Original drum from the First Minnesota. Photo credit: Minnesota Historical Society.



Before the day is entirely over, I’d like to take the opportunity to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the charge of the First Minnesota Regiment at the battle of Gettysburg. Though the action was almost ignored in Michael Shaara’s novel The Killer Angels, and entirely ignored in Ralph Peters’ Cain at Gettysburg, the battle would certainly have been lost if those few farm boys from a new western state hadn’t counterattacked an overwhelming force in a hot wheat field.

Mitch Berg of Shot in the Dark can tell you all about it.

The charge drove back a force five times the size of the First. It bought the time needed for Hancock to get the reinforcements into the line and consolidate Cemetary Ridge.