USA > Minnesota > Concise history of the state of Minnesota > Part 18
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247
BATTLE AT GETTYSBURG.
not actively engaged until about five o'clock P. M., when we were moved to support Battery I, 4th United States Artillery. Company F had been detached from the regiment as skirmishers, and Company L as sharpshoot- ers. Our infantry, who had advanced upon the enemy in our front, and pushed him for a while, were in turn driven back in some confusion, the enemy following them in heavy force. To check them, we were ordered to advance, which we did, moving at double-quick down the slope of the hill, right upon the rebel line. The
now the scene became sublime. Two long. weary hours, and then came the lull. We knew their infantry was advancing, and we rose for the death strng- gle with a feeling of relief. for it was at worst but man to man, and we could give as well as take. And now they emerged from the woods, Long-treet's whole corps, near thirty thousand strong. General Pickett's division, of about twelve thousand, fresh from the rear, was in front of, and advanced upon our shattered division of less than four thousand. We had reserves behind, though, to go to our assistance if needed. Over the plain, still covered with the dead and wounded of yesterday, in three beautiful lines of battle, preceded by skir- mishers, with their arms at right shoulder shift and with double-quick step, right gallantly they came on. What was left of our artillery opened, but they never seemed to give it any attention. Calmly we awaited the onset, and when within two hundred yards we opened fire. Their front line went down like grass before the scythe: again and again we gave it to them, when they changed direction, and followed a small ravine up towards our right. To the right we went also, marching parallel with them and firing continually: and no man seemed to shrink from his duty. Three or four brigades of the enemy clo-ed together near a cave, when, changing again, they rushed forward and planted their colors on one of our batteries. Our brigade rushed at them. The tattered colors of the First, in advance, were now shot down, the ball passing through John Dehn's (the color-bearer, right arm. and cutting the statt in two where he grasped it. Corporal ()'Brien raised the flag and bore it on. Generals Hancock and Gibbon were both weunded here while cheering us on. Orders were unnec- essary. The fight had become a perfect melee. and every man fought for him- self, or under the direction of his company officers. Here that noble sollier Captain Messick, was killed, and Captain Farrel, who had gallantly brought np the provost guard, Company (. to reinforce his shattered regiment, mortally wonoded. The enemy had halted, and were firing on us from behind some bushes. We pushed on. They fired till we reached the muzzles of their guns, but they could not stand the bayonet, and broke before the cold steel in disorder and dismay. Our division took more colors than it had regiments. Marshall Sherman, of Company ", of this regiment, took those of the Twenty- eighth Virginia Not daring to run, their officers and men surrendered in scores and hundreds. At this moment of victory, Corporal O'Brien was shot down. and the colors fell. Corporal Irvine immediately raised that tattered but sacred flag of Minnesota. and again it waved in glorious triumph over her gallant dead, while the ringing shouts of victory along the front of our whole corps proclaimed that the magnificent army which Lee had launched like a thunderbolt to break our centre, was -hattered, broken and defeated by the old Second, scarcely eight thou-and strong. The reserves were not called upon, and did not fire a gun; and twenty-eight battle-flags were added to the trophies gathered on the Peninsula and Antietain by that corps, which, in the words of Sumner, 'uever yet lost a gun or a color, and never turned back in battle before the enemy.' "
24S
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
:
fire we encountered here was terrible, and, although we inflicted severe punishment upon the enemy, and check- ed his advance, it was with the loss in killed and wound- ed of more than two-thirds of our men who were en- gaged. Here Captain Muller, of Company E, and Lieu- tenant Farrer, of Company I,'were killed, and Captain Periam, of Company K, mortally wounded. Colonel Colville, Lieutenant-Colonel Adams, Major Downie, Ad- jutant Peller, and Lieutenants Sinclair, Company B, Demerest, Company E, De Gray and Boyd, Company I, were severely wounded. Colonel Colville is shot through the shoulder and foot; Lieutenant-Colonel Adams is shot through the chest and twice through the leg, and his recovery is doubtful. Fully two-thirds of the en- listed men engaged were either killed or wounded. Companies F, C and L, not being engaged here, did not suffer severely on this day's fight. The command of the regiment now devolved upon Captain Nathan S. Messick. At daybreak the next morning the enemy renewed the battle with vigor on the right and left of our line, with infantry, and about ten o'clock A. M. opened upon the center, where we were posted, a most terrible fire of ar- tillery, which continued without intermission until three o'clock P. M., when heavy columns of the enemy's infan- try were thrown suddenly forward against our position. They marched resolutely in the face of a withering fire up to our line, and succeeded in planting their colors on one of our batteries. They held it but a moment as our regiment, with others of the division, rushed upon them, the colors of our regiment in advance, and retook the battery, capturing nearly the entire rebel force who re- mained alive. Our regiment took about five hundred prisoners. Several stands of rebel colors were here
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249
OFFICERS AT KILLED AT GETTYSBURG.
taken. Private Marshall Sherman, of Company C, cap- · tured the colors of the 28th Virginia Regiment.
"Our entire regiment, except Company L, was in the fight, and our loss again was very severe. Captain Mes- sick, while gallantly leading the regiment, was killed early. Captain W. B. Farrel, Company C, was mortally wounded, and died last night. Lieutenant Mason, Com- pany D, received three wounds, and Lieutenants Har- mon, Company C, Heffelfinger, Company D, and May, Company B, were also wounded. The enemy suffered terribly here, and is now retreating. Our loss of so many brave men is heartrending, and will carry mourn- ing into all parts of the state; but they have fallen in a holy cause, and their memory will not soon perish. Our loss is four commissioned officers and forty-seven men killed, thirteen officers and one hundred sixty-two men wounded, and six men missing. Total two hundred and thirty-two, out of less than three hundred and thirty men and officers engaged.
"Several acts of heroic daring occurred in this battle. I cannot now attempt to enumerate them. The bearing of Colonel Colville and Lieutenant-Colonel Adams, in the fight of Tuesday, was conspicuously gallant. Hero- ically urging them on to the attack, they fell very nearly at the same moment, their wounds comparatively dis- abling them, so far in the advance that some time elaps- ed before they were got off the field. Major Downie received two bullets through the arm before he turned over the command to Captain Messiek. Colonel-Ser- geant E. P. Perkins, and two of the color-guard succes- cessively bearing the flag, were wounded in Thursday's fight. On Friday, Corporal Dehn, of Company A, the last of the color-guard, when close upon the enemy, was
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250
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
shot through the hand and the flag-staff cut in two; Corporal Henry D. O'Brien, of Company D, instantly seized the flag by the remnant of the staff, and, waving it over his head, rushed right up to the muzzles of the enemy's muskets; nearly at the moment of victory he too was wounded in the hand, but the flag was instantly grasped by Corporal W. N. Irvine, of Company D, who still carries its tattered remnants. Company L, Captain Berger, supported Kirby's Battery throughout the battle, and did very effective service. Every man in the whole regiment did his whole duty."
On the nineteenth of September, the 2d Regiment, now under Colonel George for the first time since the fight at Mill Spring, was engaged at Chickamauga. It was in the 2d Brigade, 3d Division, 13th Army Corps, and at ten o'clock in the morning was placed next to Battery I, 4th United States Artillery, commanded by Lieutenant Frank G. Smith.1 The enemy charged desperately, and after a sharp contest was repulsed. The regiment lost eight killed and forty-one wounded. The next day the fight was resumed and lasted until dark. 2
On the afternoon of the twenty-third of November the 2d Regiment marched from its encampment at
1. Son of Franklin Smith, M. D. of St. Paul.
2. New York Herald correspondent wrote: "In Braman's Division there are the old famous regiments of which the late General Robert MeCook and Gen- eral Van Cleve were formerly Colonels This was the first fight since Mill Spring. *
* * The big-hearted Minnesotians, whom Van ₭ Cleve had enlisted two years before, sprang from their position in reserve. and with loud yells, as if the sight had infuriated them. rushed forward with fixed bayonets, drove the enemy from their guns, before they could be turned on us."
A friend writing to Lieutenant G. W. Preseott, says: "Gien. R. W. Johnson fought splendidly. * * I heard on Sunday that he was wounded and a prisoner. but afterwards learned that he was safe. I called on him yester- day. He is not well, and thinks of taking a trip to Minnesota. *
General Van Cleve lost ten out of eighteen pieces of artillery. *
* Murdock, of his staff, son of the actor and a brilliant fellow, was mortally wounded. Lieutenant Woodbury, commanding 2d Battery, had his left arm badly shattered on Saturday."
251
SECOND REGIMENT AT MISSION RIDGE.
Chattanooga, and was drawn up in line of battle in front of Fort Negley, and on the twenty-fifth it took a posi- tion to the east forcing the enemy at the foot and on the crest of Mission Ridge. With the whole brigade about three o'clock in the afternoon it advanced and came in full view of the enemy's works.
Lieutenant-Colonel Bishop,1 commanding the regi- ment, says: "After remaining in front of this part of the enemy's lines for some twenty minutes, I received an order from Colonel Van Derveer commanding the brigade to advance. With bayonets fixed, the whole line commenced the advance. The enemy opened fire with musketry from the breastworks and artillery from the main ridge as soon as our line emerged from the woods, but in the face of both the men moved silently and steadily forward across the creek and up the slope, until about one hundred paces of the breast- works, when, as the pace was quickened, the enemy broke from behind the works and ran in some confusion. * * About twenty minutes after the capture of the first work, my regiment moved forward with the others of the brigade, assembling on the colors as fast as it was possible, until ascending the steepest part of the slope, where every man had to find or clear his own way through the entanglement and in the face of a terrible fire of musketry and artillery.
* Hardly had a lodgment in the enemy's works been gained, when the enemy's reserves made a furious counter-attack upon our men, yet in confusion. The attack was prompt- ly met. * Of seven non-commissioned offi-
1. Entered service as Captain, June 26, 1861; Major, March 21, 1-62: Lienten- ant Colonel, August 26, 1362; Colonel, July 14, 1564; B't Brig. Gen. U. S. Volun- teers, June 7. 1500.
252
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
cers in the color-guard, all but one were killed or wounded."
The 4th Regiment was also at Chattanooga, assigned to the 15th Army Corps, but suffered no losses.
The Ist Regiment, at Bristow Station, Virginia, on the fourteenth of October was the head of the column of the 2d Division of the 2d Corps, and as skirmishers in the woods, held the enemy in check until our troops could form behind the railroad. After the enemy was repulsed, the regiment again advanced and captured three hundred and twenty prisoners and six rebel can- non.
As the term of the regiments first organized ap- proached expiration, the men were allowed to re-enlist and return to the State on furlough. On the eighth of January, 1864, the 2d left Chattanooga for Fort Snell- ing, and on the twenty-fourth arrived at St. Paul, with the exception of the companies that belonged to Fill- more and Olmsted Counties, which stopped at Winona. The 1st left their camp near Culpepper on the fifth of February, and after partaking of a banquet at the Na- tional Hotel in Washington, given by members of Con- gress and other citizens of Minnesota in the city, pro- ceeded westward, and were finally welcomed at St. Paul on the fifteenth of February.
The 1st Battery, that had been attached to the 17th Army Corps, now commanded by William T. Clayton arrived early in March, and on the twentieth the 4th returned on furlough.
. The 3rd Regiment, which, after the Indian exposition had been ordered to Little Rock, Arkansas, on the thir- tieth had an engagement with McRae's forces, near Au- gusta, at Fitzhugh's Woods. Seven men were killed
253
THIRD REGIMENT ENGAGED.
and sixteen wounded. General C. C. Andrews, in com- - mand of the force, had his horse killed by a bullet.
The 2d Battery, Captain W. A. Hotchkiss, having re- enlisted, left Chattanooga on the twelfth of April and returned on a furlough.
By order of the War Department, the 1st Regiment was mustered out at the expiration of its three years term of service. On the twenty-eighth of April it held its last evening parade, at Fort Snelling, in the presence of Governor Miller, who had once commanded them, and a large number of spectators.
A portion of its members were organized in a battal- ion, and in May proceeded to Washington, and from thence went to Virginia and joined the Army of the Po- tomac, and participated in engagements near Peters- burg, Jamestown, Plank Road, Deep Bottom, and Reams Station. The 6th Regiment, which had been actively engaged in the Indian expedition of 1862, was ordered to the South in October, 1863, and in June, 1864, was assigned to the 16th Army Corps. The 7th at the same time was assigned to this corps, and also the 9th and 10th Regiments. The 5th Regiment, which had been attached to the corps since January, was in the expedi- tion up the Red River of Louisiana during the spring, and on the sixth of June was under Major Becht, in Hubbard's Brigade, engaged in battle with General Marmaduke's forces at Lake Chicot, Arkansas.
On the thirteenth of July the insurgents, under For- rest, opened fire upon General A. J. Smith's Division, near Tupelo, Mississippi, in which were portions of the 5th, the 9th, the 7th, and 10th Regiments.
During the first day's fight, Surgeon Smith of the 7th was shot through the neck and killed. On the morning
254
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
of the fourteenth the battle began in earnest, and the 7th, under Colonel Marshall, 1 made a successful charge. Colonel Alexander Wilkin, 2 of the 9th, while gal- lantly leading a brigade, was shot and fell dead from his horse.
On the fifteenth of October the 4th Regiment, with other troops under General Corse, were attacked near Altoona, Georgia, by a superior force of insurgents under General French, and after six hours' fight the latter retired.
On the seventh of December, the Sth Regiment, with other troops under General Milroy, met the insurgents near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and drove them from their position. In rushing up to the enemy's batteries fourteen of the regiment were killed and seventy-six wounded.
In the great battle before Nashville in the same month the 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th Regiments were engaged. The 1st Brigade, 1st Division, of General A. J. Smith's force, was commanded by Colonel Hubbard of the 5th, and the 2d Brigade by Colonel W. R. Marshall of the 7th. All the Minnesota regiments distinguished them- selves. Colonel Hubbard, after he had been knocked
1 Colonel November 6, 1863; Bt, Brig. Gen. U. S. Volunteers, March 13, 1-65. 2 Alexander Wilkin will always be remembered as among the bravest of the officers who gave their lives for their country.
He was the son of Hon. Samuel J. Wilkin, formerly a member of Congress from New York, and was born in Orange Chunty. After studying law he be- came a captain of volunteers in the Mexican war. In 1849 he came to Minne- sota and succeeded C. K. Smith as Secretary of the Territory. As soon as Fort Sumter was fired upon he began to raise a company, and when the 1st Regi- ment was organized he was captain of Company A. For gallantry at Bull Run he was made captain in the regular army, and then appointed major of the 2d, and subsequently colonel of the 9th Minnesota. The manner of his death is thus described by Captain J. K. Arnold, of the ith Regiment, who was his ad- jntant.
"The bullets and shells were flying thick and fast. Colonel Wilkin sat on his horse, and when he was struck was giving his orders as coolly as he ever did on dress parade. Hewas instantly killed, He was shot under the left arm, the ball passing through the body and coming out under the right arm. I had left him but a moment before with an order. He never spoke after being hit, but fell from his horseand was dead before reaching the ground "
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255
SURRENDER OF GENERAL LEE.
off his horse by a ball, rose and on foot led his command over the enemy's works. Colonel Marshall also made a gallant charge, and Lieutenant-Colonel Jennison,1 of the 10th, was one of the first on the enemy's parapet, and received a severe wound.
In the spring of 1865, the 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th Minnesota Regiments, attached to the 16th Army Corps, took part in besieging the rebel works at Spanish Fort, opposite Mobile, and at Blakely, near the terminus of the Mobile and Motgomery Railroad. The final and victorious assault was begun about six o'clock on Sunday afternoon, the ninth of April, by two brigades of the 13th Army Corps, commanded by General C. C. Andrews, formerly Colonel of the 3d Minnesota Regiment.
On this day General Lee had also surrendered his army to General Grant, and the rebellion ended. The 2d and 4th Regiments and Ist Battery had accompanied General Sherman in his wonderful march through Geor- gia, South and North Carolina, and the Sth Regiment in March had moved to North Carolina from Tennessee by the way of Washington.
The battalion that was the outgrowth of the 1st Regi- ment was active in the last campaign of the Army of the Potomac, commencing in March and resulting in the surrender of Lee's Army.
Arrangements were soon perfected for the disbanding of the Union army, and before the close of the summer all the regiments that had been in the South had return- ed, and were discharged.
1. Bt. Brig. Gen. U. S. Vols., March 13, 1565.
256
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
SYNOPSIS OF REGIMENTS.
Organized.
Discharged.
Infantry.
First
April, 1861.
May 5, 1864
Second July,
1861.
July 11, 1865
Third
.October,
1861.
September, 1865
Fourth
December. 1861.
August,
1865
Fifth
May,
1861.
September, 1865
Sixth
. August,
1862.
August,
1865
Seventh
.
66
.
Eighth
Ninth
Tenth
66
Eleventh
August
1864.
Infantry Batallion . . May,
1864.
July,
1865
Artillery.
First Regiment Heavy
Artillery ... . April,
1865.
September, 1865
Batteries.
First. . October, 1861.
June, 1865
Second December, 1861.
July,
1865
Third
February, 1863. February, 1866
Cavalry.
Rangers. March, 1863. Oct. to Dec. 1863
Brackett's. Oct. Nov., 1861. May to June, 1866
Second Regiment . . January, 1864. Nov. to June, 1866
Hatch's July, 1863. Ap'l. to June, 1866
Sharpshooters.
Company A. .1861
Company B
1862. On duty with First Regi- ment in the Army of the Potomac.
257
AFFAIRS SINCE THE CIVIL WAR.
CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
ADMINISTRATION OF CIVIL AFFAIRS DURING AND SINCE THE REBELLION.
In consequence of the Indian outbreak in the Valley of the Minnesota, Governor Ramsey called an extra ses- sion of the Legislature, which convened on September 9, 1862, and in his message urged prompt and severe measures to subdue the savage cut-throats.
As long as Indian hostilities continued, the flow of im- migration was checked and the agricultural interests suffered; but notwithstanding the disturbed condition of affairs, within the borders of the State, the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company completed ten miles of of the first railway from the capital. Governor Ram- sey having been elected for a second term, delivered his annual message before the fifth State Legislature on Jan- uary seventh, 1863, and during the session was elected to supply the vacancy about to take place in the United States Senate by the expiration of the term of office of the Hon. Henry M. Rice, 1 who had been a member of that body from the time that Minnesota was admitted in- to the Union.
1 Mr. Rice has been for years identified with the public interests of Minne- sota. He was one of the commissioners in 1-17 who inet the Pillagers at Leech Lake and negotiated for the cession of country between the Mississippi, Long Prairie and Watab Rivers. In 1-53 he was a delegate to Congress, re-elected in 1855. Took his seat in United States Senate Isis. In 1-60 was on the special committee on the Condition of the Country. During his teri he was also a member of the committees on Military affairs, Finance, Public Lands, and Post Office.
While in Washington he united with Senators Douglas and Breckenridge in building three elegant mansions on H Street still called Minnesota Row: and in one of these he lived, and need an elegant hospitality to the citizens of Minne- sota without regard to their political opinions.
258
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA.
He continued to act as Governor until he took his seat in the U. S. Senate, when the Lieutenant-Governor, Henry A. Swift,1 became Governor by constitutional provision, and held the office until the inauguration, on January eleventh, 1864, of Stephen Miller,? who had been duly elected by the people at the regular election of the previous fall. During Miller's administration, Shakopee, or Little Six, and Tahta-e-chash-na-manne, or Medicine Bottle, were tried by a military commission at Fort Snelling, for participation in the massacre of white citizens during the year 1862, and found guilty, and sentenced to be hung. The execution took place on the tenth of November, 1865, in the presence of the soldiers at the fort and a number of civilians. 3
William R. Marshall + succeeded Governor Miller on the eighth of January, 1866, and after serving two terms
1 Henry A. Swift was born in 1823, at Ravenna, Ohio; graduated at Western Reserve College; studied law at Ravenna, and in 1-45 was admitted to practice.
In 1846-7 he was assistant clerk of House of Representatives of Ohio. and during the next two sessions was chief clerk. In 1958 he came to Minnesota and settled at St. Paul, In 1856 he removed to St. Peter. From 1-61 to 1565 he was a State Senator, and in 1865 was appointed by the President. Register of United States Land Office at St. Peter. lle died on February 26, 1:69, respected and beloved by all.
2 Stephen Miller was born in 1816 in Perry county, Pennsylvania. In 1849 was Prothonotary of Dauphin county, and in 1955 flour inspector of Philadelphia. He came in 1458 to Minnesota. Was Lieutenant-Colonel of First and Colonel of Seventh Regiment, and on October twenty-sixth, 1863, was made Brigadier- General.
3 Shakopee, or Shakpedan, was born about 1811, and was the son of the blus. tering, thieving chief of the same name, who died at the village of Shakopee in 1860. He was a mean Indian, of but little mental capacity. It is said that when the first locomotive passed on the railway just completed beneath the walls of Fort Snelling, he pointed to it from his prison window, and said, with a touch of sentiment: " There! that is what has driven us away."
His body was forwarded to Jefferson Medical College, in Philadelphia, and after being placed upon an anatomical table, Prof. Pancoast give a brief sketch. of his career, and then proceeded to expose his body, for the benefit of science, to the gaze of the students.
Medicine Bottle was born about 1831, at Mendota, and was head soldier of his brother, the chief Grey Eagle.
4 W. R. Marshall was born October seventeenth, 1825, in Boone county, Mis- souri. C'ame to Minnesota in July, 1817, and was in Ist9 member of the first Legislature of the Territory. In his was nominated by the first convention of the Republican party, as delegate to Congress. For several years was engaged in banking and mercantile pursuits. During the war was Lientenant-Colonel, then Colonel of Seventh Regiment. In 1865, Bt. Brig. Gen. U. S. Vols.
259
ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. AUSTIN.
was followed by Horace Austin on the seventh of Jan- uary, 1870.
Horace Austin1 in January, 1872, entered upon a sec- ond term as Governor of Minnesota, having been elected to the office by a large majority. The important event of his administration was the veto of an act passed by the Legislature of 1871, dividing the Internal Im- provement Lands of the State among several railway companies.
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