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“Calamity”
A Dog Soldier of the 28th Wisconsin
by Sgt. Lauren S. Barker, Company A

The 28th Regiment Wisconsin Volunteers marched from Little Rock to Pine Bluff, Arkansas the first week of November 1863, and were stationed there one year. Soon after arriving at Pine Bluff a small puppy dog came in possession of Peter Bodett, a member of Co. B, 28th Wis. Vols. It grew to be a fair sized dog, was black on back and sides, and yellow underneath. In the summer of 1864 as Capt. Thomas N. Stevens was riding by the barrack just at daylight the dog ran out and barked at the horse and the Capt was nearly thrown from the saddle, he drew his revolver and fired three shots at the dog and two of them wounded him. As the dog was quite a favorite in the Regiment word of his being wounded soon spread and Col E. B. Gray commanding the Regt named him Calamity. The dog recovered from his wounds and was always called Calamity. The dog became very useful in the Regt and would go out with the forage train and often catch a hog by the ear and held it until the Soldiers could kill it as they were not allowed to shoot at it. This dog became known in the whole Brigade during the last year of the war. The Regt was sent from Mobile, Alabama to Texas the first of June 1865, and started for home from Brownsville, Texas the last of August.


From the collection of: Lauren R. Pacini
Source: Original handwritten manuscript, written November 16, 1916 for inclusion in a book on hero dogs by Edith Latham, Boston, Massachusetts.



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