The First Minnesota remained on active military duty for the remainder of the Civil War. The battery participated in the siege and battle of Corinth, Mississippi, contributing significantly to the victory of the Union forces. (33) The unit also “stood up to its work nobly” during the siege of Vicksburg and helped the Union capture the city. As the Union troops moved east, the First Minnesota traveled with them, taking part in the campaign and battle of Atlanta, the battle of Ezra Church in Georgia, Sherman's March to the Sea, and the Battle of Cheraw in South Carolina. (34) Throughout its term of service, the First Minnesota behaved valiantly under the pressure of battle, its soldiers bravely doing their duty to the best of their ability. On May 24, 1865, the battery participated in the Grand Review in Washington, D.C., celebrating the final Confederate surrender and Union victory. The Civil War was over, and the men of the First Minnesota were ready to go home. They were officially mustered out of military service on June 30, 1865, and sent by train back to Minnesota, where they were given a “warm and hearty reception” by their fellow citizens. (35)
The members of the First Minnesota from Pine County returned to their civilian lives at different times and in diverse ways, and their post-war lives followed a variety of paths. Captain Emil Munch returned to the First Minnesota after being wounded at Shiloh, but because of the severity of his injuries, he found himself unequal to the strenuous nature of active military duty. He resigned as captain of the First Minnesota in December of 1862 and returned to Minnesota where he joined the Fifth Brigade, Minnesota State Militia, as a brigadier general. In this commission, he helped fortify settlements in western Minnesota after the 1862 Dakota Conflict. Munch joined the Veteran Reserve Corps in August of 1863 and spent the rest of the war at Camp Douglas, Illinois, guarding military prisons and performing court martial duty. After the war, Munch briefly returned to Chengwatana. Over the years, he served as Deputy State Treasurer and State Treasurer and operated lumber and milling businesses in Afton, Minnesota. Emil Munch died August 30, 1887. (36) William Eppel died at St. Louis on June 20, 1862; he is buried in the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis. (37) William Fenkner was mustered out of the First Minnesota on December 17, 1864, along with several of his comrades, after completing his term of service. (38) He moved to Wright County, Minnesota, after the war and apparently married and had children. William died in the late 1870s, and is buried in Delano, Minnesota. Joseph Gray was mustered out with the rest of his unit on June 30, 1865, but no further records exist to show what happened to him after the war. Lieutenant Henry S. Hurter returned to Chengwatana after the war. In 1870, he was still farming there. He had married his wife, Kate, in 1866, and they had a four-year-old adopted daughter named Ada. By 1880, the family was living in St. Paul, where Henry worked as a bookkeeper. In the mid-1880s, Henry moved his family to Washington, D.C., to take a job as a government clerk. When the Minnesota Legislature appointed a Board of Commissioners to prepare and publish a record of Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars, Henry wrote a thorough narrative of the First Minnesota's service. Henry Hurter never moved back to Minnesota. He died May 7, 1912, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Because of Charles A. Johnson's all-too-common name, it is difficult to trace his activities after the war. A pension index shows that he married a woman named Betsey and claimed to be an invalid in 1886. According to this record, he died early in 1905. Paul Munch resigned from the First Minnesota in September of 1862 and was officially discharged from service in April of 1863. After his time in the military, Paul moved to Franconia in Chisago County where he engaged in the milling business. He married and had a large family. The 1900 census shows Paul living in Pine City, and he died in Pine County on July 26, 1901. He is buried in Franconia Cemetery in Chisago County next to his wife, Carolina, and several of their children. (39)
About 1907, the Minnesota legislature appointed the Minnesota-Shiloh Monument Commission to design and erect a monument to the First Minnesota in the Shiloh National Military Park. The commission hired sculptor John K. Daniels of St. Paul to design the piece, which was constructed by the P.N. Peterson Granite Company for a total cost of $4,000. The monument, which was placed on the site of the Hornet's Nest, features a life-sized bronze statue of an artilleryman, a tall base of Minnesota granite, and a plaque that reads as follows:
"ENGAGED FROM EARLY IN THE MORNING, WHEN CAPT. MUNCH WAS WOUNDED AND DISABLED, IN THE FIRST DAY’S BATTLE OF SHILOH, APRIL 6, 1862. THE RIGHT AND LEFT SECTIONS UNDER COMMAND OF 1ST LIEUT. WILLIAM PFAENDER PARTICIPATED IN THE STRUGGLE OF THE “HORNET’S NEST” WHERE THIS MONUMENT STANDS. THE TWO GUNS OF THE CENTER SECTION WERE DISABLED EARLY IN THE DAY, BUT ONE OF THEM TOOK PART IN THE EVENING IN REPELLING THE LAST CHARGE OF THE CONFEDERATES. CAPT. E. MUNCH AND 1ST LIEUT. F. E. PEEBLES WOUNDED; THREE MEN KILLED AND SIX MEN WOUNDED."
The First Minnesota monument was dedicated on April 10, 1908, and still stands on the battlefield as a reminder of and tribute to the brave men of the First Minnesota who fought so valiantly at Shiloh and throughout the Civil War. (40)
33. Ibid., 644-645.
34. Ibid, 645-648.
35. Ibid., 649.
36. “Emil Munch: An Inventory of His Civil War Papers at the Minnesota Historical Society,” Minnesota Historical Society, http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/P0057.xml (accessed July 19, 2011); W.H.C. Folsom, Fifty Years in the Northwest (St. Paul: Pioneer Press Company, 1888), 341.
37. Hurter, 650.
38. Ibid.
39. The information on the veterans of the First Minnesota comes from a variety of primary sources including censuses, grave markers, city directories, muster lists, and pension index cards.
40. “Civil War Memorial Commission Shiloh Monument Commission: An Inventory of Its Report,” Minnesota Historical Society, http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/civwar04.pdf (accessed July 21, 2011); Timothy B. Smith, This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004), 138; Jim Miller, “1st Minnesota Battery Light Artillery Monument: Shiloh National Military Park,” Civil War Notebook, http://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2010/04/1st-minnesota-battery-light-artillery.html (accessed July 21, 2011).
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