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Stoughton has a strong history of military service
beginning with the participation of Stoughton residents in the Civil War. In 1861 when President Lincoln
issued the call for Union volunteers, men from Stoughton and the
surrounding area came to Stoughton to enlist in the army.
Muster rolls list men from Dunkirk, Rutland, Dunn and Stoughton.
By early
September 1861, Company D of the 7th Wisconsin Volunteers, known
as the Stoughton
Light Guard was "present in force" for training at Camp Randall
in Madison. After less than three weeks of training, they
left by train for Washington D.C. making a brief stop in
Stoughton to say farewell to loved ones.
The 7th
Wisconsin Volunteers were combined with the 2nd and 6th
Wisconsin, the 19th Indiana and the 24th Michigan to from a
brigade that would become famous as the "Iron Brigade".
This brigade saw their first battle action in August 1862 at the
battle of Gainsville, VA (Brawner's Farm) where they earned
their recognition as fierce fighters and their new name.
This excerpt from a letter by John Hunt,
a farmer from Rutland,
Wisconsin was written to his wife three days after the Battle of Gainesville. He
was a member of Company D, 7th Wisconsin and later was captured
held prisoner at the notorious Libby Prison, contracted Typhoid Fever and died about October
18, 1863. *For more information on John Hunt see below.
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Centerville
August 31, 1862
Dear Wife,
I now write a line to tell you that I am among the
living yet and well as ever, only some tired out.
We have fought that is our Brigade, the hardest Battle
of its Duration, I think of the whole war. Our Co.
lost half of its men in killed and wounded and missing
but thank God I am among the spared. Emery is
killed I think. Marble Hanes and Elizah Marsh,
wounded. 6 on my right and 5 on my left were cut
down, but we never flinched but stood like a stone wall
for an hour and a half, till the Rebels charged on us,
and my God how they fell; they were obliged to run and
we gained the day.
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The
Stoughton Light Guard went on to fight in some of the most
famous battles of the Civil War; Second Bull Run,
Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Appamattox suffering
proportionally more casualties than any other brigade in
the Civil War.
A "Black Hat" of the Wis. 7th, Company D from our collection
Click here for a listing of members of the Stoughton Light Guard
Click here for
excerpts from Flags of the Iron Brigade by
Howard Michael Madaus
* John Hunt was born in Hilgay, England on
November 10, 1836 and came to America in the Spring of 1839
finally settling in Rutland, Wisconsin on August 12, 1846.
He married Mary Carrison, also of England in 1859. Their
only child,
James William Hunt, was born on December 17,
1860. John Hunt enlisted in the U.S. Army early in 1861
and was trained at Camp Randall, Madison, WI until September 21,
1861 when he and others were sent by train to Washington D.C.
where they joined the Army of the Potomac. John Hunt wrote
many letters home to his wife but sadly, died of typhoid fever
in a prisoner of war camp. He is buried at Riverside
Cemetery in Stoughton, WI. The Stoughton Historical Museum
has transcripts of John Hunt's letters on display in the Civil
War section of the museum thanks to the generosity of George and
Kathy Thode.
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