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Olaf Olson

15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry
The Scandinavian Regiment

Database Record Change Request

Name at Enlist

Olaf Olson

Birth Name
Lived

ca. 1842 –

Resident of Muster-In

Chicago, Cook County, IL

Company at Enlistment

A

Rank at Enlistment

Private

Muster Date

15 Nov 1861

Olaf Olson joined the WI 15th Infantry, Company A. The men of the company called themselves the “St. Olaf’s Rifles.” They were also known as the “Sailor Company” because of the large number of seamen in its ranks, and as the “Chicago Company” because so many of its members were residents of that city.

 The army listed him as living in Chicago, IL, age 19, and unmarried. He enlisted for three years on October 8, 1861 at Chicago, and mustered on November 15, 1861 at Madison, WI as a Private (Menig). He was in jail at Mississippi River Island No. 10 on May 17, 1862. Olson was then sick in Nashville. He transferred to the Navy near Ringgold, GA on May 5, 1864.

Sources: Series 1200: Records of Civil War Regiments, 1861-1900, Wisconsin Adjutant General’s Office, box 76-3; Regimental muster and descriptive rolls, 1861-1865, Wisconsin Adjutant General’s Office, vol.20, p.20; Det Femtende Regiment, Wisconsin Frivillige [The Fifteenth Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteers], Ole A. Buslett (Decorah, Iowa, 1894), p.364; Oberst Heg og hans gutter, Waldemar Ager, 1916, Fremad Pub. Co., Eau Claire, WI, p.293.