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Gabriel E. Somme

15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry
The Scandinavian Regiment

Database Record Change Request

Name at Enlist

Gabriel E. Somme

Birth Name
Lived

ca. 1839 –

Resident of Muster-In

Chicago, Cook County, IL

Company at Enlistment

A

Rank at Enlistment

Private

Muster Date

1 Jan 1862

Gabriel E. Somme joined the WI 15th Infantry, Company A. The men of the company called themselves the “St. Olaf’s Rifles.” They were also known as the “Sailor Company” because of the large number of seamen in its ranks, and as the “Chicago Company” because so many of its members were residents of that city.

The army listed him as living in Chicago, IL, age 22, and married. He enlisted for three years on December 24, 1861 at Chicago, and mustered on January 1, 1862 at Madison, WI as a Private (Menig). He was seriously wounded at Stones River on December 31, 1862, and sent to Nashville, TN. Somme was in Convalescent Hospital in Murfreesboro, TN on May 17, 1863; sick in Knoxville, TN on January 14, 1864; sick in Chattanooga on May 2, 1864; and sick in hospital at Jefferson, IN. He was wounded in the Battle of New Hope Church and taken prisoner on May 27, 1864. He was brought to Andersonville Prison but survived. Somme mustered out on December 20, 1864.

Sources: Series 1200: Records of Civil War Regiments, 1861-1900, Wisconsin Adjutant General’s Office, box 76-3; Regimental muster and descriptive rolls, 1861-1865, Wisconsin; Adjutant General’s Office, vol.20, p.20; Det Femtende Regiment, Wisconsin Frivillige [The Fifteenth Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteers], Ole A. Buslett (Decorah, Iowa, 1894), p.366; Nordmaendene i Amerika, Martin Ulvestad, 1907, History Book Co., Minneapolis, MN, p.329; Oberst Heg og hans gutter, Waldemar Ager, 1916, Fremad Pub. Co., Eau Claire, WI, p.293; ancestry.com; http://www.andersonvillepowcamp.com