The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1904-05-13

catch sight of on the island. The peas
ants of the island and their families fled
in terror, taking whatever property they
had that they could carry off in hur-
ry. Usually they left considerable be-
hind, in the way of chickens, pigs, sheep
and the like These were promptly ap-
propriated by the Danish soldiers on
their forage expeditions. Without such
supplies as these the Danes could hardly
have held out so long as they did. The
rations distributed by the Danish gov
eminent consisted mainly of hard tack
and coffee.
The way in which the Danish soldiers
cooked their chickens, pigs and sheep
was curious. The. animal would simply
be cut open and its entrails removed; the
cook would then plaster it on all sides
with clay, without removing skin, hair or
feathers; then fire would be kindled on
the outside of the clay until the whole
animal was thoroughly roasted. When
the clay was broken off, the feathers or
hair and the skin would come off too,
leaving exposed the well cooked flesh,
which was certainly delicious to the
hungry, shivering Danish soldier.
As result of all these hardships, a
large percentage of the Danish army
was always in the hospital. Sergeant
Andersen, however, was never sick day.
He delighted in the wild out of door life,
and enjoyed the company of other re-
bust fellows like himself.
The Danish army would often impress
into its service drivers and teams that
the soldiers ran across. A. B. Hansen,
who used to be hardware merchant of
Mankato, and is now a bricklayer, was a
boy of sixteen years at the time of the
war, and was working for farmer when
taken into the service of the army. He
served the division of the army that was
defending the island of Alsen, and haul
ed rations for the government to this
and that mess.
Probably the island of Alsen would
never have held out as it did, had it
not been for the excellence of the Dan
ish fleet. The Prussian fleet at that
time amounted to very little. Danish
ships patterned like the famous '.Moni-
tor" which played so important part
in the American rebellion, sailed about
the strait and bombarded the positions
of the invaders.
Sergeant Andersen, while in the SER
vice, happened to run across large
brickyard, owned and operated by a
man named Christensen, about five miles
from Flensburg in Schleswig. He did
not know the Christensen family at that
time, but the fact that the owner of the
brickyard was the father of the three
Christensen brothers, Henry p, Chris
tian s. G. and George, all of whom
were in America at that time.
A1Ccl NIL AuueISeu came TO America
he became acquainted with the Chris
tiansen brothers and had many a talk
with them over old times in Denmark.
II. P. Christensen remembers the re-
bellion of Schleswig against Danish rule
in the year 1S4S. He was attending
school in little settlement few miles
from Flensburg when the rebellion broke
out. On the day after the school closed,
bullets and cannon balls were flying
thick about that neighborhood.
Sergeant Andersen was mustered out
of service after the war of 1854 was
brought to a close by the treaty of
Vienna, whereby Denmark surrendered
Schleswig and Holstein to Austria and
Prussia. He took up his old trade of
bricklayer and was afterwards married.
Though he never was sick during all the
severe trials of his military service, yet,
as soon as he got to sleeping in a warm
bed at night, he contracted rheumatism
in the worst form. With this disease
he was troubled some years. He got
rid of it on coming to America. In 1869
he settled in Mankato.