The Men Stood Like Iron: How the Iron Brigade Won Its Name

by Lance J. Herdegen

Overview

"Exciting and even moving, this book successfully personalizes the history of the Brigade's formative months and enriches our understanding of how these men felt and lived—and became distinguished soldiers." —Alan T. Nolan, author of The Iron Brigade and Lee Reconsidered

"A colorful and skillful record of the lives of the men in the ranks of a famous brigade, who served and saved the Union at a great sacrifice in a dark time." —Kirkus Reviews

"Well-written and researched . . . Excellent first-hand accounts of the brigade in action from letters, memoirs, diaries and other sources of the brigade members are included." —The Civil War Courier

"Sound research in unpublished materials allowed the author to impart a freshness to his descriptions of fighting at the Brawner Farm, South Mountain . . . and Antietam." —Civil War

No volunteers tramped with more innocent resolve on the drill fields of 1861 than the farmers, immigrants, shopkeepers, and "piney" camp boys who volunteered for the Second, Sixth, and Seventh Wisconsin and the Nineteenth Indiana Infantry. The Men Stood Like Iron is the moving, often melancholy, story of how the backwoods "Calico boys" became soldiers of the celebrated "Iron Brigade."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253218254
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	09/21/2005
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lance J. Herdegen is Director of the Institute for Civil War Studies at Carroll College. Herdegen has written for many national publications and is author of the award-winning In the Bloody Railroad Cut at Gettysburg.

Table of Contents

List of Maps and Illustrations
Introduction
1. Gettysburg: July 4, 1863
2. Marching Day and Night
3. Greenhorn Patriots
4. The Volunteer Army of 1861
5. Alas, It Was a Dream
6. Little Mac
7. The Fair Miss Peters
8. Massa Linkum's Men
9. The Boss Soldier
10. Hindquarters in the Saddle
11. Come On, God Damn You!
12. I Would Not Like to Hear it Again
13. Devil Take the Hindmost
14. The Little Colonel
15. The Army Ran Like Sheep
16. We Have Got a General Now
17. The Iron Brigade of the West
18. Sharpsburg, Maryland
19. The Cornfield
20. Give 'Em Hell!
21. Too Horrible to Behold
22. The Men Have Stood Like Iron
23. May God Bless Us
24. The Government Has Gone Mad
Notes
Bibliography
Index

List of Maps and Illustrations
Maps
1. Overview of the Maryland Campaign of 1862
2. Battle map of the Iron Brigade at Brawner's Farm
3. Battle map of the Iron Brigade at South Mountain
4. Battle map of the Iron Brigade at Antietam
5. Sketch map of Antietam by Rufus Dawes from his Journal

Photographs

1. General George McClellan
2. General Irvin McDowell
3. General Rufus King and staff
4. General John Gibbon
5. Rufus Dawes
6. Mary B. Gates
7. Edward S. Bragg
8. Lysander Cutler
9. Pvt. Charles Keeler
10. Pvt. James P. Sullivan
11. Edwin A. Brown

Editorial Reviews

"The research for this volume is thorough, which is reflected in the interesting material provided on the background of many of the characters introduced in the text. Vol. 38, 2008"—Military History of the West

From the Publisher

The research for this volume is thorough, which is reflected in the interesting material provided on the background of many of the characters introduced in the text. Vol. 38, 2008

Military History of the West

A history of four regiments of young, independent, feisty frontiersmen from Wisconsin and Indiana, who became a proud force fighting bravely and unwaveringly in bloody Civil War battles, and winning immortal fame as the Iron Brigade.

Herdegen (director, Institute for Civil War Studies/Carroll College; In the Bloody Railroad Cut at Gettysburg, not reviewed) takes us into the ranks of these volunteers who signed up to defend the Union in the days after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. Drawing on the men's letters, diaries, and published memoirs, Herdegen follows them from their early days together through four bloody years of war. General John Gibbon, a West Point graduate, imposed a hard, exhausting training program on the recruits, earning the men's hatred. Their resentment, though, would later turn to respect as he led them through a succession of terrible battles. The men's poignant letters home to loved ones are especially fascinating, offering vivid descriptions of camp life and battle, relating such experiences as foraging in Virginia among hostile civilians and being cheered by Union sympathizers in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The men express profound loyalty for some commanders and hatred for other, inept officers. They speak repeatedly of the nature of duty, patriotism, and brotherly love, and their words are made more moving by the realization that these soldiers were, as they wrote, struggling to face the likelihood of death without breaking down. They were cited at Second Bull Run for holding a strategic position "like iron" while suffering heavy casualties; they were cited for bravery at South Mountain, Antietam, and Gettysburg. Proportionally, the Iron Brigade suffered more battlefield deaths than any other Union force. (For more on Civil War soldiers, see James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, p. 42.)

A colorful and skillful record of the lives of the men in the ranks of a famous brigade, who served and saved the Union at great sacrifice in a dark time.

Kirkus Reviews