Trump praises Robert E. Lee. Here's "A quick history lesson for the patriots of Minnesota"
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What a fucking dumbass 
That might work with his racist, neo-confederate base farther south but I'm not sure there are many neo-confederates in Minnesota. Is he setting up a face-saving narrative about how he, like Lee, was winning bigly until something happened and he lost but nevertheless he still deserves to have statues of himself erected and preserved because he's a "winner" despite losing?
They were the first volunteers. The Governor of Minnesota was in Washington the day Mr Lincoln put out the first call for volunteers and he quickly stepped forward with a promise to raise a regiment. He had some idea it would be a useful addition; he had no idea how well they would distinguish themselves.
Very few of the original 3,000 men returned home just a scant two years later. They fought in nearly every major engagement of the first two years of war: Bull Run, the Penninsula, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville. At Gettysburg, they found themselves almost alone on Cemetery Ridge, the only Union force available to confront a mass of Confederate troops who were storming through the broken ranks of Gen. Sickles' ill-placed defenses and threatening to get behind the Federal lines. Gen. Hancock, commanding the Union center, knew he needed to delay the Confederates for five minutes so he could move in reinforcements. All he found for the task was a handful of the 1st Minnesota. He pointed to the advancing enemy lines and told Col. Colville to hold them at all cost. Charging forward, the Minnesotans fixed bayonets as they ran. They knew it was suicide. They numbered only 262. And there were more than 1600 Alabamans coming towards them.
It was the highest casualty rate in a single engagement of any regiment in the war. Only 47 men returned. They suffered a staggering loss of 82%. But they bought Gen. Hancock not five minutes, but ten, inflicted tremendous casualties on the Rebel regiment, and helped hold the line.
There are over 1600 monuments at Gettysburg. The very first was dedicated to the 1st Minnesota. It was placed in the National Cemetery exactly four years to the hour after Col. Colville lead that fateful charge. It's one of the simplest, a stone vase in which fresh flowers are planted every Spring. On Cemetery Ridge there's a larger monument, atop which a running soldier is posed, bayonet at the ready, faced eternally towards the rock-strewn swale into which so many gave that last full measure.
