In 1911, the Wisconsin Historical Commission published Ethel Hurn’s Wisconsin Women in the War. The book was a product of her history thesis, in which she collected women’s accounts of their involvement in the Civil War. Hurn ultimately focused the book on these women’s humanitarian efforts, leaving out personal accounts that didn’t fit that scope. One not included was by Margaret McMillan, who had written to Hurn of her experiences and had left a slightly different record of the period with her family. Hers is a story that needed to be told.
October 1861
I was born November 23, [1845], in Canada, and one of twelve children, myself being the third youngest. When I was about six years of age my parents emigrated to the States. Arriving in Chicago, my father was taken sick and died, and just a week later my mother followed him. My oldest brother was married and he took the three youngest children. The rest were given away. Leaving Chicago, my brother went to Minnesota and settled on a small farm at a place called Merrimac, on the Mississippi River about ten miles below St. Paul. A few years later an older sister married and I went to make my home with her and it was while there that I got my schooling.
Occasionally I would go back and stay with my brother and was at his home at the outbreak of the civil war.
At the start of the war, Minnesota had only been a state for three years, but that did not dampen individuals’ patriotic fervor to preserve the Union or their desire to serve. They quickly filled their first regiment, leaving several companies of men with no regiment to join. This changed in June 1861 when it became clear that more and longer serving regiments were needed. This led to the formation of the Second Minnesota Infantry.
As the 2nd Minnesota was organizing, several of its companies were hastily deployed to the state’s frontier to protect citizens from attacks by Native Americans. Events in the East and South soon called for more men to fight the Confederacy, and these companies were called back and the Regiment formed up at Fort Snelling, located at St. Paul, Minn.
While I was living there I became acquainted with a young man by the name of Michael B. Madden. He enlisted in Co. F of the 2nd Minnesota Infantry. Learning that this regiment was about to leave for the seat of
