My Great Great Grandfather's Life/Death in the 24th Wis Regiment at Chickamauga

Andersonville was the first "concentration camp" where the sole purpose was to render the prisoners incapable of fighting if they survived. My visits to the battlefield at Chicamauga where Corporal James Mangan of the 24th Wisconsin Regiment was wounded in his foot and to his grave at Andersonville, where he died after lasting almost a year in horrific squalor, were moving. I bought CDs and historical books at the National Historical Site, which is also the National HQ for POWs, as it happens. These are misplaced, but there follows a comment on the blog of a cousin in CA who is doing a Civil War Reenactment & replied to his piece that he was naming himself after his g-g-grandfather. Here is my comment.

Happened on this blog by chance looking for my g-g-grandfather's particulars at Andersonville, which I visited a decade ago. Found James' grave and have video of headstone [actually just a flat plaque lying on the ground] as well as the site two hundred miles north at Chickamauga where he was captured by a Texas brigade.

BTW, not to be quibbling [actually I am!], but James' commanding officer in the 24th was a certain Col. Gibson, who was gravely injured at Chickamauga. My grandmother told me James had only suffered a minor bullet wound to his foot, but the septic circumstances at Andersonville appropriately caused him septicemia.

Finally, young Arthur MacArthur was only a 21-yr old brevet Major when he led a charge up a mountain in The Battle of Chattanooga yelling "On Wisconsin," an exhortation that became the motto for the State Fight Song. Since James Mangan was a corporal according to the records, Arthur MacArthur would have personally recruited him as a non-commissioned officer when AMac was the 19-yr old Aide-de-Camp of the Regimental Commander back in 1861. My brother Greg has a book which actually quotes James Mangan during the heavy fighting at Perryville in Tennessee.

Am just in the middle of World War II, which I actually remember---at least the rationing we underwent and my ravenous hunger for food during the conflict...!