Wisconsin During the Civil War
Wisconsin at the time of the Civil War had a population of about 775,000, about 300,000 of whom were recent immigrants, more than 100,000 of them from Germany. Many of these immigrants balked at volunteering to fight for their new country, and Wisconsin resorted to a draft to fill its troop quotas. Wisconsin itself was fairly new to the Union at the beginning of the war, having become the thirtieth state on May 29, 1848. Nonetheless, some of the most stalwart units of the war came from Wisconsin, including three regiments (the Second, Sixth and Seventh) of the legendary Iron Brigade. Altogether the state sent more than ninety-one thousand men to fight for the Union. War also interrupted the state's economic growth, and Wisconsin did not change or develop much from 1860 to 1870. In the following decade, however, farming expanded northward, helped by the replacement of oxen with horses for draft animals, and technological innovations like the reaper. A local dairy industry also began...
