A new round of cannon and artillery fire around Culp's Hill awoke Wright three hours later, the morning of July 3. Told by his captain that the news from Plum Run was as bad as the initial reports had indicated, Wright was ordered to get the company ready to move out in several minutes. What Wright was hearing that morning was a massive barrage of artillery fire that the Union forces hoped would drive the Confederates off the hill, but it failed to penetrate the entrenchments that protected them. For several hours the fight over the Culp’s Hill continued before it was finally retaken by Union forces for the last time at eight that morning. When Wright’s company came upon their regiment, “We had not been separated far or long, but the greetings were as sincere and earnest as if oceans had divided us and years had elapsed.” With so many senior officers killed or wounded the previous day, Nathan Messick, only a company captain, took over what remained of the regiment. A little while later, the First Minnesota was ordered to take up another position along Cemetery Ridge, but unlike the day before when they had been on the far left flank of the army, today it would be in the center along a stone wall about two feet high. Wright explained “Under ordinary circumstances, an organization that had suffered one-half the loss that we had would have been sent to the rear instead of the firing line. But this was not an ordinary occasion. It was believed that every available man and gun would be needed for the defense of the ridge if another assault were made.”
In the Confederate camp that morning, Lee was frustrated but still confident. He had hoped that his men on Culp's Hill would have been able to hold on or even find an opening in the Union line on which to attack. This no longer feasible, he turned his attention to planning his final assault on the Union lines. He ordered one hundred and sixty cannon brought up; they were to fire on the center of the Union line. Lee hoped that this overwhelming show of firepower would drive the Union guns from Cemetery Ridge. This done, he would have General George Pickett's newly arrived division of 12,000 men, move out over a mile of open ground and assault the center. Despite the fact that the previous day his men had taken none of their planned objectives, Lee still believed that Meade would have most of his men positioned on the left and right flank, making the center more vulnerable. Lee instructed Pickett to have his men aim for a small stone wall and copse of trees on Cemetery Ridge.
Early that same morning, Henry Taylor, with the help from another soldier, found his brother Isaac near Plum Run and buried him. On a wooden slab that was placed over the grave, he wrote, “No useless coffin closed his breast, nor in sheet nor in shroud we bound him, but he lay like a warrior taking his rest, with a shelter tent around him.” Around one o’clock, the First Minnesota was at the far left end of the stone wall and the men were taking the opportunity to drink coffee and eat hardtack. Others worked on strengthening the small wall and getting more ammunition. Several companies of the regiment, which had been previously held in reserve, were also brought up to this point on the line, increasing the strength of the regiment to 150 men. While there had been a brief artillery duel earlier when the regiment had moved into position, the day had been relatively quiet. Plummer sat with several other men reading a newspaper account of the fight the day before. Close to the trees, Mead, Hancock and Gibbon sat down to eat and discuss the plan for the day. According to William Harmon who was in another company of the First Minnesota standing nearby, Meade said he had seen Lee’s buildup of artillery on the center and expected an attack to begin at any moment. Meade explained that Lee would throw every man he had at the center and that the fighting would be “so desperate that every available man must be used.” Gibbon ordered Harmon to tell his company to move into line. At that moment, two cannon shots ripped through the air and landed nearby. It was a signal for all of Lee’s guns to open fire.
Plummer and the men around him threw down the newspaper and “hugged the ground just about as close as human beings are generally in the habit of doing.” He continued, “The air seemed to be filled with the hissing, screaming, bursting missiles, and all of them seemed to be directed at us.” An anonymous officer of the regiment recalled the artillery fire “was tearing up the ground and flying with horrid screeches, as if invisible demons, through the air, dismounting cannon, shattering limbers, mangling thousands of horses and men.” Wright echoed this scene, writing, “There was an incessant, discordant flight of shells – seemingly in and from all directions – howling, shrieking, striking, exploding, tearing, smashing, and destroying – producing a scene that words cannot present and was well nigh unbearable.” For two hours Lee bombarded the federal line. Fortunately for the Minnesotans, the Confederate shells sailed harmlessly over their heads. The shelling seemed to Lee to have the desired effect, as many of the Union cannon on Cemetery Ridge were destroyed and many others fell silent. What he didn't know was that Meade, in an attempt preserve his ammunition, had ordered all firing from Union side to halt. With the center of the line sufficiently softened up, Lee ordered Pickett to send his men forward.
With that, Pickett’s division emerged from behind some woods and formed two lines a mile wide. They marched forward, moving past Lee’s guns and into the rolling “no man’s land” that sloped up to Cemetery Ridge. At that moment, Union guns opened fire. Artillery observers on Little Round Top began seeing the shells punch into Pickett’s division, creating several holes in the line. Wright wrote, “It was a magnificent spectacle. A rising tide of armed men rolling towards us in steel-crested billows. It was an immensely interesting site especially to us who must face it, breast it, break it, or be broken by it.” The closer they came, the more artillery fired on them, on the extreme right and left flank of Pickett’s men, the casualties became so devastating that eventually the regiments anchoring these positions decided to retreat. Those who continued soon crossed the Emmitsburg Road about six hundred yards from the Union line, where, all at once, men hiding behind the wall stood in one massive line and fired into them. Seeing this, Hancock ordered another regiment on the far left to move forward, then was hit himself. His order allowed the regiment to fire directly into the side of the Confederate line. Wright remembered that as the Confederates approached, the First Minnesota “sent a rolling fire to the right oblique, directed at their feet, which was about all we could see of them at that time.” He continued, “Then, every man fired as rapidly as he could handle cartridges and adjust caps [on their rifles].” Minnesotan Alfred Carpenter wrote, “Men stagger[ed] from their ranks by the scores, hundreds, thousands, but on they came like an enrolling wave of the sea.” He continued, “Men fell about us unheeded, unnoticed; we scarcely knew they were fallen, so great was the intensity of attention to the approaching foe. Our muskets became so heated we could no longer handle them. We dropped them and picked up those of wounded. Our cartridges give out. We rifled the boxes of the dead.” By now what remained of Pickett’s men were nearly at the wall itself. Led by General Lewis Armistead, the Confederates poured over the wall and charged into the Union line. The Minnesotans ran to the right to meet the oncoming Confederates. Wright remembered, “It was a grand rush to get there in the quickest time, without much regard to the manner of it – and we knew very well what we were there for and proceeded to business.” At that moment captain Messick, who had commanded the regiment for less than twenty hours, was stuck and killed by shell fragment. Seconds later the last flag bearer who held the regimental banner fell to ground, Henry O’Brian grabbed it and raced heedlessly toward the oncoming enemy, with the regiment following close behind. Suddenly, he was hit in the head, but appeared not to notice and kept coming. Then a bullet ripped into O’Brian’s hand and shattered the flag staff. O’Brian fell, but the flag was quickly recovered again. Within moments the First Minnesota slammed into the side of the Confederates. Harmon later remembered, “If men ever become devils, that was one of the times. We were crazy with the excitement of the fight. We just rushed like wild beasts.” Wright wrote, “Closing in on them with a rush and a cheer, there was shooting, stabbing, and clubbing.” The lack of the commander made no difference to anyone at this point as the world, for each man, narrowed to just killing the man in front of him. In the mist of this, Minnesotan Marshall Sherman saw a Confederate officer on the other side of the wall carrying a flag and trying to inspire his men. The officer walked to within feet of Sherman, but because of the smoke and noise did not see him. Sherman brought his bayonet down to the man’s chest. Seeing only this, the officer dropped the flag, which was quickly recovered by Sherman. In several minutes it was all over, Wright remembered, “As soon as the smoke lifted sufficiently to permit us to see, all that could be seen of the mighty force that had been driven so ferociously against us was scattered and running to the rear.” Armistead lay dying, and those left of the Confederates who had passed over the wall surrendered. Later it was found that the First Minnesota captured 500 prisoners that day. As they watched the Confederates limp back to Lee’s lines, a wave of exhaustion came over the men: “For about 65 hours we had been under almost constant physical or mental strain – or both – and had pretty nearly reached the limit of both,” Wright wrote. Upon examination, he found blood coming from his shoulder and neck, apparently the result of a rifle that exploded nearby, but he decided it was not serious enough to report. The regiment was called together a little while later, and it was found that another 23 men had been killed another 32 had been wounded.
Dawn broke on the morning of July 4 with both armies still in the positions they had held the day before. Each of the commanding generals expected the other to attack but Lee’s men were too exhausted, and Meade was content to stay were he was. Thousands of miles away in Washington D.C., Abraham Lincoln had been nearly living in the War Department telegraph office reading every message that came from Meade for the last three days. Meade had told Lincoln about driving Lee back on July 2, but information on the outcome had remained sketchy. Finally, that morning Meade wrote the President that Lee had been defeated with severe losses. An exuberant Lincoln sent news of the victory all across the county. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin later wrote that the announcement set off spontaneous celebration all across the North.
On the same day in Vicksburg, Mississippi, General Pemberton decided he had had enough, and came out under a flag of truce and asked Grant if he would pardon all Confederate officers if he surrendered the city. Grant, who become famous for only allowing unconditional surrenders, refused. Finally, Grant’s fellow officers convinced him to accept the offer. At 10 o’clock that morning, white flags began appearing along the Confederate line in the city that did not celebrate Independence Day again until 1945. News of the fall of Vicksburg reached the War Department several hours later. Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, never an emotional man burst into Lincoln’s office and according to one man present “Executed a double shuffle and threw up his hat by way of showing that he was the bearer of glad tiding.” When he told Lincoln the news, the President hugged him and said “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.”
The Battle of Gettysburg by no means ended the war, but a critical point had been passed. While Lee was still beloved by many in the South, he never again enjoyed the sense of invincibility he had going into Pennsylvania. On July 5, his army began marching back to Virginia. Meade, like Hooker before him, failed to pursue. In three days of fighting, 55,000 men had been killed or wounded and the town had sustained massive damage.
On November 25, five days after Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address to commemorate the new Gettysburg Cemetery, Grant smashed a Confederate army at Chattanooga Tennessee, where an eighteen year old Arthur MacArthur, father of Douglas MacArthur, earned the Medal of Honor leading his men up Missionary Ridge. The victory convinced Lincoln to bring Grant to Washington where he offered him command of all armies in the field. The victory also left the lower South wide open to invasion and set the stage for William Tecumseh Sherman’s march to sea. Unlike his predecessors, Grant had no problem following Lee deep into Virginia and fought it out with him in a series of bloody battles to grind down Lee’s army. Finally, in April 1865, his army all but gone, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House Virginia.
For the men of the First Minnesota, Gettysburg proved to be the regiment’s high water mark. After the battle, Hancock, who survived his wound, defended his decision to order the charge on July 2, saying, “I knew they must lose heavily and it caused me pain to give the order, but I would have done it if I had known every man would be killed. It was a sacrifice that must be made.” Of the men who made the charge. he said, “The superb gallantry of those men saved our line from being broken. No soldiers on any field, in this or any other country, ever displayed grander heroism.” He added, “There is no more gallant a deed recorded in history.” It has been calculated that in the three days of fighting of the 330 men involved, 80 men of the regiment were killed and another 149 wounded, a 70% casualty rate for the regiment – higher than any other unit involved in the battle. In August, the First Minnesota was on the move again, heading up to New York to make sure the riots that had broken out when Lincoln originally instituted the draft did not happen again when the draft was restarted. In October, the First Minnesota was at the Battle of Bristoe Station in Virginia, and in the one day of battle the regiment captured 322 Confederates and mercifully lost only one man. It was the last battle the Minnesotans fought. In February, 1864, the three year enlistment agreements the men had signed began to expire and the regiment was given orders to march to Washington D.C., where a huge banquet was thrown in their honor. Colonel Colvill, still unable to walk, once again surprised his men when he had himself carried in to greet them. Finally, on February 15, the regiment reached St. Paul Minnesota, and the war for them was over.
On July 2, 1897, 165 members of the regiment traveled to Gettysburg to dedicate a massive bronze statue to the regiment on Cemetery Ridge. It showed a union solider running toward Plum Run bent low, a rifle in one hand, a look of determination on his face. An engraving on the base of the statue showed the Minnesotans down at Plum Run. Today it is one of the most recognizable statues at Gettysburg, and stands prominently next to the Pennsylvania Monument. An obelisk was also placed at the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge showing where the men of the First Minnesota were on July 3.
In many Civil War circles the First Minnesota regiment has reached legendary status. While the regiment is well deserving of all of the accolades with which it has been honored, in his memoir Wright echoed a feeling of veterans down through the ages when he wrote, “None of us wanted our names in the casualty list; we all wanted to go home with a full complement of legs and arms; but we were there to meet the requirements of the occupation, were ready to do it, whatever it might cost.”
Epilogue
William Colvill, after the banquet in Washington D.C., stayed with regiment and was mustered out with everyone else. He returned to his hometown of Red Wing, Minnesota. Eventually his wound healed enough to allow him to walk with a cane. He entered politics as a Republican and served in the state house. However, he fell out of favor when he announced a year after his election that he would become a Democrat. For the remainder of his life, he was known as somewhat of a sage for his many areas of knowledge, but he refused to talk about the war. He remained close to many men of his old regiment and was a regular at reunions and ceremonies. He died in a veteran’s home in June 1905 preparing for one of these events. Four year later a bronze statue of him in full uniform and grasping the handle of his sword was placed in the new state capital building, and still stands there today.
Henry Taylor survived Gettysburg, but could not bring himself to write his parents for three more days. Mustered out in February, 1864, he briefly returned home to Wisconsin before reenlisting again .Taylor saw no action for the remainder of the war and came home for the last time in October, 1865. For the next several years he taught school before going into an insurance business in 1875. He passed away in December 1907.
John Plummer was elected clerk of Hennepin County shortly after he left the army, but died several months later.
William Lochren, like Colvill, became interested in politics and served in the state house, but failed to attain a higher office and years later served as Federal district judge. While his political career may have been mediocre, his writings on the First Minnesota remain a must-use source for any Civil War historian.
Alfred Carpenter stayed on in the army after the regiment was dismantled. In 1864, while commanding troops in Key West Florida he developed yellow fever and died.
Henry O’Brian and Marshall Sherman were both given Medals of Honor for their actions on July 3. Both reenlisted. In fighting around Petersburg Virginia, Sherman lost a leg and O’Brian was badly wounded in the chest then rescued by another soldier who would earn the Medal of Honor for this action. After the war, O’Brian became a postmaster general and later a government pension agent. Sherman, went on to sell insurance in St. Paul and own a boarding house. The flag he captured is housed in the Minnesota Historical Society.
James Wright reenlisted in time to participate in the fighting around Petersburg and was on hand to witness the surrender at Appomattox. Upon his return home, he worked in a tannery shop and railroad business and remained active in political and veterans affairs. Wright helped organize several regimental reunions in the 1870s and moved to Massachusetts. In 1911, he completed his memoirs but was unable to find a publisher and finally donated the writings to the Minnesota Historical Society. He died at the age of 95 in 1936; it is believed that he was the last surviving member of the regiment. Today his book is one of the most detailed and often quoted sources on the regiment.
Source Notes: Below are books on the First Minnesota that I found very helpful in writing this paper.
No More Gallant a Deed: A Civil War Memoir of the First Minnesota by James A. Wright and edited by Steven J. Keillor
The Last Full Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers by Richard Moe
Pale Horse at Plum Run: The First Minnesota at Gettysburg by Brian Leehan
Here are some books I used for general information on the Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg by Stephen Sears
They Met at Gettysburg by Edward J. Stackpole
Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage by Noah Andre Trudeau
The Civil War A Narrative Vol. II: Fredericksburg to Meridian by Shelby Foote
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