Outrunning Her Discretion at Camp Randall

March is typically when my spring break falls.  And I have no idea why, but it seems that Mark and I tend to go somewhere colder for some reason - like the Midwest where he is.  This year, we visited the great, white tundra of Wisconsin.  With snow still on the ground, we made our way north to the state capital, Madison, the location of Camp Randall.
Camp Randall, home of the Wisconsin Badgers of the Big10.  Another team in the conference is the Iowa Hawkeyes.  And Mark is a season ticket holder.  The two football teams are natural rivals.  And, of course, Mark was dressed in head to toe in black and gold where anything but cardinal and white is sacrilege.  Not only that, but folks in the Big10 don't take kindly to SEC fans either.  Even though it wasn't football season, we nevertheless sort of felt a bit out of place.  But I wanted to see Camp Randall because it had a connection to women soldiers.  We were just going to visit hurriedly.

Alex Randall
Wikimedia

Originally used as the state fairgrounds and named for the governor of Wisconsin when the Civil War began, Alexander W. Randall, the site was established in 1861 as a training grounds where, ultimately, over 70,000 troops prepared for war.  Camp Randall also served briefly as a prison in 1862 for captured Confederates who were taken during operations around Island No. 10.   In the month or so that the location housed prisoners, over 1,000 Confederates were confined there.  They were mostly from Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas.  And officials were unprepared to care for them.  As a result, they began to succumb to worsening conditions.  One Wisconsin soldier serving as a guard remarked, “They die off like rotten sheep. There was 11 die off yesterday and today, and there ain’t a day but what there is from two to nine dies.”  Approximately 140 had perished by the end of May 1862, when the living were shipped off to Camp Douglas in Chicago and other prisons.  Today, the dead lie in a plot known as Confederate Rest in Forest Hill Cemetery.


Following the removal of the Confederate prisoners, Camp Randall went back to serving as a training ground for Federal recruits.

On a plaque at Camp Randall

Soldier's sketch of Camp Randall
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu

In 1912, an arch was dedicated to mark the entrance of Camp Randall Memorial Park.  Old Abe, the eagle of the 6th Wisconsin, sits atop and gazes down on Badger fans as they pass through on the way to catch a football game at the stadium.

Two stone sentinels guard the entrance.  On the left is a young enlisted boy, and the right, an old veteran. 

Close up of the statue of the young enlisted soldier on the left of the arch
Photo by Mark Hidlebaugh

We thought he looked kind of girlie.  Even though this is an artist's rendition, it is easy to see why some women soldiers were able to successfully pass as men.  They looked like young boys.

It is fitting that the statue does resemble a female because there were at least two women soldiers who were at Camp Randall.  One was Rebecca "Georgianna" Peterman of the 7th Wisconsin Infantry.  With the Iron Brigade, she would see horrendous action as a drummer and scout.  The other woman was connected to the soldier's sketch above.  She enlisted in the 40th Wisconsin, the same regiment as Private William F. Brown, who drew it the day after she was discovered at Camp Randall, May 19th, 1864.  It was her voice and "movements" that betrayed her, and the woman was dismissed before she could be mustered in. Though her company is not definitively known, it was more than likely B, the same as Brown's because the newspaper article about her referred to it as the "Beloit company," and Company B contained mostly men from Beloit.  The 40th Wisconsin was among those raised during the summer of 1864 as One Hundred Days Men.  They were tasked with serving garrison and guard duty to free experienced soldiers for service in the field.  Thus, by bolstering the number of combat soldiers, officials were hoping to make a push to end the war in 100 days by raising these late-war regiments.

Whether Private Brown was aware of the discovery of the woman in his company or not is unknown.  But there were others who were.  One soldier described her as a "ruddy young Norwegian."  Another recorded in his diary that her alias was "Tom Travis" and that her discovery the night before caused great excitement.  So much so that a reporter picked up the story, which was reprinted in several newspapers.  Her alias appeared as "George Travis," however, and she was German and not Norwegian.  As to her motivation for enlisting, the reporter gave a clue by noting that, "Her patriotism outran her discretion."  And he commented that "Not even the most patriotic Northern localities have yet sent so many men that it is necessary for the women to turn out."

Scant details about her appeared in the newspapers. But the few that were provided give us a brief profile of her.  She lived in Galena and her husband was serving in an Illinois unit.   There was nothing about her true identity.  But with one clue leading to another, I think I have uncovered who "Private Travis" was.  I'm not ready to reveal her identity yet because I'm still working on the genealogy.  But I will say that she was actually born in Canada but had a German ancestry.  Before the war, her family was living in Janesville, Wisconsin while she worked as a domestic in Beloit, approximately twenty miles away.  In April 1861, she married a man about fifteen years her senior from Galena and moved there with him.  When he enlisted, she was left to care for his five children from a previous marriage.  With her husband gone - and her being a new woman in town with perhaps relatively few friends - she went back to her family in Wisconsin.  Whether she took the children with her or left them in the care of their deceased mother's family is unknown.  But back in Beloit, she ultimately enlisted at the approximate age of  22 in 1864.  After being discovered, she eventually made her way back to Galena where she soon found herself a widow upon her husband's death of consumption in 1865.  She continued to care for her husband's younger children and received a pension for his service until she was dropped from the rolls in 1888 after not having collected her $8 monthly sum for the last three years.  So she had probably died at that point though I have been unable to find out for sure.  She just disappears from the record.  The search continues.

So as I stood there gazing up at the Memorial Arch and the stadium beyond, I couldn't help but wonder how many football fans that populate the aptly named Camp Randall Stadium every fall are aware that the playing field that so holds their attention served as a parade ground where Wisconsin men trained for a trial much more serious than a sport.  It is highly unlikely that very few - if any - knew that among those soldiers were at least two women hidden among them.

For more information on Camp Randall and the Memorial Arch, watch the power point lecture below.  If the video isn't working, click on this link [HERE].



Until next formation...rest.