History Of The First Regiment Minnesota Volunteer Infantry 1861-1864. With Maps And Illustrations.

SEARLES, JASPER N., MATTHEW F. TAYLOR & CHRISTOPHER B. HEFFELFINGER

Publication: Easton & Masterman Printers, 1916, Stillwater, Minnesota

First edition, 8vo, pp. [1], 508; frontispiece portrait of Gov. Alexander Ramsey, 5 other portraits, 1 plate showing 3 portraits (including Christopher B. Heffelfinger - see below), 4 plates of monuments, 2 folding maps, and 1 map in the text. For those not acquainted with the Minnesota First, one of the regiment's most famous actions - and indeed, one of the most famous actions of the entire Civil War - "was on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg when Major General Winfield Scott Hancock ordered the 1st Minnesota to charge into a brigade of 1,200 Confederate soldiers. This action blunted the Confederate attack and helped preserve the Union's precarious position on Cemetery Ridge" (Wikipedia). This copy with an important inscription: "James Ford Bell, Jr. from Grandmother Heffelfinger, August 14, 1916." James Ford Bell, Jr. was the eldest son of the founder of General Mills, and what is now the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota. James, Jr. was known locally as the CEO of Red Owl Food Store chain, and was also a noted conservationist. His "Grandmother Heffelfinger" was the wife of Christopher B. Heffelfinger, one of the authors of this book, who from 1861 through 1864 served in Company D of the famous First Minnesota Infantry Regiment, rising in rank from sergeant to captain shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg. After serving the full term of his three-year enlistment, Heffelfinger was mustered out at Fort Snelling in May 1864. After a brief appointment as a relief agent in the United States Sanitary Commission in 1864, he re-enlisted in April 1865 and was appointed a major in the First Minnesota Regiment of Heavy Artillery. Heffelfinger died in 1915 while this book was about to go to press, although he did read through the manuscript and made suggestions "which have been adopted in the text as it now appears." Searles, Taylor, Heffelfinger, and two others (also deceased) were the members of the "Coville Commission" who had charge of the preparation of this history. Original blue cloth, gilt-lettered spine; cracking in the cloth in the top half of the upper joint; hinges cracked; all else very good and sound.