1921 Duluth & St Louis County MN, Van Brunt.pdf - Garon.us

CHAPTER XXV
THE CIVIL AND SPANISH WARS
Men of St. Louis County have participated in all the wars in
which this nation has engaged, i.e., in those of their time. The
War of the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War were
all before the time of the pioneers of St. Louis County ;
and
while
many of the pioneer families of the county were of colonial descent,
and in consequence probably contributed to the strength of Washington's
forces, it hardly seems possible that any soldier of the Revolution
lived within the borders of St. Louis County. Some soldiers
of the War of 1812 may have, but they are not of record. It is possible
that some of the early settlers were veterans of the Mexican
campaign, but of them even there is no authentic record. St. Louis
County, as a white settlement, was still in its infancy, and very
sparsely populated in the early '60s ; nevertheless, to the limit of
its strength, it gave of its best to the Federal cause, and shares with
Minnesota a glorious Civil war record, men of St. Louis County rallying
to the first regiment offered to Lincoln—the first in the whole
country. That distinction, that unique honor, will be referred to
later in this chapter.
When the call to arms came in 1861, only the fringe of St. Louis
County had been settled, and the inhabitants of the few little hamlets
of the North Shore were denied the partiotic urge that in later wars
swept most of the full-blooded and right-minded young men into
the military forces. There was no chance of organizing a Duluth
battalion in 1861 ; nor even a company. The patriots of that outpost
of civilization who felt the military "urge," who felt a patriotic desire
to strike with the federal forces at the section which refused governance
by the principles of liberty to all, had to warm their patriotism
by stern and long-sustained resolution. They had to depart singly, at
their own expense, and in some cases go long distances before they
could reach the place where they could enlist. And then, to an
extent, they were among strangers. The young men of later wars
had a different experience ; they rallied in their home town to the
colors ; they had their schoolmates as comrades ; and they left their
home town cheered by the handgrips of friends, and the expressions
of love and admiration from their own relatives. It was different in
1861. For instance, consider the case of Robert Emmit Jefferson.
He had married in 1859, and, says Carey:
After the breaking out of the Civil war, Mr. Jefferson and his wife and baby girl
left Duluth for his old home in St. Anthony Falls, going back by way of the
grand portage of the Fond du Lac, up the St. Louis and Savannah rivers,
down Prairie and Tamarac rivers into Sandy Lake, and down the Mississippi
to St. Anthony. Before starting on their trip Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson stopped
with the writer at Oneota, while preparing for the journey. It was considered
by all that their journey would be extremely tedious and a dangerous one for
Mrs. Jefferson and the baby; yet theredid not seem to be any other way for
them to get out of the country. In that year, while there were not many people
at the Head of the Lakes, those that remained had very little left after the year
of the panic (1857). There was no money in the country, nor any employment
that could afford a living. It was one of those "fish and potato" years, when
the people had to resort, in part at least, to the Indian style of living.
Mr. Jefferson was without money and therefore could not go around by lake,
nor could he pay $35 fare for stage by way of the military road to St. Paul.
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