4 1 My fellow soldiers and I have been fighting this civil war since it began two years ago in 1861 The South wanted us to accept their rights to own slaves but many in the North believe no man should own another In 1861 several Southern states seceded from the United States to form their own country the Confederate States of America or the Confederacy for short Albert Schmidt Union Soldier
5 Our founders fought and died to form this country in the 1770s Now the Southerners want to break it up President Abraham Lincoln believes the Union should stay joined He said if the country were divided it would fall He wants all the states to remain part of the United States So when he called for soldiers many of us came from Milwaukee Wisconsin to fight to preserve the Union Other boys from Michigan and Indiana enlisted too We are a unit called the Iron Brigade because we are some of the strongest fighters in this army We’ve fought the rebels several times and many of those battles we lost They are fierce fighters We’ve marched over this country in sun and rain to fight for our Union Last year 1862 General Robert E Lee led the Confederates in an invasion of the North We beat them at a battle in Maryland near Antietam Creek on September 17 But we lost a couple battles after that
6 Our spirits were low and we weren’t sure how this war would turn out The rebels invaded us again on June 15 1863 They marched north into Pennsylvania We learned President Lincoln thought they might attack Washington so we marched toward the city No one knew exactly where the rebels were but we hoped to find them and push them out of our land We had a new commander General George Meade He was said to be a tough fighter so we were ready to fight if it came to that We later learned both armies had been marching north on either side of the same mountains On July 1 our cavalry saw the rebels We were near a small President Abraham Lincoln wanted the Union to stay together
pretty town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg The rebels attacked with their artillery and our boys were pinned down Our commander ordered some of our boys of the Iron Brigade to attack the rebels through a patch of woods outside of the town The rebels didn’t know they were up against the best infantry in the whole Union army Slowly our men pushed forward forcing the rebels right out of those woods Some of them surrendered One of our boys even captured a Confederate general The rest of the Iron Brigade including myself was sent to join a group of Union soldiers who were fighting on the side of a road about half a mile out of Gettysburg We marched forward into a withering fire of bullets Men all around me were going down but I had no time to see who We were firing at an enemy we could barely see through the gun smoke The noise from the cannon and rifle fire was so loud I could barely hear a man next to me even if he yelled 7
