"As the first troops offered to President Abraham Lincoln after the fall of Fort Sumter, the brave men of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment fought in virtually every major battle of the eastern theater during the first three years of the Civil War. From Bull Run to Antietam to Fredericksburg to their famed suicide charge at Gettysburg, these stalwart soldiers defended the Union and helped change the course of the war and their country's history"--Page 4 of cover.