First  Minnesota

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the first First Minnesota:

On 1861 April 13, Alexander Ramsey, the governor of the young state of Minnesota, happened to be in Washington.  Upon hearing of the firing upon Fort Sumter, he immediately offered to Secretary of War Cameron (and thus to President Lincoln) a "thousand men to defend the government."  This was the first offer Lincoln had had from any state, and must have been very welcome.

The "thousand men" became an infantry regiment of volunteers, 780 men, comprising ten companies.  They mustered in at Fort Snelling on April 30 and May 1.  Training began immediately.  On June 22, the regiment steamed down the Mississippi and boarded "the cars" (railroad) at LaCrosse and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.  On June 26, their train pulled into Washington, D.C.

Over the next three years, the regiment fought at Bull Run, at Ball's Bluff, in the Peninsular Campaign, at Antietam, at Fredericksburg, at Chancellorsville, and at Mine Run.

On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Union line along Cemetery Ridge showed a wide gap into which rebel forces were rapidly advancing.  The first Union regiment to appear on the spot was the First Minnesota, then down to 262.  General Hancock immediately ordered the regiment to charge 1600 Alabamians.  The ten minutes they purchased, at the cost of 215 casualties, allowed the Union line to be closed up.  The men of the First Minnesota had saved the day, and perhaps the whole Army of the Potomac.

We have named ourselves after this regiment, not because we deserve the title, but because they deserve to be remembered.

For more information about the First Minnesota Regiment, consult

• The Last Full Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers by Richard Moe

• The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote, volume two (Fredericksburg to Meridian), p. 511

On the web, see also:

First Minnesota Regiment re-enactors