By promises of commissions to gentlemen who should recruit the companies, two strong regiments were raised: the Eleventh Infantry, 1000 strong, and the First Minnesota Heavy Artillery, 1760 officers and men. These commands were sent to Tennessee late in 1864, where they relieved veteran troops for active service.
By the month of September, 1865, all the Minnesota troops had been mustered out except one battery and three cavalry battalions engaged on the Indian frontier. The whole number of men furnished by Minnesota was 22,016. Only the people who lived through that war period can fully appreciate the sacrifices and privations undergone.
The two conflicts,—the Civil War and the Indian war,—occupying the minds of the people of Minnesota for four years, naturally overshadowed all other interests. The Democratic party long in control of her public affairs, depleted by the desertion of thousands of young men to the ranks of the more obtrusively patriotic Republican organization, was left so reduced in numbers as to be powerless in state and national politics. The reëlection of Governor Ramsey in the fall of 1861 was a foregone conclusion. If the Republicans were relieved from competition with a powerful opposition they found plenty of it between the factions which arose in their own camp. At the first, however, they were none too sure of carrying a sufficient number of election precincts and therefore felt justified in resorting to a procedure never anticipated by the framers of the state constitution. The legislature in the special session of September, 1862, by a statute duly approved, provided against the disfranchisement of those citizens who at the time of election should be absent in the military service. The plan adopted was that of sending commissioners to the camps to open polls and receive the ballots of soldiers who were, or claimed to be, qualified electors. These ballots they sealed up and transmitted by mail to the judges of election at the respective residences of the absentee voters. The scheme was carried out with the expected result of sufficient Republican majorities. William Windom was easily reëlected representative in the first congressional district, and Ignatius Donnelly, the lieutenant-governor, got his first election in the second. The state was not yet entitled to more than two representatives. Much greater interest, however, centred in the election of a legislature for 1863, which would have before it the choice of a United States senator to succeed Henry M. Rice, whose term was to expire. Governor Ramsey was the logical candidate, and he did not affect indifference to the promotion. The other principal aspirant was Cyrus Aldrich of Minneapolis, who had been representing the second district in Congress in a very acceptable manner. Mr. Aldrich’s legislative experience in Minnesota and another state warranted his friends in promoting his candidacy. These formed a body which in a later day would have been designated as “stalwart” Republicans; they were dissatisfied with the alleged inertia of Lincoln’s administration, and desired the liberation of the Southern slaves and the prosecution of the war with greater energy. Mr. Ramsey, by his nature conservative, stood by the administration.
The first trial of strength came off in the Republican legislative caucus held immediately after organization, early in January, 1863. The number of votes was forty-six, and twenty-four votes were necessary to the choice. On the first balloting Mr. Ramsey received but nineteen votes, and then twenty votes for nineteen successive ballotings. Fortunately “the field” was rigidly divided. On the twenty-fourth balloting, twenty-three votes were cast for Ramsey, and the caucus adjourned with little expectation of further changes. A final trial, however, gave twenty-six votes and assured the election of Governor Ramsey by the houses in joint convention on January 14.
Although his senatorial term began March 4, 1863, Governor Ramsey remained in office till July, when he retired to attend an extra session of the Senate. Lieutenant-Governor Donnelly had resigned at the close of the legislative session of 1863, and the state senate had elected as their president pro tempore, the Hon. Henry A. Swift of St. Peter. Under constitutional provision Mr. Swift became lieutenant-governor in room of Mr. Donnelly, and on July 10 (1863) governor, in the place of Mr. Ramsey. Governor Swift held the office for the remaining six months of Ramsey’s term, making no effort to succeed himself. Contemporaries speak of him as a man of singularly amiable character, preferring a quiet life among his neighbors to the excitements of the capital. He was succeeded in office by General Stephen Miller, a native of Pennsylvania, who came to the state in 1868 and made his home in St. Cloud. He had been an ardent supporter of Mr. Ramsey, who was not indifferent to his claims upon him. Upon the organization of the First Minnesota Infantry Mr. Miller received the appointment of lieutenant-colonel. He devoted himself with such fidelity to military studies and exercises that he soon became sufficiently expert, and at Bull Run, Fair Oaks, and other engagements proved beyond question his personal courage. Such was his modesty, however, that when the colonelcy of the First became vacant, a first, second, and even third time he preferred to have it filled by experienced regular officers. After the Seventh Regiment was formed Governor Ramsey was pleased to make him its colonel. When General Sibley in the late fall of 1862 left the front to assume command of his district he devolved immediate command on Colonel Miller. During the general’s absence in the campaign to the Missouri in 1863 Colonel Miller remained at St. Paul in command of the district. Nominated and elected as governor in the fall of that year and honored with the brevet rank of brigadier-general, Colonel Miller resigned to take up his civil duties. In the first year of his service he was chiefly employed in filling up the state’s quota in the armies of the Union; and he was so much grieved and disgusted with the behavior of those drafted men who did not report for duty that he seriously recommended that the constitution be so amended as to visit any such “base and cowardly conduct” in the future with disfranchisement and confiscation.
While the governorship of Minnesota has from the beginning been regarded as a most honorable position, the chief prize to be won in her political battles has been the United States senatorship. Around this the successive contests have been hot and fierce. One of these occurred in the winter of 1865. Senator Morton A. Wilkinson had cut no inconsiderable figure at the seat of government, and had so won the confidence of President Lincoln that he wrote an open letter recommending a reëlection. Mr. Wilkinson, however, had not retained to a sufficient degree the allegiance of Republican leaders at home. It was alleged that he had allowed his colleague, Senator Rice, to obtain an undue share of good things. Whether true or not, this was an unpardonable offense, and Mr. Wilkinson’s friends found themselves, after many ballotings in caucus, in a hopeless minority. In the field against him was Mr. Rice, and there is a tradition that the nomination might have fallen to him had he been willing to exchange the colors of War Democrat for those of Republican. He had been loyal and ardent in support of the Union cause.
As the result of repeated ballotings, and a combination difficult of analysis, the nomination fell to Daniel A. Norton of Winona, who had gained some distinction as a member of the state senate. When President Andrew Johnson went over to the opposition fold, Mr. Norton followed him. His career was necessarily obscure, and he died in office in 1870.
In spite of the absence of a large proportion of her men of working age and capacity in the armies; in spite of the Indian ravages of 1862 and the fears of others which happily did not come; in spite of the tardy extension of railroads, the war period was one of advance for Minnesota. Her population of 172,023 in 1860 arose, according to the state census of 1865, to 250,099, an increase of forty-five per cent. The accessions were greatest in the river counties, and next in those lying immediately beyond. High prices for farm produce in paper money enabled the farmers to wipe out their debts and improve their homes.
The homestead act of 1862 contributed not a little to the extension of settlements in the state. The original bill for that act, passed in 1860 after bitter opposition from Southern senators and representatives, had been vetoed by President Buchanan on the ground that the government had no power under the constitution to give away property of the people held by it in trust. Cyrus Aldrich, one of Minnesota’s members, introduced and actively supported the later bill, which became law on February 28, 1862, and took effect January 8, 1863. In the three years following, 9529 homestead entries were made in Minnesota, thirty-six per cent. of the whole number. There can be no question that the operation of the homestead act was beneficial so long as confined to arable lands. The use made of its provisions in later years to obtain possession of timber and mineral lands by processes morally, if not technically, criminal, depriving the nation and states of untold millions of value, gives room for regret that President Buchanan’s judgment had not governed his successor.