'They saved the Union line that day': Local connections to Battle of Gettysburg run deep

Jul. 2—At least two men died in battle. One man was fighting against his brother on the opposing side. Another man survived the battle and the war only to have his name apparently misspelled on his gravestone decades later.

All of them were Blue Earth County or Nicollet County residents at one time or another. All of them fought at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania between July 1-3, 1863.

As the country commemorates 160 years since the Civil War's most pivotal battle, their stories reflect Minnesota's profound legacy at Gettysburg.

"They saved the Union line that day," said Arn Kind, of Mankato, a reenactor with the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment group.

Kind was at Gettysburg for the battle's 125th and 150th commemorations. Considering the odds against the men in 1st Minnesota on July 2, 1863, he said, it was just about a miracle any of them returned home.

Minnesota was been the first state to volunteer troops to put down the Confederate rebellion. What started as a 1,000-troop regiment in 1861 was down to about 335 by July 1 due to casualties, illnesses and captures.

Kind combed through the regiment's roster and found evidence of 21 men from Blue Earth County enlisting in the 1st Minnesota, with at least six fighting at Gettysburg. Bob Sandeen, a retired archivist, and Marlin Peterson, a volunteer Civil War historian, at the Nicollet County Historical Society, found records of at least three residents from Nicollet County who fought at Gettysburg, one of them in 1st Minnesota.

July 2 was the battle's second day. The men from 1st Minnesota were placed in reserve at the ready to fill in gaps wherever needed.

A misstep by Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles — who area historians described as more politically connected than militarily shrewd — led to the 1st Minnesota entering the battle that day. Sickles had orders for his 3rd Corps to take up a defensive position on Cemetery Ridge, but he moved his men to a higher point without permission.

It created a gap, giving the Confederates a prime opportunity to split the Union line and deliver a decisive blow. Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock noticed what happened and acted to plug the gap to buy time for reinforcements.

As commander of the 2nd Corps, which included the 1st Minnesota, Hancock asked Col. William Colvill what regiment was in reserve. Colvill told him it was the 1st Minnesota.

"Attack that line," Winfield reportedly said.

By this time, the 1st Minnesota was down to 262 men, with two of its 10 companies having been dispatched to other parts of the battlefield.

The remaining men had to have known the odds were against them, Sandeen said.

"The discrepancy between them and the Confederates was just overwhelming," Sandeen said. "Every man in the 1st Minnesota knew that the odds of surviving were really tiny."

When Kind presents on this topic, he asks his audience if they think the Minnesotans had a prayer. Most say no.

"But these are not regular soldiers; these are Minnesotans," he says.

The Minnesotans fixed their bayonets and charged into battle, disrupting the Confederate advance. It gave Hancock the time he needed, turning the battle around for the Union side.

"If they had not plugged the gap and given Hancock time to find more reinforcements, it could've been the end," Kind said.

Yet it came at a great cost. The 1st Minnesota sustained 215 casualties — killed, wounded, missing or captured — out of 262. At 82%, the casualty rate remains the highest among any surviving military unit in a single engagement in U.S. history.

The 1st Minnesota's work at Gettysburg didn't finish on July 2. The next day, they helped repel Pickett's Charge, losing another 17 men in the process, according to Kenneth Carly's "Minnesota in the Civil War" book.

By war's end the 1st Minnesota had the 23rd most deaths out of its enrollment among 2,047 total Union regiments.

Two Company H sergeants from Blue Earth County, William H. Wickoff and Frederick Diehr, were among the dead at Gettysburg.

One man from Blue Earth County, William D. Howell of Company I, was wounded.

Three more Blue Earth County residents, Jacob Georgge of Company C, Charles Mansfield of Company H, and Allen McDonnell of Company K, weren't discharged out of the 1st Minnesota until 1864, indicating they fought at Gettysburg as well but weren't wounded.

Wickoff

Wickoff had been a deputy sheriff in Mankato. Earlier in the war, he carried fellow Mankato resident James Cannon to safety during the Battle of First Bull Run in 1861 after the latter was shot in the leg.

Bryce Stenzel, a historian and author, shared Wickoff and Cannon's story in The Free Press in 2019. While Cannon survived the war — he was discharged for disability between 1862 and 1864 — Wickoff died instantly from a shot to the heart at Gettysburg, Stenzel wrote.

Though he lived in Mankato before the war, Wickoff died in his native state. He was from Pennsylvania, was first buried at Gettysburg — where Diehr remains buried — then was re-interred in his family vault elsewhere in the state.

Remembering the sacrifices of these men is important, Stenzel said Friday.

"We celebrate the Fourth of July, the Declaration of Independence, but that whole experiment of self-governance was up for grabs in the Civil War," he said. "It could've easily fallen apart."

The 1st Minnesota's plugging of a critical gap helped keep it from falling apart, he said. In honor of them, he has a replica statue of the 1st Minnesota monument at Gettysburg Battlefield.

John Schoenbeck

John P. "JP" Schoenbeck, from Nicollet County, is listed on the 1st Minnesota roster as being wounded at both Gettysburg and the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. Peterson alerted Sandeen to Schoenbeck's connection to Gettysburg, and the two verified records of him at the historical society Wednesday.

Schoenbeck's biography is notable on several levels. Born in Sweden in 1825, he survived all 17 of the 1st Minnesota's battles and was actually wounded twice at Gettysburg, according to the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library.

The reason the library has this biographical detail is because Schoenbeck, listed as a single farmer from Norseland, served in the Minnesota Senate from 1876-1877. He was listed in a New Sweden Township census in 1885, died at age 67 in 1892 and was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Kasota Township.

His gravestone references his military record serving in Company B of the 1st Minnesota. In what appears to be a typo, however, his gravestone has his name as "Schoenberg."

Peterson pointed out the discrepancy Wednesday. On Friday, Sandeen found historical cemetery records showing the Schoenberg last name listed in the spot where his plot is located but the Schoenbeck last name listed on the index page.

Given the regiment roster, census data, legislative reference library and more records all list him as Schoenbeck, Sandeen said the gravestone appears to be in the wrong.

"The body of evidence strongly suggests that Schoenberg should be Schoenbeck," he said. "Here after all this guy has been through, someone botched his tombstone."

Brother against brother

Although not in the 1st Minnesota, James Magner was from Nicollet County and was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Through twist of fate that could be ripped out of the pages of a Hollywood script, his brother, Matthew Magner, was wounded at Gettysburg while fighting on the Confederate side. The Free Press has written about the Magners' extraordinary story over the years, detailing how the two came to be on opposite sides of the battlefield.

The Magner clan settled in Nicollet County by 1852 after leaving Ireland in 1849. The father, John, farmed where the current St. Peter High School is located, Sandeen said.

A family history of the Magners documents James as working on the Lower Sioux Agency to help pay for a farm. Matthew went south to find other work, ending up in Mississippi.

After the war broke out, the bilingual James served as aide-de-camp to Union General Thomas W. Sherman. He was with Sherman for the capture of Port Royal, South Carolina, and returned to Nicollet County in 1862 to look after his mother and sisters, who fled to Fort Ridgely during the U.S.-Dakota War.

James served as a captain of Company I in the 28th Massachusetts regiment — part of the "Irish brigade" composed of predominately Irish-Americans. A survivor of Gettysburg, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, he died in the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House on May 18, 1864, and his body was never recovered.

Down South, Matthew donned Confederate gray when the war broke out. He became a lieutenant in the 43rd Virginia Cavalry Battalion, also known as Mosby's Rangers.

The battalion was known for its quick-fire raids on Union forces and elusiveness from capture. Matthew did have a close call, though, needing to escape from near execution at one point, Sandeen said.

At Gettysburg, Matthew's own injuries likely occurred not far from where James was. Any direct encounter between the two on the battlefield is highly unlikely.

Matthew outlived the war before dying of wounds and yellow fever in Mississippi after it ended. Calvary Cemetery in St. Peter has a Magner family plot with Matthew's name engraved on it — he's believed to be buried there.

The Nicollet County Historical Society has portraits of both men and James' blue coat in its collection. Roger Norland, a Civil War buff from North Mankato, tracked down the portrait of Matthew, according to Free Press coverage.

In another connection to the Magner clan, it currently has an exhibit by artist Adelaide Magner, the niece of James and Matthew, on display.

Civil War legacy

A total of 682 soldiers from Blue Earth County fought in the Civil War, part of the total force of 22,000 Minnesotans who fought in the war, including the 4th Infantry Regiment at the Siege of Vicksburg happening at the same time as Gettysburg.

Civil War veteran graves dot the landscape of the state, providing opportunities to commemorate and remember the men who put their lives on the line for the Union.

Tom Mauer, of Plainview, estimates he's walked through 750 cemeteries in southern Minnesota, western Wisconsin and northern Iowa to find and document thousands of Civil War burial sites since the late 1990s. His travels include documenting 120 Civil War graves in Blue Earth County and 23 in Nicollet County on findagrave.com so far.

Describing himself as an "amateur Civil War historian," Mauer first set out to find his great-grandfather's grave. Ezekiel Rose, the great-grandfather, was in Company B of the 5th Minnesota Infantry Regiment and fought and was wounded in the U.S.-Dakota War at Fort Ridgely.

Mauer tracked down Rose's grave in Oakwood Cemetery in Hersey, Wisconsin. He didn't stop there.

"After I found found him, I thought, 'Why don't we start documenting more of these guys?'" he recalled.

So he started doing it himself, starting near home and expanding his radius larger and larger from there. He started doing day trips and ended up needing to stay overnight.

He's gotten requests from people to track down their family member's gravesite. Families have thanked him, some who hadn't even known they had a relative who fought in the Civil War until he posted the tombstone and looked into the deceased's biography.

To him, the work is a way to honor sacrifices made during the Civil War.

While visiting Gettysburg, he remembers standing by the Minnesota memorial and gazing out at the vast battlefield. He imagined all the men from small towns in Minnesota who crossed the country one bloody battlefield at a time to be there back in 1863.

"You think of all the people who died out there," he said. "Was it worth it? Yeah, for the union, for freeing the slaves."

Follow Brian Arola @BrianArola

Follow Brian Arola @BrianArola