Minnesota, the North Star State

by William Watts Folwell

Under a new commander the Union armies concentrated at Chattanooga were soon to recover the ground and prestige lost by his brave but unfortunate predecessor. Grant, sending Hooker to occupy Lookout Mountain on his right and Sherman to the left to double up Bragg’s extended line, placed the army of the Cumberland in his centre under Thomas. A rumor spread up and down the lines of that army that it was merely paraded to amuse the enemy while Hooker and Sherman should show it how to fight. At three o’clock in the afternoon of November 24 the centre moved forward to the base of Missionary Ridge. After a short pause here the whole line, as it is told, without orders, broke out and swarmed up the hillside and over the enemy’s intrenchments in the face of a galling fire of artillery and musketry.

The Second Minnesota, led by Lieutenant-Colonel (afterwards Brigadier-General) J. W. Bishop, deployed as skirmishers, led its brigade to the foot of the ridge, where it joined in the scramble for the crest. It lost eight men killed and thirty-one wounded. Six out of seven members of the color guard fell.

The Third Minnesota, after participating in the “Arkansas Expedition” which resulted in the occupation of Little Rock, remained thereabout till the close of its term. Among the numerous affairs in which it was engaged was one which is rightly dignified as “the battle of Fitzhugh’s woods.” The commander, Colonel (afterwards Brigadier-General) C. C. Andrews here displayed a tactical ability worthy of a wider field. The regiment suffered greatly from malarial disease.

It was not the fortune of the Fourth Minnesota to be decimated in any one engagement. Its heaviest loss, thirteen killed and thirty-one wounded, was in its participation in the heroic defense of the post at Altoona, Georgia, when a force numbering less than two thousand stood off repeated charges of a Confederate division of seven thousand. Several men of the Fourth whose term of enlistment had expired shared in the battle, and of them some were numbered with the dead.

The gallant behavior of the men of the Fifth Minnesota and Colonel Hubbard’s instant perception of the proper line of action at Corinth on October 4, 1862, have already been related. It was the fortune of this command, together with the Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Minnesota Infantry regiments, to share in the glory of the battle which destroyed the Confederate power in the Mississippi valley.

Thomas, commanding at Nashville, Tennessee, on December 15, 1863, delivered a blow on Hood’s left wing which caused that commander to retire to a position on a range of hills two miles to the south, admirably chosen, and capable of effective intrenchment. The attempt made soon after noon of the 16th to crush the right of Hood’s army on Overton Hill had no result but the loss of many brave men. McArthur’s division was then ordered to assault the Confederate left, strongly posted behind a breastwork revetted by a stone wall. The first brigade was put in motion as if to make the principal charge. The Minnesota regiments were in the front line of the second and third brigades, commanded respectively by Hubbard and Marshall. Observing the movement, these commanders at once ordered their brigades forward, and away they went over a muddy cornfield, up a slope covered with boulders and obstructed by stone walls, ditches, and rail fences. Without halt or interruption, under a heavy front and cross fire, the lines pressed on, and stormed over the enemy’s intrenchment, capturing the defenders, with guns and colors. A general charge of the whole line now put the entire Confederate army to rout and ended the war in the West.

The Minnesota regiments suffered a loss of three hundred in the charge. Jennison, lieutenant-colonel commanding the Tenth, received a severe wound, as he led his battalion over the works. Hubbard had three horses shot under him, and was wounded. The colors of the Fifth were three times shot down. Captain Sheehan (hero of Fort Ridgely) picked them up and saw them planted on the stone wall. Marshall and Hubbard were both brevetted as brigadiers, and both afterwards became governors of Minnesota.

The Sixth Minnesota, occupied in the Indian war, was not sent south till July, 1864, when it took station at Helena, Arkansas. Here malarial poison, far more fatal than the gun-fire of the enemy, attacked officers and men. During the four and one half months of its service here, six hundred men of this regiment were sent to the Northern hospitals. On August 7 there were but seven officers and one hundred and seventy-eight men for duty. By the time the sick had recovered, the war was substantially over. But their division commander at the capture of Fort Blakely, April 9, 1865, thanked in orders the brave officers and men for their gallantry in the daring charge to which the fall of the fort was due.

The First Minnesota was the only one which served its whole term east of the Alleghanies. The Fourth and Eighth reached salt water in the last months of the war. All the other Minnesota troops remained in the West.

It was not easy for Minnesota to respond to the calls of the nation for recruits in the last years of the war. Some 2700 volunteers were sent to fill the ranks of the old regiments, but these were not enough. The draft enforced in May and September, 1864, was, as elsewhere, a farce: 14,274 names were listed; the exemptions left 2768 liable for service; 2497 failed to report, and two deserted. The remaining number of 269, increased by 282 substitutes, in all 551, were mustered into service. There remained the resource of raising additional regiments not likely to be exposed in deadly battle.