“Yet the Confederates managed to make a raid on St Albans Vermont.”
A raiding party came down from Canada in late 1864, six months before the war ended. They robbed a bank.
“Lt Eugene Ware said they saw several wagon trains heading west with some of the people wearing bits and pieces of Confederate uniforms. and word was out that some trains had confederate flags on them till they got near a town.”
West from where? And what was Ware — who was with the Iowa Cavalry — doing up in New England near the Canadian border?
In any event, what does that have to do with Minnesota in 1862?
Just point out that the whole west was aflame from Mexico to Canada with Indian attacks. As for the tribes of the North East, many of them now live in NE Oklahoma and sided with the Confederacy.
They signed new treaties with the Union in 1866 after the Civil War had ended.