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Civil War Band Collection: 1st Brigade Band of Brodhead, Wisconsin

During the winter of 1856-57, the Brodhead Tin Band was formed, named after the rough tin horns on which they played. Their first professional performance in 1857 was for a political gathering in Beloit following which its founders Oscar KIMBERLY, George T. SPAULDING, and Charlie STONE purchased a set of good brass instruments and had a band wagon built to transport the group to its various engagements. In 1858, they were invited to play in Freeport, Illinois, for the second Lincoln-Douglas debate on slavery. When the Civil War began, the band members enlisted and became the 3rd Wisconsin Band. Declining morale in the face of military defeats lead the men to return home when their commissions expired but in 1864, eighteen members re-enlisted becoming the 1st Brigade Band, 3rd Division, 15th Army Corps, under General William F. Sherman. The musical legacy of the 1st Brigade Band presented here consists of a set of twelve, leather-bound partbooks and seven envelopes of other music manuscripts. Most of the pieces contained in this collection are identified as quicksteps, a type of music for dancing and many are arrangements of well-known songs.

Wisconsin Goes to War: Our Civil War Experience

In collaboration with UW Oshkosh and the Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin Goes to War: Our Civil War Experience presents letters, diary entries, journals, and other correspondence by Wisconsin soldiers and citizens, and conveys their unique Civil War experiences. Additional materials from this collection will be available throughout 2005, including Civil War-era poems, musical compositions, and recollections by Wisconsin women.

World War I Collection

The WWI Collection provides a sampling of UW-Madison's World War I Special Collection. Materials digitized for this specific Brittingham grant-funded project include a broad range of materials such as maps, periodicals, bound and unbound pamphlets, broadsides, publications for the troops, cartoons, and illustrated magazines. The complete collection is available in the Special Collections Department of Memorial Library. Most of these materials were acquired by the University during or in the immediate aftermath of the war, and they represent a direct and often very passionate or partisan viewpoint of that conflict. These are primary sources, the raw materials of history, and they bring the first great worldwide conflict of the twentieth century to us in an immediate way, without the viewpoint provided by intervening years.

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