Wishing all of our readers and contributors a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend.

Please take time over the next couple of days to remember what it is we are celebrating, the reason for this occasion, which is to commemorate and honor those who died in military service to this country.  It was first celebrated on a wide scale in 1868, to honor our Civil War dead.  While it is now more generally a holiday where we remember all of our deceased friends and family, please do take a special moment to remember those who made the sacrifice from the Civil War, and all subsequent conflicts.

I know I will be taking a moment to pay my respects honoring a family member from the Minnesota artillery regiment, the First Minnesota, a unit which took the heaviest losses of any federal regiment at the First Battle of Bull Run.  They were in some of the heaviest losses at Antietam and at Gettysburg. Killed in battle from the First Minnesota were 10 officers, and 177 enlisted men; 2 more officers and another 97 enlisted men died of their injuries or illness.

There is a monument to the First Minnesota at  Gettysburg National Battlefield Park which bears this inscription:

On the afternoon of July 2, 1863 Sickles' Third Corps, having advanced from this line to the Emmitsburg Road, eight companies of the First Minnesota Regiment, numbering 262 men were sent to this place to support a battery upon Sickles repulse.

1st Minnesota Monument, Gettysburg Battlefield National Park

As his men were passing here in confused retreat, two Confederate brigades in pursuit were crossing the swale. To gain time to bring up the reserves & save this position, Gen Hancock in person ordered the eight companies to charge the rapidly advancing enemy.


The order was instantly repeated by Col Wm Colvill. And the charge as instantly made down the slope at full speed through the concentrated fire of the two brigades breaking with the bayonet the enemy's front line as it was crossing the small brook in the low ground there the remnant of the eight companies, nearly surrounded by the enemy held its entire force at bay for a considerable time & till it retired on the approach of the reserve the charge successfully accomplished its object. It saved this position & probably the battlefield. The loss of the eight companies in the charge was 215 killed & wounded. More than 83% percent. 47 men were still in line & no man missing. In self sacrificing desperate valor this charge has no parallel in any war. Among the severely wounded were Col Wm Colvill, Lt Col Chas P Adams & Maj Mark W. Downie. Among the killed Capt Joseph Periam, Capt Louis Muller & Lt Waldo Farrar. The next day the regiment participated in repelling Pickett's charge losing 17 more men killed & wounded.

I will both honor those who were so courageous in defense of the Union, and regard with the greatest contempt and offense those who, like Governor Perry of Texas now taling of running for the office of President in 2012, still propose to risk another civil war with modern day boasts about secession.  It is all too true that those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.  This seems to be far too true of some of our current Tea Partiers and others, including some of the further extreme of center on the right, who embrace a false version of the facts of history.

Anyone who advocates for secession disrespects the sacrifice of soldiers that we commemorate on Memorial Day.