The Third opened the battle at Cedar Mountain, and very soon after that
was at Antietam, where it lost two-thirds of the men it took into
action. The Fifth also was prominent near by, and the Iron Brigade,
behind a rail fence, conducted a fight which was one of the chief events
of the engagement.
At the battle of Corinth, several Wisconsin regiments and four of her
batteries won some of the brightest honors. In the various official
reports of the action, such comments as the following are frequent:
"This regiment (the Fourteenth) was the one to rely upon in every
emergency;" a fearless dash by the Seventeenth regiment, one general
described as "the most glorious charge of the campaign"; there was an
allusion to the Eighteenth's "most effectual service"; in referring to
the Sixth battery, mention is made in the reports, of "its noble work."
At Chaplin Hills, in Kentucky, a few days later, the First Wisconsin
drove back the enemy several times, and captured a stand of Confederate
colors. The Tenth was seven hours under fire, and lost fifty-four per
cent of its number. General Rousseau highly praised both regiments,
saying, "These brave men are entitled to the gratitude of the country."
The Fifteenth captured heavy stores of ammunition and many prisoners;
the Twenty-fifth repulsed, with withering fire, a superior force of the
enemy, who had suddenly assaulted them while lying in a cornfield; and
the Fifth battery three times turned back a Confederate charge, "saving
the division," as General McCook reported, "from a disgraceful defeat."
At Prairie Grove, in Arkansas, at Fredericksburg, and at Stone River,
still later in the campaign of 1862, Wisconsin soldiers exhibited what
General Sherman described as "splendid conduct, bravery, and
efficiency."
Men of Wisconsin were also prominent in the Army of the Potomac, during
the famous "mud campaign" of the early months of 1863. At the crossing
of the Rappahannock, theirs was the dangerous duty to protect the makers
of the pontoon bridges. In the course of this service, the Iron Brigade
made a splendid dash across the river, charged up the opposite heights,
and at the point of the bayonet routed the Confederates who were
intrenched in rifle pits.
At Chancellorsville, the Third Wisconsin, detailed to act as a barrier
to the advance of the Confederates under Stonewall Jackson, was the last
to leave the illfated field.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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