Minnesota booklet Award Winner!

The smoke had simply cleared from the final volley of musketry at Gettysburg. approximately 70 percentage of the 1st Minnesota regiment lay useless or death at the field—one of the best losses of any unit engaged within the Civil battle. light Horse at Plum Run is the examine of this unmarried regiment at this significant second in American background. via painstaking study of firsthand bills, eyewitness experiences, and reliable files, Brian Leehan constructs a story awesome for its consciousness to element and cautious reportage.

Word of the First's heroic act at Gettysburg quick unfold alongside Union traces and again to Minnesota. Their stand overdue on July 2, 1863, stopped a livid insurgent attack and kept the day for the Union. rising from the chaos of conflict, in spite of the fact that, firsthand studies contradicted one another. careworn officials and worried infantrymen instructed very various tales of the day's rumour and camp gossip for his or her resources of data. All of this leaves the old investigator to invite, what rather occurred that day at Plum Run?

In order to reply to that query, Leehan plays superlative historic detective paintings. through concentrating on the boys themselves—and their money owed of the engagement—he weaves jointly a story of the First's motion on July 2 and three. those that escaped the scythe of conflict the 1st day lived to play a pivotal position the subsequent in rebuffing the main well-known infantry attack in American army heritage, Pickett's cost. by way of monitoring the events of person squaddies over the sector of conflict, Leehan reconstructs in outstanding aspect the tale of this extraordinary band of soldiers.

In his research of the conflict Leehan increases vital questions on how we will fairly comprehend the reality in regards to the prior. In cogent appended essays, the writer muses at the loss of standardized timekeeping within the mid-nineteenth century, at the nature of Civil conflict weaponry, and at the emergence of a heroic mythology after the war.