The Scandinavian Element in the United States: University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, Vol. 111, No. 3, September, 1914Babcock, Kendric Charles
History
The Scandinavian Element in the United States: University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, Vol. 111, No. 3, September, 1914
Babcock, Kendric Charles
Scandinavians -- United States
Besides this Scandinavian regiment, there were several others in which
the Norse element was large. Company C of the 43d Illinois Regiment was
made up of Swedes, serving under Captain Arosenius. It was organized in
the spring of 1862 and mustered out in the fall of 1865, with
an honorable record of services faithfully and uncomplainingly
performed.[178] Company D of the 57th Illinois Regiment, which served
from the autumn of 1861 to July, 1864,[179] and Company D of the 3d
Minnesota Regiment, which was mustered in at about the same time,[180]
were composed of Scandinavians. A sprinkling of Swedes, Norwegians, and
Danes appears in the lists of many of the regiments of Illinois,
Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and many of these men rose to the ranks of
commissioned officers.[181] The Adjutant General of Minnesota in 1866
estimated that of the enlistments from that State, at least 800 were
Norwegians, 675 Swedes, and 25 Danes. "In numerous instances the
nativity of the soldiers is omitted; and it is not easy to count
correctly all the names in such publications; hence it is fair to
estimate that 2,000 Scandinavians from Minnesota enlisted under the
Stars and Stripes.... One-eighth of the total population of the State
enlisted under the Union flag; while at the same time one out of every
six Scandinavians in Minnesota, as well as in Wisconsin, fought for his
adopted country."[182]
[178] Johnson and Peterson, _Svenskarne i Illinois_, 143-149.
[179] _Ibid._, 155-161.
[180] Mattson, _The Story of an Emigrant_, 59-93.
[181] _Ibid._, 62.
[182] _Annual Report of the Adjutant General of Minnesota_, 1866, II;
Nelson, _History of the Scandinavians_, I, 303-304. Similar
figures for Iowa are in Nelson, II, 67.
Everywhere the story of their services in the army is creditable, and it
is not strange that the survivors are proud of their war records as the
badge of loyal Americanism. They did not go into the war for mere love
of adventure, nor for love of fighting, for men in large numbers do not
leave their families and their half-developed farms for flimsy and
temporary reasons. They loved the new country they had made their own,
with a love that was measurable in the high terms of sacrifice, even to
the shedding of blood and to death. The stock out of which Gustavus
Adolphus made brave and effective soldiers had not degenerated through
lapse of time nor through transplanting.
Though John Ericsson was in no wise connected with the regular Swedish
immigration movement, nor with Swedish settlement in the Northwest, the
United States owes him too large a debt for what has sometimes been
called the salvation of the Union through the agency of his "Monitor",
to warrant the omission of his name from among those Swedes who served
American freedom during the Civil War.[183]
[183] Church, _Life of John Ericsson_.
CHAPTER VIII.
ECONOMIC FORCES AT WORK.
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