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Bernt Swenson

15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry
The Scandinavian Regiment

Database Record Change Request

Name at Enlist

Bernt Swenson

Birth Name
Lived

1 Apr 1828 – 30 Aug 1885

Birth Place

Toten, Oppland

Birth Country

Norway

Resident of Muster-In

Beloit, Rock County, WI

Company at Enlistment

G

Rank at Enlistment

Private

Muster Date

13 Dec 1861

Death Location

Grant County, MN

Burial Location

First Pioneer Graveyard north of Hoffmann in Grant County, MN

Spouse

Maria Lien

Bernt Swenson was born on April 1, 1828, probably in Toten, Oppland, Norway. He joined the WI 15th Infantry, Company G. The men of the company called themselves the “Rock River Rangers.”

The army listed him as living in Beloit, Rock County, WI, age 30, and unmarried. He enlisted for three years on October 3, 1861 at Beloit and mustered at Madison, WI on December 13, 1861 as a Private (Menig). He was sick at Mississippi River Island No. 10 on September 7, 1862; sick in camp hospital since June 9, 1864; sick in Chattanooga, TN and Louisville, KY. He mustered out in Madison on December 13, 1864. After the war he was living in Elk Lake Township, Grant County, MN in 1870. On July 11, 1873, he married Maria Lien. He died on August 30, 1885, and was buried in the First Pioneer Graveyard north of Hoffmann in Grant County. The 1890 Special Census shows him as having been in Company K.

Sources: Series 1200: Records of Civil War Regiments, 1861-1900, Wisconsin Adjutant General’s Office, box 76-9; Regimental muster and descriptive rolls, 1861-1865, Wisconsin Adjutant General’s Office, vol.20, p.104; Det Femtende Regiment, Wisconsin Frivillige [The Fifteenth Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteers] by Ole A. Buslett (Decorah, Iowa, 1894), p.543; Nordmaendene i Amerika, Martin Ulvestad, 1907, History Book Co., Minneapolis, MN, p.265, 332; Oberst Heg og hans gutter, Waldemar Ager, 1916, Fremad Pub. Co., Eau Claire, WI, p.313; email from Dolores Barron.