Old Abe the War Eagle

My regiment was one of four which, with the Second Iowa battery, composed what is known as "The Eagle Brigade" from the fact that the Eighth Wisconsin Regiment of that brigade carried a young American eagle all through the war. "Old Abe" had the post of honor at the center of the regiment, his perch being constructed of the American shield, and he was carried by a sergeant between the two flags, the Stars and Stripes and the regimental standard of blue emblazoned in gold with the state coat of arms. All the brigade adored him, and "secured" chickens for him - he was fonder of chickens than the chaplain, and not half so particular about the cookery. To see him during a battle fly up into the air to the length of his long tether, hovering above the flags in the cloud of smoke, screaming like the bird which bore the thunderbolts of Jove, was to raise such a mighty shout from the brigade as would have blown Jericho off the map. Other regiments had dogs, bears, coons, goats. There was only one eagle in the army - "Old Abe".

He was an eaglet when the war broke out, and enlisted young, like many of the boys who loved him and fought beside him. He was captured on the Flambeau River, Wisconsin, in 1861, by a Chippewa Indian, "Chief Sky", who sold him for a bushel of corn. Subsequently a Mr. Mills paid five dollars for him, and presented him to "C" Company of the Eighth Wisconsin Regiment, known as the "Eau Claire Eagles". The soldiers at once adopted him as one of their standards, made him a member of the color guard, named him in honor of the greatest of presidents, and he never once disgraced his name. Through thirty-six battles he screamed his "Ha, ha" among the trumpets, smelling the battle afar off, fluttering among the thunder of the captains and the shouting. Never once did he flinch. He was wounded in the assault on Vicksburg and in the battle of Corinth. At this battle it is said that a reward was offered by the Confederate General Price for the capture or killing of the eagle, "Pap" declaring that he would rather capture "Old Abe" than a whole brigade.

As he reenlisted at the close of his three years service he went home on veteran furlough with his comrades, as he was entitled to do. When he said goodbye to us his plumage was a beautiful dark brown from saber-curved beak to yellow shank. When he returned after sixty days, lo, he looked down from his shield in the majesty of a snow-white head and neck - the change that comes in the plumage of Haliaetus leucocephalus - that was his family name - at about three years of age. At the close of the war he was formerly presented to his native state, Governor Lewis receiving him in the name of Wisconsin, from the hands of his comrades. During the winter of 1864, accompanied by a guard of honor, he attended the Sanitary Fair at Chicago, where the sale of his photograph, unautographed, netted the sum of sixteen thousand dollars for the fund for sick and disabled soldiers.

He became a great traveler, being in attendance at many political conventions and soldiers’ reunions. The sculptor, Leonard W. Folk, executed a model of him, which has been used in replica for a number of public monuments. He died on March 26, 1881, full of honors, though not of years, for he came from a family famous for longevity, some of his relatives living beyond the age of one hundred years. But his vitality was seriously impaired from the effects of smoke inhaled at a fire which occurred in his home, the state capitol in Madison, early in the year of his death. His body was prepared and mounted by a skilled taxidermist and occupied a prominent place in the military museum in the capitol until the building was destroyed by a second fire, February 24, 1904. "Old Abe" was a living standard, nobler than any effigy in bronze or gold ever borne above the legions of Rome or among the victorious eagles of Napoleon. It was fitting that his body should pass away in flames, even as the stormy years of his youth had been lived in the fierce joy that challenges death amid the fire and smoke of battle.

Dear "Old Abe"! I think of him every time I look at a quarter. His portrait makes it big as a dollar. I often wish all my creditors had belonged to the "Eagle Brigade". You see, patriotism not only makes a man’s country seem greater; it makes her coinage appear more precious.