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By Torbjørn Greipsland
Statistics concerning Norwegian emigration to USA vary some, but show that
between 65,000 and 75,000 Norwegians had emigrated by the end of 1865. Around
6500 served in military units during the Civil War. This means that about every
tenth Norwegian immigrant participated in the Civil War.
About a thousand of these soldiers and officers did not come home alive. The
widow was left alone with her children, and in some cases, many children.
Others came home with serious injuries, some had been crippled, others had internal
injuries that never healed. Many of these died during those first difficult
years after the war.
There is little doubt that the slaughter of soldiers that characterized this
war also caused much life-long psychological trauma, even though this was not
documented at that time as it would have been today.
The sorrow and problems resulting from these trying times cannot be measured,
but they can, and must, be mentioned. The immigrants had perhaps been given
the worst possible start to life in their new country. The dream had become
a nightmare.
The Norwegian prison camps from World War II, as well as the German concentration
camps have been given well-deserved attention in books and films. The Civil
War Prison Camps in USA have been neglected in the more recent mainstream books
about the Norwegian America. In the Civil War prison camps the prisoners were
not forced to do heavy labor, but they died anyway. These prisoners died of
starvation and sickness, they were shot to death without trial, or tortured
to death.
Because these prison camps are not given proper attention in the more recent
mainstream literature about Norwegians in America, this book with Norwegian
and English text seeks to find the truth concerning this subject.
English Version of Some Featured Selections
Introduction
Letters from Norwegians Soldiers in the Union Army
Letters from Colonel Hans Heg, Nils Gilbert, Lars Dokken, John O. Wrolstad, Thor Paulsen Sloan, John Johnson Thoe, Albert Emerson (Emmonson), Hans F. Hanson Grinde, Knute Nelson, Jørgen Olsen Wraalstad, Tollef Johnson.
Diaries by Guttorm Johnson Hovden and Mikkel Tostenson Elgeraas
Articles:
Bjorn Aslakson: Andersonville - the Place of Despair
Ole Steensland About His Terrible Sufferings in Andersonville
Colonel Ole Johnson Skipnes: Suffered in Libby Prison, Escaped from Prison train,
Fled One Month Behind Enemy Lines (For the first time in a book.)
For more information write to emigforl@online.no
or see www.emigrantforlaget.no
The book can be ordered from Vesterheim Gift Shop. Price $ 29,00.
