Martin Peter Hansen was born on September 2, 1840 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Martin immigrated to the United States, arriving at New York City in June 1862 and speaking little English, moved to Chicago, Illinois; where he was employed by an apothecary, Mr. Roenheld. At the age of 21 Martin enlisted into Company H, 88th Illinois Infantry Regiment under the name Martin P. “Hansen”; though his name was actually spelt “Hansan”.

The 88th Illinois Infantry Volunteers was organized at Chicago, Illinois, in September 1862, by Colonel Frances T. Sherman and was known as the "Second Board of Trade Regiment”; mustering in on September 4, 1862. On October 1, 1862 it marched in pursuit of Bragg and participated in the Battle of Perryville, on October 8th, losing four killed, five mortally wounded, and 36 wounded.

It was then ordered to Louisville, Kentucky on September 4th and went into camp below Jeffersonville, receiving arms on the 11th and moving to Covington, Kentucky on the 12th. On the 15th it was brigaded with the 24th  Wisconsin, and the 2nd  and 15th  Missouri, Colonel Greasel's Brigade, Granger's Division, Army of the Ohio. On the 21st it moved to Louisville, Kentucky and was brigaded with the 21st Michigan, 24th Wisconsin, and 36th Illinoi, and participated  in the Battle of Stone River from December 31, 1862, to January 3, 1863. It then joined the Chickamauga Campaign in September 1863, the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19 and 20, 1863 and the Battle of Missionary Ridge on November 23 and 25 1863.

Martin said that in taking Missionary Ridge he had never before heard so many bullets whistling around his head and that they camped for the night on the ridge itself. The following morning he said he went down the ridge, back of a hill, where he found a Confederate soldier from Alabama moaning in pain with his leg “shot through”. Getting help from a fellow soldier, they transported the Alabamian to a temporary hospital. He remarked how the Confederate soldier had thanked and blessed him for his help and remarked that the “Rebels fought bravely”. Before moving to Chattanooga, Tennessee to “take the ridge” Hansen said his company was nearly starved from hunger. He said “I picked up maize around where the mules were fed, from the dirty ground, cleaned it and made hominy of it”; what southerners call “grits”, made of boiled ground corn.  Half of it he related they ate and “the remainder was stolen; kettle and all”.

In May 1864 the 88th joined in the advance on the Atlanta Campaign and continued with the advance, as part of the Fourth Corps, commanded by Major General Howard, throughout the whole of that campaign; up to and including the capture of Atlanta, Georgia. It participated in skirmishes and battles at Rocky-Face Ridge, Resaca, Adairsville, New Hope Church, Pine Mountain, Mud Creek, Kenesaw Mountain, Smyrna Camp Ground, Atlanta, Jonesboro and Lovejoy Station. Its services in the advance movements were continuous and constant, from May to September 1864. Hansen and his Company also fought in numerous skirmishes around Atlanta, Georgia.  In October 1864 Hansen was hit in the wrist by a spent rifle ball during a skirmish at Jonesboro. It didn’t actually penetrate his wrist but created a huge lump on it that caused him pain for years to follow. Three months later he was sent to one hospital after another until he was finally admitted to the Joe Holt Hospital at Nashville, Tennessee; in December 1864, for “lameness and internal ailments” which plagued him for many years. 

In November 1864 the regiment moved to Pulaski, Tennessee and then, with the advance of Hood, to Columbia, Franklin and finally to Nashville, Tennessee. It was engaged in skirmishes at Columbia and Spring Hill, and in the battle of Franklin, on the right centre, the main point of attack of the enemy. On May 27, 1865 Martin was promoted to the rank of Corporal in Company H. The regiment finally mustered out on June 9, 1865, at Nashville, Tennessee, arriving in Chicago on June 13, 1865, where it received final pay and discharge on June 22, 1865.

It’s not known exactly when or why Hansen migrated to Australia, but records reveal he left the United States from Baltimore, Maryland sometime in 1877, returned to Copenhagen, Denmark until 1882, traveled to South Africa and stayed until 1883, before arriving in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on August 11, 1883. He was a resident of Woolloomooloo, New South Wales in 1884 and it was from there he was mentioned in government dispatches sent to the U.S. Consul in Sydney on October 15, 1886. They contained a letter written by Hansen;

“As the paper which is enclosed will show, it is now more than two years ago when I received those address from the Adjutant General’s Office, Springfield Illinois. Accordingly after that direction I wrote twice to Mr. Chas. O. Wentz, Mission, Ill., asking him for testimony in my case but he nevered received me, therefore I could not furnish the  Commissioner of Pensions with the evidence he demanded. After having got the addresses of the surgeon of the 88th Ill. Infantry, Mr. Wm. P. Pierce of Hooperston, Ill. And of the assistant surgeon, Mr. Thomas W. Forsbee of Madison, Ind., I wrote to both of the gentlemen but neither answered me, therefore I could not furnish the Commissioner of Pensions with their evidence which was also demanded of me. Mr. Chas. W. Wentz saw it when I was struck by that spent rifle ball at Jonesboro near Atlanta, so did a corporal Mr. Sam Biddles. The spent ball did not make a wound, but it  raised a limp on my wrist, which I have yet and pains when touched. It was not  for this that I was sent to the hospital about three months after but for some  lameness and internal ailment and from which I suffer to this day.  

When I enlisted I spoke very little English and I stated my name then as I would in Denmark as Hansen, therefore I used that way of spelling it when I first applied for the pension, but certainly my corporal commission, my discharge  and my citizen papers shows Hanson and I remember that the Americans in my company always called me Hanson. Mr. Chas. W. Wentz came out in Co. H  came out as private or at most corporal, but he acted as captain of the company at the close of war. Shortly after the war I went to his then residence at High Prairie, near Chicago, and received from him my corporal corporal commission, which he had in safe keeping. I cannot remember whether it was Mr. Wm. P. Pierce the surgeon, or the Assistant Surgeon Mr. TH. W. Forsbee who sent me back to Joe Holt Hospital, that is where I came at last for I was sent from one hospital to another in Nashville.

My partner’s name (with the dog tents we used) was Dillon, and I believe it was W. W. Dillon. Nother name was Corporal James Biddles, a brother of Sam Biddles."

Martin Peter Hanson

Late Corporal of Co. H

88yh Ill. INfty. Volunteers

Additional letters in Hansen’s file indicate that in 1891 he was residing in Goulburn, New South Wales and in Sydney in 1910. Hansen’s pension was finally approved and issued, certificate number 1092388, in 1915. Martin Peter Hansen died at the Sydney Hospital on June 17, 1923 and was buried in Rookwood Cemetery, Church of England Section 7, grave number 569.

“88th Illinois Infantry Regiment History”

“Civil War Companies Organized in Cook County, Illinois”

 Company "H" 88th Illinois Infantry Roster

“Illinois: Roster of Officers and Enlisted Men”

 National Archives, Copenhagen, Denmark

 National Archives, Washington, D.C.

 Sands Directory

U.S. Consul Records, Washington, D.C.

 U.S. Pension Records, Washington, D.C.