Swedish American Genealogist

Volume 32 | Number 3 Article 6

9-1-2012

Illinois Swedes at ShilohJohn E. Norton

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsagPart of the Genealogy Commons, and the Scandinavian Studies Commons

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Augustana Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Swedish AmericanGenealogist by an authorized editor of Augustana Digital Commons. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@augustana.edu.

Recommended CitationNorton, John E. (2012) "Illinois Swedes at Shiloh," Swedish American Genealogist: Vol. 32 : No. 3 , Article 6.Available at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag/vol32/iss3/6

8 Swedish American Genealogist 2012:3

April 6th and 7th 2012 marked thesomber 150th anniversary of one of thebloodiest battles of the Civil War,fought at Shiloh/Pittsburg Landing,TN. It began as a surprise attack byConfederate soldiers to protect theirvital rail communications center ofCorinth, MS, threatened by Gen.Grant’s approaching Union army.Nearly 67,000 Federal troops and45,000 Confederates met at Shiloh inthe costliest battle yet fought in thatwar. It left some 13,000 Federal and10,700 Confederate casualties, in-cluding nearly 3,500 dead. Among thefallen were young Swedish immi-grant soldiers from the Bishop Hill/Andover area.

Senior officers wrote “big picture”after-battle reports, but they tell littleof the private soldier.

U.S. Grant, in his 1885 narrativeof the battle, reported: “…Shiloh wasthe most severe battle fought in theWest during the war, and but few inthe east equaled it for hard, deter-mined fighting. I saw an open field inour possession on the second day, overwhich the Confederates had maderepeated charges the day before, socovered with dead that it would havebeen possible to walk across the clear-ing in any direction, stepping on deadbodies, without a foot touching theground.”1 But, a member of Swedish-born Col. Oscar Malmborg’s 55th Illi-nois Volunteer Infantry Regimentdescribed it from the soldier’s view-point: “My chief memories are thebattlefield horrors – mangled human-ity, dead horses, deep mud, horriblestenches, and insufficient food.”2

Oscar Malmborg was acting as an

immigrant agent for the Illinois Cen-tral Railroad in Sweden as the warapproached.3 Upon his return to Illi-nois, Malmborg was appointed Swed-ish-Norwegian vice-consul for Chi-cago in November 1861, but resignedto join as an officer in the 55th Illi-nois Volunteer Infantry Regiment.His leadership played a key role inthe Federal success at the battle ofShiloh. He was a controversial, butsuccessful, officer, disliked by subor-dinates for his strict discipline, yetappreciated by his superiors for hisunit’s battlefield performance.4

Western Illinois Swedesat the battle of ShilohEarly Civil War units were recruitedlocally for three-year enlistments byorganizers who often became theircommanders. They thus reflectedtheir leaders’ and regional popu-lations, including immigrant com-munities, whether German, Scotch,Irish, Norwegian, or Swedish. Inwestern Illinois, two predominantlySwedish units were recruited fromthe Quad Cities, Andover, Galesburg,and Bishop Hill areas.

They are memorialized today bypost-Civil War statues in village andcity parks, as in Bishop Hill, or inAndover, by a large plaque outsidethe entrance of the Augustana Lu-theran Church. Both my great-grandfather, Lars Nordin (Lewis Nor-ton), and his brother, Karl Nordin(Charles Norton), are recognizedthere. Lars served as a sergeant inH Company, 112th Illinois VolunteerInfantry, from 15 August 1862 until

20 June 1865, and Karl, as an en-listed man in A and later, the Swe-dish C Company, 43rd Illinois Volun-teer Infantry, from 24 February 1864to 30 November 1865. Karl’s CivilWar British-made Tower musketremains a proud family possession,now in the care of descendant JimNorton of Green Valley, AZ.

Of special interest to western Il-linois are C Company, 43rd IllinoisVolunteer Infantry, and D Company,57th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, bothalmost completely Swedish, and bothserving in some of the earliest anddeadliest conflicts of the war, in-cluding the battle at Pittsburg Lan-ding, or Shiloh, in April, 1862. It issaid that more American soldierswere killed during that single en-

Illinois Swedes at Shiloh

Civil War Sesquicentennial Reflections

BY JOHN E. NORTON

Oscar Malmborg (1820–1880), photo from1874. Swedish War Archives, Portraitcollection (SVAR).

9Swedish American Genealogist 2012:3

gagement than in all previous warsfought by the United States. Itscostly losses, about 23,746 killed,wounded, or missing, brought thehorrors of modern warfare home toboth the military and civilian popu-lations, north and south. It alsobrought an end to hopes of a shortwar, and a realization on the part ofU.S. Grant that he would have to putrelentless military pressure on theentire Confederate war machine tobe successful in defeating the insur-rection. The war’s ultimate cost wasgreat, measured just in loss of hu-man life. About 10% of all youngnorthern males, and 30% of southernyoung men, are thought to have diedduring the war.5

Federal counterattack, supportedby heavy reinforcements, yielded acostly victory. The regiment of 500experienced 206 casualties, including49 dead. They continued to the suc-cessful siege of nearby Corinth.

D Company, Illinois 57th

Infantry Regiment atShiloh.This unique unit, known as the“Swedish Union Guard,” was organ-ized before the war, in the summer of1860, at Bishop Hill, as a home guarddrill unit, by Eric Forsse, a 12-yearveteran of the Swedish Army. It wasfirst made up almost completely ofBishop Hill Swedes.

To fill remaining vacancies aftermobilization, Capt. Forsse recruitedin the 16 October 1861 issue of theSwedish-language newspaper Hem-landet of Chicago, in a lengthy article,written from their training site atCamp Bureau, near Princeton, IL.The appeal was simple: “Countrymenand brothers! You, who feel your obli-gation to both our adopted countryand the Scandinavian name in thisimportant hour, come and unite withus, and let us march off, side by side,in this most proper of all wars, to winrenewed honor for the noble Scandi-navian name.” The unit thus enter-ed the war with recruits from Altona,Andover, Berlin, Bishop Hill, Galva,Galesburg, Geneseo, Gillson, Henry,

Moline, Nekoma, Princeton, Wataga,Victoria, Iowa City, and Swede Point,IA.

While still at Camp Bureau intraining with the 56th VolunteerInfantry, they were talked into at-tempting to join a sharpshooter unitdownriver, probably Birge’s WesternSharpshooters.6 On 27 October 1861,the Swedes and others simply wentAWOL, secretly boarding the steam-er Musselman, only to be stoppednear Alton when Federal artilleryfired across its bow. After brief arrest,D company and the 56th were freed,and consolidated into the Illinois 57th

Volunteer Infantry. The incidentnever appeared in official records, butwas reported later by a unit member,Capt. Eric Johnson, in his history ofthe unit.7 Unit member Eric Berg-lund also told that story in his CivilWar daybook, detailing efforts inSpringfield of their Captain and Pe-ter Wikström to get them released foractive duty, after their apprehensionfor what appeared to be desertion.

On 26 March 1862, they were or-dered upriver to Pittsburg Landing,attached to Col. T.W. Sweeny’s 3rdBrigade, in Brig. Gen. W.H.L. Wal-lace’s 2nd Division. The 57th assem-bled on 6 March in response to dis-tant firing, and marched into battlealong the Corinth Road. They movedthat afternoon to their left, closer tothe Tennessee River, in support ofGen. Hurlbut’s division, but wereforced to retire under fire. They en-dured a night of miserable rain, thenparticipated in the victory of thesecond day, thanks largely to re-inforcements from Maj. Gen. Buell’sfresh forces arriving from the north.Those simple facts hide many stories,told best by the soldiers themselves.

Soldier’s talesLt. Eric Johnson recorded his ex-perience of the battle, published as“Lieut. E. Johnson’s Journal” in theHenry County Chronicle, 29 April1862, Cambridge, IL. Another en-listed member, Charles Valentine,wrote home to Sweden about hisexperiences in a letter published byHemlandet, Chicago, IL, 6 August

1862, describing the everyday prob-lems of the soldier.8

Lt. Eric Johnson’s published jour-nal details conditions under whichthe unit fought at Shiloh. The daybefore the battle, Lt. Johnson sent$1,278 in funds from unit members’first partial pay of 4 April, back tofamilies and friends in Bishop Hill,which was delivered to Olof Johnsonfor distribution, in anticipation of thepending battle.

Enlisted soldier Charles Valentinereported in his letter published inHemlandet 8 June 1862 that OlofJohnson responded from Bishop Hillby sending the unit “… half a barrelof pickled whitefish, along with othernecessities of life. That pleased uswell, and even we who did not belongto the Colony, nor came from there,also got a lick of the spoon…” Valen-tine noted that “…The majority of oursoldiers are at present rather sick-looking and pale, and not because ofany wasted living….because the no-good sutlers are often not at all a-shamed to demand all of 25 cents fora cup of beer, and for butter theyusually charge 40 cents per pound,and everything else in proportion atsuch unheard-of prices, so living herein the forest is no paradise...Ourprovisions have been rather meagerfor some time, so for such a long timenow we have not had anything butrather disgusting and inferior bacon,a kind of smoked pork sides; and wehave been forced to eat only suchinferior pork, fried and boiled, in thesevere heat, with bad crackers, untilwe just recently at least put into ope-ration an oven and a person rea-sonably skilled in the art of baking,who furnishes us with bread, so atleast we do not just plain starve todeath. The money we had previouslyreceived in pay we have had to spendon articles of food, because it has beencompletely impossible to live off thefood we received as rations.”

On a more positive note, Valentinewrote: “On the 19th of this month ourwhole regiment was in full paradeformation. They had to do their drillsfor a rather grand flag, which wouldbe presented to the company in theregiment most skilled in war games.

10 Swedish American Genealogist 2012:3

SALE!Swedish Passenger

Arrivals in U.S. Ports1820–1850

By Nils William Olssonand Erik Wikén (1995).628 pages of Swedes,

comments, and indexes.$35 + $5 S&H

Contact Jill Seaholm at<jillseaholm@augustana.edu>

And the great honor of being thewinner there, and taking that prize,went to our company.…For that, wehad our Major (Forsse) to thank, whohad made it his highest priority thatwe should be the most outstandingin the drills.”

Lt. Eric Johnson’s own narrativeof the two-day battle and its after-

math deserves special attention,showing skills which later servedhim well as a writer and newspaperpublisher in Swedish-America. Hewrites of Sunday morning 6 April: “ToArms! To Arms! Fall In! sounds frommouth to mouth, and the distant roarof heavy, rapid cannonading pro-claims that the enemy has attackedour defenses. As each moment pas-

ses, the pounding sounds more dis-tinctly, making it evident the enemywas gaining ground, and by 8:00 a.m.the sound of musketry became dis-tinct….never, through the whole day,from daybreak until dark was thereone moment’s rest or cessation of hos-tilities, rather a continuous roar thatcannot be described by the pen. But,we heard that, all around, the enemywas gaining on us by their superiornumbers, though we disputed everyinch of ground, and about 5:00 p.m.things began to look very bad, theenemy had taken most of our bat-teries and almost had possession ofour (Pittsburg) landing. A kind ofBull Run (defeatist) spirit had takenhold of some of our troops, and if ithad not been for the Tennessee Riv-er, it would have become a secondBull Run (panic).

“But, thank God, there was no wayto get across, and at just the oppor-tune time, Gen. Buell came and savedus, for had he not come, we wouldnow have been prisoners…nobly didthe 57th do its duty, standing on itsground for a long time, unaided,against three times their number.The first position they occupied wasin defense of one of our batteries.Here, they lay flat on the ground(took cover), and here, the bulletsflew like hail, and shells passedoverhead by the thousands. Here,Corporal Warner was wounded. Fromhere they moved a little further andtook cover, but because the enemywas trying to flank them on the left,they were ordered on, and advancednobly, crossing gullies and ravines,engaging the enemy and forcing their

11Swedish American Genealogist 2012:3

retreat, but as our regiment ad-vanced, they were flanked on threesides by three different enemy regi-ments, and they became exposed toterrible crossfire, but they still stoodtheir ground until they received or-ders to fall back.

“It was here that Chas. M. Greenfell. He was brave among the brave,and fell nobly, an honor to his an-cestry, his adopted country, and hisnumerous friends. Major (NormanB.) Page (Adjutant, 57th) also fellhere, cheering on the men whileshooting away at the enemy with hisrevolver…when our prospects weredarkest, Gen. Buell came to our aidwith what little he could get cross theriver. Then we drove the enemy backa short distance, after a most terri-ble fight, when night came and put astop to the bloody work of the day,both sides glad for the rest. But ourgunboats shelled the enemy thewhole night, wreaking terrible havocamong them.

“Monday, April 7th. Immediately atdaybreak, the battle commencedagain in earnest. During the night,Gen. Buell had crossed (the Tennes-see River) with his forces. The troopswere now fresh, and the enemy beganto yield ground, but fighting withgreat perseverance, disputing everyfoot. But at last, after seven hours ofthe hardest fighting ever witnessedby mortal eyes, they were forced toretreat, and the flight became gener-al, our forces pursuing…thoughvictory crowns our efforts and strug-gles, and the air is rent with our criesof rejoicing, we cannot shut our eyesto the sad sight that meets our vi-sion – the misery and pain of thewounded. Here ought to be hundredsof surgeons where there is but one.

“Monday, April 8th. Today has beenthe saddest one for me. War is a ter-rible thing. But nothing is worse thanto walk over the battlefield after thefighting. Today, I went out with theparty detailed to bury the dead. Weburied all of the regiment together,right where our flag stood during thefight. The slaughter on both sides isterrible...The place is marked so itcan be easily found by those who inthe future may wish to see where

their friends or relatives stood, noblyfighting for their liberties – andwhere they met a hero’s death andgrave. All this is glory for a soldier,and what we must be prepared forevery minute.”

Lt. Johnson closed his report withsome simple soldiers’ thoughts...“Cheer up friends! Not as bad, afterall, as it might have been. We ex-pected to go through all this andexpect still more similar scenes. But,then, look at the blessings we arehanding down to prosperity. Say,then, is it not worth dying for?... An-other big fight, and then another, andso on, until the rebellion is crushed.Then, if we live, we will come hometo enjoy the fruits of our labor. If not,then you must go on without us.”

The “Swedish Union Guard” con-tinued to the siege of Corinth 29 April- 30 May, where they lost others,9

then to fighting later at Vicksburg.At the end of their three-year enlist-ment, they were rewarded with 30days’ reenlistment leave, and werewelcomed home to a grand receptionin Galva’s Norton Hall on 29 January1864. They then returned as “veter-ans” to participate in Sherman’sdevastatingly effective “march to thesea,” and, finally, in the Grand Re-view before President Johnson andhis generals in Washington on 27May 1865. They mustered out atCamp Douglas, IL, on 7 July 1865.

Olof KransAmong members of D Company wasa truly unique sergeant, Olof (Ers-son) Krans, whose family emigratedfrom Västmanland, Sweden, in 1850.He became an ox boy in Bishop Hill,joined Company D, but was releasedfrom Civil War duty in June 1862because of poor health. He returnedto the Bishop Hill area where hebecame a photographer, house- andsign painter, and portrait artist inGalva. For the Bishop Hill Colony’s50th anniversary in 1896, he wascommissioned to do a series of paint-ings, depicting Bishop Hill life andcolonists as they began their Ameri-can adventure. His subjects eitherloved or hated those paintings, but

most were kept and treasured. Hiswork was recognized in a jointly-released commemorative stamp byboth Sweden and the United States

in 1988. A documentary video onKrans was produced by Athenafilmof Sweden in 1996. A major book onKrans is now being prepared by Illi-nois folkart historian Merle Glick,jointly with the Lakeview Museumof Peoria.

Krans’s paintings are now recog-nized as some of America’s bestprimitive art. Many are housed intheir own museum at the Bishop HillState Historic Site. They give a viewnot only of pioneering life on theprairies around Bishop Hill, but ofSwedes in the Civil War. They depictKrans himself in bivouac with DCompany, and later as a proud veter-an in the Grand Army of the Re-public. He also painted Capt. EricJohnson in civilian attire, plus a uni-formed portrait of Maj. Eric Forsse,who in 1869 led a group of 50 settlersto found the town of Falun, Kansas.The exhibit contains photographs ofMaj. Erik Berglund (Eric Bergland),who had the distinction of becomingthe first Swede to graduate from the

Olof Krans. Selfportrait. From BishopHill, by Olov Isaksson & Sören Hallgren(1969).

12 Swedish American Genealogist 2012:3

U.S. Military Academy, after Civilwar service as a staff officer in the57th. He later returned to the Acad-emy as instructor, then continued adistinguished military career as anengineer officer.10

A special Civil war display is partof that museum. It shows not onlyweapons and musical instrumentsused by D Company, but a collectionof translated Civil War letters writ-ten by members of the unit.

In 1967, researchers at Bishop Hillfrom Sweden’s Museum of NationalAntiquities [Nordiska Muséet] re-covered and re-recorded Edison waxcylinder recordings of its fife anddrummer playing “Yankee Doodle,” aBishop Hill quartette singing “Dixie,”and a Swedish-language adaptationof Henry Clay Work’s 1865 classic,“Marching through Georgia,” (Ox-pojkarnas sång).11 They add impactto the museum’s collection and its in-terpretation of that terrible war.

For more reading:Barnickel, Linda A. We Enlisted As

Patriots: The Civil War Record ofBattery G, 2nd Illinois Light Artillery.Heritage Books, 1998.

Daniel, Larry. Shiloh: The BattleThat Changed the Civil War, 1997.

Hannings, Bud. Every Day of theCivil War, Chronological Ency-clopedia. 2010.

Kvist, Roger. The Swedish UnionGuards of Bishop Hill During theCivil War, Swedish American Genea-logist (SAG), Vol XVI, No. 3, Septem-ber 1996.

Nelson, Nels. Swedish-AmericanBoys in Blue. Prärieblomman 1907,pp. 170-187, Rock Island, IL. (C Com-pany, Illinois 43rd Volunteer InfantryRegiment).

Olson, E.W. & Engberg, Martin J.History of the Swedes of Illinois, Part1, Chicago, IL 1908.

Endnotes:1) U.S. Grant, ”The Battle of Shiloh,” The

Century Magazine, vol. XXIX, Feb.1885.

2) Lucien B. Crooker, Henry StedmanNorse, and a committee of the regi-ment, The Story of the 55th Regiment,

Illinois Volunteer Infantry, 1887. p.116.

3) Paul W. Gates, The Campaign of theIllinois Central Railroad for Nor-wegian and Swedish Immigrants,Norwegian-American Historical As-sociation, vol. VI, Northfield, MN.

4) Lucien B. Crooker, The Story of the 55th

Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry inthe Civil War 1861-1865, 1887, con-tains a frank appraisal of Malmborg,including dismissed court martialcharges brought against him as com-mander of the 55th. His unit’s serviceat Shiloh on 6 April 1862 was vital toGrant’s successful defense of histhreatened lines on the first day.Malmborg’s regiment, using the Eu-ropean “hollow square” formation,held the Federals’ vital left wing nearPittsburg Landing, despite beingnearly surrounded. They participatedin the second day’s successful coun-terattack. The 55th suffered 1 officerand 51 enlisted killed, and 9 officersand 190 enlisted wounded, with an-other 26 captured, out of a total unitstrength of 512 men.

5) John Huddleston, Killing Ground:Photographs of the Civil War and theChanging American Landscape. 2002,Johns Hopkins University Press.

6) Birge’s Western Sharpshooters weretraining at Benton Barracks, MO. ItsC and F companies were already beingrecruited largely from western Illinoisand eastern Iowa. It later became the66th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regi-ment. Eric Bergland’s diary for 27October notes: “The Captain got ordersto march at daybreak today and madeready. Accordingly at 4 o’clock in themorning (we) marched out to town andfrom there to Trenton, a distance ofabout 12 miles, where we got on a boatand steamed down the river for St.Louis.” On 29 October he wrote: “Wearrived at Alton about 11:00 o’clockand we were stopped there by a can-non ball which struck the boat in thebow and made us make for the shore,where we were taken prisoners…tothe old penitentiary at Alton till night,when we went on the train to CampButler.” On 7 November he wrote:“The officers came back at about 9:00last night with a petition to theGovernor to let us go to St. Louis rightaway, which the boys signed, afterwhich the officers went back to Spring-field again. They are gone today, hardat work at Springfield.” On Friday, 8November he noted: “The Captainreturned tonight with the news that

we are to go to Chicago to fill up theregiment, and after that to go to St.Louis…”

7) Eric Johnson & C. F. Peterson, Svensk-arne i Illinois. Chicago 1880, pp. 55-58.

8) Illinois Historic Preservation Agencyhistorian Mark Johnson, Springfield,IL, has provided translated copies ofthe Eric Forsse recruiting letters, thepublished journal of Lt. Eric Johnson,and letter of Charles Valentine.

9) D Company deaths at Shiloh were onlyCharles Green (Myrtengren) of BishopHill and Adolf Johnson of Princeton,but over the next several months atCorinth, deaths were Andrew Ander-son 4 October, Otto Peal(sic) 3 October,Jonas Westhund(sic) 9 July, and OlofWixtrum(sic) of Bishop Hill 7 October,Eric Hedberg of Galva 10 July, JonasMoberg of Andover 24 August, andGeorge Rodeen, 7 August 1863.

10) The Major Eric Bergland Collection(Hayes-30), Rutherford B. HayesPresidential Center, Fremont, Ohio,contains copies of his Civil War diariesand letters, and researcher PhillipStoneberg’s interview about Berg-land’s memories of life in Bishop Hill.

11) Sweden’s Royal Library, (KungligaBiblioteket), in Stockholm, holds adatabase of those Bishop Hill record-ings, titled “Svensk mediedatabasBishop Hill: Edison 6”. A listing ofrecordings may be accessed at website:

http://smdb.kb.se/catalog/id/001540642

A Union soldier on guard duty. IllustreradTidning, Sweden, 1862 Apr. 26.