Gettysburg’s Citizen-Soldiers

On the afternoon of July 2, 1863, Colonel Harrison Jeffords of the 4th Michigan Volunteer Infantry and his regiment found themselves in the Wheatfield, embroiled in hand-to-hand combat with the men of Kershaw’s South Carolina Brigade. Through the chaos, Jeffords spotted his regiment’s flag, which he had sworn to defend with his life, seized by the enemy. He rushed toward the flag and was shot through the thigh and took a bayonet thrust to his abdomen. His men recovered their colonel and wrestled their flag from the enemy’s grip. Jeffords, however, would not recover, becoming the highest-ranking officer to die of a bayonet wound in the Civil War.

This week marks the 154th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, which was fought on July 1–3, 1863. On this venerable occasion, it is important to recognize that selflessness and devotion to the preservation of the Union was displayed not only by professional soldiers but by volunteers such as Colonel Jeffords — a lawyer who left his practice to join the cause — and his men. But for their willingness to heed Lincoln’s call, we would not be the nation we are today. July 1 had been a brutal day for the Union Army of the Potomac. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia had once again licked their Yankee counterparts. The Army of the Potomac had yet to achieve an outright victory against the Confederates, but the tide turned on Gettysburg’s bloodiest day, July 2, thanks to the heroics of Colonel Jeffords and other citizen-soldiers like him.

Colonel William Colvill of the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, a lawyer and newspaperman before the Civil War, was the first man in his county to answer Lincoln’s call for volunteers. Before Gettysburg, Colvill’s regiment held the dubious distinction of suffering the most casualties of any Union regiment at the battle of Bull Run, as well as suffering grievously at Antietam. Those battles would pale in comparison to the sacrifice they made at Gettysburg.

Outnumbered nearly five-to-one, Colvill was ordered to undertake a near-suicidal charge to stall the Confederate advance and the collapse of the Union left wing. Without hesitation, Colvill and the 1st Minnesota smashed into Confederates from Alabama. In a matter of minutes, 215 of the 1st Minnesota’s 262 men fell, including Colvill, who was hit three times. The 82 percent casualty rate stands as the highest ever suffered by an American unit in a single day’s battle. President Calvin Coolidge later remarked at a memorial dedication, “Colonel Colvill and those eight companies of the 1st Minnesota are entitled to rank as the saviors of their country.

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