by Rosie Court
Guest Writer
Minnesotans set the standards for valor giving their last full measure showing great acts of heroism, often marching 16 miles a day, elbow to elbow, in miserable conditions. Great casualties occurred, sometimes with the loss of 40 -50 percent of their regiments. Hours were spent digging trenches or building barricades. During the terror of battle, they lived in constant fear of death or becoming POWs.
Between 1861-65, more than 24,000 soldiers passed through Fort Snelling on their way to the battlefields. After their term of service, they mustered out at the fort, returning to civilian life with their families.
From that first shot at Fort Sumter to the surrender at Appomattox, it was a brutal war. A large-scale damaging conflict inflicting unspeakable hardship, suffering and death. Fighting over varied terrain, living in unhealthy camps, and inadequate supplies, food and clothing caused disease and death. Three million young men began the war as Rebels and Yankees in a horrific struggle fighting for their cause.
A divided nation was finally reunited, hoping to be whole again. In Lincoln’s words “It was a new birth of freedom.” For civilians, the war was a tremendous time of upheaval. Hundreds of thousands were left as bereaved widows, mothers lost their sons and children were left without fathers. The United States lost 2 percent of its population.
Reconstruction of the South took many years. In the war’s painful aftermath, the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and half a million crippling wounded provided a terrible reminder of the price the nation paid to eliminate slavery to keep the Union intact. Ending slavery defined what the Declaration of Independence had declared, “All men are created equal.” No man should be bought and sold by another or be held in chains. Now the South had to deal with an organization called the Ku Klux Klan. Due to their political and social views, they wreaked havoc on many in the South, especially African Americans.
As Commander-in-Chief, Lincoln’s leadership along with his generals defined the course of the war. Lincoln was unable to help with the rebuilding. Although the Union was triumphant, it was a bitter end. On April 14, 1865, eight days after war’s end, Lincoln attended a play with his wife, Mary, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. John Wilkes Booth, a Southern sympathizer and well-known actor, fired a single bullet. President Lincoln died later. After his tragic death the nation went into great mourning.
It was not a war that was “Civil.” It was a “War of Aggression” that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of men. Casualties were staggering. Many brave soldiers were left on the battlefield to suffer or die slowly from their wounds. Mournful cries in the night could be heard calling out for medical help or water. For days bodies were left to rot becoming infested with maggots. The stench of decaying bodies was overwhelming. The Civil War created a profoundly devastating loss of life. It brought changes to the American Society, altering the course of our American history.
There were 13 Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiments. It included a 1st and 2nd Company of Sharpshooters. Four Calvary Units included 1st Minnesota Volunteer Calvary Regiment – “The mounted Rangers”; 2nd Minnesota Volunteer Calvary Regiment, Brackett’s Battalion and Hatch’s Battalion. Artillery Units included 1st Minnesota Heavy Artillery Regiment and 1st 2nd and 3rd Minnesota Light Artillery Battery.
Regiments of the First Minnesota served in nearly every battle from Bull Run to the final surrender. The last surviving Civil War soldier, Albert Woolson from Duluth, died in 1956 at age 109. Woolson enlisted at age 14 as a drummer boy in the 1st Minnesota Regiment of Heavy Artillery.
Fired by a patriotic spirit, the First Minnesota was ranked by many as the foremost of our country’s defenders. These honorable soldiers made an enormous difference and contribution to the cause of victory during an epic time. For their sacrifices, they need to be remembered as we honor the 150th anniversary of the Civil War from 1861-1865. May the memory of all our brave Minnesota soldiers long endure. In Lincoln’s words, “The great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”
Rosie Court is a member of the St. Joseph Historical Society and the Central Minnesota Civil War Roundtable.
