The reader who desires to follow the marches and battles of the Minnesota regiments and battalions is advised to resort to the two large octavos published by the state in 1891. It would, however, be unjust to him and to Minnesota not to give some account, even in a compend of her history, of certain splendid passages in the careers of some of them favored above others in opportunity. Marching with Gibbon’s Division of the Second (Hancock’s) Army Corps, the First Minnesota arrived on the field of Gettysburg early in the morning of July 2, 1863, and was placed in reserve near general headquarters. Company L (sharpshooters) was sent to support a battery and did not rejoin till after the battle. In the afternoon a staff officer came and led the command off to the south, along the well-known crest on which Sickles’s men had formed and from which they had made their ill-advised advance. On a salient of the ridge near the middle of Sickles’s original formation the regiment was placed in support of a regular battery. Company F was sent out to skirmish toward the left front, and Company C was absent on provost guard duty. Eight companies were in line, with two hundred and sixty-two officers and men. From their position they watched at leisure the vain struggles of Sickles’s brigades, exposed to enfilading fires. Near sundown the shattered battalions straggled to the rear, passing through the ranks of the Minnesota regiment. They were followed by Anderson’s division of A. P. Hill’s Confederate corps, moving with rapid pace to what seemed certain victory. Sickles was severely wounded and Hancock had command. He had ordered reserve troops to man the undefended crest, but they did not arrive. The Confederate line was striding on, and in ten minutes would swarm over the ridge. It was not more than four hundred yards away when Hancock espied the little bunch of men in blue near the battery. Riding up to Colonel William Colville at his post near the centre, he asked, “What regiment is this?” “The First Minnesota,” was the reply. “Charge those lines,” ordered the corps commander, pointing to the rebel front. Without delay Colville put his line in motion, down the slope of an old pasture field at the bottom of which was a dried up ditch or “run.” It moved at the double-quick till near the foot of the slope, when Colville ordered, “Charge bayonets!” On a full run, the Minnesota men struck the Confederates as they were reforming on the hither side of the run. The shock halted them and the fire poured in gave them good reason for no further acquaintance with the men in blue. They sought cover behind an accommodating swell of land and retired from the field. Brigadier-General Wilcox of the Confederate army in his report says: “A line of infantry descended the slope in our front at double-quick. Without support my men were withdrawn to prevent their entire destruction or capture.”