Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Civil War

An Author's Ties to America's Bloodiest War

Updated June 10, 2026 • May 8, 2026

When Laura Ingalls was born in 1867, the guns of the Civil War had fallen silent only two years earlier, but the conflict's scars remained visible throughout the communities she would come to know. Both Charles and Caroline Ingalls had been directly affected by the conflict, having siblings who served on the side of the Union. As Laura Ingalls grew from a young girl into adulthood, she would cross paths with countless veterans. Those who experienced the war carried their memories westward. The most immediate consequence of the Civil War for the Ingalls family would be the death of Joseph Quiner, brother to Caroline and uncle of Laura.

Joseph C. Quiner Union Army — Joseph Quiner

As the war dragged from 1861 into early 1862, the need for more recruits spurred a young Joseph Quiner to enlist on January 7^th. After joining Company B of the 16th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, he entered combat only four months later. The regiment’s first battle test would also be one of its bloodiest. As Joseph and the 16th Wisconsin marched toward Pittsburg Landing, Confederate forces intercepted them at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862. In the ensuing fight, rebel fire struck Quiner in the infamous “Hornet's Nest.” He succumbed to infection weeks later at a Union field hospital on April 28th. Joseph’s commanding officer, Colonel Benjamin Allen, a resident of Pepin, was also wounded at Shiloh. Caroline, who had already lost her father during childhood, once again faced profound grief.

"That civil war is where I lost my brother Joseph and my husband lost his brother and other friends. Terrible, it was terrible to raise boys to manhood then have them shot down in the war." -Martha Quiner Carpenter to Laura Ingalls Wilder, October 2, 1925.

The death of Joseph likely played some part in Charles Ingalls’s absence from any wartime service. Though Wisconsin was Republican and loyal to the Union, it still faced volunteer shortages and missed its August draft quota of 12,000. In November, men rioted against military compulsion in Port Washington, WI, just 60 miles from Concord Township where Charles was living. In 1863 he relocated further west to the big woods of Pepin, WI. Still, when Congress implemented the Enrollment Act that March, draft officials never selected Charles. While Charles never entered military service himself, the war still reached deeply into the Ingalls family. Near the conflict’s end, two of his brothers, Lansford (James) and Hiram Ingalls, volunteered for the Union army.

Both enlisted in the 1^st Minnesota Heavy Artillery Regiment, Company E on January 5, 1865. The army sent James and Hiram south with the 1st Minnesota to defend Chattanooga from a potential attack by General John Hood's Army of Tennessee. No Confederate offensive ever materialized, and both men mustered out in September 1865 without seeing combat.

As the Ingalls family continued westward after the war, they settled among countless veterans whose wartime experiences shaped frontier communities. One such figure in Walnut Grove was Elias Bedal. When the US-Dakota War broke out in August 1862, Elias volunteered as a private in the Winona Rangers militia. Two years later, accompanied by his brother and brother-in-law, he enlisted in Company C of Brackett’s Minnesota Cavalry Battalion in February 1864. Prior to its frontier assignment, the army designated Company C as part of the 5th Iowa Cavalry Regiment, where it saw action during Corinth, Stones River, and the Chattanooga Campaign. Though joining after these battles, Bedal was part of General Alfred Sully’s expedition into Dakota Territory which saw one of the largest U.S. military campaigns against Native Americans in history. He participated in the Battle of Killdeer Mountain against the Yankton and Santee Dakota and Lakota. Following the expedition into Dakota, Bedal was discharged from service at Fort Snelling on May 24, 1866.

Such veterans were not unusual in Walnut Grove. The town contained numerous men whose lives had been shaped by war. Another individual the Ingalls family encountered in Walnut Grove was William Steadman. He first served his mother country of England during the Crimean War before immigrating to the United States in 1857. When the Civil War broke out, Steadman enlisted on Sept. 23, 1861, joining Company B of the 4^th Iowa Cavalry Regiment. He was promoted to Second Sergeant on January 1, 1862. After suffering from what was likely dysentery, the army discharged William for disability on October 20, 1862.

Other veterans Laura encountered had survived some of the Civil War’s deadliest campaigns. Reverend Leonard Moses was Walnut Grove’s pastor and a member of Company A of the 37^th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. The company recorded Moses on its original muster roll on April 9, 1864. In May Moses marched south with the regiment toward Virginia where the Union army was preparing its attack on Petersburg. On June 17th, the 37th assaulted the Confederate lines, but Confederate artillery tore through the regiment and drove it back. The next day rebel fire killed one of Moses's commanding officers and wounded the other, marking the beginning of a long and bloody siege.

“Oh, that a man might know. The end of this day's business e’re it come! But it sufficeth, that the day will end, and then the end is known.” -Quoted in A History of the 37th Wis. Volunteer Infantry

On July 30^th, the 37^th made an ill-fated attempt to break the lines during the Battle of the Crater. Out of the 250 who made the assault, Leonard was likely one of only 95 left standing for roll call that evening. Moses made it to the end of the war unscathed before being discharged from the Union army on June 1, 1865. Following his return home, he became a practicing minister across the Upper Midwest.

Not all of Laura’s wartime connections came through soldiers alone. In De Smet, she also encountered individuals tied to some of the conflict’s most famous figures. De Smet’s local preacher, Reverend Edward Brown, was first cousin to John Brown. John, the radical abolitionist who notoriously led the Raid of Harpers Ferry in 1859, shared a paternal grandfather with Edward.

Though Laura never witnessed the Civil War herself, she grew up surrounded by veterans, grieving families, and frontier settlers whose lives had been permanently shaped by the conflict. As these men and women carried their memories westward, they helped shape the communities, values, and historical consciousness reflected throughout Laura Ingalls Wilder’s writings.