Hans Christian Heg is a statue by Paul Fjelde that was cast in 1925 and installed at the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, United States in 1926. The bronze statue depicting the Union soldier and abolitionist Hans Christian Heg was torn down by rioters, decapitated and thrown into a lake in June 2020. The Wisconsin state government restored and reinstalled the original statue in September 2021.
Two further casts of the statue were made in 1925: one stands in Heg Memorial Park, in Racine County, Wisconsin, near the Heg family home, and the other in Haugestad, near the family's home town in Norway.
Background
Hans Christian Heg (1829-1863) was a Norwegian American abolitionist, journalist, anti-slavery activist, politician and soldier. He was born at Haugestad in the community of Lierbyen in Lier, Buskerud, Norway, where his father ran an inn. His family emigrated to the US in 1840, and settled at Muskego Settlement, Wisconsin. After two years as a Forty-Niner in California following the California Gold Rush, Heg returned to settle in Wisconsin.
Heg is best known as the colonel who commanded the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment on the Union side in the American Civil War. He died of the wounds he received at the Battle of Chickamauga. A high pyramid of shells at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park marks the site on the battlefield where Heg was mortally wounded.
Description
The bronze sculpture measures approximately , and stands on a granite base which measures approximately .
The statue depicts Colonel Heg standing in his Union Army uniform, with a long belted double-breasted dress coat, riding boots, and girt with a sword to his left side. He has a beard and moustache, and is bare headed, with his Hardee hat held in his right hand.
History
The statue was created in 1925 as a gift of the Norwegian Society of America, which raised funds for its cost. The sculptor was the Norwegian-American Paul Fjelde who, in describing his work said, "The figure that I have created shows a much younger Colonel Heg than his photographs. After all he was a young man, only thirty-three when he died. I tried to regain the spirit of youth which must have been his before the cares of war had aged him beyond his years. I think I have succeeded."
The statue is one of three casts made at the foundry of Ernst Poleszynski in Kristiania, Norway. It was shipped in 1925 from Norway on the Norwegian-American Line, arrived in New York on August 21 of that year, and completed the rest of its journey to Madison on September 3. After its arrival, the crate containing the statue was stored in the northeast pavilion of the Capitol Building. The delay between arrival and dedication lasted for more than a year, and was due to the need to raise some $2,000 to purchase and erect a base for the statue's final home. By joint resolution No., 30, 1925 of the Wisconsin state assembly and senate, the statue was to be "placed in the capitol park at Madison, Wisconsin" in the centennial year of the beginning of Norwegian immigration to the United States.
Two thousand spectators attended the unveiling of the statue on October 17, 1926 at the Wisconsin State Capitol. It was dedicated "in memory of a distinguished citizen and volunteer soldier of the Civil war period."
Other casts
A second cast of the statue was erected in Heg Memorial Park, in Racine County, Wisconsin, near the Heg family home, and dedicated in 1928.
A third cast of the statue was unveiled in 1925, in Haugestad, near his family's home town in Norway.
2020 vandalism
On June 23, 2020, the statue was vandalized by protesters, incensed by the arrest of a member of Black Lives Matter, as demonstrations in Madison turned violent. Vandals used a towing vehicle to pull the statue down. It was then vandalized, decapitated, and thrown into Lake Monona. The words "" were spray-painted on the plinth, just above Heg's name.
On the morning of June 24, someone painted "Fire Matt Kenny" on the base of the Heg statue. (This was a reference to the 2015 shooting of Tony Robinson; the police officer was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, and is still employed.) Another Capitol Hill statue toppled on the same night, Forward, is of a female figure representing Wisconsin's "Forward" motto. Both statues were later recovered by the authorities, though Heg was said to have lost a leg.