“LET EVERY DEMOCRAT MAKE READY FOR THE BATTLE”

Gettysburg. The Second Day. Union General Daniel Sickles on his own initiative had ordered his Third Corps forward from Cemetery Ridge to the Peach Orchard, a distance of over half a mile. Veteran Confederate forces under the command of General James Longstreet exploited Sickles’ extended position. Third Corps gave way after four hours of desperate fighting and began falling back in disorder. Wilcox’s Alabama Brigade swept toward the crest of Cemetery Ridge, threatening to cut the Union line in two. General Winfield Scott Hancock, commanding the Union Second Corps, frantically ordered up reinforcements, but realized that they could not arrive within the few minutes necessary. He rode to the crest of the ridge to find only eight companies formed in line, numbering two hundred and sixty men. Hancock asked of an officer, “My God! Are these all of the men we have here? What regiment is this?” Colonel William Colvill, Jr., commanding, answered, “First Minnesota, sir”. Hancock pointed toward the advancing Confederates and gave an order, “Advance, Colonel, and take those colors!” ¹ . Colvill immediately gave the command “Forward, double-quick” ² .

Lt. William Lochren of the First Minnesota wrote of that moment, “ … every man realized in an instant what that order meant. Death and wounds to us all – the sacrifice of the regiment to gain a few minutes time and save the position and probably the battlefield … Responding to the Colonel’s rapid orders, the regiment in perfect line … was in a moment down that slope directly in the enemy’s center … “ ³ . Captain Martin Maginnis later recalled: “Their cannon opened on us and shot and shell tore through our ranks and the more deadly Enfield rifles of their infantry centered on us alone. At every step our men fell … Five color bearers are shot down, and five times our flag goes proudly forward as before. Within a hundred, within fifty yards of the foe; one quarter of our men are already fallen and yet not one shot has been fired at the enemy …” ⁴ Lochren continued: “ … double quick had changed to utmost speed … and with leveled bayonets at full speed rushed upon it. No soldiers will stand against leveled bayonets coming with such momentum and evident desperation. The first line broke as we reached it and rushed back through the second line, stopping the whole advance.” ⁵

Wilcox’s Confederates broke and fled before the shock attack of the First Minnesota. Colvill, himself badly wounded, ordered the remnants of his command to take cover in the streambed of Plum Run. Additional Union regiments arrived before the Confederates could re-group and engulf the First Minnesota. Darkness set in with the Union Army still in control of Cemetery Ridge. Pickett’s Charge on the third day failed to unseat the Union Army and the Battle of Gettysburg ended with the Union Army victorious. Of the two hundred and sixty two men of the First Minnesota who made the charge, two hundred and fifteen were killed or wounded. The casualty rate was the highest suffered by any unit on either side during the bloody four-year conflict.

The First Minnesota’s gallant charge was recognized as one of the key moments of the battle that turned the war in favor of the Union. In February 1864, the men of the First Minnesota were honored at a banquet held in Washington and attended by Vice President Hannibal Hamlin. Colonel Colvill, still suffering from his wounds from seven months earlier, had to be carried into the hall on a stretcher. William Colvill, Jr. lived to the age of seventy-five years, celebrated as one of Minnesota’s great heroes of the American Civil War ⁶. In 1909, four years after his death, Colvill was honored by the erection of a life-size bronze statue bearing his likeness in the rotunda of the Minnesota State Capitol ⁷. The statue remains to this day.

 

William Colvill, Jr. arrived at Red Wing, Minnesota from New York in 1854 ⁸. In 1855, Colvill became editor of the town’s first newspaper ⁹. The Feb. 9, 1856 edition of The Sentinel included an ad for the firm of Freeborn & Colvill, a land agency business, and another ad for William Colvill, Jr., Attorney and Counsellor At Law. Colvill became secretary of the Minnesota Territorial Council in that year ¹⁰ and in April 1857 Red Wing’s city attorney ¹¹. But it was as a fiery newspaper editor that Colvill established his early reputation in Minnesota.

The Sentinel ceased publishing in May 1856. A year later, Colvill and a partner started up The Sentinel again ¹². Colvill served as editor for the next three and a half years. The paper espoused the views of the Democratic Party to which they belonged. The nation had been struggling with the issue of slavery for many years. By the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the United States Congress had agreed that slavery would not be allowed north of latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes. That changed in 1854 when Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois orchestrated support in Congress to secure passage of law such that voters of both Kansas and Nebraska would decide whether or not slavery would exist in their territories. Democrats like William Colvill did not favor slavery, whether in Nebraska or Kansas or anywhere else. But as Democrats, they had a fervent belief in State’s Rights and, as such, held that the people of each respective State had a Constitutional right to decide how they would live and be governed. Colvill printed a speech by Stephen Douglas in the Jan. 30, 1858 edition of The Sentinel and praised it as “… emphatically a great speech; it is a bold and fearless vindication of the great principle of Squatter Sovereignty – of the right of the people to decide for themselves the institution under which they are to live …”

Opponents of slavery responded to the Kansas-Nebraska Act by forming the Republican Party. While the Republicans failed to win the Presidency in the 1856 election that put Democrat James Buchanan into office, they consolidated strength over the next four years for the 1860 election. In the summer of 1857, Lucius Hubbard, a New Yorker like Colvill, founded a rival newspaper in Red Wing¹³. The Republican, later renamed The Goodhue County Republican, represented the views of the newly formed Republican Party to which Hubbard belonged. The Sentinel and The Republican became rival papers and regularly exchanged blows, as in November 6, 1857 when The Sentinel opined: “The Republican has become so notorious for lying to be totally unworthy of belief. It is edited and superintended by old maids and broken down ministers.” ¹⁴

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 only exacerbated the national split. Fighting between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in Kansas led to that territory becoming known as “Bloody Kansas”. When Minnesotans submitted their formal request for statehood to President James Buchanan in January 1858, the application became entangled with the issue of Kansas statehood and whether or not slavery should be allowed in Kansas. Colvill wrote in The Sentinel in the January 16, 1858: “The Southern members of Congress entertain the design of coupling us with Kanzas [sic] … Much as we wish Minnesota to be admitted … we do not wish it at that price …” But in time the issue was resolved and on May 11, 1858, Minnesota became the 32nd State in the Union. While Democrats, Northern and Southern, shared a belief in the supremacy of State’s Rights, the issue of slavery divided the party. Southern Democrats cited the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision as supporting the legality of slavery throughout the nation. The landmark ruling denied Scott, a Black man, his freedom, which he based on extended residence at Fort Snelling in Minnesota Territory. The high court ruled that the U. S. Constitution protected property rights and extended that to allow a slave owner to take his property into northern “free” States and legally retain the rights of ownership. In contrast, Northern Democrats insisted that the people of each individual State and territory had a Constitutional right to choose. An editorial Colvill later wrote on the opinion of Chief Justice Taney focused on the conveyance of authority:

 

 

Southerners had successfully defended slavery for years in Congress and the Senate by virtue of their control of these legislative bodies. But the westward expansion of the United States and the addition of new free states and their Congressmen and Senators threatened Southern control. One remedy sought by certain Southerners was the subjugation and annexation of Mexico, Cuba and Central America. During the 1850’s, private armies of American adventurers invaded Cuba, Nicaragua and Mexico. Colvill asked readers:

 

 

Meanwhile, Republicans made gains in the North. When Stephen Douglas, the dynamic leader of the Democratic Party, ran for re-election in 1858 to his U. S. Senate seat in Illinois, the Republicans ran attorney Abraham Lincoln against the incumbent. The Lincoln-Douglas debates during the campaign focused on the issue of slavery. Douglas expounded on the merits of popular sovereignty, while Lincoln argued “a house divided against itself cannot stand”. Colvill praised Douglas for his role: “Men that believe in the capacity of the people for self-government; who maintain the constitution as it was made by its authors … who keep the line between the powers of the State and Nation distinct and clear; who preach the same doctrine in the North as in the South … They are the true representatives of the Democratic Party.” ¹⁷ Colvill’s comment to his readers upon Stephen Douglas’ narrow victory over Lincoln in the Illinois Senate race was: “Good enough” ¹⁸

By March 1859, the Democratic Party’s internal dissension caused Colvill to write: “The prospects for the permanent union of the Democratic Party are very bad.” He noted that while Democrats in the Northwest were united in support of Stephen Douglas,

 

 

Colvill had little use for President James Buchanan, whose sympathies were closely aligned with pro-slavery Southern Democrats. He wrote in April 1859: “The President is not the party … nor is the Democratic party responsible for the unwise and foolish policy he has seen fit to attempt to carry out.” ²⁰ And in May, Colvill argued:

 

 

Colvill’s reserved his most vehement attacks on The Sentinel’s editorial page, not for Southern Democrats, but for Republicans. He wrote in the May 21, 1859 edition: “As long as the black Republican party is in power the foreign born citizen will be deprived of the sacred rights which the founders of our glorious republic meant he should enjoy … disenfranchise the foreigner, wherever that rotten black Republican party obtains sufficient power.” In June, Colvill published a column “Who Vote The Republican Ticket in Chicago”, to which Colvill answered for his readers: “ … the black-legs, the brothel keepers, and the whole class of offenders … The loafing and vagrant class of professional street laborers, who are incapable of doing a good day’s work” ²². Later that same month, Colvill offered:

 

 

Colvill was quick to publish inconsistencies for his reading public, as when three Chicago Republicans executed the fugitive slave law, captured three runaway slaves from Missouri and returned them to their owner for a substantial reward ²⁴

All attention was focused on the upcoming Democratic National Convention that would take place in Charleston, South Carolina in April 1860. With less than a year before the convention, Democrats across the North were concerned about the split within the party between North and South. Colvill reprinted an excerpt from The New York Times:

 

 

Northern Democrats were in a vise between the Republicans, whom Colvill protested their “… claiming that the power exists in Congress to regulate and make laws in the Territories” and Southern Democrats, whom Colvill noted, demanded Congress interfere “ …. But to protect slavery, not to keep it out.” He foretold the coming Civil War from his perspective:

 

 

William Colvill and others were well aware of the active and well-organized Knights of the Golden Circle, whose sole aim was such a grand confederacy. The Knights would play an important role in Texas, in particular, and would not fall from power until the war began.

While cautioning Republicans of the danger of pushing the South away from the Union, Colvill held out hope that Democratic unity would prevail, writing further:

 

 

Colvill knew that this perspective was optimistic, but also knew that it was the only hope of avoiding secession and possible civil war.

Some abolitionists tired of talking. In 1859, John Brown shocked the nation with his attempt to seize the Federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry and incite a slave insurrection in the South. Colvill attacked the: “ … the awful and horrible plot” ²⁷, while Republican newspapers across the north praised Brown for his actions.

Republicans made marked gains in the November 1859 election, causing Colvill to opine: “ … in connection with the late election … give strong indications of a general Republican victory in 1860 … perhaps it would be for the best in the long run, because such a victory would heal up the dissensions in the Democratic party …”. He attempted to rationalize, suggesting of one of the leading contenders for the Republican nomination for the Presidency: “W. H. Seward will adopt no policy materially different from what James Buchanan would do if President for the next years. In short that the Republican party with all its blowing is nothing but a humbug.” Perhaps Colvill underestimated the determination of the Republicans to revolutionize the nation.

On December 2, 1859, Federal authorities executed John Brown. Colvill published the details in the Sentinel. He lashed out in his editorial column at the Republican press who:

 

 

Colvill offered his readers:

 

 

In fact, Democrats faced serious internal problems. Colvill wrote of Stephen Douglas:

 

 

After the Minnesota State Democratic Convention in St. Paul selected Stephen Douglas as its candidate for the Presidency. Colvill wrote: “As for the party, if it can long survive such victories or defeats, it is because an Allwise Providence, that overrules all things for good has ordained the Democratic party in the future as in the past to preserve and perpetuate this union.” ³¹

Southern Democrats had no intention of letting Douglas become President. On January 11, Alabama Democrats resolved all issues of the Democratic Party “ … to be inferior in dignity and importance to the great question of slavery …” and affirmed that Congress had no power to abolish slavery in the territories, citing the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, a ruling that Minnesotan courts openly disregarded ³². Democratic Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, who would later become President of the Confederacy, introduced a series of resolutions in the U. S. Senate on February 2, 1860. Davis’ move, directed against Douglas and his doctrine of popular sovereignty, was intended to make clear that the legislature of a territory could not override the constitutional right of a citizen to own slave property. Southerners increasingly spoke of secession.

At this point, William Colvill, Jr., stalwart defender of popular sovereignty, decided that he had had enough. Colvill was, first and foremost, for the Union. On February 8, 1860, The Sentinel carried a final editorial from William Colvill, which began: “Having sold my interest in the Sentinel to W. W. Phelps, my connection with it is with this number discontinued.” He reminded the readers that he had been subservient to no one and “preached nothing but the pure Democracy.” Colvill made clear the reason for his decision:

 

 

The Sentinel and The Republican had continued to fight through the years of Colvill’s editorship. Lucius Hubbard’s paper had little respect for Stephen Douglas, referring to him as “the would-be President” and stating on February 3, 1860 “If it is possible for a man to dive deeper into the dirty pool in which he has been wallowing for so long a time, and come up with a more loathsome condition, we are unable to conceive of a manner in which it can be done”. But Hubbard reprinted Colvill’s farewell in his February 10 edition of The Republican, noting of the editor of its rival paper,

 

 

William Phelps assumed control of the editorial page of the Red Wing Sentinel. Minnesotans had elected Phelps to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1858 upon achieving statehood ³⁴. The Republican asked its readers “Won’t Somebody hold Him!” ³⁵ after Phelps’ first issue. On March 2, 1860, The Republican wrote: “In the Sentinel this week we have one of those fragrant editorials so common in that sheet under its present management …. The new editor is a rare man …” In that same edition, The Republican reported: “A personal encounter took place yesterday between W. W. Phelps, editor of the late Red Wing Sentinel, and Wm. Colvill, Jr., a late incumbent of the same position.” The rival paper indicated that the cause was an editorial by Phelps in which “ … personal allusions were made to Mr. Colvill, to which the latter took exception.” “Neither of the belligerents sustained great personal damage, tough blows were exchanged, and each suffered the loss of some hands-full of hair …. Colvill was hit with a fire-shovel, though the blow was a harmless one …”” The Republican added that “ … we are of the opinion that Colvill had the best of it …”. ³⁶

The fight related to a column written (apparently) by Colvill in the February 24, 1860 edition of The Republican. The column, titled “The Code” and signed with only the pseudonym “Jurisconsultus”, rebutted a criticism by Phelps of the system of legal practice. Colvill, as a lawyer, took exception to the remarks and defended “ … the Code the editor speaks of so flippantly and contemptuously.” ³⁷Phelps responded in the February 29 edition of The Sentinel with an attack on the correspondent as being of “ … a set of dirty dogs …who invariably disguise their personal insignificance by writing over an anonymous signature.” Phelps went further, writing “The pompous vanity of this blundering and brainless ass wo’d become ridiculous in the extreme, if all only could know, how weak and how despised a pettifogger it was that penned that epistle.” ³⁸ Colvill was an imposing figure at six feet six inches and exacted retribution.

There were bigger fights brewing among Democrats with much farther-reaching significance. On April 23, 1860, the much-anticipated National Democratic Convention opened in Charleston. The convention adjourned on May 3 after the delegates of the Deep South withdrew over the issue of slavery in the platform. Meanwhile, the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency on May 18. The Democrats attempted to reconvene at Baltimore on June 18, but again adjourned with no unified platform on the 22nd. On the following day, the Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas as their candidate for President, while the Southern Democrats nominated John Breckinridge of Kentucky.

In the course of campaigning for Lincoln, William Seward made a speech in Red Wing ³⁹. When the polls opened in November 1860, Red Wing voted 246 for Lincoln as the next President of the United States and 134 for Douglas. While Douglas showed reasonably well in the Northwest, Lincoln swept the East and the South went for Breckinridge. The split in the Democratic Party allowed Abraham Lincoln to win the election to become President of the United States. In the aftermath, radicals in the South, acknowledging the anti-slavery platform of the Republican Party, called for secession from the Union. The last hope of peaceful resolution vanished in April 1861 when rebel forces fired cannon at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay.

A public meeting was held at the Red Wing Court House on April 19 regarding the formation of a company of local men to become part of the first regiment to be raised in Minnesota. The rallying cry was to preserve the Union. William Colvill, Jr. was among those who addressed the crowd. At the end of the meeting, the call went out for volunteers. Two men rose quickly from the crowd, both determined to claim the honor of being the first to sign. They leaped over the backs of chairs to get to the front of the room. Edwards Welch tripped and his good friend William Colvill was the first to the pen. He signed and handed the pen to Welch, saying “You are next, Ed.” ⁴⁰ Colvill was later elected captain of what became Company F. Edwards Welch became his lieutenant. William Colvill, Jr., land agent, attorney and newspaper editor, would rise to command the First Minnesota Regiment and gain immortality on the battlefield at Gettysburg.

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