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Preferred Citation

Walter Osgood Hart, Maps of the battle-fields where the 36th Regiment Wisconsin Volunteers was engaged, post 1864, Accession # 10723, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

The manuscript was a gift to the Library, without restrictions, from Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Hart of Lafayette, California, on May 28, 1987.

Scope and Content Information

This twenty page manuscript, post 1864, entitled "Maps of Battle-Fields where the 36th Regt. Wis. Vols. was engaged," contains maps and commentaries on the regiment's movements during various battles in Virginia in 1864. (Its author, the great-grandfather of one of the donors, appears to have been other than a combat soldier, probably a hospital orderly or ambulance driver, for he makes several references to surgeons and depicts their positions and those of hospitals and ambulances on the maps.) Various natural features such as rivers and woods are indicated, especially the more prominent ones of Malvern Hill, Strawberry Plains, and the James River. Roads, hospitals, pontoons, gunboats, batteries, corn and sugar cane fields, breastworks, the Jones House (Totopotomoy), a church and a schoolhouse are among the man-made features illustrated. A scale of miles is provided for each map.

The Thirty-sixth was organized at Camp Randall in Madison and was mustered into United States service as a volunteer regiment of infantry on March 23, 1864. Upon arriving at Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia it was assigned to the First [Alexander Stewart Webb's] Brigade, Second [John Gibbon's] Division II Army Corps, Army of the Potomac.

Maps in this manuscript illustrate battles and skirmishes at North Anna River (May 23-27, 1864), Totopotomoy Creek (May 30-June 1, 1864), Deep Bottom Run (July 28-August 14), and Reams' Station (August 24- 25). Although lacking a map, there is brief mention of the regiment's activities at Cold Harbor (June 2-3, 1864).

The regiment's activities at Reams' Station are described at length and the author also comments on the capture of the regiment's flag and the Rebel "yell." He makes several disparaging observations about surgeons and describes them as either fleeing from the enemy, remaining in the rear, constantly calling for supper, or refusing to treat the wounded. Surgeons Hand (captured after the battle and later died in prison at Salisbury, North Carolina, on November 19, 1864), Miller (died December 20, 1864 at his home), Assistant Surgeon G. D. Winch, and Woodward are mentioned by name. Other individuals mentioned during this and other battles include: Adjutant B. D. Atrvell(?), Orderly Sergeant Greely (Company E), Major William H. Hamilton, General Winfield Scott Hancock, Colonel Frank A. Haskell, Lieutenant William Lamberton (Company B), Captain Lindly and Colonel Clement E. Warner.

Prior to the battle at Ream's Station this regiment consisted of 175 enlisted men (having suffered heavy casualties in previous battles) but after the battle's conclusion only forty-seven men were present out of an original roster of over nine hundred. According to William F. Fox's Regimental Losses In The American Civil War, the Thirty-sixth Wisconsin ranks seventeenth on the list of Union regiments having the highest percentages of men killed in action.