Of the men who joined in that fatal but necessary charge but forty-seven answered to roll-call at retreat; two hundred and fifteen lay dead, dying, or wounded. A high authority declares this to be the heaviest loss known in the records of modern war. But that charge saved Cemetery Ridge, and in all probability the Gettysburg field.
“The Second Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Infantry occupied this position, Sunday, September 26, 1863, from 2:30 P. M. to 7:30 P. M.” Such is the inscription on the monument of bronze and granite erected at the state’s expense on the “Snodgrass ridge” in the National Park at Chickamauga, Tennessee. It marks the spot occupied by that regiment as part of the force with which Thomas, “The Rock of Chickamauga,” held at bay Longstreet’s elated divisions, while Rosecrans’s army, broken and shattered, was in disorderly retreat on Chattanooga. The Second lost 35 killed and 113 wounded out of a total for duty of 384; not a single man was missing.
Under a new commander the Union armies concentrated at Chattanooga were soon to recover the ground and prestige lost by his brave but unfortunate predecessor. Grant, sending Hooker to occupy Lookout Mountain on his right and Sherman to the left to double up Bragg’s extended line, placed the army of the Cumberland in his centre under Thomas. A rumor spread up and down the lines of that army that it was merely paraded to amuse the enemy while Hooker and Sherman should show it how to fight. At three o’clock in the afternoon of November 24 the centre moved forward to the base of Missionary Ridge. After a short pause here the whole line, as it is told, without orders, broke out and swarmed up the hillside and over the enemy’s intrenchments in the face of a galling fire of artillery and musketry.
The Second Minnesota, led by Lieutenant-Colonel (afterwards Brigadier-General) J. W. Bishop, deployed as skirmishers, led its brigade to the foot of the ridge, where it joined in the scramble for the crest. It lost eight men killed and thirty-one wounded. Six out of seven members of the color guard fell.
The Third Minnesota, after participating in the “Arkansas Expedition” which resulted in the occupation of Little Rock, remained thereabout till the close of its term. Among the numerous affairs in which it was engaged was one which is rightly dignified as “the battle of Fitzhugh’s woods.” The commander, Colonel (afterwards Brigadier-General) C. C. Andrews here displayed a tactical ability worthy of a wider field. The regiment suffered greatly from malarial disease.