"The Second Minnesota Volunteer Infantry" Topic

At long last I finished painting this regiment. Pictures and a much abridged regimental history written in my rambling style are now up on my blog.

spiffyiguana.blogspot.com

Great job!

Nicely done, the 1st MN always gets the most exposure, but the 2nd was another fine regiment.

Hello Spiffy,

The 2nd Minnesota looks great, well done. I look forward to seeing your completed Confederates.

However, there are a few changes to the flags that you may want to consider. Although the national flag was presented to the regiment by the ladies of Louisville, these same ladies actually acquired the flag from the Louisville firm of Hugh Wilkins. The flag did not have any fringe and, like a number of other national flags made by this company, the 2nd Minnesota's colour had a light sky blue canton and painted silver stars. The flags made by Wilkins also had a flagstaff surmounted by a red-painted spearhead finial.

The state flag was probably provided to the regiment around April 1862. It was originally manufactured by Horstmann Brothers of Philadelphia. The 2nd's state colour had a red banner with the unit designation "2ND / REGT / M. V." painted on it, but it did not have any light blue banner above the state seal in the centre of the flag. As well, the obverse side of the flag had a US eagle in place of the state seal.

Making any major changes to the finished flags is asking for a lot more trouble than it is worth, but that bright red finial on the national colour would really add something unique to the unit.

Very nicely done

hussarbob1746.webs.com

Ryan,
The state color does have the red banner--though text is not quite right--with unit designation and the eagle on reverse, the light blue scroll is admittedly a mistake. Looking at photos the lack of fringe on Wilkins flags is obvious, but I failed to appreciate the detail.

The details on the state flag look as if they were based on the 1st Minnesota flag. The 1st to 5th Minnesota all were issued state flags of this pattern, but there were minor differences between them. I also noticed that the "back side" of the unit designation banner is shown as white, which also is incorrect.

Nevertheless the Flag Dudue did a nice job. You mentioned he got the eagle on the obverse side. I worked at getting a look at that side of the Minnesota state flags for almost 10 years. There are any number of photos of the reverse side of these flag but nobody took pics of the other side.

Nicely done