Flag Day

One of the stories in our new book “Star of the North: Essays in Minnesota History,” is that of the 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment in the Civil War.

These men fought at First Bull Run, the war’s first battle, where they lost 20% of their strength; at Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history, where they lost 28% of all men engaged; and, most famously, at Gettysburg. There, these veteran troops launched an attack which they knew would cost them most of their lives. And it did; by the end of the day, 82% of the men who went into battle had been killed or wounded. These were the most severe losses suffered by a Union regiment in a single engagement during the war.

Those Minnesotans had, however, saved the Union line, probably the battle, possibly the war, and perhaps the United States of America.

They did not begrudge their sacrifice. One of those who enlisted explained that he was doing so to fight for “the only flag worth dying for.”

People do not give their lives for bits of cloth, they give them for the things they represent. In this case, it was for the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence — “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” — whose 250th anniversary we celebrate this year.

Presidents, Congresses, and Supreme Court judges come and go, but those ideals, symbolized by that flag, remain. Americans, like those of the 1st Minnesota, have died so that they might.