Wisconsin Civil War History

22/09/2025

He was shot down at Gettysburg, July 1, 1863—his face torn by musket fire, his sight forever lost. Then, blinded and bleeding in the chaos of the Iron Brigade’s stand, Sergeant Jefferson Coates did the unthinkable: he kept fighting. At just twenty years old, he refused to falter, rallying his comrades in one of the Civil War’s bloodiest opening clashes.

Born in Wisconsin in 1843, Coates had marched off to war with Company H, 7th Wisconsin Infantry, never imagining that courage would cost him his eyes. But on that ridge outside Gettysburg, as the Union line buckled beneath Confederate fire, his valor shone. For “unsurpassed courage,” he was awarded the Medal of Honor—a medal pinned not for victory, but for a spirit too stubborn to die when darkness closed in.

It wasn’t just the medals or the words of generals that marked him, but the sheer grit of survival. Coates, robbed of sight, clawed his way back from despair, living decades beyond the war, his life a testament to endurance. Where others saw a broken man, he carried himself with quiet defiance, the medal on his chest a reminder of what he had endured and what he had given.

By the time he passed in 1901, Jefferson Coates’ name had faded into history’s margins. Yet his story still lingers, asking a question as old as battle itself: when the world goes dark, when every step forward feels impossible, what would you do? Would you surrender to fate—or would you fight on, as Coates did, blind but unbroken?

20/09/2025

It was on this day, Sept. 20, 1863, that Col. Hans Christian Heg, brigade commander in the Army of the Cumberland’s XX Corps succumbed to wounds he sustained the previous day during the Battle of Chickamauga.

Born in 1829 in Norway, Heg immigrated to Wisconsin with his family in 1840 and settled on a farm near Muskego. In the 1850’s Heg became involved with the state militia and in politics, first as a Free Soiler and then as a Republican. He was the first Norwegian to hold statewide office when he was elected State Prison Commissioner in 1859.

At the outbreak of the Civil War Heg was appointed colonel of the 15th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, dubbed the “Scandinavian Regiment” due to its almost entire constitution of soldiers of Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish birth. It was just a little before the Battle of Chickamauga that Heg was promoted to brigade command.

Capt. Albert Skoestad of Co. D, 15th Wisconsin, described Heg’s mortal wounding: “Colonel Heg was ever prompt at his post, always courageous and self-possessed…a ball from a sharpshooter’s rifle pierced his bowels…He did not stagger or fall, but even when death stared him in the face…he once more rallied his men and rode on for about a quarter of a mile.”

Heg would spend an agonizing night in pain before death overtook him. A surgeon who attended to Heg said the comrades who visited Heg in his final hours “wept like children. Everybody who knew him loved him.”

Heg is buried in Norway, Wisconsin and is memorialized with a statue outside the Wisconsin State Capitol.

18/09/2025

On this day, Sept. 18, 1863, the Battle of Chickamauga commences.

Wisconsin units will be heavily engaged in the three day fight and will suffer heavy casualties.

Photo: Wisconsin State Journal front page from Monday Sept. 21, 1863. Taken from newspapers.com.

18/09/2025

On the same day as the Battle of Antietam, the 26th Wisconsin Infantry is mustered into Federal service.

Composed of men of primarily German lineage, the regiment would participate in such battles as Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and the Chattanooga, Atlanta, Savannah, and Carolinas Campaigns.

The regiment lost 12 officers and 176 men killed in action or who later died of their wounds, plus another 77 enlisted men who died of disease, for a total of 265 fatalities.

17/09/2025

BEST FRIENDS KILLED AT THE SAME MOMENT

Privates Franklin Gerlaugh and William Black were lifelong best friends. Both born in 1843 and raised in Freedom, WI, they both enlisted in the Union Army on May 10, 1861 and were assigned to Co. A of the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

During the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, Gerlaugh and Black were fighting near the David R. Miller barn when a Confederate bullet struck Gerlaugh in the forehead, and as he was falling Black reached out to grab his friend when another Confederate bullet tore through Black’s throat, killing him instantly.

After the battle, Union soldiers found the two friends where they had fallen, with Black’s head resting on his friend’s body.

The two friends were buried together in the same grave and later removed to the Antietam National Cemetery where they remain buried together.

First photo: Private Franklin Gerlaugh
Second photo: William Black headstone

17/09/2025

16/09/2025

The Cornfield at the David R. Miller Farm on the Antietam Battlefield.

The field looked very similar to this on this day, Sept. 16, 1862.

By the afternoon of the following day, the corn will be cut down as if it was never there and the field will be stained with the blood of many Wisconsin boys, forever taking the name “Bloody Cornfield”…

15/09/2025

John Gibbon, commander of the Iron Brigade during the Maryland Campaign.

Gibbon made his mark on Iron Brigade, instilling rigid discipline and drilling them into one of the most tenacious fighting units in the Army of the Potomac.

Initially disliked by some of the men of the brigade due to his strict discipline, he quickly won them over and after the war served as president of the Iron Brigade Association, demonstrating the affection the men from his former command felt.

15/09/2025

Maj. Rufus Dawes, 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, shared his recollection of the night following the Battle of South Mountain:

“The night was chilly, and in the woods intensely dark. Our wounded were scattered over a great distance up and down the mountain and were suffering untold agonies. Owing to the difficulties of the ground and the night, no stretcher bearers had come upon the field. Several dying men were pleading piteously for water, of which there was not a drop in the regiment, nor was there any liquor…The dread reality of war was before us in this frightful death, upon the cold, hard stones…After a long interval of this horror, our stretcher bearers came, and the poor suffering heroes were carried back to houses and barns.”

14/09/2025

On this day, Sept. 14, 1862 the Battle of South Mountain is fought during the Maryland Campaign.

The 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin Infantry regiments participated in the battle.

Seeing John Gibbon’s brigade of the 2nd, 6th, 7th Wisconsin and 19th Indiana regiments ferociously attacking Turner’s Gap, Army Commander George B. McClellan is said to have remarked, “They must be made of iron”, thus earning the sobriquet “Iron Brigade.”

All told, at the end of the day, Wisconsin troops suffered 222 killed and wounded in helping secure a Union victory.

13/09/2025

On this day, Sept. 13, 1861 the 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment is mustered into Federal service.

Famously known as the “Eagle Regiment”, so named for their bald eagle mascot “Old Abe”, the regiment would participate in such Western Theater battles as Iuka, Second Corinth, Vicksburg, the Red River Campaign, and Nashville.

Old Abe’s legacy lives on through its likeness utilized in the 101st Airborne Division patch.