawes noted that this intruder from the western armies
gave no acknowledgment to the
cheering. Irked, he turned to his
men:
"As Gen. Grant does not seem
to think our cheering worth notice, I will not call for cheers.
Maintain your position as soldiers,u

ler, first colonel of the 6th Wi
consin, who had commanded a1
other brigade that helped pr'
vent a Confederate victory in tl
first day's fighting at Getty
burg.
He had been wounded ~
Gainesville, wounded again ~
Frede r i c k s b u r g, would t
wounded a third time in til
present campaign; he would su
vive the war by only a year.
Along with the 5th Wisconsi
and the Iron brigade troops, til

Soldiers Didn't Applaud
Grant approached. The 6th
stood at rigid attention. Only
the regimental colors dipped in
salute to the commander. Grant
paused. The soldiers remained
silent. Then he made a gesture
that convinced Dawes and his
men that this unimpressive looking fellow might turn out all
right. Grant took off his hat and
Lt. Col. Rollin M. Strong
made a low bow to the 6th Wis- led his captors into captivity.
consin.
"Gran~. wan~ s soldi~rs, not state was represented in Grant':
yawpers, a pnvate satd after array by Company G or Berdan':
the general had left. In the next Sharpshooters. But t hi s wa:
few months, the veterans would predominantly an eastern arm'j
have no cause to change that . bent on proving that westen
summary of the general's character. The worst fighting of the troops had no monopoly on sue
war lay ahead.
cess.
As Grant moved s 0 u t h in
To oppose Grant's 119,000
what was to be the long, final men, Gen. Robert E. Lee hac
campaign of the war, the Iron 62,000 veterans around Rich
brigade-what was left of it- mond. A little to the south, nea1
was led by Gen. Lysander Cut- a railroad center named Peters

had hoped to cross a region of
second growth timber and underbrush known as the Wilderness to r e a c h an open area
where his huge army could maneuver.
But Lee had other ideas. He
sent his men swarming into the
woods, where artillery could not
operate and the disparity of
numbers was less important.
The fighting went on for three
days. On the first, the Iron brigade pushed its way with other
troops through the brush and
pine trees to charge a Rebel
line. The Confederates we r e
shoved back and Cpl. George A.
Smith of the 7th Wisconsin got
a trophy-the regimental flag of
Tricked Rebel Soldiers
the 48th Virginia.
One of Butler's soldiers did
But t he n other Rebels atmanage to have an adventure
tacked
on the flank. The brigade
along the James, however. On a
driven back in disorder for
foggy evening, Lt. Col. Rollin M. awas
mile before it rallied. The next
Strong of the 19th Wisconsin day,
troops moved forstrolled away from camp and ward Union
again and had the Rebels
ran into four Tennesseans, who near
1y whipped when Gen.
captured him.
James Longstreet and his veterThe fog was so thick that the ans arrived from Nashville, just
Tennessee soldiers didn't know in time to reverse the tide.
how to get back to the Confederate lines. Strong volunteered Woods Caught Fire
to guide them. The Rebs thought
The 5th Wisconsin as well as
that was right friendly of him
until he led them into the midst the Iron brigade was in this secof the 19th Wisconsin and ond day's battle, joining a Maine
regiment to stand firm against a
yelled: "Attention."
The Tennessee 1ad s were flank attack and save a portion
quickly m a d e prisoners and of Grant's army from defeat. In
went off muttering about the the first two days' fighting, the
5th lost 142 men, killed or
mean Yankee trick.
wounded.
W hi I e Butler was immobiIn the b a t t 1e, the woods
lized, Grant had run into one of caught fire. Wisconsin soldiers
the worst fights of the war. He who survived remembered as
burg, were 30,000 more Confederates under Gen. Pierre G. T.
Beauregard. To counter the latter, Grant had 40,000 men under
Gen. Ben Butler, including the
19th Wisconsin.
Butler was supposed to move
on Richmond up the peninsula
from the s o u t h e a st. Grant
should have known better than
to expect anything from Butler,
who quickly managed to get
himself bottled up between the
James and Appomattox rivers.
A few Confederate regiments
kept an eye on him, but otherwise his 40,000 men might as
well have been home on furlough.

Soldiers lounged beside a pontoon bridge over the James
river. Over this bridge and similar ones, Gen. Grant's
forces marched to take up the siege of Petersburg, Va.

Federal lines and be fed? As a
matter of fact, Burgess said, he
would be willing to go along and
make sure the welcome w a s
friendly.
After dark, Burgess and several of his new found friends
sneaked across the lines. Alvah
rejoined his regiment. The Confederate deserters were m a d e
prisoners.
Pvt. James H. Cook of the 5th
Wisconsin was a m o n g the
wounded in the Spotsylvania
fighting. He was hit in the hip
and carried off to a hospital,
where someone offered him a
drink of whisky to ease the pain.
Cook, however, was a member
of the regimental temperance society and stoutly refused. H i s
subsequent recovery was credited to his brave refusal of stimulants, at least by the temperance proponents.
Spotsylvania was one of the
bitterest battles of the war, with
Grant's men edging west, trying to cut off Lee from Richmond, but never quite succeeding. The Union absorbed 17,000
casualties to 9,000 for the Confederates. But whm the action
was broken off on May 20,
Grant once more marched south.
McClellan and Pope, Burnside
Used Food as Bait
Burgess struck up a conversa- and Hooker, the Confederate
tion with some of the near-by commander had met and beaten
Confederates. Didn't they real- them all. But this was a new
ize how much better the food kind of Union general; a man
was in the Union ranks? What who didn't have sense enough to
was the use of half starving and know, once Lee had beaten him
getting shot at, when all they in a fair fight, that he should
had to do was stroll over to the hurry home to Washington and
long as they lived the cries of
the helpless wounded, who were
burned alive in the Wilderness.
By May 7, both armies were
hurt. Grant had 15,000 casualties to about half that many for
Lee's troops. By that flesh and
blood criterion, the Union had
lost.
In similar circumstances, other Federal generals had pulled
back to Washington. Grant
thought about the matter for
some hours, chewing somberly
on his cigar by the light of a
campfire. Then he gave orders
to march-not north, but south.
Lee had no choice. He swung
his smaller army around to keep
it between Grant and Richmond.
Grant hoped to reach Spotsylvania Court House, where several roads converged, entrench
there and let Lee do the attacking. The Confederates got there
first.
Then began 10 days of heavy
fighting, with the Wisconsin
units bearing their share.
Alvah Burgess of the 5th infantry, in trying to capture a
Rebel flag, was made a prisoner.
There was no time to escort him
to the rear and he was ordered
to lie down in a ditch.

Grant kept pressure on Lee, and the 36th, 37th and 38th
Wisconsin regiments joined older battle tested regiments
from the Badger state in the assaults.
-National Archives

67

start explaining how none of it These fresh troops, along with
some who had fought their way
had been his fault.
south from the Rapidan, tried a
frontal assault. The men of the
Lee's Men Dug In
Wisconsin, who had arrived
The old days were gone. There 5th
"barefooted,
ragged and almost
was nothing for Lee to do but exhausted with
fatigue and lack
dig in and sell Virginia real es- of sleep," and the
equally weary
tate as dearly as possible.
Iron brigade joined in this efAnd so Lee's men dug in along fort, which was repulsed w i t h
the North Anna river, making heavy losses.
Grant come to them. Grant
came. For three days the battle Brigade Commander Killed
lasted. Federal reinforcements
Two days later, on June 3,
kept arriving-the 36th Wisconsin, headed by Frank A. Haskell, Grant tried again. The 36th WisMadison lawyer, was among consin, which had lost 140 men
them. Haskell, the lieutenant in the earlier attack, moved forwho helped stop Pickett's charge ward. Its brigade commander
at Gettysburg, was a colonel was killed. Col. Haskell took his
place. His men advanced close
now.
to
the Confederate fortificaThe Southerners fought well.
But Grant was willing to absorb tions, where the fire became so
losses that sometimes ran two heavy that he ordered them to
to one against him. He had fresh lie down.
Haskell hi m s e 1f remained
troops to replace those who
were lost; the Confederates had standing. A moment later he
was dead.
none.
Portions of the 37th and 38th
The casualty lists lengthened
on the post o f f i c e bulletin Wisconsin arrived in t i m e to
boards back home. The North take part in the battle of Cold
was b e c o m i n g increasingly Harbor. These regiments were
weary of the war. In the White so new that they were not yet
House, Abraham Lincoln felt fully organized. But the compasure he would lose the Novem- nies which had been filled with
ber election to Gen. George B. recruits or draftees were sent
McClellan-and if the balloting to the front anyway.
had taken place that summer, he
The North had suffered 54,might have.
900 casualties in the last 29
But Grant wasn't interested in days, including 7,000 killed or
politics. He continued to side- wounded at Cold Harbor. The
step south; and Lee, his partner futile attack there was a bloody
in the macabre dance, had to defeat for Grant.
follow.
He ignored it. Breaking off
Late in May, another in the the fighting again, he headed
series of almost continuous bat- south once more, hoping to outtles was fought at Totopotomoy fox Lee. He came close to succreek, with the 36th Wisconsin ceeding.
rookies joining the veterans of
Grant's men thrust a pontoon
the Iron brigade. Then, still mov- bridge across the James river
ing farther from Washington, and marched off to join Butler's
Grant sought to outflank Lee to dormant forces near Petersburg,
the south again.
a railroad center of 20,000 perAlthough desertion was be- sons, 23 miles south of Richcoming a major problem for him mond.
and his supplies were running
Supplies for the capital funlow, Lee was still dangerous. His neled through this city. Its capmen entrenched at Cold Harbor, ture would make it difficult, perjust 10 miles northeast of Rich- haps impossible, for Lee to hold
mond.
Richmond. And for a day or
Grant had brought up part of two Lee lost track of Grant's
Butler's Army ofthe James now. army.

68

Pierre Beauregard was in Petersburg with a few thousand
men. He put up a brisk defense.
Advance troops of Grant's army,
who might have pushed into the
city if their leaders had displayed more vigor, captured
part of the 10 mile chain of fortifications which ringed Petersburg except to the north.
But then they stopped to wait
for reinforcements. And by the
time Grant's main force had arrived, Lee had sent enough additional men to hold the town.

Union Casualties Heavy
By the evening of June 18,
four days after the fighting for
Petersburg began, the Union
had 10,000 more casualties. One
Maine regiment, in less than 30
minutes, lost 632 of its 850 men
-the most severe numerical loss
of any regiment in a single engagement in the war.
Seven Wisconsin regiments,
plus the independent battalion
formed rrom the old 2nd infantry, were there.
When the June 18 attack was
ordered, Lt. Col. John A. Savage, jr., a 33 year old Milwaukee lawyer, son of a Waukesha
minister, commanded the 36th
regiment.
He stepped in front of the
colors and called for t h r e e
cheers for Wisconsin. Then he
shouted, "Forward, my brave
men," and leaped over the
breastworks.
His men, who had been recruited under the Feb. I, 1864,
call for 500,000 troops, had
left Madison a little more than
a month before. They followed
Savage. Within two minutes,
the colonel was mortally wounded and the 36th discovered it
was the only unit in the area
that had moved out into the
open.
The men dug frantically with
tin cups and mess plates, burrowing holes for themselves.
But 116 members of the regiment were dead or wounded by
the time darkness fell and the
survivors could crawl back to
the Union lines.

Clement E. Warner, who had
paid $300 for his exemption
from the draft but later changed
his mind and enlisted, succeeded to the command of the regiment, which was to have 296 of
its 1,014 men die from bullets
or disease even though it came
late to the war.

Indians Fought Well
In another early assault on
Petersburg, William H. Green,
color bearer of the 37th Wisconsin, was fatally wounded. Both
of his legs were injured, but he
dragged himself back to his
companions, the regimental flag
clutched in his teeth.
On the 37th's list of dead at
Petersburg, where it had 154
casualties, was Cpl. S. Hahpahtakwahnoquette of company K.
A number of the recruits in the
Wisconsin regiments were Indians, whose ancestors had fought
in white men's wars as far back
as Braddock's defeat, when the
Wisconsin Indians' opponents
included George Washington.
The Indians had been especially effective in the wilderness, their companions reported. The braves from the north
woods hid among the pines and
shot down Confederates from
ambush, matching the Rebel
yells with an occasional war
whoop.
After four days of fighting,
Grant was finally convinced
that Petersburg couldn't be carried by assault. The situation
reminded him of Vicksburg. The
solution that occurred to him
was the same. A siege was begun, with 50,000 Confederates
in the town and 110,000 Union
troops outside it.
The way was still open between Petersburg and R i c hmond, but supplies for the Rebels were scarce in that direction. Several railroads to the
south were still in Confederate
hands. The siege was not complete.
But Grant had the Confederacy's best fighting force immobilized. And hundreds of miles
away, red bearded Sherman
was on the prowl.

Slaves Follow Sherman to Freedom
cavalry division headed by Gen.
Alexander McCook.
In all, that made 17 regiments
from Wisconsin, plus the 5th
and 8th artillery batteries, serving under Sherman. If all had
been at full s t r en g t h-which
they were not-they would have
totaled about 18,000 men.
There were regiments from
the eastern states with Sherman, but they were in the minority. These were mainly west·
e r n e r s-midwesterners, t h e y
would be called now. Even their
dimensions were different. For
one thing, according to d u s t y
records of the army quartermaster corps, they had larger feet
than the Army of the Potomac
soldiers.

Chapter XXVII
Gen. Grant moved
BEFORE
south against Lee in the
spring of 1864, his successor as
commander in the west took the
Army of the Tennessee on a
massive raid into Mississippi.
This was no hit and run cavalry
operation, but the movement of
thousands of i n f a n try m e n
through unfriendly territory, living off the inhabitants.
It was a preview of things to
come in Georgia. Gen. Sherman
led his men 150 miles due east
from Vicksburg, thoroughly
wrecked the railroad center of
Meridian, Miss., then returned,
bringing 300 wagons full of
spoils and followed by "10 miles
of Negroes."
Estimates of the number of
slaves who followed Sherman's
men to freedom range from
5,000 to 8,000. A soldier in the
12th infantry, one of five Wisconsin regiments that made the
trip to Meridian, observed that
this tremendous outpouring from
the plantations proved Southern
contentions that the slaves were
content were "mere twaddle."
Besides the 12th, Wisconsin
regiments on the raid were the
8th, 25th, 32nd and 33rd. Col.
James H. Howe of Green Bay
commanded a division.
The men discovered, to their
surprise, that it was possible for
war to be fun. The policy of confiscating property freely meant
that they ate well. If the weather was not always perfect, it
was better in Mississippi in February than it was in Wisconsin.
With no important opposition
from Confederate troops, the
expedition was a huge holiday,
with a little legalized larceny
thrown in. When the troops got
back to the Union lines, they
were in high spirits. Pvt. William Scott of the 12th Wisconsin, it has been recorded, slit the
legs of his already tattered trousers and "walked into Memphis
with his skirt aflutter like a ballet girl."
Sherman took a train for Cincinnati for a summit meeting
with Grant. The two generals
lounged in a hotel r o om and
Sherman got his orders. Boiled
down, they were: "Go after Joe
Johnston."
That suited Sherman. He felt
sorry for Grant, stuck in the
Washington area where the poll-

ticians and newspaper co r r espondents c o u 1d get at him.
Sherman didn't like politicians
or newspaper correspondents or
the kind of soldiers who went
around saluting and changing
their shirts when it wasn't absolutely necessary.
Sherman viewed the war in
the east as merely a holding operation. The place to win was
in the west, "the seat of the
coming empire." Once the Confederates were whipped there, he
could take his tough pack of jayhawkers up through .the Carolinas to Virginia and polish off
Robert E. Lee some Friday afternoon.
Two days after Grant and
Meade's Army of the Potomac
headed south into the wilderness, Sherman and 98,797 men
moved on Georgia. Joseph Eggleston Johnston, with the Army
of Tennessee and the Army of
Mississippi, 60,000 men in all,
was at Dalton.
This was Sherman's immediate objective. His ultimate goal:
A railroad and manufacturing
center, Atlanta, which had a
population somewhat s m a 11 e r
than Wisconsin Rapids has now.
Sherman had three armies to
do the job. There was his own
Army of the Tennessee, now led
by Gen. James B. McPherson.
There was the larger Army of
the Cumberland, commanded by
slow, steady "Pap" Thomas. And
there was the small Army of the
Ohio, headed by Gen. John M.
Schofield.
Sherman's advance was down
the railroad from Chattanooga,
but already he was considering
the possibility of doing without
a supply line.
"Georgia has a million of in·
habitants," he wrote to Grant.
"If they can live, we should not
starve. . . . Beef and salt are all
that is absolutely necessary to
life.''
·
In Thomas' army were nine
Wisconsin regiments -the 1st,
3rd, lOth, 15th, 21st, 22nd, 24th,
26th and 31st infantry. Serving
u n de r McPherson, who had
postponed his wedding to Emily
Hoffman of Baltimore to lead
his army, were the 12th, 16th,
17th, 25th and 32nd Wisconsin.
The 13th and 18th Wisconsin
were also in Thomas' army, but
were assigned to guard railroads. And the 1st Wisconsin
cavalry, which had recently absorbed 400 recruits from the
home state, was attached to a

The two forces collided at Resaca.
The flanking strategy had
worked well. Sherman saw no
reason to change it. He didn't
think much of head-on attacks
against fortifications, and his
veterans were inclined to agree.
So while Thomas' Army of the
Cumberland kept J o h n s to n
busy, the Army of the Tennessee went slashing off through
the woods to get behind the
Confederates again.
The 3rd Wisconsin, which
had fought at Bull Run, Antie-

Sherman Headed South
They had slogged through the
swamps of Mississippi and
fought up and down the wooded
hills of Tennessee. Some of them
had marched across the western
plains, fighting Confederates,
bushwhackers or Indians. They
had rarely been defeated. They
had no Bull Run or Chancellors·
ville to live down. They were
cocky, hard marching, rather
undisciplined, accustomed to
success.
They were not an army that
would have pleased a European
general, who would have considered them little better than
-Racine County Historical Society
armed rabble. But they suited
Sherman. He would have been Col. William M. Utley of Rawilling to lead them against any- cine led his 22nd Wisconsin
body, including Meade's Army volunteer regiment in its first
of the Potomac, with its paper major battle at Resaca, Ga.
collars and its newspaper correspondents.
•tam and Gettysburg, captured
As Sherman headed south, 40 prisoners at Resaca and
Gen. Johnston made his prepa· killed and wounded others, at
rations for what lay ahead. He a cost of three killed and 27
and Gen. John B. Hood had wounded. One of the latter was
themselves baptized by Leoni- the chaplain, the Rev. J. M.
das Polk, who was both a gener- Springer, who grabbed a musal and an Episcopal bishop. As it ket in battle. His wound proved
happened, Johnston and Hood mortal.
would survive the campaign.
The good bishop would soon be Scandinavians Were There
killed by a cannon ball.
Col. H. C. Hobart, who had
The Confederates waited for tunnel~d his way out o: Libby
Sherman at Buzzard's Roost, a prison, was back with the 21st
gap in a range of hills known as Wisconsin by now, bringing 100
Rocky Face ridge, north of Dal- . recruits from Madison with him.
ton, Ga. Sherman sent Thomas The regiment got into the batand Schofield to feel out the de- tle, losing nine killed and 38
fenses, but McPherson and the WOW1ded.
Army of the Tennessee marched
The Scandinavian 15th, which
to the right in a "whiplash"
had .helped carry Missionary
flanking movement.
ridge, was there. So was the
McPherson's men went
22nd
Wisconsin under Col. Wilthrough Snake Creek gap near
· Resaca, Ga., 10 miles south of liam M. Utley, which did well
Dalton. Johnston had to aban- in its first major battle, as well
don his defenses and hurry as four other Wisconsin regidown to protect his end of the ments, the 24th, 25th, 26th inWestern & Atlantic railroad. fantry and the 1st cavalry.

69

Chauncey Cooke of Buffalo
county wrote home to tell how
a shell burst directly over him,
"cutting a hole in my blanket
and the piece making a hole in
the ground within a few inches
of my body." The 25th lost
nearly 300 men at Resaca, he
reported, and the smoke of battle became so thick the men had
to fire blindly.
"I emptied my cartridge box
many times during the day, as
did others," Cooke reported. "I
saw men often drop after shooting, but didn't know that it was
my bullet that did the work and
really hope it was not. But you
know that I am a go o d shot.
. . . Say, did you know that it
was my 18th birthday?"
The Confederates ret i red
across the Oostanaula riverCooke noted it was as wide as
t h e E I k at Gilmanton - and
sought another defensive position. In the pursuit, Sherman.
once more divided his army.
Seeing his chance, Johnston
turned on McPherson near Cassville, but was driven off and
had to move south again to keep
Sherman from getting behind
him. That meant more hard
marching for both sides. On the
way, Cooke encountered some
Georgians and asked them what
they were fighting for.
"You Yanks want us to marry
our daughters to the niggers,"

they told him. Cooke considered them "poor, ignorant devils."
This was mostly a war of
movement, rather than large
scale battles. Johnston, a master tactician, kept hurrying his
troops to places where they
could stand off the larger Union
force. And Sherman, after testing the hospitality Johnston had
contrived for him, would send
some of his fast marchers to
threaten Confederate communications with Atlanta, forcing
Johnston to pull back once
more.

Davis Was Displeased
The two commanders were
conducting a campaign that
would later be studied as a model of military strategy, but back
in Richmond, President Jefferson Davis was getting increasingly displeased. It seemed to
him that Johnston was giving
away Georgia, large chunks at
a time. It was hard for him to
understand how Sherman could
cover more ground in a few
weeks than the bigger Army of
the Potomac had been able to
capture in three years.
As the opposing forces moved
south, Sherman remembered a
trip he had made in the region
as a youth. Allatoona pass,
northwest of Acworth, Ga., on
the railroad, had struck him

Tremendous trestle bridges made out of slender poles
were a specialty of Union armies. Gen. William T. Sherman's western army could throw a towering bridge like
this one across a wide river in only three days. This was

then as an admirable position a serious matter to the officers
for a defensive battle. He had of our mess, who had to beg
a lot of respect for Johnston their hardtack and bacon for
and he assumed the ConfederatP some days."
commander knew all about Allatoona pass.
Scurvy Hit Troops
So Sherman left the railroad
Hardtack and bacon were all
and sent his armies through the
woods, skirting to the south of Sherman's men had to eat at
Allatoona. Johnston wheeled the moment. They had been
out to meet him and from May moving too fast to have time to
25 to June 4 the two forces col- live off the Georgia farmers.
lided in an intermittent battle Many had scurvy from lack of
at New Hope church, near Dal- vegetables. Some of the men
were beginning to grumble that
las, Ga.
Gen. Joseph Hooker, who had they'd rather fight it out, whip
once led the entire eastern army Johnston and have a chance to
but now merely commanded forage, instead of doing all this
part of Thomas' men, ran into marching.
Pvt. Cooke described Dallas as
the Confederates first. He lost
600 men without accomplishing "a little, sorrowful, humble vilmuch. Then the rest of both ar- lage of some 600 souls." He demies came up, rifles in one hand, scribed life in the hastily dug
shovels in the other, and started trenches, facing equally makeshift fortifications thrown up by
entrenching.
Sometimes, in the sporadic the Confederates.
"All day long we shot wherfighting near Dallas, one side or
the other would gain a little ter- ever we saw a hand, a head or
ritory. On May 28, the mess puff of smoke, and the Rebels
cook of the 1st Wisconsin led did the same. Sometimes our
his pack mule to what he side would call out to the Rebs,
thought was the regiment's asking them to hold up and talk
headquarters. But during the things over.
night, the Confederates had
"'All right,' they would say,
pushed the infantrymen back. and for some time both sides
They quickly captured the cook, would talk things over- about
mule and supplies.
the war and about their girls
"This may seem a slight mat- and about exchanging hardtack
ter to record," the regimental for ham and whisky for tobachistorian said later, "but it was co. Then some voice would call

at Whiteside, Tenn. Sherman had 17 Wisconsin regiments
and two light artillery batteries from the Badger state
with him when he set out to capture Atlanta.
-

70

ft{'Or~e

N. Uarnanl

out, 'Look out for your life,' and
the shooting would begin."
One afternoon, Cooke a n d
Jake Bolunger of Alma volunteered to take a number of canteens to a creek 60 rods off.
They had to go over a ridge,
where the Rebel sharpshooters
"pelted us with a shower of bullets." Jake fell down. Cooke,
taking cover behind a stump,
called to him.
"I'm all right,'' Jake said, but
he lay quiet until the Rebels,
thinking he was dead, stopped
shooting. Then he jumped up,
ran over the ridge and helped
Cooke carry the canteens.
Cooke wrote home that anyone who had participated in the
fighting at Dallas was pretty
well prepared for "any event
this side of eternity."
"Full of whisky and gunpowder (a mixture the Yanks
thought the Southerners used to
prepare themselves for battle),
the Rebel ranks charged again
and again, only to be repulsed
again and again with fearful
slaughter,'' he wrote.

where he could get supplies.
Johnston's Confederates shifted
to a strong line based on Kennesaw mountain. To bolster the
veterans, the Georgia governor
had sent several thousand militiamen, mostly young boys and
old men.
Capt. Julian Hinkley of the
3rd Wisconsin described how
the Union troops saw a single
Rebel come running toward
their lines, gun in hand. Hinkley
assumed he was coming to surrender - it was no longer unusual for Confederates to give
up voluntarily.
But when the man got within
20 yards, he noticed the troops
were Yankees and turned to
flee.
"I called to him to surrender,"
Capt. Hinkley testified, "but it
only increased his speed . . .
Two of my men fired at him,
and both hit him. He fell dead
. . . He was a mere boy, not over
20 years of age.
"In his pocket, we found his
order, not two weeks old, from
the conscript officer of his district, notifying him to join the
Boys Bolstered Rebels
army. I have seen fields of batEarly in June, Sherman tle in front of our regiment covmoved back to the r a i I r o a d, ered over with the dead without

experiencing the pang of regret
that I felt for this poor lad who,
scarcely out from home and too
frightened and c o n f u s e d to
know what to do, thus sadly
met his fate."
The two armies - the Confederates mostly on K e n n e s a w
mountain, the Union troops in
the valley - dug in and watched
each other warily.
"We are so close to the Rebel
lines on the top of the mountain
that we can see them moving
about," Chauncey Cooke wrote
home on June 11. "We are too
far to use our muskets and they
are too high to use their cannon
on us."

Fierce Artillery Duels
In a June 26 letter, Ed Levings
of River Falls, Wis., reported
that the positions of the two
armies had not changed.
"There is a rattle of musketry
on the skirmish lines, sometimes
fierce and rapid, but generally
feeble and slow, and nobody
thinks much about it any more.
Fierce artillery duels now and
then occur and cheers by either
side go up when a good shot is
made.

"We say, at such times as
this, that all is quiet, or comparatively quiet, as you see it
in the papers. . . . 'One side is
afraid, and the other darsn't.'
Really, we are besieging the
Rebels and have them in the
same fix that Grant ha·; Lee.''
Ed's brother, Homer, had returned from his Wisconsin furlough with a supply of butter,
tea and canned berries, which
we r e especially welcome because Sherman's supplies were
low. Poor food and illness were
more serious problems just then
than Confederate shells.
Pvt. Cooke told of a friend,
Henry Morse, who stopped to
tell him good-by before reporting to a field hospital.
"Henry was feeling bad and
he looked bad," Chauncey wrote
to his mother. "Say as little as
you can about it to his folks.
. . . I don't believe I shall ever
see him again."
Cooke's prediction p r o v e d
accurate. Morse died. He was
buried in a plain board box under the pines. Soon the Union
troops were making ready for
an assault on Kennesaw that
would send hundreds of them to
keep Henry company.

Confederates Threatened Capital
Chapter XXVIII
THE early years of the Civil
I Nwar,
whenever things were
going against the Confederacy,
Stonewall Jackson would gather his hungry crew and start
making fools of the Federals.
Or J. E. B. Stuart would ride off
with his horsemen, who knew
how to climb down from their
mounts and fight if necessary.
But now, in the summer of
1864, Jackson and Stuart were
dead. Jackson had been killed
at Chancellorsville by his own
men-or just possibly by a stray
bullet from a Wisconsin rifle.
Stuart had died in a fight with
a force headed by Phil Sheridan,
who had finally whipped the
Union cavalry into effective
shape.
And so, with Grant pushing
south in Virginia and Sherman
outmaneuvering Johnston in
Georgia, Robert E. Lee turned
to a tough Rebel named Jubal
Early. Lee needed every soldier

he could find to deal with Grant,
but somehow he was able to
spare 12,000 ragged Confederates for Early.
Gen. Early's assignment: To
make as much trouble as he
could in the hope that Union
politicians would call off Grant.
He headed for the Shenandoah
valley, Jackson's old stamping
grounds, and drove off a small
Union army led by Maj. Gen.
David Hunter.
For reasons that he had trouble explaining later, Hunter fled
with his men into West Virginia, which took them entirely
out of the picture. Early didn't
bother to chase him. He headed
northeast along the valley.

Washington in Danger
The Shenandoah had been a
geographical liability t o t h e
Union from the beginning~ A
Union army moving southwest
along it was carried away from
the main theater of war. A Con-

71

federatt: fprce heading in the
opposite direction could threaten Pennsylvania, Baltimore and
Washington.
Many of the valley's farmers
were members of pacifist religious sects. In other parts of
the south the farms had been
stripped of young men to serve
in the armies. But here, with
plenty of hands to plant and
harvest crops, the fat barns
bulged with supplies for Confederates. Not until Sheridan
arrived in the valley would this
storehouse of Rebel food be
destroyed.
Sheridan's arrival was still
weeks away and Jubal's 12,000
men had no real opposition.
Washington viewed the matter
with alarm. Suggestions were
made that Grant do something
about it. But Grant was busy
with Lee. He knew how easily
Washington residents were panicked. He was inclined to minimize the threat.
A pickup Union army under
Gen. Franz Sigel was brushed
aside by Early's veterans in
Maryland near the Potomac.
By the first week in July, 1864,
Jubal was within easy com-

muting distance of Washington.
The Union then had something
like half a million armed soldiers, but not many of them
were in the neighborhood.
· It looked as though Early and
his comparative h a n d f u I of
troops could walk into the nation's capital almost unmolested. Frantic calls were sent to
Grant for help, which was finally started on its way. Meanwhile, it was up to the ribbon
clerks and desk soldiers.
Brig. Gen. Halbert E. Paine of
Milwaukee did not fall into either of these categories. He had
been quartermaster of the 2nd
Wisconsin, colonel of the 4th
W i s con sin, savior of Baton
Rouge, commander of a division
under Sherman. He had lost a
leg at Port Hudson.

Dabbled in Politics
Now he was in Washington in
two capacities. He was a member of the general court-martial
commission. And he was dabbling in politics-in November,
he would be elected to congress
from Wisconsin.
When Paine heard of Early's
approach, he stumped over to

the war d e p a r t m e n t on his
wooden leg and offered to drive
Jubal off. He was given command of a line of rifle pits between Forts Stevens and Slocum
-but no troops.
Paine was not a man to be deterred by such a minor consideration. There were plenty of s8ldiers around Washingtonclerks, hospital attendants, artillerymen, furloughed men visiting the fancy houses off Pennsylvania av., wounded and ill
men in the hospitals, plus a considerable variety of uniformtd
men who had managed to get
pleasant assignments in the capital to avoid having to eat hardtack and fight Confederates.
Paine and others s t a r t e d
rounding them up. Some of the
convalescents in the hospitals
were veterans who could be
counted on. Some of the noncombative clerks would fight if
there was absolutely no other
choice open. By the time Early's
soldiers were within rifle shot,
Paine had his rifle pits manned,
after a fashion.
A line of forts protected the
city. The positions were strong
and, held by tested s o I d i e r s,
could easily have turned back
the threat. But most of the men
in them had never seen an armed
Confederate. After so many
months of easy duty, they were

not particularly eager to see
any.

Rebels Near Washington
As Early got within sight of
Washington, there was nothing
to keep him out except such uncertain forces as the one commanded by Paine, the artillery
and some scared militia and 100
day troops, who had not enlisted
in the war with the thought of
fighting.
It is likely that Early could
have pushed them aside and
gained a victory that would
have caused all kinds of repercussions. With the arrival of the
6th army corps, which Grant
had belatedly sent back toward
Washington, the Rebels would
have had to skedaddle. But,
meanwhile, they would have had
a day or two to loot the town
and frighten the politicians.
It may have been that Gen.
Early couldn't quite believe his
good luck. It may have been
true, as was said in Washington
when the threat was past, that
his troops tarried with captured
whisky.
At any rate, the raiders waited a little too long. They were
approaching Paine's part of the
defense line, with Abraham Lincoln waiting in Fort Stevens to
watch the fight, when the advance portion of the 6th corps
got there.

The corps, commanded by
Gen. Horatio G. Wright, included such veteran regiments as the
5th Wisconsin. Wright sent his
riflemen hurrying into the pits
to replace the ribbon c I e r k s.
Having been accustomed to dealing with Lee, the veterans were
not much concerned with Early
and after a sharp battle drove
him off.

Early Took Leave
President Lincoln insisted on
watching the fighting from a
p a r a p e t, while Gen. Wright
fumed for fear a stray bullet
would hit him. Finally, Early
left for the more hospitable confines of the Shenandoah, stopping to wreck Chambersburg,
Pa., in the last feeble invasion
of the North.
Grant assigned Sheridan to
run him down. Gen. Sheridan's
army outnumbered Early's by
something like 4 to 1, but it was
not until fall that the Union was
able to end the threat in the valley. A battle was fought at Cedar Creek, with Sheridan galloping in from Winchester at the
last minute to rally his men, and
Jubal Early was finally defeated
for good.
The enlistments of the 5th
Wisconsin veterans expired July
12, the day after they helped rescue Washington, but the men
agreed to stay long enough to

Members of the 1st Wisconsin heavy artillery regiment, assigned to
duty in forts protecting Washington, were faced with real trouble when
raiding Confederate forces, led by Gen. Jubal Early, approached the
city in 1864. Pvt. Griff J. Thomas (left) was a member of company B.
Col. Charles C. Meservey, who started as an enlisted man, later commanded the regiment.
-state Historical Society

72

make sure Early wasn't coming
back. Then they went home to
be mustered out.
Those veterans who had re-enlisted, with the recruits, became
for a time an independent battalion, which fought Early at
Snicker's gap in the Shenandoah, as well as at Cedar Creek.
L a t e r, seven new companies
were recruited in Wisconsin and
the 5th was reconstituted as a
regiment. It went back to serve
with Grant at Petersburg.
Early's drive on Washington
the summer of 1864 was a symbol of the Confederacy's growing desperation, as Grant dealt
with Lee and Sherman pushed
toward Atlanta. Another example was the giant ironclad ram,
the Albemarle, which was designed to break the naval blockade that was helping strangle
the South.

Threat to Union Ships
The ship was stationed in Albemarle sound in North Carolina. The United States navy
had a fleet in the vicinity, hoping to bottle up the ironclad,
which was similar to the Merrimac (or Virginia), which had
caused the Union so much worry
two years before.
The United States navy had
ironclads, too, but they were too
heavy to cross tbe bar at the harbor e n t r a n c e. The Albemarle

William Cushing won promotion to lieutenant commander in the navy after carrying through a plan to sink the Rebel
ironclad ram Albemarle.

was in the Roanoke river, a con- Cushing, proposed a plan. Cush- of Nemahbin, now Delafield,
stant threat to Union ships.
ing had been born in a farm- Wis. His family moved to ChiThis was the situation when a house on the banks of the Bark cago shortly afterward and it is
y o u n g daredevil, William B. river in what was then the town doubtful if Cushing cons i dered himself a Wisconsinite.
But his n a t i v e state would
soon proudly claim him, as well
as his brother, Alonzo, who died
as an artillery captain during
Pickett's charge at Gettysburg,
and another brother, Howard,
who was an artillery lieutenant
in charge of 100 pound Parrott
guns during Jubal Early's attack
on Washington.
(Howard Cushing later fought
Apaches in Arizona and was
killed by Cochise's men in an
ambush southeast of Tucson.
Subsequently, Tucson named an
alley after Cushing, while Arizona named a county after Cochise. The Cushing brothers had
a state park dedicated to them
on the site of the family farm in
Delafield.)
William Cushing went to Annapolis but was kicked out of
the academy after he balanced
a bucket of water above a doorway just before his Spanish
teacher walked through. The
navy held no permanent grudge,
however. Within a month, young
Cushing was acting master's
mate aboard a frigate and in
1862, when he was 19, was a
lieutenant in command of a gunboat. Two years later, when he
approached the admiral with a
scheme to sink the Albemarle,
he was listened to with respect.

logs, pushing them back far
enough so the. boom could be
1ow e r e d to bring the mine
against the Albemarle's side.

Blew Hole in Ironclad

Cushing pulled a cord which
released an iron ball. This hit
a percussion cap, which exploded the mine. It blew a hole in
the ironclad's bot to m "big
enough to drive a wagon in," according to subsequent testimony
of the Confederate's ship carpenter.
M o s t of the c r e w on the
steamer were quite willing to
surrender, now their mission
was a success, but C u s h i n g
jumped into the water and started to swim. In the confusion,
the rifle fire went wild and he
made his way to shore, too exhausted to draw himself out of
the water.
By dawn he had regained
enough strength to crawl off
and hide in a swamp, a few feet
from a path. During the day
two Confederate officers passed.
From their conversation, Cushing gathered that the Albemarle
was sunk.
To be sure, he hid until he
saw a passing Negro, who was
persuaded to go into Plymouth,
N.C., and make inquiries. When
the messenger came back to report the Albemarle was resting
in eight feet of water, with only
her superstructure above the
surface, Cushing stole a skiff,
waited for night, then rowed out
Mine Tied to Ship's Boom
to a Union warship.
"Sir," he said in his message
On the night of Oct. 27, 1864,
Lt. Cushing and 13 other volun- to the admiral, "I have the honor_
teers went aboard a little steam- to report that the Rebel ironclad
er, whose armament consisted Albemarle is at the bottom of
of a single howitzer. It had a the Roanoke river."
14 foot boom at the bow, to
Praised by Opponent
which was attached a mine.
With Cushing in command,
Capt. A. F. Warley, in comthe 30 foot craft slipped into the mand of the Albemarle, exRoanoke river and sailed quietly plained that the night had been
upstream for eight miles. It dark and rainy and when Cushpassed within 60 feet of a Rebel ing's little steamer was spotted
battery mounted on a wrecked it was too close for the ship's
ship. There were hundreds of guns to hit it. Although it had
Confederate soldiers on the riv- cost him his command, he ader banks, but somehow the mired Cushing's feat. "A more
steamer got close to the Albe- gallant thing was not done durmarle without being detected.
ing the war," he said.
Then lookouts on the ram
The daring young officer got
shouted a challenge. Cushing a vote of thanks from congress
ordered full speed ahead. By the and was made a lieutenant comlight of fires on shore, he could mander. He served through the
see the Albemarle was protected war, m a r r i e d, fathered two
by a bulwark of logs, placed in daughters, and died 10 years
the river about 30 feet from the after his exploit from an ailment
ship.
diagnosed as a "sciatic inflamCushing had not counted on mation" which affected his
the logs, but it was too late to brain.
stop. Soldiers and sailors were
The mine which William
firing at the steamer now. At Cushing exploded to sink the
any moment the Union men ex- Albemarle was then called a torpected the Albemarle's guns to pedo. It was the same weapon
blow them out of the water.
Rear Admiral David Farragut
Cushing said later that three had in mind two months before
bullets struck his clothing "and when he won the battle of Mothe air seemed full of them." The bile bay after shouting: "Damn
little steamer smashed into the the torpedoes! Go ahead!"

-Journal Photo

This monument at Cushing state park,
near Delafield, recalls the Civil war exploits of the three Wisconsin Cushing
brothers, Alonzo, William and Howard.
Alonzo was killed at Gettysburg.

73

State Regiments Were Unlucky
now obvious that the crater had
become a deadly trap.
Meade ordered the men to
war because of a fondness for pull back. Burnside, still hopegambling-held out straws to ful, delayed transmission of the
his three other divisional com- order. A Confederate charge
manders.
sent the advance Union troops
Brig. Gen. James H. Ledlie, scrambling back into the crater.
a New Yorker, drew the short Dead, wound e d and living
straw. That meant his men, in- shared the space. When a man
cluding the two Wisconsin regi was shot, there was hardly room
ments, would move forward for him to fall down.
first.
The Rebels crept up to the
The luck of the draw could edge. Putting their hats on ramhardly have been worse. Ledlie rods, they thrust them over the
had grabbed a bottle instead of side of the pit. Union soldiers,
a saber during the June 18 at- f o o 1e d by the ancient trick,
tack on the fortifications and fired. Before they could reload,
was dead drunk while his men the Confederates leaped into the
were fighting. Everyone in the crater, where the men fought
army appears to have known of with clubbed muskets, bayonets,
the episode except Burnside. He even fists.
let the straw's decision stand.
Soon, when Ledlie was sup- Attack Was a Disaster
posed to be in the crater, he
Finally, by midafternoon, the
was sitting in a bombproof shel- 9th corps was on the run. It
ter 400 yards away, drini{ing
had lost more than 4,000 men,
rum.
to perhaps 1,500 for the ConfedBurnside was still farther erates. The miners' explosion
back, The enlisted men and field had been a glorious success. The
officers had only a vague idea subsequent attack had been a
of what was expected of them, disaster.
but after the initial confusion
The two Wisconsin regiments
following the powder blast they involved had been unlucky from
finally moved forward into the the beginning. While they were
crater, with the 38th Wisconsin being organized, the governin the lead.
ment announced that it had
stopped paying bounties to
Chance Was Lost
volunteers. That reduced the
Strong leadership was lack Wisconsin citizens' patriotic fering. The men milled about, ad· vor to the point where it was
miring the results of the miners' almost impossible to fill the 37th
work or helping dig out half and 38th regiments.
Six companies of the 37th
buried Rebels.
For a few moments, the way went to Virginia just in time to
was open for a massive break- have 65 killed and 93 wounded
through. But the chance was in the June 17-18 attacks at
Petersburg. The remaining four
lost.
The Confederates were given companies finally got there in
time to recover from their sur- time to go into the crater, where
prise. They began pouring a the regiment was reduced from
heavy rifle fire into the pit. The 250 men who reported for duty
men were packed so tightly that in the morning to 95 who annearly every bullet found its swered roll call that evening.
The 38th managed to accumumark. They began to dig into
the loose dirt for protection. late only four companies before
M o r t a r s and cannon were the bounty payments stopped.
brought up and began to shoot These four got into the fighting
into the massed Union troops. at Cold Harbor, lost 50 men in
The Negro division, which in- a dispute over possession of the
cluded 244 men credited to Wis- Norfolk & Petersburg railroad
consin, and some white regi- and by July 4 had only 40 men
ments advanced a little beyond fit for duty.
Another company arrived bethe crater. But many 9th corps
troops, including some from the fore the crater attack, adding 69
two Wisconsin units, still hud- more soldiers to the 38th. Of
dled in the hole which the ex- about 100 men of the 38th Wisconsin who led the Union adplosion had created.
vance after the explosion, 19
Col. Sam Harriman a n d were killed or wounded. It was
Adj. Claron S. Miltimore of the not until October that the rest
37th managed to dig out a Con- of the regiment arrived.
federate cannon and turn it on
Gen. Grant's campaign had
a near-by Rebel fort. But it was kept Lee on the defensive, but

Chapter XXIX
WAS July 30, 1864. PetersITburg,
Va., had been under
siege for six weeks. Since June
25, miners from the 48th Pennsylvania had been engaged in
the biggest tunneling operation
of the war, hoping to break open
the Confederate defenses.
Two rookie regiments from
W i s c o n s i n were among th~
troops of Gen. Ambrose Burnside's 9th corps who were wait·
ing anxiously for the result.
When the 8,000 pounds of pow
der which the miners had planted under a Confederate fortifi·
cation exploded, the 37th anq
38th Wisconsin with 15,000 other soldiers were supposed to
pour through the breach and
capture the city.
The miners' tunnel was 586
feet long and five feet high. The
powder was in place 20 feet
below the surface. A 98 foot
fuse was attached. Lt. Col. Harry Pleasants, a mining engineer
who commanded the Pennsylvania regiment, lit the fuse.
The suspense mounted as the
minutes ticked by. Nothing
happened. Finally two volunteers, Lt. Jacob Douty and Sgt.
Harry Reese, crawled into the
tunnel. They discovered the fuse
had burned out at a splice.
They lit it again and scrambled
through the dark to safety.
At 4:45 a.m., the blast went
off. A crater measuring 170 feet
long, 60 feet wide and 30 feet
deep opened in the earth. South
Carolina soldiers who had been
sleeping above the powder were
blown to bits or buried in the
debris. The Union troops were
ordered forward.

Burnside Overruled
But Burnside was not the man
often associated with success.
The barricades in front of the
Federal lines had not been removed, so the soldiers had to
wait while this was done. The
plans had been changed at the
last minute-Burnside had wanted a Negro division to lead, but
Gen. George Meade had overruled him. If the attack failed,
Meade feared he would be accused of sacrificing the Negro
troops.
When Meade changed his
plan to have the fresh Negro
division spearhead the attack,
Burnside-who had almost lost
his commission in the Mexican

74

only at a cost that any other
commander would have viewed
as disastrous. Accepting the
casualties at the crater as he
had accepted so many before,
Grant went grimly a h e a d to
make his siege more effective.

Rebels Were Surprised
Two railroads still connected
Petersburg with the south. In
mid-August, Gen. Gouverneur K.
Warren and a force that included the Iron brigade veterans
were assigned to capture the
Weldon railroad.
The movement c a u g h t the
Confederates by surprise. Warren's men seized more than a
mile of track. Then they moved
northward toward the city. But
on Aug. 19, Confederates led by
Gen. A. P. Hill pushed the Yankees back half a mile before
they dug in and held fast.
The old 2nd Wisconsin, now
an independent battalion, was
there, and the 6th and 7th Wisconsin. The latter regiment
proudly reported capturing all
the field officers and the battle
flag of the 16th Mississippi.
A few days later, still fighting
for the Weldon railroad, a Confederate f o r c e surprised the
36th Wisconsin a::td other inexperienced troops at Reams' station. The 36th found itself surrounded.
A few men fought their way
out, but seven officers and 130
men of the 186 who went into
battle were captured. The 37th
and 38th regiments-what was
left of them after the craterwere among Union reinfon ~­
ments that moved up and kept
the railroad in Union hands.
The Confederates were out of
corn and low on other supplies.
Wade Hampton, Lee's cavalry
commander, took 4,000 horsemen in a daring ride around the
Union army and got back to Petersburg with 2,400 head of cattle and 300 prisoners.
Grant kept moving his men
west, seeking to surround the
city. In the fighting for the
Southside railroad, the 7th Wisconsin got lost in the woods. Its
companions carne back to report the regiment had been captured.
But the veterans of the 7th
were able to take care of themselves. Its 156 men came triumphantly out of the woods
with 216 Confederate prisoners,
plus 50 Union men they had released. Its loss: One man captured.

State Soldiers Charged
This was part of the battle of
Hatcher's run, where Brig. Gen.
Edward S. Bragg of Fond du
Lac, former colonel of the 6th
Wisconsin, commanded the Iron
brigade. The survivors of the
36th Wisconsin, a r e g i m e n t
w h i c h had been remarkably
busy since it left Madison the
previous May, were also there.
At one point, with Rebels behind it, the 36th about faced,
fixed bayonets and charged. It
captured a number of Confederates - some of whom, by this
time, were hungry enough not
to protest very much when ordered to throw down their rifles.
On the same day, Oct. 27, the
19th Wisconsin was busy near
Richmond at Fair Oaks. Emerging from a pine woods into an
open field, the 19th ran into "a
perfect tornado of shot, shell,
canister and Minie balls," according to Lt. Col. Rollin M.
Strong, who was there.
The men d r o p p e d to the
ground and made themselves
"as thin as possible," the colonel
reported later. Pinned down,
unable to move either way,
many were captured. Of 198
men from the 19th Wisconsin,
who were in the battle, only 44
came back to the Union lines.
Grant's army had not yet
q u i t e surrounded Petersburg,
but w i t h the reinforcements
coming up from the base at City
Point on the James river, the
Union roll call was answered by
110,364 well fed soldiers. Lee
had only 57,402 men able to
bear arms, and they were ragged
and hungry.
As the lines advanced to the
west, Lee had to spread his men
over a 35 mile front to protect
Petersburg and Richmond. By
late fall of 1864, when bad
weather slowed the fighting, it

was obvious that the Confederates had only one real hope of
staving off defeat: Gen. George
B. McClellan.

Papers Attacked Lincoln
The general, who had won for
the Union at Antietam and lost
elsewhere, was now the Democratic presidential candidate.
Lincoln, for one, expected him
to win. The general had repudiated his party's plank, which declarer! that the war was a failure and implied that it should
be ended. He promised to continue fighting until the Union
was restored. But many of those
in both north and south looked
on this as mere campaign oratory.

A Wisconsin editor was a chief

spokesman for the Copper
head movement. Marcus M.
Pomeroy, editor of the La
Crosse Democrat, suggested
that assassination of President
Lincoln would be advantageous for t h e country and
would help bring peace.

That left it up to the Northern and make peace with the South.
voters, and they were increas- He promised that if Lincoln ever
ingly sick of war. Grant might showed up in his office in La
be able to view the tens of thou- Crosse he would "shoot him as
sands of casualties his army had quick as any man."
taken as a necessary part of the
Pomeroy was an extremist,
conflict. But their relatives back
but
he was symptomatic of a
home thought differently.
The opposition to Lincoln in- widespread feeling that the war
creased. Some Copperhead new- had cost the nation too much
papers became almost hyster- and should be ended, even if it
ical in their attacks on the meant letting the Confederacy
president.
Marcus M. (Brick) Pomeroy, go its way.
The country was not merely
editor of the La Crosse Democrat, ran a picture of Lincoln divided between north and
on his front page, under the slo- south but between Republican
gan: "The widow maker of the and Democrat, between eastern19th century."
ers and westerners, between the
"The man who votes for Lin- well to do-who were getting
coln now," Pomeroy wrote, "is rich off the war and often buya traitor and murderer.... And ing their way out of servingif he is elected to misgovern for and the workingmen.
another four years, we trust
On the surface, it is hard to
some bold hand will pierce his understand how the Confederaheart with dagger point for pub- cy, with 25% of the manpower
lic good."
and less than a quarter of the
Pomeroy, early in the war, resources, could have held out
had tried to go off to fight at for four years. Superior milithe head of a company he called tary leadership in the early days
the Wisconsin Tigers. He spent of tt.c war helped the South, as
a short time with the army in did the fact that its troops
Arkansas, but became disillu- fought on their home grounds.
sioned.
But a primary reason was this:
He complained of the hordes Except during the first few
of "unlawful wives and prosti- months, the North was disunittutes accompanying the army," ed. Only a portion of its citias well as of the gambling, z e n s - a steadily diminishing
drinking and "stealing sanc- portion, as the years went ontioned as confiscation."
fully supported the war.
He came back to Wisconsin
And so, in the late summer of
to edit a paper that joined the 1864, with the noose tightening
Chicago Times, New York around Lee in Virginia and the
World, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Confederacy seemingly fighting
Cincinnati Enquirer, Milwau- against hopeless military odds,
kee News and Milwaukee See- there was still room for doubt
Bote as spokesmen for the Cop· of a Northern victory.
perhead m~>Vement.
Lincoln desperately needed a
triumph to restore the voters'
North Was Disunited
enthusiasm. Grant could not yet
Pomeroy advocated a confed- supply one. It was up to Wileracy of northwestern states, Vam T. Sherman and his westwhich would leave the Union erners in Georgia.

Confederates Fought Brave Battle
Chapter XXX
JULY 27, 1864, Gen. SherO Nman
temporarily a bandoned his war of maneuver and
tried a two pronged attack on
the Confederate entrenchments
on Kennesaw mountain. He
committed 13,500 men, less than
a fifth of his force.
Picked divisions from the
army of the Cumberland scram-

bled up the mountainside toward the trenches and rifle pits.
The 24th Wiscor.sin was among
them. The Confederates let
them come within easy range,
then opened fire. The Union lost
2,200 men, to 200 for the defenders.
The attack was a mistake.
Sherman didn't repeat it. In-

75

stead, he sent out part of his
troops to threaten Gen. Joseph
Johnston's communications
with Atlanta. The Confederates
withdrew, and the war of movement was on again.
Civil war g e n e r a 1 s had to
~eep at least one eye on politics,
and Johnston was playing a
shrewd game. He hoped to keep
Sherman from winning a decisive victory until the North's

presidential election was over.
By trading land for time, he
might delude Northern voters
into thinking that Sherman was
accomplishing very little.
Those who were weary of the
war could be expected to vote
against Lincoln. With George
McClellan in the White House,
who could tell what might happen?
And so Johnston maneuvered,
but he was faced with an in-

creasingly difficult problem. He
was running out of territory
w h i c h could be conceded to
Sherman without giving up Atlanta.

Sherman Kept Moving
He made a stand at Smyrna
station, south of Marietta, Ga.,
but Sherman just kept moving
and Johnston tried again north
of the Chattahoochie river,
where he had what his antagonist called the "best line of field
entrenchments I have ever
seen."
Johnston was in no mood for
compliments from Sherman, and
he was getting none from Richmond. President Jefferson Davis
wanted to know why he had
allowed the Union armies to get
so close to Atlanta, and what
were his plans? Johnston said he
was doing the best he c o u I d
with what he had.
Sherman was threatening to
beat the Confederates to Atlanta. Johnston had to abandon his
fine trenches, which were in the
vicinity of what is now route
41. He crossed the Chattahoochie and prepared to defend
the city. But on July 17, Davis
replaced him with Gen. John B.
laid siege to Atlanta had no tanks to help
Abandoned engines in a wrecked roundHood.
them get through these murderous looking
house
were
among
the
welcome
sights
for
Hood had lost a leg at Chickadefensive works. But they blasted the deUnion troops who marched into Atlanta
mauga. One arm had been crippled at Gettysburg. The rest of
fenses with cannon and forced their way
after a bitter siege. Lower: The tough
him was spoiling for a fight.
through at great cost in human life.
westerners in the Northern army which
Sherman knew his reputation
and was delighted. What he had
At Kennesaw, the army had blackberries- "providentially," on the move, the men were eatwanted all along was a Confederate general who would take run out of lime juice, sauerkraut Sherman reported later, "the ing better. Chauncey Cooke of
the offensive and let the Union and pickles, which were sup- blackberries ripened and proved the 25th Wisconsin noted that
soldiers fight behind fortifica- posed to prevent scurvy, and an admirable antidote."
when the regiment reached
tions for a change.
But now that the army was Marietta, everyone made a rush
had been f o r c e d to rely on

76

for the bakeries and bought were drawing rations at noon
everything in sight.
when we heard the faint musketry in our rear and saw our
division trains moving off as
Confident of Success
"This morning," he added, "a fast as possible, men running off
lot of the fellows have got the for dear life, and within 15 minKentucky quickstep to pay for utes the battle had begun. . . .
I believe if it were not for our
it."
The men were confident of 3rd division and some of the
success. Cooke wrote: "If we 15th corps, they would have
can take Atlanta, which is 20 utterly destroyed us.
"For six hours the b a t t I e
miles south from here, now the
strongest fortified city in the raged furiously.... We checked
South, we can march to the sea the Rebels, threw up a new line
-and then good-by to the rebel- facing south. . . . We had not
half finished it when the Rebels
lion."
Sherman decided on a siege, charged. . . . The Rebels came
forcing Hood either to attack up five lines deep, drunk with
him or retreat. But the one leg- whisky an d gunpowder, and
ged Confederate didn't w a i t. some of them actually got inThree days !U'ter he assumed side our works-but never got
command, he sent his men out out. They could not take our
of their trenches to take on the position.... Homer (his brother)
Army of the Cumberland near and I lost everything we had but
our oilcloths...."
Peach Tree creek.
Levings reported that "our
"Pap" Thomas was in command of the Union forces and proud old 12th" had lost 156
he was ;:-.n old hand at defensive men in the two days at Bald hill,
battles. Most of his troops and over 200 since it joined
fought in the open, but the 22nd Sherman's army. The 16th WisWisconsin had time to tear consin had 116 k i 11 e d and
down a rail fence and convert wounded at Bald hill. The 17th
it into a breastwork.
took a lesser role, but Pvts. MiThe fighting surged back and chael Murphy, Charles Voss and
forth, much of it hand to hand. Albert Otto were killed.
After four hours, Hood's men reOn the same day that Levings
treated into the Atlanta forti- and his companions were drivfications.
ing off the counterattack at Bald
Sherman sent James Birdseye hill, another portion of McPherMcPherson's army east of At- son's army ran into trouble near
lanta, tearing up railroad tracks Decatur, in what is now southas it went. He had a lot of con- eastern Atlanta. A surprise atfidence in the younger general. tack caught the Army of the
Sherman felt it was unlikely Tennessee off guard.
that either he or Grant would
survive and if they were killed Gen. McPherson Killed
he expected McPherson to run
McPherson interrupted h i s
the war.
The day after the battle of lunch to gallop to the fighting.
Peach Tree creek, a part of Mc- A minute later he was dead.
Pherson's army, including the Sherman, when the news
12th, 16th and 17th Wisconsin, reached him, stopped to wonder
::aptured a portion of the outer how he would break the r.ews to
Atlanta defenses at Bald hill. the general's Baltimore fiancee.
Pvt. Edwin M. Truell was se- Then he told John A. Logan to
verely wounded in the charge, assumE: the command.
"Black Jack" Logan rode
Jut kept on fighting until he was
along the lines, waving his hat
!lit again, this time in the leg.
He lost the leg but gained a and appealing to his men to
nedal of honor and lived to go hold. Hood's infantry was on
Jack home to Juneau co u n t y one side, Wheeler's cavalry on
the other. The 25th Wisconsin,
md become register of deeds.
Another private in the 12th assigned to guard the wagon
Wisconsin, Edwin L e v i n g s, train, ran into the horsemen.
The Wisconsin regiment was
.vrote home to River Falls two
lays later to describe the fight- forced back. Its colonel, Milton
Montgomery, was wounded and
ng:
"The main battle (on July 21) captured, which left matters up
asted a little over an hour. The to Lt. Col. Jeremiah M. Rusk of
~ebels fought obstinately. We Bad Axe (now Vernon) county.
Rusk would later become
N'ent beyond their works, but a
:errible flank fire compelled us Wisconsin's governor and a
:o fall back. . . . A group of us prominent Republican politiay behind a log for a half hour, cian, travaling about to conven1ot daring to raise our heads to tions with an entourage of 15
1h o o t and even at that they one armed or one legged vettilled six of us and wounded erans. Their arrival always
1even, all less than 20 feet earned "Uncle Jerry" an ovarom me.
tion. At the moment, however,
''. . . But this battle was noth- he was not thinking about poling to that of the 22nd.... We tics. Half a dozen dismounted

cavalrymen were advancing on
him.
One of them grabbed Rusk's
sword. The colonel fired at the
man and dug his spurs into his
horse's flanks. The animal took
off and the wounded Rebel was
left with the sword, scabbard
and all. Rusk's horse was shot,
but by then the colonel w a s
among friends.
The regiment retreated half a
mile, fighting a rear guard action, and finally was able to
make a stand and drive back the
cava I r y. Meanwhile, other
Union troops were busy with
Hood's infantry. They pushed
back one force just in time to
climb to the other side of their
log breastworks and fight off
attackers coming up from the
rear.

Rebel Charge Failed
The July 22 fighting was the
hardest of the campaign. William Leander Harrison, one of
five La Crosse brothers who
served in the army, described
how the Rebels charged toward
his division, "but it was the
worst day's work they ever had
done, for we let them come up
within 40 rods of our works and
then took dead aim ... and after they tried it five times they
broke and ran, and their officers
could not rally them, for all they
could do or say.
"The next day, we went over
the ground where they charged
and you could see just where
their line of battle was. They lay
in heaps just where they had
stood, enough of them to make a
breastwork three feet deep ..."
When the battle had ended,
the Confederates had been beat·
en back and Sherman continued
to move his men around the
city. Hood took the offensive
again on July 28, attacking a
portion of the Army of the Tennessee at Ezra Church. The 12th
Wisconsin and two other regiments marched at double quick
time for three miles to reinforce
the Union line.
"The 12th gave a tremendous
yell as they came up and poured
volley after volley into the Rebel ranks that were com i n g
t h r o u g h a cornfield," Edwin
Levings wrote to his family,
"and the Johnnies had to beat a
precipitated retreat. We had the
honor of saving the day."
Hood's men suffered heavy
losses before this "precipitated
retreat," and soon Sherman had
captured all but two railroads
leading into the city. He brought
up a battery of four and one-half
inch rifles and began lobbing
shells into Atlanta. The residents dug caves in railroad embankments for protection.
The 12th went into the
trenches that were now partly
encircling the city and Homer

77

Levings wrote home to inquire
whether the colt he had bought
on furlough was well and to
thank his mother for a package
of tea and canned cherries she
had sent.

Recruits Were Cowards
"I know the cherries were a
present for you and you should
have kept them for yourself.
You must write soon and often,
for I e t t e r s are all we care
about."
Edwin reported that company
A "has a lot of men along the
railroad lines who won't come
to the front until made-perfect
sneaks; and I hate to say that,
but it's the truth. They are most
generally our r e c r u i t s, with
hardly an exception.
"They are horrified with the
idea of bullets.... A few in the
company have never seen a
fight yet and don't intend to if
they can help it.... Don't send
any more of the likes down
here.... Not all our recruits are
such cowards, but one veteran
is worth three recruits.
". . . Homer would like for
you to send him a little pulverized alum, for he thinks he may
be coming down with the ague."
Chauncey Cooke of Buffalo
county had missed the recent
fighting, being ill in a near-by
hospital. But he could see the
sky red over Atlanta from burning b u il d i n g s and feel the
ground shake when the mortars
fired.
Several Wisconsin men were
in positions of authority by now
in Sherman's army. Col. H. C.
Hobart, who would run for governor after the war, had left the
21st regiment to command one
wing of a brigade. Gen. Thomas
H. Ruger, former commander of
the 3rd W i s c o n s i n, was in
charge of a brigade.
Gen. Oliver 0. Howard, a one
armed New Englander brought
south from the Army of the Potomac, was put in command of
McPherson's old army. He liked
to sing hymns with his soldiers
and never drank or swore. Sherman was afraid he wouldn't fit
in very well with the Army of
the Tennessee, but the men
didn't hold his moral standards
against him.

Gen. Hooker Resigned
Gen. Hooker, offended at not
getting the command, resigned
his commission. Sherman let
him go. Capt. Julian Hinkley of
the 3rd Wisconsin suggested
that Sherman was jealous of
Fighting Joe's popularity with
the men.
Hood was down to one railroad by now. On Aug. 25, Sherman sent part of his army to
Jonesboro, 20 miles south of Atlanta, to capture it. Like future
tourists from Wisconsin, the in-

vaders were still following route
41, although it hadn't been constructed yet - the route now
goes through Jonesboro.
The 24th and 32nd Wisconsin
participated in the bitter fighting there. By Sept. 1, the Union
troops held the final railroad.
Even Hood could see there was
only one choice open-abandon
Atlanta or lose his army.
The Confederates headed
north and on Sept. 2, Sherman
marched into the burning city,
with company A of the 22nd
Wisconsin in the lead. In Virginia, when the news reached
him, Gen. Grant ordered a 100
gun salute - first thoughtfully
aiming the cannon at the Confederate defenses at Petersburg.
The 3rd Wisconsin was back
along the Chattahoochie, hoping
to cut off Hood. Capt. Hinkley
was on picket duty there when
the city fell. His first realization that it was being evacuat~d

for a cigar. Once the men were
in Atlanta, the price went down
to 5c for chewing tobacco and
25c a hundred for cigars. This,
Hinkley reported wistfully, was
the only plunder available, as
Sherman declined to allow his
men to pillage occupied houses.
Even the Atlanta mules had
been on half rations, Hinkley
noted, and the countryside had
been grazed over until it was
"as bare as a city street." However, as Sherman took part of
his army north to chase Hood,
the 3rd Wisconsin and other
troops went out foraging. WithTobacco Was Cheap
in two days, Hinkley said, the
Hinkley noted that 80 car- men returned with 500 loaded
loads of ammunition had been wagons.
destroyed, as well as the city's
Hood hoped to cut Sherman's
large rolling mill, "the only supply line, then move into Tenplace in the South where plating nessee, threaten Union bases
for gunboats could be manufac- there and force Sherman to
tured."
abandon Georgia.
There was a sharp little battle
The day before, tobacco had
sold in camp for $1 a plug, 15c with the Union garrison on the

came when he saw what looked
like bright flashes of lightning
from the direction of Atlanta
and realized the powder magazines were being blown up.
The next evening, the regiment entered the city. Hinkley
reported that some Georgians
seemed glad to see the Union
troops. Women brought out
buckets of drinking water for
the Yankees and complained
that Hood's army had "robbed
them of everything they could
carry off."

railroad line at Allatoona, Ga
Pvt. James E. Croft of Janesvill
replaced a dead gunner in th
12th Wisconsin battery an
fired his cannon so bravely h
won a medal of honor.
Sherman soon quit worryin
about his supply line. Wit
Georgia in his grasp, he didn
need one. He sent Gens. Georg
H. Thomas and John M. Scht
field to deal with Hood and wer
ahead with plans for a proje<
which, he felt, might finally en
the war.
"All men are ordered to tak
along an extra pair of shoes an
sufficient clothing to last tw
months," Ed Levings w rot
home. "Yes, the South is abm.:
to be hurt-terribly hurt."
Sherman put the predictio
more succinctly.
"I can make this march," h
wired Grant, "and make Geo1
gia howl!"

Hood "Was Beaten but Didn't Quit
Chapter XXXI

A

PICKUP army under Gen. heels. There was no choice but
John Schofield, that includ- to fight.
ed the 24th Wisconsin, whipped
Gen. Nathan Bedford Fora force nearly twice its size at rest's cavalry came galloping in.
the battle of Franklin in Tennes- Union artillery wheeled into line
see. There were 22,000 Yankees and, with help from the infanagainst 40,000 Rebels who had try, drove the horsemen back
retreated from burning Atlanta. with considerable slaughter.
The Yankees had the advantage of makeshift entrench- Ready lor Confederates
ments. Franklin was one more
Then the Union soldiers put
demonstration, in a long series
down their rifles, picked up
t h at included Fredericksburg their shovels and resumed digand Gettysburg, that bravery ging. They'd had plenty of pracwas not necessarily enough.
tice. These were veterans of
Gen. John B. Hood was lead- Sherman's Atlanta campaign
ing the Confederates. As was and Sherman was a great one
his custom, he was planning to for digging trenches.
attack. He was moving toward
"It seemed to us that beNashville, where Gen. George tween our army and the ConfedThomas, the Union defensive erates, there had been enough
specialist, was preparing towel- dirt dug from Louisville to Atcome him.
lanta to have built all the railMeanwhile, Schofield went roads in the United States," one
out to keep an eye on Hood and 3rd Wisconsin veteran said aftthe two armies bumped into er the war.
each other along the Duck river.
Now, with the Confederates
Schofield was in a trap. Hood approaching, there were no comlet him get away. The Union plaints about the order to dig.
soldiers moved back toward the By the time Hood's army arcomforting fortifications Thom- rived, Schofield's men were
as had prepared at Nashville.
ready for him.
But when they reached the
Forrest looked the situation
Harpeth river, near Franklin, over and counseled against an
they found the only bridge had assault. He advised crossing the
been burned. Hood was on their river elsewhere and moving on

78

Thomas before Schofield's army
could join him.
But Hood had no patience
with such maneuvering. He ordered an immediate attack,
without even waiting for his artillery to arrive.
He massed 18,000 infantrymen-more than had joined Pickett's similar charge at Gettysburg- and sent them straight
toward the Union fieldworks.
To get there, the Confederates
had to cross half a mile of open
fields.
The massed troops, fa d e d
banners held high, were a perfect target. Union artillery
opened with solid shot and canister. Many of Hood's men died.
The others kept coming.
From their h a s t i 1y built
trenches, pits and breastworks,
the Union riflemen took aim,
making the shots count. But
Hood kept his men advancing.
For a few desperate moments it
seemed that the attack might
succeed.
Some of the Confederates got
close enough to fight with
clubbed muskets. The center of
the Union line gave way.
The 24th Wisconsin was in
reserve, snatching a chance to
cook lunch. Lt. Col. Arthur
MacArthur, jr., in command,
waved his sword and shouted
an order. His men dropped their

coffee cups, grabbed their rifle
and moved forward to mend th
break. Ohio and Kentucky reg
ments joined them.

Swung Their Muskets
The fighting was hand t·
hand, with no chance to loa'
and fire the long rifles. Bayonet
were used, but mostly the me
on both sides swung their mm
kets like clubs, smashing ther
down on any convenient skul
Sgt. Felix McSorley and Pv1
Thomas Toohey of Milwauke{
noting t h a t artillerymen ha'
fled from a near-by battery, raJ
over to lend a hand, helpin,
bring the cannon to bear on th
attackers. Toohey was l a t e
awarded a congressional meda
of honor.
In the trenches, young Ma<
Arthur was yelling: "Give 'en
hell, 24th!" He was soon ser:
ously wounded and Maj. Alval
Philbrook took command. Whe1
the major was killed, Capt. E
R. Parsons led the regiment a
it helped drive the Confederate
back.
Some of Hood's men gave UI
The others stumbled back acros
the open ground while the Unio1
army shot at them. It was al
over. The Federals had 2,00
casualties. Hood's army ha1
lost 6,000 men, including fiv
generals.

Among them was Gen. Pat
Cleburne, who had proposed
earlier in the year that the South
free any slave who would agree
to fight-a suggestion his superiors considered in shocking bad
taste.
Thomas H. Ruger, a West
Pointer who had been a Janesville lawyer before he joined the
3rd Wisconsin in 1861 as a lieutenant colonel, was a brigadier
general now and in command
of a division of Schofield's army.
For his part in the Tennessee
fighting, Ruger was given the
brevet (honorary) rank of major
general.

Rebels Were Outnumbered
Hood was b e a t e n, but he
knew only one way to fight a
war, and that was to keep moving forward. He .'\dvanced north
to a ridge near Nashville, where
Gen. Thomas was patiently waiting for him. Hood made threatening gestures, acting as though
he had the city besieged, but
Thomas knew better.
The Union general had four
men to Hood's three. His soldiers were well armed and well
fed. The Confederates were
ragged and hungry. Thomas
would have liked nothing better

than to have Hood attack. But
after Franklin, the Southerners
were in no mood for another
assault against entrenchments.
And so, if a battle was to be
fought here, the opposing generals had to ::hange their styles,
with Tho m a s attacking and
Hood defending. Thomas was
willing, but he was not a man
to hurry.
Back in Virginia, Ulysses S.
Grant began to fret. From that
distance, it looked as though
Hood had the larger Union army
immobilized and might be able
to push east and relieve Lee, or
perhaps move into the Shenandoah valley and join the remnants of Jubal Early's force.
Thomas waited so Ion g to
move - hampered by a sleet
storm that forced postponement
of his plans - that Grant sent
Black Jack Logan to take command. But before Gen. Logan
got there, Thomas had his army
on the march against the Confederates, strung out in a thin
line along the hills.
The "Milwaukee regiment,"
the 24th, had returned with Gen.
Schofield to Nashville. It went
back into action. So did three
other capable units from Wisconsin, the 8th, 14th and 33rd.
The 8th was minus its eagle

now. Old Abe didn't re-enlist
when his three years was up, but
went back to Madison with the
discharged veterans.

State Troops in Reserve
A couple of new regiments
from Wisconsin, the 44th and
45th infantry, were kept in reserve. The 45th was composed
mainly of Ge::-mans Only portions of these two units had been
mustered in as yet-it was get·
ting more and more difficult to
find recruits.
The 43rd infantry, formed the
previous summer u n d e r Col.
Amasa (Honest) Cobb, was supposed to report to Gen. Thomas,
but found itself cut off from
Nashville. So it detoured to
guard a railroad and spent the
rest of the war "awing the guerrillas of the country."
Cobb, who had been elected
to congress after his early days
with the 5th Wisconsin, presided over the destruction of sev·
eral million dollars' worth of
federal property at Johnsonville, Tenn., which was burnedunnecessarily, some said- to
keep it out of Confederate
hands.
When Thomas finally made
his move a g a i n s t Hood, the

fighting went on for two days.
On the first, part of the Confederate defense line was captured.
On the second, Thomas came
methodically back and finished
the job.
The Rebels had the initial advantage of prepared positions
this time and the Union lost
more dead and wounded. But
about 4,500 of the Confederate
soldiers- hungry, outnumbered
and bone weary of war-threw
down their weapons and sur·
rendered.
The 8th Wisconsin, back from
adventures in Arkansas and Mis·
souri, captured 400. The 14th,
which had been chasing guerrillas in Missouri, bagged its share.
The 33rd claimed 258 captivesand some of them, its men noted
with satisfaction, surrendered
with loaded rifles.
"Hood's army did some very
poor fighting in this battle, and
some good running after it," Edgar P. Houghton of Alma, Wis.,
remarked afterward.

Carbines Were Effective
Another member of the 14th
Wisconsin, George R. King,
joined the regiment the night
before the battle. He was 15
years old and full of enthusiasm.

-State Historical Society

One of the regiments organized in the last 10 months of
the war was the 43rd Wisconsin. It and the 44th Wisconsin were the last two state units organized which fired
their rifles in any recognized engagements with Rebel

forces. The 43rd, whose officers are shown above, was led
by Col. Amasa Cobb (standing, fourth from left) who had
seen service in the earliest days of the war. He was called
"Honest" Cobb because he had rebuffed political bribes.

79

When the regiment charged
across a field to a stone wall,
most of the Confederates ran.
But one of them stood up and
shouted that he surrendered.
King brought up his rifle and
was about to shoot the man
when a sergeant intervened. The
boy was disappointed.
"How are you going to put
down the rebellion," he demand·
ed, "if you don't kill off the
Rebels?"
Hood's men never really had
a chance once Thomas made his
move. To add to their troubles,
dismounted Union cavalrymen,
attacking from the flank, were
armed with repeating Spencer
carbines. This new weapon enabled the horsemen to fire seven shots to their foe's one.
Southerners said bitterly that
the carbines were "loaded on
Sunday and fired all week."
Thomas was known to his
men as "Old Slow Trot" because
of the customary gait of his
horse. But for once he was excited. He came galloping up to
Gen. James H. Wilson, his cav-

alry commander, whooping in
glee.
"Dang it to hell, Wilson," he
yelled, "didn't I tell you we
could lick 'em?"
Gen. Logan had got as far as
Louisville on his trip to succeed
Thomas. He put his orders in his
pocket and headed back to
Washington. Grant, who had
started west to see to the situation personally, sent Thomas a
congratulatory wire and returned to Petersburg, where Lee
was still holding out.

plenty of men ready to make
them.
Cotton speculation was the
fashion. Many of the soldiers
themselves were mixed up in it,
but some tried to stop the trading between northern and the
southern cotton growers.
Col. Charles R. Gill of the
29th Wisconsin, while commanding the regiment n e a r
Helena, Ark., took strict measures to prevent cotton trading.
Soon the colonel found himself
under arrest.

Speculators Made Hay

Later Was Set Free

Lee's army was the only large
force the South had left. Hood's
veterans of the Atlanta campaign were no longer an effective factor in the war. There
were minor centers of potential
resistance elsewhere, but except
in Virginia there was no force
strong enough to prevent a
Union army from going where it
pleased.
With large sections of the
South in Union hands, the way
was open for northern opportunists and speculators. There
were profits to be made, and

The accusation was that he
had failed to discover who had
set an incendiary fire. But his
friends were certain the colonel's unwillingness to go along
with the cotton speculators was
at the root of the matter.
No formal charges were made,
and after three days Col. Gill
was set free. But his order forbidding trading in cotton was
countermanded by higher authority.
Three members of the 2nd
Wisconsin cavalry were similarly disillusioned in Mississippi.

Edward S. Minor, Joseph
Cooper and Truman Mcintyre
spotted a handsome carriage
and spurred their horses in pursuit. The carriage driver
whipped up his horses but after
three m i l e s the cavalrymen
caught up.
The driver Jled. Inside the carriage was a man named Goper,
a former Confederate officer
turned cotton speculator. On the
way back to base, Goper took
Minor aside and offered him
$5,000 to turn him free.
That was 30 years' pay for a
private and must have been a
temptation. But Minor refused
the bribe. He turned Goper in
to the provost marshal, feeling
a trifle regretful at missing an
opportunity to get rich, but satisfied he'd done the honorable
thing.
The next day Minor met
Goper, who had been turned
loose.
"I don't have as much money
as I had yesterday," Goper told
him, "but I'm a free man. You
might as well have had the
money as anyone else."

Lincoln Supported by Prisoners
Confederates Had Hoped That Suffering Captives at Andersonville
Would Help End the War by Backing McClellan
Chapter XXXII
hospital for prisoners at
T HE
Andersonville, Ga., was full
of Northern men who expected
to die. There were 1,200 soldiers there in the fall of 1864.
Near by, in the stockade,
thousands of other prisoners
were living under conditions
that made death from malnutrition or disease commonplace.
But most of the men in the hospital, although better cared for,
were so far gone that few had
any hope of returning home.
The talk in the South as well
as the North that fall was of
the coming election. If Abraham
Lincoln was re-elected, the war
would be continued as before.
If George McClellan won, there
might be a change. The Confederates decided to take a straw

. .
vote among the hospttahzed
prisoners.
It .was something to relieve
the monotony. McClellan and
Lincoln b a c k e r s among the
prisoners were allowed to make
stump speeches in support of
their candidate. The former had
an argument likely to appeal to
the prisoners-if McClellan won,
a negotiated peace might be
made.
To the guards, it seemed certain that Lincoln would lose, at
least at Andersonville. The vote
was taken. Men closer to death
than to life raised emaciated
arms to indicate their preference.
John E. Warren of Wauwatosa, who survived six months

80

at Andersonville, was one of out of service and so votes for
those who voted. He told later Mac."
of the results.
Richard M. Perry of the 14th
Wisconsin wrote his brother,
Voted lor Lincoln
Samuel, in Wolf River that his
company
gave Lincoln 40 votes.
"No more telling blow was
ever given the tottering Confed- McClellan got only two, and "I
eracy or a greater honor ever am sorry to think a soldier
conferred on President Lincoln," would vote for him."
The capture of Atlanta was
he wrote, "than the clear majority of 400 votes out of those the victory Lincoln had needed
cast by 1,200 worn out, starved to assure his re-election. The
and rotting men in Anderson- president lost Milwaukee, but
he carried Wisconsin. His vicville hospital."
The prisoners' votes didn't tory m e a n t the North had
count, but those cast by Wiscon- chosen to continue the war; it
sin troops in the field did. The removed the last forlorn hope
3rd Wisconsin gave Lincoln 304 of the Confederacy.
Sherman, before Atlanta fell,
votes to 21 for McClellan. The
12th Wisconsin cast 429 for Lin- had sent cavalrymen on a raid
toward the Andersonville stockcoln, 70 for the Democrat.
"Any soldier who votes for ade, hoping to free the prisonMcClellan," Edwin Levings of ers. But the horse soldiers had
the 12th wrote home to River been captured.
In the stockade, prisoners
Falls, "is looked upon by his
comrades as an ignoramus or a lived like animals, killing for
coward, for he just wants to get a scrap of food. Finally condi-

tions got so bad that the guards
permitted the captives to form
their own courts and enforce
rudimentary rules of conduct.

PrisoneTs Found Guilty
Six leaders of the strong-arm
squads which had preyed on
their fellow prisoners were sentenced to death. Cotton ropes
were used for the hangings. The
ropes stretched, but five of the
men died.
The sixth, nicknamed Mosby
for the Confederate guerrilla
leader, fell to the ground when
his rope broke. A fine point of
law was then argued: Can a
man be hanged twice for the
same crime.
Mosby took the negative side.
But the hangman, Limber Jim,
upheld the view that a man was
not hanged until he was dead.
Besides, Jim pointed out, Mosby had stolen $176 from him.
The hangman's argument was
reinforced by the rope. This
time, Mosby stayed hanged.
Warren, who reported the in·
cident, was one of hundreds of
Wisconsin soldiers who spent
part of the war in Confederate
prisons. Another Wisconsin survivor of Andersonville remembered a conversation he overheard between two prisoners
who were close f r i e n d s and
shared a makeshift tent.
The night was b e a uti f u I.
There was a full moon. One of
the men turned to his companion.
"Stephen," he said. "Stephen,
I am going to die."
"Dry up, I want to sleep."
"Stephen, I am going to die."
"Die then, damn it," Stephen
advised him.
By morning, the man was
dead. Within a day or two, so
was Stephen.
Jasper Culver of Sheboygan
Falls, captured at Chickamauga,
was sent to Andersonville after
spending time in Belle Isle, Libby and Danville prisons.
At Danville, he contracted
smallpox, but recovered and es·
caped. He was making his way
north through the Blue Ridge
mountains when a Virginia
woman tipped off Confederate
soldiers.

Kellogg to ask what he was do·
ing so far from the Potomac. He
had been captured May 5 in
the Wilderness, he explaint>d,
and put on a train for Charles·
ton, S.C.
He jumped off and started
back north. With the help of 16
bloodhounds-the captain care·
fully counted them-the Confederates recaptured him. He spent
some weeks in Charleston, then
was sent to w a r d Columbia,
S. C., where other Union officers were imprisoned.
On the way, Kellogg escaped
again. He told the men he had
traveled 350 miles through Rebel territory, looking for Sherman. He rested briefly in Georgia, then went to Madison
where he picked up several hundred draftees and a colonel's

Not until World War II would
commission before rejoining his
civilians share as fully in the
regiment at Petersburg.
hardships of war. Sherman had
no bombers in 1864, but his 60,New Kind of War
Kellogg was put in command 000 men were capable of doing
of the 6th. He later became com- just as thorough a job of devasmander of the brigade and ac- tation.
quired the brevet rank of brigaOf the 218 regiments with
dier general. His successor as Sherman, all but 33 were from
colonel of the 6th was Thomas states west of Pennsylvania.
Kerr, a Milwaukee carpenter Ohio had the most with 52, folwho'd started the war as a pri- lowed by Illinois with 50, Indivate in the regiment's Irish com- ana with 27 and Iowa with 15.
pany, the Montgomery Guards. Wisconsin came next, with repAfter Atlanta's fall, Sherman resentatives of 13 regiments,
began preparations for a new counting the remnants of the
kind of war. With a similar cam- 1st Wisconsin, now consolidatpaign in the Shenandoah by Phil
Sheridan, it would bring the con- ed with the 21st infantry.
There was the 3rd Wisconsin,
flict home to the Southern civilians. It would snuff out any the second three-yea: regiment
flickering chance that the Con- to be mustered in from the state.
federacy might recover from its It h a d fought at Antietam,
Chancellorsville and Gettysburg
armies' defeats.

He Escaped Again
Recaptured, he was sent to
Andersonville. He e s c a p e d
again and made his way to Sherman's army near Atlanta.
Other fugitives came into the
Federal camps in Georgia. On<!
of them identified himself as
J o h n A. Kellogg of Mauston,
former district attorney of Juneau county and a captain in
the 6th Wisconsin of the Iron
brigade.
The 6th infantry was in Virginia. Soldiers clustered around

-State Historical Society

A couple of Madison officers escaped from
a Confederate prison in Columbia, S. C.,
in 1864. By the time they reached their

81

own lines, their clothing indicated the
problems they had overcome. The men
were Lts. A. T. Lamson (left) and E. E. Sill.

before being sent to Georgia to
join the Atlanta campaign.

State Artillery Helped

discipline as was absolutely necessary.
Stringing a private up by his
thumbs to teach him a little respect might be all right in the
A r m y of the Potomac, b u t
among the western soldiers such
disciplinary methods were considered undemocratic.
Sherman h i m s e I f was a
shrewd, irascible horseback philosopher. "To be killed on the
field of battle and have our
names spelled wrong in the
newspapers" was his definition
of fame. The experts differ on
his ranking a:· a general, but in
the statistical batting averages
Sherman does pretty well.
He had 62 casualties per
1,000 of his men in an average
battle, compared with 113 for
Grant, 149 for Lee and a resounding 154 for that head
down battler, John B. Hood,
who had once bet $2,500 in an
army poker game without even
a pair of deuces in his hand.

The 12th, whose men traveled
3,838 miles on foot before the
war was over, was along. So
was one company of the 14th
and a detachment of rookies
from the 18th. The 16th, which
had first fought at Shiloh, was
with Sherman, as was the Irish
regiment, the 17th, which had
just missed that first big battle
in the west.
The 21st, 22nd, 25th, 26th,
31st and 32nd Wisconsin joined
the march. Technically, the 1st
Wisconsin no longer existed,
only 15 of its veterans having
re-enlisted. But these 15, plus
353 of the regiment's recruits
and draftees, went along as part
of the 21st regiment.
There were also four batteries
of light artillery from Wisconsin
-the 1st, 5th, lOth and 12th. All
had served in the central and
western theaters of war from
the early days.
Atlanta Was Wrecked
It was an informal sort of
The march across Georgia
army. The enlisted men paid
only as much heed to military was Sherman's own idea. Grant

was not e n t h u s i a s t i c. He
thought it would be better to
load the Army of the Tennessee
on ships or trains and bring it
around to help deal with Lee.
But Sherman w.:>'1 the argument
and in mid-·lovember of 1864,
with the outcome of Hood's
campaign against Thomas still
in doubt, he led his 218 regiments away from Atlanta, cutting them off from a~l communication with th~ North. Even
President Lincoln didn't know
exactly where they were.
"I know the hole he went in
at," he told a vil..itor at the
White House, "but I can't tell
you what hole hf will come
0ut of."
Before the army left Atlanta,
the soldiers went well beyond
Sherman's orders and thoroughly wrecked the place.
"There is no rr.ore Atlanta,"
Richard P e r r y of the 14th
Wisconsin wrote. "We b\lrned
it to ashes before we left. The
night before we left, four miles
from the city you could see to

pick up a pin from the ground,
there was such a light from the
burning."
Before the o!"der came to
march east, the paymasters distributed greenbacks to t h e
troops. Then came the order to
fall :n. It was a day, Pvt. Edwin
Levings of the 12th Wisconsin
wrote, that none of Sherman's
soldiers would ever forget-"a
grand breaking up, like the ice
in early spring."
"At 12 noon, orders came to
fall in and a buzzing noise is
heard througho~t camp. What
now? Well, no matter! 'fall in'
is the order.
"Then comes the rattle of
cups, plates and spoons, some
cursing expelled when men
burn their mouths in their haste
to drink their hot coffee. Rations are hurriedly devoured or
thrown away. All sorts of
noises intermingled in the air.
... Some laugh, some are cross,
some sing.
"Who wouldn't be a soldier!"

Homes of Wealthy Rebels Burned
Chapter XXXIII
"NOW get a good war map
and follow me if you can,"
Pvt. Edwin Levings of the 12th
Wisconsin advised his family
at River Falls in a letter dated
Dec. 18, 1864, from Savannah,
Ga. He had just finished making the march from Atlanta to
the sea.
"We left the 'Gate City' in
flames on the 15th (of November) and arrived before Savannah on the lOth of December.
The army, composed of four
corps-11th, 15th, 17th and 20th
-marched in two columns.
"The 17th struck the railroad
at Gordon, between Macon and
Milledgeville, and continued 170
miles to Savannah. We passed
through every town on the railroad between these two points.
We burned nearly all the stations, tore up and burned all
the track to Savannah.
"The road can never be rebuilt during the war. The destruction was immense. I have
not even mentioned what the

other corps accomplished. The
15th, on our right, made a feint
on Macon. The 14th and 20th
went to Milledgeville.
"Kilpatrick and his cavalry
made a feint movement on Augusta, whipping old Wheeler
handsomely. We did not encounter even a skirmish. We
lived almost entirely off the
country, with only 12 days rations of hardtack issued to us
during the entire march.
"We lived well enough and
did not leave much behind . . .
and many a wealthy old Rebel
have we ruined-taking away
everything. Thousands of Negroes came with us and are
now being turned to a valuable
account.

Thousands ol Fires
" ... (After leaving Atlanta)
we are soon marching up the
railroad to Marietta to begin
the work of destroying the track
and depot buildings. The regiments are strung along at equal
distances and soon the rails are

82

loosened, the ties and fencings
piled up and set afire. The rails
are then heated and bent around
a post or tree.
"After our work is completed
we sit down and cook supper.
It was a magnificent sight to see
those thousand fires along the
track. The military academy
S h e r m an used to attend in
flames, and the depot buildings
and public houses meeting the
same fate.
"Simultaneously, the destruction went on from Kingston to
Atlanta. Only then did we begin to consider the boldness of
the acts, for we were severing
our communications - cutting
loose from our sources of supply and heading for our next
base hundreds of miles away.
" ... The morning the march
began, our course was southwest. A good many men were
filled with the whisky and toddled along much to the amusement of the sober, but it was
their last spree and they would
have their fun.
"The road was good most of
the way, but the country, overrun by our foragers, afforded

little subsistence. After marching 12 miles, we camped. We
managed to procure a yearling
heifer so we had meat that
night.
" ... The (wagon) trains and
batteries kept on the roads and
the infantry marched through
the woods and fields. There was
considerable cannonading to our
right, but no real fighting. A
permanent detail had been made
to forage provisions f o r t h e
troops so we were well supplied
with flour, molasses, meal, pork,
potato e s, etc., while on the
march.

Rainy Weather Began
"Thus we continued on, the
country becoming more level
and richer, and the roads better
until we arrived at the Ocmulgee Mills on the third or fourth
day out. We crossed the river
of the same name on pontoons.
"Rainy weather set in and for
the next three days the roads
were awful. Once or twice we
did not get into camp until midnight. On the 22nd, we struck
the railroad junction at Gordon.
I was on picket here.

"The weather was extremely
cold-ice formed half an inch in
thickness and the next day I
and the other pickets were not
relieved until after dark, after
all the troops had left, so thinking the opportunity a good one,
we stole away and took the railroad track, r a t h e r than the
woods, for seven miles only to
learn that the troops had halted
after traveling just one mile because the roads were so bad.
"We were fortunate to get
some cooking utensils, molasses,
flour, meal, meat, potatoes and
oh, yes! some butter and fresh
biscuits donated by a good old
mammy. What do you think of
that?
"We were detailed for rear
guard and had charge of a lot
of mules and horses that were
to be brought along to be turned
in at brigade headquarters.
Homer (Edwin's brother) had a
horse, but I had a mule-an old
slab sided fellow, thought to be
the slowest, but emphatically became the fastest of the lot. He
had regular 'get up' and outdistanced the rest by a long way.

Situation Was Funny
"We took the railroad ard
came upon a trestle work spanning 300 yards of mud and water not less than three feet deep.
Now this was difficult, for it
was necessary to cross through
this. In we go and are all dismounted half way across save
one.
"My steed stuck fast and lay
down. Blankets and bundles
went swimming about and all
got exceedingly wet. I lifted my
load to those crossing t h e
bridge on foot and then set to
work prodding and urging my
Pegasus, finally piloting him
out to terra firma. One fellow
was under his mule and had a
great struggle to get out. In
spite of it, we found the situation to be funny.
"Two days more marching
found us crossing the Oconee
river on pontoons. The marching was easy on us as we did
not march more than 12 to 15
miles per day, with the exception of once or twice when we
marched 20 miles.
"We destroyed r a i I r o a d s
daily. On the 2nd of December,
we arrived at Millen Junction.
From here on, we followed the
railroad track, destroying every
station we came to. The work

of destruction was most complete.
"Foraging was thorough and
we were abundantly supplied
w i t h everything eatable the
co u n try afforded. From the
Ogeechee the country is very
swampy-all fine country, but I
would not care to live in it for
all it contains.
"We burned houses of those
who were discredited-the rich
plantation owners. This movement is a terrible blow to the
Rebels. The railroad system of
Georgia is used up.
"I would like to see South
Carolina literally torn to pieces,
and if this army ever enters that
state it will be...."

Stragglers Joined Looters
Sherman's o b j e c t was to
wreck Georgia's economy and
to demonstrate that "the United
States has the right and also
the physical power to penetrate
to every part of the national
domain." His men were told to
ruin everything within a 60 mile
wide strip of Georgia that might
be of aid to the rebellion.
They took the assignment in
its broadest interpretation. Each
morning, bands of foragers
were sent out. E a c h evening
they came back, wagons full of
food and booty.
They were joined by bands of
armed stragglers - Union a n d
Confederate deserters, a variety
of lawless men drawn by the
chance for loot. These "bummers" were under no real authority and seem to have been
tolerated partly because they
were helping Sherman do the
grim job he had assigned himself.
One of the soldiers later recalled the march as a "grand
picnic." Occasionally, as at a
skirmish near Millegeville, a
few desperate Georgians banded together to try to stop the
pillage, but there was no effective defense.
Wherever the army went,
bands of Negro fugitives followed. Sherman tried to encourage them to go home. But
they kept coming by the thousands, sensing that the destruction of the plantations and railroads was a symptom of a more
significant destruction-the end
of the evil of slavery itself.
Sherman later estimated that
his mt:n destroyed 100 million

83

dollars' worth of property-fourfifths of it representing "simple waste and destruction," the
rest being material needed by
his army.
The Wisconsin troops had
never eaten so well. Gone were
the days of wormy hardtack or
bacon eaten raw because there
was no time to cook it. As Levings' diary indicates, even a private might ride a captured horse
or mule, unless the animal attracted the roving eye of an
officer.

Butchered Their Dinner
Thousands of cattle we r e
driven along with the army.
When the day's allotment was
butchered, only the steaks and
.roasts were worth cooking. The
rest was left for the Negroes,
following along through the
dust, or for the buzzards that
circled overhead.
When it reached Milledgeville, then the state capital, the
3rd Wisconsin confiscated 1,500
cutlasses and 500 lances, symbols of an era ended by the war.
The men were more appreciative of the 1,500 pounds of tobacco they found there.
Some of the soldiers walked
into the capitol building, sat in
the seats of the vanished legislators and passed resolutions
that seemed hilarious at the
time. On another occasion, the
3rd Wisconsin ran into a piece
of good luck when some of its
foragers found a considerable
store of applejack and corn
whisky.
As Sandersonville, the Wisconsin men helped themselves
to food rather liberally. A delegation of Georgians complained
to Sherman, who explained his
philosophy to them:
"Those that make war must
take the consequences."

Rebels Didn't Fight
It was in this vicinity that
the 3rd encountered a small
unit of Confederate cavalry.
Two horsemen w e r e killed.
Capt. Julian Hinkley reported it
took some persuasion to convince the Chippewas in his unit
that it was all right to leave the
Rebels' scalps.
When Sherman's army
reached Savannah, it prepared
to deal with 10,000 Confederate
troops stationed there. But the

outnumbered defenders 1eft
without a battle.
The 3rd then camped in a
beautiful grove of live oak and
pine, festooned with Spanish
moss. The weather was delightful, Hinkley recorded, and the
work light.
The captain was a man who
kept looking for friendly southern faces. It seems doubtful that
Savannah residents were delighted to see the soldiers who
had swarmed across their state
like locusts. But Hinkley reported the citizens "displayed a
sociability t h a t we did not
usually encounter in the south."
Sherman's men seem to have
been favorably impressed by Savannah, and they behaved themselves. The general, in fact,
furnished the mayor with provisions for the destitute.

Headed for Virginia
It was at Savannah that an
Episcopal rector asked the general whether he was required to
pray for the president of the
United States in opening his
s e r v i c e s. Sherman said he
couldn't care less.
"Pray for Jeff Davis or the
devil if you want to-they need
it more than Lincoln."
In their Georgia travels, Wisconsin soldiers encountered residents who urged them to visit
South Carolina next. It was
there the war had started. The
Georgians felt it was simple justice that Carolina residents take
their turn in providing "south·
ern hospitality" for Sherman's
hungry invaders.
The men expected to go next
to Charleston. Sherma.1 preferred that they think so and
hoped the Confederates would
· have the same opinion. His own
plans were somewhat different.
He had no intention of getting
sidetracked on a siege or permitting the Confederate forces, now
being gathered together by his
old antagonist, Gen. Joseph E.
Johnston, to slow h1m down.
As long as he could keep his
army intact, the way was open
to Virginia, where Lee was still
stubbornly holding Grant at bay.
In Washington, Lincoln put
the situation into perspective
for his constituents:
"Grant has the bear by the
hind leg while Sherman takes
off his hide."

Northern Troops Burn Columbia
Chapter XXXIV
''THERE she was, a beautiful
city, wealthy and populous. But in her was passed the
first ordinance of secession and
in her shot and shell had been

molded for the destruction of
the glorious Union, and now she
must be punished.
"The wind blew strongly, the
flames leaped wildly over the

fair city, for the curse of God
was upon her. Thousands of
soldiers thronged the streets
a n d buildings, appropriating
their contents, while citizens
rushed along the pavements in
terror, the women in their fine
dresses of silk, surrounded with
furniture, valuables and their

servants, beseeching us to protect their property.
"But there was no help for
them. In the morning, the sun
shone on a ruined city.... And
so, my dear, we are safe. The
peach and plum blossoms are
out. How is it up there?"
The city was Columbia, S. C.
The writer was Pvt. Edwin Levings of River Falls, Wis. His
letter went to a girl named Louisa, then teaching school at
Maiden Rock, Wis. In a note
to his family, Levings put the
events of Feb. 17, 1865, in plainer language:
"Fire and soldiery had full
swing and vied with each other
in mischief. No stone was left
unturned. . . . It was a high old
time."
When the troops entered the
South Carolina capital, they released 60 Union officers imprisoned there. Then, b e i n g
thirsty, many of the men proceeded to get roaring drunk.
Soldiers assigned to keep the
other men in hand were unable
to cope with them. Maybe they
didn't try very hard.

Columbia Destroyed

The recapture of Fort Sumter, off the port of Charleston, S. C., was almost buried
in the rush of news events of February, 1865. Gen. William T. Sherman's army
was pushing through South Carolina and it was evident that, between his forces
and those of Gen. U. S. Grant, the Confederacy's days were numbered. It was a
thrill to Union sympathizers, nevertheless, to learn that Charleston had been abandoned by Rebel troops and that a force of Union soldiers had entered Fort Sumter
and raised the Stars and Stripes over it once more. A Capt. Bragg brought the flag
into the fort on Feb. 18, and the lithograph above was a popular representation of
-Lithograph by Kimmel and Forster, New York
the scene.

84

"Between them (the 60 released prisoners) and the soldiers and the whisky that was
found, Columbia soon ceased to
exist," Capt. Julian Hinkley of
t he 3rd Wisconsin recorded.
"The only thing that would not
burn was the new statehouse,
said to have been the finest in
the nation, and that was mined
and blown up."
Gen. Sherman always maintained that Columbia was destroyed because "God almighty
sent wind" which carried sparks
from cotton left burning by
retreating Confederate cavalrymen. But it seems plain from
Wisconsin soldiers' letters and
diaries that, if Sherman's boys
didn't start the fire, they made
certain it spread.
Gen. Henry W. Slocum, one
of Sherman's subordinate commanders, blamed the whisky,
adding: "A drunken soldier with
a musket in one hand and a
match in the other is not a
pleasant visitor to have about
the house on a dark, windy
night ...."
The march through Georgia
had been partly a military operation and partly a huge picnic

as far as the Army of the Tennessee vvas concerned. It had
cut a 60 mile vvide svvath of destruction from Atlanta to Savannah, but the hardships imposed on the Georgians vvere
more or less incidental. The soldiers bore them no special
grudge.

Food Was Scarce
In South Carolina, hovvever,
the mood changed. This state
vvas blamed for starting the
vvar. Fort Sumter vvas a symbol
and it vvas in Charleston harbor.
If the shots had not been fired
there nearly four years before,
the soldiers felt they might have
been spared all the marching,
hardship and bloodshed.
Sherman r e c o g n i z e d his
men's mood. "The vvhole army
is burning vvith an insatiable desire to vvreak vengeance on
South Carolina," he vvrote. "I
almost tremble for her fate."
The soldiers' attitude vvasn't
improved by bad vveather, poor
roads and the scarcity of good
food they found on their vvay
north from Savannah. The foragers came back sometimes
vvith nothing but rice, vvhich
vvasn't regarded as food fit for
midvvesterners.
Mile after mile of road had to
be corduroyed - paved after a
fashion vvith logs and branches
so vvagons and mules vvouldn't
sink out of sight. Confederate
cavalry kept sniping avvay at
foragers or stragglers.
"The governor of South Carolina issued a proclamation to
shoot all foragers," Homer Levings vvrote, "so vvhen vve found
one of our foragers killed, vve
took a prisoner out of the corral
and shot him, by order of Gen.
Sherman."
Such casual cruelty had become a habit by novv. The "gentelemen's vvar," if it had ever
existed, vvas gone in a flood of
mutual distrust and bitterness.
Sherman's army had as yet
run into no real resistance but
the absence of a supply line to
the north and the poverty of
the region through vvhich it vvas
passing combined to cause
hardships. H o m e r Levings
vvrote that he vvas more fortunate than most of the men in
the 12th regiment, having gone
barefoot only one day.

pants I have donned since this
campaign started."
An estimated 10% of the 31st
Wisconsin had no shoes. As for
the 3rd Wisconsin, one of its
members said that he and his
companions "looked more like
Falstaff's ragged regiment than
soldiers of the United States."
"We often 1a u g h to think
vvhat our mothers vvould say
could they see us," Edvvin Levings vvrote. "The smoke of the
burning pines and the exposure
to the elements have made us
look black, somevvhat, and you
vvould say vve had not vvashed
for a month."
Edvvin described a camp at
Pocotaligo, S. C. After the brush
and roots had cleared avvay, the
"dog tents" were arranged in
rovvs, each vvith a blazing fire
of resinous pine in front of it.
"When vve eat vve sit or stand
at a rough table of boards or,
Turklike, sit on the ground or
just recline. The dishes may get
vvashed or simply vviped vvith a
piece of paper.... A brght gun
and equipment are the prime
consideration vvith the shoulder
straps (officers) and vve must
have them all right, though vve
look like mudsills."
While the 3rd Wisconsin vvas
camped at G r a h a m Station
along the Charleston & Augusta
railroad, Col. William Havvley
got to arguing vvth Gen. Skicum about hovv to wreck a railroad.

Inspected the Rails

The colonel contended that
the best method was to have
the men grasp the rails and turn
a section of track over, ties and
all. Slocum disagreed. A bet
was made.
Col. Hawley ordered out his
regiment. He lined up his men
along the track.
"Hold," he shouted.
In unison, the men stopped
and grasped the rails.
"Lift!"
"In the hands of tho s e
bravvny men," Capt. Hinkley recorded, "that railroad was a
plaything. It went over so fast
that some of the staff officers
had to step lively to escape the
flying rails and ties."
Sherman, for one, was enjoying this campaign. He had been
impatient during the Savannah
interlude, and wrote later: "We
were all anxious to get into the
Many Had No Shoes
pine woods again, free from the
"I am vvearing a Rebel uni- importunities of Rebel women
form novv that I found in the asking for protection and of the
country. It is the fourth pair of civilians from the north who

85

vvere coming to Savannah for
cotton and all sorts of profit."
He vvas proud of the reputation his men had made. "The
soldiers and p e o p 1 e of the
south entertained an undue fear
of our western men and, like
children, they had invented
such ghostlike stories of our
prowess . . . that they were
scared by their o w n inventions."
Sherman r e c o r d e d in his
memoirs the inquiry of a Negro
who stood by the side of the
road, watching the army pass:
"Is there anybody left up
north?"
The general felt that the destruction his men had caused
was a necessary evil of the war,
helping bring it to an end. Although his soldiers were in enemy territory, able to do just
about as they pleased, they had
seldom taken full advantage of
their power. Sherman reported
with satisfaction that he knew
of only two cases of rape involving his soldiers in all of
1864 and 1865.

Sherman Refused Pact
At one point d uri n g the
march, the Confederate cavalryman, Gen. Joseph Wheeler,
wrote a letter to one of Sherman's generals promising to
stop burning cotton if the Yankees would quit burning houses.
Sherman sent back a brisk note
in reply:
"I hope you will burn all the
cotton and save us the trouble.
We don't want it, and it has
proven a curse to our country.
All you don't burn, I vvill.
"As to private houses, occupied by peaceful families, my
orders are not to molest or disturb them, and I think my orders are being obeyed. Vacant
houses, being of no use to anybody, I care little about, as the
owners have thought them of
no use to themselves. I don't
vvant them destroyed, but do
not take much care to preserve
them."
Sherman had bypassed
Charleston to strike at Columbia. Gen. William J. Hardee,
with the 10,000 men he had
b r o u g h t safely north fro m
Savannah, evacuated Charleston the day the South Carolina
capital was burned, and t h e
United States flag once more
flew over Fort Sumter.
Gen. Joseph E. Johnston,
Sherman's respected opponent
of the Georgia campaign, had
been restored to favor and as-

signed to gather a force to stop
Sherman. Besides H a r dee's
men, Johnston had some of
Lee's veterans, who had made
their way out of the RichmondPetersburg defenses, as well as
remnants of Hood's old army
and regiments from as far
away as Tupelo, Miss.

Johnston Outnumbered
Johnston was outnumbered.
He was counting on the vvinter
weather and flooded roads to
slow Sherman. But the western
soldiers w e r e old hands at
traveling across difficult country. To men accustomed to
winters around Eau Claire or
Milwaukee, the Carolina variety didn't seem so bad.
The midwestern soldiers built
bridges, corduroyed roads,
floundered through swamps and
swollen streams, foraging for
provisions as they went.
Johnston was an enemy, but
he was also a professional soldier. He could not entirely conceal his admiration for the
skills of Sherman's men.
"I made up my mind," he
wrote, "that there had been no
such army in existence since
the days of Julius Caesar."
To add to Johnston's problems, Gen. John M. Schofield,
wearing a long blond beard and
a red undershirt, brought his
army to Wilmington, N. C., by
ship. This was the Confederacy's last seaport and when it
fell to a land-sea operation the
trickle of s u p p 1i e s coming
through the Union naval blockade was cut off.
. Schofield started hi s m e n
from Wilmington to Goldsboro,
N. C., where he planned to join
Sherman. Once the two Union
armies were united, the odds
against Johnston would be still
greater.
As soon as Sherman's men
left South Carolina, the nature
of the expedition c h a n g e d.
North Carolina had entered the
rebellion vvith some reluctance.
U n i o n sentiment there was
stronger than in most other
parts of the south.

Stopped the Destruction
Recognizing t hi s, Sherman
told his men the fun was over.
No more property was to be
burned. Any man disobeying
the order vvould be shot. The
instructions were not always
followed, but most of the uncontrolled destruction was at
an end.

As Schofield's and Sherman's
armies drew closer together,
Johnston desperately tried to
stop them from joining. He sent
a few thousand men under Hardee to do what they could. At
Averasboro, N. C., on Mar. 16,
1865, Sherman's men ran into
their first real battle since leaving Atlanta four months before.
Union cavalry found Hardee
first. They called for help. The
3rd Wisconsin came up and
lost 27 men. The 26th Wisconsin had seven men killed and
10 wounded. Smaller 1o sse s
were suffered by three other
Wisconsin regiments, the 21st,
22nd and 31st.
In all, Sherman had 600 casualties, but the outcome was
never in doubt and Hardee
pulled b a c k. Sherman, overconfident, assumed that the
matter was settled and John~
ston had no more fight left.
He was wrong.
Gen. S 1o c u m, leading the
Union's left wing, ran into trouble at Bentonville. The Confederates attacked. They hoped to
whip half of Sherman's army,
which was spread out over a

40 mile area, before the rest
could arrive.
Sherman was several miles
away, but Slocum's men, after
their initial s u r p r i s e, fought
back capably. The first attack
came mainly against two divisions. One of them was led by
Gen. Harrison C. Hobart, a former Sheboygan lawyer with a
walrus mustache.

Rebels Beaten Back
Lt. Col. Michael Fitch led the
21st Wisconsin into the fighting. Gen. Jefferson C. Davisnot to be confused with the
Confederate Jeff Davis, who
was in Richmond-rode off for
reinforcements.
Davis was famous as the
most talented swearer in the
Union army. He had once killed
a fellow general for making an
insulting remark and was not a
man to be trifled with. He soon
had fresh troops moving against
the Confederate flank on a dead
run.
The Rebels were beaten back.
They tried again in the late
afternoon. The 3rd Wisconsin
came up to join the fray. The

12th, 16th, 22nd and 26th regiments were in the neighborhood and took minor roles in
the fighting, which was resumed the next day before the
Confederates were driven off
for good.
Two other Wisconsin units
saw considerable action in this
final battle of the war for the
western army. The 31st, initially thrown into confused retreat, rallied. A small cannon
had been left behind. Pvt. Peter
Anderson, of Darlington, then
18 years old, ran out between
the two armies and dragged the
fieldpiece back to the Federal
lines, winning himself some
hearty cheers and a congressional medal of honor.
The 31st made a stand behind a rail fence, fighting off
five Confederate charges at a
cost of 12 killed and 40 wounded. Its colonel, Francis H. West,
took command of several regiments in the neighborhood
when their officers were killed.
He was later given the honorary rank of brigadier general
for his initiative.
The 32nd, recruited in Wisconsin's sparse 1y populated

north country, saw little action
the first day. But when reinforcements arrived and the
Union troops counterattacked,
the regiment advanced through
a swamp and captured a portion of t h e Confederate entrenchments.
Johnston was driven off.
Sherman joined Schofield, thus
adding 20,000 men to his army.
As far as Sherman was concerned, the war was all but
over. Everyone seemed to know
it except Robert E. Lee.
In Sherman's opinion, Lee
had made a mistake in concentrating on a defense of Virginia
while the rest of the Confederacy was falling into Union hands.
He was, Sherman said, like a
man who "stood at the front
porch battling with the flames
whilst the kitchen and house
were burning."
But mistake or no, Lee was
still holding fast to Richmond
and Petersburg, Johnston's
army, though beaten, was intact. If the two Confederate
forces c o u 1d unite, the war
might be dragged out a few
months more.

Wisconsin Speculators Went South
coin especially was aware of the
ugly forces the war had turned
loose in North and South. He had
acle this was the year war would
been renominated with some rebe won. It was necessary to think
luctance-one wing of his party
about what would happen next.
feared he would not approve of
Lincoln, Grant and Sherman revenge once victory was won.
were all western men, as the
term was then understood; midwesterners they would be called Butler Eased Out
Ben Butler, the cross eyed exnow. They were closer to the
frontier and to the rude justice Democrat from Massachusetts,
of the small towns than to the would have suited these Republicans better and Grant had been
eastern cities.
They had a rural attitude to- forced to keep Gen. Butler in comward the proper conduct of mand of the Army of the James,
a fight: If a neighbor starts a despite his monumental incompefracas, you whip him if you can, tence, so Butler could not devote
stomp on him if you must, but all his time to politicking.
once he gives up, you help him
Butler was what later generato his feet and consider the mat- tions would have called an operater settled
tor, willing to swing with the tide.
Despite their differences they Now that Lincoln was safely rewere agreed on this. But many elected, the general had been
powerful men felt otherwise. Lin- eased out. But the danger that

Chapter XXXV
It had been nearly four years
since the Civil war began. More
than half a million men were dead
of the three million who had worn
a Union or Confederate uniform.
Portions of the South were devastated.
At City Point, the Union supply
base near Petersburg, Va. Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant and
William T. Sherman met in March
of 1865 to discuss the future. The
immediate problems were miltary- Robert E. Lee had 50,000
veterans behind· seemingly impregnable fortifications; Joseph
Johnston's army still existed in
North Carolina.
But the president and his two
generals had other things on their
minds as well. Unless the Confederacy could accomplish a mir-

86

the philosophy he representd
would win control of the peace
remained.
Some who were paying Lincoln
lip service in public were working
feverishly against him behind the
scenes. They were waiting impatiently for the moment when
they could hang Rebels, punish
the Southern states and cash inquite literally- on the victory.
After the three men had talked, Sherman went back to North
Carolina, G r a n t resumed the
spring campaign against Petersburgh and Lincoln waited anxiously at City Point to see what the
next few days would bring.
The four years just past had
caused more profound and lasting
changes in the nation than any
other period of its history. The
conflict had not only changed a
way of life in the South, but in the

North as well. Wisconsin had
shared in these changes.
Some of them were economic.
During the early years of the war
there had been hard times, with
corn selling for 10c a bushel and
unemployed walking Milwaukee's
streets. But by the spring of 1865,
most civilians were prosperousa notable exception being the families of men away with the armies.

Farmers Cashed··ln
The price of wool had quadrupled because of the cotton shortage and by 1865 there were 1,260,
000 sheep in Wisconsin, four times
as many as in 1860. In the east, the
hop louse had cut the supply of
hops just when beer was becoming
increasingly popular, thanks partly to the wartime tax on whiskey.
Wisconsin farmers cashed in on
the higher prices and in Sauk county alone hops production reached
the rate of 500,000 pounds a year.
Milwaukee breweries increased
their production from 36,000 barrels in 1860 to 59,000 in 1865. There
had been no cheese factories in
the state when the war began. The
price of cheese had soared, so now
there were 30.
Tobacco raising became more
than a side line with some of the
state's farmers, with supplies from
the South cut off. Wisconsin residents invested heavily in oil
stocks, anticipating a petroleum
boom in their state like the one
in Pennsylvania.
Wages had climbed to what was
considered the ridiculously high
figure of $2 a day. But prices went
up faster and workmen banded together in primitive unions. Milwaukee was changing from a trading port to a manufacturing city,
thanks in part to the war.
With more jobs available than
men to fill them, women began to
move out of their kitchens. Woodenware, shingle and match factories of the Fox river valley hired
them. So did stores, formerly staffed by male clerks. Women would
work a 60 hour week for $3.
Milwaukee's population climbed
by nearly 25 per cent during the
war, passing the 55,000 mark.
The lumber towns in the north
were booming. Despite the war,
the nation's westward movement
continued and Wisconsin got its
share of immigrants. Its 868,000
population in 1865 was nearly
100,000 greater than the 1860 figure, even though some former
Wisconsin residents had moved
farther west.
In 1863, the federal governr:pent
began giving away 160 acre
homesteads to settlers, including
discharged veterans. By the end
of the war it had disposed of
350,000 acres in Wisconsin, mostly
in the northwestern part of the
state. A few of the homesteaders
were women widowed by the
war, who bundled their children
and possessions into a wagon and

set out to make a hard living on
the frontier.

Soldiers' Families Suffered
Wheat remained the principal
Wisconsin farm product, although
in 1864 chinch bugs nearly ruined
the crop and caused the price to
climb to $2.26 a bushel. During
the war, the state's farms produced nearly 100 million bushels
of wheat despite the absence of
farn1ers who were fighting Confederates.
Some soldiers' families were
having a hard time to keep from
starving amid all this plenty military paymasters came only
now and then, family allotments
were uncertain and most wealthy
citizens who had promised to
look after volunteers' dependents
in the naive days of 1861 had
long since tired of the obligation.
On the other hand, it is recorded that in 1864 there were
83 Milwaukeeans with an annual
income of $10,000 or more roughly equivalent to $100,000 today, everything considered. The
list was led by John Plankinton,
who acquired the impressive sum
of $104,100 that year, largely
throug!1 speculations in wool.
Alexander Mitchell was doing
well, too. He was not yet the
"railway king of the world," as
he was called in 1870 when he
was president of both the Milwaukee and North Western roads,
but he was getting there.
The most profound changes in
Wisconsin and the nation were
not economic, however. The country had entered the war as a
brash adolescent. Now, like the
young men who had signed up
in the backwoods meeting halls,
it had acquired maturity, disillusionment and a core of cynicism.
Some of the things it had learned about itself were encouraging
- its ability to survive the crisis
had been the ultimate test. But
Americans had also seen demonstrated how thin was the veneer
on some of the institutions they
had taken for granted.

Class Bitterness Grew
The bitterness between classes and sections had deepened.
Many of the most promising
young men - poten~ial ancestors
of future generations, potential
builders of the country -- w e r e
dead·
The old individualism of the
frontier had often degenerated into a pious selfishness. It sometimes seemed every man was
out to grab what he could, then
make patriotic speeches about it
afterwards. The soldiers themselves were infected by the new
cynicism.
"There is not a soldier that I
have talked with yet but what

says they are tired of this war,"
Henry D. Barnes of the 28th Wisconsin wrote home from Helena.
Ark. "They all think it is a v. ar
of speculation and not a war to
suppress the rebellion.
"I was talking with one who
said that the soldiers ue getting
so here that they'd just as ieave
be taken prisoners as not, for
then they can get paroled and
sent home.
"Says he: 'Did your regiment
come down here to fight? Whv,
fighting is all played out with us.
All we do or have done all summer is to gather cotton ' "
Barnes recorded in August,
1864, that of 78 recruits whc
came to the regiment the previous spring, 38 were dead. The
enemy being encountered by the
28th just then was disease, which
struck down recruits or veterans
alike.
In sectors where there was
fighting, old soldiers were disgusted at the quality of the nE:wcomers. The recruits sometimes
had to be driven to the battlefield at bayonet point.

Civilians Lined Pockets
Numerous civilians were lining
their pockets, taking advantage
of the national tragedy. With
siaves being freed and their owners away or dead, there was a
vacuum in the Southern economy.
Wisconsin residents among many
others, were eager to fill it.
Hundreds of them went South,
fcllowing the armies, trading in
captured cotton or in some cases
obtaining possession of the plantations and trying to grow it
themselves. Most of the Wisconsin cotton kings soon went broke-the guerrillas and bushwhackers
tormented them and hands to pick
cotton were scarce; besides,
many Union officers were mixed
up in cotton trading and they
didn't welcome civilian competition.
A few civilians persisted, however, including John S. Harris of
Milwaukee. By 1865, he controlled
the three largest cotton plantations in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, and went on to become a
Louisiana senator.
Other Wisconsin men followed
the Union armies through the
South. One opened a bank in Atlanta. Byron Kilbourn, who knew
something about land development from his early Milwaukee
days, acquired large amounts
around the St. John's river in
Florida.
Some went into Reconstruction
politics after the war - Harrison
.Reed, a former Milwaukee newspaperman, for example, beca.Me
Florida's governor in 1868 His
lieutenant governor, William H.
Gleason, came from the Eau

87

Claire area. The chief justice of
the Florida supreme court, Edwin M. Randall, brother of Wisconsin's former governor, was
from Waukesha. So for a rime,
migrants from Wisconsin ruled
Florida - the one Southern state
in which no Wisconsin regiment
fought.

GAR Was Powerful
The Reconstruction days were
still in the future, however, that
spring of 1865, as were the times
when a political candidate in
Wisconsin and most other statc•s
had no chance of election unless
he was a member of the Grand
Army of the Republic.
Wisconsin women had organized a "soldier's home" in Milwaukee - not primarily a place
of residence, but an 1865 ve!"sion
of the USO where men in uniform could eat, chat with young
women of impeccable morals and
be subjected to homemade entertainment.
The women were making plans
for a fair which would J:aise
$100,000 toward a permanent soldier's home- the money was
eventually turned over to Uncle
Sam on condition that a national
soldiers' home be located in Milwaukee.
Mrs. Cordelia Harvey, widow
of a Wisconsin governor, was
thinking about what could be
done with her military hospital in
the old Farwell mansion in Madison. There were an estimated
8,000 orphans of soldiers in the
state. Mrs. Harvey decided that
her hospital would be a tine
place to house some of them after the war ended and the battle
casualties ceased.
The Wisconsin Soldiers A!d society, an auxiliary of the United
States sanitary commission, had
229 chapters. It sent 8,000 packages containing food and clothing
to Wisconsin soldiers, some of
which reached their destinations
without being stolen by those
through whose hands the gifts
had to pass.
A Central Freedman's Aid society had been established in
Milwaukee to help Negroes and
to encourag~ them to enlist. Some
Northern states signed up thousands of former slaves to fill their
draft quotas, thus allowing the
whites to stay home, but there
is no indication from the records
that this cynical practice was
widespread among Wisconsin regiments.

Tried to Save Souls
Walter S. Carter of Milwaukee
was chairman of the Wisconsin
branch of the United States Christian commission. Its agents held
revival meetings for the soldiers,
deluged them with religious tracts

and otherwise tried to save the
souls of the fighting men.
Gen. Sherman once wrote to
Gen. Halleck that "the sanitary
and Christian CDmmissions are
enough to eradicate all traces of
Christianity out of our minds,"
S o m e commission representatlves were involved in cotton
speculation.
But others were sincerely trying to help the soldiers, their
contributons sometimes taking the
practical form of barrels of pickles, .sauerkraut aad dried apples.
Such gifts from Milwaukee were
reportedly greater than those from
any other branch except Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.
In the early days of the war,
plain dresses had been fashionable
partly out of necessity. Wisconsin
families roasted dandelion roots

as a substitute for coffee or dined
on parched corn. But in the last
two years of the conflect, while
the casualty lists became longer
thrul ever before, expensive dresses and what some decried as
frivolous amusements b e c a m e
fashionable again.
The soldiers' families did not
usually share in this light hearted mood, however. One Richland
county w o m a n whose husband
was in uniform, supported herself by raising sage, which was
sold to druggists at $1 a pound.
Other wives grubbed in the woods
for ginseng, which was sold to
dealers to be shipped to China.
One Wisconsin woman was left
with eight children and a 400 acre
farm when her husband went to
war. A friend of the husband
promised not to collect the $600

mortgage. But when the husband
died, his old friend threw the
widow out and took over the 400
acres.
Another women had 25 cents
left after burying her soldier husband. She took her sick child in
her arms and got a job doing
housework. Four years later, the
government got around to giving
her a pension and she bought a
cottage in Waukesha.
Mrs. Isabel Leindecker, a young
soldier's wife in Grant county
with three children, got word that
her husband was dead. She had
little money. In desperation, she
invited 25 neighbors to a wood
bee. In return for cutting the
trees for firewood, she promised,
she would feed them.
But the grocer and butcher refused to take her money, loading

her up with enough to feed a
regiment. Friends brought morE
meat, eggs, a bucket of sauer·
kraut. Forty men fanned out into
the woods with their axes.
Mrs. Leindecker, who was only
22, sat down and cried, thinking
of all those mouths to feed. But
only a few of the men showed up
at meal time, just enough to avoid
hurting her feelings, and they cut
enough wood to last her the rest
of the war.
As it turned out, the husband
wasn't dead, .but a prisoner.
Eight weeks after the bee, she
got a letter from him assuring her
that all was well. She read it
sitting near the fireplace, where
the wood her neighbors had cut
burned merrily.

State Troops Help Capture Mobile
Chapter XXXVI
The expedition to capture Mobile, Ala., in the spring of 1865
is worth no more than a paragraph in most histories of the
Civil war. Admiral Farragut's
gunboats already controlled the
harbor. It really didn't make
much difference at this stage
whether the Confederates remained in Mobile or not·
But to members of the 10 Wisconsin regiments that participated, it was a highlight of their
military careers.
Gen. Edward R. S. Canby was
in charge. He gathered his troops
mainly from beyond the Mississippi, where the bushwhackers
and guerrillas were still active,
and after the customary delays
the army left from New Orleans.
Another Union force set out from
Pensacola.
The 8th Wisconsin went along,
although Old Abe was back home
basking in his war record and the
regiment didn't seem the same
without its eagle. The 11th infantry, weary" of dealing with
smugglers along the Mississippi,
joined Canby's forces as did the
14th, which had helped chase
Gen. HOOd out of Tennessee.
The 20th Wisconsin had been
part of Farragut's expedition in
the summer of 1864 and had ac-

cepted the surrender of 600 Confederates at Fort Morgan.
The W i s c o n s i n men built
a huge log raft and floated 30
miles on it down the Dog river.
through hostile country, with a
breastworks formed of cotton on
one side of the raft and one made
of bagged sweet potatoes on the
other.
The 23rd had recently been in
Arkansas, as had the 27th, 28th
and 29th Wisconsin. The 33rd had
been busy with Hood, chasing him
through the mountains on a 135
mile march in cold weather, with
some of the men barefoot.

Wrong State Searched
The 35th had been looking for
Gen. Sterling Price, whose invasion of Missouri had been defeated. Price was apparently in Kansas at the time the regiment was
hunting for him in Arkansas,
which may explain why it didn't
find him.
Most of these regiments had
spent a good deal of the war in
areas of secondary importance.
Some had fought at Vicksburg or
in the Tennessee battles, but
many of the men spent most of
their time in uniform dealing
with guerrillas or fighting in
small scale actions to which no
one outside the area paid much
attention.
Now they were brought together on what seemed at first to be

88

a major effort, but which turned
out to be just another side show.
After the war, sitting around a
G.A.R. meeting hall, they would
have to explain why they were
busy in places like Whiskey
Bayou, La., or Elkin's Ferry,
Ark., while other veterans were
at Antietam, Gettysburg or Atlanta.
Still, it requires as much courage to face a bullet in a secondary battle as in one the histor·
ians consider important. Take the
attack on Fort Blakely at Mobile,
for example. The 11th Wisconsin.
among other regiments, was as·
signed to capture it.
The skirmishers advanced, driving off the advance line of Confederates. Then they ran into
trouble. The rest of the regiment
came running forward to support
them. The men reached the parapet, with Lt. Angus R. McDonald
one of the first to arrive.

Corporal to the Rescue
Six men came toward the lieutenant, who flailed around with
his sword and knocked two of
them down. Someone shot him in
the leg, two other Rebels stabbed
him in the chest with their bayonets and for a moment it seemed
that this would not be a minor
action at all, as far as Angus
McDonald's future was concerned.
Then Cpl. Donald B. Moore of
Mifflin, Wis., joined the party.
He shot one of the lieutenant's
attackers. He stuck his bayonet

in another. Then he grabbed a
second rifle and demanded that
the remaining two Confederates
surrender. They did. Moore won
a Congressional Medal of Honor
and heartfelt thanks from Lt.
McDonald.
Some of the defenders got away
in river boats. The others gave
up. Mobile was in federal hands.
A year or two before, it would
have been a glorious victory,
hailed in all the papers.
As it was, everyone was watching Virginia, where Lee was making his final moves, and North
Carolina, where Sherman was
preparing for a showdown with
Joseph Johnston.
Another secondary campaign
that busy spring of 1865 involved
the 1st Wisconsin cavalry and
10,000 other horsemen under one
of salty Phil Sheridan's brash
subordinates, a young man named
James H. Wilson.
Gen. Wilson was moderately
famous in the east for having
told Grant how to improve the
Army of the Potomac. The cavalryman had suggested to the
c o m m a n d e r of all the armies
that he supply Col. E I y
Parker, an Iroquois Indian on
Grant's staff, with a scalping
knife, a tomahawk and as much
commissary whisky as the Indian
could drink.
Then, said Wilson to Grant,
Parker should be instructed to
bring in the scalps of half a dozen
Union major generals. It didn't

matter very much which ones- that Vosburg was shot by "a great I couldn't get out the door
the loss of almost any of them renegade Wisconsin man" serv- so I jumped out the window."
would make the army more ef- ing with the south.
p r1soner
.
Recuperat es
fective, Wilson felt.
The Desperate Rebels
Edwin and Homer Levings,
On to Selma, Ala.!
The ease Vlith which Wilson's with Sherman's army in Norlh
Grant did not take offense at men penetrated deep into the Con- Carolina, were detailed as a genthe suggestion-he may, in fact, federacy and the kind of oppo- eral's escort. Homer was equiphave sympathized with it. And sition they encountered indicated ped with a spirited white horse
now Wilson and his cavalrymen how desperate the South's posi- and Ed had a bay. In addition,
were heading into Alabama to
capture Selma, one of the two or tion had become. There were litthree important 'llunitions centers tle bands of Rebels here and
the Confederates still possessed. there, ready to fight if necessary.
Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, But in most of the south, Union
a cavalryman who could brag he forces could come and go almost
had never been beaten by Union as they pleased.
horsemen, barred the way. There
Still Jefferson Davis, in behad been a time when the name sieged Richmond, was not conof Forrest would have been vinced. In the same month that
enough to make a Union cavalry Wilson headed south and Canby
force turn tail, but those days east, President Davis suggested
were ended. Sheridan had proved mildly to Confederate congressthat northerners could fight on
horseback and Wilson had more men that it was their duty "calmly to contemplate" the current
men.
perils.
He also had the repeating carAbout the only result of this
bines turned out by northern industry. Forrest put up a good was a wistful proposal, arrived at
fight at a place north of Selma with great reluctance and after
called Ebenezer Church, was considerable argument, to arm
beaten, then abandoned Selma it- some of the slaves. But these
self when the militia refused to Negroes would remain slaves, alfight.
though fighting for their owners,
Thomas H. Deming of the 1st and the law made them no promcavalry was killed in the battle ises.
and two other Wisconsin men capNothing ever came of the meaA Methodist chaplain at
tured. The others went on to sure, for the Confederacy had too
first, Samuel Fa 11 o w s
Selma.
little time left. The Union soldiers
hankered for more action,
Then part of the Wisconsin began to dare to believe that
and eventually was named
troops, with others of Wilson's this time, after so many false
commander of the 49th
men, rode over and captured hopes, the war would really end
Wisconsin
volunteer infanMontgomery, which had served before the summer was over.
try regiment.
briefly as the Confederate capital. There was still the matter of
First they had to brush aside slow pay, poor food and the
some hasty defenses, which cost threat of disease. But for those these privates had "a colored
the Wisconsin unit nine casual- Wisconsin soldiers in the deep gentlemen to cook for us and
:ies.
south, there was a chance to look carry cooking utensils."
Next, the regiment headed for around and do a little sightseeJohn E. Warren having surFort Tyler ut West Point, Ga., ing.
vived Andersonville, was recuperwhert> the opposition was strongFrank Wittenberger, who had a ating in Wauwatosa before re:!r, so the men dismounted and narrow escape when a bullet went joining the 7th Wisconsin battery.
behaved like infantry. There were through his knapsack at the bat- The farmers and their wives in
lnly 200 Confederates there, but tle of Mobile, was curious about Milwaukee county "vied with
:hey were entrenched and put up the Negroes he saw in Alabama. each other in their attention to
He attended one of their church the Andersonville victim and even
1 brisk little battle that cost the
services,
and soon wrote home to their daughters, tired of the at·
lst cavalry another 21 men,
Richfield to tell about it.
tentions of the few stay at home
dlled or wounded, before the
boys, were more considerate of
"There
were
three
so
called
N'hite flag was run up over the
revival ministers from the north a fellow's feelings tha.1 they had
'ort.
there. They had the Negroes &o been in former years."
Among those killed was Lt. excited that terrible turmoil and
Regiments were still being or)belden E. Vosburg. Lt. Col. screaming started. I got so scar- ganized in Wisconsin. The 46th infcnry Harnden reported later ed; but because the crowd was so fantry, made up mainly of

89

farmers from northwestern counties, went to Alabama to guard
railroads that spring. The 47t.h
performed similar duties in Tennessee.
The 48th, organized in Milwaukee, was sent to Kansas to keep
an eye on Indians. Its colonel,
Uri B. Pearsall, formerly had
commanded a Negro regiment.
The 49th Wisconsin found itself
in Missouri, under the leadership
of a former chaplain, Samuel Fallows. The regiment didn't have
much else to brag about, but it
could point out that no other Wisconsin unit had ever been led by
a Methodist minister.
The 50th infantry moved into
Indian country. The 51st and 52nd
guarded workmen on the Pacific
railroad. And the 53rd, the last
unit to be organized in Wisconsin,
was sent to Fort Leavenworth,
Kas., where its 380 men were
absorbed by the 51st Wisconsin.

Enlisting lor Profit
The men of the 53rd served
only a few months. Still, it reported 14 deserters.
No Wisconsin regiment escaped
this problem. Some men in the
later years of the war, when
patriotism had ebbed and bounty
payments had risen, made a regular business of signing up, collecting the cash, then leaving,
ready to enlist again in another
unit and repeat the process.
Gathering dust in Madison is
a record of the Wisconsin desertions in the Civil war. The
Est of names is printed in small
type. It runs to 213 pages.
The record of company H of
the 25th Wisconsin is typical.
Known as the Potosi Badgers,
this unit had 100 men when it
was sworn into service on Aug.
11, 1862. Of these, 32 died of
disease or bullets and two were
discharged early for disabilities.
As for Jonathan Long and
Henry Russell, the company
record notes they "went to Canada." Long apparently just left,
but Russell made some advance
preparations.
He "borrowed all the mouey he
could from us" before skedaddling on Christmas day, 1862, the
historian reported.

Sheridan's Cavalry Routed Rebels
Chapter XXXVII
The 38th Wisconsin was a Johnny come lately regiment, the kind
of outfit that was scorned by
veterans from the low number
infantry units. The cessation of
bounty payments in 1864 had
made recruiting doubly difficult
and it took nine months to find
enough men in Wisconsin to bring the 38th up to full strength.
Several members were substitutes, hired by Wisconsin citizens who preferred to stay home.
Fifty-five of the men deserted.
Many of the other recruits donned their uniforms with considerable reluctance.
It was not until October, 1864,
that the last five companies arrived to join the 38th, which was
part of Grant's army at Peters··
burg. Col. James Bintliff came
with them and spent several
weeks trying to drill military
skills into his reluctant soldiers.
The regiment's 2nd battalion,
composed of the last five companies to join, first came 1mder
fire in an autumn skirmish, in
which a sergeant and two privates were wounded. Then the
men went back to drilling under
Lt. Col. Calvert K. Pier, Col.
Bintliff having been detached to
command a brigade.
It was, all in all, a regiment
of which little was expected.
Still, considering how late it arrived, the 38th had a surprising
number of moments in the limelight.
Its early arrivals led the ill
fated attack on the Petersburg
crater. In January, 1865, when
Vice-President Alexander Stephens led a Confederate delegation
to seek a negotiated peace, the
38th was holding the part of the
line where the flag of truce appeared. The Wisconsin officers
made preliminary arrangements
for Stephens' unsuccessful mission.
And later, after the war was
over and the Army of the Potomac was marching up Pennsylvania av., the 38th Wisconsin
was in the lead. Soldiers from
the state's other units might have
preferred the 2nd Wisconsin,
which had fought in every eastern battle since first B u II Run.
But the 2nd no longer existed.
The 6th or 7th Wisconsin, among
the remnants of the Iron Brigade, also deserved the honor.
But as it turned out, the 38th
got the call. And, come to think
of it, perhaps the choice was appropriate. The regiment was typical of the Union's second team,

and it was the second team that
finally whipped Robert E. Lee.
There were too few members of
the first team left to do the job.

Lee Decides on··Action
The beginning of the end for
Lee came in March, 1865. Early
that month, the Confederate general tried to obtain peace without surrender. When Grant refused to make a de a I, Lee decided on one final gamble.
The odds were long, but he
was under pressure from the
Richmond politicians. B e s i d e s,
there was still the memory of the
long shots he had won beforeat Chancellorsville, for example,
where he had whipped two Union
armies although
outnumbered
3 to 1.
If Grant was leadilig the Union's
second team by then, Lee was in
much worse shape. His soldiers
had· been penned in Petersburg
and Richmond for 10 months,
with food increasingly scarce and
morale slipping. The Army of
Northern Virginia was the best
the Confederates had left, hut it
was no longer the weapon it had
been before Grant's 100,000 men
moved south into the Wilderness.
For months, Grant's army had
been inching west from its position south of Petersburg, which
meant that Lee had been forced
to stretch his defense line increasingly thin. Perhaps a bold attack
on the railroad spur the Union
army had built to bring supplies
from its base at City Point would
force Grant to shorten his lines,
relieving some of the pressure.
A decisive southern military
victory was no longer possible.
The Union had too many men.
It controlled too much of the
south. But if Lee and his ragged
army could dig in their heels and
hold, the north might tire of the
war and listen to a peace proposal.
It was not much of a hope, but
it was all that was left. Lee and
his generals made their plans.
A portion of the Union line called
Fort Stedman, 150 yards from a
Confederate position at Colquitt's
salient, was the spot chosen for
the assault.

A time of Desperation

lines, then await their chance to
rise and overwhelm federal
pickets.
0 t h e r Confederates dressed
themselves in captured Union uniforms. White armbands would
allow their friends to recognize
t h e m, but in the excitement
Grant's soldiers might take them
fCJr Union men until too late.
It was a trick often played by
guerrillas, but a year or two before it would have been considered too unscrupulous by Lee and
his generals.
This was a time of desperation, however. Chivalry no longer
mattered. Lee assigned half his
remaining soldiers to the gamble.
On Mar. 25, 1865, the attack was
launched.
It caught the Union troops bv
surprise. Fort Stedman fell quickly. Confederate soldiers rolled
back portions of the Union line.
Soon they held three-quarters of
a mile of federal trenches.
Then the defenders rallied. Every regiment in the vicinity- the
37th and 38th Wisconsin among
them-moved up to meet the
threat. By 8 a.m., some of the
Confederates had retreated and
the rest were dead or captured.
Lee had 4,000 fewer men. Other
wise, the situation was the same
as before.
It was the last Confederate
offensive of the war. Lee decided
that he must abandon Petersburg
and with it Richmond. He hoped
to dodge past Grant, move south
and unite his army with the one
led by Gen. Joseph Johnston near
Raleigh, N.C. Between them, perhaps they could handle Sherman's
forces before Grant could get his
massive army into position.
But Grant moved first. He sent
part of his men in his favorite
direction, west. They threatened
the retreat route and the last remaining railroad into Petersburg.
Lee sent troops to meet the
threat. As March drew to a close,
there was fighting along a creek
known as Gravelly Run and along
the Boydton Plank road.
The 6th and 7th Wsconsin
were there, with remnants of the
vanished 2nd Wisconsin, as well
as the 36th Wisconsin-a newcomer by compr.rison with the old
Iron Brigade regiments, but battle tested at Cold Harbor and
in the previous assaults on Petersburg

This was no time for a gentlemanly battle, with men march- Win Medals of Honor
ing into the sunlight under ban.
During the fighting, two sergners. Guile was necessary. Some eants from the 7th regiment saw
Confederate soldiers were assign- nine Rebels heading toward the
ed to desert, cross to the Union rear with a Union officer as their

90

prisoner. Albert O'Connor of Ma(
ison a n d William H. Sickles <
Columbia county hurried oveJ
surprised the party, freed tb
officer, captured three ConfedeJ
ates and put the. others to fligh
winning Medals of Honor.
The next day, when the figh
ing had moved to Five Fork:
O'Connor grabbed a stand of Cor
federate flags, killing a Rebt
officer in a vicious hand to han
battle over the colors. He hun.
onto them until he was surroun<
ed and had to give up.
It was during the Mar. 31 figh1
ing at Gravelly Run that Lt. Wil
iam Richards' luck finally ran ou
Serving with the 7th Wisconsir
he had been hit in the hip a
Antietam, in the neck at Getty!
burg and had lost a finger in th
Wilderness. Back in action one
more, he was shot through th
head and killed.
At Five Forks, Gen. Phil Shet
idan was in charge. His opponen
was that specialist in gallan
failures, Gen. George E. Picket1
Sheridan's cavalry went into ac1
ion first, then called for the ill
fantry.The 5th corps, includin1
the Iron Brigade units, was su~
posed to hurry over and box i
the Confederates.
But Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren
the corps commander, didn't mov'
his men fast enough to suit th
hot tempered Sheridan. Pickett
meanwhile, got his soldiers int'
fortifications at Five Forks.
Angrily, Sheridan removed War
ren from command and tool
charge himself. He rode his hors4
up to the Rebel breastworks. Th
Union infantrymen followed him
The Confederates ran or wer
captured.
Still Sheridan wasn't satisfied
He ordered Lt. Col. Hollon Rich
ardson of the 7th Wisconsin
among others, to follow Pickett'
retreating command across th•
open f i e 1 d s and through tb
woods. The regiment chased th
disorganized Confederates for
mile or two before returning fo
the night to the captured breast
works.

Grant Orders Assault
Pickett's command was nearl~
wiped out, leaving the way oper
to the Southside railroad. Tha
meant that Lee must abandor
Petersburg at once or be trap·
ped. The general telegraphed J ef.
ferson Davis, advising him to rw
while the running was good, and
began frantic preparations for a
general retreat.
Grant had no intention of mak·
ing Lee's situation easier. As soor
as news of Sheridan's victo~J

-Library of Congress

strong points in Virginia. Gen. Robert E. Lee was still
holding out at Richmond and Petersburg at the time.

Tremendous quantities of supplies poured ashore at City
Point, Va., toward the 1md of the Civil war, as Union
forces made ready for their final assaults on Confederate
Elsewhere, the assault had been
only partially successful.
But when the sun came up on
Apr. 3, firing did not resume.
Cautiously, the soldiers advanced.
Those who reached the inner lines
of Confederate trenches shouted
back to their companions and soon
thousands of Union men were inspecting the fortifications that had
held them at bay for so long.
During the night, Lee's army
had pulled out. It was walking
west, trying to swing around the
Union army and then move south
toward Johnston or, failing that,
to reach the Shenandoah valley
where Stonewall Jackson had once
outmarched the armies sent
against him.
Wisconsin soldiers who inspected
the deserted trenches could hardly
believe that Petersburg had finally
fallen. The campaign now ended
had cost the Union 42,000 casualties to 28,000 for the Confederates.
The empty ditches and redoubts
had been purchased at a cost of
70,000 dead and wounded men.
With Petersburg
abandoned,
Richmond fell. For nearly four
years the federal armies had tried
to capture the Confederate capital. Once or twice they had some
close enough so the men had seen
Richmond's church spires. But always before, Lee had pushed them
back.
The 19th Wisconsin-those memLee' e Army Pulls Out
bers who had escaped capture
Seventeen members of the regi- when the regiment had been surment were dead and 14 wounded rounded in October-was in the
The 38th stayed in its captured vanguard of the Union force that
trenches the rest of the day, entered Richmond. While some of
trading shots with Confederates. the men put out fires set by re-

reached him, he ordered a general
assault. It was then that the 38th
Wisconsin's untested recruits, along with such Wisconsin regiments as the 19th, 37th, and the
reorganized 5th, moved into action.
Col. Bintliff gave up command
of his brigade to lead the 38th
regiment he had brought from
Wisconsin. At dawn on Apr. 2 he
led them toward the Rebel picket line.
Bullets began to sing, but the
regiment kept advancing. The defenses were no longer impregnable-many of the Confederate
soldiers had been pulled back to
prepare for the retreat-but there
were enough men left to put up
a fight.
The 38th reached the lines of
sharpened stakes in front of the
Confederate position. The men
crossed a ditch dug months before
by the defenders, hurried up the
embankment and leaped into the
trenches. The Confederate rear
guard ran.
The Wisconsin men wrestled the
captured cannon around and tried
to fire them at the retreating
Rebels. But these were inexperienced infantrymen, not artillerymen, and the Union soldiers came
cl9ser to shooting one another
than they did to doing any damage
to the southerners.

91

treating Confederates, Lt.
Samuel Vaughan of the
grabbed the regimental flag
won the race to raise it
over the city hall.

Col.
19th
and
first

Time to Sleep Latel'
The 19th stayed in Richmond
as part of the garrison. The rest
of Grant's army started chasing
Lee and the 30,000 Rebels w i t h
him.
There was ao time to relax.
Petersburg and Richmond had
fallen but the war in Virginia
wasn't over while Lee's army remained. Grant hurried his men
along. There would be time to
sleep when the war was over.
The next few days saw some of
the hardest marching of the war,
with tired men walking 36 miles
each 24 hours, eating whatever
could be snatched on the way.
Sheridan's cavalry galloped on
ahead, skirmishing now and then
with the retreating Confederates,
trying to slow them down so the
Union foot soldiers could come in
for the kill.
Three days after Lee headed
west, part of his army was cornered at Saylor's creek, where
the 5th and 36th Wisconsin joined
the fight and rounded up prisoners. Sgt. Angus Cameron and six
privates from the 5th accepted
the surrender of Gen. Richard
Ewell, who once had been Stonewall Jackson's right hand man.
There was no time left for
major battles, but men on both
sides died in small, savage fights
like the one that occurred at a
bridge over the Appomattox river.

Brevet Brig. Gen. Theodore Read,
son of a Madison professor, who
had been called by Gen. Winfield
Scott Hancock the "best staff officer on the field of battle I ever
saw," headed a small Union detachment that clashed there with
part of Lee's rear guard.
Read had enlisted in the 8th
Illinois as a private early in the
war. He rose to be assistant
adjutant general of the Army of
the James. Gen. E. 0. C. Ord
assigned him to capture the
bridge.
In the fight that developed,
RQad was killed and his detachment almost wiped out. Gen. Ord
said the action helped convince
Lee that his escape route was
cut off.

Rival Generals Meet
Apr. 9 was Palm Sunday. Part
of Grant's army had Lee's men
surrounded. Out came galloping
an officer with a white flag. Soon,
the two rival generals were in
the parlor of a house at Appomattox Court House.
The house belonged to Wilmer
McLean, who had once owned a
farm near Bull Run. When the
first battle there was being
fought, a cannon ball ripped into
McLean's kitchen, interrupting
Gen. Pierre Beauregard's breakfast.
McLean had decided to move
farther south in Virginia to escape
the war. Now a large portion of
it was ending in his front parlor.
When the brief ceremony was
over, Lee and his 28,231 remaining
men had surrendered. Johnston's

soldiers were still in North Carolina. Gens. Dick Taylor and
Nathan Bedford Forrest still controlled small portions of Alabama.
Jeff Davis was heading south to
establish a new capital, taking
with him wagons carrying $500,000
in gold.

But as far as the Army of the
Potomac was concerned, this was
the final victory. Gen. Grant
ordered that no celebrations be
held, but that didn't matter. This
was something too important for
shouting and cheers.
Besides, to soldiers who had
chased Lee the 100 miles from

Petersburg to Appomattox, it was
"Five men were killed in Mo·
enough to be able to rub their bile for rejoicing over the death
swollen feet and reflect that the of old Abe and one woman got
her backside kicked," Pvt. Henry
marching was over at last.
Barnes reported that April from
The north held enthusiastic cel- Alabama. "It won't do for a man
ebrations. Less than a week later, in this part of the country to
it was in mourning. President rejoice over such things. If he
does-pop goes the weasel."
Lincoln had been assassinated.

Our Troops Lost Davis Reward
chard. Harnden reined in. The
two officers compared notes. The
Wisconsin man told of the tip he
was following. Pritchard said it
was all very interesting, but the
4th Michigan was assigned to
guard the ferry and keep an eye
on the Ocmulgee river to make
sure no one stole it.
However, Pritchard said, he
might spare a few men to ride
along with Harnden. The Wisconsin colonel told him thanks, but
he wouldn't need them. The
reward money wasn't mentioned,
but Harnden had no intention of
splitting it with anybody from
Michigan.
The Wisconsin party rode on,
heading due south. At about 9
that night, the horsemen stopped
to cook some bacon and snatch
a few hours sleep. Then, at
3 a.m., they hit the road again,
encouraged by the discovery of
the remains of the Davis party's
cooking fires.
The advance guard, under a
sergeant named Hussey, was
moving along under the Spanish
moss when dark figures stepped
out from behind trees and
ordered them to halt. The sergeant, assuming these were Rebels from Davis' party, turned
back to get reinforcements.

Chapter XXXVIII
The 1st Wisconsin cavalry's
final battle was with the 4th Michigan cavalry. The score: Two
Michigan men killed and one
wounded, to three wounded from
Wisconsin.
Wisconsin and Michigan were
not at war-in fact, by then,
peace was general, except in Texas and a few other southern
points where word of Lee's and
Johnston's surrenders had not
penetrated.
But when $110,000 in reward
money is involved, strange things
are apt to happen. And if the Wisconsin soldiers didn't intend to
shoot their Michigan brethren
just then, the sentiment changed
soon after the battle when the
men of the 1st cavalry would
have been happy to take a shot
at a Michigan colonel named
Pritchard.

Davis Still Missing
The 1st Wisconsin cavalry had
ridden south with Maj. Gen.
James H. Wilson in the spring
of 1865. In Macon, Ga., some of
the men talked with former Senator John Bell and learned that
Lee had surrendered. Soon afterward, the Wisconsin soldiers began to meet men from Johnston's
army, heading home on their
horses or mules.
Johnston had surrendered to
Sherman at Raleigh, N.C., on
Apr. 26 and eight days later Gen.
Dick Taylor acknowledged federal rule in Alabama. The war,
for all practical purposes, was
over.
But President Jefferson Davis
was still missing. It was known
that he had left Richmond with
a 2,000 man escort. On Apr. 24,
he had stopped at Charlotte, N.C.
to hold a final cabinet meeting.
A few days later, near Greenwood, S.C., his subordinates had
finally convinced him the war
was lost.

The $500,000 in gold, all that
remained of the Confederate treasury, was then hauled to Washington, Gc.., and most o( those with
Davis remained there to surrender.But a price was on the president's head, there was talk of
stringing him up and he decided
to try for Mexico or the Caribbean.

Reward Is $110,000
With his wife and 15 picked
cavalrymen, Davis rode south in
Georgia. Union cavalry units
were alerted. To make sure they
conducted the manhunt with enthusiasm, Washington promised
$10,000 to the commander and
$100,000 to the men of the unit
which caught him.
It was on May 6 that Lt. Col.
Henry Harnden and 152 members
of the 1st Wisconsin cavalry set
out from Macon to join the
search. They rode 55 dusty miles
to Dublin, Ga., stopping along
the way to demand information.
White Georgians either didn't
know or wouldn't say where
Davis might be. But at midnight
on May 8, a Negro came to
Col. Harnden and told him that
the Davis party had recently
passed through Dublin, heading
south.
Harnden, a former lumberman
from Rome, Jefferson county,
left 2nd Lt. Theron H. Lane and
45 men to keep an eye on Dublin,
then started at dawn toward the
south.
It rair:ed that day and the trip
was difficult. Part of the way
was through swamps, which slowed the horsemen.
Guides were recruited at gunpoint and Harnden and his men
galloped through the mud, visions
of $110,000 in their heads.
At Abbeville on May 9, the
party met a detachment of the
4th Michigan, led by Col. Prit-

Agree on Mistake
As the Wisconsin soldiers rode
off, they were fired on. Col.
Harnden and the others came
galloping up and fired back. The
skirmish developed into a small
scale battle, with bullets from
the carbines clipping through
the trees. Finally a Wisconsin
sergeant named Howe crept
through the woods and captured
one of the enemy.
"Surrender, Reb," said the sergeant. "Don't you know the war's
over?''
"Who's a Rebel?" the prisoner
demanded.
"I'm from the 4th
Michigan cavalry."
That ended the battle. The
wounded were patched up. The

92

dead were buried. The men of
the midwestern regiments agreed
it had been a mistake.
Col. Harnden and the 1st Wisconsin, it turned out, had been
fooled.
While the Michigan soldiers had
been holding them off, other Michigan troopers under Col. Pritchard had surrounded the Davis
wagon train.
A mounted private leveled his
carbine at the Confederate president, who threw up his hands and
moved closer-intending, he said
later, to jump the cavalryman,
throw him off his horse and gallop away.
How this would have worked
out was not put to the test, because Mrs. Davis grabbed her husband.
When the Wisconsin men learned what had happened, they complained bitterly. If they hadn't told
him, Col. Pritchard wouldn't have
known where Davis was,
they
said. And if the Michigan pickets
hadn't started shooting at them,
they would have caught Davis
themselves.
Gen. Wilson tried to smooth
matters over. He Jeclared that
Col. Harnden and his men were
entitled to half the credit.
The Mkhigan soldiers agreedWisconsin's representatives could
have an equal share of the honor
of Davis' capture. The $110,000,
of course, was another matter.
The Michigan boys wanted that
for themselves. Incensed at what
he considered the injustice of it
all, Harnden took the matter to
the court of last resort - Washington politics - and after considerable wrangling the Wisconsin
soldiers got their share of the
reward.

Cost Is Heavy
With the war finally over, it
was time to total up the cost.
Of the 140,414 Union men who
died in battle, 3,602 were from
Wisconsin units. Of the 224,097

consin infantry regiment, made up mainly of Milwaukeeans, was mustered out at a dinner at the fair. The building was located on Broadway at Huron st., now Clybourn
st.

In this building was held "The Great Fair" in the summer
of 1865, as Milwaukeeans and other Wisconsin residents
joined in festivities to raise money for a soldier's home.
The event in Milwaukee raised $100,000. The 24th WislJnion deaths from disease and
accidents, 7,627 were Wisconsin
men, beginning with Pvt. J. H.
Monroe of the lst Wisconsin, who
drowned June 3, 1861, in Milwaukee while taking a swim.
Total Confederate deaths in the
Nar are still in dispute, but one
:mthoritative estimate is 258,000.
By comparison with the estinated 622,000 on both sides who
iied in the Civil war, the nation
lost 405,399 men in World War II,
ll6,516 in World War I and 54,246
in its fourth most deadly war,
:he Korean conflict. Battle deaths
1mong Americans were slightly
nore numerous in World War II
:han in the Civil war, but casual:ies from disease in the earlier
~onflict more than made up the
:lifference.
Wsiconsin had about 250,000
rnen in uniform during World War
n, a somewhat lower percentage
:>f its population than in the
Civil war. The chances that a
Wisconsin soldier would die in
the Civil war were one in 7; in
World War II, one in 50; in
World War I, one in 62.

rron Brigade Battered
The 2nd Wisconsin infantry lost
higher percentage of its men
in battle than any other Union
regiment-19.7 per cent of 1,203
soldiers. It had been the first
:hree year unit to reach Washing:on in the early days of the war.
1

After Gettysburg and earlier battles, few of the original members
were still fit for duty. But some
remained in the Army of the Potomac, serving with the 6th Wisconsin until after Lee's surrender.
The Iron brigade, of which the
2nd, 6th and 7th Wisconsin were
a part, had a greater percentage
of its men killed or mortally
wounded than any other brigade
in the federal armies. Of each
four men who served in these
three regiments, including those
who came late or left early, one
died of bullets or disease.
In the melancholy statistics that
helped reckon the cost of the war,
the 7th Wisconsin ranked third
among the Union regtments in
the number of its men killed in
action, sixth from a percentage
standpoint. The 6th Wisconsin was
lOth in numbers, 30th in percentage.
The 7th regiment lost nwre men
in battle than any other Wisconsin unit-from 267 to 281, depending on whose statistics you prefer.
The 26th Wisconsin, made up
mainly of German immigrants,
ranked fifth among all Union regiments in the percentage of battle deaths.
Battery B of the 4th United
States artillery, which served with
the Iron brigade, lost more men
in action than any other Union
field artillery battery. Officially,
it was not a Wisconsin unit. But

Judging from the number of
in the first three years of the
war, it was manned largely by battle deaths, these were the 23
volunteers of the four original reg regiments from Wisconsin which
iments in the brigade. including met the most Confederates.
The 1st (134 killed in action);
69 men from Wisconsin.
For many units, the principal the 2nd, 6th and 7th of the Iron
enemy was disease. The 25th brigade; the 3rd (149 men), 5th
Wisconsin, for example, lost 51 (169), 8th (99), 9th(75), lOth (93),
men in battles, but 409 from ill- 11th (81), 12th (91), 14th (95), 15th
ness and accident. In many Wis- (82), 16th (131), 20th (93), 21st
consin regiments, a few of the (114), 24th (96), 26th (184), 29th
deaths were murders or suicides. (77), 36th (126), 37th (135), 1st
Several hundred Wisconsin men cavalry (72) and 4th cavalry
died in Confederate prison camps. (103).
If your grandfather served in
Some drowned. Several were hit
by lightning. A few are listed one of these units, you can assimply as "shot," which may sume he was familiar with the
mean they died in a tavern brawl sound of bullets. Some other reor in front of a Union firing giments also saw considerable
action; some saw none.
squad.
Numerous Wisconsin men, in
the army and out, spent much of
One Killed by Indians
the war keeping statistics, but
No Wisconsin unit, including there seems no way to determine
those formed when the war was exactly how many Wisconsin men
nearly over, escaped without any served in the Civil war.
deaths. The 50th infantry, for ~x·
Gov. Lucius Fairchild, a forample, which didn't leave Wiscon- mer brigadier general who desin until the month Lee surrend- feated a former brevet brigadier,
ered, had one man killed in ac- Harrison C. Hobart, for governor
tion- Theodore T. Putnam, who in 11.165, reported the state had
met some unfriendly Indians at contributed exactly 91,379 men, of
Yankton, Dakota territory.
whom 79,934 were volunteers and
Forty- two others in the regi- 11,445 were drafted men or hired
ment died, including Capt. H. C. substitutes.
Fox, shot by Pvt. Ole Julson on
Technically, the governor was
board a Missouri river steamer, right. But a veteran who rethe Post Boy; and Pvt. David enlisted was counted a second
Davis, lost on the plains and pre- time in the frantic scramble to
sumed dead near Fort Rice, meet the state's draft quota. And
Dakota territory.
a man invalided
home with

93

wounds or disease was counted
again if he recovered and re-enlisted.
In addition
the governor's
statistics included 6,868 men who
were "unassigned," which meant
they never actually put on a
uniform. In this catagory were
draftees who paid $300 to avoid
serving as well as men nut on
the rolls late in the war but never
actually called.
The grand total also counted
men who served in short term
regiments and had barely learned one end of their rifles from
the. other before being discharged.
It mclude? 3,362 men who were
mustered m, then headed for Canada, California or went home to
hide in the woods.
There are other statistical complications. An Illinois or Minnesota man who crossed the bor-

der-- or, as sometimes happened, was shanghaied over- - and
joined a Wisconsin unit was counted in the Wisconsin statistics. And
a Wisconsin man who enlisted in
Illinois was a lost soul as far as
his home state was concerned.
The statistics, too, paid no attention to anything but soldiers.
Any Wisconsin men who served
in the navy- - as about 200 did,
. according to the best estimates- were not counted.
Everything considered, it seems
likely that somewhere around
75,000 Wisconsin men spent from
a few weeks to four years or
more in uniform. But you could
.
add 5,000 to this total, or subtract 5,000, and no one could
prove you were wrong.
The state supplied 52 infantry
regiments, four cavalry regi-

But among those from Wisconments, one company of cavalry,
one heavy artillery regiment, 13 sin who actually served as full
light artillery batteries, one com- scale brigadiers were Joseph
pany of sharpshooters, three bri- Bailey, Edward S. Bragg, Fairgade bands, 244 recruits for child, Rufus King, Halbert E.
Negro regiments and miscellan- Paine and John C. Starkweather.
eous sailors, scouts and specialThose who stayed in the army
ists.
found their wartime ranks sharply diminished. Arthur MacArthur,
Three lajor Generals
jr., for example, was a brevet
Three Wisconsin men were colonel when the 24th Wisconsin
major generals - - Carl Schurz, was mustered out after an elabCharles S. Hamilton and Cadwall- orate dinner at the Milwaukee
ader C. Washburn. Three became Soldier's Home fair in the sumbrevet major generals- - Thomas mer of 1865.
H. Ruger, Lysander Cutler and
But when he joined the regular
Frederick Salomon.
army shortly thereafter, the best
Brevet ranks- - largely honor- the boy colonel could get was a
ary, entitling the holder to use second lieutenant's commission.
the title bu; not collect the pay- - After service in Indian country
were passed around rather free- and in the Philippines, he worked
ly, especially in the later years his way back up through colonel
to brigadier general.
of the war.

Negroes Joined in Victory March
Chapter XXXIX
In the final months of the war,
there had been no time for parades and pageantry. Even the
regimental musicians, who had
spent their early careers tootling
fifes or beating drums, had been
handed rifles. Any notions the
men had brought from home that
war was a game played for
glory had long since vanished.
But now, in late May of 1865,
peace had been restored. Some
Wisconsin regiments, with others,
were in Texas, keeping an eye
on the Texans as well as the
French troops in Mexico. Other
Wisconsin units were occupying
the south to make sure it wouldn't
rise again.
But a good many men from
Wisconsin were camped along the
Potomac, waiting to take a walk
down Pennsylvania av. and let
the civilians, the politicians and
the girls - especially the girls have a last look at the armies
that had whipped the Confederacy. Then the soldiers could go
home.

Brawls Were Common
Sherman's westerners were
there, mingling with the Army
of the Potomac. Mingling is perhaps not quite the word. There
had been so many brawls between men of the two armies
that Grant had finally ordered

the camps moved so the Potomac
would divide them.
Sherman's boys felt he had
been shabbily treated by newspapers and politicians, especially Secretary of War Stanton.
President Lincoln had been assassinated five days after Lee
surrendered, which gave Stanton
a chance to run things.
Sherman and Gen. Joseph Johnston had signed surrender terms
that took in political matters as
well as strictly military ones,
and Stanton-among others-had
sharply criticized the Union general. In the bars of Washington,
Sherman's men had the habit of
jumping on to the mahogany next
to the free lunch and suggesting
"three groans for Stanton."
If that didn't start a fight with
any eastern soldiers who were
present, the westerners would
make cracks about the Army of
the Potomac's fighting ability or
the paper collars its officers
wore. And soon the men who had
captured Atlanta would be slugging the men who had beaten
Lee, and vice versa.

east and midwest, which existed
long before Rebels fired on Sumter.
Most of the Wisconsin men in
the area had served with Sherman, and they took his side in
the saloon wars. Their mood
wasn't improved by the fact that
the Army of the Potomac, being
on its home grounds, managed
to find more and better provisions.
Farmers living near Sherman's
peacetime army soon complained
that their chickens kept disappearing. The men were having
trouble adjusting to this new era,
when swiping a chicken was considered wrong.
One member of the 12th Wisconsin wrote home to report that
unless matters improved he and
his companions were going to do
some foraging in Washington itself, for a soldier shouldn't be
required to live without eating.
Many of those who had spent
four years in uniform had grown
to manhood in the army and had
nagging doubts about how they
would adjust to civilian life. An
ability to dig trenches, steal cows
or shoot Confederates would not
be of much value in Mauston or
Milwaukee.

ging trenches and building breastworks, no more whistling bullets,
rattling grapeshot or screaming
shells, no more friends and comrades to be killed or wounded."
But then, a little later, as the
time when the regiment would
be disbanded drew near, he and
some others had second thoughts.
A group of his men came to him
with a proposition. If the captain would lead them, they told
him, they would go to Mexico
to fight the French emperor,
Maximilian.
The 3rd was a regiment that
had seen more action than most,
serving first in the east, then
with Sherman. It is an indication
of the mixed feelings of the soldiers about the outbreak of peace
that some of the 3rd Wisconsin's
veterans decided they had not
yet had their fill of fighting.
Hinkley considered the offer.
Then he said no. He was not
ready to become a soldier of fortune. And whatever might be in
store for the veterans as civilians, he wante'.! to go home.

Spit and Polish Outfit

May 23 was the day when the
Army of the Potomac would parade for the civilians. May 24
Fools Sherman's Side
was the date set for Sherman's
Part of it was good clean fun, 'No More Skirmishing'
men to march for the last time.
a release of youthful spirits long
Capt. Julian Hinkley of the 3rd Each army busied itself with
battened down by the war. Part Wisconsin wrote shortly after the preparations.
of it was an outgrowth of the war ended: "Just think of it-no
The eastern force had always
smoldering bitterness between more skirmishing, no more dig- been a spit and polish outfit, be-

94

tween battles. Even under Grant,
who was inclined to view clean
uniforms and snappy salutes as
frills, the Army of the Potomac
had kept its character ..
Now that it was to hold its
triumphal parade, the officers
checked their supplies of cardboard· collars, the men acquired
fresh uniforms, the equipment
was shined up. They would show
the world how a real army looked
and demonstrate, once and for
all, how superior the force that
had whipped Lee was to Sherman's ra~ged bummers.
Picked companies lined up on
the morning of the 23rd. The
bands struck up. The 38th Wisconsin - no reluctant rookies
now, but veterans of Petersburg
- stepped off first. The other
regiments wheeled into place.
Bands played. Officers' horses
stepped high. Regimental flagstattered, some of them, from
Confederate bullets-snapped in
the breeze.

Grant Uncomfortable
Past the reviewing stand the
army marched, every man in
step. Nothing like it had ever
been seen before on the American continent. The p a r a d e
stretched for miles. Everyone
was there to watch it.
A reviewing stand filled with top generals regiment in line of march. The western
President Andrew Johnson was
and
government officials watched two vic- armies marched the next day, and if they
on hand and Secretary Stanton.
tory parades down Pennsylvania av., in didn't look as neat as the easterners, they
Lincoln was gone.
Washington. The eastern army marched caught the imagination of the watchers
Gen. Grant was in the reviewfirst, with spick and span appearance, to even more. Wisconsin troops were in both
ing stand, wearing a fresh unitake the cheers of crowds on May 23, armies, but a large majority served in the
form for once, looking as though
1865. The 38th Wisconsin was the first western units.
he wished the nonsense was over
and he could light a cigar. Grant,
in fact, didn't quite seem to beThe march of Sherman's men Negroes Joined March
their backs were poultry, hams,
long George B. McClellan on May 24, could only be an antigamecocks ana a bewildering
The rifles on their shoulders variety of other things that had
would have handled this part of climax. But the civilians dutifully
turned out, and the politicians. swept down the avenue in straight once belonged to Confederates.
the job a great deal better.
Stanton was back in the review- lines. The guns were polished so
Ahead of each division marched
ing stand with the others and the metal gleamed. But the uni- a corps of pioneers - Negro
Ignored Stanton
when Sherman arrived, stalking
Lining the avenue and cheer- across the wooden platform in forms the men wore were faded men, dressed in whatever they'd
ing were parents of the soldiers, his uniform, the secretary held and patched. The only new cloth- been able to scrourge, keeping
ing donned for the occasion were in step to the martial music that
who had lived £or this moment out his hand.
the
pants worn by some men had led them out of slavery.
when the war was over and it
Sherman made It a point to
Over their shoulders in place of
whose
old ones wouldn't have
was no longer necessary to study greet everyone else, but he igrifles were the picks and spades
the casualty lists, fearful of see- nored Stanton. It was a gesture been considered decent on Penn- they had used in digging trenching a familiar name. With them his men approved when they sylvania av.
es, the axes they had swung to
This army moved down the cut trees and brush needed to
were society belles and women heard about it iater.
The general stood stiffly to re- street faster than its predecessor corduroy the soggy roads of
from those near-by establishments where many of the march- view his men. He considered of the day before. The rr.en had South Carolina.
ers were on a first name basis; them, he said later, "the most spent most of the war putting
Women, Children Follow
veterans who wished they still magnificent army in existence." one foot in front of another and
He would stand there in the sun they had learned to cover ground
And walking behind some of
had two legs to march with and for six and a half hours while
fast out of habit. Behind each the divisions came other symbols
men who had grown rich from his soldiers passed.
division came six ambulances, of the war - Negr'l women and
selling wormy beef to the armies.
There had been some forebodchildren, who had heard SherIn spirit, the whole north was ing among the 1fficers that the representing the baggage trains, man's army passing and had left
there, feeling a surge of pride men couldn't keep step - such and in back of them c"lme other unpainted shanties to follow it.
Many slaves who had followed
and hope. When the day was things had not been considered symbols of Sherman's army.
Goats minced along, some of Sherman's avengers had died on
over, the soldiers went back to important in the Army of the
Tennessee. But the western sol- them brought all the way from the way, of starvation or fat1gue.
their tents, remembering the
diers could march in military
cheers and confident that nothing fashion if they wanted to, and Georgia. Cows plodded in the pa- But the strongest or the most
determined had survived to walk
like this army would ever be this was one time they felt it rade, led or driven by soldiers. now with the western soldiers,
seen again.
was the thing to do.
Pack mules followed, and on marching in triumph through the

95

capital of a nation that had finally
set them free.
The civilians on the sidewalks,
the men in the marching ranks,
were caught up in the moment's
emotion. There was the feeling
that the w a r had not been
all unjustified bloodshed or speculating in cotton.
The army of the Potomac had
worn new uniforms, with white
gloves. Even the sergeants had
worn sabers and the bands had
been decked out with bear3ldn
hats.

'How Proud We Were'
The easterners had looked as
an army was supposed to look.
But it was Sherman's men,
taking their long, western strides
through Washington, who caught
the imagination.
"Men marching in their old
worn out uniforms, some with
new pants that stuck out like

sore thumbs, scuffed shoes, the
guns seeming to speak out, 'We
have seen better days,' our flags
tattered and torn, and all along
the way, crowds of people, cheering so loudly they deafened our
ears ... "
That was the way Pvt. Edwin
Levings of the 12th Wisconsin
remembered it a fen days later,
writing home to River Falls.
"How proud we were ...Not one
minute of the march did we think
how hungry we were and that
our breakfast had only been hardtack and coffee that morning ...
"Though we looked like a crowd
of Bummers, we didn't feel like
it in the least."
And in the reviewing stand
Sherman, who understood better
than most what the war was
about, watched the part of his
life he had enjoyed most step
briskly past him along the avenue. Here they were, he said
later, "65,000 men in splendid

96

physique, who had just completed
a march of 2,000 miles in hostile
country ...

Hard to Explain Feeling
"Many good people up to that
time had looked on our western
army as a sort of mob. But the
world then saw and recognized
that it was an army in the proper
sense-well organized, well commanded and disciplined.
"And there was no wonder that
it had swept through the south
like a tornado ... "
The moment passed. The politicians went back to politicking.
The speculators headed south.
The freedmen who had walked
with Sherman's men began to
realize that the year of Jubilee
was not quite yet.
But no one who was there
that day ever quite forgot it.
Sherman's men would never find
the right words to explain it to

the civilians back home in Wisconsin or Ohio or Illinois, and
the time would come when they
would quit trying.
But first there was another
moment to remember. Letters
fading in family scrapbooks or
in museum files say it in different ways, but even after a
century a little of the youthful
joy is there.
"Yes, it is really true," Ed
Levings, that tireless writer of
letters, told his mother in June.
"We are coming home for good.
And the strawberries will be ripe.
You may have a shortcake waiting for us."
And from his kid brother,
Homer, a postscript:
"You can make more than one
shortcake, Mother. I am hungry
and have been ever since we had
to quit foraging.
"I will be happy to see my
colt ... "

INDEX

'

c

A

Cadwallader, Sylvanus-53.
Callis, Lt. Col. John B.-57.
Calumet County-9.
Calumet Rifles-36.
Cameron, Sgt. Angus-91.
Camp Life-14, 30, 38-39, 66, 85.
Canals-15, 51.
Canby, Gen. E. R. S.-88.
Cane Hill, battle o£-41.
Canright, Solomon-39.
Carter, Walter S.-87.
Casualties, Confederates-IS, 28, 59, 61, 67, 74, 78, 82, 86,
91, 93.
Casualties, Union-14-15, 28, 38, 51, 56, 59, 61, 67-68, 74,
78, 82, 86, 91-93.
Casualties, Wisconsin-4, 6, 9, 46, 50-51, 56-58, 92-93.
Catton, Bruce-18.
Cavalry, Wisconsin-13-14, 41-43, 50, 63 (also see 1st, 2nd,
3rd, 4th Cavalry).
Cedar Creek, battle of-72.
Cedar Mt., battle of-22.
Chambers, D. S.-31.
Champion's Hills, battle of-51.
Chancellorsville, battle of-55, 81, 90.
Chaplin Creek, battle o£-34.
Chapman, Dr. Chandler-29.
Charleston-83-85.
Chattanooga-55, 60-61, 69. Chickahominy River-21.
Chickamauga, battle of-17, 60-61, 64, 76, 81.
Chickasaw Bluffs, battle of-35.
Chivas, Lt. Robert J.-61.
Christian Commission-87-88.
Church, William H.-23.
Clarke, Kate-43.
Cleburne, Gen. Pat-79.
Clinton, Lt. Charles W.-47.
Coates, Sgt. Jefferson-57.
Cobb, Col. Amasa-13-14, 59, 79.
Cohen, Patrick H.-52.
Cold Harbor, battle of-37, 68, 74.
Collars, paper-62, 94-95.
Collins, Joseph E.-27.
Collins, Mason-40.
Collins, Sarah-40.
Columbia, burning of-84.
Columbia County-23.
Commutation-32, 68.
Confiscation of Property-36, 37, 69, 78, 81-86, 94-95.
Conover, Samuel-6.
Conscription-See Draft
Contrabands-See Slavery.
Cook, James H.-67.
Cooke, Chauncey H.-39-40, 45, 51, 53, 70-71, 76-77.
Coon, Col. S. Park-S.
Cooper, Joseph-SO.
Copperheads-6, 30, 32,65, 75.
Corduroy Roads-85, 95.
Corinth-20, 33-35.
Cosgriff, Richard H.-33.
Cotton-35, 37, 46, 62, 80, 84-85, 87-88.
Croft, James E.-78.
Culver, Jasper-81.
Cumberland, army of the-34, 50, 61, 69, 75, 77.
Cushing, Lt. Howard-73.
Cushing, Lt. William-72-73.
Cushing, Maj. Alonzo H.-59, 73.
Cutler, Col. Lysander-23, 25, 38, 57, 66, 94.

Abe, Old-15, 33, 51, 79, 88.
Alban, Col. J. S.-20
Albermarle, sinking of-72, 73.
Alexander, W. P.-13.
Allen, Col. Thomas S.-55, 56.
Anderson, Ole-15.
Anderson, Peter-86.
Andersonville prison camp-30, 80-81, 89.
Anneke, Col. Fritz-66.
Antietam, battle of-4, 17, 26-28,34-35,37,46,56,81.
Appomattox Court House-91-92.
Archer, Gen. J. J.-57.
Armistead, Gen. Lewis-59.
Artillery, Wisconsin-13-15, 20, 34, 40, 45-46, 49, 51-53,
60-()1, 69, 72, 78, 82, 93.
Atlanta-69, 70, 76-76, 77-78, 80-82.
Averasboro, battle of-86.

B
Bailey, Col. Joseph E.-62-63, 94.
Bald Hill, battle of-77.
Bank Riots-9-11, 13, 36.
Bankers, Wisconsin-10.
Banks, Gen. N. P.-22, 52, 62-63.
Barnes, Henry D.-29, 38,63-64, 66, 87, 92.
Barnett, Lt. James R.-50.
Batchelli, Capt. W. V.-27.
Bates, Edward-32.
Baton Rouge-36, 40, 52.
Battle Hymn-14.
Bean, Col. Sydney A.-52.
Bean, Lt. Walker L.-52.
Beauregard, Gen. P. G. T.-5, 17, 19, 20, 65, 67-68.
Beer-39, 43.
Beloit-13.
Bentonville, battle o£-86.
Berdan, Col. Hiram-13, 25 (also see Sharpshooters).
Bertram, Col. Henry-63.
Bintliff, Col. James-90-91.
Blair, A. M.-31.
Bolivar Heights, battle of-12.
Bolunger, Jake-71.
Booth, John Wilkes-43.
Booth, Sherman-7-8.
Bounties, enlistment-53, 64, 66, 74, 89, 90.
Bradley, John-61.
Bragg, Gen. Braxton-34-35, 49-50, 55, 60-61.
Bragg, Gen. Edward S.-21-22, 28, 34, 36, 56-57, 75, 94.
Brawner Farm-24.
Brockway, Rufus-8.
Brown, John-14.
Buchanan, President-7.
Buckner, Gen. Simon B.-60.
Buell, Gen Don C.-15, 17-20, 33-35.
Buffalo Bill-41.
Buffalo County-39, 51.
Bull Run, first battle o£-4-6, 12, 56, 91.
Bull Run, second battle of-23, 25, 26.
Bummers-65, 83, 95.
Burgess, Alvah-67.
Burns, John-57.
Burnside, Gen. Ambrose-28, 37-38, 55, 60-61, 74.
Bushwhackers-See Guerrillas.
Butler, Gen. Benjamin-36, 52, 67-68, 86.
Buttrick, Lt. Col. Edwin L.-49.

97

INDE«
First Wis. Inf.-5, 8, 12-15, 31, 34, 46, 49, 60-61, 64, 69-70,
81-82, 93.
Fitch, Lt. Col. Michael-86.
Five Forks, battle of-90.
Flags, regimental-33-34, 57, 61, 67-68, 90-91, 95.
Fond du Lac-12, 28, 34, 44, 50.
Food-35-36, 39, 47-49, 51, 53-54, 59, 61, 66-67, 69, 70-71,
76-77, 82-83, 85, 88, 96.
Foragers-See Confiscation.
Ford, C.-38.
Ford, Capt. C. H.-60.
Forrest, Gen. Nathan B.-78, 89, 92.
Fortieth Wis. Inf.-65.
Fortifications-17, 51-52, 54, 57, 70, 76, 78, 91.
Forty-eighth Wis. Inf.-45, 89.
Forty-fifth Wis. Inf.-79.
Forty-first Wis. Inf.-65.
Forty-fourth Wis. Inf.-79.
Forty-ninth Wis. Inf.-89.
Forty-seventh Wis. Inf.-89.
Forty-sixth Wis. Inf.-89.
Forty-third Wis. In£.-79.
Fourteenth Wis. Inf.-17, 19, 33, 36, 39, 51, 54, 62, 79-80,
82, 88, 93.
Fourth Wis. Calvary-52, 62, 93.
Fourth Wis. Inf.-9, 11, 14 (also see 4th Cavalry).
Fox, Capt. H. C.-93.
Franklin, battle of-78-79.
Frederick, Md.-12, 14.
Fredericksburg-21, 37-38, 55, 78.
Fremont, Gen. John C.-15, 22.
French in Mexico-63, 94.
Furloughs-64-66.

D
Dallas, battle of-70-71.
Dane County-12.
Danes-15.
Daughters of the Regiment-40.
Davis, David-93.
Davis, Gen. Jefferson C.-86.
Davis, Jefferson-7-8, 14, 70, 76, 83, 86, 89-90, 92.
Dawes, Col. Rufus R.-14, 22, 25, 27-28, 56-57, 66.
Dawes, William J.-33.
Delafield-59, 73.
Delany, Rev. James-18.
Deming, Thomas H.-89.
Democrats-See Politics.
Deserters-6, 31-32, 45-47, 63, 66-68, 83, 89-90, 94.
Deutsch, Gustav von-13, 41.
Dill, Col. Daniel J.-45.
Disease-29, 36, 39, 46-47, 53, 66, 70-71, 77, 87, 93.
Dodge, Capt. James H.-45.
Dodge County-7, 32, 44-45.
Donelson, Fort-15, 45,.60.
Doran, Col. John L.-20.
Doubleday, Gen. Abner-24, 56-57.
Douglas, Stephen A.-5, 7.
Draft-31-32, 39, 44, 64-65, 68, 87, 94.
Drake, George C.-5.
Drinking-See Whisky.
Durham, John S.-34.
Dwight, E. C.-39.
Dying Remarks-29.

E

G

Eagle Regiment-See Eighth Wisconsin.
Earl, I. N.-52.
Early, Gen. Jubal-71-72, 79.
Eau Claire-9, 15.
Edwards, Edwin-64.
Eighteenth Wis. Inf.-12-16, 33, 39, 43, 51, 62, 69, 82
Eighth Wis. Inf.-12, 14-15, 33, 35, 43, 51, 62, 69, 79, 88, 93.
Eleventh Wis. Inf.-14, 43, 51-53, 63, 88, 93.
Ellis, Horace-33.
Ellis, William-43.
Ely, Lt. E. H.-41.
Emancipation Proclamation-27, 32.
Entrenchments-See Fortifications.
Ewbank, Hannah-40.
Ewell, Gen. Richard-91.

Gainesville, battle of-23-25.
Gambling-29, 38-39, 55, 82.
German Regiments-See 9th and 26th Wis. In£.
Germans-6, 10, 15, 27, 31, 39, 41, 55, 79.
Gettysburg, battle o£-4, 17, 47, 53-60, 64-65, 76, 78, 91.
Gibbon, Gen. John-21, 23-25, 27-28, 37, 58-59.
Giesler, Capt. Julius-42-43.
Gill, Col. Charles R.-53, 80.
Gilson, E. H.-31.
Gleason, William H.-87.
Glover, Joshua-6-8.
Grand Army of the Republic-87.
Granger, Gen. Gordon-61.
Grant, Gen. Ulysses S.-14-15, 17-20,22,33-36, 51-53,60-61,
66-69, 71-72, 74, 78-80, 82, 84, 86, 88, 90-91, 95.
Grant County-6, 57, 88.
Graves, Rev. N. D.-9.
Green, William H.-68.
Green Bay-9, 32, 39.
Green County-12, 22.
Greene, Capt. Joseph-53.
Guerrillas-41-43, 50, 62, 79, 87-88, 90.

F
Fair Oaks, battle of-21, 75.
Fairchild, Cassius-18, 20.
Fairchild, Gov. Lucius-18, 24, 37, 56"57, 66, 93-94.
Falling Waters, battle of-5.
Fallows, Col. Samuel-89.
Farmers in Wisconsin-8, 35, 37,47-48.
Farragut, Admiral David-36, 73, 88.
Farwell, Gov.-47.
Fifteenth Wis. Inf.-6, 15, 34-35, 39, 49-50, 60-61, 69, 93.
Fifth Wis. Inf.-6, 9, 13-14, 21, 25-27, 37-38, 40, 52, 55-56,
58, 65-68, 72, 79, 91, 93.
Fiftieth Wis. Inf.-89, 93.
Fifty-first Wis. Inf.-89.
Fifty-second Wis. Inf.-89.
Fifty-third Wis. Inf.-89.
First Wis. Cavalry-42-43, 49-50, 60-61, 69, 88-89, 91, 93.

H
Habeas Corpus, writ of-30, 32.
Hahpahtakwahnoquette, Cpl. S.-68.
Hall, Sgt. 0. C.-45.
Halleck, Gen. Henry W.-15, 20, 22, 35, 53, 55, 87.
Hamilton, Gen. Charles S.-12, 20, 33-34, 94.
Hampton, Gen. Wade-74.
Hancock, Gen. Winfield S.-14, 21, 59, 91.
Hardee, Gen. William J.-85-86.

98

INDEX
K

Hardtack-See Food.
Harnden, Lt. Col. Henry-89, 92.
Harriman, Col. Sam-74.
Harris, John S.-87.
Harrisburg-56.
Harrison, William L.-77.
Harvey, Camp-14.
Harvey, Mrs. Cordelia-46-48, 87.
Harvey, Gov. Louis P.-18, 20, 43.
Haskell, Col. Frank A.-22, 37, 59, 68.
Hatcher's Run, battle o£-75.
Heffran, Patrik-51.
Heg, CoL Hans C.-15, 35, 39,60-61.
Helena, battle of-55.
Henry, Fort-15, 60.
Hibbard, Maj. Elisha C.-49.
Hickok, Wild Bill-42.
Hill, Gen. A. P.-74.
Hill, Gen. D. H.-26.
Hinkley, Capt. Julian W.-27-28, 56, 59, 65, 71, 77-78, 8384, 94.
Hobart, Gen. H. C.-9, 61, 69, 77, 86, 93.
Holly Springs-35, 51.
Homesickness-39-40, 64, 95-96.
Homeston, Ed.-51.
Honey Springs, battle of-42.
Hood, Gen. John B.-69, 76-80, 82, 85, 88.
Hooker, Gen. Joseph-26-29, 53, 56, 61, 70, 77.
Horicon-44-45.
Hospitals-46-48, 72, 87 (also see Medicine).
Houghton, Edgar P.-19, 79.
Howard, Gen. Oliver 0.-77.
Howe, Col. James H.-69.
Howe, Julia Ward-14.
Humes, Marion F.-5.
Hundred Day Soldiers-65-66.
Hunt, H. H.-31.
Hunter, Gen. David-71.

Kees, Capt. William H.-56.
Kellogg, Col. John A.-81.
Kennesaw Mt., battle of-71, 75.
Kenosha-14.
Kerr, Col. Thomas-81.
Kilbourn, Byron-13, 87.
King, Charles-25.
King, Gen. Rufus-14, 21, 23, 25, 94.
King, George R.-79-80.
Klement, Frank L.-30.
Knoxville-61.

L
La Crosse-9, 15, 75, 77.
La Grange, W. W.-43.
Lake Mills-40.
Lamson, Lt. A. T.-81.
Lane, Lt. Theron H.-92.
Larkin, Charles-6.
Larrabee, Col. Charles H.-49.
Lee, Gen. Robert E.-21-23, 26-27, 47, 51, 53, 55-56, 58-59,
66-69, 71, 74, 82, 86, 90-91, 94.
Leindecker, Mrs. Isabel-88.
Leonard, James-6, 65.
Levings, Edwin-36-37, 43, 51-52, 54, 64, 71, 77-78, 82-85,
89, 96.
Levings, Homer-64, 71, 77, 83, 85, 89, 96.
Lewis, Gov. James T.-65.
Lewis, Hugh-24.
Light Division-55.
Lincoln, Abraham-S, 7-8, 12, 14, 22, 28, 30, 32, 34-35, 38,
43, 45-48, 55, 60, 62-65, 68, 72, 75, 80, 82-83, 86, 92, 94.
Linsley, Capt. Joseph-53.
Liquor-See Whisky.
Logan, Gen. John A.-77, 79-80.
Lohmann, Heinrich-49.
Long, Jonathan-89.
Longstreet, Gen. James-23, 26, 58-61, 67.
Lookout Mt., battle of-61.
Loomis, J. C.-31.
Looting-See Confiscation.
Louisville-39.
Lyon, Charles G.-34.
Lyon, Martin L.-34.

I
Indians--41-45, 68, 83, 88, 93.
Infantry, Wisconsin-See specific regiments.
Irish-6, 15, 20, 31, 33, 46, 65.
Irish regiment-See 17th Wisconsin.
Iron Brigade-21-28, 36-38, 55-58, 64, 66-68, 74-75, 81, 90, 93.
Island No. 10-15.
Iuka, battle of-34-35.

M

J

MacArthur, Gen. Douglas-26, 61.
MacArthur, Lt. Col. Arthur, jr.-49, 61, 78, 94.
Madison-13, 15-16, 19-20, 47-48, 68-69, 81, 90.
Maginnis, James-15.
Maloney, Patrick-57.
Malvern Hill, battle of-21.
Manassas-See Bull Run.
Marquette-40.
Marshall, Capt. L. 0.-43.
Marye's Hill, battle of-37-38, 55.
McCann, Daniel-15, 29.
McClellan, Gen. George-13-14, 20-22, 25-26, 28, 68, 75,
80, 95.
McClernand, Gen. John A.-18.
McCook-Gen. Alexander-34, 69.
McDonald, Lt. Angus R.-88.
McDonald, Maj. Duncan-S.
McDowell, Gen. Irvin-4, 21-22, 24-25.
Mcintyre, Truman-80.

Jackson, Gen. Stonewall-S, 21, 23-27, 56, 71, 91.
jackson, Miss.-51.
] ames, army of the-68, 86, 91.
James, Jesse-41.
James River Campaign-67.
Janesville-38-39, 78-79.
jeffers, S. M.-15.
Jefferson, Lt. Col. John W.-51.
Jenkins Ferry, battle of-63.
Johnson, J ohn-38.
Johnson, President Andrew-95.
Johnston, Gen. A. S.-17-18.
Johnston, Gen. Joseph T.-5, 20-21, 51-52, 60, 69-70, 75-76,
83, 85-86, 90, 92, 94.
jonesboro, battle of-77-78.
Julson, Ole-93.
Juneau County-77, 81.

99

INDEX
0

McKee, David-6, 49.
McLain, David-33, 51.
McLean, Wilmer-91.
McNamara, Rev. John-51.
McPherson, Gen. James B.-69-70, 77.
McSorley, Felix-78.
Meade, Gen. George-53, 56-58, 66, 74.
Medals, winners of-33, 38, 43, 57, 61, 77-78, 86, 88, 90.
Medicine-29, 39, 46-49, 53, 61, 67, 80.
Memphis-20.
Menomonie-40, 44.
Meredith, Col. Solomon-37.
Meridian Raid-69.
Merrimac-16-17, 72.
Meservey, Col. Charles C.-72.
Mexico-63, 94.
Miller, Alonzo-29, 48.
Milliken's Bend, battle of-35.
Mills, Flavius J.-32.
Milwaukee-5-7, 9, 13, 15, 17, 31-32, 36, 44-45, 47, 49, 53,
66, 80-81, 87-89.
Milwaukee Regiment-See,24th Wisconsin.
Mine, Petersburg-74.
Mineral Point-55.
Minnesota, USS-16-17.
Minor, Edward S.-80.
Missionary Ridge, battle of-60-61.
Mississippi, army of the-:-34.
Mississippi River-15, 20, 35, 40, 55, 62.
Mitchell, Alexander-lO-ll, 13, 87.
Mobile-55, 63, 73, 88, 92.
Monitor-16-17.
Monroe, J. H.-93.
Monroe, Wis.-29, 34, 49.
Montague, Lt. H. 0.-61.
Montgomery, Col. Milton-77.
Moore, Donald B.-88.
Morrow, Col. Henry W.-37-38.
Morse, Henry-71.
Mud March-38.
Murfreesboro, battle of-49-50.
Murphy, Col. Robert-35.
Murphy, Dennis-33.
Murphy, Michael-77.
Music-14, 38-39, 56.
Muskego-50.

O'Brien, Moses-22.
O'Connor, Albert-90.
O'Connor, Col. Edgar-24.
Oconto River Drivers-36.
Ohio, army of the-69.
Ord, Gen. E. 0. C.-91.
Otto, Albert-77.
Owen, Lt. John A.-42.
Ozaukee County-7, 31, 44.

p
Paine, Gen. Halbert E.-36, 52, 71-72, 94.
Parsons, Capt. E. R.-78.
Patterson, Gen. Robert-S.
Pay, military-9, 82, 87.
Peach Tree Creek, battle of-77.
Pearsall, Col. Uri B.-89.
Pease, Marcus A.-47.
Peck, Lt. Col. Henry-S.
Pemberton, Gen. John-51, 53, 55.
Peninsula Campaign-20-22.
Perry, Richard M.-80, 82.
Perryville, battle of-34-35, 60.
Petersburg, battle of-66, 68, 74-75, 78, 86, 90-91.
Peterson, Belle-40.
Pettigrew, Gen. Joseph-59.
Philbrook, Maj. Alvah-78.
Physicians-See Medicine.
Pickett, Gen. George E.-58-59, 78, 90.
Pier, Lt. Col. Calvert K.-90.
Pinkerton, Allan-20, 26.
Pinney, Capt. Oscar-20, 29, 34, 49.
Pioneers-13, 95.
Pittsburg Landing-15, 17, 20 (also see Shiloh).
Plankinton, John-87.
Poe, Isaac-29.
Politics, National-7, 14, 29-30, 55, 61, 64, 68, 75, 80-81, 86,
92, 96.
Politics, Wisconsin-7, 30-32, 71, 77, 80-81, 87, 93.
Polk, Gen. Leonidas-69.
Pomeroy, Marcus M.-75.
Pond, George F.-43.
Pond, Lt. James B.-43.
Pope, Gen. John-15, 22-25,45, 52.
Pors, William A.-31-32.
Port Hudson, battle o£-51-52, 55, 71.
Port Washington-31.
Portage County-56.
Porter, Admiral-35, 51, 62-63.
Porter, Mrs. Eliza-47.
Postal Currency-11.
Potomac, army of the-14, 20, 28, 46, 50, 61, 70, 77, 82,
88, 90, 92, 94-96.
Potter, John F.-7.
Prentiss, Benjamin-17-18.
Prairie du Chien-47.
Prairie Grove, battle of-41.
Prisoners of War-16, 20, 30, 34, 50, 53-54, 61, 80-81, 84,
88, 93.
Pryor, Roger A.-7.
Putnam, Theodore T.-93.

N
Nashville-IS, 39, 46, 49-50, 55, 61, 67, 78-80.
Naval Actions-15-17, 36, 51, 53, 62-63, 72-73, 85, 88.
Negro, attitudes toward-6, 30, 32, 36-37, 39-40, 70, 83,
89, 95.
Negro Slaves-See Slavery.
Negro Soldiers-37, 42, 52, 74, 87.
Nelson, Bersven-15.
New Orleans-20, 36.
New York-64-65.
News, Milwaukee-75.
Newspapers-14, 30, 32-33, 44, 53, 65, 69, 75.
Newtonia, battle of-41.
Nineteenth Indiana Inf.-23-27.
Nineteenth Wis. Inf.-67, 75, 91.
Ninth Wis. Inf.-14, 41, 43, 55, 63, 93.
Noble, Lt. William-24.
North Anna, battle of-68.
Norwegians-6, 15, 38, 61.
Nurses-See Medicine.

Q
Quantrill, Charles-41-43.

100

IffDEX
Shelbyville, battle of-50.
Shenandoah Valley-22, 71, 79, 81, 91.
Sheridan, Gen. Phil-49, 71-72, 81, 90-91.
Sherman, Gen. William T.-4-5, 9, 14-18, 22, 35, 51, 55,
61-62, 66, 68-71, 75-78, 80-87, 92,94-96.
Shiloh, battle of-4, 17-20, 44, 51, 60.
Shinplasters-11.
Sickles, William H.-90.
Sigel, Camp-17.
Sigel, Gen. Franz-41, 71.
Sill, Lt. E. E.-81.
Sixteenth Wis. Inf.-15-19, 33, 69, 77, 82, 86, 93.
Sixth Wis. Inf.-14, 21-28, 34, 36-39, 55, 57-59, 64, 66, 74,
81, 90, 93.
Slavery-6-7, 13, 30, 32, 36-37, 49, 69, 79, 83, 89, 95-96.
Slocum, Gen. Henry W.-84-86.
Smith, Corp. George A.-67.
Smith, Gen. Kirby-5, 34, 63.
Smith, Lt. Samuel W.-45.
Soldiers' Home-87, 93-94.
South Mt., battle of-26.
Speculators-11, 29, 46, 80, 85-88, 96.
Spies-40.
Spotsylvania, battle of-67.
Springer, Rev. J, M.-69.
Stahl, Charles-20.
Staley, George-19.
Stannard, A. C.-25.
Stanton, Secretary-25, 47, 94-95.
Starkweather, Gen. John C.-7, 13, 31, 49, 60, 94.
Steele, Gen. Frederick-63.
Stephens, Alexander-90.
Stephens, Thomas-41.
Stillman, H. W.-31.
Stockwell, Elisha-19.
Stones River, battle of-6, 49-50.
Strong, Col. Rollin M.-66-67, 75.
Strong, Moses-13.
Stuart, Gen. J. E. B.-38, 56, 59, 71.
Substitutes, military-32, 90, 93.
Sullivan, J erry-29.
Sumner, -Gen. Edwin-28.
Sumter, Fort-7-8, 84-85.
Superior, Wis.-43-44.
Swedes-15.
Sweet, B. j.-22.

R
Racine-10, 14, 53.
Railroads-5, 8, 12-13, 35-36, 56, 60-61, 66, 68-71, 74, 76-77,
82, 85, 87, 90.
Randall, Camp-9, 13, 15-16, 31.
Randall, Edwin M.-87.
Randall, Gov.-6-8, 12.
Rappahannock River-56.
Read, Gen. Theodore-91.
Reconstruction, postwar-86-87.
Recreation of Soldiers-39.
Recruiting-8, 12, 64-65, 68, 71, 74, 77, 87, 90, 93.
Red River Expedition-62-63.
Redington, Edward S.-39.
Reed, Harrison-87.
Religion-30-31, 38-39, 53, 66, 69, 71, 83, 87-88.
Republicans-See Politics.
Resaca, battle of-69.
Reynolds, Col. Thomas-46.
Reynolds, Gen. John F.-56.
Richards, Lt. William-90.
Richards, Sgt. Solon-57.
Richardson, Lt. Col. Hollon-40, 90.
Richmond-20-21, 37,66-68,75,86,89-91.
Ripon-34.
Robbins, Rev. J. C.-9.
Robinson, Charles J.-12.
Robinson, Col. W. W.-38, 40.
Robinson, Leonora-40.
Rockwell, George-49.
Rosecrans, Gen. William S.-33-35, 49-50, 55, 60-61.
Ruegger, Capt. Edward-63.
Ruger, Gen. Thomas H.-12, 65, 77, 79, 94.
Rusk, Lt. Col. Jeremiah M.-77.
Russell, Henry-89.
Ryan, E. G.-30, 32.
Ryan, William W.-48.

s
Salomon, Gov. Edward-20, 31, 43, 63, 66.
Salomon, Gen. Eberhardt-63.
Salomon, Gen. Frederick-41-42, 55, 63, 94.
Salomon, Herman-63.
Samuels, Capt. Maurice M.-44.
Sandon, Charles-49.
Sanitary Commission-47, 87-88.
Savage, Lt. Col. John A.-68.
Savannah-83.
Saxe, Edward-18, 20.
Scandinavian Regiment-See 15th Wisconsin.
Schofield, Gen. John M.-69, 78-79, 85-86.
Schurz, Gen. Carl-30, 55, 57, 94.
Scott, Camp-S.
Scott, William-69.
Second Wis. Calvary-29, 37, 41-42, 52, 80.
Second Wis. Inf.-4-8, 14, 21, 23-28, 37-38, 55-58, 64, 66,
68, 71, 74, 90, 93.
Sedgwick, Gen. John-28, 55-56.
See-Bote, Milwaukee-32, 75.
Sellon, Ben-16.
Selma, capture of-89.
Seven Pines, battle of-21.
Seventeenth Wis. Inf.-9, 20, 33, 51-52, 69, 77, 82.
Seventh Wis. Inf.-12, 14, 21, 23-28, 33, 37-38, 40, 45, 48,
55-58, 64, 66-67, 74, 90, 93.
Sharpshooters-13, 21, 25, 38, 56, 58-59, 66.
Sheboygan-32, 44.

T
Taliaferro, Gen. William B.-24.
Taylor, Gen. Dick-62, 92.
Temperance Society-67.
Tennessee, army of the-34, 61, 69, 77, 82, 85, 95.
Tenth Wis. Inf.-14, 34, 49, 60-61, 69, 93.
Texas Rangers-42, 47.
Third Wis. Calvary-37, 41-43.
Third Wis. Inf.-8, 12, 14, 22, 25-28, 37-38, 45, 55-56, 58-59,
65, 69, 71, 77-81, 83-86, 93-94.
Thirteenth Wis. Inf.-43, 69.
Thirty-eighth Wis. Inf.-67-68, 74, 90-91, 95.
Thirty-fifth Wis. Inf.-88.
Thirty-first Wis. Inf.-69, 82, 86.
Thirty-fourth Wis. Inf.-65-66.
Thirty-ninth Wis. Inf.-65.
Thirty-second Wis. Inf.-69, 78, 82, 86.
Thirty-seventh Wis. Inf.-45, 67-68, 74, 90-91, 93.
Thirty-sixth Wis. Inf.-37, 67-68, 74-75, 90-91, 93.
Thirty-third Wis. Inf.-52-54, 62, 69, 79, 88.
Thomas, Gen. George H.-49, 60-61,69,77-80.

101

Warner, Clement E.-58.
Warren, Gen. Gouverneur K.-90.
Warren, John E.-80-81, 89.
Washburn, Gen. Cadwallader-41, 52, 53, 94.
Washburne, Elihu-14-15.
Washington, battle of-71-72.
Washington County-7, 31-32, 44-45.
Watertown-12, 53.
Waushara County-9.
Weber, Capt. John-53.
Webster, Lt. Daniel-53.
Weer, Col. William-41-42.
West, Col. Francis H.-85.
West, Owen-39.
West Bend-31, 45.
Whaley, William-14.
Whaling, William J.-32.
Wheeler, Gen. Joseph-85.
Whisky-13-15, 29, 31, 35, 39, 44-45, 53, 55, 57, 71-72, 74,
77, 82-84, 87.
Wildcat Banks-9-10.
Wilderness, battle of the-57.
Williams, E. S.-24.
Williams, Sanford B.-49.
Wilmington, battle of-85.
Wilson, Dr. Reuben-20.
Wilson, Eliza-40.
Wilson, Gen. James H.-80, 88-89,92.
Winchester, battle of-22.
Wisconsin, agriculture-S, 35, 85.
W is con sin, economics-8 7.
Wisconsin, population-5, 87.
Wisconsin, statistics-55, 87, 93-94.
Wisconsin Soldiers Aid Society-87.
Witherbotham, William W.-32.
Wittenberger, Frank-39, 89.
Wives of Soldiers-12, 38, 40, 55, 87-88.
Wolcott, Dr. E. B.-51.
Wolf, Julius-44.
Women-9, 21, 29-30, 37-40, 45-48, 78, 85, 87-88.
Women Soldiers-40.
Wood, David E.-20.
Wood, Mayor Fernando-54.
Wright, Gen. Horatio G.-72.

Thomas, Griff j.-72.
Ticknor, John-14.
Totopotomoy Creek-68.
Trimble, Gen. Isaac-59.
Triune, Tenn.-50.
Truell, Edwin M.-77.
Tullahoma Campaign-50.
Twelfth Wis. Inf.-29, 35, 38, 41, 43, 45, 48, 51-54, 64, 59,
77, 80, 82, 85-85, 93-94, 95.
Twentieth Wis. Inf.-41, 52, 53, 88, 93.
Twenty-eighth Wis. Inf.-29, 31, 38-39, 52, 55, 54, 87-88.
Twenty-fifth Wis. Inf.-39, 45, 51-52, 69, 75-77, 82, 89, 93.
Twenty-first Wis. Inf.-34, 49, 50-51, 69, 77, 81-82, 85, 93.
Twenty-fourth Mich. Inf.-37-38, 58.
Twenty-fourth Wis. Inf.-34, 49, 50, 50-61, 59, 75, 78-79,
91, 93-94.
Twenty-ninth Wis. Inf.-29, 43, 51-53, 52-53, 80, 88, 93.
Twenty-second Wis. Inf.-35, 59, 77-78, 82, 85.
Twenty-seventh Wis. Inf.-52, 53, 88.
Twenty-sixth Wis. Inf.-51, 55, 57-58, 51, 59, 82, 85, 93.
Twenty-third Wis. Inf.-35, 37, 51-53, 62-53, 88.
Twiggs, Daniel E.-7-8. .

u
Underground Railroad-5.
Uniforms-12-13, 22, 24, 34, 95-95.
Utley, Col. William L.-35-37, 59.

v
VanDorn, Gen. Earl-35.
Van Vliet, Capt. L. S.-35.
Vaughn, Lt. Col. Samuel-91.
Veteran Re-enlistments-54, 72.
Vice-38-39, 43, 75.
Vicksburg, battle of-35-35, 39, 48, 51-55, 50, 52-53, 58.
Virginia-See Merrimac.
Von Deutsch, Gustav-See Deutsch.
Vosburg, Lt. Sheldon E.-89.
Voss, Charles-77.

w
Walker, Johnnie-9.
Wallace, Gen. Lew-18-19.
Wallace, Gen. W. H. L.-18.
Waller, Corp. Francis A.-57.
Warley, Capt. A. F.-73.
Warner, Capt. William-54.

y
Yazoo River-35.
Yorktown-20, 22, 45.
Young, Luretta-31.

102

Contents
CHAPTER I
First Battle of

PAGES 3-6

CHAPTER II
. . . . ,. . . . .
.PAGES 6-9
Wisconsin just prior to and shortly after the start
of the war. Early recruiting.

CHAPTER)~''*':........

PAGES 55-57
CHAPTER XXI
Lee whips superior force at Chancellorsvilie.
Battle of Gettysburg begins.
CHAPTER XXII
Northern victory at Gettysburg.

PAGES 57-59

PAGES 9-11
Milwii:ukee bank riot. Financial troubles during
the war.

CHAPTER XXIII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGES 60-61
Battle of Chickamauga. Siege of Chattanooga.
Surprise victory at Missionary ridge.

. PAGES 12-14
CHAPTER IV
Early history of first regiments recruited in
Wisconsin.

CHAPTER XXIV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PAGES 62-63
Bailey's dam saves Union fleet in Red River campaign. Wisconsin troops at Jenkins Ferry and in
Texas.

CHAPTER V
..... PAGES 14-17
First victories in the west. Battle of the Monitor
and Merrimac.
CHAPTER VI
Wisconsin men fight at Shiloh.

PAGES 64-66
CHAPTER XXV
Veterans re-enlist to finish the war. Wisconsin
soldiers occupy Manhattan. 100 day troops.

PAGES 17-20

CHAPTER VII
PAGES 20-22
McClellan's Peninsula campaign. Early history
of the Iron Brigade. Battle of Cedar mountain.
PAGES 23-25
CHAPTER VIII
Iron Brigade's heroism at Gainesville. Second
battle of Bull Run.

PAGES 66-58
CHAPTER XXVI
Grant heads south in Virginia. Battles of the
Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Cold
Harbor. Siege of Petersburg begins.
PAGES 69-71
CHAPTER XXVII . . . . ....... .
After Meridian raid, Sherman moves so u t h
toward Atlanta. Battles of Resaca, Dallas.

PAGES 26-28
CHAPTER IX
Lee invades North. Battles of South Mountain
and Antietam ..

PAGES 71-73
CHAPTER XXVIII ...... .
With Washington's defenses stripped, J u b a 1
Early almost captures it. William Cushing sinks
the Albemarle.

PAGES 29-30
CHAPTER X
Soldiers' most deadly enemy is disease. Their
attitude toward the Negro. Politics causes disunity.

PAGES 74-?5
CHAPTER XXIX
Inconclusive fighting around Petersburg. Disunity in the North.

PAGES 31-32
CHAPTER XI
Wisconsin draft riots. Controversy over freeing
slaves.

PAGES 75-78
CHAPTER XXX
Sherman beaten at Kennesaw mountain, but
forces Confederates back to Atlanta, captures it
after severe fighting.

PAGES 33-35
CHAPTER XII
Battles of Corinth, Perryville, Chickasaw Bluffs.
Wisconsin colonel surrenders Grant's supply
base, ending first Vicksburg campaign.

CHAPTER XXXI . . ..
PAGES 78-80
Hood defeated by smaller Union force at Franklin, then whipped again at Nashville.
CHAPTER XXXII
PAGES 80-82
Wisconsin men in Confederate prisons. Sherman's
men wreck Atlanta, begin march to the sea.
0

PAGES 36-38
CHAPTER XIII
New Orleans captured. Milwaukeean's role in
saving Baton Rouge. UDion defeat at Fredricksburg.
CHAPTER XIV
PAGES 38-40
Vice, gambling, drinking, homesickness among
troops. Daughters of the regiments.
CHAPTER XV
PAGES 41-43
Wisconsin troops encounter guerrillas, Indians.

CHAPTER XXXIII
PAGES 82-83
Sherman's' march, as recorded by Wisconsin
soldiers. Savannah captured.
CHAPTER XXXIV
PAGES 84-86
Columbia burned. Sherman's march through the
Carolinas.
CHAPTER XXXV
PAGES 86-88
Changes in Wisconsin during war. Speculators
head south. Hardships of soldiers' families.
0

CHAPTER XVI
The 1861 and 1862 Indian scares in Wisconsin.
Soldiers' experiences in far west.
CHAPTER XVII
Wisconsin woman persuades Lincoln to establish
northern hospitals. Medical care and lack of it.
CHAPTER XVIII
PAGES 49-50
Battle of Murfreesboro. The T u 11 ahoma
campaign.
CHAPTER XVIX
PAGES 51-52
Fighting around Vicksburg and Port Gibson, as
Grant moves to open Mississippi.
CHAPTER XX
PAGES 53-55
Vicksburg and Port Hudson captured.

•••••

••••••

CHAPTER XXXVI
PAGES 88-89
Mobile captured. Problem of deserters.
CHAPTER XXXVII
PAGES 90-~2
Last desperate efforts of Confederates at Petersburg. Lee surrenders.
CHAPTER XXXVIII . . . . .
PAGES 92-94
Wisconsin cavalrymen lose race to capture ] efferson Davis. Details of state's losses in the war.
CHAPTER XXXIX
....
PAGES 94-96
Wisconsin soldiers join victory parades in Washington, with Sherman's midwesterners stealing
the show.