America's Civil War in Miniature

 (color image book)

In the annals of Civil War history, the Iron Brigade of the West earned a reputation as one of the premier fighting units, of either Northern or Southern armies.  The brigade also gained the distinction of sustaining the heaviest casualties in proportion to its enlistment of any in the conflict.  Within the Union’s Army of the Potomac there was another Iron Brigade, consisting of the 2^nd U.S. Sharpshooters and four other New York infantry regiments under General Hatch.  The Iron Brigade of the West, as it is sometimes referred to, was composed of five “western” regiments at a time when Minnesota and Iowa constituted the western-most border of the contiguous, northern United States. The units forming the famed brigade were the 2^nd, 6^th, 7^th Wisconsin, 19^th Indiana, and 24^th Michigan Regiments. Also joined with the unit was Battery B, 4^th U.S. Artillery. Over half of the volunteers were native-born Americans; almost forty percent of the enlistees were of Irish, Scandinavian, German, English, or Canadian ancestry.

            The 2^nd Wisconsin was bloodied in the first battle of Bull Run in July 1861.  In the fall of that year in Washington D.C., it was joined with the 6^th and 7^th Wisconsin and the 19^th Indiana and placed under the command of General Rufus King. General John Gibbon, a stern disciplinarian and stickler on training, assumed command of the Westerners in May 1862.  Although initially resentful of their new commanding officer’s brand of discipline, the rigorous drilling soon improved the brigade’s efficiency and boosted its morale.  To instill a sense of esprit de corps, Gibbon outfitted his men with distinctive uniforms and the army regulation black hat that would soon become part of their legendary image.

            The brigade saw its first major action on August 28, 1862 at Brawner’s Farm, just prior to the battle of 2^nd Bull Run, where it encountered the already battle-tested men of Stonewall Jackson’s brigade. Rather than break and retreat, as did so many other opponents of Jackson’s veterans, the Westerners stood their ground in a brutal, standing slugfest with the enemy at a distance of 75 yards. The Federals sustained 751 casualties but managed to knock out a third of the Stonewall Brigade. 

            The following month at the battle of South Mountain, the Army of the Potomac’s commander-in-chief, General George B. McClellan, spied Gibbon’s troops in splendid combat against entrenched enemy forces. When informed of their identity by General Joseph Hooker, McClellan exclaimed that, “They must be made of iron…Why, General Hooker, they fight equal to the best troops in the world.”  Following the battle, Hooker asked his commander for his impression of “the Iron Brigade”.  The nickname stuck.  At the battle of Antietam, three days later, the men of iron would see brutal action in Miller’s cornfield where they temporarily blunted Stonewall Jackson’s assault, only later to be driven back to the West Woods by John B. Hood’s counterattack.  In a matter of a few months of fighting, its numbers had been whittled down from an initial muster of almost 2,400 to fewer than 1,000 men.