Voices of the Civil War Videos
Benjamin Douglass
Siege of Port Hudson,
May 23 - July 9, 1863
Phillip Cheek
Appomattox
April 9, 1863
Mair Pointon
A Soldier’s Journey
1861 - 1865
William S. McCready
Between the Fight
1861 - 1862
The Sauk County Historical Society received a grant of $5,000 from the Gussel Foundation of Madison which is being used to support the development of the Society’s new Voices of the Civil War series. The grant from the Gussel Foundation helps support the core mission of SCHS which is education. The Society would like to recognize and thank the Gussel Foundation for the generous donation and its support of SCHS.
Voices of the Civil War Educational Program
In this video series, the experiences of Sauk County Civil War soldiers who fought in war’s most brutal battles are shared through the words they wrote in their war diaries and letters home. Excerpts have been recorded and their stories told using images from the Library of Congress, battlefield drawings from Harper’s Weekly (1861 - 1865), and other historical sources. It is a story of the hopes and fears of Union and Confederate soldiers as lives intersected both on and off the battlefield. A downloadable student eBook and consumable print copy accompanies each video. The student books include additional diary entries and other primary source documents relevant to the events portrayed in each video. Critical thinking questions, suggested essay topics, and guidance for project based learning are included in each student book. The series is aligned with Wisconsin’s state standards for literacy in history/social studies, grades 9 - 12.
Additional Resources
The following eBooks can be used for research purposes. They are not available for download.
“It was during the warm autumn days of September, 1861, that George Stevens, of Reedsburg, began recruiting a company of volunteers from the northwestern parts of Sauk County. “George In-man was but a boy of fifteen but he set his heart on going with the company,” wrote Krug…Col. Bryant of the 12th Regiment told Inman to go back home and “Wait a while…”
But George Inman would not be dissuaded, even though his parents attempted to convince him to remain at home until he was older. So, when he decided he could wait no longer, he conceived a plan with a neighbor boy his own age, to run away and join the army.”
This is his story. It includes a detailed account of the Grand Review noted by Philip Cheek in the Sauk County Riflemen and told in the Appomattox video.
The book was written and compiled by historian William C. Schuette, copyright 2023.
Read the story of the Wisconsin 19th Volunteer Infantry meticulously gathered from years of research by Sauk County historian and SCHS board member Bill Schuette in this online eBook offered for free only by the Sauk County Historical Society. Learn where they called home in Sauk County, where they fought, and what happened to the men of the 19th Infantry in a war that claimed over 618,000 Union and Confederate casualties, many who entered the war as volunteer soldiers, fighting for a cause they felt was just. The men of Sauk County answered President Lincoln’s call to arms beginning in April, 1861. Who were the members of the 19th?