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Blood c Anime:Updates: Blood c Anime:Updates: "Blood c Anime:Updates : The first Wisconsin troops to fight, die and get captured in the Civil War, at 10 a.m. 150 years ago Saturday,..."

Blood c Anime:Updates

Blood c Anime:Updates: The first Wisconsin troops to fight, die and get captured in the Civil War, at 10 a.m. 150 years ago Saturday, were sent east with few weapons and uniforms the same color as the enemy's. It was to be a grand adventure, surely taking no longer than three-month term volunteers would serve. Townspeople had picnics for the 794 soldiers in the First Wisconsin Infantry when their train stopped on the way to the War of the Rebellion. Their first battle, July 2, 1861, the Battle of Falling Waters, 900 miles from home, claimed the state's first fighting casualty, Pvt. George Drake, 19, of Milwaukee. His dying word was "Mother." The battle — some called it a "skirmish" — also claimed the first prisoner of war from the state, Solomon Wise. And it provided evidence, both in blood and in character, that this was probably going to last beyond the 90 days these men had signed up for. They were responding to Gov. Alexander Randall's call for volunteers. He needed 1,000, enough to fill 10 companies or one regiment. He got three times that and wisely kept the oversubscribed on the hook. The First Wisconsin Infantry, however, would forever carry the "90-days" in parentheses as part of its name. "They trained at Camp Scott in Milwaukee, but there was no real camp there, and they had no weapons, either," said Doug Dammen of the Kenosha Civil War Museum."They took the train east and I don't think anyone really knew what to expect." Indeed, Frank L. Klement's "Wisconsin in the Civil War" said the trip east "seemed like a triumphal tour." Yet the men were not ready. "Most of them didn't get their muskets until they got to Washington D.C., so there was not a lot of time to train," he said. One of those "Badger Boys" was Private Colwert Pier, from Fond du Lac, who was in Company I and fought in that first battle: "It was a wild, harum-scarum battle, but the boys thought it was a big thing," wrote Pier, quoted in a Fond du Lac history. That account noted that "afterwards, this minor skirmish became a joke among the veterans and remains one to this day." The Battle of Falling Waters lasted about two hours. It was in Virginia, now West Virginia, at a small crossroads that is the entrance to the Shenandoah Valley, the road south. The battle featured about 20,000 Union troops and 3,500 to 6,000 Confederate troops. The object for the Union was to keep the rebels confined to the valley. The battle was the first for Confederate Col. Thomas J. Jackson, who was promoted general after this battle, and who was soon to be known as "Stonewall" Jackson. Historical accounts note this battle was the first time cavalry forces fought in conflict, the first time cannons were used in the valley, the first battle in the "breadbasket of the Confederacy," and the first use of "mass troop movements" in the war. The Wisconsin troops were part of Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson's division, and this battle, however small in size and duration, was to ruin Patterson's military career. Accounts agree his failure to engage the Southern troops allowed those troops to march south unmolested and join the assembly that would soon engage at Manassas, known in the North as the First Battle of Bull Run, a stunning Union defeat. But the field reports from Northern commanders were glowing: Col. John C. Starkweather, in his report to the War Department two days later, praised his men as fighting with "utmost bravery, entitled to great credit as raw troops." For the men who fought in that first battle, the war ended quickly, as their 90-day term expired and they mustered out in Milwaukee, only to be reformed as the First Wisconsin Infantry in August. It turned out the governor had needed all those extra volunteers from earlier in 1861, and so the First Wisconsin was reformed, and this time, there were no three-month terms. They signed on for three years, and thousands more Wisconsin soldiers were to follow. In the end, the 1895 Census noted: "the total number of men Wisconsin is credited with having furnished to the war is 91,327, divided as follows: Infantry 77,375; Cavalry 8,877; Artillery 5,075. Of this number, 3,802 were killed in action or died of wounds, and the number of deaths from all other causes 8,499; total deaths, 12,301." The History of Wisconsin in the Civil War adds that another 15,000 men were discharged for disabilities incurred during service. Nearly one soldier in every three became a casualty of some kind, and one in every seven failed to survive the war. `