Never Forget

Back in the late 80's I rode my bike through the Amish Country.  A beautiful experience, and an opportunity to connect with the landscape and people more closely than one could through, say, the window of a tour bus.

Riding a bike on those roads is about as close as one can come to the experience of riding a horse on them, and the pacing is not far off either.  As I rode west, the country became more rural and I had the sense that I was going back in time.  I can still remember the warm wind and the sound of the birds, and the occasional clatter of hooves as a carriage went by.

The sense of regression became even more palpable as I came across the Wrightsville Bridge, destroyed during the Gettysburg campaign to halt the rebel advance:




I'd meant this to be a bucolic vacation, and it hadn't really registered that I was on the road to Gettysburg. After twenty more miles (and a flat tire), I was standing on the battlefield.

I hadn't known about all the monuments. The field is covered with them, marking for all time the place where soldier fell, a company fought a heroic delaying action, or a regiment was swallowed up in the fog of war.

I paused at a particularly striking one, that of the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry:



I'd never heard their story, but it's there on the plaque:

On the afternoon of July 2, 1863 Sickles' Third Corps, having advanced from this line to the Emmitsburg Road, eight companies of the First Minnesota Regiment, numbering 262 men were sent to this place to support a battery upon Sickles repulse.

As his men were passing here in confused retreat, two Confederate brigades in pursuit were crossing the swale. To gain time to bring up the reserves & save this position, Gen Hancock in person ordered the eight companies to charge the rapidly advancing enemy.

The order was instantly repeated by Col Wm Colvill. And the charge as instantly made down the slope at full speed through the concentrated fire of the two brigades breaking with the bayonet the enemy's front line as it was crossing the small brook in the low ground there the remnant of the eight companies, nearly surrounded by the enemy held its entire force at bay for a considerable time & till it retired on the approach of the reserve the charge successfully accomplished its object. It saved this position & probably the battlefield. The loss of the eight companies in the charge was 215 killed & wounded. More than 83% percent. 47 men were still in line & no man missing. In self sacrificing desperate valor this charge has no parallel in any war. Among the severely wounded were Col Wm Colvill, Lt Col Chas P Adams & Maj Mark W. Downie. Among the killed Capt Joseph Periam, Capt Louis Muller & Lt Waldo Farrar. The next day the regiment participated in repelling Pickett's charge losing 17 more men killed & wounded

That's the Civil War for you. Those men bought the Union eight minutes so that Hancock could fill the gap in the line created by Sickles' incompetence. That was the full measure of their lives. It was what their mothers had (unknown to them) been raising them up for.

Lincoln spoke fine words on this field later on, but for these men to be asked to do this - to charge a superior foe with virtually no chance of survival - and for them to do it and trade their lives for that fleeting tactical objective...there really are no words that can redeem the loss or settle the account. Lincoln acknowledged as much in his speech.

Governor McConnell's proclamation suggests we specially "understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War."  After all, it's their month.  Well, I think the men of the First Minnesota deserve a moment of our time as well.  And I wonder if, 147 years on, they might not gently suggest to us that it was time to move on.

After you, Governor McConnell.