Rufus King was an American newspaper editor, public servant, diplomat, and soldier. He served as a Union Army brigadier general in the American Civil War, and was responsible for assembling the famed Iron Brigade of the Army of the Potomac. He was later U.S. minister (ambassador) to the Papal States from 1864 to 1867 and was instrumental in the capture of accused Lincoln assassination plotter John Surratt. Earlier in life, he had been a member of the first board of regents of the University of Wisconsin.
A photograph of King taken between 1855-1865
The Iron Brigade, also known as The Black Hats, Black Hat Brigade, Iron Brigade of the West, and originally King's Wisconsin Brigade was an infantry brigade in the Union Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War. Although it fought entirely in the Eastern Theater, it was composed of regiments from three Western states that are now within the region of the Midwest. Noted for its excellent discipline, ferocity in battle, and extraordinarily strong morale, the Iron Brigade suffered 1,131 men killed out of 7,257 total enlistments: the highest percentage of loss suffered by any brigade in the United States Army during the war.
Iron Brigade unit badge, a maltese cross design, showing the Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana, Union Army regiments, who were the core of the Brigade, on a historical marker, at Gettysburg National Military Park.
Soldiers in the 7th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Company I, of the Iron Brigade, in Virginia, 1862
Rufus King, the founder and original commander of the Wisconsin Iron Brigade
John Gibbon, the commander of the combined three-state Western Iron Brigade
