The Sherburne History Center (SHC) hosted an appreciation dinner for its volunteers Tuesday evening.  The event also included the annual meeting for the organization, and a presentation on the roles played by Minnesota soldiers in the Civil War by a recognized expert in the field.

 

SHC Exec. Dir. Mike Brubaker conducted the business of the annual meeting after dinner, which included the election of incumbent SHC board members Jean Johnson and Diane Jacobsen to new three-year terms.

 

In his comments, Brubaker noted that the SHC has already produced 65 public programs so far, with another 20 set to go before the end of the year. More than 3,000 individuals have visited the center, Brubaker said, and the facility has had more than 15,000 contacts from individuals interested in area history and others doing genealogy projects. He also said the current exhibit of Minnesota quilts has done very well in attendance, and the SCH Book Club has also proven to be very popular with area residents.  He also thanked the volunteers for the thousands of hours they donate to the facility each year.

 

Brubaker then introduced Events Coordinator Kara Hawkinson, who provided some background on the evening’s featured speaker, Rep. Dean Urdahl (R-Litchfield), who has authored a number of works of historical fiction involving the Sioux Uprising of 1862 in which Minnesota troops fought battles with war chiefs Little Crow and Sitting Bull.

 

Urdahl called the Civil War the “greatest event in U.S. history,” a clash of cultures that was only decided by a bloody and decisive war.  In the same way, the Sioux uprising became “Minnesota’s Civil War,” he said. 

 

A former high school history teacher, Urdahl’s latest book “Conspiracy” deals with the final pursuit of the Dakota Indians by Minnesota soldiers into the Dakota Territory, and the events leading up to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

 

A total of 24,000 Minnesota men served in the Civil War, Urdahl said, out of a state population of 172,023.  Many Minnesotans fought in the Western Theatre during the war, though the First Minnesota and other units saw action throughout the south.  When Lincoln issued the first call for troops in April of 1861, Gov. Alexander Ramsey was the first to respond, sending the First Minnesota east to join the Union Army.

 

The unit was present at the Union defeat at the Battle of Bull Run, and also fought at Antietam, Fredericksburg and most famously at Gettysburg.  There, a gap in the Union line was about to be forced by a charge of Mississippi infantry, which led the commanding general to fling the First Minnesota forward with the order “Give me five minutes to plug that gap!”

 

The 262 Minnesotans gave him 10 minutes, Urdahl said, stopping the Confederate charge and giving the Union forces time to re-form the line.  When the fight was over, only 47 members of the First Minnesota remained standing, having sustained an 82 per cent casualty rate in the battle, the highest rate of loss for any U.S. military unit in any war.  In his lapel, Urdahl wore a copy of the trefoil, a gold three-leafed clover that was the unit badge of the Union Second Corps., of which the First Minnesota was a part.

 

Urdahl will attend a ceremony next month at Shy’s Hill near Nashville, TN, the site of a famous Union victory in which Minnesota troops played a key role.  As troops of the 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th Minnesota charged the Confederate positions on the hill through withering volleys of musket fire, General John MacArthur (a relative of Gen. Douglas MacArthur of WW II fame), is reported to have shouted “Hurrah for the Snow Diggers!” as the Minnesotans carried the crest of the hill.

 

The monument there features the flags of the Confederacy, the Union and the State of Minnesota, the only northern state so honored on a southern battlefield.

 

Urdahl was the Minnesota commissioner to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.  His next book will be called “Three paths to Glory”, and will follow Union troops from the 5th and 6th Minnesota and the 1st Tennessee in the war.