Solving the Case of the Missing Civil War Soldier: Thor Paulsen Sloan

Only one branch of my mother's Norwegian-American family arrived in the United States early enough to be involved in the Civil War.  Thor Paulsen Sloan (Slaaen) gave his life fighting in the Union Army.  He died on June 27, 1864, as a result of wounds acquired during the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia.  Sloan left the Gudbrandsdalen Valley, Oppland, Norway in 1856, along with his parents, Poul Torgeresen and Kari (Svensdatter) Slaaen, and his older brother, Torger Paulsen Slaaen.  The Slaaen Family settled in Coon Valley, Wisconsin, and owned 160 acres on Section 36, Town of Washington.  Thor, who farmed alongside his parents, was born in Nord-Fron, Oppland, Norway on May 20, 1834.  Described as 5 feet 8 inches tall, with blue eyes, dark hair, and a light complexion, he was known to be an intelligent and "quiet, honest, and conscientious man" who had beautiful handwriting. [Buslett, Fifteenth Wisconsin, p.361]



Sergeant Thor P. Sloan, ca. January 1862.

The beginning of the Civil War prompted Sloan to volunteer for military service.  Like many other Norwegian immigrants, he was prepared to give not just allegiance to his newly chosen country, but his life.  When Thor P. Slaaen enlisted for a three-year term in the Union Army on December 11, 1861, he began using an Americanized version of his name:  "Sloan."  At age 28, he was appointed to the rank of Sergeant in Company E of the 15th Wisconsin Regiment, known as the "Scandinavian Regiment."  The men of Company E referred to themselves as "Odin's Rifles."  Sloan spent three months in basic training at Camp Randall, leaving there in March 1862, to join the war with his regiment.  Until July 1863, military records list him as "present" with the 15th Wisconsin, participating in the siege of Island No. 10 on the Mississippi River in Tennessee,  the raid on Union City, Tennessee during the spring of 1862, the 400 mile retreat with General Buell to Louisville, Kentucky, and the Battle of Chaplin Hills at Perryville, Kentucky, and other events.

Thor P. Sloan in civilian clothing, ca. 1860.

The Battle of Murfreesboro in Tennessee, from December 1862 to January 1863--also called the battle of Stone River--brought the first serious casualties for the 15th Regiment. Sloan was taken prisoner during the battle, but he managed to escape soon after.  In a letter dated January 12, 1863, he wrote to his friend, Osten Rulland.  (Note: I have seen several translation versions of this letter from Norwegian to English; this version is printed in Waldemar Ager's Colonel Heg and His Boys.)

Dear Friend,

It is a long time now since I heard from you or sent you a letter.  First I must tell you that I am, thank God, hale and hearty as of this date.  Quite some time ago I heard that you had returned home and that you are in poor shape as to health.  This is very deplorable; but you can thank your lucky stars for having escaped the situation we are in.  What a life--what an existence!  And what miserable times and fierce struggles we have had to endure in storms and rough weather, both night and day.  And on top of this, the rations and supplies have generally been poor.  I can honestly say that I would care for neither gain nor anything else if I could only be out of the service, free and unfettered.  But there is no use talking.  a man must do his duty.

Briefly I also want to tell you that we have had a rather miserable Christmas, even though I, thank goodness, am in good health and ought to be satisfied.  But we have again endured much and seen many a human being mangled and in misery--all merely because of the politicians.

During the period from December 26 until January 4, I can say that we were lying with rifle in hand without any fire and at times with poor rations.  We took part in the battle at Knob Gap near Nolensville and later at Murfreesboro.  At Knob Gap we were very lucky as we did not lose a single man dead or wounded. But what a fix we were in at Murfreesboro where the enemy rushed at us by the thousands and showered us with bullets like a hailstorm.  It is a God's wonder that not everyone of us was shot down or taken prisoner, because we generally--when either the rebels or our force attacked--were bullheaded enough to stay to the very end.  On the last day of the fighting General Rosecrans said to our Brigadier General Carlin:  "If the troops in front of your brigade should fall back, then you must post your men and hold the enemy in check."  Carlin answered:  "I have only 800 men left of 2,000 and I fear that my men have lost courage and will do little now since they have always been in the front ranks."  To which Rosencrans replied:  "For the sake of the country, and for our own sake, you must do your best because your toops are now the only ones we can depend on."

At the time it did not matter because the rebels made no more attempts to pierce our line.  Our captain was killed and our lieutenant wounded.  Eleven men of my company were wounded.  Captain [Mons] Grinager was wounded, as was Captain Gustafson.  Lieutenant Fandberg and Captain Wilson were also wounded and Lieutenant Colonel McKee was killed.  All told we lost fifteen men killed, seventy wounded, and thirty-four missing--a total of 119 men.  Some of the wounded have later died.  There is fear of a renewed attack.

A sincere greeting to you and your parents as well as all my other acquaintances.  Best wishes to you.  If you are able to write, I hope you will send me a few words in return.

Thor P. Sloan

Sloan was appointed to the rank of 1st Sergeant of Company E on May 1, 1863, and in July, he was assigned as a clerk in the headquarters of Colonel Hans C. Heg's brigade.  On August 17, 1863, the brigade left Winchester, Tennessee to fight in the Chickamauga campaign, in which over half of the brigade's soldiers were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner.  Sloan survived and was detached from his regiment on November 18, 1863, to go on recruiting duty back in his home state of Wisconsin.  The break from battlefield action must have brought him a sense of relief beyond measure, but it was only temporary.

In March or April 1864, Sloan returned to his regiment and was commissioned as the First Lieutenant of Company E.  He then served with the 15th on Major General Sherman's effort to capture Atlanta, Georgia.  On June 21, during the battle of Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia, he was making coffee in camp along with Captain Gustafson and Lieutenant Simonsen.  An enemy grenade fell directly into the campfire and a fragment struck Sloan in the head.  He died in a nearby Army hospital in the town of Big Shanty a week later, on June 27, 1864.

Lt. Thor P. Sloan, like other casualties during the Civil War, was initially buried on his last battlefield--in this case, Kennesaw Mountain.  Following legislation enacted by Abraham Lincoln, the U. S. Government began to purchase land to create a system of National Cemeteries, in which to bury those who served in the military.  You can read more about it in this document:  History and Development of the National Cemetery Administration

It took some time to determine where Thor P. Sloan lies buried now.  In fact, it had been one of the biggest genealogy brick walls I had yet encountered.  Logic told me that Sloan was probably interred in a National Cemetery during the decades following the Civil War.  The likely location was Marietta National Cemetery in Georgia, which is closest to Kennesaw Mountain (Big Shanty, Georgia), and contains many burials of fatalities that occurred during the June 1864 battle.  But, no burial records anywhere revealed the ultimate resting place of Thor P. Sloan.  I was puzzled; it was unlikely that he was one of the many unidentified Civil War dead, since he died of his wounds while being treated in a hospital.

It was only recently that I tried yet another search on Ancestry.com.  This time, a search for variations of Sloan's name, including "T. P. Sloan" brought up a U. S. National interment document for "E. P. Sloan," who died on June 27, 1864, during the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.  Aside from the first initial of the name, all of the facts were correct except for one glaring difference:  the document indicated that E. P. Sloan was from Company E of the 15th Ohio Regiment, whereas Thor P. Sloan served in the 15th Wisconsin Regiment.  When I checked the roster for the 15th Ohio Regiment, there was no "E. P. Sloan" listed.  I determined that the reason "Not Found" is written in red ink near the top of the document is because the name of the deceased could not be connected with the listed regiment.  But, allowing for the inevitable and frequent human errors that occur in record keeping, I suddenly knew who "E. P. Sloan" was.  He was most likely my ancestor, Thor Paulsen (T. P.) Sloan.  My brick wall had crumbled!

By consulting Findagrave.com, I was able to locate a photograph of "E. P. Sloan's" headstone at the Marietta National Cemetery in Cobb County, Georgia.  The headstone for Grave C2311 appears to be an exercise in cautious simplicity.  The interment record keepers could not verify "E. P. Sloan's" regiment, so they must have decided to leave everything off the marker but the name.  The marker looks decidedly stark and incomplete... lonely, in fact.

Thor P. Sloan's contributions to the Union Army's efforts are well documented in various Civil War records, as well as in books about the history of the 15th Wisconsin Regiment.  However, I find it ironic that, in death, Sloan's final resting place became somewhat of an enigma.  It leaves me wondering if any relative before me discovered the record-keeping error made during interment to Marietta National Cemetery.  I doubt that Sloan's immediate family would have been any wiser, because his father, mother, and brother only lived long enough to know Thor to be resting alongside the battlefield where he met his demise.  The interment of Sloan's remains in a National Cemetery seems to have occurred well after the deaths of the immediate family members.  In any case, it is unlikely that these early Coon Valley, Wisconsin farmers would have been able to make a trip to far-away Georgia to assess things for themselves.

Even more ironic than the confusion surrounding Sloan's final resting place, is that a man in determined service of his new host country could have endured so much and met such an unexpected demise.  After several years of constant horrors in primitive battle, suffering imprisonment and daily cold, hunger, and other discomforts, he died of wounds received while sitting over a coffee pot, just a few months shy of the completion of his tour of duty.

Such are the lessons of history, and of the unfairness of life.



The Family of Thor Paulsen Sloan:

Thor P. Sloan was a younger half-brother to my great great grandfather, Hans Thorsen Sloan (Slaaen).  Thor had one full sibling--also a brother:  Torger Paulsen Slaaen was born in Nord-Fron, Oppland, Norway on October 13, 1831.  Like his brother, Torger also served in the Civil War, which he survived.  He married Kari Engebretsen and had two children, Mari and Peter.  His wife, Kari, died in 1859, and Torger was married for a second time in 1863 to Sophia Pedersen Stroemstad.  They had four children:  Caroline, Karen, Theodor, and Julius.  When Torger died in 1890, he was buried in the Upper Coon Valley Cemetery in Wisconsin.

Thor P. Sloan's father, Poul (Paul) Torgersen Slaaen--the son of Torger Hougen--was born in Nord-Fron, Oppland, Norway on January 14, 1806. He died on January 22, 1882.   His wife, Kari (Svensdatter), was born on November 6, 1800 in Oppland, Norway and died on October 29, 1890.  Both husband and wife are buried in the Upper Coon Valley Cemetery (Wisconsin), some 800 miles apart from their fallen son, Thor.  Kari's headstone is pictured here (photos courtesy of Kevin Sloane of the Coon Valley area).

*************************
Sources:

--Ancestry.com (U. S. National Cemetery Interment Control Forms, 1928-1962)
--15th Wisconsin.net (http:www/15thwisconsin.net/15etps01.htm), accessed on March 31, 2008.
--Buslett, Ole Amundson.  Fifteenth Wisconsin (translation by Barbara G. Scott).  Ripon, Wis.:  B.G.Scott, 1999.
--Familysearch.com (Norway, Baptisms, 1634-1927)
--Findagrave.com (Grave of E. P. Sloan, Marietta National Cemetery, Cobb County, Georgia)
--Holand, Hjalmar R.  Coon Valley: An Historical Account of the Norwegian Congregations in Coon Valley.  Minneapolis, Minn.:  Augsburg Publishing House, 1928.
--Slaeen, Kari Svensdatter, photograph of headstone at Coon Valley Cemetery, Wisconsin, courtesy of Kevin Sloane of Viroqua, Wisconsin, October 2012.
--Sloan, Thor Paulsen, photograph:  courtesy of Dale and Lois Finch of Brainerd, Minnesota, July 2005.
--U. S. National Archives & Records Administration, Military Service Records, Union Civil War (1861-1865), Thor Paulsen Sloan.
--Waldemar Ager.  Colonel Heg and His Boys: A Norwegian Regiment in the American Civil War.  Northfield, Minnesota:  The Norwegian-American Historical Association, 2000.

"New" Vaterland Family Photos

In my last post, I wrote about the Hans Thorsen Slaaen and Anne Thorsdatter Vaterland family that settled in Coon Valley, Wisconsin, after emigrating from Nordre Fron, Gubrandsdalen, Norway in 1853. Their youngest child, Anne Marie Slaaen, was one of my great grandmothers, who was born in a covered wagon near Swan Lake as the family traveled from Wisconsin to homestead in Chippewa County, Minnesota.



Photo #1, ca. 1860, inscribed "Anne and Mary 'Sloan."
Photo courtesy of Michael Siverhus.

The Slaaen (Sloan)/Vaterland branches are the parts of my mother's family that I know the least about. But, no sooner did I renew my interest in pursuing more information, than I received a wonderful surprise from one of my internet cousins. I say "internet cousin," because although we are blood related, I have only met Mike through e-mail correspondence. He contacted me a few years ago after seeing a notice I had posted in the Chippewa County Historical Society newsletter. I have several internet cousins whom I share information with, and this collaboration has helped me to make great inroads in genealogical research. Hopefully, I have been of some help to them, as well.

(Note: I use the names Slaaen/Sloan interchangeably, because although the original Norwegian surname was "Slaaen," the family adopted the Americanized version of "Sloan" after a few years in America.)

The surprise was a couple of photographs Mike found while visiting his mother recently. He thought they applied more to my side of the family than his, and so, he sent them along. The lovely mid-19th century photo above is of sisters: "Anne and Mary Sloan" is written on the back.




Photo #2, ca. 1875, is inscribed: "Sister to "Pa's--Grandmother Annie Sloan."
Photo courtesy of Michael Siverhus.

This second photo, which is of excellent clarity and quality, is apparently of two sisters with their elderly mother (seated), although the inscription is more difficult to decipher: "Sister to Pa's--Grandmother Annie Sloan." The main questions are: who is "Pa," and which woman is the "Grandmother" referred to in the inscription?

There was another problem getting in the way of accurate identification of the women in the two photographs. As with many families, the names "Anne/Anna/Annie" and "Mary/Mari/Marie" were popular among Norwegians, and there were more than a few of the same name among the Slaaens and Vaterlands, and more than a few spelling variations, as well.

Photo #2 really set me thinking. I was not aware of any "Sloan" sisters by the name of Anne and Mary, although the shorter woman standing on the left looked familiar to me. I compared the photo to one of my great great grandmother (Anne Vaterland Slaaen), taken with the rest of her family, ca. 1890, and lo and behold, I found it to be the same woman. Could it be that the women in the second photo are actually Vaterlands, then, and not Sloans?



Photo #3:  Anne Vaterland Slaaen, ca. 1890,
 Chippewa County, Minnesota (cropped photo from the
 Hans T. Slaaen family portait in my previous blog post)

The woman in Photo #3, whom I know to be my great great grandmother, Anne Vaterland Slaaen/Sloan, appears harried and thin, almost gaunt, compared to the calm and appealing older woman standing on the left ("Grandmother Annie Sloan") in Photo #2, but they are indeed the same woman. Look carefully at the hairline, the droop of the eyes, the set of the mouth, and the distance between the nose and mouth. In 1890, Anne was in her seventies and had experienced a lifetime of hard work. Some 15 years earlier, as in Photo #2 (see cropped version below), she was not quite as thin.  Photo #2 had to have been taken in the mid 1870s, because Marit Pedersdatter Vaterland, the seated woman who appears to be the mother of the other women, died in 1878 in Washington Township, La Crosse County, Wisconsin.

Cropped image of Anne Vaterland Slaaen,
 ca. 1875 (from Photo #2)

My conclusion? The photos are actually Vaterland women, and not Slaaens/Sloans, in spite of the inscriptions on the back of the photos. Anne may have married a Slaaen, but her sister and mother could not lay claim to that name. When someone wrote on the back of the photos, perhaps many years after they were taken, Anne's maiden name had probably been forgotten, and the exact relationship of the women in Photo #2 was no longer clear.

But, did Anne Vaterland Slaaen actually have a sister named Mary, as the inscription on Photo #1 indicates?  While searching for proof, I took another look at a pioneer biography of Anne Vaterland Slaaen's father that I found in a book by Hjalmar R. Holand, some years ago. It reads:

"Thor Johannessen Vaterland was born in Nordre Fron, Norway, April 8, 1808. He emigrated to America in 1858, and settled in Coon Valley on section 35, Town of Washington, La Crosse County, the same year. He was married to Marit Pedersen with whom he had two children: Mari and Anne..." [1]

Thanks to my internet cousin, not only have we "found" two more photographs of our great great grandmother, Anne Vaterland Slaaen, but we have also met the acquaintance of her sister, Mary/Mari Vaterland, and their mother, Marit Pedersdatter Øyen Vaterland.

I now have a photograph of my great great GREAT grandmother; how cool is THAT?


[1] Holand, Hjalmar R. "Coon Valley: An Historical Account of the Norwegian Congregations in Coon Valley." Augsburg Publishing: Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1928, p.201.

Other source:  Ancestry.com

Little Church in Upper Coon Valley--A Family Icon

In 1841, Gulbrand Gunderson Skaret and his family from Sigdal, in eastern Norway, became the first white settlers in Coon Valley, Wisconsin. Sadly, this first immigrant family did not fare very well, suffering the hardships of wilderness and isolation, and death from Asiatic cholera after ten years of working the land. It would not be until the end of the decade that other Norwegians began to find some success in Coon Valley, and immigration to the area began in earnest. After a heavy period of settlement from 1852-54, almost all the well-situated and valuable land was spoken for.

It is no surprise why early Norwegian immigrants clustered around the welcoming scenery in Coon Valley, Wisconsin. According to many who lived in the valley, which lies a few miles south east of La Crosse, Wisconsin, there is scarcely found a more quiet, pleasant and secluded place. The surrounding wooded ridges, about 500 feet high, act as a protective wall around the entire valley, providing a sense of peace, security, and even coziness. The valley is about 25 miles in length, with numerous branch valleys, but it feels like everyone belongs to the same neighborhood with similar conditions and interests.[1]

The vast majority of early settlers in Coon Valley were poor. My immigrant ancestors were no exception. Women were expected to work exceptionally hard at all sorts of different tasks, so it is no wonder that Norwegian immigrant women often looked older than their years. They were expected to do all of the housekeeping and food preparation. They also had to spin, knit, weave, and sew inbetween heavier tasks, maintain the barn(s), bind wheat together during harvests, and engage in child rearing and holiday preparation.

Several branches of my mother's Norwegian family settled in Upper Coon Valley after coming to America. The first of my ancestors to arrive was the Slaaen family. Soon after, they adopted an Americanized version of their name: "Sloan." A pioneer biography for Hans Thorsen Slaaen, my great great grandfather, is included among others for the Upper Coon Valley during this early period of settlement (when the biographer writes that Hans T. Slaaen "moved west" from Coon Valley, Wisconsin, he meant only as far as Chippewa County, Minnesota):

Hans Thorsen Slaaen was born in Nordre Fron, Gudbrandsdalen, Norway, the son of Thor and Kari Slaaen. He emigrated to America in 1853, and settled in Coon Valley on Section 36, Town of Washington, La Cross County, in 1858, where he owned 160 acres. In 1851 [Norway] he was married to Anne Thorsdatter Vaterland, with whom he had the following children: Thor, Mathia, Karen, Thorwald, John, and Maria. Hans T Slaaen moved west, and died there.[2]



The Hans Thorsen Slaaen family. (Left to right), back row:  Karen, Thorwald (?), John (?), and Anne Marie (my great grandmother); front row:  Thor, Hans, Anne, and Mathia.  Photo ca. 1890, probably Chippewa County, Minnesota.

The Slaaens, like most of their fellow Norwegian immigrants, were devoted Lutherans. Originally, there was only one congregation in the whole of Coon Valley. In 1859, some members withdrew and built their own church in Lower Coon Valley, while a third was built in the Upper Valley at about the same time. The first Upper Coon Valley church that the Slaaens attended, pictured below, was in the cemetery opposite the later (1928 era) church, which was situated on an acre of land purchased from Christopher Hansen for the sum of $6.00.[3]

Although the old church was not large or costly, it took twelve years before it was ready. During the Civil War years times were particularly difficult, although the minister's wages were relatively high for the number of worship services the congregation received.[4]

"The Old Church in Upper Coon Valley"--the original Coon Valley Church was a log cabin.  This photo of an early painting was taken in the 1980s by Kristie Formolo, when she spotted it hanging on a basement wall during a tour of the current Coon Valley Church.

Norwegian immigrants depended upon the Lutheran church, not only for matters of faith, but also for security, community, and socialization outside of their day to day labors. Churches such as this one were the core of the early Norwegian-American experience, creating stability and offering support, promoting neighborliness, and making it possible for neighboring families to come to know one another well. With the help of the church, the Norwegian immigrant cluster in the familiar yet foreign landscape of Coon Valley resulted in the mingling and marriages between families from many parts of Norway. The rest is, well... family history!


[1] Holand, Hjalmar R.. Coon Valley: An Historical Account of the Norwegian Congregations in Coon Valley (Written for the 75th Anniversary of the Congregation in 1928). Augsburg Publishing House: La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1928, p.10.
[2] Holand, p.193.
[3] Holand, p.93.

[4] Holand, p.98.

Sloan (Slaaen) & the Civil War

On Saturday, I hop on a plane again to visit my mom, Doris, and sister, Becky, who live in Oxford, Alabama. This time, I am planning a drive out to Marietta National Cemetery near Atlanta, where I hope to find the grave of Thor Paulsen Sloan (Slaaen), an uncle of my great grandmother, Anna Marie Sloan Berge. Thor P. Sloan died as a Union soldier in June 1864 at the town of Big Shanty (now called Kennesaw) Georgia.

I was not aware that any part of my mother's family had arrived in America early enough to participate in the Civil War, until I found a website detailing Thor's experience as a Union soldier. The Sloans arrived in Wisconsin in the 1850s and settled in Dane County, along with many other Norwegians. Thor, a bachelor farmer in his prime, accepted a call for volunteers in December 1861. He became part of Company E (Odin's Rifles) in the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, also known as the "Scandinavian Regiment." After an amazing two and a half years of surviving the war, Sargent Sloan was mortally wounded while making coffee at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.  A copy of his photograph is owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society.

I had quite a surprise in September 2004 when I visited Dale Finch of Brainerd, Minessota. Dale is a grandson of Anna Marie Sloan Berge. In his possession was a photo of Thor P. Sloan in civilian clothes. The handwriting on the mat of that family-owned photo matches the handwriting on the mat of the unretouched Civil War portrait  of Thor that is now owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society. This is proof that Thor was a member of my great grandmother's family.