James S. Pula - The Sigel Regiment

hile thousands of young men were being killed and maimed along a once-tranquil creek in western Maryland on September 17, 1862, Col. William H. Jacobs' 26th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry was quietly mustered into service in Milwaukee. The regiment was made up primarily of German immigrants and Americans of German descent. By the war's second autumn few in its newly-formed ranks harbored illusions that the conflict would end quickly. Indeed, the result was still being hotly debated with rifles and artillery across grassy fields and through broken wood lots across the divided nation.

The 26th Wisconsin's service began rather fortuitously. It was initially absorbed into the Army of the Potomac and attached to the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division, 11th Army Corps. Colonel Jacobs was new to the craft of war, having earned his living previously in banking and insurance. The brigade, however, was headed by Col. Wtodzimierz Krzyanowski, a competent officer and Polish refugee with European military experience. Divisional leadership was similarly situated with the bespectacled Carl Schurz in command, a capable Prussian immigrant and former journalist and European revolutionary. As part of the army's Reserve Division, the Wisconsinites missed the opportunity of firing their muskets in anger at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862. Thereafter the 26th's fortunes angled off in a new direction.

The afternoon of May 2, 1863, found the regiment in Oliver O. Howard's 11th Corps on the army's far right wing in the thickets near a small crossing named Chancellorsville. The neophyte Sigel Regiment, named after German General Franz Sigel, was about to experience the receiving end of one of the most successful surprise attacks in military history. The value of well-drilled stock and solid regimental leadership rose to the fore. Outnumbered, outflanked and caught in a crossfire, the battling Colonel Jacobs refused to fall back before the onslaught until twice ordered to do so by his brigade commander. The cost to the 26th Wisconsin for its lonely and conspicuous stand was 204 men. Similar ill luck two months later ensconced the regiment north of Gettysburg, where the Badger State troops, this time under Lt. Col. Hans Boebel, left another 250 men on the field. By the time the 26th Wisconsin shipped out that fall for service in the Western Theater, hardened combat veterans who had seen the worst war has to offer populated its ranks.

Service in Tennessee with the Army of the Cumberland lessened the regiments' exposure to hard combat only temporarily. With Krzyanowski and Schurz still leading the brigade and division, respectively, Maj. Frederick C. Winkler assumed the reins of regimental leadership and took his Wisconsin troops through the Chattanooga and Knoxville campaigns. The spring of 1864 heralded both a new season of campaigning and a change in organization when the 26th Wisconsin was transferred into the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, 20th Corps, with which it served for the balance of the war. Over the following months the Germans distinguished themselves on a number of fields, including Resaca, New Hope Church, Kennesaw Mountain, and Peach Tree Creek. Winkler's thinning regiment achieved special distinction during the latter action when it managed to capture the flag of the 33rd Mississippi Infantry. The March to the Sea and Carolinas Campaign followed, with the 26th seeing action at both Averasboro and Bentonville. By the end of its service some 1,089 men had served in the 26th's ranks; more than 17% were killed or mortally wounded.

Throughout their remarkable odyssey the men of the 26th Wisconsin remained faithful to both their ethnic roots and their new country. Indeed, their sacrifices for their adopted homeland are inextricably linked forever to the scarred lands stretching from near our nation's capital to beyond the Appalachian Mountainsa pantheon to the fallen. That their story is not better known today is a mystery, for during the Civil War the men of the 26th stood apart and were recognized by their contemporaries as a regiment of distinction.

The colonel of the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, when referencing the 26th's achievements in the Eastern Theater, hailed it as one of the finest military organizations in the service. Readers of James S. Pula's gracefully written and superbly researched The Sigel Regiment: A History of the Twenty Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, 1862-1865, will likewise claim he has penned one of the finest regimental histories published to date.

Theodore P. Savas
Publisher
February 16, 1998