The Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meetings
Sept 2026 Meeting of the Chicago Civil War Round Table: James Marten on “The Sixth Wisconsin and the Long Civil War”
James Marten on “The Sixth Wisconsin and the Long Civil War” for more info: www.chicagocwrt.org As one of the original regiments in the Iron Brigade, the Sixth Wisconsin fought in virtually all of the major campaigns of the Army of the Potomac from Second Bull Run through Appomattox, from the Cornfield at Antietam and the Unfinished Railroad Cut at Gettysburg through the confusing bloodbath of the Wilderness and the frustrating siege at Petersburg. After the war veterans struggled with the aftermaths of wounds and disease, commemorated their contributions, and remembered their fallen comrades. Prof. Marten's talk will sample the war-time and post-war experiences of volunteers like Rufus Dawes, Captain of Company K and future commander of the Sixth, as well as draftees like Gottlieb Torke, one of hundreds of mostly German-immigrants who finished the war. James Marten is professor of history emeritus at Marquette University, where he taught for thirty-six years. He is author, editor, or co-editor, of two dozen books, including The Children's Civil War, Sing Not War: The Lives of Union and Confederate Veterans in Gilded Age America, and his latest, The Sixth Wisconsin and the Long Civil War: The Biography of a Regiment. He was president of the Society of Civil War Historians from 2013 to 2015.
