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CHAPTER XIV
HONORS OF WAR
The reader who desires to follow the marches and battles of the Minnesota regiments and battalions is advised to resort to the two large octavos published by the state in 1891. It would, however, be unjust to him and to Minnesota not to give some account, even in a compend of her history, of certain splendid passages in the careers of some of them favored above others in opportunity.
Marching with Gibbon’s Division of the Second (Hancock’s) Army Corps, the First Minnesota arrived on the field of Gettysburg early in the morning of July 2, 1863, and was placed in reserve near general headquarters. Company L (sharpshooters) was sent to support a battery and did not rejoin till after the battle. In the afternoon a staff officer came and led the command off to the south, along the well-known crest on which Sickles’s men had formed and from which they had made their ill-advised advance. On a salient of the ridge near the middle of Sickles’s original formation the regiment was placed in support of a regular battery. Company F was sent out to skirmish toward the left front, and Company C was absent on provost guard duty. Eight companies were in line, with two hundred and sixty-two officers and men. From their position they watched at leisure the vain struggles of Sickles’s brigades, exposed to enfilading fires. Near sundown the shattered battalions straggled to the rear, passing through the ranks of the Minnesota regiment. They were followed by Anderson’s division of A. P. Hill’s Confederate corps, moving with rapid pace to what seemed certain victory. Sickles was severely wounded and Hancock had command.
He had ordered reserve troops to man the undefended crest, but they did not arrive. The Confederate line was striding on, and in ten minutes would swarm over the ridge. It was not more than four hundred yards away when Hancock espied the little bunch of men in blue near the battery. Riding up to Colonel William Colville at his post near the centre, he asked, “What regiment is this?” “The First Minnesota,” was the reply. “Charge those lines,” ordered the corps commander, pointing to the rebel front. Without delay Colville put his line in motion, down the slope of an old pasture field at the bottom of which was a dried up ditch or “run.” It moved at the double-quick till near the foot of the slope, when Colville ordered, “Charge bayonets!” On a full run, the Minnesota men struck the Confederates as they were reforming on the hither side of the run. The shock halted them and the fire poured in gave them good reason for no further acquaintance with the men in blue. They sought cover behind an accommodating swell of land and retired from the field. Brigadier-General Wilcox of the Confederate army in his report says: “A line of infantry descended the slope in our front at double-quick. Without support my men were withdrawn to prevent their entire destruction or capture.”
Of the men who joined in that fatal but necessary charge but forty-seven answered to roll-call at retreat; two hundred and fifteen lay dead, dying, or wounded. A high authority declares this to be the heaviest loss known in the records of modern war. But that charge saved Cemetery Ridge, and in all probability the Gettysburg field.
“The Second Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Infantry occupied this position, Sunday, September 26, 1863, from 2:30 P. M. to 7:30 P. M.” Such is the inscription on the monument of bronze and granite erected at the state’s expense on the “Snodgrass ridge” in the National Park at Chickamauga, Tennessee. It marks the spot occupied by that regiment as part of the force with which Thomas, “The Rock of Chickamauga,” held at bay Longstreet’s elated divisions, while Rosecrans’s army, broken and shattered, was in disorderly retreat on Chattanooga. The Second lost 35 killed and 113 wounded out of a total for duty of 384; not a single man was missing.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XV
REVIVAL
It was to be expected that, upon the anticipated retirement of Governor Miller, General William R. Marshall, the most prominent among the founders of the Republican party in Minnesota, who had added a highly honorable military career to his civil record, would be called to succeed. And he was; but not without opposition from other gentlemen who had also distinguished themselves in both civil and military duties. It took twenty-two ballotings in the Republican convention to secure his nomination. At the polls he met that veteran of Democracy, the Hon. Henry M. Rice, whose popularity, especially among “old Territorians,” was so great as to reduce his majority to less than 3600 in a total of 31,000 votes. He took office in January, 1866, and so commended himself by a judicious practical administration that his reëlection in the fall of the following year was but formally contested. Mr. Rice closed his political career with the campaign of 1865, which he survived for a quarter of a century.
Marshall’s double term was a period of recovery and repair after the exhaustion of the wars; and it was something more. Neither the people severally nor the state were heavily burdened with debt, and there was work for all and good prices for produce. Railroad building was continued on a scale of a few more than one hundred miles a year. In 1867 the line now known as the Iowa and Minnesota Division of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, begun at both ends, was completed, and trains were put on from the Falls of St. Anthony to Prairie du Chien, whence rail connection eastward already existed. Minnesota was now in the great world all the year round. No important terminals were reached by additions to other lines, although seven hundred and sixty-six miles had been constructed by the close of the decade.
The development of the common schools of Minnesota was tardy. The act of 1851, providing for a state system, created the office of superintendent of public instruction, but attached only a nominal salary to it. Four persons were appointed in as many years, whose duties seem to have been confined to making formal annual reports. From 1856 to 1860 the office was virtually, if not technically, vacant. The legislature of 1860 devolved the duties upon the titular chancellor of the university, the Rev. Edward Duffield Neill, who held it till April 29, 1861, when he resigned to take the chaplaincy of the First Minnesota Infantry, leaving the office to a competitor for that position. In the legislative session of 1862 the school laws were revised and the secretary of state was made ex-officio state superintendent. This absurd arrangement continued for five years, against the advice of the two gentlemen who held the double office.
Governor Marshall informed the legislature of 1867 that the children of school age in the state were over a hundred thousand, and that the school fund had grown to nearly a million and a half. Upon his earnest recommendation the office of state superintendent was reëstablished, with a salary more than nominal, but inadequate. He appointed Mark H. Dunnell of Owatonna, a young lawyer who had been successful as a teacher in his native state of Maine.
Mr. Dunnell threw himself into his duties with great enthusiasm and industry. He gathered the teachers into “institutes” for pedagogical instruction and raised the standard of qualification for certificates. A state teachers’ association was organized to stimulate pride in the teaching profession and provide for interchange of ideas and experiences. It is notable that Mr. Dunnell as late as 1869 thought it necessary to argue in behalf of a public school system free from religious dogma or discipline. The organization of high schools in the leading towns had already discouraged the proprietors of numerous denominational academies and seminaries desirous of holding the secondary field.
In 1858 a bill had been worked through the first state legislature to establish three normal schools, one at Winona as soon as practicable after passage, the others at times to be later determined. This bill was fathered by Dr. John W. Ford of Winona, an enthusiast in the cause of professional education for teachers. So little was known in the longitude of Minnesota of what a “normal school” might be, that it is not strange that the friends of the bill got more credit in the newspapers and among the people for securing a state institution for each of three towns than for zeal in the cause of education. Six years passed before a beginning was made in the first state normal school at Winona, under the charge of William F. Phelps, an Oswego graduate. No man less confident of the righteousness of his cause, nor less willing to fight a bitter opposition, could have built up a school for teachers which has served as model for many others in Minnesota and other states. The second state normal school was opened in Mankato in 1868; the third in St. Cloud in the next year.
The “wing and extension” of the great building planned for the territorial regents of the university in 1856, and built in that year and the next, stood empty for ten years, except that at different times private teachers were allowed to hold their classes in some of the rooms. The legislature of 1858 authorized the regents to borrow $40,000 and issue ten per cent. bonds in evidence of debt. These securities were negotiated in New York after great effort and at a ruinous discount. The claim was later made that they could not have been disposed of at all had they not been improperly represented to be virtually bonds of the state. The proceeds released the regents from obligations which they had personally assumed and satisfied a portion of the creditors.
The Republican legislature of 1860 thought it time to oust the “old Democratic board” and install a new administration. The new “state board,” consisting of three members ex-officiis and five appointed, had nothing to report to the next session but a debt of $93,500, including $8000 of overdue interest. Their recommendation was that the land grant be turned over to the creditors, the campus and building being retained. An act of Congress of March 2, 1861, donating to the state the university lands “reserved” for the territorial university, rendered such action feasible.
Governor Ramsey could make no other suggestion to the legislature of 1862, and that body conferred the desired authority. In 1862 wild lands were a drug in the market. “Pine” would not go at four dollars an acre. The regents reported to the legislature of 1863 that the creditors were not disposed to accept “equitable terms.” That legislature did not formally dissolve the corporation, but ordered the regents to turn over to the state auditor, as state land commissioner, all the lands, buildings, and appurtenances. This was accordingly done, and the University of Minnesota existed only in supposition.
After the midsummer of 1863 matters were looking up in Minnesota. The victories of Vicksburg and Gettysburg gave hope of an early return of peace. Money was plentiful and prices were rising. Notwithstanding the homestead law, there was a market for well-situated public land. John S. Pillsbury of St. Anthony had been appointed to a vacancy in the board of regents in November of that year, and immediately applied his remarkable business talent to the university affairs. His conclusions were embodied in a bill introduced into the state senate of 1864, of which he was a member. Enacted into law March 4, the bill created a special board of three regents: John S. Pillsbury, Orlando C. Merriman, a lawyer of St. Anthony, and John Nicols, a merchant of St. Paul, also a state senator. This board was authorized to sell land to the amount of twelve thousand acres and use the proceeds in “extricating” the institution. Taking advantage of a time of general liquidation and scaling down, they bought in claims of many creditors at thirty-three per cent. of their face. The bondholders, satisfied at length that they had no recourse upon the state, moderated their demands and consented to “equitable terms” of adjustment. In this way a “great state” redeemed the bonds it had authorized by law, and canceled a body of debts pronounced by the regents of 1860 to be “honestly due.”
It took two years to accomplish this “extrication,” so that the legislature of 1867 was ready to make a small appropriation to renovate the building and open “a grammar and normal department.” It was not until October 7 of that year that the doors were opened, and thirty-one boys and girls were enrolled in the first term. The school being of academy grade, no objection was made to the admission of girls, but there was no intention to settle then the question of coeducation in the university. It was, however, thus settled.
The special board, having accomplished its purposes to the satisfaction of all concerned, recommended to the legislature of 1868 the transfer of control to a permanent board of regents. The act of February 18, 1868, passed in pursuance of this counsel, is the charter of the university, and has not been materially modified. The new board appointed by the governor with the consent of the senate properly contained the names of Pillsbury, Nicols, and Merriman. At the close of the school year of 1869 the regents resolved to open the “College of Science, Literature, and the Arts,” as the statute ambitiously named the academic department. Although there were but fourteen provisional freshmen and a hundred and fifty preparatory students, a president, eight professors, and one instructor were elected. The faculty thus constituted organized in September, and took up the work before them, mostly that of a fitting school.
The title of the charter of February 18, 1868, contained the clause, “and to establish an agricultural college therein.” The original act of 1851 creating the university named as one of its five departments that of agriculture, but on March 10, 1858, a separate “state agricultural college” was established and located at Glencoe in McLeod County. Minnesota’s share of the so-called Morrill land grant of 1862 for the benefit of colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts was 120,000 acres. By an act approved March 2, 1865, the proceeds of this grant were applied and appropriated to the said agricultural college of Minnesota. What influences or interests prevailed to induce the people of McLeod County to consent to the merger of their institution with the university are not well known, but the legislature of 1868 decided on that policy, and inviolably appropriated the income of the Morrill land grant to the united institutions. The friends of the university were, of course, gratified over the return to the scheme of the original creative act of 1851 and the concentration of the state’s resources for the higher education. Governor Marshall had the satisfaction of seeing the University of Minnesota, in which he had been deeply interested from its statutory creation, at length fairly launched on a career of promise which he lived to see fulfilled. He had also the gratification of seeing the color line removed from the state constitution by the adoption, at the election of 1868, of an amendment expunging the word “white” out of the article on the elective franchise. A much needed revision of the laws of the state went into effect about the same time.
