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The Second Minnesota in the West

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The Second Minnesota in the West MR. CARLEY, a Minneapolis newspaperman, is a member of the Twin Cities Civil War Roundtable and the autlwr of a brief history of Minnesota in the Civil War, published in 1961. The SECOND MINNESOTA in the WEST KENNETH CARLEY SO GREAT is the reputation of the Fffst were mustered in on the same day, June Minnesota Regiment that people who have 26, and there was quite a bit of jockeying not studied the role of the state's troops for position before Ramsey agreed that the in the Civil War tend to assume that all Chatfield company should be designated the really heroic battles were fought by "A" and the Rochester group "B." ^ that gallant band. It is unfortunate that The energetic Bishop, who was eventual­ the truly brilliant record of this regiment ly to command the Second Minnesota and has tended to obscure the deeds of other become its chief historian, was a former worthy Minnesota units. Notable among railroad man turned newspaper editor. At those deserving greater fame, in this writer's the time of his enlistment, he was working opinion, is the Second Minnesota, which on the Chatfield Democrat. Markham, a served a four-year hitch in the Western hard fighter who suffered a leg wound at theater of the Civil War and came to be Mill Springs, was later dismissed from the rated among the better units in that arena. service and then reinstated.^ Its reputation rests largely on its steadiness Appointed colonel of the regiment was in three battles — at Mill Springs, Ken­ fifty-one-year-old Horatio P. Van Cleve, a tucky; Chickamauga, Georgia; and Mission­ patriarchal West Pointer who lived at Long ary Ridge near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Prairie. A kindly, unostentatious man, he This article attempts to describe the Sec­ proved a good fighter. The lieutenant ond's part in those battles, placing special colonel was James George of Wasioja, a emphasis on the lesser-known encounter at storytelling veteran of the Mexican War. Mill Springs. Simeon Smith was chosen major, but he The Second Regiment was mustered in June, 1861, after Governor Alexander Ram­ ' See Wilfiam W. Folwell, A History of Minne­ sey received a second call for troops. Its sota, 2:88-91 (St. Paul, 1961); Alexander Ramsey to Bishop, May 2, 1861, as well as a series of letters nucleus was composed of "overflow" com­ exchanged by Ramsey, Bishop, and Horatio P. Van panies raised for service with the First. Cleve between August 1 and 31, 1861, all in the Both Company A (Captain Judson W. Bishop Papers in the Minnesota Historical Soci­ ety. Bishop letters mentioned below are also in this Bishop) from Chatfield and Company B collection. (Captain William Markham) from Roches­ ^A sketch of Bishop's career may be found in ter, for example, were originally intended the St. Paul Pioneer Press, March 20, 21, 1917; on Markham, see Rochester Post-Bulletin, October 26, for the First Regiment. These two units 1961. 258 MINNESOTA History AN artist's view of the Second Minnesota storming Missionary Ridge was soon replaced by short, combative of the First, too, most of the men of the Alexander Wilkin, a Mexican War veteran Second began their duty at frontier forts.^ who had fought wth the Fffst Minnesota The entffe regiment assembled for the at BuU Run.3 first time early in October, 1861, when the The other eight companies of the Second six companies garrisoning Forts Abercrom­ were composed of soldiers from Dodge, bie, Ripley, and Ridgely joined the other Ramsey, NicoUet, Washington (mostly four at Fort Snelling. Sporting new blue lumbermen). Brown, Blue Earth, and unfforms instead of the makeshfft, black Goodhue counties. Thus the Second, hke and red outfits issued to the Fffst Minne­ the Fffst Minnesota, represented a sizable sota, some one thousand men of the Second cross section of the state. Like the members left Fort SneUffig by steamboat on the morning of October 14 "under orders for ' Warren Upham and Rose B. Dunlap, Minnesota Washington, D.C."^ BiograpJiies, 251, 804 {Minnesota Historical Col­ As far as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, they lections, vol. 14); T. M. Newson, Pen Pictures of traveled much the same water-and-rail St. Paul, 176 (St. Paul, 1886). * The material in this and succeeding paragraphs, "glory road" the Fffst Minnesota had taken as weU as information on the Second not otherwise four months earher. This included a march documented specificaUy in this article, is dravsoi through St. Paul to the cheers of specta­ from the two principal accounts of the regiment prepared by Bishop: Story of a Regiment, Being a tors, a Mississippi River "excursion" with Narrative of tlie Service of the Second Regiment (St. enthusiastic welcomes at towns en route, Paul, 1890); and "Narrative of the Second Regi­ and a raihoad ride from La Crosse, \Ms- ment," in Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars, 1:79-122 (St. Paul, 1892). consin, to Chicago. There the Second "en­ ° See John W. Harris, "Uniforming the First Min­ camped" in the \ast ^^"igwam, the large nesota," in Gopher Historian, 17:14 (Spring, 1963); temporary building in which .\brahani Lin­ WiUiam Biicher, A Drummer-Boy's Diary, 11 (St. coln had been nominated for the presidenc\- Paul, 1889). The quotation is from Bishop, Story of a Regiment, 26. in 1860. June 1963 259 From Chicago the men of the Second open flatcars in a cold rainstorm, the regi­ went by train to Pittsburgh, where they ment arrived at 4:00 A.M. and set up camp. arrived on October 18. They were escorted The men remained at Lebanon Junction to a hall in which were long tables "loaded for several weeks, guarding raihoad down wdth eatables of every description, bridges, doing picket duty, and drilling. and . waited on by the most beautiful The campground was damp and unhealth- and patriotic young ladies of the city."^ ful, and the sick list got rather long.'' Spffits thus buoyed up were soon dashed Meanwhile, a reorganization of the Un­ when the Minnesotans learned that their ion army was taking place that was to give destination had been changed from the na­ the regiment new leaders. On November tion's capital to Kentucky. This meant that 15, General Don Carlos Ruell, a methodical the Second would not become part of the soldier, replaced Sherman and organized Army of the Potomac after all and would the troops in Kentucky into the Army of not fight alongside the First Minnnesota, as the Ohio. Early in December, General some of the men may have hoped. What­ George H. Thomas, a stolid Virginian who ever name the regiment made for itself had cast his lot with the Union, assumed would have to be won in the West. command of the First Division of Buell's army. With two Ohio regiments — the WHILE the Second Minnesota was moving Ninth and the Thirty-fifth — the Second eastward. General William T. Sherman, Minnesota became the Third Brigade of then commander of the Department of the this division. The Minnesota men were Cumberland at Louisville, was howling for to enjoy a long and pleasant association two hundred thousand men to hold Ken­ with these Ohio troops. The soldiers of the tucky against what he thought was a seri­ Ninth Ohio were known as "the bully ous Confederate threat to drive through Dutchmen" because they were almost en­ to the Ohio River. Sherman, who was not tirely Germans from Cincinnati, few of yet the able leader he would later become whom could speak English. The Ninth's under General Ulysses S. Grant, apparent­ colonel, Robert L. McCook, became the ly was hoodwinked by the bold maneuvers Third Brigade's commander. of General Albert Sidney Johnston, head of On December 8, 1861, the Second was the Confederate's Western Department. relieved at Lebanon Junction by the Third Actually, Johnston had an undermanned Minnesota Regiment. "We were as much defense line from Columbus, Kentucky, on rejoiced when we broke camp as when we the Mississippi all the way east to the Mill left Abercrombie, for we were heartily sick Springs area, where Confederate General of the place, and the business of guarding Felix K. Zollicoffer held a position in front Bridges," one of the Second's soldiers wrote of the Cumberland Gap. in a letter that appeared in the Roclrester Although Sherman's demands for large City Post of December 28, 1861. reinforcements gave rise to charges that he was mentally deranged and should be re­ THE SECOND moved by rail thirty-seven placed (he soon was), some troops—^in­ miles to Lebanon, Kentucky, where General cluding the Second Minnesota—^were sent Thomas had his headquarters. This was to him. The Minnesota regiment enjoyed the beginning of the regiment's three-year "a delightful voyage down the Ohio River" service under "Pap" Thomas, who would be and landed at Louisville on October 22. in turn its division, corps, and army com­ Sherman ordered Colonel Van Cleve to mander. The Second came to admire the proceed to Lebanon Junction some thffty deliberate, hard-hitting Thomas both as a miles south on the Louisville and Nashville ° Bircher, Diary, 13. Railroad. After a disheartening journey on ' Bishop, in Civil and Indian Wars, 1:80. 260 MINNESOTA History WESTERN Kentucky and Tennessee, showing strategic railroads (hatched lines) man and as a soldier. By doing its job well, Somerset, Kentucky, some fifteen miles the regiment helped to further Thomas' northeast of Beech Grove and was com­ illustrious career. manded by Brigadier General Albin F. Because Buell was under pressure from Schoepf. Washington to invade eastern Tennessee, Thomas' marchers had little difficulty as where much Union sentiment existed, he long as they stayed on the improved road rather lukewarmly agreed late in December to Columbia, Kentucky, but when they that Thomas could advance in that direc­ turned eastward toward Somerset on a tion.
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