Hans Christian Heg

Heg was born at Haugestad in the community of Lierbyen in Lier, Buskerud, Norway on December 21, 1829. He was the eldest of the four children of the innkeeper Even Hansen Heg (1790–1850) and his wife Sigrid "Siri" Olsdatter Kallerud Heg (1799–1842).[2] The family moved to America in 1840, settling in the Muskego Settlement in Wisconsin.[3][4] Hans Heg was eleven years old when his family arrived in Muskego. He soon earned a reputation for himself as being a gifted boy.[5]

At twenty years old, lured by the discovery of gold in the Sacramento Valley, he and three friends joined the army of "Forty-Niners". He spent the next two years prospecting for gold in California.[3][4] Upon the death of his father, he returned to the Muskego area in 1851.[3][4] He married Gunhild Einong (1833–1922), daughter of a Norwegian immigrant.[4]

Heg was a major in the 4th Wisconsin Militia, and became a rising young politician who found slavery abhorrent.[6][7] He was an outspoken anti-slavery activist and a leader of Wisconsin's Wide Awakes, an anti-slave catcher militia.[8][9] He became an ardent member of the Free Soil Party,[10] and soon joined the recently formed Republican Party. In 1859, Heg was elected commissioner of the state prison in Waupun, and served there for two years.[3] He was the first Norwegian-born candidate elected statewide in Wisconsin.[4] Heg spearheaded many reforms to the prison, believing that prisons should be used to "reclaim the wandering and save the lost".[11] On August 1, 1860, at great risk to his career, he provided shelter to Sherman Booth, a man who was made a federal fugitive after inciting a mob to rescue an escaped slave.[12]

Colonel Hans Christian Heg. Painting by Herbjørn Gausta (1854-1924) in 1915

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Heg was appointed by Governor Alexander Randall as colonel of the 15th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. Appealing to all young "Norsemen," he said, "the government of our adopted country is in danger. It is our duty as brave and intelligent citizens to extend our hands in defense of the cause of our Country and of our homes."[13] The 15th Wisconsin was called the Scandinavian Regiment because its soldiers were almost all immigrants from Norway, with some from Denmark and Sweden. It was the only all-Scandinavian regiment in the Union Army. On 8 October 1862, Colonel Heg led his regiment into its first action at the Battle of Perryville. Despite being under fire while being driven back several miles by the enemy, the 15th Wisconsin suffered few casualties and no fatalities. However, one of those hurt was Colonel Heg, who was injured when his horse fell.

Heg commanded the regiment during the Battle of Stones River. In response to his conduct at Stones River, Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans placed Heg in command of the newly formed 3rd Brigade of the 1st Division, XX Corps, Army of the Cumberland, on May 1, 1863. Heg fought in the Tullahoma campaign of June–July 1863.[14]

On September 18, 1863, Heg led his brigade at the Battle of Chickamauga, where was mortally wounded. On the evening of September 19, the first day of the battle, he was shot in the abdomen by a Confederate sharpshooter. He rallied his troops, but eventually had to give over his command.[4] He was taken to a field hospital at Crawfish Spring, where he died on the morning of September 20.[15] A surgeon who witnessed his passing recalled that "it was agonizing to stand beside the colonel and see him suffer and die. Colonel La Grange of the First Wisconsin Cavalry and other friends who called to see him wept like children. Everybody who knew him loved him." Upon hearing of his death, Rosecrans expressed regret, saying "I am very sorry to hear that Heg has fallen. He was a brave officer, and I intended to promote him to be general."[16] Heg was one of five Wisconsinite colonels killed as a result of combat during the Civil War.[17] "Colonel Hans C. Heg was Acting Brigadier General of the Third Brigade, Davis' Division, and therefore the highest ranking officer from Wisconsin killed in the Civil War."[18]

Heg was buried at the Norway Lutheran Church Cemetery near Wind Lake, Wisconsin.[19][20]

A statue of Hans Christian Heg by Paul Fjelde was installed at the King Street approach to the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin in 1925.[21] On June 23, 2020, rioters incensed by the arrest of a member of Black Lives Matter used a towing vehicle to pull the statue down. It was then vandalized, decapitated and thrown into Lake Monona. The words "black is beautiful" were spray-painted on the plinth, just above Heg's name. Forward, a statue designed by Jean Pond Miner Coburn to represent the state of Wisconsin, was also pulled down.[22][23] Both statues were later recovered by the authorities,[24] though Heg's was said to have lost a leg.[25]

On July 20, 2020, the Wisconsin Capitol and Executive Residence Board voted unanimously to restore both Heg's statue and Forward to their original condition and placement atop their pedestals.[26] Since his statue's head was still missing,[27] state officials planned to create a new one using a statue of Heg in the town of Norway as a model.[28][29] The state of Wisconsin received a grant of $30,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities the following October towards the expense of repairing of both the Heg and Forward statues. The statues were taken to Detroit where Venus Bronze Works Inc. worked to restore them, with reinstallation on the Capitol grounds then anticipated by July 2021.[30][31] By mid-September 2021, Heg's statue was "nearly ready to be shipped to Wisconsin".[32]

On September 21, 2021, the statue was reinstated.[33]

Statue of Col. Hans Christian Heg, Wisconsin State Capitol, Madison. During riots in June 2020, the statue was pulled down, decapitated, and thrown into Lake Monona.

• A statue of Hans Christian Heg is located in Norway, Wisconsin.[34]
• A replica statue stands in Heg's birthplace at Haugestad in the community of Lierbyen in Lier, Norway. It was a gift by Norwegian-Americans to the people of Norway. The unveiling of this statue took place on Midsummer Day, June 24, 1925.[35]
• Heg Memorial Park in Racine County is named in his honor.[36] Heg Memorial Park Museum is located on Heg Park Road in Wind Lake, Wisconsin.[37] His original homestead house is located a short distance from the Heg Memorial Park.
• Another house formerly owned by Hans Christian Heg was located at the current site of the Waterford, Wisconsin, Public Library.
• The Hans C. Heg Shell Monument at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park was dedicated in 1893.[38][39][40] Located at 34°54.232′N 85°15.73′W[41] it is a "triangular pyramid monument of eight inch shells, ten feet in height, [which] marks the spot where Colonel Heg was mortally wounded (seven more of these pyramids can be located throughout Chickamauga Battlefield). The monument can be found in Viniard Field beside the LaFayette Road at Tour Stop #5."[42]
• The Liberty Ship SS Hans Heg (hull number 2751) was laid down on 26 January 1944 at Kaiser Permanente No. 2 shipyard in Richmond CA[43] under the Merchant Marine Act of 1936. The ship launched on 14 February 1944, was owned by the U.S. Department of Commerce and operated by James Griffiths & Sons Inc. The ship sailed overseas including to Dutch New Guinea in and during the Second World War.[44] She was scrapped in 1961.[45]
• On June 25, 2020, in response to the vandalism, Representative Bryan Steil introduced a bill to rename a post office in Muskego, Wisconsin the "Colonel Hans Christian Heg Post Office."[46][47]

• Wisconsin in the American Civil War

• Ager, Waldemar, Colonel Heg and His Boys: A Norwegian Regiment in the American Civil War. Northfield, Minn.: Norwegian-American Historical Association, 2000.
• Buslett, Ole Amundsen. The Fifteenth Wisconsin (trans. of Det Femtende regiment Wisconsin frivillige). Ripon, Wis.: B.G. Scott, 1999.
• "Hans Christian Heg". In Wisconsin Legislative Reference Library (comp.) The Wisconsin Blue Book 1933. Madison: Democrat Printing Co., 1933, pp. 37–41.
• Heg, Hans Christian, The Civil War Letters of Colonel Hans Christian Heg. Saint Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2014.
• Lovoll, Odd S, Colonel Hans Christian Heg and the Norwegian American Experience, Saint Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023.
• Naeseth, Gerhard B, Norwegian Immigrants to the United States: A Biographical Directory. Vol. 1: 1825-1843. Decorah, Iowa: Amundsen Publishing Company, 1993.

Wikisource has the text of a 1900 Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography article about Hans Christian Heg.

• Hans Christian Heg at Find a Grave
• Wisconsin Historical Society
• Norwegian American Hall of Fame
• Abolition Activism in Wisconsin
• 15th Wisconsin Regiment
• Col. Hans C. Heg and the 15th Wisconsin at Chickamauga, 1863
• Waterford Historical Project. "Col. Hans C. Heg and the 15th Wisconsin at Chickamauga, 1863", by Carl L. Boeckmann