Remembering the First Minnesota at Gettysburg – Part II

Minn. Governor Alexander Ramsey happened to be in Washington, D. C., when Fort Sumter was first fired upon by Confederate troops (April 12, 1861), and immediately offered the first troops to support the Union cause. Ramsey sent a telegram back to Minnesota by horseback, setting in motion the call to arms in the then youngest state to enter the Union (May 11, 1858).¹

The First Minnesota Infantry Regiment “was quickly filled with enthusiastic men from all parts of Minnesota.”² Two of those men, Henry D. O’Brien and Marshall Sherman, were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their valor during the Battle of Gettysburg.

Henry D. O'Brien³

Born in Maine in 1842, Henry D. O’Brian moved to St. Anthony Falls, Minn., with his parents in 1857. He was 19-years-old when he enlisted, and was placed in Company E of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry.

O’Brien “was slightly wounded, in his side, on July 2, 1863, during the unit's famous charge at Gettysburg. During the battle he helped a badly wounded comrade, Ernest Jefferson, to a place of shelter. After the battle [Jefferson] was found on the field and taken to a field hospital. He would later have his leg amputated but lived a long life and was always thankful for [O’Brien's] help that day.

Though wounded himself, [O’Brien] was able, however to stay with the regiment and was in line with his comrades the next day. The First Minnesota lay waiting behind a fence in the middle of the line to the left of the copse of trees toward which Pickett's army was headed.

[O’Brien] picked up the First Minnesota's battle flag when Corporal Dehn, the color bearer, was shot through the hand during the early firing between the Rebels and the Union line. The shot broke the staff in half. It was difficult to hold, but hold it he did. He leaped over the fence and charged toward the Confederates. His comrades followed him, as much to protect their colors as anything else.

Lt. Lochren was angry at first, blaming O'Brien for ‘imperiling’ the regiment's flag, stained in blood the day before. But the effect of O'Brien's act ‘was electrical,’ Lochren wrote later. ‘Every man of the First Minnesota sprang to protect its flag, and the rest rushed with them upon the enemy.’ When Lt John Ball of Co K, saw O'Brien drive towards the Confederate position, he shouted, ‘O'Brien, come back here!’ Later O'Brien admitted that he had heard the order but confessed with a grin, ‘I didn't come.’”³

On April 9, 1890, O’Brien was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for taking up the colors where they had fallen; rushing ahead of his regiment, close to the muzzles of the enemy's guns, and engaging in the desperate struggle in which the enemy was defeated; and though severely wounded, he held the colors until wounded a second time.⁴

^{Marshall Sherman5}

The First Minnesota’s second Gettysburg Medal of Honor winner, Marshall Sherman, “was born in Burlington, VT, in 1823. He settled in St Paul in 1849, and was working as a painter when the war began. He was mustered into the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, on April 29, 1861.”5

Sherman’s “name goes down in the annals of First Minnesota history as the man who captured the battle flag of the 28th Virginia Infantry at the battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, during what became known as Pickett's Charge. (See picture above.) For his gallantry during the battle he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor”5 on December 1, 1864.6

Do you have an ancestor who fought at Gettysburg with the First Minnesota?

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¹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Minnesota_Volunteer_Infantry
²http://www.1stminnesota.net/
³http://www.1stminnesota.net/1st.php?ID=0710
⁴http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/citations_1862_cwh/obrien_henry.html
⁵http://www.1stminnesota.net/1st.php?ID=0337
⁶http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/citations_1862_cwq/sherman.html


The Minnesota History Center in St. Paul currently has a wonderful exhibit on “Minnesota and the Civil War” running until Sept. 8, 2013.

http://www.minnesotahistorycenter.org/exhibits/minnesota-and-civil-war