Colonel Hans Christian Heg and the Norwegian American Experience

This first full-length biography of Colonel Heg examines the life of a Civil War hero while illuminating the experiences of Norwegian American immigrants who found both hardship and success in a new home.

Hans Christian Heg (1829–1863) was a Norwegian American abolitionist, journalist, antislavery activist, prison reformer, politician, and soldier. Best known for leading the Fifteenth Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment on the Union side during the Civil War, Heg died of wounds received at the Bat...