Third Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment

Unpublished Primary Sources

A/.A565
C. C. Andrews and family papers, 1843–1930
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Correspondence, diaries, and other papers of this Civil War general, United States minister to Norway and Sweden (1869–1877), consul general to Brazil (1882–1885), chief fire warden of Minnesota (1895–1905), state forestry commissioner (1905–1911), and member of the state forestry board (1905–1922).

P418
Barrick Family Civil War materials, 1861–1863, 1998
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: See especially the letter from Isaac A. Barrick to his father and mother, July 20, 1862.

James M. Bowler and family papers, 1827–1976
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Correspondence, clippings, family history and genealogy (1976), reminiscences and eulogies, and family memorabilia of Bowler, a native of Maine who settled in St. Anthony (Minneapolis) in 1858, taught school in Nininger (1861), served in the Third Minnesota Regiment during the Civil War and with the 113th United States Army Colored Infantry Regiment during Reconstruction, and was a member of the Minnesota legislature (1878).
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00792.xml

P2572
J. W. Boxwell Civil War letters and related papers, 1846–1996, (bulk 1861–1862)
Manuscripts Notebooks Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: John William Boxwell served in Company B of the Third Minnesota. While in a Murfreesboro hospital recovering from typhoid fever, Boxwell witnessed and wrote of the skirmishing that took place on July 13, 1862. His letters also provide a vivid account of Civil War hospital life, diet, and conditions.

P1905
George W. Brookins and family letters, 1861–1865
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Original manuscripts and edited typescripts of Civil War letters (April 14, 1861–December 21, 1865) written by two brothers from Monticello (Minnesota) to a third brother in Vermont. There are also a few letters from a nephew serving in Virginia. The majority of the letters were written by George W. Brookins to his brother, Thurmond, while serving with the 3rd Minnesota Regiment (October 14, 1861–November 1864).

P1905
Benjamin Densmore and family papers 1797–1955
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Includes materials related to Densmore’s service in the Third Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/01127.xml

M538, +44, P622
James Liberty Fisk and family papers, 1835–1902
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Incudes materials related to Fisk’s service in the Third Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

W. H. C. [Philander] Folsom and family papers, 1836–1988
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Business and personal correspondence, diaries, financial papers, scrapbooks, clippings, photographs, and other papers of Taylors Falls, Minnesota lumberman William H. C. Folsom; the family of his wife, Mary Jane (Wyman) Folsom; their sons, Wyman X. and Frank W. Folsom; and of the related Paine, Wyman, and Smith families.
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00868.xml

MSS 880
Everett W. Foster papers, ca. 1860–1933
Manuscripts Collection, Ohio Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Correspondence, genealogy notes, charts, and miscellaneous material, tracing the descendants of Samuel Walker (ca. 1615–1684), known as the "Maltster of Woburn, Mass." together with Civil War records of the 3rd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Company G.
https://ohiohistory.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/1292604846

Res. 60
Diary of Nathaniel C. Parker, 1863
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Pocket diary relating Parker's experiences in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas as a member of the Third Minnesota Volunteers during the Civil War. There is information about gunboats and armaments, troop movements, skirmishes with Confederate forces, the capture and movement of prisoners, the fall of Vicksburg, Richmond, and Little Rock, and Parker's return to Minnesota in December 1863.

Alexander Ramsey and family personal papers and governor’s records, 1829–1965
Manuscripts Collection, St. Paul, Minnesota Historical Society
Description: Correspondence, diaries, real estate records, scrapbooks, school records and other materials documenting the career and family of Ramsey, a member of the US House (1844–1847) and Senate (1863–1875); Minnesota territorial (1849–1853) and state (1860–1863) governor; mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota (1855–1857); secretary of war (1879–1881); and chairman of the Utah Registration and Election Board (1882–1886).

M273, P2696
Carl Roos and family papers, 1848–1974
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: See especially Carl Roos' war diary, 1861–1863, translated by Charles J. LaVine.
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/m0273.pdf

P2290
Third Infantry Regiment Minnesota Volunteer Association records, 1870–1935
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Annual reunion rosters (1912, 1918–1933) and printed materials, correspondence with members (1870–1935), and miscellaneous materials documenting a Minnesota Civil War veterans association.
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/P2290.xml

P202
Walter N. Trenerry papers, 1860–1963
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: There is information on Lester's land holdings in Winona County (Minnesota); his career as colonel, Third Minnesota Infantry Regiment, especially the events attending the regiment's surrender at Murfreesboro (Tennessee); his admission to the bar in Winona County; and other details concerning Lester's career. There is also a letter, dated August 12, 1862, from Andrew Johnson, at that time Governor of Tennessee.

P3003
John Kingsley Wood diary, 1855–1865
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: A diary kept by Wood as a member of Company F of the Sixth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry on Henry H. Sibley's punitive expeditions following the US–Dakota War of 1862, in Minnesota frontier forts, and at the Dakota encampment near Fort Snelling until June 1864, and thereafter in the South during the remainder of the Civil War. The volume also includes Wood's accounts and memoranda as a farmer near Red Wing, giving planting dates and labor costs, 1855–1862.

Published Primary Sources

Andrews, Christopher C. “Sketch of the Third Regiment.” In Third Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Association, Third Annual Reunion of the Third Regiment Minnesota Veteran Volunteers, 7. Minneapolis: Harrison and Smith Printing, 1886.

Baker, Edward L. “Surrender at Murfreesboro” In Third Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Association, Seventh Annual Reunion of the Third Regiment Minnesota Veteran Volunteers, 11–20. Minneapolis: Harrison and Smith Printing, 1890.

Board of Commissioners, comp. Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars. 2 vols. St. Paul: Pioneer, 1893.

Champlin, Ezra T. “Battle of Wood Lake.” In Third Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Association, Twenty-First Annual Reunion of the Third Regiment Minnesota Veteran Volunteers, 14. Minneapolis: Harrison and Smith Printing, 1905.

Knight, G. W. “Third Minnesota at Fitzhugh’s Woods.” In Third Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Association, Fourteenth Annual Reunion of the Third Regiment Minnesota Veteran Volunteers, 18–21. Minneapolis: Elander Stadder, 1898.

Redlon, Frank. “The Company Cook's Pass.” In Third Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Association, Fourteenth Annual Reunion of the Third Regiment Minnesota Veteran Volunteers, 21–22. Minneapolis: Harrison and Smith Printing, 1890.

Spence, John C. A Diary of the Civil War. Murfreesboro, TN: Rutherford County Historical Society, 1993.

Swanson, Alan, ed. “The Civil War Letters of Olof Liljegren.” Swedish Pioneer Historical Quarterly 31, no. 1 (1980): 86–121.

United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. 128 vols. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1880–1921.

Secondary Sources

Christ, Mark. “‘A Hard Little Fight’: The Battle of Fitzhugh’s Woods, April 1, 1864.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 64, no. 4 (2005): 380–393.

Fitzharris, Joseph C. “Field Officer Courts and Civil War Justice: The Third Minnesota as a Case Study, 1863–1865.” Journal of Military History 68, no. 1 (2004): 47–72.

——— . “From Adolescence to Maturity on the Civil War Home Front: Lizzie Caleff of Nininger.” Over the Years 55, nos. 1 and 2 (December 2014): 33–50.

——— . “The Hardest Lot of Men”: The Third Minnesota Infantry in the Civil War. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.

——— . “‘Our Disgraceful Surrender’: The Third Minnesota Infantry’s Disintegration and Reconstruction in 1862–1863.” Military History of the West 30 (Spring 2000): 1–20.

Foroughi, Andrea R. “‘Go If You Think It Your Duty.’” Over the Years 30, no. 1 (1996):1–24.

Johnson, Roy. “The Siege at Fort Abercrombie.” North Dakota History 24, no. 1 (January 1957): 4-79.

Larson, Douglas E. “Private Alfred Gales: from Slavery to Freedom.” Minnesota History 57, no. 6 (Summer 2001): 274–283.

Osman, Stephen E. “Audacity, Skill, and Firepower: The Third Minnesota's Skirmishers at the Battle of Wood Lake.” Minnesota's Heritage 3 (January 2011): 24–40.

Simon, Don. “The Third Minnesota Regiment in Arkansas, 1863–1865.” Minnesota History 40, no. 6 (1967): 281–292.

Trenerry, Walter N. “Lester's Surrender at Murfreesboro.” Minnesota History 39, no. 5 (1965): 191–197.