Carl, or
Charles Hafemann as he evidently preferred, was one of
the
first half-dozen young men to volunteer for enlistment in West Bend's
Co.
G, part of an all-German regiment formed in Wisconsin in August of
1862.
The others he enlisted with (according to the West Bend Post) were Jac.
Heipp, J. Horn, R. H. Templeton, Julius Jewlson, Jac. Wagner, F.
Uemmel,
J. Shulby, Peter Stoffel, Conrad Mack, Killian Schnepf, and Jan
Kexheimer.
Most of these men were killed in the war.
Carl's enlistment papers describe him as having a stocky build, 5'9" with dark hair, blue eyes and light complexion. Because he was just nineteen years old and therefore under age, his father, Gotthilf's, consenting signature also appears on his enlistment document. The 26th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry saw heavy, but disastrous, action at Chancellorsville under General Hooker and, two months later, fierce combat at Gettysburg under General Meade. After Gettysburg, the Twenty-sixth Volunteer Infantary, as part of the Eleventh Corps, was transferred to the newly formed Twentieth Corps being formed in the Western theater under Sherman where they participated in that general's famous March to the Sea. While fighting their way through Georgia, Company G was involved in numerous bloody, but lesser-known actions, including battles at Resaca, New Hope Church and Dallas.
Carl was wounded twice; at Gettysburg and then, after rejoining his unit after a lengthy recuperation in a Philadelphia hospital, he was injured much more seriously at the Battle of Dallas. A musket ball passed through his left leg a few inches above the knee cap, injuring the bone and cutting the muscles. His thigh wound was not mortal but became a lifetime handicap for which he would be eventually awarded a modest disability pension. He was treated in hospitals in Kingston, Ga. (four days), Chattanooga, Tn. (10 days), Nashville, Tn. (11 days), Jefferson, In. (6 days), Madison, In. (one month), and Camp Randall in Madison, Wi. before being mustered out May 18, 1865.
Carl married Rosina Borneman on Oct 30, 1865 in Cedarburg, Wi. They moved to a farm near Wayside, Wi., in Brown County and raised five children. They are buried in the Evengelical Lutheran Cemetary near Wayside. For a more detailed, chronological record of Carl Hafemann's Civil War service with the Twenty-Sixth Wisconsin, see my work in progress entitled, "Cry Of Slander."
