Pale Horse At Plum Run: The First Minnesota at Gettysburg

Notes

198 n o t e s notes to the preface 1. Research Librarian Vickie Wendel of the Anoka County (Minnesota) Historical Society has done some fascinating research that indicates another man might deserve the honor of being first to volunteer . Documents, diaries, and newspaper stories led to Aaron Greenwald, a 28year -old miller from Anoka.When Governor Ramsey telegraphed Adjutant GeneralWilliam Acker back in St. Paul, he also telegraphed Willis A. Gorman, an attorney and a former territorial governor of Minnesota, former congressman from Indiana, and a MexicanWar veteran. Gorman was in district court in Anoka at the time. Since there was no telegraph connection between Anoka and St. Paul, a mounted courier rode to Anoka and delivered the telegraph message from Governor Ramsey. Gorman asked to have the court session recessed, promptly delivered an impromptu speech to a group of assembled citizens, and began signing up volunteers. Greenwald was the first to sign an offer to enlist, shortly after 10:00 a.m. on Monday, April 15, 1861. Gorman went on to become the First Minnesota’s first colonel and later a brigadier general, and Greenwald fell at Gettysburg, mortally wounded while fighting to repulse Pickett’s Charge on July 3, 1863. He died on either July 5 or July 7, 1863. 2. See Appendix 4 for an assessment of the casualty rate and a list of dead and wounded. notes to chapter 1 1. Diary, Sept. 20, 1862, Samuel Bloomer Papers, 1835–1917, Minnesota Historical Society (hereafter MHS). 2. Stephen W. Sears, Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam (New York:Warner Books, 1983), 130. 3. Sears, Landscape Turned Red, 359. 4. Bruce Catton, Mr. Lincoln’s Army (NewYork: Doubleday, 1951), 327. 5. Ernest B. Ferguson, Chancellorsville 1863: The Souls of the Brave (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 11. 6. Bruce Catton, Glory Road (New York: Doubleday, 1952), 34. 7. Shelby Foote, The CivilWar, A Narrative : Fredericksburg to Meridian (New York:Vintage Books, 1986), 25. 8. John Quinn Imholte, The First Volunteers :History of the First MinnesotaVolunteer Regiment, 1861–1865 (Minneapolis: Ross and Haines, 1963), 110. 9. Thomas H. Pressnell, “Incidents in the Civil War,” unpublished typescript, Twelfth Paper, p. 10, MHS. 10. Daniel Bond, Reminiscences, p. 72, unpublished manuscript (microfilm), MHS. 11. Catton, Glory Road, 93. 0-8735-1-text 2/27/04 1:33 PM Page 198 PUB007 Macintosh HD:Desktop Folder: Notes to pages 8–22 199 12. Charles Goddard letters, Orrin Fruit Smith Family Papers, 1829–1932, MHS. 13. Bond, Reminiscences, p. 74–75. 14. Bond, Reminiscences, p. 75. 15. Catton, Glory Road, 88. 16. [Isaac Lyman Taylor], “Campaigning with the First Minnesota: A Civil War Diary,” ed. Hazel C. Wolf, Minnesota History 25 (Sept. 1944): 244. 17. Ferguson, Chancellorsville 1863, 18, 19. 18. Ferguson, Chancellorsville 1863, 25; see also Glenn Tucker, Hancock the Superb (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1960), 116, 117. 19. Darryl Lyman, Civil War Wordbook (Conshohocken, Pa.: Combined Books, 1994), 85. 20. Catton, Glory Road, 211. 21. Ferguson, Chancellorsville 1863, 158, 159. 22. Ferguson, Chancellorsville 1863, 339. 23. James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom:The CivilWar Era (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1988), 645. See also Bruce Catton, Never Call Retreat (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965), 160. 24. Sears, Landscape Turned Red, 74. notes to chapter 2 1. James Wright, “The Story of Company F,” p. 526, unpublished typescript, 1911, MHS. See also James A. Wright, No More Gallant a Deed: A CivilWar Memoir of the First Minnesota Volunteers, ed. Steven J. Keillor (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2001), which is an edited version ofWright’s memoir. 2. Wright, “Company F,” 538. 3. Wright, “Company F,” 558. 4. Chester S. Durfee, journal of trip to 50th reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1913, MHS. 5. Return I. Holcombe, History of the First Regiment, Minnesota Volunteer Infantry 1861–1864 (Stillwater, Minn.: Easton & Masterman, 1916), 313. 6. Hamlin Family Papers, 1861–1948, MHS. 7. Wright, “Company F,” 542. 8. Wright, “Company F,” 545, 546. 9. Wright, “Company F,” 546. 10. [Taylor], “Campaigning,” 358. 11. Daniel Zimmerman,“J. E. B. Stuart: Gettysburg Scapegoat?” America’s Civil War, May 1998, p. 52, 53. 12. Zimmerman, “J. E. B. Stuart,” 53. 13. The fact that the lost order,“Special Order No. 191,” had been found by the Union army became publicly known in the spring of 1863. With that knowledge fresh in his mind as he was planning his Pennsylvania campaign, Lee was undoubtedly in an almost paranoid state about...