The Suicide Charge of the First Minnesota, Gettysburg, Day 2, July 2nd, 1863

www.patriotmash.com ^ | 06/30/13 | Rick Adams

[tflabo]

At Gettysburg the North had the advantage of higher ground.
In retrospect the South needed to have a quicker victory before the North was resupplied and more deeply entrenched.
Picketts charge over that hilly terrain to the other side was
the last hurrah for the South in that battle but they got slaughtered in the process charging up the small hill and a barrage of gunfire to decimate them.

[central_va]

It was Lee’s last viable opportunity to bring the North to its knees.

Nobody then or now ever thought that was possible. Maybe to the peace table.

[DownInFlames]

If Gettysburg was lost, their was nothing to keep Lee out of DC. The Notrth would be forced to sue for pease otherwise DC would go up in flames again.

[alphadog]

From a military/industrial point of view if the war was fought today the north would lose ... just a thought.

[SkyDancer]

General Douglas MacArthur’s father fought there.

[central_va]

Lee was not Sherman, there would have been a brief occupation but no burning, like Atlanta. Urban warfare was rare back then. Looking back nothing was going to make the Goon come to the table and the South did not have the strength to hold any Northern territories. Mr Lincoln’s War would have no negotiated ending. The butchery would continue, actually it picked up speed after G-burg.

[South Dakota]

No mention of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain who commanded the 20th Maine on Little Round Top.

Joshua’s bayonet charge down the hill saved the day.

God bless can you imagine being part of that battle and fixing your bayonet?

[af_vet_rr]

If Gettysburg was lost, their was nothing to keep Lee out of DC. The Notrth would be forced to sue for pease otherwise DC would go up in flames again.

I agree with central_va, Lee was not a fan of what we now call total (or "modern") warfare, unlike Sherman.

[Colonel_Flagg]

"The Last Full Measure"; the charge of the First Minnesota Volunteers.

I've been to Gettysburg twice and have taken the march path of those volunteers from near the center of the battlefield to Plum Run. The route of Pickett's Charge from the Virginia Memorial to the stone wall is mowed and trimmed: the path of the First Minnesota is not.

That is as it should be. Once you get done snagging your clothing on brambles and thistles in the summer heat and scrambling over and through split-rail fences, you can't help but imagine doing it in wool clothing, knowing what the real volunteers faced at the march's end.

The First Minnesota, which was the first regiment offered to Lincoln after Fort Sumter, suffered the highest percentage of casualties in a single engagement that day than any formation in the United States Army during the Civil War.

Or, as the text of the Minnesota memorial at Gettysburg states:

"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."

The next day, the remnants of the First Minnesota Volunteers helped repulse Pickett's Charge, losing another seventeen men.

[Colonel_Flagg]

No mention of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain who commanded the 20th Maine on Little Round Top.

That's because this was an article about the First Minnesota Volunteers, not the 20th Maine. Two distinct acts of heroism on two different parts of the battlefield.

[central_va]

No offense but it surprises me why there were 8 companies with only 262 men in the regiment. The ideal company size then was 100. Yankee infantry units baffle me.....

[luvie]

Wish I could have seen you re-enact their brave and tragic charge! :)

[Colonel_Flagg]

Certainly no offense taken. A quick look at the Wiki for the unit mentions that the unit had about 313 present for duty after Antietam, but that had been so long previous that it appears that the regiment was never reinforced.

Another history notes that the regiment actually was so depleted that it fought as a skirmish line at the Battle of Bristow Station before being mustered out in 1864. Some of its members formed the cadre for the First Minnesota Heavy Artillery and others formed a battalion, which fought at Petersburg among other places.

However, whittling a unit down to the nub is not unheard of in military history. The Germans did the same in World War II for some of their formations and simply created new formations with their “welles”, or draft calls.

And I must say, one of my favorite places on the battlefield happens to be the Virginia Memorial. The statue of General Lee astride Traveller is a wonderful image.

[central_va]

Yankee non replacement policy makes it real hard to understand battle history. Rebel units were combined with other units to maintain size, so a reb brigade is about 3000 men. A yankee brigade can be from 500 to 3000 men, a big difference. It seems to be if you were a USA brigade commander and you get assigned regiment , you didn't know whether it meant 200 or 1000 men. Very confusing. Some entire USA corps only had 5000 guys, huh?

[Colonel_Flagg]

I’ve not heard of a corps of that small size, though I suppose outside of the Army of the Potomac they may well have existed.

But you’re quite right. In World War II The U.S. Army opted for the policy you describe for the South, through its replacement policy.

I just think that the idea of fighting a regiment as a skirmish line due to combat casualties is odd. But evidently that is how they did it.

[Colonel_Flagg]

There were also lots of woodticks. :P

[ConservativeMan55]

bttt

[central_va]

Seems to me if you have all of these odd sized units around it would get confusing to command and make good decisions.....When you got brigades the size of regiments something is wrong....

[central_va]

The union fielded 8 corps of various sizes at Gettysburg. The South 3 traditional corps of roughly 30,000 each.