‘PERFORMED THEIR WHOLE DUTY’
Few Civil War regiments achieved a record as distinguished as that of the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry of the Iron Brigade. In his classic Regimental Losses in the American Civil War published in 1889, William F. Fox noted that the 2nd “sustained the greatest percentage of loss of any in the entire Union Army.” At Gettysburg, Fox notes, the regiment sustained a casualty rate of 77 percent.
When the survivors of the 2nd Wisconsin mustered out of service in Madison in June 1864, only 173 officers and men stood in the ranks. Their commanding officer at the time was Captain George Henry Otis. A native of the state of New York, Otis worked for a newspaper in Mineral Point, Wis., in the late 1850s while also serving as secretary of a local militia company, the Mineral Guards. Undoubtedly due to his militia experience, Otis held the rank of 4th corporal at the time of his enlistment in Company I, 2nd Wisconsin in June 1861. When the 2nd reorganized after the First Battle of Manassas, Otis received a promotion to lieutenant and then became his company’s captain in March 1862. He led his company through the major campaigns of the Army of the Potomac in 1862 and 1863.
The 2nd entered the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1 with 28 officers and 274 enlisted men. As
