August was the second child and first son of Johann Friedrich and Catharina Sophia Ruhnke Heuer.  Johann Friedrich had first married Friederike Louise Ruhnke in November 1828.  A son, Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Heuer, was born to Johann Friedrich and Friederike Louise a year later, on 12 November 1829.  Friederike Louise died in 1832, and six months later, Johann Friedrich married her sister, Catharina Sophia Ruhnke.  When August was born, Carl was living with the family and undoubtedly, was treated as first-born in the family.  Carl was six years older than his half-brother August; additionally, he was August’s first cousin.

        In mid-1836, shortly after August was born, the Heuer family moved from Tressin to Borntin (now Borzecin, Poland).  August’s maternal grandfather, Christian Ruhnke, lived with the Heuer family in Borntin.  His paternal grandparents, Martin and Louise Heuer, lived in nearby Parpart.  The Heuer family increased over the next several years when Ferdinand Carl was born in 1839; Johann Friedrich in 1842; Ernestine Caroline Friedericke in 1845; and Bertha Friedericke Sophie in 1849.

        August’s paternal grandparents, Martin and Louise Heuer, moved from Parpart to Borntin sometime after 1836 to live with, or be near, their oldest son and his family.  Grandfather Martin Heuer died on 3 April 1847, and Grandmother Louise Brockhuss Heuer died the following year on 24 August 1848.  Maternal grandfather Christian Ruhnke died on 7 July 1850.  All three were buried in the Goerke church cemetery, the church serving Borntin.

        August attended school and was confirmed at age fourteen in the Goerke Evangelische Church on 20 October 1850 with only one other confirmant, August Friedrich Hoppe, who was also from Borntin.  This confirmation record confirmed the birth date of 2 July 1836 and the place of his birth.

        A very sad event occurred only a few months after the joy of August’s confirmation.  On 20 December 1850, just before Christmas, Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Heuer, his older half-brother, died of a fatal heart attack at the age of twenty-one.  He was buried on 23 December in the Goerke church cemetery.  August now assumed the role of the oldest son in the family.

        August’s youngest sister, Augusta Marie Elizabeth, the last child of Johann Friedrich and Catharina Sophia, was born on 7 January 1855.  August was now nearly nineteen, and most probably he was already working either in the Borntin area or nearby.

        On 14 November 1856, August was a sponsor at the baptism of his cousin, August Friedrich Ferdinand Ruhnke, in the Goerke Evangelische Church.  The parents were Friedrich Wilhelm August Ruhnke and Emilie Ottman Ruhnke.  The father, Friedrich Ruhnke, was the youngest brother of August Heuer’s mother, Catharina Sophia.  The baptismal record gave August’s place of residence as Kletschow (also spelled Kletschau in the book entitled The Atlantic Bridge).  He was either working there, or he may have been serving his term in the Prussian army, a real possibility for all young men of his age at the time.  No records have been discovered that confirm his occupation or when he left home and family in Borntin.

        August was already twenty years old when he left his friends, relatives, and some of his personal possessions to emigrate with his parents and six siblings to America in early April 1857.  His oldest sister, Wilhelmine, was already married and pregnant, with plans to sail separately for medical reasons.

        The family’s arduous journey to America was previously described in the story of his parents.  The trip must have been both interesting and exciting; yet his status as oldest child created responsibilities as well.  He no doubt assisted his parents in the care of his younger brothers – Ferdinand Carl and Johann Friedrich – as well as his young sisters: Ernestine, Bertha, and Augusta throughout the forty-five-day voyage.

        The Heuer family first settled in Cedarburg, Ozaukee County, Wisconsin just north of Milwaukee.  No records of either the family’s activities or August’s, regarding employment, church affiliation, or places they may have lived, have been uncovered for this period.  It is most likely that Johann Friedrich and his sons sought whatever work was available on the local farms or in the forests as loggers, or even factories, to subsist and earn enough money to buy farmland.

        In the fall of 1859, the family migrated north to Kewaunee County.  Johann Friedrich purchased eighty acres of wooded land west-southwest of Rankin on 1 November 1859, described as the west half of the southwest quarter of section thirty-one, Ahnapee Township; that is where this pioneer family put down roots for themselves and future generations.

        Upon their arrival in Ahnapee, the family more than likely stayed in one of the hotels in the village.  August’s sister, Ernestine aged fifteen, found work as a domestic in the family home of Abraham D. Eveland.  Eveland also owned an inn, and Ernestine may have worked there as well as in the Eveland home where she lived and was counted on the 1860 Federal Census.  The remaining members of the family, except for Wilhelmine, married to Peter Bergin, were on the farm in Rankin.

        During the Federal Census of 1860 for Kewaunee County, Wisconsin, August was counted and listed as living with his parents in Ahnapee Township.  He was twenty-four years old, even though the census report listed him as, “Son – August – 22 years – Born 1838.”  There was nothing unusual about a mistake in recording exact ages on a census report.

        In the fall of 1860, Wilhelmine, Peter, and their two daughters moved from Cedarburg to eighty acres of land they purchased adjacent on the north to the Johann Friedrich homestead in Rankin.  Undoubtedly, the Heuer men assisted Peter to expand the cabin that may have already existed, and to build the barn, outbuildings, and fences as they continued to improve their own property.

        August’s sister, Ernestine, became the first to marry in the United States.  On Independence Day, 4 July 1862, she married Henry (Heinrich) Gericke in Ahnapee.  Henry had purchased four acres on the north side of the Ahnapee River in1861 and built a home, which doubled as a store.  The store was located on the west side of Church Street, just a short distance north of where St. Mary’s Catholic Church now stands.

        On 20 October 1863, August Heuer and Fred Berndt were sponsors for Herrman Boettcher born to Fred and Sophie Wegner Boettcher on 6 September 1863 in Lincoln Township.  The relationship of the Heuers with the Boettchers is unknown.  They may have only been neighbors and friends.  It is known that the Wegners were related to the Heuers in Kreis Greifenberg, Pommern, Prussia and that may have been the connection.

        Meanwhile, the Civil War was raging in the east, south, and the midwest from Illinois to Louisiana.  Wisconsin had sent infantry, artillery, and cavalry regiments composed of volunteers from all corners of the state during the early years of the war, from 1861-63.  However, fewer young men were volunteering, so Wisconsin Governor Edward Salomon issued a Proclamation, “to the people of Wisconsin” on 8 July 1862, addressing the subject.  He issued a plea to all young men to step forward and fill the regiments already in the field.  To spur enlistments, he authorized monetary payments of a premium of $3.00 to each volunteer joining any existing regiment plus $25.00 of a $100.00 total bounty to be paid before leaving the State.  Another incentive was one month’s wage of $13.00 in advance upon reaching his unit.  Additionally, every volunteer having a family dependent upon him for their support would receive from the State, $5.00 per month.  Governor Salomon authorized the same monetary incentives to every volunteer for the five new regiments called for by the President.  He stated that, “all enlistments will be for three years or during the war.”  He also called for all citizens to report deserters to the office of the Adjutant General.  Last of all, he admonished town assessors in the proclamation as follows:

        The complete proclamation was published in the Kewaunee Enterprize on 23 July 1862.  The paper stated it was the, “Official Paper of the County.”  D. D. Garland and Edward Decker were the editors.  Decker would become very involved in the politics of the draft but never go to war himself.

        With the threat of a penalty or fine of between $50.00 and $100.00 for neglect of duty, the town assessors compiled their militia list, which they called enrollment list on which were supposedly listed the names of all free, able-bodied male persons between the ages of eighteen and forty-five.  The lists were published in the Kewaunee Enterprize by township, each township being a separate subdistrict of the Provost Marshal’s 5th District in Green Bay.  The town of Pierce was subdistrict number 4, town of Ahnapee, subdistrict number 5, and town of Casco, subdistrict number 6.

        Lincoln had issued his formal Emancipation Proclamation on New Year’s Day 1863, and from then on, Northern armies capturing new Confederate territory bore a message of liberation to the region’s slaves.  The new law of 3 March 1863 instituting conscription, required all men to register, but a man whose name was drawn could avoid that particular draft by paying $300.00 or could be permanently exempted by paying a substitute to serve in his place.  These provisions were bitterly resented by the poor who could ill afford to pay.  At the time, $300.00 was about two-thirds of the average workman’s annual salary.  With their fate being decided by drawing lots in the draft process, many men were in a mood of uncertainty and tension, almost like prisoners of war in this new free land.  On 13 July, draft riots broke out in New York City, and mobs of mainly Irish immigrants roamed the streets in a four-day orgy of looting and burning.  In their fury they focused on the city’s Negroes as the cause of all their troubles.  Before Federal troops could restore order, many black men had been beaten or lynched.  Prior to that, in April, a food riot among the poor of Richmond was quelled by President Davis who addressed the rioters in firm tones and distributed the money that he was carrying to the crowd.  Only then did he call on the militia to disperse them.  These events, however, were not widely known in Kewaunee County, which remained largely separated from the federal problems caused by the war.

        Beginning in 1863, volunteers were even scarcer because the realities of war had tempered the emotions of the young men, especially those who had recently arrived in the United States seeking freedom from government oppression.  Because of the dwindling numbers of volunteers and an ever-increasing casualty rate, both Federal and State governments initiated drafts on 3 March.  The Wisconsin Governor continued to issue more proclamations, increasing the monetary incentives for enlisting.

        In the fall of 1863, the names of August Heuer, along with many of his neighbors, appeared on each of the August, October, November, and December lists of names enrolled in subdistrict No. 5, town of Ahnapee.  August’s name continued to be misspelled as Hayer and he was always in class number one, the highest draft status.  In spite of Governor Salomon’s proclamation calling for volunteers and the increased offer of a bounty of $302.00 to every man who would enlist, the enlistments were still too slow after the October draft.  They called a second draft on the 2nd of November with Ahnapee’s quota set at sixteen.  August’s name had not been called for either the October or November draft.

        Throughout this period, a recruiting advertisement appeared in the Kewaunee Enterprize.  It was not enticing enough to garner the volunteers needed.

        Then came the draft of 5 January 1864, which called for only ten men from Ahnapee.  Again, August’s name appeared on the list.  This list, like the previous lists, was published in the Kewaunee Enterprize on 23 December 1863.  The text, and only the names in draft class number one are reproduced as follows:

January.

Provost Marshal’s Office

5th Dist. Green Bay, December 1863.

             In accordance with circular 101, Provost Marshal General’s office, Nov. 17th, 1863, the list of names enrolled in the different sub-districts in this Congressional District liable to military duty, is published for correction.  Any person enrolled may appear before the Board and claim to have his name stricken off the list, if he can show to the satisfaction of the Board that he is not, and will not be at the time fixed for the next Draft, liable to military duty on account of:

                                             1st    Alienage.

                                             2nd   Non-Residence.

                                             3rd    Unsuitableness of age.

                                             4th    Manifest Permanent Physical Disability

       Persons who may be cognizant of any other persons liable to military duty whose names do not appear on the Enrollment List, are requested to notify the Enrolling officer of the Board at Green Bay. 

                                                                                             C. R. MERRILL,

                                                                                             Provost Marshal.

                                                                                             W. A. BUGH,

                                                                                             Commissioner.

        Most of the names on the list were those of newly arrived immigrants from Europe.  The others were from families who had migrated from the east – from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and the East Coastal states.  Generally, those names included families who had originally purchased land in Kewaunee County from the government or were the second owners.  The immigrants bought their land from the migrant families knowing they were paying an inflated price, sometimes as much as five times higher per acre.

        The following report appeared in the Kewaunee Enterprize on 30 December 1863 as a reprint from the 24 December edition of the Green Bay Advocate:

        State authorities gave notice that they would suspend the January draft if the townships would fill their quotas by enlistments.  August Heuer was again spared by the recruiting done by Captain William I. Henry, Commanding Officer of the Veteran Company E., 14th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment.  The entire company re-enlisted in January 1864 and the men returned to Ahnapee for a four-week furlough.  Captain Henry used the month to fill the depleted ranks of Company E, and when the company reported to Milwaukee, the following new Ahnapee volunteers accompanied them: Mortimer A. Bacon, Henry Bodett, Joseph E. Defaut, Abraham C. Eveland, Fred Heuer, Fred Kemp, Henry Schmeling, Julius Toebe, David L. Winters, Joseph Londo, and William Peronto.  The enlistments of these men made it possible to cancel any further drafts from other towns in Kewaunee County.

        Once again, August was spared, but his youngest brother, Johann Friedrich Heuer, commonly known as Fred, had voluntarily enlisted and left with Captain Henry’s Company E, 14th Wisconsin Infantry in February 1864.  Fred may have volunteered to go because he wanted the adventure, or maybe he and his family decided he would collect the $302.00 bounty for enlisting thus preventing his brother, August, from being drafted.  We will never know for sure, but this scenario is very probable.

        According to the records at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Caroline Johanne Marie Blohm, incorrectly spelled Bluhm, was born 22 May 1815 at Netzow, Pommern, Prussia.  Neetzow, the correct spelling, remains today as a small village north-northwest of Steinmocker and Krien (Crien).  Zemmin is a short distance further northwest from Neetzow.  There are only a few miles separating these villages, indicating they spent their early lives in a confined area as did the Heuers.  The passport7 on the next page shows that Caroline’s father, Johann Friedrich Christian Berndt, was born on 29 October 1815 in Krien and gives his physical description.

        The Berndt family must have moved from Steinmocker to Zemmin sometime between 1843 and 1854 because when they emigrated, Zemmin was recorded as their place of residence on the passport required by the Prussian government.

        There were various spellings of the Berndt family name.  Some of them are: Behrendt, Behrndt, Berendt, Behndt, Bierndt, Biernt, even Bernett, and Barandt.  The spelling used on the passport was Berndt, which is probably the correct spelling since it was written in Prussia by Prussians.  This spelling also appeared on most official American documents on file, such as deeds and mortgages.  Therefore, Berndt is the spelling used throughout this history for the family.

        With passport in hand, the Berndt family departed Zemmin and traveled to Hamburg where they embarked in late February 1854.  No information could be found on the Arttechte, the name of the ship on the passport.  Perhaps it was one that did not carry passengers exclusively, or the name may have been misspelled on the document.

        Upon their arrival in New York City some weeks later, they undoubtedly took the established migrant path on their journey to Wisconsin via Buffalo, New York followed by lake vessels to Milwaukee.  From there they traveled north to Ahnapee Township in Kewaunee County, where they settled.  On 22 July 1854, a son was born to the Berndt family in Ahnapee.  They named him Carl.

        In 1856, the Berndts purchased and settled on forty acres, described as the southeast quarter of the northwest quarter, section thirty-two, Ahnapee Township.  In 1857, they added another forty acres adjacent to the north, described as the northeast quarter of the northwest quarter, section thirty-two.  Later, in 1868, another forty acres was purchased adjacent to the south, described as the northeast quarter of the southwest quarter, section thirty-two.  The northernmost forty crosses State Highway 54 west of Algoma, about one-quarter mile east of Rankin.

        The Berndts had purchased the first two forty-acre properties under the Patent land program.  The United States Congress passed an act on 28 September 1850, entitled, “An Act to enable the State of Arkansas and other States to reclaim the swamp sands within their limits.”  When land was identified and qualified as swamp sand, the purchaser was issued a Patent by the State of Wisconsin, which served as the deed.  These patents were signed by the, “Commissioners of School and University Sands,” who were the Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and the Attorney General.  Although the patent stated, “that full payment was made” (to the state) there is no mention of the amount.  The state must have known what it was doing because this land today is a huge sand and gravel source for local contractors and government.  Some portion of it may have been opened for that purpose by the Berndts in the 1860s as there were many buildings and roads to be built.

        Upon arrival in Ahnapee, Johann Friedrich Christian Berndt adopted a somewhat Americanized version of his name.  He dropped Johann and Friedrich and changed Christian to Christoph, so he would now be known simply as Christoph, which would cause some record keeping problems in the future.  Mrs. Berndt, Caroline Johanne Marie, dropped Caroline completely, used Johanne and Johanna on some documents but was later known as Marie.

        The Christoph Berndt family lived about one mile east-northeast of where the Heuer family homestead was established in November 1859.  They met at social events and undoubtedly assisted each other with barn raisings, housewarmings, harvesting, and religious services at the home of the widow Kuke in Rankin before the various Lutheran congregations were formed.

        Only several weeks earlier, on 26 April 1864, Caroline Berndt’s younger brother, Johann Joachim Christian, died at the age of twelve years, two months, and nineteen days.  He was buried in St. Paul’s Lutheran Cemetery north of Ahnapee.

        The drafts for the Civil War continued, and in July 1864, another enrollment included every man between the ages of twenty and forty-five years who was fit for military service.  The enrollment was conducted in Kewaunee County under the direct supervision of Edward Decker, who was now Deputy Provost Marshal for the county.  He personally visited each town in the county so draft lists accurately reflected the male population.  As before, persons enrolled could appear before the draft board to secure exemptions.  Again, a great cry of dissent was raised in the county because many favorite sons had not been enrolled.

        Marshal Decker designated special officers to notify those who had been drafted and made it clear that draftees had no excuse for not reporting.  The officers went to every home to deliver draft notices with instructions for time, date, and military facility for their physical examinations.  The draftees were also informed that should they fail to report as instructed, a squad of soldiers would be sent to arrest them.  Very few men failed to report and a few who resisted the call were rounded-up; others fled the area.  John Henry Mertens of Kewaunee, in his excellent book, The Second Battle – A Story of Our Belgian Ancestors in the American Civil War 1861-1865, published in 1986 and available at the Algoma Public Library, described and documented the tragedy that befell one Belgian immigrant draftee from the town of Gardner, Door County.

       The three so called, Special Deputies, then realized the trouble they were in and returned to Green Bay to report to the Provost Marshal, Captain Merrill.  This is a copy of the report Captain Merrill wrote to his superior, Colonel Charles Loville, who was stationed at Madison, Wisconsin.

                                                                                                             Provost Mar. Officer

                                                                                                             5th District

                                                                                                             Green Bay, Oct. 24, 1864

Col. Chas. S. Loville

A. A. Pro. Mar.

Madison, Wis.

       I have the honor to make the following report of the shooting and death of a drafted man in the Town of Gardner, Door County, Wis.  On Wednesday Oct. 19, a drafted man from the town of Gardner by the name of James R. Mann, who had reported himself, been examined and held, and given five days leave of absence, came to me and reported that he was towards the last of the 100% pick men examined in his town, and that the first men drawn was at home and he thought with a little effort they might be induced to report.  He said he has a team and was going home and would go and see the party and have them come up and suggest that I let a man from my office go down with him, that his prisoner would be likely to have a good influence and the men more readily consent to come.  I accordingly consented to let special officer Dennis J. H. Murphy go down on Wednesday morning at Gardner, they took with them, the son of another drafted man of that town and took advise of some of the neighbors, took a gun along in account of threats having been made by one of the drafted men by the name of Neuville. Early on Thursday morning the party went to the home of Nicholas Neuville, drafted in the Town of Gardner and rapping, said Neuville appeared at the window, when the object of this visit was announced.  After some talk, Neuville agreed to go with them and retired to his room as they supposed to arrange his affairs, but directly reappeared at the window with a gun, which he pointed at Mr. Mann and snapped it.  Fortunately, it did not explode.  He then retired to his room and was heard recapping his gun and shortly after, got out of a back window and coming in sight of Mr. Mann, raised his gun, apparently to shoot him.  Mann, at the same time, raised his own gun, when Neuville retreated a little, Mann says he told him to stop, and taking his own life in danger, shot at Neuville and hit him, wounding him so severely that he died the next day.  Mann and Murphy went up to Neuville after he fell and Murphy took his gun.  This party then returned and reported what had occurred, to me.  I advised Mann to go at once to his county seat of Door County, taking Murphy and the young man along as witnesses, surrender himself to the civil authorities and ask an investigation of the affair, which he has done.  I have not yet heard the results.

       The chairman of the Town Board of Gardner told me after the affair occurred that Neuville, told him he had his gun loaded to shoot any man who should attempt to arrest him.

       So far as I have heard from the town said, the public sentiment approves the course taken.  There are a great many towns and places in this district which an officer goes at the risk of his life.

                                                                                                             C. R. Merrill

                                                                                                             Capt. Pro. Mar.

        A draft for the 5th District was called at Green Bay for 10 August 1864.  Ahnapee Township was called upon to furnish seventeen men, part of the total of 174 from all townships.  The quota was later reduced to 146 men, and the draft was postponed until 26 September when the full quota from Kewaunee County was drafted, and those men called to military service were assigned to veteran regiments.

       The following list of men were drafted at Green Bay, Oct. 3d. for Kewaunee County.  Some of the names are probably not spelled correctly, as the names were taken down at the time they were drawn, and not afterward compared with the roll.

Town of Ahnepee.

        August Ferdinand Heuer had definitely been drafted even though he was listed as August Hayer.  Other names were also misspelled, as noted in the article, and this spelling of “Heuer” was different from the spelling in earlier published enrollment lists.  Of the thirty listed men who were drafted, not all were immediately mustered into military service.  Only those who were included on the muster roll and served with August in the same infantry company were validated as draftees and mustered.

        It must have been a sad day when August said goodbye to Caroline after only five months of marriage with expectations for a child of their own.  By not voluntarily enlisting sooner and collecting all available incentives for enlisting, August had chosen to weigh his luck by trading time for money.  Instead, he marched off to war with no incentives and only $16.00 per month pay as a private, which was a $3.00 improvement in pay enacted by Congress 1 May 1864.  August’s fate had been sealed, but he may have taken solace from the fact that there were thousands of other young men as unfortunate as he.

        August’s military records, in the state archives administered by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, show that he was drafted into military service from Ahnapee, Wisconsin on 3 October 1864 by Captain Merrill, for the term of one year.  He was mustered into military service of the United States on 3 October 1864 at the 5th District in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Private Heuer was assigned, “by order [of] Brig. Gen. Leggett, Comdg, 3rd Div., 17th A. C.,” to Company I, 17th Regiment of Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers, who were at that moment engaged in battle against General John Bell Hood’s Confederate forces in northern Georgia and northern Alabama.  The records further show that August, when enlisted, was twenty-eight years of age, married, had blue eyes, brown hair, ruddy complexion, was five feet, eight inches in height, and by occupation, a farmer.  Private Heuer gave his residence as Ahnapee, Kewaunee County, Wisconsin and his place of birth as Prussia.

        His name on induction records was not Heuer but again, it was misspelled as Hayer.  This name was also used on, “The description rolls of Company I, 17th Regiment, Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers,” on file in the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison.  However, on other records with the same title, his name was recorded as Hyer, and that was the name on his muster and pay records while in Company I.  Another issue was the spelling of the name Ahnapee on his records.  The town’s spelling was Ahnepee at induction but the records of draftees had the spelling of Ahnapee.  The government records were later recopied with the new spelling.

        Within the group drafted from Ahnapee with August Heuer – George Feuerstein, Christian Knospy, William Knospy, Charles Madky, Christian Braemer, and Zacharias Newman – all were assigned to Company I, 17th Regiment.  Three other draftees from Pierce Township inducted the same day – Videlias Miller, Frederick Pape, and Ernest Pape – were also assigned to Company I.  The resulting camaraderie no doubt raised their spirits since there were others from their hometown to share the trials and tribulations of military service.

        The process of induction into military service followed by basic training had challenged men throughout the centuries and anyone who has ever experienced the transition from civilian to military life remembers it forever.  For August Heuer it was no different.  During the first few days at Fort Howard in Green Bay, recruits encountered sergeants barking out orders and formation after formation, followed by standing in line for everything, including use of the community latrine.  Each new infantry soldier was issued a cap with black visor, a long, single-breasted dress coat, and a waist-length jacket, all in dark-blue.  Each recruit also received a pair of light-blue trousers, black leather, high-top shoes, a wool flannel shirt, cotton flannel drawers, woolen socks, and a long, blue overcoat with a cape, plus suspenders to hold up the trousers that were usually not the right size.  He was also issued a black felt hat that would not be worn frequently.  The new uniform felt strange to August at first just as it did to the hundreds of other new soldiers.  They were given very little time to ponder the strangeness of their attire.

        August and his new friends departed Fort Howard by horse-drawn wagons to Neenah, Wisconsin where they boarded a train bound for Camp Randall in Madison, Wisconsin.  There they joined others who had been drafted from counties around the state and rapidly organized into units for basic army training.

        At Camp Randall, August and his fellow recruits may have slept in barracks that formerly had been used as stables and cowsheds for the state fair.  If so, they soon itched from the flea-infested straw in their bunks.  They shivered in cold weather and sweltered in hot weather.  If they lived in large conical tents, pitched on the grounds, they were more fortunate.  The heating source was a square hole dug in the earth, covered with sheet iron, and equipped with an underground flue on one side to let the air in and another opposite flue to let the smoke out.  The tents often filled with smoke, yet tents were superior to barracks.  As many as 3,000 men at a time could eat in the huge mess hall, formerly the fair’s machinery exhibition building, measuring 150 by 240 feet.  The men constantly complained about their ill health and blamed the bad food, especially the sour bread and spoiled beef.  Many recruits developed illnesses, although the soldiers often exaggerated the morbidity and incidence of each outbreak.  The hospital in Floral Hall, which also contained officers’ quarters and storerooms, had no lack of patients.

        While in camp, the recruits found that there was much more to life in the army than just camping out with the boys.  They began their day at 5:00 a.m. when they were awakened by a cannon shot.  They drilled in the morning and afternoon.  In the evening, they often had to line-up for a dress parade.  Since the regular army provided neither instructors nor instructions, the state camps had to depend on any drillmasters who appeared.  When the Wisconsin companies and regiments had first formed, some of them had been fortunate to have a captain or a lieutenant who had served in the Mexican War or in European wars, such as Lieutenant Werner von Bachelle or Captain J. F. Hauser, the later being a graduate of a Swiss military school.  However, in the late stages of the war, when recruits were gathered at Camp Randall to be trained as replacements for veteran units, a cadre of experienced drillmasters put the new soldiers through their training.  The trainees spent a great deal of time on drill and parade and very little on the use of weapons or on battle practice.

        The ten acres of Camp Randall were surrounded by a board fence eight feet high with two guarded gates on the side towards the city of Madison.  People from the city often visited the camp to watch parades or call on friends, and soldiers received passes to go to the city to do the things soldiers have always done, even to attend church.  Not all of the soldiers conducted themselves as saints when they visited the city, and that caused some Madisonians to complain that passes were awarded too freely.  Most soldiers thought that passes were too hard to get.  When confined to the monotony of garrison life, in the barracks or tents, many men amused themselves with gambling and drinking.  During the first year the camp was open, sutlers were allowed to sell beer and liquor in the camp.  That practice was ended when constant drunken, rowdy soldiers caused near riots among themselves.  From then on, the soldiers had to smuggle in their drinks or do their drinking in Madison while on pass.

        The next few weeks were filled with endless drills from sunup to sundown, probably at first without the musket so that when marching commands were misunderstood, and the men collided, they would not be injured by the heavy musket or the often-attached bayonet.  Once the drills were practiced enough so the individuals in the unit always moved in the same direction at the same time, the obsolete smoothbore musket was issued, and it was included in the drilling.

        The soldiers had also been issued a haversack, cartridge box, bayonet and scabbard, cap box, a rubber and a woolen blanket, canteen, and a knapsack.  They were told what each of these items were used for and how to care for all of the issued equipment.  Last, but not least, was a metal plate, knife, spoon, fork, and cup.  In Camp Randall, they did not have to prepare their own food, but they always had to stand in line to receive their three meals.

        As the training progressed with the units becoming more cohesive, the drills were more oriented towards a battlefield environment.  The soldiers were taught various bugle calls, verbal commands, and hand signals for all maneuvering, whether it be company or regiment, which would be expected to be accomplished while in combat with the enemy.  The mood of all the soldiers became more somber and serious as the reality of the training became obvious.  By today’s standards, the training Union soldiers received may be called haphazard and maybe even inadequate, but then the conduct of war was much simpler.  The major objective was to convert a civilian to the military mode of total discipline to the chain of command, which was supposedly adequately trained to lead and issue correct orders at the appropriate time.  In actuality, everyone, from private to general, quickly learned that training was one thing and combat yet another.

        In four weeks, from 4 October to around 7 November 1864, August Heuer and his fellow Wisconsin draftees were trained and ready to join the units to which they had been assigned.  All the replacements for the Wisconsin regiments assigned to the Federal Grand Army, departed Madison by train for Chicago.  Although we do not know how August and his fellow recruits from Ahnapee reached the 17th Regiment in Atlanta, we have the diary of Private Frank Wittenberger that tells us what the usual route would have been.

Departed from Camp Randall for Chicago, arrived there at 9:00 P.M.  Had crackers for supper.  Two men were left behind.  One was sick and left in a home called Soldier’s Rest.  It is 150 miles from Camp Randall to Chicago.

January 18, 1865

Had a tin cup of coffee and bread for breakfast.  Left for Michigan City (Michigan) about 6:00 o’clock.  Nothing to see except sand hills, white as snow.  It is 65 miles from Chicago to Michigan City, 110 miles on to Lafayette (Indiana) and from there to Indianapolis, Indiana, another 65 miles.  We arrived there about 9:00 P.M.  A nice city.

January 19, 1865

Rode all night and arrived at Jeffersonville (Indiana) about 6:00 in the morning, drove over the Ohio River to Louisville, Kentucky.  They say it is 130 miles from Indianapolis, Indiana, to Jeffersonville.  No snow in Kentucky.  Louisville is a dirty city – coal smoked.  Left for Nashville, Tennessee, about 1:00 P.M. and arrived there about 2:00 at night, but stayed on the train until 6:00 in the morning.  It’s 185 miles from Louisville to Nashville.  Lots of rough roads – were much shaken up.

January 20, 1865

Today we were quartered in a Custom House, a very large building.  In spite of the guards, four men escaped.  One day of rest.  One officer from the Indiana Regiment fell down stairs – died.  Nashville has large fortifications.  General Thomas fought a big battle with Hood 3½ miles from the city.

January 21, 1865

        After traveling the same route from Camp Randall as Frank Wittenberger, August’s group left Nashville by train to Chattanooga, Tennessee and then to Atlanta, Georgia where Company I, 17th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment was waiting for them.  The men were resting after participating in the siege of Atlanta and the excursion north to defeat General Hood’s Confederate rebel forces.8

        The trip south in the train cars must have seemed endless, but it could not have been boring.  The trains had been frequently attacked by rebel cavalry in an effort to cut off supplies to the Union armies to the south.  The rebels would also tear up the tracks, which caused delays until the track was repaired.  Then too, the replacements could view the battle-scarred countryside where the army had fought on its way to Atlanta.  In some places, the countryside was beautiful, with forests covering the land from horizon to horizon, but in spite of these interludes, the thought of what lay ahead was omnipresent.  The closer they got to Atlanta, the destruction of the recent battles was more evident.  The train passed through areas where breastworks stretched for miles, and here and there, fresh gravesites dotted the landscape.  It must have been a sobering sight to the travel-weary soldiers as they neared their destination with the opportunity to test their mettle in combat.

        August joined Company I, 17th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment on 14 November 1864.  The 17th Regiment was, by now, a battle hardened, well-experienced unit.  It had been organized at Camp Randall, in Madison, Wisconsin on 15 March 1862.  The ranks of the 17th were initially filled by a group of Irish volunteers who asked, and were granted permission, to form a regiment of infantry.  They departed Wisconsin on 23 March 1862 and went into camp near Shiloh Church, Tennessee on 24 April.  The 17th Wisconsin Infantry saw its first action at the siege of Corinth, Mississippi and on 3 October 1862, the Irish troops repelled a large scale rebel attack at Corinth at the points of their fixed bayonets.  They were commended for their heroic actions by the commanding general of the division in a special order.  They had lost forty-one men.  They next fought the rebels on 28 November near Waterford, Mississippi and at Holly Springs.  On 23 December 1862, the 17th was suddenly ordered to Grand Junction to thwart an enemy advance and, after defeating the rebels, embarked on steamboats on 3 January 1863 for a voyage down the Mississippi River to Young’s Point, Louisiana.  There, encamped at Lake Providence, the 17th took part in the capture of Vicksburg.  They fought in the battle of Champion Hills and assaulted the breastworks of Vicksburg.  After Vicksburg, the 17th proceeded to Natchez, Mississippi where they became mounted infantry, patrolling in the general area around Natchez.  In January 1864, three-fourths of the regiment re-enlisted, took thirty-day furloughs to Wisconsin, and returned to the front at Huntsville, Alabama on 23 May 1864.  Here the 17th joined General Sherman’s army and took part in the march to Atlanta.  On the way, it took part in battles at Big Shanty, Kennesaw Mountain, Chattahoochie River, and Leggett’s Hill, to name but a few.  The 17th participated in the battle for Atlanta and assisted in the defeat of General John Bell Hood’s Confederate forces in northern Alabama and Georgia.  Throughout the 17th’s short history, it had been assigned to various brigades and divisions of the 16th and 17th Army Corps and had a very distinguished record.

        When Private August Heuer joined Company I, the 17th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment was assigned to the 2nd Brigade, commanded by Colonel Robert K. Scott.  The 2nd Brigade was assigned to the 3rd Division, the same division in which his brother, Fred, served, and was commanded by Brigadier General Mortimer D. Leggett.  The 3rd Division was assigned to the 17th Army Corps, commanded by Major General Francis P. Blair.  The 17th Corps was assigned to the Army of the Tennessee, then commanded by Major General Oliver O. Howard.  The Army of the Tennessee and the Army of Georgia made up the Federal Grand Army, commanded by Major General William Tecumseh Sherman.  After the Atlanta campaign had ended, General Sherman sent the Army of Cumberland to Nashville and Chattanooga to protect those vital strongholds, and left a large contingent to garrison the Atlanta area.  There had been 100,000 men in Sherman’s army before and during the Atlanta campaign, but now it had 60,000 men in the remaining two armies.

        Each corps had a distinctive insignia that was embroidered on the flat part of the uniform field cap.  The 17th Army Corps was an arrow.  August and his brother, Fred, both wore this 17th Corps designation.

        The Army was poised to begin the famous march to the sea.

        It is very possible that August may have had a short reunion with his younger brother, Fred, on the evening of 14 November 1864.  Fred’s unit, Company E, Worden’s Battalion, had been assigned to the 1st Missouri Engineers, who were assigned to the 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, 17th Army Corps, Army of the Tennessee.  It was very likely that the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the 3rd Division were camped very near each other, so it is possible that the brothers had the opportunity to visit and spend a few hours together, exchanging experiences and news from home.  Although they did not know it at the time, the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the 3rd Division would march side by side for the next six months, and there would be more opportunities to visit along the way.

        On 15 November 1864, the day after the long journey to Atlanta, Company I, 17th Regiment began the march to the sea with the Army of the Tennessee, over 60,000 men marching toward Savannah, Georgia in four columns, ten to fifteen miles apart, on parallel roads.  Each corps put out skirmishers and flankers to the right and left of their column, extending out until they met those of the next corps, making the army front forty-to-fifty miles wide.  The men of the Army of the Tennessee had been told they would not have the support of their normal complement of supply trains.  They were told to forage for food from the countryside.  What they did not need, they were to destroy so it would not fall into the hands of the rebels.  At the same time, the rebels were foraging and destroying what they did not need, which would further diminish the food supply.  The army began the march in high spirits, in spite of the unknown hazards that lay ahead.  As they marched from their encampments northeast of Atlanta, they raised their voices in joyous song with complete confidence that General Sherman would end the war soon.

        Company I marched ten miles the first day and twenty-two the second.  On 17 November, they marched past the village of McDonald and covered another eighteen miles.  The company reached the Ocmulgee River on 18 November, where the 1st Missouri Engineers had pushed ahead of the army to build a pontoon bridge over the river.  Fred Heuer’s unit, Company E, Worden’s Battalion, served as pontoon train guard and assisted in laying the bridge.  It took the army forty-eight hours to cross the 250-foot bridge.  The bridge was like a funnel to the advancing army.  All units had to converge on the bridge and then spread out again after crossing.  Perhaps August and Fred used those occasions to visit.

        The army moved forward for the next six days, passing through Monticello, Hillsborough, Clinton, then passing Macon on the north side and on to Gordonville, following the line of the Georgia Central Railroad until it reached the Oconee River, on 26 November.  They crossed the pontoon bridge laid there by the engineers, and now the army took less time to cross.  The men and the teams pulling the wagons had become more familiar with the floating pontoon bridge.

        The routine of the march had also set in.  The supply and pontoon trains kept to the road while the troops marched on the side, in the woods or in the fields.  The infantry companies sent out armed foragers who roamed the countryside searching for anything edible.  It was a good day when they found a live hog, or a smokehouse with hams and bacon.  They found eggs, chickens, geese, oxen, and all varieties of dry food, like corn and beans.  Often they had to fight the local populace for the food.  More often than not, there were more foragers than there was food.  Occasionally, foragers never returned, having been shot by the inhabitants of the plantation or farm from which they were attempting to liberate some booty.  It was a dangerous assignment.

        For those who walked the endless miles, the marching was the only routine.  It was not really marching either because the soldiers just walked along, in what today would be route step, as any army veteran will remember well.  The troops were still in column, but there were larger gaps between the men, stretching the column over a much longer area than normal.  While marching, the men discussed the war, sang songs, reflected on the countryside, told jokes, and probably complained as all good soldiers do.  Every so often, one of the men would stumble, invoking a string of barbs about big feet, lead shoes, poor eyesight, or the inability to walk when sleeping, all from fellow soldiers who had likely experienced the same humiliation on one or more occasions.  The column was frequently halted to rest and reform the troops, and an hour’s break was taken for lunch and supper.  Men on the march were not allowed to fall out to forage or get water but frequently did anyway.  Men also fell out from exhaustion or foot problems.  Whether it was in the rain, heat, cold, or when conditions were absolutely perfect, marching was a strenuous and physically demanding task.  When faced with the prospect of averaging at least ten miles per day, it became a mind-numbing, bone-wearying existence.

        After marching all day, the men ate their meager meals of hardtack, described as, “thin square cakes; hard as stone and tastes like Easter cake,” salt pork, and whatever the foragers managed to find.  Hardtack was a hard, flour and water cracker measuring three and an eighth by two and seven-eighths inches, about half an inch thick.  Nine or ten hardtack crackers made up a pound.  Often they were moldy from being left in wooden boxes exposed to the weather; at times they were riddled with weevils or maggots.  Hardtack, of course, could be simply eaten as issued, which made it handy while on the march.  However, when given the chance, most men modified hardtack, often by breaking each cracker up in a tin cup of coffee suspended over an open fire.  In this way, dead weevils could be skimmed off before drinking.  Hardtack could also be crumbled into soup as thickening or stuck on the end of a stick or ramrod and toasted over an open fire.  Crumbled hardtack, softened in water, could be fried in animal, usually pork, fat; this dish was known as sillygalee.  Hardtack was often turned into milk toast with the addition of condensed milk, which was then available in tin cans and sold by most Union Army sutlers.

        Sometimes they would have rice or bean soup, and beef was served about once a week.  Another staple was dried beef, called jerky, made into strips, which were often chewed while the men marched.  The one thing all yearned for was a piece of homemade bread.

        The soldiers’ favorite beverage, coffee, was issued as beans.  They were usually kept in a small bag in the soldiers’ haversack.  The beans were beaten into grounds with the butt of a musket on a flat rock.  Then they added sugar, if available, to the bag’s contents.  Whenever the column halted, men were sure to build fires and begin brewing up coffee in the tin cups they all carried in their haversack.

        The men cooked their meat in one of several ways.  Salt pork generally had to be soaked for hours to remove the brine; tying it to a tree and throwing it into a running brook was a common method of doing this.  The easiest way of cooking the prepared meat was to stick it on the end of a ramrod or sharp stick and hold it over a fire.  It could also be placed on the coals, then the ashes brushed off, salt and pepper added, and eaten.  Many men carried small frying pans, but veterans preferred broiled meat as it was thought to be a healthier method of preparation.  Frying pans were often made from a Union Army canteen half, the canteen having first been heated so that the solder holding the two sides together melted.

        Union soldiers had to prepare the desiccated vegetables, which were issued to prevent scurvy.  The vegetable ration was a two or three-inch cube of green, dried vegetable matter about an ounce in weight.  When soaked in water, it became pulpy soup with clearly visible turnips, parsnips, carrots, cabbage leaves, and a small amount of onion.  Desiccated potatoes were also issued, and these were usually used in soups or as flour to make small cakes.

        Most men formed messes, small groups of four to eight members, to prepare their food.  Usually one man was a more skilled cook and did most of the actual cooking; in some companies regular cooks, who were exempt from drilling, were appointed.  They used large pots in which to boil the salt pork and were allowed to stow these in the company wagons.  Company cooks often boiled peas or beans with salt pork.  When ovens were available, soft bread was produced, which was preferable to hardtack.

        According to army regulations, Union soldiers were supposed to receive a ration consisting of twenty-two ounces of bread or flour or a pound of hard bread, three-quarters of a pound of pork or bacon or one-and-a-quarter pound of fresh or salt beef; and for every hundred rations or twice a week, eight quarts of beans or 150-ounces of desiccated potatoes and 100-ounces of mixed vegetables; ten pounds of coffee or one-and-a-half pounds of tea; fifteen pounds of sugar; and four quarts of vinegar.  A pound of potatoes was to be issued per man at least three times a week.  The reality for troops on the march was usually much different and for Sherman’s army, without a resupply source from any direction, these normal supplies were non-existent.

        The soldiers generally slept on the bare ground in their uniforms, covered with their rubber blanket on the outside and their woolen blanket on the inside.  Even in southern Georgia, the nights were often cold and damp, and the soldiers were chilled to the bone by morning.  If it rained, the men covered themselves with their half of the two man tent if they had not discarded it to lighten their load.  In that case, the rubber blanket went on top but hardly kept them dry.

        In the morning, almost always before daybreak, the company bugles sounded reveille.  The men, already dressed, arose to roll their blankets, prepare their meal and coffee, and then take their turn at the slit trenches.  Washing and shaving were only occasionally accomplished, so the troops were soon ready for the day’s march.  Depending on the order of march, the call of assembly by the bugler would alert the men to fall in.  If they were in the lead elements, assembly would sound as little as an hour after reveille.  After falling in, they would take up the line of march, ending their trek early in the day.  If they were at the end of the column, assembly would be called as late as noon, and they knew they would not halt until midnight or later.  The next day they could be one of the lead elements again, leaving little time to rest.  On other days, they could nap after the morning meal until assembly was called.  In that respect, each day was different.

        Like soldiers from other states, those from Wisconsin usually developed a sense of identification, first with their company, next with their regiment, and then, to a lesser degree, with their brigade, corps, and army.  Within the company, however, the men divided into informal groupings of friends for social purposes.  These groups developed the strongest feelings of kinship and loyalty among themselves.  The 17th Regiment, being composed originally of mostly Irishmen, with a large contingent of Germans being added as the war dragged on, would have been a unit with little conflict between the men.  The immigrant soldier rarely established close friendships with his American-born counterpart due to many factors, the first being the language barrier.  It would then follow that August and his Ahnapee draftees probably became fast friends and remained so throughout the war.

        After crossing the Oconee River on 28 November, Company I continued southeast and reached the Ogeechee River well ahead of the engineers who had to remove the bridge from the previous crossing.  The infantry, impatient to continue the march, built a pine timber bridge over the short span one mile from Millen, Georgia.  By then, the engineers had pushed ahead and laid a bridge over a small stream and then over the Little Ogeechee River, again near Millen, seventy-nine miles from Savannah and fifty-three miles from Augusta.  In early December, the route of march now followed the tracks of the Augusta and Savannah Railroad, towards Savannah.

        There had been very little resistance from the rebel forces up to this point.  Occasionally, a small cavalry unit would harass the columns, but it was only a delaying tactic, allowing the rebel forces time to organize their forces around Savannah and Fort McAllister, the only fortified rebel facility in Savannah.  The 15th Army Corps was ordered south and crossed the Ogeechee River, again with the help of the engineers and their pontoon bridge, putting them in a position to surround and capture Fort McAllister.

        In the meantime, Company I continued the march south on the route of the Augusta and Savannah Railroad.  As they neared Savannah, rebel resistance began to stiffen, but the fighting was brief with the rebels retreating towards the city.  The 17th Regiment became involved in some heavy skirmishes when only a few miles from Savannah.  However, Fort McAllister was taken on 21 December 1864; the Savannah campaign and the march to the sea was over.

        During the period 22 December 1864 to 6 January 1865, the Army of the Tennessee rested; the soldiers celebrated Christmas and New Year’s Day in Savannah.  There is little doubt that August visited with Fred during this period.  The units were bivouacked together, and perhaps the unit commanders knew each other and allowed the brothers some time together to visit the sights of Savannah.  Captain William I. Henry, Fred Heuer’s commanding officer, also from Ahnapee, certainly knew August and could have made the arrangements.  In any case, the brothers reflected on their experiences and may have recalled the long journey across the Atlantic Ocean while standing on the shore in Savannah.  Fred had celebrated his twenty-second birthday on 28 October, shortly after the march to the sea began, and August was twenty-eight.  Their visit, however long, was probably not long enough from their point of view.

        General Sherman wasted no time making a decision about what he would do next.  On 7 January 1865, the Federal Grand Army began the third leg of their march to victory.  The troops of the 17th Regiment were marched to the port and several days later boarded steamboats.  The boats departed in the early evening of 11 January, steamed down the Bay of Savannah, then north up the coast, arriving at Beaufort, South Carolina, twenty-four hours later on the evening of 12 January.  The regiment camped on the island, while the engineers moved forward ten miles across the island and laid a bridge, 580 feet long, across to the mainland.  They had been very careful not to alert the rebel forces camped nearby, carrying the bridge components three quarters of a mile on their shoulders instead of driving to the site with the mule drawn wagons.  Company I and the entire army crossed the bridge, but the engineers were told to remain in place; if the army met stiff resistance, it could fall back or recross the bridge.

        No such resistance was presented, and the infantry pushed forward through Pocotaligo, South Carolina after fighting organized rebel forces on 14 January 1865.  They marched steadily northward over sandy, swampy roads and through pine forests, with daily engagements with the rebels.  The rebels would attack, then fall back in what can be described as a retrograde maneuver, to slow the Union advance and allow time for reorganization of their outnumbered, outgunned, war-weary forces.

        August Heuer did not know until later that his wife, Caroline, had given birth to a daughter on 17 January 1865 in Ahnapee.  She was given the name Emilie Wilhelmine Louise.  Presumably he received the news by mail, which would have taken a week or more to reach him.  It must have been a happy day, whenever he finally received the news, with much backslapping and congratulations from his fellow soldiers in Company I, especially from George Feuerstein, Christian Knospy, William Knospy, Charles Madky, Christian Braemer, and Zacharias Newman.

        The army moved north through Barker’s Mills where the 17th Regiment fought a pitched battle with the rebels until the southerners were overwhelmed and retreated.  Next, they participated in the battle of Whippy Swamp on 1 February.  They moved through Salkenhatchie Swamp during 2 to 5 February and cleared the area on the Edisto River so the engineers could construct the pontoon bridge.  The army crossed the temporary bridge on 9 February and advanced to the North Edisto River where another bridge was laid.  They crossed it on 12 February and pushed slowly northward toward Columbia, South Carolina.  There they met a large, organized force of rebels including artillery batteries that fired from across the Congaree River.  They skirted the city of Columbia and crossed the Saluda River on a pontoon bridge, which allowed them to quickly surround the city on 16 February 1865.  Columbia was neutralized on 17 February, and the Union forces moved on.

        The front moved to the Broad River where the rebels made another stand.  Before the engineers could build the bridge, the enemy had to be routed from the far shore.  The engineers built large rafts from bridge components and ferried a brigade of men over the river where they attacked the rebel force and drove them from the northern bank.  The bridge was finally completed, and the army crossed, pressing on to the north until they reached the Wateree River.  The engineers again laid the bridge, and the army crossed throughout the night of 21-22 February.  The 17th Regiment moved north through Cheraw, South Carolina on 3 March where they waited for the engineers to build the bridge over the Great Pedee River.  The rebels had put up a good fight, trying to keep the Union forces from crossing this natural barrier.  Many rebels surrendered and were taken prisoner, and thirty pieces of artillery were captured.  During their retreat, the rebels burned the permanent bridge, but it would not delay the Union forces for very long.  The army crossed on 6 March, three days later.  The army advanced to Fayetteville, crossed the Cape Fear River on 14 March, and on 19 March reached Bentonville, North Carolina.  Here the 17th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment encountered another large enemy force.  There was fierce fighting, including terrible artillery barrages fired by both sides, but by 21 March the battle, known thereafter as the Battle of Bentonville, ended with another defeat of the rebel forces.

        The army continued north, crossing the Neuse River on the pontoon bridge on their way to Goldsboro.  Another army corps captured Goldsboro, and the 17th Regiment became part of the occupying forces of that city on 24 March 1865.  The regiment was relieved of those duties on 10 April and advanced on Raleigh, North Carolina, reaching that city on 14 April where they again became part of the occupying force.

        When news that General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia on 9 April 1865, reached the 17th Regiment there was wild rejoicing, for with that news came the certainty that the end of the war was near.  But that good news was quickly followed by the shocking announcement that President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated in Ford’s Theater in Washington.  The troops were both angry and saddened by the death of their popular leader whom they had believed in and fought for.

        The 17th Regiment departed Raleigh, advancing north once again.  They participated in the battle for Bennets House and on 26 April 1865, were observers to the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston and his Confederate army in Durham’s Station.  The war was over, but August Heuer still had one more battle to fight.

        The regiment, along with the entire Federal Grand Army, was ordered to march to Washington, D. C. to participate in a victory parade.  They began the long trek on 29 April, crossing Crabtree Creek and the Tar River.  Orders had been given that foraging would no longer be tolerated, and all civilian property must be respected.  The order came when the quantity and quality of the army’s rations were at its lowest point of the campaign.

        In spite of the bad food, the victorious troops marched north with their heads held high.  They crossed the Tar River again and passed through Fortville on 1 May.  They marched another twenty-two miles and camped at Ridgeway.  They waited at the Roanoke River while the engineers laid the longest pontoon bridge thus far.  The structure, when completed, was 680 feet long and required a forty-foot piece of bridge made of timber on each end, as the pontoon train carried only 600 feet of bridging.  On 5 May, the army crossed, although it must have been a frightening experience for everyone, especially the wagon masters.  From 6 May to 13 May, they passed through Dinwiddie Court House, Hatchie Run, Petersburg, Virginia; then to Manchester, over the permanent bridge on the James River, and marched through Richmond, Virginia where they camped near the Pamunky River.  The engineers arrived the same day and again laid the pontoon bridge.

        The greatest danger the Civil War soldier faced was not bullets but disease.  Soldiers from rural areas had not been exposed to many common diseases such as chicken pox, measles, or mumps, and entire regiments were swept with such illnesses.  Most men were not accustomed to spending so much time being wet and cold outdoors.  Soap was often in short supply and personal hygiene was often neglected.  Lice, especially on men in the field, were almost universal.

        The sick soldier, if unable to rest and cure himself, as many preferred, reported to the surgeon on the morning sick call.  The men lined up before the surgeon’s tent as the surgeon stood in front of the tent, accompanied by his hospital steward who noted the surgeon’s prescription on a regulation form.  The typical medicines prescribed were opium, quinine, blue mass or blue powder, (a mixture of mercury and chalk used for intestinal complaints) and whiskey, sometimes replaced by brandy or wine.  Usually, surgeons prescribed a mixture of the medicines according to the specific complaint.  The hospital steward, who supposedly had pharmaceutical training, made up and issued the medicines.

        According to Union medical records, the leading killer of diseases was chronic diarrhea, of which 30,836 died.  Acute diarrhea accounted for another 4,291 deaths.  Soldiers called diarrhea “quickstep,” usually after the local state name, that is, “the Virginia quickstep,” or “the Tennessee quickstep.”

        The second biggest killer was typhoid fever, from which 29,336 Union men died.  Chronic dysentery killed 3,855 Union soldiers, while acute dysentery accounted for another 5,576 Union deaths.  All these diseases were caused by contaminated food and water and could have been prevented by modern sanitation methods.  Soldiers often drank from streams occupied by dead bodies or human waste or ate uncooked, spoiled meat.  Although the U.S. Sanitary Commission tried to make conditions more sanitary, at least for Union soldiers, rarely were soldiers trained to avoid these pitfalls.  It was obvious to many, however, maintaining clean camps helped cut down on these types of disease.  U.S. Regulars who were strictly disciplined had fewer cases of intestinal disease than did eastern volunteers who, in turn, had fewer cases than the poorly disciplined western volunteers.

        Most surgeons, however, had no idea of the causes of these diseases.  Many felt that diet played a major role, either in how the food was prepared or what foods were or were not available.  Other surgeons, seeing that most cases were reported in summer months during active campaigning, blamed the weather.  They suggested that soldiers could prevent them by wearing a flannel band around the waist under the shirt.  Other suggested causes included the fumes, or effluvia of decaying corpses, too much coffee, and nerves.  Indeed, miasmas, breezes carrying disease, were often thought to be a major cause of many diseases, and ample ventilation for barracks was urged as a general preventive.

        The common treatment for intestinal diseases was a laxative prescription given in the morning, alternated with opium in the evening.  Castor oil and Epsom salts were the generally prescribed laxatives.  Some surgeons also prescribed quinine and calomel, although calomel was forbidden to Union surgeons in May 1863 on the grounds of overuse.  Strong purgatives and whiskey were also prescribed for diarrhea in an effort to get rid of the irritant.  Opium was often used in cases of dysentery, and strychnine used for chronic dysentery.

        Various fevers, mostly malaria, accounted for the deaths of 14,379 Union soldiers.  The cause of malaria was then unknown.  Some soldiers in barracks along the southern seacoasts did put mosquito netting around their beds, but they did so to avoid bites rather than prevent malaria.  Again, miasmas were often blamed for the disease.

        Fevers were treated with quinine, often mixed with whiskey in an ill-tasting concoction that soldiers still demanded in order to receive a free alcoholic drink.  Doses of three to five grains of quinine were given every two hours for six hours before the patient had one of the fits typical of the disease.  Other preparations used in fighting malaria included ammonia, blue mass, cod-liver oil, cream of tartar, cinnamon, sweet spirits of niter, soda, morphine, syrup of wild cherry, sulfuric acid, and potassium.  Fevers were treated by frequent cold water-soaked towels being wrapped around the head and cold water being sprayed on the body.  Opium was given to quiet the patient.

        On the whole, medical thinking of the period depended greatly on pharmaceuticals to cure diseased patients, but most of these pharmaceuticals were of little or no value, and surgeons did not know how to prescribe correctly, those that were of value.  It is no surprise, then, that most of the soldiers nicknamed their surgeons opium pills, quinine, or saw bones, and preferred to take their chances with their friends rather than submit to the surgeon’s tender mercies.  Often they relied on patent medicines sent from home.

        It is almost certain the brothers, August and Fred Heuer, had an opportunity to see each other at the Pamunky River bridge site.  If so, this may have been when Fred learned that August had become ill with a high fever.  Neither of them were aware that a major epidemic had begun in 1865, with a series of recurring epidemics of smallpox, cholera, typhus, typhoid, scarlet fever, and yellow fever affecting populations in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, New Orleans, Baltimore, Memphis, and Washington, D. C.  The epidemic would last until 1873 and take the lives of thousands, both young and old.

        The 17th Army Corps passed over the bridge on Sunday, 14 May 1865.  They marched through the city of Bowling Green on 15 May and reached, and passed through, Fredericksburg by sundown on 17 May.  With the engineer bridge over the Acquia Creek, they crossed that stream on 19 May and at the end of the day, had reached Alexandria, Virginia.

        Although August Heuer had been drafted and entered service near the final year of the war; endured the long march from Atlanta to Savannah to Alexandria; faced the enemy on numerous occasions in that seven-month period and survived; it would be typhoid fever that would take his life.  A severe, communicable, bacterial disease, typhoid fever is caused by the bacterium, which enters the body through food contaminated by polluted water or by food handlers who are carriers.  After an incubation period of seven to twenty-one days, the illness begins with fever, lethargy, headache, and loss of appetite.  Increasing weakness, diarrhea, and abdominal discomfort develop during the second week when a rose-colored rash may appear.  Intestinal bleeding or perforation may occur in the second or third week and can be fatal.

        Upon reaching Alexandria, August was very ill, demonstrating all the symptoms of typhoid fever.  Christian Braemer, Zacharias Newman, and others of the Ahnapee contingent were attending to him, thinking he had a case of sunstroke.  In a later statement made for an application for pension by Christoph Berndt for August’s daughter, Emilie, both men said, “that he, the said August Heyer (Heuer) died on or about the 22nd day of May 1865, near Alexandria, State of Virginia by the affect of sunstroke and they are two of the number who carried said August Heyer (Heuer) from the place of getting sick to the Division Hospital of the Third Division, 17th Army Corps, where he died.”  Perhaps Fred Heuer, from Company E, 14th Regiment, was another who helped carry August to the hospital.  In any case, he surely would have been notified of his brother’s illness and may have had the opportunity to see him before he died, in spite of the quarantine under which August was undoubtedly placed at the hospital.  Surgeon R. J. Richards, of the 20th Illinois Volunteers, was the doctor who treated August in the 3rd Division Hospital but could do little to save him.  On the, “Monthly Report of Sick and Wounded,” for May 1865, Surgeon Richards placed August Hyer’s (Heuer) name on the, “List of Casualties,” accompanying the report, stating that August had died on 22 May of typhoid fever.

        Due to the highly contagious nature of typhoid fever, August was probably buried within hours of his death.9  He was laid to rest, without ceremony, in a row of graves on a tract of land that had very recently been the estate of General Robert E. Lee, the recent commanding general of the now defeated Confederate Army.  His grave was marked with a wooden cross.  August Ferdinand Heuer was one of the first 5,000 men buried in what would become Arlington National Cemetery.

        Arlington National Cemetery has a colorful and poignant history.  The 612 acres of the cemetery were once part of the 1,100‑acre Arlington plantation originally owned by Mary Ann Randolph Custis, one of George Washington’s relatives.  She married Lieutenant Robert E. Lee on 30 June 1831 and lived at Arlington House for thirty years.  Lee resigned his commission in 1861 when the war between the states seemed certain and left the estate forever, rather than fight against his native Virginia.  General Lee never technically owned the land.  Even through their marriage, which spanned nearly forty years, Mary had always retained legal ownership of the property.

        After Lee’s resignation, federal troops crossed the Potomac, fortified the estate’s ridges, and turned the once stately home into the Army of the Potomac’s headquarters.  Arlington House and the estate were finally confiscated in May 1864 and sold to the federal government when the Lees failed to pay $92.07 in property taxes in person.  Disabled and confined to a wheelchair, Mary Custis Lee had not fully met the law when she sent a proxy to pay the taxes.

        Union forces built three fortifications on the land, and 200 acres nearby were set aside as a national cemetery.  Heavy fighting in northern Virginia resulted in a continual stream of Union soldier casualties flowing into the Washington D.C. area.  Unfortunately, they had the tendency to linger in agony for a few days and then die.  By 1864, the escalating body count was creating a serious logistical problem, for all of the ad hoc military cemeteries in the area had become filled to capacity.  In the days before refrigeration, and especially in the humid swamp that was the District of Columbia, bodies had to be buried as quickly as possible.  The war’s end was nowhere in sight, and something had to be done.  Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, directed the Quartermaster General, Montgomery C. Meigs, to find a new place to bury the endless influx of corpses.

        Scholars consistently describe Montgomery Meigs as a self‑important man who, despite his Georgia birth, had, since the start of the war, developed an intense hatred for the South.  He served under then‑Colonel Lee in the Engineer Corps in 1838, and although their exact personal relationship is unknown, it seems likely that Meigs resented the superior ability and dashing good looks of his commanding officer.

        Arlington House had taken on a striking likeness to a southern plantation mansion; in this context the house looking down upon the Federal capital antagonized many passionate Unionists in the city.  Accordingly, Secretary Stanton approved Meigs’ recommendation that a section of the property around Arlington House be used as the military graveyard and the first soldiers were buried there in mid‑May 1864.  The opening of the cemetery coincided roughly with the carnage of the Wilderness Campaign, and by the end of June, 2,600 bodies had been buried.

        The following evidence of Meigs’ personal vendetta against the South in general, and Robert E. Lee in particular, may be the most incriminating.  Upon inspection of the new grounds for the first time in late summer of 1864, Meigs expected to find the house nearly unapproachable due to the number of new graves.  Instead, he found the mansion much as it had been when it was first occupied by Federal troops with the graves neatly arranged some distance from the house.  Furious, Meigs demanded that twenty‑six bodies be brought immediately from the Washington area, and in the heat of that mid‑August day, he personally supervised the burial of these fallen soldiers around Mary Custis Lee’s once famous rose garden standing only yards from the house.

        Obviously, the intentions of the Quartermaster General to render the property uninhabitable were sincere.  One year later the war was over, and over five thousand bodies had been placed in the ground of the sloping hills of Arlington.  It was at this time that the task of searching the surrounding countryside for shallow graves and unburied bones began.  Of the total number of Civil War dead in the cemetery, about four thousand are unknowns.  The graves were placed in neat rows and sections, with separate areas for colored troops and Confederate soldiers who had died as prisoners of war.  Section 14 has been dedicated to this group.

        It is crucial to note that at this time, the only men who were interred here were from families who were too poor to have the remains shipped home to rest among loved ones.  Frequently conducted without ceremony, the funerals were done as quickly and as cheaply as possible.  The Army originally provided fragile wooden headstones, upon which names were misspelled and little other personal information was consistently provided.  In reality, Arlington National Cemetery was simply the anonymous and inevitable product of the war machine.  Between the mansion and the fields of the dead, the property, which had originally been used to promote the shining legacy of a patriotic individual, had become somewhat tarnished.  If the Greek temple was associated with the attributes of any one individual, it was with the treasonous, yet somehow heroic, villainy of Robert E. Lee.  The land that surrounded the house was consequently used to overshadow the memory of General Lee by associating Arlington with the enormous group sacrifice of those thousands who believed that America’s union should be preserved.  While the initial efforts of the Union to establish a shrine to collective military honor were largely successful, the two competing symbols of Arlington House and Arlington Cemetery served to polarize the area much as the nation itself would remain psychologically divided for decades.10

        The occasional sightseers who visited in the early years were most assuredly awestruck by the place, simply due to the overwhelming number of graves.  By 1870, more than 15,000 soldiers were interred at Arlington.  When Iza Duffus Hardy toured the capital, he took a detour from the monuments across the river and recorded his impressions of the cemetery and Arlington House, which had been abandoned by Federal officers at war’s end.  Two passages in particular serve as poignant expressions of the profound emotional effect Arlington had on people, while still retaining its undeniably sectional atmosphere.  Hardy first described the Union cemetery: “The beautiful park‑like grounds are now a field of the dead. Up the hillsides by thousands and tens of thousands, stretch the long regular serried lines of tombstones. Here, line by line, in rank and file, at peace behind the battle, lies the silent army now.  It is so hard to realize, looking upon these squadrons of the dead, still seeming drawn up in battle array, that every one of those cold white stones strikes down to the dust that was once a human heart, that throbbed with the passionate pain of parting, at leaving home and love, that thrilled at the trumpet’s call, that beat with high hope and valour and gave its life‑blood for the victorious cause that it held dear!”

        If Arlington House was to Northerners a stinging symbol of Confederate glory during the war, it was surely an even more agonizing symbol of lost glory to Southerners.  The once‑proud home of the beloved General Lee was a permanent war trophy of the Federal Army.  Held captive by the silent white tombstones of Union heroes, its eminent visibility on the hilltop probably made the mansion an omnipresent insult to many Southerners.

        In spite of the overwhelming air of sectionalism that characterized the cemetery throughout the remainder of the century, it was this period in which the grounds saw their transformation from an enormous potter’s field to a locus of military honor.  The half-century after the Civil War was characterized by the proliferation of, “monuments in honor of mighty warriors, groups of unsung heroes, and great deeds.”  This seems to be due to two factors: First, as the country returned to normalcy, improving economic conditions supported dedications of both public and privately ‑ funded memorials.  Second, and perhaps more importantly, most of the great heroes of the Civil War began to die off.  Beginning with Robert E. Lee in 1870, most of the high command from both sides were dead by 1890.  The passing of heroes who were either valiant saviors of the Union or tragic defenders of a disintegrating culture had such an effect that they were immortalized at every opportunity.

        The most frequently heard song at Arlington National Cemetery remains, Taps, usually played by a single bugler and followed by three volleys fired by a squad of soldiers.  Many citizens do not think of this haunting refrain as a song and most of us do not know it has several verses.  The story of its origin, if true, makes the song even more meaningful and explains why it has become the final memorial to those who served in the military services of our country.

All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

Fading light, dims the sight, and a star, gems the sky, gleaming bright.

From afar, drawing nigh, falls the night.

Thanks and praise, for our days, neath the sun, neath the stars, neath the sky.

        It is not known if Fred Heuer actually got to see his oldest brother in Alexandria before he died.  Fred may have had a last chance to say goodbye or was shown where August had been buried.  If he had the opportunity for either of the latter, he would have been able to provide that information to the Heuer family in Ahnapee.  Even today there is no record of any kind in Kewaunee County that August Ferdinand Heuer was buried in Arlington, Virginia.

        Between the years 1866 and 1870, Arlington National Cemetery was laid out in sections, with roads and markers built to accommodate the throngs of people who came to visit.  The old, weathered wooden grave markers were replaced with large white headstones.  August Ferdinand Heuer finally had an honored and identifiable gravesite.  He had been interred in, what had become Section 13, Grave Number 8048.  His headstone bears the name AUGUST HYER, the same misspelling found in his military records in Company I.  Also inscribed under his name is 17 REGT WIS INF and further below, the date of his death, MAY 22 1865.

        August’s death was a very sad event and had far-reaching effects.  Caroline lost a husband.  Her tiny daughter, Emilie, lost a father she would never see nor know.  Caroline’s parents lost a son-in-law.  Johann Friedrich and Catharina Sophia lost their first son.  Ferdinand and Fred lost their older brother.  He was missed no less by his sisters – Wilhelmine, Ernestine, Bertha, and Augusta plus numerous nieces and nephews.  His face was missed at church gatherings and family celebrations.  Worst of all, no one in Ahnapee had any idea where he was buried, or what Alexandria or Arlington, Virginia even looked like; so the closure that results from a funeral service never took place.  The saddest legacy of August Ferdinand Heuer’s life was the lack of a gravesite in a local cemetery where one could at least place flowers to honor the dead!