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15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Contact: Daniel Christensen: (262) 891-2099

For Gud og Vort Land!

The Fifteenth Wisconsin Infantry Regiment was organized at Camp Randall, Madison, WI. and mustered into the service of the United States on the 14th day of February, 1862.

It left the State on March 2, 1862, reaching Bird’s Point, MO, opposite Cairo, IL, and on the 14th took its place in line with the forces investing Island No. 10, and remained until the end of the siege. (Siege of Island No. 10, February 28-April 8, 1862). Soon after the surrender of the Confederate forces at this point the Fifteenth was transferred to Tennessee, and the subsequent service of that regiment was rendered in middle Kentucky, middle Tennessee and northern Georgia.

In the summer of 1862 it participated in many of the movements of the Union forces, and in the course of the campaign met the enemy at Perryville (or Chaplin Hills) KY and took part in the battle at that place October 8, 1862. With the Union forces pursued the retreating Confederates and reached Nashville, TN about the middle of November. About the 26th of the following December, as a part of the Army of the Cumberland, it took part in the movement toward Murfreesboro, TN. and participated in the Battle of Stone’s River or Murfreesboro, December 30 and 31, 1862, and January 1, 1863. Thereafter the Fifteenth was continuously in service in various expeditions, in middle Tennessee and with the Army of the Cumberland under Gen. Rosecrans took part in the Tullohoma Campaign, June 23 to July 7, 1863, and in the advance into Northern Georgia near Chattanooga. It participated in the battle of Chickamauga, GA, September 19-20th, and in the subsequent battle of Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga, TN., November 25, 1863, followed by service in the campaign to relieve the forces under Gen. Burnside at Knoxville, TN.

Returning to the vicinity of Chattanooga, the regiment joined Sherman’s Army, May 5, 1864, and participated in the Atlanta Campaign, May 1-September 8, 1864. Taking part in the battles of Resaca, May 14, 1864; Dalton, May 26, 1864; Kenesaw Mountain, June 23, 1864; Atlanta, July 22, 1864, and Jonesborough, September 1, 1864. After the conclusion of the Atlanta Campaign the Fifteenth returned to Chattanooga where most of the companies were mustered out of service of the U.S. in December owing to the expiration of the term for which the men had enlisted. Two companies, A & E, remained at that place until the 13th of February, 1865, when these companies were mustered out. A portion of the men whose term of service had not at that time expired were transferred to the Twenty-fourth Infantry, and subsequently upon muster out of that regiment to the Thirteenth Infantry, with which regiment these men served until muster out of service of the Thirteenth.

Adopted from Charles E. Estabrook, ed., Records and Sketches of Military Organizations, (Madison, 1914).

“They are amongst the best and the bravest of our soldiers. Descendants of the sturdy Vikings of medieval times, they have in the long lapse of years lost none of that daring valor, power of endurance, and remarkable coolness in times of excitement, which characterized their ancestors. Next to bravery, their most marked quality is calmness. Always cool and collected, they act with the same deliberation and forethought in the trying hours of danger as in the transactions of every-day life. Temperate and virtuous, obedient and well disciplined, they are in every respect model soldiers, and challenge the admiration and respect of all whose good fortune it is to mingle with them.”
–The Scandinavian Regiment and Its Colonel,
Annals of the ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND, 1864

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