The Family farm Øvald had been worked by our family since 1650. By 1865 my third great grandmother Johanna Elisabeth and her husband Nils Jensen had inherited the familial right to farm on Øvald. Her younger sister, Karen, was not so lucky. She was widowed with three daughters. She remarried and she, her husband and three daughters were the first in our family to head for a chance of a new life in America. In America her daughter Hanna married another Norwegian immigrant named Charles Oleson.
November 27, 1861 Charles enlisted as a private in the 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry to fight with the Union in the Civil War. So far this cousin, 4 times removed, is the first I find, and perhaps the only in our family who fought in the Civil War.
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| Charles Oleson 1843-1907 |
The 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry initially recruited 1,127 officers and men. An additional 998 men were recruited as replacements for a total of 2,125 men.
The regiment suffered 24 enlisted men killed or died from wounds in action and 4 officers and 284 enlisted men who died of disease for a total of 312 fatalities.*
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