CWRT Meeting - Aug 2014 - Lance Herdegen - “Gettysburg: A Fight for the Colors“

Lance Herdegen on: “Gettysburg: A Fight for the Colors“ The “Calico Boys” of the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers went to Gettysburg in 1863 and fought in the epic battle of the Civil War. In the very opening of the infantry fighting on July 1, 1863, the regiment—detached from its famous Iron Brigade—ran more than a half mile to charge a Confederate Brigade. In the fighting, the flag of the Second Mississippi regiment was taken in a hand-to-hand exchange in an unfinished railroad cut northwest of town. The successful attack restored the Union position and played a key role in the outcome of the three day battle. The Wisconsin men always remembered that moment as they stood in an open meadow under a “galling fire.” Frantically, loading and shooting, the Badgers learned into the storm of bullets coming from the railroad cut 175 yards away The Western men pushed slowly out into the field and—at the very instant victory or defeat not yet decided—the “Jayhawkers” of Company C from Prairie du Chien shouted “Charge! Charge!” at the officers. The air seemed “full of bullets”—one private said—and the men around him were dropping: at a fearful rate.” Pvt. Amos Lefler of Fond du Lac was on his hands and knees spitting blood and teeth from a face wound. Capt. Johnny Ticknor of Mauston was down and dying. Pvt. James P. Sullivan was unable to get his rifle-musket to fire. A Rebel buckshot smashed the canteen and slashed the hip of Sgt. George Fairfield. Behind the ragged line in blue, Lt. Col. Rufus Dawes watched a “fearful” and “destructive “ fire crashing with “an unbroken roar before us. Men were being shot by twenties and thirties…” The young officer lifted his sword and shouted “Forward! Forward! Charge! Align on the Colors!” And then, said Cpl. Frank A. Wallar, a farmer boy turned soldier who was about to capture a flag, “there was a general rush and yells enough to almost awaken the dead…” Speaker Lance J. Herdegen will tell the story of how the flag of the Second Mississippi was captured at the railroad cut that July morning and what happened to the banner during the rest of the battle and long after the war. Herdegen is the author of several books on Civil War topics. His latest is The Iron Brigade in Civil War and Memory: The Black Hats from Bull Run to Appomattox and Thereafter, a selection of both the History and Military book clubs. His previous book, Those Damned Black Hats: The Iron Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign, won the Army Historical Foundation’s Distinguished Writing Award. Recently inducted into the Milwaukee Press Club Hall of Fame, he is the former director of the Institute for Civil War Studies at Carroll University and presently chairs the Wisconsin Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission. He is a historical consultant to the Civil War Museum at Kenosha, Wis. He lives in the Town of Spring Prairie, Walworth County, Wisconsin.