ADDENDA.
A history of the Northwest that would omit any mention of the war of the Rebellion would be an unfinished work. It was the original intention of the author of this work to add a military history in which should be placed upon record not only some statistics as to the number of troops contributed to the United States service from the parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin lying along the Mississippi river, but some account of incidents connected with the war, which the citizens of the valley would take pride in perusing. The plan was abandoned reluctantly on account of the want of space for such a record. We are able to furnish a synopsis of the military history of Minnesota taken from a recent address made by ex-Gov. Ramsey before the Loyal Legion at St. Paul. It is doubly interesting, coming as it does from the governor of the State during the earlier portion of the war:
Ex-Gov. Alexander Ramsey was called upon to respond to the toast, "Minnesota and the War; For God, Our Country and the Right." He said:
"Amid the many evidences of harmony and prosperity in all sections of the great republic it is difficult to realize that the citizens of Minnesota, within the memory of many still alive, were called upon to preserve the integrity of the United States of America by the force of arms.
"There has ever been a community of interest between our own State, in whose midst are found the sources of the Mississippi, and the several states on its borders toward the Gulf of Mexico; the wheat fields of Minnesota, the cotton and sugar plantations of Mississippi and Louisiana must be inseparable, yet it can not be disguised that a short-sighted statesmanship made a vigorous attempt to separate those whom an all-wise Providence had joined together.
"In the month of April, 1861, upon official business as governor of Minnesota, I was called to the city of Washington. The knots of earnest men and anxious faces in the corridors and reading rooms of the hotels indicated a widespread belief that there was an impending peril, a serious conspiracy upon the part of some in the cotton producing and slave holding states to secede from the Union, although the general government had never infringed upon their rights under the constitution.
"On Saturday night, April 13th, the population of Washington was deeply moved by the intelligence that Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston had been attacked by insurgents, and that the garrison had surrendered.
"Early Sunday morning, accompanied by two citizens of Minnesota, I visited the war department, and found the secretary with his hat on and papers in his hand about to leave his office. I said 'My business is simply as governor of Minnesota to tender a thousand men to defend the government.' 'Sit down immediately,' he replied, 'and write the tender you have made, as I am now on my way to the president's mansion.'
"This was quickly done, and thus Minnesota became the first to cheer the president by offers of assistance in the crisis which had arrived.
"My action and the acceptance of this offer were dispatched to St. Paul, and in a few days companies in the different towns in Minnesota were being organized, and on the twenty-seventh of the month Adjt. Gen. John B. Sanborn issued an order that more companies had been organized than were necessary to complete the First regiment of Minnesota, and on the third of May, having returned to St. Paul during April, I sent a telegram to the president offering a second regiment.