Knute Nelson - Military Service

Military Service

Nelson returned to Albion in the spring of 1861, when the American Civil War had started. By then, he had developed his position as a "low-tariff, anti-slavery, pro-Union Democrat," but was in the minority in a pro-Abraham Lincoln region. In May 1861, he and eighteen other Albion students enlisted in a state militia company, known as the Black Hawk Rifles of Racine, to fight with the Union Army in the war. Appalled by the debauchery of this company, the young men refused to be sworn into the army under this militia, and eventually succeeded in being transferred to the Fourth Wisconsin Volunteers. (This was an "all-American" regiment, made up generally of native born men.

Nelson's parents opposed his volunteering, but he saw it as a patriotic duty. He sent half his soldier's pay to his parents to help retire the debt on the farm. He seems to have enjoyed army life, noting that the food was better than at home. He shared the frustration of his fellow soldiers over not being put into battle soon enough. His unit moved from Racine to Camp Dix near Baltimore, Maryland. From there they moved to combat operations in Louisiana.

On May 27, 1863, after the 4th Wisconsin had become a cavalry unit, Nelson was wounded in the Battle of Port Hudson, captured and made a prisoner of war. He was released when the siege ended. He served as an adjutant, was promoted to corporal, and briefly considered applying for a lieutenant's commission.

Military service sharpened Nelson's identity as an American and his patriotism. He was deeply concerned about what he considered the ambivalent attitude among Norwegian-American Lutheran clergy toward slavery, and thought that too few of his fellow Norwegian Americans from Koshkonong had volunteered. He read the Norwegian translation of Esaias Tegnér's Friðþjófs saga ins frœkna and found it enthralling. He found it a synthesis of his Norwegian heritage and American home through its unsentimental depiction of character and virtue.

Within two years after he mustered out, Nelson acquired his United States citizenship. His disdain for the Copperheads contributed to his becoming a Republican after the war.