The Second Minnesota Battery was mustered into Union service on March 21, 1862, at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. The commanding officer was Captain William A. Hotchkiss. The Battery participated in their first major battle at Perryville, Kentucky, in October of that year. Their service to the Union went on to include battles at Knob Gap, Stones River, the Tullahoma campaign, Winchester, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Mission Ridge, Tunnel Hill, Buzzard's Roost, and many smaller actions and garrison duties.
At least 341 men and one laundress served in the Battery during the years of the Civil War. Many reenlisted after they had served their initial three years and continued to serve under Captain Hotchkiss until August of 1865 when the Battery was officially mustered out. The unit lost one officer and five enlisted men to wounds; 19 more men died of disease.
The Second Minnesota Battery Reenactors are a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of Civil War history by living it.
The unit was reactivated in 1985 and has continued to present an accurate and interesting history of the Second Minnesota Battery and Civil War history to hundreds of thousands of people to this very day.
The Second Battery is dedicated to education and offers learning opportunities to schools, historical societies, and other organizations.
The group maintains a "Battery Book" in which the Civil War history of the unit is kept. Morning reports, orders, letters, diaries, and photographs of the men who served in the Battery from 1862-1865 are only a few of the sources used to authenticate the portrayal of this unit. In addition, a data base on the men who fought for the Union in the Battery has been created. The data base provides the information known about the men who served in the Second Minnesota. Both of these resources are continually updated as more information is found.
The reenacting Battery is based in Red Wing, Minnesota, but members come from Wisconsin, Winona, and the Twin Cities Metro area. Each member is an historian in their own right, though history is not their occupation. Many walks of life are forgotten as the men and women of the Second Battery don another century.
Research & sources are shared as members work together to make encampments and battles as accurate (and fun!) as possible.