History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry — Background and Themes

A Regimental Calendar of Movement and Detail

The narrative proceeds in a rhythm of dates and duties, tracking the company's location and the shifting roster of its men. Hill records not only marches and battles but also the constant churn of detachments: men assigned as cooks in the regimental hospital, as drummers, as keepers at Gratiot Street Military Prison, or as guards on steamboats. The text notes when individuals "rejoined" after absence, when they were "relieved" from special duty, and when they were "detailed" to new roles. This catalog of assignments creates a sense of the regiment as a living organism, its members perpetually redistributed across the military landscape. The movement from Winter Street Barracks to Schofield Barracks No. 2, and later to Terrill's Cotton Press in New Orleans, is recorded with the same precision as the journey by rail and steamboat from St. Louis to Cairo to New Orleans.

The Cotton Press as Quarters and the Satrapy of New Orleans

When the regiment arrives in New Orleans, Hill pauses to describe the city as a "southwestern satrapy," characterized by its isolated position, semi-tropical products, and "swarthy and varied population, strange tongues, manners, and customs." The soldiers find themselves under the strict rule of a regular-army martinet, where the accidental absence of a pass or a slight divergence from prescribed dress could lead to fines or imprisonment. The company is quartered in former cotton presses—first Louisiana Cotton Press No. 1, then Terrill's Cotton Press—industrial spaces repurposed as barracks. These settings contrast sharply with the earlier frontier camps and foreshadow the occupation duties that will occupy much of the regiment's later service. The image of the cotton press recurs as a symbol of the transformed landscape of war.

The Interplay of Absence and Return

A persistent pattern in the text is the listing of men who leave and rejoin the company. Hill notes the dates of furloughs, hospital stays, and detached service, and the dates of return. For example, Knopf left on furlough December 9th, but sickness prevented his return at its expiration; Lieutenant Bell was dismissed from service on December 29th, then restored by order of the President and rejoined on January 10th. These individual trajectories accumulate into a collective portrait of a unit in constant flux. The strength of the company is periodically tallied: "Present, 66; absent, 11,—aggregate 77." The reader is reminded that the company is never fully assembled, its effectiveness dependent on the unpredictable return of its scattered members.

From Frontier Skirmish to Occupation Routine

The excerpts trace a shift from the regiment's origins in Minnesota—where enlistments proceeded languidly until the disasters of the Virginian armies spurred recruiting—to its deployment in the Deep South. The early pages describe the formation of the "Sigel Guards" and the challenges of raising a sixth regiment. Later passages show the company settled into the routines of occupation: fatigue parties on the military railroad, guard duty, and the establishment of a camp with shelter tents. The transition is marked by the movement from St. Louis to New Orleans, a journey that takes the soldiers from the familiar landscape of the Upper Midwest to the unfamiliar environment of a captured city. Hill's account captures both the continuity of military bureaucracy and the disorienting change of scene.

Hill's history is best approached as a documentary record rather than a narrative. The reader should attend to the recurring patterns of detachment and return, the precise geography of camp and barracks, and the administrative language that structures the account. The work's value lies in its accumulation of detail—names, dates, duties—that together evoke the texture of a soldier's life in a regiment that moved from the Minnesota frontier to the cotton presses of New Orleans.

I keep thinking about how Hill’s account of soldiers moving between quiet camp days and sudden skirmishes feels so true—how the stillness makes the sharp moments louder. It reminded me of that old wartime anthology, Defenders of Democracy Contributions from representative men and women of letters and other arts from our allies and our own country, edited by the Gift book committee of the — Reading Notes, where ordinary voices carry the same weight. Some books just sit with you quietly afterward. This one does.